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katytheinspiredworkaholic · 9 months

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WIP Wednesday

Dreamwalker (Eddie’s Story) Summary: Steddie Canon compliant/fix-it fic paired with a corresponding story in Steve’s POV, each chapter happens in tandem with the other. Eddie wakes up alone in the Upside Down, not knowing how he survived, and unable to reach anyone topside in Hawkins. Wounded and alone, he finds shelter at the Harrington’s house (the place is a damn fortress after all), and while hiding out there discovers that he has gained the ability to walk into other people’s dreams.

((Content warnings in tags))

(un-beta’d snippet of Chapter 2; Eddie made it to the Harrington’s house in one piece last chapter, and hasn’t tried to step outside of it ever since. It’s safe, he has room and food and endless supplies (make-shift or otherwise), and he’s still pretty injured and needs to rest. But idle hands and all that, plus adjusting to living in the Upside Down isn’t exactly a walk in the park.)

It takes over a week before Eddie leaves Steve’s house.

To be fair, he sleeps a lot of it. (Still healing, and all that; blood loss is no fucking joke.) He doesn’t dream of Steve, or with Steve, in that time. In fact, he’s not dreaming much at all, thank Jesus, because when he does… it always ends with the bats.

Gnawing, swarming, rows and rows of teeth digging into his sides, going for vital organs. A tail around his neck, more pulling at each limb, like he’s being drawn and quartered. Screaming as teeth sunk into him over and over again. Being disemboweled alive – sounds metal as fuck. Actually sucks balls.

He wakes up far too many times to a double tap of paralyzing fear. First shot – being eaten alive in his dreams, not knowing if it’s real or if it’ll stop. Second shot – not knowing if he’d screamed when he woke up, and what might have heard him if he did. It’s enough to make anyone curl up in the fetal position and shake.

But then Eddie focuses on trying to contact Steve. After a few days of rest, his head no longer swimming, and his wounds in the gross, early stages of healing and scarring, Eddie realizes he needs out. No one was going to come looking for him here, at Harrington Manor (now Casa de Munson), so if he wants the rescue party to locate him he’d have to send up some flares. Discreetly.

He tries the lights. He tries the doors. He tries the TV (à la Poltergeist), and the stereo system in Steve’s room. The walkie-talkie radio that is obviously Henderson’s handiwork. He even tries Harrington’s fucking hair dryer. God knows he’d noticed that thing on the fritz. He lets his hand pass through the drifting bits of tickling light whenever Steve actually deigns to be home and turn something on, but half the lights are too high for him to reach (damn rich people’s homes and their fucking vaulted ceilings) and the rest don’t seem to have any kind of impact on the guy.

Eddie calls Steve many unflattering names this particular morning, specifically after the hair dryer incident. He messed with it until the damn thing blew a fuse, and it yielded results he never in a million years would have predicted. It seems Steve did in fact notice this, and then? Then Eddie could hear Steve, loud and clear. Just like they had with Henderson when they were stuck over spring break, as if he was trapped in the walls. Steve yells right back at him, or to God or whoever, some choice words very similar to Eddie's own a moment ago. And it was so dramatic and so… good to hear a voice again in the pulsating nothingness of the Upside Down that Eddie laughs until he cries.

Sometimes in the mornings (when he can’t bother to pull himself out of bed) he could hear Steve and Buckley talking in the kitchen, but he hasn’t heard Steve’s parents and most of the time Steve doesn’t talk at all when he’s home. It gets to the point where Eddie starts to worry he might have to make the trip to Henderson or Sinclair's house. If any of those little brats has the intelligence to count on in a dire situation like this, it’s Sinclair’s 11-year-old sister. (Heaven help him.)

The biggest problem with that plan is… there are things out there. The bats swarm daily; when they pass over the house it sounds like a tornado is about to take off the roof. There’s creatures that stalk about between the trees, taller than a normal man, and scavenging creatures of all sizes. Dog-sized, rat-sized, more he can’t even make out. The vines creep and move, try to wiggle under the doors of the house sometimes but can’t make it past the weather seals. And there’s something huge, vaguely Jabba The Hut shaped, that slithers about and Eddie is fucking terrified it might move faster than it looks.

