#for the next six years she is in survival mode

[chelseeebe]

‘til the world caves in: something in the orange

mdni 18+. smut. exfamous!steve x female reader. zombie apocalypse au! mentions of guns and violence throughout. no use of y/n!

a/n: this is my new iteration of the apocalypse au! i dabbled with it before but actually rlly like this one, matter of fact, most of the chapters are written already lmfao:) the famous part rlly is just there for this oneee specific scene i had in mind for a later part but it’s something different i guess

nobody cares who you are in the apocalypse. well, maybe except for you.

life before the outbreak had been weird enough for steve, his band had just started their rise to fame when all this shit went down.

it wasn’t exactly where he wanted to be at 19 but money and fame weren’t anything he was gonna say no to.

and then news broke that people had started eating each other’s faces and now he was no longer this up and coming star, rather just some guy trying to stay alive with some girl he’d met fleeing new york.

six years was more than enough time for them to become best friends, travelling through various camps and groups of people before they ended up somewhere in the middle of indiana.

steve’s never been here before and he wishes he wasn’t here now.

there’s nothing for miles and now robin’s leg is fucked, he thinks it might be the end.

the buttfuck town of hawkins indiana would be their demise.

they’d collapsed on the fence of some building, too dehydrated and tired to care. accepting a certain death as robin cries softly next to him, their fingers entwined as death awaits.

they were pretty delirious when they were picked up by some group. a tall man with a thick moustache and a lady with a sweet voice, helping them across town to their compound.

he’s not entirely sure what had happened when they’d arrived, he’d been bustled into a room and remembers collapsing on the bed with a pounding in his head before blacking out.

-

turns out he was out for days, waking up in the dark confines of a tiny box room with nothing else around him. admittedly, the lack of robin in his immediate vicinity scared the shit out of him.

all he can remember is that her leg was infected and her head was starting to hurt which was never a good sign.

a small, curly haired lady bursts into the room, startled to see him standing, “oh! you’re awake! great,” she smiles.

“where am i?” he asks, like a petrified child.

“you’re in hawkins,” she nods, “you were in a pretty bad state when we found you.”

nothing had ever felt so befuddling, jolting him back into survival mode as he realises his bag was nowhere to be found.

“where’s robin? we need to.. we have to go,” steve rushes, fearing the worst.

“she’s good, i think she was in the cafeteria.. we can go and get some food if you’d like?” the kind lady offers, pity in her eyes.

he nods, sceptical as he follows her out of the room and through the massive doors. there’s laughter from the other side, amazed at the sight of the light bulbs glowing white. electricity. nothing like the candles and flashlights they’d been using for years.

robin jumps up from the table the second he walks through, hobbling over with a few grunts and groans.

“you’re awake! oh my god steve, i’ve been so worried,” she frets, throwing her arms around his neck, trying to ignore the stares from the strangers in the room.

“you’re okay? i thought..” he exhales, not wanting to finish his sentence. “i don’t know.. fuck,” now robin was here and alive and in his arms, the overwhelming feeling of ten people gawping at him sinks in.

there’s nothing familiar about this place, it’s nothing like the places they’d stayed in, it feels like before.

“come get some food,” robin ushers, placing her hand on his back and very slowly walking to the table, “it’s nice here,” she leans in to whisper, “everyone’s super nice, they even have electricity!” she marvels, helping him to the empty seat.

she pushes her plate towards him, beans and some sort of meat. he hadn’t had a substantial meal in what felt like months, living off of foraged cans and jerky.

the crowd seems to back off at this point, leaving him and robin to eat. to try and digest this place despite feeling like he was in some crazy dream.

“we found some stragglers, out at the old school,” he hears a voice from behind, talking about himself and robin, “they were in pretty bad shape.”

steve doesn’t look around, continuing to eat his portion of robin’s dinner instead.

turns out he didn’t have to, as you arrive at his table, shotgun still strapped to your back and a thick layer of dirt all over your face.

“you the new guys?” you ask, looking between him and robin.

“yeah,” answering for the both of them, “robin,” extending her hand to meet yours.

you shake it, with a small, wary smile before turning your attention to steve, eyes narrowed as if you’re trying to place him.

“i remember you,” smiling with the side of your mouth, sizing him up. “steve harrington,” saying his name with such conviction, “newest member of in motion, weren’t you?”

he’s surprised that anyone would even care to remember him or the shitty boy band he was coerced into, “i mean, i was.. doesn’t really matter now though, right?”

you hum and he’s not sure whether it’s positive or not, “i used to be a fan,” steve couldn’t fathom someone like you ever being a fan of the shitty corporate pop he used to make. “maybe you can perform for us some day.”

it’s the first time in years that anyone has recognised him from before. unsure of how it makes him feel.

-

steve had presumed that he and robin were doing pretty well, they were alive weren’t they?

he’d found out that actually, neither of the two knew a single thing about proper, adequate survival skills and had gotten by with some grace of god.

he could shoot a gun, at least he thought he could. they typically just aimed and shot and hoped for the best rather than all of this.

you kick his feet further apart, barking shoulder width into his ear for the umpteenth time. it’s pretty hard to focus when you’re standing right behind him with your soft lips brushing against his ear every few seconds.

robin takes to it like a duck on water, keeping her arms straight and the gun in line with her eye. how the fuck does she know all of this shit?

steve fires and subsequently misses the makeshift target, cursing under his breath with a nasty side eye to robin who hits it straight in the drawn on face.

“steve,” you warn, walking over to him with a slight frown, “keep it steady, that kick back is no joke.”

he pulls a face, realigning the gun to his eye and tries again.

missing the target entirely this time.

“okay,” you sigh, the feel of your arms wrapping around his startle him for a second before the rest of your body presses against his back.

oh god.

it’d look pretty weird if he popped a boner while on shooting practice, he thinks.

it’s not as if human contact is a thing he encounters regularly, how was his body supposed to know the difference?

your chin rests on his shoulder, peering over at the target, hands coming to sit atop of his sweaty ones as you aim for him.

“that good?” you ask, breath tickling his ear.

it felt good, felt very good actually. your chest flat against his back, his breathing falling into to time with yours.

“ye- yup,” he flutters, almost choking on the words.

steve get it together.

“so go,” you order.

his finger presses the trigger, the bullet flies through the target, straight between the eyes.

“there you go!” you celebrate, the warmth of your body on his disappearing as you come to join him at his side.

he and robin share a look, robin’s smirk was unmistakable, steve knew what she was thinking, somehow he always did.

“go again, just you this time,” nodding with encouragement.

his thoughts are jumbled, preoccupied with the want for you to touch him again. just this time, maybe somewhere more private.

but he does it. the painted on silhouette is hit straight through the forehead, garnering a whoop from robin.

“you’re getting the hang of it,” you smile, fingers brushing over his as you take the gun from his hand. it makes him shiver, electricity pulsing between you. “don’t worry, we can come back out here another day,” sharing a look that lingers just a little too long.

you collect robin’s gun and announce something about lunch but steve can’t focus, still attempting to collect himself from a puddle on the floor.

“man, if you don’t get in there, i’m going to,” robin quips, slapping him quite harshly on the back.

“fuck off,” he hits back, trying to shake the loud, intrusive voice in the background of his mind.

there wasn’t much time for love and relationships while he had to fight the undead. a small part of him wonders if maybe now it’s possible, in here, with you.

okay, he’s definitely getting ahead of himself.

-

you don’t help steve’s delusions when you join him and robin at their table for breakfast, making sure to slide into the seat directly opposite just so he can try not to choke on his food.

“you guys settling in okay?” you ask, not really looking at robin at all, eyes glued to his.

“y-yeah, it’s nice here,” he sputters, trying to focus on the bowl of porridge in front of him.

“good,” you smile, sickeningly sweet.

robin’s foot swiftly connects with his leg, coughing on his mouthful as he returns the favour. he knows what she’s getting at, he’d divulged his fantasies to her a couple nights ago.

they’d been allocated separate rooms but hadn’t dared to separate yet, holing up in steve’s bed as they got used to this place.

you look up again, as if you want to ask something, “i think uh.. a few of the kids found out you were in a band and they wanted to know if you’d sing for them at some point?”

steve narrows his eyes, not forgetting that you’d already revealed yourself as a fan, “they asked?” quirking his brow.

your lips pucker, jabbing at your food in an attempt to hide, “well..” looking up at him through spindly lashes, “maybe not just them.”

he feels this intangible sensation in his chest, a burning that aches his insides.

“okay,” he smiles, managing to keep it down, “i’ll sing for y- them,” hoping no one pulls him on his freudian slip, cheeks burning scarlet.

your eyes light up, the whole world encapsulated within your iris’, a sight he already dreamed of.

he feels like a teenager again, wondering if the pretty girl on the other side of the table liked him back.

-

“ready?” you nod, slinging your backpack over your shoulder.

steve’s been anxiously awaiting his first shift on watch, scared about the prospect of accidentally fucking up and someone dying or something like that.

so for his first shift, he’d been graciously paired with you on the back wall. he’s been told there’s never much action there, usually a few stray infected but nothing too serious.

it doesn’t help that you’re in some ridiculously skimpy vest with the tightest pants he’s seen. there’s not a chance in hell that he’ll be able to keep his mind focused.

the pair of you stroll over to the wall, climbing the rusty old tower and relieving argyle and will from their positions.

grateful that you were given the evening shift as the hot july sun is setting and the breeze is beginning to kick in.

you immediately slump into the camp chair, slinging your bag from your back and kicking your heavy boots off, clunking against the metal as they land.

“so.. now we just sit here?” steve asks, cocking a brow at your relaxed disposition.

“yup,” nodding along as you squint up at him. “back wall’s never too exciting, i bet we don’t see a soul.”

“yeah.. okay,” he nods too, taking a seat in the adjacent camp chair, praying for a quiet night.

time ticks on for what must be hours, the courtyard had gone quiet and all he can really hear is your gentle breaths and a cricket somewhere in the long grass.

it must be gone 2am by now and you’d not seen a single thing, not even any infected.

steve can feel your eyes on him, not daring to look over until you start speaking.

“bored yet?”

he shakes his head, he wasn’t. this was pretty exhilarating if he was honest. every time you spoke to him, his heart rate seemed to soar.

“no, no this is nice.”

“the quiet?” you question, tilting your head to the side.

“yeah.. i feel like i haven’t really stopped since we got here.”

there’d been copious amounts of training and the like since he had properly recovered. nancy had shown him how to tie and set up traps. dustin had attempted to explain how you guys had power, though he couldn’t really grasp it.

and you, you had shown him how to shoot and fight and how to use a knife correctly rather than just flailing it around and hoping for the best.

“you’re not a bad watch partner, some of them are so annoying,” rolling your eyes in jest, snickering quietly.

steve smiles, genuinely. he hadn’t really experienced anyone other than robin’s company for a long time and while he loved her to death, it was nice to speak to someone else.

“you’re not too bad yourself,” shying away after his pathetic attempt at flirting.

there had been a fair amount of consideration and a perhaps a little bit of delusion but he had dwelled on it and came to the conclusion that he really liked you.

probably more than he should do at this point.

you pout your lips, considering something before starting, “you know.. there’s something else we could do to pass the time..”

he stares, befuddled for a moment until the glint in your eye makes it all click.

“oh,” is all that comes out of his suddenly very dry mouth.

there’s a flash of hurt and maybe embarrassment on your face, “or not.. i mean- i was just.. forget it,” squeezing your eyes shut as your palm hits your forehead.

“no! god no! i didn’t think you’d want to.. y’know, here..” terrified that he had screwed up his one chance.

not only would he have to leave hawkins, he’d probably have to curl up and die somewhere out of sheer embarrassment and regret.

“i wouldn’t have asked if i didn’t want to,” you shrug, uncurling from your blushing state.

steve almost falls from the rickety chair, “of course i do.. is it a good idea?” motioning over the wall somewhere, “with the watch and stuff..” eager to not disappoint the rest of his new group mates.

“we haven’t seen a thing all night.. we’re not being relieved for another few hours.”

“i don’t.. i don’t think i’ll need a few hours,” hell, ten minutes would be fairly optimistic.

a smirk nudges at your lips, standing from your chair to perch in front of him, hands on his shoulders as you take one last quick peek around.

“you’re sure?” you ask, as if he wasn’t gazing up at you like some pathetic puppy dog right now.

“so sure,” nodding enthusiastically. hesitant to touch you until you smile down at him, egging him on.

“get on the floor,” you instruct, still leering over the metal barriers, “just in case.”

he does as he’s told, sitting back against the wall with a lopsided grin as his heart rate increases tenfold.

it’d been years since he’d had sex. he supposes there was that one girl at the third or fourth camp they were in but she was pretty weird and a little obsessive. it only happened once and then he couldn’t bring himself to do it again.

but you’re smiling now, resting on his thighs and he thinks his heart might give out. there’s no certainty that he’ll even be able to last long enough for you to get any enjoyment from it but he’s willing to try.

a moment passes, eyes locked as you lean down, pressing a gentle yet excited kiss to his lips, it’s more human contact than he’s had in years.

you waste no time, fumbling with the button on his pants, sighing as you pop the button, waiting for him to return the honour.

steve lifts both of your bodies, barely kicking his jeans off before you sit back down, his fingers tingling with pure excitement as they unbutton your pants.

they end up somewhere in the pile of discarded clothes, focusing your attention back on his lips, carelessly connecting your lips.

your hips rock back and forth, sending a deep grumble from his throat to yours as his dick twitches in his boxers. he might as well not even bother to actually have sex, he was about to cum right then and there.

it’s made worse when your middle and index finger slide into the waistband of his boxers, struggling to stay afloat as you tug the material down just under his balls, cock springing up the second it’s freed.

you position your hands on his shoulders, looking down at him with wet lips, the only sounds are the crickets watching this degeneracy.

your hands find their place on his shoulders, holding yourself up while his fist finds his cock, lining himself up with your entrance, heart rate skyrocketing as you gasp above him.

his fingernails graze your skin, leaving indentations in the soft flesh, unable to contain the husky groan that escapes his lips.

your palm slaps over his mouth immediately, eyes wide as your hips rock, “you have to be quiet,” you hush though the smirk tugging at your lips tells him you’re not angry.

steve feels electric, pulsing through his veins with every slight movement you make, garbling into your palm when your pace quickens.

bouncing on his cock, making the entire structure creak and wobble.

he realises now that it’s silent, how obvious the sounds of sex are, skin slapping against skin as you squeak and grunt alongside it.

you’re insane, keeping your hand firmly over his mouth as you use his shoulder for leverage, rolling your hips and squeezing around him.

he’s about ready to cum already, there’s no surprise there. but he’s trying his hardest to hold out, to let you get something from this before he blows his load.

clinging on to your hips for dear life as they roll, eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks while he turns to utter mush behind your hand.

“oh shit,” you whine, clit nudging against his pubic bone, louder than he could ever be.

that’s it, hearing you whine sends his stomach lurching, with barely enough time to life your body from his lap before he explodes.

hips stuttering into the air as you watch with bated breath, still covering his mouth as a series of expletives tumble out, muffled and breathless.

steve’s never felt so embarrassed and yet so good all at once, the back of his head thwacking against the metal panel as he floats back to earth.

you rest atop of his thighs, nibbling on the skin of your bottom lip. there’s a silence that makes him want to crawl up the side of the barrier and let infected rip him apart.

he wants to apologise for his premature ejaculation, a little ashamed that he couldn’t prove himself to you but before he can conjure up the appropriate apology, your finger tilts his chin upwards, to meet your eyes.

you stifle it for a minute before bursting into a fit of giggles, “it’s okay.. maybe next time.”

albeit a very vague promise of a next time, steve starts to beam, still catching his breath as you shuffle off of his thighs, pulling your panties on as you lay back on the floor, gesturing for him to join you.

dawn breaks around the two of you, the birds rising to sing their song as you lay on the uncomfortable metal grates next to him.

it’s so serene, a picturesque view peeking from outside the little hut.

this is a feeling steve had thought he may never experience again, content with his life despite the rest of the world crumbling outside of the walls.

it’s something in the orange hue, an aching feeling that he owes to blind optimism. a spark of hope, remnants of a fear to lose anyone else.

to lose you.

your tongue pokes from the side of your lips, sighing softly, “there’s something i have to tell you.”

he turns, watching your face fall. apprehensively awaiting the harsh truth you were about to unleash.

“go on..”

this time you sigh loudly, exhausting the air from your lungs, “my ex.. lives here too. he’s out on a run to fort wayne at the moment but, they’re due back anytime now and i just need to pre-warn you that he’ll probably be a bit of an ass when he finds out.”

relief washes through his body. was that it?

crazy psycho exes weren’t something new to steve, albeit a long time since he’s had to even think about anything like that, but he doesn’t care.

“oh my god,” he exhales, “you scared me.. i thought you were ‘bout to say something crazy,” chuckling at his preemptive fear.

you whack his arm, “i’m being serious,” turning your head to glare at him, “he’s not.. the nicest person and he definitely won’t be nice about this.”

“what’s wrong with him?” steve asks, genuinely. they’d crossed paths with a lot of fucked up people in the six years since this had started but he had never believed that anyone truly bad could live somewhere as nice as this.

those places always seemed to crumble, he’d seen it enough times to know. people had taken the apocalypse as a means to become awful people, dictating the lives of everyone around them as if you weren’t all trying to do one thing.

survive.

you sigh, scrunching your nose, “he and his uncle have been here from the start of it all, helped build this place to what it is now. but his uncle, wayne, left a year back.. went to try and find his brother, eddie’s dad.. and now eddie’s just eternally pissed off about it.”

steve contemplates your words, knowing he’d probably also be incredibly infuriated too. family, real blood family, was a rarity nowadays. most people had lost most, if not all of any semblance of family by now. he was astounded to arrive here and find real family, joyce had her sons, nancy had mike, even lucas had his sister.

“oh.. that’s.. it’s understandable, i guess,” not quite finding the right words.

you nod, biting on the inside of your cheek. you’re holding something back, steve’s not sure what and he’s certainly not going to ask now. unwilling to ruin the moment.

“why’d you guys break up?” considering if he’d like to get in the middle of some complicated, messy situation.

for you? definitely.

“i dunno.. he was just so angry, he let it consume him,” a certain twinge of sadness to your tone.

“and he took it out on you?”

you scoff a little, “me and everyone else.. look, does it help if i say that he probably won’t shoot you?”

steve hums, “not really.”

that does it, brings your smile back as you crack up shaking hysterically as you turn back to the sky.

“i still think you should sing for us all,” changing the subject completely.

steve groans, wiping the layer of sweat from his forehead. before all this, he would’ve said that he preferred summer but now that there were corpses roaming the streets, he definitely favoured winter. that stench is something he’ll never forget, rotting flesh and hot july sun were not a good mix.

“didn’t i already agree to sing for the kids?” he teases.

you’re interrupted from any further begging as nancy’s voice rings out from below, “hey guys? you there?” worry embedded into her voice.

“shit,” you hiss, shooting up as you grab your pants. “sorry.. sorry,” apologising for your lack of clothing and the accidental fright you’d given them.

“oh wow okay,” nancy bites from down below, laughing her head off, jonathan covers his eyes to give you a little privacy as you pull your jeans on, “how’d i know that you two were gonna fuck this up?”

“yeah yeah, shut up,” you rush, cheeks burning as you jump into your clothes.

steve shuffles over sliding his pants back on as he turns beetroot red, not only was this his first shift, it was also the first time he was showing everyone that he was a capable person to keep around. he’s not so sure they’ll agree now.

nancy and jonathan climb up the ladder, a bemused expression shared across their faces, “quiet night?” nancy asks, cocking her head to the side.

“something like that,” shrugging off her quick remarks as you grab your backpack and shove steve’s into his chest.

the two stand there gawping as steve flushes, stepping into his sneakers and attempts to hurriedly brush his hair into place. he wants to be embarrassed, really, but he’s still riding the high of you even kissing him.

“see anything interesting?” nancy bites, eyebrows raised expectantly.

“nope.”

“mhm i bet,” she smirks, her lips pursed as you shuffle past her, ignoring the smug look on her face as you climb down the ladder.

steve gives them both a little wave, still trying to hide his reddened cheeks as he follows you down from the perch.

you’re waiting for him at the bottom, tugging him away as the pair watch from above. it takes everything in him not to turn around and smile.

“y’wanna shower?” you ask, breaking the silence as you enter the building.

he damn near jumps into the air, clicking his heels together, suppressing his excitement with a simple nod, bounding along behind as you pull him along the corridor.

he’d take any shift if it meant ending up with you.

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington smut #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington au #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington x you #steve harrington angst #steve stranger things

[see-arcane]

Penclosa (TEASER)

Summary: It’s been almost a year since Jonathan Harker made that fateful first trip to Transylvania. The monster that imprisoned him, that threatened his love, that died in a box of earth by two blades, has been gone for months. Yet Jonathan’s nightmares have never left. In fact, as the bleak anniversary nears, they have worsened. Van Helsing’s mesmerism has made no progress in freeing him from the nightly horror. But he has come from Amsterdam for a potentially fruitful visit to another professor. 

Prof. Wilson is playing host to a mesmerist of singular and uncanny power, Miss Helen Penclosa. On meeting the troubled young man and his wife, she is only too happy to help...

For a version that isn’t in Tumblr format eye strain mode, check out the Google Doc version HERE.

Prologue

Over the course of May through early November in the year of 18—, events of uncanny and unholy nature swallowed the lives of multiple innocents. Some survived. Some died. Some did worse. A monster was slain, victims were lost or rescued or both. The whole of these remarkable happenings and the horror therein were compiled into a single manuscript under the monster’s name. It was bound and stored behind the lock of a safe door. Not to be forgotten, but to have the nightmare imprisoned, if only in spirit. This manuscript and the monster inside it are finished.

The nightmares should have followed suit. For most of their valiant number, they did. Slowly. Stutteringly. Yet they had ended as life’s clockwork ticked on and turned the heartbroken and the harried forward into the future. Grief still exists, of course. Its melancholy tides ebb and flow and drown and trickle. But the fear is gone.

For most.

It has been nearly six months since Jonathan Harker brought the steel of the kukri blade down through Count Dracula’s neck, reducing the vampire to his dead elements. 

It has been nearly seven months since he woke to find Mina Harker screaming in terror and violation with the monster’s blood in her mouth, her neck still running red from where the monster had supped on her; all while the demon’s trance had frozen him in sleep. 

It has been nearly eight months since he lay bedridden in a hospital he thanked as much as dreaded for fear that the nuns would detain him as a madman as they nursed him through illness and ravings they took for ‘brain fever,’ the climax of which ended with Mina Murray exchanging the marriage vows with him there in his sickbed. 

It has been all but a year in full since the night Count Dracula locked him in the plush and bloody nightmare of his castle for two months of idle torment, teasing his cadre of inhuman women with the promise of the young solicitor’s throat, of his undeath, of eternity spent forever in those stone walls, a Thing feasting with them on the squealing fodder of humanity.

Jonathan Harker has killed the inventor of his nightmares. Yet those terrors churn on and on without their maker. Even with the anniversary of last year’s madness about to overtake the calendar, still his sleeping hours are so rarely his. It takes its toll on him. This he can allow.

But his wife has suffered his suffering too long, and this he cannot. Something must be done. Something will be done.

And in doing it, fate proves once more that monsters remain a reality.

Some of whom crave far more and far worse than the theft of blood.

 I

  The 14th of April. The first day Jonathan took his journal with him to work.

There was something too mortifying in the act of writing about the particular topic that needed purging to scrawl it with Mina in the next room, still scouring exhaustion from her eyes. Not solely for the subject matter, but for how shamefully repetitious it had become. So much like a child bleating for help over the same imaginary devils in the room. It was bad enough to have turned her sleep into an endless lottery game in which she could count on fair sleep only half the time while the other half was devoted to breaking him out of the cell his traitor mind dragged him to with gleeful malice.

The castle, the Count, the Weird Sisters, the damned October night of Mina’s bloodied lips, and his own red hands in allowing the monster to inflict himself at all. All had their encores in his dreaming theater. Some nights were bad. Some nights were worse. His best nights, so abhorrently rare, were ones in which he did not dream at all. And now, now that they were creeping through the thick part of April, inching towards the full fruit and pleasant air of May, he’d realized…

 No, why say it? Why bother? He would spit it on the page and be done with it. Ink turned to bile. Jonathan held off until the majority of the paperwork was muscled through and noon threw its golden shine in the window. He took the volume out of his breast pocket with care, feeling a twinge that was as much grim recollection as unexpected nostalgia. How often had this slim little traveler’s journal with its packed pages and creased cover slipped the notice of his jailor by dint of its hiding place?

Now here he was, hiding it from his wife, from his employees, from the whole of his world. Jonathan swallowed new bitterness under a tide of fatigue and brought out a pen. He wrote:

 JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL

 14 April— Another night, another visit from the ghost of the Count.

He was as he’d been when he first drove me into his mountains. Only I knew it was him, lucid and afraid and without the kukri at my hip. When I tried to run for the coach that had brought me, it was gone. There was only the night and the cold iron of his grip dragging me into the caleche. The mountains did not take us up, but yawned wide as a stone maw, the horses driving us down, down, down into a shadowed hollow where those Powers exist that allowed a Thing like Dracula to manifest himself in the first place. Hell itself could not match the chthonic press and terror of that descent.

So I was convinced in the dream, made worse for the fact that the descent seemed never to end. There was only more down, more plummet, more drag, as though Dracula were merely a grinning fishhook and I was being reeled ever deeper, down to a place older and further than any of Dante’s circles. Thus I went, thus I cried out, thus Mina discovered me, all cold sweat and shuddering. Again.

Again and again and again. I do not understand it. How have the others moved on so freely when I am left still struggling in a mire of my own invention? Even Mina has moved past the need for any of my own ministrations to bring her out of sour dreams. It’s only me now. Always me. Now, inexplicably, I find the visions have grown not only worse, but more frequent. I expect it is the turn of the seasons that has stirred them to their peak. The calendar declares I am not far off from the day I first left for that trap of a business trip and set the whole horrid mess in motion.

What an evil thing to have even the dull plodding of the months turned into a menace. And for what? The mere memory of late spring tied with the coming of the Count? It is a miserable joke to play on myself. Worse still to have it affect Mina well after she escaped that unthinkable fate and survived the brunt of the demon’s greed. I must fix myself. Or, despite her pleas against it, I must resign myself to the guest bedroom for the sake of her own sleep.

The nightmares will come regardless. Better that at least one of us can take some rest in a night. But this is only temporary. The nightmares themselves must be addressed. Jack has already made the suggestion of a prescription. It would be a decent stall, or at least enough to permit me some blessed hours of blankness. Yet I don’t wish to grow reliant on erasing dreams altogether when I merely wish to join everyone else in the freedom of natural fantasies. I want rest, not a chemical concussion. But what other options are left to me?

Jonathan finally closed the journal when an answer failed to come after a quarter of an hour. The volume went back to his breast and his attention went out the window. Pastoral beauty peeked out in its sequestered places along the street. Birdsong rang out even amid the murmur of human life flowing down avenues and around corners. Living blood in angled veins. He pressed a hand to his eyes and pinched at an oncoming headache.

A year. Practically a year, and still his brain ran these incessant ugly laps. What a thing of glass he was compared to how Mina and their friends stood today. Dr. John Seward and Lord Arthur Godalming had climbed over the mourning of both the girl and the man they had loved. Van Helsing, at once weathered and sturdy as an ancient tree, had returned to his myriad works in Amsterdam and, on his occasional visits, had proven solid as ever.

And Mina.

Mina, Mina.

He thanked whatever gods or angels there were who guarded dreams that she, at least, had slipped the vampire’s gifts of regurgitated fear. Even if Jonathan’s own childish languishing jolted her into action, she did not suffer any similar horrors at this late stage. Spectral visions of beloved Lucy, of old Mr. Swales with his broken neck, of Dracula’s leering death mask face, and of the beckoning coven that were nearly her Sisters under his thrall—all these wraiths had come and gone months ago for her. Now there was only her husband left to coddle.

“It has to stop,” he told the air. “It has to.”

His mind ticked back to Van Helsing. To Mina’s own peculiar drowses as the condition bitten into her continued its steady creep. Down by day, up by night. But there, at the cusp of dusk and dawn, when her mind was entirely hers…

Jonathan frowned and went to his hanging coat. He took a small pocket mirror from its interior. It was one of many trinkets and tokens their band had all come into the habit of carrying. Just in case. Even the kukri remained fixed to his hip, still whetted and blessed, just as Mina kept the revolver and its sacred bullets drowsing in her reticule. For now, he satisfied himself with finding his face in the little glass.

The former deep brown of his hair still grew in its new silver-white. Clean-shaven, the shelves of his cheeks and the shadows under the bloodshot eyes stood out. A strange contrast to what the cheekier of his fellows had once called his elfin looks. Between the fringe of his lashes and the fetching slant of his features, there had been more than one reference made from old classmates about him taking side work in the style of Boulton and Park.

