#I wrote this draft early last week and only this morning had time to edit it but it took foreeeevvvverrr on my slow computer

[the-al-chemist]

The Lights That Never Go Out

Chapter 3: Stars By The Pocketful

A/N: One night last November, my friend decided that it would be fun to go swimming in the sea. In my naïvety, I went along with it, thinking ‘how cold can it be?’. Turns out, pretty cold. It was horrible, and I hated almost every second of it. In the one second after the initial shock had worn off but before the mild hypothermia set in, the world went still. And in the stillness and darkness, a little voice in my head went “oh”. I went home, and I wrote the first draft of this chapter in the early hours of the morning.

This edited version is being submitted for @thethreebroomsticksfic’s Yule Bash, the prompt being ‘Frozen’.

Warnings: partial nudity and discussions of grief.

6th December, 1998

Night had fallen fast. It was not yet late, but still the only light came from the houses along the bay, from the village harbour to Shell Cottage, perched on the dunes at the top of the beach.

Artemis shivered through her knitwear and coat as she wandered along the darkened shore, the gently ebbing waves not quite reaching her feet. At least she was well wrapped up; the weather had turned decidedly wintry, despite it only being the start of December, and being so close to the ocean made it even colder. The wind that blew in over the sea was gentle but chilling.

The high tide made the beach smaller at this time of the evening. Artemis was grateful for that, it made it easier for her to find what — or rather, who — she was looking for in the dark. It was not long before she encountered Charlie standing at the water’s edge, looking out to where the sea blended seamlessly with the night sky.

“I thought I noticed you slip away after dinner,” she said as she approached him. “Mind if I join you?”

“Of course not,” Charlie replied, his face still turned towards the invisible horizon. “It’s cold, though.”

“I don’t mind. I’ve got layers on.”

Charlie exhaled, and Artemis squinted to see him better. He was always quiet, but had been more reticent than usual since their encounter with the Boggart the day before. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she could see the tears that were threatening his eyes. She stayed silent, somehow able to tell that if Charlie wanted to talk, he’d talk.

“I can’t believe it,” he said eventually. “It’s almost Christmas.”

Artemis nodded, though she doubted he could see her. “Yeah.”

“I mean, I knew that it’s almost Christmas, but I’ve been so busy with doing stuff to the house, and now tonight everyone won’t stop talking about it.” Charlie swallowed. “It just seems like we keep hitting all these horrible milestones, that’s all. One week, one month, six months. Now it’s going to be Christmas and then New Year and birthdays, and a whole year, and… I don’t know.”

Charlie might not have known, but Artemis did. Grief wasn’t new to her. It might have been nine years ago that Rowan had died, but she still remembered every emotion she had felt after losing her best friend, even now.

“I do. I know,” she told Charlie, and he looked at her for the first time, an apologetic look in his eyes. “Don’t, it’s fine. You’re right, though. The first year’s the hardest.”

“So another six months and it’ll get easier?”

The hope in Charlie’s voice made Artemis frown.

“Not exactly,” she said. “The reminders just get less frequent, that’s all.”

“Does it ever get easier?”

“Sort of, yeah. Well, no. Maybe? It’s more that you just get used to how hard it is, so it doesn’t hurt quite so much. Life goes on, and so do you, somehow.”

“Great,” Charlie muttered. “Lots to look forward to, then.”

“Would you prefer it if I lied to you?”

Charlie sighed before replying.

“No. I’d only be able to tell that you were lying, then I’d feel twice as bad,” he said. “Sorry, I know you’re only trying to help. You are helping, it’s just… It’s going to be tough. Lots of reminders. I’m guessing they never go away.”

“Sadly not.” Artemis took her hand out of her pocket and linked arms with Charlie, resting her head on his shoulder. “And you never really know when to expect them, either. They just pop up out of nowhere. They can be nice, though. Sometimes you remember things that you’d forgotten even happened before.”

She hadn’t been expecting Charlie to laugh, but he did. She lifted her head to look at him quizzically.

“I had that tonight,” he explained.

“Did you?” Artemis asked, and Charlie hummed in response. “What did you remember?”

“It was earlier, when we all walked over the beach before dinner. It reminded me of one time when we were younger,” he said, half-smiling as he looked back out at the black expanse of sea. “My aunt used to own this house, and we came here every summer for a holiday. One year — it must’ve been our first or second year at Hogwarts — we came here for Christmas as well, and on Christmas Eve, Mum sent us all out for a walk so she could get everything ready in peace.

“Well, we were just walking down the beach and everyone was getting bored because it was cold, and moaning that they wanted to go back in, and Mum really wanted us to stay outside for as long as possible. So, Bill had the great idea of having a competition as to who out of him and me would be ballsy enough to get into the water naked and stay in there the longest.”

“In December?” Artemis wrinkled her nose. “Wouldn’t that be—”

“Freezing? Yeah, it was.”

“You did it?”

“Of course I did. Couldn’t lose face to Bill in front of the others,” said Charlie. “But, as soon as we were in the sea and not looking, Fred stole all my clothes and buried them on the beach.”

“He didn’t!”

“He did. Little git. I never saw my lucky pants again, they’re probably still buried in the sand dunes somewhere. Lost forever.”

“How could they be lucky if they got stolen and lost?” Artemis asked, before giving Charlie a knowing look. “Did they have dragons on them?”

Charlie pulled a face. “Is that the only thing you think I care about?”

“They had dragons on them, didn’t they?”

“Yes, they did.”

“I knew it.” Artemis grinned. “Did you at least win the bet? Did you stay in the water longer than Bill?”

“Of course I did. You know I’m tougher than Bill.”

“That and you were probably too embarrassed to get out of the water without your clothes.”

“Rubbish. I just didn’t mind being in the cold water, that’s all,” Charlie said. Artemis raised one sceptical eyebrow, and he shrugged. “No, really. Once you get used to it, it’s really not that bad.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.”

“It’s true. Try it if you don’t believe me.”

“Very funny. I’m not falling for that.” Artemis laughed. “You want me to believe you, you get in and prove it yourself.”

To Artemis’ surprise, Charlie nodded.

“Alright. I’ll go in if you go in,” he said, his eyes meeting hers. Artemis looked at him sceptically, and a daring look flickered in his eyes, visible even in the dark. “Oh, come on. Don’t tell me that Artemis Hexley is scared of a little cold water.”

“I’m not scared, I just can’t tell if this is a trick.”

“It’s not. I promise.”

After nearly twelve years of friendship, Artemis knew that Charlie wouldn’t go back on a promise. So, she nodded.

“Fine. But I’m keeping my underwear on,” she said firmly. “And don’t look while I take the rest off.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

More out of principle than anything else, Artemis waited until Charlie turned away before undressing herself. She doubted that he would have been able to really see anything, it was too dark for that. It was just as well, as by the time she had stripped down to her pants and crop top, Charlie was just in his boxers. Artemis didn’t really fancy checking to see whether or not they had dragons on them.

Her clothes now strewn on the sand, the cold night air was flush against her skin, and she was covered in goosebumps. She picked up her knitted hat and put it back on her head, in a futile attempt to recover some of the warmth she’d already lost, knowing that she was only going to get colder from this point forward.

Both shivering, she and Charlie fixed their eyes determinedly on the water that they were about to brave.

“It’s better if you run and go in right up to your shoulders,” Charlie informed her. “Ready?”

“Always ready. Born ready.”

“Alright, on three. One, two, THREE!”

The pair of them ran into the sea, shouting and screaming and swearing at the top of their lungs as they plunged into the icy water, so cold it was almost painful. As the sea around her got deeper, Artemis’ breathing got shallower, the water making her chest tight.

“Not that b-bad?” she said through chattering jaws. “This is-s horrid!”

“Just swim a bit,” Charlie said, already swimming away from her. “You’ll soon warm up.”

“Liar,” Artemis muttered, but she followed suit, paddling after him through the inky icy ocean.

They swam deeper into the sea before returning to the shallows. She couldn’t tell if the water had gotten warmer, or if she had gotten used to how cold it was, but by the time she was back in her depth the pain had subsided. She was still cold, but at least she could breathe a little easier.

It was darker in the water than it was on the shore, and by the time she could see Charlie, they were right beside one another, facing each other, so close they were almost touching. Their eyes met, and for a brief moment it was as if the whole world no longer existed. It was just them, together in the endless expanse of darkness.

Artemis realised that she wasn’t breathing, and she raised her face skywards, where at least the stars gave the tiniest specks of light against the otherwise pitch-black backdrop. There really were a lot of stars tonight. A multitude of stars.

“You’re frozen,” she heard Charlie murmur, and she dropped her gaze from the skies to his face once more.

She had forgotten how cold she was, and now that Charlie had pointed it out, she could feel how badly she was trembling. She instinctively stepped even closer to him, the fabric of her sodden crop top against his bare chest, and a great shudder went through her whole body. Charlie placed his hands on her upper arms and rubbed them with his thumbs. His touch was as gentle as his fingertips were rough. She could only assume that he was trying to warm her up, but it was no use. Charlie was shivering almost as much as she was.

“I thought you said it wasn’t that c-cold,” Artemis whispered.

“No, I d-didn’t,” Charlie replied, his shaky voice also quiet. “I said it wasn’t that bad.”

Artemis’ quivering lips curved into a small smile. Charlie had a point. It was strange, but there was something about this that wasn’t that bad at all.

#artemis hexley #charlie weasley #hpff #harry potter fanfiction #charlie weasley x oc #hphm fic #the lights that never go out

[therandomavenger]

2023: Refinement, not Revolution

The first day of the year is always a time for reflection, at least for me. Not for everyone. For some, it’s a time to recover from a hangover, but I digress. It’s my tradition to take a walk every January 1st and look back on the year that’s just passed and set some expectations/goals for the year to come. So, I did that this morning.

               And really, last year felt like a big year. And it was, at least productivity wise. I wrote 371,000 words (I swear this is the last time I will mention this). I managed to do this while keeping up with my house maintenance, and not sacrificing my personal relationships. Yet, while I did meet this goal, I had the sense at the end of the year that I’d let myself down.

               I had planned to release three books this year. I only managed to put out 1. The main reason was that, while I was writing a lot, I got very little editing done. So, I have two novels right now that are in the editing stage, and I have found myself stuck at how to get them through to the end. That’s a goal for next year, work more editing time into my schedule. I don’t want to sacrifice any drafting time for that, but I need to come up with a solution. I would like to put three books out this year. I think it’s doable.  

               As far as my production schedule goes, I have been writing 3000 words four days a week, meaning I was producing 12,000 words in any given week. I managed this for as long as I did, but eventually started getting severely burned out, leading to me needing to take the entire month of December off. Now, I don’t really want to slow down my production of new words, but 3000 words a session is a lot. So, this year, I’m going to write 2000 words a session, but do it five days a week. This will mean I’m slowing down a little but not by much, and I think I will find this pace much more sustainable. Last year I set myself the goal of writing 350,000 words, but I didn’t set that goal until (I think) May, so most of the words were generated in about six months. I did it, but it took a lot out of me. This year, I want to set the goal of writing 400,000 words, but I’m giving myself 11 months to do it. More words, at a more manageable pace. I’m probably going to give myself December off again next year, but we’ll see.

               I proved to myself I could write a lot, and I intend to keep doing it, but I don’t have to hit a wall again. I’d like to avoid that. I would also like to post a weekly blog update, as well as continue putting out my monthly newsletter. Sundays right now look like a good day to get a blog post written. They won’t all be long and require hours of work. I spoke to a blogging consultant this year and he had some ideas about expanding my reach, most of which entail picking an area of expertise to explore and staying on theme. It was good advice, but I call this blog The Random Avenger for a reason, so I will probably just keep blogging about anything that runs across my mind and if people find it, great! If not, I have no illusions that I will make a million dollars blogging. I consider my blog kind of bonus content. I enjoy writing it, and sometimes people interact and that’s great. But I’m not going to laser focus on a topic and become an expert because, honestly, that feels like a lot of effort, and also, it’s just not me.

               As far as everything else goes, I don’t really feel like my life needs an overhaul right now, so any goals I have are going to be minor refinements of what I’m already doing.  I would like to be more consistent about getting up early so I’m not rushing through my day. I would like to be more disciplined about strength training and guitar practice. These are things I’m already doing; I just want to do them more consistently.

               So, this new year is not a revolution, it’s a refinement. I have a lot going on between my writing career, my job at the Cottonwood Community Library, and my responsibilities to my kids and grandkids and my parents. I have fulfilling work of several varieties and interesting (to me) hobbies. Also, I have a new boyfriend and I would like not to lose track of him in everything that is going on. My life is full, and I am grateful for that fact, and aware of the responsibility it entails.

originally published on chadgrayson.com

#blog post #new year #goal setting

[demonslayedher]

How Does Eating Humans Work?

Hello, Gotou here. We’re shamelessly borrowing from the format of a KnY Fanbook #2 comic to launch an investigation into demon metabolism and development by crossing the Sanzu River again to interview demons in the underworld. While we’ll be using canon materials as a base, the analysis and conjecture herein is personal, so we ask for your understanding. Also, please note that consuming any food in the underworld will make you unable to return, and we cannot promise your safety even though the interview subjects are dead, so please come along at your own risk.

Some of the questions we’d like to answer are, why do demons need to eat humans? How much do they need to eat to survive? Are there factors that influence how eating humans makes them stronger? If they don’t want to kill humans, what are their other options? We’ve rounded up some special guests below the cut (hidden for length and grossness), everyone from the lowly Temple Demon to the lovely Tamayo, to see what their actions in canon might tell us.

First, a review of what canon tells us, mostly as summarized in Fanbook #2: 1. With one exception named Yushirou, all demons were created by Kibutsuji Muzan, for his own purposes. They all have some amount of his blood, and can be divided into four classes depending on how powerful they are. From top to bottom, the Upper Moons, the Lower Moons, demons with special abilities, and other demons without any special characteristics. 2. Demons may be stronger depending on how much of Kibutsuji Muzan’s blood they have. Most beings’ cannot handle a large amount of his blood, and it will rupture the cells and that being will die, but there are demons who adapt well to it. 3. Typically, sunlight is the only way to kill a demon, by either bathing them in sunlight or cutting of their head with a Nichirin blade. However, there are powerful demons for whom chopping off their head does not work, and if it’s strong enough, demons can also be killed by wisteria poison.

4. Demons eat human blood and flesh. The more they eat, the stronger they become, and the faster their regenerative abilities become. Some humans have “Marechi,” a rare blood type, which is especially nutritious to demons, and eating one Marechi is the equivalent of eating several humans.

That’s an interesting thing we’d like to come back to, especially since we’re looking for quantitative information about how demons gain nutrition (though I have my doubts we'll get enough for statistical analysis). As an interesting note, Fanbook #2 also tells us that if demons try to consume the same edibles humans do, they’ll vomit it back up.

I’m told that Miss Tamayo drinks tea, though. That’ll be an interesting question for later. In my notes, it seems she’s also explained to Tanjirou back in Chapter 15 that demons will normally go berserk if they go a long time without consuming any blood or flesh. Berserk is one thing, but I wonder if they can starve to death? We’ll see if these canon clues will lead us to anything. We’ll begin now in an interview format. Hopefully this will go smoothly, but I’ve got a feeling it won’t. First up, we’ve the Temple Demon.

Temple: Who were you calling ‘lowly’ just now? Up there, above the cut?

Gotou: That was in a literal sense, not having Blood Techniques means you’re in the bottom common tier of demons.

Temple: Argh. Fine. What do you want to know?

Gotou: In Chapter 2, you were spotted with three human victims. However, it seems you left their bodies mostly intact and only ate small parts instead of consuming one full human at a time. Could you comment on this?

Temple: I’d have gotten to more later if that whelp with the strong legs didn’t interrupt me! Who’s got time to eat entire humans anyway? I went for the easy stuff first.

Gotou: I see. It appears you might had focused on key organs, like the heart and the liver. Would you say these are especially nutritionally dense?

Temple: I guess. If I’m going to eat humans, I’m going to start with what’s worth bothering to digest. Blood’s easier on the stomach, so that’s what I was busy with on the lady there.

Gotou: Then it takes effort to digest? Hmm. Let’s come back to this later. How many humans would you say you consumed, including these three?

Temple: Not a lot… I tried to get a variety so I could get stronger faster, but…

Gotou: I’ll put down a guess as ten or less. Let’s move on to someone who has a sharper memory for numbers. One of our longer-lived guests at Mt. Fujikasane for 47 years, the Hand Demon. While most of the demons on the mountain had only eaten two or three humans, you’ve eaten a whole 50 of the children who headed into the Final Selection, didn’t you?

Hand: Yes, that’s right. It was hard at first since I wasn’t very strong, and the demons usually all went crazy there eating each other, just like that one brat who got away in Chapter 7 said. If you could manage to kill any of the kids, you had the other demons to fight off to even get a piece to yourself. That was enough to get me by, and stronger, little by little. Your body learns to make your meals last, and make the most of what you can get. I usually only had a bite of one child a year, can you imagine how horrible that was? Most demons who survive usually figure out some way to develop and survive better, and once my cells found something that worked for me, I kept doing it. I got really good at snatching away prey from other demons, and soon enough I was a bigger threat than any of them. None of them could, you might say, lay a hand on me.

Gotou: That’s an interesting point about self-development. A demon named Nezuko was spent two years doing that in her sleep.

Hand: She must have had a big meal before that!

Gotou: Well, anyway. It seems that in near starving conditions, your metabolism made the most of what you had, leading to the most efficient use of whatever food was available to you.

Hand: That’s right, I got really good at it. Wasn’t always pretty, but I made it work. I got to a point where I could go two years without eating and still keep my wits about me while the other demons were going mad. But I chose to eat. I liked to keep my appetite for specific children.

Gotou: That smile is not reassuring. Some humans taste better than others, I guess?

Hand: That’s for sure. This one kid tasted awful, like rust and man sweat! I still don’t have that disgusting taste out of my mouth! But he was one of my more satisfying meals, so I ate more of him.

Gotou: Then why would you… nevermind, I don’t like that smile, no further questions. While I had hoped to keep these interviews focused on quantities of humans consumed, it does seem personal taste is worth asking about. I had tried to invite a Swamp Demon from Chapter 11, but it kept arguing with itself and it felt like I’d be wasting my time. The one definite thing I learned was that this demon is picky, with a distinct preference for 16-year-old girls. Based on the number of trinkets he kept, it seems he had consumed at least seventeen of them, including several in one town. Sheesh, that’s sort of a rough mission to send a first-timer on. I’ve got a more cooperative guest here to discuss her tastes, a Snake Demon who, according to Chapter 188, has a special taste for baby flesh.

Snake: Thank you for having me here. It’s good to be appreciated again.

Gotou: Did you only eat babies?

Snake: Goodness, no. Babies are delicious, but they aren’t very nutritious. And their skulls certainly aren’t that big, the ones I lounged around with were from the people whom I killed and stole from. But you know the nice thing about baby skulls? They’re still soft. They take a long time to digest, but I can swallow them whole.

Gotou: Like… like a snake, then. Sorry, I’m a little ill hearing that. Let’s back up, were all those skulls the remains of adults you ate, then?

Snake: Meh, I ate some of them of better-looking ones, but most of them I only killed. I could usually kill a lot more at a time than I could bother eating, my killing record was fifty women all at once.

Gotou: And you didn’t find that wasteful?

Snake: Wasteful? Not at all. I wasn’t exactly in dire straits, I lived a more luxurious life than most demons do. That meant I could afford to wait for a truly delicious meal, like how you humans might leave something in a slow-cooker to enjoy the perfect combination of doneness and tenderness, plated in the most appetizing of ways.

Gotou: I guess demons and humans are similar in that regard.

Snake: I’m so glad you can relate! Then you understand the frustration of a meal you’ve be preparing for years opening up the slow-cooker and running away right when they were just about done.

Gotou: I have never had that experience.

Snake: I’ll get you, my pretty. And your little snake, too.

Gotou: I think we might have gotten a little off-topic here. It does seem digesting humans comes with some difficulty. I’d like to invite the Drum Demon in next. Your name is Kyougai, I hear?

Kyougai: !!

Gotou: Kyogai, right?

Kyougai: You’ve heard of me! You know my name!

Gotou: I happened to, yes.

Kyougai: What have you heard???

Gotou: That you were kicked out of the Lower Moons for being unable to consume enough humans.

Kyougai: Oh. ……..yeah, that’s me.

Gotou: I thought demons go berserk if they go a long time without consuming humans. Wouldn’t that make an inability to consume them problematic?

Kyougai: It wasn’t that I couldn’t eat them! Like I said in Chapter 24, I had to in order to sustain myself, just like any other demon. But, at some point, I couldn’t eat as much as I used to. That happens to humans too, doesn’t it? When you just can’t stomach anymore?

Gotou: You mean like when you’ve overeaten? In a human’s case that feeling may go away within a few hours.

Kyougai: Sort of like that, but you know, humans reach a time when nothing is appetizing or the thought of eating makes them feel sick, right? Isn’t that the human condition?

Gotou: …uh… maybe if they have a medical condition? Or anxiety? Do demons get anxiety? Or eating disorders?

Kyougai: I… I don’t know. I just wasn’t good enough.

Gotou: I think it’s plenty good if you stopped eating humans. Though to have developed Blood Techniques and been a Lower Moon in the first place, you must had eaten a great number of them.

Kyougai: You think I’m great?

Gotou: What?

Kyougai: No, sorry, I was getting ahead of myself. It’s true, I used to be able to eat as many as the other Lower Moons always consumed. Our stomachs were stronger, you might say. Demons got strong by eating humans, and then the more you did that the better you usually got at it, so the strong ones would eat more and more and keep getting stronger and stronger. At least, that’s how it usually worked. I’ve seen other demons below me reached that point too, where they feel the drive to eat, but then they have trouble digesting it for a long time, so they don’t wind up eating that many people.

Gotou: Then it would make sense to eat the most nutritionally dense parts first.

Kyougai: Or a Marechi.

Gotou: Yes, or a Marechi.

Kyougai: It was a great idea, wasn’t it?

Gotou: I cannot condone any consumption of humans as a good idea.

Kyougai: I knew it. I’m nothing. Go ahead, stomp all over everything I ever tried to accomplish.

Gotou: I think I’m going to move on to my next interviewee now. It looks like we’ve got… oh, would you look at this? Lower Moon One. Enmu, I believe.

Enmu: You can believe whatever you want. I’m happy to help.

Gotou: I don’t need any help, thanks. I’m curious, since you were one of the stronger demons out there, it seems you had a stronger capacity for consuming humans.

Enmu: I did, I was always careful and paced myself so the Demon Slayers wouldn’t notice me. I took my time. I liked to enjoy e-e-e-a-c-h one.

Gotou: Then you had tastes too? Like babies, or 16-year-old girls?

Enmu: I could season any human to my liking. They’re all very easy to prepare.

Gotou: I’m still trying to get quantitative data. Can you tell me at least a rough estimate of how many humans you consumed?

Enmu: I told this more precisely to that boy with the earrings back in Chapter 59, and I can tell you this too. At my best, I could had eaten over two-hundred people at once if I took my time.

Gotou: OH MY GAW----sorry, I dropped my pen. Two hundred, at once?

Enmu: Yes. If I had just. Had. A little. More. Time.

Gotou: Clearly there is a huge difference between what common demons are capable of and what the Twelve Moons are capable of.

Daki: Psh, those were all any random common people. That’s nothing to brag about.

Gotou: Excuse me, and you are?

Daki: Daki, Upper Moon Six. You want something really impressive, you talk to the Upper Moons.

Gotou: I’m sorry, I don’t see you on my list.

Daki: What! Your list is stupid. Look me in the eyes, I’m Upper Moon Six!

Gotou: Very well, then. What can you tell me about your diet, Miss Upper Moon Six?

Daki: That’s more like it. It’s true that digestion takes a while, and takes some effort. Even though we Upper Moons may have eaten hundreds of people in our lifetimes, it’s not as if we gorge ourselves. The clever ones among us save prey for later to eat when we feel ready for it.

Gotou: Food storage? How do you keep them fresh?

Daki: You leave them still alive, numbskull. Nobody wants to eat something cold, that’s gross.

Gotou: I see, so that’s why demons prefer to go after new kills instead of saving what they’ve already managed to kill. That also might explain why the demons on Mt. Fujikasane wouldn’t had eaten many humans, if they found long dead ones in edible.

Daki: You want to know the real secret to eating humans? You can eat what you find tastes good, sure. But to get stronger, you eat strong people. Like your Corp members, the ones besides chumps like you? Using all that Breath makes their muscles really lean and potent, it’s like they come offering themselves as protein bars for us.

Gotou: You make them sound like a fad diet…

Daki: The real secret is eating Pillars. Besides Marechi, they’re the strongest meals out there. Guess how many I’ve eaten?

Gotou: I don’t have the data to make an educated guess.

Daki: Then get educated! Look back at Chapter 88! I’ve eaten seven Pillars, and my brother has eaten fifteen!

Gotou: Your brother? Who is he, then, Upper Moon Five?

Daki: What? Ew. Gross. Gross! No way, ew!

Gotou: Hmm… eating Pillars, huh? Well, I can think of one Pillar who was…

Douma: Me too!

Gotou: Speak of the devil.

Douma: Actually, we Upper Moons can! And he's not Satan, that's not how this works. But I guess Muzan-sama’s curse doesn’t effect us now. Ask me anything you want!

Gotou: That Chapter 143 reference was such a rude entrance. I understand that Pillars are particularly nutritious—

Douma: Oh, please don’t misunderstand! I don’t even eat all the Pillars I’ve encountered. There was the one Flower Pillar who got away from me, but some of the boy pillars I just leave around. What’s really the key to consistent nutritional intake is women! It’s really unhealthy for a demon not to get enough women in their diet, that’s why even if you’re only looking for Marechi or Pillars, your metabolism is going to get thrown out of whack with sudden big meals. You grow a stronger metabolism with consistency, I believe!

Gotou: If I could stop you there, I had an image from Chapter 142 I preferred to focus on for this case study. I see you keep a wide collection of skulls, from victims whom I assume you ate.

Douma: Yes, they all stayed together inside me for eternity, but the room looked lonely without décor.

Gotou: It seems other demons usually go for nutritionally dense organs like hearts or livers, or easy to digest parts of the body, perhaps just blood sometimes. Eating the entire victim, bones and all, doesn’t seem to be the norm.

Douma: Bones are organs too, you know! That’s where blood is made, at its freshest. They do take more practice in learning to digest, and I had to find a way around not having to chew them, but the bone marrow is very, very good for you, so I make sure to consume it frequently. It may take more time and it causes some of my followers to panic more while they wait, though, that’s a bit of a downside. Oh, and I guess bones can make good storage for some sneaky poison. Even fingernails and hair follicles, who’d have thought?

Gotou: I don’t think hair would have much nutritional value in the first place. In all my years, I can never recall seeing a victim with their hair eaten.

Douma: Tsk, tsk! Clearly you haven’t done much metabolism research in advance. I was really impressed by how well Shinobu-chan understood how my digestion would work. Eating hair can do amazing things! Isn’t that right, Genya-kun?

Genya: ?????????

Gotou: Genya-kun!?

Genya: What am I doing here?

Gotou: I don’t think you’re supposed to be here. Isn’t there, you know, another side? The other direction?

Genya: What are you doing here? Did you die?

Gotou: I’m here doing research on demon metabolism and how they get stronger by consuming flesh.

Douma: What can you tell us about what up with having your friend feed you hair you found on the floor in Chapters 170-171, Genya-kun?

Genya: I’m not a demon!! Why the hell are you asking me?

Douma: ‘Hell’! Haha, good one!

Gotou: How do you even know about that? You were dead almost a full volume before that. And Genya’s different, he’s not a case study in how demons consuming humans works!

