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vargaslovinghours · 11 months

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Fandom: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac (But really Vargas lol) Rating: Teen and up Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

What, exactly, did Scriabin take from Edgar when they separated?

My first multichapter fic for Vargas! :D Yay!

(Pls read Ch. 1 first - Ch. 2 is also recommended, but as long as you're caught up on the first, you're good to go!)

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Side B

What the fuck.

"It's, it's possible that if, maybe whatever happened earlier, whatever caused all that blood and for us to be knocked unconscious-"

What the fuck.

"-and if I suffered a head injury, then maybe-"

No. That's enough.

Scriabin pushed away from the closet door he'd defensively pressed himself up against and put his hands on Edgar's shoulders, which quieted him. He looked at him expectantly, with eyes that Scriabin somehow only just now realized were casually guarded, curious, uncertain in a way that denoted inexperience. That was so messed up, that was completely wrong. Edgar should've been on guard, absolutely, but only because he knew exactly what Scriabin was capable of. He really didn't want to look at him right now if this was what he was going to be seeing instead.

He spun him quickly and pushed him out the door before he could protest. He got one last look at those wide, confused eyes before he slammed the door behind him, bracing it shut with both hands for good measure.

What. The fuck. His head came forward, making a dull thud as his forehead connected with the door. He doesn't remember me? His fingers curled on the door. What does he mean he doesn't remember me?! How could he not know me?! One hand pushed through his hair; his scalp tingled and that was so weird, he felt it and it was so weird- We literally just- He literally just-! As if pulling him screaming into life wasn't bad enough, now he had decided to play some sick prank!

This can't be true. It's just like him to try and make jokes at the worst possible time, he has no tact.

There was a timid knock on the other side of the door. Scriabin jumped as it resonated through his skull, his elbow, pressed to the door with his hand buried in his hair, set his jaw. Then silence.

If he was really trying to get back in, clear things up, say he was only kidding, he'd actually try.

Nothing.

Scriabin's blood was ice as he went over it again. The way he'd said his name. The vacant look in his eyes as he said it, like his mouth knew its shape but none of the meaning. No fear, no realization, nothing that really felt like Edgar, just sound, just noise.

Maybe he really had-

Oh god. His knees gave out, and his arms had no practice at holding him upright, not yet. His hand slid down the door, his other hand guarding his head as his hair fluffed against the grain.

How could he do this

This is all his fault

Stupid, idiotic

He can't do this to me

I can't believe him

I can't believe this

How dare he leave me alone like this

Thoughts spiralling, and all he could do was hold himself down, press his fingers into the back of his neck, force his chest to his knees and maybe he wouldn't immolate under it all. He was shaking, from tension or fear he couldn't tell, his mind too hazardous and loud to cut through it all. He was shaking, dizzy, and if he moved, letting go would surely kill him.

He can't do this to me.

He breathed. And breathed. And swallowed. Eyes closed, heart pounding, sure. Confusion and dismay, whatever. Pain. Fine. So be it.

This isn't like me. A hand untethered from his vice grip in his hair, and he stayed attached to the floor. It connected with the carpet below him and became a new lifeline. He pushed up and away into a limp sit, arms already burning slightly from holding himself up after all that. He shook his head mildly. This isn't who I'm going to be in life. His body, this fear response be damned, he was in control now.

Regroup. Let's- a mental pause, barely a quarter of a second long as he turned the word in his head. Let's pretend it's all true- what does that mean?

He flopped over, leaned upright with his back against the door, heels of his fists pushed down into the carpet to scootch closer. Moving was so awkward still, very unfitting.

He was acting normal. Well, Edgar's baseline for "normal" had changed considerably, so maybe put an asterisk on that. Not that he was ever normal to begin with, but normal-for-Edgar, -ish. That means he has to have some memory.

Scriabin held out a hand, arm slung over his knee, one finger held out. He had recognized his glasses. One. The apartment. Two. Which key to use. Three. He had said Todd's name. Four.

His stuff can be discounted, he's had all that for a while. Back down to one. The kid is a new fixture. Which means he remembers the last couple months at least. He shook his head and brought his hand up to comb through his hair. Well...it's fuzzy for me, so it probably is for him, too. Scriabin remembered everything in as much clarity as the last couple months allowed, there was no way Edgar would know more even if he had all his memories.

Speaking of which, Scriabin could remember everything. He flipped through; the last two months and bringing Todd in, Edgar's parting words to Johnny, his and Devi's conversation - he grit his teeth - and further back, everything along the way, all the way back. False dreams, shared childhoods, everything that was once Edgar's alone, he still remembered it. Nothing was out of place which made it all the more strange!

This is so fucking weird, if I remember everything, then why would he-

He stopped short. His purported purpose had been to replace Edgar. Take him over completely. If he bought into the conceit for a moment, just to play in the space... He was alive now. That was not as intended; it shouldn't even have been possible.

Did he...give me his memories? Like, all the way? Not just to borrow, to shape him, give him legitimacy - he was alive now. His own person. Separate, embodied, and whole. Was this the price of life?

That's stupid. But possible, he couldn't discount. If this - he brought his hands up and looked down at them, watched himself touch his own chest and felt it beneath his coat, shirt, the nerves firing as his slid his fingers up himself - if this was possible, then...

He continued for a moment, curious and reverant, all of him new and privately exciting, to exist and to touch, to feel, smell, see, all of it clear and fresh and penetrated deeply into his mind, as if a layer of film had been lifted from his senses. The moment passed as the memories, unbidden but important, cluttered in around him again.

There were still a lot of questions, and most of them couldn't be answered without Edgar, ugh. If getting anything out of him before had been like pulling teeth, he was very sobered to think about how it might be now. Depending on how much Edgar remembered, maybe he could start piecing things together.

Did he do it on purpose? Did he know this would happen? There's no way he would have been willing to if he had- But he couldn't ask him things like that. Even if he did remember, admitting something like that...

He was just spinning his wheels at this point. Better to gather what he could from the man himself. He looked up, preparing to stand.

Ah-

The room was still in something of a state.

Edgar would be annoying, or at least distracted by trying to pick up the clothes and uncarefully unpacked items strewn about the floor from Scriabin's very successful excavation of his old glasses. The clutter would have to go if he wanted his full attention.

He grumbled as he pushed off the door to pick up the first few things. First day of life and I'm already his maid. Figures. He's always needed me to clean up after him.

Silence.

Somehow it only just hit him. Thinking alone in the late hours, planning things behind Edgar's back, it was nothing new. But a barb unsunk into his mental flesh was left out in the wide emptiness, poised to stab whoever happened upon it next, and he was the only one here.

He felt very small all of a sudden, and he didn't like it at all.

His eyes blankly scanned the room, looking for nothing, until they settled on the toy at Edgar's bedside. His toy.

He dropped the items he'd bundled into his arms and made his way over. He picked up the small simulacrum, turned it over in his hands once, and stared at it.

He wouldn't know this. Not really. He brushed a thumb up and over the little mouth, the contours of its small face. Retroactively, I've never been this at all.

I'm no one to him.

Does this mean we can start over? The thought struck him like lightning, freezing his heart in his chest. He was fixed solid, staring down at the small figure in his hands.

Before he could even think, he'd already thrown it through the open closet door, landing noisily in the box he'd dug through with a clatter. He grabbed up the fallen clothes and items and stuffed them back in the box, burying the toy in mundane detritus, then closed the cardboard flaps and slammed the door of the closet for good measure.

His breath was laboured and he glared, like wishing it gone would make the closet itself disappear.

Answers. He needed answers, more than anything.

He ripped the door open, and there was Edgar who looked up, staring dumbly back at him and carrying the clothes he'd shed earlier over his arm. Something in his mind clicked over, and he didn't think about it.

"Alright," he caught his breath for half a second, "what do you remember?"

Edgar just kept on staring, mouth open, eyes unconfident behind weak glasses. Scriabin huffed irritably, I don't have time for this, and moved towards him, arm outstretched.

"Come on." Edgar gave a small startled sound behind him as he grabbed his collar and dragged him through the doorway. He threw him across the room, not bothering to watch his arc as he closed the door behind him. The bed was that way, he'd be fine.

When he turned back, Edgar had managed to catch himself, though already halfway on the bed. Scriabin stood with his back to the door, feet planted and he crossed his arms. No more speculating around impossibilities, tangible and present as they might be, it was time for a proper interrogation. It was at least preferable to-

Edgar made a face at him and scooted back, offering a seat next to him on the bed. Equal footing briefly flashed through his mind and while he wouldn't consider it ideal, nothing today was really going his way. He sighed, then made his way over and sat across from Edgar, who was eyeing him with a certain degree of caution. At least the feeling was mutual.

"Spill." He re-crossed his arms and leaned towards Edgar. "What do you know?"

Edgar hesitated, apparently thinking, his hands laced and fingers agitatedly if quietly rubbing the backs of his hands.

"I want to verify some things first."

Scriabin snorted dismissively. Where had Edgar's overly-trusting nature gone? A serial killer, well he's an honoured guest, but Scriabin? He didn't even distrust him for the right reasons.

He gestured with an open hand, Go ahead, then tucked his arm back in.

"Todd's last name?"

Pfsh. At least it was proof enough that anything Edgar knew, Scriabin did as well. As expected.

"Casil. His stupid bear's called Shmee in case you forgot that too." Edgar shook his head. No he hadn't? If only he could just check!

"Do you know our phone number?" Obviously he did, so he rattled it off quickly, Edgar nodding in turn. He flipped his hair in time with the last digit, careful to keep his eyes covered. It was a bit of a timid attempt, being the first in this body, which was a minor blessing he supposed.

Edgar mulled over what he'd given him for a moment, then a moment longer, then a moment even longer. His eyes searched absently, gazing down into his own hand, his other on his chin, lightly thumbing his goatee. He was focused on names and numbers, but those were child's play compared to everything, everything Scriabin still wanted to know. It was frustrating on a visceral level, watching him struggle with such simple innocuous nothings while the most important person in his life was sitting right in front of him.

He was supposed to be the most important.

It was frustrating.

"You really don't remember anything, do you?" He didn't hide the sneer as it shaped his voice - odd the way his body just did that now, did things without him actively thinking them into being. Even things like the little waver that made its way in that he pushed back down and under. He was frustrated, angry, tired - any emotionality could be attributed to those, nothing else.

Edgar didn't answer, just kept his gaze locked to his face. That was almost worse. Watching him fumble through things, it wasn't fun, but at least he wasn't trying to pry. He could see him try to look past his bangs, and the fact that he didn't know better...

Scriabin looked away for a moment, then thought better of it. Best defense is a good offense.

He reached for Edgar's face, for those damn scars, ever-present reminders. Edgar shied away, not wanting to be touched suddenly by someone he didn't know. As if Scriabin had ever cared about that.

Well, things were different now. Maybe he didn't really want to touch him anyway. Not yet.

"Do you remember these...?" Instead he framed his face with his hands less than an inch from his skin, and even there he could feel the heat coming off him. Edgar reached for his face, looking away from Scriabin as he touched the angry red marks. He winced minutely, then glanced back at Scriabin, searching him, his expression guarded again. Scriabin could hear his own pulse in his ears.

"...Johnny?"

"Fuck." Fuck! "Of course you'd remember him but not me." God damn it! It wasn't right, it wasn't fair, just because Johnny came first by a hair's breadth, just because he wasn't in Edgar's head, with Edgar's fucked up little obsession with the murderous stick figure- It limited what he could get away with too, if he remembered that far back. Absolutely nothing was going in his favour.

"I'm sorry..." He sounded genuinely remorseful, and it stuck in his throat. Disgusting. "So you know Johnny, too."

"Unfortunately." Scriabin tucked his chin to his chest, arms crossed again in close proximity. This sucks. Edgar just kept rambling, unaware as ever. His excuses held this time at least, one point in his favour, no points for bringing his annoying habits with him despite everything.

"I don't think I've seen him for a couple months now? Everything's awfully..." He gave a vague gesture and Scriabin uncurled slightly. He was giving him room to contribute. He shook his head.

"You haven't."

"Have you?"

He returned to his tight coil of sulking. Not like he was keen to meet up and chat, but he couldn't explain why he hadn't had the opportunity to either.

"I remember he called, too."

"Ugh," barely above breath. Enough about Johnny! Again, Edgar continued obliviously.

"Although I don't really recall what we talked about, not for a while..."

Of course not. I took over for half of those.

He perked a bit, and Edgar focused more on him, patiently setting his hands in his lap.

"You know."

