#(Mark has gone full Beaker)

[feraltwinkseb]

March 8, 2024 - Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Source: Clive Rose/Getty Images

#MEME FORMAT! NEW MEME DROP! #(Mark has gone full Beaker) #f1 #formula 1 #mark webber #oscar piastri #mclaren #2024

[the-littlest-goblin]

ooooooooh for fic prompts, could i request: essek interacting with Frumpkin, specifically playing with him (so as to impress Caleb and earn his favor a bit), but our favorite hot boi most likely did not have pets growing up and is at a bit of a loss with what to do. (bonus: Caleb sees this and thinks it's incredibly endearing)

I think you got everything you wanted. ft. my personal 'here’s how Frumpkin can still win’ headcanon.

----

This was not how familiars were supposed to work.

Essek may not have summoned one before (he’d never really understood the use of an assistant with no opposable thumbs), but he had read enough about the spell to know that this was not how familiars were supposed to behave. 

Maybe that was because Frumpkin didn’t technically count as a familiar anymore.

No one knew exactly what had happened, or why. Essek and Caleb had exchanged a number of theories on the matter, but so far the best explanation still went to Beau’s conclusion: “weird fey shit.”

After Aeor and the Somnovem, when they had all finally gotten a chance to breathe again, Caleb had done some sort of ritual to more permanently banish his familiar. Essek hadn’t gotten the full context at the time, but it had something to do with symbolic closure and moving on. The cat was already gone from the Material Plane at that point, but Caleb had wanted to remove the temptation to summon him again, and so devised a sort of reversal of the Find Familiar spell.

However, upon performing the anti-summoning ritual, the cat had appeared in the ritual circle as if Caleb had cast the spell as usual. Only instead of going to his master’s side, Frumpkin had sauntered away from Caleb with a swish of his tail and gone to sit directly at Essek’s feet.

“Hmm,” Caleb had muttered, the hint of a grin twitching at the corner of his mouth. “It looks like he has made a choice.”

Ever since, Caleb had been unable to banish Frumpkin, or communicate with him, or give him orders. He had seemingly lost his magical connection to, and mastery over, the cat—Frumpkin was no longer his familiar, as had been the intention. It was just that Frumpkin apparently liked the Material Plane better than the Feywild, and so refused to leave. And since Caleb had let him go, he chose a new wizard to keep him company. For the next several days they had spent recuperating and planning their next moves, Frumpkin stuck with Essek, never straying from his side for long.

But, crucially, he did not become Essek’s familiar, a lesson they had learned quickly enough. Essek didn’t even have Find Familiar in his spellbook. He couldn’t banish Frumpkin, he couldn’t communicate telepathically with him, and he certainly couldn’t give him orders. 

So, Essek just had a pet cat now, one which happened to be fey in nature. Stranger things had happened—much, much stranger—so for Essek’s part, it had seemed easiest to just accept this development in stride. At times, he was even grateful for the cat’s presence. 

But right now, he was very much not. At least familiars were obedient.

Essek winced against the sound of shattering glass—a sound which was becoming somewhat routine since taking up residence in these new, temporary lodgings with Frumpkin as his roommate. 

Essek closed his eyes and took one deep breath before looking up from his notes to survey the damage. His gaze met Frumpkin’s round, amber eyes across the room, looking impossibly innocent where he sat primly on one of the tables which Essek had set up to house his research. His tail swished back and forth where it hung over the edge, acting like a flashing signal to point Essek’s attention down towards the starburst of broken glass glittering directly beneath him.

Mercifully, the beaker which Frumpkin had marked for termination had been holding a harmless and easily replaceable solvent, rather than any of the more valuable or dangerous liquids Essek had lying around in his provisional lab. His fingers curled protectively around the precious vial of liquid dunamis sitting next to him.

“Why?” He let the single syllable of the word stretch out into a long, bone-deep groan lasting several seconds. The question was aimed both at Frumpkin and at himself, and covered a variety of curiosities he had about the situation. Why did Frumpkin feel such a persistent desire to destroy Essek’s belongings? Why had he chosen to adhere himself to Essek in the first place, when he seemed to hold a deep disdain for everything Essek owned or did? Why was Essek incapable of learning the very simple lesson of locking the door to this makeshift lab? Why had he promised Caleb that he would take care of Frumpkin while the Mighty Nein dealt with the Assembly, instead of throwing the mangy beast out onto the streets of Port Dumali as soon as they had arrived at the safe house?

None of these were questions to which Essek was about to get any answers, so he tried another one.

“What do you want from me?”

Frumpkin blinked.

“You are still a fey being. You don’t need food or water, and as far as I understand, providing those two things are the pillars of caring for a pet. So, what else could you possibly need that requires my attention?”

Frumpkin flicked his ears.

Caleb had given Essek a brief overview of what to expect in terms of cat-care, but either he had chosen to leave out a lot of unsavory details, or decoupling from their arcane connection had put Frumpkin through a drastic personality change, because Essek had received no instructions about how to handle the kind of stalemate in which he currently found himself.

“You have my sincerest apologies, but unlike your previous master, I cannot read your thoughts, and your current methods of communication are lacking in clarity.”

Frumpkin’s tail began swishing faster. He broke eye contact with Essek to gaze intently at the row of jars lining the next table over. These were full of various concoctions, including some potentially dangerous acids, the results of Essek’s increasing boredom as he stayed hunkered down in his safe house day after day. He only ever went out for the duration of a Disguise Self to buy food or other necessary supplies; he was too noticeable to amble around the city for leisure, on the slim but ever-present risk that word of a strange drow in Port Dumali would reach the ears of Ikithon or his servants. Essek was under strict instructions to stay as hidden as possible until he got the all-clear from the Mighty Nein. With only the materials to continue his most basic experiments with dunamis, he was growing bored out of his mind. 

Essek heaved another deep sigh before reluctantly abandoning his notes and gliding over to where Frumpkin had stationed himself. With a short wave of his hands, the spill vanished and the broken shards of glass floated gently into the trash bin. Then, Essek unceremoniously lifted the cat into his arms before he had the chance to wreak any more havoc, and deposited him outside the door. 

Distraction removed, Essek made to turn around and return to his research, this time intending to lock the door to prevent further feline interruptions. But before he could do so, he made the mistake of looking into Frumpkin’s eyes again. The cat’s pupils gleamed, impossibly wide and round, and his tail was still swishing back and forth in an incomprehensible pattern, like some sort of code. A mixture of affection and guilt welled up in Essek, rooting to the spot.

Godsdammit, but he had promised Caleb he was going to take care of his cat, and that meant not ignoring Frumpkin when he was clearly trying to tell him something. Because even if Caleb no longer wanted a familiar to travel around with him, he still loved this damned cat, and also Essek was trying to be less callous and heartless in general.

He thought back to Caleb’s instructions with a fair bit of desperation, searching for some hint of what would make Frumpkin happy. All he came up with was a faint recollection, something about enjoying being scratched behind the ears.

“Is that all you want? Is that what you interrupted me for?” Fighting not to roll his eyes, Essek reached down for a pet.

As soon as he got close enough, Frumpkin lunged.

“Gah!” Essek snatched his hand back, nursing the sting of pain from Frumpkin’s bite. There was no blood; the little demons’s fangs hadn’t managed to break the skin. It could barely count as an injury, but the shock of betrayal hurt more than the scratch.

“What in the Nine Hells was that for?” Essek glared at Frumpkin, then noticed just in time that the cat was poised to strike again. This time, he only had to turn slightly to keep his hands out of harm's way, but Frumpkin wasn’t aiming for the exposed skin. There was a loose thread dangling from the hem of Essek’s sleeve, apparently caught by the previous attack. Frumpkin was intent on it. He flung himself at the thread, grabbing at it with his clumsy paws. It slipped through his grip, and he lunged again without hesitation.

Experimentally, Essek lifted his arm so the thread dangled higher off the ground. Frumpkin took the challenge to heart, leaping to grab it in his teeth before it slipped out of his grasp again, and he landed on the floor in defeat. Essek moved his arm over to one side, and Frumpkin followed with enthusiasm, this time managing to get the thread around one claw. The split second of resistance was enough to tear it from Essek’s sleeve. Frumpkin rolled over onto his back, victorious, batting his prize around in euphoric glee.

A grin spread across Essek’s face as he watched this display of simple delight. 

“I suppose you were just bored, too. Was that it?”

Frumpkin responded by biting the string with a vengeance. 

An idea began forming in the corner of his mind as he watched Frumpkin playing. Absentmindedly, Essek twisted his fingers and summoned a trace thread of dunamis into his hand, shaping and stretching it into a longer and longer cord of greyish, glowing energy, which he then dangled tantalizingly over Frumpkin’s head. The boring, non-magical string was immediately forgotten and discarded as Frumpkin caught sight of the dunamis toy. His whole body wiggling in excitement, he lunged at the cord again and again, pulling a genuine laugh out of Essek as he bobbed and weaved the magic around, dancing it out of Frumpkin’s grasp. He needed a break from his lab anyway, and this was shockingly entertaining.

---

“Well? How are they?” Just a hint of nerves colored Caleb’s voice, as it did every time they checked in on Essek. The fear that this time, the scry would reveal him not safe and sound on the Coast, far from the Trent’s reach, but somewhere cold and dark and threatening.

The faint glow faded from Jester’s eyes as the spell ended. Looking up at Caleb with a smile, she said, “You’re not going to believe this Caleb, it’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.”

Caleb grinned back at her.

#critrole #critical role #my writing #fic prompts #the pedant in me needs to point out that Essek would definitely be wearing his anti-scrying necklace but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #Anonymous

[mango-da-dango]

Predatory

Hanamaki Takahiro x fem! reader

Warning this story includes murder, violence, mentions of gore and cursing, if you are not comfortable with this, please don’t read, however, if you still want to read, take care of yourself

Second person Pov

Ding! Ding! Ding!

“Hanamaki! I’m going to be late! Do you know where my tag is?!” You yelled frantically looking for the stupid piece of plastic on your stupid lanyard. You ran out of your guys’ room and rushed downstairs.

“I found it!” He yelled from the end of the long hall. He screeched, throwing it towards you, “YEET!”

“Thanks! I love you, Astaxanthin hair!” you yelled back rushing out the door and hopped into your car, and sped to your work. Hanamaki watched as you drove off, your car growing smaller and smaller until it disappeared into the distance. He sighed and turned around, looking at their messy house.

“Welp better clean this up…” He thinks bending down and picking up a pillow you threw across the house looking for your tag.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You walked through the busy hallway putting on your white long coat and a pair of safety goggles, placing them around your neck. You saw one of your coworkers waiting for you at one of the corners. A medium height brunette named Oliver waved over to you, “Yo! Over here!”

Oliver was a fairly nice dude, he was even considered the company’s reliable brother. Catching up with him, you two rushed to the presentation room, while running he asked "What's up? You're not usually late to these kinds of things, did something happen?"

"Ah, the power got cut off in the middle of the night, cut off my alarm and a clingy boyfriend not wanting me to leave the bed," you said in between breaths, you wished you spent more time maintaining your stamina after you graduated from high school, but with all the studying and test you did in college, more tests and projects now, you never really had to do any fast sprinting...maybe the occasional lab explosion, but that was rare. You two arrived at a pair of large metal double doors you swiped your card, allowing you access. The doors slowly opened and let you in. The room is filled with tables full of notes and beakers. Many of your fellow scientists had been crowded up around your guys’ latest experiment.

“Ah~ Late to your own presentation I see.” An annoying voice snided. You groaned in annoyance and gave him a crooked smile while an irk mark appeared on your forehead, "What? You were caught up with something back home?"

“Hello, Derek. Yes, yes I am, I was busy doing something so I got held up for a bit, fucking asshole” you snapped, whispering the last part under your breath. He laughed mockingly before walking away. Mumbling about how annoying he was but unfortunately, you were partnered with him.

Making your way to the middle of the crowd and near the announcement desk you coughed gaining everyone’s attention, the smart board turning on and presenting the blueprint of your project "As all of you know we have been working hard on our current project, long hard hours of work and progress has been put into this and let me tell you, my fellow scientists. Our work will not be all for nothing, because it was a success!"

You beamed pumping your fist up and everyone cheered in glee and some throwing papers into the air. Everyone celebrated and some of the company couples kissed with tears in their eyes. After many long hours of torturous work was finally done and we would go down in history as people who changed the world for the better. One of your coworkers, a blonde woman named Annie smiled and patted your back and congratulated you.

"You did good, Y/n. Thanks for bringing us together," she thanked, the poker face never leaving her face, but her eyes sparkled with excitement. You could only stare at the blonde, awestruck. Did she really just show a tiny bit of emotion? Towards you?! This was rare and you were savoring every moment of it.

"ANNIE! THANKS TO YOU WE WOULD OF BEEN STUCK ON THE FIRST STAGE! THANK YOU!" You sobbed pulling the woman into a strong hug, she froze and tensed up before easing and patting your back awkwardly, saying it was no problem. Were you a slut for usually cold people warming up to you? Yes, yes you are.

All the cheer and happiness was cut short when 4 loud bangs echoed through the room and screams of pure horror replaced the joy. You felt waves after waves of pain surge through your body. You screamed in pain and darkness started to engulf your vision. Smoke started to fill your senses and all you heard were piercing screams before you blacked out.

Third-person POV

Screams were heard and the people on the floor underneath the lab grew scared and called for security. When they reached the double doors and entered the room they were greeted by something bizarre. The room was absolutely destroyed, tables broken and flipped, glass broken was scattered all over the place, and papers ripped and dirtied.

Most of the people there were gone, a total of 16 scientists were in the room, but only 4 people remain and all of them were knocked unconscious. Steadily creeping up to the four survivors cautious of their situation, they stopped when they saw the blonde named Annie, flinch, her shoulders started to tremble and so unlike her, she laughed. She turned around staring at them with demented-looking eyes. Shivers went down their spines as it was unusual to see her having more than the usual bored-looking expression on her face. So to see her laugh intensely after the lab was trashed and with eyes like those made them sick to their stomachs and her laughing had caused the others to stir up.

The first one was Oliver, he looked over to where the security guards were standing. His eyes were the same as Annie's, demented and insane. His expression darkened and his breathing was heavy. His brows furrowed and he let out a low growl and glared at the guards with piercing eyes that seemed as if they were able to cut through steel.

Then it was (Y/n)’s turn to wake up. Like Oliver, she was panting heavily with haunting eyes, but in comparison to him, she was even more insane. Her eyes seemed more intense and looked like they held all of the world's sins and tragedies and she looked hungry. As if she hadn’t eaten in forever. The woman made an effort to stand up, she limped and wobbled as if it was her first time attempting to get up.

While that was happening the last survivor, Derek, stared up at the ceiling until an overwhelming feeling of blood lust washed over him. He smiled sinisterly and grabbed a metal leg chair and bashed it over one of the guard's head killing him instantly.

“Fire!” The guards yelled and bullets started to rain all over the room aiming at the sadistic survivor. The sound of constant gunfire made the survivors more agitated. They all growled clutching their heads shrieking and doubling over in pain. They shrieked even louder until something snapped in them and they lunged towards the guards and killed them with their bare hands.

One of the guards managed to escape their wrath and hit an emergency lockdown button. The loud sirens of the building traveled through the entire building. They all growled harder and pain rang through their ears. Derek couldn’t take anymore and swung his weapon towards Y/n. Causing her to lose her balance she tumbled backward, then angrily she lunged and kicked him in the stomach with the strength that could compare with a three-hundred-pound weight being thrown at you.

She clawed at him and tried to rip his eyes out, but he got the upper hand and bit off a part of her shoulder, and slammed her head against the floor knocking her out. Oliver didn’t take this too lightly and kicked him straight on the back of his head. Derek stumbled before grabbing Oliver’s leg and flinging him over his shoulder, crashing into a nearby table and began to beat him mercilessly.

While all of this happened Annie got up still laughing and stumbled out, hugging herself. While walking she found one of the company’s interns looking at her in concern, they rushed to her side, “Ms. Annie! Do you need help? You’re injured.”

She leaned into their chest and wrapped her arms around them before grabbing a tight hold of their neck. The poor intern tried gasping for air but to no avail as Annie’s slim fingers trapped their neck preventing any air from coming back in or out. She laughed lowly, the soft giggles spilling out. She stared into their eyes intensely, they were about to pass out until a figure knocked her out by chopping the back of her neck. The intern breathed out huffing and looked at their savior. It was one of the more experienced security guards.

“Get out and look for somewhere to hide, four scientists have gone insane.” He warned pushing them into the direction of the exit. The intern nodded and left. The security guard looked around for more wandering people before he bumped into a frantic redhead, He immediately recognized her as one of the science assistants.

“Mr Takaoka! Please you have to help them! I saw the scientists get attacked by a strange man! Now they’re going insane and hurting each other! Please you have to help Ms Y/n and Mr Oliver!” They cried, tears pricking the corners of their eyes. Takaoka the security guard told the poor girl to calm down and explain what was going to happen.

“Look, the Emergency siren has been set off, we will take care of everything, just go downstairs and find a safe place to hide, ok?” He assured the assistant, she nodded and then left. Once seeing that she was gone, he took out his radio and called for backup.

After rendezvousing with his team they made their way to the danger zone. Lining up against the wall they prepared with tasers in guns in hand. They opened the door and saw the two men fighting savagely as if they were animals in the wild, their uniforms were ripped up and bloody. Bruises and lacerations littered their bodies as they continued to fight all while Y/n was passed out in the corner.

“Restrain them!” Takaoka yelled, he aimed the stun gun and fired at the two with the others following soon after him. The targets landed and electricity surged through their bodies and mass amounts of pain engulfed the two as they screamed in pain. Stumbling, Derek grabbed hold of the slab of metal and swung at the security guard. Takaoka easily dodged and chopped the side of his neck, knocking him out.

Last was Oliver who just seemed to glare at the knocked-out scientist, gripping his arm. Two of the security guards tried approaching him, but he growled and started thrashing around and wobbling around Takaoka snuck up behind the man and knocked him out.

“Bring them to a medical confinement room with a one-way window, we need to find out why they’re acting like this.” He ordered. The guards agreed and began moving all the unconscious scientists to their designated cells.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The four scientists were secured in separate chambers all knocked out and handcuffed to their beds. The redheaded assistant was trembling in her shoes as she stood outside Y/n’s room, looking through the one-way window she was shocked at how much damage was inflicted upon her. She racked at her brain trying to think of what to do next. Then a thought came to her head.

“ I should inform her partner about this!” She thought, pulling out her work cell and dialing the pink-haired man’s number.

Ring! Ring! Ring! “Hello?” a voice picked up on the other end.

“Mr Hanamaki! This is Ms L/n’s assistant! Something bad has happened here, and we want you to come here right away!” She informed trying to sound professional, but the panic and dread were clear through her trembling voice.

“Something happened to her?! Ok, I’ll be right there.” He said before the phone flatlined. The shaken assistant sighed and looked into the room once again, eyebrows furrowed in worry.

Hanamaki rushed all over the place looking for his keys stumbling out the door with his shoes on the wrong feet, he got in the car and drove off. Normally he was a good driver, but his girlfriend's life was probably at stake, how could he possibly think of anything else but her right now? Thoughts of all the worst-case scenarios flooded his mind What if there was a gas leak that was potentially deadly? Did an explosion happen? Did an experiment backfire? Honestly, he worried about her all the time, with the job she has, anything could happen.

After almost running over a trash can and turning a sharp corner that almost got him arrested he finally reached the facility. He checked in with the receptionist at the front desk and is now climbing the mountain of stairs trying to reach the top floors when a loud boom almost made him fall.

“What was that!?” He thought, even more thoughts came rushing into his head, the sirens and emergency announcement didn’t help either.

“Attention all visitors and faculty members, please exit the facility at once. There is an emergency and all residents need to leave the building immediately.” those lines were repeated over the already loud sirens and a wave of people came flowing down the staircase. Chaos spread as all of them pushed each other, trying to escape the building panicked but Hanamaki stayed persistent looking for his lover.

After a while of struggling he reached the 43rd floor which is where Y/n was supposed to be. He ran down the empty hall looking for her when one of the rooms exploded and sent a giant slab of glass his way, slicing the side of his arm. He groaned, calling your name and clutching his wounded arm until he reached your room, but all he saw was that it was empty and trashed.

“Y/n! Y/n! Where are you!? I’m here!” He yelled, avoiding the wrecked furniture in the halls. A pair of staggered footsteps resounded through the halls, Hanamaki’s head whipped to the source of the sound hopeful, “Y/n!”

“Hehehe~ Looking for your girlfriend huh, pinky~” Derek laughed condescendingly, in his hand he had a metal pipe covered in blood, his face looked psychotic as a wide and sinister smile was apparent. The creases from the painfully looking grin were very prominent and resembled the folds in the fabric when circled and bunched together, but what really got Hanamaki freaking out was the look of bloodlust in his eyes, they were almost predatory like.

Stepping back, the pink-haired man realized he was at a disadvantage, he knew very little in self-defense, had an injured arm, and was pitted against a deranged sadist armed with a metal pipe. So yeah, this was really bad for him. Hanamaki tried thinking of a way to get out when he heard rapid footsteps coming closer, and the sound of feral growling roamed through the halls, his eyes widened hearing the familiar voice. He gasped, “Y/n!”

Then, a loud crash erupted and glass shattered everywhere and a small figure crashed through a glass door and attacked the deranged madman, knocking the pipe out of his hand, you growled smashing your elbow into his face. He grabbed your arm before throwing you across the room, crashing into the wall, grabbing a nearby plant, you hurled it at him before tackling him. You wrestled and bit him. Growling, you rolled the man over before you were able to force him into a nearby room and pushed large groups of debris, locking him inside.

You stopped and stared at the door, breathing heavily, he was not a threat anymore. Vivid images of his deranged face while you were fighting flashed through your head. You growled as the scenes in your head grew more bloody and gruesome until eventually, all you could see was the color red. The screams in your ears began to grow louder as you scratched and you hit at your head, desperately trying to get it to stop, when you heard someone yell, “Y/n! What do you think you’re doing?! Stop!”

Hanamaki tried to run to you when you growled and lunged at him first. He was caught off guard and his head hit the floor as you two fell and pinned him down, growling you were about to attack when the screams began to get quieter, the visions of blood grew fainter and now you could see him clearly, his light skin covered in his blood and dirt, his pinkish-brown hair tousled and dirtied by the crumbling building, his eyes were closed, but somehow you knew they were a nice shade of brown. He seemed familiar to you, but you couldn’t remember what or who he was to you, but all you could feel was a sense of relief when looking at him, your eyes traveled down, looking at him when you saw his injured arm.

You felt a pang in your heart, not knowing what the emotion was, but it didn’t feel good. It made you feel bad. You removed your hand that was pinning him down and you grabbed your jacket and you tried holding it against his wound. You whimpered as it stopped only a little bit, but the red liquid stained the scuffed fabric, it made you panic when you realized it wasn’t stopping. You whined pathetically trying to add more pressure.

Hanamaki looked at you in confusion. What were you doing? Why haven’t you spoken to him yet? Why were you whimpering? Why did you remind him of a small child or a puppy that has gotten in trouble? His head started spinning, his vision blurring, and his eyes starting to get heavy. He couldn’t tell, but his eyes closed and he slipped into unconsciousness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Y/N!” Hanamaki yelled, sitting up, panting, and sweating. He looked around expecting your guy’s bedroom with you sleeping soundly next to him...but you weren’t there. All he saw was white walls, white ceilings and machines hooked up to his arms, the beeping consistent, showing he was very much alive. He looked around, seeing he was in a hospital room, confused why he was there and not in bed, cuddling with you. He grabbed the remote next to his bed and pressed the call button and he screamed, “Where’s Y/n?!”

#haikyu x reader #haikyuu hanamaki #x reader #haikyuu!! #hq hanamaki #hanamaki takahiro

[exhaustedfander]

“What if I told you that I loved you?” Chapter One

Word Count: 1,389

summary: Logan is taken aback when Remus asks him a question: "What if I told you that I loved you?" What can the supposedly "unfeeling" side say in response to such a query?

This was just going to be a oneshot but I decided it's probably more palatable broken up into three smaller chapter. It’s some good old fashioned Logan angst and intrulogical because I adore both of those things. I’d love to hear what you think, reblogs are really appreciated, and as always, have a wonderful day/night!

a03 link

Writing Masterpost link

“What if I told you that I love you?”

Logan’s fairly sure he feels his heart go dead in his chest, the beat turning to nothing but dull silence. The papers clutched in his hands – what are they again? Schedules? A worksheet on how to improve Thomas’s timeliness that will surely be ignored? – crumble under the abuse.

“I – I beg your pardon?” Logan rasps out, his assumedly dead heartbeat coming back to life with roaring force. It thunders in his chest, so hard and intensely Logan thinks, if only for a moment, that it might just beat right out of his chest. And what an image that would be, his heart erupting from his chest; one Remus would surely take a liking to.

He’s been sitting alone in the common room for nearly an hour now, if not longer. He hadn’t heard Remus enter the room or rise up and now here he is, two hands clutching the back of the couch where Logan is sitting, his unkempt nails digging into the fabric, sure to leave a mark. There was no warning up until this moment, no way of telling that Remus was about to ask a question of such magnitude.

And now here Logan sits, his crumpled papers littering the floor as he swivels to meet Remus’s always wild eyes. But they’re something more than wild today, aren’t they? There isn’t pure mayhem burning in them. Well, perhaps there is, but it’s accompanied by something much stronger, far more dangerous: affection.

