#after watching a man be garotted | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

erchommai-a · 4 years

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timeline + 1

timeline meme / the timeline in which they live an ideal life, had no opportunities taken from them, were subjected to nothing terrible, where they grew up to fulfill their full potential.

Somewhere out there is a world where Valentine Morgenstern’s Father didn’t die. Somewhere he didn’t have to watch as his own Father, taken over by the lycanthropy, take his own life with the very same blade he had promised to give him on his Ascension. No, he comes home with some scratches.

The wolf dies

And there is no seed of deep hatred and resentment left to grow in the man’s chest. There is no rallying for a movement that goes far and beyond normal sentiments of the youth. There is no outright call for war. Nothing to push the Circle into anything more than a group of young shadowhunters with some wild belief that they could change their world.

And somehow, Jonathan isn’t born by necessity.

He isn’t born to be the weapon his Father needed to breed a new line of shadowhunters.

No, it happened because they were young and in love and full of life. That the thought of not being with each other seemed all too much. And the fruits of that affection and adoration was a young boy with pale hair like his Father and green eyes like his mother.

Oskar Morgenstern named their first boy for them.

Jonathan like their kind’s name sake. Honorable. Strong. Born to be a warrior. Like all Morgensterns were.

He grows up next to the Herondales and the Lightwoods. He grows up following Luke around when Valentine was away with his own Father and the Clave and Jocelyn was busy painting in the free space behind the Fairchild Manor.

He’d be carried around on his shoulders and treated like a prince until the other kids would come around and then he was king. Marching around like his Father. Big and tall and brave for a three year old.

But things changed not long after that.

Luke stopped coming around. His Father was always busy, hiding away and his Mom was scared. Scared for him. Scared for her husband. And scared of what his Father might think of the new child on the way.

His Father starts taking him along into meetings. Meetings where he can see his Father and his grandfather standing side by side, shouting things and names and being angry. He remembers his Mom having told him once how they both hated his grandfather. It’s why he hasn’t been to their home since he was a baby. But he’s everywhere his Dad takes him, always with his hand on his shoulder.

A few nights of this and he finds himself being stirred awake in the morning.

Jocelyn with a bundle of his clothes in her arms and a few other things. She thrusts a stele and a sword in his hand. He holds onto the sword more than his own mother. His Father had taught him how to use it. The scars were still fresh from their last training. There were a lot more after his Grandfather had invited himself in on their training sessions.

He asked where they were going. It was too early. His Father would be too tired again from one of their meetings to come with them this early.

But his mother doesn’t answer.

Not until they’re outside and they’re on the horse and she finally smiles with some relief. A kiss to his hair and he understood why. Luke stood not too far beyond the clearing. Different. Tired. Hairy. Still Luke.

And they both say they were going away for a while.

He asks about his Dad again and for some reason he knew then and there, he might not see the man again. Or his friends. Or Idris.

He asked his mom why and all he told him then was they had to.

And for some reason or another, he trusted his mother.

----

Years later and they’re in New York. He’s waking up to Clary singing in the bathroom and the smell of coffee beans and pancakes from the kitchen. A look around confirms it was home.

Home as it will ever be.

He feels for the blade under his pillow. The one he’s never let go of. And Luke teaches him during weekends still how to use it while his Mom taught Clary about the runes once she was old enough to ask.

Jon never preferred the sword. Maybe because it still reminded him of his Dad. Maybe because he could control it better. Maybe because he can’t draw for shit. Either way, it helped to offer him some peace of mind.

They’ve only met a few bad seeds when they were younger. Mostly downworlders who were cornered into a bad position. Some Shadowhunters looking still for something that his Mother wouldn’t tell him about. Sometimes they just get a gift.

It’s wrapped up with the seal.

This year it was a ring. Addressed to him for his Birthday.

He thinks its from his Grandmother. Jocelyn’s convinced it’s from Valentine. And she thinks it might be time to move again.

Jon wanted to go to college in New York.

Somewhere close. Somewhere he could be on his own but still a cab ride away should they need him. That was what normal kids did anyway.

As he hears a squeal coming out from the bathroom, he figured they really weren’t normal anyway.

--------

The first week without his Mom was the hardest. He’s never been out of her sight or her out of his for very long since they’d been on his own. And he’d never had to hold Clary’s hand so tightly as they ran to the first bus stop out of town.

That was always the plan.

Run until they couldn’t run any more.

Never leave Clary behind.

Never leave the box of baby things.

That was the larger rule of the two.

