a fanficker fanficking

Colin went through familiar motions: arranging twigs around dry land, gathering frost for water, raising the soup pot, waiting as Deli dashed together two pop rocks against the tinder. They stoked the fire. It grew warm and comfortable. Colin took off his outer coat, and Deli took off the fur draped over his bare shoulders.

They ate. This would be the last meal they would have together for some time. Colin understood this. He was serene in this fact—that was, until Deli spoke.

“We were here once,” Deli said.

Did they? Colin did not recognize the place.

“The river looks different now,” Deli said, gesturing in front of them. “It had been flowing. It was summer. And we weren’t here, exactly. We were somewhere more upstream or downstream. But we had pitched a tent around by a grand white fish-bone fir. It was steady. It saved us from the storm.”

Colin remembered now. Not the river or the fir tree, but the memory that Deli had been guiding him towards. It had been so early after they had left Comida. Deli, much younger, exuberant, had won the approval of his kinsmen and been named emissary on behalf of the clan that morning. It was all that was on Deli’s mind and in the glint of Deli’s eye.

In the evening, they had laid next to each other as usual. There had been no fire in the tent; their only source of heat was each other. The storm had lapped against the tent flap. Icy raindrops had sought to penetrate their thin canvas of a roof. They would have died of the cold if either the canvas or the entrance had given in. But little of this mattered to them. Colin listened to Deli talk about a beautiful future and a beautiful world for his people. There would be happiness, Deli said, and Colin had indeed felt great happiness. Then Deli had stopped, looked over at Colin, and kissed him.

“You were the one who told me that I should save myself for someone I loved,” Deli said now. They had proceeded no further that evening.

“I remember,” Colin told him.

“But I do love you.”

The confession stunned him, but it did not surprise him. It was a plunge into a cold pool—the body adjusted to the shock in a heartbeat. Love, love, love. Colin loved him. Of course Colin loved him. How long had Colin loved him. But they were past the time—the biological age? the historical epoch?—when a passionate confession could remedy all ills. How much time had they had to reexamine themselves and each other? How much time had they to say those words of love? Colin wanted to tell Deli that he loved him. The Colin of all of their travels together threatened to burst from Colin’s throat: I do love you too, I do. But Colin held himself back. It was restraint with the slightest edge of malice. Colin knew that he could hurt Deli then. Was it cruel of Colin to still want that power over Deli? He almost wanted to hurt him. Was there a part of him that thought the act of refusal ensured he would stay that much longer in Deli’s mind? Did he think Deli saw Karna when Deli looked at him? Was this fear that he felt fear for himself or fear for Deli?

Instead, he kissed Deli for the second time in his life. Deli kissed him back. What a lovely sight they now made: two figures intertwined together by a fire, the clansman’s bare back against the light and the cold, the man beneath him willing and pliant. How deeply they kissed each other then, as though they would never let each other go.

It would live forever in Colin: this kiss, this love of his, Deli, the young prince, his youth, Colin’s youth. Colin knew it. But everything became a memory as soon as they begun; Colin anticipated the end as soon as they started. Already he was living in the future, looking back curiously, the present in retrospective. He felt desire, he thought. He felt Deli’s desire too. Deli was trembling, was grasping at him, holding onto him, pulling him in by the collar in one moment, pushing Colin into the frozen ground in the next, clashing teeth, nipping at his lips, digging into his skin, forcing Colin to take shape as a physical entity. But Colin only held Deli in an embrace.

And Deli finally gave up on Colin. Deli’s kisses slowed, grew gentle. Then Deli broke away. Colin did not protest. Deli lifted his face to the sky and let go of Colin.

-

When Sam returned to the driver’s seat with a ring of keys, Dean and Sam exchanged a quiet, somber look. Jack was reading Dean’s book now, his eyes wide. Sam gunned the engine. Castiel manned the navigation system and caught Dean’s eyes on his own.

Sam brought them to a heavyset cabin close enough to the sea and the forest that brine mixed with the smell of greenery. The ocean seemed just beyond a few snatches of ferns. Helped by Jack, Dean dragged his broken leg out of the car. There was a chill in the autumn air, and Dean cursed sharply: the string of blasphemies fell like biblical verses from his lips. Castiel regarded this with a usual, quiet astonishment. When their eyes met, Dean shrugged. “We still need something to curse at,” he said, even though they were functionally living in a godless world.

