#this is an approximate word count of all 3 chapters so far

[mrs-luigi-vargas]

3 chapters out of 4 done!!! This fic has gotten so long lmaooo how did I think this would be done before the movie

[vampyrial]

A World For Her Alone | Born of Love

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18

cw (chapter specific): threats of violence, assault, parents talking horribly about their children

summary: Mothers of us, be kind to the fathers on whom we rely.

word count: 4.0k

Claude watched your mother fall to the floor but threw himself down with her all the same. He gripped her by her shoulders, as though the truth he had scoured this house for was only awaiting his anger to draw back from the void as her life slipped away. He called into the hall for help but he sounded not frightened or even desperate but commanding, like his superiors. Like the men who trained him when he was just a child, trying to wield more from his pathetic body than he was willing to give. He knelt on the floor with your mother’s body as she gurgled blood and his grasp never faltered. He looked into the dark, waning pits of her eyes and tried to conjure the answers she’d die with.

Like everything, it was no use.

Your father, having stumbled upon a baffling scene that should have tried the endless patience he held for the lord, still questioned Claude with a gentleness that sickened him. “Was there anything unusual before this?” Your mother lay, already dead, in her bed with the two of them standing at the foot of it. And though he hated your mother with a fervor that begged him to crush her bones under his heel, what angered him more was the fact that the reverence had not ended when he had every reason to believe that Claude had a hand in his wife’s death. The falseness of all of it threatened to overwhelm him.

He allowed it.

He grabbed your father by the collar of his shirt, the man’s body even neglected to flinch immediately, he was that far removed from the harm Claude could do. “Unusual is the entirety of this farce.”

“My Lord–” Your father began, fear only just beginning to darken the edges of his eyes.

“You will tell me what you know of a certain princess and knight I read about in a frivolous story sitting on your shelf.” Claude’s grip did not relax, he flexed his fingers, yearning to curl them around your father’s neck.

Your father’s face betrayed an instant recognition but he held himself aloft from it. “Lord Claude, we all act impulsively when life challenges us this way but let you not sully your own reputation with violence against your family.”

A frenzied and crazed laugh slipped from Claude’s lips and he bared his teeth in some odd approximation of a grin. He could not believe the audacity of it. He was so tired of normal. So sick of it that he could let himself die right then. Still, he pressed on, willing the information from your father’s body as he had done to prisoners before. “Diana’s mother. Who is she?” Your father’s eyes went flat as though he’d recoiled in on himself for protection, already having decided defending himself was not an option. “That…why do you wish to know?” He had stopped pretending there was nothing to know.

“Does she hold it over you, father-in-law?” Claude sneered. “Does Diana use her magic to keep you in her thrall?”

A spark of something ignited and your father was dragged back from the depths of memory. “Diana uses nothing, know of nothing, my lord. Is that truly not apparent to you?” He wrenched himself from Claude’s grip suddenly, holding out his arms in a gesture that signified that he’d tread carefully. Claude allowed him to step back, believing his explanation to follow. “Can you not see her perfect innocence in this? She is above the madness she was born amidst.”

Claude had given him every chance to speak sense, the tips of his fingers were growing cold and numb. The acrid stench of her blood on his clothes and his hands grew difficult to even breathe through, it was everywhere, traces of blood were everywhere in this house. And still he might add more. He unsheathed his sword partially from his belt to which your father did not flinch. “My Lord, I need only know what becomes of Diana, what of her and your child if you act this way.”

What becomes of them? Claude laughed again, the world ebbing with flashes of blurred daylight as he felt himself descend with each gasped breath. He was greeting the pits of madness, he could feel it. Reality was disintegrating again. “I’ll leave here and kill them both now if I don’t have my answers.”

Your father’s expression turned to shock, as though he believed…as though he truly believed in what was sold to him by a self which had retreated. Claude— not the one with a grotesque and near calculable perfection in his single-mindedness, but the one who had been buried underneath, was the only thing left behind to speak but your father did not know him. He could not comprehend that there had ever been a part of him that could not only feel apathy toward Diana but one which could actively hated her. Claude thought placidly that he was soon to sink, collapsed under the weight of this dichotomy and the madness it inspired. “Diana’s mother, the princess.” Your father stared with a sort of wonder into Claude’s eyes, trying to weigh how to proceed in a conversation with a once tamed and now feral animal. “She is gone now, you must have heard it even if before you did not know her significance.”

Somewhere in his memory, he felt around for a name he’d heard but it was difficult, for all of time and thought revolved around this agony. And reality had scarcely moved with the stability it had before, it bisected so that he was of two minds and of two lives at once. Still, he managed to draw a whisper from the depths of his lives. A princess of Siodonna who had been her elder sister’s heir, had succumbed to an unknown illness. The kingdom’s future was uncertain and as his father-in-law and his country at large had ties to them, it had been their concern too. That princess, the immaterial one who had no face and name in face of the consuming thing thoroughly within and without his mind. Nothing had any definition that was not given by Diana’s gaze and Diana treated your mother as her own, the only mother she would ever know. He’d had no reason to care. “She was a mage? She crafted this…” He realized he didn’t know how to describe what it was he was afflicted by. Especially to someone like your father, who seemed like he’d have willingly given in to a life of toil for Diana’s love were he in Claude’s place. “This life.”

“I know little of her work, or I– I knew little. She cast some spell on our princess, perhaps it is so that she gave her this life with you.” Your father compulsively smoothed his clothes out, rearranging himself where Claude had disheveled his neat appearance. “If it is true then…forgive me, Lord Claude but I do not see it as a bad thing. I can’t understand why you would. Is it not a good thing?” He smoothed the lapels of his shirt with a quivering smile. “Something was given to you, Lord Claude, by ordinance of magic that is so very rare in this world. Should you not treasure it?”

Claude could have lunged for him again. Instead, though, he drew his sword in warning. Your father, undeterred, only smiled. “My Lord…No matter what, Diana is a gift to you, whether the princess’ or god’s. Why do you only pretend to scorn her now? Is it out of guilt for her elder sister? She made her own bed, she made it easy for fate to find its way between you. In your love with Diana, she was just happenstance, don’t you think? Wasn’t it always going to be that you two would find a way?”

Another frisson of light and reality rearranged again. Claude was kneeling on your father’s chest with one hand around the man’s throat and the other holding his sword above the man’s head as though he were keen to put it right through his eye.

“My Lord, what is going on?” Felix appeared in the doorway, a hand on his sword which stayed sheathed despite Claude obviously meaning to hurt your father. His voice didn’t sound panicked as it should, he sounded truly conflicted. His eyes flitted from him to your father again and again, his gaze tense but tinged in something akin to…amusement. Yes, it would make sense that he’d be amused by. If Felix hated Claude then he must surely had a father who’d been treating you poorly far before. Perhaps he was debating letting both of them kill each other.

“You may go,” your father replied, placidly. He was panting and clearly a bit afraid but he spoke calmly. “Do not intrude on us, Lord Claude and I were caught in a misunderstanding.”

Felix raised an eyebrow but did not disobey, turning on his heels and closing the door behind him with a click, his pride as a knight long forgotten. Claude would have killed him without a second thought had anything interrupted them, he was tied to a singular desire that was the only thing holding him to earth. Whether it be your father, your knight or his very own child, he’d not let anything stop him. If he did, this life would yet again be nothing but wasted time and wasted agony. He looked down at your father. “I don’t care at all if your mother was a brazen courtesan who let your father knock you about like a disobedient dog if it meant that she could let other men fuck her for position. I don’t care if you feel nothing when you see your wife cold and dead. The cruelty you visit upon your first daughter, that will be repaid. I will see it repaid.” The voice that came out of him was guttural like the call of animal. “But not before I know who put this story to paper. You say you know little of her work but it seems that someone must. Who are they?”

“Lord Claude, pardon me, but if you could find someone to give you what answers you wish to hear…what would it change?” He huffed, struggling to breath under Claude’s weight. “She was never my daughter, that girl. I never felt like her father, she…she was more omen than a child. She was born from me and the misery ever above me. I don’t know who she most took after. If you believe there was a spell that compelled you toward my little princess, then it must have been intended as a blessing for you as much as her. There’s no reason for lies, My Lord, there’s no one here to pity anymore. You could never have loved that girl, it might have been enough for her just to do her duties to you but she was so vicious, so hateful. She has never been innocent a day in her life, always had to be reminded of herself. It would have compounded your misery, that I know, Lord Claude. Believe that I know my own blood even if she has never been held in my arms as a daughter.”

A punch landed on your father’s nose, Claude could feel a part of the bone split. He wished for his gauntlet, wished for the pleasure and ease of watching your father’s face turn into a grotesque portrait of his own viciousness in moments. “I’m not you.” The words came out in a rhythm, like the warning song of a bird of prey.

Your father, with blood all over his face and still gushing from his nose, smiled and revealed the blood on his teeth as well. He was fully crying then, gasping little breaths and squeezing his eyes shut. “No…you’re not me. You have had a fate…that I…might have died for.”

“I will have my way. I must have my way. If not, I will take from you the last shred of that princess you so loved. I will kill them both.” Your father’s eyes popped open, red with blood and terrified. This time, he had no reason to believed that Claude could be swayed from the boundary of anger and a will to see bloodshed done. He took a long and trembling breath in through his mouth, madness defeated under the weigh of Claude’s own. “I saw the book long ago, I’d heard…whispers about it. I bought it from…a common woman’s bookstore, the author called himself…Lucas, I wanted to know…who could know our story so intimately and who could dare publish it but I…I went to where the woman said he’d last lived and he was not there, in fact…it looked like no one had lived there in some time.”

“Where?”

“Right here in this county, I could not believe…across the road from where that shabby little theater is.”

A noise sounded at the door a woman’s voice muffled, sounding pleading against the voice of Felix, giving her what sounded like short and rather curt answers. Your father’s head whipped toward the noise and for the first time, he struggled underneath Claude. “My Lord, I ask that you not let my daughter see this. Whatever you feel for her, she has done nothing wrong.” Claude hesitantly climbed off of him, having gained the answers he’d sought. It had little to do with sparing Diana and more to do with the fact that he could move forward, finally. Claude swung open the door and barged past both Felix and his frantic wife with their daughter in tow, sucking at her thumb. He might not have even noticed there was still blood on his hands if he did not see it in he way their expressions mirrored each other as he walked past. Though their daughter took after Diana most in the first place, fear made them doppelgangers, the sight of him rid his wife’s face of the mature and practiced expression she wore. She looked as young as when they first met.

He pushed past.

“Claude! Oh my god, are you hurt?” She followed after him, letting go of her daughter’s hand trying to stop him from proceeding. “What happened?” She stood in front of him. “Where are you going.

“I’m leaving.” He started to walk around her but Diana put her arms out, moving with him.

“Don’t,” He warned. It was a bit laughable that she was using her body as a shield to keep him from walking away because she presumed he’d not harm her to pass. All the while, the harm he did to her would be negligible in his mind, one drop of her fair, precious blood in a sea of viscera.

“Don’t what? Don’t stop you from leaving when you’re covered in blood?” She cried. “What is wrong with you? Talk to me, please. They’re saying my mother is dead and you…you were there with her. No one will tell me what’s going on.”

“Yes, I was there.” He affirmed easily. A little smile rose at the corners of his lips. “Forgive me, I should be the one to tell you what has been going on.”

She was not soothed but she relaxed somewhat, her gaze growing expectant. She reached out for his arm, perhaps trying to console whatever it was she saw in his expression and the blood drying on his clothes. He took her by the shoulders instead, unable to keep his grip gentle when he had the object of so many miseries between his fingers. His daughter called for him but her voice had simply become part of the chorus of little voices lost to deaths behind him. He did not know her voice from the ones he dreamed of, the voice of the colicky little infant he’d left behind. “Everything in this house has always been for your sake, Diana. Everyone has lived just to give you more but no one paid the price like your sister did. Did you not see that? Or perhaps did you think it was her duty, to be expected that she should survive off of scraps just so that you could have more.”

Diana’s brow furrowed, she did not look nearly as afraid of him as she should have been. She did not approach him with nearly as much caution. “What?”

“Your mother devoted her life to caring for you. Promised to you. Your father holds you like a relic of the past, a keepsake of your mother. But while we’re at it, let’s speak of your mother. They never spoke to you about her, did they? I’ll be the one who does, after all, I am your savior. It is the least I can do.” He stared down at her. “Your mother was poisoning you to keep you inside the house, safe and sound. Did you know? No, of course not, this woman was a slave to your care. What could you think to do other than swallow up her lies?”

“Poisoning me? Claude, you’re not making sense, you’re hurting me.”

“Everything does,” He said simply. “Everything hurts you. Save for the pleasure of your actions. The fallout hurts you, the secret hurts you but never the act. Only how it looks. Did you ever consider your own sister when you spent your days throwing yourself at me?” It wasn’t fair to speak to her of these things as though he had no part in it but what had ever been fair about any of his lives? She could shoulder her share of it. He’d make her. “If it were her, you’d have never forgotten but that’s the point, isn’t it? It’s you so it’s acceptable, you, the poor, sick little darling. Maybe you felt like you deserved it even if you felt a bit sorry, you always came back to that fact. Your mother gave you the chance to excuse yourself this way, maybe you’d have been glad all along to know what she was doing. Maybe it would give you reason to be saved, reason greater than your sister’s.”

Your father came out of the room, blotting his nose with a soaked handkerchief. Diana looked over Claude’s shoulder in horror, letting out a gasp. “Lord Claude. Please. Leave her be.” He was swaying on his feet a bit but Felix did not offer his arm.

Claude paid him no mind. “Your mother was a mage, beloved by your miserable father. I read it in your mother’s diary, it’s still in her room if you wish to read every word your mother inspired. She put a spell on you but your magic was also great, did you know that? Or did you cast this spell on me by sheer will?” He paused, waiting to hear her answer, as though she would give one. He had not realized until then that he wanted her to. He wanted her to have known.

“Let go of me! Don’t do this in front of your daughter, you’re frightening her!”

His fingers flexed, grasping her tighter. “Tell me. Is this love the doing of all that wasted magic buried in a weak body?”

“I truly don’t know what you’re talking about, Claude, please. I love you.” She pleaded, teary eyed. Her tears…for some reason inspired a burning hatred, one that was painful to hold. Tears. She hadn’t earned the right to tears, not for you and certainly not for herself. Their daughter had begun to cry, mirroring her mother. Diana gently called to the girl, trying to calm her while terrified herself. The crying of their child brought him back, reality merged again and he was hearing the cries from a cradle rocked by the wind, this time the hollow between her screams filled by the comfort of a mother she did not have. It enraged him.

“I don’t love you, Diana. More than that, I hate you. More than I ever thought one could hate. This feeling, the misery of laying with you knowing that you reek of the deaths that follow after you…I’d rather kill myself than bear it even once more. You sicken me and I sicken myself for having ever…fallen into you like this.” It came out in a desperate tone, a breathless ramble. “The child with my blood might as well have been born only of you for how little I feel for it. Her birth brought me no joy, because every time I look at her, I think of the child that your sister might have had with me. I love your sister. I love her down to her bones, down to the hollow space in my life that she’s left. You have…again you have stolen it…”

Belatedly, caution entered her gaze. “Claude…” her voice broke. “You don’t mean any of this. You’re ill. You’ve made yourself ill. You need rest.”

He laughed humorlessly. “I’ve never meant anything I’ve said to you until now. You think this is madness and maybe it is! But that doesn’t mean it isn’t me.” He let go of her. “All of it is falsehood and you know it. It was falsehood that benefitted you so you could live with it well enough but no more. I cannot live this way.” He forced himself to leave the anger there, it was of no consequence now, his anger did nothing to save you and was becoming rather indulgent. Only his next pursuit could provide any hope of helping you. And he’d not be tempted from that path for a belated revenge.