He knew why but he still didn’t understand it. He had opened it with Clary when they were younger. There was nothing but a few tarot cards and some of their old baby things. He just knew he had to trust her.

If his Mom said it was important, it just had to be.

It wasn’t long, however until they got caught by some kids. Or what looked to be kids. They had to be. But then a flicker of their blades and he realizes they’re shadowhunters.

Like them.

Except they looked better and somehow had better gear.

They didn’t last long in the fight. Firstly, they were outnumbered. And secondly, they had more gear in their quiver than the two of them combined. One look at him confirmed who he was. The ring they found in his pocket only added the garote around his neck.

Clary was the one that convinced them they were innocent.

That they needed to run.

----

They’re taken in.

They learn the Shadowhunter World isn’t as dark as his mom might have left it. It isn’t as scary as they’ve been taught to believe. And still different from whatever of his memory managed to tell him.

It’s his Father and his government. His puppets and his strings that was keeping their world in the dark. That was making sure the prejudice and the fear was what stayed rather than the real mantra that had build their species to begin with. Good versus Evil. Angels verus demons. Now it had been Angels versus everyone else.

Or what counted as Angels in his mind.

It was sickening.

They stayed hidden, for as long as they could, but things changed when Luke was brought in. Marched and paraded around. Clary practically jumped at the first opportunity to go through a portal to get to him.

That didn’t end well.

The Portal closed before any of the others could follow. They were practically drowning in the middle of a lake. And it only took a flash of memory for him to remember what his Father had told him about this once when he was young.

“Don’t swallow the water! “ He yelped, gulped and drank, ruefully. Dragging her, only by the collar of her jacket onto the shore where the hallucinations almost immediately begun. He could hardly differentiate where his moans and groans stopped and where was Clary.

How they managed to stay on a bed, he couldn’t be sure.

He thinks he saw green before his eyes closed completely and darkness took over.

By the time he woke up, it had been three days since and there was an empty bed beside him. His panic took over as he fumbled for the sword that was no longer on his person. And he walked, weaponless out of the room to find himself somewhat recognizing the place.

He was only three. But his Father had took him here too. During one of their nightly meetings.

He sees a portrait on the wall before he sees Clary sitting on a couch, all kempt and unlike herself.

A few more steps and it showed a face next to what he realized now was Valentine at a young age.

“ Grandmother. “

Clary confirmed it with a nod, tugging on his sleeve when he was within reach and prompted him to sit beside her. She was nervous and uncertain. As they both were. And from the looks of one of the chairs, they had already scuffled before he had woken up.

“ Where are our things? “

“ She took them away for safe keeping. “ Clary interrupted the old woman before she could answer. Her eyes now fixed on the ring on his hand, similar to hers.

“ If you two were raised like you were supposed to, I wouldn’t have had the chance. “ She retorted, finally allowed to speak, as her fingers played with her own Morgenstern ring. “ I knew you would use that. It was the best way I could find you two without your Mother. Your family’s been waiting for the two of you. “

Now it had been his turn to feel clammy and shocked. He hadn’t thought of bumping into either of the Morgenstern men so soon.

He tried to look around subtly for anything he could use. Luke might not have been as fast or as strong as Valentine but he still taught him enough. He trusted that gut instinct. But whatever plans of escape he was concocting fell out of place when he saw him come in through the door. He hears the gasp come from Clar right beside him.

Jocelyn had always noted how much he looked like him as he grew older and perhaps it had only been made apparent now.

“ Dad, “ He hears her whisper. Partly in shock. It’s instinct then that he stood up, walking slowly just to stand in between him and Clary. His Mom’s voice still loud in his ear.

Run.

But he was too frozen in the moment to move. Too slow to think. Still staring at his Father. At the ache he somehow felt in his chest again, the very same ache he’d felt when he understood they weren’t ever going to see him again. It hardly registers that Clary had ran ahead of him, arm flung around their Father’s waist and head in his chest. He blinks and it still doesn’t register. An image that his mind couldn’t seem to process until Valentine was gently pushing her back. The same Fatherly instinct he remember. The same tenderness that quickly hardened when the Morgenstern Patriarch walked into the room.

He got motion back into his limbs again. And he reached for Clary’s elbow while they weren’t looking to catch a view of the grin on her face and the blade she very quietly thrusts into his palm. Holding back the smile of relief he slips it behind his back onto his other hand. His right arm having the better throw and pointed with his chin to the near by window.

Jace had done it once before. They could too.

Before his grandfather could even speak, he aimed and thew the dagger at her shoulder. It him her right where the ligament would be cut off and pushed Clary out the window.

