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everythingodysseydd · 10 months

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@aeide & @findusinaweek I finally put it all in one place!

A few notes first:

I have two types of music... Good music and fandom music. The first one bleeds into the second on occasion, but 90% of the time those two categories mutually exclusive. Be forewarned.

I’m gender-bending and mid-line pov swapping all over the place, so expect that. I’m also terrible about tossing lines that don’t work and keeping songs purely for choruses, concepts, and single lines. This is a living list, so this original post is the best place to look.

Okay, so starting general and then haphazardly chronological:

Walking with Giants (Rachel Sandy): Just general. All over Odyssey.

2. Start A War (Klergy, Valerie Broussard): Again, everywhere.

3. Blood // Water - Acoustic (grandson): Nikolaos-focused, especially toward the end of the game, but all throughout. Greed is the wrong word, but the rest.

4. Brasidas (ACO Soundtrack): Might’ve been in my Top 5 last year…. xD

5. You're the One (Tracy Chapman): I love her so much and putting this to Brasidas' perspective really makes me laugh. That is all 😂

6. Wild Child (The Black Keys): When fandom sneaks into my actual music it always makes me laugh. This barely applies, but I've laughed about it in Kassidas context, so it's here in the most lighthearted way possible. I take my ships seriously most of the time, I swear xD

7. A Thousand Miles (Vanessa Carlton): Pure reminiscence for one of @findusinaweek’s old posts that really made me smile <3

8. Enemies (Shinedown): Look, it works for Deimos, okay? xD

9. Dive Deep (Andrew Belle): You know when something completely unrelated in the shuffle just makes the writing write, so it ends up on repeat? That’s what happened here. Completely unrelated, but the second and third chapters of Korinthia spent some time with this one. It helped that he enunciates so poorly that I didn’t catch the words until later. They do work, surprisingly. They’re a bit uh… They didn’t hurt the vibe, let's just say that... 👀

10. Whirlwind (JOSEPH): This is a general Kassandra theme for me, but especially through Korinthia. Once it builds up into its full chaos I really love the vibe. Most Kassidas scenes have some element of this on the writing side. Korinthia’s Ch.3 section was fleshed out almost entirely to this at very high volume.

11. Spark (Ed Sheeran): This came round the same way Dive Deep did. I was listening to Ed’s new album at my sister’s request (she’s a huge fan) and this one just worked while I was drafting choreography for Korinthia Ch.3. Most of the lyrics conveniently work as well. *shrugs*

12. Myrrine (ACO Soundtrack): I see this threaded through a lot, but especially in Sparta, Athens, and Euboea. Anytime Kassandra is really going through it or is struggling to see Alexios through the Deimos mask.

13. Twisted (MISSIO): Deimos perspective. Something about it is particularly jarring to me, but in an intentionally lazy, offhanded way?

14. I Don’t Even Care About You (MISSIO): Deimos again, and again, not my favorite, but here functionally.

15. Bad Blood (Bastille): Deimos again. This one I enjoy a lot more. The indifferent annoyance. Essentially, ‘We’re never getting away from each other. Let’s stop pretending this can be different and get on with it.’

16. Born For This (The Score): I actually have this song for another fandom (TCW / TBB, which it actually works for), but every time I think of it in a Spartan context I laugh so hard I had to put it here for kicks. Particularly that northern campaign when it needs some light-heartening. Sobbing over here, don't mind me.

17. Monster (STARSET): Deimos generally. I actually like the concepts here a LOT. There’s a line in Warmth on the Mountain about the EB being the center of Deimos’ world by the end and I really love that fixation idea. That’s in here. The idea of trusting your redemption to the people who destroyed you in the first place… the Can you change me? // Will you cage me? thought dichotomy… Lots of little things in here.

18. Devour (Shinedown): I’ve loved the sound of this one for ages, but hate the content 😂 It finds a decent home in Deimos though. And if it lands anywhere, it’s probably post-Kleon betrayal as everything unravels for them.

19. Hurricane (Tommee Profitt, Fleurie): Battle of Amphipolis. This is in here purely for a concept – that sudden sensory loss and stillness in the middle of chaotic shock. I want to pull that sensation, but haven’t captured it yet, so it's here as a reminder. ALSO, that line, ‘I am aching now to let you in’ – the missed opportunity gets a little extra love from me <3

20-22. Honor Him, Elysium, & Now We Are Free (in that order – Gladiator Soundtrack): For me, these overview all the immediate events after Amphipolis. Forget Gladiator, they were just easy instrumentals to write to, and then I learned the words of Now We Are Free and might have become very, very, very attached to them, particularly this part:

We regret our sins, but // We sow our own fate and // Under my face I remain feeble // Under my face I smile // Even alone/afraid // Under my face I will be waiting

I mean …😫 Can’t you just imagine if those were part of the procession and then repeated in the Underworld when when we learn Brasidas refused Elysium and is putting himself through this??? (Because if he’s there at all, HE chose it – canon can fuck off as far as I'm concerned). The lyrics of this song as a lament over the situation and a call to come to terms with the past????? I'm not going to do it, but I mean…

I also really love the emotional path of Now We Are Free for an actual funeral procession. Since Brasidas was esteemed as a liberator, beloved by the city he died successfully defending, I see the event as a celebratory lament for a city who's populace mostly knew him as the personification of an idea more than a person. When you add the warriors' death glorification layer that Sparta had going on, it just sorta fits? And with the ashes and hypotheses that follow, I imagine Kassandra staying up to the moment his body is gone. The beginning of that song is procession, then the cut back to drumsticks and immediate uptick afterward are the lighting of a pyre. The sound fall that follows is the return to self, where the misthios, not ready for joy, takes a last look at empty flames and slips away into the night alone.

I despise it... but it wormed its way in and it’s not coming out 😂

23. Overjoyed (Bastille): There’s a lot of Bastille in this list. I don’t usually listen to them, but I swear most of this album was written for this specifically. This one was part of my early mourning process and is my excuse for writing 6k-10k word conversations I can’t cut down…

24. I Ran (So Far Away) - Epic Trailer Version (Hidden Citizens): Post-Amphipolis. Kassandra’s not big on processing. This is a bit overkill for me, but it's here regardless. Concept pull.

25. Daniel In The Den (Bastille): Felled in the night by the ones you think you love. Pessimism post-Amphipolis. ^This referring to Brasidas’ death at Alexios hands, which is the tipping point on a scale that had been sliding for a while. By Amphipolis, Kassandra thinks she'd found common ground with Deimos in Athens (not realizing how personally he would take her escape and silence afterward), and was double blindsided. It’s the drudgery and the Cult of Kosmos and Sparta and Deimos, all in one. It’s the backbone of what pushes her to hunt the cult after what happens in the north.

26. These Streets (Bastille): Kassandra post-Amphipolis. Sparta becomes too much. It’s the place of too many memories, all around. She makes a (temporary) decision to be done with it.

27. War (Poets of the Fall): This was here for a handful of lines that I circled for a while and drew a couple concepts from. If I can let the memory heal // I will remember you with me on that field // When I thought that I fought this war on my own // You were there by my side because before Korinth she has people, but not anyone who’s brought all the way inside. With his background, he easily becomes that person. Also a bit of With no one wearing their real face // It’s a whiteout of emotion // And I’ve only got my brittle bones to break the fall // So will you please show me your real face? Because I was suspicious he was a Cult plant for a longggg time. Too good to be true 😂 Fic Kassandra shakes that sooner than I did, but it plays a part. It’s since come off this list, but it’s back for you all 😂

28. War of Hearts (Ruelle): This whole idea of trying not to love someone is just very Kassidas to me. I headcanon that she never makes a pass at him in the game because it’s clearly more serious and that’s a LOT, considering.

29. Deep End (Ruelle): Not resisting the post-Amphipolis spiral.

30. I Found (Amber Run): Found this one on Tumblr’s Kassidas tag… 😫

31. Burning House (Cam): Post-Amphipolis. Technically country, but I’ve loved this song since the very first time I heard it. The fire imagery sticks from Korinth and I headcanon Kassandra carrying a LOT of guilt for Brasidas’ death, alongside the grief she’s experiencing. With that and everything else that comes crashing down in Amphipolis, I headcanon that she hardly sleeps all the way to Pephka, which is a later segment.

32. Hospital (Lydia): Wallowing. Just wallowing 😂

33. Icarus (Bastille): For Kassandra it’s not substances, it’s a dissociative Cult-killing spree, but that’s neither here nor there. Completely a perversion of the myth. And yet it still worked its way into Myrinne’s letter in Euboea, because I’m awful. Lmao.

34. Fading (Decyfer Down): I’ve been obsessed with that lyric, ‘unshackled and unbound’ since I was a weird, angsty teen and finally finding a home for it in the Pephka Arena makes me SO HAPPY. Again, swapping substances for murderous tendencies though xD This connects to this headcanon.

35. Centuries (Fall Out Boy): Pephka Arena. This is what happens when you're an entire library shuffler. I have no excuses 😂

36. From Where You Are (Lifehouse): I miss the way the sunshine would light up your face. This has been a mainstay on my BSG Kara/Lee playlist for YEARS because of this awful video that vented a whole lot of teenage grief for me (that I'll never be over), but it’s an easy song to write wistful, nostalgic scenes to because it’s so even-toned. That lyric ^^ grabbed me in particular, because I did Port of Lawlessness at golden hour (doomed to fall, clearly) and couldn’t stop looking at his arms in that light 🤣🤣🤣 I use this post-Pephka arena when she’s first started to heal and is finally capable of remembering him, but it also comes back in the post-game when she’s finally come home to Sparta.

37. Waves (Dean Lewis): Just general pining, but of a *slightly* healthier variety.

38. Song for Zula (Phosphorescent): Another Nikolaos song. I ignore one lyric at the beginning, but gah. These lyrics KILL me. It’s about the grief and anger of being broken by a relationship and still feeling that enduring emotional attachment you can’t quite shake. I’m in love with it. Might be my favorite on the whole list. It’s Kassandra collecting the pieces after Boeotia and wrestling with the same in Euboea where he finds her again. They (mostly) work past this later, but it's SO perfect for most of the game.

I saw love // You see, it came to me… // It put its face up to my face so I could see // Then I saw Love disfigure me

You will not see me fall // Nor see me struggle to stand // To be acknowledged by some touch from his gnarled hand

39. Carnival of Rust (Poets of the Fall): A high^ and a low. Lmao. I have an adversarial relationship with this one. I DO NOT LIKE IT, but just like Dive Deep and Spark, the MUSIC (NOT the lyrics - repeat, NOT the lyrics) accidentally ended up being what I needed to write Brasidas’ first scene in the Underworld and it’s forever, horrifically, attached to it. It makes me laugh in an ***extremely*** irritated way. Helps me remember not to take myself too seriously, because… *Facepalm*

WRITING FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHY IS HARD, OKAY?!

40. Foreigner’s God (Hozier): There are only about 5 seconds I actually apply to ACO, but something about “Her eyes looked sharp and steady into the empty parts of me” is just so strikingly Kassidas, especially for that early Underworld segment. Sometimes I think the whole song fits if you really force it, but mostly it's just that line ;)

41. Blood And Fire (Indigo Girls): I'm obsessed with their voices, but extra in this song. It’s not a perfect fit for me, but POV swapping all over the place, I feel like there are tons of snippets. And something about I am looking for someone who can take as much as I give // Give back as much as I need // And then still have the will to live just makes me laugh so. damn. hard. Brasidas being dead has nothing to do with this for me. Kassandra is just... it makes me snicker.

42. Let It All Go (RHODES, Birdy): Underworld angst. Sitting on that relational precipice before the fall, alongside the next song, trying to break past the rules they created for themselves in life so they can get to that next space they both need for healing. I headcanon their physical chemistry in the game being naturally very Port of Lawlessness, but they keep from the complicated explosion that would become by leaning into the rigidity of their professional roles and goals (canon). They share a common goal in Korinth... He uses his position to help her with citizenship in Sparta… She comes to him as a misthios to Pylos and Amphipolis... That structure keeps things easy. It’s an excuse to connect/disconnect without addressing the rest. During the game, she uses that crutch and he lets her have it. In the Underworld *he* needs it, but by that point, she's not as gracious. Breaking anything rigid is daunting though, especially in grief ❤️

If we’re strong enough to let it in // If we’re strong enough to let it go

43. For Me, It’s You (Lo Moon): Sitting in the same tension as above^.

44. Mountain and the Sea (Ingrid Michaelson): At one point (I think while she’s pushing back against his decision to stay in the underworld) I have Kassandra characterize Brasidas as the cliffs beside the wild tempest sea (Kassandra 😂), because up until that point he always has such a steady grasp on things. Everywhere he goes, he has things well in hand - that presence of mind. Even at Amphipolis, the (real) numbers and results tell that story. They're equally formidable, but by a different approach, built by different methods. And when she comes up against him for the first time there, she appreciates it less. When this came up in my shuffle sometime later, I couldn’t resist. And the gender-bent refrain ‘you can move me’ makes me laugh, because that's the story there, even though Kassandra doesn’t realize that deeper piece of the analogy at the time. He ends up HAPPILY in Elysium, dammit. Screw Ubi.

45. Take What I Can Get (Mathew Mayfield): The line that I couldn’t get away from was You’re still locked inside me, holding on. Something about that lyric just hits it for me.

46. Walk Through the Fire (Zayde Wolf, Ruelle): Kassandra-view in the Underworld. It’s hopeless, but we’re finally processing at least.

47. Demons at the Door (Sleeping Wolf): Hmm... Let’s just say this lightheartedly connects to a very specific scene in the Underworld and leave it at that. Breaking some rigidity. When it comes to workshopping ships, the cringiest part of my soul makes an appearance. It is what it is 😂

48. In My Veins - Feat. Erin Mccarley (Andrew Belle): This one was the sound support to some Underworld writing sessions… I rediscovered it (for completely unrelated, unromantic reasons) around the same time I was writing that and it happened to stick.

49. Follow You (Bring Me the Horizon): This one came from Tumblr’s Kassidas tag too. I’m not a huge fan, but the second half does make me laugh about the Underworld portion. And shipping in general... mostly shipping in general XD

50. Light (Sleeping at Last): EXCLUSIVELY SKIPPING TO 1:55. NOTHING BEFORE THAT. (I see Phoibe as Kassandra’s pseudo-child, but everything before that point in the song is irrelevant). For me, the second half of this song is loosely how I felt finding Phoibe in the Underworld. That scene is so gut-wrenching. The awe of the person. The unfulfillable promises. The ‘I’ll do better’ refrain… especially that, but tipped further toward grief. I see this all being part of Kassandra’s internal journey there. There’s nothing she can do, being alive. There’s no promise she can actually make.

51. Silhouette (Aquilo): Phoibe 😫 Sometimes I swing it towards Brasidas in the Underworld, but so much of it is Phoibe’s piece there. Blending the two probably works best.

52. Holding On and Letting Go (Ross Copperman): The stillness and peace that exists in the underworld portion after Kassidas sorts themselves out. There's an underlying calm, despite everything else.

53. Be On Your Way (Daughter): Preparing to part ways in the Underworld - Kassandra on with her tasks, and others on to Elysium. I'm really attached to this one.

54. My Darling (Ingrid Michaelson): I don’t love the first few lines, but all the rest. There are a lot of ways you could apply this one, a lot of relationships, but peak is probably at that second Taygetos moment.

55. Who Are You (SVRCINA): Deimos & Kassandra again, especially in the foundations of their post-game relationship. For that final Cult quest as he’s still very raw. I’m a little obsessed with this one.

56. I Won’t Let You Go (Switchfoot): I’m nothing if not a child of my era and here's proof, lmao. This is a song I took a lot of comfort in at one specific moment in my life (as the subject, not the singer), and I use it for the Kassandra & Alexios relationship at various points too, but especially post-game. The idea that you can’t fix a person’s circumstance, but you can fiercely love them and choose to stay beside them. That.

57. Tally Marks (JOSEPH): I've heard every Joseph song 85k times and can pick them apart in tiny segments, so this is probably just worth skipping for everyone else. It’s written romantically so I’m being VERY selective and filtering out a TON, but there are a couple lyric sets midway through that I LOVE for the tension between Kassandra & Alexios in their early post-game days:

What you’ve done cannot be undone… // But you’ll wake up to another sun.

There just aren’t enough words to describe the chasm between those two thoughts, you know? That gap is the vibe of all the early post-game days. But also,

I’ve got a sense about you // Under your hood, there’s a man that I knew // His eyes are fire and his hands are true // Where is he? // Where are you?

My hope is to be able to find some version of non-Deimos Alexios eventually, because Alexios is such an amazing character.

58. Control (Halsey): Deimos’ internal conflict after coming home to a Sparta who fundamentally hates him while fighting to find a new life. The push/pull of fighting not to become people’s expectations is just… 🙌 Concept pull.

59. Find My Way Back (Eric Arjes): Alexios & Kassandra again. I love this idea of her clinging to him for his benefit, but the same happening in inverse without her realizing. The two of them becoming each other’s counterbalance. I’ve also swapped it toward thinking about Brasidas in Elysium in moments, but I like it for the siblings better.

60. Hold on for Your Life (Acoustic) (Sam Tinnesz): This one is on thin ice, but when I let it lean in on Alexios & Kassandra in post-game quiet moments, I still like it barely enough to keep it.

61. Right Here (Ashes Remain): This song makes me cringe badly, but between the siblings, the line ‘I will always be the one who took your place’ has something that's been bugging me forever and I just haven’t drawn out exactly what that is yet, so until I unlock that tidbit its stuck here. The song means it sacrificially, but its something else entirely in my brain. First time Taygetos... Inconclusive thoughts.

62. Don’t Hold Me (Dean Lewis): More post-game moments on Deimos’ end mostly. (Also possibly washes toward Kassandra at the end of her stay in Athens, realizing there’s a reason Alexios keeps coming back to talk. She starts to feel his leaning in and is pretty listless at that point.) It's a stronger Thalexios song to me, but there's juuuuust enough to keep it here.

63. Honest (JOSEPH): The first half of this song especially has always been a favorite of mine. I love the idea that we’re never as alone as we think AND this is sung by siblings, so that callback portion is full of those rich family dynamics I LOVE. Applies to post-game everything.

64. Keeping Your Head Up (Birdy): Post-game all around. They’ve got a messy 4-way lift happening. Plus, when I first heard this song I misheard the chorus as ‘I’ve been giving you hell’ and honestly that fits everyone in this family so well 🤣

Honestly though, way bigger is that something about this song feels EXACTLY like co-regulation to me. That's a crisis tool where you use one person's calm nervous system to stabilize another, often through physical contact. Like hugs? That might be why. I've been the anchor for a number of people and it’s a really powerful tool, especially for pairs who have a strong bond. If you don't have that before, you absolutely do after. As much sparring and tight-quartering as these siblings do in my imagined post-game, I imagine that being a big (accidental, unnamed) part of their recovery.

