#it's become a longer piece but here's a snippet!
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Prompt: Martha Jones spots The Fourteenth Doctor around London doing a mundane thing like food shopping. Thank you :)
At first, Martha wasn’t sure. It wasn’t that she didn’t recognise him; she’d know that hair and that side profile anywhere, even if he was now clad in jeans and a short-sleeved shirt instead of the long coat she’d been so used to. He was holding a jar of jam, reading the ingredients with bright interest, as though it were the most normal thing in the world to be in Tesco Express at ten o’clock on a Thursday night shopping for preserves; the basket beside him contained further mundanities like bread and milk, and she was so baffled by all of this that she tried to tell herself that it wasn’t him. It couldn’t possibly be him. He was a Time Lord, for god’s sake; he didn’t do dull things like buy pints of semi-skimmed milk or reduced Kingsmill white loaves.
But then he turned away from the shelf, sticking the jar in his basket, and the look on his face took her breath away. For several seconds she surveyed him as he continued to be unaware of her presence, and she tried to put her finger on what had changed. It was the eyes, she thought; there had been so many ghosts behind them when she’d first known him, and now he looked almost… well, serene. Calm. There were no spectres weighing heavily on his shoulders; there was no lingering pain in the easy, contented expression on his face as he scooped up his basket from his feet – still clad in Converse, because some things could never change – and then finally caught sight of her.
“Oh,” he said, the syllable hanging in the air between them for a moment, and she couldn’t read it; was he pleased to see her? Angry? Sad? Guilty? Was he about to cut and run? Then he beamed from ear to ear, really sincerely beamed, and held out his arms to her for – no, that couldn’t be right. He wanted a hug? Since when had he been a hugger? “Martha Jones!”
“Doctor,” she said reservedly, looking him up and down; he was older than he’d been since she last saw him, but all of the tension and impatient anxiety that he’d held within him seemed to have dissipated in the interceding years. Questions crowded her mind; questions about time and space and clothes and the air of contentment and – “Why are you in Tesco in Richmond?”
“Oh,” he said again, with dawning comprehension. “We’re out of bread.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” she asked, unable to stop herself.
“Oh,” he repeated for a third time, then ran a hand through his hair before chancing a glance at the checkouts, and for one awful moment she thought he might be about to bolt. “It’s sort of a long story, actually. Why don’t we pay and find a pub, or something? Unless you’ve got somewhere to be… is Mickey expecting you?”
“He can wait,” she said with amusement, irrationally touched that he’d remembered. “Yeah, alright. Let’s pay.”
“Why are you in Tesco in Richmond?” he enquired, flipping the question back on her with some of the old cheekiness that she was used to. “That’s the real question.”
“Staying with mum for a few weeks while we have the kitchen redone,” she told him as they headed towards the self-checkouts; she started scanning her items while he did the same at an adjacent terminal, and she half expected him to sonic it, or in some way cheat it – space cubes, or god knows what else – but instead he took out an honest-to-god wallet and tapped a perfectly normal credit card on the reader. Her surprise must have shown, because he shot her a sidelong grin as he bundled up his groceries in a canvas tote bag and hefted it onto his shoulder as she swiped her Clubcard and did the same.
“Bit different to the old days, isn’t it?” he said ruefully, and she laughed.
“Yeah, never had you down as a wallet sort of man.”
“It was a present. I lost my last four credit cards.”
“That sounds more like you.”
#asks#drabbles#fourteenth doctor#martha jones#i loved this one#it's become a longer piece but here's a snippet!
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The Deal
No one asked for this, but I needed something dark and gross 🤷♀️
TW: Dub-Con turned Non-Con; Infidelity; Cheating; Rough sex; Forced sex; Slight fuck-or-die but not really; Dead Dove Do Not Eat; Unnecessary amount of commas
Just when you think you couldn’t feel even more worthless, here you were spreading your legs for a man that wasn’t your husband, all for the chance to get food on your table. Your husband acted just as worthless as you currently felt and invited his parents to move into your already cramped house without discussing anything with you. Four grown adults living in a one-bedroom shack of a house, with your husband barely making enough money to feed you both let alone two more mouths, was enough to want to pull your hair out. Of course, it didn’t help that your mother-in-law found fault in every single thing you did which your husband agreed with to stay on his mother’s good side. Coupled with your in-laws living beyond their means, including gorging themselves on food that you managed to scrap together, which often left you going to bed hungry and riddled with anxiety. So, when you overheard the local gossip hounds whispering how the Hewitt family would give meat from their job at the slaughterhouse in exchange for favors, it didn’t take long for you to come to a steely resolve. It might have been the numerous days without a steady meal, or how you were belittled everyday at your home, that made you snap and jump at the chance.
Setting up the arrangement with Charlie Hewitt left a sour taste in your mouth at the way he openly leered at you the entire time, but you just kept thinking about finally going to bed with a full belly to get you through his poorly concealed innuendos and crass language. It wasn’t until you arrived at the Hewitt’s home, telling your husband you were walking to the next town for groceries as an excuse, that your plan began to crumble. The memory of Charlie’s words making fear squeeze your lungs and bile rising in your throat.
‘As much as I want a piece of that pussy…I made a promise to my kin. Tommy’s birthday is coming up and it is far past time for him to become a man despite what mama says. So that’s who you’ll be fucking today. If you got a problem with that then you can fuck off.’
He was so matter-of-fact about the whole thing that it made your head spin.
Relief that you wouldn’t have to sleep with that disgusting excuse of a man making you giddy, before realization at his words struck you like white-hot lightening. You’ve only seen Tommy Hewitt once and the memory was seared into your brain.
You had come across him as he lumbered down the main road on his way home from the slaughterhouse and you were frozen in your tracks as his hulking form stalked past you. He was a large burly man, with broad shoulders, huge biceps, and thick thighs, and his dark shaggy hair didn’t hide the fact that he wore some type of leather mask on the lower part of his face.
He still wore his bloodstained apron.
You had reluctantly agreed once Charlie “sweetened” the deal by promising double the amount of food he would give. Now, here you were, propped up on a bench in the shed while listening to Charlie whisper harshly outside the door. From his tone it sounded like he was scolding someone, Tommy to be exact when you heard his slow heavy footsteps nearing the door, and you swore your heart was going to beat out of your chest the longer you had to wait. From the snippets you could hear it sounded like he was giving instructions and you grimaced when you heard him give vivid instructions on what to put in where.
Finally, after what felt like hours, Tommy came stumbling through the door looking exactly like you remember minus the apron. You realized his blunt appearance was because he was being pushed into the room. Charlie gave you a dirty lingering look, shaking his head with a wistful sigh, before slapping Tommy on a broad shoulder before ducking back out.
The door shut with a firm thud and then you were left alone with the behemoth.
Fear and anxiety once more rushed through you fast enough to make you lightheaded, your heart pounding rapidly in your chest, and the man lingered almost awkwardly by the door. You dimly noticed that he kept his head down, stealing glances at you and your body through his curtain of hair, and you took a deep breath to gather your courage. The bench underneath you was hard and uncomfortable and you knew the sooner you got this over with the sooner you can go home and forget this entire thing.
With shaky hands you hiked up your skirt, removing your panties so they won’t get lost or ruined, and spread your legs. Your face burned in mortification at your actions, even more so when Tommy’s entire body jerked as if sucker-punched, and he didn’t even bother trying to hide the way he openly stared between your legs with wide blue eyes. You fumbled with the small bottle of oil you brought with you, knowing you weren’t going to get properly wet enough to make things less painful, and you quickly waved Tommy over. He approached slowly as if you were going to bite before settling between your spread legs. With him so close you suddenly realized just how big he was, your thighs straining to accommodate the width of his hips, and you nearly jumped out of your skin when a large heavy hand landed on your thigh. His skin was rough and overly warm, thick fingers digging into the meat of your thigh curiously, and you spotted his eyes darting over the rest of your body before settling back between your legs. Your nerves were starting to crumble at his slow pace so you reached down and began unbuckling his pants with trembling fingers.
His entire body tensed up and you mumbled a quiet apology, but your hands continued their work. You knew this was supposedly his first time, but you were anxious to get this over with. Tommy made a low grunting noise as he shuffled on his feet before you got his pants open and his entire body seemed to spasm when you reached into his pants to grab his dick.
You immediately paled at the sheer girth you encountered as you fingers weren’t even close to touching.
He was clearly proportionate to the rest of his body, but that also meant that he was hung like a fucking horse. You let go and fumbled with the vial of oil with a quick prayer for things to be over quickly. You ignored how he jerked his hips closer to you as if willing your hand back as he restlessly pushed his pants down with a grunt to offer you more room to touch him.
His cock stuck out just below his button-down shirt, almost drooping from the heavy weight, and the thick tip was an angry shade of red. You couldn’t help but compare him to your husband. He was larger in every single way, almost laughably so, and you had the brief thought of if you could even get that inside you. It twitched under your gaze. You looked away suddenly embarrassed and saw out of the corner of your eye his hips jerk once more towards you. You felt sweat pool at your lower back, the hot summer air doing nothing to cool you off despite being in shade, and you nervously wiped the sweat beading at your brow the back of your hand. You chided yourself and focused once more at the task at hand.
You poured a generous amount into your palm, nearly half the bottle, and steeled yourself before reaching down to coat him thoroughly. The sound he made didn’t seem human, the punched out garbled growl making the hair on the back of your neck stand on end, and you held back your whimper of fright as he thickened even more in your grasp. You tried to not think of how you were going to struggle to take him into your body. You dropped him once he was completely coated and dumped more oil into your hand, steadfastly ignoring the way Tommy panted through his mask. You leaned back while taking a deep breath before reaching down and slathering yourself, working the oil into your cunt while simultaneously trying to stretch yourself with two fingers in preparation. It wasn’t long until you felt calloused fingers brushing against the back of your hand making you nearly shriek in surprise. You whipped your head down to see Tommy had moved closer, eyes completely transfixed between your legs, and you realized he was gripping himself with his other hand.
He was stroking himself at the same pace you were working yourself open.
Unexpectedly, heat simmered low in your pelvis at the sight and you couldn’t help but squirm in place. It was only about a minute later that you could tell he was getting restless, his hand squeezing his cock tight enough to make you wince, and you pretended to not notice him rubbing the weeping tip against your thighs. Tommy suddenly gripped your leg and spread you even further and you did whimper at the pain shooting through your hip at the unnatural position. He began grinding against your hand still buried in yourself, huffing in annoyance when he was denied entry, and you took a shuddering deep breath before moving your hand away to grip the edge of the bench.
“Go…slow, okay? Slow,” you muttered in a raspy voice and the only answer you received was the sensation of something blunt and sticky nudging at you.
He suddenly surged forward in an attempt to ram himself in, making you shriek and kick your pinned leg uselessly, but thankfully he just slid through your wet folds and brushed against your clit. He did that a few more times and was clearly growing agitated.
Even as you tried to weakly soothe him by weakly petting the hand holding you open, but that just seemed to work him up even more. Eventually the head of his cock notched at your entrance and he began to slowly push forward, seemingly learning from his mistakes, and you felt your eyes widen at the stretch. He was impossibly wide, nearly making you scream as your body attempted to reject the intrusion, but he was determined and those dark blue eyes never strayed from your straining cunt. You tried to help by shifting your hips, bracing one foot on the bench to widen your pelvis, and even stretching your other leg out to help ease the tension.
Nothing worked and you couldn’t escape the mounting pressure.
“It’s not going to work…Tommy, you have to stop. It hurts,” you pleaded, beginning to push on his thick chest while wiggling your hips away from him, and your vision blurred with unshed tears. Tommy didn’t like you pushing him away.
With a growl he pulled back, but your relief was short lived as he easily grabbed your hips and flipped you over and resumed his position. One broad palm was flat on your back between your shoulder blades, pinning you in place even as you squirmed and kicked, and you felt him trying to push in again with renewed vigor.
“Tommy, stop! I changed my mind! Get off of me!” you shrieked with growing panic only to have your shouts silenced by the feel of that fat head popping inside you.
Your eyes widened, body freezing and clenching down on reflex, and you barely had time to draw in a breath before Tommy drew back and slammed himself halfway inside you. The scream you let out was ear-piercing and your throat immediately felt shredded from the sound, but was cut off by him rearing back and slamming his hip back into you until he was eventually buried to the hilt.
His croaky moan of pleasure was covered by another scream from you.
Tears were now flowing freely down your face as you howled in pain, feeling as if you were being ripped in half, and you barely noticed Tommy’s other hand reaching down to paw at your wet cheeks as if to soothe you.
He only stayed still for a few seconds before leaning back and beginning a downright brutal pace. His hips were slamming into you with enough force to have the bench beneath you creaking ominously, your pelvis felt like it was going to shatter, and you had the stray thought that no amount of preparation would have ever prepared for you for him. Your gasping cries were short and choppy, from both his frantic pace and the hand pushing you down effectively squishing your lungs, but you still shrieked and yelped for him to stop or at least slow down to let your body adjust.