He could play this to his advantage. Give Johnny some well-deserved karmic justice for fucking him over so many times. It was almost better that Edgar didn't know - Scriabin had been trying to get him away from Johnny all this time, and if he really had forgotten everything, not just the moments when Scriabin took over but every moment they had shared, then that meant it coincided almost perfectly with his first meeting with Johnny. Blank spot after blank spot after blank spot, all lined up immediately after getting his face slashed.

He could work with that.

"It's probably trauma." Edgar startled and his hand shot to his temple, lightly touching his hair.

"Like, head trauma?" Scriabing almost laughed. Yeah, probably that too. But that wouldn't help his case.

"No." He leaned in, taking a more intimate, secretive tone. "Think about it. When did things start getting fuzzy?" If he was right on this - which of course he was, but not being able to verify, not being able to see that he was right, it was disconcerting - but if he was, Edgar's memories of Scriabin should start with that first fateful encounter, give or take. A bit of reframing here, a touch of implication there... It probably wasn't even an outright lie; if Edgar's memory were perfect after experiencing everything Johnny had put them through, that would be some kind of twisted miracle.

His only real concern was their "childhood" - how much had Scriabin pulled with him? Would that throw off his story? But that was so far back, there was no way Scriabin or Johnny could be implicated in that. As long as Edgar didn't bring it up before he thought his way around it...

Edgar stayed quiet for a long while. His eyes raced behind closed eyelids, searching, scanning, retracing - Scriabin could almost see the moments where he hesitated, stopped and went back, then starting recollecting again. He wished he could see it for real, watch him unfold himself, touch those memories again, hold up his own in contrast. Even just hear Edgar's thoughts as they went by, feel the emotions he felt. But he couldn't, so he just stared as unblinkingly as this new body would allow, just watched as Edgar went over everything on his own.

He finally opened his eyes, staring back into Scriabin's though he was sure they were still hidden. He felt naked and awkward and Edgar still hadn't said anything. If he could just see like he was supposed to, or if Edgar would just tell him, he wouldn't have to ask. I have to do everything around here.

"It was after you met him, wasn't it?"

"You think it's...mental trauma?" An unspoken 'yes.' Relief flooded him, and he pushed ahead.

"Edgar. He stabbed you." Edgar gripped his shoulder, his eyes closing again and he looked to be in pain. That was a very effective reminder at least. "Do you even know why?" He shook his head and spoke throught half-grit teeth.

"I must have made him mad, but I don't remember-" Of course not, I did that.

"Your mind is trying to protect you." Not. But one of us has to with your inexhaustable deathwish. Scriabin reached out to touch him properly, but Edgar pulled away. He didn't follow, still not yet. Play up the pity. "He messed you up so bad," with a curl in his tone, an I told you so that barely made it to words even privately; how long had he been holding that in? "Surely you must've felt like you wanted, you needed to get away from him, that he wasn't good for you, that you-" He'd told him so many times, some it must have stuck, some of it had to have-

"Then-!" Edgar's eyes shot open, wide and desperate with an edge of disbelief. A strangled gasp escaped him, half-choking him as he tried to speak. "Then why can't I remember you?!"

He almost began rolling off the cuff, but really, he still didn't know for sure. And it definitely wasn't like he could tell the truth even if he wanted to; who, who hadn't lived it, would believe him? Edgar certainly wouldn't, not with his lack of imagination. He had to dress this up, weave a narrative that was plausible, had the perfect mix of truth and falsehood to stand up to scrutiny.

Huh. Ironic.

"I..." No. Some of this was Edgar's fault too. "We...argued."

"Argued?"

"I... Mng." He wanted to aim for some kind of levity, but his throat had tightened on him. He just wanted to tell this stupid inside joke and not have it affect him, not have it mean anything, and here he was getting emotional? He'd say it and fucking mean it. "It's not like I'm in your head, so-" spat out in a rush, there, he'd said it. Haha, isn't that so funny. He swallowed harshly, pushing down everything he felt into his stomach acid. He was in control. He was fine. This didn't shake him. "I can't know for sure," another humourless laugh inside, "but I was against your relationship with Johnny. Maybe you shut me out so you could keep seeing him with no pushback."

It certainly wasn't outside the realm of possibilities of what Edgar would do to avoid taking Scriabin's extremely basic advice about fraternizing with serial killers. How many times had he been ignored up to this point, only to culminate in the ultimate 'I don't know what you're talking about.' Pfeh. I bet he wishes he'd thought of this sooner. It did nothing for his painfully stuttered pulse.

"You know, I've been trying to convince you to stop going back to him for a while, but, well..." He waved his hand at Edgar's hand still death gripped into his shoulder, and Edgar averted his eyes guiltily. At least he showed some remorse. Better than his nigh constant apologia.

He stayed quiet a moment longer, and just before Scriabin made to fill the silence again, Edgar struck him with an intense look.

"What are you to me?" Ugh. Of course. There was not a single good answer for that. Even if he told him everything- no, especially if he told him everything, there was no way Edgar would believe him. But coming up with a convincing lie on the spot, when they were so clearly something to each other - even he needed time to come up with something workable. How could he have ever prepared for a situation like this? It was never meant to happen, so many things were never meant to happen!

He continued at Scriabin's silence. "You know Nny," Ugh! Even his awful nickname. "And Todd. And...me." He couldn't refute it, so he nodded tightly. "Do you live here?"

Technically he had, and technically he hadn't. Still, going forward, it would be easier to let Edgar assume that he did. It wasn't like he had anywhere else to go at the moment anyway.

"Yes."

"Are we..." He searched him, looked him over as much as he could and he wasn't subtle about it. If only Scriabin had his proper glasses, he'd let him look as much he wanted, behold his spectacle! As it was, he just felt self-conscious and it was very unbefitting. "...family?"

The baggage on that. He did not feel like opening that particular can of worms in either of their current states. He turned his head and flipped through any number of halfway decent ways to phrase it until he hit on something Edgar would remember. Better not to contradict for now.

"You told Johnny you have no family when you met."

"That's true..." Edgar blinked, processing. "Wait, did I tell you that?" Scriabin startled. Even after he'd accounted for his memory! Of course he had to pick his story apart now, he never knew when to leave well enough alone.

"When you-" No, he had to be involved. "When we bandaged your face."

Edgar mulled on that for a few seconds, taking on a thoughtful pose. "I only remember being alone."

"You don't remember me at all. What do you want from me?" He huffed.

"No, sorry, you're right."

"Thank you." He was right!

Where had Edgar expected him to be? There was something weird about how he'd said it. He filed the thought away for later.

"So, if you've been living here, where..." Edgar looked around the room, then back to Scriabin. "Where have you been sleeping? Todd's already on the couch..."

Scriabin couldn't help as a smile sprung to his face. If he was going to present him with such a perfect opportunity, well, he'd better take it. He even had the decency to look nervous in response! This was too good.

"Would you believe me if I said right here, in bed?" He again tucked his chin, playfully this time, his hair falling further in his eyes. Even through the dark tangles he could make out Edgar's face immediately bristling with heat.

Ooh. That's such a fetching shade on you, my dear.

"But-! I, I haven't been sleeping on the floor!" He was visibly sweating!

"Correct." His smile grew. This was too easy, and he needed an easy win right about now.

"W-" He leaned forward on his legs, though refused to get any closer. When he spoke it was a harsh whisper. "Why...?"

Scriabin shrugged easily, not bothering to reign in his smile in the least. "I mean, where else, right?" He leaned in since Edgar refused to, and oh. He was blushing all the way up to his scalp. Hilarious. "You certainly didn't seem to mind." He couldn't hold back the slightly musical tone or his eyebrows inclination to move on their own. His body knew what he was getting at, and he could see it only increased Edgar's fluster. All the better.

"Well I do now!" Edgar darted up and away, stumbling in his hasty retreat. "If you'll excuse me!" though he was already practically in the hallway by the time he said it. What a display, and Scriabin's laugh was loud and natural.

Finally, something positive. He'd managed to fumble his way through, not his best work in lying or manipulation, but he'd set some important groundwork. He'd gotten some answers, and he could start to shape some more believable stories around them.

The biggest hurdles were Johnny and Devi. As long as Edgar didn't meet with them too soon - or well, at all would be preferable, but he doubted he could just keep him locked up, as much as the idea appealed to him. There were so many things that were possible now, things that he had the ability to do, given the right circumstances... All of that in due time. For now he had a yarn to spin.

He listened as Edgar fumbled in the hall, the sheer sound of cloth being pulled and folded over an arm barely perceptable. Was he really going to try to sleep on what little was left over? Maybe he'd give up once he realized the pickings were thin and beg Scriabin to let him sleep with him. Hah.

While he was out, Scriabin made his way over to the pajamas drawer. They were all old and soft, even just to his hand. They'd do for now, until he could get his own. It wasn't like he hadn't worn all this before anyway.

By the time he'd finished dressing, his clothes discarded on the opposite side of the bed to where Edgar had set up his little nest, Edgar had finally gotten himself a set of pajamas. He wondered for a moment if he'd dress with Scriabin in the room again, though maybe his intense stare drove him off. Who could say. He patted the bed with a wide grin when he returned and was dutifully ignored. He settled down to the side, and Scriabin laid on his arms to look down at him.

"Ugh, lame."

"I don't-"

"Yeah, whatever." He'd heard it all before. At least he could literally look down on him like this. He folded his hands and leaned just a bit further, looking him over. A desire he hadn't realized he had surfaced in the dark and quiet. "Give me your hand."

"Sorry?" Scriabin held out his hand expectantly.

"I used to hear your heart beat every day." Edgar looked at him incredulously, but Scriabin was unperturbed. "Let me hear it again."

He hesitated but eventually slowly offered his arm. "...Okay."

He pulled his arm up and placed his thumb against his wrist. He felt a strange mismatch - where he'd been expecting one heartbeat, there were two. He covered his surprise, near shock at the realization that of course he had his own body now, by pulling harder on Edgar's arm, directing him up to his ear.

"Wh-"

"Shh." Quietly. He had wanted this, wanted this body, this separation, this freedom for so long, and now... He spoke quietly, his voice betraying nothing. "I'm listening."

Edgar's pulse was erratic, but he hardly paid attention to it. His own fingers on Edgar's skin, warm and pliant, and Edgar's fingers twitching in his hair, he could feel it, he was trying not to touch him- This hesitation was killing him, every jerky movement away not from fear of what Scriabin could do to him, just uncertainty, like he was still a stranger- He pressed him harder to his head, and he could feel goosebumps under his fingers. He wanted to just hold him there until all the memories they'd shared poured back through him, into his blood, into his breath.

Where are you?

But he replied in that same uncertain, guarded tone that indicated he didn't know, not really.

"C...can I have my arm back now?"

He pushed him away. "Fine." Edgar curled his hand protectively against his chest, and he noticed he rubbed it slightly, he probably hadn't even realized.

He mumbled out a harried "Good night," and it was almost enough to make Scriabin smile. Almost. He could still affect him but this wasn't enough, it wasn't right.

He laid his head on the pillow, not bothering to pull his arm up over the side of the bed. If he twitched in the night and touched Edgar, well, that could mean anything. Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe he did it on purpose. Plausible deniability was one of his greatest assets.

As it was, he was just tired. Maybe he didn't pull it back because he hated the thought of sleeping alone, pushed out and forgotten, and hated it more that he was even thinking something like that. How pathetic. He didn't need anyone, especially not Edgar.

But he was tired. Not in his right mind.

Does this mean we can start over...?

The thought echoed and died, and he slept.

#💟#Fanfiction #Blank Slate AU #Edgar #Scriabin #Todd #Shmee #He's technically in there but once again no speaking lines :P Yet anyway lol #It's fanfic time again! I fell into yet another writing fugue and finished Chapters 1 and 2 in like four days lol #If you'll notice tho ♪ Neither of those chapters are featured under the cut :3c Pls do read Ch. 1 at least to get caught up before diving in #This one took a bit longer but that'd be because it's Almost as big as both previous chapters combined lol #I'll update it to the chapter list in a few days! Y'all get a preview here :D It'll be the same there with slightly different formatting #Decided to try something new since tumblr doesn't normally allow underlines but it's very important to Scriabin's syntax #I promise they're all just links to the first chapter lol - you're welcome to check but I promise I didn't put a sneaky link anywhere lol #My one gripe is that it doesn't look as good on-blog :/ Fine on the dash! But I'm not willing to sacrifice the dark colouration on the links #Italics were chosen as the only light feature for a reason ♪#I mean at least it's not Bolded lol I'll take it #These were a lot of fun to write so far ahhh <3 I've been wanting to dig a little deeper for a long while now!#I mentioned this idea offhandedly in the tags of Incoming Outgoing but ahhh it's very rewarding to put to words :D #Fun Fun Fun

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bookishnerdhero · 11 days

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I haven't been using or opening my Tumblr since 2020! I know it's been a long time, but last April, literally this 2024, I went back to my Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons OUAT AU fic on Archive of Our Own. I took all the pressure off my shoulders about it. I allowed myself to enjoy the process.

