Hello Fellow Don't Starvers. I Stayed Up Until Three In The Morning Writing A Modern AU For A Fandom

hello fellow don't starvers. I stayed up until three in the morning writing a modern AU for a fandom that doesn't really do modern AUs.

here's an excerpt:

Wilson rests against the counter for several minutes, holding his head in his hands. He groans.

“SOMETHING WRONG?” WX-78 asks.

“Nothin’ wrong.. just, I can’t think."

“THAT IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU USE DRUGS, WILSON.”

“I know, I know..,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “I didn’t do it on purpose..”

“DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO EAT ALL SIX GUMMIES? REALLY?”

“I dunno.. I thought it was like, fruit snacks or.. something.. You know, those ones your mom got you as a kid? I always really liked the Scooby Doo ones, but the blue one was my favorite.. What was yours?”

They make a face.

“What was I saying again? Wait, what’s that smell?”

He turns to the microwave to see the timer with five minutes left.

“Oh, God, did I set it to ten minutes? It was supposed to be for one. Shit."

Here's a link to the fic if you're interested! :)

i doodled some wxson but im very VERY shy abt posting ship art publicly (and some of it is suggestive) so it's under the read more for my own sanity

coughs weakly... perhaps some wxson fluff for the requests..........

“AS I SAID, THE ODDS OF US MAKING IT OUT UNSCATHED WERE LESS THAN FIVE PERCENT,” grumbles WX-78, seething from where they lay against the wall of the cave.

“I know, I know, I'm sorry,” Wilson says, fumbling through his backpack for what little first aid he'd brought.

The pair had gone to the Ruins of an old, ancient civilization to get a better look at the broken clockworks that reside there.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the broken clockworks had wanted to do the same.

Wilson pulls out a roll of silk and a healing salve from his backpack.

They continue. “IF YOU JUST WOULD HAVE LISTENED TO ME- ”

“I know!” Shouts Wilson, angrily, but he immediately recoils at his own hostility and takes a deep breath.

“Sorry, sorry. You know how the darkness gets to me,” he mumbles. “It's just.. I know it's my fault that we're in this predicament, but all we can do from this point on is move forward.”

He takes a moment to take a bite out of a cooked green mushroom, placing it back in his backpack to finish later.

“I'll patch you up so we can safely get you back to the surface and have Winona make sure your internals aren't damaged. Alright?”

WX-78 stays silent, still fuming.

They'd had to rush in to save him, as usual, when he didn't see a broken Rook charging his way.

WX-78 had insisted he look from afar, but he didn't listen.

They pointedly avoid Wilson’s gaze as he gives them a once-over. There's a jagged cut through the exterior of their chassis where the damaged Rook had gored them head-on, just below the burn marks left by a projectile shot by a damaged Bishop.

He applies the thick, pastel paste to the wounds, thankful that they're not subject to the same stinging feeling that fleshy bodies are when the salve is applied. 

His stomach drops when he realizes he can see the gears inside of their body turn through the gash in their midsection.

He tries not to think about the fact that he's just seen their organs as he puts away the mortar and pestle.

“That should do it. Is there anything else?”

“...”

“Come on, you have to at least tell me if you're further injured so I can- ”

“MY LEFT ELBOW JOINT IS NOT RESPONDING,” they interrupt, reluctantly, and make a show of trying and failing to move their arm.

From all of the time Wilson had spent living alone in the Constant, he is certainly quite familiar with how to make a sling.

He ties one with practiced ease while WX-78 simply watches.

“Alright, so I'm going to slide it over your head..,” Wilson says quietly, and walks them through the process of properly positioning their arm in the sling.

He sits down next to them against the wall and runs a hand through his hair.

“Based on the lack of light poking through to that bunnyman village over there, I'd say it's still night up on the surface. We'd best wait until day to go back up. It would be unpleasant to be caught unawares,” he says, mostly to himself.

WX-78 shifts next to him, giving a small nod of confirmation.

He reaches into his bag and pulls out a bag of trail mix. He offers some to them, and they swipe the whole bag from his hands.