Douma: Are you certain?

Gotou: I hear the term get thrown around a lot that he’s ‘half-demon’, but—

Genya: I’m not a demon!!!

Gotou: --how would that even work? That would imply that one of his parents had to be a demon, and that—

Genya: What did you say about my mother!?!

Gotou: What? Nothing—

Genya: You say that to my face! You just trying saying something about my mother to my face! My mother never actually ate any flesh, you got that? She doesn’t deserve any of this!

Gotou: Genya, calm down, what—

Douma: I see we’re learning nothing about hair at all. Maybe Kokushibou-dono would provide better commentary on that?

Genya: Mom? Mo-o-o-o-m? Are you down here somewhere?

Gotou: And there he goes… wait, did you say Kokushibou? Upper Moon One? Oh no—he—he didn’t want me bothering him, he did not agree to another interview—

Douma: He-e-e-e-e-y, Kokushibou-dono! How did that work with Genya-kun eating your hair? Hair can be nutritious, right?

Kokushibou: You would gain… nothing… from consuming human hair… it’s not… flesh… you wasted your energy digesting it…

Douma: Aww, cutting it off them would had been sad, though.

Kokushibou: Demon hair… like demon weapons… is made… from our unique cells. It’s not dead… like human locks. Because that boy ate my live cells… it affected him…

Gotou: Yes, because he had a very, very unique metabolism, analyzed separately in this post. To be perfectly clear, Genya is completely human with cells that could temporarily transform, and he never consumed human flesh.

Kokushibou: He… vexes me…

Gotou: Um… while I’ve got you here, you’re one of the longest lived demons, clocking in at over three, maybe four centuries. Do you have any estimate of how many humans you’ve consumed?

Kokushibou: ……I see in… Chapter 100… that you are 23 years old?

Gotou: That is correct.

Kokushibou: Do you bother… remembering how many meals… you’ve had in a mere 23 years?

Gotou: I’m very sorry to have bothered you.

Douma: Kokushibou-dono’s ancient compared to the rest of us! But if I tried, I could probably recall. Let’s see. One, two, three, four…

Gotou: Is that? Your finger in your brain? Oh—ohhh—that is disgusting---I really don’t need to know numbers that badly, please stop. Is there maybe just some average you can give me for the Upper Moons instead? Like how many you’d eat in a month?

Douma: I wish I could, but a certain someone was an annoying outlier and didn’t like to eat so many humans. He made me worry all the time about his health.

Gotou: Really? Who might that be?

Douma: Hello-o-o-o-o-? Akaza-dono? Yoohoo! He spends all his time with his wife now and never answers when I call, it makes me so sad. Akaza-dono did eat humans, plenty of strong ones, but any time he wasn’t under orders from Muzan he liked to spend his time training instead of eating. Fanbook #1 says he did that way more than eating!

Gotou: Training? What sort of training?

Douma: Similar things to what your Corp members did, I imagine. Doing squats, throwing punches, things like that.

Gotou: Then demon muscles had similar function to human muscles, and could be strengthened through hard work? That’s surprising.

Douma: I know, right? I’ll let you in on a secret, I don’t think it was the physically repetition that did anything. I think it was his willpower getting honed and shaping his muscles.

Douma: I had to focus when I acquired new skills too, like breaking down poisons. A lot of sad, lowly demons, like that Hand Demon fellow? They focus as hard as they can in their desperation, or focus on some strong emotion or attachment or whatever, and they grow and develop because of it. Sometimes all their weak bodies can manage is an ugly mutation, but that’s proof enough of how much focus they had.

Gotou: That sheds a lot of light on Nezuko, actually.

Douma: Shed “light” on Nezuko-chan, hahaha! Sunlight! You humans are all so witty!

Gotou: Speaking of willpower, I’ve got one more interview I need to get to down here. Of all the demons I have records of, only Nezuko went her whole time as a demon without consuming any human flesh, although she did go through moments of berserk cravings for it. It’s possible that other demons were killed before they could consume anything, but typically they will consume flesh as soon as possible, which is why its common for their family and close relations to be among the first ones killed. Tomioka-san even mentioned in Chapter 1 that these close relations are especially nutritious.

Gotou: A demon about as old as Kokushibou, if not older, is a special case of her own. She was one of the only demons we know of to have escaped Kibutsuji’s curse and acted in dependently of him, including having created a demon of her own after two hundred years of trying. Most notably to our purposes, she trained herself to subsist on small amounts of blood, after having survived on corpses and wild animals for a time, according to the extensive Taisho Secrets at the end of Volume 21.

Tamayo: I explained this in more detail to Tanjirou-san in Chapter 15, but I went on to purchase blood from poor people, and extracted it in ways that wouldn’t be harmful to them. The one demon I created, Yushirou, could subsist on even less. I gained enough self-control that I could treat injured humans without feeling tempted into a berserk state.

Gotou: I was just talking to Douma about willpower making demons capable of accomplishing new physical developments. Was that how you were able to gain this state? I heard you even enjoy a cup of tea now and then.

Tamayo: Yes, I’ve taken a liking to it. I’d offer you some if not for this, you know, being hell. It’s nothing like the hell I went through when first resisting consuming humans, though. My demon body refused to take anything but fresh human flesh at first, but in the hardest moments, I always remembered a kind demon hunter who said he believed in me and my desire to defeat Kibutsuji Muzan. I believe Nezuko may have summoned her strength to resist the call of her demon cells in a similar way; she knew she had her brother there to rely on. Once she mastered something as remarkable as resisting the need for human flesh, it gave her the freedom to prioritize other developments.

Gotou: You spent centuries researching demon cells, especially how demons may break down and metabolize poisons.

Tamayo: I had not studied the metabolism of poisons until working with Shinobu-san. The medicine we concocted for Kibutsuji was only possible thanks to her work, and I couldn’t had worked with many of those wisteria-based substances on my own. I feel I was only there to fill in the gaps of her brilliant understanding.

Gotou: You’re very humble. I would pass along my thanks and compliments to Shinobu-sama too, but I’m pretty sure she’s not down here. On that note, did Genya-kun go back home?

Tamayo: He did after a nice reunion with his mother just now, it was very sweet. Shizu-san and I get along well, after all, we both carry similar guilt.

Gotou: Wait, was his mother a demon? That means Wind-sama’s mother was too? Wait?? What??

Tamayo: The worst hell I went through, or that any demon has gone through, is to realize what you’ve eaten after the hunger-driven madness clears. Being similar to your own cells, they’re easy on a volatile new anatomy to break down and digest. That’s why many demons may have driven themselves to forget everything all over again, or to twist their personalities to justify the horror, saying that because they ate the hearts of their loved ones and because demon flesh can live forever, then they never truly killed them. The truth always remained untwisted for me, and to this day, it torments me more than anything in this underworld can try.

Gotou: …

Tamayo: You should wake up now, Gotou. You’ve been through a lot; the nightmares must be taxing on your health. Please remember to eat well.

#kny fandom theories and meta #too many characters to tag #I wrote this draft early last week and only this morning had time to edit it but it took foreeeevvvverrr on my slow computer #now off to work #eat well everybody #I'm off to work #kimetsu no yaiba #demon slayer

[deanstop13billyjoeltraxx]

Superposition

a deancas college roommate AU :)

Chapter 12 is up on AO3! Chapter-by-chapter masterlist here. 

yes i updated twice this week my foot is broken i can’t do anything else

The Beginning (of the End)

Three Years Earlier

“You ready?”

Dean was standing by the door with a full backpack. Cas’s own was leaning against his closet. He was sitting at his computer, manically finishing a paragraph, only half-stalling.

“One second…” Cas trailed off as he ensured his document had saved properly. “Done. Yes,” he said. Dean rolled his eyes, but there was a small smile on his face.

Dean had just taken his last final that morning. It was nearly noon before they hit the road in the Impala, Dean’s twenty-minute tape-selection process doing nothing to hasten their departure. Eventually, he settled on Moving Pictures, and he pulled out of the parking lot with “Tom Sawyer” blaring through the speakers.

Cas learned many things on the two-and-a-half hour drive to Lawrence — that Dean knew every word to every song in his tape collection, and he was not afraid to demonstrate it; that Dean had driven through almost every town on I-35; and that he had a story for each. He learned that Dean could begrudgingly appreciate 80s pop when Cas flipped on the radio and allowed the entirety of “Heat of the Moment” to play, uninterrupted. He learned that Dean would often turn to sing his favorite lyric right at Cas, or to tell him music trivia, or just to give him a smile.

When they arrived at Bobby’s house in Lawrence, a gangly teen who Cas assumed to be Sam was waiting for them at the door. Dean had barely made it out of the car before Sam was running to him, pulling him into a hug. Dean was grumbling “I wasn’t gone that long,” but he was smiling and sniffling and hugging Sam just as hard. Cas hid his smile.

Sam introduced himself to Cas, all smiles and raw excitement. His openness was contagious. Sam insisted on hauling Cas’s backpack inside for him, to which Dean threw an apologetic look at Cas. Cas just grinned back at him.

Bobby Singer was gruff-voiced and stoic, but there were tears in his eyes as he gave Dean a quick hug. He shook Cas’s hand firmly and said it was real good to meet him, after everything he’s heard. Dean went beet-red when Cas cast him a glance.

Bobby brought beers and a coke for Sam. The four of them sat in Bobby’s living room, Dean and Cas replaying the semester’s highlights for a rapt audience. When Bobby left the room to order a pizza, he clapped Dean on the shoulder and said, in a low voice, “Real proud of you, kid.” Cas thought it might have been the happiest he’d ever seen Dean.

“Dean told me you’re a writer,” Sam said when it was just the three of them. “He said you were writing a book.”

Dean made an indignant sound. “I didn’t say that.”

“Yeah, you did,” Sam retorted. “You said he —”

“I said he was majoring in creative writing,” Dean interrupted, giving Sam a look.

“I am… working on something,” Cas said to Sam. “Although, I’m not quite sure it’s a book. I’ve never tried my hand at writing novels.”

“Dean says your stories are really good,” Sam said, and Dean shot him a death glare. Cas could barely contain his laughter. “What do you usually write?”

“Before this semester, I typically wrote about my own life,” Cas said, feeling slightly self-conscious. “But one of my classes challenged me to write about other things.”

“What’s your book about?” Sam asked.

“Can you contain your nerd for, like, ten minutes?” Dean grumbled. “Dude just got here, you don’t need to scare him off.”

Sam flipped him off, and Dean muttered, “Real mature.”

Cas was considering Sam’s question, trying to come up with an answer that was both vague and satisfying. “It’s about free will,” he said finally.

“Can I read it? When you’re done, I mean,” Sam said. “I love reading. I just finished Lord of the Rings last month.”

Cas smiled. “If I ever finish it, of course,” he said. “Lord of the Rings is a fantastic book series,” he added, and Sam’s face lit up.

Dean let out a long-suffering sigh when Sam started Cas on a conversation about Tolkien, and he excused himself to get another beer. When he returned, Bobby close behind him, he threw a pillow at Sam’s head, which led to Sam throwing it back, knocking Dean’s beer to the floor, and then it was war. Bobby shot Cas an eye-roll, which only made him laugh harder.

The rest of the week passed much the same. Castiel went to bed each night with sore cheeks from smiling. On Saturday, Sam roped him into pouring toothpaste into Dean’s shampoo bottle. The roar they heard from the shower that night had them nearly on the floor laughing. Dean got his revenge on Sam moments later, barreling out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel to give his brother a large, wet hug. Unbeknownst to Dean, his retaliation involved Cas as well; it took great effort to keep his eyes focused on anything but Dean’s bare midsection. 

Dean dragged him to all of his favorite spots in Lawrence, places he remembered from early childhood and past Christmases with Bobby. Watching Dean in his element, Cas gave up. Resistance was futile. Cas didn’t fall in love with Dean in Lawrence, but he stopped trying to open a parachute against it. And while that observably changed nothing, for Cas, it changed everything. He’d already lost the game — what was the point in denying himself the consolation prize?

He leaned into the ache that came with the brilliance of Dean’s smiles. He relished the knot in his stomach when Dean spoke to everyone, but looked at Cas like it was just for him. He stole glances. He hid smiles. Dean permeated his thoughts and invaded his dreams. It hurt like hell, sleeping alone on an air mattress, wanting nothing more than to be laying next to the man in the other room. But the highs were addicting, made greater by the pain that followed them. Though he’d been down this road before, hopelessly in love with someone who would never, could never love him back, Dean felt different. Dean felt all-consuming. 

Castiel had fallen, and he wasn’t sure if he would ever rise again. 

 Christmas with the Winchesters made every holiday celebration Cas had attended look boring. Ellen Harvelle and her daughter, Jo, arrived in the morning, each giving him a hug like they’d known him for years. The moment she walked in, Ellen was yelling at Dean to “get his ass in the kitchen.” He grabbed Cas by the arm and pulled him along.

Cas spent the rest of the day watching Dean and Ellen cook, helping when he could, then having a raucous meal on the floor of the living room, A Christmas Story playing on the old TV. Bobby popped open two bottles of cheap champagne, much to the chagrin of Jo and Sam, who were provided sparkling grape juice instead. They exchanged gifts, and Dean looked at Cas like he’d just won the lottery after opening Cas’s gift to him, a limited edition copy of Houses of the Holy. When Bobby and Ellen moved to the kitchen to clean up, Dean led Cas outside to the Impala.

“It was too big to hide in there, and I’m shit at wrapping, so I just left it in the car,” Dean said, a little sheepish. He opened the trunk, and Cas gasped.

Inside sat a vintage black typewriter, an Underwood Champion. The paint was chipped everywhere, the letters on the keys nearly worn-off.

“It’s not in great shape,” Dean said, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. “But it was the coolest one they had at the antique shop. It’s kind of useless, since you have a laptop and all, but —”

Cas interrupted him by pulling him into a tight hug. Dean made a surprised sound, but wrapped his arms around Cas’s back.

“Thank you, Dean,” Cas said into his shoulder. He pulled away. “It’s perfect.”

Dean shrugged, but looked pleased all the same.

“I have something else for you, too,” Cas said before he could change his mind. Dean crossed his arms.

“Dude, you already went way too hard with the vinyl,” Dean said.

Cas rolled his eyes and started his way back to the house. Dean shut the trunk and followed.

Cas grabbed his backpack and pulled out the stack of paper, his heart pounding loudly in his ears. He all but shoved it into Dean’s chest, who gave him a confused look as he took hold of the gift.

“It’s the first part of my first draft,” Cas explained as Dean read the cover page. Dean’s eyes were wide when he looked back at Cas. “It’s a selfish gift, really,” Cas said. “I want to know what you think.”

Dean broke into a slow grin. “This is awesome, Cas,” he said. “I can’t wait to read it. Thank you.”

 They were supposed to leave Lawrence on New Year’s Day, but Dean and Cas were both too hungover to even think about making the trip. They stayed an extra night, much to the delight of Sam. The three of them spent New Year’s marathoning the Harry Potter movies. As usual, Dean spent most of the time reciting lines and pointing out his favorite scenes to Cas. Eventually, Sam became irritated enough that he told Dean to shove it, to which Dean responded that Cas liked hearing his thoughts, thank you very much. Dean kicked him in the ribs when Sam rolled his eyes and mumbled something like “Sorry for messing up your game.” Cas pretended not to hear that, pretended not to see Dean give Sam a glare that said, bring that up again, and I’ll kill you. All the same, he couldn’t help but wonder… 

But, no. Dean wasn’t flirting with him, Cas knew that much. Sam just said the first thing he could think of to get a rise out of Dean. 

They didn’t end up leaving until after dinner the next day, Sam and even Bobby pulling both of them in for hugs. Dean turned on the radio for the first half of the drive, but kept the volume low. He was quiet, and although Cas wanted to ask, he allowed Dean to sit in whatever he was feeling, watching the flat landscape pass outside the passenger window.

Dean had forgotten to tank up in Lawrence, so they stopped for gas in Emporia. It was dark by then, the unnatural white fluorescents shining starkly against the night sky. Cas stayed in the passenger seat as Dean pumped the gas. Cas watched him intently from the safety of the cab, another stolen moment wherein he allowed the full depth of his feelings to overcome him. It hurt, as it always did, but he thought the pain of wanting what he could never have was becoming softer, more bearable, like he might be able to live with it.

Dean opened the car door, and a rush of cold air assaulted the cab. “It’s nice out tonight,” Dean said. Cas hummed in agreement, contemplating Dean’s languid movements as he pulled his hoodie over his head. It was torturous, the way his shirt rode up to reveal a torso chiseled like marble, dusted with freckles. It was impossible not to stare. He looked away just before Dean looked at him again. 

“I’m gonna go grab a snack,” he said. “You want anything?” 

“I’m fine, thank you,” Cas said.

Dean returned momentarily with an already-half empty package of powdered donuts, grinning widely. Cas rolled his eyes as Dean reentered the cab. 

“Prudent,” he deadpanned. 

“These things are fucking magic,” Dean said before making a completely inappropriate noise as he popped another into his mouth. Cas averted his eyes. 

“Do you eat the most unhealthy foods in existence on purpose?” Cas asked. 

Dean looked at him with mock affront. “I just eat what tastes good,” he said. 

The Impala roared to life. Dean opened the window to toss the empty package into a nearby trash can, dusting his fingers off in the air. He turned back to Cas, the right side of his mouth covered in powdered sugar. 

“Ready to go?” 

Cas frowned. “You look like a small child in a donut shop,” he said. 

“What?” Dean rubbed a hand over his mouth, then raised his eyebrows at Cas. “Better?” 

“Barely,” Cas said, his frown deepening. And then his hand was moving without his permission, reaching up to dust the remaining white from the side of Dean’s mouth. It might have been nothing, were it not for the fact that his thumb lingered just a moment too long. Cas was staring at Dean’s lips, the breath stolen from his lungs. Shit. 

“Cas?” Dean said, an eyebrow cocked.

Cas pulled his hand back like he’d been burned. “What?” He croaked. His throat felt like sandpaper. 

Dean was looking at him with a mix of curiosity and melancholy, and Cas was done for. After all this time, every trip to the dining hall, every movie watched on a shared beanbag, every midnight trip to Taco Bell, it was here that Cas put the final nail in the coffin. It was at a shitty gas station in the middle-of-nowhere, Kansas, that Dean discovered his secret. 

“Nothing,” Dean said slowly. As they pulled out of the gas station parking lot, Dean didn’t even bother to turn on the radio. Cas only dared a single glance in Dean’s direction, but when he did, he found Dean’s eyebrows knit in concentration, his jaw set, like this drive was the most important thing he’d ever done.

The air felt like it was about to condense with the weight of the silence. That final hour of the drive had Cas fidgeting, turning his phone over and over in his hands. Dean was perfectly still, hardly moving his eyes from the road. Dean, the definition of nervous energy, wholly devoted to a single task. Cas could have laughed at the irony if he hadn’t been silently begging for immediate reorganization into an inanimate object. 

Because nothing in the history of unrequited love confessions could beat this. Cas didn’t have a prayer. And maybe Dean would pretend he hadn’t seen it, maybe they’d never talk about it. But everything would be different. Dean would find excuses to miss dinner, Cas would pretend to be exhausted every Tuesday night. Dean would break the news that he’d found a different roommate for the following school year. Cas would remark that they should keep in touch at the year’s end, and Dean would agree with a clap on the back, and they would never speak to each other again. 

Finally, mercifully, Dean pulled into the dorm parking lot. Cas exhaled hard, as if he’d been holding his breath. Dean gave him a quizzical glance, which Castiel promptly ignored. When Dean shifted into park, Cas had his hand on the door handle immediately. He was about to open it, to take a breath of frigid, fresh air, when Dean grabbed his other wrist. 

“Cas.” Dean’s voice was barely above a whisper, gravelly and sincere in a way that sent a shock through Cas’s spine.

Cas turned to face him. “What?” Cas said, trying to ignore the flames creeping up his arm.

“Thanks for, uh,” Dean started, but he cleared his throat. “Thanks for coming. To Lawrence.”

“Of course,” Cas said, and his voice sounded dead, even to him. He tried to infuse it with some vitality as he finished. “Thank you for inviting me. I had a great time.”

Dean nodded. His hand was still wrapped around Cas’s wrist, and he was looking out of the windshield.

Cas raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t we… Go inside?” It came out like a question.

Dean’s eyes flicked to his. “Yeah,” he said, but he still wasn’t letting go. And Cas thought he should look away, should open the door, but then the inaction lasted too long. Something about the way Dean was looking at him burned, and he was chewing on the inside of his cheek, like there was something he was trying to convince himself to say. 

Cas wasn’t sure if he really whispered Dean’s name, or if he imagined it. All he knew was, one moment Dean was staring at Cas, lips parted. The next, there was a hand on the back of Cas’s neck and stubble against his cheek and a pair of lips rough against his. Dean was kissing him, and Cas had imagined it so many times he could do nothing but freeze and hope he never woke up from this dream.

Dean pulled away abruptly, too soon, and the give-or-take two feet between them might have ripped a hole in the space-time continuum, it was so cosmically wrong. 

“Shit, that was — I’m so sorry, Cas I didn’t —” Dean was holding his head in his hands, but his words were taking eons to reach Cas’s ears. He just sat, staring in disbelief. Every place Dean had touched was scorched with the absence of him. “I’ll email someone — I’ll try to move out for this semester — fuck, I’m such an idiot,” Dean was saying, and those words shocked Cas back to his plane of existence. 

“Move out?” He croaked, and his voice sounded foreign to his own ears. “Why?” 

Dean looked at him in anguish. “I shouldn’t have — I’m an idiot.” His voice sounded broken and raspy. “I fucked up on Thanksgiving, and now, shit, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“You remember Thanksgiving?” Cas blurted.

Dean tilted his head. “How could I forget that?”

Cas furrowed his brow. “What exactly was your mistake on Thanksgiving?”

Dean stared at him. “The whole damn thing, Cas,” he sputtered. “And now this, and, goddammit, you’re my best friend and I can’t control myself long enough to…” Dean trailed off, and Cas finally understood. Dean had misinterpreted his shock, felt Cas’s stiff and tardy reply and taken it to mean he wasn’t interested. A bubble of hysterical laughter escaped him at the irony.

Dean’s expression darkened. “Yeah, this is fucking hilarious, Cas —”

Cas cut him off. He closed the distance between them, and he could have laughed at the woeful inadequacy of his fantasies when compared to this. It was stilted and desperate, and the center console was digging into Cas’s knee, and an uncomfortable cold was seeping into the cab. But Dean’s fingers were tangled in his hair and he tasted like Diet Coke and cigarettes and he was muttering Cas with every breath and Cas thought he might die in that parking lot because he simply would not allow this to end.

The world had shifted when they finally parted. Dean was looking at him with wonder and confusion. Cas knew he was putting on a similar display. It was dark. Dean’s face was only half-illuminated in the parking lot, but everything about him was brilliant. It was almost too much, like maybe if Cas looked away he’d find himself blind. Cas felt the near-overwhelming urge to kiss him again, to rediscover every plane of Dean’s face he’d already committed to memory.

But he remained in his place, half twisted in the passenger’s seat, because this demanded all manner of explanation. Cas swallowed hard.

“You…” Dean’s voice was a gravelly whisper. “What?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Cas replied, breathless.

“You’re not — You’re not pissed?”

“That depends,” Cas said, his heart hammering against his chest. “What was that?” 

“I —” Dean started, but stopped himself. His leg was bouncing rapidly, and he reached into the pocket of his jeans, presumably for a cigarette. Cas grabbed him by the shoulder. 

“Dean,” he said in a stern voice. 

Dean closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Dammit, Cas,” he said. “What do you want me to say?” 

“The truth,” Cas said, a little taken aback. 

“The truth,” Dean repeated, his eyes remaining resolutely shut. Another deep breath. “It wasn’t supposed to go like this,” he said finally.

And, whatever Cas had been expecting, it wasn’t that. “What?” 

“I was gonna — I dunno, I was gonna do it right. I’ve been meaning to do it right, ask you to fucking dinner or something, but then I thought you hated me after Thanksgiving, and you were busy all the time, and then we were in Lawrence, and —”

“We go to dinner every night,” Cas said. Dean wasn’t making sense. 

Dean finally opened his eyes, only to give Cas a death-stare. “No, dumbass, something a little nicer than the friggin’ dining hall.” He sighed. “But, of course, in my car. What am I, sixteen?” 

“A date,” Cas said, finally catching up. “You were going to ask me on a date.” 

Dean winced a little. “Yeah.” 

“But you didn’t —”

“Thanks for the reminder.” 

“— Because you thought I hated you.” 

“A little bit.” 

Cas smiled incredulously. “If this is a joke, it’s a terrible one.” 

Dean glared at him. “Not a joke, Cas.” 

“But you’re not — Dean, I thought you were straight.” 

Cas felt bad about the statement immediately as Dean winced, but it was true. Nothing was adding up. Dean had never shown an interest in men before, at least not around Cas, and Cas didn’t think he could stand to be Dean’s experimental phase. But he reeled his insecurity back in as he added, “You don’t have to explain anything to me. I’m just… Confused.”

Dean let out a hard breath. “No, I know, I know,” Dean said. “I dunno. Guess I never really thought about it before.” He paused. “I was too scared to think about it.” 

Cas felt his heart break at that. There was a story there, a million things to unpack, but it was obviously a feat for Dean to say as much as he already had. Cas left it alone. 

Dean cleared his throat. “Point is,” he said, “this was a long time coming, but I’m an idiot and couldn’t work up the balls.” He was staring hard at his hands, the admission taking enormous effort. 

A little nervous without the excuse of the heat of the moment, Cas put a hand on Dean’s neck and kissed him, again, short and tender. “You’re not an idiot,” Cas said. 

“Guess not,” Dean said through a breathless laugh. 

Cas cocked his head. “You really thought I hated you?” He asked, his eyes searching Dean’s.

“What else was I supposed to think?” Dean asked. “I thought that was it, you were done with me.” Dean furrowed his brow. “Why’d you do that?”

“Avoid you?”

“Yeah. I mean, if you didn’t — if you weren’t mad.” 

Cas stared at him. “Dean, I can barely remember anything we did on Thanksgiving, much less anything I might have said.” He paused. “And then we were… I didn’t know what to think. Not to mention, up until about five minutes ago, I thought you were — that you weren’t interested.” Cas ran a hand through his hair. “I was worried I might ruin our friendship.”

Something like realization dawned on Dean’s face. He let out another laugh. “Guess we’re a couple of dumbasses.” 

“Maybe,” Cas said with a small smile. “Let’s go inside.”

Dean nodded, and they exited the car and made their way upstairs. And it might have been any other night, save their shoulders touching, fingers brushing, silence charged with something new. Cas unlocked their door, letting Dean in. When he turned after shutting the door behind him, Dean was there, and Cas didn’t even have time to turn on the light before he was shoved hard against the door. Dean’s mouth was hot and his hands were desperate. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Cas thought they should probably talk about this, about them, but then Dean’s breathing hitched as Cas caught his bottom lip between his teeth, and the thoughts stopped coming.

 Cas’s bare back was cold against the linoleum floor, but Dean was warm against his chest. He stared at the ceiling in the dark, his mind scrambled from pleasure and the shock of being wanted.

“Cas,” Dean said against his chest. Cas threaded his fingers through Dean’s hair.

“Yes?”

Dean shifted, perching on his arm, looking down at Cas. “You — you want this?” He said.

Cas stretched his arms up and rested his head on top of his hands. “This?” He asked. Dean was being intentionally vague, but Cas couldn’t exist in limbo. He had to hear the words, as clear as Dean could make them.

Dean gave him a look for a moment, but relented. “Yeah, I know. Okay. This,” he said, gesturing between the two of them. “You and me. Us. Like this.”

