#keeping promises

[love-romance-relationships]

[maverick-auo]

Prompt: High

Percy Jackson had dreamt of Nico di Angelo quite a bit since the younger boy had fled camp, each new vision making his stomach churn and his heart twist in his chest as that once bright, happy boy became a shell of his former self. His short silky curls now long and matted; his tan olive skin now pale and wan; worst, though, were his eyes—once excited and full of joy, now vacillating wildly between angry and lifeless. 

Every new dream of Nico enflamed something in Percy. Not something he understood, but the fire it stoked was strong enough to keep him searching for the boy in every corner, every vague clue of his whereabouts sending him running through the stations of New York. He’d become more familiar with the underground then the mole people, but still with nothing to show for it. So, despite how much it hurt to see Nico in the state he was in, Percy looked forward to each dream—at the least, it was proof that Nico was still out there. Sure, maybe not exactly safe or happy, but still alive, which had to count for something. 

As Percy laid his head on his pillow to rest, his thoughts were filled with despondent dark eyes and a fierce tugging in his gut—he wanted to see him.

And as so many nights before, he did.

But unlike the other nights, Nico sat before a riverbed, a hole filled with dark liquid dug into the dirt beside him… crying. Sobbing. His hands were covered in dirt and mud, his black clothes ragged, the only thing that seemed relatively clean was the new addition of an Aviator Jacket, and even that seemed worn and weathered.

Percy felt his heart breaking as he watched Nico from the side lines, tears of empathetic pain and frustration welling up in his eyes, and more enraged then he’d been in his entire life that he couldn’t reach out and hold Nico when he so clearly needed him. Or maybe not Percy, but someone, and dam it all if Percy didn’t want it to be him.

As Percy watched, helpless to be more than a witness to Nico’s pain, Nico slowly stopped crying. As the last of his tears fell, Nico moved to the river, muttering something under his breath before washing his dirty hands. Then, almost as a whisper, he started to sing.

The words were unfamiliar and undoubtedly foreign—maybe Italian—and his voice wavered and shuddered with hiccups, but the melody was captivating. Bittersweet, with an undercurrent of desperation and painful mourning. Every high note filled with yearning, reminding Percy unwillingly of those days when he’d been certain his mother was dead. 

Alone, achingly alone in an uncertain world, and wanting someone to make you a bit less alone. 

Before the song ended, Percy awoke in his bed, the haunting melody still echoing in his ears. 

“I’m going to find you, Nico di Angelo. And I swear, you’ll never be alone again.”

——————————————————————————————————————

The prompt was high, so I decided to use music (and high notes XD) for a more melancholy pre-Percico. This is, obviously, set just after TTC. The song Nico is singing is ‘The World’s Continuation’ by Ado, in Italian—and of course this boy can sing, he’s from the 30s, that was basically required (especially if you were rich). Though really any song that embodies that feeling of loss and yearning and loneliness works. And yes, he’s singing it to Bianca, begging her to come back. To not leave him alone. Obviously, she’s not responding.

@percicomicrofic

[r0si3s]

Bang Chan: Don't hurt yourself. Lee Know: Eat well. Changbin: Don't stay up late. Hyunjin: Don't cry yourself to sleep. Han: Don't lock yourself in your room. Felix: Eat well. Seungmin: Don't hide your smile. I.N: Don't make fun of your weight.

[devansshh]

[faithfulsheepdog]

Verse of the Week

4/30/2025

God is the ultimate Promise Keeper. He will move heaven and earth to keep His promises, and since He is perfect and cannot lie, whatever He promises, He will keep it. Totally and completely dependable.

So here are some things He has promised to encourage you today:

God is always with you. He will never abandon you. He will never fail you. (Deut. 31:8)

God has not and will never forget you. (Isaiah 49:15-16)

God has a plan to give you hope and a future. (Jer. 29:11)

God will provide all your needs. (Phil. 4:19)

God always forgives us when we confess our sins to Him. (1 John 1:9)

God fights for you. (Deut. 1:30)

[thewaywardabbey]

When I am alone,

I am not aware of my race or my sex, both in need of social context for definition.