Her first and him second.

Making sure to leave the morgenstern ring on the window sill.

------

They run until they couldn’t run anymore. And they walk until Clary’s legs feel sore. He picks her up, carries her on his back, until he thinks she’s fallen asleep. He asks and she tugs on his hair as an answer.

“ Gremlin, “ He uttered weakly under his breath.

Alicante was still far off in the distance when a familiar place came into view.

“ Hey, TIny, Wake up. It’s our old house. “ He stopped at that, realizing telling his little sister she was conceived here was too far. Although correct. She wriggles against his grip until he puts her down and walked ahead of him. Getting a good look of the place.

He wasn’t sure if it was abandoned but it definitely didn’t look as lived in as he remembered. The drapes were closed and the vines were everywhere. Leaves crumpled and died on the ground where they fell. And there was an air around it that made it feel like they were walking hollowed ground.

They should probably get back to the city. Maybe they’ll find the others already there. Luke’s life was still in danger.

But the more they walked, the harder the pull was to stay.

And from the looks of it, he had no choice once Clary had opened the door and stepped in.

He hissed a warning. Their Dad might have alreayd sent some guards ahead or worse. But it was quiet. Empty. There was a faint fire in the fire place as they passed it by. Close to dying. There were empty bottles of wine scattered all around.

He had wanted to go up. Show her his bedroom. Showed her where hers had meant to go. But she had already disappeared into the cellar by the time he was just about to reach for her.

A curse and he chased after her.

Nearly bumping into her as she comes to a stop. A faint glowing light chained to the wall. It’s wings thin and frail. Two chairs set on either side of it.

It moved it’s head and it spoke ; an almost garbled static noise. But Clary hears it. From the way she looks at the thing. He only hears faint words, shapes of what it should be without the sound. Eventually Clary fumbles forward, trying to undo the chains, eventually asking for his help.

He doesn’t question it. Looks around for the keys until he finds it . And as they key turns and the lock falls out of place, with his wings spread, he glows with a blinding light that makes both fo them turn their head away and cover it. The air around the house different.

“ I know what he wants, “ Clary announced. “ We need to go back. “

Jon makes some sweeping arguments but she was already on her way out and back to where they had come from.

With the retreating figure of Alicante fading and fading behind them, he knew he had lost the battle.

-------

They come knocking at the door, much to Seraphina’s surprise. Suspicious as she makes sure yet again they were not armed. Although that took a lot longer now he imagined with her arm in a sling. They arrived just in time for dinner and was brought to their chairs with his Father at the head, many of his guards around them and his Grandfather on his side and their grandmother on Clary’s.

Food was served with wine and he realized only then how hungry he must have been. That he didn’t stop to think twice and just eat.

All the while discussion continued around the table. His Father’s guests paid neither him or Clary any mind, not until Valentine addressed them again. And Clary, jumps in with the obvious question: “We want our Mom. “

He swallows a mouthful and agreed, taking one of the knives on the table to hide inside his sleeve should they need it again. A look between the adults passed and Valentine nodded and got up.

“ The only way we would ever consider to release her is if she gave up what she had stolen from our people. “

“ I know where the cup is. “

Jonathan tries not to blink his surprise. He looks unfazed by the admittance, although he should have come to expect it, given the circumstances that had pushed them here to begin with.

“ But I need her awake. Give her to us. And we’ll come back with the cup. “

He caught his grandparents smile. Although his grandfather’s was more out of amusement than the pride he caught on Seraphina’s.

“ Jocelyn is still considered a war criminal. She can’t leave just like that. We’ll need a guarantee. Collateral, so to speak. “

Clary fumbles then. She hadn’t thought that far ahead.

“ You want a head for a head. “ All their eyes turned to him then, sharply and calculating. Seeing perhaps for the first time the similarity between Father and son. He looked up at the house sigil that clung to a shield just at the end of the room. “ A Morgenstern for a morgenstern. “

He catches Clary’s look but doesn’t say anything.

“ Release Lucian Garroway along with our Mother and I’ll stay. Just until you get the cup. “

Clary’s knuckles turn white gripping the edge of the table. His Father and grand father looked pleased. The rest of the guest depart then to leave the family to their peace.

“ She can have an armored guard with her return back to the City. Your friends must be worried about you. “ His Father starts.

“ If you break your promise, I swear by the angel, I will kill you. “ Clary swore before she got up.

Jon smiles then as he got up too to give her a hug before she was ushered away, promising him along the way that she’ll come back. He didn’t doubt that. But he glared at the guards that tried to drag her away anyway.