“What if I told you that I love you,” Remus repeats accommodatingly slow so that there is absolutely no way for Logan to misinterpret his words, “What would you say to that?”

What would Logan say to that? What could he say in response to a statement of such absurdity? Logan doesn’t know, and that it terribly troubling. Logan always knows – he’s always the one to figure out an issue, the one to understand the best course of action. Logan knows everything… at least that’s what he’s been telling himself. But this? Love? Logan doesn’t know the first thing about it, and he doesn’t want to either.

Never mind the burning in the pit of his stomach, or the way his body is betraying him, trembling like a bird that’s tumbled from the nest, destined to die writhing in the grass, gasping for air he’s no longer allowed.

“I don’t know why you’re asking me such a question,” Logan hisses. He doesn’t mean for the response to come out so bitter, so wounded. Because, really, he isn’t either of those things. To call himself wounded to any degree would be far too dramatic for his taste. Logan isn’t one to give into dramatics… except, there’s something flashing in Remus’s wide eyes. If he were a different man, someone foolish enough to give in to emotion, he might call it hope, might even call it fear.

The nature of Remus and Logan’s relationship has taken a turn in recent months. Logan doesn’t entirely know how to account for it; prior, they’d had almost no relationship to speak of. In the past, he’d never considered turning to Remus of all sides for conversation. Remus represented, among other things, intrusive thoughts. It would make very little sense for the embodiment of logic to seek out the embodiment of intrusive thoughts. Remus constantly insisted on how unpredictable he was, which is, for the most part, true. But there’s something more to him, Logan was quick to learn.

Yes, Remus is crude, he’s unpredictable, he’s strange and makes comments about things Logan wouldn’t ever have considered on his own. But that’s just it; Remus challenges him. His topics of conversation, while odd, are something that fascinates Logan so, maybe more than he’d like to admit. For as long as he can remember, Logan’s had a hard time being taken seriously by the others. He’s done everything in his power to remedy this, reminding them of his importance to the group, trying to convince them to look at a situation with logic rather than emotion. It’s too much to contemplate, sometimes, the way he’s grown so used to being disregarded.

He has no malice for the others, they’re his friends, and Thomas is his host. He would do anything to ensure the best quality of life for him – even if that does take some revaluating what’s important in life sometimes. But there have been so many points in his life where Logan has ached for understanding, for someone to talk to him about anything he wants not because they feel obligated, but because they want to.

He’s found that with Remus, maybe. He isn’t entirely sure, it all seems so complicated. The first time he found himself enthralled in a long conversation with the intrusive side – the topic was the most interesting ways to kill someone, he recalls – he had felt so dumbstruck. How could he, logic, find such solace in Remus? It didn’t make any sense.

Even so, things continued. Their conversations became more frequent, their time spent together almost constant. At first, he’d come up with excuses as to why they’d be spending time together: Oh, Remus is allowing me to study the flora and fauna of his side of the imagination, Remus and I are doing an experiment together, Remus requires my assistance. But as time drag on, these excuses became far less urgent, and eventually nonexistent. They were merely spending time with one another.

Remus and Logan were friends. This shouldn’t have come off as odd; after all, Logan considered the other’s friends as well. Why should it be any different with Remus?

It was, though. Logan can’t pinpoint when things had started… when things had shifted. But they had, somewhere along the way Remus's hands had lingered when he clapped him on the back, watching with glee as a beaker bubbled over. Logan had stilled in Remus’s hold, accepting embraces that he should have had more sense than to indulge. Unexplainably strange thoughts about Remus had emerged, at first in the depth of slumber, but soon they evolved to invade his mind in hours of waking as well as sleep.

It isn’t as though Logan doesn’t know the danger of repression, he’s far smarter than that, but he hadn’t accounted for the fact that he’d been repressing anything. And now here he sits, his eyes locked to Remus, waiting for this to merely be another dream. Logan’s fairly certain he’s had this dream before.

“That isn’t an answer,” Remus insists, his eyes locked onto Logan, watching him squirm. Logan swallows, the sudden pressure in his throat failing to recede.

“I don’t know what you’re getting at Remus, but I’m becoming impatient.” Logan finds himself standing up, his legs trembling only slightly under the weight of Remus’s eyes.

“I’m asking a fairly simple question, nerdy wolverine, you would think someone with a reputation for being a smarty-pants would grasp that.” There’s a tremor on Remus’s voice, so small someone who wasn’t well versed in his speech and mannerisms might not catch it. Of course, Logan catches it.

It dawns suddenly and horribly, the emotion in Remus’s question, raw and vulnerable in a way he’s never expected from Remus. They’ve spent so much time together, so many hours learning about one another, growing impossibly close. Logan hadn’t intended to become Remus’s friend, and anything past that is nearly impossible to contemplate.

This is a love confession, he realizes suddenly, horrified. It isn’t just Remus asking a stupid question for the hell of it; this is genuine. Logan is by no means in-tune with most emotions, certainly not those that pertain to romance, but the look in Remus’s eyes, the nature of the question, the feeling that’s settled at the pit of his stomach all point to it – Remus is confessing his love.

“–gan? Logan? Are you okay, nerd?” Logan hasn’t realized how far-gone he’s feeling until Remus’s voice is cutting through the cobwebs of his mind, snapping him out of the trance, but a return to full consciousness only causes his anxiety to spike.

Before he knows it, Logan is sinking out of the commons room and into his own bedroom, but still, he can’t escape the echo of Remus’s question.

"What if I told you that I love you?"

=+=

#Intrulogical #romantic intrulogical #Remus Sanders #Remus the duke Sanders #Logan Sanders #fluff #angst #angst/fluff #Logan angst #Logan's bad at feelings but what's new #they're two halves of a whole idiot #exhaustedfander #exhaustedfander writes

[bangtan-gal]

How to Break a Heart Step 1

Jung Jaehyun Sicheng | Kun | Jungwoo | YangYang | Doyoung | Ten

Summary: The biggest lie the universe has ever told is that everyone finds love at some point in their lives. Warnings: swearing, angst, fluff, implied smut, underage drinking and drug use Word Count: 3.1k  A/n: i will be doing a tag list for this series, so if you would like to be tagged, please dm, comment, or send in an ask!

Jung Jaehyun

Junior Year—2012

He was definitely an idiot, but for what it was worth, he was pretty dang cute.

“Have you ever noticed the way his eyes sparkle when he smiles?” You sighed, cupping your cheek in your hand. Your friend huffed beside you, not even looking up as she continued to work on the lab report. 

“Have You Ever noticed how you act as if you’d sell your soul to him?” She retorted, waving her hand in front of your face. You snorted, pushing her hand away and continuing to ogle at him. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he laughed at something his friend said. His hand was moving animatedly, coming dangerously close to spilling the beaker of chemicals everywhere. 

It would stain and ruin his clothes if it spilled.

“Believe me, if he was a succubus of some sort, I wouldn’t even hesitate to give him my soul,” you muttered. 

A string of cuss words fell from his friend’s lips as the beaker fell from the table and shattered on the floor. 

Green goop spread out along the floor and you were knocked from your trance.

“You shouldn’t date a guy for his looks, Y/N,” Lia reprimanded, still scribbling madly away at her lab report. “Especially not a guy like Jaehyun, whose thoughts are always on basketball and what kind of trouble he can get into next weekend.”

You sighed, glancing down at the worksheet in front of you and assessing the questions. You wished she wasn’t, but LIa was right. Jaehyun was only the glorious prince in the scenarios you created, not in the world that spun around you. In this world, Jaehyun only knew you as the student who sat behind him in chemistry and occasionally offered him help on his homework. Jaehyun was just a basketball player with a pretty smile.

Class ended as the teacher dismissed everyone so the mess could be cleaned up. You and Lia hurried down the hallway and exited the building silently. It was cold and the ground was covered in clumps of white. The wind was harsh against your face and you pulled your jacket up, looking over at Lia. She brushed her hair out of her face and then pursed her lips.

“What about Mark? Hasn’t he asked you out?” She asked. 

You stuffed your hands in your pockets and shrugged, following her through the parking lot.

“He’s my brother’s best friend, that doesn’t even feel right,” you huffed, blowing a piece of hair out of your face. “Plus… it’s Mark.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

You slid into her car, brushing the snow off your shoulders and hair. Lia started the car and then turned to you, raising an eyebrow in curiosity. 

“It’s Mark. The boy I used to play hide n’ seek with, the boy who put snakes and spiders in my backpack in middle school; Mark, who sometimes would hug me through my tears and paid more attention to me than my own brother ever did,” you explained. Mark was a good guy, but not in the way you wanted. He was a good guy in the way where he was like an older brother who threatened to beat up anyone who broke your heart. 

“Well, at least he has a heart, unlike Jung Jaehyun.”

You were trying not to fall asleep as you waited for class to start. You had been unable to sleep the night before, your mind repeatedly mulling over what Lia had said to you. Should you have given Mark a chance? But it just felt wrong. He was your brother’s best friend, that was almost worse than dating your brother. 

“Aye, Jaehyun!” You forced yourself not to perk up at the sound of his name or his cheerful reply. He was cute, but he was stupid and the epitome of trouble. Lia sat down beside you, smacking the back of your head teasingly.

“Damn, wake up,” she chortled. 

The bell rang and your Chemistry teacher stood up.

“Today, we’re going to be switching up some seat partners… due to an event yesterday,” he announced. Jaehyun and Johnny both chuckled. You sighed, sitting up in your seat and watching as the teacher’s gaze ran over the class. His eyes landed on you.

“Y/N.”

Shit.

“Could you switch seats with Johnny, please? Maybe you’ll keep Jaehyun in shape,” he huffed, sending an annoyed glance the boy’s way. Your throat closed up as you stood up, grabbing your backpack and bumping shoulders with Johnny as you passed him. You fumbled to sit down and then cast a stare over your shoulder at Lia. Her eyes darted between you and Johnny and then she shrugged. 

The whole time you found yourself aware of how close the boy was to you. His knees brushed against yours and if you shifted slightly, your shoulders would be touching. You couldn’t focus on the teacher’s lecture as he spun his pencil and would occasionally lose his hold on it and it would skitter across the table. You pinched your eyes shut, trying to remove his smile from your memory.

“Hey.” Goosebumps erupted along your skin as he leaned closer. “Were you paying attention at all?”

You opened your eyes and side-eyed him.

“No…”

He leaned back in his seat, a curious stare running over you. Then he turned around, brightly smiling at the boy behind him.

“What are we supposed to be doing?” He asked.

The boy didn’t look impressed.

“Weren’t you listening?”

“Damn, tough crowd,” Jaehyun muttered to you and despite the situation, you found yourself smiling. 

“You have a pretty smile.”

The compliment took by such a surprise that your smile disappeared. You looked up, meeting his bright stare. His dimples were on full display. Your heart thumped in your ears and you were certain your face was red.

Jaehyun tilted his head.

“Can I see it again?”

You should’ve been working, but when the boy overdramatically pouted, you smiled again as a small laugh escaped you. Jaehyun smiled back, his eyes flicking over your face. As the two of you continued to stare at each other, you couldn’t help but feel conscious. This was weird.

“It’s Y/N, right?” He asked.

You cleared your throat.

“Yeah, that’s me,”

He grinned. “I remember you—Freshman year in PE class, you told the teacher that he should be the one running instead of us.”

If your face wasn’t red before, it definitely was now.

A dry laugh escaped you and you nodded warily.

“Yup… once again, that’s me,” you squeaked. He threw back his head and laughed. 

“Damn, I remember really wanting to talk to you—that was so cool. I didn’t have the guts to though, you seemed kind of scary,” he murmured, shaking his head. His gaze dropped to the desk and he started to trace the worksheet. You ran a hand through your hair, teeth working on your bottom. He was scared to talk to you? Another smile bloomed on your face, but this time it was different, it was wide and goofy and all you could think about was how the two of you were basically in the same boat. 

“Well, I’m not all that scary,” you teased softly, unable to look at him as you started to work on the sheet. “I might bite a little bit though.”

It was a weird and tentative start, but it was a start nonetheless. The two of you started to talk more often and continued to work together in chemistry. It grew from there, becoming more than just homework. You talked before and after class, would go the extra length to see each other during lunch or study hall. Eventually, you got his number and the two of you started to hang out outside of school. 

You learned quickly that Jaehyun wasn’t the perfect prince you saw in your mind, but he wasn’t some heartless monster like how Lia tried to depict him. He was… well, he was human. He sometimes forgot about your plans, but always made up for it with paragraphs of apologies and horribly made cookies. 

wA day into your friendship with Jaehyun, you learned not to eat anything he made himself.

“I don’t think you understand how this works,” you grumbled, frowning at him. He frowned back.

“It’s four significant figures—”

“No, it’s three,” you argued.

“How?” 

“When you multiply, it’s the smallest amount,” you explained, pointing to the numbers on the problem, “so therefore, it’s rounded to three.”

Jaehyun groaned, collapsing against the table. “I fucking hate Chemistry.”

You shook your head with a laugh and laid your head beside his. “The year is almost done and then you won’t have to worry about it anymore.”

“Watch me fail the final,” he whined, turning to look at you. His face was extremely close and this close you could see just how long his lashes were. They curled up against his brow bone. You smiled, not realizing how obvious your visual trace of his face was. He had defined cheekbones, with a soft spray of freckles dotting along them and over the bridge of his nose. His lips were light pink, but were darker near the middle. 

Jaehyun smiled back at you.

“Hey,” you whispered.

“Hey.”

His lips were warm. They were soft. Your eyes fluttered shut as his fingers ran up your arm, your neck, and over your jaw. His thumb massaged the area underneath your ear as his fingers played with your hair. You felt dazed as you pulled back, eyes still closed and soft breaths escaping you. Finally, you opened your eyes, a tilted smile on your face. Jaehyun chuckled, pulling back a bit more, pink spreading along his face.

“God, I’ve wanted to do that for a while,” he muttered. You looked down, still smiling, Jaehyun’s hand dropped from your head to your hand, his fingers curling over yours. 

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Jaehyun twirled you around. It was a warm day, the sun bearing down on both of you. You were certain you’d never seen him smile any wider.

Summer had started a month ago, but your summer truly started today. Jaehyun had been gone on vacation in Northern Europe. Seeing him again was like a breath of fresh air. You’d missed his smile, his hugs, his laugh… you just missed him.

“I missed you so much,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “You don’t even know.”

You laughed. “I don’t even know? I missed you more than you could ever imagine!” 

He smirked and kissed you again.

“Maybe,” he chirped. His eyes ran along your face. Silence grew between you. You smiled nervously, tucking a piece of your hair behind your ear.

“What are you doing?” “Commiting you to memory,” he sighed. You snorted, elbowing him in the ribs.

“That’s creepy.”

He laughed.

“Fine, I was just thinking about how you’ve become prettier in the past month,” he explained, “or I have a sucky memory.”

You didn’t let your smile falter, even though your heart seemed to fall. Something wasn’t right. It was like there was something pulling in your gut. Jaehyun was acting the same, but there was a dark flicker in his eyes. A flicker that you didn’t like.

“Hey, you okay?” He asked.

You nodded, forcing your smile to widen.

“Yeah.”

He wrapped an arm around your shoulders. His smile was wide and dimples on full display. The kiss he pressed to your temple was soft and sweet. You leaned into him and brushed away the earlier look. Jaehyun was just tired. He’d been on a plane for 12 hours and came to see you right away.

“Oh yeah, I got you something,” Jaehyun said, “close your eyes.”

You obliged, letting your eyes flutter shut. There was a soft rustling and then Jaehyun stepped behind you. Something cold and delicate was placed around your neck. You opened your eyes slowly, glancing down at the necklace. It was rose-gold and glimmered in the sunlight. A rose-quartz hung at the end, a daisy dry-pressed in the center. It was stunning.

“I remember you talking about a rose-quartz ring you used to have and how much you loved it. And you love daisies because of Narcissus, that Greek myth dude,” he whispered. Your heart raced, tracing the gem carefully. Then you turned around, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips and pulled back with a grin. 

“Thank you, I absolutely love it!” You mumbled against his lips. Your arms wrapped around his neck and you stood there in your front yard, the two of you swaying back and forth. The light breeze tugged at your hair, twirling it around your head. Jaehyun’s eyes sparkled under the sunlight. 

He looked ethereal. 

Hell, he was ethereal. 

Your mind wandered back to before you started dating, when Lia used to tell you that he was toxic: that he was just a boy who ruined others lives. Yet, the only thing you’d seen from him was the exact opposite. He was sweet and caring and could be a total goofball at times. He’d always put you above him and would go to great lengths to make sure you were happy. You had never been happier before your time with Jaehyun; you always felt like you were on cloud nine with him. 

“How was Europe?” You queried. The two of you were still awkwardly slow dancing in your front yard.

He smiled and let his forehead rest against yours.

“It was really fun. You don’t realize just how pretty it actually is until you’re there,” he commented. His arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you closer to him. 

“What was your favorite part?” Jaehyun thought for a second before opening his mouth.

“Is that Jung Jaehyun?”

Jaehyun turned around and then pulled away from you, smile widening as he waved at a group of his friends. You deflated slightly, watching as Yuta’s car pulled up against the curb. The three boys stepped out, all of them clapping him on the back and loudly greeting him. Johnny winked at you and ruffled your hair, treating you as if you were Jaehyun’s younger sister instead of his girlfriend.

“Hey Y/N,” Taeil chirped. 

“Hi,” you grumbled, your gaze flicking back to Jaehyun, wondering if he would shoo them away so you could spend more alone time together.

“I’m throwing a party tonight, the two of you should come,” Yuta jumped in, wide smile on full display. His hair had been dyed red at the end of the school year, but now it was mostly faded to a weird mix of deep brown and faded red. “Nine at my place.”

You opened your mouth, ready to decline, but Jaehyun beat you to it.

“We’ll see you there,” he hummed, fist bumping Yuta. The boy smirked and then glanced over at you before sending a sly look Jaehyun’s way.

“Unless you’re gonna be too busy,” he giggled. 

And sometimes you forgot why Yuta was the most annoying one of Jaehyun’s friends.

The trio drove off, leaving the two of you to awkwardly stand and watch them leave. As the car disappeared around the corner, you turned to your boyfriend, arms crossed over your chest. You raised an eyebrow. 

“Aren’t even gonna ask if I actually want to go?”

“Babe I just th—”

“You just thought that I’d want to spend my first day with my boyfriend at a loud ass party?” You snapped, taking a step back. Jaehyun grabbed your hand, dragging you towards him.

“Look, Y/N, I know you don’t like parties, but I haven’t seen my pals just as long as I haven’t seen you,” he huffed, “and I want to see them, but I also want to spend time with you. Just this once? I promise if you hate it, we can come back here and watch Finding Nemo.”

You sighed, staring at him through your lashes.

“Fine, but if we go home, you can’t complain about the movie,” you muttered. He grinned at you.

“Not even a little?”

You gave him a deadpanning stare.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

The second you stepped into the party, you hated it, but for Jaehyun’s sake, you didn’t give up on it right away. The reek of alcohol and the underlying smell of smoke underneath was sickening. Teenagers roamed around the house, each smelling like walking gyms. Johnny saw the two of you immediately and hurried over, wrapping his arms around both your shoulders. He smiled at the two of you. 

“Let’s get the both of you drink, shall we?” 

The last thing you wanted was a drink, but you followed them to the kitchen either way. Jaehyun immediately moved throughout the cabinets, making himself his own drink as Johnny turned to you. 

“Beer or vodka?” You crossed yours arms, eyes wandering boredly around the place.

“Just water.”

Johnny raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? How boring can you get?” “How much of a douche can you be?” You retorted. He snorted, reeling away from you as if you had physically hit him. No more comments were made as Jaehyun finally had a drink in his hand and made his way over to you. You told yourself you’d make it an hour before you went home.

Just an hour.

“Jae!” Lucas shouted, appearing between you two, “You gotta come reclaim your spot as King bro.”

Jaehyun laughed, teasingly pulling away from the boy. 

“No no, I’m content to just watch you idiots do it,” he chuckled. Yuta suddenly popped into the room, wrapping an arm around Jaehyun’s neck. He ruffled his hair and then grinned at you.

“You’re the idiot, considering how many times you won.”

That was the only coaxing Jaehyun needed to let himself be dragged through the dining room and the living room where the beer pong table was set up. You followed wearily, sending glares at anyone who brushed against you. Jaehyun handed you his phone and took off his jacket, moving to one end of the table. You sat down on the couch, clutching his coat tightly in your hands as you watched. 

You hated this so much.

You could already see how this would end. 

Jaehyun would be drunk off his ass by the end of the night and you wouldn’t see him for the next couple of days as he nursed away his hangover.

You watched the first several tosses, before your annoyance over took any pride you had in your boyfriend. You opened his phone to check the time and were greeted by a couple text messages. Some were from friends, one from his mom, and two from someone named ‘Sylvia.’ You weren’t one to snoop, but as his phone suddenly lit up from another next message from Sylvia, your curiosity got the best of you. You unlocked his phone.

Hey, I’ve missed you

Had lots of fun with you, never been with someone that fiery

Your stomach lurched and you didn’t even care to read the last message.

You stood up, tossing his coat and phone on the ground. Tears were brimming at the corners of your eyes and the sudden urge to puke was almost unbearable. Your hand covered your mouth as you glanced up, meeting Jaehyun’s stare. You saw it his eyes—that same dark flicker before they widened in horror, realizing exactly what had just happened. Tears were already sliding down your face as you desperately shook your head in disbelief. Then you left, sprinting from the house as if demons were hot on your tail.

Running away from the nightmare that had just occurred.

You stumbled out in the dark street, eyes darting around. None of the drunk or high teens spared you a glance as you started to hurry down the sidewalk. Your skin was flushed and your heart was racing as you tried to pretend that you were fine.  That what just happened was all a dream.

That Jaehyun was just a dream.

Everything you gave him was only a daydream and now you were awake.

And Jaehyun doesn’t exist.

♡🎔🎔🎔🎔🎔🎔

#kpop scenarios #kpop reactions #kpop imagines #kpop x reader #kpop fluff #kpop angst #kpop smut #kpop fics #nct imagines #nct scenarios #nct reactions #nct x reader #nct angst #nct smut #nct fluff #nct fics #jung jaehyun x reader #dong sicheng x reader #kim jungwoo x reader #qian kun x reader #kim doyoung x reader #liu yangyang x reader #ten x reader #jaehyun x reader #jung jaehyun oneshot #jaehyun oneshot #jaehyun icons #jung jaehyun icons

[thought-42]

Fictober day 9: “will you look at this?”

Critical Role, 1167 words, Essek, Caleb, Nott. More in the modern au "Will you take a look at this?"

Essek assumes Caleb is asking about a passage in a book, perhaps the results of an experimental spell.

He's not expecting to have to scan the apartment (room, it's one room and somehow everyone seems to just... call it an apartment) and finally see his legs, encased in jeans faded to a dull grey sticking out from beneath the kitchen sink. Caleb is wearing frankly hideous slippers with cat ears on the toes.

Essek is curled on the makeshift window seat, the rain beating hard against the glass a pleasant, if not soothing, backdrop to his reading. He's wearing Caleb's clothes --or at least his sweater-- and it feels terribly, shamefully indulgent. The sleeves cover his hands entirely. He feels like the protagonist of some romantic novel-- starving artists in garrets and breathless kisses against the backdrop of autumn leaves.

He does not want to shatter the dream-like contentment to investigate whatever is lurking in amongst the pipes. There is quite literally nothing that could be under there --mice, mould, leaks-- that he wants to deal with.

"I sincerely doubt I'll be of any use," he calls over, tucking a finger in his book to mark his place and giving Caleb his full attention.

"Hmm," says Caleb. "That's... unfortunate."

"Are we actively on fire?" Nott calls, looking up from the series of wooden crates where she's spread out a variety of glass beakers and is mixing incredibly questionable liquids and powders together. Essek has no idea what a home drug lab looks like and he's trying to reassure himself that there's a perfectly reasonable explanation that isn't that.

"No," Caleb says, dragging the 'o' out absently. "Possibly the opposite."

Nott doesn't reply. Essek really isn't sure what he can do to assist, but he's starting to think he should at least investigate the situation. And yet, he is very comfortable. Nothing hurts, even in the unseasonably rainy weather. Even after hours of being cramped on a train the previous day, and sleeping on Caleb's thin mattress overnight.

The first time he had come to meet Caleb in person he hadn't been sure what to expect, and had booked a hotel ahead of time where he had spent three very lonely nights agonizing over every interaction at the library and the coffee shop and the wine bar that they rotated through each day. He had gone home with Caleb on the last day to pick up some books, and when they had stepped out of the taxi in front of the run-down apartment building, windows boarded up and trash scattered on the steps, he had been quite certain he was about to be quietly tortured to death, proving his entire family humiliatingly right.

He hates to admit it, but when he had entered the apartment to find a tiefling and a goblin already there, in amongst stacks of clearly expensive, clearly well-cared for books, he had been immediately relieved. He had no trouble at the boarder crossing, only a few stares from fellow coffee shop customers, but he's never left Xhorhas as an adult and he's heard stories about the racism that non-human/elves have to deal with. Caleb is a lovely human, but he is still a human and still (while far younger than Essek in actual years) arguably far more settled in adulthood. Also, Caleb Widogast doesn't show up on any records he'd been able to access, even with his rather formidable skills with information synthesis and accessing said information through both magical and technological means.

It's... rather unsettling, but the more he observes Caleb in person the more he thinks he has an idea of why his name has been erased --or never existed to begin with. This visit, he's staying in the apartment, and he's already witnessed one of Caleb's nightmares.