Maxine Hong Kingston

.

Unless fixated on gender and race we don't consider it in our day-to-day lives.

Life shouldn't be judged by race, gender, or even religion. How a person lives is what's important.

If they care for others or stomp over them, if they keep promises or break them, or if they make an effort vs doing the bare minimum.

Which are you?

~Blessings~Courtney

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Freedom - A Max/Logan Story

Summary: It was the day that Logan Cale/Eyes Only had been waiting for since he had started representing the downtrodden: the day he could finally unplug for good. Max/Logan. Oneshot. Max's PoV. Post-season 2. Future fic. Not canon compliant to the Max Allan Collins novels.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/80531206

Freedom

It was the day that Logan Cale/Eyes Only had been waiting for since he had started representing the downtrodden, Max knew: the day he could finally unplug for good.

America, by some miracle Max could still hardly believe, was finally back on the right track, and they didn't need Eyes Only's guidance anymore.

Stepping into Joshua's old house now, that had become Logan's own after White had destroyed his old crib, Max sat in the arm chair across from Logan as he did his final broadcast-imploring the people to do good and power on-and she couldn't help but to smile.

"Do you want a glass of wine to go with a job well done?" Max asked her boyfriend, once he ended the broadcast and turned his attention to her, with a conflicted look upon his face. Alec had suggested she bring a bottle of Chardonnay over for Logan when the mayor of Terminal City eventually saw him on this day of all days (she, however, would be drinking grape juice).

And while at first, Max had laughed that idea off like she did most of Alec's thoughts... in the end, she had realized he was actually pretty sound in his reasoning. And so the transgenic had went shopping and made sure to have the different bottles with her in her messenger bag when she rode her baby here.

Laughing-for he surely remembered their old nightly routines of drinking when they'd first met like, just like she did-Logan went to his kitchen to grab wine glasses for the both of them and then held his glass out for Max to fill. "I can't think of any better way than to celebrate this day, actually. Thank you, Max."

"Yeah, well, you kept your nose to the grindstone for years there-when anyone with any sense would have just given up, and called it a lost cause-so I'm thinkin' a celebration is definitely warranted here," Max said, filling her own glass and then taking a sip of the juice.

She missed alcohol, she did, but this was definitely a nice alternative to it.

But back to the whole Eyes Only and America thing, Max still couldn't quite figure out how things had changed for the better.

She supposed it had all started when the transgenics, plus Logan, had decided to walk out of Terminal City, because they'd needed supplies and since Logan wouldn't have been able to stay in the toxic environment much longer.

Naturally, the police had threatened to shoot them all-something Max had really thought was going to happen for a moment there-until Max had wisely asked if they actually planned to kill them all on national TV, for just taking a walk, the way that Cece had been murdered.

That right there had been enough to get Detective Clemente to listen and let them pass... and amazingly for public opinion to begin to change about the transgenics, though Max and her crew hadn't realized it at the time.

Max had been named the mayor of Terminal City after that, but she'd barely had any time to learn how to politic at all before that doomsday meteor that White had been salivating over for his lifetime had shown up on the horizon.

Max's blood was the key to give humanity an immunity to the illness the comet would spread within them-something that Max had learned from Sansderman: who, God help them all, had secretly been Normal the whole time. ...Max still didn't really like thinking about that, and all of the mixed feelings that brought up in her.

Thankfully, Normal had revealed that they could make synthetic copies of Max's blood to give to everyone, so they wouldn't have to bleed her dry, by using generated proteins.

All-in-all, it wasn't too dissimilar to what Max and Logan had gone through in finding a cure for the Virus... So Max's people had placed the cure into the water supply, and humanity had lived to see another day-and Max, Logan, Alec, Joshua, Zack, Syl, and Krit had stomped White and his doomsday cult into the ground when he'd thrown a fit about things not having gone his way.