He didn’t listen.
He seemed possessed, grunting and snarling as he pounded into you mercilessly, and eventually your body went limp. You clawed helplessly against the wood beneath your cheek, blubbering incoherently, and prayed that Tommy would finish quickly. As if punishment for accepting this deal, you were granted no such reprieve.
He continued to rut into you like a mindless beast for what felt like hours, your insides swollen and throbbing as they were pummeled by his thick cock, and sweat was dripping off of him and mingling with your tears as he leaned over you to reach impossibly deeper. It wasn’t until his hips started stuttering and his thrusts turned deep and hard instead of fast and frantic that had you crying in relief at the telltale signs that he was nearing his finish. Then a horrifying realization dawned on you. Tommy wasn’t stopping. Instead it seemed he was spending longer and longer buried completely to the hilt, pressed flush against you as close as he could, and a new wave of terror-induced adrenaline washed over you.
“Not inside…Tommy don’t you fucking dare finish inside me,” you shrieked, renewing your struggles to escape him, and you grew increasingly wild as he only grunted at you.
You began writhing and attempting to twist away from him, kicking your legs and reaching back behind you to claw at his face, anything to get him away from you.
It only resulted in the hand on your back to slide up and fist painfully in your hair, nearly slamming you back onto the table hard enough for you to see black spots swimming in your vision, and his other hand grabbed your hip to further hold you in place. You continued to beg and plead for him to not come inside you, literally anywhere else but inside, but you were steadfastly ignored. His pace suddenly quickened, a low rattling whine escaping his broad chest, and you wailed as he stilled completely buried inside you. You felt his cock jerk and throb followed by a wave of scorching heat soothing your ravaged channel and you screamed in outrage and in despair. Tommy continued to grind into you, riding out his orgasm with small hurt noises escaping his throat, and by the time he was finished you were limp and shivering with shock. Realization of what all just happened rolling through your mind as fast as nausea rolled in your stomach at the feeling of wetness slipping down your thighs. Bile threatened to rise in your throat, silent tears spilling anew down your damp face, and your entire body felt both boiling hot and icy cold.
You wept quietly as he stayed buried inside you. He petted through your hair as if you were a frightened animal, his ragged breathing filling the stuffy air of the shed, and you swore you heard him cooing at you. You felt him lean down and nuzzle the back of your head as his hand moved from your hip to shyly pet over the back of your hand in some twisted form of affection after what just happened. The door suddenly swung open and you didn’t even have the energy to even twitch.
“Atta boy, Tommy! Heard that bitch caterwauling clear down the road!” Charlie shouted with clear glee and humiliation burned in your veins.
You heard the man move closer, no doubt wanting to leer at your crumpled body, but Tommy growled and moved his body more firmly on top of you. As if shielding you from view.
“Aw, what’s this, boy? You finally get your dick wet and now feel like you’re somebody special?” Charlie sneered and you felt the large body on top of you press even tighter to you.
You heard movement around you before a large item wrapped in brown paper tied with twine plopped on the table by your head.
“A deal’s a deal. Don’t be shy now. I’m sure Tommy would love to see you again,” he continued with a wheezing laugh, clearly finding the whole ordeal hilarious, and he walked back out of the shed laughing to himself.
Regret and disgust swirled in your gut at the sight of the paper bag, knowledge of what all transpired making you want to cry all over again, and you let out a small hiccupping sob. Tommy nuzzled into your hair once more, his body relaxing now that Charlie had left, and he resumed his petting. He was letting out a happy garbled sound, clearly not realizing how he had just brutalized you, and you squeezed your eyes shut.
You felt Tommy begin to harden inside you once more.
#Thomas Hewitt#texas chainsaw massacre smut#texas chainsaw massacre 2003#texas chainsaw massacre the beginning#the texas chainsaw massacre#thomas hewitt smut#thomas hewitt x reader#slashers#slasher fandom#slasher smut#the cryptid posts
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What’s this I hear about no one asking about domestic Copia. I want to know about it please 🥺
I shared a snippet of that one here but I actually have something else I can give you! It's a very short thing about Copia and you being apart and developing a silly case of separation anxiety, no idea if I'm going to do anything longer with it. I wrote this months ago and didn't really edit it, but I might as well share what I have as a little treat for your support :)
Separation Anxiety – Copia x gn!reader, silly fluff ♡
He’s glancing at the door every two seconds, like you’d magically appear faster if he only tried hard enough. The volume of the movie Copia put on for distraction is almost on mute, just in case. He doesn’t want to miss the sound of your steps, the rattling of your keys. You’re always so quiet, the sounds you make barely audible whenever you arrive home. He knows you’ll be extra quiet tonight, assuming he’s already sleeping.
As if he could, without your warm cheek on his chest, your bodies pressed together like one.
His eyes stray to the door again, the knob still unmoving. His frequent sighs become louder, more and more desperate as he waits. Slender fingers dig into the soft upholstery of the couch until he releases them, only to repeat the gesture, tapping his thigh for good measure in between. Copia is fidgety, impatient, nervous even. After not even forty-eight hours without you, he’s positive that he’s starting to lose his mind and every passing second is one step closer to the edge.
Love can be so cruel. He spent half a decade without you and now suddenly one night becomes too much. His eyes only closed during the early morning hours when his exhaustion finally gifted him two hours of sleep. And then he woke up in utter confusion as his alarm went off, reaching out for the familiar shape of your body, only to touch the cold and empty sheets.
It’s not like he fully cried after that, there were no actual tears involved. But his eyes burnt, the ghost of the all-consuming loneliness that accompanied him for so long still clinging to his weary bones. It’s a feeling he can’t quite forget, if only because the emptiness is now filled with so much love and warmth that he still startles every now and then, expecting to find nothing.
Another glance at the door. It’s taunting him. By now he’s sure the knots of the wood form a face, a grotesque grin. When he stares long enough the knob starts moving but then he squints and it’s still again, a mere trick of the eyes.
Your latest text said you would be arriving in half an hour. That was thirty-five minutes ago. Copia jumps up, makes for the door. He could catch you in the hallway, maybe even by the main entrance. He’s halfway to the door when he stops dead in his tracks. No, too eager, too needy. He takes a few steps back. Actually no, he should just sit down. Or would that make it seem like he’s indifferent?
Suddenly the door creeks open, accompanied by a pained groan.
In his nervous frenzy, Copia missed any of the earlier sounds and now he jumps up again, his heart beating so fast that he’s dizzy and disoriented. Then his brain stops working. He sees your tired face peeking through the gap as you wrestle with your bag and finally push the door open with your butt. Copia is there before he’s aware what he’s doing, his arms wrapping around you on their own accord. Your bag gives a dull thud as it lands on the floor and you squeal in surprise. He caught you sideways and now you shift in his arms, molding into him until you’re the perfect shape for his embrace. Your bodies slot together like two matching puzzle pieces.
“Amore,” he whispers, breathing you in with a loud inhale. There’s your smell again, the familiar tickle of your hair against his face, your warmth seeping into his pores. It’s almost too much and yet his instinct is to squeeze even tighter, so tight that you let out a strangled sound, the air all but wrung out of you. Regardless, your arms wrap around him just as desperately. Your hands grip the fabric of his red hoodie so tightly that he feels your nails scraping over his back.
“I missed you so much,” you whisper. “I’ll never leave again.”
His heart gives a jolt at your words, at the realisation that maybe, just maybe your days have felt just as heavy as his, gray and dull and devoid of any light. Could it truly be that his presence is such a comfort to you, that he means so much to you that being without him brings you such pain? He struggles to make sense of it.
“Mia amata, luce della mia vita, I will never let you go again.” He nuzzles your neck, kissing the tender spot below your ear, running his hands over every part of your body he can reach. His fingers recognise every curve, every hill and valley, and yet he feels the need to re-commit them to his memory in exquisite detail. The moment this door closes behind you, he will pull you over to the bed and kiss you breathless, but right now he needs to hold you just a little bit longer.
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hi! regarding your last post about abandoning projects, do you have any advice for overcoming that?
I do!
1. Write something you're passionate about.
Now, I get that everyone constantly says that, and you'll think, "that tells me absolutely nothing" bc passion can only get you so far and usually fluctuates a lot. It's something I've started to realize happens to me. One day I wake up and have a new idea I love and think "wow this is gonna be a piece of cake to finish" despite me knowing it's going to entail a lot of planning and once I get the inital idea out of the way and get to that planning stage my attention for the project... dies.
What I mean with that is to write something you're passionate about is that you shouldn't write something into the project you feel like others will like. Or if it's a project with tropes in it, that you have to follow those to the T.
If an idea is boring, don't write it.
If you have a cool idea that might not fit the vibe entirely, write it down. Keep it in mind for later when it could fit the vibe better.
Incorporate as many things you love as you like and then worry about how the broader plot can shape around them.
2. Don't write in order of what's supposed to happen.
I know it'll make you feel better to feel like you have a clear point A to B but truth is, some parts are going to be extremely boring to write. You won't want to write all about the logistics of a scene happening right that moment or the spicy dialogue that carries the scene bc you're way more focused on another detail that drew you to write a particular scene.
In those cases, I usually just put whatever is supposed to happen in brackets [insert car chase here] and move on the bits I'm excited to get to. You might wake up a couple of days later thinking you want to revisit that car chase scene and write it all in one go now that you've stopped obsessing over a different scene you cared for before.
3. Make the experience more fun for yourself.
If you feel like you're burning out and losing steam from writing and planning the project, take a step back and do something else.
If I still feel like doing something with the project that isn't necessarily write it, I tend to end up making edits or a playlist or looking for inspiration pictures that might give me an idea of a new setting or what a character will look like. And that's what usually keeps my brain working and thinking about the plot.
As soon as another idea pops into my head bc of the space I took not writing the projects itself, I write it down and get reinspired to work on it.
4. Look for inspiration.
As mentioned in 3., I can't recommend enough to look for inspiration in pictures or boards on pinterest or a song or a quote you really love. Trust me, seeing a cool picture or reading a quote that immediately makes you think of a specific character makes you itch to get back to writing.
It also allows your writing to grow when you take the time to look for inspiration. Writing everything in one go might make you feel productive but the quality could potentially decline the longer you're at it and when you come back to it you'll ask yourself what the hell you were on writing some of the stuff. So taking that time, finding new locations/side characters/some dialogue snippets you could incorporate, will make you feel excited to actually see those ideas and inspirations become part of your project.
5. Take breaks.
This is another one of those things you always hear and think, "that's what leads me to abandon it in the first place??" and while I agree (been there) It's also important not to get burned out by the project.
The breaks shouldn't span entire weeks, of course, but don't beat yourself up when you can't get to the project for a couple of days bc of life happening or something else being more interesting.
Taking those breaks ensures you not only build anticipation, but it also let's the project breathe and allows you the space, to again, think of the broader plot or a specific scene that could be cool to incorporate.
6. Find someone to talk about the project with.
In our day and age, we're lucky to have such big writer communities. Chances are, someone out there will get aboslute brain rot from the project you're working on. Talking to people like that will not only allow you to have someone to bounce ideas off of, but it'll also keep you focused and in a way, hold you accountable to actually see it get to a point you can and want to share more.
Starting up a WIP blog, like the one I and many others have, or a writerblr blog will attract people to the idea and have them reach out to ask questions that again keep you thinking about fun parts of the project and develope the idea.
I have a friend I constantly talk to about every idea he and I get. Not all of them ever see the light of day, but we talk about them, send ideas we think could be cool, and write small snippets of scenes bc we are excited about the project. That not only gets you to a starting point, but also makes the planning way smoother and means you're getting instant feedback.
And that's what usually gets you to write more instead of watching your project collect dust in the drafts.
7. Write every single idea down.
This is also something everyone says, but it's true. Chances are, you forget the idea and kick yourself for it later or you think it won't be as good as you imagine it and then you have a missing scene you don't know what to do with where that idea could have fit.
Sometimes, usually just before bed for me, I get ideas, and since I have my phone close by, I just open the notes app, write down the snippet of a conversation I just thought of or a cool detail I'll add when I get back to the file and BOOM I have the next plot point figured out without actively forcing myself to sit in front of the computer and thinking "what is supposed to happen now??"
Even if the idea is silly or seems wack, I can't recommend writing it down enough. You'll thank yourself for it and in a way train yourself into passively thinking about what could happen next.
I have a dedicated page in my files just for random ideas I got in the middle of the night and while some will not make it into the draft itself, it's still fun to think about them or even write a short scene involving the idea just to see where it goes. Maybe it'll inspire you to take your project into a new exciting direction, too!
8. Don't obsess over word counts/progress made.
It's a recent shift I've noticed, where people obsessively focus on how long a scene/chapter is. Like one being 5k long means it's somehow better than a scene that's only a couple hundred words long, but concise and has the kind of structure that keeps you engaged.