In short, Essek is reasonably certain that Caleb was at one point a war mage or a military researcher. Possibly both. Ironically, this would probably make his mother less disdainful of the whole endeavour.

"What's wrong?" Essek asks.

Caleb swears. "Well," he says, falsely cheerful, "this pipe, which I frankly did not know even existed until ten minutes ago, is bulging rather alarmingly. So that's going to... be interesting."

Essek stares uncertainly down at Caleb's legs. Nott starts humming to herself. "That is... unfortunate," he offers finally.

"You are both fucking indispensable, thank you," Caleb says, crisply.

"Is there perhaps someone you should call?" Essek offers.

"...Yasha, maybe," Caleb says, after a very long minute. Somehow he doubts that this Yasha is anything as logical as a building manager or repair person.

"What is she gonna do, intimidate it into not exploding?" Nott asks, still not looking up.

Caleb groans, and slides out from under the sink, flopping down and remaining on his back on the tile. "I don't know! Maybe!"

Uncertainly, Essek unfolds himself from his seat, leaving his book on the window ledge and bracing himself until he can shift gravity beneath himself and raise a few inches from the floor. Caleb's familiar is sitting on the top of a bookshelf, watching everything while his tail swishes back and forth slowly.

"Can somebody cast mending?" Nott asks.

Essek blinks. "I-- it's not--"

"Ja, I've never bothered--"

"I'm certain there's an alternative, perhaps a more elegant solution--"

"There is tape, I think, that keeps water inside? I'm certain this is something that must exist."

"I could try to... melt the metal? Maybe?" Nott stands up. "Maybe if we could sort of squish it back into place?"

"Ja, ja, ok, and we can call Jester when she is finished work. She can perform mending, or freeze the water?"

"I'm quite certain frozen water and metal pipes don't mix," Essek says, feeling a little more confident.

Essek comes up beside Caleb and, feeling awkward floating above him while he lies on the floor, he lowers himself carefully, both hands on the back of the single wooden chair that holds a microwave. Nott joins them, hopping up on the counter and kicking her feet against the broken cupboard doors.

"So," she says.

"Right," says Caleb.

Essek, after a moment, says "Well."

The silence continues. Everything smells like fresh coffee and damp wood and ink. Outside the apartment door, someone runs past, swearing loudly. Sirens rise and fall outside the window. From under the sink, something begins, very slowly, to drip.

Essek is struck with the inexplicable urge to laugh. The situation holds the potential to be catastrophic, yet the sheer ridiculousness of three adults, all of whom are quite intelligent, standing baffled before a simple household maintenance issue is comical. Essek meets Nott's eyes, then looks to Caleb.

"Fuck," says Caleb, covering his face with his arms.

As the frequency of the dripping increases, Essek is struck with the strange sensation that in this moment he is closer to these two people with whom he has spent merely days, than he has ever been to anyone in his life.

#fictober20 #cr2 for ts #I'm a day behind because i am fucking tired for no reason #hopefully the long weekend will let me catch up #anyway this isn't great but the moral of the story is Essek never got to be a dumb uni student with no life skills #until now #cr modern au

[impalementation]

“Am I the only one with a big floating question mark over his head about this Initiative thing?” “Well, they do seem to fall into the 'good guy' camp. I mean they are anti-demon.” -Xander & Willow, 4.13 The I In Team

“Dr. Angleman! Head of our science team. He's a leader in the field of xenomorphic behavior modification.” -Walsh, 4.13 The I In Team

“Humans claim to old ways and ancient feuds. And they're hopeless with technology. Unworthy. [...] Disappointed by demon-kind, we turned to humans. Smart, adaptive, but emotional and weak. Blind. There's imperfection everywhere. Something must be done.” -Adam, 4.21 Primeval

“What about magic? Some kind of, I don't know...uranium extracting spell?” -Willow, 4.21 Primeval

buffy season four imagery: magic vs science

[commentary under the cut]

While season four is full imagery of both magic and science (and its companion, the military) in isolation, the season also has a lot of imagery where the two are pointedly mashed together. So you get a vampire using a computer, or a werewolf in a lab, or a slayer with a gun. In the season, magic is associated with the intuitive, imaginative, collaborative, and feminine, while science is associative with conformity, hierarchy, masculinity, and violence. It’s not a terribly sophisticated framing, and runs the risk of being straight-up anti-intellectual, but I believe it’s the framing that exists nonetheless. Which means that when season four puts something magical and something scientific together, it’s negotiating between the ideas that magic and science represent. In the context of the season’s preoccupation with institutions and identity, science is often portrayed as an encroaching institutional force that is attempting to control identity—to make it orderly at the expense of organic individualism. Walsh uses a faulty gun to kill Buffy, and cameras to spy on her soldiers. Adam wants to use science to make the world in his and Walsh’s image. Riley and Spike both have implants that control them. When Willow tries to do a spell against Oz and Veruca in Wild at Heart, I find it significant that she does the magic in a science lab, surrounded by beakers. Because she is using magic in a controlling way, instead of a more natural way. I believe we’re meant to be subtly unsettled by seeing the magical, supernatural world of the last three seasons suddenly filtered through the Intiative’s empirical, military mindset. Spike may be a villain, but it’s still weird to see him in an antiseptic prison. It’s weird to see an informational slide of a Polgara demon, and plainly silly to see Buffy in her halter surrounded by Initiative soldiers. The two worldviews feel aesthetically in conflict, just as Buffy and the Initiative become literally in conflict.

But science versus magic isn’t just about the institutional versus the individual, it’s also about individuals deciding what kind of person to be. Both Buffy and Riley have to make active decisions about whether to align themselves with the Initiative and all it represents, or with something else. The Initiative’s efficiency is portrayed as genuinely tempting. And it’s not as though magic is portrayed as without flaws—season four is full of spells gone wrong, from Superstar to A New Man to Something Blue. Both Buffy and the Initiative engage in violence against demons, both Buffy and Adam end up as super-powered Megazords. So I see the question of the season as something like: given that growing up means finding a balance between these different paradigms, what sort of balance is best? That’s what makes the slayer spell in Primeval so lovely. By joining together with her friends, Buffy find that balance. She becomes evenly split between the masculine (Xander, Giles) and the feminine (Willow, herself), between the authoritative (Giles, herself) and the collaborative (Willow, Xander), and between the cerebral (Giles), the caring (Xander), the imaginative and intuitive (Willow), and the active and strong (herself). And although the slayer spell means joining the characters together, I also see it as a celebration of individualism. Instead of Buffy needing to embody all of those traits by herself, she finds the balance between “magic” and “science” by having social connections to other people who each have their own thing to offer. In contrast to institutions, which are portrayed as wanting to crush uniqueness and individualism, Buffy and her friends find power in it.

#season four imagery series #i forgot i meant to do this one #s4

[distracteddaddonaldduck]

Secret Santa 2018

I decided to participate in the protest on the 17th, so I am going to post my gift on the 16th. As a slight variation my gift has nothing to do with the Three Caballeros, because there was a slight mix-up with the secret santa pairs. And it is written, because I can’t draw. So this is my one and only Fenro one-shot.

So with that out of the way: Happy Holidays @darkwingownsthenight! I hope you like it!

Gyro paced around his lab, muttering to himself. The computers were dark for the most part, only lighting up periodically to wail at him to go sleep. He ignored them and that only made their noise more insistent. Normally he would have given up and gone to bed, but it was not a normal day.

Night.

Whatever, arbitrary timekeeping measures have never stopped a genius of his caliber, and they would not stop him now. Because tomorrow would be the one year anniversary of Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera becoming his intern.

At the time it didn't seem like such a big thing, just one more intern to leave after a few days, not prepared for the pressure of science. None of them ever stuck around until Fenton. None of them slowly wormed their way beyond the wall of acerbic barbs, so gradually that Gyro didn't even notice until too late. When he finally realized what was happening, the warm squirmy feelings were already there.

He tried ignoring them, hoping they would stop, then he tried chasing Fenton away. Being cruel to him, not knowing what else to do. Nothing worked.

Which is why he was here in the middle of the night, brainstorming. Because he lived his life by logic and science. And if he couldn't stop his feelings, then he would embrace them.

So he was going to confess and ask Fenton out.

Now he just needed the perfect plan.

And what would be a better time to try than an anniversary. After all anniversaries were important in relationships. Pre-relationships. Whatever, if his plan worked they would be dating before the day was done.

Now he just needed that plan.

While he was pacing Lil’ Bulb and Manny watched him silently.

“WHAT IF YOU JUST TOLD HIM?” Manny clopped. Gyro ignored them. What could a man-horse with Scrooge Mcduck's head know about romance?

The two onlookers exchanged a glance.

Gyro ignored that too. He had better things to do than than educate idiots.

He told them this.

“Isn't Fenton also an idiot according to you?” Lil' bulb blinked.

“No he isn't!” he exclaimed, then realized what he said. “I mean he is,” he corrected himself, “but he is a different kind of idiot. He is slightly smarter than everyone else.”

Manny and Lil’ Bulb exchanged a meaningful glance.

“I don't need to explain myself to you,” Gyro snapped. “Besides, who said being an idiot was a bad thing?”

The two of them just stared at him in disbelief.

“I don't need this sass right now.” Gyro straightened his shoulders, turned around and strode out of the door. He ignored the silent ‘Really?’ radiating from behind him.

Six hours later he still didn't have a plan and the time when Fenton would arrive at the lab was fast approaching.

The new day found him in a room barely better than a supply closet, used to house the less volatile materials and equipment for the laboratory. It was also out of the way and no one had any reason to come here. It gave him some much needed quiet.

Not that it helped.

Who would have thought finding something nice, but undeniably romantic would be so hard. A genius of his caliber should be able to do it in a flash and yet it stumped him.

He had a crumpled list in his hand, most of the items crossed out. The two that were still readable were clothes with three question marks after it and flowers. He didn't like either of them, but he had to keep at least some of them, no matter how generic. So they stayed, almost mocking his inability to be romantic.

He never needed romance before now! He never felt things like this before.

He was interrupted from his contemplation of his feelings when the door banged open.

“Sorry!” exclaimed the voice he wanted to hear the least right now, before Fenton stuck his head in the room. His eyes grew when he noticed Gyro, standing in the middle of a dusty storage room.

“Oh my god, Mr. Gearloose, I'm sorry,” he babbled. ”I didn't know you were here! Not that I normally act so violent with the lab equipment, I just-” he stopped talking when Gyro raised his hand. Gyro grit his teeth. This conversation started sooner than than he expected, but he was a genius. He could handle being nice.

“I hope you didn't break anything,” he snapped.

So perhaps he couldn't handle being nice.

“I'm really sorry Mr. Gearloose.” Fenton started again, but a glare was enough to get him to stop.

“I'm also... sorry,” Gyro gritted out. “I didn't mean to sound so-”

“It's not a brother, Mr. Gearloose! You don't-”

“Stop interrupting me!” Gyro snapped. Fenton closed his mouth with a click.

“Yes, it is,” Gyro continued, calmer now that Fenton let him get his thoughts into order. “In fact,” he took a deep breath to prepare himself. He has tried to think of a plan for weeks now and it didn't work. So he could as well take a page out of Mr. Mcduck’s book and just take the plunge. “I have been wanting to say this you for a while now. I…” Another deep breath. “appreciate you. In fact you are the intern I hate the least.”

There, he said it.

Fenton blinked, and looked stunned for a moment. The expression disappeared as fast as it came and then he started smiling. The smile was big, happy and blatantly false.

“Thank you! I appreciate you too! You are the best employer I ever had. Not that I had a lot.” The last sentence he muttered to himself.

What? No, that's not what Gyro meant. He tried to get Fenton’s attention, but the duck wasn't looking at him. He also evaded Gyro’s hand, raised to put on his shoulder and didn’t stop talking.

“Especially if we don't count Walmart. And I don’t count it.” He perked up, but still didn’t look at Gyro. “Now I have to go check up on something! See you later.”

He almost ran out of the room, leaving Gyro to stand there.

That definitely didn't go like Gyro hoped it would.

Gyro found Fenton again in the main lab, the strange behavior already gone behind a genuine smile. He was in the middle of setting up the equipment for the next in a line of experiments they started almost two months ago.

If there was something that went against Gyro’s plan then it was something routine.

“We are not continuing this today,” he said. Fenton jumped at his voice and twirled around, barely missing sweeping a beaker off the table.

“What? What do you mean?” he squeaked, waving his arms around. “We have been working on this for months!” He started wringing his hands.

Gyro took a step forward and raised his hand to do something. Stop him. Take his hands. Perhaps even saying something that could make his intentions clear. He was stopped from doing anything by Fenton speaking up.

“We are close to a breakthrough,” he exclaimed and that stopped Gyro short.

“That's not true.” His eyes narrowed and he crossed his arms. “And you are not as much of an idiot to believe that.”

Gyro expected him to back down, acknowledge his superior intellect. That’s what Fenton always did when they disagreed on something. So he was surprised when he didn't. In fact, he squared his shoulders and glared. Granted, it was a weak glare and didn’t even phase Gyro, but it's surprisingly aggressive from Fenton.

“You are wrong,” he stated with a wobble in his voice and that ruined any intimidation factor he had. He seemed to realize this, because he poked Gyro in the chest.

“In fact,” He turned and grabbed the crate full of supplies. “I'm going to prove it.”

He lifted it, wobbled under the weight and stormed out of the room.

In the lab Gyro was left looking at his interns back for the second time today.

Fenton's office was empty, just as it was the last two times Gyro looked. He knew it was, but he still checked. He was rapidly running out of options for where Fenton could be. He checked every lab they had, every storage room, broom closet and toilet in the whole building. He even crawled through the entire vent system.

Being covered in dust definitely didn't help his mood, but he persisted.

But speaking of something ruining his mood.

“What are you doing?” He turned to Manny who was silently walking behind him. Well, as silently as someone with hooves could walk. “Don't you have a job to do?”

“SOMEONE HAS TO SAVE YOU FROM YOUR IDIOCY,” they clopped.

“I am a genius.” Gyro replied indignantly.

“SIGH,” Manny clopped, actually spelling out the word. Gyro had the feeling that if Manny had functioning eyes they would be rolling them.

Gyro turned his back to them.

“If you are only here to mock me I am leaving.”

“I AM TRYING TO HELP.” Manny's clopping was more agitated now, a sharp staccato burst.

“You are bad at it.” Gyro told them, but begrudgingly turned back around.

Manny let out a frustrated clop, but didn't say anything about it.

“I WILL SHOW YOU WERE HE IS.” He said instead, turning and marching down the hall.

Gyto followed him, struggling to keep up. Not that he was going to admit it.

Manny led him to the entrance to the freezer for living samples. Gyro couldn't help but be impressed by Fenton's resourcefulness. Gyro hadn't even thought to look there, the cold enough to dissuade him from trying. But with a layer of the new skintight heat retaining jumpsuits they were working on it would be a cakewalk to hide there. And the experiment wasn't affected by heat, so he could even work on it.

Not that he was working when Gyro opened the door, too busy solemnly watching Lil’ Bulb blink, nodding at the appropriate times.

He was attractive like this, seriousness so at odds with his normal happy-go-lucky nature.

He was so absorbed in cataloging the panes of Fenton's face that he completely missed what Lil’ Bulb was saying. He only tuned back in when Fenton nodded, turned and then jumped when he noticed Gyro. For a moment he looked ready to bolt, but then he noticeably forced himself to calm down.

“You got this,” he muttered to himself, but in the silence everybody heard him. He curled his hands into fists and looked straight at Gyro.

“Please don’t fire me.” In contrast to his determined body language, his voice was high pitched with the beginnings of panic.

“What?” Gyro asked with what he felt was appropriate bafflement. Fenton misunderstood the meaning, thought, because he started babbling.

“Please, am I not a good intern? I make you the best coffee and take notes and I can do anything. I can cook!”

“Crackshell.” Gyro tried to interject, but Fenton didn’t notice it.

“Or do you need someone to wash your clothes. I can do that!”

“Cabrera.”

“Or a leg rest? I can do anything!”

“Fenton!” Gyro shouted.

That finally shut him up, but he shrank back.

“I am not going to fire you.” Gyro pinched his nose. “What gave you that idea?”

“You were acting unnatural, I thought…” Fenton trailed off. “So you aren’t going to fire me?” His eyes were shining.

“Of course not,” Gyro said, but he couldn’t keep hold of his annoyance with those large eyes on him. “Do you really think that I am nice to people I am about to fire?

“Now that you say it like that it does sound stupid,” Fenton let out a relieved giggle. “But then why were you nice to me?”

“Well,” Gyro started, suddenly feeling embarrassed at his grand romantic plans. “Today is the one year anniversary of you starting to work here so, I thought it appropriate.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” he took a deep breath, “because I appreciate you-” Fenton’s eyes shone and his heart skipped a beat. ”your work. Yes.”

Lil’ Bulb sizzled in disappointment. Gyro ignored him.

“LOVE,” Manny clopped and Gyro wanted to step on their foot. Except they didn't have one.

“How is the experiment going?” He squawked, trying to cover Manny’s words.

“What?” Fenton asked distractedly.

“The experiment?” Gyro said this time in a voice just a little higher than normal.

“Not you.” Fenton put his hand on Gyro’s arm, leaning towards Manny. Gyro shut up at the unexpected, but welcome contact and so didn’t have enough composure to stop Manny.

“GYRO LOVES YOU.” Manny clopped and if they had a face that could emote they would have a shiteating grin.

“What?” Fenton asked again, this time more forcefully. He didn't wait for Manny’s answer and instead turned towards Gyro, who was still looking at the hand on his arm with a faintly flushed face.

“You... like me?” Fenton asked hesitantly.

“I don't dislike you.” He tried for his normal dismissive tone and failed.

“You like me.” Fenton said again, slower.

“You are not as much of an idiot as everyone else I have to deal with.”

“You like me.” Fenton exclaimed with a grin. Then he grabbed Gyro and pulled him into a kiss.

It was warm. He didn’t even have time to noticed anything else, because Fenton pulled away and the kiss was over as fast as it began.

“Sorry, I shouldn't just have done that.” Fenton’s voice was nervous as he let Gyro go. “Oh god, you are going to fire me now.”

That broke Gyro out of the stupor the kiss put him in.

“Shut up.” He grabbed Fenton by his shoulders and kissed him back.

Fenton melted into the kiss, tension seeping out of his shoulders and how had Gyro never noticed that before? He was supposed to be a genius. He was distracted by Fenton opening his mouth and then he didn’t think any more.

They didn't even notice when Manny and Lil’ Bulb left the room.

#fenro #gyro gearloose #fenton crackshell cabrera #ducktalessecretsanta2018

[anthropwashere]

i’m still, still dreaming magnificent things

AO3 || FFN

@fullmetalsecretsanta

@paigyloli I’m your Secret Santa! You asked for anything so long as it was Alphonse, and here I am with almost 17k words all about him! You can thank @teamalphonse for the >original idea<, and this is also a gift to them too because I’ve been low-key (read: high-key) losing my mind over ghost!Alphonse ever since. I hope you both like what I have here, and also look forward to the rest because I’ve got two more chapters planned. :D

Fic title comes from San Fermin’s “Rennaisance!” though I have to add that Oren Lavie’s “Don’t Let Your Hair Grow Too Long” was a strong contender.

=

Alphonse wakes up.

Or—no. No, that’s silly. He’s standing up. It’s just very dark wherever he’s at, and he can’t remember what it was he’d been doing before this.

Maybe he was sleepwalking? He’s never done it before and neither has Ed or Winry or Granny. Mrs. Sheridan at the post office sleepwalks, and so did Tommy Granger before he went off to boot camp. There might be other people in the town proper who sleepwalk, but Mrs. Sheridan and Tommy are the only ones he and Ed ever knew about because they always went out of their houses. He and Ed found Tommy once, not long after they’d gotten back from training with Teacher. The older boy had been really confused and kept going on about apple cider until he woke up properly, then he swore, ruffled their hair, and told them off for being up so late.

Anyway, right. Maybe Alphonse has been sleepwalking. He’s awake now though, and he’s still inside—at least, he thinks so. The moon was nearly full, and it was still rising when they’d gone down with the final prepared ingredients for their transmutation carefully balanced between them—

Oh, duh. He’s got to be in the basement.

He squints into the dark until dim shapes make themselves known. The bookshelves, the tables, the wooden crates, beakers and tubes catching pale light from the little window wedged up by the ceiling.

“Ed?”

The lanterns must have all gone out in the transmutation. He takes a few cautious steps as his eyes adjust. The white chalk of their array stands out brightest on the floor, but there are thick black smears all around the edge of it nearest him, and inside it, and in the center where the shallow tray had been is a dark, huddled shape. Alphonse’s breath catches; he wrings his hands, not daring to hope but still, maybe, maybe—

“Mom?”

The shape doesn’t move. But that’s definitely an arm, too long to be Ed’s. It has to be her. It is her. It worked, it really worked!

“Mom!”

She still doesn’t move, but that’s fine, she must be exhausted. Ed must have run upstairs to get her some clothes. Alphonse rushes to her and drops to his knees, reaching out to touch her hand—

—and it’s only then, with the dark of the basement and his own eagerness clouding his vision, that he sees. Her skinned face. Her yawning, split-open ribs. The huge pool of blood. The coil of intestines spilling out of her belly. How terribly still she lays.

He reels back, smothering a scream. No. No. What—? Is she—? She is, she’s—she’s— no. This isn’t what they wanted—oh, what happened? What happened? Why didn’t it work? Why did it—? She’s dead, she’s dead again and they killed her—

Where's Ed?

It takes him a few tries to get to his feet, shaking so badly that he almost loses his balance and falls into her—it—her—not her, please, let them have been so wrong that she was never alive, let them never have brought her back at all, please—

He breathes. He breathes. He. He’s got to find Ed.

He staggers out of the basement, banishing the thought of that glassy-eyed thing sloughing to pieces down there. He’s got to find Ed. All of that blood didn’t belong to—to that. There’d been a pool outside the array, smaller and smeared across the concrete. There’s blood all up the stairs, and across the white walls of the hall too, like garish streaks of fingerpaint. Low, closer to the baseboard, like Ed had had to crawl on his hands and knees.

A rebound. That’s the only explanation. Their array was wrong—despite all their checking and rechecking, despite all their hard work, despite years—it was wrong. That’s all there is to it. They were wrong despite their every precaution. There was a rebound that tore the—the transmutation apart and seriously injured Ed as well.

But what about himself?

He hesitates halfway down the hall, where dim moonlight spills through a crack in the curtain. He looks at himself; his hands, his arms, his torso, his legs. There’s not a drop of blood on him anywhere. He doesn’t hurt at all. Why didn’t the rebound affect him too? Or—or maybe it did, but not as aggressively? He’d been knocked out, right? That must be why Ed had left without him; Ed couldn’t wake him up, and whatever the rebound had done to Ed had hurt him badly enough that he couldn’t afford to wait around. A few minutes or a few hours; Ed would have gone to Granny and Winry for something serious enough to leave this much blood.

Alphonse swallows as a terrible thought occurs to him: if Ed could make it on his own.

“Edward? Brother! Where are you?!”

He runs down the hall, veers into the entrance hall and finds the front door wide open. The storm had broken while he’d been unconscious and now rain is pouring down in sheets. The coat closet is cracked too—no, that’s not right. Part of the door is gone completely. Alphonse hesitates again, frowning at the rough transmutation marks marring the wood. What had Ed been doing? Never mind, never mind, he just needs to find Ed, now.

Heedless of the rain he sprints into the storm, calling out for his brother. The dirt path has been beaten to mud already but he doesn’t slip. He pounds up the path from their house to the main road, running as fast as he can. His brother’s hurt. He doesn’t know how badly, but there had been so much blood—please, let him get there in time—please.

Across the bridge, still no sign of Ed. From here it’s another half-mile to the Rockbell’s, and it’s pitch black. No lanterns anywhere. Why wouldn’t Ed take one? But no, idiot, Ed’s hurt, he might not have a hand to spare and it’s not like he took one either. Faster, faster, please—

There!

There’s a huddled yellow shape collapsed in the ditch. Ed’s raincoat. Ed.

“Brother!” Alphonse skids to a clumsy stop beside Ed, who isn’t moving. Alphonse’s throat closes up, sinking again to his knees. Oh, please no, please, pleasepleaseplease—“Brother!”

Ed sobs.

It’s startling enough to leave Alphonse speechless; Ed hates crying. He always gets so embarrassed if someone catches him at it. Alphonse can’t remember ever hearing Ed sound so—so broken.

“Brother,” he says, dismayed. He reaches out to touch Ed’s hunched shoulder, to comfort him, to help him on his feet, to carry him bodily to the Rockbells’ house if he has to to make sure Ed will be okay—

—but his hand passes right through Ed instead.

Alphonse yanks his hand back with a yelp, wild-eyed. What? Did—did that happen? He looks at his hands. They look fine, but then why wouldn’t they? He imagined it. He must have.

Ed sobs again, weaker and fraught with pain, then reaches for a length of wood in the mud Alphonse hadn’t noticed. There’s another one on Ed’s other side. It’s only once Ed’s pushed himself into an awkward sitting position as he braces one of the sticks under his armpit that Alphonse realizes what it was Ed did to the closet door.

“Crutches? What did you make crutches fo—“

Ed’s left leg is gone.

