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Language:
English
Series:
Part 1 of Ad astra per aspera (To the stars through difficulties)
Collections:
Cutie Patooties
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Published:
2025-09-20
Updated:
2026-06-24
Words:
312,105
Chapters:
37/?
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654
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1,392
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330
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52,585

Cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am)

Summary:

Neil Josten has spent his whole life running. He knows the rules: keep moving, keep lying, keep quiet. But when a chance at something more dangerous than safety drags him off the sidelines, Neil finds himself caught between a past he can't run from and a future he didn't think he could have.

Or what if Neil were a little more anxious, a little more traumatised and a little more scary?

Chapter 1: Part one.

Notes:

Chapters 2 - 11 have all been edited. This does mean that, while I'm still working on them, there is likely to be a gap in writing quality for the rest of part one and maybe the first few chapters of part two :]

Chapter Text

Part one

In the Mouth of a Fox.

 

‘A man can be himself only so long as he is alone, and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.’

-Arthur Schopenhauer