Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Danny?” Jackson frowns as he opens the door of his house. “What…? I mean, hi… I’m—You should have told me you were coming.” Jackson leaves the door open and Danny follows him inside, closing the door behind him.

“Yeah, the same way I’ve been trying to contact you for more than a week, right? You haven’t answered my phone calls, my texts… Where have you been? Where’s been everybody?”

“Who is everybody exactly?” Jackson frowns.

“Come on”. Danny shrugs, shaking his head. “Scott, Isaac, Stiles… The coach wants to kill all of you, you know?”

Now that Jackson thinks about it, he can see easily how that must be the case but right now he doesn’t give a shit. He’s had more important things to think about than the lacrosse team.

“And today…” Danny snorts. “Your mother calls me to ask me about your homework and all the classes you’ve missed like if nothing has happened… Not even a stupid explanation! Does she really think I’m that dumb?” Danny raises his eyebrows and shakes his head as he remembers her phone call. “Shit—Where the hell have you been? What’s going on?”

“Danny…” Jackson sits on the sofa, elbows on his knees, checking his hands and his wrists which no longer show any sign of the nightmare he went through just a few days ago.

Danny sits sideways next to him expecting some answer to his questions and Jackson knows that avoiding his gaze doesn’t really help but he’s been dreading this moment for a long time. Even before he was kidnapped he knew there was a risk that someday he might have to tell him and a part of him never wanted to face this moment but the other part knew that it was the only real option because he should have told him from the start, because he’s always been his best friend and they are not supposed to hide anything from each other.

They’ve always been there for each other and trusted each other.

Jackson was the first person to know that Danny was gay. Danny trusted him as soon as he figured it out as a child. That day Jackson knew that he was important to Danny, that he really cared about him… that he wasn’t just one more kid who seemed to like him for whatever reason kids usually liked him. So, he decided that he’d be the best friend he could be in return and that meant never lying to each other.

Jackson remembers those silly fist-bumps they used to do as kids. He remembers all those sleepovers where they talked about movies, games, crushes… where they exchanged their sexual experiences… where Danny always teased that Jackson wasn’t his type… where they shared their hopes and dreams for the future. Their conversations changed over the years but their trust and their honesty never did—that is, until the day that Derek appeared in Jackson’s life and he suspected that something was going on with McCall. Then his obsession completely ruined him and the only way out was to get what he wanted the most.

Of course, he never meant for the whole kanima ordeal to happen… that wasn’t in his plans and it caused a lot of problems and suffering but ultimately, he got what he wanted. He wanted to tell Danny, he didn’t want to keep it a secret from him. But if he wanted Derek to accept him, he couldn’t disobey him, and he knew that sharing his secret with anybody else was out of the question as far as his alpha was concerned.

But now everything has pretty much exploded in their faces and there is no way to keep on pretending that everything is as it used to be. The only way to proceed is to be honest once and for all and hope that Danny will understand. But for that to happen he has to believe him first.

“Danny…” Jackson sighs. “I’m not supposed to tell you… Fuck! I can’t tell you. This is not up to me… I’m not allowed. I’m not… Shit—I can’t talk to you about it…” That’s the truth, is he tells him, he’s fucked. He knows he’s fucked.

“You can’t tell me?”

But then again, this is Danny. This isn’t just anybody. And he’s been missing too long. Too long to come up with an excuse that somebody who knows him the way Danny does, will believe.

“It’s complicated. Like you said… this is not just about me. There are other people involved—”

“Yeah, people I happen to know—”

“You do. That’s why I’m not supposed to tell you.”

“Okay, here’s the thing… this whole last year you’ve been acting weird. A lot of strange things have been going on and then, you suddenly disappear—and I’m not supposed to ask you what happened either?” Danny snorts a laugh with disbelief.

