If I Should Stay
Tread lightly, folks. Discussions of past cheating, which is kinda par for the course for these two. Also, please keep in mind I do not condone Nancy’s actions in the least, nor do I fully believe Joyce has the best intentions for Nancy. It’s not conscious, mind you, but subconsciously, she’s always gonna want to her help kids first. Big gray area here.
Part 1 | . . . | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68
Joyce tugs Nancy in even more securely. “I know exactly what you mean. But no one here is like that. I think, this time around, he’s done an excellent job of surrounding himself with people who actually care about him.” She runs a hand over Nancy’s hair. “And you’re part of that group. Regardless of what you want to call what you feel for him, it’s obvious you care. It’s okay to need to take some time, but in the end, when you’re wondering what’s next, just remember he cares for you too.”
Nancy nods. “I think I do need some time,” she murmurs. “It just feels like he moved on so fast.”
“Because it’s not been as long for you,” Joyce nods. “I get it, honey. Take all the time you need. Want Jonathan to keep you company?”
Nancy looks at her. “D’you know who I cheated on Steve with?”
Joyce smiles softly at her. “I do. And trust me, I’d have something to say to him about it later if he’d known you two were still together.” She inclines her head toward Nancy, brows raised, gaze serious.
“Oh,” Nancy whispers, eyes dropping. “I didn’t know that.”
“Mhm. But it’s in the past—well, the future past, I guess—and you can take as long as you need, okay? But I do think someone deserves an apology.”
Nancy sighs. “You’re right.” She picks at the hem of her pants, then nods and stands up, hands on her hips. “I need time. But I need to apologize first.” She just as suddenly deflates, nerves coming in fast. “Will- will you come with me?”
Joyce smiles up at her. “Of course I will. C’mon.” She stands too and offers Nancy another hug, which she gratefully accepts. “I’m proud of you,” she murmurs.
“Thank you,” Nancy whispers, pulling back and squaring her shoulders as she stares at the house.
They walk up together but Joyce walks in first, Nancy following just behind. “Steve?” She asks timidly. “Can I talk to you?”
Robin and Allison both stiffen, but Steve waves them off as he gets up. “Outside?”
“Steve-” Allison starts, but he holds up a hand before turning to her.
“I’ll be fine,” he says softly. “We’re just gonna talk.”
He walks outside with her, Joyce hovering by the door, acting both as support and as a lookout.
“I’m sorry,” Nancy says forcefully, like it was pulled out of her. “I shouldn’t have gotten so upset, you broke up with me, and you really didn’t owe me an explanation but you gave me one anyways, even if it hadn’t actually happened yet, but I… I got insecure. And jealous. So I’m sorry.”
Steve nods, shoves his hands in his pockets, looks down. Scuffs his shoe along the concrete. “I get why you’re upset,” he starts cautiously. “But I thought we were okay. And to find out we’re not…” he lets out a harsh breath. “I do still care for you, Nancy. You’re one of my best friends. But I think I’m gonna need some time for this one.”
Nancy looks down at her own feet, wrapping her arms around herself. “I don’t think I took as much time as I should’ve,” she admits. “Can you count me out of this one?”
Steve manages a smile. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“And-” she squeezes her eyes shut, lets out a shaky breath. “Jonathan too, maybe?”
“I-” Steve takes a breath, stops himself, looks wide-eyed at the ground before letting out a long, controlled breath. “Yeah. I can do that.” His words are barely a whisper, and he lets out another short, harsh breath before brushing past her. “Excuse me.”
He lets himself back inside, and Nancy stands there, wide-eyed, staring through the spot he’d been standing in.
Then, Nancy Wheeler breaks.
The tears come in strong and fast, and she’s crumbling where she stands before strong arms catch her. “It’s alright,” Joyce whispers in her ear. “It’ll be alright.”
She lowers them both to the ground and lays Nancy’s head on her shoulder.
“I- I don’t get it,” Nancy sobs. “I did the right th-thing and I f-feel terrible!”
Joyce hushes her. “I know, dear. Sometimes the right thing feels terrible in the moment, but is best in the long run.” She runs a hand over Nancy’s head. “Did you drive yourself?”
Nancy nods. “And M-Mike.”
“Okay. Do you think I could drive you home and Jon could follow in our car? That way he can stay with you and I can come back here.”