But in the present, almost as he’d been during that hellish month of October, he had become an optical illusion. From one angle was the winsome youth, from another the sleepless apparition both haunted and haunting. This he did not care for one way or the other…but the eyes. The eyes were what mattered, for they might be as susceptible as Mina’s gaze had once been. Enough to open the door of her mind and welcome Van Helsing’s careful mesmeric passes to the senses she could steal from Dracula in his traveling box. Considering how dangerously pliant Jonathan had been under the trio’s influence at the castle and, worse, beneath the psychic thumb of Dracula’s pressing him under an unbreakable slumber while he preyed upon Mina, there was surely a chance the Professor could find a foothold in him too. Assuming such suggestions fell within the man’s ability.

Jonathan had not done any real reading into the subject of hypnosis as either a practical profession or an amusement. That it was effective in some form was undeniable, as Van Helsing had proved. It had been enough to help Mina along to exercising her own sensory abilities, enough to carry something of a dialogue. But that had been only conversation. There had been no attempt to instill a command or perform the equivalent of removing a tumor from her dreamscape.

He pried at an eyelid and scrubbed crust from his lashes.

Do you expect to see a welcome mat and a valet pointing to the room where all the nightmares are put together? Right this way, sir, the Count has been toiling away at the things all day so he can have them ready for you by the evening.

He could almost laugh. Instead, he made a small coughing noise, like that of an animal with a sprain. God, but he was tired. Tired of being afraid, tired of being tired, tired of leaving Mina still playing nursemaid to a husband who was man enough to slay the monster and now boy enough to cling to her for fear of the bogeyman in his head. Tired.

“At least try,” he told the glass. His reflection looked unsure. “Try.”

It was by luck that Van Helsing had been called down from the Netherlands for an invitation that was as much business as holiday in his itinerary, but it was by the sight of Mina’s fatigue-glassed eyes that Jonathan worked up the nerve to part the man from his warm patter with Jack and Art. Mina kept his arm and he hers. He was less than surprised to find the old man’s cobalt stare had a sort of prophetic shine to them.

 Just like old times. If one can call a year ‘old.’

 “I think perhaps, there is something you wish to talk of in private?”

 “There is.” Even as he said it, he would have had to be blind to miss Dr. Seward and Lord Godalming’s gazes trailing after them. There were only five people to the parlor, after all, and three of them now in their own whispering cluster. Discretion was moot. “But I suppose it matters little either way. Secrecy has never been an ally within our circle as much as out of it.”

 At that, the old man bristled.

 “Secrecy on what point?”

“Nothing terribly dire,” Jonathan began, and was not sure how to finish. Mina found his hand. Her hold was still so warm against the chill of his fingers. They gripped each other as she stepped forward.

“Important regardless,” she insisted. “It’s a matter that might have a solution in your talent with mesmerism, Professor.”

At the mention of mesmerism, there was a curious shift in the air around Van Helsing. Jonathan swore he could almost see it. A tilt from apprehension to bemusement.

“How is that, Madam Mina?”

“We wondered if it was possible for such a process to,” a snugger grip upon his cool hand, one he returned, “aid with sleep.”

“Nightmares,” Jonathan offered under his breath. In his peripheral, he caught Jack putting his tumbler down untouched while Art turned to the former, his face a question. Jack offered a tellingly concerned glance back. “The ones that have stayed with me since,” his throat worked sharply, “last year. They have not left or lessened. It seems the nearer I get to the anniversary of that first stint in Transylvania, the worse they’ve grown. I can nearly set a watch by them.”

“I am sorry to hear such, my friend. Sorrier still to say I have not great practice in matters of tailoring dreams. Still, I will make my best attempt for you, and if it should fall short, there may yet be another option. Yet this I will not lay upon the table before we exhaust what we have before us now. Come, we shall make use of the couch.”

Bidding privacy an unceremonious farewell, Jonathan let himself be led to a chaise. Art made some comment to the next member of staff to try the door, informing her the room was not to be disturbed for the rest of the hour. Jack drew the drapes shut against the sunshine while the lamps were set aglow. Mina took the spot beside him, their hands now a woven knot of fingers.

“The trouble is, of course, that there will be no knowing if we are successful here in the present. To do as you hope me to do, it would not be so simple as bringing forth talk or suggesting an action here in the present. What is desired is hypnosis that sets the mind as one sets a clock. A susceptible mind will tick-tick-tick along, hit a certain hour, a certain stimulus, and then the command, if it is instilled right, shall be committed. This alone is a most difficult task even for those with the highest talents in mesmerism, needing the hypnotist to be canny and the subject to be pliant. There are cases where such effects have only been carried halfway, following some smaller impulse or other rather than bowing totally to the order given in the trance.

“And this is only to speak of acts attempted while the subject is conscious. Even Madam Mina, drowsy as she was in her trances while seeking out the senses of the Vampire, was not asleep or merely in the somnambulist’s state. To set a mind to perform a task—to outthink or to cut short a nightmare—requires not only the hypnotist’s skill and the subject’s susceptibility, but the sleeping mind’s compliance. It is a feat I have not come across yet in news of such budding sciences. But as we make the attempt now, we must have a manner of defining whether success is had or not.”

Here he looked pointedly at both Harkers.

“I take it you still keep to that so wise habit of filling your journals?”

“We do,” Mina answered aloud as Jonathan traced the lines of the book at his chest. “Do you mean for us to record the next instance of a nightmare or of a peaceable sleep?”

 “Both,” Van Helsing said, now digging in a pocket for a notebook of his own. “And, should the attempt be successful, the third potential result. That is, the happening of a nightmare which is cut short.” All eyes turned to him as he scratched out the three possible points in his pages: Nightmare, Sleep, Nightmare Blunted. “This would only be for the sake of proof, of course. The most desired result is that Jonathan should drop into sleep, either dreamless or unvisited by grim visions. In such a case, a report of nothing is the best report to have. Failing that, but still of good portent, would be the recording of a nightmare begun, but then felled by the order I am to feed his mind by mesmeric suggestion. It will be a cue that his dreaming thoughts are to act upon, the better to subvert its unhappy impulses in sleep.”

  Jack puzzled over this with one of his more hawkish looks.

“Is that not a precarious attempt to make, Professor? It seems a rather broad spectrum to program a mind to. If you say something in the line of, ‘If your dream is a bad one, stop dreaming,’ how is the sleeping mind to differentiate between nightmares versus a dream that is simply odd? The lines between what is fearsome, what is strange, and what is fantasy are blurred enough awake. Could this not tamper with his subconscious mind on a too-wide scale as he dreams?”

“You speak right, friend John. Success in such a way would also carry risk.” Van Helsing turned to face Jonathan alone, the callused pad of his hand finding the young man’s shoulder. “It is the echo of old fears that still find you, is that right?”

“Yes. It is.” The hand not holding Mina drifted to the handle of his kukri. He thought miserably of a babe grasping his blanket. “Even now.”

“Then that is the culprit to set your mind against. The fear of those monsters long vanquished by us. I say again that there is no guarantee that my own prowess is up to the task, just as I say again there is another possibility to attempt should our own fall short. But for now, we make our try. Arthur,” he said, turning to the lord, “we should, perhaps, douse more of the lamps and bring near only one.”

All was prepared.

The mesmeric passes were made.

And made.

And made.

Almost half an hour passed before Jonathan sighed. Notably not from any lethargy brought on by a trance. Everyone with a pen made their notes of the anomaly before them. This being that for those thirty minutes, Jonathan would seem to droop and settle into the trance for a moment. Maybe two. Only to then shudder and jolt back into full awareness. So it went on and on, down and up again, until Jonathan put a hand to his eyes.

“I swear to you I’m not doing it on purpose. I can feel myself succumb in bursts, I recognize the change and lull of the process. Consciously I strive to throw myself into it. But reflex yanks me back.” He dragged his hand from his eyes, feeling as if he had been awake a hundred years. “I think it is because of how I recognize it. Even if so much of me knows the truth and trusts you, there is some rankled animal where the rest of my mind sits. A riled thing that can only recognize your attempted trance as being like his. Like theirs.”

There was no need to name the parties in question. They of the hypnotic mist and lips lacquered red in babes’ blood and slumber inflicted like a cudgel. Yet Mina’s small hand was joined by its sibling in clasping his fingers. Jonathan could not quite bring himself to meet eyes with Art and Jack. Van Helsing wore concern mingled with something like the human translation of whirring clockwork.

“If that is the case, then the alternate route is the only other I can think of within the realms of this practice.”

“What route is that?”

“One that will require permission and confidences of persons I am to visit within the month. It happens, my friends, that I was contacted by a Professor Wilson, a man who teaches psychology as his trade, but who pursues the more fantastical roads of hypnotherapy, clairvoyance, and yet more outré psychic happenings as his passion. I have received summons from him before—last year, when we were all so deep in our dire works—and had to rebuff him outright. Now he sends for me again most ardently, to witness the work of an adept he has found in the field of mesmerism. Should his adulation be based even in a fraction of truth, this party might be able to lend some aid. If only because she seems to have mastered a form of hypnosis wholly of her own making when compared to what professionals and skeptics alike call the ‘standard’ of the process.”

“She? Wait,” Jack turned fully to him, now balanced between wonder and disappointment, “you do not refer to Miss Penclosa?”

“I do. You have reason to doubt the lady’s credentials, my friend?”

“I would not know her one way or the other, but I know Professor Wilson has grown no small reputation amid those who work in such circles as ours, and even those who neighbor it. There is not a single sanitorium, clinic, or traveling physician who has not at some point received some letter from the man, always to the tune of having some fresh discovery to tout that reveals itself as no more than a trifle or the poor man’s falling for a charlatan.” He looked up as Art hummed.

“Is this the same Wilson you say spent a month trying to find documented cases with a semblance to that Poe story? The one with the hypnotized dead man?”

“The same. Though I will grant him credit enough to say even he admitted it was a mere curiosity. Even so, his history of so-called proof does not bode well for Miss Penclosa’s supposed talents. I received the same summons, Professor, likely only for nearness’ sake, and duly binned it.”

Jonathan caught the prophetic gleam in the old man’s eyes again. The specter of a smile carved new wrinkles around them.

“And when did you receive your letter, friend John?”

“Two months ago. Why?”

“Because mine was received only last month. And that with documented sessions of remarkable new feats that were performed on a fellow professor who once counted himself a skeptic. While that subject has since quit himself of the sessions, Miss Penclosa appears to be able to reproduce similar examples upon total strangers in most routine fashion. That Wilson’s latest message is saturated with all the high joy of a child receiving an entire toy shop on Christmas morning suggests that there is at least some observable truth in the results as opposed to past dull findings.”

Van Helsing turned again to the Harkers, his gaze soft as gauze.

“For honesty’s sake, I will say there is, obviously, a chance that even if this Miss Penclosa is so very talented, it is possible she may not penetrate this new reflex of the mind that has grown to lash out at such powers. It is a good reflex to have in ordinary circumstances, I should think! But if you do wish to make a last try with the opportunities of hypnotism before turning still elsewhere, it cannot do harm to try with this seeming prodigy. At worst, she will fail as I have. At best, she might make a dent in the echo of old horrors. If you wish to come with me to Professor’s Wilson’s demonstration to endure a session with her, I shall be making my arrangements to visit in a week’s time. We can travel together.”

Mina looked to Jonathan and Jonathan to her. As had been the case before, and even more the case after the hell of last year’s trials, he felt sure he sensed something of Mina’s presence falling through his eyes and over his soul. It did so like a balm. Even if there were no words shared in such gazes, they never lacked for the delivery of a message. No more than she ever failed to grasp whatever he wished to say in his own glances. It was a joke between them which was really not a joke: that they could carry whole conversations with their eyes alone. A handy pastime for lighter moments and a relief in instances where no word could meet the task, either in speech or shorthand.

And so they looked. They spoke. They turned to Van Helsing.

“Might we have a day or so to think on it, Professor?” Mina asked. “If we joined you there would be matters to attend to for work and home first.”

“So long as you are decided before the week is out, all will be well. This Wilson lives in a small town not far outside Exeter and there shall be time enough to write and ask if I might introduce friends of mine to the talented lady in question.” He held up a hand before there could be a protest. “I shall make no mention of your particular situation, of course. Though I trust this Wilson enough to believe he has some truer proof than any he peddled before—he would not have sent so far for me otherwise, or been twice over so giddy in this letter than his last, which lacked any mention of Miss Penclosa—I must trust good John and Arthur when they say he is prolific in hunting attention. Even in his few messages to me, I can read he is too eager for his name in print.

“All this is to say, Miss Penclosa is the point of any visit from you, not her host’s studies. To her you bring your troubles, if she is seeming of good character, and she I will visit with you for the week I have set aside for the visit. It is to you both that the choice falls to, if you seek to ask her aid. Should she not be as we hope, or should this Wilson be too much the gnat at your side, wishing to make Jonathan a subject more than a patient, then I will make my whole apologies and seek for better avenues with you.”

 All this the Harkers took home to mull.

It was mulled over dinner, over books, over bath, over bed.

Even now, with Peter Hawkins’ dear Mrs. Mary Bentley still on staff, the habits of sparse living still locked them into the thin-pocketed efficiency of childhood and adolescence. They turned down their own covers and drew their own baths and had to be shooed out of the kitchen whenever mealtime demanded they make and wash the dishes themselves as they’d always done.

“I cannot tell which of you is worse,” Mary would chide them both. “You, Mrs. Harker, for trying to put a lady out of her situation, trying to balance a whole house on top of your work with that hammering typewriter. Or you, Mr. Harker! You, who’ve been dear Mr. Hawkins’ shadow and mine since you were scarcely out of the playground, studying up on law books and housework as if you meant to be your own husband and wife. I shall go positively spare with you two.”

As it stood, Mary had duly banished the Harkers from tidying anything but the master bedroom, its adjoining toilet, and their shared study, if only for courtesy’s sake. The kitchen remained an uneven battleground in which Jonathan and Mina might get away with preparing a small bite or a picnic, but they would ultimately be sent scattering away like cats otherwise. Tonight they’d made off like thieves with a tea service they had arranged themselves whilst Mary was distracted by a load of linen. Having lost the coin toss, Jonathan was the one to risk leaving the lady her own cup and a plate of biscuits waiting at the door while her back was turned.

“It’s only fair,” Mina insisted over her cup as Mary made her expected noises of disgruntled noises of discovery downstairs, muffled only briefly by the likewise inevitable sip and chew. “You are the one with the cat’s feet, darling.”

“Good enough for castle walls, cliff faces, and properties in Piccadilly.” He smiled as he said it and it almost made the words into a joke. That his hand drifted to his hip as he said them, and that he felt a brief flutter of anxiety until he remembered taking it off to don his nightclothes, dented the mirth.

Mina set her cup aside and went to him by the window. Here she joined him in another nightly ritual; judging the sill. To Mary’s bafflement and surprised delight, the Harkers had insisted on setting up box gardens to try their hand at aiding the kitchen and the flora. The chief crops being carefully tended garlic blossoms and certain wild roses. The latter were due to be handsome bouquets once in season, while half the blossoms of the former were harvested too soon—their petals graced the bedroom windows alongside dashes of the rose. A strange potpourri, and stranger still to use as a ward against potential invaders.

For anyone else, at least.

Jonathan set his cup gingerly down on the sill without disturbing the floral border and used both hands to overlap Mina’s own. She had folded her arms about his middle and the embrace left her chin just at the level of his shoulder if she propped herself on tiptoe. They simply stood there a while, holding and being held. After some minutes of this, Mina finally breathed against his back:

“It’s just a matter of your mind catching up, I think.”

“Mm?”

“Most of you knows the objective facts. Dracula happened. Dracula was put down. You and Quincey made dust of him.”

“Mm.”

“But Dracula did not strike any of us in the way he did with you. Not even Lucy. Not even me.”

His hands tightened over hers just short of clamping. They might have trembled.

“He did worse—,”

“No. He only did to me in person what he intended his Brides to do to you on his behalf. You were meant for the same fate, Jonathan. You were meant to be taken first. Before Lucy, before me, before anyone else who crossed his path by chance rather than machination. If such a fiend as him had one virtue, it was that he could be an admirable planner. And if he had but one truly human flaw, it was that he did a terrible and craven job of improvisation. It took only the smallest pinholes in his plot to dismantle the whole thing. The very smallest was that he preyed on me with his swap of blood, seeking some trite trophy and a spy who wound up spying on him in turn. But the largest, the very worst thing he could have done, was make Jonathan Harker his prisoner.”

Jonathan made a hoarse noise that wanted to be a sigh or a laugh but could manage neither. He turned in her arms so that she had to look him in the eye as she spoke. The bloodshot glass of them seemed to dare her to paint him as a hero rather than the fool whose job was to open the door for the monster in the first place.

Said self-loathing found no ally in her gaze now any more than it had in the year before. This was old ground and Mina knew the terrain better than any of his demons did. Gratitude and guilt swam in his throat.

“I know what haunts you,” she pressed on, “because it is the same thing that haunts me. ‘What else could I have done? Why was I not canny or quick or strong enough to do it?’ The answer to both, the answer that helped dislodge so much of my own poison dreams, was Dracula. A centuries-old monster holding all the cards, all the secrets, all the little tells and aids that might have unmade him sooner. He was superstition itself, hiding behind the guise of declaring his reality impossible. Even when you had the spade in your hand, ready to end him on instinct well before you knew what damage it could truly do, he had a trick to play in his freezing basilisk gaze. God knows poor Renfield suffered under its power. Between this and the swarm of his men coming to take the boxes—and even the elements which conspired to slam shut all sane exits from the fortress—you should have been doomed.

“You should have been left trapped in that stone box with his thirsty housemates, waiting on death at dusk and undeath forever after. That was his plan. That was what should have sealed his victory. Yet you made it out, darling. You and your journal and all the blessed knowledge that helped us draw the noose about him before he could swallow England itself and who knows how much more of the world from there. Don’t you see it?” Her hands had moved up to the cool sides of his face, trapping it in the small heat of her palms. “Any other man sent in your place, he would have been dead or worse and Dracula would have carried on unimpeded. He was always going to inflict himself on the people beyond his mountains. But you ruined it for him. That first vital flaw. And his last, with your steel in his throat.”

Her hands pulled him down until his lips were level with hers.

“You did not cause his evil. You and Quincey put it to an end. He cannot do anything more to you, to me, to anyone else. And I will tell you so a thousand times more until the spiteful traitor of your imagination gives up on spinning nightmares that insist otherwise. Alright?”

In answer, he pressed his mouth into the place it always fit upon hers.

In bed, he fought sleep until he couldn’t.

In the latest hours of night, he woke to his screams being stifled against Mina’s breast, her hands holding and stroking in their accustomed routes on his head and back, hushing and murmuring the memorized coos that always fished him shaking and sweating from the pit of his mind.

In the earliest hours of morning, when she had drifted thinly back into sleep, he took himself to the study to fall into his own narrow wisp of slumber. Frail but bottomless hours too deep to produce a dream. These were all he could rely on for rest.

In daylight, he and she called upon Van Helsing who sent his letter to Prof. Wilson the same day.

 JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL

 18 April— All’s been arranged.

Hawkins and Harker will do without me from the 27th of April to the 10th of May. Even if Miss Penclosa cannot make the progress we hope for, Mina and I shall at least have leave to take in some quieter respite. Tuppeton sounds like one of those blessed towns on the edge between the congested bustle of true a city and the idyllic softness of a village. It is stately enough to produce a potent university, and that usually comes with an array of good distractions for students and faculty alike. I hope there are at least fine views to collect. Mina talks of seeking out a photographer’s shop and taking home a camera of our own for a souvenir. It's a nice thought and a genuine one, though my mind is addled enough that I think I can scent an underlying motive.

She wishes to steer me back into the cheer that was my wont before the whole mess. I’m certain she misses the Jonathan Harker who could fall in love with a vista for hours as surely as he’d be enthralled by the stories on a stage. He still exists, I think, but he is so much diminished under the weight of this shock-haired usurper that he’s smothered whenever Mina or a friend is not there to look for him. I want so badly for him to take back the throne from me even when I am alone.

God, let him have his life again. His days and his nights of peace. Let me fall asleep and never wake again, so that he can give joy and be joyous without so much creaking effort. I am still the frightened and frightening Thing that crawled out of the castle and hunted a man-shaped monster like a rabid hound. But even with my task fulfilled, Jonathan Harker has not come home, has not awoken, and so I am left to pantomime him in such a shabby manner.    

Ten days, ten days. That is all that’s left until we see if Mina has longer to wait for the husband she deserves. It feels so long.

Now she calls and it is time to leave you. Art is taking us all upon a theatre spree for all the good shows we can find before the week is out. There will even be an illusionist or two in the mix.

Perhaps if they impress enough, I will dream them into the next nightmare and all the fiends within can disappear into their hat.

 19 April— Nightmares again. As I only pretended to predict, they were given a new tint by the aftermath of last night’s visit to the stage. It featured one of the illusionists; pardon, a magician. He had some fairly stunning acts to do with vanishing assistants and volunteers, making impossible items appear in impossible places and the like. For the larger part of the show, we found ourselves most grateful to have a box, courtesy of Art. Mina and I have suffered a performance too many that was cramped by hecklers and snorers in adjoining seats.

And yet I might have been grateful for a snide skeptic nattering about how it was all a hoax when it came time for the hypnotism act. I should not have been as surprised, and certainly not as anxious, when I saw the performance. The poster outside was one of those garish sorts with pinwheel eyes and floundering hands that parody the far more mundane mesmeric passes employed in less theatric backdrops. Still, even knowing what I myself am planning to request in a week’s time, even believing that it was likely to all be staged, I felt a sickly tightness in my chest and ice turned over in my stomach.

Though I flatter myself that I gave nothing away to the others, Mina kept trying to catch my eye throughout, as though she could hear my thoughts pacing their frantic circles. I only met her gaze when the act took its turn from the humorous to the frightful.

The first subject, a stout man near the front, was the comic setup. Chosen because, as the magician insisted, he had read the man enough to know he was a skeptic. Perhaps even impenetrable to hypnotic suggestion! Would he like the chance to throw a sour note in the performance by being proof positive of the man being a shameless fraud? Yes? Then do come up, sir, and if he fails, the man shall have his refund for the trouble.

The stout man was put under a trance. We saw his face go from set in its aggression and smugness to a laxness deeper than mere boredom. The magician set him up with the command:

“What will you do if I ask something of you now?”

“Anything,” said the stout man.

“Do you know any songs? We are lacking for music here.”

The stout man’s first response was a nursery rhyme. He was ordered to sing it with gusto, and he did. Laughter from the audience. The magician silenced him.

“But that is too simple. Any man can sing, however poorly. Is there something you would not admit to the world for love or money, my friend?”

“There is.”

“Whisper it to me.”

The stout man whispered. The magician nodded, smiling.

“Very well. In a moment, I shall wake you from the trance. You will come to your senses assuming all you did was nod off out of boredom at my antics and rightly demand your refund once the show is up. You will return to your seat to wait out the show, baffled, again rightly, that all these fools in the audience would swallow this drivel when you just proved me a fraud. But then!” A look from him to the audience, conspirators all of us. “When you hear me say the word, ‘arachnid,’ you shall jolt up from your seat and shout out the secret at full volume. Hopefully with a better pitch than you butchered the poor Muffin Man with. Now, all of you,” addressing the audience again, “you are my assistants in this! Not a word or wink to give it away! I am trusting you!”

And so the stout man was roused from the trance and no one gave it away.

Then came the next half. One in which he paraded out his assistant, a girl who might have been young enough to be his daughter, shimmering and flouncing in her costume.

“Now,” said the magician, “my dear Angela here has been my accomplice in nigh every act you have seen on this stage. After this one, I fear there is a very fair chance she will quit me on the spot and leave me to slave over the finale solo.” Here he threw a simpering look down at Angela, “Oh, do say you won’t leave me, dear. You know that gawking lot out there in the rows frighten me terribly when I’m up here alone.”

“I shall have to think about it,” said Angela. “It all depends on what trick you mean to pull.”

“A dastardly one, I’m afraid. Quite insidious. But for a good cause!” After another minute or so of such patter, Angela inevitably consented to the hypnosis. Once under the trance, the magician turned again to conspire with we onlookers. “Now comes a secret about the fair maiden for you, ladies and gentlemen, one that I am certain a good deal of you poor girls can claim ownership of yourselves. Not a small amount of the fellows either. Miss Angela has quite a monstrous fear…” Here the magician lifted his hat off his head. There were a number of squeals, shrieks, and choked curses in the audience as something huge and spindly clambered down over his forehead. “…of spiders.”

The magician scooped the crawling thing off his face, frowned, then shook his hat over his open hand until another spider fell out. A third. A fourth. His whole sleeve was moving with the creatures.

“Ah, I see a few of you turning colors out there. There’s one poor gent getting fanned by his wife in the back row, I believe. But fear not! These little friends of mine are quite tame. There are precious few spiders whose bite can do the human body real damage. And yet, like so many of you, poor Angela cannot bear the sight of them!”

This he said as he dropped the first of the spiders upon her half-bare shoulder.

“If she sees so much as a bundle of thread on the ground, she takes off running, lest it get up and crawl after her.”

Every spider was delivered from him to her. All the while Angela stood in place, staring vacantly as they crept along her arms, her neck, her face, her hair.

“Which is a shame. Spiders are vital to keeping the world around us free of worse pests. Frogs can hardly handle them all. We owe our very air to the creatures for trimming the numbers of flies and gnats and bloodsuckers. I do wish Angela would see the value in them and, more importantly, see firsthand how harmless they are to her person. Let us see if she will. In three, two, one…awake!”

Angela woke. Angela saw. Angela screamed.

This she did with such convincing terror that her pitch struck a vein of memory in me just as sharply as it did in Mina. It was of a very particular key, that shrieking. The sound of horrid realization piercing the ear and the heart with its unwanted knowledge. Here I finally met Mina’s gaze as our hands locked hard within the other. Again, conversation was had without a word.

Did she want to go? Did I want to go? Was she alright? Was I?

Yes and yes, no and no.

But we were both of us nailed down for our friends’ sake. Art would have paled to know our reaction to the show while Jack and Van Helsing would have many a padded word to spare as we were herded out like skittish toddlers. No, we sat and we smiled and both quite missed whatever it was the stout man wound up bellowing once the magician said his magic word buried in a sentence along the lines of, “You see how she squawks and flails? All this over an innocent introduction to the arachnid family.”

Whatever the stout man stood up and shouted was half-lost in Angela’s diminishing screams as she ran off stage and the hysteric laughter of the audience, goosed as they were into the respite of humor to wash away the eight-legged shock. Angela did come out to bow with him. There was no telling whether she was merely a fine actress or simply boxed in by circumstance, but she smiled and bowed easily enough. I hope it was an act.

But whether it was true or not, the whole scene followed me to bed.

I will not pour every detail here. Some cannot be remembered. Many I simply would rather not. But the whole of it occurred back in Castle Dracula. The castle was on a stage and the Count had me march out to sit across from him at his carved table. Magician and assistant.

“When I say write, you will write your letters with my lies. Write.” I did.

“When I say work, you will clear my way to England. Work.” I did.

“When I say bleed, you will provide my draught. Bleed.” I did.

And, even with his teeth sunk in my throat, I heard him speak again:

“When I say sleep, you will let me and mine play as we like. Sleep.”

The dream ended with my sleeping myself awake, the sound of a laughing audience in my ears. They sounded like the tinkling of glass. Hands far colder than my own swarmed and crawled on me like spiders. Somewhere, Mina screamed.

And then I was in bed.

Rather, on the armchair I had tried for my bed in the study. By pure luck it was not a wretched enough dream to end with my crying aloud. Otherwise, Mina or Mary would have been through the door and at my side, playing witness to my latest miserable display. Though misery is still very much present without witnesses. I hate to slink away from Mina’s side, but I cannot win even a scrap of rest without fatiguing myself half-dead, and even then I damage her sleep each night with my own failure. But I repeat myself.

I write this here only to rid myself of a feeling of another sort of repetition. A repeat sensation or seeming portent; the same which haunted me in the prelude to my arriving in Transylvania. My dreams were bruised with fear well before Dracula had me in hand. Flickers of demons and spirits that whirled and dragged me on. Similar phantasms shadowed me as I made my escape from the castle. None were vampires, strange enough, but those elder others who Dracula must have taken scraps from in the unhallowed hollow of the Scholomance.

There was something of that alien quality to this latest dream too. Something about the change in Dracula’s eyes, about the odd alteration of castle to stage to…I don’t know. If not a stage, then some manner of diorama? A dollhouse? Something one step removed from living theatre. Even as those cold familiar hands scrabbled on me at the end, I knew they were nothing compared to the phantom grip that held me by the bones and brain. The one that nodded and walked me along, jumping the vampire’s hoops. If he was that vampire. If any of them were. Their eyes were not red, I know. Such an odd thing to strike me in the midst of all that surrounded it. Why should it matter what tint their eyes were? Ruby or emerald, wine or absinthe. Yet this gnaws at me too and I can’t tell why.

The whole mess comes from the stain of the show and the kneejerk worry of the visit to come. All I have on my mind is ‘What if it does not work? What if it goes awry? What if, what if?’ My thoughts gnaw themselves to shreds. Enough.