Hello! I missed the Big Four fandom here on Tumblr. I'm wondering if you guys are still around!

I don't know if I'll continue to be active here on Tumblr, but I'm certain I'll be continuing this fic!

Please consider following and giving a kudos on my AO3:

Read the Fic here!

#rotbtd #rotbtfd #rise of the brave tangled dragons #the big four #mericcup fanfiction #mericcup #jelsa

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the-frostiest-of-flakes · 6 months

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We're A Team!

Fandom: rotbtd | Characters: Hiccup, Jack Frost, Merida, Rapunzel

Prompt(s): Hiccup, "We're a team!"

Word count: 609 | Warnings: None | Read on AO3

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Twenty-eight hours.

That was how long it had been since anyone had seen Jack Frost. Which wasn’t exactly saying something, considering only a handful of people could actually see him. No, what was concerning was that the four of them were supposed to be on a mission together, and he had been missing since Hiccup woke up the day before.

“He’ll be back soon,” Rapunzel re-assured, giving Toothless scratches in his favorite spots. “Maybe he just lost track of time.”

Merida scoffed. “He’s probably just goofin’ off again.”

Hiccup wanted to believe them. He wanted either of them to be right with every fiber of his being. But he could tell they didn’t fully believe it either, what with Rapunzel nervously biting her lip and Merida glancing at her bow every five seconds.

Sighing, he rose from the moss-covered stone he had been using as a seat. Before Jack had disappeared it had been covered in a light dusting of frost, but now it was adorned in the colors of spring. “Toothless and I will do another fly-by. Just in case.”

“But you just did one!” The blonde exclaimed.

“You’ll wear the both of ye out.” Pointing her knife — which she had been using to carve a decent likeness of their dragon friend — at him, Merida leaned forward. “It’s no good usin’ up all your energy when we dinnae have a clue where he is.”

“Here’s a clue for you; turn around.”

Three heads snapped towards the familiar voice, finding an amused Jack leaning against a tree, nonchalance oozing off of him in thick waves.

“See, he’s fine.” Merida went back to her carving. “Now do you want to wallop him or should I?”

Grinding his teeth together, Hiccup ignored her. “Where were you Jack? You’ve been gone for a whole day.”

The spirit cringed, opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and then settled for a simple shrug. “Around.”

Oh-ho-ho-ho, he was going to have to do better than ‘around’. “You can’t just go running off on your own, Jack! We’re a team! We have to work together.”

“What’s the big deal? I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“The big deal is that you left without telling us! We were worried about you!”

Jack frowned, pushing himself off of the tree. “What are you talking about? I left you guys a note.”

“You— You what?”

Jack strode over to the other side of their campsite. “Yeah, I left it under a rock over here and—” He faltered, tearing what remained of a soggy, crumpled mess from underneath a small stone. “Oh.”

Hiccup threw his hands up in the air. “‘Oh’, he says. Unbelievable.”

“In my defense, I don’t control the weather.”

“Did you find out anything while you were gone?” Rapunzel asked.

Sighing, Jack ran a hand through his snow-white hair. “No. I noticed an old acquaintance was in the neighborhood and went to see if he knew anything that could help us. But…it was a dead end.” He flashed an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”

Merida rose from her spot, brushing flakes of wood off herself as she approached the spirit. “Well next time you decide to go gallivanting off on your own, tell us first.” She gave his forehead a good flick. “Got it, dummy?”

He rubbed the spot she had hit, letting out a small chuckle. “Yeah, yeah. It won’t happen again.”

And as the four began cleaning up their campsite, falling back into their familiar, amiable rhythm, a large, bunny-shaped figure loped away through the bushes as quietly as possible. After all, there was still much to be done till spring would be finished.

#i kind of want to figure out what their mission is and expand on it more #i may do that later and make a multi-chapter fic who knows #frosted words #rotbtd #bigfourfest2023 #the big four #hiccup haddock #jack frost #merida #rapunzel #rise of the brave tangled dragons #fanfiction #ao3 link #oneshot

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ppeasants · 8 months

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I've been working on the final chapter of my Wind-centric fic, 'Fish Out of Water,' and I wanted to post a WIP of my current progress. I've been having some trouble wording this final chapter, but I managed to get this out, and I wanted to post it so y'all could let me know if it's any good!

To give some context for the story (which if you haven't read it yet you can find it here), Wind has been feeling isolated from the other members of The Chain due to his differences from them. He's tried to connect, but it hasn't really worked, save for Sky, who he found companionship with.

However, Wind and Sky recently got into a huge argument, causing a huge rift between them, and between that and various other incidents, Wind has decided to leave the group when they arrive in his world. It's been weeks of Wind being sad and unresponsive, worrying everyone.

They've arrived in the Great Sea, and he calls Tetra to pick them up and drop the others off at Windfall. Wind is happier than he's been in weeks, which they notice, and Wind decides to fake his happiness for one more day, so he can leave them without them knowing. Tetra picks them up, and they go sailing.

This is half a combat scene, half a heavy dialogue scene. I am not used to writing combat scenes, and considering this is a big emotional moment, I wanted to do this section justice. It is pretty angsty, so fair warning. Please let me know if it's good, if the action flows well, or if everything makes sense!

(The Queensguard is the name I gave Tetra's ship, and The Red Knight is the name I gave the King of Red Lions without the king's soul in it).

“Captain!” Zuko yells from the crow’s nest. “Big Octo off th’ starboard side!” Tetra tsks and pulls out her spyglass, turning towards the cluster of seagulls to her right. She tosses the telescope to Wind before he can pull his own out, and almost fumbles it before catching it, groaning and muttering something about Tingle Island as he spots the birds.

Four and Warriors look at the two in confusion as they step away from the wheel “What’s a Big Octo?” Warriors asks. “Is that like an Octorok?”

“Yeah, somethin’ like that!” Wind calls out over his shoulder, untying a rope attached to a small boat as Tetra leaves to direct her crew. “Big doesn’t mean rowboat sized, by the way. Big means larger-than-this-ship sized. With many tentacles and double as many eyes all which drag any ship down to Hy- to the depths.”

“So, what are we gonna do?” Four asks, turning towards Time.

Wind scowls at being ignored in his own world. “We aren’t going to do anything,” Wind interrupts in a harsh voice. “I am going to sail over there and take it out.” He finishes untying the knot and is about to walk away when Twilight grabs his arm.

“What do you mean by that?” The rancher is holding his wrist tightly as Wind looks up at him defiantly. “There’s no way that we’re gonna let you fight this thing.”

“Why? Is it because I’m too young? Too inexperienced? Too fragile?” Wind yanks his arm out of Twilight’s grips and jabs his finger into Twilight’s chest. “Because the last time I checked, I’m the only one who knows how to kill this beast. I’m the only one who knows how to navigate these water. I’m the only one who knows how to throw a boomerang in a boat without tipping over.

And I’m sure as hell the only one who can fit in the Red Knight.”

Wind walks away from the group, with Twilight’s retort getting stopped on his tongue by Time putting a hand on his shoulder. “Okay sailor, this is your world. we’ll defer to you.” Wind turns, a look of shock in his face, like he never expected to be acknowledged by his former hero. “But, if anything goes wrong, you will call Wild on the slate. We’ll support you however we can from here.”

Wind gives a nod, and jumps over the railing into a small red dinghy with a figurehead of a lion frozen in the middle of a roar. “Tetra!” He calls out to his captain. “Lower the ship!”

Tetra gives a salute and a smile, and cuts one last rope, which drops the sailor’s dinghy right into the ocean. There’s a pause before a chime sounds, and the breeze changes direction and The Red Knight sails towards its target.

Tetra directs the crew, turning her ship to follow behind Wind as the rest of The Chain are standing in worry on the bow. Legend and Hyrule are still down in the lower deck, but the others have gathered beside a pacing Twilight.

Before anyone can say anything to offer comfort or assurance, a gigantic Octorok springs up from the Great Sea, bringing with it a giant whirlpool that threatens to swallow the entire ocean. The heroes gasp as Wind’s ship gets caught in the swirling water, but instead of sinking, he lowers his sail and rides the whirlpool.

He raises his boomerang, aims, and throws, launching it directly into 5 of the eyes on its back, causing it to screech and flail, tentacles crashing into the ocean, creating waves that nearly tip The Red Knight over. Wind just tightens his grip and grimaces as the kraken recovers much faster than he’s used to.

The sailor swears under his breath and kicks the deck of his boat, raising his cannon and pulling back to dodge a wave before firing a bomb right in the middle of its face. The monster lets out a terrible roar, and where at first its eyes are unfocused, looking at every movement across the ocean, it now turns all of its eyes to the young sailor, black blood slowly dripping from its fresh injury.

“...fuckin’ Zephos.” Wind mutters to himself, before pulling out his Gossip Stone. “Wild! This one’s got black blood!” He yells into the stone, ducking to avoid a tentacle that nearly takes his head clean off. “I got an idea! Tell Tetra to approach in range of the Big Octo! When I give the signal, I need you all to shoot at this thing’s eyes with as many arrows as you can!”

“What about my ship?!” Tetra yells over Wild’s shoulder into the slate.

“Don’t worry! I’ll make sure y’all’re safe!” Tetra can feel his grin through the slate, but before she can reprimand him he hangs up the call and shoots another bomb. Tetra drags her hand across her face before turning back to the crew.

“You heard him! Bring the ship in range! And you!” She whips around, pointing a finger at The Chain. “Make sure you don’t miss.”

It takes another trip around the whirlpool for Wind before The Queensguard finally gets in range, the other heroes drawing their bows as the pirate shooting bombs and narrowly dodging swipes the entire time. Wind has wound a rope around his arm, tied to the till to secure himself and steer with one hand while he mans the cannon with the other. He yells to hold their arrows until he gets to the opposite side of the Big Octo, so its attention can be divided between two vessels.

Just as he fires another bomb at the beast, right before he gets out of sight of Tetra’s vessel, it raises a tentacle and catches it mid-flight. Wind could swear it gives him a smirk before it throws the bomb back where it came from. Wind only has a second to react, pulling hard on the rope, causing the rope to rip into his flesh as he narrowly manages to turn out of the way of a direct hit, but he can’t avoid the oncoming wave, as the ship turns over and capsizes, dragging him under the water.

“LINK!!!” Tetra calls out as the young hero disappears behind the Big Octo, a similar cacophony coming from all sides of her ship, her crew and the heroes wailing like the breeze for the little sailor.

No response comes, however, as Tetra grips the railing of her ship so hard her knuckles turn while, a stark contrast to the blood seeping out of the kraken, who has now turned all of its attention towards The Queensguard. She braces herself for the impact of it’s outstretched tentacle, when –

*BOOM*

– a loud noise comes from behind the beast, a harsh screech erupting from its mouth as it twists around. A second passes before Wind appears on the other side of the Big Octo, still riding the whirlpool, standing atop his now overturned ship, the cut rope hanging loosely from his wrist, holding a bomb in his free hand with the bomb bag open beside him.

“NOW! FIRE!” Wind shouts as he throws the bomb at the Octo’s back, causing it to thrash and focus its gaze on the little hero. Before it can even finish turning around, however, a volley of arrows fly out from The Queensguard, slamming into the kraken’s thick skin and finding purchase in its eyes.

The Octorok flails around, unable to find a target between its seared flesh and punctured eyeballs, black blood staining the ocean like oil, before a burst of light pierces its body and sails into the clouds, as the creature finally stops moving and flops into the sea, exploding in a burst of dark purple smoke.

Tetra looks on alongside The Chain, shocked and concerned, as Wind falls to one knee, dropping his bow as the magic used for the Light Arrow takes its toll. He thinks he can hear the others call his name, but he barely registers them as he allows his muscle memory to kick in, moving solely on autopilot as he jumps in the water to right his ship, all adrenaline leaving his body as he barely manages to climb in. He flops tiredly on to the tiny deck of his boat, heaving out tired breaths as he waits to get picked up by his captain.

It takes a while for The Queensguard to float beside the Red Knight, the large vessel moving with much less finesse as its miniature counterpart, the help that the first mate usually gives in aligning the two ships noticeably missing. When they finally get in position to reattach Wind’s ship to Tetra’s, the sailor is standing up, still tired, but still able to tie connecting ropes to his ship before they pull him up above the railing.

