#...probably not for whumptober since there’s only two fics left and I have ideas for both...

[skyward-floored]

Wow you all liked fallen!Time huh

[a-reader-and-a-writer]

That's What Family is For (Part 2)

AI-Less Whumptober 2023: 16. Hospital, 21. Shock Fandom: DC, Batman, Batfam, Damian Wayne, Batsis!reader, f!reader Summary: After being kidnapped and offering to take Damian's place to be tortured, you miraculously find yourself waking up back home. Damian has a new outlook on your relationship, but will a secret from your past ruin everything? Word Count: 5231 TW: Hospital, Aftermath of Torture, Mentions of Past Torture, Mentions of Death, Forced to Watch, Crying, Coma, Past Trauma Note: Today is the 2 year anniversary of posting Part 1 of this fic. Thank you so incredibly much for your patience and support as I worked on this and I hope it lives up to Part 1 💖 Part of @ailesswhumptober

Part 1

You have no idea how long you were asleep for, but when you finally managed to drag yourself into consciousness, you couldn’t remember why every inch of your body was in a strange state of concurrent numbness and agony, or why you couldn’t seem to see out of your left eye. It was only when you caught sight of the two casts stretching from the soles of your feet up to the top of your thighs that it all came flooding back to you. 

You and Damian had been kidnapped in an attempt to get a ransom from Bruce. To prove they meant business, the kidnappers were going to torture Damian but you had offered to take his place. What happened next was just a blur of blood and pain: The glint of a large knife. The blunt impact of a bat. But mercifully, you couldn’t remember much else. Just that it had been bad. Really bad. 

You tried to take a mental inventory of what hurt and what sort of injuries you had sustained, but there was too much damage. All the individual pain bled into each other until it just felt like one massive wound. Every breath you took made your chest, ribs, and throat ache, your head was pounding, and you couldn’t move either leg or your left arm. All you could manage was a slight turn of your head as you looked towards the door but even that small motion sent new waves of pain through you, causing a low moan to slip from your lips.

Almost instantly, Jason came rushing into the room, panic etched onto his face. Yet the second he saw you looking at him, his face split into a massive grin. The kind you couldn’t remember seeing on him since he returned from the dead. And despite everything, that sight warmed your heart.

Licking your cracked lips, you tried to speak but nothing happened. Swallowing a few times, you finally managed a barely audible, “Hey, Jaybird.” 

The words sounded funny, thick and slightly lispy but Jay’s smile only widened. He hurried to your bedside and dropped into the chair that had been left there. “Damn, sis. You look terrible.”

You knew he was trying to keep the mood light, but you could hear the tears hiding just behind his words. Giving your best attempt at a smile, you croaked, “Even like this, I bet I still look better than you.”

“Yeah, probably,” he chuckled. “That voice though…. They said it would probably be hard to speak for a few days because of the tube and–” He cut himself off, but you knew what he was going to say. Because all your screams of pain had damaged it. 

Swallowing again, you tried to make your voice sound as normal as possible. “Yeah, well, you better be careful. You keep smoking all those cigarettes, this is what you’ll sound like in a few years.”

“Even now you gotta hassle me about those?”

“If you would just quit, I wouldn’t have to get on you about the–” 

Your words were cut off as your body fell prey to a fit of coughing. It tore at your throat like daggers and your chest felt like it was shattering into pieces. It only lasted for a few seconds but when it passed, you were left panting and moaning in pain. 

When you finally managed to pull yourself together once more and looked back at Jason, his smile had completely vanished, replaced with a thin-lipped grimace. His eyes drifted over your broken body before returning to your face. “So… Honestly. How do you feel?”

“How do you think?” you wheezed. “Like someone ran over me with.. with a… wit– oh forget it. I’m in too much pain to think of something clever. I feel shitty.”

“What hurts?”

“The easier question is ‘what doesn’t hurt?’. And why can’t I open my left eye?”

“Alfred taped it closed for now. It looked pretty messed up.”

You nod slightly. “Permanent?”

“Not sure,” he muttered, staring down at the floor. “They had to wait until you woke up to fully assess the damage.”

You nodded again, the dread growing in the pit of your stomach. But you have to know the answer to your next question, no matter how terrifying the answer might be. In a small voice, you ask, “How bad overall?”

Jason hesitated. “Maybe you should wait for Bruce or Alfred to–”

“How bad, Jay?”

Still avoiding your eye, he shifted in his chair before answering. “Bad. The worst of the damage is on your left side. Your arm was dislocated, your cheekbone was destroyed, you’re missing several teeth, and your eye is… well, I already mentioned that. Also, most of your ribs were pretty much shattered and the ones that weren’t are cracked. The pieces punctured your lungs in multiple places. Your legs…The knives thankfully missed all the major arteries, but Alfred said there still might be some nerve damage.”

“Is that all?” You had meant for the question to be sarcastic, but the quiver in your voice made it sound more like a desperate plea.

Jason took a long, deep breath. “It also took eight surgeries, four blood transfusions, and three resuscitations to get you stable.”

“Yeah, that feels about right.” You clenched your jaw tightly as you struggled to hold back your tears, but that just sent a fresh jolt of pain through your mouth. Using your tongue, you gently prod the three new gaps where teeth used to be. No wonder your words sounded funny. 

In a soft whisper, you asked, “I’m done, aren’t I? There’s no coming back from this, not really. Even if I can get back to a halfway normal state, I’m never going to be able to put the costume back on. No going on patrol, no more protecting the city, no more being a hero.” 

A small sob bubbled in your throat. When Bruce had taken you in all those years ago, you were a mess. Every night, you woke up screaming from nightmares—memories—of watching your parents tortured to death in front of you while you were helpless to do anything. You had felt so powerless. But then Bruce told you about his secret life. That he was the man in the mask who had rescued you from that horrible place. And he taught you how to be strong, how to be for others what he had been for you. He had given your life a purpose but now….it had been taken from you just like your parents had been. 

As the tears began to slip down your face, Jason carefully took your hand, rubbing the back with his thumb as he leaned in to stare you directly in your good eye. “Hey, don’t think that way. Bruce was able to come back from a broken back, I came back from the dead, and you… you can come back from this. It’s not gonna be easy and it’ll take a lot of hard work, but if anyone can do it, you can.”

The tears began to flow faster as you finally let the sob you had been holding back free. Squeezing Jason’s hand as tightly as you were able, you cried, “Thank you, Jay. Thank you for everything. I can’t even imagine making it through what comes next without my brothers by my side.”

Jason snatched his hand back from your grasp and pushed back in his chair, his expression growing dark as he spat, “Don’t. Don’t thank me. While you were sacrificing everything for Damian, while you were lying there dying, I was here. Too weak to help you when you needed me most.”

“Jay–”

“I wanted to be there, I did, I just…” His sharp tone crumbled into a near sob as he buried his face in his hands. “I was fine until he picked up the bat. Then it all came rushing back. All I could see was the Joker standing over me with that crowbar and…and I….” His hands muffled his cries, but you could still see the way his shoulders shook as he sobbed.

You had forgotten that they had sent a live feed of your torture to all of Wayne Industries which was probably how Bruce had located you and Damian. Jason never talked about what had happened to him all those years ago in that warehouse, but you had been waiting in the Batcave when Bruce had brought Jason’s body home. You still remembered the bruises and blunt force trauma that couldn’t have been made from the explosion. And you also recalled how the sight of your brother’s broken form sent you into a hysterical fit, not only over the loss of the boy you loved like family but also because it brought back all of the scars from your parents’ deaths. You had felt incredibly guilty later once Bruce and Alfred calmed you down that you had made Jason’s death all about you and your past traumas. But Bruce reminded you that your pain and grief was valid, whenever it hit you, and despite the circumstances, you needed to take care of yourself first or you weren’t going to be able to help anyone else.

Just like Jason needed to take care of whatever horrors he had relived before coming to help you.

It took a lot of determination and concentration, but you slowly moved your hand towards Jason. Luckily, he was sitting on your right side since that was the only arm you could move at the moment, but it still took an achingly long time to close the short distance between you.

As you lay your hand on his shoulder, his head jerked up. When he saw what you had done, his eyes—the blue magnified by the tears about to fall—grew wide. Smiling, you brushed your fingertips lightly across his cheek and said, “Jay, I understand why you didn’t come. There was nothing you could have done and you needed a chance to deal with your own pain. And I’m sorry that I was the reason you had to relive that experience.” 

Jason shook his head furiously and clutched at your hand. “No! This was not your fault! All you did was protect Damian. The only person to blame is that psychopath Moore.” His face darkened. “Bruce better be glad they threw that son of a bitch in Blackgate because if he had gotten away, nothing and no one would have stopped me from hunting him down and putting a bullet between his eyes.”

“See? You are such a loving, protective brother who would do anything for me.” His expression softened slightly. “Besides, you even just admitted. Moore is the only one to blame here. Not me, and not you. So, please, don’t beat yourself up over this. I’m still here and I need you now more than ever.” You squeezed his hand as tightly as you were able and after a moment, he returned both the squeeze and the smile. You nodded softly then changed the subject. “How is Damian handling all of this?”

“Why don’t you see for yourself?” Jason nodded towards the other side of the room.

It took you a moment and quite a bit of pain to turn your head enough so your right eye could see where he was gesturing, but when you managed it, your smile grew wider.

Curled into a tight ball, Damian was fast asleep on the couch on the far side of the room. He looked so small and it reminded you that despite his upbringing, he was still just a kid, which made you feel better about your condition. If one of you had to be lying in this bed, you would have offered yourself up every time.

Jason chuckled softly to himself as he saw your face. “He’s barely left the room since they brought the two of you home. Bruce tried getting him to go back to school the last two days, but he flat-out refused. Said he wasn’t going anywhere until you woke up.”

“Really? That doesn’t sound like Damian.”

“Well, I think his actual words were ‘Tt. Father, I cannot be bothered with those trivial lessons while my sister’s fate is still uncertain. I am needed here. Yes, I have a geography test next week, but I have traveled to more countries than my so-called teacher could even possibly name. This is more important.’”

Despite the mocking—though fairly accurate—impression Jason had made, your eyes welled up with tears once more. Damian had called you ‘sister’. It was the first time you could ever remember him doing so. No. That wasn’t true. He had said it when Bruce and Dick had shown up to save them. In fact, the echoing word was the last thing you remembered before the world had gone dark. 

Swallowing hard to clear your throat, you asked, “Um, do you think…Would he be upset if I asked you to wake him up?”

“Yo! Demon Spawn! Wake up!” Before you could stop him, Jason hurled a pillow across the room so it slammed into Damian’s sleeping form. 

The kid instantly leaped to his feet in a crouched position, ready to take on any and all attackers. But he straightened up when he saw Jason’s smug grin and your weak smile staring back at him instead. Rushing to your side, he said, “Sister! You are awake!”

You tilted your head slightly to look at him better. “So are you. Sorry for the rude wake-up. That was all Jay.”

“Hey!” Jason huffed indignantly. “You asked me to wake him up and I did! You just never said how.”

Damian glared at him out of the corner of his eyes. “Yes, Todd has been exceedingly insufferable this last week while you have been injured—”

“W-week? I’ve been out of it for a week?” You felt your blood run cold. You knew things were bad, but for some reason the thought of you laying in this bed unconscious for the past 7 days made your condition seem so much worse.

Jason and Damian exchanged a worried look. Then Jason cleared his throat and said, “Yeah…. It's been eight days since you and Damian were kidnapped. They had to keep you in a medically induced coma for the first five days while they operated. Then when they brought you out, they had to dope you up with so many pain meds that you were out of it even when you were awake. They tried to lower your dose but they had to up them again when they removed the breathing tube and you wouldn’t stop moaning…So, yeah. It’s been a week.”

You let your head fall back against the pillow as tears began to sting your eyes. Obviously, it would have taken you time to recover from that level of injury, but a week? No, actually, eight days. And that was just the start of your recovery. The amount of time, therapy, and hard work it would take you just to be able to stand again, let alone walk or fight, was dizzying to think about. Despite the fact Jason had reassured you differently, you didn’t see how you weren’t done after this. How were you supposed to bounce back?

As the tears finally became too much and began slipping down your face, you whispered, “You all should have just let me go.”

“No!” The ferocity in Damian’s voice startled you and you looked over to see his small hands curled into tight fists as his face bore a determined scowl that could rival Bruce’s. “No. You do not get to give up. Not now. Not now that the worst of it is behind you. You never once gave up while we were captured. Despite everything that sadistic fiend did to you, you fought to protect me. We would not have been in that situation if it was not for me and I will repay my debt to you by remaining by your side to ensure you get through this.”

You stared at Damian for a long time, a mix of pride, adoration, and guilt stirring in your chest. Seeing how he wanted to stand by you and help you through what came next meant the world to you. The Damian who climbed into your car eight days ago wouldn’t have done so. However, you couldn’t let him make such a vow without knowing all the facts.

Shifting your eye to look at Jason, you muttered, “Can you give us a minute alone?”

He hesitated, his eyes flickering back and forth between you and his younger brother, but finally, he nodded. “Yeah, sure. I’ll go let everyone else know you’re not only awake but coherent this time. They’ll want to see you.”  

“Thanks, Jay. I’ll have Damian let you know when we’re done.”

He nodded, shot Damian one last look, and left the room. 

Now that you were alone, you carefully motioned for Damian to take the chair Jason had been sitting in earlier and he silently did as you wished…for once. He looked so small compared to the memory of Jason’s hulking form sitting there just moments before and tears once more stung your eyes as it hit you all over again how young he was to have experienced what the two of you just went through. You hadn’t planned on having this conversation until you were a little better, but he deserved to know the truth and not continue blaming himself for what happened. 

Taking a deep breath, you said, “It’s not your fault, Dami. He was never after you. You were only there because of me.”

“Tt,” Damian scoffed, folding his arms across his chest. “You have no proof of that. As you said in that warehouse, I am Father’s blood heir. If anyone was the target, it would have been me.”

You shook your head. “It was my car, Damian. The car I insisted you get in even though you didn’t want to. If I would’ve just let you walk home like you wanted–”

“They could have been monitoring me and adjusted their plans when I joined you in your vehicle. You still cannot be confident–”

“I know Moore.”

Damian blinked in surprise. “Yo–you what?”

You nodded sadly. ��I know him. I didn’t realize it at first because it was so long ago and I’ve tried so hard to forget that day, but it was him. After I had passed out from Moore’s torture, they unhooked me from the chains and just let me drop to the floor. The pain of the landing woke me up for just a minute and I tried to beg them to put me back up because I knew otherwise they’d be coming for you, but I was in so much pain I could barely form a sentence. Moore saw I was awake and came to stand over me with that nauseatingly cocky look on his face.” 

You shuttered at the memory of it and knew it was an image that would haunt your nightmares for years to come. But you pressed on. “Then he said, ‘For what it’s worth, you should be proud. You died a lot more honorably than your parents did.’ And that’s when I remembered.”

Tears slipped from your eyes as you allowed all the walls and safeguards you had built up over the years to finally come down and you recalled the night your life changed forever. “It’s been so long and he was just a kid, no older than Tim. But then again, I was even younger.” Taking a deep breath, you looked up at Damian. “How much do you know about my life before Bruce took me in?”

Damian shrugged one shoulder. “Just what I said in the car. Your parents were tortured to death by a gang who left you tied up with their bodies until the police found you. Then when he heard what happened and that you had no one left, Father took you in.”

You nodded and wiped a tear from your eye. “My parents owned a little shop near Crime Alley at the time. It was a hole-in-the-wall thrift store that barely made enough to put food on the table but my parents loved that place. It was their pride and joy so when the local gang came by to demand protection money, they refused. They didn’t want their place associated with gangsters. Which of course the gang didn’t like. We lived in a small apartment above it and one night, the gang broke in while we were sleeping. I was only six at the time and I didn’t understand what was happening. I just knew some bad people dragged us out of bed and into the basement where they tied us all up to chairs. I was sitting between my parents as they begged and pleaded for our lives, but even then I still didn’t understand. Not until one of the men pulled out a knife.”

A humorless chuckle fell softly from your lips. “I guess in hindsight, I should have remembered Moore sooner. The way he tortured and hurt me was very similar to what the gang did to my parents. Just small cuts that got deeper and deeper. Small weapons that got more and more damaging until….” 