It will work or it won’t.

That is all there is.

Good-night.

 The Tuppeton Journal, 29 April

BANK ROBBER TO BE CAUGHT GREEN-HANDED?

 As spring rolls on and students hunker into their studies, all should be at its most sedate in our snug corner of Devon. But as of the night prior, it seems Tuppeton has reason to rise off its laurels and be on alert. This morning, the 29th of April, it was discovered that our own Bank of England had an unexpected visitor or visitors in the night. The bank’s groundskeeper, a Mr. Franklin Worth, spotted the signs first, though he tells our reporter that he first mistook it for mere animal vandalism.

“Tell the truth,” declared Worth, “I had a minute where I was madder than anything, seeing the windows like that. The sills had all just gotten a fresh coat of evergreen paint only the other day. Still damp and setting, not to be touched. My first thought was that I was looking at the work of some blasted cat or nightbird perching on the sill and ruining the job. Only when I got up close, I recognized the chips and grooves of someone working at the wood with a chisel.”

It was then that Worth contacted the bank manager who called upon the authorities. An inspection has since been made of the scene and an investigation is underway to trace the route of the suspected person or persons involved with the attempted break-in. Citizens are advised to be on watch for any suspicious activity in their area, to keep all lower windows and doors locked, and to please pass on to the police whatever applicable information they may have in the way of narrowing the search.  

  II

  Prof. Wilson’s home was a charming brownstone box set back in a frame of trees all frothing with blossoms. These boughs were only slightly more crowded than the interior of the building. From the parlor on, there were many a scholarly shoulder and erudite elbow to dodge as, much to the host’s delight, his discovery’s legitimate successes had apparently drawn enough of a crowd to merit his second party within a month’s time.

“Though I do regret to say my initial partner in the examination of Miss Penclosa’s skill has, ah, found himself busy with other affairs,” Wilson could be heard lamenting at odd corners around the throng. “Even so, quite excellent progress has been made in our sessions. Ah, if only we had started sooner! My wife has been hiding a positive wonder under my nose all these years.”

From her own corners, Mrs. Wilson could be heard sighing in turn, “You know, when I hear other wives lament about how their husbands are only interested in other women, it’s usually something predictable. ‘Oh, he’s got a mistress! Oh, he’s sniffing after some well-to-do daughter! Oh, he’s eyeing my best friend!’ While I can at least somewhat identify with the latter, how am I to take this particular turn? ‘Well, he has not started an affair with her, but if he could run away and elope with the very concept of her mesmeric ability, he would be on the first train out of Devon.’ What am I to do with that?”

There was lilting laughter in answer to this and a general jostling murmur packing the space overall. Whoever Miss Penclosa was, wherever she was in the chattering sea, there was no guessing for Van Helsing or the Harkers. Her apparent throne-to-be, an overstuffed armchair standing apart from the couches, was currently vacant and aimed at by a harried photographer’s daguerreotype camera. The fellow was trying his best to focus the lens under the focusing cloth while also trying to protect his box of plates from tromping guests. It was such a packed scene that one stocky visitor gnawing a cigar nearly bowled the tripod over with a wave of his hand; a lecturer’s gesture that had the photographer turn white and green by turns as he rescued his device.

In the face of all this, Van Helsing turned an apologetic look to the couple.

“I had not realized Wilson meant to pack a country of academics under his roof. A few guests, he said in his letter, not a circus. If you should like to make good your escape, I can perhaps have him open the door to you another day, and say to him you are not yet—,”

“Professor Van Helsing!” Prof. Wilson seemed to manifest all at once from the herd, both hands trapping Van Helsing’s in his own to shake. “I recognize you from…well, there are very few published works of note I do not recognize you from. Oh, it is an absolute honor to have you here, my friend. And are these the guests you spoke of?”

He had asked the question before he looked fully at the Harkers, both of whom had taken a slight retreating step away. Mina, Jonathan saw, was perused only with an instant’s interest before being dismissed. But the man’s gaze froze and somehow stuttered upon looking at him. It was a reaction Jonathan had grown accustomed to upon that final return to England. Perhaps one time out of three, he would find himself being gawped at rather than simply seen or, in certain blushing cases, ogled. This one-in-three phenomenon was almost always a result of his own mistake in failing to school his demeanor.

A failing that always came when he seemed to recognize something of a deriding edge in any glance in his wife’s direction, as was the habit he saw mirrored anyplace where the fairer sex dared to loiter where men with titles of education milled.

A failing that likewise always guided his hand to rest on the kukri’s handle.

Yet Mina gripped his other hand and anchored him back. Jonathan duly reset his face into a more cordial mask and turned his pinching of the blade’s handle into a lax gesture. It did a little to return some pallor to the gawking professor’s face.

“They are my friends, yes,” Van Helsing interposed, stepping forward and seeming to half-herd Wilson back into the clutter of people. “They have some passing interest in these so-intriguing fields of the natural and the more-than-natural sciences. Their holiday overlapped handily with my visit and so here we are. But I am a greater glutton for introduction. Please, do show me to what others there are in our learned fields. I am thinking I recognize Professor Gregg, the great ethnologist, orating in the next room…”

Within a heartbeat, the Harkers were left to their devices as their friend tossed a look of mingled apology and desperation back over his shoulder.

En sotto voce, Mina murmured, “‘Run while you can, go on without me!’”

“He is truly a man of sacrifice. Let us make our escape toward the table.”

For the host had indeed opted for a table rather than subjecting servants to the obstacles of winnowing through the rooms with over-heaped platters. Jonathan’s reach was longer and so he filched a suitable sustenance of canapés and two full flutes for them both while Mina led the way to an unburdened divan. They tucked themselves in at the far end to nibble and sip and try not to catch the other checking the time. Both failed and this jabbed a little laugh from them.

“It is bit much, isn’t it?” Mina smiled over an expensive and dainty offering that lasted only a bite and a half.

“I foresee us having quite a wait before the party thins. If even a quarter of these people are here for Miss Penclosa to put on a show, we may as well be back in the theater for them all to gape in comfort. I can’t even guess which of these ladies might be her. You would think she would have the run of the room rather than Wilson.” Jonathan frowned at his flute. “He speaks so much of his discovery when the discovery is someone else’s talent. You’d think he personally excavated her out of some mystic vault on expedition.”

“For courtesy’s sake, we’ll say he’s just excited at having living evidence for his pursuits.” Mina regarded him from under her lashes, her hand finding his once again. “We are neither of us strangers to the joy of having ourselves proven right on outlandish realities, after all.”

“True. I don’t mean to throw stones. Only we also have our fair history with dodging the risks of spectacle. Whether done in earnest or not, I’d rather not approach this Penclosa with the toll of being made into an exhibition.”

“Of course not. We can wait until all’s clear. Though, truth be told, I’d rather we had a less congested space to do the waiting.” Jonathan leaned in as she dropped her voice to a whisper of illicit intent. “I smuggled in two books.”

Jonathan feigned a gasp.

“Anthology for me, one of the new world guide books for you. Found it at the station when your back was turned.”

“Mrs. Harker, the hedonism of it all. I am aghast.”

“We could be especially daring and read it in full view of the assembly, Mr. Harker. But I would just as soon be a coward and take our rudeness outdoors. It really is too fine a day to burn cramped inside.”

This change in mind, the Harkers signed to Van Helsing from across the room and made their exit to the rear yard. It was a handsome view and mercifully lacking for fellow escapees, not counting the woman reclining in a floral alcove set in the garden. Jonathan might have mistaken her for a true sculpture for how well and still she was placed against the arch of trained vines. A lady tipping near the midpoint of life, she sat with the subtle but knowing posture of wise women of myth. An oracle or a sage who had swapped her robes for a swaddling high-buttoned ensemble of faded green. There was a washed-out fragility in her look that likewise brought old dressmaker models and abandoned toys to mind, as though she were a cracked figure left too long in the whitening sun.

It was all a canvas to serve the shock of her eyes.

Though they remained half-closed, the great size, the sharp slant, and the surprise of their misty jade stood out with all the power of a single stained glass window set in an empty house.

That she did not look up, and that her chestnut brows were knitted in some far-off concentration, suggested she had either not noticed their intrusion on her solitude or else she had no attention to spare for the couple if she did. The Harkers took a stone bench for themselves on the other end of the yard and fell to their pages. Engrossed as both were, it was still a short matter of time before their tongues fell loose as was their constant custom at home or abroad.

Mina spoke of the ghosts and mysteries scrawled into being, Jonathan gushed over foreign panoramas made vivid with their painted reproductions. They spoke of where they wished to go in Tuppeton once the attempt with Penclosa was made, what sights there were to see, what activities to try. Again, the novelty of their own camera was brought up. The topic turned on its ear to what a boon a photographer would be to Hawkins and Harker, having pictures present with whatever file might be laid before a client on this or that estate. This slipped into talk of the latest models that Remington had put out, trying to lure her in through the shop windows in Exeter.

Talk of which turned another corner into news she had been sitting on a while, waiting until a more buoyant moment to talk about it.

What news was that? He was as buoyant as he was likely to be for the day.

She had had her work accepted! Twice! True, it was only a little cozy interview with a train engineer for a local paper here, and a smaller ghost story for one of the penny dreadfuls there, but still!

He mirrored her thrill and the thrill was reverberated back by her, and so the better part of an hour was spent in alternately hearing the details pour from her in a jubilant flood or, for his part, dropping a goading comment or query to make the deluge to continue. The sight and sound of her delight was worth a ticket price in his opinion and he felt no need to hinder himself from taking advantage of her glee to help himself to her arm to make them lean against each other and the sturdy fence at their back. Had there been space enough on the bench, he might even have tried his luck at wheedling her to mimic a pose from home with his head in her lap and her voice overhead. Lacking the opportunity, he settled for bending himself enough to rest his chin against her thick crown of hair.

In this way he did not quite slip into the trap of sleep, but permitted his eyes and mind to rest against her and the balmy day.

“See that, Daniels? Picture proof of my point. This modern age has got girls so backwards they can’t bring themselves to realize when their prattle isn’t wanted. Have to jaw a man’s ear off and the rest of him into the grave before they can catch on. You can hardly think for all the squawking that goes on in streets and parlors these days. This New Woman twaddle has gone and broken the sensible lock that keeps a woman’s gossip shut in with her tea parties and sewing circles. Soon they’ll come marching into campuses, Diogenes in a girdle, trying to talk over the greybeards mid-lesson. Wretched state we’re coming to, I tell you.”

Jonathan Harker’s eyes opened like slow shutters.

Though he felt both of Mina’s hands fly to his, neither their grip nor their warmth were enough to keep him from standing.

“Jonathan. It’s alright.”

“It isn’t.”

His words went to her, but his line of sight remained unblinking and unmoved from the two men who had come out with their cigars. The one who had spoken gave him an appraising look from under a bushy duo of iron brows while Daniels pretended to adjust his spectacles. Jonathan recognized him as the one who had nearly swatted the camera over indoors. He had moved to a new cigar since then. He raised a slate brow at him.

“Is there some issue, young man?”

“There is, I’m afraid. The severity depends on whether your affront was meant toward women as a whole, or if you intended to be overheard by, and explicitly insult, my wife.”

“Hardly an insult, young man.” His cigar pointed idly at the flax of Jonathan’s hair. “Assuming you are a young man. You’ve got a face like the greenest upstart in a class, but a mop whiter than my own teachers. I must assume youth for your ignorance or addled hearing on your part. No, there was no insult. Merely a statement of fact for our times. A woman’s voice is meant for women’s ears or a music hall if she’s got a good tune in her throat. That’s how it was in a better time. I know, for I was there to enjoy it. I cannot speak for you or whatever nonsense your girl’s been putting you to sleep with, but that is the simple truth.”

Jonathan shared a look with Mina—

We may have to leave early after all. I apologize in advance if this trip was for nothing.

—and gave her hands a squeeze.

Then he was closing the distance between himself and his fellow conversationalist. He did not sprint or stalk. It was an almost leisurely pace. Yet it was leaden in a way that, this time, was not a matter of accident. In the corner of his eye, he saw Daniels abruptly retreat back indoors. The speaker stood his ground. If half a pace nearer to the door. Perhaps two. This close, he could now see the long accessory at Jonathan’s hip.

“Do forgive me, sir,” Jonathan hummed. “It is most rude to carry on our chat at such a distance.”

“Ah, you are a young buck after all. You truly think a discussion can be won with a puffed chest and a weapon you cannot even brandish without consequence.”

“What weapon, sir? This is but my letter opener and we are only having a conversation. A debate, even. I have evidence for my own side, you know. I have lived it. The greatest bliss of my life came from the Mother Superior who saw over my wedding and from every day and night that I’ve been lucky enough to hear my wife’s voice. I see you wear a wedding band, sir, and must wonder whether you have a wife or a mute housekeeper you’ve chained to your side with an empty act of matrimony. I must also wonder if she is privy to your insights regarding her and her like. Or worse, does she talk, sir? Does she read words and say them in proximity to your poor tender ears? My deepest condolences if so.”

Jonathan would have closed the distance already had the other man not retreated up to the door and made a pretense of merely leaning near its knob.

“She has her business as I have mine. It’s the drift of husbands and wives as they get on. You cannot know it yet, for you’ve not a speck of tarnish on your own rings, but the hour of Romeo and Juliet rots fast to Macbeth and his Lady before you know it. The moment you face a real trial and see each other in all your ugly colors—oh, yes, there’s ugliness aplenty under even the bonniest faces, do count on it—the truth starts rusting all the shine off. You…”

But the last of the man’s words dried at the sight of Jonathan’s smile. Though Jonathan could not see it, he felt the familiar shape of it. He knew it as keenly as the fear in Daniels’ face as he scuttled back inside. That fear had been with him up in the snow of Transylvania as he closed in upon the wagon and its cargo in the earth-box. The smile had been with him far earlier, when they had first gotten word that the Count’s ship changed course to flee. He’d read Dr. Seward’s own words on that instant and puzzled at them once before.

The dark bitter smile of one who is without hope.

He hadn’t known he was smiling then. No more than he had properly registered the retreating terror of the men Dracula had ordered to convey him back to the castle. All he had known in the moment was that there was an evil in existence and that he wanted it gone. So it was now, albeit with more cognizance in play. He knew the awful smile was on him again just as the grotesque radiation that had chased a flock of men away was hanging about him.

“You would not know a trial if it slapped you in the face with a court summons,” he heard himself say. “I suspect you know even less of the point to a marriage. Whatever self-gratifying lies you choke on, a marriage is meant for partnership. For love. Not a business deal or a trap to have some warm body filling out the bed and keeping the house tidy while you turn around and complain about the very person you chose to bind yourself to. Even so, I know the perfect woman does exist for you and your wise taste. To meet her, go to any dress shop on the street, pick out a mannequin, and you shall have the ideal mistress ever after.”

“Jonathan.”

Mina’s hand was on his arm. Jonathan turned to her. In the same instant, the man with the cigar tapped the neglected ash off its end and sidled hastily inside where he nearly collided with Daniels and two other onlookers crowded at the door’s ornate window. Through the gap there was some muttering in a worried tone and more muttering in a lilt that was curiosity pretending to be worry, then the door was shut. Jonathan swallowed a sigh and felt a belated rush of heat come to his face.

“Well. I do believe I’ve soured things quite thoroughly.”

“You don’t know that.” Her free palm floated up to his cheek. “Though you did worry me. You weren’t really about to come to blows over so petty a thing, I know. But why..?” She indicated the whole of the last few minutes with her eyes alone. In answer, Jonathan let something of fire and ice turn over in his own look. He boxed both her hands in his own, siphoning out their warmth as she gripped their cold.

“We did not risk Hell itself and battle its horrors just for mundane villains to get their unctuous way because it would be impolite to counter their rudeness with barbs rather than a turned cheek. I do not doubt that I survived as much as I did by dancing on eggshells at the start, nor do I regret the opportunity it gave me. But that was merely my risk then. More, by doing the ‘proper thing’ and leaving you wholly sealed off from our affairs and vice versa, you were left alone in the dark when—those nights when…”

“I know. We have gone over that.”

“Yes. But what all has been learned from it? Circumstances made it prudent for us to condense ourselves to be the least obtrusive, most benign caricatures of ourselves all our lives. Childhoods of charity and scraps and always bowing to what we were told was proper. Rules we did not dare break for fear of being burdensome. Rules that nearly destroyed us when powers that reigned outside those civilized borders used them as a noose. We would not have succeeded in the end if we had sat and waited and nodded our heads to what was proper start to finish. So it is even within these softer aggravations. Even if it wasn’t? I am not about to let any wretch, however great or small, take their venomous shots at you while I sit by.”

At this, Mina could not withhold her own small sigh. No more than she could resist resting her brow against his front.

“Ever my knight.”

He spoke down into her hair.

“You were mine first. And I admit you remain the cannier of us two cavaliers. I don’t foresee a warm welcome once the man goes flying to Wilson’s ear.”

“We aren’t here for Wilson. We might still approach Penclosa, whoever she is. And Van Helsing will surely take your side if it comes to pointing fingers. In any case, Miss Penclosa is the star of the show. It would be quite something if he suffered a supposed friend like that to insult her sex while coming to see her work.”

Jonathan almost replied, but a voice cut across the garden in a mellow tone.

“Supposing he was not already a skeptic of her, dear. The only members of an audience who are more adamant onlookers than admirers are hecklers.”

Both Harkers jumped as if pricked and whirled to spot the woman still sitting in her flowering alcove. Whatever musing concentration she had been steeped in was thoroughly broken, with all the light and life of her now consolidated in the great gems of her eyes. Jonathan found he could not avoid comparing them to that of some hungry housecat spotting a plump mouse. Nor could he avoid how wholly that gaze seemed to be latched onto him. He worried for a moment that he might have tripped himself and Mina into the verbal pit of a sermon. Sedate though much of her mien was, there was enough of time and gravity about her that suggested the potential of a tongue lashing similar to Mina’s more caustic fellow-teachers of etiquette.

Yet the woman allowed herself her own contrite smile and fluttered her hand as if to swat away Jonathan’s suspicions.

“Forgive my playing eavesdropper, both of you. Only, your show has been the most engaging part of my day since this latest pageantry began. I am only here for duty’s sake and could not suffer the crush in there any longer than you. Yet it seems the rabble have tried to leak out after us.” Her smile increased the smallest increment. “It is a most heartening thing to see it properly chased back from whence it came…did I mishear ‘Jonathan?’”

“You heard right, madam.”

“Alas, no madams on this side of the yard,” she lifted her left hand, barren of a band. “You may call me Helen, Jonathan. And you, dear?”

“Mina.”

“Engaged or wedded already?”

“Wedded,” she allowed her own plain band to flaunt its small shine against a sunbeam. “Fortunately.”

Helen smiled at this too and nodded, “Most fortunately. Whether that carbuncle of a lecturer wants to admit it or not, yours is the treasured status over any tawdry sham he’s trapped his poor wife into. I would wager even his mistresses must suffer, should he have them. Although, and I do apologize for prying, may I inquire if there was some manner of unhappy shadow in your lives of late that might want for hypnotic aid? If such is your case, I am certain you shall have your way regardless of any stamping of feet from your new friend.”

The Harkers regarded each other cautiously for a moment. Mina flung her message up into him as he passed his gingerly back. This had become something of a routine for them. While Jonathan had taken the lion’s share of shock on his head, even Mina had some threads of early silver cutting through the dark cloud of her hair, and there were times when one or both of them let slip a trace of the haunted months in their eyes.

Something had happened to the Harkers.

Something had left its mark on them.

In answer to inquiries, the Harkers always scraped only the top crust of truth off the larger story and repackaged it as the tale in full.

Thus they came to sit on Helen’s stone bench, for it was wide and she had beckoned them, and husband and wife held to each other as they recited the meticulously vague trials of the year before.

First, Jonathan had been struck with a terrible accident while on a business trip in Europe. The sort of accident that comes shaped like powerful persons with dark designs. He had scarcely escaped it, and had to do so while stripped of his property and papers.

Second, when he finally made it to civilization, half-dead and boiling with fever in a hospital, Mina had fetched him home and nursed him back from the brink. This should have been the whole of it.

But then, third, Fate had gone and afflicted Mina herself with a far more dire illness that had put her at the very knife’s edge of life and death. Jonathan had championed her then, and had his turn to pull her back to health. This, coupled with a long chain of morbid tragedies that saw too many friends going into their graves around the same time, had stained them over the course of only a few months.

“It was more than enough to weigh upon our minds for some time after,” Mina allowed. “Neither of us slept well even after the worst hours had passed. Yet Providence has taken a kinder turn with me, it seems. I have gotten past my nightmares and can allow myself simple dreams or wholly blank nights. But Jonathan…” Her lips pursed around the truth.

“I do not fall asleep anymore,” Jonathan said to the ground between his shoes more than either of his listeners. “I fall into nightmares, wake in terror, and then, when exhaustion grows too heavy to fight, my mind allows me to black out. It is a poor enough state on its own, but worse for forcing my bedmate to return to the drudgery of playing caretaker over some imagined—,”

“Stop,” Mina cut in. “You know that isn’t fair.”

“Nor is it a lie.”

“And your aim,” Helen hummed, “is to undo these nightmares? Have them banished by mesmerism?” Her eyes seemed nigh illuminated at the prospect. “It would be a trying attempt, even for a practiced hypnotist. One who practices in the ordinary manner, at any rate.”

“Does Miss Penclosa not operate in the ordinary manner?” Mina asked.

“No.” Helen’s smile at last showed teeth and a stray sunbeam fell in such a way on her eyes that they seemed to burn away half her face with their vibrance. “Not at all. I have seen many hypnotists make their attempts.” She fussed with the high collar of her dress, kneading at it as though it chafed. “Some are quite impressive. But none so far have shown the method or the ability that Professor Wilson has been so dedicated to making a display of. If it were otherwise, he would only have yet another lookalike act to be shrugged aside by his peers. I know firsthand that the ‘Performances of Penclosa,’ as I have seen him titling his observations, are undertaken with a method quite alien to anything else he or his peers have witnessed before. The how of it seems lost even upon the performer. All that’s known is that it is strange, but undeniably effective.”

“You sound as if you’ve witnessed her before.”

“I have. I can attest to her ability and character enough to say that, regardless of any opinion of Wilson’s or his poor choice of compatriots, she will undoubtedly be of a mind to assist how she can. Now, might I ask another question of you both?” Despite the last word, her gaze slipped pointedly to Jonathan and the watchchain glinting at his side. “How near are we to noon? I can tell the pitch of their clamor inside has changed and so it must be nearly time for the spectacle.”

Jonathan checked his watch and saw it was ten past twelve. As they all moved to rise, Helen sighed. Jonathan saw her craning around on her spot, frowning at a cluster of roses.

“What is it?”

“Oh, my crutch. I set it by me here and it fell back in the rosebushes.”

She had scarcely got past the third syllable before Jonathan had circled around to fish the thing out of the thorns. It was a striking piece fashioned from a well-worn length of oak. Though Helen took it in hand easily enough, he let her have his arm as a brace when she got to her feet. It took her a moment to actually release his sleeve, and then only because Mina gathered his other arm. Helen made a small noise close to a laugh.

“Goodness, but you are a sturdy one. Between your bearing and your choice of accessory,” she nodded to the kukri, “a charlatan clairvoyant would feign that they ‘read’ you as an ex-soldier. As I am neither, I must instead determine that you are a solicitor by trade and that you operate out of Exeter.”

That brought Jonathan and Mina both up short.

“You determined that from my arm?”

“From your seat. Rather, what you left there.” Helen pointed them back to the bench where Jonathan’s card case sat open on the stone. As Mina gathered it up and Jonathan set it more securely within a front pocket, Helen went on, “Before we head into the noise, a last question: Do you also live within the Exeter area? If so, I should like to know your judgment on the city and available living quarters in the area. I believe I am overdue to seek out new housing.”

“We can both vouch for it being something of a busy city, but it has its comfortable corners. In the event Mina and I get herded out the front door as soon as we enter the back,” he handed Helen one of the cards from his rescued case, “I should be happy to have you call on Hawkins and Harker to see about quarters in the area.”  

“If I may ask, for I cannot guess it by your arm or your card, are you in the firm’s employ, or are you the Hawkins or the Harker in the title?”

“Harker,” Jonathan admitted.

“A pleasure then, Mr. and Mrs. Harker.” She favored them with a last flash of her half-lidded stare before she turned them all toward the door. “I do hope we all enjoy the show.”

 Inside, a number of guesses were quickly proven right.

Jonathan’s new friend and some comrades gave him furrowed sideways glances. Daniels, seeing Jonathan see them, appeared to stutter some excuse before vanishing into another room. Others, clearly ticking off the minutes until Penclosa would appear to astound or confound, followed first this retreat, then the line of sight that had sent him running. Jonathan wished he had his hat to duck behind. Doubly so when his new friend—he decided to refer to him as Professor Carbuncle, lacking a better title—and his friends murmured their own asides to the gawkers. He pondered keeping his watch out to see how many minutes there would be between himself, Mina, and the hailing of a cab.

Before he could do so, Van Helsing filled the couple’s view, looking very much like a man trying his best not to look like a castaway frantic for an island to clamber on. His smile very nearly groaned with the effort to stay in place.

“My friends, I would risk many things for you. Life and death and worse. Yet if I must battle with Wilson’s voice another hour by my own self, I fear I shall try to do as good Jonathan did in time of action and make my exit by the nearest window. Have either of you seen this Miss Penclosa? Wilson only departed from me and my ears because Mrs. Wilson could not herself find the lady in the crowd.”

“Not yet—,” Mina began, but cut herself short when Helen laid a light hand against her shoulder.

“I’m afraid I lost track of time,” Helen said through a slight smile.

“Ah, then you are that Miss Penclosa? A pleasure to meet you,” he clasped her hand gently with a half-bow of the head.

“Likewise..?”

“Professor Van Helsing.”

“If you are a friend of the Harkers, then I will trust at once that you are of a fine character, sir. I do apologize for keeping them away. Please, might you tell me where I can find my poor Wilsons?” Van Helsing pointed the way, offering to take her arm to better break through the throng. Helen, Miss Penclosa, declined. She followed her crutch into the fray with ease. The Harkers could only stare after her.

Once her back vanished in the crowd, they divulged all that had happened in the garden to Van Helsing, starting from Prof. Carbuncle to meeting Miss Helen Penclosa on her bench. As they spoke, Jonathan spotted Prof. Carbuncle striding towards Prof. Wilson’s bobbing head as the latter entered to the room, now thoroughly incandescent with enthusiasm. This visage redoubled its glow when Prof. Carbuncle came upon him, though the cigar-gnawing man’s expression seemed to aim for stormy while landing only on puckered. Carbuncle seemed no match for Wilson’s patter either, for whatever words he had for the other man seemed drowned in a flood of exhilaration.

The hand Carbuncle had lifted to point Jonathan and Mina out was trapped in an instant as the gesture was mistaken—perhaps forcibly—for an agreeing handshake. Then Prof. Wilson must have gotten something out that caught Prof. Carbuncle’s interest more than revenge. His expression altered in a way that suggested not only doubt, but an eagerness to have that doubt proven right. Something near to a smile appeared on him as he gave Wilson a curt shake of the hand. The cool countenance was fractured a bit when Wilson abruptly turned to the parlor to announce:

“Attention my friends! I thank you for your patience. We have delayed some while in the hopes of not shorting any of the invited guests by beginning the display too soon. As it stands, it appears all are present and my guest and friend, the inimitable Miss Helen Penclosa, can now rescue you from my stalling.”

Miss Helen Penclosa made her official debut to general applause and a smattering of surprise as the room opened up to see her clearly. She had taken a spot on the overstuffed armchair with her crutch standing to one side. A soft smile turned to the guests.

“Hello. I must say I recognize very few of you this time around. The last get-together Professor Wilson was kind enough to throw had only a third the number. I must then assume that the two new thirds are comprised of one third those with some belief in what I mean to display and one third looking to pull down whatever mental chicanery is surely at work. The better to spare the latter’s time and get on to those here with genuine questions or desire to volunteer in earnest, I have submitted to Wilson that I should like to make my first demonstration upon one of the sincerest disbelievers present.”

The foggy green eyes slid unblinkingly to Prof. Carbuncle. There was a new cigar in his teeth and a sharkish bend to his lips.

“Professor Richard Atherton has obliged to fill the role. My thanks, sir.”

“You’ve mine back, madam,” Carbuncle, who was Atherton, spoke through his smoke. “How is it done, then? Do you need a pocket watch to swing before my eyes? Shall we have a staring contest until I’m dulled to sleep?”

“Not at all. Merely take your seat and we will begin.”

Penclosa nodded to the chair Wilson himself had dragged up to stand across from her own. Atherton took it with a laborious settling that suggested the showing of immense patience to amuse unruly children. As he sat, Penclosa stood. She did not make use of her crutch. Whatever injured wobble she might have in her faulty leg seemed to undo itself as she rose. Later, both Harkers and Van Helsing would agree that it looked almost as if her eyes were their own empowering force; as though they were what drew her up like a string raising a marionette. Her gaze certainly seemed to pump some notable new life into her tired countenance.

