A MC/Jem take on the fake-out make-out trope written for fun.
They’re getting a lot closer. You’re going to get caught, there’s no real way to explain why your shirt is splattered with blood and the guards are definitely going to recognize your face.
You never should’ve agreed to help Riley.
Just a quick job, they’d promised. I just need you to stand there and look pretty. You’re good at that, aren’t you? It’ll be easy – no fuss at all.
You’ve known them almost their entire life (the time you spent dead not-withstanding). You know that Riley can’t promise things to be fuss-free. They thrive on chaos. Always have, always will. You love them dearly but you’re pretty sure that they’re going to give you a heart attack one of these days.
At least in the crowds of Sector Six you don’t draw too much attention. The district is constantly kept at night-time levels of lighting so the brilliant neon lights of the clubs and casinos and the various magically-enhanced-and-or-created light shows that illuminate the skies here are all the more impressive. Most of the people here are too busy partying or attending to the partying to pay you much mind.
“MC?” Jem sounds startled to see you. Almost as startled as you are to see him in this sector. “I thought you were with your sibling?”
“I was,” you glance back over your shoulder – shit. Leave it to Riley to decide robbing a vampire lord with enough sway for actual goons was a good idea. Also leave it to them to fail to mention they thought that was a good idea.
Jem follows your look to the goons combing the crowds before he sighs heavily.
You tense – you’re going to have to risk running. Maybe you’ll get lucky and lose them in the crowds. (You doubt it with your luck tonight.) Maybe you’ll get caught and Di will murder you and your sibling later.
There’s a flutter of movement from Jem’s direction and then your world goes off axis. Your back impacts the wall with just enough force that you exhale instinctively. Though that might also have something to do with just how close Jem is to you now.
The weight that settles over your shoulders you can distantly identify as being Jem’s jacket – that worn leather one he wears on shore leave that’s more worn than leather but the wool against your skin is soft and still warm.
One of his hands rests at your waist, above your head his forearm is pressed into the bricks in a way that leaves no question as to their definition, and you are completely blocked off from the view of anyone behind him. His face dips down towards yours, close enough you can practically taste the caramel from the sweets he keeps tucked in his pocket (your pocket now since you’re wearing the jacket?) as his breath brushes against your lips.
You inhale – sharply – as you remember you have to do that breathing thing too.
And hazel eyes drop from your gaze down to your lips at the sound, an amber-gold glow bleeding through the more familiar greens and browns.
“…MC,” he breathes your name.
And then he is gone, pulling back and away. The space between you growing cold faster than should be possible.
He crosses his arms as he turns his head to watch after your pursuers now that they’ve passed you by, fingers dug into his biceps as if to remind himself to not reach for you again.
For a moment you’re certain he’s going to ignore what just happened – or worse, apologize.
Instead his eyes linger on your flustered state and his jacket around your shoulders.
“The jacket looks good on you,” he smiles, offering you his hand. “Come on. You caught me in the middle of escaping Pack Karaoke Night, we should really get moving.”
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 6/?
Summary:
One shots. Compilation of my Snippet Fics.
Ch. 1 (SDR2): Metaphorical flowers are sewed into Kamukura’s chest.
Ch. 2 (Fire Emblem Fates): Laslow camps under a wisteria tree at night for protection.
Ch. 3 (Fire Emblem Fates): Inside the mind of Possessive Anankos over the Trio.
Ch. 4 (Fire Emblem Fates): Leo’s perspective from my fic Desperation (Or Some Habits Are Hard to Break)
Ch. 5 (Fire Emblem Fates): Alternate route to my fic If Only For a Moment in where Owain saves Inigo from being offered to God!Xander
Ch. 6 (Katekyo Hitman Reborn): Introspective Bad Timeline Byakuran finding Shouichi.
~
Hello everyone!!! Some of you may recognize these fics as my snippet fics/tumblr fics I’ve posted here over the years. I decided this morning to make a compilation of these fics, just to make it easier to find them.
A quick thing to note: I put ALL of the warnings for each chapter AT THE BEGINNING IN THE AUTHOR’S NOTE. Please make sure you read the opening notes for the warnings/tags. I decided to do this in order to not make my tags a giant wall of text. If any of the warnings/tags bother you please feel free to either skip the chapter OR exit the fit. As always your health is most important and up to you!!!