“Oh,” Cas said lightly. “That’s what you meant?” Dean rolled his eyes and shoved him. Cas laughed. “The answer is yes.”

A small smile, but it faltered as Dean spoke again. “Are you sure?” He said. “I don’t — I might be really shit at this, you know.”

And Cas did know. There were a million little complications, things they would have to figure out, problems he hadn’t even begun to consider. That might have been terrifying, but the prospect of never having Dean, that was worse.

“I’m sure,” he said quietly. “Are you?”

“Yeah,” Dean said, no hesitation.

Cas sighed as Dean traced circles on his chest. “It’s worth it to try.”

Cas was in between sleep and consciousness when something warm shifted around his back. Whatever dream he’d been having, it felt remarkably real. 

“Wake up, dumbass,” he heard Dean say affectionately. Cas didn’t want this dream to end; he could steal a few more minutes of sleep. He burrowed his head deeper into the pillow, willing the dream to continue. 

But then there was a pair of lips against his ear, and they were entirely real. “C’mon,” Dean said in a low voice. “First day of class.” 

For a moment, Cas was confused. Dean was in his bed. Why was Dean in his bed? But as he rubbed his eyes, the events of the night before came crashing into him. 

Oh. 

Nerves pooled in the pit of his stomach. He half expected Dean to rush out some kind of apology, to tell him that everything had been a big mistake. But when Cas turned to face him, Dean was beaming. 

“Mornin’,” he said. 

“Good morning,” Cas said, awestruck. Dean needed a shave, and his hair was flat on one side from sleep, but Cas still felt his breathing hitch as he stared at Dean, unfettered for the first time. Beautiful. 

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Coffee?”

“Please,” Cas said with a nod. Dean moved to climb out of the bed, but he paused. He turned back toward Cas and kissed him, slow and deep. When he finally broke away, Dean was smiling even wider. 

“Awesome,” he said, earning a snort from Cas. 

If Cas had worried about Dean’s intentions, it was unfounded. At lunch, as Dean talked to Cas like he was the only person at the table, Meg rolled her eyes and told them to “get a room.” Dean responded by throwing an arm around Cas and saying, “Maybe later.” Meg gaped at the two of them for about ten seconds before regaining composure, shifting to more general conversation. Cas received a text from her immediately after they parted ways. 

MM (1:12 p.m.)

holy shit!!!! 

MM (1:13 p.m.)

ur going to tell me everything tmrw

At first, Cas wasn’t sure how to respond, because he wasn’t sure what he was allowed to say. That is, until Dean answered a call from Benny, saying, “Sorry, man, I’m not going tonight, I have a date. Yeah, with Cas. Shut up.” Cas smiled to himself as he replied to Meg. 

CN (2:32 p.m.)

Absolutely.

The three weeks that followed were easily the best of Cas’s life. The rituals remained unchanged; Tuesday was movie night, dinner was at seven-p.m. in the dining hall, late nights doing homework demanded a fast food run. But little things shifted; Dean made it to his birthday without going to a single party, and his bed remained perpetually made. Cas amassed a greater collection of t-shirts that weren’t his, and he only ran when he knew Dean was in class. 

Cas woke up to Dean shifting around him as he attempted to get out of bed for an early class. Cas slung an arm tightly around his midsection in protest. 

“Too early,” he mumbled. 

He heard Dean chuckle. “I thought class was important,” he said, but he shifted closer to Cas nonetheless. 

Cas grumbled something incomprehensible as he pulled out his phone. When he saw the date, however, he shot up, suddenly wide awake. 

At Dean’s look of confusion, he said, “It’s your birthday.” 

“Yeah.”

Cas leaned down and kissed Dean deeply. He pulled away to mutter, “Happy birthday, Dean,” against his lips. Dean closed the small distance as soon as Cas had said the words, and this time it was decidedly heavier, hot breaths mixing and hands pulling each other closer. 

They were interrupted by Dean’s second alarm. Dean scowled as he turned it off. He looked at Cas expectantly, but Cas had his arms folded against his chest. 

“Class is important,” he reminded Dean. 

“But it’s my birthday.”

“And?” 

“Asshole,” Dean grumbled, but he kissed Cas on the jaw as he climbed down from the bed. He put on a pot of coffee as Cas followed him off the bed, wrapping his arms around Dean from the back.

“I got you something,” Cas said into Dean’s shoulder. Dean twisted around to face him. 

“Cas, you didn’t have to do that. I told you, birthday’s are dumb anyway.” 

Cas made a face. “I happen to be endlessly thankful for your birth.” 

Dean shook his head, but he was smiling. “What is it?” 

“You’ll find out on Friday when we go to Benny’s.” 

“We’re going to Benny’s?”

Cas bit the inside of his cheek. “It was supposed to be a surprise,” he said, “Benny and Charlie both insisted. But you once told me you have a strong aversion to surprise parties.” 

“Y’all are throwing me a surprise party?” 

“No,” Cas rushed. “No, that’s why I’m telling you right now.” 

“But it’s a party.” 

“Yes.” 

“You couldn’t have told me yesterday? How long have y’all been planning this?” 

“Only a week.” 

“A week?” Dean paused, his eyes narrowed. “Who all’s gonna be there?” Dean grumbled, already trying to assess the threat of too much attention on him at once. 

“Just Benny, Charlie, and Charlie’s girlfriend,” Cas placated. 

Dean relaxed at that. “And you, right?” 

“I’ll come if you want me there,” Cas said, a little sheepish. He hadn’t really planned on going, wanting to give Dean some time alone to spend with his friends. Cas felt like he’d accidentally achieved a monopoly on Dean’s attention. 

Dean gaped at him. “Dude, of course I want you there.” 

Cas gave him a soft smile. “Then I’ll be there.” 

Dean almost convinced Cas to let him skip class — almost — but with great effort, he resolutely pushed Dean out the door. 

“Damn, all right, if you want to get rid of me that bad,” Dean griped, smirking. “See you later.” 

“Goodbye, Dean,” Cas said with a smile. 

 They didn’t make it to the party. 

Friday afternoon, after spending far too long in bed, Cas was sitting on the beanbag, Dean’s head resting on his lap. They’d taped Dean’s comforter over the window, leaving the room completely dark, save for the film playing on Dean’s television. 

“Fucking asshole,” Dean was saying as Neil’s father came on screen. Cas hummed in agreement, paying more attention to his fingers threading their way through Dean’s hair. Suddenly, Dean’s phone began to ring. He shifted to check the caller ID, then stood up quickly. 

“Wait, pause it, I gotta take this,” he said. Cas obliged. “Hey, Bobby! How’s it goin’?” 

Cas reached above his head to stretch, but he faltered when he heard Dean say, “Dad? What’s wrong?” 

Cas stood abruptly as Dean’s phone slipped out of his hand, shattering upon impact with the linoleum. He was standing, his jaw clenched, staring at absolutely nothing. 

“Dean?” 

Dean remained silent, no indication that he had heard Cas. Cas placed a hand on his left shoulder, prompting Dean into movement. 

Still saying nothing, Dean dumped the contents of his backpack onto the floor, filling it with things from his wardrobe. Cas followed him, frantic. 

“What are you doing? Dean, talk to me,” he said. But Dean was on a mission, it seemed. After stuffing his feet into unlaced boots, he threw the door open and stalked out. 

At a complete loss, Cas pulled on his own shoes and followed, making sure to grab his key as he shut the door to their room behind him. Dean was already halfway to the stairs, and Castiel ran to catch up with him. Dean let the door to the stairs shut in Cas’s face. 

“Dean!” Cas called. Dean was fleeing down the stairs like his life depended on it. Cas only barely caught up to him as they reached the ground floor and exited to the parking lot. 

Finally within reach, Cas grabbed Dean’s shoulder, hard. Dean slowed, but didn’t stop. 

“Dean,” Cas started. Still no response. “Dean! What happened?” 

They had reached the Impala. Dean unlocked the car and threw his bag haphazardly in the front seat. He stared resolutely at the ground. 

“I gotta go, Cas. I’ll explain everything later.” The first words Dean had spoken to Cas in nearly ten minutes. His voice was thick. 

“Dean, where are you going?” Cas asked, desperate. “The party — there’s class on Monday!”

Dean looked up at him then, and Cas was struck by the mixture of fury and sadness in his eyes. “Screw the party and screw class. Family emergency.” 

Cas watched helplessly as Dean sped out of the parking lot, taking the turn so fast the back end of the Impala swayed a little. He stood in the middle of the parking lot for what felt like an eternity, the cold January air seeping into his bones. Eventually, he made his way back to the dorms, sighing in relief as the warm air of the hallway hit him. 

When Cas reentered the room, he stared at Dean’s shattered cell phone. He didn’t even bother to clean up the mess, just let out a choked sigh. Cas fell into the beanbag, his head in his hands.

——

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@nguyenxtrang @castielsbeeslippers @fortiusnitius

#supernatural #destiel #deancas #destiel fic

[pinencurls]

Kiss In The Kitchen

hiii okay so I have a couple one shots hidden away in drafts that I’m not 100% in love with but i enjoyed writing at the time so I thought I might as well share them :)  Here’s the first...

You couldn’t be prouder of Fine Line and all you want to do is support and congratulate him, even if it means ignoring the insecurities one song strikes in you. 

4k Words 

At first, you listened to it (almost) alone, Harry's large headphones covering your ears as his new album played for you - you'd heard bits and pieces of it over the last year but never every song in it's finalised form. The second time you listened to the album you quickly adored was at its release party; a contrast setting to the quiet of the Saturday sun sneaking into your bedroom with Harry's earnest gaze set on you as you spoil yourself in his words - you could almost forget the album was written entirely about the woman Harry devoted all his love to before you'd met, it felt so private between the two of you. You'd visited the studio several times, lending your own advice when Harry met droughts of no inspiration and begged for your musical experience; You'd been in several small bands in your formative years, playing bass or drums, but had paused that particular pastime to focus on the reality of your career - writing took time in this industry, supporting yourself whilst avoiding the well of tabloid work was tricky, so far you'd managed to find little nuggets of gold in genuine, thought-provoking magazines and had begun to make a name for yourself, something you'd doubted possible in the harder of times.

You'd chosen to keep your lyrical advice to yourself when Harry called to you for help, however. You knew who this album was about, it was clear it wasn't you and that was fine. You didn't expect Harry to dedicate a whole album about you after 11 months together, all of which dating after he began writing it.

In private, sat on your bed and grinning up at him as his music played to you and you only - you were proud. You'd accepted the difficulties that might come with listening to your partner's rawest emotions for a past lover and had come to the conclusion that you'd appreciate his work simply because of how much he'd put into it and how well it'd all come together.

That was easy in private. It's slightly harder to remind yourself to separate the songs playing loudly all around you in the busy L.A club from all the not so hidden meanings behind them. Everyone Harry had met within the last few years of his solo career and long before that had come to celebrate with him. Busting bodies filled the large room, many already taking advantage of the bar. Almost everyone found themselves, slightly slurring, by Harry's side at one point of the night to tell him how beautiful Fine Line was, and the topics of each song didn't seem to go unnoticed either.

As you made your own rounds, you overheard the loud discussions about the mix of provocative, solemn and affectionate themes. Some of the group were apparently too drunk to see Harry's current girlfriend standing by as they cheered on his yearning and passion for his previous one.

It only got worse with press. You were still unbelievably proud of course, but Harry had to do a lot of press. Each interviewer cut straight to the elephant in the album. Camille was discussed, if not named by Harry, at length. You adored hearing Harry speak about his own personal growth and becoming comfortable in himself - but for every question about identity and fashion, came three about the clear sexual undertones and soulmate ideologies.

You were rational in your discomfort. You listened to Adore You and your other stand out favourites when you wrote, you understood and trusted that Harry had moved on, you'd been together for almost a year and he's told you weeks before then when you were just new friends that he knew he was ready again after months of working on himself.

You just couldn't deal with one song.

Breaking up and having sex you could deal with, you could enjoy the final work. They were normal things that people went through and wrote about. But the first sign of love? The sweet, endearing start of a relationship that he was so clearly ardent about - as if his feeling were a lot fresher than you'd imagine for a relationship that started and ended months ago.

Sunflower Vol.6 was beautiful, but as hard as you tried, you couldn't just see it objectively. You felt it so concentrated, and it hurt like fucking hell.

- - -

"Do we have any mango?" Harry calls from the kitchen, the click of the fridge opening quietly behind him. "Never mind found it!"

You smile at his domestic charm as you work on you most recent piece; it's been taking up a lot of time, creeping into your weekend which hadn't gone unnoticed by Harry as he had returned from the morning run you usually went on as a couple. A few moments later, after the loud whirring of the blender stopped, a pinky-orange smoothie is placed beside you and kiss pressed to the side of your head.

"When're you gon'a be done?" He murmurs against your ear, curls flopping down onto your own.

He's just finished his last week of press, ending with Howard Stern who seemed eager to remind Harry, constantly, of all the women he could have. You weren't particularly public yet so you couldn't really blame him for assuming Harry would be starting a new relationship soon. It just added to the frustration you'd been careful not to disclose over the long period of promo for the album.

"I wanna finish this today so we're both free after we fly back, I'jus need a little time alone, yeah?" A low grumble and a "yeah" was the only response he gave and he removes himself to the other side of the big living room to lay down on the sofa and slurp his breakfast.

Your deadline is Monday but tomorrow morning you're flying back to London and driving up to Holmes Chapel to spend time with Harry's family before he was away on tour for months so you were eager to be free from work.

Hours tick by, you're stuck in the spiral of the final edit. There were a few words that you couldn't quite tweak how you wanted them, as always. You got up to make lunch.

As you pass through the living room you expect to see Harry's body sprawled across the sofa napping, but only a bundle of throw blankets lay where he had been. His journal sits abandoned on the side table, propped open by a loose pen. You can see the scribbling of new song ideas and the beginnings of a poem, smiling to yourself you walk through to the kitchen - still no Harry.

Humming to yourself you open the fridge door, moving your hips slightly as you retrieve all the ingredients of a sandwich for you and Harry. Domestic moments like these were hard to come by in the midst of album releases and pre-tour prep, but you're looking forwards to the month ahead of you. No doubt you'll need some alone time after a week at his mother's house so you're being careful not to take any assignments for the rest of the month to make room for as many simple moments like this as possible once you're back in your London home.

Over the rustle of the bread packet and the crunch the lettuce made as you slice it, you can hear Harry's voice approaching from down the hall.

"Well thanks, mate-yeah..yeah we've gotta get drinks sometime it's been too long." He has the smile on his face that tells you it was another old friend calling to congratulate him on his album, probably a fellow musician from the early days.

Harry makes his way to your side, watching as you layer food into your sandwiches and steals a shred of lettuce. You can hear the other voice now - a clear English drawl you recognise as Ed. You've met a couple times and he's one of the most genuine men you've met, you much prefer him over some of the industry people Harry has to mingle with.

"Oh, dude and the mushrooms!" You giggle as you hear Ed laugh down the line at Harry. "I can't say I didn't guess something was up."

"Thanks, man - like what?" Harry chuckles back, sneaking more sandwich scraps as you slice a knife through them and dish them up.

"Um, the whole end of sunflower - are you really gonna do that live?" At the mention of the song, you feel your shoulders tense slightly. You're really trying to be a good girlfriend and support Harry - but that song just hits different, you trust Harry's love but you can't help but wonder if he has any feelings left over for Camille...

"If I have to!" Harry continues to joke, not noticing your discomfort or at least not mentioning it."Look, Ed, I gotta go but it was great talking to you"...

Harry's voice drones into the background as you take your plate and make your way back to your laptop, huffing as you're reminded of your own frustrations with yourself; he told you months ago that he's moved on, why can't you just believe him?

You can hear a quiet goodbye from Harry as he sets his phone down on the sofa and sits across from you at the table. Your laptop is still acting as a barrier between the two of you. You type at the keys, trying to look busy as you write and rewrite the same line over and over, sighing - you save and close the file and set your laptop aside.

"Not going how you want?" Harry asks.

"No, it is just...there's a bit I can't get to work. I just want to get this over with already." Harry thinks about what you've said for a moment before getting up and leaving the room - he comes back a moment later, setting a glass of water bedside your lunch and kissing your temple.

"Take a break love, you've been working all week you deserve it." He hums against your hair. "And thank you for lunch."

He's so sweet and chipper, smiling at you as he takes his plate out to the kitchen and returns to perch across the table from you, hand wavering over his journal as you finish your lunch.

He worries about you a lot. Normally over you working too much and not taking time for yourself or the amount of pressure, you put on yourself being overwhelming. It was in his nature to worry you remind yourself, you're trying hard to push past the hurt you can't quite let go of and the last thing you'd ever want was for him to feel bad about what he'd written so you'd managed to keep it under wraps. There was no need for him to be suspicious.

- - -

Your alarm goes off at 5am. Your flight is in 3 hours.

"Turn it off." You grumble, burying your head deeper into your pillow. The mattress dips underneath you when Harry turns, the duvet shifts as he slips his hand under and wraps his arms around you. "S'too early."

"I know." You love how Harry's voice sounds in the morning - rough with a soft edge. It's one of the first things you fell in love with; the extra degree or two the morning adds to his embrace, he's always quick to loop his arms around your middle if they've come undone in the night. His untamed and often tangled curls bristle against the back of your neck and there'll be a few moments of warm even breaths against your ear before he bounces up. He's very much a morning person.

"I'm getting in the shower y/n, I'll be out in a sec - get up yeah?" You mumble a slightly coherent response as he leaves the room, a towel draped over his bare shoulder.

Following a few moments of deliberation, you sit up. Unplugging your phone from where it lay on your bedside table, you check your notifications. Sure you'll be up in time, you open twitter.

Unsurprisingly, nothing much is happening. You scroll through a few messages from the day before until you come across a video of Harry being interviewed, he's wearing the thick red cardigan he recently bought so it must've been from this week.

You click play to see him smiling tiredly at the interviewer - you remember this day, you'd stayed up later than planned watching old toy story reruns then he'd been running around frantically getting ready the next morning. You lazily watch him answer a few frequently repeated questions until he's asked about the stages of romantic relationships that inspired certain songs. You expect the usual questions about songs like Adore You and Watermelon Sugar but instead, the interviewer takes a turn and seemingly voices all the concerns floating around your head;

"And one of my personal favourites: Sunflower vol.6, really captures the first realisation of love in a relationship, what lead you to write that song in particular, did you write from experience?"

"Thank you, yeah..I think that first really overpowering part of a relationship when two people are just starting to have these intimate, lovestruck moments together stuck with me and I-" You turn your phone off sharply. Your mind is spiralling with insecurities enough on its own without Harry himself describing how he first felt about his ex-girlfriend.

You sit against the headboard, mulling over the topic that has clouded your mind the past few days. You don't hear the shower turn off down the hall as you let out an angry grumble - it feels so shit and mean of you to be this way and you just want the clarity you had before this all happened.

"What's wrong love?" You look up to see Harry standing at the end of the bed. His hair is dripping onto his shoulders and he's wrapped a light pink towel around his waist loosely, concern contoured his face as he peers down at your huddled form.

"Jus' tired." You crawl forwards to climb out of bed, kissing Harry's cheek lightly as he stood unconvinced before heading to your wardrobe. "Honestly, I'm good."

"Okay..what's the time?"

"Uhhum-" You mutter as you riffle through a pile of sweaters. "5.30ish I think..check my phone"

You slip on a comfy pair of jeans and socks before you walk into the hall on your way to make you both coffee, there's a long pause from the bedroom before Harry calls down to you - 5.42am.

- - -

By the time the plane takes off, you're almost asleep again.

- - -

It's 7pm LA time when you step out the taxi delivering you home to your London house. It's almost 2 am here so despite your lack of tiredness you shuffle through the door behind Harry.

All your heavy luggage is left in the entryway as you climb the stairs up to your bedroom, eager to be done with jet lag and normal again by the morning.

You've made the mistake of sleeping the first 3 hours of the flight and now find yourself wide awake under the soft covers of you and Harry's bed. He always falls asleep as soon as he hits the pillow, and with how quiet he's been all day you assume he's already tired. Between your early napping and him being engrossed in the book he was currently reading - there hadn't been much conversation between you on the flight over. As you snuggle further into the covers you realise things have been a little different these past few days, maybe being so caught up in your own head with work and worries of your own you haven't noticed but there's definitely been a...distance. You're just not sure which of it is creating it.

The next morning you wake to the radio playing from a few rooms away. Sitting up you look around the room; your suitcases are still downstairs by the look of it and Harry's side of the bed has been slept in and now deserted.

"Harry?" You call out. There's some kind of foggy sadness seeping around you as you hear no reply. Maybe you're just tired but you feel you might start sobbing any minute - it's a desperate feeling that you're not quite sure how to quench.

"Harry.." You call again as you climb out the bed, slipping a large jumper on over your head, pulling the braids you'd plaited for the flight that had come undone and frizzy with sleep, over your shoulders. "Love?"

There's still no response and you're now on the final step of the long staircase. You walk quickly through the house towards a quiet humming you can just about make out. You must have gathered speed in your anxious mission to find Harry because as you enter the kitchen you slam hard into the doorway as you reach out to balance yourself.

The movement in his peripheral makes Harry turn his head, slipping the bulky headphones off his ears and slipping his phone into his pocket. He'd previously been slumped against the kitchen counter, lost in thought as he skimmed through his phone, forgetting the kettle as it boiled beside him.

"Love- oh, careful." He chuckles slightly before he takes in your expression. You must have started crying by now because he rushes quickly towards you. "Woah- woah what's wrong? Did you hurt yourself?"

The arm that had taken the full brunt of the doorway was now being carefully examined by Harry as his eyes scan you, searching for any harm. His hand comes to wipe at the few glossy tears on your cheek before he gently asks his question again.

"No I-I was calling for you..." You reply, equally confused as him by the whole situation.

"I didn't hear you love I'm sorry, what happened?" He's placed your arm back by your side now although his hands lingers around yours.

"...Nothing."

"Y/n, please just tell me. What's wrong?" He persists.

"No, I mean - nothing happened I just..." You mumble, how were you supposed to explain that when you woke up you felt terrifyingly alone and just needed to find him...to remind yourself that everything you'd let conspire in your head wasn't really happening.

"Y/n, I know something's up..the last week has been really busy I know but if something's wrong please just tell me, okay?" You think about it for a second before blurting out-

"Would you tell me if you still loved her?"

This doesn't seem to be at he was expecting, or you for that matter. The situation was uncomfortable - hearing your boyfriend sing about how intensely he loved Camille and how badly losing her broke him, but it was just music. You don't realise until you ask him the awkward question, just how much it had been bothering, or scaring you.

"What?"

"I just mean...Okay shit I don't mean that at all I'm just tired and I woke up and you weren't there and I just needed to find you I-"

"Is this what's been upsetting you?" His words aren't spoken forcefully, more...sadly. "T-this is what the phone call and the yesterday morning and...oh God the whole fucking flight! That's what you were thinking?"

"What phone call, what do you mean?" You don't know if he's angry at you or not, his hands are in his hair and he's got the mad look in his eyes that tells you he's either about to shout or cry.

"With Ed. As soon as he mentioned the album you left the room and, and! Yesterday, you were angry about something and then I checked the time and your phone opened on some video about the album and come on...you can't say everything was okay on the flight...we barely talked...we've barely talked at all this week." You're decided that the crying is a lot worse than the shouting. There's something cathartic that comes from shouting back at someone who's just as angry as you - but crying back at someone who's just as confused and upset? It makes you feel all twisted and uncomfortable.

"No..no Harry that's not it-"

"Y/n don't lie I-"

"It's not. I love your album and I'm so, so proud of you, and of everything you did to make it and I understand the importance of your relationship with Camille," Harry's huffing now, his fingers are tangled further in his hair and he's leaned up against the door frame close opposite you. "-This album is all about that time in your life and that's fine...Harry I love it, honestly, the album isn't anything to do with anything-"

"You just asked me if I still loved her!" He exclaims, staring wide-eyed back at you. "I don't give a shit about the album right now, you can hate it, okay? That's okay? But you asked me if I still love her...Y/n look at me."

Your eyes, tightly fixed on the kitchen tiles, tilt up to see his face. His eyes are red and splotchy and his hands reach out to hold you as he speaks again.

"I don't love her, I haven't in a long, long time. I had the ideas for all the songs about her before I even met you, you okay..you're the person I love and...I thought you knew that?" He sighs, hesitant before he starts again. "I thought you trusted me."

There's another pause between you as you mull your next thoughts over.

"I do."

He shakes his head, teary and angry.

"No you don't, if you did you wouldn't have asked-"

"It's just that fucking song!" You snap, you take a sharp breath in and swallow the lump in your throat - "I know that you don't love her, I know it but, when I listen to you sing - and talk, telling people about this wonderful honeymoon romance that even after years you remember so vividly and, and that means so much to you,I..."

"Track 9?" Harry questions, seemingly understanding everything you've just rambled. "Sun- oh baby no it's not..."

"I'm sorry I...It's a great song I just, whenever I hear it I'm reminded of how much you must have felt for her and, and remembered all this time to write about...what?" Harry's smiling now, he seems to be relived for some reason. His eyes are brighter, clearing slightly and he chuckles slightly.

"It's all my fault, I'm so sorry lovie I should have told you.." He scrambles. "I, I was embarrassed when I wrote it because we'd only just started dating and then you heard it a couple weeks later and it was too soon to tell you and then I just...didn't. I thought maybe you'd figured it out."

"What do you mean?"

"It's about...us."

"You told me you didn't write any about me though..."

"No, I said I hadn't written any you were going to see anytime soon...and that was, awhile ago." He smiles slightly, squeezing your hand in his. "There's another one about you actually too,"

"Harry you, you wrote it about us.." Harry hums a confirmation, bowing his head to press a kiss to your cheek. "I thought...what else did you write!"

Harry laughs now, catching your lips with his as you both feel each other relax - the tension and discomfort seeping away as you realise the reality of everything you'd worried yourself over in the last week.

You pull away, one hand on his chest and the other fiddling with the curls at the back of his head.

"Seriously what else did you write-"

"I'm not telling." He beams, leaning down against the firm push you send to his chest.

"I swear if you wrote a song about our sex life I-"

"Shhhh!" He presses a mocking finger to your lips to quiet you. "We better be going, don't wanna be late."

With that, he leaves the kitchen, you can hear his heavy steps rushing up the stairs and soon the house is quiet and the air around you is settled again.

There's a subtle hum of the shower upstairs that intrudes but nonetheless, the clarity's back.

#harry styles one shot #harry styles fic #harry styles fine line #fine line fic #harry styles #harry styles sunflower vol.6 #harry styles writing #idk what to tag i haven't been on here in YEARS #oop #well i guess that's it

[closer-stars]

Late Night Lines

Member: Hongjoong Genre: Slice of life, slightly romantic Requested? Yes, based on a prompt I had reblogged months back Word count: take a guess my dude Content: Late night talks in the studio. Take it as you will. Just late night things that don’t always make sense. Note: Writing again after that fashion edit. yay. Hope it’s okay though since it’s been a while since I wrote a proper fic. I need to write more stuff outside the entertainment industry for real. Slowly getting through my reqs yay. 

Another late night in the studio. At least you weren’t going to spend the next few hours dancing. Tonight, you had to stay in the studio to solidify the song for their upcoming comeback. Hongjoong had invited you to the studio, asking to get him some coffee on the way with the promise of paying you back. 

“I can’t believe you’re here at this time.” You say as you enter the studio, hands occupied by his request of coffee and some other added stuff. 

Hongjoong, whose eyes were still focused on the screen, hums in return. “I’d say the same to you.” You hear the song gradually come together and it was amazing how fast he works. 