All watched as her look set into that uniquely feline expression of an animal centering its attention on an oblivious bird. Her arms raised and gestured in a series of swings and shapes that appeared almost like those of directing signals. It had none of the gentle sway of hands from an experimenting doctor or the theatric waggling from a stage performer. More than one witness would point out how very near it came to something ritualistic; the sort of motions seen in rites of religions or archaic dance.

Whatever their purpose, the motions and Penclosa’s stare had an effect on Prof. Atherton. A remarkably brisk one. His apparent confederates in the crowd seemed to take this for some act at first. Likely playing dim from the outset only to spring up and call the woman a fraud. And perhaps this had been Atherton’s goal as he took his seat. Yet as one minute ticked into another and into another, the man’s face seemed to become unstitched from within. Expression slackened, eyes glazed. The still-smoking cigar drooped in his teeth until it finally dropped and fell in his lap, flinging ash as it went. Thankfully it was no longer smoldering; he had stopped puffing on it some while ago and the thing did not have heat enough left to burn through his trousers.

Still, he did not startle at the drop. Nor did his hand move to clear his lap. Penclosa stopped her arms but still did not blink. She regarded the half-murmuring room, then silenced it by holding her finger to her lips. Once all was quiet, she turned her full attention back to Atherton’s drooping head. It was not the look of a woman or a cat now. Here was a high empress idling over the means of an execution.

She folded her hands before her and smiled.

“Professor Atherton, I have wonderful news. The hypnotism failed. Attempts were tried for hours and all the guests have left. You are free to speak honestly without fear of eavesdroppers.”

Atherton’s head raised an inch and something of his former expression drifted back into his face. He grated out a chuckle.

“Knew it,” he said in a dreaming voice. “Knew that crippled crone was all talk. All Wilson’s talk, anyhow. By next year the fool will be clamoring about some tart with a crystal ball and a deck of cards claiming she’s the next Oracle. Where’s my cigar?”

“A new box is being fetched. While we wait, let us talk. First, the crippled crone. How old would she say she is, at a guess?”

“Damned if I know. Has to be half-past forty.”

“And yourself?”

“Fifty-six as of last month.”

“And your wife?”

“Forty-one, alas.”

“And your mistress?”

“An even twenty-two. A springy dear, she is.”

“I imagine she must be. Is she at the party?”

“Lord, no. Nor the missus. One of her few virtues, not having any care for twaddle like mesmerists or spiritualism. Pity about the rest.”

“What is the rest?”

“The face, the gray, the days out with those harpy friends she meets with to talk about that American woman, that Bascom with her degree in bloody rocks and—,”

“I see. And this mistress, what is she like?”

“Blessedly quiet. A fine change of pace and a finer help in a man’s odds and ends. Good enough girl, though I fear it may be near time to break things off.”

“Why is that?”

“She’s been acting squirrely in that way women do when they’re working up to simper for something big. Money, a wedding ring, your solemn oath you’ll stay for the baby. Some headache or other. I do hate stepping away while things are sour. Better to cut things while they’re still sweet and she won’t think to get up to anything foolish.”

“Like telling your wife?”

“The wife scarcely matters. It’s telling the university that’d pull the rug out. Just look at that mess with Professor Gilroy. Ha, ex-professor, I should say. That debacle shows well enough how quick a position can be cut out from under your feet. I’d bet money he got hit by some brain bug or other, some undiagnosed fever, but just a few days of him playing eccentric killed his station. If little Ellie Daniels goes tattling it’ll be my position on the fire just for starters.”

Somewhere in the back of the room, a man’s voice drew sharp breath. Other voices muttered and shushed. There was a scuffle and rustle as someone was held back. Penclosa showed no sign of whether she noticed or cared about what colors the man named Daniels was turning and pressed on:

“That does sound serious.”

“Between her brother and the state of affairs with the soft-hearted and softer-minded infecting the realm of logic, it is infinitely serious. I tell you, it would not be half so precarious if it were not for all this New Woman claptrap infecting the mentality of our times. The next generation of men will live their lives bowing to every little infantile fancy of women and go hollering around on their behalf to intellectual betters, wailing the same tunes of false equality.”

“Most distressing. But that all sounds quite vague, if you don’t mind my saying. Mere hypotheticals all. Can you think of any recent example of such a thing?”

“Oh, yes. Not half an hour ago, as a matter of fact.”

“Goodness. What happened?”

“Some pup wrapped around his wife’s finger felt the need to come puff his chest at me over a little idle comment or other—,”

“Stop.” Atherton stopped like a cylinder plucked from its phonograph. “To this point, you have spoken as if there are no witnesses. You may continue to do so, Professor Atherton, but now you will do so without bluff or obfuscation. You will speak only the truth aloud until I tell you to wake. Tell me if you understand.”

“I understand.”

“Good. Now, to the best of your ability, repeat exactly what you said when you stepped out the back door into the garden.”

Professor Atherton repeated what he had brayed to Daniels, nigh verbatim.

“Why did you say so?”

“Because it’s true.”

 “Why did you say so right then?”

“Because of the girl nattering to her young man. I wanted her to hear. It heartens me to see them caught out of line. Especially the young ones. You have to nip them while they’re young and sponge-headed and susceptible to all the rubbish that wants to mold them out of what they ought to be.”

“And what ought they be?”

“In their place. Otherwise you get things like her husband.”

“And what thing was her husband?”

“Some—some tetchy little Prince Charming, huffing about insulting women and his wife and whatnot when I was just—just—,”

Atherton was turning somewhat purplish.

“You are struggling, Professor Atherton. That’s you trying to shake off the command for honesty. Tell the truth about her husband and you’ll be fine.”

The man seemed to chew his words another moment. Then, finally:

“The truth is he scared me. Truly, properly scared me, getting as close as he did. It wasn’t just the blade on his hip either. There was something wrong about him. Meeting his eye made my bowels turn to jelly. I felt certain he could hurl me against the brick like a porcelain doll hard enough to break me like one. Like he could take my head off like you’d pop a daisy from its stem and that he was considering doing just that, with or without that massive bloody Gurkha knife. That moment was the closest I’ve come to soiling myself since I was six years old. If his wife hadn’t made him look away, I don’t know that I wouldn’t have still been standing there, soaking my trousers because I couldn’t unhook myself from those awful eyes and all the black promises they were making.

“But he did look away and I got inside, thank God. He’d not lay a hand on me before witnesses. Certainly not in front of ones of actual importance versus the girl holding his tether, anyway. I have to talk to Wilson about him when I have the chance. If I can get a name out of him, I can see about seeking some proper recompense later. At the very least I can see the snow-headed bastard and his keeper are tossed out. I took him for some sort of young officer. Perhaps I can nettle things higher up his ranks.”

Penclosa nodded coolly at this. It was the first time she bothered to spare a glance for anyone other than Atherton, glancing first in the direction of Professor and Mrs. Wilson who had been turning alternate shades of cherry and chalk throughout, then at the Harkers. At Jonathan. For the moment he was bookended by both Mina’s grasp and Van Helsing’s heavy hand at his arm. Whether this was to support or halt him, he couldn’t guess, but he was grateful that they provided some small insulation between himself and the increasing number of inquisitive eyes steering his way. He now ached for a hat to hide under and an overcoat to mask the scabbard.

He felt fires burning inside his face as murmuring rose on their side, on the Wilsons’, and on the irate Daniels’. It was the sound of an intrigued audience before a stage play rather than a scientific demonstration. Jonathan could see there had even been a refilling of glasses and a fetching of concessions from the table as the show went on. Penclosa seemed to note this as well, finally retreating from her looming stance and retreating to her armchair.

“This has all been very enlightening, Professor Atherton. I give my thanks for your being so candid. Your last instruction is this: If or when news of these revelations leak out of this room and reach ears ‘of importance’ in your campus’ alumni—those few which are not already present—and you are called to elaborate on the features of it all?” Her eyes flashed like dim jade and her next words carried the intonation of a tolling bell. “You will tell the whole truth without any withholding, any muddying, any twisting of narrative for your benefit. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Good.” She snaked out one hand to grasp the crutch. This she lifted just high enough so that it would make a resounding crack as she struck the floor. “Awake!”

Prof. Richard Atherton blinked blearily for a moment, like a man swimming out of a thick sleep. In the next moment, consciousness snapped fully into him as his teeth clicked shut. This confused him for a moment. Then:

“Damn! My trousers.” He snatched up the cigar and wiped at the ashes. “I will give you some credit, madam, for at least getting me halfway to the so-called mesmeric sleep. Or sleep alone, anyway. Though I’m afraid you’ve got your first poor mark for the hypnotist act. You may yet find a niche as an in-person sedative, however. There’s a number of colicky babes in the world who could use a nanny with that trick. You could…” Atherton was on his feet now and finally aware of the sharp looks thrown his way by the group at large, as well as the downright acidic glare coming from Daniels. Even Prof. Wilson, who had kept his notebook out and open, was scratching at the pages with a significantly strained shade of enthusiasm. “For God’s sake, what is it? Don’t tell me she actually got anything out of me. What, did she have me butcher a tune? Insult someone’s mother?”

“Ellie.” All heads turned to Daniels. Narrow man that he was, he seemed to quiver like a livid tuning fork. “My baby sister, Eleanor, has spent the last year and a half dancing around the name of a scholar she claims to be smitten with. One she has admitted to playing both secretary and editor to for numerous manuscripts; such that she has practically been penning the things herself. Our family has assumed it was just some unscrupulous student or other taking advantage and have tried numerous times to have her divulge the young man’s name or to break it off, to no avail. But it occurs to me that it has been roughly as long since you started crowing about what a loss it is to the modern man that he cannot flaunt a mistress with impunity, what with the advent of divorce gaining its little toeholds in the world of marriage. Adultery is no longer a sport, but a vice, you’ve said. You wouldn’t happen to be sharing that vice with little Ellie, would you, Dick?”

Prof. Richard Atherton suddenly lost all pallor under his beard. Something near to epiphany seemed to bring a hint of color back to him as he registered the mass of disapproving stares before turning wholly to Miss Penclosa in her chair. A glass of claret stood on the same end table she’d rested her crutch on. She met his gaze placidly as she lifted the wine for a small sip.

What came next was as paradoxically abrupt as endless.

Revelation had come to Atherton in the way of colliding dominoes. Daniels and little Ellie, the horde of glowering fellow faculty and distant strangers, witnesses all to some bleak secrets he could not appear to recall. Was it just the mistress he had spoken of? More? Whatever was said, it had even the men who’d been his allies a quarter of an hour ago either turning away from him or glaring at him with such disgust he might have rolled himself in sewage. Things had been said. Damning things. Worst of all, it would be speculated, was that he had said things he did not recall. He had been mesmerized and the whole of it had been erased from his memory as neatly as chalk lessons rubbed off the board.

He had been made a fool and he had done it to himself.

Because of her.

The docilely gloating little figure sat by her crutch.

Later it would come out from his former friends that he had, in fact, gotten a drink too many in him beforehand. He was many things by nature, but violent was rarely one of them. Not without a pond’s worth of inebriation in him. If not an excuse, it was a reason for what he attempted to do there in plain view of the parlor. He was the nearest body to Penclosa, after all, in that snug gap between the armchairs. It was quick work for him to dart forward, snatch up the sturdy length of oak, and raise it above his head with the heavy end aimed squarely at Miss Penclosa’s head.

It happened too fast for gasps, for shouts, for reaching hands, for jolts, for steps. Too fast even for Penclosa to do more than widen her bottomless eyes in shock.

The crutch came down—

Snick!

—and lost half of itself on the thick nap of the rug. Atherton made a high strangled sound like that of a boy a third his age yelping over a twisted ankle. Something was twisting, but it was a higher limb. One that dropped the remaining half a crutch as his forearm shrieked in Jonathan’s left hand. Jonathan’s right still held the bared kukri while his eyes held Atherton’s attention. Some would remark, in varying states of hyperbole, how suddenly cold they had felt in the white-haired fellow’s presence. A man of ice freezing the churlish other in place.

A whiff of ammonia hit the air. What Atherton had avoided since the age of six now went trickling down his leg.

“I think, Professor Atherton,” Van Helsing’s voice broke gently in, “it is wise for you to apologize to Miss Helen Penclosa, and then to sit in the foyer until police come to have their words with you.”

“To hell with the police,” Daniels grated out. “I’ll pay you a pound to give him a new elbow, Officer.”

Jonathan released a small breath and eased his grip enough to keep from fracturing the other man’s wrist.

“I’m not—,”  

All parties within the odd tableau were alerted by a tell-tale sound to the westward side of the room. The soft capping of a lens and the scrape-slide of a plate being taken out of a daguerreotype camera.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” sang the photographer as he stowed the old plate and prepped the new. The sun seemed to be shining through an otherwise nebbish grin. “Just need to reload, is all. Glad I packed double.”

Atherton seemed to choke on either an abundance or an utter deficit of words at this. He looked for all the world like a body waiting for the final beat of a bad dream to finally dump him awake and free in his bed. Instead, a small entourage of guests, Van Helsing included, guided him away. First to the toilet, then the suggested foyer. Prof. Wilson had already passed along to the first servant he could get hold of to send for a smattering of authorities. If not for an arrest, then for the inevitable explosion of circulated word that would ensue after. Mrs. Wilson had flown to Miss Penclosa’s side in the meantime, gushing apology and worry at such a rate that she appeared nearly to skip her breath.

 “I’m fine, Gloria, truly. It was all far too quick for a proper scare. Rather, our friend was.” Penclosa had to look down to find Jonathan now, as he had sheathed the kukri to pick up the two halves of oak. “I could barely follow you, young man. You must have practice with this sort of thing.”

Jonathan tried to smile around a noncommittal sound. His line of sight flicked between her and Mina who had caught a woman who’d toppled in a faint over the whole scene. She flicked her gaze back, mirroring his reflexive thought. Speak no evil.

“Not in this particularly, no. Solicitation is not quite so competitive a field. At least not yet.” He rose with the crutch’s pieces in hand. “I’m so sorry about this. I’ll pay for another.” Penclosa wrinkled her nose at this and seemed to swat the notion away.

“Better it be in half than in my head. I have spares, Mr. Harker.”

“Harker, is it?” A jaunty hand clapped him on the back. “What regiment, son? Look as though you’ve seen the far end of Hell and its backyard.”

This voice came from the first of many strangers who would approach Jonathan and Mina at intervals during Penclosa’s less dramatic demonstrations. Between softer displays—everything from comical impressions to impromptu dance performances to heartening instilled commands to inspire confidence or to regale with an old warm memory the subject had thought forgotten—the Harkers had to lose flake after chip after crumb of secrecy in dancing around the barrage of queries that found them, even with Van Helsing trying to play buffer. In order, the Harkers divulged the following:

No, he was not of any country’s military. Yes, he was just a solicitor. Yes, his hair was real. Yes, he had suffered a sizable shock in life. No, he would rather not speak of details, though illness was the least of it. Yes, she was the reason he made it through with mind and health intact. Yes, they were married. Yes, he was and remains quite adamant that she never be shown anything less than respect. Yes, she was adamant on his behalf in turn. …Yes, really, just a solicitor. Hawkins and Harker.  

Jonathan found himself with half his cards gone before the afternoon was out.

“Perhaps you should have new ones printed,” Van Helsing ribbed. “You could perhaps stamp a small kukri on each one. It appears to do good for your business.”

“It was just for politeness’ sake. Honestly, I’m just baffled at how,” Jonathan fluttered his hand uncomfortably as if to encompass the whole of the scene, “all that bluster translates to such friendly interest. I am more than a little stunned that I’ve collected more cards today than I manage in a week by way of day-to-day courtesy within the firm.” Mina found his hand again and drew circles over its knuckles. When he looked to her, he could not help reflecting her smile.

“Everyone loves when a hero gives a show. It’s such an assumed thing that evil acts can be gotten away with, the damage done without any hindrance. So it is a rare and happy thing when people get to see the stalwart knight appear with sword in hand to cut it down.”

“Yes, well. I still posit that I married the knight. I’m far better suited to being her faithful squire. Polishing her pauldrons and all.”

“Jonathan.”

“Mina.”

“My friends,” Van Helsing turned both their heads with his tone. “I believe the room is nearly thinned enough for our purposes. At least, so thin that we have become the most conspicuous of guests remaining. We, and the man with his iron grip upon the camera.” The Harkers looked up and found he spoke true. The herd had shallowed out to a few parties circling the Wilsons and the photographer going over something with Penclosa.

The latter man, a Mr. Greg Westman, had been almost as busy as Miss Penclosa and Prof. Wilson combined. There had been the images captured of Penclosa and her posed subjects, talks with the police who had arrived, both as a witness and a man who might have an impressive shot to share once all was developed, and with the inevitable circling fly or two of journalists who’d come sniffing at the sight of the authorities’ wagon. Westman was one of many rising amateur photographers inching their way into the professional field and, supposing his shots developed well enough, his daguerreotypes would find their way into print to better illustrate what might be pitched as, ‘The Misadventure of the Madam Mesmerist.’

“Mr. Harker, sir?” Westman approached them now, the two halves of the crutch under one arm. “Might I bother you for just one last shot? I’m down to my final plates and it would make a lovely closing piece for the paper if you could just come this way?”

While he spoke, he herded Jonathan toward Penclosa’s chair. Mrs. Wilson had brought down one of her spares from her room, a thing of ash wood, and it rested against the table where its predecessor had stood. Jonathan sheepishly held up the kukri as Penclosa smilingly presented her two pieces of oak.

“Perfect, thank you! Now if I could have just one more of—,”

“Pardon, Mr. Westman,” Mina said as she drifted to his side. “Might I ask what model this is and where we might find one? We have been going back and forth on picking up a camera for our own use and you seem to be quite natural with this.”

Jonathan sent her a silent thanks from the corner of his eye into the corner of hers. Of the sundry traits the Harkers could find reflected in the other, the ability to dislodge monologues from even the most reticent speaker was a most useful one. As a result, Greg Westman had duly pivoted into a history lesson on M. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Jonathan might have gone to join Mina but for something brushing his side. It was Penclosa, tapping him lightly with the tip of the halved crutch.

“Do sit. You’ll make me tired looking at you.” She nodded at the armchair still across from her, the subject seat. Her voice lowered an increment to keep from traveling too far. Say, to the Wilsons’ side of the space. “It is my turn to apologize, I think. I see I must have made an error in dropping even your surname to the crowd. I’d not realized your visit was so clandestine as to remain hushed on names as much as purpose.”

Jonathan did not sit, but hovered at its side. He kept his furthest edge of attention on the rambling patter of Mr. Westman for the duration that Mina had to withstand it and on Van Helsing who had moved with calculating nonchalance into the shrinking circle of visitors still caught in the Wilsons’ orbit. The rest he reserved for trying to parse the nature of Miss Penclosa’s stare. For she did stare, intentionally or otherwise. Her blinks were rare and slow and seemed almost unnatural in the backdrop of her mild face. As the day had worn on toward the late afternoon, he’d lost count of how many times he’d felt a sensation of being observed roaming on his brow or back, only to look up and see the mesmerist was in the middle of some pause between performance or discussion to look at him. Nor did she ever drop her gaze when caught.

With everything that’s happened between the garden, the guard duty, and the hypnotic gamble to come, you can forgive her wanting to keep an eye on you.

“It’s no trouble,” he said aloud. “We simply don’t wish to be obtrusive, and that much is our own foible. And again, I owe the greater apology for costing you your property. In hindsight, I’m sure I might have caught it if—,”

“It’s a glorified twig, Jonathan, not a family heirloom. It’s a better thing to have you end its career as a weapon with one hand and seize that lout with your other. The fact is you saved me from a most abrupt and ugly injury, if not an ending outright.” Here the windows of her eyes performed their slow shutter of a blink. “The least I owe you is my best attempt to assist in the internal injury that troubles you. That in mind, I believe we have come to the point where we must cajole our host into setting aside his notebook before he—,”

“Ah, Mr. Harker! Were you interested in a session yourself?” All heads swiveled as Prof. Wilson nearly bounded to the sitting area. Mr. Westman had mercifully taken his leave at that point, Mina having lured him towards the door by insisting she help carry his things along to wait for his hansom, him insisting back that he could carry it all, and so forth. Van Helsing had held Prof. Wilson back as long as possible, but the man’s gaze had landed on Jonathan leaning on the chair and the man had all but flown. He was already thumbing to a clean page in his book. “Where is Gregory? Gregory, wait just a moment if you have a spare plate!”

“Bradford.” Wilson glanced down to see Miss Penclosa frowning up at him. “You have already gotten more than your fill of successful examples, on top of the nigh guaranteed publicity of the police report once it turns to newsprint. Doubly so should my implanted command that Atherton speak the truth before his colleagues have reason to be set off. Mr. Harker has done more than any service a host could dare ask of a guest. More, a guest of a guest. The least we owe him is the dignity not to set him up as a prop twice in the same day.”

Wilson fidgeted with his notebook for another moment. His gaze bounced between the one sitting and the one standing.

“…So he is interested in a session? Is that so, Mr. Harker? I only ask for the purposes of tallying! These sorts of things live and die by records. How many successes, who the successes were, references on references. You would be astounded how stringent any credible journal is when it comes to such fascinating realms of science as this. They demand the most fantastic list of feats and yet will tear a work to pieces over the slightest fault. It is why I most earnestly insist on recording as much in the way of detail, you see, so if I could perhaps—,”

A tawny and callused hand landed chummily on Prof. Wilson’s shoulder. Van Helsing’s smile was at once buoyant and stiffly chiseled in place.

“Professor, I am most familiar with the trials of expressing the reality of the strange to stubborn audiences. Such is the case both within and without the precarious wilds of academia. Yet this is not the case of the present. For your purposes, you hunt for evidence, evidence, evidence, using volunteers and compatriots for the so vital need of the impartial proofs. But my friends, they are not volunteers. They are not for the consuming by even the wisest audiences. If it were so, there would be no need to wait for privacy. Good Jonathan, who has done a good service today and so much more before, he comes to Miss Penclosa seeking assistance, not to your peers for his name pulled across a heap of articles. Which is all to say, in plainer words, this is a matter of help. Of health!”

The cobalt gaze twinkled in its nest of crow’s feet. His hand tightened an extra chummy increment on Wilson’s shoulder.

“To spy upon or share the details in such a case would be to court the dangerous place where the confidences of doctors and patients lay. But I ramble so much. You are a man of ethics, Professor Wilson, and I would swear upon every title to my name that you would not err in such a way over one single session out of dozens.”

Prof. Wilson opened his mouth.

“Of course not, Professor Van Helsing,” Penclosa hummed over her glass. It was nearly empty now. “I know my dear Gloria would not marry a cad any more than I would stay under the roof of one. I certainly wouldn’t agree to be at the center of a study that would seek to abuse the trust of the sort of people which proof positive of my skill intends to aid. Which is the point under it all, isn’t it? Not just proving the full reality of mesmerism, but proving its usages beyond making people do tricks. If that were all these displays have been for,” a small smile flared up and vanished, “likewise our early work with Gilroy, then I would be most shocked. I believe I would have to take myself out of the study entirely if it were so.” She sipped the glass dry.

Prof. Wilson shut his mouth. Cleared something out of his throat. Fumbled with his notebook before ultimately, painfully, closing it.

“Yes. Well. I suppose if this is a matter of a, ah, therapeutic nature, I suppose…” He seemed to almost visibly wilt. Jonathan thought inexplicably that he might be looking at some distant uncle of Dr. Seward’s. Though Wilson’s manner was notably more excitable in his pursuit of examples, there was no missing the similar duo of hunger for fresh results and disappointment at slipped opportunity.

Jack had resigned from his role as asylum head not long after Quincey Morris’ funeral in America. He’d not given himself more than a week before he turned to the neglected matter of R. M. Renfield, paying for a plot in a proper cemetery and a new stone. A day after this ceremony, he had begun the work of disentangling himself from the sanitorium—a process that had been met with equal parts entreaties to stay on and older detractors urging him out the door—which ultimately ended with him founding his own psychiatric practice. The shift in work and its purpose, hearing and working toward solutions of a patient’s ills versus merely detaining and observing violent extremes of mental havoc, had gone some way toward tipping the man out of a stranglehold of depression. In fact, it seemed to fire him into a new tier of thrill over possibilities for treatment. Not merely in the matter of pharmaceuticals or enforced methods, but skills a patient may hone for themselves.

Though Jack never dared drop patient names in earshot, he had bounced ideas, successes, and frustrations off his friends on several occasions. The despondency seen when he was stuck upon a case that had been snagged in its progress was shown in flints upon Prof. Wilson’s face.

He wished to prove not only that he was right about the power of mesmerism, but that there was a point to him being so, and that it was not merely an amusing parlor trick. A hard thing to manage when the only real evidence he had was a stack of Penclosa’s demonstrations which did indeed take place in his parlor. Jonathan withheld a sigh.

“Professor. It’s true I would like some privacy for Miss Penclosa, myself, Mina, and Van Helsing. I do not wish my name to flung about any more than it’s already set to be with the issue of Professor Atherton. But supposing my own trouble finds a solution with Miss Penclosa’s help, I will at least consent to go on record as an anonymous example of successful hypnotherapy.”

Emphasis on anonymous.

But even this was enough to rekindle some of the light in Prof. Wilson’s face. The notebook speedily snapped open again and the pen resumed its giddy scratching.

“Oh, that is more than amenable, Mr. Harker! And quite right for such delicate work as this, of course.” Scratch, scratch, scratch. “Have you a pseudonym in mind? It will be a clunky thing to just place you as Mr. Anonymous or Mr. Patient.”

Mr. De Ville, Jonathan thought in a lilt so bitter it burned.

Mina returned to the room with Mrs. Wilson in tow, her line of sight floating to him. Jonathan stopped himself just short of beaming.

“Mr. Murray.”

 Prof. Wilson gave them his library to use and passed on his solemn oath that no staff would blunder through the door to interrupt. Mina and Jonathan took the wider of the couches while Penclosa claimed a chaise and Van Helsing settled himself in a chair. Van Helsing had his own notepad on hand and had given likewise solemn oaths in both the Harkers’ and Wilson’s direction that he would record only the most pertinent bullets of observation. This pointedly did not include Jonathan’s description of the following:

“There is not much more that can be told beyond what we explained in the garden. Last year, I suffered an experience of singularly horrific proportions. The sort which are on a scale of literal nightmare; utterly unbelievable to anyone of sound mind. Yet it happened. And though the physical shock of its aftermath is over, though the second and far more despicable illness of my poor Mina has come and gone, though all has been dealt with in the waking world that can be dealt with and healed…” His throat worked against a jagged stone as his hand trembled inside Mina’s. “It was two months that this event lasted for me last summer. All of May, all of June. This, combined with the illness that boiled my brain and body upon escape, on top of the very real, very dire threat to Mina that followed it—a threat I-I should have never—never let—,”

“Don’t.” A shadow of a whisper. But Mina’s voice gave it power, made it a salve. Her cheek pressed his shoulder while her other hand overlaid its twin in holding him. “The nightmares may lie to you, but don’t you dare do it to yourself awake. We are well past that.” Mina turned to Penclosa who sat once more in statue stillness, her own gaze intent. When she spoke it was still soft, but with an edge that bordered on brittle with its enforced calm. “Last year was one of suffering for us and for loved ones. There were many losses, great and small. Yet taken as the most unvarnished sum of time and effects, Jonathan found himself the winner of a most cruel lottery. Miscellaneous torments were all passed his way, and for far longer than myself or our friends had to endure. They have damaged his sleep ever since, but now, as the anniversary makes its return—,”

“How frequently?” Penclosa asked. As she did, she performed a blink. “Forgive my curtness. I ask because I already find no way to doubt the sincerity of Jonathan’s trouble. For a history to haunt him so deeply even as he throws himself between villain and victim like a wall suggests that whatever monstrosity inflicted itself on him before must be of a great scale. The only issue for us now is the timing. Before I can attempt to plant a countermeasure to his nightmares, if and when they next arise, we must define how often they occur at present. For example, Jonathan, do you expect you will have one as soon as tonight?”

Jonathan dipped his head in half a nod.

“I do. What used to be every other night is now almost routine. Last week I did not have a single night free of bad dreams.”

Penclosa grinned.

“Good.”

“Good?”

“Pardon. I fear some of Wilson’s scientific thinking has rubbed off. I say ‘good’ in that we have good odds of defining whether it will be my mesmerism that helps parry your nightmares or your mind merely deciding to quit the assault of its own volition. Of course, it would be most welcome if the latter were the case. If these grim dreams are truly tied to memories of what befell you a year ago near the same period, it could be they might reach a crescendo around the anniversary, then peter out to nothing as it passes. Only for them to make a return next year and around again. In truth, it seems as if your mind has conditioned itself in much the same way I might set a particular stimulus to make a subject react later.”