A small hiccupy sob slipped from your lips as everything came flooding back to you. Your father screaming in pain as the gang broke bone after bone and cut off his fingers one by one. Your mother hysterically sobbing as she begged them to let you all go. The way those pleas eventually shifted to just begging them to let you go. And then the eerie silence that fell across the room after your mother had taken her last breath. 

Damian took your hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “It is alright, sister. You do not have to continue.”

You shot him an appreciative smile but shook your head. “No. It’s okay.” Taking several deep breaths to compose yourself, you continued. “There was one gang member who stayed huddled in the corner, refusing to watch as the rest of the gang had their fun.”

“Moore.”

You nodded. “I didn’t know it at the time, but yeah. He had started by anxiously pacing around at the back of the room but once things turned really violent….he couldn’t take it. He tried to run back upstairs but the gang forced him to stay and watch. Said he needed to learn how things were done. And after the other day, I’d say he learned his lesson pretty well.”

“And you are certain it was him?”

“Absolutely. I stared at him through most of it, partly because I couldn’t stand to watch what they were doing to my parents, but also partly because I could tell he was just as horrified as I was and yet he did nothing to stop it. I wanted to scream at him to help us, to do something, but I also was too afraid to speak up. And when they were done and the gang members left, he was the last one out of the room. He looked at me as if he wanted to apologize or set me free or…I don’t know. But instead, he just turned and ran up the stairs. The next time I saw him was when he walked into that room we were both chained up in.” You scoffed as you felt a lump growing in your throat. “I guess we picked up right where we left off, huh?”

The physical damage that had been done to you was hard enough to bear, but now realizing the connection your tormentor had to your past made you want to vomit. Moore may not have laid a finger on you back then, but he had been there to witness the worst day of your life. His friends had been the ones who did the same thing to your parents—only your parents hadn’t been lucky enough to survive. You wondered how long Moore had been planning this, how long he had wanted to finish the job that had been started all those years ago. Perhaps it was some sort of decades-long revenge plot since your parents’ deaths had eventually led to the arrest of most of the other gang members and the collapse of his gang. Or it was possible he just wanted to blackmail Bruce as he said and he thought using you to do it was just a bonus. Jason said Moore had been taken to Blackgate so once you were better, you could go try to get some answers. But at the moment, you weren’t sure if you even wanted them.

You had been so deep in thought that you only just realized that Damian had been silently staring down at your interlocked hands for the past few minutes. His expression was nigh-on unreadable and you were once again reminded of Bruce. Given enough time, support, and guidance, you could see him growing into a man worthy to carry on his father’s legacy. You just hoped he would want you to be around to see it. 

You wouldn’t blame Damian if his attitude towards you reverted back to how it was before all of this happened. After all, he was put through hell because of you. He had warmed up to you solely because you had offered yourself up to be tortured instead of him—yet he never should have been there in the first place. Maybe this would actually make your relationship worse. Maybe Damian would cut you off completely. Maybe—

“Sister, I cannot imagine how hard this realization must have been for you and I…I am sorry.”

His voice cut through your internal spiraling and you blinked in surprise. “Wh-what?” With all the scenarios you had swirling around in your head, hearing Damian apologize had never even crossed your mind. “But Dami you’re not…mad?” 

Now it was his turn to look surprised. “Why would I be mad?”

“I’m the reason you were there. I thought once you knew the whole story and realized that, you would hate me for getting you dragged into everything. Or at least–” you dropped your gaze down to the bed “–at least I thought you’d go back to not really liking me.”

“Oh…” The small boy shifted in his chair. “I can understand why you may have come to that conclusion but knowing your history with Moore does not change how I feel about what you did for me. You saved me long before you remembered who he was or your connection to him. And even that still does not prove you were the one he was after, not me. I am the youngest and, as such, am perceived to be the most vulnerable and incapable of protecting myself—Tt, though in reality, it is Drake who fits that description.” 

You smiled as you shook your head. Tim would disagree with that statement, but Damian’s point was still valid. To those who did not know of his past upbringing or training, it would be easy to dismiss him as a young, spoiled, entitled brat who never had to lift a finger his entire life. But they couldn’t be farther from the truth. Despite being a kid, Damian had already experienced more than 90% of people would in their lifetime. Hell, when he was the same age you were when you watched your parents die, he had already been training for years with the League of Assassins. Moore had just gotten lucky when he grabbed the two of you: if Damian hadn’t woken up hurt and already chained up, he probably could have incapacitated every one of your kidnappers. 

Damian continued. “Regardless of who the target was, it does not change the fact you volunteered yourself in my place when they wanted to take me. And despite the pain you were in, you tried to hold on as long as possible so I would not be forced to take your place. How could any other detail matter except my sister loves me enough to die for me?”

The lump in your throat got bigger until you felt like you couldn’t breathe. You managed to nod your head quickly and repeatedly as you choked out, “I would. Because I do. I do love you, Damian.” He stared down at the floor, shifting once more in his chair as his fist tightened around yours. He opened his mouth but nothing came out. You knew how hard it was for him but you could see he wanted to say it and that was enough. So, squeezing his hand back, you whispered, “It’s okay. You don’t have to say it back.”

His shoulders dropped with visible relief and he gave you a small, grateful smile. Then, in a tiny voice, he muttered, “But I do though.”

It was the final straw. Tears began flowing down your cheeks as a small cry burst from behind your lips. There was a sharp pain in your chest as you disturbed your injuries, but it seemed unimportant at the moment. You tried to control yourself as much as possible, knowing emotions and displays of affection bothered Damian, but it was all too overwhelming. For so long you had tried to get him to at least tolerate you, but this? This was more than you ever dared to hope for. 

Damian sat quietly as you took a moment to compose yourself. Despite the added pain you incurred from your crying, you couldn’t remember feeling this happy in a while…..or this worn out. Now that you had cleared the air with Damian and everything was better than expected, you realized how much you had been struggling to stay awake. 

Another wave of exhaustion hit you and it took almost everything you had to murmur, “I know Jay said everyone was waiting to see me but I think….I think I need to rest for a bit. Could you ask them to wait until I take a small nap?”

He nodded. “Of course, sister. Whatever you need.”

“Thanks, Dami.”

You expected him to leave but instead, he squeezed your hand hard and looked you dead in the eye. “I mean it. Whatever you need. You will heal and things will return to normal. And I will be by your side for all of it.”

You smiled up at him, fighting to keep your eyes open. “Thank you, Dami.” 

He laid your hand gently back on the bed before standing from his chair and walking to the door. He glanced over his shoulder at you one last time, nodded, and then disappeared.

With no reason left to hold on, you let yourself collapse back into the bed as you gave into the darkness that was dancing on the edge of your vision. 

And as you felt yourself being pulled under to unconsciousness once more, you couldn’t help but smile. Despite everything that had happened and the long road to recovery that lay before you, you had a father and four brothers who loved you and would be by your side through all of it. Because at the end of the day, that’s what family is for. And you were so thankful to have found this family. 

Tag list: @loverhymeswith, @tavners, @merlehs, @mayhem24-7forever, @sunshineflowerchild789, @schaarfyx, @dawnwriterimagines, @uniquelyabnormallyoriginal, @hjgdhghoe, @void-j3ster, @miadiedhere, @remuslupinselbowpatch, @jadynchronicle, @blue-aconite, @astraeasworld, @aakifah5, @freyathehuntress, @theautisticduck, @agent-nobody-knows, @nani-nani-nani, @hrtzsoob, @edgycatx, @nellako, @deppresseddyslexic

[havenotwillnotreadthebooks]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Got tagged by @elevenelvenswords (kudos, thanks for the tag my dude) so here we go 7:P

How many works do you have on AO3?

21, two of which were co-authored by others.

What fandoms do you write for?

These days I write for the Silmarillion, as it’s my biggest hyperfixation currently. I used to write MCYT fics (my last biggest hyperfixation, lasting about 3yrs), but I’ve long since run dry of mcyt fic ideas.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Funny enough, because of everyone else’s hyperfixations my non-silm fics are still top 5, even tho they’re so much shorter than my more recent works lol

(1) Many vegetables, one soup

(2) Close your eyes, let them reawaken Red

(3) MCYT Whumptober 2022 (and then some)

(4) Cradle Brothers

(5) Meteor

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do! I love to give bonus facts about the fic in my comment section.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Either “I keep my enemies closer than the mirror ever gets to me” because of the canon angst foreshadowing or “I take scraps from dinner as little parts of love” because the ending is bittersweet in hindsight of canon (and because it made someone in my comment section cry lol)

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Staccato, Familiar Acceptance and (somewhat) reconciliation are prime in the 2nd chapter.

Do you get hate on fics?

Nope! I don’t write very controversial topics, very long fics, or in very large fandoms, so at the moment I’m just a small fish in the pond. No hate nor attention comes for the small fish.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I’ve written a scene where inexplicit sex was implied to be happening, but I don’t know if i’ll ever write anything with explicit sexual content (Disclaimer: I’m an adult).

Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

The only crossover i’ve ever posted is an abandoned wip in “Discontinued Hermitcraft WIPS - chapter 7” It was a hermitcraft and Phasmophobia crossover.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

To my knowledge, no.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope! Though I’d be open to it if anyone wanted to (given they asked permission first).

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! A discontinued original work titled “Shattered Stars” and a fnaf fic co-authored with a friend titled “Many vegetables, one soup”

What’s your all time favourite ship?

These days it’s either Silvergifting (silm) or Scarian (hc)

What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

An unnamed fic where Post-Canon, everyone is reembodied in Valinor and Russingon + Kidnap Fam are all together Happy Family Style.

Except, so very ago Fingon & Maedhros adopted a tiny Gil-Galad together, Maedhros left at an early age and never treated Gil like his kid afterwards so Gil is real bitter towards Maedhros. Elrond wants them to reconcile but it’s not going well.

“In case you’ve forgotten, Elrond. I’ve met Maedhros Feanorian and he found nothing of value in me.”

Elrond cringes. Maedhros flinches back as if slapped.

What are your writing strengths?

Not sure. Probably writing angst that hurts readers in the trauma epicenter, since i’ve made a few people cry with my fics.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Pretty sure everything needs to improve, but i’d say descriptions and character placement. Maybe pacing too.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I’ve done it a few times for Sindarin & Quenya (reluctantly) but I wouldn’t touch that hot potato for irl languages. Pretty neat when other writers do it tho.

First fandom you wrote for?

Five Nights at Freddy’s, somehow. I wrote a single fic for that fandom but it was my first.

Favourite fic you’ve written?

“I take scraps from dinner as little parts of love” I put so much symbolism, emotion, and thought into this fic. It’s my favorite brainchild for sure. I’m working on giving this brainchild a sequel sibling, too.

Tagging: @crystalcatgamer @foolofatook001 @melestasflight

[fleur-de-violette]

And I’ll look into your eyes to find out if I’m real

A3O Summary: Bruce wants a lot of things. A bath. Seeing his family. Not having been missing for a whole year.

He wants Dick to wake up and realize he’s not a hallucination.

Whumptober 2020 day 6 – Stop, please. Note: Have you seen that the whumptober 2021 prompts are out? They’re super cool and I didn’t finish the 2020 so it’s safe to say I won’t do them. Still, I’m excited for it.

Back to the fic, warning for hallucination, lots of crying and pretty much general angst. Enjoy!

-

Bruce wants a bath.

He wants a lot of things. One of them is a bath. He never considered himself too dependent on the luxuries that came with his civilian identity, but right now, he really wants to be in clean, warm water with a nice scent, maybe a few candles, and some relaxing music.

It isn’t as much about the bath itself, because he had the time to clean himself, warm up and relax his aching muscles in the shower, it’s the idea of it. He wants to be in a moment where he could allow himself to lose time without feeling guilty about the next crisis. These moments are too rare, if not nonexistent, in his life. And now isn’t one of these moments.

Bruce wants a lot of things.

He wants Alfred not to look so tired. He wants to see Tim smile, really smile. He wants to take the next flight to Hong Kong just so he can hug Cassandra. He wants to solve a case with Steph, watch that smart spark in her eyes and find out how much she grew up. He wants to go to Crime Alley and check on Jason. He wants to shake Gordon’s hand and to kiss Barbara’s hair. He wants to feel Selina’s body against his. He wants to understand Damian. He wants to see Dick’s eyes.

He hasn’t seen Dick’s eyes since he came back from time. Batman’s white lenses had left his son’s face sometime between the moment he passed out next to Damian and the moment a neurosurgeon removed a bullet from the inside of his skull. Dick had yet to wake up.

And Bruce hadn’t seen Dick’s eyes in a year.

It’s something that hasn’t happened since that fateful night at Haly’s Circus. Even when they weren’t talking, he always took the time to check on his ward. His son.

He never wanted things to go this way. He has all the money anyone could wish for and more, a position of power, both in one of the biggest companies on earth and in the most famous superhero team in the universe. He’d been trained by the best of the best.

And yet.

And yet he can’t stop his family from ripping to shreds.

The Joker is still loose. He’s got a dozen missed calls on his phone, mostly from Clark. He doesn’t care. Right now, he doesn’t care. He’s tired.

Dick must be tired too. Bruce tries to tell himself that this is the reason he hadn’t woken up yet. He’d been assured by several doctors that the surgery went well. Dick should wake up anytime now, and the confusion and pain will decrease within the next few weeks, leaving only a scar on the back of his head, until that, too, will be hidden behind the thick black hair Bruce hadn’t ruffled affectionately in ages.

Bruce’s hands hover over his son’s unconscious body, as if afraid of touching him. Of breaking him more than he already did. Not for the first time, he wonders what would have happened if he had ensured that the young boy from the circus found a good foster family and left him there. If he hadn’t, with all the vanity of a twenty-four-year-old millionaire, thought he was the only one who could take care of him.

He sighs. He lowers his head once again toward Dick’s face and sees two cloudy blue eyes looking back at him.

He blinks. Tries to control the avalanche of emotions falling upon him. “Hey,” he says, choking on his own voice.

He’s not really expecting an answer, so he’s surprised when Dick opens his dry lips and lets out a small, “Hey. Long time, no see.”

A tear Bruce knows Dick doesn’t even notice forms itself in his son’s eye. Bruce wipes it away gently. “Are you in any pain?” he asks.

“I’m okay,” Dick lies. Bruce doesn’t call him out on it.

“Do you remember what happened?”

Dick goes to shake his head but aborts the movement with a pained jerk. “No,” he says instead.

“Do you want me to tell you?”

Dick lets out a small laugh. “How would you know? You’re a figment of my imagination.”

Bruce suddenly feels very cold. He takes in both the knowledge that Dick doesn’t think he’s real and the implication that hallucinating him is something he’s familiar with.

His hand presses a little more on his son’s face. “I’m here,” he says. “I’m real.”

Dick closes his eyes and another tear escapes one of them. “Don’t. Please.”

“Talk to me. What can I do to convince you?” Bruce feels a pressure building behind his own eyes.

“Please, stop,” Dick repeats. “I can’t. I can’t believe you.”

Bruce takes a deep breath. “Okay, we’ll take all the time you need. You don’t have to believe me now, but you need to calm down.”

Dick is close to hyperventilating now, and Bruce wonders if he should just leave the room and let Alfred take care of him. But that seems too much like running away for his liking, and he’s been away long enough.

“I can’t believe you’re real,” Dick continues, not caring, or perhaps not registering what Bruce said. “I can’t, you’re not. I can’t hope, because what if I wake up and you’re gone? Again?”

Bruce feels his heart shattering into pieces, but he can’t let himself break down. “Breathe, Robin,” he says, immediately wincing when the name passes his lips.

Calling him by a title he hadn’t worn in years probably won’t help Dick’s grip with reality, but he can’t help it. Right now, he can only see a distressed child in front of him. A child who always responded well to this name.

And it seems that some things can’t be erased by time, because Dick gasps and takes a few more deep breaths, calming down. Bruce thinks the worst of it is over. He thinks maybe Dick will fall back asleep, and wake up again in a few hours, less confused this time.

He’s wrong.

Because not a minute later, Dick opens his eyes again, and says, “The real you would be much angrier than that.”

Bruce feels the mass in his throat, the one that appeared at the beginning of the conversation, start to grow again. “What? No, why would I be angry?”

“Let you down,” Dick answers in a way that makes Bruce wish he had never asked. “Disrespected your will. Let Gotham become a mess. Destroyed Batman’s name.”

“You didn’t,” Bruce murmurs. “You didn’t.” When Dick doesn’t seem to calm down, he adds, “You’re a better Batman than I’ll ever be.”