If you feel like a scene is done and you're happy with it, even if it's short, leave it. Maybe you'll come back to it and add more, but maybe you'll realize it's perfect the way it is and doesn't need unnecessary details added.
9. Don't get lost in the details.
This is something I've neen prone to do. Obsessing over a single detail or scene to the point that working on it becomes exhausting because I couldn't move on.
It's what kills your drive to write on the project fairly quickly and relates to the point I made to just put whatever is supposed to happen in brackets to revisit later.
The details are usually what make the story feel personalized, but it's also so easy to get lost in them. Writing the broader scene down and revisiting it sometime later to add those details is going to keep you writing and engaged with what you want to make the project into.
10. It's YOUR project, don't forget that.
Sometimes I've started things I thought were fics or stories I'd love to explore only to realize I'm not the best writer for those or that the writing part just isn't as fun as I hoped it could be.
You need to be aware of when to cut your losses. If the project starts to feel more like a drag than what you initially started with, scrap it OR, and this is something I've started to seriously do, is to rewrite/re-plot it from the beginning.
It is time-consuming, but you'll feel better for it in the long run if you take the bits you like and forget the ones you don't and build the project anew. It's tedious but really rewarding once you manage to get to the parts that were there before discouraging you from finishing the project in the first place. And the most important thing is that you're happy with your project.
♡
Of course, what works for me might not work for others, but those are some of the broader things I can recommend you try :) I hope I was able to help a little!
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I've just finished Neverafter, so here are my thoughts on The Big Bad Wolf and Ylfa and what their relationship reveals about The Neverafter itself. I think the most important reveal we get is in S1E9: Origins, when the group witness the moment when Ylfa consumes the wolf.
Brennan said "you think this is a version of Red's story which went very wrong", and the fairy with the turquoise hair (who is herself only an echo of the blue fairy she is supposed to be) tells them that Ylfa met "a version of The Wolf that was much older and ancient". This was caused by (and also foreshadowing) the reveal that the Baron of Bricks was boiling down the essence of The Big Bad Wolf: As the more recent, tamer versions of the wolf got stripped away, all that was left was this primal creature: the one that was most like a wolf.
When the characters question if some versions of their stories come from the Auroratory rather than The Ink, I believe this is true- the ink merely preserves the stories for longer so that other storytellers can read them, which, in turn, reinforces the narratives.
Anyone in the "real world' can be a storyteller: in The Auroratory, when Ylfa hears all the voices telling the different versions of her story, the first one she hears as she begins to panic and worry that she's corrupting the stories is a man's voice talking impatiently and hurriedly, saying “the little girl strayed from the path and got eaten”- which, of course, isn't what happened in the true tale of Red Riding Hood- at least, not in the one I heard as a kid. The little girl strayed from the path, and then she got eaten. The difference is important. She strayed from the path, yes, but she didn't get eaten until later.
But the version of the story Ylfa experiences isn't similar to that, either.
The original story of Red Riding Hood existed as oral tradition long before it was written down, but it's thought that the first written version was penned by Charles Perrault, in 1697. In his version, the wolf tells Red that he'll race her to her grandma's house, and makes sure to take the shorter path so he gets there before her.
Ylfa's version of the story is never told in its entirety, but, from the snippets we get, it doesn't seem to match this story (aside from Ylfa's comment about watching “a caterpillar chase a butterfly”, because in the Perrault version she slowed down to watch burterflies). It seems that Ylfa never met The Wolf until she got to her grandmother's house, and we all know the woodsman wasn't nearby to deter him. So, what would have happened if Ylfa hadn't strayed from the path and gotten to the house late?
Ylfa often talks about how most versions of her story discuss the importance of not straying from the path, but, the truth is, if she hadn't strayed from the path, she wouldn't have survived.
Death is a Big Bad Wolf, but- in this instance- Death waits for her, and Ylfa becomes The Wolf.
In the finale, the characters (protagonist and antagonist alike) all worry about the nature of free will and predestination, but- through their ending- they choose to commit a different version of themselves to paper: a version which will then be retold and reinforced by someone reading it. Their stories will change again, with time and retelling, but, for now, they are in control of a tiny piece of their narrative.
Ylfa strays from the path, but she doesn't get eaten.
And that's where we'll end our story.
#Neverafter#Neverafter spoilers#Dimension 20#dimension 20 neverafter#ylfa snorgelsson#neverafter ylfa#emily axford#brennan lee mulligan#Neverafter thoughts#Neverafter meta#Neverafter finale#Little Red Riding Hood#Charles Perrault#Tales Of Mother Goose#Neverafter Origins
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Body Swap ❤️
(Here's the previous piece I shared)
And a 1k snippet cus what the hell:
He wakes up, and he’s still Carlos. Well, he’s Charles, but in Carlos form- yeah...
He lays in bed for a while, staring at the ceiling and wondering how this all works. Is his own brain still in his body? It must be, right? So then, how is his consciousness in another body when his brain is still where it’s supposed to be? Is it his personality, but with Carlos’ brain? But it can’t be, or else, he’d be able to speak fluent Spanish right now (he tries, and in fact, cannot).
He tries to remember what happened the night of the race. He knows that they’d all gone to get drinks, the sting of his DNF and Carlos’ penalty still too fresh in their veins for sleep. But after arriving at the hotel bar, everything gets...fuzzy. Charles can’t recall anything, until the next morning, when he’d woken up as Carlos.
The gap in his memory is notable enough to make him think that whatever happened in that gap contains their answer for...whatever’s happening. But it doesn’t get him any closer to remembering.
When he finally gets up, it’s because his growling stomach becomes too insistent to ignore any longer. He only runs into a couple doorframes on his way to the kitchen, still not used to these specific proportions or controlling this body’s limbs. He finds Carlos already there, and it still shocks him to see what looks like his own body operating separately from himself. Carlos, obviously, knows where everything in his own kitchen is. But it looks to Charles like he, himself, knows where every dish and cup and ingredient is in his teammate’s kitchen, a kitchen he’s never been in until right now.
His headache from yesterday is already returning.
“Morning,” Carlos says, when he notices Charles lingering in the doorway. “Fuck, that’s weird.” Charles doesn’t have to ask what he means.
“Morning,” he says, shuffling over to the island and sitting in one of the stools.
“I’m making some coffee.”
“I don’t drink it,” Charles says, and then realizes that Carlos does. “Oh...”
“Yeah,” Carlos says, smirking. “Bet you’ll feel much better after.”
Charles is still resistant to the idea, but when Carlos puts a cup in his hands, the smell alone begins to wake up Charles’ senses. He downs the whole thing, the taste familiar and welcome on his tongue, and feels like he can almost function again.
“Better?” Carlos asks, and Charles nods, gratefully. “How did you sleep?”
“Okay,” Charles says. “You?”
“Yeah, okay, also.”
They descend into silence, and Charles feels distinctly like they’ve...forgotten how to be around each other. But they can’t be blamed for not acting themselves, when they aren’t themselves.
“So...what do we do?” Charles asks, and Carlos sighs.
“I did some research,” he says, and Charles raises his brows. “I don’t know if any of it is to be believed. But, I don’t know what else we can do.”
“Okay,” Charles says, gesturing for him to keep going.
“Well, first, I found just a bunch of things about virtual reality, which was not helpful,” Carlos says, scoffing. “And then, there were things about brain transplants which...I don’t think has happened.”
It’s strangely reminiscent of his own thoughts this morning, but Charles just nods without interrupting.
“There was something about ‘mirror souls,’ ” Carlos says, and it makes Charles’ ears perk up.
“That sounds promising.”
“Well, it is part of this...spiritualism thing. And there were people talking about their souls switching bodies with their ‘twin flame.’ But we are not...” Carlos trails off, and Charles frowns, not totally understanding what he means.
“ ‘Twin flame’ - what is this?”
“I don’t really know,” Carlos says, sighing. “But it did not sound like us.”
“Well...okay,” Charles says, feeling frustration building, but not with Carlos necessarily - just with the whole situation. “Did you find anything about how to undo this?”
Carlos hesitates, but then shakes his head.
“Not really, no. Everything was saying that either it is an energy exchange that should undo itself very quickly, or that we need to...understand something. About each other. And until we do that, we will stay...like this.”
They’re both silent again, Carlos letting him process the words.
“But how did this happen in the first place?” Charles asks, eventually. “Why can’t we remember that night, after the race?”
Carlos shrugs, his expression apologetic. Charles is struck by how it feels to see his own face with that expression aimed at him.
“We have to fix this, Carlos. The next race is in less than two weeks. We cannot still be like this when it’s time to drive the cars.”
“I know, Charles,” he sighs. “But what can we do?”
“We should...tell someone. Try to get advice-”
“You want to tell someone?” Carlos asks, disbelief in his voice. “Who would believe us, Charles? They will think we are playing a prank. Or that we’ve gone crazy. They’ll withdraw us from the race-”
“They wouldn’t do that-”
“How do you know?” Carlos interjects, his voice raising.
“Carlos...” Charles starts, taking a breath. “It will be a disaster. We will have to either learn to drive like each other, or else, entirely change our setups. It will be like...”
“Like learning to drive from scratch,” Carlos finishes for him.
“Exactly. This,” he says. “Impossible.”
“It’s not impossible, Charles. We’ve done it before. When we first got into an F1 car.”
“Yes, but-” Charles breaks off, scoffing. “You can’t be serious, Carlos.”
“What choice do we have?” he asks, and Charles doesn’t have an answer. “If we don’t know how to reverse this, then we have to focus on what we do know. We have under two weeks to get ready to drive each other’s cars, so...” He lifts his brows.
Charles sighs. He knows Carlos is right, but it means admitting that he’s gonna be stuck like this for longer.
“Okay, so...what now?”
WIP Wednesday
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Haikaveh Fanfics I Want to Read (Part 2)
<- Part 1.
Part 3. ->
1. The Palace of Alcarzarzaray might be called Kaveh’s magnum opus, but actually, it was more like a kick-start for his career. Kaveh hasn’t known a moment of peace since, with constant commissioners begging for him to choose their projects. The longer his waiting list gets, the more his fame grows and grows... So when a pair of people come out of the woodwork insisting they’re Kaveh’s long-lost parents, Alhaitham thinks it’s only right to be skeptical.
Kaveh agrees (for once), but... they’re so nice to him, and apparently he’s got siblings, and they haven't asked him for anything; they say they never meant to leave him, and they love him, and--and--how could he just turn them away? What if it’s true?
What if he has a real family?
Of course, when these so-called parents start encouraging Kaveh to move back home with them, Alhaitham becomes determined to unravel the lie and show them for the imposters they (almost) certainly are.
It’s only because it irks him to see people twist the truth and get away with it. It’s only because the logical step is to point out obvious manipulations when you spot them.
It’s got nothing at all to do with how empty the house will feel if Kaveh isn’t in it.
Nothing at all.
Rest under the read more:
2. Okay, listen. The fact that Kaveh and Alhaitham are both 12s out of 10 does not change the fact that they’re also MASSIVE NERDS. The fic is just silly snippets of them being the graduate school gremlins they most definitely are:
Is it even fighting if all you are doing is reciting academic citations at each other?
Saturday night, we are both at home doing nothing but debating over the rules to an ancient word game that we’ve mostly pieced together from the barest disconnected snippets of apocrypha and one oblique reference in a single receipt of sale from 1600 years ago, because we are Normal™. The most normal people in Sumeru, even.
How Althaitham flirts: Practicing his newest language acquisition by translating nothing but obscure ancient love letters (“Well, they could have had romantic intention but we shouldn’t allow modern interpretations to color our perceptions without thorough analysis of their semantic contexts and candid awareness of the moral obligation of the translator to avoid speculation on connotations which might privilege biased readings--”). Then he heaps his transcriptions all over the top of Kaveh’s desk and chair and bed and...
How Kaveh flirts: “I built you a bookshelf.”
“I take back every uncharitable thing I’ve said about architecture this week.”
“It is both climate-controlled and self-dusting. Also, it will catalog which books are missing after they’re removed from the shelf and remind you when it’s time to put them back in place so that you’re not tempted to leave your moldy tomes all over my--”
“Wait, who is this bookshelf actually for?”
“See, I’m allowed to criticize his work, but you, peon, are absolutely not. Here is my 50-page rebuttal of your recent article critiquing the architect Kaveh’s research, in which I will outline exactly why you are an incomparable idiot who should be disbarred from publication ever again. Very uncordially, Alhaitham”
The only time Alhaitham and Kaveh are unequivocally, indisputably, and inseparably a T E A M: Tavern Trivia Night. (The schedule for tavern trivia night is shortly thereafter altered to: “Any time in which Kaveh and Alhaitham are not on the premises. The management apologizes in advance for last minute trivia night cancellations, but asks patrons to please respect the rule that not even a single trivia question be spoken in the presence of the Light of Kshahrewar or the Akademiya’s scribe.”)