65. Coming Home - Part II / Bonus Track (Skylar Grey): I’ll probably never write this portion, but these last two songs are the shift to airy Elysium at the end of Kassandra’s NATURAL life. The original song made its radio debut while I was a teenager struggling to process the death of a peer, so it’s always been laced with a sweet sort of grief-release for me. This cover is much softer. I particularly like the first couple lines, which are specific to this version.

66. Beautiful (Trading Yesterday): Not quite my speed, but this is in here because I love some of the imagery. Summer rain to wash away the winter stain and The morning sun inviting the dawn to break. There’s a freshness to the imagery that I want to try to extract if I ever do write that Elysium portion. I have a visual flow for it all, but am not sure I have the skill to make it as simultaneously light and grounded as I’d need. *shrugs*

And stolen from other's playlists:

67. White Flag (Dido): Just one that makes me laugh about shipping in general, but applies a little too closely to all things Brasidas for me. He's the real ship for me. Everyone else is bonus xD

68. Brasidas (Justin Bianco): Because why not?

69. Run Boy Run (Woodkid): How I feel about the approach to Amphipolis and the whole northern campaign (and just Brasidas in general 😭). He would never, but here we are.

70. Korivantes (Avlites): Such great chaos and order. I love it.

71. Leveler (Half Waif): ❤️

72. Recording 15 (Shannon Lay): Also ❤️

73. Shattering The Hourglass (Deep Sea Diver): Such a good insert for early Underworld to me.

74. Upward Over the Mountain (Iron & Wine): Myrrine / Kassandra. So many thoughts❤️

75. exile (Taylor Swift, Bon Iver): This one hit me months later and I had to come back and add it. Myrrine, with all her history and relationships. I love her so dearly.

76. Bloodstream (Stateless): I blame aeide!

77. She Just Likes to Fight (Four Tet): Just background :)

77. The Phone Book (Editors): Destroying me in the best way possible. I seriously can't even with this song. Strong Alexidas leaning ;)

#Spotify #music #ainulindaelynn

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nocaptainonthisship · 10 months

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Melian: Safety Zone setlist; 5/27/2023

Read chapter 4 here.

Hi friends!

If you clicked through, you know why you're here.

Every song Melian sings in chapter 4 has a real-world counterpart. Some of those songs are a perfect fit. Some of them have the right lyrics and not the wrong vibe. Some of them have lyrics that almost work and the perfect vibe. One of them has both.

This song isn't actually named in the text, just referenced as "the first song." But it's a banger, and it helps set a specific tone for the night. Before, that is, Melian sees Halbrand and things go sideways.

"The Wilds"

In an earlier draft of the chapter, I wrote, "If Girlfriend didn't already have you on your feet, The Wilds will." There is also a "Hey, hey" in the chorus that I like to think Melian delivered looking directly at Hal when she saw him I'm the audience.

"Gwenniel"

Gwenniel is one of Tolkien's early names for Melian. And rhythmically, it fits perfectly here.

This is one where the lyrics don't quite fit, but the feeling is exactly what I needed. Elwe might not like this song, but it's a personal favorite for me.

"Awakening"

Can you do Haladriel without Florence and the Machine? This one doesn't need much explanation, I think.

"Dream When You Wake"

Ugh John Mayer. This was originally a very different song that slowed the momentum of the show too much so I had to drop it. I started searching for breakup songs from 2006-08 and this just. Works.

"The Battle of A Thousand Caves"

There is no world in which I made it through this fic without promoting Fleetwood Mac somewhere. It just wasn't going to happen. Listening to the live version of rhiannon is a life changing experience. If you skip every other song here, listen to this one.

In the fic, Elwe is credited with calling the song an exorcism. That is actually something Mick Fleetwood said about Stevie Nick's performance of it.

"Anglachel"

This might be my favorite moment. You think there's going to be a moment of rest, and then she opens her mouth and just wails. Incredible. I listen to this one and have visions of Melian looking down at Galadriel to ask, "Why did love put a knife in my heart?"

"The Walls of Night"

"A cavernous expanse of a song waiting to be filled with our baggage." The lyrics aren't quite right, but God is the vibe perfection.

"Almaren"

I think this might be the first song I added to this playlist with any really intent. I searched for this one.

Actually, I searched for a cover with a female vocalist, and this version is just haunting.

"The Light At the End"

Let's talk about Passenger. I have seen him live.... a couple times lol. For years now, this is the last song he plays before the encore. The crowd sings along to the vocalization, and they keep singing until he comes back out. Haunting. Powerful. Perfect setup for what comes next.

From a haladriel perspective, I loved ending the initial set by playing with darkness and light.

(Tumblr is cutting me off, so the encore gets a reblog, I guess.)

#(artanis)#my fic #i did way too fucking much for this chapter and im making it everyone elses problem

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o-avosetta · 1 year

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Extended authors' note: Lost Wardens bits from the bins

I saw making the rounds this one post about the secret lore authors have about their own stories/fics, so I feel like sharing some stuff about the longfic/novel that finally crossed that AO3 line to Completed yesterday. Just some behind the scenes stuff, if anyone's so inclined. Big spoiler-y things are after the cut.

Here's the fic.

Here is a playlist, and here are the playlist notes with tiny spoilers.

Here are some videos of influencer crabber (! — feel like that's something Alex would have enjoyed, lol) Luke McFadden that I watched for some references. I also watched a whole bunch of FV Miss Paula content, and that's where I learned about the crab tagging Alex does with the scientists. Pretty sure I still got some details wrong; feel free to correct me 'cause I ain't no crabber! They use "hawk" to refer to what I called a "marker buoy" in my fic, for instance, but I wanted to avoid confusion with another type of crab trap called a crabhawk.

By happy coincidence, it was actually Stardew Valley's seventh anniversary yesterday. I wasn't aware when I hit post on those last chapters, but I'm very glad. Wouldn't have made any of this without ConcernedApe's own labor of love.

Sections:

Origins

Wardens of Magic, Go!

Jonathan

Cathy

Mr. Qi and Sandy

Calendar math

Personal/other writerly stuff

Origins

The first chapters of The Lost Wardens went up on AO3 on 03 Nov 21, but I definitely started working on this a lot earlier — 07 June 21, according to the file details in Docs. The original title was A Comparative Study of Southern Ferngill Crab Trap Designs. There were a bunch of attempts to get this going before I finally knew where I wanted to go:

Crabber Mullner - 07 June 21

Comparative Bins - 01 July 21

The Lost Wardens 0 - 05 July 21

The Lost Wardens - 28 Aug 21

NaNoWriMo prep doc - 16 Oct 21

Wardens Annex - 04 Jan 23

I like to keep a "Bin" file of scraps, scene drafts, notes, etc. that I cut or revise but don't want to delete entirely. Lots of frozen darlings in there, lol. Looks like I finally figured out the direction I wanted to go at the end of August, when my third draft document became the main working one. Wardens Annex was set up just this year only because the main doc got too unwieldy for my phone's memory.

Anyway, I just wanted to write a love story in the style of cheesy TV movies. It was supposed to be about 3-5 chapters long; I thought my Seb fic was kicking off a bunch of these short fluffy pieces about different characters in the Valley.

So, in "Comparative Study", Alex was supposed to get hit by a truck and break his arm right before his big tryout, and as he processed how much this was going to change his life, he was supposed to learn that what he wanted was ✨💖right there all along💖✨. Leslie is surprise pregnant, Alex proposes, the end.

But, as you maybe know by now, another idea crept in, and I started thinking about the not-so-secret magic in the game and the little bits of lore we glean from stuff like that one Lost Book in the Pelican Town library. I liked the idea of a magical ensemble of some kind, too. I've always loved stuff about superpowered/magical teams, so I started to think about what kind of group would make sense in the world of Stardew Valley.

Originally, Rasmodius in crow form was supposed to cause the truck crash in an attempt to keep Alex from leaving the valley and not becoming warden. Jonathan, on the other hand, was all for letting Alex decide his own fate. In the final story, we only hear from Rasmodius in the penultimate chapter, but he figured a lot more in the early drafts, haha.

Digging around in the bins, I see the original group of younger wardens was going to include Abigail on the mountain, Leo in the forest, Jas with magic, and Vincent for memory. I wanted to end with Alex now in the role of mentor, as Jonathan had been to him. But as I got into Abigail's hidden ancestry and thought about Leo being raised by Linus, I felt that putting Abby on the mountain didn't really make sense. (She can still have a sword if she wants, though.)

The next group of younger wardens I had in mind was Alex, Leslie, Sebastian, Abigail, and Leah (forest). I also had ideas of Leah/Sebastian going on in the background. That didn't pan out once I decided to drop Leah from the group (sorry, Leah fans).

Anyway, I'd written about seven chapters out of these beginnings and then decided that the stakes didn't feel big enough. Alex's choice didn't feel like a real one. What was going to stop Alex from ultimately getting over what Rasmodius did and choosing to be warden, when it was basically the only good opportunity in front of him? I realized that the crash couldn't happen, and it was starting to feel too melodramatic for me, anyway. Gridball had to be back on the table. I had to start again.

Wardens of Magic, Go!

I am not kidding about the magical ensemble thing. I had them associated with different weapons and bird avatars but decided the weapons weren't really going to come into play.

Leslie - lowlands - black-naped oriole - golden scythe

Alex - sea - osprey - trident

Abigail - mountain, later memory - mockingbird/whip-poor-will - galaxy sword (gifted) or dagger

Sebastian - magic - crow - wand/staff

Leo - forest, later mountain - parrot - slingshot/bow

Sandy - desert (kinda; it's unclear just how much Qi's handiwork has distanced his domain from the rest of the Circle over the years) - red-tailed hawk - ? (whip, lol)

Boon Kiat - lowlands - [Eurasian] tree sparrow

Jonathan - sea - osprey

Joanna - memory - mockingbird

Cathy - forest - horned owl

Rasmodius - magic - crow

Qi - desert - vulture

Linus - bald eagle

Jonathan

In the early versions, Jonathan was a more benign figure who simply encouraged Alex to make his own choices. He even supported Alex and Leslie's relationship; he just wanted to make sure Alex could freely decide what was best for Alex.

But as the story shifted, I started to feel Jonathan needed more to do. I thought more about what would drive Jonathan's interest in Alex's life. I hit upon the idea that it should be Jonathan, not Rasmodius, who is responsible for Alex's troubles. Next to Cathy, Jonathan was the most hurt by Raul and Joanna. So, who was he, really? And how far was he willing to go to keep Alex from going through what he did?

It was also probably around that time that I stopped calling him Samuel and his boat the Amaranth, lol. I was still kind of fresh from a Dishonored kick and wanted to maintain a connection. But as Alex's skipper became more his own character, he and his boat needed their own names.

I'd always planned for him to be the old mariner, and a good number of people guessed that early on. The thing is, though, the old mariner is a spirit. Jonathan was not yet a spirit, and he had stuff to do before that happened.

As a consequence of these changes, Alex spent a lot of the fic avoiding Jonathan and being mad at him. I realized that maybe too late; it became a problem when I had to write the final chapters. I started to worry that I'd only told people how much of a father figure Jonathan had been to this boy; maybe I hadn't shown it enough. The first drafts had more scenes of the two of them working together, joking around, having heart-to-hearts, etc. — stuff, I feel, would have strengthened the impact of Alex's conflicting feelings about the skipper once he found out the truth. This was the main reason for the flashback in Ch. 25; I hope it worked.

As for the big challenge showdown that never was, Rattle said something somewhere about how there doesn't always have to be a big fight with the "villain"; sometimes the villain turns out to be not bad at all, and sometimes the real villain is just trauma or indecision or life. Jonathan is sometimes an antagonist, but I never really saw him as a villain, just as someone who made questionable decisions in the name of protecting someone vulnerable and young. I wanted Alex's future to always end up in his own hands and for his heart to lead him there.

Cathy

I had also planned to write something to fill in the gaps about Cathy's life. We would actually see the "movie" in Ch. 24. Maybe Alex deciding last-minute that he didn't need to see it was a cop-out, but I just decided I didn't want to write this part anymore. Maybe it would've been too much of a detour from his own story, and I was already setting up a lot of pins to knock down as it was.

So, for those who're wondering, Cathy and Joanna had always been competitive. They were both cunning and charming, but Joanna was older and prettier and definitely got more attention. Cathy was open to Raul's advances, partly because the young wizard could get it, and partly because it would get one up over her sister. Soap operatic, maybe, but also human, maybe.

The reason for her "academic drift" away from forestry and her ending up at Fish and Wildlife after the big blow-up is Jonathan. His stepping in to shield her from Joanna left a faint magical imprint or echo, and part of the "drift" was driven by her own subconscious reaching for something familiar.

A while back IRL, there was a bunch of news stories about spies being outed, and for some reason they were all professors. My SO (works with some international academics) reasoned that it was because they can come into contact with and influence powerful people under the guise of advising and research. I entertained ideas of some intelligence agency using Cathy's memory problems, conference trips, and government ties to cover up the smuggling of documents and data. She could even be aware of it; she was cold enough when it came to JojaFish. But, as I'd already decided not to fully write out her story, I didn't develop these ideas more.

This might also be a good place to mention that I'd thought of having the war with Gotoro be one of the ripple/butterfly effects of the older Circle breaking apart. But I abandoned that idea, too.

Mr. Qi and Sandy

I love them. I hoped to get into their backstory at some point, but I never did work it in. Mostly because I was a coward and didn't want to get hate about their age difference.

Sandy was one of Joanna's first doves. Qi found her and kept her for a while, out of curiosity. As he grew attached and then concerned about how brief doves' lifespans are, he asked Joanna to un-dove the kid, and then he placed her with some business associates who were having trouble adopting. He barely saw her after that; he was too busy with growing his empire and was content to be a distant godfather who sent birthday and Winter Star presents.

When Sandy, strangely drawn to the desert and the Oasis, came looking for a job, Qi recognized her as his successor. He trained her in all the ways of hotel/hospitality management, and in magic. They developed an excellent collegial friendship. Qi suspected he might have even stronger feelings but kept them to himself, told himself to focus on business. He was about twice her age and blue; it wasn't gonna happen.

Even if he had (has) no plans of dying at a normal time, he decided to bring up his succession plans to Sandy at some point. She was the one who said it would be more fun if they got married.

Calendar math

This fic received the most planning I've ever put into a fic. You might have seen my map and notes on geography. I also downloaded a blank calendar and worked out where some dates would land if each season lasted three months instead of one. Here's a glimpse:

Of course, this makes Alex a Cancer. 🦀

I also read up on fetal development and pregnancy in case anything Leslie was experiencing might be good to mention. Admittedly, I could have done that more. But after Alex went to training camp, he was around her less, and I also just focused on him more.

Personal/other writerly stuff

As you can maybe tell, I really love the sea. I think working on this fic helped me reacquaint myself with that love. There's so much focus on farming and the farmer in a lot of SDV fan work, but I really enjoyed digging into the fact that Pelican Town is a seaside town — and in the process, I got to think about all the things I loved about growing up close to the sea myself.

I know I also resorted to a lot of figures of speech related to music. Maybe they're crutches for me at this point, but explaining things the way I'd describe music or moving through water or water moving (plus weather, especially storms) is maybe the best way I know how to verbalize the thought or feeling I want in the story. Under the ecliptic zodiac, I'm an earth sign, and under the Chinese zodiac, my element is fire. But water and being in or close to the water gives me a sense of equilibrium and clarity; maybe it's a balancing thing (says the person who also says she doesn't believe in astrology). Outside of the water, the next thing that gives me that is music.

This fic also saw me processing some personal stuff about life stages and getting to move forward to the next one. Alex and Leslie's happy ending/beginning is a bit of wish fulfillment for me. They channel magic through their work, which means they will still go through all the mundanity and struggle of farming/crabbing/fishing, but they will have a home together at the end of every day. I am working toward the quiet magic of love in my everyday, too.

I have some ideas for the next thing I want to write, but they need to simmer a bit. In the meantime, I'll go back to actually reading fics and seeing what else other people are writing (I try to avoid the AO3 feed during a big WIP to prevent idea osmosis).

Thanks for reading (especially if you got this far, lol). Leave a note or a comment if you like. :)

#writing #the lost wardens #personal

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fluffypotatey · 9 months

Note

u want to answer the first half???? 🥹🥹

sure! anything for you, boo <33333 sorry it took me this long :’(

oh Lordy, ok

Share a song that makes you think of [fic title]

ok so even tho you didn’t place a specific title imma pick Frayed Strings and A Meeting at the Beach for the song People You Know by Selena Gomez bc i enjoy me some bitter and Six Eared “has not moved on” Macaque 🤭

2. Do you read/reread your own fics?

yeah! but it’s mostly after someone makes a comment on something they liked bc i, too, want to find that scene or line and enjoy it 🥰

3. What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

it’s honestly a tie between The Shrine of Emrys and A Meeting at the Beach which is funny bc they are so different from each other lmao

4. How many WIPs do you have right now?

oh, uh, *checks folder* give me a sec

*coughs* 43 👉👈

5. What’s a fic idea you’ve had that you will never write?

can find answer here it’s literally just all of my stranger things ufos lmao

6. Are there any fics from others you reread all the time?

oh yeah, all the time. too many really to list them all 😓 but there’s Bones by @theoceanismyinkwell and you shake my nerves and you rattle my brain by @yikeshereiam just to name a couple (very good btw highly recommend)

7. How many ideas for fics do you have right now?

i’d rather not say

8. What project(s) are you currently working on?

rn it’s my swk & reaper series, frayed, and my dr geyer fic. all of which are long term fics lmao

9. Do you write every day? If you wrote today, share a sentence of what you’ve written!

it’s like every other day? i try to write often to keep me from writer’s block and it’s nice switching from wip to wip when i feel overwhelmed by the other

and i did write today! so have a snippet:

Frank O’Brien, in the words of his mother in-law, was a man you could never really figure out without walking on eggshells. In the words of his sister, he was a man that took after their uncle. In the words of Jenna, he was a cautious soul.

10. Is there a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

tbh the frayed AU wasn’t one i thought many people might have liked since i write macaron being very bitchy and salty about a lot of things and i know he’s a beloved character in the lmk fandom. like, i’m not writing him that way bc i hate him (far from it). I write like that bc that’s what i imagine what his internal dialogue might be like.

11. Do you have specific playlists for writing fics?

not really, i just find one that fits the mood of the scene or my own mood

12. Do you have a playlist for your current WIP(s)? Share it!

lol no 😙 I’m not really one to create wip or character playlists but it’s a lot of fun listening to others!

