#birbwrites

[lockandkeyblade]

Form of Affection

Explicit | SoRoku | Major Canon Divergence | Read the Tags

Before he left the Organization, Roxas knows someone told him; "Live. As best as you can."

Almost four years later, he still doesn't know what that means. Unfortunately, finding the answer seems to be tied up in being stalked by overly touchy Heartless, a Somebody who thinks he's an angel, and a sense of exhaustion that just won't quit.

[scarletbirbs]

At the End of the World - Chapter 1/?

It’s April 1945. The Allies are slicing through Germany from the west while the Soviets are hitting them from the east, making their way towards the middle, towards Berlin. The end of the war is in sight.

When Corporal Shane Hollander of the Second Canadian Infantry gets injured and separated from his unit, he gets picked up by a unit of Soviet soldiers, commanded by Lieutenant Rozanov, and is forced to tag along with them until he can find his way back to his own unit.

And war? Well, war is one of those things that tends to make people do stupid things they never thought they’d otherwise do…

First fic I've written in a while, I've got ~18k words on my doc right now and it's not quite finished but since I've already gotten a bunch written, I'm sticking to a posting schedule of once a week on Fridays around 4pm EDT :)

[Fic is restricted to registered users only in an effort to prevent data scraping to feed AI so if you can't get to it, try logging in]

[dialovers-translations]

Oh! I also wanted to ask why only some of the S boys went into a deep sleep in their respective routes and the others didn’t. I thought that was very peculiar as well.

I get a lot of these kind of questions but they’re often really difficult for me to answer as well. > < I try and translate the game as closely to the original as possible, but I also can’t look inside the writers’ heads to figure out what they were thinking. 

You also have to keep in mind that the games are NOT written by one person. All the routes had different people working on them, so if they didn’t communicate properly, it is very well possible that they would end up contradicting each other in some way.

[infernallegaycy]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Rating: T+ Relationships: Platonic Liquid & Snake, Otacon/Snake, background/implied Big Boss/Kaz/Ocelot and Big Boss/EVA Wordcount: 6k Additional notes: High school AU.

“How was school this week, boys?” asks John. “You had a biology test, right? How did that go, huh?”

“David got an A+,” blurts Eli, tone accusing.

Eva cocks an eyebrow at him. “And how did you do?”

All eyes turn to Eli. “Can we talk about something else?” he asks, poking at his plate—he’d still been working on it, but all of a sudden, he’s not hungry anymore. “Like—I don’t know, Father, tell one of your old wrestling stories. From the heyday of Naked Snake or Big Boss or whatever other name you were using then. How many have you gone through again?”

(In which Liquid's nemesis is high school biology. And also his brother, who is suddenly very good at biology, which must mean he's up to something more than plain old studying.)

[lockandkeyblade]

Cacophony

Because, hey. Even if their opinion shouldn’t matter, they’re looking at a piece of his soul, and knowing its worthwhile to more than just you is…still nice.

A repository of TWEWY drabbles and prompts, archived from LiveJournal.

[lockandkeyblade]

Better the Devil You Know - snippet

====================================

“Ven?” 

“Roxas.” Ven hums back. He lets his gaze drift, until he can see his own face staring back at him. Slowly taking in his position, slumped over the table. Eyes flicking to the mug that Ven’s fingers keep nudging, the dangerous tilt, the thunk when it settles down again. Over and over and over.

“You… good, there?”

“Not really,” He sighs. He knows he’s smiling, or, he does smile, at that. He’s just not quite sure what that smile looks like. 

“Okay.” Roxas shuffles, a little, before he comes to a decision. It’s something he really likes about Roxas; whenever his face twin determines a course of action, he just– does it. Consequences be damned. 

What he’s decided to do, right now, is wander over to the kettle, still eyeing Ventus off in a way that almost makes him laugh. Like his whole slumped over thing might be contagious, or dangerous. Toeing around some invisible barrier, not quite willing to leave. 

Decided, but still indecisive. Clearly thinking hard about his words before he says them, a little offering to– whatever Ven is doing. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Mm. Well,” He stops nudging his drink around. Maybe it’d drown him, but also, Roxas would have to clean it up. That doesn’t seem fair. “I was talking to Chirithy–”

“Okay.”

“–And he thinks I sold my soul.”

“...Okay.”

“When I was eight.”

“Right.” The kettle clicks as Roxas turns it on, silence falling. Until the water inside begins to boil, until Ven can see it start to jostle around. They have one of those modern things; all steel and glass. All the bubbles rise to the top of the water, faster and faster. The water churns, boils. 

It’s an awful lot of motion. Ven’s almost jealous.

“What’s a soul?”

“You know what, I don’t even know?” Ven waves his hand around, before letting it fall back down at his side. “It’s like; the Heart, but more than the Heart? Or maybe it’s just the Heart and a bunch of other stuff?”

“And you sold it?”

“When I was eight.”

“Okay.” Roxas accepts that much, reaching into the cupboard to grab a cup. He doesn’t make hot chocolate, Ven notes. That’s coffee. That’s– huh. That’s a lot of coffee. Are you supposed to put four teaspoons of coffee in? He’s not sure. No one drinks coffee in Departure. “I don’t get it, but sure. How come?”

“Chirithy doesn’t know. He says I wasn’t a Wielder back then, so–” A shrug. It pushes his cheek into the wood of the table; even when the motion is done, Ven doesn’t bother lifting his head. The table has some kind of lacquer on it, nice and smooth. It’s pleasant. “But. I was eight. So probably something stupid.”

“What’s something stupid, in this context?”

“A new puppy or something, I don’t know.”