“ Now what do all of you really want with me? “

---------

They want someone to continue the line. An heir. His eyes narrowed at his reflection at that, finding the idea laughable.

First of all, he was just seventeen.

Plus, he may or may like Izzy, and he was pretty sure Izzy wouldn’t be into some crazy dictator’s son / potential dictator.

But he smiled and nodded, politely.

He remembers enough of his training to know how to act around his Dad. He was three then but he hadn’t changed. The very next morning he was put back to work. His skills sharpened. Brought to what it should have been had his mother not stolen him away - blah de blah.

It had been easier to tune him out once he’d handed him the sword. His blade. The one he had given to him as a child.

That was what was familiar after all.

He could manage against his own man.

That impressed him.

And a part of him still appreciated that he could be impressed. Even by him. But it was small and it disappeared as quickly as it would sprout.

----

It only takes a few days of this before he gets bored.

A few days of incessant training for his body to start aching and for him to start wondering where the hell Clary was.

It felt longer than it should have been and his Father had stopped giving him updates by the second day.

It’s on the seventh night that he wakes up in the middle of the night again, stirred by his Father and brought down. There’s more people then. All allies from the excited looks in their eyes.

He should run. He knew it. But there was no exit.

He’s been led right into the center of it; forced to his knees by Father and grandfather. The cup now being passed along from one hand to another. His Father had lied. Of course. And now they held the cup with what he could only guess was blood. Because it smelled and looked different. Not like ichor. Not even as bad.

His eyes snap upward, trying to get a view of Valentine and Oskar’s hooded gaze and he thinks he catches a flciker of a woman wil pale skin and dark eyes and long hair at the edge of the room. She smiles with blood red lips and fangs and then disappears when there’s a noise.

A yel from someone being stabbed. He catches gold hair and then an arrow. Maybe more. He tries to get free but their grip is still firm and Valentine grabs his jaw to make him drink from it. He bites down on the edge of the cup instead and make it tip over on him, before taking the chance in their distraction to bite at his grandfather’s hand.

A hard slap makes him swallow of the blood that had tipped over into his mouth. Oskar’s and the cup’s. He almost retched right and there. And again, he’s dragged, this time by his hair to the nearest door. And before he knows it he’s knocked out.

----

He wakes up again, groggy and aching all over. Back in the moors behind his childhood home. His wrists tied together behind his back. His head ringing still from the head ache the blow to his head had brought. And the lady in black, still watching from the distance.

And he sees her clearer than everything else, the more he stares at her.

But the moment doesn’t last long as he hears his Father begin to talk. Whether he’s explaining it to him or to the air, it didn’t seem to matter. He had a plan. Or they all did. A collective group of people where he was their leader, their king. They knew how to save the world. How to keep out the demons. How to fight every demon blooded thing in the universe.

It would all start with the cup.

That would fix all the problems.

And then him.

He thinks he hears her smile, feels it right next to his ear, but he can’t be sure. They must have made him drink some of the blood. He could feel it, a sluggish weight in his veins. Burning him rotten. Making him weak. And making his fingers clammy.

Valentine is still talking. Some nonsense about angels and demons. Something about how he was going to continue his legacy. Be some king down there while he ruled the people here. It was harder and harder to pay attention, if he was honest. All he could hear was the sweet voice of whatever that woman was, singing in his ear.

He almost didn’t register the thud that fell right beside him. He rolled his head to the other side and saw his grand father dead beside him. He nearly laughed.

The haze fading. In it wake an almost seizing high. A hurricane that goes right to his nerve endings. Somehow, he breaks through the ropes. And there are inks of black under his eyes but there isn’t any fear in his Father’s eyes.

Now faced with both his children.

Clary’s concern only distracted him for a moment ; not enough to stop him from catching the blade she had stolen from their Grandfather for him. He had heard the name before. He had already given it to Valentine once before. He thought to ask why he had taken it back but a glance over his shoulder reminded him the man was dead and the reason was moot.

Valentine tries to reason with either of them ; tries to warn them. But they were having none of it. They were tired of the running. They were tired of the lies. They were tired of him.

The cup falls to the grass just as his blade cuts through his spine and Clary’s pierces through lung and heart.

Whatever he was about to say, dies on his bloodied lips.

-----

The haze of the demon blood eventually dwindled back to that heavy ache straight in his bones. An emptiness that left him passing out on their way to catch up with the others.

He wakes up a few times on that first night in a cold sweat. The dark in his eyes seemingly never leaving. Leaving him with a hunger for the feeling, for the taste, for the voice he’d heard in the moor.

