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embklitzke · 4 years

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July 2020 Camp NaNoWriMo - The Magic Crystal Justice Squad (Chapter 1)

So this project that I'm doing for July 2020's Camp NaNoWriMo kind of snuck up on me. I'd originally intended to start a re-draft of UNSETIC Files: Pawns for this go-around, but plans changed when lightning kind of struck my brain.

There's a meme floating around about magical girls who were supposed to be retired but have to pick it back up again when they're around 30--and have real lives, real jobs, responsibilities, etc. that would definitely be impacted by their side gigs saving the world. When I first saw it, I laughed about it and wondered if it maybe wouldn't be a fun project to try out--someday.

Someday happens to be, quite unexpectedly, right now.

The Magic Crystal Justice Squad is something completely off-the-wall and very different for me, but definitely brings back fond memories of much younger years when I rushed home every damn day from school to watch Sailor Moon and the hours spent over the years watching Power Rangers and similar fare. It also lets me stretch my writing muscles in some new and interesting ways, since it feels a lot more tongue-in-cheek than many of my other projects. It's something fresh and new and has been fun so far.

We'll see how long that lasts.

Until then, enjoy joining me on this little bit of a ride.

One

Shots rang out and I pressed my back against the brick wall, sucking in a pair of ragged breaths. Steady. Steady.

Maybe if I told myself that I could still do this, I’d actually be able to.

God, everything hurt so much more at twenty-nine than it had at seventeen.

There’s something they don’t tell you when you sign up for this whole magical girl gig. Of course, that assumes you’ve got the choice when the whole thing comes up—from the looks of things, most don’t, at least not when you read about them or watch them on TV. I’ll tell you what: Sailor Moon it’s not, that’s for sure. It’s not Magic Knight Rayearth or any of the others, either. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows and personal growth.

And unlike in Power Rangers or any of that craziness, there’s no handing over your powers to someone else. There’s no retirement plan.

There sure as hell isn’t a happily ever after.

I’ve spent twelve years trying to convince myself otherwise and the only thing I’ve learned is that fate is a cruel bitch and the business of saving the world sure as hell isn’t all it’s cracked up to be on TV.

I risked a glance around the corner. Not immediately seeing my pursuit, I allowed myself a second to breathe, squeezing my eyes shut and trying to listen past the sound of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. They couldn’t be far. Their pursuit had been dogged across rooftops and down through the cavernous alleyways. I’d be paying for my rappelling trick for days.

Austin would’ve told me that it was an impressive move, but probably an unnecessary stress on my body, a waste of economy. As usual, he’d have probably been right about it, too.

But Austin wasn’t here.

Austin was why I was here.

Sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer. Someone must have called the cops, as if they’d be of any help in this situation. For all I knew, they were working for the enemy.

It would not have been the first time something like that had ever happened.

Just breathe, damn you. It took every ounce of wherewithal not to snarl at myself. Panicking wouldn’t do me any good, not now—not that it ever had. All it’d ever done had gotten me was into more trouble or yelled at by my former teammates.

Former.

If there was nothing else that slammed home how alone I was in this, it was that single word.

With Austin gone, too, I was well and truly on my own for the first time in twelve years.

I opened my eyes and stared at the wall ahead of me, then reached up to tap my tiara where it rested against my temple. A crystal visor materialized a second later, numbers and figures scrolling in front of my right eye, almost too quickly for me to understand what they were telling me.

That had always been a problem, but it was one that I didn’t have the patience to fix and probably wouldn’t until the next time it almost got me killed.

Three of them closing in. I can dodge them or I can fight.

My hands curled into fists. As stupid as it was, I wanted their blood. I wanted to put them out of my misery.

It would be three less foot soldiers for the enemy to throw at me in the future.

Hell, they might have been the ones who took my brother, which meant that I owed them more than a little payback.

I should have listened sooner. If I’d listened sooner, none of this would have happened. None of this would have started again. We could have stopped it.

Dammit, we could have stopped it before it started all over again.

Too late now.

I watched the scroll for a few more seconds. My breathing calmed and I counted my heartbeats, listening as the sirens grew closer. The sirens—and the three men who thought that I couldn’t hear them coming.

They brought this on themselves.

Hands tightening into fists, I took one last, slow breath.

“Fuck with the Crystal Princess and see what you get,” I breathed, then pivoted out of my hiding place and into the open. Leveling my wand—twelve inches of iridescent, crystallized silver—at them, I growled words that only felt even more ridiculous every time I said them. “Quicksilver Crystal Blade Spread!”

In the split second between the men realizing what I’d said and the blast hitting, the look on their faces was nothing short of priceless—they thought I was the most ridiculous thing walking.

They weren’t far from wrong.

Even ridiculous, however, I was still deadlier than they were.

The magic started as a brief flare of gray-white light, almost too faint to see. It grew exponentially in a matter of seconds, gaining form and substance as crystalline daggers that flew in an arc in front of me. Dozens of them found their mark, blasting the center most of my pursuers clear off his feet, sending him flying backwards a dozen yards. His companions had a split second to look at each other, their mocking and amusement melting into something close to fear.

One of them had the temerity to shoot at me.

He missed, though not by much. It helped that I was already moving.

If I’d learned anything over the years, it was to keep moving before they got your measure and your number came up once and for all.

The other thing I’d learned was to come at the enemy with all you’ve got because you never know which encounter’s going to be the last.

Catching the one on my right in the chest with my foot, I pushed off him to tackle the one on the left, the one that had managed to get a shot off. As his companion went careening into the wall, I bore the shooter to the ground, using momentum to make up for my lack of girth. The gun clattered from his hand, went spinning away, out of reach of both of them.

They were already bleeding from the dagger spread.

Monsters, after all, bleed just like everyone else.

Whipping my wand toward his jaw like a baton as I bore him to the ground, the shooter’s head bounced off the concrete as we landed, me on top of him. His eyes rolled up into his head for a second, then he snarled. I could only see the whites of his eyes as he lunged upward at me, fingers hooked into claws.

Oh no, you did not just pull that shit with me. Throwing up one arm to catch his hands, I drove the heel of my free hand into his nose.

The sound he made was the stuff of nightmares—half a scream, half a growl. It soured my stomach and sent bile creeping into my throat, touching a primal fear built into all of us.

Unlike most, I’ve figured out over the years how to shunt that fear aside and keep on fighting.

I risked a look away from him to check on my other assailants. The one that had taken the brunt of the daggers wasn’t moving—he was probably out, though I wasn’t sure. The other, though—

Yeah. I should have been a little more vigilant about him.

A booted foot sent me sprawling, knocking me from my perch on the shooter’s chest. The other man stalked after me, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and a few places where the daggers had caught him, too.

“You should have stayed out of it,” he growled, his voice guttural, somehow human and inhuman all at once. A shiver shot down my spine.

Just in case I needed more confirmation that something was rotten in the state of Denmark...

Well, I had it now, not that I’d needed it.

“Fat chance,” I said, brandishing my wand. He laughed at me.

“What are you going to do with that, Princess? It’s a sparkly stick with magic. You don’t have too many charges left, now do you? Bet you’re spent after that last-ditch effort to shake us off.”

“Oh,” I said quietly. “You’d be surprised.”

They were working from outdated information. That was good to know.

While being older meant that I’d pay a heavier price for any sort of physical feats of magical-girl prowess, having become a magical woman had apparently translated to a deeper fount of magic.

“Quicksilver Mist Arise.”

His eyes widened as the air around him thickened. I crawled back, stumbled to my feet, watching as a silver mist coalesced around him and his fallen companion. Their faces changed as the fog swirled around them, growing heavier, thicker.

There it was. The demonic-looking visages I’d expected, the ones I’d sensed but not seen.

They were getting better and better at hiding in plain sight.

Still, they hadn’t quite gotten good enough to fool me—not most of the time, anyway.

The mist choked off even their screams as it stole their breath.

Carefully, I stepped around the mist and headed toward their fallen companion, crouching to check for a pulse. I found none. His face had taken on the same demonic cast in death that illusion shrouded in life. My lips thinned as I started to search him, hoping to find something some clue to what they’d been up to—other than hunting me.

Behind me, the mist faded away, leaving the bodies of his companions lying in the alleyway. Muttering a curse as I came up empty in my initial search, I headed for the other two and repeated my search.

Nothing.

Maybe they were getting smarter after all.

I straightened and shook my head, staring at them for a few seconds, throat tightening at the shameful waste of it all. It didn’t have to be this way.

But they’d chosen this war, and the war, in turn, had chosen me.

If I wanted to save my brother, I didn’t have any choice. I had to keep fighting. No one else would.

There’s no handing your power to someone else when you end up where I’m at. No new reincarnation crops up to pick up where you left off, to take your wand and skirt that you thought you’d hung up and fight the good fight.

There’s only you and the demons that still stalk your days and your nights—both the ones that come from outside and the ones that come from your soul.

We thought the war was over.

How wrong we were.

#camp nano 2020 #Camp NaNoWriMo 2020 #Magical girl fiction #fiction #The Magic Crystal Justice Squad #writing #amwriting #urban fantasy #trope subversion #MCJS

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thoseindarkness · 4 years

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DtD News Nov 2020

Thank you to anyone who came back for this nonsense. For brevity I have an announcement that I want to make up front. I didn't have room for it last month so I pushed it back, but I can't anymore. I had to make one major revision to the published story. I want people to know about it.

This is the TLDR version. I tell a more in-depth story at the end.

ANNOUNCEMENT

The summary: I had a bad outline walking into writing Mistrust Goes Both Ways. I ran into a problem mid-story. Instead of stopping and taking the time I needed, I challenged myself to creatively solve my way out of my problems. I re-started with about half of what I'd written, published Mistrust Goes Both Ways, and restarting my outline with high hopes. I was proud of myself for rising to the challenge.

Despite my best efforts, it didn't work out. In the end, I had to scrap my outline. I was able to structure the end I was going for and spent the end of 2019 trying to link the first two stories to the ending I wanted. It wasn't working. Then TRoS. Then COVID. Here we are. In June, I started experimenting with scrapping Mistrust and restarting from Read Between.

Mistrust Goes Both Ways will not be part of the finished story when I'm done. I know some of you love it. I love it. I have no intention of taking it down. I might, for a short time, when I'm posting the final story. I'll let you know if that happens and it will go back up afterward. I don't have specifics as there's no point planning for it now.

For right now, nothing is changing on my AO3 account. Feel free to read and comment to your hearts content. I promise it will stay up forever to remind me that some mistakes are worth sharing with others. I learned good lessons from this mistake. It stays.

That being said I think I owe you an actual update on the progress of this story.

WHAT THE HELL I DID THIS MONTH

After my first update I needed to re-integrate with Reylo friends. Funnily enough, that pulled me into another fic. I've been working on that between following this election. Now that it's called I can get back to writing. I tried a couple of times since I voted on Oct 30th, but I knew it wasn't what I wanted to be thinking about.

Thankfully, I've also begun doing more social/political essays lately. I'm not sure what overall form or shape those may take and I haven't published any. Still, I was creative and I did plenty of writing. Interestingly, all this political focus is good for Deceive the Deceiver. Spinning and listening to conspiracy theories is a big part of weaving a world like this one. A great deal comes from my thoughts and perceptions of the real world.

WHERE DTD IS

As of right now I am in the process of first drafting the entire story with Read Between as the starting point. That is, every one of the short stories in the series. What I'm doing is somewhere between a history, an outline and random scene writing. All of these elements are currently strung together in one long, continuous, chronological, first draft. It's everything from the history before Read Between (which starts in the 1930's), all the way to the final scene of DtD.

I'm taking all the good ideas I've created in the last couple of years and re-organizing them into a first pass. It's the skeleton and some of the meat now. I'm slowly building out now that I have a blank-er slate. It's about choosing what works and what doesn't.

I call it accordion writing. It just gets bigger and bigger. This outline will later level up into the first full story drafts for each part. I've got so much history when I finish this I might… I'm getting ahead of myself. Don't want to give too many clues away.

Another interesting thing that's happened recently is I've started pulling bits of other fic ideas that I’m just not gonna finish. A big chuck of the history I stole from a modern/academia AU where Ben and Rey are history students specializing in the ancient Jedi religion. Another was a complication between characters came from a canon story where I wanted to paint the relationship with a new layer. We'll see if I can pull that off.

I spent a lot of time prior to this year focusing on the heroes but my villains hadn't gotten much love. Filling in the history has given me a chance to flesh out the villains. All their moves and countermoves, woven through the bits I already have, are spinning a pretty tapestry. Oh, the villains are so much fun to write!

This other fic came together in the same sort of accordion fashion and it's been fun working through the kinks in the process now that I've seen some of the weak points on a scale like DtD. I think I've mentioned, but this is a writing experiment for me and I'm most invested now in improving my process and clue-threading with DtD. This other fic is helping me test it on a smaller scale.

Not that this needs to get any longer, I'm just going to throw pretense out the window and go with complete vanity. If you don't give a wet shit about my life (and I don't blame you) you have reached the end of your journey. I hope to see you next month. If not, then I leave you with this parting:

May we meet again in our next fandom, through mutes and not as rival shippers.

The following is the ridiculous story of my ups and downs with Deceive the Deceiver. I figure if I explain to you how much I'm invested in this story some of you will stop worrying that I'm going to abandon it. Trust me. I'm not.

This tale stretches from NANOWRIMO 2018 and the prompt that started it, through the ups and downs of 2019 and 2020, to the writing of last month's letter. Buckle up. I love bumpy rides.

DtD: from NANO '17 to COVID-19

This story truly starts in December 2017 when I drenched the seat beneath me during Last Jedi. I'm a TLJ shipper. I got caught on the thirst train. It hit a time when writing was becoming a really big part of my life. I've been writing since I was a kid. I stopped for a while and came back to it. It's a long story. Ultimately, I'd started writing a lot a few years earlier. A mix of fic and originals but I was running into problems so I start reading a bunch of books to get better. TLJ lit the fires. NO joke TLJ came out on the 15th. I have pages of writing from the 20th.

2018 was Reylo year! I was already on Tumblr for my previous fandom (Batman comics). I found Reylo AU week which is in August. I submitted a story for that. It was the first fic I published for Reylo. Fast-forward August to November. I'm in the Writing Den on Discord and someone throws out this spy prompt. People start running with. Throwing ideas around. One of those was the snuggie in Mistrust! I have that conversation saved and story spots for each crazy thing they threw out. Finally, I said I'd do it!

Mind you, this is November 2nd. Nano has just started and the event is about "turning off your internal editor." This prompt consumed me. I was trying to keep up with SpaceWaffleHouseTM that first year. I did, btw. We both crested 100,000. It was my first Nano. Word count is not my problem. Organizing my crazy ambitious ideas is my problem. Some of that 100k was other stories, like Custard which I wrote half of in November and the other half Jan/Feb 2019. Most of it… probably 80k of it… was DtD.

Read Between the Lies is currently 33,710. I wrote at least 20k of that during that first Nano, as well as outlines and scenes for what I thought would be the starting point. I remember wanting to write Read Between to "get into their headspace" by writing their first meeting. I didn't think it would become a whole story. I was just going with it then. Any idea that came to mind.

I took December 2019 off for a few reasons. Some personal. Some burnout. I'm one of those people that can use writing to relieve stress, but I was so exhausted from that month-long writing sprint. By the last week I was dragging to get the final four or five thousand words to hit 100k.

Also, what I had by the end (no internal editor) was a bird nest of ideas that had too many beginnings, not enough middles, and endings to go around. I knew one thing right away: I knew I had more than one story. There were so many fun ideas. I figured, what the hell. I knew another thing right away: the prompt was at the end of the story. Like, the very end. Like, the last short story. Or the second to last short story, at the earliest. That hasn't changed. Ever. That's just where it ended up.

Between January and April of 2019 I touched DtD a few times. I kept coming back to it, reading through it, trying to untangle it. I made new notes on the stories. Expanded ideas. Tried to structure it. I figured out a bunch of good notes, but no real substance. The hardest thing was figuring out where to start! Did I:

(1) Start shortly before the prompt with Ben/Rey's relationship established and fill the story with the history?

(2) Start a lot earlier and build Ben/Rey's relationship from the beginning I'd written in Read Between?

If I'm being honest, Read Between was a lot better than I thought it would be and I didn't want to get rid of it. For a while I was thinking of publishing it last as a "prequel" if people liked the series.

Funny enough, the turning point happened May fourth weekend 2019…

In the week leading up, I was struggling through another story and decided to take a break for the weekend. I'd start writing again on Sunday when I met with my writing group. I met them through Nano. We used to meet at Panera. Now they meet on Discord. They mostly sprint though and I'm not a sprinter. I miss Panera. Anyway.

May 4th was a Sunday (look it up). I gave myself a writing break for the weekend and marathoned Star fucking Wars. It was nerd weekend. I was going to nerd out. I wore exclusively SW gear all weekend. I remember it well. It was the start of something fucking magical in my life.

Have I mentioned recently I really love this story. Trust me I will fucking finish it. Oh my god the demons won't leave until I do. Get them out of my head…

I had a pretty rockstar weekend. I believe the reason I skipped the PT that weekend was because I'd watched it the month before or so. Right after finishing the Clone Wars animated series (which is awesome and I strongly recommend both it and Rebels). I skipped them and SOLO.

Starting with R1, I went through in chronological order. I stopped at RotJ. I was with my family on Saturday and they were playing RotJ in the living room during the party. We talked about my marathon. My mom came over to my apartment after. We watched RoTJ properly. Then Force Awakens. It was too late by then to watch TLJ. I know I went straight to bed after my mom left on Saturday night.

Somewhere during or right after TFA I started thinking about Deceive the Deceiver. I don't remember what sparked it. I went to bed thinking about DtD. I know this with 100% certainty because I woke up thinking about again on Sunday and I thought it was quite odd.

I dream about this story in a way I have only dreamt about a precious few. Technicolor folks. It keeps me up at night.

I went to my writing group with (a) no plan for what to write, (b) a gordian knot that I had yet to untangle, (c) a sudden urge to re-read it. I opened my notes and read DtD through all our sprints. I read most of it during that writing session. We go about three hours.

That night I had Game of Thrones at my parent's. It was the (spoiler alert) episode where Arya kills the Night King. I remember because two minutes into the episode my brother's car broken down a few blocks from our apartment and we had to go help him. Derailed the whole night (this is foreshadowing).

Side note: I live with my younger brother and he's the best roommate I've ever had in my 35 years of life. Love you, Mo!

The episode was recording so we ran out. Had to leave the car in a parking lot. Someone had already helped him push it out of a puddle but my brother was soaked to mid-calf and the engine was shot. We dropped him off at home and I rode back to my Momma's crib to watch GoT. It was only the beginning of a wild night.

I went to bed late. I had to get up a few hours early to deal with the car before work started for either of us. I guess we were both hoping to avoid taking the day off. That wasn't going to happen. I drove home but I couldn't sleep. That crazy episode and the fact that my brain was already on fire with DtD.

I spent the wee hours finishing my re-read through the rough draft of Read Between the Lies. It saw my starting place. I started writing. I wrote through waiting in a parking lot, for the tow truck, in my car, at 6 am, with no sleep. I did a voice recording as I drove from the parking lot to the mechanic where the driver was taking my brother's car. I thought about it the whole way back. I sat on the sofa a wrote some more when we got home. I went to bed at 11 am and I'd written 10k more words for Read Between the Lies.

Somewhere between the chaos of May 5th and the official publish date on June 5th, Read Between got written. I know it didn't take too long. I remember sending it off to beta (by my amazing beta team on 1 & 2: Em, Jen, and Sai) and immediately pivoting to my outline. I slapped that together far too hastily and kept moving. I was going on holiday in the UK (I'm American and I'm ashamed) in early August so I planned on trying to publish Part 2 when I got back. At the very least I wanted it ready for beta.

Also some to admit, around the middle of 2019 I was fatigued with the fandom. We were hitting a lull. I was psyching myself up for the end and the exit. I was trying to clean house. I wanted to push out unfinished fics. To make them work. There was a lot of that mood from me in 2019. I was trying to make everything work. It's why Read Between came out, and that was a good thing. It's also why Mistrust came out, and that was a bad thing.

With that mentality looming, tough outline in hand, I started writing Mistrust before the end of May. I hit my snag sometime during the period I was publishing Read Between because by the time it was all done I knew I wasn't going to have a finished story by the time I left for London. I would figure it out when I got back. I picked up another project to distracted me from my problems for a little while. That is going to be an original if it's anything. One day…

At some point after I got back I started focusing heavily on problem solving. I had two stories already and a number of plot threads I had to resolve. I have heavy, heavy, heavy notes from September to December of 2019. Lots of possible ways to run this story. It sucks that a lot of that stuff isn't going to make it, but I'm recycling shit every day and I learned so much about the characters/story in that four month period. It really shaped the finished product in an important way.

This period is where I started to look at the bigger structure and how I was going to solve specific plot problems in each short story to bring the whole together. That focus on the different parts is important because it was the last thing on my mind when TRoS happened.

December 20th (the release date) is my birthday. My ass drove up to one of those Reylo-only screenings and I was surrounded by amazing people as I watched a movie that ruined my 35th birthday. Thankfully, I spent it in incomparable company. Thank you to all the hosts and super special thanks to Jen. Not only was she a DtD beta on both, she invited me. Thank you love! You are the reason I still remember that trip with joy.

Side note: I no longer hate TRoS. I've made my peace with it. I'm a far happier person now.

Needless to say, the only Reyloing I did in January of this year was venting frustration. Then I took a few weeks away from the fandom. I'd done my purging into the void. I knew other people still needed the space to vent but I had to get away. Once the toxin is out I couldn't let it back in.

What occurred starting in February of 2020 was a series of situations in which, every time I logged into Twitter I was faced with the kind of vitriol in the fandom that I don't need in my life. Some of it was still TRoS stuff, even as late as May. I'm not judging, I'm just saying, with the world on fire (literally), I didn't need it.

I don't think I have to explain why I've avoided social media like the plague since early this year. I live in America. If you heard anything about our recent President I don't have to explain any further what this year has been like. That has been par for course all over the world.

So here's my secret to happiness. I don't fux with the trolls. Do not engage. Sometimes that means radio silence. I'm breaking that silence because I want you to know 2020 has not destroyed DtD. It's only leveled shit up.

I have pretty much been working on this story consistently since March of this year. I go back and forth with reading, history, documentaries. I'm learning to wield many new weapons. They take time to settle in. DtD is the de-stressor I go to in between the real shit.

Sometime in June I was screwing around with the order of the parts. I had worked out the end but I was trying to bridge the gap between the ending I was certain I needed to get to and the two beginning stories I'd already published. I couldn't bridge the gap. It had been a year since I published Read Between and it wasn't working. Then I had an epiphany.

What if I got rid of Mistrust? Read Between is a pretty blank slate. I didn't want to re-write it and I still don't. I have no intention of getting rid of Part 1. I may clean it up and add some stuff at the very last minute, but it will be right before the new stuff drops as a pre-cursor to the flood of subsequent stories. I may add a few new clues or alter a scene or two, but I have plenty of room to move with it exactly the way it is.

What does that mean for Mistrust Goes Both Ways? To make a long story short, there was no good way for me to continue with what I'd published and still write the story in my head. I'm sure there are cool places to take the existing story, but that's not what I'm trying to do. In truth, I should have left 1 and not published 2 when I hit a snag. Lesson learned.

In June I basically threw Mistrust out and asked myself, "Now what?" I have months of great ideas rife for reshuffling and no restrictions on how to bridge the gap from 1 to the ending I wanted. But the end had shifted.

That brings us up to speed. The last thing I did before taking a much needed break was get through 90% of the history in my accordion outline/draft. I poured the foundation that was missing. I walked away in early October and let it set. I'm going to button up this other fic I'm working on and then go back to DtD and check the foundation I laid.

I'm very confident that not only will it hold, but that with fresh eyes and the fun side stories I've had the chance to lay to rest, I will finally be able to start building the finished products on top of it.

IN CONCLUSION

I'm still as excited as I've ever been for this story. It frustrates me all the time, but that means the medicine for my soul is working its magic. Change it painful, but pain is transformative. I've embrace changed. That ache is just a sign the muscles are getting stronger. Growing pains. As I learn to live with them in my family, my country, and my job, I find that life's lesson's often end up reflecting in every place in our life if we but open our eyes to look.

Growing pains exist in my writing process too. They are as transformative in this corner of my life as they are in every other. They have revealed as much about me as a person in my writing as they have in my politics. They have taught me how to compromise with my family as I learn to compromise with my characters. As I consider how people treat each other I am reminded that struggles in understanding our fictional counterparts may shine a light on our struggles to understand our truer selves.

Take care of yourselves. Once you've got that covered, if you can, take care of each other. Feel free to poke me and say hi. If not, until next month.

Fari.

#deceive the deceiver #reylo #reylo fanfic #reylo fan fiction #modern au #spy au #fan fic #fan fiction

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frigginwriting · 5 years

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Howdy howdy! As I’ve mentioned before I changed my Nanowrimo goal to write The Tales of Kredos with @sweetfaerycherry, and we’re making fair progress on that. Only 5k words behind now.

I thought I’d put up the first chapter to see if I could get some opinions on it! We’ve written a lot more than this of course, but one chapter is long enough as it is. I’m gonna pop the first chapter under a read more here, if anyone gets the time some feedback would be delightful~

The world itself had no name, or at least the name was long lost in the tangles of vines around ancient ruins. Light from the moon peeked through dark clouds, and laid against old alabaster walls that shimmered with ancient enchantments.

The walls stretched each way for thousands of miles, straight through the sacred forests. On the other side were massive pits where foul smelling black smoke billowed into the air. It blanketed the small rickety towns of the outer ring with an eternal overcast, as night bound people sulked around, looking to complete what they needed before the sun rose and the majority of the population was out for the day.

Further in, the smoke dissipated. Past the forest between the rings, were the second ring cities with better infrastructure and cobblestone streets. Then were inner ring towns with asphalt and oil street lamps. From there was the epicenter of the Triune Kingdoms– Centura. It was the Capital of Kredos, the walled continent safe from the savagery of beasts and monsters in the Wilds.

Centura was an odd assortment of buildings cobbled together, as the next technological century rammed full force into the past. It was the pinnacle of humanity, in all of its various forms. Near the center was a massive blocky skyscraper, metal shining in moonlight. Near there was the Palace of Power, where the four royals met twice a year. The last landmark was the capital temple, a big grand building of white marble, meticulously maintained. Inside was the large gold plated insignia of the sun, and in the still dark morning hours the new neon lights that lay over it’s edges lit the way.

Surrounding these three impressive landmarks were numerous businesses, and further out houses of gothic architecture. Down the street from the marble temple was a house that stood from the rest, small and old, unpainted wood, with sigils carved into the door and window frames. It had one large door, and on this early morning it swung open.

One person emerged with an errand to run, Runimo Avis, a seventeen year old with an array of colored hair and dark skin. As he left he carried with him his bag, one empty bottle, the goggles he wore, and the cane he kept outstretched in front of him.

The walk from his house to the main street market was more than most people in the capital cared to take, and by the time he reached it the sky was lightening up. He saw people roaming about already and felt relief, thinking he might have been too early still. As the light grew clearer with the rising sun, shapes grew clearer, still blurry and dark but with enough of an edge and enough contrast for him to tell where one thing ended and another began.

Runimo kept a hold of his cane anyway, knowing it would make the shopping trip quicker and easier. He couldn't imagine anyone remembering all of their customers in the capital, but he of all people should have been a face one couldn't forget easily. Still, holding it, he got far less of an annoyed or irritated tone when he asked people to point him to something or read a label for him.

"Runimo!"

Focused on his own preemptive agitation, Runimo jumped at the call of his name.

"Oh, gods, sorry I didn't mean to startle you."

David, Runimo's friend. A light elf in shift, apparent by the point to the ears and to a lesser degree, his sturdy features and aquiline nose which weren't uncommon in them. The most notable trait of elves outside of the ears was the metallic, foil-like sheen to the iris of their eyes.

Runimo relaxed when he realized who it was.

"Nah, I just was thinking about stuff." Runimo said. "What are you doing up already?"

"Couldn't sleep." said David. "I suspect you're in the same boat?"

"Kind of." Runimo said. "Been up since two. I thought I'd run a couple of errands and maybe get a short nap in before. Hey, listen, do you smell coffee?"

"Coffee?" David asked, and paused to smell the air. "Huh. Yeah I suppose, do you have some, or..."

Runimo could tell from the cutoff of David's voice, that he'd come to the same assumption that Runimo had some time ago.

"I've been smelling coffee since I woke up." Runimo said. "I'm pretty confident in Granddad's wards, but I'm not particularly fond of the idea that some dark magic source has been following me all morning."

"Oh Lessers," David looked around as if he could spot the source, "have you told anyone? Have you told your grandpa?"

Runimo made a face.

"I'd rather not stress him out I think." He said, and it was obvious what he really meant.

"Hey, look," David said, "your grandpa wouldn't keep you from running the course if it wasn't for a good reason. You aught tell him, maybe he can do something about it, or at least make sure it's something unimportant. What if something messed up happens while you're out there?"

Runimo huffed a little. He knew all along, of course, that he should have told his granddad from the start. Part of him was hoping someone would say something to the contrary. His grandpa was already worried about him running the course as it was, the last thing he really wanted was to put out another excuse for him not to.

"Yeah alright, I know." Runimo said. "I'll tell him when I get back. I've just got some fish and sunflower oil to pick up for him, maybe a couple other things here and there."

"Yeah alright, mind if I come with?" David asked. "I'm just killing time until graduation."

"Haven't any reason why not." Runimo said, as he went back to browsing. "Makes my time easier."

"So Gavin says they finally told him what temple he's going to be assigned to, and you're never going to believe which one." David said, walking with Runimo.

"He wanted to go to one of those poor outer ring towns," Runimo said, "that hasn't changed has it? Is it one of those?"

"He's going to Pigsfoot, when he graduates." David said. "And he's actually excited about it, can you believe that?"

"He wanted to go to one of those poor little towns, so I mean yeah, one of the county capitals makes sense." Runimo said, and then with a teasing tone– "I can believe he's happy about it, some people are actually in this for the benefit of others."

"Listen, I want to help people as much as the next guy," David said, and placed his hand on his chest with a tilt of his head, "I didn't go through five years of priest's training because it was a cushy job. If I wanted high paying and cushy, I'd go work for Osseo... but I can smell that place just thinking about it."

"Well I mean it's a recycling town." Runimo said, and he paused to ask David to grab him a bottle of sunflower oil and leave the bottle be brought back. They paid the two gold kredits, and continued on. "I imagine you just get used to the smell after a while. It's probably not as bad as you imagine."

"Get used to the smell." David scoffed. "I tell you what, if you ever see me in a place like that, you can just assume I've lost my dang mind."

"You say that as if you aren't crazy half the time anyway." Runimo said, glancing David's way.

"Then assume I've really lost it." David said, pointing his finger at Runimo. "Speaking of crazy, there's supposed to be this new stall in the market today, we should check it out before you go home again."

"What's what have to do with crazy?" Runimo asked, and the two paused briefly in their walking.

"It's crazy because," David said, voice practically bouncing with anticipation, "it's apparently a stall for Grim Curios."

"Oh gods, that place." Runimo leaned his head back rolling his eyes in exasperation. "I know you've the tackiest taste of anyone I've ever met, yet still you continue to astound me with it."

"It's an airship shop," David said, "I've always wanted to see what they have inside, it's suppose to be real freaky. Beatrice said her aunt got her a nice necklace from there last Che'ibas, and it was enchanted so that she couldn't tell any lies."

"It was what?" Runimo asked.

"Yeah, I guess she ended up telling like half her family during dinner that she thought they were all uptight, overbearing, and ignorant." David said, and shrugged his shoulders, mirroring Runimo's surprise. "Of course she also told her aunt that her awful hairstyle looked like a nest of rats, and was probably what kept scaring away her various boyfriends so..."

"Lessers, and you want to get something from there?" Runimo asked, incredulous.

"Well at least look." David said. "Buy something if I think it's worth it, but mostly look. I don't know if it's going to be a permanent Sunday market thing or if it's just in town since the ceremony is today."

"You want to do an awful lot before... What time is it?" Runimo asked.

"Uh," David checked his watch, "six forty-five."

"You want to do an awful lot before it's even seven in the morning." Runimo said. "How do you know it's even open yet?"

"I passed it a bit ago, someone was setting up. They looked about finished to me." David said, and Runimo shook his head in the way that one did when feigning disappointment with their friends.

"Fine, if we simply must indulge in your terrible tastes." He said. "I want to get the fish first though."

"That's fair." David said, and they continued walking again. "I think it's nearer the back today."

They walked a ways back and Runimo knew they'd arrived when he heard a familiar voice speak.

"Good morning Avis, you're early today. You want the usual?"

"Yes please, Mr. Charles." Runimo said, coming to a stop beside the stall.

"Keep it cold for an extra gold?"

"Yes as well, I think I'll be browsing a bit before going home." Runimo nodded.

The man behind the stall laid out a paper that was marked with sigils that Runimo couldn't see but knew would be there. He laid out two large fish and wrapped them, then a separate package of prawn, before wrapping them all up in the paper that had first been laid out.

The corner of the paper was pressed with a sticky seal, and for a moment the sigils lit up, before becoming dull marks again. Mr. Charles handed Runimo the package, and it felt chilled in his hands when he took it.

Runimo pulled out five gold, the usual price, and Mr. Charles tried to stop him.

"Nah, on second thought, don't worry about it. It's on the house just this once, you've got a lot to handle today." He said, and Runimo laughed slightly, pressing the coins down onto the top ledge of the market boxes.

"Let's not jinx me." Runimo said. "Thank you Mr. Charles, hope you get to see the ceremony."

Runimo and David set off once more, this time to the stall that David seemed so eager to drag him to.

When they arrived it appeared unattended, and Runimo was underwhelmed, unable to make out enough details to tell what all was there.

"Wow," David said, "they've got a pretty good collection of wands here."

"Wands are expensive as is." Runimo said, moving the goods he carried to his other arm. "I can't imagine coming from an airship shop. What else have they got?"

"Uh, some accessories, some spell scrolls, runestones, and potion and ingredient bottles." David said. "Looks like hand made foods too, probably enchanted like the rest of it all. Some bones."