Please feel free to leave kudos and comments! Or you can always message me here! Reblogs are appreciated!
Zine Event: Add More Snippet Fics! (May 17-May 19)
I said I’d do one more little event before preorders closed so here we go!
The event is pretty straightforward this time around and everyone will reap the benefits of additional preorders, so be sure to reblog and share if you have already purchased and if you were considering, now is an excellent time!
The Event
During the dates of Friday, May 17 through Sunday, May 19 (at 2359 hours CST) each zine preordered during that time will increase the number of pages dedicated to snippet fics by one!
(i.e. if three people preorder zines during this event there will be three additional pages of snippet fics which could be three small fics or possibly one larger 1k mini fic!)
Our current met stretch goal (40) allowed for the inclusion of 3-6 snippet fics and based on layout that’s going to be set at 5. All of those fics are smaller ones though to fit per page. This event could see some larger ones (think 1k mini fics) added to the zine as well as some more additional smaller ones! Whoot whoot!
So if you’d like to see some extra content be sure to get the word out and get those preorders in~! ♥
Features: Callum Lindsey, Victoria Aragon, Warren Hughes
Just a quick quiet moment for the team I was playing with to get an idea of their dynamics with one another. (Side Note: I haven’t totally settled on the names for the characters in Oracle yet so those might change later on still.)
“Fuck,” Cal’s soft curse breaks the semi-quiet that had fallen on the room, semi because Tori had put one of her baking competitions on to watch in the background.
“What’s wrong?” Warren asks.
As far as they were aware, Cal had been sitting on the couch playing some retro video game that one of the others had lent him while Tori’d taken over the other table at the back of the room to do the weapons maintenance for the entire team.
“I’m down to my last life,” Cal groans dramatically. “And I can’t get past this level – the knight is going to die, forgotten, broken at the bottom of a canyon filled with pixel dragons and griffins and his lady love will go un-rescued, turned forever to stone by the evil sorcerer. And darkness shall rule the kingdom forever more.”
Tori gets up to throw herself on the couch next to him, “Give it.”
“He won’t learn if you do it for him,” Warren comments – smiling faintly at their papers as Tori flips them the bird in response.
“What?”
“Give it here,” she wriggles her fingers at the handheld game in a classic ‘grabby-hands’ motion.
“Wait, really?”
“Your sad-puppy look is too much for me. Now, gives it.”
“Awesome,” he beams, handing over the device and leaning close to watch as the music for the level starts up again. “Wait – that’s how you do that?”
“Mhmm,” Tori grins as the tinny noise of triumph signals that Cal’s knight has reached the summit of the level. “Here you go. Next level’s all yours.”
“Tori – you are a video game goddess,” Cal declares. “You are the best team mate ever!”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t mention it,” Tori pokes him in the ribs before going back to the table and her alarmingly large collection of weapons. “Seriously, I got a reputation to maintain.”
“…it’s certainly a ship,” Jem can’t quite disguise the tone of worry laced through his voice as he eyes the vessel.
It’s…well…a ship.
It’s not small enough to be called ‘small’, but it barely fits into the ‘medium freighter’ category. If his guess is right its one of the ones that can fit a twelve person crew comfortably, or a handful and extra cargo.
And it has probably seen better days. There might be golf balls with fewer dimples. And he’s pretty sure that only one of the engines is in any condition to ignite without exploding - not that mechanics is his forte but he knows they shouldn’t look like that.
“She’s perfect,” Di waves her hand at him, unconcerned and straight-shouldered tall as if this was nothing to worry about. “Just needs a new coat of paint.”
“How much do I win if I bet that you didn’t think this through?” Jem runs a hand down his face. Because as much as he loves Di – she’s his best friend – he’s the one who spent the last few years shipside. He also grew up with her when she was still perfecting that unflappable commander mask of hers – he knows how to spot it when she’s faking her cool.
Di flashes him a glare before sighing heavily, the false-positivity deflating. “Too much – is it at least salvageable?”