Because this is true. He doesn’t need Alfred of Gordon to tell him what he always knew. Dick is the essence of what Batman should be. He’s the Batman Gotham needs, even if she doesn’t deserve him. And for that reason, Dick shouldn’t have been Batman. He’s perfect, and he’s destroying himself.

Batman had never been a title to pass on, let alone to Dick. Sure, he trusted his son and first sidekick to take the mantle if he was unable to, but he never had wanted him to be Batman. No one but him was supposed to be Batman. Cassandra was the closest to the title, but she wasn’t ready, and he couldn’t let that burden fall on her.

Still, he hadn’t wanted it to fall on Dick, either.

“Why are you saying that?” Dick asks. Bruce can practically see the gears turning in his head. Good. He knows firsthand that Dick is a damn good detective. He will figure this out. “This is not something I believe or fear or want to hear. Why are you saying that?”

“I’m real,” Bruce repeats, and Dick lets out a sob.

“You’re not,” he protests, but Bruce can see his resolve weakening. “You’re not. Tim said, but you…”

He stops. Blinks. A few more tears fall out of his eyes, and Bruce knows his own aren’t dry either. “You’re real. You’re… please, be real.”

Bruce bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from breaking down. “I’m real,” he chokes. “I promise.”

Dick’s eyes go wide. “What about Damian?” he asks. “Aren’t you angry?”

Bruce sighs. What about Damian? This is a whole different question. The kid is sleeping in his room right now, having finally listened to Alfred, leaving his Batman’s side. He had barely said a word to Bruce.

Bruce has been gone for a year, not by choice, sure, but gone nonetheless, and now he doesn’t know where he fits, between his son in blood and his son in everything else.

Batman and Robin, a bond that can’t be broken. A bond that still exists, he hopes, between himself and Dick.

“I will talk with him,” he says because his relationship with Damian, his complicated feelings about the mere existence of Damian and his anxiety about having to work with him as a Robin, aren’t Dick’s responsibility. They never should have been. “I’m not angry with you.”

Dick blinks again. “My head hurts,” he finally admits.

Bruce’s hand hovers over the morphine drip. “Do you want more painkillers?”

“If I sleep,” Dick asks, “Will you still be there when I wake up?”

Bruce bends down, leaves a kiss on his son’s forehead. “I promise.”

“I don’t believe you,” Dick says. “But thank you, for being here.”

Still, he closes his eyes and his body relaxes a little. Probably as much as it is possible while recovering from brain surgery.

Bruce stays there a long time, his hand still on Dick’s face. He’s broken a lot of promises. But he’s sure of one thing.

He will be here when Dick wakes up again.

He will still be real.

Ending Note: Hope you enjoyed the fic! Many thanks to @ohmytoddhewitt for beta reading!

[tsarisfanfiction]

Earthquake

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort Characters: Gordon, Scott, Tracy Brothers

It was one of those disasters they knew was going to be bad before they even arrived.

Final entry for @whumptober-archive with day 31 “hurt & comfort”​ using the prompt disaster zone.  An apt prompt for a TAG fic!  I had a few things I wanted to hit going into this one, especially involving all the boys, and honestly I just ran out of time.  I should have been in bed nearly an hour ago and that’s messing with my editing brain, so consider this a draft rather than the final thing.

I’ll probably completely rewrite the fic before I archive it because I’m not that happy with how it stands right now, so don’t expect to see it on FFN/AO3 just yet.  I don’t have any idea when it’ll happen, because the worst thing about only having a one day weekend is that everything piles up and I run out of time to do everything on the list... but it’s on the list of things to do when I have time, so hopefully you’ll have that to look forwards to at some point.

Gordon viewed the approaching scene in abject horror as Virgil brought Thunderbird Two in as close as she could go.  Behind him, he was vaguely aware of Alan leaning forwards in his seat, morbidly enthralled by the destruction before them.  Virgil was saying nothing, but his knuckles were tinted with white, and John’s hologram hadn’t winked out of existence post-briefing like he tended to do if there was nothing else to say.

And what was there to say?  Downtown San Francisco looked like so much rubble.  A bomb site, although that was an incorrect conclusion.

Earthquake.

The American city was no stranger to earthquakes, that was for sure, but the sheer scale and devastation of this particular one had left even their fortifications and specially adapted buildings in the dust.  Literally.

That alone was enough to turn the mood over International Rescue sombre; even before they landed and started work, it was obvious that the fatality number was going to be high.  They’d be pulling out more bodies than survivors, despite John’s best guidance from above, but that grim fact wasn’t the only thing that had them approaching the danger zone with a disquieted air.

Tracy Industries had offices in San Fran.  None of their major ones, not like the HQ in New York or its secondary hub in Auckland, but offices nonetheless, and every so often, offices needed visiting by the higher-ups.

The earthquake had coincided exactly with Scott’s visit, and they’d heard nothing from their biggest brother since the quake had hit.  Considering that it had hit in the early hours of the morning, when everyone was still supposed to be asleep in bed, they hadn’t actually heard from him since just before he’d turned in for the US-night, four hours before the quake, but that detail was insignificant against the carnage Thunderbird Two was seeking a landing space in.

Scott wouldn’t have slept through an earthquake.  He should have been on the wire to John immediately, or certainly as soon as he knew what was going on.  He definitely should have answered at least one of John’s many, many frantic hails.

He hadn’t, and that had them fearing the worst.

The rescue itself, for the most part, passed in an adrenaline-spiked blur.  Not particularly unusual, especially with something of this scale and such a high mortality rate – getting too emotionally invested only ever ended badly – and Gordon was grubby with dust, dirt, and blood smears when his brain re-engaged fully to throw everything into a very sharp relief.

He hadn’t known that he was working the sector where Scott’s hotel had been.  John hadn’t given him that information, and he hadn’t asked for it, but as he found a dust-coloured, limp hand sticking out from beneath a pile of rubble, awareness slammed back.

It wasn’t that he recognised the hand – there was no way of recognising any hands in the mess of this disaster – but that he recognised the watch.

Scott never took his watch off when he left home.  It worked as his comm, leaving him constantly connected to Thunderbird Five, and by extension the rest of them, and never raised questions with anyone else, because watches doubling as phones were commonplace nowadays.

Even if Scott’s was Brains’-created, and therefore rather more than most people’s watches.

Gordon might not recognise his brother’s hand underneath the dust, but he certainly recognised the watch.

He grabbed hold of the hand, rather more desperately than he intended to.  “Scott?”

Intellectually, he knew that there wasn’t likely to be any response.  His brother was buried, had been buried for several hours.  If he was still conscious-

The hand twitched.

Gordon froze.

“Scott?”

Fingertips curled loosely, a touch too light to even be considered a grip, but Gordon was hyper-aware of every movement his brother’s hand made.  Those were definitely conscious actions and he cupped his own hand over the weak fingers.

“I’ve got you,” he promised. “We’ll get you out.”

The fingers twitched again.

Reluctantly, Gordon pulled one hand back to slam it against his comm.  “Virgil!  I’ve located Scott.  He’s buried but conscious.”

“Is he talking?”  It was John that responded.

“Negative.”  Gordon grit his teeth.  “I’ve just got his hand.”

“See what level of response you can get,” Virgil ordered.  “I’ll be over as soon as I can.  Alan, what’s your status?”

Gordon tuned out his younger brother’s response, focusing on his allocated task.

“Scott,” he called, “squeeze my hand once for no, and two for yes.  Do you understand?”

For a moment, there was nothing, and he feared that Scott was less conscious than he’d originally thought.

Then came two twitches.

Gordon’s shoulders sagged with relief.

“Virgil’s coming to dig you out,” he told him.  “You’re too buried for me to get out alone.”

Two more twitches.

“Let’s talk about you, shall we?” he continued, wrapping his other hand back around Scott’s.  “Can you move?  Twitches don’t count.”

There was no immediate response, which was typical Scott and gave Gordon his answer even before the reluctant single twitch eventually came.

That wasn’t a surprise, but it did tell Gordon that Scott was going to be a nightmare during recovery because he was almost certainly injured.  An injured Scott meant a grounded Scott, and a grounded Scott was not fun to be around.

He kept talking to him, as much as anything to try and make sure his brother stayed conscious, as well as to keep him reassured that he wasn’t alone, until Virgil arrived with the jaws of life, Alan hot on his heels.

They both zeroed in on the hand Gordon held, and he could see the moment they recognised the watch because Alan’s eyes widened, and Virgil’s jaw set.

“Let’s get him out,” his older brother said, stepping forwards.  “Gordon, you need to get out of the way.”

Gordon didn’t want to let go of his brother’s hand, but Virgil was right.

“See you soon, Scott,” he said, and got a double twitch in response before he gently set it down on the rubble.

Alan was hanging back, clutching a hoverstretcher, and Gordon joined him as Virgil exercised the mechanical muscle to start the process of digging their big brother out.

It took some time before he got enough shifted that the pale, dust-covered and red-smeared face of Scott could be seen.  Gordon wasted no time in springing forwards, leaving Alan in the dust as he dodged around where Virgil was still working on freeing his torso to kneel by Scott’s head.

Blue eyes were half-lidded at best, drifting towards closed despite Scott’s clear attempts otherwise.  The red smearing down the side of his face seemed to come from a graze rather than a direct blow, with fragments of rubble embedded in the skin.

“Hey, Scott,” he said, lightly brushing dust-coloured hair back from the wound.  “You’re not looking too hot there.”

His brother opened his mouth silently, mouthing words and scrunching his face up in frustration when no sound came out.

“Take it easy,” Gordon insisted.  “Once you’re clear we can get a medscanner on you and see what the damage is, so you don’t need to try and tell us.”  Not that they’d take anything Scott said at face value, anyway.

Scott’s eyelids fluttered closed for a moment before snapping open.  It seemed like the lure of unconsciousness was strong, and Gordon was not a fan of Scott passing out when they didn’t know how bad it was.

Virgil grunted as he moved a particularly large chunk, and Scott let out a pained gasp.  Gordon ran his hands over his brother’s hair soothingly.

“It looks like his legs are in a small air pocket,” Virgil reported after a moment, crouching down. “Alan, get that stretcher over here and we’ll see if we can move him.  I don’t want to move any more of this rubble if I can help it.”

Glancing up at the rubble in question, Gordon realised that it did look rather precarious.  If they moved the wrong thing, Scott might well end up buried again.

“F.A.B.,” Alan responded, voice shaking just a little, before appearing next to Gordon.  He seemed unable to look away from the limp body, eyes wide and round even as he mechanically set up the stretcher.  Gordon shifted around until he was in a better position for moving Scott, never breaking contact with him, and clouding blue eyes followed his movement sluggishly.

Scott wasn’t going to be clinging onto consciousness for much longer.  He probably wasn’t going to make it through being moved.  Gordon grabbed the medscanner off of Alan and deployed it, praying that Scott wasn’t too seriously injured.

Multiple hairline fractures flagged up, especially around his ribs, and Scott’s body might as well be one huge bruise waiting to form, but all in all he seemed relatively intact. If he tried, he could probably move now he wasn’t pinned, but Gordon wasn’t going to be encouraging that any time soon.

“Get his hips,” he ordered Alan, hooking his own hands under Scott’s arms.  “Make sure his legs and feet don’t snag on anything while I pull.”  Virgil and his mechanical arms were bracing the rest of the rubble, making sure nothing fell as they worked and leaving the actual extraction to the youngest two.  “Move him on three.  One… two… three.”

He heaved, Alan guided, and the ragdoll that was Scott slid free, eyes flickering closed and this time not reopening.  Gordon wished he was surprised as they manoeuvred him onto the stretcher.

“One Scott extracted,” he reported to John as Alan set the jets going and Virgil tentatively released the precarious rubble the moment they were clear.  “He’s unconscious, but I think it’s pain and exhaustion, not a specific injury.”

“Understood,” John replied. “Will he need a hospital?”

“We should manage at home,” Virgil interjected, appearing suddenly behind him and peering over his shoulder at the scan results.  “The hospitals are going to be overrun and there’s nothing life-threatening in the scans.”

“F.A.B.,” John acknowledged. “Virgil, sector eighteen are asking for some heavy lifting assistance; they’ve found a pocket of trapped people.”

Virgil heaved a sigh and straightened.  “I’m on my way.  Gordon, Alan, get Scott settled in Two’s cockpit.  We’ll need the module to transport the rest of the injured.”

“F.A.B.”  That was a sobering thought; Thunderbird Two’s module had a huge capacity.

But then, this had been a hell of a disaster.  In the scheme of things, Scott had been lucky, not that he looked it on the stretcher, all pale and dust-covered with streaks of red where debris had scraped him and pyjamas torn beyond all saving.

“Let’s move, Alan,” he said, gripping the head of the stretcher and starting to tow their big brother away from the remains of his hotel.  “This rescue isn’t over yet.”

Just because Scott was safe didn’t mean everyone was.  Back in Thunderbird Two, the two of them docked the hoverstretcher in place at the back of the cockpit before leaving food and drink in easy reach in case Scott woke up before they got back from dealing with the rest of the danger zone.

One monitor attached so they could make sure he wasn’t worsening, and John deployed to keep half an eye on him while he worked, and they reluctantly left him to get back to work.

[majorxmaggiexboy]

idk if i’m actually going to attempt to participate but i still want to make a little list of Tober/Tember prompts and ideas of what to do with them. also tagging @f-ro-g bc New Pack. Every time i do one of these i start forgetting every media i’ve ever consumed so we’re going to see if i can at least get more than like three different fandoms on here. Might or might not come back through and flesh these out with actual details later on.

Whumptober Ideas

1) All Trussed Up and Nowhere to Go/”You have to let go”/Barbed Wire/Bound - Hadestown, full stop. The whole prompt is Hadestown. It’s in the lyrics, even. It is this post that makes me finally notice the “Keep on walking and don’t look back” line in Wait For Me and i’m so angry right now

2) Talking is Overrated/Garotte/Choking/Gagged - I’m thinking a rewrite of my first Three Musketeers fic just because it was funny the first time around and also wouldn’t take much Effort. Next.

3) Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, But.../Taunting/Insults/”Who did this to you?”

The Bradmadge Brawl of S2E1 but with passion and malice next question

4) Trust Fall/”Do you trust me?”/Taken Hostage/Pushed

Nothing springs immediately to mind but i’m leaning toward Psych or The New Pack

5) Red In My Ledger/Betrayal/Misunderstanding/Broken Nose

*slams hand on table* New Pack. Mordaunt. It writes itself.

6) Touch and Go/Bruises/Touch-Starved/Hunger

On-Drakon we’re going to give Arman and Mira some love even if only two people on this website even know them.

7) My Spidey-Sense is Tingling/Helplessness/Numbness/Blindness

TASM just for the sake of it? Undecided

8) Coughing Up a Lung/Pneumothorax/Exotic Illness/”Definitely Just a Cold”

Ben Tallmadge and the Delaware Dive next question

9) Rumors of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated/Presumed Dead/Blind Rage/Tears

Bucky it’s your turn babe

10) Oops, I Did It Again/Hospital/Flare-Up/Ice Chips

Ben you’re going back in the Delaware it’ll be so funny

11) Just Keep Swimming/Adrift/Drowning/Dehydration

Personally i think having a third Ben vs. Water fic would be the funniest possible move but Grimaud or Mordaunt could also work here

12) It’ll Be Fun, They Said/Torture/Made to Watch/Begging

Jean-Olivier comes to mind but hmmmmm there was also that one TURN S3 au that could work

13) That’s Gonna  Leave a Mark/This Is Gonna Suck/Burns/Cauterization

Hmmmmmm OH! OH! Raoul! The New Pack. Done.

14) Under Pressure/Crush Injuries/Beaten/Force

It says Force and Force is Star Wars so naturally this is Mando’s number.

15) Feed a Cold, Starve a Fever/Delirium/Fever Dream/Bees

Ben Tallmadge guess what....

16) On a Need-to-Know Basis/Recovery/Scars/Aftermath

I’m thinking the Psych Not-Ghost AU would work here but there are certainly other options.

17) Field-Care 101/”Please don’t move!”/Hemorrhage/Dread

Might go with something Leverage right here just because i just watched Leverage. Nothing’s jumping immediately to mind. Warm Bodies could also work though.

