#nobody remembers that one cat i drew like a year or two ago

[brambletakato]

siblings (looong list of tags below im sorry i care very much for them)

#nobody remembers that one cat i drew like a year or two ago #and I wouldnt either LOL so heres another infodump #and im COMPLETELY redoing his story #he now has a sister named Rimegaze (right) #and his name is Moonwish!! #yeah shut up about warriors cant have the prefix moon this is my story /lh #brief summary of the plot of Moonwish's backstory; #He was enamored by the elders' tales of cats with prophecies #and when he was younger he decided to fake a prophecy for attention and respect #which succeeded for a while #but he soon grew miserable when he became older #since essentially the life he has now is one big lie built when he was a naive kit #so he tries to find ways to make his falsified prophecy ''completed'' #but unfortunately hes too late... #these designs arent final tbh theyre subject to change #BrambleDrewAgain

[isitoctober212015yet]

MOB PSYCHO 100 WARRIOR CATS AU WHOOOOOO

I've been chugging along at these designs for ages and I am so proud of them and stoked to finally share them AA if you have any questions FEEL FREE to ask me I have been plotting and drawing this au so much (have many things still in the works to post!!)

AU Summary: A Long time ago a strange interloper claiming to be a Starclan warrior took over the clan (Dimple/Mosswish). He gave them a prophecy from the ancient times of a cat that would one day be destined to take his place as the True leader of the clan.

Years later, a stray (Reigen/Weaselflight) found two kittens (Mob & Ritsu/Sproutmask & Thistlestrike) abandoned in the trash and took them in. If anyone asked he would claim it was just so that he wouldn't have anyone's death on his conscience but nobody ever asked. He staked out a human neighborhood and left them on the doorstep and once he saw them get taken in went off on his way.

Almost a year after that Sprout and Thistle have no memories of the cat who saved them and they have both grown. Sprout is constantly wondering what lies beyond his yard.

He befriends a stay who just came back to town named Weasel that seems oddly familiar, who's been mentoring Sprout on the ways of the Clan. He uses Weasel's "true" stories as a springboard for all the things he wants to do someday and tells his brother all about (Thistle hides his concern about that) But there are clan cats who have been watching them convinced Sprout is the one chosen by Starclan to help them.

Eventually they come to him, offering him anything he wants if he will join them, permanently.

I have a lot more I'm keeping secret for now you'll have to find out >:3c

design and name notes under the cut!

First off: I started on these BEFORE the fursona plush actually ever got announced but about mid-way through plotting all this They Happened and I knew I could not use any aspect of them for these designs so if u want to know why they don't look like those. that's why. I ardently refused to use those designs. I love them!!! I have fanart in the works of them, but they're not part of this.

Mob - he was the first character I drew and the base off of which I drew everyone else because he's the default. He's the glass of water, the firestar, the plain chip, the True Neutral of design.

He was also the last one i colored and actually finished a design for LMAO. When it came to his name I knew I wanted -mask as his suffix because of the fact he is the most autistic character I have ever seen in my life (I am a professional autist, I know my own) and he is absolutely masking 95% of the time before the confession arc. I was stuck on what his suffix could be though, but my friend @cellulr suggested broccoli as a name and I remembered that OH YEAH he can make plants grow, which is how I got to Sprout, also it just sounds cute. He's a growing little sprout, it works.

Reigen - My design is very specifically based on the Least Weasel. I do not subscribe to fox headcanons under any circumstances. I don't care what reason people have for them he's not a fox. He's literally the quote "weaseling out of things is important to learn! It's what separates us from the animals...except the weasel." incarnate.

His name was the easiest one for me. He's a weasel, he loves to get out of Situations, Weaselflight. It's a winner.

Serizawa - He's a calico :3c I made him a calico because it matched the color palette of his pajamas and I just love his pajamas look because the blue suit is............kind of boring sorry <3.

I was really stuck on what to name him but i found out on the wiki that the zawa kanji of his name means Marsh and I really fell in love with that. -whisper was based on him being kinda shy when he first joins the clans but just like in actual canon he gets braver but is still a big gentle giant type guy

Dimple - I don't believe in realistic cat genetics for warrior cats content, these are a bunch of strays in the woods who have organized religion and superpowers. The cats can be green if I make them green. So Dimple's design was translated pretty literally but I made him very short and rounder than everyone else. And I gave him the same nicked ear that the claw security guard people draw him with/as all the time has. Also he's short and people keep thinking he's an apprentice I think that was a funny part of Scourge nobody used.

If you want to get realistic or something you could say maybe Dimple being green was proof enough to the clans he's otherworldly and therefore totally a real starclan warrior. His suffix Moss is pretty obvious but -wish has an in and out of universe explanation. In-universe it's about his own wishes of being important (godly perhaps?). Out of universe it's a reference to my favorite old timey warrior cats fansite warriors wish.

Teru - okay I will admit this is the only design that's loosely based on some fursona art. I saw art of him as a Pomeranian with the rest of the gang and I was obsessed I could not let him be a cat. He is a full respected warrior of the clan though do Not make any comments about him being a dog unless you wanna get killed. I love warriors aus or fanclans where non-cats are part of the clan too I think adding other animals adds a lot of fun elements to the world. In another clan of mine there's a pig. Reject canon. Add more animals to the clans.

As for his name I thought about naming giving him the Star prefix just to be annoying but theres certain lines I won't cross and that's one. So he's Suntuft. the -tuft is because he's a big fluffy dog lots of fur.

Toichirou - So like...in terms of structure Claw is basically just Bloodclan and guy who shows up out of nowhere with a huge army at the last second w/ plans to take over the world (forest)? that's so Scourge coded. Why does he have a clan name though? Secret For Later >:3c

In terms of design he's literally just a taller pointier Mob now in Red. Why he has the -claw suffix should be pretty obvious and I know in the anime his hair isnt quite red but i remembered it being pretty red when I was designing and Shou has red hair (im getting to him dw) so...red. I also thought it would be diabolical to give him the same name as the canon hero of the actual warriors books.

#mob psycho 100 #mob psycho fanart #warrior cats au #shigeo kageyama #reigen arataka #serizawa katsuya #mp100 ekubo #teruki hanazawa #toichirou suzuki #mp100 warriored cats #i have been doing nothing but these for months oh my GOD #i have a lot of WIPs but i wanted to get their design sheets down and i have DONE IT #i very rarely take on big projects like this and I certainly never make it this far. i usually draw one character and then give up #the power of absolute cataclysmic autism i guess but anyways im happy to post these and actually be able to talk about them more #my room channel in my friends server is full of so much bullshit i want to do with them and me problem-solving how to plot this in real tim #my friends r getting so tired of me LMAO #anyways none of you can see me but i am Vibrating at a frequency that shatters glass i love this au so much i am disastrous

[shirbertshitposts]

10 Shirbert Moments from Anne of Green Gables series I think about a lot

In honor of Valentines Day I thought I would post a list of some of my favorite Anne and Gilbert moments. It was hard to narrow it to just ten as I have been going through all nine books and trying to queue posts about all their iconic moments through the series; However I decided to pick the ones that I remember even when I haven’t read the books in a while. I didn’t have the heart to rank them properly so they’re just listed in chronological order.

1. His future must be worthy of its goddess

In the twilight Anne sauntered down to the Dryad’s Bubble and saw Gilbert Blythe coming down through the dusky Haunted Wood. She had a sudden realization that Gilbert was a schoolboy no longer. And how manly he looked—the tall, frank-faced fellow, with the clear, straightforward eyes and the broad shoulders. Anne thought Gilbert was a very handsome lad, even though he didn’t look at all like her ideal man. She and Diana had long ago decided what kind of a man they admired and their tastes seemed exactly similar. He must be very tall and distinguished looking, with melancholy, inscrutable eyes, and a melting, sympathetic voice. There was nothing either melancholy or inscrutable in Gilbert’s physiognomy, but of course that didn’t matter in friendship!

Gilbert stretched himself out on the ferns beside the Bubble and looked approvingly at Anne. If Gilbert had been asked to describe his ideal woman the description would have answered point for point to Anne, even to those seven tiny freckles whose obnoxious presence still continued to vex her soul. Gilbert was as yet little more than a boy; but a boy has his dreams as have others, and in Gilbert’s future there was always a girl with big, limpid gray eyes, and a face as fine and delicate as a flower. He had made up his mind, also, that his future must be worthy of its goddess. Even in quiet Avonlea there were temptations to be met and faced. White Sands youth were a rather “fast” set, and Gilbert was popular wherever he went. But he meant to keep himself worthy of Anne’s friendship and perhaps some distant day her love; and he watched over word and thought and deed as jealously as if her clear eyes were to pass in judgment on it. She held over him the unconscious influence that every girl, whose ideals are high and pure, wields over her friends; an influence which would endure as long as she was faithful to those ideals and which she would as certainly lose if she were ever false to them. In Gilbert’s eyes Anne’s greatest charm was the fact that she never stooped to the petty practices of so many of the Avonlea girls—the small jealousies, the little deceits and rivalries, the palpable bids for favor. Anne held herself apart from all this, not consciously or of design, but simply because anything of the sort was utterly foreign to her transparent, impulsive nature, crystal clear in its motives and aspirations.

-- Chapter XIX, Anne of Avonlea

2. For the first time her eyes faltered under Gilbert’s gaze

“What are you thinking of, Anne?” asked Gilbert, coming down the walk. He had left his horse and buggy out at the road.

“Of Miss Lavendar and Mr. Irving,” answered Anne dreamily. “Isn’t it beautiful to think how everything has turned out . . . how they have come together again after all the years of separation and misunderstanding?”

“Yes, it’s beautiful,” said Gilbert, looking steadily down into Anne’s uplifted face, “but wouldn’t it have been more beautiful still, Anne, if there had been NO separation or misunderstanding . . . if they had come hand in hand all the way through life, with no memories behind them but those which belonged to each other?”

For a moment Anne’s heart fluttered queerly and for the first time her eyes faltered under Gilbert’s gaze and a rosy flush stained the paleness of her face. It was as if a veil that had hung before her inner consciousness had been lifted, giving to her view a revelation of unsuspected feelings and realities. Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one’s life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one’s side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps . . . perhaps . . . love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath.

Then the veil dropped again; but the Anne who walked up the dark lane was not quite the same Anne who had driven gaily down it the evening before. The page of girlhood had been turned, as by an unseen finger, and the page of womanhood was before her with all its charm and mystery, its pain and gladness.

Gilbert wisely said nothing more; but in his silence he read the history of the next four years in the light of Anne’s remembered blush. Four years of earnest, happy work . . . and then the guerdon of a useful knowledge gained and a sweet heart won.

-- Chapter XXX, Anne of Avonlea

3. I just want YOU

“I have a dream,” he said slowly. “I persist in dreaming it, although it has often seemed to me that it could never come true. I dream of a home with a hearth-fire in it, a cat and dog, the footsteps of friends—and YOU!”

Anne wanted to speak but she could find no words. Happiness was breaking over her like a wave. It almost frightened her.

“I asked you a question over two years ago, Anne. If I ask it again today will you give me a different answer?”

Still Anne could not speak. But she lifted her eyes, shining with all the love-rapture of countless generations, and looked into his for a moment. He wanted no other answer.

They lingered in the old garden until twilight, sweet as dusk in Eden must have been, crept over it. There was so much to talk over and recall—things said and done and heard and thought and felt and misunderstood.

“I thought you loved Christine Stuart,” Anne told him, as reproachfully as if she had not given him every reason to suppose that she loved Roy Gardner.

Gilbert laughed boyishly.

“Christine was engaged to somebody in her home town. I knew it and she knew I knew it. When her brother graduated he told me his sister was coming to Kingsport the next winter to take music, and asked me if I would look after her a bit, as she knew no one and would be very lonely. So I did. And then I liked Christine for her own sake. She is one of the nicest girls I’ve ever known. I knew college gossip credited us with being in love with each other. I didn’t care. Nothing mattered much to me for a time there, after you told me you could never love me, Anne. There was nobody else—there never could be anybody else for me but you. I’ve loved you ever since that day you broke your slate over my head in school.”

“I don’t see how you could keep on loving me when I was such a little fool,” said Anne.

“Well, I tried to stop,” said Gilbert frankly, “not because I thought you what you call yourself, but because I felt sure there was no chance for me after Gardner came on the scene. But I couldn’t—and I can’t tell you, either, what it’s meant to me these two years to believe you were going to marry him, and be told every week by some busybody that your engagement was on the point of being announced. I believed it until one blessed day when I was sitting up after the fever. I got a letter from Phil Gordon—Phil Blake, rather—in which she told me there was really nothing between you and Roy, and advised me to ‘try again.’ Well, the doctor was amazed at my rapid recovery after that.”

Anne laughed—then shivered.

“I can never forget the night I thought you were dying, Gilbert. Oh, I knew—I KNEW then—and I thought it was too late.”

“But it wasn’t, sweetheart. Oh, Anne, this makes up for everything, doesn’t it? Let’s resolve to keep this day sacred to perfect beauty all our lives for the gift it has given us.”

“It’s the birthday of our happiness,” said Anne softly. “I’ve always loved this old garden of Hester Gray’s, and now it will be dearer than ever.”

“But I’ll have to ask you to wait a long time, Anne,” said Gilbert sadly. “It will be three years before I’ll finish my medical course. And even then there will be no diamond sunbursts and marble halls.”

Anne laughed.

“I don’t want sunbursts and marble halls. I just want YOU. You see I’m quite as shameless as Phil about it. Sunbursts and marble halls may be all very well, but there is more ‘scope for imagination’ without them. And as for the waiting, that doesn’t matter. We’ll just be happy, waiting and working for each other—and dreaming. Oh, dreams will be very sweet now.”

Gilbert drew her close to him and kissed her. Then they walked home together in the dusk, crowned king and queen in the bridal realm of love, along winding paths fringed with the sweetest flowers that ever bloomed, and over haunted meadows where winds of hope and memory blew.

-- Chapter XLI, Anne of the Island

4. Gilbert, I'm afraid I'm scandalously in love with you.

"Gilbert darling, don't let's ever be afraid of things. It's such dreadful slavery. Let's be daring and adventurous and expectant. Let's dance to meet life and all it can bring to us, even if it brings scads of trouble and typhoid and twins!"

Today has been a day dropped out of June into April. The snow is all gone and the fawn meadows and golden hills just sing of spring. I know I heard Pan piping in the little green hollow in my maple bush and my Storm King was bannered with the airiest of purple hazes. We've had a great deal of rain lately and I've loved sitting in my tower in the still, wet hours of the spring twilights. But tonight is a gusty, hurrying night . . . even the clouds racing over the sky are in a hurry and the moonlight that gushes out between them is in a hurry to flood the world.

"Suppose, Gilbert, we were walking hand in hand down one of the long roads in Avonlea tonight!"

Gilbert, I'm afraid I'm scandalously in love with you. You don't think it's irreverent, do you? But then, you're not a minister."

-- Chapter 9, Anne of Windy Poplars

5. Suitable Places

"(Are you sure you kiss me in suitable places, Gilbert? I'm afraid Mrs. Gibson would think the nape of the neck, for instance, most unsuitable.)”

-- Chapter 12, Anne of Windy Poplars

6. He narrowly escaped bursting with pride

"Anne, this is Captain Boyd. Captain Boyd, my wife."

It was the first time Gilbert had said "my wife" to anybody but Anne, and he narrowly escaped bursting with the pride of it. The old captain held out a sinewy hand to Anne; they smiled at each other and were friends from that moment. Kindred spirit flashed recognition to kindred spirit.

-- Chapter 6, Anne’s House of Dreams

7. Queen of my heart and life and home

"Gilbert, would you like my hair better if it were like Leslie's?" she asked wistfully.

"I wouldn't have your hair any color but just what it is for the world," said Gilbert, with one or two convincing accompaniments.

You wouldn't be ANNE if you had golden hair—or hair of any color but"—

"Red," said Anne, with gloomy satisfaction.

"Yes, red—to give warmth to that milk-white skin and those shining gray-green eyes of yours. Golden hair wouldn't suit you at all Queen Anne—MY Queen Anne—queen of my heart and life and home."

"Then you may admire Leslie's all you like," said Anne magnanimously.”

-Chapter 12, Anne’s House of Dreams

8.  Annest of Annes

But the best of all was when Gilbert came to her, as she stood at her window, watching a fog creeping in from the sea, over the moonlit dunes and the harbour, right into the long narrow valley upon which Ingleside looked down and in which nestled the village of Glen St. Mary.

"To come back at the end of a hard day and find you! Are you happy, Annest of Annes?"

"Happy!" Anne bent to sniff a vaseful of apple blossoms Jem had set on her dressing-table. She felt surrounded and encompassed by love. "Gilbert dear, it's been lovely to be Anne of Green Gables again for a week, but it's a hundred times lovelier to come back and be Anne of Ingleside."

-- Chapter 3, Anne of Ingleside

9. I couldn’t live without you

Anne felt like a released bird . . . she was flying again. Gilbert's arms were around her . . . his eyes were looking into hers in the moonlight.

"You do love me, Gilbert? I'm not just a habit with you? You haven't said you loved me for so long."

"My dear, dear love! I didn't think you needed words to know that. I couldn't live without you. Always you give me strength. There's a verse somewhere in the Bible that is meant for you . . . 'She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.'"

Life which had seemed so grey and foolish a few moments before was golden and rose and splendidly rainbowed again. The diamond pendant slipped to the floor, unheeded for the moment. It was beautiful . . . but there were so many things lovelier . . . confidence and peace and delightful work . . . laughter and kindness . . . that old safe feeling of a sure love.

"Oh, if we could keep this moment for ever, Gilbert!"

"We're going to have some moments. It's time we had a second honeymoon. Anne, there's going to be a big medical congress in London next February. We're going to it . . . and after it we'll see a bit of the Old World. There's a holiday coming to us. We'll be nothing but lovers again . . . it will be just like being married over again. You haven't been like yourself for a long time. ("So he had noticed.") You're tired and overworked . . . you need a change. ("You too, dearest. I've been so horribly blind.") I'm not going to have it cast up to me that doctors' wives never get a pill. We'll come back rested and fresh, with our sense of humour completely restored. Well, try your pendant on and let's get to bed. I'm half dead for sleep . . . haven't had a decent night's sleep for weeks, what with twins and worry over Mrs. Garrow."

--Chapter 41, Anne of Ingleside

10. Old love light

DR. BLYTHE:- “The old, old love light that was kindled so many years ago in Avonlea ... and burns yet, Anne ... at least for me.” 

ANNE:- “And for me, too. And will burn forever, Gilbert.” 

-- Page 189, The Blythes Are Quoted

Feel free to respond to this post with any of your favorite shirbert moments that I missed!

#Shirbert #Anne Shirley #Gilbert Blythe #aogg #anne of avonlea #anne of the island #anne of windy poplars #anne of ingleside #anne's house of dreams #the blythes are quoted

[chordsykat]

More about me than you ever wanted to know!

I’ve been answering more than a handful of asks privately about myself since (re-)starting the @dethkomic, here. This’ll give you guys a little insight about me as an artist/author, my background, and serve as a handy go-to so nobody has to go out of their way to find out some basic info about me! Anywho...

Hi, I’m Dawn!

I’m 40(!), I like really loud music and animation! I’m mostly here for what’s left of the Ride or Die Metalocalypse and Gargoyles fandoms, because I just can’t quit you guys (and I don’t want to). More under the cut..!

What do I do?: I started gigging as a comic book artist at 19 and have held all kinds of art and design jobs, since. My last *high-octane* job was as an art director in Corporate America™ , but I’ve more or less retired. I’d currently call myself an indie game developer who also does contract art and developer work for companies. If you’re reading @dethkomic​ then you’ll likely enjoy the game that I’ve been working on for a while now, called “Harmonic Odyssey: The Five Gods”. And don’t worry if you’re not reading the ‘komic or aren’t into Metalocalypse stuff at all. It’s not a pre-requisite. Please note me if you try the demo, too!

What else do I do?: I live in a badass house on a badass two acres that sits on the side of a badass mountain surrounded by trees and wildlife. At any given time, I share my homestead with a butt-ton of cats (both ours and fostered), rats, ferrets, and chickens. Plus our neighbor’s guinea fowl who have boundary issues I’m not about to challenge. I’ve also been married for 11 years, and my husband and I have a daughter who’s in first grade -- they’re here too, when I can find them amongst all the critters.

No, but what else?: I’m the bassist/singer/guitarist (in that order) for a little band called Autumn Springs. When I’m not working or doing art or both, I’m screwing around with a guitar of some kind.

What kinds of strings are you going to use?: When it comes to gear, I got all kinds of stuff I like to play with -- my bass rig currently consists of: 2021 Spector Euro 5 LX (my main 5-string) 2014 Squier Vintage Modified Jaguar Special HB (my main 4-string) I use D’addario Roundwounds, for the most part. I don’t like changing strings on my basses. I do tend to change them more often on the Spector than any of the others, because I enjoy its brightness. Fender Rumble amps of all sizes Line 6 M13 Stompbox

My guitar rig is considerably different, but I don’t go “into town” with it as often: My main all-purpose guitar is a 2003 Gibson SG  I like Ernie Ball strings -- all kinds Fender Mustang V The Line 6 Stompbox again and/or Boss Distortion DS-1 by itself!

Why did you get into fandom?: Metalocalypse drew me in after I moved across the country and was settling into a new/old life on the East Coast. I got into it halfway through the second season thanks to many late nights spent doing some job or another. Found a bunch of friends, including people who worked on the series, and we had some great times. I think all of us miss the show very much. 

Still have the friends, though!

Gargoyles was a fandom that had a bigger following back when it was on the air (all of 24 years ago as of this writing), and I remember orbiting in those days. Years passed, and some of us are still here, though our numbers are dwindling (much like the Gargoyles themselves).

I think it’s hard being a fan of stuff that’s no longer running, but in a way, I think it’s also not. It’s wonderful to see others’ interpretations of how how things should have wrapped up, and it’s easy to get inspired. In any case, both of the shows I’m talking about here deserve a good ending, and I feel like anything I can do as a fan to contribute to their memory might some day lead someone to that elusive revival (and heck -- looks like Metalocalypse is at least getting one, so there’s that)

Why did you write Dethkomic?: Most of you know, or at least a lot of you do, that this story is a re-imagining of an old fanfic I did years and years and years ago. I was working on Harmonic for two years when I got the itch to do something else with the girls, and kept lamenting that it’d be easier to pull in some interest for my games if I still had a foot in the door (the grave?) of Dethklok fandom. So, I just kinda took the story, reworked it as a comic, and stuck my foot in.