Jem hesitates, “I mean, probably? Some of the packs’ ships look worse. Let me call Auntie Bess – she might be able to help?”
“Even though-?”
“Leaving the Crescent doesn’t mean I’m leaving the pack,” Jem reaches out to clasps her arm, making a mental note to take Di to meet the others now that that’s a possibility. “You want to do this? I’m here. Just…let’s make sure we’re not going to fall out of the sky our first trip, please?”
As if, in agreement, the ship gives an ominous groan.
He’s going to have to ask Di exactly how much money she still has from her family – he’s saved up a little from his time with the Tipton pack but it isn’t nearly enough to make a dent in what needs to be done.
Jem eyes it – “…have you named her?”
There’s a glint in Di’s eye – and she’s relaxed enough that a bit of a smile plays on her lips – betraying her humor before the words are even out: “I was thinking…’The Phoenix’?”
I’ve had a bit of a rough month so the little time that I’ve had has gone to replaying Pokemon since the series has been one of my favorite go-to comfort games for years. Very little actual writing progress has been made though I’ve gotten a lot done in terms of figuring out how I want to approach things.
We were very dead today at work so I decided that the best use of my time was figuring out what the all of the partner pokemon for the Phoenix crew (and a few of the Delphi folks) would be.
The following snippet is a result of the pokemon AU, I thought I’d share it as a thank you for y’all’s support while I’m here doing my Magikarp impression.
You can’t quite help swinging your legs back and forth while you wait for Jem. He’d said he would be ‘just a minute’ – but since he stopped to lecture Felix on what the appropriate dosage for headache medicine was you’re not entirely sure it will really be just ‘a minute’.
A flash of yellow in the corner of your eye causes you to tense before you relax – the twitch of black tipped ears telling you who the culprit is.
You turn fully to face the…
That’s not a Pikachu. A chill runs up your spine as you stare at the dead button eyes over the crooked, lopsided grin sewn onto patchy yellow fabric. The head wobbles a little back and forth.
“They don’t have anything for you, Pika,” Jem scolds softly as he walks in, dropping a piece of candy to the floor in front of the not-pikachu.
The yellow rag lifts up – just enough for a dark void filled with glinting eyes to be obvious – before a hand of pitch blackness shoots out and snatches the candy before disappearing once again and the edge of the costume settled back on the floor.
Jem bends down to scoop the creature up and onto his shoulder where it sits, butting his head softly with the wobbly costume head.
At this point you manage to get your surprised mouth to close.
“Not quite what you expected?” Jem teases as he tweaks one of the ‘ears’ with his hand. Laughing a little as it earns him a slightly more aggressive head-butt from the mimikyu.
“They’re yours?” you can’t help your further surprise. You know Rowan has a phantump that they let wander around - and a gastly too if Felix’s threats about what he’ll do to the pokemon if he catches it in his workroom again are to be believed – so you’d have assumed the ghost type was theirs.
“My first pokemon,” Jem nods, feeding the pokemon another sweet. “I wasn’t acutally allowed to have a pokemon growing up – raising them was ‘too uncouth’. So, I came up with the most brilliant plan: I would find one all on my own and raise them in secret without my parents ever finding out. I was so excited to find a Pikachu in Camelot – even a weird looking one – that I immediately took Pika home to hide them under my bed.”
“Huh.”
“And since one of our evil crewmates here will tell you eventually anyways: yes, it did actually take me over a year to realize my new best friend was not, in fact, a Pikachu.” The mimikyu wobbles back and forth on his shoulder and he laughs again. “I wouldn’t have it any other way – who needs a boring old Pikachu when I have you, Pika?”
Snippet - In Which Felix Accidentally Adds “Mechanic” to his Resume
Features - Felix & Rowan & Di & Jem
Warnings for panic attack/trauma response and past abuse.
“…where’s the ka-thunk?” the captain’s brows furrowed as she tilted her head at the ceiling. “It’s been more than an hour, hasn’t it?”
The dryad snorted into their drink. Apparently the only one to have noticed that the noise hadn’t sounded in more than three hours rather than the regular forty-five minutes and thirty-two second intervals. (Why they had bothered to time it so precisely but not get it fixed was beyond him.)