In other words, two geniuses live their very best lives together.
3. When Prince Alhaitham's viziers started nagging about his lack of spouse to ensure an heir, he dismissed them out of hand. But the truth is, he can't inherit the full privileges of his family's throne (including unfettered access to the kingdom's collection of forbidden records) unless he upholds an ancient peace treaty between his country and their most useful trading neighbor: to become king of Haravatat, he has to marry a citizen of Kshahrewar. Alhaitham isn't the type to bow to social or legal pressure, but if it means he might finally be able to further his research, well, he's willing to swear even a marriage oath to get the knowledge he desires.
But he's not willing to marry anyone unworthy. He's not willing to marry anyone boring, or rote, or feeble-minded, or ill-tempered, or shrill, or under-educated, or ambivalent, or weak, or too polite, or--
If Kshahrewar is going to insist on a political marriage, then Alhaitham will insist on accepting only the best.
But now things are starting to look grim. Prince Alhaitham has interviewed and dismissed (in no polite terms), every eligible Kshahrewar maiden and and no small number of their eligible men besides. For Alhaitham, this is but a formality on his way to further reading, but for the Kingdom of Kshahrewar, real fears are stirring--if they can't find an acceptable candidate soon, the peace treaty that has ensured their alliance with Haravatat’s military-might could dissolve, and already the neighboring powers of Vahumana and Spantamad have been testing the boundaries of their borders...
Entirely out of options, the nervous kingdom gives in and sends the last person they'd want to lose: the Light of Kshahrewar, their beloved architect and most renowned scholar.
But it's all right, because Kaveh has a Plan®.
All right, admittedly, the plan was a lot closer to "Be way too beautiful to reject" than "Argue all night and wake up just to argue again," but hey, whatever works?
(Also known as: The Thousand and One Nights AU where Alhaitham's not quite crazy enough to kill the people he rejects but will crush their self-confidence; Kaveh's not great at telling stories but is great at debate; and the ultimate outcome is still the same very cliffhangery happy ever after.)
4. If you asked Kaveh Kshahrewar, on-call urban planner for the city of Sumeru, he would expound at length and with several melodramatic sighs upon the fact that his life is fraught with a great many challenges and his fortunes are fraught with a great many (obvious in retrospect) mistakes.
To put it simply, Kaveh will tell you he just has rotten luck.
If you were to ask the High Council of Principalities of the Fifth Ring of the Host of Heaven, they would tell you that Kaveh’s luck is actually quite good... for a person in the targets of the dark legions of Hell itself.
There are some exceptional humans upon whom the wheels of fate are hung, whose very existence is destined to bring beautiful things to the world, to tip the balance in the eternal fight between good and evil firmly toward good. Kaveh is one such person, and therefore all his life he’s been a target of unseen forces that would rather see his light snuffed out.
But that last near-death experience was too close. If Kaveh is left to his own devices much longer, he very likely will perish, long before he’s able to achieve his fated great works for the world. Heaven has to do something.
Alhaitham is a very, very efficient Principality. Maybe the most efficient Principality the Host of Heaven has. But he’s never--not once since the beginning of creation--been called on to actually guard a human. Yes, yes, of course he’s read the manual cover to closing, but...
But no one thought to warn him that they were so very emotional.
“Who are you and what are you doing in my house?!”
“I’m your guardian angel. I live here now.”
“911, I need to report a home invasion in progress! Please send help, there is a lunatic eating raw butter out of my fridge!”
(Or: The guardian angel AU where Kaveh is disaster prone because he is Very Cursed, and Alhaitham is even weirder than normal because his frame of reference for humans is still “wears fig leaves.” It’s a tragicomedy in six acts: Kaveh’s going to change the world for the better. His future is already written in stone. And nowhere in that record is there anything about falling in love with an angel, so Alhaitham knows he’s not supposed to be anything more than a bit part in this grand story.
Too bad Kaveh’s always sympathized with the side characters most.)
5. During an exploratory trip to the desert ruins looking for remnants of the Deshret Script, lone researcher Alhaitham discovers a strange--and, in fact, magical--teapot, containing none other than a beautiful (but rather noisy) djinn.
“My name is Kaveh.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“I’m a djinn.”
“I can tell.”
“I’ll grant you three wishes, if and only if--”
“Five wishes.”
“What?”
“You should grant me five wishes.”
“Why?”
“Because I asked politely.”
“You absolutely did not! Ugh, fine, I’ll grant you five wishes. But only--and I mean only!--if you’ll agree to set me free at the end.”
“All right, I swear.”
But where are they now?! Kaveh is getting desperate. It’s been six months, and Alhaitham hasn’t made a single wish! At this rate, Kaveh will never get free! He’ll be stuck bunking in a house full of tacky furniture, being tricked into doing the laundry and sweeping forever! This is so unfair; how is it even allowed?! Alhaitham is human; he has to have some kind of wish in that stone-thick head of his!
(The truth is, Alhaitham does have a wish. It just can’t be granted.
He swore an oath to set Kaveh free, after all.)
#haikaveh#kavetham#alhaitham/kaveh#kaveh/alhaitham#genshin impact#alhaitham#kaveh#genshin impact fanfic#fanfic ideas#I don't have time I just have ideas
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Snippet Thursday: Viper continuation
For context: in previous sections Daxter's ottsel hearing and Jak's eco-assisted eyes picked up a deadly snake camouflaged near Damas’s throne. It didn't get there by itself. Having foiled the assassination attempt, Damas keeps the boys with him to help identify the would-be assassin. As it will turn out in a part I haven't written yet, there are two: one is an agent of Veger disguised as a monk who wants to destabilize the Spargan nation so Haven can control it. The other is an exiled Krimzon Guard who thinks Damas is too soft and who has been promised his old rank back if he kills him.
Obviously, this means tensions are about to be very high between Spargus and Haven. A note: the language I have Spargans using for ceremonies comes from some conlangers on reddit who have been expanding the Gerudo language from Breath of the Wild. I chose Gerudo because "Sabaa'geru" or "Evening People" sounded like something that over generations could become the word Spargus.
Check out their work HERE and HERE!
"Hey boss!" Daxter hopped out of the elevator and made straight for the pools of water. "Aaaaahhh. Sweet relief."
Damas stifled a chuckle at the boy's antics. He was better suited to the heat than he pretended, but he'd never begrudge Daxter the use of the water. By the time he'd looked away, Jak was already halfway to the dais with a spring in his step. Something rattled in his hand.
"I didn't expect to see you today, Jak," Damas greeted him, "What's that you've got?"
Jak held up an intricate band of bones, fangs and claws symmetrically spaced between tiny vertebra and polished until they shone. "It's done!"
Carefully, he passed it to Damas, watching him eagerly for his opinion. Damas turned the band necklace over in his hands, eyebrows raised.
"You have some skill, my boy! I'm impressed with the detail! How long did it take you?"
"Not too long. The fangs were the last piece I needed. See?" Jak leaned over his arm to point to the Dust Demon viper's fangs, forming a circle at the front that mimicked the emblem on the tower door.
"You can keep it, I have another one I'm working one." Jak clearly meant it, but the way he was looking at the necklace suggested he wasn't ready to part with it.
"It reminds me of the arm circlets my captains wear outside the city's walls, albeit bone rather than woven fabric." Damas stepped back up to his throne and set the jewelry down on its arm to admire it. He turned to look back down at Jak, who was clearly pleased by the comparison.
"Were you able to locate Thrax or the false monk?"
Jak's smile fell immediately into a scowl. "Lost Thrax in the Underport. Veger's guy? No idea. Sorry."
Damas jolted. "You chased him all the way into Haven?! Were you seen?"
In the water, Daxter opened one eye and called up, "They don't suspect nothin'. See, those ungrateful yakkows think they can just snap their fingers and Jak will come runnin', so they just figure we're there on one of their orders and start piling on the tasks."
He shut his eye again and yawned. "Boy are they in for a surprise if this turns into war."
"It may come to war," Damas acknowledged. He was devastatingly matter-of-fact about it, as if he was simply discussing the weather. He turned away from his throne, and the ring of tiny bones, to face Jak.
His gaze rested on him with an unbearable weight.
"Should that day come, you will no longer be able to simply run between cities as you please. I need to know where you stand, Jak."
Perhaps his own lack of hesitation should have concerned him. Made him feel guilty for abandoning friends and history so quickly.
It didn't. It made him feel braver than he'd ever felt.
Taking a breath for courage, Jak stepped up onto the dais and approached the king.
"If you asked it of me," Jak said quietly, meeting Damas’s eyes for as long as he could, "I would breach the walls myself. If you gave the order, I'd even lead the Infiltrators right into the Council Hall. As long as the few people who actually stood with us are given at least a chance to support Spargus, there is nothing binding me to Haven."
Damas looked at him with a bemused expression that wavered between stern and fond before a gentle pride won out. He laughed softly and shook his head.
"I don't think I've ever had a citizen quite as bold as you, young one." He rubbed his chin in thought for a moment, then smirked. "Very well, I accept your terms. Give me the names of these "friends", and they will be granted a chance for asylum."
The boy's smile was brief, but genuine and full of life. He stood a little straighter, trying to look as grown-up as possible.
"Then you have your answer," he replied.
"You'll stand with me? Even against the city your friends call home?" Damas pressed, just to be certain.
With a level of emotion unusual for him, Jak answered firmly, "I'd follow you into the underworld. You're-"
He cut himself off quickly, but his eyes finished the sentence for him.
You're the closest thing I have to a father-!
Blinking in a belated effort to hide those emotions, Jak let them push his impulse into action. Two deep breaths, one for courage, one for luck. Then he bowed, fist to his heart.
"Damas, where you go, I go. I will stand with you -- I swear on the Beacon -- even against the people who called themselves our friends. For our people."
Inside, he was shaking. This was a step he'd never taken. He'd never formally given his loyalty to anyone. If Damas didn't accept it-
Jak refused to think about that.
In an instant Damas’s entire posture softened. He placed both hands on Jak’s shoulders, and raised him back up.
"Do you understand what you're saying?" he asked in a hushed voice.
With a dry throat, Jak swallowed and nodded hard. He searched his mind frantically for the old Coastwatcher language Wastelanders still used for ceremonial purposes.
"A'neen Sabaa'geru vaqu."
We are Spargans.
"E'so Sabaa'geru vaqu, darro'ni," Damas answered gravely. You are of Spargus, my son.
It took him far less time to remember the old tongue.
He stepped back to scoop the band of snake vertebrae off his throne and looped it twice around Jak’s right arm before bringing their foreheads together for an instant.
"I will not forget this," he vowed. "I'm...proud of you, Jak."
Now we are one, son-of-my-heart, his spirit sang. What do I care if you have not earned your last amulet? Now and forever you are Spargan!
Jak's eyes glistened when Damas released him, but his crooked smile didn't budge. This was no childish impulse, he'd meant every word. And Damas would honor that pledge.
"Go, then," he said, returning the smile, "seek out your allies in Haven and tell me where they stand."
"We will." Jak squared his shoulders proudly.
"And," Damas added, raising a brow, "I will expect regular reports on your progress, Captain."
"Don't worry, I- Captain?!" Jak sputtered.
There was just a hint of mischief in Damas’s eyes as he gestured to the armband now covering Jak's bicep. "I am giving you the same authority to recruit citizens that I gave Sig. Use it wisely."
Scurrying up out of the water, Daxter rejoined Jak and smacked his leg repeatedly. He knew exactly who he was recruiting.
And who they weren't recruiting.
Jak stood straighter, stiffer, and Daxter felt him trembling just barely under his paw.
A captain? Him? No one listened to him, he was a glorified servant! What was Damas thinking, giving someone like him authority?
Don't screw this up, Jak. Don't screw this up, whatever you do.
He took a shaky breath. "I- I don't um. I don't know how to- to lead, or if anyone would listen to me but-" DON'T SCREW THIS UP!
"I'll-"
The words caught in his throat, then escaped past his teeth.
"I'll do my best to make you proud."
Damas grinned fiercely at him.
"You already do."
#fic prompts#writing prompts#jak and daxter#dadmas#king damas#jak and daxter au#free day thursday#viper au#Damas is stealth training Jak to be his successor and Jak remains oblivious#what this actually leads to is Jak meeting Keira in secret and Keira and Tess causing a full 240 people to evacuate the slums#was Keira expecting to be made second in command of the newly formed Mountain Clan by Brutter? no she was not#meanwhile Samos is losing his moldy green mind#as he deserves#Tess is having a Ball#gerudo language#botw gerudo
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writing has truly felt like pulling teeth the last few days, but here, have a hard-earned snippet of something *falls down*
The shards of Shaoshi are still shattered on the road when he finds his way to Wangjiang Pavilion, sun slanting nearly at its peak. Xiao Zijin didn't even bother gathering them up or placing them to the side, the bastard; Di Feisheng would fly to Sigu Sect and duel the man in the courtyard himself for it if he thought it was worth his time.
