#if this is my magnum opus on this blog then good! I wanna be known for standing by these fucking words

[euniveve]

Rate your moots?

let me be honest I'm rating all my moots a million/10 because they are all amazing and talented and amazing BUT i will give you some "describe the moot/appreciate the moot" content if you dont mind. also I'm sorry to all my moots in advance because I will tag you ANYHOW LETS MOVE TO IT

@ainescribe = my very very first follower and moot in my first and current blog- ABSOLUTE GOD at writing angst (known as the angst queen for a reason) amazing writing style (the poetic artistry hello?) very very nice and sweet, is my gateway to genshinblr <3333333

@meritamiau = this is my beta, i love my beta very much, THEY ARE A GODSEND FRFR also their writing hello??? love it, got that poetic artistry going on, check out their ao3 lucworld, it is awesome (i honestly cant believe this amazing writer is my beta, still blows my mind fr)

@yuellii = *chef's kiss* writing (you guys need to read it) veteran writer, super sweet and nice, VERY VERY PRETTY BLOG (shapes and colours entertain me), her writing is like a box of chocolate, there is one for everyone (she is an everyone kind of writer, i really recommend her blog if you are a beginner)

@rainswept = HAVE YOU GUYS SEEN THEIR BLOG? LAWD HAVE MERCY IT MAKE ME WANNA STARE AT IT FOR HOURS, they are THE lyney simp, multitalented, basically a prodigy, i wanna put them under a microscope and study them (affectionately)

@localplaguenurse = one of the reasons why i got into writing in the first place, first fic was inspired by his magnum opus (everyone who likes TPHD please thank the predecessor because LAWD ALMIGHTY IS AS GOLD AS THE GINGKO TREES ONE OF THE LEGENDARY ZHONGLI X READER MASTERPIECES OF ALL TIME), we don't talk a lot but is definitely an amazing dude (i can tell frfr), honestly if you are in ao3 go check him out he is an amazing writer fr

@silentmoths = on god write one of the best smut on this damn platform (minors don't interact with them I am watching you guys) ) their writing makes me say "ffs/pos *reads more*" yk what i mean? honestly she is an all-around cool dude and very nice too, one of my Star Rail friends, a cutie pie very nice person (i think i said that twice but that's okay)

@meimeimeirin = listen listen, if you want a zhongli fic/drabble/oneshot, this is the writer for you, it just LAWD HER BLOG IS THE ZHONGLI HEAVEN I'm telling you, i can just stare at her blog and be content with my zhongli cravings, she is THE zhongli writer fr, also one of the reasons i got into writing, particularly writing drabble &oneshots, anyhow check out her blog if you are a zhongli simp like me

@otomempress =(if you are a minor, don't interact with her) VERY NICE VERY CUTE VERY SWEET, ALSO DRAGON SIMP (like me) AND WRITE AMAZING WORKS (if you love wrio &neuvi you are eating good at their account fr) very fun person overall

@i23kazu/@yinyinggie = this cutie pie is also amazing at writing, VERY VERY NICE PERSON LIKE EXTREMELY NICE LIKE VERY SWEET i would like to bite them and they would probably taste like marshmallow sweet, owner of two beloved communities that are very well-known, very creative with their blog (remember tevyat airlines era anyone?)

@ansy-tea = if you like yandere... this is the writer for you. they write GOD LEVEL YANDERE FICS FR (that statue fic will forever haunt me/pos) also from their rbs i could tell they are a funny person

@ryuryuryuyurboat = VERY VERY NICE PERSON AND AN AMAZING WRITER TOO (tumblr please let them out of shadowban jail pls lawd)

@mhiieee, @dumbificat = i don't talk to them a lot HOWEVER i can tell that they are amazing writers and everytime they post a work I EAT IT UP GOOD frfr

@tanspostsblog = this is the og TPHD & TLRA fan, was their with me every step of the way, is there in every update, super supportive about everything LAWD IM GRATEFUL TO BE MOOTS WITH YOU TANS MUAH MUAH MUAH

notice how all my moots are amazing writers? yeah they are amazing writers, give them love everyone they deserve it muah muah muah

#☁️ - prophecy of the past #☁️ - preachings of the priestess #☁️ ꒰ may your day be good : humble visitor ꒱

[flight-of-fantasy]

5, 4, 3, 2, 1

Tagged by @princess-of-the-worlds

Rules: post the top 5 works you’re most proud of that you released in 2022 (not necessarily your most popular), your top 4 current WIPs that you’re excited to release in the new year, your top 3 biggest improvements in your writing over the past year, your top 2 resolutions (ways you wish to improve your writing/blog) for the new year, and your number 1 favorite line you’ve written this year!