18) The Doctor is In/”Now smile for the camera!”/Doctor’s visit/CPR

I’m thinking Reid just because Dr. and i’ve never been able to write Doctor Who so. What other Doctor characters are there. McStuffins isn’t in the running here. Oh! We could do something MCU, Bruce is a Doctor isn’t he? God can you imagine Dr. Hulk trying to

19) Just a Scratch/Bitten/Bleeding/Stabbing

Didn’t ... d’Artagnan once utter the phrase “it’s just a scratch” in relation to someth.....first episode, i think? Great so we have a winner, good job everybody.

20) Lost & Found/Trunk/Trapped underwater/Solitary Confinement

Weirdly Mando is the first character to come to mind. Someone beat me to 80% of my other idea but there’s potential.

21) That’s Where the Blood’s Supposed to Be/Bleeding Through Bandages/Pressure/Blood-Matted Hair

Let’s be real the only two options for this one are Bucky or Eliot and they’re virtually the same character so where does that leave me

22) They Made Me Do It/Cursed/Demon/Obsession

*vague wave* Merlin ?

23) You Break It, You Buy It/Auction/Ransom/Pursuit

That one 3M au with Athos and the big mix-up and the Oops and all the...stuff, yeah. That works.

24) One Down, Two to Go/Self-Induced Injuries to Escape/Flashback/Revenge

Holy sh- i didn’t see this one initially. I mean? Jean? Ow.

25) Hide & Seek/Escape/Flight/Hiding

Psych? Orrrrr....TGM?

26) You Will Go Down With This Ship/Fallen/Waterfall/Trap Door

I’m trying to think of literally anything i’ve ever read or watched that’s got a ship in it ummmmmmm hey what if we interpret “ship” as yeaaaah let’s do another Mando one that’ll work

27) “I’m Fine, I Prom...”/Passing Out/Vertigo/Collapse

I mean..... .... ... is there a character this doesn’t work for though? Wait. No actually let’s do Childermass since he gets that what is it an allergic reaction to magic? I mean i know Segundus gets like that to so....ha let’s make it be Both of them.

28) It’s Not Just In Your Head/”Good, you’re finally awake”/Nightmares/Panic

First thought is New Pack but it might take some pondering.

29) All Work and No Play/”You’re still not dead?”/Too weak to move/overworked

it’s like Civil War but with Bucky and Jean-Olivier having an all-out brawl good lord it’s an either/or situation.

30) Digging Your Grave/Major Character Death/Left For Dead/Ghosts

*shot of choc milk* the exact TURN AU i was Just thinking about yesterday,,,

31) Hurt & Comfort/Disaster Zone/Trauma/Prisoner

I feel like i need to put Gwynplaine here just because he hasn’t had a turn yet

Alt. Prompts

1) Losing Control

Arman. Very obviously extramuch Arman definitely. Let’s have another one with the involuntary dragon himbo.

2) Threats

*chin hands* trying to think of a character who gets threatened a lot. will circle back. I’m actually thinking Psych again but idk.

3) Caning

Ro we’ve genuinely discussed about 16 different variations on this one i think it’s Time

4) Mercy

MORDAUNT MORDAUNT NEXT QUESTION

5) Forgotten

Is it time for Jack Frost of all people to make an appearance or is this just Bucky again

6) Head Injury

It would be real easy to just put the headbonk au here but i’m going to try to show some restraint and do a different headbonk story

7) Screaming

Going to assign Gwynplaine here just because he really has been neglected in this lineup and also it would probably be good for him to vent a little bit in this manner

8) Comfort

Someone’s going to get petted like a cat and i just haven’t decided whomst but when i do it’s over for everybody

9) Self-Sacrifice

What do i even say to that i Feels like another New Pack but it’s still up for grabs tbh

10) Trapped

Tempted to pour one out and just say Bucky but idk idk we’ll think of something this is very much a first draft stream of thought general idea planning session

11) Near Death Experience

It would be hilarious to just put something like Meet Joe Black for this one but WAIT NO NO GO BACK ACTUALLY WARM BODIES LET’S DO WARM BODIES

12) Regret

It’s gotta either be Psych or TURN

13) Tragedy

My first thought is to do a damn Hannibal fic without ever having actually watched the show just because i’m still angry about how i read it ended but considering that i only know the characters’ voices from tumblr chatposts i feel like that’s not the best venue to

heck we might just do New Pack

14) Battlefield

Either TURN or New Pack or....the song’s a little bit dramatic for a Bucky but actually....unless? no....but Maybe,

15) Anxiety

Every character i’ve ever cared about could potentially fit right here so :/ Arman could have 3rd ficlet but again, literally every character, i,,,,,they’ve all got anxiety X’D

[phantomchick]

List of wips - aka struggles

Call Me A Jason Todd fic I started two years ago and still go back to poke at longingly, will the second and final chapter ever be posted? Who can know for sure.

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I tell myself that I don't need Anyone (But the truth is no one needs Me) Another Jason Todd fic I haven't completed, posted two years ago for whumptober, it was the only day of whumptober I participated in, intended to be full of Captain Atom and Jason Todd interacting during the fall out of Bludhaven getting chemo'd but he doesn't show up in the first chapter and have you ever tried to read Infinite Crisis? It's a fucking mess. With this wip I have a close to justifiable excuse in that I refuse to write without knowing the canon, and reading through all the canon that's relevant is A Task.

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The Monster in The Man A Merlin fic floating around my drafts, currently at a good bit over 5k wherein Merlin gets POSSESSED by an old enchantment gone mad. Written because a Merlin fic I read ended on a horror style cliffhanger and I couldn't handle it so I charged my way through the first 2k of a sequel and I've been adding to it ever since. Angst with a hopefully happy ending, if I ever frikking finish it.

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The Dragon Lord In the aftermath of his father's death after Merlin inherits his father's dragon lord abilities he notices some minor changes to his interactions with his friends, the thing is that Merlin is a dragon lord and unusually what he hoards is people, things might just turn out the better for it.

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Maelstrom A Naruto time travel fix it fic that wouldn't leave me alone until I got the first chapter out, ironically it has left me entirely alone since I finished the first chapter and I have no idea if inspiration for it will ever return or when that will be.

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You Don't Know Anything Long long ago in a land of asks and a time of legend @paradise-runway sent me a fic request for "one where the other Bat boys find out the circumstances of Jason's death and resurrection and their reaction?" it has been lingering in my drafts haunting me ever since, someday, someday I shall fulfill what has been promised.

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Of Curses and Covenants A longfic exploring the magical underbelly of Gotham's history, focuses on the intertwined relationship of the Wayne Family and the Zatara Family brought about by how often Waynes through the generations have ended up being cursed. I have an index of all the curses ready, the problem with this one is the plot and the story.

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Vicki Finds a Bat (temporary title) Vicki Vale stumbles upon a still alive young adult Jason Todd at a wafflehouse on the way back from snooping into Cobblepot's latest criminal schemes. Convincing the young man to go back home to his loving father might prove more of a challenge than she thinks however. (will have a happy ending if I ever fucking finish it, for now it looms in my drafts like an unhappy gargoyle)

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Hug Deficit A fic about Jason being touch starved and his family fixing it, hurt/comfort all the way, post resurrection.

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Stephanie Brown and The Mansion of Man Pain Robin Era Steph, she and Alfred have pumpkin spice lattes together, it's their thing because I say it is. Includes, Alfred raised 5 boys counting Bruce, he's not sure how to handle a little girl and Bruce trying to dad plus Steph trying her best. Would be a lot easier to write if I was any good at comedy.

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Another Time, Another Place Some twenty years or so after their death, Martha and Thomas Wayne appear in the middle of Wayne Manor's ground floor parlour room, the major problem with this? Not only are Bruce and Dick away, Alfred's on holiday in England! Which is why Jason as the eldest has been unwillingly nominated by his younger siblings to deal with the situation at hand. Martha and Thomas in this are heavily inspired by @unpretty's amazing portrayals in her fics with them.

- Queen Blackfire and the Lazarus Lord An au with Soulmate identifying marks: Jason Todd was having an okay time as de-facto leader of The Outlaws, a band of misfits and rebels with hearts of gold (or at least silver) saving the world the best they could and filling in the gaps the more straightforward heroes tended to miss while they were at it. Then he found out he was soulmates with the Alien Warrior Queen bent on declaring war on planet Earth if the Justice League didn't find her soulmate for her. Things with his friend, team mate and potential future sister in law Kori just got super awkward and the only good thing he can find about this situation is how angry (and protective? But maybe he's just imagining that) Bruce seems over the whole thing.

Side note: Kommand'r freaked out during the years Jason was 'dead' and accidentally brought peace to a huge chunk of space and intergalactic society via building up her empire after throwing herself into work to escape the grief.

- To Grasp The Hand of a Fox Naruto and Kurama travel back in time to save the world but unfortunately they land in the same moment that Kurama's just been put under a genjutsu by Madara Uchiha, Naruto has to make his way to Konoha and wake Kurama up before the villagers seal him away inside Mito. Can he save his friend in time to save them all?

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Those Winter Sundays Mcu fic. Snapshots of Tony working hard for the avengers and no one noticing. Civil War Team Iron Man.

- Salvation Rides a Solar Wind Iron Man fic in a Science fiction / Western style fic where Tony's presence is described through the eyes of the aliens he helps. Au where the war with Thanos goes very differently. The type of fic that needs like 5 multi chapter fics in a single series to truly shine, hence why I will likely never finish it.

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And We Break Away Again Jason goes back to Talia after Damian is brought back from the dead by Bruce. It's not that he begrudges his little brother his resurrection, the opposite, but he can't ignore what Bruce did to him by taking him to the magdala valley and he can't ignore what Bruce doing for Damian what he didn't do for him, (do for Dick, do for any of them besides the blood related one) means. So he decides to go back to the only person who ever seemed to understand why he wanted to avenge himself in the first place, the only person who seemed to agree that he had a right to be angry that he'd died at all, the only person he can trust to hold him together while he feels like he's falling apart that won't judge him against the heroic mold while they're at it. Not sure if this will be a oneshot or a series but we're going good Talia with this one regardless, DC's been ruining her lately but through fanfic all things are possible so fuck them.

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Fan The Flames In the aftermath of a magical fire taking hold of the Daily Planet in Metropolis, Superman is missing, can Batman and the rest of the Justice League find their friend as well as the identity of the evil arsonist before Lex Luther does it first?

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In a Whisper (In a Wish) Ichigo Kurosaki protects people, it's not just who he is, it's what he is, down to the core of his very soul. The only problem is, that a few weeks ago he sacrificed half his soul to protect the world. It aches inside where he knows something important used to be. When everyone he cares for is avoiding him and he's starting to feel more like a shadow than a person, that aches at him too and he can't help but wish, quietly, privately, painfully, to himself if no one else that things were different, that he wasn't so broken or so alone. But if wishes were fishes they'd fill a whole sea (just be careful not to whisper them within the hearing range of the Hōgyoku).

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An Honest Conversation (Is A Bitter Thing To Crave) Jason kidnaps Bruce but things don't go as Bruce expects. First of all the reason Jason was able to kidnap him was because Stephanie of all people was his insider, why would she support someone Batman knows she's only met once. And second of all the reason he's been abducted - So that Jason can drug them both with the same substance. And when Bruce asks what he's doing this for Jason only responds, "We don't trust each other enough to have a truthful conversation otherwise" and refuses to say anything more while they wait for it to kick in. What will be revealed by this forced honest encounter on both sides? -

carrying the world on thin shoulders Midoriya Izuku deserves better from literally all the adults in his life so this is part whump part hurt comfort part fix it fic that sprawls out from time to time but it's pretty bad tbh, at some point I'll probably make it neater and give it something resembling a coherent plot. Hopefully. -

Trust Issues HP fic. Harry gets dosed with a potion that's supposed to reinforce your strongest survival instinct, the person who drugged him might've intended to be helpful but said potion happened to be at extra strength and he was given what would be a normal fix for the regular version but for this one is twice the recommended amount. Great.. The biggest problem about all this - beyond his internationally wanted godfather Sirius endangering himself by hiding out in a cave near Hogsmeade against all rational advice, his best friend Ron hating him, everyone in school besides his other best friend Hermione also hating him or avoiding him and the entire Goblet of Fire problem - is that he can't bring himself to trust anyone enough to tell them what's wrong.

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Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies A post marvel avengers story, thor pov probably, made because I like to dive into a pool of thor & loki sibling feels sometimes: Starts off as Thor regales his new human shield brothers with the story of his banishment and return to Asgard ending with Loki falling into the Void and the Avengers have some questions, questions Thor had not thought of, remarks on things that Thor doesn’t know how to explain away.  After he goes to Loki’s cell and asks him some things he becomes more and more angry despite having no one he can punch > Gets drunk and criticises Sif and The Warriors Three after they try to calm him down > mention of Loki still being underage by Aesir standards during Thor 1 seeing as Thor was being crowned due to being of age in the movie > heavy inspiration drawn from queen regnant by peaceheather. “For while the Treason I detest, the Traitor I love still.” Currently just an outline.

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Separation Split personality disorder Red Hood and Jason Todd, alternatively, Red Hood is a demon/parasite latched on to Jay. A lot of work necessary considering right now it’s currently just an idea inspired by a cool tumblr fanart.

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A Trinity of Head Wounds The dcu trinity in the aftermath of a fight against some alien invaders (or something along those lines), whump, hurt/comfort, starts with them arguing, ends with them bleeding on each other in a friendship way, whole thing should take place in a single room on the watchtower and be a oneshot so it's gotta be a short and sweet one-two gut punch with the feelings which is difficuuult.

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A Stark in The Stars an mcu fic, a really over complicated mcu fic, mostly because of Steve Roger's timeline fuckery, Tony's alive but he's not supposed to be, but so are a lot of people who were dead but aren't now you might say what with the snap and the blip. The thing is that Steve's timeline fuckery is making it so that everyone keeps getting confused between the two different timelines of events, obviously more confused the more that their characters were connected to the films/the events that were altered, the punchline of this particular fic though is that Tony's still alive and he's unaware of the timeline of events where he died. And as he's currently in space he's also unaware that everyone on Earth thinks he's dead (because why wouldn't they? he died in endgame after all). That makes this fic super tough to write because like ultimate unreliable narrator right here and not sure how to tie in the whole 'oh wait actually everyone on Earth thinks I'm dead because of the canon timelines' thing in or at what point of the story to do that at. The fuckery of it all gives me a headache. Plot is hard. Also all of that's basically background to the actual focus of most of the fic thus far which is Tony travelling around space in an Iron Man suit up until the point where it won't be background.

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Magic Chained Merlin au. When you put magic restraining cuffs on Magic himself you don't just bind him you bind all magic the world over. It is therefore, infinitely lucky that Uther Pendragon never became aware of this fact.

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A Child in The Cold bnha Midoriya deserves better also Recovery Girl and Aizawa have shit to answer for as far as I'm concerned.

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[keyrousse]

Fic Writer Review

I was tagged by @andordean, thank you very much!

1. How many fics on AO3?

24.

2. Total AO3 wordcount?

481945 😱😱😱

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

On AO3 I have fics for 13 fandoms, with lost or unpublished fics it would be 15 at minimum. I wrote for The Witcher (books and games), Sherlock, Good Omens, The Unusuals, Broadchurch, TMFU, Doctor Who, House MD, Legend of the Seeker, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior as crossover with Constantine (TV), Blue Water High, and The Avengers (also only as a crossover with Sherlock :) ) (you can see my short-lasting fixations with Craig Horner and Matt Ryan here - their shows were graced with one or two short fics).

4. Top Five by Kudos?

The Shift, where I whump Alec Hardy from Broadchurch. I really should put that fic through Grammarly at least, but since people seem to enjoy it anyway... I’m not too proud of it plot-wise, but the feels were nice to write.

Bits from the Path - my first attempt at writing The Witcher in English. It went well 😁, although I can only imagine what Dor went through betaing it. ;)

The runner - Broadchurch, slice of life, kinda prelude to The shift.

Appearances - the fact that I wrote this thing was shocking to me, because yeah, I had some crossovers in my resume, which was weird for someone who wrote mostly canon-compliant, but a modern!AU??? But I had fun throwing in so many references and building the world with guns, cell phones, monsters and magic :)

Walls crumbling - the aforementioned crossover for Matt Ryan shows. Missing scenes from “Constantine” with John meeting his long lost twin brother Mick thrown in-between ;)

5. Do you respond to comments, why/why not?

Usually I do, because I know the feeling when the author replies to a comment I left. :)

6. What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

I usually finish with a happy ending, so I don’t think there are any :) Maybe one whumptober one-shot with an open ending.