“THAT'S FOR IGNORING MY ADVICE, FLESHLING,” they spit, voice still laced with irritation. They begin to eat and he just chuckles, grabbing another bag from his backpack.

“WHAT? WHAT'S SO FUNNY?” they ask, leaning forward to get in his face.

“Nothing, nothing. It's just, you get so.. grumpy sometimes, and it's entertaining to watch you fume. It reminds me of an angry kitten,” he says, neutrally, as if he hadn’t just compared them to a defenseless animal. 

“That's all,” he adds, eating his own trail mix and grinning at them smugly.

WX-78 punches him on the arm, hard enough to bruise, and that certainly wipes the look off of his face. He clears his throat and looks off to the side somewhere.

The two eat in silence. Eventually, the exhaustion of the trip falls onto the both of them. 

Wilson yawns, and they scoff at him.

“REALLY? I'M THE CRITICALLY INJURED ONE HERE, AND YOU'RE SLEEPY?”

“‘S’not something I can control, WX,” he says. “I’m going to sleep. You should, too. Maybe it'll help your critical injuries heal faster,” he says mockingly.

They look down to see that the Constant’s magic has already started to seal their wounds. They're not fixed, but they're hardly ‘critically injured’ by this point. 

In all honesty, they'd just wanted Wilson to feel bad about his mistake.

“By the way,” he says, voice groggy, “I got some things for you while you were busy getting pummeled. Catch,” he says humorously, tossing them a cloth sack full of something that he pulled out of seemingly nowhere.

It lands with a clink on their lap, due to their current inability to use their left arm.

They shoot him a death glare, but he's already leaning against the wall of the cave with his eyes closed.

They open the bag, and inside are handfuls of gears, purple gems, and Thulcelite chunks.

They wonder when Wilson had gotten the time to collect these things, considering they were fighting together. Now that they think about it, he'd never stopped to tend to his own injuries. And by the sound of the fight, there’s probably plenty of them. They look up at him.

His nose and right eye are swollen and purple from taking a direct headbutt from a damaged Knight. There's some blood smeared under his nose and upper lip, and if his crooked nose is anything to go by, it's probably broken.

There are plenty of blackened lacerations from the nightmare creatures they'd faced sprawled across his arms. A few bite marks, too, from when he'd gotten too close to a Splumonkey.

They even see a bite mark on his shoulder, shirt torn by the teeth of a Bunnyman who smelled the jerky stashed deep in his backpack.

Huh. All things considered.. They look down at the bag on their lap.

Perhaps they'll go a bit easier on him once they both wake up.

WX-78 leans against the cave wall, but finds themself sagging to the left due to their injured arm. They eventually lean against Wilson’s shoulder. 

Flesh is much more comfortable than a wall, their worn-out processor supplies, and it's not like he cares. He's in a deep enough sleep to be snoring.

When the morning comes and they find themself with an arm wrapped securely around their shoulders, they pretend they're still powered down.

For a fix request, i dunno if you've read "WX-78 and Wilson's Romance Extravaganza" by crabbyknight, but in that Walter is Wx's wingman and I absolutely adore the relationship they portrayed. Could you do Walter bonding with Wx? I'd also be equally pleased with Walter bonding with any other person of your choosing since I'd love to see how you characterize the other survivors too!

I actually have read that fic! It's a classic WXson story that I deeply enjoyed. c:

Here you go:

“Woby! There you are,” exclaims Walter, and he crouches in front of a berry bush. Woby pokes her head out from between its branches, trembling and whimpering.

“Aw, girl, it's okay! It's just me,” he says, offering a hand out for her to sniff.

The Hounds had come a day earlier than expected on this fine Autumn morning, and to say that the survivors were unprepared would be an understatement.

Three Varglets and over thirty Hounds had descended upon the camp in mere minutes. Someone had shouted for everyone to scatter, and although Walter was hesitant to leave everyone, Woby had darted into the woods and he’d feel bad leaving her all by herself.

She sniffs his hand tentatively, and relaxes once she realizes it's him.

“You can come out now, see?”

