#reset january

[suna1suna1]

Ik I’m hella late but new chapter thing

https://archiveofourown.org/works/76624276/chapters/200545611

Also I got the evil number of hits on this now lol

[laudys83]

Chapters: 31/31 Fandom: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Major Character Death Relationships: Bard the Bowman/Thranduil (Tolkien) Characters: Thranduil (Tolkien), Bard the Bowman (Tolkien), Bard the Bowman's Children (Tolkien), Legolas Greenleaf, Bain of Dale (Tolkien) Additional Tags: slow healing, quiet intimacy, soft angst, Emotional Baggage, Melancholy, Grief/Mourning, Bittersweet, Love Languages, Established Relationship, uncanon relationship, Love after Loss, second chances of love, Slow Burn, parent child conflict, Canon Divergence, post war aftermath, Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, sexual games Summary:

Reset January is about learning how to breathe again, how to love again, and how to move forward when future is uncertain. After the war, Thranduil returns to Greenwood alone, carrying grief, silence and years of restraint and loneliness. But shared mornings will follow, trust will be growing again, unexpected affection will be welcomes, and love will settle in.

My link on AO3 for @monthlywritingchallenges

[yappin-bout-words]

kintsugi

https://archiveofourown.org/works/77927806

hhey so black star and soul dynamic. throws this at you.

--------------------------------

Black Star hasn’t trusted anybody since Tsubaki died.

It should’ve been him.

He should’ve went first.

Weapons outlive humans, always, and forever. It’s how it’s always been. It’s how it’s always meant to be.

But she’s in the dirt and he’s standing above her grave. Soul is standing beside him. He doesn’t say anything.

“Leave me alone, man,” Black Star barely forces out.

He almost trusts Soul. Just enough to let his voice come out weak instead of falsely strong.

Soul doesn’t move.

There’s a tense beat, opening his mouth to speak. Nothing happens but a slight exhale.

“If you need it, I have a spare room you can borrow.” Soul leaves out the part that it’s his old room. He hasn’t sleep in it in years. Not since Maka died. Her bed is his now. (it doesn’t smell like her anymore, but if he lies to himself, he can say that the bed still warps to how she slept)

There’s no answer until Soul is leaving.

A hushed, “Thanks.”

An equally hushed, “No problem.”

-/-/-/-

Black Star sleeps in Soul’s bed.

It smells like laundry detergent and cheap body spray. It lacks the way a Weapon smells. Polish and metal.

The sheets are comfy.

He hopes Soul doesn’t get mad at him for dragging rain water and muddied pantleg cuffs with him. Marring the cleanliness of the sheets. Black and red, just like Soul’s blade.

It’s both the best and worst he’s slept since Tsubaki died.

-/-/-/-

There’s still no trust between them. Not like there used to be. It was fractured when Maka died. It’s been fully severed since Tsubaki died.

The same Kishin egg took both of their partner’s souls.

They should kill it.

Soul simply laughs at the suggestion.

How on earth could they kill it? They have no resonance. Soul is a scythe and Black Star is an assassin. It could never work.

Still, they both want to see it dead at their feet.

Especially because Kid hasn’t killed it.

He’s not Kid anymore though.

He’s just Death in the same way that Tsubaki and Maka are just dead, inevitable.

-/-/-/-

Soul can’t be offended when Black Star refuses to eat the food he cooks.

He just leaves the burner on low. Tells him where to find the food. Doesn’t tell him that he needs to leave.

He offered a bed.

He’ll offer his home.

It’s too quiet when there’s only one person in the building. Too silent. It isn’t much louder with Black Star, but there are footsteps that aren’t Soul’s. That in itself is more than enough of a change to prevent stagnation, to keep grief from turning to poison.

-/-/-/-

“Just hold my hand.”

And Black Star does, his own shake. They’re bare, rough with callouses, lacking the gloves. It’s better this way, to try and find a resonance, no matter how weak to start.

Soul grips tight, palms sweaty.

It’s been so long since he did this, since he tried to find resonance with someone new. Death has always known how to resonate. He’s good at that. He has to be to utilize a death scythe.