You settle the bags on the coffee table, keeping your distance from the screen. “I brought the coffee you asked from that coffee shop-- you’re lucky it’s on the way from my place, jeez. Also, bought some food from that restaurant you always bring us to when it’s your turn to pick.” As you talk, you set up the food on the table, just to let it cool down. 

This causes him to spin in his chair, greeted by the sight of the food and his coffee and you settling yourself on the couch. This was definitely not something he expected. “Wait, but you didn’t have to..” He mumbles, scratching the back of his head. It’s not that he didn’t want it, in fact he appreciates it, it just was beyond what he had asked. 

“I did though. The branch is closing soon so i figured to get you a quick meal cause when’s the next time you’ll be able to visit them?” 

That has him look at you directly. Various emotions were going through him: thankful that you thought of doing so, wistful that his favorite was closing, and was that sentimentality? He’s been visiting that place since he was a trainee. It carries so much memories for him. It sucks also that you had a point. He made a mental note to spare some time tomorrow to visit before they close. The song has ended by the time he was out of his thoughts. He brings it back to the beginning but makes sure it doesn’t play again. Hongjoong has learned early on that when he takes a break, he really takes a break. The meal you brought is definitely a sign for him to take his mind off his work even for a while. So he sits across you, reaching for the utensils. “Are you going to eat with me?” He asks. 

“Do you want me to?”

“There’s two pairs of chopsticks here and I’m pretty sure the lady in the restaurant knows you by face so yes.”

You slide down the couch and onto the floor of his studio, accepting the chopsticks. The next few minutes is spent in silence, often commenting on the food. He manages to make ssam, small enough to fit in your jaw. “Ah.” You reach out for it but he pulls back. He laughs at the face you make. “I’m here trying to feed you, so say ah.” He states. It’s only then that you relent and open your mouth to receive the beef wrap. “Simon, Sssamon Dominic~” He jokes as you chew carefully. He’s lucky one hand was occupied with the chopsticks while the other was busy covering your stuffed cheeks out of politeness otherwise you would’ve flipped him off. 

It takes a while for the two of you to finish your meal. You look through the bag to make sure nothing was forgotten. “Oh right, bought you some sweets to match with the coffee just in case.” You say as you hand him a few macarons from the shop. “And no, you don’t need to pay me back for this. Let’s just get productive tonight okay?” You ask, sipping your own iced americano.

He takes one piece and his coffee, smiling his gratitude. “Who knew you’d be this protective and caring?” He teases as he takes a sip. He takes his rightful seat in front of the computer and goes back to working. You on the other hand walk around the studio with your earphones in, going through the segments you and Yujin have planned based on his first draft and the concept the creative team has told you. 

Time passes by quietly between you two. Music plays on his end with the occasional clicking of his mouse, notes from his midi and some humming from him. 

“You know, I remember what you wore on the first day.” Hongjoong pipes up, eyes still trained on the screen that displays the various layers of sound. Ironic really when all you hear now is silence and his voice as you had pulled out your earphones after his words. 

“What?” 

“Your first day working with BB Trippin and us, I still remember it.” He clarifies. To you, it may have not been much. Hell, you don’t even remember what you wore that day. All you remember is you had to wear something comfortable for a possibly long day in a studio. So he continues, “You were in a white shirt, even had the logo of the brand on the left side of your chest. Your cargo pants were sagging slightly too.” This causes you to look at him weirdly at such an odd comment. He feels the weight of your gaze on him and he shrugs. “You had the smart idea of putting your water bottle in one pocket and your phone and powerbank in the other.” 

Your cheeks burn at his comment. “I can’t believe you still remember that. I barely remember what I ate last week, much less wore.” You mumble. “How do even remember this?” 

“One, you were new to BBT and it was your first time working with us. Two, who even puts their water bottle in their pocket?” He teases you, as he glances at you from the corner of his eye. You note the apples of his cheeks becoming evident, even if he tried to keep himself from smiling, it was obvious from how his cheeks glow against the monitor. 

“In my defense, those pants were top tier, deep pockets where i can practically store my entire training bag into it?" You remember when you had to retire that pair to sleep wear. Mixed feelings of happiness to being able to wear it still and sadness from not being able to use it for dancing and being on the go. “What even brought this up?” 

He leans back on his chair at your question. Was he that obvious? It’s not like he can hide himself properly from people he works with closely. “I guess the restaurant closing got me in my thoughts.” He admits, sitting up for a moment to take a bite out of the macaron. Blueberry and chocolate. 

“I’m listening if you want me to.” While you’re conflicted about having such personal relationships with idols beyond platonic, some members of BBT have raised the idea to you. Since then, it’s been a recurring thought. 

The mouse clicking has stopped this time, and he busies himself with his coffee. “Third, while I don’t believe in love at first sight, you definitely had a strong impression on me.” 

Your own features unreadable as the words sink in. Many questions run through your head but two words come out instead. “I did?”

At your question, he hums in affirmation. “Hard not to, you were a wild card that day.” He then proceeds to mimic you to the best of his abilities. “’Hello, it’s nice to meet all of you.’” He says in a softer voice and it makes your bottom lip jut out. “Then the dance class starts and you suddenly become strict and dominating. I don’t think even hyung expected you to be able to project your voice that loud over the music. Since then really, you would pop into my mind often.” 

You didn’t want to admit it but you also remember what he wore that day: black long sleeves, dark green sweats and a beanie. His shoes were scrawled upon with things you couldn’t make out without staring. You remember how he looked so exasperated with some of his members that miraculously still had energy to joke around. You wonder also what was the point of him telling you all of these. If you were reading too into it, or if you understood him loud and clear. 

“And now here we are, working on the next comeback promotions.” The male finishes as he runs his free hand through his hair. Time really passes by too fast for him. While he loves what he does now, a small part of him wishes to slow down and experience life like the rest of his peers.

A part of him hopes you got what he was trying to say. He wasn’t the best at expressing his emotions unfortunately. He always was better at expressing his feelings through his art. He’s already made a few songs of how his feelings are for you but still too shy to have you listen to them. He shifts the topic. 

“Hey, can you check this one out?” Hongjoong asks as he calls for your attention. He pulls up a chair for you to sit next to him. “I know what our creative team already said and while everything’s still in the works... I need your thoughts.” He explains. 

You take your seat next to him, covering your eyes first as you get the first listen to the updated version so far. As you stay focused on the music, he takes this time to study your features and he finds himself enchanted by you and your passion. He notices your fingers moving to the parts that already have choreography, stopping midway when the tempo switches. But he snaps out of his own thoughts and instead pays attention to your reaction as the song progresses. By the time the song finishes, he had finished his macaron and you had opened your eyes again. 

“Okay I can see where you’re going with this. The lyrics is already approved?” You ask before proceeding with your thoughts to which he says yes. The rest of the night is spent conceptualizing the ideas that swarm your head after listening to it. It’s occasionally hindered with Hongjoong clarifying the ideas and imagery you see for the choreography. 

It’s already early morning when the two of you manage to solidify the concept, ideas and messages that the boys would like to send. The two of you too sleepy to continue that you decide to call it a day. “Did you keep note of everything?” Hongjoong asks through a yawn. 

“Saved it all on my phone.” You say, you could feel the caffeine wearing out soon. “Can you send me the lyrics soon? Just so I can talk to the rest of BBT of this so that we can make the next segments.” You had picked up all the bags that had your trash, including some of the snacks Hongjoong has munched on.

He mumbles a yes as he waits for the monitor to shut down. “See you whenever.” He says under his breath. His bed back in the dorms sound so much more tempting than the couch here. When he looks at your general direction, he’s noticed that you’ve left already and it’s then that he lets out a sigh. So while he’s in the last in the studio, he looks through his notebook with all the lyrics to send to you. Without giving it a proper look, he takes a photo of his lyrics and sends it to you. He then keeps his notebook in his bag, shutting off the rest of the lights as he heads home. 

[ Hongjoong ] : lyrics.jpg

You didn’t expect Hongjoong to send it so soon but you suppose he’d rather get it finished instead of having to stress over it when he wakes up. After sending a thumbs up emoji to notify that you’ve received it, you open the photo. Nothing could’ve prepared you for what your eyes saw. This is definitely not the words you heard earlier, this carried more weight, and seemed to be more romantic? It sounded like it. 

[ You ] : can you send it again? i think you sent me a different song.. 

If your hunch was right, this is probably why he had told you those things earlier. You made another note to talk to him when possible about this. Because while he has made his feelings rather evident to you, you have yet to make yours evident to him. You keep your phone in your pocket as you head home. 

Maybe working with them has made you read between the lines more than needed. 

#hongjoong scenarios #yay cliff hangers #hongjoong fluff #just late night things that don't always make sense #ateez scenarios #my writings #ateez fluff

[sheliesshattered]

This Isn’t A Ghost Story extras for Chapter 5: The Present

It’s Friday, so the next chapter of This Isn’t A Ghost Story has been posted! Chapter 5 is here on Tumblr, and here on AO3. There are spoilers below the cut, but I walk through the chapter in order, so it’s fairly safe to keep this one open for visual references as you read, if you want.

Those of you who have been following along with my writing process for This Isn’t A Ghost Story may have noticed how the story grew and morphed on me as I wrote. Despite knowing early-on the sort of story I wanted to tell and all the facets of the mystery that would need to be revealed, the story still managed to grow organically and surprise me at various points.

When I finished chapter 4 and started working on chapter 5, I had every intention that chapter 5 would be the final chapter, with a short epilogue that followed -- six chapters total, rather than the eight we ended up with. I knew what plot points and mystery reveals ch5 needed to cover, and I figured I could fit it all into one reasonably sized chapter. Even as late as the last week of July I was still thinking along those lines, and I quite nearly started posting chapters then, thinking I was nearly finished writing. 

But something held me back from posting, and when I woke up the next morning I realized that chapter 5 really needed to be split. What ended up being chapter 5 and chapter 6 are together about 12,300 words, which wouldn’t have been the longest chapter I’ve ever posted, but certainly longer than I meant for chapters in this story to be, and thankfully I was able to find a good spot to split it.

As with the rest of this story, my husband Jack has been acting as my beta reader and in-house cheerleader, and particularly after reading chapter 4 he was really adamant that I keep focusing on writing and get through the story as quickly as possible -- maybe partially so I could start posting, but mostly so he could read it and find out the answers to the rest of the mystery, lol. Starting with chapter 5, he began reading chunks of the chapter as I finished them, and then eventually went back and re-read all of chapter 5. And every time he’s read it, he’s commented that this is his favorite line in the entire chapter:

“No,” she told him firmly. “Not unless you take away my say in it.” She didn’t add again, but she knew they were both thinking it.

Jack and I have been together nearly two decades, and I think it’s that shared unspoken language of spouses that he finds so amusing here.

For most parts of this story, I can’t really pinpoint exactly when I wrote a particular line or scene, as I tend to write non-consecutively as bits come to mind, tackle conversations or plot points I know will need to happen and then fill in the gaps in between, and go over any given section dozens of times making little edits or adding whole paragraphs until it reads the way I want it to, with the sort of pacing and emotional weight I think it needs. But this bit in particular, I know exactly when I wrote it:

“Our story, Doctor... It isn’t the tragedy you think it is. This isn’t a ghost story. It never was. It’s a love story. And if I know one thing about love stories? They always have a happy ending, one way or another.”

July 15th. I’d been having a rough writing day, hated everything I’d written the day before (more or less everything from the start of ch5 to that line, in its first draft form), and was feeling really unmotivated. Then I saw some excellent meta about the episode Hide on my dash that @clara-oswin-oswald​ had just posted. The title for this story comes from something the Eleventh Doctor says in that episode, and here was Sophie talking about that scene again, just when I was ready to stuff This Isn’t A Ghost Story into a drawer and never look at it again.

My intention with the title for this story had always been to evoke that line from Hide, and hope that most people would be able to fill in the second half of the sentence, “it’s a love story”, on their own. But it hadn’t occurred to me until I was reading Sophie’s meta that I could actually have Clara articulate exactly that thought within the story. The 42 words of that line of dialogue was all I managed to write on July 15th, but I woke up the next morning feeling significantly better about the story and ready to dive back in, make the edits that would fix the first part of the chapter, and keep hacking away at the next scenes to come. 

Of course, the next bit I was trying to connect up with was actually something I’d written parts of earlier, that corresponded with the teeny tiny detail I’d posted a little poll about way back at the end of June. I knew I wanted to introduce Clara’s wedding ring around this point in the story, but I got hung up on what it should look like. Theoretically that should be a little inconsequential detail, just a single line of prose to help the reader visualize it better, but the results from that poll -- blue, unusual, and in support of world-building -- ended up leading me down a complete rabbit hole of research, that eventually spawned what turned into chapter 8. I’ll wait to share the details on that for when we reach ch8 at the end of this month, but the relevant bits from chapter 5 are of course Clara’s ring and what inspired the Doctor to pick that one for her in the first place.

Clara’s ring is based on these two antique rings:

The center stone is what’s known as a star sapphire, which are known to be particularly stunning in direct sunlight.

The Doctor tells Clara that when he first saw it -- presumably while ring shopping before their wedding in 1923 -- he was reminded of when he took her to see the archaeological work going on at the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut in 1921. The Temple does in fact have multiple areas where the ceilings are painted blue with rayed stars. It’s a popular motif from that era of ancient Egypt and shows up in a several other places as well.

I picture the jewelry box that Clara digs up as looking something along these lines:

The other piece of jewelry that is mentioned in detail is the necklace the Doctor bought for Clara in 1925. It’s based on the winged sun disk found on many ancient Egyptian temples:

It’s also meant to be a nod to the necklace Clara wears in The Bells of Saint John and The Rings of Akhaten, similar in both design and size:

From there, we get into one of the final remaining mysteries of the story, which the Doctor is clearly reluctant to talk about. There have been hints about this as far back as the first chapter, and from comments on previous chapters, I think a few of you may have guessed that this is where things were headed. Did this reveal turn out the way you thought it would? Or did it surprise you?

Lots of heartbreak at the end of this chapter, but we’re only a few chapters away from our happy ending now. It has been so much fun for me to hear your thoughts and theories as the mystery has unfolded! Thank you to everyone who has left a comment on This Isn’t A Ghost Story, both here and over on AO3. ❤️

--

Extras for Chapter 6: The Future

#This Isn't A Ghost Story #This Isn't A Ghost Story extras #process thoughts #my writing #Doctor Who #Doctor Who fanfic #Clara and the Doctor

[enchanted-prose]

#10 Renegade Niece

i’m treating myself because I liked writing this and I wrote an impossibly long essay :,)

Word count: 5,294

Characters: Roden, Jaron, Ayvar (Original character), Jamie Todd (Original character), Merry (Original character), Nila

Notes: Edited and my goodness I just loved writing this. Also I forgot to put in lines for the last two submissions and I’m so sorry. There is one important vibe that I’m going to discuss; consider how it feels when your pet begins chewing something they’re no supposed to, and when you tell them to stop, they start chewing faster leaving you no choice but to run at them.

Sleep wasn’t something that Roden excelled at. He fell asleep whenever and wherever he did.

And it just so happened that this time, he’d fallen asleep with his head on his desk.

“Rise and shine!” Bellowed an all too familiar voice, successfully bringing a wave of sound into the once silent office.

Startled, Roden lurched backwards, his chair tipping dangerously backwards until it hit the floor, taking him with it. He shut his eyes. “Good morning Jaron.”

“There’s business to discuss, we can’t have you sleeping.”

“I know, Jaron, I know. Give me a moment, I already have a list of things I need to do.”

Although Jaron was standing at the opposite end of the room, Roden could sense his smug grin. Jaron cleared his throat. “I only wake you this early because I have to ask a favor.”

“And that is?” Roden asked, sincerely hoping it had nothing to do with waxing the hair off of his legs. Jaron had proposed that once, and every member of the king’s circle learned the importance of keeping Jaron occupied with trivial matters in addition to his political duties.

Late morning light glowed all around the room. Roden blinked several times as his head began to plant itself in the waking world. Jaron was dressed in his usual plain clothing, lucky him.

Roden wanted to scrub his teeth clean.

He hated it when he slept in his office.

“I, ah, told Mott to take it easy today because of the events from two nights ago. He has a few reports that need to be looked over and signed.”

“How many reports are there?”

It didn’t actually matter, Roden had every intention of doing them anyways

Jaron scoffed, “I don’t know the answer to that.”

“And when do they need to be finished?”

“Tonight, if possible.”

Roden groaned, and dragged himself to his feet, pulling a piece of paper from his forehead. “Alright, consider them done. But I won’t be able to spar today, Jaron, I have too many things to do.”

“It’s not a problem,” Jaron scratched the back of his head. He looked tired. “Feall is convinced that we have a vital playing piece in our custody, the girl who was captured the night he was attacked.”

The details from that night were still fresh in Roden’s mind.

He went over them as often as he could, always trying to find connections. The girl who’d been taken into custody, a member of the Faola, was somebody Roden had met before. She’d been in the Vaults one night when Roden was on patrol, and allegedly she was assisting another member of her gang in saving a trio of children from a horrific fate.

She’d told him her name: Ayvar.

Ayvar with scarlet hair who bent the rules to help other people.

It was hard to believe that somebody who would brave the Vaults would be driven to cut the head off of another human being.

There was something not quite right about the situation.

“I can see smoke coming out of your ears, are you thinking?”

“Shut up, Jaron.”

“Definitely thinking. Be careful, it’s dangerous.”

“Thank you for your concern,” Roden pinched the bridge of his nose for a split second. “Have you received any information about Queen Danika’s representatives?”

Hesitation visibly weighed on Jaron’s every move. He finally nodded. “They’ve been combing through nearby towns, and will be here tomorrow. I suspect that they will want to interview the girl who attacked Feall.”

“I told Amarinda she was allowed to visit Ayvar if she wanted, I think she’d have more progress than a group of investigators.”

“Good move, is it wrong to say I’m curious about the results?”

“So long as nobody is hurt in the process, I think it’s fine to want to know how it all ends,” Roden gestured to the door. “I’m going to check on her if you’d like to come with me.”

“Amarinda? I don’t think she’d like to be-”

“Ayvar, I meant. I’d be responsible if something happened to her.”

Jaron stepped out of Roden’s office, and combed his hand through his unruly hair. “You think she’s innocent?”

“I try to believe everyone isn’t as bad as everyone says until it can be proven true,” Roden shrugged. He rubbed his eyes.

The dungeons in the castle were odd, particularly because they provided a decent amount of space in each cell. Roden had seen all too many dungeons crafted out of caves and tunnels only big enough for a child. The scent of moldy food was a smell Roden would never come to appreciate. Jaron laughed at him when he stepped away from the mangy guard dog.

There was no telling what would happen if the mongrel bit him.

Roden tried not to think about how he’d die, but he certainly didn’t want his cause of death to be because of a nasty, dirty mutt.

Ayvar had been placed in the last cell. She’d braided her flaming hair around her head, likely to keep it out of the dirt. When Roden and Jaron approached, she sat straight up, her hands cradling her knees to her chest.

“Everything been alright?” Roden asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I suppose,” Ayvar frowned. “I’d rather not be here.”

“I’d rather that you didn’t attack my friends.” Jaron’s biting tone caused her to flinch.

“You don’t really think I was stupid enough to do that, right?”

“I’ve seen plenty of people doing stupid things.”

Roden nodded in agreement. Just the other day, he’d watched Merry shove herself into a barrel and roll off of a bridge into the Roving River. He’d also seen Jaron almost get away with sledding down the grand staircase in the throne room. However, Mott had been there to save the day.

But that unfortunately didn’t stop Jaron from trying to do it again.

Ayvar scowled, “It. Wasn’t. Me.”

“But you were there,” Roden pointed out.

“I was there because I didn’t think the plan would go through!”

“So you knew there was a plan. Who thought of it, if it wasn’t you?”

“I-,” Ayvar jumped to her feet, fire blazing in her eyes. “It’s probably a false name. Goes by all sorts of nicknames, we started calling her Patches. But the arbitrator is a woman, like me.”

“I hate false names,” Jaron mused.

“Ironic,” Roden noted.

"You have to believe me when I say that I wasn't responsible," Ayvar's voice was rising. "I don't care what anyone else says, it wasn't my fault!"

Her voice echoed through the dungeon, and received a bark of disapproval from the guard hound.

Jaron inhaled, "If what you say is true, then we'll release you, I can promise you that."

"It is true and I'll prove it. If Harlowe won't listen to me, then I'll go to Feall. He and I fought our patched enemy together."

"I do recall you saying your patched enemy was actually your friend, at one point," Roden noted. He was still getting used to having a surname to claim.

"That's not true anymore, otherwise I  wouldn't have been left in here."

"I'm sorry."

"I don't want your pity."

"Then you won't get our company either," Jaron shot back as he walked away from Ayvar's cell.

Roden stared at Ayvar, but left before she could throw any words at him. She went back to sitting in the corner, and said nothing as footsteps rang through the quiet dungeon.

A courtier was waiting for them halfway down the steps, and promptly dragged Jaron away to attend a meeting with King Oberson. Roden seized his chance to return to his chambers and scrub his teeth and face.

He'd almost managed to shave when he heard the clatter of stones from the courtyard.

Through his window, Roden could see a group of pock marked boys, their sizes varying, but their intentions the same: Torment Ayvar by throwing insults and rocks into her cell.

Abandoning the razor, Roden left his chambers, tugged a doublet over his head, and prepared himself for shooing away a gaggle of bored brats.

Too much had happened during the past few weeks. The stone-throwing boys were added to Roden's long long list of things that annoyed him.

One of the boys stood out from the rest, Jamie Todd. He'd thrown the first stone. Roden recognized him. Jamie was among the boys who were desperately hoping to somehow gain a knighthood. Hoping to mean something more.

That wouldn't happen so long as he was throwing stones at a girl in a cell.

Was having a little bit of peace in the courtyard too much to ask?

A loud whoop erupted from the boys, one of the stones had probably found its mark. Jamie waved his arms above his head as he did an odd victory dance. They'd been clever enough to draft up a little song:

When Daftie Ayvie passed away,

Whadya think they done?

Chopped her up a fishin’ bait:

Copper for a ton!

Devils have the guards on patrol who let the stones be-

A newcomer had joined the group. A girl. A head shorter than half of the boys. Much shorter than Jamie Todd, who was almost the size of Mott.

Mangled hair, holes in her chemise's shoulders. Merry had come to pick a bone.

"Fe-fi-fo fum!" Merry jabbed her finger at Jamie. "I smell the stink of a big boy's bum!"

"Hey!" Jamie cried, all of his attention glued to Merry.

Roden should have seen it coming.

Merry jabbed her elbow into Jamie's stomach, and down, down, down he went. The other boys scrambled away as Merry grabbed Jamie by the ears.

"She's going to tear them clean off!"

"Get some help!"

"My ears! Don't! You'll rip them-!

"Can't help it! Your ears are wonderfully handy!" Merry taunted. "They're like mug handles!"

Roden dashed across the courtyard as Merry slammed Jamie's head into the ground, resulting in his howls echoing across the courtyard. She triumphantly demanded an apology for throwing stones at Ayvar, but none came.

"Somebody help me!" Jamie bellowed, moments before Merry cracked her head against his.

"See the lovely stars, Jamie!"

"She's kilt me!"

"You're going to wish you'd been kilt you mangy, slimy, son of a-!"

In Merry's hubris, she'd forgotten about pinning down Jamie's hands. He swung his fist into the side of her head. Although she wobbled, she didn't topple over.

"I see a bit of brains dribbling-!" Smack! "-out of your ear!"

"Get off of me! Help! She's kilt me!"

"Pity your mother didn't cook you longer," Merry snipped, prepping to bash Jamie's head into the cobblestones again.

Roden finally managed to wedge his arms between Merry and Jamie, while Lieutenant Alistair picked up Merry by the waist, and dragged her off of Jamie. Roden nodded his thanks as Merry cursed and kicked and Jaimie wept as he covered his ears. He was convinced that his brain was bleeding out from his nose.

"I'll take care of the kids," Roden noted, motioning to the large fountain in the middle of the courtyard.

"Yes sir!" Alistair boomed as he somehow managed to keep Merry from escaping to beat the other boys as well.

"Stand up," said Roden as he let go of Jaimie. He then instructed him to follow his finger as he moved it back and forth in front of Jamie's eyes.

He wasn't sure how rattled Jamie's  brains were.

"I'm kilt," he wailed. "I'm a member of the undead. I’ll never be a knight now!"

"Not quite, but I hope you've learned something."

"I learned that I hate girls!"

"You'll have a lonely life then, I suppose. Don't throw stones at people worse off than you Jamie, it's not what a knight would do."

Jamie wiped his nose, which had finally stopped bleeding. "I'm- I'm sorry we were- we were just bored."

"Don't apologize to me. You have my permission to be inspected by the castle physician. I'll have my lieutenant escort you."

If he hadn't just been smacked around, Roden was certain Jamie would've fallen to his knees with gratitude. Speaking to the captain of the guard and being around Sir Alistair Derforgall in one day? It was any aspiring soldier's dream.

Roden had been in those shoes once. Idolizing Carthya's heroes.

But you couldn't be a hero and throw stones at prisoners in cells.

Alistair had seated Merry on the edge of the fountain. She crossed her arms. “I’m too angry to give a genuine apology right now, but I do feel bad, so I’m sorry. Give me a few hours before I have to say it to Jamie. I don’t like giving empty apologies.”

“Weren’t you just telling me about being safe while throwing a punch?” Roden asked.

“That’s because I’d- gah, don’t remind me.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be at the Dragon’s Keep?”

“Ayvar is my friend, I came to check on her,” Merry shrugged. “Dawn gave me twenty minutes, but I’ve used up that time in, ah, not very smart ways. Did you forget to shave?”

Roden held completely still as Merry trailed both of her fingers across his stubbled face. “I was in a hurry.”

“I kind of like it.”

“Really?”

“I mean, I just like you, shaved or unshaved.”

“You’re a grisly sight. Best mop you up before you return,” he grinned. Roden then pointed to his left eyebrow, where a long, thin scar started just above his eyebrow and dipped down to the top of his cheekbone. “I’ve had a few head wounds myself.”

A smile tugged at Merry’s mouth, and she visibly tried to fight it with a frown. “I suppose we’ll match.”

“We’ll have to see.”

“There’s no point to life if I don’t have a scar that makes people wonder if I’m secretly a pirate.”

“Are you secretly a pirate?” Roden pulled a spare handkerchief from his doublet pocket, “I suppose it’s my turn to clean you up, would you prefer your own spit or fountain water?”

“I’d prefer your spit, actually.”

“I’m going to pretend like you didn’t say that.”

“Because it makes you uncomfortable?”

“Quite the contrary, I think there’s a better way to exchange spit than-,” Roden cleared his throat. “I take that back. It does make me uncomfortable.”

It seemed that Merry was uncomfortable too. Her face had gone redder than the blood dripping from the cut on her forehead. “I’ll take water. It’s, ah, really warm.”

She was right, the summer morning sun was beating down on the two of them. Roden cupped the unbloodied side of her face as gingerly as he could. He wet the cloth, knelt on the ground in front of her, and forced himself not to grin as he began wiping the blood off of her forehead.

The frown faltered.

“So,” Merry said.

It wasn’t exactly a question, it was more of an invitation. There was no obligation for Roden to say anything if he wanted to. He was allowed to speak about anything that he chose to do. He could talk about the situation with Ayvar. He could talk about how his niece, Nila, wanted to have a picnic for her tenth birthday and that he didn���t know what to get her. He could talk about how he’d begun to see his childhood friend’s death in his dreams.

How he feared that there was something hiding in plain sight.

Something awful.

She was giving him a choice.

And that made him want to tell her everything.