13. How much planning do you do before writing?

it honestly depends. no planning was done when making the dr geyer fic or any of the merlin fics. the planning came after bc my ambitions for them were more than i expected

14. If you could see one of your fics adapted into a visual medium, such as comic or film, which fan fic would you pick?

oh gee, idk honestly. it would be cool to see a comic of the Shrine of Emrys just because the exaggerated expressions would be hilarious

15. How do you come up with titles for your fics/chapters?

long answer can be found here. short answer: it is a chaotic process that ends in prayer

but yeah there you go! i’m so sorry this was late babe 💖 had this saved in my drafts so I could answer it all and then it got buried in there 😖 BUT! hope you enjoyed my answers 💕💕💕💕

#ask game #fic writer ask game #writing #asks #thiamsxbitch #long post #sorry for the late reply 🙈🙈🙈#my wips #my fics

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babytaes · 3 years

Text

The Kickback

summary: What happens when your long-life crush's secret is discovered? In hopes of not wanting him to find out, what do you do... nothing.

pairing: dk x female reader

genre: fluff, slice of life, crack lol.

warnings: profanity

word count: 3k

a/n: today is my birthday and I wanted to share this one that has been in my drafts for so long. this campus life is stressful but I’m finding time to upload here and there. I hope you enjoy and have a great day/night. Much love from Babytaes! :) Also I really didn’t read this over sooo... if it doesn’t make sense. Take it up with corporation.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

“Dear diary, I saw my crush today. I saw him in the living room after my brother invited him over with another friend. It's not as if I'm scared of him. I've spoken with him numerous times. I mean, I'm almost fluent in his language, lol. Seeing him and hearing his boisterous laugh was still entertaining. I'm wondering if he'll be at the kickback this weekend; if so, maybe I'll have the bravery to approach him. Okay, goodbye journal, love y/n.”

Your life consisted of short, insignificant interactions with him; however, when you had a crush, life was exciting and unpredictable. Since you're so near to him on a daily basis, your crush increased exponentially as you couldn't control your intrusive thoughts.

Yes, you did think of him, probably 25/8. It's not like you didn't know him, but you only knew the head version of him. And we all know they could be two different people. So the only thing left to do is keep it secret.

It's impossible for your secret to come out when you're the only one who knows about it. Right? Unfortunately, this isn't a movie, and your secret was revealed, and the perpetrator was none other than your arch-nemesis, Boo Seungkwan.

Okay, not quite that far, but you and him frequently collided because you and him could never agree on anything. He's just Boo, and he has his own behavior category.

He was the second-to-last person you wanted to find out about, after your crush, of course. From this point on, your life was not going as planned.

Your secret would never be revealed to Lee Seokmin, and you would do anything to protect it.

“What are you doing?” You leapt to your feet as you hurriedly closed your diary, terrified of prying eyes.

You rolled your eyes and stuffed your journal into a drawer with random papers, saying, "Shit, why don't you ever knock."

“Well, this is my shared dorm, and you're basically free living here,” he chuckled. You gave him a sidelong glance.

He was right.

“Is that a way you treat your twin? Is it now.”

He strolled away, completely oblivious to your yelling, and into the kitchen.

“Shut up, and get your ass out here we have to go shopping for the kickback. If you’re not out in 10 I’m leaving your ass.”

Great sibling love, what more could you ask for. As much as you know that this is the way he expresses his love, you still got up and started getting ready for the day despite his warning.

Amidst your constant disagreements with him, you still loved him. The only problem was that you had to keep your love interest hidden from him. You could see it now and the big brother trying to protect and all that annoying shit.

You were old enough to take care of yourself and you didn’t want unruly men to ruin something that you wanted for so long.

“Coming, if you leave me, I'll tell Mom.” And I think we can all agree that I am the favorite twin.” As he slammed the fridge door shut, you could hear his huge scoffs.

You hurriedly grabbed your purse and beanie as you dashed for the door, laughing at his tantrums. He had a habit of leaving you behind.

We will not speak of March 5, 2017.

“Hey, wait up,” you said as you ran to his car and jumped in before him, grabbing the aux before him.

He started the car and sped out of the dorm parking lot on his way to the store, saying, "You're such a pain in the ass."

“Oh, don't act as if you don't love me.”

“Whoever said I did must have lied to you. Mingyu laughed as he accelerated through Seoul's crowded streets.

The jokes, the laughter, and the love were all part of the experience of living with one of the biggest Kpop groups.

You wouldn’t have it any other way!

While listening to your playlist, the song "Come to You" perfectly complemented the mood.

You smiled as you passed many streets and watched the busy lives of many different people. You could say you had an imaginative mind.

We arrived at the store a long way down the road, grabbed one of the carts, and proceeded to a separate aisle of the store.

Buying stuff was always expensive with a party of 13 and more friends on the way. Almost everything had to be doubled, and the meat had to be tripled. When throwing a party, everyone is required to provide a dish.

You didn't seem to mind; after all, you weren't paying, so you just chilled on the cart while you watched Mingyu placed the goods in neatly.

You told Mingyu to grab a specific chip as you walked to the chip aisle, and he furrowed his brow.

“What are those? I've never seen them before.

"Dokyeom likes them," you blurted out without a second thought. As you mentally processed what you had said, you stared at him with wide eyes.

Shit.

“When they're not there, Dokyeom and Soonyoung get upset.” You shook your head and scooted by him, tossing two bags into the overflowing shopping cart.

“Oh-okay I guess you can get them.”

As you pushed the cart toward the cashier, you mentally slapped yourself in the face. You were certain that you would not crack.

The ride home was silent as the only noise was the continuous taps from Mingyu's fingers on the wheel.

Mingyu called wonwoo on his phone as he drove up to the dorm and asked him to help with the groceries.

As you heard Mingyu pout over the phone, he refused, and not even minutes after, wonwoo is strolling down the driveway on his way to the car.

“You shouldn't even have picked up I know I wouldn't" Wonwoo pushed your shoulder and chuckled at your humor. “I know”

“Heyyy I'm right here,” Mingyu began to sulk as he observed his sister speaking without him.

You and wonwoo both chuckled as you gathered your belongings and began walking away from Mingyu.

---

The days went by slowly as you reached the door. It was time to leave the house. You grabbed a jacket and purse. Today, the boys went to Hybe for a quick practice session before heading out for the weekend.

Because you are such a good friend and thoughtful person, you decided to buy them a few drinks as a gift. It wasn't anything special, you didn't want to see anyone, noo.

It took some time to order everything, especially with the large number of 13 items. Since you've known each other for most of your lives, the drinks on the list haven't changed. Ice Americanos and Frappes were the most popular drinks.

As soon as you arrived at the Hybe building, you swiftly grabbed the bag containing the drinks and proceeded to their floor. You finally made it to their practice room after thanking the employees for their assistance.

Slowly pushing the door open, you drew the attention of almost everyone as they turned to face you. As a number of them raced over to you and took the beverages from you, smiles crept across their faces.

As they sipped their drinks, the room was filled with thank yous and hellos.

The voice of an angel said, "Thanks again, y/n." He gave you a short smile before returning to his practice. Oblivious to people around you, words spilled out.

“Fuck, he's so attractive.”

“Whose good looking?” As you slowly turned around, you heard a voice speaking to you from behind you.

Fuck

It's Boo Seungkwan. He smiled at you as he grabbed a drink from your hand. He cocked his head as he sipped it, and his eyes widened.

“Don’t tell me you said dokyeom is good looking, no fucking way.”

As you coughed to relieve the high tension in the air, you started to mentally sweat.

“That's insane, I said the room was in good condition," you said as you slapped his shoulder and shook your head.

Come on, y/n, that didn't even make sense.

“You know you're not going to fool me, y/n?” Afraid that someone would find out, you dragged him into a back room and locked the door behind him

“Shit..shit..shit. If you tell anyone, I swear I'll -

Laughing, before raising his eyebrows after taking a sip of his americano, he cut you off.

"You're right, this is important information. But you already know that I'll keep my mouth shut about the situation. I don’t even know what we’re talking about right now.”

Seungkwan heard dokyeom announce that practice had resumed as the door opened. Before he left, he smiled at you and waved goodbye.

“Y/n and dokyeom in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. As you were about to leap across the couch to silence him, he jumped up and ran out of the door laughing.

All of a sudden, your mind was filled with confusion and paranoia.

It became increasingly difficult to watch them practice as the session progressed. Your thoughts were not positive, and your attitude was slowly deteriorating.

Imagining the worst-case scenario. You paced in the back room when you heard a knock at the door. As you mentally prepared yourself, it caught you off guard. While walking side by side, Hansol and Seungkwan were whispering.

“Did they know?” You didn’t want anyone to find out so you ran, and didn’t stop running. To avoid society, you hurried out the door after saying a quick goodbye to the boys.

The goodbyes were not even heard as you hurried out of the Hybe parking lot without looking back. In a small group, information spreads quickly. And he was bound to find out.

Flushed and worried, you staggered into the dorm room. You knew your secret was going to get out eventually. In the case where Hansol and Seungkwan knew, Joshua is likely to know.

And since Joshua is close to the older boys, Seungcheol and Jeonghan know. The news would then spread to Hoshi, and then the entire performance team would be in the know.

The only remaining candidates are Mingyu and dk. If Mingyu finds out, it's game over for you at that point.

There was no point of living any more. Having completed a full loop of the house, you had come to your room for the final time. You slowly melted to the ground and fell out.

Dokyeon is more likely to know if Mingyu knows.

"What went wrong?" Unable to control yourself as you rolled around the floor, you erupted into a tantrum.

You sat up and shook your head, "I'll just have to leave the country," you said. "Man, you're so smart. Your plan y/n is fantastic."

You ran to your room, grabbed your suitcase from your closet, and began tossing things into.

No need to pack everything since you were only going to be gone for a year. As soon as your adrenaline slowed down, you began packing.

(A few hours later)

You were relieved when your clothes fit into your luggage when you had finally done packing. You were on your way now, and as long as it wasn't here, everything was good.

“Ah, I figured it out; now let's book it.”

When you approached the door, you unlocked it, and we were greeted with a pleasant surprise.

You walked up to the door and opened it, where you were greeted by Mingyu and his gang. Outside the door, you could see him, hao, dk, and wonwoo. They stared at you as they looked you up and down, perplexed as to why you appeared to be departing.

“Um, what is going on and where are you going?” Mingyu reacted with a rejoinder of his own.

Your throat felt as though it was clogging up, and you began sweating furiously under your armpits. Thank god for hoodies.

“Well, I was simply going to visit a friend's house,” you explained.

You knew he wouldn't believe you; he knew most of your friends, and they didn't live that far away for you to be carrying that much.

“First, that's a lie, and second, I need to speak with you, so your "buddy" will have to wait.” You sighed and closed your eyes.

Your escape had to wait.

Mingyu took your suitcase and slid it near the door, while the other members shuffled awkwardly into the room. While the other lads sat in the living room, Wonwoo went to his room.

“Maybe I could escape now?”

“What did you say y/n?” minghao said as he glanced at you.

You waved your hand in front of them and did a walk of shame to your room as you physically and mentally prepared yourself for whatever Mingyu had to say.

So much for your crush now.

Mingyu sat on the edge of your bed, arms crossed, staring at you.

“Sit down, he patted the bed on your side before lightly coughing.

"Some rumors have been going around, so I wanted to clear the air."

Seeing what he was about to say made your heart race, and you couldn't take it any longer. Does anyone else hear their loud banging, could Mingyu hear it?

You leapt to your feet and shouted at him before apologizing on your knees.

What a sight to see, a grown ass woman on her knees apologizing to her twin brother.

“I apologize; I should have told you first, but I was afraid you'd tell him. That's why I kept it a secret and plus dating a member of seventeen. That's dangerous enough-“.

Mingyu's "WHAT" cut you off.

You came to a halt as he got up, slowly staring up at him.

“Wait, weren't we discussing my crush on Dokyeom or something else?” Worries began to creep in as sweat began to accumulate on your brow.

“What the fuck, you have a crush on do-?” you exclaimed as you jumped to your feet and tackled Mingyu to the ground.

“Don't say it so loudly; he'll hear you.” As Mingyu began to pace around the room, as he pushed you off of him.

You could see his anger as he panicked, and his small rage tantrum was truly uncomfortable because he couldn't communicate his ideas to you because he was afraid of his companions' sensitive ears.

He pointed to the door and said, "Wait, so you do have a crush on him." You sighed, shaking your head.

As he walked away from you, he had another outburst.

Everything is now turning to shit, this was your only chance.

“I have to escape” you said as you dashed out the door and to your suitcase. Mingyu was standing behind you, staring at you in terror.

It wasn't in the plan for you to fall on him, but it was still nice. Focus y/n.

“I’m sorry, dokyeom; it was my fault. I didn't realize you were there. “Are you okay?” As you extended your hand to him, you pushed yourself off of him.

“Yeah, I'm OK, are you okay?” he asked. You've had quite a tumble.”

“Yeah I’m good, I live with a clumsily brother so I’m fine”

“Hey!"

You swiftly let go of each other and placed your hands behind your back as you became embarrassed.

“Hey, Seungcheol texted the group chat and said he wants to go out to eat. He said whoever can come.”

The boys instantly got ready as they wanted to eat, food is a great scapegoat. As you saw them exit the dorm, you took a step back and found your way back to your room.

“Is leaving still an option?” you murmured into your pillows, plopping your exhausted body on your bed and overthinking life.

---

You rolled over and looked at the clock, which reads 9:30 a.m.

You turned over in your bed, unable to yell, and trudged to the bathroom to make yourself presentable.

“What have you gotten yourself into, y/n?” You stripped off your clothing and stepped into the hot water after turning on the shower.

You didn't spend much time in the shower, but today you were engrossed in how your plan had devolved into this ordeal.

Resting your head on the tile as the hot water traced down your back, you contemplated on what the HELL you were going to do.

*BANG BANG*

“Y/n hurry up, we have to prepare.”

Hearing Mingyu's voice drew you back to reality as you turned off the water and got out of the shower, unlocking the door and letting him in.

“Hey, no snarky remark?” he said as he watched you walk to your room with your head down. You ignored him as you closed the door and prepared for the party.

It didn't take long for your calm disposition to be noticed, since you were the outspoken one. Even if you tried to fake it, it didn't work out.

You grinned as you walked through the background of Seungcheol and Jeonghan shared housing, looking at the celebration.

There were groups of people near the pool, at the grill, and even by the chairs, as you could see.

“Hey, bring the food inside; I'll take the meat to cheol,” mingyu said, shaking your head as you picked up the bags and headed to the kitchen, where you recognized some familiar faces.

“Y/nnnnnnnnn, heyyyyy, I’ve missed you.” When you saw her, you put the bags on the counter and hugged her, smiling into her embrace.

“It's great to see you again, yeji; how are you and the rest of the group doing?” Are the others here?” As she led you back outside, she interlaced your hands in hers.

You saw dokyeom and a few other people descend the steps before you left, as he waved and gave you a quick glance.

As you reach for a drink from the cooler, your heart begins to race. Something had to be turned off if you wanted to make it through the night, and this was the only way.

You took a sip and coughed loudly as you followed Yeji to the poolside.

It was going to be a long night for you.

---

As you and a group of individuals began to dance uncontrollably, the effects of the alcohol in your system began to show as you staggered to the grill.

“HeEeeyyYY, Wheeeere d'ya think yeeeeer goin’?” you slurred, jabbing a finger into seungcheol’s back

The other members laughed as they glanced at you, plainly detecting your intoxication.

“I forgot how drunk you can get, so why don't you take a break,” your overprotective brother says, making you scream within.

He always did this.

Gerroff me!” you said. “I’m ash sober ash ’m gonna git. And nuffink I - wait wait wait - nuffink you can do ‘boutit.” As you ambled back to the kitchen without so much as a hiccup in their direction, they laugh.

As you struggled to reach the door, you fell forward and were grabbed by a hand. As he lifted you from your imminent doom, his hold felt warm. With your eyes enlarged, you focused on the individual and stared at his face.

As you grabbed on to him, your words tumbled out of your mouth, “Ohmygoshimsosorry.” He drew you closer to him by taking your hands in his.

Saying your heart was racing was an understatement, it was literally pounding out of your chest. You were hand in hand with your crush, who you believed was exceptionally attractive and talented, and you wished he knew more about your sentiments or could somehow fill them.

But you know no huge idol like him would go for you. Feeling that made you sober up real fast as you felt your arm being pulled upstairs, you had no idea where you were going but it looked like someone's room.

Dokyeom eased open the door as he sat you on the bed and went to get some water from a little fridge. He handed it to you and sat next to you.

“Thanks”

“No problem, also I've been trying to talk to you all night but you appear to be occupied.”

As you took a sip of water, your heart began to beat faster; “waitttt, we donthavetotalk. Let’s dance! As he chuckled at your erratic movements, you began to wander around the room, pulling your hands into yours.

The alcohol was definitely making its way out of your system.

As he spun you around, his body in tune with the music, the bass of the song could still be heard. Even though this felt like a dream you didn’t quite care at the moment. Was it because you'd finally met the boy from your dreams, or was it because he wanted to meet you in person?

Your connection with him got stronger by the second, as did your heartbeat, which began to rise steadily with it. You couldn't keep stalling any longer; you needed to listen to what he was saying.

“I think I'm sober up for now,” you said as you let go of his hand.

Dokyeom chuckled before tossing his head back, “I didn't realize you could move like that” he said as they sat back on the bed, a little closer than before.

“I guess I learnt a few things along the way when you're friends with the best dancers out here.” As you finished your sentence, he peered into your eyes, making no sound as the room fell silent.

“Soo, what did you want to talk about?” you awkwardly state to relieve some tension in the air.

“I don't know how to explain it, but I kind of heard your "secret" as it passed through the practice room, and I simply wanted to be the first one to tell you about it because-

Your heart stopped pounding as your world came crashing down around you. You didn't want to hear it; the rejection; you'd rather live in your fantasy world, where you don't have to worry about anything. It wasn't true if you didn't hear it.

“Wait, if you can't reconcile those feelings, don't say anything; just let me go.” They're probably curious about our whereabouts anyway.” And with that, you stood up and walked towards the door, but you were pulled back by his hand.

He kissed you as swiftly as his hands linked with yours. You were taken aback at first by his passion, but you regained your calm and reminded yourself of what was going on: he was really kissing you, and you were really kissing him, and the rest of the world was inconsequential.

You were chilling on the outside while shouting for joy at the top of your lungs on the inside, as if your inner child had been set free. You had to be sure if this was a dream or if it was happening in real life.

“Ouch”

“Why did you do that?” Dokyeom asked as he gripped your arm in his.

“I had to double-check that I wasn't dreaming; this isn't the first time something like this has happened to me.”

“So you're saying I've been in your dreams?” he laughed as he cocked his head to the side and placed his hand in yours.”

You smacked your forehead and shook your head, realizing you couldn't get out of this one, and now he knew you fantasize about him. You didn't mind because the lad of your dreams was right in front of your eyes.

AND HE WAS HOLDING YOUR MF HAND. It was clear that your diary needed to be updated.

Stopping at the door, you placed your palm on his chest and worriedly stared at him.

