It's definitely on the way, even if mostly in the background for now! I'm heartwarmed by your firm but still patience, whoever you are, thank you very much! Unfortunately, it takes time, like everything else, if you have just a little bit of confidence, and even that comes in like the tides - rushing forward and then receding. (Writing itself can indeed be like riding a bike, but you still need to get your muscles in gear, and, as you said it, I haven't done that in such a long time now. But we are making progress. It helps a lot that @mindemenyedelmem lets me spend Saturday afternoons on the couch in their apartment, banging on the mental brick wall of the writer's block. And by 'let' I mean they usually 'insist'.)
So. To show my gratitude, under the cut I've collected a few snippets from some of the writings I've started. Some new, some ancient, but generally these are the stories I've been thinking about lately and haven't shared yet (I reserve the right to change them, of course). If you're interested in any of these in more detail, or... You know, if you're not interested in any of them and would rather know something else, feel free to write again, dear asker, I'm happy to ramble, it motivates me too! :"D
TLDR; the coming back era is still coming (... heh). ✨
Who Killed Markiplier? - KOllOK | God of Day/Celine (Soline)
Jacksepticeye - IRIS | Dr. Henrik von Schneeplestein/Antisepticeye (Antistein)
Genshin Impact | Dottore/Pantalone (Dottolone)
Honkai: Star Rail | Sunday/Gallagher (Galladay) | alternate universe
Naturally, there are dozens of other story seeds sprouting in my head, because I've never had a problem with ideas. These are just the ones I can show you actual sentences for.
Also, my very pretty Notion page for these things:
(Sorry, but I'm quite proud of how shiny and aesthetic it looks. :"D)
First day of @figuwhump! It’s a drawing based whump prompt event.
Henrik was a fight response person when he was first captured. Anti got so sick of being attacked every time he entered the room that he started pinning him in place forcefully when he was scared, staring him down, training him into having a ‘freeze’ response instead. Now, Henrik locks up and goes stiff every time his adrenaline spikes.
HELLO i havent read all your fics yet but i did binge-read your antiaverage ones! they are so good! i personally am a big fan of antistein, if i could get "stop pretending that you care" with anti and henrik? bless you, youre a brilliant writer
((Oh, goodness, yes, I've seen your tags in my activity. I fully admit I may have giggled over one or two. You're very kind, thank you!
As for the piece: warning for emotional manipulation, overall not a very healthy relationship.))
Henrik doesn't bat an eye when the lights flicker. Cool fingers brush against the back of his neck, a whisper of touch, and he flips another page, scribbling a note down in the margins.
Anti cocks his head, and listens to the way his heart picks up. 63 beats per minute. 72. 75. 75. 75.
"You're a shit liar," he murmurs, letting his voice tip just that side of mocking, and drapes himself over the doctor's shoulders, studying his profile. Henrik, as Anti knew he would, grimaces at the intrusion into his space, bristles at the tone. There they go. "At least where it matters."
"You're a pest," Henrik returns, dryly. "We can't have everything."
"You can't, maybe." He watches with no small amount of glee as Henrik's jaw tightens into that familiar line. Hard to read, his ass; Henrik can't help but wear his heart on his sleeve, hard as it claims to be. Scrape it even lightly, and it'll bleed, angry and red, and Anti wants to lap up every last fucking drop. He'd bleed Henrik dry for another taste.
"They call this insanity, you know. Slamming your head against the same wall because you can't admit I've won."
Henrik, carefully, puts his pen down. He's still not looking at Anti, and it itches at him. "More fool you are, then, for assuming this is victory."
Anti is genuinely caught off guard by how deeply that statement amuses him. Henrik's clever, but he's not always smart. It's something about the stubbornness- like Chase, how he can't seem to acknowledge the clock ticking forward. A laugh bursts out of him, sharp and bright, and it startles Henrik into looking over, for the first time.
"This is victory, Henrik. Do you want to know why?"
In one fluid motion, he twists to sit on the desk in front of Henrik; their knees knock together, and Anti leans in, close enough to count each fleck of green in Henrik's eyes.
"Jack's not home. He's not waking up. You can breathe for him and pump his blood but there's not a single spark up in his head. I'm not going anywhere. You brought me here and gave me the key to shut the door behind me. But you know what else?"
He lets his words hang in the silence for a moment. Let him stew, let him think. Henrik's heart is beating loud enough for both of their words; if he reaches out, he fancies he'd feel it, hammering away under paper-thin skin.
"I have you, now," he purrs, softly, and this time, he does reach out, tracing the scar that cuts just over his jaw, thin and silvery. Henrik is frozen, still under his touch. Then, slowly, he reaches up and curls a hand around Anti's wrist, stilling him.
His grip is iron; hard as his eyes. That's nice, really, Anti thinks, idly. He's gotten bolder. Catching up to Anti at his own game. Or he thinks he is, at least, which is half the fun, following the breadcrumbs that Anti's laid out for him.
Anti lets his grin curl just that fraction wider.
"Careful, Anti," Henrik murmurs, eyes flinty. His fingers tighten; he's going to be seeing those bruises for days. "I might think you're starting to pretend to care."
Anti rolls his eyes, and hooks his legs around Henrik's waist, pulling his chair closer. Neither of them could leave if they wanted to.
Well, Anti could. He knows exactly how much pressure he'd have to apply to snap each of those fingers, that Henrik's ring finger never healed right and would take just a pound or two less of pressure. But where's the fun? "You're really impressively dense, for a thrice-named doctor. You're alive, Henrik. That alone should be your first hint."
"How flattering," Henrik murmurs, eyes unflinchingly meeting his. Bravado, pride; all armor which Henrik wears like a second skin. It's just such a shame that he knows the soft, squalling thing underneath it all, that wants to be wanted, needed.