“You know that it isn’t supposed to make that noise, right?” he scowled across the table at them.
“We could never figure out what was making that noise,” the doctor admitted – at least he had the grace to look sheepish about ignoring strange, disconcerting noises occurring on the space ship they were currently onboard.
“….your filtration system,” he stared. “For the air you breathe.”
He glanced at Rowan out of the corner of his eye. Not all nature spirits had bodies that worked like humans, but this one didn’t look green enough to be using photosynthesis. So he was pretty sure that they used an oxygen exchange, not a carbon dioxide.
The dryad had paused, crimson-bright eyes sweeping over him before they blinked and they were silver colored. Odd, but it wasn’t as if he hadn’t dealt with his brother during his teenage years. The only things that Brother had been certain about was his gender and that he wanted to be taller than Felix. Even now it’s always a guess what color his hair will be. If the dryad wants to change their look then that’s their business.
“It wasn’t damaged?” the doctor frowned. “The diagnostics never reported trouble.”
“It was loose so each filtration cycle start made the noise,” Felix rolled his eyes. “But no – not damaged, yet. It would’ve broken eventually though. And you’ll need to replace it sooner.”
“You didn’t mention you were a mechanic,” the captain looks even more interested than when he blurted out that he’d write runes in exchange for passage as far from Camelot as possible. (He’s still fairly certain he can hide if he makes it to New Olympus before she notices. From there he plans to just keep putting distance between them, if he never stops he can’t be caught.)
“No – I just read the manual. It’s not like it was hard.”
“Would you like to be a mechanic?” the doctor asked with a grin, relaxing now that he knew they hadn’t been being slowly poisoned.
The captain tilted her head, “Jem’s joking but he has a point. If you’re that good at picking things up then we can definitely use a full-time mechanic more than we could a one-trip runesmith. If you want to stay there would be a place here.”
He…doesn’t mind these people. They don’t push for answers. They’re honorable, or at least have acted as such so far – and he owes them his life.
But he has his plan – he’ll repay what he can but then he gets off at Carnac.
“I can’t,” he briefly considered acting like Brother here – smiles are good distractions – but he’s never been good at it, better to just be blunt. “I have business to attend to that can’t wait.”
“A shame,” the captain sighs.
The doctor shrugs but still offers a warm smile, going back to chasing a slice of cucumber around what remains of his salad. “When you’re done – the offer will probably still stand. We have a hard time finding people crazy enough to follow Di.”
The thud under the table that followed was accompanied by a soft curse from the doctor. The captain had kicked him, Felix realized with a bit of a smile, and lets his eyes focus on his own plate. The topic dropped – he thought.
Except Rowan – the fae - is watching him. Their usual poorly-concealed mirth nowhere to be found. ‘Sorrow’ or maybe ‘grief’ were the best guesses Felix had for naming that expression.
“You won’t be able to run from what’s chasing you, Gentle Knight.”
He froze – knight. The fae called him a knight. Cold ice climbed through his veins. His skin felt too tight – burning at his palms and his throat. They knew – they could sense it. (Dimly he heard a clatter – the fork slipping from his shaking fingers to bounce off the edge of the plate and off the table.)
No, no, no – he couldn’t freeze. Not anymore.
Never again.
Geysers not glaciers. Both run in his veins. Only one is useful now.
“I am no knight,” he snarls – pushing away from the table as fast as he can and stalking out – it’s running away, but he can’t bring himself to care – it’s all he’s doing anymore anyways. He can’t stop – he knows no one has survived running. (Not that many have ever tried.) But he has to.
“Rowan!” the captain’s stern tone follows him out - but she doesn’t try to. None of them follow.
“The fuck was that?” the doctor seems even more upset with the fae than the captain.
Felix pauses – he needs to know if there will be some kind of retribution later for snapping like that. He owes these people too much. He just…doesn’t know. If he listens - even if all he wants to do is hide - then he’ll have a warning, maybe, an idea of what to expect.
“The answer to his quest isn’t the way he wants to go,” the fae sounds frustrated, but not angry just...sad - still. “I can’t say any more.”