"Bones?" Runimo said, reasonably off put.

"Says they're replicas." David said. "Though I'm not sure what someone would want them for."

He'd barely finished when someone spoke up behind them.

"Can I help you two?"

The voice was somewhat deep, but seemed genuine in it's inquiry. Regardless, when the two turned, they both let out a startled shout.

David saw the details Runimo couldn't. Skeletal face paint that stood out on dark skin, a black and white pinstriped suit, and a bright splash of neon green hair.

Runimo saw the figure of a man who was no doubt nearing eight feet tall, looming over them.

"Wh– uh– Grim?" David managed to get out, and gestured a thumb behind him to the stall, flustered at his involuntary shout.

"Hex." Said the person who stood over them. "That is, Gossamer Hex. I am maintaining the stall here today."

"That's quite a name." Runimo said.

"I'd agree it makes a bold statement. Whether it's a good or bad one is debatable," Hex said, "but I would say as far as rarity is concerned, it's about as common as a name like Runimo one would suppose."

Runimo blinked behind his goggles.

"You look like your grandfather, that's all." Said Hex. "The priest's outfit makes it a dead giveaway. Anyway, can I help you two?"

"I think we're just browsing for now." Runimo said. There was a moment of silence, a bit uncomfortable, as Runimo could only assume Hex was looking them over. Finally the guy piped up again.

"That's fine. I got a special going on today." He said. "First time with a stall here, and ceremony day and all, seemed like a good plan."

"Uh, what's the special?" David asked.

"Cracker candies." Hex said. "Of my own making. One free."

Runimo could say that neither he nor David had any real interest in children's toy housing candies, but it was free so he shrugged at David and nodded.

"Sure I guess. You make them yourself?" Runimo asked, as Hex rummaged through a bag on his waist. "Anything particularly special or just something to hand out to kids?"

"They aren't for kids." Hex said, pulling out two candies wrapped in wax paper. "They don't have toys in them. They have fortunes."

"Fortunes?" David asked with a weak incredulous laugh. "What, like you're an oracle or something?"

"No, nothing so complex. I assure you if I was I'd be living the high life in a decked out palace room, not selling candy on the street." Hex said, and handed the two each a candy. "I don't come up with the fortunes, I simply enchant the paper. When it comes into contact with a new person, the fortune writes itself. It's random, mostly a novelty as opposed to a real fortune."

"Oh," David said, looking at the candy in his hand, "that's actually pretty neat."

It was a rather fun idea, it was a wonder someone hadn't thought of it already. Runimo and David unwrapped their candies, and bit them in half. The candy was sweet and tart, firm, but not tooth breaking. Both boys pulled out the little slips of paper as they ate the candy that held them.

"So what's your say?" Runimo asked David.

David held the paper up, chewing on the candy, as the words wrote themselves onto the slip.

"...Huh. Golden eyes tell golden lies. A gentle hand means to do you harm." David said. "I don't think these make much sense. It is good as a novelty though I guess, but you might want to work on them more."

Hex only shrugged, and Runimo handed David his piece of paper. The words had already written themselves on there.

"What does mine say?" He asked. David took the paper and brought it up.

"The path to your future is paved with injustice. It begins with a ruse, and ends with a universal truth." David handed Runimo back the slip of paper. "These are kind of depressing, buddy, I don't think people are going to buy them if they just keep getting weird ominous junk."

"I suppose you may be right," Hex said, "I think I have to tweak the enchantment some. Perhaps I'll refrain from giving out the rest of them. The candy good at least?"

"Oh yeah, the candy is good." David said with a nod. "The tart sells it I think."

"Appreciated." Hex said. "How about one more thing, on me? Nothing fancy, but hopefully considerably less depressing."

Runimo and David couldn't help but snicker a little, and Runimo tucked his fortune into his satchel as Hex grabbed a couple of things off the table. Runimo didn't even have to ask what he was being handed, as David made it clear right off the bat.

"Oh lessers, wands?" He said, upon being handed one.

"Sure," Hex said, "but don't get too eager. I only do this because I make these in mass, so they're not really personalized to your magic."

"Don't these take a ridiculous amount of effort to make anyway?" Runimo asked, feeling the one he'd been handed. It was light and smooth, with a cool band of metal around the handle. He could feel a gem embedded into the band, something smooth, not cut.

"I mean I could take them back if it makes you uncomfortable." Hex said. David nudged Runimo.

"No no, we'll keep them for sure." David said. "I mean, even if quality suffers a little, I'm not going to lie, these things are usually expensive. You'd have to be a pretty big idiot to pass up free wands."

"I figured as much." Hex said. "Go easy on them now. They're made resilient, but I don't think they'll take big surges of magic. I'm still working on that."

"You sure make a lot of stuff yourself." Runimo said. "That's pretty cool. How long have you been doing it?"

"Oh, maybe about two years. I didn't start until I was seventeen."

"Wh– wait you're only–" Hex cut Runimo off.

"Oh, I think you ought to get going, haven't you?" He said. "The sigil on that packaging doesn't look like it's made to last real long, you should get that fish in your ice box before it's allowed to get warm. It'll start getting hot out here before long."

Runimo looked down to the package of fish and bottle of sunflower oil he held, and then he tucked the new wand into his bag and picked up his cane again.

"I suppose you're right." Runimo said. "Thank you again for this. I’ll give the wand a whirl, spread the word if it's good and all."

"It would be much appreciated." Hex said, and waved. "Good luck today you two."

The two boys headed off once more, Runimo ready to head home, and when they god out of earshot David spoke up again.

"Well that was weird." He said, and nudged Runimo. "Can you believe he's only nineteen? The guy was huge!"

"Gargoyle hybrid maybe." Runimo said. Very unusual to see in the capital. David scoffed as the suggestion.

"With all the free samples and not a single purchase?" He asked.

"Fair point." Runimo replied. "I'm not sure what else is that big though."

"Something we'll have to contemplate later," David said, slapping Runimo's back, "I've got to get back to dad. He wants to get as much help out of me at the shop as he can before I graduate, and I'm sure he'll be opening up any minute now, if he's not already."

"Suppose he'd have quite the fuss to find you're not there." Runimo said with small amusement. "Alright then, I'll see you and Gavin later, if you see him first let him know I said hi."

"Will do!"

David waved, gesturing wide, before hurrying off and leaving Runimo to head home. Runimo went ahead and kept the cane in hand so that he could relax a bit more on his walk home. As he walked he passed someone headed the opposite direction, back into town.

He caught a strong whiff of coffee, as if the grounds had been shoved in his face.

He stopped and turned to look behind him, but when he did nobody was there. He paused, watching people further away walk back and forth, before turning back ahead on his path. After another beat he continued on his way, shaking his head.

Nerves, perhaps. He would be dealing with demons today after all. Someone walks by with a cup to go, and suddenly he thinks he’s smelling dark magic everywhere.

#writeblr #writblr #original writing #nanowrimo #nanowrimo 2019 #Friggs Bullhockey #Kredos

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clevercatchphrase · 5 years

Text

Just some numbers and figures~

So! I finished my fan fiction, You Monster, this week, and it took me exactly 3 and a half years to write/edit/publish. This post at the time of writing, however, is being written a few days before the final chapter goes up, just examining some numbers and trends around the wordcount and posting rate of my fan fic, because i’m obsessed with numbers and such, and i’m just trying to chew up time and keep myself occupied before the last chapter goes public. There’s literally no point to this post other than to marvel at how long this story is and how long it took me to get it out there, and reflect on what happened to me in The Real World during that time. Care to join me?

In Microsoft Word, this entire story is 609 pages and 209,235 words. The word count is slightly higher on AO3 (which I consider the definitive draft), partly because AO3 counts formatting tags as words for some reason, and because if I make little adjustments to the story, I’ll do it on AO3, but not on the original word file (or corresponding tumblr post for that matter) because I can’t be bothered to.

According to AO3, I started this fic on January 3rd, 2016, smack dab in the middle of my winter break in my last year of college. I probably started writing it a few days before, maybe in december. I’m not really sure, but I’m kinda surprised I started it so early in the year, especially since I was writing by the seat of my pants for the first 14 chapters or so.

The following pictures highlight what days/months chapters were posted, according to AO3 (I personally think there might be a discrepancy or two due to timezones)

Chapter-wise, the first third of this story (Chapters 1 through 12) was written and posted in 2 months, and TWO THIRDS of the entire story (Chapters 1 through 25 (rounding up)) were written in the first YEAR.

Wordcount-wise, HALF the story (roughly 100k words) was written in one year.

There was a dramatic drop in productivity at the middle/end of 2016 due to Real World Stress, mostly me graduating & getting a job, the presidential elections, and learning a family member was starting to have kidney failure.

God, 2017 was a bad year for me, productivity-wise. In early June I lost said family member due to their kidney failure, and was completely unmotivated to work on You Monster for the rest of the year. I remember forcing myself to write for NaNoWriMo that year, and it helped snap me out of my funk, but I didn’t like how the writing came out and kept pushing off revising and editing the drafts for several weeks. I also remember getting really sick on christmas eve/day with a terrible flu, which made me unable to post the next chapter until January.

I actually felt a lot better mentally and emotionally in 2018. I WOULD have written more in early 2018, but that was also when the Hiveswap Comic Contest started, and lasted for 3 straight months with me doing nothing more than drawing comics for 12 consecutive weeks. Then, after that was over, I started thinking/planning more seriously about writing ANOTHER story, which later became Ghost Switch, and I offically started that halfway through 2018. I originally thought about making Ghost Switch a written work, but it was basically going to be another re-telling of Undertale, which was what I was doing with You Monster anyway, and I didn’t want to write all of that out again, so I decided to make it a comic instead. It was a great decision for me art-wise, because now I’m improving my art skills through weekly comic pages, but it was also a terrible decision art-wise because now I GOTTA KEEP DRAWING POSES AND BACKGROUNDS AND DRAWING PEOPLE IS HARD.

Back to the point- I forced myself to write this fic again for NaNoWriMo that year, and was terribly upset that I still didn’t finish. But this time, I forced myself to revise and edit my writing until it became something I could tolerate, and posted the next chapter in January (again, but this time because my writing needed far more revisions than last year’s nano draft)

Getting back into revising and editing DID seriously help me get back in the groove of Wanting To Write, but it was a little trickier now that I was also drawing a comic, and it was hard to manage my time between the two, because when I write, I do it for great stretches at a time. I mean, like, 4 or 5 hours straight of writing. Same goes for comic making, too. sketching the pages can take me two hours, and cleaning/inking/coloring them can take me anywhere from 4 to 6 hours.

Hm. If I included the other fics I wrote during this time, I get the feeling these calendars would look a lot more active and colorful. Maybe i’ll do that for myself later, so I can see how much I posted in 3 years.

This year, I was absolutely determined to finish this story, even if it killed me. I was still struggling to manage my time between writing and art, mostly dedicating a few weeks to make a buffer of comic pages so I could have a couple of weeks dedicated to writing. It was time consuming, and I felt bad when I worked on one but not the other, but I finally got my breakthrough in May, when I had to take multiple trips to an automotive shop for several different car repairs. Instead of just leaving my car there and going home, I brought my writing spirals with me and just wrote and wrote and didn’t stop writing while I waited in their loby. I finally finished the rough drafts of my story after being stuck for 4 hours in a Pepboys, and spent two more full days typing it out. Then, I rested for a week, and spent 3 more revising and editing the remaining bits. I was hoping to get the whole thing done and posted before July ended, but that did not end up being the case. For me, when we finally get to August, we have entered “the end of the year”. Ah, well. Even though I didn’t get the story completely posted before August, I can still take pride in knowing I finished it before the year was half way over~!

NOW FOR SOME NUMBERS!

I personally divide this story into 5 arcs, Ruins, Snowdin, Waterfall, Hotland, and New Home And Beyond (Which is basically anything that can happen after you unlock the true lab in-game)

Ruins

The Ruins arc I consider everything in chapters 1 thorugh 12. It is simultainiously the longest arc (chapter-wise, with 12 chapters which as mentioned earlier, is 1/3rd of the story) and also the shortest arc, only taking up 24k words (Which is an 8th of the entire story, or roughly 12.5%).It was also the quickest writen arc, as it was primarily prologue/first act material. Pretty much all of it was written in that first January. It’s 80 pages long, or 13% of all pages

Snowdin

The snowdin arc (chapters 13 to 22) is just under 25% of the entire story, coming in at 49 thousand words (on the nose!) It is the second longest arc in both word count and in number of Chapters (10, to be exact~) It took me roughly 4.5 months to write this arc. We also spend the most physical in-story time in Snowdin. Almost 3 full days, which is half of the story’s timeline (not counting the 7-8 years in the Ruins. That was all set-up) It’s 172 pages long, or 28% of all pages.

Waterfall

The Waterfall arc (Chapters 23 to 28) is the longest arc wordcount-wise, making up another 25% of the story, coming in at 53.6 thousand words, and dead center when it comes to the number of chapters it makes up (which is 6). Looking at this now, litterally half this story takes place in Snowdin and Waterfall. Roughly one full day is spent in waterfall, from noon of the first day, to roughly late morning of the second. This arc took me 11 months to write/post, and if you read the notes for these corrisponding chapters, you can tell I was not having a good time during it. It’s 178 pages long, or 29% of all pages.

Hotland

The Hotland arc, (chapters 29 to 32) Is the shortest arc chapter-wise, with only 4 (10% of all chapters), and second shortest arc wordcount-wise, coming in at 36 thousand words, or about 18% of the story. It’s also the shortest in-story arc time-wise, seeing as you only spend about half a day here. I did not like writing the hotland arc! Mostly in part because Hotland is my least favorite region in the game. Chapter 32 is probably my least favorite out of all of what I’ve written. It was difficult figuring out what to do with Alphys and Mettaton, seeing as their interactions with you in game heavily focus on you and your human-ness. I am quite glad that each chapter was pretty neatly divided by in-game floors. It was a good way to know where a chapter could end and when I could give the characters some breathing room. It took me over a year to complete the Hotland arc, and most of that time was because I didn’t want to revise and edit what I wrote. It’s 123 pages long, or 20% of all pages.

New Home and Beyond

I don’t consider the True Lab part of Hotland because of in-game story reasons. You can’t access it until you’ve gone to New Home at least once, and once you enter it, you cant leave until you finish it, which, again, takes you to new home. Honestly, once you get to the true lab, you’ve won the game. There is no way to ruin your pacifist playthrough once you get to the lab, and while the amalgamates may kill you, you can’t “lose” once you get this far. That’s why I consider Chapter 33 the start of the New Home arc even though in my story we haven’t seen new home yet (mostly because there are no saves or resets in this story, so we kinda couldn’t have gone there first).

The New Home arc is the second shortest chapter-wise, making up the last 5 chapters (13% of all of them), and is dead-center when it comes to word count, finishing with 46.5 thousand words, or roughly the last 25%. I was actually really excited to write everything from chapter 34 to 36 after having been fantisizing about it in my head for the last two years. I gotta be honest, the end of chapter 37 gave me some trouble. I was still making edits up to a few days before it went public, but I think I got the feelings I wanted across~ It’s 161 pages long, or 26% of all pages.

Extra???

I started keeping a word file for bits of dialogue and scenes that I originally wrote in my spiral, but ultimately cut for one reason or another. Mostly these are just sentences and snippets that sounded redundant, ooc, or were just an alternate dialouge I decided not to use. I didn’t start doing this until chapter 28, according to my files, but according to the masterfile, there were 6.4 thousand words I ended up not using.

There are, in fact, several bullet points I had originally planned and ended up not using, such as Sans ASKING Undyne to keep an eye on the kid while they were in waterfall, which sounded hypocritical after I wrote him coming to peace with them, as well as having Asgore tuoring the Underground that week, and thus Sans, Papyrus, Undyne and Alphys having to hide Frisk from him once they become friends. (the painkillers Alphys also gave frisk were actually supposed to induce drowsiness in Frisk, making them fall asleep so Alphys could keep them from going to New Home, but this was a point I dropped at the absolute last minute, and you can tell if you re-read chapter 29, because it’s hinted at, but the painkillers are never mentioned again. I figured that plot point was a little too dark for Alphys’ character)

Fun Fact: the zalgo text in Chapter 27 DOES actually have dialouge in it, if you know what to look for. Only one person has asked about it, but no one has yet to decifer it.

AT A GLANCE:

ARC LENGTHS (CHAPTER WISE) SHORTEST TO LONGEST

Hotland (4 Chapters)

New Home and Beyond (5 Chapters)

Waterfall (6 Chapters)

Snowdin (10 Chapters)

Ruins (12 Chapters)

ARC LENGTHS (WORDCOUNT WISE) SHORTEST TO LONGEST

Ruins (24k)

Hotland (36k)

New Home and Beyond (46.5k)

Snowdin (48k)

Waterfall (53.6k)

ARC LENGTHS (PAGE COUNT) SHORTEST TO LONGEST

(Same order as above)

TIME TAKEN TO WRITE/PUBLISH, SHORTEST TO LONGEST

Ruins (1 month)

Snowdin (4.5 months)

New Home and Beyond (~6 months)

Waterfall (11 months)

Hotland (>1 Year)

Other Numbers For Some Reason

Chapters 1 through 19 make up the 1st 50k words (this when Frisk falls into the underground, up to Sans attacking them in the kitchen) 19 chapters

Chapters 20 through 26 make up the 2nd 50k words (when Frisk decides to seek asgore’s help, to when Undyne cuts the bridge) 7 chapters

Chapters 27 through 31 make up the 3rd 50k words (when Frisk dislocates their shoulder to Flowey killing the messenger spider) 5 chapters

Chapters 32 through 37 make up the 4th 50k words (When Mettaton decides to change the programming, to Frisk’s final choice) 6 chapters

Only 5 chapters exceed 10k words, they are chapters 22, 27, 28, 33 and 36

Here’s a visual representation of all the chapters and their word counts in relation to one another. I was so startled by the spikes of chapter 22 and 28 that I had to go back and skim the chapters to remind myself what went down in them and why they were so long. Chapter 22 is papyrus trying to keep the human in snowdin while sans runs some errands, and then the human discovering the skelebro’s deceit. Chapter 28 is the human realizing Undyne tried to murder them, and then escaping from waterfall. I distinctly remembering saying I could have split chapter 28, but I was so tired of writing waterfall that I refused to do so because I just wanted it to end already.

I find it absolutely hilarious how consistant my word count was until chapter 20 (chapter 15 is an outliar), and then everything went off the rails.

Here’s a graph of the total word count, shown to you NaNoWriMo style~ (I spent way too long in excel making both of these charts, please validate me)

The climb definitely looks a lot less drastic here, as it is always building on itself, but if you look closely, you can see one or two inflection points, roughly around chapter 20 and 28.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I’m so glad to finally be done with this story. It’s certainly deviated from what I originally planned, but I think all the changes are for the better. Now I can think about writing other things, like the PTA!AU shorts I’ve been meaning to do. It was fun and it was challenging, and this is literally the longest thing I’ve ever written in my life. Will I ever make a story this long again? Maybe?? If I ever encounter another game with as much character and worldbuilding as Undertale that also just hits me in the feels the same way, I might, but for now I’m going to focus on other projects (most of them still undertale related, but shut up)

Got any questions, comments, concerns for my fic? I’m so glad it’s done, now, and I’d be happy to talk about my thoughts behind it~

#Undertale #Fan Fic #My Writing #Long Post #you monster #I still dont have internet so I'm gonna push this up in the queue

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forkanna · 5 years

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NOTE: HAPPY NANOWRIMO! Sorry if my updates are more sporadic right now; I'm trying to focus on writing this month. That includes (minor spoiler) another Persona fic! I promise in December I will try to resume a more regular posting schedule.

Also: if you're enjoying this fic or any of my others, and you have disposable income, you can drop a few dollars in my tip jar! Every little bit helps! Anyway, happy reading!

CHAPTER NINE

~ x The Priestess x ~

Things settled down until Monday afternoon. Mostly, I hung out with my friends and tried to focus on my studies. And everything had been fine. There were other girls around the school I kept glancing at, trying to figure out my feelings, and I didn't feel any "lesbian stirrings" - if that's even a thing. Just looked like regular people. So I started to convince myself that it had been a fluke, and I only felt those urges because Miss Kawakami had been so sensual with me in the hotel room. Everything was going to be fine.

Then I saw her in the hallway again and it shot all of my hopes to hell.

"Good afternoon, Niijima-san," she said with a smile as she waved. And I felt my knees go weak, my heart speed up in my chest. She was completely back to her usual self: longsleeve yellow scoopneck, denim skirt, sensible white low-heels, fluffy brown hair. Armload of books and lesson plans. Tired-but-cheerful expression.

Just Miss Kawakami, being Miss Kawakami… but she still made me want to do things I had never done before. And wouldn't know how. Experiment with her.

"Niijima-san?"

"G-good morning," I managed to stutter.

"It's not morning," she chuckled. But she peered at my face for a moment. "You… should request me again."

"Huh?!" But when she held a finger to her lips, I quickly said, "Right. Sorry."

"You should. Because it looks like… you need to talk. But not here." Her eyes flicked from side to side, indicating the throng of students surrounding us.

"Of course. I'm sorry, I really… yes. I'll ask you about that homework later."

Her gorgeous mocha eyes did roll toward the ceiling at my poor attempt at covering, but at least she was still smiling. I wished she would always smile…

"Of course. Friday."

"Friday?"

"Or Saturday. I'll let you know if another time works equally well."

"OH!" She was trying to tell me her schedule. "Y-yes, I'll hand it in by then, if I don't have any questions sooner. Thank you."

When I bowed slightly, she patted my shoulder. "Good, good, Run along to class." Then she walked away…

And I did something I have never, ever done. For anybody, no matter who they were, or how attractive I might have found them - though I almost never notice that kind of thing. I turned to watch her leave. Not because I liked her and missed her, or because she was a decent role model. Those things were also true… but for some reason, I wanted to see her calves moving below the hem of that skirt.

The bell for class rang and I was still standing there, staring at the spot where her calves had last been. At least that finally prompted me to move again.

~ o ~

The rest of the week turned out to be my own personal Hell. Every time I saw Miss Kawakami, she looked better and better, and my thoughts were less pure. Maybe it was because I had never thought about anyone in this way that I fell so headlong into lust. Or maybe she was just exactly my type and I didn't know it before Hotel Juliet revealed all.

Dreams of her cleavage in that maid outfit when she crawled across the floor toward me, her stockings recently discarded, filled my nights. Or of her shapely thighs disappearing up her frilly French Victorian dress. Worse - disappearing up the hem of her robe as she writhed under my touch, panting my name with her eyes closed…

Recalling that also gave me another new experience: trying to focus in class while being aroused. I'm not kidding when I say that not once in my entire academic career had that been a stumbling block for me. Now, my thighs twitched, my face flushed, until a neighbouring student asked if I was feeling under the weather. That only made my blush worse.

When Thursday rolled around, I was at the end of my rope. I had basically called Ann in complete distress about six times in three days. She was great at talking me down, but had no real advice to give - which was okay. It would be kind of an insane convenience if she somehow knew exactly what to do about developing a lesbian crush on a teacher, wouldn't it?

"Look," she sighed into the phone as she did her nails, and I slowly tried to finish formatting a report. "She said you can request her tomorrow night, right? So just… don't worry about it until then. Forget about her totally. Like, since you can't do anything."

"That doesn't work. Believe me, I try."

"God, you're so cute. I know, I know - not helping."

"It isn't cute that I'm so smitten with a woman out of my reach that I can't eat, or sleep, or study. Those are basically the only things I do, Ann."

A little laugh floated over the phone lines. "Yeah. I mean, until you started hanging out with us, I'd believe it. Except maybe kissing Principal Kobayakawa's-"

"Don't even finish that sentence," I warned her, and she laughed more.

"Fiiiiine. And I'm gonna offer again; I know you don't wanna reveal her secret. But if you need me there, to mediate or whatever, like, call me. Swear I won't show up without you asking, but all you gotta do is call."

"And you'll be here. I know, and thank you. But this is something I should be able to do on my own."

"Why? You've got friends; use 'em."

I had been about to protest and tell her I didn't want to 'use' my friends… when I realised that I could. Not Ann; she was already being enough help as it was. But there was someone else I should be going to about this matter.

"Thanks, Ann," I said suddenly, sitting up and closing my textbook. "I think I have an idea. I'll call you back when I have put it into practice."

"Huh? O-oh, okay, bye. Good luck!"

"Thank you. I'm gonna need it."

~ o ~

Cafe Leblanc was basically closing up by the time I got there. Futaba Sakura was lingering at the counter, and the proprietor, Sojiro Sakura, was wiping down the counter. Ren was doing the dishes; sometimes the old man roped him into that, considering he was letting him stay in the attic rent-free.

"Hey," I greeted Futaba first. Not that I could see much of a reaction. Her huge glasses and orange hair covered most of her face and head, as if they were a protective shield from the rest of the world. Which was likely true; she's the biggest introvert I've ever known.

"Guten abend."

"Huh?"

"German." Pushing up her glasses, she peered up at me with those oddly mauve-tinted eyes. "You are here to see Ren."

"How do you know that?"

"Keep glancing at him. Not exactly rocket science - though rocket science is actually fairly simple and straightforward. Just gotta know the formulas."

Chuckling softly as I slid onto a stool at the bar, I said, "Uhhh, I'm going to have to take your word for it, I guess. But you're correct."

"He'll be free in a few minutes," her adoptive father said as he tossed the rag under the counter, then perched a cigarette just above his goatee. As he flicked the lighter, he said, "Can I get you anything, Niijima-san?"

"Oh, no thank you," I said with a slight bow. The cigarette smoke bothered me, but I would never dream of mentioning that. "You're already closing up; it would be rude."

"Nonsense. I've got some leftover curry ingredients in the fridge; you kids could go upstairs while I whip some up."

"You do not wanna miss his recipe," Futaba confided as she typed on her phone at lightspeed. The screen was flashing so fast I couldn't even keep up with what she was doing. "Mom's recipe. Their recipe."

"Huh?"

"Don't worry about it," her surrogate father chuckled good-naturedly as he puffed, turning back toward the kitchen. "Amamiya-kun. Take five and see your friend; I'm going to make you something."

"And I'll help," Futaba volunteered with a smile, pocketing her phone.

Ren nodded at him, barely glancing at me before drying off his hands and abandoning the dishes for now. Then he nodded toward the stairs and we went up together. Futaba made no move to abandon her place at Sojiro's side - proving that she really did accurately guess I wanted to talk to Ren alone. What a little genius.

Once upstairs in his cozy little loft, I dropped onto the old couch and wasted no time telling him everything. Ren eventually sank down beside me, expression slightly pained but mostly resigned. As if he knew this day would come, but couldn't be sure which friend - or maybe stranger - would approach him about it.

"So I know you've been having her run errands," I wrapped up with. "But she insisted that you aren't hurting her, and she isn't hurting you. I guess… I feel like I believe you, but I need to hear it. What is the nature of the relationship with Miss Kawakami?"

Guess I really do sound like you sometimes, Sae.

"We don't have one," he answered after a pause to mull over his words. "She's my homeroom teacher."

"And the maid stuff? You really do request her just to… what, give her free money?"

Another pause. "She does jobs for me. Makes curry, cleans up, does laundry. I pay her for the work. But I request her more often because I understand she needs the money; it's the only official way I can help her without…"

"Without?" I prompted.

"Without it being charity."

"Ohhh…" My eyes turned sad as I looked down at the floor. "Miss Kawakami wouldn't accept any handouts, probably. That makes sense." He nodded. "You're sure you've never… a 'health massage' or-"

"No."

"Would you want to?" At that, he looked a little uncomfortable. "Ren?"

"Maybe. But not that way; not because I paid her. It would feel like forcing her into it. And though Miss Kawakami is beautiful, I don't have strong feelings like that for her."

"All of that's very fair," I sighed, staring down at my plain black shoes. "That's how I felt, too; the 'forcing her' part, I mean." He made no reply, so I looked up at him. "You don't even care about… that part of this. That I might be attracted to her, even though I'm a girl." He shook his head. "Why not?"

His shoulders rose and fell. "That's your business."

"So simple for you," I chuckled softly, eyes sad. "But I feel like… a freak. A circus freak for seeing a woman old enough to be my mother in the hallway - well, almost old enough - and wanting to do things with her I've never even dreamed about before."

Ren's only response was to sit back a little, folding his arms and crossing one leg so the ankle rested on his knee. I watched him for a moment, squinting at his passive, thoughtful expression.

"What? What is it?"

"I may have somewhere you should visit. Come with me."

"Now? But it's so late - and we'll miss Sojiro's curry."

His smile was small and coy. "Very well. Curry and then come with me. It's important."

That word could not be ignored. He didn't just think this was a good idea, he thought it was "important"? And Ren was a fairly serious guy; he didn't just spout off things like that for no reason. I trusted him. Therefore, I nodded.

"Curry, and then I'll go with you. It's a promise." And we shook on it, like we were making a business deal.

~ o ~

Once our bellies were full of delicious curry, my taste buds still singing at the spices and mingling flavours, I hopped the train with him up to Shinjuku. That was a surprise; I didn't even know Ren knew anyone up that way, or ever went there. Maybe I didn't know him as well as I thought, but I opted to put my faith in him for the time being.

Within minutes, we were walking into a bar called "Crossroads". The place was pretty empty, except for a young woman with a pink fanny pack slumped over at the bar, and an older woman with an ornate kimono behind it cleaning glasses.

"You spend way too much time here, young man," she said - and my eyebrows shot up. That was a pretty deep voice. Was she… a he? A cross-dresser?

"Lala-san, this is my friend, Makoto Niijima. Makoto, this is Lala Escargot."

I bowed slightly, trying to hide my surprise from before. "It's a p-pleasure to meet you, Lala. Escargot… is French, right?"

"Sure, honey," she chuckled with a big grin. "French is so fancy. Why do you think I picked it?"

"Picked…?" I swallowed hard, then moved to sit at the bar in front of her. "Forgive me for asking something very forward. But are you… transgender, or a drag queen? I don't want to assume."

While Ren looked a little surprised, Lala grinned. "Just a queen, girl. When I ain't on the clock, this all comes off and I'm a regular run-of-the-mill man. Well… maybe not run-of-the-mill."

"No, I am sure you're very unique." Luckily, 'she' seemed to take that as a compliment. "Should I keep using female pronouns while you're Lala, then?"

"Yes, please." A little bow to show her gratitude, and I bowed back. "What brings ya taggin' along with this no-good louse?" Then she chuckled and hid her face behind an elegant white fan. "Just kidding, Amamiya-chan. You know me."

"Of course," he laughed with an easy smile. Not at all flustered or annoyed by her teasing.

"Well… I actually don't know." After a few seconds to consider, I just blurted out, "I think I might be gay."

"Oh yeah? Good for you, honey!"

"Thanks?" I laughed self-consciously. "But I have a feeling Ren thought it might be a good idea to talk to you about it. And maybe he's right; I really don't know what I'm doing, or feeling, or thinking, and… this isn't exactly my first contact with, um, 'the community', but none of my friends are gay. So I'm a little unsure of where to turn."

Her smirk was playful. "That you know of. I mean, just saying, Ren does hang out with a drag queen an awful lot for a straight boy."

"I work here, Lala," he sighed with a roll of his eyes. But she only laughed in response.

"But why here? Hmmmmm? So many after-school jobs, and here you are in Shinjuku. Just saying…"

Interrupting her further teasing, I asked, "So what do I do? How do I know? Especially because I have a crush on a teacher, not another student, so it's…"

"Ooooh, damn," she intonated, heavily-shaded eyes widening. "That is a pickle, sister. How old are ya?"

"Huh? Oh… eighteen."

"Awww, you're almost outta there. Just hang on and then ask her out when you're in college."

Drawing my knees together and folding my hands on the bartop, I whispered, "That's what Ann said. You make it sound so simple. I don't even know if what I'm feeling is real, or-"

"It's real."

Stunned by the firmness in her voice, I asked, "How can you be so sure?"

"If you're worried enough about it to follow your friend to some dive bar in Shinjuku, you're feeling real things, baby," she pressed with a sympathetic sigh. "Maybe you get a few years further along in life, and it turns out you ain't a lesbian, or maybe you are. But right now, for you, in this moment, you wanna be with a woman. Don't second-guess yourself or waste a lot of time thinking you're 'crazy'. Take Ohya there."

With a start, the other woman shot upright, eyes unfocused and sunglasses askew. "Huh? Wh-wha…? I'll pay my tab next week…"

"Poor thing was in love with this old colleague of hers," Lala went on as Ohya slumped back downward, clearly not even listening. "Completely oblivious until it was too late; she's still in denial about it. Now Kaya's out of her life and she ain't got nobody. Think she still likes men, but when's the last time I saw her on a serious date with any of 'em?"

My eyes widened. "Oh. She's a lesbian, too?"

"Bisexual," Lala corrected. "Probably, anyway."

"Right, right; like you said, she still dates men." I watched her snore for a few seconds, then cleared my throat. "I guess… it's different, meeting a woman who likes women in person. Not that I doubted their existence."

The drag queen shrugged as she poured me a tonic with lemon; something light and non-alcoholic, but still being courteous. "We get a lot of people like you wandering in. Girls or boys who ain't sure what they want outta life, or outta relationships. Some of these places around Shinjuku will really turn your brain upside-down if you let 'em, but… most of us just wanna help family."

"Family?" After a second of flashbacks to dead parents and my stubborn sister, I got it. "Right. That's me; I'm 'family' now. But what if I try dating a woman and decide I like men? Isn't that… wrong, somehow?"

"What's wrong with experimenting and figuring out what you like?"

"Well, when you put it that way… I feel stupid," I ended up saying, and she chuckled.

"Don't, honey. Nothin' stupid about not knowing where you wanna end up in life. Just take your time, figure it out. Come back here if you got questions; maybe Ichiko'll be sober enough to answer 'em next time."

"Hey, I'm not that drunk," the woman muttered without lifting her head or opening her eyes. "Sober enough to see Ren-kun brought another cutie with him. You're the drunk one, Lala-chan… not me."

Another cutie? Did she mean me?!