Penclosa raised her hand as if to illustrate a scenario:

“‘When the clock strikes ten o’ clock tomorrow, you will hop on one foot. The next time you smell fish, you will decide you must write a letter to someone.’ It all comes down to ‘When you notice X, then you will do Y.’ For you, the recall of the turning seasons to that soured period is having the same effect, albeit slowly. Subconsciously, you are reading into the calendar’s creep the same portents that led up to last year’s horrid experiences, and your dreams prey on you for it as if the events themselves are coming for a repeat performance. Now, I will not make promises as to how far my reach can extend in terms of permanently blunting the nightmares for good. Really, I can’t even say if this initial trial will bear fruit. But the trial is what matters before we attempt anything more extensive. To that end, I would like to ask how long you all intend to stay in Tuppeton.”

“We have two weeks planned out,” from Mina.

“And I shall be gone by this Sunday,” Van Helsing put in.

At this, Penclosa smiled anew and nodded, explaining, “That shall be enough to confirm things one way or the other. What I propose is this: I shall mesmerize you,” a look to Jonathan, “to see if I can prevent the nightmare you expect is inevitable tonight. Rather, and I apologize for this, to let the nightmare come upon you for just a moment, and then be banished by the command I place today.”

“I don’t believe I follow,” said Mina as she gripped Jonathan’s hand a little tighter. “Why not just halt the nightmare entirely?”

“Because,” Penclosa soothed back, though she frowned now too, “if the nightmare is not registered and then observed being thwarted by my countermeasure, we shall not know if I was effective or not. A wholly peaceful sleep might be written off as a fluke. Nothing to record, nothing to show one way or the other if the session had any positive effect that couldn’t be written off as a kind accident. Though I do swear to make sure it only exists long enough to be noticed, then quashed.” Her gaze returned to Jonathan. “It is imperative that you record all you can remember of tonight’s sleep. Every detail you can spare. And it is just as important that neither Mina or Professor Van Helsing let slip the description I will give you during the trance state. I trust you to be an honest fellow, but we cannot risk anything skewing your description after the fact.”

“That seems sound enough,” Jonathan agreed even as an unhappy crimp came to his mouth as he added, “though there is a last obstacle that we have not gone over.”

“What is that?”

“Me,” Van Helsing put in. “I am practiced in mesmerism myself, Miss Penclosa, and have succeeded in many cases. Jonathan, however, has proven a subject most hard to maneuver. I have gotten him near to trance, but his mind snaps out at me at the last moment and shoos the influence like a dog chasing out an intruder. And that with him all willing and trying with full consciousness to accept the hypnosis.”

Miss Penclosa’s brow did furrow for a moment at that. Her hand drifted up again to her high collar, scrubbing thoughtfully, or perhaps only itching. But her expression smoothed again as she turned back to Jonathan.

“I have had my hard cases in the past. Let’s see what happens. Mina, could you please give Jonathan the whole seat? When I begin, there can be no one to distract either of our lines of sight. Stand by with the Professor, if you would. Thank you.”

Once Jonathan was alone on the couch, Miss Penclosa stood herself up. Her strain in balance seemed somehow even less than the sudden strained vigor that had taken her in her demonstrations at the party. She stood erect and staring as her arms began their strange arches and swoops. Jonathan found each sweep sent a feeling of warmth gusting into him. A drowsy pulse that seemed at once to dull, to waken, and to pull him from himself. Yet all this was secondary to the new shock of her eyes.

As instructed, he had begun the session by focusing his gaze on her face. But in moments her face had burned off like steam to leave only the growing pools of her gray-green eyes behind. They were pools, were ponds, were a single merged mountain lake over which he found himself flying—

No no no the Sisters the Brides they are here in the room—

—falling—

—this drowse is not by choice, not playing dead, they want you still on the couch, want you wanting—

—falling—

—fight it fight their sound their mist their maws because after them—

—falling—

—after this—

—sinking below the surface like a flailing stone desperate for the surface—

—comes him. You feel it you know it he is here in the room he is there in your eyes in your neck in your head you let him do it let him into your life to eat and own and swallow whole he is coming to take it all and have you worse than dead get him out get away please please please not again please—

—and shuddering all the while.

—please…

Down, down, down he went into so dense a gloom that all light was thinned to a faint dancing glimmer on the water’s surface. Still he kicked, bucked, clawed at the water that sank him without drowning, crushing him down as if Poseidon’s own hand were dragging him below. He shuddered again, and seemed to gain a lap upwards; then was shoved down again. Back and forth, kick and foam, until he was sunk just deep enough that he could scarcely make out the surface’s light as a twinkling pinprick.

Which was the same instant that the water reversed its verdict. The moment the darkness turned complete was the moment he was rushed suddenly back up towards the light. He lunged to the surface as swiftly as a fish caught on a powerful line. As he breached the surface, he heard Penclosa’s voice call out:

“Awake!”

Jonathan came to with a jolt. Awareness returned to him with several announcements. One, that a faint glaze of perspiration had formed on his brow and that his hands had bent into claws within the cushion he sat on, almost tearing it. Two, that Mina was flying to his side with a look that could not decide between relief and anxiety, while behind her Van Helsing made a last hasty scratch upon his notes and followed her example from his other side. Three, that Miss Penclosa still stood, albeit by using the chaise as her support rather than the crutch. She too had a dew of exertion on her temples and her wan cheeks were flushed, but she smiled proudly just the same. The victor of some unknown duel.

“You were not overestimated, Jonathan Harker. If I had not had some little way in by the aid of your conscious mind, I don’t know that I could have gotten past the violent usher of your subconscious. But it has been managed and the foothold has been made. Should we have need to try again for greater measures—as I hope and expect we shall attempt tomorrow afternoon—the way in shall have its metaphoric door still chocked open.”

Jonathan blinked at her and at Mina and Van Helsing now bookending him.

“Was I really so resistant when I went under? I’d thought I was fairly calm as it began.”

“Only at the beginning, darling,” Mina took his hand and seemed to scour his face as if for signs of injury. “You quite worried us once the trance started setting in.”

“How so?”

“You seemed to be locked in a fight, my friend. An imagined battle in a dream. And you spoke.” This came from Van Helsing. While the weathered face was steady enough, Jonathan was less than heartened at the wild worry flaring in the man’s gaze. Fruitlessly, but instinctively, he lowered his voice to add, “You said, ‘Don’t let him in.’”

A nauseous chill flooded through Jonathan, blooming out from his core until he wondered if he might actually be sick right where he sat. But Mina squeezed his fingers in hers and he steadied.

“You were distressed for some time,” she admitted as one hand drifted up to his shoulder. Holding. Holding. He leaned into her and hooked his eyes to hers. “But it fell off as she went to work. The session was completed. She’s set something up in you. Something to trip up a nightmare should it come around.” Then, lower, “Tonight’s all arranged.”

They’d discussed said arrangement before ever arriving in Tuppeton. A small repeat of the lopsided nights of the year prior, in which days and nights were broken into shifts of uneven sleep to keep watch. Van Helsing had volunteered to be a conscious observer of the couple following Penclosa’s first attempt and to note whatever there was to note by way of triumph or failure in the battle between hypnotic command and dreamt assault.

“Remember,” Penclosa broke in, settling herself down again on the chaise, “record all you can recall on waking. Honest specifics.”

“I will. Are you alright?” He asked for the mesmerist seemed far more winded than she had appeared when working on the guests. She had ticked through those sessions with supreme ease. Now she sat wan and exhausted against the cushions. Even so, her smile redoubled at his question while she daubed herself with a handkerchief.

“This? Just the payoff of a most exerting day. Wine is fine but for these little spells,” she fluttered her hand at herself, “brandy is better. There is a decanter in the window…” Jonathan was already up and fetching it, likewise a tumbler. “Thank you,” she hummed, taking the cut glass as gratefully as if she were handed the Grail. A sip later she sighed and sank into the pillows. “I do sincerely hope to see you all tomorrow with good news. If we succeed in this small step, then the way towards greater leaps is possible. But whether it does so or not—,”

“Three o’ clock tomorrow afternoon,” Van Helsing assured. “We shall arrive with our news, whatever it may be. Deep thanks again for your aid regardless, Miss Penclosa.”

And there was little more to it than that, barring the necessary parting talk with the Wilsons. Yes, Van Helsing and ‘the Murrays’ would record all diligently. Yes, tomorrow. Yes, three o’ clock. Yes, yes, yes. Professor and Harkers parted ways in separate hansoms. Van Helsing headed back to the hotel to ensure he had a good heavy sleep to see him through the night watch while Mina pointed out how it would be a shame to waste the last of the day on heading back to their room when there was plenty of light left to enjoy the town’s little High Street, wouldn’t it?

It would. So they found a petite restaurant and took a late lunch that satisfied far better than what they’d nibbled at the party. They found a table that looked out on the windows and high old trees lining the tranquil avenues that were such a refreshing sight compared to Exeter’s clamor. Between bites, Mina nudged his foot under the table. Jonathan looked up from his cup to see her grinning in a way that spoke to her owning a secret that was only unknown to him because he had looked it full in the face and not seen it.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re lying.”

“I am.”

“So what is it?”

“Just thinking to myself that we shall have to add another address to the long-distance holiday pile when it comes time to send cards. It seems the good Sisters of St. Joseph and Ste. Mary shall have to share ink with Miss Penclosa.”

“I don’t follow.”

“You never do when you’ve gone and charmed another heart around your finger.”

“Said the pot to the kettle. And what charm? She was no more than sympathetic and professional—,”

“As sympathetic and professional as a mother learning that her child has scuffed a knee or caught cold for the first time. I got the impression she was only hindered from inviting you to lay down for a nap and broth because Van Helsing and I were there. If nothing else, her freedom with names shows an informality that I’d not have expected in someone with so moderate a demeanor, not counting her fire against Atherton. ‘Jonathan, Mina, Helen.’ There is a slight accent to her tone, same as Mrs. Wilson’s. Wherever they hail from, perhaps forenames come more freely.”

“Perhaps. And perhaps you’re reading too much into someone who takes courtesy and defense of the wronged as seriously as you do.” Jonathan batted his lashes and laid a hand to his chest. “Unless you mean to say you would not dote on a cause of mine even if I saved you from being struck with a heavy stick?”

“I suppose I would consider it. Idly.” She hid in another bite, another sip. Jonathan watched her and waited. “It’s just odd to me.”

“What is?”

“I don’t know. Even calling it ‘odd’ seems too tame for what I felt. Seeing it.”

“Seeing what, Mina?”

“You going into the trance. It was like watching the reverse of how you’ve been in your throes with the nightmares. On those occasions, I see you in distress and I can wake you out of it. You’re afraid, but then it breaks. I can always break it. But having to sit and watch you sink into that fear, or something so near to it—it made me want to jump up and shake you out of it. Or,” her words thinned out to a noise too small and ashamed to even count as a whisper, “or even knock Miss Penclosa off her feet to stop her work. It was an awful way to feel, but a worse thing to watch. I felt so strangely like a traitor sitting with Van Helsing as you sank into that horrible state before she finally won out and you went slack.” Jonathan’s hand went across to hers. It was her grip’s turn to tremble. She pressed on, “And somehow that was worse.”

“Worse how?”

“Because you looked just the same. Even before you said, ‘Don’t let him in,’ you looked just as you did that night. When he—when he had pushed your mind under and he—,” Jonathan stopped just short of crushing her hand in his. Her hold returned the favor. “You were limp, but you were struggling in your head just as she was struggling without, as though you two were fighting. Like you knew something was wrong and were clawing against it on the inside.”

“That is not too far from the truth,” he admitted. He told her of the lake that grew from Penclosa’s eyes, the fight he had made against the pressure of her hypnosis with animal reflex. “But it was not what he did to me. Likewise the Weird Sisters. Whatever irate creature lurks in the cellar of my mind, it read Penclosa as a threat even greater than Van Helsing’s softer attempt, and it fed fear up into me. Not that I can blame it any more than I can deride you for your concern. It was frightening for how unmoored I felt. She really does have a method all her own. Certainly one wholly alien to the mild haze that Van Helsing tried to push on me. But you saw yourself that she did no more than help. Or try, anyway. We shall see tonight.”

The tight grip had softened both ways to a mere cradling. Then Jonathan brought her knuckles up to press the gold band to his lips.

“I thank you either way for your concern. And for not tackling her.”

“Yes, well. No guarantees if tonight is unsuccessful. I should have to thrash her with my train guide in revenge.” Her attempt at a dour look cracked on the fourth word in and she batted his ankle with her shoe when he laughed. With food and drink now gone, they resumed their walk. While they’d not yet come by a shopfront with cameras in the window, they did find something smaller and sweeter in a jeweler’s display. Two somethings. Mina feigned a moment that it was a silly trifle, a saccharine one, really, and anyway it was more proper for a soldier and his wife, and…

“Oh, but haven’t you heard? I must be an officer of some kind. Witnesses all agree.” He slipped in the building before she could stop him. The unspoken warning sent by his look said that he would pick both if she did not choose her own. Chasing him inside, she saw him edging perilously near a pair of gold—

“I like the silver better,” she got out in a rush.

—then stood with her as the seller behind the glass cases came puttering up to point out every example in silver there was in his collection. To the man’s mild disappointment, the Harkers settled on a matching set with simple designs devoid of even a single scanty gem.

“We most definitely require a camera after this. We haven’t any photographs small enough for these.”

“We have this.” Jonathan tugged on a white lock of hair. Mina muttered again about soldiers and sailors.

But then, as Jonathan bowed so she might latch his chain on, she confessed, “Though I suppose we have risked as much as them. More than.”

“So we have,” Jonathan agreed, fastening her necklace at the nape. Back at the hotel they made their small snips before the toilet mirror, tying the cut locks with thread before tucking each in its locket. Jonathan sighed at hers. “This was a mistake after all. Yours looks as though you’re courting someone’s grandfather.”

“First, no one shall see inside but us.” Mina snapped the lid shut to punctuate as much. “Second, even if someone did see, it would not matter. They are not the one lucky enough to be your wife. If it’s someone especially young who saw, I could get away with telling them it came from some prince of fairy gentry.” She looped her arms about his neck. He hugged the small of her back in turn. “He courted me since we were small, better and sweeter than any ordinary man of England, wed me in a faraway land, and saved my life from a monster. With all these Grimm essentials out of the way, we are set to live our requisite happily ever after.”

“That is certainly a way to tell it. But my face is all wrong for it.” He tapped his cheek. “Too much of umber, not enough pearl.”

“Likewise for myself. But we can always say you were dreamt up by Scheherazade. The point is you are very much one of a kind and worth far more than the color of your hair. In any case, I wager you have more of jealous onlookers than anything. There are girls who would dunk their head in lime for a shade of blonde half as fair.”

“If I grow it out, perhaps I could make a new career by shearing it all off and peddling it to the wigmakers.”

“No.” The word was anguish.

“Oh, or I could go in for those rococo ringlets without having to bother with powder.”

“No!” The word was dismay.  

“Or I could just start making off with your pins and ribbons every morning.”

There was an affronted gasp as he tossed his head and she played as if she meant to hide away her pin box. Laughter bubbled. Then there came a knock at the hotel room’s door with Van Helsing’s voice on the other side.

“I am rested and I see you both are restless,” the Professor announced as he made ready his post in the far corner facing their bed. He decorated it with books enough to bludgeon a man and a flask full enough to revive him. “If you need aid in dropping off, I can always practice my next lecture upon you. Dear John can attest there is no better soporific aid apart from chloral.”

It was an odd scene that unrolled through the evening. Though both Harkers were appropriately swaddled in robes to bar the sight of nightclothes, there was an unavoidable air of being overseen by an uncle with a heap of tiresome family stories to impart in lieu of nursery tales. Van Helsing himself grew bored enough of his own topics that he gave it up and plied husband and wife for talk of their day following the visit with Penclosa. That rambled on pleasantly before snagging on the topic of the mesmerist’s winded stance following Jonathan’s session.

“Ah, you made note of it too? Yes, she did greatly, truly struggle as I have not seen any mesmerist do before. Perhaps she is right, that it was just something of a long day’s fatigue and great focus on her task that so tired her. Yet I wonder. Professor Wilson, he shared with me his notes taken in interviews with himself and herself and the former partner, Professor Austin Gilroy.”

By now he had abandoned his chair and moved up into his habitual stance and pace of the scholar before his staring rows of pupils. He seemed to ache for a chalkboard at his back, for his hands kept stopping just short as if to gesture at something written. The Harkers sat with drowsy raptness as best they could.

“To them,” Van Helsing went on, “ she claims that her method is much, much different than the hypnotist who has only his eyes and voice and hand as his tools. Miss Penclosa, she claims that it is her own mind she uses as the sole instrument; that her will is a thing she may use detached of herself to enforce a command. This takes some toll upon her physical self, coming as lethargy in good moments and true exhaustion in bad. Wilson, he said to me that this must only be an offshoot of the hazy land of clairvoyance. But that there is some truth in her description seems to have credence, I think we cannot doubt. She did wrestle with your subconscious, my friend, and it was a hard battle won.”

Mina paled as she listened. Jonathan more so.

“So she claims it is a psychic act rather than a standard trance?” Mina ventured with only a slight treble. “She sent her mind into him?”

“That is the claim. And yes, I too would worry, but for our playing witness. We saw and heard ourselves how difficult the matter was for her, and how careful her implanted instruction. More, an instruction meant only for his unconscious mind to undertake against the nightmares it manufactures. It is not an easy thing to trust those of extraordinary skill, I will grant, but in this case it seems we are all of us reacting with the suspicion owed to another party. One who had his reasons to do harm. Miss Penclosa has known all of us less than a day. That she would exert herself to such an extreme, risking her own well-being to breach the barrier Jonathan’s mind bricked over to stop any influence at all, shows a character more prone to aid than mischief.”

“Not counting the show with Professor Atherton,” Mina parried. She was now sitting straighter on the bed’s edge. “While I cannot say the fellow didn’t deserve a little shaming for being so shameless, she quite thoroughly gutted him of all his secrets on a whim. Considering Jonathan’s and my own experience with such powerful wills overriding our own, I cannot say I approve of only discovering the whole of the method now, after she’s already been and gone from his head.”

“Wilson did not see fit to tell me so until after the session as we escaped to our hansoms. But your point is fair, Madam Mina. We should have known beforehand.”

“She should have said—,”

“We should have asked,” Jonathan said, trying not to let it grow to a yawn. His eyes were beginning to burn even as new nervousness twisted in him. “We were so occupied with my trouble that we skipped over any inquiry or interest in her. Regardless of whether tonight works out or not, we should still give her better due for,” he stifled another yawn, “her efforts.”

Though perhaps adhering strictly to that track would only be another heap of tedium, he thought but did not have the energy to share. He imagined she had spent most of her time in a guest or gawker’s company alternately doing tricks or regurgitating interviews that only scraped the professional interest of her ability. Jonathan’s mind floated into a hypothetical world of people only ever asking him about the handling of properties, every day, every week. Intolerable.

He would try to make a better effort tomorrow. He would. He would…

Think on it later. Let him lay back and rest his eyes a moment.

Ten minutes of rested eyes later, Mina signed to Van Helsing to lower his voice. Carefully, they took some spare blankets off a chair in lieu of jostling him to get him below the covers. Mina departed from the bed with a last gentle squeeze of his hand before getting up to keep watch with her own books and journal at hand. When Van Helsing whispered that there was no need and that she deserved her rest, she whispered back that she could not rest if she were rolling in Morpheus’ own poppies. Besides, better to have two on watch than one, wasn’t it?

Memory flickered in the man as he opened his mouth and shut it again. Perhaps he smelled garlic blossoms again, perhaps he saw another resting body upon a different bed, waiting on awful dreams. If he did, he did not say. Only agreed that Madam Mina raised another good point. They settled in to wait.

Only two other rooms in Tuppeton were more pregnant with anxious anticipation than theirs.

In one, a man sat with his journal, scratching miserably at it to force some small half-page of a record into existence. He paused with every other sentence to look despondently on his toils of the last few hours: a coat and a screwdriver assailed mercilessly with turpentine. These had been crusted with a rich green paint earlier in the day. Earlier than that, even. No doubt as early as midnight.

He had cried upon seeing the stains that afternoon. Just sat on his bed and wept as he had thought only assailed women and babes capable of. Even now, pen in hand, his eyes carried a traitorous wet burn. Still, he wrote. Still, he waited. Still, he doubted now more than ever that his tormentor would be quit of these turns of the screw. First his professional status was laughed to pieces. Now his freedom as a law-abiding citizen was left balanced on a knife’s edge. Ah, no! Upon a window’s ledge.

Even as he wrote to the page that he had taken only five grains of antipyrine for his storming headache and that his fiancée was all that kept him from taking fifty, his thoughts strayed again and again to the bleak mercy of the bottle. His life would not be his until one or the other of this damned link was dead. He knew it. He took his knowing to bed where he dreamt of bottomless feline eyes and a future full of miserable waiting and worse revelations.

“Be done with me,” he whispered to the dark. It might have been plea or prayer. “Be done with me, you parasite. There is nothing for you here.”

The dark did not answer, but he bit his tongue all the same. No, it was not done for his enemy was not done. The screw would turn and turn and turn until…

He fell asleep on the mental picture of a screw turned so far it had drilled through the virgin wood until it splintered and the screw vanished into some inner void on the other side. Even there, he knew it was turning still.

In another room, a woman stood at her window. The moon fell in and pooled on her eyes. Even as a girl she had been wont to stare without realizing. Since her adventure up at the Suttons’ she found she could forget the chore of blinking for hours at a time. Many small things had changed since that trip. Oh, what a difference an evening could make. What a greater one could be made in a single afternoon.

Other eyes watched on behind her. Some glass, some porcelain, some wood, some cloth. They belonged to an accumulated crowd she had not been able to part with in childhood or adolescence. There were newer ones still in storage with the rest of the goods delivered over from Trinidad. She did not play with them, of course. But these old friends still went where she did. Her heart was soft in that way, as she would demurely admit. One of the very few but very deep sentimental touches she permitted herself in life. She supposed, quite rightly, that if her fancy was for shrunken heads or naked skulls, her friend’s husband would be no less accommodating to their presence.

He saw nothing about her beyond the potential anatomy of his future gloating before the disbelievers of his academic world. This was just as well.

The stargazer turned briefly from the moon to regard the dolls along their shelf and the puppets hung mid-pose on their coat hooks. All stared, all smiled.

She stood with one hand upon her crutch while the other gripped a card. The label of Hawkins and Harker was stamped on its front with the litter of address and business information below. On the other side were new additions.

Exeter.

Letter address.

Locale tour with Gloria (?).

Old furnishings from storage.

New furnishings with J.

The last was underlined twice. Circled. Underlined again. She turned the card gently in her hand and brought it up again to look over. After a moment, she held the slip of heavy paper to her lips.

“Not to worry,” she murmured to the print. “I’ll take care of everything.”

#in which the stage is set for a most romantic escapade with our good friend Jonathan Harker #hope you all enjoy the pile o' text #while I'm still working on this ^^^ I've also got another surprise cooking #I may or may not drop a little hint later this week :3 #but in the meantime #happy valentine's day #helen penclosa #jonathan harker #mina harker #abraham van helsing #austin gilroy #jack seward #arthur holmwood #the parasite #dracula #arthur conan doyle #bram stoker #crossover #my writing #horror #hypnosis #mesmerism

[honeysuckle-venom]

I'm taking an online writing class over the next six weeks. It starts tomorrow (though it's asynchronous) and I'm very, very nervous. I have a deep desire to write, and someday hope to publish a memoir, because there aren't enough modern voices talking about schizophrenia recovery via talk therapy. But I also have a lot of hangups around writing. I used to write a lot as a kid, and everyone around me considered me a very talented writer. My mom was a professional writer and had always been very clear that she and I shared a "gift." She always kind of took credit for my writing ability, which is sort of funny considering that's one of her main complaints about her own mother. My mom talked a lot about how talented I was and how I would be an amazing author one day, and she put a lot of pressure on me to write. She had really high hopes that she and I would one day write a book together, in fact, and a few times tried to start doing that with me, though by the time I was old enough to start working with her like that I was also old enough to have significant problems with her that kept us from getting very far. My desire to write in my spare time decreased as I got older, I think due to a combination of pressure, burnout, and increasing self-consciousness. And while I did write some fanfiction and some poetry in college, and took and very much enjoyed a playwrighting class in my senior year, I mostly stopped writing creatively by the time I was 20. I haven't finished a short story in nearly ten years. I'm out of practice, and my skills are deeply rusty. But it's more than that. People commenting on my writing ability can be really triggering for me. It just brings up all this really complicated past stuff with my mom. My therapist has been urging me to write for a long time, and I have very mixed feelings about that, which she is aware of. Every time she tells me I have a way with words and should be writing I'm simultaneously proud and somewhat triggered. In the past I couldn't stand to hear her say that, it would send me into a panic attack. These days I can handle it and sometimes appreciate it, but it also causes a certain amount of anxiety and discomfort.

Deep down I agree with her. I've always preferred expressing myself verbally, and I used to be a good writer, and it is important for me to have a medium to express myself, and writing is probably the best choice. Getting back into creative writing would probably ultimately be very good for me, and that's why I've decided to try to do it. But I'm also very afraid that it's not just that I'm rusty, it's that I've completely lost the ability to write and will never be any good again, even though that's unlikely and writing is a skill you can practice. Irrational or not, the idea of having entirely lost the ability still scares me. And underneath that is a much more complicated fear, a twisting shameful resentful terrified tangle of feelings about my mother and our relationship and our similarities and our past and our future. I can't even fully explain what about the concept of writing is so triggering, but it just brings up all of these feelings and memories from the past in a way that's really difficult for me.

And I was prepared to deal with that and push through it and take this class, but when I signed up a few weeks ago I wasn't in nearly as precarious a place as I am now. I wasn't psychotic, I was feeling relatively stable. In fact I was stable enough to be bored and seek a class for some mental stimulation. But now I'm back in psychotic survival mode, and I'm really nervous about trying to deal with this class at the same time. It'll be okay, even if all of my homework sucks the only person who will see it will be the teacher and it's not like I'm working towards a degree or anything. I'm doing this to help rebuild a skillset and for "fun." I just have to remember that I guess.

#text post #my post

[hypnotisedfireflies]

So if Joel doesn't find out that Ellie's gay until she's like 18 years old, I assume that means he wouldn't find out until she starts dating Cat or Dina…and that got me thinking.

We know Joel is a certified girldad and he would absolutely make himself president of the Jackson chapter of PFLAG within a week of finding out Ellie was a lesbian. But for all his dad energy, Joel doesn't actually have any experience parenting an older teen/young adult. Not only that, but it probably hasn't occurred to Joel yet just how different dealing with 17 and 18-year-olds are compared to 13 and 14-year-olds. We already saw that in Shots Fired when he thought a 17-year-old Ellie would react to drinking alcohol (and the rules he gave her about it) the same way a 14-year-old Ellie would. So how do you think Joel would handle the other challenges of parenting an older teen like Ellie dating, getting her tattoo, etc.?

Tess Miller has entered the chat.

“If you force rules down her throat she’s just going to break them.”

Joel pointed the hammer at Tess.  “You’re actually not qualified.”

He started climbing the ladder.  Tess held it steady, one foot on the lowest rung.  The board right up the top right side of Ellie’s studio had rotted and needed replacing:  water was getting in with every rain.  At least he thought that was where the water was getting through.  It would be a process of elimination but these seemed a sensible place to start.

“What, because I don’t have kids?”

“No, because you grew up without any damn rules, so you don’t know why they’re important.”

Tess straight up laughed at him.  “I had rules!  I just flouted them.”

“And there were zero consequences for that.”

“I turned out okay.”

“You were lucky.”  Joel started pulling out the old nails with the hammer claw. “Some of the shit you’ve told me, Tess.  That you got away with half of that or even fucking survived…”

“Okay,” she conceded, “I was reckless but I was smart, and so’s Ellie.  She’s not stupid, Joel.  She’s not gonna do stupid things.”

“Nothing seems stupid when you’re that age.  It’s only when you get older you realise how stupid it all is.”

“Okay, so let her do the stupid things!”

“Let her do stupid things?”

“Yes!”

“Just stand by and let her fuck shit up?”

“Yes!”  Tess laughed again. 

She thought she was so damn clever.  Joel coaxed out a stubborn nail and started on the next, wiggling the claw back and forth.

“Joel, she lives in a gated community in the middle of fucking Wyoming at the end of the world.  How much trouble do you think she can really get herself in?”

“Don’t know.  Don’t want to find out.”

“Well, it’s not much,” Tess said, flexing her fingers on the ladder. “I suppose you can’t help yourself.”

“Hey, be nice.”

“You were just born in dad mode.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?  Hey, take these.”  Joel bent down and passed her two rusted, bent nails.  “Careful.”

“Six years on Tommy, right?  It’s six?”

“Yeah.  You got them?”

“Yes, got them.  You basically raised Tommy.  Then you had all that shit with Emma.  Had Sarah so young.  Raised Sarah.  Outbreak happens.  You look after Tommy, you look after me, you look after Ellie.  Your whole life has been looking after someone else.  I can’t blame you for not…”

“Not what?”  Joel looked down.

“Knowing when to stop.”  Tess squinted up at him, moving one hand to shade her eyes.  “… but we love you for it?”

Joel scoffed and gave up trying to work out the last two nails, which were deeply embedded in the soft wood.  He started breaking it up with the hammer instead. 

