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suttttton · 3 years

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Growing Pains

Febuwhump Day 1: Mind Control

***

“You knew what you would find here, didn’t you?” Annabelle asks, leaning back against her kitchen counter, looking over Jon with eyes far too predatory for his liking.

“To be honest, I expected more spiders,” Jon says. He’s seated at Annabelle Cane’s table, in Annabelle Cane’s flat. Annabelle Cane is making him tea. He came here of his own accord, and even though he can feel his heart in his throat, he refuses to regret this decision. Hadn’t he long ago decided that answers were worth the fear? Isn’t that how he’s made every decision, since Jane Prentiss attacked the Archives? Since he read the wrong book and narrowly escaped being devoured by a monster?

Annabelle smiles, crosses her arms. “Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t here, Jon.”

Jon swallows. “Right.” His voice is faint.

“And yet you came anyway,” Annabelle says. “Do you know why?”

“I, uh… I thought I’d ask you—something. For a statement. Maybe.”

“And you thought I was likely to give you one?”

“Well, you invited me here, didn’t you?” Jon snaps, stiff politeness finally giving way to trembling anger.

“I did,” Annabelle says. She comes closer to Jon, and it’s all he can do not to flinch away from her. “Give me your hand,” she says, holding out her own to take it.

“Why?” Jon manages, even as he’s already extending his bandaged hand toward her.

She gives him a flat look, closes her eyes, takes a breath. His hand is trembling slightly, caged between her two hands. She opens her eyes. “Because our patron is worried about you,” she says. And then, her voice low with anger. “You will not compel me again.”

“Our patron?” Jon says.

Annabelle nods, her attention occupied examining the bandages on his hand. He tries to pull away, but he can’t. He can’t move his hand at all. She runs three fingers over the surface of his palm, and Jon holds back a squeak of pain at the gentle contact. “Jude did a wonderful job,” she murmurs, more to herself than to Jon. Then she looks at him, smiling. “And Martin did a wonderful job with the bandages.”

She releases him, and Jon jerks his hand back, cradling it to his chest. She steps even closer, and he’s frozen in place as one of her hands goes to his throat. Even over the bandages, she traces a line exactly where Daisy’s knife punctured his flesh. “Daisy’s is more impressive, though.”

The kettle screams, and she steps away to finish preparing the tea. Jon can suddenly move again, and he curls his arms around himself. This isn’t like meeting Jude Perry or Mike Crew. He wasn’t on even footing with them, either, but with Annabelle, it isn’t even close. He considers running, but he’s terrified that he’ll find himself unable to move if he tries to act on that thought.

“Why am I here?” he asks. He’d grown used to the small sliver of power his questions gave him. It’s terrifying to lose that.

Annabelle sets a mug of tea in front of him. He picks it up, takes a sip. He didn’t decide to do that, but it’s happening anyway. She sits down across from him, takes a sip from her own mug. “The Mother of Puppets is fond of you,” she says. Like that explains anything.

“You mean, the—spiders?” Jon asks, dread growing in his stomach.

“Knock, knock,” Annabelle says, smiling at him over her mug.

A jolt of fear rushes through Jon, and he takes a deep breath, steadying himself. “But that isn’t—I belong to the Institute, the, the Eye.” Jon still has so many questions about the Entities, so many things that he doesn’t know, puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit together. But he knows that he doesn’t belong to the spiders. He escaped them.

“Sure,” Annabelle says. “But the Web claimed you first. You’ve been running around, collecting your marks like a good little Archivist, all inspired by your desperate curiosity, your gnawing fear that you won’t be able to put all the pieces together in time. It’s all very Beholding-flavored.” She wrinkles her nose, and looks at Jon, still with that sly smile. “Much better for you to strengthen your connection to the Web. Your fear will feed us. You’ll have our gifts.”

“So this is, what, an invitation?”

“Sure,” Annabelle says. “If you want to think of it that way.” She pauses. “Of course, invitations presume that you can deny them, and free will isn’t exactly the Web’s strong suit. The Mother of Puppets wants you to be ours, so you will be.”

Jon opens his mouth, to ask what the hell that means, but Annabelle cuts him off. “You should probably be going now.”

Jon stands up, not of his own accord, and starts toward the door. Annabelle follows. Before he leaves, she plants a hand on his shoulder, and he just barely manages to not flinch away. “Jon,” she says, and there’s something different in her eyes now, replacing the sly teasing tone she’d taken before. She looks… concerned. Sad, even. “There will be some growing pains,” she says. “Just do what the Mother wants. It’ll be alright.” She squeezes his wrist, and then shuts the door.

He doesn’t decide to go back to the Archives. The Web decides for him.

***

“Good morning,” Martin says, bringing in tea, as he does every morning.

Jon smiles at him. “Good morning, Martin.”

Martin looks at him for long enough that Jon starts to frown. “Martin? Did you need something?”

“What?” Martin blinks. “No, sorry, I—You just look… really good. Better than you have since—Well, since you got back from your… vacation, I guess.”

“I suppose there’s no snappy way to say, ‘time when you weren’t coming into work because your boss framed you for murder and the cops wanted to kill you,’” Jon quips. “But yes. I feel better.” He lifts the statement on his desk. “Feels like we’re finally making progress towards something.”

“And your hand, and—It’s all healing well?” Martin asks.

Jon nods, flexing his hand slightly beneath the bandages. “I think I’m starting to get a bit of feeling back? Which is probably a good sign.”

“Probably,” Martin agrees. “I still think you should’ve gone to A&E.”

Jon nods, a little embarrassed. “Yes, well… if it gets worse, I’ll take your advice.”

“Alright,” Martin says. “Well, I’ll let you get back to it.” And then he leaves, smiling because, for the first time in recent memory, Jon actually seems as fine as he claims to be.

Jon wants to scream. He wants to curl up beneath his desk, arms wrapped around himself in some semblance of comfort. He wants to be held—Martin or Georgie or Tim, or someone. He wants the release of it, warm arms grounding him as he shakes apart entirely. He wants to beg the others to please, please help him.

Instead, he smiles at them when he sees them in the break room, when he asks them to look into certain details for him. He sits in his office, calmly reading statement after statement, finding as much information about the Unknowing as possible. He goes home and watches movies with Georgie, and laughs at all the right parts. None of it is his choice, and he is so, so scared. Scared of what the Web is planning. Scared that he will be nothing but a puppet for the rest of his life.

It’s strange, being so constantly terrified, but showing no physical symptoms of fear. His heart rate is normal. His hands and voice are steady.

It doesn’t escape his notice that they all like him better, like this. Unburdened by the weight he carries with him. He desperately wishes for one of them to notice that it’s wrong, that he’s wrong, but he knows they won’t. Even if they did notice, he isn’t certain they would want him to go back to what he was before.

It’s almost a relief when Breekon and Hope grab him. He chooses to fight them, kick out his legs uselessly as they tie him up and toss him in the back of their van. His heart is hammering, adrenaline firing. It’s exhilarating, but there’s no room to rejoice in his newfound freedom. He has to find a way out of this, but—

There is no way out. Nikola delights in reminding him of this, whenever she comes to see him. They tie him up in a dimly lit room, surrounded by horrifying mannequins that sometimes move. His binds are tight, as is the gag in his mouth, and though he can struggle against them, it’s clear he’ll never manage to wriggle out of them.

For a while, he expects someone to come rescue him. Maybe Annabelle, although if he really thinks about it, it’s more likely that the Web would simply manipulate someone else into coming. Maybe his assistants would come, if they can find him. (If they decide he’s worth rescuing.) He’s wanted by the Eye and the Web, and clearly that counts for something. Surely they wouldn’t just abandon him to be skinned alive by the Stranger.

But no one comes. It’s hard to keep track of time, but Jon knows it’s been a few weeks, at least. Long enough by far for a rescue party to come, if they ever planned on coming. He wonders if the Web is enjoying this, if this fear is Web-flavored enough for it. Maybe it set him up for this. Maybe it’s actively preventing him from escaping.

He’s allowed to cry now. He can even scream, if he wanted to, although the gag makes it kind of pointless. Nikola enjoys when he cries.

Michael comes, and then Helen replaces him, and Jon can see the spidercracks of the Web behind it. Helen opens her door to him, and even if he wanted to take his chances with the Stranger, the webs in his mind give him no choice but to accept her offer.

At least Helen only toys with him a little bit before depositing him back in his office.

He lays on the floor for a long time, staring at the ceiling, expecting at any moment for the vise-like grip of the Web to take hold of him once more. It keeps not happening. His breath starts to come faster and faster, so he forces himself to take deep breaths, but that only makes his shaky breathing sound louder in his ears. It’s all so loud, his breathing, his heartbeat. Even the electricity humming in the walls, the soft rattle of the air conditioner.

He brings a hand to his face, and his eyes are filled with tears that immediately start tumbling over his cheeks. A sob hitches in his chest, and he almost smiles. He’s wanted to have a breakdown for so long, and now—it’s almost pleasant, losing control of his emotions in the safety of his office. No one around to jeer and laugh at him. No spiderwebs forcing him to keep smiling.

Another sob hitches, and he suddenly feels much too exposed. He pulls himself under his desk, relishing the darkness, the smallness. He brings his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around himself. Lets himself cry, burying the sound as much as he can. He doesn’t want the others to hear.

The door opens, and he lets out a soft gasp, biting down on his sobs. He holds his breath, willing himself to be quiet, to not be heard, not be found. He’s petrified that being found will mean his break is over, will mean the Web comes back, invading his mind.

It’s Martin. He comes in, humming quietly, and sets something on Jon’s desk. He starts to leave, and then—

Jon suddenly takes a sharp inhale, unable to hold his breath any longer.

Martin’s footsteps pause, hesitantly.

Something in Jon’s brain—the spiderwebs, he knows—pulls at him to be quiet, to let Martin leave, to not bother him with this. But it’s been so long since Jon’s seen Martin, and he just—He just wants to see him. Even if it means he has to smile. Surely, surely Martin will see that something is wrong, won’t he? The thought brings fresh tears to his eyes, and he says, “Martin?” His voice is thick with tears and rough from disuse.

“Wha—Jon?” Martin says. His footsteps move quickly to the other side of the desk, and he crouches down. “Oh my god, Jon! What happened? Where have you been?”

“Circus got me,” Jon says with a watery smile. The Web hasn’t taken hold yet. And it’s so nice to see Martin, soft and warm and safe.

“This—this whole time, you’ve been with the Circus?” Martin says, sounding horrified.

Jon nods. “How long have I been gone?”

“A month,” Martin says. “Christ, are you alright?”

The spiderwebs tell Jon to send Martin away, to claim that he’s fine. But the compulsion isn’t as strong as it was before. It’s a request, not an order. And Jon is… He isn’t fine. He hasn’t been fine in a long time.

Besides, it’s not like Martin somehow missed the dirty tear tracks on his face.

“No,” he whispers, curling up tighter into himself. The shaking is back now. A month. A month of intruding hands rubbing lotion into his skin, constantly reminding him of their plans for him, telling him how much it would hurt, letting him hear the horrible screams of their other victims.

“Can I touch you?” Martin asks, and Jon nods.

Martin pulls Jon into his arms, both of them still partially under the desk. He’s warm, and his words are soft as he runs a soothing hand up and down Jon’s back. Jon buries his head in his chest, crying until he’s all wrung out, until nothing remains inside of him.

“Sorry,” Jon says, still sniffling slightly, his voice thick. There’s a damp patch on Martin’s shirt now, and Jon flushes a bit, looking at it.

“It’s alright, Jon,” Martin says, still holding on to him. He isn’t shifting impatiently, or acting like Jon should move away, so Jon doesn’t. He rests his head on Martin’s shoulder, exhausted, and Martin continues rubbing soothing circles into his back.

***

Jon wakes up on the cot in document storage, tucked in under several blankets. He spends a hazy moment wishing Martin were there with him, and then the spiderwebs re-exert themselves in full force and he is getting out of bed. Well. He hardly expected the break to last forever. He was lucky to get this much, really. The terror has lessened, and it feels like he can think in a straight line for once.

He heads out of document storage and towards the break room. It’s dark in the Archives. Everyone has left for the day, except for Martin, who didn’t want to leave Jon alone. He’s run out to fetch them both dinner, and will be back shortly.

The Web steers him to the utensil drawer, which is a disorganized mess, as always. He thinks about his feelings for Martin as he digs through it, the deep fondness he feels for him. He’s still holding on to a bit of hope that Martin will save him from this, he realizes.

He finds a knife, and pulls it from the drawer, and suddenly he is very focused on what the Web wants from him. He sets the knife on the counter, and then rolls up his left shirt sleeve. With horror sinking into his gut, he sets his arm on the edge of the sink, picks up the knife again in his right hand. He holds it firmly, tight enough that it makes his newly-healed scar ache.

He knows what’s about to happen. He tries to stop it, but it’s like trying to stop gravity. His hand doesn’t so much as tremble as he slices into the soft skin just below his elbow.

He lets out a cry of pain, or fear, but continues to carve into his arm with the tip of the knife. He’s cutting deep into his flesh, and he doesn’t want to look as blood pours out of him. But he can’t look away.

After an eternity, Jon is finally allowed to drop the knife. It clatters into the sink, leaving a trail of blood droplets behind it. He stares at the wound for a second. Even obscured as it is by blood, he can tell it’s a spiderweb. A message. A punishment.

He feels suddenly nauseous, salt flooding his mouth, and he sinks to the floor, breathing deeply, trying not to be sick. There is so much blood.

A soft pull at his mind, almost gentle. Don’t let Martin see.

He doesn’t want to know what the Web will do to him, if he refuses. There isn’t much time before Martin gets back, so he has to hurry.

He’s still dripping blood everywhere, so that’s the first step. Stop the bleeding. The first aid kit is nearby, well-stocked as always. He grabs it down from the shelf, and then wets a few napkins, which he uses to clean off as much of the blood as possible. It hurts, and he has to sit down before he finishes. It’s a bit tricky, wrapping his own arm in gauze, especially with his right hand injured as well, but he manages, adding layer after layer until he can no longer see the blood soaking through.

He rolls his sleeve down. The bulk of the gauze is visible through his shirt, but hopefully Martin won’t notice something he isn’t looking for.

Jon wipes down the table, the floor, the sink, until he can no longer see any blood anywhere. He washes the knife and drops it back in the drawer. And then he sits down, taking deep, even breaths. He should probably go lay down again, but he doesn’t think he can make it all the way back there. Not on his own.

He puts his head down, and a few minutes later, he hears the stairs creaking with Martin’s return. He hears his footsteps receding as he heads towards document storage, hears the soft creak of the door. And then the steps get louder, until Martin pokes his head into the break room.

“Oh, there you are,” he says, a relieved smile on his face. “Sorry for leaving you. I didn’t think you would wake up. I brought dinner,” he says, holding up the bag of takeout clutched in his hands.

Jon smiles in return. “The Eye told me,” he says.

“Oh, that’s—creepy,” Martin says.

“Sorry,” Jon says, his eyes flicking back to the table.

“It’s fine,” Martin says, sitting down across from him. “How are you feeling?”

The Web isn’t controlling him, but it hardly matters. “I’m fine,” he says. “Feeling better.”

***

They finish eating, and Martin insists on staying the night with Jon in the Archives. He insists that Jon sleep on the cot, even though the break room couch is much too small for Martin to sleep on comfortably.

Jon wakes up, and the fresh wound on his forearm has bled through the gauze, staining not only his shirt sleeve, but also the rest of his shirt. He’s covered in blood, so much that he can’t possibly hide it.

And he can hear Martin, already awake and moving around in the Archive.

Jon stands up, trying to decide what to do. If Martin sees the blood, he will ask questions, and there is no good way to explain the design so intricately carved into Jon’s arm. He needs fresh gauze, and a fresh shirt, but his extra clothes are in his office, and the first aid kit is in the break room.

He decides to make a break for his office, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders to hide any blood Martin might spot. Before he can move, however, the door to document storage opens, and Jon freezes.

“Hey Jon, I wanted to ask—” Martin stops, and for a moment they’re just staring at each other. Martin opens his mouth again, panic writ large on his face. “Jon, is that blood? What happened?”

“I—um—”

“Was it the Circus?” Martin asks, stepping closer. Jon flinches away from him, and he stops. “Okay, just—Jon, that looks really bad.”

“Yeah,” Jon manages, his voice coming out in an almost-laugh. Martin’s look of concern only grows deeper.

There’s no way for Jon to salvage this, no explanation that Martin will accept. Martin can’t know about this, can’t know about any of this. The Web might hurt him, if he becomes a danger to it.

And then—

He suddenly can see the exact strings he needs to pull in Martin’s mind, to make him ignore this. It’ll be easy. Martin won’t even know he’s done anything.

It’s the only option.

For the first time, Jon uses the spiderwebs. Martin’s eyes go blank and glassy for a single horrifying moment. And then he blinks, and looks at Jon. Jon is still covered with his own blood, but Martin doesn’t notice it at all. He looks vaguely confused for a second, before he gathers himself. “Sorry, lost my train of thought,” he says with a small laugh. “I was going to ask if you wanted to go get something for breakfast. I know you usually just skip it, but there’s a nice cafe not to far from here, and I thought it would be… good.”

Jon wants to cry. He wants to tell Martin everything, ask for his help. But Martin can’t help him. Asking will do nothing but hurt both of them.

Instead, Jon smiles. “Sounds wonderful,” he says.

#tma #tma fanfiction #febuwhump #febuwhumpday1 #my fic #self harm cw #blood cw #kidnapping cw

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cherrybracelets · 4 years

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til the end of time

spencer reid x fem!reader / bau x platonic!reader

word count: 5.1k | warnings: typical cm violence, pregnancy and childbirth mention. other than that, all fluff and corniness

an: this is super stupid and corny; just sometbing i threw together !! i also wrote a lot of this on my phone if there’s typos don’t @ me

You had been imagining the day of your wedding since you were 12 years old, and attended your Aunt Maria’s wedding. It was the first wedding you had ever been too, and it was so much fun. Well, looking back, it was actually a very cheesy and poorly thrown together party in a cheap hotel, but at the time you were amazed.

You have attended quite a few weddings since then, much that were way nicer than Maria’s. Every one you went to, you gathered more and more ideas for what you wanted to do on your own big day (when the time came, of course.) You knew you wanted white roses in the centerpieces, vanilla raspberry cake was a must, and your dream venue was saved a thousand times on your Pinterest boards.

But, nothing ever goes as planned, right? When you started planning your wedding with Spencer, you know you would have to sacrifice a few of your ideas that weren’t exactly plausible. But you never in a million years thought you would be here.

It all started about a week ago, back in the lovely conference room of the BAU. You and Spencer sat next to each other, whispering away about wedding and honeymoon plans, the rest of the team scattering in and preparing to hear about a new case.

“I just don’t know what we’re going to do if my Uncle Mike brings his girlfriend…” you frowned, your stomach doing flips as you stressed more and more about the big day.

“Just have your mom call him and talk to him, he’ll listen to her,” Spencer assured you, squeezing your hand tightly, trying to pull all of your stress away. He hated how much anxiety all of this was bringing you. For him, your wedding was the brightest day of his future, it was all he could think about. And you felt the same, of course, but the planning was exhausting.

“Sorry to bring everyone in again, I know we’ve barely been on the ground a day, but we have a weird one today. Garcia,” Hotch motioned to the tech analyst, who smiled happily as she stood up and began her presentation.

“So, my friends, we are going to Spencer’s favorite place, Las Vegas!” She giggled, trying to bring lightness into a place that had seen so many horrors.

“Oh! I’ll have to call my mom!” Spencer smiled, always excited at any chance to see his mother.

“Let’s focus on getting this creep, first,” Garcia shuttered, pulling up multiple photos of dead bodies on the screen. “These are the two victims that we know of, Jenna Benson and Evan Perry.”

“What was the cause of death?” Morgan asked.

“Gunshot to the head. But, there are two ante mortem shots on each of the victim, one in the leg and one in the… nether regions,” Garcia shuttered, pulling up more pictures of the injuries on the bodies.

“Genital mutilation, that’s a statement,” you responded.

“And it was done before he killed them, so it’s definetly torture.”

“Do you think he could be trying to extort information? One bullet each time you don’t get a question right? You have three strikes to get it right?” JJ suggested.

“I don’t know, but these bodies were only killed a few hours apart, and chances are he’s already moved on to his next victim. Wheels up in 30.”

The group began to dismiss, Spencer’s hand still locked in yours as you left and went back to your desks.

“I’m gonna go grab our bags from the car and call my mom, you’ll be okay for a few minutes?” Spencer questioned, his eyes wide as he awaited your response.

“Yes, I’ll be fine on my own, Spence,” you giggled, rolling your eyes as you turned towards him and back at your desk, mixing thoughts of your big day and the big case racing through your mind.

══════════════════════════════════════════════════════

The plane ride was long, going backwards in time to reach the opposite coast always took a while. The team spoke for a bit about the case, before saying all that could be said and separating into their own comfort. You and Spencer sat close in the chairs, your head resting on his shoulder as he flipped through some case files.

Garcia had popped in earlier with the knowledge that the victims attended high school together, making these killings seem a lot less random.

“Jenna was a freshman when Evan was a senior, it’s probably unlikely they knew each other,” Spencer whispered to you, his brows furrowed as he tried to uncover something between the lines.

“I knew a lot of seniors when I was a freshman,” you shrugged, dismissing his theory.

“Yeah, but you went to a small school, everybody knew everyone. Vegas high schools aren’t like that,” he responded sharply, his knowledge of his hometown showing through.

You decided to let Spencer think silently; he tended to work best that way. You shut your eyes for a bit, only waking back up to feel the plane descending.

You didn’t know how you had managed to let time pass away like that, but the stress of everything must have been wearing you down. Spencer had fallen asleep too, his groggy eyes reopening as the plane hit the ground.

Hotch had already given you your assignments, you and JJ off to the second crime scene, which happened to be Evan’s house. The cars were there when you walked off the plane, and an extra car tasked with delivering your luggage to the hotel you probably wouldn’t have a chance to go to.

As you landed, Hotch took a quick phone call, his face making that familiar look when something happened.

“Another body?” Emily asked as he hung up the phone.

“Two. Let’s all go back to the station, for now. We need to sit down and go over everything. If he’s working this quickly, this is a spree. And we have a lot less time than we thought.”

“I’ll let the Detective know,” Rossi nodded, walking towards the car and hopping in the driver's seat. The rest of the team followed, you and Spencer walking side by side to the car that Derek had claimed as his.

“Glad I took that little nap on the plane, doesn’t seem like we’ll be sleeping for the next 48 hours,” you giggled, getting in the back seat of the SUV.

“Probably 72, if we’re being realistic,” Spencer teased, getting in the passenger's seat. He always got in the passenger's seat when the two of you were in the car with one other person. You never questioned it, but one day he let it slip that he just didn’t want the person in the front to be lonely.

You got to the Field Office about twenty minutes later, partially thanks to Derek’s driving. As the rest of the team continued to arrive, the three of you walked into the building to begin your work. You greeted the Agents and Detectives, avoiding small talk as you knew the urgency of this case. Luckily they had a room and boards all set up for you guys. Spencer and Derek began hanging evidence on the boards, as you called Garcia to get an update on your latest victims.