Warriors and Time catch Wind as he stumbles over the railings, with Hyrule offering red potions and healing magic, having come above deck with Legend during the skirmish, the latter still standing in the doorway.

It takes a few minutes, and a potion, before Wind can stand on his own, but he does manage it eventually. The crew are congratulating him on his victory, which Wind returns with sheepish smiles. The Chain are doing so, as well, but they are a lot more subdued in their praise, their worry seeping through the words.

All, except for Twilight, who is still pacing back and forth along the deck, nearly burning a hole through the wood. Wind raises his head and meets his gaze, which is enough of an invitation for Twilight to stomp towards the sailor, his expression darkening. Wind subconsciously takes a step back as Twilight looms over him.

“What were you thinking?!” Wind flinches at the rancher’s near-shout. “It was extremely dangerous to go alone! You could’ve gotten hurt! You could’ve drowned!”

“B-but I didn’t drown.” Wind stammers out, looking down in surprise at Twilight’s outburst. “I’m fine now.”

“That doesn’t make it okay! You shouldn’t have been out there!” Twilight glares down at Wind, almost as if he’s scolding one of the village kids. “You should’ve let one of us handle it.”

“Should’ve let – what?” Wind looks back up at Twilight , confused. “I couldn’t have let one of you handle it. I’m the only one who could have went out there.”

“No you’re not!” Twilight’s voice picks up in volume even more, his stress overtaking his common sense. “One of us could’ve sailed around.”

“But you couldn’t have. I’m the only one who knows how to sail a ship like that” Wind is searching Twilight’s face, wondering where these questions are coming from “And if one of you did know, you don’t know how to ride the whirlpools to survive. And none of you now how those Big Octo work!”

“Then you should’ve stayed here, let this ship approached with everyone!”

“That would’ve been so much worse!” Wind is getting louder, too. If the rest of The Chain and Tetra’s Crew weren’t paying attention before, they certainly are now. “Even we all shot at once, there’s no way we would’ve killed that beast before it counter \attacked, and it definitely would’ve sunk us all.”

“We’re heroes!” Twilight is slightly quieter now, his common sense returning, although his worry is still causing him to yell. “We’re fine taking that risk!”

“It’s not your ship to make that call!” Wind is definitely yelling now, having gotten louder than Twilight at this point. “It’s Tetra’s! I’m not putting her, and her crew, and The Queensguard at risk! And if this ship broke, we definitely would’ve died. There’s no way we’d survive long enough in this ocean with no ship!

“And what do you mean you’ll take that risk?” Wind questions, with Twilight’s words having finally caught up to him. “Am I not a hero too? Can I not take that risk too?”

“NO! You can’t! Because you’re still a KID!”

Twilight’s statement hangs in the air as every stands still; even the breeze quiets as Wind just stares at Twilight, his face slowly morphing into one of anger, as Twilight dons a look of regret.

“So that’s what this is about. Of course.” Twilight flinches at Wind’s dark tone, although his voice is barely above a whisper. “Don’t trust the child to make any decisions, even if he’s the only one who knows how to actually deal with these monsters. No, he’s just a dumb little kid!”

“Why can’t you just fucking trust me!” Wind is definitely yelling now, gesticulating wildly and walking forwards, as Twilight now takes a step back. “It’s our rule to defer to the Link whose world it is! But you just couldn’t do that with me! ‘Cause I’m just a fucking kid! Your head is so far up your fucking asshole that you can see you food digest in real time! Maybe if –”

“ENOUGH.” Time’s voice rings out across the ship, quieting the two heroes. Twi’, go and cool off.”

The oldest turns to the youngest, putting a hand on his shoulder as Twilight turns away. “Wind, you know Twilight was just worried. You need to watch your language and apologize to him.” Wind stiffens at the reprimand, and just as Time is satisfied and begins to turn away, Wind answers back.

“No."

Time stops in his tracks, his face draining of all emotion as he looks Wind in the eyes. "What did you say?"

"Did you not hear me?" Wind says angrily as he knocks Time's hand off his shoulder. "Are your ears too full of seawater after being on a ship for only three hours? Are you that old? Or are you just that stupid?"

"Wind, stop it." Four answers from behind the sailor. "That's going too far."

"Shut your fuckin' mouth, shortie. You're no better than them." Wind whips around, pointing a finger at Four who stills at the insult. "You went to ask Time about how to kill the Octo, even though we're in my world, and facing one of my monsters.

"Okay, that's enough Wind. Let's just calm down." Hyrule goes to pat Wind's arm, but the young hero turns and grabs him tightly, dragging him down with a pained yelp.

"If you try to touch me again, I will break your fucking wrist." Wind harshly drops Hyrule's wrist, who hisses in pain as he rubs his already fractured wrist.

Everyone is stunned into silence, Tetra and her crew watching on in muted horror, the breeze picking up in speed, almost as if it's responding to its namesake's anger. Wind takes a deep breath as he speaks up once more.

"I'm done.”

“I’m just done. I’m just fucking done.” Wind’s voice echoes across the vessel even as the breeze kicks up around them. “I am done pretending to be cordial, pretending to be your little brother, pretending to be okay. I thought I could fake this until we got to Windfall, but I couldn’t even manage that.”

“I am done taking your disrespect of my world, of my journey, of ME.” Wind’s words are getting frantic, eyes darting to glare at every member of The Chain, each one standing slack-jawed.

“I am done having my experience disregarded just because I’m a kid. I mean, you all know that I’ve been on more journeys than half of you, right? Yet somehow, you still see me as lesser, treat me as lesser. Jumping in front of blows I could have dodged, berating my strategies, and complaining when I FINALLY get to take charge in a fight! All because, what, I’m below some arbitrary age limit to be a hero? Fuck that!”

“Whenever I talked to you about my shit, you just ignored me!” His voice pierces the heroes’ hearts more than the gale whipping around them. “You’d look at me with pity, like a dumb child whenever I asked about things I didn’t know, while talking to each other about things that you all understood! Whenever I tried to do that, you’d say you didn’t know, and brush me off!”

Wind turns to point at Sky, who cowers under the attention. “And the only person who I THOUGHT would understand me fucking HATES me now!” Wind is shouting, now, his words carrying even over the burgeoning storm and crashing waves.

“You all thought you were protecting me, but all you did was HURT me! EVERY time, you were only HURTING ME! You all are too stuck in your own trauma to see you’re not the only one hurting! I’ve already been through my shit, you weren’t PROTECTING me from ANYTHING! All you did was isolate me!!”

Wind’s voice quiets ever so slightly, but the breeze only gets stronger, everyone straining their ears to hear the sailor. “I don’t belong here, with you guys. You all made it more than clear enough. It’s fine though, I don’t want to be with you guys either.”

“Like I said, I’m done. I’m leaving.”

Wind looks down at the deck, tears forming in his eyes as he stands there, naively waiting for someone to say something, one last spark of hope, that someone might convince him to stay. Maybe he would listen.

But they don’t say anything.

If Wind looked up, he would see the panic, the fear, the sadness in their expressions, and maybe he would think twice about his words. Maybe he would understand how much they care for him, how much they need him, not because he’s a capable hero, but because he’s their brother.

Maybe, if one of the heroes spoke up, they would tell him that he isn’t alone. That they understand what it's like to be isolated, for their young age, for their status; from their homes, from their loved ones, from their worlds.

If Wind looked up, maybe somebody would be spurred into action, someone would say something, anything to apologize, to get him to stay, and he would listen.

Instead, all they give him is silence, and all Wind hears is acceptance.

“Right. Of course.” Wind sniffles. “When we get to Windfall, we’re dropping you off, and you can all go continue your blasted fucking quest, and I’ll finally leave you guys behind. I’ll finally stay home.”

“This is good-bye. Hopefully forever.”

Wind runs below deck, shoving Legend out of the way and slamming the door behind him, the sound of the old wood and heavy breeze shaking the ship, knocking The Chain out of their minds and into the present, where they finally realize what just happened.

Wind is gone.

(I promise there will be a happy ending, but that will come at the ending!)

#linked universe #lu wind #fanfiction #wip #lu twilight #lu four #tetra #all of the angst #this is a big moment so i want to do it justice

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transhoverfish · 2 months

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SECOND TO LAST CHAPTER IS FINISHED. LETS GO GIRLS.

#its so weird. like theres one more chapter and then im like.... done w all my subnaut fics #like other than those other aus ive posted about but. tbh i never really intended to WRITE any of those #bc i would be here forever if i tried every single idea i came up with #but this is like the last big project i have planned for this fandom #and its. its weird!!!! ive been writing these fics for. what. four years?? five??#theres an end in sight and its like. huh.#NOT TO SAY IM GOING AWAY FOREVER OBVS. IM STILL GONNA BE HERE.#but no more 20k+ word stories until at LEAST sub3 #sorry this has nothing to do w the fic at all EVERYONE ENJOY THIS CHAPTER IS A BIT OF A LONGER ONE TO MAKE UP FOR THE WAIT #final chapter will be out before the end of the week !!!!!#once again wtf r my tags #fanfic #fanfiction #subnautica: new years eve #subnautica spoilers

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infinite-orangepeel · 1 year

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HELP ME CHOOSE THE PLOT FOR MY STEDDIE BIG BANG FIC !!! POLL AT THE BOTTOM !! (i can’t decide so pls give me some feedback/assistance, much appreciated)

A) modern au. steve and tommy are two years into an already tumultuous, manipulative, abusive, and severely toxic marriage. steve wants out—deep down he really does—but tommy won’t let him leave. however, he is able to convince his husband to attend couples therapy with him. their therapist is, of course, an aged up, very hot eddie munson. eddie, who, is hiding his own dark past. he’s 29, steve and tommy are 25 (so a bit of an age gap). steve becomes enamored with eddie, especially when he rushes to steve’s defense any time tommy starts berating/insulting him during session. and some of eddie’s therapeutic tactics might be a bit non-traditional (i.e. perhaps he gets fed up enough at some point to slam tommy against the wall and threaten his life…) but steve can’t help feeling desperately drawn to him.

B) mid-late 90’s au. steve’s 22 years-old and sick and tired of living at home with his douchebag dad (his mom left a few years back to start a new family). he’s bored out of his mind, his friends have all gone off to college, meanwhile he’s trapped in his palace of a house trying to prove his sobriety. see, in high school, he had a bit of a drug problem and well—now his dad won’t even consider paying his way through college or let him out of his sight so he’s kind of trapped. and to make matters worse, his dads hired on this new assistant who steve can’t stand. the guy seriously makes his skin crawl. his name’s eddie, he’s around steve’s age (which is weird bc most of his dads assistants are usually in their 30’s or 40’s). he’s got an eerie darkness about him, tattoos covering every inch of his skin, a silver nose ring, and somehow—to steve’s great dismay—makes it’s all look stupidly hot when he comes to work in a dress shirt and slacks. oh…and last week, steve accidentally caught him stumbling into his father’s bedroom well past midnight…in a leather body harness and nothing else….

#can’t decide but both have been floating around in my brain for a while #lmk what you think #fan service lol #steddie #steddie big bang #steddie au #steddie fic #steddie fic recs #steddie fanfiction #ao3 steddie #steddie ao3 fic #eddie munson #steve harrington #fruity four #stranger things #steve x eddie #steve harrington/eddie munson #steddie brainrot #steddie headcanon

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bambiraptorx · 7 months

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Draxum and Big Mama have a talk.

This is the first time I've written actual dialogue for Big Mama and it was pretty fun.

#rottmnt #rottmnt au #draxum raises the turtles au #mcmt au #rottmnt baron draxum #rottmnt mikey #rottmnt big mama #michelangelo hamato #turtle tots #<- because mikey's like four in this chapter lol #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt fanfiction

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waywardsalt · 1 month

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so. i've had an idea for a warrior cats fanfiction story, and have spent the last few years hammering out characters, the clans, how they work, the story... a whole lot of stuff. i've tried writing it before, and right now i don't have a current draft of early chapters, but I did recently write out a scene from much later in the story, and i'm pretty happy with it, soooo... here! a warrior cats fic scene i wrote in like an hour a week ago

By the time she led ShadeClan to the Gathering site, Emberstar felt her anxieties lessen. Her foreleg ached from the effort of the journey, but she kept her head high. Beside her, Acornfall glanced back at their clan, then nodded over to Emberstar. He led the clan down into the Gathering hollow, and Emberstar padded over to the slope up to the leader’s perch. PineClan and CliffClan cats were already quietly milling about in the hollow, and up on the overhang she could see Lakestar and Wolfstar waiting. There was no MoorClan scent among the gathered cats.