5 works

Hm I don’t think I posted 5 works because I write things and then don’t post them because I get anxious lol. But I did post 4 this year, which is huge for me! Here we go:

1.  Greet the Dawn

Really proud of this one. Wrote this for the Merlin Library Drabbles for Dopamine series. I just really enjoy writing from Gwen’s POV. I definitely wanna write more slice-of-life Merlin fics

Summary: Merlin is terribly nervous about the transition from servant to court sorcerer, and Gwen knows a thing or two about transitioning from a servant to a member of the court. Luckily, she has a remedy. She began it when she became Queen, and she's more than happy to share her secret with Merlin.

2. Heart & Soul

This one is in progress and I was and still am terrified of posting it lol. It’s Mergwenthur, where Arthur accidentally kisses Merlin and freaks out (as does Merlin). He confesses to Gwen and turns out Gwen has seen this coming for years. Cue healthy poly talks and Gwen and Merlin both helping Arthur through his bi awakening. Nothing can truly come between these three, I am convinced. They are unbreakable. 

3. A Merfolk-Scale Earring

Merthur & Merman!Merlin fic told in the style of a fairytale (omniscient narrator). Based on a prompt channel discussion in the Merlin Library. I cannot resist merpeople, I’ve been obsessed with mermaids since childhood.

Summary:  It's a known fact that soon-to-be Pirate King Arthur Pendragon wears a single blue merfolk scale as an earring. It's the only proof he has that he was saved by a merperson in the storm that killed his mother, even as his father blames Neptune for her death. Little does Arthur know, the very same merman that saved him has just waltzed onto his ship as the new cabin boy, still getting used to his new spindly legs

4. When Dragons Call

This one hasn’t gotten much attention but I had a blast writing it! For Mergwenthur week--a rewrite of the Dragon’s Call but Gwen is a knight/the Princess after winning a tournament to be heir, Arthur is a sorcerer come from Ealdor after his mother Ygraine fled Camelot under mysterious circumstances, and Merlin is the castle gardener with his mother Hunith as the blacksmith. I wasn’t gonna write this as I drew the role swaps and was just gonna keep it as art, but I couldn’t resist!

4 WIPs 

I only have 3 (that I’ve started, lots of ideas). Here we go:

Children of Destiny

My nearing-400K canon-compliant Merlin Season 6 fic (gen, Merthur vibes in spots). I’ve been working on it for 7 years now. It’s historically accurate while covering Arthur’s return in modern day, modern UK politics, Celtic gods and goddesses, obscure legends, things generally going to shit--but it also covers Gwen’s solo rule starting in the year 922 AD and is a mirror of historical politics. Gwen is a replacement of King Hywel the Good. Merlin is her penteulu (basically a Welsh version of a king’s advisor), and I’m covering the struggles of bringing magic back to Camelot. It also covers much of the time between the fall of Camelot and modern day for Merlin’s life (read: angsty). I have historically-accurate BBC Merlin maps I’ve been making and a wiki I’m building entirely for the project of aligning the show with history. It’s been a wild ride so far! A great way to practice my research chops and prepare for my PhD. Much more to go. It’s basically my magnum opus and I’m scared no one will read it or like it but I’m trying to get over that fear lol

2. From Dusk Til Dawn

Can’t talk about it because it’s my Big Bang fic for this year! All I can say is that it’s a bit like Servant of Two Masters but reversed--it starts out with fun curse shenanigans and then gets super plotty and angsty. It’s also a Disir rewrite, but set in S3. That’s all I’ll say!