Nancy nods and look up at her. “C-can you m-make sure Steve’s okay?”
“Of course, dear. Come on, let’s get you home, okay? And I’ll even give you my mom’s recipe to heal a broken heart: a warm cup of tea, a good cry, and a good night’s rest.”
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HELP your time travel shenanigans fic idea about toji being very much alive but still putting the fate of his two little ass kids in the hands of a bunch of 16-17 year olds even if he’s still breathing. if i was megumi then my abandonment issues would’ve gone crazy if that happened to me 😭. mamaguro is looking down from the pearly white gates IN ANGER at toji’s audacity i just know it.
but now i’m curious on other ideas (that you have) for fics about jjk that you may or may not get to after sea glass gardens.
see the sad thing is that letting a bunch of 16-17 year old bitchy disaster gays discover the magic of teen parenthood is actually a step up because he had already sold Megumi to the Zenin and feral wolverines would be a better alternative to them. This was the best parenting decision toji has ever made.
(Time travel!Megumi: look we don’t have any other options. Anything is better than the Zenin.
Gojo, in the distance: they’re what three? That’s old enough for a red bull
Geto: I will actually kill you over this satoru
Time travel!megumi: *deep breath*)
A loose catalogue of my jjk fics, which may or may not exist one day:
Sea glass gardens verse:
I am forever compelled by the siren call of expanding my fics into universes because one story is never enough for me. I’ve got threeish stories in this universe, with no promises of how many, if any, I’ll write.
1. The Teen Parenting Chronicles: Gojo, Nanami, and Shoko’s expert guide to raising children when you are, in fact, children. Featuring what the fuck happened with the Zenin the first time around.
2. Megumi’s pov of what just happened leading up to sea glass gardens: someone asked me if I’d ever write this and it has the highest chance of existing because I have. Sort of. Started writing it. I have impulse control issues.
3. Okkotsu Yuuta and the world’s longest distance panic attack: crack fic of Yuuta on his study abroad trip becoming increasingly more frantic at the other second year’s updates as to how His Boy’s first year as a jujutsu sorcerer is going. What do you mean sukunas there. What do you mean he doesn’t have a shirt. Well put one on him!
Time travel AU:
1. The Time Traveler’s Guide to Fucking Shit Up And Living Well: following another attempt on their lives by the higher ups, the first year gang is forced into a desperate, high stakes gamble with a time-centric curse that puts their very existences at stake. If they want to survive, they have to complete one task of their choosing in the past before the clock runs out. Their mission?
To punch fushiguros shitty bio dad in the face, something which will surely have no long term consequences on the timeline.
See this one has the most chance of actually existing one day because it is by far my FAVORITE jjk fic I have. It even beats out sea glass gardens. I desperately want to write it.
2. The 2006 Gang and the Art of a Good Union: following a confusing incident with the star plasma vessel and three unknown sorcerers, the 2006 Tokyo jujutsu high first and second year class inexplicably goes off the rails and retires from jujutsu sorcery, claiming that they’ve discovered the magic of teen parenthood and can in no way risk themselves in such a dangerous profession now that they have kids to think about. At least, not with the way things are run now.
No one knows where they got the children from.
3. Toji Fushiguro and the Dead Beat Dad Chronicles: in which toji fushiguro succeeds at being a dead beat baby daddy to two teenaged gay boys and their crew of bitchy lgbtq compadres, who in no way want him to be involved in their children’s lives.
Standalones:
1. “Fushiguro is unleashed in junpei’s school like an invasive superpredator” AU: I’ve talked about this one in way more detail in another post for an ask game, but the idea is that itadori discovers junpeis abuse at school and says Not On His Fucking Watch and escalates the matter to gojo, who decides the funniest possible solution while they try to draw out mahito is to unleash his all star delinquent son into junpeis high school to bully the bullies.
Fushiguro resents this as a problem solving strategy.
2. The Zenin raise Megumi AU: also discussed in more detail in an ask game. In which people took Tsumiki’s little brother from her, but she’s trying to get him back, she promises.
Or, in which the Zenin take megumi, leave tsumiki, and they both spend every day after fighting to get back to the other.
3. Sort of a no curse AU: Itafushi romance story, in which local himbo Itadori Yuuji falls for delinquent Fushiguro Megumi when his grandpa is placed in the room next to Fushiguros comatose sister. Starts as a no curse AU… except there’s totally curses, Tsumikis mom just moved them to Sendai without telling anyone so the Zenin never found Megumi, and he’s just never told anyone about the curses he sees because he’s worried he’s schizophrenic. He thought the shikigami thing was a metaphor for self actualization or something.
