excerpts of stuff i write

help girl ive drifted out to sea AO3 account

[artsnotebookscraps]

Staring Into the Abyss

WIP

~800 words. Original/Neon Genesis Evangelion. T, gen. Stel Douglas (OC). Graphic depiction of violence. 2021.

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“Just focus on walking forward.” Like it’s that easy! I’m controlling a 300 foot tall giant robot with my mind! I don’t know what else to do, so I just try to think really hard about every part of what it takes to take a step.

Flex my thigh muscles. Use the force to lift my leg up. Shift my weight onto the grounded foot. Lean slightly forward. Flex my calf muscles. Extend my lower leg forward. Stretch my foot out. Brace my foot for impact. Equalize the weight between my feet.

And it moves! The robot actually moves! The next step is easier; I can actually watch the buildings pass as I move. It’s actually a little exciting for a moment! Until I look dead ahead and see the reason I’m in this thing in the first place. Getting closer.

It looked scary from far away, but that’s nothing compared to seeing it almost right in front of my face. My vision is taken up entirely by its massive skull head. It feels like it’s staring into my soul with its cyclopean eye hole, large enough that I could probably stand comfortably inside it, if I wouldn’t die instantly from either the fear, or it squashing me like a bug. My hands are shaking, I don’t even remember if they told me what to do once I got here, my mind is empty, all I can see is pockmarked bleach white and a smooth black void that’s drawing me in. I clench my hands around something hard, I think maybe something is clattering? It’s drowned out entirely by the sound of my heartbeat racing in my chest, my blood rushing through my veins.

I’m staring death in the face.

It grabs my arms. I can feel it, I can’t look away, I have to look at my arms, it’s got my arms, there’s resistance when I flail but my hand hurts where I knock it into one of the cockpit consoles. My arm burns when it snaps. Am I screaming? I have to be screaming, it hurts so much. The monster’s looking right at me and I know I’m going to die.

It hurts. A blinding pain erupts in my head, like a supernova exploded in my eyeball. Like every nerve in my brain got set on fire, except the fire is made out of knives. I can’t breathe. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

I’m knocked hard on my back. I feel sick. I can’t see. It hurts. I have to get back up. I have to…

It hurts. My limbs are heavy and slow, and it’s hard to move them, but I get up. I have to get up.

I have to defeat it.

It hurts.

There’s something in the way. I can’t let it stop me. It hurts. My head hurts so much. It’s right in front of me but I can’t see it. I don’t understand. It doesn’t matter. It hurts. I have to defeat it. I break through the thing in the way, it’s right there. I have to…

It hurts.

It hurts.

It hurts.

My hands are on its face. I’m gonna tear it off. I’m gonna make it hurt like I hurt. There’s something very satisfying about the crunch as my fingers dig into its skull and break half of it off. Whatever it’s trying to do to me now, doesn’t matter. It already hurts.

I’m going to kill it. I’m going to tear into it. I’m going to eviscerate it.

I grab it by the arms and return the favour. Its tendons give a fleshy groan as I rip them apart, the bones pop like firecrackers. I beat it with its own fists. I beat it with its own ribs. I beat it. I beat it. I beat it.

It slips out of my reach and wraps oily tendrils around my body. The world goes white.

When I next manage to open my eyes, I see the soldier and the scientist standing next to me.

They did this. It hurts. They made me do this.

I want to crush them, but my limbs are too heavy. I can’t move.

It hurts.

It hurts.

It hurts…

[artsnotebookscraps]

What if love, like justice, is just a lie people tell each other?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17772557

~2300 words. Persona 5. T, gen, M/M. Akechi & Joker. Unresolved emotional tension, explicit lack of confessions. Mild depictions of imagined violence. 2019.