Emberstar made her way up the slope she’d seen Gorsestar and Froststar before her traverse. It was a thin path, slowly becoming steeper and steeper as she slunk closer to the overhang, finally reaching the steep, gravelly slope that led up to the leaders’ perch. Down at the base of the cliff, she could see Acornfall joining the other deputies with a polite nod of his head, and Troutfoot was carefully weaving her way through the crowd to meet with the other healers. Emberstar twitched her whiskers when Lakestar and Wolfstar noticed her. She crouched and tensed her back legs and leapt up the slope.

It wasn’t enough to reach the top, but she reached out with her forepaw and sunk her claws into the loose gravel and dug her back paws into the ground to keep from slithering back down. She slowly inched forward, moving a kittenstep at a time, but she kept her eyes fixed on the other leaders, more determined than ashamed of herself. Emberstar forced herself up the slope, but her heart skipped a beat when the gravel under her paw proved too loose to get a good enough grip- so close to the top, too. What a shame she had no other forepaw to lash out and find a grip with.

Emberstar felt herself begin to slide back down the slope, but a pair of jaws grasped her by the scruff and hoisted her up onto the overhang. She clawed at the grass and stumbled a step when let go and turned to meet Wolfstar’s amused gaze. “Careful there, three-paw,” the CliffClan leader gruffly purred. “It’s bad luck to fall at your first Gathering as leader.” She brushed past Emberstar to sit back down next to Lakestar.

With a huff, Emberstar followed her with a shake of her pelt. “I appreciate your help, but I would have been fine on my own. I suppose I owe you now?”

Wolfstar’s whiskers twitched. “Are you saying ShadeClan is now in CliffClan’s debt?”

The young leaders stared at each other, then broke out into amused purrs. Lakestar rolled her eyes and wrapped her tail around her paws. “So, you are ShadeClan’s leader now, Emberstar? Or is it still Emberblaze?”

“It is Emberstar now. I visited the Moon Cavern for my lives only a few sunrises ago.”

“May StarClan light your path as leader, then.” Lakestar stiffly dipped her head. Despite the brusque words, there was genuine respect in her pale eyes.

Wolfstar’s own eyes were still bright with humor. “You’ll be great, I know it. What happened to Froststar, then?”

Emberstar narrowed her eyes and turned her gaze to the gathered cats. “I’ll explain that once the Gathering begins. MoorClan is late tonight.” She surveyed the crowd of cats, peering straight down at the huddled healers. Sitting with her back to her PineClan clanmates, Flarelight was sitting close to Troutfrost. After a moment, she gazed up at the overhang, and her eyes met Emberstar’s. Her eyes grew wide and she stared at her littermate for a long moment until another healer got her attention. Then, as if she’d seen nothing, Flarelight flicked her tail and joined the conversation. Her twitching tail-tip was the only hint that she was distracted. Emberstar blinked. She’d become leader so recently that not even the other healers knew, much less the other clans’ warriors. In the crowd of CliffClan cats, she spotted Sunscorch, sitting with his fur brushing Moonwhisper’s, his eyes wide and his body stiff while he stared at his sister up on the overhang.

Poor Sunscorch, so softhearted under those honed claws and strong limbs- he was likely to take the news of Froststar’s death the hardest. Emberstar held his gaze, blinked slowly, and turned her head to the sky. The moon was nearly overhead, and still MoorClan was absent.

“You ought to start the Gathering now,” Wolfstar growled to Lakestar. “It’s newleaf, after all, and if MoorClan’s late then they’re late.”

“We should wait,” Emberstar sharply mewed. “This is my first Gathering as leader, so it would be disrespectful to me as well as MoorClan if we begin without them. It may anger StarClan as well,” she finished in a murmur, flicking her tail-tip up at the sky. Wolfstar just bushed out her stormy gray fur and huffed.

Lakestar gazed up at the sky. Emberstar looked over at her. For so long, as an apprentice, as a warrior, as the deputy, she’d never dared to be so close to the cold PineClan leader. But now, she was barely a tail-length from the sleek silver tabby, and they sat as equals in standing. Lakestar was likely at less than nine lives and Emberstar was without a right foreleg, but they were equals nonetheless.

She was knocked from her thoughts by Wolfstar headbutting her. The larger cat nearly shoved her off-balance. “Glad to see that we’re both finally up here. I was waiting to see when you’d catch up, three-paw.”

Emberstar licked Wolfstar’s ear. “You know I must take things slower than you.”

“Who’d you pick as deputy?” Wolfstar leaned over the edge to inspect the group of deputies. “Hm- Acornfall?”

“He’s a good warrior. Older than me by four seasons, so I trust his advice and his skill.”

“I thought you would have picked Lavenderflash. Or maybe Darknose, you two always seemed close.”

Emberstar gazed down at Lavenderflash, spotting the pure-black molly quickly- she was almost certain there was obvious fondness in her eyes as she looked at her former apprentice. “Lavenderflash is… young and still training her first apprentice. She is a good, loyal warrior, but not fit to be deputy or eventual leader in my mind. And Darknose…” The tom was sitting at the edge of the crowd, alone. “He is a possibility, but he still mourns his brother even all these moons later, so I don’t know if he would be the best choice.”

Wolfstar made a sniff of approval, then her gaze snapped to the far hill. A yowl rang out, and the three leaders pricked their ears and the cats in the hollow turned to see MoorClan finally arrive, led by Applestar. Emberstar sat stiffly until she spotted Glowflame in the crowd, side-by-side with Orangeclaw. He joined the cats in the hollow with his clan while Applestar broke off to climb up to the overhang, and he seemed to murmur something to Orangeclaw before she angled her ears up at Emberstar. Glowflame looked up and spotted her, and his jaw dropped open. Emberstar couldn’t help but let out a purr of affection for her brother as he gaped in amazement at her.

Applestar greeted the other leaders when he finally joined them, nodding briefly at Emberstar, and hurriedly sat down next to Lakestar, his mottled fur standing up along his spine. The leaders gave the cats in the hollow a few moments to settle down. In that time, Emberstar saw her littermates make their ways through the crowd towards each other. By the time Lakestar threw back her head and yowled to signify the beginning of the Gathering, Flarelight, Sunscorch, and Glowflame sat huddled together with their eyes trained on their sister. Emberstar met their gazes for just a heartbeat and felt the final icicles of her anxiety melt away.

She then turned her head to watch Lakestar as she began to announce her clan’s news for the moon, and reminded herself of what she had to announce when it was her turn. She was ShadeClan’s leader, now. StarClan had approved of her. Emberstar lifted her chin and, with a deep breath, finally settled into her place at the head of her clan.

#woe warrior cats fanfiction be upon ye #my writing #fanfiction #warrior cats #hmmm...#waywardsalt's warrior cats #yeahhhh #anyways a few things abt this related specifically to whats in here #emberstar and wolfstar are not in any kind of relationship theyre just longtime friends n rivals tho at some point wolfstar had a crush #emberstar is meant to be aro/ace and otherwise has no interest in taking a mate at all but she loves her clanmates #glowflame and orangeclaw are mates and sunscorch and moonwhisper are mates idk if flarelight will be in a relationship #the map for this fic (clan territories and camp layouts and moon cavern/gathering spot) is based on a minecraft world i have its v helpful #i have a full alliances list for the living cats at the very beginning of the story but it lacks cats outside the clan bc uhhhh i dont #think there are too many that are present that early and also loners arent usually a big thing its mostly cats passing through #emberstar is mostly dark ginger and black flarelight is mostly just dark ginger sunscorch is gold/yellow and glowflame is yellow and white #all four of them have ice blue eyes and black ear tips i am getting funky with cat designs i do not care. they have teh most unique designs #calling med cats healers bc of. reasons you may know why. and she cats are mollies bc like. why not #emberstar is a tripod cat she is missing a foreleg and she is the primary primary protag she is the most frequent pov #so i have thought a lot abt how she would need to be trained and assessed differently and what she cannot do and how she does warrior dutie #ember flare sun and glow all grew up together but separated into the different clans for Reasons ember stayed in shadeclan bc she was deput #it was also for those Reasons but dw abt it. sunscorch is gay glowflame is bi flarelight is a lesbian #gorsestar and froststar (the previous shadeclan leaders emberstar thinks of) were both mollies and were mates. frost mentored emberstar #its a little bit of nepotism but ember was frost's like. third deputy so its whatever. i picked acornfall as deputy as a placeholder #and bc i couldnt fucking remember anyone else except nobodies in shadeclan but now that i think about it he's actually a good choice #aaaand emberstar is my oldest warrior cats rp character shes been with me a long time- second oldest is sunscorch #emberstar began as emberheart and sunscorch was an edgy murder rogue named sun i roleplayed them in a specific mc server

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quill-pen · 1 year

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Scrooge: Crikey! Is that really the hour? *rushes to get ready* I'll be late! Bloody hell--where does time go?

Jules: *going full brother-in-law for a second* Probably the same place you go when you kiss my sister.

Scrooge:

Bob:

#Jules doesn't do it a lot but when he does it's a ZINGER #Eb DEFINITELY loses an hour a day kissing bess AT LEAST #it's probably way more than that #he is serially late for work because he gets wrapped up in his wife (in SEVERAL senses)#Bob doesn't mind #it's wonderful to see his friend and boss so happy after being so miserable for years #jules doesn't mind it either though he tries not to think about his big sis having... RELATIONS🤢#PSST!#just a newsflash that--yeah--ebenezer is LITERALLY the brother-in-law of four children that he's now helping raise #scrooge 2022 #ebenezer scrooge #netflix scrooge #scrooge a christmas carol #scrooge x oc #fanfiction #ebenezer x bess #ebeness

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lovelyatomicpeace · 10 months

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"Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love."

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duskdrawings · 2 years

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Okay so Ronance has officially summoned the fanfiction writer in me (after a year or so of not writing anything) and now my brain has just become a vessel for Ronance prompts to bounce around in and I have a bunch of ideas that I'm hoping to write for them so I just wanted to compile a list in case anyone was interested or had any ideas/suggestions! These aren't all fully finished ideas yet but I'm currently giving them plenty of thought (as I'm finding myself unable to think of much else besides these two 😂)

Fics will be mostly Ronance centric, possibly with side ships in a few but definitely with Ronance as the main focus/main ship.

Band AU:

•Could either be set in modern times or in the actual years of ST, I've not fully decided.

•Either one large multi-chapter fic or lots of random one chapter fics inside a series.

• The band starting out being a duo consisting of Steve and Robin who were messing about and decided to start a band (And they want to impress Eddie and Nancy).

•Stuck between two ideas: one idea involves Eddie and Nancy eventually joining the band OR the other idea has them just becoming their biggest fans and always cheering them on and watching them practice and things like that and Eddie could still be in his own band whilst Nancy is studying into journalism and could write articles on the band's performances?

-If the fruity four were in the band together:

Eddie: Lead Guitar (pretty obvious choice really 😂)

Nancy: Bass (I feel like Nancy could rock a bass). And possibly keyboard if it's part of the song.

Robin: Main vocals and rhythm guitar? And bits of brass if the song includes it because of her band kid background. (I recently heard Maya Hawke's song 'Thérèse' and just love the idea of Robin singing. And Robin starts out as the main guitarist before Eddie joins).

Steve: Drums? (I just like the idea of Steve on the drums).

(Could potentially swap Robin and Nancy's rhythm guitar and bass around as I'm not fully sure about those yet).

They could all do vocals on different songs as I feel like they would all have amazing voices but Robin acts as the main vocalist. They play all sorts of genres to suit each other's tastes. Steve and Robin writes songs for Eddie and Nancy when they are just a duo.

•Main ship would be Ronance and a bit of Steddie

•A little bit of jealousy flares up when Nancy/Eddie see Steve and Robin with fans or Robin with Vickie. I just love the idea of Nancy being jealous and Robin calming her down when she finds out but being touched that Nancy was getting jealous over her.

---

Modern AU:

•Probably lots of random one-chapter fics set in modern times where the gang are just vibing and being gay.

•One where Robin is an avid gamer and likes it when Nancy joins in and plays with her. Especially with Mario Kart. Robin usually wins but Nancy doesn't mind as she enjoys seeing Robin being all happy and celebrating - but she secretly wants to beat her at something so she trains at a game and then smugly beats her.

•One where the whole gang go to Pride (because let's face it, Hawkins is a whole entire fruit fest. And the ones that are straight are huge allies and come by to support their friends) This fic will probably be less specifically Ronance centric so I can write for all the characters but they'll definitely still be together and being cute. The people who are more knowledgeable on all identities/sexualities teach the ones who know less/are questioning.