It’s a few days until he’s almost caught with a blade to Luke’s throat when they realize what was wrong.

It was Lilith, Seraphina had told them before slashing her own throat at the very first opportunity she had at freedom.

Jocelyn somehow knew who that was and clutched his hand. He had only remembered her holding it that tightly when they were leaving. She finally explained to him why.

But the answer to the threat of lilith was simpler now than it had been then. Protection spells and weapons were readily available.

The old regime was being pushed out. A new one was starting.

The Last of the Morgensterns were dead.

It was just them now.

#idumean #𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔.┋inbox.#ME: TAKES THREE FUCKING HOURS to do one stupid meme i hate myself right now #also me: LISTNE this is the best time line and y'all can fight me on it #𝒂 𝒍𝒐𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒔.┋drabble .

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renwyck · 6 years

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Let Go

[ RP between @safrona-shadowsun and myself. Thanks for reading if you do! ]

Sweat beaded down Renwyck's brow as he strained to lift the final cask of wine. Jaw clenched, he placed the cumbersome barrel among the rest in the cargo hold in a ship bound for Boralus. It was the closest the human anticipated getting to the front lines of the war.

The moment the cask struck the wooden hull, Renwyck exhaled a relieved sigh. "Shit, Whiskey," he murmured as his back rested against a stack of crates. The heat from strenuous labor prompted him to pull off his shirt and wipe his forehead with the cotton fabric. "You better have a drink for me after all that."

The Void Elf largely tried to appear as if she weren't distracted by the defined torso of the former Watcher as he removed his shirt. Like kicking up sand in her mind, memory floated back that she simply tried to bury in the recesses of her heart. She starkly remembered how it felt to be embraced in the strong warmth of those arms. Remembered the chase of heartbeats pressed to each other, each rise of breath that swelled his chest hers to claim if she only wanted it...

Stop that.

She let her eyes linger on the new scar the human had developed before drawing them away to the safety of her clipboard, sighing. "I do appreciate it. It's late, but I'm not risking arrest for pulling out a voidwalker to handle this. Stormwind's not as liberal about demons on a leash as Silvermoon or Dalaran was. And without the Ethereal and the Consortium to back me up now things have been...inconvenient."

She paused at his request for whiskey and complied easily, sliding the clipboard into the cradle of her arm to tear a hole into reality, reaching into Void storage to free the familiar sinful label of Darkmoon Bourbon. The professional would then move closer to set it gently on the crate he leaned against. Fluidly calling an enchanted tome complete with floating pen into being, she offered up a page to Renwyck for him to write in.

"There, I'll just need you to sign your name at the end, and I'll make sure I'll leave you a bit of gold for the trouble before I leave with the ship this morning. And then I'll be out of your shirt."

Saf nearly bit into her own tongue with the fumble of words, shutting her eyes tightly as she corrected herself. "...out of your hair."

Renwyck arched an eyebrow at the slip of her tongue, suddenly very aware of the fact that he was shirtless. "Oh," he said as he pulled the shirt back over his head to cover his exposed chest.

He eyed the tome before walking over to sign. It was all so formal and he had been rather familiar in her presence -- a fact that brought a slight blush to his cheeks. "No problem," he replied somewhat rigidly, the awkwardness of the situation fully setting in.

Safrona shook her head faintly as Renwyck began to pull the shirt back over his head. Snatching the bottle she'd just given over, she opened masterfully as ever, and stole a quick sip herself. She might be punished for the act later by another damned dream, but it was worth the risk. It wasn't as if she'd been sleeping well, anyway.

And it showed, or perhaps that was simply the way it had been since her Void attunement, the braid no longer its neat, smooth drape over her shoulder, simply tied to hang over in long, loose spirals these days. Ever a restless look to her, ever driven. But not enough to ignore the change she had seen in Renwyck.

"You have a new scar..." the elf murmured quietly, as if acknowledging.

His eyes darted down at the mention of the old wound. "Yeah," he spoke, his mind drifting to thought as his demeanor grew cold. When he continued, his words were dripping with contempt. "Parting gift from the Night Watch."

"...you have been through worse," Safrona smirked just a bit, indicating herself, but did not state further than that slight, knowing curve of lips. "I do not think you belong here, lifting crates, Renwyck." She took the bottle into her hand again, considering another sip.

"When will you go back to where you belong, Watcher Darrow?"

