lil bit of my first draft for my classics x jegulus (maybe jegulily i haven't decided) fic :)
Okay it's like 3am and this JUST occured to me as an idea so this is very sketchy but here it is ig.
James' head tilts up to examine the figure, falling slightly to the left, weighed down by a question. Slowly he reached his hand out to trace the contours of the figure’s arms, thumbing his collarbone gently like the slightest touch could topple him from his pedestal. James’ hand drifted down the plains of his stomach lower, lower with agonising concentration. He brushed at the man's hip bone lightly before his eyes were drawn suddenly upwards. James’ hand rested on that hip bone, smoothing its sharp corners by his touch alone.
Regulus flinched away as if the skin were his own.
It’s just a cast, it’s a copy, not an original, it doesn’t matter if he touches it.
Then why was his heart racing? Why was there a knot in his stomach coiling tighter and tighter? Why, when he raised his hand to check the time, was there a tremor?
But even with his heart fighting to break out of his ribcage, Regulus couldn’t help but smile slightly. James brought his hand up to the eyelids of the statue, frowning, his thoughts so loud that his lips may as well have been pressed to Regulus' ear.
This cast isn’t even a copy of the original, it's a copy of a copy of a copy. The rims of the eyelids are thick with layer upon layer of plaster which had built up with each iteration of copying. There aren’t even any eyelashes left.
As quickly as that displeasure had formed, however, it crumbled into dust and a cocksure smile melted across his face like wax in a clay cast. James looked at statues like they were alive. He breathed meaning into them with every glance, worshipped them with every word.
I want him to look at me like that, Regulus thought.
Wait, no - someone. He wanted someone to look at him like that. He chased that first hope from his head as quickly as it had arrived. With an effort, he turned away from the James- from the statue - and left him to his work.
the RodolphusxPandora interaction added 10yrs to my life but everything else in the chapter took like 13500 so I’m literally running on negative, cr owes me a little bit of life force back, can I scrounge up a few seconds of air in the next few chapters or should I just get on life support 😭
here, have some more rodolphus (about pandora), along with regulus:
Hi Zar!!! Idk if you’ve ever answered this before, but what would Remus and/or Lily be like in the hunger games? How well would they do and stuff?
😳 okay, so this ask hit me like a fucking truck. i felt like an actual bolt of shock travel through my body, because in all of this, i never once even considered either cr remus or cr lily in the hunger games, whether alone or together. so, while i was at work today, i gave this some Thought.
this got kinda long, so under the break (and general warnings for mentions of death/violence and sirius' reputation in the hallow and like, his feelings on sex/sexuality and there is a brief mention of a kiss happening that isn't exactly wanted, though its due to a misunderstanding, and its stopped and not taken any further once the unwanted part is realized—plus its talked about in broad, vague terms):
i think on their own, like in separate games, they would both be absolutely ruthless.
lily—she would be so fucking beloved by the hallows, you have no idea. she'd dress up pretty for her interviews and charm the crowds easy. she would also ace her interview, because she would make everyone swoon, but she'd also tug at all their heartstrings by talking about her best friend back home, and her older sister she is so very desperate to get back to, and her parents. like, that would be rooted in the truth, and they would all feel that, and she'd have the support of so many sponsors, without a doubt.
in the games....hm. i think she has very, very good aim in the sense that she can force herself to focus in the middle of a disaster, such as a literal warzone, for example. like there's definitely a technique to guns, to being a sharpshooter of a sort, and she would absolutely kill it as a sniper. i think she would lean towards a projectile weapon for long range, and while there isn't any guns in the arena, a crossbow would likely fit well with her. so, i think she'd be a crossbow person, but i don't necessarily think she'd be a perfect shot; she had to practice with guns for months before she got really, really good with them, and she would only have two days to train with the crossbow before the arena.
nonetheless, i do think she'd get very far in her games. i don't think she'd kill more than one or two people here and there—like she wouldn't seek fights, but she would finish them if they found her. i also think that the sponsors would donate plenty so her mentor could send her food and water and anything else she needed. i think she'd be very good at hiding and running, and i think she would make it to the last day where only two others remained, and she would be pushed close to them. she would wait in the distance for one to kill the other, then shoot her crossbow in the last and become the victor.
she would subsequently become a mentor after that, because she was so beloved by the hallows, and she would be a lot like frank, i think. very friendly with all, but not a joke in the mentor lineup, because she would absolutely bring some tributes home. i also think she and sirius would have gotten along so, so well. i think she and marlene would have been best friends, too.