I’m glad I did, too, because not only do I have more people taking interest in my stuff outside of fandom now (and thank you all for that, by the way! You guys are all amazing deathmetal people) but I’ve heard more than a few of you say that it’s been nice to look forward to updates of Dethkomic since we don’t currently have the show going on.  That kind of endorsement means a lot to me, even as a fan-work. I’m glad I can share stories with you all.

Where else are you outside of tumblr?: I’m from the internet! But if you want to know more about me and/or follow/troll me elsehwere, I’m most active on these sites: Deviantart: http://chordsykat.deviantart.com Itch.io: https://evolvgames.itch.io/ Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dbeshleman Artstation: https://dawnbest.artstation.com/

#my bio #pinned posts #about the author #about the artist #yeet

[the-bau-quinjet]

Nice to meet you, where you been?

Chapter 2 of In Breakable Heaven!

Summary: Reader becomes acquainted with some members of the BAU.

Warnings: none that I can think of!

Word Count: ~1900

Penny came back out to the foyer, handing you the oversized t-shirt and shorts you left here last time you slept over. You pulled them on quickly, following Penny to the living room where you instantly realized, it was more than just you, Penny, and the tall man in the apartment. You stopped moving as you took in the additional new faces. You had never met Penny’s team before, but she had talked about them a ton. You blushed again thinking of how you must look a mess right now.

“Everyone, this is Y/N! She is my very best friend and she is very sad so we are going to cheer her up.” Penny started the introductions. “Y/N, this is Derek Morgan, Jennifer Jareau aka JJ, and Emily Prentiss.” You took in the names as Penny went around the room. Eyes bouncing between a very muscular bald man and two of the most attractive women you’ve ever seen. “Oh, and for a more formal introduction, this is Dr. Spencer Reid, although you two met at the door.” Your eyes attempted to meet his again, but he was staring at the ground. You couldn’t help the whisper that escaped your lips “Doctor.”

 Either the profilers didn’t hear it, or chose to ignore it, along with the blush forming on your cheeks yet again. You looked around the room again and couldn’t stop yourself from speaking your thoughts. “God, is it a requirement to be hot as hell to work for the FBI?” Everyone laughed as you threw your hand over your mouth, eyes widening. “Oh God. That’s embarrassing. It’s true though, what a good looking team.” That earned more laughter form the group.

  It was clear they were all wondering why you had just sobbed into their coworkers adorable sweater vest. You waited a beat hoping someone would say something. But since they were all staring at you, and you hate awkward silences, you couldn’t help but blurt out “today was my 3 year anniversary with my boyfriend,” Not noticing the slight frown appear on Spencer’s face, you continued “but I went over to his place and found him in bed with another woman. So now I am very drunk.” Their faces all softened, offering slight words of encouragement as you sunk into the sofa and picked up the bottle of white wine from the table. Not even bothering with a glass, you started drinking again. You drank nearly half the bottle before taking a breath.

 “Woah” you heard someone say, but honestly you didn’t know who. “Why don’t we play a game or something? Maybe switch to water so you don’t completely hate yourself tomorrow?” You realized it was JJ talking. “I am always down – hiccup – for a game. I must warn you, I am extremely competitive though. Plus, I don’t get hungover so I’ll be fine.” You looked at their disbelieving faces. “Fine” you muttered, annoyed at having to explain this again, “I’ll switch to water for a bit. But only because I want to win.”

 Penny went to get the cards, confirming your statement “Y/N is right ya know. She has never been hungover. I’ve seen her drink countless tequila shots, chase them each with a wine cooler and clean her entire apartment before 8 AM the next day.”

 “Impressive.” Derek smirked as he looked at you.

 “What can I say? It really boosts my productivity.” The room chuckled as the hot doctor chimed in.

 “Your liver is responsible for breaking down all the alcohol you consume into an enzyme called acetaldehyde, the toxin responsible for hangovers. Recent studies have shown about 23% of people are able to break down the acetaldehyde much faster resulting in little to no hangover symptoms. Whether or not you experience hangovers is based 45% on genetics.” You looked over to him, wildly impressed with the first words you’ve heard him say.

 “What’s the other 55% based on?” You asked, intrigued to finally know why you don’t actually experience hangovers. He looked surprised as he met your eyes for the first time since you entered the room.

 “It’s actually a mixture of volume of alcohol, water, and food consumption.” You chuckled as he said this.

 “Well, it must be genetics for me because there are a few times I remember making very bad choices…” You felt the thought slip away as Dr. Spencer Reid smiled at you.

 “How can she even do simple math right now? Based on the story she’s had 10 drinks in the last 3 hours?” Emily whispered to JJ and Derek. They exchanged glances as Penny finally sat back down with the cards.

 “What should we play?” She asked the room, but mostly you. You could already feel your competitive edge creeping in as you tore your eyes from Spencer’s to suggest one of your favorite group games. “Egyptian Rat Screw!” It should be especially fun since you were all drinking. Nobody seemed to know the game though, so you quickly explained the rules as you took the cards to shuffle and deal.

 “Remember, whoever gets all the cards wins. Slap sandwiches and doubles. Royals have the special rules we just talked about. If you slap and there’s nothing there, you have to put a card in the bottom of the pile.” You said as everyone got situated around the table unsure what to expect. “Ready?” you asked, a mischievous grin on your face.

 --

 After winning the first two games you couldn’t help but tease everyone “I am definitely the drunkest one here. I thought a group of FBI agents would have better reaction times!” You giggled as everyone laughed along with you. You dealt the cards into five piles, one for each agent. “No cards for you?” Derek asked. “Nope.” You popped the “p” as you took in their confused faces. “I’m going to start with no cards and see if I still win.” There was a clear competitive glint in your eyes, with a matching smirk.  They seemed disbelieving that you would pull out another win, but continued along with the game.

 You hadn’t even tried slapping the table until there was only Spencer and Derek left with cards. Emily, JJ, and Penelope were chatting aimlessly, having lost interest a few minutes ago. You sat up and stared at the ever growing pile of cards. The whole game was basically memorizing the order of cards, or at least the general timeline. You knew as soon as Derek played his jack, Spencer would follow with an identical card. As you spotted the first jack hit the pile, Derek taunted Spencer “Haha pretty boy, one chance to get a royal or I’m pulling in the big pile.” The two of them seemed to have forgotten that you could get back in the game. Spencer smiled as he flipped over what you knew to be a jack. It was clear from the smirk on his face he knew it was a jack as well. What he didn’t count on was your cat-like reflexes slapping the pile before he could finish laughing at Derek’s sad face.

 The two of them looked shocked as you picked up the cards, readying them for the next set of flipping. “Damn girl, I thought you forgot how to play.” Derek laughed at the smug grin you were wearing. He only had two cards left. Easily knocking Derek from the game, he joined the side conversation being had in the kitchen as he resigned to another round lost. You turned to Spencer, almost whispering “Looks like it’s just you and me, Doctor.” Spencer looked up from his cards stating, “you sound pretty confident considering your opponent has an eidetic memory and knows the exact order of both our hands.” You stuck your tongue out as you placed your first card. “Not fair.”

 Minutes passed as the game drew on, neither player really making an advance. You yawned as you flipped another card onto the table, losing focus for just a second. Reid recognized the pattern emerging, getting ready to slap after your next card. You forgot to look at the potential for a sandwich, playing your next card. You noticed it a second to late as you slapped your hand down. Spencer beat you too it though, and when your hand landed it was on top of his. You didn’t move at first, shocked to have lost so many cards at once. Spencer was gloating as you picked up his hand and put it on top of yours.

 He finally looked down to see you pulling the cards toward you before jumping up to get them back. You held the cards close to your heart, faking the offense you felt at his suggestion that you would cheat, despite your very obvious cheating. When he reached for the cards, you backed up into the couch, holding them above your head. He knelt over you, leaning forward to reach your outstretched hand, forgetting for just a second that he really didn’t know you at all and being this close should make him uncomfortable.

 You shrieked as he tickled your sides to pull the cards in. He was gloating yet again as he pulled them from your grasp, not realizing how close the two of you had become. The two of you froze yet again as you felt that same magnetic force as earlier pulling you closer as you looked into his eyes. He cleared his through as he sat up, returning to his seat to finish the game. 

The two of you continued the game until you only had a few cards left. “It appears as though your winning streak is quickly coming to an end.” Spencer joked with you, playing a queen. He was clearly trying to ease whatever tension was lingering from your couch experience. You glanced at the cards in the middle of the table. It must have been 45 cards in the pile. You switched tactics to playing the cards as quick as possible to prevent another mistake.

A queen meant playing two cards in a row. You knew you had two sevens in a row in your hand, so you were ready to take him down. You glanced up stating “Rule 1: The Doctor lies.” You stated matter-of-factly as you flipped over your first seven. “Oh, and don’t blink.” You said, playing the second and slapping it before he finished comprehending your two Doctor Who references. You just had an instinctual feeling that Doctor Who would distract him.

 You finished the game with relative ease as the others made their way back into the room. You celebrated as you took the rest of his cards, completing the game and adding another tally to the mental scoreboard you had in your head. As everyone sat back down, you put the cards away. It was now 12:30 in the morning and suddenly you were exhausted. You rose from your seat, putting your coat back on your shoulders. “I should go home” you said, earning stares from everyone.

 “You are completely welcome to stay the night here!” Penelope said as you continued preparing to leave.

 “Thank you, Penelope, but I already feel so much better.” You chanced a glance at Spencer to see him staring right back. “I want to go home and lay in my bed and throw all his stuff out the window. Plus I could really use some fresh air right now.” Everyone started to verbally object now. Sometimes you forgot what Penelope does for a living and how much she’s seen. “No really, I’ll be fine.” You continued, “I live in The City Block, it’s only half a mile from here!” This did nothing to satisfy the worried looks on the five faces staring back at you.

 “That’s on the way to my building.” Spencer stated. “I’ll walk with you, okay?” You looked up, surprised. Slowly a small smile appeared on your face. “Okay.” Somehow that was all you could manage. Everyone said their goodbyes as you and Spencer made your way out of the apartment and started walking down the street.

 tag list:

@mac99martin​ @eevee0722​ @l0ve-0f-my-life @haylaansmi @dinonuggets15

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fluff #Criminal Minds #criminal minds x reader

[away-from-anthills]

chapter eleven-

It became apparent to Antstar near immediately that Whitetooth and Marblepaw weren’t the only ones in the medicine den.

Next to Whitetooth lay Stripedwing. The gray molly seemed well, but even under the cloak of sleep her face looked troubled. Next to her were four small bundles of fur, one of which Marblepaw was tending to.

“What’s going on?” asked Antstar, his breath so low that he wondered if he was just thinking particularly loud.

“I believe I have told you in the past about the matter concerning Stripedwing’s family tree,” began Whitetooth. “For as far back as I or my late mentor can remember, the litters containing such ancestry are quite weak, and have difficulty surviving illness. You may recall that Rainleap and Stripedwing were born in a litter of four, yet only they survived their kithood.”

Antstar nodded, but worry began to dig under his skin like a short-tempered hare. These were Russetfoot’s children!

“They’ve all caught kitten-cough. It appears the other three in the litter- Runningkit, Rustkit, and Wheatkit- are safe and healthy, and Shadeflower is caring for them. But these four… these four, I worry about.”

Suddenly, Whitetooth and Marblepaw at once pricked their ears and pointed their long snouts towards the entrance, where a figure was standing. She was a calico tabby; half of her fur was an off-white color while her back and face were covered in splotches that were mottled orange and liver. She was a naturally rather demure thing, like a particularly thin workhorse, and her pale green eyes were cradled by thick, dark eyebags that had been tinged reddish from discharge.

It was Houndnose. One of the permanent queens.

“Are they alright?” she asked in a hoarse whisper, awkwardly walking forth to inspect. Whitetooth leaned toward her, causing her to back up into herself and arch over. “I cannot say they are. I and my apprentice are giving them all the care we can, but we do not know what will happen to them.”

Whitetooth was usually fairly tall, definitely within the upper half of WindClan’s heights. But their head only met Houndnose’s lower neck. She shot one last long glance at the kittens; her glance slowly lingered and met Antstar’s before she trotted away.

“Poor, feeble thing,” Whitetooth said, solemnly shaking their head. “All she wants in the world is to take care of kits and to be a mother. But every litter she’s had…”

Antstar didn’t need Whitetooth to finish the sentence. Houndnose’s first litter had been born two springs ago. But Dustkit was a stillbirth, and Privetkit and Newtkit slowly, agonizingly succumbed to illness. Her second litter the next year was healthier, but didn’t fare better in the long run, as a fox wound up getting them.

Antstar remembered how Shalestar had asked Houndnose if she truly wanted to continue being a queen after all that. But Houndnose was insistent: Queen life was worth all the heartbreak, all the pain; and her third litter would make it, whenever it would be.

“It must be horrible,” Whitetooth said softly, a true sympathy shining in their teal-green eyes. “Having to watch what happened to your own all over again- and not be able to do a single thing about it.”

They turned to inspect Stripedwing and her kits, and upon assuring themself that the molly and her kits were all in a deep slumber, they turned, in that sort of blank way they were so masterful at, to Antstar.

“I have heard about Stoatslink’s… suspicions, yes.”

“Well.” Antstar stepped back, a touch of incredulousness as he shifted his weight from one side to another. “What in StarClan do you suppose we do?”

Whitetooth squinted slightly before wheeling around to sort a stack of herbs near the back of the main chamber. “You are my leader, Antstar. I follow your command, not the other way around.”

Antstar opened his mouth to protest, but Whitetooth turned, their eye lidded with seriousness. “I do not kill my Clanmates, sir. I am simply the agent by which they join StarClan. If you truly think I’m going to kill Stoatslink on my own volition, you are sorely mistaken.”

Kill? Antstar had said nothing about killing. But in a strange sort of way, his mind was already headed there. And then he blurted out: “I don’t want to be the one to do it!”

“Quiet!” Whitetooth hissed, snapping at their leader. For a second, Antstar glimpsed their long white canines that had gifted them their name, and he was there in Sunningrocks all over again, when that flame-pointed ThunderClan tom had threatened him. Whitetooth’s mouth was very small and slight, and looked nearly invisible when it was shut. But inside- when they opened their mouth… it was nearly all teeth. Teeth that had never been dulled by the wear and tear of warriorship. Teeth that were long but with points so small that if they were to bite into something, nobody would notice but the victim, like hypodermic needles.

Antstar’s eyes darted over to the corner of the medicine den, where Marblepaw was curled up, eyes huge and glimmering with the shine of Whitetooth’s canines.

“You are going to wake her-“ -they gestured to Stripedwing, still asleep- “-if you continue, and the Clan will not understand us. And I know from hearing things that Clan cats have no trouble kicking out leaders if they decide they are no longer worthy. Why, it could be happening right now…”

“Right now?” said Antstar. “What do you mean?” “Not here in WindClan.” They tipped their head back cryptically. “I hear of things.”

“But what do we do?” asked Antstar. “What if- StarClan damn you for making me think of it, but- what if we were to kill him?” “Outside,” said Whitetooth, their tail still flicking towards the sleeping mother and her kits. “Now. Marblepaw-“ -they turned to address their apprentice, who was still hunched over from fear- “you watch Stripedwing and her kits.”

They were on the rim above camp now, the moon across the sky staring straight upon them.

“Well, now. What do we do?”

“Well, what does Stoatslink thinks he knows?”

Antstar tried to flicker back memories of all they had learned about the white tom. He was an analytical sort, yes. But he was stubborn, and seemed to fashion himself a genius. Bull-headed. An intelligent bull? Perhaps. But still one that would charge if he saw a red cape.

“He thinks a non-Clan cat killed Sparkthistle and threw her body in the gorge as cover.”

“Good, good.” Whitetooth’s voice slowly blended into a sort of hypnotic charm as it flowed through the air. “That’s exactly what we need. Here’s what I would propose.”

They stood back and tipped their head up and ears back, as if they were disposing of rotting crowfood, and spoke.

“We can make an example of Stoatslink. He is a family-oriented fellow, but has few friends because of his flaws. If he died-“

“What are you getting at? You think we can openly kill him to ‘make an example’? Are you mad?” Whitetooth looked offended, their nose slightly wrinkling with indignance. “Not openly, you shrew-headed fellow! And, personally, I was never saner than I am now. Listen. You know what happens, when Tatteredstar makes a faulty decision?”

Antstar nodded. Recently, there had been Rosefire. But he hadn’t been the only incident. He remembered that at his first Gathering as a warrior, she had announced that an ill-advised attack on a group of kittypets had killed her deputy. There was a sort of shock at it- he had quite liked seeing the fellow in question at Gatherings when he was an apprentice. And even before that, he remembered hearing from WindClan warriors returning from a Gathering- did you hear Tatteredstar didn’t let SkyClan get the herbs they needed, due to their prey dispute? And a bunch of SkyClan cats died because of it? I have no idea why ThunderClan adores her so much…

“Now. What else would happen shortly after?”

Antstar’s mind floundered at first, but as soon as he considered Tatteredstar’s other habits his mind latched onto something. “…They would attack RiverClan, and get Sunningrocks back.”

“Bravo.” Whitetooth drew back slowly, like he was leading Antstar with a carrot on a string. “A stroke of genius, on her part. In styling a common enemy for all her Clan to be directed towards, at once it removes the eyes from her and it unites the Clan together against this new obstacle. So even if the Clan is divided at her decision- they are swiftly united again by this distraction.” “So what you’re saying is-“

“I know the cats who live just beyond our territory. I would not say they are black of heart, but they are desperate. For food, for shelter… they shall do anything to get their claws on that sort of miscellany. I can arrange with them a deal- some of my medicinal herbs for them to kill Stoatslink, and then we shall throw him into the gorge. Solidify the belief he had in a killer outside the Clans- and then send a patrol to deal with the rogues that shall still be at the border.”

They turned away back into the medicine den, hearing Dewkit weakly cry as she began to stir.

“Think upon my words, Antstar, and consider it for now. If need be- I would consider it a necessary sacrifice to keep our Clan together for the oncoming of no-leaf.”

The last days of late summer slipped by, until autumn arrived in a hazy orange mist one day about a week or two later.

WindClan’s territory had always been at her prettiest in the mist- most of all when the sun still was able to shine through and cradle it with light. The sky above was mostly clear, but pale from its dawn youth. The trees, just slightly tinged with dappled shades of ginger, were practically painted gold by the sun’s light. The last morning stars slowly winked away just beyond the horizon, and the ground was so soaked with dew that WindClan cats nearly appeared to be RiverClan.

Antstar, however, had no time to admire newborn leaf-fall. He and Whitetooth, this morning, were on a mission at dawn. He had told Russetfoot he was helping Whitetooth find herbs, as it was important to do before the plants died out.

Russetfoot had accepted, numbly, his forest-green eyes staring mournfully at a small, freshly buried patch of earth that lay just beyond camp, where the last wildflowers of the season had begun to blossom. But Russetfoot had sighed and gone on with it, announcing names for the dawn patrol- mourning, in WindClan, was rarely ever a public affair.

Whitetooth always had a strange way of moving through the grass. It was almost like a swan: their top half remained still, except for the vague movements of the haunches and the flick of the tail; their legs, however, kicked away wildly beneath them. It was at once graceful and off-putting, as Whitetooth tended to be.

They went along, from the dewy grass to the slick, cold asphalt of the Thunderpath just beyond Mothermouth. They were traveling up it, parallel to the road. Antstar felt nervousness nip at his paws- ever since Rainleap’s death, which in truth had been only a season or so ago although to Antstar it had felt like eons, he had always had second thoughts about crossing roads.

And then Whitetooth stopped. They looked one way, then another, and then slunk across the road, Antstar in tow.

They stopped at a small, craggy cave, which resembled a much smaller version of the Moonstone’s cave- but with no tunnel, and no mystic monolith either. Inside, although it was dark, Antstar could see the silhouettes of a small group of rogues. They were all emaciated, and he tried to keep his distance- he could smell the fleas from here, and it appeared at least one of them had mange.

He heard a snarl and two cats caught his attention. One was a large ginger-and-white molly with patchy fur and scars webbing her shoulders, the other a much smaller, underfed little brown tom with a white underbelly.

“So you haven’t found any prey this morning?” asked the ginger-and-white molly, her voice thick with an accent that Antstar couldn’t place.

The smaller tom shook his head. He was visibly shaking, and his ribs were defined enough that Antstar could count nearly all of them.

“You know, Whimbrel, that this is the eighth straight morning-“ “I don’t want to go out to where the Clans are!” he squeaked, his voice hoarse.

“The Clans?” She scoffed. “You’re scared of the Clans?”

Whimbrel nodded. “I didn’t-“

At once the large patched molly leapt onto Whimbrel. He tried to flee, but there was little time before she was on top of him. She beat him around, as a kit would a moss-ball, and then thrust a thick yellow claw right into his eye. Whimbrel let out a wicked screech of pain.

“That’ll teach you,” she said, giving a crooked smile. Her teeth were cracked, and a few were missing altogether. “You’ve got more to worry about than the Clans, rag-pelt.”

Antstar winced. With no medicine, that eye was going to get infected- and it was already out of the question that Whimbrel would ever see in it again.

And then- speak of herbs- Whitetooth stepped forth, their chest puffed with confidence. “Sisters, brothers! May I see the leader of this fine group? I have a proposition I am willing to make.”

Antstar had no idea how much of Whitetooth’s words were laced with sarcasm, if any of them were. Yet some of the rogues seemed to know Whitetooth already, and acknowledged their presence with a nod. Antstar knew that medics were often entangled with connections to cats outside the Clans, and with each other; he didn’t want to press the matter further than that.

A large, muscly black cat came up to them. He had a sort of youthful swagger about him which was only further punctuated by mischievous yellow eyes and a white spot just above his left lip.

‘Name’s Captain.”

Captain? Fancy name, for a rogue, Antstar thought. He wouldn’t be surprised if this cat had once been a kittypet. Whitetooth nodded and bowed slightly in greeting.

“I and my companion here are willing to arrange a deal with you, provided you are capable of upholding our end of the bargain.”

The ginger-and-white molly from before trod up beside Captain, her hazel eyes clouded with suspicion. “They smell like Clan.”