Ed drags himself onto his one remaining knee with a cry that sounds wrenched out of him. Alphonse can only watch, stricken, as Ed gasps raggedly and heaves himself onto his right foot and the crutches. He sways, nearly falling down again but catching himself awkwardly. “Dammit," he seethes. “Dammit, c’mon."

Alphonse doesn’t understand. Rebounds don’t take parts of you. They injure, they maim and mutilate, they shred and break you. But Ed’s leg is just gone. “Oh my god,” Alphonse whispers, reaching out on reflex to help steady Ed. But his hand passes through Ed’s arm again, and he’s looking this time to see it really happen. It doesn’t even feel like anything, like catching smoke from a blown-out candle in his palm. What’s going on? He looks at his hands again, forcing his attention on himself rather than Ed’s labored hobble. His hands are fine. It’s Ed’s leg—gone, it’s gone, it’s gone—that took the rebound, or whatever happened. He’s fine. So what the hell is going on?

The rain. It’s raining. It’s pouring down buckets, but he hasn’t gotten wet.

He watches raindrops pass clean through his palms, unable to believe what’s happening right before his eyes. He drops his hands, looking to his legs. He’s kneeling in the mud and it should be freezing, it should have soaked through his jeans. The mud should be disturbed, here where he’s knelt and back the way they both came. But there’s only the smear of where Ed collapsed and forced himself to his feet—foot, foot, he’s only got one, the other one is gone—and Ed’s three-pronged tracks. There’s no sign of Alphonse having followed. There’s no sign that Alphonse is here.

“No,” he rasps. “Brother. Edward. Ed, hang on—just. Wait a minute. What’s going on?”

Ed gives no sign that he’s heard him.

Alphonse gets to his feet—he doesn’t slide in the mud, he leaves no footprints, how did he not notice before?—and catches up to Ed. He tries to grab him, but his hands only swing through his brother uselessly. Ed sobs again through tightly clenched teeth, forcing his way on, and on. Granny and Winry live at the top of a hill. It’s a shallow incline, but from where they’re at Alphonse still can’t see the lights of their house. It may as well be on the moon given how slowly Ed’s moving.

His leg… . The two of them know how to handle small injuries, cuts and minor burns and even broken fingers (Al had broken one of his sparring just a few months ago. Ed had rolled out of the way and he’d punched a wall. They’d laughed about it after but at the time he couldn’t believe how much it had hurt.), but this? And with how much blood Ed had left in their house? There’s no time. Ed won’t make it on his own, and Alphonse can’t help him. Not directly, anyhow.

“Just be strong,” Alphonse tells him. “Hold on. I’ll go get help. I don’t know what’s going on but you’re going to be okay, Ed, I promise. Just hold on a little longer.”

Ed’s eyes scrunch shut as his crutches slip in the mud. He doesn’t fall, but it’s a near thing, a dear cost to keep his feet—foot—under him. He spits out a scream through clenched teeth.

Alphonse runs.

He makes it to Rockbell Automail in record time. He takes the stairs in two sets of three, reaches for the doorknob mid-step only to have his hand pass neatly through it. Momentum carries him forward however, and he passes through the door without any resistance at all. He staggers into the house with a yelp, blinking in the sudden brightness. Granny’s at the dining table sorting through brightly colored wires and Winry’s standing on tiptoe at the sink washing out a mug. Neither of them look over at his sudden appearance. Neither of them notice him at all.

“Granny! Ed’s hurt! Please come quick!”

Nothing.

“Winry! Winry, please, can you hear me? Ed’s hurt!”

Nothing.

He stomps over to Granny, waving his hands wildly. He tries to bang his fist on the table and he passes right through it, falling to the floor with another yelp. There’s no crash as he hits the wood, and Granny doesn’t so much as glance his way.

“What’s going on? Please, please tell me you can hear me. Ed’s going to die!”

He hears the tell-tale click of nails and automail as Den trots out of the hall, ears pricked as he looks this way and that. Alphonse clambers to his feet—automatically trying to brace himself on the table only to pass through and fall down again, what the hell is happening—and dares to ask, “Den?”

Den’s snout points right at him, ears perked and tail wagging in that small, tucked-down way dogs have of showing they’re confused. Alphonse shakes his head in disbelief. He’s invisible somehow and only the dog can hear him. Right, okay, fine. He can freak out about this later. Right now Ed needs him to get help, so. So, here he is, asking the dog to help.

“Den, it’s me. It’s Al. Ed’s hurt. Ed needs help. Come on, boy, listen to me! Ed’s in trouble!”

Den barks, startling Granny and Winry. “What’s the matter?” Winry asks, setting her mug on the dish rack to dry. Den barks again, stiff-legged, tail wagging harder as he sniffs around the kitchen table. Alphonse stumbles out of his way, reaching out to pet him only to watch his hand sink through Den’s spine to his knuckles. Den’s hackles raise in a shiver and he dances out of Alphonse’s reach, barking louder.

“Den,” Alphonse begs. “Come on, go to Ed!”

Whining now, Den darts to the front door and hops in place, tail a blur behind him. Granny tuts, leaning back some to tap her pipe against the ashtray at her elbow. “What’s gotten into that dog?”

“I dunno,” Winry says, walking to the door. “He usually hates the rain, but I guess if you gotta go, you gotta go.”

She’s barely able to open the door a crack before Den worms his way through, darting off into the darkness and barking loudly. Alphonse and Winry both call out to him, but Den doesn’t come back. Alphonse slaps a hand to his forehead, out of ideas. Invisible and no one but the dog can hear him, and the dog just went and ran off into the storm. Ed’s still out there and Alphonse can’t help him, and he doesn’t know what to do—

Winry shouts out on the porch. “Den, you dummy! Come back!” There’s barking again, but the pitch of it’s changed, gone high and rapid, more of a yelp. “Den? Den!”

“Don’t go out there,” Granny chastises. “You’ll get washed away.”

“Something’s wrong,” Winry says. She looks over her shoulder, worry furrowing her brow. “I think something’s out there.”

“Yes!” Alphonse shouts. “It’s Ed! Go get him! Please, Winry, come on, go get him!”

Granny sighs, setting the tangle of wires down. “Coat and a flashlight, then. I’ll be along in a minute.”

“We both don’t have to get wet,” Winry laughs, fetching her slicker from the coat rack. “It’s probably just a raccoon or something.”

“Would you stop standing there?” Alphonse fumes. “GO!”

Den barks again, louder and more frantic still. Winry and Granny both have the decency to look concerned, but not nearly as much as they ought to be considering Ed is bleeding out just a few hundred yards from their porch. Winry pulls her slicker on, grabs the flashlight off the kitchen counter, and dashes out into the rain. Alphonse is only a step behind her, whispering fervently that Den will find Ed, that Den will lead Winry to Ed, that Winry will be able to help Ed up the hill, that Granny will be able to save Ed, please, please, please—

And that’s exactly what happens.

It's only after Ed, gray-faced and loose-limbed, has been bundled up in one of the spare rooms that Granny takes a deep, steadying breath and tells Winry, "I'm going to find Alphonse. Keep a close eye on him, alright?"

"Yes, Granny," Winry chirps at the same time Ed rasps, "No."

Granny frowns. "Hush. Get some rest. I'll sort things out from here. Don't worry about Al—"

"No," Ed repeats. "It took him."

Alphonse, who spent the entire terrible time Granny and Winry cleaned and bandaged the shocking red stump where Ed's leg used to be in a corner out of the way, frowns too. "What are you talking about?"

The pause between him asking, Granny asking the same question, and Ed's reply is enough that Alphonse knows there's no way Ed heard him. He still doesn't understand why no one can hear him, and it stings that his own brother won't—can't—look his way. "He's gone. It took him. There's nothing left of him. He's gone and it's all my fault—"

"Hush," Granny repeats, brushing Ed's bangs out of his sweaty face. Ed twists away, but Alphonse still sees the fresh tears down his cheeks. "Rest, Ed. You're going to be just fine."

Granny and Winry leave the room, leave the door cracked enough that Al can slip through and pretend parts of him don't pass through the frame. He follows them to the sitting room, where Granny presses one bony hand to the dining table and sighs. She looks ten years older than when Alphonse and Ed had left after dinner just a few hours earlier. It feels like it’s been ten years to Alphonse too.

Winry fidgets, still in the smock Granny had barked at her to put on. Ed's blood is smeared across it. "What did he mean? About Al?"

"...I don't know. I haven't the faintest idea what they could have gotten up to that could have hurt Ed so badly, let alone—" Granny breaks off abruptly, smacking the table before she stomps over to the front door.

"Where are you going?"

"I have to be sure," Granny says as she fetches her own coat off the rack, pulling it on jerkily. She's afraid, Alphonse realizes. He saw her like this once before, when the news came from Ishval about Auntie Sara and Uncle Yuriy. If he stood close enough he thinks he'd see her aged hands tremble. He stays where he is. "Ed's lost a lot of blood. He isn't thinking clearly. I'm going to go find Alphonse. Stay here. Don't leave the house."

"But—"

"I said stay!"

Winry flinches, hugging herself like she's cold. She's had tears in her eyes ever since she'd staggered up the porch with Ed out cold on her back. Maybe before that too. Granny only looks up once she's buttoned her coat, and her fear is too obvious, too frightening in its own right. Grown ups aren't ever supposed to look so scared.

"We're sorry," Alphonse tells her. "We thought it would work. We thought we could bring Mom back. We had no idea this was going to happen. We're sorry."

Granny says, "Keep an eye on Ed. I won't be gone long."

"'Kay," Winry replies, but doesn't go back to Ed's room until after Granny's fetched the flashlight off the floor where Winry had dropped it and shut the front door behind her. She takes Den with her, so there's—apparently—no way for Alphonse to get Winry’s attention. What could he even say if Winry could hear him? Don't worry, Granny's not going to find me. I'm right here, you just can't see or hear me?

He tries anyway. "Winry?"

She sighs, drops her arms to hang limply at her sides. She looks at the door a moment longer, then straightens her shoulders and turns back down the hall. He listens to her footsteps fade, to the thin creak of door hinges swinging open, to Winry's voice speaking too quietly for him to discern the words. He stays put, as torn as she'd been. More, maybe.

He's gone. It took him.

What did Ed mean by that? What happened when they activated their transmutation circle? He thinks back and remembers blue light turning red, and being terrified—

—and nothing else. He's never seen a transmutation circle burn red. Is that what a rebound looks like? But no, no. It wasn't a rebound. It couldn't have been a rebound. They'd read up extensively on the topic—at least, they'd made note of every single mention of rebounds in Dad's library, and Teacher's too. Rebounds don't make you invisible. Rebounds don't make it so no one else can hear you. Nothing should be able to do that.

He should go after Granny. It's late, and dark, and the storm's only just begun to subside. She shouldn't be out there on her own. Even if she did take Den with her, it isn’t safe. She could slip and fall. She could break something, and Winry might not dare disobey her no matter how long she's gone. Granny won't find him, so there's no point in looking for him. But—but she’ll find Mom, and that—

He can't.

He can't go back there. Not now, not again. He doesn't want to see her—it—her. He just wants to climb into bed with Ed, hold his big brother tight and tell him it's okay, it will all be okay, they're both going to be okay. But Ed almost died tonight. Ed's leg is gone and Alphonse is—he’s—

Oh.

That's the word Granny stopped herself from saying before. She thinks—because of how badly Ed was injured, and how long it took to stabilize and bandage and calm him, and that if Ed had been so bad off then Alphonse must have been worse—she thinks he's dead.

Well.

That. That's—it's—

Alphonse shakes his head, hugs himself tightly and imagines as hard as he can that he can feel his own arms wrapped around his middle. He can't go there. He can’t go home. Not tonight. Later, some unspecified later, he'll consider that thought and everything it carries with it. Right now he just wants to sit beside Winry and watch Ed as he sleeps. He wants to reassure himself that Ed, at least, is going to be fine.

Ed falls asleep not long after Granny left. Winry falls asleep not long before Granny comes back. Alphonse watches Granny shuck off her soaked coat, watches her ignore the trail of water she leaves in her wake to the cupboard where she keeps the whiskey. She skips a glass and takes a pull straight from the bottle, hissing through her teeth as she sinks down into the nearest available chair. She sits there a long, long time, and never once does she seem to hear a one of Alphonse's apologies.

At last, after she's had enough whiskey to put some color back in her face and still the shake of her hands, Granny caps the bottle again. She fills her pipe. It takes two matches to light it; the first breaks and the second one she nearly drops. She sets it between her teeth and breathes in, and in, and then breathes out a long pale plume of smoke.

And she croaks, "Oh, Trisha."

She finishes her smoke, taps out the embers, sets her pipe beside the ashtray. She's aged ten more years again, if the slow groan she makes as she gets to her feet is anything to go by. She's been old all of Alphonse's life but now she seems ancient, wizened, like how the woodcuts of wood nymphs were drawn in one of Dad's old storybooks. She moves like driftwood, brittle and dry. Alphonse wrings his hands, wanting to help. He'd already tried to touch her though, and his hands had passed through hers the same as Ed’s. It makes no sense. He looks solid to his own eyes, but the proof is right here; Granny is crying in front of him, something she has never once done in his life.

She puts the whiskey away, turns out the lights, and goes to bed.

It's morning. Alphonse has been awake all night. He isn't tired. He isn't hungry. He isn't cold. He isn't anything.

Winry's the first one up and about, stretching to get the stiffness out of her back from falling asleep at Ed's bedside. She goes out to the hand pump with a bowl, scratching Den behind the ears as the dog follows her out before trotting off to do his morning business. Alphonse follows too, watches her fill the bowl with well water. It's one of the bowls they use for cleaning bandages. Alphonse swallows. He doesn't want to see Ed's bandages changed. He doesn't want Ed to need bandages at all. But morning's come and he hasn't woken up from this nightmare. Ed's leg is still gone and he's still dead.

"Good morning, Winry," he tells her as she makes her way past him back to the house. There are shadows under her eyes, her mouth thin with worry. It doesn't look like she slept well.

He follows her into the kitchen where she sets the bowl on the stove to heat up. She fetches another bowl and repeats the process. One bowl to clean Ed's bandages, one bowl to clean Ed. She lights the potbelly stove in the main room to warm up the house, brushes bits of bark off her hands once that’s done. She goes back to the kitchen, pulls a pan off its hook and eggs out of the icebox, sets to making breakfast, standing on tiptoe now and then to watch the bowls for bubbles.

Granny comes out of her room before long, looking as rough around the edges as Winry does. Worse, maybe. She peeks her head into Ed's room then goes out to the kitchen. She watches Winry a moment, who hasn't noticed her yet, and some of that weariness seems to fade. Granny doesn't smile, but her eyes crinkle like she wants to. "Beans for Ed too," she says. "He needs the iron."

"Oh! Oh, sure. I was going to go get some spinach from the garden too, if you don't mind watching the stove for a few minutes?"

"Go on then."

Alphonse stays with Granny in the kitchen while Winry dashes off to their backyard garden with a wicker basket. He watches her knock about the kitchen with a smile. Granny's lived here in Rockbell Automail her whole life, learned her trade under her parents, who learned it from her own grandparents. She could navigate breakfast with her eyes closed and her hands tied behind her back, he thinks, and it'd still taste better than almost anybody else's cooking.

(The best cook in the whole wide world as far as Alphonse and Ed are concerned had been their Mom. Granny tried to recreate some of the recipes out of Mom's cookbook and they were always delicious, sure, but they were never right. Not exactly.)

She only pulls two plates out of the cupboard, which makes Alphonse frown curiously. Maybe she isn't hungry, but Winry had put enough eggs in the pan for three and Granny had put a whole can of beans to cooking as well. Alphonse doubts Ed's going to be hungry enough to eat that much. The bowls of water have started boiling so she pulls one off for now and lowers the temperature of the other so it can't boil over.

Winry comes back inside with Den at her heels. "Thanks, Granny. Actually, do you mind finishing up breakfast? I want to see if Ed's up."

"If he isn't you may as well wake him. His bandages need changing. Think you can handle that on your own?"

Winry hesitates, but steels herself when Granny looks over her shoulder at her. "Y-yeah, of course."

"Good girl. I'll be along to help once I've finished here. Don't spill any water now."

"I know, Granny."

Alphonse watches her carefully carry both bowls into Ed's room, then grab fresh towels and sponges from the surgery room. He follows her into Ed's room after that, watches her wake Ed with forced cheer in her voice, watches her help Ed drink a glass of water before she gets to work on his bandages. He watches Ed wince and hiss and grit his teeth, fist his hands in the sheets until his knuckles burn white, whimper as the bandages tug against his stump even though Winry wet them with a warm sponge first. The empty space where his leg should be is just as horrifying as what's beneath the bandages. Alphonse can't imagine the pain Ed is feeling, even with whatever pain relievers Granny's giving him.

Winry gets him cleaned and re-bandaged in due time, and then she sits there for a minute just holding Ed's hand. "You're going to be okay," she says softly.

Ed doesn't look at her. He hadn't looked at her once, not since Alphonse walked in after her. It's like he can't bring himself to meet her eyes, like the guilt won't let him. "Who cares," he says dully.

"I do," Winry protests. "And Granny does too, and—"

"I killed her," Ed snaps, tearing his hand away. "It was my idea to try and bring our Mom back and now they're both gone!"

"Edward!"

Ed rolls over—or tries, but he jars his stump and goes white and rigid with a yelp. Winry reaches out but Ed slaps her hand away. "Get out," he says. "Please. Just. Leave me alone."

"Stop that," Alphonse chides. "It was both our idea. We put in the same amount of work. It's not your fault, brother—"

"Breakfast is almost ready," Winry says, pausing at the door. "You need your strength, so you have to eat."

Ed says nothing, head turned away from her. She leaves, shutting the door before Alphonse can slip through after her. He tries to grab the doorknob, but of course his hand just passes through it. He holds it there, knuckles and fingers curled in the same space as the brass knob. It shouldn't be possible, mashing the molecules of two solid objects into the same space. He should be screaming in pain, just as Ed had been last night. But he can't feel anything at all.

"Brother," he whispers. "I don't understand what's happened."

Ed says nothing. Not because he's ignoring him, but because he can't hear him. Alphonse wishes more than anything that Ed was just ignoring him. This is so much worse than any fight they've ever had. He grimaces at the door. It won't hurt, he reminds himself. It won't feel like anything, because—because he’s—because he’s dead.

He takes a running start to pass through it anyway.

In the kitchen Granny's saying, "—long I'll be gone, so I'm trusting you to take care of things."

Winry doesn't ask where she's going so maybe Granny already said. She probably did, judging from the stricken expression Winry's wearing. Alphonse swallows. He's pretty sure he knows too. But why would she want to go back to their house? She saw—

"When I get back I want you to go into town to pick up a few things. If there's anything you or Ed want, make a list for yourself."

"Yes, Granny."

Granny pauses then, looking too old again as she cleans her glasses on the hem of her skirt. "Do you understand what the boys did?"

"I... I'm not sure…."

"Something taboo among alchemists. Something illegal in this country. If word got out Ed tried to bring their mother back he'd be killed for it. They'd take him away and hang him, never mind he's just a boy or that it nearly got him killed along with Alphonse. So you mustn't breathe a word of what he did to anyone.”

Winry whispers, "I won't. I promise."

"You and I are the closest thing to family he has left. We have to take care of him."

"Of course." She hesitates, hands tangled together, biting her lip so she doesn't cry. "Al's... Al's really dead?"

Granny pulls her close and hugs her fiercely. "It's going to be alright. Just make sure Ed gets something in his stomach for now."

She doesn't take anything with her, tells Den to stay put when he tries to follow her out of the house. Then it's a long, quiet walk to their house. Alphonse walks alongside her, eyes on the muddy path. He doesn't want to go with her. But it was dark last night, and all his thoughts were on Ed and the... thing they'd transmuted. He hadn't look around the basement, not properly. He didn't see his body. He didn't see what happened to himself. If he goes now, with Granny, then it's almost like they're going together. It will be a little easier that way.

At their house Granny goes to the shed in the backyard. She pulls out a shovel and Mom's gardening gloves, stiff with disuse. She goes inside, walking briskly past the dried smears of Ed's blood on the floor and baseboards, so much worse to look at in the warm morning light. She goes to the linen closet, pulling out a spare sheet, then another. She pokes her head in a few rooms until she finds what she's looking for in Dad's study, going in and coming out again with the big lantern they keep in there to read by.

Then she goes down into the basement, and Alphonse freezes at the top of the stairs.

He can't. He can't. It's down there. She's down there. Mom—her skinned face, bright white teeth and sunken eyes, one twisted arm reaching out of the circle to the pool of blood where Ed's leg had been torn away—

He can't.

He has to.

He has to know what happened. He died. He’s dead. Their transmutation killed him—and Mom again, he's sorry, they're sorry, please—

—but. But he's still here. It makes no sense. So he has to go down there too.

Just. One step at a time. He's been up and down these stairs a million times before. Sixteen steps, nine of them creaky.

Just. One. Step. At. A. Time.

And then he's down in the basement, eyes scrunched tight. He hears the bright hiss of a match being struck; when he looks up at the ceiling he sees warm light playing across it, Granny's shadow a wavering black stripe down the wall. Granny makes this low, awful, creaking sort of sigh that makes Alphonse feel like hiding under the desk. She says to herself, "Too smart for their own good," and Alphonse shrinks down further. People have been saying that about them for as long as he can remember, fond and frustrated and fascinated, but here it just sounds—

—sad.

He has to look. He has to look. How's he going to learn anything about what went wrong last night if he doesn't look? Quit being a coward and look—

"Oh," he whispers.

There's so much blood, is the thing. He can hardly look anywhere near their array without seeing dried and clotted streaks and pools of it. The pool of blood belonging to Ed is right in front of him. And right beyond that is the array, carefully measured and chalked out on a floor they'd transmuted perfectly level months ago. And beyond that—Mom's hand, reaching for where Ed had been, and beyond that—

He focuses on her hand, firmly ignoring anything beyond her broken elbow. It's too thin. Skeletal. Her nails are thick and yellow, more like Den's claws than fingernails. There are scraps of skin, bubbled and peeling back to expose the mangled muscles, the taut tendons, the brittle bones. It's barely recognizable as human, let alone as Mom's.

He looks away, back at Ed's blood, and only then sees a familiar pair of shoes to his right. His own shoes, the very same shoes he's wearing right now. And there, his pants, and his shirt too, all laid out neatly together in the shape of him. The same clothes he's wearing now, right there on the floor.

Alphonse swallows. There's no blood on his clothes-on-the-floor, the same as the clothes-he's-wearing-right now. No worrying lumps, no stains, no clumps of hair, nothing at all like the thing that was Mom for a few minutes at most before she died again. Their transmutation failed catastrophically, but it wasn't a rebound. The proof is right here, staring him in the face. If it had been a rebound, his body would be here all tangled up and staining his clothes. His body would look like Mom's, laying just a few feet away.

He’s just… gone. Killed and tidied away, like his atoms were scattered and swept under the rug—

Oh, oh gross, were his atoms really scattered? Is Granny breathing him right now? He firmly shuts that thought away for later (preferably never) and watches Granny work. This comes with the unfortunate consequence of looking at Mom directly, because she’s why Granny brought down the spare sheets and gardening gloves.

Mom is—

Mom is—

Skinned face, overlarge teeth jutting out of a too-small jaw—her neck twisted at a terrible angle—her outstretched hand dislocated and grasping—her other hand stuck out of the center of her chest, curled in like a dead spider's leg—ribs wrenched wide open, bleached white and untouched by the dark flesh curdled at their bases—recognizable small intestine spilled across her hips, a kidney perched atop two coils—blood dried to a wide ink stain still damp in a few places—the gleam of clearer fluids dried to a glaze across their array, mucus or lymph or cerebrospinal or stomach acid—

Mom is a monster they made and murdered, and Alphonse can't even remember doing it.

He breathes. He breathes and he breathes and he claps both hands over his mouth to stop that because he doesn't need to, does he? He's just standing here, dead and panicking, and Granny's the one who has to touch Mom. Granny's the one who has to fold up her dead spider limbs and wind her stiff, wet corpse into the sheets. Fluids stain the cream colored sheets. There's no hiding the almost-person shape of Mom's corpse as Granny ties off each end so it will be easier to drag Mom's corpse up the stairs and out into the yard to be buried.

"We're sorry," Alphonse says, and he doesn't know which of them he's saying it to. Granny can't hear him and if there's some wisp of Mom's soul still tied to that thing—please no, please, please, let her be gone again, let her be dead, don't let her be trapped like he is, don't let her suffer one second more because of their arrogance, please —he can't see it. But he says it anyway, over and over again, hoping it will bleed through somehow. He can't help Granny in this. He can only bear witness.

Mom's second grave is shallower than her first. There's no coffin, no headstone. Only Granny, wheezing and shaking and too old and frail to be doing something as backbreaking as this on her own—but what's the alternative? Mom is rolled out of the sheets, landing face-down with a sickening crunch of her half-formed bones. Mom is buried again, one muddy swing of the shovel at a time.

And that's it.

It's over. It's done.

Granny moans, low and overwrought. The shovel is the only thing keeping her upright but the ground is soft from last night's storm. The blade sinks, losing purchase, wobbling dangerously. Granny sinks too; to her knees, to the ground, the shovel falling away from her. She falls in slow-motion, as if she hopes the ground will swallow her up too.

She sits there a long, long time. Saying nothing. Looking at the mound where Mom is dead and buried again. She ages, and ages, and she is made ancient by grief and weariness and loneliness and duty.