Not fully set on everyone's labels yet but here's what I've got so far:

Robin: Lesbian (canon)

Nancy: Bisexual or Lesbian (she gives me HUGE struggling with comphet vibes)

Steve: Bisexual with female lean

Eddie: Gay

Jonathan: Pansexual? Nonbinary? (There's just something about Nonbinary Jonathan that makes my heart happy) Questioning?

Argyle: Pansexual or just doesn't use labels but is attracted regardless of gender

El: Lesbian? Asexual? Pansexual? Questioning? (I have way too many thoughts on El 😂)

Mike: Bisexual or Straight??

Will: Gay (pretty much canon at this point)

Max: Bisexual

Lucas: Straight

Dustin: Bisexual or Straight or Questioning???

Hopper: Straight

Joyce: Straight?? (Joyce would make a killer lesbian, I just know it but I'll probably just say she's straight 😂)

Murray: Gay (this matchmaking king totally likes dudes)

Some are working out their pronouns.

Possible ships: Ronance, Steddie, Jargyle, Jopper, Byler and either Elmax or Lumax and possible mentions of Duzie. (Definitely Ronance though).

---

Coffeeshop or Diner or Ice-cream Parlour AU:

•A true classic where one of them works at either a coffee shop, diner or ice-cream parlour and the other is a customer (because you can't beat the classics!)

•Most likely set in the same years as ST is but just without all the monsters and Upside Down stuff

•Robin will most likely be the one who works and Nancy will be the customer.

•Nancy is a regular at this place but keeps finding excuses to go back after Robin starts working there because she likes Robin. Even takes friends there to try and see what they think of her.

---

Robin getting trapped in the vines:

•One chapter, just something short and self-indulgent as I always wished it was just Robin who got caught so we could see how Nancy and Steve reacted to almost losing her.

•Focuses on Robin, Nancy and Steve. But Robin is the only one to get trapped in the vines.

•Gets rid of that conversation between Steve and Nancy about him wanting Nancy to be the mother of his six lil nuggets because no.

•Basically a rewrite of some of the scenes in season 4 episode 9.

---

Graduation fic:

•One chapter

•Most likely angsty unrequited love but part of me just wants to make our girls get together in everything so I'll see how much gay stuff I can throw in for them both.

•Set in a graduation after-party in the school gym after the events of season 4 - except Eddie is alive and Vecna is dead and defeated and Hawkins is saved. And for all intensive purposes, we're just saying that everyone is graduating at the same time and is in the same year.

•Characters involved are: Robin, Nancy, Steve, Eddie and Jonathan.

•Everyone has a partner/clearly soon will be with someone except Robin and Robin is pining for Nancy.

•Nancy either single or with Jonathan?

•Steve possibly with Eddie?

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Nancy figures out she likes girls:

•Maybe one chapter or perhaps a few chapters?

•Basically Nancy is having a huge gay crisis and doesn't know what to do and goes to Robin about it and Robin helps her figure herself out.

•A very jokey and light-hearted fic.

•Nancy either bi or lesbian (who suffered with major comphet) but either way, Nancy is a total mess for women. Robin Buckley in particular.

•Completely Ronance centric

---

Dates:

•Several one-chapter fics of Ronance basically just going on dates and being cute and gay

•Unsure whether to make modern or set in the past

-Cinema (Robin getting really invested in the film and whispering little facts and observations to Nancy throughout, they secretly hold hands during tense parts, Nancy finds herself staring at Robin lots and missing parts of the film).

-Sleepover (Them giggling together under the covers, one of them staring at the other whilst they sleep, them sharing a bed and keeping each other safe and warm and cosy and warding off any nightmares. Also I headcanon that Robin hasn't really been over to anyone's house since she was really young so she's really flattered when Nancy invites her over).

-Buying presents for each other (they both want to get each other something special and wrack their brains for the perfect gift and they just think about how much they love each other and all the things they love about them. Super cute and fluffy and soft girlfriends).

-cafe/coffee shop (cute lesbians sharing sweet treats!)

-Fun fair (Robin wanting to be tough and strong for Nancy and win her gf a prize and Nancy teasing Robin as she continues to fail but she makes it better by giving Robin a kiss)

---

Vampire AU:

•Robin being turned into a vampire. Either she gets ambushed by a random vampire one night or I'm wondering whether to make her get close to another character (possibly Vickie or someone completely different) and it's because of them that she gets turned. Then the fics/fic involves Robin navigating being a vampire and possibly trying to look for a cure? With the gang finding out and being supportive, Nancy being the most protective of all.

•Multiple one chapter fics in a series or a big multi-chapter fic.

•One involves Nancy finding out. Robin tried to hide it from her to keep her safe but Nancy gets suspicious and is either with Robin when she turns or follows Robin and sees her turn/get into a fight or confronts her.

•One could involve Nancy caring for Robin after something goes wrong. (I'm a sucker for some good hurt/comfort) Robin is initially scared of being around the gang because she doesn't want to hurt them so Nancy.

•Robin saves Nancy from being hurt by other vampires, she's hella protective of her gf and that causes her to get braver when other vampires cause trouble.

•Robin would definitely want to be a "vegetarian vampire" and not feed on humans but gets forced to at one point and causes her to have a big crisis.

•Ronance centric (possibly with a few side ships?)

---

Some of these are only loose ideas and may alter slightly during the writing stage. If anyone has any suggestions or more prompts/ideas that they'd really like to see or just wants to discuss Ronance/Stranger Things then don't be afraid to hit me up! I don't really write NSFW but could potentially include a few slightly risqué moments if desired. I've already begun planning and some I've already started writing so they are in the works and I'm really excited to see where all these ideas go and to just add more Ronance fanfiction out into the world! I just love the idea of getting Ronance right near to the top/to the top of the most popular Stranger Things ships on AO3 because they really are so amazing together and throughout my years of shipping in fandoms, Ronance has pulled me in in a way no other ship ever has.

#ronance #robin x nancy #nancy x robin #gay stranger things #stranger things fanfic #stranger things prompts #ronance fanfiction #ronance fanfic #robin buckley x nancy wheeler #the whole of hawkins is just one big fruit basket #ronance nation: all rise!#the fruity four #band au #vampire au #vampire robin buckley #stranger things modern au #stranger things pride #the hawkins crew go to pride

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awhitehead17 · 2 years

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Whumptober 2022: Day 4 - Dead on your feet

Prompt: Hidden Injury

Summary: As the oldest it’s Dick’s job to make sure his siblings are all looked after and if that means putting off his own medical treatment, then so be it.

Enjoy! :D

It wasn’t the question of who is injured but rather who is the most injured?

It’s been a long and gruelling night of running around of stopping gang wars, busting drug cartels, saving civilians and dealing with Gotham’s rouge gallery. By the end of the night, well into the early hours of the morning, they all have an injury of some shape and form. By the time they’ve all piled back into the cave it was the case of treating the person who is most critical then working around the room.

Dick’s in bad shape. Throughout the night he took a knife in the bottom of his foot from a poorly timed kicked at a thug; a bullet grazed both his bicep and thigh during a gang war; there’s the strained shoulder that he pulled at some point during the night; then to top it all off there’s the gashes on his hips he received while dealing with Man-bat.

It’s easy to say Dick is hurting and is need of some medical attention. However despite all that he keeps quiet and lets his siblings get looked at first. He’s the oldest, it’s his job to make sure the younger ones are looked after. Bringing forward his best acting skills, he waves off Alfred’s attention stating he’s fine and has only picked up a couple nicks here and there, nothing that can’t wait to be looked at. Despite Alfred eyeing him knowingly, he lets Dick have his way and moves onto treating Cass who has a bullet stuck in her thigh.

Thankfully his suit is black because it seems to disguise the blood that is slowly seeping out of his wounds.

For the next hour or so it’s hustle and bustle in the cave where Alfred and Bruce work tirelessly on patching everyone up from the night. Once someone has been treated, they’ve been sent off to shower then ordered to bed. It’s a testament on how long the night had been and how tired everyone is that no one argues with the orders.

At some point Dick had settled himself down onto one of the training benches and waits for his turn to be looked at. He has no idea on how long he stayed sat there as he quickly lost track of time once he arrived at the cave. Aside from making sure that his siblings all got treated first, all Dick could focus on is the throbbing sensation happening throughout the entirety of his body and the pounding headache that's recently developed. While he sits there he keeps his injuries covered, he hides the one worst one on his side with his arms while he discreetly presses a cloth to it to try and slow the bleeding down. It doesn’t really help but it’s better than nothing.

“Dick, chum? It’s your turn. Where are you?”

At the sound of Bruce’s call Dick blinks his eyes open and groans, he hadn’t noticed that he started dozing. Bracing himself to get up off the bench he answers Bruce’s call. “I’m here, I’m coming…”

Standing up took a lot more effort than Dick had thought it would. He felt breathless by the time he was up right and he instantly knew that his condition had only gotten worse in the time he had been resting. It certainly doesn’t help that once he’s standing the whole world tilts and black spots cloud his vision.

There isn’t anything around he could lean against to help support his weight and Dick has just enough time to think “oh shit” before he’s falling and landing completely unconscious.

Upon waking up, Dick didn’t know if he felt better or worse. Surprisingly he wakes up relatively clear headed with only the slight amount of confusion to figuring out what happened. Instead of the infirmary he woke up in his bedroom at the manor. He’s shirtless with his side and bicep covered in white bandages, his bed covers are pulled up to his hips and when he lifts them up he finds that he's dressed in some old jersey shorts with bandages wrapped around his thigh and his foot.

Dick slumps back down into his mattress and glances to the side where his bedside table is. There he finds a glass of water, a few pills, a protein bar and his digital clock telling him it’s six in the evening.

Gritting his teeth he forces himself to move, pushing himself up until he's leaning against the headboard. He groans in pain and takes a few deep breaths until the pain resides. Once he can focus again he reaches over for the glass of water and the pills, taking them without question, although he ignores the protein bar as he doesn’t feel hungry.

That’s when the door to his bedroom opens and in comes Bruce. Clearly the man hadn’t been expecting to see him awake, let alone sitting up, as he looks surprised when he finds exactly that.

Dick manages to send him a weak smile. “Hey Bruce.”

“Dick…” his pseudo father breathes out his name. After a moment he seems to get over his shock because then he's stepping further into the room and approaching the bed looking concerned. “How are you feeling chum?”

Dick snorts. “Rough… like I’ve got one helluva hangover but times 20.”

Bruce doesn’t look impressed by his attempt at a joke. He sends Dick a scowl. “Dick this isn’t funny, you were seriously injured and didn’t say anything. You passed out because of your injuries.”

Knowing it’s true Dick doesn’t deny it. Feeling like he’s a child being scolded (which essentially he currently is) he averts his gaze and focuses on the blanket covering him.

He hears Bruce sigh and his father comes and sits on the edge of his bed facing him.

“You know better than that Dick.” Bruce scolds him gently but firmly. “You can’t go ignoring that many injuries, especially for as long as you did. You gave us all quite a scare.”

Dick lets out a sigh and rolls his head back until he’s looking at Bruce. “Look Bruce I-”

Dick didn’t get any further than saying the man’s name before he’s interrupted. Bruce watches him knowingly. “Dick I know what you’re going to say. You ignored your injuries because you wanted the younger ones to be looked at first. You didn’t realise how bad they were. That you were ‘fine’.”

Shutting his mouth with a click of his teeth, Dick glares at Bruce not impressed. That was what he was going to say, because it’s true!

Bruce leans forward and places a hand on Dick’s shoulder, squeezing it supportively. “You matter to Dick, you had the worse injuries, everyone would’ve understood. Imagine what your sibling’s reactions were this afternoon when I told them what happened.” There's a hint of a smile on the man’s face and Dick knows he’s lightly teasing. And then the man’s words sink in and Dick grimaces. He doesn’t want to know what the other’s reactions all were.

Letting Dick delay the inevitable Bruce gets up from the bed and leaves his room, but not before telling him that dinner is almost ready so if he wants to freshen up he has the chance to do so. Dick takes a moment in the silence for everything to sink in, there’s no doubt that Bruce will want a report of yesterday’s events and he knows there’s still more to what happened that needs to be discussed. However that’s all for a later time, right now he needs ready to face his family which is more terrifying than any Gotham rogue he would ever come across.

