#it only has like 180 hits on ao3...

[freytful]

The Man From U.N.C.L.E (1964-1968) fandom has been so forgotten by time and it's so so sad. Please look at this 1990 fanvid originally edited on VHS that i found all about Ilya Kuryakin being just the poorest little meow meow

[velvet4510]

Drarry Horcrux Hunting Fic Rec: Where The Shadow Ends on AO3

Where The Shadow Ends by thewitchwholived is a newly-finished Drarry rewrite of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, canon-divergent from Chapter 11 onwards - starting when Remus leaves Grimmauld Place. It is an epic, 65 chapters long. (It is locked on AO3, so only those with an account can read it.)

This is seriously not only the BEST Drarry Horcrux Hunting fic I’ve EVER read, but it has replaced canon in my head. This is Deathly Hallows for me. It doesn’t have NEARLY enough hits or kudos, so I’m spreading the word here because it deserves ALL the love and attention from anyone still sore about Draco’s lack of canonical redemption and the canonical lack of Drarry!!

Draco’s character development, relevance to the plot, and relationships with the Golden Trio are expanded and fleshed out so thoroughly here. Everything JKR ignored, this fic focuses on. You’ll be AMAZED at how beautifully it’s all developed.

Some specific details I must single out for praise:

Draco actually feels like a true Slytherin here, in the BEST ways. His role in the Horcrux hunt brings out his cunning intelligence and remarkable resourcefulness in surprising and satisfying ways. His skills at Potions, Occlumency, and Memory Charms prove invaluable not just to the hunt, but also to the Golden Trio’s safety multiple times. There are so many moments where you think, “wow he’s a GENIUS.” He wasn’t 2nd only to Hermione in school for no reason!!!

Draco gets a really special Patronus.

There is a recurring parallel between Harry’s visions of Voldemort and Draco’s continuous PTSD nightmares about Voldemort. This proves to be a source of intimate empathy and bonding between them that makes the Drarry of it all so profound and believable.

There’s some incredibly sweet scenes where Draco introduces Harry to classical music and to the beach for the first time.

Besides his chemistry with Harry, Draco unexpectedly makes amends and bonds with Ron and Hermione in different ways. Their bad history is not forgotten; they acknowledge it, and it continues to haunt their interactions. Yet they slowly but surely grow together. By the end, Draco feels like a true and unanimously-valued part of the group, and we know he has earned Ron & Hermione’s eventual approval as Harry’s BF.

The four of them share a genuinely heartwarming makeshift Christmas celebration in the tent, at about the halfway point.

Romione still get their special moments, as well as a few beautiful new moments. (Their first kiss is unchanged, don’t worry!)

Dobby, Fred, and Remus are all spared.

#NotAllSlytherins comes into play brilliantly leading up to and during the Battle of Hogwarts, as Blaise, Theo, and Pansy want nothing to do with the Death Eaters and instead help our heroes.

Draco has some truly awesome moments where he finally stands up to his parents, Bellatrix, and even Voldemort himself. (There’s one moment during the final battle that is the absolute 180 antithesis of young Draco’s terrified first reaction to seeing Voldemort in The Philosopher’s Stone.)

Dumbledore and Snape are not idolized or completely forgiven at the last minute. Their flaws are not swept under the rug in the finale, and Harry’s feelings towards them remain complicated, as they should.

Harry becomes master of the Elder Wand through an act of love from Draco, not through combat defeat.

Harry’s NDE is altered in the most beautiful, heartwarming, and tearjerking way. I won’t spoil it; you’ll have to read it for yourself. You’ll find yourself unable to deny that this is exactly what that scene SHOULD have been, and needed to be.

There are some incredible Wolfstar crumbs toward the end, brief but profound.

The fic itself is Harry’s POV, but there are two “spin-offs” that retell two major chapters from Draco’s POV.

A few fair warnings for explicit-Drarry die-hards and canon experts:

Draco and Harry’s slow burn is in fact SO slow that they never technically get together in the fic itself - but they will in the ongoing sequel Where The Light Begins (which updates every Wednesday and Sunday.) Yet one of the upsides to that is it makes the fic feel all the more “real” in terms of fitting established canon - like this COULD have been the official 7th book, if JKR hadn’t hated Draco so much or been so homophobic. The subtextual growth of their feelings is still rich and layered.

Also, several canon plot points are changed, moved around, or omitted entirely due to Draco’s presence. But the alterations are great in their own way, and nothing of substance is lost.

PLEASE check this fic out! You will not regret it!!!

If you’re already familiar with this fic, I hope you’ll back me up here on how phenomenal it is.

[taomyou]

a sip of sunshine - chapter one (B)

!! minors dni !! pairing: levi ackerman/reader word count: 20,191 sypnosis: Life is not easy, and Levi’s made peace with the fact that it never will be. And, yet, as the days pass and he comes to enjoy the company of the baker across town, he learns that the sun will always continue to shine, no matter how unworthy he feels to bask in its warmth. - or, Levi learns to be okay with drinking shitty tea. tags: postcanon, canon universe, birthday, angst, fluff, friends to lovers, slow burn, found family, survivor guilt, eventual romance, eventual smut, character study, grumpy/sunshine, hurt/comfort, bakery, tea, meet-cute, no y/n, pov levi ackerman, not beta read a/n: no smut in this chapter, will be in chapter two. also sorry this took a while to crosspost www. this chapter is also being broken up into two parts because it exceeds the text limit, this is the SECOND half (,,>﹏<,,) accompanying playlist || ao3

chapter one: white peony beauty, bashfulness | shame, apology

There’s not much said, only instructions from you to him.

“Could you hand me the butter? It’s at the back of the fridge, on the left.”

“Could you pass me the sugar?”

“Could you preheat the oven for me? 180, please.”

“Can you hold this for me? I’m sorry.”

The air is neither sociable nor somber, only still as he moves in tandem with you. He’s careful not to spill, not to slip, not to speak too harshly, and you keep your eyes downturned as you work, mixing and sifting and measuring.

You have a smile on your face whenever he glances over to look at you, but it doesn’t reach your eyes in the way he knows. 

After you put the batter into the oven and the ganache is in the fridge and Levi’s gathered all the sugar and water and butter and eggs and vanilla you need for the frosting, you and him are stood on opposite sides of the same counterspace, neither of you daring to look up.

Your eyes are kept down as you slowly pour hot sugar syrup onto egg yolks, arms tense as you mix, switching back and forth as you tire of the other. There’s the sound of the whisk hitting the sides of the bowl, a scraping of metal on metal, but the kitchenette is still dead silent as you start to add in cubes of butter and continue to mix.

It becomes too much for him, and he gets up, careful not to hit you as he sneaks behind you. He goes to the sink, full with bowls stained with chocolate and spatulas made of rubber, and he turns on the water. As the water continues to run and he continues to scrub at streaks of batter left behind, he hears the sound of metal on metal stop, and he looks over his shoulder to see you looking at him already, your hands still.

You smile at him, “Thank you for washing the dishes. You don’t have to.”

Of course he has to.

“I know that.”

“And you’re still doing them.”

He looks back down briefly and puts a sieve in the drying rack. “Yeah.”

Your smile reaches your eyes, finally, and you laugh, shaking your head as you look back down and mix slowly. “Sorry I’m so quiet, I don’t really know what to talk about.”

“That’s okay. Me neither.”

You hum and tap your whisk on the edge of the bowl, getting off the excess of buttercream. “What’s she like?”

“Who?”

“Your mother.”

Levi quiets, going back to looking at the sink and watching how the water splashes against the metal basin. “Was like.”

There’s a pause.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.”

“It’s okay.”

Another pause.

“Are you okay making a cake for a dead woman?”

“She’s still your mother, isn’t she?”

“Yes, but-”

“Then, there’s your answer.”

The oven beeps, telling you that the cake has finished baking, so you tap your whisk against the rim of the bowl and hand the dirtied utensil to Levi, who puts it into the sink. You put on a pair of cloth oven mitts, take out the cake, and set it on the counter to cool.

Levi rinses the leftover frosting from the whisk before bringing the sponge to it. “Did you still want to know about her?”

You take off the mitts and put them back in the crevice of the oven handles. “If you don’t mind telling me. If you don’t want to, I get it. I hardly know anything about you to begin with.”

“Yeah.” Levi holds the whisk under the water, washing the soap away. “I don’t know anything about you, either.”

“All the more reason to talk now, I guess,” you say, taking the bowl of cream you’d just made and opening the fridge to cool it alongside the cake and other parts. “I’m going to take a break on the couch. Sit with me?”

He knows he shouldn’t.

He knows he’s already in too deep, and that knowing you—you knowing him—is the last thing he needs.

But, looking over at the drying rack, full with kitchenware and other miscellaneous appliances he doesn’t know the names of, he thinks that…

Maybe, he can do it.

He can know you, and that will be enough.

To know you, in the moments you’re together, and to forget you when you’re not.

He’ll keep you away during the night, when he’s at home alone and sat at his dining table with nothing but a cup of his tea. He’ll keep you away during the mornings, when the sun has gone so deep into sleep that he has no choice but to see the darkness of the lives lived past.

The last two moons will not have gone by for naught—they’ll remind him to keep his distance, but in the ways his soul demands to be hidden.

He can allow himself this, at the very least.

To know you, in the moments you’re together.

He puts the whisk, now cleaned and glimmering underneath afternoon sunlight, onto the drying rack, letting it drip dry, and he nods, walking over to join you on your couch.

When he’s sat enough, the plush of the cushions flush against his skin, he clears his throat. “What do you want to know?”

“About you, or about your mother?”

Levi isn’t prepared to talk about himself.

“Her.”

“That’s not really up to me to decide,” you muse, stretching out your tired arms. “Whatever you have to say about her, I guess.”

He finds quickly that a lot about her, tells of him.

“Well, she’s dead.”

“I’ve gathered that much. I’m sorry, by the way. When did she pass?”

“I was a child when it happened. Don’t really remember much besides her face.”

And the feeling of sitting alone on the floor, waiting for her to wake up again.

And the feeling of putting her clothes over his, trying to feel her warmth again.

And the feeling of his hair, long and covering his eyes because she hadn’t gotten the chance to trim it sooner.

He doesn’t get much chance to think of her, but in spite of the years which’ve passed, he remembers too much.

Yet, still not enough.

“I’m sorry. Must’ve been hard growing up without her.”

“It was.”

. . .

“Is there anything else?”

“Not really,” he sighs, looking up at the ceiling. “Does that make me a bad son?”

“From the way you talk about her, I can tell you love her dearly. That’s more than enough.”

“Maybe.”

. . .

“You have her face, don’t you?” You ask after some pause.

His breath halts. “What?”

Where’s this coming from?

“I don’t know, you just seem like someone who’d look like their mother.” You shrug. 

Levi remembers his mother as far more graceful than he ever could be, so he can’t really be the judge of that.

Again, “maybe.”

. . .

“We’re not that great at talking.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

You chuckle, and Levi feels a greater shift in weight as you sink in further, bringing your legs up and putting your knees to your chest. “Okay, then. How about we take turns asking each other about things?"

Easy enough.

“I’m fine with that.”

“You can ask first. You already told me something.”

What is there to know?

“What’ve you been doing, since you aren’t running the bakery right now?”

“I have enough money saved up to get by for a while, so I’ve been taking a bit of a break before I get things back in order,” you muse. “Still baking, obviously. Don’t really know what else to do with my time.”

“No hobbies?”

“No, not really any time for that when you run a bakery. There’s a little field for all the tenants in the building, so I garden there when I can, but that’s about it. I’m pretty boring.”

“Nothing wrong with that. I’m just as boring,” he says plainly. “Your turn.”

“You already told me, but do you really do nothing with your day?”

“Yeah. Just the normal shit like gardening, cooking, cleaning.” A pause. “I go out sometimes. Go to see old friends, or they’ll come to my place. Help out around the house, have dinner.”

“That sounds nice. You live in a house?”

“Yeah, on the other side of town.” Another pause. “How long have you lived here?”

“A long time. Fifteen years, give or take. I opened the bakery a year after. What about you? In your house, I mean.”

He counts. “Almost four years, not too long.”

“Not from here?”

“Something like that,” he says, looking over and out through the window. “Do you like it here?”

“It’s alright, I don’t really mind it. The people are nice, weather’s good,” you yawn, soaking in sun as you stretch lengthwise. “As long as I have my bakery, the rest is irrelevant.”

He won’t comment on the fact that, right now, underneath the two of you, there’s a barren eating area and display case that’s destroyed.

“Do you?” You ask.

“Do I what?”

“Do you like it here?”

 “It’s nice enough. Haven’t explored much, but I’m content.” He thinks of the sky, the sea, the earth. “I hate the birds, though.”

“Oh? How come?”

“...I just hate them.”

You giggle, bringing up your hand to your face. “Fair enough, they are pretty annoying. At least you’ve got a bakery you can frequent on the Wednesdays you feel like doing anything but nothing,” you tease, looking over at him. “Plus, no birds here.”

His eyes meet yours, and he feels a quiet bloom in his heart. “That, I do.”

｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☀︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ

Along goes the rest of the afternoon, filled with mundane, meaningless questions as such.

It’s surprisingly easy—how conversation flows after the initial awkwardness, knowing that conversation is happening purely with the intention of knowing as much as possible, in as little time as possible. It’s a catching-up on lost time, and a surprising rekindling of the level of comfortability which’d existed and quietly bloomed in the months spanning before this.

It’s not a lot, but it’s enough.

He learns that you always have a cup of tea in the morning, never at night, because you know you’ll have to get up early and can’t afford to miss out on any sleep.

You learn that he refuses to let anyone else clean his bathroom, because he knows that they aren’t going to do a good enough job anyway, and it’s a waste of cleaning solution to have someone do it half-assed.

He learns of how your bakery came to be, how you’d struggled to find investors when you were younger and eventually just decided to take out a loan and hope for the best.

You learn of Gabi and Falco formally, and how they’d gotten dirt on the floorboards of his house yesterday because they were too eager to come inside and show him the centipede they’d caught from the garden.

At some point, you have to get back up on your feet to assemble and decorate the cake, and although there isn’t much that Levi can necessarily do to help, he stands on the other side of the counterspace and watches as you work.

“What kind of cake is this?” Levi asks, speaking softly to not disturb you as you make careful cuts along the lines you mark on the sponge.

“It’s called an opera cake.”

An opera cake? Like, those fancy singers?

He supposes it’s fitting. His mother used to sing him goodnight, all those years ago.

But, still, “I don’t think I’ve seen it before in your display.”

“I don’t sell it in the bakery,” you say, pulling away your knife and turning the sponge to get the next side. “I hate making it.”

“Then why are you making it right now?”

“...It’s the fanciest cake I could think of.”

“Go figure.”

“Well, I had to pull out all the stops.”

“And why is that?”

You close one of your eyes to get a more accurate look as you start the next cut. “Today is important to you, I can’t have you taking home any ordinary cake.”

. . .

“I appreciate that.”

“I know.” You open both your eyes again and slice a bit faster, still careful not to nip your fingers or chip the stone countertop. “Uh, my turn again. What’s your favorite drink?”

Well, he can’t say it’s tea. He’s gone this long without ever giving up on that white lie.

“Water.”

“How… health-conscious of you. Trying to make it to a thousand-and-one?”

“Shut up.”

You roll your eyes, and you put down your knife. You gently pull away the trimmings of the cake, and you hold out a piece for Levi to nibble on. “Here, tell me what you think.”

He takes it, and he takes a bite. “It’s good.”

“Aw, no ‘this is the greatest thing I’ve ever eaten in my life?’”

“Maybe when it’s put-together, but, for now, no.”

“I never knew you were such a critic,” you sass, turning around and opening the fridge to get something else. “It’s your turn, by the way.”

With your back turned to him, he sees the ribbon in your hair again, and it sways back and forth as you muse to yourself what you’re talking out of the fridge.

“Your ribbons,” he starts, “why do you…”

“Why do I use ribbons all the time?”

Levi nods slowly. “Yeah.”

“Personal question?”

“It’s personal?”

You chuckle slightly, and you turn back to him with the bowls of ganache, buttercream, and coffee in your hands. “It’s a bit of a long story, are you alright listening?”

Levi’s brows furrow.

How could the origin of this trait of yours be that personal?

Again, he nods slowly. “Only if you want to answer.”

“Might as well, right?” You hum, and you reach up to grab a cake board from one of your upper cabinets, and you set that down on some clear space on the counter. “Well, the short story is that my mother was a seamstress, and she’d always sew bows and ribbons onto my clothes when I was a kid because I thought they were pretty.”

“Was?”

“She was a seamstress when she was alive.”

Oh.

“You can ask about her later, if you want.”

Levi nods curtly. “Go on, then. With your… long story.”

You put the slab of cake onto your knife, and you transfer it to the board before turning to grab a spatula from the drying rack and a pastry brush from a drawer. “Long story being that my younger sister was a really sickly child. We were really close, but it was still really hard to see her so sick.”

“That’s tough.”

“Do you have a sister yourself?”

Isabel.

“Yeah.”

“I guess maybe you’ll understand, then,” you take a brush soaked with coffee and run it along the cake. “Anyway, our parents died when I was a teenager, so I had to take care of my sister by myself.

“And I remember her first birthday without them, I got a teddy bear for her. Got it all wrapped up in this huge box, put a ton of bows on it that I got from the store, and I gave it to her as soon as she woke up. I was so excited because I’d just gotten a job as a waitress at a nearby restaurant and finally had the money to do something extra for her.

“And, I don’t know why I didn’t consider it? Maybe because our parents never had the money to get us presents and I’d never really thought about it before, but she just… couldn’t open it. Like, she could peel off some of the tape, but her fingernails were really weak, and she was too drowsy from the medicine to handle a knife if I gave her one to cut it open.”

You grab hold of the spatula again, and  you take a dollop of cream and plop it onto the coffee-soaked layer. “I ended up opening it for her, and she was super happy to have a new friend, but I remember thinking about how my friends from school would talk about how great it was to open presents on their birthdays and tear at the paper, and I felt bad that my sister missed out on that feeling.

“I asked around afterwards to see if anyone had anything else I could try, and the lady who owned the restaurant I worked at showed me how she wrapped presents for her husband who lived in hospice. She’d put a ribbon on the box, and if you pulled on it, it’d just tear off the rest of the paper.

“I used that way of wrapping for my sister when I had the next excuse to get her something—it’s been so long that I don’t remember what day it even was, but she was so happy—and I guess it stuck? I was already kind of obsessed with ribbons to begin with, so I just learned all these ways to tie it, and I’d show her too.” You’ve finished spreading the cream evenly, and go on to put another layer of sponge.

“She died a few years later, I moved on with my life, and now it's just a habit.”

You awkwardly smile. “Sorry, that was a lot.”

It was.

“It’s fine,” Levi says. “Are you doing okay now?”

“Yeah, it’s been a long time.” You take your brush again and put on more coffee. “It gets easier, too.”

“What does?”

“Living without people you love. Can you hold this bowl for me?”

“Sure,” he says, taking the bowl of ganache from you, and when you motion for him to tip it slightly, he does. You let a bit of it fall onto the coffee-soaked sponge, and Levi frowns. “Does it really? Get easier.”

“I think so,” you muse. “What other option is there? Being sad forever?”

“That’s one way to put it,” he says softly.

“Everyone’s different, so there’s not really any measure on that sort of thing. But it’s hard to move on if you’re always stuck in the past,” you hum.

What if he doesn’t want to move on?

““You can put that down, now. Thank you.”

“Okay.”

You transfer another layer of cake onto the stack, and then another level of coffee soak, and for the rest of the time you assemble the cake, neither of you speak. What else is there to say after learning something like that?

Though, the inner musings of your grief become louder when, after you take another break and chill the cake in the fridge before you send it off with Levi, you sit at the dining table and slowly unravel a spool of ribbon to start wrapping it up in a box. Levi sits across from you, watching as he usually does as your hands unravel the color and cut strands to lace through the slits.

There’s a faint sad smile that he’s never truly been able to understand before on your face as you carefully set down tape to keep everything in place.

“Oh, shoot! I forgot!” You tug on all the ribbons you’ve just put down, opening the box all over again, and you get up and rush to the fridge to grab something. Levi watches in confusion until you come back to the table with a piping bag, and you steady it in your hands. “Just ‘Happy Birthday,’ right?”

Levi nods, but right before you can put chocolate on chocolate, he interrupts again. “Could you write something else, too?”

“Of course!”

He tells you, and he sits up a bit straighter to peer over the edge of the box as you pipe out the cursive lettering.

Happy Birthday, Mommy

You repackage the box again, needing to cut a few more pieces of fresh tape, and you put it into a cloth bag. And, like those many weeks ago, you move around to the back of Levi’s wheelchair with the cake and a spool of ribbon, and you tie it up onto the handles and secure it in place for him.

You walk him down back through the door from which you’d both came, and after making sure that the cake absolutely will not fall on the commute back (and he's discreetly slipped the proper amount for a cake into the pocket of your apron), you stand up straighter again and hold the door open for yourself, waving goodbye to him.

“Come back again soon, I’ll be waiting for you!”

Can't exactly come back when the bakery isn't... open.

“How soon is ‘soon,’ exactly?”

You lean against the doorframe, looking off and down the street. “I should be open again by the end of the year, maybe?”

The end of the year?

“It’s only May, you need the rest of the year?”

“I guess that isn’t really ‘soon,’ huh?” You halfheartedly jest. “You saw when you passed through, everything's wrecked. Nothing I can really do to reopen quicker, I only have myself to get things back in order.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Huh?”

And with the musings of his heart, he watches as the sun reflects from your eyes, glassy and shining, and he speaks from his soul once more.

“You have me.”

It goes without saying that, to Levi, that means you'll only have him in the moments you're together—in the moments that he's able to give even half of himself to you—but you'll still have him, even if only to rebuild the bakery and the part of your soul that's asking for purpose in the same ways that his is.

He can only hope that it's enough.

｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☀︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ

In the early summer, the days bleed together, unified only by the long stroke of orange and dandelion yellow across a sky that’s grander than the opera.

Levi, just as he had in the late winter and early spring, returns to the bakery every Wednesday.

Only, instead of coming to have a slice of cake and people-watch for hours on end, he wears shoes with thick soles so he can sweep away broken glass and step over broken wooden tables, and instead of you having a cup of tea next to him, you’re looking through catalogs of furniture to order new chairs and tile for the chipped floor.

And, unlike when he’d been with you in the bakery kitchen that one morning many moons ago, it’s not quiet. Between the crunching of plywood and the flipping of checkbook pages, he continues to learn more about you, and you him.

He learns that you cannot stand the look of white lights, and that you’d much rather work in darkness than be without muted yellow glow.

You learn that he’s very particular about the way he cleans windows, and that he always ties a cloth over the lower part of his face to keep from inhaling dust.

He learns that your nose is especially sensitive to sawdust, so he tries his best to sweep slowly to keep you from sneezing.

You learn he hates, among (many) other things, the smell of mulch and compost, but he tolerates it because Onyankopon insists that the plants need it to grow, and you tell him you can take out the trash at the end of the day while he gets ready to leave.

He learns that your favorite desserts are cannelés, but you hate making them so you don’t sell them in the store.

He’s never had one, nor can he really pronounce it correctly, but he tells you he’ll visit one of the other shitty bakeries in the area to find them for you one day.

You learn that his favorite flavor of the cakes from your bakery is lemon and mint.

You promise to always keep one in the display, just in case he decides to buy one out-of-the-blue when you reopen.

In earnest, it becomes easy for him to let himself fall into the dynamic once more, with even greater grace.

On this particular afternoon in the late summer, you’re standing up on top of a chair, using a paint roller to get the corners of the wall, and Levi’s holding the chair steady like his life depends on it.

“Can you hurry up? The longer you’re up there, the more likely you’re going to fall.”

“You don't think I'm scared of that right now too?! I’m trying, I don’t want it to look too patchy!”

“Who the fuck is going to care if the corner is the same shade of paint?!”

“Me!”

Levi sighs. “Okay, okay, whatever.”

After a bit more struggle from you, you get off your tip-toes and slowly bend down again to get off the chair. With a shaky hand, you try to find the back handle of the chair to hold onto, but Levi just holds his hand out to you to make it easier.

You take it, and he feels a spark.

He ignores it, but you don’t.

“Did you feel that?”

Levi clears his throat and lets go of your hand, as well as the chair leg he’d been gripping onto for dear life. “No.”

And though his heart seems to be stuck in place, you move on quickly and stretch upwards, now looking up at the spot from the ground, and you put down the paint roller onto the tray. “I think we’ve done enough for today.”

“All we did was repaint a singular wall and decide what tables to order,” Levi deadpans.

“Which, I think, is good enough!"

"You haven't even marked the order in your notebook yet. You're gonna forget."

You sigh wistfully. "I'll get to it eventually, just not right now."

“If you’re tired, I can keep cleaning down here. I don’t mind.”

He’d literally just gotten here an hour ago, he is not about to go home and do… whatever else it is that he has to do today.

“Actually,” you start, looking past him and at the door. “I was thinking we could go out and do something today.”

“Like…?”

“I made reservations at a restaurant, but other than that, we’re free to do whatever we’d like. Obviously, I won’t keep you too late, but I was hoping you'd come along."

A reservation?

Levi raises a brow. “What’s the occasion?”

"What're you talking about?"

"A reservation is a bit much for an 'impromptu' outing, so what's the occasion?"

“Today’s the summer solstice!”