3. What I Must Do

After a lot of waffling I’ve decided to do a sequel to my fic What I’d Have Done. I never thought it would get so popular and never really considered a sequel, but now I have a lot of ideas... so why not?? Instead of focusing on a Merlin magic reveal like What I’d Have Done, the sequel will focus on the Morgana magic reveal and her arc... especially as she and Morgause now know who Emrys is.

Summary:   Arthur thought nothing would shock him more than the revelation that Merlin, someone he thought he knew inside and out, possessed magic. But as he looked into the eyes of the woman he’d learnt to be his sister, his own blood, he was frozen in place at the magic there. A gold shimmering in her irises, and a deep, burning hatred for their father that could not be satiated. 

"I must do this, Arthur," Morgana hissed at him, and in that moment, Arthur no longer recognised her. "And I will not rest until my dagger is in his heart." 

The day Arthur had learnt of Merlin’s magic, his whole world had shifted—in the end, for the betterment of both himself and his kingdom. But the day he discovered his sister’s true nature, his world shifted again, and this time for the worse. 

3 Writing Improvements

Ooo I like this question

1. Confidence to share. I write a lot and talk a lot about writing, but rarely share it. I get extremely anxious about what people will think of it, or that I might get hate. The internet can be the wild west and I used to be a lot more fearless about putting my work out there. Less so now. Posting 4 works in 2022 and finishing my giant fic in 2021 after a 6 year hiatus (school lol) was a huge step for me

2. Beginnings/Opening Lines. Never been good at them. I write out of order so tend to write the ending first. Beginnings I struggle with, and especially with my original works, where you can’t just jump in (so much easier with fic!). I’m very proud of my opening line of the novel I’m working on now (a Peter Pan retelling with Norse mythology). It’s taken me about 9 rewrites to get the first chapter right, but I feel so much better now that I’ve trimmed the fat and now open with a strong narrative question. It’s especially important because it may be all an agent, editor, or potential reader reads!

First line if anyone is curious:  It was at 35,000 feet in the air that Erin first saw the flying wolf.

3. Outlining Outlining is my ish. I live and die by it. I don’t religiously stick to outlines, but I swear by their effectiveness, especially in screenwriting. In 2022 I think I improved my plotting skills a lot, particularly with pacing and figuring out how to make the plot flow correctly/how to split things up so that when I sit down to write I don’t wanna bang my head against a wall. My outline for Children of Destiny is now done and it is a 33K-word-long outline lol. I’m very proud of it. My goal for 2023 is to finish outlining all my projects--5 original novels, 1 screenplay, 1 TV pilot, 5 fics. 

2 Writing Resolutions

1. Finish shit. I don’t even care what shit. Just finish it.

2. Post shit. Submit shit. Yeah. And try not to have anxiety attacks over it. It’s just fiction. Breathe, Sarah

1 Favorite Line

Maybe this one, from Children of Destiny, referring to prophecies:  They rained down seeds of hope into Merlin’s hands, granting him a purpose only to abandon him in nourishing it.

tagging!! @aziraphalesbookkeeper @paintedpigeon1 @zaharya @inkmyth @thenerdyindividual

#tag game #writing #writing 2022 #here's to 2023!

[pricklerick]

magnum opus

Quick disclaimer: I don’t usually post warnings on my blog, but I’m going to now - this is a ficlet/summary of a huge Rick and Morty story that I’m completely unqualified to write. DEAD DOVE; DO NOT EAT. Guys, this is dark. Trigger warnings for incest, underage sex, pregnancy loss, postpartum depression, attempted suicide.

I’ll preface by saying that this is a story that’s been bouncing around in my brain for a while now. But I don’t feel that I have the maturity or life experience to tackle the subject matter and do it any justice at all. These are heavy topics that have affected many people, and the last thing I’d ever want to do is exploit them, minimize them, or misrepresent them.

So, if you choose to continue, know that you are responsible for the media that you consume, and know that the things I write (or the perspective of the characters that I write) do not necessarily reflect my personal opinions.  

Okay, that being said, have an angsty fic summary!

Morticia (known as Tish) and her Rick have been fucking for years. Tish knows that to Rick, she’s an easy lay - an accessible warm body at best. But to Tish, Rick is everything.