“I am aware,” Captain whispered in her ear. “Hold on a moment.” He turned back to Antstar and Whitetooth, his gaze smooth. “What is it?” “I will give you enough herbs to last two moons, as well as a position on the edge of our land,” Whitetooth began. Antstar nodded along, not wanting to interfere- or get too close to the rogues, as he watched a yellow tabby tom pry a fat tick from his shoulder. “…So long as you get rid of this rogue that has been bothering us.”

“And you’re sure you’ll hold up this bargain?” asked Captain, leaning forward with interest.

“Certain.” Whitetooth turned to Antstar. “Are you sure you want me to continue?”

For a moment, Antstar’s mind faltered. He thought of Goldenpaw and Milkpaw, who loved their father dearly. Their final apprentice assessments were to be held that quarter-moon. If he continued now… they’d have no parents at their warrior ceremony.

But it had to be done.

By God, it had to be done.

He nodded.

As Whitetooth and Captain got into the specifics- he’s a white tom, rather muscular, face like a bull terrier, yellow eyes- Antstar felt his head swirl with excuses. No, he didn’t- wasn’t going to, rather- kill Stoatslink. It wasn’t his fault. These rogues were going to kill someone anyway, right? And someone had to die to unite the Clan. He hadn’t killed Stoatslink; he didn’t kill Sparkthistle. He spoke no lies- he was solely omitting what he had to in order to keep his Clan safe. And in the long run, turning WindClan on these rogues was the right thing to do, to train them, to compel them to fight and band them together.

His mind stopped. He was at no fault, he decided. This was going to happen any other way.

“We’ll get the job done,” assured Captain, giving Whitetooth a gaze that was almost playfully roguish. Antstar wasn’t entirely sure he trusted him. “Meeting, everyone! Meeting!”

The rogues in the den gathered around the black-furred tom, their gazes wary.

“We have a deal with these two generous Clan fellows. I am aware most Clan cats are heartless bastards,” he jested, “but these two have granted us both part of their territory and medicinal herbs.”

“That’ll be great for Whimbrel’s injury here!” half-heartedly said the patched ginger and white molly. Beside her, Whimbrel was trying to wipe the blood from his face, but the more his paw rubbed the uglier the wound became. He tried harder and harder to stop the bleeding, to soothe himself; but in the end he had made a mess of it, giving up entirely as the blood seeped through his fur.

“It will be,” said Captain, flinching with disgust at the rogue’s injury. “However, we must uphold our half of the bargain. They have asked we… deal with… a white rogue who lives on their territory, who goes by the name Stoat.”

“Oh, that bastard!” said an old, thin black molly with long fangs. “Heard of him! Could have sworn he was a Clan cat, though…”

“We follow what they say, Linsky, and we don’t ask questions.” He turned back to the other rogues. “Tonight, we’ll get rid of him, so we don’t worry about having to do it later. If we all gang up on him, we’ll outnumber him. We’ll set up two groups. Towser here-“ -he indicated the patched ginger and white molly- “-will lead the first group, I’ll lead the second- as we are the best fighters after all, especially in my case.”

A large silvery tabby molly in the group rolled her eyes.

“One group will chase, the other will ambush. He’ll stand no chance. Towser, you’ll have Peg and Scamp with you; you’ll chase him down. I’ll lead the ambush group, which will be myself of course, but also Linsky, Garlic, and Whimbrel. I’ll kill the cat, of course, as I have special experience and tact-“

“You don’t,” growled the silvery tabby.

“Peg, you must have forgotten my run in with the ShadowClan patrol a few moons ago. You see, there were five of them, and one-“

“Let us leave,” said Whitetooth. “They’ll take most of it from here. And I have a queen and kits I must care for, especially after poor Mousekit’s death the other day.”

The day seemed to take forever.

Antstar felt like he was going to vomit every time he caught sight of Goldenpaw and Milkpaw. Even though he had mostly trained himself now into accepting that Stoatslink’s sealed fate was fixed, and that he had no true hand in it, his gut disagreed with his brain.

What would be, would be.

He took solace in Whitetooth’s confidence, at least- if that’s what you could call it. Nothing about the pale-furred medic seemed to indicate any sense of wrongness, or even that something different was about to occur that night. Hell, ever since even before Sparkthistle had died, they had looked the same way; acted the same way.

Medics were close to StarClan- and if Whitetooth hadn’t been smote down by StarClan themselves the last time they had visited the Moonstone and trod upon StarClan’s own divine territory, Antstar had to be fine.

Goldenpaw and Milkpaw, meanwhile, seemed to be having a fairly average day. The wound Goldenpaw had received in the massive Sunningrocks battle had nearly healed, although it left a scar that twisted and snaked around her flank and leg like a tangled vine. It had been her first hunting patrol since, as Whitetooth had only released her from their care the other night. She was the only moor runner apprentice, now. Twigpaw had moved on to his tunneler training after he had gotten the basics of hunting and fighting, and Shadeflower’s litter had graduated. Antstar wondered if the small catch she brought- only a small, scrawny whinchat- had to do with the lack of recent training since the injury, or the fact she had no competition she could brag about her catch to.

Coalclaw had been on the hunting patrol also, his face seemingly-permanently twisted into what Antstar could only describe to himself as something between numbness and far-off horror. Rockscratch, who was the one who had dragged the dark gray tabby along, had hoped that a hunting patrol would lift Coalclaw’s spirit and “get him back into a fightin’ mood”, but Coalclaw seemed almost too dazed to catch prey, even missing out on a rather clumsy red grouse that his sister Spiderfoot caught without even having to think about it. At one moment, Coalclaw was able to catch a young hare that had been chased around to him by the other members in the patrol; but as soon as he was told to clamp down on its neck and kill it, he started to cry in an ugly, desperate way, and yet again Spiderfoot had to finish the job for him. It’s only a hare, his patrol members told him, it’s only a hare, they are living but they are our food and they live through us, but he could not stop crying and staring into the crimson of its blood, and eventually Webwhisker had had to bring Coalclaw early, where he resumed his usual position sitting at the edge of camp towards sunset; still as a stone but haunted by something within.

“Something’s wrong with him,” Rockscratch said, with an air of sympathy but also a slight twinge of annoyance, like he was inspecting a tear in a well-loved coat of his. “We have to figure out how to fix it. I quite liked how he used to be.”

Milkpaw, meanwhile, was quite successful as a tunneler. While traditionally, a tunneler’s job was dependent on hearing, a trait Milkpaw lacked, her other senses brought a new understanding to the job. She could not hear, but her eyesight was excellent even in the thick, clammy darkness of the tunnels, and she had a sense of motion in the ground that only the finest tunnelers could really tap into. It was understood that tunnelers had longer training periods than their above-ground counterparts, but tunnelers generally got their warrior names around the time they had learned all of the basics and not when their training had truly finished. A tunneler’s leaning never ends,they reasoned when asked about why, as it was rather silly to everyone else.

That’s what terrified Antstar the most. The warrior ceremony. If Stoatslink really was to die, those two would have neither of their parents at their warrior ceremony. He supposed he knew how it felt to not have any parents to begin with… but to have them, and lose them, was a cruelty Antstar felt like he’d never really comprehend, just as he never had anything to say to Russetfoot’s wild grief about his children slowly beginning to slip away.

He didn’t want to cause that. Goldenpaw and Milkpaw had done nothing wrong. The idea of naming his victim’s children made him sick.

But he reminded himself. It wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t him; it could never be him. The rogues by the Moonstone were going to be a problem. Perhaps some wandering patrol would run into them; even worse, perhaps they would see the medicine cats entering Mothermouth as a threat. They were going to kill some cat eventually. And he didn’t make the deal, nor did he tip them off- that had been Whitetooth. All he had been was there, due to absolutely nothing besides Fate and her wicked talons.

And he couldn’t simply expose Whitetooth, no. Whitetooth was the sole trained medic in WindClan; it would be a few moons before Marblepaw could even think about what her medic name might be. A Clan without a medic would be a death sentence, especially in the coming no-leaf season. And Whitetooth might turn on Antstar, which really wouldn’t be good for anyone.

Besides- as much as he felt wrong for admitting it, as much as he knew Whitetooth was a killer- he only truly felt calm, or perhaps the closest thing he knew to calm, by the white-and-brown cat’s side. There was something about their rich, dark voice; their eyes with pupils nearly always slit like a pocketknife had cut through the teal surface; their silent steps, their confidence. It wasn’t a romantic attraction, no. But it was like they were two souls, bound together by the limbs and thrown over the river; each pushing the other towards a direction only Hell and Heaven knew of.

The day was slow, but the night came quick.

“Stoatslink,” said Antstar as he approached the bullish white tom- he tried to sound confident- “I need to tell you about something. About what you said, regarding… you know.”

Stoatslink said no words, but nodded. At once he understood.

Thought he understood, rather.

“There’s a pack of rogues on the border,” Antstar began, his voice weary and hesitant like the first frost of a season. “I don’t know how many there are. But I am nearly certain they are the ones that may have killed Sparkthistle. You were right, Stoatslink.”

There was a moment of idle hesitation, and Antstar could see Stoatslink’s expression flicker between horror at the suggested reality and a strange, smug sort of pride.

“I’ll kill them,” the white tom grumbled. “I’m run them straight through. Nobody messes with WindClan. By the time I’ll be done with them, you won’t be able to tell they were ever feline.”

Antstar hoped to God and back that Stoatslink’s death would be quick, and that Captain’s group knew what they were doing. He knew he himself couldn’t take the white tom on in a fight- especially not with this attitude.

“That is why I want you, and you alone, to watch over the camp tonight. I hardly expect they’ll attack us. But just in case- I want you to sound the alarm.”

“Only me?” Stoatslink scoffed. His breath smelled like dried hare meat. “But what if they do attack?”

“Then the Clan will know about it,” continued Antstar. “And if the Clan knows about it, they’ll panic.”

“Rightfully so! They-“

“Do you want your daughters to live in fear or not!?!” Antstar yelled in a whisper. He realized he had never felt his voice go harsh like that before- at least, not since he had been a moody kit in the nursery.

But it was effective. Stoatslink backed down. His mouth opened up, as if another word had to escape his snout- and then, sensing he had no argument to speak of, it clicked shut like a music box with no coil left.

“I’ll do what I can, Antstar. And trust me- if they approach, the rogues won’t stand a chance.”

Antstar watched as the white tom sauntered away. He tended to sway about when he walked, like a basset hound; but from the way his shoulder blades perked up Antstar could see the purpose burning in his brain. Then, another white figure approached- Whitetooth, as smooth as ever. Antstar watched as the white cat took Stoatslink aside- or, really, rather just brushed him near, effortlessly; like a breeze guiding leaves. They whispered something in Stoatslink’s ear and threw a few glances.

This was all part of the plan. Whitetooth would convince the ever-bullish Stoatslink that Antstar was being too nice, that Antstar was underestimating him, and rile him up into a fury against these rogues. That way, Stoatslink would charge when he saw them, not caring to alert the Clan in a false belief he could manage on his own- and, therefore, charge into his own death.

It was a simple plan.

It was an awful thing to know.

It had to be done. For WindClan.

Perhaps Whitetooth sensed Antstar’s doubt. For as soon as Stoatslink set off, his vision cloaked in red, they slunk up to their leader and sat next to them, only for a moment whispering something into Antstar’s flattened ear:

“Rest assured, Antstar, this is needed. All of it is. You are doing what you can to keep your clan safe. Elsewise… evil would prosper in your failure.”

#warrior cats #warrior cats ocs #story #FINALLy

[war--lords]

sorry i’ve been gone for so long i have a full-time job and other hobbies that i am deeply obsessed with... here have some fluff

Female pronouns for Reader

Fact one: In the past three days, Nobunaga can’t find you in the places you frequent around the castle, and at the end of the day, finds the tenshu empty. By dusk you are usually in his room, but these nights he finds you coming back after him. “Oh, just taking care of some stuff,” you would say.

Fact two: He misses you.

Perhaps it isn’t in his character to admit that so openly to you, what with his moniker being the “Devil King” and all, but he knows you know better—honesty has always been a key in your relationship, and it was the fact that he knew you were from 500 years in the future that drew him closer to you. Yes, he’ll tell you he misses you, but not before dealing out the proper punishment for failing to pay attention to him.

(Maybe he’s not being entirely honest after all, because he calls it punishment even when the both of you enjoy it. And as much as you’d squirm and reprimand him for teasing you so...)

Enough, he chides himself mentally. The lack of quality time with you has driven his mind to rely on fantasy, but that needs to change today. Today, he declares independence from the stack of paperwork on his desk and dedicates his working hours to looking for you—within the castle grounds or in town, if he must. He can already hear Hideyoshi scolding him at the back of his mind and scoffs.

As if that could stop him.

Nobunaga’s first stop is the hall where the seamstresses usually work.

“She left but moments ago, my lord,” says one of the elderly, working to get her thread in the eye of the needle. “To the kitchen, said she needed help to procure some food items.” 

“Speaking of, she did the same yesterday. And the day before, if I remember correctly,” another seamstress chimes in. “And it’s around this time too.”

“I wonder if she’s also helping out there. Our lady has always been so eager to assist!”

Thanking the ladies for the information, Nobunaga exits the hall to make his way to the kitchen, leaving the staff giggling and cooing at how sweet the two of them are together.

At an hour so close to lunch, the castle kitchen is teeming with life. Nobunaga’s face is hit with the aromatic smells of various dishes—it seems they’re about to be served mushroom and meat stew, a season-appropriate dish—as well as smoke and the sounds of commanding voices and hurried footsteps carrying the orders out. A cooking battlefield.

Blue enters his peripheral and he turns to look at a corner. Masamune is taste-testing something out of an iron pot simmering atop a fire, offering some of his comments to the chef standing next to him before sprinkling in some other ingredients into the pot.

“Lord Nobunaga,” Masamune says, grinning at the Oda patriarch’s approach. The chef standing next to him looks surprised at the very least, echoing the greeting with a deep bow. Masamune swiftly swipes a sample of the brewing broth of a wooden spoon and offers it to him with a “careful, it’s hot”. 

Nobunaga holds the spoon in his hand and sips, nodding his approval. “I was told I could find ___________ here.”

“The lass? Right, she was here.”

Nobunaga clicks his tongue at the use of past tense.

“Was she helping out with lunch preparations?”

Masamune shakes his head, adding what seems to be a pinch more salt into the pot. “Asked for some leftovers, actually—last night’s steamed fish. Put it in a neat little box and was gone as quickly as she arrived.”

“She asked for her food to be packed, as well.” The chef next to Masamune supplies.

Was she going somewhere? Nobunaga muses, deep in thought. His lover might be perplexing, but sharp as he is, he has some sort of clue as to what is happening. 

“I see. Did anyone see which way she was heading?”

Another young man chopping up some scallions in his work station put his knife down and pointed to the right of the kitchen entrance. “To the garden thereabouts, perhaps, my lord,” he answers, before he dutifully goes back to his job. 

“Thank you. In that case I shall have my food to go as well.”

“Right away, my lord!”

Masamune chuckles. “Didn’t know you guys like playing cat and mouse.”

Something clicks in Nobunaga’s mind. That had to be it.

“Yes, well, I didn’t know either,” comes his offhanded response, the beginnings of a smile on his lips. 

When he finally finds you, you are sitting under a maple tree in the freshly trimmed garden, the red of autumn forming a beautiful canopy above you. He sees a lacquered lunchbox in your hand, and in front of you, just at arm’s length, is another box...

...being devoured wholeheartedly by three kittens of varying coats.

“There you are,” he says as he approaches. You look startled for a split second, perhaps associating the gardens with a place that nobody ever frequents, before the expression melts into the very smile he’s smitten with.

“Nobunaga!” You look pleased with a tinge of confusion. “How rare of you to dine outside.”

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” he confesses as he sits down next to you, not minding the grass on his kimono and haori, “and upon finding out that you’ve decided to eat out, I decided to join you.”

“I’m sorry, did you come look for me in the kitchen?”

“And the seamstresses’ hall before that.”

You look extremely apologetic he almost feels bad. He leans forward. You get the message and peck him on the lips. 

“Sorry.”

“One more, and then you’re forgiven.”

“Mm, okay,” you murmur, smiling into the kiss, your lunchbox forgotten despite holding it in your hands. This one lasts longer, what with your lover’s hand at the back of your head, ordering you to stay, and when he swipes his tongue on your bottom lip you feel the beginnings of a moan bubbling at the top of your throat—oh, you’re in public—

He’s the first to pull away, a devious smirk on his face. “Your food will grow cold.”

Pouting, you begrudgingly start eating again.

“So this is where you’ve been the past few days?” He asks, unraveling the cloth that wraps his food container while staring at three fuzzy rumps an arm’s length away. The kittens, all of which are variants of white, orange, and black, look ravenous, not even caring that another person has entered the vicinity. He spots the remnants of steamed fish in the box.

“Yes,” you answer, all smiles as you look at the kittens, and then once more that expression morphs into a realization that you’ve been spending less time with him, which perfectly explains him seeking you out. “Oh, Nobu, I didn’t mean to.”

He begins eating his meal. “You could have told me.”

“Well, yes, but I felt like that would’ve finalized my attachment to them,” you say, finishing your meal (you started earlier, after all). “I’ve been watching them and waiting for their mother to perhaps come back, but it’s been three days...”

One of the kittens, the one with orange and black on the tips of its ears, comes hobbling at you with little legs, meowing in thanks. Your smile turns to a chuckle when it climbs into your lap, insistently pawing and leaning its head into your palm when you reach to pet it.

He watches as you pet it gently, the kitten seemingly wanting more scratches and strokes each time that you have to concede. A wry smile takes over his face as he continues with his meal. “Perhaps its mother left them here knowing they will be well cared for.”

You blink in surprise. “Nobunaga, are you saying we can—”

“No.”

“Why?” you whine.

“I’m smart enough not to invite any competition for your attention within my quarters.”

Understanding dawns upon you and you find your arms around his shoulders, kissing his neck repeatedly so as to not disturb his meal. The poor man... getting jealous over some kittens because you’ve been looking after them for the last few days. When you’ve administered the last kiss on his throat, hoping to appease him, you look up to see his eyes boring into yours, a planning smile on his face. You catch on, and smile back, hoping to look at least half as alluring as he.

“I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“Good,” he replies curtly. “When that happens... I’ll make sure it’ll be impossible for you to think about anything else.”

The incessant meowing, cute as they are, dissolves the sexual tension between the two of you, as another kitten makes its way bravely on top of Nobunaga’s calf, its beady eyes making it look like it’s pleading. Good sir? Have you come to feed us, too?

You see a softness in Nobunaga’s eyes that indicates he’s finally understood what you felt. The man uses his chopsticks to fish out a piece of meat and hovers it right in front of the kitten’s face, allowing the tiny feline to snatch it out of the utensil’s grasp and straight into its mouth.

“The staff will be informed of these little ones and help take care of them,” he declares, “of course you are free to do so as well.” Just don’t neglect me again, you can hear that last unspoken bit through the way he gazes at you. You smile at him gratefully and sigh, feeling like the luckiest person in the world. When else do you get to see Nobunaga acting all soft and playing with kittens?

Leaning forward again, you kiss him on the cheek.

“Thank you.”

He brushes your lip with his thumb and you suppress a shiver down your spine—now is hardly the time to think of that. You lean your head on his shoulder.

“Shall we name them?”

(Haguro flies in the scene five minutes later, scaring the kittens initially, but it’s clear that much like his owner, he’s just jealous and wants some pets.)

#nobunaga #oda nobunaga #nobunaga x reader #ikemen sengoku #reader insert #scenario #imagine #imagines #ikesen #cybird #fluff #female reader #fem reader

[cyclicalaberration]

Naught But A Fool In The Body Of A God

(Gore + existentialism warning) A foolish gamers... character study? I think?

Totems were funny things. Made of gold and emerald, looking both very much and not at all like their creator. You could go your entire life never seeing one of them. It is a rare person who needs to to face a powerful and dangerous raid, or to track down a mansion, all of which are filled to the brim with Illagers, just to get lucky and catch an Evoker off guard.

Totems are particular about who they save, seeming to despise their own holders. Evokers almost always held one, but they couldn’t seem to use them.

They seem almost heretical, as though Death herself is only tolerating their presence. She does not seem the type to let a method of escape slide. Though, she is simply a collector, and totems can only be used once. Perhaps she created them, to give some sense of hope as she waited at the finish line, merely extending the bridge into the void.

That is not the case, however. The creator was a young god then, full of spite and bloodlust. He carved them in his image, gave them to those who followed him through lava and storms, across oceans and land. He was not a god of death but a god of dying, a conglomerate of souls of those slaughtered in his name. He is of much the same stock as gods of war and blood, power growing from violence and destruction.

He was older, though. Older than the concept of war. War implies thought behind destruction, implies plans. Dying is a natural aspect of life. Everyone is dying, ever so slowly. He was an intermediary, an active force on the field of Death, who, for all those who fear her, is quite passive.

You, most likely, do not fear death. You cannot, for you do not know what awaits you in her loving embrace. You fear dying. Your last breath leaving your body, laying still, moving for the very last time, thinking your very last thought. You fear the unknown and the end, the change. You do not know what comes after death and that strikes fear into your heart. You do not know what it is like to take your last breath, and that haunts you.

This young god, so new and so primordial, hunted. If he stopped moving, stopped hunting, stopped killing, he’d fade away and die. He sent his followers to hunt, to pillage, his need for souls insatiable. They hunted, and they warped, skin greying and eyes darkening. They began to shift from human to something else, something other. Infused with his power, they hunted, leading groups to hunt down more sacrifices to their god.

He grew in power, grew in strength. Death herself watched, for he was just like his creations. He was a totem, serving a greater power. He was sculpted from gold, inlaid with emerald eyes, given the wings of all her favored creatures, and he engraved himself with stories of his past, his triumphs, his losses, things he wanted to hold close to him forever.

--

Blood runs through the canals of those engravings, a trident plunging into the chest of the next breathing mortal, and the god, whose name has been long since lost, laughs. Another one came for him, not learning the lesson of its companion, and a sword is driven through their heart, buried up to the hilt, freed moments later by the golden flames eating at its nervous system, reduced to ash in seconds. He brushes them away as one would brush away eraser shavings.

Bodies lay strewn across the field when he’s finished, a one-sided war, headed by a mortal he’s already forgotten, over some sin he no longer cares to remember.

A chuckle rings out from behind him, and he whirls, sword drawn. “That’s quite the display.”

They were half-buried in a fog, extremities concealed in the mist that he knows for a fact wasn’t there. Their eyes glow with hunger, with spite, with a thousand emotions he couldn’t even begin to untangle. It hurts to look them in the eyes too long.

