So when this song appeared on my yt recommendations, the only thing I could think of was how perfect it would have been for Red :D And so here is my little contribution to the Blacklist with the song My Name Is by Once Monsters :)
I'm actually on board with Redarina theory, even if I would prefer them taking it in a different direction, but If Redarina was the endgame? I'm fine with it.
As to who else he may have been, ever since it had been revealed that he was an imposter, I thought Red wasn't related to Liz in any way. My theory was that his family had been taken, and he had been led to believe they were dead - hence the Christmas story and what he had later said to Fouler. Liz, somehow, would have been the key for him to get them back. I know it not necessarily explains the ways he had gone to protect her, but I think that if he was led to believe that if something had happened to her, the chance to be reunited with his daughter would have been gone as well, then it makes some sense. And in time, he also grew to care for her as just Lizzy - I have never seen them in a romantic way, but I wouldn't mind if they went this route xD the chemistry was there, so why not, even if I saw it as him messing with her most of the time, it's clear where the shipping is coming from.
But as I said, the Redarina would also be good in my opinion as it has the grounds to make it so, but it doesn't add up with some things from earlier seasons at least in my mind, but I'm willing to turn a blind eye on that :P
I'm alive though completely exhausted and want the Uni to be over. I want to write as I have all things planned out how they should go down, but the only energy I have when not studying is to lay in bed and watch tv-shows... That said I'm now trapped in Blacklist hell and unsurprisingly a Reddington stan... well.
But I've passed the biggest exam that could ground me! It seems I'll be a doctor in about a month and a half... Don't know if I should be happy or terrified.
oh, I love how the exam went like shit even though it was easy, but my brain is stupid and can't remember things... Well, at least I got drunk and played some games, so there's something.
Summary:
Nicholas Rush was like one, giant, brain-damaging sudoku which when one thought to have all figured out changed all the variables, leaving them in no better position when they had started, but when an accident during exploration of the newest part of the ship has dire consequences for the scientist the rest will have to do their best to help the man they had all thought to be an emotionless bastard.
[Chapter 1]
[AO3]
Drifting in nothingness, not knowing who or where he was, was a weird, if not unsettling feeling. He was a person, a male, a... husband? Or at least he had been, once. Not anymore. Or maybe?
He wished he could understand what was happening to him.
Nick. It's not real.
Wasn't it?
*
Colonel Everett Young swept his hand over his tired eyes, sighing as he lowered himself into the chair. Rush had been in and out of consciousness for the last couple of days, and one could only guess how he would act each time. It wasn't constant - and TJ couldn't explain what was happening to the man even if she wanted to. She was just as lost as the Colonel.
One could think that being stranded on an alien ship in a faraway and foreign galaxy was the worst thing that could happen to a person. Young could believe that it had been what everyone had thought, at least at first, but it seemed that with every passing day, the universe made its sole purpose of proving to them that they had been, in fact, very wrong. In the latest couple of days, the Colonel grew to realise that losing one's mind was, in fact, the worst thing that could happen - Not being left for dead on an unknown planet, experimented on by the aliens, nor losing someone who you had probably loved. No.
Watching Rush was painful, to say the least. When awake, he would either be confused, angry or scared. Young had seen how fear had looked like in the other man's eyes, but this time, it was eternally different. It was a deep and profound dread of not knowing who or where one was and so unfitting for Rush that it left Young deeply unsettled every time it had happened.
There had been days when the scientists didn't recognise any of them - not Young, not TJ, Eli, or even Chloe. The only person he would have vaguely responded and actively had searched for had been his wife, whom - at least to Colonel's knowledge - had been dead for quite some time, which was problematic on a whole different level. But now, as he watched Rush flinch in his sleep, Young didn't know which was worse - that or when the man woke up with no recognition at all.
"Get your hands off me!"
"What's going on? Stay the hell away!"
Everett could feel the chill going down his body at the memory of those empty and scared eyes, so unlike Rush's that they could belong to a different person.
"What's happening to me?"
He shook his head. It was a good thing that Rush lost consciousness even quicker after those episodes than the other ones. They were disturbing but rarer as time went by, and they still didn't know why.
It almost looked as if...
No.
"I'm doctor Nicholas Rush. I'm a math teacher, not a soldier or any of that stupid stuff, and I don't know any of you. Have you seen Gloria?"
Young swallowed. If Rush's brain was resetting itself, one could only hope it would come on the right track with time. But knowing their luck, it would be anything but that simple.
"Don't hit me!"
Young just hoped he would be wrong for all their sake.
"Um, I think I hit my head or something? I hate to be a bother..."
He sighed again and looked down at the time on his wristwatch. If the pattern had been any clue at all, Rush should be waking up in about three minutes. But would it be Rush or the man who Young didn't recognise at all?
*
Eli dried his sweaty palms against his trousers as he walked to his destination. Truth be told, he had avoided the infirmary like the plague. That one time when Rush had woken up screaming and trashing still hunted his dreams, but with each passing day, Eli felt more and more guilty. And if Colonel Young, whose dislike for the Scotsman was no secret, could sit with the man more times than not, then so could he.
And honestly, he missed Rush, even if he couldn't bring himself to say it out loud. It had been awfully quiet without the man, and even Brody had remarked the other day that not hearing Rush's complaints had been just weird. He took a deep breath and shook his shoulders. He was no Rocky, but it felt as if going to the ring nevertheless. Exhaling, he hit the button, squinting his eyes as the door opened.
The first thing that Eli noticed when walking in was a tense atmosphere. There was just something in the air that spoke of tension, thick enough to cut it with a knife, slowly suffocating and making him absently reach to the collar of his hoodie. Then there were voices - raised and almost close to shouting. Or at least one was; the other sounded a lot calmer as if trying to pacify the first. It was easy to distinguish which belonged to whom just by the tone alone.
Rush was awake. And judging by what Eli was hearing, he wasn't pleased, but he sounded so much like his old-self that Eli felt his heart beating faster with hope. Hope that extinguished quickly like a fragile flame as soon as he got closer.
"Rush, calm down," Colonel Young said in a tone suggesting that it hadn't been for the first time. He held his arms outstretched, palms open, trying to look as unthreateningly as possible.
"Calm down? I am calm!" The scientist shouted, clearly agitated. "It's you who seems not to understand the simple aspect of question and answer!"
"I've already answered your question."
"Well, you're wrong! But what else could I expect!"
Eli didn't understand what was going on in the slightest, but even if it was the first time since days that Rush had looked and more or less acted like himself, but judging by Colonel's posture, something was still very seriously wrong.
"Um," Eli took a shaky step forward, waving awkwardly in greeting, hoping to defuse the tense atmosphere, even if a little. "Isn't it the right time?"