She’s seventeen, and Rick gets really antsy about an adventure to a universe where space herpes is airborne. He insists that Tish get a series of ridiculously painful alien vaccinations that leave her shaky and nauseated for a week. Tish puts up with it, because Rick gets what Rick wants, and Rick wants a very specific isotope of Nihonium that can only be found on Space Herpes’ Andromeda galaxy. Once Tish is feeling better, Rick drags her off to spend a single afternoon harvesting rocks. The whole thing goes off without a cinch for once, and Tish totally forgets about it.

But it’s not long before Tish starts feeling off again. She’s exhausted, can’t eat or sleep, and one night when Rick grabs her tits and squeezes just like she needs him to, Tish screams at the sensitivity.

Rick stops cold and just looks at her, that same look that he gives to a gadget that’s not behaving how he wants, and in that moment, something grows cold in Tish’s stomach.

She knows.

She takes test after shitty drugstore test, spends close to $100 at the gas station down the street. On her third trip, the cashier looks at her in undisguised pity, and Tish has to stop herself from punching him in the face.

“Rick, I think I’m pregnant.”

She doesn’t think, she fucking knows. Rick’s face stays carefully blank. He keeps tinkering with the android in front of him, the only sign that he even heard a quick blink and the subtle movement of the muscles of his throat as he swallows hard.

“Rick?” she prompts.

“Jeezus, Tish, I’m old, not deaf. Fucking heard you the first time.”

She huffs, lets her left hip rest against the countertop where he’s working, folds her arms across her chest to hide her shaking hands.

Rick sighs, swiping the goggles up so that they catch in his hair. “Not a problem,” he says evenly, carefully looking in any direction but to her.

Tish blinks. She’d expected… more. An explosion, a few curse words, hell, even some pointed fingers.

Rick is reaching for a drawer, pulls out a syringe that’s filled with a vicious purple fluid. “I mean, really Tish, there’s a whole— a whole multiverse of options out there. And you - you still insist on using fu-fucking horse piss!”

He’s coming at her with the needle. Tish’s body reacts before her brain even comprehends the situation, and she backhands Rick hard enough to send him stumbling. The syringe shatters on the floor, and Tish gasps, her hand stinging from the impact.

Rick is looking at her, both hands supporting his weight on the countertop. His chest is heaving. He spits blood, glaring at her, and Tish’s heart sinks to her toes.

"Fine,” he hisses. “You wanna play Mommy? Wanna tell your mother that you’re pregnant at seventeen? Knock yourself out, baby. I’ll fucking let you. At least nobody will think twice about your retard baby - you’re dumb as rocks, Tish, stupider than dirt.  And when this crashes and burns, like I know it will, when you’re in over your head and you hate yourself and that little mutation of genetic material that’s percolating in your gut like a goddamn tape worm, you remember this.” Rick looms over her, leaning so close that Tish can smell bile on his breath. “You remember that Grandpa Rick fucking told you so.”

And in a swirl of vivid green, he is gone.

Weeks go by and Tish is as sick as a dog. Beth is too busy grieving the loss of her dad to notice Tish’s hollow eyes and vacant expression; in fact, Beth seems to blame Tish for Rick’s disappearance.

And she’s right to, Tish thinks.

Tish doesn’t say anything. She loses a lot of weight - her cheeks are hollow and her jeans hang from her hips. All the while, she replays Rick’s words over and over again…

You’re dumb as rocks, Tish.

Tish knows she’s sick in the head. It’s sick to fall in love with your abusive grandfather, and even more sick to sacrifice everything for your abusive grandfather’s incest-baby. Tish can’t explain it. She’s always been good for nothing - not much to look at, useless at school, no real talent to speak of.

And then, one night when she was thirteen, Rick drunkenly grabbed her hand and dragged her through a portal, and Tish found her purpose.