“Remember when I was paralyzed at the Jungle?” Danny continues, raising his eyebrows. “Ever since that day, I’ve had this feeling that something was going on... Should I even mention what you told me before the lacrosse game that night and everything that happened later? Because you know that some people told me what happened, right? Shit! I’m not stupid, man! I may not know what really went down that night but I won’t be surprised by anything you say, I promise you that. And if our friendship means anything to you, you’re gonna tell me right now, or I’m walking out that door and I’m never speaking to you again. You either trust me or you don’t. And if you don’t trust me, then I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”

Jackson stares at this hands and wrists once again and doesn’t say anything, clearly avoiding Danny’s gaze.

Finally, Danny gets up, “Okay. Fine,” he says, waving both arms in defeat. He takes a few steps towards the door before Jackson speaks again.

“Danny, wait!” Jackson rests his head on the back of the sofa, closing his eyes. “You win.” Jackson licks his lips.

“Fuck!” Jackson opens his eyes and finds Danny’s gaze, nodding. “Sit down. I’ll tell you.”

1 . "All I Saw Was You" is set in several timelines. Do you have any diagram or something that helps you not to get lost in it?  

No, I don’t have any timeline. I usually re-read any chapter/s if I have any doubt about some detail, especially if I write a flashback and I think it makes reference to something specific that may have been mentioned before. I think that having a timeline wouldn’t help with those things anyway. I guess that for me, things like their ages and what happens to them at that time is clear and it’s easy to remember.

2. Do you make any notes to not forget what happened in previous chapters?

I have a page where I add any new chapter I write and I edit the position on the list when it’s posted since I don’t post in the order in which I write (which I have mentioned in the notes a few times because sometimes I post years after I’ve written it). I write the title, the characters and a very short description of what it deals with. I also point it out if it’s a flashback and if it’s finished or not.

3. The relationship between Jackson and Stiles is emotive and obviously passionate, however, you do not explore their physical relationship. Is that a conscious choice or are you averse to anything that may change the rating from "G"? (This is curiosity only, no judgment!)

It is very conscious. Writing sex is truly complicated and I think I’m pretty bad at it. It is not something that everybody can do, so I don’t think it’s because of the language. I don’t see myself writing any sex scene in Spanish either.

When something is so hard to write, it becomes a waste of time because I don’t want to write something that is gonna be awful to read… the only thing I’ll achieve is to fuck up the chapter.

That being said, I also hate writing kissing but since it’s important in some scenes, I have read a lot about it and I have worked hard on many chapters to try to write some decent kissing. It has meant hours of work but I’ve done it in many chapters. I have also written some sexual situations (which were also difficult for me) because they were important for the plot, and I wrote an explicit sex scene in chapter 75.

I don't think that you need to write something explicit for people to understand how they feel about each other. I think there are other ways to do it and that's what I always try to do.

4. Why Jackson and Stiles? Or to expand, what is it about this pair that you thought would provide enough tension and interest that their story arc spanned years of effort on your part?

Firstly, Jackson is my favorite character and I hate how people write himmost of the time. I don't recognize his voice or the character's personality.

And from the start, I saw tons of chemistry between Jackson and Stiles. I watched season 1 and half of 2 (up to where it was airing then) before checking the fandom and what people were writing and it blew my mind that people saw any chemistry between Stiles and Derek… it is something that I will never understand because I don’t see it at all.

Then, I was sad to see that my ship had very few fics and they were all terrible and I had nothing to read. (But I must say that later I found a few good writers who wrote stackson and did a good job… so yeah, there are at least three or four people out there whose writing I enjoy).

Besides, the relationship between Stiles and Jackson was always this terrible "I hate you" thing that I don't give a shit about. It's always boring and terribly written. People just don't write plots that are interesting to me... and usually their voices are very bad too, which doesn't help either.

So, yeah, I decided to start writing because of all those reasons.

Basically, I thought about writing a scene I imagined like a challenge to try to write them the way I see them. It was both about their voices and their relationship. That scene was Stiles in a hospital bed looking at a ring that he doesn’t recognize. (I think it was his father who tells him to look at the ring).

