What Are The Most Popular Abyss X Abel Fanfiction Storylines?

Man, that pairing can be rough to track down. A lot of the really specific stuff for Abyss & Abel ends up on niche fandom-specific forums or personal blogs, which you find more by luck and link-hopping than a central hub. AO3 is still my primary recommendation because the tagging system, while not perfect, can at least surface works if authors tag with the ship name or character names from their respective canons. The search function is essential; you'll want to use the 'Relationships' tag and maybe cross-reference the individual character tags. That said, the 'best' collections are often tiny and buried. I once found a haunting three-part series on a now-defunct Geocities-style site that someone had mirrored on Dreamwidth. The quality is so scattered—some platforms have higher traffic but lower concentration for rare pairs. You really have to be willing to dig through archives and use every permutation of the ship name you can think of. My bookmark folder for them is a mess of links from six different places.

I stumbled across this pairing completely by accident, honestly. It was in a huge multi-chapter fic focused on another ship, and their scenes together just hooked me. The writer was playing with this idea of mirrored damage—both characters are these powerhouses who have been through horrific things, but Abel's trauma is worn on the outside, in his physical state, while the Abyss's is all internalized, this deep, cosmic loneliness. What makes the emotional tension crackle, at least in the best fics I've read, isn't just them comforting each other. It's the friction. Abel, with his human(ish) history and guilt, trying to apply logic to something fundamentally alien and ancient. The Abyss, in turn, perceives his suffering as something beautiful and profound, which is both unsettling and weirdly tender. That gap in understanding, where one character's pain is the other's aesthetic, creates this delicious, awful ache. You're never sure if it's healing or a deeper kind of corruption, and that ambiguity is the whole point. A lot of it hinges on the Abyss being an entity, not a person. The best writers don't try to humanize it too much; they let it be vast and strange, so Abel's attempts to connect feel even more fragile and brave.

I stumbled into this ship by accident when looking for niche 'Tower of God' content, and it’s surprisingly fertile ground. The dynamic hinges on a total role reversal from their source material positions—Abel as the hopeful, stubborn regular and Abyss as this ancient, weary administrator. Most compelling fics I’ve read don’t just slap them together as a romance; they explore the sheer cognitive dissonance of their interaction. Abyss has seen countless Abels rise and fall, and this particular Abel’s refusal to accept that cycle creates a fascinating push-pull. It’s less about love confessions and more about ideological warfare with a weirdly intimate undertone. One story that stuck with me had Abyss using the Hidden Floor simulation tech to confront Abel with different versions of himself—failures, tyrants, broken heroes. The tension came from Abel rejecting every simulation as ‘not him’ while Abyss grew increasingly frustrated, his detached curiosity shifting into something almost personal. That’s the gold, I think: writing Abyss as someone who believes he knows every possible outcome, only to find this one irregular variable that scrambles his entire equation. The power imbalance is immense, so the growth has to come from Abyss being slowly, unwillingly changed.

Watching the fandom from a distance, the most recurring pattern I've spotted isn't really about romance in a traditional sense. A ton of fics latch onto the corporate espionage angle from the anime, where Becky hires Loid for a fake date or as a party escort to make a business rival jealous. It's less about them falling for each other and more about watching Loid's hyper-professionalism get chipped away by Becky's chaotic, wealthy, but surprisingly sharp energy. They're not writing love stories; they're writing tension studies. You also get a lot of 'what if' scenarios set after the main story, assuming the Forger family mission is over. Becky finds out his real identity somehow—through her father's connections, most often—and has to grapple with that knowledge while he's still technically married to Yor. Those are often character studies in loyalty and the ethics of secrets. The fluffier, more popular vein is the 'mutual pining during the main timeline' where Becky is acutely aware of her crush and Loid is frustratingly, obliviously dedicated to his role. The appeal is the dramatic irony; we know he's a spy, she doesn't, and his perfect act reads as genuine gentlemanly disinterest.

I recently stumbled upon a gem called 'Ember in the Ashes' on AO3, which features a slow-burn romance between two characters with striking amber eyes. The author crafts these painfully intimate moments where vulnerability isn't just shown—it's dissected. One scene has them confessing fears under a thunderstorm, their golden eyes reflecting lightning like shattered glass. The emotional weight comes from how their flaws intertwine; she's all sharp edges, he's quiet devotion, and their love becomes this fragile, glowing thing. Another standout is 'Gilded Shadows,' where the protagonist's amber eyes are literally tied to their magic—every surge of emotion alters their hue. The romance here thrives on silent exchanges: fingertips brushing during battles, shared glances across crowded rooms. It's not about grand gestures but the way they orbit each other, drawn together by wounds they refuse to let anyone else see. The fic lingers on small details—how their breath hitches when lying, how their eyes darken to burnt umber when hurt—making the love story feel excavated rather than written.