Levi wasn't particularly aware, but the sun did seem to be up higher today than usual. “And that’s important because...?”

“What's unimportant about the longest day of the year?"

"Everything."

You laugh, and you go to grab the sunhat you'd brought down to the bakery today. Looking more closely now, you're dressed a bit more nicely than you normally are, in a long sundress and shoes not quite meant for fixing up a storefront still covered in sawdust. "Well, there hasn't really been much to celebrate lately, so we have to make unimportant days like this mean something."

"If you say so," he grumbles. Seriously, what's all that special about the solstice?

"Besides, if the sun is out longer, that means you can stay later than usual today!" By now, you've got your hand on the door, and you tilt your head towards the door. "Do you wanna come, or are you gonna stay and mull over what kind of wood the tables should be?"

"Yeah, yeah, one second," he sighs. "And you know I thought walnut was the best."

"You still had to go through the catalogue, like, three times, before agreeing with me on that!"

He grabs his cane, and he follows you out the door, the brightness of the afternoon assaulting his eyes and forcing him to narrow them for a second. "Whatever, let's just go."

｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☀︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ

More or less, it's an... interesting time.

You drag him to a restaurant a few streets down, pointing out buildings to him as you pass them by and telling him what they're for. The place isn't all that crowded to begin with, so Levi hardly knows why you'd put in a reservation in the first place, but you seem to be having a decent enough time making small talk with the hostess as she leads you and Levi to a table by an upstairs window. Thank goodness Levi's dressed somewhat appropriately in a black turtleneck sweater and slacks; the people here, even if they look nice enough, are dressed pretty well, and it seems to be on the higher-end of luxury scaling.

It does faintly bring red to his ears to hear that you'd made the reservation for both you and him, being so confident in telling the hostess that the two of you were together. It tells him he's doing enough—enough that you're secure enough to be inviting him at all, and secure in the thought that you have him.

The hostess leaves two menus at the table booth, the two of you now seated across from each other. "Someone will come by to get your order soon!"

"Thank you!"

The both of you grab a menu for yourselves, and Levi frowns when he sees the prices. "Why is everything here so fucking expensive?"

You hum, flipping to the next page. "Don't worry about it, I got it covered."

"You paying for me is worse than us just running out before the bill comes."

You laugh, shaking your head. "Who said anything about that?"

"Great, so we really are going to run out on the bill," he sighs, bringing his menu back up to cover his face. Thank goodness he'd brought enough money with him.

After a few moments wherein you and him are reading through them, you pull down Levi's down to make eye contact with him. "And you can't just choose the cheapest thing on the menu and hope that I won't know that's what you're doing."

"You can't stop me from ordering the," he scans the page, "children's bowl of salad greens."

"Ha, ha, very funny, Levi. Pick anything but that."

"And what if I actually want that? How dare you deprive me of my," he looks back down at the menu, "artisanal assortment of seasonal vegetables, including but not limited to spinach, lettuce, kale, and cabbage."

"Come on, just get what you want! Really, I got it."

Levi sighs. At this point, he knows there's no point in questioning you, even if you aren't making any sense.

A waiter comes by to take your orders, and even though Levi's got no idea what you have cooking up, he orders whatever looks appetizing to him in the moment. The waiter takes away your menus, and you lace your fingers together underneath your chin, leaning forward and looking at him. "So, Levi?"

"What?"

"Do you have to get home early today, or do I get you all to myself until sundown?"

"I don't really have anything to do, so I guess the latter."

"You don't sound all that enthusiastic," you tease, playfully kicking his foot underneath the table. "Tired of me already?"

"I never said that," he deadpans. "You know how I talk by now, you know what I mean."

"Just poking fun at you," you smile. "Is there anything you wanna do for the rest of the day after we eat, then?"

"How should I know? I hardly ever go out."

"Would you mind following me around all day?"

No.

"Aren't you already dragging me around?"

You chuckle. "Yeah, you're right, sorry about that. I probably should've asked you earlier if you wanted to do anything today."

"It's fine, I don't mind."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I trust that you know your way around this place better than I do, anyway."

"Probably, but I don't have any ideas of what to do for the rest of the day, so I guess we'll just go where the wind takes us."

"Sounds good enough."

The waiter returns with two glasses of water, and you tap your cup against his in cheers before taking a sip. "Got any plans for this week?"

This is a pretty routine question, with an equally routine response.

Levi shrugs, reaching over to pull his glass closer to him. "Nothing much. The wind has been a pain, so I have to redo some of the fencing around my house tomorrow."

"Aw, at least the heat hasn't been too bad this year, so it can't be that bad to be working outside. Are Gabi and Falco going to come over to help you?"

"Yeah, but I know they only wanna help so they can force me to get ice cream for them afterwards," he sighs.

You smile. "They're just kids, you can't blame them."

He rolls his eyes. "I can if they do a shit job."

"Well, if they don't do a shit job, I can show you this ice cream parlor down the road later! It's good, I used to go there a lot. Maybe you can take them there."

"Maybe," he takes a sip of water. "Is it expensive like everything else is around here?"

"It's a decent price, I wouldn't worry about it," you wave him off. "Doing anything else?"

"You know as well as I do that I'm boring as shit, so no. You?"

You hum, looking off and out the window. "I have to go and collect bank statements before the weekend, but that's about it."

"That's it?"

You roll your eyes with a smile. "Are you the only one allowed to be boring?"

"You just seem more productive than boring."

"Normally, you'd be right, but I can't bring myself to really get anything done right now."

He doesn't need to ask why that is, but he follows your gaze outside and hums in affirmation. "Not judging you."

"I know."

You and him sit in silence for the rest of the lunch spent, only making brief comments about the random happenings you can see through the window. There's a bird that chases after a teenager for a loaf of bread, a fountain that spits water in the center road, a couple of kids who fall into said fountain. When the food arrives, Levi feels slightly uneasy because you still haven't told him what's happening with the payment situation, but as soon as he takes his first bite of the dish, he just lets himself forget about what you're plotting because it's too good to be worrying himself over. You eat in similar quiet, only once asking if he likes his meal, but it's an easy quiet. One that's familiar, that'd been present in the simpler days where you and him would only spend time in each other's company people-watching.

The both of you finish your food with similar-enough speed, and the waiter takes away both your plates before you yawn and stretch out your arms and legs. "I'll be right back, going to the bathroom," you say, sliding out of your side of the booth.

Levi nods, and he looks down into his glass of water once you're out of view. The ice practically refuses to melt, clinking against the sides of the cup as he rocks it back and forth, but it isn't really all that long before you return. He raises a suspicious brow at you, really doubting that you'd gone to the bathroom at all, but before he can question it, there's a small ensemble of wait staff around your table, and a slice of cake is placed in front of him with a lit candle on it.

"Happy birthday, sir!" They all chorus.

"Happy birthday, Levi!" You cheer.

Levi blinks, looking dumbfoundedly at the candle that flickers in front of him. "What? It's not my birthday."

Levi then looks across the table at you, who's got your hands together in thanks, a grin plastered on your face. "Thank you! Sorry, he's just shy."

"No worries! We'd still love to give you a discount for this special day."

Is this your idea of getting the meal "taken care of?"

Good lord.

"Would you like to be sung to, sir?"

Fuck no.

"No, thank you."

You snicker from behind your hand, and after the wait staff (and the rest of the people in this fucking restaurant) wish him another happy birthday, Levi kicks your feet underneath the table again. You yelp, but you burst into laughter as he continues. 

He hisses your name under his breath. "I cannot believe you said it was my birthday!"

"Come on! It's all in good fun, and we get a discount!"

"How is this fun? What if I wanted to celebrate my actual birthday here someday?"

"Don't worry, I thought that through!"

He groans into his hands. "I don't even want to know, but I probably should."

"Well, this is practically the halfway point between your birthdays, so this is the perfect time for you to be pretending it actually is because the employees will have six months to forget!"

Ugh, he hates that that makes sense. "I'm never going anywhere with you again."

"You already agreed I get you for the day, so you can't really say that," you laugh. "You should probably blow out your candle before the wax melts into the cake, though."

He sighs, and he brings his hands away from his face to blow the flame. You clap excitedly, as does the table directly next to you, and Levi sinks back into his seat. "Let's get out of here."

"Not gonna enjoy your birthday treat?"

Levi rolls his eyes. "Why, do you want it?"

"I'm alright, I'm too full."

"Well, I doubt it's better than anything you could make, so I don't really want it either."

"Can I have it, mister?" A young boy from the table behind him asks, popping up from behind Levi's seat.

His parents shush him, but Levi just gently plucks off the burnt-out candle and hands the plate to the kid from over the divider. "Sure, happy birthday."

You smile as you watch the exchange, but before you can tease Levi for his soft spot, he gets up from his side of the booth and pulls you up to leave with him.

At least he gets the one-up on you when he forces you to let him to pay for the both of you himself, even if it isn't nowhere as much as it should be if it weren't "his birthday."

When you and him exit the restaurant and Levi's left once again at your mercy, the first order of business is you showing him all the ice cream shops up-and-down the streets. You pull him along as best as you both can go, which admittedly isn't all that fast, but Levi still feels a breeze as he walks alongside you and through crowds of people going about their day. Even though you'd said you only knew of one place, it turns out that the whole town is riddled with seasonal ice cream shops that are jumping at the chance to take advantage of the sunniest day of the year.

You sweet talk each and every one of those employees into giving you and Levi free samples far bigger than they should be (it certainly does help that you tell all of them that you're celebrating a birthday), but after the third time you pull it off, Levi just goes along with it and gently knocks at the back of your knees with his cane once you're safely away and onto the next parlor.

With the sun high in the sky and only a gentle zephyr to carry the scent of summer flowers, it feels like the perfect time to be having ice cream, and even if Levi doesn't really have the heart to tell you he doesn't have a favorite flavor for himself, he enjoys the flavors that you pick out for the two of you so that you can try to guess.

He also tries his best to ignore the twinkle in your eye when you inevitably change samples with him and indirectly kiss, but it's hard to miss the way your smile reaches your eyes as you walk merrily alongside him and muse your joy, completely obvious to the gentle sunshine reflecting from the ribbon in your hair.

At some point, though, the both of you tire of eating so much ice cream, and you find yourselves walking along a strip of small shops facing a stretch of sea he didn't know was even here, shadows following you and telling Levi it's been a few hours since having first gone out. You're at the edge of the town, neither of you having quite ventured so far before, so there's no sense of direction other than where the weathervane points.

"What's next to do?" Levi asks.

"What, you don't wanna try more ice cream?"

"You said you were tired of it not even three minutes ago."

"That's me! What if you wanted more?"

"I'm good, thanks," he says plainly. "And I doubt we'll come across any more shops. We've been at this for hours now."

"Don't say that, this is important!"

"Sure it is," he rolls his eyes. "But, still, where are we going? I have no idea where we are."

"You and me both," you hum. "I don't know, see anything interesting here?"

Levi looks up to see the overhanging signs, lined up neatly at the upper edge of his vision. There's what looks like clothing stores and other small shops, none of which catch his eye, but after a bit more walking, he hears a halt in your step next to him and turns to look back at your form still stood three steps behind.

In the window you're looking through is a cake, put up on display against the glass.

A kid with a chocolate roll in his hands runs past you and towards the other side of the street, drawing your attention to this bakery's doors where people come in and out, arms full with pastries and other things you'd also made when you were still opened. The smell of summer berries and brûléed vanilla sugar are carried by the now-strong summer wind, and Levi's eyes catch sight of yours looking at the sign hung from the awning. The skirt of your sundress billows in the breeze, the fabric undoubtedly irritating the skin around your ankles, but you remain standing there, half-stood between walking forward and backwards.

And he's filled with sadness, watching you as the sun overhead mockingly casts down light onto your figure.

It isn't a tragedy for there to be another bakery here, he knows that. It's a good distance away from yours, and there's hardly any reason to be upset that people are able to get their fill of sugar and spice. There's enough room for everyone to do well for themselves, and he knows the look in your eyes isn't that of jealousy, and the longing therein is not for the height of success this place seemingly has. Even if you'd been envious, he wouldn't blame you. He's competitive in his own right, and perhaps if it'd been under different circumstances, he'd scoff at you and tell you that there's no way this place has better scones than yours.

But the windows have no curtains, and the glass on them is whole. The door isn't locked shut, nor is there a sign hung on it saying it's unsure of when it'll open again. The display case is unshattered, there's a light illuminating whatever's in it. The chairs are filled with people, and the paint of the walls don't need to be redone. Whoever owns this place doesn't spend their afternoons sprawled out on a freshly-dusted table that's the only piece of unbroken furniture left, but, rather, with patrons who praise their craft and line their pockets with petty cash and loose coins.

And all those things together explain the frown that's settled on your features, out-of-place and pulling at the strings of his heart.

So, he does what he has to.

Levi grabs your hand, his cane held half-firmly in the palm of his other hand, and he pulls you away. He pulls you in the direction of the wind so your hair doesn't get caught in your eyes, and he takes you off-balance just enough to force you to follow his guide.

You ask where you're going.

He has no idea where he's going or how far he's going to travel, but all he knows is that he has to get you away from there. Again, it's not like he can move all that quickly, his legs not necessarily made for running, but he does his best, pain permitting.

So he keeps his mouth shut, only telling you that it's a surprise.

You ask what's wrong, why he's walking so fast.

He knows you aren't going to say anything to let on that you're upset or admit you need to be somewhere else, so he makes up some bullshit excuse about everything here being boring and needing to leave for something less mind-numbing.

You stop questioning things when Levi squeezes your hand, though. He probably should've thought to do that sooner.

The wind directs you both to a bench facing the water, faraway from the bakery and out of the breeze, and by the time and you've both caught your breath back and sat down, Levi's still got a hold on your hand, and you can only stare at the linking of warmth where they meet before looking up to his face.

He can see the overglaze in your eyes disappear as you blink and take in your new surroundings, looking past him now and around the area you've found yourselves in. He does the same, wanting to see the same things you're seeing.

The sky above the water is clear, only colored in the blue he's used to seeing on land. There's blinding glimmer from the sun above, and the sea is as clear as it is cloudy with sand. There's kids playing in the sand, burying their father underneath a layer that'd certainly break if he so much as moved a finger. The birds give Levi another reason to hate them (not that he needs any more, but it's nice to have more justification) because he can only watch in horror as they fly over and steal sandwiches from plates left unattended.

It certainly does look different when the sun is actually out.

He looks over at you occasionally, trying to figure out what the fuck he's meant to say after he's dragged you to this random ass bench in the seeming middle of nowhere for seemingly no reason, but you look content enough, your eyes only focused on where the sky kisses the sea, so he doesn't say anything. He looks down to where your hands are, still connected and with a grip gentle enough for either of you to pull away with easy, but when you don't make any movement away from him, he decides he doesn't want to either.

And the two of you sit like this for a while, just watching as the sun seems to endlessly light the world in front of you.

Yeah.

This is fine.

At some point, however many hours later, you pull your hand away to instinctively cover your mouth to yawn, and Levi knows then that it's about time to head back, no matter how sunny it is outside. He forces you to get up, poking you at the small of your back with his cane until you are awake enough to be aware of your surroundings, and you're suddenly back to yourself, teasing and smiling and walking alongside him with a smile on your face.

The two of you struggle with getting back to your apartment, only able to track yourselves using vague recollections of shop signs you'd both only seen once several hours ago, but after a lot of walking in circles (and a quick detour through a farmer's market to get things to make dinner), you finally find yourselves back at your home, Levi taking the opportunity to prove he's not totally inept in the kitchen. What comes as a result is a meal that you insist is fit for royalty, and you and him eat while speaking half-truths over two more cups of tea that go cold before you can drink one of them.

With nothing else to do but to wait for the full feeling in his stomach to pass, Levi finds himself slumped back on your sofa, his forearm over his eyes, you right next to him with a fresh cup of tea to keep yourself from falling asleep. You're quite tired for someone who always seems so energetic, but Levi supposes that a day like that would wear anyone down. He's still not penchant to sleep, though, even with all the movement of the day, but he does let himself close his eyes while he tries to give himself the energy to take himself home.

"You can just go to sleep, you don't have to stay awake," he says quietly, adjusting his legs to lay a bit more comfortably. "I'll lock the door on the way out, I'll leave soon."

You yawn. "I don't want to sleep yet, it's too early. You sure you don't just wanna stay over again? I won't wake you up at 3 in the morning again to make tea for me downstairs."

"I have to fix the fence with the kids tomorrow, remember?"

"Oh, yeah, forgot."

"I appreciate the offer, though."

"Yeah, of course. You're welcome anytime." You hum before stretching and getting up from the couch. "One second, I'm gonna get something real quick."

Levi nods, and he looks out your balcony's glass doors as he waits. There's still plenty of light out, but it's nearing what's supposed to be evening, so he really ought to go soon. Just as he's about to get up, though, his hands about to push himself up off the seat cushion, you're halfway leaned down in front of him with a cake in your hands.

The two of you make eye contact, and you freeze. Levi's eyes flicker back and forth between your face and the cake, a candle lit in the center. You're silent, stuck in place, so Levi takes it upon himself to break the sound barrier.

"Aren't you going to start singing? It's my birthday, you know."

You blink, and, suddenly, laughter sputters from you, and you tip your head back and look up at the ceiling, careful not to drop the cake. Levi rushes to get up, take the cake from you, and set it on the table, and you fall back onto the couch and cover your eyes from the overhead light with your forearm. The rise and fall of your chest as you laugh and try to catch your breath is too much for Levi to watch, so he looks away and stares at the flicker of the candle as it melts shorter.

"Oh, Levi! You're hilarious!"

"I'm really not," he deadpans. "What's this for, anyway? You know it's not my birthday."

You roll your eyes, leaning forward and turning the cake so that it's faced properly towards yourselves on the couch. "So conceited. Who said anything about it being your birthday?"

"You did, all day-" Levi pauses. He looks at the cake, and there, in icing, are the words Happy Birthday.

If it's not his birthday...

"Gonna sing for me, old man?"

. . .

"Today's your birthday?"

"Yep! What, you thought I'd take advantage of that restaurant without it actually being someone's birthday?"

He frowns. Why hadn't you said anything earlier? The entire day, you'd just gone around telling people that it was his birthday, not yours. It makes a lot more sense that you had a reservation for the restaurant, why you cared so much about the other happenings of today, why you wanted to do something different.

He could've done something. Not that he could've gotten you a cake, really, seeing as you're the one who he goes to when he needs that, but maybe he could've-

"I'm waiting," you singsong, leaning over to nudge his shoulder.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"What, so you could get me a cake?"

"Well, no, but-"

"Ah, ah, ah," you wave your finger at him. "You know you aren't gonna win with me, so you can stop with that."

"You still should've told me," he barks. "For fucks sake, it's your birthday."

He's not meaningfully upset, and he knows you know that, but he can't understand why you wouldn't say anything until bringing out an entire fucking cake.

You raise a brow at him, leaning sideways deeper into the couch cushions. "If I remember correctly, you're the one who doesn't care about your birthday all that much, right?"

Okay, well, that might've been true regarding his own birthday, but he's really taken to celebrating for other people's lately, especially with the gradual shift in his attitudes of celebrating things in general. For fucks sake, he's bought, like, twenty cakes from you at this point. You, of all people, know this.

"Okay, and? It's still unfair you spent your day wasting time with me."

You lean your face into your hand. "And it's unfair you've been doing the same with me for the last couple weeks with me, so we're even."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

You roll your eyes. "Come on, Levi, just let me be selfish."

"No, really, what are you talking about? I-" Before he can continue, his eyes drift to the cake (more specifically, to the evershortening candle on it). "Your candle!"

"Oh, right." You tuck a front strand of hair behind your ear before leaning over the table, pausing for a second to make your wish, and you blow out the candle. Your eyes follow the stray smoke as it floats up and dissipates in the air. Levi, though still mildly distraught, claps for you, and you flash him a smile.

You then get up and bring back a knife, two plates, and two forks, and you kneel on the floor in front of the cake while turning it. You'd sat down a bit too quickly, so the ribbon in your hair was brought to the front of your head, so Levi leans forward to pull it back properly and make sure it doesn't get caught on any frosting.

At the feeling of his hands over your hair, you look back at him, and the abrupt movement undoes the ribbon, one end of it held onto by Levi's hand. Levi pauses, unsure of what to do with it, but you only smile at him again before going back to the cake. After a bit more staring at it, you lean to the side to let him see. "That look like a good piece?"

Honestly, he doesn't really know what constitutes a good piece in the first place, but it has a strawberry on it, so he nods, the ribbon still in his grasp. He's still unused to seeing you with your hair down, so he also doesn't really know what to say without sounding like a complete and utter idiot, but you luckily make it easy for him by thrusting a plate with a slice of strawberry cream cake into his hands.

You put down the knife after getting yourself a piece too, and you sink back into the couch happily with a fork between your lips. Levi takes a bite, too, and he wills himself awake to enjoy it properly. He makes no further comments regarding you keeping your birthday to yourself, but when you and him both finish eating, he gets up from the couch and steals your plate from you to do the dishes from this and dinner himself. You try to stop him to no avail, as he threatens to drop the plates to the floor if you try to take them away from him, but you quietly follow him to the kitchenette and sit at the dining table as he turns on the faucet and grabs a sponge, squeezing soap onto it.

He scrubs as quietly as he can, which isn't really all that quiet anyway because the running water is still far too loud, but when he's finally at the point where he can put the sponge down and just wash away bubbles, you yawn again and you look off wistfully, leaning further into your hand as you watch the sun set in the sky.

Well, not really, because it's still very bright outside and the sun is nowhere near actually setting, but it'd ordinarily be around this time anyway, so it feels like it should be.

"Thanks for coming along with me today, Levi. I appreciate it."

"Yeah, I know." He puts a plate onto the rack. "Still don't know why you didn't just tell me it was your birthday."

"I didn't want you to do anything special. You do enough for me as is."

Levi scoffs. "Like washing the dishes is that much work."

You chuckle. "It isn't, but you've been a lot of help. I don't really get much done in the bakery when you're not here."

"You don't?" He thought as much on the front that the storefront doesn't look all that different between the Wednesdays he comes, but he assumed you did other things during the rest of the week by yourself.

He'd be lying if he said he hadn't lost sleep over the worry that you'd be alone in the mornings, the time only reminding you of when you used to wake up to start your day down at the bakery, though.

"You can probably read me as well as I read you, right?"

"I doubt it."

"I think you do, since you probably already know this," you muse. "I don't know, it's just hard to do anything on my own about it. It's really overwhelming to think about fixing everything."

"I can imagine," he says, frowning slightly.

There's a brief silence as you get up to get the cake and bring it back to the fridge, and you lean against it as you watch Levi get to wiping dry the rest of the kitchenware.

"Really, Levi. Thank you for coming over so often. I'm sorry I can't give you anything in return."

You think you don't give him anything?

You probably couldn't be any more wrong about that.

"Don't worry about it." He pauses, flicking off excess water on his hands into the sink. "I like being here."

The with you goes unspoken, but he doesn't know if he wants you to know that or not.

Levi turns to look back at you, far closer than he thought you were to him, and he tries his best to match the smile on your face with a softening of his gaze. "Happy birthday."

And maybe because he's already within reach or because you're too thankful for your own good or because the sun has decided he's deserving, you reach out and wrap him in a tight hug, your smile against the skin of his neck as you hold him.

For the first time today, the nagging at the back of his mind is there again, telling him that he's not meant to be held this way. That he's meant to be anywhere else, where the sun is down for as long as he's awake and the sky isn't painted in the same pink that's surely on his face right now.

But, for the thousandth time, he'll ignore that, if only, once more, he can be here with you, to do whatever it is that you wish for, wherever the wind takes you.

And, today, the wind took him to celebrate your birthday with you.

｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☀︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ

The sweet months that became of the summertime fly by, as does the progression of repairing the bakery storefront, and in the autumn breeze, Levi’s heart soars alongside the leaves. 

Speaking of much, Wednesday is no longer the only day of the week which Levi returns. After that conversation on your birthday, he's found himself with you for far more days than just the meager third day in the week.

Whenever packages of tables and chairs and tile and floorboard get delivered, Levi comes.

Clear is the sound of delivery trucks which come through the road and drop off boxes much too heavy for the both of you alone, so days consist of dismantling parts, getting them inside, and haphazardly putting them back together. The floor's been repaired for a while now and all the debris is gone, so the two of you will sit on the floor with only a single wrench between the two of you to figure it out. It's not the hardest thing in the world to figure out, but between all the empty-hearted fights over who gets to read the instructions and who gets to use the tools, it takes its time to get completed. In the end, though, it's usually Levi with the wrench, you with the instruction manual, and a kiss to the sky to hope that you're both doing everything correctly. In the moments you have to switch roles and your knees start to hurt after having to get underneath the tables to screw in the bottom panels, Levi is quick to go to the kitchen and fetch you some ice before you're even starting to complain.

Whenever ceramics are set to arrive, Levi comes.

They get dropped off in wooden crates at the bakery's front door, and Levi brings them in on his way inside. You take them from him, hold the door open for him to come through, and the two of you fight over whether or not they deserve to be on display or actually used by customers. The rest of the day is either spent with two teacups between the two of you (always one untouched, but that's not necessarily any issue) and a new dessert you're thinking of putting on the menu, or with a newspaper that Levi brings from the market so you can take turns doing the crossword while the other unpacks the shipments of porcelain.

Whenever it's someone's birthday, Levi comes.