Woby crawls out from the bush and wags her tail sheepishly.

“It's alright, girl,” he says, petting her affectionately. “Everyone gets scared sometimes. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

Walter feels something wet hit his nose. He looks up at the sky to see dark storm clouds swirling above his head.

“Aw, it’s raining. I hope everyone else made it back to the camp,” he says, and puts his hands on his hips. “Well, I guess we'd better head–”

Walter is interrupted by stomping in the distance.

“The Varglet might be coming back! Hide, Woby!”

She quickly skitters back into the bush, and Walter joins her. He’s not scared, but getting caught unaware and unprepared might end poorly.

Walter scans the woods through the leaves. For a few minutes, the stomping comes and goes. A hound shoots past the bush they're hiding in, chasing fruitlessly after a crow that's just slightly faster than it. Eventually, he spots something: instead of a Varglet, he sees WX-78 walking around the forest in a straw hat, angrily muttering to themself.

Walter steps out of the bush and brushes himself off.

“Hey! Over here!" He shouts, waving, and WX-78 turns around to see him. They walk over to him and stand underneath a Birchnut tree before speaking.

“GREETINGS. DID YOU EVER FIND THAT MUTT OF YOURS? I SAW YOU CHASE AFTER IT.”

“Oh yeah! She's right here,” says Walter, gesturing behind him to the still-coweirng Woby.

“She won't come out for some reason, even though she can probably smell that it’s just you.”

“IT IS PROBABLY SCARED OF ME. FOR GOOD REASON,” they say, and then frown at a raindrop hitting their arm.

“UGH. THE ONE TIME I DO NOT PACK AN EYEBRELLA,” they mumble, and shift around uncomfortably.

“Oh! I can help with that,” Walter says, and rummages around in his backpack.

“Where is it..,” he mumbles to himself, dropping a bag of trail mix, a rusted pickaxe, and three logs on the ground.

He sees WX-78’s foot tapping impatiently next to him, and he picks up the pace.

“There!” Walter shouts, and pulls out the bright red umbrella from his bag. He holds it out to WX-78.

“A Pinetree Pioneer is always prepared!” He says, beaming, and WX-78 hastily grabs it from his hands. They don’t open it, though. They’re not even looking at him anymore, actually. They’re looking right past him.

“No need to thank me,” he says cheerily, but they still say nothing.

“What? What is it?”

“ALWAYS PREPARED? I SURE HOPE SO,” they say, and abruptly drop the umbrella in favor of grabbing their spear

Walter turns to look where their gaze lies to find a Varglet not more than a hundred feet away from them. Belatedly, Walter realizes that the stomping from earlier has only gotten closer in few minutes they've been chatting. WX-78 starts to walk towards it, exchanging their straw hat for a football helmet, but Walter jumps in front of them.

“Wait! You can’t go fight it, you’ll get wet! Let me try to make it leave,” Walter says.

WX-78 gives him a skeptical look and brushes past him.

“Please? I’m really good with animals,” he says, putting on his best pleading voice.

WX-78 looks more unimpressed than anything else, really. They stop walking.

“YOUR MEATLING BEGGING DOES NOTHING TO SWAY ME. HOWEVER, IT WILL BE LESS WORK FOR ME IF YOU DISPOSE OF IT, SO FEEL FREE.” WX-78 picks the umbrella back up, opens it, and leans back against the tree they were standing under.

Walter grabs his backpack from where it lies on the ground. He takes a piece of jerky out of the bag. Woby pokes her nose out of the bush to sniff at it, but a loud growl from the Varglet makes her cower back into her spot.

Walter walks towards the Varglet, confident in his survival instincts and his ability to communicate with animals.

“GOOD LUCK. YOU WILL NEED IT,” says WX-78 from behind him.

He walks closer to the Varglet, and stops about twenty feet away from it.

“Hey, boy! Over here!” Walter calls, and the Varglet abruptly turns its head to face him.

Walter hears WX-78 sigh behind him. He chooses to ignore it.

It growls, and Walter approaches it.

“Do you wanna have a treat?” He says, waving the jerky in front of himself.