Rush's eyes darted towards him, and Eli could have wept at the recognition visible in them.
"Tell him, Mr Wallace," Rush said, which made him even more confused.
"Tell what?"
"She's not here, Rush," Young interrupted.
"I didn't ask you!" He snapped.
"Guys? What should I tell?" Now, Eli knew that something was definitely wrong. He didn't like the way Rush looked now. His skin became sickly grey in a matter of seconds, his eyes glistening.
"That she's on the ship!" Rush shouted over Young protests, his gaze fixed pleadingly on Eli, his hands twisted in the sheets to the point there were completely white.
"Who?"
"You know who - Gloria! My wife!"
What?
"Rush - "The Colonel tried once again, taking a step forward and putting his hand on the man's shoulder, which seemed to be a mistake.
"Don't 'Rush' me!" the scientist threw Young's hand away, almost backing against the head of the bed. "I have evident memories of coming to this ship with my wife, so stop fucking around!"
Eli could only stare, lost for words as the Colonel tried to pacify Rush without simply knocking him over the head. This was bad. No, worse - just what exactly did it mean?
And Rush was getting paler by the second and not calmer at all. Young seemed to notice it also because he clutched Rush by the shoulders, ignoring the other man's protests.
"Eli, get TJ," he said.
"Don't you dare -" Rush tried to get himself free.
"Eli. Now," the Colonel repeated, not taking his eyes off Rush. Eli nodded, and with a final distressed look over his shoulder, he ran.
Young's focus was eternally on the scientist who tried to wrestle himself free, but his struggles became weaker with every second. The Colonel felt like shouting and punching something, and this time, surprisingly, it wasn't the Scotsman. Everett should have sensed that Rush wasn't alright, but when the man had woken up and recognised him, Young had felt so relieved that it took him a moment to notice the signs. It hadn't taken long for the scientist to complain about the music that only he could have heard and then to insist that there should have been someone else in the room too. The noise Young could ignore, but the indication that one was insisting on the fact that his dead wife wasn't, in fact, dead, he could not.
"Let go of me, Colonel."
"You're not well, Rush."
"Why the hell are you lying?!"
There was sweat on the man's braw that hadn't been there before, and his skin looked grey, almost ashen.
"I know what I know. What have you done to her?!" The man struggled again.
"I did nothing -"
"If you harmed her -"
"Rush!"
"You were speaking with her, for God's sake! I know she's here!" the man's voice hitched with desperation, breaking at the last word, similar to a broken sob.
That gave Young a pause. He knew he didn't, so why did Rush remembered something that clearly hadn't happened? He didn't have time to ponder about it nor answer because the scientist suddenly doubled over, clutching his head and groaning as the Colonel tightened his grip around his shoulders, almost taking all his weight.
"Rush? Talk to me," Young tried to catch the man's attention, but it didn't seem to work.
"It's louder," the scientist gritted through his teeth.
"What is?"
"The music, It's - God," Rush groaned louder, bitting on his tongue to stop himself from shouting as he sagged against the Colonel.
Where the hell was TJ?
"Come on, stay with me, genius. Come on, Rush."
"It's not your head -" the man mumbled, but suddenly he gagged, and Young had only a split second to turn him to the side, preventing him from throwing up all over the bed.
"TJ!" He shouted. How could it get so bad in such a short time?!
"Coming!" Tamara appeared beside him, quickly asserting Rush's condition with a concerned frown. She had to dodge the man's arm that somehow broke free of the Colonel's hold.
"Sedate him," Young met her eyes over Rush's shoulder, making it an order. Rush was bearly coherent now, groaning in pain yet still straining against Young's attempts to hold him down.
"Gloria..." The word was bearly audible, but Young had heard it enough times already to recognise the meaning behind it. His face hardened.
"TJ. Now."
She nodded, and when Rush sagged in his hold minutes after the injection, Young took a step back and dragged a hand through his hair.
"What the hell was that?"
Oh. He nearly forgot about Eli. The younger man was staring at them with unease in his eyes, arms close to the chest as if trying to separate the scene in front of his eyes from himself. Young dipped his head and sighed.
"That's what I would like to know. TJ?"
He turned back to her, waiting for her reply. The frown on her face grew deeper as she listened to Rush's heart through the stethoscope. Her fingers never leaving the spot on the man's neck.
"His heart rate is all over the place," she mumbled. "Eli, could you bring me the pressure gauge? It's on one of the tables over there."
"How is he?" He asked as Eli ran where directed. TJ removed the stethoscope from her ears and proceeded to fill a new syringe.
"Not good, but that's not a surprise... How long did it take?"
"He woke up just fine. Knew where and who he was and recognised me."
She glanced up.
"That's a new one."
"Yeah. He sees his wife or thinks she's here on the ship. One of the two," he added, wearily.
TJ stilled before administrating the medicine, frowning at Young. "Isn't his wife...?"
"Dead. Yes," Young confirmed, glancing down at the now unconscious scientist. "As far as I know."
She nodded and proceeded to treat her patient, and Young closed his eyes briefly. God, he needed a drink.
"Sir, you said that he appeared fine after waking up," TJ started after covering Rush with a blanket, making Young open his eyes. "When did it got worse?"
Young frowned, thinking hard. It was hard to pinpoint the exact moment. They had been shouting, and then Rush almost doubled over, but it couldn't have happened so quickly...
"The more the Colonel insisted Rush was mistaken, the worse he looked," Eli spoke slowly, and all head turned towards him.
"What do you mean?" Young asked.
Eli handed TJ the pressure gauge and scratched his head. "When you insisted on his wife not being here -"
"Well, she's not."
"Yeah, but it seemed to make him worse."
Young turned to Tamara.
"TJ?"
"I need to scan his head," she said, not looking up. "You got that ancient device working? The one that probably works like MRI?"
"Yeah, I think it works," Eli nodded. "You want me to get it?"
"Please."
"I don't think I like the look on your face, lieutenant," Young waited until Eli had left, but there was no denying that something didn't sit well with Tamara.
"I think it would be better if I was the one he wakes up to next time, sir," she started. "There's something I need to confirm."
Young searched her face for any clues but found it impossible to find any. She looked tired, though, and it had him wondering how bad he must be looking. He glanced back at Rush. Thankfully, when sedated, he didn't look in pain.
"All right," Young nodded. "Keep me posted."
*
It wasn't the violin this time, but the soft sound produced by a precise and gentle touch of piano keys. He felt as if he could stay just like that - lost in the sound. There was no pain nor confusion in here, just darkness that embraced him from every corner yet strangely soothing.
Rush remembered as he played those soft tunes. He wasn't the best player, a moderately good on the best of days, but Gloria liked to listen to him playing. It relaxed her, drove her worries away, and he was more than willing to do just that for her. No one else had heard him playing. Never. Just her - only for her.