There’s more, too, he knows this. He hears the cries and shrieks in the night of the creatures hunting each other. If that’s not a terrifying enough scenario for you, imagine how Eddie felt the moment he realized they eat each other and are still a hive mind. They are starving. No wonder they are so hostile and ravenous for human flesh. It’s food that doesn’t hurt to eat.

It’s about this time that Eddie starts to take notes. A day or two before he makes his first venture outside the house. His mind is a maddening buzz of information and fears and observations and questions. He can’t think, he can’t put anything in order, it makes him want to knock himself out just for a moment of peace. But the risk of nightmares starts to deter that. So he finally does the one thing he swore he would never do; he takes the long suffering advice of his old middle school guidance counselor. The one he was too full of anger to hear properly, at the time.

He writes it all down.

It starts as stream of consciousness, dumping all the chatter and words in his head onto paper just to put it somewhere. To save his dwindling sanity. And soon his brain, trained and honed like a broadsword blade by his DM campaigns, begins to group information on instinct. Ideas. Categories. Plans.

Ten hours and a hell of a cramp in his hand later, he actually has a plan. He might have… started to lose it a little by then, too, because the layout sounds a bit like the intro monologue to one of his campaigns:

Eddie the Banished has been left behind; not out of hate or convenience, but out of circumstance. He doesn’t blame his party for doing so. They are at war with a fearful, deadly foe. They thought he’d been vanquished. Defeated.

Alas, he endured.

He survived.

Eddie the Banished was now in hiding, behind enemy lines.

He found himself in quite an advantageous position — and if this were a D&D campaign, he knew just what he would do. He’d do reconnaissance. He’d make maps and creature dossiers, stash weapons and provisions, he'd be the best ‘presumed dead’ spy a campaign had ever asked for. He could do so much good, getting everything ready.

So what was stopping him doing the same, here?

Easy:

Fear.

The very real reality that he could be eaten by a monster.

The fact he’s a storyteller, not a fighter.

The pros and cons list literally began to write itself, filling pages in Steve’s (very worryingly unused) high school notebooks that Eddie had commandeered. But the pros are a lot longer than the cons.

In summary:

Pros = prepare everyone for what comes next. (If his brief glimpse of downtown was anything to go by. They still had a boss battle to fight.)

Cons = he’s a coward at heart, who knows how to keep himself alive first and foremost.

… It takes him rereading his own notes until the wee hours of the morning to realize… that may be a skill, and not a flaw. The ability to keep himself alive. At least here, it was. In the Upside Down. And wasn’t that the coolest adaptive mindset ever, enough that it propelled him into preparatory action. All the way to the following morning, where he stood just inside the interior door of the Harrington’s garage, working up the nerve to step outside.

—

tbc

—

Series Snippets:

- Dreamwalker (Eddie’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

- Subconscious (Steve’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

#this part of the chapter was an experiment in formatting #who am I kidding this whole duology is an experiment in how much I can push traditional fanfic formatting #I am a mad scientist - fear me #Eddie curses a lot #using profanity as adverbs and adjectives #wip wednesday #dreamwalker subconscious series #this is just a snippet #cw descriptions of violence and gore #cw character death mentioned #cw injuries and healing of them #Eddie has a complicated view of himself. And possibly ADHD #snippets no one asked for #katyswriting #GOD DAMN IT I FORGOT THE IMPORTANT TAG #Steddie

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eleanorfenyxwrites · 1 year

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The Bridge Is Crossed (Excerpt)

I say ‘excerpt’ as if there’s literally any other piece of this fic that exists -- there Is Not. This is the first and so far only example of this fic, but this scene would not leave me alone so here we are. This is essentially a play-by-play of The Point of No Return as narrated by Raoul (Lan Xichen) having to watch his lover get felt up and like it very publically by the madman they’re all there to take down. So hot lol. I do recommend listening to the song (the Gerard Butler/Emmy Rossum version) while reading if you feel so inclined, but it’s hopefully not necessary to get the same sense of tension and rhythm and sensuality. But also: forgive me father, for I have thoroughly abused my repertoire of adverbs in my effort to make this feel like music lol.