---

“Honey, I’m home!” The milk in his coffee curdled on his tongue as the second most aggravating person in the world disrupted the cafe’s serenity. Goro turned and smiled, transforming his frustration into pep. “Don’t you have a girlfriend to use a line like that on?” Amamiya smiled from the doorway as he shook out his umbrella. The cuffs of his trousers and, somehow his hair, had nevertheless gotten wet. The change in atmosphere had fogged up his glasses, but he managed to make it look mysterious rather than dorky, and Goro felt like he was going to be sick. “Nope,” he lilted, earning a low grunt from Sakura-san. “A boyfriend, then?” Someone, anyone other than Goro, who couldn’t stand the acid building in his throat every time Amamiya said something that could so easily be misconstrued, who couldn’t afford the distraction, or how that demon had slowly redefined which way he wanted to take him out. Amamiya chuckled as he took off his glasses to wipe them on his shirt. The feline smile stayed glued onto his face, but his unruly mop of hair covered his eyes, making it impossible to discern his real expression. “Is it really easier to believe I have a boyfriend than that I’m single?” Talking to Amamiya, especially with that infuriating smile on his face, felt like playing a game Goro was never told the rules of. When they’d met at the TV station, he’d thought outwitting the Phantom Thieves was like playing checkers. As he got to know Amamiya better, he found it more akin to playing chess. Compared to Amamiya, a talk show host was barely playing tic-tac-toe. He drained his coffee to give him that little longer to think. “Why not? You must have admirers,” he deflected. He always deflected. To do otherwise simply wasn’t an option. Even if it was just simple teenage hormones, activated by the slightest hint of attention; even if the rush of heat under his skin wasn’t directed at the one person who could destroy him and everything he worked for all these years; even if he wasn’t far too busy leading a double - triple - life with all its extracurricular activities to even think about indulging in a stupid, insignificant crush. Even if all of those things, it still wouldn’t be safe. To admit to any feeling was a weakness to be exploited. Amamiya looked up from cleaning his glasses, his slate gray eyes dangerously wide. “I’m a dangerous criminal, Akechi-kun. Do you really think I’m that attractive?” So he made it seem impersonal. That it wasn’t Goro desperately wishing to trade places with one of the raindrops making its way down the planes of Amamiya’s face, past his jaw, following the line of his throat and down into his turtleneck. That it wasn’t Goro whose heart beat a little faster whenever Amamiya said something outrageous in that low, flat tone of his. That it wasn’t Goro who suddenly understood why murderers get fan mail. “They do say something about the forbidden fruit tasting the sweetest, don’t they?” Goro wouldn’t let anyone throw him off his game, not even Amamiya. In a battle to see whose facade would hold up the longest, Goro wouldn’t lose to anyone. “And you said you were framed, anyway.” Even if whatever assault may have happened hadn’t been grossly exaggerated, Goro was certain Amamiya had acted out of a sense of justice. It was clear in his eyes, in the curve of his spine and the set of his jaw, in the fist shaking in his pocket when he'd mentioned it. Amamiya’s danger didn’t lie in violence. “You have a point there,” Amamiya mumbled thoughtfully. He put his glasses back on his face and rubbed the back of his neck, his long fingers disappearing entirely within the mass of dark curls. His concession didn’t feel like a victory at all.

[artsnotebookscraps]

Negative

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16327505

~800 words. Tales of Symphonia. T, M/M-ish. Mithos-focused. Pre-canon, introspection, obsession, implied sexual content. Mostly just some real messed up thought processes. 2018.

---

He strokes his fingers in light circles over the raised lines on your back as you lie on the mosaicked floor of the chapel. He likes it here: the stained glass dome casts everything in a gentle blue light, transforming your wheat-gold hair into a gentle green. You know what he’s doing - you’re too smart not to. Sometimes you wish you weren’t. But he’s right, even if he doesn’t say it. It should have been her. It should always have been her.

“I found one,” you say. “We can start the next phase.” He doesn’t need the explanation but you give it anyway, the low hum of your voice filling the silence in a way unique to yourself. A small selfishness you allow now and then.

“How close?” The others say he sounds monotone, sarcastic, no matter what he says, but you can tell the difference. There’s a hunger in it now. He doesn’t hide it, either because he thinks you can’t tell, or because he knows it wouldn’t matter.

An emotion stirs within you, but you can’t quite tell what it is. She left a void in your heart, after the transformation already numbed most of your feeling. Knowing yourself, it could be fear, or envy - not jealousy because you know you never had him at all - or sick satisfaction.