“Wait, how did you find out?”

“Well, a tiny birdie was chattering loudly about it, his name rhymes with coo,” he said as he grabbed your hand in his and opened the door and began the walk downstairs.

“Fucking Boo Seungkwan”

#seventeen #svt #seventeen dokyeom #seventeen dk #seventeen lee seokmin #lee seokmin #seventeen fluff #dk fluff #seventeen crack #seventeen x female reader #seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #seventeen reactions #seventeen masterlist #babytaes works #much love from babytaes

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duckprintspress · 3 years

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How can I write quickly?

I (hi, I’m @unforth) have been asked frequently over the years how I write a lot quickly. I’m a pretty fast writer - for example, I wrote the 5600 words of my May Trope Mayhem fill from yesterday in under 2.5 hours.

First, a little of my personal history for context. I’ve always written, starting from when I was able to string letters into (very poorly spelled) words and (horrible un-grammatical) sentences. When I started trying my hand at serious, professional-level fiction writing, I joined a community called novel_in_90, which was founded by the author Elizabeth Bear. The purpose of novel_in_90 was “to be NaNoWriMo but more realistic.” Instead of 50,000 words in 31 days, it was 67,500 words in 90 days, or 750 words a day. I participated in multiple rounds of novel_in_90 starting in mid-2005, and in 2007 I completed my first (godawful) novel. When I started, even writing a couple hundred words of day took me forever, but it got easier with time.

During those same years, I also got a job that required I do professional writing on a deadline: I was a grant writer, and I only got paid when the grants won. That often meant working fast under high pressure, culminating in the weekend I wrote and edited an entire 40 pages grant that was due on Monday. I think, if I hadn’t had a solid foundation of “regular daily plodding writing,” I’d not have been able to marathon when the moment came...and it came because I had to, not because I wanted to. However, I learned a valuable lesson: I could. Subsequently, I found that, when I had the time and space and was rested enough to use my brain, I could bust out a huge amount. Like, I wrote an entire 150,000 word novel in 17 days.

My personal record is about 200,000 words in one month (it was the month I wrote that novel; I wasn’t tracking when I did that so I don’t know exactly), 25,000 words in a day, and I’ve topped out around 3,000 words an hour. I do know people who can do more...but not many.

Not everyone will be able to do this. Flat out, I MUST preface the rest of this post by saying that. Some people will find that writing fast fits their brain, and for others, it just won’t, and that’s okay. Fast doesn’t equal better, and it isn’t inherently “good” to write fast. Furthermore, even for those who can write fast, not everyone will find the same strategies helpful. I can share what works for me. Try out one item, some items, or all of these - if writing faster is something you want to be able to do, which it certainly never has to be. Use what works for you, and discard the rest.

Sit in your chair, put your fingers on your keyboard or touch screen, and write. You can’t write 1,000 words in half an hour until you write one word, however long that one word takes. I know saying this is obvious, but I’ve been asked “how can I write fast” by people who struggle to write at all...fast can’t be your priority until you’ve got a foundation of just writing. (Honestly...fast should never be your priority, but it might be helpful to you regardless, which can make it worth learning.)

Start small. Set an achievable goal, and make yourself meet that goal (daily, weekly, whatever) come hell or high water, no matter how long it takes you. Keep the goal small at first; you’re not trying to torture yourself, you’re trying to build a skill. If you set the goal high enough that you consistently fail, you’re not teaching yourself anything. And, if you find the goal IS too high...lower it. There’s no shame in working within your limits. Think of it like starting a new work out regimen: you wouldn’t try to run a 10k at a record time if you can’t run a mile slow. Treat your fingers and your brain the same way you’d treat your legs and joints. Give them time to grow, learn, and improve before you try to push yourself.

Trying to write daily is worthwhile if you want to work on your writing speed, because you’ll be forced to try to fit it in as you’re able - that might be ten minutes in your morning, or an hour in your evening, and it might vary from day to day, but making it daily means you have to fit it in somewhere.

Building skills takes time and isn’t easy. For some people, it will come easier than for others, and even when you’re fast, going from “I can write words fast” to “I can write damn good words fast” takes practice and dedication and accepting constructive criticism - speed alone will never be worth more than writing well.

Having a community can help. Ya’ll will check in on each other, cheer each other on, remind each other that missing a day or a goal isn’t the end of the world, and keep each other’s spirits up. If you don’t know other writerly folks online, I recommend Weekend Writing Marathon ( @weekendwritingmarathon ) as a good place to start (I used to be a mod there). Once you’re trying to work up to larger word counts in a day, remember that even writing fast will take minutes or hours. You can’t write 2,500 words in an hour if you don’t set an hour aside. Make sure you’re giving yourself the room and time you need to succeed.

You will probably never be able to do high, rapid word counts every day, every week, every month. The best runners in the world don’t run marathons every day. Set realistic long term goals.

Work on projects where you have a clear idea of where you’re going. I’m not saying “pantsers” can’t write fast, because of course they can, but if you want to write fast, and well, and coherently, to create a first draft that’s in pretty good shape, you’ll do better if you have a good sense of what you’re trying to accomplish with your story. That doesn’t mean you need to do all your world building up front, or have a complete outline (I never have either). All you really need is what happens next. I tend to plan projects - and write them - one full scene at a time, with only a vague idea what’s going to come after. (I’m personally a “plantser,” and the strategies in this post will likely be most effective to other plantsers.)

Visualize ahead of time what you’d like to write...but don’t get too attached to what you visualize. When I go to bed, I plan the next scene I’m going to compose, often to the least detail. I then forget all of it overnight, at least all the specifics, and I’m left with a general sense and shape of what’s to come. You’ll never be able to replicate the “perfect” dialog you pre-conceive, so give up on trying to. Instead, play through the scene and think about the emotional beats you want to hit and plot points you want to forward. If you keep that in mind, you’ll be able to get the words out faster than if you’re agonizing over every word or regretting the “oh-so-great” idea that you’ve since forgotten.

Practice different work styles. If writing every day doesn’t work for you, try instead saying, “this is my writing day each week,” and aim for a lot that specific day, and write little or nothing other days. Try writing at different times of day and on different days, fitting it into your schedule. If you’re beating yourself up for not writing when you “should,” it’ll be that much harder to succeed, so instead, as I said for point 2 - set a reasonable goal that fits your life and working style, fitting it around your other responsibilities, and push yourself within that framework, instead of trying to shoehorn into a style that you “think you should” use to succeed.

Track your word counts, and take notes on how much you did and what project you were working on. If you’re also experimenting with different times of day and different days, make sure you note that too. I personally use a simple Excel sheet (well, Google Sheets, now) - column one is the date, column 2 is “starting word count,” column 3 is “ending word count,” column 4 is “=column 3 - column 2”, column 5 is notes. Pay attention to when you succeed at writing faster, and when you don’t, and consider what factors might have played into your success...and then try to replicate those factors next time you’re doing a sprint. Control as many variables as you can while you’re “training.”

If you find social media distracting, trying getting a web browser extension that prevents you from connecting to websites for a set period of time.

If you find you tend to dither before starting, I find it helpful to run through everything that I might do to procrastinate (check my social media! grab a snack! make some tea! set up my playlist! check my social media again! finish making the tea! check my social media for what I swear will be the last time!), and when I’m done, it’s like, well, I’ve done all those things, I’ve got no choice left, time to write, no excuses left.

If you find you struggle with picking up a WIP, try leaving off in the middle of a sentence at the end of a session, one where you know exactly how it ends - or, leave off mid-paragraph, or when you are positive you know what happens next (and I mean literally next, as in the very next sentence.) It’s much easier to “pick back up” when your first words are super clear. (Do not do this if you think there’s any chance you’ll forget or end up in a situation where you won’t return to your WIP for months!)

If you find you struggle to maintain continuity across multiple writing sessions, try rereading what you wrote the previous day before you proceed. Resist the urge to edit it!

Avoid stopping when you get stuck, even to do research. Don’t know a fact? Add a comment to your manuscript flagging the relevant text, “LOOK THIS UP LATER.” Can’t think of a word? Put in something you can use the “find” function on easily (I personally use “XX” since there are no words that have a double x in them) and so you can come back later, search for your chosen placeholder, and fill in the blanks. Not sure how a scene ends but know the next scene? Jump ahead.

That said, if you really don’t know what happens next, you don’t do yourself any favors by pressing on. As I’ve said previously, speed alone should never be your writing object. It’s better to slow down, consider your plot, figure out where you’re going, and then write, than to just plow ahead - or at least, that’s better if you want a manuscript you’ll actually be able to use for something at a later point. If you’re truly just practicing, you can also say “screw it, who needs coherence?” and keep going. I’d personally never have finished my first novel if I’d spent a lot of time worrying about making the pieces fit together and yeah, it’s a mess, but it’s a mess I wrote instead of a mess I got stuck on and never completed.

Don’t move the finish line. If you’ve set the goal of 500 words a day, don’t beat yourself up if you get 550 because you think you think you could have done more. If you say you’ll write five days a week, don’t get mad because you DID have time the sixth day but chose to use it on something else. If you make yourself feel like shit when you succeed, what’ll happen when you fail? And when you’re comfortable and really think you’re ready, change the goal - reassess every month, say, and up your goals. While working for speed, trying upping your word count goal without changing the amount of time you allot for working.

Your need to adhere to the above suggestions will change over time. Once, I always had an outline; now I often don’t need one. Once, I wouldn’t let myself stop even to use a thesaurus; now, I find I can look up words without breaking my flow or significantly slowing myself down. This is not an “all or nothing” prospect, nor is it a “do things the same way forever once you’ve found one (1) thing that works” prospect - you’ll experiment, and find strategies that work for you, and then at some point, your needs will change, and you’ll experiment more, and find new strategies that work for you, on and on, as your skills grow.

To reiterate: writing fast should never be your objective in and of itself! Greater writing speed will come with practice and as a general side effect of improving your craft. Simply being able to write fast is useless; being able to write fast and well will enable you to get more of your ideas out there, so if that’s something you’d like to accomplish, focus on building your general skills and training yourself to be able to use those skills rapidly and in tandem with each other to produce decent writing, in a first draft, at a decent speed.

Once you try, you may find none of this works for you! That’s okay. That’s good! You tried, which means you learned something about yourself and your own writing style, and that too will help you to improve. Keep experimenting, keep learning, and find what does work for you - and accept that no two writers will ever be the same, and one of those differences will be writing speed. Some writers will never write fast, and that’s doesn’t make them any less awesome or valid. And some writers will always write fast, and that doesn’t make them inherently awesome or valid. Only with a suite of skills that suit your individual life, personality, work style, writing capabilities, goals, etc., will you succeed as a writer (for various, personalized definitions of the word “success”); speed is only one of those potential skills, and not one that’s particularly important in my opinion...yet I still get asked about it fairly often, so here we are, these are my suggestions

Go forth, and write some words! <3

#duck prints press #writing advice #original content

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jenosdaemi · 3 years

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Let's get acquainted!

The name is Daemi. She/Her. Filipina-Canadian, comment cava mahal? Closest birthday to Kun and probably has the same personality as him lol. My bias is Jeno! I mean looking at the username it's fairly obvious, right? I like to think that I am approachable but I'm not really great with conversations, though I am trying. So please still try to message me, even if you just need to vent out.

As I said, all of my works are self-indulgent. I have so many great plots in my head with nowhere to put so I started writing them down in google docs.

I started writing fiction as young as 12 years old. Some of my works are under a different pseudonym, all were published in 2012-2014 and I assure you all of them are juvenile. Over a decade later, I am still that same frustrated author phew. I have self-esteem issues and I feel like my way of writing sucks. I have every intention of publishing them (my works) here on Tumblr so I keep putting all of them in my drafts, but it's literally been like 6 months and I still couldn't get enough courage to publicize them.

What else? Hmm.

Would I be writing for different groups aside from NCT? Yes!! SHINee and EXO. Just like in NCT, I will also be making a playlist series for EXO, a Maroon 5 playlist. I already started it and finished Suho's but the whole series is on pause at the moment so I can focus on finishing NCT first.

Lastly, I am very extremely busy with my job that I sometimes had to work 7 days a week I love it though. I'm saying this because that job is still my priority and writing is just my escape. I've seen what pressure did to some of the great authors here on Tumblr that it made them stop doing something they used to love. I'm not saying that I'll have that amount of audience lol I wish, I'm just giving you guys a heads up.

That's it! I could still share a bunch of shit but I'm stopping myself lol.

Also, let's be friends. Please?

#jenosdaemi #about me

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forestgreenrambles · 3 years

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First of all thanks @izzielizzie for convincing me to not let this rot in my drafts! She asked for it so here it is! Luis and Maeve dancing bachata. This is 638 words and 400 of them are unnecessary. No, I do not care.

Read below the cut!

When Luis swipes Maeve’s phone right out of her hands and holds it over his head where Maeve cannot possibly reach, she begins to panic. Inwardly.

See, right before this occurred, Luis and Maeve had been comparing music tastes. Maeve is the kind of person to listen to anything. She doesn’t care much about the language she just needs to feel something. From pop icon Taylor Swift to Russian indie, Maeve’s heard it all.

Luis is a bit different. Picky so to speak. Luis listens to exactly three genres. Rap when he needs a bit of motivation. R&B for relaxation. And Latin for whenever.

As much as Maeve may be proud of her music taste, she’s most definitely embarrassed to show it to anyone.

But Luis wanted a playlist. And when Maeve was trying to find one that wouldn’t scare him away, he snatched it from her hands. Anything can go wrong now.

Luis scrolls through her library. “You have thousands of songs! What the hell, Maevey?” his eyebrows scrunch together in surprise as he looks down at Maeve who groans with her face in her hands.

He scrolls through her playlists clicking on one titled “vibeyness” and goes to the bottom. His eyes widen. “278 songs? Jesus,” he taps back and looks through her albums instead. He doesn’t scroll too far before seeing all the Aventura albums on the screen.

He looks through artists instead. Then through genres. His brows are raised in surprise.

“I didn’t know you were such a bachatera? You have every Aventura album and almost every Romeo, Royce, and Zacarias Ferreira album!”

Maeve groans weakly again. Her face is a bright red. “Please stop,” she grumbles.

Luis whistles. “You have three separate bachata playlists? Damn. ‘El bachateo’, ‘Bachata for dancing’, ‘Bachata for heartbreak’” He frowns.

“What do you know about heartbreak, Maevey?” he asks.

Maeve throws herself on the ground and groans. Again. “Nothing! Just please leave my library alone!”

He clicks shuffle on the dancing playlist.

“El Perdedor” by Aventura begins playing. Luis pushes Maeve with his foot.

“Maevey get up!”

She shakes her head, still on the floor. “This is so embarrassing, I want to break up with you.” she groans. He smiles, “No you don’t. You loooove me,”

“Not anymore, I don’t.” she proclaims.

Luis pulls her up from the floor and pulls her into his chest. She looks up, still bright red. “This,” she says poking his chest, “is why I didn’t want to show you! You’re making fun of me!” she wails.

He chuckles. “I think it’s cute, amor. Let’s dance. Please?”

She answers, “Isn’t that super sappy?”

He laughs. “You’re super sappy, bachatera.”

She makes a noise of frustration.

He wraps his arm around her waist and takes her hand, intertwining their fingers. They look at each other and Maeve gives in with a look.

They begin moving slowly, indulging every step. Step, step, point. Step, step point. Spin.

Soon they’re just caught up in each other, and the songs keep playing. “Un Beso” then “Ella y Yo” and “Cuando volverás”

They move lightly, no worries, just relaxed dancing.

Then Luis asks, “When did you learn to dance?”

She smiles softly. “With my dad when I was around four, we liked to practice.”

He smiles at her. “I learned with my mom at a party when I was around 4 or 5. Then I got really good at it when I had to dance at quinces.” he shrugs.

She frowns a little. “I never had a quince. Neither did Bronwyn. We didn’t feel Latina enough.”

He squeezes her hand. “You’re perfectly valid, mi amor.”

“I know that now. But I didn't then” she nods.

They keep swaying until eventually Maeve gets a hold of Luis’s phone and teases him about his obsession with Kali Uchis’ music.

It’s a lovely evening.

#i am a fan of all of these artists #i adore kali uchis #bachata is amazing #please listen to latin artists #i beg you #maeve rojas #luis santos #bachata #nia writes

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diavolodigitale · 3 years

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Heart of Stone

Cullen + red lyrium = the Big Sad

One of the favourites of mine when it comes to my own works. I absolutely loved writing it so I do hope it will find its reader one day.

Genres: Angst, Drama, Dark, Deviates From Canon, Hurt, Mental Health Issues

Pairing: Male Inquisitor Lavellan & Cullen Rutherford, (optional) Male Inquisitor Lavellan/Cullen Rutherford

Characters: Cullen Rutherford, Male Inquisitor Lavellan, Varric Tethras, Cassandra Pentaghast, Solas, Cole, Vivienne

Rating: M for Might be disturbing for some readers

Size: around 18 pages

THE PAIRING IS OPTIONAL! This work is not intended to contain the pairing male!Lavellan/Cullen, but I am also completely fine if somebody chooses to read it that way.

The numbers in the text stand for the songs in my playlist you have to listen to while reading to get a better experience.

Here's the list of songs: 1. Soap&Skin - The Sun 2. L'Enfant De La Forêt - Katabasis 3. L'Enfant De La Forêt - Noir-Etang 4. Soap&Skin - Deathmental 5. L'Enfant De La Forêt - ...For The Love Of God 6. Soap&Skin - Janitor of Lunacy 7. Soap&Skin - Sugarbread 8. Soap&Skin - Marche Funèbre

(01) “Why won’t you let me out, Inquisitor?”

“Don’t talk to me.”

“I thought you came here to talk. You always do.”

“I said don’t talk to me!”

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here… Have you abandoned?” Cullen twitched forward; the chains holding him clinked loudly in dead silence of the prison cell. “Have you? Have you, Inquisitor?”

Inquisitor turned away, afraid to look at the face of somebody he once called a friend. Pale, worn-out, and distorted, it resembled a shadow of a person, a spirit who escaped the Fade and now lurked among others with nothing reminding him of what he used to be.

“I want to see your eyes, Inquisitor. You made me like this, you keep me here. It’s all your fault.”

“It isn’t. You are here because I have faith in you. You won’t make me hate you, no matter what you say.”

“Oh, you already hate me,”—Cullen laughed insincerely—“I know you do. I can sense it. But there is still a chance…”

Inquisitor raised his head. He gripped the bars tightly and leaned forward, so close that he could feel cold iron touching the skin on his cheeks and forehead.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

Cullen closed his eyes. His body was relaxed, hands were loosely hanging. The veins visible under half-transparent skin were pulsating red.

“If you could let me share the song with you…” he muttered under his breath. “It’s so serene. You’ll see, you’ll understand then. You left me here on my own with it, and I accepted it, and so will you.”