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you've written?

Sometimes. I don’t know if they’re crazy, I know I was probably the first person who wrote The Witcher/Doctor Who crossover, but with Ciri’s space travelling powers that seemed logical. :)

8. Have you received hate on a fic?

Thankfully not.

9. Do you write smut?

Not yet. I plan to. It will be interesting considering I suspect I’m ace, I have limited experience in sex in general, no experience in gay sex and my style is very straightforward ;)

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don’t think so, but also I don’t check.

11. Ever had a fic translated?

I translated some of my own one-shots for The Witcher :) (okay, Google Translate and Dor did most of the work tbh)

12. Ever co-written a fic before?

Nope. I stay away from any commitment around fics, I write at my own pace and whatever my plot bunny gives me at the time, with collaboration I’d probably have to adjust to someone else and I know it wouldn’t end well.

13. All time favorite ship?

I’m not much of a shipper tbh. It’s not a mountain I’d die on. I treat any pairings I read or write for very lightly :)

14. What's a WIP you want to finish, but don't think you ever will?

A very long time ago I wrote a fic in Polish for “M:I - Ghost protocol”, (Ethan in trouble, Brandt revealing a past identity and being a badass in Hong Kong), I just never edited it. I remember I have this fic, I’m too scared to read it again.

15. What are your writing strengths?

The ability to throw a reference to the source material I think? ;) Action scenes, I hope.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptions, oh my goodness.

17. What are your thoughts of writing dialogue in other languages?

If I don’t speak the language, it’s risky. Always. In one fic I used some swearwords in Welsh and I have no idea if the page I used as a source was in any way reliable.

That’s one way of interpreting this question. I remember when I switched to English writing The Witcher, I worried the characters wouldn’t sound right, because they have a different speech pattern in Polish. I knew that Zoltan was kinda Scottish and Geralt often omitted the pronouns and that’s all.

18. First fandom you wrote for?

Probably “24″.

19. Favorite fic you've ever written?

“The Jump” (TW/DW crossover).

Tagging @nottonyharrison :)

[pi-cat000]

MSA: Gunpoint AU (part 5)

(continuation of a fic started during the Whumptober2019 challenge)

(PART 1) (PART 2) (PART 3)  (PART 4)

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Summary: Arthur gets in trouble while on a case with Vivi (set before Ghost). 

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This time, the dark of unconsciousness isn’t quite so all-encompassing. His mind floats about as sound and stimulus come in and out like waves. In his dazed state, he struggles to focus on the conversation which drifts over and around him.

“What’s got you all mopey?"  The sharp voice, perpetually amused, pieces the haze over Arthur’s mind. "You’re about to finish your unfinished business. That’s like, end-game stuff for you wraiths.”

He is suddenly very aware of the dirt pressing against his cheek and the uncomfortable strain on his back. Oh right, he has been kidnapped by a psychopath in what was probably the worst case of mistaken identity in the history of ever. Everything hurts, from the new burn on his chest to his growing headache. He misses the unawareness of being unconscious already.

“…soon you’ll be free to hop on off to the afterlife or wherever it is you people go. Last I checked, that’s a good thing.”

The is a long pause and Arthur strains to hear the next sentence. He doesn’t dare open his eyes. The less attention focused on him the better. He pulls subtly at his wrists but they’re still cuffed together. If only his mechanical arm had a quick-release lever, then he’d be able to detach it and get his hands free that way.

“He was terrified.”  

Even when he’s barley lucid, hearing and knowing that the angry spirit is nearby causes his heart to race. Arthur fights his instinct to try and crawl as fast and as far away as possible.

“Uh…Duh. That was your goal. To scare the shit out of him then kill him? What did you think would happen?”

“If he doesn’t remember then what’s the point.”

“Haha…” The laugh is unpleasant, “I wouldn’t worry so much my anger prone friend.”

There is a low ominous rumble and the more threatening sounds of fire crackling. “DON’T call me that. I don’t have friends. Not anymore.”

Another laugh.  “Sure, whatever, acquaintances then….”  Arthur hears the sound of footsteps draw near to his head and he tries to relax and maintain the illusion of unconsciousness.  “You’re just getting caught up on the semantics.… He’s still the same guy. He’s just a guy who not only killed you but didn’t even have the guts to remember it.”

He’s dead, Arthur thinks dully. The green-eyed looney is going to get him killed and he can’t do a thing about it. He’s got this wraith creature convinced that Arthur was involved in its murder. It’s a lie. He hadn’t killed anyone…He would remember something like that…right?

“All this time you’ve been out here, alone and in pain, and he’s been living it up, not even a shred of guilt.  Doesn’t that just piss you off?” 

The footsteps stop right next to his ear. Arthur jerks to the sensation of cold water getting splashed over his face. He sputters as the water runs up his nose, recoiling so he bumps into the car’s tyres.  The sudden movement reminds him of the growing collection of bruises and painful grazes running down his back. When the water stops, he cracks an eye to squint up at his crazy kidnaper, who was now crouched in front of him holding a plastic bottle and waving a greeting.

“Congratulations. You’re not dead.”  

Arthur coughs to clear his lungs of water. Quickly, his eyes dart around, searching out the ominous silhouette of the wraith floating several feet behind the crazy man. The ghost-monster is glaring at him, eyes narrowed with undisguised anger.

The man moves to block Arthur’s vision. “Not dead yet…we'll put a pin in that moral dilemma for the moment.”

Up this close, Arthur can see the laughter threatening to split the twisted man’s face. The freak was enjoying everything way too much for anything to be accidental.  A hand roughly grips his shoulder, hauling him upright so he is leaning with his back against one of the car’s tyres. Even the small change in posture has his head swimming. A result of one too many hits to the skull. The crazy man examines the burn on his chest, prodding at it.   “This looks painful.”  Arthur winces, trying to lean away.

“You really don’t remember?” The question is growled at him, interrupting crazy man.

Arthur swallows, squinting upwards. The fire wraith has moved closer, drifting to loom over the two of them. He can already feel the air heating around him.

“I…No…” His mouth suddenly goes dry. What can he say to convince this creature that he’s innocent? “I don’t …”

SLAM. The wraith slams a fist into the hood of the car which buckles under its strength. Fire spreads across its arm, leaping into the air. Okay. Not the response the wraith was looking for. Arthur clamps his mouth shut and hunches down so he’s less of a target. The crazy man sniggers, standing and forcing the wraith backwards, making an exaggerated calming motion.

“Hey! I’ve got an idea. After you finish helping me sort out my side of the bargain like you promised, I’ll see what I can do about his memory loss free of charge. I may or may not have a few additional tricks up my sleeve.”

“What do you think?”

The wraith maintains its glare, moving its focus off Arthur for a moment. While the two appear to be working together it’s obviously not out of friendship.  Arthur takes their laps in attention as a chance to pull at the cuffs again, testing both his wrists and ankles with more urgency.  Twisting his neck, he subtly eyes the trees and foliage around the clearing. His best chance would be to follow the road back the way they’d come in. Maybe, he could break his metal wrist and slip out of the cuffs securing his hands.  Unfortunately, that’s not a strategy he can use on his ankles.

“Fine…” The wraith finally snaps, its angry tone drawing Arthur’s attention back to the conversation.  “But if you hurt Vivi…” The threat is left open.

Arthur freezes and his stomach flips uncomfortably. How did this wraith know Vivi?

“Relax. I’m not going to hurt your girlfriend. Cross my heart and hope to die.  All I want is the dog.”

Girlfriend? Vivi hadn’t been in a relationship since…since…No. Arthur shakes his head not liking where that logical train of thought is taking him. If these kidnappers knew about him then they definitely knew about Vivi as well. This had to be part of the set up somehow. It was designed to mess with him. But, if that’s the case, then why does something feel wrong. There is something off about all of this beyond his kidnapping that Arthur’ is just not getting…Why is just thinking so hard all of a sudden?

The ghost wavers, still angry but apparently content for the time being. Now it is deliberately not looking at Arthur, turning to drift away. Instead, two of those small pink spirit blobs appear and proceed to glare at him in the wraith’s place.

Arthur wishes he could massage his head because it feels like his brain is on fire.  

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Note: A random whumptober continuation. also going to be crossposting this on ao3

[vyther16]

Breathe

whumptober 2020; day 13: breathe in, breathe out

glossary, with definitions to the best of my non-chinese understanding. tangjie - older female cousin on dad's side xiaojie - lady, lit little big sister gongzi - young master xiao - little

a/n

I recommend reading the work this is inspired by, "Why need we stay together day and night" by the lovely JianghuChild on Ao3. It has Shen-xiaojie being a soft-hearted badass and still getting to be in love with Yan Bingyun. If you have no patience for that, then all you need to know is Shen-xiaojie is pretending to be a cousin of the Fan sibs (Fan Sisi is her name), the entire capital thinks yby killed Fan Xian in a trauma-induced breakdown, and Fan Ruoruo started a spy ring of all the ladies in the capital to take down corrupt and womanizing officials and protect all the women in the capital.

this is not a fully fleshed out idea yet; it is a single scene that i wrote for this prompt, and that has a full au surrounding it that only i know right now. it will be expanded on eventually. maybe around thanksgiving, when I have less school to deal with. 

Shen-xiaojie’s name is Shen Wan’er, in accordance with the novel (that I haven’t read lol)

~start~

Yan Bingyun stares at the inconspicuous note folded in his newly washed robes. There is no sender on the outside. 

He remembers Shen--Fan Sisi’s note, the only contact he’s had with her since that night. It had appeared in the same way, and Yan Bingyun has an idea of how they have managed to pass by his extensive protections. He considers dismissing his maids and hiring a whole new household, but that would require too much explanation, and far too much time besides.

True to her word, Fan Sisi has not contacted him since that afternoon two months ago. He’s seen her with Fan Ruoruo and sometimes Fan Sizhe. She’s visited Lin Wan’er and Ye Ling’er often, and she has tea with a collection of high society women every week. She’s done well for herself, here in DaQing. He smothers the small spark of pride he feels at that, because she isn’t his, was never going to be his, and he can afford even less with her than he can with even a courtesan.

Not, that is, that he would ever want a courtesan, even if his traitorous heart didn’t belong to one woman alone.

He brushes his fingers over the note, feeling the quality of the paper. It’s the same stock as the note from Fan Sisi, all those months ago. He unfolds it slowly.

The characters are small and neat, lacking the small flair Fan Sisi always puts on the last stroke. He doesn’t recognize them.

He reads the note.

Meet me at the westernmost bridge tomorrow at dusk. If you do not, your monthly trips out of the city will not remain secret much longer.

Yan Bingyun’s breath catches in his throat. Someone knows .

--

“Gongzi, ” the hooded figure greets.

Yan Bingyun inclines his head, keeping his hands out in the open. He has an idea of who sent him the note, but that just makes him more aware of the dangers. The daggers in his sleeves and boot are a small comfort, the steel warmed by close proximity to his skin. The blood from the tiny knicks left behind by the unsheathed blades is difficult to see on the black robes he has taken to wearing, which is fortunate.

He has had rather enough of white robes to last him a lifetime.

The figure draws back her hood.

“ Xiaojie, ” Yan Bingyun says.

Fan Ruoruo smiles, a dangerous thing that hides itself behind dainty gestures and even daintier words.

“Why have you called me? They say I killed your brother.” He knows he didn't kill Fan Xian, but Fan Ruoruo has no reason to know that.

“Yet you disappear every month like clockwork, to a secluded cabin in the woods nearby. A cabin where you sometimes meet with Beiqi’s Shengnu. A cabin where you’re keeping my brother.”

Yan Bingyun’s breath stutters. He lets his dagger slip out of his sleeve.

“ Xiao- Yan- gongzi, the only reason I haven’t turned you in yet is because tangjie vouched for you. But tangjie has gone missing.”

Yan Bingyun staggers back.

They know about Fan Xian. Shen Wan'er is missing. Haitang Duoduo has been seen. Fan Xian is in danger again. Shen Wan'er has vanished. Haitang will be caught as a traitor. Fan Xian might be killed for real this time. Shen Wan'er has been discovered. Haitang will be killed.

Yan Bingyun breathes out, a shuddering sound that grates on his ears for the weakness it reveals.

Then he lurches forward, pressing his dagger to Fan Ruoruo’s throat. “You can’t tell anyone he’s alive. You can’t. The Second Prince will kill more than just Fan Xian if our deception is found out.”

“The Second Prince?” Fan Ruoruo chokes out, pushing futilely against Yan Bingyun’s weight.

Yan Bingyun steps back, hands shaking. There’s a thin line of blood on Fan Ruoruo’s neck. “Of course. He’s the one who asked me to kill Fan Xian.” He hesitates, then adds, “And the one who threatened Fan Sizhe as well.”

Fan Ruoruo’s eyes go wide. “That’s why he welcomed you back so quickly. We wondered.”

“Does anyone else know about Fan Xian?” Yan Bingyun gets out. His breathing is too fast, the way it gets sometimes. He rubs his thumb along the hilt of his dagger. Forward, breathe in. Back, breathe out. Repeat. Breathe in, forward. Breathe out, backwards.

“Only my people,” Fan Ruoruo says.

Forward, breathe in. “Who are your people?” Back, breathe out. Fan Ruoruo wouldn’t jeopardize her brother’s safety. Fan Xian is safe for now.

“Shadows.” Fan Ruoruo smiles, knife-sharp.

“They won’t tell the royal family? Or the director?” He presses. Forward, breathe in.

“The royal family and the director are terrified of us. But they don’t know who we are.”

Back, breathe out. Yan Bingyun pushes past the bone-deep terror for Fan Xian, for Shen Wan'er, for even Haitang Duoduo.

“The spy ring. The one that topples corrupt officials. You’re the ringleader?”

Fan Ruoruo’s grin widens. “Very good, Yan Bingyun. How very clever of you.” He's reminded starkly of Fan Xian, in the hours after his rescue, praising him for putting together dots a child could connect.

“If you can find all those things about the ministers, why do you need my help?” Forward, breathe in.

“Shen Wan'er is missing. She was taken from her room two days ago, and we have not seen her since. My people have looked, but we cannot find her. You have the unique privilege of being both Overwatch Council and someone we are willing to deal with, if absolutely necessary.”

Back, breathe out. “Shen- xiaojie made it quite clear how she felt about me the last time we saw each other,” Yan Bingyun says, squashing the emotions that claw their way up his throat at the thought of Shen Wan'er.

“Tangjie is a fugitive from Beiqi. You know this as well as I do. I fear the Overwatch Council has found out. They won’t care that she is merely the younger sister of a disgraced and dead lord, who doesn’t know any state secrets.”

Yan Bingyun knows what the Overwatch Council will do to her in hopes of getting information. He rubs his thumb over the hilt of his dagger again. "Do you have a plan?"

Fan Ruoruo draws her hood back up, hiding her face in shadows. "Of course."

~fin~

a/n

recall, if you will, that this is merely a scene from an unpublished au. do not at me about things that are not canon compliant or about ooc-ness, bc there are things that happen to these characters to make every action they take mostly in character. I will add a chapter to this directing to the finished fic this is from when I eventually finish writing it, but that probably won't be until late next month at the earliest. it will probably be around thanksgiving and/or christmas, when I have breaks from school

i didn't bother with a fancy title for this one, since it's not a fully fleshed out scene or idea, soooooooooo..............

ao3 link in the reblog to my main; reblogs>likes

[bytheangell]

October Writing Goals

Realistic Goal: 20,000 words Optimistic Goal: 40,000 words 

Alright but let’s be honest here, 30,000 is the most realistic goal and that’s probably low because I can’t keep fics consistently under 1k to save my life, so with 31 Flufftober prompts on top of whatever other whims I might have to write this month, I’m definitely going over 20,000 words and almost positively going to go over 30,000. 

Goals for this month: FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD IN THE WORLD, ELLE, GET YOURSELF TOGETHER AND POST AT LEAST ONE CHAPTER OF DREAMING WIDE AWAKE. There are only 3 left and this is taking me an actual eternity, why am I like this. 

Flufftober: all 31 prompts, ideally one a day but we’ll see what Life has in store. I do have ideas for Whumptober prompts as well but I know it’s super unrealistic to think I’ll do 2 fics a day since I didn’t manage to write anything early last month, so those will just come randomly as I have time/ideas. 