Yet this time, he knew it wasn't his fingers gliding across the keys. His arms lay limply by his sides, unmoving, but the music was still playing. He looked around, but there was just nothing out there. He was alone. So, where did the sound come from? And why did it feel like somebody was caressing his hair?
Come on, Nick. Wake up.
The touch became firmer, and the sound of the piano morphed into sharp violin sounds, too loud to be comfortable. He winced at the sudden stab of pain behind his left eyeball and almost missed the darkness changing to grey smoke. Slowly, he forced his eyes open. He didn't succeed, not at first as his eyelids felt heavy, and the light that struck him when they lifted forced them back down. It took a couple of tries and then some to get the room to focus, but it wasn't hard to guess where he was - Destiny's infirmary had a specific pattern to its ceiling.
His mind felt groggy, but it was no surprise, considering the last thing he remembered was the feeling of the anaesthetic entering his system. Slowly, Rush turned his head to the side and smiled slightly.
"Hey," his voice was hoarse from the drugs and vomiting, but it still won him a smile back from the person sitting beside him—the same one who was still stroking his head as he leaned into the touch.
"Hey yourself," she answered tenderly and scooted closer, kissing his hand. "You had me worried."
"Sorry. Ugh," moving hadn't been the right choice, it seemed, as his whole body felt stiff and painful. He wondered if it was due to being thrown across the room or staying too long in bed. Maybe both.
It all felt like a dream.
"Don't move, or you'll tear the stitches," she gently pushed him back against the hard mattress, and he went down without protest. He could never say no to her. "You know it almost feels like payback," she added, and he raised an eyebrow. "You stayed by my side so many times that now it's my turn, but please, don't make it a habit."
"It's not intentional."
"And antagonising the colonel?"
"Still, not intentional."
She smiled slightly at that and stood up from the chair, a few blond locks escaped her bun, and he had to resist the urge to tuck it back behind her ear.
"I'm going to get Lt. Johansen," she bent down and kissed him gently on the lips that he returned without hesitation. "Don't rush it," she warned, and he grinned at the pun.
He watched her walk away, and the feeling he got at the sight didn't sit well with him at all. It was as if something wasn't as it should be, and a profound fear twisted his gut.
"Gloria?" she turned around with question in her eyes. "I love you, you know that?"
"Of course I do. Rest. I love you too."
Rush didn't want to close his eyes. He wanted to see her come back like he wasn't entirely sure she would, but he didn't know what could prompt such fear. He could hear the soft hum of Destiny's engines, comforting him at the same time as her lights blinded him and before he knew it, his eyes closed. When they opened, it wasn't Gloria leaning over him but Lt. Johansen, and he couldn't help but look around, searching.
"How are you feeling?" the medic asked, and he rubbed his eyes.
"Is the Colonel here?"
Johansen's mouth twitched. "No."
""Then like shit."
The woman smiled. "I can imagine. Any double vision?"
"A little blurry but not double. No."
"We really need to get you new glasses somehow," she admitted. "It's good to see you awake and coherent, to be honest."
He smiled slightly, trying to relax, but somehow he found it very hard.
"Yeah, so my wife told me," he frowned. "What's that face for, lieutenant?" he asked when spotting TJ expression. Was it something he had said? But she shook her head and pulled out her flashlight.
"Can you follow the flashlight for me? Only with your eyes, keep your head straight."
"All right."
"Let me know if you get double vision at any point."
He nodded and let her examine him while not being able to shake the feeling of wrongness that rolled off her in waves. When she got to the halfway point into his cranial nerves examination, he grew impatient.
"Lieutenant, stop betting around the bush and tell me what's going on."
She stopped in the middle of checking his facial muscles strength and looked for something in his eyes. Rush didn't know what it was or had she found it, but then she sat back in the chair and leaned towards him.
"What is the last thing you remember?"
"You plunging a syringe into my arm, but somehow I got a feeling it's not what you're asking about." Rush narrowed his eyes. His head began to throb slightly, not hard enough to be a bother but still not eternally possible to ignore, but he focused on TJ that fidgeted slightly in her seat. "Ugh, a robotic wire throwing me against a wall... I think I sat on the chair?"
TJ nodded, confirming his suspicions. Well, the neurological exam made sense then. "And before that?" She added.
He frowned, thinking. Why was that important?
"I think Gloria's nagging that I should tell the Colonel where we were going? I asked her to do it in my stead. Young has a lot better tolerance for her than me," He chuckled, but it died down as soon as he saw TJ expression. "What is it?"
She took a deep breath in.
"I have reasons to believe that the machine - the chair, had done something to your brain. We still don't know what exactly, but it looks like it tried to rewrite your cortex."
He didn't like the sound of it.
"To what point?"
"We don't know. But you may experience two sets of memories. One true and one -"
"Think very carefully about your next words, lieutenant." He cut in, his voice cold as a steal.
"Excuse me?"
"I know what you're going to insinuate - the Colonel went exactly the same route even if less sophisticated. Now, let me tell exactly the same thing that I've told him - that's bullshit."
"Doctor Rush -"
"How should I know that this is real, then?" he said pointedly. "That this conversation is really happening?"
"What?"
"I have a very vivid memory of holding my wife's hand when going through the stargate," no chance in hell it wasn't real. Why wouldn't it be? "I remember Mr. Brody making her a violin from spare metal parts that sounds dreadful, but she was as thankful for it as if he had given her the Stradivarius. How can you even think that any of it is a lie?" His tone became desperate as he searched for any indication in TJ eyes that he didn't make that all up. They were the ones mistaken! Not him! "Shit!" He clutched his head that suddenly felt like somebody had split it open with a machete, and Johansen jumped from her seat.
"Where does it hurt?"
"Head. Again." He groaned. Just what exactly did that bloody chair did to him?
"Doctor Rush, I need you to focus on something else," Johansen's voice sounded detached, and it took him a moment to understand and comprehend the meaning behind her words.
"Come again?" Was that his voice? It sounded too strained and far away.
"Your brain is forcing you into a seizure. I need you to focus on something else and not giving it a medium to feed on."
He could feel his leg twitch uncontrollably, and a sudden fear gripped him. If what TJ had said was true, then nobody knew what a seizure could do to an already damaged brain. Rush tried to push his thoughts away from the arising conflict in his head, but no matter how much he tried, the pain only grew worse. Because how could somebody insist that Gloria wasn't real? What had happened to her, then? How -
" - need to ho...d.. it.. to...ther. Your wife will be here in a moment."
"What did you say?" He groaned, blinking.
"I sent her to get the Colonel."
Johansen didn't look comfortable, far from it, but that fact escaped him entirely. All he could focus on was the case that the splitting headache, so profound just a second ago, now seemed to be only lurking somewhere far away, like a distant memory.