“Watch your head.”

“I’m not saying no rules,” Tess continued.  “I’m saying be smart about it.  You make the rules in a framework that seems fair to her but at the end of the day, operates the way you want.  She’s a teenage girl, Joel.  Throw everything you think you know out the window.”

#driftersverse #tlou fanfic #tlou #tessjoel #asks

[kicktwine]

If I had to make the ninja confront their greatest fear again, except I guess more technological because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ moving on

some. Fear room scenario. This isn’t an episode there doesn’t have to be a reason Face your greatest fear, triumph, get through. Fail and be locked inside forever. No one is taking their chances on that one, not after ten seasons since yangs temple. Also what did he know anyways. 

there’s only four slots, so obviously they didn’t count on a party of six. But it also won’t open the next puzzle of the dungeon without every room getting filled. Zane and Lloyd sit this one out, knowing that their greatest fears are. Pretty scary actually. And dangerous/destructive. Obviously it’s the whole ice emperor for 40 years thing and something with his dad. Nya ain’t scared of No thing, not since her worst fear already HAPPENED according to a weird mirror. Kai is also scared of NO THING or at least willing to make sure Lloyd and Zane don’t have to do it. Jay has a lot of fears to choose from, he’d like to see it try to pick a “greatest”. And Cole’s pretty sure what he thought were the scariest things have already happened to him once, so he can take whatever fake scenario it throws at him. 

Zane and Lloyd lay out their plan to get through the vents and hack the doors open. The other four step in. 

Cole’s right — his greatest fear is being alone again, being forgotten, forgetting to be human, letting his friends down, his friends not caring. Baby mode stuff, he’s already had these nightmares and also already talked it through with more than one person, like a healthy individual. He tries to meditate through it. He just has to last until Zane and Lloyd figure out how to shut it off and rescue him. Just gotta… figure out if any of his friends’ voices are real. He falls for it a few times, gradually getting more and more paranoid that he’s in a cry wolf situation. He can hold out, though. Just… when they are real, he’ll know, and they won’t leave him. Probably. 

Jay’s very confident going in. What’s this thing gonna show him, fear itself? An 8th grader? Spiders? actually that one’s pretty freaky  nya breaking up with him? Nice try since she already did that once also she said she liked his hair this MORNING. heh. Turns out he was thinking a little too metaphorical, and Nadakhan’s voice is in his ear, and his back slams against the wall so fast he knocks the air out of his lungs and he can’t get it back in. It’s super not real, but it looks real, and it feels real, and it smells real and there’s wind in his hair and he aches and suddenly he’s not even in a room anymore. He didn’t even know he was scared he never left. Or it would happen again, or he forgot to wrap up a loophole, or any millions of other things yknow this really feels like a lot of fears squashed into one which is not fair but fair is the last thing on his mind. It tricks him into thinking it’s not an illusion. Jay’s body is slammed into survival mode.

Nya’s room thinks for a moment. And then starts filling with water. It’s not real water, even if it is very wet feeling, but like, she’s not even AFRAID of water. She is water! Or, was. But she’s always liked to swim anyways. Nya reaches down to bat at the illusory ocean and blinks, and when she opens her eyes the water level is four inches higher her feet hurt a little and she is not in the same spot she was before she blinked. That unnerves her. Badly. Is she losing time? What happened, what did she do for the last minute and a half while the water was slowly rising? Nya is terrified of losing control, but she’s also afraid of the blank spot of bliss and ignorance in her memory when she was just the sea, and not a person. She knew what she was doing then. Even though she keeps telling herself it’s totally not real, every skip brings the water higher and a jolt of panic at more and more and more lost time, the fear that her body is doing something she can’t know about in between. Nya doesn’t even think to be afraid of drowning.

Kai has to watch. 

Kai walks into the room and sees all three other rooms through a transparent, to him, wall, and waits for his doodad to click on and it never does, like it’s broken or something. And it just, continues to not turn on, even as he can see it working for everyone else. He can see Cole becoming frustrated with himself for getting his hopes up, his sister jerk back to awareness violently and flounder for help she isn’t getting, not even now that she wants it, Jay press himself into a corner with his fingers digging into his hair like he’s trying to disappear. He can see Lloyd and Zane, too, give each other a fist bump, hop into the vents, and get. Caught. And Kai can’t help. No one can hear him, no matter how hard he slams into the wall he can’t break it. He would break it if he could. Kai isn’t scared of losing his powers anymore. He’s scared of being powerless — of being perfectly fine, while his family takes hits he should be taking. They don’t deserve to get hurt while Kai twiddles his thumbs and gets out of playing. Not while he could help. 

Lloyd and Zane pop the doors open a minute later to Kai nearly melting holes through the walls, no reaction from Cole, a shaky sigh of relief from Nya (knew it wasn’t real now can someone get me a watch please.), and a violent flinch from Jay that nearly fries Zane’s processor. Everyone decides this room is too advanced, it needs to be destroyed, and three people try to get out of talking about it later before Cole threatens to ban Zane from the kitchen at his own expense

#lads kippers starting to fill a notes app note full of scenarios. This is disastrous for my tumblr posting cred #(it is not it just means it’s straining the barrier I have between drawing a comic to get the idea to work and just posting like #WELCOME TO MY TWISTED MIND (posts a post that starts with ‘imagine’)) #anyways have I mentioned I love Kai. #ninjago #cocks gun #my writing #I guess—

[topsyturvy-turtely]

june challenge - day 7

[see also: day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, day 6.

be warned: you will kinda hate me but kinda love me after reading this. i'm sorry for playing with your feelings. oh, and johnlock isn't a couple in this...]

7. a death of someone close

the first time it happened mrs. hudson came up the stairs, kind of shaky. john immediately jumped up: "mrs. hudson!" and helped his landlady to the couch. "what is wrong?"

the sweet lady waved it off: "it's probably nothing, dea- oh!", she held her hand to her head.

"headaches. since when have you had them, mrs. hudson?", john was in doctor mode.

"a week. but john- they feel different."

"i'm sure it's nothing to worry about. i'll give you some ibuprofen and if you need something else, please don't hesitate to call, alright?"

"thank you john, darling."

"anytime, hudders."

***

the next time rosie ran up the stairs to get her father. "daddy! daddy! granny is sick!"

john and sherlock looked up with concern.

"it's alright, sweetie. i'm coming.", john said his voice soothing, but his eyebrows were furrowed. he bent down to his daughter and stroked her hair. "stay with sherlock in the meantime, okay?"

john sent a questioning look towards sherlock, who nodded and turned to the six year old with a smile.

"oh john, i am so sorry to have scared sweet rosie like that but i- i don't feel well."

as if on cue mrs. hudson clasped her hand to her mouth and looked at him in shock.

"okay, let's get you to the bathroom, hm?", john said, already leading her there.

***

the incident that happened next was where john was getting seriously concerned. the doctor was thankful rosie was at school.

mrs. hudson of course refused to settle down. instead she came upstairs to bring her boys biscuits. she was just about to put the tray down, when it happened: her whole body stiffened up, dropping the tray, shaking, and falling to the floor. a seizure. john and sherlock had no chance softening her fall.

"jesus! sherlock call 999. now!"

sherlock was frozen for a second, looking in shock at his landlady.

"sherlock! NOW!"

finally sherlock moved and john could focus on first aid.

***

later at the hospital john and sherlock sat across the doctor.

"i am very sorry to tell you, gentlemen, but your houseke-"

"landlady.", sherlock interrupted. he hadn't said anything up til now.

"right. sorry, your landlady... has a brain tumor. it spread already. we'll start the treatment tomorrow but-"

"survival chances are slim." john finished. he wasn't sitting. he paced up and down the office. and glanced at his watch merely by accident.

"shit, sherlock- i'll have to get rosie... will you be o-"

"of course, john. go pick up the little one."

***

"where is granny, daddy?", the little girl asked. mrs. hudson usually picked her up every other day. today it was supposed to be her.

"she... she is not doing well, sweetheart.", john's heart broke at seeing rosie's big concerned eyes.

"she is at the hospital right now.", might as well get it over with, john thought bitterly.

rosie stopped walking, still holding his daughter's hand, john was forced to stop as well.

"but granny will be okay, right, dad?"

everything inside of john wanted to say but of course, darling. she will come back as well as ever. but john didn't wanna lie. so he just stroked his daughter's cheek and quietly said. "i don't know, rosamund." he averted his eyes, looking at the pavement. "i don't know."

***

later that night - john had finally managed to get rosie to bed - he wanted to settle down and talk to sherlock. about mrs. hudson.

but sherlock just picked up his violin, facing the window and started playing. it was a very sad melody.

***

mrs. hudson was treated with radiation therapy. every day john, sherlock and rosie came to visit her. some days it was just john and rosie. some days it was just sherlock. sometimes it was just the two men. and once it was sherlock and the little girl.

mrs. hudson looked bad. she was losing her hair and was the skinniest she has ever been. all three of mrs. hudson's darlings were very worried.

***

one visit - it was all three of them - it happened. the machines started peeping, john screamed at sherlock to get a doctor, rosie started crying. the doctors and nurses rushed into the room and ordered the trio to get out of the room.

two hours later they heard the bad news. mrs hudson had passed away.

without another word sherlock stomped out of the hospital. john held his head high and clenched and unclenched his fists. rosie was scared and at some point started crying uncontrollably. john tried everything but wasn't able to calm her.

***

the funeral was on a sunny day. the priest said something along the lines that mrs. hudson smiled at them through the sun. people in black cried for their loss, smiled because of beautiful memories, looked serious in condolences.

ever since the sweet old lady was gone, sherlock has eaten even less than he usually did, rosie has cried herself to sleep every night and john tried to keep himself together, while silently breaking apart himself. the family of four was torn apart, hanging on thin threads.

***

one night rosie wouldn't fall asleep, no matter what john did. it didn't help reading her a good night story, making her a hot chocolate or covering her in stuffed animals. the poor girl was still cring her eyes out.

"sweetheart, what else can i do for you? do you want me to lay down next to you until you fall asleep?"

rosie wiped her nose in a tissue and nodded. her eyes were red and swollen from crying. john's heart ached at that sight. the doctor was just about to get comfortable on her bed when rosie took her thumb out of her mouth (she unfortunately had started thumb-sucking again) to say: "i want lock, too.

"sherlock? you want sherlock up here too?", john asked incredulously.

the little girl nodded. for a second john just stared at his daughter. then he got up and kissed the top of her head. "i'll be right back, sweetie."

i

downstairs sherlock was lost in his mind palace. john indecisively stood in the doorway. should he really ask him to join him comfort rosie? but then he thought of his daughter's heartrending sobs and his parental instincts took over.

"sherlock? can you..", john cleared his throat. "would you come upstairs? rosie needs you."

sherlock opened his eyes, his hands still steepled under his chin. john was sure the detective would decline, when sherlock unwrapped his legs and walked towards john. he walked by him, letting his hand brush against john's inner forearm. "come on. she needs both of us.", sherlock whispered.

and john followed his flat mate up to his room.

the room was getting decisively too small for john and his daugther. they have had two beds, since rosie was five, but john wouldn't say no to a bit of privacy.

when the two men came upstairs, rosie had buried her head into her pillow and started crying again.

"hey, flower. it's me. sherlock.", upon hearing the familiar baritone rosie stuck her head out of her blankets and smiled weakly through a blur of tears. john's heart tightened. his daughter loved and adored sherlock. it was amazing, but it hurt too...

the tall man kneeled down beside her bed and searched for her hand. john sat down beside him. "want me to tell you a story?", sherlock asked his flower. the girl nodded.

sherlock shuffled a bit to get comfortable and then started talking: "once upon a time there was a...", sherlock looked at john quickly, nodded and continued: "a hedgehog. he was the bravest, kindest and best doctor on the earth."

john looked at sherlock.. was he talking about him?

"and one day he met his old friend the terrier again. the terrier introduced him to..." this apparently was happening. john smiled at sherlock looked at him appraisingly and then whispered "otter."

sherlock raised his eyebrows and john saw the an otter? really? in his eyes. john grinned and nodded at him so he would continue his story.

"an otter. he was a detective, a pretty smart one too. the hedgehog-doctor and otter-detective moved in together. but they didn't live alone, there was a cat too. she was a bit old but still very active. she always made sure the hedgehog and the otter had tea and biscuits. she was a lovely cat, but she wasn't cuddly all the time - she had claws too and if needed she would use them. especially when she wanted the otter and hedgehog to behave."

"but mostly the otter.", john intervened.

sherlock chuckled. "yes, i suppose mostly the otter." he locked eyes with john for a moment. then he looked back at rosie, rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb and continued the story. "the hedgehog and the otter went on maaany adventures together. they helped the grey wolf, who was working for the police. and during their many adventures the hedgehog and otter became best friends."

rosie listened carefully her eyes big, but blinking a lot - clearly fighting to stay awake.

john smiled at sherlock gently and nudged him with his elbow.

"and one day the otter and hedgehog met a little koala-baby. she was very sweet. sometimes a bit stubborn- which she definitely has from the hedgehog." john looked playfully offended at sherlock. rosie had lost the fight to keep her eyes open, but she still was awake - smiling now. "the koala was super smart too, just like the otter. and the cat loved the little koala from the very first moment. she spoiled her endlessly. made her the best food, bought her the prettiest dresses and made her the loveliest braids."

"just like granny!", rosie said sleepily.

john looked at his daughter and then placed his hand on her forearm. his thumb covering sherlock's pinkie. "yeah, just like granny, sweetie."

sherlock looked deeply into john's eyes, but the doctor left his hand right where it was. at this moment it felt just right.

"but one day the cat was gone and the hedgehog, the otter and the koala missed her a lot. but especially the little koala. she cried almost every day because she missed her sweet old cat."

rosie frowned amd opened her eyes. john looked warningly at sherlock but the other man continued: "however the koala remembered something. how could she have forgotten that?! cats have nine lives! and what if the cat just was bored of always being a cat? maybe some day she was the butterfly on the koala's nose. maybe she was the mouse selling biscuits in the bakery the next day. maybe she was-"

"-the dog playing with me in the park yesterday?!", rosie asked excitedly.

"yeah, maybe she was." sherlock said with a smile on his face.

"every day the koala finds her favorite cat in something. and if she wasn't sure where her cat was, she always had the hedgehog-doctor and the otter-detective to talk to and play with.", sherlock looked shyly at john, then he carefully placed a kiss on the top of rosies head. "good night, flower." the girl smiled with closed eyes, one hand under her cheek. "night, lock. night, daddy." she yawned one more time and finally fell asleep.

john was stunned. what a beautiful story, sherlock had told! he got up as well and kissed his daughter's forehead.

then the two of them headed back downstairs. at the bottom of the stairs john checked his watch. 10:30 already and he had to get up in less than eight hours now. without thinking about it john reached for sherlock's hand - the detective turned around. "thank you, sherlock."

"of course, john." he replied looking away. but john saw his glassy eyes.

john squeezed his hand. "you miss her a lot too, hm?"

sherlock just nodded once. then his gaze dropped onto their intertwined hands. john smiled and spontaneously wrapped his flatmate in a hug. "you know... i'm here for you."

sherlock tightened the hug for a second. "and i am for you."

john pulled away, now he was the one with tears in eyes. "we'd be lost without our otter." he whispered. then john - he would later blame it on being softened by sherlock's cute story - kissed sherlock's cheek. after that he turned around and went up the stairs.

sherlock didn't move for three very long seconds. looking after his hedgehog. i'd be lost without the both of you too, he thought, before picking up his violin to play and help john fall asleep.

---

fucking tumors & cancers -.- lmk what you think turtels <3

i apologize for any typos etc. feel free to point them out (can't proofread as carefully as usually because i'm already working on these for forever. it's the busiest month of the year ... why did i decide to challenge myself with this??? i'm insane!!!

tagging!!! (please tell me if you wanna be added/removed): @catlock-holmes @helloliriels @justanobsessedpan @boredsushi @fluffbyday-smutbynight @inevitably-johnlocked @hisfavouritejumper @rhasima @forfucksakejohn @ohlooktheresabee @turbulenttrouble @7arantellgrrl @ssmeowl123 @so-youre-unattached-like-me @totallysilvergirl @peanitbear @train-mossman @loki-lock @smulderscobie @timberva @grace-in-the-wilderness @chinike @pansherlock @the-smol-bean-libby-blog @jawnn-watson @whatnext2020 @escapingthereality @missdeliadili @kettykika78 @musingsofmyown @7-percent @speedymoviesbyscience @astudyin221b @toobluebrunette thanks for reading y'all! 💚

#june challenge #turtely's june challenge #parentlock #sherlock calling rosie flower #is kind of a headcanon of mine #and rosie calling sherlock lock too #such a sweet family #poor hudders #i love her #please forgive me #happy pride 🌈 #bbc sherlock #mrs hudson #johnlock #sherlock #john watson #rosie watson #sherlock holmes #sherlock x john #johnlock fanfic #johnlock ficlet #turtely #topsyturvy turtely #turtely writes #my writing

[jess-unkommentiert]

[10] The king of karaoke

-> Heartbeats 💕 Masterlist

End of November 2022 – Atlanta Sebastian left the room right afterwards, because he was scheduled for a costume check on the other side of the corridor. Thankfully Bucky's current arm wasn't a real prosthetic - it was more like a sleeve (and a glove) made of latex rubber. Most of Bucky's arm was CGI in the final result anyways. But he heard that he got a new leather suit and was really excited to see if that one was comfortable or not. And if it still fits or not, because he just had six exhausting workout weeks with his personal trainer Don.

The room was filled with silence because of his absent - y/n was still standing at the exact spot as she was when Sebastian let her go from the hug. She was overwhelmed. AGAIN.

How can someone have such an effect on her?

She shook her hand and managed to drop on the couch next to her jacket. Her hand covered mostly her whole face while her brain was working in hard-mode.

„I flirted with Sebastian Stan. And I wasn't subtle. Neither was he. And then the hug... but he acted like nothing happened right afterwards before he left the room. Maybe Christina WAS right and he does this to / with a lot of girls", she thought.

She tried to stop thinking about the situation and picked her phone out of the pocket on her jacket. She had two unread messages: one from Christina and one from Susan:

Christina Hope the boys are nice today. Don't be scared, you're doing an amazing job. They're going to love you. And please say hi to Anthony and Sebastian! xoxo

Susan Bar and cocktails? Tonight? I think we should celebrate the official start of our new movie. Michelle already said yes so you kind of don't have a choice. 8:30pm in our favorite bar. See you there!

Y/n smiled because of Susan's message. Celebrating the survival of their first day with the cast was a good reason for some cocktails. Maybe that would help her to forget THE situation that was going on here a few minutes ago.

~~~

End of November 2022 – Atlanta

The next days went by really fast as they started shooting the first scenes of the movie. Y/n main work was with Sebastian and Danny because Anthony's hair and beard were easy to handle every morning.

The crew created some huge sets in two halls at a film studio in Atlanta - 20 minutes south of the marvel headquarters. It was nearer to y/n's apartment so she only needed 15 minutes every morning to go there. Half of the movie was shot in Atlanta, another big part would be shot in Cleveland and they would also fly to Europe to shoot some scenes over there.

Originally they had planned to go to Prague (like they did in FATWS) or Budapest (because it is a beautiful city with ancient architecture) but both cities denied their request. Two years of covid were hard for a lot of countries and they wanted to focus on regrowing tourism. Hosting a big team like Marvel would lead to lot of  blockages around the city - disturbing tourist to explore freely.

Sebastian suggested that they could go to Bucharest instead and after the team had reached out to the city they agreed on working with Marvel. It probably helped that Sebastian was Romania's most famous actor.

But they were going to stay in Atlanta until end of February what y/n really liked because she was just getting used to live in Atlanta – even enjoyed hanging out with Michelle and Susan. What was a big thing as she was always more of an introvert person.

Today they were shooting a 'meeting scene' in a set that should show a conference room in a military base. The scene included Sam, Bucky, Torres and Sharon discussing about how to stop their new enemy called 'New world order' that was leaded by Red Skull. All characters were going to wear casual clothes so their hair and make-up should be casual as well.

Anthony was the first one in y/n hair and make-up trailer – as usual. She combed his hair and beard, fixed everything with a bit of hairspray and he was good to go. He wanted to talk to Joe and Anthony Russo about the script because he had some changes in mind.

Sebastian was next and a few minutes before his scheduled time, y/n heard a knock on the door of the trailer.

"Come on in!" she shouted towards the door while she was preparing some hair gel next to the make-up stuff that was already laying on the desk.

Sebastian entered the trailer with a Starbucks tray in his hand that included two cups of coffee and two muffins. "I brought some breakfast. I didn't know if you like coffee and how you would probably drink it, so I asked the Starbucks employee for the sweetest ingredients they have for coffee. Because I remember you like to drink your drinks very sweet. He suggested a caramel latte, so I got you one of those and a blueberry muffin. Just because I love muffins and as I tried to be not too selfish, I brought you one as well."

Y/n smiled at him while he reached out the tray for her to grab her coffee and a muffin. "Caramel latte was a good choice Mr. Stan. Normally I prefer a vanilla latte, but caramel is fine as well. You are right: I like sweet drinks."

She took a big bite from her muffin and munched on it with a lot of pleasure. Sebastian laughed and took a sip from his coffee before he dropped down on the chair in front of y/n.

"You can finish that muffin before making my hair. I don't want to have any crumble in my style. I am not the cookie monster!" he said to her while looking in the mirror.

After she had swallowed the big bite she said: "Okay, but then you have to entertain me and tell me some stories about you. Like: What is Sebastian Stan typically doing after he leaves the set in the evening?"

He looked confused in the beginning but as she got another bite from her muffin and looked at him with expectations in her eyes he giggled and started to clear his throat.

„Marvel rented an apartment nearby for me so I usually get back to the apartment and take a shower first. Even if there were no action scenes on that day. I like to freshen up a bit." he took another sip of his coffee - which was black with just a little bit of oat milk in it.

„Right after the shower I usually take care of getting dinner. I mean having food is the best part of every day. But Don - he is my personal trainer and I work with him for more than 10 years now - prepared a meal plan for me so I literally just have to find a restaurant who serve a fitting dish. Makes my life a lot easier, but also very boring."

Y/n saw a little bit of sadness in his eyes as he said that. She knew how hard the actors work to get in shape for their roles but she never thought about how exactly they did it in detail. Eating only what your trainer told you, did sound very boring. She loved walking around the streets to get inspiration what she liked to have for dinner. Sometimes she even ended up in small restaurants with no one speaking English. These were the best experiences she ever had - regarding the fact that she was not able to communicate.

„What does Don think about blueberry muffins?" she giggled.

„Shhh!" he made and put his index finger in front of his lips. „Please, don't tell him!"

Both laughed before he took the biggest possible bite from his muffin. She looked at him in shock and curiosity how he would manage to munch on that amount of muffin. And she wasn't disappointed as he clearly had his problems to eat without choking to death.  She clapped him on his right shoulder - showing him support with his challenge. Then she took a sip of her caramel latte.

Half of her muffin was still laying on the desk as she asked: „That's it? That's all you're doing? Taking a shower and having dinner?"  He nodded in response.

„Sebastian Stan, you are a very boring person! No parties, no alcohol escapades, no dates or one-night-stands?" she never wanted to speak out loud the last part of the question, but her mouth was not following her commands. Their gazes met and she wasn't sure what he was thinking so she quickly added: „You know that this was just a joke, right? I know that you have a hard job doing all those scenes. I would prefer to have a relaxing evening as well!"

He smiled at her and she could see the relief in his eyes that he must not answer to her stupid question. „I just like to focus on my job and do everything, to be as good as possible!" he answered with a quiet voice.

„And I admire that, I real..." she started but he continued speaking so she quickly shut off.

„I was planning to do some karaoke on Friday with Anthony, Danny and my assistant Ann. Would you like to join us?" he turned around to look into her face directly instead of just looking into the mirror. His steel-blue eyes met her green ones and the world around them seemed to disappear. She could only hear her own heart beating like galloping horses. She was scared that she would lose everything in his blue eyes so she forced herself to blink - taking her back to reality.

„I would love to. Can I bring Michelle and Susan? They are my best friends in Atlanta!" she managed to answer.

„Of course! The more the better!" he winked at her and she gave his shoulder a squeeze in response. He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Then he reached it to her and said: „Give me your number. So I can text you where and when we're gonna meet on Friday."

She tipped her number into his phone - her heart still beating fast but not galloping anymore. He realized that she was still looking at his phone while he saved her number under the nickname „Y/N - Massage Queen". They both giggled before she slapped him gentle on his upper arm and stopped observing his phone.

He then texted her, so that she had his number as well. She looked at her phone and saw that he had send her a white heart emoji. „That flirty little bastard!" she thought before she saved his number unter the nickname „Sebastian - the nice guy".

~~~

As Sebastian didn't have a scene to shoot on Friday he was staying in his apartment. So he decided to send y/n a text in the morning:

Sebastian Good Morning. Miss me?

Y/n I miss my morning coffee, but I don't miss taming your stubborn romanian bunch of hair.

Sebastian Ouch, that hurt!

Y/n Don't be a baby, Sebastian. Why are you awake anyways? It's 7:00 am?!?!

Sebastian I meditate in the morning. You should try it. Helps me calm down and survive another day with Anthony.

Y/n I prefer to stay in my warm and comfortable bed. Why are you texting me? You know that I need to work and don't want to lose my job.

Sebastian I am sorry for disturbing your very important work. Just wanted to let you know that we meet at 8pm at a karaoke bar near my apartment. I'll send you the google maps location!

Y/n Okay, thank you. See you tonight!

He sent a google maps location right after her response so she clicked on it to look where they were going tonight. It was a regular bar near her own apartment - what confused her. She didn't knew where Sebastian's apartment was, but it seemed to be near hers.

She texted Susan the location and asked her if she wanted to stay at hers tonight so that she shouldn't pay for a taxi. Michelle had a date, so she was not coming with them. Susan was happy that she asked and was looking forward to their night out. It was a 10-15 minutes walk from the bar back to her apartment - perfect to clean their heads. She didn't plan to get drunk, but she was excited for some drinks.

During their lunch break Susan and y/n discussed about what to wear as Anthony joined them at their table. „What are you talking about, girls?" he asked.

„What are we going to wear tonight. Have you already prepared your outfit, Mackie?" Susan asked him.

„It's a friends night out at a bar that is mostly know for karaoke. I'm gonna wear a jeans and a shirt. That's it!" he said. He looked with furrowed brows alternating between both of them.

„Oh come one, Mackie. You're not helping at all. So the dresscode is casual then?" y/n asked him.

„The dresscode is: wear whatever you like to wear. Be comfortable, enjoy the evening. That's my motto!"

Y/n admired him for his straight view on things. He was one of the most honest and transparent people in the industry. And he was also right. So she decided to try not to put so much pressure on herself. It was a friends night out. Wearing casual clothes shouldn't be that hard.

Susan could read her mind - like always - and said: „He is right. We're about to have a good evening with our colleagues. I am just gonna wear a plain shirt and jeans. What about you? Casual, too?" Y/n nodded in agreement.

~~~

Right after y/n returned home from work she took a little nap to refuel her energy. It was 5pm when she woke up, finding a text from Susan that she was was going to be there at 7:30 on her phone.

She stood in front of her closet and tried to figure out what to wear tonight. Trying not to put too much pressure on herself definitive looked different! She knew she wanted to wear her black jeans because they were very comfortable - along with her white Nike sneakers. But for the upper part of her body she wasn't sure if she should wear a t-shirt or a blouse. She took a Guns'n'Roses shirt out of the closet and put it on her bed before she placed a white blouse with some little floral embroideries at the upper part right next to the shirt.

Then she grabbed her phone, took a picture of them and send it to Susan with "Which one should I wear tonight?" in addition to the photo.

Afterwards she turned around to head into her kitchen to prepare some dinner. She wanted to have some solid food before drinking alcohol so she cooked herself Mexican wraps that were filled with minced meat, cheese, tomatoes, kidney beans, corn and guacamole. Right before she wanted to take her first bite she heard her phone buzzing inside of her pocket. She took it out and read the message she got:

Sebastian I really like the blouse. It's pretty. Can't wait to see you in it tonight. See you later!

Wait a goddamn minute.

She scrolled through her chat with Sebastian as she realized that she accidently sent the picture of both shirts to Sebastian and not to Susan. Her wrap fell out of her hand onto the plate - spreading the ingredients all over the plate and table. How the hell did that happen. She was 100% sure that she had sent it to Susan, because she was the last one she texted with. But then she remembered that she clicked on the bar again, that Sebastian has sent her because she wanted to check what they offered for food. That's why she decided having dinner at home and not in the bar.

"How could I be so stupid?" she thought while she aggressively picked up the scattered wrap ingredients with her fork.

She finished her dinner – still ashamed about the whole pictures-sent-to-the-wrong-person-thing – and went to her bathroom to take a shower. The warm water helped her to clear her mind and when she started to get dressed around 7pm she was able to laugh about the mistake. Of course she would wear the blouse tonight but she was not going to tell Sebastian, that she originally meant to send the picture to Susan instead of him.

Susan arrived at her apartment with a big duffle bag.

"You know that you are just staying for one night, don't you?" y/n asked her while Susan put the bag on the couch.

"I need all that stuff. Stop judging me!" she hissed back before both of them started to laugh.

Y/n offered Susan to do her make-up before she applied some natural make-up on her own face. Her hair were in a loose ballerina bun – a few strands falling out of it and framed her face naturally. She looked in the mirror one last time before the girls grabbed their phones and purses and headed towards the bar.