ANYWAY, here you go @wishthatiwasnessiesgirl, @wincestielfttfwin, and anyone else who’s excited about this lol:

-/-

Meng Yao looks so…small down on the stage. Lit by gas lamps, eyes dusted dark and wide, face pale, cheeks rouged pink, he looks as innocent as he’s meant to be. Delicate, breakable. Positioned to be taken advantage of.

Lan Xichen’s heart clenches in his chest, his fist on the gold banister of the fateful Box Five, waxed and polished to gleaming save for where the sweat gathering on his palm has smudged the finish. Meng Yao’s performance thus far has been flawless despite the fear he’d wept out into Lan Xichen’s shoulder just fifteen minutes before curtain, but the longer the show goes on without any sign of their Phantom the more likely he is to break under the unbearable strain of waiting.

There is a brief lull in the space between the plan being agreed upon between Don Juan and his faithful servant and the beginning of the agreed upon seduction, and within that breath Lan Xichen feels the air change. Imperceptible, perhaps just a trick of his imagination, but the moment Meng Yao settles on his mark – downstage left, so brightly lit this close to the lamps he seems to glow from within, pure and untouched – Lan Xichen knows, deep in his bones, that this is it. The climax, the pivotal moment of this narrative their Phantom has concocted. There is no doubt in his mind, even before Don Juan returns to the stage suddenly taller, broader, and far younger beneath his mask than Wen Ruohan has been in quite some time, that this is the moment they’ve been waiting for through weeks and weeks of anxiety-fuelled rehearsals, and the slow terror of this horrible opening night.

Don Juan stage whispers his instruction to his servant, and for that moment he sounds enough like Wen Ruohan that the difference is likely not immediately obvious to those in the audience who aren’t nearly as familiar with their cast as Lan Xichen is. But then he opens his mouth to sing, and there is no room for doubt any longer.

An uneasy ripple passes through those in the know – the guards and the police stationed everywhere they possibly can be, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji in their Managers’ Box across the theater, the chorus dancers Lan Xichen can barely see huddled in uneasy clusters around the legs in the wings to watch – but no one yet makes a move. The Phantom is unpredictable after all, and the last thing any of them want is to see Meng Yao injured in haste, so they must let it go on until the perfect moment to strike.

The tension spirals upwards on the drifts of smoke from the torches that dot the set, and Meng Yao turns slowly to look over his bared shoulder, kneeling on the stage, a red rose falling from limp fingers back into the basket at his knees as he must register the arrival of his Phantom. Lan Xichen can no longer see his expression, but he can only hope that his perpetual mask – or his stage acting – is good enough to hide how petrified he must be.

There is no denying the magnetism of the Phantom, Lan Xichen realizes with a bit of a start. His voice is rich and warm, sweeping through the theater with a confidence, a power, that even Wen Ruohan doesn’t always possess. He sings of passion, and succumbing, and deep, dark desires that need not be hidden any longer – private things laid bare for the world to know in a way that makes Lan Xichen’s stomach clench in the hushed silence between phrases, in the rests of the rising sweep of the orchestra.

The urge to stop this all, to bundle Meng Yao off the stage into his arms and let law enforcement handle this madman they’ve all become servant to nearly overwhelms him. But the Phantom is gently, carefully, almost tenderly leading Meng Yao across the stage by the hand, slow, cautious steps further and further stage right, away from Lan Xichen, away from immediate help, and so Lan Xichen simply clenches his fist hard enough to leave imprints of his nails in his palm and stays silent.

A swell of strings, a building intensity in volume and tempo both. The lonesome, sweet call of violins rising above the orchestra to sing along and enrich the demands of the seducer. Coaxing, entreating, and Lan Xichen feels every beat of it in his chest while Meng Yao follows where he’s led, helpless. Innocent.

There is the briefest pause, a mere half-beat of rest at the end of a series of leading questions, and then Meng Yao’s sweet tenor is rising high into the rafters, a breath of fresh air sweeping through the haze of dark devotion delivered by his ‘Don Juan’. He turns back to where he began, feet bare under the uneven hem of his beaded sort-of-skirt as he crosses to his first mark and then closer still to the edge of the stage, seeming close enough to touch though Lan Xichen knows it’s impossible from this height.

