Ace is seventeen, and likes movies, long walks on the beach, cliches, and talking about himself in the third person. Starshone, who would be his perfect woman if Ace wasn't gay, dragged him into Digimon fandom kicking and screaming, which is why they share a lot of pairings. (However, Ace would like to let it be shown on the record that there is absolutely no canonical basis for Jenruki, and Starshone built that ship not even on rock and roll but on wishful thinking. Ceterum, censet Carthaginem esse delendam.) Unfortunately, Ace's attempts at writing fanfiction fall flat on their face when a crossover isn't involved, and he also tends to use a lot of canon and/or culture he knows little to nothing about. (At the very least he's leaving bringing Pokemon into it to the experts.)

The Way Back Home was Ace's National Novel Writing Month project (his username there is Starshone's old account, Starshone Storm, because Ace could not be bothered making his own and it's not like Starshone was using hers), and he won. It was inspired by Starshone once mentioning a failed AU Ryo-centric fic of hers entitled Digital Cowboy and Ace getting entirely the wrong idea, and it all kind of snowballed from there. The title is from the Wreckers' song, mostly because the fic's at least partially set in the country and it's a country song damnit. While he can't think of a way to make the song relevant to the plot (or lack thereof), the first half of the song in particular somehow felt appropriate:
Somewhere in the country, there's a place where nobody knows your name. When I'm feeling lonely, there's a train that helps me run away. I know my mother. She always told me, the road would get cold. I never listened, always forgettin', the way back home... The way back home...

The 'mature' version of The Way Back Home (this only really applies to a couple of chapters, and pretty much only any pairing with Jen) as well as progress reports and complaints can be found at Ace's Livejournal. Also, Starshone went and drew his DATS Omega team, so he feels pretty chuffed right now.

If anything in said fic feels superfluous, it probably is. Ace can only offer the excuse that it's NaNo.