remus—now, he would not ace his interviews or be beloved by the hallows, because he would have made everyone uncomfortable by being way, way too defiant. he was, um, very chaotic pre-murder of greyback, so he would have still had the full brunt of "be gay, do crime" he has going on, but it'd be a lot louder. his interview would consist of things like:
"how are you tonight, remus? you look—"
"yeah, im doing fucking shit actually, but i can't be blamed for that since im probably going to fucking die soon. thanks for that, by the way, you lifeless, soulless fucking pricks"
and:
"so do you have a lover or—"
"no, but considering my current predicament, it's safe to say im still getting fucked"
so, he would not be a favorite at all, and people would actively and loudly dislike him. marlene would fucking love him. sirius would think he was absolutely hilarious and also very, very stupid. and riddle would find him agitating. he wouldn't request that remus be specifically killed, but he would one day regret that he didn't.
in the arena, remus would be ruthless, too, bc despite everything, he would have people he'd want to get home to—lily and lyall—so its not as if he wouldn't be fighting. he would, but he would take pride in doing it on his own, no help from sponsors or anything like that. this would nearly cost him his life many times. he'd starve at points, nearly die to dehydration, and likely get very injured and nearly die a lot. the hallows don't like him, so he'd make for a good punching bag. like it'd be different from them not caring about marlene or even noticing her at all; they would actively dislike remus, which is a rare occurrence, because most tributes do try to be liked to better their chances of survival. remus wouldn't.
and weapon-wise, i think remus would be some sort of bludgeoning/blunt weapon type. like a club or a mace or a hammer. imagining remus lupin with a flail weapon (a chain mace) or even a sort of war-hammer type.... yeah. yeah, that'll do it. that would do it. he'd be splitting skulls a lot. i don't think he'd kill more than four or five people, but i do think towards the end that people would want to kill him to gain favor from the sponsors and the hallows themselves, because they don't like him, and putting on a good show of killing him could possibly make people love them more and better their odds of making it out. so he would have to fight and kill to defend himself.
i think at the end, it would be a two against one fight—the other two against him—and i think everyone in the world would expect him to lose, and basically all the hallows would want him to, and then i think he'd defy them all by winning.
riddle would not be pleased with this, and he would not be pleased with remus at all, so his punishment would be to become a mentor. like another form of imprisonment and servitude. remus would despise it, but he'd likely get lyall killed by accident by being too defiant, and then he'd calm down a lot when he realized one mistake could get lily killed, too. he'd still hate it, and the hallows/sponsors would hate him, so he wouldn't even be able to be a proper mentor. his tributes every year would be at an severe disadvantage, and it would likely eat him alive.
he would hate sirius. hate, hate, hateeeee sirius with everything in him. the hallow heartthrob. the one with the charming smiles and all the stupid sponsors eating out of the palm of his hand. hate how he wasn't defiant at all and hate how he seemed perfectly fine in his position as the mentor who lets the hallows own him. marlene would insist that he's more than he seems and actually a good person and remus should at least give him a chance (marlene and remus would get on soooo well), but remus would not want to hear it, and he wouldn't have very much to do with sirius at all, nor would he be very good at hiding his distaste for him, which would be yet another thing the hallows all hated him for.
meanwhile, this enemies-to-lovers arc would be one-sided, bc sirius would have the biggest crush on remus. like, he would see him be so outwardly defiant and just. yeah, he'd be weak in the knees and shit. remus would scowl at him, and he'd get butterflies 😭 like, this poor man would have such a sweet crush and have absolutely know idea what to do about it, bc he's never felt that way for anyone since he was 16, and he barely even knows what the feelings mean, let alone how to express them. i think it would translate into, like, sirius just wanting to be near him, so he's constantly just pestering remus for attention when not charming the sponsors.
i think remus would think that sirius just can't handle having people not like him, so that's why he won't leave remus alone, which ofc only makes remus determined not to like him even more. i think they'd get in this cycle of sirius trailing after remus to bother him, and then remus inevitably snapping at him before stalking off, and then i think sirius would show up at remus' suite someday, like maybe when a tribute he was really attached to didn't make it, bc he just wants to comfort remus, except remus does not know this and does not like him, so it becomes an argument very quickly.
i don't think they would have Sexual Tension traditionally. like, they would, but it would kinda be one-sided. sirius would have no desire to have sex with remus, because he wouldn't trust him, despite his crush. there would be no trust built there, so like, all the sexual tension would be on remus' side of things. sirius, i think, would just have...touch tension? closeness tension? attention tension? like he'd want remus to be focused on him. he'd want remus to look at him and like him and talk to him and just. be around. the desire to kiss and have sex would come later for sirius, but his desire for remus overall would be very much there. meanwhile, it'd be flipped for remus, because he would desire a kiss and sex and kinda hate himself for it, but he can't help being attracted to sirius, but his desire for sirius is not there. like, his body? sure. the person? no, not really, because he doesn't like sirius, and also because he doesn't...know sirius.