For the first time since the Phantom stepped onto his stage, Meng Yao looks up to meet Lan Xichen’s eyes once again, his gaze clear and reassuring as his voice soars easily through the music written obsessively, lovingly, possessively just for him. There is a flicker in the corner of Lan Xichen’s eye, the turning of a masked gaze up to where he sits, piercing and intense, but Lan Xichen keeps his own gaze on Meng Yao and recognizes in him the silent signal, ‘Not yet. Wait.’.

Lan Xichen will trust Meng Yao a little farther, and he will have to hope he can save him in time.

Those present who are not nearly so versed as he in Meng Yao’s mannerisms misunderstand – behind him he hears the metal clock of a gun being readied, and when he glances across the theater it’s to see Wei Wuxian stumbling from his seat to bring the police officer outside their box inside, standing at the ready. Lan Xichen uncurls his fist long enough to lift his palm from the banister in the universal gesture to stand down, and everyone settles into uneasy attentiveness once again as onstage Meng Yao sings of fantasy, and of entwining bodies, and of how badly he wants to give into it all.

Meng Yao turns back to face the Phantom then, full of resolve, and Lan Xichen tells himself that it is not the rejection it feels like, it is simply the role Meng Yao has to play for all of their sakes. The caught lover, not so innocent as he first appeared, willing to lie down and accept the affection that was meant to be forced upon him. Lan Xichen knows this, but something looming and possessive takes root in his hollow chest as the gaping collar of Meng Yao’s barely-existent shirt slips down, both shoulders abruptly bared once again as he turns his back on Lan Xichen and the Phantom takes several breaths deep enough that Lan Xichen can see his chest expanding all the way from the balcony, his lips parted beneath the harsh line of his mask, clearly as affected as Lan Xichen would be were he the focus of such sensual attention.

The music swells again, Meng Yao’s voice skating effortlessly through his own rising tension as he climbs his set of stairs up to the catwalk high above the rest of the set, the Phantom rising with him, his mirror at stage right. Lan Xichen is drifting to his feet with them before he can think better of it, caught up entirely in the way they don’t dare to look away from each other as they ascend, as they agree through word and deed both to give into the passion blooming between them.

They reach the top, their positions now equal, actively engaged in to lift them to the same height, no more power imbalance now that they’ve knowingly chosen each other. The Phantom sweeps off the cape covering one shoulder and takes the few measured steps necessary to meet Meng Yao in the middle –

Lan Xichen gasps – inaudible under the deafening crescendo of the orchestra and the soaring, flawless twining of their two voices, tenor and bass – as the Phantom suddenly grabs Meng Yao by the narrowest part of his waist and yanks him closer, twists him by the hands to wrap his arms around him, holding him pressed tightly against his chest. Lan Xichen’s vision swims and he can’t seem to catch his breath through parted lips as he watches Meng Yao clutch onto the arm around his waist for dear life, his head tipped back and eyes closed in ecstasy as the Phantom drags his free hand up from Meng Yao’s grasping fingers to caress his chest firmly enough to drag at his thin shirt, to curl around his neck and hold him still, temple pressed to cheek in an unmistakable lovers’ embrace.

And Meng Yao wants it.

Lan Xichen knows him well, knows him intimately, and there is no doubt in his mind – jealousy aside – that right now, in this moment, Meng Yao wants to be nowhere else but in this madman’s arms. Held. Wanted. Adored and admired for all that he is. Lan Xichen’s heart aches but he finds he can’t begrudge his partner even this. His life has been so difficult, so lonesome despite the fact that he’s grown up in the crowded dormitories of the opera house. Is it any wonder he still loves the angel who’d come to him in the night, despite knowing now who his angel truly is?

Lan Xichen sinks back down into his seat as the music lulls, as the theater falls once again into a reverent hush to give the lovers a moment to breathe.

And then, so soft and sweet Lan Xichen doesn’t realize at first that the sweet tenor melody is coming from the Phantom : a plea. An entreaty. So different from the commands of before, the confidence, the power that he’s shown until this. Now instead he’s vulnerable. Tender. At the mercy of Meng Yao and his promise of returned affection. Lan Xichen’s heart aches again for his beseeching, the sweetest and truest desire expressed between them yet, and realizes a few moments too late that their Phantom isn’t singing the words he’d written in the script – they fit the same melody, but they’re the words that Lan Xichen himself had once sung to Meng Yao out on the rooftop, certain at the time that they had been alone in their newly blooming love.

