[darwinquark]

FIC MASTERLIST:

wound is healing well (langdon x samira, explicit, WIP): [ao3] [tumblr tag]

the eating series (rafe x kiara, explicit, WIP): [ao3] [tumblr tag]

what's brooklyn between strangers (jughead x veronica, explicit, WIP): [ao3] [tumblr tag]

those kind of friends (jughead x veronica, mature, complete): [ao3] [tumblr tag]

six mornings after (bamon/steroline, mature, hiatus): [ao3] [sideblog]

[darwinquark]

meant to send this to you earlier but i made a cover for the eating fic (have it downloaded as an epub) and meant to share it with you in case your or anyone else wanted to use it! https://imgur.com/a/84aJYU3

omg this is GORGEOUS. the signet ring! tannyhill! the sparrows! the magnolias/moonflowers! the aesthetic! absolutely geeked over this, thanks so much for making it!

literally just downloaded the fic (which tbh did not realize you could do lol help) so I could see it in my library and it looks so beautiful!

[darwinquark]

why am I writing crime noir

[darwinquark]

really trying to make these mercs menacing but the urge to write them as bickery tarantino characters named 'eye' and 'ear' is so strong

[darwinquark]

bout to send the same ask to thefudge bc y’all are my rarepair queens - but have we considered shen/samira?? just thinking about how similar samira and Robby are and how immediately annoyed Robby gets by shen. a neurotic girl and a laidback guy? Classic

ooo, cute! weirdly I feel like Shen/Samira would be something I'd be into in canon (like I'd find it buzzy if the show did it for all the reasons you said) but not sure it's the kind of pair I'd really write for? I feel like I struggle with fluff in Pitt fanon (but enjoy it in canon!)

[darwinquark]

Sooooo I was looking through #theeatingseries tag on your page and I saw you mention that Rafe crashes out on the mercs for multiple reasons and that one reason is extra buzzy to you. I know it's been a while since that ask and you may have changed your mind since then but is there any chance that you could elaborate on that please?

nope, it's still happening! and still buzzy (to me)! don't want to give too much detail since it's the motor behind a few different moments but I should clarify it's buzzy in a kind of sad way? like the buzz comes from the implications of it more than the actual action, and how both Rafe (and especially Kie afterwards) react to it. it's a scene that parallels something that's already happened with them in the past but goes in the opposite direction and that change rattles them both in different ways

[darwinquark]

hiii just wondering when we (maybe only me) will get another what’s brooklyn between strangers chapter …. not trying to be pushy of course

you're not pushy I just absolutely suck girl - I'd say earliest would probably be later this year once I catch up on (and maybe even finish) some of my more active WIPs

[darwinquark]

manifesting that taylor/conrad fic from you one day ✨ ✨

!!! you and me both, babe! I miss my romcom bag a little

[darwinquark]

you seen the new obx trailer, looks like we're getting animal masquerade ball riara

wait really? did my blind ass totally miss that part? that sounds fun as hell I'm sat

[asystolle]

PRIDE & PREJUDICE + earth tones

[darwinquark]

eating and being eaten | chapter ten, 'i will turn myself into a gun' extended preview

-----------

The car jolts beneath them, the tires collapsing as the air shrieks out.

“What the—”

Another round of shots shreds the other two tires. Kie surges up and Rafe grips her waist, forcing her back into the seat. “Stay down,” he grits, pinning her below the window.

His pulse is thundering in his ears. He can feel her heart stuttering against his chest. She’s naked beneath him, all exposed, fragile skin, skin that felt an obliterating void just seconds ago, and the sudden vulnerability of it nearly shorts him out. He wants to rip his own skin off and smother her in it.

He turns his head to listen for anything outside.

She inhales unevenly. “We need to run.”

He shakes his head. “We need to think.”

It’s quiet outside, any localizing sounds masked by the rain, and he struggles to fend off the flood threatening his head.

“They went for the tires, not you, so they want you alive.”

She swallows. “Rafe.”

“That means you’re not a hit to them, you’re a source—”

“Rafe.”

“We can use that, we can leverage whatever the fuck you know to—”

“Rafe,” she hisses, cutting through the adrenaline, and he looks at her.