“Hey baby girl, what do you have for us?” Derek flirted, while neatly hanging photos.

“The two vics were actually killed previous to our two victims. Not graduates of our high school, but! One of them is Jenna Benson’s mother, Cheryl. But I cannot find a connection to the other one.”

“Her mother? So there’s gotta be some dirt in that family. What can you find?” You asked, twirling a pen in your fingers.

“I’m looking, but I can’t find much. Cheryl’s husband and Jenna’s dad, Clint, apparently left them when she was 15. Filed for divorce and just left. Other than that, they look pretty normal.”

“What about hospital records, medical stuff? Are there signs of abuse?” Derek asked.

Your phone started ringing loudly on the desk, which you quickly declined and put in your pocket.

“Sorry, go on Garcia,” you apologized, uncomfortably shoving your phone in your jacket pocket.

“Doesn’t appear so… oh, woah. This is odd.”

“What did you find, baby girl?”

“When Jenna was 14, she had a doctors appointment where they noted she was 6 months pregnant. And there’s no other documentation of it. No other ultrasounds, no birth or death certificate of said baby.” Garcia was clicking away, trying to find any trace of other evidence.

“What year was this?” You asked.

“1991.”

“So if the baby was born, they would be 29 now. Fits the profile of a spree killer,” Spencer shrugged.

“Yeah, but how is there no record of this child anywhere?”

“Children,” Garcia chimed in, her voice filled with dread.

“Come again?” Derek asked.

“According to her doctor, Jenna was pregnant with twins.”

At this point, the rest of the team had finally arrived, coming in just in time for the call. Garcia filled everyone in, each of you silently going over the facts. You tried your best to focus on the case, but your mind was still drudging over the details of your wedding. Your phone kept buzzing in your pocket, and you were certain it was some vendor or family member trying to take your money or beg for a plus one. But you couldn’t think about that, not now. You had to be here, be present. You had to catch this man.

“I have another information bomb that is going to blow your minds,” Garcia chimed in, her voice in shock as she awaited permission to talk.

“What is it?”

“In 1992, Cheryl and Clint Benson deposited two sixty-thousand dollar cash deposits in the same week.”

“That’s about how much a baby would go for on the black market,” Spencer added, his fact bringing you all to the same conclusion.

“We have to find Clint Benson, he’ll be the only one that can help us,” Rossi said.

“Do you think he’ll cooperate? That’s super illegal, he might not indict himself,” Emily added.

“We can offer him some kind of deal. If our unsub is one of the children, he’s the only shot we have at finding him.”

“I’ll work on finding the dad. I’ll talk to you guys soon.”

The team split up into smaller conversations, your phone still vibrating violently in your pocket. Spencer walked up to you, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you close.

“You doing alright, honey? You seemed distracted earlier…” he pouted, kissing the top of your head with ease, showcasing his clear difference in height from you.

“I’m just thinking about all the wedding stuff… it’s stupid,” you answered, shaking your head in defense. “It sure doesn’t help that my phone won't stop ringing!” You groaned, ripping it out of your pocket and slamming it down on the table. The team stopped what they were doing and looked towards you, but Spencer waived them away, as if to say, ‘I’m handing this, don’t worry.’

“I’ll answer, and take care of it whatever it is. You focus on the victims, see if we can find some more connections, okay.” Spencer gave you a reassuring kiss on the lips, holding your phone in his palm and walking out to the hallway to handle your never ending stress.

You turned towards the files, trying to take your finances advice and focus on the victims. You looked at the photos over and over, trying to see if there was something you missed. Something that would make this make more sense. And then you had a thought. Something that might make this make sense.

“What if he’s looking for the dad?” You shouted, hoping someone would be drawn to your thought.

“The two men have nothing in common,” Derek responded.

“No, no. I know. But, like…” you stuttered, trying your best to organize the words into your head so they would understand. “The old man is still an outlier. But this younger victim, Evan. He went to highschool with Jenna. What if all the information he had on his dad was he was a senior at her school. Maybe he had a picture, and he’s hunting guys who might be the one.”

“If he came face to face with his mom, though, why not just ask her directly? If he is shooting them to get information, why wouldn’t she give in?” Emily questioned.

You thought for a moment, but JJ came in with an answer before your brain could think of one. Thank god.

“Maybe she wanted to protect him.”

“How would he have gotten a picture of his supposed dad though? Why would she give him a picture and not a name?”

“We’re missing something here. And unfortunately the only way we’ll find it is with more victims,” Rossi said, crossing his arms in frustration.

“And there are. Two more bodies have been found, this time much more recent. Time of death is only two hours ago,” Spencer added, walking back in from the hallway.

“And identification on them yet?” Hotch asked.

“Yeah, they’re sending their names to Garcia. It’s two more men, though. Roughly the same age as Evan. Same look as well, according to the Agent that told me.”

The phone in the middle of the table started ringing, a sign that Garcia had important information to fill your heads. Her voice always brought a kind of sweetness to your thoughts, making the whole room seem brighter.

“Garcia, what’s up?” Rossi asked her, awaiting the key to unlock this case.

“Two more victims both went to high school with Jenna. And they do look a lot alike…” Garcia said.

“Okay, can I state the obvious here. If these babies were sold, what are the chances either of them make it to 29? Most creeps buying infants don’t want them for longevity,” JJ shuttered, feeling sick at the words she was saying, but knew it needed to be discussed.

“Actually, an alarming amount of babies purchased illegally are bought by real parents looking for children to adopt. The adoption process is incredibly lengthy and difficult, and it’s even more difficult to find a newborn. A lot of… more affluent couples take this route.” Spencer nodded quietly after he spoke, something small you had always noticed about him. It was almost if he was reassuring himself that he did okay, that he said all he needed to say.

“So the only shot at finding either of these babies is through Jenna’s father,” Hotch sighed, realizing again that almost all cases came down to one cruical final piece. Clint Benson was your final piece.

“Lucky for you, Aaron Hotchner, I have found our man of the hour. Clint still lives in beautiful Las Vegas, only about fifteen minutes away from where you are now. Sending the home and work addresses as we speak,” Garcia teased, a few of you giggling as your phone’s received her information. Spencer handed you your cell back and smiled, kissing your forehead.

“I handled everything. No one will bother you again,” he assured, making you feel relaxed for the first time in weeks.

“Well, people can bother me a little, it’s still my wedding,” you teased, pushing Spencer slightly as he rolled his eyes and walked back towards Derek.

“I think we should bring Clint here versus ambushing him at home. He may not know about Jenna and Cheryl yet. It only hit the news cycle an hour ago, and they aren’t even releasing the identities,” JJ spoke, her motherly instinct always kicking in in times like these. She was right, as she usually was. It would be better to hear that kind of news here.

“Reid and Derek, go to his house. JJ and Rossi, go to his work. (Y/N) and Emily, stay here and start working on a profile based on what we have so far. Hopefully we can present something soon after we talk with Clint.” Hotch nodded at you all, making sure you all understood your tasks. You blew a kiss to Spencer as he walked out, feeling calmed by his quick smile before he was gone.

══════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Clint Benson was devastated when he heard the news of his wife and daughter. He still loved them both, but the guilt and shame of what happened was too much for him. According to Clint, the whole thing was his wife's idea. When she found out Jenna was pregnant at 14, she was heart broken. It was too late for an abortion, because they had only officially found out when she was six months.

“Cheryl was humiliated. Pulled her out of school, locked in her room. Didn’t want none of our friends to see her, to know what she did…” Clint sobbed, his voice tripping over itself.

“Which is why she never saw another doctor?” Hotch asked, carefully poking around for answers.

“Yeah… I kept trying to talk to her, ask her what we were going to do. Telling her Jenna needed to see a doctor. But Cheryl just said she was handing it, was taking care of all of it. I… didn’t know what to do. And then when Jenna went into labor, I begged Cheryl to take her to a hospital… but she wouldn’t. She barricaded herself in front of Jenna… until it was too late. She had them… right in her bedroom… a boy and a girl. They were so, so beautiful.” Clint was crying more, his words sounding more garbled with each passing second. You felt sick, horrible for the man.

Times like this made you wish for the distraction of the wedding. You tried picturing the suit you had planned for Spencer. The colors were perfect for him, and would match the rest of the theme perfectly. But then you remembered the guest list, and the caterer not having enough vegan options, and the open bar messing up your signature cocktail… And don’t even start with the DJ!

“Where are the babies now, Clint?” Hotch asked, his voice now rough and full of urgency.

“I… don’t know exactly. There wasn’t much information passed. Just names and cash.”

“What were the names?”

“Uh… the girl… she went to a couple named Ashley and Brian. The boy… Danielle and Andrew…” Clint mumbled, trying to remember more.

“Wait…” you whispered to yourself, something finally clicking in this case. You ran into the interrogation room, interrupting Hotch, much to his shock.

“Do you remember Andrew’s last name? Or what he looked like?”

“Uh… I think his last name started with an M… He had glasses. Does that help?”

“Hotch… our first victim was Andrew Masters.”

“Yes! Masters was his last name! Wait… victim? Did something happen to him? Is this connected to what happened to Cheryl and Jenna?”

You and Hotch looked at each other, a silent understanding between the two of you. You both knew what was happening here. Andrew Masters was killed by his own son. He was one of two babies given away by the Benson family that fateful evening. But why start murdering your family out of the blue? There was still something missing here.

“Have Garcia find out everything she can about Andrew’s son,” Hotch instructed, nodding you away as he readied himself to continue talking to Clint.

You ran into the hallway and called Garcia, looking around for Spencer, trying to tell him about the break in the case. Whenever either of you found something vital to the investigation, you always told each other immediately. You had done that since your first day on the team.

“What can I do for you, beautiful?” Garcia asked, distracting you from your thoughts about Spencer.

“Andrew Masters, our first victim, can you find anything on his son?”

“Uhh, sure. I can do that... what am I looking for exactly?” She questioned, still typing away madly in the background.

“We think he may be the unsub. Any triggers, any red flags?”

“Hmm, well here’s something. Up until two months ago, he was engaged. Can’t find a reason why it ended, but almost two months ago exactly they cancelled the venue, vendors, everything…”

“For no refunds, I’m sure,” you giggled, knowing well how the wedding industry worked. “What’s the ex fiance up to?”

“Well, she moved back in with her parents, Ashley and Brian, who look relatively normal…” Garcia responded.

“Wait, say that again. What were her parents' names?”

“Ashley and Brian Gregg.”

“Holy shit, Garcia. You’re a genius. Thank you!” You kissed loudly into the phone, hanging up the call and running towards the conference room. Everyone except Hotch was there, but you texted him to meet you in the conference room- that it was urgent.

“Guys, you will not believe this,” you finally said, after everyone arrived and was quiet enough to hear you. “Our first victim, Andrew, was the father of the son that Jenna gave away. Now, Jenna also gave away a daughter to another couple. Now, what are the odds of this. These two kids grow up, fall in love and get engaged. Talk about a trigger, finding out the love of your life is your secret twin.”

“You’re joking… evil twins again? Didn’t we already do this?” Emily laughed.

“It’s most likely just the guy. I’ll call Garcia and get her to send us everything she has on him. We gotta find this dude,” Derek instructed, leaving the room to speak to Garcia.

“How did they find out, though? Chances are the parents didn’t even know they were twins,” Rossi asked.

“Most likely not. Clint said the babies were picked up on different days.” Hotch added.

“It doesn’t matter how he found out, what matters is that he’s gonna kill a lot of people until he finds his ‘Dad’. He wants to punish anyone he thinks is involved in this crime.”

“We’ll put his picture out all over the media, and an APB on any vehicles he has. He won’t be able to hide for long. He has a mission, he’ll have to complete it.”

══════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Hotch, as usual, was right about the unsub. He did not stay in hiding for long. The police and FBI searched for six hours in his comfort zone, almost giving up hope, until he finally caved and came looking for another victim. JJ and Derek got to him first, trying to persuade him to drop his gun and come with them.

When it was finally all over, you felt equally ecstatic and exhausted. You couldn’t wait to crawl up onto a leather private jet chair and take an amazing nap. You were sad you didn’t get at least one night in the hotel. Something about hotels made Spencer get in a certain mood… even if you got a night away, there wasn’t much sleeping happening.

But you were grateful to be going home, at least until the next case popped up. You and Rossi were the only two that stayed back while the team went searching, wanting to be here in case any new bodies popped up. Rossi was wrapping up some paperwork with the other Agents out in the main room, and you paced back and forth in the conference room, hating the silence that was left when you were alone.

Rossi walked casually back to the conference room, and you could’ve sworn he had changed clothes. Maybe it was the extreme lack of sleep, but you could’ve sworn he didn’t look so… nice when he left the room.

“You ready to head to the airport? Everyone is gonna meet us there.” Rossi said, holding the door open for you.

“Oh, uh, yeah. Sure,” you responded, slightly confused at why the team didn’t come back here first. They usually did. But, everyone was tired and there really was no need to come back, you and Rossi had taken care of everything you needed to do to leave.

You followed Rossi down to the car, making small talk as he got in the driver’s seat and began heading away. You had only ever been to Vegas on trips for work, so you’d never really seen much of the city. It didn’t help that every street looked almost identical. You felt lost as you stared out the window, wondering how a young Spencer Reid could’ve survived in this massive city.

“Oh, before we get there, I just have to make one quick stop,” Rossi said, turning the turn signal on and pulling to the side of the road.

“Oh, uh, right now?” You questioned, jolting up as he hastily parallel parked the car.

“Yeah, it’ll be real quick. But, this isn’t a great part of town, so maybe you should come in with me…” He instructed, turning the car off and waiting for your answer.

“Um… I think I’ll be okay, Dave.” You laughed, rolling your eyes and turning to look at your phone.

“I really think you should come with me.”

“Are you not gonna go unless I do?”

“Pretty much.”

“Fine!” You rolled your eyes, opening the passenger door and getting out of the car. You stood on the sidewalk, standing angrily as you waited for Rossi to get out and walk to you.

“What are we even doing here-” you asked, turning around and getting smacked in the face with one of the cheesiest and most stereotypical Vegas chapels you had ever seen. Neon flashing lights, Elvis decor, cheap paint. It was amazing.

“Why the hell are we at a Chapel? Are Emily and JJ finally getting hitched?” You laughed, staring at disbelief at the building.

“Why don’t you just go inside…” Rossi instructed, waiting for you to enter the building so he could follow.

“Alright…” you responded, walking in the door and being immediately bombarded by JJ and Emily. They were in dresses, which made you even more confused.

“Come with us! You’ve gotta get ready!” JJ said, grabbing onto your arm and pulling you towards a door down the hallway.

“What is happening? Did we drink too many Margaritas at the taco place again…” you said, still being dragged against your will to a secret room.

And then you saw it. Emily opened the hideously pink painted door to a small dressing room, and in the middle was the single thing about your wedding that had gone right.

The dress. You found it a few months ago, and immediately knew it was the one. It was one of the first dresses you tried on, but you knew immediately it was the one for you.

“How did you… what is happening…”

“You’re gonna put the dress on, and then you’re gonna get married. That’s what's happening,” Emily shrugged, pushing you in the room.

“But… no… what about… and…” you stuttered, sitting down on the cigarette infused couch, the smell of stale smoke so strong it made you gag when you sat down.

“Okay, let’s not sit on that,” JJ laughed, pulling you up and away from the toxic furniture.

“I can’t get married. I’m not ready!” You protested, Emily stripping your clothes as you stood shocked.

“Just get in the dress, everything will be okay,” JJ assured you.

“No… I can’t…”

“Get in the dress, (Y/N), or I swear to God I will have to hurt you,” Emily joked, her eyes trying to be serious but a tiny smirk made it obvious.

“Fine. But I’m not happy about this.”

But then you put the dress on. And they were right. Everything made sense. You loved Spencer, and nothing mattered except marrying him, promising your life to him. The location, the guest list, the food… it didn’t matter. Your love mattered. He mattered.

“I’m ready,” you nodded, a few tears flowing down your cheek.

You walked out of the worst dressing room of all time, your dress dragging on the cheap shag carpet behind you. Emily handed you a bouquet of fake flowers, which made you and JJ laugh as you opened the doors to the chapel.

On the other end of a long red carpet was Spencer Reid, the one person you loved most in this world. He had on his suit, the one you designed in your head. You weren’t sure how he made it possible- you weren’t sure how he made any of this possible. But you couldn’t stop crying, a gush of hot tears flowing down your face as you walked anxiously down the aisle to your new forever.

“You are the most beautiful person in the world,” Spencer whispered to you, taking your hands as you reached the end of the aisle. JJ and Emily sat down next to the rest of the team, the only other guests in attendance. It was perfect, though. You couldn’t have imagined it any other way.

“We are gathered here today to celebrate the love between (Y/N) and Spencer,” the man said. “Thank you all for coming to this beautiful celebration. Spencer and (Y/N) have decided to share their own vows.”

“Um, I don’t have my vows,” you sighed, looking around awkwardly at the crowd.

“Should’ve memorized 'em, like I did,” Spencer winked. You rolled your eyes in annoyance, lightly shoving Spencer on the arm.

“Do we need to do all this? I mean… I know you love me. I know I love you, and I hope you know that. I know that every small thing you do makes me fall more and more in love. And I can’t imagine any day of my life without you by my side. Can’t we just skip to the I do part and get married!” You wrapped your arms around Spencer’s waist and pulled him closer.

“I just want to say one thing before I kiss the bride. Nothing has mattered more to me than you since the moment we met. I would stop the world for you if I could. I wanted to do something to take away all your stress, and although I couldn’t do it perfectly, I think this is going pretty well.” Spencer smiled goofily at you, squeezing on your hand.

“Oh, the rings!” You squealed, looking around for the small box.

“Right here,” Derek smiled, handing the box to Spencer. “Best man duties.”

Spencer slipped the metal circle around your finger, his hands shaky as he slipped it on. You grabbed his ring from the box, putting it delicately on his hand, your heart racing, still unable to process what was happening.

“Is that it?” Spencer asked excitedly, looking up at the ordained Elvis, hoping to be married already.

“Well, I have to say one thing. I now pronounce you married. You may kiss your bride!”

Spencer wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you into him. He kissed you excitedly, his lips moving rapidly with yours.

tags: @gayprentiss @blakeprentiss @bitchyreid @spncersreid @yesimaunicorn @slutforthegubes

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid fanfic #criminal minds #spencer reid fanfiction

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journalofimprobablethings · 3 years

Link

Chapters: 3/4

Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)

Rating: General Audiences

Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist

Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Annabelle Cane, Mikaele Salesa

Tags: Memory Loss, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dreams vs. Reality, Angst with a Happy Ending

Chapter Summary:

Jon doesn't have a plan; no destination except away from the thing pretending to be Martin.

Preview:

Jon doesn't have a plan. He doesn't know where he is; the house he's in (is it a house? It seems too big, too sterile, like a museum rather than a place people live) is a maze, a confusion of passages and too-large rooms and galleries. He thinks briefly of Michael and his hallways, the way that Helen Richardson described them: a shifting, changing labyrinth with no sense of direction and no exit.

He wonders if he is actually dreaming after all, or if he has somehow ended up in those halls, if he has fallen from one nightmare straight into another.

How would he know?

He has no destination, nowhere he is running except for away from the thing that was pretending to be Martin, and so he just runs, choosing directions and turns at random until he spills out into a large, bright room with French doors on the far wall and selection of ugly, expensive furniture. He skids to a halt in the middle of the room, staring at those doors.

Let's go outside, the Not-Martin had said. This place is hurting you.

A part of him wants to do the exact opposite of what that thing said, sure that whatever it wants can't be for his good. On the other hand, the green of the grounds outside looks so inviting, a large open swath of land that is the polar opposite of the passages he just ran through.

He screws his eyes shut, clenching his fists.

He wishes he could just wake up. The museum isn't exactly pleasant, but at least he knows what to expect. At least he has no decisions to make.

Wake up, he thinks. Wake up wake up wake up—

"Everything all right, Archivist?"

Jon yelps in surprise, whipping around to find the source of the voice behind him.

A man is sitting at a grand piano at one end of the room. He has an impeccable shaved head and an impeccably tailored suit and he looks completely out of place in this old-fashioned space.

"Who—who are you?"

The man cocks his head as if the question surprises him. Then a slow smile spreads over his face, like he's just heard an excellent joke. It makes Jon intensely uncomfortable.

"This really isn't a good place for you, is it? I wonder, how much of you is left without your god?"

"W-what?"

The man shakes his head and chuckles. "Don't mind me. I just find it all fascinating, the way you avatars connect with your patron. Every one just a little bit different, but you all end up dependent on it one way or another."

"Avatar?" Jon sputters. "I'm not—" The word avatar conjures up images of Jane Prentiss, Mike Crewe, Jude Perry. All the people he's met who willingly gave themselves to whatever powers it is that have been plaguing him. They chose it, though, and he didn't choose it, he never would have— "That's not what this—who are you?"

"Mikaele Salesa," the man says, smiling. He seems totally at ease, unfazed by Jon's stuttering protests. "I think you have heard of me?"

"Salesa? The artefact dealer? What are you..? Why would I..?"

The questions dissipate in his mind before he can complete them. He has heard of Salesa, of course, read about him, but he cannot fathom why he would be here in his dream.

Is it a dream? He isn't sure anymore, isn't sure of anything.

His head hurts.

Jon puts a hand to his head, staggering a little as his vision goes momentarily wavy.

"Why don't you sit down, Archivist, before you fall down," Salesa says from somewhere in front of him. He still sounds mildly amused, and a spike of annoyance momentarily cuts through the cloud of Jon's confusion. He makes a face, but moves towards one of the uncomfortable looking sofas anyway, trying his best to move in a straight line. When Salesa speaks again, his voice sounds like it is coming from some distance off.

"Where is Martin, then? I would think he would want to be looking after you."

Jon stops.

Martin?

He knows where he left the thing that was pretending to be Martin—in the hall staring after him with an uncomfortably devastated expression. Has Salesa seen it too? Why would he think it would be taking care of him?

He remembers how the Not-Martin had looked at him, so sad and afraid, how it—he?—had stepped forward to catch him when he stumbled. The tiny wobble in his voice as he tried to get Jon to listen.

Jon, please.

Does it—is there a chance that was really Martin, after all?

Jon shakes his head. Nothing makes sense anymore. Everything is swimming; he didn't know it was possible to feel this ill in a dream, if that's even what this is. The sofa in front of him blurs and tilts and he stumbles away from it, reaching out a hand to try to find something, anything solid. He really does feel ill, he—

Jon blinks.

He's standing in a room he doesn't recognize, and he's not sure how he got here.

He's not at home, certainly not in the Archives; the intricate carvings and rich curtains that decorate this room are the farthest thing possible from the drear institutional decor of that basement.

It looks, more than anything, like a room in one of those big country houses, the kind you can take tours of, to see how the other half used to live. This room is vaguely familiar; he thinks he may have been somewhere like this before. Maybe as a child? The memories slip away when he tries to snatch at them, fading like a dream.