“A lot of flair for some bodies nobody will even see. Nobody but me, of course.”

“What can I say, I’m an artist.”

“Or a zealot.”

“What’s the difference? You won’t have the breath to tell anyone.” He swings his sword, runes glowing. Whoever they are, they will soon be ash, soaked by their own fog, as fire eats them from the inside out.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. My father wouldn’t be happy, he’s not nearly as forgiving as me.” He whirls again, seeing white eyes and a ruffled shirt, mere feet from his face, leaning back against nothing. He gets the feeling that they’re looking at him, truly looking at him, and he chokes, breaking his gaze away from swirling, dancing white, blank but never empty.

“How-”

“Foolish, that’s what you are. A fool.” The mortal- No, they are not mortal. No mortal stares a god in the eyes and calls him a fool. “Why do you fight?”

--

His companion smirks at him. He grins right back, rows of teeth glinting in the light of the enchanted blades. Centuries of fighting together made them a well practiced dance, a machine of blood and souls. Three arrows pierce the hearts of the guards, falling wordlessly from their towers. That’s all the warning they get. Before the night is out, blood flows so thick it sits for years, soaking the wood and drowning the now-ashen grass.

His companion’s footsteps wither and rot the wood on which they stand, warping it beyond recognition. They work their way to the center of the fortress, people charging to their deaths, impaled, sometimes, by naught but the thorny whips of their enchanted armor.

The stone crumbles beneath their feet, and the god would feel the effects, if he were not himself a statue, life breathed into him by the very goddess who steals it, made of pure gold, which doesn’t tarnish, doesn’t decay. Tapestries crumble to dust as his companion runs their hand along them. The god tosses a mortal to the side, its body lying crumpled, its soul buzzing as he adds it to his own. Another voice layered over his own, another voice to buzz with every angry word.

His companion grips a guard by their chin and laughs as it crumbles to dust beneath their hands.

The general of the army falls, and they dance in the blood of their enemies, spin in the blood of their victims. The hem of the smaller god’s dress sprays droplets of blood as they twirl, the god of dying laughing as his friend grabs his hands, dancing in victory, in elation, in completion. They propel themself into the air and spin him. They move as a unit, as they did in the heat of battle.

Later, the god will sit, stare at his companion, and say “You once asked me why I fight.” That day is not today. Today they will both fight, dance in the blood of their enemies, and move on, the fortress a shell of its former self, growing over with vines, breaking apart.

--

Two gods, a god of dying and a god of withering and ash, rest in a small village on the bank of a river. The withering god rests against a tree, long ago struck with lightning, telling a story to the village children, as the god of dying laughs, interrupting them with his own commentary on just how comically wrong they’re telling it.

It has been decades since they drew first blood, traveling for weeks at a time, collecting, remembering, rather than destroying. Fights found them, of course, mobs never learn, but fewer mortals have fallen to their stained hands in the past century than in their best year previous.

They still delight in the occasional bloodbath, if the chance arises, but as the world shifts towards calm, they drift away from senseless slaughter and towards traveling.

They pass by cities, or the ruins of what once were, and they ask themselves, “Was that our doing?” and they do not know, hundreds of civilizations having fallen to their blades, their arrows, and their fire.

But they sit, ancient, immortal warriors, telling stories to children, their hands still caked in more blood than these children will ever see.

Later, the god of dying will say to his companion: “I fight because destruction is control. Nothing exists that I cannot destroy, nothing exists that I cannot control,” but that day is not today. Today they laugh at incorrect accounts of tales they experienced, true histories lost, new memories formed. Today the god of withering and ash closes their eyes, and the god of dying makes the skies dance with light for the descendants of people they long-ago killed.

Later they will reflect. Today they will reminisce.

--

Two gods part ways, on a mission from Death. They will meet again, but it will not be the same. The god of dying, of storms, and of the ocean and all that that entails smiles down on his old friend, their white eyes glowing with hundreds of memories.

“I’ll see you soon, Old Pal.”

“See you soon.” They turn down different roads, one a path of explosions, of wars, of power-grabs and monarchies, and one down a path of self-reflection.

Their paths take them to the same destination: Redemption. Neither take the same road there, and neither path is straight, but it never is. And redemption is a place not easily found, but easily lost, easy to slip back into old ways for moments at a time, on a godly timescale.

The god of dying takes the name Foolish, a reminder of his past. He arrives in a strange land, full of holes and trauma and death. The place reeks of hubris. It makes him sick. It makes him hungry. The hunger curls in his stomach and the stench gives him a sickening headache, so he runs. Runs far away, and he builds.

Builds for control, builds for stability. Builds are his one constant, gigantic pyramids and sculptures and he can’t stop. His temple expands. A man, a man he has seen, a man who feels like too much and too little, too much in one body, a vacuum and a black hole, asks him for a kingdom. Simple enough. A child approaches him, telling him to build a mansion, a mansion larger than a country, for him, his husband and their son. He will be paid. He is not paid nearly enough.

--

A demon, a cat, and a not-quite-human man encroach on his summer home. They reek of vines and death, and Foolish loses his composure. They doubt his power. They threaten his home and he smiles with too many teeth and grows, grows to his full size. His eyes glow. They taunt him, threaten him.

“I’m a peaceful man, Ponk. But if I must defend myself, I can.”

“Defend yourself against this, then, Foolish.” Ponk hurls a trident at him, glancing off him, a mortal not strong enough to pierce his skin. He’s a fool, more a fool than the man who took it as his name. That is his weapon, carved of prismarine and ivory, more his domain than any other. For a moment, the god tastes blood.

“I may be a totem of undying, but in the past, I have been a totem of death.” He calls power to his fingertips, lightning in his eyes. “It’s not just one thing, Ponk. It's never just one thing. Have you ever tasted lightning? Smelt the ozone in the air, seen it dance across your skin before you black out from the pain?”

“Do you see where we are, Foolish?” In Ponk’s mind, the name is fitting. He has never seen a storm called from nothing before. Never seen a storm called at all, only harnessed. He disbelieves.

“It does not matter. A sunny day does not matter.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Let me show you.” He smiles, rows of teeth bloodied with the lives of thousands, millions of mortal souls. His voice layers, thousands of voices, screaming to be heard. The crack of lighting lands mere feet from the three. “Now begone from this place, and I don’t ever want to see you here again, am I clear?”

The vines must be resolved. The egg continues to hunger, but he has hope, hope that there is a piece of mortal soul left in them, a piece of morality that wishes to be free. He does not give up hope.

--

The gods’ paths cross again in a city, the totem and the king. A city drowning in red, twisting, oozing vines, calling out for blood. They spend hours weeding, burning red vines and laughing. His friend no longer flies, his friend hides their once-beautiful eyes, but they’re the same. They do not remember him, but they are the same.

“Foolish, have I ever shown you my eyes?” Of course they have, and he says as much. “I’m going to show you again, just in case.” Their eyes dance, with confusion and worries, and a deep-seated fear of rejection.

“Yeah, that’s the Eret I’m thinking of! The one with white eyes, the one with the netherite armor!” Foolish looks concerned, but this is nothing that they can’t fix. They’ve fought armies together, a few missing memories aren’t going to make him give up on them.

They attend a banquet. They dance for the first time in centuries, spinning in circles to the music played by that infernal catmaid. They attend a banquet and it goes south, hard, as all parties attended by gods do. It goes south and he makes use of his totem nature, wrapping around their heart, taking their place. They will not die to the monstrous egg before they get to dance together, and reminisce.

Soon, the god will say to his old friend, that he builds to replace. He builds to counteract the destruction he caused, and it will not replace the lives lost, but it adds something new, something beautiful to this harsh reality, but that is not the truth. The truth is, he creates for the same reason he destroyed.

--

Soon a mortal man in a cardboard mask will tell him that he let him die. Soon, he will be taunted by a mortal man, full of hubris, who says that his builds mean nothing, are nothing, bring nothing to the world, and a part of him will think the mortal man is right. A part of him whispers that he is selfish. That his ways are wrong. That he must pick up the sword once again, bleed mortals for their souls.

He will shove that part deep inside, and he will remind the man that no good comes of blood. He will tell the man that he too once believed that death was the answer, death would give control, but he will tell the man that he was wrong, and that he will be too.

You either die a monster, vengeful and wicked, or you grow. You adapt, you create, you reconcile. Some may never forgive, but many will. Mortals only get one lifetime, he must make the most of it.

He will not say that though. He will sit up against the side of his sphynx and sew hundreds of thousands of tiny dolls, breathing life into each one, giving each one a small hard hat and a job, so he will never be alone. He will build, children safe in the ender cradle, and he will give himself time to think. He will stop moving, for one moment, and he will not die. He may be the god of the seas, but he is not a shark. He keeps moving, a perpetual motion machine, purely out of fear of what his own thoughts bring, and he truly lives up to the name given to him so long ago. Foolish. For he is naught but a fool in the body of a god.

#Foolish Gamers #Foolish G #dsmp foolish #dream smp #dream smp fic #Foolish gamers fic #dsmp #dsmp eret #eret #Eternal duo #ponk #dsmp ponk #Anyway I'd love it if you could reblog? It'd make me really happy #and I love seeing y'all's comments #mic writes #< keep forgetting to use that tag f

[imnotwolverine]

The Wolves Return - Part 4

<Part 3 | Part 5 > 

Summary: Evil is looming and old memories are blooming in the keep of Kaer Morhen. 

Word count: 2005 (7 min read) 

Disclaimer: old and brittle Jaskier, dementia, blood and gore, a melancholic Geralt (but also a touch of fluff stuff) 

Author’s note: Sorry for being MIA my loves! Life’s been crazy busy with long workdays and social events (FINALLY). So writing was kinda pushed on the backburner. Hope you enjoy this one ❤

--

‘Remember that time in Velen, Geralt?’ Jaskier’s voice sounded brittle with age. 

Geralt looked up at Jaskier. His friend no longer talked as much like he used to. With thoughtful blue eyes the bard looked out over the vines that outstretched the autumnal valley of Corvo Bianco. Their shared home for some time now. 

Geralt sighed. 

‘Which time is that? The one when I saved your ass from the Duchess?’

Jaskier squinted, as if thinking. ‘No no. The time..The..’ He started to fling about his hands as if searching for words. ‘The one time I had nearly eloped with the butcher’s daughter, remember that? The one in..’

‘You mean the time you told me you’d be a father?’

‘Yes..’ Jaskier's voice quieted. ‘Oh Geralt!’

‘What’s that, Jaskier?’ 

Jaskier remained silent until yet another of his bloody coughs came up. With a bony hand he raised a kerchief to catch the red stains that had parted from his lungs. 

Geralt gritted his teeth. It was all going so fast all of a sudden. His lifelong friend whom he had travelled up and down the Trail with, would soon be no more. Jaskier’s hair had gone grey years ago. And his once nimble fingers no longer played the songs they used to. Which, for a time, had been pleasant, Geralt had to admit that. 

Looking at the slumped form that was his friend, the Witcher felt his heart crumple with fear. He didn’t like goodbye’s. Never had. But he knew that with the falling leaves and the arrival of winter, the days were growing shorter for his friend, too. 

It felt too soon. 

‘I’m a father.’ Jaskier let the bloodied kerchief fall to his lap. ‘Ha..’ Jaskier’s lips turned into a little smile. ‘She must be nearly grown now.’ 

Geralt tried to smile along. The unsteady motion of his heart was however difficult to contain. Jaskier had been with his daughter for years, but the way he spoke of her made it feel like his friend could no longer remember. Like he couldn’t remember many things now.

 ‘Well, let's hope she’s not as talented at getting herself into trouble as her father was.’

Jaskier sucked in his lips, breathing deeply. His blue eyes had watered up as he watched two swallows duck down from the trees. They remained low, meaning cooler weather or perhaps even a storm would come. 

‘I should’ve been there for her.’ Jaskier said, sitting back up stiffly. 

‘Jaskier..’

‘No Geralt. I mean even you. In fact YOU. You’ve raised a kid. And what type of vivacious, vibrant young woman that has become!’

It made Geralt think. As the day came to an end, the bugs drew out from their sanctuaries, though today they didn’t fly high like usual. Geralt’s eyes followed the swirls and dives of the swallows as they feasted on their bounty. Swallows.. Hmm.. Ciri. Cirilla. Zireael. His little swallow. He wasn’t sure what to say in that moment as his friend slowly pushed himself up from the stone bench they’d been sitting on. With cracking bones Jaskier hoisted himself up by his walking stick. Should he tell Jaskier he had been a good father? Geralt couldn’t know. He had not been there at that time. Not for many years. He had not even met Jaskier’s daughter.

In a swift move Geralt stood up as well, arm reaching out to support Jaskier where he could. And then yes..Ciri. Watching the swallows up above, he thought of his own adoptive daughter. He had not heard of Ciri in some years now, either. Nor had he heard of Yen. 

Looking at Jaskier beside him, he wondered how well he’d do all alone. 

‘Well Jaskier. We both are fathers. And we have tried our best every day.’ 

Jaskier looked up, blue eyes lighting up with curiosity. ‘Me? Goodness Geralt..-’ Jaskier halted as his body started to rack up another bloody cough. The white kerchief was hit with a dark red gob of spit, before it was duly returned to a pocket. 

Geralt watched and silently inhaled the scent. The scent of looming death. As if it would help, he held onto Jaskier a little more tightly. 

Jaskier sighed wearily and tapped at Geralt’s paw, that was just about death gripping his arm. ‘Geralt..Geralt..Promise me one thing Geralt.’ 

Geralt released his grip. 

‘Treat her like you would have me.’

--

Palewhite was Isabella’s face as her finger pointed at the other side of the room. High up above, where the dark wilderness loomed through narrow windows, fluttered a crowd of dark shadows. Crows. Bats. Or something of the like. 

With little thuds the animalistic shadows started bumping into the glass panes, willing the windows to break. 

‘What the..’ Eskel gripped for his sword, and not far behind was Geralt who swivelled around with an awkward stagger, hand gripping for the nearest sword rack where some old swords were hung for decoration. 

‘Speak Isabella.’ Geralt growled beneath his breath. ‘Did you bring these?’ 

‘WHAT? No!’ Isabella started to furiously shake her head, eyes wild. ‘No, no..I..’ She pressed herself into a wall. ‘It wasn’t me I swear!’ 

Eskel squinted his eyes. ‘Transmutation you think?’ Eskel asked, studying the beasts that were now flying larger bouts so they could drive themselves with more force into the windows. 

‘Like fuck..’ Geralt sighed, feet shuffling to find a more comfortable stance. Above them the windows started to groan with the pressure. Dust was falling down. And not long after the inevitable break of one, became the breaking of many. Like crystal rain the windows shattered, shortly followed by a cloud of flapping wings. 

Behind the witchers, Isabella cried louder. ‘Not again!’ She cried. 

‘Again?’ Eskel slashed into the air, trying to keep the bat-like creatures at bay. ‘You best not be --’ He swiped right. ‘telling us you have ANYTHING to do with--’ He caught one with his hand and squeezed it to mush between his thick fingers. ‘this.’ 

On his left, Geralt was slashing with less grace, but more annoyance. Short, jagged motions hit and killed and before long a pile of beady eyed creatures had piled up on the keep’s stone floor. 

Outside the windows a strange voice called, but no more than two of the creatures managed to escape the Witchers’ assault. Flapping furiously they raced until there was nothing left but the carcasses of those that had been slain. 

Eskel tipped one of the leathery black creatures around with his shoe. It was shin-length and beneath all the black blood that was spouting from its innards, it looked like a regular, though slightly too large, bat. 

‘Start talking young lady.’ Geralt snarled. 

Isabella shuffled uneasily, eyes looking for the exits that were too far away to escape to. ‘I …’ She inhaled sharply. ‘There was this man at the inn. I thought he was one of youse. You know. Big ol’ armor, some Witcher-y necklaces on, swords on his back. We drank..and..’ She cleared her throat. ‘spoke of nothing special really. The weather and such.’ 

‘Necklaces? Plural?’ Eskel asked.

‘Yes.’ 

Eskel started to wipe the blood off his sword, frowning. ‘And they looked like Witcher necklaces?’ 

‘I think so. One of them looked like yours.’ 

Eskel shot her a warning glance, to which Isabella scowled even further back up into the wall. 

‘So he’s not one of yours then.’ She mumbled.

‘Did he follow?’ 

‘Of course not. I..I got too drunk. I slept for the whole day after, then the inn keeper warned me about the weather. That I best be on my way. So then I went..and..but..there was nobody. I swear. There was nobody else out.’ Isabella looked at Geralt, who had folded his arms in silent judgement. 

‘I swear! It was raining cats and dogs! I wasn’t followed!’ 

‘Hmm.’ 

Eskel cleared his throat. ‘I’m going to check out what’s going on. You stay here with this one.’ He pointed at Geralt before leaving the hall. 

Geralt clicked his tongue, yellow eyes looking out into the broken windows. ‘You’re not telling us everything little bird.’ 

Isabella looked down at her feet. ‘I’m sorry. I really didn’t think I was followed..’ She brushed away a tear. ‘My father’s maps weren’t really clear anyway. Got lost and all.’ 

Geralt kept his eyes up and out to the windows, so Isabella continued with another sniffle. 

‘I’m sorry Geralt. I really am.’ 

Finally his gaze lowered. He looked disappointed. 

‘I’ll leave -’ Isabella said, sighing and sniffling. 

‘Did this man have a name?’ 

‘The man? Eh. Something..’ She searched for the words, but they didn’t come. ‘Mm..can’t remember. He was Redanian though. Quite odd so far up North.’ 

‘Redanian.’ 

‘Yea.’

‘The paths are blocked off. And can’t have you knowing any more of our..secret..pathways. Which by the way are NOT on our maps.’ Geralt raised an unamused eyebrow. ‘So we’ll see to this in the morning.’ 

Isabella sighed in quiet relief. ‘Thank you.’ 

‘Oh and Isabella. We’d like ALL our maps back.’ 

Isabella blinked up at him, cheeks blushing a deep red. 

‘Now.’ Geralt reached out a hand. 

‘Really see it all, huh?’ 

Geralt stepped in closer, forcing her to flatten herself to the wall. ‘I see..’ He looked deep into her eyes - cornflower blue, just like her father’s. He wanted, in that moment, to teach her a lesson. To perhaps frighten her. But his resolve melted away with the hue of her blush and the rise of her bossom. 

Argh. 

Growling inwardly he turned away, pointing at the table, where she could place the “borrowed” map she was keeping in her skirts. ‘Right there. Just put it there.’ 

It took a long night of waiting before Eskel returned. With blood caking to his rugged clothes, he spoke of a number of monsters that had run rampant around the keep. A short magical imbalance, it seemed. Though Eskel and Geralt both continued to be wary. Not in a long time had unwelcome visitors come ‘round. The last time actually having been the Night Hunt, who had come to look for Ciri. 

Ciri. Geralt wondered where she was right now. If ever she’d return to Kaer Morhen, even if just for a day or so. Was she even alive still? 

Holding guard in the hall, he watched out into the night where stars sparkled like the glass they had swept to a side of the hall. The bat bodies were burning in the fire, all purple and gooey and obviously not quite natural. 

In the corner two of the old cots had been returned to their function of beds. Both Eskel and Isabella were out cold after the eventful night. Geralt, however, did not feel the least bit tired. He could feel something else. Melancholy. Loneliness. Immortality. The ever grinding passing of time. The ticking of the clock on the wall behind him. The washing and waning of the moon in the sky. The drifting by of clouds and birds and before long it was another day, followed by another night. Though hopefully, by that night, the fuss that was Isabella would be gone. He was thinking of blindfolding her. Getting her out through the crypts. But even then it would be a difficult thing to get out. 

With half an eye he looked at the two sleeping forms in the corner. Eskel, though terribly annoyed with the young woman, had hushed Geralt when he had made another attempt of showing her who’s boss. Geralt didn’t know why he did that. Lashing out to Isabella the way he did. Perhaps the lack of grip on the situation had bested him. Perhaps it was because she reminded him of.. 

He felt his eyes water and just like that all the frustration he felt slipped down his cheek in the shape of a tear. Gods he missed Jaskier so much. He’d take it all back. The mischief. The saving the bard’s arse over and over. Even the annoying songs. Yes, even the songs. His stiff lips turned into a melancholic smile. 

‘Treat her like I would you, hmm?’ He sniffled. ‘Fine.’ 

--

Part 5 > 

--

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[dirty-holy-things]

The Space Between (your heart & mine)

Chapter 20 has been posted to Ao3, and below to Tumblr.

Catch up on chapters 1-19 on Ao3.

Notes: This fic is exclusively 18+ and explicit. This chapter includes references to, and descriptions of, abuse from a parent. It is no more extreme or explicit than any other chapters, but please exercise caution.

Words: 5.2k update, 98.1k total.

If you would like to be added to my taglist for updates on this project and / or others, please fill out this form!

You pushed yourself up from the bunk, feeling the woolen blanket scratching against you as your body shifted. Your legs wobbled unsteadily at your weight, having grown accustomed to the comfort of the bed; but you straightened your spine as you crossed the cabin of the ship to the man you loved, the man who was still avoiding your gaze. The floor was freezing cold against your bare feet, but the chill only made you more alert and aware of your body and the space around you. Each step felt progressively more confident than the last, until you were standing mere inches away from him. He continued to gaze above and away from you, not affording you the illusion of eye contact through the blackness of his visor, but you were undeterred. You loved him, and you had hurt him, and you wanted to make things right.

You extended your arms slowly, just as you had many nights ago, on your first night in the ship. You thought back to how you had once moved with such trepidation, such nervousness, wondering if he would allow you to show him kindness. He had chosen to let you hold him then, and you hoped that he would make that choice again; you hoped he would make that choice every day.

Your hands landed on his waist, and he didn’t retreat or push you away. You drew closer to him, your breaths staying focused and steady; and he allowed you to wrap your arms around him, moving underneath the beskar, as you needed to feel closer to him. You pulled his body into yours with a bit of force, and you could feel the exhale of his chest as he pressed into you. He didn’t pull away, just as he hadn’t pulled away that first night, and you were just as grateful now as you had been then.

"I think I could stand anything, any suffering, only to be able to say and to repeat to myself every moment, 'I exist.' In thousands of agonies - I exist. I'm tormented on the rack - but I exist! Though I sit alone in a pillar - I  exist! I see the sun, and if I don't see the sun, I know it's there. And there's a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun is there." - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

You blinked your eyes, and as they opened to the sights around you, you came to the realization that you were sitting on a beach; coarse sand shifting against your body, a whipping breeze moving through your hair, and navy blue waves crashing against the shores, setting off a cascade of ivory foam that exploded around you like fireworks. Yes, you were unmistakably by an ocean. You weren’t sure how you had gotten here — wherever here was — so you looked around for any clues that you could find.

