#agent-85

I FEEL THIS SO HARD. It's so frustrating, especially when I'm writing period pieces. My Victorian AU is temporarily on hold because some train things don't quite work with the plot and it's STRESSING ME OUT

Hey, I’ve been looking up train things too! Schedules and stuff, where stations are, etc. Not Victorian things, thank goodness, because I think that would kill me so I definitely appreciate your pain. I’m currently bothered because my fic requires at least one train ride but it would be easier to just...drive the distance in the car...because getting on the train requires driving about 8 miles in the opposite direction I need to go just to get on said train. But I think I can come up with a good excuse for it. I think.

agent-85 replied to your post “that fic research feel when you start going on actual university...”

I feel this.

GOTTA HAVE THOSE ACCURATE DETAILS.

unproductivepeanut replied to your post “that fic research feel when you start going on actual university...”

I went on Google Maps to find places for characters in mine, and then also looked up the names of doctors, vets, etc in the area...

Oh I have been on Rightmove looking up flats once I got my median salaries locked down and figured out how much they could swing a month on rent. Then I got on Google Maps to find a suitable public place for a Major Plot Event to happen because I’m going to have to refer to the area by name, and I’m going to be back on Google Maps soon because I’ll need to reference landmarks around the city. Fortunately for me, I love looking at real estate and maps. :D :D

I never mind for youuuu! :) here’s a healthy dose of angst, haha. just what the doctor ordered? *cries about Fitzsimmons forever*

Up on AO3! Beginning below:

———-

Fitz thinks of all the evenings he longed for her, ashamed of both his lust and his love. He can still feel the ache he buried so deeply within himself it became part of his genetic makeup. He remembers lying on his bed in a cramped bunk, the quiet whir of the plane bleaching to white noise, thinking: I love you and I want you to be happy, even if it’s not with me. He remembers the traitorous prayer, washing over him each night as he faded into sleep, when he was at his most vulnerable and could no longer fight it: But please, please love me back.

He thinks of this and wonders how he could have been so naïve. He’d had so little experience of the world; he didn’t know it was possible to share a bed with someone you loved with your whole heart and still feel empty and alone. He didn’t know it was possible to receive everything you’d ever wished for, only to watch yourself slowly tear it all to shreds.

Maybe things would be different if they weren’t in some mysterious space prison. Maybe on Earth there could be therapy and indefinite leave to a cottage in Perthshire. He imagines it, sometimes, when he feels he deserves the extra punishment. Jemma would smile—like she used to, not this small brittle expression she gives him now, as if he’ll shatter at any moment.

Here they’ve all been separated. He hears murmurings from the guards occasionally, a whispered mention of “Coulson” or a sneering, contemptuous “Little Ms. Quake.” A part of him can’t wait until they’re free and Daisy makes their captors pay, but mostly he keeps his head down and hands Jemma the tools she needs.

As far as he can tell, the menial labor they do only serves to keep this ship/station/rock thing in space. Still, he can’t help the tremors that run through him at the idea that his work, however inconsequential, could be supporting something horrible and he has no idea. He had refused, at first, which landed him in solitary confinement with no food or water until Jemma had been allowed in his cell to beg.

“We’re just keeping ourselves alive,” she’d said. “I can’t find any evidence that what we’re doing in the lab is hurting anyone.”

At his silence she had grabbed his hand. “I promise, and if I’m wrong it’ll be my burden to bear.”

And when he still didn’t respond, she had forced him to look at her and she had cried. “You can’t do this to me,” she said. “You can’t kill yourself like this.”

So now his days follow a steady, unvarying rhythm he’s never before experienced: a shrill, station-wide alarm in the morning, a quick shower, toast and butter with Jemma and a ridiculous number of guards, mindless work in the lab, a thirty-minute lunch break, rotations to fix a keyboard or the wiring in a door panel, dinner with Jemma and a second group of guards, and then lights out in their room.

He has the side of the bed near the wall, and every night he curls as far away from her as he can manage. During the day, they work together seamlessly. Sometimes they even joke, and sometimes he looks at her and for half a second believes they’re back home in their lab, happy and in love, before everything fell apart.

But at night their bodies are too close and he’s never felt more alone. She cries when she thinks he’s asleep, silently, her body barely moving.

He wants to extend a hand and touch her. He wants to hold her and tell her everything will be okay. But he would be lying, and at any rate, he’s lost the right. So he listens to her cry and bites down on his knuckles, hard, to keep himself from reaching for her. Eventually, her shaking subsides into the tortured breathing of her nightmares, and he lets sleep force him under as well.

Mine too! I mean, there’s 

brotp

banter and sarcasm

Academy FS *and* SciOps FS leading into show FS

secret codes

audience participation

I really need to go back and finish it up. I have it all planned out, so it really comes down to my lacking inspiration on the puzzles. I’ll get back to it one day! I promise!

Prompt: Jemma saying Fitz’s name and Fitz telling her how good it is to hear it.