It's never quite sat well with him that he's been asking you to make something for everyone he deems deserving of a birthday cake, but after the first time he'd off-handedly mentioned having to attend a celebration, he just tells you because he'd rather you go ahead and have the cake ready than rush to send him off with something before the sun sets. He speaks very briefly about whomever it is that it's for, but you don't demand any information from him, so it goes without saying that it's just someone important, and you're better off just talking about the weather or how Gabi had made fun of (but still tried to copy) the way Levi'd held his tea-, sorry, water cup while they were out on the benches.

His friends have started to wonder where he gets all these cakes from, all ornately decorated and divine to the soul, but all he can say is that you're closed (for now, and that they should all come by when you're reopened to support you however they can; not that he's ever going to admit to bringing in more customers).

Sometimes, though, when the kids ask, he'll bring them with him, and they'll ask you dumb questions about your life over the cupcakes you make for them while Levi gets to putting up new light fixtures.

Levi's happy they seem to really like you.

Well, not really "seem;" they just do. They love asking him questions they're too shy to ask you in the moment when you're there, and even though Levi's usually quick to shut down any accusations of romance or intimacy beyond what's become of his relationship with you, he answers what he can.

Whenever there's too many bundles of carrots left over and he knows he can't eat them before they spoil, Levi comes.

With the summer warmth, there'd been a great harvest this year, and because all the petals had turned to fruit and vegetable in proper time, there were no issues with allergies to keep him from staying out in the open for too long. He's able to harvest more than enough for himself and whomever he can thrust crates of cabbages onto, but he doesn't really know what else to do with the rest besides bring it to you. You take the fruits and put them into tea syrups and cakes, and if he's brought vegetables, Levi, definitively the better cook between the two of you, will come up to your apartment and make dinners to last you until the next time he's planning to come and bring more squash. 

And, still, of course, when it's Wednesday, Levi comes.

There's always something that needs to be done, whether it be cleaning, counting up loose inventory, or finding a new supplier for powdered sugar, so he might as well just continue with the routine that he's not actually supposed to be following. When there's absolutely nothing else to do, Levi sits next to you, shoulder-to-shoulder, and he listens to you explain how the finances work and how the bookkeeping is maintained, two cups of tea in front of you that always go cold. Days spent like that remind Levi that he made the right decision in choosing a life of relative peace in his quaint little house because the stress of having to file every receipt he's ever received would've killed him before he even opened.

Though, he can't deny there's romance in catching you half-asleep and then rushing upstairs to grab a blanket to drape over you, and he can thank the endless rows and columns on numbers marked in your little notebook, written in with ink and doodled in the margins with the same color pen, for that.

But he holds himself steady in the life he's had for the last four years, in spite of the time he now chooses to spend with you.

He still gardens all the same, only real difference now being that he's not absolutely irritated out of his mind every time he has to put on his gloves. He'd almost forgotten the feeling entirely, save for the time when the pale yellow stitch came undone after a particularly lengthy day of raking out weeds, but you'd resewed the slit back together after he'd brought it back to you.

He still sees his friends, seemingly now more than ever with how often they regroup to celebrate birthdays and other anniversaries. Hange's birthday was just last week, and all the kids came together to hold a little gathering at a bar in memoriam, but more than that, they'd met plenty over the summer to exchange food and recounts of new experiences.

He still sleeps in his chair, waiting for the lull of sleep to take him and keep him away from his mind. His inner thoughts have become much quieter, much more muted, but they still haunt him in the ways they're etched into his skin and bone. It feels almost wrong sometimes, how at peace he is when he's done with his day and there's nothing that comes to mind other than what tasks he has for the following day, but he's done a pretty good job at just ignoring the part of himself that taunts him to think too deeply about anything at all.

He still has his tea, boring, bitter, the same as always. There's no desire to deviate in the slightest, even with how hot the summer wind is, and there's no wavering in the lie that he doesn't have tea anywhere but in the safety of his home, under the roof that's never quite felt like his.

But, nevermind the plainness of his life and the relationships therein.

Point being, Levi comes to the bakery often to do the same nothings that occupy the rest of his time.

But, today, it's none of those aforementioned days where there's a new piece of furniture to pick out of a magazine or a new shipment of vanilla sugar to move into containers or a new batch of squash that Levi needs to get rid of or the third day of the week.

When you reopen the bakery, Levi comes.

It's not a grandiose occasion, by any means. Levi comes in only a little earlier than usual (as in, he leaves his home as soon as there's enough sun to make it to you safely), and you let him in as soon as he's there so he can help around while you continue baking and making sure everything's ready for opening. He makes you a cup of white peony tea, only a little less strong than the cup he'd brewed for you his very first night in your kitchen, and you give him a blueberry muffin to snack on while he pours it out for you. He sits quietly, listening as you talk your head off about vanilla sugar and 

The week prior, the two of you had celebrated the final happenings of getting the storefront back together and better than it had been before all this ever happened, and along the ways back-and-forth to a restaurant neither of you care to remember the name of, you and him had plastered reopening flyers all over lampposts and bulletin boards; so, it goes without saying that you're expecting a lot of people to come through and see what's new.

What you hadn't expected, though, was for Levi to volunteer and man the register and front of the house while you kept at the baking and brewing in the kitchen. At this point in the late summer and after so many days spent sprawled out on the floor arguing over prices, Levi knows the menu like the back of his hand, and although he can't personally attest to the quality or flavor profiles of any of the teas, he forces you to accept the help because you're stressed enough just seeing the line outside.

The day goes about as Levi expects it to, though.

Far too many things are bought, far too many cups of tea are delivered to tables made of walnut wood, and far too many people come. He recognizes some of them, but he doesn't really have the time to remember whether or not they were regulars before you had to close because there's just too many people to tend to. The line dies down as the time ebbs and flows, but the kids that come by with their friends don't have enough money to get something for everyone, so Levi has to shoo them away after paying for their things himself.

Soon enough, though, after many hours spent wrapping up pastries and trying to make sure that he's as nice as humanely possible to avoid scaring away any customers, Levi's sat on the couch in your apartment while you answer the door, having just finished sharing a dinner he'd slipped away to make while you tidied up downstairs and counted up the day's earnings.

"Thank you so much! See you tomorrow!" You close the door, and Levi looks over at you now that you're coming back to him, holding a basket thinly veiled in colored cellophane.

"Who was it?"

You sit down next to him after putting the basket on the table in front of you, and you stretch upwards and touch the wall above the couch. "My landlady came by to give us a reopening gift."

"That's nice of her, but did you just say 'us?' As in, including me?"

"She knows you, why's that such a surprise?"

Levi raises a brow, leaning forward to try and look through the plastic wrapping. "She knows me?"

"Yes?"

"I only see her when you send me to the garden to get tomatoes and shit, how does she know me?"

"I tell her about you!"

His breath catches in his throat. "You do?"

"She asks about you sometimes, too."

His initial instinct is to assume that those questions are either deeply personal or deeply embarrassing, so he only sighs in muted exasperation.

You join him in looking at the basket, squinting your eyes to try and look past the cellophane. "I wonder what she got us, she didn't mention anything when she gave it to me."

"Why don't you just open it?"

"It's more fun to guess first!"

"It can't be that much of a mystery," Levi rolls his eyes. Looking more closely, he can't really make out anything, but there's a faint outline of some sort of bottle. "Do you drink?"

"Not really, no. You think it's alcohol?"

"You don't?"

"It could be a bottle of sauce or something. I ask her for cooking wine sometimes."

"So, alcohol?"

"You know it's not the same thing!"

"My point still stands."

"Maybe it's some other drink? Or something she'd just put into a bottle to throw us off?"

"I really doubt it, but just open it already."

"Ugh, you're no fun, but okay." There's a really tightly-pulled knot holding together the cellophane, so you get up to bring back a pair of scissors. You slip one of the blades underneath the ribbon, and you snip at it before peeling away at the plastic.

Lo and behold, it's a bottle of dark red liquid. Also inside the basket is two wine glasses and some small jars of assorted expensive spices and homemade jams, but it's more than obvious the primary gift is the drink.

"Huh, guess you were right. Don't know why she'd get this for me when she knows I don't really drink, though." You reach forward and carefully pull up the bottle from the mixed paper cushioning the it in the basket, and you bring it up closer to your face to read the label your landlady had attached to it. "Oh! She made it herself, it says it's pomegranate wine. Have you had that before?"

"No. Not really a much of a drinker myself, either."

"Here, you can read the label."

As you move to hand the bottle to him, Levi sees a little piece of paper attached to the underside of the bottle that he doesn't think you saw, so he points to it before you can pass it off. "What's that?"

You swiftly move your wrist to turn the bottle upside-down, and you gently peel it from the bottle and hold it up to your eyes. Your lips move as you silently read it to yourself, but you fold it and tuck it underneath your sleeve. Before he can ask what it'd said, you hold out the wine to him again with a soft smile and tell him. "Just a note from her to me."

He hesitantly nods, unsure of what that really means, but he takes the bottle from you anyway, and he looks down to read the sticker.

Homemade Pomegranate Wine. Store cold. Faintly earthy, slightly sour, sweet, it reads.

"Are you gonna open it?" Levi asks, putting it back on the table.

"I don't know, do you think I should?"

"I asked first."

"Well," you go to grab one of the two glasses in the basket. "I'd feel bad if I didn't have any, especially since she made it herself."

"Then what's stopping you?"

"I don't wanna pressure you into drinking just because I am."

"What? How old do you think I am, twelve?"

"Don't flatter yourself," you sass. "I was just trying to be considerate."

"You don't need to be, I'm not influenced so easily. Just open the damn bottle."

You roll your eyes. "You've really lost your tact over the last couple months, haven't you?"

"You want me to get it back?"

"No, no! I like you this way," you laugh. "I'm gonna go wash this, then."

You get up to rinse the glass, and he reaches forward to pull the basket closer to him, looking at all the little jars sent from your landlady. Going by the difference in lids (some being blue, some being yellow), he's meant to be the recipient of the spices.

You'd probably told her he's the better cook between the two of you.

The gentle clinking of glass against glass sounds sweet to him as he reads the labels on them, many of them listing herbs and spiced seeds he's never heard of before. It seems that there was a decent amount of effort in finding these exotic seasonings. The jams look nice, too, neatly arranged and filled to the brim with the sugared fruits. You'd mentioned once before that you'd wanted to try having your tea with jam instead of honey, and these seem like they'd paid well with the plethora of teas you have in your apartment cabinets.

You could probably make these jams all yourself, but he knows you think the thought is worth more than the practicality. You hate washing pots after making jam, anyway.

Looking between you and the other glass, Levi wonders to himself if it'd be worth the slight headache in the morning tomorrow to try some of the wine. Pomegranates are a pain to peel open so he seldom eats them, but in the rare occasions that he musters up the halfhearted willpower to do it, they're pretty good. One can only imagine how such a fruit would translate into wine, but him especially when he's only used to the hard-hitting liquors that those brats force onto him during Happy Hour.

You had to close the bakery a bit earlier than expected, running out of time to justify starting whole new batches of what was missing to sell, so despite summer coming to its end, it's still bright enough outside. There's more than enough time for him to make it home, even after having something to drink, and even if that weren't the case, he knows you'd have no problems with him staying over anyway. Ordinarily, he'd do everything he could to avoid that, but you'll have to get up early anyway to prep downstairs. It might be fun to go through that again, too, especially knowing that you'd be enjoying that feeling for the first time in months now.

He gets up and takes the glass with him to bring to your kitchenette, slipping past you as you dry yours. You look at him from over your shoulder, and you raise a brow. "I thought you weren't drinking?"

"Might as well try it."

"Will you be able to get home okay? If not, you can stay here for the night."

"It takes a lot to get me drunk, I'll be fine," Levi says. "And maybe. We'll see how it goes."

"I don't get drunk easily either, but I don't know what this exactly is gonna feel like."

"It's okay," he muses. "It's worth it to celebrate, anyway. You worked hard to reopen."

You smile. "Couldn't have done it without you, though," you tell him sincerely, pushing past his frame to hang the drying towel back on the hook on the wall. "But you're right, we should celebrate!"

After you leave and bring your glass back to the table to open the bottle, Levi turns the faucet on and grabs the sponge to scrub at whatever dust or grime might be on the cup. He can hear you grunting to yourself as you try to pry open the bottle with the blade of those scissors, sighing loudly when you lose grip of it. He rolls his eyes as you continue to struggle with it, and after he's finished washing his glass, he comes back to the couch to take the scissors and pull out the cork himself.

He gets it open quickly and without fuss, and you hold out your glass for him to pour a bit out to try. He does with steady hands, and you put your glass on the table before grabbing hold of the wine yourself and pouring some out for Levi. He nods in thanks, taking the glass, before he can bring it to his lips, he sees you looking at him expectantly, your own glass held out in-between the two of you.

Levi sighs. "Do we really have to?"

"Who do you think you're talking to?"

Levi halfheartedly rolls his eyes before adjusting his grip to be holding the glass by the neck and clinking the rim of his glass against yours, and you smile as he does. He takes a cautious sip at the same time you do, and while the initial sting of sour is sharp on his teeth, his taste buds are more than welcome to their helping of sweet silk. The burn of alcohol is hardly noticeable, and it tastes almost like a juice rather than a liquor.

Maybe he ought to add winemaking to his long list of nothings to do.

. . .

Well, not really, because the process sounds hellish enough from the little tidbits he knows about it, but it's the thought that counts.

"This is good," he mumbles over his glass, taking another sip.

You hum as you savor the taste on your tongue, leaning back into the seat and closing your eyes. "Yeah, I could drink the whole bottle."

"Don't fucking do that."

"You can't stop me," you joke lightheartedly, taking a dramatically long sip. "But don't worry, I won't."

You both make quick work of the wine already in your glasses, and you put your glasses back on the table to hold them steady while Levi pours another round. He's not all that opposed to keep drinking, partly because it tastes divine, partly because he wants to keep listening as you start to ramble about all the things that'd transpired while you were working by yourself during the earlier parts of the day. You're nowhere near drunk, only speaking more freely than usual with a tiny bit more laughter, and Levi lets you go on-and-on, only stopping you when your hand movements get too erratic and he has to steady the hand holding your glass.

"Thank you, Levi!" You tell him every time, completely oblivious to the way he looks at you as you speak nothings.

But, of course, because it's just the nature of an activity like this, inhibition slowly seeps from your souls, and about an hour after initially popping open the bottle, there's a call to unbridled honesty that Levi resists. It's hardly difficult, already knowing that he's not as effected by alcohol as the ordinary person, but you're not as staunchly tolerant as he is. You're just barely tipsy at this point, but, still, Levi puts the cork back in the bottle to keep you from drinking yourself into feeling sick the next morning. The sun is just barely out, but it's started to rain, so he's just decided he's going to leave tomorrow after helping you in the morning.

He tells you as much, and you swirl your glass, now only barely holding a sip left in it, and you tip it in Levi's direction with a lazy smile. "You really weren't lying when you said you don't get drunk, huh."

"Can't really say the same about you."

"I never claimed to be invincible," you grimace.

"Sure you didn't."

"Okay, maybe I did, but I'm still not drunk yet!"

"I know."

. . .

"So, you should open the bottle for me again." You grab the bottle from the table, and you hold it out for him with a big smile. "Please?"

Levi deadpans, unmoving.

"Come on! Just a little more, and then you can hold onto it for the rest of the night."

"If you want it so bad, you can open it yourself."

"If you say so." You reach for the scissors on the table, but Levi takes your hand and pulls it back. You lazily try to tug it away, but he holds it firm. Obviously, not enough to hurt you, but enough that you can't get back to the sharp object. "You just said to open it on my own," you whine.

Levi groans. "That was a joke, you're gonna hurt yourself holding those."

"Then you open it!"

"I already said 'no.' You're gonna feel like shit in the morning."

"I won't!" You hold out the bottle to him again, and when he doesn't take it, you groan, putting it back. "You hate me."

He glares at you. "I just don't want you to be hungover when you have to get up later."

"I know, I know, I'm just kidding." You fold your hands in your lap, looking at the room with seemingly newfound wonder (and as if you don't literally live here). "Do you really not hate me?"

"Do you think I do?"

. . .

"No."

"Then, there's your answer."

After a bit more silence where he lets the gentle buzz settle and you look between the ceiling, the wall, and the bottle of wine that's so far out of reach to you, you speak up again, eyes trained everywhere but on him. "Hey, Levi?"

"What?"

"If I can't have any more wine, can you make me some tea?"

. . .

A bit of an odd request, but sure. Beats out having to deal with a drunker version of you, even if you've proved to hold your alcohol well enough to stay yourself.

He nods, and after you tipsily cheer and throw your arms around him in a loose hug, he pries you off of him and gets up to brew you something. It's quiet again, the only noise being that of the running water, the kettle hum, the opening of a tea tin, and the clinking of porcelain as Levi opens and closes your teapot. You take your turn at looking through the things in the gift basket, careful not to make too much noise or break any of the glass jars, but Levi does hear the faint musings of joy when you see a jam you want to try later.

And maybe it's because he's halfway tipsy or because he's brewed that black tea that he drinks at home or because it's made exactly the way he likes it or because he's so used to the simple sight when it's the two of you, but he pours two cups, and he brings them both to the coffee table.

When you see that he's brought two of them, you tilt your head in confusion. "You didn't have to get me two cups."

"One's for me," he says curtly. Before you have to look down and guess which one he'd chosen to brew, he tells you that it's black tea.

He can be thankful that the faint tipsiness you feel makes you forget that he's been insistent on the fact he doesn't drink tea in the first place, because you just thank him and get up from the couch, slightly stumbling over air as you get yourself to the kitchen. "I'm gonna get some sugar to have with it."

He waits for you to come back, a bit of humming from you and the sound of shuffling feet and the ever-growing pitter-patter of the rain outside filling the space as you get a small dish and tip out a small jar you keep on the counter with sugar cubes. You come back and drop one into the cup on your side of the couch, and you hold out the dish for Levi. "Want one?"

He shakes his head 'no,' and you put it down on the table. Levi touches the side of his teacup, and because it's too hot to start drinking, he gently pulls your hand away when you try to pick yours up. You don't start any fuss about it, though, and you go back to looking in the basket, now at the jars with the blue lids.

You look over your shoulder and hold one up. "Have you used saffron before?"

"Don't think so, no."

"I think you'd like it," you tell him, putting it back in the basket. You pick up another jar, and you bring it up closer to your eyes to read it. "Imported nutmeg seeds? She sure put a lot of effort into this, I better make her something as thanks."

"The ones with blue lids are mine, right?"

"Yeah, I think so, and the yellow ones are mine. Unless you want," you count them, tapping their lids, "ten different jars of jams. This pear one looks like it'd be nice, if you want it."

"I'm good. You should have it, it'll taste good with those croissants you make." He looks out the window and out towards the rain, the shine of the fresh rainwater bright against the long leaves of the plants you leave on your balcony. "Did you tell her I cook?"

"Tell who?"

"Your landlady."

"It's come up before, yeah." After a pause and some more clinking of glass against glass, you continue with a chuckle. "She likes to tease me and say I'm lucky to have a man who can cook for me."

It goes over his head completely what the implication of that statement is, but although he'd been too apprehensive to ask earlier, he figures that this is his one chance to pester you for your opinion of him.

Neither of you are drunk to the point of actual misdirection. If anything, the alcohol has only made you both honest, so this is where he won't have to worry about you needlessly lying to preserve his feelings.

He's wanted to know you've felt about him for a while now. Whether or not that fact has been truly bespoken to him, he isn't sure, but right now, where the world is entirely quiet except for him and you, he decides he has to know.

"What else do you say about me?"

You put down the jar of peppercorns, and you look back at him from over your shoulder. "Hm? What do you mean?"

"You said you talk about me, right? What else do you say?"

"Gotta be more specific than that." You pull away from the table, and you adjust to be facing him on the couch, your side against the back of the cushions. "What do you wanna know?"

And though he'd ordinarily recoil in such an intimate setting, the wine in his veins gives him just enough bravery to watch as your eyes flicker with amusement. His body shifts to mirror yours, knees almost touching as Levi tries to get his side to mold into the plush. "I don't know, everything?"

You lean into your hand. "You think we have the time for that?"

"Why wouldn't we?"

"Because I talk about you a lot."

. . .

"You do?"

. . .

"There's a lot to say about you, Levi."

. . .

"What's there to even say?"

. . .

"For starters, that you're practically live here now. My landlady keeps asking if I need to add your name to the lease."

Not off to the greatest start.

Levi pinches the bridge of his nose. "Seriously? And you let her keep asking?"

"She doesn't really mean it, she just likes to mess around," you laugh.

Reminds him of someone else who liked to meddle in his business.

"Good grief," he groans.

"But, really, what do you want to know?"

What does he want to know?

When he takes too long to think of an answer to give, you take the liberty of continuing however you'd wanted to, powered by only drunken stupor. "Well, you already know I told her that you cook."

"That, I do."

"Where'd you learn, by the way?"

"Just picked it up as the years went by, I guess."

"I'm jealous, you're so good at it, too," you sigh, leaning further into your hand.

Levi rolls his eyes. "As if I don't cook for you all the time."

"And, for that, I love you," you cheer, lazily pumping your first in the air.

And though Levi's heart stops for just barely a second, he knows you're only exaggerating.

Right?

"Hm, what else have I told her," you muse to yourself. "Ah! I've told her you live in a house."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," you say wistfully, turning around to take a glance at the kitchen. "I've never been there before, obviously, but I think I have enough of an image to have described it well-enough. I don't tell her all about it, but she probably has an idea in her head."

"How do you know what my house looks like, anyway?"

"You talk about it a lot more than you realize," you tease, smiling.

He raises a brow. "I do?"

"Yeah!" You beam. "Your garden's more of a field than a small plot of dirt, so I can't imagine that you have much directly around you. You don't complain about any neighbors, either, so you probably don't have any."

. . .

"You'd be correct."

"See? And you'd mentioned once that it's made of wood, and the interior is painted blue. I think you said something before about getting some new furniture, too. And you have one of those directional things on your roof, right? The horse?"

"My weathervane?"

You nod, now remembering the word. "That! You said you painted it black, which isn't really practical because it's meant to reflect in the sun, so either you're really stupid, or you have a horse that's that color. Or had, you haven't complained about having to clean up manure or anything, so I doubt you have any farm animals."

. . .

Levi nods. "The latter."

Your half-drunken rambling continues, your hands now moving in tandem with your mouth. "And you have a small, circle dining table," you make the same shape with your hands, giggling. "Well, not that small, but it only fits four people, and you refuse to get a bigger one, so you always have to move stuff around so you can make enough space for your friends to have dinner when they come over.

"In my head, you ask them to push the random tables and chairs together, but you always end up being the one to do it because you're too worried about the floor getting scratch marks," you laugh, tipping your head back. "And you take the phrase 'too many cooks in the kitchen' to heart. Can't get anything done if someone's nagging you while you cook, which is ironic considering I'm sure my kitchen is smaller than yours and you have no problem sharing it with me.

"Oh! And there's that loose floorboard in front of your bedroom door you used to complain about all the time. Did you ever get it fixed?"

. . .

"No."

"Oh. I think there's some leftover wood from when we redid the flooring, maybe you could use that?"

"It's alright, I've gotten used to the creaking." Levi kisses his teeth, and he adjusts to lay his arm against the top of the couch. "You really remember all that stuff I told you?"

"Why wouldn't I? We're friends, aren't we?"

His heart pauses again, this time for longer than a second.

Friends.

You consider him a friend?

He'd felt this same feeling before, hadn't he? Where he'd questioned how you could be friends with him in the first place.

But...

This feels different. The quiet tug in his chest isn't that of despair in the way it'd been before. The hurt shouldn't be there, but it's dull. 

Friends.

Is that the correct word for the two of you?

"Hello?" You interrupt him, waving your hand in front of his face.

Levi blinks quickly and clears his throat, and he nods. "Right. We are friends."

It feels wrong coming out of his mouth, but he can't place why. He's long left his guilt over occupying your time.

"I'm sorry, it's probably weird for me to be talking about you so much to someone you don't really know," you nervously smile, tapping your pointer against your cheek.

He raises a brow. "Is it?"

"Isn't that why you're asking me about it? To make sure I haven't said anything too embarrassing?"

"No."

It's weird. He can't quite place it, because even though he knows that the notion of somebody talking about him in any capacity would be irritating otherwise, he can't bring himself to really care in any negative light.

In fact, it makes him... happy. Happy to hear that he exists to you outside of the moments you're together.

And maybe he's selfish in that way—thinking that he's allowed to be happy about it, or that he's allowed to ask more about it.

"I just want to know."

"I suppose I'd be curious too if I were you," you hum. "Maybe, one day, I'll get to ask you what you tell Gabi and Falco about me."

"You could just ask them yourself if you wanted to."

"Bring them by again, by the way. Gabi asked that I show her how to make cookies."

"Okay, I will."

. . .

"Anything else you tell your landlady about my boring self?"  

. . .

"I guess that's something else I told her. That you think you're boring."

Back to square one.

"Do you think I am?"

"What? Boring?"

Levi nods, half-afraid you'll say "yes," half-afraid you'll say "no."

He knows it's immature to think that either answer is indicative of any particular shortcoming in your opinion of him. "Boring" is hardly a negative adjective for him to begin with; boring is routine, boring is stable. He knows there's more to life than chasing fun and distractions.

But if you say "no," you're disagreeing with him. Challenging his disposition about himself.

"I don't," you answer.

And, suddenly, he's afraid you think of him in ways beyond his own world.