Dreams. He must be dreaming. And if he's dreaming, then…

Jon looks up and his heart sinks as he sees a man sitting in front of him at a grand piano, watching him. He doesn't remember taking a statement about a country house, but he must have, because here is the other person, as there always is.

He wonders dully when the nightmare will start.

But then the man does something that none of his nightmare victims—and Jon only just started to think of them that way, as victims, but what else can they be, the way they look at him?—has ever done.

He smiles at him.

And then he speaks.

"Everything all right, Archivist?"

Jon stares at him. "Yes, I...that is, I—I'm sorry, who are you?"

The man chuckles, and shakes his head, and even though he knows that this isn't how it usually works, that this is something new—Jon has the oddest sensation that he has had this dream before.

#the magnus archives #tma #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #tma fanfic #upton house #mikaele salesa #once again what was going to be the final chapter has split into two #but here have a jon pov interlude #scribblings #long post

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commander-hanji-zoe · 4 years

Note

Do you have any headcanons on veterans x reader on quarantine lockdown headcanons. Baking, Reading, Exercising?

Ohhhh I have so many! Thank you for this ask ❤️ One of these days I’ll master the art of answering a head canon question quickly and with shorter answers. But today is not the day! There’s a few nsfw bits under the cut. This is over 3k words....how??

Mike

Mike is fond of long lay-ins, it’s what he lives for at the weekend. He loves you so much and enjoys nothing more than being comfy and snuggly under a duvet with you. Eating breakfast, watching Netflix, just chilling and enjoying one another’s company. So during lock down there’s gonna be a lot of time in comfy PJ’s lazing around in bed.

Mike loves cooking and cooking shows! The two of you have a date night once a week where you cook together. You always light some candles, listen to jazz and have a glass of wine or two while cooking. One week you try making your own sushi, the next it’s Jamaican curry, then it’s pizza night! Trying new things is something you both love (both in and out of the bedroom *cough* more on that later.

When restrictions are eased a little and you’re allowed to sit outside/drive for exercise, the two of you take a long countryside drive together and find a quiet secluded spot where you can sit and have a picnic and watch the clouds go by.

I see Mike as a guitar kinda guy, so he’ll teach you if you don’t play and if you do, the two of you will enjoy spending some time writing songs together and playing along to your favourite rock and indie tunes.

You enjoy watching live acoustic gigs and concerts which are being streamed by artists and comedians etc. Mike encourages you to get dressed up with him, you have drinks while watching and often end up dancing as if you were at a gig in person.

Binge listening to podcasts together ‘The Magnus Archive,’ ‘Welcome to Nightvale’ and ‘MaMbBam’ being favourites.

Star-gazing. Sitting outdoors at night, during the day the two of you will spend time in your garden but it’s night time you really enjoy it the most. Sitting outside on a blanket and with another over you, you make sure all the lights inside are turned off so you can enjoy watching the stars, moon, planets, satellites etc above you. You often have a glass of wine or a cocktail as you sit out there, sometimes you fall asleep in Mike’s arms so he’ll carry you up to bed.

Finally Mike is very good at giving you personal space, while he loves taking up new hobbies with you and spending time doing things you love together, he also knows you both need your space. It makes the time you do spend together so much sweeter.

Erwin

Even though you don’t need to go out to work, Erwin is still up early. When he wakes he showers and then prepares for the day by making you both a delicious breakfast. Think poached eggs, grapefruit, french toast, yoghurt and fruit etc. He likes listening to the radio over watching TV first thing in the morning so you have that on for a bit.

You enjoy daily workouts together (with Saturday or Sunday off). Erwin takes them unsurprisingly seriously, however, he does make them fun. The two of you will have little competitions with one another and Erwin creates a workout playlist for you - it’s an eclectic mix and includes songs that you both end up singing along to.

Erwin loves to play the Piano but due to his work he only usually touches it a few times a month if that. With lockdown he starts playing daily, there’s a few times when you wake up and he’s already practising - it really is beautiful. Sometimes if he knows you’re watching he may stop playing, or at least change what he’s playing to something you know so you can sing along or join in. If you’re quiet though you can stand in the door for 5-10 minutes without him realising and he’ll continue to play classical music.

As well as the home workouts you try to go out once a week for a run, as much as Erwin just wants to get on he would never leave you behind if you’re struggling to keep up and will wait for you (he’s a gentleman after all).

Canvas painting, sometimes Erwin struggles with getting out or showing his emotions, after doing virtual tours of art galleries online you suggest ordering a canvas, some acrylic paint and palette knives. It’s amazing the level of emotion you see pour out of yourself and Erwin onto the canvas, it’s incredibly therapeutic so you order more canvasses.

The two of you really enjoy binge watching documentary shows - you know the second Tiger King came out Erwin was all over that. There’s this side to Erwin that not everyone gets to see, or at least when they do it’s very rare. But during lockdown you get to experience it more frequently, he really does have a great sense of human and likes to have fun. While he enjoys documentaries about WW2, science (Unabomber: in his own words is also on the list) things like Tiger King, Dark Tourist and Louis Theroux docs are also a guilty pleasure.

The two of you will spend some evenings laying chess by candle light with a glass of whiskey.

Levi

I feel to say that you’ll be cleaning a lot is a little obvious and I actually think that for the most part Levi would prefer to crack on with that on his own - it gives him peace of mind and it’s something he has control over. He enjoys it

Together however, expect DIY Projects or painting/decorating. There’s things the two of you have talked about doing for ages and never gotten round to, now you have the perfect excuse. From painting a feature wall in your living quarters to making a little step wooden step ladder for the garden that you can put potted plants on. The two of you use your time to get creative around the home.

Dancing - the form of fitness you decide to take up is dance. At first Levi scoffs at the idea but then when he realises what a work out it actually is and how much strength and flexibility is required for some of the tutorials you’re following, he’s game. The two of you end up choreographing a dance together - it’s super cute (and hot in places - oops)

You’re the kind of couple others are jealous of because you just work so well together, spending the perfect amount of time doing things together and apart.

Being a lover of tea, Levi decides to educate you on the many different types by subscribing to a ‘tea lovers’ subscription box. You take the time to sit with him and really enjoy each tea, just talking with no noise from the radio or TV.

Levi likes to put together tapas or cheese tasting boards, he chooses the food for the main, you put together a starter or dessert and pick the wine that goes with the flavours he’s mixing. Together it’s like a perfect harmony. You set the table, light candles, listen to jazz and it’s almost as if you’re at one of your favourite restaurants.

Watching Horror movies, you’ve probably seen every horror movie on Netflix, Amazon Prime etc. which is available to stream come the end of lockdown. Horror was actually how you met, you were at the cinema to see ‘Hereditary’ and none of your friends wanted to come with you so you went alone. Levi and his friends (the other vets) were in the same screen and sat next to you. So now Levi is strangely sentimental about horror movies. There’s cuddling up under blankets in the living room and plenty of popcorn along with movie themed cocktails.

Video calls to your friends, you do more of the talking but Levi sits by you throughout and occasionally joins in. He’s loathed to admit it but he really likes seeing everyone’s faces and hearing their voices.

Moblit

Moblit has a large collection of puzzles, a few were completed when he was younger but a lot of them aren’t. He used to get frustrated with them but always wanted to finish them so he could frame them and put them up around the house. When lockdown happened you think it’s the perfect opportunity for the two of you to work on them together and help him out. Turns out it’s actually a lot of fun and a pretty good was

Baking! You both love the Great British Bake Off, before lock-down you were always talking about how you wanted to give the recipes a try but of course something else always came along. Now lockdown is the perfect excuse to order some ingredients online and get baking! The kitchen often looks like a mess, Moblit gets flour on his face and even in his hair? You don’t know how it happens but you have a lot of fun doing it and hey what you bake usually turns out pretty good.

Subscribes to Disney+ the second it comes out - and the two of you binge watch your favourite Disney movies singing along to them (I get the impression Moblit would be a huge Hercules and Moana fan).

Watching Avengers Infinity War together and later on in the evening he turns to you and just says, “I love you 3000.”

Bike rides through the countryside (as long as it’s close to home of course and you can stay safe!)

You watch art shows together (like the still life drawing classes on TV or Grayson Perry’s art class). Shows which have been made specifically now for lockdown to help inspire people to take up new hobbies. Both of you are pretty inexperienced at art or drawing so you have a lot of fun watching the shows, following the instructions and seeing where your hand and pencil lead you. You both end up discovering your own unique style of drawing - this inevitably ends up doing a still life of one another (more on this later).

Hange

Hange really struggles with lockdown, it makes them feel pretty anxious and they hate not being able to be out and about exploring/doing their job/learning new things etc. So Hanji needs quite a bit of love and looking after, care packages for the two of you go a long way so you order nice things in the early days of lock down. Hanji’s eyes light up when you hand them what you’ve ordered.

Loads of gaming, you both enjoying exploring other worlds along with fantasy so everything from World of Warcraft, Skyrim, The Outer Worlds, Outer Wilds to the Final Fantasy games, The Witcher and Assassin’s Creed are all up your street. Sometimes you play alone, sometimes you watch one another play while reading magazines. Often when playing WOW you play together and share a mount, heading into raids together and working as a team. It’s not as good as being outside and exploring the world for real but it’s pretty close.

Loads of movie marathons with enough sweets to make you sick, especially the gummy kind like Haribo.

Hange - Arguments over who loves who more, it’s usually in the middle of a TV show that you’ve been really invested in but now with the impending end of the world, it’s so easy to get distracted. The ‘arguments’ usually end up in pillow fights and just laying in one another’s arms in silence.

Home made science experiments - yup, you knew this was coming. There’s so much you can try at home with simple house hold ingredients. Hange also orders kits online so you end up growing your own crystals (not the drug kind lol), making your own ‘volcano’, making slime, dying flowers etc. At first you rolled your eyes when Hanji suggested it but actually it turns out to be a lot of fun and it’s pretty interesting, so you end up learning something. Hanji also orders DIY Sweet kits which are as fun to make as they are to eat.

When it comes to heading outside to clap for key workers the two of you are gonna be dressed up to make the children smile. You’ll be banging pots and pans or possibly have a kazoo or tambourine.

Nanaba

There’s loads of Gardening, it’s something the two of you always liked but found you didn’t have the time you needed to commit to it as much as you’d have liked.

Cuddling on the grass in your garden, rolling around enjoying the sunshine and sun-bathing side by side.

The work out of choice for the two of you is yoga. You light incense and some candles as well as listening to mediation music and just take some time out to be alone with your thoughts - together. You both agree that stretching really helps you especially where you’re working from home, it’s so easy to get back ache!

The two of you love dancing

Nanaba decides to take up quilting and crochet. It’s something her mother and elder sister taught her how to do but is practically a forgotten hobby. You help one another to remember the basics and decide to make a giant patchwork quilt for your sofa. You work on it together so that there’s a part of both of you in it, you take inspiration from your garden and the world around you, even though it’s a lot smaller than it was before. If either of you prick your finger the other is there to kiss it better.

Preparing relaxing baths for one another, you enjoy much of the bath on your own but sometimes the other will sit on the toilet and read aloud or just come in for a chat. Lockdown makes you more open with one another than you were before.

Getting into bed early before the sun has set, you keep the curtains open so you can watch the sky turn orange. Plenty of time in bed means you have time to binge watch the latest TV shows and not feel guilty about it if you have work the next day.

Witchy things - tarot card readings, candle magic, little rituals in the garden and kitchen witch magic like making dandelion honey or moon spell cookies.

Below are a few nsfw thoughts (I didn’t write many but a couple kept bouncing around in my mind).

Erwin -

Sex first thing in the morning, the kind of lazy, sleepy sex that the two of you dream of having but never have time before work. Now, you do and Erwin intends to make the most of it.

Also shower sex, sometimes this follows the sex in the morning so by the time you finish work you’re already feeling tired. Often it follows the workouts you do and it doesn’t take either of you long to cum seeing as watching one another get sweaty and flex muscles - the tension is unbelievable.

If you get too distracted during the work day, either by Erwin or TV (or if you distract Erwin too much) they’ll be punishments in the form of spanking and rough sex from behind, hair pulling and all. It’s the first time you find yourself wanting to be punished.

Levi

Sex in spaces you’ve just cleaned, it’s sort of a punishment if you back-talk him as he’ll make you clean up afterwards. Secretly he loves dirtying the sheets, it’s almost like an ultimate fantasy for someone who is so clean and neat, but he really has to be in the right mood for that.

Lockdown is a chance for the two of you to explore some of the sexual fantasies you’ve discussed but never tried from light bondage (to start) and role-play.

Switching, in your relationship neither one of you is particularly the dominant or submissive one continuously, rather you enjoy switching, but when you are in the role you both take it seriously. Now you’re in lockdown and it’s easy to get bored, you both agree to really extent the roles on the day you’re both in the mood, you could lead Levi round on a leash and collar all afternoon and he won’t complain.

Mike

Checking in on you as you’re working and trying to convince you lunch break sex is definitely a thing that will help you concentrate on your important presentation in your afternoon video conference. But of course he leaves you a bit of a mess and without a minute to spare so you appear on camera looking like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.

With Mike there’s also a lot of time to get creative in the bedroom, you have longer in the evening to take your time exploring one another and discovering new positions you’d never have thought possible.

When lockdown goes on much longer than anticipated Mike decides to turn up the creativity a notch. A rather large unmarked parcel arrives containing a latex bed sheet and sex swing, so you know you’re not going to be getting a lot of sleep for a while.

Moblit

Kisses that last for hours, the kind that start innocently and slowly you find yourself getting worked up and wanting more but Moblit continues to tease with those kisses and will pretend he has no idea why you’re worked up. However he does go weak at the knees if you praise him so that’s usually the way to get what you want.

The still life drawings of one another start off fully clothed and very quickly become nude studies. You can only take it seriously for so long before he pounces on you or you on him and it’s like ‘that’ scene from Titanic within minutes.

Endless, almost excruciating foreplay.

Hanji

Has always liked to have fun in bedroom, with lockdown it’s more of an excuse to dress up and play around, I’m thinking teacher & student or Doctor/nurse & patient. Hanji really gets into the role.

Science experiments continue to the bedroom, you decide to give the whole electro-stim thing a go.

Also with the DIY sweet kits there’s also a little left, so popping candy, expanding foam candy and more are used to adorn your bodies - it doesn’t stay on long as the combination of candy and sex is too irresistible to leave alone.

Nanaba

Sex outdoors, your garden is pretty secluded. It was something you talked about doing a lot but always found your weekends were too busy with friends and others that you just never got round to it. There’s grass stains on your knees and your clothes and you’d both wear them with pride outside the house if you could.

Bath tub sex, even if it’s a little uncomfortable it’s so intimate and personal that you don’t care how much of a mess you make or how many bruises you end up with. Lockdown hits you both hard mentally and bath tub sex is a way of feeling better and cleansed.

There’s also a chance for some sex magic which involves wax play, again, something new you’d thought about for a while and now you both just wanted something to make you feel alive.

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thehopefulsnowflake · 3 years

Text

And again here are more theories and opinions about the magnus archives from my brother

The corruption is one of the "four horsemen"

War and conquest are the military ghosts, and the desolation

Famine and pestilence is the buggy bois

Death is the end, duh

The corruption is colonisation basically

Elias is against having a cat, because they are too powerful, he was very serious about this

Centipedes have a masochistic foot fetish, millipedes have a normal one, don't ask

The woman in Dead Woman Walking is just a Zombie

Is the Woman a victim of the Book of Death from MAG 70

Georgie is a ghosty hunty person

Georgie and Melanie don't seem to be afraid of anything

The Italian mountain troops would have known they were being fucked with

More undead

Reminded him sort of the Meat Men

Also reminded him of the buried on the London underground

The mysterious firing squad intrigued him, did all the men that went up the mountain come back to kill him?

Basira is Drax from gotg

She'll randomly appear and no one will know she's there until she speaks

The chuckle brothers origin story, he means Breekon and Hope

Didn't think the circus had anything to do with the stranger

Breekon and Hope are taxidermy

So they're with the stranger

The Stranger is just everything that doesn't fall under something else

The circus was it's own thing

The cult of the lightless flame is it's own thing

The people's Church of the devine host is it's own thing

The circus is just full of people who you don't know, if you do know them that's sad... He was kinda rambling at this point

Is Sarah Baldwin capable of being bored

Why was she working with Melanie?

Do you just take a liking to ghost people

Did you take them over before of after they were eaten.

The Buried is called The London underground

Is it the Fairchild's? Thinks they're about isolation

Thinks it might be a book

The pit could be an Antlion

Thought that the young woman who was eaten by the pit turned into Gertrude

The young man could be, Gerry, Martin, Salesa, young Jon, Elias.

Thinks The stranger is vanilla in terms of gods and monsters.

The stranger is the least interesting.

Thinks all the Stranger wants to do is just summon a god

For some reason he thinks the Dark should be doing more to stop them, because Rayner wouldn't want that to happen

Martin will rap battle the archive to victory, via poetry from Leitners books

The stranger could just be Lego

He's horny for Rayner, his words not mine

Mr. Sandman brought him a dream

Thinks that the Dark at least can get to their gods dimension but choose not to.

If you make everywhere dark does their god appear?

He asked what would happen if two factions tried to summon their god at the same time what would happen

Thinks that all the Avatars /Entities do the same thing.

Breekon and hope have never killed anyone

Maxwell Rayner is a time travelling shadow demon

Mr sandman is like an angry sandy from Rotg

He made this episode unnecessarily kinky

They're just summoning gods

The stranger is remarkably being left alone

Thinks there is no fighting between factions

If anything they're aided

Is the Fairchild's entity already here

Are they working with the other factions

Says he knows whats going to happen because he "knows how these things go"

The Beholding is already on this side and if another God is summoned then it will be booted

Elias killed Gertrude because she was trying to defeat the Beholding and if it was defeated he would turn into the same thing as below the Library in Alexandria

There were three versions of the unknowing that he thought of

Destroying the concept of identity, the unknowing destroys the concept of personality, individuality, and identity. Turning them into Stranger worshipping entities

The angler fish was the thing in the basement at the Taxidermy shop

Stranger just means it couldn't get any stranger

Or it's deliberate parodies of humans

Breekon and Hope were normal people

Salesa, the chuckle brothers, the meat man, the skin walkers, the taxidermist, the manquien, Not-Sasha, the architects, the circus and to some extent the witches are part of the stranger

Magnus is a stranger that took over Elias

He also thinks Elias is just Magnus who found out how to stick around for a while

But Elias isn't the archive god like he first thought

The twisted detergent is Michael's new entity

Michael is like Loki if he didn't have a brother

The stranger is the big bad

Jon is an idiot, he's a bit slow

His second theory for the unknowing is that It's just going to destroy all knowledge revolving the Elder gods, hence the unknowing, the one he thought the least likely

And third, It somehow increases their powers so that the few people that would recognise them, no longer do. Levelling up in short. Thinks it would work for every entity

Doesn't think The Unknowing would be that big of a shift

The circus and the stranger were different because the Circus dealt with the "Freak show"

Thinks Rayner isn't dead

Dust devils

Dirt zombies

Has only made the connection between the Underground, the pit and the dust storm

Was the kid in the car Michael

Was Michael always the Spiral but just really liked working with Gertrude

Michael is the Spiral, he doesn't worship anything

Elias took Gertrude from him, now he's after revenge

Jon should go chill with everyone at the Archive

Jon should have a sword

While you were busy not having a paranoid breakdown I studied the blade

Michael has a crush on Gertrude

He has a granny kink, he is obsessed with making it all kink related

Michael originally gave his powers away to be with Gertrude

Michael took on this form because he could blend in or brag

He's a monster with a thing for Gertrude

Michael wasn't the same Michael as in the tape

Just trying to trick everyone

Lynne Hammond was lying, goes in line with the church of the lightless flame but it didn't happen

Maybe she heard something similar but it didn't actually happen to her, she was just trying to get some money

He actually feels bad for Tim

Tim should run

John Smith was half telling the truth.

People are in the tunnel's but it's not a government conspiracy

Tim doesn't deserve this

You can tell Basira is used to dealing with idiots

Liked that it cut out when Robin Lennox said let me start again, it's like the archive was trying to make it stop

Thinks the archive doesn't care what is being read to it, someone should read it the Lord of the Ringd

The archive is recording the tape recorders not Elias

Get the dog out

Michael was the crying man, he wanted the dog out

He doesn't want to hurt the dog

"Gertrude why did you leave me? I'll get you one day Elias" based on his Michael granny kink theory

Brian Finlinson was the most coherent in terms of links

Thinks that the spiders were actually there, hiding whenever anyone came around

Lynne is lying, John Smith is half telling the truth, Robin Lennox saw Michael having a breakdown, Brian Finlinson was telling the truth

He didn't remember Peter Lukas ever being mentioned before

Already shipping Peter and Elias

Michael is very sensitive

The Fairchild's and the Lukas' are working together

They don't seem to have an interest in the conflict going on between everyone else

The Fairchild's were in aerospace and Lukas was the ships

Still cthulhu

Even space had a cthulhu vibe

The depth of the ocean or the isolation of space

The Lukas and the archive are working together

There are some of these guys that don't want the entities on this side

Likes the power, doesn't want the full on entities here

The Lukas and the Fairchild's are the cthulhus

They're somewhat working with the archive/the beholding

Is Elias actually a Lukas? Decided yes because he and Peter are married

How much do the Lukas have to do with the Beholding

What sort of arrangement do they have?

Nikola was supposed to be part of the circus but there is a difference between the facimalies and the circus

Thinks that the archive burning down would have no downsides for the Beholding.

They'll summon a god and gazing upon it will kill everyone, everyone dies.

As he was now halfway through the series he explained who he thought was in each of these factions

The beholding, Elias, Martin, Tim, basira, daisy, sims, melanie, sasha, Rosie, Gertrude, leitner. Sasha is caught in a time loop...

The stranger, everyone, has no limits, The maniquein, the taxidermy, the circus, skin walkers, grifters bone, breekon and Hope, angler fish

The desolation, the cult of the lightless flame, Jims pims aka Jude Perry, Agnes,

People's Church of the divine host, Rayner, Rayner have something to do with the German crypt, Rayner Is also not dead

The diggy boys, the buried, Maggie and Gordon from the dump, dig dude from Dig, whatever was going on with the pit, and the dust storm.

Meat, no recurring. The haans that's it.

Buggy boys, spiders, Jane prentiss

Michael, the twisting deceit, the twisting deceit just is Michael, didn't exist before him

The leitners, the witches are using the books, Gérard, Mike crew,

Cthulhu collective, the lukas', the Fairchild's. Both are just isolation, the Fairchild's are all about being alone, the only time the Lukas have turned up are being alone either in space or at sea

The witches, Mary Keay, puzzle witch, have big crossover with the Leitners, they just have some of leitners books

Trevor is his own entity, is he part of the desease and corruption group

The architects, smirke, smirkes apprentice.

Jared is his own thing. Just found a self help book

It's a giant celestial orgy!