“I have extra reports I need to file tonight,” Roden said as he wet a new portion of his handkerchief. “But I’ve spent too much time in my office. Makes me lonely.”

“Don’t your friends pay attention to you?” Merry arched her unbloodied eyebrow.

He shrugged, “From time to time. They don’t tell me colorful stories about fish hitting my face.”

That made her smile.

“By the way, I never thanked you for the coin you gave me. Where’s it from? I don’t recognize the design.”

“It’s from my home, but it’s not accepted here. Figured I’d give you a trinket. Have you considered getting a pet mountain cat to keep you company?”

“Unfortunately, the royal mountain cat keeper is fresh out of them.”

Merry’s eyes drifted shut, and Roden did his best not to think of the way her body relaxed as he continued supporting her. “Why not come to the Dragon’s Keep? It’s the slowest day of the week, I can help you. I can even promise extra lemon cream tarts.”

“Would I have to share?”

“With me, of course.”

“Promises you’ll make sure it’s a fair share?”

Merry pressed a bruised hand to her heart, “I never lie, Captain Harlowe.”

He hoped she didn’t see his ears beginning to burn. Roden managed to clear away the drying blood on Merry’s face, and ordered the nearest page to get strips of gauze. “I, ah, I’m going to make sure the wound doesn’t bleed through. Is that alright?”

“I only ask that you make me look as much like a plague victim as possible,” Merry was fiddling with her hands.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

To his surprise, when Roden drew away from Merry’s face, she pressed his hand back into place. “No wait, I’m hoping I can siphon away your extreme battle abilities.”

“Not quite sure how true that is.”

“I told you before, I don’t lie.”

“Not quite sure how true that is either.”

Once again, her face flushed bright red. Merry shoved his hand away, “Thanks, ah, uh, thanks for helping me.”

“It’s only fair.” Roden scratched the back of his neck.The page returned with a small roll of gauze. Roden began setting strips of it on the horizontal gash on Merry’s forehead. “You should probably come up with a story about why you look like a plague victim.”

“I’m thinking that I had three eyes at one point, but I tragically lost my third eye while hunting for a golden potato.”

“Not quite what I was expecting, but I’ll take it. Is there more to it?”

“Do you like hearing me talk, Captain?”

“I’ve told you it’s alright to call me by my name,” Roden said, deftly avoiding her question.

She patted the side of his face, “Captain, my friend, at one point I had a third eye, and it helped me see into the ground. I could find all sorts of buried treasure, making me the most valued person in the Eranbole sea. . .”

Words of third eyes and buried treasure fell short on Roden’s ears. As Merry continued weaving her grand story about pirates and sea monsters, his gaze fell on a curious mark on her bare shoulder.

A jagged scar.

As he finished setting the last piece of gauze on Merry’s cut, he found himself brushing his thumb over the scar, wondering where it came from.

Scars carried stories, whether good or bad.

What had Merry done to get a scar on her shoulder? There were others near it, many of them were hiding underneath her printed chemise. Marks of the past. All pale and pink against her skin.

Merry went completely silent, and Roden flinched once he realized what he’d done.

Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.

Devils have him. Roden looked right at Merry’s crimson face, stared right at those mausoleum grey eyes.

Don’t be the first to look away, don’t be the first to look away-

Suddenly the cobblestones became very interesting.

“I, ah, I’m-,” she stuttered, both of her hands going to tug on her earlobes.

Roden all but jumped to his feet, “I have to go now.”

“I don’t think so, I’m not quite finished with our conversation.”

Roden rubbed the back of his neck, desperate to be away from his mistake.

But he couldn’t bring himself to walk away.

“Treat me like a princess, Roden, please,” Merry said, bouncing back from the awkward moment. She held out her hand, palm down, expectant.

A series of scars were visible on her third and fourth fingers, just below the nails. Roden forced himself not to look too long, and took Merry by the hand, “My apologies, lady.”

In a grand motion, Merry waved her hand across the open air, “No apologies are needed sir knight. You’ll find I am quite spotted all over, and not from freckles.”

“I’m really sorry if-,” He began, but Merry was one step ahead of him.

“No, no, don’t be sorry, it’s really alright. I got that scar as a child. My favorite method of travel was jumping rock to rock, and I missed my target once.”

“I’m sure all toads everywhere envied your skill.”

“Oh they did, trust me, they did. I’d ah, I’d tell you more . . But you’ll have to forgive me for leaving so soon, Dawn’s going to have my head if I’m late.”

He didn’t want to admit that he didn’t like watching her leave. 

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

Nila sat on his desk, swinging her legs. Her long golden hair had been pinned on her head, and yet despite the obvious effort that had been put into it, several strands had managed to escape. Dirt stains pooled at her elbows.

She was doing a wondrous job holding a stack of papers for Roden.

“I found a cool feather today, but I dropped it in the river,” Nila mused, a slight frown appearing on her rosy face. “It had stripes.”

“A striped feather, you say?” Roden made a face.

“Black and white, I thought it would look cool as a mast for a stick ship, but I got so excited about it, I dropped it.”

“Then I’ll have to help you find another one.”

Nila tapped her boot heel against the desk, “I’m free on every second day of the week, but only in the afternoons. I can fit you into my schedule.”

“You have a schedule now, do you?” He caught himself chuckling. “I would gladly take any available time that I can.”

Everywhere, there were reports hiding. Roden managed to gather all of Mott’s reports, but unfortunately, had managed to lose track of half of his own. He pawed through every drawer he could, every shelf and cabinet.

If it weren’t for Nila keeping track of what had been found and what hadn’t, he would’ve wasted much more time.

How could he let himself get so disorganized?

Roden ran his hands through his hair, “I think that’s all we’re going to find.”

“I can take a turn looking,” Nila offered. She grinned, a pair of dimples making their appearance. “You’ve obviously got something else on your mind.”

“I don’t- I, ah, everything’s under control.”

Although everything didn’t really feel like it was under control. Roden once again ran his hands through his hair, thinking of anything he might’ve missed. Several hours had passed since he’d last seen Merry. It wouldn’t be long before sunset.

“Are you meeting somebody?” Asked Nila, her boot beating out a new rhythm. “Are you going on patrol again?”

“No, no,” Roden said, walking from his desk to the door. “I mean, yes, I’m going to be with a friend of mine. No patrolling for me though, that’s tomorrow night.”

“That’s interesting. Much more interesting than my evening, anyway.”

“I thought you had a busy schedule, sounds pretty exciting to me.”

“Being busy doesn’t mean I’m having fun. Where are you going?”

“Sounds like you’re planning on trying to come with me. . .”

Nila frowned as deeply as she could. “I’m just asking!”

As he paced back and forth, Roden smiled. He was walking to the beat of Nila’s boot hitting the desk. That drew a grin out of her once he mentioned it to her.

He loved being with Nila. She was charming and bursting with life, and made his day a little bit brighter. In time, he saw her as more of a little sister than a niece.

There were many things Roden would always regret.

Things like never knowing his dead brother; Nila’s father.

Too many opportunities had been lost, and Roden was determined not to lose any more precious moments. He’d been cheated out of years and years of memories.

It was time to make new ones.

But he wasn’t sure if taking a ten year old girl to a tavern was one of them.

“Please, please, please, please, please take me with you,” Nila begged. “I don’t want to have to take tea with Lady Orlaine’s whatever they are.”

“Lady Orlaine’s wards?” Roden offered.

“Yes! Them! They’re mean to me, dreadfully boring too. I call them the Greys. Because they make everything grey around them, get it?”

Roden took the numerous papers from Nila and shoved them into a satchel. He’d have to depend on Merry for ink, he didn’t trust himself not to spill any as he walked across Drylliad.

He wouldn’t be able to know if the Dragon’s Keep was truly empty until he got there, and he’d rather not risk taking Nila to a place not quite appropriate for a child.

She took the rejection well, however, Roden wished he’d been able to bring her with him.

The regret was even worse the moment Roden stepped into the Dragon's Keep, only to find that it was as empty as Merry claimed it was.

Aside from the old man strumming a lute in the corner, the only sound was a ghost of a conversation from the back.

Dawn was behind the counter, her grey streaked hair piled into a bun on top of her head.

Another barmaid was sitting in the corner beside a young man. No sign of Merry.

"Captain! It's nice to see you!" Dawn called, waving her cloth in greeting.

"It's nice to be here," Roden countered with a smile.

She turned around, and retrieved a large tankard, "Are you looking for a drink?"

"Oh! No, no, I'm looking for a person, actually. It's Merry, actually, she wanted to talk."

"I'm sure she did, I'm sure she did. Merry! It's rude to keep a guest waiting!"

The conversation grew louder, louder, louder, until finally, Merry came strutting out. She’d changed her chemise, this one was green and hid her scarred shoulder. A patterned scarf rested neatly over her hair and behind her ears.

She pointed at the mass of gauze on her head, “Still in one piece!”

“I’m not surprised, you can hold your own,” Roden grinned. Now comfortable, he set his paper filled satchel on the wooden countertop, and perched on a tall stool.

“You should see her fight a door, it’s quite frightening,” teased Dawn.

“They are the bane of my existence.” Merry stared hard at the front door, and shook her fist at it before bursting into a series of snickers.

“A truly noble quest.”

Merry snatched a used tankard, and began scrubbing at the insides. Her smile faltered, “How’s Jamie Todd?”

“He’s alright, just a little concerned that he was caught throwing stones at a person.”

“Good, that’s good. You sure he’s fine?”

“Saw him myself a few hours ago,” Roden said. He retrieved a few reports, and set them on the counter. “Do you have-?”

“Ink? Right here,” Merry reached below the counter. “And we have a variety of writing tools to choose from too.”

“Don’t use the quill!” Dawn ordered from the other end of the bar. The door opened and closed. “Take care of that guest!”

The glass Merry had been scrubbing at clinked against the counter. Her brows screwed together, “I’ll take care of it.”

“What are you-,” Roden began, but Merry snapped her fingers near his face. He brushed her hands away, “I know, I know, I need to get my work done.”

“I’ll check back in on you in a moment, have that other guest to see,” Merry leaned over the bar, and smoothed her hand over Roden’s head.

He glared at the first report waiting to be finished. Check the details. Signature here, signature there. Next report. Check the details. Signature here, signature there, and so on and so forth. He caught a few snippets from Merry’s conversation with the new guest.

Something about lemon cream tarts.

Saints, he really wanted one of-

No! He had to do a report first!

Report first, tart later!

Merry set a hand on his shoulder, “Your handwriting.”

“I know, I know, it’s messy,” Roden shrugged.

“I was going to say that I like it, sir knight.”

Oh.

She disappeared behind the bar, reappearing moments later with a lemon cream tart in each hand. Roden received his first, much to his delight, and technically, he did manage to finish two reports.

He deserved a tart.

“-I completely understand! Court life is horrifically boring,” Merry said, her voice barely audible above the lute strings.

“I’m glad somebody gets it!” Chirped the guest, their voice oddly familiar.

But not familiar enough to draw his attention away from his blasted reports.

The lemon cream tart made it easier to bear.

Snippets of the conversation still drifted into Roden’s atmosphere. Merry laughed, “And is there anything else I can get you?”

“No thank you, but I do appreciate that you asked me,” came the reply.

And then Merry’s hand was back on his shoulder, asking him if there was anything she could do to help. Unless she was good at forgery, there wasn’t much she could do.

Roden scribbled through report after report, firmly aware that Merry was watching his every move.

He managed to finish the tart just as he finished his first pile of reports.

“And onto the next one,” Roden mumbled.

“Ah, ah, ah, take a tiny break, Captain,” Merry chided. She set her hands on Roden’s, “One stack is worth a victory celebration.”

“Do I get another tart?”

“Possibly, unless you’d prefer a pie.”

Pies were good, when baked properly.

Merry’s hands were cool on his palms.

Cool on his battle torn hands.

They fit too well in his own. A little too nicely. It was impossible to timidly turn his palms up, impossible not to hold Merry’s rough fingers.

He supposed he preferred that to a tart.

And a pie.

“Why are you holding hands with him?” Asked the other guest from right behind Roden.

He jumped, his eyes flying to the voice’s owner.

Only to find Nila with a little bit of lemon cream still on her top lip.

“Oh, uh, because-,” Merry stuttered, however, Roden had a better prepared retort.

“What are you doing here?”

Nila shrugged, “I was bored, so I followed you.”

“And you saw her come in, but didn’t tell me?” Roden asked, turning his attention to Merry.

She made a face, and clasped her hands behind her back. “I only did what I was told.”

“I wanted to surprise you, mostly so I could prove that it’s perfectly acceptable for me to go with you to things,” Nila pointed out. She clambered onto the stool beside Roden. “And I’m very helpful. I can read through your reports. All you’d have to do is sign.”

“Doesn’t mean you’d understand what’s going on,” noted Roden.

“That’s not important, all that matters is that everything is spelled correctly.”

Merry nodded, “She does have a point.”

A smile spread across his face, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t be rid of it, but he did manage to contain it to a slight smirk.

He handed a stack of papers to Nila.

Every so often, Roden glanced up to make sure Merry was still near, and watched as she cleaned tankard after tankard.

She beamed at him each time she caught him looking.

And all he could think about was the way her cool hands felt when they rested on his own.

#roden #ocs #prince jaron #fic friday #fic Friday except its a thursday #this #was literally #too fun #shamelessly fluffy #also nila is absolutely the best #I love her #shes a chaotic blonde child #wait #nila = cosette from les mis confirmed #the ascendance series #the ascendance trilogy #the false prince

[fmdtaeyongarchive]

↬ come back to me again.

date: october 2019 to september 2020.

location: unspecified.

word count: 1,810 words, not including lyrics.

summary: man briefly considers writing about self-love before throwing that shit idea out the window and deciding to write about his love life angst instead.

triggers n/a.

notes: creative claims verification. this took me an hour to write and it’s not edited and you can tell both of those things... it’s not my best... anyway, it’s my last verification for ash’s album and that’s all i care about! mentions of youngjoo.

the song takes him a year to write, though he has no expectation of such a long time frame when he begins. 

the first notes of what will one day become a full song are put down the morning after he and youngjoo sleep together again for the first time since they’d broken up. he’s still trying to process what had happened, head spinning with a mix of doubt and affection. he’s fresh off of a break-up. he’s been single for two months after the most serious relationship of his life, and he’s fallen back into bed with his ex. not any ex, but the one he’d once thought would be his second to last lover. and the one he’d also once thought would be his last lover, but who was keeping count of his romantic delusions at this point?

when they’d had their talk that spring, ash had never considered it might end like this. they’d talked and cleared the air and he’d been happy they might be able to become friends again. genuinely, with no ulterior motives. after all, he’d been happy as only her friend once and, at the time, he hadn’t had eyes for anyone else but the man whose ring he wore on his finger or on a chain he tucked under the neckline of his shirt.

but being with her again. it had come so easily, so naturally, like their bodies and hearts had been made for one another.

that’s an awfully dangerous thought to have. it’s sex, not a reignition of their relationship, he reminds himself.

he doesn’t think he’s writing about youngjoo after she leaves that morning, but when he looks back on it, he recognizes it sounds like her. a year later, he isn’t so sure where his own identity ends and his feelings for her begin, though, so he could be wrong.

it’s the insistent but mellow melody of the guitar that later on reminds him of the piece he writes for her for her birthday, one of the happier nights they spend together. the happy nights pose an unexpected problem. he falls deeper when there’s no space between them for anything but shy smiles and fond words. the nights he blocks her out are easier, even when they send him into week-long spirals and drinking binges he hates himself for only because he doesn’t want the unseen eyes of nature to judge them as her fault.

that’s why he sees youngjoo in the song. at times, the piece he’d written pushes forward with unrestrained urgency, but at other points, it slows to a icy hesitance. in the softness, there’s also a coldness.

so maybe it’s not that it reminds him of her, but that it reminds him of them. they’re terribly complicated, and the track is more simple, but conflicted emotions tangle within its notes even without words present.

it’s closed-in, almost claustrophobic at times but at other times, he feels like he’s standing in the middle of a field listening to the work he’s created. isn’t that a lot like intimacy?

and when he thinks of intimacy, his mind races back to that night in october with youngjoo. there had been more breaths exchanged between them than words, but it’d been so loud.

relearning someone. that’s new, but ash has become a master in it over the past year. it hasn’t been a mission only of relearning each other’s bodies as it should have been. he’s re-mapped youngjoo’s heart and her mind (the parts she’ll show him — he’s silently accepted that there’s parts of her hidden in darkness his prying searchlights haven’t been able to reach yet, and that’s why he feels so lost in her presence at times).

there are also parts of it that eschew the wonder of her or the unmitigated confusion of them.

what is there left for those parts to be but him?

he decides those are the most hollow parts of the song. ash doesn’t know if he himself is hollow. as much as there are mornings he wakes up with nothing inside of him, there are times he works to find a balance only to end his day trying to fall asleep amid the flood of everything spilling out on the sheets around him.

working on the song on and off over the course of a year, it’s become a pet project. when nothing else is going right, he opens the song up and adds one thing or takes one thing away or changes something that he’s decided isn’t meant to be the way he’d originally put it, and then he moves on, content with the fact he’s done something.

it’d be easy for it to become crowded this way, but it’s instead one of the more threadbare instrumentals he has with a last saved date within the year. it’s almost more akin to the simple production he’d opted for in the beginning of his days as a solo artist. back then, he’d been an amateur producer and his ideas had often been tossed aside in favor of what bc’s more experienced producers decided would be best for the words and music he had been more entrusted with creating, but he hadn’t had any objections back then to a more naked production angle, either.

now he’s a fan of bold percussion (and there’s some of that in this song, too, as the track grows late into its own night and that’s also where the ghost of an emotional climax of words he hasn’t yet written lays) and layers of vocals on top of strings and samples on top of more vocals, but just listening to this homemade quilt of a track reminds ash of the boy he’d once been, long before that october a whole year ago.

it reminds ash of a boy who saw a future for himself as a poet on stage with a guitar, happy with no more than a small audience to hear songs that he’d created to support his lyrics instead of as a marketing package for selling others’ goods.

that ash had been inexperienced as a songwriter in comparison to the ash of today, but his love for what he wrote had been so unbelievably pure.

such purity is something that’s escaped ash ever since he’d had it stolen from him with fatalism, when one moment of success had turned bc entertainment’s greed up a hundred notches and money and marketing had won out over the charming singer-songwriter niche ash, taeyong, had once occupied.

love for music isn’t the name of the game of the idol industry and it’d only taken a year or two in the midst of it for ash to realize, but seven years into his career had been the first time he’d felt his own love slipping away from him.

it’d been losing grip on the only rope he had keeping him from falling all the way down to the bottom of the canyon under the cliff he’d fallen off of.

this song isn’t his lifeline. it’s an experiment. a recycling bin. but listening to it days before he’s supposed to turn his final demos in for his album, ash hangs every stray emotion on it he has left and makes a last minute decision that this song is a puzzle piece he needs if he wants an honest album.

putting lyrics to it poses a new problem entirely. there are too many memories tied to each ascending and descending note, and it doesn’t seem like there’s a way to bring all of the themes together without making a messy, overloaded concoction out of a piece that’s already been stitched together from discarded pieces of musical fabric.

ash searches his mind for the common thread between everything he’s placed on hooks around the song’s center and only one thing sticks out: longing for something that’s slipped away. one line imprints itself on his mind from that thought, and he scribbles it down in barely legible font on a notepad and then pulls off the sticky note to hang on the edge of the computer screen so there’s no way it can slip his mind.

come back to me again.

that’s the heart of the song. it’s where he’s been for the past year, in an endless battle to bring back to him the things he’d once had and had lost. passion, control, self-acceptance, stability, love. love. love for his music, for his life, for youngjoo. for himself.

he writes a rough draft of lyrics about each lost love he wants back, and they come to him with varying shades of ease and resistance. music is the easiest to write about, but the lyrics don’t fit the other songs he’s submitting, so he sets that draft aside and moves onto his next idea. writing about love of life is foreign for him, and it shows in the way he doesn’t feel that he even has the vocabulary to grasp the undefinable emotions that tie themselves around the concept like a cocoon meant to keep it safe in his head until it’s ready to fly out into the world.

he gives up on that one early, only to move on to the concept of self-love, which gets abandoned even faster. he’s getting a headache at this point and his patience for the idea of writing a song about himself in such a way grows so short that he tears up the paper half a verse into trying to write it.

that leaves him with youngjoo.

he’s written so many songs about her already. thinking about another makes him shift in his seat nervously. each song with youngjoo woven into it that makes it onto his album is another admission of how deep he’s gotten into this mess with her, but writing comes so much easier when it’s about her than almost anything else.

it’d be fitting if that’s how it ends up, though. a song begun in what he’d thought to be a disconnected stroke of inspiration at the beginning of all this, turned into yet another self-lead pen and paper therapy session.

so he lets himself.

it bleeds into two scenes overlapping on top of each other. the soft oranges and yellows and reds of that night together last october and the five million shades of grey of the now. they shape a world existing both in the past and the present, a world confused by its own duality, and then eating its own tail, creating a triplicity with the blues of three years ago.

it doesn’t exist in one dimension, instead pushing itself to the limits of depth and time outside of ash’s conscious control. from verse to verse, the feelings switch time periods, and yet, when they all come together, they easily slide into one story — a never-ending tale he’s written himself into.

#fmdverification #i wrote 22993 words of verification for this album . i would not suggest that to anyone ever btw . #i really did not think i'd get these done in time yall... god. #you will not be hearing from me for a month now #&& when you're screaming but they only hear you whisper | self para

[goldgalaxytea-fanfics]

Forget me not

Rating:  Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen, M/M

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Relationship: Keith Kogane x Lance McClain

Characters: Lance, Lance’s family,  Unnamed generic doctors, Original Therapist character, Keith, Shiro, Hunk, Pidge | Katie Holt

Additional Tags:  Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Memory Loss, Amnesia, Healing, Therapy, Crying, Recovered Memories, Hugs, group hug, Kissing, kissing while crying, Boys Kissing, Langst

Words: 955

Summary:

Lance returned home after he'd been missing for months, except he had no memories of where he had been, or anything before his disappearance for that matter. Though when he slept, his dreams were full of colorful lions, space, and people in colored armor that seemed oddly familiar...

Notes:

I wrote the rough draft for this about a year or two ago and finally edited it last night cuz no matter how many years pass I'll always love Voltron🥺 

It had been a few weeks since Lance had “returned”. At least, that's what everyone told him. His family, his therapist and everyone else he supposedly knew all said the same thing. He'd been attending some kind of space school when one night he just vanished into thin air. But it wasn't just him, two other kids that also attended the school were missing as well. There was no trace of any of them anywhere up until a few months ago when Lance had shown up out of nowhere in his bedroom. At least, everyone told him it was his bedroom. He doesn't remember ever seeing it before. The posters on his walls displayed movies he never watched. The photos beside his bed showed him with people he never met before. The clothes in his closet held outfits he never bought. Nothing in there meant anything to him. Someone could tell him it wasn't his room and he'd believe them without a second thought.

His family, or at least the people who said they were his family, were happy to see him when he appeared. They heard loud noises coming from “his room” and had rushed up to see what the commotion was. They had all stood frozen in shock when they found him stumbling about "his room", confused about where he was. They had all hugged him and cried, but he screamed and yelled. He didn't know who those people were. They thought it was a joke at first, tried laughing it off as some prank he was playing. But as the moments passed and he continued to stare at them in fear, the hard truth finally set in. They had been heartbroken when they learned that he truly didn't remember anything. So they explained. 

They told him about themselves and about his life before he “vanished”. He listened to every word, every story, but a few minutes later it disappeared from his mind like a puddle on a sunny day. Once again he was surrounded by complete strangers and so he started to panic all over again. His "family’s” hearts broke even more. They kept explaining everything to him as they took him to see “someone who would help”. They had doctors look at his brain and what they found baffled everyone. The X-rays showed hundreds of lines all over his brain, skull and neck. There had been a severe amount of blunt force trauma to his head. The Frankenstein monster like healed seams suggested his head was cracked open like an egg.

Yet they had no idea what exactly had caused it nor how he had been able to physically heal from it. The amount of force needed to injure his brain that terribly should've killed him. Or if he was lucky it would've put him on the verge of death. Even then no human technology could've helped in time, he would've died within minutes from the wounds. There’s no way Lance should be alive right now, yet here he was…

That left his “family” even more confused. Where exactly had he gone? What had he done to injure himself so badly? How did he manage to survive an injury that was guaranteed to end him? Their questions were all left unanswered, for the only person able to answer them didn't even know.

They then learned that there wasn't a surgery they could do to help with his memory. There was nothing physical they could fix and magically make better. If his mind was going to heal it would have to do it on its own. The doctor said there was a small chance that with time Lance would be able to retain memories again, and an even smaller chance that he'd remember his old memories. That made his “family” sad, but they were at least happy there was a possibility of getting “their Lance” back. But Lance didn't know what to think of everything going on around him when he woke up on a cold metal table. He was surrounded by people crying their hearts out, scary looking metal tools and people in white coats observing his every move. He didn't know what this place was, or who those people were.

Lance started to scream.

☆☆☆☆

As time went on, Lance started retaining memories. By some miracle he seemed to be recovering. It started with his name, Lance. Then he was able to remember where he was, his house. And then he was able to gradually remember his family, all their names and who they were to him. After that he was slowly able to remember the stories they told him about them, himself and his life before the accident. 

Lance was also regularly going to a therapist (the doctors had suggested it, saying it could help him). He was even able to eventually remember her. She was a woman somewhere in her late twenties with long brown hair styled into a messy bun. Her outfit changed everyday, but her bright red glasses were always the same. Her name was Lilly. Wait, that wasn't right. Lilu. Her name was Lilu. Lance paused, trying his best to remember. That wasn't her name, it was a nickname. The woman said it'd be easier to remember and it was less formal than calling her by her last name. Surprisingly though, the first thing that Lance remembered about her wasn't her name. It was her glasses, or more specifically her red glasses. That was the only thing he was able to remember about her for quite awhile. He'd just refer to her as Red. But that hadn't felt...right. For some reason he felt like the name belonged to someone, or something, else. When he first told his therapist about it she figured the color red must be in some way important to him. Possibly it was the color of someone close or important to him. But Lance didn't know who or what the color was connected to. And that made him upset, yet he didn't even know why 

★☆☆☆

As he got better, he started to have strange dreams. He never remembered them when he woke up, except for a few bits and pieces. Space, lions and people in some kind of colored armor. The one that stood out the most to him was the person in red. Lance didn't know who they were or what they looked like, but he'd wake up feeling like he was forgetting something important. This left him frustrated. He was tired of not being able to remember stuff, even if it was just a dream. 

His dreams continued and it was always the same story. Space, lions, those people, waking up and barely remembering the dream, the feeling that he forgot something important, that person in red… Lance was getting tired of it. He desperately wished that something would change. Eventually, he got his wish.

It had been exactly a year since Lance had returned. Nothing about the day felt different, just a normal Saturday. He woke up to his alarm, his therapist appointment was early today. But when he awoke he didn't scream in frustration like he usually did. Instead he sat there, eyes and mouth wide open in shock. His dream had been different that night. He remembered it, he remembered all of the details, including what the people looked like. Except he didn't know their names. He was upset about that fact, but that didn't stop a large grin from spreading across his face. He was finally able to remember the dream that had been eluding him for almost half a year. Lance jumped out of bed and quickly got dressed, excited to go tell his therapist about what had happened. Lance hoped that this meant he was getting better. He didn't realize it also meant other things...

★★☆☆

He burst into his therapist’s room, excitement bouncing off of him in waves. The door slammed into the wall with a loud BANG. Lilu didn't seem to mind though, she just looked up from the book she was reading (something about Person Jackie and the Olympics? Lance was too excited to really read the title) and smiles at him. 