Castiel took his time arranging his duffel. Dean and Jack and Sam went in, and the eyes of the house lit up yellow. Castiel slung his backpack over his shoulder. It was a small house further dwarfed by the surrounding redwoods. The driveway snaked around the back, the outer edge shorn off into a cliff tangled with dark brambles. Where Castiel stood was like the lip of a bowl, and at the bottom were gold and orange houses that piled into a small town. Alone by the car, staring into that miniature world, Castiel rolled the words in his mouth, testing.

“Fuck,” he finally said. “God damn it. God fucking damn it.”

There was no movement from the shadows in the cell. But Catra could hear the woman’s quiet breathing: thin, ragged, and shorter than the last time. Catra waited.

“What do you want now?” came the reply.

Catra paused, thinking. When she made her other visits she would circle the topics a little. But there was no point now.

“Hordak is going after She-Ra,” she said.

Shadoweaver leaned toward the bars slowly. A part of her gaunt, ashen face came into light. “Why?” she rasped.

“She had cut down seven ships on her own in a battle.”

“But you had burned down eighty.”

“You’ve heard.”

“Of course,” Shadoweaver said. “I am not helpless, no matter what you or Lord Hordak may think of me. I have my resources.”

Catra got over her surprise quickly and said, “You’re not afraid to tell me that?” She grinned. “That I would report back to Hordak, and he would take away those ‘resources’?”

“If Hordak has targeted Adora,” Shadoweaver said, “either he or you will not be standing soon. There is no point.”

Catra’s tail twitched at that. She did not like the implication in Shadoweaver’s words, especially since she had guessed her plan—even though the motives completely wrong, of course. But the surest way of falling into Shadoweaver’s traps was to rise to her bait, so Catra moved on.

“She-Ra’s been a thorn at his back for a long time. This was just the last straw,” Catra said. “And anyway, Hordak has always been more afraid of someone who looks good with a sword than someone who’s good with a knife.”

“Indeed,” Shadoweaver said, her beady eyes unmoving from Catra’s face. “And I suppose you’re interested in exactly where one should stick that knife? For curiosity’s sake.”

“For curiosity’s sake,” Catra agreed.

For Catra, the Nimbus mission had been a nightmare from the start. First had been the travel. Entrapta had sent Catra and Scorpia upward to neutral air with her latest airship prototype—a dandelion-inspired model, with self-centering technology, lovingly nicknamed “Danny”—that was about as human-focused as the rest of her designs. After Catra finished throwing up off the side of the Nimbian-sent airship, she had the pleasure of meeting the Nimbian princess, who was, again, a teenaged brat, settled this time atop a scrap metal throne.

This princess’s defining feature seemed to be how much she simply was not afraid of the Horde, what weaklings the other princesses and their kingdoms were to ever fear them, et cetera et cetera. Scorpia took all of it in stride, oohing and ahhing whenever the princess pointed to a ship and proclaimed its superiority over all others with detailed explanations of how and why to the great distress of her advisors. Catra, on the other hand, was very ready to kidnap a princess again, plan or not. It was then almost a relief when She-Ra and company stomped into the floating palace with their flying, talking unicorn.

“I’ll take Catra,” Adora called out from a distance. This was followed by glitter-princess’s usual, “Adora, no!” before Catra slunk behind the inner palace doors.

When Adora entered, Catra stuck out a foot, and all seven feet of She-Ra-the-warrior-princess-goddess landed flat on her face, sword sliding across the room. Catra pounced, and they grappled across the glass floor, clouds whipping past beneath them.

“I can’t let you do this, Catra,” Adora was saying.

“Glad to see you too.”

“You have to know, Catra— The Horde—Nimbus—”

Catra rolled backwards, heaving Adora off her. “Okay, look,” she said, on her feet now, as Adora skidded across the room and retrieved her sword. “The Riviere Town mission I get—the Aurorae wedding you caught us red-handed—but this? Can’t the Horde have peaceful diplomatic chats with other princesses now?”

Granted, she had been dropping off Entrapta’s mice bombs since arriving at Nimbus. But still.

“We know you’re after the Malachite,” Adora said, heaving herself up with the sword.

“Obviously, just like we know you’re trying to rebuild the Princess Alliance and destroy the Horde, ya-di-dah, what else have you got?”

