Just Our Hands Clasped So Tight, Waiting For The Hint Of A Spark

Another very specific rec list of fics keeping Tawny sane while work sucked.

Yes, yes, I am writing this when I should actually be working.  Thank you all for my self-care routine and giving me some serotonin these last couple of months.  

New Horizons, Old Troubles @unproblematicme Pirates and omegaverse! Sexy and swashbuckling. That’s all you need to know. And Newt is the hero we all deserve. 

Over the Sea @redundant-angel Angsty and sweet South Downs Cottage fic.  I love a fic where they still have to work through things for their HEA and this is handled beautifully. Plus the weather and scenery is so atmospheric. 

Blow out all the candles @teslatherat I love a historical au and the detail in this is lovely and engaging.  It’s so sweet and hopeful. Victorian Rent Boy Crowley falls in love with a client….

The Rite of Falling @contraststudies and @teslatherat Beautifully written. Beautiful art work.  And I love the characterisation, and the way the pacing builds the pressure.  A wonderful priests au. I’m biting my nails over my this and swooning by turns. 

Just our hands clasped so tight, waiting for the hint of a spark by @mekachu04 with art by @wargoddess9 I just found this! set in cannon and the premise is amazing, and it is so sweet and sexy and lovely.  I want to eat it with a spoon. 

In our own strength confide by hapax.  A second fic I love that addresses how they both deal with their trauma and their freedom.  Beautifully insightful character study of both of them. Also angry Aziraphale is very good. 

The Fabric of your Hair @saretton Sooooftttt.  I love it. So tactile. And just, gah, the yearning, the yearning. Hairdresser Crowley and Tailor Aziraphale stealing touches where they can. Read it and bring a fainting couch. 

Divine restorations and repairs @sylwritesstuff and skimmingthesurface  Just started this, and think I’m possibly the last person on the planet to get to it, however the characterisation is fantastic. The detail that has gone into the world building is so immersive.  I can’t even…..Beautiful, beautiful….

Sanctuary by @leilakalomi  This is an exquisitely crafted Hunchback of Notre Dame au, and powerful and I am still in awe of how Crowley is portrayed so well in Aziraphale’s pov.  It’s wonderfully done. 

And safe for aye, may my darling be @naromoreau and @gayforgoodomens  Celts vs Romans, except the two who fall in love, obviously. This fic will kill us all.  You have been warned. 

20. Metal Trinkets

Kidd - 7 | Killer - 11

Tags specifically for this chapter:

Children in danger

Sometimes, Kidd is still a child

Killer doesn't understand playing pretend

He's so confused but he's trying

Read at A03 linked above or here below cut

Drabbles from Pocket Jack's KiKi-tober Prompt list

Kidd had a cute chubby face that meant people didn't feel guilty giving him things, and he had been slow to grow and was still very small looking for seven. He was also quick tongue and lacked any of Killer's hesitancy when it came to demanding attention. Everything about him was loud, and he just could stand in crowded streets and adults would stop to see what he needed help with.

He'd pretend to be lost, or spin them some other fantastic story, and Killer would lift items from their bags or coin purses from pockets. And then later they'd awe at their spoils and feast like Kings. Sometimes the items could get pawned for coin; sometimes they kept them, if they were small enough. A neat watch that Kidd would break almost immediately because he tried to take it apart, a box of luxury chocolates that they gorged themselves on - too sweet and rich for them in the end - and once they even pilfered a doll that ended up being far more trouble then it was worth.

Children's toys were a complete unknown to Killer; Children's games in general were a mystery to Killer, and Kidd long declared him the absolute worst at playing pirates when he'd spend most of their game correcting Kidd on the names of the parts of their non-existent boat. "No, that would be the backstay."

"It doesn't matter!"

"… but it does?" Poor Killer just could not wrap his head around Kidd's point of view, and if Kidd had anyone else to play with he'd probably have left to do so.

But, Killer was also his best friend, and Kidd thought it important that someone teach Killer how to play. So when the doll had appeared in one of the packages they'd lifted, Kidd had wanted to keep it. The problem was, playing with just the one doll between the two of them was difficult, and trying to teach Killer how to play dolls with just the one was proving to be impossible. He'd intently watch Kidd demonstrate, but when it was his turn, Killer would freeze up, and just cradled the dainty little doll like he was afraid to break it.