With those two words, his attention snapped back to her face, his eyes narrowing darkly as his gaze locked to hers. There was a passion in his eyes, the fallen watcher focusing all of his ire, all of his hatred on her. "Don't you fucking call me that," he growled, moving with a purposeful and forceful steps to close the distance between them.

This was different.

Safrona blinked a few times, taking a small step back, grounding herself against the man's enraged march toward her. This was something else besides the broken man, the one who apologized relentlessly, besides the broken soul trying to drown himself in whiskey to simply forget.

She swallowed not for the fear of it, but for her own desire to see more.

"And why not?" She murmured now as he faced the preternaturally composed void elf down, her eyes darting between both of the searing coals his own had become, never daring to leave them. "That is what you are. Will you run from it for the rest of you life, Watcher?"

His jaw clenched with that word... that damnable word. Ripping the whiskey from her hand, he flung the bottle across the cargo hold, the glass shattering as it struck a barrel of wine. Amber alcohol seeped from the remnants, bleeding into the aged wood beneath.

"I'm not one of them," his voice was a deep grumble as his rage rose within. His left hand snapped to her chest, thrusting the elf's form roughly against the shipping crates at her back. The other hand slipped loosely around her throat, his thumb gently stroking the side of her neck in a silent threat should she continue to provoke him.

The clipboard in her hands had also cracked to the wooden floorboards of the cargo hold as Safrona was shoved back, held there, her heart thumping in rapid succession against his hand. He could feel the swallow of her throat, the silk of the choker she wore against his thumb shifting against the ugly garotting scar beneath.

The heat of her face had rushed up to her ears to suffuse them in a dark blush, flustered. The damn Courier was actually blushing. Her tongue flicked out quickly to lick at her lips, trying to find words.

"Not them," Safrona whispered now, her fingers curling around the hand at her throat gradually, hoping it would dissuade him from squeezing the life from her. "You. You were never them. You, Watcher Darrow." She spoke the next words intensely, trying to reach past that rage, to make him understand. "The lantern in the Dark."

The blush of her cheeks and the feeling of her hand against his was enough to temper his wrath long enough for him to hear her words. The fire in his eyes dimmed slightly, the watcher's gaze falling to Safrona's lips. The hand at her throat broke from hers to slip around to the nape of her neck. Keeping her pinned to the crates, the hand upon her chest pressed firmly against her pounding heart.

"You are...you are better than them..." she whispered out, her voice failing her slightly as his hand reached at the nape of her neck, setting her skin to prickle down to her shoulders, arms. Well, it was better than at her throat.

But as his eyes fell to her lips, she felt the creeping desire for that desire, to feel wanted, in all ways. The start to passion, the intensity, the push and pull of breath as lips met, to feel another's hunger for her run the cup and spill over and kindle the heat she secreted away daily, and make it their own. Alive, and it had been so long, bodies quietly yearning for that passion in union.

...but it was only the flesh, she knew. Her mind and soul craved another, and such bonds kept such sinful needs of the body at bay. It was a decision she made every night, to go home to her Orchid. That was where she wanted to be. Not in the cargo hold of a ship, rutting out old frustrations.

All she wanted of Renwyck Darrow was a return to the man she once knew before the evils of the world broke him.

"So, be better," she whispered quietly, her arms placed so he could not press closer, and sow some old lust to her lips. It would be wrong. It was time to move on from this.

"...I should go, Renwyck. You should too."

Dammit, Whiskey… If you’re going to let me go, then just… let me go.

Renwyck sighed, his eyes closing as his hands fell from her to return to his sides. He took several small steps backwards, turning his head so that when his eyes opened once more, his gaze wouldn't fall on her.

"Night, Whiskey," he spoke in hushed tone before turning to leave.

#Safrona Shadowsun #Renwyck Darrow #RP

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glitchinthesystemspiderbyte · 7 years

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[13] Glitch in the System - Apagando las Luces (The Mission: Pt. 2)

By E. A clever trap happens.

–

The life of a hacker was, while exciting, often predictable: in her downtime, to assuage boredom, Sombra surfed the internet. Idly, for the most part, until she caught the scent of something that interested her. Then she’d sniff it out like a bloodhound, following trails and leads until she’d run her quarry to ground, deciding at some point along the way what it was she planned on doing with it once she caught it.

On this particular day, Sombra’s casual perusal of the internet had ended in a chase that led her to the front door of someone who had, with an incredible lack of finesse, crawled in through Talon’s virtual windows and left a royal mess in their digital carpet. It wasn’t a mess that had done any damage, and they hadn’t left with anything of value, but they’d managed to accomplish something particularly noteworthy in their trespass:

They’d pissed Sombra off something fierce.