Inquisitor’s hands exploded with a burst of magic as he clutched the bars with all the force he had left in his weakened body. His teeth were grit and his head hurt. He tried to say something, but no sound came out – his throat seemed swollen and a feeling of pressure in his chest made it difficult to breathe.

“You owe me this. I’m here because of you. Listen to me”—Cullen made a pause, waiting for the Inquisitor to react—“Listen to me!” he shouted, gripping his fists and rattling the chains that bound him.

Lavellan looked him in the eyes, ready to suffer through whatever he had to tell him.

“The song I used to hear is nothing compared to this one…” went on Cullen in a less agitated manner. “It embraces, caresses… I would hear it in my sleep, but now I don’t sleep anymore... First, the dreams left, and now I don’t need to sleep at all. I just listen.”

“I’ll find the cure,” said Inquisitor in an attempt to persuade Cullen, though, not sounding confident enough to believe it himself.

“I don’t need any cure, Inquisitor. I am not sick. I need to get out of here, I need to feel the wind, the heat of it is KILLING me!”

“You have to withstand it. The lyrium will devour you if you don’t resist, you know that!”

Cullen chuckled. His voice was crispy and low after spending so much time in a cold cell without any food and water. He wasn’t denied it, he just refused to take any.

“You’re not supposed to resist,” he made a special emphasis on the last word. “It makes you stronger, it lets you see so much more… You have no idea.”

Inquisitor let go of the bars frozen by a sudden outburst of his magic. He barely managed to keep it inside as it wanted to get out so eagerly and uncontrollably. This place smelled of despair and desolation and it took away all the energy he had. He wanted to leave, but could not force himself to do so.

Cullen slowly hummed a few notes while crossing his legs on the bare stone floor. He drew deep long breath and a hint of a smile touched his chapped lips as he spoke.

“I hated mages. You already know that, I recon. As any other reasonable templar would do. I was afraid of their power, but now… Now I am not. Your magic doesn’t scare me, Inquisitor, because soon even you won’t be able to stop me.”

“I don’t want to stop you. I just want to help.”

“Help yourself, Inquisitor. You look pathetic.”

Lavellan looked not much better than his former Commander. He barely got any sleep, always having to help others, being not himself, but the Inquisitor. Those few free moments he had he would spend in this dungeon of anguish, chiding himself for what had happened to Cullen and making himself suffer by looking at the sufferings of the templar.

Time was passing by mercilessly. He wished he could stay there without any movement forever, but the whole world was frantically spinning around him and without his intervention everything could fall apart any minute. He threw one last tired look at the templar and left the prison, foolishly hoping the next time he came everything would be different.

“I’ll be here, Inquisitor. In case you want to chat.”

Cullen didn’t stop smiling. His posture was stiff and eyes were blank, glowing crimson red.

(02-03) “Inquisitor.”

“Yes, Solas?” Lavellan stopped to greet the elf with an exhausted half-smile on his face. He knew he couldn’t fool him, but the habit of pretending had already become a part of him.

“You’ve been there again. Don’t deny it.” Solas’ eyes were piercing the Inquisitor. It was not a question because he did not really need the answer, he knew everything intuitively. This terrifying power of his never left Lavellan any chance of retrieval.

“Yes, I have. I am trying to understand…” Inquisitor looked down in a kind of shame, like a child who did what was not allowed. “There must be something I can do,” he added quietly.

“If you really want to help him, you must put him out of his misery. This is the only option. The longer you wait, the more his condition deteriorates,” said Solas in a tone that did not allow for any disagreement.

The throbbing pain in his temples made Lavellan feel as if he also heard the song. The one that outvoiced all his thoughts and common sense, forced him to say what he didn’t mean and let slowly crawling insanity possess his mind.

“I don’t care. I do not care what you think, Solas!” he yelled, not paying attention to all the other people in the castle yard who were startled by his outburst of anger. “I will not abandon him, even if it will be the death of me!”

Solas frowned. This was the only visible sign of his dissatisfaction. Even though he greatly disapproved of what the Inquisitor’s opinion was, he would never lose his temper.

“You don’t belong to yourself anymore. People rely on you, and you have to remember that. Sometimes thousand lives are more important than one,” he simply said.

Lavellan shook his head, now feeling ashamed for his behaviour. He did not mean it, merely didn’t know how to defend his position anymore.

“I know… I am sorry,” he replied. “I promise to think it over. I just need some rest; it’s been a long day.”

“Indeed, it has. I understand, my friend. Great responsibility lies on your shoulders.” Solas patted Lavellan on the back. “Don’t try to carry it on your own. We are all here to share it with you.”

Inquisitor nodded gratefully and hurried to leave the unpleasant conversation behind.

“Varric wanted to see you. He looked worried,” said Solas after him.

“Thank you. I will see him at once,” answered Inquisitor, disappointed that he couldn’t be left alone even for a moment.

The dwarf was right were Lavellan assumed he would be – near the fireplace in the great hall, working on his drafts. The mage approached a wooden table and took a seat on a chair near Varric.

“Your Inquisitorialness,” said Varric and took his gaze off the pages scattered all over the table. “You look… good enough.” The expression on his face suggested he was of a different opinion.

“You don’t have to lie to me, Varric. You’re the only person here allowed to criticize me so we’re friends no matter what you say.”

“Okay, well, a little rough around the edges, but I’ve seen worse.” The dwarf smiled in a friendly way, finally put aside his soaked in ink quill and diverted all of his attention to the conversation.

“I appreciate the honesty,” said Lavellan. His head still hurt, but the tender warmth of the fire in the fireplace and the calm air always present around Varric made it easier to endure.

“Chuckles probably made it sound like a big deal, but there wasn’t really any significant reason I needed to see you. Just wanted to tell you that Cassandra took over all of Commander’s plans and… Well, she’ll take care of everything. Things will continue as planned.”

“I appreciate that as well,” said Inquisitor, his voice gradually becoming quieter. He knew he should talk to Cassandra. After all, her role in the Inquisition was already great enough, and now she had even more responsibilities to deal with. Yet he did not know what to tell her. He could neither congratulate her not say that he was sorry. All seemed wrong.

“Look, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but let me say something. I know how it feels.”

Varric also possessed the ability to know what people around him thought about and it made the Inquisitor consider the fact that he was the only one who couldn’t see past the pretension of others. He couldn’t even understand his own thoughts, let alone somebody else’s.

He didn’t answer, just looked blankly in front of himself, right into the void, at nothing in particular.

“I lost my brother to it…” continued Varric.

“I’ve never heard you had a brother. What was he like?”

“Stubborn would probably be the best word to describe him.”

“Seems like you two had quite a lot in common,” said Inquisitor jokingly.

“Not really. He was this “businessman” type of guy – always thinking about profits and dubious affairs. And, unlike me, he wasn’t a charismatic and talented hero-lover.”

“Obviously. It is hard to find another dwarf like you.”

“Impossible, I would say”—Varric heaved a deep sigh and his tone shifted to a more serious one—“It’s difficult to come in terms with at the beginning, but sooner or later you just do. It’s long and complicated, but we’re all here to support you. We knew what we signed up for.”

Inquisitor thought that it wasn’t true. He didn’t know. Cullen didn’t know. Nobody knew. Even so, he would probably be able to accept any consequences if they applied to him personally, but he was not ready to watch others degrade that easily.

“You should go and lie down. My talks make you sleepy, apparently.” Varric gave Lavellan an encouraging wink in an effort to end the conversation on a higher note.

“It’s good to hear at least one actually useful advice today,” said Lavellan. “Let me know if anything needs my attention.”

“Of course.”

Varric dipped his quill in ink and continued writing. Inquisitor headed to his quarters, trying not to pass out from fatigue on his way there.

(04) The next time Inquisitor entered the dreary prison, he barely managed to hold in a scream of terror. Cullen’s state was rapidly decaying. Red lyrium crystals were nesting on him, tearing the pale skin from the inside, feeding on his flesh. The whole cell was illuminated by appalling red light emitted by the crystals that were now part of his body. It was unbearably hot down there – apart from light, the lyrium also radiated heat. Cullen hardly moved since the last time Inquisitor saw him.

“I thought you’d never come,” he said with the same ominous smile he demonstrated previously. There was neither kindness nor hospitality in it.

“I was busy.” Inquisitor swallowed his horror before the intimidating creature dwelling in the basement of his castle and approached the cell. “Does it hurt?”

“It used to. It was more painful when I tried to oppose my addiction. Now, having given in, I see that there was no point in it. The most difficult path isn’t always the right one.”

“I refuse to believe that this is really what you think!”

Lavellan’s right hand flushed with green light. His constantly pressured and distraught state of mind depressed his control over magic abilities, especially those concerned with the Mark. Closing small tears grew more and more troublesome, as his power did not obey him and instead forced more demons to come out of the Fade.

“I gain power while you lose it. How ironic.” Cullen’s red eyes were staring right into Inquisitor’s soul, omitting what was on the outside. Lavellan’s appearance made it obvious that he was also experiencing drastic changes, but Cullen did not need to see how he looked to know that he was broken already. “The Anchor doesn’t belong to you, so soon it will turn against you, the way it should’ve done long ago. And then the Master will take it.”

“The Master? Now you serve him? Cullen, have you forgotten what he did to our people? Haven’t you seen how the Sanctuary was destroyed?”

“I remember everything perfectly, and that is why I understand how fast he will achieve dominance over everything else. You’re blind, Inquisitor, and I gained my sight here, in this dark basement, thanks to you. I pity you for how miserable your efforts to defy us are.”

“You have never talked to him, Cullen. He is insane, he blatantly uses everyone who supports him. They are disposable! Do you really want to be one of them?”

“I don’t need to talk to him, I have the song. It’s with me all the time. Unlike you were.” Cullen stopped smiling and grimaced. “If the song I heard from usual lyrium reminded the voice of the Maker, then this one sounds like the Old God. Something greater than all of us, something indescribable and immensely strong. There is no Maker in the Golden City, Inquisitor. Nobody cares about your soul, might as well sacrifice it in the grand battle for this world. But betting on the right side.”

“Cullen, you’re not yourself anymore…”

“Have you just noticed? What kind of leader are you if you don’t pay attention to what is going on with your advisors and trusted ones? To how Leliana bends down under the weight of the decision she makes for you, to how the Bull is torn between what is dear to him and what he must do, to how Cole suffers every minute he is present in this world affected by the vices and sins people commit… And all because of you.”

Lavellan tried not to yield, not to show that every word pierced him like a dagger. Every day he thought about all the lost opportunities, missed chances and mistakes made. Every night he lay sleepless because of the regrets and guilt haunting him whenever he closed his eyes. He did not see darkness under the lowered eyelids, only the faces of people he lost to the war nobody was ready for. However absurd templar’s words were, he would believe them because he himself was disappointed in what leader he turned out to be. He tried not to yield but did it quite poorly.

“Even though you don’t admit it, I know you’re crushed. You’re as lost as the day the Breach opened and you were the only one to survive the explosion. I could show you the way… or end you. You decide.”

“I don’t need any help from you. You are not the person you pretend to be anyway... We’ll talk everything over, but only when I bring back the Commander I know.”

“How persistent,” said Cullen, stretching every word as if he was savouring them. “It’s a shame you weren’t so determined previously. Perhaps it would have saved a lot of lives and your beloved Commander in his previous form. Although, I am quite upset that you prefer to disown me now that you don’t like the way I am anymore. You turned out to be so shallow…”

“We’ve all seen what lyrium does to the templars, Cullen… Your words will not influence me because I know that it’s the Blight talking in you. Once you get rid of that filth—”

“You’re not really so certain, are you?” asked Cullen mockingly and laughed. “You think you can just rip it out of me, but it runs through my veins now. You can try whatever you want, you can break the crystals, you can cut them out, you can use your wretched magic, your Mark, yet you will not make the song go away. It will grow louder and stronger, and so will I.”

“You haven’t eaten for days, Cullen. You don’t sleep, you don’t talk to people. Your life slips through your fingers. Nobody is allowed to go down here except for me, so I am the only one who can help you. Please, don’t make it worse for the both of us.”

“I’m not the one making it worse. You are.”

Cullen turned his head away from the Inquisitor, not willing to talk anymore. The crystals on his body glimmered with red lights. There were no other light sources in the basement so Cullen’s face was illuminated only by this sinister glow. His eyes as well as the veins visibly pulsating under the dead-white skin of his drained body were red. Everything about him was red. The fetters around his wrists were covered in rust, but the glow of the crystals made it seem like they were rotting.

Lavellan couldn’t help but notice that most of the crystals were growing on his left shoulder and the appropriate side of his neck, forming a cluster. A number of smaller ones was spread over his stomach and forearms. Although he had already spent days in the cell, his body wasn’t as weakened and feeble as it should have been, and it scared the elf. He really wasn’t going to die or surrender that easily.

Inquisitor did not know how long he stood there without saying anything, just examining the former Commander. At one moment, the realization that he hated being there just dawned on him. He slept for a few hours and even tried to eat before coming, but now felt as if he hadn’t had any rest for weeks. The heat produced by the lyrium crystals made him feel feverish. His vision became dizzy and he thought that he may lose consciousness if he stayed here.

The room that always felt so empty now seemed to be filled with presence. Cullen was the only prisoner, but to Inquisitor the basement seemed overcrowded: he couldn’t breathe freely, his whole body hurt as if he was pushed around with heavy shoves. Convincing himself that there was nothing he could say or do to help Cullen right here and right now, he decided to leave.

Cullen said nothing.

(05) “Oh, dear, you look hideous,” said Vivienne, catching Inquisitor on his way to the war table. Her voice suggested that she was both unsatisfied and a little bothered. “We need to do something about that immediately,” she added, looking him up and down.

“I am sorry, Vivienne, but there is no time for that. One of our scouts went missing and we need to decide where we should start searching. I promise I’ll get some sleep later.”

“No-no, beauty sleep will not help you anymore. I’m afraid, we need to eliminate the cause of your worries or else you’ll scare all our allies away.”

“I know what you want to tell me and no, I will not—”

“This is not a discussion, my dear,” said Vivienne, interrupting Lavellan who already raised his hand as a sign of protest. “It’s difficult for all of us, but you cannot show your weakness. You represent the Inquisition and appearing like that is almost the same as telling everybody we are just a group of worthless bandits. Look at those clothes, at that face… You look like you were the one who sat in that cell with no fresh air and good company. Please, I beg you, don’t make me feel ashamed of you.”

“I cannot promise you to deal with what bothers me, but I will pull myself together,” managed to utter Inquisitor after a few seconds of silence.

“And the clothing.” Vivienne looked skeptically at the old torn leather armor Inquisitor had been wearing for god knows how many days.

“Yes, I will surely change it.”

“That is what I wanted to hear. Don’t let others use your vulnerability against you. Don’t look like you have any in the first place.”

Inquisitor nodded to the Grand Enchanter to pay his respect. She gave him a polite nod as well before leaving him in the great hall. In reality, he rarely shared her point of view regarding pretty much anything, but he just could not resist her openly: she was too powerful and too valuable. Her knowledge of Orlesian court and magic powers were of great use to the Inquisition so sometimes he just needed to say what she wanted to hear in order to keep their temporary peace.

He hurried to open the heavy wooden door that led to the command centre. All of his advisors had already gathered at the war table. All, but one.

As days went by, Inquisitor slowly descended into madness. He frantically slaughtered all enemies he met on his way being as merciless as never before. His magic powers grew to be more effective on the battlefield, burning, freezing, and crushing, but, at the same time, almost uncontrollable. There was no middle ground for him, only lethal blows. Each red templar he spotted made him furious beyond all reason – he used every single spell on them to see what dealt the most damage. He couldn’t use his healing powers anymore, but instead gained the ability to bring the strongest pain to every red lyrium addict he saw. Blackwall, Dorian and Varric shared his hate for the enemies they fought, but certainly did not approve of his methods. They thought nobody deserved that much suffering, no matter what they did.

When time allowed it, Lavellan would stop to examine the bodies of the deceased templars. He paid special attention to how the crystals rooting in their bodies developed and grew, how the skin around the ruptures looked and behaved. He killed countless knights, guards and marksmen, observing how different were states of their corruption. He noticed how crystals pierced their armour, making it part of them. Some of them wore helmets overgrown by it, so he wondered how they could even see anything. A few shadows he eliminated had arms completely covered in lyrium which made them much more dangerous than the others, raw lyrium being extremely harmful in any state, but at the same time filling their existence with agony: contact that close made them lose their humanity faster and degraded their physical and mental state.

Once on the Emerald Graves, Inquisitor, accompanied by his loyal followers, met a Behemoth. An enormous lump of red lyrium barely provoked the thought that it used to be a person – not a single part of its body remained intact, everything was completely covered with crystals. The air around it was pulsating with heat, and the red glow it emitted blinded them. The fight was long and tedious – Blackwall was severely injured after receiving a massive blow in his leg and Dorian exhausted all his magic forces and couldn’t continue without a dose of lyrium to boost them. When the existence of the monstrosity was finally ended by Inquisitor’s ice spell, they managed to catch a glimpse of a silhouette resembling that of a human being inside the Behemoth before it collapsed to the ground. The atmosphere became heavy, as they were crudely reminded that the creatures they were forced to fight used to be people at some point. Some of them, perhaps, didn’t choose this fate and would rather continue living their ordinary lives.

While his companions stood gloomy and silent, mulling over what happened to the world they once knew, Lavellan approached a pile of dust left of the Behemoth. He couldn’t lose such an opportunity to study it because it was the first specimen that was so corrupt that it wasn’t able to say a single word and could only scream and produce inarticulate sounds. Lately Inquisitor became almost obsessed with researching how lyrium developed in the bodies of templars, so all he could think about was finding out how it influenced human organism and seeing if it could be prevented somehow. He approached the pile and was extremely disappointed to see that there was almost nothing left in it. Being in some kind of frenzy, with his bare hand he grabbed a small lyrium crystal – the only visible part of the templar that hadn’t disintegrated yet. A few moments passed before Varric noticed what Lavellan was doing and hurried to him to drag him away from the pile and throw away the crystal. Inquisitor’s hand and fingers were already influenced by the mineral and a few deep burns were left on the skin.

All the way back to Skyhold Lavellan listened to Dorian lecturing him about how irresponsible he was. Blackwall silently frowned and lagged behind, holding on to the handle of his sword hanging in a scabbard on his side. Varric occasionally sighed and said that he agreed with Dorian. Inquisitor’s hand throbbed with pain but he did not really care. The only thing that bothered him was the fact that he didn’t make any progress in researching the influence of lyrium.

He stopped visiting the prison at Skyhold. He was afraid to descend there and see something more terrifying that he had already seen. He wanted to send somebody down to check on Cullen occasionally, and Leliana agreed to come herself, not wanting anybody else to become the witness of what happened to the Commander of the grand Inquisition. She feared they would lose their influence and authority if the details about Cullen’s corruption became public; the Inquisitor feared he would lose any hope left after seeing his friend one more time.