What's wrong with him? He'd been happy to hear that you talked about him outside of when he'd existed in front of you, but now he's too scared to think about how anything could go beyond that.

But even if he can't understand why, he'll hope his sober self will remember the details of this night and allow him the grace to continue living as boldly as he is now.

Now's your chance, Levi.

"Then, what do you think of me?"

You look up at him from your hand, and Levi watches as you blink at him, and your eyes twinkle with whimsy. "What do I think of you?"

He swallows down a lump in his throat, and he nods.

"Well," you hum as you lean further into your hand once more, and you look beyond him, your eyes only flickering back to him to make sure he's listening. "I think you're...

"Beautiful."

. . .

Beautiful?

. . .

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know," you giggle. You move your head so your hair ribbon falls over your shoulder, and you roll the satin between your fingers. "You just are."

Levi refuses to believe you mean that. You don't know what that word means right now. You're drunker than he thinks you are. "You're lying."

"Come on, Levi. You know I'm not."

Looking more closely at your face, the flush on your cheeks is only attributed to the slightly hot summer heat; devoid is significant affect of alcohol. The smile on your face, though small and reserved, still reaches your eyes in the same way he'd learned to love, and in them, he sees no dishonesty.

"I do," he bites the inside of his cheek. Better now, than never. "But why?"

"Why? Hm," you start, eyes turning down to look at your ribbon. "Well, you're hard-working."

"What the fuck does that have to do with beauty?"

"It's moving that you care so much about what you do with your time," you smile to yourself. "Gardening, taking care of your home, helping me around here."

He lights up in embarrassment, and he covers the lower half of his face with the palm of his hand. "I don't think I care that much," he grumbles.

"There's no shame in caring about things."

. . .

"I know that."

"Sure you do," you chuckle. "Well, continuing on, you're brave."

Okay, now you're actually losing him. Again, what's that got to do with beauty?

"How the fuck am I brave?"

"You put up the new chandelier downstairs all on your own!"

He deadpans. " That's your measure of courage?"

You furrow your brows, and you change from looking dazed to halfheartedly frowning. He's about to correct himself and comfort you, but you don't speak at all in the way you look. "It takes real guts to get on the ladder! I used to have to ask an installation company to do the light fixtures!"

"That still doesn't make sense. How does that make me," he hesitates in using the word, even if it's prompted by you to use it for him in the first place. "...That."

"It just does," you hum, now back to having a relaxed smile on your face. "Oh! And you're kind. That makes you beautiful, too."

"Do I even bother questioning why?" Levi sighs. "I don't even think I'm kind in the first place. I'd go as far as to say I'm un kind."

And that's the truth, isn't it?

He's grumpy.

He's needlessly straightforward.

He's hanging onto something that he should've given the grace to leave.

He-

"Well, I don't think a man who's unkind would help raise two children, no matter how well-behaved they are."

"Actually, they were decently rowdy when I first met them." He pauses. "Well, one of them. Falco's always been respectful."

. . .

"Wow, you really showed me, huh," you tease. 

"Shut it."

"I mean it! I really do think you are kind."

"Yeah, yeah, sure."

You groan. "Whatever, don't believe me, then. But you aren't changing my mind."

"Why are you so insistent on it, anyway?"

"Why wouldn't I be? I don't think I've met a person kinder than you in my life."

And that's finally enough to make him freeze.

Or maybe he melts; he hasn't been able to discern the feeling. All he knows is that he's caught off-guard, and he's begging you to clarify and set him straight again.

You don't seem to catch on, though, and you just continue, closing your eyes and speaking with a new melody which resonates something deep within his soul. "From the day I first met you, you've always been so nice. You didn't want to take anything for free from me, and you still wanted to buy out the entire display case.

"Even I can tell you're no sweet tooth, but you still came back to have a slice of cake every so often and get something to bring home for your friends. You let me talk your head off at the counter, and you let me awkwardly sit with you and drink tea."

"That's not special. It's just what anyone would do," he asserts quietly.

Right?

"Maybe, but not just anyone would spend their entire summer trying to rebuild a bakery that's, what? An hour's walk away from where they live? And you never asked for anything in return. You just... did it for me. Even though you didn't know me all that well yet, and you'd only learned I was closed that same day, you still promised to come back and help me.

"You came back, and you installed new lights for me. Read the instructions to me when we had to assemble the appliances. Sat with me while I did property paperwork. Let me drag you around and say it was your birthday when it was really mine."

From the corners of your eyes seeps tears, but even though Levi wants to rush in and wipe them away, you seem content in letting them settle there. Time stills as he watches you speak from your soul in the way he'd so desperately wished he could himself.

"And you didn't just help me.

"You came so often my apartment started feeling empty when you weren't here.

"You brought in your own vegetables and fruits from your garden and cooked for me. Hell, you even started leaving extra portions so I could keep eating your cooking on the days you were gone.

"You ate all the desserts I made out of boredom and brought them home to take them off my hands, too, only to come back and tell me how much everyone you gave some to enjoyed it.

"You let me talk about anything, everything, and nothing at all.

"Fuck, you even memorized the prices of everything so you could help me with reopening today."

And, from Levi's heart, something blooms. Like a peony, flowering in a gentle, autumn breeze, he feels something bloom.

"So, you're not allowed to call yourself unkind around me."

Your eyes remain closed, but you've stopped crying.

And, like a fool, Levi can't keep his mouth shut.

"I think the meaning is still lost on me," he says softly, reaching forward to wipe at the stray tears left on your cheeks with his right hand.

"What?"

"Is beauty not a physical attribute anymore? Last I heard, all those things you just described me as aren't physical."

You laugh, Levi feeling your face light up as he continues to swipe away water from your eyes with his thumb. "Even after all of that, it still doesn't make sense to you?"

. . .

"No."

You sniffle, and you keep laughing.

"What?"

"Beauty manifests itself in a lot of ways, you know that, right?"

"I really don't."

"You want me to prove it?"

"I doubt you could."

"Watch." You grab hold of his hand, already within reach, and you bring it down and hold it in your lap. His thumb is still wet with your tears, so you pull the sleeve of your dress a bit longer so you can dry it. "Remember when you asked me for my name?"

He dumbly nods, his eyes following downwards to watch as you hold his hand in yours.

You look down and rub at callouses on his palm, careful not to press too harshly against the flesh. "Even when I didn't know you, I knew you were a hard worker. I could feel your callouses through your gloves."

Flames licks at Levi's heart, and he's too nervous to speak again. Even faintly drunk, he can't do anything against the everpresent feeling of warmth that comes from you.

"Then I learned more about you, and that opinion just strengthened."

"And you think that's... beautiful?"

"Yeah," you drunkenly smile. "I guess that'd be right."

"Then how exactly does bravery translate into something felt?"

You laugh, and you let go of his hand, bringing your right hand back on the top of the sofa backing. "Well, that's a bit more superficial. I just like having someone who can do things on the ladder so I don't have to."

"Of course you do." He supposes there's a sort of appeal in having someone else who can do the things you can't—namely, manual labor—but it still doesn't make that much sense to him.

"And! And! You're brave enough to try all the things I make, so that's gotta count for something, right?"

"Right, because trying a new flavor of cake is so scary," he deadpans.

"You'd be surprised how many people stick to only one flavor," you hum. "But, for you, I guess what that translates to is you not really looking nervous. You look pretty attractive with your whole 'cool and collected' disposition, you know."

"If you say so," he sighs. "What's left, then? Kindness?"

"Sure, you want me to show you?"

"You can try," he scoffs. "I really doubt you could."

No way you'd be able to point anything out about his appearance that conveys that in any meaningful way. His body's worn down, and the only marks of physicality he has left are the absences thereof.

Hard-work?

Sure, that shows up in the way his hands are weathered. He could've figured that out for himself if he really wanted to.

Bravery?

Just as stupid, but it makes sense; he was a soldier before all this.

The ability to climb a ladder without screaming at the top of his lungs is apparently also something of an indicator of this trait in his physical being.

Kindness?

Yeah, no fucking way.

Then, suddenly, you reach outwards to push aside his bangs so you can see his face more clearly. At the touch of your fingers against his forehead, he burns hot red again. Your hand lingers there, pinning his hair to the side of his face.

Fuck, he can barely breathe with you in front of him like this.

"What're you doing?"

"They say eyes are the window to the soul," you say, looking into his.

Mesmerized by the swirl of care in your own orbs, he can't look elsewhere, and he can feel his heart beating even louder in his chest.

"And what about them?"

"You can tell me all you want that you aren't all these things. That you aren't caring, that you aren't courageous, that you aren't nice-"

"Didn't you just say I wasn't allowed to say any of that?" Levi asks abruptly.

You move your hand to gently pinch his cheek, lightly scolding him. "I know you're gonna say it anyway, so I can't stop you."

"I would've listened," he murmurs, putting his hand over yours on his cheek.

"No, you wouldn't have," you giggle.

. . .

Levi sighs. "You're probably right."

"You also didn't let me finish!"

Levi rolls his eyes, trying to ignore the rising burn coming from his chest. "Then finish."

"Well, now I've lost my train of thought. Um..."

"Something about me not being nice."

"Right, right," you hum, and your hand moves to lace itself in his hair.

And maybe it's because he's drunk, or maybe it's because he's waited for this moment for so long, or maybe it's because it's you, but he leans into your touch, begging to feel your warmth.

And with your next words, you give it to him.

"You could say any and all of that, and I'd never believe you.

"Because when I look in your eyes, all I see is someone kind. Someone beautiful.

"Someone who's you."

And, then and there, time stills completely.

The scent of familiar tea, the burn of your hand against his scalp, the feeling of his eyes locked with yours. All of it is so overwhelming that Levi can barely register you moving to straddle him, only to make it easier to hold his face with both your hands. He lets you, his hands moving to rest on your hips, and he stares up at you, a ring of light around your hair from the overhead lamp.

You lean in closer, looking at him with as much intensity as he is at you.

Maybe you really do believe all those things you'd said.

Maybe, through his eyes, you really can see him in the ways he can't see himself.

And, looking into your eyes, he thinks he sees you, too.

The fragment of light that'd always been there tells him what he'd already thought of you. All the ways he'd described you in his dreams could be rewritten into the way your eyes twinkle here, the way they shine. There's a tenderness in the way your gaze softens when you look at him, and it begs him to admit to himself that you're as beautiful as he'd always known you as. 

And, in your eyes, he thinks he finally sees the beauty in something as simple as sunshine.

"Is this okay?" You whisper in song, your lips hovering over his.

He nods slowly, his eyes fluttering closed, trying to burn the image of rosy cheeks and a breathless smile against his eyelids. But, although his heart wills him to lean further forward, to press skin to skin, it hits him all at once.

With the feeling of your breath hitting his, your fingers laced in his hair, his heart beating in sync with yours, he's sobered up again, his senses overwhelmed with the revelation that already came to him many moons ago. From the very beginning, when he'd only known you through the ghost of your touch through wrapped presents and lemon vanilla, he'd already known this.

He's not supposed to be here.

The feeling of his blood running cold comes quick, and it freezes him. You're still right in front of him, begging for affection to be returned with the confidence that you express in your touch, but long gone is the warmth of your hands all over him.

What’s even wrong with him right now?

His subconscious mind has been nagging him all this time to stop indulging in the simple company afforded to him by you, and now it demands that he give into it entirely? And, yet, he can't find it within himself to do even that. Even when he's meant to be at his most honest, his system flooded with liquid courage meant to give him the clarity to speak from his soul, nothing comes to him other than the taunting call of a sunless sky, telling him this;

If he were truly, wholly, deserving of this kind of love, wouldn't he be ready to receive it?

In this moment, he realizes there'd been love since he'd first crossed paths with you. His soul spoke for him and told him even your smile showed romance, and, still, nearly a whole year later, his heart still demands to be steeled and kept away from even himself.

His own heart isn't even his to give. He wants to believe that, if he had it, he would give it to you, but he can't know it enough to promise that to himself.

And, as if he'd had any control over it in the first place, the light in his soul is turned off, like a lamp with a bulb that's burned itself to the wire.

The only things that occupy his head presently are questions he wish he'd answered sooner, before all of this. He'd exhausted willpower to question all other beauty he'd encountered in this life, but the prospect of romance seemed so impossible, it hadn't ever been paramount enough to mull over completely.

Who is he to deserve compassion from someone else?

Someone so kind?

Someone so far away?

Someone who’s a friend?

Someone who’s halfway a lover?

Someone who’s as bright as the sun itself?

Someone who’s you?

He’s undeserving of a life like that. He can barely even muster up the courage to will himself to breathe now, the realization creeping up too quickly yet sucking him in with its familiar malice.

He should’ve known that the sun doesn’t shine for someone like him. It'd felt so easy to soak it in, to let himself fall, to find himself here, in the arms of someone so inviting. Even with how beautiful this life is and how much he’s come to own, he’s lost too much to consider himself any more than a shell of the person he was forced to be up until this point.

And you.

Even with how much he's tried, he can't even let you into his heart any more than he had when you'd first met. You've been prying at the cracks with your smile and the taunting second cup of tea you've always got in front of him, and, even right now, your touch is far too gentle, and the only way that it burns is in the way your soul threatens to see his.

But who are you to deserve someone so callous?

Someone so self-removed?

Someone who can't be present?

Someone who can't accept the love you give?

Someone who can't give you the love you deserve?

Someone who's him?

You're undeserving of a life like this.

He can't even will himself to talk of himself in ways any more meaningful than what can be prompted by the falling of the sun in the sky, how could he be anymore than a stranger to you? How could he let you be in the company of a man whose soul is weighted down by an island across the sea?

He can't give you the life in the sun that you want.

Sure, the sun exists in his world.

So does the sky, the sea, and all the other beautiful things that just happen to exist at the same time as him.

But none of those things belong to him, and all that is beautiful in this life is not his. All that belongs to him is a life is marred by the loss of all that he's ever held dear to him, and he knows he can't let you in. His life is tethered to the many pasts he doesn't let himself forget, and even though you try to pull him ahead with you, his heart is somewhere only it knows, close enough to allow him the same pain of heartbreak, but far enough to keep him from feeling it beat in his chest.

Flashes of his past lives lived flicker through in his mind, and they tell him, all along, that he was right to keep you away from his own world, and to only be with you in yours.

And they tell him he was wrong to believe that he would be okay with only that.

He can’t afford to lose you in this way, but this isn't about him anymore.

He can't let someone like you fall in love with someone like him.

All at once, he crumbles, just as your lips graze his and he feels a faint calling to the sun.

He doesn't have the heart to stay there for even a second, knowing that if his body had the chance to remember your touch in this way, he'd never forget it.

And, so, with hands made of ice and a soul as heavy as hand, he undoes his fingers from your hair, and though he wishes he had done that to cradle your face instead, he wills himself to gently push you away.

He wants to keep his eyes closed, but he knows he can't. No matter how badly he wants his last image of you to be that of wine-stained lips and the look of tranquility that graces your being, he knows he isn't allowed the luxury of loving remembrance.

He holds back a quiet sob, and he opens his eyes.

"I have to go," he breathes in broken song. "I'm sorry."

He forces himself to look at you, but though his soul etches the image of a broken heart into itself, he sees nothing.

It's as if the sun had already stopped shining, leaving him lonesome in a land without even the moon.

And he wishes he'd let himself be selfish, if only to remember you as love itself, but it's too late now.

From there, his body moves on its own, the only feeling being the burn that the ribbon in your hair leaves behind when it brushes his arm as he gets up to go, the satin branding shame onto his skin through

He thinks he's careful to avoid knocking anything over as he finds his shoes.

He thinks he puts them on correctly.

He thinks he's already grabbed his cane from the dining table.

He thinks he has everything he needs from here.

He thinks he knows the way home.

He thinks the rain isn't so bad.

All the while, you're calling after him, asking what's wrong, telling him that in his haste to get out the door, he's forgotten to tie his shoes.

Telling him that he's forgotten his cane at the dinner table he'd only mere hours ago set food on.

Telling him that he's forgotten to take his share of things from your landlady's reopening gift, namely the saffron you'd said he'd like.

Telling him that he's forgotten what direction to turn in to get himself downstairs.

Telling him that he's forgotten how harsh the downpour is tonight.

Telling him that he'd knocked over the cups of tea he was meant to share with you.

But he doesn't hear any of it.

What he does hear is you telling him that he doesn't have to leave. In the same way only his soul remembers how you'd looked, it's the same here. He has no idea what you're actually saying, only a dull ring in his ears that tells him he's being spoken to. Words travel through his ears, but never quite reach his head, only wounding his heart in the way his hand feels phantom pain.

But you're wrong anyway, no matter what it is that you're saying.

He does have to leave, and even if you don't know why, he can't let himself be here, in your world.

Because no matter how much his heart yearns to be let into the sun, to be bare without caution, the thought that chases after him remains.

He's not supposed to be here, and neither are you.

｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☀︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ

next part coming soon! thank you for reading (ㅅ´ ˘ `)

[onwriting-hrarby]

The last 10 days - AOT fanfiction writers

Or: LET'S CELEBRATE THE ENDING OF ATTACK ON TITAN WITH OUR FAVOURITE PASSAGES OF WHAT WE'VE WRITTEN!

If you're anything like me and you fell hard for this rabbit hole called Attack On Titan, you might have written thousands of words by now. The series are ending, but wouldn't it be great to celebrate it by sharing our favourite passages from our works? Any ship and any character! Some of our works might be so old that they are hard to look-up on AO3, too.

Anyone can join, but I'll be tagging some of my AOT colleagues in case they want to participate :)

Day 10 of the countdown - Mikasa's semi confession to Eren in "I did not live until today"

And she finds the lyrics pouring out of her with ease, not caring about any looks from her peers, not caring about the deep gaze Eren is planting on her. Just singing about a love that maybe cannot be, about a love that she has always been feeling but never knew. Levi watches how she closes her eyes, she opens her ribcage, and she puts her arms wide, embracing the vulnerability when she sings, full voice, I love him but everyday I’m learning all my life I’ve only been pretending. Her voice embodies all the tragic and all the pouring overflowing sensations and the sunset and the dawn and the whole night, and a starless sky and also a sky full of stars, because Mikasa has made it, Mikasa has opened up and realized, she is in this world to love and be hurt, and there is no shame in crying, and there is no shame in feeling small. Because, sometimes, she will feel tiny. And, other times, her voice will make her as big as a giant ready to take the world. She hits the highest note: A world full of happiness that I have never known. Her chest is heaving, her arms come to her sides, as Mikasa’s eyes open again. There she is, black hair in a ponytail, long pink skirt and white wool jumper, her eyes not looking at anything in particular but, Levi knows, thinking about a very particular boy that is standing next to her —completely mesmerized by her, cheeks flushed—, and she sings, as if confessing: I love him. I love him. And then, happier, smiling: I love him. But only on my own.

title: I did not live until today (25 chapters; 180 k; finished) pairing: eren/mikasa (with additional: annie/armin, historia/ymir) tags: Musical, Drama school, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers, Soulmates, Romance, Trauma, Friendship, Friends With Benefits, Eventual Smut synopsis: Eren and Mikasa have always had a strange, platonic, best friends relationship. After two years of separation, Mikasa comes back to Trost Performance Arts College and joins Eren on their childhood dream —to be dancers and perform in musicals. Armin Arlelt, their once best-friend, has grown stranged from them both, but has Annie Leonhard by his side now. Jean Kirstein, Mikasa's ex-boyfriend and Eren's best friend, swears he is over her already.

As this group of singers, dancers and musicians come together in the yearly production of their drama college, they can't imagine how their bonds are going to change. A coming-of-age story about meeting new people, figuring out the future, understanding the multiple forms of love, guilt and pleasure and trying to juggle life with unbreakable (or not) friendships.

tagging my colleagues in case they are interested in following the chain! (if you don't want to be tagged in the future, please write to me!): @sinigangsta-ao3, @karizard-ao3, @breezysaysblog, @likesunsetorange, @dead-dolphins, @rottenlover, @onigiri-dorkk @nuri148, @chaosisbeauty23, @stalactice, @on-kamis-green-earth, @r-brauns, @irememberthedark and anyone else!

[peninkwrites]

Karl and Quackity (don't) Date - Ch 14 of ?

Tubbo wants to eat, Quackity doesn't, and both of Quackity's partners wish he would stop lying to them.

[CW: abuse, violence, eating disorders, stalking, neglect]

crossposted to ao3

Ch 1

Ch 13

Ch 15

Mafia AU

~

It’s not a total 180, it’s not like Schlatt crosses one line and decides it’s open season, it’s more like Schlatt has simply remembered violence isn’t off the table.  Part of it seems to stem from this unsettling resentment Schlatt has garnered for him.  Quackity has gone over it in his mind perhaps too many times.  Schlatt had assumed Quackity was going to hurt him that night.  That seems, to Quackity, fucking insane considering Schlatt’s deadly track record, but undeniably, Schlatt had assumed the man he trusted to sleep beside him would be prepared to take him out at the first sign of weakness.

Not to say that’s totally baseless, but Quackity knows killing Schlatt himself is only feasible as a suicide mission, if not from Schlatt, then in the aftermath of chaos to follow.

So, one moment Schlatt remains doting and romantic, other moments Quackity gets on his nerves enough Schlatt shoves him into a wall before storming off which, annoyingly, is still better behavior than before.  Schlatt simply pushing him before leaving to calm himself is downright emotionally mature for Schlatt.  It’s other little things, Schlatt holding on too tight to his wrist, Schlatt dragging him across the room, physically moving him when he gets stubborn, it’s the snide comments returning on occasion that bother Quackity more than anything else.  Sure, Schlatt sometimes still treats him with a modicum of respect, complimenting his appearance and when he’s clever, but other times it’s sly degradation about his body, it’s dismissal of his complaints, treating him like a whiny brat.  Schlatt hasn’t flat out hit him in ages, but he’s certainly reminded Quackity how to tread lightly, always waiting for the tension to snap.

He hasn’t told Karl.  Thus far he’s had no need to, Schlatt’s backward slide from progress has yet to control his movements.  Quackity can still spend an evening living his own life, as long as when he comes back to Schlatt he acts devoted.  A few times Quackity got nervous, he had to be quick on his feet, going to the townhouse after a quiet dinner with Karl and being grilled for an explanation of where he had been.

“Dinner?  Oh yeah?  Where?”

“Uh, Marco’s, that shithole diner on the West side.  I dunno if you know it.  It was just near the office.”

“Who were you with?”

“A few boys from work.  Boring as shit, honestly–”

“Who?  What’re their fucking names?”

“McKeller?  Jackson McKeller?  He’s a paralegal–”

“Just him?”

“No, no not just him,” Quackity says quickly.  He’d rather not condemn some random associate to death so flippantly.  “Also Nelson Thompson, Judy Eager, and, uh, I think Craig who works the front desk was supposed to join us, but he had to leave early.  Kid had a fever or something.”  A little detail, but not too much.  Nothing worth questioning.

Schlatt always looks for some lie, something he can dig into, and Quackity always remains calm.

“Really, Schlatt, you don’t know these people, why does it matter?  They’re just stupid white collar assholes that I gotta get a little chummy with if I wanna cash in favors, you know how it is.”

And Schlatt always smiles like he’s not a paranoid wreck and says, “I know, sweetheart, I worry, y’know?  Just let me fuss over you a bit.  You know if any of ‘em make a move on you, you tell me right away, and I’ll get it taken care of.”  He ends this threat with a kiss pressed to his forehead, hand brushing through his hair, both a shred of kindness and yes, a claim staked on him, but Quackity cannot deny the kindness is there too.

Thus far, it seems Schlatt hasn’t had anyone follow him from work to verify what he says, Quackity is always thorough to check for a tail before he meets Karl anywhere, and some nights he does go out with coworkers so his lies are always based on old truths, but he knows it’s only a matter of time.

So, Quackity hasn’t told Karl.  As far as he’s aware, Schlatt is still treating him better and Quackity is all the better for it.  If Karl notices some of his old stress returning, he has yet to comment on it.  Quackity doesn’t plan on telling him.  There’s no reason for Karl to worry about him, especially considering Schlatt hasn’t really done anything, save the whole holding a knife to his throat incident, but otherwise, it’s not bad, it’s just not the fucking bullshit honeymoon phase Schlatt had briefly tried to return to.  That was never going to end well.  Better this easy middle ground to let off some of the pressure instead of Schlatt getting so fed up with acting like a Saint he snaps in a way worse type of breakdown.  Again, Schlatt not flat out hitting him has been useful.  He doesn’t show up with a busted lip, there’s nothing for Karl to find out about.  It’s better that way.

Quackity’s practicality doesn’t magically make it easier to hide things from his boyfriend.  No, he doesn’t turn up with bruises ringing his throat or any broken bones, but he’s not infallible.

It’s one of the better evenings of the week, an evening which started with watching a movie curled on the couch together––with Karl, not Schlatt––until during one of the commercials they got distracted by far more interesting things.

However cheesy it sounds, Quackity’s relationship with Karl is just so sweet.  It’s always gentle and giggly and easy.  Quackity doesn’t mind when Karl is on top of him, trailing kisses up his neck, hands ghosting over Quackity’s hips, lifting his shirt and coming to rest on his waist–

“Ow–” Quackity hisses.

Karl sits back, “you okay?”

“I’m fine, Karl,” Quackity rolls his eyes, sitting up to follow his boyfriend and pull him back into a kiss.

Karl isn’t so easily distracted.  Goddamn asexuality.  He gently takes Quackity’s hands from cupping his cheeks.  “Hold on, did I hurt you?”