“THAT IS NOT GOING TO WORK,” WX-78 calls out to him, their words tinted with urgency.

"It will!" He calls back. "Just watch!"

The Varglet throws its head back in a howl, and Walter knows what that means. He only hopes he can sway it in time for it to call off the hounds.. if it can even call them off.

It starts sprinting towards him.

“If you want the jerky, then go get it!” He shouts, throwing the jerky in the opposite direction.

The Varglet pays absolutely no attention to it, and instead lunges directly at Walter with all forty-something of its sharp teeth.

Walter jumps out of the way, but not in time. The Varglet clamps down on his left leg, hard, and drags him backwards. Walter lets out a strangled yell as his leg is enveloped in a blinding white pain. In a split second, he grabs onto the head of the creature as securely as he can.

Hounds have a tendency to tear their prey to shreds by ragging them, he’s observed.

He’s helpless to do anything but hold on to the creature’s gnarled face while it tries to thrash him around.

Walter doesn’t hear the racing footsteps to his left. He doesn’t hear the spear enter the body of the Varglet, but he does feel the beast let go of his leg, and it hurts even more than when it clamped down, somehow. Walter is dropped to the ground abruptly, landing on his bitten leg, and he cries out in agony.

He crawls away from the Varglet, dragging his hurt leg through the mud. He’s unable to comprehend why or how he was able to escape, and all he can think about is getting away.

Somehow, he makes it back to the bush that Woby is hiding in. She sniffs and whimpers at him in a concerned manner, licking at the salty tears trailing down his face.

He pulls his leg in front of himself to look at the wound, and his breath catches on a sob.

There’s a ring of deep, weeping lacerations that range from his upper thigh all the way down to his ankle. The beast’s mouth was the size of his entire leg, after all. He’s thankful that he didn’t lose his leg.

His stomach drops at the thought. If he wasn’t so observant in the past, the thing could’ve ripped him to bits.

Walter looks closer at his blood-covered leg, and he pales after realizing that he can see the meat of his thigh through a particularly nasty cut. He doesn’t have time to think about much else before his eyes roll to the back of his head and he passes out.

Unbeknownst to him, Woby’s furry body cushions his fall.

Some amount of time later, he wakes up propped up against a tree with his leg searing in agony.

“OH. YOU ARE NOT DEAD. THAT’S GOOD,” WX-78 says from beside him.

“What..,” he croaks, rubbing at his eyes. He looks down at his leg, which has been tightly bandaged from ankle to thigh with spider silk, and then up at them.

“YOU SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO ME. A VARGLET IS NOT GOING TO LISTEN TO YOU LIKE A DOG WOULD,” they say, shooting Walter a disappointed look.

“I thought..,” Walter says, looking at the ground. I really blew it, huh? He thinks.

His eyes fill with tears despite himself. All he wanted to do was something nice for WX-78, and he’d ended up causing even more trouble.

“YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER. I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOOD WITH ANIMALS,” they say, and Walter pointedly averts his gaze as the tears threaten to spill. He feels his ears redden in embarrassment.

He’s in no small amount of pain. His leg throbs with every small movement he makes, and his throat is raw from screaming. His head hurts, and shadows flit and dance around in the corners of his vision. Even still, he doesn’t want to cry in front of them.

Of course, life’s not fair. The tears fall, and even though he scrubs at his eyes immediately, WX-78 is quite the observant bot.

“IT IS DEAD. YOU LIVED. WHY ARE YOU CRYING?” They ask, moving slightly closer to him.

“It hurts,” he mumbles.

“IT IS AN INJURY. IT IS GOING TO HURT,” they say.

“I know!” He shouts, and the floodgates open. He starts sobbing. He can’t help it; everything overwhelms him at once. Walter buries his face in his arm, pulling up his right leg and curling in on himself.

He hears them shift uncomfortably to his left. It’s too late to save face, so he might as well tell the truth.

“But it hurts, and it’s my fault that it hurts, and now you’re mad at me and I can’t fix it and- and,” he says, sniffling wetly. “And I just wanted to help you,” Walter says, and goes back to sobbing.