"It's... It's gone..." he whispered, confused.
TJ nodded, but she was unable to meet his gaze. There was sadness in her that he didn't understand and something more... something that kept escaping his mind.
"Try to relax, alright?" she asked while standing up. Somehow he wasn't reassured by the fake smile on her face. "I need to scan your head. Eli got the ancient MRI working. I'll be back in a minute."
"Lieutenant?" She turned around at his voice. A sudden spike of pain behind his left eyeball made him wince, but he swallowed the groan down, clenching his fists to distract himself. "If what you say is true, then how can I be certain what is happening and what isn't? Can you prove to me that this conversation right now is really happening?"
Summary:
Nicholas Rush was like one, giant, brain-damaging sudoku which when one thought to have all figured out changed all the variables, leaving them in no better position when they had started, but when an accident during exploration of the newest part of the ship has dire consequences for the scientist the rest will have to do their best to help the man they had all thought to be an emotionless bastard.
[Chapter 1]
[AO3]
Drifting in nothingness, not knowing who or where he was, was a weird, if not unsettling feeling. He was a person, a male, a... husband? Or at least he had been, once. Not anymore. Or maybe?
He wished he could understand what was happening to him.
Nick. It's not real.
Wasn't it?
*
Colonel Everett Young swept his hand over his tired eyes, sighing as he lowered himself into the chair. Rush had been in and out of consciousness for the last couple of days, and one could only guess how he would act each time. It wasn't constant - and TJ couldn't explain what was happening to the man even if she wanted to. She was just as lost as the Colonel.
One could think that being stranded on an alien ship in a faraway and foreign galaxy was the worst thing that could happen to a person. Young could believe that it had been what everyone had thought, at least at first, but it seemed that with every passing day, the universe made its sole purpose of proving to them that they had been, in fact, very wrong. In the latest couple of days, the Colonel grew to realise that losing one's mind was, in fact, the worst thing that could happen - Not being left for dead on an unknown planet, experimented on by the aliens, nor losing someone who you had probably loved. No.
Watching Rush was painful, to say the least. When awake, he would either be confused, angry or scared. Young had seen how fear had looked like in the other man's eyes, but this time, it was eternally different. It was a deep and profound dread of not knowing who or where one was and so unfitting for Rush that it left Young deeply unsettled every time it had happened.
There had been days when the scientists didn't recognise any of them - not Young, not TJ, Eli, or even Chloe. The only person he would have vaguely responded and actively had searched for had been his wife, whom - at least to Colonel's knowledge - had been dead for quite some time, which was problematic on a whole different level. But now, as he watched Rush flinch in his sleep, Young didn't know which was worse - that or when the man woke up with no recognition at all.
"Get your hands off me!"
"What's going on? Stay the hell away!"
Everett could feel the chill going down his body at the memory of those empty and scared eyes, so unlike Rush's that they could belong to a different person.
"What's happening to me?"
He shook his head. It was a good thing that Rush lost consciousness even quicker after those episodes than the other ones. They were disturbing but rarer as time went by, and they still didn't know why.
It almost looked as if...
No.
"I'm doctor Nicholas Rush. I'm a math teacher, not a soldier or any of that stupid stuff, and I don't know any of you. Have you seen Gloria?"
Young swallowed. If Rush's brain was resetting itself, one could only hope it would come on the right track with time. But knowing their luck, it would be anything but that simple.
"Don't hit me!"
Young just hoped he would be wrong for all their sake.
"Um, I think I hit my head or something? I hate to be a bother..."
He sighed again and looked down at the time on his wristwatch. If the pattern had been any clue at all, Rush should be waking up in about three minutes. But would it be Rush or the man who Young didn't recognise at all?
*
Eli dried his sweaty palms against his trousers as he walked to his destination. Truth be told, he had avoided the infirmary like the plague. That one time when Rush had woken up screaming and trashing still hunted his dreams, but with each passing day, Eli felt more and more guilty. And if Colonel Young, whose dislike for the Scotsman was no secret, could sit with the man more times than not, then so could he.
And honestly, he missed Rush, even if he couldn't bring himself to say it out loud. It had been awfully quiet without the man, and even Brody had remarked the other day that not hearing Rush's complaints had been just weird. He took a deep breath and shook his shoulders. He was no Rocky, but it felt as if going to the ring nevertheless. Exhaling, he hit the button, squinting his eyes as the door opened.
The first thing that Eli noticed when walking in was a tense atmosphere. There was just something in the air that spoke of tension, thick enough to cut it with a knife, slowly suffocating and making him absently reach to the collar of his hoodie. Then there were voices - raised and almost close to shouting. Or at least one was; the other sounded a lot calmer as if trying to pacify the first. It was easy to distinguish which belonged to whom just by the tone alone.
Rush was awake. And judging by what Eli was hearing, he wasn't pleased, but he sounded so much like his old-self that Eli felt his heart beating faster with hope. Hope that extinguished quickly like a fragile flame as soon as he got closer.
"Rush, calm down," Colonel Young said in a tone suggesting that it hadn't been for the first time. He held his arms outstretched, palms open, trying to look as unthreateningly as possible.
"Calm down? I am calm!" The scientist shouted, clearly agitated. "It's you who seems not to understand the simple aspect of question and answer!"
"I've already answered your question."
"Well, you're wrong! But what else could I expect!"
Eli didn't understand what was going on in the slightest, but even if it was the first time since days that Rush had looked and more or less acted like himself, but judging by Colonel's posture, something was still very seriously wrong.
"Um," Eli took a shaky step forward, waving awkwardly in greeting, hoping to defuse the tense atmosphere, even if a little. "Isn't it the right time?"
Rush's eyes darted towards him, and Eli could have wept at the recognition visible in them.
"Tell him, Mr Wallace," Rush said, which made him even more confused.
"Tell what?"
"She's not here, Rush," Young interrupted.
"I didn't ask you!" He snapped.
"Guys? What should I tell?" Now, Eli knew that something was definitely wrong. He didn't like the way Rush looked now. His skin became sickly grey in a matter of seconds, his eyes glistening.
"That she's on the ship!" Rush shouted over Young protests, his gaze fixed pleadingly on Eli, his hands twisted in the sheets to the point there were completely white.
"Who?"
"You know who - Gloria! My wife!"
What?
"Rush - "The Colonel tried once again, taking a step forward and putting his hand on the man's shoulder, which seemed to be a mistake.
"Don't 'Rush' me!" the scientist threw Young's hand away, almost backing against the head of the bed. "I have evident memories of coming to this ship with my wife, so stop fucking around!"
Eli could only stare, lost for words as the Colonel tried to pacify Rush without simply knocking him over the head. This was bad. No, worse - just what exactly did it mean?