You were in the same clothes you had been in on Nevarro. They were dirty — was that sand, or dust? What were those dark stains?

Dragging your palms through the coarse grey sands beneath you, you discovered there was nothing within your immediate grasp that would offer any clues; but you could feel stinging pinpricks across your body as the salty air blew against you. Looking around, your head swiveling, there was a sharp ache in your neck — but you pushed that pain away, needing focus on finding something that would give you some insight about where you were and what was happening.

Looking onwards, you saw that there were fearsome navy storm clouds rapidly approaching the shoreline you were seated at, and your eyes scanned the horizon nervously; you anxiously listened as the waves roared, almost like you had heard Din roar many times before.

Din.

Where was Din?

Your curiosity and worry was momentarily diminished as you felt something unexpected and wet fall against your warm cheek. Looking up, you understood that you were not crying, that the wetness on your face was not of your own doing. The roiling, dark clouds above you had now unleashed their freezing torrent, and the raindrops fell onto you with a steadily growing frequency that threatened to soak you through to the core within minutes.

You pushed yourself up from the sandy beach, brushing your stinging palm onto your pants to try and clean them off, before turning to try and find something in this unfamiliar landscape around you that may offer shelter. You had weathered many a storm, and knew of the aching cold that it would bring to those who were left exposed.

The landscape turned out to be not entirely unfamiliar — there were certainly many things out of place, but simultaneously recognizable in an irrefutable way. In the distance, through the fog of the rain, you could see what appeared to be your childhood home. The stone house was nothing spectacular or impressive, and it was quite small, but you would’ve recognized the pattern of those dark, moss-covered stones anywhere. You had spent many hours being forced to stare at the stone wall, after making the cat levitate, or talking to the pretty stranger woman in the marketplace who spoke a language that nobody else could understand. Somehow, you had come back to this place, to a home that was never really home.

As you shivered, the freezing rain running in rivulets down your body, you understood that you were being forced to make a choice. Sit here in the torrential downpour of rain, endure nature’s impersonal barrage; or seek shelter in the one place that had never truly been a shelter as it should have been.

You felt your heartbeat pick up speed with every fat raindrop that landed against you, their impact becoming steadily more and more forceful. Your thin jacket wasn’t holding up against the power of the storm, and with a shaking breath, you took a step towards the stone house. After all of these years, surely it was empty. Surely the inhabitants had changed, despite the resilience and timelessness of stone. This wasn’t really even your home planet — it was some amalgamation of memories and dreams from Eadu and Chandrila; it simply had to be.

The path to the house was a familiar one, although you knew that the home had never been close to an ocean — this absolutely must be some sort of dream, to bring together this combination of gorgeously torturous imagery — and as you drew closer towards the door with every step, you said a quiet prayer to whatever gods or Force that may accompany you, that the house from your memories would be empty. Your hand connected with the weathered and damp grey wood of the door, and you pushed your whole body weight against it, recalling how the door always stuck against the frame whenever it rained — which was often.

The door gave way as a particularly strong gust of wind blew against you, and you tumbled into an achingly familiar scene. The hearth across the room held a dying fire and red-black coals; the cots positioned around it were covered in the same green and grey blankets you had once wrapped yourself in; and the chest full of family valuables and heirlooms was tucked away in the corner, protecting the assorted quilts, books, and ceramic items that had been collected and protected throughout the years.

A sense of unease and comfort settled upon you simultaneously, almost as if the weight of a still-damp blanket had beed draped across your shoulders. Heavy, possibly well intentioned, and yet still unwanted.

It seemed to be blessedly empty, this memory of the house you had once known, and you were exceptionally grateful for that. The thought of a reunion with anyone from your past life, whether you were dreaming or awake, made your stomach clench in fear. Stepping through the entryway of the small house, you saw your father’s coat hanging by the door; it was weatherproof, as he worked endless hours on this rainy, desolate planet, and you were certain that if you were to pick it up it would still smell like him. Strong soap, a hint of tobacco, and an earthiness that could never be scrubbed out of the fibers, or the soul.

This isn’t real, you reminded yourself. This scene wasn’t really real, but the sensations felt as though they were, so you forced yourself to reach out for the jacket that would offer you warmth and protection from the storm. You felt tears prick your eyes as you shrugged the oversized coat onto your small frame; it was exactly as you had remembered it; and somehow it almost felt as though it were still warm. Retreating further into its protection and coverage, you stepped back out into the storm that was bettering the coast; your previous worlds of Eadu and Chandrila merging into one.

As you surveyed this unnatural scene, continually trying to rationalize and remind yourself it was a dream, you saw a familiar glint of silver — a glint of beskar. A scream tore itself from your throat as you bounced on your tiptoes, trying desperately to catch Din’s attention through the swirling debris that the powerful winds had whipped up. You could just barely see the thin line of the visor turn in your direction before your attention then turned to the small green toddler that was clambering across the sand dunes, the duo making their way towards you through the ceaseless rain.

You felt your heart leap at the sight of these two, the odd duo that you had come to love more than anything in this galaxy. You tried to run towards them, but as your muscles strained you felt as if there were an impossibly heavy weight cemented to you, holding you back from reconnecting with your true family. You fought harder and harder against the weights that held you down — and as your body fought back against this unseen power, you watched as Din and Grogu somehow begin to move even further away from you.

Arms reaching out desperately, you cried and clambered your way towards them, but for every step you took, you were dragged back threefold. Your muscles screamed in agony and exhaustion, your throat was raw from screaming their names — and yet they were still receding into the horizon, bodies eventually disappearing entirely behind the grey dunes and their grasses. This was a dream, but watching your family disappear could only be described as a nightmare.

And then out of nowhere, as you cried out for your companions, a wrinkled hand came swinging towards you at full force, landing across your face with a startlingly familiar impact that stung and smarted in a way that you hadn’t experienced in years. And yet, despite the respite from violence that Din had given you, you would’ve recognized those hateful hands anywhere.

You looked up into the aging face of your mother, hateful and wild, terror in her eyes — it held the same look that you had seen on the day you had run away; and your heart seized up in a paralyzing mix of fear and sadness, the same way it had the last time that you had seen her. All these years later, and you would still run from your mother. For all the growth, all the talents, all the forgiveness, all the skills you had developed — the instinct that had been beaten into you won out, and you felt adrenaline course through your bloodstream like gasoline to a fire, telling you to run like hell as you had once before.

As the fear and grief churned within you, the storm around you began to worsen as well. The crests of the waves grew taller, crashing with increasing ferocity; the stinging rain was now mixed with hail that threatened to break skin; and the winds that whipped around you threatened to knock you clear off of your feet.

“Well would you look at that,” your mother hissed, stepping away from you. “Ever the disaster, even now. All you bring is destruction!”

You shook your head, knowing this was a dream, knowing that what she said wasn’t true. This wasn’t real, this wasn’t right. You were only dreaming — you were really at home in the ship, wrapped securely in Din’s arms. This too will pass, you reminded yourself.

Though you knew it was only a dream, you wondered why did the sands and her words still sting, as the wind blew them into you? How could it still burn, knowing that no true pain was inflicted upon you?

Your mother looked towards the same horizon that Din and Grogu had disappeared behind, and you followed her gaze. “And of course, you’ve run off with whatever man gives you the slightest bit of attention — you clearly haven’t learned your lesson, stupid girl — wonder how long it’ll be before he has to start beating you like Orron did. Like I did.”

Her impossibly cruel and hateful words hit you with a breathtaking force, and you felt a concerningly familiar hatred and anger boiling within you, just as it had when you killed Bragant. Yes, you had killed Bragant — that truth could not be denied. You panicked at this sudden surge in emotions — you needed to control this, you needed to be in control, you didn’t want to lose yourself to that terrifying, encompassing darkness ever again —

And the very world around you began to violently shake as you fought back against the darkness, as you fought back against that thick, black, boiling hatred — you threw every ounce of yourself into pushing it away, wrenching your eyes shut in concentration, shutting out the painful image of your mother and her stinging, cruel hands. This evil, choking darkness felt as heavy and overwhelming as it had on Nevarro, but this time you fought it just as hard as you had fought for Din’s life on Bardotta. You were not going to let it win, you were not going to let it overtake you and drown out the humanity and love that you had so carefully cultivated. You could feel yourself screaming though the unyielding pressure and weight of the darkness, but as you clung to the smallest thread of light, you felt the vitriol and violence slowly begin to recede.

And then you saw Din and Grogu, reappearing on the storming horizon, fighting to cross over the shifting grey dunes to you.

They had fought to come back to you, despite the hurricane that you had created here.

Somewhere deep down inside, you had truly come to believe in their love and their dedication to you; and you had let go of the ideas of your mother, that you were nothing more than a source of pain and destruction. These two were living proof that you were capable of good things, that you were worthy of being loved, that you were capable of creating love and light, and growing something worth fighting for.

The thunder and crashing waves began to quiet, as the hint of a smile quirked your lips upwards. Your mother continued to stare in horror and disgust; you saw her mouth moving with hateful words, but you could no longer hear her voice. The torrential rain slowed around you, until it was barely a mist that settled across the landscape before you, and you felt the weight that had held you frozen in place slowly begin to lift. You stepped forward tentatively, your gaze moving past your still-screaming mother, to rest on the two that were now climbing down the last grey, rain-spattered dune.

You continued to step forward with rapidly growing confidence, until you were running at a breakneck pace, leaving your old cobblestone home behind — your heart was moving at lightspeed as you approached Din and Grogu, and as you came closer, you practically launched yourself into Din’s arms, colliding with the ice cold beskar with no regard for the bruises it would inadvertently press into your skin. As you wrapped your body around his, tears streaming down your face, the two of you somehow slipped — bodies tumbling, you landed on top of him in the sand, a laugh coming up from your chest to join the tears that had been brought to the surface.

You pressed your face into the cool beskar breastplate, your chest heaving with emotion; something was pressing into your arm, and you looked up to see that Grogu had climbed up onto the tangled pile of limbs, coming to rest between you, and he was making happy gurgling sounds that warmed your heart. This was your true family, these were the ones that you loved unconditionally, the ones that loved you back just the same.

The sound of the waves eventually disappeared, a silence settling around you; the winds slowly ceased to blow, and the sand that the three of you laid on disappeared beneath you, as the scene around you was wiped away and replaced with the scene of your true home — the Razor Crest.

***

You felt two strong and familiar hands on your shoulders, their grip insistent as they shook you from your sleep, as they shook off the dream that you had found yourself in just moments ago. Your eyes opened slowly, working to focus on the thin black visor that was in front of you — but something prevented you from focusing fully, and as you continued to blink you felt tears escaping from your eyes, rolling hotly down your cheeks. Your eyes flitted back and forth across the visor, as if you could see anything behind it, and you touched a shaking hand to your warm and swollen face that was covered with the dampness of tears. You must’ve been crying.

Din pulled you in close to him, sitting you up in the small bunk as your frame rested against his chest; he ran his hands through your hair, breathing deeply as he held onto you. “Are you alright? You were — you were crying, in your sleep. I couldn’t get you to wake up from it.” He sounded breathless, worried, nervous.

You nodded, your cheek brushing against the side of his freezing helmet as you worked to quiet the whimpering that was coming forth from you, and steady your shaking breaths. “It was just a dream,” you whispered, distantly recalling the storm that you had fought back against.

Din remained quiet as he continued to hold onto you; after all of the turmoil and upheaval of the past ... however many days, the two of you clung to each other even tighter, having experienced a taste of the devastation and terror that would accompany any separation.

Your breaths and heart rate slowed and became more steady; the ship was just as it had been before you and Din had fallen asleep against one another. You were safe, you were home. You pulled away from him slightly, wanting to reassure him that everything was alright. Your hand rose from your side to rest against the sharply angled beskar helmet. “I’m okay, Din, I promise. It was just a...”

Your voice faded off as you saw the utility jacket that dwarfed you. Your eyes widened in incredulity as you slowly extended your arms in front of you, seeing the sturdy weatherproof material move as your body moved within it.

“Just a dream,” you whispered, not wanting to scare Din, or have to try and explain something that you had no explanation for. You would address this new mystery at another time. You pushed this newfound mystery and worry to the side, focusing on the man in front of you who had remained by your side through all of the chaos.

Chaos, that could not remain unspoken. “Din,” you started, shifting to face him better. “I know what happened... with Bragant.”

His sigh crackled through the modulator as he moved to bring you back into his chest, but you resisted. The truth of this couldn’t be denied any longer, and you would have to confront this reality and assess how it would affect your future.

“Bragant was a bounty. He was a criminal. You won’t be in any... trouble, for what happened. Karga offered to... pay. If you want.”

You inhaled deeply, trying to wrap your mind around this information, trying to wrap your mind around everything that felt both insurmountable and invisible at the same time. “I hadn’t — hadn’t even thought about any legal consequences.”

“The Marshall assured me that you wouldn’t face any.”

You nodded, feeling grateful that this piece had been resolved before you even had time to worry about it. “It’s not only that, Din — when I was there, in that alley — he said things to me, awful things,” you paused, as you noticed your voice was shaking, and you fought back against the tears that rushed to your eyes and the heat that was rising in your throat. “When he said those things, I got... I got so angry. Angrier than I had ever been, angrier than I ever knew I could get. And I... I lost control.”

“You defended yourself against a violent criminal.” Din’s voice droned through the modulator. He was stating a fact, but this fact didn’t cover the whole truth of the matter. There was more to it than he wanted to acknowledge, but you had to.

“Din,” you spoke up, your voice holding an insistent edge that quieted the protests of the historically stubborn man. “Din, I killed someone. When I didn’t mean to. I lost control, back there, in that alley — I understand that killing may not seem significant to you, but it does to me, that was a lifethat I took —“

Din pulled away from you abruptly, a bit harshly. “You think that killing others doesn’t affect me? Is that what you really think of me?” His voice was louder than you had ever heard it before, and it cracked with strain and frustration; you could hear the hurt through the modulator. “Do you think that I enjoy it, like some sadistic bastard? Do you think that I don’t carry the weight of every single life I’ve ended?”

You cowed at his brazen display of pain and frustration, and an instinctual part of yourself pulled away from him, your legs and arms retracting inwards to protect yourself. You felt a hot wave of tears crashing into you, and you buried your head in the crook of your elbow, not wanting to upset him, not wanting to make this worse than it had to be.

“No, Din, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” You whispered, your voice breaking; you weren’t sure if he even heard you as your face was hidden from view, buried within your arms. You screwed your eyes shut, bracing yourself for whatever fury may follow.

It stayed silent for several moments, the tension and emotion rolling thickly off of the both of you; the air felt heavier, and each breath required more effort to draw the weighted air into your lungs. As you slowly came to the realization that nothing horrible was going to happen, came to the realization that Din was nothing like the ones who had come before, you lifted your head up from your arms to confront this emotional scene... but without violence. You had never experienced conflict without violence before; you didn’t know how to handle it, but you knew that you loved Din and trusted him.

He was now standing in the cabin rather than seated directly next to you; his body was facing yours, and yet his head was turned away. This was an intentional choice on his part; his body language spoke volumes, and he knew that every inch of positioning was intentional. And despite all of the beskar, despite all of the weapons, and despite all of the mental walls that he threw up against you — you could still feel how your careless words had cut him deeply. You had hurt Din, and you had to confront that. You had to acknowledge that, and work towards repairing this.

You pushed yourself up from the bunk, feeling the woolen blanket scratching against you as your body shifted. Your legs wobbled unsteadily at your weight, having grown accustomed to the comfort of the bed; but you straightened your spine as you crossed the cabin of the ship to the man you loved, the man who was still avoiding your gaze. The floor was freezing cold against your bare feet, but the chill only made you more alert and aware of your body and the space around you. Each step felt progressively more confident than the last, until you were standing mere inches away from him. He continued to gaze above and away from you, not affording you the illusion of eye contact through the blackness of his visor, but you were undeterred. You loved him, and you had hurt him, and you wanted to make things right.

You extended your arms slowly, just as you had many nights ago, on your first night in the ship. You thought back to how you had once moved with such trepidation, such nervousness, wondering if he would allow you to show him kindness. He had chosen to let you hold him then, and you hoped that he would make that choice again; you hoped he would make that choice every day.

Your hands landed on his waist, and he didn’t retreat or push you away. You drew closer to him, your breaths staying focused and steady; and he allowed you to wrap your arms around him, moving underneath the beskar, as you needed to feel closer to him. You pulled his body into yours with a bit of force, and you could feel the exhale of his chest as he pressed into you. He didn’t pull away, just as he hadn’t pulled away that first night, and you were just as grateful now as you had been then.

As you rested your head against the unyielding, cold steel of his breastplate, you pressed your hands even deeper into him, trying to convey all of your love and sorrow through touch alone; you hated that you hurt him, that you ever caused him a single moment of doubt. “Din, I’m so sorry,” you sighed. “I was — I wasn’t thinking, when I said what I said before. It was crass, and careless, and completely untrue. You’re a good man, Din Djarin. The best man I’ve ever known, and I’ve never even for a moment thought you were anything less than that.”

“Your measure for good men is concerning.”

You couldn’t tell through the warping of the modulator if he was being sarcastic, and making a joke; or if he was still smarting from your earlier words.

You pursed your lips, nodding against him. “You’re right. My gauge for a moral compass is a bit broken, a bit biased. But you have been the brightest spot in my life, the brightest star in my sky, and I want you to know that I think you are a better man than you give yourself credit for.”

You could sense a change in the beat of his heart, could hear it echoing against the beskar you were resting against. His posture shifted as his arms came to wrap themselves around you, drawing you into the familiar lines and curves of his body. You sighed in relief, melting into him, trusting that he had accepted your apology and forgiven you.

“I love you,” he whispered, so quietly that the modulator only barely altered the true sound of his voice. “I know that... what happened, was hard for you. You’re sweet, and kind, and that’s... one of the many things I love about you.” He was quiet for a moment as he pulled you in tighter, nearly lifting your now-freezing feet off of the ground. “I want to do whatever I can to help you.”

You nodded against him, a few tears escaping as you knew that you had his understanding and his support; and that was all you needed to trust that you would be able to navigate this uncharted territory together. You weren’t alone in this; you had Din and Grogu, and the three of you would find your way through this new challenge, as you had found your way through many before. You pulled away from his strong grasp, trying to gaze into the black and blank visor, needing at least some illusion of contact and connection. “I just... Din, I don’t know where to go from here. I’ve read books from at least 10 different planets, from 100 different cultures, and I haven’t got a single clue about how to manage this or what I can do to be better.”

Din stayed silent, as he often did, but you could feel the way that his fingers pressed more deeply into your body, imparting a sort of comfort that only he could give. You could feel his concentration as he contemplated what to say next; he had never been rash or rushed with his words, and it was one of the many things that you loved and appreciated about him.

“When I was traveling with Grogu, we crossed paths with a… Jedi. Ahsoka Tano.” Din paused, understanding the weight of the information that he was sharing with you. “She... said she couldn’t train Grogu, because he was too attached to me.”

Your lips quirked up in a smile, a small laugh coming from your chest. “She wouldn’t want anything to do with me, then.”

You heard Din chuckle quietly, and you felt a wave of relief wash over you as you knew he was not holding any grudges. “No, she wouldn’t train you either. But she told me that there is a planet, that has a... rock, that is important to the Force. Or to the Jedi. She said that by sitting on it, Grogu may be able to connect with other Jedi in the galaxy.”

An eyebrow raised up in suspicion at the story he shared. “Sitting on a rock will help us find another Jedi?”

Din shrugged, and you could imagine a clueless and befuddled look existed behind the beskar. “I don’t know. All of that magic — sorry, Force — stuff seems impossible to me. And yet I’ve seen it.” He gently tucked away the strands of hair that had fallen into your face, his hand coming to rest at your chin, lifting your gaze back to his anonymous one. “It seems too simple, just going to this rock — but it may be the best option we have.”

You nodded, resting your head in his large hand, enjoying the warmth of the contact. “I want to talk to Grogu first, though. I want to make sure this is something he wants too.”

Din nodded in understanding. “I’ll give you some space to clean up, and then we can meet Karga and the Marshall in town. They’ve been looking after the kid. We can talk about the bounty pay, and then set a course for Tython.”

You reached up to squeeze his gloved hand gently before turning to retreat to the fresher, to try and wash away some of the stress and the pain of the past several days. Your head felt as though it was swimming, or spinning, or both, with all of the upheaval that you had experienced; and as you shrugged yourself out of the weathered, industrial jacket that had somehow made its way onto your frame, you felt even more disoriented. You gripped the edge of the steel sink tightly, taking deep and slow breaths until you felt steady enough on your feet to turn on the water of the shower. You shrugged out of the rest of your clothes, your muscles still aching with exhaustion.

The blistering hot water rolled down your skin, and you worked to clear your mind and return to the meditative state that Ixxith had once taught you. Your body went through the motions of cleaning, your mind going peacefully blank and quiet. You couldn’t solve any of your problems or overcome the complexities while in the shower; so you saved that stress for another, more appropriate time.

When you had finally scrubbed away the last of the grit and grime that clung to you, feeling like a new and whole person, you dressed yourself and met Din outside of the ship that you had been encapsulated and recovering in for days. The sunlight felt harsh on your skin, but you welcomed the sensation that you had gone so long without. Stretching your limbs out into the open air, you smiled confidently over at Din, hoping that the confidence and bravado that you projected would eventually sink in and become more real.

He placed his gloved hand onto the small of your back, and you could feel the pads of his fingers pressing into the vertebrae of your spine, holding you up and encouraging you forward, just as he had so many times before. It was a quiet kind of support, but the weighted silence and intentional touches spoke more than any texts or volumes could, and his love and confidence made you stronger and more empowered than any Force training could.

Whatever happened next, on Nevarro, on Tython, on any other far-fetched planet in this galaxy, you knew without a doubt that you would face it together. You would face it with the kind of love that could only have grown in the quiet places of the ship, in the cold of hyperspace, between those who had been denied love and yet held an extraordinary capacity for it.