Also Came up with a random spinoff comedy again

Slowly the archive collects strange people

Michael, who is mourning Gertrude... Loudly

They found a worm in the tunnel left over from Prentiss

The worm loves gooseberries

That's Elias, we're not sure what he is

Thats the Admiral, it is a cat.... It runs the place

Rayner is sat in the corner giggling

Leitner started a microbrewery in the basement

Serves bud leitner, you can't get leitner than this

#He keeps coming up with sitcom ideas #the magnus archives #the magnus archives spoilers #tma #tma spoilers #The magnus archives theories

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not-a-space-alien · 4 years

Text

[Best attempt at] A summary of The Magnus Archives. Contains major spoilers up through the most recent episode (168: Roots).

A kind soul wrote this out for me and put it in my submissions box to help me understand the Magnus Archives. THANK YOU SO MUCH and SORRY it took me so long to publish this Dx

Major spoilers ahead for anyone else who wants to read!! But this helped me a lot and I feel like I could keep listening now! Thanks again!!!

Basic worldbuilding details: There are 14 extra-dimensional Entities that feed on fear (Eye, Web, Corruption, Stranger, Spiral, Hunt, Slaughter, End, Vast, Buried, Desolation, Lonely, Dark, Flesh). Various people serve them, and are trying to bring about apocalypses by bringing them into our dimension.

A Victorian guy named Jonah Magnus thought serving the Eye and bringing about its apocalypse would make him immortal. Through trial and error he learned that an Entity cannot be brought through alone, and he needs to bring through all 14 at once. To accomplish this, he needs to take someone (The Archivist) and have them experience EVERY entity - "experience" in this case means "be afraid it's about to kill them."

Until he manages that, he's been possessing various people over the years by means of sticking his own eyeballs in their heads. When the show starts he's possessing Elias Bouchard, Head of the Magnus Institute.

SEASON ONE: Jonathan Sims becomes the Head Archivist after Gertrude Robinson dies. He's set out to make audio copies of all the statements in the Archives, and he uses a tape recorder for the ones we hear because they won't record digitally. He has three assistants, Tim, Sasha, and Martin. He trusts Tim and Sasha but thinks Martin is incompetent.

Martin gets attacked by Jane Prentiss, who is infested by parasitic worms. Jon lets him live in the Archives because it's safer than going home. The worms start showing up around the Institute, but don't attack anyone (yet).

Sasha meets a man(?) named Michael and learns that the worms can be killed with CO2 gas. They start stocking up on fire extinguishers.

Two deliverymen named Breekon and Hope deliver a spooky table and a cigarette lighter with a spiderweb design on it to the Archives.

Jon smashes a hole in the wall of his office trying to kill a spider, and finds a network of tunnels under the Institute. The tunnels are filled with worms, which attack. Over the course of the attack, Jon and Martin bond a bit, Jon and Tim get partially eaten by worms (mark 1: Corruption), Martin finds Gertrude Robinson's corpse in the tunnels (she was murdered), Sasha gets killed and replaced by a monster that was bound to the spooky table (Not!Sasha), and Elias triggers the Institute's CO2 fire represent system, killing Prentiss. Jon swears to find out who murdered Gertrude if it kills him.

SEASON TWO: Paranoia time. The whole season is basically one long "who killed Gertrude" murder mystery, in which Jon suspects literally all of his coworkers. He works with Basira and Daisy, the two police officers assigned to solve the case, and starts to realize that Gertrude was deeply embedded in the supernatural world (and had access to explosives).

Major events include: Jon investigates the tunnels and doesn't find much. Martin frets a LOT, Jon thinks it's suspicious, but it's pretty clear that he just cares about Jon. It's also revealed that he lied on his CV, and isn't actually qualified for this job, hence his incompetence. Tim becomes very bitter about Jon suspecting him of murder and basically stalking him. Michael shows up again, traps a woman named Helen in a maze of unending corridors, and stabs Jon (mark 2: Spiral). Basira quits the police near the end of the season.

In the season finale, Jon realizes Sasha has been replaced and smashes the spooky table with an axe. This does not kill the monster, instead setting it free to try and kill HIM (mark 3: Stranger). Michael appears and offers him a door into his corridor maze to escape the Not!Sasha, and drops him in the tunnels to fend for himself. Martin and Tim try to find out what Jon's doing, and end up trapped in Michael's corridors themselves.

Jon is saved from the Not!Sasha by a man named Jurgen Leitner, who has a book that can move the walls of the tunnels around (he basically traps it in a wall Cask of Amontillado style). Leitner collected tons of these supernatural books, which are now called Leitners, and has been living in the tunnels for decades. Jon is convinced he's evil, but he reveals that he was working with Gertrude before she died and that Elias killed her. He begins to explain about the Entities, and the fact that Jon works for one (mark 4: Eye), but Jon leaves the room because he needs a cigarette. Elias appears and murders Leitner. Jon returns, finds the body, and flees.

Tim and Martin find their way out of the corridors, find the body, and call the police.

SEASON THREE: Jon is on the run from the police because they think he killed Leitner. He gives a statement about why he always hated Leitner. When he was a child, he found one of Leitner's books, which nearly got him eaten by a giant spider (mark 5: Web). His childhood bully got eaten in his place. Jon is living with his ex-girlfriend, Georgie, while he's in hiding.

Back at the Archives, Daisy (police detective) is convinced Jon is guilty of killing Leitner and Sasha. She's not looking for evidence, she just wants to catch him. Tim is also pretty sure he did it. Martin thinks he's innocent. Elias shows his first hint of supernatural powers by giving a statement about Daisy's first murder, which he just knows without her telling him.

Melanie takes a job at the Archives. She previously appeared to give a few statements. She's the former star of a ghost hunting YouTube show, and now has lost everything due to the circumstances of a few genuine encounters. She recently came back from a trip to India, where (as is revealed later) she was shot by a ghost soldier. She is friends with Georgie.

Basira visits the Archives to try to find Daisy, and runs off again looking for her when she realizes Daisy wants to kill Jon. Martin starts recording statements to "pick up the slack" while Jon's away.

Elias sends Jon statements while he's staying with Georgie, and in a bid to learn more about the supernatural he seeks out various servants of the Entities. Jude Perry nearly burns his hand off (mark 6: Desolation), Mike Crew nearly suffocates him by simulating the feeling of falling off a building (mark 7: Vast), and then Daisy catches him. Daisy kills Crew, and threatens to kill Jon (mark 8: Hunt), but Basira shows up and stops her. They drag Jon back to the Archives.

Everyone confronts Elias. We get confirmation that Jon can "compel" people (force them to answer his questions) but it doesn't work on Elias. Elias confesses to killing both Gertrude and Leitner. Everyone finds out Sasha was replaced during the Prentiss attack. Elias blackmails Basira into joining the Archives under threat of getting Daisy arrested; then turns around and blackmails Daisy into doing his dirty work in exchange for Basira's safety. He reveals that if he dies, or if the Archives are destroyed, anyone who works for the Institute dies too. Elias tells Jon he needs to stop the "Unknowing," which is a ritual the Stranger's servants are trying to complete to bring about the apocalypse.

Jon goes back to Georgie's; we find out she had an encounter with the supernatural when she was in university and now she literally cannot feel fear. Jon is confronted by Orsinov, a living mannequin that works for the Stranger. Orsinov tells him to find a taxidermied gorilla skin she needs for the Unknowing otherwise she'll kill him. He decides to go back to the Archives to get help, but on the way is kidnapped by Orsinov's goons. Orsinov says she's decided to use HIS skin in place of the gorilla one.

He's trapped for a month, and is eventually rescued by Michael, who reveals that he was one of Gertrudes's assistants before she sacrificed him to stop the Spiral's ritual. He wants to kill Jon, but as they are going into his corridors he is replaced by Helen (the woman he trapped in season two) who decides to drop Jon at the Archives instead.

Jon decides to follow in Gertrudes's footsteps to try and find the gorilla skin (to destroy it). He visits an Archive in China, and several locations in America. He is kidnapped by Julia and Trevor (Hunters) and gets on their good side. They let him talk to Gerry Keay (goth ghost that the fandom goes wild over). Gerry gives Jon the rundown on all of the fears, and explains a bit more about Gertrude. Jon agrees to release him from this world by burning a page of the book he's trapped in (this angers Julia and Trevor, which is important later). Jon goes back to England.

They find the gorilla skin in Gertrudes's old storage unit (and explosives), but it has been destroyed. Orsinov exhumes the bodies of Gertrude and Leitner to use their skin instead. There's a stretch of waiting where not much happens.

Jon, Tim, Basira, and Daisy go to a wax museum with Gertrudes's explosives to blow it up in the middle of the Unknowing. Martin and Melanie stay in the Archives to steal the tape with Elias's confession on it and get him arrested for murder.

At the Unknowing, Basira makes it out alive. Daisy kills Hope (one of the deliverymen from season one) but Breekon traps her in The Coffin (this has shown up in several statements before; it's an artifact of the Buried and traps people underground forever). Tim sets off the explosives and dies, while Jon ALMOST does in the same explosion. He ends up in a coma instead.

At the Institute, Martin distracts Elias while Melanie steals the tape. Elias taunts him about his feelings for Jon, then forces knowledge on him about how much his mother hates him (his mother's in a nursing home: caring for her is why he couldn't go to university and had to lie on his CV). Melanie succeeds in stealing the tapes and Martin barely restrains her from killing Elias.

Elias reveals that Jon is trapped in a nightmare realm where he constantly relives the statements of the people who have told them to him directly (not the ones that are written down). He is arrested, and Peter Lukas (servant of the Lonely) becomes the Interim Head of the Institute.

SEASON BREAK: Six months pass. Three major events occur: Martin's mother dies, Jared Hopworth (servant of the Flesh) attacks the Institute and is trapped in Helen's (Micheal's replacement) corridors, and Peter tells Martin that he'll protect the Institute from further threats if Martin works for him and isolates himself from everyone else. Martin, more than a little suicidal due to his mother's death and the man he loves being in a coma, agrees.

SEASON FOUR: Martin's plotline is revealed in drips and drabs throughout the season, and is easier to tell all at once. Basically, Peter convinces him that there's a 15th Entity, Extinction, that is about to emerge into the world and kill everything. This is based on research done by Adelard Dekker, one of Gertrudes's allies. Peter says that Martin is the only one who can stop it, because he has been marked by the Beholding and he is getting closer and closer to the Lonely as he isolates himself. This is enough of a threat that Martin sticks with his plan despite several opportunities to leave.

Jon's plot starts with Oliver Banks giving a statement in his hospital room and telling him he's too human to live, too much of a monster to die (mark 9: End). If Jon decides to stay human he will die; if he gives into the Beholding he will live. Oliver leaves; Jon wakes up. Georgie is disappointed that he gave into the Beholding, and walks away. Basira is cold and practical, following in Gertrudes's 'ends justify the means' logic. She is watching Jon closely, and prepared to kill him if he becomes dangerous. Melanie is boiling with anger and tries to attack Jon whenever they're in a room together.

Jon reads a Slaughter statement and knows (by supernatural means) that Melanie is becoming a servant of the Slaughter because the bullet that the ghost shot her with is still in her leg. He and Basira perform amateur surgery to get it out. Melanie stabs him in the shoulder (mark 10: Slaughter). She is, understandably, furious, but she becomes calmer as she heals and she starts going to therapy.

Breekon (the surviving deliveryman) drops off the coffin. Jon displays a new power by extracting a statement from him. He learns that Daisy is still alive, but trapped in the coffin. Basira leaves the Archives based on information from a "source" (Elias, though Jon does not know this yet). Jon learns that he can go into the coffin and get out again if he has an anchor to the real world. He tries to cut off his own finger, fails, and under Melanie's advisement finds Jared Hopworth (Flesh servant who attacked when he was in a coma) in Helen's corridors. Jared removes two of Jon's ribs (one to keep and one for Jon) and gives a statement (mark 11: Flesh).

Jon goes into the coffin (mark 12: Buried) and finds Daisy. She is much more clear-headed than before, because she has been separated from the Hunt for so long. Jon cannot feel his anchor (rib) at first, but the signal is amplified when Martin places a bunch of tape recorders on top of the coffin. Jon leads Daisy out, and both are extremely confused by all the tape recorders.

Jon and Basira find out that the servants of the Dark might be trying a ritual in Norway, and head off to stop them. On the way, Jon forces a sailor on the boat they're on to give a statement. Basira is disturbed, but doesn't try to stop him. (Back in the Archives, Martin hears from another person who Jon took a statement from, and is rightfully horrified.) In Norway, Jon and Basira learn that the Dark's ritual failed the same week Gertrude died, though there's still an artifact - the Dark Star - left from it. Jon destroys the Dark Star by literally just looking at it, though it nearly kills him (mark 13: Dark). Helen gives them a shortcut home through her corridors.

Martin leaves a tape of his conversation with the person Jon took a statement from on Basira's desk. Jon confesses that he's done this to five people. He promises not to do it again (from this point on, both he and Daisy grow weaker as they try to resist the Beholding and Hunt, respectively).

Jon, Basira, Daisy, and Melanie visit Hill Top Road (I cannot even begin to explain Hill Top Road, there's so much going on and there's no answers yet. Best I can say is it's been strongly affected by both the Web and the Desolation, and there seems to be some warping of reality in the basement.) They find a statement from Annabelle Cain (main servant of the Web) that's basically one long taunt to Jon about how the Web may or may not be orchestrating everything. Main takeaway from this is that once he starts reading a statement, he cannot stop.

Jon finds out how to quit the Institute, via an old tape from Gertrude. Her assistant, Eric Delano (Gerry Keay's father) escaped the Institute by gouging out his own eyes. Jon runs to Martin with this information and begs him to run away together, but Martin refuses. Jon tells Melanie, Daisy, and Basira. Melanie decides to act on this information, and puts her eyes out with an awl. She goes to live with Georgie, who she is dating by this point. Daisy and Basira stay in the Archives.

Season finale, Peter launches his plan. He and Martin head into the tunnels under the Institute. While down there, Peter frees the Not!Sasha and sends it to attack the Institute. He brings Martin to the Panopticon of Milbank Prison, and explains that Jonah Magnus's original body is still in the center of the Panopticon watching EVERYTHING. Elias shows up (he escaped from jail) and reveals that he IS Jonah Magnus. Peter says that Martin needs to kill Jonah's original body and take his place. From the Panopticon, he will be able to learn how to stop the Extinction (it will also trap him there forever). Martin realizes he's been manipulated and refuses, because even though the Extinction is a threat he doesn't want to sacrifice himself just so Peter can win against Elias. It is revealed that Peter and Elias formed a bet: if Peter could get one of the Institute staff to willingly join the Lonely, he would be allowed to kill Elias and take over the Institute forever. Since he failed (Martin is close to the Lonely but doesn't entirely serve it) he instead traps Martin in the Lonely, and then goes in himself.

Meanwhile, Jon finds out that the Extinction isn't as immediate a threat as he thought, and that Martin has gone with Peter to complete his plan. Jon tries to get help from Georgie, Melanie, and Helen, but all refuse. Basira and Daisy inform him that Elias escaped from prison, and they find a tape revealing that he is Jonah Magnus. All hell breaks loose at this point. Julia and Trevor (the Hunters from season three who he stole Gerry's page from) show up to try to kill Jon, and they run into Not!Sasha, which has escaped from the tunnels. Basira and Daisy tell Jon to run and help Martin. He does. Daisy makes the decision to lean into the Hunt again, and makes Basira promise to find her and kill her once it's all over. Basira agrees (unwillingly) and runs. Daisy attacks the Hunters and Not!Sasha.

Jon finds Elias at the Panopticon. Elias explains where Martin has gone, and Jon dives into the Lonely after him (mark 14: Lonely). Jon meets Peter in the Lonely, takes his statement, and kills him. He finds Martin and manages to save him.

Jon and Martin flee to one of Daisy's old safehouses in Scotland. Twenty-two days after they arrive, they receive a package that they think is from Basira containing a bunch of statements and tapes for Jon. Martin leaves to take a walk, and Jon reads a statement. It turns out to be from Elias (Jonah) explaining his whole plan with marking Jon with the Entities and various ways he manipulated events so that that would happen. Jon is unable to stop reading, and at the end of the statement is an invocation that brings all fourteen Entities through into the world. Martin makes it back to the safehouse, and they watch the world end together.

SEASON FIVE: Jon and Martin are still in the safehouse. Martin wants to leave and kill Elias, Jon wants to stay at least a bit longer to grieve the world. They could stay forever: they no longer need food, water, or sleep to survive. Jon's been constantly relistening to the tapes from the package that was delivered, and there's some backstory revealed in them: Gertrude had planned on Sasha being her replacement once she died, and had made a tape with all the information she would have needed to stay alive. She suspected that if the Entities came through into the world, they would be here to stay, and that things like space, time, and the laws of physics would stop working. There's also some nostalgic stuff with Tim and Sasha.

Jon gets hit with the knowledge that the safehouse is not actually safe, and is feeding on Jon and Martin's fear of losing each other. He and Martin agree to leave, setting out on a quest to kill Elias and try to save the world.

The structure of this new world is revealed: each fear has taken up a domain in which it is the primary source of fear for the people trapped in it, and Jon and Martin need to pass through all of them before they can get to the Panopticon and Elias. So far they've been through the Slaughter, the Corruption, the Stranger, the Buried, and the End. People are only dying in the End; in the others, there is no escape from the horror. Any time Jon gets too close to one of these domains he is overwhelmed by the fear and needs to give a statement about it. The first time, Martin just stuck his fingers in his ears, but since then he's been going on walks so he doesn't have to hear.

Annabelle Cain (Web) tries to call Martin via a payphone; he doesn't pick up.

Jon realizes he can know basically anything he wants to, and Martin asks him a series of questions, learning that: Daisy is Hunting between the domains; Basira is chasing her, planning to kill her but starting to doubt that; Melanie and Georgie are in London but he can't see them clearly; Elias is in the Panopticon; Jon and Martin are safe, traveling like they are; Jon can't see Annabelle AT ALL; and the world can be turned back if the fears are removed, but the fears can't be destroyed as long as there are people left to fear them.

Helen shows up to "check up on the happy couple" and try to make friends. Martin asks if her corridors can give them a shortcut to London, but Jon's powerful enough that he would hurt her if he tried to do that. She leaves.

They run into the Not!Sasha in the Stranger's domain. It threatens them, but cannot actually hurt them. It taunts them about Sasha, and Jon kills it. Martin is very impressed.

Helen shows up again, and explains that there are two roles people can take in this new world: afraid or feared. Jon has the ability to make something that is feared afraid, and doing so destroys the feared things utterly (this is how he killed Not!Sasha). Martin wants to go on a murder spree killing any monsters they come across; Jon does not. Helen leaves again.

While Jon is giving a statement Annabelle calls Martin on a cellphone. He answers, and she offers him help. He refuses and hangs up.

Jon reads Martin's mind and learns about the conversation with Annabelle. Martin is annoyed, and Jon promises not to do it again. They stop for a rest. Martin starts wondering about Gertrudes's past, and Jon launches into a statement about it: one of her assistants fell to the Web and killed a bunch of her other assistants, and Gertrude never trusted anyone after that. It is also revealed that if an Archivist dies, their assistants are free to leave the Institute without gouging out their eyes.

Jon and Martin are both disturbed by the statement and by the fact that neither of them could stop it. Jon explains that Gertrude would have lost purpose in the apocalypse without anyone to trust, and that Martin is giving HIM purpose. He also explains that all servants of the Entities have a domain in this new world. His is the Panopticon, and Martin DOES NOT want to know what his own is.

The most recent episode was the End's domain, run by Oliver Banks (the guy who woke Jon from his coma). This statement explained that the End is still killing people permanently, and there is no new life coming into this world; therefore, the End will eventually start stealing victims from other fears. This will ultimately deplete all human and animal life which will kill the Entities themselves and leave an empty universe.

UNADDRESSED TOPICS:

What do the Spiders want? It's surprisingly easy to leave out any traces of the Web's influence from this summary, but Jon is still carrying the cigarette lighter with the web design from season one and he doesn't seem to notice it, several important tapes he's found have been covered in cobwebs, and Annabelle is clearly targeting Martin.

Random plots that have less impact on the main story! This completely skips over characters like Mikale Salesa and Maxwell Rayner, and other oft-appearing but easily missed background people. If there are any in particular you're curious about let me know, but I don't THINK any of them are going to show up again.

Random plots that I don't know if they're going to have an impact on the main story! Agnes Montague, Gertrudes's assistants, everything with Hill Top Road - I have no idea what about their stories is going to be important from this point forward. Maybe everything, maybe nothing.

My askbox is always open if you've got any questions (@cirrus-grey). This is a broad summary that misses out a LOT of details!

#tma #the magnus archives #long post #spoilers #tma spoilers #the magnus archives spoilers #cirrus-grey #submission

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

Note

can you give us...Ryan's Attempt At Poem? :')

CW: Strong language, siblings being shit to each other just ‘cause. Crude references to consensual spice.

TIMELINE: Danny is 21 and a junior in college, Ryan is 19 and a freshman. Takes place one year and three months prior to abduction, about one year before Danny meets Nate for the first time.

“Dan, get in here and help me out!”

Danny groans, rolling his eyes. “Sorry, guys,” He says into the mic on the little headset he’s wearing. “Little brother needs me.”

“Man, fuck your little brother.” That’s Cam, who isn’t exactly Danny’s friend, but he plays all the same video games and Danny likes teaming up with him. Cam always racks up just an insane kill count.

Danny has a painful crush on him, like being a high schooler all over again. It doesn’t help that he’s Danny’s lab partner in his chemistry course, so they sit in incredibly painful proximity to one another twice a week for an hour.

“Careful, Cameron, if you say fuck you too loudly around Ryan Michaelson, he absolutely will,” Perry says, laughter along his voice. “Then you’d learn about a whole new world, buddy.”

“Hey, if Ryan Michaelson asked me to, I probably would want to discover a whole new world,” Cam replies, apparently unbothered. “I mean. Look, there’s pretty, and then there’s Ryan fucking Michaelson.”

“Ugh, gross, you guys. He’s my brother.”

“Yeah, but, like… you’d understand, right?”

Danny sighs dramatically, making it loud enough to carry through the mike. His heart races, just a little, as he says, “But what if I wanted to show you whole new world, Cam?”

There’s a silence, and then everyone starts laughing, and Danny is elated that nobody took him seriously, but also disappointed that Cameron didn’t take him seriously.

Stop getting crushes on straight guys, Danny, you know it’s not going to work.

He’d sort of thought being gay as hell would mean he only wanted to actually be with actual gay guys, but… it doesn’t always happen that way. Whatever. Cam wouldn’t have noticed him even if he was gay, anyway - he was in a frat or some shit and Danny figured he probably wears way too much eyeliner for the frat guys to put up with.

But he looks really fucking good in eyeliner.

“Danny!” Ryan calls again, louder this time. “You and I both know you’re not playing right now, you’re just, like, talking shit with those guys - come help!”

“Okay, I mean it, I’m gone for now. I’ll tell him you all sent your fucking love and kisses and whatnot,” Danny says, brightly.

“Definitely tell him we sent our kisses,” Perry says. “Jesus fuck, Ryan Michaelson is hot.”