And Rush was getting paler by the second and not calmer at all. Young seemed to notice it also because he clutched Rush by the shoulders, ignoring the other man's protests.
"Eli, get TJ," he said.
"Don't you dare -" Rush tried to get himself free.
"Eli. Now," the Colonel repeated, not taking his eyes off Rush. Eli nodded, and with a final distressed look over his shoulder, he ran.
Young's focus was eternally on the scientist who tried to wrestle himself free, but his struggles became weaker with every second. The Colonel felt like shouting and punching something, and this time, surprisingly, it wasn't the Scotsman. Everett should have sensed that Rush wasn't alright, but when the man had woken up and recognised him, Young had felt so relieved that it took him a moment to notice the signs. It hadn't taken long for the scientist to complain about the music that only he could have heard and then to insist that there should have been someone else in the room too. The noise Young could ignore, but the indication that one was insisting on the fact that his dead wife wasn't, in fact, dead, he could not.
"Let go of me, Colonel."
"You're not well, Rush."
"Why the hell are you lying?!"
There was sweat on the man's braw that hadn't been there before, and his skin looked grey, almost ashen.
"I know what I know. What have you done to her?!" The man struggled again.
"I did nothing -"
"If you harmed her -"
"Rush!"
"You were speaking with her, for God's sake! I know she's here!" the man's voice hitched with desperation, breaking at the last word, similar to a broken sob.
That gave Young a pause. He knew he didn't, so why did Rush remembered something that clearly hadn't happened? He didn't have time to ponder about it nor answer because the scientist suddenly doubled over, clutching his head and groaning as the Colonel tightened his grip around his shoulders, almost taking all his weight.
"Rush? Talk to me," Young tried to catch the man's attention, but it didn't seem to work.
"It's louder," the scientist gritted through his teeth.
"What is?"
"The music, It's - God," Rush groaned louder, bitting on his tongue to stop himself from shouting as he sagged against the Colonel.
Where the hell was TJ?
"Come on, stay with me, genius. Come on, Rush."
"It's not your head -" the man mumbled, but suddenly he gagged, and Young had only a split second to turn him to the side, preventing him from throwing up all over the bed.
"TJ!" He shouted. How could it get so bad in such a short time?!
"Coming!" Tamara appeared beside him, quickly asserting Rush's condition with a concerned frown. She had to dodge the man's arm that somehow broke free of the Colonel's hold.
"Sedate him," Young met her eyes over Rush's shoulder, making it an order. Rush was bearly coherent now, groaning in pain yet still straining against Young's attempts to hold him down.
"Gloria..." The word was bearly audible, but Young had heard it enough times already to recognise the meaning behind it. His face hardened.
"TJ. Now."
She nodded, and when Rush sagged in his hold minutes after the injection, Young took a step back and dragged a hand through his hair.
"What the hell was that?"
Oh. He nearly forgot about Eli. The younger man was staring at them with unease in his eyes, arms close to the chest as if trying to separate the scene in front of his eyes from himself. Young dipped his head and sighed.
"That's what I would like to know. TJ?"
He turned back to her, waiting for her reply. The frown on her face grew deeper as she listened to Rush's heart through the stethoscope. Her fingers never leaving the spot on the man's neck.
"His heart rate is all over the place," she mumbled. "Eli, could you bring me the pressure gauge? It's on one of the tables over there."
"How is he?" He asked as Eli ran where directed. TJ removed the stethoscope from her ears and proceeded to fill a new syringe.
"Not good, but that's not a surprise... How long did it take?"
"He woke up just fine. Knew where and who he was and recognised me."
She glanced up.
"That's a new one."
"Yeah. He sees his wife or thinks she's here on the ship. One of the two," he added, wearily.
TJ stilled before administrating the medicine, frowning at Young. "Isn't his wife...?"
"Dead. Yes," Young confirmed, glancing down at the now unconscious scientist. "As far as I know."
She nodded and proceeded to treat her patient, and Young closed his eyes briefly. God, he needed a drink.
"Sir, you said that he appeared fine after waking up," TJ started after covering Rush with a blanket, making Young open his eyes. "When did it got worse?"
Young frowned, thinking hard. It was hard to pinpoint the exact moment. They had been shouting, and then Rush almost doubled over, but it couldn't have happened so quickly...
"The more the Colonel insisted Rush was mistaken, the worse he looked," Eli spoke slowly, and all head turned towards him.
"What do you mean?" Young asked.
Eli handed TJ the pressure gauge and scratched his head. "When you insisted on his wife not being here -"
"Well, she's not."
"Yeah, but it seemed to make him worse."
Young turned to Tamara.
"TJ?"
"I need to scan his head," she said, not looking up. "You got that ancient device working? The one that probably works like MRI?"
"Yeah, I think it works," Eli nodded. "You want me to get it?"
"Please."
"I don't think I like the look on your face, lieutenant," Young waited until Eli had left, but there was no denying that something didn't sit well with Tamara.
"I think it would be better if I was the one he wakes up to next time, sir," she started. "There's something I need to confirm."
Young searched her face for any clues but found it impossible to find any. She looked tired, though, and it had him wondering how bad he must be looking. He glanced back at Rush. Thankfully, when sedated, he didn't look in pain.
"All right," Young nodded. "Keep me posted."
*
It wasn't the violin this time, but the soft sound produced by a precise and gentle touch of piano keys. He felt as if he could stay just like that - lost in the sound. There was no pain nor confusion in here, just darkness that embraced him from every corner yet strangely soothing.
Rush remembered as he played those soft tunes. He wasn't the best player, a moderately good on the best of days, but Gloria liked to listen to him playing. It relaxed her, drove her worries away, and he was more than willing to do just that for her. No one else had heard him playing. Never. Just her - only for her.
Yet this time, he knew it wasn't his fingers gliding across the keys. His arms lay limply by his sides, unmoving, but the music was still playing. He looked around, but there was just nothing out there. He was alone. So, where did the sound come from? And why did it feel like somebody was caressing his hair?
Come on, Nick. Wake up.
The touch became firmer, and the sound of the piano morphed into sharp violin sounds, too loud to be comfortable. He winced at the sudden stab of pain behind his left eyeball and almost missed the darkness changing to grey smoke. Slowly, he forced his eyes open. He didn't succeed, not at first as his eyelids felt heavy, and the light that struck him when they lifted forced them back down. It took a couple of tries and then some to get the room to focus, but it wasn't hard to guess where he was - Destiny's infirmary had a specific pattern to its ceiling.
His mind felt groggy, but it was no surprise, considering the last thing he remembered was the feeling of the anaesthetic entering his system. Slowly, Rush turned his head to the side and smiled slightly.