Diana went to their daughter and held her, tucking the girl’s teary face into her shoulder as Claude pressed forward, walking down the hall. Your father came over to comfort the two, setting a hand on her shoulder and murmuring assurances which she ignored. “Where do you intend to run?" Diana, who simply could not leave things be called out to him. “Your home is here, your family is here. Whatever you feel now for me…I truly don’t understand what you feel you’ve discovered here but I know that you have always had your regrets and I’m sorry for that. I always sought to be happy with you. But even if I have failed, it isn’t for you to abandon us now of all times. I didn’t kill my sister, I didn’t make her run away. I’m now without my mother and without my sister and you would have me lose you?” She rose to her feet, cautiously, the only sound in the hall being their daughter’s sniffling and the swish of her silk skirts. “Stay. Let a doctor see you.”

Claude looked back at her for a moment. Diana’s gaze held his with fragile hope. She was beautiful in the dull, grey light from the window. Her tears glittered on her cheeks, her white dress was smeared with her father’s blood. It reminded him of you. How many lives you’d spent kneeling at the altar of his sins, waiting for him and still waiting at the end. The innocence of your disbelief worn on your sleeve.

But on Diana, such a look was a profoundly cruel farce. A reminder of just how unearned the tragedy in her eyes was. He felt glad to leave her. He hoped that just once, she’d be made to wait for a husband who would not come, to cling to a promise she knew was already broken, even if in the end he knew it would not matter. Memory is what makes tragedy. For all that happened, the agony is in remembering.

“You’ve never been a wife to me, this has never been a family,” He said it softly, not for her benefit, but because he felt reality begin to waver and his mind become such a fragile and uncertain place. “You have always felt like a trial from god and that child…a shadow of something long gone born only to compound my misery. All of this to punish me.”

Reality melted again, reformed around a memory of you begging him not to leave without you. He knew it wasn't real and still it had been hard to make his way out into the dark without turning back.

tags: @kage-tobiuo @kreishin @rosephantomhive @yeahdrarry @splaterparty0-0 @dear-dairiess @qluvrv @hafsuhhh @eissaaaa @ayolk @doan-19 @fourcefulcupid @ariachaos @cerisearan @irisspade @yaesflorist @jcrml @xiaosprettygf @yevenly @amaris08atoshi012022 @obsessed-with-a-fictional-man @softbummiee @cassanderasblog @waka-babe @bananatwirl@s1mp69 @mitsuyamistress @hottiewifeyyyy @reiko69 @syyyy4ever @pinkpastel-l @dododododooosworld @gwyneveire @mvoonxlightv @noisyenthusiastface @coldpeachkitten @brightykitten @worstliving @kailyan

[isalisewrites]

A ramble on writing for my mental health

At the end of 2023, I calculated how long it would take me to finally get through the slow burn to the first kiss between Tom and Harry in Terrible, But Great.

At the rate I'd been posting at, I discovered that it would take an approximate of 3 to 4 years to get to the first kiss.

When I tell you that I lost it, I mean that I lost my motherfucking mind. 3 to 4 GODDAMN FUCKING YEARS to get to the FIRST KISS???

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

I ranted. I screamed. I raged. Unacceptable. Absolutely not. Fuck no. I refuse. Friends would say, "No, it's okay. We can wait. Take care of yourself. Mental health. Important. Blah blah blah."

NO. I love you.

NO!

I don't want to wait that long. I, ME, the author, do not want to wait three to four years to share one of my favorite chapters of all time. I don't want to wait. My soul wept at such an idea. Because there's so much more to come after the first kiss. How long would it take me to finish what I'd started? Life is fleeting. Life is fragile. I know this all too well when my mother died far too young in my arms. I'm not saying something will happen to me, but this story is so important to me.

And so

A determination like no other came over me.

I made an immovable, unshakable goal. I needed to write every single day, before everything else in my life. It had to be first. I wake up; I write. I've gained so much good by going to college, but I've also lost so much when it came to writing. I needed this. I needed to write - before the duties, the homework, the chores, before EVERYTHING because I needed it.

I decided that 700 words a day was a reasonable goal for me. I could do it. I could reach that. If I wrote 700 words a day, it'd be an average of 21,000 words per month with a total of 255,500 words for all of 2024.

Not only would I reach the first kiss, not only would I finish Arc Two, I would also finish Arc Three, which contains the climatic purpose of the whole story.

On that day, when I never really made New Year's Resolutions in the past, I set this daily goal of 700 words per day.

It's now the end of January. Did I accomplish this goal?

Yes.

-

This is a screenshot of my daily word count in January.

50,461 words.

Not only did I reach the goal, I surpassed it. There's 35,000 words more in Arc Two than there was at the beginning of January. There's 15,000 words more in Arc Three, Arc Four, and Arc Five collectively.

I discovered so much about the story in Terrible, But Great. I learned so much more about the characters. One day, if you're a reader of the story, you'll learn about it, too. I promise.

I learned there was an Arc Five, when I'd barely thought about a fully realized Arc Four. I learned about the final chapter, about the final lines.

I cried that day.

Life is still hard; it's still stressful. But you know? The depression that would settle over me by this point in the semester hasn't come. I'm so much happier than I've been for a long time. Putting what gives me the most joy in life has been the best thing I've ever done.

Yes, there are still some hard days. Yes, some days, it's harder to write. But as I look back on every day, I am so happy that I still choose my writing and story first.

Until next month.

[spacecasehobbit]

Slowly regaining some of that magical concept known as free time for writing, which means...

I'm finally making more progress on Chapter 2 of the Groundhog Day AU!

(Technically Ch. 3 according to ao3 labeling, but the first one was just a prologue and thus doesn't count in my head, haha.)

It's been a longer wait than I'd hoped for, but it's also turning into a long chapter. (The longest one so far, though Ch. 3 might give it a run for it's money based on the current outline.)

5k words into Ch. 2 so far, probably a few more to go, and then I'll finally be able to clean it up, do a last editing pass, and get it up on ao3!

The beginning of this chapter gave me endless trouble, but it also has one of my favorite scenes so far, and I am excited to finally be getting it close to posting-ready.

Hopefully someone has as much fun reading that bit as I had writing it, but it still makes me laugh either way. Given that amusing myself with Felix's inability to escape this Very Bad, Extremely Horrible Worst Day Ever is most of the reason I started writing this AU, this scene will stay one of my favorites regardless just for giving me motivation to keep working even as the beginning took approximately a zillion rewrites till I finally figured out the right way for it to go.

In the meantime, here's the current Ch. 2 summary in my notes for anyone interested:

--

Felix: Fine. Clearly, Oliver is getting his Saltburn party. Doesn't mean I can't ignore him all day, anyway, until this time loop ends! Oliver: Fine. Who cares about stupid Felix. We're in a time loop, Felix hates me forever, and apparently I've had a lot of repressed anger that I was trying to ignore... Guess I don't have to worry about repressing that anymore! Felix: Wait... Is ignoring this problem even harder, like, not going to solve it? Even though I don't want to deal with it?? What do you mean, I might have to talk to someone when I don't wanna??? Oliver: Oh. Oh. So, if I kill enough people, Felix eventually stops ignoring me and pays attention to me again. ...neat! Felix: Um, obviously I'm still going to ditch you forever and never speak to you again as soon as you stop killing people and we get out of this loop - no, wait, what are you doing, please put down the knife for the love of-

[officialaemondtargaryen]

Twenty Questions For Fic Writers

Thank you for the tag @st-eve-barnes (ily)

1. how many works do you have on AO3 tumblr?

i am fairly new to a03, so my only fic on there currently is 'a fine line'. all of the rest of my works are here, on tumblr. so i'm going to just going to change a03 to tumblr for the sake of this little quiz.

2. what's your total AO3 tumblr word count?

approximately 115.2k, there are more because i have removed things from my masterlist that you can still find out there but i'm re-writing those currently for other characters.

3. what fandoms do you write for?

currently only writing for HOTD. previously, i have written for marvel, stranger things, the walking dead, and my very first fics were about members of bands that i loved.

4. top five fics by kudos:

age of consent (eddie munson) || a fine line (hotd) || casual (eddie munson) || i wanna hold your hand (bucky barnes) || dinner & diatribes (hotd)

5. do you respond to comments?

i try my absolute best to! comments fuel me in a way that i don't think anyone understands.

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

it isn't anything that i have published but after 'a fine line' (which is also pretty angsty) i'm going to roll out a new series called 'leave it untold' which will have the angstiest ending i've ever written.

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

most of my fics have a happy ending.

8. do you get hate on fics?

i have only ever received two hate comments. one was warranted. the other called my oc a 'fat cow'.

9. do you write smut?

it's hard for me to NOT write smut.

10. craziest crossover?

i'm not a huge fan of crossovers.

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of and hope it never happens. i work really fucking hard on these fics, like my world revolves around these stories. it's all i ever think about.

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

i have not!

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

no, but i'd be happy to collaborate. or at least try!

14. all time favorite ship?

me and aegon ii targaryen.

15. what's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

i'm terrified of not finishing 'a fine line'. i'm going to, but it's not complete and i'm just scared that i'm going to let everyone down. fun fact about that story is that it started as a steve x reader x bucky (marvel) fic. someone liked the first chapter so much that they messaged me and asked me how i envisioned it ending. i told them the entire plot. so someone out there knows how it ends.

16. what are your writing strengths?

scene building (in my personal opinion)

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

transitioning between scenes

18. thoughts on dialogue in another language?

i am bad enough at english, i don't think i personally could pull it off. but if there was a fic out there that i liked and it happened to have dialogue in another language, i wouldn't be opposed to reading it.

19. first fandom you wrote in?

emo bands of 2006.

20. favorite fic you've written?

at this point in time i'm going to say 'age of consent' because it's a finished series. it gained me a lot of new friends and followers. but as far as how passionate i am about a fic... it's 'a fine line' hands down. the way that fic has taken hold in my brain. it's so personal to me, too. i started writing it in a time where i was so uncertain of myself and what i wanted. and what i have planned for it is really good, i think.

no pressure tags: @madame-fear, @lovelykhaleesiii, @inthedayswhenlandswerefew, @sapphire-writes <3

[mylifeisactuallyamess]

Sanctuary part 2

Chapter 7: Betrayal

A/N: Another chapter from the Batch pov.

Warnings: 18+ Hemlock, again. Cid, what a bitch. Mentions of canon war, injuries, canon violence follows the very end of season 2.

Word Count: 4.6k+

Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8

Masterlist

The ship was quiet as soon as Hunter had stopped pacing. The laser tracked over Omega’s still form and Tech made a slight grimace at the readings. Her vitals were slowly dropping, she needed to be seen by a medic as soon as possible.

His chest squeezed at the thought of a medic, of you. He knew the basics, he’d had always been the one to administer the trauma kit in the field but an injury like this…well it was beyond his knowledge parameters. And it irked him. He felt he was failing you by not knowing these things.

Wrecker let out a grunt in his sleep. He was sat on the floor at Tech’s feet, head bent awkwardly to rest on the bunk where Omega lay. Hunter was asleep on the stairs to the gunners pit, his head had fallen forward to rest on his chest but he’d managed to keep his arms crossed. A position that Crosshair used to favour.

Tech stepped over his sleeping brother, mentally counting down the drop from hyperspace and also analysing Omega’s results. By his calculations Ord Mantell was approximately 46 standard minutes away and if Omega continued to deteriorate, at her current rate, had at least 3 hours before her situation needed intervention.

He sat in the chair by the console, picking up his datapad to check the homing beacon they had placed on Hemlock’s ship. They had no way of knowing if it was the Doctor’s personal shuttle, or one supplied by Tarkin. Something he had not factored in when they were planning the mission. It was still moving, unable to transmit coords in hyperspace.

He placed the datapad down, not wanting to look at it anymore. The feeling was alien to him, the sickness that burned in his stomach was inescapable and he folded his arms. The tips of his fingers dug into his ribs, pressing his arms tightly, as far as they’d go. It felt like he was receiving a hug. If he closed his eyes he could smell you, pretend his own warmth was from you instead. It made the constant ache a mass in his chest, a feeling nothing could counter unless it was you alive and in his arms once more.

The entire squad had agreed Omega needed AZI, but once again, flying into the unknown was wearing thin. Even if Cid turned them away they would take the droid. He rightfully belonged to the clones anyway. Well, Omega. He was a friend to Omega and they owed AZI after what happened on Kamino.

“How is she?” Tech dropped his arms, glancing over at Hunter as he stretched the sleep out of his joints, his worried gaze already focused on Omega.

“Barring any complications, she should remain stable long enough for us to get her to the parlour.” Because they couldn’t take Omega to the medbay…the last time they had seen it, it was trashed. Ruined. All your hard work wiped away by the spiteful hand of the Empire.

Tech had never given much energy to hating things, he disliked certain textures and noises, he avoided people that made him uncomfortable but he had never hated. Though right now he hated the Empire with everything he had. If he wasn’t careful, such a feeling would consume him. And he needed a clear head.

“How long?” Hunter rasped.

“We shall be planetside in precisely 37 minutes.” Landing on a planet where he’d seen you dance in the sunshine. Where he’d tucked a blanket around you on the nose of the ship so you didn’t get cold. A planet where you had kissed him for the first time and he’d been so stunned by the feel of your lips he didn’t know what to.

It had been your home for a time, memories will be everywhere he looked. Ones that had buried under his skin and embedded in his soul. It had taken him so long to see how you made him better, you made him feel accepted outside of his squad. You helped him experience a feeling so intense, he assumed all descriptions of it were fiction.

His gaze snagged on the headset he’d made you. It felt like a lifetime ago when he placed them gently over your ears. Now they played a different tune. He had managed to untangle the encryption that had ruined your recorded message on Beeto.

He had heard you say it. Words he had never considered being aimed at him.

Tech. I love you.

They kept him going.

The four of them stood to the side, hovering. They collectively held their breath as AZI scanned Omega, his receptors were able to take a more detailed reading than a medscanner.

“Omega has sustained a fracture in the patella, I can reduce the swelling. Her vitals are stable for now. I should be able to splint it but she does require at least two weeks of rest.” The little droid reported matter of factly, looking at each clone as he spoke. “She is not the only one with injuries.” Tech looked at Echo who shrugged, the pair of them turning to Hunter and Wrecker. The larger clone scowled at the droid while Hunter sheepishly rubbed at his chin.

“You’re injured and neither of you said anything?” Echo scolded, crossing his arms and glaring at them both.

“I was worried ‘bout Omega,” Wrecker grumbled.

AZI cocked his mechanical head to the side. “I suggest you come back to Cid’s where I can dress your wounds properly. She salvaged what she could from the abandoned medcentre and keeps it in the store room.”

Abandoned? Tech felt the words itch in his mouth. There was nothing he disliked more than incorrect information. You hadn’t abandoned it. You had been taken.

“We need to get Omega on the bed,” Hunter said, placing a gentle hand on Wrecker’s chest. “Not you.”

“I’ve got her,” Echo responded, clearly still upset his brothers had been hurt and they hadn’t said a word the whole way here.

They were a sorry procession through the streets of Ord Mantell. Omega was sedated on the bed with AZI pushing. Hunter favoured his side and Tech wondered if he had rebroken his ribs. Wrecker was tugging on his armour, clearly uncomfortable.

Tech looked around as they walked. The rubble had been cleared away from the attack the city had sustained, but the buildings were standing empty with gaping holes in the walls, roofs and foundations. Tech glanced at his datapad, noticing the beacon was still on the move and unable to transmit exact coordinates.

There was no market. This side of the town was quiet, people hurrying away at the sight of the clones to watch them pass from the shadows. It was so different from the bustling hub they had first stepped into all that time ago

A little tension left him when they descended into the parlour. The lights still flickered, the air was tinged with damp but it was blissfully empty. Not much had changed here then. Cid was behind the bar, her reptilian eyes narrowed at the sight of them.

“Well look what the Nexu dragged in,” she said. “No contact for months, thought you were all dead and you come back like nothings happened! Well you can turn around and leave because I’m done with all of you.”

“Omega is injured,” AZI piped up. “As are Hunter and Wrecker. I advised them about the medical supplies you keep since the medcentre was abandoned.”

“Did you now?” Cid glowered at the droid but he only blinked innocently at her.