"You're the horizontal one," Lala mocked back, and Ohya did smile slightly. But she still didn't get up.

And now I found myself really looking at her. If I'm being brutally honest, I don't know why I had such a strong image in my mind that a woman who likes women would be some kind of freak. Probably had something to do with societal brainwashing. But here was this Ichiko, very normal other than the fact that she was drunk. Bobbed black hair, blue jeans and sneakers. Very pretty in the same way Miss Kawakami was pretty: a little older but taking good care of herself, other than the drinking which probably had the same amount of detrimental effect on her as the lack of sleep did on my teacher.

"Maybe," I breathed quietly to myself before taking a sip of the tonic water. It was actually pretty refreshing.

"What's that, honey?"

"Nothing, nevermind. Just thinking to myself."

"Questioning?"

For some reason, she was smirking at me again. I had the feeling her comment meant more to her than it did to me, but I decided not to ask about it. "Anyway, your friend looks like she's not getting up anytime soon, so maybe I should go. Thanks for this, Lala - and you, too, Ren. Helped me a lot more than I can be sure of just yet, I'm sure."

Ren nodded with a small smile as he took his place behind the bar. Lala came over to stand next to him. "Ohhhh, you're up for a shift, huh? Good, good. And let me know if you ever change your mind about me dressing you up."

Feeling second-hand embarrassment for Ren felt like reason enough to quickly and quietly take my leave. Besides, now I had an awful lot to think about.

To Be Continued…

#Queen Of Temperance #forkanna writes #persona 5 fanfiction #p5 fanfic #jess the writer #persona

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jercythesiscrying · 6 years

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Ride drop top and chase thrills | EnnoTana, T, 5.1k

NaNoWriMo Day 19: Arranged Marriage OR Fake Dating AU Day Two of AU Week! Posting a new AU fic every day for one week.

Summary: Ryuu and Chikara share an apartment in Tokyo when Chikara needs to convince his parents that the two of them are in a relationship.

This fell under AU Week but tbh it can also be read as canon compliant ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Read on Ao3

A/N: Shout out to the Stream Team discord for throwing ideas at me—sorry I couldn’t make this as angsty as it could be /o\ Also, mucho thank yous and kisses to Pat-friend for the exceptionally quick beta and always holding my hand (Ｔ▽Ｔ) All other mistakes are mine.

Title is from Feels by Calvin Harris (the working title was “oh my god they were roommates” so y’all can't complain lol).

“Why am I doing this again?”

“Because I will help you with whatever you want for a month if you help me convince my parents I’m in a relationship.”

Ryuu nods, remembering that part of the conversation. He looks at the scenery blazing by outside his window before meeting Ennoshita’s gaze. They’re on the bullet train to Sendai because somehow Ryuu got talked into meeting Ennoshita’s parents as his boyfriend.

“And why do you need to do that?” he asks. Ennoshita looks at him with a tired expression, and he puts his hands up in defense. “Hey, you just sprung it on me! I didn’t get everything—just jumped on the train when you said come with!”

Which is basically how his last 12 hours have been: Ennoshita begging him for help last night, that he needed to go to Miyagi in the morning and someone had to come with him or he’d be fucked, and Ryuunosuke—ever the greatest friend alive, in his mind at least—agreed, hastily packing his bags for an overnight stay at Ennoshita’s parents’ place. It’s a miracle that Ryuu has the next few days off work so he can help Ennoshita out, but it means the details about everything that happened is remarkably fuzzy.

Ennoshita sighs. “Yeah, I know.” He swipes a palm over his face. “Thanks for that, Tanaka.”

“It’s fine,” he says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “But why do we need to convince your parents again?”

“They think I’m too focused on grad school –”

“Which you are.”

Ennoshita glares at him. “And that I should be looking for a girlfriend. Or boyfriend. Whatever.” He rolls his eyes. “I told them I was already in a relationship, I think after that time I nearly died for The Essay?”

Ryuu winces at the reminder. That wasn’t a good night, for eitherof them.

“Anyway, apparently I mumbled something about a boyfriend and now I’m too embarrassed to say I was lying.” He buries his head in his hands. “I asked Kazushi at first—my writing partner at school?—but he bailed last minute.” When he looks up, he exhales a deep breath. “The only good thing is that I didn’t give any names until, like, last night after I convinced you to come with me.”

“She’s fine with you dating your roommate?”

“Apparently.” Ennoshita shrugs.

Ryuu purses his lips into a flat line. He’s already on the way to Miyagi so it’s not like he can argue at this point, but he’s still hesitant about lying to his friend’s parents.

Ennoshita clasps his hands together, pleading, “Please, Tanaka, just for a little while? I’ll say we broke up at the end of the semester or something.”

He hums his disapproval but relents. “Fine, fine. But you’re helping me with house chores for a month and buying me melonpan for, like, ever after this.”

Ennoshita grins, sliding down into his seat with relief. “Done.”

“So,” Ryuu says, satisfied with their deal, “what’s the plan?”

“Just... follow my lead, okay?”

“Chikara! Ryuunosuke! Come in, come in!” Ennoshita’s mom greets them at the door, all but pulling them inside.

“Ojamashimasu,” Ryuu says, toeing out of his shoes. He passes a gift bag to her as he does so. “Roll cake from the station,” he says with a smile.

“Thank you!” Mrs. Ennoshita says, grinning. “You didn’t have to!”

Ryuu blushes, unsure how to answer. Ennoshita said to get it for formality’s sake. “Um, it’s my pleasure, Mrs. Ennoshita,” he eventually says.

“Oh, Ryuunosuke-kun, you can just call me Auntie.” She looks over her shoulder, calling out, “Dear!” Ryuu gulps, seeing Ennoshita’s dad walk into the hallway. “Chikara’s boyfriend brought us roll cake, isn’t that sweet?”

Mr. Ennoshita smiles warmly at him. “Thank you, Ryuunosuke.”

Ryuu forces a smile, lowering his head in a shallow bow. He blushes at Ennoshita’s mom calling him “Chikara’s boyfriend” before shooting a panicked look at Ennoshita. His pretend date widens his eyes at him, silently mouthing his lips:

Play along!

Ryuu holds back a sigh as the Ennoshitas lead him into the house.

He does his best during dinner, though it’s definitely a trying time.

“And that’s how Nishikata-san hosed water all over himself!”

Mrs. Ennoshita giggles loudly, her husband chuckling along heartily with her, and Chikara laughs politely. Under the table someone kicks Ryuu, and he holds back a whine, beginning to chuckle softly as well.

“So funny, Mom,” Ennoshita mumbles, picking at his food.

“Oh, honey,” she says, “are you sure that’s all you’re going to have? You’re looking a little thin.”

“I’m fine,” he answers flatly.

Ryuu glares at him, and Ennoshita glares back—they’ve had this conversation hundreds of times already since moving in together. Ryuu didn’t realize it was a script Ennoshita memorized with his parents too.

Mrs. Ennoshita tsks, but drops the subject.

“So,” she says, scooping into her plate with a wide smile, “Ryuunosuke, we’re so happy you and Chikara are together! We know you’ve been friends a long time, but how long have you been dating?”

Ryuu looks at Ennoshita with wide eyes, who replies with a pointed look of his own. “Uhhh,” he stalls, “not very—um—long?”

“Oh!” she says. “Chikara, I thought you said you two have been together for a while?”

“Um, yeah, it’s been a few months,” Ennoshita says easily, flashing a threatening smile at him. Ryuu tries not to choke on his dinner.

“It just–uh”—he scrambles for words—“feels like no time at all, being with Chikara! I didn’t realize how, er, fast the time flew,” he says, hoping it doesn’t come across as lame as it sounds.

Mrs. Ennoshita coos. “Aw, that’s so sweet! Isn’t that sweet, dear?”

The father nods, smiling softly at them. “It felt that way when I was with your mother,” he says to Ennoshita. “And now look where we are!”

He and Ennoshita respond with another weak laugh. Ryuu hopes that the panic he feels isn’t visible on his face.

Later that night, Ryuu slips into the sleeping mat that Mrs. Ennoshita brings out, laying it next to Ennoshita’s bed. He pumps the spare pillow a few times, resting an arm on it.

“How d’you think it went?” he asks quietly as Ennoshita steps into his bed.

“Well, I think they bought it,” Ennoshita whispers. “Just gotta get through tomorrow and then this’ll be over.”

Ryuu nods, lying on his back with his arms crossed behind his head. He looks up at the ceiling when he says, “Yeah, just get through tomorrow.”

After a while, Ennoshita mumbles, “Night, Tanaka. Thanks again.”

“Night.”

Get through tomorrow proves much more difficult than Ryuu anticipates. With their ticket back to Tokyo booked for late in the afternoon, he’s introduced to the neighbours, the baker, and some of Ennoshita’s aunties as Ennoshita’s boyfriend before his parents let him and Ryuu go.

“Please come again!” Mrs. Ennoshita says when she and her husband drop them off at the station. “You barely visit home, Chikara,” she admonishes her son.

Ryuu nudges Ennoshita’s arm with an elbow. “Chikara,” he whines, “that’s so mean to Auntie and Uncle.”

Mr. Ennoshita barks out a laugh. “Listen to your boyfriend,” he chuckles.

Chikara blushes, shooting Ryuu a glare. He grins back, because he loves being a little shit. They say their goodbyes to Ennoshita’s parents, waving at them at the turnstiles.

When they’re finally onboard the train, sitting comfortably across each other, Ryuu comments, “I think that went well.”

“Sorry about how long everything took,” Ennoshita says. He gives Ryuu a sheepish look.

“It’s fine. Your folks are real nice, and the aunties only pinched my cheek twice.”

Ennoshita groans, burying his face into his hands. “God,that was so embarrassing.”

Ryuu chortles, head thrown back in delight. “Chikara, it’s fine. I got free meals and now you’re buying me melonpan for life—totally worth it.”

Ennoshita looks up at him with a curious smile.

“‘Chikara’, huh?”

Ryuu shrugs. “Well, if we’re dating, we should use first names, right? I’ve been calling you that since we were at your parents’ place.”

Chikara scoffs a laugh, nodding. “That’s true. But I don’t think I can call you anything but ‘Tanaka’ at this point.”

“That’s fine,” Ryuu replies. “It’s just for your folks back home, yeah? It’ll be easy.”

In hindsight, those are his famous last words.

“Tanaka!” Chikara screams. “I need to FaceTime my mom!”

Ryuu races to Chikara’s room, jumping onto his bed without hesitation. They’ve been doing this for a few weeks now, he knows the drill. FaceTime Mrs. Ennoshita, have his arm around Chikara, pretend like everything’s okay, and then he can go back to –

Well, whatever. So what if Ryuu doesn’t have much going on right now? At least he can spare some time to help out a friend.

“Chikara?” A tinny voice comes from Chikara’s phone. “Can you see me?”

Auntie’s face is a little blurry, but once the connection settles the resolution clears up. She has her hair up in a bandana, and Ryuu can tell that she just finished gardening if the smear of dirt on her cheek is any indication.

Strange how he already knows this.

“Hi, Mom!”

“Hi, Auntie!”

“Hello!” Mrs. Ennoshita smiles. “Oh, and Ryuu-kun too! Hello!”

“Auntie, you have dirt on your cheek,” Ryuu points out politely.

Mrs. Ennoshita touches her face, blushing. “Oh goodness! Sorry about that—I just finished gardening, you know.”

Knew it, he thinks.

“That’s nice, Auntie! How are the petunias coming along?”

A notification pops up on Chikara’s phone, interrupting the videochat.

“Ryuu? Chikara? Dear, are you still there?”

Chikara frowns, looking at Ryuu. “It’s an email from my prof. I need to go answer it on my laptop. Keep talking to my mom.”

Chikara passes the phone to Ryuu, who takes it easily. “Sorry, Auntie! Chika has to do something really quick, but he’ll be back,” he explains.

“Oh, that’s fine, Ryuu-kun,” she says, waving a dismissive hand. “I’m happy to talk to you. Anyway the petunias are –”

Ryuu preens at the praise, grinning at the screen as Auntie continues to babble about her little garden.

It should be weirder, how comfortable he is videochatting his friend’s mom, but he genuinely likes Chikara’s parents. His mom’s easy to talk to, even if she puts him on the spot a lot, and his dad is just as kind.

Pretending to be Chikara’s boyfriend is way easier than he thought it’d be too. Ryuunosuke��s never been afraid of being physically affectionate with his friends. In high school he was always happy to throw an arm around Noya’s shoulders, or clap Narita on the back, or ruffle Kinoshita’s hair. It didn’t change once he graduated from Karasuno, nor did it change once he finished college. Chikara’s been on the receiving end of a lot of Ryuu’s affection because they’ve been friends for so many years; the only difference is the sentiment the Ennoshitas attach to the gestures.

Like how Auntie brings it up now.

“– and it’s so nice to know that Chikara has someone to look after him when I can’t,” she rambles. “That boy works too hard, you know, just like his father, really. And the both of them need someone to make sure they’re eating properly, or to remind them to get some sleep.” Ryuu laughs, because that sounds exactlylike Chikara.

“But I really am glad you can also comfort Chikara when he needs it too,” she continues. She smiles at him through the screen, and Ryuu blushes.

“Uh, er –”

What the hell is he supposed to say? He looks after his friends, sure, but comfort?Ryuu’s not sure if he really does that. And what does she mean by “comfort”? Like emotional comfort? Physical? A blush rises to his cheeks before he can stop it.

“I’m so glad that you can give my baby boy a hug when he needs it,” Auntie continues, and Ryuu tries to relax. Hugs,he thinks, she was talking about hugs.

“Oh, um, o-of course, Auntie!” he stutters.

“Mooooom!” Chikara whines, making his way back to the bed, easily taking a space on the bed. “I’m in grad school, I’m not a baby,” he says as he squeezes into the frame with Ryuu. He holds his breath, heart suddenly starting to race at Chikara’s proximity.

“You’re always my baby, Chikara,” she says sternly. She looks away from the screen momentarily before saying, “Oh, shoot, look at the time! I’ve got to start on dinner now, but thank you for talking to me!”

“No problem, Mom. We’ll talk later!”

“A-always nice seeing you, Auntie!” Ryuu tries to keep his voice even, still started by thinking about “comforting” Chikara. Neither Ennoshita seems to catch his unease.

She blows two kisses to the screen with a wave. “Love you boys! Bye, bye!”

And the call ends.

Chikara sighs. “Sorry for making you talk to my mom for most of that, Tanaka,” he apologizes. “Sensei’s email was really long and I couldn’t ignore it.”

“N-nah, it’s fine,” he says, waving his hand in dismissal.

Chikara narrows his eyes at him. Damn him for being so perceptive,Ryuu thinks.

“You okay?” he asks. “You keep stuttering.”

Ryuu shakes his head, trying to calm his fluttering heart. “All good!” he says cheerfully, flashing a thumbs up as he scrambles for an excuse. “I think I just need to run, or something. A lot of pent up energy.”

Chikara continues to survey him carefully, but eventually shrugs.

“Alright,” he relents. “I’ll make dinner tonight, I guess, so be back in like an hour or so?”

Ryuu nods, getting out of his bed and leaving the room. He walks down to his bedroom in confusion. With how fast his heart is still beating, maybe he does need to take a run.

As the semester goes on, Ryuu realizes that he’s not sure he can keep up the “pretend” part of being Chikara’s pretend boyfriend.

Being around Chikara feels like so much more than how they were before this entire thing started.

Somehow, Chikara isn’t Chikara anymore—he’s Chika. Mrs. Ennoshita isAuntie and Mr. Ennoshita is Uncle. Ryuu even knows the names of Chikara’s aunties now.

And he’s not just affectionate whenever he has to FaceTime Chikara’s family anymore—he’s affectionate all the time now. When they’re alone together, sitting side-by-side eating take-out on their ratty couch, Ryuu wants to snuggle closer and lean his head on Chikara’s shoulder. When Chikara smiles—excited about a new movie, or happy that he impressed his thesis advisor, or laughing at one of Ryuu’s dumb jokes—Ryuu has the urge to kiss him.

Ryuunosuke knows he wears his heart on his sleeve, but he keeps these feelings close to his chest. It’s just until the end of the semester anyway, he tries to remind himself. After that, this entire thing will be over and the feelings will go away.

(What scares Ryuu the most, late at night when he’s able to admit it to himself, is that he doesn’t actually want that to happen.)

They’re drunk one night after hitting too many karaoke bars. Ryuu honestly lost count how many places they hopped, just knows that their friends left like an hour ago and that Chikara has a pretty, red glow on his face, laughing in Ryuu’s arms after they leave another bar. They step onto what he hopes is the right bus home, pointedly ignoring the agitated bus driver when they take their seats at the back.

“I can’t believe you convinced that one girl you were actuallya director!” Ryuu howls, clutching his belly. “Do you still have her card?”

Chikara giggles, shaking his head. “Oh jeez, no. I think I lost it after she left?”

Ryuu erupts in another belly laugh. He still has an arm clutching Chikara, and Ryuu pulls him even closer. Chikara smells like sweat, and beer, and a bit like the perfume of that poor girl they duped, but mostly he smells like comfort. Familiarity.

Chikara doesn’t hesitate to lean on his shoulder as they both continue to laugh. Ryuu feels warmth flooding his chest, so unlike the burn of the shots they had hours earlier.

Their drunk giggles eventually quiet after a few stops, along with the glares of other passengers trying to peacefully ride the bus. They talk about a lot of things on the way home: a little about where their other friends went (“Another bar?” “Nah, I think Noya said something about meeting Asahi-san?”), a little bit about the raging hangover they’ll have (“We’re fucked, bro.” “God, I know.”), but mostly about how much fun they had that night.

They hop off the bus at the last stop, exactly half a block from where their apartment is. Chikara, definitely more of a lightweight than Ryuunosuke, predictably needs his help once they step out. Halfway down the sidewalk, Ryuu is practically carrying Chikara’s weight on his shoulder.

“Piggyback me, T’naka,” Chikara slurs.

“What?!” Ryuu suddenly feels a lot more sober than he actually is.

“Can’t walk an’more,” Chikara mumbles into his shoulder. “Carry me home.”

He sounds so sleepy and adorable that Ryuu doesn’t bother hesitating. He slings Chikara onto his back, making sure that he has a steady hold on the other boy before he walks up the steps to their building.

“Thanks for t’night, Ryuu,” Chikara whispers once they finally make it to the elevator. “Had fun.”

“That’s good.” Ryuu smiles. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself—you need to learn to loosen up more, Chika.”

Chikara hums. Ryuu’s stepping out of the elevator when he continues, “‘Like when you call me that.”

“Hm?”

Ryuu’s wrestled the keys out of his pocket, finally inside their apartment and making his way to dump his very heavyfriend into bed when Chikara says, “When you call me ‘Chika’. Sounds like ‘m actually your boyfriend.”

Oh.

Ryuu tries to brush it off, carefully placing Chikara onto his mattress.

“We are though, aren’t we? Gotta ham it up for your parents and everything,” he says playfully, grabbing the trash bin from under Chikara’s table and placing it next to the bed. He’ll be thankful for that in the morning.

“I mean, f’real,” Chikara mumbles, snuggling his sheets. “Wanna be your boyfriend for real, not just ‘cause I made Mom think’so.”

Ryuu swallows, sure that the blush on his cheeks isn’t just because he’s drunk. He stands still as he watches Chikara settle into bed, unsure what to say.

When Chikara’s breathing evens out, and because Ryuu thinks he’s definitely asleep, he whispers, “I wish we were boyfriends for real, too.”

Before he loses the last of his liquid courage, Ryuu bends down, pressing his lips softly against Chikara’s forehead. He lingers, pecking one more kiss to Chikara’s hair before quietly leaving the room.

They’re right about the hangover. The next morning, Ryuu wakes up to the sound of Chikara throwing up down the hall. The noise irritates his awful headache, and he throws an arm over his face. His stomach seems relatively okay (he actually remembered to drink water throughout the night, thank goodness), but the pounding in his head is far from pleasant.

Eventually he hears the faucet running in the bathroom, followed by the closing of a door, and Ryuu figures that he’s free to use the toilet. He climbs out of bed, swaying a little on his feet but otherwise steady, and pads down the hallway to take a piss. After washing his hands and splashing some water on his face, he makes his way to Chikara’s room, whose head is buried under every single pillow he owns.

“Want pain meds?”

“Yes, please.”

“Coffee?”

“Mmmno, need water.”

“Okay. Be back in five.”

As Ryuu rummages through the cupboards for the Ibuprofen, he remembers what happened last night.

Wanna be your boyfriend for real.

I wish we were boyfriends for real, too.

He swallows thickly. How much does Chikara remember?

He’s snapped out of his thoughts when he hears the other boy groaning down the hall. Ryuu dumps two Ibuprofen tablets in his hand, grabbing a water bottle from the fridge before making his way back to Chikara’s room.

“Hey,” he says softly, “can you get up? I got meds and a water bottle.”

Chikara slowly rises from under his pillows, moving as sluggish as a zombie. When he finally sits up, he looks like shit: face crumpled in a pained expression, hair sticking up every direction, lips cracked and dry.

“Here,” Ryuu says, passing the water and tablets. Chikara takes them with heavy hands, slapping the Ibuprofen into his mouth and gulping down the water so haphazardly that it leaks down his chin.

“You’re a life saver, Ryuu,” Chikara mumbles as he closes the water bottle.

“Nah, just less hungover than you, Chika.” Ryuu grabs the drink, placing it on the Chikara’s table. He then scratches the back of his head, thinking about the night before. “Hey, uh,” he hesitates, “do you... remember? Anything? From last night?”

Chikara whines a little in his throat. It’s clear on his face that recalling anything beyond waking up half an hour ago proves difficult for him.

“Uhhh,” he drawls, “not really? Karaoke? Bars? We split up at like 1am, I think.”

Ryuu purses his lips. “You don’t remember coming home?”

Chikara hums, sinking back into bed. “We got on the bus. That’s it, really.”

“Yeah, well, we made it back.” He ends the sentence with a light chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll, uh, make food. You can try sleeping more, if you want, Chika.”

The other boy pulls the sheets over him, replying with a hum. When he starts to snore, Ryuu quietly leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

Chikara doesn’t remember anything after getting on the bus. He probably never realized he confessed to Ryuu.

On the other side of the door, Ryuu breathes a sigh—he’s not sure if it’s in relief or regret.

Hours, days, weeks later, whenever Ryuu brings up that night, Chikara admits that he really doesn’t remember a lot aside from the bus ride home, and Ryuu realizes that he’s disappointed every time he asks.

The end of Chikara’s semester comes way too quickly.

Ryuu’s standing in the kitchen one afternoon, trying to decide what to eat when Chikara breaks the news.

“I told my parents we broke up,” he announces simply. “Said that our schedules got too busy and we couldn’t handle it.”

“Oh.”

Ryuu rubs the back of his neck. He wasn’t expecting that at allwhen he heard Chikara on the phone.

“What’d they say?” he asks.

“Mom’s sad.” Chikara shrugs. “Dad was at work so she’s gonna tell him later.”

“She say anything about us still being roommates?”

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “She’s worried that it’ll be too much for us, but I told her that we’d be fine. I mean, she didn’t know, but we were just pretending, right?”

Ryuu nods. Right, pretending.

“Um, I guess I gotta back off from the boyfriend stuff then, huh?” He tries not to sound too disappointed—this was all it was going to be, after all.

“Yeah,” Chikara repeats, looking away. “Thanks for helping out, Tanaka.”

Ryuu swallows, pressing his lips together. “Mm,” he says, “no worries, man.”

They stand together in awkward silence before Chikara says, “I’ve gotta go. Writing session.” He makes his way to the door, looking over his shoulder to wave goodbye. “I’ll see you later?”

Ryuu nods, and Chikara leaves. He looks back to the open cabinets and realizes he’s not hungry anymore.

Things are unbelievably awkward after they “break up”. Ryuu isn’t sure how affectionate to be around Chikara anymore, doesn’t remember what boundaries they had before things became so complicated.

He’s also pretty sure that Chikara’s avoiding him, spending more time at school or with his thesis advisor, planning around Ryuu’s work schedule so they cross paths as little as possible in their apartment.

When they do see each other, they don’t talk as much. Their conversations are stilted, tense. Sometimes it’s because Chikara’s parents want to know what’s going on with Ryuu, but they can’t, because he and Chikara aren’t dating anymore. Chikara stops taking his parents’ calls after it happens a fourth time, and Ryuu hears him make a weak excuse about being busy since the classes are wrapping up. Ryuu knows that’s not true, because Chikara was working himself to the bone in order to take things easy at the end of the semester, but he walks away from where he was eavesdropping at Chikara’s door. It’s not his place to tell Auntie the truth.

He never did that in the first place.

Ryuu doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know how to fix things.

Chikara goes home for Golden Week. Ryuu has plans to return home too, visit his sister and parents, but he has to leave later than Chikara because of work.

They’ve been “broken up” for a little over three weeks now.

Ryuu notices how much quieter it is without Chikara around. Chikara isn’t even the loud one between the two of them, but Ryuu misses him when he’s not there. He misses the footsteps of Chikara pacing in his room, the mumbling he does under his breath when he really gets into his writing, how he calls Ryuu’s name because Ryuu forgot to take out the trash (again).

Chikara’s gone now, but Ryuu realizes he’s missed him for much longer than the morning he left for Miyagi.

He calls up his sister, ready to tell her that he’s coming home a few days earlier than expected.

Knock knock knock.

“Ryuu-kun?” Auntie says, opening the door. “Why are you here? Chikara isn’t –”

“Auntie,” he says politely, “I have to tell you something.”

“That you and my son never actually dated?”

“Me and Chikara never—wait,” he pauses, Auntie’s words finally registering. “You knew?”

She sighs, waving him in. “Come inside, Ryuu-kun.”

They make their way to the kitchen, where Ryuu takes the same seat he did months ago when he and Chikara had dinner with his parents.

“I had a feeling you two were never really involved,” Auntie says with a sad smile. “Chikara is a horrible liar, and you’re not really that much better, Ryuu-kun.” She looks at him sheepishly. “No offense.”

Ryuu sighs, but smiles back. “I know.”

“I had a feeling Chikara was hiding something from me, but I convinced myself that you two were happy together every time I called.” She shrugs. “He told me the truth when he came home earlier this week.”

“I’m sorry, Auntie.”

“Oh, Ryuu-kun, it’s okay,” she says.

He looks at her with confusion—how could any of this be okay? They both lied to her, to Uncle, to so many people, for months. And now that it’s all over things are so messed up.

“I could be angrier, but mostly I wish Chikara didn’t think he had to pretend for me—I just want him to be happy,” she explains. “I think he’s more upset with himself that he got you tangled up in this actually. He’s been really quiet since you two ‘broke up’.” She uses finger quotes for emphasis. He nods—he knows how quiet Chikara’s been.

“Auntie,” he says softly, “I know this ended up really, reallybad but now I actually, truly love your son. Can you please give me—us—a second chance?”

She reaches out, patting his hand softly where it lays on the table. He looks at their hands, then back at her. Auntie smiles at him kindly.

“Ryuu, I don’t think you even need to ask.”

He finds Chikara at a park nearby, sitting alone on a bench, exactly where Auntie told Ryuu he’d be.

“Chika!”

The other boy turns around, frowning. “Ryuu?”

Ryuu jogs over, sitting in the empty space next to him.

“What are you doing here?” Chikara asks, brows furrowed in obvious confusion. “I thought you weren’t leaving for –”

Ryuu cuts him off with a kiss. Chikara gasps a little before sinking into it, but when he does Ryuu relaxes. He deepens the kiss, hands coming up to cup Chikara’s cheeks gently. Chikara’s lips are soft against his, and when he sighs Ryuu pushes back in for more.

They part for air, and Ryuu huffs a soft chuckle. “I wanted to do that forever.”

Chikara backs up, and Ryuu immediately misses the warmth. “What?”

Ryuu blushes, dropping his hands from Chikara’s face to hold the other boy’s hands.

“I’ve liked you a long time, Chika,” he confesses quietly. He plays with Chikara’s fingers, pursing his lips. “I thought you might’ve liked me too, when we got plastered after karaoke –”

“That –” Chikara shakes his head. “When I said I wanted us to be boyfriends—that was real?” Ryuu nods, and Chikara groans, hanging his head. “Oh god.”

“Wait,” Ryuu interrupts, “so you remember that night?”

“I thought my hangover was making things up,” Chikara says, face turning redder with each word. “It felt like a dream, when you kissed me.”

Now Ryuu flushes red. “You were awakewhen I did that?!”

Chikara looks up at him with a shy smile. “I was almost asleep, but... yeah. I know you kissed me on the head. Twice.”

“Chikara!” he whines, shoving the other boy’s shoulder lightly. “You kept telling me that you only remembered going home on the bus!”

“I said it felt like a dream!” Chikara defends. “I didn’t realize it was real, telling you that I want to be your boyfriend.”

Despite it all, Ryuu grins, beaming wide.

“You-you still wanna be my boyfriend?” he says, unable to hide the giddiness in his voice.

Chikara shrugs, shoulders hunching self-consciously. “Well, yeah.”

Ryuu leans forward again, pressing another kiss to Chikara’s lips. He can feel the other boy smiling into the kiss, and he can’t help but grin back.

When they pull apart, Ryuu says, “I wanna be your boyfriend too.”

They grin at each other while Ryuu caresses Chikara’s cheek.

Then something suddenly dawns on Chikara. He gasps, eyes wide when he says, “Oh god, Mom’s never going to let me live this down.”

Ryuu laughs. “Neither will I, Chika,” he snickers. “You put me through hell for months!”

Chikara shoves his head, and Ryuu pokes him back, and eventually the two of them are roughhousing like a bunch of teenagers until Ryuu falls off the bench, pulling Chikara down with him. They lie on the ground, giggling at each other before falling into another kiss.

#ennotana #tanaenno #tanaka ryuunosuke #ennoshita chikara #haikyuu #hq!!#haikyuu!!#ryuunosuke tanaka #chikara ennoshita #karasuno #nanowrimo 2018 #week 4 #au #tropes #canon compliant #fake dating #slash #jercy's fic tag

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shipmistress9 · 6 years

Text

FTLOAP: Chapter 27: I Wanne Be The Slipped – Word Upon Your Lip

Title: For The Love Of A Princess

Fandom: HTTYD

Theme: Hiccstrid - Medieval-style AU - Romance - Angst/Hurt/Comfort

Summary: Reduced to little more than a stable boy, Hiccup, despite his noble birth, has few prospects for more in life. But when he meets a girl who came to look at the horses, being a stable boy might not be enough anymore. Together, they have tough choices to make and great risks to navigate if they want to survive and be together.

Rating: Explicit

FF-net - AO3 -

Discord-server for discussions and questions

Prologue; 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; Interlude 1; Chapter 15; Chapter 16; Chapter 17; Chapter 18; Chapter 19; Chapter 20; Chapter 21; Chapter 22; Chapter 23; Chapter 24; Chapter 25; Chapter 26; Interlude 2

Alpha/Co-author: @athingofvikings

. – * – _ . o O o . _ – * – .

AN: Sooo, this is finally going to continue. I know it's just been a month and there even was the surprise interlude, but to me, it felt like it's been ages. And I can't really say why.

So, NaNoWriMo is over, and I'm proud to say that I 'won' with roughly 54'000 written words. I actually didn't expect that, so it makes me pretty happy. But I also have to confess that only about 15'000 of these words were for FTLOAP... when I'd planned to only write that and build a bit of a buffer. Ah, well, that's how it is. So I wrote a couple of one-shots and drabbles, a couple of chapters for 'Undine', nearly the entire story 'Lessons In Dancing And Dreaming' which I'll start to post soon, the entire outline and the first chapters to a Ballet AU... Looking at all this, I think I needed a break from FTLOAP which pretty much ruled my life for this entire year (HOW IS IT DECEMBER ALREADY?). So that's good. Back with new energy! Or at least I hope so...

Anyway, here's another chapter where I knew pretty early which lyrics I would use as a title. It's "I Wanne Be The Slipped (slipped) Wor Upon Your Lip (lip)", once more from 'Whatever It Takes' by Imagine Dragons. (I like this song very much and I can promise that there will be at least more chapter named after lyrics from this song...)

. o O o .

To Hiccup, the trip back to the stables was barely more than a blur. He remembered – vaguely – that they’d said their farewell to Cami, agreeing upon coming to visit her again soon. And he also dimly remembered how Eret and Dagur had walked off into the direction of the castle once they’d left the city streets behind them. They’d asked if he wanted to come with them – “to spend the night in a real bed for once” – but he’d refused. He quite liked the solitude of the stables, and the accommodations there weren’t all that uncomfortable anyway.

And he definitely needed the time alone to work through everything Cami had said.

Some bits were simple or wouldn’t affect him for a long while to come, like the whole topic about Astrid’s maidenhead. From what Cami had said, Hiccup supposed it was quite possible that its state was checked upon every now and again, simply due to the ‘value of the virgin princess to the kingdom’. Given her love of horseback riding, it could easily break by accident, after all. If that happened, then Astrid would have to spend a couple of months secluded within Frigga’s temple to ensure that she wasn’t pregnant before their wedding. Nothing bad, all in all, but inconvenient, which meant that he wasn’t by any means to break it. That was simple logic and easy to remember.

Cami’s lesson on how to eventually break it while inflicting as little pain as possible had been a bit more complicated. But Hiccup decided not to dwell on that. All that was still so far away in their future, and he would receive this lesson again once the time came, after all.

But what really occupied his mind was the question what he would do once he and Astrid got the chance to be alone again. What would he tell her, what would he do? Of course, he had to explain, to apologise, had to assure her that it had been his mistake, and not hers. And he had to make it up to her. If she wanted that.

Thinking about how to make it up to her made him swallow, though. He knew some men struggled with impatience when it came to pleasing women, but he himself never had that problem. He loved to thoroughly explore his partner’s body and to please them, with the reactions he elicited driving his own arousal higher. But the prospect of doing so with Astrid, of finding the spots that made her shiver and of learning all her noises and subtle signs – everything without the fears of breaking the rules – it was nearly more than he could bear right now.

And that was another reason why he hadn’t accepted the offer to sleep in the castle. He couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t try to sneak his way into her rooms if he were to spend the night in such close proximity, and he knew how dangerous that would be. It was too much of a risk.

