... y'know, Sacch had really hoped that expelling the ghost haunting Pino woulda done more good for the guy. Brightened his mood a little, made him look a little livelier. But, oddly, quite the opposite seemed to be so: the chef looked emotionally dead, like he'd just plain given up on feeling much of anything at all about his circumstances.
Was that Sacch's fault? Confronting the ghost was inevitable; by its own admission, it was going after several people, feeding from them without them even knowing it. It was a monster, an angry and warped beast that needed to be taken down.
... but he hadn't asked Creech for help just to be a hero taking down a monster ( he hadn't, he hadn't ). He had wanted to help his friend. Pino deserved better than to be used. If he felt how Sacch had when the ghost turned on him, dear God, Sacch could only imagine how awful living through that would be for however long Pino had, on top of everything else.
" Eh ... I don't just come to check up on these things, " Sacch replied, scratching his arm nervously. " It is good the ghost is gone, and your pizzeria looking beautiful as ever! But I am here to see how you are. You ... you weren't doing good before all that. So, I wanna be sure you okay. "
5. Which WIP is first on your list to complete this year? Will you post a snippet? | 18. Do you typically post multi-chapters as you write, or finish it all and then start posting? Would you like to change your posting method?
New Year's Fanfic Asks
18. Do you typically post multi-chapters as you write, or finish it all and then start posting? Would you like to change your posting method?
On the rare occasions I've tried to write things longer than (sometimes particularly long) oneshots, I've posted as I've written...and I've never managed to actually finish a single fic. This has led to many actually abandoned or "I'll get to it someday maybe"-abandoned WIPs out there and the guilt's decidedly starting to pile up, so yes, I would like to change it. The things I've been writing recently I've been trying to finish before I start posting...but I'm also having trouble finishing those so I'm not sure it's helping, exactly, it's just added the additional "I want to share this so bad" feeling on top of it. I'll get back to you on that when I do manage to finish something and post it all. Which leads to...
5. Which WIP is first on your list to complete this year? Will you post a snippet?
(Given you chose these two questions to send together I imagine you might've been expecting this answer, that or I just really want an excuse to talk about it. Which part of the whole reason I reblogged this in the first place was to have an excuse to talk about my stuff so thanks.)
There are several Shovel Knight oneshots I worked on more recently that I probably should feel more strongly about finishing sooner, but the one most urgent in my mind is the one you know about that I've been sitting on for over a year and wrote 8k words for in one day.
Front Lines [Code Lyoko] - An attempt to make up for a social misstep leads to disaster as Aelita and Jeremie find themselves on Lyoko with an activated tower and no one on Earth who knows they've gone. As pressure mounts, they decide to take matters into their own hands, but they're quickly running out of time--and not in the way they think they are...
Basically I have the whole thing planned and mostly written, but it's been so long since I started writing it and the draft's so messy I worry I should rewrite everything to meet my current standards. That and there's still a couple of fight scenes that need to get done and I have a really hard time writing those. Here's a bit I can share without really spoiling anything.
Aelita steps fully into the room, closing the door behind her. Jeremie raises an eyebrow and rolls his chair slightly closer to her—something about Lyoko, then?
Aelita’s face pinches with worry. “I’ve been thinking about what you said at lunch.”
Jeremie’s smile drops. He glances off to the side as if his closet doors have suddenly become interesting. “Yeah, what about it?”
Aelita frowns, taking a step towards him with her hands on her hips. He knows the look well.
“Would you really rather be possessed by XANA again than go to Lyoko?”
Jeremie winces, pulling both of his legs up to sit in an awkward-looking butterfly position on his office chair and grabbing at his feet. He still doesn’t look at her, but he can feel her eyes burning into his head.
“...No,” he admits, “I’m not that stupid. I can’t afford to be compromised like that again.” And he doesn’t particularly feel like going through it again, either.
When he finally manages to meet her eyes, her lips are pursed in an expression he can’t quite read. “Then why did you lie?”
Jeremie scowls. “You heard Odd, he wouldn’t leave me alone. Imagine how bad it’d be if he knew I was going.”
“So you have been going!”