She was good at playing side-kick. Dumb enough to shield Rick from his enemies, just smart enough to do (mostly) what she was told, and unquestionably devoted. Like an animal, she overheard Rick say once. Throw her a treat every now and then and she’ll come running.But Tish had thrived with Rick, despite everything. She followed him, pandered to him, drunk-sat him, memorized all of his quirks and habits. And when she was fifteen and neither of them could deny the draw of their bodies any longer, Tish had given herself to him, had quaked and keened beneath him as he mapped her with his hands and lips and tongue…

Tish was Rick’s, as sure as she was anything, and Rick, Rick was everything. And now, she had a part of him. A little piece of Rick, growing inside her.

Rick and Tish, forever and ever.

Tish is stupid, but she knows this much - if she does nothing else in her life, nothing at all, she’s going to do this. She’s going to leave her mark on the world, her mark and Rick’s.

She’s going to have this baby.

Still, that’s a hard thing for a seventeen year old to articulate, and Beth is less than supportive. Tish says nothing. She just dwindles away until one morning, 84 days after Rick left, she passes out in the middle of remedial algebra and wakes up in an ambulance. The paramedic refuses to hear Tish’s pleas of “low blood sugar; I skipped breakfast,” and Tish finds herself ushered into the ER, complete with ass-baring gown and oversized hospital socks.

“Congratulations,” the idiot in the white coat says, hardly glancing up from his clipboard. “You’re going to be a mom!”

Tish tunes him out as he prattles along about ultrasounds and hyperemesis gravidarum and dangerously low potassium levels. He tells her that she’ll be monitored overnight, and that her parents have been notified.

She must have fallen asleep, because when she wakes, holy fuck, Rick is there, staring at her with glittering eyes. Above her, Tish hears the blip-blip-blip of the heart monitor as it speeds.

Rick’s eyes never leave her face, but his hand snakes under her blanket, searching. He skims past her cunt, pausing as if to linger there, but then settles northward, fingers slaying wide over Tish’s pelvis as he palms the barely-there knot that rises beneath the dip of her hipbones. Tish’s whole body trembles. There’s something feral in Rick’s eyes, something deliciously possessive about the heat of his hand against Tish’s clammy skin.

“You’re an idiot,” Rick tells her solemnly.

I know, she starts to say, but it comes out as a moan.

The secret is out. Beth is casually disappointed in Tish for “repeating the same mistakes,” but admits that she hadn’t expected much better from her younger daughter. Rick explains away his absence with a bombastic story, complete with waving hands and drunken sound effects, and things go back to normal.

Rick refuses to talk about the baby. Tish only brings it up once, to let Rick know that she’s decided on adoption. He grunts and shrugs, and that’s that.

But Tish notices Rick watching her out of the corner of his eye. When they’re on adventures, Rick seems to move a little slower, to make more space for Tish, and once, Tish swears Rick shifted his body between her and and a hostile Gromflomite, almost as if he were protecting her.

And the sex.

The sex.

Rick worships her body in a way he never has before. At first, Tish assumes it’s because her tits are a little fleshier, but that’s not it. Rick can hardly keep his eyes and hands off of her, is always eyefucking her in the kitchen at breakfast, or cupping her ass as he slides past her in the hallway. He catalogues the changes in her body with his tongue, undressing her slowly, even massaging her lower back after a grueling day. When she doubles over at the dinner table with round ligament pain, Rick is in her room that evening, massaging her belly with a special alien oil. When her jeans won’t button, he takes her to an intergalatic shopping mall. He bitches the whole time, but he parades Tish around with his hand on the small of her back, and nobody bats an eye.

Tish loves it and loathes it. She basks in the glow of the moment, then cries into her pillow at night. It’s stupid to romanticize these little moments with Rick. He’s capable of altruism when it suits him, but it’s not like he loves her or anything.

Tish knows that she can’t keep this baby - she can’t raise a child alone, and, selfish as she is, she won’t give up her life with Rick.

She can’t.

But this baby, Rick’s baby… it deserves more than a shitty life on a deadbeat, backwater planet.

And Tish can give it that.

So with Rick’s reluctant help, Tish selects an off-planet adoption agency that is willing to place humans. She interviews potential families in her spare time. “I have an appointment,” she’ll announce, and Rick will sigh, blast a portal into the wall, and accompany her to the office. He hangs around, hovering at her shoulder until the receptionist calls her in, and then he disappears without a word. When the meeting ends, Tish finds a portal waiting for her in the corner of the reception area, and Rick tinkering in the garage.