He gasps again, audible this time in the quiet, and feels something twist loose in his chest, something he doesn’t have the time to identify before the music swells again, crescendoes – and Meng Yao rips off his Phantom’s mask with vicious hands that had just moments ago sweetly caressed that ruined face.

“Go!” Lan Xichen shouts, but the Phantom is, as ever, two steps ahead. He grabs Meng Yao once again by the waist and drops abruptly into a trap door built into the set, and through the pandemonium of the audience finally clocking that something has gone horribly wrong Lan Xichen launches himself from his seat and runs through the gilded, marble hallways. He skids to a stop when he reaches the ground floor as people begin to run screaming from the floor seats, and he watches in horror through the open doors and above the heads of the boiling crowd as the chandelier swings wildly from one side of the theater to the other, plaster and wood crashing down from the ceiling as the chain that holds the mass of crystal and flame aloft tears through it all like so much wet paper.

It crashes to the ground with a shock that Lan Xichen feels in every bone in his body, but he doesn’t have the time to stop and help – what can he do in the face of such horrible danger and panic? – and so as his brother’s beloved opera house begins to burn he continues his headlong flight into the wings until he spots a familiar face.

“Huaisang!” he shouts over the din of the opera house denizens screaming and running for their lives as the smell of smoke begins to choke from the roaring fire in the audience. “Where have they gone?!”

Nie Huaisang stares at him for a too-long moment before resolve strengthens his weak features, and Lan Xichen watches the mask of the simple but sharp-eyed ballet master fall away to quietly reveal a man with nerves as steady as his own.

“Follow me. I’ll take you to him.”

Without another word they run into the bowels of the opera house, down, down, down to where the gilding and the marble and the velvet all cease, where the walls are no longer the humble wood and plaster of the backstage areas, but are instead cold wet stone, flickering torchlight, and an endless staircase down, down, down into the depths.

Lan Xichen is going to end this once and for all, one way or another.

#the untamed fanfic #3zun #Phantom of the Opera au #The Bridge Is Crossed #I meant it when I said I way overused my adverbs but I LIKE THEM and they're IMPORTANT okay?!#Also: LXC watching his fiance thoroughly enjoy getting seduced and felt up in front of an entire audience by another man:#His phantom? Our phantom? His??? THE?? WHAT IS HAPPENING OH GOD THE OPERA HOUSE IS BURNING WE CAN THINK ABOUT THIS LATER #(psst the way he's going to end it is kissing them both A Lot)

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captainofmybigwetdream · 1 year

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The Hate That You Carry

She was scared of him. And who could blame her? Worst thing was, he knew the look on her face, had seen that look countless times before. On his mother’s face. On Lenny's face. Had even felt it on his own face. Every time his father had taken out his anger on them.

Part 3 of Always One Bad Day Away (Part 2 of the series Billy Butcher - A Prequel)

Word count: ~5k

Rating: Mature

A/N: It's me again! Feedback is always greatly appreciated ;D

Tag list: @amethystpagan

"You know you really didn’t have to do all this, right? There’s no need to impress me.”

Becca entwined their fingers as they left the restaurant, happily smiling up at Billy. Her cheeks had a pink tinge to them, but it was only partly due to the wine she’d had.

“Whatever do you mean?” Billy smirked back cheekily.

“Well, we don’t usually go out like this. And you know I don’t need fancy dates, either.”

“Oh, but this is a special occasion, innit? One-year anniversary and all?”

“One-year… What? Billy, that’s not for another six days,” she laughed softly and tilted her head in question.

“No, it’s not.”

“No, I’m pretty sure we had our first date on the 7th of September. We rented that stupid action flick, got Chinese take-out, and spent the night not watching it.”