“We need your help. She needs your help,” Hunter ground out, gesturing at Omega. He kept his expression neutral but Tech could hear the tiredness beneath them.

Cid’s eyes blinked, a scowl lining her scaled face. “Fine. Fix them up.” She turned her back, grumbling as she shifting some bottles around.

“Echo, Tech. Run checks on the Marauder,” Hunter spoke quietly. “We might need to leave on short notice.”

Tech lifted his goggles a little. “I do need to check the damage we sustained after our abrupt departure from Eriadu.”

“Good-a time as any to run diagnostics,” Echo agreed.

“Keep coms open,” Hunter warned, a look passing between the three of them before he followed Omega and Wrecker to the back.

The spaceport was empty at this time. It was cloudy, stars shrouded from sight and he paused for a moment to just look. You were out there somewhere. It was just a simple case of eliminating planetary systems that were not within Empire control, or inhabitable, or unoccupied…a process that would take longer than the years he had left.

He was hanging off the back of the Marauder, inspecting for hull damage and luckily only finding carbon scouring. He quickly pulled himself from his thoughts, pushing his goggles up the bridge of his nose, refusing to fall into the pit of his memories.

His neck tingled. Nothing about this place felt right anymore, too much change and damage had happened. Scars left by the Empire ran deep into the planets surface and its people.

“Ready?” Tech called down to Gonky, removing a long tool hanging from his belt, feet planted firmly in the exhaust vents and his other hand magnetised to the ship exterior. Gonky made an affirmative noise, letting Tech know he was ready and the heat lance blasted to life in his hand. He dropped the visor on his helmet, darkening the screen to protect his eyes from the glare as he began to burn the marks off.

It was the quickest method, not his favourite way of removing blaster shot residue, but he had no other choice right now. He frowned when the lance sputtered in his hand, the intense heat dying out completely. He swung his helmet round to look at Gonky on the ground, the little droid was hopping from foot to foot trying to get Tech’s attention.

“Let me look.” He clipped the lance back onto his belt, letting his feet slide to dangle in mid air, held on only by the magnetising glove. He stretched out his fingers, releasing the magnetic pull and dropped to the ground, absorbing the landing with a deep bend of his knees.

Gonky shuffled toward the clone and Tech saw the problem immediately. The connector had slipped loose from Gonky, so the lance wasn’t getting any power.

“Easy fix,” he murmured to the droid, gently running a hand over the top and along the side as he crouched down. “You knocked it loose, that is all. Try to…” Tech paused. He felt the air shimmer and press around him. Usually a precursor to something large breaching the atmosphere. He straightened, looking up at the dark sky and letting his goggles pick out the lines of a ship he knew so well.

“Tech!” Echo charged down the ramp of the Marauder. “The Empire is here! They’re jamming our coms.” The droid stepped towards Echo, giving a few firm gonks to get his message across. “No. No you stay here,” Echo responded. “We’ll find them.”

“A landing party is on the way,” Tech informed them, noticing the shuttle and fighters separating from the Venator. “I shall head to Cid’s and warn the others,” he continued, checking his blasters were in their holsters and detaching the heat lance from his belt.

“I’ll keep watch. Make sure they don’t come too close to the ship. I have no doubts Tarkin will want our heads for infiltrating Raven’s Peak.”

“Tarkin is not a man to forget such transgressions,” Tech agreed with Echo.

“Oh and Tech.” He turned to look over his shoulder as Echo slipped his helmet on. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” He gave his brother a quick salute before disappearing into the dark.

Tech melted into the shadows. Treading softly on the ground, his visor picked up recent ground disturbance near the parlour entrance and he slowed. Crouching down he observed the two commandos standing guard by the door. He couldn’t reach from here with just a stun blast, and shooting them would be too loud, alerting whoever was inside to his presence. Which could result in his brothers being hurt or killed and Omega captured.

Not the outcome he wanted.

He pushed silently away from the wall, climbing the building with ease so he could run across to the next roof. This one took him within leaping distance of Cid’s roof. He cleared the gap, desperate to keep his landing as silent as possible, he rolled. Hoping his armour didn’t make too much noise, coming to a stop against the half wall that ran around the top of the building.

Tech held his breath, waiting for his audio receptors to pick up com chatter or movement from below. Thankfully, nothing. He peered over the edge and found himself directly above the commandos. He slowly pulled a blaster free, easing himself onto the lip of the roof, steadying himself with a hand between his bent legs as he crouched.

Without warning, he dropped. Straight onto the commando below him. The sickening crunch of armour against armour, as well some severe bone breakages, split the night air. Before the other commando even had to time to turn his head, Tech had stunned him twice and reached out to catch the soldier, lowering him quietly to the floor.

Now he pulled his other blaster free and side stepped down the stairs, keeping his back to the wall. He stopped near the middle and slid down to a silent crouch. He knees were paying for the fall and the awkward landing but he had to keep going. He could see the backs of some more commandos who all had their blasters converging on one spot, Wrecker seemed to be bound and on his knees, and a man that made Tech’s eyes widen. He recognised him from the photo out of the old Republic archives he’d stumbled upon…Doctor Hemlock.

The very man they were trying to pin point.

Hemlock moved to the front of the squad. “That’s not very strategic, Hunter.” The man’s voice was quiet but picked up easily by Tech’s helmet. At least his brothers were alive and there was currently no sign of Omega.

Seven commandos, Cid and Hemlock — although he looked unarmed — out numbered him, Hunter and a bound Wrecker. If he had been able to hail Echo for backup, he would have moved in.

“You don’t need to use your enhanced senses to know you’re outnumbered.” Tech watched with a narrowed gaze as Hemlock took a credit case from one of the soldiers and handed it to Cid. “The Empire thanks you for your assistance. Our business is done. Leave.” The Trandoshan didn’t need telling twice.

Tech debated moving from his position when she headed for the stairs, it would have been the sensible thing to do…but she had already noticed his crouched form in the shadows. He tensed, ready to blast her back down into the parlour if she so much as blinked wrong. Instead she stared down the barrel of his blaster, her reptilian face looked forlorn but Tech held no sympathy for the creature. He understood now, your hatred for them, your intense mistrust. They all should have known better.

Cid didn’t change pace or alert the soldiers to his hiding place, apparently she decided she’d done enough damage to them. As soon as she disappeared to the streets, Tech focussed his attention on down below.

“Please,” Hemlock said to Hunter. “Consider your next move very carefully. I would hate for this to end poorly for both of you. Here is how this is going to go.” Hemlock eased his arms behind his back, seemingly at ease with the whole situation. “You will lower your blaster and hand over Omega. And I will allow you to keep breathing.”

“Omega’s not going anywhere with you.” Tech let out a shallow breath at the dangerous tone Hunter used. He aimed his blaster down into the parlour and sighted the commandos. If Hunter made a single move to indicate hard contact, Tech would be right there with him. Consequences be damned.

“Oh,” he couldn’t see the Doctor’s face but his body shifted slightly. “Well, who knew clones were so paternal? Fascinating.” Tech felt a faint shiver travel down his spine. That’s all they were to Hemlock, fascinating subjects to be picked apart and studied. He was used to being viewed as a unit, or reduced to a number. But since the war had ended and Omega, along with you, had come into his life; you made Tech see there was so much more. That they, were so much more.

Hemlock breathed in, clearly enjoying the power he was wielding in this moment. “I have something that belongs to you.” He held out a hand for a commando to drop something small and black into the upturned palm. Tech felt his jaw clench and his heart dropped in his chest. “A homing beacon, planted on my shuttle. Curious,” Hemlock continued, almost musing to himself. “Are you…looking for someone?”

The tension in the air thickened, Tech hardly dared to breathe, barely able to keep his finger from slipping on the trigger. Wrecker let out an aggressive snarl as the tracker left Hemlock’s hand and skidded across the floor to rest before Hunter.

The Doctor scoffed quietly, taking a step forward while ignoring the blaster aimed directly at his heart. “You are missing a member of your squad? Aren’t you? A medic?” It was getting harder to breathe inside the helmet and an uncharacteristic tremble made Tech’s aim shaky. Pulling his arms in he tried to get a grip on himself, to ignore the heat rising under his skin.

“Maybe I am mistaken,” Hemlock said into the stoic silence that Hunter offered him. “But, I don’t think I am. To lose one of your own, it must weigh heavily on you as their leader.” He turned to acknowledge Wrecker behind him and a blaster was rammed suggestively into the large clone’s neck. “And if you don’t lower the blaster now, you will lose. Yet. Another.”

Only years of ingrained training kept Tech in his current position. Only knowing the odds of a successful outcome and how very slim they were, kept him hidden in the shadows. Hemlock knew who you were and Tech had no doubts that Hemlock knew exactly where you were.

Hunter lowered his blaster, picking up the homing beacon and turning it over in his hand. It had been their one chance to find Crosshair, for a lead on you and once again, they had nothing.

“Wise decision.” Tech frowned as Hunter was bound, carefully moving backwards up the stairs. He knew how the commando visors worked, they would be alerted to his presence if he lingered here much longer.

“Sir!” He froze at the sound of someone entering the bar. “The girl’s not in the office.”

“She’s long gone,” Hunter said smugly. “Like I said, Omega’s not going anywhere with you.”

Tech moved out onto the street, moving as quickly as he could. Omega was out here somewhere, he needed to find her before anyone else did.

He was barely a few streets over, dodging walkers and screaming citizens when he recognised the humming twang of Omega’s bow. He didn’t hesitate, triangulating the source of the noise on his visor to find Omega standing there with her bow drawn, facing Hemlock down like a true soldier. She was brave, Tech admired that, but she should have run.

Between them stood his brothers and Hemlock.

More commandos had increased the guard around Wrecker and Hunter. A rather large set back, one that couldn’t be rectified even if Echo was nearby. Coms were still being jammed, all Tech could do right now, was watch this interaction play out.

“Hello, Omega.” Hemlock shouted to her above the chaos the Empire was causing. “We were just talking about you.”

“Let them go!” She demanded.

“Omega! Run!” Hunter’s shout was choked off by the thick, armoured forearm of a commando.

“I won’t let them take you!” This feeling of being stuck, of not being able to do anything was frustrating and he began to survey the surrounding buildings. If he could reach Omega…he could protect her, find Echo and they could track the Venator. An outlandish plan, with a possible 5% chance of succeeding. He would probably fail at the first hurdle. There had to be another way…

“How about an exchange?” Hemlock offered. “If you come with me, your friends will live.”

“I don’t believe you,” she scowled deeply, drawing the bow tighter. Good, she shouldn’t believe him, the Doctor was after one thing and he’d do anything to get it.

“I did not come here for them, Omega. I came to return you to Nala Se. She needs your help.” Hemlock sounded so earnest, so convincing to a child.

“He’s lying,” Hunter shouted. “They killed the Kaminoans.”

“Incorrect,” Hemlock countered angrily, turning back to face Omega. “Nala Se is alive and well cared for. As you will be.”

“I’m not going with you.”

Tech’s gaze drifted past her to see the glisten of a blue visor in the dark. He surged forward.

“Omega! Look out!” He caught a glimpse of her encased by the blue stun blast before the air was punched forcefully from his lungs. He was disarmed swiftly and binders snapped around his wrists.

“Your interference was too late,” Hemlock told Tech quietly, a self-satisfied grin growing. “You gained, nothing from that little show. But I gained, so much.” He turned to address to commandos. “Scour the city. When you find the fourth clone, send them back to Eriadu. Governor Tarkin wishes to question you personally.”

“Not your best move,” Hunter grumbled quietly as they were shoved along.

“I calculated for that,” Tech whispered. Hunter raised an eyebrow in question but couldn’t ask anymore.

“Quiet!” The demand snapped from the nearest commando followed by a swift push with the end of a blaster.

A gunship was sitting in the street, such a painful reminder of the war and what they once fought for. A reminder of how it had been destroyed, ripped apart at the seams and disintegrated into nothing but echoes, screaming across the galaxy.

Blaster shots sounded. The group came to a halt, Tech tilted his head. Sounded like an Imperial walker — which sure enough stomped round the corner and blew up the squad trying to shoot it down. The waiting gunship tried to take off, only for the walker to shoot out the hull, making it skid across the floor and take out two of their guards. Tech let out a quick breath, his gamble had paid off.

“Echo?” Wrecker grunted.

“Gotta be Echo.”

“Without a doubt it is Echo,” Tech stated as he waited for Wrecker to break his bindings. “He is our only ally here.”

They worked efficiently, taking out the remaining commandos and Tech was able to retrieve his pair of DCs. They hurried forward as a single unit, providing cover for Echo’s walker until another arrived. There was nothing they could do when the enemy walker toppled the one Echo was in, spilling him and AZI out of the top hatch.

Smoke filled the air around them, covering their retreat from the remaining troopers. They weren’t even round the corner when Echo asked, “Where’s Omega?”

“That Imperial took her,” Wrecker growled.

“It was Hemlock,” Tech told him.

“We’ve gotta stop his shuttle from leaving,” Hunter snapped.

“The beacon…?” Echo started but Tech shook his head.

Heavy footfall caused them all to flatten against the wall, letting the commandos run past before Hunter nodded to a rusty gangplank above their heads. They followed his lead, climbing over the fallen larty and onto the building, Wrecker and Tech providing cover fire while the others climbed up.

“Look out!” Wrecker jumped off the ship at the last minute, clasping Tech’s outstretched hand from the balcony when the ship exploded in a shower of heat and shrapnel.

More shots were fired, almost from every angle. “There’s too many!” Wrecker shouted, helping Tech pull him up.

Hunter surged ahead at the sound of engines powering up. The world dulled around him as the lights of the ship flared into his eyes.

It was happening again.

Someone who had trusted him with their life, was being taken by Imperials. He was losing her, just as he had lost you. The ship carried on rising, leaving them in a wake of its dust and fuel fumes, taking Hunter’s heart away from him for the last time.

“Hunter! We need to go!” Echo roared, blaster shots exploded around them, sharpening back into focus as Hunter realised he was still responsible for the rest of his squad.

“Get to the Marauder.”

Bolts followed them through the streets. Didn’t matter how many they took down, more soldiers took their place. It was slow. Time consuming. Every second that notched past was a second Hemlock flew further and further away. Tech ran towards the Marauder, the ramp coming down, beckoning him to hurry up.

As soon as his brothers were on board, he hauled the ship up as fast as it would go, trying to ignore the faint plink plink of more carbon scouring on his hull.

“Where is he?” Hunter almost knocked into Tech when he barrelled into the cockpit. His eyes searched the darkening sky as they left the atmosphere of Ord Mantell.

“I have run a scan,” Tech explained. “But there are no shuttles in the vicinity.”

“We have to enter hyperspace before they get any ideas about attacking us.” Echo was already priming the hyperdrive while Tech entered some coordinates, neither of them waiting for Hunter to give the order.

Light slid over the nose of the ship. Stretching and warping at a rate that befuddled the eyes until pinpoints became a solid barrier.

The silence in the cockpit was almost unbearable. Tech glanced up at Hunter before removing his helmet and adjusting his goggles.

They had failed. Again.

It wasn’t a feeling Tech liked and he wasn’t comfortable with how much he was experiencing it at the moment.

He side eyed Echo, watching Hunter’s fists clench and relax rhythmically as he stared blankly out the canopy.

Echo twisted his chair round. “There was no way to track Hemlock’s ship. He could have taken Omega anywhere.” The tattoo on Hunter’s face stretched at the mention of Omega from Echo. Tech couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his brother this angry and Crosshair was not involved.

He watched Hunter turn and stride back into the hold, followed by a dull thud and a raw noise that came from someone frustrated, angry. Tech stared at the blurring lights, detaching from the pain rising inside him.

They would just keep looking. It was all they could do.

“Injuring yourself won’t bring her back,” Wrecker commented gruffly, his voice thick with his own emotions. He managed to sit Hunter down at the console, both of them staring up into Omega’s room. The curtain was open, her yellow warm lights were off and the space filled with the cold, harsh light of hyperspace. All it did was illuminate how empty that space was. How empty they all were without her.