#Whumptober 2022 #day four #hidden injury #dick grayson #bruce wayne #injured dick #good dad bruce wayne #batfamily #unconsciousness #little angst #big brother dick grayson #hurt #injuries #DC comics #fanfiction

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bookishnerdhero · 11 days

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Please continue your fanfic, it made me want to watch OUAT again and trust me if I could give more than one like or more than one kudos I would. I can only send you encouragement and a hug. Thank you for your hard work and keep up the good work!

You are so sweet!

I'm sorry it took me a while to see this. I haven't used Tumblr since 2020, but I literally just went back to updating this fic last April (this year, 2024).

#rise of the brave tangled dragons #mericcup fanfiction #merida and hiccup #jelsa #the big four #rotbtd

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hiccanna-tidbits · 2 years

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@jackunzel-time

Jackunzel Month Week 4 - Fairy Tales Beauty and the Beast

***

AKAJSIFEBPYBGU NOT ME PLANNING A JACKUNZEL ONE SHOT FOR JACKUNZEL MONTH LAST YEAR AND NOT GETTING AROUND TO WRITING IT UNTIL THE END OF JACKUNZEL MONTH THIS YEAR OMG

Anyways, it’s here!!! I finally did it, it’s here!!! I was gonna write two other little drabble things for fairy tale week, but honestly?? *Collapses*

I MEAN I’LL DO THEM I PROMISE I’LL DO THEM but ain’t no way they’re getting done on time XD

So basically the story is that I saw this post last year and just. Immediately came up with a Jackunzel Beauty and the Beast-type AU to go with it in my head. At first I was like “UGH great another fanfic idea I’ll never get around to writing” and then I was like “BUT WAIT!!! Jackunzel month!!! I’ll write it then!!!” and then I just. Didn’t. XD

But then THIS year I was like “ENOUGH DILLYDALLYING BITCH YOU GONNA DO THIS” and then I guess I actually did??? Took like a week of late-night writing sessions and intensive spooky ambiance, but IT GOT DONE.

So without further ado, enjoy this bout of literally-star-crossed celestial angst! I also took a lot of inspo from the Corrupted Nightmare Jack AU here, as well as the beast from Over the Garden Wall. Kind of going for what Jack could have become if he really did join up with Pitch, even if he doesn’t exactly here. Hopefully the design I used for him is sufficiently spooky!! And tragic!! :’)

Might go without saying, but CW for a little body horror here. It’s beauty and the beast, tho so I feel like that comes with the genre XD

Fic under the cut! As always, moodboard pic credits available upon request!

***

The Sunbringer and the Shadowkeeper

The Sunbringer shivered as she made her way through the murky forest.

It felt like she’d been walking for hours and made it nowhere. The woods never changed—always the same crooked, barren tree silhouettes, their topmost branches forming jagged windows into a vast and endless night sky. Peat and old leaves squished and crunched underfoot, sometimes making noises so pronounced that the Sunbringer could swear someone else was there.

Or something. Watching her.

She quickened her pace, pulling her translucent golden cloak tighter around her shoulders. Some solar warmth still remained among its folds, but it was trickling out day by day.

The periods where the days should be, anyways.

Spring was late that year. The Sunbringer was starting to regret telling the Council of the Skies she would be the one to investigate.

By the equinox, the sun was always released from the Place of Shadows. The Sunbringer caught it without fail, holding it high in the sky as the grass grew and the flowers bloomed and the animals crept from hibernation and started families. But the solstice had come and gone, and there was no sign of the warmth-giver needed for the world to be reborn.

Now, the Sunbringer wandered through an endless winter landscape. Dead and dark and horribly cold, the only sources of light were the faint, faraway stars and the glow from the Sunbringer’s own golden braid. The further she went, the more the air bit into her skin and the winds wailed like a miserable dog. It was like something out of a nightmare.

She hummed a tune to herself, trying to calm frayed nerves. The sound of her own voice was her only companion in this lifeless place.

It was a song her mother had taught her, long, long ago. A healing incantation that could seal any wound, no matter how brutal. If rumor be believed, it could even raise the dead.

Now, the Sunbringer only hoped to dispel her own fear.

Surprisingly, the Sunbringer’s mother was not some celestial goddess, a queen of the clouds who passed her divinity on to her daughter. No, the Sunbringer had been human once, chosen for this job many, many millennia ago.

She couldn’t remember much of her human life. There were bits and pieces, scattered through her mind like tiny wildflowers in an alpine meadow.

She’d been from a small village. It was a simple life—one where she was expected to become a seamstress or a milkmaid or a farmhand girl or a grocer’s assistant or any number of other mundane things. She collected berries and herbs in the woods. She knew which mushrooms were the poisonous ones, and which ones tasted delicious cooked with butter and sage. She helped where she could—the fall harvest and the sheep herding and the chicken feeding. Her mother, who she faintly recalled being a curvy, dark-haired woman, doted on her day and night, but at the price of smothering her relentlessly. The Sunbringer had to fight to do anything on her own.

She had to fight not to have her hand held.

There was a boy, too. Brown-haired, twiggy, a constant bounce in his step. Always running through the woods and climbing trees in the summer and entertaining the younger children with goofy antics on long, frigid winter nights. He’d been her best friend. She was pretty sure, anyways.

She remembered he died young, although the exact way wasn’t clear. It brought her a strange sort of comfort, knowing that she never missed out on growing up and growing old with the brown-haired boy.

Sometimes she snatched at the faint recollections, trying to pull on the threads to see what else she could find. Her Sunbringer duties always seemed to call before she got far.

After all, there was sunshine to spread and plants to grow and cats to keep warm in little yellow squares on kitchen floors. The world was a delicate, precious balance of life and death, and it would crumble within days if she ever shirked her responsibilities.

And now more than ever, she had more pressing matters. She suspected she knew what happened to the sun—and if she was right, there was no time to be wasted.

The Council of the Skies had told many a tale of the Shadowkeeper. A creature always just beyond the shadows, he was more the dread of the darkness or the nervous tingles you got on the back of your neck than a tangible being. Those who met him said they never got a clear look, his form obscured by black tendrils and his head only a silhouette with sharp antlers and pointed teeth. When you came upon him, you felt all the bleakness and biting cold of the dead of winter wash over you.

He kept the sun swept up in his dark, swirling form all throughout the frostiest months, weakening it almost too much for the world to bear. In spring he released it, at last letting warmth reclaim the sky.

This year, the Shadowkeeper must have kept his grip on the sun, greedily sucking light into his cold body like a tick drinking blood. Hogging the sun for 3 months was no longer enough for him, it seemed.

Light embedded into the Sunbringer’s skin flickered, as it always did when she grew nervous. Long had she suspected she may have to battle the winter’s terrifying guardian, but she never dreamed it would be over something as immense as him wanting to keep the sun for his own.

Sometimes she resented being chosen for this life. It was a draining existence, guarding the heat that kept the world alive when the smallest chain reaction could leave everything destroyed.

The Sunbringer had never met the Shadowkeeper, but she believed the stories. The forest he called home was icy and frightful, and she didn’t imagine he was any better.

A heavy fog hung in the air, sticking to her skin in chilly droplets. She wondered, not for the first time, what would happen if she were to die again.

Was there any way the Council of the Skies could bring her back, use their powers to form her out of sunlight again? Or would they simply move on, letting her fade into legend as they chose a new Sunbringer?

The thought made her feel unbearably lonely—a nearly invisible wisp of a soul that could dissolve into the mist at any moment, leaving few behind who would care she was gone. The world would mourn the role she played, sure—mourn the position that needed to be filled. But they wouldn’t mourn her.

She couldn’t say how long she walked before the fog began to clear. The forest floor came into sight at some point, a carpet of brown leaves frosted at the edges.

They were cold against her bare feet. She couldn’t fully explain why, but the prickles they sent through her didn’t bother her.

Perhaps, she thought, she was so used to the heat of her own skin that a new sensation was welcomed, even if it was the antithesis of everything she was meant to stand for.

When the wisps of fog were thin enough to see the trees she stopped, eyes widening. The branches were covered in white snow, glimmering softly in the starlight.

It was a strange kind of beautiful. An unexpected piece of something pure and lovely in a world so desolate.

She couldn’t explain why, but the sight of it made her sad. Her heart felt suddenly hollow, like there was something just out of reach that belonged there.

Something to do with this tiny speck of beauty in a dead, frozen world.

The Sunbringer pushed the melancholia aside. She had a job to do—one where she simply did not have time to wonder about why she was at such a puzzling loss here.

She walked on. The leaves became sprinkled with snow—first flakes, then clumps, then a sprawling carpet. She found herself relishing the shivers it sent through her feet. Something still strange and novel, but exhilarating nonetheless.

Moonlight glinted off ice, and she saw a frozen river blocking her path. She tested it with a tentative foot, wondering if she had enough of the sun’s power left in her to float if the frozen covering didn’t hold.

The river was sturdy and strong, no trace of spring around to weaken the ice. The Sunbringer placed a foot on the frosty surface and began her crossing.

Toward the middle, the river groaned. The Sunbringer tensed as the realization hit.

There had been no spring to melt the ice until she came along.

She broke into a run, ice cracking and caving behind her. Thank the skies she always seemed to be one step ahead of catastrophe.

She swore there was something dark swirling below her—something always just under her field of vision. She knew if she stopped to get a good look, the river would have her.

Reaching the other side did not bring her the comfort she had hoped.

There was something distinctively eerie about the woods here. The Sunbringer wondered again—more urgently this time—if someone or something was watching her.

There seemed to be shadows everywhere—rippling, licking, always just out of her grasp. She heard them swooshing and whistling like gusts of wind.

But whenever she turned to look, they were gone.

Her feelings were becoming more and more of a riddle. The Sunbringer should have felt fear—crippling, nauseating fear.

Instead, all she felt was a strange longing.

The shadows were her other half, she supposed. You couldn’t truly have light without them. Perhaps that was why they called to her.

But there was something more.

The dark tendrils swirled thicker and thicker between the trees, always on the verge of engulfing her. She stopped.

“Shadowkeeper.” She spoke the word aloud, realizing where she was.

She’d reached the heart of his domain. His lair.

“Is that all you know me as?”

His voice floated in the air like mist, formless and ghostly. The icy breath of winter itself.

The Sunbringer frowned. “What other name is there? I bring the sun, you hold the shadows. That is all we are.”

“It wasn’t always.” The Shadowkeeper laughed, and it didn’t sound nearly as menacing as the Council of the Skies always described.

It was…playful. Bittersweet, almost.

“That doesn’t matter.” The Sunbringer forced her expression to harden. “All there is is now. You’ve kept the sun too long, and I have come to reclaim it. It is time for spring to come.”

“So formal.” The Shadowkeeper chuckled. “How long have you rehearsed that?”

“Long enough.” She frowned, although she couldn’t quite determine which cluster of dark wisps she should frown at. “It’s been weeks!”

“That was the only way I could see you. It’s not like you’d come out here on your own.”

Her frown turned to a look of confusion. “Why would you want to see me? Doesn’t the light hurt you?”

“Not if it’s you.”

All the flickering shadows snaked around the tree trunks and clustered together, twisting like water in a whirlpool. They spun around and around, melting from a trembling pillar into the inky form of…something.

The creature that stood before her loomed over the forest clearing. His body was surrounded by billowing shadows, floating in inky puffs like a cloak of midnight clouds. His head—or what the Sunbringer guessed it to be, anyhow—was narrow and elongated, crown adorned with the silhouettes of sharp, spindly tree branches. They jabbed out in every direction, bringing to mind the head of some strange deer that couldn’t stop growing antlers.

The only bit of color on the beast was his eyes—a pale golden that almost perfectly matched the Sunbringer’s hair. The Sunbringer found herself feeling strange again.

“You really don’t know me?” The voice that came from the beast was soft. Almost timid.

It had to be a trick. Some way for the Shadowkeeper to throw her off-guard.

Did he believe if he attacked her—if he vanquished her light—that he could plunge the world into darkness? It seemed a naïve sentiment from a spirit at least as old as her, if not older. He had to know the Council of the Skies would pick a new Sunbringer.

It was strange, come to think of it. She somehow knew the Shadowkeeper was not some ancient creature who had been around since the dawn of time, nor was he a young spirit only just learning the ebb and flow of the natural world.

To answer the Shadowkeeper’s original question, what the Sunbringer did and did not know was becoming more and more puzzling.

“I know you stole the sun.” Perhaps she should start with what it did make sense for her to know. “And I’m not sure what you want with me, but I know you need to give it back. I can’t let you make the world go dark.”

“Ask me by name, and it’s yours.”

It was an odd request, but the Sunbringer saw no reason to refuse.