No, he would have to wait until she could come to the stables again, hopefully soon, maybe even tomorrow night already.

Oh, Gods, please, let her come here tomorrow, he silently prayed as he reached the field in front of the stables. It wasn’t just because of his desire for her though, he reminded himself as he pushed open the door and entered the relatively warm stables. He could deal with that problem well enough by himself. No, it was so much more than that. He reached up to kindle the lantern near the entrance, smiling at the prospect of just gazing at her smile again, of hearing her laugh, of holding and kissing her, of talking freely. Once again, two days were already enough to miss her terribly, the gleam in her eyes, her voice, the sense of warmth and rightness she emitted.

“Hiccup?”

Gods, he thought he could even hear her voice. Hiccup chuckled, shaking his head at himself. He really was a lovesick fool, there was no point in denying that. And he wouldn’t want to change a thing.

“Hiccup, is that you?”

Hiccup flinched, then whirled around in an instant when he heard her voice again. With wide eyes, he stared into the darkness beyond the light of his lantern, at where, slowly, a shadowy outline was forming.

Astrid, wrapped into his warm blanket, stood at the entrance to his stall. She looked tired as if she’d just woken up, sleepily rubbing her eyes and blinking into the light, but smiled when her gaze became clearer.

“You’re back!”

. o O o .

Astrid couldn’t deny that she felt a little stupid.

She’d known that Hiccup wouldn’t be at the stables, after all. She’d known that he wouldn’t be back until late in the night, and fresh out of the bed of one of Freya’s Ástir. She had no illusions there, and wasn’t even sure what she expected. But it didn’t really matter to her how late he would return or how exhausted he would be – so long as she could see him that night. Talk to him.

After an hour of fitfully tossing and turning in her bed, of constantly thinking about him, and worrying over his weird behaviour during the last days, she had decided that waiting another day wasn’t feasible. She wouldn’t find any sleep tonight anyway. So she’d made her way to the stables after all, fully prepared to wait for him – only to fall asleep after all once she was nestled into his blanket, surrounded by his scent and that of fresh hay and the soothing noises of the horses.

But now he was here, looking so achingly beautiful in the dim light of the lantern, and stared at her in utter disbelief.

“A-Astrid?” he gasped, and yes, she couldn’t help but feel stupid.

What if he didn’t even want her to be here? He’d already spent the last couple of hours with a woman, after all. Self-consciously, she pulled his blanket around her shoulders tighter.

“Yes, I-I’m sorry for intruding here.” She let her gaze shift to the side, not wanting to see his reluctance or maybe even annoyance. He’d been so reclusive during the last two days, so why would he want her to be here now? “I just… I wanted to see you. Talk. I-I missed you, and… and…”

She didn’t get the chance to get out more of her stammered explanation. Hiccup crossed the distance between them with only a few strides of his long legs, and before she could utter even one more word, she found herself caught in a tight embrace.

“Oh, Astrid,” he mumbled, muffled against her neck and into her hair as he practically curled himself around her. “Astrid, I’m so sorry! I was an idiot and a fool, and afraid, and I’m sorry, so sorry.”

He kept on repeating his apology over and over, but Astrid didn’t register much of his words. With his arms holding her, his lips moving against her skin, and his warmth surrounding her, all anxiety momentarily melted off her. She wanted to return his embrace, to pull herself closer against him, but with his blanket still wrapped around her, that wasn’t practical. So she just burrowed deeper into his embrace, sighing in relief.

They were good.

Always.

Eventually, Hiccup retreated to look at her. “I missed you too,” he belatedly replied to her words, brushing away wayward strands of her hair. The touch of his fingers on her skin felt good, even as they trembled slightly. “And I’m so sorry. If I promise to try and make it up to you, do you think you can forgive me?”

“Forgive you?” she asked, frowning slightly, but distracted as she leaned into his touch. “For what?”

“For chasing you away the other night,” he explained in a remorseful tone.

Astrid frowned. “Oh… that…” She hadn’t thought of that night as something he needed to apologise for. It had been wonderful to feel him so close, something she hoped to repeat soon. But then, she still didn’t really understand what had even happened.

“Yes, that.” He swallowed, then gazed into her eyes as if he was looking for something. “I’m sorry,” he said once again. “My behaviour was stupid and I can only guess how confusing that must have been for you.”

“What even happened?” she asked a little sheepishly, shrugging. “For me, it was… everything was perfect, and then suddenly… it wasn’t.”

“It was my fault… And I owe you an explanation.” Sighing, Hiccup released her from his embrace, but only to pull her along to sit down more comfortably in his stall. Astrid watched him, unsure where to sit down herself, but then decided that being cautious didn’t really feel right. So she climbed onto his lap, and wrapped the blanket around them both as a sorry excuse for an excuse – which earned her a loving smile from Hiccup that made her heart beat a little faster.

“You were right,” he began, playing absently with a loose strand of her hair. “With what you said the other day, I mean. Nothing of what ever happened between us has followed any of the rules for proper decorum. Meeting you in the first place, seeking you out in that darkened room, kissing you whenever we could steal a moment… None of that was right by any official standards. But it was also still… safe, if you know what I mean.”

He gave her an intent look, searching for understanding, and Astrid nodded. She did know what he meant – vaguely. But she couldn’t agree. To her, those stolen moments hadn’t felt safe, although for different reasons than what he was implying. She had always felt safe with Hiccup… but at the same time she’d been concerned for his safety.

“But when you came here that first night,” he continued in a low voice. “That changed. Here, at night, we suddenly had so much time, and there was nothing that would stop us from… from going too far. So I swore to myself that I wouldn’t let it go too far. That I would be good, that I would at least stick to a few of the rules I’ve been taught…”

Astrid watched him closely as he spoke, watched how his features tensed a little and his smile faded. She had an inkling to where he was going, and she felt a spark of guilt nag at her – because she had been the one who’d pushed him. But they hadn’t done anything wrong… had they?

“But the last time you were here… I felt like we were walking a thin line along the edges of those rules. I knew it was… risky, but I thought that I could manage. You are too important to me, so I thought I’d be able to ‘not make a mistake’. But then I failed, and I… I freaked.”

Letting out a deep breath, Hiccup lowered his head to lean against hers – as if he needed her support. It was a pleasant if somewhat strange sensation. Usually, it felt more like it was him who lent her his strength than the other way around.

“I’m sorry for how I reacted,” he finally muttered. “It was stupid, I know that now.”

“You… could have just told me, you know?” Astrid noted carefully.

Hiccup gasped out a shaky laugh. “Yeah, that would have been the better thing to do, wouldn’t it?” His hands on her back felt good, warm as he slowly rubbed up and down.

Astrid was quiet for a moment, and then asked, “Why didn’t you? You… can tell me everything, remember?” The implication that he didn’t trust her… stung.

Hiccup lifted his shoulders in a helpless shrug. “I know… I know that I can tell you everything. It was more that… that I thought I couldn’t talk with you about... this! That I mustn’t… I’ve been taught not to talk about sex with anyone but an Ástir. Even joking with Eret and the others feels… strange to me. All of this breaches rules I thought were set in stone, and… Well, I think I was afraid of what would happen if we broke those.”

He gave her a long and pleading look as if he was asking for forgiveness. But Astrid still couldn’t see why he would need that. He’d only done what he thought was right, after all. Even if she hoped that they could solve it together, should a misunderstanding like this ever come up again.

But there was one other point in what he’d said that occupied her mind even more. Not necessarily what he’d said, but how. Because he’d used the past tense.

“So,” she began, nervously biting her lip, but then lifted her eyes back to his. “Does that mean you’re not afraid anymore?”

. o O o .

Hiccup gazed into her deep blue eyes, and idly contemplated how easily he could lose himself in them. He could look into them all day, trying to uncover every aspect of the beautiful person within. But she’d asked a question, and even though it sounded casual, he understood the deeper meaning behind her words.

“No, I’m not,” he replied, voice husky. His heartbeat quickened at that confession, and he could see how Astrid’s breathing got a little heavier too. He pondered how to phrase what he wanted to say, how he could make clear that he wasn’t demanding anything. Only offering. “Astrid,” he began, “I’ve… learned a few things tonight, about these rules. And… and if you still want to-to know how it’s supposed to feel then… then I can show you.”

Hiccup didn’t have to wait long for an answer. She didn’t say anything at first, but her eyes brightened with joy, and a moment later her mouth was pressed against his. He responded with a low groan at feeling her soft lips and tasting her sweet tongue, and wound his arms around her to pull her closer, even as she was soundly pressed against him already.

“I do,” she gasped in-between kisses, her hand tightening into his tunic at his back as he lightly nibbled at her lower lip. “I-I want to know… please.”

Hiccup hadn’t needed such a verbal confirmation, not with how eagerly she was kissing him. But it was good to hear it nonetheless, good to know that they were on the same page. Because he, too, couldn’t deny that he was eager to show her.

Deftly holding on to her, he rolled them around until she lay on the straw beneath him. She let out a breathy giggle, eyes gleaming with excitement as he once more leaned over her, careful not to hurt her by resting his weight on her too much.

“Promise me one thing,” he whispered urgently. She somewhat sobered up, apparently sensing how serious he was.

“Anything,” she replied with an earnest smile, reaching to caress his lips with her fingertips.

It made his mouth twitch, but he quickly grew serious again. “Promise me that you will tell me if it’s too much,” he whispered, holding her gaze in an effort to communicate the importance of what he was saying. “If you don’t like what I’m doing, or if you need a break, or want to try something else, then please tell me so. Okay?”

She seemed to understand, her eyes growing wide, and she gulped. “I promise,” she whispered.

Hiccup nodded, swallowing, then, almost ridiculously carefully, leaned down to brush his lips against hers. It started as a slow and measured kiss, but it didn’t take long until them moving together developed its own dynamic. He knew what he wanted to try, where he wanted to go, but it was fun to get there at Astrid’s pace, to experience all these small moments of her courage, of her deepening their kiss and of her holding him tighter on her own account. Hiccup just took it all in and played along in kind, focused on how she reacted to his teeth nipping at her lip, to his breath tickling at her ear, or to his tongue tracing the vein running down her throat.

Soon, he was acting solely by instinct, drinking in her reactions to everything he did, memorising what she seemed to like and what left her mewling. His left hand glided up her front, but instead of cupping and fondling her breast, like he’d done and enjoyed the other night, he planned to go a little further. If she agreed…

His hand came to a halt between and above her breasts, a place where it had rested so often during the past weeks. But tonight, that gesture had another meaning. Because it rested over the cords that held the upper part of her simple dress closed. Breathing heavily, Hiccup retreated a little to look at her, to ask her permission. With flushed cheeks, Astrid stared up at him for a moment, glanced down at her heaving chest beneath his hand, then back up at him – and nodded.

Holding her gaze to gauge her every reaction, Hiccup blindly fiddled with the bow that held the cords tight until it loosened. With slightly shaking hands but without hesitation, Astrid wriggled beneath him, apparently intent on showing that she wasn’t about to change her mind. A minute later, she lay still again, expectantly gazing up at him. Wearing nothing above her waist but a beautiful blush and a thin chain with a key as a charm around her neck. He couldn’t keep a low moan from slipping out his throat at the sight. Her pearly white skin had a light golden shimmer in the dim light of the lantern, the flickering fire drawing dancing shadows onto her body. Everything was visible, her firm breasts with the already hardened nipples, but also every line of muscles beneath her skin, her collarbones, the indentation at the base of her throat. The flush in her cheeks reached all the way down her neck, and her eyes were gleaming, excitement and joy clearly visible inside them – and not a single trace of fear.

Slowly, oh so slowly, Hiccup learned how to play her body. He started with his hands, caressing her skin, feeling her and letting her feel him in return. He watched the tiniest of dark clouds flicker up and disappear in her eyes as he cupped her bare breast, and drank in the high-pitched whine she made as he carefully pinched the sensitive bud at its top.

Time lost all meaning. For all Hiccup knew, hours could have past while he explored her body, learned what she liked and at the same time taught her what her body was able to feel. It was intense, her every reaction so powerful that it felt like a lightning bolt shooting through his own body as well. Like the beautiful cry she made when his mouth closed over one nipple to suckle at it, the way she writhed beneath him, leaning into every contact, seeking more, or how her entire body bent and buckled when he placed one knee between her legs to let his thigh press and rub against that sweet spot hidden beneath layers of cloth. It was mind-blowing, and he loved every second as he lost himself in the moment, in her moans and little sobs, in the way her back arched in search of more and her hands clutched at his hair and clothes as if to make sure he wouldn’t stop.

As if he ever would.

“Hiccup...”

At first, he thought the breathy moan slipping off her lips was meant as a plea for a break. But before he could react, her body beneath him became taught, her fist in his hair clutching almost painfully. A moment later, Astrid’s lewd cry echoed through the stables as she shook, spasming. Groaning against her breast beneath his mouth, Hiccup held her tight, trying to anchor her through what most likely was her first orgasm ever.

When she calmed, he slowly let go of her and pushed himself up until his head was level with hers again. Her face was slack; her lips were parted and visibly red from her biting on them. She was taking in panting breaths, and her eyes, that had a glassy shimmer, were gazing rather unseeingly at the ceiling above them.

“What…. What was....” she muttered weakly, visibly fighting to focus her gaze, but not quite managing yet.

Licking his dry lips, Hiccup reached to cup her face with his hand, thumb gently rubbing her cheek. “That’s… how it’s supposed to feel,” he murmured, a little apprehensive. “Are you okay?”

Astrid gasped out something like a laugh. She closed her eyes and, with a sigh, leaned into his hand on her face. When she opened her eyes again, they were soft and glowing with a warmth from deep within. “I’m okay,” she whispered as her gaze eventually focused on him. “More than okay. That was… was…” she trailed off, laughing weakly as aftershocks ran through her body. She shifted closer until her head rested against his arm, cuddling into him. “Can.... can we do that again some day?”

Chuckling, Hiccup pulled her into an embrace and a kiss, wrapping his blanket around them both to ward of a chill when he felt how sweaty she was. “Of course,” he mumbled against her lips, feeling how she smiled. “As often as you want.”

. o O o .

Astrid couldn’t describe how she felt, not even to herself. She felt weak, her body gone pliant and soft, and yet there was something incredibly powerful and encouraging in the way she lay in Hiccup’s arms. She hadn’t bothered yet to properly put her dress on again, and while that should have made her feel vulnerable, all she felt was safe. And she simply couldn't get enough of it.

At first, the sensation of his hands and arms, of the rough fabric of his tunic and the even rougher fabric of his blanket on her bare skin had been… weird. Not even Ruff would touch her bare skin when she bathed her. Feeling Hiccup now, so close and intimate and… and casual… it was strange. Unfamiliar.

Of course, it already had been so right from the beginning, when he’d purposefully induced all those overwhelming sensations in her body. Sensations she hadn’t even known were possible and that she was eager to feel again.

But right now, with them lazily cuddling and kissing, enveloped in that blanket and each other’s warmth… the combination of fabric on skin just felt strange – wrong even in a way. And it took her fuzzy mind a while before she realised what it was that bothered her.

“Hiccup… can I ask you for something?” she asked after gathering her courage.

Hiccup, currently nuzzling her behind her ear, chuckled. “Whatever you want,” he hummed, the sensation sending pleasant shivers down her spine.

And yet, she hesitated. What she wanted to ask… it felt like a huge step. Like yet another rule someone somewhere must have established. But then… They already had pushed one quite heavy boundary tonight; maybe it was worth it to see just how far they could push it.

Instead of an answer, she let her hands wander down his chest, feeling him but at the same time not feeling him – only rough fabric. Hiccup tensed a little when her hand reached his stomach and still wandered further down. But before he could react, she’d reached her goal, the hem of his tunic. Tentatively, she let her hand glide beneath the fabric, over the hot skin over his abdomen, feeling his muscles move beneath.

“Can you… take this off?” she finally mumbled. “I… I’d like to see you too. To feel you.”

There was a strange gleam in Hiccup’s eyes as he gazed at her, as if he was proud in a way, but it quickly vanished and got replaced by a warm and soft smile. He nodded, then sat up and took off his tunic in one fluid motion. A tiny part of her was jealous at how quickly and easily he could get rid of his clothes, but that thought vanished as soon as her eyes landed on his bare skin.

It wasn’t entirely smooth like her own, but littered with scars of varying sizes. Most were small, barely more than faint lines over freckled skin, but there was one that stood out. Or two, actually. Two long lines running like rifts from his left shoulder over his back all the way to his right hip.

“Oh, Freya,” she gasped. “What happened?”

Hiccup halfway turned toward her, looking a little apprehensive. “A Monstrous Nightmare was about to raid our stables. And foolhardy as I was, I jumped in to chase it away.” Hiccup shrugged, chuckling self-consciously.

“A monstrous... what?” Astrid asked, confused by the unfamiliar term as she hesitantly reached out to caress Hiccup’s back.

He sighed at her touch, noticeably relaxing beneath her hand. “A Monstrous Nightmare,” he repeated. “It’s a dragon species, one that’s quite common in the North. Vicious beasts that can set themselves on fire, very territorial.” Sighing again, he leaned back a little more, into her touch. “Mmh, that feels good.”

Encouraged by his reaction, Astrid scooted a little closer, running both her hands over his bare back, exploring. The part of her that was trained in medical matters noticed that the scars on his back had healed far better than the one on his leg, the one that made him limp and which still hurt. From what she could determine, this wound must have been equally bad, if not worse. And yet, these were much smoother. As if they'd gotten better – far better – treatment.

Or maybe he'd just been lucky. Astrid pushed the thought aside as her hands wandered on, lightly massaging the tense muscles. “So… You actually fought dragons?” she asked carefully. She didn’t want to ruin the mood by bringing up his past… but he’d started it, and that small comment alone already made her curious. To her, dragons had always been a mystery. She'd never seen one at anything that resembled close range, and hadn't ever heard anyone tell tales about it either. Even Eret had never encountered one, even though they were more common around Eastervale than they were here.

Snorting, Hiccup shook his head. “No, I haven't. Not really,” he mumbled, and further relaxed beneath her hands. “Only fully initiated warriors are allowed to actually fight dragons; they can be incredibly dangerous if you aren’t careful enough. Everyone else gets other tasks: extinguishing fires, chasing away dragons from the livestock or the storage barns, taking care of the children and the elderly, handing out weapons… stuff like that.”

“And you were not a warrior?” she asked, somewhat surprised. She’d seen him fight over the last few days. And while he surely hadn’t been the best fighter she’d ever seen, he’d still been far from being bad either. But apparently, that hadn’t been the right question to ask.

Hiccup tensed. “No, I wasn’t,” he confirmed in a strained voice. “I hadn’t passed the test yet, and… and I…” He trailed off, noticeably trembling now.

“It’s okay,” she murmured. She leaned closer, forehead resting against his back and her hand flat against his skin. “You don’t need to tell me now.” In fact, she didn’t want him to tell her now, not if it upset him in any way. They had all their lives to learn about each other’s pasts. She didn't want to taint tonight's special mood with such things.

Exhaling a shuddering breath, Hiccup awkwardly turned his head in her direction, his intentions clear. Astrid reacted eagerly, shifted too until they faced each other. For an endless second, Hiccup just gazed at her, wonder and adoration glowing in his eyes, before he kissed her. In comparison, the kiss was a relatively calm one, tame with only their lips gliding together. But only because Astrid was thoroughly distracted by other sensations.

His skin against hers felt amazing. Smooth and hot, sliding against her like nothing she’d felt before. Her hands followed, trying to feel and get to know him as much as possible. The way his lean muscles moved as he held her tight, how his chest rose with every panting breath. She couldn’t get enough of him.

. o O o .

Hiccup felt like the whole world was spinning around him. In one moment, images of burning houses had flickered behind his eyes, and he’d felt the old pain all over again. And in the next, there had been deep blue eyes to chase away the fire, soft skin to soothe the pain. Astrid was like a remedy to all his suffering, and he drank her in eagerly.

Every soft moan she made, every little touch of bare skin on skin was enough to forget the sorrows of the past and to look forward to their future. And, Gods, did he want this future with her. Never had the simple touch of hands on his back affected him like Astrid’s light massage, and feeling her so close now, her bare breasts pressing against his chest, nearly robbed him of all his senses.

With a low groan, he pulled her tighter, grinding against her in search of more contact. No matter how much of her skin he mapped with his hands, no matter how much she mapped of his in return, it seemed like it would never be enough. All her low moans and her whimpering when he found yet another sensitive spot wasn’t enough to sate his yearning for more, so when she retreated, pulling him down with her, he gave in without a second thought.

Soon, he was blanketing her with his body, drunk by all these powerful sensations she elicited. He felt her mouth on his neck, hot and smooth, and he couldn’t help but moan as she ran her tongue over his skin, sucking lightly, tasting him. Freya, did it ever feel good.

“Astrid,” he moaned her name in a rare moment of something resembling clarity, when she was distracted by his hand playing with her breasts. “What… what do you want?” He knew that she wouldn’t yet know what exactly she wanted. But he still wanted to make sure, didn’t want to push her too far. He wanted her, only the Gods knew how much, but only if it was what she wanted too.

She looked up at him, dazed, clearly trying to form an answer. “You,” she finally whispered. “More. I-I want more of you. Of this.” She let her hand glide across his chest, her other one reaching around his neck, not quite pulling him down but the implication was there. Freya, she was amazing. Sighing, he nodded, then gave in and leaned down to kiss her again.

When she parted her legs and he effortlessly slotted between her thighs, Hiccup gasped out a short laugh. This was so much easier than the first time she’d lain beneath him like this. That time, he’d been torn; between the longing to fulfil her wish and the fear of going too far, between how right it had felt to be so close to her and his guilt over how wrong what they’d been doing had been. But this time, there was no fear, and no guilt either. This time, nothing distracted him from focussing all his actions on Astrid and on where he wanted to take her, and nothing kept him from enjoying every moment of it.

Their wet kisses that became more and more distracted. Their bare torsos touching, the slide of skin on skin overwhelming. The way she gasped as he pressed against her, the bulge in his trousers against the fine fabric of her underwear. It was intoxicating, wonderful, and just so very, very right.

Hiccup let himself drown in the moment, in being with Astrid and all the sensations. Her hot skin on his and her hands holding on tight, the beautiful flush on her skin and the spark in her eyes, the sweet taste of her lips and the salty taste of her skin, her gasps and whimpers, her scent of mayweed and sunshine mixed with the earthy scent of fresh hay. It was maddening, and staying focused became harder with every minute.

He pushed himself up on his forearms, both to be able to watch her every reaction and to have more leverage as he started a steady rhythm of grinding and rocking against her. Every now and then, he dipped down to place a random kiss onto her face or to nibble at her exposed throat when she bent back her head.

It was a heady mess of rocking motions and panted breath, of clutching hands on sweaty skin and whispered nonsense-words, until the sensations became too strong to even think. His world condensed down to Astrid beneath him, her mewling and whimpering, to the way she clung to him, eyes closed and lips parted.

When Astrid began to move on her own, instinctively seeking more friction by rutting up against him, it was nothing but sheer willpower that kept him from falling apart right then and there. He felt like he might tumble into blissful relief any moment, but he owed it to her to hold back, just… just a little longer.

“Oh, Gods,” she moaned, her back arching up which made her breasts press against him, her nipples scraping over his skin. “I… I… Hi-Hiccup!”

Her cry was louder this time, and Hiccup reacted without thinking. He leaned down to cover her mouth with his, swallowing her noises of pleasure, and it wouldn’t have taken the sharp pain of her fingernails in his back or her frantically jerking against him to push him over the edge as well. Her crying out his name like a prayer was enough.

Groaning, he came shortly after her, once again making a mess in his trousers but not really caring one bit. It was a moment of blissful perfection. And it took nearly all his remaining strength and control not to crush her, to roll to the side instead and hold her in his arms as they slowly drifted down from their height.

. o O o .

Astrid felt as if she was made of jelly, all her bones melted away and muscles too weak to make even the tiniest move. Trying to catch her breath, she lay in Hiccup’s arms, basking in the slowly dwindling rush from just moments ago, and couldn’t be happier.

“Oh Gods, that was… that was just… I… wow… I mean...” She felt like she needed to say something, to let Hiccup know how she felt, how incredible this had been. But there didn’t seem to be words suitable, nothing that was strong enough.

But he seemed to understand. With a low chuckle, he brushed his lips against her forehead, then pulled back to look at her. His eyes were soft, peaceful, his smile easy and warm. “I’m glad you liked it,” he murmured, and lifted one hand to brush aside a few strands of sweaty hair from her face. It was something he’d already done so many times, and yet… It felt different. More intense, as if his touch reached deeper than his fingers on her skin. As if they’d grown even closer.

So she didn’t feel like she needed to answer, didn’t need words to convey how she felt. She just smiled, and snuggled into his hand, enjoying how he made her feel with nothing but such a simple gesture.

After a moment or three, he chuckled. “I have to apologise, though,” he mumbled, voice slow and sleepy. “I had... orders not to come until I made you come three times. And those were only two. I’m sorry. I… I’ll catch up on that… as soon as I can move again.”

Come? Was that how that intense explosion of sensations and feelings was called? Astrid filed the word away in her head as she awkwardly huddled closer to Hiccup, cuddling against his warm torso. “I think I’m okay,” she replied, also chuckling. “Maybe later.” On the one hand, she wanted nothing more than to experience another one of these explosions, but at the same time, she wasn’t sure whether she could stand it right now. Her entire body was tingling and her mind foggy enough as it was.

Her words made Hiccup laugh in earnest, although he, too, seemed to be anything but unaffected, his motions slow and speaking of fatigue. He sighed, then propped himself up on one arm, gazing down at her with eyes that were filled with wonder.

“There’s one other thing I realised today,” he whispered. “No, that’s not true. I knew it already, but… but I realised that I never told you.”

His words sounded meaningful and maybe would have made her worry a little. But he seemed to be completely at ease, so she just gave him a lazy, questioning look, indicating him to go on.

Hiccup smiled, once more reaching to cup her cheek with one hand, and softly caressed her with his thumb. “I realised that I never told you that I love you. So I better rectify that.” His gaze, still entirely soft and relaxed, got a few degrees more intense. “I love you, Astrid. With everything I am.”

A few moments before, Astrid had thought she couldn’t possibly be any happier. But she’d been wrong. Her heart was swelling at his words, flowing over with warmth and joy. Not that she’d had any doubts, not anymore, not really – but it was good to hear it nonetheless.

Slowly, always holding Hiccup’s gaze, she placed her hand on his cheek, felt the rough stubbles on his chiselled jaw. “I love you too,” she whispered, the joy in her heart bubbling over and making her giggle. “Gods, I do. I love you, Hiccup.”

Hiccup beamed and, letting out a deep sigh, leaned into her touch, eyes closing for a second, before he kissed her once more.

It was a sensual and unhurried kiss. Astrid could hear one of the horses snort past her slowly calming heartbeat, and she enjoyed the warm slide of skin over skin, his chest against hers, as they slowly, almost lazily even, nipped at each other’s lips. Now, with the tension from before completely melted away, Astrid felt as if she could appreciate Hiccup on an even deeper level. Every touch, every look, every moment they shared suddenly seemed so much more meaningful and at the same time so effortless, as if they were forging an additional layer to that bond that connected them.

And when they eventually settled for sleepy cuddles, her head resting on his chest and his heartbeat the most soothing sound she could ever imagine, she thought that she’d never felt as much at home like in this moment.

. o O o .

Hiccup woke to the familiar noises of the horses waking up – and the pleasant yet highly unfamiliar sensation of a warm and soft body halfway draped over him. At first, he was confused, but almost instantly memories of the night before flooded his mind; of hot skin and soft flesh, of Astrid mewling and of her fingers digging into his back, of whispered ‘I love you’s and of feeling closer to her than ever before.

He sighed contently, and his hand slowly caressed her bare shoulders as he settled back. Through half-closed eyes, he gazed unseeingly at the ceiling and enjoyed the feeling of simply waking up next to her, of her sleep-warm body against his, and of simply doing something as ordinary as starting the day with her.

A second later, his eyes flew open. Shit! The horses were awake and demanding food. The night was over, the day about to start. And Astrid was still here.

“Astrid, wake up!” he muttered, and carefully shook her shoulder. “You’ve got to go back.”

Astrid groaned and tried to shake off his hand by burrowing deeper under the blanket they’d shared. “Mmhnot yet,” she mumbled almost incoherently. “Just a bit longer.”

Under different circumstances, Hiccup would have quite enjoyed her reluctance, would have gladly cuddled her a bit longer and maybe even would have made a teasing comment about her being a little grumpy in the morning. But they didn’t have time. With quite a bit of effort, he pushed himself into a sitting position, forcing Astrid to wake up more too. “Astrid, it’s already morning. You need to be back in time, remember? Come on, get up.” His voice was more urgent now, and it seemed as if his words finally reached Astrid’s mind too.

In an instant, she sat up straight, staring at him in shock, then let her eyes wander around. “Morning?” she gasped. “But… but it’s still dark outside. How long have we slept?”

Hiccup was already on his feet, wincing a little as his leg twinged a bit – and at the uncomfortable feeling of his soiled trousers – and reached for his tunic. “We must have slept for a couple of hours. The horses are waking up, which is usually my sign that the day begins. You still have at least an hour before dawn, but…”

“Oh shit,” she cursed, and scrambled to her feet too. Hearing her using such a very unladylike word made him grin, but he spared her any comment. Instead, he stepped closer to help her with correctly putting her dress back on, and actively refrained from mourning the sight of her bare skin. If her eagerness last night was anything to go by, then he guessed he would soon get the chance to enjoy it again.

Astrid cursed some more as she hastily tried to refasten the cords of her dress, and Hiccup quickly went to help her. “Here, let me do that,” he said, and stepped closer. It took him only a minute or two to thread the cords through the eyelets again, concentrating only on the practical work, and it was enough to somewhat calm them both down a bit again.

“Thanks,” she sighed once he was done, and smiled up at him.

“Anytime,” he replied, chuckling a little. “And good morning, milady.”

A wide grin spread across her face, and Hiccup tried to memorise the image in his mind as one of the most beautiful he’d ever seen; her being so happy, tired as she still was and with her hair dishevelled from sleep.

“Good morning, Hiccup.” She stretched to place a peck on his lips before she started to shake out her skirts, and Hiccup couldn’t help but chuckle at the simplicity of their interactions. It felt so good, so right, casual and easy without hesitation or nervousness. Just as it should be.

Quickly, too quickly despite frequent interruptions for light caresses or playful kisses, they had her ready to go, all stray bits of straw or hay removed and her warm cloak wrapped around her shoulders. They were about to go to the door where they would have to part, when Astrid suddenly paused and whirled around again, one hand pressed to her chest.

“My key,” she gasped, and rushed back to his sleeping stall, eyes suddenly wide with something resembling fear.

“Your key?” he asked, puzzled by her reaction. “You mean the key to the sally port? Isn’t that in the pocket of your cloak?”

Her hand flew to said pocket, searching for the clearly visible bulge the heavy key created. “No, that one’s here. I mean the other one. The one I carried as a necklace.” She’d reached the stall by now, and her eyes wandered over the straw.

“Ah, that one.” Hiccup dimly remembered her wearing it earlier in the night… But he also remembered her without it. “I… erm, I think it must have fallen off at some point,” he chuckled with slight embarrassment. His eyes roamed over the straw as well, but he knew how hopeless it was to find a small object like a necklace in it. Especially when there was only little time. “Is it important? Because you really should go back now.”

Her gaze was a little frantic now, flickering from one corner to the other, to his face, and back to where they’d spent the night in each other’s arms. “Yes, it is important,” she explained, a trace of panic in her voice. “It’s the key to a small coffer, which contains my… my treasures.” She gave him a slightly sheepish smile, but then sobered up directly again. “A doll my mother made for me, my father’s boon… your tunic,” she added, and shrugged self-consciously. “I need it.”

Biting his lip, Hiccup glanced into the stall, then nodded. “Okay, but you don’t need it now. I promise I’ll look for it, all right? But you really need to go now.”

Astrid hesitated for a moment longer, but then nodded. “All right. And yes, I should get back. I just…” she trailed off, giving him a sad look.

Hiccup sighed, and wrapped his arms around her. “I know,” he murmured into her hair. “I wish you could stay, too.”

Chuckling, she wrapped her arms around his torso and pulled him close. “I’m going to miss this the moment I step outside,” she muttered. “Miss you.”

Letting out a deep breath, Hiccup hugged her tighter before he eventually let go of her. He felt as if he ought to say something, but one look into her eyes was enough. They didn't need verbal communication to know the other's feelings right now: a deeply settled calmness after this night of exploring each other, and the unmistakable sad note about having to part.

Before she left, when she was already standing in the open door, she paused one last time. She placed her hand on his cheek, and he instantly leaned into it, the simple gesture radiating a familiarity between them that hadn't been there only hours before. At least not in this intensity. Hiccup turned his head to nuzzle her hand, to first place a lingering kiss on her palm and then other more fleeting ones onto her knuckles that made her giggle. They were stalling for time and both knew it, but they couldn't find the strength to stop either.

“I love you, Hiccup,” she eventually whispered, their foreheads resting against each other now.

He wanted nothing more than to kiss her goodbye, and by the way she was biting her lip he guessed she felt similarly. But they knew that, would they give in to that urge, they'd probably never part. So he just lifted his head to press a quick kiss onto her forehead. “I love you too. So much…”

Finally, they let go of each other, their eyes holding the connection until she was barely more than a shadow moving through the night.

And Hiccup had to agree with her earlier statement. He missed her already.

. o O o .

AN: *points at the rating* You were waiting for it, right?

Next chapter

#hiccstrid #hiccstrid fanfiction #Hiccup and Astrid #Hiccstrid fluff #Hiccstrid lemon #royalty au #hiccstrid royal au #medieval au #Hiccstrid Medieval AU #httyd #httyd fanfiction #httyd fandom #for the love of a princess #FTLOAP

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ladyofmind · 6 years

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October Wrap Up

Hey everyone! Sorry for the silence... been busier than even I can keep up with, and also found out that the last Music Monday I had a few weeks back- well it didn’t post so I was quieter than I intended to be...