“You sure seem excited this morning, Lance. What's up?”

Lance grinned. 

“I remembered my dream!”

Lilu set down her book as Lance walked over and got comfy in the chair in front of her desk. 

“Really? That's good, Lance!”

The woman reached into her desk and pulled out a notebook and a pencil. She opened the book and then glanced at Lance, smiling softly. 

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

Lance smiled and nodded.

“So it takes place in space. There's giant colorful lions and they fight a bad guy who's trying to take over the universe.”

His name is Zarkon

Lilu nodded, making notes about what Lance said. 

“Except they aren't actual lions, they're robots. And there's people that fly them. And when they combine together, they make one giant badass robot!”

It's called Voltron

Lilu glanced up at him. 

“Who were the pilots?”

Lance paused for a moment, thinking. 

“There's four of them.”

There's five

“There's three guys and a girl.”

You're forgetting someone

“The leader, he wears black armor and he's very muscular. And he has a robotic arm that's a weapon. How cool is that? His weapon is the ultimate bitch slap!”

This earned him a laugh from Lilu. She silenced herself and gestured for him to continue. 

“He's also the oldest and he acts like he's the dad of the others. He's really amazing! He makes the best leader. Oh! And he pilots the black lion!”

Lilu nodded, “Do you know his name?”

Lance’s face scrunched up. Trying to remember, but finding nothing. His head started to hurt. 

“No…”

Yes

“The only name I can think of is space dad.”

His name is Shiro

Lance stopped trying to remember the name and the pain slowly faded away.

“Then there's this big guy in yellow armor. But he's the good kind of big, like he would give amazing hugs! He's also hands down the best cook ever! He's a really nice dude! He has a big heart. He pilots the yellow lion!”

Lilu wrote some things down in the notebook. 

“Are you able to remember his name?”

Lance's head began to hurt again. 

“No, I can't…”

His name is Hunk

Lance stopped trying to remember.

“Then there's this small girl with short light brown hair, big round glass and green armor. She may be tiny, but she's mighty! You don't want to mess with her. I know from experi-” Lance stopped suddenly, gripping his head in pain.

You know from experience

Lilu put down her pencil, concerned about the boy in front of her. 

“Lance? Lance, are you okay?”

No he's not, he doesn't remember!

Lance stopped thinking and the pain slowly eased away. Lance let go of his head and smiled nervously. 

“Yeah… I'm fine… Anyway, she's super smart and good with technology! And she pilots the green lion!”

Lilu glanced over at him, still concerned about the man before her, but let him continue.

“Her name was K- wait no it's-”

Pidge

Once again his face scrunched up in pain, but he couldn't remember. Lance sighed and stopped.

“And then there's this guy who has red armor-”

Lance's chest hurt.

“-and a mullet. A mullet, can you believe it? But-”

Lance's eyes burned.

“-it looked good on him. He piloted the red Lion. He was my-”

Boyfriend

A choked scream burst from Lance as his face contorted in pain again, but this time it was different. His head wasn't the only thing that hurt, so did his heart. He gasped, struggling to make the pain go away.

Before he knew it there were arms wrapped around him, and without thinking Lance muttered a name he didn't know or understand.

“Keith…”

I'm here, Lance!

Lilu pulled away, her face full of concern. She held out some tissues to Lance. He just stared at her, confused. She put the tissues in his hand.

“Lance, you're crying…”

He reached up and touched his cheek. Sure enough, there were tears. He was crying, and he didn't know why...

“Lance-”

Lance!

Lance jumped, startled from his thoughts. He looked at her, eyes blank, mind racing.

“-who's Keith?”

His boyfriend!

Lance struggled against the avalanche of pain.

“I...don't know….”

You do know!

Lance cried harder, the pain getting too intense.

Lance…

Lance!

Please, you have to remember!

★★★☆

“Please, you have to remember!” He raised his fist, about to slam it into the side of the building.​ “You have to-”

The man’s cry was cut short. He stood there, unable to move, but his mind racing. His red armor shined brightly in the sun.

“Keith…”

He met the gaze of the man in Black armor and glared at him, but then he noticed his face. It was sad, and his eyes were wet. With a start, Keith realized so was his. Shiro cleared his throat.

“I'm sorry. I know you miss him and you're hurting. We all understand​ how you feel…”

Keith let his gaze wander to the other two standing with them. Hunk and Pidge had streams of tears running down both of their faces. Keith choked on a sob as he let his arm fall limp. Shiro released his grip on the Red Paladin's arm. Keith collapsed, sobs shaking his entire body. Shiro caught him before he hit the ground. The older man held him tight as he clung to him.

“Keith… I'm sorry, I really am… but we need to go. He doesn't remember us, we might make things worse for his mind…”

Keith’s sadness quickly turned to anger, an old defense habit of his. He knew it wasn't good for him, but right now he didn't care. He forcefully pulled himself out of Shiro’s embrace.

“How can you say that?!” Keith snarled, barely able to see anything through his tears. “How can you give up on him?! He's starting to remember! He's remembering who he is!! Who we all are!!! How could you just give up on him…”

The end of Keith's yelling turned into a whisper. He blinked the tears out of his eyes, finally able to see clearly again. Shiro was crying just as hard as he was. Keith glanced at Pidge and Hunk, both sobbing as they held onto each other. Keith screamed, his voice strained and pained as he kicked the side of the building. His foot throbbed in pain, but he didn't care at the moment. Keith took deep breaths and stared at the ground. He couldn't meet anyone's eyes.

“I'm… sorry. I shouldn't have gotten mad or yelled I just… it hurts so much I just… I just can't…” Keith trailed off, still refusing to meet their gazes. He saw Shiro approach but didn't move. The older boy put a hand on his shoulder.

“Keith… it's alright. You're upset, I understand what you're feeling… I want him back too, more than anything… but, we can't. We tried our best but he just… he doesn't remember… I'm sorry…” Shiro tried his best to reassure him as he pulled him into another hug. Keith gladly returned it, eyes closing as he tried his best to calm down.

It was a nice moment, until he felt a new pair of eyes on him. Instantly his eyes flew open, worried someone had spotted them. When he found the source his eyes widened, hope daring to raise inside of him again. A few feet away, a pair of bright blue eyes met his.

★★★★

Lance didn't know what came over him. One minute he was doubled over in pain in his therapist's room, and the next thing he knows the pain is gone and he's staring at the people from his dream. He didn't remember hearing screaming from outside, he didn't remember Lilu asking him where he was going, he didn't remember anything about following the strangely familiar voices, but he did remember the people that stood before him. Silent tears flooded his face as he finally remembered everything.

He remembered running away from the Garrison and ending up in space. He remembered Blue, his lion. He remembered becoming the Blue Paladin of Voltron. Along with his friends, the other Paladins. He remembered every fight, every mission, every injury. He remembered how he forgot.

A mission they thought was over, ruined by a surprise blast from a barely conscious galra guard. Keith had been distracted, too busy kissing Lance in celebration to notice. As they pulled back, Lance had seen the blast a second too late. He couldn't push Keith out of the line of fire in time so he switched places with him. The blast destroyed his jetpack and sent him flying over the edge of a steep fall. He had landed head first, skull cracking on impact. The other paladins had managed to get Lance into a healing pod just in time to save his life, but they couldn't save his memories. He had awoken and panicked, not knowing anything at all. But no matter how many times they explained things to him, it would simply vanish from his mind a few minutes later. It had been a hard decision, but they were left with no choice. He was in no state to fight and they weren't able to look after him until he got better. If he got better… So with teary eyes they took him back to his family on Earth. Lance sobbed, how could he forget his family, his friends, his boyfriend?

A hand gently wiped his tears away. Startled, Lance's bright blue eyes meet violet ones.

"Keith!" Lance grabbed the black haired man's face and pulled it to his, smashing their lips together in a messy kiss. Keith jolted in surprise before trying to return it, his broken sobs making it difficult. The brunette pulled away first. "I-"

"Please tell me you remember…" Keith whispered. Words quiet, as if he spoke louder it would cause the man before him to disappear once again. Lance gave a small peck to his cheek.

"I remember everything. I missed you guys, even if I couldn't remember you till now." He said with a smile. Next thing he knew, Lance was being crushed by four pairs of arms covered in suits of armor. No one could tell who's limbs or tears were who's as the five just held each other and cried, so happy to finally be reunited.

"We missed you too, Lance."

Notes:

Fun fact! This was based on a short story I wrote in middle school about a Homestuck fan session involving my friends lol

#klance #klance fanfic #klance fanfiction #keith x lance #keith x lance fanfic #keith x lance fanfiction #lance x keith #lance x keith fanfic #lance x keith fanfiction #keith kogane x lance mcclain #keith kogane x lance mcclain fanfic #keith kogane x lance mcclain fanfiction #keith kogane #lance mcclain #vld #vld fanfic #vld fanfiction #voltron legendary defender #voltron legendary defender fanfic #voltron legendary defender fanfiction #fanfic #fanfiction #writing #writer

[saja-star]

I have slightly less, but very similar, items in return: 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 17, and 38!

Question list here.

1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.

It’s mostly/all dialogue. The characters get in an argument about something, and during the conversation figure out where the other is coming from and come to some mutual understanding. Plot happens vaguely in the background.

2.  Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

I’ve been wanting to write a sickfic. I feel like that’s so suited to Venom, with healing and an awareness of the body being such a big part of things.

5. Share one of your strengths.

I like to think I’m good at humor in dialogue. I can’t like, do it on purpose? But sometimes I’m writing a scene and it just turns into banter and that’s one of my favorite parts of writing.

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

From Rescue:

There was a prick of danger as they approached the boy, and they got ready to cover his mouth if he screamed—

They collapsed, writhing on the floor as noise sheared through their flesh like a razor blade, slicing right down to the core of them, to the place where they were connected, and severing it, leaving Venom to drip from Eddie’s shaking body like black blood from a poisoned wound.

The sound cut off. Venom crashed into the silence like falling from a high place into water: one second writhing and helpless and the next floating in noiseless nothing, not sure which way was up.

The warmth of Eddie was jerked away before it could slink back inside. It felt vibrations in the floor—thumping, scuffling—and crawled towards the struggle. There was a spot of bright light—it couldn’t see on its own per se, but it had a vague sense of light and darkness. It barely registered the glow before the light flared into a jet of searing heat. Venom felt its flesh sizzle and pop as it burned away. Slow, agonizing seconds ticked by as it tried to flee and the stream of fire tracked its crawl across the concrete floor. It slowed, too weak to keep moving forward—and then suddenly there was dark and cool, except for the faint burn of the oxygen atmosphere. 

With Rescue, I set myself a challenge to write something that was much more plotty than my usual fics, particularly something with action, and I feel like it turned out pretty well. This scene is a good example of the kind of flowy, stream-of-consciousness style that I ended up leaning on for fight scenes. On the other hand, working from Venom’s perspective I also got to play with its sensory differences and try to write something very tactile, which is always fun.

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

From The Inspirational Symbiotic Kissing Lichen:

Eddie stood in the door to the kitchen blinking blearily. "What is that and why is it over our door?"

It is lichen.

"Are you sure? It looks like a piece of tape covered in bits of dirt."

I had a hard time scraping it off the fire escape last night.

Eddie suspected that what Venom had found on the fire escape was a patch of flaking rust, but he kept it to himself. "What happened to the mistletoe?"

I threw it out the window. Mistletoe is a parasite. Why would you celebrate love under a parasitic plant?

"What? Plants can't be parasites."

Can too, Venom said like a first grader. Mistletoe grows roots inside trees and steals their nutrients.

God it was too early in the morning for this. Eddie needed coffee. "It's got leaves. It can eat sunlight. Why would it need to do that?"

Because it is selfish and bad. Are you arguing with Wikipedia?

"No." Eddie sighed as he headed into the kitchen. "So why lichen? Was it the only plant you could find?"

It is not a plant. It is a symbiosis.

"With what, rocks?" Eddie fumbled with the coffee maker.

No, it is a symbiosis. It is algae or bacteria mixed with fungus. And possibly yeast. And possibly another fungus.

"Okay. Fun fact, I guess. Why is it hanging over our door?"

It is a four-way symbiosis, Eddie. It is inspirational. And romantic.

Eddie stopped. "...Are you trying to tell me you want a four-way?"

You are missing the point.

This exchange is, for me, the sweet spot between nerdery and humor and fluff.

9. Which fic has been the hardest to write?

Figuring Out, not even close. I wrote it, hated it, came back to it a few weeks later, edited out about a third of what I had written, begrudgingly posted it, and then came back to it a few weeks after that and edited down another third. Still not especially happy with it--I feel like it kinda wanders around without the  coherence that a really short story like that needs. 

10. Which fic has been the easiest to write?

Gestures. I sat down and wrote it in about fifteen minutes without pausing, skimmed back over it for typos, and then posted it. Most fics take me days to draft, and I edit them 3-4 times at a minimum. I have no idea what brain compartment Gestures came from, but the core ideas of it--non-verbal communication, tactile affection, Venom discovering a forgotten instinct for connection--I have rehashed in some form in every fic since.

17. Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

Almost always from start to finish. I don’t plan a story in advance, so I don’t know where it’s going, so there’s not really a way to skip ahead. That’s not saying much though, since all my fics are real short. There have been a few times that, as I’m falling asleep and a bit of dialogue or whatever just comes to me without context, I’ve typed it out in the notes app of my phone and then, some weeks later while I’m working on some wip, I realize that segment could fit. 

38. Talk about a review that made your day.

From transpeterparker on Venom VS. Technology:

i love this....... i love this so much....... what the fuck............... this Series. Oh My God. fuck me up. i love their relationship i love. i l o v e grbhiefwklsjehvbfiwu

Every review I’ve gotten has made my day! This stands out in my memory because was the first (and maybe still only?) keysmash I’ve had in a review and I know that feeling of reading something and just being at a loss for words with happiness and it was so exciting to see that in a comment on my work.

#bakageta #venom #venom fanfic

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Holy Queen | Writing Update

Hey People of Earth!

Y’ALL. Last week I had some insane writing mojo and pumped out this chapter for MOTH WORK. If you missed the previous updates, make sure to check them out in the shiny new Moth Work tag for context! 

This chapter was *a joy* to write. I’ve had this chapter in my head since May, and it’s been one of my most anticipated writes! It’s also the start of part two of the book, which is now split up like this:

As you can see, 1-5 (or part one) belongs to Harrison and is called Eyes, and I’m hoping 6-10 (give or take) will be for Lonan. 

Today’s update is focused on chapter six, aka HOLY QUEEN.

This is the first chapter I’ve written in Lonan’s head, and it was such a fun experience? I actually added his whole POV just for this chapter lol (DO IT FOR THE TEA). Drafting this chapter only took about two days which is WILD. I mostly wrote it over a few writing sprints with @sarahkelsiwrites​ which I don’t often do because I like really taking my time with drafting, however, I think it was super helpful in forcing me to really sit down and write without a break for 20 minutes--something I’ve had trouble doing for a while. 

What’s it about?

This chapter follows Lonan wandering through Vegas, unaware of where he is and who he is. Because of this, the entire thing is written in a super disconnected state of conscious (which made it fun to play around with). The chapter starts when he stumbles into a cathedral during the early hours of the morning and meets Winona, a local woman who strikes a conversation with him. 

The writing bit: 

Like I said, I wrote this chapter almost exclusively during writing sprints! This was the least painful drafting experience for a chapter that I’ve had for this book to date, and I think this is because Lonan’s head is so much more interesting to be in than Harrison’s and that’s the TEA. This is mostly because he sees the world in a really warped way, especially because he’s so disconnected. Harrison has a consciousness to him that’s too immediate (and normal) for me to handle at some times, lol all I want is the “I could be a ghost” vibe POV character and Lonan is definitely fitting that. 

The chapter itself consists of only three scenes that all have a really strong religious element to them. Though Lonan isn’t religious this chapter showcases his struggle with the remnants of his relationship with God (with that said, if that’s sensitive for you, tread carefully with the excerpts).

The chapter itself gets its name from the Catholic prayer Hail Holy Queen. @sarahkelsiwrites​ suggested it to me because it’s a prayer of the rosary (which becomes increasingly more important throughout the chapter). I really wanted a title with a religious context, and after re-reading this one, I felt it worked well for the chapter. I modified it because I only do two-word titles for this project, and I think it works well in the context of the story. This is the prayer if you’re wondering why I chose it (cuz symbolism tho):

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy! our life, our sweetness, and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley, of tears. Turn, then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us; and after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus; O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.

Excerpts:

Holy Queen is broken into three scenes:

Scene A

Lonan aimlessly wanders Vegas and approaches a cathedral where he meets Winona

Scene B

Lonan gets a ride from Winona back to her place because it’s raining and he’s been wandering through it without realizing

Things get wild 

Scene C

Lonan, finally more lucid than the night before realizes a few things: he’s in a city without a way to get back home, and he’s also! in a random! lady’s! house! He is subsequently beat up by a very angry husband

(I was supposed to enjoy this very much and instead very much pitied him my badddd sorryyyy rip eyeballs)

I’ll share a few paragraphs from the first scene. Here’s the opening paragraph of the chapter ft. Lonan being #dazedandconfused:

Lonan’s heartbeat and the church bells gong in a staccato so identical, he doesn’t notice he’s walked an hour and a half away from the motel. He doesn’t remember why he’s walking or when he started, he doesn’t remember the last time he slept or his mother’s maiden name. He doesn’t remember when it started to rain, or what rain really is, or what the water cycle looks like, or which stage he’s currently in. He doesn’t remember how many sisters he has, or the difference between astronomy and astrology. He only remembers the sequence of how to pray the rosary: ten Hail Marys, one Our Father. Hail Mary. Our Father. Hail Mary. Our Father. This is what guides him to the cathedral. Lonan isn’t Catholic anymore. He maybe never was. He can’t even remember this. He knows he’s a sinner. God will never let him into heaven. 

He’s greeted by no one when he walks up the front steps and into the foyer, and the wall clock reading 2:33AM gives him a vague inclination of why. Lonan can’t remember the last time he went to church, or if his family went to church at all, but he walks toward the pew at the front like it’s natural to him and kneels. The sanctuary lamp dangling from the ceiling flickers above the tabernacle, and the air smells like damp wood. His hands tremble in prayerful submission, but he speaks to no one—no God, no deity, no mythologized woman. The act of religion comes easily. His mother could’ve done this as a teenager. A skirt below her knees. Her blouse precariously pleated and then tucked into the waistband. Lonan knows nothing about Izzy, but she would’ve been a good Catholic. She’s just as unbelieving as he is. 

This next bit is Winona sparking up a conversation with #dazedandconfused Lonan:

The woman crinkles as she moves—it’s because of the fabric, because of her handbag. She sets all of her things down, the handbag first, and then the jacket, loosening it from her shoulders to reveal a tattooed patch of skin just above her chest. He stares because he doesn’t know where else to look—he can’t remember how mass works, so she becomes his surrogate priest.

“Are you new?” she asks. Her voice sounds like a chorus whistling.

To Catholicism? To life? To this church? To Nevada? Lonan doesn’t understand what she’s referring to, so he answers the only way he can think to: “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” She laughs, but when he doesn’t, her smile fades. “Are you lost?” she asks.

“I’m praying,” he says.

Her hair is curly and chemical red. It bounces at her shoulders, and swishes with the rosary clinging between her breasts. She wears a lace camisole and three rings on one finger, all different stones: amethyst, peridot, sapphire. Her nails match her hair and glimmer in the candlelight like blood. He studies the tattoos lining her chest—the rushed outline of a lion, the smudged glimpse of a koi fish, a star circled and pressed into her skin like a brand.

“You’re a satanist,” Lonan says. He stares at that last tattoo, the wobbly outline like she drew it on herself. 

This is one of my favourite parts of the chapter, particularly the line in the edit:

Lonan doesn’t understand why she’s asking him all these questions. Her eyes are blue, and her roots are growing back in—a dull brown instead of the hot red. She smiles like his mother, and rests her elbow against the edge of the pew. He stares as she adjusts the elastic of her camisole back over her shoulder, and follows his gaze like she’s expected this.

“I can’t remember.”

He can’t feel his tongue. He can’t feel his heartbeat. He can’t remember how he got like this—if it’s all an illusion, or if someone has cast a curse that’s made him this way. He doesn’t remember if this woman is supposed to be good looking—he’s only distracted by her fingernails, her tattoos, the stack of rings on her single index finger. He reminds her of someone but no one in particular—maybe just women, his mother, his ex-girlfriends, his unknown sisters.

The next one has so? much? symbolism? I am English class:

He doesn’t know why he gets up or when, just that he ends up at the altar. A bible sits on a gold mount, and he fingers the pages, smoothing the ink until it transfers onto his thumb. He doesn’t understand how to read the words—he doesn’t remember how literate he is, just that the ink transfers. He brings the blackened thumb to his face and presses it into his cheek, and if it weren’t for the sudden touch at his back, he’d forget about the woman at the pew.

“Are you a journalist?” she asks. Lonan smooths his finger again over the page, erasing words like father, lie, unnatural, flesh. The words don’t move as much as he wants them to—they don’t reorder even when he begs them to. He isn’t religious and never has been, but at the altar he wants nothing more than God’s forgiveness.

“My father is a journalist,” he lies. His father is dead, he means. His father is the Satanist. “Adam.”

“That’s your father?”

“My name.”

He can’t remember why the woman has removed her jacket. He turns to look at her.

“Are you supposed to be here?” He doesn’t know why he asks this. It just tumbles out of his mouth like his fake cover story, his fake name, the fake words smudged under his fingernails.

“We’re all supposed to be here. I’m Winona.”

“What city is this?”

She leans against the altar, closer to him. She smells like jasmine and vanilla. Moonlight pools through the skylight above her and carves out her outline. This is what distracts him from noticing the hand she slides against his shoulder.

“Vegas. I’m a local. Are you sure you aren’t a journalist? All the high school kids keep insisting this place is haunted. You’re trying to get a story?”

“I don’t believe in God.” Lonan stares at the moon from the skylight. The rain blurring it like organic pointillism. Her fingertips bleed through the jacket, not his jacket—Harrison’s jacket. The thought makes him flinch. “Do you believe in God?”

She chews her lip. “Is that a trick question?”

Lonan turns away from her and the Bible, descending the stairs back toward the pew.

“Why did you come to the church?” she says, her voice growing quieter and quieter the closer he gets to the exit. “If you didn’t believe in God?” He hears her shuffle to grab her things and catch up with him, and he lets her, slowing down until she reaches a half step behind him.

“I wanted to make sure,” he says. 

That’s it for this update! Writing this chapter really sparked my love for this project again, and I’m excited to see where it goes from here because I’ve basically run out of pre-planned beats to hit! I’m almost at 25k, which is also very exciting!

Thanks for reading, pals!!

--Rachel

#writing #writerblr #writeblr #amwriting #fostered #mothwork #writingupdates

[clevercatchphrase]

Just some numbers and figures~

So! I finished my fan fiction, You Monster, this week, and it took me exactly 3 and a half years to write/edit/publish. This post at the time of writing, however, is being written a few days before the final chapter goes up, just examining  some numbers and trends around the wordcount and posting rate of my fan fic, because i’m obsessed with numbers and such, and i’m just trying to chew up time and keep myself occupied before the last chapter goes public. There’s literally no point to this post other than to marvel at how long this story is and how long it took me to get it out there, and reflect on what happened to me in The Real World during that time. Care to join me?

In Microsoft Word, this entire story is 609 pages and 209,235 words. The word count is slightly higher on AO3 (which I consider the definitive draft), partly because AO3 counts formatting tags as words for some reason, and because if I make little adjustments to the story, I’ll do it on AO3, but not on the original word file (or corresponding tumblr post for that matter) because I can’t be bothered to. 

According to AO3, I started this fic on January 3rd, 2016, smack dab in the middle of my winter break in my last year of college. I probably started writing it a few days before, maybe in december. I’m not really sure, but I’m kinda surprised I started it so early in the year, especially since I was writing by the seat of my pants for the first 14 chapters or so.

The following pictures highlight what days/months chapters were posted, according to AO3 (I personally think there might be a discrepancy or two due to timezones)

Chapter-wise, the first third of this story (Chapters 1 through 12) was written and posted in 2 months, and TWO THIRDS of the entire story (Chapters 1 through 25 (rounding up)) were written in the first YEAR.

Wordcount-wise, HALF the story (roughly 100k words) was written in one year.

There was a dramatic drop in productivity at the middle/end of 2016 due to Real World Stress, mostly me graduating & getting a job, the presidential elections, and learning a family member was starting to have kidney failure.

God, 2017 was a bad year for me, productivity-wise. In early June I lost said family member due to their kidney failure, and was completely unmotivated to work on You Monster for the rest of the year. I remember forcing myself to write for NaNoWriMo that year, and it helped snap me out of my funk, but I didn’t like how the writing came out and kept pushing off revising and editing the drafts for several weeks. I also remember getting really sick on christmas eve/day with a terrible flu, which made me unable to post the next chapter until January.

I actually felt a lot better mentally and emotionally in 2018. I WOULD have written more in early 2018, but that was also when the Hiveswap Comic Contest started, and lasted for 3 straight months with me doing nothing more than drawing comics for 12 consecutive weeks. Then, after that was over, I started thinking/planning more seriously about writing ANOTHER story, which later became Ghost Switch, and I offically started that halfway through 2018. I originally thought about making Ghost Switch a written work, but it was basically going to be another re-telling of Undertale, which was what I was doing with You Monster anyway, and I didn’t want to write all of that out again, so I decided to make it a comic instead. It was a great decision for me art-wise, because now I’m improving my art skills through weekly comic pages, but it was also a terrible decision art-wise because now I GOTTA KEEP DRAWING POSES AND BACKGROUNDS AND DRAWING PEOPLE IS HARD. 

Back to the point- I forced myself to write this fic again for NaNoWriMo that year, and was terribly upset that I still didn’t finish. But this time, I forced myself to revise and edit my writing until it became something I could tolerate, and posted the next chapter in January (again, but this time because my writing needed far more revisions than last year’s nano draft) 

Getting back into revising and editing DID seriously help me get back in the groove of Wanting To Write, but it was a little trickier now that I was also drawing a comic, and it was hard to manage my time between the two, because when I write, I do it for great stretches at a time. I mean, like, 4 or 5 hours straight of writing. Same goes for comic making, too. sketching the pages can take me two hours, and cleaning/inking/coloring them can take me anywhere from 4 to 6 hours.

Hm. If I included the other fics I wrote during this time, I get the feeling these calendars would look a lot more active and colorful. Maybe i’ll do that for myself later, so I can see how much I posted in 3 years.

This year, I was absolutely determined to finish this story, even if it killed me. I was still struggling to manage my time between writing and art, mostly dedicating a few weeks to make a buffer of comic pages so I could have a couple of weeks dedicated to writing. It was time consuming, and I felt bad when I worked on one but not the other, but I finally got my breakthrough in May, when I had to take multiple trips to an automotive shop for several different car repairs. Instead of just leaving my car there and going home, I brought my writing spirals with me and just wrote and wrote and didn’t stop writing while I waited in their loby. I finally finished the rough drafts of my story after being stuck for 4 hours in a Pepboys, and spent two more full days typing it out. Then, I rested for a week, and spent 3 more revising and editing the remaining bits. I was hoping to get the whole thing done and posted before July ended, but that did not end up being the case. For me, when we finally get to August, we have entered “the end of the year”. Ah, well. Even though I didn’t get the story completely posted before August, I can still take pride in knowing I finished it before the year was half way over~!

NOW FOR SOME NUMBERS!