Hunter took a ragged breath in. “We are going to get her back. We are going to them both back, and we don’t stop searching until we do.”

[drabbles-mc]

Degrees of Separation (3)

Taza Romero x M!Reader

Summary: You transferred out of Yuma and into Santo Padre in a last-ditch attempt to outrun old ghosts and old problems. The small charter, located in an even smaller border-town, seemed like the perfect place to try and shake off everything that had happened to you so that you could start over. You were ready to live with your old secrets. But the deeper you get into the charter, the more you realize you may have simply traded in your old secrets for new ones, and this time you wouldn't be going down for them alone.

Chapter Index

Warnings: 18+, language, smoking

Word Count: 2.7k

A/N: I realize it had been approximately 10000 years since I wrote for Mayans/SOA but I swear I'm still around and kicking. Bringing this story back from the dead after basically a year of not updating it 😂 But it's a longer chapter so I'm gonna pretend that that makes it okay lmao. I've missed writing these two, though. Lord knows I love me a good slow burn. 😌

Mayans Taglist: @buckybarneshairpullingkink @paintballkid711 @queenbeered @kelpies-shed @mijagif @amorestevens @garbinge @justreblogginfics @rosieposie0624 @choochoo284 @littlekittymeow @proceduralpassion @artemiseamoon @nessamc @withmyteeth @crowfootwrites @winchestershiresauce @frattsparty @fanfic-n-tabulous @justazzi @darqchilddaydreamz @danzer8705 @camelia35 @thanossexual @kishie8 @callmejaye (If you want to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!)

It was a smooth ride back to the clubhouse the next day. There were minimal stops along the way—everyone just wanted to be back home. Between how busy the last couple of days were, and the sun constantly beating down on your back on the return trip, you were exhausted by the time you rolled into the clubhouse lot.

Everyone was hopping off their bikes, the guys in the van piling out, all of you stretching as you tossed your helmets onto your bikes. You looked around, trying to get a feel for what they were all planning on doing. You just wanted to go home and sleep, never mind the fact that it was still probably far too early to go to bed. But if everyone was going to hang around for a bit, you weren’t just going to take off.

You watched as Angel, Gilly, and Coco headed directly for the clubhouse. You were mentally gearing yourself up to follow suit when you heard Taza’s voice coming from behind you. Sometimes it felt like the man could see your plans before you even said or did anything about them.

“The rest of us are going home,” he told you as he stepped so that he was standing next to you.

You didn’t try to dial back your relief. “Yea?”

He laughed. “Yea.” He nodded towards the clubhouse. “They always pull late ones when we get back if everyone is in one piece. You can stay if you want, but,” he shook his head, “the rest of us just want to shower and sleep.”

“Thank god.” You laughed.

You reached into your kutte, pulling out your pack of cigarettes. Placing one between your lips, you grabbed your lighter as well. It took a couple tries, but you finally got it lit, taking a deep inhale and tilting your head back so that when you sighed, the smoke flowed straight up. You felt Taza watching you, and despite the fact that he declined the night before, you still gave him another wordless offer. He chuckled, caving and taking you up on it this time around. He pulled one out of the pack and allowed you to light it for him, watching as you carefully shielded the flame of your lighter from the light breeze threatening to blow it out.

“Do things usually go that smoothly?” you ventured to ask, assuming that if anyone was going to be honest with you, it was Taza.

He nodded, pulling a drag off his cigarette. “Yeah,” smoke flowed out between his lips with each word he spoke, “usually. Not always,” he chuckled knowingly, “but usually.”

You laughed, shrugging. “I could get used to that.”

He arched one eyebrow, clearly curious. “Things not go that smoothly in Yuma?”

You held the smoke in for a beat longer than you usually would before releasing it with a deep sigh. “Not for me.”

Taza studied your expression as you said that, the way that you weren’t looking directly at him as you spoke. Despite that, he could still see the tension in the way that you stood, the way you forced the deep breath out. He wondered if this was going to be the moment when you finally opened up about whatever had gone down in Yuma that made you transfer out. There were usually stories of some kind to accompany why men would shuffle between charters. Or, at the very worst, there were rumors, which while they weren’t ideal it would still give people some sort of an idea as to why the changes were happening. But it had been radio silent with you. Yuma didn’t say much, and you said even less. Truthfully, Taza wasn’t interested in Canche’s version of anything, but it would’ve been better than nothing.

But you still kept it in, whatever thoughts were racing around your mind at the mention of your last charter. Maybe one day down the line you would talk about it, or maybe it was just going to be another thing that got buried in the pile of happenings that you never forgot, but never discussed. If Santo Padre was going to be anything resembling a fresh start, you figured that leaving the past where it belonged was the best course of action. Giving things a voice didn’t always work out for you in the past.

Somehow, even with the overwhelming urge to pry, Taza didn’t say anything more to you about it. He was no stranger to having skeletons that he tried to hide from view. You both stood there, passively tapping the ash from the ends of your cigarettes smoke swirled up around you.

“Those runs are every month?” you asked, breaking the silence.

He nodded, exhaling a stream of smoke. “Least once a month, yeah.” He looked at you, a curious expression on his face. “You want to be put on the rotation?”

You didn’t hesitate. “Hell yeah.” You dropped the last of your cigarette, snubbing it out beneath the toe of your boot. “Felt good to be back on the road again.”

“I’ll let Bishop know,” Taza said, nodding as he got as much as he could out of the cigarette pinned between his fingers.

“Appreciate it.” You smiled as you gave Taza a light clap on the shoulder. “I’m heading out. I’ll see you in a couple days.”

“Sounds good.” He watched as you walked back over to your bike, finally letting the end of his cigarette drop and hit the ground when you clipped your helmet on to drive off.

The next few days were quiet. There were no calls for Templo, and you didn’t have any yard shifts which you were thanking your lucky stars for. You took advantage of the downtime to try and rest, and to put some minor attempts into making your new place feel a little more like home. You’d never been good at the decorating thing, always counting on whoever you were living with to have a stronger knack for it than you. The plants that were struggling in your window sill, and the few picture frames tacked on the wall in your tiny living room were about the extent of your décor. You’d been saying that at some point you were going to have to remedy that, and now some point was here.

Looking around, you weren’t really sure if it made the apartment feel that much more like home. But it at least no longer looked like what would pass for a low-budget motel room. Now, you figured, you were at least in low-budget hotel territory. It was a step in the right direction. For once, you missed having a roommate.

Flopping down onto the couch, you came to the immediate conclusion that the throw pillows were a good purchase. It blew your mind how much a fucking pillow cost, but for all the times you ended up falling asleep on the couch instead of in your bed, you supposed it was a decent investment, and apparently it would brighten up the space, or whatever all those people on the HGTV channel would say.

You were halfway to falling asleep when your phone started buzzing in your pocket. You snapped awake, digging it out and bringing it to your ear without checking to see who was calling. “Yeah?”

“Yo. They called Templo.” EZ was clearly trying not to laugh at the fact that you sounded as tired as you felt. “Bish wants everyone here ASAP.”

You sat up, running your free hand down your face like that would wake you up. “Alright. I’ll be there.”

Luckily you were still in the clothes you’d gone out in before, so getting ready really just meant slipping into your kutte and putting your boots back on. You grabbed your helmet and took off out the door, double-checking to make sure that you’d really locked it.

You weren’t the last to show up to the clubhouse, but even so, there were still a good number of bikes already there when you showed up. You put yours in line with everyone else’s, leaving your gloves and helmet on the seat before making your way over to the clubhouse steps. Before you even opened the door, you could hear some of the chatter coming from inside. No one sounded angry, which was a good sign, but you still had no idea why Bishop had called a meeting.

You made your way over to the bar, never quite sure where else you should go. That was another thing you still had on your list of stuff to figure out. Everyone else seemed to have some sort of a routine, a group that they gravitated towards. You hadn’t found yours yet. Each time you thought about it, you thought about your quick exchange with Angel on the run. For all the ways that the guys like to bust his chops, you couldn’t help but to think that maybe this time he had a point.

Bishop’s voice ringing through the clubhouse cut down any chance for you to think too much more about it. You downed the last of your beer before getting up to head towards the sliding glass door. EZ was tossing your bottle and a few others into the recycling bin behind the bar when Bishop called out for him too.

“You too, prospect.” He nodded towards the room. “Might need your help with something.”

Your expression showed your mixed feelings of impressed and confused. Prospects in Templo didn’t happen often. Again, maybe it was different in Santo Padre, but you knew for a fact that in Yuma the circumstances had to be dire for that to happen. You wondered if there was more going on that you should all be worried about. The way EZ chuckled and shook his head let you know that he saw the confused look on your face. He fell into stride next to you once he came out from behind the bar.

“Least I know I’m not the only one out of the loop on this,” he joked before tossing his phone into the basket.

“What’s this?”

He laughed. “Exactly.”

You listened as Bishop, Taza, and Hank all explained what had been going down in the prisons. They were your drugs. Sure, technically they were Galindo’s, but Mayans were the ones distributing. Your charters were the ones distributing drugs that were making people drop like flies. It was more than just a one-off—it clearly wasn’t user error at this point.

Sitting back silently, you also listened to the plan that they were formulating to get to the bottom of all of it. It sounded a little batshit, to be quite honest. It was all hinging on EZ’s brain. Apparently he had an eidetic memory. You had no reason to believe that that wasn’t true, but you also found it a bit bold to be using it to essentially write off an entire charter as snakes. No one else seemed to share the same reservations, though.

“This doesn’t leave this room,” Bishop said as he looked around at all of you. “Got it?”

Everyone gave their version of yes before Bishop nodded, bringing the gavel down and effectively dismissing everyone. You stood up, pushing your chair back, and were about to start heading out of the room when Bishop spoke up again, this time only saying your name. It sent a tiny jolt of fear down your spine but you fought not to let it show as you turned around to face him and the other two men sitting at the head of the table, the only others who hadn’t gotten up from their chairs.

“Yeah, Pres?” you tried to sound casual enough, hoping it hid your nerves.

He nodded towards the chair that was on the opposite side of Hank, one that brought you to their end of the table. “Sit.”

There was nothing for you to say, so you just waited for the rest of the room to clear out. You temporarily snagged someone else’s seat for the sake of not sitting at nearly the opposite end of the table from Bishop while he spoke to you. You rested your forearms on top of the table, crossing them so that your hands rested by opposite elbows. There was no way for you to know for sure what your expression looked like, but you hoped it was something adjacent to relaxed, maybe even a little confident if you could muster it.

“Settling in alright?” Bishop asked when the room stilled again.

You chuckled out of nerves. “I think so, yeah.” You paused for a beat, looking at his expression, then those of Taza and Hank. It always seemed like everyone had a better game-face than you. “This like, what, a ninety-day eval or something?” you joked lightly.

Taza let out a quiet laugh at that, and it even got a bit of a smile out of Bishop before he replied, “Yeah, pretty much.”

You gave a slow nod, trying to take the temperature of the room. It didn’t feel tense enough for you to think that things were about to go poorly. “Alright. Why don’t you guys tell me how I’m settling in, then.”

Taza smiled, maybe a little more outwardly amused than he should’ve been. “We think you’re settling in alright too.”

“We just need to know if you’re planning on staying,” Hank finally spoke up, “now that you’ve seen what we do here.”

You had no hesitation as you nodded. “I wanna stay. I’m—I’m gonna stay.”

Bishop was studying your face, looking for any crack in any possible façade that you could be putting up. “You’re sure on that?” He saw the way you were about to shoot something back, but the slight lift of his hand from the table stopped you. “I need to make sure my club is fuckin’ steady. You left Yuma. I didn’t ask why—I don’t really give a fuck why, either. I just need to know if you’re gonna wanna leave here too.”

You managed to keep your composure, not wanting to get heated enough to the point where you’d have to get into it all. Instead, you took a deep breath, set your shoulders back, and shook your head. “I’m not planning on leaving.”

There was a long drag of silence. Long enough that if anyone in that room was holding a lie together by a thread it would’ve snapped. You must’ve seemed steady and sure enough for Bishop’s liking, for all of theirs, because everyone in the room relaxed. Except Taza—the one person in the room who hadn’t seemed tense in the first place.

“Good,” Bishop finally said. He snubbed his cigarette out before dropping the act and letting himself smile. “Now we won’t have to do this shit again.” He saw the relief on your face and he just nodded towards the door. “Go on, get outta here.”

You didn’t need to be told twice, immediately getting up and letting yourself out. The usual thrumming of the clubhouse hardly even registered as you quickly made your way through and out the door. You stopped on the deck, just needing fresh air as you braced yourself against the railing.

The creaking of the door opening behind you caused you to turn around. You chuckled and shook your head when you saw it was Taza. “You know that was coming?” you asked.

He chuckled, nodding. “Of course I did.”

“Didn’t think to warn me?”

He shrugged as he leaned on the railing next to you. “Didn’t think I needed to.”

You shook your head, not looking at him but not really looking away from him either. “Bit of a risk, isn’t it?” You turned to look at him only to find him already facing you. “Asking me if I’m gonna stay after going over all that shit with the other charters?”

Taza shook his head. “No risk.”

“No?”

He shrugged. “I had the feeling you weren’t gonna flinch.”

“If I did?”

“We had plans in place for that too.”

“Jesus Christ,” you said with a shake of your head.

He chuckled, clapping you on the back. “Good thing you didn’t flinch, huh?”

“Yeah.” You had to laugh a little. You knew what you were dealing with—at the end of the day it was still an MC. “Real good thing.”

[elevenelvenswords]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by @curufiin- thankies <3

How many works do you have on AO3?

Only 8 so far.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

20,718 apparently

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The Silmarillion- it's been an ongoing obsession for approximately 7 years now lol.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Fretting, which is my first ever published fic, is at the top. I'm not super proud of it if I'm being honest but I'm glad others enjoyed it :P Then we've got Inside Out, Unbridled sword and passion, Take a chance and Stutter.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do try to reply to every comment! The fact that someone made time to tell me something nice about my works means the world to me.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably this one? None of my fics are fluffy so...

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

My recent Curufinrod fic, I think? It's less... gnarly and angst-driven?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Fortunately no.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Considering that 6 out of those 8 fics are tagged as explicit, you can draw your own conclusions :P I write various flavours of kink :)

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

Nope!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, but certain fics that I wrote were inspired by conversations I had with other fandom members :3

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

I'll go with the good ol' Angbang. I've recently become deeply invested in Curufinrod though, and I'll (hopefully) write for more pairings over the Christmas break.

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

There's a very old draft of a multi-chaptered Angbang fic that's been gathering dust on my laptop for a year xD I might polish it up and post it at some point IF I find the motivation for it.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I guess I'm fairly good at descriptions and metaphors?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Good pacing and finding the right balance between dialogue and narration are both pretty tricky for me.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I've never tried this but I find it exquisite in other people's fics :D

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Probably The Hobbit? But what I wrote is between me and god lmao.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

I tend to be very critical of my own works, especially after I post them. I don't really re-read them so it's difficult for me to choose a favourite one when I can't recall half the things I wrote lol. But I was pretty proud of Beyond the pale back when I wrote it! My writing style changed over the years, I believe, so I'm pleased to see the improvement :)

Tagging @polutrope, @crackinthecup, @gardensofthemoon, @havenotwillnotreadthebooks, @i-did-not-mean-to and whoever wants to give this a go!

[islemeadow]

20 Questions for Fic Writers!

I was tagged by the lovely @suspendingtime - thank you, this was so much fun! 🥰

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Only two so far! But they are quite massive and there will be at least two more in order to finish the entire "ABCD-series of Kanthony and their offspring", as I call it. All of it is written already, but I'm a bit neurotic and want to hone them into perfection before releasing anything, so therefore the "one chapter a week" publishing pace...

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

151,977

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Bridgerton. The first fanfic I ever wrote was for Game of Thrones, several years ago, but it kind of blew out of proportion and I never finished it, so therefore did not publish it either. Maybe I will, one day...