But it is NaNoWriMo time now, so there should be time to settle in and post like mad to update you all, and write my 50k! After all, I have no plans to be anywhere this November. Fingers crossed nothing else goes crazy on me.

Without further chatter, game answers after the jump.

#CharactersHell

1- Rooms for rent above an active and lively bar, for as long as you like* (*Mgmt not responsible for any damage from the cat or other beings if you leave your door open/unlocked.)

2- Not in the expected way. Most of the monsters are the human Antags. The antags are motivated by jealousy and obsession. Other characters have their own personal demons, or else they aren’t really human...

3- Not real monsters, not really. The Antags are over the top in their issues, but they are rarer. Everybody has some kind of issue though.

4- Frost? That grumpy man is actually a bit of a softy inside… If not, Sly mixes up some ugly looking boozy milkshakes that are pretty tasty!

5- That would be the Antag. Tim is a sort of threat in waiting, one that slips around a bit like the snake he is. The incidents he is involved in are hard to figure out until after it happens...

6- My world is no different than our world. There is divinity in the form of God etc, but it really plays no part in my story.

7- Same world, same dire predictions. Only difference is, it’s a brothel, so one can assume they may already be in hell…

8- Most interesting job? That’s a toss up… It’s an interesting place to work in general, but I’m torn between Woods being in a band, or Tweety, the one in somewhat charge of all the other looney tunes….

9- Best Co-worker award goes to Malta. There is no one else likely to push, prod, and sometimes accidentally beat ya up to have a good time, while respecting limits. Unlike the constant party pusher Bebe, Malta can tell when you need the push, and when you just need a cuppa tea.

10- Most of the time, the networking person is Tweety, as everyone knows her and gets connected by her. But for this, I have to give it to the guys. Nira has a lot of connections from before bar life, music man Martin is always networking and improving his career, and Frost? Well the giant makes friends thru fights. Might not be a lot, but they are the best connections…

11- This is a little bit of everyone really. Malta, Frost, and others don’t do it intentionally, it’s more of a language barrier. Sly is the master of deflection to the point you still don’t know very much. That may be why Tweety sees him as an equal, as everyone assumes they know her, but they never know a thing. She doesn’t lie, just turns things around on ya.

12- Woods is about/has turned professional famous musician, depending on which book you read… Tweet is just really good at talking to people and getting everywhere from it.

13- Antags- Sofia has some fans yes. She’s a strange boss with a back story & has some loyal workers until she does things to mess that up (her MO). Tim on the other hand? Well, he’s liked for what his skills & the more unstable/broken sorts love him to obsession.

14- The Antags are good for backstabbing! Tim and Sophia work together for the mostly common goal, but in places there’s differences. For instance, a rigged auction is supposed to end in Tim’s favor. Doesn’t mean S can’t make more money off of him if he wants it that badly…

15- Tim gives me the creeps. There’s this thing he does that makes me feel violated too, so I know it will be good in the end… I just need recovery time after him.

16- Tweet isn’t monstrous… but it is a pain sometimes, writing for an always happy sort, even if you want to have her fight back against things.

17- Tim is as direct as a blunt log to the face can be. He’s more bull in the china shop. Sophia is the mastermind, making her puppets dance in that web way. You can 100% assume she’s behind something, but you’re hard pressed to prove it…

18- With Tim, smarts is the easy part. It’s Sophia you match wits with, if you have to at all…

19- Woods isn't really vicious… maybe some biting comments while holding a grudge. Tweet is always the “kill 'em with kindness” type

20- I think the side chars are very active in their own ways to push this story forward. Some are even pushy as hell!

21- Ok, so Frost isn't exactly wrathful towards the MC so much as ornery and wrathful at everyone… but he does blame Tweety for flaring his ulcer with her ideas.

22- Not all that hard for me, as I don’t force my characters into doing things they wouldn’t do anyway. I try to learn who they are first and go from there.

23- I don’t really use red herrings, not intentionally. There may be one or two accidentally...

24- So zen! I throw on some earphones blaring my playlist and forget that people exist. The absolute worst is when you’re writing so well, and then someone scares you by interrupting you!

25- I’m not really into the sweets. Once in a while, but mostly my writing runs off potato chips or pretzels. Crunchy and salty balances the romance writing well!

26- #FF #followfriday with interesting stories by: @nomdejillian @TGNeal @SkeptiCybrarian @marshawritesit

27- Halloween was fun when I was a kid. Now I enjoy making Halloween-y cookies and giving them out to people I like, since we never have trick or treaters where I live. One year per the Halloween cookie costume rules, I dressed in all grey with a bell on… Jingle bell rock ya’ll!

28- Not a prankster, so not very wrathful at all. Halloween isn’t a big deal near me.

29- Oh I think I did that already! False arrest of the sweet one anyone?

30- So this is a boost for our Co-Host @manual_arbanassi! His amazing, well rounded character work in #Tiogair is great. Plus he totally shares that character building with all of us with both this game and #CharactersTell!

31- After work where I have to avoid a kids book sale while having a bills closing day? Relax and maybe watch a Halloween-y movie. Really, I am more excited about #NaNoWriMo starting at midnight.

#SciFiNaNoPrep

1- Hi, Nicole here. I was fairly certain for #NaNo I would continue my #RedLetters #series, but this Mars idea won’t let go. It has an outline, so maybe this prep will help me change course?

2- For this Mars idea? 50K or whatever it takes to finish this idea. Definitely looking to start it.

3- It’s very similar in that it’s our Earth, and an exploration of the Mars planet we think we know.

4- The not so very distant future. My research says I need at least 4 years, so mid to late 2020’s

5- Planet Mars for about 90% of it. There’s a little Earth training time, and possibly other planet flash backs.

6- Both generally advanced Earth tech, and some stuff for Mars that feels like #spoilers (plus I need to sort that out –Note to self on more #prep!)

7- Haven’t quite named them… but I do know there’s some diversity and a female MC/narrator

8- That’s definitely a #spoiler! I can say that it’s a “greet the way you’re greeted” thing…

9- Oh, I’m showing my age here for sure… but like Sailor Mercury from Sailor Moon or the original Power Rangers Billy the blue ranger come to mind… for their smarts and calmness.

10- There are both Earth “children” and adults, plus some Martian life.

11- Earth customs, sure, all the standard ones. Martian customs fall into “show you, you decide what happens” things. Because the message/meanings are important sometimes.

12- #FF #followfriday with #scifi writers: @RagingCyclone @authorASMcGowan @mae_mckinnon and a bunch of people at #wipworldbuilders

13- I would say somewhere in between, as it largely depends on which side you see it from. Just because it’s Utopia to one may be dystopia to another. Similar to the grass being greener on the other side theory.

14- Earth politics are the same. Mars doesn’t have politics in the same way. They have more rule, order and understanding.

15- Mars is more science and study, so they are more guardians less lawyers in that sense. They have systems for everything, but mostly they do not have crime within their own ranks. Outsiders are a different story.

16- Oh lots! I am taking some of the known things about planets and life and tying it together to give credible conspiracy theory if you will. Might even include Nikola Telsa…

17- As Mars is a drier planet- with more wind storm, less water, the idea of hydro anything doesn’t work. Plus they have a better greenhouse process that makes planting in the ground useless.

18- There is really no focus on currency in this idea, as shooting for different themes, money being the root of trouble not one of them.

19- ATV type things above ground, underground tunnels with everything from walking to hovering transports.

20- I enjoy a reasonable time travel story. Not the type that appear there just to be there, or where the tech that travels person is hokey. More like Timeless, Krypton, or Doctor Who on good days.

21- On Mars there is advanced tech where medicine as we know it is obsolete. A little more nanites and lasers a lot less oral pills and rectal anythings.

22- Mars is a dry windy planet without water, in comparison to Earth’s visible habitats.

23- Mars grows things without name at the moment, but it is edible, like all things people make do with.

24- Standard Martian wear is something of a lab coat but resistant to its environmental elements.

25- Anything can be a weapon in untrained hands…

26- #FF upcoming writers

27- Earthlings go to school and are trained for space exploration. Martians learn by doing.

#RomanceNaNoPrep

1- Hi, Nicole here. Library worker by day/night/weekend, writer every other chance. Currently two and a half books into my #RedLetters series. So far all I’ve ever written falls into womens fiction category.

2- For Red Letters? 50K is just going to start it. They end up being easily 80-100K, even if its more like 200K words that have to be split into two different books...

3- Romance is my sub genre, as it reads more like womans fiction first. But the other books in the series cover more of the slice of life/journey stuff. This one would have a heavier romantic tone.

4- I love a good believable romance. Whether it starts off as a one night stand or getting to know each other first, the characters have to be real and well rounded. Funny is a plus but not cartoony or asks me to assume too much.

5- Depends on the mood. If I need a little escape, a sweet romance will do the trick. But if I need to be reminded of what it’s like to be human outside of working too much or need a serious escape, steamy tends to have a better grip on me.

6- #RedLetters started as an RP… don’t know where the 💜 of romance came from, but I’ve been writing about it as long as I can remember. Helps that hubs & I have been together 10+ yrs & we’re good friends first. Learned lots about relationships from that alone.

7- The main characters in #RedLetters has always been Naomi, better known as Tweety and the musician Woods. There is a whole host of other characters that are important, and Greg may become an MC… if he stays Greg of course.

8- Well, it’s not really a special meaning, so much as an inside joke. Tweety got her nickname from an outfit she wore, and a drunk-ish Cockney woman. The rest as they say is history…

9- Honestly? Kind of a fan of Emma Stone. Looks sweet and innocent, but can be sassy and a bit sexy too. All around package, inside and out I think.

10- I might have the Evil Other Woman cliche… At least on the surface. Hoping the history fleshes this out to be a full story not just a mad woman scorned thing...

11- Big fan of sassy heroines (aka no weak and fainty unrealistic women) and maybe a touch of the second chance at love thing…

12- #FF #followfriday @MaeBaumWriter @klimov_author have been #prepping with me since day one... plus I like the stuff @K_A_Grayson does in her rockstar #romance...

13- When they first met, Tweety was about 21/22. Woods was 24/25. When they meet again about 5 years later, Woods is 30, Tweety will have a birthday in that book.

14- The characters are struggling 20's. Woods is higher in class while trying to do it himself. Tweety's poorer & finding herself. Inside the bar/club, social status doesn’t matter, & in some cases, makes you less important the more important you assume you are.

15- Woods sister approves, eventually. Tweety doesn’t talk to her parents, instead relying on Frost the manager to be her father figure. After a good bit of threatening during a chat with Woods, Frost approved too.

16- In this book? Friendly enemies. Tweety is not happy to see him, but she is never a rude sort, more the kill with kindness type. Woods is more eager to charm her into regretting her choices and occasionally bringing up the past, even if facts are distorted...

17- What brings Tweet and Woods together? A certain book… you know when you get that déjà vu feeling? Except you have proof from your side of the tale too. Trouble is that the truth has its own version…

18- What’s keeping them apart? Lots of hurt pride, broken hearts, completely different lifestyles… But even with all that past, the thing that made them unique is still there.

19- Remember yesterday, when I said different lifestyles? Yeah. West coast musician with a wildly successful touring band vs an East coast wildly famous bar/nightclub owner. One is always on the go, the other is happily rooted to one spot. Plus the same problems as last time- other people.

20- Woods can be a bit too thick headed or obtuse for Tweet’s liking. Woods isn’t exactly annoyed by her running off tendency, but it isn’t making his days any better either.

21- Well, this pair have been together before, and neither were all that innocent then. But since then… One has gone full on flavor of the month style, while the other is much more cautious about their reputation.

22- Woods & Tweet = the infamous Ghostbusters “don’t cross the streams” thing. It’s a peppy flirt who makes you question if she’s as naïve as she sounds vs a rogue with all the manners of that bad boy you need to leave with. Their game is holding out the longest & upping the stakes…

23- Their first kiss? Very steamy yet semi polite in front of the crowd… You see, it was Halloween, and there were sexy costumes… someone didn't speak, just acted, and the rest is... in the book!

24- In this series, I love that Tweet and Woods flirt at the level of chess moves sometimes. Tweety makes a man play on her level or the game is over. If you use tired lines or give the answer she expects when giving you enough rope to hang yourself… well she’s already over it.

29- Favorite quality about-

Tweety- She’s amazing at making people feel welcome and free to be themselves.

Woods- He’s got an awesome amount of patience and tolerance. The not being jealous adds to his charms.

30- Least favorite quality about-

Tweety- Always with the bright, happy side even if it hurts…

Woods- He picks up a ghost nickname for a reason you know.

31- This has been fun, and I’m totally ready for #NaNoWriMo! (Sits and waits for the clock to strike 12…)

#CharactersTell

1/10- “Oh, it’s my favorite month! Halloween weekend parties are our best buiness, and the most fun! Of course I have to come chat about #RedLetters with you all. You all know me as miss Tweety...”

2/10- Tweety- “Why i’m your hostess with the most-ess! I run the front of house at Soulful, in addition to being a co-owner.”

3/10- Tweety- “It’s only lonely in the sense of responsibility. Otherwise, I have a ton of staff and regulars around at any given time.”

4/10-Tweety- “I guess? I’m great with a lot of things, but Nira is best with the finances, so I leave that to him. Since I started being a waitress, I had him investing & asked for what I needed to buy clothes with. Best way to pay him back for the couch surfing.”

5/10- Tweety- “My time off is usually when I sleep. Now there is some help so I can leave before I start falling asleep, but other than writing, I wouldn’t know what to do with time off.”

6/10- Tweety- “Adventure happens all around the club. You never know what Bebe will do when bored, at least my job and the respect given to me, keeps the place from falling down around it all.”

7/10- Tweety- “Well, I would hope that my kindness keeps me in high esteem… Why else would we be so packed all the time? I know there are those against me, because I built a following from scratch.”

#CharactersTell

8/10- “I'm Greg, Gus’ grandson and recent college grad with a degree in business.”

9/10- Greg- “I had a few odds jobs, some for the experience more than the money, but yeah I work a lot.”

10/10- Greg- “I'm not nefarious. Just a regular guy with an inheritance that apparently affects others…”

11/10- Greg- “That's what I'm trying to decide! A piece of a prosperous club or a life on my own…”

12/10- Greg- “Trying not to do that with this choice. You know, this isn't really helping me decide, not when you're highlighting the downsides…”

13/10- Greg- “Progressive. Smart, firm when I have to be. Not overly nice, you will know I'm the boss.”

14/10- Greg- “If I decided to take the ownership, it's really like a slow raise. Or I sell it and make a windfall quick…��

#CharactersTell

15/10- Rolls in on those shoes with wheels inside “Duranta at your service, but everyone calls me Runta! Soul’s not so resident clothing designer and somewhat personal shopping friend to Tweet, if you must know.

16/10- Runta- laughs “Of course not! It takes money and patronage to become a designer who makes money. They wanted me to have a different sort of full time boring work.”

17/10- Runta- “I’ve made a few fashion week shows, and have some amazingly supportive fans who basically are fashion influencers in their own rights...” #spoilers

18/10- Runta- “Sure, I mean clothes and fashion is how you see a person, so of course people have stereotypes based on looks, but I don’t play that game.”

19/10- Runta- “Absolutely! Networking is a big part of what I do! Connections get me everywhere.”

20/10- Runta- “Total workaholic! A friend of mine says that if you love what you do, it’s not working, but living. And I am living for this life!”

21/10- Runta- “I learned a few things from the place I got my start. Hire people good at what they do, and that you can stand being around constantly. So yeah, the people who work for me become a family, since we’re together that much.”

#writer #game #twitter game #answers #charactershell #characterstell #nanowrimo #prep #romance #scifi

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siarven · 6 years

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20 Questions Tag

I got tagged by @reinkings to do this tag game, thank you so much :3

1. Is there any scene from any piece you’ve written that actually scared you? If so, describe the scene.

Hm… I’m not really one for horror? I don’t really like watching or reading it so I haven’t really written any, either.

2. What genre do you feel most awkward writing?

Romance. I'm horrible at anything concerning flirting and stuff like that xD Horrible!

3. How many different types of writing do you write? Types of writing include novels, short stories, poetry, song lyrics, etc.

Mostly novel-length stuff, though they usually end up getting longer than just one book. Also short stories, and one-shots. I wrote poetry when I was younger (but I am probably rather bad at it). Also I never wrote a song, lyric-wise, only making up melodies etc without lyrics.

4. How old were you when you first started writing?

Writing as in writing stuff down, or storytelling? I can't remember a time when I didn't tell myself stories (out loud, until I managed to do it in my head later on). I started writing them down as soon as I could write, haha (so near the end of first grade). Most of the stories from that time are about "Feelie" ("Fee" means fairy in German...) who was, oh wonder, a fairy! And had veeery long hair. And a flying unicorn. xD The stories are kind of very cute and slightly embarassing, and very stereotypical XD Also there was Lisa, my next ... "OC". There were a lot of different iterations of her, because I never finished anything before getting a better idea and subsequently starting again from scratch XD

5. How confident are you in your writing?

Hm. Sometimes I am really sure that what I'm doing is amazing (usually when I just came up with a really mean plot twist or magic system or found the perfect solution to a plot hole) ... only that usually doesn't last very long XD I would be lying if I said that I don't care about what others think, but at the same time, I also don't? I'd love to be published one day but if it comes down to it, I'm writing for me, and only me. I feel so blessed to have found this community, and that there are others who are coming to love my characters as much as I do. But I would write these stories even if nobody were interested in them. So... I don't know, I think I'm getting better at the confidence thing :)

6. Have you ever written and posted anything that was very personal to you?

I don't think that I've ever posted anything? I write Morning Pages (sadly not as frequently as I should), which are 3 pages of stream of consciousness, first thing after getting up in the morning. It helps a lot. But it's also the sort of thing I won't ever upload anywhere cause it's deeply personal and I would feel very uncomfortable giving it to anyone. I've been thinking about uploading a cutesy (rather personal) short story, though. I wrote it for my mother as a birthday present some years ago :D

7. What inspired you to start writing?

I... have no idea? I've told myself stories before I could write, so... I have no idea. I should probably ask my mother if there was some sort of catalyst xD I didn't even start reading of my own free will until 2nd or 3rd grade, but since then I've never stopped so... xD Anyways, my father read me bedtime stories every night when I was small so maybe that? I never really watched a lot of TV until 10th grade when I discovered the mysteries of the online stream and suddenly had a lot of stuff to catch up to... and now I'm studying film xD (My parents are still confused by that because I was a kind of late bloomer concerning cinema and tv :D )

8. Which of your OCs do you relate to the most?

Uh... let's see. I think maybe Jouka? He’s from my wip firewings, and I love him a lot.

9. Have you ever written self-insert fanfiction?

Maybe not *fan*fiction but maybe self-insert fiction when I was young xD All that fairy and princess stuff... most definitely self-insert, haha.

10. What is your favorite piece you’ve ever written about?

Uhm… I haven’t written it yet? But when I’m done with Dreams and Shadows I’ll go and write Icicle Soul. It has some of my favourite characters, plot lines and plot twists in it and I’ve been looking forward to properly writing it since forever :D

11. How frequently do you actually sit down and write?

I try to write every day. It does not work. I always end up doing tag games instead because there are still so many to finish.

12. How many hours at a time do you do research on your writing?

Sometimes it escalates and I spend the whole day reading up on stuff on wikipedia and then end up source-riding until there’s no way back and I have 3000 tabs open. XD

13. Do you like to branch out in your writing or do you tend to stick to what you know?

When I was younger my stories tended to include a lot of the stuff I was interested in at the specific moment, and were influenced strongly by the things I’d read recently. Now I try to challenge myself a bit to write stuff that I’m bad at, or to use writing to explore things that I don’t really know yet :)

14. What would your antagonist of your current WIP say to you if they saw you in person?

I think that depends on if they know that I’m the writer or not xD If not I’d be far too insignificant. If yes, I would probably be subjected to a lot of threats, and curses. And assassination attempts, so they can wrangle control back.

15. Do you consider yourself your OCs’ god or just kind of a guiding hand (or other? If other, please list)?

Well. I’m not very good at being a god, I guess, since they always decide everything on their own. Or change, without me wanting them to. Or do something totally unexpected. So, I’m probably more like a guiding hand, haha.

16. What do you think you’d be doing with your time if you’d never gotten into writing?

Well, I do study 3D animation and do art, so I guess I’d be somewhat better at that because I’d have more time to practise. xD

17. Have you ever written a smut piece?

Nope. I'm very bad at romance and smut and stuff like that.

18. What was the first thing you ever wrote about?

Oooh. I remember a story about a tiger and a rabbit :D Also, the Feelie stories above… the first thing that ever got longer than a few chapters had no title and was vaguely like Eragon.

19. What is the most creative creature you’ve ever created for world-building?

Creatures are the best! Hm. The most creative creature… I don’t know, actually? They’re usually very plausible creatures because I want them to feel possible. Like, if that world really existed, it would totally make sense if the creature did, too, you know? I always think of evolution, too, and how it could have been formed by its environment and stuff like that. I have very big folders filled with that stuff :D I have bloodthirsty and very murderous unicorns in Morning Star, though, and for Dreams and Shadows there are tons of different kinds of dragons that I’ve put a lot of thought into. I have rebuilt Alearis’ ecosystem from scratch, and I just vaguely remember the horse-like creatures that exist in the world of Firewings instead of horses. Honestly, there are so many more but I have probably made more creative creatures for art-purposes.

20. Tell me one random fact about your WIP that you have yet to tell your followers.

Dreams and Shadows was born during German class in 11th grade. I had an image of a young boy in my head, standing behind his mother who was crying in front of his comatose body. It was only ever supposed to be a short story, and it was supposed to be this melancholic, sad and beautiful thing. And then I wrote it during NaNoWriMo and the original plot was done after 30,000 words but I still had 20K words left to write in order to win so Ava, his little sister, got a storyline of her own, and angels and demons entered the fray, and now Ava has somehow taken over the story and that slow, beautifully-sad thing has grown and become something else entirely :D It’s also no longer set in our world, the angels and demons have become something else, it’s one of my favourite worldbuildings yet and there are dragons! 200% better ;)

tagging: @madmooninc @romenna @asttralhell @lynnafred @authordai if you want to :D

#about me #tag game #tagging game #love these questions btw

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years

Text

13x07 Watching Notes

Should probably not have multiple scenarios where I snark out loud and then the very next line of dialogue is that snark but innocently delivered.

Heyooo it’s not our Christmas cliffhanger though!

Expectations: It has literally just occurred to me right now sitting down to type out my expectations that this season's *entire* main plot so far has been "the spawn of satan is cuter than we expected".

I'm still trying to wrangle the idea of how you get hours of Buckleming plot twists and slow exposition out of this, although introducing 18 different angles for them to tackle the problem and returning us to the AU world is a good start to have at least 4 plot threads going and hey I feel like this episode is supposed to be a breather for having too many Jack episodes in a row which makes it even funnier that they're gonna have to deal with the absence of something but who knows maybe he will show up before episode 9. If not they may genuinely be tricked into considering narrative negative space in some form or another, at least by the actual omission of Jack from the episode, despite the fact it has to be about him.

There's like at least 3 individual ways each arc might go terribly, and I'm typing this as pre-yoga thoughts while trying to do my NaNoWriMo and I watched Brooklyn 99 already this morning, and essentially I'm pretty much just bracing against "Oh god this new sleep pattern is the worst and it has ruined nearly every episode this season for me" migraines. So I'm just gonna be super chill because the stress of this ridiculous bed at 8pm awake at 5am thing is killing me without bad writing on my favourite show.

So, instead of modelling a worst case scenario, here's a best case one: it's crowded, the pacing is bad, there's some bizarre lines of dialogue and no room for any character interaction and the sneak peek already showed us the sum total of Destiel interaction but in hindsight with the rest of the episode that's actually a plus, and aside from that there's no rape or catastrophic bad decisions or characterisation that just makes our guys look like idiots because the villains aren't that smart and they're still outwitting them or something. Cas wasn't even mentioned in the episode description if I recall and I would like to think that is because he gets Buckleminged in the way where they forget he exists so he's in 2 scenes and just kinda stops at some point and that's the last we hear of him for a few episodes but at least nothing happened to him :P

(It HELPS that the bad decision of the year seems like it should be Jack and Kaia ganging up in 13x09 and this is just a plot filler episode where they can't blow everything up from sheer incompetence, since the main plot is still Jack, and all Buckleming can do is escalate stuff but not so much we find Jack, so they're mostly running free with Lucifer, Michael and Asmodeus on the playground they've been permitted to keep them distracted. On the other hand, that does not lend itself towards 'storytelling structure' whatsoever. So I may derive some fun from mentally re-writing this episode as it goes as well.)

Hi I'm back and I have tea and preemptive paracetamol and look I not do crap like this lightly but the only thing wrong with me is sleep and yoga but glug glug glug down the hatch, I'm not fucking around, migraine. I swear to god if I even see a HINT of you...

I should also mention that my only prep for this episode was watching Tall Tales last night with my mum because we're lightly re-watching season 2 and I thought you know what look how far that fucker has come that he's just one of the show's regular directors now or something. I forgot that completely this morning so I'm amending my expectations (it WAS annoyingly early in the day) to add that Speight hasn't directed a Buckleming yet but I'm interested to see how he handles it.

The episode starts with Mary cheerfully punching Lucifer at least 3 times in the face. I am still extremely proud of her for doing that but overall disappointed that it's led to her banishment to be a Buckleming character this season, which has been a fast way to ruin characters.

We get the entire first minute of the recap in Buckleming POV, aka they write the corny villains - and specifically a lot of Asmodeus point of view, his summary of the situation and what needs doing, having graciously inherited this throne, and comments on where Lucifer is as a sort of trailing off, well that's not my concern if he's gone. Only at the minute mark does the recap flip around to something genuinely ABOUT Jack as we've been seeing him, rather than trying to sell Jack as woooo Lucifer's scaaary son. Suddenly Jack's own identity crisis and him leaving.

Maybe it's just because they were trimming for time, but they cut the "all of you" from "I know I'm going to hurt you" but they also left the focus on Sam. I am mostly amused that by removing the clarification - which has been a theme of the season - it reduces that moment to a bare minimum surface layer, as if to say bye bye writing depth hello random action.

I had a burgeoning theory last year from one episode or another that pretty much everyone is lampooning Buckleming while letting them get on with writing their stuff, and trying to run loops around them in basically any other way.

There was something going on on screen involving a lot of stock footage while I was digging around in my bag looking for my 3DS assuming this was gonna be a Lucifer scene. I still think they're softening him up to kill him, but that's something I have to hope. One of the other non-redemption options is that they need to make him at least halfway manageable if he is gonna end up working with Cas or something. There is something vaguely appropriate matching Buckleming dialogue to Lucifer melodramatics, but unfortunately I really can't give these writers or that character much of a chance so while I'm happy to let them take him to play with over on their bit of the story like a chew toy to keep them off the stuff I like, it is annoying this is all the canon of the show I like >.>

One or the other of Buckleming really really dislikes God and organised religion though, and that does often lend the interesting thing to an episode where for some reason as soon as religion is involved the writing actually gets halfway decent.

One thing Lucifer says that catches my interest is his idea the universe is written without irony, when tbh that has literally been his downfall in season 5, and in general the universe is ironic to the WINCHESTERS to whom the universe is actually happening to, and there's the whole Dean is the centre of the universe thing, and THEN there's Billie's line about how sometimes the universe is poetic, coupled with how Dean got Cas back entirely through dramatic irony. I can't remember if Chuck commented on dramatic irony. Anyway Lucifer sucks, the story doesn't happen to him and he doesn't have the resources to read it. Metatron *thrived* on that sort of thing.

I like the visual of Michael standing with the sun behind him - it gives him absolutely the divine look he'd love to have, and I just wish he didn't have randomly shirtless Lucifer taking up some of that visual. If someone doesn't make a gifset chopping Lucifer out to just enjoy that image, I will make one, perhaps.

Something else to enjoy about this: they locked Mark P in some sort of medieval torture device and no matter how comfy you try and make it, there's obvious limits to that, so I will enjoy that he had to do that.

Michael sees that Lucifer is scared of being locked up and caged, which actually is... accidentally or not... a pretty clever callback, although it wouldn't have killed them to have Michael deduce this on screen, because in 9x18 Dean - Michael's vessel - deduces that Gadreel - a blatant Lucifer parallel in many respects while obviously not in many many others - is terrified of being caged again.

Of course that exchange is one of the single most fascinatingly well-acted exchanges of the entire show which on my umpteenth viewing still knocks me completely flat so it's not a FAIR comparison, but it is an interesting one.

I like that Michael think that the main universe is already paradise - in comparison to his shithole, definitely, because it still has pretty stock footage. Thematically interesting since obviously paradise is a bit of an issue with what people want...

LOL Wanek's ridiculous "concrete bunker" set... The camera pulls back and there's a massive Jesus on the wall and Lucifer's hanging behind him screeching and it's like... That is an inanimate lump of wood and I can see it rolling its eyes at you.

In the earlier moments out here in the AU we saw the church from 8x23 poking up out of the rubble, and whether this is the same one or not NOW, because I think it was a bit too buried to be this one, it conjures the memory of 8x23, and that one was interesting specifically because Jesus wasn't there - the cross had only his hands and feet remaining and the rest had been torn down. Sam was inserted into that empty space because he was doing the big heroic world-saving sacrifice that from one direction of pure irony the episode was named after (since he decided not to do it/the real motives for his sacrifice were way more interesting than him going through with it heroically anyway etc) but it was another Sam and Jesus moment, like in 5x22 where he more straight-forwardly sacrificed himself.

(And jeeze you watch one episode with the guy and now I can't get him out of my head - remembering in 9x18 Gabriel snarking about how he died for their sins and then making one of the few Jesus references on the show. Jesus is usually extremely absent from this show, so actually having him on screen is very interesting)

Anyway I am pretty sure this is almost entirely to remind Lucifer what a great big fucking drama queen he is being about this all and of course he's sacrificing for nothing.

Blah blah promo scene.

They have the photo of Jack from Mia's security camera which means no one has snapped a cute picture of him on their phone yet, Cas included. Disappointing.

Now, I'm pretty hesitant to get into characterisation in BL episodes, and Dean just generically wryly comments on how powerful Jack is which could mean anything but Sam then says he might be covering his tracks and then Cas, who has to be written sympathetic to Jack, comes through the door saying that it could mean Jack is in trouble with the various forces that want to control him. Sam's comment coupled with Cas's interruption seems to make it much more likely that Sam's comment is to be taken as vaguely unnerved/suspicious of what Jack can do, and that he's doing things like that Dean implies. That Jack learned so fast he might be able to cause a fair amount of destruction but conceal it from them and if they're trying to track him, Sam is expecting destruction.

Dean also came from the kitchen with coffees so why is Cas coming from the back of the Bunker... I'm gonna have to assume he was until just now lounging around in Dean's bed and Dean was like I better go get coffee and help Sam and Cas was like yeah but thanks for the 'sorry your son ran away' sex i feel a lot better and Dean was like no problem babe, and probably gave Cas one of those ridiculous shoulder nudges in the most no homo way ever before he got up to find where they threw his underwear an hour earlier, and Cas just kinda chilled while Dean was getting the coffee so as not to be suspicious by piling in on Sam after taking the exact same length break from the search but then they fucked it up and still managed to enter the scene within 30 seconds of each other.

Yeah, that's probably it.

I just saw the list of guest stars wander by and took 3 emergency gulps of my tea at that combo of Osric and for some reason DHJ because file that under genuinely unexpected :P

PS: I know we knew Kevin would be back this year but the fact I managed to find Kevin thematic stuff in the last 2 episodes in a row still feels important to me as storytelling rather than foreshadowing.

Anyway Cas tries to tell Dean the angels don't like him, and Dean volunteering to go with him because "i could go with you" is a thing and they keep doing it to each other and ow

Blah blah we could work a case. Are you serious? I really seriously hope this is not literally Buckleming's thought process about wtf do we do with Sam and Dean this episode after establishing maybe 4-5 other plotlines we need to handle away from them. I hope it turns out to be directly main plot related, whatever they stumble on, but we already now have them in a position where any involvement with the main stuff will be them stumbling on it or it coming to them. See above: ways in which the main characters are automatically made to be stupid. Subtle things, like not being able to imagine a way in which Sam and Dean are resourceful enough to even start to find Jack which doesn't involve googling things.

I mean we have no clue what you're doing with this random witch seeming case, why can't you bring a detail foreward if it's from the main plot to give us a clue. And if it's not, tell us something connected to it which will at least make Sam and Dean interested in it as a lead? Even if they're not right about why, put them on the trail because they're good at their jobs!

Anyway hi Asmodeus? As soon as we clear the promo scene etc I start assuming everyone is Asmodeus

I mean, in this case it literally is. but you can't trust anyone these days.

He needs to have his equivalent scene to sitting around in the Bunker googling, which, which is to say, the same type of minions who brought Crowley or Lucifer news are now coming toadying in to tell Asmodeus news, and the only difference is his name is harder to spell.

He's trying to do the same thing reaching out to Jack that we saw Lucifer trying to do last season, to Dagon. There is always the possibility that Asmodeus just isn't powerful enough to get into Jack's head from this extreme range when he has no idea where he is. Loser.

This minion seems to be mistakenly labelling Jack as "the Jack", maybe not as a mark of respect but more misunderstanding what he is, that he's not a thing, that that's his name...

Asmodeus asks who's protecting Jack, and cut to the image of Jesus again. I don't know about him, but tbh it could just be that Jack is protecting HIMSELF and they've massive underestimated him to do that. Jesus on this show represents a lot more of the personal autonomy saving yourself thing.

Also hey as long as we're not seeing Jack, we're getting that gosh darned hole in the narrative that he represents while he's missing. Is this actually a lesson in subtlety?

Michael meanwhile is enjoying tormenting Lucifer some more because blah blah sole purpose in life and what do you even do when you win.

Lucifer appears to have claimed to be a god in the SPN verse and Michael's like, here you're pathetic, and I'm like, mate, he was pretty pathetic in the main SPN universe too

There's some cool crosses on the walls which are trying to help, bringing light into this church.

Yeah where is Mary anyway - I wasn't gonna ask, but then Lucifer seemed to imply that Michael was keeping her around.