Oh, I've been living in that tag for ages now. The sibling rivalry dynamic is just so... fertile ground, but writers tend to cluster around a few clear tropes. By far the most common is the 'protective older brother' angle. Even though Kusuke's motives are messed up, a lot of fics soften him post-canon, imagining scenarios where some external threat targets Kusuo and Kusuke goes full-on 'only I get to torment him' mode. It's surprisingly sweet, in a dysfunctional way. They'll have him inventing things to secretly safeguard Kusuo, which often leads to awkward, non-verbal 'thank you' moments that feel true to the characters. Then there's the alternate universe stuff, where they aren't related. Coffee shop AUs are weirdly prevalent—Kusuke as the genius barista who's obsessed with figuring out the regular who never speaks but always gets the perfect order. High school rivals is another big one, with Kusuke trying to crack the mystery of the top student who shows zero effort. It strips away the familial obligation and just lets their competitive intellect bounce off each other. A smaller, darker niche explores psychological horror, leaning into Kusuke's canon obsession. Stories where his 'research' crosses even more unethical lines, and Kusuo has to deal with a brother who sees him as the ultimate puzzle to solve, not a person. Those can be tough reads but are often brilliantly tense. Honestly, the best ones mix the comedy and the creepiness, just like the source material. A fic that has them battling over the last pudding while Kusuke has secretly booby-trapped the kitchen is peak them.

honestly, the 'post-ceremony' fics still dominate. That moment after the final duel where Atem leaves—writers just can't resist filling in the gap. The most common setup is Yugi trying to cope while Atem watches from the afterlife or the Shadow Realm, feeling guilty. You get a lot of angsty one-shots with Yugi crying at the tomb or talking to the puzzle. But the really popular longfics often twist it: they have Atem finding a way back, usually through some new magic or a villain threatening the world again. What's interesting is how the tone splits. Some are pure, weepy romance focused on the separation. Others are basically action-adventure sequels to the manga, where their reunion is part of a bigger plot. I'm more into the latter; the former can get a bit samey after a while. There's also a weirdly specific niche of 'body swap' or 'mind meld' stories that explore their psychic link from the early series, which I always click on because it feels so true to the original dynamic.

For a pairing as chaotic as those two, I've noticed most fics orbit a few specific ideas. The classic is the 'Akatsuki partners' slow burn, where they start off annoyed by each other's quirks—Deidara's art rants, Tobi's clumsy act—and eventually find a weird mutual respect that turns into something else. It's all about the forced proximity and shared missions. Then there's the more intense 'unmasking' plot, where Tobi's Obito identity gets revealed earlier, maybe during a mission gone wrong. Those stories get heavy, fast. Deidara grappling with the betrayal, the layers of deception, and whether his connection was ever with 'Tobi' or just a mask. A lot of angst potential there. A niche but fun one I've stumbled on is the 'artist & muse' trope. Deidara sees something compelling beneath the goofiness, decides Tobi is his next great subject, and the whole process of observation and creation blurs lines. It's less about explosive fights and more about quiet, obsessive character studies. Less common but still around are AUs where they meet under different circumstances, like in a modern coffee shop or as rival artists at some academy. Those can be a nice change of pace from the ninja world tension, letting their personalities clash in a totally new setting.

The ones I keep seeing orbit around a few key ideas. There's a huge amount of 'found family' stuff, especially with Albedo becoming a sort of guardian or mentor to Aether and Lumine, which just hits different after the whole separation trauma. The whole 'homunculus learning humanity' angle gets explored a lot through his interactions with Aether, who's this eternal traveler with his own kind of detachment. Then you've got the slow-burn research partners to lovers arc, which is basically a license to write them doing alchemy experiments and going on expeditions together for 50k words before anyone holds hands. It leans hard into the intellectual connection, the shared curiosity about the world's secrets. And of course, the 'what if the corruption from Durin's blood got worse and Aether has to help' trope is basically the go-to for angst with a hopeful ending. Honestly, sometimes I prefer the simpler ones where they're just two weirdos collecting crystalflies and talking about the stars.

There's a weird magnetism to Mahito and Sukuna that makes for oddly specific fic scenarios. You see a lot of stuff about domain clashes, not just in battle but in a metaphysical sense—like, Mahito's idle transfiguration trying to twist Sukuna's soul, but his domain being this ancient, untouchable fortress. It's less romance and more a horror-tinged psychological standoff. A common thread is Sukuna, post-revival, finding Mahito's understanding of the soul 'amusing' or 'crude' and deciding to keep him around as a twisted pet project, dissecting his technique literally and philosophically. The dynamic often hinges on Sukuna's utter disdain for humanity versus Mahito's gleeful destruction of it; they're not allies, but their mutual chaos creates a perverse symbiosis. Fics exploring Sukuna using Mahito as a tool against the Jujutsu sorcerers, only for Mahito to start evolving in unpredictable ways from the exposure, feel very on-brand for both characters. I've also seen a surge in 'what-if' scenarios where Sukuna, still in Yuji's body, takes a more direct interest in Mahito during the Shibuya arc. Instead of the quick disposal, he might draw things out, testing the limits of Idle Transfiguration against his own fragmented soul. It's a playground for body horror and power mechanics fans. The ship itself is niche and contentious, often framed as a dark obsession rather than affection, which honestly fits better than forcing a fluffy dynamic onto two entities that fundamentally view connection as a form of consumption or domination.