5. I am not a fan of the other universes you write in so I have not read those stories. However I noticed that the TW universe has gotten the majority of your creative juices - the sheer number of stories far and away strips that of any other universe. What is it about the TW that sparks your creativity?

Well, what happens is that TW is the fandom where I have been longer. Writing the voices is easier and I also have more ideas. In the other fandoms, I have problems like not feeling confident to write the voices of the characters. Sometimes it can be because the show was very short (like Eyewitness or The Red Line) and I’d have needed more episodes to catch the voices, and in other cases, the historical style of the writing is an added challenge. That is why I’m very proud of the few things I’ve written for Black Sails or The Medici—because I didn’t think I could actually do it and at least I tried my best and accomplished to show what I had in mind.

6. Which do you prefer, fandom or Original works? And why?

I only have written fanfiction and the reason is that you write your story with characters that people know… so hopefully, it’s easier to have feedback about it. I do have original characters so they are an original work in a way… and I like writing them but not more than writing Stiles or Jackson.

7. What do Ilya and Kyle have in common? (This was asked in a chapter)

I think Ilya and Kyle have in common that they are survivors of difficult circumstances. Both of them have been affected by society in different ways when they meet. Ilya has been bullied and, as he says, deaf people think he can hear and hearing people think he’s deaf. He’s in the middle of both worlds.

And Kyle has been damaged by the foster system and doesn’t feel like he belongs anywhere. He’s probably been bullied too and he has trusting issues.

8. Can explain your writing process, is it touch and go, sit down and all at once, etc?

I never write a chapter in one day. I’m not a fast writer, so it takes time and it's a lot of work. At least I need 2 or 3 days for something that is around 1200/1500 words… so, if it’s longer, it will take more days. Besides, that is the first draft. I always edit it another day and I usually change and add lines before sending it to my beta.

Most of the time I have a simple idea of what it is about (like “Jackson is going to Chicago and he’s packing and frustrated”) but many times the dialogue takes you in a very unexpected direction and the first idea I had becomes something different. And many times I don’t know how to end the chapter and, in that case, I spend a lot of time thinking about it or I write something that I end up changing later.

Sometimes when I have an idea I can only write about 300/400 words before I get tired or before I don’t know how the hell to continue the dialogue, so that is why many times, it’s good to stop and continue another day because usually, something comes to me that allows me to develop the story and finish it.

Other times, things are more complicated when you have a very simple idea like “they are kidnapped in a basement” and you have to consider where you want to go and what they have to say and in what order to get there. In a case like that, I try to do a mental list of the main topics that I want them to speak about and obviously, when I edit it, I can change the order of the things if it doesn’t feel right.

With the stories which require a certain style/way of talking like with Black Sails or The Medici, I made a lot of questions to my beta about the use of many words and expressions and I made a lot of mistakes—because it’s not only what they say, but also how they say that matters.

Sometimes I have an idea that I think it's gonna take like a couple of chapters like "What If It's You?" and it ends up needing five because it becomes longer than you expected. And later, it has grown even more when I had ideas to continue the story.

9. Why did you decide to write Ilya deaf?

As far as I can remember, even before I knew his name, I knew he was deaf. I didn’t think I’d ever actually mention it or write him, but I knew that nonetheless. Sometimes you know something because you imagine/feel it that way and there is not a specific reason.

That being said, I think in the back of my mind I had two reasons. Firstly, that for me it’s important to include people with disabilities if I can because it saddens me that they get forgotten so often on television, etc… and I also think they bring realism to the story and, as consequence, it is richer and more interesting. For example, later, it allowed me to talk about bullying and that is something else I never had in mind to do in this series.

Secondly, it could be a consequence of the accident and the trauma that Jackson went through, but at the same time, many times there is not a reason, so they don’t know the cause and it’s something that they will never know for sure. And of course, the fact that this happened to Jackson is also important because of his personality. It brought more angst because Jackson felt guilty and that also has a consequence on his relationship with his husband.

(If anybody has any other question, you can ask it at any time in the comments.)