After one of the visits, Leliana reported that Cullen’s left arm is covered with red lyrium crystals up to his elbow already. Apart from that, she added that he also refused to talk to her. He didn’t even acknowledge her presence.

(06) “So… how are you doing here, Cole?” asked the Inquisitor his ghostly companion one gloomy evening. He couldn’t forget what Cullen said about him not caring about his friends. He was troubled to learn they were down, but recently just didn’t have the time to address that.

“This place is not a home. Too dark. Everybody’s hurt.” The spirit lowered his head, hiding his eyes behind the brim of his hat.

“Are you hurt too?” carefully inquired Lavellan.

“I don’t know. They are. I absorb the pain, it stings like bees, but stronger. But it brings relief to the others.”

“You don’t have to help them if it is hard for you. It’s impossible to help everybody. I don’t want you to feel pain because of that, Cole,” said Inquisitor, concerned about the spirit. He knew that comforting others was the actual reason his friend existed, but didn’t want to tolerate such state of affairs nonetheless.

“I came here to help. Pain is temporary, death is not. I take the pain and put up with it for a short while, and they are free and calm. Better than listening to their screams.”

“I see…”

It was always difficult to communicate with Cole. He was there but also in hundreds other places at the same time. He responded to questions, but was talking about something only he saw and understood. He looked like a young boy, so everybody perceived him as such, but, in reality, he knew much more than any other person in the castle. He knew about misfortunes of every soldier in the Inquisition, about their worries and fears, but nobody really knew anything about him. Inquisitor was sorry that he didn’t take enough time and make enough effort to get to know this sad entity better.

“You are the only one I can’t help. I see your pain, it’s red and dense and floats like a haze. You are surrounded by people, but they are not there. You’re alone and lost in the fog and you suffocate. I want to help.”

Lavellan moved the hat from Cole’s eyes to see his face. Usually there was no expression on it, but it was important to see his eyes to establish at least some kind of contact.

“I know, Cole. I know. But it’s my burden, and I will carry it. Others here are also miserable, so just do what you can for them. Whatever you feel right.”

“I tried to take away your fear.” Cole looked Lavellan directly in the eyes. “I come when you sleep, I watch, try to lead the demons away. They are strong, bloody, proud, drag heads of their victims as trophies. You don’t let them in, yet the fear stays. You need to rest, but not sleep. Watch yourself.”

Cole suddenly disappeared as he sometimes did. Lavellan remembered him standing beside him a second ago, but now he wasn’t there anymore. Some of Inquisition’s soldiers and commanders were against Cole’s stay in Skyhold, but the Inquisitor remained unshaken in his decision. He saw what the boy did to help those who were in need, and it was more than he himself could have ever done. The spirit didn’t disappear out of a sheer wish, somebody needed him. He always answered the call.

(07) Lavellan was lying on the side of his bed, twisted and rolled up in a blanket. The bedsheet around him was crumpled and wet from sweat. He was in fever, as if instead of frosty mountains outside of Skyhold only sand dunes enveloped him with unbearable heat. He was delirious and mumbling something to himself. Before his eyes was the same prison cell he chose not to visit anymore. Crystals grew from every wall, from the ceiling and stone floor. They seemed to be alive, breathing and singing the song. Parts of mutilated human, elven, and dwarven bodies were stuck in the lyrium, feeding it with last drops of blood left in them, making its red colour more prominent and vivid. Inquisitor saw familiar faces captured eternally inside the crystals, lifeless, pale, and distorted. He gripped his staff tightly, ready to fight whoever would come to face him. His injured fingers hurt but he tried not to focus on the pain.

“I hoped to see you once again,” said the voice he knew all too well. He turned around and saw Cullen sitting on the floor with his back leaning on the wall. He wasn’t chained. “I was so upset you stopped visiting,” he continued.

“I couldn’t…” started Lavellan, but Cullen did not want to listen.

“I know what had really happened. You thought I was a burden and you had no wish to continue coddling me. But who will take the responsibility, Inquisitor Lavellan?”

“You should ask your new master about that!” yelled Lavellan angrily. He didn’t really know how much responsibility laid on him for all what had happened, but now he didn’t want to admit anything at all. Not before Cullen.

“He is doing what he must, and you are making things more complicated. Do you really believe you are a hero? A Herald of Andraste? You’re just a thief!”—Cullen spat on the floor in front of him—“All you know is stealing and deceiving. Who gave you the right to decide what’s right and what’s wrong? Why do you think it was better for me before I changed? Tell me, I want to know.”

“I’ve seen what this “transformation” does to the others. They become inhumane, forget their language, families, friends. They live in constant pain and their life is deprived of meaning. You don’t need to be the Herald to understand that.”

“I am different. They are unworthy, nobody cares about them. Do you know the names of all your soldiers, Inquisitor? Do you mourn the death of every one of them? Then why do you worry about those templars so much? They have their own fate and will be rewarded for their diligence. Unlike all those people stuck in here with me,” said Cullen and smiled, waving his already corrupt hand in the direction of ghastly faces behind the glass surface of red crystals on the walls.

“Are you now tormenting people who worked with you and admired you?” Lavellan felt dizzy. He used his staff to help himself stand straight, but his energy was being drained by the red lyrium filling the room. “What kind of commander are you?”

“An improved one. You should’ve noticed how insecure I used to be. Afraid that people would judge me for what I say or do, afraid to confess to you about my decision to stop taking lyrium. Wasn’t it hilarious? Perhaps, you kept me close because I amused you.”

“No, I didn’t. You were one of the best people I have ever known. It’s a shame you turned into this.”

The mark on Inquisitor’s hand started glowing and he felt as if he would lose consciousness soon. His vision got blurry, making it difficult to concentrate on the templar.

“Oh, I know what you feel now…” Cullen laughed repulsively. “Fear, regret, disbelief, disappointment… A little bit of sorrow maybe? Don’t try to lie to me.” He stood up. No shackles held him, now he was free to do whatever he wanted. “Are you ready to face the truth?”

Lavellan squeezed his eyes shut and tried to escape the nightmare. He knew this couldn’t be real.

He opened his eyes and found himself lying on the bed in his quarters. Cole was sitting beside him, silently saying his mantra. He stopped when noticed that Inquisitor was already awake.

“I heard your scream. Nobody here screams that loudly, only whimpers. It was almost too late. The haze swallowed you, I didn’t see, couldn’t find. I am glad you believed me.”

“The thought that it’s just a dream… Did it come from you?” Lavellan removed the blanket and sat on the bed.

“Yes. I wanted to destroy the fear and regret, but could only take you out of the nightmare. You shouldn’t be left alone.”

“Thank you, Cole… Could you stay with me?”

“That is what I implied.”

Lavellan didn’t feel like closing his eyes again.

(08) “This is impossible! We do not have time and resources to do it!” said Cassandra. Her voice sounded as agitated and decisive as always.

“I need it! I’m not asking you to bring me Coryphaeus himself, just a few red templars.”

“You have lost your mind! How can we capture them alive if even touching them may be lethal? It’s too dangerous. You know that they never surrender.”

“It can change everything. The lyrium in dead templars is most likely also dead, there is no use of it, but if we bring them here alive… I will be able to study it, I’ll examine how it responds to different treatments and…”

“They already suffer! Even if they look like monsters, they are under the influence of it. You want to torture them even more, doesn’t it bother you?”

“What bothers me is the absence of any results in my studies, Cassandra. I need at least a tiny bit of useful information.”

Inquisitor was uncompromising, but Cassandra did not want to agree to his proposal. After all, the Inquisition was still part of the Chantry and they simply couldn’t capture templars and experiment on them. She was one of the people who started the Inquisition and didn’t want to see it come crashing down.

She sighed.

“We will make a decision at the council meeting.”

“Then tell everybody to gather.”

As one of the advisors, Cassandra made it clear that she didn’t support this endeavour of the Inquisitor. Leliana, being more practical and open-minded, decided that they should take the risk in case there was at least one possibility to gain some intel in the process. Even if they didn’t learn how to cure the corruption, they would probably discover the templars’ weak spots. Josephine was inclined to support Cassandra out of her morals, but seeing Lavellan in such despair made her budge.

Two people were in favour, so they started the operation.

Cassandra feared that soon they would not be able to keep Inquisitor in line. He was becoming more and more radical in his methods and didn’t share his thoughts with them anymore. He was grim, slept only three hours a day and most of his time spent in the libraries or on the battlefields. From the latter he would often come injured without even noticing it, as if he couldn’t feel it or didn’t care enough to notice. Their cause was still a priority to him, but determination and hope vanished from his eyes. They became dull and cold.

When first templars were delivered to the castle, he locked himself in the forge with them and didn’t come out for a few hours. Nobody was allowed to enter. There were no screams, but the silence made it seem even worse. Everybody was on the edge, not knowing what to expect. It happened a few more times, but the Inquisitor never shared anything about what he did or what results his experiments showed. As time passed, he became even more withdrawn and solitary. Solas tried talking to Lavellan about the Commander and what his inertness did to him, but with no success. Inquisitor was deaf to all inquiries.

When the blizzard settled down and the sun managed to send a few rays through thick clouds, one of the Inquisition’s soldiers knocked on the door to Lavellan’s quarters.

“Come in,” said Inquisitor, not bothered to look away from the book he was reading.

“My lord, Sister Leliana went on her usual check and he wasn’t there…” The soldier started stammering as Lavellan abruptly pierced his gaze into him. “He escaped,” mumbled the soldier.

Inquisitor knew it would end like this. He awaited it and feared.

#Dragon Age #Dragon Age Inquisition #Cullen #Inquisitor #Fanfiction #Fiction #Varric Tethras #cassandra pentaghast #Solas #Cole #Lavellan #Cullen Rutherford #Vivienne #Angst #red lyrium

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dragonflymage · 3 years

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Sure, why not! 😊 This will probably take me a while and I’ll keep digging it out of my drafts, but here goes! (This took forever!! lol)

I went to a Catholic kindergarten, a Protestant elementary school (2 years), a Baptist elementary and high school (8 1/2 years), and then graduated from a Catholic high school.

I have two younger brothers (one is an IxFP and not sure about the other). I share the same father with one.

I’m an INFP, HSP, 4w5. Basically, I’m a feely introvert.

My parents were teenagers when they had me.

My eyes are green-blue.

I had a foster brother for a year.

When I was 8, my house caught fire. I used to have nightmares about my library books, Christmas tree and presents burning in the flames.

I am allergic to bananas.

I learned how to play the flute.

I once sang “Part of this world” from the Little Mermaid in front of a class. I drew a large piece of art to go with it.

I collect dolls and take their pics. I have a doll gallery. It’s on Instagram.

I can’t swim, but I’m not exactly afraid of water. As long as it doesn’t go over my head.

I do have an odd fear of bridges with metal beams over their tops. If I see one, I break out into a sweat and get the terror. I don’t know why that happens and not with ordinary bridges.

I love to listen to ambience videos on YouTube. The ones where there is a fireplace crackling while it rains outside. Or the sounds of pages turning or wind blowing. They help me focus while I work. I even started making some of my own! Dragonfly Mage YouTube channel

I am good with a camera. My favorite is the Canon PowerShot.

One of my favorite ice cream flavors is Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk!

I currently have 2 cats and 2 budgies.

My anime favorites are Card Captor Sakura, Fruits Basket, Black Butler (1st season), and most of Studio Ghibli.

I spend my internet time on Netflix, Pinterest, LOTRO, YouTube, Flight Rising, and Quora.

My kindred animal is a dragonfly.

I write fanfiction. My latest uploaded work takes place in the Abhorsen Old Kingdom universe.

I have a TON of google docs where I write all my story ideas and story drafts.

I’ve played nearly every version of SIMS. I am a bit of a SIMS fanatic. lol

I have never had a driver’s license. Think what you want. 😋

I was married once and divorced once.

My father and my uncle owned a cab company, so I grew up around car-repair garages.

I ate a box of Ex-Lax when I was 3 and got extremely ill. I couldn’t touch chocolate until my teen years. And even then it needed crispies or nuts in it. Now I’m able to eat plain chocolate and love it. But it sure took a long time.

I was one of those kids that believed something creepy lived in my closet when evening arrived.

I love pickles, but not on my cheeseburgers.

My father’s aunt and uncle had a cottage on the lake that I went to every summer when I was a kid.

I was forced to redo grade 5 (age 10) because the teachers thought I was too immature and small for my age. Even though I had good grades. 😥

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is my favorite. I will watch all three in the extended version at least once a year.

I make homemade stuffing for Thanksgiving.

My favorite season is winter. Autumn is a close second.

When I was young I got paddled several different times by my pastor for getting too many demerits in class. He used a ping-pong paddle. 😟 I usually got demerits for not bringing gym clothes. I hated gym class!

I put together an INFP music mega playlist and an INFP Chill mega playlist on YouTube. And INFP mega playlist on Spotify. They have a bunch of my favorite music and videos.

The current MMO I play is Lord of the Rings Online. I used to play several others but this is the last to survive as my favorite.

I’m a sci-fi geek. My faves are Star Wars (originals), Star Trek (TNG, Voyager, DS9, Picard), and Babylon 5.

I’m tired of living within a plutocratic, oligarch-based society.

I grew up near train tracks and became accustomed to hearing the whistle sounding in the middle of the night.

I like to make music playlists for my favorite books and for the stories I’m writing.

I never watch and rarely read the news.

I love the sound of onions cooking in an iron skillet. Food sizzling is one of my favorites!

Tea is my beverage of choice. Oh, and Mountain Dew. haha

When I was young I wanted to be an astronaut, but everyone around me said it was impossible because I wore glasses.

If I can’t understand the song lyrics I hear I’ll make up my own.

The Chalion and Penric stories by Lois McMaster Bujold are some of my favorites!

I used to take part in star parties.

My favorite flavor of “coffee” is Celestial Lattes Dirty Chai.

I love cats. I will always try to have at least one cat in my life. 💗

Thanks for the question. 😊

#infp #infp thoughts #introvert #hsp #emotions #emotional #sensitivity #about me

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snowdice · 3 years

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Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 42]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. None edited chapters are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

Gotta finish my first draft of my research paper today, so let’s go!

Arc II What We Do to Each Other

Chapter 16:

As it would turn out, Janus and Virgil did not get in trouble for hooking up the old phone to Virgil’s integrator, mostly because it wasn’t really a mistake on their part. The phone cleared all virus checks that the tech people both from the university and the TPI ran on it. The phone should have been clean and should not have caused an issue.

In fact, they were still trying to pin down the code on the general university server. They could tell that something was mucking about on the system but what or how was a mystery. This also meant that there was no telling what information had been compromised and considering how many things Silver Mountain had its hands in, that was… a bit worrying.

Another worrying thing was there was suddenly more activity of late at the TPI. There were more time distortions popping up every day. Usually they would be few and far in between. There had been 3 total recorded the year before, but over 12 in the last week. Some of them were fake like the one Janus had investigated, but some of them were real. It painted a distressing picture and also was a drain on their resources. Khalid was actually looking to advertise positions to hire new recruits which was something she rarely did as she liked to keep appointments to the TPI in house.

They’d even loosed the number of field agents needed for each mission and Janus and Remus had been splitting up just to get everything done. Today, he and Remus had thankfully only two missions scheduled for the day.

“Are we going together or separate today?” Janus asked Remus.

“Think they’ll burn me at the stake for being a witch if I go alone to either of them?” Remus asked.

“I don’t know. Probably. I think we’re getting a bit late into the 1700s for that in Cuba, but I have no idea about Mesopotamia.”

“Let’s just go together. I did not like almost drowning yesterday because I was the only stranger in town when the weather was going wonky.”

“Surely it isn’t because you opened your mouth. Ever.” Janus said dryly.

“How was I supposed to know he was the local clergyman’s son?”

Janus rolled his eyes. “On second thought,” he said, pushing a button on his desk to choose Cuba as he next mission, and standing up. “I don’t want you coming with me.” Yet, he did not protest when Remus also signed up for the Cuba mission and he waited for him by the office door before going to talk to Rhi.

Rhi was a bit frazzled when which meant quite a bit as she was usually incredibly put together. Remus didn’t even seem inclined to tease her today.

“Okay,” she said once they’d closed the door behind them. She flipped through some documents on her desk. “Picani and Clockson. Camaguey Cuba 1755. Do you know Cuba?”

“Uh,” Janus said. “Yeah?”

“Like you’re reading the things, right? I don’t have to babysit you, right? You got it? The Seven Year War was happening, but it won’t affect you much as it hasn’t really hit Cuba. It’s the middle of the Camaguey Carnival. Everyone will be everywhere and there will be chaos so as long as you don’t really fuck up you should be fine. Um…apparent races.” She looked up at them and studied them each for a moment as thought looking at them for the first time despite having known them for years. “It’ll work. Go to costuming.”

“Shouldn’t we…” Janus said, “sign things?”

“…Yep,” she said, fiddling with her desktop and then sending documents over to their side to sign.

Janus and Remus both did before sending them back.

“Great. Good.” She stood and grabbed some things from behind her. “You can go.” She sat back down as they took their things and Janus noticed a message pop up on her desk. She looked up at Remus looking exhausted. “What?” she asked.

“Just open it,” Remus said.

Rhi tapped it and a photo opened.

“I got her a new mouse toy!” Remus said happily as Rhi looked at the picture of Diesel Fuel attacking a cloth mouse.

“That is… appreciated Agent Clockson,” Rhi said. “Now get out.”

They did, leaving to get their costumes on and checked. Costuming was just as busy and frazzled as Rhi had been and they actually had to wait for decon because there’d been a mix up with the agents leaving before them. They landed in Cuba without issue. Janus could already hear the festival in full swing outside the small building they’d were in. Remy was standing there with a very not time appropriate mug of coffee.

“Sue me,” Remy said when Janus raised an eyebrow at it. “Please just… get in and out without causing trouble. Seriously. I don’t want to have to deal with that on top of everything else.”

“We’ll do our best,” Janus assured.

Remy pulled his sunglasses down to look at him. He looked exhausted. “God please do more than your best.”

Janus nodded tightly. “We’ll be in and out,” he said, already glancing at his timepiece. It had been disguised as a golden bracelet which made it a bit harder to actually use, but wrist watches wouldn’t be invented for more than a century, so they’d have to make do. “The time distortion, if that’s what it is, should be in the middle of town. Let’s go.”

He and Remus exited the building onto the packed city street.

Janus was immediately bombarded with all types of sights, sounds, and smells. There were many colorful articles of clothing and costumes as people went every which way along the street talking to other members of their community, playing instruments, and dancing. There was the sound of people speaking Spanish, still mostly almost pure Castilian Spanish with perhaps a bit of influence from Taino as the Haitian revolution had yet to push the Creole language over to Cuba. People must have been hard at work cooking different dishes for the carnival as many different spices wafted through the air. It was sticky hot considering it was the middle of June in the tropics and Janus was immediately sweating despite the temperature appropriate clothing he’d been outfitted with.