"You bastard," she croaks at long last. Alphonse doesn't know who she means, but it's a flash of anger, a flash of strength. Granny finds it in herself to stand up, to gather the sheets, the shovel, the gardening gloves, and she begins the long walk home.

Alphonse follows after. There's nothing else he can do.

Days pass. Long, interminable days and nights and hours and minutes tick-tocked by with no way of escaping the finality of time passing by without ever touching him.

He doesn't tire. He doesn't hunger. He doesn't thirst. He feels nothing. Nothing touches him. He just is.

He curls up in a corner of Ed's room. He sinks into himself, head wedged between his bent knees and elbows. He tries to cry and nothing happens. He just sits there. He listens to Granny and Winry care for Ed. Help him wash. Change his bandages. Coax him to eat. Talk at him. Kind whispers, soft nothings. Ed says nothing too. Ed allows himself to be handled like a doll. Ed is made meek, quiet, pliant. Ed's eyes are flat bronze coins set in sleepless hollows. Alphonse is there for every nightmare that tears Ed open. It's the only thing he can be.

Days pass. Identical days. Identical nights. Identical hours, tick-tocked away by clocks Alphonse wants to smash but can't even touch.

And then—change.

Change in the sudden, shocking, stomping appearance of two soldiers striding through Rockbell Automail's front door. A man, dark-haired and dark-eyed, and a woman with short hair as blonde as Winry’s who remains by the front door as Granny shouts at them to get out of her home. The man ignores her, his eyes landing on Ed with frightening intensity. Alphonse can only watch as the man hauls Ed out of his wheelchair and demands answers. His voice is an exclamation point, deep and commanding, shattering the brittle silence that has reigned here for too long. "We went to your house. We saw the floor. What was that? What did you do?"

Ed shrinks even further into himself. His breath shakes, on the verge of tears, and he says nothing in his defense to this stranger in his blue uniform with stars and stripes and ribbons standing out bright and shining. Alphonse gets to his feet and tries to reach up and tug the man's arm down, to force him to let his brother go. But of course his hands pass harmlessly through. He is useless; invisible and mute.

"We're sorry," he tells the man. He begs. Please, please, let someone here him. Let this soldier know they had no ill intent. They just wanted to see Mom’s smile again, and all they did was kill her again and take him along with her. Except here he is set apart from everything and forced to watch this stranger shake Ed like the rag doll he's been reduced to by their failure. "We didn't mean it. We're sorry. We're sorry. We're sorry."

The man is Lieutenant Colonel Roy Mustang. The woman is Second Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye. He is a State Alchemist recruiting prospective alchemical talent from the civilian populace. She is his adjutant. She has a holster with a pistol, presumably loaded, at her hip. He does not. She follows Winry out into the hall for tea. He sits down at the dining table with Granny opposite him once she’s wheeled Ed over—making a point to smooth his shirt and glower a bit first.

Granny fills her pipe, lights it, breathes in, breathes out a plume of smoke. From the way Lieutenant Colonel Mustang’s nose wrinkles discreetly, it’s her strong stuff. Then, her glower unwavering, she tells him what happened.

Ed says nothing. Clarifies nothing, defends nothing. He sits there in his wheelchair with his flat coin eyes and his shrunken shoulders and his hands loose on the armrests. Alphonse knows just as well as Ed does what this soldier’s presence means. Granny knows too that the game is up. A regular soldier who saw their bloodied array could conclude all sorts of things, but they’d be jumping at shadows that Granny could scornfully tear apart. But a State Alchemist?

No, this soldier knows exactly what he and Ed attempted. There’s no running. Granny can only state the facts and plead on Ed’s behalf and hope that there is a scrape of decency in this cold-eyed man’s heart. If he won’t walk away and leave Ed forgotten in their little tucked-away village in the mountains, then maybe at least he won’t drag Ed away to be tried and executed in Central. Maybe Lieutenant Colonels or State Alchemists have the power to try and execute little kids all on their own.

When Granny finishes she sets her pipe between her teeth and waits for what the man will do. Lieutenant Colonel Mustang looks back at her, unflinching, arms folded and creasing the sharp angles of his uniform jacket. He looks over at Ed, who keeps his eyes on the pitted surface of the table. He doesn’t see Alphonse, standing defensively between him and Ed for all the good it would do.

Then Lieutenant Colonel Mustang does the unthinkable—he praises Ed.

He is astonished by Ed’s ability, his genius, his determination to survive against all odds. He thinks Ed could do—will do—even greater and more astonishing things given half a chance. He came here with the intention of recruiting Edward and Alphonse Elric, and while he is sorry for Ed’s loss—here he hesitates, a flash of decency’s stunted relation regret there and gone on his face—the offer still stands.

"I'd say he's more than qualified to become a State Alchemist,” Lieutenant Colonel Mustang continues. “Should he choose to accept the position, he'll be required to serve the military in times of national emergency. In return, he'll receive privileges and access to otherwise restricted research materials. Given time, he may be able to restore his leg, or even more."

Ed says nothing, but his knuckles burn white against the armrests of his wheelchair.

Granny takes her pipe from between her teeth and blows out another plume of smoke. Her glare has only hardened; any relief she might feel for the fact that this man has no intentions of killing Ed are carefully shut away. "Right after my granddaughter stumbled to my door with him, half-dead and covered in blood, I went over to their house to see for myself what had happened. What was there, whatever that thing was, it wasn't human! Alchemy created that abomination. It killed his brother and nearly killed him too! And you want to throw him headlong into it? Would you really have him go through that kind of hell again?"

Lieutenant Colonel Mustang is silent a moment, and when he speaks his reply is solely to Ed. "If you agree, the decision is yours and yours alone. It's entirely up to you now. I'm not forcing you. I'm merely offering you the possibility. Whether to move forward or stay still. Will you sit in that chair wallowing in self-pity, or will you stand up and seize the chance the military can give you? It's your choice. You choose your own path. If you believe the possibility for restoring your limb, you should seek it out. Keep moving, whatever it takes. Even if the way ahead lies through a river of mud.”

Not long after the soldiers take their leave, having left a train ticket and a letter and basic instructions for Ed in Granny’s care. Ed said nothing, Granny said in no uncertain terms she wanted them to never darken her doorstep again, Second Lieutenant Hawkeye and Winry had parted smiling, and Lieutenant Colonel Mustang didn’t walk out so much as swan out. Tall, preternaturally calm—apart from the bit where he’d shaken Ed and shouted—and holding out a lifesaver to drag Ed out of the mire. Alphonse very much wants to hate him, but offering Ed a job isn’t the worse thing he could have done. He chooses to reserve judgement for now.

It’s practically the next day that Ed is prepped for surgery.

There they gather: Ed in a gurney meant for a grown man, Granny and Winry in blue surgical scrubs and smocks, the gleaming steel trays with gleaming surgical implements, and Alphonse. He stands at the foot of the gurney, wringing his hands, unseen and unheard for even this crucial turning point.

“You’re sure you won’t regret this?” Granny asks.

“My mind’s made up,” Ed replies.

“Your mind has a few screws loose,” Alphonse sighs.

Ed asks, “How long will the surgery and rehabilitation take?”

“Two years, more or less,” Granny replies.

Ed takes a deep breath, that familiar, wonderful, exhausting stubbornness igniting his eyes for the first time since that night. “I’ll do it in one.”

Granny and Winry look at him, stricken. Alphonse recalculates the number of loose screws in Ed’s scruffy head from a few to all of them, with a handful of pilfered ones rattling around for good measure. But Granny is at least half as crazy as he is. She laughs. “You’ll be spitting blood, you know that?”

Ed nods. “He’s alive. I’m sure of it. I can bring him back, but I need access to whatever the military’s libraries might have and they won’t take me without two legs. I’ll endure whatever I have to to save him.”

Granny and Winry share the same complicated, helpless, worried look they’ve taken to wearing ever since the soldiers left and Ed started talking again. That’s the problem; all Ed has talked about is this—subjecting himself to what’s tantamount to prolonged torture so he can run off to join the military, do three times the amount of research the two of them ever did together, all to perform human transmutation again. Not to bring Mom back, but Alphonse.

When Alphonse realized what Ed means to do he got so blindingly furious he forgot his predicament completely and tried to slug his stupid brother right in his stupid face. He’d whiffed, of course, and ended up falling right through Ed and wheelchair both to land in a heap on the floor. Not his best moment, but it had forced him to realize something that had been staring him in the face ever since he coaxed Den out the front door so Winry would go chasing after and find Ed dying in the mud.

He’s a walking cold spot.

Wherever he touches someone goosebumps break out all down their skin and they shiver and roll their shoulders and tighten their jaws. They react. Granny and Winry and Ed have all passed him off as one of those inexplicable chills you get sometimes for no reason. “Like someone’s gone walking over my grave,” Granny muttered to herself once before going off to find the window someone had surely left cracked. Den knows it’s him doing it because he usually warns Den beforehand so the dog doesn’t startle and raise the whole household with his barking.

(He still can’t believe the absurdity of the damn dog being more sensitive to his presence than his own brother.)

It’s silly, and he’d be embarrassed by how often he’s taken to trailing his fingers across the four of them if any of them could see him at it, but those goosebumps and shivers and Den’s raised hackles and alert ears are undeniable, irrefutable proof of his existence. He still exists in some heretofore unrealized capacity. He’s dead, yes, but he’s real.

It’s all he has left—chills on command, and Den’s small whimpers when he started talking again too.

For now, though, he keeps his hands to himself as Winry folds back the sheet to unwind Ed’s bandages. Granny is old and Winry inexperienced; they can’t afford any distractions. People die during automail surgery; not as many as in decades past, but it still happens and it’s rare for someone Ed’s age to be put through this surgery at all.

Alphonse is glad to see life coming back to Ed again, even if he’s putting all his eggs in a basket made of dreamstuff and delusions. He can’t talk Ed out of what he means to try again one day, but he can be there for him every step of the way and pray Ed doesn’t kill himself for a pipedream.

One of them should have a chance to grow up, at least.

The following year is—difficult.

First and foremost, watching Ed’s outfitting is like having to watch Granny bury Mom over and over again. It’s broken glass shards in his non-existent throat and palms and heart that he can’t really, truly be there for his brother. Ed screams. Ed shakes. Ed cries. For three breathless, terrifying days Ed has a fever so high Granny orders a surplus of ice up from town and she and Winry outline and nearly bury Ed in ice packs. He’s put back on the saline drip they’d just taken him off of. He lies so still, panting shallowly, half out of his mind when he drifts awake. He whimpers out, “Al,” and all Alphonse can do is hover his cold, non-existent hands against Ed’s face and pray.

The fever breaks, surely beneath the stomping heel of Ed’s stubbornness alone. Ed begins his rehabilitation the same day the bandages come off for good. It takes awhile for Alphonse not to startle whenever he catches a glimpse of the gleaming, unforgiving steel capping off Ed’s stump. He winces and celebrates right alongside Winry for every hard-won inch of progress Ed makes.

When Ed isn’t working himself to the point of sweat-soaked and shaking exhaustion, he reads. He reads constantly, barely sparing more than a few words with Granny and Winry unless they pry the books and notes and pens from his hands and put them out of arm’s reach. He reads without interruptions otherwise, most often at night when his constant bad dreams leave him pale and wide-eyed, draw him back down to the mute doll he was in the days before Lieutenant Colonel Mustang dragged him out of his wheelchair. If the books are still on a shelf he can’t reach on crutches, then he goes out onto the porch and sits on the top step until morning breaks, his eyes flat coins staring at the dark shape of their house in the distance. Alphonse sits with him and hopes that one night Ed will hear him say, “It wasn’t your fault, it was mine.”

Ed hasn’t gone back to their house since that night. He gives Winry lists written out in neat cursive, lists of books and clothes and other things tacked on as an afterthought. Alphonse goes with her each time, every step of the way, even the time she ignored Granny’s sharp-tongued warning to leave the basement be. Winry’s legs had given out on the last stair and she’d sat there for a long time, blue eyes fixated on the black bloodstains, the white-chalked complexity of their failed array, Alphonse’s empty clothes, Ed’s forgotten boot. She was shaking before Alphonse touched her shoulder—“We’re sorry. We’re sorry. Please go back upstairs, Winry. We didn’t mean for this to happen.”—but she didn’t cry until after.

When not looking after Ed—less and less as his rehabilitation proceeds at breakneck pace—Granny and Winry have other customers. No one else in need of outfitting, thank god for that, just adults who have lost pieces of themselves to accidents and illnesses and wars. Most of them are veterans of Ishval, feet and legs and fingers and hands and arms shot off, blown off, cut off, burned off, and so on. They share stories over drinks with Granny, and a few of them have Auntie Sara and Uncle Yuriy to thank for surviving that distant hell and always spare kind words for Winry that leave her flustered and teary-eyed. Ed, at least, ruffles her hair and does what he can to distract her when that happens.

There’s also the matter of Ed’s automail, the design of which Granny has entrusted entirely to Winry. The final design she settles on is beautiful in its own sleek, industrial simplicity. The blueprints are mostly gibberish to Alphonse’s alchemically-oriented mind but from the way Winry rhapsodizes its specs it sounds like Ed will be able to make toothpicks out of an oak tree. So that should be fun to see if he puts it to the test one day.

But the most difficult thing by far about that year is the boredom.

There’s no helping it, not really. He’s intangible, invisible, and the closest thing to a conversation he can have is riling up Den until Granny gets fed up and throws the dog out of the house.

The trouble is, he lived and breathed alchemy for as long as he can remember—for longer, even. Mom took pictures of Ed teaching himself how to read out of Dad’s old books, and Al had been sat right beside him, thumb in his mouth and eyes fixated on Ed’s comically serious face. Now though, alchemy is a source of shame and horror. They spent all those years, more than half their lives, dedicated to bringing Mom back only for all their efforts to end in this: a second grave for Mom, nothing left of Alphonse to bury, and Ed’s sanity a quietly fraying thing that neither Granny nor Winry nor least of all Alphonse have a hope of saving.

But just because the thought of performing alchemy makes Alphonse sick—abstractly, anyway—doesn’t mean he wouldn’t still do it if he could. Not doing alchemy would be like trying to go on without breathing. It’s—fundamental. But here he is, incapable of doing either and going on anyway.

At best he can look over Ed’s shoulder as he reads (apologizing reflexively when he accidentally brushes through Ed). It’s the same books they’ve poured over a hundred times before; archaic spellings in archaic fonts on archaic paper, written in the complex codes and poems of alchemists long dead, all proclaiming the divinity and perfection of the Philosopher’s Stone. So at least Alphonse knows the angle of Ed’s research, the fixation of his worrying obsession, the method by which he intends to survive performing human transmutation a second time. Ed will chase down a myth, the fabled cause for the fall of Xerxes, plumb the stone from whatever dark tomb the equally mythical Philosopher secreted it away in, just to bend it towards a pipedream.

Well, maybe, maybe not. If Al’s soul is bound to the earth somehow—he still hasn’t seen a glimpse of Mom anywhere, and there’s no way of knowing if she was a ghost after her first death too and dying a second time was too much for her soul to bear. On his own steam Ed has no hope of surviving the taboo again, let alone reviving Alphonse. But with the stone? Maybe. And that’s more than enough for Ed, of course. But it’s still such a risk. Even if he does find the Stone, or finds the means to make one of his own, who’s to say he could use it without killing himself in the process? The Stone, if it’s real, leveled a civilization in a single night. What hope does one twelve year old have in harnessing it?

Of course, all of his own questions and theories and suppositions go unheard.

They used to stay up all night together bouncing increasingly outlandish ideas off one another before crashing for the hour or two of sleep they could manage before school. Now Ed is silent, saying none of his thoughts aloud, modifying their shared alchemical code until Alphonse can’t make heads or tails of it. Ed still doesn’t sleep through the nights uninterrupted by bad dreams, but the days and months pass and Alphonse gets accustomed to watching the sun rise and set alone.

The year passes. True to his word Ed is back in peak physical condition by the end of it. No, Alphonse thinks proudly, he’s better than that. He follows along with Ed during his cool down exercises in the dusty front yard of Rockbell Automail, admiring his strength, his speed, his focus. He was already trouncing all the other boys in Resembool back when he had two legs, but now when any of them summon the courage to spar against Ed it’s like watching birds fly or fish swim. Ed is in his element again, and there is a decimal point’s percentage of Alphonse that is relieved he can’t be on the receiving end of a kick from Ed’s automail.

(Of course Alphonse knows he’d beat Ed in a fair fight if they could still spar together. He’s just not sure the fights would still qualify as fair. Toothpicks out of an oak tree is right, holy shit.)

Winry is a genius, she really is. She’s also more than a little bit terrifying when she hounds after Ed to take better care of her automail. No one’s throwing arm should be that good at her age, let alone a girl’s.

“I wasn’t doing anything to it!” Ed protests, rubbing his head. It was a small wrench she’d hit him him with, but a steel projectile is a steel projectile.

“You’re getting dust in the joints!”

“Which’ll wash out when I take a shower!”

“Go put some shoes on!”

“Well it’s a little late now!"

“Oh, for—would you just come inside already? It’s time for lunch! Granny made spaghetti.”

"Gross."

Alphonse shakes his head. They’ve always bickered, but it’s gotten a lot worse since he died. Granny’s the closest thing to a buffer they’ve got and she’s awful at it; she always takes Winry’s side and bickers with Ed almost as much.

“There’s really no need for you two to be at each other’s throats all the time,” he says, looking back at Ed—and the rest of his teasing dies in his throat. Ed is—Ed is—

Ed is taller.

Ed is almost a whole head taller than him. When the hell did that happen? Alphonse has had two to seven centimeters on Ed for as long as he can remember; the difference in their heights fluctuated, sure, but he’s been taller than Ed for as long as he can remember!

He watches Ed drop his hand from the back of his head with a huff. He watches Ed’s short braid catch the sunlight as he shakes his head, muttering, “Crazy gearhead.” He watches Ed walk to the house, hears the soft pad of his bare right foot and the click-whir-grind of his left. He watches the door shut and doesn’t follow after, because he can’t believe he missed something so obvious. He had watched Ed’s twelfth birthday come and go—uncelebrated, bleak, and attended to only by Granny’s glowering insistence on a cake (Al’s birthday had been worse; Ed had shrunk back into himself and didn’t speak for three days). Ed will be thirteen this winter, and as for Alphonse?

He looks at his hands, his arms, his torso, his legs. He isn’t real enough to show up in mirrors when he looks in them. He only has the pictures of himself stuck up on the cork board to remember the shape of his eyes, his nose, his smile. He—his ghost—is still wearing the jeans and white button down shirt he died in. He was ten when he died, he’s still ten now, and he’s going to be ten for—for—

For forever.

He’s known on some level that Ed and Winry and all the other kids in town proper are growing up without him, and that Granny and all the other adults are growing older too. But he hadn’t acknowledged—he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge—the fact that time no longer has any bearing on himself. He’d ignored the truth for as long as he could, but it’s unavoidable now.

His big brother is growing up without him.

Alphonse knows he isn’t intentionally being left behind. Ed still speaks of him in the present tense, his eyes flat coins, his mouth gaining a brittle curl, and he’d knocked out Rick Springer’s tooth when Rick said his mom said it wasn’t right not to have a funeral for Alphonse. If Ed knew Alphonse was right at his side every day since that night he’d be over the moon—but he doesn’t. He can’t know. Nobody can, and Alphonse is being left behind all the same.

Standing there in the middle of the yard, Alphonse glimpses the dim, claustrophobic future that awaits him. Ed growing up and growing older, becoming some blurred combination of Dad and Uncle Yuriy in Alphonse’s imagination; Winry growing up and growing older, becoming some blurred combination of Auntie Sara and Granny when she was young and violent; and Alphonse—the ten year old wisp trailing after their heels as they become world-famous in alchemy and engineering each, unseen and unheard and eventually barely spoken of at all for—

For forever.

He hugs himself and pretends he can feel warmth and pressure. For the first time since Ed declared his intentions of resurrecting him he hopes it’s possible, he hopes there’s a way he can hug his brother again, and be hugged in turn. He hopes to breathe, and eat, and sleep, and have conversations, and to have someone meet his eye when he says their name, and a hundred, a thousand, a million other little things he can’t experience anymore.

He hopes, because the alternative is too lonesome to bear alone.

Today’s the day. Today’s the day Ed finally takes that train ticket and letter and instructions and leaves for the military—first to Eastern Headquarters to meet with now full Colonel Roy Mustang, then together on to Central Command where the State Alchemist exams are held. Ed’s been making phone calls nearly everyday for three weeks to EHQ so Colonel Mustang or now First Lieutenant Hawkeye can fill out forms on his behalf to make the process that much smoother.  All three of them seem convinced Ed’s going to be a fully-fledged State Alchemist which says an awful lot for Ed’s bravado, the Colonel’s potentially-misplaced confidence, and the First Lieutenant’s faith in that same confidence.

Or maybe it’s just that easy to become a State Alchemist. Adults always go on and on about how difficult alchemy is and he and Ed have never understood that one either.

Granny had already said her goodbyes at the house, and Ed had squeaked when she’d pulled him into a fierce hug and demanded he be mindful, be careful, and to call once in a blue moon. So it was just Winry—and Alphonse too, of course—who walked him down to the train station.

Ed, shortly before he’d summoned the courage to call the number Colonel Mustang had left, had given practical alchemy a whirl just to see where he stood with it. Despite the mountain of new and edited-and-recoded-so-completely-it-might-as-well-be-new research he’s done, Ed hasn’t touched an array with the intention to activate it since that night. And he still hasn’t touched an array with the intention to activate it, never mind he’s alchemized himself a new wardrobe to include an enormous cherry red overcoat with a flamel emblazoned across the back. It should be tantamount to heresy to start wearing Teacher’s favored alchemical symbol without her permission, but it makes sense too. Ed can— somehow —do alchemy just like Teacher can, by a simple clap of his hands alone.

For the thousandth time—the ten thousandth time—Alphonse wishes he could remember what happened that night. Winry had asked once how Ed could do alchemy like that when he couldn’t before. Ed’s eyes had gained that bronze coin flatness and all traces of humor had been struck from his expression to be replaced with naked fear, and in a quiet, no-more-questions-please voice he’d answered, “I just paid a toll, that’s all.” Winry had chosen not to pry, but Alphonse would have given anything to know what Ed had meant.

Maybe Colonel Mustang won’t settle for vagaries and caged non-answers. Maybe he’ll order Ed to divulge every last ugly detail about that night and Alphonse will finally get to know every last ugly detail too.

Of course he’s going with Ed. As if there was ever any doubt that Alphonse wouldn’t cross that river of mud right along with him? Ed deserves to be whole again. Ed deserves to know Alphonse doesn’t blame him for what happened (How could he, when the fault so clearly rests with him?). Ed deserves to be happy again. Alphonse can’t split the research or the burden with him, but he can be there for Ed. It isn’t enough, not with Ed unable to know he’s with him, but it’s the only thing he can do.

“You’ve got your oil? Your polishing rag? Spare screws?”

Ed makes a big show of rolling his eyes. “You’re the one who packed my maintenance kit, you tell me.”

Winry huffs. “I’m just making sure. You’re gonna be gone a long time.”

“I’m comin’ back after I get my certification,” he replies. “S’just a couple weeks.”

“But you’re not staying.”

“Course not. Not ‘til I’ve brought him back. I’m just gonna pick up some stuff to bring back to the, barracks, or whatever. Take care of some stuff. You know.”

Winry’s frown deepens, but she doesn’t say anything. She saw what Ed did to Rick Springer, and Ed’s never been afraid of hitting girls.

(Alphonse is pretty sure Teacher’s to blame for that.)

Ed hastily adds, “And I’ll come back for maintenance too, y’know, if my leg breaks.”

Alphonse winces. “Idiot.”

“Are you planning on breaking your leg?!”

“No! No no, I meant, just, it might break! I dunno what they’re gonna be making me do, I mean for all I know I’m gonna be marching a month straight before they even let me near any of their libraries.”

Winry harrumphs. “Your birthday.”

“Huh?”

“Come back for your birthday—with your leg intact, okay?”

“I—I dunno if I’ll be able—“

“Okay?!”

“Okay, okay! I will! Geez, you don’t hafta shriek at me.”

Winry gives Ed a Look. Ed winces and mutters an apology. Winry finally deigns to forgive him, mollified.

Alphonse stands on Ed’s other side, grinning. “You’d be lost without her,” he tells him. Ed huffs and switches his suitcase to his left hand, swinging it through Alphonse’s knees. What a brat.

“Are you scared?” Winry asks quietly.

“Course not.”

Ed’s a terrible liar, but Winry never calls him out on it. That was always Al’s job. Alphonse sticks his hand through Ed’s neck as petty revenge for the lying and the suitcase. Ed shivers and rolls his shoulders, scowling.

“S’just gonna be different,” he admits. “Be awhile before I get used to it.”

Winry’s eyes crinkle with a smile that doesn’t quite touch her mouth. “You’ll be great.”

“So long as they let me do my own research I don’t really care what they think of me.”

“Mister Mustang seemed like a good man. I bet he’ll make sure you get all the library time you need.”

Ed grunts as the passenger car door finally slides open. “Time to g—urk!”

Winry practically strangles Ed in a hug, then shoves him toward the train. “Be careful! Write letters!”

Alphonse laughs when Ed scowls and stomps off without saying goodbye. “Don’t mind him,” he tells Winry. “He’s got the emotional complexity of a tadpole. See you soon!”