Taglist: @knivesareout @tanzthompson @stageleftlauren @greatcircle79 @bdavishiddlesbatch

#din djarin x reader #din dijarin fanfiction #din djarin x you #the mandalorian #mandalorian fanfic

[yellowocaballero]

Continuation of Human Relations (Oh My God, They Were Roommates)

This is a 16k story that’s a bit too short for AO3 but a bit too long for Tumblr that acts as a continuation of my Archivist!Sasha and Immortal!Jon fic Human Relations. I recommend that you read that before this. This story takes place between S2 and S3, and is about Sasha and Georgie’s roommate adventures. I’m uncertain if I’ll continue this and post it on AO3, post it on AO3 as it is, or what, but for the time being I’ll at least post it here. 

Serious content warnings for discussion of abusive friendships, gaslighting, discussion of 19th century racism, implied transphobia, and discussion of police brutality. Nothing more serious than what we saw in Human Relations, but it does have a much more explicit investigation of Jon and Elias’ relationship. Rest under the cut. Happy Birthday, @magickko. 

EDIT: HAHA READMORE DIDN’T WORK, YIKES. 

Sasha dreams, every night.

Nightmares, mostly. Statements given and Statements stolen run endlessly through her head in a scrolling loop, crying out for mercy, as its figures cry and scream. Sasha looks at them through a camera, pushing the button and clicking the shutter again and again and again, searching for that perfect shot frozen in time. 

A woman, trapped under a thousand pounds of dirt and crumpling metal. Snap. A woman, chewing keycaps, eyes riveted on a flickering screen. Snap. A woman, lost in her fiance’s grave, pleading for someone to find her. Snap. 

A man, eating canned peaches, alone. Snap. A man, swinging an axe with a frantic strength born of terror. Snap. A man, and the look in his eyes, betrayed. Snap. A man, gunshot wound leaking blood out of his chest, eyes rolling in the fluorescent lights. Snap.

When Sasha wakes up she is always surprised to find herself in a guest room, always out of place and out of time as she stares up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Maybe the worst part is those two seconds after waking, where she doesn’t know where she is, adrift in time and space. Then she remembers, and she’s faced with the situation all over again. 

Namely, the fact that she was couch surfing in the Grim Reaper’s guest bedroom. 

Sasha dreams, every night.

Nightmares, mostly. Statements given and Statements stolen run endlessly through her head in a scrolling loop, crying out for mercy, as its figures cry and scream. Sasha looks at them through a camera, pushing the button and clicking the shutter again and again and again, searching for that perfect shot frozen in time. 

A woman, trapped under a thousand pounds of dirt and crumpling metal. Snap. A woman, chewing keycaps, eyes riveted on a flickering screen. Snap. A woman, lost in her fiance’s grave, pleading for someone to find her. Snap. 

A man, eating canned peaches, alone. Snap. A man, swinging an axe with a frantic strength born of terror. Snap. A man, and the look in his eyes, betrayed. Snap. A man, gunshot wound leaking blood out of his chest, eyes rolling in the fluorescent lights. Snap.

When Sasha wakes up she is always surprised to find herself in a guest room, always out of place and out of time as she stares up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Maybe the worst part is those two seconds after waking, where she doesn’t know where she is, adrift in time and space. Then she remembers, and she’s faced with the situation all over again. 

Namely, the fact that she was couch surfing in the Grim Reaper’s guest bedroom. 

Georgie Barker wasn’t a mystery, and she’d be the first to tell you.

Of course you’re welcome to stay as long as you need, honey! I always love having Jonah owe me a favor. Don’t worry about the cops and the law, nobody will ever find you here. Seriously, the entire department’s in my pocket. It’s no hassle having you here, it’s a big flat! It’s been years since I’ve had a roommate, this’ll be fun!

The one thing she hadn’t understood was Sasha begging her not to let Jon in to see her. He knows exactly where you are, Georgie pointed out. He knows you’re not actually a murderer, Georgie said. He might be able to help explain some of what’s going on, Georgie hinted. Jon would respect my wishes, but if Jonah really wants him to talk to you, he’ll definitely do it...

“Please,” Sasha had croaked, the uncomfortable morning after she had stumbled into Georgie’s flat. The Admiral wove around her legs, purring up a storm, and Georgie was munching on avocado toast and sipping pomegranate juice. “I just - I just need some space.”

“Why?” Georgie asked obliviously. That was something that Sasha was rapidly learning about Georgie - she didn’t hold back with impolite questions, or her opinion. She seemed to be regarding Sasha’s life as her own personal Youtuber Drama, which Sasha really didn’t know how she felt about. Her life wasn’t a spectacle, but she guessed even the warfare and tragedy of ants were of obscure and strange interest to humanity. “He’s feeling, like, totally bad about framing you for murder. I can tell he super wants to apologize to you about everything.”

Martin’s words echoed through her mind, from what felt like a decade ago: Jon had ruined Martin’s life, but to him it was as simple as a momentary inconvenience. “I don’t want his apology,” Sasha croaked. “I want not to be on the run from the police. I want to go back to my flat. Unless he’s going to make me human again I don’t want any stupid apologies. They’re useless.”

“Hm. Well, you’re free to stay here as long as you need to, of course.” Georgie sipped at her tea. They were sitting around the breakfast table, Sasha desolately shoving eggs into her mouth as Georgie drank her tea that Sasha was reasonably sure was spiked with brandy. Rich people were literally never sober. “It’ll be so much fun, like a sleepover. We can do each other’s nails and talk about boys!”

“My boyfriend thought I was a monster for the past month and now thinks I’m a murderer,” Sasha said flatly. 

“Oh, I see.” Georgie tapped her lips thoughtfully. “We have to get you laid, huh?”

“I am literally on the run from the cops.”

“That’s very sexy to some people,” Georgie assured her. 

After that, Georgie waved goodbye and swanned out of the house, either going to her studio to work on her podcast or doing some work for her real estate empire or writing a best-selling book or schmoozing with celebrities or attending parties at exclusive nightclubs or working part-time as a bartender just for gossip or devouring souls. Just from Sasha’s one day at Georgie’s flat, she knew that she did all of these things and then some. It was a stunning contrast to Jon’s laziness, or Elias (Jonah’s) single-mindedness. 

Maybe you lost the energy to be so productive after your two hundredth year. Sasha didn’t fucking know. Hopefully she would never know. Or maybe Jon just appeared to be lazy, and every moment that he was complaining about being bored he was secretly manipulating world leaders. Maybe Jonah’s dedication to spreadsheets and dress code was a front, and he was secretly pulling the puppet strings of her entire life…

In the empty spaces of Georgie’s spacious flat, it was easy to be paranoid. Sasha lay on her luxurious couch, hands folded across her chest like a corpse, trying not to think of anything, thinking of everything. Thinking of Tim: of his smile, of his scowl, of his cold looks given to someone he had thought was a stranger. Thinking of Martin: his warm smile, his sharp looks. 

She struggled to think of other friends, other family members who gave her comfort, but drew up a blank. Her parent’s faces were blurred after ten years of no contact, not so much forgotten as repressed, and her baby siblings were likely unrecognizable to her now. Almost as unrecognizable as she was to them, probably. Tim, her boyfriend who hated her, and Martin, her subordinate who she had almost never had a conversation with that wasn’t about work or Jon...that was it. All the friends she had in the world. She was sleeping in the guest room of a podcast host/Grim Reaper whom she had met once, and that was all she had.

Loneliness was Sasha’s constant companion. In a crowd, in her family, in the world - no matter how many people she had been surrounded by, she had always been alone. She had never had anybody in the world to rely on besides herself, and for the first time in a long time she was achingly aware of it. Nobody who loved her was going to help her. She was alone now.

After an hour of lying on the couch and crying, Sasha desolately watched Netflix cooking shows on Georgie’s gigantic flat-screen TV, trying very hard to think of absolutely nothing at all. She only moved to pet Georgie’s silky long-haired cat whose name she had already forgotten, and even he left quickly once she lost the energy to give him attention.

That was how Georgie found Sasha when she came home: lying on the couch, still dressed in borrowed silk pyjamas, watching idiots on television fuck up cakes. Georgie’s arms were laden with shopping bags, with names of exclusive London boutiques sprawled along the side, her deep black pits of eyes hidden by designer sunglasses. She burst through the door happily, her cat running up to her and winding through her laps as he purred, and easily kicked off her red pumps. She stopped in the doorway of the living room, looking strangely excited. 

“Sorry I’m back to late! Utterly bogged up at work, there was a plane crash and I was processing corpses for hours. I had to do some serious retail therapy just to deal with the tedium - darling, have you moved?”

Sasha grunted. 

“You look like Mikey Crew threw you off the Shard,” Georgie said sympathetically. “Utterly disastrous. Don’t worry, Aunt Georgie’s here to make you feel better.” She lifted her bag triumphantly. “I bought you new outfits!”

Sasha eyed her warily. 

“You get no say in this,” Georgie said kindly. “Chop chop, we’re doing face masks too.”

That’s how, somehow, Sasha found herself playing an unwilling dress-up doll for the Grim Reaper. Georgie had taken Sasha’s casual mention that she had no clothing besides her work pantsuit to heart, and had hit up her favorite boutiques for ‘cute outfits that accentuated her figure and made her eyes pop!’. Or something. Sasha wasn’t much one for fashion. 

As it turned out, Georgie Barker had a walk-in closet. Because of course she did. 

The looks ranged from Sasha’s usual, as Georgie put it, ‘sexy librarian’ look, to ballgowns, to tennis outfits, to moddish, to vintage, to wintery. It was February, the seasons lingering in British chill, and according to Georgie the perfect solution to this was a mink coat that was probably worth a month’s rent on her flat. 

Strangely, all of the outfits fit perfectly - and Sasha knew that her measurements were difficult to find. Georgie took it in stride, clapping enthusiastically each time and suggesting accessories and how to mix and match the outfits. 

She would have thought that she was too dead inside to actually enjoy it, but so far as distractions went it actually worked pretty well. Georgie chatted about everything but their actual problems, and Sasha had absolutely no input or choice in what Georgie decided to dress her in, and by the time they had transitioned from nail painting to watching Legally Blonde and eating ice cream from the carton Sasha was actually feeling a little relaxed. 

“The musical’s better,” Georgie informed Sasha imperiously as Sasha dug around in her carton for chunks of cookie dough. Georgie was clutching a glass of wine in one hand, while Sasha was contenting herself with ice cream. Best not to drink when she was this sad. “Reese is such a doll, though. Allergic to shellfish, poor dear, but I told her not to let Leo pick the restaurant.”

“What I’m wondering,” Sasha said carefully, teeth cracking into the frozen chunk of cookie dough, “is that half the time when I see you, you’re dressed like a 2008 goth in jeans and t-shirts.”

“Oh, honey,” Georgie said pityingly, patting her hand. “I used to spend two hours getting dressed each morning. I’m never doing that to myself again. You, however, clearly have never had nice clothing in your life. It’s written all over your face. People’ll walk all over you if you always look like you’re straight from a charity shop. We gotta buy you some self-confidence.”

“Thanks. I think.” On screen, Elle flourished and achieved her dreams. Sasha tried not to feel jealous. “It’s not really as if I had a lot of girly sleepovers as a kid…”

“Word,” Georgie said sympathetically. She patted Sasha’s hand again. “Jon was the same way, you know. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to renovate that boy’s wardrobe. He has no idea how to dress to impress.”

“Do we have to talk about Jon right now,” Sasha groused. “He’s the last person I want to think about.”

“He means well,” Georgie soothed, as Elle Woods proudly proclaimed on television how she, yes, she, was a strong independent woman - who didn’t need a man! “It’s not his fault he’s stupid. He’s just so helpless on his own, you know, he needs girls like you and me to make sure he’s not wasting a decade fixating on obscure Bolivian religious practices or whatever.”

“Helpless? He’s a two hundred year old man.” Sasha spitefully grabbed the bottle of wine from the coffee table, pouring it into a spare glass and drinking it quickly. It probably cost thousands of pounds, but it just tasted like wine to her. “It’s not my job to make sure his little feelings aren’t hurt.”

“Of course not,” Georgie said, but Sasha had the sense she was being calmed instead of listened to. “But Jon’s...you know.”

“I don’t, actually.”

Georgie made an interpretive hand gesture. Sasha stared at her blankly. 

“...I still don’t.”

Georgie sighed. “He’s delicate. Jonah babies him, honestly.” She patted Sasha’s hand for the third time, making her skin crawl. “Don’t worry, I won’t let him see you until you’re ready to forgive him. Every woman has the right to some time to herself after a guy fucks her over. You two’ll patch things up, right as rain.”

There was nothing Sasha wanted to say to that, nothing she wanted to think about, and she kept drinking her wine and watching the movie, out of lack of any other options.

That night, she drunkenly tipped into bed, so blasted that she slid immediately into sleep and did not dream. It was the first relief she’d had in what felt like a very long time. 

It wasn’t Sasha’s job to fix Jonathan Sims. 

It really, really wasn’t. It wasn’t her job to make him feel better, or forgive him, or save him from himself. If Martin wanted to waste his time and energy doing that, then god fucking speed, but Sasha had other priorities. She had been profoundly fucked over and had her trust abused by three different men lately, and she wasn’t going to be the one to patch things up.

Two of them she had no desire to patch things up with at all. Two of them she’d be perfectly happy if she never saw again. The last one...Sasha didn’t know what she felt. But that was nothing new. 

That being said, as Sasha chewed her way through hangover medication and an acai bowl the next morning, Georgie’s inane chattering about tricking some celebrity or another into taking her to Hungary for authentic Hungarian food didn’t register nearly as loudly in Sasha’s mind as her words about Jonah and Jon. 

Jonah babies Jon. That was what she had said. It...it was accurate, right? It had to be. Georgie had known Jonah and Jon for a hundred years, and Sasha had barely heard one authentic conversation between them. She’d known them for a year, and known Jonah’s true nature for maybe a few days. There was no way Sasha understood their relationship better than Georgie did. It just didn’t make sense. 

Finally, she put her spoon down, cutting Georgie off in the middle of her ramble about the majesty of Hungarian food made by genuine Hungarian grandma hands. “What did you mean, ‘Jonah babies Jon’?”

Georgie blinked at her, clearly barely remembering the conversation, before recognition dawned. Then she shrugged, sipping her protein smoothie. Which may or may not be spiked. It seemed as if her solution to hangovers was to just not stop being drunk. “Oh, you know how those two are. Jon swans around the world doing whatever he wants, Jonah holds the fort down at home. That’s why Jon’s fun, you know.” She sighed nostalgically. “Romantic cruises to the Bahamas for two months, we tear up the Bahaman government and start a minor military coup, then we take a tour of the beaches. You haven’t lived until you’ve dug your toes into Bahaman sand.” 

That was something Georgie said frequently: you haven’t lived until you’ve done X, Y, or Z. It seemed as if Georgie was very intent on living, and very intent on defining it in discretionary ways. To Sasha, living was simply the act of not being dead, but Georgie was almost fanatical about experiencing life. 

“If he’s so much fun, then why did you break up?” Sasha asked, before she realized what she said. “I mean, it’s really none of my business, feel free not to answer that -”

But Georgie just laughed lightly. “That’s just how Jon and I work. We spend a few weeks together in bliss, and then we go our separate ways for six months or a year or whatever. Work’s always taking us different places, and seeing each other all day would make us hate each other. Some people work best when they’re not in each other’s pocket.” She took a long drag of the smoothie before speaking again. “Besides, he’ll always be second in my life to having fun. And I’ll always be second in his life to Jonah. It’s just how we work. It works for us!”

It seemed to. Last Sasha checked, Georgie and Jon seemed to be very amicable despite being exes. Lackadaisical, on-and-off, passionate yet going years without seeing each other - it was a relationship uniquely in the providence of workaholic immortals. 

It wasn’t until Georgie had already waved goodbye, making Sasha promise not to spend all day on the couch again, that she realized that Georgie hadn’t quite answered her question. 

An image flashed through Sasha’s mind - Jon’s face, as he dared to disagree with Jonah, and was utterly ground into the dust for it. 

There was something more to this. Something that wasn’t obvious on the surface, something that was so well hidden maybe nobody even knew it was going on. Or maybe it was deeper than that, more insidious: maybe whatever was going on was so well-known and pervasive that it simply wasn’t spoken about. Not polite, not the kind of thing you say about your friends, not normal. Not in polite company. Not vocalized. Utterly taken for granted. 

Sasha walked into the guest room, pulling out her phone from her bag and staring at its blank screen. Holding her breath, she hesitantly turned it on, staring at it blankly as it slowly booted up. 

She shouldn’t be turning it on. She was perfectly aware of how, given a warrant, the police could track cell phone location, texts sent and received, everything. She could do it herself. The crushing weight of surveillance, the fear of being found and seen and rooted out, settled over her shoulders like an old, familiar friend. A comforting blanket to wrap herself up in at night: where, even if the fear was terrible and awful, at least it was familiar. 

You could get used to anything, Sasha thought. Any behavior, any fears, any horrors or tragedies - anything could become normal, given enough time. A year. A hundred years. After two hundred years, maybe you wouldn’t even recognize it as happening at all.

Like a flood, the text messages poured in. Notifications chimed in a cacophony, as text after text after text popped up on her phone. Missed calls. Emails popped up, notifications from the doorbell camera, reminders from her fucking Duolingo...

Dizzily, Sasha scrolled through the texts. Lots from Tim, as expected, and a few from Martin, as expected. Some texts from her mother, which - which wasn’t expected. At all. Sasha hadn’t even known that she knew her number. 

Sasha’s brain stuttered over the Spanish, having been years since she spoke it. Her brain also stuttered over the gratuitous misgendering, which was also blissfully novel yet just as uncomfortable and upsetting as ever. Translated, it was a slightly accusatory question about why the police had been calling them about her whereabouts. What had she done? Had she gotten in trouble?

No matter what you did, the text read, God will forgive you. Just call them back. 

Sasha stared at the texts, brain buzzing. She felt sick. Forgive her? They’d forgive her? They thought she’d done it? They thought she was capable of -

Horribly, awfully, tears pricked at her eyes. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe you never really grew accustomed to pain, even if it was felt a thousand times. Maybe some pain you never acclimated to, never scarred over or calloused. Maybe sometimes the more you were hurt, the worse it hurt. The pain her parents gave her - how they cut off contact, the misgendering, the coldness - hurt just as badly at thirty six as it had at twenty six, at twenty, at fifteen, at nine. It had always hurt. 

So stupid. Sasha deleted the text messages. She didn’t have time for this. She wasn’t a child. She was thirty six goddamn years old, that was way too old to still care about your parents. To still need them.

She clicked on Martin’s texts next. The first one had a timestamp before the murder, the rest afterwards.

Martin: where are you?? I found Tim (he tried to kill me w/an axe but we’re ok now) and were trying to get out of here. I explained everything to him. We’ll meet you in the archives. 

Martin: Police are looking for you. I know you didn’t do it so call me back. Tim’s worried. Jon doesn’t seem that worried...

Martin: Shouldn’t text you anymore. Please be safe & careful. 

Jesus. Jesus, she had been terrible to Martin. She was a rotten friend. Sasha hiccuped, rubbing at her eyes. She needed to get him a gift basket. Five. He was a freak, but he was her freak. Maybe. 

Finally, almost holding her breath, she pressed on Tim’s messages. There were a lot of them - more than was safe, Sasha distantly registered. The first five were from the same time Martin had sent the second text. She guessed it was right after the police finished talking to them. He had called her slightly before - likely when they found the body - but there were also two texts from two am last night. 

Tim: pick up your phone

Tim: pick up your phone are you okay im so sorry

Tim: baby please please pick up

Tim: we need to talk & im sorry & i hope ur safe

Tim: dont text me back 

Then two texts from two am:

Tim: to warn you im drunk but im sorry (AND DRUNK) but in my defense im a shitty boyfriend. If you want to break up its fine but id like to make it work but i get if you cant because cops i guess. Bitch tonner wont stop bothering me make her stoppp

Tim: I love you and I wish that was enough. 

Sasha rubbed at her eyes, exhausted. She wished it was enough too. She knew it wasn’t. Strongly, like burning, Sasha wished so desperately that she had never met Jonathan Sims. Maybe, in that world, things were okay. She and Tim were happy. 

She scrolled through the rest of the notifications. Strangely, she even had two texts from Melanie. 

Melanie: Hey, I heard what’s going on. I know you couldn’t have done it. A LOT of cops are bothering me - Hussein and Tonner have called like five times. I think you know them? For legal purposes I’ll say that you should turn yourself in or whatever. 

Melanie: oh and Martin said to tell you that Mr. Bouchard’s been asking me a lot of questions about what im doing and my job situation - dunno y tho

That….probably wasn’t good. 

No texts from Jon. She wouldn’t know what to do if he had. She doubted he knew her number, or how to work a phone. The last thing she could deal with emotionally right now was an apology. She didn’t know what to do about Tonner or Hussein or Melanie. Those were all problems she couldn’t fix right now. 

Really, there was only one problem she could fix right now. She walked over to the door to the balcony, carefully stepping out onto the 20th story balcony. She carefully ejected her SIM card, snapped it in half, looked underneath her to make sure there were no passerby in the exclusive London neighborhood, and forced her fingers to release from the phone so she could watch it fall twenty stories onto the concrete. 

She imagined a smash, a crack, but it didn’t make any sound at all. Sasha forced herself to step back inside, leaving the past behind her. 

There was a lot Sasha had to force herself to do that day. Georgie owned a few laptops, but she hadn’t given Sasha permission to use any of them yet, and she didn’t want to intrude. Despite Sasha’s own...reservations about her personality, she really was being incredibly kind by letting her stay and trying to cheer her up. She did, however, have a great deal of antique books, and Sasha eagerly cracked open the first edition copies of fiction novels from the 19th century. Was that a first edition Pride & Prejudice? Oh, score!

She wasn’t hungry, but she forced herself to eat. Food tasted like ash in her mouth, but that always happened whenever she was upset. She forced herself to take a shower, impossibly intimidated by Georgie’s small army of hair care and hygiene products, and even cautiously let herself take a bubble bath with a bath bomb. It was...weirdly luxurious, but maybe not surprisingly. Georgie’s bathroom was like the Queen’s, and you could practically swim in the bathtub. It was intimidating and weird and uncomfortable, but Sasha forced herself to appreciate it. How many people got to take a shower in a stall with five different showerheads?