Stealing a second doll had so far not worked out for them - Kidd was starting to suspect Killer wasn't trying to find them another one - so Kidd took it upon himself to make one. He'd already been making little abstract things with the scrap during slow spells or when he couldn't sleep but he didn't want to wake Killer up. Killer didn't sleep though the night very often as it was, so when he did pass out during the day, Kidd was more than happy to keep watch and let him rest. Granted, making a doll was a little harder since it needed to look like something when he was done, but Kidd was pretty proud of how it was coming along.

He'd been out looking for new pieces when he'd spotted a dozen City Men in the Heaps. They'd come by from time to time to dump their trash, but normally the only ones coming this deep were ditching a body or looking for someone. Heap-folks learned to avoid them; pretend you don't see them, they pretend they don't see you.

These men didn't seem to want to follow the script, because one pointed directly at Kidd, "That red yokel, that's one of them!"

"Killer! Run!" he'd yelled back to their hovel, taking off in the opposite direction, hoping they'd follow him instead. Kidd knew the Heaps like the back of his hand, he could run this place blindfolded if he needed too. And as long as Killer wasn't nearby, Kidd was happy to -wreck- shit up without worrying his friend getting caught in his still sporadic control over his magnetism. He could -attract- things towards him without hurting himself anymore, but -repealing- was still like firing a scattershot and he hadn't figure out at all how to aim it.

Unfortunately, only about half the men took the bait, and all Kidd could do was pray Killer had enough warning. Frustratingly, the man who'd pointed at him had not been one to follow.

Kidd was small and fast, and he new all the best paths to run along, and which were filled with tripping hazards. And alone, he was free to -pull- and -push- piles to his whims to trip up or even bury his tag-alongs.

Once he was sure he'd lost his tail, he made his way back to the last place he'd seen Killer and started looking for the older boy - only to hear cursing and swearing beckoning him toward their shelter.

"WHERE IS IT!"

Kidd stuck his head over one of the lips of trash. The leader of the group was screaming at Killer who was ignoring him completely to fight with the man who was trying to keep him in a head lock. The three of them were covering in blood splatter and the man looked like he had a child size shoe print across his face. The other four men that had stayed behind with him hadn't fared so well, bodies twitching and discarded in the rubble.

Kidd froze when he recognized the knife the man was threatening with was Killer's own blade, and its very sharp point was being waved far too close to Killer's own face.

"Where is the Duck House?!"

"I dun what that means!" Killer had gasped out when the man's free had grabs a fist full of his hair, and the other man finally got his forearm successfully under Killer's chin and against his neck.

"The Duck House!" The man screams again, and the knife is going for Killer's face, and Kidd -pulls- in a panic, the blade sinking in to the trash pile as he ducked back down to hide behind once more. The two men turned and looked in the opposite direction, reasonably believing someone shot something to disarm them. There are no devil fruit users on Kutsukku after all. Those are just Grand Line myths the Marines use to trick people.

Killer however, uses the distraction to mule kick the man holding him in the groin, and is running the moment his feet hit the ground. Kidd wants to send the knife back to him, but he's terrified to hit Killer with it by mistake.

The grunt is still huddled in on himself, and his leader screams and picks up some scrap to throw after Killer. Kidd -pushes- that off course but remains otherwise crouched and hidden. He knows that Killer knows he's nearby, and no doubt will double back, so he stays down, listening, waiting. Watching.

He watched the two men tear into their home, the makeshift walls light enough for children to put into place no match for adults as they are ripped away. He bitterly watched as their meager things get tossed aside, just more trash in these men's way.

They tear apart blankets, rip open the 'pillow' Kidd and Killer share, throw clothes aside regardless of the mud. The parts to the watch Kidd was still trying to figure out get scattered, lost forever in the scrapyard.

Killer slid down next to him, panting softly, eyes a little manic from adrenaline but hands soft and steady has he checks Kidd over for injures he doesn't have. Kidd keeps watching the City Men as they destroy everything.

Finally, they make a triumphant noise, and the leader is holding out the doll relevantly, her porcelain skin dirty from her time with Kidd but intact. The man is grumbling about the state of her dress, and Kidd and Killer shoot each other dumbfounded looks.

But this doll is apparently worth the lives of most of his crew, and they go to leave, their treasure reacquired. The leader can't help but twist his heel into one of their shirts as he walks by, grinning at the sound of ripping cloth.