Her eyes are raw static. She looks glitching, volatile, every atom splitting in half, and for a second, she’s right back on that porch again—lip split, face cracked, handprints raw against her throat.

“I need to get out of this car.”

Her throat works like she’s swallowing a scream.

“I can’t—” her voice cuts out, thick, visceral, “—again—”

“Kie.”

She starts shoving at him, careening.

“Kie—”

She lunges up and he forces her down with his body, away from the windows, gripping her face in his hands to make her look at him.

“Hey. Hey.”

She’s vibrating against him. She’s panic turned human. He can see the phantom knuckles cracking against her face, hear the cut-off screams snagging in her throat, and his eyes fix on the scar they left there. He imagines the blade carving down her neck. Imagines their animal fucking hands on her.

His vision tunnels.

He feels the familiar blackout starting in his head, unidirectional and catabolic, senseless with the kind of rage that led to bribed cops and shredded cartilage in his teeth, but somehow, despite the pressure to detonate nearly splitting skull, he makes himself look back up at her. At the wild, irrational brown of her eyes. The shapelessness of her panic. The way her face looks like it’ll scatter apart if he drops his hands.

His breath rattles with restraint. “I’m here this time.”

He imagines gutting them with the same knife they used on her.

“I’m here and they’re going to know that.”

He imagines fisting their intestines down their throats to see what kills them first.

“I swear to God they’re going know that.” He lowers his face to hers, nostrils flared, thumbs sweeping her cheekbones to pull her focus. “But first I need to get us the fuck out of here. And to do that, I’m going to need you to trust me.”

She stares up at him with raw eyes. He feels her carotids drumming against his palms.

“Can you do that?” His voice is thick with throttled violence. “Can you trust me?”

She swallows. The rain picks up against the metal roof.

“Kie.”

Her lashes flicker once, a shutter closing, and she nods.

Somewhere lightless in his chest, buried beneath the taut jaws of his ribcage, he feels her reach in and break something.

He manages to get her back into her clothes. Her movements are stiff and mechanical but she listens to him and that's enough.

“My car’s parked just across the lot,” he tells her as he yanks his own shirt on. “The keys are in the ignition. You’re going to need to get to it as fast as you can and use the woods as cover.”

She watches his hands.

“I’ll keep them distracted—they know who I am and that killing me would be messy, so that’ll buy you some time.” He reaches down and hauls on his shoes. “When I give you the signal, start the car and floor it to me and I’ll jump in. They’ll have to pick between gunning us down which they clearly don’t want to do or getting to their car to chase us.”

He sees her throat work. Her voice is unsteady when she finds it. “What makes you think they won’t just shoot your tires out, too?”

“I have drive-flat tires—we can make it up to 50 miles on them shredded.”

She blinks briskly. He’s not sure she’s listening. She’s still half-suspended in panic, like there's a current running through her.

“One more thing.” He reaches underneath the passenger seat and pulls out the Glock he stashed there a few weeks ago. Her face stutters and it’s the first thing he’s seen fracture the trauma coma. “Take this with you.”

“What—where the fuck did you—”

“I’ll explain later, take it.”

He gives the gun a hard shake, barrel down, grip taut around the handle, and she blinks fast. “I don’t know how to—”

“You do.”

“I don’t remember—”

“You do.”

Her stare shoots up to his. For a split-second, they’re right back in the patch of woods by his house, pressed against each other, breathing unsteadily in the echo of her bullseye. The first time she ever reached for more of him. The first time his gnawing, miserable want saw a reflection.

He leans forward, dropping his voice to a hum. “Remember what I told you back then? What to do with all that rage I saw?”

Her lashes flicker. She swallows roughly. “Use it.”

He nods. “And fuck them.”

Her eyes search his for a beat, like she’s trying to find that version of herself in them.

“You know what you’re doing,” he insists. “Remember the recoil. Trust your muscle memory.”

He presses the gun into her hand and lets go.

She stares down at it as he finishes dressing. “What about you?”

“What about me?” he asks, yanking on his jacket.

“You’re confronting them. You need this more than me.”

He busies himself with the zipper, avoiding an answer. Mainly because he doesn’t have one. Because of course he needs it more than her. It’s a suicidal fucking plan. Unfortunately, his awareness of that doesn’t change anything. “I’ll figure something out.”