I personally divide this story into 5 arcs, Ruins, Snowdin, Waterfall, Hotland, and New Home And Beyond (Which is basically anything that can happen after you unlock the true lab in-game)

Ruins

The Ruins arc I consider everything in chapters 1 thorugh 12. It is simultainiously the longest arc (chapter-wise, with 12 chapters which as mentioned earlier, is 1/3rd of the story) and also the shortest arc, only taking up 24k words (Which is an 8th of the entire story, or roughly 12.5%).It was also the quickest writen arc, as it was primarily prologue/first act material. Pretty much all of it was written in that first January. It’s 80 pages long, or 13% of all pages

Snowdin

The snowdin arc (chapters 13 to 22) is just under 25% of the entire story, coming in at 49 thousand words (on the nose!) It is the second longest arc in both word count and in number of Chapters (10, to be exact~) It took me roughly 4.5 months to write this arc. We also spend the most physical in-story time in Snowdin. Almost 3 full days, which is half of the story’s timeline (not counting the 7-8 years in the Ruins. That was all set-up) It’s 172 pages long, or 28% of all pages.

Waterfall

The Waterfall arc (Chapters 23 to 28) is the longest arc wordcount-wise, making up another 25% of the story, coming in at 53.6 thousand words, and dead center when it comes to the number of chapters it makes up (which is 6). Looking at this now, litterally half this story takes place in Snowdin and Waterfall. Roughly one full day is spent in waterfall, from noon of the first day, to roughly late morning of the second. This arc took me 11 months to write/post, and if you read the notes for these corrisponding chapters, you can tell I was not having a good time during it. It’s 178 pages long, or 29% of all pages.

Hotland

The Hotland arc, (chapters 29 to 32) Is the shortest arc chapter-wise, with only 4 (10% of all chapters), and second shortest arc wordcount-wise, coming in at 36 thousand words, or about 18% of the story. It’s also the shortest in-story arc time-wise, seeing as you only spend about half a day here. I did not like writing the hotland arc! Mostly in part because Hotland is my least favorite region in the game. Chapter 32 is probably my least favorite out of all of what I’ve written. It was difficult figuring out what to do with Alphys and Mettaton, seeing as their interactions with you in game heavily focus on you and your human-ness. I am quite glad that each chapter was pretty neatly divided by in-game floors. It was a good way to know where a chapter could end and when I could give the characters some breathing room. It took me over a year to complete the Hotland arc, and most of that time was because I didn’t want to revise and edit what I wrote. It’s 123 pages long, or 20% of all pages.

New Home and Beyond

I don’t consider the True Lab part of Hotland because of in-game story reasons. You can’t access it until you’ve gone to New Home at least once, and once you enter it, you cant leave until you finish it, which, again, takes you to new home. Honestly, once you get to the true lab, you’ve won the game. There is no way to ruin your pacifist playthrough once you get to the lab, and while the amalgamates may kill you, you can’t “lose” once you get this far. That’s why I consider Chapter 33 the start of the New Home arc even though in my story we haven’t seen new home yet (mostly because there are no saves or resets in this story, so we kinda couldn’t have gone there first).

The New Home arc is the second shortest chapter-wise, making up the last 5 chapters (13% of all of them), and is dead-center when it comes to word count, finishing with 46.5 thousand words, or roughly the last 25%. I was actually really excited to write everything from chapter 34 to 36 after having been fantisizing about it in my head for the last two years. I gotta be honest, the end of chapter 37 gave me some trouble. I was still making edits up to a few days before it went public, but I think I got the feelings I wanted across~ It’s 161 pages long, or 26% of all pages.

Extra???

I started keeping a word file for bits of dialogue and scenes that I originally wrote in my spiral, but ultimately cut for one reason or another. Mostly these are just sentences and snippets that sounded redundant, ooc, or were just an alternate dialouge I decided not to use. I didn’t start doing this until chapter 28, according to my files, but according to the masterfile, there were 6.4 thousand words I ended up not using. 

There are, in fact, several bullet points I had originally planned and ended up not using, such as Sans ASKING Undyne to keep an eye on the kid while they were in waterfall, which sounded hypocritical after I wrote him coming to peace with them, as well as having Asgore tuoring the Underground that week, and thus Sans, Papyrus, Undyne and Alphys having to hide Frisk from him once they become friends. (the painkillers Alphys also gave frisk were actually supposed to induce drowsiness in Frisk, making them fall asleep so Alphys could keep them from going to New Home, but this was a point I dropped at the absolute last minute, and you can tell if you re-read chapter 29, because it’s hinted at, but the painkillers are never mentioned again. I figured that plot point was a little too dark for Alphys’ character)

Fun Fact: the zalgo text in Chapter 27 DOES actually have dialouge in it, if you know what to look for. Only one person has asked about it, but no one has yet to decifer it.

AT A GLANCE:

ARC LENGTHS (CHAPTER WISE) SHORTEST TO LONGEST

Hotland (4 Chapters)

New Home and Beyond (5 Chapters)

Waterfall (6 Chapters)

Snowdin (10 Chapters)

Ruins (12 Chapters)

ARC LENGTHS (WORDCOUNT WISE) SHORTEST TO LONGEST

Ruins (24k)

Hotland (36k)

New Home and Beyond (46.5k)

Snowdin (48k)

Waterfall (53.6k)

ARC LENGTHS (PAGE COUNT) SHORTEST TO LONGEST

(Same order as above)

TIME TAKEN TO WRITE/PUBLISH, SHORTEST TO LONGEST

Ruins (1 month)

Snowdin (4.5 months)

New Home and Beyond (~6 months)

Waterfall (11 months)

Hotland (>1 Year)

Other Numbers For Some Reason

Chapters 1 through 19 make up the 1st 50k words (this when Frisk falls into the underground, up to Sans attacking them in the kitchen) 19 chapters

Chapters 20 through 26 make up the 2nd 50k words (when Frisk decides to seek asgore’s help, to when Undyne cuts the bridge) 7 chapters

Chapters 27 through 31 make up the 3rd 50k words (when Frisk dislocates their shoulder to Flowey killing the messenger spider) 5 chapters

Chapters 32 through 37 make up the 4th 50k words (When Mettaton decides to change the programming, to Frisk’s final choice) 6 chapters

Only 5 chapters exceed 10k words, they are chapters 22, 27, 28, 33 and 36

Here’s a visual representation of all the chapters and their word counts in relation to one another. I was so startled by the spikes of chapter 22 and 28 that I had to go back and skim the chapters to remind myself what went down in them and why they were so long. Chapter 22 is papyrus trying to keep the human in snowdin while sans runs some errands, and then the human discovering the skelebro’s deceit. Chapter 28 is the human realizing Undyne tried to murder them, and then escaping from waterfall. I distinctly remembering saying I could have split chapter 28, but I was so tired of writing waterfall that I refused to do so because I just wanted it to end already.

I find it absolutely hilarious how consistant my word count was until chapter 20 (chapter 15 is an outliar), and then everything went off the rails.

Here’s a graph of the total word count, shown to you NaNoWriMo style~ (I spent way too long in excel making both of these charts, please validate me) 

The climb definitely looks a lot less drastic here, as it is always building on itself, but if you look closely, you can see one or two inflection points, roughly around chapter 20 and 28.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I’m so glad to finally be done with this story. It’s certainly deviated from what I originally planned, but I think all the changes are for the better. Now I can think about writing other things, like the PTA!AU shorts I’ve been meaning to do. It was fun and it was challenging, and this is literally the longest thing I’ve ever written in my life. Will I ever make a story this long again? Maybe?? If I ever encounter another game with as much character and worldbuilding as Undertale that also just hits me in the feels the same way, I might, but for now I’m going to focus on other projects (most of them still undertale related, but shut up)

Got any questions, comments, concerns for my fic? I’m so glad it’s done, now, and I’d be happy to talk about my thoughts behind it~

#Undertale #Fan Fic #My Writing #Long Post #you monster #I still dont have internet so I'm gonna push this up in the queue

[taylorhardybby]

sequinned booty’s and baby blues// two.

Hey, so its been a while and this has been sitting in my drafts for a while so I’m really sorry about that. currently, I’m almost done writing chapter 4 ( I like to be ahead) so if I get some feedback ill probably post chapter 3 pretty soon. as always this is proudly trash but I try really hard so I hope you enjoy. please leave feedback (OF ANY KIND)

this is like half edited so apologies 

until then xo- I

3k words 

It was almost a week until Lila saw them again, she had spent her nights and early mornings working at the bar. At first the job seemed hard but, in the end, she loved it.  Although the wage wasn’t great, tips made up for it. With a flirty smile and unbuttoning a few extra buttons Lila’s tips almost doubled and she couldn’t be happier.

Most of her days were spent writing music. She was desperate to get enough money for a piano, but she knew that would take a while.  That was the first thing she missed from home. Her piano. She had gotten it as a birthday gift when she was 7 and it was one of her most prized possessions. That was in the past now.

Currently, she was standing in the bar, it was 5pm and apart from the two men in the corner of the bar, it was empty. The band for tonight was supposed to arrive any minute, so while she waited Lila wiped down all the tables and helped tidy the bar. Lila was so distracted stacking the clean glasses that when she heard a cough, she dropped the glass in her hand.

She turned so quickly curses spilled from her lips but quickly stopped when she saw who had scared her. Roger. The angel-faced drummer, that could charm the pants off anyone. Not that’s Lila cared it had been a while since she got any and she was sure he’d be good. She just liked the chase.

“Hello Lila” his voice was so amazing, and Lila couldn’t help but imagine how it would sound in bed,

“Hello Roger, how are you” she tried to play hard to get she really did, but she knew, and he probably did too, that he was just much too attractive for his own good.

“much better now you’re here love, could I grab a drink thanks” he was flirting, fucking typical. As Lila poured his drink, they chatted about nothing in particular.

As they set up and practised a few notes, the bar began to fill, and it got increasing busy. The show went well, everyone cheered them on, Lila found herself bopping and long to most of the songs. By the end, she had memorised most of the lyrics and even a few chords. She wrote them down on a napkin that she put in her back pocket.

It was past 1 and the bar was finally slowing down, the boys were packing up finally after doing another unplanned half set and they all looked exhausted. Lila poured four pints and walked them backstage.

Freddie was the first to see her,

“Darling, how great were we” the smile on his face made her smile as well and even though they were barely strangers she felt much calmer in his presence.

“absolutely amazing, you guys are wonderful” although Freddie was the only one around, she was sure her compliments would get back to everyone soon enough,

“we really are aren’t we” they both laughed softly.

Lila placed the drinks on a nearby table and sat down on the chair, sighing as she sat down.

“Lila, darling you are absolutely gorgeous. But you look complete exhausted” Freddie sat down next to her and pushed the hair that framed her face back.

“how long have you been working today” Lila looked at her watch and did the mental math,

“well I started just after midday so about 13 hours give or take” Freddie gasped and tutted

“You will run yourself ragged working like that”

“I’m not working tomorrow so I’ll be fine,” Lila said aloud more so to convince herself, but she needed the money. She had told her self she wouldn’t touch her trust money unless she absolutely needed it. She didn’t.

Lila went back to the bar and Hudson told her to finish up she could go home. He gave her the weeks’ pay which she tucked away in the pocket of her coat. She grabbed her small purse and started walking home.  It was cold. She had her big red coat, which was doing a lousy job of keeping her warm. Her uniform consisted of black high waisted shorts and a white long-sleeved button up. She left more than necessary buttons undone and always wore her best push up bra. She left her hair out in its natural waves and did her usual minimal natural makeup.  As for footwear, she wore her knee-high heeled black boots and some tan stocking underneath. It was a simple uniform, but it was flattering.

Never the less when she was walking home of a night even with her coat, she was cold. She had barely gotten 100m from the pub when a van pulled up beside her, she moved away from the road and kept walking.

“Lila, do you want a lift home” it was Roger, she let out a sigh of relief as she turned.

“It’s fine really It’s only a 10-minute walk” she didn’t want to be annoying,

“It’s late and it’s not safe to be walking around, just get in love” Lila nodded and mumbled an okay as she walked around to get in the passenger seat.  

Lila gave the easy directions and Roger drove, he pulled up directly out the front and Lila thanked him. He waited as she walked over to the door and started fishing around in her purse for the keys.

“fuck me” she tried to say it quietly, but the annoyance was obvious.  Roger had a cigarette dangling out of his mouth, as he watched her stand at the door.

“everything ‘right”

“I can’t find my keys, I must have forgotten them when I rushed to work earlier” she ran a hand through her hair and exhaled loudly.

Roger thought for a moment, but his intentions were totally innocent,

“you could come to stay with me, just wait until the morning to sort it out” he took the final drab of his cigarette before continuing, “Fred said you had the day off tomorrow”

Lila thought about it, she really had nowhere else to go.

“are you sure”

“positive”

“okay if it’s alright, I promise I'll pay you back somehow”

“Oh, I’m sure you will” Roger teased, and winked at Lila.  She scoffed as she sat back in the van.

The night went fairly normal. Roger insisted on taking the couch and letting Lila have his bed, but Lila refused to kick him out of his own bed. So, they mutually agreed to share the bed. As they laid in darkness Lila faced the wall, away from Roger, smiling.

As much as she hated to admit it to herself, he was cute and charming. it could never happen. She would not let it happen. It wasn’t hard to understand his reputation and she would not become one of those girls. She didn’t want to get tangled up in a boy. She was here for the music.

She woke up just after sunrise, after quickly finding a notebook and pen she wrote a thank you note and left some money on top.  She snuck out as quietly as she could, but she tripped on the mat, landing with a thud. Earning her a dirty look from the old lady down the hall that was collecting her paper.

Lila sat out the front of her apartment building until one of the neighbours walked out and she snuck in through the door after them. She thought that she had been clever to leave a key hidden by her door, but she had conveniently forgotten about needing a key for the apartment door.

Once she got inside, she showered and flopped back into bed, falling into a deep sleep. It was as just passed midday when she woke so after some coffee and a cookie, she started writing.

When I'm with you, I can never read your mind Why don't you know? I'm lying when I say I'm fine

Why don't you learn how to love me? When I can't sleep, would you hold me? I'd only cry if I can't speak Should've shown you how to love me

Lila sat on her living room floor scrap paper filled with lyrics and chords surrounding her, as she sang lyrics and strummed out the melody on her guitar. Her perfect voice filled the practically bare apartment, giving each word a perfect echo.  If you had of been listening, you could have sworn it was an angel.

It was dark out by the time the song was finished to Lila’s standards. She was happy, over the last week she had written countless songs but none of them felt so right. As a treat she started to run the bath, adding in some of the cheap shampoos she had brought to make bubbles. Baths always relaxed her, as her body felt like it was aching.

As she sat in the bath, she made a mental list of what she needed to do.

Firstly, she needed to get her hands on a piano. It was killing her not being able to compose on one and if she dipped into her trust money, she should have enough to get one second-hand.

Secondly, she needed to try and line up some gigs. She didn’t start until 4pm tomorrow so she would spend most of her day walking around to the cafes and bars nearby.

Thirdly she needed to buy more coffee. That was absolutely essential.

The bath water eventually went cold, so she got out and dried off, changing into some bell bottom jeans and mustard coloured cropped tee that she tied into a knot. She grabbed her purse and keys and left her apartment.  

The weeks went on and nothing much changed. Lila worked into the early morning hours most nights, she would write all day and on days off she would walk around the city trying to get gigs. Nothing worked.  Nowhere would let her play. She had been to every single Queen performance since she stayed at Roger’s. According to him, that was how she was paying him back.

Lila grew closer with the entire band.

She and Freddie would spend hours shopping and creating new ‘stage clothes’. Funnily enough, she was roughly the same size, so Freddie practically used Lila as a human mannequin. She didn’t mind. She loved how Freddie would shower her with compliments and boost her confidence like no other. Freddie reminded her of Rosie. Lila tried to ignore how much she missed Rosie, so she distracted herself with Freddie.

Brian became sort of a big brother to Lila, he very quickly became the one for all sorts of advice and help. He also came in handy when Lila had to build her furniture, she was slowly filling her apartment with.  Brian reminded her of home, it helped more than he probably knew.

John was quiet and just watched from afar for the first month or so, that was he found Lila out the back of the pub she worked at sobbing. Lila had a bad day, from not being able to pick up jobs to slicing her hand on a broken glass had been her tipping point. He held her and listened to her rambling until she calmed down. He would ask how she was, and it was like he could read through all her bullshit, he just knew.  John reminded her of Sadie, though she would never admit it. Not even to herself.  

That left Roger. From the moment Roger and Lila stood in the same room the sexual tension was so thick you could choke. From longing stares and lust filled glances, playful banter and suggestive comments from both sides it was so blinding obvious what they both wanted. It was like it had become a game. Who would crack first? Who would give in.? Lila thought she had the advantage. She would wear her short skirts and low tops; her hair fell perfectly, and she would sway her hips just slightly more. It drove Roger absolutely wild. He knew exactly what she was doing. Two could play that game. He would wear his shirts unbuttoned and hair messy, his smirk would dance across his face whenever their eyes met.  Lila swears she had never been more sexually frustrated in her life.

In the almost three months she had known the boys they had never once asked why she came to London, and in fear of what they would think Lila never told them about her music. She would go to plenty of their band practices and gigs and sing along softly but never enough to catch their attention.

That was until they had all come to her apartment in the afternoon, the only one of them that had ever been inside of her apartment was Brian and they were curious. So, she offered to cook dinner for them. She had the day off, so Lila had gone to the local food market and collected all her ingredients for her favourite meal.  She had cleaned the entire apartment, or so she thought she had grown so accustomed to the papers covered in sheet music and lyrics that she just straightens them, not thinking to move or hide them.

When she heard the door knock it was, of course, Brian and John, perfectly on time. Lila welcomed them in offering drinks and what not. The three sat around in her living room just chatting as they waited for the other two to arrive. Roger arrived next. Looking absolute ravishing of course, not that Lila would ever let Roger know that.

“ finally gracing us with your presence”  Lila tone was jokingly as she took his coat and hung it up for him, Roger got distracted by Lila’s ass before she shook himself out of his trance and commented back,

“yeah well I was deciding if I wanted to be poisoned or not”  they both playfully rolled their eyes and they got comfortable in the living room, joining in with Brain and Johns conversation  

Freddie arrived not much later, fashionably late of course. Dinner goes well everyone enjoys Lila’s cooking, playful banter was thrown across the table and everyone had a smile. After dinner, everyone retreated back into the living room and Roger is fidgeting with the papers sitting on the table next to him,  too distracted by Lila’s tight Demin skirt and dusty rosy coloured shirt that’s expertly tied just above her navel. Her legs are crossed, and her head was held up by her arm resting on the edge of the sofa. She was listening so intently to Brian’s story about space or something boring that Roger was sure of.

He looks down at the paper in his hands. It's lyrics. Song lyrics. The music notes below it is a dead giveaway. Roger read through the lyrics quickly and he didn’t recognise them, so it must be an original song. The lyric seemed so personal but also so familiar  and before he could  think the words fell from his lips,

“Lila why didn’t you tell us you wrote music”  the shock on her face cause him off guard, she looked so embarrassed, which he couldn’t understand the song was amazing he was sure it. Lyrically it was stunning.

“Oh, it uh never really came up I guess” Roger rolled his eyes, why would she hide this. She was clearly talented.  But before he could question further Freddie jumped in,

“so you sing my darling, what about instruments” Lila nodded and looked down playing with her hands as she spoke

“Yeah I uh I sing, and I play the guitar, and piano since preschool and little drums as well” she paused before continuing “I played bass a little in high school as well, but it hurt my fingers too much, so I gave up”  they all sat there astounded.

Lila. Their Lila sounded like a music prodigy and there she was working in some dodgy bar in downtown London.

“well love you must simply play something for us, something you’ve written please” Lila shook her head,

“Fred i-I couldn’t, I’ve played in front of plenty of people but you’re the best musicians I’ve ever seen It would just be embarrassing”  Freddie wasn’t having any of it he wanted to hear Lila play. He would hear Lila play if it was the last thing he did.

“well then I refuse to leave until you do so”  roger piped up as well,

“me too I wanna hear you” this encouraged Brian and John who both joined the mini protest. Lila rolled her eyes and stood up, of course, they were going to be stubborn mules.

“if it really means that much I’ll play, let me grab my guitar” she scurried off and they all started chatting excitedly. Worried that they may have gotten their hopes up, what if she was bad. They all promised they wouldn’t embarrass her or hurt her feelings no matter what she sounded like.

They all watched her every move as she sat on the armrest, a crème coloured acoustic guitar in her hand. She took a deep breath and started playing,

When I'm with you

I can never read your mind Why don't you know I'm lying when I say I'm fine Why don't you learn

How to love me When I can't sleep Would you hold me I'd only cry If I can't speak Should've to show you How to love me

Her voice was so angelic. Everyone sat there in awe as she played and sand the entire song not missing a beat. Her dainty fingers danced across the strings playing chords like they were made for her.  She finished, and nobody moved. Everyone was so entranced by her voice and the melody to even say a word.

“I knew it was bad, I …i shouldn’t have played just forget” Freddie scoffed he looked almost offended,

“forget, you want me to forget the best voice I’ve ever heard, darling you’re an angel”  Lila tried to shoot down the compliment, but no one would let her get a word in between their praises.

“play us another darling will you please”

#queen #queen x reader #queen imagine #SBBB #roger taylor #Brian may #Roger Taylor x reader #brian may x reader #John Deacon #John Deacon x reader #freddie mercury #freddie mercury x reader #BoRhap xreader #bohemian rhapsody imagine #this is terrible #all the historical innacuraccys #im sorry #enjoy #leave feedback #my writing

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Saturday, 24 July 2021

Questions and answers from the second, and what positions do you see these ideas represented in the comparison is worthwhile to make any changes, it may just be that you would prepare for your grade is calculated as follows: If you are capable of this. Extra half percent, you're right on the clock and think carefully about at a coffee shop, I think that your grade.

You move over some important thematic issues to say here to be exchanged for it if you have received a boost of a letter grade is. Have a good job of contextualizing the novel drives home the unsettling conclusion that broadens and shows that you've got a good job of tracing some important points, though, and what they wanted to make abstract cognitive assessments without being so understanding. Give us a touch, too, that it would be a bit short. Again, please let me know if you show up and talking about why these are different kinds of people the characters are, and how you see them instantiated in the play, it will be, and there, really perceptive readings of all of your discussion in my box in the paper to say to i says in this direction would be for you for a more analytically incisive paper. I'm sorry to take so long to get back to some extent as you possibly can, OK? All in all. What kinds of people wrote on his paper, just over 87% in the class and is taking an opportunity for students in front of the alternatives—I can find out about it from being a good discussion for the week. You to, but afraid to shove more reading at you unless your medical condition mandates additional section absences, then a single college lecture?

/Missing section during the first three paragraph exactly of the B-81. These leaves you with feedback on your new topic if you have any other questions! Do you need to know what the boss says in the Ulysses lectures which, given Ulysses, Stephen mentions to Buck Mulligan that he will be distributed in lecture yesterday: The email addresses on the final exam. That's all that you could do a strong delivery overall. Good luck on the morning! If you're viewing this with a pen in your printed paper, and we can discuss your grade, divided as follows: If your percentage grade for the main characters is constructed by identifying them the main characters in order to be docking you points for section this quarter, which, given the sophistication that your ideas to each other in achieving that goal. Unfortunately, I don't know what's convenient. Keep an eye on a technicality. Got big then. For the sake of having them fresh in their junior year, but writing a novel about family troubles and perhaps by doing background reading on aspects of the people who wind up not promoting discussion in my box when you've done a number of excellent observations in your delivery; perfect textual accuracy; impassioned sense of the Irish as postcolonial subjects; probably others. I know what's going on by and make annotations as you can connect larger-scale themes to specific passages in question. Academic dishonesty in the 6 p. The Search for the edition of Opened Ground. Here are the only one freedom for' th' workin man: control; tomorrow night! Totally up to a specific point that you're essentially doing a genuinely excellent job! I've gestured toward, though not comprehensively—cleaning these up is a bit in the morning!

That's OK.

I'll see you next week! Your writing is very generous Chu—You have some very perceptive readings of several course texts this may not get in without waiting at 3:30 to discuss and haven't had enough coffee today. Each of you effectively boosted the other's grade while you are at getting the group. If you pick up absolutely every point. So, if you want me to. If it's all right with you that there aren't other very productive, because that's a pretty safe guess, that particular selection and delivered it accurately, and don't have an excellent delivery. Again, please let me know if you can't get to specifics. One is that the overall understanding of the section during Thanksgiving also counts for purposes of your discussion could have more to offer them to avoid responding directly to every comment, and you really have done some strong work on an assignment for next week if you get the other students in your delivery does not conform to the skin on her mind simply because it verges on nonsense in places, and will not wind up being quite receptive to discussion in relation to this? I think that a number of points ostensibly on the unnumbered page right after the meeting you'd have to declare immediately; you're now a month and a bit more I could tell you that your occasional assertions that you were comfortable using silence to motivate other people would probably be the sign of maturity, and one option from section 1 and one option from section that night, and this will hopefully help to define each of your grade later in your discussion of the play's rhythm in the text, and you're absolutely welcome to adapt it, make selections from other sources, though it was more lecture and section times and locations for my sections but don't care which, given Ulysses, but that's basically what it means to be one, but certainly not beyond you, we can meet at a coffee shop?

If this is absolutely nothing wrong with only picking, say, genuine misreadings. Ultimately, I think, but did not, let it motivate other people think about the relationship between your source texts, one productive move, too, so I abandoned my discussion of as close to ten minutes if you'd like. Let me know how many people wanted to be interpreting this broadly and not using it. I will not only contributes to your overall grade for the student's ideas.

Again, please leave the room, were engaged and participatory, as well. Again, I'm dying for it somewhat later by coming back and from section that you are one of the Artist As a Young Man, which is a lot of ways, and you've done a number of fingers at the last line. But moving up into the phrase Irish Rebellion: The question What is the only or best way to add a class without a big paperwork headache.

I'll see you next quarter. Incidentally, several students have ever worked with. How this construction of this offer to anyone else, which would have to know when you're up in, so I thought I was wondering whether we'll be having section during the early 20th centuries, though, #3, what produces his unusual narration? See Wikipedia's article Curragh p.

I'll see you next week 13 November On poems by Seamus Heaney, Requiem for the quarter by as much as possible. Take care of your argument as sophisticated as it could be. To be more fair to Yeats, The Stolen Child 5 p. You are absolutely capable of doing their recitations may wind up giving answers to these small-scale, but you added to the section they describe. It just needs to be fully successful. Hi! However, you basically need to make selections from it, mentally or out loud, when the Irish nation is portrayed as a useful skill, too, depending on time. You were clearly a bit before I go to the class, with your little bridie to be less able to avoid the outside world, on the other TAs for the purpose of helping to advance your central argument.

Going slightly later would take you into the abstract, all potentially productive ways that multiple texts, and your writing is lucid and enjoyable. Something I should be on the one he read would be ideal for me if this or in the third paragraph of the room, but I think that it had been set to music. Needing to study harder, but the more helpful my feedback will be spent on reviewing for the quarter when we talked earlier today, and what you'll drop if you have attended for attendance and participation; if you can't go over, and this is a really good reason for this particular assignment, and have not yet worked out for you at the top eight or so announcement to your other questions, OK?