“Catra,” Adora said, her voice going low now, almost confiding. “Ever since the Brightmoon invasion, I’ve been thinking—”

“Oh,” Catra said, “you’ve been thinking now—”

“Light Hope was manipulating you in the Beacon,” Adora said. The way her eyes rounded then might have been more convincing, Catra thought, if they weren’t also the most alien features in her in She-Ra form. “She was showing you those things—whatever she showed you—so that you would turn against me. It’s—I know it doesn’t make sense, Catra, but to continue with my training I needed to let go of my attachments, and you, she said—”

Catra, who had become quite tired of everything coming out of Adora’s mouth, back-flipped onto a chandelier and pressed the necessary buttons in Entrapta’s remote controller. When the bombs went off in the distance they made no noise. Instead, a low groan reverberated throughout the metal hull of Nimbus’s flagship. Adora looked up, past her, as the ship began to tilt. Catra dug her claws into the ground; Adora, who knew that doing the same with her sword would very well shatter the glass floor, was knocked all the way to the side.

“What did you do?” Adora shouted, clinging onto the railing with one hand.

“Nothing that the Princess Parade can prove.”

“Don’t—”

“How slow are you?” Catra snapped, because Adora, after all this time, still didn’t get it. “You really think that I didn’t know? I made my decisions in that First Ones ruin, and you have to get that through your head.”

“Catra—”

“And frankly,” Catra added, as the floor shifted another degree down, “it’s rich of you to talk about manipulation when you hadn’t figured out Shadoweaver’s mind games until two year ago—and then went off with the first people to offer you ponies and a golden tiara to crown yourself a hero. But that’s what you do, isn’t it? Point a sword wherever people tell you, never ask questions until you need to.”

Catra probably could have said more, but a ship had at that moment appeared by the railing that now swung below them both. Flying thousands of feet in the air, Scorpia waved cheerily. Before Adora could move an inch, Catra let go of her grip on the floor, sliding straight past Adora, through the window, and into Danny’s rocky embrace.

Will followed his words. He sat by his side of the desk—what used to be his side of the desk—and faced Derek, head up. There was that stubborn set to Will’s jaw, like he was about to start a fight again, and Derek was so not in the mood it wasn’t even funny. He eyed his pillow, ready to flop over and sleep through the whole thing if necessary.

But Will said, “Chowder came to talk to me after morning drills.”

Derek was surprised. “He broke his vow of silence?”

Chowder had declared a vow of silence after Derek and Will had that huge fight soon after Derek’s sports injury / not sports injury a few weeks before. You guys are roommates now, sort this out between yourselves, Chowder had said when they turned to him for arbitration. He had continued that the vow of silence for weeks—until, it seemed, that morning.

“He told me to get my head out my ass,” Will said. “And be an adult about all of this.”

“Then let me guess,” Derek said. “Your way of being an adult about this is to come up here, blame me for you leaving this room, and then have an argument with me all over again.”

To Derek’s surprise, Will snorted out a laugh.

“I guess you two know me too well,” he said. “No. Chowder was ahead of you on this one. He made me stay behind and practice slap shots with him—wouldn’t let me leave until I got a goal in or came up with an answer he liked.”

Derek let out a low whistle. “How long were you guys there?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Will said. “Point is: no. I thought things through. And I think—I think I owe you an apology.”

Derek stared, stunned. “Huh,” was all he could say. “Really.”

It came out sounding almost sarcastic—which Derek didn’t mean—but before he could correct himself, Will was saying, “Like, look. I’ll never consider what you had a sports injury—and if it is, it’s the dumbest sports injury to ever exist, and definitely not something you can use to flirt with—but I thought through the other things. The clothes weren’t that bad—my last roommate was worse—the music I could hear but you do that during roadies and I was fine—and the pie—”

And here Will trailed off, struggling, at his limits about what he could forgive.

But Derek was gracious, and he said, “The pie thing was my fault, really.”

Will sighed. “No, you meant well—probably—but either way I overreacted.”

“You did.”

“I did,” Will said, but more clipped, and Derek decided not to push it.

“But why?” Derek said. “You know, if you really mean what you said but you still went on to blame me for shit like that, it’s not exactly helpful.”

“That was the part Chowder was beating me into submission to figure out—sort of,” he said, and moved hastily on: “There were some other things but— Anyway. I figured out in the end.”