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Like I said earlier, I only have two works published of my gigantic series so far! The first one is finished but the second one is not and has been out for only a couple of weeks, so here we are:

Aspire - Kanthony's continuation story (365)

Burn - Edmund Bridgerton II's story (35)

Covet - Miles Bridgerton's story

Dare - Lily Bridgerton's story

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes - obviously. I have to quote @suspendingtime on this one, because they phrased it so well:

"Why... I sort of have a need? Idk, when I see a comment it's hard to just leave it hanging there and not to reply. Like irl if someone looked at something I made and verbally commented on it... and I just stared back blankly not saying anything. 😐 This is how it feels to me on the receiving end at least haha. And my replies saying various forms of 'Thank you!' is probably quite repetitive, but hey ho."

And every time I say "thank you", I really mean it. I'm honestly so tremendously grateful for every comment I have ever got, I did not even think anyone would care about my scribblings...! 🙏

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Well, I'm trying to write very bridgertonesque happy endings, but I guess "Covet - Miles Bridgerton's story" will be the angstiest one as a whole.

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

Again, happy endings are what I strive for, but perhaps "Dare - Lily Bridgerton's story" since it'll be the last one of the entire series and you've got to end on a high note!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

So far no, fortunately.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do, although that too has not YET been published! But there will be some, soooon... And what kind? I try to be as true as possible to the source material of my fics, in other words the Bridgerton TV-series, so I guess I have kind of gone with that smut-wise. So I would describe it in the same manner as the intimate scenes in the series. It's not pornography, but neither is it a "rom com fade out and cut to the next morning" immediately when two people collapse on a bed, so you'll definitely know what's going on between the characters even though it's not described in super explicit detail.

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

Not yet, at least. Normally I'm not a huge fan of crossovers, but I'm still open for it.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I hope not!! Not that I'm aware of. I don't really understand why anyone would steal something that is already out there for free?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have not. Apart from English, which is not my mother tongue, I speak Swedish and Finnish, plus very little German and Spanish, but it would feel strange to write fanfiction in any other language than English, I think.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, but it could be fun if we're on the same page! (stupid writer pun intended)

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Clearly and undoubtedly Kate & Anthony, since they have inspired me to write approximately a thousand pages of fanfic... 😅 But I'm in general a very passionate shipper and I'll get a lot more interested in a series or a novel if there's a couple whose (possible) story I fall in love with and begin to root for. Last ones I got mildly obsessed with were Bonnet and Blackbeard in Our Flag Means Death.

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

It has to be the Game of Thrones one I mentioned earlier. Somehow I got blown away by the character of the wildling woman Karsi who was VERY briefly part of season 5 (and is not even in the books), so I began to write an entire background story for her and how she became the chieftain of her clan, but never got to the (sad canon-compliant) ending of it all.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Um... I guess I'm very productive at least, haha. If I get into a nice flow I can write for hours and hours. Dialogue comes very easy and usually I only plan a little ahead, like what the premise of a scene is, but most of the time it feels like the characters surprise myself as well and take it somewhere more or less unexpected - but better.

That probably describes my writing in general, it doesn't feel like I actively have to imagine these stories happening, rather simply document everything that pours out of my mind onto my laptop. If I don't get to write I get peevish, as if suffering from withdrawals...

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Probably sometimes forgetting to describe the setting around the character/s, or at least that is something I have to often remind myself of and maybe add on later. For example describing how a specific room or someone's clothes look (maybe fanfic is quite forgiving in this sense, since everyone already knows e.g. what Aubrey Hall or Bridgerton House looks like).

Another thing I seem to forget is the fact that the sun can't always be shining, although if you look at the Bridgerton TV-series is actually does, EXCEPT for when something dramatic is happening, then it's POURING. So, perhaps that's just being true to the source material, as with the smut...? 😅

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Well, the languages I know aren't especially useful considering a Bridgerton fic, unless I one day come up with some Swedish prince or princess etc, but Kanthony's children are in fact speaking Hindi in my series. Being raised as bilingual myself I definitely wanted that for them too and I thought that Kate would want it as well, but unfortunately I'm solely relying on translation websites and would love it if someone who actually knows Hindi would check the text...!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Unpublished: Game of Thrones, but actually published: Bridgerton.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Tough question...! But I have to say... The previously mentioned "Covet - Miles Bridgerton's story". And not because it's the angstiest one, but because I kind of feel like I can't even take credit for the story of Miles and his love interest to work out so well. I had planned an entirely different thing for Miles, a lot more boring one, but in the middle of "Burn - Edmund Bridgerton's story" I had this huge epiphany when one of the characters went rogue on me and I sat there writing and suddenly had to pause like "ah, damn... You're in love with Miles, aren't you, you poor thing?" and then I gladly went on with that, because it simply made so much sense.

You'll see soon what I'm talking about, I think we're still a few chapters away from that when I have only four chapters of "Burn" published at the moment...!

__________________________________________________

I tried to find some writers who had not been tagged to this yet, so please ignore this if you already have replied to these questions earlier or if you just don't want to, which is perfectly alright! ❤️ But I'm sending this onwards to: @fitrahgolden , @silverhallow and @waterlilyrose

[missremember]

HoAS Turns 3!

Happy third anniversary to Hero of Another Story! I wanted to have chapter 10 out today, but alack. Real life has been draining me pretty hard. I'm hoping to get it out this month, though!

I started this story in 2020 as what I thought would be a brief eviction of some brainworms during a pretty rough period of my life. Now, HoAS is probably the longest continuous work I've written so far. Like...ever.

Despite how much I THOUGHT I was a good writer when I started, I can actually track, chapter by chapter, my improvement over time. Or, well, maybe it was just a change in style to one I like more. Others can judge, haha. But it's a truly fascinating cross-section, and unlike other projects...I still really like it.

I do have one small announcement about this story, actually: I've decided to break it up into "books."

This is mainly an accessibility decision. HoAS is over 70,000 words long at this point, and assuming I continue it to completion, there will be approximately 26 more chapters. It doesn't affect me either way how long the story is as one work, but I've gotten a lot of feedback about the impediment that is sometimes imposed upon readers when they see fic with a 5-or-6-digit word count, to say nothing of comments I've gotten about chapter length (shoutout to the one person who essentially called it an unreadable wall of text XP). It may sound like I'm making a slightly major decision based purely on criticism, and perhaps to an extent I am, but the way I see it I'm publishing a story that I want other people to read and enjoy, and if that means making what is essentially a formatting adjustment to make that story more accessible then that's fine by me.

Thusly, when chapter 10 comes out, I will be marking it as "complete" and adjusting the title accordingly. I'll also, at that time, be officially placing the story on hiatus, as I've been publishing this story over years, and it...kind of shows. I want to go back and edit the previous chapters to be more consistent and also do some good ol' copy editing, as there are a LOT of things that need fixing in that department as well (including spelling a character's name wrong almost every time that they're mentioned. Yiiiiikes lol). I can't say how long this will last given the length. Granted, I'm also not sure what difference putting something on hiatus makes when that something's fastest update speed between chapters was 2 months lmao.

During this time I'll also be looking to update the other multi-chaps that I have going, so you can look forward to those!

I also just wanr to say that, realistically, I'm aware that I'm not very popular. The audience for my stories compared to a lot of other writers in this fandom is...almost microscopic. But the readers that I have are so kind and so dedicated that I don't really care! To the audience that has been encouraging me to write and cheering me on for the past three years, I thank you from the very bottom of my heart. I wish I could put into words how much the comments, conversations, kudos, and every other thing that has been shared with me means. But hopefully this sappy tumblr post will suffice, lol.

I hope that this story continues to grow with me, and that we can all be excited for what's to come.

Happy birthday, Hero of Another Story! Here's to you!

[dragons-and-dwarves-are-nice]

To the Shadows that Cry Witch /// Chapter 10

Hello! I do apologise for posting this a day late, my friend comes round most Fridays so I have a tendency to be distracted. Anyway, we're on Chapter 10, the finale of Part 1!! I never thought I would get this far (even though the story has barely started lol) so I just want to thank everyone who has supported so far, even if it is only through likes, I cherish every single one. Now unfortunately, I will be taking a small break before posting Part 2, but it won't be long - the latest I will post is approximately June 16th, if not before then! I will also be opening requests during my break, so keep an eye out for when I do, because I will be limiting spaces. Apart from that, I hope you love Chapter 10, and I will see you all soon! Enjoy! <3

Summary: Magic was real, but it came at a price. So when two girls end up in the one place they never thought they could reach, strange things began to happen. Good or bad? That's up to them to find out.

Tags: Kíli x oc/reader - Fíli x oc (POV to be written soon) - Thorin's company x ocs/reader (platonic) - fluff - angst - SUPER slow burn - crack - Bagginshield

Word Count: 2360

Warnings: Mentions of Minor and Major Injuries from last chapter.

Taglist - comment or message to be added!

PLEASE START FROM THE BEGINNING IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY OK LOVE U

Want some background music? Check out my Soundtrack Playlist!

Now available on Wattpad and AO3 (please let me know if links aren't working)

< Chapter 9 // Chapter 10 // Part 2 (Coming soon) >

PART 1: Chapter 10 -

DIE. But first, food.

Jentacular (Definition): Of or pertaining to a breakfast taken early in the morning, or just about anything related to breakfast.

It wasn’t long before we were sat down on some comically small chairs, much to Bilbo’s dismay as he watched us try to fit our legs under the low table, knees bending at odd angles.

“I do apologise for the arrangement; we don’t get many visitors from beyond the Shire.” He explained as he pattered through to the kitchen, setting the kettle back on the fireplace hob to reheat after our prolonged wake up. “Let alone those of yourrr….” He gestured up and down whilst trying to come up with a polite word.

“Height?” I suggested.

“Yes! Height. I can’t say I’ve seen much of your kind around here, besides the odd traveller passing along our borders.” He told us, before beginning to trail off. “Also that wizard with the fireworks…..”

“Gandalf?!” Kay spurted eagerly, suddenly attentive. It seemed the excitement was getting almost too much for the both of us.

Bilbo looked almost taken aback at Kay’s sudden change in demeanour, his hand hovering whilst grasping a tea towel as he stared, before returning to pick up the hissing kettle.

“Well—yes.” He replied, coming over to the table to fill up three cups with steaming tea. “I take it you know him?”

For a moment my eyes darted between him and Kay, my mouth open slightly as I came up with a convincing response.

“Well, no, not really. Sort of just..,” I rambled as I waved my hand around slightly, trying to think of a convincing answer.

“—He’s quite popular!” Kay interrupted. “Where we’re from, actually, most people we know, know of him.”

“I see.” Bilbo frowned slightly, turning back around to return the kettle and hang up the tea towel. “Well, I haven’t seen him round these parts in quite some time, but his fireworks I most definitely remember.” He mentioned fondly, his voice trailing away slightly as he entered what I figured was the pantry.

I hummed in agreement, picking up the cup of tea with my bandaged hand and testing the temperature. Before I could take a sip, though, a thought reached me, and I twisted in my chair to face Bilbo who was just exiting the pantry with the rest of the breakfast arrangement in his arms. I scrunched my face at the painful jab I got from my ribs, reminding myself to keep my injuries in mind, before going back to ask my question.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve just remembered, I.. don’t think we got your name?”

Kay subtly gave me a strange look, her eyes asking me what I was doing. I gave her a reassuring glance.

Bilbo froze, face looking as if I had just insulted his mother, but within a second, he had launched the arrangement he had brought through onto the bread board on the kitchen side.

“Terribly sorry!” He exclaimed, whipping back round. “My name is Bilbo Baggins, of Bag End!” He took a deep breath, brushing imaginary dust off his robe. “I do apologise, it seems last night has had a bit of an effect on my formalities.”

I gave him a smile. “Oh it’s alright, you taking us in last night was plenty enough. You… basically saved us, well what was left.” I half-joked, gesturing at the two of us. “So we sorta owe you our lives.” I explained with a light laugh, whilst Kay nodded in agreement.

“Oh—I—well, I only did what was necessary.” He replied bashfully, his ears now an even brighter red than before. He finally sat down, wrapping his own hands around his cup of tea. “Speaking of names..” He nodded his head between us with raised eyebrows.

“Oh! I’m Kay.” Kay placed her hand on her chest with a wide smile. Bilbo then looked at me expectantly.

“Kate.” I stated with a warm grin.

He leant back, satisfied, though I could see him mouthing the names to himself, seeming a little confused as he narrowed his eyes slightly in thought.

“I must say, I’ve never heard such names before. And they both sound awfully similar…” Bilbo’s brows furrowed even more as he switched between our faces. It seemed that he would have trouble telling our names apart.

“We can explain them to you later.” I waved it off in an attempt to reassure him through his confusion.

He quickly shook himself out of any prior perplexment, nodding before standing back up and finishing the breakfast preparation.

It wasn’t long before the table was covered from top to end, mouth-watering food piled up that reminded us almost of an English Breakfast. After spending almost three days without any proper food, we filled our stomachs with what we could, making sure to share our thanks with Bilbo, who now had permanent pink ears from the compliments, especially when we started to throw his home into the mix.

Swallowing the last of the remaining food on my plate, I felt myself begin to sweat slightly at the uncomfortable feeling my ribcage gave me. The agonising ache I had tried to deal with all morning seemed to worsen as the chewing, swallowing and uneven breathing unsettled everything. I decided to ask something that had been on my mind since I ran my hand over the crusty mud now solidified on my trousers, but also as a means to distract myself from the uncomfortableness, because right now it was all I could think about.

“I don’t suppose you know of any places we could get clothes, or materials for clothes?” I managed to gasp out. Kay eyed me, a slight bit of concern showing on her face as she watched my uncomfortable expression.

Luckily it seemed Bilbo hadn’t noticed, as he made sure to finish his toast before he answered. “Well, I doubt there’ll be anyone for quite a few miles who will be able to lend clothes that fit you straight away.” I sighed slightly, looking down at my dirty clothes. “But!” I looked back up as a lightbulb went off in his head. “Gladiola Greenfoot, just down the hill, has a knack for spinning together an outfit for any occasion, considering the constant growing of her seven kids. You’ll have to pay her, and go down to get measured as well, since I doubt she’s ever sewn for big folk.”

I gave Kay a weary look at the sound of payment.

“That’s the thing. I don’t think our currency works here, let alone whether or not we have enough.” I tried to explain.

Bilbo took in the sight of our sullen faces (though mine mostly wasn’t about the money) and sighed slightly as he racked his brain for a solution. But he knew Gladiola enough to know she wouldn’t go out of her way to make a new wardrobe for two strangers for free, considering she had several miniature mouths to feed. That was until he watched as a thought come to the mind of, what was it, ah, Kay? She straightened up slightly, her eyes darting around until she leaned forwards over the table.

“What if we… oh I’m not sure.” She murmured uneasily, before leaning back on her chair dejectedly.

“Nooo, what is it?”  I encouraged, me and Bilbo now with our full attention on her as we waited eagerly.

She looked between us, unsure about her idea. She toyed with the fork in her hand before speaking.

“I mean, it’s asking a bit too much, but we don’t really have anywhere to go for a while, and since we can’t pay in money, we could, you know…” she looked up at Bilbo nervously, “pay in work hours?”

“Like chores?” I asked almost excitedly, whilst watching Bilbo’s for any expressions that could give away his thought process.

“Yeah, like, we could work for free for a while in exchange for clothes. You know, labour for labour.” Kay explained with a shrug of her shoulders.

It was now Bilbo’s turn to stare at the table, his thumb rubbing at his bottom lip in thought.

“We could do chores for Mrs Greenfoot in exchange for her making clothes, and if it’s not too out there, we could do chores for you in exchange for staying here for a bit? You know, considering we have absolutely no idea where we are or where we need to go.” I offered, though unsure, thinking we may have asked too much too early.

Bilbo hummed as he continued to stare into space as he processed the possibilities.

“I know it’s so all of a sudden,” I tried to reassure. “But we’re only asking since we’re sorta desperate for a place to stay.” Kay nodded along as she kept an eye on the fact my eyes were now becoming droopy. I saw the worry on her face and blinked a few times to try and snap out of it.