He glanced around their immediate area, just scoping out the crowds. His eyes were immediately drawn to one person near them.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he said out loud when he saw Pat. Remus looked in the direction Janus was.

Even if Janus didn’t recognize him the moment he laid eyes on him, he probably still would have ended up staring as he was the only person in the area who clearly did not know how to do the dance he was attempting.

Remus snorted and Janus shook his head in secondhand embarrassment. “Well, would you look whose boyfriend’s here,” he said to Janus. Make that firsthand embarrassment. “Has anyone told him the Mambo wasn’t invented until the 1900s and also that’s not how you do it?”

Chapter 17

Pat stopped dancing the moment he saw Janus approaching him, but he still bobbed cheerfully ( and unrhythmically) to the music. “Hi Janus,” he said pleasantly.

“You just have to rub it in, huh?”

There was a flash of confusion across his face, but then he smiled. “Well, I know where in our relationship you are. How was France?”

“You’re a bastard.”

“You stole the phone,” he laughed.

“You stole the bomb,” Janus countered, “and you wanted me to steal the phone. You booby trapped it.”

“No,” Pat correct, putting a finger up. “We have security on my phone because in high school I once forgot it in the school locker room and long story short, the three of us ended up in a lake. So, then Lo made sure I always had some sort of tracker on it. When I started time traveling, he updated it and when I met you we updated it again in case there was ever an opportunity like that. Lo calls it using our weaknesses to our advantage.”

“He’s a bastard too,” Janus growled.

Pat just laughed.

“Is someone talking about me?” Remus asked, stepping over to them. Janus rolled his eyes.

“Oh,” Pat said, blinking at Janus’s partner for a moment. “Remus.” He hesitated slightly. “How are you doing?”

“Me?” Remus asked. “Uh, I’m doing good. A little stressed out with work, but fine.”

“Good,” Pat said with just a little too much heartfulness to it.

“What?” Janus asked, eyes narrowed at Pat. “What is that?”

“What is what?” Pat asked. He met Janus’s eyes briefly and it made panic surge up Janus’s spine because the look Pat was sending him wasn’t one that said he was playing dumb. It was a warning.

Oh, Janus did not like this. That look told Janus Pat had some foreknowledge that he absolutely could not tell Janus about without messing up the timeline spectacularly. This was why this mess the two of them were mixed up in was so bad, but it seemed Janus did not have much of a choice when it came to Pat.

Despite how bad of an idea he knew it was, he still wanted to push, because whatever Pat was hiding could be very, very bad and it had to do with Remus. There were so many reasons Pat could be acting like that around Remus, but the worst ones were definitely the ones on his mind. Death, injury, illness. They were all possible especially in their line of work and especially with how time was being screwed with right now. And Pat knew. He knew exactly what the answer was, and oh did Janus want to push.

Experience knowing what worse things could come out of having foreknowledge made Janus bite his tongue.

“So, what are you two doing here,” Pat asked, and Janus unhappily let him change the subject.

“Oh, like you don’t know,” Janus replied.

“I don’t know,” Pat said innocently.

“There’s another time distortion,” Janus said, “and while you didn’t know what it was the last time I saw you, I’m pretty sure you do now.”

“Oh, I didn’t know there was a time distortion here. I can help you if you like,” he offered sweetly.

“Oh, yeah, sure. Then why are you here?”

“I wanted to see if I could find the Flying Dutchman,” Pat told him.

“And so you went to Camaguey?”

“Uh huh.”

“One of the farthest places from the ocean in Cuba?”

“Is it?”

“I don’t trust you.”

Pat just shrugged. “Well, if you don’t want my help finding the time distortion, I’ll just be on my way then.”

“Wait,” he said when Pat went to turn away. Pat paused. Janus turned to Remus. “Remus, do you think he’s bullshitting me so I let him wander off and do whatever the hell he’s doing, or do you think he’s bullshitting me into letting him come with us.”

“Hmm,” Remus said, looking Pat up and down. Janus could immediately tell he wasn’t going to get any helpful answer. “Well, if we’re going with the how much do I get to see his, admittedly very sexy, ass criteria.” Janus pinched the bridge of his nose. “Letting him leave now means instant gratification and a nice full image when he turns away. However, letting him go with us means many more opportunities to get a glimpse, but they’d probably just be glimpses. So, yeah that’s a tough call.”

“You didn’t even bother to give me an actual hidden suggestion with that bullshit,” Janus groaned. He glanced at Pat only to see him hiding his very red face in his hands. Janus blinked. “Oh,” he said. “You got him, Remus.” Janus was surprised. He’d expected a bit more tenacity for someone with Pat’s personality. Of course, Janus was used to Remus, so that perhaps had some effect. Pat made a muffled distressed sound behind his hands and Janus raised an eyebrow. “You really got him.”

Pat flapped one hand around while still using the other to completely hide his face. “It’s just. His face. Saying that. Is weird.”

Janus could not say that he didn’t feel a slight spark of joy at seeing Pat flustered. After all, Pat’s weapon of choice had often been flirting with Janus in the past. However, he still smacked Remus on the shoulder when it looked like he was about to continue with something likely far more inappropriate. “We are here for a reason,” he reminded. He turned to consider Pat and squinted at him. “You’re coming with us, I’ve decided. I don’t want to let you out of my sights. Don’t,” he said empathically turning to Remus as the man opened his mouth once more.

Pat had mostly recovered, though his cheeks were just a bit pink still. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll go with you. Where do we start?”

Janus glanced at his timepiece. “It’s not showing up on our trackers yet.”

“It messed with your tracker last time,” Pat pointed out.

“I know,” Janus said. “Which means it could be another fake one or whatever is causing it hasn’t started yet. If things start going wrong, but it still doesn’t show on our radar, it’s almost certainly a fake one, but some of the fake ones haven’t blocked our technology.”

“Here, I can check,” Pat said.

“Please don’t pull out an iPhone,” Janus begged.

Pat stuck out his tongue at him, and then smiled. He reached for the bracelet on his wrist and twisted it back and forth a few times before pressing his palms together. He glanced around them quickly to make sure no one around them was watching and then peeled apart his palms like he was miming reading a book.

“What the fuck is that, and how do I get one?” Remus asked immediately. It was innocuous, whatever it was. If someone from this time caught a glimpse of the display, they’d likely assume it was a trick of the light, but staring right at it, Janus could tell it was a map of the surrounding areas with a softly glowing blue light marking their current location. Janus could see no screen or origin of a hologram. It looked like the image was drawn onto the man’s palms, but as he watched, the image shifted to zoom out.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything major yet,” Pat said wiggling his fingers a bit. The display changed slightly to some sort of colorful overlay Janus did not understand. Pat hummed. “Did you two come from that building recently?” he asked nodding at it.

“Yes,” Janus replied. “How do you know?”

“There’s sometimes a slight temperature change when people time travel,” Pat explained. “I can read it on here.” He tilted his head. “There also seems to be a big enough temperature change in a church a few blocks away that could indicate time travel. Want to check it out?”

“We might as well,” Janus agreed.

“And if it’s nothing, we can get drunk on the communion wine!”

“He’s going to get immediately struck by lightning,” Janus said.

Chapter 18

“If we see anyone,” Janus said as they entered the church. “You keep your mouth shut. Do you understand me? Remus, do you understand me?”

Remus immediately turned to Pat. “You know, I didn’t grow up Catholic,” he said to Pat who looked at him in confusion. “So the first time I ever entered a Catholic church, you can’t blame me for being a little confused about the whole cabinet thing with a wall between them. After all, everyone was singing about glory to god and what not. So I…”

Janus slapped him. “This is why you were almost burned at the stake yesterday.”

“Excuse you,” Remus said, putting his hand over his heart. “I was almost drowned.”

“You were almost drowned?” Pat asked, his voice seeming legitimately distressed.

Remus shrugged a smile on his face that caused a Pavlovian migraine to start up behind Janus’s eyes. “It’s one of the hazards of the jobs, and really it would have all been worth it if I’d actually gotten to drown in that man’s…”

“We’re in a church!” Janus cut him off switching from Spanish to Swahili in the hopes that no random passersby would be able to understand him in this time and place. “Don’t talk about lewd sex things. Don’t talk about sex at all. It’s a Catholic church!”

Remus continued to speak in Spanish with no regard for anything. “But not talking about lewd sex things takes away 3/4ths of my personality,” he pouted.

“More like 9/10th,” Janus grumbled, “and the other 1/10th is just normal stupid.”

“Hey, you shouldn’t be mean,” Pat scolded, in fucking English for some reason, “but Remus, honey, you probably shouldn’t be saying things like that right now.”

“No, no, he has a point,” Remus said switching to English.

“He’s my partner, I have the right to call him stupid,” Janus insisted.

“And I love you too!” Remus said in Greek because he was really, truly, stupid.

Pat looked between the two, but then seemed to accept it, dropping the concerned expression for a slightly amused one. “If you say so.”

“Can I… help you?” A voice asked. All three of them whipped around to see a young boy looking at them and seeming very confused. Which was fair considering that to his ears, they’d just been speaking nonsense.

“We’re here to pray!” Remus claimed, then he turned to wink at Pat and said under his breath in Swahili, “to that ass.” Pat went immediately bright red again, which was doubtlessly Remus’s aim. Janus subtlety stepped on his foot while smiling at the boy.

“Oh,” the boy said. “Okay.” Thankfully, he didn’t seem interested in questioning the random strangers in front of him further. “I’m going to go back to the celebration now.”

Janus smiled at him. “Have fun,” he said. He waited for the boy to leave through the front door before slapping Remus on the back of the head.

“Ow!” he whined sounding far too pained for how hard Janus had actually hit him.

Janus rolled his eyes. “Let’s just start investigating,” he said.

“Sure, sure, you never let me have any fun,” Remus said, pulling up his wrist and spinning the golden bracelets on his arm. “Hmm…” he said.

“What?” asked Pat.

“Either I put on the wrong jewelry this morning… or my timepiece isn’t working.”

“Well, then I’m guessing we’re in the right place,” Janus said. He turned to Pat. “Your stuff still working?”

Pat brought up whatever device was on his hands. “Yeah,” he said, “and it looks like something is just starting.” Just as he said it, there was a violent crash of thunder.

“Well,” Janus said. “We should probably find the source and soon. Which way?”

Pat glanced around himself and then motioned with his wrist. Suddenly there was a 3D display of the church in front of them.

Janus could see immediately where the problem had to originate. There was a swirling mass of some sort of energy centered at the top of the bell tower of the church. As he watched, he saw the picture of the church glitch out a bit. He had a bad feeling about that.

“Is there something wrong with your display?” he asked, or more hoped.

Pat shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so…” The room seemed to shift suddenly underneath their feet. It felt a bit like time travel, but also wrong. The picture on the display flickered harder, part of the building fracturing and dissolving before appearing back in place. The room settled after a moment, but Janus’s stomach did not.

“Whatever is going on,” Janus said, “We need to stop it right now.”

Pat nodded. “The quickest way up would be that way,” Pat said pointing. The display closed as he did.

“Then, let’s go,” Janus said.

The world was eerily calm as they all started off in the direction Pat had pointed out. In fact, it was almost too quiet.

“Where’s the nearest window?” Janus asked when they came out on the second floor.

Pat glanced at his hand. “There should be a couple a few feet that way.” Janus nodded and left them standing there. When he glanced out of the first window he came to, it appeared to be night. Yet, when he walked to the next window, he saw daylight.

26606

“Time is fracturing,” Janus informed them. “We need to be careful.” This time distortion was much more intense than any of the other ones the agency had been tracking down over the last few months. It had also come on much faster. Usually there was some time between when the time distortion began and it started having extreme effects on the environment. He was suddenly very glad that he and Remus had not split up today. He was even glad for Pat’s company, no matter how aggravating he may be sometimes. Not to mention, he was glad for the man’s technology that seemed to circumvent whatever was blocking Janus and Remus’s timepieces.

He backed away from the windows and returned to the others.

“Whatever you do,” Janus said. “Don’t let anyone be in a room alone.”

“I know what time fractures are this time,” Pat promised.

“It was as much for the idiot as it was for you,” Janus said.

“You accidently bring a bubonic plague infested rat to 900BC one time and you never live it down.”

“I’d say I should put a leash on you, but you’d twist it into something disgusting.”

“Probably,” Remus agreed.

“Where next?” Janus asked, ignoring him.

“That way,” Pat said.

They walked together to the door he’d indicated. “Please don’t be bullshit,” Janus prayed. He opened the door and immediately got bowled over by a stream of salt water.

Chapter 19

Janus landed flat on his back, a wave of water splashing over him and then quickly retreating, but still leaving him absolutely drenched. He sighed, looking at the ceiling. “Don’t,” he warned, “say a word.”

Of course, he was with the two most impossible people in all of space and time, so neither of them headed him.

“I thought you said we were far from the ocean, Jan,” Pat said.

“Yeah, Janny,” Remus immediately jumped on board because he was an asshole. “I thought we were far from the ocean!”

“Maybe I’ll achieve my goal of finding the Flying Dutchman after all!”

“Ooo ghost pirates! I’ve never gotten to fight ghost pirates before. Any good with a sword Patty?”

“My friend has a sword and he let me use it before… but all I did was cut a hole in our couch, and then Lo was mad at us.”

“I mean… just pretend the pirates are a couch and we’ll be good!”

Janus slowly sat up. There was still water on the floor and every so often a wave would crash into the room as though the door frame signaled the edge of a beach. Pat reached down to offer him a hand up and Janus slapped it away.

“Rude!” Pat claimed, but his eyes were alight with mischief.

Janus shoved himself to his feet on his own power.

“You deserve it,” he hissed. “For all of this!” he waved his arms around.

“Water you talking about. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You are on thin ice.”

He looked down at his feet with a contemplative expression. “Looks like water to me.”

“Arg!” Janus spat, throwing up his arms.

“I don’t sea why you’re screaming, Janus.”

“Yeah,” Remus contributed. “You seem overally emotional to me.”

“Yes, yes,” Pat replied. “Very em-ocean-al.”

“One may even say he’s pretty salty.”

“I know where you live, Remus,” Janus reminded.

“Alright, alright Remus, reel it in,” Pat said.

Remus opened his mouth to respond, but Janus cut him off. “Why don’t the two of you dedicate all of that brain power to figuring out how to cross the literal ocean in the next room,” Janus suggested hotly.

And it was a literal ocean. If one ignored where they were and the fact that there was a staircase climbing out of said ocean about 80 or so meters away. There was sand being washed up across the door frame and a seagull flying in the distance. At least it looked like a nice day in the room with the way the sun was glinting off the water. At least it wasn’t storming there. Yet.

Janus’s head throbbed with the thought of what had to be happening with the time distortion to plop a piece of the ocean into one single room in a church. Usually they’d be calling the TPI for backup or at least for information, but that was a loss. Even if they tried to get out of range of whatever was disrupting their timepieces, time was so unstable, they’d very possibly get dumped somewhere dangerous. It was better to just get to the time distortion as quickly as possible and stop it.

“Hmm,” Remus said. “I wonder how deep it is. Do you think there are man eating sharks in the water? Or giant jelly fish? Remember that one time I got stung by a jelly fish and almost died?”

“Yes,” Janus said, lips pursed, “and it was entirely your fault.”

“I just looked so squishy!” he declared, “I didn’t know it was a murder blob.”

“I think I have a boat,” Pat said.

They both turned to him. “What?” Janus asked. He was looking at his hands and just hummed in response to Janus’s question. The next thing he knew, Pat made some motion with his hand and a yellow raft started to autofill from his palm. “...Why?” Janus asked.

“I… recently started carrying a wilderness survival pack in my time device.”

“I’m not going to question it. It’s better than swimming.” By the time the raft was completely deployed, they’d all been shoved into the walls by it.

“Huh, on second thought. I probably should have put the raft in the room before blowing it up.”

“You think?” asked Janus.

Pat glared at him over it. “I never really thought about how to open it in a narrow second floor corridor.”

“Just try to shove it through the door without popping it.”

“Why are you looking at me?!” asked Remus.

They managed to somehow squeeze the raft through the door into the other room after a few minutes.

Pat squinted at the tottering raft he was holding to the door frame. “After you,” he offered.

Janus glared at him.

“You’re already soaked!” Pat defended himself.

Janus sighed and very carefully climbed into the raft. It tottered dangerously, but he didn’t immediately fall out, so that was a plus. The other two of them slowly also climbed onto the raft with him. They then sat in it for a few seconds. “Is there an oar?” Janus asked.

“Oh right!” Pat did something else with the device in his hands and an oar slowly unfolded from his hand.

“Seriously, I want one of those,” Remus said.

“Let’s just get out of here,” Janus said, snatching the oar. The staircase luckily wasn’t too far away. They probably could have swam it if necessary, but the raft gave them some modicum of protection. Everything seemed to be going in their favor, which of course meant everything was about to go incredibly wrong.

They were about halfway across the water when the entire world around them rumbled.

“…I hope that was a giant jellyfish,” Remus said.

It was unfortunately not a jellyfish or any sea creature at all. The world around them fractured, the ocean seeming to split right down the middle so the water right of the staircase was 6 feet higher than on the left. The sky flashed red and yellow before the water split completely like Moses splitting the Red Sea.

There was a millisecond as the split widened until it was only a few feet from them, to decide whether when they landed they wanted to be on the side with the water or on the side without it. On one hand, going towards the side without water could mean they fell to their deaths or the water crashed back down on top of them when it settled. On the other hand, if the fissure was closing or shifting to a new area, it was very possible that they’d end up trapped in the middle off the ocean with no connection to the church.

Well, the best chance to actually get to where they were going was probably the side without water. It seemed everyone had the same idea at once because as he grabbed for both of them, they both grabbed for him and they all went tumbling off the raft into what could have very well been a bottomless pit.

Janus learned after a couple of seconds of free fall, that it was definitely not a bottomless pit. He landed hard, flat on his back and saw stars. The next moment something landed on top of him, squeezing all of the air out of his lungs.

Something else fell half on top of his legs.

“Ow,” Pat said from near his ear.

“Yeah, well you’re the one on the top,” Janus groaned though his teeth.

“Wow, I never took you for a bottom, Janus,” Remus said from near his feet. Janus kicked up his legs into whatever part of him was on top of Janus and he gave an “oof.”

Pat snorted a bit and Janus glared at his… shoulder? He shifted around a bit so he was less thrown across Janus and more just on top of him. Janus blinked. There was a wooden ceiling above them, so that was a good sign, though there was also a giant dark hole of nothingness directly above them which was not as good.

Janus moved slightly. He could tell he was going to be bruised later, but he didn’t seem seriously injured. “We should,” he started, but was interrupted as the hole above them pulsated and dumped a bunch of sea water.