Winry’s scrubbing at her face to keep from crying too messily, so Alphonse dashes into the train after Ed without looking back. Inside Ed’s taken a window seat at the back of the car, his suitcase pushed under his seat. Alphonse sits opposite him, beaming. “It’s been a while since we’ve been on a train, huh? Not since we came home from Teacher’s. We didn’t get a chance to look around too much either way we came either. It will be interesting to see East and Central, won’t it, Brother?”

Ed sighs distractedly, gaze following the rolling hills and shadowed mountains that cradle Resembool on all sides. He rubs his left thigh. When he presses, Alphonse can just make out the outline of the brace through his pants. “Not much longer,” Alphonse promises. “I know you’ve got your heart set on bringing me back, but you’ve got to know I won’t let you ignore your own body. You’ll get your leg back too, with or without the Philosopher’s Stone.”

The door slides closed, the train shudders, the whistle wails, and then they’re on their way at last. The first real step in Ed’s plan is finally underway. Alphonse’s grin widens when he sees the curl of a smile half-hidden behind Ed’s hand. Ed doesn’t smile nearly enough anymore; it’s good to see him excited.

The town proper falls away, farmland stretching out across the hills like a patchwork quilt, the clear blue horizon interrupted by the steady up-down sweep of the telephone line, sunlight winking off the river and the windows of distant houses, white clusters of sheep bright as clouds against the grass waving in the wind. Alphonse is going to miss Resembool terribly, but they’ll be back again in a couple weeks and again for Ed’s maintenance and birthday, and Granny and Winry will be just a phone call away that he can eavesdrop in so long as Ed remembers to—

The world spins off its axis in a hard and startling twist, sky and earth kaleidoscoping wildly, and Alphonse isn’t corporeal enough to feel the impact of being wrenched by an invisible tether clear through the train to slam—he’s not corporeal enough for inertia to send him skidding along either, apparently—into the train tracks. He isn’t dizzy, he can’t be dizzy, but he’s confused and terrified and alone.

“No,” he croaks into the gravel. He has no breath to catch, his exhale doesn’t send dirt ghosting across the wood under his cheek. He clambers to his hands and knees and watches the train carrying his brother, his blood, away. “No!”

He jumps to his feet to run after it—who cares if it’s a three-hour trip by train to East, he can’t get tired, he’ll run the whole way—but hits an invisible wall and staggers back. There’s no pain or pressure, just a surface tension his hand flattens against when he reaches out. He bolts left off the tracks, running his hands across the invisible wall until he trips through a wooden fence, then bolts back across the tracks again to find the same wall barring his way across the dirt road that stretches parallel. He drops his hands, trying not to panic, trying to make sense of this latest impossibility, trying to—

His gaze falls to the painted wooden sign set beside the road: Now leaving Resembool. It’s hard not to, seeing as how he’s standing halfway through it.

He stares after the fading stream of coal-smoke fading in the distance, Ed off on his grand adventure none the wiser to his own plight, and thinks that surely, surely there must be a logical explanation to this.

In the two intervening weeks between Ed’s departure and Ed’s return, Alphonse scours the rolling hills of Resembool for a break in this barrier he can touch but can’t see. In the thirteen days and seven hours without Ed, Alphonse combs the entirety of Resembool looking for a way out and finds—

Nothing.

From the northern hills to the eastern ridges, from the southern slopes to the western forests; he hits nothing but that same invisible wall, dead end after dead end. He’s fenced in. He’s trapped. He compares the perimeter he mentally sketches out three different times just in case he misses some lucky gap to the map at the train station and finds that Resembool’s official boundaries are almost identical. He can’t leave Resembool, not on his own steam, and there’s no one he can ask for help or for an explanation because he’s dead.

Despair drags him down, drags him low. He spends the second week away from town, away from Rockbell Automail, away from anyone who would look right through him and never see a shadow. He spends the days walking with his head down and arms wrapped tightly around himself, just walking, just moving, just trying to get ahead of his own racing, circular, howling thoughts. By each nightfall he finds his way home, passing through the front door, going past the broken closet door Ed had transmuted crutches from, past the brown smears of old blood on the floorboards and walls, down the basement steps, down to their array and Mom’s bloodstains and his clothes and Ed’s shoe. He sinks into a corner with his head in his hands and his knees to his chest and he shakes because this is it, isn’t it? He’s dead but not gone, he’s a ghost, and every ghost story he and Ed ever heard says that ghosts are tied to the places they died.

So here he is. Here where he belongs. Down in this basement where no one will look for him because there’s nothing but a pile of dusty, empty clothes to find.

One night, hours before dawn, he lifts his head again. His eyes find the black stain where Mom died with her neck broken and her ribs torn wide, and he croaks, “Mom?” Because if he’s stuck here it would only make sense that she would be too, right?

But as before, as always, there’s no answer. Eventually the sun rises, and he flees the basement before the black stains can gain color.

Alphonse keeps an eye on every train that comes to rest in Resembool station, keeps an eye out for a braid of sunflower yellow hair and a cherry red overcoat even when he's a miserable, shaking knot of self-pity. Or self-loathing. He can’t decide. Thirteen days and seven hours after he hit an invisible wall that separated him from the rest of the world—and far more importantly, from Ed—he hears the train's lonesome whistle and runs to a point where he can see the road that leads out of town and ends squarely at Rockbell Automail's front door. Thirteen days and seven hours of anxious hand-wringing and what now, what do I do nows that go unanswered because no one can hear him, Ed comes home again.

Alphonse doesn't run when he spots a dot of bright red heading south out of town. He sprints.

He's far enough away that he doesn't catch up until Ed's already on the last stretch, not all that far from where Alphonse had found him sobbing in the mud that night. It's a clear, sunny day though, a far cry from then, so he shoves the ugly memory away and focuses on the now. Ed's hunched a little like the wind whipping at his coat is chilly—and oh, of course it must be, it's October now, isn't it?

"Brother! I'd almost started to think you weren't coming back after all! It's been awful without you here, honestly I don't think you realize how boring it is without you getting into things that I have to bail you out of. I tried to come with you, really I did, but I can't leave Resembool for some reason. I've tried everything—or at least, I feel like I have? But you've always been better at thinking outside of the box—or, no, we're both good at it, but you're never cautious about it so you're quicker at it. I hope you're planning on storing all your research at the house so I can get a glimpse at it now and then. You should really pick up a habit of talking to yourself, or leaving your notes out long enough that I can finally break the code, and anyway you're so impatient you never triple-check your work even though you know you should. I always did it for you but I can't now, obviously. You're going to have to bribe Winry into doing it for you instead because it's not like anyway else here can keep up with you—"

Ed hears none of this or anything else Alphonse eagerly chatters at him, but Alphonse can't find it in himself to care. Ed's back, he survived whatever tests the military threw at him, and most importantly, he still looks as determined as he had when he left thirteen days and seven hours ago. If he'd failed to earn his certification, or had been turned away, or something, Ed would have been—not shattered, no. Alphonse doesn't think Ed would sink back down into the limp, wordless misery of just after that night, but he would still... fracture. Ed's spent the past year pushing himself to the brink after losing everything they'd worked towards together. He's hung his last hope on this one chance Colonel Mustang offered him and refused to consider a single saner alternative. If Ed had failed to become a State Alchemist, well....

Well, Alphonse isn't sure Ed would have come back.

But Ed has, and when the wind whips his coat again sunlight catches on a silver chain at his hip that hadn't been there before. It can only be a real, actual State Alchemist's pocket watch. Alphonse whoops and punches the air when he sees it; not because he's glad Ed's convinced himself that this is the only path left to him, but that he succeeded at something so difficult on his own steam. It's a step in the right direction. Winry gave him a new leg that Alphonse's failure cost him, and he's learning to keep moving forward on it.

Ed grins when Den races down to greet him, barking as he trots eager circles around Ed’s legs and doing his damnedest to sniff every inch of Ed at once. "You missed him too, huh boy?" Alphonse asks, laughing, and Den barks again, startled, but his tail blurs a little faster. It's nice to know Den missed his voice too.

"Heya mutt," Ed says quietly, scratching Den behind one ear once he's calmed down some.

Alphonse follows them into Rockbell Automail, stands out of everyone's way with a pleased smile as Winry shrieks, "You said you'd call before you came home!" He laughs again when she pulls Ed, squawking, into a rib-cracking hug. He watches Granny come out of the work room with her pipe between her teeth as she wipes her hands with an oil-stained rag. She's more restrained in the hug she gives Ed, but no less glad to see him.

"Well then," she says once she's let him go. "Let's see that new leash of yours."

Ed blinks. "How'd you know I passed?"

She smirks. "They would have been stupid not to. And we do get the Times out here, you know."

"The Times...?"

Winry slaps Ed's back as she shoves a piece of cream-colored card stock in his face. "Don't let it go to your head or anything, but you made the front page."

Alphonse peers around Ed's other shoulder, ignoring a pang of irritation with himself. He would have known Ed had made it days ago if he hadn't been off sulking. Anyway. Glued to the card stock is a clipping from Central Times, not the top story but a smaller column declaring YOUNGEST STATE ALCHEMIST CERTIFIED AT 12! There's a picture and everything, a little blurry, but it's definitely of Ed walking between two soldiers; probably Colonel Mustang and First Lieutenant Hawkeye.

Ed snatches it out of Winry's hands to skim the article, then laughs, bright and surprised. "'The previous record for youngest State Alchemist was held by Flame Alchemist Colonel Roy Mustang, who was certified in 1905 at 20 years old.' That bastard! He didn't even say anything!"

"Flame Alchemist?" Alphonse wonders aloud. Luckily Winry wrinkles her nose and asks the same thing.

"Oh," Ed says, handing back the clipping to shuck off his overcoat. It's gratifying to see that Ed still has to stand on tiptoe to hang it on the coat rack despite his growth spurt. "State Alchemists are all assigned titles by Fuhrer Bradley—he was at my practical examination, actually. I think that's what made him pick mine."

"What is it?" Winry asks.

"Fullmetal."

Granny tuts. "What did you do to earn such a dramatic title as that?"

Ed's answering chuckle is suspiciously nervous, not helped in the least by his sudden interest in scratching Den around the harness of his automail. "I, uh, might have tried to assassinate him."

Winry drops the clipping, Granny nearly drops her pipe, and Alphonse slaps his hand to his forehead. "You're joking," all three of them plead.

"I wasn't actually trying to kill him!" Ed protests hastily.

"Oh good, for a moment there I was worried," Granny says. Ed glares.

"I was trying to make a point that it’s not a good idea to have VIPs around when they haven't finished vetting the alchemists they're examining!"

Winry snatches up the newspaper clipping, looking like she's tempted to beat Ed around the ears with it. "And they didn't clap you in irons? Put you in front of a firing squad? Draw and quarter you?"

Ed makes a face. "Do I look drawn and quartered? I mean—okay, yeah, they were pissed at me, but I think that was for how close I got and for making 'em look bad. The Fuhrer seemed like he thought it was pretty funny though, and anyway he's ridiculously fast. I didn't even see him draw his sword before he broke my spear."

Alphonse groans. "What is wrong with you?"

Granny seems to be thinking along the same lines. "You've got the Devil's own luck, Ed. Bradley never struck me as a man with a good sense of humor.” She breathes out a plume of smoke. “But never mind that. Go on and put your things in your room. Have you eaten yet?"

Ed shrugs, grins. "I could eat again."

"How long are you staying?" Winry asks.

"Just 'til the next train comes in, so two nights. I've got a stack of paperwork I have to fill out to be in-processed or gained or whatever at Eastern Headquarters." He says it so calmly. He says it like coming home just to visit is already old habit. He says it exactly how Auntie Sara and Uncle Yuriy would say It's just two weeks, Win sweetie, don't cry, be a big girl and listen to your grandmother, like how going out to Ishval for longer and longer periods became normal and worse, expected, right up until they—

Alphonse reels, tripping over his own feet to escape this brightly lit house full of laughter and easy banter and a table set for three. They've moved on, all of them, even Ed even though he's trying so, so hard not to. They miss him, but they don't expect to see him again, and how could they? How can they, when he's dead? He can't stay here. He can't be out there in the wide world with Ed—he can't bear to watch Ed go again. He just can't.

He spends the night down in their basement again, in the dark and quiet stillness, in the one place left to him in Resembool that no living person would willingly go to, least of all his brother.

In the morning, Alphonse comes up out of the basement to watch the sun rise. Not long after, he sees a bright red dot making its way down to town on its own. He catches up with Ed in time to see him disappear into the florist's, and he passes through the bright yellow door with its stained-glass windowpane in time to watch Ed pick out a bouquet of Mom's favorite flowers. Mrs. Caddeo smiles too gently and talks down to Ed like he's six years old instead of twelve. She doesn't mean anything by it, not really; no one who talks down to Ed or about Ed like this—like he's fragile, like he's delicate, like he's pitiful—ever means any harm by it. But they still pity Ed, and Alphonse can see how it rankles him to be thought of being coddled so he won’t make a scene.

Mrs. Caddeo tries to give Ed the flowers for free but he insists on paying, and as she wraps them up in crinkly white paper she says Ed and his fancy State Alchemist certification are the talk of the town, and Ed gives her a shy smile and goes a little pink in the face right up until she says, "Your mother and brother would be so proud of you," and Ed—

—stills. His smile turns brittle, his eyes harden, his knuckles burn white against the wooden counter. All at once he loses his soft edges and he really does look—fractured. Half-cracked. As around the bend as Winry and Granny worry he's going when he's made a fortress out of Dad's books and his coded notes in the middle of the floor again. Ed does look fragile, in this broken glass, red-edged and raw kind of way. He looks scared. He looks scary.

Too late, Mrs. Caddeo seems to realize her mistake. No one but Winry and Granny know what happened that night, and only Ed knows the full details. No one in town knows what they tried to do, only that on that night, the night of the terrible storm, Ed lost his leg and Alphonse was just—lost. People assume all kinds of things, but everyone's too scared of Granny to pester Ed with anything worse than this sickening stream of pity and hand-wringing.

"I'm sorry," she stammers—still too gently, but at least her voice has lost that insipid, insulting good cheer. "Edward, I shouldn't have—"

"It's fine," Ed bites out coldly. "Keep the change."

And he's out the door with flowers in hand, the door banging shut behind him. Alphonse stays behind long enough to level a withering look at her. She can't see it, of course, but it makes him feel better all the same.

Ed's legs are longer than Alphonse's now, but one of them is disproportionately heavy and anyway, Alphonse can't get tired. He catches up long before Ed makes it to the cemetery. He stands beside Ed at Mom's grave—her first one, the only one anybody but Alphonse and Granny knows about. Ed stands rigid. Ed stands like something sharp and biting has tangled itself up in his ribs. Ed stands dry of eye, staring at Mom's headstone and not seeing it at all. The paper wrapping crumples in his fist.

"Breathe, Brother," Alphonse tells him quietly. Ed can't hear him, but after a long, long time he calms down of his own accord. He kneels, lays the flowers down with care, and claps his hands. When the light of his transmutation fades the bouquet has become a wreath. He adjusts its placement against the headstone, breathes, stands up again. Yesterday's rough autumn wind has died down today; it's so quiet out here that Alphonse can hear the whir and click of Ed's knee.

Ed rests his hand on Mom's gravestone a moment more, takes a steadying breath, then begins the long trek back to Rockbell Automail.

Dinner that night is strangely subdued. Alphonse wonders aloud if Ed and Winry had another fight after he'd run off yesterday. Den thumps his tail loudly against a table leg, but that doesn't really clear up much.

Once everything's been washed up the three of them all don coats and Winry lights the big lantern and Ed collects an armful of kindling from the woodpile while Granny waits by the front door. Alphonse asks what they're doing but—of course—gets no reply. Den whines, and Winry tells him to stay put as she shuts the door, the last of them to leave the house.

Alphonse's suspicions about where they're going are confirmed as soon as they cross the little bridge over the river, but he doesn't understand why. Outside of their unlit house Ed stops, dropping the pile of kindling at his feet so he can brace his hands against the white picket fence. Weeds have overtaken Mom's garden; dead leaves lay in wind-scattered piles on the browning grass.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Granny asks softly. She always knows the exact degree of gentleness to use when speaking to Ed—or anybody really—of unpleasant things. She never condescends, she never belittles, she never pities. She's soft with Ed because she's grieving right along with him.

"Yeah," Ed says. "Just—stay out here, okay? I want to... before I...."

"Sure," Winry says, and she speaks in the exactly right degree of gentleness too.

Ed lets go of the fence. He picks up most of the kindling he'd brought, takes the lantern from Winry, and shoulders his way through the front door. He leaves it wide open, striding past the broken closet, down the bloodstained hall, going straight to the kitchen to drop the kindling on the dining table. Alphonse is barely a step behind him, and they look as one down to the same spot on the kitchen floor—like they'd done a hundred times, a thousand times before—where they'd found Mom collapsed. Ed's throat clicks when he swallows. He sets his shoulders and walks over the spot.

Alphonse follows him from room to room, the lantern light casting warm yellows and deep blacks where he's grown used to seeing uniform grays. Ed lingers here and there, sometimes reaching out to rest his fingertips against something, sometimes hovering them over whatever caught his eye instead. He opens every window, draws open every curtain. The last place he lingers—the longest place he lingers—is at the top of the basement stairs.

"Don't," Alphonse begs. "Don't go down there. You've punished yourself enough. Whatever you're doing here tonight—please, Brother, just walk away."

Ed can't hear him though. He goes down, and Alphonse does the only thing he can: he follows after.

Alphonse has long since memorized the basement and dried horrors couched here by dim shadow and moonlight alone, but this is the first time Ed's stepped foot down here since he still had two real feet and a little brother that hadn’t yet failed him so completely. Ed makes it one step farther than Winry did. His boots ring out on the concrete as he stops. The lantern shakes so badly in his grip that he quickly sets it down before he can drop it, then he hugs his middle and stares out across their bloodstained array. Ed ages a year for every minute he stands there until he seems as bowed and wizened as Granny did, kneeling in the mud of Mom's second grave. Ed’s automail rattles against itself, sounding like a coffee tin full of spare nuts and bolts. He forces one foot forward, and another, and another, skirting his own old bloodstain smeared by a child's pain and panic. He sinks to his knees before Alphonse's empty, dusty clothes. The left one clunks; the right one thuds.

For a long, long time, Ed stays there. Then something in him—something as invisible to Alphonse as Alphonse is to everyone else—breaks . All at once Ed's eyes brim over with tears. All at once Ed is crying, choking on sobs he tries so hard not to voice. Ed scrubs at his face as if he can claw the tears out of his eyes faster, as if he can get over himself faster, as if there's any shame to be caught grieving here of all places.

Alphonse reaches for him but of course, of course, his hand only passes through Ed's shoulder—as it always does, as it always will. Ed hiccups though, shivering, and the chill seems to—not calm him, but center him. He leans back on his heels and forces himself to take deep, even breaths so he can winch himself under control again, like forcing a leaky spigot that extra half turn so it doesn't drip. Alphonse almost feels an echo of pain somewhere in the space between where his heart and stomach once sat just watching his brother, helpless to help at all.

"I'm sorry," Ed rasps. "Mom. Al—"

His voice cracks. He breathes, scrubs at his face again, then clambers to his feet and up the stairs again before Alphonse can recover from his own shock. That—

That had been the first time he's heard Ed say his name out loud since that night.

Ed comes back with one of the sticks of kindling, opening up the lantern to light one end of it. Then he finds the three small oil lamps they'd had lit down here and smashes them with startling violence. One on the tables; one on the wooden crates; one against a bookshelf emptied of all but three old books by Winry months ago. Then Ed sets the lit kindling to each splash of oil, igniting them with a shocking whoomph of hungry fire.

Alphonse isn't struck dumb; he's struck stupid. "What—what are you doing?!"

Ed, of course, can't hear him no matter how loudly he begs Ed for an explanation, for Ed to stop, to put that out, Brother, please—

Room by room again, moving swiftly now. Ed lights kindling and sets fire to anything that will easily catch. Papers, curtains, bed sheets, and more smashed lanterns too. Room by room Alphonse claws through Ed and begs him to stop, but if Ed can feel the chill of his ghost he ignores it, jaw set and red-rimmed eyes hard and unseeing.

Ed rejoins Winry and Granny outside once he's done. They've drawn back as the flames begin to lick out of the open windows. Ed finishes off the rest of the kindling, darting dangerously close and tossing lit sticks through open windows until he's run out, and he finishes it all off by pitching Granny's lantern down the entry hall with a strangled cry.

At the end of it, as their house becomes one enormous bonfire that's surely going to draw every single person in town within the hour, Ed staggers out of harm's way. He's breathing raggedly, smudged with soot and hair coming out of its braid. Winry takes a step toward him but Granny holds her back, shaking her head wordlessly. Ed pulls out his new pocket watch, gripping it tightly. The surging fire stain Ed's eyes and the Fuhrer's crest flickering shades of orange. Alphonse falls quiet at last, feeling as wrung out as Ed looks. He's just near enough to hear Ed speak over the rush and roar of their home collapsing in on itself.

"No turning back now," Ed says, and Alphonse—

—understands.

#fmasecretsanta2018 #fullmetal alchemist #fmab #alphonse elric #my writing #hey mobile users i am......so sorry.....

[timeagainreviews]

5 Moments when Doctor Who SUCKED

Imagine, if you will for a moment, that you are a brand new Doctor Who fan. You don’t even know to call yourself a Whovian yet. You get on a few facebook groups, see a few YouTube videos and discover, much to your dismay, that Doctor Who is, in fact, ruined now. Woe is you who set path down a trail leading toward mediocrity, and eventually utter devastation. I ask you to picture yourself in this manner because I want you to realise that only a person new to Doctor Who would believe such drivel. Everyone else saying this seems to have rose tinted glasses. The rest of us all know that Doctor Who is a show that sometimes requires forgiveness.

Am I saying Doctor Who is a bad show? Not hardly. Much like pizza, Doctor Who is still pretty good, even when it sucks. I would venture to say that one of the things I love most about Doctor Who is how campy and silly it can be at times. Why is it then that so many people are turning their backs on a show that’s filled their lives with so much joy? I’m really trying to avoid the "because sexism," argument. But I can’t help but feel like if you were to switch the Doctor to a male, nobody would be calling the show "ruined." Furthermore, how do you even ruin something that has gone through so many changes throughout the years? Oh right, it’s the Doctor Who fandom. Where the only language allowed is hyperbolic.

Perhaps these fake geeks are mad because making the Doctor a woman takes away their ability to call her a Mary Sue. Especially when you consider the same character once burst out of a golden birdcage and floated to the ground in a wave of Jesus energy. That might mean they’d have to retroactively apply the title to every incarnation. Could the Doctor ever escape the distinction? Unnaturally talented, charismatic, good at everything he does, brilliantly smart. Or is it that these attributes only belong to men? We can believe Tom Baker’s Doctor is capable of walking into a burning furnace to save K9, but hell no, a woman can’t be the Doctor.

You have to face it, Doctor Who has had some terrible moments. Yet we continue to tune in because we forgive it. We forgive when Doctor Who is bad because of the moments when Doctor Who is wonderful. Which I know is how you would describe an abusive partner, but I’m gonna let it slide for a television series. Especially this series. Because unlike that dickhead who never texts you back, Doctor Who can change. If you don’t believe me, please peruse this list of five instances when Doctor Who was terrible.

1. The John Nathan-Turner era

My God, how could I not start with this? While there is no denying there are some wonderful moments in JNT's Doctor Who, it's easily my least favourite era of Doctor Who. And as much as I personally love Colin Baker, his Doctor got the lion's share of poor scripts and erroneous costume choices. Never has a man more game for a role, been dealt such a bad hand.

Introducing a Doctor that was cowardly, and even violent toward his companion, was seen as a bridge too far. While I understand the desire to try something new with the character, this wasn't the way to go about it. While the show begins to pick up around the end of McCoy's tenure, it's evident that this is more the influence of studio notes and the hard work of script editor Andrew Cartmel. I can't think of anyone less suited for the job of showrunner.

It seems that for a good nine years, Doctor Who had a madman at the helm, and not in that cute Matt Smith way. Dressing in flamboyant Hawaiian shirts, Nathan-Turner brought that same brash sensibility to the program. From Six's garish costume, to question mark lapels, to Mel's entire timeline, it's a big fat mess with him sitting in the middle. Add to all of this, the allegations of him being a predatory creep toward young male fans, and it's a surprise the show ever survived. Oh wait, it didn't.

2. Racism

Ok, maybe I should have started with this. While Doctor Who has taken efforts to address its racist past, it still happened. They drop a racist slur in "The Celestial Toymaker." Even the term "celestial," is used to mean "Chinese," in describing the titular character played by the very white Michael Gough, fully clad in Oriental silks. This tradition follows into "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," when Li H'sen Chang was played by John Bennett.

It's an uncomfortable miracle that they didn't allow Patrick Troughton to play the role of the Second Doctor in brownface. Not to say his era escaped the odd bit of racism. While Toberman in "Tomb of the Cybermen," gets a few heroic moments, he also gets none of the lines. Cast as mute manservant, we learn nothing about the inner workings of a black man who died so that white people may live.

Later, the show used characters like Ace to talk about racism. She shows disgust with a "No Coloureds," sign hanging in the boarding house she's staying in. When the evil Morgaine had her under mind control, it was calling her friend Ling Tai "yellow," and "slant-eyed," that she was able to snap out of it. Real Ace would never say such things. But even with that groundwork laid, the new series still struggles. From the Doctor being weirdly dismissive toward black people, to it taking nearly 50 years for the first black TV companion, Doctor Who is still grappling with its race issues. Yet you all kept watching.