It goes on for a few minutes, but eventually he runs out of energy to cry. He wipes at his nose with one arm and looks up. WX-78 is staring right at him.

“ARE YOU DONE?” they ask, and he nods. He notices that it has stopped raining.

“I AM NOT MAD AT YOU,” they say, “YOU DID THAT IN AN ATTEMPT TO BE OF SERVICE TO ME. IT FAILED HORRIBLY, YES, BUT YOUR INTENTIONS WERE NOBLE. I AM NOT MAD. JUST DISAPPOINTED."

Walter frowns.

“IT IS NOT WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE, BUT YOU ARE NOT ME. YOU ARE A FLESHLING; THERE IS NO WAY YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO COMPUTE AT MY LEVEL,” they say, and Walter looks off to the side in embarrassment.

"HOWEVER," they say, and he looks up, "IT WAS SMART OF YOU TO HOLD ONTO ITS FACE. YOU ARE THE FIRST TO USE THAT METHOD, AND IT SAVED YOUR LIFE.”

I guess it was pretty smart, huh..

“YOU HAVE POTENTIAL. YOU ALSO HAVE A LOT TO LEARN,” they say.

"Could you teach me?" Walter blurts out, looking them in the eyes. They look taken aback by the statement.

After a pause, they answer. "I WILL TAKE YOU UNDER MY WING IF YOU AGREE TO DO MY BIDDING," they say, and Walter beams. The wording of the statement sounds ominous, sure. But he knows that WX-78's intentions aren't bad; otherwise, they wouldn't still be here right now.

“R-really?” Walter asks.

“YES. WE CAN START TOMORROW. BUT FIRST, WE NEED TO GO BACK TO THE CAMP.”

Tomorrow! He thinks, grinning.

“Right! I know the way back,” he says. He stands up, and winces at the sharp pain radiating throughout his whole leg.

“It’s this way,” he says, turning around in the direction of the camp. It’s south of here, and he can tell by the way the afternoon sun casts a shadow on the trees.

He takes the first step with his hurt leg and nearly falls over. WX-78 catches him by the arm.

“I’m good, I’m good,” he says, and gets his bearings.

It’s going to be a long walk, he thinks.

“ARE YOU SURE YOU KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING?” WX-78 asks some time later, as the sun drags itself closer to the horizon.

“A Pinetree Pioneer never gets lost,” Walter says, but there’s no energy behind it. Between the intense start to the day and his leg injury, he’s practically running on fumes.

Woby walks next to him, dragging her feet and seemingly sharing the same sentiment.

His already slow pace has declined significantly since they started the walk, and he knows it. He can’t help it; his leg is killing him, and it's only making the headache searing behind his eyes even worse.

A few minutes later, WX-78 stops walking. Walter stops too, thankful for the break.

“YOU ARE GOING TOO SLOW. CALCULATING MORE EFFICIENT ROUTE,” says WX-78, and without warning, they pick Walter up piggyback-style.

“THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN, SO DO NOT GET USED TO IT,” they say harshly, but take care not to jostle his leg around too much.

They continue walking. It’s not the most comfortable position, but it’s certainly more comfortable than before. Walter continues to give WX-78 directions back to the camp, minus his usual enthusiasm. At some point, his eyes start feeling heavy. They close a few times, and he catches himself nearly falling asleep. At one point or another, his head lolls to the side, and by the time he goes to lift it back up, he is no longer being carried. He lifts his head back up from.. a pillow?

He observes his surroundings. He’s inside of his and Webber’s shared tent, with Woby and Webber sound asleep on either side of him. He doesn’t remember getting here. His leg still hurts, but it seems sleep has done it some good.

He doesn’t remember picking his backpack up after the attack, but it’s somehow sitting next to him. It’s open, he notices, and he finds the bag of trail mix that he’d left on the ground sticking out of it.

Weird, he thinks, too sleepy to comprehend it much further. Walter rests his head back down on the pillow and falls back asleep, distantly looking forward to whatever tomorrow might hold.

you are one ant