4. Fushiguro Megumi and the World’s Most Inconvenient Custody Battle: pre JJK0, Geto decides to be a shithead magic terrorist at a local school that represents all the worst of monkey society: it’s known for a rampant bullying issue, which is a breeding ground for cursed spirits, and it contributes to the risk to jujutsu sorcerers by feeding a local legend of a haunted bridge that could explode into a serious curse any day.
What he didn’t count on? Finding the new Ten Shadows in the student body, who’s fully willing to kamikaze them both if it means saving his sister’s life.
And who doesn’t seem to be aware that he more than has the potential to take suguru in a fight.
In which Fushiguro just wanted to shut up, go to school, and go home, and instead finds himself in a binding vow to give cult life a whirl to save the lives of classmates he doesn’t even like all that much.
It involves oddly more parenting than he expected.
5. Fake Fiancés AU: prodigy and noble prize winning physicist Gojo Satoru, following a very ill advised fuck buddies arrangement with fushiguro toji, has settled down into domestic bliss with the two kids he took from the relationship despite them not, in any way, being related to him. The problem? His ex is back in town. The hot one. The one who broke up with him and started a cult. The one who he wants to convince he got over when he absolutely did not do that.
The solution? Tell everyone he’s happily engaged to Nanami Kento, who cannot express enough how much he does not want him to do that.
… until, all of a sudden, he needs a show of domestic bliss himself. His adoptive son’s older brother, sukuna, has crawled out of the woodwork and decided to make a play for custody himself. And Nanami does not know what Sukuna truly wants, but he knows it does not have Yuuji’s best interests at heart.
I share custody of this story with my best friend, who cocreated it with me over deranged text message. I may convince her to joint write it with me if I ever get her to publish her fanfic.
6. Todo Aoi and Schrodinger’s Boyfriend: Todo’s beloved brother, who is most assuredly a man, suffers some kind of terrible brain damage that leads him to confess he loves an assless boy. Todo cannot abide by this, until it’s pointed out to him that if Fushiguro’s type is his brother, that would make him the most interesting man alive. If it is not, he continues to be a boring and uninteresting boy.
Todo sets off on a mission with two goals: determine if fushiguro megumi is interesting, and get him to do some squats. because there’s simply no ass there.
Fushiguro wonders why his life is suddenly harder.
7. Choso and the Art of Being a Big Brother: choso discovers the truth of kenjaku early and does the only logical thing in response: he kills his father in his sleep, cuts out his brain, and delivers it in a jar to his new brother Itadori Yuuji as the first step in wooing him into domestic sibling love.
Megumi doesn’t know where these people come from. Or why all of them think itadori is their brother.
8. SatoSugu realizes their little boy is all grown up when he gets his first crush on a boy when he meets yuuji.
They do not fucking take it with grace.
Also co-written with my best friend via text message.
9. The instagram chronicles: crack fic in which the jujutsu sorcery personnel crisis gets worse, because nobara Kugisaki keeps trying to hard launch her instagram influencer career, and keeps accidentally making every jujutsu sorcerer instagram famous except for her
10. So I don’t actually ship Yuuta and Megumi, but I do really like the idea of low stakes relationships? Like, especially for teen romances. You tried it, decided you were better off as friends, and just went back to being friends. I just like the idea of fumbling around in relationships and getting a sense of boundaries and what you’re interested in without it being a big, world-shaking romance. It seems like a more realistic portrayal of high school relationships than every one of them being this world-defining mature love.
Pre season 1 but post JJK 0, Yuuta and Megumi dated for maybe a month and half, held hands maybe twice, and decided that they were better off as friends and parted on good terms. The issue?
No one realized they were dating. And when it is realized, everyone thinks their relationship was torpedoed because the second years kept inviting themselves onto their dates.
Cue the jjk high school students trying to amend old mistakes and get Yuuta and Megumi back together, who do not, in fact, want to be back together. Headlining Inumaki Toge, who is half in love with Yuuta and does not know why he’s helping get him together with someone else, and Itadori Yuuji, who is half in love with Megumi and also does not know why he’s helping get him together with someone else.
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