Other: I have some inbox prompts that I’m going to work into Flufftober ideas, to kill two birds with one stone! So those should clear this month. Other than that, not sure how many other fics will make any real progress, I do want to write more of the Jace Deruning series but that may have to go on hold until November. perhaps I’ll make it my NaNoWriMo project since it might get a bit long!? we’ll see! 

So there it is. October goals. So many words, so little time. Here we go, October! 

[actress4him]

Whumptober 2020 - Day 9

I've gotten multiple requests (and one threat) for a part 2 of the previous chapter, and since I did enjoy writing that AU and already had somewhat of an idea of how it would continue in my head, I'm gonna try to write one. I'm currently writing Day 23, which means I have several prompt days left I can try to stick it in. If that doesn't work, I'll either do a bonus chapter at the end, or repost that fic separately with the second part added.

This one's definitely another dark one. I may have gotten slightly carried away with the whump. So make sure you check the warnings before you read! There's a lot of them! I also may have gotten slightly carried away with the syntax of these aliens...haha. We've got a little bit of Shiro in here, but mainly it's Red who gets her turn in the spotlight with Keith.

Read on AO3

Read on FFN

Day 9 - “Take Me Instead”/Ritual Sacrifice

Fandom:  Voltron: Legendary Defender

Warnings: human sacrifice, alien religion, a little bit of fantastic racism, non- consensual drug use, lots of non-consensual touching (not sexual), death mention, forced stripping (not sexual), nudity (not sexual), very vague references to child abuse if you squint, drowning, fire, burns, wrist cutting (not self-harm), blood, wishing for death (not actual suicide ideation)

Of all possible ways to be woken up, the sound of Shiro struggling to breathe was certainly not one of Keith’s favorites. He was on his feet the moment his groggy brain realized what he was hearing, but was immediately put into the same headlock that he could see his roommate for the night in. It wasn’t often that someone could get the jump on either one of them. Keith was going to blame the fact that the cowards had struck while they were asleep.

The cowards, in this case, were the Luktorians, a race that had seemed perfectly nice up until this moment. A bit odd, perhaps, and difficult to understand - Lance kept insisting they sounded like drunk Yoda - but peaceful. They had rather human-looking faces, offset by the various shades of blue skin they sported and the fact that they had impossibly long and skinny necks and four arms. It was those four arms that held him in place now, one around his neck, one across his chest and shoulders, and two latched onto his wrists.

“Shh. You Paladin calm yourself must. Harm no mean we you.”

“If you don’t mean us harm, then why are you attacking us in our sleep?” Keith growled.

The alien holding Shiro spoke up. “Need only have we of him. Sleep may you.”

“I don’t think so.” Keith attempted to lunge forward, but made it nowhere. “What do you need him for? You’re not taking anybody anywhere without some answers!”

A slight smile came over the pale blue alien’s face. “Come have you at a time perfect. The night tonight of the sacrifice great is.”

Keith’s brain stuck on one word out of that gibberish. “Wait, sacrifice? What do you mean, what sacrifice?”

The Luktorian behind him bent his long neck forward to look him in the face. “A sacrifice it is for enemies our protection from. Away keeps the Galra the goddess great and harm us others who would.”

“Okay, we can understand that,” Shiro finally broke in, though he seemed to still be struggling with the arm that was around his throat. “But, uh...that’s what Voltron is here to do. Right? We’re making an alliance with your people so that we can keep the Galra away. S-so...maybe you don’t need a sacrifice this time.”

A stormy look came over both the alien’s faces. “Claim do you the goddess great with equal to be?”

“N-no, no, that’s not what I was saying.” Keith was glad that Shiro knew at all what they were accusing, because he was lost, himself. “I’m just...thinking that perhaps your goddess is the one who brought us here. Perhaps she’s already protecting you, using Voltron.”

They seemed to consider this for a moment, and Keith held his breath. “Perhaps,” one answered at last. “Must make we if so the goddess great a sacrifice to thank.”

Keith let out a groan. There didn’t seem to be any way they were getting out of this one easily. But they still hadn’t actually heard what this sacrifice actually entailed, so maybe there was hope yet, though based on the late night choke hold he wasn’t counting on it.

Shiro seemed to be on the same train of thought. “So, um...what exactly do you need us...me...to do? How can I help?”

His captor smiled again, and Keith decided he did not like that look at all. “Quietly must come you prepared the altar for to be. Short running time is.”

Shiro paled visibly even in the dim lighting. “Right. So...I’m the sacrifice.”

Keith lunged again. “No! You’re not sacrificing him, I won’t let you!”

The Luktorian tipped his head to the side and regarded him as if he was a child. “Warrior strong the Paladin Black is and ties to the Galra has close. A candidate perfect is he.”

As Keith continued to struggle, Shiro did his best to lock eyes with him. “Keith, it’s okay. We’ll...we’ll figure this out, it’ll be okay.”

“No, it’s not okay, Shiro!” He had one more thing to try. It was a long shot, and Shiro would hate him for it, but he had to try. “Listen. You want somebody with close ties to the Galra? Then take me.”

“Keith, no!”

He ignored the interruption and made direct eye contact with Shiro’s captor. “Shiro...the Black Paladin...has been hurt by the Galra just as much as your people have, maybe more. His ties to the Galra are like yours. But me…” He sucked in as deep a breath as he could. “I’m part Galra. I’m a warrior, too, and you can’t get any closer to the Galra than me without sacrificing a pure-blooded one. Take me.”

Silence fell as everyone stared at him. Keith stubbornly refused to meet Shiro’s gaze, not wanting to see the pain that would be there.

“The truth think you do tells he?”

“Mm, think I does he.”

A definitive nod. “The sacrifice be then shall the Paladin Red.”

Now it was Shiro’s turn to struggle and lunge. “No! No, I’ll do it, I’ll go with you! I’ll be your sacrifice, okay? Just leave him here, leave him alone!”

Keith gave him a tight half-smile. “It’s okay. It’ll be fine.”

The pale blue alien released his one arm from Shiro’s shoulders so that he could reach into his pocket and pull out a small vial. Popping it open with his thumb, he poured the powdery substance over his captive’s head. “Sleep.”

Immediately Shiro’s eyes dropped shut and his chin slammed into his chest. The Luktorian deposited him gently back onto his bed and threw the blanket back over his legs. “Wake not the others and he will morning until.”

Keith clenched his teeth. Guess that rules out the possibility of screaming and alerting everyone out in the hall.

The royal blue alien holding him moved his top two hands down to grip his upper arms, finally leaving his neck free. “Come. Prepare the altar you for must we. Fight or your mind change not do or back come will we the Paladin Black for.”

Right. Cooperate or lose Shiro. There wasn’t even a debate to be had. He would always, always protect Shiro anytime he had the chance. He was his brother, in everything but blood or law, and he had already been through far too much for someone so young. Don’t you think you dying will be hard for him? He quickly pushed that thought aside. Yes, it would, but not as much as suffering at the hands of more aliens would. Besides, the team needed its leader a lot more than it needed its hotheaded half-breed.

Keith didn’t pay very much attention to their trip through the many intersecting hallways, lost in his head. He only became aware of his surroundings again when they entered a long, narrow room that was lit by torches along the walls and smelled very strongly of something perfumy and definitely not from Earth. Several other Luktorians, all dressed in the same simple white shifts, stood with their hands clasped in front of them, waiting.

His escorts wasted no time in handing him over, holding a brief, whispered conversation with a periwinkle-skinned female before exiting. Periwinkle clapped her hands, and the two that now held his arms, Grey Blue and Sky Blue, pulled him further into the room. He wanted to resist. He wanted to fight and kick and bite and spit so, so badly. All the instincts that he had been cultivating since childhood were shouting in his ear that he should not be letting someone drag him around like this, that he was bound to get hurt soon, but he squashed them back down with one single word. Shiro.

That almost wasn’t enough once they got to the apparent designated spot and Grey and Sky swiftly began stripping him. The shirt was one thing, but when they went for his belt and pants he panicked. “Hey! No, wait, stop, what are you doing?”

Periwinkle appeared in front of him with one eyebrow arched. “Told was I that a sacrifice quiet, good would be you. A problem there is?”

Keith’s shoulders heaved with shaky breaths. For Shiro. For Shiro. For Shiro. “N-no. No...problem.”

“Good.”

The stripping began again immediately. Clenching his fists and squeezing his eyes shut, he sent his mind somewhere far, far away, somewhere that was bright and happy and no one was touching him without his consent. By the time he had finally gotten his mind occupied, he was stark naked and being prodded forward to the next checkpoint.

Paladin. Hurt?

No, Red. I’m...I’m okay.

More Luktorians were waiting for them around an oval-shaped pool of lavender water. As Keith was positioned at the very edge they began chanting something in low voices. He was too busy worrying about what was about to happen to him to try to decipher what they were saying, and with good reason, too. Almost as soon as the chanting began, a set of hands landed on his back and shoved.

Keith could swim, that wasn’t a problem. The pool wasn’t even deep enough to worry about needing to swim, anyway. But the liquid - probably not water, he now realized - was heavy, and pulled him down to the bottom with no chance of fighting his way up. More importantly, it was scalding. He just barely kept himself from opening his mouth and screaming as his skin burned.

An instant later, multiple hands grabbed his arms and yanked him back up into the cool air. He was in the midst of panting for breath and shaking from pain when he was assaulted again, this time with rough sponges that scoured every inch of his body. It was becoming harder and harder to detach himself from reality, and more tempting every moment to punch every single one of these aliens in the face and race back to the safety of his team.

But he couldn’t. He had to stay for Shiro.

Paladin! Come?

No, Red. Stay. You can’t come.

His toes gripped the edge of another pool, this one deep purple, and he at least knew what was coming. More chanting, another shove. This time it was like breaking through an icy lake, making all his muscles seize up instantly. When he was pulled out, he was shivering uncontrollably. 

The chanting continued as some kind of oil was poured from an intricately painted vase over his head, turning his already wet body slick and shiny. Lastly, Periwinkle produced a garland of pungent blue and purple flowers - the source of the perfumy smell - and set it carefully atop his hair.

“Ready the sacrifice is. Us let proceed.”

Just before the procession left the room, Grey and Sky wrapped a strip of silky fabric around his hips and knotted it on one side. Well, I’ll die with some of my dignity intact. At least there’s that.

The ceremony was apparently taking place in a cathedral-like space. Strange music was playing as they entered, with the Luktorians deep, humming voices singing along. Hundreds of them were gathered, their waving, bobbing heads almost looking like an ocean.

Directly in front of Keith and his parade was a steep set of stairs leading up to a platform. A Luktorian in heavy purple robes with the deepest blue skin he had seen so far stood at the top, looking down on them. They halted at the foot of the stairs. Deep Blue, probably a priest, was saying something, probably initiating the ceremony, but Keith’s heart was pounding too loudly in his ears for him to hear.

Forward again. Up the stairs - eleven total. Counting them kept his mind off of what was coming, even if it was only for a few seconds. Then they were at the top, and the priest was placing a hand on Keith’s head. Even after everything he had been through over the past hour, the touch still made him flinch.

More indecipherable words as his eyes zoned in on the stone structure looming in the background, oval shaped, like the pools. The altar. Already he could see orange coals glowing in the open space underneath it, and his breathing kicked into high gear. 

Of all the ways to die. The fact that it was idiotic and humiliating was bad enough, but now he knew he would die by fire. Just like his dad. Just like his nightmares since he was six.

For Shiro. For Shiro.

Grey and Sky dragged him forward. He was more resistant now, only because his body was momentarily winning over his mind, but no one seemed to care anymore. They lifted him off his feet, holding him up high and parallel to the ground for only a moment before lowering him down onto the metal grate. 

This time Keith did scream. The metal had been heating over the coals for who knew how long, and it seared into the bare skin of his back. While he was busy blinking back the tears that sprang to his eyes, straps were expertly tightened over his ankles, thighs, chest, biceps, and throat. His arms had been positioned out away from his body, resting in two troughs that angled down toward the lower part of the altar.

Paladin hurt. I come.

Red...Red no. You can’t. I have to do this...I have to.

A knife flashed in the light over his head and he jumped, jarring the burns on his back. Biting down on his lip, he let out a quiet whine.

I come! Paladin needs.

I...I do need you. But…if you want to help me, then get the others to try to wake their Paladins. You can’t save me until we make sure the others are safe. He didn’t expect it to actually work. Whatever substance the Luktorians had used was probably stronger than a mental bond. But at least maybe it would keep Red occupied, pull her away from having to listen to his panicked thoughts.

The priest was standing over his right side now, the knife he had glimpsed held aloft in his hand. “The sacrifice first now - the blood spilling of.”

Before Keith could think to react, it came swooping down and sliced deep into his wrist. He cried out through gritted teeth. As the priest circled to the other side, he twisted his head as best he could to look down at the damage and saw blood flowing rapidly over his hand and down the trough. A second later, his left wrist was cut open as well.

Already he was growing lightheaded and nauseous. As the priest faced the audience and droned on about who knows what, Keith let his eyes slip shut. 

I’m sorry, Shiro. I know you’re gonna be so angry and hurt when you wake up tomorrow. Just remember...I did it because I love you. You’re my brother.

“The sacrifice second now - the flesh burning of.”

His breath hitched and he pressed his lips together, trying not to make any more pathetic noises, but his rapid breathing gave away his terror. He could hear the clunk of wood echoing below him as more fuel was thrown in, and the crunch of coals being stirred. Mere seconds later, a flame flared, and he sobbed despite his efforts as it licked his already raw back. 

The Luktorians were chanting again, the whole assembly, and they sounded like a hive of bees in his ears. More flames jumped up, higher and higher. He was full-on weeping now, and he didn’t even care. It was so much worse than his nightmares had ever been. He could only hope now that it would consume him quickly, or that the blood loss would take him first.

Please...please just let me die…

Paladin! We come!

His eyes flew open just in time to see five beautiful, colorful Lions burst through the roof of the cathedral, mouths wide open in a chorus of ferocious roars.

[alternatewarning]

Love Is Watching Someone Die - Whumptober 2020 Fic

Entry Number 20 (replaced with alternate prompt) and 26 for Whumptober 2020: Memory Loss and Nightmare

Title: Love Is Watching Someone Die Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Pairing: Gladio/Ignis Rating: G Triggers: None Summary: Almost a month ago Gladio and Ignis were in a horrible car accident. Gladio walked away with cuts and bruises, Ignis hasn't woken up yet.

Cross posed to Ao3

The slow, rhythmic beeping of the hospital machines was going to drive Gladio to madness. The fluorescent light right above seemed to flicker on every twentieth beep as if they were in cahoots with the machines to make him feel like he was trapped in an endless cycle. A cycle of nothing but hoping, waiting. Every day he would arrive at nine a.m. and stay until ten. Then he would go to work and come back to the same hospital bed. The same beeping machines, the same slightly off-white walls, and the same flickering light. The same chair pulled up next to the bed with the same book he’d just decided to leave on the table since it was a private room. He would stay until seven p.m. when visiting hours ended and he had to leave, the nurses had already threatened to ban him if he stayed. The man would go home, force himself to sleep, only to repeat the same day all over again.

What made the purgatory even worse was the fact that it meant there was no improvement. When everything had started, those first few weeks of panic and worry, the doctor had taken him aside. The man was young but he seemed sharp, a good head on his shoulders. He’d looked Gladio in the eye and told him that there was a chance that his best friend would never wake up. Ever since then the seed in his mind kept growing. What if he didn’t wake up?

After 28 days in the hospital without any improvement, Gladio was starting to lose hope. It had been almost a month of nothing. Everyone kept telling him that this cycle was unsustainable. He was spending too much time sitting next to a hospital bed just praying. The accident had been severe, it was a miracle any of them survived, maybe it was time to let Ignis go. He knew that he had to keep fighting, though, because there was no one else to fight for him.

Just like every day before he arrived when visiting hours started and slowly trudged up to room 302. Normally the door was closed. Gladio was one of the only people who came to visit and the doctors and nurses closed it on their way out. But today it was open.

“Anyone he…” The man poked his head into the room and started to speak only for his voice to leave him. The door was open because there was a nurse standing by the bed, talking. She was talking to Ignis. The off-white blankets were wrinkled from movement and the head of the bed had been adjusted to let his best friend sit up. He still looked as pale as a ghost, white bandages around his head blending into his skin. But he was sitting up. He was awake.

“Ignis!”