“Ready?” Soul asked.

A fierce nod.

“Cool.”

Black Star’s knees fall out from under him as soon as Soul is in his hands. Smooth metal. Still near perfect because Maka always wore gloves. Faint grooves where her fingers lay.

Heavy.

With grief. With regret. With sorrow. With pain. With everything awful in the world.

It’s a different weight compared to when they were idiot kids trying to two v one Death.

“You good?” Soul asked. His voice resonates in Black Star’s bones as he tries to pull himself back up again.

Another nod. “I’m good, just gimme a second.”

Black Star lodges the flat edge of Soul’s blade into the ground below. Clawing his way back up to his feet. It’s funny. Soul balances just fine on his own despite being so weighed down with it all.

It’s a start, Black Star decides, being able to hold Soul even though he can’t swing him around like a proper Weapon is a start.

They need to increase their resonance.

“I can turn ba—”

“No! Just, just let me try.”

-/-/-/-

Black Star nurses the residual ache of a dislocated shoulder in his own home for weeks.

Soul brings him home cooked dinners every other day. To make sure he doesn’t starve. Fried fish. Grilled cheese. Stews and soups. Mainly stews and soups actually, he lets Black Star keep the leftovers. They’re easy to heat up, doesn’t require a full range of motion to do so.

They don’t talk while they eat.

And still, Soul has to eat first before Black Star will start.

There’s still the rift.

He wonders, distantly, if this is mending it. If this will help their resonance. If one day they will be able to kill the godforsaken thing that took both of their partners from them. Or if it will be for naught. If they will end up partners without cause or purpose aside from the next mission.

Soul snuffs most of those wonderings from his mind, though.

He’s more worried on whether or not Black Star is pushing himself to deterioration instead of healing as he works through his exercises for recovery. A list designed by Stein to make sure they wouldn’t be so boring that Black Star simply wouldn’t do them. Just interesting enough to risk overworking himself if gets too into it.

-/-/-/-

When Black Star brings Soul a homebaked tray of cookies, Soul trades him back his suspicion.

“C’mon man, I swear they’re fine,” Black Star bites out, “They’re not even that complicated.”

Soul still doesn’t give until Black Star has one.

“See?”

There’s a tender beat.

Soul can see it dawn on Black Star’s face. How obnoxious it is. That he was doing the same thing.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Soul reaches for a cookie as he speaks. “You mixed the dough too long by the way, the colors off.”

A roll of the eyes. “Screw off and enjoy it.”

Soul does, even if the taste is a little bit wrong.

At least they aren’t raw.

-/-/-/-

Black Star gets in one swing before he has to stop.

God, Soul, Black Star fears he’s mirroring the grief. It messes them both up. The unpacked and unspoken and untouched grief of Maka’s death. He just moved on.

But it’s still in him.

Weaving through his body in every form.

The only difference is that nobody can tell unless it’s all been condensed down to when he’s a Weapon.

Their resonance is getting stronger, though, the wavelengths are starting to match.

So what if it is grief that’s letting them resonate?

Black Star doesn’t care.

They just need to resonate.

Aside from Death and the twins, they’re nearly the last ones left of their grad year.

It’d be horrifying if they died without at least knowing each other.

-/-/-/-

Soul calls it trust when Black Star wears pyjamas and takes the first bite of dinner.

It is trust.

Trust to be vulnerable and weak and unguarded.

He takes that trust, the responsibility that comes with it, and simply lets it wash over him.

“Hows dinner?” Soul asked.

“’S good,” Was all that Black Star answered with.

“Awesome, you should try and find some old Star clan recipes—”

A flinch.

Shit.

“Assassin food is awful,” Black Star said, “It’s all gross and efficient. It’s fuel.”

A slight sigh of relief that he didn’t totally shut down the dinner conversation on accident.

-/-/-/-

They only stay partners after killing what killed their partners because Death said they should.

And because maybe, just maybe, it’s good for them to not be so alone. To not let the absence of a partner kill them. Try and avoid letting the mourning process turn to a slowed down suicide.