Requested by @agent-85

This didn’t come out quite like I expected. Hope you still like it!

The way they looked at him – he hated it. It was just like when he came out of his coma, dealing with his hypoxia.

They all treated him like he was … broken.

More than that, they treated him like they didn’t … know him anymore. He couldn’t even remember them saying his name. They weren’t personal, they weren’t warming.

They tiptoed around him, avoided any words or concepts they might see as a trigger, and Daisy … she flinched at his touch.

He deserved it – from all of them – but what Fitz didn’t understand was how after everything he put them through, they somehow still forgave him. Forgiveness or not though, they still treated him like he was a cracked window – ready to shatter at any moment.

Everyone, except Jemma.

All she did was hold him. She hardly even spoke, knowing neither of them ever needed words for communication. Fitz expected Jemma to be revolted by the sight of him – yet, instead, she wouldn’t let him out of her sight.

He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve any of it. Leopold was a man of hate and rage and murder. He didn’t deserve to be loved by someone so … delicate, and loving, and perfect.

7. Things you said while we were driving. Non-SHIELD AU.

---

“Turn left up ahead, and the driveway will be on the right.”

Fitz tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “My right or your right?”

Jemma chuckled from the passenger seat, and if he dared glance away from the road, he knew he’d see her rolling her eyes. “We’re facing the same direction, Fitz, so I’d say it’s both of our rights.”

He sucked in a sharp breath through his nose, then let it out slowly. “I knew that. Of course. I’m just a little bit--”

“Discombobulated? Panicked? Completely out of your head with worry about--”

“--meeting your parents for the first time. Yes. To all of those.” The only driveway in sight was a long, winding one with an intimidating brick mansion looming at the top of it. With a grimace, Fitz pulled the car into it and killed the engine.

“Fitz.” Jemma slid her hand over his on the steering wheel, gently prying his fingers loose to twine with her own. He still didn’t look at her, his eyes pinned on the house up ahead. “Fitz,” she repeated. He swallowed thickly. “Fitz!”

“Yeah, that’s-- hi,” he said lamely, finally tearing his eyes away from the house to look at his girlfriend of six weeks. Her smile was soft, and he somehow managed to match it with one of his own. He felt at least 5% less anxious.

“My parents are going to adore you.”

He exhaled through his nose again. “How do you know that?”

Jemma squeezed his hand, then let go, reaching up instead to cup the back of his neck and scratch her fingertips through his curls. “Because I’m their progeny. And while there is quite a bit of debate about nature versus nurture-- how much of a role do genetics play in things like taste, preferences, et cetera?” Her eyes lit up as she spoke, and he knew that if he let her, she’d go on and on and they’d be late for dinner. As much as he loved it when she got worked up about science, he didn’t relish the idea of showing up to meet her family 45 minutes behind schedule. “In fact, I was just reading a fascinating study in which researchers at Cambridge--”

“Jemma?”

She blinked at him, regaining her focus. “Right. As I was saying-- they’re my parents, and they’ll adore you just as I adore you.”

Fitz let out a breathy laugh in spite of himself, looking down at his hands in his lap. “You do?”

“Quite right I do,” she said, her thumb grazing his earlobe, making him suppress a shiver. “I can’t seem to help myself. And that’s how I know my parents are going to feel the same way.”

“Because of genetics?” He met her eyes again, and she smiled in a way that made hers crinkle at the corners, a smile he’d come to love already.

“Because of genetics. And not least of all, because they’d be utter fools not to.”

He felt another 5% of his worry slipping away, and she settled back into her seat, letting her hands drop to her lap.

“We’d better get inside,” he said, reaching for the door handle.

“Fitz?” He turned to look at her, noting her raised eyebrows and the amusement on her face. She nodded toward the house. “Maybe we could pull up the driveway just a bit more.”

He peered out the windshield to see that her parents’ house was still rather far away-- he’d parked the car just inside the mouth of the drive. Flushing, he turned the key in the ignition and began to creep forward.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Hope they’re not watching from the front window. They’ll’ve thought they’ve got some kind of strange prowler on their hands.”

Jemma’s laugh rang out, the sound a balm to his worried heart. “Well, you’re my strange prowler, a strange prowler they’d be fools not to love. Remember?” She grinned at him. “Genetics.”

By the way Jemma’s parents kept exchanging knowing looks across the table as the dinner progressed, Fitz later had to admit, she may have been right.

#PLEASE NOT LEO#DON'T LET THE LEO PEOPLE WIN#Leopold Fitz

^Exactly, certain fic writers will go cray-cray.

You mean con heaven? :D I mean it is basically filled with nothing but all of my Jemma and Amy Pond clothes, and there’s a big box in that back corner filled with cosplay bits and bobs, and all the shoes and boots I’ve acquired through cosplay (why do I have so many pairs of boots???) so yeah I guess you are pretty much right! The only thing my closet do is transport me straight to DragonCon, which is a definite buzzkill. Boo.