(One day Di Feisheng will hunt him down. If not for Xiao Zijin's insecure stupidity, he might have laid eyes upon Li Xiangyi again. But he has priorities, and one fumbling idiot, clinging to the reputation of a sect that is only the shell of its former glory, is currently irrelevant.)
Dust has already settled on Shaoshi's hilt. Di Feisheng reaches for it, settles it in his grasp. Even unbalanced like this, with its blade in pieces, its former quality as a weapon is evident by touch. But the strike of Yangzhouman remains where he strokes the hammered clouds of the grip. There is no spirit to this sword now, broken by the inner energy it was aligned with for so long.
Li Xiangyi is dead, but his sword is not, Di Feisheng told him half a month ago, unthinking but for the wine in his hand and the rush of being alive, both himself and the man across from him. The last laugh Shaoshi has become is sharper than the remains it's broken into. Even mended, it will no longer be the same blade that first carved out the forms of Xiangyi Taijian.
Li Xiangyi is dead.
His words were the ones taken from Li Xiangyi's mouth, an acquiescence then, because how could Li Xiangyi be dead when here he was? Smiling, as tangible a thing as the touch of Yangzhouman singing through Di Feisheng's meridians. Beifeng Baichang had let him survive, retreat into himself, but Yangzhouman allowed him to live again.
With strength left in Li Xiangyi to snap his own sword, was it enough to save its founder one last time, too?
"Zunshang."
Wuyan lands without sound in the shadow of the pavilion, crouching into a bow. Di Feisheng motions for him to rise. At least there'll always be one man in this world to appear on time.
"Have everyone left search for Li Xiangyi. Send them downriver first. Check for any abandoned boats on the shore. I want to know everything, whether you succeed or not."
"Understood. What should we do if we find him?"
"If he's dead, bring him back. Or tell me where he's buried."
"And if he's alive?"
He's still owed the chance to face Li Xiangyi, left to know more of him in Di Feisheng's second life than just water-stained lines on paper. This, is something he should fight for.
And yet somewhere folded in Fang Duobing's belt is Li Xiangyi's letter, the only farewell he stopped to give. When the time comes, it comes.
What's the difference between a last goodbye, and a letting go?
Wuyan looks up. "Zunshang?"
Di Feisheng kneels on dusty ground and tears at the hem of his inner robe, something at hand to wrap Shaoshi in. There's still things yet of Li Xiangyi to pick up the pieces of. "Wuyan, have you ever thought I had an answer for everything?"
"I—"
"Because I'm realizing that I don't think I do." He folds the bundle into his own palm. "Go."
"So if Li Xiangyi is still in the Jianghu?"
Shaoshi's hilt weighs heavy in Di Feisheng's other hand, turned to dead metal.
"Ask me again when you find him."
#part of what is a first chapter. probably. maybe. i wish it wasn't#IM NOT SUPPOSED TO BE STARTING AN INTENDED MULTICHAP THIS DOESN'T END WELL GOOD GOD WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE#okay it's 2am im gonna go watch my brainless hk gangster drama now#finally got this section done it only took like 3 days#mysterious lotus casebook#di feisheng#wuyan#li xiangyi#ashton writes fic#li lianhua
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WIP Wednesday
Tagged by @greypetrel @layalu @daggerbean and @zenstrike (Zen, I've decided I'm just going to post all fic things on this blog from now on, but I will post something that isn't Dragon Age c:)
Tagging @ndostairlyrium @heniareth @pinayelf @buchimgay @brother-genitivi @jtownnn @dreadfutures @inquisimer
I don't have a picture right now, but I've gotten the first two rows of purple onto the Leliana scarf and I'm really pleased with how the color looks so far! It's been really nice to do something with my hands in the evening, especially since I got hooked on a DND show I can watch at the same time.
Here are a snippet from some Mass Effect fic I'm still playing around with, then a bit from a BG piece I've been working on the last month or so.
From "Sure As Night," a ME WIP (535 Words):
The hum of the elevator to Shepard’s cabin had become familiar and comforting, in an odd way.
The rest of the ship sounded just slightly off to Garrus. It’d taken plenty of hits after they’d gone through the relay, had almost certainly taken some damage from that final blast. The Normandy wasn’t actively falling apart or neither of them would be up here, but the sound of the engine was just one more thing that was…off. Or maybe Garrus was just hearing things. Wouldn’t be the first time in the past few months.
But her elevator sounded exactly the same as always. It was…nice, for one thing to stay the same.
“Shepard?” he called. After a moment, the door unlocked and slid open.
It was not immediately apparent where she was when he stepped inside. Garrus glanced at the trail of water on the floor and followed it to the couch in the next room (top notch detective skills there; wouldn’t his father be proud of him now?). He saw Shepard as soon as he walked down the stairs, sprawled over the couch with her feet braced on the bulkhead. Her hair was tousled and darker than usual, water droplets clung to her exposed shoulders, and the rest of her torso was wrapped in a towel.
“Hey there,” she said, and Garrus blinked down at her.
“And here I was coming in to give a formal report,” he said drily. She grimaced and pushed herself up, raking her hair away from her face.
“Tell me that’s a joke,” she said. “Don’t think I can handle another emergency right now.”
She could, of course. They both knew that if there had been an emergency, she’d bolt out of here as quickly as she could and handle it. It’s who she was, after all.
“You ask the engineers, it’s all an emergency,” he told her. “But I think they’ll hang on for a little longer or Ken would be talking less.”
Shepard snorted and shifted aside, glancing at the open space beside her.
Well. He could take a hint. He just hoped she wasn’t about to tell him that last night had been a mistake. He’d been thinking about it plenty since then and he’d reached an entirely different conclusion. Racing through destruction with the expectation of certain death could do that to a person.
Garrus passed the last step and settled beside her as best he could. He still wasn’t used to the human preoccupation with these squishy pieces of furniture. Didn’t they ever get stuck? He always felt like he’d sink all the way to the floor if he sat back too far. He considered telling her this to break the tension and discarded the idea immediately. He could definitely manage better than that.
“How’s the arm?” she asked him, nudging the arm in question. Garrus shrugged and rolled his shoulder experimentally. After taking a rocket to the face, he’d found that his scale for pain was kind of shot. He hadn’t even realized there was something wrong with it before Chakwas had insisted on scanning him.
“I’ve had worse,” he told her, and she snorted.
“Tough guy, huh?” she asked.
“Something like that,” he paused. “And you? You took a few shots yourself.”
“I’ll survive,” Shepard said, looking at him sidelong, and smiled.
And (with a very different tone!) from a piece I am working on for Tav (234 Words):
Hope; a curious thing. She had been bereft of it for so long that its touch burned her then.
“Be welcomed, faithful paladin,” Lathander had said. “Be free of the bonds that held you. ”
“My Lord, I will serve you for all my days,” she had told him, and only knew that she was weeping when the droplets struck the hands she’d clenched below..
She had never been touched like this. Nobody had ever been touched like this, she was certain of that.
“You are mine now. The past is done,” he said. “Name yourself to me, Oathsworn.”
Octavia fell away, dead at last and free to rest. The woman she left behind took a deep breath. She had been a child once, and loved. Her family—her family had called her a silly nickname, coined by a brother with too few teeth to say her real one properly. She had left them behind too young, had left behind any hope of belonging somewhere at the same time.
But—she belonged here now. She belonged to Lathander, as she had once belonged to her family.
“Tavitha Hallowthorn,” she whispered. “I am Tavitha.”
“Tavitha,” the god said, already dissipating into countless flecks of light, each of them composed of all the shades of every perfect sunrise. “Be welcome.”
Octavia was dead. Tavitha bowed her head before her god and knew herself for the first time in a very, very long time.
#wip wednesday#tav tag#jesse shepard#shivunin scrivening#work has been. kind of a nightmare for the last two weeks#so i've written very little#but the good news is i am not getting laid off#the bad news is i am so good at my job that they fired someone else and now i have to fix her shit before i can go back to normal#but. i am glad that i will not have to look for something else#i just miss having the energy to do stuff T.T#oh. but i am getting a tattoo on friday too!!! so that's happening!!!#and hopefully i will have the time/energy to write again soon#because i have lots of Thoughts
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So I had these sitting around for a bit and didn't have any use for them, so i just decided to clean it a bit and then post it. So here, two snippets of a nailsremoved!AU to be balm on the wound of the inevitable tragedy that is Angron. Apologies about any incohesiveness due to it's rough nature. I'm trying to get more confidence in my own writing and posting more of the ideas that I don't spend 80 years on.
Relationships: Angron/Fem!Reader (an AU of my 'stolen historitor' saga)
Warnings: None really apart from typical 40k talk and Angron's general existence
Snippet 1
The only word you can use to possibly describe it, is euphoric.
Never in a million years, in all of your hopes and prayers and desperate pleas, did you ever think it would even be possible. Even he hadn't; Though as with much of his life, he'd accepted his inevitable fate with the same despondent anger as with much else.
You shouldn't be awake, but you can't help but watch him for a moment.
Angron sleeps sitting. Perhaps its a remnant of his time in the gladiator pits. That would make the most logical sense to you, watching as his chin presses against his collarbone. He has one leg bent and one straight out, his left elbow resting on the bent one. He's prepared to fight, even in his sleep. Even his chainaxes are still within reach. You know if you even shifted towards them, they'd be in his hands within the blink of an eye.
But it's still odd to you, not seeing them. The nails were such a poignant, overt part of Angron's silhouette, that their removal has been an adjustment. It feels like a part of him is missing; In an odd sort of way.
You accidentally shift, and he opens his eyes. You smile at him.
He grunts. You snuffle closer to him and lay against his side, content to stay there for the time being. He doesn't remove you, so you assume it's fine.
You’re happy, but it’s bittersweet.
You know that while Angron no longer feels the full punishment of the nails against every other emotion but rage, that portions of the nails that couldn’t be removed; The pieces that replaced parts of his brain will always give him pain. To say that he is cured is laughable as like some sort of sick curse, he can have no relief in his life. A more accurate description would be that they neutered the Butcher’s Nails to give Angron some breathing room.
"Does it still hurt?"
You say softly, feeling his massive hand flop on your hip.
While there is no longer any nails for you to soothe, he does still feel as if your company gives him relief. Perhaps that's just another human emotion he's only just now been able to taste.
“No.”
You don’t know if he says it because it’s true, or he merely mistakes the neutering of pain as full relief it would make sense, given how long he’s lived with the nails; The pain becoming part of him and even its slight removal could feel like it was gone.
He could also just be lying. Though perhaps it would be more accurate to say refusing to show weakness. Someone like him won't simply admit that pain is affecting him. He'll never show his stomach to anyone, now matter how close you may be to him.
He stares at you. Hard. It’s always impossible to tell what he’s thinking until he inevitably says it.
“You worry too much.”
Your lips purse, and Angron grips your face not too hard, but hard enough to make your cheeks empty of air.
"I'm not the only one. I'm just the only one who admits it." The gladiator makes a disgruntled, irritated face and looks away.
Snippet 2
What an odd moment in time, Sanguinius thinks.
To imagine that out of all of his brothers, the one hailing from Nuceria would be the one to change so drastically. And to think they'd almost thought him lost.
Such is the nature of life, he guesses. For things to change so quickly. Even in their long lives it doesn't seem to slow down in the slightest.
Sanguinius looks across the massive room, watching the World Eater's Primarch interact with the only human he's given time of day. A question must've been asked, as they look up to him with a curiosity and Angron glances down to give an amused scoff.
It's barely there, but he sees it. It's just barely noticeable in the slightly softened look in his eyes. But the angel is keen, and catches it. He speaks up to either of the men in his presence, to neither in particular.
"I've never seen that man crack even the smallest smile. And it's been, what, three hundred years?"
Sanguinius' wings are fluffed, comfortable in the presence of two of his closest brothers. They've even seen Konrad smile; Though context proves to be a valuable marker in regards to him in particular. Magnus crosses his arms and looks towards Horus, not having heard him when the two of them exchanged an amused chuckle at Sanguinus' observation. Odd, for the Warmaster. Normally whenever he's in the Angel's company on Terra, it's hard to keep a laugh off of his lips.
"Have you, brother?"
Horus looks towards his brothers with a soft, charming smirk, one that fades ever so slightly as he looks to Angron. He thinks back, trying to remember a moment where the man hailing from Nuceria had ever shown anything but rage boiling just beneath the surface.
He lets out a soft chuckle when he comes up completely empty, and shakes his head.
"No, I don't think I have."
With all three in agreement Sanguinus makes some sort of lighthearted jest to Magnus at Angron's expense, looking away from the Warmaster for a moment. He doesn't let his perfect veneer drop, as he sees the old gladiator speak words not audible to him at you.
Horus watches for a moment longer, and then walks away.