“No,” Quackity scoffs.  “No, Karl, you didn’t hurt me, I just– It’s nothing, I wasn’t expecting it.”

Karl, grave and serious, goes to lift up Quackity’s shirt, but Quackity grabs onto it and pulls it back down, hoping his flushed cheeks make Karl think he’s bashful rather than ashamed.

“Karl,” Quackity says, trying to sound scolding and lighthearted.

“Q,” Karl says with a far more earnest admonishment, but he stops trying to lift up his shirt.  Karl is looking at him so intently.  Quackity hates it when he does that.  It always feels like Karl is looking at more than just his face.

“Look, I’m fine, I’d be… I’d be more fine if you were kissing me right now,” Quackity says pointedly.

“Yeah, I know,” Karl smiles, but it’s not the usual silly, giggly grin that Quackity so adores.  It’s smaller, sadder.  “Can I… can I just see?  Before we go back to kissing?”  Karl waits for Quackity’s permission.

Quackity feels a lump in his throat, he feels unsteady, even as he nods.  He holds his breath when Karl’s hands brush so delicately against him, lifting his shirt just a little.  Karl stares at the line of bruising just above his hip, Quackity is pretty sure it’s from being shoved against the corner of a table.

“It’s– It’s nothing.  I was just… clumsy.  Stumbled into something.”

Karl looks crestfallen.

“What?” Quackity says defensively, sitting up, once more holding onto the hem of his shirt, like that doesn’t make it obvious he has something to hide, and Karl just keeps looking at him like that.  “Karl, what?”

“I don’t want you to feel like you have to lie to me.”

Quackity grins in a way that radiates insincerity.  “Who says I’m lying?”

Quackity’s face falls, guilt piercing, as Karl gently places his hands on Quackity’s hips, barely touching him, as if afraid to break him.  He’s ghosting over bruises in a way that takes Quackity’s breath away.

“He’s gotten bad again?” Karl asks.

“No, no not bad,” Quackity shakes his head sharply.  “Not bad by a fucking mile, he just, y’know, he gets drunk and– and clumsy, and that’s how I end up… y’know, knocking into shit, but it’s not a big deal.”

Karl is so gentle with him, but that look in his eyes, colder and maybe just a shred calculating.  “How long?”

“What?”

“How long has it been…” Karl trails off, a deep frown unnatural on his face.  “Bad again?  I dunno how else to say it.”  A weighted pause, Karl still staring at the line of bruising.  “Was he ever actually better?”

“No, he was,” Quackity sees a lifeline and clings to it.  “So better it scared me, honestly.  This is… this is better.  Better than before, and better than the bullshit of the past few weeks where he tried to act like a fucking saint.  At least this is… this is reliable bullshit, you know?  And I did mean it.  He… he pushes me around a little, but he hasn’t been kicking the shit out of me or anything like that.  Like, when he gets pissed off, if he starts to come at me, he makes himself like, walk it off.  It’s… it’s pretty mature for Schlatt, if I’m being honest,” Quackity tries to say it like a joke.  Karl refuses to lighten up, strange for him.  “Karl, what?” Quackity forces another laugh, nudging him.

Karl isn’t looking at him.  He’s staring at the bruises.  “Better it scared you.”

“What?”

“You said he was acting better so it scared you,” Karl says.

Quackity can’t help but lose some of that forced humor.  “And what of it, Karl?” He turns cold, like somehow that will be easier.  “What the fuck could you say to me right now that changes anything?  Why do you gotta know so bad, when you can’t actually do shit?  You can’t do shit, Karl.  So why bother?”

Karl shrugs.  “I guess… I dunno.  I mean, if we both know I can’t do anything, why wouldn’t you have… have told me?” Karl looks at him with those big eyes and Quackity is so fond it makes him weak.

“I feel like it’s pretty obvious,” Quackity says wearily.  Karl is still waiting.  Quackity sighs.  “I… I didn’t want you to worry about something you couldn't do shit about, alright?  Like, why the hell would I make this your problem?”

“Our problem,” Karl says insistently.  “I’m always gonna worry, Q.  You can’t stop me.”

Our problem.  Quackity is both endeared and hurt.  He knows what Karl meant, but the idea that this is our problem when Karl has spent all of five minutes in the same room as that man and Quackity has spent… a lot more.  Quackity brushes gently against Karl’s cheek.  He sighs, but it’s lighter than before.

“Right… thanks, Karl,” Quackity means it, mostly.

Karl’s hand covers Quackity’s, pressing it to his cheek.  “Y’know I love you, don’t you?”

“Karl,” Quackity is surprised.  “Of course I do.”  Like always, Quackity doesn’t say it back, and he feels awful for it, but he thinks he’d feel worse saying that to Karl knowing that their relationship will hang by a thread until Schlatt is dead in the ground.  

Karl never faults him for it, he just kisses Quackity’s knuckles and lets sleeping dogs lie.

~

Quackity continues to get by, to do his work, to appease Schlatt, and see Karl when he can.  Usually weeknights are okay.  He can avoid going back to Schlatt’s with the excuse that he works late and just wants to rest.  Quackity never rests.  Instead, he uses that precious time for Karl.

Quackity leaves work a little after five on a week day.  It’s relatively early, and he’s excited to spend the night with Karl.

So he gets in his car.  He starts driving.  And a block before the bridge back over to the East side, he spots them.  A fucked up black Ford Capri he doesn’t recognize in general, but he does recognize it from a few blocks back, from the lot across the street from his office.

“Fuck,” Quackity mutters, glancing at his rearview mirror.  He does not turn toward Karl’s place, nor his own apartment, instead, he turns right, and heads South.  The sedan follows.  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Quackity snaps, hitting his steering wheel.

This in and of itself is not an emergency.  He’s always careful, always looking out just in case he has a tail, but it’s never actually happened before.  Now, this means it’s an option, that Quackity was right to be paranoid, and that Schlatt must have some suspicion.  Quackity doubts it’s any other party.  It has to be Schlatt sending someone after him.  Quackity pulls up along the beach, near the boardwalk.  He’d briefly hoped to lose them when he crossed into Badlands territory, but whoever Schlatt sent isn’t that much of a pussy.  The Ford passes where he’s parked, but Quackity follows them in the mirror, watching as they park just down the lot.

“God fucking damnit…” Quackity mutters.  He gets out of the car, slamming the door behind him, and walks up to the front of the car, leaning against the hood.  He digs in his pockets for a cigarette, scanning the area with a semi-casual glance, and there he sees a man get out of the other car.  He walks over to a payphone, still with Quackity in his sights, either pretending to make a call to explain his presence, or currently calling Schlatt to let him know what Quackity is up to.

Fuck, it was so much easier when he thought he was just being paranoid.  He can’t call Karl to tell him not to go to his apartment, and if Quackity goes there now, god forbid Karl is seen outside, or maybe Schlatt’s insecurities will have rooted in deep enough that man will follow him upstairs and search the place before running back to snitch to the Boss.

So what the fuck does he do?!

Karl was supposed to meet him at his place, so Quackity cannot safely go back there tonight.  Quackity almost worries if he goes to Schlatt tonight, Schlatt will expect him to make time for him on weeknights.  

He’s overthinking this.  Schlatt has let up a lot over the past months.   Yeah, let up enough to send some guy following you all over.

Quackity takes a long drag from his cigarette, irritable and anxious.  He’s going to chain smoke a whole fucking pack and then give Schlatt a disgusting fucking kiss, with tongue.

Does he acknowledge the tail?!  Give him a little wave to let him know he knows?  Or will that just incentivize Schlatt to be sneakier somehow?

Quackity already is misbehaving–– misbehaving, what, like he’s a fucking child?––Schlatt wouldn’t want him in Badlands, and he wouldn’t want him smoking.  Is that enough Schlatt will give up the ruse and admit to having him followed so he can corner him?

Quackity just keeps smoking.  He watches the sunset with a vehemence.  He hopes that stupid fucking tail is bored out of his skull.  Quackity looks over his shoulder.  The man still lurks at a payphone.  Quackity almost wants to shout at him snidely, “what, are you made of dimes?!” but he doesn’t.

Quackity throws the cigarette butt into the gutter, lighting another with petty passion, in his irritation he ends up coughing like he’s still 11 with virgin lungs.  “Fucking bullshit…” Quacky wheezes.

He wonders if he can make it out of sight before the spy extraordinaire gets in his car to follow.  Quackity puts out the remaining cigarette on the sole of his shoe before slipping back into the driver’s side.  In the mirror, he sees the man hang up the phone and walk back to his car.  Right.  Real subtle.

Quackity backs out of his spot in time to see the man start his car.  Quackity drives past him, unable to resist flicking him off, and rounds a corner.  He turns down a side street quickly, before cutting onto the adjacent road.  He glances at the rearview mirror almost enough to wreck.  The black ford doesn’t appear behind him.  “Ha! Get fucked you little dicked motherfucker!”  Quackity at least gets to feel smug, but this doesn’t mean he can go back to his apartment.  It’s too risky knowing there’s some prick prowling around looking for him.

So, with more than a little irritation, he heads toward Schlatt’s place.

“No point having a guy follow me to your own goddamn house, right?” Quackity mutters.

Quackity parks outside the townhouse and lets himself in.  He’s lucky in that Schlatt isn’t home, because he’d seriously been about to go throwing accusations at him and asking him what the fuck that was about.  Instead, he’s forced to settle into his agitation in an empty house.  Well, not entirely empty.

“Oh, hey, Big Q,” Tubbo is, reasonably, surprised to see him as he peeks his head over the landing to see who had arrived.

“Hey, Tubbo,” Quackity tries to take the edge out of his voice, he knows Tubbo gets nervous whenever someone seems irritated around him.  “Schlatt’s not home, I take it?”

“No, he’s not.  No clue where he’s gone off to, though,” Tubbo joins him at the bottom of the stairs.  “Are you… are you alright?”

“Me?  Fine,” Quackity smiles.  “I’m fine, Tubbo.  As usual.”

“...right.”

“So,” Quackity sighs.  “What’re you up to this evening?”

“I… I dunno, really.  I was gonna go look for food.  We haven’t had groceries in a bit, so right now the gameplan is toast,” Tubbo says, concerningly blasé.

“Seriously?” Quackity laughs halfheartedly.

“What?”

Quackity shakes his head.  “Nah, nah you’re not doing that.  Come on.  I haven’t eaten yet either.  Let’s go some place,” he nods back to the front door.

“Oh,” Tubbo sounds surprised, hesitating.  “Okay, sure.”

They get in the car, Quackity driving without a set destination in mind.

Quackity once more forgets how to talk to this kid.  “So.  How’s, uh… the… the thing you were working on?  The potato?”

“Oh, I finished that ages ago!  I set up the circuit no problem, I honestly didn’t think it was going to work,” Tubbo laughs.  “But no, seriously.  The potato did it.  Powered a tiny lightbulb.  It has to do with the zinc, see?  It reacts with the acids in the potato and that’s what creates power.”

“Huh,” Quackity tries to sound interested, even as he’s distracted by the rearview mirror, and any sign of the black car following them.  Nothing yet.  “So… so you’ve moved on from the bio-weapons, huh?”

Another laugh from Tubbo.  “It was… it was a household mold, Big Q, I wouldn’t call them bio-weapons,” he sounds undeniably proud.  That at least makes Quackity feel a little better.

“What’re you hungry for, huh?  Wherever you wanna go, I don’t care,” Quackity nods along the Riverside strip.

“I mean…” Tubbo trails off.

“Come on, what d’you want?” Quackity pushes lightly.

“Could we get like, breakfast stuff?  Pancakes?”

“Yeah!  Hell yeah, dude.  That’s easy,” Quackity turns a corner until they’re outside one of those 24 hour diners that will definitely still be serving pancakes.

They settle in at a booth, and Quackity doesn’t bother with the laminated menu in front of him; he’s busy scanning the darkened windows.

“Get whatever you want, Tubbo,” Quackity says offhandedly.  He requests black coffee, and Tubbo gets his pancakes.

“Are you not eating?”

“Huh?” Quackity looks back over at the kid.  “No, no I’m good.  I’ve got coffee.”

“That’s not exactly dinner, though, is it?”

“Don’t have much of an appetite,” Quackity says dryly.  It’s true, probably in part due to the two cigarettes.

“Alright,” Tubbo shrugs, he doesn’t argue.  “Thanks.”

“Thanks?”

“For getting me food.  I didn’t… I dunno, my dinner plans didn’t feel that weird to me until you said something,” an unsure laugh.

“No problem, man.”

“Are you alright?”

Quackity once more looks away from the darkened window.  “Huh?”

“You’re just a little… distracted?”

Quackity debates telling Tubbo.  What good will it do him?  Although, it’s not like he’s tainting his fucking image of his father.  “I’m pretty sure Schlatt had some guy follow me.  After I left the office,” Quackity reaches for a cigarette that isn’t there and pulls himself back.  He won’t start smoking while the kid is trying to eat.

“He… He had someone follow you?” Tubbo being appropriately surprised and disturbed is oddly vindicating to Quackity.  “Why… why would he do that?”

“I dunno, man, I guess because he’s a paranoid fucking bastard,” Quackity laughs harshly, leg bouncing under the table; another glance out the window.

“Weird…” Tubbo stares out the darkened window too.

Their somber conversation is paused by the arrival of pancakes, as well as bacon, which Tubbo slides to the middle of the table, inviting Quackity to eat something.  Quackity, more for Tubbo’s sake than his own, takes a piece.

“Do you… do you like my dad?  Sometimes?” Tubbo breaks the lull and deigns to blindside Quackity with that.

“Do I what?”

“Like, sometimes you seem… okay with him.  And other times you really don’t.”  Tubbo isn’t looking at him, focused on his plate.

“Huh,” Quackity mulls it over.  It’s not quite like when he’d not-so-subtly asked Tubbo if he would kill his father given the chance, it’s lighter, more delicate, but no easier to answer.  Quackity should lie.  He should say the easy thing.  Of course not, he’s a fucked up bastard, what’s to like?  “Sometimes, I guess.  Sometimes…” Quackity trails off, uneasy.

“But…” Tubbo hesitates, glancing around the deserted diner.  “You like Karl more, surely?”

Quackity ignores the instinctive pang of panic that comes with Tubbo saying that name.  They’re not in the house.  It’s different out here.  “Yeah.  Like, a million times more.”

“Good!  That’s good,” Tubbo almost sounds like he’s trying to reassure him.  He’s clearly thinking over what to say next; Quackity gives him his time.  “My dad won’t let you leave.”

Once more, ignoring this would be easier.  Quackity doesn’t know why he doesn’t.  “No.  He won’t,” Quackity says stiffly; his efforts to sound unbothered are probably obvious to Tubbo, but he doesn’t show it.

“That’s why… that’s part of why he had someone follow you, d’you think?”

“Yeah.  Probably not even part of why, probably the whole reason, actually,” Quackity scoffs.  “Why’re you asking this shit, Tubbo?”

Tubbo shrugs, resuming his focus on his pancakes.  “Just curious,” he says mildly, keeping whatever calculations are going on in his brain to himself.  Quackity knows there’s some other thought process going on there, even if Tubbo chooses not to share.  Quackity sort of wishes he would.  He feels like he’s just bared his soul a bit by giving Tubbo even that small dredge of truth, but Tubbo keeps his silence.

Quackity buries the urge to ask to use the diner’s phone to call Karl, to explain why he won’t show up tonight, because part of him is convinced someone must be watching through the glass, out there in the dark.  Getting up and using the phone, calling someone besides Schlatt after business hours, that’s dangerous.  So he pays for the kid’s pancakes and heads back to Schlatt’s place.

Quackity had planned on dropping Tubbo off and heading back to his apartment; there he could finally call Karl and explain why he’d ditched him.  As with most things in Quackity’s miserable fucking life, it doesn’t go as he’d planned.

“Quackity,” Schlatt is surprised to see him.  “What were you doing with the kid?”

“Took him to get food.  Did you know you don’t have shit here?” Quackity says with more than a little edge to his voice.  He can’t yell at Schlatt for having someone follow him, but he can at least get a little self righteous on Tubbo’s behalf.

Schlatt reaches out and stops Tubbo from hurrying away upstairs.  “Did you ask him to do that?  What, are you fucking begging now?  He’s not your step mommy, alright?  Do you not have two good fucking legs to go get food yourself?”

Tubbo is frozen and unsure of how to defend himself, always so wide-eyed and scared like a petrified rabbit.  Quackity has got to teach this kid how to have a poker face before it gets him seriously fucked up.

“I offered, Schlatt.  Jesus, give the kid a break,” Quackity cuts in.

“Aw, you offered,” Schlatt lets go of Tubbo’s arm, but Tubbo doesn’t go upstairs, now he has to wait to be dismissed.  “That’s cute, you gonna start tying his shoelaces next?  Should I get you a station wagon so you can take him to soccer practice?” He sneers.

“What, so you trying to be better and take him out to dinner and shit is fine, but for some reason it’s weird when I do it?” Quackity says sharply.

“Yeah, because he’s my fucking kid,” Schlatt gets sharper, my kid is staking a claim on him.  It has nothing to do with family.

“Jeez, I thought you wanted us to get all fucking brady bunch or whatever, and now you’re throwing a bitch fit?” Quackity folds his arms over his chest, calm and defiant.  He braces, but the blow never comes.

“And that’s what you feel like you’re doing, huh?  Sneaking around behind my back?” Schlatt is still calculating, more focused on interrogating him than making sure Quackity doesn’t get mouthy.

Quackity grins.  “It was just pancakes, Schlatt.  What’re you implying?”  Quackity dares him to say it, to admit it.  Schlatt says nothing, so Quackity decides to rescue Tubbo.  “Are you just gonna keep Tubbo standing around by the front door or what?”

Schlatt doesn’t look at Tubbo, still watching Quackity, waiting for a lie to appear.  “Get out of here.  Next time don’t be a fucking nuisance.”

Tubbo nods and quickly flees upstairs.

Schlatt smiles, mild-tempered once more.  “I’m not implying anything, honeybun.  Why don’t I make you a drink, and then I gotta step out for a work call real quick, alright?”

“Fine with me, Boss,” Quackity replies coolly.  Work call.  Is the man really so paranoid he’s got to check in with his little stalker right away?

Quackity couldn’t care less at this point.  The guy has got nothing on him, besides smoking a few cigarettes, and Schlatt could sniff that out for himself.  Quackity will just need to keep playing things very fucking carefully.

So the following day, he does not sneak off to Karl’s apartment, despite that being what he desperately wants to do, instead he goes to work, he settles in at his desk, and then he makes a call.

“Q?” Karl answers immediately, and Quackity can hear the anxiety in his voice.

“Hey, Karl,” Quackity speaks softly.  He’s in his place of work, surrounded by the noise of other cubicles, but he’s still nervous, he still keeps his voice down.

“You’re okay!  Oh my god, you scared me, dude!  Where the heck were you?!  You can’t just fall off the map like that, I was about to lose it!”

Quackity sighs, a hand going to his temples.  He hates making Karl worry like this.  “I got… I got a tail.”

Static, as Karl tries to process his words.  “Like… a cat?”

Quackity laughs.  “No, no.  Like a guy following my car to see where I go.”

“Oh,” Karl’s concern is still evident.

“Yeah, so. Nowhere near as fun…”

“Shoot.”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry for being all freaked, I guess I shoulda known you’d have a good reason…”

“No, no it’s okay, Karl.  I think we just gotta reestablish ground rules, y’know?  I think––especially now––sometimes I might disappear for a day or so, but you can’t let yourself get too stressed if I do, okay?  There’s good reason for it.”  Quackity hates that he has to have this conversation over the fucking phone, but he has no idea what else he could do.

“Right.  Ground rules.  So, if you disappear for 24 hours, that’s no biggie.”

“Threshold should be more like 48,” Quackity grimaces.  Quackity is also aware that if he’s being honest, he could end up stuck or out of contact for even longer than that, but those instances tend to mean Karl should be concerned.  Not that he’s offered explanation for what Karl is meant to do in those instances besides wait in terror.  “And I will always try and get ahold of you soon as I can, alright?”

“I know you will, Q.  I just…” Karl grumbles.  “It’s just scary.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Quackity mutters.  “We’re just gonna have to be extra… conservative, until I get this tail thing figured out.”

“Um, do you think I’m voting Red in this next election?” Karl gasps, as if scandalized.

Quackity laughs.  “Oh my god, shut up.”

“I won’t be silenced!”

Quackity rests his forehead against his desk, holding the receiver tightly, the pause of static feels so gentle, like he can hear Karl breathing beside him.  “Miss you,” he sighs.

“Miss you too, babe,” Karl sounds as wistful as Quackity feels.

~

Quackity hasn’t seen Karl in almost a week.  Every time he leaves work, he sees that black ford down the block.  He doesn’t know how this fucking idiot thinks he’s being subtle.  Maybe some poor civilian wouldn’t have noticed they’re being followed after all this, but Quackity’s vigilance feels ordinary.  He’s getting absolutely fed up with this shit.  So he heads for the boardwalk again, not to park outside and smoke, but to head somewhere the guy can’t follow in his car.  Originally he thought Niki’s, that would’ve constituted as safe, but for what he plans to do he can’t have Niki shooting this guy in the balls for daring to cross her doorstep.  This way, though, he’ll be somewhere innocuous, but public.  Somewhere the guy will have to get out of his car and follow him on foot.

Quackity walks quickly through the spring crowds, he doesn’t look back to see if the man is following, he knows he will be.  Quackity turns a corner, waiting behind a stand smelling strongly of fried food, and as he’d expected, a man walking at a quick pace steps past and pauses, looking around frantically for his charge.  Quackity whistles at him, offering a little wave when the man sharply looks his way.

The man looks quite startled, clearly unsure of what to do now that he’s been caught.

“Smoke?” Quackity offers the guy a cigarette.

“N-No, I– I was just looking for–”

“For me,” Quackity says dryly.  “You’re not seriously gonna keep pretending you’re not, are you?”

The man seems to debate it for about five seconds, before conceding.  “Guess not.”  The guy is way bigger than Quackity, and probably around Schlatt’s age, which makes it feel all the more absurd he’s been given the juvenile task of following him around.  The man doesn’t yet join him.  “How… how long have you..?”

“Known you were following me?” Quackity says for him, lighting his own cigarette.  “Four days?”

The man looks surprised, perhaps offended.

“Let me guess.  You started following me four days ago?” Quackity scoffs.  “I’ll ask again, cigarette?”

The man nods, joining him beside the cheap wooden wall of the pier’s food stalls.

“Look, uh, following you around, sitting outside your office, that’s the last thing I wanna be doing, but you know how the Boss is,” he says awkwardly, before taking a nervous drag from his cigarette.

“Right,” Quackity gives him a look.  “What’s your name?”

The man grimaces, clearly reluctant to share.

“I’m not a fucking snitch.  I have no intention of running back to the boss and telling him I caught you.  Trust me, throwing around accusations like that won’t go over well for me either.”

“So, why’re you..?”

“A name?”

One more reluctant pause.  “Morelli.”

“I haven’t seen you around.”

“I’m… back from vacation, let’s say.”

“By choice?”

“What?”

“Are you back by choice?” Quackity takes a drag from his cigarette, staring at the man.

Morelli frowns, solemn.  “Guess not.”

“Right,” Quackity huffs.  “You know, this could work out for both of us.”

“Is that right?”

“You stop following me, no one has to know.  Keep reporting to him, make up boring shit.  I went to work, I went to my apartment, plain and simple.  Doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that.”

The man laughs.  “If I get found out, I’m a dead man–”

“Fine! Fuck,” Quackity rolls his eyes.  “Then… then call me and I’ll tell you what I’ve actually been doing, so if Schlatt asks, our stories match up, right?”

The man is clearly still reluctant.

“Do you have any idea how much of a creep this fucking makes you?  What happens when Schlatt asks what I’ve been doing, and saying I went home isn’t good enough anymore?  You gonna crawl in my fucking window?”

“No–”

“So, I’m giving you a way out.”

“I’m not choosing to follow you just to fuck around–”

“But you’re still doing it.”

He doesn’t have a retort.

“So, do we have a deal?”

Morelli is still just staring at him, calculating.  “You doing something the Boss shouldn’t be knowing about?”

Quackity laughs.  “If I was, you think I’d tell you?”

“Guess not,” the man is clearly still thinking it over.  “Fine.  You said… you said I should call you?”

Quackity holds out a business card.  “Yep.  Sometime before I leave work.  If that’s a problem, I can give you my home number too.”

“Nah, that’s… not a problem,” he accepts it reluctantly.

“Good to hear it,” Quackity grins and takes another drag from his cigarette.  He loves it when he talks his way out of things.

~

Quackity doesn’t know what to make of it when he comes over to Schlatt’s the next night to find Schlatt has dinner prepared for him.  His first thought is that Morelli snitched on him, but he knows he needs to stop assuming every time Schlatt spoils him there’s something dangerous underneath.  Usually, Schlatt doesn’t waste time with pretenses to punish him.  Quackity’s curiosity wanes into disappointment when he sees the two steaks at either end of the table.  If Schlatt took his steak any more raw it would get up and walk away from the table, hence, Quackity would eat the same thing.

“This is… this is nice,” Quackity says anyway.

“Glad you think so, pumpkin,” Schlatt pours him a glass of red wine, kissing his head before circling to the head of the table.  “It’s been a second since we’ve had dinner, just the two of us, hasn’t it?”