“Perry-”

“Yeah, yeah, later, Dan. We’ll tell you how hot your brother is when you get back.”

“… well now I’m not coming back.”

“No! We need you! You’re the second-best shot on the team! Only Cam does a better job than you.”

“Wow, what a compliment,” Danny says dryly. “I think I might melt into the fucking floor.”

“Little Danny-puddle,” Cam says, slightly soft, and Danny’s throat nearly closes up. Then he just logs out before he say something embarrassing, tossing his mic onto the coffee table and standing up, stretching his limbs. Ryan’s in the guest room this weekend - Danny had gotten a two-bedroom apartment specifically so Ryan could stay over whenever.

Mom and Dad fucking hated when Ryan stayed here, and that was half the reason to invite him.

“All right, dumbass, what do you need?” Danny says as he sticks his head through the door to Ryan’s room. He’s on his stomach on the bed, squinting at his laptop, head titled.

“I need help. I want to write Remy a poem for Valentine’s Day.”

“Oh, my God. I am way too gay to help you write a poem for a girl, Ryan. Especially for fucking Remy fucking Alleman, the bitch.”

“Man, fuck you. Remy’s fucking gorgeous and sarcastic and French and like the smartest person I know.”

“What about me?”

“Danny, you are neither French nor particularly smart, but I’ll give you sarcastic.”

“I’m at least gorgeous, though, right?”

“Nah, man, you’re ugly as shit. All those freckles?” Ryan pokes Danny in the cheek, just over his cheekbone, and laughs when Danny shoves him so hard he rolled off the bed and hit with a thump. “Ow! Fine, I take it back! You’re… acceptably attractive under certain circumstances!”

“Thank you. That’s all I ask you to say.” Danny flutters his eyelashes, then holds out his hand to help Ryan back up onto the bed. “So why do you want my help, for real?”

“Well… Gay guys are good at romantic shit, right?”

Danny blinks at him. “Have you met me?”

“… fair point. You’re a dumbass on a good day. Well… you’re all I got, so come over here and look at it, tell me what you think. I want to, like, handwrite it on this really pretty paper I got, and then I’m gonna roll it up like it’s a scroll and tie it to a rose she’s gonna find in that tree we used to climb when we started dating. Does that sound romantic?”

“Yeah, that sounds like a fucking Hallmark card. Let me see.”

Danny flops down to look at the words sitting in the open Word document on the screen.

“My gaming friends think you’re super hot, you know,” He says, sidelong. “Perry and Jay and Cam and shit.”

Ryan shrugs. “Everyone thinks I’m hot. Comes with being so fucking hot all the time.”

“I hate you.”

“I hate you, too,” Ryan says primly. “And don’t you forget it.”

“How could I forget anything about you, you never leave me the fuck alone. Okay, so your poem.” Danny looks at the computer screen, gnawing on his lower lip, thinking. “Oh, man. This is… terrible.”

“Is it really?” Ryan scoots closer. “Like, too terrible to show her?”

“No you should definitely show her, she is going to fall on her ass laughing, and I want to be there to see it.” Danny’s mouth moves as he rereads it - he’s never been the best reader, although he does well enough reading for school. “Yeah, no, this sucks absolute donkey ass.”

“Shit.” Ryan deflates, a little, and Danny looks at him sidelong. “I just wanted to do something romantic.”

“Ryan, this is romantic. It’s just also terrible. It can be both things.”

“Yeah, but she’s French. They, like, get poetry and shit.”

“She’s French-Canadian, for starters, and don’t ever call her French to her face or she’ll kick you in it. Just give her your terrible poem and the rose and stuff. It’s romantic as hell, Ryan. She’ll laugh but she’ll keep the poem for-fucking-ever, I guarantee it.”

“You think?”

“I know, Ryan. Okay, I’ll help you maybe move some stuff around. I don’t know shit about poetry, but I mean… I can try. We’ll work on it together, get it the best it’s gonna be from the Michaelson boys.”

“So… still terrible.”

“Yeah, but what are you gonna do? If she cared about poetry, she’d date a fucking English major, right?”

“Right. But… but.” Ryan hesitates, just the barest hint of real vulnerability on his face. “She’ll still like it, even if it sucks, right?”

“She likes you even though you suck,” Danny pointed out helpfully.

“Hey now, of the two of us in the room who suck-”

“Shut up, asshole. Let’s get this done so I can get back to gaming, we’re doing really well in the rankings. Cam is talking about doing a couple semi-pro bits, like, signing up for meets where there’s money on the line.”

“Well if Cameron says to do it, of course you have to, God forbid you remember Cameron doesn’t even know you exist. Oooh, let’s write a poem for Cam for Valentine’s. ‘My hair is red, my eyes are blue, when I’m sucking dick, I think about you-’“

“Ryan, shut the fuck up! I do not think about Cam every time!”

Ryan brightens. “So… how often would you say you do? Ballpark estimate.”

Danny groans. “I’m going to punch you in the face. In the face, Ryan.”

“Mmmn, I’d look super hot with a black eye and we both know it. Anyway, help me with the poem first, I need to, like, learn some kind of penmanship or whatever so this doesn’t look like shit.”

“… yeah, okay.”

The two brothers settled in next to each other to consider the next line.

#microfiction #drabbles #original fiction #brothers #sibling bonding #which mostly means insulting each other #daniel michaelson is a tall smol bean #ryan michaelson is a good brother #anon asks about danny #Daniel Michaelson's story #just for fun #true fluff #fluff #humorous fiction

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slipping-through-my-fingertips · 4 years

Text

Klainetober day 26

Prompt 26: Trick or Treat

Summary: McKinley is hosting a Halloween dance. Kurt needs a date.

Notes: This is another story I was already writing and I added some details to fit with the prompt for today. Really proud of this one, I hope you all enjoy it.

AO3

The first annual McKinley High Halloween Dance was next week and Kurt Hummel still didn’t have a date. It wasn’t as if he was waiting around for someone to ask him because he was fairly sure he was the only out person in the entire school, except maybe Brittany. No one seemed to have issues with her dating anyone from footballers to glee clubbers or even fellow Cheerio Santana. However, she didn’t label her relationship with Santana. Kurt suspected Santana wasn’t quite ready to give up on hooking up with boys. Whether she actually enjoyed the company of boys was up for debate. If you asked, Kurt was positive Santana was experiencing the similar fear he once had when he was deciding to confirm what all the bullies already said about him: he was gay.

If Quinn Fabray, chairwoman of the dance, got her way, Kurt would have to endure two more Halloween dances, dateless, until he graduated and got the hell out of Lima. All because she needed an excuse to wear couple costumes with her new boyfriend, Sam Evans. Which was the real reason, Kurt Hummel needed a date. The rules of the dance were simple: couple costumes only.

Before you ask why Kurt couldn’t just skip out on the dance altogether, Mr. Schue had signed the glee club up to perform. He had to go and in order to attend, he needed a date. Everyone else was paired up: Finn and Rachel, Puck and Lauren, Mike and Tina, and Artie had asked Mercedes just this morning to go with him as a friend of course. Artie was still upset that Brittany and Santana were dating. Kurt assumed he didn’t want to cause any trouble so Mercedes was Artie’s safest bet for a date. Though, Kurt wished he had asked his bestie before Artie did because that would’ve solved his issue.

Kurt felt more alone than ever. All around him were couples. As he sat in the Lima Bean, he tried to tear his eyes away from couples holding hands on top of the tables, whispering to each other while waiting in line, ordering for one another, and their adorable, little kisses on cheeks. He went back to flipping through his math notebook and continuing his test corrections, which was his way of avoiding his need to find a song for the dance to perform.

He put his headphones in and let the music of his favorite playlist take him away from Ohio. Music was his greatest escape. Except today all he could see were images of the glee club in their costumes.

Quinn and Sam were going as a Na’vi. It was going to take a lot of work to get all of that blue paint off their bodies.

Ever since their musical movie night of Grease, Rachel’s been obsessing over Olivia Newton John’s outfit and was surely going to force Finn into a T-Bird leather jacket.

Though Kurt wasn’t quite sure about Puck and Lauren’s costume, Lauren did tell him it was rather sexual, which didn’t surprise Kurt at all.

He and Lauren had struck up a decent friendship since she joined glee. It was partly because Puck already considered Kurt “his boy” and partly due to their similar wit and sense of humor. Moreso the latter.

Among those couples in his daydream, Kurt saw himself standing by the punch bowl simply observing the over-crowded dance floor and wishing he had a sweetheart to sway with him while cheesy popular Halloween music played.

He skipped the next song on his shuffle and set about getting back to his test corrections for geometry. Somebody helped themself to the seat in front of Kurt causing him to look up. There in his blazer and slightly gelled hair sat Blaine Anderson, cute as could be.

Blaine was a Warbler. The enemy, if you asked Rachel. But to Kurt, Blaine was a friend and confidant. Someone who understood him better than anyone else ever had. Kurt had met him on a failed spying mission to Dalton Academy during Girl vs. Boys week. Blaine serenaded him with Katy Perry and Kurt’s been a goner ever since.

“Hey you,” he said.

Kurt removed his headphones.

“Hi, what are you doing here?” Kurt asked. “Don’t you have rehearsal until 4?”

“It’s after 4, Kurt.” Blaine smiled.

Kurt looked at his phone and sure enough it was almost 5 o’clock. “Oh.”

“What are you working on?”

“Math,” Kurt said with a long sigh.

Blaine hummed like he understood Kurt’s frustrations with the subject.

“I could use a break honestly.”

“Great,” Blaine said,. “How’s glee? Did you have your sectionals yet?”

“Not yet, Mr. Schue won’t even tell us our competitors. Who are you competing against?” Kurt took a sip of his nonfat mocha. “Not Vocal Adrenaline, I hope.”

Blaine smiled like he had a secret. In the short time that they knew one another, Kurt was already aware that Blaine wasn’t capable of holding in secrets, especially good ones (unless they were top-secret and very serious matters, like the extent of Karofsky’s bullying). This secret had him ready to burst at the seams.

“What’s going on? Are you doing a medley of Pink songs?”

Blaine laughed. “I wish but no.”

“So, what’s this all about?” Kurt gestured to Blaine’s bouncing in his seat.

“The Warblers are up against the New Directions this year.”

“We’re competing?”

“Yes!” Blaine explained. “I know it’s kinda strange to be excited but this means I’ll get to see you and hear you sing. It’s going to be great no matter who wins.”

“Well, obviously it’s going to be us.”

Blaine rolled his eyes. “In your dreams.”

There was a slight break in conversation as Kurt gathered up his worksheets and placed them in a green folder. He wasn’t doing any more today. Not when Blaine was sitting across from him.

“How’s school going?”

Kurt had confessed so much to Blaine. Things he didn’t dare tell the New Directions or even his dad.

“Good,” Kurt said, with a small smile. “Karofsky’s suspension has turned into expulsion thanks to Coach Sue.” He lowered his voice and looked around to make sure no one was listening. “In addition to his threats on my life, he was caught in the act of kicking another student so…”

Blaine lowered his voice as well. “So, that means you’re safer right?”

“I hope so. I worried if it’ll mean the other bullies will take his place or if they’ll leave me alone altogether. Time will tell.”

Blaine tilted his head slightly to the left and scrunched his nose. “I guess that also means there’s no hope you’ll come to Dalton?”

“I’d miss McKinley too much.” Kurt shrugged. “But transferring isn’t completely off the table just yet.”

Blaine reached over and took Kurt’s hand. “I’m happy for you, y’know.”

“Thanks,” Kurt said. “In somewhat happier news, Quinn has declared a Halloween Dance.”

“That sounds fun but you said somewhat...what’s wrong with a spooky dance?”

“She has also declared it a couple costume dance.” Kurt sighed. “Everyone needs a date and yours truly has no one to ask.”

“Mercedes?”

“She’s going with Artie.”

“Huh, you guys having it on Halloween?”

“Yeah, it’s a Friday so it actually works out well.” Kurt raised his eyebrows wondering where Blaine was headed with this train of thought.

“In the evening, I assume.”

“Yeah, it’s at 7.”

“The Warblers usually do some trick or treating in the neighborhood, they like that some houses make them do tricks before giving them candy,” Blaine said with a smile, “but I can skip out this year. We should probably start brainstorming costume ideas.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ll come with you, Unless, you’re too embarrassed to be seen with me,” Blaine teased.

“Definitely not,” Kurt assured him, “I’d be honored to have you come with me.”

It looked like Kurt had a date to the dance.

“And you’ll help me with my song selection.”

“Wouldn’t want it any other way,” Blaine said, “but only after you agree to be the peanut butter to my jelly?”

“I refuse to go as a sandwich,” Kurt huffed.

“The Mario to my Luigi!”

“Taken by Artie and Mercedes. Next.”

“Buzz Lightyear to my Woody?” Blaine suggested.

“As much as I love Disney–”

Blaine cut him off, “–and Pixar.”

“And Pixar,” Kurt confirmed. “No.”

“Why not? You’d look cute in a spacesuit.”

Kurt tried not to blush.

“How about Broadway legends for couple costumes?”

***

On Friday, Kurt found himself exactly where he thought he’d be: standing alone by the punch bowl. Coach Sue had made her special punch, usually reserved for proms, and was guarding it. Kurt felt safer knowing she was watching out for bullies and people, namely Puckerman, who would be trying to spike it.

One thing Kurt hadn’t accounted for in his daydreams was how good Blaine looked in red. His entire outfit clung to his body: freshly ironed red button-down, appropriately sinfully tight slacks, and a skinny blood red tie. Blaine was sitting with Tina and Mike in their zombie cheerleader and footballer costumes. Even from here, Kurt noticed black curls framing his face and the rest were held back by light gel and devil horns.

“Your alabaster complexion wasn’t enough, Porcelain,” Sue said, “you just had to dress like a heaven-sent cherub.”

“I think there was a compliment in there somewhere.” Kurt smiled.

“Your boyfriend is too preppy to be a devil,” she commented, “but you’re the only couple couple here that doesn’t make me gag.”

Before Kurt could tell her Blaine and him weren’t dating, she was already yelling at a student for coming too close to the punch bowl.

Kurt decided it was best to join Blaine at their table. He carried two plastic cups of orange punch and placed one in front of his date. Blaine smiled his thanks and continued his conversation with Mike about the best local dance studios. The Warblers wanted to brush up on some of their step dancing abilities.

When the song changed, Mike escotted Tina to the dance floor leaving Blaine and Kurt alone.

“Are you having fun?” Kurt asked.

“I am. The New Directions are great.” He took a sip of punch. “Rachel’s better in short doses, Tina’s a sweetheart, and Mike and Sam could easily be my new best friends.”

Kurt chuckled and ducked his head. Blaine moved his hand onto Kurt’s knee so he met the other boy’s eyes.

“Your friends are great, I understand why you wouldn’t want to leave them.”

“They are,” Kurt agreed. “Not that the Warblers aren’t amazing too.”

“Oh they’re a lot to get used to as well,” Blaine assured. “We tend to be...traditional.”

“The New Directions don’t follow any rules. We just are.”

“You belong here.”

Kurt shook his head. “Maybe in the eyes of the glee club. No one else wants to claim me.”

“I would,” Blaine told him.

“You would?”

Blaine nodded. “Wanna dance?”

Kurt hesitated but Blaine was standing there with his earnest grin and hand out just waiting for Kurt to grab it. How could he say no?

The boys went out onto the dance floor, joining a majority of the New Directions in their circle. Couples were paired up but everyone was still dancing together. It reminded Kurt of how they’d dance during glee breaks. Just general fun, no choreography or audience. They were teenagers enjoying each other’s company.

#klainetober #klainetober halloween fic extravaganza #halloween dance with new directions #klaine fanfic #my fics

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bubonickitten · 4 years

Link

Chapter 2 is up. Cross-posting the full text below the cut:

CW: angst; grief & loss; (temporary) major character loss/absence (left intentionally vague); flashbacks re: canon-typical trauma; brief mention of past self-harm; some blink-and-you'll-miss-it internalized ableism; one (1) very persistent spider; SPOILERS through MAG 169.

Chapter 1 can be found here: tumblr // AO3

Jon waits until he’s safely out of sight before he lets himself fall apart. He’s trembling all over as he sinks to the floor, fighting back tears, his breath coming in shallow gasps.

He underestimated what seeing Jonah Magnus again would do to him. Staring into the eyes of the man who stripped him of agency and humanity, taunting and gloating as he led him into trauma after trauma, setting him on the path to becoming a weapon and a monster and a hapless victim all at once…

Jonah’s statement wormed its way into his head on the day the world ended, and it’s lived there ever since, playing on a loop and consuming him from the inside out.

…when you came to me already marked by the Web, I knew it had to be you…

Did the Web choose Jon from the very beginning, or did he just have the bad luck to stumble upon the book, and only then catch the Web’s attention? How much of this broken future is due to an insufferable child’s inability to stop being such a nuisance and just sit still for five minutes? Even back then, he had that restless, insatiable curiosity, driving him to wander off and ignore any sign of danger.

…attacks on the Archives were not uncommon during Gertrude’s tenure, and while she was always prepared, I made sure you would not be…

He had always been fumbling in Gertrude’s shadow. Tim and Basira always thought that everyone would be better off if Jon had tried to emulate her. He disagrees with that now, but still, Gertrude wouldn’t have fallen for such obvious traps. She never let the Eye turn her monstrous, never let Jonah turn her into such a pliable sacrifice.

…I waited until the worms were in you before I pulled the lever. I needed to make sure you felt that fear all the way to your bones…

And he did, he did; the sense memories still haunt him, as marrow-deep as the worms once were. Some days he can still feel them burrowing and his fingers curl around an imaginary corkscrew as he’s swept away by the panicked urge to get them out.

…it was just a matter of feeding you statements to lead you to a few Avatars I thought were likely to harm you – but probably would stop short of actually killing you…

At every turn, Jon had played right into Jonah’s hands. Georgie warned him that his stubborn investigations would destroy him, and he pressed on anyway. He may have been dependent on the statements by then – though he didn’t know it at the time – but he didn’t have to seek out Jude Perry or Mike Crew, did he? Was it any wonder Georgie gave up on him?

��I made sure to trap her here, so when her rage bubbled over you would be right here, a ready target. I didn’t foresee the mark coming from surgery gone wrong, but it was a very pleasant surprise…

Melanie. God, Melanie. She had fought tooth and nail to make a place for herself in a world that underestimated her. She was the protagonist of her own story until Jonah forced her to play a supporting role in Jon’s. It was never Jon’s intention, but the fact remains: if it wasn’t for him, Melanie would never have been trapped.

…you needed more than just the marks; you needed power. And that was something the Unknowing served to test, though it posed no actual danger in the grand scheme of things…

More meat for the grinder, more lives sacrificed solely for the Archivist’s progress. Tim died for nothing, Daisy was subjected to the Buried for nothing, and –

…it inadvertently pushed you to confront death, a mark I had been very worried about trying to orchestrate…

– Martin was ushered into Peter Lukas’ machinations, all for nothing.

…you should have seen my face when you voluntarily went to him…

Jon feels sick imagining Jonah’s unbridled delight at watching his ignorant, malleable chosen one so willingly offer himself up to the Boneturner. Could Jon have made it any easier for him to win?

…how is Martin, by the way? You will keep an eye on him when all this is over, won’t you? He’s earned that…

He’d promised, he promised he would protect Martin, and his best just wasn’t good enough.

Jon leans against the nearest wall, curls in on himself, and gives in to the wracking sobs. He hates Jonah – hates him in a way he never thought he was capable of hating anything – but even now, the anger is still eclipsed by the fear and the scars it left behind. He feels more like a victim than a survivor. Jon could take retribution on Jonah in a million ways and Jonah would be powerless to stop him, but it doesn’t change anything: all the power in the world won’t chase away the grief, the nightmares, the incessant fear and pain the Eye filters though him every moment.

One look at Jonah, and the memory came rushing back: Jonah using him as a mouthpiece, slithering into his mind and commandeering his tongue, forcing his eyes to open, moving his jaw like a ventriloquist’s dummy, only to cut the strings and send him buckling to the floor as soon as he’d served his purpose. He had tried to scratch out his eyes, claw out his throat, but every wound would heal before the pain even registered. And Jonah –

…I hope you’ll forgive me the self-indulgence, but I have worked so very hard for this moment, a culmination of two centuries of work. It’s rare that you get the chance to monologue through another, and you can’t tell me you’re not curious…

– it wasn’t enough for him just to get the result he wanted. He had to take the opportunity to degrade his victim one last time, had to use Jon’s own voice to do it. There are times when Jon can’t even listen to himself speak without flashing back to that moment and shattering into full-blown panic. He hadn’t felt human for a long time by that point, but the Ritual… it was dehumanizing in a way he could have never imagined. He’ll never be free of that memory, no matter how far he runs, no matter how much Jonah Magnus suffers, and no matter whether he manages to reverse the damage –

Stop. Spiraling isn’t helping. Breathe. Play it back again, slower this time, and think. How would Martin respond, if he was here?

Running was never an option. You’re probably right. Jonah Magnus’ suffering has no impact on Jon’s recovery. He still deserves to have his eyes gouged out – yes, okay, fine! Priorities, I know. (A nearly imperceptible smile tugs at the corner of Jon’s mouth at that.) Reversing the damage, though, making things right – that’s still on the table. There’s still a chance. Then I’d say it’s worth a try, Martin would say, and between the reassurance of his smile and the sincerity in his eyes, Jon would believe him.

Jon imagines Martin sitting beside him, arm around his waist, a warm and comforting weight for him to lean on. Thankfully, blessedly, it’s just as strong a sense memory as the nesting worms and Jude’s searing handshake and the Boneturner’s groping fingers in his chest cavity. Martin helped him relearn that physical contact is not always synonymous with pain and fear and violence. Safe hands, warm eyes, gentle touch. Jon holds fast to that thought and lets it anchor him until the storm passes.

Eventually – Jon doesn’t care to Know how much time has passed – his sobbing dissolves into broken hiccups, and then into exhausted sniffling. He sits up, scrubs at his face, and forces himself to breathe. The guilt is still there, the pain is still acute, but he has a job to do.

Once he’s composed enough, he forces himself to stand and lets his feet take him to where he Knows he needs to be.

As Jon mounts the spiral staircase leading to the top of the tower, Helen’s door creaks open on the wall ahead of him.

“That little confrontation was a bit dramatic, Archivist.”

Ten many-jointed fingers curl around the frame. Or twelve, or maybe sixteen, or – it’s not important. Jon stops counting and continues climbing.

“And what did it accomplish?” Helen’s face peeks through the opening now. “You've changed nothing.” When Jon does not reply, she leaves her doorway and plants herself on the staircase a few steps above him. She leans down close to Jon's eye level and tilts her head at a disquieting angle. “Ah, but that wasn’t the point, was it? That spectacle was all for you.”

Jon doesn't have to Know to determine that Helen is bored, which means she isn’t going to leave until he entertains her. Better to get it over with, he figures, and so he finally focuses on her and shakes his head fervently.

“Oh, of course. Martin.” Helen smiles – cruel and condescending as always, but Jon can detect some fondness there as well. “He really did rub off on you, didn’t he? He would have enjoyed that little performance. The sheer pettiness of it all.”