#not putting it in all the main tags because it's just a blurb#angron x reader#reader insert#reader#mywriting
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Fic Pride Friday
Happy Friday, everyone! I missed this last week so I thought I'd make up for it this week! I don't have in me to go through 40+ works as of late, so I just pulled some from my long form work. Thanks to @carlos-in-glasses, @vineofroses, @bonheur-cafe and @literateowl for the tags!
Rules: Post your favorite line or passage from as many of your published works as you’d like. Let yourself feel proud of your creations! Tag as many people as you post snippets, so your fellow fic friends can be proud, too.
tender eyes that shine:
TK’s thrusts are in rapid succession; the only thing keeping up with the rhythm is Carlos’ heartbeat. It’s as if TK, right now, in this moment, is a lifeline that Carlos is tethered to that’s born out of nothing more desirous longing and trust.
TK calls him “Baby” and the last thing Carlos thinks is that he can only hope Heaven will be half as sweet as the way that word sounds rolling off of TK’s tongue.
Suddenly, the darkness that’s gripped him seems to ease itself. Darkness ebbs away as the light becomes something more tangible, something just out of reach. He opens his eyes, and he sees both TK and his father.
Carlos isn’t sure if he’s been brought back from death or if he’s been left to his own devices in Heaven. He’s always thought that TK has the beauty of an angel that’s come down to Earth, one that’s replaced his halo with a fireman’s cap.
When he sees his father standing above him, it comes as no surprise. Carlos has always considered him to be a martyr, fighting the good fight until the very end. With the warm golden hue surrounding the both of them, he thinks this must be the highest the sky can go.
summer slipped us underneath her tongue:
TK leans down, causing a dip in the bed as he leans in to give Carlos a kiss. He tastes like last night’s raspberry tart and all of Carlos’ dreams come true. He pulls away and says, “I’ll be back before you have the chance to miss me.”
Carlos smiles, his face still cupped between TK’s hands. “It’s hard not to miss you. I love having you around.”
There’s that word again: love.
Love is a word that’s always tossed around casually, even by them; but the way it sounds rolling off of Carlos’ tongue causes TK’s heart to skip a beat. As if it’s a rock being thrown across a once still pond.
Ever since TK realized that this, this thing with Carlos is no longer casual but something very real; the word love has hit his ear differently each and every time. He loves Carlos, and all he wants to do is tell him.
Carlos is spiraling well beyond his control. He’s trying to piece where he went wrong but then TK is grabbing his hand and saying his name like it’s the only word he’s ever know.
29 Going on 30
TK’s a little disheartened at the realization. He used to know this city like the back of his hand; now he feels like he’s wearing a glove.
“I think that part of living life is finding new ways to left love in,” Carlos continues. “Learning that love can be an afternoon serenade, a hideous sweater that you still found a way to look good in or the realization that the love that feels too good to be true is the love that you’ve been deserving of all along.”
TK is quiet for a beat; a medley of mixed emotions overtaking him. Love that feels too good to be true is the love that you’ve been deserving of all along.
Maybe Carlos is right, maybe he needs to let himself finally feel comfortable with the idea that this type of love isn’t meant to crumble. He won’t have to dig through the remains of what’s left to restore himself. This love has a foundation that’s meant to last.
Quietly, he asks, “You still think I’m a dream?”
“So much I almost can’t believe my eyes,” Carlos replies with a smile. “You deserve an everlasting love, Tyler,” The words are a declaration, a phrase that gives no room for argument. “I’ll always be here, wanting to be the one that gives it to you.”
come and take a walk on the wild side
It’s 4:02 a.m. and TK is standing on the balcony, smoking a cigarette. For the most part, the party has thinned out except for a couple of stragglers and those that had decided to spend the night.
He holds the phone close to his ear; hearing the other line ring, once, twice, three times.
He’s about the end the call before it can even start when a voice answers on the other line.
“Hello?” The voice sounds groggy, and aged. TK still recognizes it all the same.
TK doesn’t respond, feeling the words anxious to grab purchase.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
TK doesn’t reply, and it’s not soon before the person on the other line hangs up. He brings the phone down, and whispers to himself, “Happy Father’s Day, dad.”
“I’d ask you to save the attitude for dinner, but,” Sam finally breaks eye contact, looking back down at his phone, knowing he’s about to win this back and forth between them. “We both know you’ll hold me to that.”
TK hears the unspoken command: knock it off. He knows he should, just make the rest of the night easier for both of them; but there’s something in him that wants to fight against that feeling. Relieve himself of the weight that he’s holding for both of them.
“Yeah? And give your dad another reason to hate everything about me?” TK decides not to think about the fact Winston brings out the worst in both of them.
Sam doesn’t look up from his phone, wanting to treat TK’s response like it’s nothing but a low brow tactic. “He doesn’t hate everything about you.”
TK snorts. “Oh yeah? What doesn’t he hate?”
Sam looks up from his phone and stares directly at TK, giving him his undivided attention. His words drip with a scathing sense of frustration, “The way you know how to get under my skin.”
I'm a week late to this so I'm sure everyone has already gone, but if you haven't and want to share, consider this open tag for you :)
#come and take a walk on the wild side really is that girl when she's updated#fic: tender eyes that shine#fic: summer slipped us underneath her tongue#fic: 29 Going on 30#fic: come and take a walk on the wild side#tag you're it#my writing
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thinkinh about the world building im trying to hit indigo&monsoon's world with .. collection of little lore snippets.
totally fun facts about my ocs
Monsoon dies in order to carry a star onto Gordion. The star itself is contained inside of its ribcage, quite literally burning it from the inside out. In order to get it there, Indigo fed the star to Monsoon.
The star in question is used to 'wish' Gordion out of existence.
In my interpretation of lore, Gordion is the name of a universe-devouring beast (also using the moniker 'Death'). Same appearance as it as ingame. As in; huge planet.
Sigurd has both a lesser and greater role. He is one out of a few others who have left logs & things that one can find. At the end of his logs, he instead expresses a wish to see Death's death. (Regarding Gordion; Gordion is meant to be widely regarded as death itself, here.)
The company creates 'employees' via piecing together usually mindless drones out of the corpses of entities, humans, and other odd things. A great majority are simply brainwashed into believing that they are human, despite anything that may prove otherwise. Since the company itself is rather lackluster in enforcing the brainwashing, there have been numerous cases wherein entire crews have gone into it entirely conscious of themselves. It is an incredibly flawed process.
Think of the company as a hive & the employees the worker bees. They are an attempt to lessen the universe's slow death in the maw of Gordion, for those who no longer exist to have a greater amount of time to search for a solution that, too, does not exist anymore. There was an entire workforce dedicated to slowing & ceasing the consumption. They are all dead and gone, and with their disappearance leaving behind objects that eventually became known as Comedy/Tragedy masks. Their purpose is unknown, as there are no traces of information regarding them and their creation left.
Indigo dies nearly immediately after Monsoon does. Monsoon disintegrates in his arms.
The only reason that Indigo does not immediately disintegrate beneath the star's power is because of his biological makeup. To keep it simple, he's closer to a bracken & a corpse than he is to a living being; he lacks several organs crucial to life and is mostly patchwork on the inside. Thus, he also burns like wood. Wet wood. It doesn't make it any less painful, though.
Nutcrackers, coil heads, and Masks/Masked are regarded as human creations. This does include the parasites within the nutcrackers. This does have 'lore' relevance.
Indigo is an unfinished product. He basically got sent through the creation process as if it were a blender. Thus, while he does not entirely believe himself human or retain the loyalty to the company, he does retain a need for purpose. That need tends to overshadow everything else. It can consume him, in a way, just as Gordion has consumed everything else.
If given more time, Monsoon could have become indigo's 'purpose'. I dare to say even a week more spent oblivious to Gordion's existence would have let him fixate entirely upon Monsoon. The unfortunate thing is that that's not how it happens, nor could Indigo change his purpose after he became fixated on the first initial purpose. It would be similar to taking away the thing a robot is meant to do; sure, it could do other things, but never will it retain the same ease, passion & desire to do those things as it did its initial thing.
Many species have been behaviorally changed in accordance with the story. For example; Nutcrackers actively guard specific areas within the facility/mansion. Their patrols are consistent rather than erratic, and rather than play their music only during confrontation, they continuously play the music at a low volume. (Something about war machines that sing). They are semi-sentient and intelligent enough to recognize humanoids and discern whether or not said humanoids are intruders upon the area they guard. A nutcracker will still shoot to kill if you are within its guarded area, but it will resort to warning shots if you are either nearby or bordering its area. They also recognize that the mansion itself is something to be protected but are designated to specific spots and, therefore, do not stray outside of those spots.
Coil-heads were once people (of many species) who had been eroded into what they are now. I will not be clarifying much on this. However; I dare say that attempting to trap and contain a star is a deeply terrible idea, even if it is in the attempts to erase a greater evil. Do you think a star cares for the guilts and grievances of such small beings? Of course not.
Indigo's skeletal structure is more 'animal' than it is human. In fact, he is actually missing some bones in some places, as there was either no need for them or the species used to form those parts simply didn't have bone. He can look directly behind him by looking directly upward and opening his mouth. (Image below.)
It looks about as odd as you'd expect.
His neck situation is kind of frightening. He is missing most of the vertebrae in his spine above the ribs, and it's mostly just cartilage and... stuff, going on in there. You could probably just reach in and take a wad of suspicious flesh out, bare handed. That's how loose and tender everything is in there.
Monsoon is very sensitive to heat and light, as one would expect a plant based creature to be. I suppose this makes the impact of its willing act of holding a star all the more important; even without sentience, without understanding, its faith in Indigo was so awfully strong that perhaps the agony meant nothing to it.
Monsoon's anatomy is odd, as it does not actually have bones. 80% of its body is simply solid fibers or material resembling cartilage. Its skull is the most solid thing inside of its body, as it is roughly 75% bone.
#oc lore#oc monsoon#oc indigo#loredropping about my oc's world is drving me nuts#i will continue this lter i tjink#reminder to self elaborate regarding the creation & purpose of the Masks#lethal company#lethal company oc#refinng this latwe i wrote all of this on the verge of sleep
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Jaiden and Cellbit family bonding drabble
*reminder I have only watched Jaiden’s pov and some tiktok clips of Cellbit
But I love their dynamic so here is a piece I wrote inspired by all of “Something is happening…” and a snippet of “Slimecicle goes on a murderous rampage…”
DRABBLE BELOW THE LINE <3
He thought maybe he was just taking care of her because she was Roier’s best friend and partner. She had been there long before he ever came along. They had a whole life before any of the Brazilians were there. Still in the short time they got before their worst day, Bobby and Richaryson became best friends. Cellbit struggled watching his son cry at the loss. He struggled even more to watch the two parents mourning. He had barely known them before. He really only knew them after the loss.
Jaiden was distant. She was secretive. If she wasn’t with Roier she was alone. That made Cellbit nervous. But he was growing to love Roier and he trusted him… so he trusted Jaiden.
That trust was tested when she came to him about the Federation. He stared into her eyes praying she wasn’t brainwashed or mind wiped like he was. He couldn’t remember the last few days but he could remember he loved Roier and trusted Jaiden. She was telling him about it after all.
He could have lied to himself a little longer, telling himself she wasn’t his family. But soon enough he was intruding on her missions and telling her he never wanted her to go placed alone, at least not places Cucorucho was sending her.
She was in his wedding. She helped take care of his child (along with the rest of the island). She was becoming someone he couldn’t lose.
He was glad he stopped pretending. He followed her into that dungeon and that saved her. She would have died out there. Yeah she would’ve come back but Roier wouldn’t have forgiven him for knowing and not going… He wouldn’t have forgiven himself.
What he hadn’t expected was for her to care back. He had known the open and wide smiled Jaiden. As they headed home, she looked at him and grabbed his hand.
“Hey, I know we don’t know what’s gonna happen but thanks for stay by me today.”
“No worries.”
“I know I am not always trus-“
“Don’t finish that sentence.”
“I used to get so worried when things would go wrong and Roier was gone. I only really felt Bobby and I were safe with him there. I felt safe with you here.”
“You’re my family too now.”
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You’ll Always be My Favorite Ghost
Summary: Snippets of life in the penthouse.Daniel Molloy keeps learning new love languages. Daniel Molloy keeps loving parts of Armand he never really saw coming.
Notes: This is saved in my notes app under the title “The A in Armand stands for autism.” So that’s the vibe here. Show universe, but I borrow liberally from the books (mostly Queen of the Damned). I apparently only know how to write fics about Daniel Molloy shedding his grumpy facade and taking care of these vampires. He’s. A bit smitten here. Primarily Devil’s Minion,but there’s some background Daniel/Louis also. I feel like if you’re already autistic and you become a vampire, you get like. Turbo Autism. Autism Squared. Autism 2: Electric Boogaloo. As a final note, these characters are most likely improbably nice to each other in this fic. But I’m here to chew gum and write self-indulgent fanfiction. And brother, I’m all out of gum.