They don’t talk about it.

There are more things that I’d like to work in here, but honestly, guys, I’m just not gonna. This is a fic that deserves some real life experience and at least 100k words, and I can offer neither. I want to hit on Tish’s lack of self worth - at this point, she’s living for this baby, because she views it as an extension of Rick. To Tish, this kid is the only thing of worth that she has to offer the world, and it’s the fact that it’s Rick’s, not hers, that she thinks is important.

On Rick - he loves Tish, in his own twisted way. He’s not at all interested in the baby, but because Tish is, he’ll play along. The idea of anything happening to Tish is absolutely unacceptable to him, and he was totally monitoring her (and the baby) while he was away. He couldn’t help himself. That’s why he came back when Tish was hospitalized. He wanted to make sure that Tish wasn’t going to kill herself trying to have this kid. And he missed her.

I don’t want to shy away from the darker aspects of the story. Namely, the incest and abusive/unhealthy relationship that Rick and Tish have. I imagine Tish worrying about the potential for genetic abnormalities, and wondering about the ethics of addressing this with potential parents. Maybe she brings it up to Rick one day, and he immediately whips up a little gadget and scans their baby (I really like the idea of Rick performing an amniocentesis, but I don’t know if that’s a little too much). But either way, I imagine Rick saying, “She’s fine,” and Tish just bursting into tears, because their baby is going to be just perfect, and also, it’s a girl.

And Rick just kind of fingering Tish’s hair and tolerating her crying it out.

Pregnancy kink. Rick is a kinky bastard, and I think a huge part of him is going to be hella turned on by the changes in Tish’s body. She’s literally growing a part of him. His baby’s baby is having his baby. It’s fucked up and it’s science, and Rick is gonna be so here for it. I’m not a smut writer, but I would love somebody who is to just take this and run with it.

It’s going to start with sex, but eventually, the further along Tish gets, the more possessive Rick is going to be of Tish. Yeah, it’s kind of hot that his granddaughter is carrying his child under their family’s nose, but there’s probably a deeper part of Rick that is just screaming for acknowledgement and absolution. THIS IS MINE. SHE IS MINE. I want to see jealous, anxious, overbearing Rick. And as this thing forces them to confront some ugly truths, I want to see that possessive, kinky, fucked up side of Rick soften into something that’s more protective and positive. I want to see him openly praise Tish’s body, and then eventually, praise Tish. I want him to slow down when she needs him to slow down and create space for her when she needs space. I want attentive, careful, gentle Rick.

But guys, Tish is going to lose this baby.

She’s like eight months along and begging Rick for a real adventure. She feels good, and she’s tired of sitting on her ass. And some stupid little thing goes wrong. Maybe she misreads a situation, or mishandles a weapon, or uses the wrong code word. And she falls, or maybe she takes a bullet and then she falls.

But she loses the baby.

Tish is not okay. This is postpartum depression meets miscarriage guilt. She blames herself for losing Rick’s baby. For eight months, this is all she’s lived for. She knew that this was her one shot, her one opportunity to leave a mark on the world.

And it was Rick’s baby. The thought of destroying anything of Rick’s is just unbearable to Tish, and it’s her fucking fault. She is useless on an adventure, and more than that, her stupid body is useless, sacrificing her baby to keep her alive.

Rick is fine once he realizes that Tish is out of danger, so Tish tries to be fine, too. She takes a week or two of bed rest, but she can tell that Rick is uncomfortable acknowledging her loss, so Tish tries to let it go. She goes on adventures, forces a smile, makes herself get out of bed and come to meals.

Meanwhile, Rick is kind of coming to his own conclusions. I imagine him holding the body of his daughter and thinking how perfect she is, how tiny, and how she looks exactly like Tish. And that thought, the thought of this tiny little Tish that could have been running around on some planet… well, that stings a lot more than Rick thought it would.