Fortunately, Eyes Only had let the world know that Max's blood had saved their lives. And not only had that action of Max's succeeded in giving the transgenics their freedom once and for all... Max having chosen to be a god damn superhero, she supposed, inspired the good that was left in humanity to finally rise up.

While a number of corrupt leaders had awkwardly been twiddling their thumbs, in seeing the world change for transgenics... and in learning that they weren't as immortal as they'd thought and that a transgenic, of all people, had rescued them all, a number of Logan's journalist buddies had risen up overnight and seized power from them, in the kind of coup that Manticore would have been proud of.

Things had really started to come around then... though Max and Logan weren't fools, and knew that some of these newly appointed leaders would turn against their own people for power (and some had). Eyes Only had told the public that he was hopeful about things, but that he, for the time being, would keep an eye on this new America to make sure she ran as she was meant to. (And if it was ever found that these politicians were dirty, it wasn't too hard for Logan to send in his favorite cat burglar, Max now laughed at the thought, and find evidence against them and expose it all, so the Americans would revolt against them).

That had been three years ago now, and Max reckoned things were as squeaky clean as they were ever going to be. And so Eyes Only was finally hanging up the mic.

"Be honest," Max teased, upon swirling her grape juice in her wineglass so thoroughly, that she would have spilled some of it if she wasn't who she was, "you're going to miss hearing yourself talk, just a smidge."

To that, Logan chuckled before winking at Max and saying, "Believe me when I say that the only time I want to hear 'my voice' echo back to me now, is when our daughter repeats what I'm saying to learn how to speak."

"Pfft. You think Alia's going to need to do that? With how smart our girl's gonna be, I wouldn't be surprised if she comes out of the womb talking," Max said half-jokingly and half-seriously. Because while she hoped that that wasn't the case, and before Tin-Tinga had been the only X5 capable of passing on her super-powered traits to her offspring, Max knew that she was different (Sanderman's chosen one or whatever). And that, added in with the fact that both of her parents were geniuses, Max wondered if they were going to have their hands full with Alia from the start. She already seemed to be trying to run marathons within the womb, the times she would kick Max, the X5 thought wryly.

Honestly, Max-who had always loved kids-couldn't wait to find out what her daughter would be like, and she knew that Logan was much the same.

"So we fight on?" Logan questioned, meaning about standing up to the cute menace their daughter would surely be, not too differently from when he'd once sat across from her and asked her to help him protect the downtrodden.

"Damn straight."

Not taking their eyes off of each other, the former Eyes Onlys raised their glasses and drank on this day of all days.

Author's Note: An idea that I've had for a while now... that I think, originally, was going to be longer, but it actually ended up being pretty short here. And now I feel like pointlessly expanding this fic would be unnecessary, so I think I'm mostly okay with how it turned out. -shrugs- But maybe if I ever get another idea for this fic's universe, I could add another chapter to this or something.

...I'm not a politician or really politically minded at all. If I'm being honest, I doubt getting things to turn around in the Dark Angel world would be this easy. But I did my best. And actually added in something the writers would have planned to do if the show hadn't been canceled (Max and the transgenics' Rosa Parks moment, as they called it), and a fan theory that existed at the time (that Normal was Sanderman, which makes a weird sort of sense to me).

Hope you enjoyed the story!

[robsterskellington]

List of my fics:

(Completed):

Soul Sharing = a Super Paper Mario fic wherein Dimentio and Luigi are forced to stay together in an unusual fashion, but it helps Dimentio begin to see the Worlds in a new light.

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

Keeping Promises = a fic based on @lizadale 's Dimigi AU where Dimentio finally finds a way to get rid of the Chaos Heart without killing Luigi (not canon to her AU, please check out her fics, they will give you life.)

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

What's Important to you, Snatcher? = a fic based on the A Hat in Time, Oh the Humanity! AU created by @doodledrawsthings , in which Snatcher has to make an important choice after Queen Vanessa kidnaps Moonjumper (my first fic, kinda sucks lol. Again, not canon to their AU, please check out their art.)