so i think that fight/argument they would have would lead to remus kissing sirius and being completely, totally in favor of having hate sex, only to be completely, totally thrown off by sirius pulling away and getting flustered and likely very fucking overwhelmed and definitely displeased. remus would be so confused by this, because like, he fully believes sirius' reputation in the hallow. sirius would be upset because he doesn't want to be just The Hallow Heartthrob to remus, and he'd also likely be dealing with mixed feelings and at war with himself about his sexuality and his acceptance of pleasure etc etc. he would get Very Pissed at remus and leave, and then leave him alone, and then of course, how the turntables...
so remus would feel like Oh Shit I Fucked Up and he would inevitably feel the need to go apologize to sirius, and he would, and they would probably have a Talk in which remus finds out who sirius actually is as a person and promptly falls head over fucking heels for him laughably easy. in the meantime, sirius would be like squint I Don't Know If I Like You Anymore about remus, but he would inevitably come around and forgive him and take it as the misunderstanding it was.
however, i don't think sirius would let remus kiss him for a while after that. like A While. even when he did trust him, like when they built up that trust and connection, he'd still struggle with it bc, at some point, remus did see him as just The Hallow Heartthrob. in crimson rivers, remus never really did. he didn't believe anything those hallows said, and sirius was relieved about that. sirius would get testy and upset in crimson rivers if he thought that remus did think he was The Hallow Heartthrob, so in this scenario, he would be very, very touchy and defensive about it; he'd never want remus to look at him that way, especially while they're, like, falling in love.
so remus would essentially respect his boundaries and eventually, at some point, figure out what sirius is worried about. he'd reassure him, i think, and only then would sirius even really consider doing anything with remus. i think their first kiss—well, their first real kiss, not the one where sirius nearly punched him in the fucking face, i think the one they're both excited about is very similar to their first in crimson rivers in that they'd sort of know it couldn't really lead anywhere and Mean Something.
because like, they'd have to hide the relationship in this scenario, too. mentors aren't supposed to be affiliated like this, hence what happened to eli and alphard, with them being split up and never getting to see each other again. so sirius and remus would have to be very, very careful, and they would have to hide their feelings, and frankly, i don't think they could.
i think people would find out slowly at the start, people who would keep the secret—marlene, frank, emmeline for example—and ofc they would not breathe a word of it. but, at some point, someone like yaxley or malfoy would find out, and they'd like use it to blackmail sirius, which would last only so long before sirius threatened to tear their heads off with enough conviction that they knew he meant it and just decided to throw him and remus under the bus to save their own skin.
i think remus would be the alphard of the situation, in that he would be replaced as a mentor and forced to go home, and he wouldn't get to see sirius for a while. but then if you're getting into all the war stuff, then yeah, they'd inevitably meet again, so there's that!
now, remus and lily—they would either both be very defiant or make themselves loved by the hallows. they wouldn't be fighting for themselves but for each other. everything they did would be to help the other survive.
in the arena, they would stay together and be a dangerous duo. one a terror from up close and one a terror from afar. remus you don't want to see coming and lily you never do. they'd fight every fight together, and they would win.
i think at the end it would be a race to see who could kill themselves faster. it'd be like that very intense fight between natasha and clint before, ya know. it'd also be just as emotional. i do think, however, that remus would get lily to falter by simply saying petunia's name. and i think that remus would die for her in that arena, and lily would come out literally never the same.
i think, like with marlene, sirius would try to be there for lily as much as he could when she became a mentor, and i think her being a mentor would kind of break her over and over to the point that she wouldn't have walls to build up. she'd just be. very hurt, all the time. she would probably never talk about remus unless drunk, and sirius would probably always feel a strange pulse in his chest that he labeled as pity when he thought of remus dying. he likely cried while watching it and wasn't even entirely sure why.
lily would end up basically just how she is now in the order, but worse, i think, because she actively watched remus die for her.
sirius would never fall in love.
so yeah, i think it would be...very interesting. i do think it's interesting to think about all the ways this world could have gone. like, crimson rivers just kind of fell into place like puzzle pieces in my brain, so getting to play with the puzzle pieces and move them around to see what different pictures could be made is so fun!
Date you? he wonders. The term seems so trite, casual. Kei doesn’t think it quite fits he and Yamaguchi. He thinks, after everything and all this time, they’re deserving of something entirely new; untouched by millions before them.
Campefire in Your Chest is ultimately my most favorite tsukkiyama fic. The characterization, narration, and all the little details in between the lines are phenomenal.
can’t stop thinking about adult kazutora and chifuyu and how they represent atonement and forgiveness respectively. the pet shop & bad toman timelines gave me a clear sight that grief connected them in the most transformative way possible. if chifuyu was less kind or ken wakui decided to destroy his character perhaps revenge/grudge would be quite a possible path for him to go down but instead, by being the first person to see kazutora upon his release from juvie and helps him w life after, wakui really shows how compassion and mercy are integral parts of chifuyu’s strength.