Finally zoning back in, Bilbo looked between us.

“I suppose I could do with some help around the house.” He murmured to himself, causing us to straighten up in anticipation. We both glanced at each other anxiously and I felt my good leg bounce as much as it could in the small space it was given as we watched Bilbo tap away at the table with his fingers, whilst his face varied through different expressions. Finally, he looked up, startling slightly at the sight of us staring with wide expectant eyes as we waited. Though it wasn’t until my bouncing leg accidentally jolted the table that he found the words.

“I mean, it’s not like I don’t have the room, nor am I the busiest hobbit in Hobbiton.” He pondered. Then with a stern face, he pointed between us. “As long as you don’t cause any trouble—”

“—We’ll behave!!” I cut in almost immediately, my hands gripping the edge of the table as I felt my chest burn at the sudden motion. “We promise, we’re the least troublemaking people you’ll ever meet, Mr Baggins!”

His eyes darted across my scratched up face as I gave him the most convincing doe eyes that I could, my dark brown irises baring intently into his forest green ones. With a sigh, he seemed to relent from his doubts as he relaxed back in his chair.

“Alright then.” He breathed with a half wave of his hand.

Kay immediately cried out in relief, before resorting poor Bilbo to another round of compliments whilst stating her many thanks. I leant back in my chair with a huffed laugh, tilting my head towards the ceiling in an attempt to stretch out the tension that had begun to build up in my neck. Looking back down at the two sat in front of me, I slouched slightly in my chair as a wave of both relief and fatigue swept over me.

“You won’t regret this Mr Baggins.” I stated as a tired smile made its way onto my face. “We may have only met today, but we’re gonna be the best chore-doers you’ve ever seen.”

He barked out a slight laugh. “Well I don’t know about that! But I guess you have time to live up to that claim.”

The excitement soon began to calm down, and it wasn’t long before Bilbo was out of his seat and taking his plate and cutlery to the sink across the room. Kay soon pushed her own chair back, and I watched as she went to reach for her own plate, picking it up.

My eyes followed as she went to reach for her cutlery next, that was until she stumbled slightly as what seemed to be a wave of dizziness hit her. As quickly as I could, I stood up, snatching the plate out of her hand and haphazardly throwing it back down onto the table before using the same hand to grab her wrist in an attempt to stabilise her.

She looked up, blinking rapidly as she tried to focus her eyes on her surroundings as I eased her back onto her seat. “You still have that concussion, remember?” I explained, before letting out a sharp hiss as my hand flew to my side, taking the deepest breaths I could as I sat myself back down.

Bilbo whirled around from where he was across the room as soon as I spoke.

“Concussion!?” He exclaimed, almost panicked as he hurried over. He looked at me, quickly spotting my pained expression. “Ho—How injured are you two!?”

“Pretty badly.” I answered meekly. I watched as further horror crawled into Bilbo’s expression as I listed off what we had endured, though purposely failing to mention that the worst wasn’t exactly from the fall we had by his house.

“Wha—Well, why didn’t you say so earlier!?” He sputtered as he practically dragged us through the house to the parlour where he plopped us down on some very comfy looking armchairs. We both observed him as he began pattering about again, quickly washing up what he could before hurrying off to what we supposed was his bedroom. Within minutes he was marching back out again, though he was now dressed for the day. And I admitted that he certainly wore clothes that matched his societal status. He was dressed as if we had gone back in time to the olden days of the English countryside, embellished in a finely made cream tunic tucked into a set of forest green trousers held up with suspenders, and topped with an ornately embroidered golden waistcoat.

We craned our necks as our eyes followed him to the front door, where he hastily threw on a blue overcoat. Swinging the door open, he went to step outside, but hesitated. Twisting on his heel with his finger pointed upwards, he glanced at his with his mouth open slightly like he was in thought. His pointed finger then was aimed at us as he spoke.

“Wait here.” He ordered. “Help yourself to the leftover tea, but do not overdo it or move too much.”

And much like our first encounter with him this morning, he was outside in a flash, the ends of his coat billowing behind him as he swung the door shut.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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< Chapter 9 // Chapter 10 // Part 2 (Coming soon) >

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Can't wait to see you soon for Part 2! Also please comment if you want to be added to the Taglist <3

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[theresthesnitch]

(Ask game but I just skimmed the list and am going to throw out some random numbers between 1-100)

17, 36, & 78

....hope none of those questions are weird!

Hah! Nope, not weird at all!

Send me an ask from this list!

17. What is your favorite line you've ever written?

I think I answer this question differently every time I see it. Just about all of The Way We Fall could count, but I'm going with this line:

They spread Remus out on the guest bed, laying his grief out next to him as though measuring how big it is by how close it is to his size. He’s certain that it has far outgrown his own skin, amassing a size closer to that of an elephant or a killer whale, but they lay it next to him and fold it until it approximates that of a person or two persons roughly the size and the shape of the hole left inside of him when his roommates ran through him.

36. Do you base your characters off of real life people?

Nope! Certain characteristics, sure. Certain scenes, definitely. But not entire characters. For example, in chapter 3 of The Moon that Calls your Name, Lily and Harry have this sweet moment that was almost word for word what my toddler did at the time. (I think I had a flu shot bandaid on)

He reached out his hand and touched her arm, right over the bite mark. It was mostly healed now, with new, pink flesh that would leave a scar behind. "Does it hurt?" "It did, but I'm okay now."  Harry leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to her arms, and Lily couldn't help but smile. "There, mommy. I kissed it all better."

So bits and pieces, but not a whole person.

78. How do you choose where to end a chapter?

Usually based on feeling, which I know is super unhelpful. I love chapters ending on cliffhangers or dramatic moments, so I try for that as often as possible. Othertimes, it just ends precisely when it is meant to.

[audioaujom]

(2) The Rest of Patton's First Week (And the Second, and the Third)

LTWF Hub, < prev, next >

Hello! Just a quick note that I'll be aiming to update this every other Tuesday so I have a deadline to finish chapters by lmao There's some very very minor sort of violence and bullying in this chapter, but it's not explicit enough that I feel it warrants a warning. Hope you enjoy!

Word Count: 2683

--

Patton’s second day at the ever-prestigious technological school of Pleasant Valley University was spent with nothing but thoughts of the cute ATA from his noon astronomy class from the previous day.

He didn’t mean to be so distracted, but Tuesday passed far too slow for his liking with two more syllabuses to learn from two gen ed classes he couldn’t be terribly bothered with and a distinctive lack of cute androids to hold his attention. By the time Wednesday came around, he was up and dressed over an hour before his class was supposed to start, and actually managed to not almost be late to his Astronomy class for the second time.

“Hi Logan!” Patton greeted as he passed by the ATA’s desk, his smile faltering nervously as Logan looked up at him.

“Oh, um, hello.” Logan’s awkward greeting trailed off as Patton turned and ran away from the desk, desperate to not say anything further and embarrass himself.

Needless to say, he still managed to fail at that as he felt Logan’s confused stare on him until the lecture started, using his hands to try and cool his cheeks off before attempting to focus on taking notes.

He didn’t fare much better in recitation the following morning.

Logan stopped Patton on his way out, after having caught him staring at least three separate times at where he sat—face bright red. “Your face seemed rather flushed today, Patton. Are you unwell?” 

“Whaaat?” Patton chuckled awkwardly, his face heating up again as he avoided eye contact and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Uhm… actually yes! Yes, I am, so that means I really gotta go!” He eventually stumbled out, seeing the opportunity to escape and taking it with a called, “See you Monday!” over his shoulder.

Said Monday rolled around and Patton was determined to not make as much of a fool of himself in his second week of classes, marching confidently into 102 Thaw at 11:56 sharp with a smile on his face and blush nowhere to be found. “Hey, Logan! It feels like it’s been so long since I’ve seen you!” 

Logan blinked, looking up from papers he was grading in confusion. “It’s only been approximately 3 days. Is that a long time for you?” 

Maybe he could redeem himself on Wednesday.

“Oh, I suppose in the sense that we saw each other quite frequently earlier last week and then haven’t seen each other for the last few days, that expression would make sense.” Logan acknowledged before Patton could sulk off to his usual seat, beaming at the response.

“Yeah! That’s what I meant!” He nodded, not quite sure what Logan meant but understanding the intent. “You're pretty literal, aren't you?”

“Is that a problem?”

“No, not at all! I actually think it's quite charming, myself!” Patton quickly backtracked, before realizing what he said as his eyes blew wide and he awkwardly stumbled away towards his seat. “Oh shoot, I didn't mean to say that aloud. Bye then!”

Yeah. He'd do better on Wednesday.

Patton then spent his entire Tuesday and all of his Wednesday morning psyching himself up so that on the way out of astronomy he could stop by Logan’s desk and awkwardly ask, “Hey, um… I sure hope this isn’t a weird question but would you like to maybe… hang out? Or something? Sometime?” 

“What?” Logan froze, entirely caught off guard as he looked up at Patton. “Why would you want to do that?” “Well… I’d like to be friends with you!” Patton tried to keep up his excited demeanor to not let his disappointment show, smiling as the last few straggling students pushed past them to leave.

“Friends?” Logan blinked a few times, not noticing the way Patton’s eyes flickered to look anywhere but at his face. “I’m afraid I’m not programmed to be intimately familiar with that concept. Could you explain it to me?” “I can try!” Patton’s face broke out in a large slightly wobbly smile from his nerves, thinking before explaining, “It's someone you enjoy spending time with. Like… someone you like. Not in a romantic way or anything! Just… you know. Good company.”

“Hmm. I’ll check what my permissions are for outside of class hours.” Logan nodded thoughtfully, Patton jumping up in excitement. “I think… spending time with you to try and learn more about this concept could be constructive.”

“I’ll take that as a maybe!” 

Patton nearly cheered again as he noticed the way the edges of Logan’s mouth twitched up into a very faint smile, clutching the straps of his backpack a little tighter and running out of the room before the android could change his mind.

The next morning during recitation, Logan stopped Patton on the way in with an awkward, “Oh, um, Patton.” 

“Heya, Logan! What’s up?”

“In answer to your question from yesterday, I am apparently free to go places other than this building between my designated class periods as long as I am punctual to said designated class periods and I don’t go off campus.” Logan said evenly, Paton lighting up with a wide grin.

“Great!” He nodded, his mind immediately awash with fragmented ideas of what he hoped Logan would enjoy doing. “It would be so much fun to hang out with you! I'll try to think of something fun over the weekend.”

Needless to say, he didn’t pay much attention to his recitation.

Or the rest of the weekend.

…or to his Monday lecture.

His roommate hadn’t seemed to notice his distracted state—too busy either going to frat parties all weekend or also inexplicably going missing during the day—nor did any of his teachers, and he himself only really noticed it when—

“You seemed quite distracted today. Is everything alright?” Patton shook off the odd stupor he was in as he looked down at his completely empty notebook page and then up at the empty classroom, his face flushing bright red as Logan stared curiously down at him. “Oh, I… yeah, I guess my mind has been elsewhere lately.”

“I can help you make up the material from today, if you’d like. Perhaps that could fall under the ‘hanging out’ thing you mentioned, as long as you didn’t mean it in a literal sense.” Logan offered, Patton’s mouth falling open in surprise before he quickly shut it and tried to make himself look less shell-shocked. “For educational purposes, of course.”

“Yeah!” He agreed immediately, brushing some stray bangs out of his eyes. “That sounds awesome! How soon?”

“I have a break tomorrow afternoon, if you are also free.” Logan hummed, pleased, before hurriedly adding, “To help you go over the notes from lecture you missed.”

“I’ve only got two classes in the morning, so we could meet here after lunch? Around 2?”

“That works for me as well.”

Patton’s reflection was beaming as he checked over himself one last time—having rushed back to his dorm after both of his classes and a quick lunch, adjusting his glasses and trying to smooth the last few wrinkles out of the bottom of his light blue undershirt.

I look fine, right? It’s not like this is anything serious, we’re just meeting to go over notes!

He tugged on the sides of the thin jacket to get it better settled on his shoulders before grabbing his backpack and heading for the elevator, his stomach churning in anxious anticipation as he made his way towards Thaw Hall.

The walk was short, the air light and breezy as Patton jogged up the small hill and the outdoor steps to head into the building. The inside steps were taken two at a time, Patton stopping as he heard loud chatter and laughing from down the hall where 102 is.

Isn’t the classroom supposed to be empty at this time? Patton wondered idly, his path drifting faster towards the laughter and open classroom door. Poking his head in through the opening, Patton glanced inside to see two or three kids he didn't recognize kicking at Logan’s prone form on the floor. Patton gasped loudly, catching the attention of the three boys who instantly jumped in surprise and turned to run out of the room. Patton let them go, too focused on worrying about the android as he ran inside to get a better look.

Logan, to his credit, didn't look terribly bothered. His left arm was awkwardly bent and twitching every so often, his eye on that side also completely blank and black as it seemed to be powered off. He turned to look at Patton as he came in, picking his glasses up off the floor beside him and sliding them on before using his working arm to try and make himself look less disheveled.

“Oh shoot, Logan! Are you okay?” Patton fretted, dropping to his knees beside Logan and starting to look him over closely.

“Hmm? Is there a reason I wouldn’t be?”

“Your eye is all…!” Patton gestured widely, Logan’s one good eye blinking slowly in confusion. “And your arm! What happened?”

“That's beside the point. A reset should be enough to fix it. I can walk you through—”

“Err… I actually know someone who may be able to help!” Patton stumbled out, Logan tilting his head a little to the side as Patton got to his feet and shook his head and hands almost wildly. “He should be here right now, actually! Haha, that’s such a funny lil coincidence! I’ll be right back!”

Running out of the room before Logan could say anything, Patton checked his phone and found the nearest stairwell that would lead him down to the first floor and then into the connected engineering building.

I can’t remember if Virgil’s class starts or ends at 2:30… He better be here.

After reaching the first landing of the winding stairs and jogging down the hall towards several corner offices that told him he was on the right track, Patton approached the robotics classroom and glanced around the mostly empty hallways as he pushed on the door to open it. He then tentatively poked his head through the door as it swung in, his eyes scanning the mostly empty lab to land on the only two figures inside.

“Virgil, what the hell is this?”

“It’s just a chair.” Virgil—Oh, good, he’s here—grinned at the professor, who was standing by what appeared to be a sprawling work desk. Virgil himself—in his trademark patchwork hoodie and high tops—was sitting up on the counter in a spot clear of tools and wires, gesturing with his head at a chair with strangely clunky front legs beside him. “You should try it, professor.”

“I can see the pistons.” The professor commented almost nervously, before rolling his eyes as he went back to sit at his desk across the room. “You can get students with it later, but I’m not going near that. Not after your taser chair.”

Patton shook his head, unsurprised by the absurdity as he cleared his throat to grab their attention. “Um… hello?”

“Huh?” Virgil turned to look at the same time as the professor, before recognition washed away his confused expression. “Patton? Oh, hey!”

“Heya, Virge!” Patton stepped further into the lab as Virgil leaped off the desk, jogging over. 

“Forgot you had a couple classes here.” Virgil smiled sheepishly, the professor going back to some work in front of him as he led Patton to his desk. “We haven’t talked much since the semester started. You must’ve been too busy to say something, huh?”

“You could say that.” Patton chuckled, feeling much less confident as the worry in stomach grew heavier. “Say, how much do you know about those bots they have in the classrooms?”

“The automated teaching assistants?” Virgil asked, hopping up on his desk. Patton started to go for the chair, but Virgil stopped him. “It’ll launch you. Sit on literally anything else.” Patton nodded gratefully, dragging over a chair from another desk. “What about them? They’re new this year, so they’re a little basic and buggy. Something up?”

“Yeah, you could say that.” Patton glanced away, Virgil noticing the worry that finally started to eat at his expression. “Would you know how to, say, fix one that took some damage?”

“Huh? Probably. Why, something happen?”

“You could say that.” Patton repeated, his voice going quiet as his gaze shifted to the colorfully tiled floor beneath his sneakers.

“Pat? What happened?” One of Virgil’s legs started to swing back and forth as his stomach bubbled nervously. “You’re scaring me; you’re never like this.”