Jeremie realizes he may have made a mistake in saying that, but he’d long since figured out lying to her is an exercise in futility no matter how experienced he gets at it. “Yeah, I’ve been going. Not for very long—I have the computer set to run devirtualization after one minute. If I could get away with not sending my data to Lyoko at all, I would, but...I haven’t figured out what causes the resistance to XANA’s influence yet, so I can’t take any chances.”
“And you haven’t told anyone?”
“They’d insist on coming with me or training me or something, and the last time the three of us went, three megatanks showed up. If they got devirtualized with me, that’d be another opportunity for XANA to attack while they were recovering.”
“And you’re embarrassed.”
Jeremie grabs his desk and turns his chair back towards it so she can’t see his face. “You heard them, I look ridiculous. I don’t want to make myself look like even more of an idiot.”
Aelita huffs, grabbing the back of Jeremie’s chair and spinning him around to look at her. She keeps hold of the chair arms to keep him from turning away again, glaring into his eyes with her jaw set.
“When’s the next time you plan on going?”
Jeremie swallows hard, his stomach dropping. It doesn’t take a genius to see where she’s going with this. “...Sometime this week. Aelita—”
“You’re right about one thing, I’m not letting you go alone.” Aelita leans away and crosses her arms. “We’re going. Both of us. Today.”
“And that’s definitely because you’re worried about me and not just curious about how dumb I look?” Aelita winces, and Jeremie realizes he's talked before thinking again. He'd been trying to work on that. “...Sorry.”
“It’s not not because I’m curious, I admit.” Her tone grows pained. “But I’m also worried. What if your devirtualization program doesn’t work? Or XANA’s monsters get to you first? I just don’t like the idea of you doing something like this all by yourself.”
“Aelita...”
Her voice softens, and though she smirks at him, her eyes are earnest. “You’ve always been protective of me. Now it’s my turn to worry about you.”
Jeremie feels his face heating up. Of course, she has every right to worry—the thought of doing this frankly still scares him half to death. It would be nice to have someone looking out for him...and besides, if he doesn’t do it now, he might very well put it off as long as he can get away with it. Potentially longer than he can get away with it.
“...And you promise you won’t laugh at me.”
Aelita puts a hand over her heart, solemn. “I promise.”
Jeremie sighs, rubbing his elbow with the opposite hand. “Okay. Clearly I’m not getting out of this.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Just give me a few minutes to get ready.” And get up the nerve.
Pizza Head quickly notices Pino sleeping on the counter and he smiles widely at the fact, knowing that this the perfect time to kidnap the sleeping man. The pizza man makes his way over before going behind the counter where Pino was, making sure to not wake him up from his peaceful slumber.
Pizza Head quickly and quietly opens the large black bag then he carefully throws the large bag over the head of the sleeping Italian man. The pizza man softly chuckles to himself on how easy it is to kidnap Pino this way instead of tricking the Italian man that he’s changed pizza man.
a sea of violent clones raged around them, destruction raining down upon the battlefield. but his objective was in sight: near the very eye of this storm, pino lay in a defeated heap, having been unable to pierce through to the center of the chaos. at this point, sacch doubted any but those already there would be able to break past the fake noise's protections. all that those on the outside could do now was pull back. their part of this fight was done, and hopefully they'd distracted the monster long enough to permit those fighting the real battle to do their part.
heart thundering in his chest, sacchetti's resolve had never been stronger. no time to hesitate or second guess now!
" OPHELIA! protect creech, GET OUT NOW, " he barked, gesturing back towards creecher and in the vague direction of the doors they'd all come through. and then he was sprinting for the one he'd been trying to save all along. maybe it was a futile effort. he could not undo what had been done to pino, save him from the degradation of his own body and, potentially, his own mind.
but maybe that was never the point. maybe the point was to save the one thing pino was convinced nobody but a rare few cared about: his heart. whatever happened to him, whatever he became, sacchetti would be there to help. to take his hand and remind him that he was worth the fight, however it played out.
" PINO! " sacch called out, hands reaching to touch, to catch a hold of the other's body through vicious bodies that bit and slashed and tore at him. " i got you! i will get you home! hold on to me, and i hold on to you! "