“Not close enough by far. But she’s devout. Phase two should go off without a hitch.” “Apprehensive?” He knows your lack of interest in women intimately, but that’s not what he means. “They don’t look alike.” It doesn’t matter what she looks like, as long as she - her bloodline - makes a suitable vessel. You’re still grateful, because you don’t know what you’d do if you lost him, too. “It wouldn’t stop me,” you say, unsure if you’re responding to your last words or thoughts. “It doesn’t matter,” refers to both. Even if you were the only one left in the whole world, you’d still complete your mission. “Only a hero could have such single-minded determination.” He sounds mocking, but he truly respects your devotion. It’s something that had been alien to him, something he’d worked towards but which remained elusive - until her. He wants what he can’t have; in this you are exactly the same. His fingers are in your hair now, trailing the long strands with laser focus. Part of you wants to rip them out. You sit up to wrap your hands around his neck with a smile and pretend you don’t want them at his throat instead. He knows your smiles, should know this one is fake. It’s a beautiful, subtle thing you've perfected ever since you took this form. Lips stretched loosely, light crinkles in the corners of your eyes, as if you’re not even aware you’re doing it. It lacks the facade of innocence you once draped yourself in, replaced instead with a serenity you’ve never been capable of. It’s more well-practiced than the one you gave her so very long ago, but he’s also had more time to see through it. It should have been him instead. Any of them. Not her. Anyone but her. “Can I help?” he asks, looking up at you through half-lidded eyes, dark in the low light. You’re not sure if he caught you in your rumination or if he’s still talking about phase two. He can’t help with phase two. He can’t help with your rumination. You’re not sure if he really wants to, or if he’s merely showing the expected facsimile of support. It doesn’t matter. When he looks at you like that - when he looks at her through you like that - the blue light dancing over the smooth angles of his face, hair mussed out of its delicate style by the evening’s exertions, that devilish smile that says everything and nothing at once, nothing matters. Except her. Always her. “What did you have in mind?” He always has something in mind. Whether it’s a plan or an experiment. You wish he could see you the way you do him. You’re sure no two people could understand each other the way you do. “You should think of me when you’re with her.” Like he does when he’s with you. He knows obsession. He knows you will. You want to fuck the thought of her out of his mind, replace her with yourself in every fiber of his being. You won’t, because it shouldn’t be you. She’s the one who deserves to be there.

She’s the only one who ever deserved to be alive.

“Then you’d better give me something to remember.”

You’ll bring her back.

He traces the bones of your hips with teasing touches. You slide one hand down his chest.

No matter what happens, you’ll bring her back.

He tips his head back and you follow the curve of his adam’s apple with your tongue. His legs wrap around your waist when you slot yourself between them.

Even if you have to sacrifice everything, you’ll bring her back.

[artsnotebookscraps]

Scars May Fade In Time, But They Never Truly Heal

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11173770

~3000 words. Fire Emblem: Awakening. T, F/M, family. Robin/Libra. Emotional hurt/comfort, PTSD, family bonding. No particular content warnings. 2017.

---

Robin awoke from another nightmare to the sound of prayer. She felt cold and hot at the same time, and her skin crawled with the sensation of maggots burrowing through her flesh. The dragon had been inside her mind again, whispering, pleading, threatening. But now, with Libra’s favorite verse, repeating over and over, she found herself unable to remember its words.

“Libra,” she whispered through the bile in her throat.

The prayer stopped. “Nuh-uh,” came Morgan’s voice, softer than she’d ever heard it. “I’m glad it still calms you down.”

Her body moved of its own accord, rolling over to create space between herself and the unknown variable, long before she managed to force her eyes open.

“Morgan,” she mumbled, desperately forcing her heart to calm.

“Sorry for scaring you,” he said with a smile. “You just looked so ...scared.” His fingers were coiled around a ring of prayer beads; twelve semi-opaque marbles, each containing one of the faith’s core tenets, interspersed with fully opaque marbles. Even as he talked, his delicate fingers pushed and twirled the beads, and Robin realized he must be truly nervous despite his cheerful demeanor.

“No harm done,” she said. “Thank you.”

[artsnotebookscraps]

That Last Little Light

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13526523

~7000 words. Devilman Crybaby. T, gen. Ryo-focused. Alternate universe, hurt no comfort. Graphic depictions of violence, major character death, mild depictions of sexuality. 2018.

---

He didn’t have the time before Jinmen recovered again. He knew that. But Akira was right there, his face at eye-level, staring at him with tears in his eyes. He was only vaguely aware of his own hand reaching out, cupping Akira’s soft cheek and brushing away his tears with his thumb.

He knew he didn’t have the luxury to do this, Jinmen would know his position and strike - but it was as if time stood still.

“Ryou-chan, why are you crying?”

His vision was clear. His eyes weren’t even burning now that he’d had some proper sleep for once. He wasn’t crying.

“It wasn’t supposed to go this way.”

He wasn’t crying.

He was fucking pissed.

Akira’s empty eyes stared ahead as Ryou closed the small distance between them and softly put his lips to Akira’s in a final goodbye.