Warnings: Sensory overload, blood, some brief references to animal death.
*
Louis no longer sleeps in a coffin, but Armand still does. If you ask him how he knows these two facts, Daniel Molloy will tell you to come back with a warrant.
It makes sense, he supposes. Louis clings to every scrap of humanity he can find, and the king size mattress and the bedside table and the sleek lamp that looks like you need a resume and a cover letter just to touch it are all pieces of the elaborate fiction he has created for his own edification. Armand, on the other hand, may enjoy his human playacting for whatever incomprehensible reason, but he is, fundamentally, a 500 year old monster, and old habits die hard.
That’s his theory, at least.
Of the two options, Daniel prefers the bed. He thinks he does, at least. It feels less eternal. Although, all things considered, ‘eternal’ must be how a coffin is supposed to feel. The first time that he shares this narrow space with another, he has to remind himself that Armand is not a bird-boned, fragile thing. The first time that the coffin lid closes over him, he swallows back a stab of panic at the same second as the vampire whispers, “Do you hear that?”
Daniel listens. Listens with human ears, with old ears. Hears nothing. “No.”
“Exactly,” Armand sighs, nearly a purr. All of him seems to relax at once, until Daniel no longer has to wonder how sculptors find softness in the marble statues they carve. His lover is asleep within seconds. Maybe this is what “sleeping like the dead” means.
It’s too quiet for Daniel’s taste. For some reason he finds himself consumed with thoughts of how he’ll know if the fire alarm suddenly goes off. At first he thinks the only sound he can hear is his own heartbeat. Then he lays his head down and finds he can hear another, in near-perfect sync with his. This stillness and softness is foreign. Armand is typically as taut as a bowstring, a mass of twitches and fidgets, apparently on the verge of shaking apart at any second. But here in the quiet dark—where has he heard that before?—there is something like peace.
Daniel sleeps.
*
There really is nothing on earth that can prepare you for the experience of entering a room to find someone microwaving your smartphone.
It’s the smell, mostly. Something of smoke, something of metal, something of melting plastic microchips. It sends Daniel barreling into the industrial kitchen bellowing profanity. The microwave is sparking and zapping. Armand stands a few feet away, expression wild-eyed and unblinking. He has pressed his fingers over his ears.
Nothing has caught fire yet when he rips the door open, staring at the smoldering thing within. He finds a pair of salad tongs in a drawer and reaches into the microwave with them, removing the charred remains of his phone and dropping it in the sink. It sparks unexpectedly and he turns the water on, sending smoke rising off of it.
Daniel leans over the counter, head in his hands, unable to bring himself to say anything yet. He has plenty of questions but all of them begin with “what the fuck is wrong with you?” and he has learned from past experiences with Armand that this is the wrong response. His final choice of words isn’t much better, as he asks, “You wanna explain why the fuck you decided to put my phone in the microwave?”
The silence from Armand lasts too long. Daniel knows what he will see when he turns around: the hands balled into fists, the tiny, almost imperceptible self-soothing movement of thumbs over knuckles again and again. The heel to toe rocking motion. What had Louis called him? Metronomic? So he hadn’t lied about everything.
He turns. Takes it all in at a glance. “You…okay?”
He’s just had his personal property destroyed, and it doesn’t make any sense that his instinctive response is to gather the the culprit, the monster, the dead thing responsible into his arms and tell him that it’s fine, really, he only needed that for work and for communicating with his doctor and for maintaining contact with the land of the living.
“I’m not—mad.” He offers, half choking on the words. He hopes that isn’t a lie, because he knows Armand can read his thoughts if he wants, “but, yeah, my editor is going to have a coronary when he can’t reach me, so next time maybe find something that won’t—“
He’s stopped short by a tiny, frantic shake of Armand’s head. It takes him a moment to understand what he’s seeing. Ah.
“That’s why we don’t put metal in the microwave,” he explains with a put-upon patience that reminds him of an elementary school teacher. He has to remind himself that Armand is his senior by more than a few centuries, even if he has never had cause to find out what happens when you leave a fork in the microwave on accident. This monster, who microwaves living things and who has developed an emotional bond with the garbage disposal, is distraught over the unexpected light and sound of Daniel’s phone being nuked at 1200 watts.
“Hey,” he says, stepping away from the counter. He keeps his movements slow, his palms open and his hands in view. It never hurts to remember that Armand is a thing made of teeth and claws. He reaches to brush away a lock of dark hair, but gets his hand captured instead. Armand holds Daniel’s one wrinkled hand in his two smooth ones, then lifts it, strokes it against his cheek, smells it.
Some distant, half-dissociated part of him is incredulous at the idea that this is his life now. It fights for dominance with the part of him that is marveling at the smooth coolness of Armand’s skin, at the feel of his lips on every inch of his palm as he continues to explore him. Then Armand nips experimentally at one of Daniel’s fingers and he draws back with an irritated huff, brought back into the moment by the sharp pain.
Armand looks more focused too, less lost at sea, as if he has been re-anchored. He tosses the lock of hair Daniel had been aiming for out of his eyes and says, “I’ll order a replacement, you’ll have it within the afternoon.” He turns and begins to walk away as though nothing has happened.
“You’re paying for it!” Daniel calls after him.
“Naturally.” Armand does not look back.
Daniel goes to wash the blood from his hand.
*
There are seven different cuts of the film Blade Runner. It inspired a sequel, a series of short films, an anime, a series of tie-in novels (in spite of already being based off of a book), and a handful of projects set in the same universe.
Daniel is pretty sure he has experienced all of these at this point.
Some evenings he wakes up alone in Armand’s coffin, and follows the sound of Blade Runner to find his lover. He’s used to locating Armand sitting with his legs crossed and hovering a few inches above the couch, his eyes alight.
For his part, Daniel is tired of Harrison Ford, tired of Rutger Hauer. He has made attempts to ply Armand with other Ridley Scott films, and none of them have captured his attention so fully.
When asked about it, Louis smiles knowingly and says, “He’ll move on eventually,” with the patience of the saint he pretends to be, “you’re thinking within the confines of human time, Daniel.”
He almost snaps that human time is all he has, last he checked, but he stops himself.
Later he falls asleep on the couch with his head resting on Armand’s lap. The soundtrack is, as usual, Blade Runner. He wakes up to the sound of the film restarting, but also to the feeling of ever-eager, ever-curious fingers combing through his curls as Armand watches the film with rapt attention. And Daniel decides maybe the movie isn’t so bad after all.
*
It has been a long night.
Daniel is exhausted. Armand has collapsed, limbs all akimbo. It has been an evening of unfocused rage, of discomfort, of bloody tears. An evening where none of Armand’s clothes fit correctly and his hair tickles the back of his neck, and the sound of Daniel’s keyboard has driven him to the edge of despair. Louis has surrendered his bed as a soft place to land and Armand lies on it, looking strung out and unfocused.
Louis is better suited for the task at hand, with his near-silent movements and feather-light touch. But Daniel is the one who enters the room and takes a seat on the edge of the bed, setting aside an armload of hastily gathered supplies.
He starts by wiping away the trails of bloody tears. Armand is as cold as ever, but his eyes are fever-wild and he shivers under the cool of the damp cloth.
“Let’s get rid of it,” Daniel suggests. He maneuvers the vampire into an upright position and sets to work on the mop of dark curls, clipping them short with a pair of scissors he found in a kitchen drawer. The knowledge that the hair will all be back in a few hours is the only thing that makes him brave enough to go after it with his perpetually shaking hands. The end result is uneven and nearly alarming. Armand appears shorn. But he also looks as if he can breathe again.
Finally, he redresses him in a pair of his own pajamas, a couple of sizes too big but worn to inoffensive softness and smelling unmistakably of Daniel, in spite of being freshly laundered. He guides his head back down to the pillow. Armand curls back in on himself.
The night is still new. Perhaps later Armand will emerge from the room on his own. More likely, Louis will carry him to his coffin when the morning starts to creep in, and Daniel will share the bed with Louis today, to give him space and silence. Tomorrow night Armand’s soft curls will be back. Hopefully by that time they will again be tolerable. If not, Daniel still has the scissors.
*
Although Daniel is the only one in the penthouse who needs to eat food to survive, the kitchen is stocked for a family of ten.
It’s also arranged by color.
None of this is Daniel’s doing.
It is a typical evening. Louis is sipping blood from a mug like it’s coffee, and Armand is loading a blender with Twizzlers, tomatoes, and steak, cooked rare. Daniel watches as Armand puts the lid on the blender, starts it with the press of a button, and then rockets to the other side of the room to observe from a distance, ears covered.
Later, Daniel will find himself cleaning exploded insect legs from the microwave. Later the penthouse will sound like Blade Runner again. Later, he’ll probably be coerced into drinking whatever is going to come out of that blender. Later he will hold Armand close and feel him relax in his arms once more.
“How old are you, again?” He asks.
“Five hundred and fourteen,” Armand says, when he has turned off the blender.
Well, Daniel thinks, at least we know it wasn’t vaccines.
Louis chokes on a sip of his blood, or maybe a laugh. Armand turns and eyes them both, his face a mask of curiosity at a statement he does not understand.
“I love you,” Daniel says, without planning to say it.
“Here, try this,” Armand replies.
#Interview with the vampire#iwtv#devil's minion#vcsource#the vampire armand#armand de romanus#daniel molloy#amc interview with the vampire#amc iwtv#iwtv 2022#interview with the vampire 2022#iwtv show#interview with the vampire show#the vampire chronicles#tvc#autistic headcanon
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TwiFicmas23 Day 5: Smoke & Mirrors
Good evening!
Tonight is a snippet from an upcoming one-shot, Smoke & Mirrors. It's a canon AU where Alice ended up going South as soon as she wakes up, and ends up being a competing Southern Warlord. It's meant to be a fun little one shot, set around Breaking Dawn, but needs major edits and rewrites, so I thought a snippet from the OG draft might be fun.
I'm half asleep, so I'll bid you all adieu and I hope you enjoy this!
smoke & mirrors.
Here’s the thing about the Southern Wars.
You ended up knowing everyone who lives long enough. Jasper knows Matteo, Carmela, and Rodrigo far better than he’d like to know people he tried to kill for half a century. He knows Lyric from Baja is a chameleon who wefts and weaves herself into whatever army holds the strongest territory; he knows Tomas as someone who really needs to be put down for good but he’s just so likeable everyone ignores his less appealing ‘hobbies’. And Katya who has fought for seventy years yet never actually killed anyone (Matteo is a soft-touch when it comes to Katya, that’s an open secret.)
At any one time, he knows someone who can kill, kidnap, rob, acquire, destroy, or duplicate anything in the known world. He tries to keep most of that close to the vest, preferring for the Cullens not to know that if shit comes to shove, he can have Bella abducted and in a safe house in less than 12 hours without a single trace, let alone anyone linking it to the Cullens.
Hell, if Carlisle ever wanted a Pope’s skull to adorn his study, he knows a guy. It would cost a pretty penny and probably take the best part of a month, but he could make it happen. The same way he’s gotten more than just Cullen paperwork from Jenks; or that at least sixty percent of the cash he’s allocated annually goes towards helping those same old ‘friends’.
It should also be noted that ‘friends’ is used ironically - other than Peter or Charlotte, any one of those people would kill him without a second thought if he was no longer useful. He feels the same about them. At a certain point, all the shit they went through and survived created some strange kind of respect and understanding. Veterans on opposing sides of a war.
(It also needs to be noted that for all of the shit that has rained down on the family since Bella Swan tripped and stumbled into their lives, that he probably could have called in a favour for an extra set of hands. But Peter and Charlotte were unavailable, and calling in that kind of favour set a precedent he hadn’t wanted to deal with at the time, so he’d kept quiet and gotten the job done himself.)
Which is just a fancy way to say that when Irina bursts in and admits she told the fuckin’ Volturi about Renesmee, the Immortal Child, he’s already flipping through his mental Rolodex of assets to get them out of this mess. It’s a more practical option than, say, snapping Irina into bite-sized pieces to give her time to think about her actions.
This is a problem. A big one. The more he thinks about it, the worse it gets.
It’s the first public trial that the Volturi has held since the Wars (he was only a few years out of being a newborn, and he barely remembers in it through the haze of bloodlust and irritation, trying to keep the freshest newborns contained and civil as the Kings ruled Helena a dangerous criminal and scorched the entire coven from existence. He remembers Maria being quiet for a few days afterwards, but the specifics of the entire event were lost to him.)
And that trial was only Caius, Aro, Dimitri, and the Twins. The Cullens’ charges (exposing themselves with the van incident, telling Bella, Edward’s attempt at exposing himself in Volterra, the whole Victoria debacle, waiting more than a year to change Bella, Charlie Swan, and now a hybrid child) were… difficult to challenge.
The entire court was coming.