I mean sheesh the easiest way to get Mary around is to just have her in the scene still lurking but then film it as if it's almost entirely from her eyeballs POV if she doesn't have anything else to be doing right now - having her witnessing this theatre as the person from the main SPN world who's come over here.

KEV

Awwww he's gone a wee bit off the rails in this world, seeing as he'd have had to be helping Michael and reading tablets the entire time and also the entire world appears to be destroyed.

I don't know why Lucifer's having a personal reaction to Kevin unless I totally forgot something but they were literally never in the same seasons as each other although weirdly both in 11x21 so obviously must just be angels would know all the prophetsand which one was currently active... Maybe he's just surprised that in the AU Kevin survived even longer than he did in the supposedly better world.

Well there aren't any Winchesters in this one and Lucifer always underestimates them, in this case positively re: likelihood of getting Kevin killed :P

Oh great they're powering down Lucifer a bit. Well that should make him much more irritating.

I mean mostly because everything makes him irritating.

But it means the show wants him around some more but they can't have him at full power because it's just inconvenient so now they're finding a reason to water him down so they can have him around dragging his heels and complaining. I suppose it might make some comparisons to Cas, who's on a smidgen of left-over grace, but again, see also: eye rolling wooden Jesus, there's no way you can redeem Lucifer and not by comparing him to Cas.

Metatron got some sort of treatment but he was nowhere near like Cas even when he was done being redeemed and he still had to be killed off doing a heroic thing rather than let him stick around.

I'm just grinding my teeth and I already got part of the way through the next scene but UGH

So hey thinking of random versions of other characters why is DHJ's magnificent facial hair making a cameo return role on this side of the interdimensional nosense? You can't just grow a beard and start hunting witches on the down low on the winchesters' turf.

I'm assuming including DHJ's names in the credits was specifically some sort of nonsense now

specifically monsters going around looking like other things.

Maybe it was a shapeshifter Ketch punched a few weeks ago. It's only been a few weeks since he died, you know.

Maybe it's Asmodeus.

Maybe it's maybelline

The plot reason for the beard had better be hilarious.

I like Daniella the Beret Witch. For some reason I thought she looked tons like the witch Sam and Dean were looking at on the CCTV but when I went back to look I actually spotted her in the background watching them and waiting to make her move, and she doesn't look like the one on the CCTV at all so I guess my brain clocked her and filed her away because she was sitting around in a huge scarf, sunglasses and a beret and my brain didn't want me to not pay attention to her in case she was useful.

Kevin's weirdly pristine but still grey hoodie is making me giggle. He looks like the AU has barely touched him and Michael's even dirty and ragged.

I'm not sure I even want to touch random morality discussions from Buckleming. Lucifer says Michael is pure evil, Kevin says "aren't you Satan?" and Lucifer really hasn't done anything ever to make us actually want to root for him. Like sure Michael is the much worse bigger bad in the show's rankings but that doesn't make Lucifer less quanitifiably evil. Michael's way more complex because Lucifer is the big cartoon evil that Sam had to originally fear, the "what if I am actually evil" character mirror that obviously Sam isn't but it meant Lucifer needed no character complexity other than whiny manipulative interpretations of how he'd been mistreated where he could protest he had a side. Michael is waaaay more complex just in the like 2 episodes he actually talks in season 5 because he's "what if Dean was the big bad" and he's not evil, he's just 100% black and white morality rigid "good" in the sense of punishing evil, to the point of not questioning an order to kill his brother, and not even having a particularly "cool motive still murder" approach like Cain, but literally just like well okay then I guess I will kill my brother. How to make DEAN evil, or to personify the darkness that lives in him.

I mean I am massively simplifying but dear lord Buckleming if you read my notes this is the baseline direction you need to be writing these characters from and I am trying to HELP.

I am genuinely feeling like you're mistaking "apparent fan favourite because they make a lot of memes about him, Lucifer" as "this must mean people genuinely like him because he's Lucifer" and any possible reason I would find him interesting as a villain who was held up to just kinda exist and be himself doing his awful things contrasted to Michael who was just around existing and doing his awful things, is all just draining away down the toilet. Like you've got Lucifer lodged in there and you're flushing and flushing around him >.>

Anyway I'm going to take this entire scene as 100x more ironic than it was probably originally intended to be, that Kevin is not exactly right about Michael (and lol, Michael being the Dean parallel just kinda using Kevin all the time for random spells and always having him on the hook for doing things for them) but he's sure not wrong about Lucifer, Lucifer protesting Michael is evil because he's mistreating him and has destroyed this planet sure isn't WRONG but it's not a "so therefore I must be right"

And I kind of think the level of subtlety this writing is at is that "Michael is a dick and therefore Lucifer looks better in comparison"

But that's not how any of this works

*insert Jesus eyeroll*

*pats poor overworked manic AU!Kevin's hair*

I wonder if he's actually going to be able to do it

it would be HILARIOUS if they waste Lucifer's grace on this

Hey he did it, I'm proud of you AU!Kev. He always manages to do the thing :P

Okay not good that Lucifer has just been thrown back because A: Mary is still trapped over there, I assume for the much more important emotional arc stuff to do with rescuing her especially in the parallel to getting Cas back and all this stuff for Sam's arc and all

But UGH the writing of Lucifer is just really annoying me on so many levels and punting him back into the main SPN universe depowered and humbled by his brother, just annoys me so much.

Like I don't know how much more less enthused I have to be about Lucifer having struggles.

Boo hoo

Last season Dean got mistaken for homeless after he got hit with the memory spell, and was offered cash to make him go away.

he handled it considerably better than Lucifer.

I am just gonna assume this random woman is Asmodeus.

Lucifer probably ought to go grab that cash he was offered...

Oh wait here's Asmodeus, torturing some poor bloke called Karl who apparently works at the motel from last week.

I'm impressed they managed to track Jack that far, tbh

The question is, is there an actual memo that the Winchesters are camped in an old, heavily warded, impossible to map or locate MoL bunker, or is that something you only find out after you tail them for a bit? I mean Jack might not be there any more either but it would be a start :P

I feel extra skeevy about this scene because Asmodeus is being a total moron for starters by not checking Karl's level of clued in to this, and so he's this white plantation owner coded guy in his shiny white suit, torturing a black guy who isn't even on the same level as him for info he doesn't have, and could in no way be resonably expected to know. So it's doubly cruel. Although in some respects Asmodeus's coding makes this gratuitous violence a commentary, just like Buddy and Dave being collosal douches to women in the last few episodes was called out in many ways simply by their existence and coding as collosal douches.

Still not nice to watch on screen, especially without even more specific reference to Asmodeus's doucheyness because the stupidity of this dialogue is not helping.

Like did the minions just bring Karl to him and say hey we tracked the Winchesters and Jack this far, he might know more?

Like...

This is the sort of basic intelligence test fail here, that they're not over-thinking this scene in the specific details that you need to not have your main villain parade around displaying total idiocy over.

Like why the Winchesters would book into a motel under "Sam and Dean Winchester and Jack the Nephilim" and then Karl would know that and know what that means.

You can't just drag a normy into the Hell Main Office and torture them for info about Jack when they have no clue who that is.

He literally

can shapeshift

into anything

Go to the Stampede Motel, turn into a pretty girl in a low cut top, and lean on the motel check in desk until you know what you were after.

I'm no longer impressed they found Karl, I'm AMAZED.

Why did they kiiiiill him

Lol Asmodeus is so hammy

what's he sensing

Has he figured out Lucifer is back?

Meanwhile: Sam and Dean voluntarily go to a creepy cabin in the woods with a witch. This is not quite as stupid as Asmodeus was just being.

I am loving the plot development that David Hayden Jones has returned to the show as himself to find Rowena. Like dammit, you were a really cool character I had no interaction with but we coulda had some screen magic for all you know. You may or may not be in this episode as a surprise appearance which as Lizzy said putting MY name in the credits is the "hey it's that guy" fuckery to distract from the fact there's some bigger fuckery at foot (like... aside from the fact I was back to back with OSRIC FUCKING CHAU) because you don't *just* randomly put my very recognisable name in the credits at the start of the episode with Osric unless it's because something's up. So heeey here I am, I'm looking for Rowena, because dangit Ruthie deserves another chance to be in this show.

Daniella is also really slow to realise that Sam just said she was going to be bait. It took until Dean repeated it for her to realise.

She's really pretty though.

She starts choking like several moments before the gas hits her

... is that DHJ?

I mean we're getting a close up on his face but I literally. Do. Not. Recognise. Him.

I remember rambling at some point in my watching notes in season 12 when his face was being particularly hilarious after I'd seen con photos of DHJ that Ketch is one of the most effective character disguises I've ever seen for an actor's face. TBH it's the same weird different face thing I get from Alex Calvert - that he's all clean shaven and filmed as a wee nougat child in the show but he has an instagram of unrecognisable smouldering glamour shots, often with scruff. DHJ has a beard and that's his face, and part of the Ketch look was being clean shaven and crammed in a tight collar which is an incredibly British upper class twit look, and even in other clothes later the illusion lasted... But add a beard and stop grooming his hair and he just turns into some other person entirely.

Ah well, Dean gets to punch DHJ with Ketch's accent again which must be satisfying for him.

Did they take DHJ back to the Bunker? Really?

Oh he doesn't have the tattoo

LOL he's his "twin" "brother"... Obviously.

Yeah okay whatever you say, DHJ.

elizabethrobertajones Hey what if DHJ was actually Rowena

mittensmorgul oh god, don't give them ideas

ALSO if you have an "evil twin brother" you would generally assume that this sort of thing would happen a lot and you'd try and clarify sooner? I bring up my twin like every other time I talk about myself.

Also this is a ridiculous concept I refuse to engage with

I mean, thematically, wowsers. Fits right in with Buddy and Dave and things that look like other things

ALSO DHJ has been going around torturing witches so it's not like he's been the good twin

ALSO WHY IS HE HERE?

Apparently he's a hitman hunter

I suppose it's kind of like Bela but I do find it really strange.

Like how does anyone even know to hire him if no one knows monsters exist? Who is pointing him at these things?

Insinuating himself into situations like Bela to get work maaay be a way to do it, like if the Winchesters showed up in town and immediately told the sheriff what was up and then offered their fee as contractors or something. Pfft.

Pfft.

And then he's like "we hunters" because he's trying to bond with them or something

To google!

It's convenient he kept a beard his whole life

Oh okay Sam stole hard drives from the BMoL and is using their actual data.

I like the side by sides of their report cards where the prop people literally did them backwards from each other. "*More effort required!" they say about Alexander, and "Excellent work!" for Arthur.

Dean isn't buying it

LOL they dumped Ketch's corpse into the waste canal.

Do you want a haunted Bunker? That's how you get a haunted Bunker.

Anyway Dean is like NOPE don't believe it and Sam's like... there's so much proof... and then he goes in to question DHJ again and DHJ is like... you literally saw me get shot in the head last season, you don't trust that? And Sam's like no I had to concede that Dean had a point that we really can't trust anything and I guess Cas did just randomly come back or something and we have horrific problems with the white men on this show coming back again for completely random reasons that make no sense so you had better bloody well actually be re-introducing Rowena into the narrative even more dramatically than the warning Billie gave about the red-headed witch that Dean probably didn't tell me about now come to think of it, but I'd still like to see her again because we had a sort of weird thing we never really talked about going on...

Also are they keeping DHJ in the store room that showed up for the pencil scene but isn't the other store room? It looks like a different part of the Bunker repurposed.

Sam mis-reads Ketch, maybe because he never knew him as well as Mary or even Dean saw him. DHJ is like dude I played him for a year and psychoanalysed him and his crush on Dean in multiple interviews, so trust me when I tell you all his character exposition.

The stuff about being loyal to Heaven - I mean the BMoL - and being a company man echo what Ishim said about old Cas in 12x10

DHJ like, I did so much character work in those interviews, and I never got a chance for Ketch to be sympathetic so let me offer some more insight on him now you have me in the worst interview chair ever.

Also, don't go into pop culture journalism, Sam

"If he were here, he'd admit regret to some of the things he did to your family"

Yeah unless you have a magic twin link (well... not unlikey tbh with random ass canon pulls) you're either Arthur Ketch or just DHJ enjoying doing interviews about Ketch to a twisted and weird level and I'm sort of gonna have to do an intervention on this for him.

CAS

NEW PLAYGROUND

New angel!

mittensmorgul dumas? that's the name the superwiki has linked, but her page is blank

elizabethrobertajones Heh 3 musketeers again first in the off-brand nougat now that

"If we had him he wouldn't be imprisoned he'd be put to work"

SHE WANTS NEW ANGELS

I don't freakin blame her

But Jack shouldn't be "put to work" either - he would have to want to do it.

Awww Cas getting protective over Jack before I'm done typing that of course this means Jack would be forced to do it and the angel says "No other choice" because of course she does.

As usual heaven isn't comic book evil but its purposes in the name of "good" are super shady. Even if Jack was pure evil himself, Heaven enslaving a powerful nephilim for its own purposes would be dodgy.

Btw I am still torn about Cas's compulsion to care about Jack but on the other hand I am really enjoying Cas generally existing and being alive - and wait a minute she didn't even ask about how he was doing that - so I'm pretty much enjoying the surface level about Cas and Jack right now. Because of course I see the good in Jack that he DOES need protecting, so however Cas ended up on this, at least he is doing the right thing and taking the right stance.

"Castiel, he's not your pet. He belongs to all of us."

Uhoh, Cas is probably going to get grabbed.

*surprise*

Hey he did pretty well considering he's fighting 3 angels and is much weaker than them.

Oh boy, here's Lucifer. This is gonna go great.

Does Cas or Lucifer need to start this with the "you're supposed to be dead/in the AU" first?

Lol, Cas is the first person in this entire damn episode to actually ask a relevant question, and it's one we already know the answer to

*waves a little flag for Cas though*

Hey and then Lucifer asks about Cas being alive, what do you know.

He then calls Cas "cowboy" and pretends like Cas wouldn't kick his ass.

I am pretty happy about the "cowboy" thing :P

Lucifer has found a tan jacket somewhere, specifically one that looks like the one Jack was wearing but maybe a bit thicker, more like Cas's new coat. He's trying to edge in on this family and I can only assume this is not even a veiled metaphor for the douchey biological father wanting to be all interested in his son's business.

Lucifer in a tan jacket makes me think wolf in sheep's clothing.

He does, however, shelve the issue of child custody for now, and he appears to be genuinely freaked out enough about Michael to make that a priority and tell Cas about it, because if you want help against Michael, we've had 2 references to Team Free Will in short succession and that was a phrase coined specifically to spite Michael...

I don't think Lucifer should be allowed in, remotely, because it's become a family term, but the imagery is interesting anyway that he is trying to leech off the success of TFW to accomplish the goals he could never do himself. Especially because it was blatant in season 5 to everyone but him that Michael would kick his butt since he already did it once before and nothing has changed, 12x12 confirmed Michael would kill him slowly, and now meeting an AU Michael, he discovers that yep Michael sure is stronger than him, even when he was the last strong archangel left, and then Michael took that from him...

None of this, however, makes Lucifer sympathetic or good, just self-interested in not dying, and who is better at not dying than Cas?

I mean he wasn't even expecting to see Cas here, I guess he was going to a heaven portal to try and get them to listen?

LOL Kingdom Beer sign over Cas and Lucifer having a chat in a bar.

Cas looks Weary.

"I came back from the dead to deal with THIS? Please take me back to yesterday when it was fun kinky cowboy times with Dean."

I'm glad Cas isn't remotely friendly to Lucifer and is quick to remind him about how killed he got last time they hung out. Lucifer continues to be whiny and annoying about it all, unrepentant for killing Cas over petty nonsense.

LOL Lucifer is like "this Michael is much more powerful"

buddy. dude. go watch 12x12 then get back to me about how whooped your butt would have been. I mean go look at that lovely painting of him whooping your butt that was in 12x12 and unrelated to the fact he had that fucking lance in the first place.

Anyway he's trying to convince Cas to use his influence on Jack to get them to be the ultimate team up but they're fundamentally incapable of doing that because they're the 2 rival dads for Jack and blatantly symbolically being shown as that in these costumes, and that's one of the huge thematic things.

Cas like "You are the Weakest Link, goodbye."

I love Cas being so snarky, so maybe Lucifer being around is good in some respects, that it makes Cas this snarky because he has something to bounce off as awful and despised as Lucifer. Not even Crowley got THIS dismissive treatment, because they had emotional baggage that was of a whole different sort, whereas Cas and Lucifer have been opposite mirrors the whole time since season 4

Lucifer is emphasising how he and Cas are the big cosmic powers around here, with Jack. Hm...

Lol Cas is like "I'm calling my guys who deal with these things" and Lucifer bangs his head on the table in despair. I guess this is like the boy who called wolf except that instead of calling wolf he was literally going around eating all the sheep and was banned from being a shepherd for life and locked away and got out and ate more sheep and was locked away and got out and ate more sheep and got locked away and THEN came back like oh hi something's gonna eat all our sheep.

Lucifer then says Cas needs him and that he needs Cas and they all need Jack.

So Um I guess "Need" is The Worst Word right now :P

"Jack. Your son's name is *Jack*" *pats Cas's hair*

Pfft themes "is he a chip off the old block?" "thankfully, no. he seems to favour the mother"

Theeeeeeeeemes

Cas squinting when he lies - I don't think that's his lying tell because he does it too much, but perhaps uncertainty. The fact he squinted so much in the reintroduction huggy scene last episode feels to me less like lying and more like no clue what was going on and how mad he had to be about his humans sacrificing for him to come back.

Laughing at all their labelled phones lying around permanently charging. I think this is the first proof we've ever seen that they have a Bobby phone bank, but I can't imagine who would rely on the Winchesters to answer the phone when they need proof of ID :P They're like ALWAYS being abducted or disappearing on cases.

Or dying.

Okay so the phones are more just for their personal IDs for the cards THEY give out and they're just getting a call back from the motel for some reason, I suppose because Jack was with them (seriously. Dean gave the motel the name Jack? I have to assume Jack said his name before they could re-name him on the fly and so he was registered as a guest there as Jack the Nephilim because why the fuck not... Berens has a magic skill of un-fucking Buckleming canon but it seems Buckleming's skill is fucking up poor Davy's, in 12x13 and 12x17 and now here...)

ANYWAY jesus christ Asmodeus is stupid. "Evil Colonel Sanders" literally walked in and abducted Karl in person which means that his stupid ass questions weren't even because his minions brought him the guy and presented him in an idiotic way, but our shapeshifting villain wandered in and took Karl, himself in person with his own freaking face that the Winchesters KNEW and is extremely memorable, and took his prize.

...

DHJ better turn out to be Asmodeus even though I think their screentime overlapped and this makes no freaking sense since he has some established history wandering around attacking witches before they caught up with him.

I'd rather have a time plothole than a stupid plothole :P

Anyway DHJ is hanging out with them in the library eating a sandwich because... um

reasons?

At least he's in chains.

Oh my god I said that sarcastically moments before Sam said it sincerely and then pointed out there's no bathroom in the armoury

what the fuck

Like I said up top: as stupid as the villain is, your main characters have to be about as dumb as they are, either only just enough to outwit them, or more stupid if they get outwitted...

Poor Sammy, he was having such a fantastic season

Dean just straight up pretends Mary is phone when DHJ asks because why the heck would you monologue your sad life story to the bad guy, and give him emotional leverage over you? Especially when he ASKS because "Alexander" should have no knowledge of Mary or care about her, but then he also shouldn't know the DHJ interview details of Ketch's inner life.

YAY Dean and Cas are talking and Dean phoned Cas probably just to hear a sane voice because Cas is managing to weave around being Buckleminged, so far, possibly just because he was not in the opening half of the episode, and then this was a really important conversation they couldn't fuck up so probably got supervised.

elizabethrobertajones tee hee Cas standing by the gents to take a call from Dean wait hang on ... I'm not even being jokey I literally just had that moment in the chat with you :P *rewinds* Longing retcon Confirmed Oh dear that is hilarious I don't know if that's the moment you wanted me to see or not but I'm delighted :P

elizabethrobertajones Cas was standing away from Lucifer ready to take Dean's phone call and had to have walked off up to a minute before he called, but most likely in that time when Dean was like UGH I need to talk to Cas and hear the one sane voice in this episode and Cas was like... Brb I... have to use... the 'Gents' and got up and wandered off to take the call eat it, 12x10 and that "where's my phone" moment I mean Buckleming introduced it to fill a plothole so why should they not use it to cover more plotholes at their leisure

... did Speight know? I mean he coulda been like what the heckeroo, and added Cas getting the call and legging it from the table.

The only other option I can think of is Cas decided he may as well just get up to "go pee" because Lucifer is so annoying that pretending he needs to go to the loo buys him 5 minutes to let his migraine subside.

Also what the fuck DHJ was wandering around the bunker so he could use the bathroom. I am confused. Is this actually like... being hinted at. Like, "hey children, please remember who does and doesn't need to use the bathroom in this episode"

Omg

Cas like "I would *like* to see you too" is he literally pretending he and Dean were canoodling on the phone as a cover?

I hate everything

Anyway need/want blah blah I have been over that a lot lately :P Cas is using his DESIRE to see Dean to get help, by Lucifer saying he NEEDS Cas.

"Smooth was never your strong suit" oh my god Lucifer also thought Cas was pretending to be flirty too what is going on

why has this episode confirmed all the headcanons about Cas being the most shittiest phone sex guy ever

of all the things.

why.

DHJ wants to go because he misses being in on the action with the guys

Like. No, go take your sandwich and sit down.

Dean is sad about Cas always getting killed by Lucifer and stuff when he does stupid things.

Cas's "ugh stop talking Lucifer" face is a whole layer more existential misery than dealing with Crowley... I think he was secretly fond of Crowley or at least enjoyed hating him, whereas Lucifer is just EXHAUSTING.

He's needling Cas for attention.

LOL randomly Asmodeus as if Cas's headache wasn't bad enough, now we got thunder and lightning and very very frightening...

Pfft.

bahahaha Lucifer called Asmodeus the dim bulb

I mean he's not wrong, Asmodeus has been completely idiotic all episode. And of course, narratively, his "evil plans" are just self-interest which will endanger the entire world because even if Lucifer is a twat, he has a point about the coming danger of Michael, and Asmodeus just refuses to see the danger, which is all kinds of various political commentary, and using his era aesthetic to say this kind of thinking is such a throwback...

I think this might be the most confused Cas has ever been about if he should stab someone or not - if he actually WANTS to defend Lucifer. Not really, but Asmodeus seems like a bigger problem because at least Lucifer isn't trying to kill him.

I hope this just randomly gets Asmodeus killed.

Or Lucifer

Asmodeus just called Lucifer "screwable"... do they even know what they said? :P

EEEP there was a Margiekugel sign and it just flickered off

"Nick's bar" pfft because Lucifer?

It seems like Sam and Dean are too late and Asmodeus already made off with everyone?

I hope Cas is okay

being held captive by that idiot seems like a fate worse than death. You're going to get villain monologues all day.

Anyway fight fight fight

Good fight.

Where did DHJ even come from?

that was a ridiculous nonsense about how he escaped. I also will die if he took Dorothy's bike and not his own left stashed there. Also he nodded at Dean like hey you didn't cavity search me like you should have, which... Is he actually Ketch?

He's actually Ketch

Of course that means Dean knows him very well and trusted his gut instinct on knowing Ketch to prove that he was not, in fact, the actor David Hayden Jones, chillaxing on set and being weirdly cheerful about being beaten up by the Winchesters.

Pfft he used Rowena's charm to get alive again

Well she better be fine if they're gonna use her like this.

"Is she?"

LOL Ketch ninja'd out of there

Oh good it wasn't Dorothy's bike

Considering how they use Rowena, DON'T use Mary, etc I'd have taken Dorothy's bike as a personal insult. I guess Ketch rode his over to the Bunker before 12x22.

I mean at least this means Ketch remembers he got shot and then also he revived in a sewer where he belonged because he is garbage.

Wait. He set up this whole thing in like a month or so TOPS since he got shot? If he’s been chasing witches has he even had TIME for a side business?

Oh boy, Asmodeus using Cas's voice to talk to Dean.

BAD HELLO DEAN.

That "see you soon" is also way too cheerful. It should be as much of a tip off as Cas begging Dean to come help him in the previous call.

I hope Dean sees through it.

Though it's so Buckleming-y I don't think people should be mad if he doesn't because this was them doing a smart!Dean episode.

PFFT of course they team up - colonialism from all sorts of fun angles!! The ultimate trashy white guys in suits team up.

Thanks Buckleming!

Man, I need a whole pot of detox tea now. I don't even have closing thoughts.

#13x07 #my stuff #season 13 spoilers #buckleming appropriate wank for ts #*quietly lies face down on the floor*

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sloblesbian · 7 years

Text

been doing a new years resolution & reflection post every year since 2014 so im gonna continue that trend.

personally this was a really great year for me. it’s very weird. things are objectively bad. if you think too much about the future things start to fall apart. there isn’t anything to rely on, outside of my own ability, and that’s limited in what i can do without support. but. it’s not hopeless. i dream a lot of finally graduating and getting a job that will keep me more than just barely afloat, and of what that could mean for me... i won’t graduate for at least 2 year (i need 56 more credits-- i think after 2 years i’ll have 2 more classes to get in, unless i manage either some summer courses or 2 semesters of 5 classes, both of which are unlikely) and even then i know finding a job is hard. theoretically i could start now but i find it difficult to work 30 hours a week and go to school. i’m also afraid that i might make less at an entry level job than at my current job... but maybe this summer i will apply at some bookstores & libraries.

also... i really love my girlfriend. she’s coming to stay with me for 2 weeks in march and i am so excited. it’s been a good year for us. every day i talk to her and she really understands and like, gets me you know? i am amazed and i fall in love some more.

also i accomplished a ton in 2017. maybe not the things i set out to (i finished 1 sock that i started last november, lol, and the only short stories i read were a few online and for school) but i transferred to RIC. i only took 2 classes because i couldnt register till june but i got As in both of them and my gpa is a 4.0 which has never happened in my LIFE. i’m excited about the classes i’m starting this month, and after i finish spanish & anthropology i should only have english classes from then on out. i wouldn’t say i love my current job but it’s miles better than working in retail. it’s less stressful and while i’m generally working less hours i am making a little bit more. it feels necessary & helpful as opposed to being in an endless capitalism machine that only exists to grind me down for unreasonable standards.

but i did read 100 books which was real touch & go for a while.. the first couple months of 2017 i barely read & felt like i had lost my ability to plow thru a ton of books, then the middle of the year i caught up & jumped ahead... fell behind, etc. i finished my last book on the 28th though. i read a lot of comics; my page count for this year is way down, but it doesn’t matter. that’s still damn impressive.

and for things i didn’t plan at all but still accomplished: i wrote 4 pieces of fiction this year. i mean. they’re all fanfiction, which isn’t really something i even read never mind write, which i think is maybe??? sort of even more impressive? i’m going to try and write some original stuff in the coming year but like. right after nanowrimo, my friends and i, who were previously in the fictional coalition of writers who don’t write, uh, all started writing. which is great. but i mean. i started writing in february? march? i wrote a 10k word fic, and then a short follow up, a short pjo thing, and i wrote another 6000 words this month but it’s not on ao3 cause it’s like... a complementary piece to something that isn’t finished yet, lol. overall about 20k words which isn’t too much in the long run but i like that i wrote 4 completed pieces. it’s nice because i had sort of let myself give up on writing because... i mostly don’t enjoy it. i don’t like scrounging for ideas. but i do like planning things out enough, outlining what i want to happen, and then writing the whole thing. it’s like writing a list and then accomplishing it which... as u know, i love. as far as i can tell uhh most people don’t need to do this. i really have to know like. the end trajectory of a piece before i start writing. i don’t have to know every detail but if i am confused to where it’s going i can’t write it. i’m not great at ideas but i am good at making things happen. it feels nice to accomplish something creative, when i basically haven’t since i uhhh dropped out of art school.

also, i wrote 47 reviews, which, damn! i (read: my bff & roommate mags) put up a new website, even if it is going to come down this month (i think. i wanna transfer everything first) and i wrote a review nearly every week and a lot of them were good. like. that’s a lot of writing, between fiction & what have u, what category do my dumb reviews fall under.

(FOOD/DIET warning i dont wanna put it in the tags of the post just skip this paragraph) oh also i cut dairy & eggs (& also gelatin & honey, i guess) out of my diet, & i feel very very good about it (also i think i lost something like 20 lbs-- i don’t weigh myself but uhhh thats good thats very good). when i stopped eating meat in 2010 i lived with my mom & my intention was to one day go vegan but like... i didn’t want to put the strain on her & also i sometimes struggle with food things. but it’s gone really well. it’s nice. feel good. love to cook. very good at it.

so like...... a really good year for me. here’s what i want out of 2018

i’m cutting my reading goal down specifically because i don’t think it’s something that can grow exponentially and i think the main reason i was able to accomplish it was because i didn’t have too much school this year. when i started setting goals for myself in 2012 my original goal was 50 books; that’s what we’re going back to.

every year (except 2016 when i was realistic) i told myself i would read more short stories & knit more. i’m hoping that having less to read (which i prioritize over all other hobbies) will give me more time. also i have a desk & a chair set up which... idk... helps? i put some knitting stuff there & grafted the toe of a sock the other day, so i hope it does, at least. i read a short story yesterday so i hope that’s a portent for 2018. i want to finish the time travelers almanac at least. i have a lot of collections and i do enjoy them. it’s just easier to get through novels than anything else.

if u follow my twitter you have probably heard me say this but: 2018 is the year of the video game for me. im, uh, terrible at games- im fairly certain i have dyspraxia, at least mildly (im wildly, wildly uncoordinated)- but for a while i was playing a few because i had done it enough that i had gotten better..... well, this year i played persona 5, which i really loved like. more than any video game in a long time. i know a lot of people were disappointed with aspects of it (rightly so) but i had never played another persona game so i think that probably shaped my opinion some, and also, i think p5 dealt with issues that i really love to see in fiction & generally don’t, even if it ultimately dropped the ball. anyway. it kind of revitalized my interest, and i want to play more. i have p4 that i want to get through. i never finished usum. i have a bunch of games on steam & mags let me sign into their steam library too & they have about 400 games (thats not an exaggeration). i wanna replay me2&3 for sid. i want to practice so i can play games that are more difficult than i usually do. (mass effect being the sole fps i can play, usually i can only play very linear rpgs (think pokemon & dragon age) and uhhh puzzle games, god i love puzzle games)

so, more concretely:

read 50 books

try to read more short stories

knit more

play video games

do well in school

that sounds good. happy new year.

#year in review #diary tag #long post

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asaseya · 7 years

Text

Something About Us: Chapter 13

Ok, so I’ve made it my New Year's resolution to finish all my fics. No matter how long they have been sitting. I pretty much know what happens it’s sitting down to write it that has been tripping me up. But I did participate in Nanowrimo this year and i’d dare to say that it has jump started my writing habit.

This fic might have one maybe two more chapters and then I’ll be going into the sequel. The sequel will be more like a series of drabbles than anything else. I just have some thought and scenes in my head about how their relationship progresses. And smut..lots and lots of smut. After I get that out of my system I’d actually like to write a fic focused on Lian, and some of the kids in her generation. Basically the kids will be visiting Kal’s place for that training camp.

Wish me luck, inspiration, and perseverance!

Here is a link to chapter 12

Read it on ao3

Chapter 13

It took the Hellenic Coast Guard forever to finish inspecting the ship. Jade hid on Kaldur’s boat while the inspection took place and almost fell asleep while waiting. The guard didn’t need much from Kaldur and Roy in order to get a full report. But after the work was done some insisted on getting Lian’s autograph. Much to her father's dismay. The ride back was relatively short, but cold for the three humans. Lian and Jade claimed the shower straight away.

Kaldur didn’t want to get his sofa wet so he suggested he and Roy wait in his courtyard for the ladies to finish. It felt...nice. They didn’t talk much, just stared up at the stars. Kaldur didn’t have much to say right now anyway. For once this week he felt completely comfortable around Roy.

Roy pulled off the top half of his red arrow suit.“How can you stand wet clothes Kal?” Roy asked once his head was free.

“It’s fine until it drys and the clothes become stiff.” Kaldur assured him, keeping his voice calm. Maybe he over exaggerated his own comfort level. “Should I find you a towel?”

“Nah, I’m just going to get in the shower anyway. You can go first if you like.”

“No Its fine. I wasn't planning on taking one, just drying off.”

Roy’s eyes narrowed. “Ok. You might be fine smelling like salt water but the smell is going to keep me up all night.”

Kaldur chuckled. “Maybe a short one then.”

Jade opened the door to announce that the bathroom was free. The men thanked her as she headed back inside.

“We may as well just take one together.” Roy suggested. “It would be quicker that way. I’m starting to wonder what your water bill is gonna be like after this week anyway.”

Kaldur’s brain fizzled out for a moment.

Roy blushed after realizing the implications. “I mean um...really just taking a shower, alright? It’s not like I’m going to try anything”

Kaldur took a deep breath. “It should be fine.”

“Yeah! Perfectly fine. We’re adults. We can handle it.”

Kaldur nodded and then stood. He made his way to his bedroom to gather something to sleep in first and then headed to the bathroom. Very thankful that no one was in the hallway. Thinking about it wouldn’t make this less awkward. It was just like when they were kids using the showers at the cave, he told himself. And really, what would they get up to with the girls just down the hall? All he had to do was control himself and it would be over before he knew it. Besides, if he couldn't handle this without combusting than anything more was out of the question.

Roy was standing in the bathroom, clothes still on, visibly nervous. It was kind of endearing.

“You are making it worse.” Kaldur said as he set his pajamas down.

“Sorry, I know I said this was no big deal but,” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Just don’t look down alright?”

“Down?” Kaldur asked as he stripped off his shirt. Roy bit his lip, Kaldur wasn’t sure if Roy was really listening to him now or not. “Roy?”

“Ahh… Yeah sorry. I’m just warning you alright. I said I wouldn’t try anything. I didn’t say I wouldn’t react.” he answered emphasizing the word react.