“Right.  So, no kid tonight?” Quackity asks, feeling the need to ease the anxiety that there’s worse reasons Tubbo isn’t joining them.

“For… for steak?  And wine?  Nah, the brat is probably having mac and cheese and watching cartoons or some shit,” Schlatt scoffs.  “So, how was your day, sugarplum?” Schlatt takes a heavy draft from his wine, watching him across the table.

Right.  Probably confirming what he told Morelli.  “Good, y’know?  Just had work, finished up some paperwork for a case I was helping on.  Boring shit, insider trading type deal, but it was good to get it done.” Quackity avoids his steak with his own sip of wine.  “What about you?  Anything exciting here while I was gone?”

“Yeah, yeah a bit,” Schlatt smiles, cutting into his own steak.  “We’ve got another hostage exchange coming up.  That’ll make us a hefty chunk of change, eh?” 

“Right,” Quackity tries to force enthusiasm instead of disgust.

“Would you want to be there?”

Quackity can tell that it’s a loaded question, something prodding there that he hasn’t quite grasped.  “At the… at the hostage exchange?”

“Yeah.  I get it if it’s… uh, if it’s a sore subject, y’know?”

Quackity is still surprised by Schlatt being anything like considerate, but he knows it’s a double-edged sentiment.  “Oh.  I mean, if you don’t want me there, that’s okay, Schlatt.”

“I don’t mind the company, sweetheart,” Schlatt says with a wry smile.  “Maybe I just don’t wanna risk a repeat of last time, eh?”

Quackity laughs, with a slight note of anxiety he hopes Schlatt doesn’t notice.  “Yeah, I don’t think you need to worry about that.  That’s not… that’s not going to be a problem.”

Schlatt nods, and stops cutting his steak, frozen with the knife halfway through the bloody meat, not looking at Quackity, only at the plate.  “You… you didn’t actually know that moron with the ratty coat that night, did you?”  It’s clear that Schlatt isn’t voicing these insecurities easily, but that doesn’t make them any less dangerous.  “You weren’t… you weren’t seeing him, right?” Schlatt asks, tone carefully and unsettlingly neutral.

Right.  Surely, this is what all of this had been building up to.  Schlatt’s paranoia, having him followed, it had been because of this nagging at him all this time.  Quackity doesn’t reply at first, thinking, knowing the longer he waits to answer the more dangerous it gets.  Already, his heart is pounding a little harder, and dinner seems far less appealing.

Schlatt continues when the pause extends beyond a few seconds.  “You can tell me, Quackity.  If you were at the time.  I can understand, clearly things were complicated and not going well between us back then, but I’d like to know.”  Schlatt takes a bite, sparing him a glance, but otherwise an awful mask of calm and mild-mannered interest.

Quackity processes this carefully and buries his nausea.  It’s clear Schlatt has been thinking about this for a long time, maybe just waiting for the right moment to spring it on him, but that’s too much time for Schlatt to talk himself into getting even more paranoid.  Schlatt, even if he has doubts in general, is confident there’s no way Quackity is currently cheating on him, probably has faith in his whole “if I see you with him again, I kill him” threat along with Morelli confirming he only goes to work and home.  He’s also inviting a confession, with the implication of him being understanding.  Not fucking likely.  Quackity doesn’t know what’s more suspicious, saying he truly barely knew the guy, or saying that yes, at the time they maybe had met up a couple of times, nothing excessive, just boring stuff, getting coffee, and then Quackity stopped it.  That wouldn’t exactly explain Quackity shelling out almost a thousand fucking dollars on the guy.  He doesn’t know where the line is, what Schlatt will believe but won’t kill him over.  There’s got to be a better story to get out of this one.  Quackity is good at telling stories, when he has to be.  It’s no different than a courtroom.

“Okay, the truth is, I lost the cash in a game of cards.  Same card game I won the information on Mr. Beast.  We only really knew each other through a group of students I used to hang out with sometimes,” Quackity’s voice remains steady, if a bit nervous, but Quackity can imagine Schlatt would expect that from him.  Schlatt doesn’t reply immediately, clearly thinking, so Quackity continues, wildly aware that despite the calm of this conversation he might as well be begging for his life.  “I’m sorry I lied, Schlatt.  I didn’t want you to think I was irresponsible like that, I… I gambled away all my savings.  I didn’t realize how it would seem to you, like, you know I’d never.   I’d never do that to you, Schlatt.  I– I didn’t even realize that was an option you could consider.  I’d be ruining my own life.”  Ending it.  Quackity is looking at Schlatt, waiting, praying, and the man is just still picking at his steak.

Schlatt nods, but he doesn’t look at him.

“Schlatt?” Quackity tries to get a response, voice a little shakier.

Schlatt chuckles.  “Gambled away all your savings. That’s… that’s good to know.  You’re the same pathetic broke bitch I pulled off the streets, aren’t you?  You got the law degree and the arrogance,” Schlatt says mockingly, “but you’re still the same, eh?  Just as weak, just as stupid, just as… just as fucking helpless,” he takes another bite of his steak, teeth scraping against the fork.

Quackity has no idea how to respond to that; cruel insults he wants to retort to, he wants to get angry, but he has bigger concerns at present, largely for Karl.  It sounds like Schlatt is buying it, but Quackity is still waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Schlatt hasn’t gotten mean like that in a while, that targeted, that petty, at least not toward him.  So Quackity says nothing, he’ll wait for Schlatt to continue.  There’s a lump in the back of his throat, and he feels cold sweat begin to chill his skin.  Alarm bells are going off in the back of his mind, but that warning doesn’t show him the way out.

Schlatt laughs, and Quackity almost jumps.  Schlatt gestures with his fork, looking up at the ceiling, as if lost in thought.  “Although, huh.  Embarrassing or not, in what fucking world do you get to lie to me?” Schlatt leans forward, fist hitting the dining table so the dishes clatter sharply and Quackity does jump.

“Hey, I said I was sorry!  It’s– It’s not gonna happen again, it-it hasn’t happened again,” Quackity’s nails are digging into his palms, anything to keep his composure.  “I’ve– I’ve quit the card games for good, y’know?”

Schlatt points at him accusingly with his steak knife.  “You don’t get to go fucking sleep around behind my back and get away with it with some bullshit excuse about you having a fucking gambling problem,” Schlatt sneers.

Schlatt is not buying it.  Fuck, fuck, fuck he isn’t buying it.

What else is Quackity meant to do but dig his heels in?

“Do I look fucking suicidal to you?!  In what fucking world would I be sleeping around behind your back, huh?  I’m here almost every goddamn night!” Quackity laughs, voice high and sharp.  “When I’m not running myself into the ground in that goddamn office!  You don’t have a shred of fucking proof, and I know that for a fact because there isn’t any, because it isn’t fucking happening.”   A pause which unsettles Quackity further.  He’d expected Schlatt to shout back.  He’d hoped he would shout back.  That would have at least had some predictability with it.

Schlatt raises his eyebrows, now fiddling with the steak knife between his hands.  “Huh… suicidal, big word there, pumpkin… big word…” Schlatt seems to be mulling something over.  He glances down at his plate, and Quackity makes the mistake of glancing down too, at the blood pooled there.  Maybe it was a good thing, because he sees Schlatt throw the plate at his head and has the good sense to get out of the fucking way.

It still grazes his cheek, definitely enough to bruise, damn near enough to knock him unconscious from how his teeth clatter together and his vision goes white from the sharp, sudden pain.  He hears it shatter against the wall behind him and refocuses on Schlatt now circling the table toward him.  Quackity scrambles out of his seat.

“Schlatt, Schlatt come on–” Quackity isn’t sure where he’s planning on fucking running to.  Then he sees the steak knife still in Schlatt’s fist.  “Schlatt, wait!” Quackity screams, holding his chair between himself and the knife.

“All I asked for was some fucking honesty, Quackity!  I already know what you’ve been up to, so, only thing downright suicidal, is you thinking you can continue to fucking lie to me!” Schlatt yanks the chair aside and slashes wildly with the knife in Quackity’s direction.  Quackity throws himself back, barely catching himself against the wall, one hand raised to try and shield his face from the knife, but all Schlatt has done is backed him into a corner.

“I’m not!  I’m not!” Quackity’s face hurts as he pleads, a bitter ache deepening in his cheek and he almost wants to close his eyes.  It doesn’t make any fucking sense.  Schlatt shouldn’t know shit.  If he does, Quackity knows confessing won’t save Karl, so all he can do is hold on while this man finally kills him.

Quackity braces himself, backed against the wall, as Schlatt presses the blade of the knife against his stomach, inches away from spilling organs.  Quackity tries to recede even deeper within himself.  “Honesty is the only way out for you, sweetheart, like… like going to confession!  Right?” Schlatt presses the knife closer and Quackity holds his breath.  Schlatt pulls away, still raising the knife, as if debating stabbing Quackity in the fucking neck, but instead he keeps talking, his eerie smile doing nothing to disguise rage.

“So why don’t you say it?  You’re a shit liar and a pathetic fucking whore, so say it,” Schlatt snarls, raising the knife, and Quackity shuts his eyes.

“Fine!  F-Fine–” Quackity laughs, hysterics blending into terror.  “If you don’t fucking believe me, do it then!  Do it!  I-If you really think I– I did that, if you really think that’s worth losing me forever, then fucking do it.  Do it!”

Nothing happens.  Quackity is not gutted by a dirty knife, he’s still alive.  Quackity opens his eyes.

Schlatt has stopped.  He’d lowered the steak knife.  Quackity flinches when Schlatt reaches toward him, just as tense when he feels Schlatt run a hand through his hair, wrapping his other arm around him, pulling him closer, hugging him tightly even as Quackity raises his arms to try and keep a few more inches between them.  The tension extends, a few seconds passing in agonizing silence, and Quackity waits for Schlatt to snap his neck.  Schlatt kisses the top of his head, exhaling a laugh.  “Good.  Had me a little worried there, honeybun.  Good, I’m glad that’s the case, Quackity.  Worried I was… I was gonna have to Rosemary Kennedy your ass or somethin’,” he laughs.  “Classier than keeping you on a leash, eh?”

Quackity doesn’t move, barely daring to breathe.  He’s shivering, but he certainly doesn’t feel cold, Schlatt’s presence hot and stifling.  Schlatt’s grip loosens and Quackity starts to lean away but Schlatt doesn’t let him get very far.

“Hey,” Schlatt says softly, a hand under Quackity’s chin, forcing him to look up at him.  Quackity knows he’s whimpering, shaking like a fucking leaf, but he doesn’t have the strength left for shame as he looks up at Schlatt and waits for pain.  “You know how this goes, you don’t gotta act so shocked,” Schlatt is patronizing, and dauntingly tender, words soft and crooning.  “You try to leave me, I get even a whiff of you thinking you can jump ship, I’ll..?” He waits.

Lobotomize me?  Bash my fucking face in until I’m so ugly no one else could want me?  Quackity’s head is spinning, he can’t decide if the danger is passed or not.  He thinks he might throw up even though that is the worst thing he could fucking do right now.

“Quackity?” Schlatt tuts him.  “Come on, I know you know the answer to this one, we’ve been over this.  Hell, there are multiple right answers!  I know you can do it, sugarplum.”

He swallows back bile, he balls his hands into fists and tenses his whole body to try and stave off the trembling.  He manages to speak, but not when he’s looking at Schlatt.  He has to look away.  Quackity goes with the old staple.  “You’ll… you’ll chain me to the radiator,” Quackity says numbly, staring at the ground, his voice coming out far steadier than he might’ve imagined.  “Keep me there until I remember my place.”  It’s not just fear fueling the buckets of adrenaline now dumped into his veins, it’s rage too.  Rage is no good to him.

“Oh! That’s a good one, didn’t even think about that,” Schlatt pats his cheek none too gently, ignoring the way Quackity flinches.  “You know I don’t want things to be this way, don’t you?” Schlatt still has a hand tangled in Quackity’s hair, forcing him to look him in the eye.  “You gotta realize that.”

“What way?” Quackity says, that soft mixture of rage and fear still useless to him.

Schlatt seems to debate over his answer, and the one he chooses unsettles Quackity more than a little.  “I can be soft, baby,” Schlatt murmurs.  “You know I can be,” that hand running through his hair, not tugging at tangles, but not quite gentle, “it just… it just gets a little hard to be that way when you fucking lie to me.”

“I mean, if this is how you react, can you fucking blame me?” Quackity says, hoarse and sharp, stunned at his own daring, but Schlatt doesn’t hold onto Quackity’s throat, he doesn’t slam his head back against the wall, he just laughs, almost teasing.

“Maybe we’ll both learn a thing or two from this.  I mean, I would’ve preferred if you hadn’t fucked up in the first place, but next time, eh?  Next time, we’ll both do better, right?” Schlatt waits for an answer.  “Right?”

“Right,” Quackity forces the words out like pulling teeth.

“You doing okay, baby?  Does… does all this make sense?” Schlatt refuses to step back, not until Quackity is the one to reassure him.

“Yes.”  At this point Quackity will do whatever it takes to get Schlatt to let go and back off.

“Good,” Schlatt kisses his forehead.  “Sorry about the mess, honeybun.  You know I’d rather play nice.”

Schlatt finally lets go of him, he pulls away to cough harshly into his sleeve.  “Fuck… come on, sit back down,” Schlatt supports his own weight against the dining table, apparently attacking him has taken a lot out of him, but he makes his way back to his seat, gesturing with the steak knife back at Quackity’s place.  “Eat.”

Quackity, still shaky, still pissed off, still undeniably scared out of his mind, sits back down across from him.  He wipes his cheek when he feels a drop trailing down it, thinking he broke down enough to cry, but his hand comes away smeared with blood instead.  Quackity is convinced, had he confessed to any extent, he would be dead on the ground right now with a steak knife in his gut.  Well, that’s not quite true.  He’d be dying on the ground right now, nice and slow.

Schlatt has already ruined his own plate by throwing it at Quackity’s head, but he remains seated at the dining table, watching him.  “Go on, fucking eat.  What, how much clearer can I be?  Finish your fucking food.  Christ, it’s like you’ve got an eating disorder or something.”

Quackity isn’t used to Schlatt encouraging him to eat, especially after a bout of adrenaline.  The thought of taking another bite of this stupid bloody steak, always too raw, always cooked to Schlatt’s liking, leaves him with the taste of bile rising in the back of his throat.  He does it anyway.  He cuts off a piece with his own steak knife, and he pretends he can’t see his hands still trembling.  He does not look up at Schlatt watching him, he chews and ignores the taste of iron from biting his own tongue and he ignores the feeling of something caught in his throat.  Inexplicably, Quackity thinks of an old story from his brief stint in a hyper-religious foster home run by some old nun, where Quackity had been taught about God and Quackity had naively believed there might be someone out there who gave a shit about him.  He thinks of Adam and Eve, of Adam forever stuck with an apple caught in his throat because the person he got his ribs ripped out for told him to eat.

Quackity takes another bite.

[nooowestayandgetcaught]

20 questions for fic writers!

tagged by @clotpolesonly 💜

How many works do you have on AO3?

Officially it is 2,434 fics but probably 4-6 more fics under anon. I will eventually de-anon those but I'm not right now,,,, 👀👀👀

What’s your total AO3 word count?

2,912,560 words.

What fandoms do you write for?

I have written for 489 fandoms so far but I collect fandoms like Pokemon so I'm sure the number will be up in the end of 2023, hehe. I will list the top ten fandoms though I have done so far:

DCU (222)

Merlin (TV) (180)

Marvel (132)

Game of Thrones (TV) (125)

Marvel Cinematic Universe (111)

Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime) (108)

Voltron: Legendary Defender (97)

Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling (96)

Young Justice (Cartoon) (82)

Stranger Things (TV 2016) (77)

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

2,699 kudos -- Take Me Up (G-rated, Knights of the Round Table & Merlin + Merlin & Arthur Pendragon, BBC Merlin)

Excalibur acts like Thor's Hammer - only for the worthy. Magic prevents others from grasping it.

2,105 kudos -- Sleepless In New York (No Rating, Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji, Banana Fish - Anime & Manga)

Ash goes missing and Shorter discovers him taking care of a sick Eiji. It makes sense why Ash hasn’t contacted anyone. Or bothered to glance at his messages. Ash’s head gets fuzzy when it comes to Eiji, Shorter realizes once more. That’s what happens with love.

1,722 kudos -- Belonging (E-rated, Merlin/Arthur Pendragon, BBC Merlin - warnings for mentions of underage and noncon)

“I’ll be fine here,” Merlin insists, upright and curled in the dark, velvet blankets. He’s naked as sin, beautiful with morning-light in his thick, sable hair, his nipples exposed to cold air. “You’ll only be away for a season, maybe half.”

1,688 kudos -- A Matter of the Heart (E-rated, Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Yuri!!! on Ice - warnings for mentions of violence)

If there's a single thing Yuuri can't get enough of—it's Viktor's attention. People want it. The letters from Viktor's fans beg for it, for a photo or an autograph, for him to respond. One of Viktor's most ruthless stalkers attacks Yuuri in broad daylight.

1,615 kudos -- It Was Only You (E-rated, Merlin/Arthur Pendragon, BBC Merlin)

Looking across the playing field, Arthur dripping with sweat and mud, knocking away the ball from the other footie team, Merlin feels the pull. It starts at his belly, from the centre of his navel, and radiates pleasantly to every nerve-end.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do! I love to respond to comments and talk and possibly make more writer friends! 😊 And I also wanna respect boundaries with commenters so I implemented a new idea: If you comment with a certain emoji, I will leave your comment as it is and not respond. It has been a GREAT decision for the people who admitted they're shy.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

OHHHHHH GOD. THE FIRST ONE I THINK OF IS THE LAST HOURS (E-rated, Merlin/Arthur Pendragon, BBC Merlin) WHERE THEY DIE IN THE END BC THEY ARE ON VACATION IN AUSTRALIA WHEN AN ASTEROID HITS EUROPE AND THERE'S A FIRESTORM COMING. IT IS ABSOLUTELY WORTH THE READ THO. IT'S A FAVE OF MINE.

I do wanna say that Bereavement (T-rated, Sirius Black & Harry Potter, Harry Potter) where Harry, instead of Sirius, falls through the veil and No Matter What Happens, You'll Return To Me (T-rated, Porsche & Porchay + Porsche/Kinn + Porchay/Kim, Kinnporsche (TV)) where Kim dies bc of a random act of cruelty by a stranger and Porchay overdoses on sleeping pills and it's all in Porsche's POV,,, those are very strong competitors for the #1 spot of angsty endings.

no no I'm sorry,,, no it's definitely Devil's Side (T-rated, Lord Asriel & Lyra Belacqua, His Dark Materials) because I cannot explain to how fucked up that story got me and basically everyone I inflicted that on

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

Ohhhhh god this one is harder ASJSDJ,,,, if I'm picking a fic with angst, Up In Smoke (T-rated, Korra/Asami Sato, Avatar: Legend of Korra) has a satisfying ending after a group of people burn down the Sato residency and Asami grieves,,,, but if I'm picking a fic that is fluff and has an ending I like, then Pulled From The Wreckage (No Rating, Aziraphale/Crowley, Good Omens (TV)) because I'm love them.

Do you get hate on fics?

Oh most definitely. It's happened. Either some mfer didn't read the tags I got up and they got something smart to say,,,, or is a ship hater🥱,,,, or leaves poorly masked constructive criticism,,,,,

When I do think of AO3 hate I've gotten, I do think about the time I posted a Bellamy/Clarke & Clarke/Lexa vee-relationship poly fic from The 100 tv show where both shipping fandoms showed their own asses in the comments. (And I would do it again to laugh at them.) Or I think about the guy who came onto my Merthur fic where Arthur had terminal cancer and he practiced safe consensual sex (like some of the most consensual I've ever written) and called Arthur 'a whore' because it wasn't enough Merthur sex going on in my fic??? Like you gotta be out of your goddamn mfing mind to do that nonsense.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I got 505 explicit rated fics and they're 99.9% full of smut! Mostly the smut is between OTPs/ships I like, but sometimes it's just because! I gonna recommend three smut fics of mine just for shits and grins:

Don't Fall In Love So Madly With The Night (Lestat de Lioncourt/Louis de Pointe du Lac, AMC's Interview with the Vampire + Novel Canon, 666 words - warnings for graphic content)

Louis anguishes over consuming his own flesh-and-blood, and Lestat dotes. Because Lestat enjoys it.

Come And Get It (Loki/Sylvie, Loki (TV), 3902 words)

Loki and Sylvie wind down, hopping from apocalypse to apocalypse, by trying to kick each other's ass.

Hold Me Close (Padmé Amidala/Sabé & Padmé Amidala/Eirtaé/Rabé/Sabé/Saché/Yané, Star Wars, 1000 words)

Padmé has no immediate recollection of the Festival of Light, long after dusk, save for the matter of too much scentwine — purplish in quality and strong with its bright, floral aroma. She wakes among her handmaidens, come morning light, savoring their conversation and heat and presence.

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

Not very often! But they do happen! I've done J. Robert Oppenheimer/Barbie (BARBENHEIMER!) with An Old Friend and Part II Ellie Williams meeting HBO TV series!Ellie Williams with Me, You, Us and Prince Charming from Disney's Snow White/Prince Phillip from Disney's Sleeping Beauty with Love's First Kiss and Emily from Corpse Bride/Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas with Butterfly Bush and then I did something kinda cool in The Autopsy of Jane Doe/The Witch crossover with Long, Long Ago!

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

AND THAT'S WHY I FUCKING HATE WATTPAD. YOU EVER SEEN MY ACCOUNT ON WATTPAD? I AM THERE TO HUNT PPL DOWN. I THINK I MADE TWO ACCOUNTS JUST IN CASE. AAAAAAAAAA.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have! I have had a couple of bad experiences with people asking to translate my fics so I'm a little wary now but,,,,, yeah there's a few.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Me and @glove23 have cowritten fics! It's So Goodbye Until Tomorrow! There's also The Lie Of Living, The Truth In Wanting! I'm a terrible and temperamental cowriter sometimes, I'm sorry ☹️

What’s your all time favourite ship?

SHRUGS. IT CAN CHANGE OVER TIME. I'm gonna say Peter Pan/Wendy Darling though. Easily you're gonna get me with that.

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

If you were ever holding out for an update on Fate's Design, Facing the Darkness, or Game, Set, Match then oops.

What are your writing strengths?

SHRUGGGSSSS. I just think through experience probably and writing as much as I have, I've mastered some kind of writing style? Or at least my rhythm in it? I know I put a lot of detail into what I'm writing.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I could be doing more with expanding on parts and structurally setting scenes up. Like I can SEE where I can improve and I wanna.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Eh. I've done it.

First fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter?

Favourite fic you’ve written?

THAT'S HAAAAAAARD. I HAVE TOO MANY FICS.

You know what, if you wanna get on my good side, just talk to me about anything out of Your Childhood Cishets, Now WLW/MLM ashsdsahjsaj the entire thing is my ongoing and beloved project

---

Tagging @glove23 @merlinsbed @onestrangenovelist @greyisbetterthangray @rapha-reads @divorcedmalewife and literally if you got some fics on AO3, this is an open invite to do this!

(Blank question format inside!)

20 questions for fic writers!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

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

8. Do you get hate on fics?

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

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

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

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

16. What are your writing strengths?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

19. First fandom you wrote for?

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

[another-lost-one]

Most/Least Tag Game

Rules: give us the links to your wonderful works with the most and least hits, subscriptions, word count, comments, kudos, bookmarks To find this information, go to your AO3 dashboard, then select 'statistics,' and you can filter your works according to various metrics

Most Hits & Comments » Sunny Side Up A college AU in which Wei Wuxian is sleep-deprived and Lan Wangji doesn't know how to talk feelings. Contains: accidental kissing and idiots in love. (co-written with the amazing @vendettafrank)

Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: The Untamed (TV), Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Most Subscriptions » And All The Lovers, They Are In Heaven Now Felix has a desire, so of course Bang Chan will provide. Luckily, the guys all love Felix very much and would do anything for him. Featuring: absolute depravity, catholic trauma (the authors), and the Cathedral in Chartres (also co-written with @vendettafrank).

Chapters: 7/7

Fandom: Stray Kids (Band)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Most Word Count » Under Ice A retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's Snow Queen, in which Will changes and Alana travels to save him from the cold ice palace.

Chapters: 6/?

Fandom: Hannibal (TV)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Most Kudos » No Regrets Castiel, the new priest in town, visits a farm only to succumb to his personal temptation in the form of a very straight-forward stable boy.

Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: Supernatural

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Least Hits » Like Glaciers Colliding An episode 6 canon divergence, in which Wang decides to cause In problems on purpose (and also disregard his own). Sexy-sad blowjob fic, with a sprinkle of philosophy and lots of daddy issues.

Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: 180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us (TV)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

I left out some of the categories because they applied to the same works or didn't apply at all. Of course my favorite of them has the least hits but that is the price for writing for a small fandom <3

Tagging: @vendettafrank @hauscrashburn @jellokiel and @returning-spring <3

[gallavich-annise]

AO3 Wrapped!

Thank you to @blue-disco-lights for tagging me 💜.

So I feel like I only just got here... I posted my first ever fic to AO3 in August, and it's the first fanfic I've written since my uni days... But I have written fanfic this year! And kind of for two different fandoms!

1. How many words have you written this year? 11,549 posted. I'd have to start up my laptop to tally my wips, but it's something like 55k more in fanfic (not counting all the editing work I did on my OG novel before I fell down the Shameless rabbit hole).