[lockandkeyblade]

WGOG || 3. Itty Bitty

Some context:

-This is an AU where Warring Gods (WG) Vanitas and Ventus wind up in the original universe (OG). There is a reason they're there, them figuring that out is part of the mystery. -Considering the above if you haven't read Ash and Dust you're gonna be very confused. TLDR; WGVV were role swapped. Vanitas was raised in Departure, Ven stayed with Xehanort. It's as insane as it sounds you should read it Ini is an amazing writer. -In addition to obvious discrepancies, the OG is also slightly behind WG in terms of time passing. WGVanitas and WGVen are 22, OGVanitas and OGVen are 19. -WGVen goes by Ven and OGVen goes by Ventus. Yeah that's the differentiation we used. It has meaning. No really. -There is an order to these drabbles. Yes, that means this is the third one. Will you get the others? Maybe but probably only after I go insane and edit it all and drag Ini into being equally as obsessed with writing the rest of it and slapping it all up on Ao3. Or Ini posts some. Who knows.

==========================================

They have to be close, this world. Ventus assumes they have to be close, because the moment they touch down? Vanitas takes off.

Which– okay, sure! Vanitas might not be the most talkative companion he’s ever had, but Ventus– it’s weird, associating himself that way in his head. But when this Vanitas says Ven he is never talking about him, so– would have to be totally blind not to get that he’s… he cares a lot about his Light. An awful lot.

It’s really sweet. Kind of hurts, a little, but he’s not thinking about that.

Even then, the action takes Ventus completely by surprise. Vanitas hasn’t really…left him alone, since they met. Always kind of right there, just behind his shoulder or even standing right next to him, a little in front. A voice in his head says it’s shielding, which doesn’t make any sense at all. He doesn’t need to be protected from Aqua and Terra. He doesn’t need to be protected from all the other people he knows. 

But every time he’d thought that in the moment, a little disquieted and disgruntled, he’d felt Vanitas’ gaze burning into the side of his head and– he hadn’t said anything. Not a word. The shielding continued.

So this feels kind of jarring. A lot jarring. Ventus trots in the direction he thinks Vanitas sped off in, hoping against hope that it’s a straight line, contemplating if he shouldn’t just get back on his Glider and try finding him from the skies, instead. 

It must be his lucky day, because he finds him in the next clearing. Something he would comment about, except he’s not alone.

Ventus. No, Ven. That’s him. 

That’s him, wrapped around Vanitas and rubbing his nose into his cheek with the sweetest smile Ventus has ever seen, completely lax within the arms wrapped around his middle. He looks older, like Vanitas does– a few years on him. Maybe…shorter, though? Their clothes are close, but not identical. The jacket’s almost the same, at least.

They both look really happy.

“Oh! You found him!” Ventus isn’t sure exactly what he’s feeling when he does interrupt, just that– he interrupts. The version of him in Vanitas’ arms twists around to look at him, vivid blue meeting vivid blue. Smile widening until there’s a gap between his teeth.

Ven shrieks. A sound that has Ventus jumping out of his skin before it registers that the sound is almost deliriously delighted, before Ven squirms right out of Vanitas’ hold and– blips, across the space between them. Blips.

A few dozen feet away one moment, crashing into him the next. Ven puts all of his weight into throwing himself on him, and Ventus gets one look at Vanitas’ completely unsurprised expression before he’s knocked onto his back with a yelp that ends with all the air in his lungs being shoved out of him.

“You! Oh, you’re so–!” Ven sits on him, thighs on either side of his waist and hands fluttering over his cheeks. “Cute! Vanitas! Look at him!”

He thinks that should sound weird. It should, shouldn’t it? Look at him. This guy who is me. He’s looked at Roxas, before. Mirrors. He knows what he looks like.

Except this is different. It’s so different. Ven is– a little older, and so, so bright. He’s so bright. An angular face and petite nose and wide, wide smile under windswept hair that’s more angelic than Roxas is, by far. Ven is just kind of– holy. He’s kind of holy.

He’s kind of holy and it’s almost painful, staring at him. Wide-eyed and speechless as Ven’s thighs squeeze his waist and fingers grasp at the bells of his cheeks and pinch, hard.

“It’s almost a surprise, you know? Here I was, thinking– oh, well his Darkness is vicious. Pretty nasty, actually. But you’re so,” Ven sighs, leaning closer. Breath washing over his face. Eyes boring into his own, with an intensity that’s uncomfortable. “Soft, aren’t you? You’re so soft. Young.”

The words are almost nostalgic. 

Bitter.

“Ven,” Vanitas says, and Ventus watches with a building sense of disbelief as his older counterpart twists around immediately, peering up at him. Vanitas steps into view, coming to a halt next to his prone form. He looks– amused? “You’re scaring him.”

“I’m not!”

“He isn’t!”

A chorus, one that has Ven turning back to him, head canting to the side. Doglike, vulturelike. Quizzical. Ventus’ heart is beating a little rapidly in his chest, he realizes. 

They’re both staring at him. His heart is beating a little rapidly.

“I just– he startled me,” He feels like he’s floundering, heat settling into his cheeks in a way he knows he’s not going to be able to hide. “I wasn’t expecting to hit the ground.”

Ven coos, pinching his cheeks again. Vanitas is giving him that look. The one that says he’s lying, and Vanitas knows he’s lying. Ventus really doesn’t like that look.

It makes him feel bad. Worse.

“Oh, you really are… young.” Thumbs run back and forth beneath his eyes, lovingly. Ven’s smile is– nostalgic. In an awful way. Too little like his own, and a lot more like the Vanitas he used to know. Mean. “A little Light.”

Ventus doesn’t understand why that feels like an insult. 

It just does.

[lockandkeyblade]

Whoever (would have) Saved You: Epilogue

It's like before, right? Exactly how it started.