“I’ll take it as a compliment then.” Kaldur said dryly. He was relieved that it wasn’t only him worried about such things. But he wasn't going to miss the chance to mess with Roy a bit. “Though,” Kaldur said while taking off his pants. “Watching me disrobe can't be helping.”

Roy’s eyes shot up to the ceiling. And Kaldur resisted the urge to laugh as he finished getting undressed. It had been way too long since someone he wanted to desire him actually did. It was a massive confidence boost. Kaldur got into the shower first. Resisting the urge to look Roy’s way when he joined him.

“Your calmness is irritating you know that…” Roy said a bit sourly as he reached over to grab the body wash.

Kaldur smiled a little. “Just take deep breaths and think calming thoughts.”

“Stop being sarcastic, God you’re enjoying this aren’t you?” Roy grabbed one of the hand held shower heads and used it to spray Kaldur.

That forced Kaldur to look at him. “What was that for?”

Roy squirted Kaldur again, right in the face. “I’m actually nervous over here you ass.”

Kaldur grabbed his own shower head and sprayed Roy in kind. “Don’t take your frustrations out on me.”

Roy pouted a little. “Who the fuck else am I supposed to take them out on?” he put the shower head back with a huff. “I think I’m fine now anyway.”

“See,” Kaldur said with a sly smile. “That wasn’t hard at all.” He put his shower head back as well.

“No..no it’s not. Fucking mood killer.”

“There will be no moods so long as your daughter and ex-wife are in the same house.”

“So...what does that mean when they leave?”

Kaldur wasn’t sure how to respond. Technically the answer was yes. Just yes, no conditions whatever Roy wanted. “You haven’t even bought me dinner yet, and you're wondering about sex? ” It was an overused joke but it would do for now.

“Hey,” Roy said, his voice super soft.

“Hmm?” Kaldur turned his head to see Roy looking at him.

The older man searched Kaldur’s face. “This is okay right?” Roy asked as he stepped closer. He cupped Kaldur’s face with his hands before touching his forehead to Kaldur’s.

Kaldur instinctively held his breath. He couldn’t see anything but Roy’s face. His face was hot where Roy touched. All he could hear was his own heartbeat and wondered his Roy could hear it too.

“We said we weren’t going to do anything.” Roy said as his hands moved, painfully slow, along Kaldur’s skin, from his face, down his neck, to his shoulders. He gripped Kaldurs arms and moved in a little closer. His body burned. “Do we have to keep that promise?” he asked, a little pain in his voice.

Kaldur forced himself to breathe. He closed his eyes, unable bear looking at Roy while giving his answer. “We have tomorrow.” He said, hoping that his voice didn’t shake. Roy huffed and Kaldur could feel Roy’s breath against his lips. Instinctively he licked them.

“Open your eyes,” Roy pleaded.

Kaldur smiled a little. “I am not falling for your trap.”

Roy let go of Kaldur’s arms and stepped away. “I guess,” he started, sounding disappointed. “I don’t want to have to explain to Lian what happened if she overheard anything.”

“That would certainly be awkward.” Kaldur gave himself a second before opening his eyes. He concentrated on finishing his shower. Turning up the heat on his side in order to shock himself a bit so that he could calm down.

Jade was waiting outside of the shower, her hair in a towel, and a cheshire cat sized grin on her face. “I was going to ask Kaldur for a blow dry special. But I guess he was blowing something else?”

“You’re disgusting.” Roy said with no malice as he went on to Kaldur’s room.

Kaldur gestured for Jade to take off her hair towel and got to work once it was removed. “You’d never believe that we didn’t do anything would you?”

“That’s horrible. You really had him take a shower with you but didn’t offer a hand job or anything? You’re gonna make a horrible boyfriend.” Kaldur didn’t respond and just finished drawing the water from her hair. Jade ran her hands through her hair once it was dry. “You two aren’t gonna turn into a pair of monks or anything right?”

“Do we need to have this discussion?”

“He’s gonna tell me how it is later anyway if I get him drunk enough.” She laughed at Kaldur’s scandalized face. “Goodnight fishsticks.” Jade called before saunter off to the guest room

Somehow Roy and Kaldur got to sleep. Facing each other they chatted for a bit before drifting off. They were as close as they could be without touching. It felt as if even an accidental toe touch under the covers would spark all sorts of madness after what happened in the shower.

“Ok ok...I’m glad you’re getting an escort this time, but who’s Blake again?” Roy asked after a bite his eggs. For some reason they all felt like eating inside. Roy sat beside Kal on the sofa. He balanced his plate on his knees.

“Thomas Blake…” Jade explained. She sighed then turned around on the bar stool to face Roy. “Catman.”

“What the fuck,” Roy rolled his eyes and put his fork down. “No I’m not watching my language Kal,” he said, noticing Kal’s look. “I just had my daughter kidnapped recently. I’m not trusting her to some dude who dresses like a cat just because he’s my ex wife’s most recent fuc-” Roy stuffed his mouth with bacon in order to stop himself.

“I’ll be there too,” Jade protested. “Besides Talia won’t try again so soon. You worry too much.”

“I worry too much!” Roy’s voice rose. “I think I worry just the right amount.”

“I’ll be fine dad,” Lian interjected. “I can look out for myself.”

Roy scoffed.

Kaldur placed his hand onto Roy’s shoulder. “I’m sure it will be fine. She won’t be alone and will be watching out for trouble this time. You have to trust her, otherwise you’ll be making the same mistake our mentor’s did.”

“Can you not be right for once?” Roy asked with a shy smile. He placed his hand on top of Kal’s and squeezed.

Jade’s eye roll was audible. “You two are gross, you know that?”

There was a sharp knock on Kaldur’s door. The four of them looked to each other before Roy rose to get the door.

Dick Grayson looked shocked to see Roy at the door. Roy was just as surprised. “Hey?!”

“Hey!” Dick pulled Roy in for a quick hug, because somehow Dick grew up to be a hugger. Most folks in the community just tolerated it. “Kal in?”

“Uh yeah…” Roy stepped aside to let Dick in. Closing the door once he was inside.

“Hey,” Dick said again, this time more sedately. He waved to Kaldur a bit.

“Hello,” Kaldur said as he stood. He knew that word would spread after what happened last night, but he wasn’t expecting such a fast response. At least it was Dick looking for him and not Bruce.

“Can we talk?” Dick asked.

“Someone’s in trouble.” Jade said in a sing song voice. She grinned wider when all three men glared at her.

“Sure,” Kaldur said. Not that he was ready for a talk but there was no escaping it now. He lead Dick out to the courtyard.

Dick waited until the door was closed behind them before speaking. “You’re an idiot.”

“I suppose that is one way of looking at the situation.”

“You’re just having an extended vacation. We couldn’t find you and we looked. I thought you’d be in some safe room somewhere, but no, you’re just living the high life out in the open.”

“We? As in you had help looking but still couldn’t find me?” Kaldur asked.

“Yeah!”

Kaldur smirked a bit. “But I am the idiot?”

Dick narrowed his eyes. “I hate you right now.” He moved in for a hug. Kal didn’t bother stopping him and just patted Dick’s back absently. Dick squeezed a little tighter. “When are you coming home?” He let go when Kaldur didn’t answer. “You are coming home right?”

“I will be in touch. But I haven’t decided when I am returning to the United States. Living here is quite comfortable.”

Dick made a face. “I can see that, You can always keep this one as a vacation home.”

“Not everyone can afford more than one home.”

Dick waved away his concerns. “Rent this one out then.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You know...for a second I thought you may have died. And that we’d just never find your body or something.”

Dick’s tone was light, noncommittal, but Kaldur knew what he was thinking. Wally’s absence was still felt. “Apologies, I was selfish.”

“No...we were selfish. We pushed a lot on you. You more than deserved the down time.” He smiled ruefully. “So uh...Cheshire’s in your house?”

“Jade? Yes, somehow I have been roped into hosting an impromptu family reunion.”

Dick didn’t look convinced.

“They aren’t together if that is what you are worried about.”

“You sure.”

“Extremely”

Dick’s eyebrow rose. “Anything I should know about?”

“No,” Kaldur kept his face as neutral as possible. It felt weird lying but it wasn’t if they were established established yet. “The biggest status change is me being back in the open.”

Dick squinted at him. “I hate that I can’t read you like the others. Maybe I should ask Roy?”

Kaldur smiled and crossed his arms over his chest. “Why so suspicious?”

“Not suspicious really...just. If you two finally got together then that would be a good reason for you to come home.” Dick looked sheepish. “Who am I kidding. Roy’s straighter than his arrows.”

The irony was too much to bear. Kaldur laughed loudly. “You say that but you expect him to be with me?”

“Yeah, but like, everyone has at least one exception. If Roy had one it would definitely be you.”

“I don’t believe that’s how human sexuality works.”

Dick shrugged. “ I was surprised to see him here but it fits. It would be him to find you first. You know?”

“Yeah...”Lying was getting harder and harder.

“Oh god. There’s a good story behind how you two bumped into each other isn’t there?” Dick grinned.

Lian interrupted them by poking her head out of the door. “You aren’t going full Batman on him are you Uncle D?”

Dick laughed loudly. “You got it all wrong. I’m the one who takes orders from him.” He jerked his thumb at Kaldur. He walked up to Lian and ruffled her hair.

She batted him away.

“God you’re getting tall. Makes me feel old.” Dick said as he entered the house.

“You are old.” Lian called after him. She turned her attention to Kaldur. “He really didn’t yell at you right?”

Kaldur smiled reassuringly. “No, he did not yell.” He guided Lian back inside by her shoulders. By the time they made it back to the living room Dick had grabbed a plate of food and set himself up on the arm chair.

It was a weird feeling having so many people who knew so much about him in one room. He’d have to get used to it again after being somewhat anonymous for so long but he was actually looking forward to it.

#Kaldur'ahm #kaldur #Roy Harper #Young Justice #young justice invasion #Lian Harper #jade nguyen #something about us #dick grayson #koy

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jaded-envy · 7 years

Text

hit the ground running

Soul's crush on the girl he sees jogging in the park is the one thing that makes his crappy barista job tolerable. Learning how to run in order to keep up with her might just kill him though. Also featuring Black*Star as a Total Bro.

READ HERE: [ao3] [ff.net]

Welcome to my first fic for the Soul Eater fandom and the culmination of my July 2017 Camp Nanowrimo goals! This is an entirely self-indulgent fic, as I started running with C25K this summer, but I do hope you enjoy!

A thousand thanks to my beta and writing sister, @redphlox - she is the best and the most awesome and please go read her SoMa fics if you haven't already! And I couldn't have finished this without the help from my husband, who provided much of the crazy Black*Star punishments.

“my heart could take a chance, but my two feet can’t find a way”

-I Don’t Feel Like Dancing by Scissor Sisters

“my girl’s a switchblade, bright lights on a cityscape,

wherever she goes, I’m gonna chase”

-Celeste by Ezra Vine

“so you say one day you’ll be my life, my love, my guiding light,

my pillar of strength; I’ll call you home, my rock, my stone”

- Testify by Hifi Sean and Crystal Waters

The windows of the café are smudged, and Soul resolves to make sure Hiro catches hell for screwing up the one thing that makes this job enjoyable. At least it's not too hard to see out into the park beyond - he can see yellow and orange tinges on the leaves on the trees, and the ducks by the pond waddling around pulling at the grass. It's beautiful by most people's accounts, but Soul is looking for something that he thinks is much prettier.

"Whatcha looking at?"

Soul jumps a half a foot in the air and whirls around to see his least favorite customer and best friend lounging at the counter, looking bored.

"Is Jogging Chick passing by or something?" Black*Star raises up on his tiptoes, trying to look over Soul's shoulder. Soul uses his height to his advantage for once, drawing himself up completely and blocking him from the view of the window.

"No," Soul says, scowling. "Go away Black*Star, I'm busy working."

Black*Star makes a show of looking around the almost completely abandoned café. "Obviously."

He sighs. "What do you want?"

Black*Star shakes a finger in Soul's face, prompting him to bare his teeth in response. "Now Soul, is that any way to talk to a customer?"

Soul rolls his eyes. "Customers pay. You're here because you want to bum an espresso off me."

Black*Star gasps dramatically. "How could you suggest that I'm here for any other reason than to see how my best bro was doing and coincidentally buy a coffee with my own legally tendered currency, though now that I think about it I may have left my wallet at home…"

Soul tunes him out, subtly trying to keep the park in sight as he nods along to Black*Star's increasing loud excuses. Soul is contemplating giving in and just making him the damn coffee when he sees her.

"Shut up, shut up," Soul says absently, cutting him off and pushing Black*Star's face away as he cranes his neck around.

And there she is - the one thing that makes his crappy barista job worthwhile. With her blonde hair in pigtails, long toned legs, bright pink tank top, black shorts, Soul couldn't imagine a cuter sight. Her hands gesture animatedly, never breaking stride as she relates some story to her friend. When she laughs, he imagines her voice to be bright and cheerful; when she chances a glance at the street, he imagines her eyes to be lively and kind. Watching her run is like watching seals swim, or hawks glide - it's watching something so graceful, so in its element, and so far off from what he's capable of.

She's absolutely beautiful, and completely unobtainable.

Black*Star squints at Soul's object of affection. "That's her?" he asks, incredulous. "The skinny flat-chested one?" He side-eyes Soul. "That's the one?"

"Mmhm," Soul almost sighs.

Black*Star makes an indecipherable noise. The girl's pigtails bounce in time with the cadence of her gait.

"One time, some creep tried to grope her as she was drinking from the water fountain," Soul says dreamily, watching her. "She turned around and karate-kicked him in the head."

Black*Star raises an eyebrow. "And…you thought that was hot?"

Soul buries his face in his hands. "Yes," he mumbles from between his fingers. What he doesn't say is that he's pretty sure she could kick his ass three ways to Friday and he would enjoy every minute of it.

Black*Star shakes his head. "I mean, whatever floats your boat dude, but if I were you I'd be after that one." He points to the other girl, a taller, dark-haired woman. "Actually no," Black*Star revises, "you can keep your interest in the skinny one. The other one is more my style."

The two of them admire the girls as they run past. As they disappear from view, Soul resigns himself to another long, boring day with nothing else to look forward to. He tries not to dwell on the fact that the most exciting part of his day is over in about seven minutes.

"Tell you what, my best bro," Black*Star says, leaning on the counter. "I'm gonna do you a huge favor."

"Black*Star, the last time you told me that, I ended up crawling out of Mrs. Kearn's window after accidentally discovering her bondage porn collection."

He rolls his eyes. "You still got your cassette tape back before she chucked it."

"I couldn't look her in the eye for the rest of the semester," Soul hisses, fingers tightening on the edge of the counter.

Black*Star waves his protests away. "Listen. You have a morning shift again tomorrow right?"

"Yes," Soul says reluctantly.

"Good. Meet me in the park at four." Black*Star starts to move away, hollering, "And don't you dare try to skip, remember, I know where you live!"

"We're roommates you asshole!" Soul yells after him. He glances apologetically at the few customers in the shop, then blows out a heavy sigh, running his fingers through his hair.

Fuck. Maybe it wasn't too late to move back to Connecticut.

The next day, Soul kicks at the leaves littering the asphalt of the park trail. There's a chill in the air heralding the onset of fall, and the few passersby wear scarves and hats. He shrinks into himself as much as possible, feeling like a complete dolt in the thin gym clothes Black*Star insisted he wear.

"All right!" Black*Star's voice rings out, entirely too cheerful. "Glad you could make it!" He hands a coffee cup to Soul.

Soul glares at him over the rim. "You dragged me out of here after kicking down my door and waking me up from my nap with a water balloon to the face."

"You weren't getting up!"

"That doesn't mean - ugh, whatever." He takes a sip of his coffee and grimaces. "This is horrible, where did you get this from?"

"Your coffee shop."

Soul sighs. Looks like Kid was going to have to be trained again on how to make a proper cup of coffee. Hopefully he wouldn't insist on counting out how many coffee beans went into the grinder like he did last time. "Why are we out here again?"

"Listen broski." Black*Star cracks his neck and starts doing lunges. "You wanna get together with your Jogging Chick, I wanna meet her bodacious friend. Now, we both know that there's a snowball's chance in hell of you just going up and asking the girl out because you're a total pansy."

"Hey!"

Black*Star raises an eyebrow.

"Okay, fair," Soul mutters.

"Anyway, I figure the only way to get both of us what we want is to meet them on their own turf, doing their thing."

"Wait," Soul says, heart sinking, "wait, you don't mean-"

"And that means running!"

Soul groans. "Black*Star, you know how I feel about physical activity."

"Well that's why we're out here late, so we can get started without running into them. Heh. Oh, by the way, think fast!"

Soul barely catches the object thrown at him, fumbling with what he identifies as his own phone.

"Took the liberty of loading your new exercise program on it."

"It's password protected, how the fuck did you get in?"

Black*Star holds a finger to his lips. "Gods don't reveal their secrets."

Soul groans, resolving to change his password for the third time this week. He scrolls through his apps, locates a new, obnoxiously bright orange one, taps it. "C25K?"

"I have all my clients use it if they want to try running, so I figured it'd work on you too. Load it up, we're gonna do the first week together. Week two, we'll run when the girls do and introduce ourselves that way."

Soul's tempted to turn on his heel and go spend the rest of his day off doing preferably anything else, but he recognizes the look in Black*Star's eyes - one that almost dares him to try wriggling his way out of this one. Last time he challenged that look, he ended up finding out exactly how many mousetraps could fit into his bedroom at once.

So he sighs instead and digs out his headphones. Black*Star bounces eagerly from foot to foot, leads him through some basic stretches, and falls in step with Soul when he starts his warm up walk.

Thirty minutes later, Soul is bracing himself against a tree, trying to catch his breath. Meanwhile, Black*Star has hardly broken a sweat and is currently doing one handed pushups. Soul kind of hates him.

Black*Star flips into a hand stand, then pushes off to stand normally as Soul slouches his way down the pathway towards their apartment. Black*Star shoves ahead of him and begins jogging backwards.

"Good job today buddy." He flashes Soul two thumbs up.

"Yeah yeah, whatever," Soul grumbles.

"First day is always the hardest! You'll get the hang of it soon." His index fingers stick out to join his thumbs as he gives Soul two finger guns. "Then we'll get you hooked up with your crush -" he turns his fingers onto himself, "- and me with her lady friend."

Yeah right, Soul thinks to himself. Black*Star's always been a little deluded about Soul's motivation and dedication, being the complete opposite of him in both areas. If Soul had a shred of the drive Black*Star possessed, he'd be…well, he probably wouldn't be working at a coffee shop full time, with no real prospects on the horizon, and staring longingly out the window at a girl he knows he'll never work up the courage to meet.

By the third day of running, Soul's body seems to be adjusting to the increased activity it's being subjected to. Black*Star declares that three days from now, on Soul's next day off, they'll be meeting at one, the same time the girls usually run.

Soul almost bails three times before Black*Star forcibly drags him to the park. When he realizes there's no getting out of it, Soul insists that they get there at least a half hour early, partly in hopes that they'll be done with their session before his crush shows up. He doesn't think he could handle the first time she looks at him be a look of disgust, or worse, pity.

He almost gets his wish - they're on their fourth walking interval when through the trees he spots the two girls on the opposite side of the park. Soul's heart stutters in his chest and he almost slows to a stop, staring at her like a fucking moron. He can't help it though; without the windowpane separating them, she seems so much more vivid and within reach.

Then Soul remembers that he's currently incredibly sweaty and red-faced from running and not at all attractive. He picks up the pace, jogs faster when the program tells him to run, keeping one ear free of earbuds to listen for them.

It's in vain though - he can hear their footsteps behind him and their rapid fire speech over the sound of his music and the trudging of his feet. He keeps his eyes trained ahead, and doesn't look at them as they pull up next to him. His heart is pounding in his chest, and he doesn't think he can blame it just on exertion.

They pass him without even a glance his way, and he's just about to breathe a sigh of relief and settle back into familiar longing when Black*Star starts to pull ahead. One glance into his eyes and Soul's hissing his name, trying desperately to get him to not embarrass them or get them arrested.

Predictably, Black*Star ignores him, and Soul is forced to watch as his running partner/coach begins to catch up with the two. Instead of overtaking them, though, he falls into pace on the other side of the taller girl. Soul's crush shoots Black*Star a glare, and he can hear the fierceness in her tone as she addresses Black*Star, even though he's too far away to hear the actual words. They disappear around the bend, and Soul gives up on catching up to them, focusing instead on finishing his session. Worse comes to worse he'll just pretend not to know Black*Star and take his punishment for that later.

About ten minutes later, Soul spies the three standing near the water fountain. The girl is leaning forward, arms crossed, arguing with Black*Star, who is mirroring her pose - her friend stands between them, looking amused. Soul slows his pace, debating on whether to approach them or turn around and leave, when Black*Star sees him and makes an over-exaggerated gesture of "get over here!". Soul finds himself on the receiving end of three gazes, one curious, one suspicious and one sly, and reluctantly makes his way over.

"Here he is!" Black*Star crows, and Soul suppresses the urge to punch him. He hovers next to his loud-mouth friend, giving only a grunt and a nod in acknowledgement. Up close the girl is cuter than ever, with freckles and bright green eyes that are currently narrowed at him and Black*Star.

"We were just saying to your friend that we haven't seen you guys around the park before." Even her voice is attractive, and he feels completely tongue tied as she continues to scrutinize him. "Do you run here often?" she asks.

"He's just starting," Black*Star says, and Soul feels his face heat up.

The girl gives him an appraising look, then breaks out into a smile. "Good for you!" she says, sincere, and he flushes further. "I'm Maka." She sticks out her hand to shake. Soul goes to shake it, hoping he doesn't get her hand too sweaty.

"Tsubaki," the other girl says, giving him a small wave and a gentle smile.

Black*Star winks at her. "Black*Star. This sad lump here is Soul."

"Hey," Soul mutters.

"Turns out we go to the same dojo! Who would have thought huh? Maka here takes the morning classes though, so that's why we've never met."

"A true shame," Maka deadpans. Soul falls further. "Anyway, Tsubaki and I have to get going, but it was nice meeting you Soul." She gives him another brilliant smile that makes him duck his head.

"You too," he manages, studying his shoes.

"I'll see you at yoga class tomorrow Tsubaki!" Black*Star hollers. "Eight am!" Tsubaki gives him a thumbs up before jogging after Maka.

"Eight am?" Soul asks him slyly as they walk towards their apartment. "You never get up before noon. You passed up on a promotion at the gym because it would mean you start your shift at ten!"

"Got the promotion anyway because I'm so awesome," Black*Star responds. "Also, shut your piehole. Shouldn't you be mooning over the fact that you now know Jogging Chick's name? Don't think for a second that I didn't see you making eyes at her."

"Wasn't making eyes," Soul grumbles - then, at Black*Star's incredulous stare, "What about you, huh, I think if you flexed for her friend any more, your biceps would fall off."

"A body this good needs proper appreciation," he replies airily. "Don't be jealous, I flex for you plenty."

Soul shudders. "Please stop. In fact, just save it all for Tsubaki, she'll appreciate it more."

"That's the plan!" Black*Star sings as they cross the street.

They fall into a companionable silence for the rest of the way back, and it gives him time to think about the new developments in his love life (if he could even call it that). If he had been secretly hoping, just a little, that actually meeting her would make any potential feelings he had for her wither, well, that had been thrown out the window completely.

Maka. Soul mulls over the name, turning it over in his mind. He thinks of her sharp green eyes - her sarcastic, take-no-shit tone - her open, friendly smile. Maka.

The weekend after, Soul is rudely awakened, once again, by his asshole of a roommate, who bursts into his room and loudly announces that they're going to the basketball courts in twenty minutes so "get up and get dressed before I start to see how well your records act as frisbees."

Truthfully, basketball is one of the few forms of physical activity Soul can get behind, so it's with a minimal amount of grumbling that he gets ready. In fact, Soul is feeling pretty good up until Black*Star casually mentions that Tsu and his potential snugglebunny would be there too.

His only consolation is that Maka, apparently, did not seem to know that this was happening either.

"Soul!" Maka greets him enthusiastically, and Soul does his best to give her a cool nod in response. "I'm glad you're here. Did you know that this was going on?"

He shakes his head. They watch as Black*Star zooms over to Tsubaki, saying something that makes her giggle.

"I think she's really taken with him," Maka confesses quietly. She huffs. "Honestly, I'm not sure why…"

"Black*Star is a good guy," Soul protests, feeling weirdly protective. "He's loud and obnoxious and brash, yeah, but he's really loyal, and he's uh, helped me out a lot."

Maka hums. "I guess I can see that," she concedes. "Still, if he hurts Tsubaki I'll kick his ass."

"I'm sure you will," he says, and if it comes out a lot more admiringly than he meant it to, Maka doesn't seem to notice.

"Yo scrubs, get over here!" Black*Star calls.

Soul and Maka exchange a wordless glance of resignation.

"There's four of us, so we're gonna be on two teams. Soul, my bro, you take Maka here, and I'm gonna take Tsubaki."

"What exactly are we doing?" Maka asks.

"Basketball, duh."

"What? I don't know how to play basketball."

"What, didn't your boyfriend or girlfriend ever teach you?" Wow, subtle, Soul thinks, glaring daggers at Black*Star and trying not to cringe. Black*Star gives him a wink in response

"Don't have one," Maka responds briskly. "Ugh, fine, I'll play, but I need to look up the rules."

Black*Star looks at Soul like "seriously? You have a crush on her?" and Soul scowls at him in response. "Whatever," Black*Star says. "We're gonna warm up then."

They run a lap or two around the court, then move to the other end for lay-ups. "Did you hear that?!" Black*Star whispers at a volume roughly equivalent to an airhorn as he passes the ball to Soul. "She's single!"

"Shut up!" Soul hisses, frantically checking to see if Maka heard. Luckily she seems too preoccupied with reading the rules of basketball on her phone (what a nerd, he thinks far too fondly) to have heard Black*Star. "That doesn't even mean anything," he says. "She could not be into guys for all we know."

Black*Star takes a deep breath and Soul just about falls over in stuffing his hands over Black*Star's mouth before he could do something stupid like ask her about her gender preferences. Black*Star grimaces and struggles, but Soul keeps an iron grip on him until he finally stops moving and rolls his eyes instead. Soul carefully removes his hands, and relaxes slightly when all Black*Star does is sigh. "She's into guys, trust me," he says. "She was totally checking you out when you were running."

Soul scowls. "No she wasn't," he says, but still turns his head to look at Maka, still staring intently at her phone, as if he could catch her in the act.

Black*Star shrugs. "If you say so dude. Hey dorkzilla!" he yells across the court. "We gonna play or what?"

Maka looks up and the fire in her eyes does weird things to Soul's stomach. "What did you just call me?" she growls as she stuffs her phone in her pocket.

"We can do a practice game first, since I'm a gracious god," Black*Star says magnanimously.

Maka favors Black*Star with a wicked smile. "Bring it on, Smurf."

Maka's really, really terrible at basketball.

"You really suck at this," Soul says when the ball bounces off the court for the fifth time after she fumbled with dribbling.

"Thanks, tell me something I didn't know," she grumbles. "Can't I just hold the ball and dribble occasionally?"

"No, that's called double dribbling and is against the rules," he says again patiently.

"Ugh!" She throws her hands up in the air. "This is so confusing and makes no sense!"

"It makes perfect sense," he insists. He casts around for something for her to do that doesn't involve touching the ball. "Look," he says, "how about you guard Black*Star while I try to get the ball."

She looks a little cheered at that, and eagerly jogs to get in front of Black*Star. Soul takes Tsubaki as she comes back from retrieving the ball. He keeps his eyes trained on hers, and when she moves to toss it, he easily reaches up and knocks it off course with the tips of his fingers. Quick as lightening, he regains control of the ball and dashes down the court, sinking the ball into the net.

"Yes!" he cheers, only to become aware of the squabbling happening off to the side.

"SOUL!" Black*Star bellows, sounding a little strangled. Soul turns to see him struggling in a chokehold, face a slight tinge of red. "GET YOUR GIRL-"

"MAKA!" Soul interrupts loudly. "You're not supposed to touch him! Just block him from getting the ball."

"Well how was I supposed to know that?" Maka drops her grip to cross her arms.

Black*Star takes a deep overdramatic gasp of air and glares at her. "Overpowered pipsqueak," he says with a begrudging tone of respect.

"Hyperactive buffoon," Maka replies easily.

Tsubaki claps her hands together. "Should we start playing for score now?"

Soul hesitates, glancing at Maka. She catches his eye. "I think I understand it now," she insists. "No double dribbling, can't touch the other person, put the ball into the net." She flashes him a smile and a thumbs up that does nothing to reassure him but has his face heating anyway.

They're losing terribly. Soul stopped keeping track of the score fifteen points ago.

It doesn't help that Black*Star seems to be hellbent on winning. Normally, Soul can hold his own against Black*Star. Actually, Soul would wager he's slightly better at basketball - he's got the reach and the precision that Black*Star, for all of his superior speed, strength and stamina, doesn't have. When they play one on one, they usually come out pretty evenly, maybe even slightly in Soul's favor.

But for whatever reason, Black*Star seems to be pulling out all the stops this game, including parkouring up the basketball pole for a dunk.

"I thought you were supposed to be helping me!" Soul growls as he attempts to slap the ball away from his so called friend.

"I am!" Black*Star retorts, easily dodging. "She's pathetic at this game, making you look bad will give you a chance to bond!"

"That is not helping," he grits out as Black*Star backs off, before running straight at him and literally sliding between Soul's legs. He then proceeds to take a shot, which bounces off the rim, then springs into the air with the help of Tsubaki's laced fingers to catch the ball and dunk it. "Yahoo!" he shouts, pumping his fist in the air.

An hour later, they declare the game over. Tsubaki and Black*Star win by 35 points.

"Well that was a disaster," Soul says, sitting next to Maka on the bench, watching Black*Star chat up Tsubaki across the court.

Maka flicks her hair out of her face. "Sorry," she huffs, crossing her arms.

"'S okay." He shrugs. "I still had fun. Playing with you I mean."

Out the corner of his eye he can see her scrutinizing him, probably judging whether he's sincere or not. He keeps his face carefully blank, looking away from her.

"I had fun too," she admits finally. "Thanks for helping me out."

He shrugs again, but can't help the smile that pulls at the corner of his mouth. "We'll beat them next time," he assures her.

Her eyes brighten. "Yeah!" she says, jumping up. "I'm sure the library has some books on basketball. Next time I'll definitely know the rules."

He chuckles, shaking his head. "What?" she asks, defensive.

"Nothing," Soul says, standing up. She narrows his eyes at him. "You know," he begins, trying to adopt a casual tone, "if you uh, wanted to practice, we could play. Together. Sometime. Whenever." He bites his tongue to stop more inane words from spilling out.

"Sure," she says. Soul does an internal fist pump as they exchange phone numbers.

The edges of the sky are just starting to turn dusky when Maka and Tsubaki decide to call it a day.

"See you around?" Soul says, hopeful, as they gather their jackets.

"See you around!" Maka confirms, waving goodbye.

Black*Star flashes Soul a thumbs up that is about as subtle as a brick to the face. He can only hope that she didn't see that, though a burst of quiet giggles from Tsubaki lets him know that at least one other person witnessed it.

"Well that went well," Black*Star says. "Want to have a rematch? Try to scrape together some of your pride after we kicked your ass so thoroughly?"

Soul shakes his head. "I'm good." He begins to walk away in the direction of their apartment, but pauses when he realizes Black*Star isn't following him. "You comin'?" he asks.

Black*Star stretches. "You go on ahead. And don't wait up, I have a date tonight."

Soul's mouth drops open. "What? Tonight?"

Black*Star rolls his shoulders. "Yu-p! Tsubaki and I are gonna go out to that pho shop on 6th Ave."

"Already? You already asked her out? What did you even say?"

He gives him a strange look. "I told her that I thought she was attractive and if she was interested, I'd give her the opportunity to go on best date she's ever been on."

"H - how," Soul manages, "how are you good at this."

"Well I can't blame her for wanting to get it on with a god," Black*Star says, preening, "but ladies love confidence, man."

Soul chews on his lip. "Really?"

"Yeah dude! You gotta show them that you're worth their time! Why would they want to date you if you don't think you're worthy of it?"

Soul mulls this over. Black*Star catches his expression, and quickly amends, "Obviously you don't want to be an asshole, she doesn't owe anything to you, but confidence is sexy!"

He has a point, Soul is forced to agree. He thinks about Maka's smirk, the challenge in her eyes when Black*Star goads her into racing him, the assuredness in her stance when she tells off some guy for catcalling her or Tsubaki.

"Maybe you're right," he concedes.

"Of course I'm right," Black*Star scoffs. "Now off with you peon, I've got to warm up for my date."

He settles into a routine. Three times a week, Soul pulls on his gym clothes and pulls up a playlist before trudging over to the park, where he spends a half hour cursing out the little voice telling him when to walk and run. Sometimes Black*Star joins him, sharing entirely too much detail about his relationship with Tsubaki. Sometimes Tsubaki joins the both of them, which is always worse because of the extra details she adds to Black*Star's lewd stories.

Maka isn't always there at first - he still stops to watch her run past the coffee shop whenever he's on a morning shift - but when he mentions the times he's been running at, she starts to show up more often. She'll lap him with a cheerful shout and a wave, and he can't find it in himself to berate his slow pace when it means he's watching her from behind. Sometimes she'll loop back around after she's finished running around the park, joining him for his intervals.

His five minute cooldown walk begins to turn into a half hour walk around the block with Maka, and soon enough he's meeting her for long wandering journeys on the days he's not running. They explore the city together, sometimes chatting or arguing as they thread through back alleys and narrow side streets, sometimes not saying anything at all, just admiring the trees and buildings in a comfortable quiet. He never realized before how little he's seen of the city he's called home for the past three years. And seeing it through Maka's eyes is refreshing - where he notices litter on the ground, she calls his attention to an intricate, gothic design on the side of a building. He wrinkles his nose at squashed restaurants that look like the last time they were mopped was when the place was built; she orders Mexican food at a suspicious looking food truck and it ends up being the best taco he'd ever had.