"Hey," his voice was hoarse from the drugs and vomiting, but it still won him a smile back from the person sitting beside him—the same one who was still stroking his head as he leaned into the touch.
"Hey yourself," she answered tenderly and scooted closer, kissing his hand. "You had me worried."
"Sorry. Ugh," moving hadn't been the right choice, it seemed, as his whole body felt stiff and painful. He wondered if it was due to being thrown across the room or staying too long in bed. Maybe both.
It all felt like a dream.
"Don't move, or you'll tear the stitches," she gently pushed him back against the hard mattress, and he went down without protest. He could never say no to her. "You know it almost feels like payback," she added, and he raised an eyebrow. "You stayed by my side so many times that now it's my turn, but please, don't make it a habit."
"It's not intentional."
"And antagonising the colonel?"
"Still, not intentional."
She smiled slightly at that and stood up from the chair, a few blond locks escaped her bun, and he had to resist the urge to tuck it back behind her ear.
"I'm going to get Lt. Johansen," she bent down and kissed him gently on the lips that he returned without hesitation. "Don't rush it," she warned, and he grinned at the pun.
He watched her walk away, and the feeling he got at the sight didn't sit well with him at all. It was as if something wasn't as it should be, and a profound fear twisted his gut.
"Gloria?" she turned around with question in her eyes. "I love you, you know that?"
"Of course I do. Rest. I love you too."
Rush didn't want to close his eyes. He wanted to see her come back like he wasn't entirely sure she would, but he didn't know what could prompt such fear. He could hear the soft hum of Destiny's engines, comforting him at the same time as her lights blinded him and before he knew it, his eyes closed. When they opened, it wasn't Gloria leaning over him but Lt. Johansen, and he couldn't help but look around, searching.
"How are you feeling?" the medic asked, and he rubbed his eyes.
"Is the Colonel here?"
Johansen's mouth twitched. "No."
""Then like shit."
The woman smiled. "I can imagine. Any double vision?"
"A little blurry but not double. No."
"We really need to get you new glasses somehow," she admitted. "It's good to see you awake and coherent, to be honest."
He smiled slightly, trying to relax, but somehow he found it very hard.
"Yeah, so my wife told me," he frowned. "What's that face for, lieutenant?" he asked when spotting TJ expression. Was it something he had said? But she shook her head and pulled out her flashlight.
"Can you follow the flashlight for me? Only with your eyes, keep your head straight."
"All right."
"Let me know if you get double vision at any point."
He nodded and let her examine him while not being able to shake the feeling of wrongness that rolled off her in waves. When she got to the halfway point into his cranial nerves examination, he grew impatient.
"Lieutenant, stop betting around the bush and tell me what's going on."
She stopped in the middle of checking his facial muscles strength and looked for something in his eyes. Rush didn't know what it was or had she found it, but then she sat back in the chair and leaned towards him.
"What is the last thing you remember?"
"You plunging a syringe into my arm, but somehow I got a feeling it's not what you're asking about." Rush narrowed his eyes. His head began to throb slightly, not hard enough to be a bother but still not eternally possible to ignore, but he focused on TJ that fidgeted slightly in her seat. "Ugh, a robotic wire throwing me against a wall... I think I sat on the chair?"
TJ nodded, confirming his suspicions. Well, the neurological exam made sense then. "And before that?" She added.
He frowned, thinking. Why was that important?
"I think Gloria's nagging that I should tell the Colonel where we were going? I asked her to do it in my stead. Young has a lot better tolerance for her than me," He chuckled, but it died down as soon as he saw TJ expression. "What is it?"
She took a deep breath in.
"I have reasons to believe that the machine - the chair, had done something to your brain. We still don't know what exactly, but it looks like it tried to rewrite your cortex."
He didn't like the sound of it.
"To what point?"
"We don't know. But you may experience two sets of memories. One true and one -"
"Think very carefully about your next words, lieutenant." He cut in, his voice cold as a steal.
"Excuse me?"
"I know what you're going to insinuate - the Colonel went exactly the same route even if less sophisticated. Now, let me tell exactly the same thing that I've told him - that's bullshit."
"Doctor Rush -"
"How should I know that this is real, then?" he said pointedly. "That this conversation is really happening?"
"What?"
"I have a very vivid memory of holding my wife's hand when going through the stargate," no chance in hell it wasn't real. Why wouldn't it be? "I remember Mr. Brody making her a violin from spare metal parts that sounds dreadful, but she was as thankful for it as if he had given her the Stradivarius. How can you even think that any of it is a lie?" His tone became desperate as he searched for any indication in TJ eyes that he didn't make that all up. They were the ones mistaken! Not him! "Shit!" He clutched his head that suddenly felt like somebody had split it open with a machete, and Johansen jumped from her seat.
"Where does it hurt?"
"Head. Again." He groaned. Just what exactly did that bloody chair did to him?
"Doctor Rush, I need you to focus on something else," Johansen's voice sounded detached, and it took him a moment to understand and comprehend the meaning behind her words.
"Come again?" Was that his voice? It sounded too strained and far away.
"Your brain is forcing you into a seizure. I need you to focus on something else and not giving it a medium to feed on."
He could feel his leg twitch uncontrollably, and a sudden fear gripped him. If what TJ had said was true, then nobody knew what a seizure could do to an already damaged brain. Rush tried to push his thoughts away from the arising conflict in his head, but no matter how much he tried, the pain only grew worse. Because how could somebody insist that Gloria wasn't real? What had happened to her, then? How -
" - need to ho...d.. it.. to...ther. Your wife will be here in a moment."
"What did you say?" He groaned, blinking.
"I sent her to get the Colonel."
Johansen didn't look comfortable, far from it, but that fact escaped him entirely. All he could focus on was the case that the splitting headache, so profound just a second ago, now seemed to be only lurking somewhere far away, like a distant memory.
"It's... It's gone..." he whispered, confused.
TJ nodded, but she was unable to meet his gaze. There was sadness in her that he didn't understand and something more... something that kept escaping his mind.
"Try to relax, alright?" she asked while standing up. Somehow he wasn't reassured by the fake smile on her face. "I need to scan your head. Eli got the ancient MRI working. I'll be back in a minute."
"Lieutenant?" She turned around at his voice. A sudden spike of pain behind his left eyeball made him wince, but he swallowed the groan down, clenching his fists to distract himself. "If what you say is true, then how can I be certain what is happening and what isn't? Can you prove to me that this conversation right now is really happening?"
Last week was pretty hectic for me, mainly because of my nephew that I had to take care of and well, my next exam 2 weeks away now... I have a feeling it won’t get better xd
I’ve done some work on A Song That Never Ends and started a small one-shot with Thranduil from the Hobbit Movie!verse which will mainly be an angsty character study. I still don’t have a title for that, but considering I’ve been listening to Jenny of Oldstones on repeat while writing that it will probably be something from the song 😅
Haven’t touch Sudoku sadly, but I hope to write the end of chapter 2 on the train if I don’t fall asleep and reading to psychiatry won’t work...