She’d printed off what data she could translate to a black and white image, waiting with increasing impatience as the archaic machine slowly churned out pages of blurry images she could take to Akande. She wished, not for the first time, that everyone had implanted cybernetics so she could avoid having to use such cumbersome machinery.

Once Akande had seen them, of course he’d decided to send them in. Strength through adversity and whatnot. She’d figured he would, even though it was so painfully obvious that the entire thing was a setup. The man enjoyed teaching lessons and watching the shit hit the fan, and what was better for that than sending his best and brightest after a bunch of unruly children? It would be a slaughter, but for which party Sombra wasn’t entirely certain.

It wasn’t even a compelling challenge so much as it was embarrassing, walking into a trap so obvious it felt like they were building half the cage themselves. Sombra was restless, though, and ready for something to take her mind off her increasingly complicated feelings for her coworker.

“What’s wrong?” Widowmaker asked, leaning languorously against the other side of the elevator as they descended into the basement that was, Sombra reminded herself, one-hundred-percent a trap.

“Stop doing that,” she said, narrowing her eyes at the spider.

“Doing what?” Widowmaker asked, legitimately confused in her graphene catsuit and posed with the impeccable poise of a killer.

“That,” she repeated without any clarification, waving her hand in her direction.

The doorbell dinged, cutting off any response Widowmaker may have been summoning, and the two operatives snapped into mission mode like rubber bands stretched to capacity. Sombra hacked the elevator doors, locking them in place and preventing anyone but her from activating it in the future. Someday, someone would create hackproof technology, and that might finally be the point at which Sombra found herself faced with a challenge.

Until then she’d have to settle for jumping into shark tanks and starving the animals out of their own feeding frenzy.

“Ready?” the sniper asked.

“Always.”

“Rapidement, cherie.”

Sombra activated her camo, transitioning from sarcastic companion to silent killer in less than a heartbeat. She heard Widow’s first shot, saw the body drop, and answered with her own suppressing fire to allow her another deadly second.

“Ten and two down,” came the sniper’s voice over their comms, merging with her actual voice as Sombra’s body was sucked through time and space and deposited back in the elevator.

“I know,” she replied, ignoring the wave of nausea that overtook her from her momentary displacement. It passed more quickly each time it hit. “So far, so good. Now, the hard part.”

“I know,” Widowmaker nodded, standing. “Allons-y.” Without further ado, she grappled her way up and out of sight, leaving Sombra alone to do her job.

“Time to teach that lesson.” Smirking, she activated her camo and fled from the elevator.

Widowmaker kept the sentries and backup busy while Sombra picked her way between towers, only managing not to get distracted by the trove of data she was surrounded with by force of willpower and a general sense of disappointment that they were expending this much effort for what was, essentially, a data bomb. Sombra would hack in, grab anything worthwhile, and drop a Trojan so big that they’d be on the phone with IT for years while it ate through their database like a piranha along a trail of blood. She just didn’t think there would be anything worthwhile, and it would have saved them all a load of time and effort if they’d just rigged the whole basement to explode and gone out for smoothies instead.

That plus, once again with feeling - this was a trap.

Sidling up to the server, her sense of discomfort was growing louder like white noise crashing in her ears. From the start there was not enough resistance for a fortress of valuable data, and that they’d encountered up until now had been token violence to make them feel like they were accomplishing something. She’d hacked half the world’s systems and had found community banks with more security than this place. It felt wrong at its core, and she wanted to be out of there.

“Widow?” she hissed into her earpiece. “I’m nuking this server and we’re getting the hell out of here. Something’s not right.”

“I have you in my sight, Sombra,” was her reply, clear and comforting. She took a deep breath, gaining confidence from the sniper’s proximity and the security her watchful eye ensured. Nothing else about this operation was secure.

“Just don’t make this the one time you miss, ok?” she joked, smirking. Raising a palm to the server, she went in.

Bracing herself for the typical defense response of a high-security system, she nearly fell face first into the tower as she encountered absolutely zero resistance. One moment she was hacking the mainframe and the next she was in it, free flowing binary cradled within a SQL database that was easier to check out than a library book. Far from tantalizing, it was wrong, and she wondered if she’d misjudged the true aim of the trap they’d walked into. The question now was when it would be sprung.

If it hadn’t been already.

“This isn’t right. There’s no firewall,” she announced, vision still immersed within the neon code of the server. It began to flash like the inside of a rave, distracting her from absorbing any one aspect of the nonsense data being paraded before her. “This is not right. We have got to go.”