Pat shrieked as they were all drenched with the chilly water. Luckily, they seemed to be on higher ground because, while water kept pouring out of the hole, it drained away just as quickly instead of drowning them.

Water still hitting his back relentlessly, Pat peeled his head up to look Janus in the eyes. A giggle bubbled out of his mouth.

“It isn’t funny,” Janus informed him. Pat just giggled more, leaning his head against Janus’s chest and cackling.

Janus just rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, this is an entirely appropriate reaction. Thank you for your contribution to our very important mission.”

Pat seemed incapable of stopping laughing completely, but he did calm himself enough to peel himself off Janus’s chest and lean forward so their noses almost touched. “It’s hilarious and you know it,” he claimed.

“In what way is this ‘hilarious’?”

“In many waves,” was the joy filled answer.

“You’re horrible.”

Pat hummed. He hadn’t moved to get off of him even though they really should be moving in case something worse than water came through the hole in the ceiling. He hadn’t even moved his face away.

“No, no, you two just tell me when you’re done being gay for each other,” Remus interrupted. Janus was surprised to see he’d stood up at some point and was now hovering over them.

Janus flipped him off even while Pat laughed once again. Pat finally drew away and rolled off of him so Janus could sit up. Pretty much everything hurt when Janus moved, but he was able to stand up, so he was probably fine enough. “So,” he said looking around. “Where are we now?”

Chapter 20

Janus looked around himself while Pat booted up his map to try to figure out where they were. They were in a small room that may actually be considered a large landing as there were staircases on either side of it. The water that was still coming out of the ceiling was running down the staircase that led down from the room.

Something was stopping the water, creating a pool on the steps that was already about to overflow into the room. With the speed the water was flowing, they should have enough time before the room completely filled up with water and drowned them.

Janus wondered if they were in the church or not. It was not out of the question and there was church like décor around them, but who knew? He could feel a strange vibration in the ground and the one window in the room shone with green light.

“Hmm,” said Pat. “That looks not good.” He’d projected his map so they could all see everything.

The map itself was moving. Rooms were phasing in and out of focus and fracturing down the middle. One room was even spinning lazily around in circles. Janus could see the room they were in. It was connected to the bigger blob of rooms, and there was a black line connecting it to another room from the top which was obviously the hole spewing water at them.

“Well, at least the time distortion is still coming from the bell tower,” Remus said. Janus shot him an unamused glance. Said bell tower was currently upside down and shuddering as well as divided from any other room by at least two inches of empty space.

28842

“How are we supposed to get there?” asked Pat.

“We don’t,” Janus said. “It’s literally impossible.”

“There has to be some way,” Pat argued with a frown.

“If we try to use time travel, we’ll definitely get shredded by the warping time and space around it and walking there isn’t an option. There aren’t even any entrances!”

“Well, there were at one point.”

“Yeah, before,” he gestured wildly to the ceiling that was still pouring water into the room.

“So?” Pat asked.

“’So’?! What do you mean ‘so’?!”

Pat shrugged. “When one door closes, cut another one.”

Janus froze and looked at him for a long moment. “Where the hell did you hear that?”

Patton raised an eyebrow. “You.”

“I don’t think like that anymore.”

“Well then I guess we’ll die,” Pat said lightly. “Of course, that’ll make an even worse time loop considering I’ve met older versions of you.”

“Fuck,” Janus spat. “Fuck. Fine. Give me a minute to think. Not that I even know if we have a minute because,” he gestured once again to the room.

“Okay,” Janus said. “The room with the source of the time distortion is separated from us by a swirling pool of dark nothingness and there is no way to get to it. But, the only way we’re going to stop the distortion from ripping apart time and killing us as well as probably a bunch of other people is to get to it. That is an impossible situation. There is no solution. That door is closed to us. What other ways are there to look at it?” He looked at the visual representation of the rooms. One of them suddenly went spinning out and his eyes tracked it. We need to be in the same place as the source,” Janus said. “That is fact, but we don’t have to get to it.”

“Um, what do you mean?” Remus asked. Pat shushed him.

“If you want thing A and thing B to be in the same place, there’s more than one way to do it. If you can’t move thing A to thing B, you might be able to move thing B to thing A. Pat, you have a working time device. We can’t travel with it because that would kill us, but if we can make it do a stutter warp, it could draw the time distortion to it.”

“You…” Remus said. “Want to create another time distortion in hopes that the original time distortion will be pulled into this room?”

“Yes.”

“Well, sounds good to me!” Remus said.

He maybe had expected Pat to argue, but he didn’t. Instead, he moved his hand to his wrist. There had been nothing there before, but when he touched down on his wrist with two fingers, there was suddenly a metal bound around it that Janus immediately recognized from the times he’d seen Pat’s timepiece before. How was it made invisible? He shook the thought off as Pat offered it up wordlessly. Janus took it and Pat leaned over his shoulder to look.

Despite the fact that the device looked nothing like his own, the interface was surprisingly convenient. “I assume you have safety setting to prevent a stutter warp,” Janus said. “How do I turn those off?”

Patton pointed at a gear icon on the screen. “You put it under your normal settings?” he asked.

“I have to put in my password or use my fingerprint!” Pat defended.

“It doesn’t matter right now.” He navigated through the settings. He was interested to see that there were many different saved default security settings, but he didn’t get much of a chance to read what all they did. He just turned them all off.” It popped up with a message to put in the password and Pat pressed his fingertip to it. Another message popped up warning them that turning off these settings could cause damage to the machinery, the person using it, and time itself. Janus pushed “okay.” A message popped up that asked “Continue” and Janus pressed “yes.” One last message popped up that said “Security functions disabled.” Janus pressed “okay.”

“Anything else I’d need to disable?”

“Nope,” Pat confirmed.

He navigated back to the main screen and then bought up the manual travel input screen. Yet another message warning him not to do this flashed and Janus once again ignored it. He copied the space time coordinates that the device said they were currently at and put it in the ‘travel to’ location. “Well,” he said. “Here it goes. Let it be known that if I die, it’s my own fault for allowing Remus into a church.”

“Really?” Remus said. “That’s what you’re choosing to be your last words?”

Janus just raised an eyebrow.

“Love you too Janus.”

Janus nodded and hovered his finger over the travel button. He quickly mashed his finger to the button 22 times.”

The device warmed in his hand enough that he almost dropped it. Time literally froze for a few breaths as whatever Deity that may or may not exist processed their stupidity.

Janus was not a scientist or technician, but he had a good idea of how badly they were fucking up right now. The timepiece was attempting to travel over and over again to the exact same place and time. This basically punched a small hole through time, that if left unfixed would grow and disrupt space time all around them. As it was, their current position, all gathered around it and staring at it while one of them had it literally in their hand, was perilous.

There was a rumble under their feet and the world tilted on it’s axis. The all went tumbling down in a pile of limbs to new floor of the room which had once been a wall.

Of course, this change of gravity caused the water that had been building up in the staircase to dump on top of them.

Janus would have cursed, but he was too busy being under the water. He maneuvered himself away from the other two flailing bodies and managed to shove his feet against the wall turned floor. His head popped above the water in time to see the ceiling, or well, it would be the opposite wall, rip in two and the other walls/floor/ceiling start to fold in.

“Give me a boost!” Pat called over the noise of water rushing and walls crunching.

“Give you a boost where?” Janus asked.

“Up!” Janus wasn’t sure if ‘up’ really existed right now, but he still nodded. The water was a few inches over his head, so he held his breath and interlaced his hands so Pat could put his foot in it. He was shoved down into the water, but it gave Pat enough leverage to shoot up out of the water. When Janus resurfaced, he saw that the man had grabbed ahold of the crumbling wall and was pulling himself up into what for all appearances seemed to be absolutely nothing.

It took a moment, but then Janus blinked, and he was suddenly in a new room entirely or perhaps it was the same room. He honestly didn’t know at this point. Remus was next to him. He couldn’t recall if he’d been there before the shift or not, but they were both treading water. Pat crashed into the water next to them. Janus’s wrist buzzed as his timepiece came back online. “Got it!” Pat declared when he resurfaced, holding a device up. It looked almost the same as the device they’d found in France, but this one was definitely different if it was able to cause that much chaos that quickly.

Janus looked around and pointed at what appeared to be a set of stairs. The three of them swam over and pulled themselves out of the water.

“Where are we?” Pat asked.

“Looks like a basement,” Remus replied. “A flooded basement.”

Janus pulled up his timepiece and pushed some buttons to stabilize Pat’s timepiece. It slowly stopped vibrating and cooled. “Here,” he said, handing it over to him. “I suggest you put the safeties back on now.”

Pat nodded and took it.

“We’re still in Cuba,” Remus informed them, looking at his own timepiece. “Same church too, but in the basement and… two and a half centuries later.”

“Remy is going to be pissed,” Janus said.

Remus shrugged. “He’s always pissed… at least at me.”

“Well,” said Pat, slipping his timepiece back onto his wrist. “Thanks for being willing to pool our resources.”

Janus rolled his eyes. “Stop.”

“Ah, mi sirenito-”

“I hate you.”

“-never.” He disappeared with a pop which was when Janus realized, he’d never handed over device that had caused the first time distortion.

“…You bastard!” he yelled at thin air as though the man could hear him.

“Well,” said Remus, “that mission went swimmingly.” Janus reached over and shoved him back into the water.

Chapter 21

“We should probably get out of here,” Janus said, very much not helping Remus out of the water. Remus pulled himself back up onto the staircase and shook like a dog. Janus crinkled his nose as water droplets hit him. They didn’t smell salty anymore, he noted. In fact, there was a broken pipe spewing out water on the other side of the room.

Janus and Remus cautiously snuck out of the church, not wanting to be seen and blamed for the flooded basement. They came out on a city street that was much different than the one they’d entered from.

They walked down the street a bit, Janus’s eyes scanning the buildings. His eyes caught on a sign and he tugged Remus towards it.

They entered the small paladare and the person delivering food to one of the tables blinked at them both. Right. They were in clothing from the 1700s and were soaking wet. He met eyes with the woman, challenging her to say something. She did not.

They found a seat at one of the tables.

“Ah…” the worker said, approaching them. “English?”

“Ron,” Janus said, “por favor.”

Remus turned and started ordering the both of them food in Spanish. Janus didn’t pay attention to what he did.

After his second shot of rum, Janus sighed and brought up his timepiece to ping the TPI. The reaction was almost instantaneous from their perspective. Remy all but kicked down the restaurant’s door and walked over to them. “How the fuck?”

“Ah, Remy,” Janus said calmly. “Have a seat. We’re waiting on our food.”

He did, but probably only because people were looking at them. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s been a long day,” Janus answered, “and I’m hungry.”

“Yeah, it certainly looks like you’re interested in the food,” Remy said, eyeing the empty shot glasses.

“Let’s just say, I’m glad Cuba started letting paladares legally serve liquor a few years ago.”

It’s clear that Remy wanted to ask them what had happened, but he also was cautious enough not to make a scene here and Janus wasn’t planning on getting up until he’d at least gotten his food. “Why are you soaked, by the way?”

“Turns out the ocean isn’t as far away as we thought,” Janus said.

“Also, a church basement is flooded,” Remus said.

“Fantastic,” Remy replied.

They sat there mostly in tense silence until their food came, and then Remus and Janus ate. Remy slapped down some pesos once they were done and then proceeded to all but physically drag them out of the restaurant.

They were led to an alley way and then through an old almost hidden door. Remy immediately rounded on them. “What the hell happened?” Remy asked.

“The time distortion caused level 5 time fractures in its vicinity, we almost drowned three times, and the worst person in the universe fucked me over again.”

“To be fair,” Remus said. “He did save our lives before that.”

“I saved our lives first,” Janus said. “I don’t have to be fair.”

“Oh, yeah, Mr. Curl Up In A Ball And Perish. I’m sure we would have been fine without him.”

“Anyway,” Janus said to Remy. “If you want your lump of flesh, I suggest you take it now, because Khalid is going to murder me, and then fire me, and then rehire me so she can put me on desk duty and make me do paperwork until the end of time.”

“What did you do?” Remy asked.

Janus grimaced. “Made a time distortion.”

“You were the one who made the time distortion?” Remy asked.

“Not exactly,” Janus answered.

“He made the second time distortion,” Remus said. “It was actually pretty cool.”

“It was not cool,” Janus snapped. “It was irresponsible and dangerous. I shouldn’t have done it.”

“We would have died,” Remus said.

“And we could have done worse than dying if it had gone poorly,” Janus argued. “I just…” he tugged on his hair a bit, and Remus gave him an alarmed look. “I’m going to go talk to Khalid,” he said. He didn’t give Remus any time to speak, but just waved his hand to travel back to the TPI.

Remus followed him instantly, of course, but Janus proceeded to ignore him until they were out of decontamination. Janus walked himself straight to Khalid’s office.

He knocked on her door and she called for him to come in. He did and sat heavily in the chair in front of her. She frowned at him. “You really should go to Cultural Outreach first.”

“Just fire me,” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“I just shouldn’t work here anymore,” he said. “At least not as a field agent. Really any type of agent.”

She paused and reached to her desk to pull up some file on the screen there. “I’ll fill out the incident report myself instead of Dr. Eran then,” she said. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

Janus explained everything that happened, and Khalid diligently wrote it down. It was far outside her job description, but she didn’t explain or really react to anything he said more than nodding to say she’d gotten it recorded.

When he was finished, she saved the file and leaned back.

“Well,” Khalid said, folding her hands in front of her and scrutinizing him. “Honestly, this isn’t anywhere near a fireable offence.”

“But I…”

“You went against policy certainly, but policy sometimes has to be broken in disaster scenarios. You know that.”

“It was stupid,” he bit out, feeling sick to his stomach.

“Is it if it worked?” she asked.

Janus didn’t answer.

“The major reason I originally assigned you to be a field agent is because you’ve always been good at thinking your way out of difficult situations even when they go against the rules we set. You have good instincts that I trust, but you haven’t seemed to trust them lately,” she said.

“You shouldn’t trust them,” Janus said darkly.

Janus felt his throat tighten as she considered him for a long moment. “This isn’t the first time you’ve asked me to fire you,” she said. “You wouldn’t tell me why then, and I respected it at the time, but…” she paused. “You’ve changed, Janus.”

“Well then I’m not any good to you.”

“I’d beg to differ,” she replied, “but fine.”

Janus was actually surprised by that. He looked up at her. He somehow thought he’d feel better when this happened, but he didn’t in that moment. He just felt ill.

“I’m not firing you,” she continued, meeting his eyes, “but if you don’t want to be a regular field agent, fine. I have a particular mission in mind for you.”

“What?” he asked.

“This ‘Pat’ thing is getting ridiculous,” she said. “I don’t have enough resources to focus on it right now considering how much is going on, however, but I trust you and you’re already involved. So, I’m going to reassign you. No more missions. No more dealing with in department duties. You find him and his source of time travel. That’s your job. Whatever you think you need to do that job is fine. Request whatever trips or resources you need. Bring on Remus when you need or even Fred and Lena.”

“You’re…” he said. “Giving me more freedom and resources?”

“Like I said, Janus. I trust you. The one time I didn’t, after all, Pat ran off with a timebomb, so I learned my lesson.” She smiled briefly and stuck out her hand. “Deal?”

Janus sighed and once again resigned himself to staying at the TPI. “Fine,” he said. “Deal.”

Chapter 22

Janus sighed. This was stupid. What was he even doing? He glared at the large hologram that took up a good portion of his office now. During the day, he usually shrunk it so he could only see part of the diagram he had up, but right now the office was abandoned other than him, so it took up and entire two walls. He rubbed his forehead. Why had 2pm Janus thought putting a bunch of words on this hologram was a good idea? Even the pictures were starting to look like they were vibrating. He drew a red line between “Nick Jonas” and “iPhone,” and he honestly wasn’t even sure why at this point.

His board didn’t even make sense. Why did he think this would be a help? He swiped a picture of the first device he’d found that had made the time distortions off to the side with his own (bad) artistic rendition of the one Pat had stolen. There wasn’t a pattern with Pat’s behavior that he could see other than, perhaps, a liking for early 21st century pop culture.

Frustrated, he turned away from the board. He needed a walk, he decided. He stepped out of his office into the TPI hallway and chose a direction at random. There were still some people in the building as even this late at night, someone had to be on call, but for the most part, the building was abandoned.

He wasn’t paying attention to where he was going, and even if he had been, he likely wouldn’t have realized where he was because he’d never been to the AMO offices since he’d gotten his house, and they’d moved since then.

He paused in front of it the doors, eyes touching on the lit-up names on the door’s screen. He focused on his own last name until it stopped looking like letters at all.

“Did you need something?” a familiar voice asked.

Janus jumped and whipped around. “You… it’s late, what are you doing here?” he asked Emile.

“There are at least two AMO workers at the office at all times. Today is my night,” he explained.

“I… see.”

Emile tilted his head. “Did you need anything?”

“No,” Janus said, perhaps a bit too fast. He bit his lip. “I was just going for a walk. I didn’t mean to come here.”

Emile folded his hands in front of him and rocked onto his heels. “I heard that you almost died,” he said.

“Yeah,” Janus said. “I fucked up.”

Emile arched an eyebrow. “And is that why you got a promotion?” he asked in that mild tone of his that informed Janus that his brother was wholly convince he was an idiot. Janus looked away and Emile sighed.

“Well then,” Emile said, walking past him to the door. Despite himself and the fact that it was his fault, Janus felt hurt at how short Emile was letting the conversation be. Then he felt disgusted with himself that he even dared to feel that way.

Yet, Emile paused at the door. “If you ever decide you want that help, I offered, you know where my office is now.”

He wouldn’t, Janus thought, but he didn’t say anything. He just let Emile push open the door to the AMO and disappear inside.

Why was he even here right now? Janus wondered to himself. It was the middle of the night and he didn’t remember the last time he’d slept. He didn’t remember the last time he’d been home.

Yet the house by the lake wasn’t home, was it? Going there to the nothing that pervaded the place made his throat tighten. He’d had different homes in his life. The small childhood home, the claustrophobic apartment he’d had in his college days, the first home the AMO had assigned him which he’d shared with his brother, but none of these were available to him anymore. He brought up his timepiece. There were only three pre-programed space-time coordinates in his device. The first would only take him back to his office with the frustrating board that wasn’t giving him any answers and the third took him to the lake house he couldn’t bear to see empty right now.

That left him with only one option. He selected the second saved coordinates and stepped forward into Remus’s house. He landed in total darkness, which was expected considering it was around 3 in the morning and Remus lived about 3 decades before electricity was invented. Janus stumbled forward in the dark, his eyes very much not adjusted, until his shins hit the couch. He carefully turned and sat before blowing out a breath.

“Mew?” came from the corner, and Janus titled his head to see eyes shining in the dark.

“Hello,” Janus said. “Sorry to wake you.”

Diesel Fuel make a little burrhr sound and padded over to him.

#study break stories #not writing

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