~~~

Sebastian 7:54pm We are already inside. We were scared that we meet too many fans when we wait outside. 7:54pm Not that I don't like meeting my fans. But tonight should be a friends night. With lots of karaoke and drinks.

Y/n read Sebastian's first text out loud so that Susan knew about it, but she kept the second one a secret – not knowing why. As they head around the corner and arrived at the bar she saw that it was already really crowded in- and outside the bar. She sighed because she was still an introverted person who didn't like to be around that much people frequently.

Susan looked at her from the side and said: "It's gonna be a good night. They are famous actors, they probably have a table outside of the crowd anyways."

She hadn't thought about that but it made sense.

They entered the bar and glanced around to see where their colleagues are. Susan saw Anthony waving at them from the other side of the room, so she nudged y/n with her elbow and pointed at Anthony. They made their way through the crowd at the bar and y/n was happy that their table was indeed far away from the main 'trouble'. As they arrived y/n saw Anthony and Sebastian sitting next to an unknown brown-haired woman.

She hugged Anthony and took a step in Sebastians direction to do the same with him as he waved his hand to welcome them – making clear that he didn't want to hug her. He put one hand on the shoulder of the mysterious woman and said: "Y/n, Susan, this is Ann. She is my assistant and I invited her as well."

"Hi Ann, I'm y/n." she said and smiled at her. It wasn't an honest smile because she was uncomfortable seeing Sebastian's hand on her shoulder. They looked intimate with each other.

Ann was wearing an almost floor-length light red vintage dress with white dots on it. It reminded y/n of the 50s. "Wearing a dress in November is ridiculous" y/n thought but before she could dig even deeper in that rabbit hole, Susan exclaimed: "Where is Danny? I though he wanted to come as well?"

"He has a date. He preferred a hot lady over his guys. He should be ashamed! Where is Michelle by the way?" Anthony asked.

"She has a date as well", y/n said.

"Wait a minute. Don't you think the same?" Anthony laughed.

"There is no way! She would have told us about that, wouldn't she?" Susan said – looking at y/n with a raised eyebrow. Y/n nodded although she wasn't 100% sure, because Michelle indeed never told them where she met the guy she was dating tonight. Nor a name.

"Dating a colleague is never a good idea!", Ann snickered and patted on Sebastian's hand that was still on her shoulder.

He smiled ashamed (y/n knew that he was dating a lot of his co-stars in the past), put his hand off her shoulder and pointed on three drinks on their table.

"I already ordered cocktails for you girls. Two cosmopolitan and a peach-y cocktail for you y/n. That's the sweetest cocktail they have on the menu but I can get you some more sugar if it's not enough." He winked at her. Susan grabbed both cosmopolitans – happy that she could drink Michelle's drink as well.

"Thank you, Sebastian. Very kind!" y/n answered while she took a sip with an orange straw. Her face brightened as the drink was delicious. He seemed to notice that because he was dropping back in his seat – releasing the tension with a deep exhalation. His arm was laying on the back rest of Ann's seat.

They were talking about a few topics while drinking more cocktails when Sebastian suddenly stood up and exclaimed: "You should all have enough alcohol now. Grab your drinks, I reserved a karaoke room for us!"

All of them were whining – but he forced them into a small hallway to their right and into a large karaoke room. At least they had their privacy in there and none of the other bar attendants were forced to hear their terrible singing voices.

Anthony teased Sebastian with choosing a song from Mötley Crüe for him to sing.

"You portrayed Tommy Lee, man. So show us your skills!" he said to him.

Sebastian wasn't able to keep a straight face as this wasn't exactly the song he would have chosen but he forced himself through the whole song and earned applause for his braveness.

A slightly-drunk Susan volunteered to be next and decided to sing "Single Ladies" by Beyoncé:

All the single ladies, all the single ladies All the single ladies, all the single ladies All the single ladies, all the single ladies All the single ladies

Now put your hands up Up in the club, we just broke up I'm doing my own little thing Decided to dip and now you wanna trip Cause another brother noticed me

Sebastian noticed that both Susan and y/n put their hands up in the air, while Susan was literally screaming into the microphone. He turned his head to y/n and still saw the ring on her left hand. Maybe she was just into the song. That didn't mean anything.

Right after Susan was finished, they ordered another round of cocktails and Sebastian asked the others if they wanted to perform a song as well.

Anthony – who played Papa Doc in 8Mile – ironically chose a song from Eminem to show off his rap skills. But as he had maybe a few drinks too much he wasn't able to keep with the pace of Eminem. He earned some big boos from Sebastian and Susan for his performance. So he decided to just sit down and have another cocktail.

Sebastian gave the microphone to y/n and said: "Come on, it's your time to shine!" but y/n immediately shook her head as a wave of anxiety flooded her body. She looked at her shoes and hoped he would just let go and don't force her to sing. Sebastian seemed to notice her changed expression and put his hand on the side of her upper arm to comfort her.

"It's okay. No one will laugh." He said but she still shook her head – her gaze fixing the floor and her shoes.

"What a bout a duet? You and me? Then we disgrace ourselves together!" he suggested and she finally raised her head to look into his blue-eyes. He was smiling and she felt the comfortable vibes that came with looking into them.

"Okay. But I am going to chose the song!", y/n said with a shaky voice. She was sitting on the couch while he was standing in front of her. His hand moved from her upper arm in front of her chest like a demand. She grabbed his hand, stood up and went to the karaoke machine to search for the song she wanted to sing: "Wonderwall" by Oasis.

The song started with a soft guitar melody as y/n tightened the grip on her microphone. The karaoke machine was set on the mode "duet" what meant that they were singing alternatingly.

Sebastian Today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you And by now, you should've somehow realised what you gotta do I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now

Y/n And backbeat, the word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out I'm sure you've heard it all before, but you never really had a doubt I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now

She didn't need the lyrics because she knew this song by heart. It was one of her favorite songs. But she put her gaze on the monitor in front of her – she didn't want to face Sebastian.

Sebastian & y/n And all the roads we have to walk are winding And all the lights that lead us there are blinding There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I don't know how

Because maybe You're gonna be the one that saves me And after all You're my wonderwall

As they were both screaming the lines into their microphones she finally didn't care anymore if her voice was cracky and bad. She just enjoyed singing this song – like she was used to while taking a shower. Sebastian was singing the next part and she looked at him from the corner of her eye.

Sebastian Today was gonna be the day, but they'll never throw it back to you And by now, you should've somehow realised what you're not to do I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now

And before they headed into the next chorus she turned her head to him and saw that he didn't need the lyrics, too. He was facing her and she was finally facing him. Their gazes met and she felt like there was a firework in her stomach. Those steel-blue eyes really let you know where home is. She felt comfortable and safe around him and all her insecurities were buried deep inside of her body.

They didn't notice their colleagues around them sitting on the couches or the waitress that came into the room to bring more cocktails. They focused on each while passionately singing the next part of the song.

Sebastian & y/n And all the roads we have to walk are winding And all the lights that lead us there are blinding There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I don't know how

Because maybe You're gonna be the one that saves me And after all You're my wonderwall

When they were finished they heard applause – leading them back to reality.

"That was hell of a duet!" Anthony said smiling. Y/n looked at Susan who had a very knowing expression on her face. That girl could read her mind like an open book. Y/n was sure Susan knew that this was more than a karaoke duet for her. And that she had realized the sparkles in both Sebastian and y/n's eyes.

#sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan reader #sebastian stan fandom #sebastian stan fanfiction #sebastian stan #sebastian stan x female reader #sebastian stan x y/n #sebastian stan x femalereader #sebastian stan x you #mcu #marvel fanfic #marvel fanfiction #marvel fanfic writer #marvel #winter soldier #wintersoldier #james bucky barnes #buckybarnes #bucky barnes #female reader #romance #love at first sight #lovestory #fanfic #fanfiction

[yottakitsune]

Sleep was fitful and full of dreams. Some were mine, some were 2B's, but all were memories. I awoke to a girl poking at me with a stick. "Is she dead?" someone behind her asked.

"Doubtful," said another voice. "She's starting to move."

I didn't wait for them to say much else before I batted the stick away with a hand and sat up. "Yes, she's alive." I looked around at the people I found myself surrounded by. An older man and woman, probably middle-aged, and a daughter. "Sorry if I broke into your house."

"We just got here," said the daughter honestly before either of her parents could interject.

"We used to live in the area," explained the father. "Why are you here?" He folded his arms over his chest and tried to look intimidating, but he was scrawny and flabby. Not to mention, he's just a regular human. Nothing I couldn't handle.

"Resting. The house looked abandoned, and I figured I could get some rest and not get harassed by the soldiers here." The Pod had made itself scarce, probably hiding in the same place my inventory was kept. "I should go." If that had been a nuke, these people were already dead. If it wasn't, I would kill them by being around them.

"Are you sure?" asked the mother. "Aren't you blind?" She pointed at my blindfold.

"Positive. And I can manage better than most." I pushed my body back to its feet and walked past them. They said something, but I ignored them. I didn't feel right being around them, and I didn't want to get attached to anybody else. The next few years were going to be rough.

I continued my run along the abandoned freeway through into the day and back to night, though the further I got from Jericho, the more numerous people became. More than five hundred miles away, I finally stopped at a motel that looked as abandoned as the house. A few cars were parked out front, but they all looked like they had been there for years with multiple flat tires and the windows busted out.

Once my Pod had confirmed that nobody was around, I crawled into the back of a delivery van and curled up on a pile of musty packing blankets and pulled a few over me to keep myself hidden. "Pod, keep an eye out for any humans or Legion that approach. Hell, if an animal decides to climb in, wake me up for that, too."

"Confirmed. Engaging sentry mode with desired targets." It hovered over me and slowly spun in circles. I pulled the dusty blankets over my head and went idle. There was no telling when I would be forced to move on. Maybe Pod could help me get one of the cars operational...

I was idle for a good twelve hours while my body restored its power and energy levels. In that time, nothing disturbed my hiding spot, and for that, I was grateful. I climbed back out and popped the hood to the van. If nothing else, I could make use of it as a mobile home. "Pod, I could use a diagnostic on this thing. I need to know what's wrong."

The Pod scanned the moving van and circled it a few times. "Report: vehicle is inoperable due to no fuel, insufficient charge in its power supply, and three tires well below recommended inflation. Marking suitable replacements on the map."

Having Pod was handy. Having way beyond a human strength was also handy since I was able to tear the hood off the car I needed the battery out of. Grabbing a hose and a 5 gallon gascan, I siphoned as much gas as I could from everything else in the parking lot, and after four or five trips, I had almost a full tank of gas. Everything was going quickly and smoothly until I made my way to the last quest marker. It wasn't new tires. It was a bicycle tire pump. "God damn it all..." Today just got longer.

Thirty minutes of using a bike pump on six oversized wheels later, the van was back on the road and putting more distance than ever before between me and Jericho. My Pod hovered beside me and, without directives from The Bunker, would occasionally ask what my objective was. I really didn't know. Until now, it had been 'survive,' but I didn't know what to do beyond that. I only made brief stops so I didn't burn out the old engine and did my best to keep fuel topped off, and the old beast managed to keep going for a week at max speed.

Once I started seeing other cars with people inside them, I slowed down and went someplace else. At this point, the fate of the world was sealed. If there was a Red Eye now, everything was going to progress rapidly until humanity was extinct, with me technically being the only survivor. At least I had no intentions of dying quickly. "Son of a bitch," I spat as the van sputtered and died on the side of the road. After pounding my fist on the steering column a few times in frustration to let the van know exactly what it had done to disappoint me, I got out and continued on foot. The whole country had descended into chaos as the infected and clean alike panicked over their situation.

And then there was me plodding along as though it wasn't my fault in the slightest. Just me and a hovering book that shouldn't exist. I kept Pod hidden most days since that would only draw even more unwanted attention to myself, and even then, rumors of my activities still cropped up from time to time. I heard about a silver-haired angel that could tear through Legion like butter who weilded weapons no human could. I grimaced but said nothing about those rumors. It would just make a fuss if I did.

One night, as I made my way out of the current town I had passed through, I got a small blip on my radar from the guy a split second before I was struck. It was a simple tazer, but for an Android like myself, it was terribly effective. I locked up, and my HUD and vision filled with static for several seconds until he felt I had been subdued. "Target apprehended," I heard him say into his comms. There was a pause while he listened to the other end through his earpiece. "Affirmative. I'll get the Angel loaded up and taken to base. It shouldn't be too hard." I was suddenly reminded about how I weighed in the neighborhood of 400 pounds, and if I could have smiled, I would have.

"Got it. I'll submit my report in the morning. Fen Dweller out." He cut the channel and grabbed me by the waist before he almost threw out his back trying to pick up the dead weight that was my body. The next ten minutes were of him trying to figure out how somebody so scrawny could weigh so much. My systems were still repairing and resetting, so I could only sit tight. He put me into some bindings and closed the back of his truck as I laid there in the dark. The last thing I could hear before Pod shut me off to complete the repairs was that the truck turned on and drove down the desert roads.

#nier au #nier aureum #nier automata #fanfic

[qqueenofhades]

hello it’s youngin anon! things are crappy with the Supreme Court…doing that, but there is good news in my life. just graduated high school as valedictorian!! ppl fainted right before my speech bc it was too hot but I had fun and took lots of photos! any good news in your life lately?

Congratulations! That is a huge achievement and I'm not at all surprised to hear it, since you've always seemed incredibly smart and thoughtful and I'm sure that's reflected in your schoolwork. Hopefully you're either off to the college of your choice this fall or preparing to do something else interesting as your next step, and I wish you all the best.

Good news in my life is, alas, thin on the ground. My sanity was already hanging on by the thinnest thread known to mankind even before the endless political dumpster fires to which we are miserably and unceasingly subjected, so... yeah. I'm basically in hunker-down-survival mode mentality, and that is exhausting. I also got Covid earlier this month after 2+ years of successfully avoiding it, but thanks to science and being vaxxed/boosted, it wasn't that bad and I kicked it quickly with no apparent lasting effects. (Fingers crossed.)

My little sister, who lives on the other side of the world, is soon coming to visit for six weeks, which I am looking forward to since she couldn't last year due to visa issues. I continue to have great friends who support me and help out however they can, and I still have a roof over my head and can usually pay my bills, so... there's that, I suppose. Plus I watched Kenobi and triggered my dormant teenage Star Wars hyperfixation, which is fun. Other than that, though ... yeah, I'm not coming up with much. This too shall pass, or something. Maybe.

Anyway, congrats again and best wishes on whatever you're doing next. I remain, as ever, eager to hear about it and very proud of you. ❤️

#anonymous #ask

[acedunsmore]

Would Ace want to be reunited with their mother?

“No. For the first couple of years after she left, I used to sneak out of bed when everyone else was asleep and I’d park up on the stairs with my torch and my dinosaur teddy and I’d watch the door thinking that she was going to walk back through it like no time had even passed. Sometimes I’d be so tired the next day I’d fall asleep in class, but that didn’t stop me doing it. Then I started to do it less and less, not because I didn’t want her to come home but because I couldn’t be tired the next day ‘cause Dad was trying to keep it together and someone had to keep an eye on Conor and Dylan was just a baby. Someone had to step up. Who else was it gonna be? I think I was nine when it really sank in for me that she wasn’t coming back, and I’ve lived with that truth for every second of the twenty-six years that followed. It’s a loveless thing, becoming a man without a mother, even when you’re surrounded by people who you know love you. Makes you live in survival mode because the person who was supposed to love you the most yanked it out from under you and never told you why. It makes everything harder, especially it comes to other people because it doesn’t matter who you’re with or where you are, some part of you is just waiting for when shit’s going to turn on a dime again and you’re right back there sitting on the stairs by yourself waiting for someone to come home that’s never going to.” 

“I never want to be hurt like that again. I’m never going to be hurt like that again. She’s dead to me.” 

#answered meme. #hh. #child abandonment tw

[xojinnie]

     normally, the sight of jinnie’s favorite meal would have had her inhaling the entire dish immediately. but after her episode this morning and a grueling couple of hours of choreography coverage, the blonde could barely stand upright. that was why it shouldn’t have been any surprise that she was currently sitting next to deiji on the couch of her dressing room, pressed against her leader as closely as possible. more than anyone, the older woman was usually the one who had to deal with the aftermath of her panic attacks over the past six years, so there was no wonder she felt safest next to her. the to-go bowl of tteokbokki rested on the coffee table in front of them and every so often, the blonde would slowly reach out to grab a piece with her chopsticks, hand lingering underneath so that sauce wouldn’t spill on her outfit. god, she couldn’t believe she still had another few hours of shooting, and then tomorrow as well.

     “ thank you for lunch, unnie. ” she whispered, breaking through the silence. placing the rice cake in her mouth, jinnie chewed slowly though she didn’t really derive any flavor from it. it wasn’t the restaurant’s fault; the young rapper had just been on survival mode since shooting had started. she wasn’t even sure if she was doing well. “ and thank you for coming. ”

꒰ ♡ ꒱ — @fieldofdeisies​

#fieldofdeisies #꒰ ♡ ꒱ threads ╱ jinnie ◞ #꒰ ♡ ꒱ with deiji ╱ jinnie ◞ #anxiety tw

[edgarwayne]

“IF IT MAKES YOU HAPPY IT DOESN’T HAVE TO MAKE SENSE TO OTHERS…”

Have you seen EDGAR WAYNE around Faerune? They’re a VAMPIRE who REJECTS the Unseelie Queen’s reign. People have heard they’re AGREEABLE, CLEVER & EARNEST but can also be ANXIOUS, CAUTIOUS & DELICATE. We’ll see where they fall when the revolution arrives, but until then they can be found working as an ENGLISH PROFESSOR.

EDGAR AT A GLANCE

NAME: Edgar Lawton-Beckwith Wayne ALIASES: Edgar, Professor/Doctor Wayne, Bubba by Kirby, Eddie by Rory AGE: 221, but he died at 43. [Born June 2nd] AFFILIATIONS: Last known surviving member of the Victorian Wayne aristocracy; tennis coach for the men’s team and staff advisor to the Creative Writing Club at the university OCCUPATION: English and Literature Professor at Faerune University GENDER/PRONOUNS: Cis Male, He/Him SEXUALITY: Gay as all hell QUIRKS: Has two pet rats named Allen and Poe, Allen being white and Poe being black.  His instagram mainly consists of pictures of his rats, coffee vibes, and book quotes.  Because rats have very short life spans, every few years after mourning his pets Edgar gets a new pair and names them after various classic authors.  Has one long scar along his arm; he broke it when he was a child, wandering the woods near his home trying to find any signs of his father. Will easily go into full ramble mode on literature, history, and how they intersect, if given a chance.  Terrified of horses; a fact he pointedly ignored when his first crush and kiss was his grandparents’ stable boy. Edgar thrives on organized chaos.  He normally refuses any TAs because more often than not they try to clean up his office and it creates more stress than it’s worth.  His work and home office are an absolute mess, but Edgar wouldn’t want it any other way.  Has three PhDs from Oxford in Classical Languages & Literature, English, and Literature & the Arts.  [honestly there’s so many more quirks but this list is already too long] MARKEKTABLE/TRADE SKILLS: Edgar’s creative streak has come in handy for the bartering system in Faerune.  He knits scarves and hats (which he also makes for his rats), creates small paintings and short poems for trade.  Rory has been teaching Edgar how to do woodcarvings, so once he gets better he will also make figurines to give out.

BIOGRAPHY

At the very beginning Edgar had a wonderful life.  Two loving parents; a home never knowing of need or desperation; a small, peaceful English village in the 19th century.  It all changed when he was six years old.  Father never came home.  Mother waited anxiously in the foyer for days on end, insisting it wasn’t like her husband to disappear without a word.  

The absence of his father was certainly not lost on Edgar as he grew up.  In his childhood he adored his father; he had been a good father and had fostered the boy’s love for reading.  That passion fueled Edgar to pursue an education in literature, finding a career as an English professor.  

That isn’t to say he wasn’t also very close to his mother.  When it became just the two of them, they were inseparable.  So many of Edgar’s hobbies and favorite pass times came from her.  They would spend hours gardening, sewing, playing cards.  Edgar loved his mother dearly.  And so, when she passed away a few years after her husband’s disappearance, it broke little Edgar’s heart.  He was taken into the guardianship of his paternal grandparents, and life was hard for the boy from that point onward.

As he became more established as an adult, it was time to follow his next passion:  to find the truth about his father.  Edgar was willing to accept the death of his loved one, as long as his family had closure.  As long as he could find a body to bring home to join Mother beside her grave.

After years of research, questioning, and persistence, Edgar could tell he was getting closer to the truth.  He could feel it in his soul.  It was how he had met Felicia Connelly.  A witch who supported him in his search and quickly became his best friend.  For so long Edgar had felt alone in the world, but Felicia made life seem so much more worthwhile.

So, it was rather ironic that only a few years after meeting the witch Edgar died. He couldn’t remember much of the incident itself, or the events that led up to it, but he knew it was related to his father’s disappearance.  He had stuck his nose in something big, and it cost him his humanity.  Now Edgar had a choice:  embrace this new life of his, to continue his search for answers, or refuse to drink blood and die as a human.  It was a hard decision, certainly, but he had a duty to fill.  For himself and for his parents.

Edgar hates drinking blood, the thought of it would make him sick to his stomach if his mouth wasn’t watering in anticipation.  For a while he tried to abstain, to avoid hurting anyone, but he quickly learned that was not an option.  And so, he came up with a plan.  The newly formed vampire did not want to hurt innocents, so criminals would have to do.  It still left a knot of guilt in his stomach, but it was the only compromise he could think of.  

Using his abilities for persuasion, Edgar would slip into prisons and jail cells and ask his potential meals what crimes they committed.  He only chose the violent criminals, the ones that had little to no regret for their actions.  Even while from a family of influence, he couldn’t find it in himself to blame the thieves, the whores.  They were simply trying to live their life as best they could.

Decades continued on, and Edgar never got any closer to finding the truth.  He watched in horror as his only remaining family dwindled away, until he was the last of the Wayne inheritance.  He moved from town to town, staying for as long as he could as a teacher, until too many years had passed for him to “look well for his age” without drawing suspicion.  

Occasionally Edgar would come back to his hometown, in hopes that maybe, just maybe, he would find a new lead.  A bone to gnaw on as he struggled to find a reason for continuing his lonely existence.  Getting close to others was out of the question.  They all would eventually die, and that was more painful than keeping to himself.

When rumors of a city full of non-human creatures reached Edgar, he decided it was as good of a chance as any to find any information on his father’s disappearance.  If there were others just as old as him, or even older, there was a slim possibility someone could know something.  All Edgar had left was his hope, and he was not going to squander it.

AND WHAT HAS BECOME OF YOU?

After over a century Edgar and Felicia have been reunited and he’d be damned if he lets her slip from his fingers once more.  He has convinced her to follow her dreams and take medical classes, while she has been teaching him how to fight and defend himself.

Edgar has also become bit of a mentor to Atlas, trying to help him control his feeding urges.  In return Atlas has been teaching Edgar how to play guitar.  Between that and Rory teaching him how to play drums, Edgar will soon be ready to start a one-man band (jk).

Kirby now lives with him and Edgar is doing his best to help them come out of their shell and be more themself without fear of repercussion.  

Over the last year he and Ram have become good friends and often go out for drinks, be it to the bar or to a nice little cafe where they can chat and decompress.  The same is true for him and Rory, who often have coffee and movie nights, as well as hangout time between them and Fee.

He hates that so many are trapped in Faerune (himself included), that their freedom has been cast away by these unseelie.  While the aid that has been given to the city is appreciated, Edgar is fully aware of the silent threat hanging over them.

#faeruneintro #bio #update for s2 #bella's a goddess for the graphic #ft. felicia #ft. rory #ft. atlas #ft. kirby #ft. ramesh #please let me know if i forgot anything

[phawareglobal]

Cheryl Wegener - phaware® interview 401

In this interview, recorded on the 3rd anniversary of her daughter Madison's passing, Cheryl Wegener, discusses how life has changed in the three years since Madison lost her battle with PH on January 19, 2020 and why they continue to fight this terrible disease in her honor. You can also read more about Madison on her CaringBridge page. 