They bicker like they’re stupid teenagers when Death suggests it.

Death takes the synchronized snark as proof that their trust is deep enough for them to be a proper Weapon and Meister duo.

[yappin-bout-words]

don't flinch

https://archiveofourown.org/works/77707781

cloud moment lol, still think about this spiky blonde boyo a lot

-----------------------

In the stillness of it all, Cloud can’t help but shake.

This is it.

It all comes down to this.

Whoever cuts first wins.

Cloud, or Sephiroth.

Life, or death.

Freedom, or destruction.

And he can’t stop shaking.

Attack.

He just needs to attack.

But oh, Sephiroth stares right through him. It’s too familiar. It’s the same as its ever been.

He needs to do it.

Do it for Tifa, do it for Aerith, do it for Zack.

Sephiroth doesn’t move.

Perfectly still.

There is no waver of a shake of hesitance.

Cloud grits his teeth and moves.

Don’t miss.

[yappin-bout-words]

ease

https://archiveofourown.org/works/78109156

woe, togainu no chi moment. just beat it for the first time a few days back lol (somehow got a good ending??? good on me ig), so, fic. written for resetjanuary hosted by @monthlywritingchallenges, cheers!

--------------------------------

It takes three years for Akira to start feeling like it’s actually, truly over.

That this isn’t some dream he’ll wake up from.

It’s in the way Motomi doesn’t smoke like he used too after Akira urged him for the sake of his lungs. They’ll both be in the graves early if he keeps it up. It was childish of him to make such a request, wasn’t it?

But Motomi obliged.

He barely developed as much of a smokers cough as he could have if he kept going. Even if recovery from whats already there is yet to set in. Staying hydrated is all he could do to recover from it.

He did.

Akira hasn’t woken up screaming or in a cold sweat in months. It lingers in his peripheral. The fact it could happen again.

Unlike before the thought doesn’t quite consume him.

He’s just aware of it.

And he can live with it.

His shoulders drop at Motomi’s voice in a new area they’ve never been before, stress evaporating. It used to never happen, then it’d take days, then hours, and now just a voice. Progress. In Igra his shoulders never un-tensed.

Well, save for in the church.

[the-ipre]

time to tighten up

619 words - Oops All Rebels, Baeri Tries To Solve All the Problems of the Galaxy By Herself

Sitting in her office, chair swiveled to let her look out the porthole at the blur of hyperspace, Baeri’s mind is stuck on the fact that she’s just wrecked things for everyone on the ship. It’s one thing to do stupid shit when you’re the only one on the line for it, stars know that she did plenty of that as a kid, but her actions affect more than just herself. Baeri’s supposed to know better.

Baeri forces an inhale, holds it, and focuses on the facts. They’re on the Empire’s bad side now, and in a much more tangible way than they had been before. The names of her ship and her crew have been recorded, and it’s only a matter of time before a bounty comes down on their heads. Money’s getting tight, especially because they weren’t able to make their delivery on Poltergeist. Kinori’s got blood on her hands, and she doesn’t seem like the type who’ll be able to wash it off easily. 

With a spasm of her taxed diaphragm, Baeri is made to exhale. She got them all into this mess, and she’ll be the one to get them out of it. One thing at a time.

day 20 of @monthlywritingchallenges reset january!

[the-ipre]

material components

780 words - Critical Role Campaign 2, Pre-Canon Caleb Relearning Magic

Clutched tightly in his hand is a length of wychwood the size of his arm, splitting into countless branches tipped with spiderlike flowers. It is not inherently magical, no more than the man is, but it is a tool all the same. 

Crosslegged, he rests the branch across his thighs, snaps a piece off the whole to twirl between his fingers. He is trained in the arcane arts, even excelled at it all those years ago when he was Bren, but time has passed and muscle memory has faded and the font of arcane words has gone dry in his throat. 

He still knows magic, even if it no longer knows him. Twig in hand, the man who is no longer Bren seeks to reintroduce himself.

day 10 of @monthlywritingchallenges reset january!

[nomoremaybe]