2. How many works did you publish this year? 4

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits) haha... Hard to say. Probably Ian the Ninth because I worked really hard trying to find an intermediate voice between two very disparate properties (Shameless and The Locked Tomb) and I was pleased with how it turned out.

4. What work of yours has the most hits? Who's Mickey?

5. What work of yours got more feedback than you expected? I Want the Gun Back, Harrow. It wasn't much, but I wasn't expecting any... But at least a few people found it and got it and that made me very happy.

6. Favorite title you used. 'I Want the Gun Back, Harrow'. Though my titles weren't especially inspired...

7. If you use song lyrics, which artist's songs did you pull from the most? I used to do that a lot, but haven't at all this year (for posted stuff).

8. Pairing you wrote the most for this year? Ian and Mickey 

9. Favorite pairing you wrote for this year? Ian and Mickey!

10. What work was the quickest to write? Hiccup I wrote it in 40 minutes while sitting in my kid's room waiting for him to go to sleep, and then edited it in not much longer again.

11. What work took you the longest to write? Ian the Ninth.

12. How many WIPs do you have in your docs for next year? Two.

13. What's your longest work of the year? Ian the Ninth.

14. What's your shortest work of the year? Hiccup

15. What WIP are you taking into next year with you? Nothing posted, as I haven't got any multi chapters in progress on AO3... But I'll be working on my orchestra AU, and I still intend to continue/write my figure skating AU.

16. What's your most common "Additional Tags" tag? Crossover! Thank you my beloved Shameless Tomb.

17. Your favorite character to write this year? Surprisingly I think Ian. Surprising because I think I prefer reading Mickey pov, but I've written a lot of Ian pov and I've really enjoyed it. Not much in it though.

18. The character who gave you the most trouble writing this year? Harrow... I think I find it easier to translate a character from screen than from a novel, so it was hard finding a suitable voice.

19. What's one pairing you want to explore next year? Ian and Mickey, again.

20. Which work of yours have you reread the most? Hiccup. I wrote it to cheer myself up and it worked, so I reread it quite a lot when I needed to make myself smile.

21. How many kudos in total did you get this year? 180 (and thank you 💜, it's genuinely more than I expected)

22. Which work has the most comments? Hiccup

23. Did you do any collaborative works this year? Nope... I'm still a bit new and the state of my life means I fear deadlines. Maybe someday.

24. Did you write any gifts this year? Again, no, for much the same reason (and I hadn't made many friends yet).

25. Did you receive any gifts this year? No

26. What's your most common category/trope? Dunno... Not a big sample. Enemies to lovers?

27. What do you listen to while writing? Usually a mix of rock and metal, depending on mood. Lately the Cooperative Gameplay playlist and my own playlist of music from Shameless have been significant... And when I'm writing orchestra rehearsals for my au I listen to the music they're supposed to be rehearsing.

28. Favorite work you wrote this year? Probably Hiccup, because it made me smile when I needed it. But I have a massive soft spot for Ian the Ninth, even though (especially because?) it's so very niche and I don't really expect anyone else to like it.

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

I dunno... It's hard to pick a small quotable section because I think the answer is "most of the Ian-Mickey dialogue from Ian the Ninth" but it's too long a section to paste. So here are a couple of my favourite snippets from Ian the Ninth:

This was an actual fighter. This wasn’t some Fourth House baby, or a Fifth House pussy. This was an actual fucking fight. Ian’s eyes were wide, breath quick, and if he hadn’t been busy trying not to die he’d have been grinning.

-

“It means I’m the greatest necromancer of my generation,” Lip said.

Over Ian’s shoulder, Mickey stirred.

His head lifted just a fraction, and his voice sounded in a raspy sneer. “The fuck you are.”

-

“’Oh thanks, man’,” he said, sing-song. “’I fucked myself up, and you saved me even though I’m an asshole who decided to get stuck in a bone.’ Is that where you been all this time? Boning in the basement?”

-

And, from Hiccup:

“You know you look adorable right now,” Ian says.

“Fuck you, no I don’t.”

Hic.

Ian grins again. “Do too. All grumpy and put-upon.”

-

30. Biggest surprise while writing this year? Writing fanfic at all, really. Wouldn't have seen it coming last January.

[mandalhoerian]

I have an urge to talk in Turkish here but I gotta keep it to myself now haha. Your page gives me a sense of comfort with the fact that you're Turkish.

What I was trying to say, that if you feel like no one's is interested in our girl Vera etc or the content/posts you want to make for her here apart from the fic writing, don't think like that because it is your page and your followers follows you for a reason.

But most importantly, what I was trying to say, that Vera gives me so much comfort as a Turkish woman myself like her ( my hair is also wavy like her how her hair gets after rain haha ). I love your Vera content. I just wanted to say that. She is also giving me inspiration for my own oc making. Back in the time I was so hesitant with the thought of making Turkish ocs, but with her and you of course, I started to beat that voice.

i'm answering this a bit late so my apologies! I wanted to say a lot but ramadan has me lazing around not wanting to do anything, so I procrastinated 😭

i know the as bayrakları as as as 🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷 feeling like the last thing I expected to find here was another Turkish RE creator like. It's such a bizarre kinship and comfort, I know how you feel! I'm happy I was able to give it back.

Our girl Vera has me GRINNING, but not to change the subject too much, I know,,, it's a feeling that comes and goes. I used to barely get any interaction regarding her prior to the release of RE4R and when im deep into the hyperfixation i don't care much for feedback, I just create. Like. I guess multiple chapters beyond the 10K threshold are proof of that, looking back i had to be insane to be in it that deep. i remember being like "OMG 180 HITS BETWEEN CHAPTERS THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!" on ao3! 😭 the lack of interest gets to a writer, eventually, i guess, you just want the readers to show they're enjoying to work or not in some way. But the reminder that (some of, at least) my followers follow me for Vera is extremely consoling, thank you so much!

I'm so happy that you like Vera! It's very humbling to hear she as a Turkish woman is resonating with you, I never thought about having any Turkish readers at all when I was working on her... I always thought if I had, would it be cringy or not.

Because us as people really have an inferiority complex and are too self-conscious regarding these things, I remember how literally all of my Turkish writer friends (every single one of them) thought a Turkish main character would be EMBARRASSING in any fandom we would write for. We hated it, and everybody and their other writer friends also did. The idea of a Turkish character was cringy. But when other foreign writers would write Turkish OCs suddenly it was so cool and "AS BAYRAKLARI" .

I had a couple Filipino friends on wattpad who would write Filipino OCs and be so proud of their heritage and how they were incorporating it into the story, like, for example, I had a friend who re-designed and rebranded the planet Alderaan from Star Wars using their culture because the actress who played the queen was Filipino and she was so happy about it. It was so fascinating to me how she genuinely did something so creative and made it work so well. Another Filipino friend did this for Stranger Things, and in the heart of her story was immigrant struggles.

I never really questioned why Turkish people couldn't be like this until I was working on Vera, and her being Turkish started out as a joke. I wanted to immediately scrap it, thinking "no lmao what the fuck of course not" .

If another person did this, I would eat !! it !! up!!

But when I seriously wanted to make her Turkish it was suddenly embarrassing. It was a hard thing to get over. English fanfic reading really wires our brains to accept characters only of foreign nationalities and ethnicities because "it fits the story better" -- we only consume western media and hold it in higher regard.

I understand you so well, and I'm so glad I'm somehow encouraging you on this matter. Because why are we so embarrassed of ourselves?

Thank you for this ask, it really meant a lot to hear all of this! and I'm sorry I really went off on a tangent 😭

[starbudspresents]

Re.Gray 036 - Vampire pt. 6: Repatriation

[ Masterlist ] [ Read on AO3 ] [ Raws ]

Summary: Lavi vs. Krory. Meanwhile, Eliade and Allen reveal their true colours.

Volume 4, Chapter 36

Vampire of the Lonely Castle ⑥: Repatriation

♦ 175

36th Night - Vampire of the Lonely Castle ⑥: Repatriation

♦ 176

sfx: DON BAAN gagah [various battle noises, as Lavi and Krory go at it hammer and teeth in the cemetery garden]

Lavi: ...In short, Akuma are weapons1 wearing human skin! Krory: That so.

Lavi: So it's Akuma blood you've been sucking, okay?

Krory: That so. Krory: But wait? If that were true, should I not be dead of its poison? Krory: I find your tale hard to credit. sfx: zah [he and Lavi break apart momentarily]

Lavi: Heh. Actually, I can think of others who've survived it. Lavi: This is what I'm thinking: Lavi: Akuma poison doesn't work on you because, like Allen, you're a parasitic-type Accommodator. Lavi: And you've unconsciously only gone after Akuma...

♦ 177

Lavi: Those crazy-hard teeth of yours are Innocence, right?

Krory: ......

Lavi: You like hunting Akuma? Join up with us and you'll never run out. Lavi, side: Red-carpet welcome! Lavi: You're strong, so to make you listen, Lavi: it looks like I've gotta go all-out. Lavi: So tell me yea or nay when you come to, yeah? sfx: zu [a ring of seals springs up in the air around the hammer 2] Lavi: Krow. ♪ 3

♦ 178

sfx: baki baki baki [Allen's ribs creaking under the pressure of Eliade's tightening grip]

Allen: cough Allen: hack Allen: cough

Eliade: What's the matter? You were breathing fine a second ago. Eliade: I'll crush your ribcage if you don't fight back, you know?

Allen: ——... Allen: wheeze... Allen: ——...

♦ 179

Allen: ? Allen: It's hot... Allen: I'm losing my grip... Allen: It's like something is sapping the strength from my whole body. Allen: My senses are fading... Allen: I'm sleepy...

sfx: dokah [Eliade punches him hard in the face with her free hand] Eliade: No? No reaction? Eliade: Or don't you have the guts to fight?

sfx: bota bota [books fall from the shelves around Allen's shoulders] Allen: ......

Eliade: Perhaps Arystar did you some real damage.

♦ 180

Eliade: Well, then.

Allen: I mustn't... Allen: Mustn't fall asleep. Allen: Can't feel the pain, or anything else... Allen: My senses are numb. Allen: If I fall asleep, I'm dead. Allen: Talk. Allen: Come on, think. Allen: We have no... intention of... slaying Arystar Krory... Allen: So there's... no reason to fight...

Eliade: Ah. Eliade, side: It speaks.

Allen: He may... be neither vampire... nor monster... Allen: but rather... one of us...

sfx: baki [Eliade hits him hard across the face, no longer smiling]

♦ 181

Eliade: Aha! Eliade: Ahahahahaha!! sfx: doka baki doka baki goki dogo goki dogo [vicious successive hits, sound changing as his face gets pulpy] Eliade: Ahahahaha!! Eliade: One of you? Don't make me laugh. sfx: DON [she slams him back into the shelves with both hands] Eliade: He is a vampire! Eliade: You think I'll let you take him...?

♦ 182

Eliade: This is why Eliade: I have to kill you. sfx: dokan [impact]

sfx: dosah [Allen slumps bonelessly to the floor, prone] sfx: nuh [Eliade produces a wood axe]

Eliade: Off with your head. sfx: goh [she approaches] Eliade: I'll drain the blood from your body and hang it it from the gate, sfx: goro [she kicks him over onto his back] Eliade: so that no one will ever come near this castle again.

♦ 183

sfx: nu [she lays the blade against his throat] Eliade: I'll save some face if I offer his life in place of Krory's.4

sfx: ZAN [she swings]

♦ 184

Eliade: !! sfx: gugugu... [she strains, but Allen holds the blade fast in his left hand and it won't budge] sfx: gugu [still trying] Eliade: Tch. Eliade: Still got some juice, huh. sfx: gugugu [his grip remains tight and unyielding] Eliade: !! Eliade: Wait, he's... Eliade: unconscious...!?

♦ 185

sfx: gikin [the red hand tightens and the axe-blade shatters] sfx: kah [a sudden light shines in Eliade's face] Eliade: !?

♦ 186

sfx: DO [Eliade jumps back, wounded in the chest but not fatally] sfx: zuzu [the arm makes the zipper noise] sfx: haa haa haa [Eliade panting] sfx: dokuh dokuh dokuh [Eliade's heart thundering] Eliade: What is he? Eliade: His left arm is moving on its own!?

♦ 187

sfx: zu zu zu [a black pentacle appears over his closed left eye in a slow, twisted knot] sfx: ZU [it finishes unfurling, an ornate capital D forming in the center] sfx: shu... [a wisp emerges from it] sfx: shuru... [the wisp slowly takes the shape of a skull, black pentacle blazoned across the top and D written above its left eye socket]

♦ 188

sfx: kah [it stares at Eliade, sees her, and she feels it like a physical blow]

Eliade: !?

Mana?: I'm home, Allen. Mana?: The darkness has returned... sfx: zuuu... [the skull begins to retreat back into Allen's head without losing its shape, phasing through his skin and bone] sfx: zubububu [there seems to be some resistance, an almost elecrical buzzing at the boundary being crossed]

♦ 189

Allen: My senses have returned...

sfx: kachin [the skull settles comfortably into place within Allen's, ghostly black tail dangling into his throat; Allen's cursed eye, healed, opens for the first time since Road stabbed it out, and it's pitch black]

♦ 190

Allen: So you're an Akuma. sfx: sutoh [his left arm sets him lightly on his feet]

sfx: jujujuju [Eliade's wound churns with scales and little gears] Eliade: Strange boy...

Allen: It's returned again. Allen: This black-and-white world.

♦ 191

Mana?: Welcome home.5

Allen: I'll have to eat my words. sfx: vuvu VU [Innocence thrumming, now in controlled cannon form] Allen: Seems there is reason to fight.

END OF VOLUME 4 - MARSHALS IN DISTRESS

♦♥♦

FOOTNOTES

Mismatch: Kanji: 兵器 heiki "weapon" Furigana: メカ meka "mecha"

Lavi calls Akuma "mechas", which is an interesting reversal; normally, with mechas, the squishy human bit is on the inside, piloting, and the metal is the outer skin being piloted, but Akuma are the perfect opposite. [ ♠ ]

Starting from the frontmost, counterclockwise: - 天 (heaven) - ? - 木 (wood) - ? - 火 (fire) - hidden behind Lavi - ? - 地 (earth) - ? - 水 (water) [ ♠ ]

Original: クロちゃん kurochan "Kro-chan". Kuro also means "black", of course, so there's a bit of wordplay there I can't preserve. Opted to add a little to make up for it, playing on "black" and "has wings, or something like them". [ ♠ ]

This is a reference to her mission as an Akuma; she hasn't killed Krory as she was supposed to, so she's hoping killing an Exorcist will make up for that somewhat. [ ♠ ]

I'm pretty sure this is what the chapter title "Repatriation" is referring to; that word describes the return or restoration of a person to the country of their birth or citizenship, the return of an exile to the place where they belong. Here, the curse is welcoming Allen back to the monochrome world, which he was temporarily exiled from by his injury. (Will have to be careful when typesetting to make it clear through font which of them is speaking through this section. It's obvious in Japanese because the curse speaks mostly in katakana, while Allen's thoughts are normal, but English only has the one alphabet.)

Also, I know it's a bit awkward, but where I used the word "return" three times in short succession at the end there, those were (also somewhat awkwardly) all the same word in Japanese, 戻ってきた modottekita. I don't know how significant that is but it struck me. [ ♠ ]

[nedjemetsenen]

Giving Meaning to AO3 Kudos

So, you published a story on AO3 and you’re starting to collect kudos. What are these magical things and how do you know if you’re doing well? As someone who plays around with kudo statistics for fun, here’s what I’ve learned:

1. Most people don’t leave kudos.

Look at some of your favorite stories (the ones that are both fun AND well-written) and you’re going to see that the hit-to-kudo ratio is shockingly low. Like, 15% or less and 15% is RARE. You’re lucky if you get one-in-ten people to hit that kudo button. So don’t be discouraged if you get 50 hits and 5 kudos. Those are actually great numbers!

2. The more popular your story is, the worse that the hit-to-kudo ratio can be.

Look at the front page for any fandom (sorted by kudos) and you’ll find that many of the top stories don’t even have a 5% hit-to-kudo ratio. There are a few reasons for this. The first one is simply that people are going to give a popular story a chance even if it’s not something that they’d normally read, so you get hits from people outside of your intended readership. Those people give it a look, confirm that it’s not for them, and then click off. That’s a hit you wouldn’t have had in a less popular story and those add up. The same thing can happen for long fics where people see your story in their feed again and again, so they finally give it a look, only to confirm that they were right and it’s not for them. That’s not the only issue with long fic hit counts, though!

3. Longer fics have worse hit-to-kudo ratios than short fics

The other reason that you might see terrible hit-to-kudo ratios for front page fics is that a lot of the top fics are long fics and longer stories tend to have worse hit-to-kudo ratios. My theory on this is that it has a lot to do with how AO3 tracks hits. If you’re logged into an account, then you count as 1 hit. If you’re not logged in, then you get counted based on IP address, meaning that one person can get counted multiple times if they’re reading over multiple devices or on one device over multiple connections. I played around with my phone once and I was able to give 2 “kudos” to the same fic (as a guest) because I started reading at home and then finished reading while at work, meaning that my IP changed. I was also able to give another kudo from my personal computer. So that’s 1 me counting as 3 separate hits. I made up for it by giving kudos for each one, but most readers won’t know to do that.

This issue is not going to have a large impact on short stories where people read it in one go, but for a longer story? Yeah, you’re going to see artificial hit inflation. I’m going to give an example of this by looking at the homepage for the MCU fandom. (Which I’m using because it’s popular, meaning a large reader base to help normalize the data, and I used to be in it, so I know which stories are worth recommending)

Mistake on the Part of Nature by idiopathicsmile clocks in at a single chapter with just 1,274 words. It has 306,790 hits and 30,410 kudos, giving it a hit-to-kudo ratio of 9.9%

Hide A Heart Of War by RayShippouUchiha has two chapters and 13,617 words, which is still within the single sitting length for most readers. It has 245,554 hits and 20,298 kudos, giving it a hit-to-kudo ratio of 8.2%

This, You Protect by owlet has 33 chapters and 64,326 words. It has 575,980 and 23,340 kudos, giving it a hit-to-kudo ratio of just 4.1%!

All of these fics are awesome, all of the fics are rated T, and all of the fics of similar quality in writing, but as the chapter and word counts goes up, the hit-to-kudo ratio goes down.

This is true even if you control for author. Here’s the numbers for the three stories I’ve finished in the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom (the number in red is the hit-to-kudo ratio):

My long fic might be the most popular in total hits and kudos, but its ratio sucks compared to my short fics.

4. Know what good numbers are for your fandom

I found the lack of meaning behind kudos annoying, so I went into the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom (where I’m currently writing) and took a look at what counted for good kudo numbers to give myself a goal. It’s a smaller fandom, so the kudo numbers are NEVER going to rival the MCU fandom's. There’s just not that many readers. In the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom, anything over ~365 kudos means that you’re in the top 1% of stories (by kudos). Knowing that gave me something to aim for and a reason to get excited when I hit certain kudo milestones. I don’t recommend doing this with short stories because short stories easily fall off the radar, but it’s a fun thing to track with long fics! It certainly gave meaning to the kudos when I was writing Ma’at and that matters because comments are sparse! (More on that in a bit)

5. Explicit stories don’t follow the usual rules

I don’t personally enjoy smut for smuts sake, so I don’t read a lot of sex-heavy stories (I prefer it as a spice, not the main dish), but I have noticed that sex-heavy stories tend to have a much lower hit-to-kudo ratio than stories that are clean or even other E stories that only have a handful of explicit scenes. Not sure what to make of that, but I figured that I should call it out so that the smut writers of the world don’t look at this guide and assume that their awesome writing is bad because the ratios are off!

In Summary:

Don’t just look at how many kudos you have to see if people like your story. Keep in mind that your hits count, too. More hits, more kudos! If you’re working with short fics, a hit-to-kudo ratio of around 10% is great! For long fics, 4% is really good. When I was writing Ma’at, I had an initial hit-to-kudo ratio of about 12%, but it dropped WAY down as the word count grew higher. I’m expecting my current long fic to trend the same. It’s currently at a lovely 12.3%, but I don’t expect THAT to last.

A Note on Comments

No matter how popular your story is, you’re never going to see a lot of comments

My story, Ma’at, is currently in the top 50 stories for Yu-Gi-Oh (sorted by kudos). I have almost 700 kudos and I had over 180 subscribers while the story was in-progress. In spite of that, I never saw more than 25 comments on a given chapter and even that was pretty rare. I normally clocked in between 10 and 15 once the story got popular. This is why I started to look into kudo statistics. Those were my main source of feedback and I wanted to find meaning in them.

[incorrect-koh-posts]

After the anon who talked about the early years of the KoH fandom, I wanted to add my thoughts if that's okay!

I can definetly say that this fandom didn't die, or is tiny that much. After writing my own story and seeing many other successful ones in AO3, people who read for specifically Baldwin has gone up quite a lot.

Considering my story had 1941 hits yesterday night and now has 2085... I guess, me being the only one who still writes for the fandom- or one of the few ones- also affects...

Anyways, it's good to see people do what they enjoy and I'm glad we're all gathered here like the history nerds we are!

Yeah, you've got a good point there. I'd still say the fandom is a tiny one since we've got under 100 fics on AO3 and about 180 on FFnet, most of which are unfinished and very old. In between about 2016 and 2019, I would even go as far as to say the fandom was mostly dead; the way I see it, it only started to rise again in popularity with the pandemic.

But yes, you are right: The Baldwin stories tend to be hugely popular regardless of length and / or quality. Anything else, however - and believe me, I am speaking from experience here, since I am one of the other writers who still write fic for KoH (currently doing a rewrite of my story) - might as well prepare to dwindle into a sad, unremarked grave because there simply is zero interest in things other than Baldwin.

I do realise my view is probably a bit warped here since I am clown enough to write fic for a character who isn't Baldwin and can count myself lucky if I get so much as one comment per chapter. But I thought I might offer my perspective on things as well. So yeah, while I am absolutely happy for the authors whose fics are doing well and for the fandom gaining more popularity, it often saddens me that there is so little variety. Like, don't pelt me with stones now, but personally I just don't find Baldwin so terribly interesting that I'd want to read nothing but stuff about him - I would be over the moon to one day have a look at the fandom tag on AO3 and see a new fic about one of my faves. Well, who am I kidding. That's probably never going to happen.

Anyway, it's genuinely great to hear your fic is doing well and you are having a good time writing it. I'll be sure to have a look one of these days - since I am always prattling on about fanfic-related things on here, I might as well spread some love and support for our pen-wielding warriors on AO3. History nerds, unite! 💙

[liquid-luck-00]

When Two Coffee Addicts Unite

Part 1

@maribatmarch-2k21 Day 8: Texting

Ao3 *** Part 2

Okay so this can either be a continuation of Internet Friends or the beginning of something new. But if you want to read this as a continuation of Internet friends then you should know:

The police department is almost as bad as Damocles when dealing with powerful figures. They take the video and audio footage and simply put it in the file. Because at the time Lila still had most or in fact all of the class under her thumb, they all supported Lila’s claim that it was an accident. Lila claims that a sudden dizzy spell struck her, and she fell forwards towards Marinette. And as Mari was already on the edge of the balcony it was an accident. The fact that the file sat in the police department until well after any claim could be valid it wasn’t looked into more. Mari, her friends, and Tim did have backups of the footage, complete records for every interaction with the police, and recorded calls and interactions when dealing with the police. But as they didn’t want to involve the embassy as this would become an international affair they didn’t bother with the case.

That said the police don’t bother with the Miracle Court to avoid work. However, with the Mayor, Medical responders, and the Fire Department all aid the heroes, the police only do the bare minimum.