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

Prelude = a Bendy and the Ink Machine fic that leads into Bendy and the Dark Revival, with a fan theory of mine thrown in. (Not my best work, I wrote it because I needed to write something. My first one-shot fic.)

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

At Arm's Length = a The Case Study of Vanitas fic that I wrote with my cousin (HisDarkDisgrace on AO3, please check out his work), and my first collab fic.

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

Special Ability: Wangxian = my first *completed* crossover fic. BSD x MDZS- I got the idea randomly and wrote it to completion in just under two weeks.

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

(Incomplete/Work in Progress):

Echos of the Past = a continuation of @zanzaflux 's Shadows of the Studio AU, where Ben, Bendy and Henry find themselves going back to Joey Drew Studios, for hopefully the last time. (Like the others, this is not canon to her AU, please read her fics if you have the time, they helped me survive 2020.)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/41073927?view_full_work=true

Embrace the Darkness = after the events of Kingdom Hearts 3, before going to Quadratum, Sora has an adventure in the Eternal Kingdom of Hallownest, where he learns that the light isn't always the good thing, and darkness isn't necessarily bad. (My first crossover fic.)

(Discontinued/Hiatus):

These following fics are the ones that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to continue for my own reasons, but if anyone is curious about them, please send an ask or drop a dm and I'll gladly answer any questions about them.

The Nightmare before Christmas: Jack's Legacy = my own AU of NbC, that was created with a friend whom I am no longer friends with. Basically, it's my own twist on the story, with some new characters and some characters removed. I loved writing what I did, but unfortunately I just can't bring myself to continue.

Just a Glitch = I have absolutely no idea why I wrote this, I think it was on a stupid whim. Basically, it was my own interpretation of Five Night's at Freddy's: Security Breach, because as interesting as the game is, it didn't make a great deal of sense to me in a lore aspect.

Sonic Revival = This is my own Sonic story, that another ex-friend of mine wrote with me, but he wanted to create his own Sonic game and there were way too many ideas to use. It's based after Sonic Forces, since we started it around the time it came out, so now after Sonic Frontiers, the story doesn't make much sense. It contains my own Sonic OC, but I never got around to revealing her backstory since I kinda made it up.

(Upcoming works):

Yes, despite how much I've already got on my plate, I've been working with my cousin on a few more fics. Nothing has been posted yet, everything is still in the process of being written and edited- I do not intend to post any of these until they're complete, if I can help it. Warning: most of these are crossovers:

A Guide to Tainted Sorrow- by Nakahara Chuuya and Osamu Dazai: When a mysterious boy from another world falls into Yokohama on the brink of death without any memories of his past, aside from his name and the fact that his book is valuable to him, it's up to the Agency to take care of him. But exactly *who* is Vanitas, and why doesn't he remember why he nearly died?

Operation: Stray Dogs: When Agent Twilight receives a file from his informant Franky, he receives with it a peculiar mission- find and retrieve Agent Sigma, who has been sighted in Yokohama. Not knowing how long this could take, and under orders to be discreet, Loid Forger and his "family" travel to Yokohama. What could possibly go wrong?

The Case Study of Stray Dogs: What happens when most members of the Agency and two prominent members of the Port Mafia end up in an entirely different world, one full of Vampires staying hidden from Humans? Can they trust the Human Doctor and his Vampire friend to help them?

Blue Moon Family: on the night of the Crimson Moon, Noé and Dominique are forced to watch their friend Mina become a Curse-Bearer... or do they? When a brilliant blue light envelopes her, and a boy claims to have restored her True Name, exactly what happens next? And why does Louis look happier than he's done in weeks?

I hope you enjoy reading what I have been able to provide!

If you wish to ask me or my characters any questions, please feel free! (Anon asks are enabled)

Any comments are helpful and appreciated, too!

Thanks a lot! -RobsterSkellington.