My name's Cheryl Wegner. I currently live in Fenton, Michigan. I became a part of the pulmonary hypertension club, I suppose, in 2012 when my daughter Madison was diagnosed at the age of six with pretty severe pulmonary hypertension that was later deemed to probably be something she was born with and just went undiagnosed. Madison battled the disease for eight years. Much of that she thrived. We adjusted as a family. She adjusted as a kid. As she got into her teenage years things started to get a little bit harder. The disease started to have a little bit more impact. Especially in her freshman year in high school it was evident that things were progressing, symptoms were increasing. As we were in the process of trying to get answers on how best to move forward with this disease and with her prognosis, and what surgical interventions were going to be next, she went into cardiac arrest while in the hospital. She was brought back to be placed on ECMO, which allowed her body to rest while hopefully she came back to us. But ultimately, in all reality, she probably passed away in that moment during her cardiac arrest. She was probably gone right away, and ultimately we had to let her go. So, it is literally three years yesterday to the day when she did her honor walk at the hospital. We knew from a very early age that she was a big advocate for organ donation, and so she did her honor walk. We said her goodbyes and they wheeled her into the operating room to ultimately die as a hero for somebody else's child. An honor walk at the hospital is when you have a person that is an organ donor and they've been kept on life sustaining equipment for that purpose, for the team to get in place, the matches to be made. When everything's in place, the hospital staff lines the hallways with its nurses, and its doctors, and its support staff, and its whatever family members you invite. They kind of make it known to other families on the floor that this is what's going to happen, and welcome them to come out into the hall as well. It's kind of a hospital parade in honor of your child on their way to literally save lives. I guess because Madison had the wish to be cremated that bought us some time in planning her celebration of life. We actually had nearly two weeks to put that together. That kept us very busy mentally, just arranging the logistics of that and making it a really amazing event. After that, people are still very much invested in you and they're stopping by, or they're dropping off lasagna or wine. That goes on for a little while and then slowly it begins to trickle. I think for us, we were in a unique situation in that literally a month after Madison passed, we were suddenly in COVID world. That definitely played an impact because now we had another distraction in the world. Now we had what do we do with our groceries? Do we change our clothes in the garage. Do we wipe everything down? That was another distraction. I think we went from shock, and disbelief, and numbness. But then we had all these distractions for a good year. We just, for that year, went through the motions and we were in survival mode, I think, just trying to hold each other up. Because of COVID, that's pretty much all we had was each other, and our online network. That first year, I mean, I think it's really a blur. It's a lot of numbness. It's a lot of things I've forgotten. It was just literally just you got to get up in the morning and you got to progress, and you got to go through the day. Then it changes after that. After that year, there's obviously the cycles of grief, and there's no manual for this just like there's no manual for parenting a kid with a terminal disease. But you go through all the stages and I think we're still in the process of going through the stages. As a parent, I've gone through the guilt stage. We were not literally in the hospital when Madison had her cardiac arrest. We had gone home to grab some clean clothes, to kind of tidy up a little bit, because we knew people were coming to visit Madison. That morning we had had to meet with a lawyer because my son Matthew's school was not handling his coping with his sister being in the hospital, her being in ICU well, and they actually made motions to expel him while this was all going on. So, there's a lot of guilt. I think Matthew holds a lot of guilt. We would've been at the hospital if we weren't meeting with a lawyer to deal with his behavior problems at school. As a mom, I hold guilt for not being there. I question whether we should have done the pot shunt earlier. We had been evaluated for it, but the doctor said, "Not yet. It's too dangerous. It's not your time yet." But Madison had told us it was time. We told her we have to try the easy stuff first. That's what we did. And so, I still at times second guess myself there, and there's guilt there. At times you're angry. I question things still. I mean, I love my PH community. I love the girls that Madison met at conferences over those years. But you look at the picture of the six or seven of them all together, and so many of them were in worse shape, PH wise, than Madison was at the time. I never would've dreamed that she would be the first one to go. I would've picked one of the much sicker one. So, you question why is that kid still here? My kid's not still here. Then you feel guilty for saying that, because you don't want to wish this on anybody. But it's just a tumultuous rollercoaster of emotions through it. Along the way you're just trying to figure out, okay, what's my role now? Who am I now? Some of that, we're still figuring that out honestly. I still feel part of a PH family, but at the same time I feel like I'm also, from the parent perspective, we are an example of everybody's worst nightmare. This is what happens. This is the crystal ball. This is going to happen to your kid too, probably. I think a big focus for us has been continuing Madison's fight, her last wish for a cure, and we promised her we would never stop fighting for that. So, we've continued that. I think that's definitely helped. For me, personally, it was just making sure, I think, she hasn't forgotten. That her life meant something, her continuing that legacy, I think that's been very important for me. You never want her to get stuck into the shadows of life, which is only natural at some point. But I also want the people who knew her, who knew her story, I somehow want them to file that away in their heart and carry her with them too. The dreams are the best, absolutely. I wish in three years having four of them, I wish that I could have one. Even greedily once a week would be great. But the dreams for me, and I've always been a dreamer, I dream the weirdest stuff and it's very detailed, very concrete. But these dreams are different in that in the moment, in Madison's appearing in my dream and I'm there, and it's so real. It is happening. It is all of a sudden we're on our deck, and I'm talking to her, and she comes walking up. And without missing a beat she tells me she was responsible for 172 rainbows yesterday. And I'm like, "Well, that's really cool. We saw a couple of those." We just talk. And there's, for example, a vision of us walking down downtown Brighton. We're talking, and just talking mother to daughter, friend to friend. I don't get the specifics of that conversation, but all of a sudden we're sitting in a Chili's-like situation, and she orders lemonade so I know it's Madison, because she loved lemonade. We continue our conversation, and I'm acutely aware that time is running out. There's this sand timer there, and I only have a few more minutes with her, and I'm just like, "I want more time." She's like, "I have to go." And she goes. You wake up and it's just so incredible that she was there. I've had, like I said, just three or four of these dreams, different scenarios, and I'm just so grateful for them. It makes you sad, but you're just so thankful that you got to touch base. There's so much about the human brain we don't know. There's so much about the universe we don't know. I mean, who knows what's real and not? But those are terrific moments for me, for sure. I treasure those. We moved from a bougie neighborhood in Brighton with a beautiful arch house, including storage and stuff probably 6,000 square feet, to losing Madison, going through COVID. I teach high school. I very much love my job. It's my passion. My husband is in corporate America, makes a ton more money than I do but does not love his job. It was really an eye-opening experience, I think, to what matters in life, and how much do you sell your soul to the corporate world versus being happy and doing something you love? So, we went from what I call our arch house, to buying some property in Fenton that had a very old farmhouse on it. At the age of 51, my husband decided he wanted to be an organic farmer. Obviously a major life change for us. This house is maybe 1,100 square feet, but we're on 18 acres. It's year three of us running a community supported agriculture program, a CSA. It's grown from 11 members our first year to 50 members our second year. In about four days time, I think we're up to 80 members this year with the goal of 100. So yeah, very much a life reset, both in losing Madison and just having to rethink where we get our food and what we put into our bodies because the COVID situation. But just really what's important, and what do you want to spend your time on this earth doing? For him, it was time to find some joy. Somebody along the way, along our journey, told us that we should get to know the palliative team at the hospital long before we felt like we needed to. Palliative is not hospice, it doesn't mean you're counting down, it's nothing, but get to know these people. We did. So, I was thankful to already have a connection with them in the hospital, because I mean, they did offer a bit of comfort while we were there those last few days. That was nice that not dealing with strangers, just talking with people that already knew us. We, as a family, were already doing family therapy in advance of Madison's passing. I think that also was very helpful, just already having a couple people that knew us, knew our story, knew Madison's story, knew the dynamics between our kids, knew the dynamics between my husband and I. It wasn't having to sit down, explain the whole thing to somebody while we're grieving the loss of our kid. They already knew the story. We were actually in that therapy office the night before Madison's heart catheterization. She was insisting she did not want her brother to be at that appointment, and the brother wanted to go, and it was this whole thing. I can still picture her sitting in that blue chair and saying, "I don't know why you guys are so nervous about this heart cath. I've done this a million times before and nothing's going to go wrong." For the first time on, I think it was heart cath seven, something did go wrong. But having that team was very helpful to us, just having already somebody knowing our story, and being able to slide back into that and deal with that. Then I think the third thing that made it, I don't want to say easier, nothing makes this easier, but we were very clear about Madison's wishes years prior to her passing. Because of her PH connections, because we didn't have her live in a bubble, she knew that there was a good chance she would maybe need new lungs someday, or a new heart, or both. She had had friends who she celebrated them getting the call, and they got their lungs and they're doing great. She was very much a advocate of organ donation. Knowing that made it a lot easier to sit down with that organ team, and check all the boxes of everything that they ask of you. It was also helpful to us to know, and this was more through the process of going to family funerals and stuff, but whenever we went to one Madison was very wise before her years and articulating what she liked and didn't like. She absolutely thought it was disgusting to have a body on display. She never wanted that. She couldn't understand it. We knew that wasn't the gig. She didn't want everybody crying. She didn't want it to be a sad affair. She wanted some elements of God and faith in there, but she didn't want everybody leave just crying. We definitely did not have a traditional funeral or celebration of life, we did it Madison's way. It was beautiful, and it was probably the coolest funeral I've ever been to. But yeah, so just knowing that person's wishes that made it so much easier in planning it. Going forward, I think I struggle with this, but you have to learn to be kind with yourself as a parent, and patient with yourself, patient with your loved ones. You're never going to be the same person as you were, and that's kind of what it is. You put the pieces back together, and you're never quite the same. The love for that person is in there, and it's never going to seal over or seep out, or it's always going to be there. But time definitely doesn't heal all wounds, but you do go forward. I think the fear of your child being forgotten, that love that you feel for your child, I mean, that's never going to go away. Just like with PH, you get that diagnosis, you're like, "Okay, what's our path going to be? This is throwing us a curve ball, and what's this path going to be?" Losing a child, definitely unexpectedly, you just got to figure out what that path's going to be and what that's going to look like. It's not easy. There's no timeline for it, but that's kind of how it goes. My name is Cheryl Wegner, and I'm aware that my daughter, Madison, was rare. Learn more about pulmonary hypertension trials at www.phaware.global/clinicaltrials. Follow us on social @phaware Engage for a cure: www.phaware.global/donate #phaware Share your story: [email protected]

Listen and View more on the official phaware™ podcast site

#pulmonary hypertension #phaware #rare disease #lung disease #clinical trials #podcast #PH #asthma

[mainssouth]

Double nightmare chicago nbc

DOUBLE NIGHTMARE CHICAGO NBC TV

DOUBLE NIGHTMARE CHICAGO NBC FREE

The problem is he won’t talk and the C4 is from six years ago. To top it off, he was an explosive expert. A suspect comes in with a connection to both media personnel, who is also Army. This has to have been bought on the black market. Most of the materials could be bought at a hardware store, but military grade C4 was used. However, the same materials were used within the bomb. While one was designed to blow up the whole studio and was on a timer, the other was rigged for opening the mailbox. Severide and Arson find that each of the bombs was custom made for the target. Now they need to figure out the connection and figure out who the next person is. Someone is targeting those attached to the media. He doesn’t survive the blast and Intelligence find themselves back at stage one. Photo credit: Chicago P.D./NBC by Matt Dinerstein, Acquired via NBC Media VillageĪ journalist becomes a potential suspect, but as they go to his house there’s a bomb in his post box. Antonio wants to release the information to the media, which Voight goes with. There are two pictures of a guy near the studio and Intelligence debate over the way to handle this. It looks like Sheri was the intended victim, as she got death threats through her email.

DOUBLE NIGHTMARE CHICAGO NBC FREE

Watch your favorite shows on fuboTV: Watch over 67 live sports and entertainment channels with a 7-day FREE trial! Intelligence finds possible evidence Unfortunately, the wound on her neck is too severe and she flatlines in the ambulance. A package was delivered to the office and it may have been the bomb. This is who I hope to be in such a situation.Īs Brett and Gabi get one of the victims, Sheri, to the hospital, Antonio goes with them and gets information. Once out, Trudy is able to give all the information she knows, showing just how brilliant she is in a situation. Meanwhile, outside, Voight is getting a handle on the situation and Mouch searches for his wife.Īfter shutting herself in a room, Severide gets into the building and gets her to call out. She instantly goes into first-responder mode, checking on the other people around the studio. Trudy makes it out of the explosion alive injured but alive. 100 th episode and two-night crossover event. It certainly doesn’t take long to get everyone into action for this explosive Chicago P.D.

DOUBLE NIGHTMARE CHICAGO NBC TV

Before Antonio can get Ava home, there’s a beeping on the TV and the news studio explodes. While they argue, Trudy gets her appearance on the local news channel.

Is Saturday Night Live new tonight? (Sept.

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The Blacklist season 10 is not coming to NBC in September 2022.

Friends alum Lisa Kudrow branded the “rudest” and “worst” celebrity by Spencer Pratt (Here’s why).

David Schwimmer has the perfect response to Jennifer Aniston’s shower pic tease.

“This is high-end dirt and we’re going to have to replace it,” said Lenamond. There are time-consuming and costly consequences that’ll linger much longer than the storm. We’ve got to wait until all of this dries,” said Lenamond. Horses had to be moved to drier land and with more rain since then, Lilly Lenamond said cleaning up now is useless. “This is just a different challenge for us because things are just sitting in dirty water right now and it took all the dirt from the street and it’s kind of a nasty situation,” said Sliger.įarther east in Forney, Skyview Stables was underwater on Monday. Owner Sunny Sliger creates outdoor art exhibits meant to withstand the rain. Color Condition in East Dallas filled with about a foot of water when a lower window caved in. “I’m totally lost, where to do and what to eat and what to go with my three years baby,” said Shershta tearfully.įrom Fort Worth to Dallas, people are drying out and cleaning up. Her neighbor recorded video Monday after retreating to the roof to escape the rising water.įor Shershta, there’s no escaping the nightmare it left behind. Shershta moved to the United States into a Fort Worth home about two months ago. “Everything’s destroyed,” said Ganga Shershta. Tuesday brought heartache and headaches from one end of North Texas to another following Monday’s torrential rain.

#Double nightmare chicago nbc

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

NEW YEARS DAY's Next Album Will Feature 'A Really Positive, Happy, Energetic, Full-Of-Life Sound'

NEW YEARS DAY singer Ash Costello spoke to Terrie Carr of the Morristown, New Jersey radio station 105.5 WDHA about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band's follow-up to 2019's "Unbreakable" album. She said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We're about halfway through the [new] album right now.

"I'd been touring basically for six solid years hardcore straight — we're talking eight months out of the year; never home for my birthday; miss my mom all the time; miss my dogs. And I kind of took COVID as… I was relieved, honestly," she continued. "And I think I needed to rest and I needed to stop. And I'm not the kind of person that would ever do it on my own; I would need some sort of natural disaster to get me to actually stop and rest, which is what happened. So I took my time. I let life happen to me. And I got married. And so now I have nothing, romantic relationship-wise, to be angry about anymore, which is predominantly what used to inspire my songwriting. And so I tapped into something else that I never had before, and it was a positivity and a hopefulness that I was starting to feel reveal itself in me — finally, after so many years of just kind of surviving. Which is totally what I was doing — I was just on survival mode. And the music reflects that, especially on 'Unbreakable'. I look back and there's some guitar riffs on there where I definitely was expressing my unhappiness and my anger with those guitar riffs — particularly on a song called 'Unbreakable', because it's almost unlistenable, 'cause it's so heavy and ugly and angry. And so we've now switched to a really positive, happy, energetic, full-of-life sound. And I can't believe I even made it to this point in my life, let alone musically."

Costello previously talked about the upcoming NEW YEARS DAY album in an interview last month with Rock Sound. At the time she said: "We're not rushing it. We've just been kind of coasting through [it]. We've probably written about 30 songs; maybe seven have made the cut. So I'm being very picky — I'm being very, very, very picky on what I wanna put out there this time around, where before it was, like, 'Hurry up. Make a record and we can tour. Put out what you can.' Not this time. I'm really taking my time. And I'm in love with all the music. We've already chosen the next single and I cannot wait. I think it's even better [than the recently released 'Hurts Like Hell']. This one was like an introduction into what we're doing. The next one is, like, 'We're here. We're not going anywhere. This is the sound.'"

Elaborating on the songwriting process for the upcoming NEW YEARS DAY album, Ash said: "Jeremy Valentyne, who is now back in the band, has been a writer this whole time. He never really left the band completely; he just wasn't touring. So he helped write our 'Diary Of A Creep' EP [2018] and our 'Unbreakable' album, so we're continuing to write with Jeremy. And the same two producers I used on 'Unbreakable', which is Mitch Marlow, who's responsible for bands like IN THIS MOMENT, and Scott Stevens. Scott Stevens [has co-written with] DOROTHY, DIAMANTE, IN THIS MOMENT, SHINEDOWN, HALESTORM, LILITH CZAR. You name it — you name it, especially a woman in rock, he's helped her create the vision. So we're continuing on working with him."

Asked what she learned from the making of "Unbreakable" that she is applying to the new NEW YEARS DAY material, Ash said: "I feel like 'Unbreakable' was the first time I really was daring. Songs like 'Unbreakable' where I said, 'I wanna make a guitar riff that's unlistenable. I want it to be so ugly and terrible sounding that it's just enough where you can kind of fathom it.' And so I felt like we experimented a lot with that sound. And then I feel like with 'Shut Up' where we had experimented with a more pop sound — not pop-rock, but a pop element and then giving it a rock twist. So it's gonna be a lot more of that on this record. So we're going way heavy and way pop all at the same time. It's hard to walk the fine line, but when you nail it, it's very rewarding, I think."

The official music video for "Hurts Like Hell" was directed by Robyn August, who has previously worked with NOTHING MORE, Snoop Dogg and Pitbull.

Costello previously stated about the track: "'Hurts Like Hell' might seem like a song about a relationship on the surface; in a way, it is, I suppose.

"As I struggled to navigate how to continue to pursue my passion during the pandemic, I realized that chaos is where I thrive. I will stare down any obstacle, even if I look like a crazy person to subject myself to it.

"Eleanor Roosevelt said, 'We all know people who are so afraid of pain that they shut themselves up and shrink until life is a mere living death.' Turning pain into progress and tragedy into triumph is a particularly satisfying victory. As the saying goes: 'nothing worth having comes easy.' That is what 'Hurts Like Hell' means to me. The song is an acceptance and celebration of my relationship with chaos."

NEW YEARS DAY will hit the road later this month as the support act for HALESTORM. A headlining run of shows will kick off on October 8 in Palmdale, California and run through October 23 in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

In January 2020, NEW YEARS DAY released "Through The Years", a limited-edition box set featuring all seven of NEW YEARS DAY's albums on custom-colored vinyl, a Blu-ray of their beloved music videos and a four-page picture book of never-before-seen photos of Ash and NEW YEARS DAY from their humble beginnings. The photos were handpicked and the captions were hand written by Costello.

#ash costello #new years day #2022 interviews

[eldritchcreatureofwords]

I would just like to have a rant--and a thought experiment. Play along with me. Because not enough people realize just how badly Vi has been traumatized. I don't really know what to call this; it's not a 'fanfic', exactly. More like a...story-scussion.

Yes, what happened to Powder/Jinx was fucking horrific. It was the worst fucking thing, it was devastating, and my heart breaks for Powder. For Jinx. For her mental health, for the way she thinks of herself, for the horrible missteps that lead to a baby, bitty child thinking she had been abandoned and forgotten after she very accidentally did something unspeakable. But what I don't think gets enough notice is that Vi is still living in that day, six years ago, has never gotten to catch her fucking breath, and frankly, got the shittier end of the stick that entire night while Jinx got the chance to go to sleep-metaphorically.

What do I mean? Let's take a blow by blow here. First, let's put ourselves in Vi's shoes. Imagine with me for a minute- settle in. This is gonna get long. You are Vi.

You did something bad. Something reckless and stupid and despite the best attempts of both yourself and your guardian figure(s), it's not getting better. You slowly start to realize that, as a person in charge of others, you have the responsibility here, and that even though you are only fourteen/fifteen years old, you know what you have to do. You have to take ownership of the mess you made. Otherwise, people you're supposed to protect, people you love, will be hurt. So you make your peace. You say your good-byes because you don't know what will happen next. You could never see them again. You could see them in a week, a year, a month. You want them to remember you gently, lovingly, as you are right now. And then you leave. You send your confession to the right people, and you wait where you told them to meet you, and you have nothing to do but sit on this. Wondering- will they hurt me? Will they kill me? Where will they take me? What will happen? Will I ever get to go home? Will I ever see my family again? Your leg jitters with anxiety. You clench and unclench your fists. You can't breathe.

Your entire world is changing. And remember; you are a child. And then you hear it. Footsteps. You take a deep breath, stand up, ready to take your lumps, when in walks- -your father. Dad. He loves you, he's raised you, he's protected and cared for and fought for your and taught you to fight for yourself your entire life. And now he's here, and he's frantic. He's scared. You've never seen him scared before. He tells you he loves you. He tells you, in his way, that he's proud of you, that you have a good heart. And you know, in the back of your mind, that he's doing what you did, but you don't want to face it, even as he bodily backs you into another room, even as he slams the door in your face and locks it. And no matter how much you pound, and yell, and call out, you can't do anything. You can't stop anything, you can't change anything. You are trapped and forced to watch as the person you love takes your chains from you and wraps them around his own arms. And as if this wasn't bad enough, the world turns upside down when, inches from you, people start dying horrifically. The adults that you know, that you love, even people you don't care about but are supposed to be strong and in control, they start dropping like flies. And it's due to something you've never seen before, something you can't even understand. And you can do nothing. You can do nothing but watch as your father's friends die, as blood smears the walls and suddenly the man who has been untouchable, invulnerable, invincible your entire life weeps, and falls, and then drops. Dead or unconscious, you don't know. And you are trapped and forced to watch. And then they're gone. They're gone, and for God knows how long you're stuck in there, trapped in there, sobbing, wailing, screaming because how could you let this happen, how did you get found out, how could you be so stupid, if you had just listened, if you had been better, been stronger, been faster, been smarter, maybe this wouldn't have happened. You are fifteen. And you sit on this. For minutes, or hours. You can't scream anymore. You don't have the energy. You weep into your knees and you wonder if you're just going to be trapped here, forever. But no. Of course not. Because one of the people who died out there, your friend, your father's friend, was a father, too. And his son is here, and his son is sobbing, and now you must push aside your guilt, your fear, your sorrow and pain because they need you. They need you. You have to be strong for them. So you slam down on it. You swallow the tears, you don't let him see because if he sees you crying it's just going to be worse for him. And then he tells you he saw it happen. He's ten, maybe eleven, and he saw all of that happen. It breaks your heart, and also it's a heavy weight, because he's yours now too, and you'll have to take care of him, keep him safe, and there's already three people you have to do that for. (Oh, yeah, and you have to tell them that their friends are dead, how the hell are you going to do that, let alone that Dad is dead, that they're on their own now, that you're all alone except for each other? ) But then he tells you that your dad might not be dead. That, in fact, he's probably alive, he's been taken somewhere. And he knows where.

And now you really don't have time to mourn. You are fifteen. You don't know anyone else to turn to. Everyone who could help you is dead. You have to be the leader. You have to make a plan. You have to keep them safe and get your dad back and keep them calm. So you shove it down harder. You push it away and you start thinking, start taking charge, getting events in motion.

And the entire time you are telling your friends what happened, the entire time you're planning and thinking, all you can remember is that last time you were in charge things literally blew up. (You don't know what the words 'recursive function' mean but if you did you'd probably laugh or cry.) And you can't break down. You can't cry, you can't curl into a ball and sob, you don't have a chest you can collapse on and weep for the people you lost. You can't take a minute to breathe, to process. You have to think about your gang, your kids, who are insisting on helping.

You have to think about how you're going to get your dad back, and keep them alive, and keep something from going horribly wrong, and what to do if something goes horribly wrong anyway. You have to think about your little sister, who wants to come, wants to help. But she's the last person you have. Your baby sister, the person you have to protect, and take care of and keep safe. You have to tell her she can't, she has to stay here, to stay safe. Your little sister, who you've been working with and working with the make her stronger, braver, to teach her to trust herself and trust you and she got so close to it and she's so ready to throw herself into the fire for you, for your dad, she's so brave and so scared and you have to crush that. After working for it for so long, you have to tell her she's not ready. You have to treat her like a child again and you can see how much it destroys her but this is the choice you have to make. Do you let her come with you, knowing you'll be distracted with fear and worry, knowing she's half the age of everyone else in your group and prone to bad choices? Or do you break down all you've worked for, strike a blow in her confidence and hope that if this goes well, if you do good, that you can build her back up again later? Hope that you can find a way to let her have been a part of this so that she doesn't think she is useless, worthless, a jinx? You are a child. And you have to make these choices, these calls, because no one else can. So now she is heartbroken, and you can hear her sobbing as you leave the place you've called home for so long with your family behind you, looking up to you, trusting you, respecting you and ready to do whatever you tell them. Whatever happens next is on your shoulders. You get to carry that thought the entire way to your father. You get to think if they die it's on me. If they get hurt it's on me. If this goes wrong, it's on me. You get to imagine scenarios over and over in your head- worst case, best case. You get to wonder if he's already dead. You get to jump at shadows, expecting someone to attack you at any moment. Expecting that thing to be roaming the streets, stalking them, looking for it's next victim.

And the whole time you have to pretend you're not scared shitless. Now you get there. You get your people in. Everything goes perfectly. Flawlessly. Too perfectly. You've been trapped. So now, while desperately worried about your father, who is alive but trapped and beaten, weak and hurting, you have to stay in control. You have to stay calm.

So even though you are scared out of your mind, you shove it down, you pull on your dad's gauntlets, and you turn to face down the man who caused all this to happen. And you start fighting, while your friends are trying to free your father. You are painfully aware you're on display as you take on all comers- desperately trying to stall, to keep them at bay, to protect your brothers, your father, but you are getting tired. You're fifteen. You have been running on adrenaline and fear for several hours now. Silco isn't kind or fair and you have been tackled, cut, held and hit, fought one on one, two on one, three on one for what feels like hours now even if it's only been minutes. You're in pain, you're exhausted, you're getting sloppy. The gauntlets are heavy. Getting up is harder every time. And the man who ordered your friend's father killed, who kidnapped your dad, is watching you with an infuriating smirk. And then, as you finally, finally beat down the last of the bodies he has to throw at you, and stand, heaving, panting, victorious, you hear the screaming, and you know with terrible, disheartened certainty that it was all for nothing. And not only that, but you finally see what it is that ripped apart your father's friends; and it's something that used to be human. Used to be a boy, only a year or two older then you. Used to be someone you knew, if only a little. He's a monster now. He's screaming, disfigured, his muscles and bones moving in ways muscles and bones aren't supposed to move, drooling and dripping purple, veined in purple, and getting bigger. And bigger. And bigger. He used to be human. You are exhausted. You're fighting to stay on your feet, you're fighting for air. But you have to keep going. So you do. But you don't stand a chance, and despite your best attempt, despite throwing everything into an attack on this thing, he catches you by the neck like you are a fly to be swatted. You black out for a minute from the force of it, and when you come to again, you can't breathe. You can't breathe, and you know, in one horrifying moment, that if this thing decides to it can kill you without trying. You are fifteen, and you are staring death directly in the face. There is nothing you can do. There is no way you can free yourself. You are going to die here. But you don't. Not because of anything you do, but because for some reason it lets you go- it toys with you, stalks you like an animal playing with prey, lets you crawl away desperately because it knows you can not get away from it. You are so scared. You are so scared but you're not allowed to be. You have to think. You have to plan. You manage to get back to your family and lock the monster outside of the room, and you know it won't hold for long but maybe, maybe, you have bought them some time. Your dad is halfway free. Your brother has nearly found a second exit. Maybe you'll be ok. "You did good." Your father says, and for a moment, just an instant, you can breathe. He sounds calmer. Better. Things will be ok. You just have to hold. This. Door. He's up. The doorframe shakes. It cracks. The monster is breaking the doorframe loose. One, maybe two more blows and it's going to go. You're fifteen. You're a child. You do not have the strength or size to stop him. But still, you push back, with all your strength, all your will. Hold. This. Door. He's up. Your brother has gotten another exit secured. He is free. You've done it. You did it!

And then the world explodes in heat and fire. When you come around, there is nothing but pain, pain, pain. You are trapped. You can't move, you can barely breathe, and the agony washes through you in waves. You can feel intense heat on your face, and everything blazes with pain and you can hear, from a million miles away, a fight. You open your eyes to see your father standing between you and the monster. Your father, defending you against monsters. He is a big man dwarfed by the beast in front of him but he's not scared. He attacks, viciously, and for a moment he looks like he might run the monster off. But then the monster throws him around like a child. As your vision comes back, you can see everything more clearly and you wish, oh how you wish you didn't. You can see your brother's arm, sticking out from under the ruble of the roof. You strain, not wanting to see but needing to see. They are completely crushed by the roof. Unmoving. Limp. They're dead. They're dead.

Your brothers, alive and well just moments ago, victorious and proud just moments ago, are dead.

They'd given you smiles.

They'd beamed with pride.

Just seconds ago you'd been about to make a smart ass comment to them, you'd been thinking how proud you were, and now your little brothers are both dead. In seconds. And you could do nothing. The sorrow breaks out of you without your permission. You want to wail, to howl with it, but even that is denied you because you can't get a full breath. Because it hurts too badly to cry. But you can't stop the tears, either. You want your dad. You want to go home. You want to go back and undo all of this. You want to die. And what's worse is your eyes land on something so familiar. So painfully familiar. Your little sister's weapon, laying inches from you. Her explosive weapon. You don't have time to process it, because even as you watch, your father picks himself up again, starts the fight again. Protecting you. Defending you. Standing between you and the danger. Fighting for you. He roars defiance, and then- -and then the man who brought you all here steps up, and stabs him. First in the back, then in the stomach. And your father falls. Dead. And you can't do anything. You can't stop it. All you can do is struggle. All you can do is desperately try to free yourself before the monster comes for you.

You are in agony, you are exhausted, and you are trapped. But you can't stay down. Your sister needs you. Your father might, somehow, still be alive. So you try. You try to pull yourself free, you strain with your 'free' arm to push yourself out, to get leverage, to do anything, but God, it hurts, and God, you are so tired. But you have to. You have to. She needs you. So you try again. And again, harder each time. But even trying your hardest, your strength has long since failed, and you make no progress, And as you work up the strength and the will to keep struggling, as you feel yourself getting the energy to keep trying, you hear the worst noise you could ever hear. Footsteps. The monster finds you. And for the second time in one night, you are totally at the mercy of someone- something- else. You have no more strength. You have no more energy. You look up into his face, and you see, for a moment, the boy only a year or two older then you. You make eye contact. You see him, and he sees you. Please, you think, please. And for a moment, he looks almost sad. Almost like he hears you. But then he snarls and the boy slips away again behind the monster. He advances. You are going to die. But you don't.

You don't, because the monster that is your father charges in and grabs him, rips him away from you, slams him up against the wall. It is not your father. It is deformed, twice as big as the first monster, twice as hideous, roaring and screaming and you listen as the two fight, like huge, ancient animals. The first monster doesn't stand a chance, though. Your father, the monster, snaps it's neck. Your father- your gentle, kind father who hated violence and never lifted a hand in anger and had a warm laugh and soft hands and big, smothering bear hugs- snaps the neck of a monster that used to be a boy. One handed.

It's not your father any more. And then he comes for you. You loved this man. You trusted this man. You adored him, and loved him. But this isn't him. This isn't your father. And the sorrow and pain in his eyes when he sees the fear and disgust in yours is palpable. He turns from you, making noises like a wounded animal, and while he's distracted going after the men outside you take the opening to try and scramble away. You can hear the thing that used to be your father roaring a name. You can feel the heat of the fire, the creak of the building.

But you can't make it to your feet. You have nothing left. You're on the edge of giving up when he comes back, the thing that used to be your father; but when you look up, all you see is your father, and you reach for him, needy, exhausted. Dad. And he scoops you up, and he flings both of you out the window- as the Goddamn building explodes. If your brothers were still alive, there is no way they are now. You hit the ground. When you come back around, a second time in less then an hour, you find your father already almost dead. He rasps out a last message, and it is nothing like the warm, loving words from before-what feels like years ago but was only hours, only this afternoon. He tells you to take care of your sister- and then he dies. No words of love. No words of affirmation. He leaves you with the responsibility you already knew you had and then he dies, there, under your hands. Now you howl. But even then, it is short, and broken, and weak compared to what you want. You're in too much pain. You're too tired. Everyone is dead. You came to save him and everyone is dead. You are alone. Your father is dead, your brothers are dead, your uncle...the only people you have left in this whole world is a little boy and your sister. You'll have to care for them. Protect them. Raise them. All alone. All by yourself. For the second time in your life, you are surrounded by destruction and fire and sobbing over the body of a dead parent. Well. At least now you have a minute, finally, finally you have a minute to breathe, to grieve. You can mourn them. You can let yourself feel the pain, work through it, rest and gather your strength. Think of what to do, what to say. Except- you don't. Because here comes your little sister.

#arcane #we all know what happens next #and vi never gets to cool down #or stop #or rest #for the next six years she is in survival mode #fighting for her life every day #and then the events of the show happen #vi has never #not once #gotten a chance to catch her fucking breath #tw:death #vi #vander #claggor #mylo #fanfic sorta? #character study sorta? #idk what to call this