The corner of Jon’s mouth twitches up in a rueful little smile. She’s right – Martin would have loved that little standoff. Jon can picture the moment of awe in the aftermath – the lopsided grin, the stammering insistence that Jon, that was amazing, and the inevitable moment once the adrenaline wore off when Martin would tell him: I know I keep saying this, but I didn’t think it was possible for me to be any more attracted to you. And much later, once they were safe and the dust was settled, they would joke about it: Martin would do a terrible impersonation – always fond, never cruel – and Jon would point out that it did have the intended effect –

“Daydreaming, are we?” Helen barks a laugh when Jon startles, his face heating with embarrassment. “Even after all this time, you really are adorable.”

Jon groans and makes a shooing gesture in Helen’s direction. Her laughter reverberates even more than usual; it leaves Jon with the distinct sensation of chewing on tinfoil, and his teeth begin to ache.

As the echoes fade away, Helen pantomimes wiping a tear from her eye. “So, do you really think this plan is any better than your standard fare?”

Honestly, Jon has no idea.

“I’m well aware that” – a brief pause as he skips ahead in the statement – “to try and prevent whatever fate is coming – is likely impossible anyway, but after what I saw, I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try.”

It’s odd, using Oliver’s original statement like this to express a worldview so antithetical to his current stance. Comparing the person Oliver used to be – desperate to change fate, then desperate to escape it – with who he is now… it’s still unsettling, to see how much a person can change after coming into contact with one of the entities.

“Hmm. I still think you're fighting a lost battle. But I can say that I am very curious to see what happens when you try.”

Jon shifts from one foot to the other, hitching his bag higher on his back and giving Helen a pointed look.

“Impatient to meet your god? Well, don’t let me keep you.” Helen steps back over the threshold of her door. “Try not to get vaporized, will you?”

The door swings shut on Helen’s delighted cackle and Jon lets out a long, exhausted breath before continuing his ascent.

Jon doesn’t know how long it takes, but eventually he reaches the top of the staircase, which opens up into a circular, empty room. Stone walls, stone floor, stone ceiling. The only interesting detail is a stylized eye carved into the very center of the floor. As far as Jon can tell, there’s nothing arcane about the symbol at all – just a bit of trite aesthetic flair for an otherwise bare temple. Still, now that geography has ceased functioning, it marks the exact center point of the wasteland, and it’s exactly where Jon needs to be.

He has no way of Knowing whether this will work. He still isn’t even entirely sold on the idea of the Fears being sentient, rather than just… forces of nature, no more or less conscious than gravity. But it’s the only idea he has left, and it’s something that he and Martin planned together, which makes it worth trying. If it doesn’t work, then… well, with any luck, hopefully he won’t live long enough for it to matter. Not that Jon has ever been particularly lucky –

Several of his eyes swivel and train themselves on a single speck moving down the far wall, and he hears his voice before he even makes the conscious decision to speak:

“Leave.”

The word comes out as a cacophony of overlapping tones and Jon staggers with the force of it. The spider, for its part, scuttles through a crack and out of sight at the command, leaving Jon alone and swaying with vertigo.

This is why he hates vocalizing single words – it means replaying every instance of the word stored in the Archive simultaneously, and it always leaves him feeling like a blown out speaker. It’s safest to stick to full, unique phrases – anything with an exact combination of words that occurs only once in all of the Archive’s records.

Ears still ringing, Jon shakes his head and tries to reorient himself. If he’s quick, maybe he can get what he needs and retreat before the Web interferes again. He hurries to the middle of the room, stands on the pupil at the center of the eye motif, and –

As Ceaseless Watcher turns its gaze on him again, Jon prepares himself for a repeat of its earlier scrutiny. It starts slow – a searing, infectious ache jumping its way from cell to cell like a charged current, seizing upon every scrap of conscious thought, building up to a crescendo of rending, electric agony.

This time, though, the Archive Watches back.

Helen had said it best: “There are exactly two roles available in this new world of ours: The Watcher, and the Watched. Subject, and object.”

What happens when a part of the Eye allows itself to embrace both roles? What happens when the Eye’s pupil shifts its focus on itself?

“An eye can’t see within itself,” Jon had said. And much later, out of the blue, Martin had mused: “But what if it could?”

Jon had averaged at least one identity crisis a day ever since becoming the Archivist, and Martin grew accustomed to sitting through Jon’s hand-wringing over how much of his humanity remained. Martin had always maintained that, first, it wasn’t as simple a dichotomy as Jon wanted it to be, and second, Jon was human in all the ways that mattered.

One day as they journeyed through the dying world, though, Martin suggested a new theory. Jonah Magnus had presented a one-way progression from human to Archivist to Archive. The Watcher’s Crown Ritual was meant to be a final act of dehumanization, wherein Jon would cease to exist as a person and become instead a perpetual conduit for the Eye. But Jon had never fully lost himself, had he? It was more like he had shattered into multiple states of being.

He could – was forced to, really – See everything that the Eye could See. The part of him that was Jonathan Sims felt the fear and suffering as it was (that is to say, horrific); the part of him that was Archive felt only detached fascination and a sense that everything was just as it should be, because this was the role it was born to serve. The result was a dissonant, twilight emotional state wherein everything felt both right and horribly, irredeemably wrong.

In a way, it reminded Jon of how he felt reading statements. When he first started out, he hated it – he could literally feel the fear of the statement givers as if it was his own, and it always left him feeling exhausted. Then, at some point, came the physical dependence on statements – without his realizing, they had become life-sustaining rather than draining. Even then, though, the fear never actually went away – he was just forced to vicariously feel the Eye’s perverse satisfaction in it. Sometimes it felt like being made complicit in his own terror; sometimes it just made him feel numb. It was like having a parasite tucked away inside his mind, passing its own wants and needs onto him and making him feel them as if they were his own.

After the Ritual, every instance of fear in this new world was a statement to be taken in by the Beholding and dutifully filed away inside the Archive, and all of it had to go through Jon first.

Jon also had some control over the Eye, though: he could focus its gaze and, as its Archive, he did theoretically have access to most of its knowledge, as long as he knew where to look. He both took to it and hated it, constantly flitting between roles from one moment to the next like a moth wavering between funeral pyres.

“What even am I now – human, Archivist, Archive?” Jon had stormed one day, only for Martin to take both of his hands, meet his gaze, and tell him, very seriously: “How about all three?”

Jon had taken it as a dig at his habitual indecisiveness, but Martin was being sincere. He suggested that Jon try to embrace being a walking paradox, to use that multiplicity to his advantage – and that was the premise upon which they’d built their future strategies. As they pressed on toward the Panopticon, they each took turns acting as the other’s anchor, and Jon practiced compartmentalizing. Now, finally, it was time to put the hypothesis to the test.

So, what does happen if an Eye learns to See within itself?

What happens is this: the Archive Beholds the Watcher –

…the Eye in the sky scans forward, back; stares into, through; sweeps above, below. Nothing escapes its gaze: not the bloated bodies swaying listlessly in the vast deep; not the cooling cinders of an endless building at last consumed and rendered to nothing but ash in the wind; not the algal bloom suffocating a corpse-choked lake long-dead and fetid; not the merry-go-round with its rusted gears and peeling-paint horses…

…far away, the Falling Titan drifts aimless in a void where the stars flicker in and out and eventually not at all; emaciated beasts of the Hunt stagger listless in search of a chase, falling one by one in the dust as the prey remains scarce; the endless war has been reduced to pilotless technology running through the same protocols over and over, few human minds remaining to witness or suffer the collateral damage…

…closer, the paint continues to flake away from the Distortion’s doors; the Sandman is running out of eye sockets to plunder; the Forsaken despairs the absence of lonely souls to appreciate its embrace; the Corpse Routes continue their inexorable crawl toward the center of creation, wilting all the way…

…there is nothing new under the roving Eye; moments blur together, time runs down, and every grain of sand in the hourglass is the same, the same, the same, the same…

…closer, closer, honing in: follow the woven threads and observe how all the lines converge on a single point…

– and the Watcher blinks first.

When Jon finally comes to, he’s sprawled on the floor, all twitching limbs and exhaustion. Dazed, unfocused eyes blink in and out of existence around him, making his vision go pixelated and wobbly. He swats uselessly at them – or tries to, anyway, before realizing belatedly that he can barely lift his arms. Like a cat waking up from anesthesia, he thinks with a delirious little chuckle. What he wouldn’t give for a cat video compilation – no. Focus.

Standing up is out of the question right now, but the brain fog is starting to clear. It was so much all at once, but he tries to parse it.

The world is running through the same loops now, over and over and over again. He could revisit every domain he trudged through on the way to the Panopticon and any statement he could offer up would be identical to the one he gave the first time around. Victim after victim fed to the endless slaughter, sacrificed at the eternal maypole, retracing the same lonely paths in the fog. The same buildings burning again and again in the exact same way; the same worms struggling one-step-forward, two-steps back in the same tunnels day after day; the strangers on the merry-go-round trading the same limited supply of faces in a closed economy of uncanny horror.

It’s… monotonous. Predictable. Stale. And the Ceaseless Watcher never was satisfied by stale statements – oh. Oh.

The Eye is bored, Jon realizes all at once. Or – no, maybe that’s not the right word. Malnourished, perhaps? Or is that still too anthropomorphizing? Even after coming into direct contact with the Beholding, he still can’t say with any certainty whether it has any mind or will of its own. It could just be that the metaphysical concept itself is unraveling without anything to challenge it – or, ironically, perhaps it’s simply weakened by its visibility in this new world.

The Beholding is the fear of being watched, of being judged, of having one’s secrets exposed. Or, how did Gerry put it… “the feeling that something, somewhere, is letting you suffer, just so it can watch.” Jon thinks back on his months-long bout of paranoia, and he remembers that one of the most frightening things about it was his inability to trust his own judgment. There was always that creeping fear that perhaps it really was all in his mind, and – when he thinks about it, that paranoia might not have had the same bite to it if he knew for a fact that he was being watched and precisely who or what was doing the watching.

The fear of the unknown is an important variable. Once all your secrets are known, what else can the Eye take from you? Once your suspicions are confirmed and the source of your fear has a name, how can it use your doubt to taunt you? In this new world, everything can behold the Eye in the sky. Everyone is fully aware that they are being watched, and the identity of the Watcher is indisputable. It dilutes the fear. The Ceaseless Watcher may well have been at its most terrifying when it was at its most subtle, in the world where the Dread Powers still lurked in the shadows.

And now – now, on top of all that, the End’s promise looms nearer and nearer every day. What is an observer with nothing to observe? What is the Watcher without mortal minds to experience the terror of being Watched? Jonah Magnus’ nightmare kingdom is as inimical to the Ceaseless Watcher as it is to all the other Fears and all of their victims.

It takes a minute before Jon realizes he’s laughing at the absurdity of it all.

Jon still feels a bit lightheaded as he exits the Panopticon, mind abuzz with hypotheticals. He’s jittery, excited – afraid, yes, but the anticipation is tinged with hope. He still isn't prepared for Helen's abrupt appearance, though.

“So, how did it go?”

Jon scowls at her before he can think better of it, and her mouth quirks in amusement as she soaks in his momentary burst of alarm. He closes his eyes and begins to shuffle statements in his mind.

“…spent so very long staring into” – a brief skip ahead – “infinity and knowing, truly knowing.”

“You’re telling me you had a staring contest with the Eye?”

It’s a simplistic and annoyingly flippant way to put it, but she isn’t entirely wrong. When Jon doesn’t deny it, Helen claps her hands together in delight.

“It just sat there and stared at me,” Jon continues. “I didn’t like staring back at it. It made me feel strange, like it was sorting me into cuts of meat. There was more in those eyes than I’d ever seen -"

“Jonathan, won’t you stop speaking in metaphor and get to the point?”

The twinkle in her eye tells him that she’s enjoying his struggle to communicate. He really should know better than to let her rile him, but he feels himself growing irritable all the same.

“…a new door,” he says. “And it wasn’t there before. The man asked me again what was inside –”

In a flash, Helen has her deadly sharp fingers at his jugular, just barely brushing his skin. A few tiny pinpricks of blood well up and heal almost immediately. “Don’t you dare repurpose my words, Archivist,” she hisses.

It’s not easy to press Helen’s buttons, and he won’t deny the flicker of spiteful self-satisfaction the flares up that for once the tables have turned. He doesn’t plan on provoking her further, though; they both know that she can’t kill him, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t still hurt to have his throat skewered.

But he wasn’t using Helen Richardson’s statement just to antagonize her. It’s just that his library isn’t forthcoming with accurate words. After a few moments of perusal, he finds something that might work. There’s a risk of further inflaming Helen’s temper by using a statement about the Distortion right now, but…

“…staring at them, measuring the patterns they created – the maths behind them – he was on the verge of a great truth.” Jon pauses, watching for Helen’s reaction.

The dangerous look in her eyes remains, but she lowers her hand. “I’ll allow it,” she says. “Go on.”

“He was going to shake mathematics to its foundations once he figured out the truth, hidden in those cascading fractal patterns.”

To Helen’s credit, she seems to be seriously attempting to interpret his meaning now.

“You Saw into the Eye’s inner workings,” she begins slowly, waiting for Jon’s affirmative before continuing. “And you think you learned something about the underlying patterns of this reality.” Jon nods again, more vigorously this time. “You think that you can use that understanding to… what, close the door you opened?”

Not quite wrong, but not quite right, either.

“He wanted to close it, lock it back in place and get some semblance of control back,” Jon concedes.

But there is no other side of the door anymore, and the Fears can’t be exiled if there’s nowhere to send them.

“It was, to put it quite simply, impossible, and I must have approached it from a hundred different angles trying to make sense of it.”

“Then what?” Helen lets out an incredulous little laugh. “You think you can… unravel this reality? Tug on the strings holding it together, reshape it to your liking?”

He doesn’t quite approve of the phrasing – to your liking – but it’s close enough. He’s actually pleasantly surprised that she managed to read that much into his clumsy attempts at an explanation, so he gives another nod.

“…to circumvent physics, and suspend natural laws,” he says excitedly, gesturing with his hands and tripping over his words as he stitches the sound bites together. “Rewrite them wholesale – petty rules like space or time –”

“And how exactly do you plan to do that, Archivist?” Helen scoffs. “You may be overpowered now, but even you don’t have the capability to meddle with the fabric of reality.”

“You are prepared. You are ready. You are marked.” Jonah’s words leave a bitter taste on his tongue, but hopefully it gets his point across. “The power of the Ceaseless Watcher flows through you – in the world that we have made.”

“That’s… you’re giving yourself far too much credit.” Helen sounds flustered now. That’s… rare, and Jon doesn’t quite know what to make of it. “You’ve always been a – a conduit, not a conscious actor. A tool, not an architect. All you did was open a door.” She pauses briefly and gives him a severe, almost affronted look. “Reality is malleable, but that doesn’t mean you can manipulate it. You are not the Worker-of-Clay. You are not of the Web. The only ‘power’ that the Ceaseless Watcher grants you is voyeurism. You Watch, you observe, you… you sit on the sidelines and curate reality. You do not shape it.”

But I did, Jon thinks.

Compared to some of the other Avatars, his powers can seem passive. He has no command over insects or disease; he can’t reach into someone’s chest to turn their bones or cook their heart; he can’t drop people into the sky or disappear them into the fog; he doesn’t have the prowess of a Hunter or the berserker strength of the Slaughter. He Watches, he Knows, he Sees. He asks questions and he compels answers. And yet, he’s just as dangerous as the rest. He doesn’t have to draw blood in order to prey on others - he invades them like the Crawling Rot and haunts them like Dark and traps them like the Buried, and all he has to do is use his voice. The insidiousness of it is part of what makes it so terrifying.

So yes, Watching and Knowing may not seem like much compared to the flashier abilities of the other Avatars, but being marked by each of them in turn molded him into something new – something with a voice that shattered and reshaped the world with a single invocation. The concepts of Watching and Being Watched are the metaphysical building blocks of this universe, and both of those are within his purview. The most fundamental law now is the interplay of Watcher versus Watched, and Jon balances precariously on the tightrope of a boundary between the two – likely the only living being that doesn’t fit neatly into one category or the other.

The power threaded through the tapestry of this reality is a part of him as much as he is a part of the Eye. And if he pulls in just the right way, in just the right place…

“All you did was open a door,” Helen repeats, but softer this time, almost to herself.

But there’s power in the small things, isn’t there? Helen owes her current state to the simple act of opening a door, after all. For Jon, everything was set into motion when he opened a book. Curiosity is so very human, Jon thinks – it seems unfair that it could lead both of them so far astray from their humanity. Perhaps Jon’s life is a Rube-Goldberg machine painstakingly orchestrated by the Web, and finding the book was just the first domino in a long chain of missteps; or maybe his fate was just a perfect, unfortunate combination of bad luck, his own restless curiosity, and an entitled old man’s god complex. It doesn’t really matter – the consequences are the same.

As Jon starts walking, Helen paces after him. He watches with faint surprise as she wrings her hands uneasily – or a close enough approximation to it, anyway. It’s disorientating to watch, like an Escher woodcut in fluid motion. Several eyes attempt to track her movements, but it only succeeds in making Jon dizzy.

“Where are you off to now?” Helen asks, voice leaden with uncharacteristic uncertainty.

“It felt like if you picked a line, any line, you could follow it through to the center, to some deep truth, if only your eye could keep track of the strands that had caught it.”

“The Panopticon is the center.”

Jon stops, turns, and shakes his head. “A stronghold of the Web.”

“Oh,” Helen says, eyes brightening in realization.

Jon rubs the back of his neck and grimaces. “I was returning to Hill Top Road, no matter what I might feel about it.”

“The axis of the Spider’s web…” Helen gives the ground a long, pensive look. Then her eyes narrow and flick back up to meet Jon’s. “And what exactly do you expect to do there?”

“A scar in reality, that I believe has since been compounded by the interferences of other powers.”

“Yes, we all know about the rift,” Helen says impatiently. “What do you plan to do with it?”

“She was going to wait and see.” With that, Jon begins walking again.

“I changed my mind,” Helen practically whines. “This Archive nonsense was funny before, but now it’s just obtuse.” When Jon doesn’t bite back, she heaves a theatrical sigh. “Fine. As usual, I would offer you a quicker route, but you’d be something of an allergen in my corridors.”

Without turning to look at her, Jon flips her off over his shoulder.

“Rude,” Helen calls after him, and apparently she’s recovered enough to goad him, because he can hear the smile creeping back into her voice. “Try not to get lost traipsing back through the Lonely, Archivist. I would hate to have to come in after you.”

Her laughter is still ricocheting inside his skull when he hears her door swing shut, and he can already feel a headache blossoming in his temple. He takes a moment to collect himself before turning his back on the tower.

Jon sets out into the wasteland again once again, and he doesn’t look back.

End Notes:

- Jon's dialogue was taken from the statements in the following episodes, in order: MAG 011; 057; 103; 047; 008 (x2); 124; 57; 162; 160; 59; 139; 59; 139; 160.

#tma #the magnus archives #tma fic #long post

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holdthosebees · 4 years

Text

Memento Mori

A/N: Here we are again! Reposted w/out the horrifically embarrassing typo, which I’m sure y’all would have forgotten about if I hadn’t just mentioned it. Shoutout to @screechfoxes for reminding me! Anyway I’m still thinking about Mike Crew/Oliver Banks, and I will be until I die. Fic is rated M for mild, nonexplicit sexual content and canonical character death.

It’s storming on the day that Oliver meets Michael Crew, which feels appropriate enough. Later, Oliver jokes that, if Mike were more of a drama queen, he’d think he’d done it on purpose: the lashing rain, the heavy wind, the crack and roll of thunder shivering through the air. A summer storm, out of season. It’s driven away most of Oliver’s usual customers, the alternative kids and the middle aged hippies; he’s rearranging a display of cat-themed tarot cards for the fifth time for want of something better to do when the bell above the door rings.

The vertigo is immediate. Oliver raises his eyebrows as his stomach lurches; it had been a while since something impacted him like this. Ever since point Nemo, physical sensation has been... not numb, but dulled, certainly. Even the anxiety, once a constant companion, doesn’t leave him nauseous the way it used to. Then he registers the smell of ozone, and he sighs.

The man in the doorway is short and narrow, with a friendly, square face and sandy brown hair dripping rainwater onto his forehead. He’s dressed down for the weather, no raincoat or umbrella, and above the collar of his plain blue button-down Oliver can see a branching white scar.

“Good afternoon,” Oliver says, to be polite. “Anything I can help you with?”

“Oh, I’m just browsing,” the man says. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his trousers, as if to indicate how uninterested he is in touching anything. “I’ll try not to drip on your stuff.”

“That’s very thoughtful,” Oliver says. Then, because he feels a little silly, playing retail associate with a fellow monster, “Sorry--you’re Michael Crew, right?”

“Guilty as charged,” Michael says, with a quirk of a smile. “But please, call me Mike. Who was it that told you about me? Simon? Jude?” He looks at Oliver’s expression, and laughs. “Figures it would be Jude. She’s such a gossip, that one.”

“I suppose,” Oliver says. His conversation with Jude hadn’t been long, but it had left an impression. He’d felt rather like she was trying to recruit him into some sort of alliance, and when he hadn’t been receptive, her demeanor had been... unpleasant. She’d mentioned Michael--Mike--as something of a casual acquaintance, and so he’d expected him to be somewhat like her: so full of gleeful malice that it oozed out the edges.

“Anyway. I figured I’d drop by, see the man who hijacked Harriet’s plans for Point Nemo.” Mike punctuates this with by giving Oliver a slow once-over, up and down. Oliver smiles reflexively. It’s hard to tell whether he’s being threatened or checked out; neither option is as daunting as it might have been, once, but if Mike is planning on starting something he’d rather they not do it in his shop.

“Oh,” Oliver says, “sorry about that. I wasn’t exactly thinking much, at the time.”

“Don’t worry about it. Sea water under the bridge.” Mike says, and smiles, taking a hand out of his pocket to wave the matter away. He has a nice smile, Oliver thinks. Not too wide, not the tooth-baring threat that most of the avatars he’d met seemed fond of. Nice. “To be honest, I don’t have much to do with what the Fairchild’s are up to, these days. I don’t really bother with the macro. Yes, I know, ironic.”

“Seems very reasonable,” Oliver says.

“I thought you’d approve. Your lot doesn’t bother with that sort of thing, right? Everyone dies, after all.” His smile quirks up at the corner; a shared joke between two dead men.

“Memento mori,” Oliver says. He’s beginning to suspect that he actually is being chatted up, a suspicion confirmed when Mike asks him out for a pint a few minutes later. He considers saying no, citing the shop: it’s too early in the day to close up, after all. But there aren’t any customers coming, and Mike’s cute enough, and it’s not like he has many options. And it’s been a very, very long time.

They talk shop a bit over drinks--”Most people just don’t understand how big eternity actually is,” Mike says, all quiet intensity, and Oliver finds himself nodding along--and then, tentative, like he’s actually nervous, Mike asks Oliver over to his flat.