All this for a doll. Killer looks pissed, and Kidd can't blame him. Two on two - they could still mess this man's day up. But Kidd is also frowning at the blood dripping from Killer's nose still and touching it seems to drain all the blood-lust out of Killer's body. He just looks forlorn.

The men are getting way, but…

Kidd climbs to the top of the heap, and holds his hands out in concentration. Everything crackles around him, but he's not -calling- for anything nearby. No… he wants something much farther away. It's hard to pick the -song- of any specific piece of metal, they all -sing- pretty close to the same frequency.

Kidd finds the right song and he -calls- for it, across the yard, a large shuttering network of pipes welded together as part of a crane at some distant point in its life. It vibrates as Kidd isolates its sound, "Attract…" he muttered, concentration on just it.

The beam starts towards them. But more importantly, it starts rolling toward the men picking their way out of the Heaps, standing just below it. Killer jerks his arms down, and Kidd looses is focus on it, but it's already moving. Rolling down the hill as more clutter follows it down.

The men don't stand a chance.

Killer is draped around him, loosely pinning Kidd's arms to his sides, both boys watching and the Heaps buries those who dared cross into Her Realm uninvited.

They'll pick over their home and see if anything is salvageable, and then they'll find somewhere else and start over. Kidd never does find all the watch pieces, the tiny parts eaten by the endless yards of trash accumulated under their feet. The doll - a Duck House Doll, apparently, whatever that was supposed to mean - was destroyed along side the City Men with the trash slide, leaving Kidd with just his mostly finished doll that was meant to go with her.

He had left the unfinished project behind with the rest of their unsalvageable belongings.

A lifetime later, after Killer left him to go be a yesman for one of the City Bosses, and it was clear he wasn't coming back, Kidd had raided every cache Killer had left behind in a rage. He was angry and he just wanted to break things, and he had no more of a goal than to destroy anything the tied Killer to Kidd's turf.

Most of the caches were clothes, mostly warmer winter gear, knives, a full coin purse and usually a handful of little trinkets Kidd had made over the years. The last one Kidd would raid angry was more of the same, with one glaring exception. Inside the metal box to protect Killer's things from the elements was a well balanced dagger, it's hilt unlike the style mostly found on Kutsukku, and a flintlock pistol, polished and clean but without ammo. Both looked unused - new. The two weapons framed the last item, a long forgotten metal robot doll smiled back at him, clunky arms wrapped purposely around the drawstring coin bag with it's crudely stitched skull and crossbones.

Finished flat view of my first Good Omens themed wallet.

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Day 17 : Steampunk

how about cuties with gears?

sorry its a day late - i was just too tired to get it coloured after work yesterday ^^;

gear background

Original Prompt list by gratefulcheeses

ⓘ A sewing machine is a device that provides a several-fold increase of the speed at which you can make mistakes

My kitty kiki approves of the new name

who came up with the ship name for KidKiller??? so boring. unoriginal. a missed opportunity to call them KiKi

reblogged here since i no longer use that account

WIP - Colouring in Kairo…. i REALLY need to get a wacom, this colouring with a mouse sucks XD

Day 30 - 60 years

(i officially give up making old people. have happy retired kiki who still, at best, look middle age XD)

Original Prompt list by gratefulcheeses

Turns out my last brick and mortar supplier no longer carries one of the essential pieces that I need for books; didn't find this out until about a week after i ran out and finally was able to get to the store. So .. purchased it online. Long story short, i hate fedex and over two weeks later (almost a month since I ran out) I finally have that missing piece. So... ALL of these got spine work today and I'm looking at this thinking.... I'm actually going to run out of books to work on by the end of the week!!! It feels good because my bookshelf is rocking right now, and it was so much fun, and massive love to the authors who gave me the green light; I hope they all love their pieces! <3 I've changed the way I've done quite a few things from this summer, and it was great to just get a chance to get back into book making. I hadn't realized how much I missed it. And... I *really* suck at leaving feedback, and it seemed the best way to show these novelists just how much their work meant to me. After this set, I'll probably take a book break and get caught up on some cross-stitch, but 2021? I've got a few stories ive got my eye on. =D https://www.instagram.com/p/CIJ5VZXlg2t/?igshid=1d8aoaj87nqod