Halfway through the day the housekeeper came in, terrifying Sasha deeply, and she retreated to her guest bedroom to let the woman work. She inspected her newly painted toenails glumly, halfway through Pride & Prejudice, forcing herself not to think about how Jon could have been a background character in the novel. Wasn’t he in his twenties in this time period? Wasn’t that when he and Jonah Magnus had -

Sasha drank more wine, and put on another cooking program. She hadn’t watched telly all day, so technically she could tell Georgie that. Besides, it wasn’t as if there was anything productive to do. No work, which sucked when she was a workaholic. No computer to waste time on. No friends she could talk to without the police investigating her. She couldn’t go outside, again due to the aforementioned cop situation. Her life was her work, and her bosses had just framed her for murder. 

Somewhat buzzed, Sasha stole several pieces of intricate stationary and wrote down everything Leitner had told her before he was murdered. It wasn’t nearly as much as she wanted, yet far more than she knew what to do with. Halfway through her notes deteriorated into a bizarre sort of mind map, lists of cases connected together and obscure monsters and figures pointing to each other. Salasea and his endless array of dangerous trinkets, mysterious yet lonely ship captains, Michael and his gently twisting deceit, Gerry Keay and his bizarre heroism, Leitner and his ruinous imprints, Agnes and her desolate fate, and the oft-mentioned yet barely understood man, whose name was whispered by shadowy figures entrenched in  the supernatural world, Jonathan Sims…

Did he know? How often his shadow stained her statements? Did he care? Did he know how thoroughly he had ruined her life? 

She scoured her memory for hints, writing down everything she could remember of his cameos in random statements. Of Leitner’s testimony, the immortal figure who so easily attained what Leitner and Mary Keay had spent their entire lives grasping for. Was there a hint to his true nature, his true allegiance? 

In the corners of the cute stationary, Sasha doodled a small eye. She stared at it, and couldn’t help but fight the notion that it was staring back. 

She scratched it out, feeling paranoid, not feeling paranoid enough. 

A few hours later, Georgie came home, and Sasha fought the pathetically hopeful trepidation. When she heard the front door rattle she left her room, intending on welcoming Georgie back and proving that she hadn’t been watching telly all day, but she stopped short in the hallway when she heard the loud sound of voices. Specifically, the loud sound of Georgie’s still slightly unfamiliar voice, and the quieter tones of a voice that was far too familiar to her.  

“ - if you’ll just let me talk to her, she’ll understand.”

“And she said that she’s not seeing you,” Georgie said firmly. Sasha held her breath, pressing herself up against the hallway wall. Next to her was a doorway that led to the living room, that led to a foyer. If she craned her head she could just barely see Georgie standing in the foyer, arguing with a figure holding a leather briefcase that made Sasha’s heart leap into her throat. “You really did screw her over, you know.”

“I know,” Jonathan Sims whined. “I want to apologize. It’s not my fault. Jonah got pushy again, you know how he is.”

“Ugh, tell me about it.” Georgie scoffed. “Did something happen between you two? Sasha was asking all sorts of weird questions.”

“Just Jonah being his usual insufferable self,” Jon said, so carelessly and casually that if Sasha hadn’t known better she would have believed him. “It probably alarmed her, seeing how that man really is. I’m sure she’s feeling very overwhelmed right now.”

“She really is, the poor dear,” Georgie said sympathetically. Sasha’s hands clenched into fists. “But you aren’t getting past this foyer, honey. I’m sure she’ll want to be friends again once Jonah gets the cops off her case.”

“Martin’s giving me a hard time,” Jon sulked. “Says this is all my fault that the dreadful little wolf girl is sniffing around. It’s not my fault. If my Archivist just let me explain, she’d see that it’s not my fault.”

“That Blackwood boy’s always giving you a hard time,” Georgie sniffed. “I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with him. He’s overly moralistic and doesn’t know how to have fun. You spend too much time with him.”

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous, Georgina Barker,” Jon teased. He stepped forward a little closer, and although Sasah couldn’t see his face she had the feeling he was smiling. “It’s a bad look on you.”

“Idiot,” Georgie said fondly, “everything’s a good look on me.” She stretched up on her tip-toes to kiss him on the cheek. “Ditch him and come party with me, darling, I’ll show you a wonderful time. Maybe after all of this nonsense blows over.”

“Judging from what I can make out of Jonah’s monologuing, we ought to get our parties in while we still can,” Jon said glumly. He opened his briefcase, passing a manila folder to Georgie. “Give her these. She’ll be getting hungry. Tell her that the top one is from work, and the second is from me.” He hesitated for a second. “You really think she’ll forgive me?”

“If it’s not your fault, then why do you need to be forgiven?”

Jon was silent for a long minute. Finally, he said, “I’ll talk to you later, Georgie. Love you.”

“Love you too,” Georgie said easily, casually, as if she had said it a thousand times, a million times. “Take care of yourself.”

She stood in the foyer after he left, arms folded, one delicately manicured finger tapping against her arm. She eventually turned around, poking her head into the living room. 

“You can come out, darling, I don’t bite.”

Sasha guiltily stepped into the living room, crossing her arms defensively. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

But Georgie just rolled her eyes. “Please. My best friends are Jonathan Sims and Jonah Magnus.” She looked thoughtful for a second. “Well. My oldest friends. Anyway, if you’re in the same house as one of those Beholding types you aren’t getting a private conversation. I’m super used to it.” She held out the manila folder, and Sasha cautiously stepped forward and took it from her. 

“Beholding types?” 

“Oh, you know, you and your lot,” Georgie said dismissively. “Can’t do anything about that annoying little megalomania the Eye gives you. Have fun with lunch, I have to freshen up. It takes ages to get the scent of Jon’s musty old books off me.”

But Sasha was already tuning her out, because in the manilla envelope there were two Statements. They thrummed under her fingers, charged with energy and power and fear, and Sasha could feel herself gripping them. The first one was a classic Magnus Institute Statement, just like she would have read at work, but the second was what looked like a photocopy of a piece of paper. Judging from the ornate script, it was old, and when Sasha’s eyes wandered to the date her eyes widened. July 21st, 1823. 

She looked up, already frantically searching for a tape recorder, and immediately saw one sitting on the coffee table. She didn’t think twice about it, already sitting on the plush white couch and setting the papers out. Which one first - oh man, they were both so exciting - her fingers drifted to the one Jon gave her, and she picked it up. That one, then. 

Sasha James pressed play on the tape deck, feeling a familiar thrill go through her at the gentle whirring. She cleared her throat. 

“Statement of Sasha James, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, regarding a letter sent by Barnabas Bennet to Jonah Magnus. Statement begins.”

And, as Sasha’s blood ran cold, she began to read. 

My dearest Jonah,

I hope you are well. It was an absolute pleasure to vacation at your estate this summer. I’ve never had such interesting conversations with a like-minded individual, and since returning to my own estate I have been sorely missing your company. You have introduced a great deal of brightness and acute interest to my life, and without you the luminescence of Heaven does not thrill me. How I wish you were around to thrill me again!

Do not concern yourself - I have maintained my studies. The library you loaned me is of great interest, and I have been spending many a quiet night bent over one of your occult tomes. I have never felt so enlightened. A world is opening up before us, Jonah, one of richness and wonder, and for the first time in many years I find myself excited to rise each morning. I thank our Heavenly Father each day that I was so fortunate as to cross your path. You must remind me to discuss with you the report by Smirke in detail - fascinating! Theoretical, of course, all theoretical - but the concept of classifying the devils that so bewitch man into fourteen unique taxonomies fascinates me. We must discuss it. 

Jonah, I trust that this letter reaches you in private, and that you shall not betray my confidence by discussing it with anyone. I have a private grievance I wish to address with you. It is regarding your boy, the one kept so close in your confidence and trust. 

I would never hasten to question any of your decisions, for I trust they are made with great deliberation and forethought. But I must question why you keep that boy so close to you. His air is strange and fey. While summering at your estate, I would frequently see him awake at late hours, pouring over some tome or report or another (I would swear that he reads better than I!). I know he’s somewhat of a project of yours, bringing him into Christianity and your charity, which will surely be rewarded etc etc, but I cannot shake my strange trepidation. 

If I were to be quite honest, my fear of him. 

He always asks questions. Disturbing and distressing questions. And when I deign to answer them, he acts as if he truly understands. Moreover, that he understands more than me - that he possesses some secret knowledge that only he has obtained. I catch him listening at doorways and around corners frequently, and no matter how many times I box him about the ears for it he will not cease. You encourage it, allowing this behavior. Even after I reported to you the pagan rituals which I am confident he is performing, you brush me off. You two are strangely close. I’m simply concerned for you, Jonah. Please heed my advice: that boy is trouble. I fear that he will bring you into trouble also. Do not allow this paganism to steer you away from the light of our heavenly Father. I understand that the occult is of great interest to all of us, discovering the secrets of the world and its many mysteries, but it is only an academic interest. I would never go so far as to partake of these devilish rituals myself, and you ought to dissuade yourself of such a notion also. Do not allow that John to lead you astray. 

I wish you most well. I am encountering some trouble of my own - debts and such - but do not concern yourself with them. The situation is well-handled. I hope to write to you again soon.

Yours, faithfully,

Barnabas

...supplemental.

Jon. Why did you show me this?

Is this your definition of vulnerability? Of honesty? What, are you trying to justify your decisions to me? I get it, it’s disgusting. These people were disgusting to you. I can’t know how you feel, but I think I - my parents -

What I mean is, I can’t understand. I can’t imagine how hard this must have been. I understand how Jonah was the only one to… ‘get’ you or whatever. How he was the only person to see how brilliant you are, how much you have to give. 

But, Jon - I don’t think Jonah thought any better of you than Barnabas did. He was just better at hiding it. I don’t know, I didn’t know him and I still don’t know him - but you get that the way he talked to you back then wasn’t right, right? You get that it was fucked up, right?

I don’t know. I don’t think you get that. I don’t think anybody does. Georgie’s too close to it, too used to you and Jonah’s ‘quirks’ or whatever. I...don’t know anything Martin thinks, but I feel as if you’d be pretty invested in keeping this from him. But I’m close enough to you to see it, and I’m far enough away from this that I understand. Something’s really fucked up about this situation. I’m worried I’m the only person who sees it. I hate being that person, the person who Sees it all, who knows it all, but is powerless to do anything about it. You understand, right? You understand how much this is hurting me?

I’m not sure you do. If you’re showing me this, trying to show me how hard you had it, how misunderstood you were, just so I forgive you...I don’t. And it’s manipulative, so cut it out. I’m not sure if you’re consciously doing that, I really don’t think you’re emotionally intelligent enough.

But you aren’t dumb, Jon. I know it’s a defence mechanism or whatever to pretend that you are, to act childish, but you aren’t. 

Ugh, listen to me. I sound like Martin. Disgusting. I don’t give a shit about this, I’m not your therapist. But you keep on making your problems my problems, and I’m not tolerating that. We’ll talk when I’m not fucking wanted for murder for something you were complicit in. 

Get your act together. I don’t forgive you. Statement fucking ends. 

As if Sasha’s life wasn’t hard enough, Georgie wanted to go dancing. 

“I am literally wanted by the police.”

“The nightclub’s so dark, nobody’ll even see your face,” Georgie promised. 

“Shouldn’t I be spending my time working on my conspiracy theory board?”

“Honey, no offence, that thing is so tacky.”

“I hate clubbing.”

“You’ll like the way I do it!”

“I really don’t want to -”

“Tough nuts.”

So, of course, that’s how Sasha ended up shoved into a tight dress, heels, and makeup, pushed into a taxi, and quickly deposited in front of a warehouse looking building. There was a long line out the door, of women with straightened hair dressed somehow identically, yet way worse, than Sasha, all looking very cold. Georgie looped her arm through Sasha’s, white teeth flashing as she grinned widely, and escorted them both straight through the doors and past security. 

She, it seemed, was a known quantity. Sasha, who had spent the last year working in a mill to feed evil psychic vampires and the ten years before that locked in academia, which was basically the same thing, was not a known quantity to any nightclub. She had not been clubbing since uni, which was approximately five lifetimes ago.

“I’m still not sure this is a good idea,” Sasha said into Georgie’s ear as they transitioned from the furiously cold February air into the swelteringly hot club. It was dim and smoky, the noise overwhelmingly grating at her ears. After so long in a quiet office, in a silent flat, she could barely handle it. 

Georgie said something to her. 

“What?” Sasha yelled. “Georgie, I don’t want to be here!”

Georgie frowned at her, and unlinked their arms so she could reach up on her tiptoes and clasp Sasha on the shoulders. “You have been accused of murder! You just split with your boyfriend because of clown trauma! You haven’t had fun in years! You deserve this, queen!”

You know...maybe she did. 

Georgie pressed a drink into her hands, mysteriously procured from somewhere, and without thinking too hard about it Sasha downed it in one gulp. Georgie whooped, clapping her on the back, and directed her towards the bar. She flashed her platinum credit card at the bartender, and suddenly Sasha was MVP of the night. 

You know, Sasha thought dizzily as she was given a toxic blue drink and pushed onto the dance floor, maybe she did deserve this. Didn’t she deserve to have fun? After the way things ended with Tim, couldn’t she just act like a normal girl and go clubbing with her friends to dance away the pain? She was almost forty, way too old for this, but maybe she could forget for a little bit. She had never had the opportunity as a teenager, not even as a young adult. Couldn’t she do this, before she died?

Maybe women closer to forty than thirty dealt with this with - with book clubs, with sisterhood, whatever. Maybe women closer to forty than thirty were married, had kids of their own. But Sasha was just Sasha, stuck in a literal dead-end job, going nowhere good, and this was all she would ever have. 

Maybe Georgie was right. Why not live, before she died? Everybody on earth died - everybody, that is, except for a small group of people who were willing to sell their soul for the privilege.  At least maybe this way she could have whatever joy she could fit into her life before all opportunity was lost, and she was lost. 

A man sidled up to her, asking for a dance, and she evaded him. But then there was another one, and another one, and Sasha found herself fleeing back to the bar and ordering another drink. Too soon. Way too soon. She found herself digging in her borrowed purse, searching for her phone, wanting to call Tim or talk to him or ask him if they really were broken up so she could have rebound sex with random dudes in bars, but the purse was empty of both a phone and a wallet. That’s right - she had destroyed it. Because the cops were after her. 

Next to her, out of the corner of her eye, a man sat down at a barstool. He said something to the bartender and leaned towards her, mouth spilling something obscured by the crush and heat and sound of the club. He seemed to be asking if he could buy her a drink. Sasha shook her head dizzily, confused and lost. Then he leaned in closer, and Sasha could smell the alcohol on his breath. 

“Are you sure? I’d like to dance with you!”

Sasha shook her head no again, frantically. 

“Aw, come on -”

Then, as if by magic, Georgie was at her elbow. Unintimidating, not more than one hundred and seventy centimeters, with teased hair and sharp black lipstick and eyeliner, she raised an eyebrow at the guy. But there must have been something in her eyes, or a lack of something, because the guy rapidly slipped off the barstool and melted into the crowd, leaving the drink the bartender slid onto the counter behind. 

As if she had planned it, Georgie easily stole the drink and knocked it back. She tugged Sasha down, yelling into her ear. “Come with me, darling, let’s check out where the real party is.”

Without taking no for an answer, Georgie grabbed Sasha’s hand and tugged her through the outskirts of the crowd, ducking and weaving between small clusters of people and women dancing the night away. Sasha’s vision swam, details and faces lost in the endless ripple of flashing lights and sound, until all she felt was Georgie’s cool hand in hers, and it wasn’t until they emerged from the choppy sea of people into a small hallway off the main room that she felt like she could breathe. Sasha’s head swam with movement and smoke, and she was barely cognizant that they were in a hallway for a bathroom or something. 

But Georgie walked confidently past the bathrooms, into what appeared to be a storage closet. She confidently opened it, halting at the door frame to glance backwards at Sasha. A smile quirked at her bow lips. 

“You coming?”

Sasha, slightly intoxicated though she was, couldn’t fight the skepticism. “This is where the real party is? A supply closet?”

“Oh, my dear Archivist,” Georgie said, smirking slightly. “The world is full of far more delights than you could understand. Follow me, and stay close.”

Then Georgie stepped forward, disappearing into the closet, and as little as Sasha wanted to step inside more dubiously supernatural hallways she wanted to be left alone in this club even less, and she ducked after Georgie into the unknown. 

The unknown, as it turned out, was another club. 

Or, more accurately, a pub. It was a nice pub too, all smoky yellow lights and burnished wood booths. The booths were upholstered in soft and cushy looking brown leather, and the sound where nowhere above a quiet murmur. It didn’t seem to be abandoned, the shadows at some booths deeper than others, but for the life of her Sasha couldn’t puzzle out the faces or figures of anybody at these shadowy corners. There was a single bartender, wiping a grimy glass over and over. He nodded at Georgie when he walked in, and Sasha was forced to wonder how many dubiously physical supernatural bars and hang-outs existed in random back rooms of mundane stores. Were these things just everywhere? Or were there only a few, and so long as you had the right key any door could be an entrance? It was just Sasha’s intuition, but she felt as if it was the latter. 

What would, could Georgie open up for her? What power, what majesty? What world of power and control could Jon give her, that Jon was trying to hard to give her that she kept refusing? Nobody was telling her the cost. Nobody was letting her make a decision. She was being swept up in the wake of giants, and Sasha was just trying to keep her head above water. 

Georgie was still walking confidently down the aisles, and Sasha stumbled trying to keep up. Finally, she came to a stop in a back corner, utterly secluded with a booth that stretched the entire corner, large enough for seven or more people. Georgie turned to Sasha, smiling broadly, and Sasha tried not to feel intimidated. 

“Honey, these are my friends. Girls, this is my new roommate, Sasha James!”

With a flourish, she made a little tah-dah motion, and the smoky yellow lamp above the table flickered on. 

The table was crowded with women, or women appearing people. Absolutely none of them were familiar. No - in the corner, there was one person who was familiar. Michael, blonde hair hurting her eyes in curly ringlets, hands in his coat pockets. He smiled crookedly at her, jarring her adrift. 

“Uh,” Sasha said, confused. Who were these people? “Hello?”

A short East Asian woman in a white tank top and black jeans scowled from where she was slouching in her seat. “One of those Beholding patsies? Please, Georgie, they’re so insufferable.”

“I like this one,” Georgie said cheerfully. She slid into an empty seat, and Sasha cautiously sat next to her. “Play nice, everyone.”

“You’re such a grouch, Jude,” a woman said, leaning forward and looking interestedly at Sasha. Her eyes were dark and big, her head cocked, giving her an almost insectoid air. “It’s a pleasure to meet you in person finally, Archivist. I’ve heard so much about you. You’re really making waves in our little community.”

“Patsy Archivist,” a tall and burly white woman with cascading brown hair said shortly, taking long gulps of a pint. “What’s impressive about that?”

“I’m impressed with anyone who puts up with Sims and Magnus long enough,” the insectish woman said. “No offence, Georgie.”

“Oh, they’re insufferable,” Georgie said cheerfully. “Have you heard how those two like to socialize? They go to galas. With those awful little Fairchilds and Lukases and whatever. It’s just tragic.”

“Word,” the insect woman said, raising her glass. The rim seemed to be coated in cobwebs, making Sasha feel vaguely ill. “Much rather have a pint at a nice little pub with friends. But we haven’t introduced ourselves, have we? My name’s Annabelle Cane. I’m sure you’ve heard of me in all those little stories you like.”

Anabelle Cane. Sasha swallowed. “Yeah, I’ve heard.”

“A proxy Archivist she may be,” Michael said serenely, “but perhaps our most successful yet. She’s already coming along so much further than Gertrude ever did.” He winked bizarrely at Sasha. “Michael, but you already know that. They and them, if you please.”

Oh. Sasha blinked at them. “Thanks for...saving my life back there. And Tim’s and Martin’s.”

“My pleasure,” Michael said affably. “You’re the most fun I’ve had in awhile. Always nice to have the Eye owe me a favor.”

“They’re just mad they didn’t get to kill Gertrude,” the brunette said evenly. “Julia Montauk. You should know me too, I think. Is it true you killed someone?”

“I definitely didn’t,” Sasha said heatedly. “It was a set-up.”

“Relax, we’re all killers here,” the woman in a tank top said. She scowled at Sasha. “Jude Perry. What the fuck do those old money ponces think they’re doing, installing another patsy Archivist this late in the game? I would have thought that they learned their lesson after that bitch Gertrude.”

“Archivists are quite slow learners,” a woman piped up. She sat in the corner, strangely oddly. Her skin was shiny and strange in the dim light, almost plasticish, and her dark eyes hadn’t moved from Sasha’s face since she walked in. “Nikola. A pleasure, Archivist.”

“Are you guys all…” Sasha trailed off uncomfortably. “You know?”

“Serial killers?” Julia Mauntauk asked flatly. 

“Inhuman monstrosities of plastic and flesh?” Nikola inquired. 

“Daughters of fear entities that control our every action?” Annabelle said. 

“Embodiments of unknown concepts made sentient, forced into a shape that cannot suit them, locked in flesh and fractal prisons, always screaming in endless turmoil, unable to understand the horrors of the concepts of ourselves, always searching for the sweet release of death that can never quite be obtained, because that which does not live can never die?” Michael said serenely. 

“Assholes?” Jude Perry said flatly. 

“The sexiest Avatars around?” Georgie asked. 

How did Sasha’s life devolve to this point. 

“...yeah,” Sasha said. “Hey, where can I get more drinks?”

Unsurprisingly enough, the drinks came very fast. Service was excellent when you hung out with eldritch women, Sasha supposed. 

The conversion flew thick and fast after that. In Sasha’s experience, joining a new group of established friends meant being ignored for favor of pre-existing dynamics. It was always uncomfortable, and no small part of why she just didn’t join new groups. Tim had never had that problem - he had a loud and persistent personality, the kind that made you pay attention to him. He dominated any room he entered, by force if necessary. It always seemed exhausting to Sasha, but Tim didn’t really seem to have anymore real friends than she did lately. His personality was like an ocean, overwhelming and everywhere, but when his mood turned sour it was just as intense. Gulfs of pleasure, intense pain - it seemed exhausting, to feel so deeply. God knows Sasha didn’t. 

But today, in this group, she seemed to be novel. Maybe new fear avatars were a rare enough thing, or at least ones with Georgie’s seal of approval. They aimed a barrage of questions at her, and Sasha did her best to keep up with each one.

How did Sasha know Georgie? Mostly through a mutual enemy. Oh, fuckin’ Sims, right - you guys friends? No, I hate him. You guys fucking? Ew. Right, right, Sims is a giant prude - actually I heard that he doesn’t really - no, Jon decided a while back he doesn’t do that, and we all respect his decision - ew, though, nobody wants to imagine that. So why are you two friends? We’re roommates, mostly, I’m kinda on the run from the cops. Who’d you kill? Nobody. Who’d that old fucker Bouchard kill? Jurgen Leitner, mostly. 