Marinette’s class has begun to watch Lila, but they didn’t look into her lies because except for this incident it’s just she said she said with occasional ‘injuries’ on Lila. Most of them are wary of Lila but they aren’t converted to Marinette’s side, but there is an increased tolerance between them.

~~~~~~~~~~

Marinette had just sat back at her seat after eating lunch, while the classroom was still empty. There was still half an hour left. Alix, Kim, Nino, Sabrina, and Max walked in as she sat down.

"Marinette you got the time?" Alix called out. They were on somewhat okay terms since Lila’s claims were a total 180 from the Marinette that they have known for forever.

"30 minutes left." she announced looking of her phone and in turn her missed messages.

Tim:

       Mari

       Mari

       Mari

       Nettie

       Marin

       Bean

       Bug

       Marinette

Marinette:

       What's wrong.

Tim:

       I have back to back meetings starting in 3 hrs. until 5.

       and

Marinette:

       Let me guess haven't slept.

Tim:

       Exactly

       Help me please

Marinette:

       How many reports can you send me?

Tim:

       Quite a few

Marinette:

       Send me what you can.

       Review the rest.

       Take a nap!

       And I'll be a little voice during your meeting.

Tim:

       Thanks, I owe you Bean.

Marinette:

I'II hold you to that.

Tim:

       Sent

Marinette:

       Just make sure you wake up.

Tim:

       I make no promises.

       On second thought I don't want to find out how you are mad

She made it through the 15 minutes of class because Lila was akumatized. Lila had burst into the class followed by Alya, Nino, and Adrien. She claimed Mari cornered her in the bathroom and beat her a few minutes ago, showing everyone the 'bruises' on her arms. Chloe handed something to Sabrina who walked up to Lila.

"Oh, you poor thing," Sabrina consoled, Lila only whimpered. "Here this has a salve that helps bruises." She gently took Lila's wrist and wiped a 'bruise' which disappeared instantly.

"That's amazing what is it called?" Alya commented. "I should get some for Nora."

"Make-up remover." Sabrina and Chloe spoke together.

"Besides." Alix butt in. "Marinette's been here the past half hour and hasn't left."

"What?! How do you know?" Lila cried.

"Cause we've been here the whole time with her." Sabrina commented.

Marinette for her part didn't know or hear the conversation around her.

"Marinette. Marinette. Earth to Marinette," Kim shouted.

"Present!" She jolted practically standing. "Wait," she looked around, "class hasn't started."

"What are you hyper fixated on?" Adrien asked innocently.

"Just some reports, don't think you'd like them too much Kit-Kat."

"Fair," he shrugged sitting next to her. "So how were you in two places at once?"

"I can't," her head tilted to the side confusion clear on her face.

"So, if Mari hasn't left, can't be in two places at once, and your 'bruises' came off with make-up remover. How do you explain that Lila?" Adrien around, the class slowly draining their conclusions. However, Marinette spoke up. "She lied, obviously..." she stated having gone back to the reports.

"Um you said that out loud, Cake Pop, and loud at that."

"Huh?" sure enough when she looked around some were shock still, others typed furiously into their phones.

That was when Mrs. Bustier walked in, fifteen minutes late to the class. Which was also when the bandy contained restraint ended. Lila was akumatized, school let out, and the rest of her night went smoothly.

Tim woke up, and with her help survived his meetings. Some while on patrol she would constantly mute and unmute herself. Luckily, it wasn't more than twice, and they didn't run into anyone. Chat didn’t ask questions, figured it out since she was pouring over Wayne documents earlier. Tim would call her back after the private meetings and ended around 10.

At around 11 Tim text her back.

Tim:

      Thanks Bug you saved me today.

Marinette:

      No problem Draco

      You owe me though.

Tim:

      I remember.

      Go to bed it's like midnight over there!

Marinette:

      Yeah Yeah

Tim:

      Ooh

      Congratulations 2x!

Marinette:

      What???

      Please explain.

      Tim

      Tim

      Timothy

      Timothy Drake-Wayne answer me.

      Dragon please

      Ugh fine I'll sleep.

Which is what she did when he wouldn’t answer her.

She woke up the next morning to two emails from W. E.. The first was for a collaboration between W.E. and MDC for a show featuring Wayne Tech accessories and their new climate fabrics. She immediately responded and accepted. The second was that her class was one of two to be accepted as transfer students to Gotham Academy and intern slots at WE, she forwarded that to her teacher and the school.

Marinette:

      You Gremlin

Tim:

      Like I said congrats

      Oh, I need you to give me three names.

Marinette:

      What for?

Her mind was racing at the possibilities.

Tim:

      You'll find out.

Marinette:

      What’s the other school?

Tim:

      Some Prep school in the UK.

Marinette:

      Give me a Sec.

She opened another contact and typed.

Marinette:

      Hey, did you get a spot in the Wayne/GA internship?

Mystery:

      Yes.

      Why?

Marinette:

      Tell the others we are hitting Gotham with style.

Mystery:

      Very well.

Mari then sent three names to him and smiled. This was going to be fun.

Next

~~~~~~~~~~

Permanent Taglist: @itsmeevie01 @adrestar @miraculouspenta @vixen-uchiha

[foxlady3]

I posted 7,584 times in 2022

23 posts created (0%)

7,561 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@hasturswig

@joanhello2

@nikkiscarlet

@aziraphalelookedwretched

@elf-kid2

I tagged 4,993 of my posts in 2022

Only 34% of my posts had no tags

#good omens - 2,353 posts

#good omens fanart - 1,801 posts

#fanart - 1,323 posts

#megamind - 525 posts

#aziraphale - 235 posts

#megamind fanart - 205 posts

#crowley - 180 posts

#good omens fanfiction - 153 posts

#writing - 150 posts

#cats - 147 posts

Longest Tag: 110 characters

#i'm re-reading it and i just love seeing all the little clues that phoebe and maisie are going to get together

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

The final chapter of my fix-it fic, chapter 9: Penguina ex Machina. 

At last, Oswald can finally begin paying Jim back. As much as Jim’s pride will allow, that is. 

8 notes - Posted April 22, 2022

#4

Chapter 25: Inferno is now posted to AO3! 

10 notes - Posted January 30, 2022

#3

Three Fics Tag

I was tagged by @feraltuxedo. Thanks for the tag! :)  I’m supposed to talk about my most popular fic and then list two ‘hidden gems.’

My most popular fic is still a WIP for the Megamind fandom, based on sheer number of hits, is Metro City Zombie War. (Link:  https://archiveofourown.org/works/6686695)

An AU about Megamind fighting a zombie invasion and trying to take care of a Lair full of hapless citizens. This is by far my longest fic, and little did I know that it would grow to such a size or end up encompassing such an enormous range of characters. It compelled me to do research on the infrastructure of the myriad details of running a city, and how catastrophic it is when basic services are inoperable. And then there’s the zombies. I don’t even like zombie stories usually, lol, and yet here we are. I think the way in which people are thrown together and support each other in dire circumstances is the most interesting thing about these sorts of survival situations so that’s most often my focus.

Here’s two hidden gems, one each from my other fandoms, a couple of fics of which I am particularly fond.

Holiday Cheer is from Gotham, featuring my OTP Oswald Cobblepot and Jim Gordon. (Link:  https://archiveofourown.org/works/17408561)

Everyone in Gotham drinks absolutely insane amounts of alcohol, and when Jim inadvertantly snubs Oswald at a Christmas party and Oswald nearly leaves in a huff, Harvey plays wingman, persuading him to stick around a little longer by challenging him to a drinking game. Jim isn’t too thrilled, however, to see the (potential) object of his affection boozing it up with Harvey. Because how can Jim tell Oswald how he really feels if he’s plastered?

My second hidden gem is Rude Awakening for Good Omens. (Link:  https://archiveofourown.org/works/35745175)

I love how fussy and needy Aziraphale can be when there’s something he wants and this fic tickles me every time I read it. The premise is that after their first night of intimacy, Aziraphale gets terribly restless in Crowley’s spartan, bookless apartment waiting for Crowley to wake up and pay some attention to him, and tries to keep busy by finding little chores.

I tag @elf-kid2, @nientedal, @izabella95, @hasturswig, @nikkiscarlet, @janara7, just if you want to play :)

13 notes - Posted August 31, 2022

#2

Now that Doomsday has been averted, Crowley realizes that he needs to apologize for the things he said and did to Azirapahale.

Mostly smut and fluff, with a sprinkle of angst as a treat.

22 notes - Posted February 6, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Here's an idea: Crowley is the landlord. It’s an evil-coded job of which Hell would approve, and he can maintain the properties for his angel, secretly keep out the cut-throat businesses that Aziraphale doesn’t like, encourage the patisseries and lovely little family-owned places that the angel patronizes, etc. All while staying in Hell’s good graces.

Inspired by one of @topcrowley‘s comments once about how Aziraphale has never bought a thing in his life because Crowley is always buying stuff for him.

69 notes - Posted March 13, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[jinmukangwrites]

Whumptober 2021 - October 1 - Bound

Fandom: Nightwing, Batman - All Media Types

AO3

Warnings: Kidnapping, Panic Attacks, Isolation, mentions of IV/needles

---

It’s been hours since Dick’s woken up… here.

“Here” is hard to describe, yet incredibly easy. He can say for sure that at least within the 180 degrees ahead of him, it’s all white. White walls that, if arranged in a mirrored-image behind him, might make a hexagon. The ceiling above him is bright and unforgiving, LED lights dotting the space above him like freckles on Barbara’s cheeks and shoulders. He can’t see any sign of a door ahead of him, and the gray-speckled white tiles that make the floor aren’t particularly enjoyable to look at.

Yeah, describing what he can see about the room is the easy part. The hard part is that behind him? It’s all guess-work. For all he knew, there could be nothing behind him, or a cliff, or… or something ridiculous. There could be a whole manner of things behind him, but it’s impossible for him to get a look because his head is strapped to the cushioned chair he’s forced to sit on.

He hates this. It’s been hours. The chair, while cushioned, isn’t even that comfortable. The way his arms lay on the armrests and his feet come together near the end of the chair suggests a dentist’s chair and a therapist’s sofa had an evil love-child who was into bondage, considering how many straps were buckled in to keep him trapped down.

He’s going to lose his mind. Did he really just make a bondage joke about a chair?!

Anyway, he’s stuck here, his arms pinned down by the wrists, elbows, and under his armpits. Two heavy straps run over each shoulder and cross in the middle of his chest to connect back to the chair near his hips. And speaking of hips, there’s another strap around them too like an old Volkswagen seat belt. More straps around his thighs, knees, and ankles keep his legs locked together and down. That’s not even mentioning the binds that lock around his neck or the one around his forehead that’s fitted to the headrest that seems designed to not let him even attempt to rotate his chin to the side.

It’s horrible, and awful, and cruel, and unusual, and he’s not even that sure why he’s here. All he can tell is that he has a massive headache, his Nightwing mask is on but his suit is gone—replaced by some sort of nightgown that definitely doesn’t seem friendly, and whenever he tenses his arm he can feel a tug in his wrist.

Must be an IV of some sort? It’s strange though, from what he can see he can’t see any medical equipment hanging around him. But it has to be an IV. With his night job, he’s become familiar with the way his lips go dry and how his fingers tremble when the damn needle gets put in his arm.

But… if it is an IV, it must need changing by now, surely. It’s been hours, and those things don’t last that long.

Hours. Sitting here with the feeling of a needle in his arm, not sure where he is or what he’s doing here, nothing to look at besides those Barbara Gordon freckles on the ceiling and those gray speckles on the tile.

He tugs on the restraints for what must be the thousandth time, and growls when nothing happens, as unsurprising it is. All his attempts to slip out of or break the restraints have left him with nothing but bruising and irritated skin. However, he feels so restless and bored out of his mind that tugging on the belts seems to be the only productive thing his brain can think of to do.

He tugs again, and nothing happens. He sighs. Relaxes back. And… tries to think of how he got into this mess.

It’s just as successful as breaking the straps.

-o-o-o-o-

“Okay, I’ll bite,” he calls out to nothing. His eyes hurt, he’s exhausted, he needs to pee and that’s something he doesn’t want to deal with. “What do you want from me, eh?”

Silence. His hands bunch in angry fists and he pulls against the straps hard enough for him to feel the edge bite into his skin.

“Batman’s identity?” He tries, because it’s always about Batman’s Identity (TM). When there isn’t any answer, he continues. “Police secrets?” Nothing. “Superman’s identity?”

Nothing. He growls and glares at the empty walls ahead of him.

-o-o-o-o-

He’s using the pain in his wrists, focusing on the warmth running down the cuts the straps have finally created, instead of the pressure in his bladder.

It only lasts so long.

Great, so now he’s bored out of his mind, stuck, and the room smells horrible. Or, the room smells horrible until whatever unseen vent takes away the reek and the chair dries, leaving him being the only one who’s smelling.

He hates this. He hates this. He hates this.

He jerks against every restraint and snarls in impatience and restlessness. He can feel the cuts tear more, but he’s close to not caring, he longs to move.

If his snarling eventually fades into howls, then he’s almost positive no one is around to hear it other than himself.

-o-o-o-o-

Bruce’s cape settles around his feet as he lands, launching droplets of questionable sewage water up to his knees. Damian lands beside him, the whites of his domino mask narrowed in fierce determination.

It’s been nothing but a series of long hours since the Riddler kidnapped Dick with the clues to his whereabouts left carved into the pavement with abandoned Wing-Dings. During Bruce’s search, a few things became apparent: Dick was trapped, alone, and Bruce had until Dick died from malnourishment once the crude IV he was apparently attached to ran out. Riddler is already behind bars, has been for several hours, but interrogation wont get him to give up his games, and Bruce may be a vigilante and “above the law”, but he wont stoop so low as to torture.

At least, not until things get desperate and Damian’s not around to see. Dick would never forgive Bruce, and will probably never talk to him even in any kind of afterlife.

But it hasn’t come to that, Tim solved the riddle through emails delivered from wherever he’s located with his Young Justice friends. They’re always changing spots, and even if Tim were to come home and solve the riddles in person, it would probably be too late.

It isn’t too late, he reminds himself as Damian takes off down the sewers. They know Dick’s exact coordinates. Bruce almost kicked himself when Tim revealed them, because of course lead to Gotham’s abandoned sewage system.

The way to Dick’s location is a tough one, one riddled (as Dick would say) with traps. But they’re nothing compared to a worried father and a determined brother. They find the door nudged neatly behind a section of brick, and when Bruce opens it he’s almost blinded by the night vision in his lenses adjusting to the sudden attacks of bright lights.

Bruce sees before he hears. His eyes were always one of his favorite senses, which is probably why Damian—a boy who’s had to hear to save his life many times—ran to the chair in the middle of the hexagon-shaped room before him. White walls, white tile, white LED’s to sit in a white ceiling. The back of a padded chair in the center of the room faces him, revealing nothing of what it contains.

And then Bruce hears the screaming. Weak, clawing screaming that sounds like what sandpaper would feel on dry skin. He knows this scream, the tones to it, and within moments he’s running to the front side of the chair with Damian.

Dick’s there… writhing. Blood stains skin and cloth around almost every strap holding him down from struggling that must have been continuing for hours. As Damian tears an IV—the tube feeding him nutrients disappears within the chair; there must be some sort of mechanism keeping it working within its structure—Dick’s struggles like he doesn’t notice the change. His eyes are squeezed shut, tears drip down his cheeks, and his screams are so so hard to listen to. Does he even know they’re here?

“Dick,” Bruce says, knowing there’s no one to hear him with Riddler behind bars and his goons scattered. Dick doesn’t respond, just continues to yowl like a wounded stray cat. Already, Bruce can see the symptoms of prolonged use of an IV and of exhaustion. Has Dick slept at all since being kidnapped?

Damian begins work on one of the straps around Dick’s jerking wrists. Bruce follows suit, quickly, desperately wanting to get his eldest out of here, but he’s forced to abandon his task when the loosened strap on Damian’s side allows Dick to tug his wrist free and move to hit the boy. Bruce catches his hand before the hit can be met.

“LET ME GO!” Dick screeches.

“Dick, we’re helping you,” Bruce shouts back wearily, but Dick doesn’t listen as he begins to babble all kinds of demands similar to let me go. Bruce gives Damian a look. “He’s exhausted and most likely delusional. Our best course of action would be for me to hold him down, and you undo the rest of the straps. Maybe we can get to him without having to risk drugging him once he’s no longer restrained.”

Damian looks all parts of his age as he takes a second to give a shockingly vulnerable stare Dick’s way. The vulnerability only lasts a moment before Damian’s nodding. “Got it.”

The next several minutes are filled with events that will reveal themselves in bruises with the coming days, even through the kevlar. It’s tough work keeping a Dick Grayson down, especially when it’s a Dick Grayson who absolutely refuses to be kept down in the first place. However, eventually they release the last strap around Dick’s other wrist and soon enough, both Bruce and Damian are jumping back and Dick launches himself out of the chair, stumbling to the floor and then falling to his ass when his knees give out. Dick looks pitiful, trapped between wanting to curl up and cry or stand up and run, yet curling up seems to win out as Dick must have no energy to lift himself back up.

“Dick,” Bruce calls again when Dick’s hoarse breathing calms, and this time, hope flutters into his belly when Dick’s shoulder’s tense in response.

“… B…?” comes a horribly weak response, but a response nonetheless. Bruce rushes around the damned chair to where his eldest still sits, curled up and shaking. He reaches out unconsciously, kneeling down to scoop Dick up in an embrace, but stops when Dick violently flinches away.

“Don’t touch me,” he whimpers, “just- I don’t- I couldn’t move-” he breaks into sobs.

Bruce is almost considering returning to Arkham and breaking a few bones. Instead, he lowers his voice and speaks as calmly as he can.

“I understand. But we have to get you back home. Just your arm around my shoulder, and I’ll support you while you walk. Can you do that?”

It’s proof of just how shaken Dick is when it takes a few moments to get a hesitant nod.

Bruce does his best to ignore Dick’s flinching and twitching while, with permission, Bruce helps Dick up and wraps his arm exactly where Bruce said he would. Damian stands a few paces off, looking torn. Bruce tells him to run ahead and bring the bat-mobile closer to the sewer opening while Dick blinks owlishly and gulps like a fish… doing his best to keep down what must be a pending panic attack. Damian thankfully leaves without much argument, and Bruce is left to help his eldest, hyperactive, always moving, always smiling, always stimming in some way or another son out the blasted room and towards freedom with as much control given over to Dick as possible.

“I scared Dami,” Dick whispers through clenched teeth, halfway through the sewage tunnels.

Bruce hums and resists tightening his grip on Dick’s arm. “It’s not your fault. He will not hold it against you.”

“I scared you.”

“… I was scared for you. But right now the only thing that matters is getting you home. Then everything can return to normal”

Dick nods his head, his voice choking in what must be another sob. “Okay,” he whispers, “okay.”

And Bruce silently vows to punch Riddler a little harder the next time he sees him.

But right now, the only thing he cares about is that Dick’s alive, and Bruce is bringing him home.

[timelesslords]

Off-Road Advantage

Read on AO3

In which the gang plays Mario Kart Wii

"Motherfucker!"

"Jeez McLean, language," Percy tutted, looking just as smug as Wario on the screen, celebrating Luigi hitting his banana. He looked less smug when, in the next moment, Piper sent a well-aimed green shell speeding towards his kart.

"Oh shit," he muttered, swerving to avoid it and subsequently falling off the track.

"You're such a hypocrite!" Piper cried, nearly sending Luigi off the edge as she jumped in indignation.

"Just ignore him, he gets weird about Mario Kart," Annabeth said. She was, predictably, winning; sitting on the floor directly in front of the sensor. "It's an only child thing."

"Okay, first of all I am not an only child. Tyson is my brother and technically so is every horse," Percy said, Wario safely back on the track and making up time surprisingly quickly.

"Horses can't play Mario Kart," Jason said. His eyes scrunched up in concentration, despite having been bullied into wearing his glasses by Piper 20 minutes earlier.

Right after making this astute point to Percy, Princess Peach sailed off the edge of the course. Jason sighed. He was, unfortunately, very terrible at Mario Kart. Camp Half-Blood had the privilege of owning a very abused Wii system, but Camp Jupiter had had no such luxury. As such, Jason had very little practice, and did not quite have the finesse required of a decade old Wii remote to make sharp turns.

"Whatever," Percy said, "The point is, I'm not an only child, and I don't get weird about Mario Kart."

"You absolutely get weird about Mario Kart," Annabeth said.

"Only because it's the only thing I can actually beat you at," Percy said, abandoning all pretense about having a normal attitude towards Mario Kart. Annabeth laughed.

"You can't beat me at Mario Kart," Annabeth said.

As if to prove her point, Yoshi sailed across the finish line, holding a solid ten second lead.

"Why the hell do you play with Yoshi, anyways," Piper asked, only a little bit bitter as Luigi rolling over the line in a respectable second place. Waluigi made third, half a second behind Piper. Princess Peach was in 12th, a half-lap behind the nearest computer.

"It's the most efficient," Percy said, nudging the back of Annabeth's head with his knee. She elbowed him in the leg in response.

"Look, the kart has a high drift, the speed is decent and Yoshi has off-roading advantage–"

"You only need off-roading advantage if you can't steer," Percy said. Jason promptly sent Peach flying into a patch of dirt.

"I can steer just fine, it's about not losing acceleration. It's simple math."

"You did math to pick your player and I'm the one who's weird about Mario Kart?"

"You guys are both weird," Piper said, patting Jason's arm sympathetically as the last NPC crossed the finish line, denying Peach a chance to complete her race for the third time in a row.

"You know what, just for that we're doing Rainbow Road," Annabeth said, wielding her player 1 remote like a knife. Piper and Percy groaned.

"What's Rainbow Road?" Jason asked nervously.

"I'm sorry babe," Piper said.

"Yeah Jason, I'm sorry my girlfriend is a sadist," Percy said. Annabeth elbowed at him again, but Percy was expecting it this time and managed to dodge.

The screen surveyed the Rainbow Road course, in all it's twisty, no-railing, rainbow glory.

"Oh no," Jason said sadly.

"Think of who you're hurting with this, Annabeth," Percy said, "Jason doesn't deserve this."

"Jason is necessary collateral damage. Sorry, Jason."

"It's alright. I lose every course anyways," Jason said, sounding very resigned to an unenjoyable four minutes.

"Your biggest issue is that you turn too hard, you only need to go 45 degrees for a light curve, not a full 180," Annabeth said. The course counted down to one, and Yoshi shot forward ahead of everyone, already pulling a lead.

"Don't keep bringing math into this," Piper groaned, tossing a green shell in Annabeth's general direction. It sailed harmlessly off the side of the course.

"It's the easiest way to explain it!" Annabeth protested.

Jason experimentally turned the remote a fraction of his usual degree. Peach skirted along the edge of the track, but mercifully did not fall.

"See, it worked," Annabeth said, biting her lip as Yoshi made a tight turn.

Another kart bumped into Jason's, and Peach rocketed off the side of the track.

"Kind of worked," Annabeth amended, "That wasn't about the steering."

"I think Jason is just cursed," Percy said. Wario was pulling a solid 5th place, having been hit by several shells right out of the gate. He was gaining speed though, and coming up on some item boxes.

"I think I just suck," Jason said, as the cloud fairy dropped him back on the track in his usual 12th place.

"You just need practice," Piper said, rather generously. Luigi was in second place, not too far behind Yoshi, but far enough that she would need an item or a major fuck-up on Annabeth's part to make first.

"You need a Bullet Bill," Percy said, crashing into an item box.

"What's that?" Jason asked, but Percy was too busy laughing to answer. His item had settled on a blue shell.

"Percy, if you send that at me I swear I will break up with you," Annabeth said, sounding deadly serious as Yoshi passed into his second lap.

"No you won't," Percy said cheerfully, clicking the appropriate button. The shell whizzed away, and Annabeth sighed deeply.

"I hate you."

"No you don't."

"In this moment? Yes I do."

The blue shell circled around Yoshi once, then slammed down into his kart. Piper was close enough to get caught in the blast, and she groaned loudly.

"Fuck you Percy," She said, shaking her controller, trying to revive Luigi quicker. It was no use; Wario sped past the two lopsided karts, Percy laughing all the while.

"Your days are numbered, Jackson," Annabeth said dryly.

"Ooh, we're doing last names now Chase?" Percy taunted, unaffected by her tone. He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying Wario's lead, making him do a rather excessive flip off one of the ramps.

Meanwhile, Jason had managed to snag a Bullet Bill in an item box, but when it dropped him off at the end of his run, Princess Peach was still in last place.

"Aw man," Jason sighed, dejected.

"Dude, I'm about to lap you," Percy said, frowning at Jason's quarter of the screen.

"I keep falling off," Jason said.

"Try slowing down," Annabeth suggested.

"That sounds counter-productive."

"You're only falling because you can't control the kart at the velocity you're hitting," Annabeth said, knowledgably, "If you slow down a bit it'll be easier to steer."

"Are you sure you aren't using the remote Leo junked out?" Piper asked, risking a glance at Jason's remote. It was grungy and beat up, but didn't look any different than the other equally grungy and beat up remotes.

"I think I'm just not built for this."

"Jason Grace. Son of Jupiter, Praetor of Rome, Titan Slayer. Bested by Mario Kart Wii," Percy said, as he lapped Jason's kart.

"It's hard!"

"Don't worry babe, I'll get him back," Piper said, also passing Jason, only she had a red shell in store. She shot it at Percy and it hit it's target easily. She slammed into Percy's kart for good measure, and Wario ricocheted off the course.

"I probably deserved that," Percy said glumly.

"You definitely deserved that." Annabeth said.

"Can we do a course with walls next?" Jason asked, driving Peach at a snail's pace, making every turn but not gaining any ground.

"Yeah, we wouldn't want Annabeth's off-road advantage to go to waste," Percy said.

"Excuse me, I haven't fallen off this course once," Annabeth said primly, getting a mushroom and using it to overtake Piper seconds before they both crossed the finish line.

"How the hell do you come in first every single time!" Piper exclaimed, throwing her remote down on the couch cushion in frustration.

"Math," Annabeth said, stretching triumphantly as Yoshi took a victory lap.

"It's literally just dumb luck," Percy said, rolling over the finish line in 5th place, "I think Connor Stoll rigged player one to always win."

"I can beat any of you with any remote," Annabeth said, waving her hand dismissively.

"Well, we all can beat Jason," Percy said.

Peach was once again cemented into 12th place as the last computer-controlled kart crossed the finish line.

"I could beat you in a real fight," Jason said, but it came out particularly half-hearted, what with Peach crying into her hands on the screen.

"Nah, you couldn't," Percy said cheerfully, "Though, if we wanted to test that–"

"No," Piper and Annabeth said, simultaneously.

"Relax! I was going to say we should play Smash, I know it's around here somewhere–"

"Oh, you are so on." Piper said, picking up her controller again.

"What's smash?" Jason asked, apprehensive.

"It's easier," Piper promised.

"Can I fall off things?"

"Mm, only about half of the time. You can choose someone who flies, though."

Jason's eyes brightened.

"I like flying."

"Just think of it like this," Percy said, clapping Jason on the shoulder, "You can't be worse at this than you are at Mario Kart."

"That's good enough for me."