“…can I just show you?”

“Alright. Let me grab some stuff, since I’m assuming this question of ‘can I fix it’ isn’t very hypothetical.”

Patton nodded silently as Virgil grabbed a backpack from beside the desk and tossed several of the tools on his desk into it.

“Hey, Dr. V, I’ll be right back. Patton needs my help with finding one of his classes. He’s new.”

“Sure thing, Virgil.” The professor called back, not looking up from his desk. “Be careful.”

“Will do.” Virgil saluted at him, before tugging the bag on and looking at Patton with anxious brown eyes. “Lead the way.”

The trek back into Thaw was tense, Virgil’s converse squeaking a little on the tile as the two silently headed up the stairs and then back into the classroom. Virgil let out a low whistle as they came in, Patton awkwardly dropping to the floor beside Logan—who was still seated.

“Woah. I’m sure you’ve looked better.” Virgil mused as he looked over Logan, slipping his backpack off and starting to hunt inside of it.

“I am quite alright. A reset should be enough, I don’t think anything is out of place.”

“Yeah, I’m not buying that.” Virgil rolled his eyes, halting his hunt after seeming satisfied with what the few things he pulled out, zipping his bag closed again. “I’ll do the reset if I don’t find anything else that needs my attention.”

“If you say so.”

Patton anxiously tapped a random rhythm on his legs while Virgil took care to make sure Logan wasn't damaged anywhere, eventually deeming him fit enough to open a main access panel on the back of Logan’s neck.

“Hey, while I'm here, you want me to give you some boosts?” Virgil asked randomly, setting the panel’s cover on the desk nearby. “I bet I could improve a bunch of shit for you.”

Logan frowned. “I am already optimized for efficiency. I don’t understand your desire to make so-called ‘improvements’.” 

“Alright, whatever you say. Your loss.” Virgil shrugged, hesitating as his hands hovered over Logan’s shoulder. “Good for the reset?”

“Yes.”

It was strange to watch him power down. Patton understood he was an android—the metal forearms made that much clear—but it was odd to see it so plainly after all the regular chatting they’d done for the last two weeks. Logan hadn’t actually moved as Virgil fiddled around in the back, the only real indication of him being off the fact that the light in his other eye had gone out, Patton looking away from the empty black screens to notice Virgil counting ten seconds on his fingers before powering Logan back on. His eyes went completely white before the digital pupils appeared in the middle, Logan shaking his head a little and going to test his left arm that had been locked up—only for it to work, good as new.

“Alright, you should be good now.” Virgil quickly put the panel cover back on Logan’s neck after seeing his arm working again, smiling as he packed up his bag and slung it on. “Let me know if either of you need anything else. If you need me and I'm not in Dr. V’s lab, you can just text me, Pat.”

“Okay, thanks Virge.” Patton shot Virgil a nervous yet grateful smile in return as his friend then ducked out of the classroom, leaving the other two alone in a long stretch of very awkward silence.

“So… do you still want me to walk you though the notes from yesterday’s lecture?”

[nire-the-mithridatist]

do the entire ao3 wrapped i wanna see everything !!!

...fine, since you asked and because I love you. I'm putting it under the cut tho.

How many words have you written this year? more or less 75k. ao3 counts the whole fic word count even though only a few chapters are from this year, so i'm approximating from how much of the priest!fic i wrote this year on lesserfeelings + all my fresh stuff on nire.

How many works did you publish this year? new ones? 12 individual works and 5 ficlets in my vincenzo ficlet collection.

What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)? i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) is my darling, my beloved, my blood sweat and tears. i rewrote about one-thirds of it from present tense to past tense. i spent hours ruminating whether i would split it into five acts or just lump it all up (i did split it, but it remains a oneshot). it's not my most popular fic by far but i am most proud of it.

What work of yours has the most hits? that would be a map of every blade at currently 14,549 hits.

What work of yours got more feedback than you expected? answered here. (it's my twiyor fuck or die)

Favorite title you used answered here. (also the fuck or die fic)

If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most? rather than song lyrics, i used quotes from the poem underbelly by nicole homer for the title of two fics (and all the chapters in one of those two).

Pairing you wrote the most for this year? twilight (loid forger) and yor forger. gotta love me a pair of canonical fake marrieds with secret identities.

Favorite pairing you wrote for this year? same answer as above!

What work was the quickest to write? answered here.

What work took you the longest to write? finishing the vincenzo priest!fic took me more than half a year, so. definitely that one.

How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year? just the one that i know for sure. wait, maybe two. idk.

What’s your longest work of the year? priest!fic was 24k, but about 40% of it was from last year. so... it would be a map of every blade at around 15k.

What’s your shortest work of the year? come (my half of our cy/mh duology) is at 383 words!

What WIP are you taking into next year with you? my sxf pacific rim au.

What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag? not beta read. heheheh

Your favorite character to write this year? answered here. (it's loid forger)

The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year? yuri forger, because i don't... really... like him... and it's hard to write him in a way that fits the tone of my fics and not caricature-ish.

What’s one pairing you want to explore next year? definitely staying with twiyor! i love me my fake married blorbos

Which work of yours have you reread the most? i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) like just during editing alone... it's also super self-indulgent so... yeah

How many kudos in total did you get this year? UMMMMM. gonna approximate again because some of these kudos i got last year, but ao3 counts them as this year because i finished the fic this year. around 5,700, i think. 5,258 i got on nire and approximately 400-500 on lesserfeelings.

Which work has the most comments? priest!fic, but since part of that was last year, a map of every blade at 145 comment threads.

Did you do any collaborative works this year? yeah fam! you and i wrote a twofer earlier this year!

Did you write any gifts this year? yes but i haven't posted it!

Did you receive any gifts this year? yup! and i treasure them dearly <3

What’s your most common category? F/M.

What do you listen to while writing? answered here. (nothing, except when i need music)

Favorite work you wrote this year? there's one fic i have yet to post because it's for an event, and also: i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) for the same reasons as answer #3, also it's just super-indulgent to my niche interests.

Favorite line/passage you wrote this year? from i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart):

In the end, they decided on a plain ring for Vincenzo to wear on his finger and a delicate band with diamonds all around (“It’s called an eternity band,” Cha Young said, breathless even as a voice in his head) for her to wear on a chain around his neck. The size of the second ring didn’t really matter, but he bought one that she could’ve worn anyway. It was so small. Her hands had been so delicate, and—just like that, with that one small recollection—he mourned her all over again.

“You really should stop doing that,” she said. “It feels like… like rain inside the house.”

Sorry, he thought rather than said. They were still at the store, hence the indoor voice; he was holding the diamond-paved ring for her inspection. It’s just that I would’ve married you.

“We’re living together and you bought us rings. What else would you call that, if not marriage?”

30. Biggest surprise while writing this year? answered here and here!

ao3 wrapped asks

[quaranmine]

1, 5, 21, 32 :D

1.     Do you listen to music when you write?

omg i literally cannot. cursed to not be able to listen to words while making words. if it is instrumental i could, but i rarely do.

that said i finished the last part of the pearl section in chapter 6 of firewatch au while listening to time's blur by lord huron on repeat which is. hmm. this is a song that invokes deep existentialism-

5.     How much writing do you get done on an average day?

this is, shockingly, a question i could actually answer with a real number, given i have been doing a daily writing challenge for like five months

okay, so there's been 130 days so far in my challenge. (today is 131.) if we just add up days with word counts or skips, that is 92 out of 130. I count skips as a 0 in the average so it brings the whole number down. The reason i separate out the word counts and the skips from the total 130 is because i also count research, art, editing, outline work, notes, etc to be productive work so it cannot count against the word count

if you only do the 92 days: i average 507 words written per day

if you want to include the total time the challenge has been running, that average gets dropped to 359 words written per day.

Other interesting things I noticed: every month is very similar in the amount of days i either wrote or skipped. it's like 20 days, 22 days, 23 days, etc. i guess this means i average approximately 9 days per month working on art, editing, and research.

other interesting things! of the four completed months, the word counts are fairly similar. month one and two are very close to being identical on word count, with about 11,200 words each. month three is 9,900. month four is 12,400. overall, if you average the word count of the completed four months of the challenge, you get 11,207 words per month. weirdly consistent!

all in all, i have written 46,706 words in the past 130 days!

21.  Who is/are your favourite character(s) to write?

in general? grian and jimmy, not to anyone's suprise LOL

specifically? firewatch!scar my absolute beloved <333 my personal blorbo even though nobody even knows half of his character yet <333

32.  Most difficult character to write

already answered <3

[a-land-lacking-sleep]

Electric Trains are the Future Chapter 10: An Unexpected Disruption

Previous Chapter (9) - Current Chapter - Next Chapter (11)

We hit the angsty part today, sorry. Well, next chapter is the angst, this chapter is the catalyst. But for now, we send the group to go find a new village! We're ramping up for the climax of the first part, and then we're on to new pastures!

Chapter Summary: Jubilife needs to expand with all of the incoming immigrants, and Ingo and Akari are the right people for the job! Chapter Word Count: 4848 Chapter Warnings: Major Character Injury (Skip from the blue text to the next linebreak)

As always, read here or on AO3 with additional notes! Reblogs and comments are always appreciated.

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13 Weeks since Elesa’s Disappearance

“Sorry, Uncle, but it seems that Solgaleo can’t get a lead on it,” Elio says, stroking the fur on their giant lion before feeding it a malasada. “He can feel that a Wormhole was here, yeah, but he can’t really get anything else.”

Emmet is standing with Elio and Volo down Tunnel 3 in the Nimbasa Subway System, in the approximate location where Ingo had disappeared during an inspection. Emmet clearly remembers what had happened. Several Depot Agents had seen figures of Pokemon rushing out of the way of trains in Tunnels 3 and 4, and once they were able to shut the lines down, Ingo and Emmet had split up to check each tunnel.

Ingo never came back. Emmet had found a small purple Pokemon, incredibly injured from when it had been clipped by a train. When he described it to Elio, the young Champion had exclaimed it must’ve been a Poipole. Emmet had cared for the Pokemon for a time before it suddenly disappeared.

Just like Ingo.

“Uncle?” Elio’s voice snaps Emmet out of his reminiscence, and he turns to face Elio. “Are you ok?”

“I am Emmet. I was thinking. I am fine, yup,” Emmet says, his smile looking verrrrrry tired, but still real. “This is where Ingo disappeared. An Ultra Wormhole makes sense.” He nods, and looks over as Volo clears his throat.

“Since we didn’t get any leads, should we get going?” He was back in his baggy blue hoodie, hands buried into the pockets. “We did make plans to talk with Cynthia.” The ‘old’ man began to tap his foot and look around the group. “And I really don’t like how these tunnels feel. I feel like I’m being watched.”

“Yes,” Emmet says, turning and beginning to walk down the tunnel, back towards the Subway terminal. “We should get going.”

—

16 Weeks since Elesa’s Arrival

The sun in the coastlands was brutal now that summer was beginning to roll in. With how bitterly cold the winters got, and how the Icelands stayed under a constant sheet of ice, one would expect cooler summers. But Ingo was a Unovan. He lived just as far north there as he did here, and he knows how hot the streets can get in the height of summer.

Elesa and Miss Akari, meanwhile, managed the heat by wearing lighter clothing for the expedition. Miss Akari had changed into the pajama shirt she’d worn when she first arrived and wore thinner pants that covered her legs, and Elesa had modified yet another uniform to be thinner with removed sleeves, and shortened her pants to capri length. Ingo refused to remove his coat and hat, though he had the sense to remove his Pearl Clan tunic. If they came across Palina, he was sure she’d understand.

“So, game plan!” Miss Akari says, putting a map of the Coastlands down on the table for both adults to see. “Kamado and Sanqua want us to find the best place to build an additional settlement for the Galaxy Expedition Team. We’ve been getting a lot of new incomers, and Jubilife is almost full!” The girl smiles and nods, satisfied with her explanation.

“We also need to remember to plot our course around Pearl and Diamond Clan lands,” Ingo says, picking up the fountain pen that he had haggled from Ginter, and circling the upper cliffs of the bay, and the area around Aipom Hill. “If we put tracks on these lands, we not only break the treaties, but risk discontent. The Clans and Jubilife are allies and on good terms, but if we accidentally start an invasion, then we have forgotten about safety checks and gone into a dangerous tunnel.”

Elesa swats his shoulder softly, drawing his look. “We’re not going to start anything, you Worry Seed! I don’t think Akari is that dumb!” She very much leaves the implication that Akari is dumb enough for other things unsaid.

Akari, thankfully, didn’t catch on, and motioned for the pen from Ingo. “Yeah, I’m not gonna start nothin’,” she says, circling the area at the end of the bottom hook of the bay, where the sand spreads out like a hand. “We already have a base camp here at Sand’s Reach, and it’s far enough from where Basculegion usually rests that it shouldn’t be an issue.”

The trio look at the map for a few moments, plotting the various courses there. Eventually, Ingo speaks up. “Though we already do now, we would have to route freight lines for the settlement through Aipom Hill itself, most likely right where Iscan lives.” He reaches over and grabs a pencil this time, marking the path of least resistance from the beach of Gingko Landing to Sand’s Reach. “While I’m sure he will be fine with us simply having a route past his house, it might cause a logistical problem down the line.”

“What?” Akari looks at the map intensely for a few moments, then shakes her head. “They don’t need to go that close to the cliffs, Uncle Ingo! There’s other ways through that pass!” She grabs the pencil as soon as Ingo sets it down, and amends his route to cut north of the pass, right over the mountains.

Elesa sighs as Ingo carries on. “Miss Akari, you forget that you and I have the ease of Lady Sneasler’s help. Even with her, we make only a two-car train. But if we need to build and supply a new village,” he smudges the line that she had made, then taps his original route, “then we have a freight train and must go through the pass. We can check the route again today, but we would need to discuss the plans with Adaman and Iscan to be sure.”

Miss Akari crosses her arms and huffs, knowing that Ingo was right but not wanting to admit it. Ingo, meanwhile, was proud of himself. Once Kamado and Sanqua had learned that Ingo was the head of transportation for a region the size of Unova, they had asked him to help with the planning of the next settlement. Someone with such expertise in planning trade routes and roads for moving people was invaluable, and the Galaxy Team was not going to pass it up.

The silence is broken when Elesa taps a spot on the map, a lake across from Firespit Island. “What about here? Would this be a suitable place for the village, if we can find a way through the mountain?” Labeled under the name ‘Spring Path’, the lake was isolated from everywhere else unless they took a boat all the way around the Veilstone Cape. But in a straight line from where the trio were now, they would entirely avoid dealing with the Pearl Clan land that stretched down Veilstone and the Castaway Shore, as well as the area directly around Firespit.

Ingo and Miss Akari look up at each other, both trying to communicate silently. How steep were the cliffs? Was there a shallower part to take carts? Maybe a small cave system that could be extended, and kept lit so that Zubat didn’t infest it? Were there any Alpha nearby that they would need to try and coax into relocating?

After a few moments of silently debating it between each other and alone, Miss Akari takes the pen and circles the lake. “This might work. I haven’t gone up here much, so I don’t have the best idea of what we need to do. But,” swapping the pen for the pencil, she circles the area of the cliffs that separate the lake from the main area of the Coastland, “if we can find a way through here, it’s viable.” 

Ingo looks at the map to think of ways around Akari’s conundrum, and eventually he shrugs. Dancing in excitement of her victory, Akari rolls up the map and puts it away before pulling out her Arcphone and opening the map app on it. “So, this one doesn’t show any more detail at all. But I can have it track my movement so that it plots a path for us!” She holds her finger on the screen and puts a pin. “There, it’ll track us now!”

“Then let’s hope we don’t have to go up and down cliffs, Akari,” Elesa says, ruffling the teenager’s hair as she starts walking down towards the beach. “But no use worrying about that until we get there. Might as well use the thing to route a way around the Alpha nests, no?”