He feels her eyes on him.

It sets his teeth on edge, her confusion. Like he hasn’t been crystal fucking clear about this. Like she needs him to spell out again that he has no choice, that he’ll always take the injury of prioritizing her, that his organs are in a limp garbage bag hanging from her fist.

He should shoot her in the fucking head right now and save the mercs the trouble.

--------

coming soon(ish) (hopefully) (catch up here)

[aryastaark]

Jughead and I... should kiss

[darwinquark]

For the first few days, he lets her avoid him. He caught her in a moment of critical exposure. He found her raw and spread in half on a bathroom floor. The rationalist in him understands that. The problem is, the addict in him doesn't. The addict in him reproduces in scarcity. It sprawls out like a body in the negative space. It grows a small limb every time she walks by without looking at him, rife with unfed veins. | fic

[divorcedfranklangdon]

[darwinquark]

Ugh girl I'm so excited for the new Eating series chapter!! Ik we're not there yet but the way you've pretty much confirmed that it's going to be a complete shit show when the pogues are back 😂 yesss I am living for the drama and for riaraaa 🙉🫦🫦

me too! def no pogues quite yet but their role in the plot is going to become more central now that the mercs aren't some nebulous threat anymore. Rafe and Kie have kind of been ignoring all that because they've been so caught up in their mutilationship at tannyhill, but the external world's def about to start pressing down harder. this also means I'm going to be forced to figure out what the hell happened at the end of season four bc I was watching for the vibes at that point. blue crown something something? blackbeard? JJ has a secret dad who kills him idk

[darwinquark]

eating, my love i’m STARRRRRRVING, do you have any inkling for when the new chapter will drop? or a little tease of what we can expect, i have your notifs on and i tweak everytime i see “darwinquark has updated…”, love you 💋

ahhh you guys are too nice to me omg, I'm sorry I've been the worst. I'm on a busy rotation for the next two weeks so unclear how much writing I'll be able to get done but eating should def be what's up next. part of the delay is I haven't been able to conceptualize the whole chapter in my head (there are a lot of different directions I can see things going) vs. I know exactly where the pitt fic is going and what scenes are coming next, but usually I can solve that by just buckling down and writing without a plan lol. but I wrote some eating today! I might do the thing where I write the ending first so I know what to build toward and get impatient about it sitting in my word documents unread lol

but it's coming! it's been long enough! it's also really funny going from Langdon to Rafe lol like somehow the diagnosed addict is 6000x more in control than whatever this is

[darwinquark]

first of all, obsessed with your frankmira fic. truly. their dynamic is absolutely delicious in it and i read the latest update with my fist in my mouth. her using his entire face? his eyelashes all wet and clumped? insane stuff. second of all, i saw you mentioned you have a more wholesome ending planned and was just curious if you were open to sharing more on that? they're wonderfully toxic right now but i'm eager to see how you'll flip that around.

lmfaooooo I'm so glad you found the sticky eyelashes as grotesquely hot as I did - I just pictured him having an absolute glazed donut of a face after she was done with him. basically a dermabrasion and a deep hydration treatment all in one (keeps him pretty)

re: the wholesome ending, maybe wholesome isn't the right word? more like feelsy or romantic by comparison, I think. right now they're pretty toxic and 100% using each other as sinks for their respective pathologies, so even though they're both seeing very raw and rare sides of each other (and there's definitely an intimacy in that), it's still very physical. they haven't really formed a connection beyond it, even though they have three years of history and mutual abandonment issues with the same mentor figure. the next chapter (if I stay on track lol) is definitely going to show them settling into that physical connection and even getting more reckless with it, but the second half of the chapter is going to throw a wrench in their routine that forces them to move things out of the hospital, and I'd say that's where they (kind of accidentally) start getting to actually know each other. there's a difference between rough sex in anonymous supply rooms/hospital bathrooms and a hypercurious man invading your personal space and picking through all your things like an ADHD biographer that asks a lot of annoying and unintentionally exposing questions.

so that'll be the shift, and it'll basically dimensionalize them more to each other and let some of their lighter/more vulnerable sides come to light. we'll see if I can actually keep it to two chapters or not lmao. but in any case, thanks so much for reading and so happy you're enjoying it!