"Isn't it?" Anti rolls his neck; there's a faint echo of an ache. Not the most comfortable position to be stuck in. "Count your blessings, doctor. I like interesting things. I like it when they stay interesting. And you're starting to get tiring."
Slowly, slowly, Henrik releases him, and he leans back with a smug hum; there's a faint ring of red marks around his arm. Only fair, he supposes. He'll have to pay him back for it, later.
He braces his arms behind him, and cocks his head as he rakes his eyes over Henrik, slowly, cataloguing him with a lazy smirk. "So I'm here to make you an offer."
Alarms were shrieking and blaring as Anti rushed from socket to socket. Whatever electrical currents were closer he jumped to immediately. He could feel it stalking him. Because he didn’t have the time to think about where he was going. He needed out, he needed to escape and fast.
Anti was trying to find a way out of the hellhole he’d currently found himself in. Henrik was safe. As “safe” as he could be. But Anti had to escape and think about a plan of revenge.
He just had to—
Anti jumped into some random circuit when suddenly he heard another ringing going on. Someone was getting a call and he was in the circuit. So he instantly let it take him away from the situation.
The glitch demon would be back for blood. He would be back for Henrik. And he would never forget what had happened.
“Hello? Hell~o?” A familiar voice drawled out just as Anti flew out of the phone and right into Wilford, knocking them both to the ground. Anti was on top of Wilford and so elated he almost decked the guy on pure adrenaline alone.
“You fucker, you’re the best,” Anti told him.
Wilford smiled. “I always try my best.”
“Wil, who called?” Dark called out from outside the room and Anti realized that he was with Wilford in Dark’s home office. Alone . . . with Wilford underneath him.
Before Anti could jump off Wilford or even just turn into pixels, Dark walked in and froze when he saw them.
Dark’s ringing became shrill, reminding him of the alarm he’d just escaped from.
Anti violently turned into a staticky cloud of pixels before reforming next to Dark. “Make my tinnitus I got from Jackie worse, why don’t you?”
Dark glared at him, glancing between him and Wil. Anti braced to get hit, anger had caused him to get too close to Dark. The demon was known to strike quickly and violently. He was well known to be jealous and foul tempered and Anti could see the rage in his eyes.
“Have I interrupted something?” Dark asked, clearly a bait as Anti moved past him and into the living room. Through the window he spotted Chase Brody who was smoking out back and immediately looked right at Anti.
“Nah, you didn’t interrupt shit, was fucking busy escaping from the feds,” Anti said as he began looking for a way out. He needed to get back to his little hideout and lay low and then think of something.
Dark’s ringing was shrill and even if Dark was in any kind of mood to help him, he’d botched it with Wil in the office.
“Can’t Anti stay, ol’ boy?” Wilford leaned against the door frame of the office with a huge smile on his face. “He’s so much fun.”
Which immediately made Anti want to kill Wilford.
Dark took in a rather angry breath, loudly taking in air through his nose and Anti felt Dark’s aura angrily coil around one of his ankles. A clear threat.
Anti knew Dark absolutely detested him. Sometimes he put up with Anti stabbing him. Sometimes Dark put up with the shit he pulled. But never when the guy was clearly in a bad mood. And when Dark discorporated him he lost entire weeks.
Weeks that Anti didn’t have right now. So for once, even though Anti wanted to punch him in the face, he needed to get out.
Then Chase walked into the room, one of his guns in hand.
“I’m gone, I got better things to do,” Anti said, turning into pixels and shooting through the lightswitch and onto the porch.
Dark followed after him, teleporting in. “Why the rush, glitch?”
“Like I said, got shit to do, people to kill,” Anti said, trying to get away from memories of the alarm sound. “I just got in through your landline, you old fuck.”
“Why the rush?” Dark said with contempt in his voice. “You were clearly enjoying yourself.”
“I wasn’t enjoying shit, just your electric bill,” Anti said angrily, he was trying to make it down the steps of the porch but his feet seemed to be moving in some cycle. Meaning he was stuck in the Manor’s grasp and he might not be able to easily slip out.
And Chase was following them out to the porch.
“You two are never very subtle, why become so evasive now?” Dark said, taking a step forward. And the stone steps refused to let Anti go. The ringing shrill and setting off all kinds of alarms in Anti’s brain.
“I ain’t being anything, you might be comfortable fucking that piece of sentient cotton candy, but I don’t wanna catch whatever weird STDs that fucker has.” Anti said.
“How dare you!” That seemed to get Dark angrier. “Shut up, you can fuck him, but not insult.”
“I ain’t fucking your man,” Anti said. “I’m fucking Henrik.”
“Then you’re doing both,” Dark said dismissively. “Right where his children can see you.”
“Fuck you,” Anti said. “If I wanted to fuck Wil I’d do it in front of you, because pissing you off would be the only reason I’d do it.”
The first one to strike first was actually Chase. The marksman shot at Anti, hitting him in the leg. Anti struck at Dark, their aura crashing before Anti was able to slip out of whatever hold that the Manor had over him.
Anti jumped into a nearby powerline under the ground and moved deeper into the city. He was away from Dark and could get back to Henrik’s apartment. He crashed there for a bit.
The glitch demon would lick his wounds and have his revenge. Tonight he needed to sleep, and he didn’t do it in the apartment. He did it in the apartment complex’s power grid.
Tomorrow, maybe the alarm sound wouldn’t be echoing in his ears as fiercely.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Post A/N: After so long of trying to get Dark to even hint about his problems, and it’s to Anti of all people. He might be getting therapy in the next arc.