She pulled her hand away and found that not only was she unable to do so, but that any attempts at moving filled her body with immense pain. The rush of binary turned red, pulsing in through her fingertips and corrupting the cybernetics she was relying on to access it.

Realization hit her in a wave of nausea. It was a virus.

Sombra was being hacked.

Steeling herself against the agony, she grabbed her arm with her free left hand and pulled, tearing it from from the server in time to stop the flow of corruption, but not quickly enough to stop the pain. Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard Widowmaker talking through their comms, but by that point she’d lost the ability to focus, and her words vanished like smoke as she stumbled backwards, blind.

Her brain was telling her mouth to scream for help, but nothing was cooperating - not her eyes, not her vocal cords, and certainly not her legs as she tried desperately to get away from what was undeniably the bar springing on the mousetrap. The corruption burned through her, too hot for her to focus and too encompassing for her to escape.

She didn’t see the man as he approached her, but she did feel the tearing of a bullet through her left shoulder.

Tumbling to the floor, the burning virus searing her from the inside and the bullet wound gushing blood, she looked up in shock to see the shooter walking steadily toward her.

Widow, where are you? she thought frantically to herself, waiting for the kill-shot that would remove his head from his shoulders. So certain was she that it would come, she didn’t realize it hadn’t until she felt the cold metal of a gun barrel against her forehead.

“You must be Talon’s master hacker, yes?” the man grinned, snapping the safety off the gun. “It’s so nice to finally meet you.”

Sombra hadn't thought about death since she was a child, when it was a present reality, her parents crushed beneath the omnic machine, leaving her a small flame at the mercy of a hurricane. The hurricane blew itself out and she kept burning until she grew into a forest fire, and then an inferno; she was too smart, too capable, too damn resourceful to die like a dog by a man with an assault rifle.

She hadn’t thought about death in a long time. Now, forced to confront her end with the kiss of cold metal against flesh, she realized that she did not want to die. Not like this; not helpless at the mercy of a stranger with a gun for a cause she found curious at best.

In fact, she realized - she didn't want to die at all. She squeezed her eyes shut, pain spiking through her retinas, and despite the specter of death looming before her, all she could think was a profoundly confused where’s Widowmaker?

She never missed.

Where the shot of a gun and the sting of a that final bullet were expected, she heard a sharp cry instead. When she opened her eyes - the pain ebbing as she regained some focus to her sight - she saw the deadly, lithe form of Widowmaker with her grappling cord around her assailant’s neck. She hit him with such force that she fell over backward, the man’s struggling body atop hers as she pulled the line taut against his neck.

He was dead for a while before the sniper let him go. His throat was swollen and red from where she’d garotted him, and she shoved him off her like the soggy sack of flesh and guts he’d become. She stood up with tears streaming down her face - a golden-eyed angel of death staring at her like nothing else mattered in the world.

Sombra wasn’t sure what she felt at that moment: a muddled, vague mixture of relief, awe, and something else - something warmer that made her heart race even more than her brush with the grave. She struggled for control of her thoughts as well as her tongue, mind racing through a kaleidoscope of feelings too quickly for her to choose one to sit with.

When she finally found her voice, it sounded as pained as she felt. “Araña,” she said, clutching her bleeding shoulder, “we’ve gotta go.”

Widowmaker’s eyes were focused on her, and she looked as though she was struggling with something. Sombra saw the wet tears making tracks down her face and wanted to ask what was wrong, but wasn’t entirely sure she was prepared to hear the answer. “Whoever these fuckers are, they hacked me. They hacked me, Widow,” she growled, indignant and impressed all at once. They would pay so dearly and so violently when she found them again.

Something heavy banged in the distance, followed by shouting voices. Without another word, Widowmaker knelt down and wrapped her arms around Sombra’s limp and bleeding body, lifting her effortlessly against her chest.

“I’ll help you when you’re ready for revenge,” she said in a voice that was velvet lined with shards of glass. Then, softer, “Désolée.”

“I know,” Sombra replied as Widow pressed her forehead against hers. The shouting came closer, and she bounded toward the exit like a tiger after its prey, pausing only to pick up Sombra’s gun and hand it back to her to hold in shaking fingers.

Sombra rested her head in the space between Widowmaker’s collarbone and the length of her neck and listened to the disconcerting slow beat of her heart. Her skin was almost - almost - warmed from the exertion of the day. Clutching her gun, she let the sound beat like a war drum in her ear as they crashed through the basement and out to safety.

*Read from the beginning or check out our intro post! All stories tagged under #glitchfic

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