3. Ace gets molested

This one is a bit of a lesser known infraction as it takes place in the books after the show had already been cancelled. Kicking off the Virgin Media "New Adventures," is 1991's "Timewyrm: Genesys," by John Peel. In it, the Doctor and Ace travel to ancient Mesopotamia, where they meet King Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh wastes no time going full blown creep, groping Ace and pawing at her like he was Joe Biden.

The Doctor's reaction to this is to tell Ace to just go with it, and that it's part of the culture. While I agree that, yes, Gilgamesh may not be the sophisticated modern man that hugs a bro and supports equal pay, the Doctor's reaction is some straight up bullshit. If you're going to go there, maybe try saying something with it other than "Women are men's property." This could have been a great opportunity for the Doctor to puff up and use Gilgamesh's own primitive mindset against him. "How dare you touch my woman!" the very tiny Doctor could say to the very tall man. It would have been a funny visual, mixed with the Doctor utilising male privilege in a way that helps his companion.

This is really an objection I have against most of John Peel's work. He writes women in that "she boobed boobily," manner. Much to my dismay, Peel is one of the sole writers of the Dalek books, so any time you want to enjoy a tale involving our enemies from Skaro, you have to also partake in his brand of women. I'm talking women being described as buxom babes with shoulder length blonde hair, voices like baby goddesses, and legs up to their neck. While on the other hand, we get men described as having a hat and probably some other features. I may be embellishing, but seriously, John Peel, your women suck. Yet it still spawned a rather large book series.

4. Minuet in Hell

Doctor Who has never been known to nail accents. Tegan is vaguely Australian. And Peri must have moved around a lot due to the fact that nothing about her American accent sounds like a regional dialect. That doesn't mean that Robert Jezek's Foghorn Leghorn meets the KFC Colonel performance as " Brigham Elisha Dashwood III," is any less painful. But bad accents aside, the biggest demon in this Big Finish audio is one of Doctor Who's oldest enemies- sexism!

While I understand that Charlotte Pollard may be a fan favourite among many Big Finish listeners, her character will forever be tainted for me, and it's all due to this story. In it, Charlotte, or Charley, gets literally human trafficked. They kidnap her, force her to wear lingerie in a very creepy and misguided attempt to add some sexiness to the story and force her to wait on rich businessmen at a casino.

Now, allow me to clarify, it's not the human trafficking that taints her in my eyes. People who get trafficked are victims, obviously. What bothers me is that neither Gary Russell or Alan W Lear thought to give her a single line of dialogue where she protests. She doesn't even complain a little. Sure, the Doctor often gains intel by getting captured, but this is ridiculous. Add this to the weird disjointed story, and "Minuet in Hell," easily serves as one of the lowest points in not just Big Finish history, but Doctor Who as a whole.

5. Sexism

(Image by Billy Darswed)

It makes the most sense that this is the last one on the list. Because let's be honest, it's a huge problem in the fandom. A lot of early Doctor Who audios and books smack of moments when it feels as though the writers never considered the existence of female fans. Women are often utilised as a means to make the Doctor look better, and for the baddies to look scarier. Mind you, it's not always been a pantheon of swooners and screamers. We got the occasional Sarah Jane, Leela, and Ace.

Even the strong women are long-suffering. Liz Shaw (and her real-life actress Caroline John) left the role of companion over sexism. Beginning her time on Doctor Who as UNIT's top scientific advisor, she was demoted to assistant, holding beakers for the male Doctor who stole her job. The Fourth Doctor acted similarly when telling Romana her qualifications had nothing on real life experience. The same excuse has been used for decades to keep educated women out of the workforce. "Come back when you've got some experience, sweetheart."

While Rose Tyler was a refreshingly real character with a family and life of her own, it doesn't mean that she wasn't horribly mismanaged. In "The Stolen Earth," we see a darker, more serious version of her character. The Rose we used to know is now fully devoted toward one mission and one mission only- getting her man back. It's as though her personality disappears and is fully dependent on having the Doctor in her life. She rises to greatness so that she might bask in his once more. Maybe it's romantic, but maybe it's bad writing.

If you were to ask me who my favourite Doctor Who writers are, I'd have to say Robert Holmes is up there, and he wrote "Talons of Weng-Chiang," a serial full of yellowface. I'd also say Russell T Davies, who wrote the aforementioned "Stolen Earth," and also saw it in his wisdom to turn Shirley Henderson's "Ursula," into a blowjob dispensing garden brick. Or even Steven Moffat who believes the Statue of Liberty could sneak around New York, undetected, and that nobody notices his predilection toward dominatrix women in stiletto heels.

In my review for "The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos," I quipped that Chris Chibnall had not yet written a truly great episode of Doctor Who. However, since "Resolution," I can no longer say such a thing. I may even go as far as to say it's one of the best Dalek episodes ever. It would seem then that, given enough time, he could become a great showrunner. And it seems that given enough time, any writer, yourself included, could one day write the latest "worst episode ever."

Every new era has had its stumbles. Not every Doctor gets it correct 100% of the time. Capaldi decided he was the kind of Doctor to exit through the window, a trait we never saw again. The Fifth Doctor decided to sleep his way through his first adventure. The Eighth Doctor was "human on his mother's side." And Ten took so long to regenerate that I'm beginning to think it was old age, and not radiation that did him in. If you can look at all of these stupid, stupid moments and still say you love Doctor Who, then maybe, just maybe, you can get over a bit of spotty writing, like you always have. Or is it still the female Doctor thing? Oh...

#doctor who #tardis #thirteenth doctor #chris chibnall #time and time again #Jodie Whittaker

[a2caf]

McDuffie Award for Kids’ Comics—Shortlist Announced!

The nominees for the fifth annual Dwayne McDuffie Award for Kids’ Comics are here!

After reading scores of comics published in 2018, the judges have selected their top ten. In alphabetical order, they are: Be Prepared, by Vera Brosgol, sends young Vera, a Russian girl living in an American suburb, to summer camp—Russian summer camp, the only one her single mom can afford and the one where she just might be able to fit in,

The Cardboard Kingdom, by Chad Sell, follows a neighborhood of kids who transform ordinary cardboard into fantastical homemade costumes as they explore conflicts with friends, family, and their own identity.

Hidden Witch, by Molly Knox Ostertag, continues the story of Asler, hero of The Witch Boy, as he takes magic lessons from his grandmother and tries to help his non-magical friend Charlie escape from a curse that's trying to attach itself to her.

Last Pick, by Jason Walz, takes readers to an earth overrun by alien invaders, where only those too young, too old, or too "disabled" have been spared from abduction...but maybe the kids last picked can step up and start a revolution.

Lumberjanes: The Infernal Compass, by Lilah Sturges and polterink, finds the Janes separated during an orienteering outing, thanks to a mysterious compass that others very much want to lay their hands on.

My Beijing: Four Stories of Everyday Wonder, by Nie Jun, introduces Yu'er and her grandpa, who live in a small neighborhood in Beijing that's full of big personalities—with a story around every corner and a hint of magic each day.

Onibi: Diary of a Yokai Ghost Hunter, by Atelier Sento, transports readers to the places where natural and supernatural meet, as it explores some of the lesser-known parts of Japan in a story that is part fantasy and part travelogue.

Peter & Ernesto: A Tale of Two Sloths, by Graham Annable, tells the story of two best friends who are nothing alike—Peter loves their tree and never wants to leave, while Ernesto loves the sky and wants to see it from every place on earth.

The Prince and the Dressmaker, by Jen Wang, finds Prince Sebastian hiding a secret life―taking Paris by storm wearing fabulous dresses as the Lady Crystallia―and relying on the brilliant young dressmaker Frances, who guards his secret but has dreams of her own.

Sanity & Tallulah, by Molly Brooks, features best friends who live on a dilapidated space station at the end of the galaxy―but when Sanity creates a definitely-illegal-but-impossibly-cute three-headed kitten, the havoc it wreaks may mean the end of their outer space home.

Many, many thanks to judges Faith Roncoroni, Tameshja Brooks, and Nola Pfau, who were assisted by Kids Read Comics and A2CAF co-founder Edith Donnell!

The winner will be announced on Friday evening, June 14 at the Ann Arbor District Library

                                             *********************

Here is the complete list of books that were considered for this year’s award:

5 Worlds 2 by Mark Siegel, Alexis Siegel, Xanthe Bouma, Matt Rockefeller, and Boya Sun

Akissi by Marguerite Abouet and Mathieu Sapin

All Summer Long by Hope Larson

Amulet 8 by Kazu Kibuishi

Aquicorn Cove by Katie O'Neill and Ari Yarwood

Banana Sunday by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover

Be Prepared by Vera Brosgol

Brobots 3: Brobots and the Shoujo Shenanigans! by J. Torres and Sean Dove

The Cardboard Kingdom by Chad Sell

Catstronauts: Robot Rescue by Drew Brockington

Caveboy Dave 2: Not So Faboo by Aaron Reynolds and Phil McAndrew

Chasma Knights by Boya Sun and Kate Reed Petty

The City on the Other Side by Mairghread Scott and Robin Robinson

Clem Hetherington 1: Clem Hetherington and the Ironwood Race by Jen Breach and Douglas Holgate

The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo 2: The Monster Mall by Drew Weing

Crush by Svetlana Chmakova

Cucumber Quest 2: The Ripple Kingdom by Gigi D G

The Dam Keeper 2: World Without Darkness by Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi

Dead Weight: Murder at Camp Bloom by Terry Blas, Molly Muldoon, and Matthew Seely

Delilah Dirk and the Pillars of Hercules by Tony Cliff

Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba 1 by Koyoharu Gotouge

Dog Man 6: Brawl of the Wild by Dav Pilkey

The Dream of the Butterfly Part 2 by Richard Marazano and Luo Yin

Earth Before Us 2: Ocean Renegades! by Abby Howard

Edison Beaker, Creature Seeker 1: The Night Door by Frank Cammuso

Estranged by Ethan M. Aldridge

Fake Blood by Whitney Gardner

Fruit Ninja: Frenzy Force by Halfbrick Studios and Erich Owen

The Ghost, The Owl by Franco and Sara Richard

The Girl Who Married a Skull: And Other African Stories by Nicole Chartrand et al

Gordon: Bark to the Future! by Ashley Spires

The Hidden Witch by Molly Knox Ostertag

Hocus & Pocus: The Legend of Grimm's Woods: The Comic Book You Can Play by Manuro and Gorobei

How to Spot a Sasquatch by J. Torres, J. and Aurélie Grand

Illegal by Eoin Colfer, Andrew Donkin, and Giovanni Rigano

Last Pick by Jason Walz

Lumberjanes: The Infernal Compass by Lilah Sturges and polterink

Making Friends by Kristen Gudsnuck

Mega Robo Bros by Neill Cameron

Modo: Ember's End by Arthur Slade and Christopher Steininger

Monster Mayhem by Christopher Eliopoulos

Monsters Beware! by Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado

Mr. Wolf's Class by Aron Nels Steinke

My Beijing: Four Stories of Everyday Wonder by Nie Jun

The Nameless City 3: The Divided Earth by Faith Erin Hicks

Narwhal and Jelly 3: Peanut Butter and Jelly by Ben Clanton

Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales 8: Lafayette!: A Revolutionary War Tale by Nathan Hale

New Shoes by Sara Varon

Nick the Sidekick by Dave Whamond

Onibi: Diary of a Yokai Ghost Hunter by Atelier Sento

Petals by Gustavo Borges and Cris Peter

Peter & Ernesto: A Tale of Two Sloths by Graham Annable

The Phoenix Colossal Comics Collection 1 by Robert Deas, Jamie Smart, Laura Ellen Anderson, Dan Baultwood, and Jess Bradley

Pizzasaurus Rex by Justin Wagner and Warren Wucinich

Positively Izzy by Terri Libenson

The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang

Quirk's Quest 2: The Lost and the Found by Robert Christie and Deborah Lang

Rickety Stitch and the Gelatinous Goo 2: The Middle-Route Run by James Parks and Ben Costa

Sanity & Tallulah by Molly Brooks

Scarlet Hood by Mark Evans and Isobel Lundie

Scarlett Hart: Monster Hunter by Marcus Sedgwick and Thomas Taylor

Science Comics Sharks by Joe Flood

Sci-Fu 1: Kick It Off by Yehudi Mercado

Secondhand Heroes: The Last Battle by Justin Larocca Hansen

Secret Coders 5: Potions & Parameters by Gene Luen Yang and Mike Holmes

Secret Coders 6: Monsters & Modules by Gene Luen Yang and Mike Holmes

The Secret of the Wind by Jim Pascoe and Heidi Arnhold

Sheets by Brenna Thummler

Short & Skinny by Mark Tatulli

Even More Monstrous! by Rémy Simard

Small Things by Mel Tregonning

Smash 2: Fearless by Chris A. Bolton and Kyle Bolton

Sparks by Ian Boothby and Nina Matsumoto

Star Scouts 2 The League of Lasers by Mike Lawrence

Star Wars Lost Stars 1 by Claudia Gray, Claudia and Yusaku Komiyama

Space Boy 1 by Stephen Mccranie

The Stone Man Mysteries 2: Sanctuary by Jane Yolen, Adam Stemple, and Orion Zangara

Super Potato 1: The Epic Origin of Super Potato by Artur Laperla

Supergirl: Being Super by Mariko Tamaki and Joelle Jones

The Unsinkable Walker Bean And the Knights of the Waxing Moon 2 by Aaron Renier and Alec Longstreth

Wings of Fire 1: The Dragonet Prophecy by Tui T. Sutherland and Mike Holmes

Wires and Nerve 2: Gone Rogue by Marissa Meyer and Stephen Gilpin

#awards #McDuffie award

[fishwriter]

I did a terrible thing I'm sorry

When I listened to ep 70A, I had a lot of feelings, and I looked and looked for this fic, but I couldn't find it. So I had to write it.

Carlos: It’s a sad letter. A letter about regrets, about mistakes.You know how sometimes you spend a lot of time with someone, and you think that the someone makes you happy, but then suddenly one day you realize… maybe you weren’t happy at all. Maybe both would be better off doing what you love in different places. Without each other. Maybe neither of you were as happy as either of you thought.

x-posted on my ao3

Carlos: I don’t know. Alisha and Doug look really agitated. They’re jumping up and down by the window. The other giant soldiers are running into formation outside. I need to see what’s wrong.

Carlos stares helplessly, the war cries ringing in his ears, as Doug and Alisha tear through his kitchen, grabbing cutlery and various other kitchen implements. As they flee through the door, his cutting board clattering to the ground, a creeping numbness overcomes him at the state of his kitchen counter.

“What a nice place you have, Carlos!” Kevin cooed, running his hands over the countertops. “A little… dry, for my taste, but I think it really suits you.”

Carlos offered him a tired smile. “I arranged it to look like my kitchen at home. My findings show the similarity makes me feel a little less homesick.” Kevin’s smile turned sly, and Carlos felt a chill ripple down his spine at the uncanny familiarity of the radio host’s features.

Carlos: Doug and Alisha are back.

Carlos is writing in one of his notebooks as his computer compiles its data, punctiliously checking for inconsistencies in his equations. Excitement crackles through his scientific objectivity like static, and he sets the notebook down, open, on his desk, so he can compare the graphs he’s sketched with the results from a different experiment.

All of this is just idle quadruple checking, however. Something to do with his hands while the computer works. Something to keep him from staring at the screen in anticipation of the results that will validate the impossible, torturous amount of time he’s spent away from home, away from Cecil . The thought of Cecil swoops through him like a cold wind, and he fights down the nausea, the guilt, the unreasonable bitterness and resentment. He feels the touch of a radio host’s careful fingers ghost-like on his skin, and he grits his teeth, shoving away the intrusive, unwelcome thoughts.

The door bursts open with a violent bang, and Carlos nearly jumps out of his skin, dropping his pencil as Doug and Alisha limp over the threshold, supporting the massive bodies of their comrades. “Are you… okay?” But the question dies off just as it leaves his lips as more warriors begin to flood in, shedding weapons and armour and-- is that a severed leg? The edges of his vision lighten to white, and he worries momentarily that he will pass out. He takes deep breaths, shifting from foot to foot, until he can focus on the army now ransacking his house.

“Does Cecil often help you do science?” Kevin asked, his voice soft.

“Yeah,” Carlos replied, startling himself at the thickness of his own voice. “Yes. He helps—helped—a lot.” He stared at Kevin’s smiling mouth, unable to drag his gaze any higher, and the loneliness clenched his insides with vice-like tightness. Kevin’s face looked so much like Cecil’s. His hair, his ears, his nose, his jaw. His lips. His smile grew wider, as if he could sense what Carlos was thinking, was suddenly imagining, and a horrified flush rose to the scientist’s cheeks as he realised what he was thinking.

“You miss him. Cecil. Don’t you?”

Carlos swallowed. “Yes, I do.”

Kevin: While Carlos tries to get his notes un-bloodied, let’s have a closer look at the weather.

Briskly, methodically, Carlos cleans. He wears thick gloves that protect him up to his elbows and lab goggles over his eyes because he can’t stand the feeling of so much blood on his skin, and he carefully collects the shattered, blood-soaked glass on the floor into a small box, marked with blue dots.

The blood roared in his ears at the warm touch on his wrist. Normally, he’d recoil from an unfamiliar touch, but this didn’t feel like that. It lacked any unfamiliarity at all. He looked down at the tattoos crawling down the hand that had settled over his own, and his heart stuttered in his chest, the loneliness in his head screaming so loud that it drowned out rational thought.

“I’m lonely here, too,” Kevin said quietly, with a sincerity in his voice that Carlos had never heard before. “If you’d like, I think we would both be happier if we were lonely together.”

Impulsively, Carlos turned his hand over so that their palms touched, and he laced their fingers together. “I think I’d like that,” he whispered.

He scrubs every surface, a numb rage swirling in his chest, permeating the air in his lungs, until even the slightest of red tints are gone, quite a feat considering the sunlight in this desert otherworld is always just a little bit red. His gaze flickers to the spatter of blood on his computer’s keyboard, then to the damp rag in his hand, and he decides the risk is not worth it. He just has to deal with it until the computer is done processing. ‘I can do that,’ he thinks. ‘Scientists are excellent at waiting.’ His heart clenches at the thought.

Carlos woke to the faint sounds of battle cries and the syncopatic echoes of marching footsteps, momentarily displaced in his tired brain. He pressed himself closer to the comforting warmth of the man beside him, but a choking feeling rose in his throat, jarring him fully awake. Opening his eyes, he felt a bittersweet ache ripple through him, and he got up to get a cup of water, and perhaps to do science, because when he did science, he didn’t have to worry about the cold shadow buzzing at the back of his mind.

The notebooks are unsalvageable, but he carefully arranges them outside to dry, just in case. It’s not that big a deal, he tells himself. Everything vital is already on the computer. Everything is still fine. He returns to the lab and stares at the screen, the numbers reassuring as they scrolled quickly up the screen.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Carlos sits down in the freshly cleaned chair at his desk, only to jump up again as he hears the door slam open with a crash. “Are you kidding me?” he exclaims plaintively as a huge whirlwind of white fur explodes into the lab, sending the remaining unbroken instruments crashing to the ground. “Bad dog!” he shouts, attempting to corral Alisha’s massive canine companion. “Outside! Outside now!” The dog skids across the smooth floor, crashing into the desk before scampering towards Carlos. “NO,” he barks, right before the dog’s front paws leave the ground in an undeniable attempt to jump up on his bloodied labcoat. The command seems to work, as the dog hesitates, paws flailing in the air in front of Carlos’s shoulders, and then it’s back on all fours, whirling around in a circle, chasing its tail.

“OUTSIDE,” Carlos orders in his most thunderous voice, and the dog whines mournfully before taking off, full speed, out of the lab. Hands shaking uncontrollably, Carlos looked around at the destruction, seeing the shattered test tubes and spilled chemicals as a cold hollowness creeps into his body. Feebly, he makes his way back to his desk, and he stares at the computer laying on the floor, its monitor shattered and smoking, snapped nearly in half, singe marks dark on the keyboard. He stares at it, his mind utterly silent. He stands there for a long, long moment, gazing down at the ruin of everything he’s worked for, every excuse he’s constructed, every second spent not in Night Vale, where he suddenly, achingly realizes he belongs.

Carlos abruptly turns away and walks to a filing cabinet, opening a drawer and pulling out a blank sheet of paper. He grabs a pen from the floor and begins to write.

#welcome to night vale #wtnv #wtnv fanfic #my writing #carlos the scientist #kevin #unfaithful boyfriends #carlos is a bad boyfriend #i'm a terrible person #spoilers #episode 70A

[atomkrp-blog]

WELCOME TO XAVIER’S, CHAE MIYOUNG !

… loading statistics. currently aged twenty-five, entering first semester of xavier’s in seoul, south korea. decrypting files… mutant has the following records: strength +7, durability +7, agility +3, dexterity +4, intelligence +4. currently, she is classified under tier omega.

BACKGROUND.

her childhood is a lonely one, from what she can remember. there’s no mother’s embrace, no bicycles ridden along a street lined with white picket fences and emerald green grass, no comfort in the touch of a friend. she’s isolated from the beginning, because she’s different. strangeness thrums through her dna and makes her special; that’s what her father always told her, anyway.

he calls himself her father but she could never quite be sure. from what she knows of fathers they’re supposed to love and care for their children - hold their hand as they ride their first bike and talk to them about their woes and troubles of school and love and general anxieties and worry.

“do you love me?” she queried once, her tiny voice almost lost amidst a sea of beeping and humming machines.

“i am your father,” was his reply. “i made you. therefore i love you the same way a genius loves all of his best creations. and you, my little flower, are the best creation of all.”

her father is a professor and a scientist, a brilliant man with a penchant for studying the unusual and the abnormal. the city knows him as a renowned professor of biology and an all-around upstanding citizen; a man who lost his wife to childbirth and is left raising his sickly daughter all alone whilst also undergoing research to further stretch the knowledge of the human body and it’s capabilities. to the people of seoul, he’s a hero. they coo over his ideologies whilst his daughter waits in his laboratory, tinkering with a homemade toy she made from a small beaker and a crude set of eyes drawn in marker pen, the back of her mind fixated and ready for the dreaded sound of the lab door unlocking and the experiments to begin again.

“what do these machines do?” she questioned one day, flexing her fingers and watching the wires move.

“they study you, flower. you are special, just like your mother was. i find that incredibly interesting.”

she finds out that she’s what’s known as a ‘mutant’ - the word seems odd, both reassuring and scathing. her body is wired differently and acts to protect her when danger is conceived nearby. he straps her to the wall, wires still very much in place, and he runs tests - not like the biological tests in tubes as he once did, but tests of strength, and how much her body can withstand. she’s older now, he tells her one day, and she is ready for the next step. bullets, fire, assaults of any known strength and frequency… it turns out her organically metal body is rather good at absorbing them all and keeping her safe.

(electricity, not so much. the screams filling the laboratory were harrowing that day, or so her father told her. it also became apparent that she was too dense to be able to swim, and she can no longer look at a body of water without her lungs feeling as if to be on the brink of collapse.)

when her father learns of a school for people just like her, he’s hesitant. he can see how much his daughter’s heart cries out for normality, to feel connected to other people like herself, but there’s a running risk in letting her free and he knows it. one day he sits down in front of her, eyes steely and sincere, and hands her a mug of tea.

“you want to go to school, don’t you, flower?”

she nods and stares into her tea. “yes.”

“you have to promise me something, then.”

“okay.”

“everything i did here, i did for you. you know that, right? i helped you understand your powers because i love you. there are lots of people out there who don’t love you, who wouldn’t, couldn’t, love you, because of the way that you are. you understand?”

he’s met with silence.

“you’re different, flower. beautifully, wonderfully different, like your mother was. and there are other people who are different like you, too. but they can’t know about what we did here, how i made you stronger, how i helped you. not everyone would see it the way that we see it.”

he smiles and strokes her cheek. the touch makes her stomach turn and she resists the urge to flinch away from him.

“you have to promise not to tell anyone what went on here. if you do, i’ll find out about it.”

“…i promise.”

so she stands at the gates of the academy, knuckles white and heart engorged with expectation. she’s changed her name to sever all ties with the renowned professor and begin her life anew as a new person - chae miyoung, the girl of steel.

MUTATION.

miyoung can change her skin’s physical properties into that of metal at her own will. this power grants her impeccable strength and durability, and makes her almost completely impervious to most types of physical damage.

STRENGTHS.

INCREASED DURABILITY AND STRENGTH - when her powers are active, miyoung can withstand most forms of physical assault and she is able to lift up to 200kg in weight. she has a much lower pain threshold than normal (though it isn’t gone completely - most things that would render her unconscious, like a strong blow to the abdomen for example, leaves her lightly winded, and it would take a very strong force for a punch to have any effect on her whilst in her mutant form).

BULLETPROOF - her metallic skin is impervious to weak-caliber bullets (a .50cal would probably rip right through her, but bullets from handguns tend to bounce off of her, though sometimes they may leave a dent or a mark in her skin).

FLAME RESISTANT - it has been shown that her metallic skin is also resistant to fire and fire-based mutant powers. her skin is conductive, however, and absorbs the heat rather than deflecting it, though for the most part this seems to leave no damage on her human form (not always, anyway). it’s also hinted that she has a slight resistant to magic-based powers, but not much testing has been done.

WEAKNESSES.

SPEED - miyoung greatly sacrifices her speed for strength with her powers. even in normal form she is unnaturally dense and heavy for her size, so she finds it incredibly difficult to pick up speed or momentum. she also lacks agility and flexibility, but is doing yoga and martial arts to try and counteract that.