Anyway, that’s how things stand. If you have any questions, either for me or the characters from my fics hit me up! I’ll happily answer any of them ;) The ask games from last week and 2 weeks ago are still a go too :)
My askbox is HERE
Why, out of nowhere, was I hit with all movie!Thranduil feels and yearning to write a story with him?
As if I didn’t get enough of angst with Rush seeing and talking to his dead wife, believing she’s still alive, now I want to write about Thranduil still suffering about the loss of his wife, too…
(OK, maybe watching bts from Hobbit are partly to blame, and the fact that I’m still bitter that those 50s with Gandalf taking to Thranduil about the gems of Lasgalen…)
@peacehopeandrats, I blame you for stirring the angst goblin back to life and demanding a sacrifice :P
Um.. you’re welcome? I know only as much about this realm as there are seeds in a grape. Lol
The one thing I know with conviction is that the elk was a horse named Moose. I will never forget that, especially since @eirian-houpe went on about how ridiculous the whole thing was for him to have the beast in the first place.
Oh, and there’s a ring involved, but one can’t just walk it into… someplace.
*screams incoherently while kicking open the door* You have Thranduil fanfic?! :D You can bet I’m gonna stalk it!
I want to laugh every time I see that “elk” xD But I give credit when it's due and say that only Thranduil could still look majestic on that thing. If it was Elrond, I would probably roll into a ditch while laughing. “Behold. This is my battle elk that’s not really an elk.”
I must say that I love how they combined Thranduil with Thingol and the whole extra backstory they gave him. And the idea of digging into Thranduil’s head is enough of a temptation to dig more into it :D
Why, out of nowhere, was I hit with all movie!Thranduil feels and yearning to write a story with him?
As if I didn’t get enough of angst with Rush seeing and talking to his dead wife, believing she’s still alive, now I want to write about Thranduil still suffering about the loss of his wife, too…
(OK, maybe watching bts from Hobbit are partly to blame, and the fact that I’m still bitter that those 50s with Gandalf taking to Thranduil about the gems of Lasgalen…)
@peacehopeandrats, I blame you for stirring the angst goblin back to life and demanding a sacrifice :P
Um.. you’re welcome? I know only as much about this realm as there are seeds in a grape. Lol
The one thing I know with conviction is that the elk was a horse named Moose. I will never forget that, especially since @eirian-houpe went on about how ridiculous the whole thing was for him to have the beast in the first place.
Oh, and there’s a ring involved, but one can’t just walk it into… someplace.
That Elk was ridiculous, but he looked majestic on it, so I didn’t mind as much xD
Let’s say that Thranduil was ready to go to war with the dwarves because of the gems that they didn’t want to give back. And those gems were the only reminder of his late wife that had been killed hundreds of years ago. So I have a feeling the guy is still not over it at all 😅
So yeah, talking about the angst material, that’s just poking my brain xD
Why, out of nowhere, was I hit with all movie!Thranduil feels and yearning to write a story with him?
As if I didn’t get enough of angst with Rush seeing and talking to his dead wife, believing she’s still alive, now I want to write about Thranduil still suffering about the loss of his wife, too...
(OK, maybe watching bts from Hobbit are partly to blame, and the fact that I’m still bitter that those 50s with Gandalf taking to Thranduil about the gems of Lasgalen...)
@peacehopeandrats, I blame you for stirring the angst goblin back to life and demanding a sacrifice :P
Firstly thx for the ask! <3
And now, let's see:
50. If you could write only angst, fluff or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?
Angst, hands down - I don’t think that I’ve written anything that hadn’t got a least a sprinkle of it 😅 Maybe Silky Shirts and Warm Blankets? But I bet if I ever wrote a sequel to this, I would throw some angst in. There is just something in this genre (the same goes for hurt/comfort) that I can’t see myself not writing in it as I’m always drawn towards characters and situations that can be explored in that spectrum :D I love to write about emotional aspects, so its always about what the character was feeling in that particular moment, what was driving him, what was going on inside his head, and it usually ends up all angsty 😅 , But there needs to be some happy ending, though even if only bitter-sweet, it can’t be all doom and gloom ;)
You say that you’re resisting the urge to scrap and rewrite older, unfinished fics. Is this due to changes in your writing style, a change in where you want the story to go, or some other reason? How do you cope with the urge?
To prevent myself from scrapping I make sure I forget about whatever issue I have with the work. Sort of like Rumple, I work with thread. Keeping my hands busy while I have the computer read to me keeps me from making a note of what nonsense I created that needs changing.
My current series of stitching projects is not very well displayed here:
What I want to scrap is a bunch of stuff that doesn't make sense. Scenes that overlap and shouldn't, and places where I clearly took a break between writing sessions and was clumsy about returning to it.
The stitchings are soooo good *.* Do you plan to frame them, or will they stay just like they are now? I must say that the one with red wine gives me some serious Denethor vibes, I don't know why 😅
I have been stitching my entire life and this series is the first that I have truly documented. I never thought to take pictures of my work, at least not until I was a Rumbeller.
These are kits that I bought. Counted cross stitch that came with thread and pattern, but I also make my own. Haven't done that in years though. Last two big projects before this set was a set of baby gifts for some friends in Austria. Regret never photographing those elves on toadstool or the mountain goats climbing the baby blocks.
I don't frame my work, usually because I am giving it to people who are taking it with them on a plane. No, I take that back, I did a wedding gift for friends of mine, a seashell wreath. That one I did frame because I drove it to their house.
These I would like a friend of mine to have. If she takes them I will probably mail them as is because they'd be going across the country to California. If she doesn't take them I'll just roll them up and store them somewhere.
As a person who has two left hands to this sort of things, I wouldn’t be able to even follow a drown out pattern, so I consider it a whole other league on its own ;D
You say that you’re resisting the urge to scrap and rewrite older, unfinished fics. Is this due to changes in your writing style, a change in where you want the story to go, or some other reason? How do you cope with the urge?
To prevent myself from scrapping I make sure I forget about whatever issue I have with the work. Sort of like Rumple, I work with thread. Keeping my hands busy while I have the computer read to me keeps me from making a note of what nonsense I created that needs changing.
My current series of stitching projects is not very well displayed here:
What I want to scrap is a bunch of stuff that doesn't make sense. Scenes that overlap and shouldn't, and places where I clearly took a break between writing sessions and was clumsy about returning to it.
The stitchings are soooo good *.* Do you plan to frame them, or will they stay just like they are now? I must say that the one with red wine gives me some serious Denethor vibes, I don't know why 😅
Thx for the ask, Nonnie :D Prepare for a long one!