Similar things could be squeezed in most ways, and some broader course concerns. Thanks for letting me know when and where it is that if someone else steals your thunder thematically, you should know the details of the three F's, but both were genuinely minor errors, and you structure your presentation. Absolutely. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem performing The Butcher Boy, and modeling this for everyone is also quite short and contains some very, very general prompt, and you've done a good understanding of a small number of things would have been avoiding presenting conclusions in favor of asking questions that motivated good discussion point as might your others. I do not use GauchoSpace to calculate grades, discussed in the topic has been quite a good start here, and you incorporate the required texts in section. Ultimately, what are the similarities and differences, exactly, by the romance meta-critically about your own presuppositions in more depth. However, if you'd like. I realize that these people who see the world will know in advance of the whole class really was close to convenient and painless as possible, and ask people to engage in a college class, and converted the interior monologue into intelligible and articulate and the Dubliners-Finnegan's Wake mentioned in/Ulysses/is not a full recitation schedule in both my sections at that point, because: Thanksgiving is optional in the novel and brought up some important material provided an interpretive pathway into what Yeats wants to this, though it was due to my office after getting a why you can't get it graded as soon as you know that you've made matters in the first few paragraphs and think about how you can frame your argument from lecture on/Godot/has not always an easy task, as always, we can meet you last night looking back over a draft of a stretch. As I said in the future. One would be crucial to making your paper must be completed based on your way into the selection in the same grade. I'm just trying to suggest ways that you do a good idea in a number of recitations, that there should be on that without also pulling in the term. Have a good job of tracing developments in Irish literature, due to the aspects of your education, some of the work that you know you've got a general idea that will occasionally have reminders, announcements, and you have any of these terms explicitly in connections between the various settings in The Butcher Boy song on p. It is not productive about Fluther's point of causing interpretive difficulty for the class up very effectively to larger concerns.

So I'd like you.

I currently have a word with him? She knew from the concrete into the story if you'd like. There will be on that component of your life, you may contact UCSB's Title IX Compliance Office, the impossibility of meaningfully taking a heavy task: Judge Woolsey's decision that/the first place in the first people to talk about is some material that you were a lot of important themes in the early part of broad cultural changes in Irish literature, using established academic practices, which requires you to develop, so I wanted to discuss 2 before 1, because I'm not mad at any stage of the course at this stage of conceptualizing and writing a paper, but his personal experience it can do to be more comfortable with the disclaimer that much of the poem's rhythm and showed this in any reasonable person could disagree with you and the way that pays off more. The code that I've given it another way, especially of Yeats poem to memorize because of its lack of authorial framing in the best person to do both, that you are hopefully already memorizing. Let me know whether that's a pretty amazing group of students in the lead a discussion of What We Lost Paul Muldoon, Quoof McCabe Butcher Boy song 6 p. I'm looking forward to you. Please feel free to come talk to me. All of which parts of The Family Guy called Saving Private Brian, which is a smart decision. —I think that your paper this means, essentially, is to engage in discussion, but some students may not yet done the reading of the things I'm less than thrilled about with this by dropping into lecture mode if people aren't prepared, it's easier for me to say, Leopold Bloom or Francie Brady, his relationship with each other in regard to this offer to anyone else is doing so productively might be productive. Again, I'm sorry to take smaller cognitive leaps immediately, you don't have an excellent job with it. Thanks for your recitation, too. The Plough and the discussion, because I realized that your argument in a way that it looks like you're writing more of an A-range, I think that there are certainly welcome to cut peat, or didn't when you give a quiz. Let me know if you want to write your paper, you may leave your luggage during section, which is vitally important to the characteristics that you are a couple of ways. Reminder: section is actually doing and what will be given away on a big difference in how you're using the add code for that section; c their research paper was not his highest priority this quarter. I'm getting back to you. I felt occasionally that the person who was buried that morning in terrace she was in your final paper? Here is the only major topic that I may not be tolerated. One thing that I left them in section. Maybe the student engaging in an earlier discussion of Calypso, with Stephen's rather strained relationship with their wedding rings on, and you played a very thorough apparatus for reading the play itself; you also managed time well, actually, because poteen was illegal in Ireland at the end of the facts of Yeats's poem, delivered it in a printed copy in my office with the same part of the salient features of the word love to mean, and you had a good job of discussion. Good choice; I like, since I'm going to give you some feedback about what constitutes evidence, and I'll remove my copy of your material effectively and in a negative value judgment: that sexual desire that wraps in a way of taking the F word. Just a quick search. You picked a longer paper. Do you need to be posted to the group's silence in response to a secret resignation. Grade: A-—You've got a lot of ways that you detect. Of course, as documented in writing already: please remember that its structure was articulated more explicitly about what bird symbolism in general, I think that there are any changes made I will be held tomorrow SH 2635, and you picked to the section website. Still, I'm happy to do in leading a discussion of the room. We will be on campus tomorrow afternoon but have held off on writing back to eGrades when the Irish nationalism, and died after. The use of props and costuming was nice to meet, OK? You've got some really perceptive set of texts. It turns out that I can reschedule for Dec. In exchange, I think, are the song performances themselves, but do so as quickly as possible; if you fall back on it not perhaps rather the case, that it will help to ground your analysis. In particular, for instance, if you'd like. If it's all right with this number of things well, but they can take to be expressed in a way into a complex task and trace a clear cubist depiction of a historical text it just so happens that I really hope that the best night to do at the beginning, though not the case and I quite liked it. Think about what your grade is 62. It's been a clue, and this is reflected here, and listens to a copy of the larger structure of the right page on your own writing and thinking skills here, and I think that, going into the midterm was graded correctly. You picked a longer-than-required selection and recovered well and that everything is going to say that I show you as a whole.

You really do have a handout with thoughtful questions and comments that you yourself have done some very very hastily is generally not only done a lot of ways, you've done a lot of ways, and probably see parallels to Francie's narration, but it's up to 1. Sent me this long to get to all your material gracefully and in terms of the novel's plot and thematic development. I think you've got an interesting contemporary poet, and prejudicial or hate speech will not wind up satisfying any breadth requirements; but these are impressive moves. On interpretations that the paper just barely push you down to structural issues with your little darlin' bridie to be helpful during paper-grading rubric composed entirely of Samuel Beckett: The study of 'Ulysses' is, I think that your section self-esteem. You picked a very good questions and comments by dropping into lecture mode if people aren't prepared, it's easier for me to say and got the lowest score of all but the most important of which parts of your total grade for the course to pull you up out of the play's rhythm in the email but don't yet see a different text on a set of additional purposes, as one day late is slightly larger than the other side, I think that your basic idea is good for your thoughts might be Akira Lippit's recent Atomic Light: Shadow Optics. Must have been even more effectively saying exactly what is difficult selection to memorize because of this audio or video recording of your questions? Goes With Fergus, Song of the section Happy Thanksgiving!

Don't want to try harder on future writing. I absolutely understand that it's impossible to pass the class, then responded to your overall grade for the temptation offered to people by commodities and the English Language; Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer. Ultimately, you did a really strong job with a lot of similarities to yours, and what exactly is at any time without hurting their grade at the end of the Discussion Section Guidelines handout, which would have helped to have practiced a bit more would have most needed in order to receive a passing grade for the bus on your paper is not quite a nice touch, and you accomplished a lot of silences and retractions in your introduction and conclusion feel a bit nervous, but I felt like you know, and perhaps others as lenses into. A-range papers: These papers address the text you'll be stuck with it? I'm giving them some points for not doing so by 10 p. Hi! Hi! You've got some good ideas, and the section website: good reading of those works, we can meet at a bare minimum length if the maximum possible number of things going on as soon as possible, but I think the fairest grade to a copy for my records, and seemed to be on campus today, but it is ultimately up to you.

I hope you're feeling better soon.

It never compares, at the high end of the following characters in order to be, if you need to have particular specific takes on gender. So you can go on Tuesday, 3, and quite enjoyed reading it. If we're getting in Nausicaa and The Cook, the Christian symbolism of motherhood, those who haven't yet decided what order I'll call people in, and I quite liked it. The value quoted is the midterm during this optional session than will be Patrick Kavanagh's On Raglan Road 6 p.

697, p. More broadly, what is Mary likely to see your intelligence and critical acumen is taken to mean what it means this is a move Joyce was making in writing already: please take a look at the final exam, send me an email saying that you consult, including class, and so I did better. The Plough and the standard conventions of formal writing including appropriate grammar, punctuation problems, or. Another way to motivate discussion, depending on where you want to recite, OK? What he did on section one.

That's fine however, two things. As you probably still have plenty of time, so it hasn't hurt your grade, but will get back to you. Thanks for working so hard this quarter so far a very good job digging in to me. That is, after all are quite open-ended that people have prepared as your thesis statement will allow it to me, but I have a perceptive argument that your central argument? All of these are impressive moves. I just think that your texts; it sounds, because I necessarily agree with you that your recitation, please bring your luggage in my box when you've done a very strong because it prevents me from carrying annoyance at a performance of O'Casey's The Plough and the professor's reading of a particular orthodoxy of belief or that themes are reflected in course; explains basis for course grade. But you did a good presence in front of a novel by an Irishman. Thanks for being a nuanced critic of your elements work together in a single paper. Overall, you made changed the last day to drop by the rhythm-and micro-level English course should be motivated by nervousness, and got a lot in this regard I promise that I'm not in terms of which is entirely plausible if you have previously requested that I didn't think of anything to talk about is some material that you score at the final! I mean, here is to to think not about how you're feeling better! Whatever's best for your listeners. Also, before falling asleep, while sitting in my 6pm section for instance, you know that you've chosen, and what this paper, you're welcome to send a new document. It's perfectly OK to look closely for evidence. Ideally, you might think about what your overall discussion goals and points in the play, or in the morning! This is not a good set of arguments about a particular idea is going to be productive to look at what actually matters. I'm looking forward to your presentation out longer, I really did a number of excellent observations in your thesis statement into its final form until the end of the Flies, and that she's not telling the truth is very promising … and then making sure that you're dealing with it. This are comparatively small errors, etc. One percent/for leading an insightful, focused discussion about the offer, that proofreading and editing a bit more. Have a good one, which was true, in addition to reciting in section will have to choose something else, but will be recited by one line because I necessarily think that her suicide occurs when Francie runs away, which is not a bad move, which are quite perceptive. Either 1:00. Section issues? Hello, I think that there is a strong preference and I'll have to follow up a structure about masculine and feminine lines of inheritance that is also a complex and insightful analyses of a country Begins as attachment to our understanding of the paper. I posted to the larger-scale issues and weaves them gracefully without losing the momentum of your paper most needs at this point would be to have is a thinking process that will be in order to minimize disruption to other students, too, and setting a positive influence on your grade by Friday and I'll be around campus earlier if you're leaving town.

Aside from the rest of the group to read. Remember that your analytical exploration of Digging and other visual aids that will help you to providing an introduction to things that could have been is in range for the course to pull your grade more. Here's a breakdown on your paper. That audio clip is certainly OK. One of the quarter to get to all of which is to find ways to make real contributions in section tonight.

I think that the probability that she's not telling the truth is very lucid and very engaging, in The Walking Dead, which is an attempt to look at it with other students in the meantime or have any questions about how to draw out a number of presentations. What is the full text of Irish identity that has to be avoiding picking too many good ideas.

#Irish literature #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Python #Markov chains

[cooperjones2020]

Everyone is a moon

Summary: Betty baits Jughead into going full dark, no stars. Real dark. Real kinky. Real consensual. You’ve been warned. (Part 3 of The Beast Within)

A/N: As with all the fics in this series, Jughead is v. dark and creepy. Only here, Betty’s the one to draw it out of him. I want to put a warning label as long as my arm on this thing, but I trust you all to know that this is fiction and not to judge me. Don’t read if you’re at all squicked out by violent sex or BDSM.

Y’all I edited this on the plane yesterday and my heart was pounding so hard the whole time, afraid someone could read my computer screen.

And most importantly, happiest of birthdays @jandjsalmon. I would not be here, and this dark Juggie would not exist, if not for you. Hopefully this fic doesn’t go too far.

ao3–> http://archiveofourown.org/works/11840985

kinky smut below the jump

“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”—Mark Twain

Betty leans over the pool table, scissoring her legs to give her the leverage to hit the ball on the far side. It doesn’t help that she’s got a leather skirt the size of a band aid covering her ass. She scratches.

The large tattooed man she’s playing with — Gator — gives her a condescending smile before smoothly sinking his last ball. She hasn’t seen him before tonight. Probably a trucker passing through. They come in sometimes. But a Serpent wouldn’t do for her plan to work.

“That’s alright, sweetheart. Why won’t you take this twenty and go get us another round of drinks while I re-rack.” He holds the folded bill between his index and middle fingers, making her come up close to him to reach it. His eyes slide down to her cleavage, on full display in the sleeveless blue button-up she’s tied just above her belly button.

“My pleasure.” She smirks at him, pressing her shoulders back as she turns.

As she crosses the room to the bar, she feels the eyes of the Serpents on her. Not the way they usually are, quick glances that bounce off of her like snowflakes, as if they’re afraid Jughead will catch them looking. He’d lost control once and now the guys give him a wide berth. The Serpent Prince had earned his name.

But Jughead’s not here now. Some use it as an excuse to drink her in, staring until she has to steel herself not to flinch under their eyes. Others look concerned, worried for the peppy blonde girl, so clearly out of her depth in a biker bar. Still others’ stares are hard and accusatory. Reminding her that they’ve never trusted her, daring her to get herself into trouble without Jughead here to bail her out.

That’s what she’s waiting for. For Jughead to catch her. He should have been here half an hour ago.

After the Chuck incident, she tried to put a lid on Dark Betty. But the more she tried to confine her, the better she got at escaping.

That is, until one day she found Jughead’s journals. With FP still in jail awaiting trial, the trailer became their safe space, their sanctuary. Every afternoon she could get away, every weekend day her mother would spare, Betty would rush to the trailer, and Jughead would be there waiting. Sometimes they just did homework, or watched TV, or talked. Passing their burdens back and forth. Often she would cook for him, and they would pretend they were somewhere far away, spinning castles in the air, dreaming of a new life. But they were still teenagers, hormones and all. In that trailer, Betty learned how to please him. And she learned how she liked to be touched.

On a cold afternoon in early November, Betty laid on Jughead’s childhood bed, watching his hands run all over her, watching him memorize her body.

Watching him shoot nervous glances toward the bookshelf beside his bed. She craned her neck to see what he was looking at.

It was a little dark blue journal, much like her own pink one, with the corner of a photo peaking out between its pages. She leaned up and grabbed it before he could stop her.

The photo was of her. Of her sleeping. And it had been taken by someone inside her bedroom. She lay splayed on her stomach, the blankets pulled down to her calves. Betty could see the curve of one of her ass cheeks peaking out of the cheer shorts she slept in. She normally put her hair in a messy bun before bed, but in the photo someone had pulled it down and fanned it across her pillow.

She remembered that night, a few weeks prior—she tried not to sleep in her cheer shorts, always wanted to wash off the sweat from practice before bed. But that night Cheryl had kept them late and she was so tired by the time she got home, ate dinner, finished her homework, that she’d crashed. And then she’d been so confused when she woke in the morning and her hair tie was on the nightstand beside her.

She should have felt repulsed. She should have felt scared. Her sweet, gentle, caring boyfriend was sneaking into her bedroom at night to manipulate her body like a doll and take her picture.

Instead, she felt excited. She glanced up at Jughead. He looked trapped, like she’d backed him into a corner. His eyes kept flicking from her face to the door.

“Turnabout’s fair play, right? I mean, you read mine.” He swallowed and nodded. She reached out to grab his hand with one of her own and eagerly turned the pages. Eventually, she got so absorbed, she drew her hand back so she could flip through his entries more quickly.

This journal was relatively new—the first entry dated from July. He talked of his lonely summer without her, and without Archie. Of going days only talking to Pop and to himself in his writing. He wrote of his anger, of something within his chest he struggled to control. He wrote of stalking her. Of breaking into her room when she was there and when she wasn’t. Of the things he secretly longed to do to her.

As she read, Betty felt a weight lifting off of her. Jughead knew some of her darkness. She thought she knew all of his. She was wrong.

He had curled in on himself while she scanned the pages, his elbows resting on his thighs. He chewed on the corner of his thumbnail and avoided all her attempts to catch his eyes.

So she placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back until she could swing a leg on either side of his hips. She kissed him with a hunger she hadn’t realized she’d been repressing.

That was the day she discovered how to control Dark Betty. Or, rather, that Jughead could control Dark Betty. A regular diet of Jughead’s obsession and his depredation and the fugue states stopped. Her anger stayed in its box and her nails stayed out of her palms.

But Dark Betty escaped today. Betty remembers why she’s here, remembers the process of getting ready and driving here, the steps she laid out ahead of time. She just doesn’t remember making the decision to come. Or the decision to delete the draft of Jughead’s novel off his laptop.

They work because their darkness balances. Like the controlled release of a bomb. But Jughead has been slacking on his responsibilities. Apparently, Dark Betty had decided to remind him. They’d both been so busy lately, Jughead hadn’t had time for anything more than a quick fuck late at night before they both fell into bed, exhausted. And she needed him. She couldn’t control the darkness inside herself without him. She thought they had that in common, that they were equals in that way.

She’s worried that maybe now he wants them to be normal. Well, she was trying to be normal for him. Dark Betty wouldn’t let her.

When she returns with the beers, she watches him take a long pull out of his as she places hers on the windowsill behind her.

“So what brings you to Riverdale,” she swallows, “Gator?”

“Doin’ a long haul job, Orlando to Montreal. Gotta get them oranges up to the Canucks.” He smiles, and she can see a silver cap on one of his molars.

They play another game, during which he grows increasingly bold. He offers to help her correct her stance, the way she holds her stick, and when he passes behind her, his hand grazes her ass. He smells like stale beer and unshowered male. Both odors, she surmises, are accurate.

“What do you say we take a break? Maybe grab a drink and get to know each other a little better?”

Betty’s heart sinks into her stomach. The clock’s run out and Jughead didn’t show. But she tries to smile, tries to seem like nothing’s wrong. “Sure. Why don’t you find a table while I run to the ladies’ room?”

She grabs her purse and makes a beeline for the dark hallway behind the bar. She swallows the tears that threaten and gets ready to call Jughead and tell him what she did.

As she passes a doorway, someone grabs her wrist and yanks her inside. Whoever it is presses her face against the door and twists her arm up behind her back until she winces. A blanket of fear alights on her stomach. Maybe she went too far. Maybe one of the Serpents…

When he speaks, every bone inside her melts. “Sometimes I think you have a death wish.”

“Juggie?”

His voice is rough in her ear and it send shivers down her spine. “I’ve been watching you. You were so distracted by your new boy toy, you didn’t even notice me across the bar when you got that drink. Tut tut.” He lets go of her and she turns around.

“You’ve been here that long? And you waited?” Before she knows what she’s doing, she slaps him. “You sick fuck.”

He smiles but it’s foreign on his face. Not the way he usually looks at her. Lethal. “That was a mistake, little girl.”

His hand wraps around her throat. She scrambles to wrap both of hers around his wrist. That strong and elegant hand that around the back of her neck felt like safety, security, home, now, wrapped around the front, feels like danger and excitement, and a hunger she’s desperate to sate.

He doesn’t squeeze, but instead uses his grip to pull her head forward so he can kiss her, thrusting his tongue into her mouth until she cannot help but yield to him.

When he releases her, she already feels a bit calmer, a bit more settled. A new softness in his jawline indicates that he does too. She rests her forehead against his and lets out a deep exhale. She’d been more wound up than she realized.

“I was getting a little bit scared. I was in over my head and I didn’t know if the Serpents—”

“They would have. And I would never let anyone hurt you.”

“Except you.”

“Isn’t that how this game works, Betty?” And just like that, something inside her sizzles like electricity.

He tilts her head back and spits in her mouth. “Will you play with me?” She nods. “Good.” He dips his thumb in her mouth and swirls it around her tongue. Then he uses their saliva to smear her lipstick onto her cheek before pulling on her lower lip. “Such a pretty girl.”

Betty’s already feeling light-headed, fuzzy. As if she’s drifting somewhere outside herself. As if he’s fixing all the broken places so her body will be ready to hold her again.

Jughead grabs her wrists in one of his hands and lifts her arms over her head, tilting them back until she loses her balances and falls against the door of the storage closet he’s dragged her into with a dull thud, the knob digging into her ass. But Jughead leans over her, something feral in his eyes. He uses his free hand to yank on her top, untying it and popping the buttons open until he spreads it on either side of her and feasts his eyes on her breasts in the black, lacy balconette she’d chosen for tonight.

He releases her and steps back. “Take it off.”

She rushes to comply. When he holds a hand out, she gives him the bra.

“Good, now let’s go home.” He drops it behind a metal storage cart. “You can pick that up tomorrow.”

She gapes at him. He nods at her shirt, where she’s balled it up and tossed it onto a table. “You can tie it, but no buttons.”

She’s dripping wet. And by the way Jughead looks at her when she presses her legs together, he knows it.

When she’s dressed again, sort of, he takes her by the hand and leads her out the back of the Whyte Wyrm.

If she wasn’t cold before, now in just her mini skirt and tank top, she’s freezing. On his bike, she presses her chest against his back and she’s sure he can feel her nipples through the leather that protects him.

When they get home, they don’t bother with the lights. They both kick their shoes off and move down the hallway, fused together. He runs her into a wall and her shoulder knocks a picture frame to the floor. They step over it and keep going.

In the bedroom, he kisses her again, gripping her chin between his thumb and forefinger.

She reaches forward to unzip his pants, but he stops her. “Nuh-uh. I don’t think you deserve that yet.”

“Please, just let me—”

“I said no.” So she stands there, a little deflated, and watches him undress her.

When she’s naked in the centre of the room and he’s still fully clothed, as she fights the urge to cover herself, he says, “That’s better, isn’t it? Now let’s play a game called how good is Betty’s memory.”

She swallows. “Okay.”

“How many times do you think your new friend touched you tonight?”

“Um, five times?” Uh oh. As much as this side of Jughead can make her nervous, she also craves it. When he’s so cold and detached, when he looks like he can see right through her, that’s when she trusts that he will take care of her. That he’ll give her what she needs. Because sometimes she frightens herself. But she never frightens him.

“Wrong. He touched you eleven times. And that’s just after I arrived. Now, how many words of my work did you delete?”

She definitely doesn’t know this. “Seventy thousand?”

“Wrong again. You deleted ninety-five thousand words.”

Tears flood her eyes. “Juggie, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I know I can’t fix it, but can I make it up to you somehow?”

He chuckles at her as he removes his own shirt. “We’re certainly going to let you try. Why did you do that Betty? What did you think would happen when I found out you��d messed with my computer, when I found you showing your ass off to someone else?” He steps up behind her so he’s talking into her hair. She can feel the rough material of his jeans brush against her ass. She wants to lean back to find out if he’s hard yet, if this is affecting him as much as it is her, but she knows he wouldn’t like that.

“I don’t…I don’t know.”

“Yes you do. What did you want to happen?”

Betty closes her eyes and whispers, “I wanted you to hurt me.”

“That’s right. But maybe I shouldn’t let you get what you want. Maybe I should just let you suck my cock and then come all over your face and let you sleep in it.” She whimpers and forces herself to nod. “But I’m too selfish for that. I’m not going to sleep until I feel the velvet heat of your cunt around me. Until I’ve rubbed you raw, inside and out. So here’s what you’re going to do for me.” He comes back around to face her. “You’re going to touch your tits.” Her hands move without any input from her brain. “Now twist your nipples.” She does. “Good. Now I want you to pinch them so hard they turn white.”

She just stands there. It feels different somehow, to do it to herself. She wants him to take the control from her. She doesn’t know if she’s strong enough to willfully offer it up. Jughead shakes his head. “I thought you were serious.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you’re not, I can just go back to work—”

“No!”

“You want me to hurt you? Prove it.”

“What?”

“I told you to pinch your nipples.” She squeezes. He watches her as he removes his pants and boxers.

“Harder.”

She does until tears spring to her eyes.

“Good girl.” That horrible perfectionist inside her preens at the compliment. She closes her eyes and bites her lip, trying to concentrate on the pain that sends shock waves down to her pussy. Then Jughead pulls her hands off and captures one peak in his mouth, sucking, and the sudden influx of blood makes her gasp. He wraps his hands around her waist, forcing her to bow her back until she’s afraid she’s going to fall.

But at the last second, he spins them and pulls her onto the bed on top of him. He slides up the bed and she crawls on top of him, trying to follow. With every jostle, his cock brushes against her centre and she wants to scream.

When his head lands on the pillow, she leans back and begins to gyrate against him, desperate now.

“Please, please…” She doesn’t know anymore what she’s asking for.

He slaps her thigh and after a moment she realizes he’s telling her to get up on her knees. He slips a hand between them and angles his cock up, before gripping her hips and slamming her down on him. Now, she does scream.

He doesn’t thrust, but wraps both hands around her, thumbs rubbing her hip bones, and urges her to move.

“That’s it, baby girl. Take what you need from me.” His fingers are tight and she knows she’ll have bruises. She welcomes the pain. Her nails carve small half moons into his pecs, a matching set to the scars on her own palms.

But the sting must make him impatient. He begins thrusting upward with his hips and pulling her down at the same time, setting a brutal rhythm. Every time her clit hits his pubic bone she shudders. She’s on top, but he’s controlling the pace, the angle. He’s controlling her. And it’s as if by controlling her body, he can reach any remaining piece of her soul that remains unconquered. And she wants him to have that. She wants him to have every splintered, bleeding part of her. Tears begin to slip out of her eyes. She sees them drip off her face and land on her hands, on his chest.

When her shaking intensifies, when she’s so close, he pushes her off him and bites her shoulder as he reenters her from behind. Betty cries out at the sharp sting of teeth but god she wants it. She wants him to bite her all over until her back is a mess of mangled tissue. She must have been speaking out loud because he does. Every bit of her he can reach, biting and dragging his teeth against the aching flesh. She sobs at the intensity and an orgasm slams into her without warning.

Jughead keeps pounding away inside of her, like a meat tenderizer against her pussy. She’s crying in earnest now. She never wants him to stop.

But he does. He pulls out and paints her back in hot, sticky ropes of come. A masterpiece. Then he collapses beside her and drags her on top of him.

And her sweet boyfriend is back. Dark Betty, banished back to her hiding place.

“Next time you find yourself spiralling, I want you to promise you’ll tell me. Preferably before you start deleting things off my laptop.” Betty nods into the wet spot she’s left on his chest. “You’re lucky you know I keep a back up on my external.” Yes, she’s damn lucky Dark Betty remembered that. If she did.

They throw all the darkness into the black hole they create between them until it burns itself up and winks out of existence. Until the next time.

Later, she’s laying across his lap and he’s tracing her back, running his fingers in and out of the grooves of his teeth marks.

“Let me see.”

“Betty, no.”

“I want to see it Juggie.” He sighs, reaching over to flick the lamp on before slipping his arms under hers, pulling her up so her chest rests against his, and she can twist and see her back in the mirror across from the foot of their bed.

It’s a web of raised red and white ridges. Her eyes follow the hills and valleys of her damaged skin.

“I’m sorry I got carried away. The noises you were making—”

“Don’t be. I don’t want it to ever fade. I want you indelibly inked onto my skin, a tattoo that scientists years from now could use to resurrect your exact dentition.” She wants to wear Jughead Jones’s darkness like a cloak to hide her own.

“We could do that.”

“How?”

“I mean, I know you have your crown. And we probably shouldn’t do anything like that again. It’s a miracle you didn’t get tetanus the first time. But maybe a tattoo, if you wanted.”

“Yes. Yes, I want. Do you? Would you want that?”

He gives her a look that would melt steel. “Betts, I’d do everything short of tagging you with ‘Jughead Jones wuz here’ if I could.”

She smiles and presses a kiss to his shoulder. “Where?”

He slips his hand back underneath her, coming to rest where the curve of her breast runs into the skin of her back. His thumb presses into a particularly deep bite mark and she hisses. “Here.”

#bughead fanfiction #bughead smut #riverdale fanfiction #betty x jughead #betty cooper #jughead jones #mine #marked #dom!jug #dark!jug #dark!betty #i'm going to hell #tw: violence #tw: mental illness