“Please, inside voice.” He rushed in and the nurse shushed him almost immediately. He gave her a small, apologetic nod, as he came over to the side of the bed. It felt like his heart was in his throat, ready to burst out. But as he reached his creaky metal chair he noticed that something was wrong.

“Excuse me?” The nurse spoke with a soft but commanding voice, larger than her petite figure seemed like it would allow. “Are you family? If not I’m going to ask for you to step out for a moment.” Gladio opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to form words. No, he wasn’t technically family. But at the same time, he was pretty sure there was no family to be here. He looked to Ignis to bail him out, to explain, but the other was looking between him and the nurse, his face almost completely blank.

“Sir, you can visit in a moment just please, step outside for now.” She placed a well-manicured hand on his shoulder and pulled, just enough force to show that she was entirely serious. So he stood as asked, his eyes never leaving Ignis’s. Why wasn’t he looking at them, why wasn’t he saying anything? The doctor’s warning rang in his head like a loud, looming warning. His head trauma was severe, there was always a chance of permanent brain damage. He’d been so busy worrying if Ignis would ever open his eyes, he hadn’t even taken that into account. Gladio slowly let the woman usher him out before closing the door between them.

There were rows of attached plastic chairs outside the room so he picked one to sit down in, watching the door anxiously. On the one hand, he was delighted, Ignis was awake and moving. Which meant that he wasn’t dead. But on the other hand, there had been no light in his eyes. No joy on seeing his friend, there had just been nothing. He hadn’t spoken or even really reacted at all. It wasn’t that unusual for the other man’s reactions to be calm but this was an entirely different level.

It seemed like an eternity that he was just sitting there, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. But finally, the door opened again and the nurse stepped out, closing it behind her. She motioned for him to come over and he did, forcing himself to look composed and calm instead of leaping over as he wanted to.

“Who are you? A friend or…?”

“I’m his boyfriend, Gladio Amicitia. Can you tell me what’s going on?” He watched her sigh, tapping her lip with her finger.

“As you can tell, Mr. Scientia has woken up. That is good. The bad news is that it seems that his brain damage is worse than we were hoping.” Gladio forced himself not to look as crestfallen as he felt. “Most of his vitals are pretty good so I’m not that worried about his body.”

“I can hear a ‘but’ coming. Just tell me, how bad is it?”

“Well, the doctor will have to confirm when I go get him, but I think that he’s completely blind. And he doesn’t seem to have any memory.” Gladio felt his stomach drop to the floor. Blind? Ignis was a culinary student, he couldn't be blind. He needed to be able to see to do what he spent his entire life training to do.

“Any memory of what? The accident?”

“Of...anything.” Before he could panic she held up her hand, indicating she wasn’t done. “Now, that may come back in time. But as of right now he didn’t seem to know anything about himself. Since you two are clearly close, focus on that. On strong memories, events in his life. That may help bring it back.” Gladio felt completely lost for words. No wonder the other hadn’t reacted to him, he hadn’t seen him. And even though he heard his voice, it meant nothing to him. But maybe it was temporary. Ignis had always had a good memory, they just had to jog it.

“Just take it easy with him. He will likely be tired and easily overwhelmed. Do you know any family I can call? He only had you listed on his emergency contacts.” She looked up from the clipboard she was holding.

“None. At least, none that I’ve ever heard of. I know his parents died a while ago. I’ll see if I can find anyone.” She nodded and slowly left, leaving him in an empty hallway. He wanted to run through the door, to hold Ignis’s hand, to tell him it is alright. But would that help? Would the reassurances of a stranger mean anything? He had to say something. Slowly he walked towards the door, sliding it open slowly. Green eyes looked up, following the sound but it was clear that there was no note of recognition. He knew the door opened by the noise but he probably had no idea who was standing in the doorway.

“Hello? Is someone there?” His eyes were moving, looking for a source of the sound even if nothing was getting back to his brain. It hurt to watch.

“It’s me. It’s Gladio. The nurse said you might not remember who I am.” He walked in, shutting the door behind him. Carefully the older man watched Ignis’s face, to see any sign of recognition. There was nothing.

“My apologies, I don’t remember you. Are we friends?” It seemed like he gave up trying to ‘look’ in the direction of whoever he was talking to. So Gladio walked to the side of the bed, letting himself step a little louder than normal, and dragging the chair just enough to make noise. This time when he sat down in it he didn’t feel hopeless, he just felt tired.

Silence hung between them as thoughts spun through his head. Thoughts of what this all meant. Best case scenario, well, best case scenario was he healed and everything was fine. But assuming he got his memory back that wouldn’t change the blindness. You couldn’t be a blind chef, at least he assumed you couldn't. This was Ignis and he managed to do anything he put his mind to. But even if he could, it would take years of training to get back to where he was. Years of learning everything all over again, but harder, different. Would he have to give up his dreams because of this?

And what if he never got his memory back? They had only been dating for the last few months but they had been friends since they were children. He couldn’t even imagine a world without Ignis there, next to him. They had gone to school together, college together. Heck, they lived together for over a year before dating. And now Ignis was facing him, waiting for an answer to a question that seemed so simple. Would it be too much to spring on him? ‘Yes, we’re dating’. Or ‘Yes, you’re in love with me’. Even worse, if his memory never came back, what if this time Ignis didn’t fall in love? What if he loved someone else? He couldn’t just force a relationship on the man, a relationship he didn’t remember nor cherish.

“Ya. We’re friends. We’re…” Ignis was looking at him, expectant. “We’re friends.”

[echo-bleu]

Lay Your Throne

Malex Musketeers AU. I’m reposting this little series here (from AO3) ahead of the @alterarnm fic I’m hoping to finish by Thursday (but I probably won’t). This was originally written for the Whumptober prompt “Secret Injury”. Part 1.

“You fought well, Captain,” the King says to a kneeling Alex. “But my son is an excellent swordsman, and you are obviously injured. Do you accept your defeat?”

“I do,” Alex says, raising his head. He's still reeling from the blow Michael dealt to his head, which knocked him out long enough for the rules of dueling to be satisfied, and Michael didn't try to start the duel again, instead looking at him on the floor with something akin to concern on his face. Alex doesn't know what to do with that.

“Very well. Then I declare Michael, count of Dimaras, the winner of this duel. Michael, will that satisfy your call for justice?”

“It will for now, my King,” Michael says, kneeling beside Alex. “The rest of my claims will be settled another day.”

“Well fought, my son,” the King says, rising to put a hand on Michael's shoulder. In that moment, Alex's defeat is well worth the look of pride on Michael's face. Until Alex meets his father's eyes, and notices his smirk. He is basking in Alex's humiliation. Alex grits his teeth.

“Captain, will you be able to return to your duties?” the King asks.

Liz takes a step forward at that, opening her mouth, but Alex waves her back. “I will, sire. I'm fine.”

He bows again and gets back to his feet, taking care not to show any weakness. He almost fails when the world turns on its head as soon as he's upright, but he blinks the dizziness away and reforms rank with his Musketeers. Liz and Maria immediately come to flank him.

“Alex! The King would have given you leave to go if you'd ask!” Liz exclaims. “You're in no shape to stand guard.”

“I can't,” Alex says. He lets Maria set his arm back into the sling, though, and a sigh of relief escapes him when it eases some of the pain away.

“But why?” Liz asks.

Alex doesn't dare look back to where his father is still sitting, but Maria nods toward him discreetly. “Because of him?” she asks.

Alex doesn't answer, too busy trying to swallow back the nausea.

“You don't have anything to prove to him, Alex,” Liz murmurs.

“I know,” Alex whispers back.

He does know. He's more respected and loved than his father by the whole kingdom, royal family included, even though Jesse Manes still outranks him. He has the King's ear, but everyone's confidence in the Prime Minister is waning, after years of unnecessary wars that ruined half the kingdom. And yet, it's not enough for Alex.

Is it for Michael? Alex searches for him in the crowd. He's standing by the Princess now, across the dais from Jesse Manes, their similar red uniforms standing out amid the Royals' greens. What is his endgame? Why did he challenge Alex today?

If he's still the man Alex remembers, a duel without bloodshed would never satisfy his wish for revenge. Michael has never believed in the justice of the law, or in the gentlemen's codes of honor. So either he's not out for revenge against Alex, or he has a larger plan.

Being close to him again today, touching him, was incredible and terrifying. Alex still can't believe Michael is really alive. It's been ten years since he watched him hang. It shouldn't be possible.

And yet here he is. It's his hand that stabbed Alex a week ago, his elbow that got him in the head today. His eyes on him, right now. Alex meets them, and the surge of emotions makes him stumble−unless that's the dizziness again.

Michael nods at him, the ghost of a smile on his lips, and Alex wants to cry.

Alex doesn't know how he manages to fight the mounting nausea for another two hours, as the Royal Family amuses themselves in the gardens. He's sure it must show on his face, because the King dismisses him the moment they're back inside the palace, and asks Liz and Maria to escort the Prince and Princess instead.

He finds himself, without really knowing how, leaning against a wall in a random corridor in the east wing, struggling against dizziness. He must have a concussion. He looks up as someone approaches, trying to stand up straighter.

“Hey,” Michael says, striding down the corridor in his red leathers. Alex would be dreaming about this, if he wasn't five second away from throwing up.

Michael is all swagger and smirk until he takes a closer look at Alex. “You alright?”

Alex opens his mouth to say he's fine, but what was bound to happen happens, and he retches instead, unable to stop himself. He barely misses Michael's boots.

“Alex!”

“'s nothing,” Alex mutters, but he can't hold himself up. The world is turning around him, and he falls to his knees. Michael catches him and gently lowers him to the floor. “Concussion.”

“Why did you hide it? You stood there for hours!”

“'m fine.”

“Clearly,” Michael rolls his eyes. “Don't move.”

Alex nearly moans as Michael's hands leave him, suddenly feeling cold. But Michael comes back instants later with two male servants.

“Take him to my chambers,” he orders. “Be gentle.”

His strength gone, Alex can only let the two men carry him through the empty corridors. He wonders what Michael's intentions are. Does he want to kill him, get his revenge fully? No, he had plenty of chances to kill him already. But then what? And why is he being so nice?

The servants put him down on a large bed, in a richly decorated room. Alex squirms, fully aware of how filthy he is after he met the dirt floor of the dueling ground more than once, but Michael doesn't let him stand up.

“Stay here,” he murmurs, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Don't worry about the sheets, they can be washed.”

Why is he so gentle? Alex wants to scream. He doesn't deserve this. Is Michael doing this so that his revenge will be even more cruel? Is he trying to lead Alex on into some twisted head game?

Michael brings a goblet of water to his lips. “Drink. You'll feel better.”

Alex obeys, for lack of a better idea. He's spent. He almost wants to give in, let Michael care for him, even if it makes what will inevitably come harder.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks.

“Because you're hurt,” Michael says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

“Let me go back to the garrison. I'll be fine.”

“You're in no shape to ride, Alex.”

Alex tastes the sound of his name on Michael's lips again, for the first time in ten years, and it's as bitter as it is sweet. The last time he heard it before today, Michael had a rope around his neck.

Michael brushes a strand of hair away from Alex's face, far too intimately, and Alex catches his hand. It's his left, the one he kept behind his back during the time of the duel, as per fencing tradition.

It's mangled. Half of it is covered in scars and the fingers have bends in places they shouldn't.

Alex closes his eyes and shudders. The moment his father hit Michael with a hammer, after catching them in the gardener's shed and seeing the brand on Michael's shoulder, has long been eclipsed by the memory of the noose around Michael's neck, but it's still there.

“Alex,” Michael calls.

“Are you trying to punish me?” Alex asks, meeting his eyes again. He doesn't melt into the golden brow irises this time, too shaken by the memories.

“What? No!”

“Then−

“I was angry at you for the longest time, Alex,” Michael sighs. “I resented you for not doing more to protect me, for not finding a way to free me. I'm still angry, sometimes. But I understand now, the hold he has on everything. If you had helped me, you would have condemned yourself.”

“I would have done it for you without a thought,” Alex says. “But he knew. He took away any leverage I could have used. I tried, I pleaded with him, with my brothers, I even tried to bribe the hangman, but he found out. I wasn't strong enough.”

Michael's eyes widen. “But you were, Alex. I always wondered, who it was that helped me escape. You saved me.”

“What?” Alex asks, confused.

“You rode away.”

“I couldn't watch. I just...I thought I owed you that, but I couldn't.”

“It's a good thing,” Michael says. “Alex, the hangman you bribed, he saved me. He pulled me down before I could choke and helped me escape.”

Alex chokes on his breath and bites on his finger, hard. He wants to weep, to curse, to scream, but he doesn't.

“You saved me, Alex. I didn't know. I thought you'd abandoned me.”

Michael pulls him into a hug then, careful of his injuries. Alex buries his face in Michael's shoulder and gives him to the tears.

“Ten years,” he sniffles after a while. “I could never forgive myself.” He traces the scar around Michael's neck, just barely visible above his high collar.

“You enrolled,” Michael states.

“Yeah. After you...after I thought you died, I had no reason left to fight my father's wishes. I started in the Army, and made my way to the Musketeers.”

“Did you choose them just to spite your father?”

Alex laughs between his tears. “A bit. I couldn't let him win everything.”

“What happened to you, Alex?” Michael asks, growing serious again.

“Um?”

“Your leg.”

“Ah, you noticed that,” Alex sighs. He knows his gait remains irregular, even with a wooden leg from the best crafter in the kingdom. It shows even more during a fight, where he has to compensate for his lack of mobility. But still, he wishes Michael could have been spared from seeing it, at least for a little longer.

He pushes Michael away enough to pull up his pant leg. Michael's breath hitches.

“Fuck, Alex. I didn't−”

“I'm okay,” Alex says. “It was rough for a while, but I'm okay now.”

Michael nods slowly, only half-believing him.

“Where were you?” Alex asks. “For all these years?”

“I traveled a lot,” Michael says, which Alex knows is code for 'I didn't dare stay in the same place for two night in a row in case I got caught.' “Other cities, other countries. I went looking for where I come from, and it led me back here.”

“So you're the King's son, huh?” Alex asks.

“Apparently,” Michael shrugs. “My mom was a woman of the court, but she died in childbirth, so I was given away. But there are records. They weren't easy to find.”

“At least now my father can't touch you. And you have a title and lands, I'm guessing. You won't be poor ever again.”

Michael talked to Alex only once, about growing up in an orphanage, starving and without shoes. That's what led him to stealing food, to being convicted and branded.

That's the excuse his father used to call off the wedding and have Michael hanged, when he found out. He had full powers, on his own lands, to call for an execution. Here in the city, he doesn't anymore.

“It doesn't erase what happened,” Michael says darkly.

Alex hangs his head. “Of course. I'm sorry.”

“No, I didn't mean it like that,” Michael reassures him immediately. “Alex, look at me.”

“I'm−”

“Alex!” Alex looks up. “I don't blame you, not anymore. He did all this. And he's going to pay for it.”

“He's untouchable,” Alex says.

“No he's not,” Michael shakes his head, but he doesn't elaborate. “I'm sorry I stabbed you the other day,” he says instead.

“I probably deserved it,” Alex shrugs with his good shoulder.

“No, never. But I needed to establish myself with the Red Guards, and also to make sure that you would lose today.”

“I'm flattered that you think I need to be injured for you to beat me, but why did you need me to lose? Why challenge me at all?”

“Because I have a plan,” Michael says, giving himself a mysterious air.

“A plan to what?” Alex raises his eyebrows. “Overthrow the King?”

Michael smiles. “No. A plan to bring your father down, once and for all. I needed you to lose against me today so you can win against him, when the time comes.”

[bereft-of-frogs]

37 and 38 for the writer asks ♥️♥️

37. Talk about your current wips.

Looks at WIP folder. Sobs.

There are...so many of them. So many. The folder is chaos. I really need to apply some order to it, go through and see which ones

But here are the ‘realistically these I might actually finish’:

- the lingering whumptober prompts. I really only have one scene left to write in ‘15. Into the Unknown (possession)’ but it’s the most like...magical action-y scene, and needs a complicated emotional bridge so I’m a bit stuck. I have not been able to think about pwp so those ones are on hold indefinitely. (along with the sort of perpetually almost-done ‘grotesque fic’ that I will finish someday, but it also keeps getting longer and longer and I get no closer to the end.)