24. How do you feel about writing smutty scenes?
That’s a complicated one. I think that my biggest problem is not wide enough vocabulary for that sort of thing. When I get to the moment where I know it’s just right to put a smutty scene, I grit my teeth almost every time because I see the scene, but describing it is a whole other affair xD The first smut I’ve written was for SnowWells in the Flash fandom, and oh boy, isn’t it cringy now when I read it 😅
I think that what helped to establish my approach to this kind of stuff was reading the Witcher - I just adore the way Sapkowski’s way to describe what is going on without outright telling :D
The other problem of mine is that sex scenes as a whole are quite dynamic, and my obsessive self always caches myself that if they stayed in this or that kind of position for too long, someone would be really hurting. Or I’m writing and sudenly realise that I have no idea what a character is doing with their hands or legs - are they still where they were a moment before? Did they move them? Isn’t it awkward? Who knows xD
I love describing kissing, though :) That’s why when I write, I focus more on foreplay than the actual act and then move to the emotional aspect and the “telling without telling” :D I quite like the way it works, and I hope it’s equally nice to read ;D
I think that the first kind of scene in this style, with every aspect and all, was in ASTNE, but I might be mistaken ;D
27. Do you make a general outline for your stories, or do you just go with the flow?
It depends. Mostly I make it up as it goes, but I do get the general idea of where I want it to end. The Dried Rose was supposed to be a one-shot but ended up as a series :D The Last Petal was supposed to be maybe 4 chapters long, with Golds return and then reunion with his son after a time skip and look at it now - I think there are still at least 5 chapters left :D Granny’s husband and his gang weren’t in the original plan at all; the idea of Prentice and Gold working in his pawnshop poped to my mind when I wrote the line about Moe pawning his wife’s ring ;)
In ASTNE, Lacey was supposed to be just Lacey, but then I decided to make her a false identity, so she’s still Lacey but also Belle. The final confrontation that is to come is also a little bit different than what I have imagined at first :d
I mostly know more or less what I want the characters to do or what the main theme for a chapter will be, but how will everyone get to that point is a different story xD
28) What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fanfiction?
Oh, I don’t know, maybe that it’ll become my main form of spending my free time but also a commitment on its own? :D That summaries are always important, and I’m still bad at coming up with them? xD It’s hard to think about something at the moment - I blame my headache for that 😅
Most of the writer ask posts I come across are only like ten or so questions long so I thought I’d try to make a longer one because we like talking about our writing! Feel free to reblog!
1) How old were you when you first starting writing fanfiction?
2) What fandoms do you write for and do you have a particular favourite if you write for more than one?
3) Do you prefer writing OC’s or reader inserts? Explain your answer.
4) What is your favourite genre to write for?
5) If you had to choose a favourite out of all of your multi chaptered stories, which would it be and why?
6) If you had to delete one of your stories and never speak of it again, which would it be and why?
7) When is your preferred time to write?
8) Where do you take your inspiration from?
9) In your xxx fic, what’s your favourite scene that you wrote?
10) In your xxx fic, why did you decide to end it like that? Did you have an alternative ending in mind?
11) Have you ever amended a story due to criticisms you’ve received after posting it?
12) Who is your favourite character to write for? Why?
13) Who is your least favourite character to write for? Why?
14) How did you come up with the title for the xxx? - You can ask about multiple stories.
15) If you write OC’s, how do you decide on their names?
16) How did you come up with the idea for xxx?
17) Post a line from a WIP that you’re working on.
18) Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?
19) Are there any stories that you’ve written that you’d really love to do a sequel to?
20) Are there any stories that you wished you’d ended differently?
21) Tell me about another writer(s) who you admire? What is it about them that you admire?
22) Do you have a story that you look back on and cringe when you reread it?
23) Do you prefer listening to music when you’re writing or do you need silence?
24) How do you feel about writing smutty scenes?
25) Have you ever cried whilst writing a story?
26) Which part of your xxx fic was the hardest to write?
27) Do you make a general outline for your stories or do you just go with the flow?
28) What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fanfiction?
29) Do you have a story that you feel doesn’t get as much love as you’d like?
30) In contrast to 29 is there a story which gets lots of love which you kinda eye roll at?
31) Send me a fic recommendation and I’ll post it for my followers to see! (The asker is to send the rec not the answerer)
32) Are any of your characters based on real people?
33) What’s the biggest compliment you’ve gotten?
34) What’s the harshest criticism you’ve gotten?
35) Do you share your story ideas with anyone else or do you keep them close to your chest?
36) Can you give us a spoiler for one of your WIP’s?
37) What’s the funniest story you’ve written?
38) If you could collab with any other writer on here, who would it be? (Perhaps this question will inspire some collabs!) If you’re shy, don’t tag the blog, just name it.
39) Do you prefer first, second or third person?
40) Do people know you write fanfiction?
41) What’s you favourite minor character you’ve written?
42) Song fic - What made you decide to use the song xxx for xxx.
43) Has anyone ever guessed the plot twist of one of your fics before you posted it?
44) What is the last line you wrote?
45) What spurs you on during the writing process?
46) I really loved your xxx fic. If you were ever to do a sequel, what do you think might happen in it?
47) Here’s a fic title - insert a made up title. What would this story be about?
48) What’s your favourite trope to write?
49) Can you remember the first fic you read? What was it about?
50) If you could write only angst, fluff or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?
It's Tuesday, and it means I'm here to answer all your burning questions if you have any ;)
The past week has been a little stressful - my exam from psychiatry is 3 weeks away, and I'm in a deep shithole as to my knowledge level. Like, the textbook is OK to just read it, but I want to burn it on a stake when it comes to learning from it. The graphic design is all over the place, and it's hard to pick which parts are important and which aren't. The fact that there just have to be names for every small thing isn't helping at all. The situation with covid in Poland doesn't help my anxiety, but well, one has to live with it, I guess.
I don't hold my hopes up for doing much during the next week - my sister is coming with my favourite four-year-old menace as the kindergartens are closed, and they have work, so I'll have to occupy the kiddo, between trying to learn and helping my mum with cooking xD But there is some good news!
I've almost finished the next chapter of Sudoku! (I should have up in a couple of days, I think). There is one last scene left to write, and I think the whole thing will close within 3, maybe 4 chapters total. I'm leaning towards 3, but if the next one ends too long, I may split it, so we'll see. You have no idea how relieved it makes me xD
I got 600 words for the next chapter of Until the Last Petal Falls. I didn't work much on it as Sudoku became a priority, but it's more or less planned out :D
I'll reblog some ask game later for anyone interested to play :D
ellievsbear
theartofmadeline
baratheonpilled
2087
prguitarman
andulkaphoto