I mean, he’s okay. He doesn’t need another daughter, and he sure as hell doesn’t need a great granddaughter. He looks over at Tish, resting pale-faced in an alien hospital bed, and he hears the blip-blip of the heart monitor, and he knows that he’s complete.

But still, he can’t help but wonder, and something in his chest throbs as he does.

But Tish bounces back as well as he could have expected. Sure, Rick sees the shadow in her eyes, but when she grips his hand and says, “Where are we going today, Rick?” he answers her, because that’s so much easier.

Tish is fucking drowning. I’m not sure what the tipping point will be, maybe just a tiny misunderstanding with Rick, or a bad grade, or a joke about teen pregnancy at school. But she’s done. She’s fucking done.

She tries to slit her throat in the bathtub.

Once again, she awakens in an alien hospital, and once again, Rick is staring at her with glittering eyes.

And he’s pissed.

“That’s the second time I’ve found you in a pool of your own blood,” he says. He’s gripping her hands too tight, baring his teeth and hissing. In the dim hospital light, he looks absolutely feral, and Tish is terrified.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers hoarsely.

Rick’s face crumples, and something inside of her shatters at his disappointment. “I’m sorry!” Tish wails over and over, tears running hot down her cheeks.

She’s sorry for everything.

Rick crawls into bed with her, monitors be damned. Tish is crying so hard that she can barely breathe, and suddenly, Rick is there, curling around her, tucking his face into her neck and burying his fingers into her hair.

“Shh, shh,” he shushes her. He holds her tight, murmuring senselessly in her ear as she babbles to him. It all comes out, all of Tish’s fears and failures, like the bursting of a dam. Tish couldn’t stop it if she tried. Rick never says a word, but his grip around her tightens, his fingers working little patterns into her skin as she speaks.

“Fuck,” he breaths as Tish runs out of steam.

“I’m sorry!”

Rick sits up. “Don’t!” he hisses, then looks away, as if ashamed. Tish tenses, but before she can respond, Rick reaches for her hand and squeezes tight.

“If I have to hear you say you’re sorry one more goddamn time…”

Tish bites back an apology.

Rick swallows hard, clears his throat. His fingers twitch in the way that Tish knows means he misses his flask. She notices for the first time that Rick isn’t wearing his lab coat. He’s still sitting up in the bed, gazing at the floor as if he can’t bear to meet her gaze.

“Do you know… Tish, do you have any idea - fuck. Don’t - don’t ever, Tish. Please, don’t ever make me do this again. I - I can’t…”

He breaks off, shoving a fist into his teeth and grimacing, and the image is so incongruous with the Rick Sanchez that she knows that Tish can’t help but reach for him. He pivots at her touch, and there are actual tears in his eyes.

“Tish, it’s you, baby. Just you. You’re… you’re the only - the only good thing. All the rest of it, the adventure, the science… It fucking doesn’t matter, okay? Nothing matters.”

Tish’s breath catches.

“No, you’re still not…” Rick makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “You’re the best thing I’ve ever done, the only thing I’ve ever... ever… Fuck!” He throws his hands in the air. “You’re... you’re my magnum opus, okay? You complete me.”

“Oh,” says Tish stupidly.

“Yeah, ‘oh,’” Rick mocks. He’s flushed, biting his lip and running his fingers through his wild hair. “I can’t believe… just, just, Tish,” he looks at her now, dead serious, “Don’t make me say it again, okay?”

Don’t make me lose you again. Please.

“Okay, Rick,” she agrees, crawling into his lap and tucking her head under his chin.

And like, things aren’t magically okay. It’s never a healthy relationship. Tish never gets over losing her baby, and Rick never mentions it again. But there’s something about Rick calling Tish his “opus magnum” that really satisfies me in a way that no fic I’ve read has yet. And I like to think that they are a tiny bit more open now, or at least, they know each other better. Tish might never have any self-worth, but she knows that Rick values her, and that’s the best feeling. And Rick is a little softer with Tish, and he never quite loses that protective streak that he picked up while she was pregnant.

#pricklerick original #dead dove #dead dove do not eat #trigger warning #all of the trigger warnings #seriously don't read this if you are triggered by pretty much anything #stay safe fam #i love you guys