- I had an idea for the ‘hallucinations’ prompt as well, and then I scrapped almost the whole thing and started over. but things are going much smoother now. It’s going to end up being an...unexpected thematic trilogy with ‘spare me over’ and ‘where is your sting’ (I just need to pick the next folk song about death to snag the title from lol)

- I just did a pretty detailed outline for the next fic in ‘the nine in the tree’, which is meant to be like...a genre challenge. A magical mystery in the style of a Nordic Noir. So that should be pretty fun, and I’m hoping to get it out before the next Doctor Strange movie comes out, so I have some time.

- God, I really want to finish my pretentious-ass ‘death gods magnum opus’ Supernatural fic, but the research for that is getting complicated (because, as mentioned, it’s going to be fucking pretentious, no one should have told me that you can use footnotes on ao3)

- there’s also a...collection of a few fics that I’ve been working on and...I’m not quite ready to share because they might turn out to be nothing, might just be like other self-indulgent snippets that never find their plots and live on my hard drive for a decade just for me to read over occasionally, but things are going rather well...so there’s hope there ;-)

I haven’t updated the WIP List in a while, but there are more in there that are at varying stages of completion/motivation to complete. I’ll probably update it at some point this week. (Along with possibly updating my theme...I’ve never quite been a fan of the color scheme and it’s been a couple years since I changed it.)

38. Talk about a review that made your day.

Ah, well, usually all of them make my day. But like, especially when I get comments on older fics. Like, never feel that it’s too late to comment on a fic you enjoy, I always love getting them on older fics. Especially because it’s often ones that I feel like are underappreciated. So yeah, even if it’s been a couple years, please feel free to comment! I especially cherish those ones! (I mean, if the last time the fic has been updated is sometime in 2006 and you point out that you were 3 years old at the time of that last update......okay the writer doesn’t necessarily need to be reminded of the passing years in such a way. That might be okay to let lie. That one was on my old ffn account.)

But tbh, the single review that made my day was the first time someone gave me a frog in a comment. I’m pretty sure I have it screenshotted somewhere, it absolutely delighted me. I felt bad too, because on the same day, someone had left me this amazing two part review and I was nearly crying and then I got the frog and I was just like *GASP* A FROG. There have been several frogs since, but it was that first one that absolutely slayed me.

[writing asks!]

[thepartyresponsible]

happy whumptober! here’s a short winterhawk fic about struggling to survive in the zombie apocalypse.

warnings for general misery and apocalypse perils. also for an shocking lack of actual zombies.

The canned food ran out two days ago. Ever since, they’ve been working through what Natasha calls the perpetual stew, an ever-simmering pot of whatever-the-hell. Mushrooms and rabbit, the carrots they weren’t supposed to pull up until spring.

The pot’s never meant to go empty. That’s what makes it perpetual. Natasha explained it in the fall, back when they were still pulling what felt like an endless array of vegetables out of the dirt. But she took the pot off the fire last night, made the kids wait until it was cool before she let them run their fingers over the metal, scrape out the very last of whatever food they could find.

The canned food is gone. The old stuff from before the world ended, and the new stuff they made themselves. The stew pot’s empty.

It’s midwinter, so everything smart is hibernating or hidden. Clint goes out every morning, but the most he’s come back with is a couple of winter-weight rabbits. It’s not enough.

Thor and Sam left a week ago, headed for the skeletal, picked-over remains of any town they could find. Clint doesn’t expect they’ll be back. And if they make it back, he doesn’t have much hope of them bringing anything with them.

He dreams about grocery stores. Deli counters and free samples and endless aisles of potato chips and Oreo’s. All kinds of things he’ll never have again.

He wakes up later and later. When you can’t eat, you sleep. The body only runs on credit for so long.

The morning after the stew runs out, he digs the tiny bag of instant coffee out of the back of his backpack. He was saving it for spring. He doesn’t see much reason to save anything now.

Natasha catches him at it, drinking hot coffee in the weak daylight, face lifted toward the sun, eyes closed. She’s always known him better than he ever knew himself. She leans into him, shoulder-to-shoulder, and she doesn’t ask, but he shares the coffee with her anyway.

“You should stay,” she tells him. Her cheekbones are sharp like they used to be, back when she was barely nineteen and it seemed like the whole world was taking turns taking bites out of her. She softened over the years, but she’s re-honed now. She picked up her old edges like any high quality blade will, when needed.

She’s the one who insisted on rations. She’s the only one who knew this was coming, could see this even back in September, when it seemed like they’d have food forever. It wasn’t enough. She let them take too much, and now there’s nothing.

He doesn’t blame her for that. He hopes she doesn’t blame herself.

“Saw some tracks yesterday,” he tells her. “Elk, I think.”

And God knows what the hell he’d do with an elk if he got one. He couldn’t lift a Golden Retriever right now. Hell, a Corgi might be a struggle. He hasn’t been this skinny since the circus. He hasn’t been this hungry since he lived with his parents. And maybe not even then.

Maybe this, right here, is the worst he’s ever felt.

But Natasha tips her head against his shoulder, presses the coffee back into his hands. He breathes in. It sounds stupid, but he missed the smell. A whole world to miss, the whole Goddamn functioning society they lost when the dead started eating the living, and he misses coffee.

Well, he misses central heating, too. And pizza. He misses indoor plumbing and late night TV and firefighters and cops and paramedics. He misses having someone, anyone, to call for help. He misses cities and streetlights and a guaranteed future.

He takes another long sip of coffee. He breathes in the smell. It’s not so bad, really. Could be worse. He has Natasha, and Tony, and Pepper, and Morgan, and Harley, and Peter. And Sam and Thor, if they ever make it back. He has some kind of family. Took the whole world ending, but he found a family anyway.

He’s not going to lose them. And if he does, it won’t be his fault.

He hands the coffee back to Natasha. There’s a sip and a half left. He wants her to have it. He’d give her any wonderful thing he had. He’d give all of them anything he had.

“I’ll be back,” he tells her. “With dinner.”

He doesn’t believe it, but he says it anyway.

Natasha curls her hands around the coffee mug. Her eyes aren’t sad when they look at him, but he can’t really describe what he sees in them. The smile she gives him could break his heart, but the whole inside of him is frozen up. There’s nothing beating warm enough to break.

“Just come back,” she says.

He nods. He doesn’t say anything. When he leaves, he allows himself the small mercy of not looking back.

  There aren’t many people left. Clint wouldn’t hazard a guess as to how many survived. The sickness was viciously viral, airborne and mean. The walking dead got all the fanfare, but the pandemic itself killed something like a third of the people it infected, and only about a quarter of those reanimated later. If you lived through the sickness, you couldn’t get it again. Even a bite wouldn’t kill you.

But if you got bit first, you always died. And you always came back.

The last Clint heard, the worldwide death toll was estimated at something like 500 million. He can’t even hold that number in his head. And that was before the news stopped, before the governments fell, before the cities turned to slaughterhouses.

He has no idea what the final death toll was. Mostly, he’s been trying not to add to it.

That first year, everything was a mess. Everyone who lived was desperate. The winter killed a lot of them, and those that survived learned to be wary of strangers. Clint hasn’t seen anyone outside of his small adopted family for something like six months.  

They haven’t seen any zombies in that time frame either. Bodies decay. There’s probably a few left in more temperate climes, but, up in the mountains, they’ve been safe enough.

Clint’s not even looking for people. That’s his mistake.

He’s tracking elk, dragging himself toward the north slope, hoping to find them bedded down against the chill. It’s a sunless day, overcast and cold. They have more sense than he does. Well, they’re a lot less desperate, too.

It takes him hours to find them. And when he does, he has to sneak up close. They’re smart, and they’re fast, and he only has one chance.

He doesn’t think about it. About what the hell he’s going to do if he manages it. About how he barely dragged himself here. About how he doesn’t have a chance in hell of getting this meat back to the others.

He presses on anyway. There’s no other option. It doesn’t matter that he can’t. He has to.

But when he goes to take the shot, his hands are shaking. He’s cold, and he’s weak, and he can’t shoot his fucking bow.

He closes his eyes. He takes a breath. He thinks, as hard as he can, about how small Morgan is, about how she cried last night because she was hungry. He thinks about Nat, so skinny he can count the individual vertebrae of her spine through her shirt. He thinks about Tony, who stopped eating days ago, keeps sneaking his food to Harley and Morgan and Peter.

He can’t, but he has to. He got all the way here.

His hands are shaking. His fingertips are numb. He should’ve worn more layers; he should’ve brought better gloves. But he wasn’t sure he was going to make it back, and he didn’t want to take too much when he didn’t know if he’d be able to return it.

He’s too cold, and he’s too hungry. He kept skipping meals to keep them all fed, and now he can’t feed them at all.

They need him. He has to.

He breathes out. He clenches his jaw so tight his teeth creak. He thinks of summer days and beaches and bonfires. He pulls the string back, and his fingers fumble, too numb to grip. The bow string twaps loud and empty against nothing, and the elk snort, leaping to their feet.

No, he thinks. Frantic, and panicked. He scrambles for the arrow, lurches to his feet. The elk are faster. Warmer, and better fed. He tries to pull the arrow back, but the shaking has spread to his arms now. He can’t do a Goddamn thing.

There’s the echoing crack of a gunshot, and one of the elk groans, low and pained, and tips over into the snow, legs kicking. The rest of the herd bolt down the slope.

Clint stares at the dying elk and can’t even comprehend what’s happening until a man emerges from the trees. The elk’s barely moving, too close to death to fight, and the man cuts its throat while Clint watches.

The stranger moves with an easy efficiency, kneeling in the snow while he pulls tools out of his bag. He’s dark-haired and scruffy, looks feral in a way that Clint can’t quite articulate. He doesn’t know why it makes him so nervous. Nobody looks particularly civilized these days.

Maybe it’s just that he hasn’t seen a strange face in so long.

It’s too bad, really, that the first stranger he meets is stealing a kill Clint couldn’t take himself but also can’t afford to lose. He puts his bow away and draws his knife. He’ll have to get close to use it, but it feels steadier in his hands than the bow.

By the time he leaves cover, the man’s already staking out the elk, tying its legs to tent spikes he jams into the frozen ground. If Clint waits long enough, maybe he’ll field dress the whole damn thing.

“You gonna help?” the man asks, when Clint gets maybe fifteen yards away. He looks up suddenly, looks right at him. His eyes fall on the knife, but he doesn’t look concerned so much as he looks irritated. “You gonna help?” he asks, again. “Or are you gonna cause problems?”

Clint hesitates. His hands are still shaking. It feels like every part of him is trembling. He had the coffee this morning and a quarter of a can of peaches two days back, and that’s been it. He hasn’t been full since Christmas.

When the man stands up, he’s too Goddamn big for the end of the world. He’s muscular like Thor was muscular back in the fall, when they had the food to feed all that bulk. But the look in his eyes is meaner than Thor, who’s always been so sweet-natured and friendly. The look in his eyes is cold and assessing, not friendly at all.

“I need that,” Clint says. He points at the elk. “I’ve got people to feed.”

The man’s eyebrows pull together. It’s a weird thing to notice, but it catches Clint’s attention. Under the sweep of all that dark hair, under the threat of that scowl, he has beautiful eyes. Bright and sky-blue. Intelligent.

There’s a weird moment, stretching out between them. The man shifts his weight. He runs his tongue over his teeth. It’s an anxious tell, more uncertain than angry.

“I know you need it,” the man says, finally. “Followed you for two miles. Figured there’s no way in hell you’d be out here if you didn’t have to be.”

Clint’s five miles out from their small grouping of cabins, but two miles is still too Goddamn close to the others. He’s lost the knack for hiding. There hasn’t been anything to hide from. He’s sure he left tracks leading straight home.

He’s tired. He’s so damn tired. It’s overwhelming, suddenly. He wants to lay down and sleep until none of this is his problem anymore. Until he doesn’t have problems anymore.

But last night, Morgan cried. She’s just a kid. She deserves better.

“There’s kids,” Clint says. He doesn’t know that it’ll do any good. Sometimes you have to bank on mercy. Anyway, if this guy wants to hurt them, he’ll have to get past Natasha. And Natasha, even at bantamweight, is a wolverine in human skin. “There’s kids, and they’re hungry. I have to get this back to them.”

The man just stares at him. He has a knife in his hand, bloodied up from the elk, and a look on his face like he can’t figure out what the hell Clint is saying to him. Finally, he clears his throat.

“I’m trying to help you, asshole,” he says.

Oh, Clint thinks. It jars in his head so hard that all the other thoughts run right into the back of it, like a trainwreck in his mind. He doesn’t think anything for what has to be almost a full minute.

“Listen,” the man says. He reaches up, hooks his long hair back out of his face. It leaves a streak of red across the pale skin of his cheek. He shrugs his backpack off, tosses it so it lands halfway between them. “You look really shaky. Maybe you should eat something.”

Clint stares at him, waiting for the trap. But the man just shrugs, seems to grow uncomfortable under the scrutiny. He turns his back on Clint and goes back to the elk.

There’s blood on the snow. Clint can smell it from here. Some ancient part of him, something brainstem-level and bent on survival, kicks awake at that smell, and his stomach twists up, so fierce and insistent that it aches like it’s going to leave bruises on his heart.

He crouches down, keeps the knife in one hand, and carefully opens the backpack.

There’s a treasure trove in there. Packaged food from pre-collapse, and plastic bags of what looks like jerky. Bottles of what’s probably water. Campbell’s chicken soup in a pull-top can.

Clint thinks, ludicrously, that he’s going to cry.

He takes the soup, instead. Drops the knife in the snow. He rips off the top and drinks it, knocking back the broth. The salt makes his brain hum, lights up all the taste buds on his tongue. He slumps, eyes closed.

“Jesus,” the man says.

When Clint opens his eyes, those blue eyes are narrowed. His frown is serious, and troubled. Disgusted, maybe.

Clint had honestly forgotten what embarrassment feels like. He wants to rub at his mouth, but he licks the soup off his lips and chin instead. In that moment, there isn’t enough shame in the world to make him waste good broth on manners.

“Maybe slow down,” the man advises.

“Sorry,” Clint says. He isn’t. He isn’t anything except relieved. He feels like he’s floating, like his toes and feet are miles away from his head.

His hands are still shaking, but the tremors feel less pressing now.

“Hey,” the man says. He kneels up in the snow. The concern on his face soften his features. He’s beautiful, Clint thinks, although the more reasonable part of him knows he’d fall in love with anybody who fed him right now. “You said there’s more of you? Kids?”

Cint nods. He should be careful. He shouldn’t give up any more information. But there’s a half-empty can of soup in his hands, and he can’t for the life of him doubt the intentions of anyone saintly enough to share food in the winter after the end of the world.

“Yeah,” he says. “Ran out of food yesterday. We’re all—there’s nothing left.”

The man looks like something out of the wild, like he was born and plans to die in the mountains, alone and unbothered by other people. But there’s worry on his face, in the intensity of his stare and the gentle downturn of his mouth. Clint shouldn’t trust him. Doesn’t trust him, maybe. But.

There’s a can of soup in Clint’s hands, and a rifle across this man’s back. If he planned to killed Clint, he could’ve done it already, before wasting supplies on a dead man walking. And if he plans to follow Clint back and hurt the people at home, he’s going to find out that feeding Clint first was a hell of a mistake.

“Okay,” the man says. “Look. My friend and I, we can help you. With the meat, I mean. Getting it back. You don’t have to—if you want, we’ll just bring it halfway, and then you can go get the others.”

Clint tips the can back up against his mouth, chews through a mouthful of noodles. He forgot what chicken tasted like. He forgot about all of it.

“Your friend,” he repeats, tracking the threat, focusing on the idea of there being more people like him. Well-fed and well-muscled. Armed.

“Yeah,” the man says. “Steve. And I’m Bucky.”

“Clint,” he says, mumbling it through more food. The bag’s still open at his side, and Bucky hasn’t said a damn thing about it, so Clint carefully swipes a bit of jerky, just to see what happens.

“Okay,” Bucky says. His eyes drop to the jerky in Clint’s hand, but he doesn’t say anything. He just nods, like it’s fine. Like sharing doesn’t cost him anything. Like he wants Clint to have it. “Nice to meet you,” he says.

Clint laughs. He couldn’t say why, really. The giddiness of relief, probably. The unsteadiness of a brain flooded with dopamine after weeks of worry and hunger and weakness.

“Nice to meet you, too,” he says. There’s salt on his tongue, and food in his hands, and a weight slowly lifting off his shoulders. When he looks down, the can holds steady. His hands aren’t shaking anymore.