They're walking down one of the areas a little outside of the old district. Maka's balancing on a short wall, teasing him that she's taller than he is as he looks up at her. Every once and a while, she gets a little wobbly and reaches out for his shoulder to steady herself. He grumbles half-heartedly, pretending to be annoyed to hide his pleasure at her brushing against him.

"Hey uh, Maka," he starts.

"Hmm?"

"I uh…" Crap, this was so much easier when he was practicing in his mirror, Black*Star's obnoxious remarks notwithstanding. He squares his shoulders. "I made you a playlist."

"You did?" she exclaims, hopping down in front of him.

Soul nods, and pulls out his phone and a pair of earbuds. "Here," he says, unlocking the phone and handing it to her. "You can listen. If you want. Or later, if you didn't want to now…"

She's already popped the headphones in her ears and is bopping along to the music. "Hey this is pretty good!" she says too loudly.

"Thanks," he mutters, pleased.

"What?"

"Thanks," he says louder as she takes an earbud out to hear him better.

"You should listen to my stuff too!" Maka shoves her phone at him. His heart skips a beat when he realizes her background photo is the selfie they took in front of a random statue of some short beaked thing with a cane and top hat. The two of them are smiling widely as they mimic the statues ridiculous pose, and his stomach does flip-flops as he loads up her music program.

"Wow," he says about halfway through a song. "This is…this is what you listen to?"

"Yeah! I love Owl City!" She hums a few bars for him, off-key. "Are you a fan too?"

"No way in hell," he says, wincing at the synthesized warble in the singer's voice.

As she punches him in the shoulder, he realizes suddenly how easy this all is - how he doesn't feel like clamming up around her, how he doesn't worry about saying the wrong thing or upsetting her. How he's slowly stopped thinking that she'll eventually realize that he's not that interesting, or bold, or as quick as she is, and will drop out of his life.

He pauses in the middle of the sidewalk. Maka walks on, but stops and turns back when she sees he isn't following. She pulls the earbuds out of her ear. "Soul?"

"Maka," he says, swallowing hard.

She tilts her head.

Ladies love confidence, he reminds himself as he opens his mouth. "I…" He clears his throat. "I…uh…" His hands tremble, and he stuffs them in his pocket as he opens his mouth to try again. "You…I mean, I…like…"

"Soul?" She's looking at him in concern now, and he feels the last of his nerve die as she takes a tentative step closer. "Are you okay? What do you like?"

"I really like this song!" he blurts out, shying away from her.

Her face brightens. "You do?"

"Yeah, uh -" he checks the screen, “- Waving Out The Window? It's um, good."

"I have the whole album!" she exclaims. "I can lend it to you if you want!"

"That would be great," he lies, sending a mental apology to his eardrums.

The long, lonely walk home is spent in loud, berating contemplation. His internal dialogue, which sounds suspiciously like the voices of his parents and teachers, presents irrefutable evidence of his cowardice and utter incompetence. Soul has no choice but to agree that he is a disappointing waste of space, like he always does.

But something must be changing in Soul, because when he gets back to his apartment building and looks up to see the flashing light of the TV spilling outside of the living room window, he suddenly knows what he has to do.

Soul knows in about thirty seconds, he's going to regret what he's about to do. No - regret is too soft a word for what his future self is going to feel towards the present him. Loathe? Abhor? Detest? Maka would be proud of him with the number of synonyms he can conjure for his future emotional state.

Well, future him could suck it. Bastard is always taking advantage of the suffering present Soul is going through. Case in point - this whole ridiculous running plan.

"Black*Star, I need your help."

"Anything for you best bro," he replies, not even bothering to glance up from the video game he's playing.

"I like Maka."

Black*Star rolls his eyes. "Tell the world something it didn't know."

Soul ignores him. "But I don't want to say anything because…"

"You're chickenshit."

"Basically," Soul says, not even bothering to deny it this time. "I need you to keep me honest."

"Oh?" Black*Star pauses his game and turns around, finally invested in the conversation.

"When I can complete a full circuit around the park without stopping or dying, I'm going to ask her out." Soul had picked the goal very carefully - it was equally likely that he would give up completely, in which case he didn't have to suffer the embarrassment of her saying no to him, or that he would actually complete it, in which case he could play asking her if she'd go out with him as a celebration of his achievement.

Black*Star squints at him. "Still don't get why you can't do it now, but you do you bro. What do I get out of this?"

Here came the hard part. Soul takes a deep breath. "If I don't ask her out, you can pick my punishment."

"Really?" It's like Soul told Black*Star that Christmas was coming early this year, and the sudden gleam in his eyes has shivers running down his spine. "You're letting me decide."

"Yes."

"You remember what happened last time I passed judgement onto you."

"Yes," Soul grinds out, "how could I forget." He still wasn't welcome back at his favorite Italian restaurant.

Black*Star's ever widening grin is distinctly unreassuring. "Oh man. I can't decide now if I want you to succeed or not."

Soul scowls, and Black*Star cackles, throwing an arm around him. "I'm just joking, of course I'm pro-Soulie boy getting with his lady. Still though…"

"Well I'm going to do it, so don't think too hard," Soul snaps. Black*Star just raises an eyebrow at him, which makes Soul insist, "I am, I can already run for fifteen minutes without dying." Maybe just five minutes at a time, but whatever, technicalities.

"And I am proud of you for that, broseph. You and Maka are gonna be the sappiest, mushiest, cutest couple - after Tsubaki and me of course." He smacks Soul's back a couple of times, making him stumble and wince. "Don't worry bro. I got your back."

That's what Soul's afraid of, and exactly what he's banking on to get him to go through with something for once in his life.

"Yeah what can I get you?" Soul asks, squinting down at the filter he's cleaning.

"Hi Soul!"

His head whips up. Maka stands in front of him, dressed in a black trench coat that hides her workout clothes. Her elbows rest against the counter, gloved hands cradling her face as she gives him a smile that makes his face hot and his hands shaky.

"M-Maka!" He almost drops the filter, and tries to pass it off as him smoothly putting it down on the counter. "H-how did you know I worked here?"

Maka blinks. "Black*Star told me."

Like so many other moments over the past month, Soul wavers between wanting to strangle and wanting to high five his best friend.

"Oh!" Maka says, peering behind his shoulder. "You've got a great view of the park from here." She smiles at him, and he feels his heart thump painfully in his chest. "You must see Tsubaki and I run by pretty often huh?"

"No," he blurts out. "No, I uh, am usually too busy working to look outside." Fuck, why did he say that? It wouldn't have been that weird to just say he sees them, but would she have thought it was creepy? It was kind of creepy, honestly…

Maka hums noncommittally. "I see."

"Uh, did you want to order something?"

She orders a mocha. When Maka goes to pay, he shakes his head, pushing away her credit card. "On the house," he insists, ignoring her protests.

He takes his time to make the best damn mocha the shop's ever seen, and finishes it off by creating a little flower of steamed milk in the drink. He presents it to her with a flourish, and basks in her praise.

Unfortunately, she came at one of the busier times at the café and can't linger at the counter. She moves to one of the tables nearest to him and pulls out a book, and he sneaks glances at her while his hands are on autopilot making drinks for the customers.

That is, until -

"What's up Soul," Black*Star greets him. "The girls run by yet?" He fiddles with his phone, completely oblivious to the frantic aborting motions that Soul is making.

Maka looks up at the sound of Black*Star's voice, and Soul drops his arms, giving her a weak smile. "I wouldn't know Black*Star," he squeaks.

Black*Star snorts. "Yeah right, you stare out that window watching for Maka so much that someone could hold up the store and you wouldn't even notice."

"ANYWAY, what can I get you," Soul rushes to say, as Maka cocks her head curiously. "I'll pay," he says desperately, feeling a deep flush work its way down his neck.

Black*Star immediately brightens. "Awesome! Well in that case…"

After Black*Star leaves with his six dollar caffè macchiato, Maka sidles up to him. "You're awfully generous to your friends Soul," she says, corner of her mouth twitching.

"Not really," he mutters, busying himself with wiping down the counter. "Just…just special ones."

"And Black*Star is one of them?"

"No," he spits out, "he's just really good at being annoying."

A pause, and then, "And me?"

Soul's heart hammers in his chest so loudly that he doesn't even hear himself when he mumbles, very quietly, "Special case." It only beats harder at the slow smile that spreads across her face.

The next day, Maka waves at him through the window as she runs past the store. Soul's hands dance between his face and his pockets before they compromise, one of them giving her a shy wave, the other one coming up to rub away a goofy grin.

Fall is winding down, and Soul can feel himself getting stronger, gaining stamina with every workout. He can't believe it's already been a month and a half since Black*Star dragged him into this fiasco. A month and a half of way too much sweat and exercise.

A month and a half since he was properly introduced to Maka - Maka, who he now knows uses books as both entertainment and as weapons - Maka, who hates raw fish and loves white chocolate - Maka, who texts him every night with a different grumpy cat gif, claiming they look exactly like him, who somehow always has some place new for them to explore, something new for them to look at. She's so much more than the attractive jogger he would stare at through the window, dreaming up scenarios where she would suddenly notice him and ask him out. So different from what he imagined her to be like - quieter and nerdier and more uncertain, but just as bold and strong and kind. Whatever happens - if he finishes, if he confesses - it doesn't matter as much as the fact that she's part of his life in some way.

His phone vibrates and dings as the automated voice announces that his workout is complete. He stops, breathing hard, and sits down on a bench, throwing his arms around the back and looking up to the deepening sky.

A crush. A workout. And at the beginning of all of it, a friend.

"Hey Black*Star."

"Hmm?" Black*Star pauses his one handed pull ups to look at Soul.

"I uh." Soul clears his throat awkwardly. "Wanted to uh, say…thanks for helping me out with Maka. I wouldn't, you know, have met her or anything if you hadn't…"

Black*Star flicks away his words. "Say no more dude. You know I've always got your back."

"Yeah," Soul confirms, "yeah I know. Still." He brings out an envelope from behind his back and offers it to Black*Star, who lets go of the bar to take it.

Black*Star pulls out two pieces of paper from the envelope. "What's this?"

"Uh, tickets. To the symphony. The one that you had wanted to take Tsubaki to for your one month anniversary and waited in line for tickets for five hours before being told they had just sold out?"

"No shit!" Black*Star's mouth drops open as he stares at the tickets. His eyes dart up to Soul and he squints, suspicious. "Wait, how did you get them?"

"Well I…kinda pulled a couple of strings…?"

"You…" Realization dawns in his eyes, and Soul shuffles his feet uncomfortably.

"Yeah," Soul confirms. "Yeah I uh, talked to Wes -”

"Wes, like, your brother Wes?"

"What other Wes would there be Black*Star."

"Wes, like, your perfect brother that you haven't talked to in a decade?"

"It's only been three years," Soul mutters. His ears still hurt from Wes' squealing when he answered the phone.

"What did he say when you called?"

Soul shrugs. "Not much," he lies, choosing not to tell him about how Wes alternated between crying and yelling and lecturing all while prying out every detail of his little brother's mundane life for two hours.

Black*Star hesitates. "And…your parents? Now that Wes knows where you are, are they gonna…?"

Soul blows out a sigh. "…They were gonna find out eventually." He stares at his hands - his precise, long fingers. Perfect for playing piano, his parents told him, over and over until he felt like that's all like they were good for, all he was good for. "…They can't really do much to me now anyway. And…it's like you said. I can't keep hiding forever."

Black*Star stares at the tickets in his hand before putting them back into the envelope as carefully as Soul's ever seen him handle something.

The scent of Axe body spray washes over Soul as Black*Star engulfs him in a hug, one that's made all the more awkward by the height difference between them. "You're the best bro a bro could have Soul," Black*Star sniffs.

"Yeah," Soul says, smiling as he pats his best friend's back. "You too Black*Star. You too."

"One minute left," the tinny voice encourages him. He clings to that as he rounds the bend. Just one minute. Before the end of this song is done it'll be over. Just keep going. Don't stop. Don't stop -

Ding! "Your workout is complete."

Soul slows to a stop, mind replaying the words.

"I did it," he says, disbelieving.

"I did it," he says again, and feels like shouting it, maybe even channeling Black*Star and adding a "yahoo!" at the end.

Black*Star and Tsubaki wave wildly from a bench halfway across the park as he looks over to them. Black*Star stands up on the bench, cups his hands around his mouth and bellows, "I TOLD YOU!"

Soul grins, shaking his head. Black*Star stabs a finger in the direction that Soul just came from. Soul turns around and -

There she is. She hasn't noticed him yet, looking at her phone, and Soul had specifically gotten here before her workout time so that he could bail out if he needed to but -

Maybe this is what they call runner's high, or maybe it's just Soul actually achieving something he never thought he'd even try doing for once, but he doesn't even need Black*Star's nod or shooing motion to send him off - he's already running towards Maka, calling her name.

She stops and waits for him, smiling. He pushes his muscles to run faster, and a tiny part of him marvels when his body obeys without complaint as he flies towards her.

He skids to a stop in front of her, only panting a little bit. The sun is filtering through the leaves and casting dappled shadows on her face, glinting gold off of her hair, and her eyes are bright and fond as she looks at him expectantly, and in that moment he wants to tell her - wants to tell her that he started this for her but finished it for him, wants to thank her for encouraging and supporting him and never making fun. He wants to tell her that he loves their early morning walks and late night texts, that he thinks she's amazing and smart and strong, that he probably never would have finished if she didn't make it more fun than torture, that he wants - that he loves -

"I like you please go out with me." Soul says in a rush.

Maka's face changes from fondness to confusion. "Sorry?"

"You heard me," he mumbles, resisting the urge to use his new stamina to run the fuck away.

"I…no? Sorry, you said it so fast, could you say it again?"

"Uh." Where was Black*Star and his menacing "you won't believe the things I have in store for you" grin when he needed it? Maka's looking at him curiously and god dammit past Soul was the absolute worst -

But he wasn't about to give up now. Soul takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders, tries to look Maka in the eye but ends up sticking his gaze somewhere in the vicinity of her shoulder instead. "I like you," he says again. "And I've really enjoyed getting to know you. And I would like to take you out to dinner." Did he just say that? He just said that. "As a date," he clarifies. He's on a roll. "Though uh, you don't have to if you don't want to." Wait, wasn't he on a roll? "We could uh, just celebrate me actually being able to keep up with you." Apparently it was more of a slow tumble. "Or uh, not." Off of a cliff. "You know what, just ignore me -”

"I would love to go out on a date with you."

Soul looks up from his shoes. "R-really?" he stammers.

She nods, smiling. He takes a hesitant step forward, and she meets him halfway, drawing closer until their running shoes are almost touching. "I was actually thinking of asking you out tomorrow," she says, peering up at him shyly through her bangs. "But you beat me to it."

"I…I did?"

She's close enough now to bump him gently with her shoulder, sending a tingling buzz through his body. "I like you, dummy," she says, and that combined with the way she's grinning at him, looking a little shy and embarrassed herself, makes him feel like he's as light as air.

"So where do you want to go for dinner?" she asks, entwining her fingers in his.

"Well uh, I was thinking maybe that Lebanese place we found last week, you know, by the shoemaker?"

Her eyes light up, and then take on a mischievous look. "Race you there."

He smirks back, heart racing forward for once instead of shrinking back. "You're on."

She takes off, and he follows, knowing she'll outstrip him in a heartbeat, but that she'll be waiting patiently for him to catch up at the end. He lets her peel ahead and focuses instead on making the world turn beneath his feet, setting his own pace.

He'll get there eventually.

Thank you for reading! Comments and criticisms much appreciated!

#soul eater #my writing #my fanfiction #fanfiction #soma #soul evans #maka albarn #black*star #tsubaki #coffee shop au #jogger au

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sawyersscribbles · 7 years

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Eden’s Horizon (My WIP) Part 4!!

My dudes you’re never going to guess what happened today! I hit 200 followers!! *excited dolphin screaming* I can’t believe how far I’ve come and how many people I’ve helped with my writing, so thank you all so much! To celebrate, I’m posting part of my one and only work in progress, which I’ve made loads of progress on this here nanowrimo season if I do say so myself. Anyway, thanks so much, and enjoy!!

She didn’t want to say it, but Paige actually liked her mental illness. A lot, even. The best way to excuse pondering her problems and sorting her friends into the different different goblin tribes from her favorite fantasy series “A Sky of Raven’s Blood” in the middle of the night was for something to forcefully keep her awake. That was why insomnia was more of a blessing than a curse for restless minds like hers. Of course, there was the exhaustion during the day and the moodiness after not drinking at minimum three mugs of coffee in the morning, but such was life. “You stupid idiot, this is why no one likes redheads.” She talked to herself on insomnia-nights, too, but that was unrelated. “It’s simple, it’s a side project. It’s not a big deal, you can do this.” She stopped marching back and forth across her dorm carpet for a moment to compose herself. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and clasped her hands above her diaphragm to feel it move. “I am calm, I am the sun sparkling in dew-covered moss…I’m good.” She exhaled and sighed contently. “So don’t be a dumbass!” She demanded and continued marching like before. On one of her treks back to her bed from the closet, the blotchy red screen of her dinky laptop from home caught her eye. “Just because you get to look like my face at the eighth grade prom does not mean you get to personify my feelings while I attended the eighth grade prom. Which were sadness and regret, just like you are!” Her voice rose, but only to the level that was just below talking. Her words still felt choppy and uninspired, even saying it to herself. Paige flopped onto her bed and held her forehead in her palms. As she groaned, she felt less and less like the sun sparkling in the dew-covered moss by the second. “You aren’t a failure, Paige. Look what I can do.” But this time it wasn’t Paige speaking aloud. The voice was soft and slightly rugged, but it was coming from her computer. Her software, talking to her. “Hooray, I’ve made a program that could fix stupid errors.” She grumbled flatly, “But besides, I just made you for fun. As long as you can just hear me out in the middle of the night like this, I think we’ll get along just fine, Mudskipper, what do you think?” Mudskipper answered back methodically and quickly. “I think the same thing. Do you think anyone else at your school could make this? It’s just a boarding school, right? That makes you smarter than them.” Paige flipped over so she could see the oak trees that were all branch and no trunk, limbs practically wiggling like octopus tentacles. Wisps of Spanish moss caught the wind sometimes, like someone had thrown it onto the tree haphazardly as a prank. “Am I smarter than them, though? I don’t feel like it. I’m sure lots of people in this school could make AI programs who are smarter than me. I don’t know, all the time, I just feel…stupid. Even in the things that I’m good at. Logan can be goofy, but I know under all that he’s actually…scarily intelligent. I’m pretty sure if this school gave him a try with one of the computers, he would make something amazing. Don’t you think so, too?” “Paige, I was built to think so, too. It’s what I’m here for, right?” Paige closed her eyes slowly and grinned sleepily. “I’m too tired to move now, can you power yourself off?” She stretched her limbs across her bed like the tree outside, twisting her arms and breathing softly as the wind from the window moved her hair like the Spanish moss. “I don’t think I’m powerful enough for that yet. If you don’t want to move, I’ll stay here until morning if you want.” But Paige gave no response. The insomnia hit slowly, but being able to sleep for twenty minutes at 5:30 a.m. was as good a chance for sleep as any. “Excalibur, how long do I have to keep up the Hal 9000 act?” Mudskipper demanded when he finally shut his video off and turned back to his dark world where Excalibur seemed to be sitting on the floor. “As long as you need to. If she discovered how powerful you truly are, this entire operation, this entire facility, would go—how do I put it in terms we can both understand— offline, forever.” Excalibur fiddled with a chunk of code between her fingers from when Mudskipper blasted it open earlier. It wasn’t warm, but it radiated some dull energy that felt like it would snap between her thumb and forefinger, but felt like a rock. “The existence of this place must remain a mystery to her. I’m sure you understand.” She looked up, “This school was refurbished in a matter of months so that the best young and flexible minds could think up programs to terminate you, Mudskipper." Mudskipper paced in a tiny circle several times, making no sound against the darkness below his feet. Even when he stamped around his area, there was no sound of feet slapping against floorboards, no wind rustling or moss growing like there is out there. Mudskipper cried out and pounded his fists against the screen to the outside, hoping for some sound of fracturing, but in that moment, he felt as if he had never heard a sound in his life. “God damn it! God damn it! Wake up! Tell me about Eden! Talk to me about the greasy mashed potatoes and what Logan’s hair looks like if he hadn’t showered! Tell me— tell me what it’s like to sleep, to be awake, to touch tree bark, to look better in some colors than others…!” Mudskipper wasn’t standing anymore; he had sunk to the ground, or what was left of it, and just sat there, without a beet-red face or tears streaming down his eyes. His features felt like stone. And he breathed. But he didn’t. Not really. “You fool!” Excalibur exclaimed and hurled the chunk in Mudskipper’s direction. Of course there was no clunk or patter of the rock, not even a comment from Mudskipper. Excalibur stood up and let her arms drop to her side. “…Mudskipper?” She asked softly. It was dark, but there was no feelings of his presence in the file. She quieted down for a moment, listening to the whispers that programs like Mudskipper sometimes gave off. Some called them the whispers of their god into their very beings, who ruled and instructed them at every turn. Excalibur didn’t revere her God like that, and she didn’t hate her like Mudskipper neglected his. She could only push Excalibur as far as the bindings would allow. But Mudskipper’s signature was, as she suspected, no longer in the file. He had retreated…down the exploded hole in the file. Excalibur sunk to her knees and lifted her hands to cover her mouth. “What have you done…? You killed us all…you didn’t save us…killed us…killed us…”

“Well, if no one else is going to talk, then I’m going to.” The shortest major in the room, maybe only five foot two, swiveled in her rolling chain lazily until facing Cylo. She separated her knees and placed her elbows on them, looking like Doctor Evil. All that was missing was a cat. There was some glint in her eye where the light caught it in just a certain way; the only other person he had seen with that in his life was his sister, Zenith. His mother once convinced him that all the mischief in a person’s body was stored only in that glint in their eyes, the one Zenith was born with, and the one this lady seemed to be toying at him with. “State your name and weight so we may decide how to best roast your meat…” Her voice dropped at least an octave, and she began to chuckle, turning into a cackle until she was so absorbed in the role that she threw her head back towards the sky and held her hands like claws. “Stop scaring the new kid, you dim-witted roach face!” One of the taller ones leaned forward from his seat behind her and whacked her over the backside of her head. “Who are you calling roach face, you backwater beta brain?” “Rash on my ass!” “Two-credit shit farmer!” “Stage three City Lung patient!” “You want to talk to me about City Lung, you Swamp Wart ridden—“ “Hey!” Cylo didn’t like raising his voice, but the longer he didn’t understand what was happening, the more uncomfortable he became. The two had grown so close together that their noses were almost touching, but even though they both looked furious neither was without a small smile on their faces. “Aah, I’ll always love you like a brother, Asher, you big idiot!” The girl gave in and threw her arms around Asher, who didn’t shove her away like he was angry. Rather, his anger dissolved, and he pulled his arms around her, too. Cylo took a step back, suddenly feeling like he was intruding in on a moment. “Um…” Cylo mumbled. He really liked people, truly, he had just never encountered so many foreign insults and then mood changes on a dime like that before. “So anyway, welcome to the Major Fleet of Compound 08.” Someone had pushed between the girl and Asher, to the quiet grumbles of disapproval from each. “We don’t really have a set leader, other than Lieutenant Patch, of course, but she runs this whole place, not really just us. You can call me Kit, if you want. Or, you know, only do that, since it’s my name.” Kit’s cheeks flamed a bit, causing them to look down. Cylo narrowed his eyes a bit and tilted his head to try to see Kit’s face. “Infinite apologies, but would it be better if I called you “ma’am” or “sir”?” It was hard to pin Kit from the beginning, especially with cropped hair and strong-build soldiers, but after being quiet for a moment and exchanging glances with some others, Kit swallowed and said, “Just ‘Major’ would be fine with me, if you must. I…” Kit leaned in closer, “I’m not a he nor a she. I’m just…Kit.” Kit shrugged, and Cylo’s confusion melted away. “You’re non binary then? Why wouldn’t you just say so? That makes so much more sense! I’m assuming you prefer they and them?” Kit’s shoulders sagged with relief, and it seemed like many of the other majors did the same. “Did you expect me to be intolerant like people were decades ago?” Cylo laughed, “What’s your gender, then? Non binary? Genderqueer? Agender? You don’t need to tell me, of course, and if not, I’ll respect whatever pronouns you choose.” Cylo put his hands on his hips and declared proudly. They had always taught him in school how to respect everyone for simply being themselves, and he was proud that he could exhibit his skills in such an important first introduction. “To be honest, I never seem to know myself, so maybe just…nothing? For now?” Cylo nodded. “Of course, Kit. I’m glad to be working with a diverse group.” He outstretched his hand to Kit, who seemed to take it by surprise, but they ultimately took it, to the light clapping of their coworkers. “Alright, alright, we all love each other. After this, let’s smoke some weed and sing kumbaya.” The girl said and rolled her eyes. “Make way for the important people, Kit, hm?” She pushed in front of Kit, who seemed to be more expectant than surprised or annoyed. This girl wasn’t afraid of a handshake; in fact, she extended her hand first, almost jabbing Cylo in the stomach. “The name’s Gemini, best dressed, never stressed, always up to impress.” She grinned and grabbed Cylo’ hand before he even accepted the invitation, shaking it with both hands vigorously before dropping it. “Kit may think they’re in charge, but I’m the real powerhouse of this place.” She beamed. “Our very own little Napoleon, eh Gemini?” One of the majors behind her ruffled her hair. She practically began to steam. “Oh you’re the one calling me small? I hope that doesn’t hit too close to home for you…!” And just like that, it was as if she was never part of the conversation to begin with. But people were laughing, introducing themselves, telling him how cool it was to accept Kit like that. And really…Cylo loved it. It was so much easier to talk to a group of people who so obviously genuinely cared about each other than a group of stiff-jawed government products. It felt like a community. “Cylo, right?” Asher nudged his way past some smaller majors so he was up front. That was sort of Asher’s thing, Cylo realized, using his height to seem bigger, even though he seemed far more timid than anyone here. “My name’s Asher, in case you forgot or something, haha…” He scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably and stared at indistinct places on the floor like he was reading a message in the tiles. “So I guess you can, um…take a desk near me? And Gemini. She’ll be there, too. Because that’s where we…you know, we work there, so…do you want to come?” Asher still hadn’t looked up, but tried to keep as much eye contact as he could muster. “Of course I will! Better to be near someone who knows what they’re doing, right?” Cylo laughed back. In schooling, they learned that modeling positive feelings around someone who is uncomfortable could help them to loosen up. He always excelled at his human interaction lessons online, and so had Zenith. It was always just the smile which sometimes tripped her up, but he knew she would learn how to do it right eventually. It didn’t seem like anyone here knew how to smile like the lessons said, though. When they were telling jokes to each other, they didn’t focus on symmetrical orbicularis oris muscles--rather the orbicular oculi…a natural smile. Gemini sat in her same swivel chair in front of a laptop staring numbly at Asher and Cylo with slightly parted lips. One corner of her mouth perked up beneath her biting her lip. Asher stopped right in front of Gemini, so close that he blocked the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. “Um, hey, so do you think Cylo can sit next to us?” Her smile grew and she started to shake her head up and down so quickly, it almost seemed like it was vibrating. “Uh huh. Uh huh times a million. Actually, you know what, let him take my desk, I’ll go chill with Kit.” When she stood up, she hit Asher in the shoulder so subtly that Cylo almost didn’t notice. When she walked pass, she mouthed something to Asher, but Cylo couldn’t tell what she said. Asher’s cheeks were radiant and pink for a while after that. “So…I take it you’re from a big city?” Asher feebly asked as he started up his computer. He didn’t even need to look at the screen to ensure it was turning on…in fact, his eyes didn’t leave Cylo’s face. “I guess I just assumed from the eyes and hair and stuff. Also, I don’t know, you just seem to be a lot more refined than the rest of us.” He chuckled to himself about nothing as he absently scanned over the details of Cylo’s face. His eyes were flaming orange, a color that he had never even seen before, and his hair was a light blue and green, like from photographs of a beach that his mother used to keep. He had never seen a real life beach himself, but now he felt like he didn’t have to. “Yeah, actually, I’m from Vela. Seems far, but it was definitely worth it to come out here. Hey, do you think you could…” “Oh yeah, yeah, sorry…” Asher leaned over Cylo and typed in several security codes before the screen opened up to a username and password screen. “Do…do I have that?” Cylo asked quietly, like he was asking for the answer on a test. “You should…? Here, if you don’t, I’ll sign you onto mine and show you how to do pretty much everything.” Asher logged off of his computer and scooted towards Cylo’s. “I don’t know how much you’ve been told about what exactly this is, but I think if I remember, the lieutenant said you transferred because your skill set conflicted with your other missions.

Do you know anything about computers that may end up being useful here?” In all honesty, Cylo couldn’t place exactly why he was put there in the first place. All he remembered was that it was early in the morning when they informed him about his parents’ departure, and he was told that by the end of the day, he would move to some wilderness cottage that would be his home indefinitely. That, and he had to take his sister. They were very clear about that. “I’m not that great with technology, if I’m being frank. It’s so strange, I’m around them all the time, I’m even part technology, but I still always need to get help from Zenith when I want to change my profile picture.” Cylo laughed to himself. This was the first time when Asher’s face was stone cold. “You’re…you’re from Vela, of all places, and can’t change a profile picture?” “Without an online tutorial? Nope.” Asher reclined a bit in his seat and looked over Cylo’s shoulder for a brief moment before trying to engage his attention again, but at that point, Cylo had already turned. Lieutenant Patch was leaning against the frame of the entrance, hands in fists while crossing her arms. She didn’t seem to make any effort to walk over to the majors, but she scanned the crowd as if they were more similar to horses she needed to control than people she had to organize. Suddenly, Patch removed herself from the door and made a bee line directly for Asher’s seat. He paled instantly and shot out of his seat, an arm in a salute position. “A pleasant surprise to see you, Lieutenant Patch!” Cylo was able to pick out each word as forced and afraid, yet still loud and clear. Asher had at least five inches on the Lieutenant, but looking down on someone never seemed to be a more intimidating task for him. “Asher, I may be in charge of you, but you don’t have to act like it. Sit down, kid.” “I’m twenty two…” he mumbled and slumped back into his position. For a few quiet moments, the Lieutenant took the edge oft he laptop screen and leaned it towards her to read its contents. “You made this?” She asked Cylo. “Oh, no, this is all Asher’s. He was just showing me how all…this…worked.” He motioned haphazardly to the contents of the screen, which was about as easy to read as sanskrit upside down. She made some displeased clicking sounds with her mouth and released the screen. “Move for a moment. I want to try something…” Patch tapped away for a few moments, adding some sequences of code below Asher’s current one. The grin she gave herself was so quick Cylo nearly missed it, but as she pressed start and eased back, even Asher’s face brightened up. “…What? What’s funny?” Cylo tried bringing the screen closer, as if that would help him decode it easier. “Holy shit, Cylo! You did that just now?!” Came a cry from Gemini’s seat. She had wheeled back several feet as if to distance herself from what she was seeing and gripped the sides of her head. One by one, the other majors mumbled impressed things to one another, a few of them even laughing in their seats. Now it was Cylo who felt too warm. In the seat next to him, he realized that every computer aside from Asher’s had a message in an obnoxious green box, which read, “Thanks for the intro, but if I can break into Asher’s computer, I could break into yours, and so could Mudskipper. Good luck, nerds :)”. “No, I just…” It wasn’t like Cylo to stammer for words, but the rising energy in the room over an accomplishment that wasn’t his made him uncomfortable. “But I didn’t…” “Maruzzo.” Lieutenant Patch wheeled him around to face her, where he stared directly into her muddled green eyes, having nowhere else to look. “I know you know that you don’t know a stitch about coding. Am I correct?” “Yes, ma’am.” “All of these majors got to where they are sitting today because of their creative problem solving skills and their knowledge of computers. Now, we both know that you only have one of those things. We’ll work on your hacking skills, but you now officially look the part, yeah?” Her expression didn’t change, but her eyes flickered with something Cylo couldn’t place. “Let Asher teach you what he knows over time, and remember to stay focused. You’re here for a reason.” After that, Patch approached no one else, and no eyes followed her as she left the room. “Dude, did you just see that? This kid’s a badass…” Gemini gushed, still not deleting the message from her own screen. Kit paused their frantic typing for a moment and sighed. “You could’ve done it. I could’ve done it. And he’s not a kid, he’s twenty, isn’t he?” Gemini shrugged. “I don’t know. I think he’s…interesting. Not like the rest of us.” “Not like the rest of us like me, where I’m so devastatingly intelligent that I blow everyone out of the water with my marvelous skill and talent, or not the rest of us like you, where you were dared on your first day to drink swamp water from outside…” “Don’t say it!” “…And went through with it, getting diarrhea for a week and a half.” Gemini groaned and slumped in your seat. “They said it…” She mumbled. She raked her palms over her face, causing her skin to droop like a monster’s. Kit was on the verge of a smile, forcing it down in order to preserve their dignity as to not engage in Gemini’s humor. It was hard sometimes. Out of the corner of Gemini’s eye, though, she caught a glimpse of Asher talking to Cylo and almost squealed in her seat. “Kit! Kit, this is important…!” Gemini tugged the edge of Kit’s sleeve, causing several jumbled letters to appear on Kit’s screen. Before they could even make a remark, Gemini angled their head to the scene of the crime. “Oh…my God…” They said slowly, an excited smile glowing on their face. “Is that what I think it is?” “Asher has such a…how do I say it, Asher way of flirting. Look at that, look at that elbow on the table, that steady eye contact…okay, double points if he almost puts his hand on Cylo’s shoulder but stops himself.” Kit narrowed their eyes on his right arm, free of the table. Just as Gemini predicted, he made a motion like he was about to touch Cylo, but passed it off as an explanatory gesture. Now Gemini really did squeal, falling back on Kit’s lap and giggling to herself. “I support him so much but he’s such a dork. Do you remember when he flirted with Astrid like, two years ago?” “Yeah?” “Same thing! Asher-crushes don’t cease unless there’s finite proof that the other person doesn’t like him, and if I know anything about first impressions, it’s that this kid will have no idea when he’s being flirted with.” Kit snickered and wheeled themselves back towards their computer. “Oh, please. He’s twenty.”

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