“And?”

“And I think it’s what you said, last semester, about how I would be out by September—”

“Dude,” Derek groaned.

“I know, I know. But I think, I thought, that—I think part of me always was wondering whether or not you were doing stuff to annoy me on purpose—”

“No, dude, Dex— You know I was joking. Come on.”

“I did. I do. I should’ve known better,” Will said. “Trusted you more. Been less suspicious. We argue all the time and shit but we’ve been—you know, friends—for a while too now. So I’m sorry.”

Derek considered him, looked at the dip of his chin, picked at the guilelessness in his eyes. Finally he was satisfied and let himself savor the apology. And savoring, of course, turned almost immediately to preparing to lord over. Will saw this change and gave him a glare. Derek raised his eyebrows innocently.

“I am sorry too,” Derek said after a bit, a little hesitantly, “for invading your fortress of solitude and all that. Swear to god I didn’t go in since.”

“What?” Will asked. “Oh that, yeah, no, that was kind of just the last straw, but by itself—I almost forgot about it, to be honest.”

“Oh,” Derek said, feeling a lightness in his heart. He slipped from the warmth of his blanket and climbed down the bed. “So we’re good now.”

“Yeah.”

“Good—chill. When are you moving back then?” Derek asked. He was preparing to move a few of his Whitman books—which he might or might not have thrown in front of Will’s side of the closet from spite—out of the way.

“Hm?”

He sounded distracted, and Derek straightened. “I asked when you’re moving back here.”

“Oh,” Will said, standing. “No. I mean, to be honest I think it’s probably still best if I stayed there for a bit.”

“Really? There? ‘In the darkness’? Dex—”

“Yeah,” he said, looking away. “I mean, I installed lightbulbs and everything. And it’s a good space. I got some planks from a shop class and made a sturdier bedframe and everything. And it works out for both of us this way. It’s not that I don’t want to live with you right now—”

“—but you don’t want to live with me right now,” Derek said, sighing. “No—don’t sweat it. I get it.” And he did. Even Ransom and Holster, after all, had the space of the attic to split between themselves.

Will’s shoulders slumped. “Thanks. We can come up with a roommate agreement at some point. Also I think taking some time off would be good—we spend way too much time on ice anyway. And between classes too, now that we share that one core.”

“We’re not Ransom and Holster,” Derek agreed.

“But I’ll probably move back—after Thanksgiving? When it gets really fucking cold.”

Derek grinned. “You’ll migrate back up here like a Canada goose.”

“If you want to call it that,” Will said, smiling.

When Will moved to leave, Derek remembered something. “Wait, hold up,” he said, “since when did I flirt with anyone with my sports—my injury?”

Will turned red, as red as the stripes on his flannel, as red Derek had ever seen him. “I—I mean, there was that once with Chowder, right?”

“With—” Derek almost burst out laughing. “Are you talking about when he signed my cast? Will, you can’t be serious.”

“I just—I just throw out words sometimes, okay? I didn’t mean flirting as in— Just drop it.”

“God, I can’t. You thought I was flirting—with my sports injury—with our best friend Chowder—”

“Drop it,” Will called from the hallway.

“I’ll see you at team breakfast tomorrow!” Derek said. “At least, if you don’t mind me flirting with basically-Caitlyn’s-fiancé Christopher Franklin Chow—”

Will popped a middle finger into the room, then closed the door.

Derek was still chortling to himself when he climbed back up to his bunk. Of course, he thought, his head hitting the pillow, only someone as emotionally repressed as Will could consider chatting about an injury with your best friend flirting—

Sleep was coming, quickly and lightly. But then in the liminal space between wakefulness and slumber, a memory came: he was in the sterile bed of the ice rink clinic after the last game—high as a reindeer on painkillers, probably. Will was there, looking down—but he already knew this, Will would complain about babysitting a high Derek for days afterwards. Will had then, in his memory, such a look of concern on his face—it was there, behind the look of incredulous annoyance—and Derek did just score a goal for Samwell, and perhaps he was high on that too— Then he remembered that Will never gave him a proper celly before he went and hurt himself, heroically, in the sports arena, and couldn’t Will, Derek was asking now, at least give him a kiss—?

The human consciousness could come up with the weirdest shit, Derek thought, squirming to flip himself to the other side, at which point he promptly fell asleep.