“Shadowkeeper, I implore you to—”

“That’s not my name.”

The Sunbringer scowled. “Well, if that isn’t your name, then I don’t know what it is!”

“I think you do.”

The shadows swirled around their keeper, circling a few times before dissolving like smoke. Gradually his form came into view, lit only by the faintest starlight.

The Shadowkeeper—the beast—was a frightening thing. His limbs were long and grotesque, spindly and stiff like the barren trees surrounding him. His skin was rough and cracked, made almost entirely of bark. His hands ended in long, pointed branchlets, curved and sharpened into claws.

The branches on the Shadowkeeper’s head looked even more unnerving in the light. They snaked all the way down his back, all honed like a young stag’s antlers. It hardly helped that his face was still difficult to see, save for those eerie yellow eyes.

Her eyes trailed across his body, and she started. There was something pale under the bark, barely visible behind thickly-woven black tendrils.

Human skin, slowly being suffocated by wood. Before long, it would all be buried too deep for anyone to see.

The Shadowkeeper was once an ordinary person. Like her.

“Does it hurt?” Her voice came out in a strangled whisper.

The Shadowkeeper glanced down, as if just noticing the bark that was choking out the softer flesh underneath. He chuckled.

“To be honest, I’ve stopped noticing. Does it hurt when you hold the sun?”

Despite herself, the Sunbringer laughed too. “I guess…I’ve stopped noticing, too.”

The Shadowkeeper took a pace toward her. The Sunbringer surprised herself when she felt no desire to back away.

Something on the Shadowkeeper’s back caught her eye, and she cried out. Protrusions she had thought were just more branches were arrows.

She knitted her brow, suddenly concerned. “People hunt you? In your own forest?”

The Shadowkeeper snorted. “Maybe they think they can get rid of winter that way. I’m usually too quick for them to land a good blow, but not always.”

“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to live in fear.”

The Shadowkeeper shrugged, the bark of his shoulders creaking. “Eh. What can you do? I pretend it’s an intentional fashion choice.”

The Sunbringer found herself laughing again.

She gave him a thoughtful look, wondering if she’d been wrong. “You…don’t want to hurt me, do you?”

“No.” The Shadowkeeper looked at her with such a sorrow that it took her aback. “Who do you think helped you across the stream? Who do you think made sure the places you stepped were always frozen?”

“That was you?”

Her eyes widened, picturing the dark swirls under the ice and not quite believing they were something benevolent. “You were really trying to help?”

“Always.”

His voice was quick and certain, and she was left baffled once again. “But why?”

He takes a breath before answering.

“Because we were friends once, Rapunzel. A long time ago.”

Rapunzel…

The Sunbringer almost fell back onto the snow.

Memories so vague before came stampeding back at full force. She remembered everything—the bedroom her mother locked her in, a fluffy bob of brown hair, weaving flower crowns for her best friend’s sister, dancing around the maypole at summer festivals, the ice pond that had drowned her best friend.

Her best friend.

“Jack.”

She breathed out his name in a ragged sob. For a moment she stood with her head spinning, wondering despondently how she could have ever forgotten Jackson Overland.

“Took you long enough, Zellie.”

She ran to him, throwing her arms around rough skin and burying her face in his chest.

Bark groaned as his arms wove around her, pulling her closer. She felt wooden tendrils twist across the surface of her gown, entwining them together until they could have been one being.

Rapunzel thought back to the cramped room in her human home—the one her mother made her prison. With Jack’s branches surrounding her, she found it strange she didn’t feel trapped.

On the contrary, she felt safe. She felt loved.

“I’m so sorry,” she choked, face wet with tears. “I’m sorry I—I don’t know how I…”

“It’s all right.” He murmured into her hair, voice soft. “For…a long time, I didn’t remember you either. Then one spring, I looked up, and saw you floating through the sky like this…miracle of nature, and…” His voice broke. “It was like you never left my mind.”

She looked up and met his eyes, getting a good look at his face for the first time.

It wasn’t quite what she remembered. Framed by spikes of inky black instead of chocolate brown. Stretched, slightly distorted. All ghostly skin and sharp angles. Like the lengthened shadows at the end of the day. Like something in the half-light.

She reached out a hand and cupped his cheek. It was so frigid her hand stung.

She didn’t let go.

He leaned into her palm, amber eyes slipping shut. Long, sharp fingers slithered into view, his clawed hand coming to rest gently over hers.

The frightful tales of the Council of the Skies seemed laughable now. She couldn’t be scared of Jack, not when she knew how bright and good and kind he had once been.

How much he still was.

It seemed none of that tenderness ever left, monstrous form or not. He was still her Jack, even after everything.

“I missed you,” she whispered. “I felt so hollow. I didn’t even realize it, but…it always felt like I lost something. Why didn’t you ever come find me?”

“I can’t—I can’t leave this place.” He blinked down at her with wet golden eyes. “I’m not strong enough to come out of the shadows. Going out and finding you would be like—like trying to make a blizzard in June.”

“But in the winter?”

“You’re always too far to reach.” He smiled sadly, shaking his head. “I see you, flying through the clouds and glowing bright enough to warm the whole world. Meanwhile, I’m stuck in all the dark crevices—down on the ground, wanting to run to you every chance I get. But the light beats me back every time I try. So…that’s why I had you come to me.”

His hand uncurled from her back, sliding around to form a closed fist in the air between them. As his fingers opened, Rapunzel gasped.

There was the sun, golden and radiant and as mellow as it was on spring mornings. It looked strangely delicate, floating in Jack’s hand in a tiny, flickering orb.

Odd to imagine something that seemed so small and insignificant gave life to all of earth.

“At the end of winter, you always waited for me to release it.” Jack’s voice was suddenly pained. “You floated above me and got ready to catch it, but…you never looked at me. You never saw me.”

She stroked the cold skin of his cheek with her thumb. “I see you now.”

“All according to plan.”

He smirked in a way that made her raise her eyebrows.

“I knew you’d never give me a second thought if things went on like they did. I was this…menacing thing that tossed you your sun sometimes. Always just out of sight enough to make the tales of horror seem true. So one spring, I didn’t toss you your sun. I made you come and get it.”

“And so you did.” She laughed, pressing her forehead into the craggy bark of his chest. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Jack. A forest that gives a girl the scare of her life is no way to treat an old friend.”

“Sorry about that.” He chuckled sheepishly. “Wish I could curate a bit of a warmer welcome. Unfortunately I am, in fact, a guardian of winter and darkness and other related spooky things.”

“Well, I suppose it’s my own fault. I was the one who volunteered to roam the creepiest forest in existence to find you.”

“Also planned on that.” He snickered into her hairline, and she scowled.

“What do you mean?!”

“You always have to bend over backwards pleasing everyone. I remember how you were with your mom.”

Rapunzel huffed. “I like to think I’ve grown a little as a person in the past millennium or two.”

“Maybe, but…you’re still not going to ask someone else to do something you figure you could take care of yourself.”

She sighed. Even after all this time, he still knew her well enough to predict her every move.

“Oh, get out of my head, Jackson Overland.”

“You wish.”

Something nudged her side. She turned her head to see Jack extending his hand to her, sun gleaming in his palm.

“I believe I have something of yours.”

She scrutinized it for a moment. It was strange—the end of her journey was so close and so tangible, and yet…

Rapunzel didn’t want it anymore.

“Take it.” The rough edges of Jack’s fingers nudged her again. “It was selfish of me to keep it so long, anyways. And now I got to see you, so…”

She reached out and closed her fingers around the bright sphere.

Immediately she felt its power course through her, setting every vein in her celestial form ablaze. Warmth rippled beneath her skin, seeping into every crack and crevice that had grown cold. The corners of her vision were flooded with a blinding glow, and it took her a moment to realize it was her.

Suddenly, she was expanding, the sun’s power swirling around her body as she grew and grew and grew. She felt like a supernova—a radiant burst of light on the verge of giving birth to a new galaxy.

Within moments, she was standing as tall as the Shadowbringer. As Jack.

He looked different from up here. His eyes were close enough now that she could see the playful shine in them. She could make out the thin curve of his lips and the boxy shape of his ears and the rounded bridge of his nose and eyebrows that always had a rebellious hair or two out of place. Everything about him was so achingly familiar that she wanted to cry.

She glanced down at their hands—still intertwined. Jack never let go after she took the sun.

It might have been her imagination, but his clawed fingers looked a little shorter. A little less pointed.

He laced their fingers together and held on tightly, as though scared she might dissolve at any moment.

Like an afternoon sunbeam when the evening was looming.

Her thumb ghosted over the back of his hand, trying to communicate a silent reassurance.

I’m here. I’m real. I’m not going to leave you again.

She hadn’t meant to disappear in the first place, but it was no matter. It was still a mistake she was not keen on repeating.

Rapunzel looked up, and their eyes met again. She remembered something else.

She remembered how she looked at him when they sat tucked away in the treetops, him telling her stories and her sketching his movements on a tattered paper pad. She remembered watching him do skits by the fireside and splash her in the lake in the summer, and how she felt something so profound that for weeks and months and years she couldn’t put a name to it.

All she could do now was try and speak with her heart. Rapunzel leaned in and pressed her mouth to the Shadowkeeper’s.

Pure energy exploded through her, and all at once she felt so gloriously alive. It was as if she had become the entire sky, unbounded and immeasurable and shining with every color—cerulean blue, peach pink, blinding golden, deep violet, tangerine, fiery red, soft white, ebony black.

Jack’s arms wrapped around her again, pulling her closer. It felt like every moment in the universe—every passing day, every time the sun had risen and set—had been leading up to this.

It was more powerful than all the stars above them combined.

Perhaps that was only her biases talking. Perhaps she only imagined it to be that way, considering she had yearned for this longer than she would ever know.

It was like coming home to a hearth and a cozy bed after a long, long journey. One that had taken her much farther than she ever wished to go.

And it was right. Something—she couldn’t tell quite what—had been so asymmetrical before.

Now it was perfectly centered.

A deep, warm calm settled through Rapunzel as she pulls away. Jack watched her with soft blue eyes.

Blue eyes.

He’d changed. Eerie amber faded into sparkling ice blue. Inky back hair was now tinged with a beautiful, crystalline white, like fresh snow dusting winter treetops. Bark begun to peel off his skin, revealing more and more of the boy Rapunzel remembered.

He smirked in a way that made her feel lighter than she had in perhaps a century. She laughed, resting her hands on his cheeks and pressing their foreheads together.

“I love you.”

It was the first time she had truly put it into words, but she was certain some part of her had always known.

She knew when they were children, chasing each other through the woods and jumping in leaf piles and sledding down steep hills in the winter. She knew when the boys and girls at school began to kiss and hold hands, and she found her eyes always straying to Jack, wondering if his lips tasted like peppermint hot chocolate and stories and mischief. She knew when she heard he’d drowned in icewater, and it felt like half of herself had suffocated right down there with him. And she knew for all the centuries she thought she forgot about him, even if it was buried deep inside.

She felt wetness against her face, and realized he was crying.

He let out a shaky, relieved laugh. “I love you, too.”

Sharp cracks and snaps rang out as more bark peeled off. The body beneath Rapunzel’s fingers grew softer.

More like the one she had always yearned to hold, all those years ago.

And suddenly Rapunzel knew. She knew exactly what she had to do to finish this.

She knew what she had to do to fully pull Jack from the dark shell—the prison—that had grown around him, fueled by all those centuries of being feared and alone.

One of her hands strayed from his face, grabbing a tendril of blonde hair and wrapping it around a spindly, twiglike wrist. His long fingers curled over hers, shaking nervously.

Even so, Jack made no move to pull away. He must have trusted her fully.

She began to sing.

Rapunzel’s mother may have been an eccentric woman, strange at the best of times and terrifying at the worst. She may have had some unusual ideas about what it was to “love” your daughter, too.

But she had been right about one thing: The incantation she taught Rapunzel could heal anything.

Sunlight slipped down blonde hair, radiating soft gold as it went. The glow trickled across Jack like honey, and Rapunzel could only hope the heat didn’t hurt.

It appeared not to. Jack’s eyes slid shut, contented. His hand went limp in hers.

The hand that, to her amazement, was starting to feel less and less like gnarled twigs and more and more like skin.

The glow faded. Blue eyes opened under a mop of pale hair, white as afternoon clouds. Rapunzel felt fingers lace between hers, holding tightly.

They were a perfect fit.

The hand he lifted to cup the back of her neck was fully human. She smiled into his mouth and kissed him again.

Down on earth, folk across every land and every sea would later say that spring began with the most spectacular sunrise any of them had ever seen.

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