ELECTRICITY - as her skin is a noted conductor, her greatest weakness in her mutant form is electricity. the currents run through her metal body and can cause serious harm that can transfer over to her ‘normal’ form.

WATER - miyoung is terrified of water and tends to stay very far away from it in both forms. she jokes that it’s because she’s afraid of rusting over, but the fact is that due to her increased heaviness and density, she cannot swim - she simply sinks to the bottom of the water like a rock.

PSYCHE - although she is a powerhouse when faced with physical assault, mental and psychic based powers and manipulations are still effective against her mind. she can be manipulated, have her mind read and controlled, and feel mental pain though psychic assaults.

TRANSFER - if the damage done to her metal skin is great enough, sometimes it may transfer over to her human body. this can come in many forms, from a dent in her metal skin blooming into a bruise on her human skin, to full blown scarring and scorch marks that lay there permanent. this is mostly caused through high-level fire attacks or physical attacks (ie. bullets) that are strong enough to harm her metallic form.

COVERAGE - as of yet, miyoung hasn’t quite worked out how to use her power on one part of her body as opposed to the whole thing. it’s either an all-or-nothing kind of power, and it can take up to ten seconds for her skin to transform completely, so it may not be an instantaneous transition but it is worth the wait.

#at:profile #tw experimentation #tw torture

[cabbagiez]

“Extremely detailed character sheet template”

Character Chart 

Character’s full name: Donovan Keegan Soule (He no longer remembers this) Reason or meaning of name: Donovan means dark- which his hair (and eyes) are/once were, keegan means firey (which he decidedly is), and soule is, well, meant to represent his connection to death. Character’s nickname: Don, formally Project Siren Reason for nickname: Don is easier to say than Donovan- he likely adopted it after the children he’s raised began using it, and Project Siren is the name of the experiment he took part in unwillingly. Birth date: Unknown, some time in the 30s Physical appearance Age: In his late 80s How old does he/she appear: Around 21-22 Weight: Unknown- rather high Height: Unknown, at least 6′0 Body build: Bulky Shape of face: Rather narrow Eye color: Green, with black schelra Glasses or contacts: Sunglasses Skin tone: Porcelain white- formerly quite tan Distinguishing marks: Cracks that glow green and cover the majority of his skin, various scars, a summoning symbol in the middle of his chest covered by a tattoo of the night sky Predominant features: His height, muscles, and scars  Hair color: Black, with green streaks- they are not dyed, and do not fade Type of hair: thin, straight Hairstyle: Spiked up- either naturally or gelled Voice: Deep, with a hypnotic quality to it, somewhat like a siren’s Overall attractiveness: Fairly high Physical disabilities: None that he is aware of Usual fashion of dress: Casual, with a bit of a rebellious edge Favorite outfit: Ripped jeans, a white t-shirt and a black leather jacket, with sunglasses of course.  Jewelry or accessories: Earrings every so often, sometimes necklaces. He doesn’t have many of these  Personality Good personality traits: Sense of humor, comforting and understanding- generally quite nice as long as you are nice to him Bad personality traits: Quick to anger, often sarcastic when it’s not the right time, overreacts often, often doesn’t change his behavior unless told multiple times to do so Mood character is most often in: Happiness, or mild irritation Sense of humor: Dark and sarcastic, even in the worst times Character’s greatest joy in life: Spending time with his friends and “family,” leaving the house Character’s greatest fear: Being weak again, being unable to help if one of his friends is in mortal danger Why? Both of these happened in his life- the Project Siren experiments traumatized him deeply, and during that time one of the few people he knew that cared for him like a human died due to events out of his control- but both of them were aware of What single event would most throw this character’s life into complete turmoil? It technically already happened- Him being hired by Becile Industries- and all of his memories of his past before then being completely wiped as he was forced into an experiment. Character is most at ease when: He is away from his workplace, and with friends Most ill at ease when: He is at his workplace, and is forced to confront his boss’s father Enraged when: His friends are put in danger- especially if by those he already hates Depressed or sad when: He is completely alone, or otherwise disconnected from others- along with when he is physically weak Priorities: His friends, his “family,” his boss, himself Life philosophy: It’s all going to hell anyway, why not have a bit of fun? If granted one wish, it would be: For all of his memories of his past to be returned. Why? Even if all of his family is gone- he wants to remember who he knew, before he worked for Becile Industries. He doesn’t want to feel like he is a lone entity Character’s soft spot: His friends, robots, and children Is this soft spot obvious to others? Definitely Greatest strength: His physical strength, and his voice Greatest vulnerability or weakness: He hates being called “weak,” and most magic can actively take him down easily Biggest regret: Not trying harder to stop Gary- even if it was out of his control. Minor regret: Not getting ice cream last week. He doesn’t regret all that much Biggest accomplishment: Recovering after all those experiments Minor accomplishment: Actually surviving growing wings without screaming. Past failures he/she would be embarrassed to have people know about: When he somehow managed to get his head stuck in a beaker- no one knows how he did it. Why? It’s just plain weird. Character’s darkest secret: He has murdered several people- enough to make him wanted, had it not been covered up. Either against his will or by choice- he hasn’t told that part. Does anyone else know? Only Phobus, and Ignatius and Buster Becile Goals Drives and motivations: Survival, and his “family” and friends Immediate goals: Survive the next day Long term goals: Be a decent employee, help his friends make a better life How the character plans to accomplish these goals: Work as hard as he can, and try to be a better person How other characters will be affected: Hopefully for the better! Past Hometown: He doesn’t recall- but likely a town near San Diego Type of childhood: A good one, despite him growing up during the Great Depression. Pets: Any animals he found in the wilderness First memory: He doesn’t recall it anymore, but his first memory was of his mother singing to him, then laughing as he just covered her mouth suddenly Most important childhood memory: He doesn’t know- probably something with his family, but he has no recollection. Why: No reason, on account of the absence of a memory. Childhood hero: He doesn’t recall Dream job: A science position- which he technically got Education: Only the mandatory schooling- kindergarten to twelfth grade Religion: None Finances: Poor, to say the least Present Current location: San Diego, California Currently living with: His boss, and what few employees are left, his former boss, and his best friend Phobus Pets: None Religion: None Occupation: Becile Worker Finances: Fairly well off- his employer takes care of all his expenses Family Mother: He can’t remember Relationship with her: He hopes it was good- but his “disappearance” probably made it strained Father: He can’t remember Relationship with him: He hopes it was good as well, but something tells him it would have become strained even if he hadn’t “vanished” Siblings: He can’t remember Relationship with them: Once again, he hopes it was good Spouse: None Relationship with him/her: n/a Children: Only one, he doesn’t know their name Relationship with them: Estranged, considering he never knew them Other important family members: None Favorites Color: Green, ironically Least favorite color: He doesn’t have one Music: Anything that Ignatius doesn’t like. So mostly heavy metal Food: Anything that isn’t the regulation meals provided by Becile Industries Literature: Anything that aren’t the regulation reading materials provided by Becile Industries. Form of entertainment: Books, and movies, and the radio Expressions: somewhat outdated ones usually- he has a tendancy to say “oh geez” multiple times as well Mode of transportation: On foot, flying, or in a car Most prized possession: Anything given to him by Gary, and any remnant of his old life that he still has. Habits Hobbies: Reading, spending time on the internet, avoiding his work Plays a musical instrument? No Plays a sport? No How he/she would spend a rainy day: Reading, going out in it, spending time with his friends Spending habits: He usually spends faaar too much on his friends- otherwise they’re fairly alright Smokes: Only sometimes- he has mostly quit Drinks: Often, socially. Other drugs: None What does he/she do too much of? Avoiding work, avoiding his own needs to care for others What does he/she do too little of? Paying attention to his own needs, self-care Extremely skilled at: Science, engineering, getting out of tough situations Extremely unskilled at: Not getting hurt, cooking, keeping out of tough situations Nervous tics: Rubbing his neck, picking at his skin, running his hands through his hair Usual body posture: Stiff and straight, or periodically slumped over a desk Mannerisms: Rubbing at his skin, scratching his neck Peculiarities: Rocking back and fourth Traits Optimist or pessimist? Introvert or extrovert? Daredevil or cautious? Logical or emotional? Disorderly and messy or methodical and neat? Prefers working or relaxing? Confident or unsure of himself/herself? Animal lover? Yes Self-perception How he/she feels about himself/herself: He likes himself a lot- aside from his perceived “weakness” during the experiments One word the character would use to describe self: Strong One paragraph description of how the character would describe self: “I guess I’m strong. A man of character- Fabulously gay, and a good person all in all... Wait, how long’s a paragraph again?” What does the character consider his/her best personality trait? His bravery What does the character consider his/her worst personality trait? How indecisive he can be What does the character consider his/her best physical characteristic? His strength What does the character consider his/her worst physical characteristic? his skin How does the character think others perceive him/her: as a good person- hopefully, at least. What would the character most like to change about himself/herself: Some of his appearence, and what he thinks is his “weakness” Relationships with others Opinion of other people in general: Good, until they prove themselves otherwise Does the character hide his/her true opinions and emotions from others? Not often Person character most hates: Ignatius Becile Best friend(s): Phobus, Asmah, and Zoe Love interest(s): Phobus, though it’s only a crush Person character goes to for advice: Phobus, and Asmah Person character feels responsible for or takes care of: Asmah, Zoe, Buster and Vivian Becile Person character feels shy or awkward around: No one Person character openly admires: Phobus Person character secretly admires: Phobus Most important person in character’s life before story starts: Phobus After story starts: Phobus (still) and Zoe

#Experimental Rage: Donovan #god that took forever #it was fun though

[davidelizabethbowiestrider]

Flora

Not much grew on the Isle.

In all of his fourteen years, Carlos had never seen any of the plants Yen Sid had in his text books in real life; no blood red roses with thorns sharp enough to cut, no shiny apples or green tree leaves turning to bright, autumn colours. There were no daffodils, no sunflowers- no bright colours spilling from the woods that sat at the far end of the Isle near Bargain Castle. The grass, the trees, anything that could grow, grew already brown- Carlos assumed it was from the over abundance of sludge, chemicals and sewage backed up on the Isle, but he had no way to test his theory without the proper equipment. Mal had once told him of a small green cactus she’d had, before they had ever become tentative friends, but Maleficent had demanded that she get rid of it and that had been that. Moss and weeds grew through the cracked tiles of his home, crawling ivy that scaled the walls and crept through broken windows, threatening a strangle hold on anything it came into contact with, but no fresh flowers or fruit grew on the Isle of the Lost.

The closest thing to Auradon flora came as dead dried flowers tied together with twine, dumped in the garbage and sent across on the barges. Carlos had gotten several such bundles throughout the years- his mother insisted on taking the dried flowers to make teas or scatter the dried petals around Hell Hall to mask the scent of stale air- and while it wasn’t as easy to categorize the flowers already dried, he did what he could.

“They were like...uh. Red? But sort of an orangey red, like that lipstick CJ wears, with black near the stem. And when Gaston Jr tried to pick one, he just sort of passed out, fell asleep right there. Does that sound like anything you might have seen in your big book of flowers and shit?” The treehouse sat in the largest tree on the Isle; gnarled and twisted, it was the only one Diego had deemed sturdy enough when seven year old Carlos has determined he would make himself a place to hide the little things he had to call his own. It was far more elaborate now than it had been then; seven years of adding turrets and balconies, testing his own limits for building and the tree’s limits for space and strength had created his own personal hiding place from the world. The work table had been cobbled together from an old door and some wood they’d scavenged from the docks, slightly off kilter but otherwise sturdy, and it had been there Jay had found Carlos after his trip to the outer woods with the Gaston brothers for the Headless Haunt’s practice hunt.

“Possibly. It might be a few different flowers, but I’ve never heard of anything that might put someone to sleep except…” Carlos frowned, turning towards Jay some as he poured a lime green solvent from one beaker into another full of a red, sludgy substance, the mixture bubbling as he set the beaker down on the table.

“Except?” Jay settled his hip against the beat up sofa’s arm, quick fingers drifting over corked bottles and carefully labelled boxes to pick items up here and there to turn over then return to their proper shelves.

“Except the Poppies of Oz, but I’m pretty sure Fairy Godmother and Glinda the Goodwitch destroyed all of those. Unless...hmm. No. That wouldn’t make sense…”Jay’s brow rose as he set the bottle he’d been swirling down, moving to lean against the table beside his companion.

“What doesn’t make sense? Dude, you need to stop giving me half sentences and tell me what’s rolling through that big brain of yours.” Carlos shifted, giving Jay a light shove away from the beaker on the table in an almost subconscious move as he reached for a book on the shelf above their heads. Flipping it open to scan through it, he settled on a page and set the book down on the table, pointing to the picture.

“Did the flower look like this?” Jay settled his gaze on the book, taking in the picture and giving a nod.

“Yeah, that’s it. There was half a field of them, how’d they put G. Jr to sleep?” He pulled the book closer, reading over the words scrawled across the page.

“They’re a very potent opiate. Air borne, usually effective through inhalation. They release a pollen that puts you asleep if you breath it, basically. I thought that they were all destroyed when Auradon was created but...well, I mean if that’s what you say you saw, I believe you. You’ve got the sharpest eyes I know.” Jay closed the book, pushing it back towards the younger teen with a proud grin.

“What’s an opiate?” Carlos turned his gaze to Jay, brows raised at the question.

“I suppose by textbook definition it’s a drug that affects the opioid receptors, typically used for pain relief. Though, if mixed the right way, it can make you high.” Jay’s lips stretched into a wide grin, arms crossing over his chest as he waggled his brows at the other teen.

“So we could use those flowers to get high and not have to get skunk weed from the pirates anymore?” Carlos frowned, shifting to half sit on the table, the beaker he’d been mixing beginning to smoke some. Reaching to pick it up, he gave it a small shake before gesturing to a bottle of purple powder just beyond his reach. Jay handed him the bottle, nodding for him to answer his question, and Carlos sighed as he mixed a spoonful of the powder into his concoction.

“If we could figure out a way to get the flowers without falling asleep, process them properly, yes I suppose we could. Opium’s much more potent than marijuana, though. And very addictive. You already have a problem with impulse control, I really think that we should avoid the idea of you developing an opium problem. Besides, it puts you to sleep nine times out of ten, so it wouldn’t even be a fun high.” Jay hummed, ceeding to the point, and Carlos sighed. “Now if I could slip it into mom’s tobacco she smokes...that would be nice.” Silence settled between them as Carlos reached to pour the beaker into a waiting bottle, popping a cork into it before handing it to Jay. “Put this on your arm tonight. It’ll help with the rash and the itching, and the blisters should be gone by tomorrow night. And stop rolling around in poison oak like an idiot, I know you know what it looks like by now. You’re wasting all my chemicals, I should stop making you remedies.” Jay smirked, taking the bottle and tucking it into one of his many vest pockets.

“Yeah, but you won’t.” His smirk fell some as he reached to rub Carlos’ arm, just above the patchwork bandage wrapped tightly around his forearm that was stained red. “Hey, she goes to the Spa this weekend, right? Why don’t you, me and the girls do something? Evie says you managed to salvage a couple video tapes, right?” Carlos gave a nod, eyes on the table as he began to clean up his mess. “Why don’t we have a movie night in the tree house?” Carlos nodded, pushing the dirty beakers into Jay’s hands and gesturing to the bucket of water he used to clean things.

“Alright. Wait, no, Evie’s mom is making her go to the Spa with her and my mom. And Mal won’t come without Evie.”Jay frowned, hands hovering over the bucket as he considered Carlos’ words.

“Well then we’ll have a dudes weekend. Jafar doesn’t even need me in the shop since he’s closing for the weekend while the goblins fix that massive hole in the roof. It’ll be just you and me and whatever movies you managed to rescue from the barge.” Carlos considered the offer and nodded, watching as Jay dumped the beakers into the water before picking up the small bit of sponge Carlos had managed to sneak out of his house, beginning the cleaning process without being asked.

“I guess that’s alright. So long as I can get my chores done before mom gets back, I think it’ll be okay.” Grabbing the spray bottle marked cleaner, Carlos sprayed down the table, grabbing a semi clean cloth to scrub at the few spots where the beakers had sweat. “I managed to grab an action movie, but I had to sort of splice a few parts where it was ripped together, so it might not make sense at some points, but it should be good.” Jay shrugged, placing the now clean bottles onto the designated shelf before wiping his hands on his pants, moving to settle himself onto the sofa. Gesturing Carlos over, he leant over to rifle through the bag he’d brought with him.

“I’m down for action. I also brought you a present from my trip to the barge this morning. Close your eyes.” Carlos moved to the sofa and did as instructed, holding his hands out expectantly. Something hard and cup like was placed in them, and he opened his eyes to stare at the object in his hand, eyes widening as he realized what Jay had brought him.

“Aloe vera? Jay, how did you manage to get this? It’s an entire potted plant!” A few other small items joined the potted plant in his hand- bandages, alcohol swabs and proper thread and needles for suturing wounds, all items in high demand around the Isle. Jay gave a small shrug, leaning back to relax against the sofa as he watched the awe on his friends face.

“Little bit of bartering, little bit of punching people in the face and taking what I thought you’d need. No one even looked at the plant, but I remembered you showing me it in one of your books and figured it might be important for you to have. I might have shoved Harry Hook overboard for the suturing stuff, but he was going to use it to fix his sail which would have been a waste. I figured we could use it to fix up your arm and that spot on your back that won’t close up.” Carlos’ expression softened, and he leaned into his friend slightly as he examined the thread.

“It’s a good amount, too. And not too thick, which is hard to come by. Was it a medical barge? There’s an awful lot of medical related things here if not.” Jay nodded, pulling his bag up into his lap to dig through again.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was the medical run, which is weird because it’s early this week. There was also a lot of medicine. More than usual, anyways.” Holding the bag up he upended it, dumping several half empty pill containers into Carlos’ lap. The younger teen held up each bottle to examine it, stating the use of each out loud as he looked through them.

“General antibiotics, those are handy. Adderall- I’ll keep that, it’ll help me get my chores done. Anti depressants and anxiety medication...I’ll keep these two for the girls, but we can sell these three, they aren’t as effective and have worse, more common side effects. Anthony or Gil might bite for the anti depressants, and I think Dizzy might get good use out of these particular anxiety pills-” He held out one of the smaller bottles with just a few pills remaining, “-if we cut the pills in half it should be almost the proper dosage. I think. I’d have to weigh her to be sure.” Jay nodded, not questioning Carlos’ decisions at all as the younger boy pondered the two remaining pill bottles. “Anti-inflammatories. Almost a full bottle, too, that’s a major find Jay. Wow. We’re definitely keeping these.” He reverently placed the bottle with the others, thinking back to all the times he might have used them. “And these ones here…” he shook the remaining bottle, which was more than half full of tiny, white pills. “Hydromorphin. Basically what those poppy flowers can do, but a little more low key. And really, really good pain killers I’ve read.” Jay stared at the bottle, curious as Carlos opened it and poured two out into his hand. “These bad boys make everything painless.” Holding up the pills, he turned them in the light, inspecting them for any reason they might have been tossed into the barge.

“Those’ll probably come in handy for stitching you up, right? Take them now, and I’ll do your arm once they kick in.” Jay took the remaining bottle from Carlos’ hand, setting it with the others before picking up the thread and needle. Carlos nodded, popping the two pills into his mouth after checking the bottle for the dosage, and relaxed back against the couch while he waited for the pills to take effect.

“We should write a thank you note to uh-” reaching out, Carlos grabbed the closest bottle, the anxiety medication. “-Cinderella and her apparently fucked up family. Most of these are from her trash.” Jay snorted, reaching to take the bottle from Carlos to examine the writing on it.

“They’re a couple days expired, which is why they probably got tossed. Must be nice to just get new medication whenever you want.” Carlos snorted, shifting to put his feet in Jay’s lap as he stretched out some.

“Medication doesn’t even really go bad when it gets old, it just looses its potency. What a waste.” Jay hummed, rubbing his thumb along Carlos’ ankle as the smaller teen let his eyes close, his fingers tingling slightly as the medication began to take effect.

Maybe he could figure out how to plant the aloe, expand the plant. Bring some useful flora to the Isle. The soil was shit, but he could figure something out…

After they stitched him up.

#disney descendants #fanfiction #Jaylos #Jay #Carlos de Vil #tw:drugs #Carlos shouldnt know this much about opium just saying #but he likes to read

[merthurnarlie]

"I stand motionless in front of the mirror, deliberately taking off each item of clothing and inspecting the bare flesh it exposes. Never had I paid much attention to what it felt to expose myself and assess each acute part of my body on an emotional level. Every marking or scarred tissue, a story to tell. A chemical burn in the shape of a capital ‘F’ on my right hand - a reminder of a science experiment gone wrong when the girl I had a crush on foolishly dumped too much amount of ceroxide into the beaker. Or the sharp, raised white line drawn across my knee from an overzealous soccer tackle. Or the seasonal freckles that invade my cheeks during summer - a constant reminder of my father that had passed just sixteen months after my birth. My body tells the story of my life. A map of my self-discovery. My body - my physicality - has both protected me and isolated me. As a child, primary school was unkind to me. Growing up in a small country town where coming from a mixed-race family was alien, the racial taunts were abundant, and my thick black hair and my dark complexion were a dead giveaway that I was different, let alone my proud Filipino mother. Emotionally too weak to deal with the racial slurs, my body responded and became my savior. I learned to use my physicality as a means of defense. I was the kid so puffed up with bravado and aggression, yet so full of pain. And I carried this big posture all throughout high school, making sure I was the biggest, strongest, and angriest as a device to ward off the would-be tormentors. Bruce Lee and Arnold Schwarzenegger hung on my wall - my inspiration to keep up the the facade of the alpha male. My heroes. My idols. Both strong and indestructible, if there was a problem, it was resolved with a clenched fist. I subscribed to this mentality, and it served its purpose through my schooling years. However, when it came to dealing with the real issues that laid beneath my skin, I found it was the very same aggression that protected me that now hindered me. In retrospect, I was never happy with my body. And I’m still not. I always felt uncomfortable in the changing room after P.E. at school, or on swimming sports days. I would look at the other boys running around with their shirts off, absolutely oblivious to the discomfort that I was feeling. I recall a time when I was about eleven or so, and it was a sweltering summer’s day. I had found the $1.80 I needed to enter the local pool on my mother’s dresser, so I stole it, and I ran as fast as my stumpy little legs could handle, all the way to the pool. My friends were there already, their shirts off, reclining, eating their Twisties, and the sun was drawing their shadows on the wet concrete. And all my excitement seemed to just reel up inside of me, like a horse pulling up a jump that was just too big or too far for it. And I didn’t want to take my shirt off. I was ashamed of what hid underneath it. And a great lump curled up in my throat and my shame screamed at me to leave the pool - to leave my friends. I conceded to the voices in my head, and I gave my friends a thin excuse and I slowly scuffed my way back home. And I still live with that shame. My body is the story of my life, or so I thought. I began acting at university. I didn’t know why, I just knew that I loved it. Nowadays, my reasons for the choice are much clearer. Acting, for me, is the ultimate escapism. It’s a chance to have a completely out-of-body experience, and maybe it’s a chance for me to escape the unexplained shame. Yet, it isn’t. Mentally and emotionally, I may be able to transcend who I am, but physically I can’t. And this became glaringly obvious to me when I began working in the film and television industry. I act because I love the art, so when I began professional work, the thought of my face, my body, my story becoming a commercial quantity never came to mind. Then, all of a sudden, my body became a product you could view nightly on national television. My body was no longer subject to my own thoughts - it was now a topic of the public forum. And - this sounds horribly vain, but I’ll just keep going - out of my own curiosity, or vanity, I began to read the reviews of my work. Yet, when it came to the comments, it was all about what I looked like. I found images of me on websites, rating my body out of ten, with usually comments ranging from “Yes, I would fuck him,” or “No, I wouldn’t go near him with a ten foot pole and the look of him makes my skin crawl.” And I can say that the scared little boy at the pool was now terrified. Arnold and Bruce Lee now loomed over me once again, but this time, they didn’t instill me with strength - rather, they instilled me with a sense of inadequacy. What I should look like, that I needed a six pack, or I need biceps bigger than I’d ever require. It was the first time that I guess I’d been exposed to sexual objectification, and I wasn’t the only male at my work feeling it. There was pressure on the guys on the show to look a certain way, and it was rarely talked about. We all suffered in our own silence, and the gossip rags and the papers labelled us as girl-crazy, sex symbols, whatever - and the publicity, which is a compulsory requirement, turned us into pinup boys for schoolgirls. And all the media fueled the fire of sexual objectification. And here I was, stuck in the middle of it, wishing I’d never stole my mother’s $1.80. But nowadays, I’ve reconciled with the fact that it is part of my job to look a certain way, to attain a certain physique. However, this realization hasn’t helped reconcile my own issues of self-perception. If anything, it’s complicated it further. All the attention from the media made me question my own worth - did I get the opportunity to work in the film and television industry based on my talent or hard work, or was it just simply because of the way I looked? When I was asked to speak about the topic of my body, I tried to collect my experiences surrounding my body and what it meant to me, and while I was doing so, it became clear to me that the topic of body and body image for me is intrinsically linked to identity. My body is a map of my self-discovery, but does that mean I’m comfortable in my own skin? Of course not. And I don’t think I’ll ever be. But it’s a journey that’s really exciting to take." - Bob Morley

#bob morley #robert morley #the 100 #bellamy blake