(Sometimes he wonders if his role in this family has become that of the fixer. The one that is constantly bailing out the sinking ship, patching holes, and making sure all arms and legs are inside the proverbial vehicle - St Cloud, Dell Rapids, Senoia… Thirty years of that and, well, he’s getting tired.)
He gets up and disappears when Irina arrives, make-up smeared and emotions pinging off the walls like super balls, even though he knows what’s coming. He can practically sense it now.
(The thing about the Southern Wars is that, even after you turn your back on it, you never seem to stop fighting some kind of battle.)
//
It’s less than six hours before everyone has to be informed of Irina’s faux pas, and it goes about as well as Jasper expected.
He sits on the stairs as Edward and Rose and Carlisle argue, Jacob making unhelpful comments as he eats some vile human snack, and Irina looks vaguely ill and he wonders what the fuck Irina was thinking. If she wanted answers, justice, she should have come straight to the Cullens. This wasn’t so much as overkill, as nuking the planet from space after an oil spill.
(He also wants to know how exactly she left Volterra to warn them. Did Aro dismiss her? Send her? Did she just slip out and hope no one noticed?)
The rot is truly set in with the Volturi; he’s heard Maria’s rants about them, about how power curdles and corrupts. How it becomes less about protection and more about control. And when you have vaults and vaults of money and jewels and artwork and books, you look for something much, much rarer and unique to collect. Something that cannot be bought or stolen. They are no one’s benevolent overlords, no loving fathers of their people - they are a bullet fired wildly into a crowd, striking down the slow, the ignorant, and the vulnerable.
Very, very rarely do the actually guilty fall. That’s why this is such a bitter pill to swallow, such a disaster - Aro is coming for a trial, with the biggest audience he can find, to cull the Cullens and pick over the carcass. Justice and honesty and truth have no place here.
(Helena was no criminal. Just trying to salvage a terrible situation her very best. Whomever fed her to the wolves was more of a criminal than Helena ever came close to being. She was nobody’s enemy.)
This is bad, very bad.
Emmett comes over to him, his normally jovial expression replaced with something that was both tired and solemn.
“This is a mess,” Emmett says, and that’s his brother. Always the diplomat.
This isn’t a mess. He can clean up messes.
He offers a nod, and they both look over as Rosalie sends something flying - an ugly ceramic egg the size of a soccer ball that is nobody’s favourite, so the only one who flinches is Jacob.
“We don’t have many options,” he finally says, and he feels the flutter of Emmett’s hope and relief against him; this is what his brother wants. Jasper’s bailed them out of the last… three of Edward’s debacles, of course the family veteran has an escape hatch already planned and built, a way that they get to keep their heads.
(He wants to warn Emmett, the eternal optimist that he’s really only flipping names over in his head, working out who will give them the best advantage. Who owes him and who he already owes and who is nearby and who he can get in touch with the fastest. Do they need witnesses or an army or some combination of both? There are a million balls in the air, even though the answer is right there because he wants to double check and make sure that he hasn’t missed anything - a better choice.)
He heaves a breath and he doesn’t want to do this.
Of all the old friends he could call on, she’s the name that is right below Maria’s on the list of people he doesn’t want to owe a favour to. Calling her or Maria in right now is the equivalent of hitting the big red self-destruct button.
But he continues to roll that choice around in his mind and it’s the right choice. She’s the right choice.
And even if he thinks that a couple of decades in the catacombs of Volterra would teach Edward and Bella to be a hell of a lot less selfish and self-absorbed (and let the kid be raised by someone with a little more life experience, like Rose or Esme), the rest of the family doesn’t deserve to go down with them. Stupidity isn’t a crime. Carlisle’s love for his son isn’t a crime.
“Let me make a call.”
—
Peter is glad to hear from him right up until Jasper explains why he’s calling - Edward, the child, Irina, the Volturi.
“Is now a good time to mention that Yuri’s set-up camp permanently?” Peter asks, the strain in his voice obvious.
No. No it’s absolutely not, but it puts more pieces into place, that maybe the Volturi are looking for more than to simply put the Cullens into their place. Yuri’s little clan of followers that ebbs and flows have transitioned from Hong Kong to Tokyo to Osaka. One of the great smugglers, he’d done deals with Maria for centuries and the fact that Yuri has left his home for America implies many, many things about the Volturi’s reach.
He wonders if Li Jie is even still in China. If Li Jie has fallen, that would explain a lot.
(Politics is a dirty word in their world. Carlisle refuses to engage in it, and he understands - sort of. For all their
“He run into any kind of trouble?” He finally asks.
“Not that he mentioned. Just said something about American hospitality. Just a heads up - he might need papers or shit. Where do you need me?”
That was Peter - and Charlotte - in a nutshell. There was nothing they wouldn’t drop to help, to swoop in with an extra set of hands.
“I need you to track someone down for me,” he says, leaning against the wall. “We’ll need you at the trial, but there’s someone who I need to make sure this…” Doesn’t turn into an irreversible shit-show. Remember when Carmela tried to take Baja, Peter? That’s small potatoes compared to what the Cullens have brought down around our ears. We need a hail-Mary, miracle kind of help.
He explains what he needs carefully; what direction he thinks might work the best. He’s going to need to blackmail and bribe Tomas to make an appearance because if it comes to a fight, Tomas will go down with teeth and nails still slashing and take a very pretty pound of flesh with him.
Peter is silent on the other end of the phone. “Major, you’re asking for a miracle,” he says finally. “No one has heard from her since she fucked off. If she’s still alive, she can’t possibly be in the US anymore. And I can tell you that she’s been written off as dead for decades by almost everyone.”
“I don’t believe that.” He can’t. Both Plan A and Plan B involve her presence, no one ever wielded an army like she did. He needs her insight, he needs her skill, and he needs her reputation. “And neither do you.”
Silence and the sound of someone fumbling at the phone.
“Jasper.” Charlotte’s on the phone now. “Peter’s being dramatic, we can look but we’re going to need…”
“I’ll transfer the cash straight away. We need the fastest possible turn around, Char. We don’t have enough time.”
Charlotte sighs. “We’ll do our best, Major.”
—
It’s two days later when some semblance of… well, not a plan, but a direction is coming together. Tracking down the right people was half the battle, but he was nearly certain that he’d get confirmation today.
The rest of the family knew he was working on something, some way to get them out of this mess that wouldn’t humiliate Aro, or call into question the validity of the laws as a whole. Carlisle was very clear that they didn’t want some kind of political uprising or rebellion. Just enough time to explain Bella’s pregnancy, confirm that it was entirely unplanned and not some kind of master plan, and part as friends.
Jasper wasn’t holding out much hope for that last part.
Gathered around the dining room table - the family’s war room, when such a thing was needed. Jacob was somehow still eating, and Irina had remained in Forks - she had clearly decided that Carlisle’s brand of ‘I’m not mad, just Disappointed’ was preferential to going back to Alaska, where Tanya and Eleazar would be waiting to rip her a new asshole - proverbially - for going anywhere near Italy. Let alone without even talking to the Cullens before she started throwing around wild accusations.
It had been a long week that was only going to get longer - which he could see in the tension of the rest of the family.
“The first thing you need to accept is that this isn’t a trial.” His voice is flat and unfriendly. The child is cradled awkwardly in Edward’s arms, holding onto some mercifully silent toy, fixated on it. He absently wonders if drowning it in the bathtub would be a suitable penance to stop Aro in his tracks.
But the look in Edward’s eyes at that stray thought is enough. And then Jasper wonders, idly, if this devotion and attachment to the child will last; after all, vampires don’t have offspring. They have no instinct for a dependent child - the connection between a vampire and their creator was nothing like that of parent and child (especially an infant), nor was the connection between coven members. There was every chance that any maternal connection to Renesmee that Bella had would fade after her newborn year, and decay the further she left her humanity behind.
If they survive this, it’ll be an interesting case study, if nothing else.
“There is every reason to assume that this ‘visit’ is intended to be an execution,” Jasper continues, and Esme flinches. “I can’t predict whether Aro will opt to sentence some of us, or all of us, or what his plan is. But the plan is for someone to die for this. To put us in our place. That is why he’s bringing an audience - to bear witness to our crimes. And before you say it Rose, we’re guilty by association - the fact we didn’t eliminate Bella after the van accident is a crime in Aro’s view.”
Rosalie frowned, and he could taste her worry on the air.
“Our best course of action is to gather our own witnesses so that the trial is fair,” he continued. “That the baby is not an Immortal Child, but someone who grows and evolves, and therefore can change and learn. And to remind all three of the Kings that Aro was aware of the van accident, Bella’s knowledge of us, and the incident with James when she was in Volterra. We were given permission to continue as we were to minimise notice from the community. We weren’t charged with any crimes then, and it would look… unseemly to retroactively charge us now.”
“So what do we do?” Jacob asks. Irina looks strained, her hands teasing at a piece of ribbon.
“I have a contact that I will be reaching out to,” he said grimly. “She’ll be an asset if she’s willing to help us and if I can find her - she’ll have contacts to other potential witnesses, insight into this visit from the Volturi, and stand as a completely neutral witness.”
“And a Southern Warlord,” Edward sounds aghast, and Bella scoops up the child, her hand smoothing down the red curls. “You’re bringing one of them here?”
“You aren’t considering bringing Maria to Forks?” Carlisle asked uneasily.
“That would be…” Rosalie began, already getting agitated.
“A slaughter,” Edward finished, and Jasper resisted the urge to roll his eyes at them. As if Maria didn’t have the control to move about the human world; generally, Maria only pulled a ‘Calgary’ when she was trying to make a point.
“It’s not Maria,” he said through clenched teeth. “I have some old contacts from the South who can assist us. I’ll need to be in Louisiana by Saturday morning to try and convince her.”
Carlisle still looked uneasy but Rosalie had backed off. Edward was still scowling.
“If you prefer, I can just drown it and hope that buys us some grace?” Jasper said, his tone prickly, and both Bella and Jacob let out sounds of horror - Bella thrusting the baby at Esme to try and approach Jasper with violence in her eyes, but Edward grabbed her before she could get any closer.
“That was unnecessary,” Esme said disapprovingly, her hand cupping the back of the child’s head.
“And dramatic,” Edward is gritting his teeth and resisting the urge to punch Jasper himself.
“I am trying to protect us,” Jasper replied shortly. “I am trying to get us out of this with minimal loss of life. Frankly, I don’t have much hope for Irina or Edward or Bella or … Renesmee, but if there is the slimmest possible chance that I can keep the rest of you alive and free, I will take it.”
Silence.
“I can get you a flight to New Orleans Friday night,�� Rosalie said, and that thread of fear was back.
“Make it two,” Edward said, releasing Bella. “I’ll come with you."
“No.” Jasper said.
“Jasper, it might be wiser to go in pairs,” Carlisle said. “In these circumstances, I don’t think setting off alone is ideal.”
“No. It’s a bad idea.”
“Yes. You said it yourself - we have to convince her. If I know what she’s thinking, we can use it. And I want to meet our ‘saviour’,” Edward said, sarcasm and irritation pouring off him.
“She’s not known for playing nice with others, Edward,” Jasper felt tired, as if his brother was being as difficult as he knew how to be on purpose. “And she can sniff out an agenda before you’ve even opened your mouth. If you want someone to accompany me, Emmett’s the best choice.” Emmett wore his emotions on his sleeve, and the most complex agenda his brother had ever had was to replace Rosalie’s ruined Louboutins before she noticed they’d been destroyed.
Hell, he’d probably befriend her, and that could only help their cause.
“Edward is the best choice,” Carlisle said reluctantly. “He can give us insight, even if she refuses to help.”
Carlisle’s not wrong and Jasper hates it. She’s going to need delicate handling, and Edward rarely takes advice from anyone who isn’t Carlisle. The absolutely last thing they need is for Edward to make demands or threats and piss her off. Then they’ll be dealing with an angry veteran and the Volturi.
“Fine.” His tone is enough to let everyone at the table that he is not happy. “But I need to take the lead. Pissing her off with just make more trouble for us. And if we fuck this up, Maria is our next option. And you know Maria will want her pound of flesh if it works out in our favour.”
That is a proper threat, a tangible one that the entire family sans Bella feels the weight of; Irina looks wary and Jacob looks confused.
“We will follow your lead, Jasper,” Carlisle says finally, with resignation. “Edward will go with you.”
“The rest of you should reach out to any friends we have. Anyone who will witness the trial. No one is obliged to fight on our behalf or even stay - but they can meet Renesmee and see that she isn’t an Immortal Child. That we did not break the laws.”
He looks at them. “This isn’t so much about Renesmee or Edward and Bella. This is about the Volturi exerting their power. There is no justice in the Volturi, not anymore.”
#jasper hale#jalice#twilight fic#my fic: smoke and mirrors#jasper always has a back up plan#but he's so tired#and now he has to deal with someone who might not be found#and who probably hates him
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