Keep Reading on AO3

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knightotoc · 9 months

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Spock's deal as developed over decades:

logical, stoic, superhuman strength, superhuman precision, green blood, pointy ears, scientist, musician, vegetarian, friend to animals, telepath, hippie sympathizer, idealist

has more powerful emotions than humans, so he has to hide them

over years of cold professionalism, forms incredibly deep attachments to coworkers Kirk and Bones, even though their human lifespans are tragically shorter than his own

a complex reflection of an imperfect but remarkable and beloved real person (Nimoy's two biographies are called "I Am Not Spock" and "I Am Spock"); because of this, Spock is famously Jewish-coded and expressed many of Nimoy's strong personal values and creative ideas

historically significant gay interpretation by an important fandom and published writers; in the wider fandom, Spock's sex appeal surpassed the actual lead actor's

he has some romances as a young man, but he ultimately dedicates his life to the noble cause of Romulan reunification

bizarre alien libido on a fuck-or-die 7-year cycle; this silly premise is taken extremely seriously

difficult relationship with his Vulcan father and human mother

complex relationship with Starfleet, especially w/r/t Pike, Kirk, and Romulans

has a secret half-brother who darkly mirrors Spock's own struggles with emotions, forming bonds with other people, and faith in God

sacrifices himself out of pure, logical love and gets reborn through the misuse of a terraformer-turned-superweapon

the platonic ideal of a nerd

In 2009, Spock was recast, but this version is from an alternate timeline. There are two significant changes to the character, which are not as appealing to me, but I still appreciate them:

his homeplanet was destroyed. This enormous tragedy gives us a character who is much less stoic. In my opinion, this takes away from Spock's uniqueness. But as a Star Wars fan, I appreciate that Spock's grief for his planet gets to affect him in a way Leia's never did

he has a relationship with Uhura. This is a fun decision, especially as these characters had some chemistry in the original show, but it is a bit spoiled by the creepy tracking device subplot

This recast is a fundamentally different character. In my opinion the best thing about him is when they lean into that difference; Quinto's Spock knows about Nimoy's, and has profound feelings about his alternate self. This was handled beautifully after Nimoy's death, and I am grateful that his protege's version of the character got to grieve with us in the real world.

In 2019, Spock was recast for a second time, and this version is supposed to be the same character as the original. But they have made multiple changes to the character anyway, which I mostly dislike. I haven't watched SNW since I feel this interpretation of Pike is even more ableist than the 60s version, but I am trying to keep track of what this franchise is doing with their best character:

Spock now has an additional secret sibling, an adopted human sister Michael. The reveal that Sarek chose Spock over Michael for Vulcan Science Academy, which Spock refused anyway, is some fun drama. It makes me feel bad for Michael and angry with Spock, which is a bummer. I do not think we needed to have Trek's first Black woman protagonist anchored by her relationship to a legacy character. I enjoy their dynamic, but I don't see a fundamental mirror of challenging topics with them like I do with him and Sybok. And of course this bond isn't going to be able to influence Spock in the future, as his bond with Sybok will

Spock now also has dyslexia; I appreciate the representation, but again this isn't going to influence him at all in the future; Spock in "The Menagerie" is an ableist character by modern standards

he's in a love triangle with Chapel and T'Pring; to me this is OOC for all three of them, and unnecessarily makes original Spock into a big, insensitive jerk. While he is a passionate character, the whole point is that he controls his passion, even to the point of choosing his love for humanity over his love for individuals. His deep friendship with Kirk and Bones is only possible since they have grown old together, which is the main theme of the original movies

where'd the chest hair go

Peck's interview where he says they're pushing Spoimler and he enjoyed acting with Quaid because they're both from acting families = so this actor's input into this once highly personal character is just queerbaiting and nepotism

The reason I wrote this post is because, in the newest SNW ep (spoilers), Spock becomes somehow humanized and, as a result, happily eats bacon. First of all, "I love bacon" is like, the definition of cringe outdated internet humor. More importantly, this is a nonsensical and possibly offensive move for a character who is Jewish-coded and vegetarian. Vulcans can eat meat, but they choose not to as part of their strict code of ethics. Spock in particular has a deep love for all forms of life, and his telepathy even gives him the ability to understand every creature from the Horta to the whales. Of course Federation meat is synthesized, but, at least in my interpretation, I can't imagine Spock even symbolically enjoying eating one of the smartest animals on Earth.

Of course every beloved character will develop over time, sometimes even in prequels. But these changes ought to make them more complex, or more personal to a new creator. The things that made Spock special are draining away. He is becoming more fashionable, straighter, more ordinary. Most fans seem to enjoy the new version, but I am left reeling at these odd decisions.

#star trek #spock #long post #lots of adverbs here smh im too upset to write well ig

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