Oliver hesitates. He hasn’t gotten mixed up in any of the inter-avatar politics; he’s had no need to, and an entanglement just seemed like a pointless bit of risk. Besides, he’s always found the delight in death and pain paradoxically distasteful. He loves it, worships it, recognizes it as the truth that underwrites the universe; that doesn’t mean he has to enjoy it.

But Mike seems reasonable enough, and he’s handsome in an anemic sort of way. And there’s--something, in his eyes, the tilt of his jaw, an echo of defiant exhaustion, a coldness that Oliver recognizes. He is fairly cold himself, after all.

Going to bed with Michael Crew is--well, it would be overwhelming, if Oliver were capable of being overwhelmed. Touching his skin is vertigo, is free fall, the first crack of thunder when a storm breaks. Oliver licks the scar on his chest and tastes ozone. He can only imagine what Mike feels, touching him. They aren’t human, anymore; their bodies are vessels for something monstrous and huge, beautiful in their horror; but they can still sweat, and bite, and gasp so gently at the shock of sudden pleasure. Afterwards, Oliver lays his head on Mike’s chest and is relieved when he doesn’t feel a heartbeat.

It becomes almost a regular thing. They don’t date. They don’t have a relationship. The part of themselves that could be given to another person was already dedicated to something else; Mike will never look at anyone the way he looks up at the night sky, and Oliver will never feel as sadly tender about anything as he does when he sees the soon-to-be-dead walk past. The secret that Mike keeps is that the world is very big; the secret Oliver keeps is that your experience of it will be small. The space they make fits somewhere in-between.

The truce that they keep between them is simple. Mike comes by the store every few months or so. They make smalltalk, discuss the state of the powers, have sex sometimes. It’s nice. Mike, it turns out, is just as much of a homebody as Oliver; he lets the silences between them stretch on, doesn’t both texting ahead, doesn’t make demands of Oliver’s time. This is, of course, ideal. It is hard to care about investing in another person when you keep in the center of your heart and in your bones the knowledge that they, too, will die.

But still. It’s nice. One evening Mike swings by the store just before closing, and Oliver looks at his grey eyes and narrow shoulders and feels--something. It isn’t joy, and it isn’t exactly lust, and it’s certainly not love--Oliver does remember what it was like to be in love, although the memory feels like a reflection in water, murky and warped and far away. But something unclenches, somewhere in his chest, and he smiles without thinking when he says hello.

“Hey,” Mike says. His hair is a mess, sticking up in all kinds of windblown directions. It suits him. “I brought you something.”

“Oh?” Oliver says. Mike isn’t the gift-giving type; they aren’t exactly in a gift-giving business. Mike nods, rooting through the pockets of his faded grey trousers. What he pulls out looks at first like a lump of pale rock, but Oliver can feel the cold emanating from it, familiar and soft. He holds out his hand, and Mike presses the lump into it.

A chunk of bone, worn smooth, the pockmarks of its structure exposed all along one side. A piece from the spine of a sea creature long extinct. Oliver can feel the layers of dead things condensed on the ocean floor, the sediment of thousands of years of endings. It was, not the last of its species, but second to last. With it died the last chance they had.

When he closes his eyes, he sees the dark ocean stretching out forever.

“Thank you,” he says. He rolls the bone back and forth, savoring it. “It’s--very nice.”

“You’re welcome,” Mike says. He sounds uneasy. He puts his hands back in his pockets, shoulders hunched. He doesn’t seem self conscious, not exactly, but--this isn’t something that they do, and they both know it. Still, Oliver smiles as he tucks the bone into the pocket of his work slacks, and after a moment, Michael relaxes again.

“Drop by my place, yeah?” he says. “When you’re done closing?”

Oliver doesn’t ask why he doesn’t want to linger. When Mike opens the shop door the is a rush of wind strong enough to tug at the covers of the paperbacks on display. Then the door shuts and the bell rings, and Oliver is left in stillness.

He rings up his last customer, a middle-aged woman buying a crystal pyramid and a book on chakra manipulation. There is a black tendril wrapped around her middle, and Oliver allows himself a moment to feel the soft, cold whisper of his god. It feels good. He knows, intellectually, that he might have felt guilty about that, once.

He closes up, and goes to Mike’s flat. Mike has a cup of tea and some takeaway already waiting for him. While they eat Mike tells him, in dreamy snippets, about his trip to the ocean. The sea, he said, that was big, but the sky--the perfect black, stretching on forever, unmarred by light pollution, the incredible, indifferent distance of the stars--that was something else. He closes his eyes while he speaks, savoring the memory. Oliver doesn’t ask what happened to the sailors he was with. He doesn’t have to. All the avatars serve the End, in their own ways.

They go to bed. When Mike removes his shirt Oliver sees a new scar, a patch of raw red skin in the shape of a handprint on his shoulder. Mike’s mouth twists when he notices Oliver looking.

“Had a bit of a disagreement with Jude Perry,” he says, wry. Then he frames Oliver’s face in his hands and kisses him, all sudden intent, and Oliver feels the vertigo again, twisting with arousal in the pit of his stomach. He smiles.

Afterwards, they lie together, Mike’s head on Oliver’s chest, Oliver’s fingers tangled in Mike’s hair. This is another thing they don’t usually do, the cuddling. Mike’s not a cuddly person, just like he’s not a clingy person, or a gift giving person, or--arguably--a person at all. Oliver finds himself remember the last time he did this. Years and years ago. In bed with Graham, who he didn’t let himself think about for so long that it became an unconscious habit to repress.

But his memories are hazy and confused, another life, full of feelings that no longer fit in his body. And there are details that he can’t line up: what color was Graham’s hair? His eyes? It’s all fading away, now, tangling and strange, like an old movie in a foreign language. Oliver gives up. He closes his eyes and lets himself drift, listening to the quiet rush of Mike’s breathing.

He dreams. In his dreams he is in the middle of the ocean, water like black glass stretching out in all directions. Forever. And above it the sky, the black and endless sky, full of cold and distant stars.

The water rolls. A huge wave, a wall: the back of some great creature, larger than a ship, than a whale, its bulk enough to change the entire landscape without breaking the surface. Oliver sees miles of barnacle-ridden skin, a single sunken eye. And around it, familiar as breathing: the tendrils of death, black and fleshy, like the arms of a kraken drawing it down. The behemoth groans, and the world shakes.

Oliver wakes up. At first he thinks he is still sleeping: he smells salt, and can feel the press of one of the death-tendrils against his hand, fleshy and cold. But no. He is awake, in Mike Crew’s flat. The smell is Mike’s hair; he hasn’t been able to wash the sea off of him, yet. And the touch--

There is a tendril around Mike’s neck.

There is nothing else to do. Oliver presses his mouth to the top of Mike’s head, closes his eyes. Then he slides carefully out of bed and begins to dress. Mike won’t wonder why he left. He won’t notice anything amiss, not until tomorrow, maybe, or the day after that. However many days it takes. Oliver pulls on his trousers and feels the lump of bone press against his hip. He does up the buttons on his shirt, pulls on his coat. It is raining. A soft, light rain, streaking down the window in the grey dawn.

He stops at the doorway, looks back at Mike’s small frame curled up under the comforter. One hand grasping at the pillow.

“Rest well,” Oliver whispers. Then he turns, and closes the door behind him.

#my fic #tma #the magnus archives #Oliver Banks #Mike Crew #OM #I Bet You Thought You'd Seen The Last Of Me #this will go on Ao3 One Day I promise

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chicagocityofclans · 3 years

Photo

Asa Fields → Mike Vogel → Black Bear

→ Basic Information

Age: 229

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Straight

Born or Made: Born

Birthday: September 3rd

Zodiac Sign: Virgo

Religion: Christian

→ His Personality To most people, Asa is that person who can make friends with just about anyone and likes to be the center of attention. He acts as though he doesn’t have a care in the world and tends to go off and do whatever he feels like doing without really having a care for those it impacts. He has never been the type of person who wanted to consider staying in one place or being a part of his family’s business, leading to a great deal of tension between himself and the rest of his family, particularly that of his sister. Asa likes to make it out as if it doesn’t bother him, and for most of his life, it didn’t. However, since Asa retired out of the military, he has decided to come home and try and mend the bridges he so carelessly destroyed. He also wanted to be back at home to deal with his PTSD diagnosis. He is no longer the overly carefree and boisterous young man, though he does what he can to make others believe that he is. Asa has been struggling with his diagnosis and it has heavily impacted his attitude when in private. Very few people have seen this side of him outside of the Veterans support group that he is a part of. Despite the changes, it can still be hard for him to stay in one place for very long and his habit of not looking at the overall picture is something that still gets him into trouble.

→ His Personal Facts

Occupation: Property Manager

Scars: None

Tattoos: None

Two Likes: Military history and running

Two Dislikes: Slasher flicks and standing still

Two Fears: Clowns and Hypershift

Two Hobbies: Kickboxing and model planes

Three Positive Traits: Charming, Fun-loving, and Independant

Three Negative Traits: Escapist, Impulsive and Short Sighted

→ His Connections

Parent Names:

Garland Fields (Father): Asa had a difficult relationship with his father. Garland used to go on and on about how Asa needed to get on and do something with his life. And when Asa finally did, he still wasn’t happy. He regrets not being there for his dad’s final days, and wonders what he’d think of him today. He’s back for at least a while this time, and he’s going to try and figure out the right thing to do.

Annabelle Fields (Mother): Annabelle died before he and Clara turned 50. They found part of her body in the woods about 5 miles from their house. It was obvious that hunters of some kind got to her. It deeply affected each member of the Fields family so much that they never spoke of it or her after her burial.

Sibling Names:

Clarisse ‘Clara’ Fields (Sister): Clara and Asa have always tended to butt heads, and it's only gotten worse since he has returned from being gone. He knows that Clara is angry with him for not coming back for their father’s funeral, and he kicks himself for it regularly. He has some issues with the way that Clara is running things, particularly with the fact that two humans know about the pack and want to be changed, but he does want to try and fix things with Clara and reconcile.

Children Names:

None

Romantic Connections:

Bryce Holt (Interested): Bryce caught Asa’s eye almost immediately, and the two struck up a friendship that turned into a flirtation. He has recently asked her out on a date and he greatly enjoys his time with her within pack activities. He hasn’t actually been this into someone in a long time, so the feeling is a little foreign but he’s not complaining.

Platonic Connections:

Sam Thompson (Old Friend): The two were raised as brothers and were close. They grew apart when Asa left, but their friendship has been slightly on the mend since Asa came back. Sam keeps mentioning Asa challenging Clara, but Asa really doesn’t want to overthrow his sister at this point.

Ezra Schultz (Friendly): Ezra has been friendly to Asa for as long as he can remember, and once told him that he reminded him of Garland. At the time, Asa wasn’t overly fond of the comparison, but he does hope that he has started to become someone that his father might be proud of. It seems like Ezra is one of the few who’s watching and waiting for him to make a move for the better or the worse.

Hollis Sony (Friendly): He met Hollis when he was around 50, and he got along with her pretty well as a member of the pack. She always seemed to be trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life, and even now she asks him what his plans are from time to time.

Taye Black (Friendly): Taye has always been a friendly face to have around. Taye usually keeps to himself, which Asa can appreciate, but that makes it harder to get to know him outside of clan business. Taye has offered to find him a black bear match but Asa is unsure how to tell him he is interested in Bryce.

Latasha Mist (Acquaintance): Asa isn’t a huge fan of Latasha, but would rather she and Cece get changed over them being killed. He does think that Latasha is rather demanding, and it gets on his nerves. He wants Clara to make a choice to either let Jay turn them or to kill them, in order to keep the pack hidden.

Cecilia ‘Cece’ Mist (Friendly): For the most part, Asa likes Cece and thinks that she and Jay make a good couple. He would rather she and her mother be changed in order to bring new blood into the pack, but also believes that something needs to be done and soon, before there is greater risk of the pack being exposed to more people. He is getting tired of Clara not taking care of the issue.

Jalen ‘Jay’ Martinez (Friendly): He doesn’t know the younger bear well, but he gets why Jay keeps trying to vye for changing Cece and Latasha. He would prefer they get changed than get killed, for both Jay’s sake and that of the pack.

Ethan Cleirgh (Friend): Jin, Asa and Ethan met at a Veterans ‘Outreach Program’. They were the only supernatural in the room and quickly bonded. Ethan is one of the only people Asa talks to outside of his family and clan.

Jin Asato (Friend): Jin, Asa and Ethan met at a Veterans ‘Outreach Program’. They were the only supernatural in the room and quickly bonded. Jin is one of the only people Asa talks to outside of his family and clan.

Hostile Connections:

Patrick Perry (Annoyance): Asa is unsure what Patrick’s problem is with him and he doesn’t care much. However, Patrick is giving off bad vibes that are starting to annoy Asa and it is taking every last bit of self restraint he has left not to have boar for dinner.

Eliza Meyers (Unsure/Dislike): Eliza seems to think she’s better than Asa because he left to join the military or just because he left in general. He doesn’t think she would last a few hours in his shoes nor could she relive some of the things he’s experienced. Asa needs some time to get back into the groove of things and hates that everyone is trying to light the fire under him, especially Eliza.

Pets:

None

→ History (paragraph(s) on background) → The Present (paragraph(s) on how the character connects to the plot)

#Mike Vogel #Asa Fields #Open #OM #OMHV #OMAS #OAS

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who-is-olivia · 5 years

Text

Track 5. Sweet Creature

Harry Styles x OC

Harry comes home after Zayn leaves the band and makes plans for the future. [3.3k]

Genre: fluff

Warnings: nudity

May 2015

After a tiring day of rehearsals, Olivia arrives home dropping her bags and coat on the way. It’s been a year since they finally moved in together – although Frank was a marvelous roommate, there’s only so many times your brother can catch you in the middle of the act. The new place is a vast studio, not huge just... roomy. It takes longer for her to crash over her bed, so long she actually takes a moment to turn the radiator on and undress to her knickers. She climbs the stairs to her bedroom and passes out over the bed, sighing in relief.

She’s so exhausted she doesn’t even hear Harry arriving after three months touring. Frowning, he wonders if she’s still at rehearsals or maybe if she crashed at Frank’s, but then he feels that sour perfume in the room and he can trace it right to where she is. He pats his back pocket, fingers tapping over a velvet box lousily stored on his trousers as he sighs thankfully for it actually remaining there.

Leaving the suitcases at the living room, Harry undresses a few layers – the radiator is a bit strong – and climbs the stairs find a half naked Olivia soundly asleep between the lilac sheets. He stops at the frame, his heart melting a bit at the sweet sight: the see-through blankets that cover her silhouette, her eyes closed shut with a smudge of makeup still there, her curly hair unbraided and natural contrasting against the pillows, small puffs of air escaping her slightly parted lips... he is tired but not tired enough that he can’t take a couple more minutes to admire her.

Outside, the rain starts over again, reminding him to turn down the radiator a bit... on second thought, he leaves it be, recalling that the heat reminds her of home and makes her comfortable. He then silently pulls a chair to her bedside and sits leaning his chin over the heel of his palm, dumbstruck by her presence. He takes a mental note to never stay away that long again, even if they often video chat, it’s not the same. Watching her fall asleep is an opera on itself, specially when she begins to whisper sweet nothings into the pillow.

Seeing her takes his mind away from all the drama he’s been dealing with. After Zayn left the band, he’s had few moments of peace to actually enjoy what he does. He misses him, he misses the times when the band didn’t fight over who gets his solo bits, who sings his high notes, how’s the next album going to sound, are they going forward without him? Zayn just needed a break and now so does Harry. Being able to be with Oli, actually live in their house and live their lives together does make him reconsider how long he can continue working like this.

He can’t exactly tell how long after, but Harry can’t help himself anymore, he leans over and runs his knuckles gently over her temple, grazing down her cheekbone, her tiny hairs responding in softness under his skin when her eyelids flutter open and her pitch black irises find him.

“Haz...” she mutters with a smile.

“‘ello love” he whispers. Slowly, she sits up and pulls him into a tight embrace, his light blue t-shirt against her naked breasts as he pulls her over his lap. He eases against her skin, feeling her fingers twirl in his hair and her nose brushing against his soft cheeks. She nests her head on his broad shoulder and cup his jaw, inviting him to a sweet kiss. He snakes his arm around her waist, the other lacing her bare back until he can cup the back of her neck. Both hungry enough to devour one another but still loyal to their gentleness.

Olivia parts the kiss and sighs, leaning her lips against the tip of his nose. “You’re early”

“I know, just got a few weeks off... thought I might drop by to see you” he replies, taking a bit of distance to look at her face, dozy eyes struggling not to doze off.

“I was just dreaming about you and then you popped out of nowhere, this is absolutely amazing” she leans her forehead against his with a silly smile.

“Was it a nice dream?” she nods, biting her bottom lip. “Any sexy ones?”

“Those are just mine and I don’t share” he snorts, making her laugh in his embrace.

“Right... I need to eat something, I’ll be right back-“

“No... come on, stay here” she pleads lazily, making his heart melt.

“I’m starving love”

“What if I get some snacks, and a bit of wine”

He scrunches his nose, “Don’t feel like drinking”

“Some tea?”

“Tea will do” he kisses her temple helping her out of the bed.

“Let me just dress up-“

“I think you look just perfect like that”

“Bet the neighbors do too” she mocks, “who told you to get a flat with a big ass window?”

“Ugh... fair enough”

He leaves his shoes on the closet and goes down the stairs to make room for their meal. Despite the storm outside, there’s a spot in their garden under a tent and that’s where he’ll set the table. Oli hops down the stairs in leggings and sweater then gets all the necessary snacks to entertain them – along with the tea.

“This is different” he notices after sipping on the beverage.

“It’s from Rio, you boil with a bit of lemon. I usually take it with ice but this is good too” she replies, cuddling up in her chair. Harry pulls both of her feet to his lap and rubs their socks. Years living abroad and she still doesn’t know how to protect from the cold.

“Very good”

She hesitates a bit, watching his allusive eyes for a while before starting. “How’ve you been, Haz? I know everybody is asking that but-“

“It’s alright, love... It’s been rough, we all saw it coming but it still hurts. Sometimes I hate him for it, sometimes I get a bit jealous”

“Jealous?”

“Yeah... he’ll get to spend some time with his family, with Perrie, get some time to rest and not work like crazy 24/7” he explains, picking some toast from the table “The other day I got a call from Mike, that friend of mine from Cheshire, and he’s dropping out of college to go on some crazy religious trip to South America. I wish I could do that, and I travel the world for a living”

“We’re still young, even if we work hard now there’ still time to do all that” she comforts him, “but if you don’t feel like the band is still working for you... I’ve got your back”

“Thanks love” he kisses the back of her hand and keeps hold of it gently. “How’s everything going here?”

“Alright, I think. Frank and I are still rehearsing for the tour, we got small venues in a few cities but I prefer it this way. We actually got to follow your tour dates, so you won’t get rid of me so easily” she pokes him with her toes.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake” he mocks in fake annoyance, trying to hold her feet. “Just when I thought I’d have some peace of mind”

“Shut up!” she tries to hit him but he holds her wrists and pulls her closer, hopping from her chairs to his in a tiny fist fight. He keeps her fists on his and pull her to a heated kiss, blowing off all that desire that built up over months of distance. Even though it starts in a hurry it eventually turns into tiny pecks and little strokes. She laces her arms around his neck and nuzzles that spot behind his ear breathing in the perfume of his hair. Feeling that, her heart calms down, this is where she belongs. “I missed you so much”

“I missed you too” he smiles in her embrace. It always baffled him how she could be so heated and so loving at the same time, she’s his favorite paradox.

A rush of wind wavers the tent and their whole table gets under the rain. “Shit!”

“That’s just neat” he laughs, helping her up so they can fix the tent. They eventually stabilize it but they get wet anyway. Noticing she’s a bit more dry, Harry rushes to hug her.

“Don’t you fucking-“ she squeals and runs through the garden, getting lost in the rain. She tries to lose him around a vase but he almost takes hold of her, so she keeps running in circles. It’s such a silly thing but it still gets her blood pumping in a delightful way. He eventually gets her and spins her in the air in a fit of laughter, “Put me down! No-no-no, my lemon tree!”

“Alright, I’ll save the lemons” he puts her down, her face dripping wet from the rain.

“Why did you do that, it’s too cold”

“No it’s not, you were in a fucking burner in there”

“I’m not a cold person!”

He chuckles, hugging her waist. “Definitely not”

“You know what? I’m going inside and I’ll make myself a nice warm bubble bath and if you behave you may join” she fixes his long wet hair out of his face.

“Lovely” he kisses her temple, letting her make her way to the bathroom.

Harry takes their cutlery to the kitchen and attempts to dry himself with a washcloth before walking to his his living room idly hearing the sound of running water from a distance. Although they both split the expenses evenly, he’s barely been in the place since he moved in. He’s always touring and when he’s not they both travel around on vacations, so she basically owns the place. He remembers the last day of moving things, Oli led her brother out after helping with the boxes while he set a small blanket on the ground and waited. When she came back, he undressed her slowly and made love to her between chairs and lamps and shoes, just to make sure that place had something special to it. He thought it would be weird to come home to somewhere he’s barely slept a night in, but soon he found out the place didn’t mean a thing. It was her, living with her, she is his home wherever they go.

In her absence, he smiles as he notices small traces of her around the house that make it so undeniably hers. The shoes by the door, a small lace piece over the dining table, the mass of paper sheets over the piano, the blanket over the sofa. It looks hers but it also feels so much his...

Suddenly he feels her arms surrounding his waist and he grins, holding them earnestly. “Hope I’m not intruding in your affair with the living room” he chuckles, “but the bath is ready”

Oli walks in first, soaking in the bubbly bath and washing her wet hair. Harry takes a peak at her through the mirror and turns.

“What?” she bats her eyelashes innocently.

“Looking good, really inviting”

“Then stop talking and get in”

She watches him strip out of his shirt and shoes normally, but when he pulls down his trousers, a small velvet box falls on a white rug.

She freezes.

“Harry...”

He looks down to where her gaze has fallen. “Oh, it’s for you”

“Is that what I think it is?”

Only then does he assess the situation. “Oh... no, probably not” he ditches the jeans and picks up the box, crouching beside the tub and revealing a pair of pearl earrings. “I saw it at the airport, though you might like it”

After every tour he brings her many small gifts, this time he wanted something truly remarkable – to celebrate their next big step, which is living together – so, as he had time to spare on an airport connection, he decided to give her a nice pair of pearl earrings from Cartier. He loves the way she blushes when he gifts her expensive things, no money in the world could possibly afford that shade so dear to him. Sadly, he can’t see that particular shade now.

Her face is blank.

“They’re lovely”

“You don’t like it” he puts down the box without even giving her a chance to take it, rather putting himself in front of her.

“No! I love it Haz, I swear!” she pecks his lips quickly and he breaks his disappointed facade, “I just thought it was something else”

“You thought it was a ring?”

“Well, yeah”

Harry doesn’t know what to say, instead he tries to read her pitch black eyes in search of what she truly feels about it. They never addressed marriage, Olivia never though about it but the sheer possibility for a moment excited her. Now she doesn’t know how to feel about it.