The group carefully makes tracks through the Coastland, keeping off the sand itself to keep the path as straight as possible. The Alpha Walrein that normally rests on the coast north of the cliffs had decided to come visit the main coastline with their children, which Ingo made sure to note down as a potential obstacle to future routing. 

To say nothing of the normal Alpha Drapion, whose Skorupi minions caught wind of the trio as they passed by, even with the wide berth. Ingo didn’t miss the larger Pokemon trudge towards the edge of its territory. Nor did he miss the fact that it trailed their movement as they skirted around the Pokemon’s nesting area. 

Just from those two brief encounters, Ingo was second guessing this potential location. With this many Alphas nearby, most traders wouldn’t want to take the route, even with easy tracks for them to follow, let alone villagers with little protection. Gripping the brim of his cap, he looks down towards the ground as he walks, thinking to himself. They’ve stuck to the cliffs to the west of the area, barely staying in sight of these Alphas, yet the fact that they had to worry about them meant that they would have to worry about them again in the future.

Eventually though, Akari pops her hand up, her phone screen lit up. “We’re at the point!” She puts her hands to her hips triumphantly and looks around expectantly, though Ingo was unsure what she was hoping to find. All he could see was a cliff.

“Akari?” Elesa asks, tapping the teen on the head. “What are you Seaking? Cause I’m not seeing much of a path.” Ingo had to agree with her, there wasn’t much of a path at all. He knew to the east was a path up the cliffs towards Veilstone Cape, and eventually to Lord Arcanine’s grave. But that went in the opposite direction, and was decidedly in Pearl Clan territory.

Miss Akari crosses her arms and looks out east anyway. “We could see if there’s a place on the path that way that could either be workable, or maybe carved into a path with Pokemon?” It seems that Miss Akari had already given up on the idea of using this as a way to keep out of Clan territory, and she didn’t even sound too sure of it herself. 

Ingo opens his mouth to speak, but Elesa cuts him off. “That could be the case,” she says, walking past Miss Akari while tapping her chin. “How about this, Skiddo. I’ll go check that path for places we can use, and you two,” she pauses, pointing at Ingo and Miss Akari before pointing up the cliff and continuing, “can HM08 your way up the cliff and look for a way down on the other side.”

Ingo frowns, not that there is much of an outwardly difference. “I am not sure that’s the track to go with, Elesa. Honestly, that proves that this route is unsustainable for travel if we are needing to make concessions before construction begins. Always remember your safety checks, as Emmet would say.”

“And safety checks are why I’m having you two check up there,” Elesa says, gesturing to the cliff face again. “Sticking to the path down here isn’t too rough, so I can Gogoat around with ease!” She pops a cute little pose, putting her hand on her hip and popping it to the side while flashing a peace sign up by her face. Ingo had to struggle not to laugh at her joke, since he was trying to prove a point of not approving of the plan. 

But before the point could be argued, the pair were surprised by Akari blowing two loud notes from her Celestica Flute, then looking at the pair with a smile. “Sneasler’s on her way!” Elesa pumps her fists in excitement while Ingo just gives her a flat look.

“Fine,” Ingo says, pulling his cap down a bit to cover his eyes. “Once my Lady arrives, we can depart from this station.” Miss Akari dances in place in joy, then high fives Elesa. Ingo stews, having been betrayed by not only his adoptive niece, but by his own girlfriend. 

After a few minutes, Lady Sneasler climbs down the cliff that Ingo and Akari were about to scale. Elesa waves as she turns to head off, and Miss Akari climbs up into Lady Sneasler’s riding basket. “Now, my Lady,” Ingo says as he walks toward the cliff with his hands behind his back, “we’re planning on checking if the cliffs on the other side are conducive to regular travel.” Sneasler has a look of realization across her face, then nods enthusiastically. “I know that you would be able to traverse it easily, so Miss Akari and I need to check for ease of human travel.” 

Sneasler rolls her eyes and points at Ingo. “Snea?” Ingo just nods, and she shrugs before starting her way up the cliff. Adorably, Miss Akari sticks her arm out and waves at Ingo now that the basket is facing him, and Ingo waves back, his eyes crinkling slightly in his own kind of smile. Once Lady Sneasler gets a good distance up, her claws easily digging into and gripping the stone, Ingo begins to climb, finding the best path of handholds and footholds that he could.

The climb up looks like it will be easy, with plenty of handholds in view already, though it would take some time to actually traverse, giving Ingo the time to think. Since Elesa arrived, Unova not only had a name in his mind, but it was actually a real place to return to. Elesa would definitely go home, she’s talked about it a few times since she’s been here, and he thinks she may be getting homesick with how he’s been catching her looking at her Xtransciever.

Ingo missed Unova as well. He missed his mother Eiko in Anville; he missed his uncle Drayden and cousin Iris in Opelucid; he missed the sound of the Subway running down the tunnels as he would rest between battles. He missed his daily life with Emmet, and their teams, all 14 Pokemon and two humans in one house, existing together.

But can they even go back? Ingo remembers a few days after Elesa arrived, Miss Akari had admitted that she probably wouldn’t be able to send her or Ingo back. The fabric of time-space was still weak, and Dialga and Palkia were apparently refusing to do anything like that again. She said she had another plan, but nothing came up after that. Ingo wasn’t sure if the plan was being worked on or not, but the young girl had thrown herself into the Pokedex soon after.

And can Ingo even go back? He’s a Warden, an important member of the Pearl Clan, even if he doesn’t spend too much time around the Clan as a whole because of his duties and the general discomfort that the others felt with his origins. And in Jubilife, he was expected to conduct the Galaxy Team and various villagers in battling, teaching them how Pokemon battles work and how to properly care for them. He also had friends among the Wardens and Leaders, and each attachment was beginning to feel like a chain.

Ah, he has reached his destination. Ingo pulls himself up over the cliff’s edge, nodding to Miss Akari and Lady Sneasler, who were chatting as they waited for him. Even after 2 years of climbing the cliffs alongside her, Ingo could never match Lady Sneasler’s speed. “I have arrived at the station,” he calls out to grab their attention, gripping his hat.

Miss Akari jumps over to him and points away from the cliff, in the general direction of their destination. “Then we’re set! Let’s go check out the path!” Without a moment’s more wait, she starts moving. Lady Sneasler takes a moment to look back at Ingo, as if asking if she should follow, and all Ingo can do is shrug before following himself. 

After a few minutes of walking through what was honestly a calm route, Ingo speaks up. “So, Miss Akari, I do feel the need to ask.” Once he’s sure that the girl is listening, he continues. “Just as you don’t know the stations and towns in Unova, I don’t know those in Sinnoh. Is there actually a town here in your time?”

Miss Akari chews her bottom lip in thought for a moment before answering Ingo’s question, which he took as a sign that his suspicions were right. “Really, I’m not sure. Veilstone is supposed to be in this area, but the coastline is really different.” She pouts and puffs her cheeks out slightly. “I feel like the cape that Arcanine is buried on has either eroded or was taken down somehow, ‘cause that is not there back home.”

Ingo brings his hand from his cap and strokes his beard in thought. “That is a lot of stone to remove in a century and a half.”

“It’s a big change, yeah…” Akari says with a sigh. “Not only that, but Eterna, Oreburgh, and Floaroma seem to be in different places if their names are in the right spots, and Jubilife is Canalave in our time. I could’ve missed that sort of thing in school, but it feels wrong”

“If it helps, there are historical references to my position in this era,” Ingo says quickly, hoping to stop Akari from a potential spiral. “It was a joke my brother and I would share, so if we are indeed from the same 2022, then this is indeed the past of your region.” They walked silently for a few moments before he continued down similar tracks.

“Have you made any progress on returning us to our original homes?” Ingo had stayed behind by a pace or two while they walked, so he was able to see Akari stop in her spot, and so he stopped as well to let her think.

After a moment, Akari pulls out her Pokedex and turns to show him the filled out page for Munchlax. “I caught my last Pokemon yesterday morning. My Pokedex is complete, outside of one page that I think is… The Pokemon that sent me here.” She’d mentioned this Pokemon before, a deity from her region supposedly. She puts the Pokedex away and steps over, pulling out the phone that she had with her. “The page appeared after I got this text.”

Come to the Temple of Sinnoh for your final test.

“According to Arceus,” Akari says with a grimace at acknowledging who she thinks brought her here, “I should be going to the Highlands to see Him.” She sighs and puts the phone to her mouth, biting the small protrusion on the top before leaning against Ingo. “I was afraid to go, and leave you two behind. And not get to tell people good-bye.”

Ah, Ingo could see the problem. She was worried about the same thing he was, having put roots into Hisui, only to rip them up. “I miss home, Uncle Ingo,” she says softly, staying leaned up against his arm. “I miss my mom, I miss Auntie Cynthia, I miss Lucas and Barry. But I’m also scared to leave here, ‘cause I’ll miss everyone, like Rei, Irida, Adaman, Laventon…”

Ingo lets her linger for a second as he thinks. Akari had begun to feel truly at home, which makes sense. She’s still a child, in the bigger picture, and despite the trials she went through here with Volo causing the rifts and Kamado’s less than stellar reactions to disaster, she’d found a place to be comfortable. She had adults to rely on, a friend her age to spend time with, Pokemon to bond to. He could see her dilemma quite clearly.

Sighing, Ingo reaches up and takes his hat off, then plops it down onto Akari’s head. As she looks at him with a soft giggle, he points a finger upwards while keeping her left arm behind his back. “Follow the rules. Safe driving!” He steps back and points at her. “Follow the schedule. Now, everybody smile!” He pauses briefly to let her smile, before asking softly, “Have you checked safety?” 

Giggling through a smile now, Akari nods and mimics his current stance, putting her left hand up and her right behind her back. She’s been through this before. Even before Ingo remembered his past, he’d remembered this phrase, and often used it to help cheer her up during rough days. “Everything’s ready!” They both click their feet together and spin to face their path, pointing outwards before shouting “ALL ABOARD!”

Akari struggles to not fall into a giggle fit, and Ingo smiles at her, a genuine soft smile, before snatching his hat back. Akari immediately tries to grab it back while he holds it high above her head. “You can have a hat when you are a depot agent, young lady.”

“Fine then,” Akari says with a huff, crossing her arms and facing away. “I’ll be a depot agent, and fight so well that I’ll replace you in the Single Lines!” The both share a laugh, Ingo’s echoing off of the cliffs around them and nearly covering Akari’s entirely. After they calm down, Akari bumps her shoulder against Ingo and points at the cliff ahead. “We’re here!”

The pair approach the cliff and look over the landscape below. It’s nearly a sheer drop from their position, with the need of either Pokemon assistance in this time period, or machine-made paths in their time. Looking down, Ingo could see several swarms of Mothim in the area, including two Alphas actively engaged in a territory dispute. He lets the silence hang for a moment before gripping his hat. “This line is a bust, Miss Akari.”

His teenage passenger stays silent a moment longer before pointing over at the raised rock formation in the center of the area. “Well, there’s the lake. I recognize this area,” she says, her shoulders slumping. “It’s where I caught Giratina. There’s a cave on the water inside of the crater.” She kicks a rock by her foot, launching it over the edge of the cliff in front of them and tumbling down. “I came by the water last time, so I forgot it was this area…”

As the girl starts to wallow, Ingo pats her shoulder. “It’s fine, Miss Akari. Even if this line did not lead to a station, it is still information to use for future expeditions.” He watches her look out at the area below them and then pick herself back up. “Now, let us reverse course and return to our previous station. We shouldn’t keep Elesa waiting.”

“Yeah, don’t wanna keep Auntie held up much longer,” Akari says with a half-hearted grin, turning around on her heel and starting back towards the far cliff they had climbed. The way she swung her arms mirrors how Emmet had always walked when he got excited, swinging like the stiff arms of a toy soldier or nutcracker. “Besides, it’s not all bad, we got some exercise!”

“We get exercise daily, Miss Akari,” Ingo says, laughing as he falls in line with Lady Sneasler. “We could’ve used this time to prepare the route to the base camp and discuss plans with Iscan.” He didn’t want to rain on her parade entirely, but she had delayed their course pretty heavily.

“Oh, it’ll be fine.” Akari waves her hand in dismissal. “I know for a fact that the camp becomes a city in Sinnoh. It’s Sunyshore, the last city before the Elite Four.” She spreads her arms wide like she’s showing Ingo a floating image of the town. “A few buildings built on the shore, with raised platforms of solar panels that you can walk on to access the Lighthouse or Volkner’s Electric-type Gym.” She turns around and walks backwards so she can shoot finger guns at Ingo. “Pretty sweet, yeah?”

“So it was the correct choice, and this was a whim.” Again, Ingo didn’t want to actively rain on her parade, but this was absurd. They had spent almost two hours on this diversion, and it was completely unneeded. All it had done was send Akari’s mental state into disarray thinking she had been derailed so heavily that her future didn’t exist here for a brief moment.

“Well, kinda, yeah,” Akari says, visibly deflating and turning back around. “I was thinking we could find a place for Veilstone, but yeah, this was… This was kinda useless. Sorry.” Lady Sneasler shoots Ingo a tired look, basically reading as You don’t know how to talk to kids, and trots to catch up to the teenager, licking at her hair. “Hey! Sneasler! My hair is fine, I don’t need to be groomed!”

Ingo breathes in deeply and sighs before stopping next to the two parked girls. “I was not trying to imply that you made a worthless decision, Miss Akari.” Normally, he was the one to put out the bad news to an employee at work, as Emmet was far too blunt for his own good or Cameron’s self-esteem, but with the girl who genuinely saw him as an uncle figure, he was struggling. “Simply that this would’ve been better done by checking here after we had set up the other line. We’ve lost daylight, yes, but not the way.” He pauses for a moment, trying to think of how to wrap this up, though Akari cuts him off instead.

“You’re good, Uncle Ingo,” she says, reaching out to gently shove him. “It just sucks being wrong, y’know? Especially when it normally works ou-” Akari pauses suddenly, her brows furrowing and her head snapping towards the cliffs that they were approaching. “Do you hear battling, Uncle?”

That sets off alarms in Ingo’s head, and he tilts his head to listen closer. He hears the Growlithe in the distance running through the trees, the occasional Staravia or Chatot flying by, but beneath it, yes, he can hear a battle. There was a pattern to it, and then what sounded like a burst from a generator. Elesa was battling something.

“She needs our help,” Ingo says, immediately making for the cliff and looking down to see his partner fighting off the Alpha Drapion from earlier. It had seemed interested, and apparently enough so to leave its nesting area to investigate what they were doing. Looking back, he calls to Akari, “She’s fighting an Alpha, we should move to assist! All aboard!”

He turns back as Akari starts scrambling into Lady Sneasler’s basket, and kneels down to look for a foothold on the cliff face. Seeing one, he plants his hand and pivots, briefly hanging off a loose grip before his foot lands on the hold, and then he braces himself. A hurried Lady Sneasler comes over the cliff’s edge now, turning in midair to sink her claws into the stone, and quickly makes her way down the cliff.

Ingo moves fast to keep pace, moving from handhold to handhold, foothold to foothold in practiced motions. Release my hands here, plant my feet here, grip my hand here. Release here, plant here, grip here. Release, plant, grip.

Cool your engines, Ingo! Remember your safety checks! Is everything ready?

Before he can react, the small ledge where Ingo had planted his foot crumbles under his full weight, not only leaving him with no support from below, but also causing gravity to tear his fingers from the stone they were clutching. 

It’s a short fall to the next ledge, his extended right leg meeting it full force, and he can feel the bone snap, the pain nearly causing him to black out. He falls backwards, twisting to try and catch himself, his head barely missing the edge as he free falls for a moment. He swears he hears Akari and Sneasler, but he can’t focus to hear as the ground is now rapidly approaching him. Tuck and roll enters his mind, but he can’t get his body to respond, still twisting itself to try and right itself.

His shoulder connects with the ground, the bone snapping audibly before his head hits next. His flip completes as he slides across the ground on his back, and finally blacks out.

—

In Sinnoh, 16 weeks after Elesa had disappeared into a space-time distortion, Emmet falls to the forest floor and lets out a loud scream as he clasps his left arm.