“I... sorry Oli, I didn’t think about that when they picked the box”

“I know” desperate to end the subject, she tugs on his hand. “Why don’t you get in before it gets cold?”

“That’s bloody impossible, it’s fucking hot outside” he mocks and she leaves all the tension behind, making room for him to sit comfortably behind her and pull her bare back against her chest.

“You can always turn the radiator down” she argues as she snuggles against him, holding his hand and inspecting it for a moment, bringing his knuckles to meet her lips and nipping on them playfully before kissing them earnestly.

“I know, but sometimes I like to think you wake up in your natural habitat”

“Are you implying I’m a motherfucking lizard?” he laughs in denial.

For a while they don’t say nothing, just relax and soak in the essential oils she dispersed on the tub. Harry’s fingers trace her collarbone gently, as if they touch pure marble. They follow a straight line then dip on the middle before following its path to the end of her shoulder, where he lays tender little kisses. As she rests her head to the side, his nose follows the path of her jugular up to her ear lobe until he finds that one sweet spot that causes her to smile. He tries to ease her and himself into a relaxing trance, but inside he’s still in turmoil.

“Oli...”

“Hm?”

“If it was a ring... would you say yes?”

Her eyes lazily open as she finds herself staring at the tip of her toes, thinking about it. “I think I would, but I don’t think we need to get married... I mean, we already live like married people, we just don’t shove a ring on people’s faces”

“... but would you like that’?”

She chuckles, palming the outside of his thigh and running her hand over the length of it. “I won’t lie, it sounds kinda nice”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I mean... I like to think it’s like a statement you make, you know? It’s like you’re telling everyone that you enjoy someone so much you’re willing to keep their company for the rest of your life” she lets the words echo through the bathroom.

“That sounds like us” he smiles, nuzzling the shell of her ear.

“Right?!”

He chuckles. “Right”

“How do you feel about it?” she turns in his embrace to face him and watch his dimples wavering.

“I feel like... we’ve been doing this for four years and I could do this literally forever. And hm... it’s so silly but” he scrunches his nose, “just calling you my girlfriend... it’s too little to say how I feel about you”

She raises a brow, smugly. “Oh, is it?”

“Stop it!” her laughter echoes through the bathroom.

“-and how do you feel about me?”

He’s though about it before and written so many verses about it, but now that she is here, asking such an unpretentious question, he’s speechless... although, it takes one dip in her pitch black orbs to figure it out. “I feel like... you’re really making me do this?”

“You started it!”

“I know, but it’s hard to put into words” he tantrums like a 5-year-old.

“Just try”

“Ugh... it’s so normal to me, like-” he strokes her arm, elbow to shoulder blades, trying to say it, “You’re the first thing I think about it the morning and the last thing I think about before I go to sleep. Everything I do I do thinking of you and how I can make this better. I’m not saying you’re perfect, you know it’s hard when we argue-“

“Just ‘cause your a stubborn asshole”

“Thanks love, I’m here opening my heart to you-“

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Please, carry on”

He chuckles, “I don’t know what else to say... I just think, wherever I go, you bring me home” he punctuates that large smile turning into an endearing dimply smirk as he realizes how sure he is of those words, how much he means them.

She takes a while to answer, taking in his words as if she’s slowly sinking into warm water. Then she meets his gaze again, and a small choked smile surfaces. “I think that’s the way you talk about your wife, not your girlfriend”

He leans to kiss her but she holds a hand before his grinning lips stubbornly. She runs her thumb over his bottom lip, tugging it to the side before letting go of the rosy piece of skin. He goes for it again, her parted lips smugly flee before pressing against his on her own accord. It drags for a long time before she bumps her nose on his, deepening the kiss. Harry encircles her waist, pulling her even closer to the point he can feel every inch of her warm skin against his own, his heart beats so fast he feels like a teenager, reacting exaggeratedly to her every tease. His love is so intense in that moment it could materialize itself in the air they breathe together. There’s a moment during the kiss when she sighs quietly and the sound of it rings through his ears echoing endlessly.

At that moment, he knows there’s no going back.

She breaks the kiss for a moment, his lips instinctively reach for hers. “You know what?”

“Hm?”

“I don’t have a single reason not to marry you” her words drip like mellow out of her mouth as she runs her lips against the column of his neck, pecking on it delicately, the sound of her contact echoing through the bathroom.

Harry’s head falls back against the wall, humming as her heavenly sweet kisses grace his Adam’s apple. Then she runs her lips over to his chin, taking in the smooth skin before returning to his mouth, but before she can taste him, he mutters: “Marry me”

She smiles against his skin, shifting on the tub. She uses his shoulders as support, moving her knees so she can straddle his thighs. From that position, she looks down on him. “Just like that?”

“Uhum”

“No ring?”

“Nope”

“ No speech? No ugly cry?” he giggles.

“I just did a heartfelt speech, what else do you want?” Harry asks mockingly, reaching towards her cheek and cupping her lovely face.

She chuckles over her own tantrum, shaking her head negatively as she nuzzles the palm of his hand, depositing a chaste kiss on it. When she looks back at him, there’s a light red rim around her eyes, shining over her crinkly smile “I just want you”

And the way she looked at him at that moment is still the sweetest sight he’s ever seen.

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maluminspace · 5 years

Text

Shapeshifter

Genre: fluff/supernatural

Pairings: Michael Clifford/Reader (kind of)

Word Count: 1.4k

Requested: by anon for spooky!sos 2019

Trigger Warnings: slight anxiety

A/N: I loved writing this! Requests like this are some of my favs, I hope you like it 💗

...

A loud noise wakes you.

Groaning, you check the alarm clock on your bedside table. The glowing numbers tell you it’s just past nine AM. As it’s a Saturday, you feel like another hour in bed isn’t asking too much, not when you’ve been working hard all week.

Just as you begin to drift off again, there’s another loud noise.You can pinpoint it to the hallway outside your apartment. Slightly concerned that someone may be trying to break in, you drag yourself out of bed, grabbing your hoodie and pulling it on as you make your way cautiously out of the bedroom.

There’s always a possibility that ‘they’ will find you. Those that are forever seeking to end your kind. Since the last secret war, they’ve been much more careful. Having learned to attack your kind in quiet ways, a huge break in wouldn’t really be their style.

That thought doesn’t do much to soothe your nerves, though. The muted sunlight drifting in through your closed curtains casts long shadows throughout your open plan living area. Your heightened senses are tingling, and the atmosphere feels almost eerie. Everything is silent for a moment until yet another loud bang echoes down the hallway outside your apartment. This time it’s followed by a disgruntled voice.

“Hey, careful with that, Calum!”

It sounds like a youngish guy; his casual tone makes it seem very unlikely that he or ‘Calum’ have been sent here to hurt you.

Despite the increasing likelihood that the all the noise is simply just someone new moving into the empty apartment down the hall from you, you’re still a little on edge. There’s an overwhelming urge for you to investigate further, but you don’t really have an excuse to go out of your apartment. It’d make you seem like an incredibly nosy person if you just went out into the hallway to check out the noises.

Deciding that you’re better off staying inside for now, you opt to make a coffee. Seeing as you’re up, you may as well make the most of it and continue watching the latest show you’re marathoning.

You’ve barely settled down on the sofa with your coffee and cereal when another loud bump reverberates through your apartment. The door actually shakes this time, and the paranoid part of your brain starts to wonder if anyone can actually be this loud and clumsy. It almost feels like someone’s deliberately trying to scare you.

Placing your mug and bowl down on the coffee table, you contemplate the different scenarios that could possibly play out. Having quickly though through a fair few, you decide that whatever happens, having your phone on your person would be a great start. Just as you head back into the bedroom where you’d left it, there’s a knock on your door. Your heart-rate quickens as you quickly dive into your bedroom and pick up your mobile phone.

The second knock at your door is accompanied by the friendly voice you’d heard earlier. “Is anyone home? I’m sorry to bother you, but I might have just damaged your door…”

There’s a note of sincerity in the person’s voice, and you’re inclined to trust them. Your senses haven’t failed you, so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t listen to them now.

Gripping your phone tightly in your pocket just in case, you traipse over to the front door and unlock it, opening it just enough to take a look at the person on the other side.

The man outside your door looks friendly enough. His perry green eyes and sky demeanour find him an instant likability and your inner self is kind of drawn to him, despite knowing him for less than half a minute.

“Hi…” The man says again, his pale cheeks reddening slightly as his gaze meets yours. “I’m moving in just down the hall and I umm… well my friends and I might have accidentally knocked into your door with my bookcase.”

The genuine regret and embarrassment on your new neighbour’s face is unmistakable. You open the door a little wider to look at the damage and sigh at the large scrape stretching from the handle almost to the hinges.

“I’ll let the landlord know it was my fault, and I’ll pay for it to be repainted.” The man smiles awkwardly. “I’m really sorry to have to meet you like this. I wanted to make a better first impression on all my new neighbours.”

Even though you’re quite annoyed at your damaged door, your new neighbour is endearing and you can’t help but sympathise with him. “That’s okay…” you reply with a tiny smile that you hope is reassuring. “I’ve been through the whole moving in drama just a few months ago.”

The revelation that you’re relatively new to the building as well seems to brighten the stranger’s mood a little. “So I’m taking the new year status away from you, huh?” He asks kindly. “I’m Michael by the way…”

You reply with your own name and shake the hand that he offers to you, not expecting the strange way it causes your senses to tingle. Michael’s eyes growing wide as he pulls his hand away tells you that he felt it too.There’s a long moment of silence as you regard each other cautiously. This sort of feeling only happens when you’re around your own kind. No one other than shapeshifters can connect to you like this; you’ve been taught that since you were a child.

Michael’s lips move wordlessly as you decide if you should be the one to ask the obvious question. It doesn’t feel safe somehow, though. Anyone could hear you talking out in the open like this.

“Hey, Mike!”

The stranger’s voice cuts the tense silence between you and your new neighbour. Michael shakes his head as if to clear it and turns back towards the open door of his apartment a little further down the hall. “Yeah?” He replies.

A blue haired man pops his head out of the apartment, his caramel coloured cheeks flushed as though he’s been sweating. “Where shall we put this fucking bookcase, man?” He asks slightly breathlessly.

“Just push it against the far wall for now, would you? Please?” Michael replies, his voice a little shaky.

“Oh sure…” The blue haired man rolls his eyes in exasperation. “I’ll just do all the work whilst you flirt with the neighbours, shall I?”

Michael’s pink cheeks deepen in colour as he shakes his head. “Oh piss off, Cal!” His hisses, “I’ll be back in a minute!”

The significant moment you’d had with Michael a minute ago seems less intense now, and you allow a little giggle to escape you.

“That’s my roommate, Calum.” Michael explains, “I’m sorry about him.”

“No need to apologise. I’d be mad if you left me to do all the heavy lifting, too.” You reply, still giggling.

Michael shrugs a little awkwardly. “He’s stronger than me anyway.” He says as Calum disappears back into the apartment.

Your smile fades as a slightly tense silence falls over the two of you again. “Does he know?” You ask in a low voice, nodding towards the spot where Calum’s head had just been.

“What do you mean?” Michael counters, his voice taking on a serious note.

You glance up and down the hallway to ensure you’re alone before you reply. “Does he know what you are?”

Fear fills Michael’s beautiful green eyes as he glares back at you like a deer in headlights. “I don’t know what you…”

“It’s okay.” You cut him off, smiling kindly, hoping to reassure him a little. “You’re not alone.” You carefully lift the sleeve of your hoodie just enough to show Michael the mark on your wrist. Every shapeshifter has one. It’s the only physical trait that can be used to identify your kind when you’re in a human state.

Michael lifts up his own sleeve with trembling fingers, showing you his own mark. “I thought…”

You nod, not wanting to discuss this in the hallway. “I know, there’s not many of us left. We’ll talk more later though, okay? I’ll bring you and Calum a sandwich for your lunch, yeah?”

Michael smiles brightly, all traces of fear and anxiety gone. “I’d really like that.” He replies, “and in answer to your question, yes, he knows… He’s trustworthy, I promise.”

You have no reason to doubt Michael, and the warm feeling in your chest doesn’t seem to melt away as he disappears from view. It’s hard to believe that you’re not alone anymore. Other shapeshifters exist and one of them now lives just a few doors down from you. Life doesn’t feel quite so scary anymore.

Tag list: @clffrd @byxthexway @afuckingunicornn @painkillerash @thrillchaser @moonchildsblack @calumbbyyy @h0tsos @valentinelrh @sexgodashton @megz1985 @myfalsedevotion @aulxna @honeyedlashton @tea4sykes @spookymashton @fairyintheglass @cashworthy

#michael clifford #michael clifford imagine #michael clifford blurb #michael clifford fic #michael clifford fluff #michael imagine #michael blurb #michael fic #soft!michael #shapeshifter!michael #5sos imagine #5sos blurb #5sos fic #spooky!sos 2019 #spooky!sos 2019 michael #my writing

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stenbrozier · 4 years

Text

Modern Losers’ Club Headcanons

Plot: Individual headcanons of the modern Loser’ about different things they’d do and love (mostly during high school)

Warnings: slight Reddie, shit ton of Stenburough, drug use + mentions of sex + swearing

——————————————————————————

Bill Denbrough:

~ He’s the artist, everyone knew that.

~Typical art kid who won all the awards and participated in every art class his school offered.

~ He just didn’t take choir or band because we know this boy has no musical abilities at all.

~ Bill would save up all his allowance and holiday money so that he could buy that really good drawing app that he could use on his IPad.

~ After he got it, there was no way to get him to look up at you for more than ten seconds. He would fall in love with digital art.

~ Remember he took all of the art classes? Well, creative writing and poetry we’re considered arts at Derry High School, so that’s where he fell in love with writing.

~ Suprisingly, he would be really into heavy metal. Bands like Bring Me the Horizon and Of Mice and Men would blare in his headphones while he drew in his room late at night.

~ Bill would also really love watching indie movies on Netflix and other platforms. He’s lowkey a movie buff, but he doesn’t tell people too much.

~ His favorite movie from the past decade would probably be Moonrise Kingdom (good movie!!) or The Skeleton Twins (also good movie!!)

~ Bill’s favorite book would 10000% be Turtles All The Way Down by John Green because of the main character and her battle with anxiety.

——————————————————————————

Mike Hanlon:

~ He runs a cooking YouTube channel, you can’t fight me on this one.

~ Mike would definitely have one of those motorized scooters, idk seems like a Mike thing

~ He’s in love with video games but only the ones that are based on a lot of skill. He doesn’t like first person shooters, nor does he like any games with violence at all. Tbh, Papa’s Pizzeria is right up his alley.

~ Mike would be a gym try hard, most definitely. But in every other class he’d just sit on his phone.

~ But he’s so smart that he’d pass all the tests anyway.

~ He’d work a lot just so he could afford the newest phone because he thinks it gives people less of a reason to pick on him and bully him. (News flash: it doesn’t)

~ Whenever Mike isn’t working, he volunteers at the animal shelter in Derry. He runs the Instagram account :)

~ Probably one of the guys who posts shirtless pics on Instagram because he likes the attention the girls give him in the comments.

~ Will answer any of Bill’s texts at 3am when he wants feedback on a new piece of art.

~ A secret theatre kid, no doubt. Not really a musical kid, but he loves acting and just being on stage with everyone’s attention on him.

——————————————————————————

Richie Tozier:

~ Speaking of theatre kids, Richie is the BIGGEST fucking one. He has been in every musical and play that his school has done since 6th grade, and he was one of the best kids they had.

~ He wears Pierce the Veil and Sleeping with Sirens shirts, but Richie mostly listens to softer bands like Arctic Monkeys and The Neighbourhood.

~ He has a bi pride pin on his backpack. Kids will sometimes pull it off and throw it around, but he just pulls another one out of a ziploc bag full of them in the tiny front pouch of his bag and sticks it on there.

~ Richie unapologetically owns a Juul and will sometimes let Bev borrow it as long as she pays him “25 cents a hit”, which she never does.

~ Posts music on SoundCloud. He’s not much of a singer outside of the musicals because he’s mostly shy with his talent; however, he does a lot of instrumentals.

~ Richie shops are thrift stores most of the time. He’ll take Eddie with him and though Eddie won’t touch anything until it’s been washed twice, Richie will buy him anything he likes.

~ He LOVES Harry Potter. He found the first book when he was younger and he just fell in love with the story. He owns all the first editions and all of the movies.

~ Goes to small venues to see bands that no one knows. Richie will go to so many concerts because he likes the escape it brings for him. He’s in his element when he goes to concerts.

~ Despite what many people think, he isn’t a whore :0 He just flirts a lot and he actually didn’t lose his virginity till he was 17 at a party. He regrets it, though, cause he was drunk off his ass.

~ He was also in the color guard for his high school’s marching band. A lot of the girls from the theatre stuff begged him to be apart of it because he could dance really well, and he ended up being in it for both the indoor and outdoor seasons all throughout high school.

——————————————————————————

Eddie Kaspbrak:

~ BOOKWORM, BOOKWORM, B O O K W O R M!!! This boy would spend every second he could just browsing the books that his school library had.

~ After he yelled at his mom for his pills, he started to kind of overcome his germaphobe tendencies, but he still was very iffy about touching things in places he’d never been.

~ For example, Richie took him to the park one time and he had never been there before, so the whole time he was holding his noses and steering clear of the snot nosed little kids.

~ Him and Richie definitely dated at some point or another. Whether to get a feel for guys or just for each other, but it did happen. Beverly was the only one who ever knew.

~ Eddie fell in love with engineering at school. He would always call one of the Losers at an ungodly hour in the morning and rant about how all of the buildings in town were built and with what materials. Honestly, Ben was the only one who shared this interest with him.

~ Eddie was the first to get his own car so all of the Losers would pile into his Jeep. Richie always tried to convince him to take off the doors, but Eddie thought that that was the biggest goddamn safety hazard he’d ever heard.

~ As they all got older, obviously him and Richie stayed close, but he also got surprisingly close with Ben and Ben would gush about Beverly to him after Eddie would excitedly explain how a car’s engine works or something like that.

~ Eddie was the one to convince Beverly to go after Ben and stop pining over Bill.

~ Eddie went to concerts with Richie all the time, and even if the sweaty roadies grossed him out, he fell in love with the bass killing his eardrums and the way the mic static could transform someone’s voice.

~ He also joined his school’s marching band (mainly cause Richie begged him) and was fucking AMAZING at playing snare drums.

——————————————————————————

Stanley Uris:

~ He was the last one to enter high school, everyone a year ahead of him, but he was ironically the most popular among the lower class men.

~ Stan was a very private person, but his willingness to do other’s homework for $5 a page made him infamous.

~ Because of all this money he’d been making, he’d buy the Losers presents all the time. He would treat them to their favorite snacks whenever they went to Keene’s or to a new shirt whenever they went to the mall over in Bangor. And he never went over budget because he’s a goddamn accountant by nature.

~ He had a massive crush on Bill and asked him to homecoming his freshman year. Yeah, they were bullied, but Stan couldn’t have been more happier.

~ Bill convinced him to tryout for the baseball team. He tried out for pitcher and got it immediately. He was also one of the sports kids who would post on his Snapchat whenever they had a game.

~ Him and Bill ended up dating up until junior year, when Bill admitted that he wanted to date at least one girl before college and Stan wasn’t mad because he honestly wasn’t feeling it anymore. Afterwards, they both started dating cheerleaders.

~ Stan was in Calculus his sophomore year of high school, which was the class that all of the AP seniors took. Many people called him a genius, he just thanked the internet.

~ Stan fell in love with indie bands like R.O.A.R and Florence + The Machines. Richie did, however, convince him to go to concerts with him and Eds. He might’ve not enjoyed the music, but he still loved being with his best friends since diapers.

~ He didn’t like movies too much but would watch them with Bill. He enjoyed TV shows a lot more. He’s definitely a true crime baby.

~ Stan also fell in love with photography because he was forced to take the class. He begged his parents to buy him a camera for his birthday, and his many cork boards were filled with pictures of his friends and birds.

——————————————————————————

Ben Hanscom:

~ Was a track start in high school. He ran off all of his fat and just fell in love with the high of running (tbh this is my favorite part about Ben’s character. like such a determined boy 🥺)

~ Ben enjoyed sitting at the library with Eddie and just watching him peruse books, usually pointing a few that he had read and liked. He also just loved the fact that him and Eddie were able to get so close as they got older.

~ Ben was in all the engineering courses his school offered. He was just so happy that he could take classes that pertained to the career path he wanted to go down.

~ He was able to finally get Beverly their senior year. He had been in love with her for the longest time, and she asked him to homecoming.

~ Ben also considered trying out for the football team, but it conflicted with the winter track season so he wasn’t able to; however, him, Mike, and Bill would always play their own small games in the field by Mike’s house.

~ While Stan helped everything with their math homework, Ben helped everyone with their history homework. He was a big history nerd, and everyone knew he paid attention the most.

~ He lost a bet one time and Richie was able to give him a stick and poke tattoo anywhere of his choosing. So now on the inside of his left ring finger he has R.T. written messily.

~ Ben loves pop music. He had always liked it, and some of his favorite artists were Katy Perry and Sia.

~ He rode his bike to school everyday. He was a very big proponent for the environment and hated the idea of driving, so he’d pass up the rides from Eddie or Richie and just bike with his headphones in.

~ Ben was apart of the school’s Green Team and protested climate change and the use of fossil fuels. When he had free time, he’d study ways that he could benefit the environment when he became an architect.

——————————————————————————

Beverly Marsh:

~ She was an English wiz. It was her favorite subject, and she fell in love with analyzing poetry and other forms of literary work.

~ Beverly started to let her hair grow out again and she was relieved to see that it started to grow out straight. She hated her curly hair.

~ She bleached her hair a few times throughout high school; she hated the red because it reminded her too much of her mother.

~ Her and Richie’s friendship fell off big time, but she got super close with Bill, Ben, and Mike. Her crush in Bill didn’t deplete for a while, even after him and Stan started dating. She still had hope.

~ Eddie told her about Ben and it really changed her whole perspective on everything. But that wasn’t until junior year.

~ Though she didn’t have too good of a singing voice, she loved being in choir. The angelic reverberations throughout the auditorium whenever they performed always gave her chills and she wanted so desperately to be a part of it.

~ Beverly wrote a lot of poetry. She wrote some to her friends, to her dead mom, to her asshole dad. Just to whoever she was focused on in that moment.

~ She helped Mike after school at the animal shelter and actually ended up adopting a kitten for herself.

~ Luckily, her dad didn’t mind the cat too much as long as Bev took care of it and didn’t bother him for a single thing.

~ Beverly didn’t get her license until she was well into her twenties, but she loved hanging her arm out of the passenger’s side window of Richie’s car and listen to the bands that he’d blast with closed eyes.

#it chapter two #it chapter one imagines #it imagines #stanley uris #stanley uris headcanons #mike hanlon #mike hanlon headcanons #beverly marsh #beverly marsh headcanons #richie tozier #richie tozier headcanons #eddie kaspbrak #eddie kaspbrak headcanons #bill denbrough #bill denbrough headcanons #ben hanscom #ben hanscom headcanons #masterlist

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