“Cheers to that!” Julia said abruptly, raising her glass. “Hate that fucker.”

“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” Annabelle said, downing her own drink and what seemed like an improbable quantity of spiders. She leaned over the table to where Sasha had hastily been stuffed in, beetle-black eyes gleaming. “But really. What are you doing here?”

“As I said,” Sasha said uncomfortably, “I got framed for murder -”

But Annabelle just waved her hand. “No, no, we know that. I’m asking what are you doing here? With people like us, in a place like us? You’re just a sexy librarian. Your highest goal in life was owning your own cottage house one day. How’d you get wrapped up in the tangled web of our world?”

Sasha’s mouth ran dry, her head spinning in a way that didn’t really seem to have anything to do with the alcohol. How had she ended up like this? Who was to blame?”

“Jonathan Sims,” Sasha said dizzily. “He -”

“Didn’t know you Beholding types were in the process of lying to yourselves,” Annabelle said, casually yet brutally. “No, really.”

Sasha opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally, she said, “I guess I just asked all the wrong questions.”

It was a pretty way of dressing up the real answer: that Sasha didn’t know. 

Maybe her thoughts were obvious, because Georgie cooed sympathetically and slung an arm around her shoulders. “Cheer up, honey, it’s not so bad. Not everything happens for a reason. Sometimes it’s just your own rotten luck.”

“Speak for yourself,” Jude called, lifting her glass. “I love my fucking life. It’s hookers, coke, and blow from here to Scotland. The life of a woman with power’s a thousand times better than the life of a woman without, James.”

“What is with you people and hedonism,” Sasha muttered. 

“Why not?” Nikola asked, tilting her head strangely. “Life’s so short when it’s this long. It’s just bread and circuses, Archivist. We all need...entertainment.”

“Humans are always trying to make sense of it all,” Michael said arily. They were digging their fingers into the table, scoring long grooves in it. “When you know there’s no meaning, no purpose, then everything else just...falls away.”

Sasha didn’t know if she believed that, but she bit her tongue. Instead, she said, “What about those Avatars like Magnus or Raynor? They seem really...driven.”

Georgie giggled, light and airy, and leaned in. “That’s because they don’t know.”

She shouldn’t even ask. She shouldn’t - “Know what?”

Georgie smiled, sharp and wicked. “That there’s no point.”

And that was all she would say on that for the night: conversation after that devolved into parties, restaurants, drugs, and conquests. Maybe the women were right, in their own clearly demented way: that without death there was no meaning, when when there was no meaning only pleasure held any significance. If there was no afterlife, no reward or punishment - which Sasha didn’t believe, but they seemed to - then there was no reason not to do what you wanted. To have fun. To take revenge. 

If all Georgie wanted was to have fun, and if all Jon wanted was revenge, then what did Jonah Magnus want? Sasha didn’t know. She had the feeling that if she didn’t figure it out, she wasn’t going to live much longer. 

Why had Jonah Magnus done this to her? What was the point of framing her for murder? She couldn’t do her job like this. What’s the point? 

Half-drunk, head spinning, she found herself vocalizing this. Somehow, Annabelle Cane had ended up sitting next to her, letting spiders run along her slightly too long and too jointed fingers. Annabelle Cane just smiled at her, jaw slightly slacking open to expose teeth. 

“Maybe it’s just to fuck with you,” Annabelle posited. “Why not? Do you think he has another reason?”

“I don’t know,” Sasha groaned. “I don’t know anything. Everything’s confusing and terrible. I could never understand those psychopaths.”

“You won’t make it very far in this line of work if you never ask why,” Annabelle scolded. She paused a second, spider running thoughtfully across her eyeball. “But too many questions damns you just as effectively, I suppose. Hm. Jonah’s quite good, isn’t he.”

“Why me,” Sasha groaned. “Everyone’s trying to keep shit from me, it fuckin’ - it fuckin’ sucks, man. It sucks. Nobody would tell me what’s going on, but I don’t think anybody knows what’s going on. Not even Jonah, or Jon, or - or anyone. Nobody but me.”

Annabelle blinked at her, somewhat curiously, before leaning in. Her perfume lingered in the air, a heavy rosy scent. “Do you know something that Jonah doesn’t?”

“Yeah,” Sasha slurred, world fading in and out. “Jonah doesn’t know that Jon -”

Then the world faded into black, and Sasha fell asleep. 

If she had felt too old for this at the nightclub, she definitely felt too old for this hangover. Sasha spent twenty minutes crouched over a toilet bowl, reluctantly shoved the Eggs Benedict in her mouth that Georgie insisted was a hangover cure, somehow, and refused the Bloody Mary that Georgie also insisted was a hangover cure that her Mum used to feed her. The thought of Georgie’s Mum filled Sasha with a deep fear, incapable of imagining somebody who was both likely born in the 1800s and who had raised a hellion like Georgie. 

When Sasha mumbled this to Georgie, she didn’t look offended. She just smiled, strangely fond. “Oh, none of this is my Mum’s fault. She was a darling, her and my Da. My childhood was positively idyllic. All things considered, you know.”

Yes, Sasha thought, struggling to imagine 1910s London in her mind, idyllic. She took another look at Georgie, squinting slightly as her head throbbed. She definitely seemed younger physically than Jon, but Jon had a particular way of carrying age about him that had nothing to do with his appearance. “When did you stop aging?”

“I forget, honestly,” Georgie said airly, sipping her own bloody mary. For some reason, Sasha didn’t believe her. “It always takes a while to notice, you know. I suppose, logically, it would be about when I died the first time.”

That, more than anything, alarmed Sasha. “I thought you couldn’t die.”

“Not permanently,” Georgie said, as if this was somehow obvious. “Eat your eggs, they’ll get cold.” Sasha frantically shoved eggs in her mouth, desperate for the story. But Georgie just sighed and propped her chin on her hand, eyes distant. “You know how it is. Small town girl, grew up in North Birmingham, Alabama - back when it was just a tiny little thing, you know. I wanted to be a star. I always did. Scared of dyin’ in the dirt. If I was gonna die young, I wanted to do it where everybody knew my name. So long as they remember you, it’s no kind of death at all, really.” She sighed, lost in memory. “I could sing so good...so I went to Harlem, ‘cause all my friends and I always had dreams of going to Harlem and making it big singing in the jazz clubs. They didn’t get so far, staying at home with their babies, but I did. Wasn’t really made for babies and such, I think.” Something strange emerged in her words, the last vestiges of a Southern accent. “I was pretty, and I could sing, and I took to the spotlight like a duck to water. It was tough, but man - if it ain’t tough, it ain’t worth it. I worked so hard. Like I was working myself to death, almost.”

She trailed off, birds softly trilling outside, and Sasha was silent. 

Quietly, Georgie began speaking again. “Got into some trouble. You know how it is. I spent dozens of years wondering if it was my fault, if there was something I coulda done differently, zig instead of zag...but now, I don’t think so. Just my own rotten luck, you know. Put my trust in the wrong people. Had the wrong sentence whispered into my ear.” She shrugged listlessly. “Couldn’t handle the truth. Just another girl who couldn’t handle the limelight, that was what they said. But I was set up to fail. All those jazz clubs were ganger run, you couldn’t avoid it. Every girl in that golden age fell prey to those men, same as I did. I just wanted to feel again. Tried everything once, just to feel something.” She sighed, taking another drink. “Got shot. Got back up. I remember it, clear as day. Must have been 1923. I scrubbed the blood out of my show dress and went back on stage that night, cuz you can’t get a rep as a flake. They said, that day...that day was my best performance.”

She trailed off, Sasha finally alert. She wanted more details, almost desperately, but she kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to risk putting the whammy on her host, even if she wasn’t sure that she could. If Georgie was being purposefully vague...well, Sasha wasn’t entitled to her pain. 

Instead, she said, “I bet you were good.”

Georgie smiled at her wanly, eyes far away. “I was the best.”

They sat in silence for a little while, eating their food, Sasha’s head ringing and mind buzzing. What about this picture was she not understanding? What was so important that she was missing?

Finally, Sasha carefully floated, “I bet you must have met Jon soon after.”

Georgie looked up from her bloody mary, surprised. “Oh, yes. Just a few months after. He must have caught the word on the wind, you know, of that singing girl who got back up after getting shot in the lungs.” She sighed, propping her chin on her hand again. “Saw him in the front row of my club. He was so handsome, and so finely dressed. But there had been something strange in his eyes, you know? Like little marbles, reflecting the lamps. He caught up to me afterwards, and I figured he was just another fan to squeeze dry, but he told me in his funny little accent I’d never heard before that he could help me.” She swallowed, looking away. “That he could help me understand what was happening to me. Why I was having those strange dreams, seeing those strange tendrils. I guess he was right. After I met him, I understood it all. Things moved fast after that.” She smiled weakly at Sasha. “I suppose you know the rest.”

She really didn’t, but Sasha understood the dismissal for what it was. “Yeah. Thanks for telling me all of that.”

“It’s no secret,” Georgie said dismissively. She smiled cunningly. “A hundred years later almost exactly, and what I did to those gangsters was still my finest work. They say that if you pass by an old building on St. Nicholas Avenue, you can still hear the screams. Anyway, I have a meeting with my land development company in an hour, must run, ta!”

On that distressing note Georgie swanned out the door, and Sasha was left alone with nothing but a stack of conspiracy theories, an opulent flat, and bad memories. 

Time seemed to move quickly, yet sluggishly, after that. After another day of writing down literally every Statement she could remember off the top of her head and trying to fit them into the weird and seemingly kind of arbitrary categories that Leitner had given her, she had hit a roadblock. She couldn’t remember any more Statements, she didn’t have access to them, and the ones she did remember she either already sorted or couldn’t dredge up enough memory of them to sort them in a satisfactory way. Either that, or the Statement itself was just incomprehensible - Sasha still didn’t know what the fuck was going on with Tessa’s problem. She tended to have a better memory of the ones that seemingly mentioned the Avatars in the background, just because it had been so startling to actually meet them - and a few even mentioned Jon, usually in context of Salasea or any Eye Statement. 

When Georgie came home that night, they watched another movie and they both studiously avoided mentioning anything supernatural. Best not to take work home with you, even if Sasha had never quite been good at that. 

The next day Sasha did what she should have done in the first place, and hacked into the Magnus Institute server. 

It was seriously, comically easy. Sasha had installed a backdoor connection to the desktop of her work computer from her laptop ages ago, and all she had to do was borrow one of Georgie’s laptops and redownload the program. With an easy virtual desktop she was already in. It was somehow satisfying to see all of her work programs pop up on the borrowed laptop, and it was almost a relief to access the Archive drive that connected all of their computers. More importantly, where they all put their research follow-ups and the spreadsheet that documented the debunked, uncertain, and verified statements. It had gotten to the point where if the statement refused to record on the computer they automatically put it on verified, but what Sasha really wanted from that spreadsheet was the one sentence description they had all put for each Statement. 

From there, it was much easier. Sasha, sick of the disorganized conspiracy theorist aesthetic, made her own spreadsheet and began categorizing the verified Statements that way. Much more reliable than working from memory. 

If only she could actually access the Statements...Sasha’s life would be so much easier if everything could be digitized. The debunked ones were typed up, filed, and recorded, but the verified ones only existed on paper. Couldn’t be typed up, couldn’t be recorded. It was so stupid. 

Sasha checked the clock. Eleven am on a Wednesday. They were definitely all still working. Maybe…

It was an invasion of privacy. Did she actually care about that? No. Was she worried about apparently being locked into an employment contract with an...entity of some sort that preyed on invasions of privacy? No, although she felt like she should. Was she concerned that Jon and Jonah were trying to turn into her a conduit of this entity’s power into the world, probably gradually turning her, if not evil, at least into a giant dick? Somewhat. 

Words echoed through her mind, and Sasha’s fingers halted over the keyboard. Her powers manifesting differently than Jon’s...her unique skill with hacking…

Well, that was just kind of offensive. Sasha had worked hard for her skills. They weren’t given to her by Jon’s weird god. Also - seriously, a god? It was just a malevolent eldritch entity living in a separate dimension that encroached tendrils into Sasha’s life. There was nothing divine about it. That was just offensive. Sasha was a good feminist, transgender Catholic on the run from the law and didn’t worship false idols. 

It was only then that Sasha noticed a folder on the drive that she hadn’t created. It was labelled ‘For the Archivist’. Despite herself, she clicked on it. 

It held a few pdfs. Sasha clicked on one curiously, and saw that they were photocopies of statements. No - of Statements. She was already recognizing this one as one of those spider ones. She quickly printed them all out, conscientious of how easily supernatural files corrupted, and quickly exited the drive and the virtual desktop.

It wasn’t until Sasha was already in the kitchen and pulling down a bottle of Jack that she realized what she was doing. She sighed, replaced it, and fetched herself some sparkling water instead. She drank it slowly as she returned to her laptop and logged remotely into the police database, which she already had a backdoor into. 

It occurred to Sasha, perhaps belatedly, that if the police found her laptop and the incredible variety of highly illegal programs meant explicitly for accessing secure servers she was probably triple going to jail. This time, for something she had actually did. 

All of the hacking had never felt illegal. It had just felt...well, fun and necessary. It had never been about whether or not she should, it had been about if she could. 

Was that how it had started for Jon? Collecting household secrets because he had to, so secure the money and influence he desperately needed, because he could, because it was fun? 

Whatever. Sasha shook herself. She could have her moral crisis after she was no longer on the run from the cops for murder. This wasn’t the time to be squeamish about something that wasn’t hurting anybody. She knew, as Jon probably did, that just because something was illegal didn’t make it wrong. 

It was easy to log onto the police database and check out her own open case. She frequently checked out open homicide cases for fun, but it somehow hit a little different when it was her they were talking about. Incident, Senior Citizen, Offence: First Degree Murder, Location of Arrest: N/A, yeah, yeah, yeah…

One victim, a John Doe. Foul play was suspected...yes that’d be the gunshot wound. No witnesses. Reporting officer’s narrative...Elias Bouchard and Jonathan Sims the Fifth had walked into Head Archivist Sasha James’ office to discuss work with her when they found the body. Both were shocked and called the police...gun found at the scene had her fingerprints and the ballistics matched...suspect still at large. Friends and family had been contacted, everyone denied knowledge of where she was. Suspect had a noted history of mental illness...great…

The officers dispatched had been Alice Tonner and Basira Hussein. Sasha found that strange: Basira had history with one of the witnesses and the suspect, wouldn’t it be unprofessional to send her out? 

There couldn’t be that many sectioned officers, Sasha reasoned. Even if the incident hadn’t officially been sectioned, because the police report still existed, as a general rule if something happened at the Magnus Institute it was sectioned until proven otherwise. Even if the murder itself was seemingly mundane. 

Out of curiosity, she searched up Detective Tonner’s records. Been on the force for a long time, worked her way up the ranks. Very, very few cases and incident reports for a detective who had been on the force as long as she had. Sectioned, obviously, but even Basira had more official cases than she did. When Sasha clicked on the incident reports, they were extremely spotty and strange. Obvious details were omitted or censored. 

Something cold began to creep down Sasha’s spine. She found the arrest records of the latest four people with official records of Detective Tonner arresting them. 

Almost all of them had entered custody with bruises, cuts, and in one case a broken limb. They all had records down as ‘resisting arrest’. Sasha felt sick. 

There was one case that stopped strangely short. A clear perp, a rapist but one with little evidence, who Tonner had quickly caught. That was where the case ended: the report that Tonner had found his hiding spot, but no arrest, no trial, no prison sentence. When Sasha investigated the perp, she found that he had unceremoniously vanished shortly after Tonner had reported that she had found his hiding spot. A month later, a death certificate had been filed. 

Sasha stared at the death certificate, nauseated. This was who she was dealing with. A vigilante, some batshit pig who had obviously decided that the law was best taken into her own hands. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, but...if anybody looked at Sasha’s case on paper, they’d say the same thing. 

And that was just the cases on record. It was the only obvious instance Sasha could see of Tonner having offed someone just because she felt like it, but cops were good at covering shit like that up. How many other arrest records had fallen in the cracks? How many other dead perps that nobody gave a shit about? How many sectioned cases? 

God, Sasha was fucked. 

She begged off hanging out with Georgie that night, instead staying in bed with the covers pulled tight over her head as if that could ever protect her. Why was Jonah doing this to her? What did he have to gain? If he wanted her to die a mysterious death in the bottom of a ditch, why wasn’t he man enough to do it himself?

Tonner was going to murder her, Sasha thought hysterically, and she was going to pat herself on the back for keeping another monster off the streets. 

And Jon knew. The fucking hypocrite. He wasn’t going to help her. Nobody was. But, god, she was so alone…

The next morning, as if she knew, Georgie slipped Sasha a burner phone over the breakfast table as they both robotically ate quiches. 

“It should be untraceable, but just know that anybody you call you’re putting at serious risk,” Georgie warned, before her expression softened. “This’ll all be over soon, honey. I promise.”

“Did Jonah tell you that?” Sasha asked bitterly. 

“Nah. I just know those two.” Georgie delicately ate a forkful of quiche. “They get bored of terrorizing humans pretty quickly. Now, Michael’s a different story. They’ll terrorize someone for decades. I’ve seen them do it!”

“Great,” Sasha said. 

It seemed to be at this point that Georgie realized she was actually making Sasha feel much worse, because a slightly panicked expression crossed her face and she quickly reached out to pat Sasha on the hand. “But I’m sure they won’t do that to you,” Georgie said quickly. “They love you! Jon especially. Jonah’s just on another of his little power trips right now, he’ll get over it. And Jon, like, feels really bad about this whole thing. He’s been super annoying about it, actually -”

“See,” Sasha said, standing up to clear away her dishes, “I would rather handle an enemy who obviously wants to kill me than a friend whose good side I always have to be careful to stay on, who I can’t afford to ever make mad. I guess that’s the only difference left between me and you people.”

She angrily put her dishes in the sink, where the housekeeper would do them, and stalked to what was rapidly becoming her room, slamming the door. 

Flopping down on the bed, she stared at the burner phone. Tim wouldn’t be at work yet. They could talk. They could - 

Do what? Get back together? Split up? Could he explain, beg for her forgiveness? Did she have to apologize too? Sasha didn’t understand. 

That was rare for her. She understood a lot of things, or at least she thought she did. Maybe she had been lying to herself, about everything: that her and Tim were a good idea, that Martin was sketchy,  that Jon was evil, that Jon was kind, that Georgie just wanted to help her, that there was nothing that Jonah Magnus would do to her, that she was safe and human and a good person. 

God, her capacity for self-delusion was ridiculous. But maybe people needed a little bit of self-delusion to survive. Nobody could live in complete honesty, in full sight of their flaws and shortcomings. You could burn away, living like that. 

No. No time or space for fear. Sasha wasn’t afraid of anything. If she kept telling herself that, maybe it would be true. She desperately punched in a number that she didn’t remember memorizing, holding the phone desperately to her ear, her one connection to humanity. 

It rung, and rung, and one, and Sasha’s heart thumped in her chest. 

Finally, the ringing stopped, and a slightly sleepy voice punctuated the dead air. “Hello?”

“Tim, it’s me,” Sasha burst out, everything she wanted to say to him rushing through her throat and choking her, and she burst into tears. 

Distantly, through the sound of her crying, she could hear Tim on the other side losing his shit, and eventually wrangling himself to calmness. 

It was almost funny, how they could work each other up like that. Eventually, by the time Sasha had managed to wrangle her own crying, Tim had calmed himself down enough that he was able to clumsily try to cheer her up. 

“We’re all fine. Everyone’s perfectly safe. Martin’s gotten, uh, even more annoying since you left, and we’ve technically hired Melanie, which is - not good but it’s funny? Are you still crying? Please don’t still be crying.”

“I’m fine,” Sasha hiccuped. She rubbed at her red eyes. God, she’d missed him. “Tim, what happened?”

The line was silent for a while. Finally, he said, “Is this line secure?”

“Uh - probably? I mean -” Sasha quickly checked herself. She didn’t want to mention Georgie. The less he knew the better. “ - it’s a burner, if that’s what you’re asking, and I’m not the one who bought it.”

“Where are you living?” Tim asked harshly. “Are you homeless? You have to come stay with me, I can -”

“You mean the first place Tonner will look?” Sasha shot back. “No. I’m safe, I’m dry, things are fine. That’s all you need to know.” She softened her voice. “I promise, if it was safe I’d tell you more. I want to see you again. Tim, I - I’m really sorry.”

Tim laughed hoarsely, without humor. “Shouldn’t it be me saying that? I’m the one who thought you were a monster.”

“...yeah, that one’s on you.” Sasha sighed miserably, lying down on her bed, wishing Tim was next to her. “I am, though. A monster, I mean. Tim, I - I’m definitely not entirely human anymore.”

“God, Sash, that’s the least of our problems right now,” Tim said, laughing slightly again. “Can you just tell me what happened? I know you didn’t fucking do it. That dick Bouchard keeps playing dumb and his shitlead lackey keeps on avoiding the Archives. I bet Sims killed that old man, right? He totally did. Martin keeps on saying that his precious Jon wouldn’t let you take the fall for something he did, but I’m not so sure.”

“I...it’s more complicated than that.”

Sasha explained in short order. For once, Tim was totally silent the entire time, letting Sasha dispassionately recite the entire sad story. She finished it at Michael helping her escape, not detailing where she had been dropped off. 

Finally, after a long silence, Tim said, “So this is my fault.”

“No, it’s not,” Sasha said harshly. “You were manipulated, same as I was.”

“I’m the idiot who -”

“Yes, you were being an idiot. You should have talked to me, talked to anyone. You should have done anything other than your homicidal partner in crime. You definitely shouldn’t have been buying a fucking black market gun when I know for a fact you have no idea how to shoot. But you tried playing hero and you played straight into Magnus’ hands. You fucked up. Okay? Now let’s try to do better.”

More silence, until Tim sighed. “Can’t believe the Douche’s Jonah Magnus. Explains why Sims is always playing lackey for him. Can’t wait to spill to Martin how his boyfriend framed his boss for murder.”

Sasha chewed her lip, uncertain. She hadn’t shared the details of Jonah and Jon’s conversation too closely - it had seemed private. “See, I’m not sure this is...entirely Jon’s fault.”

Tim groaned. “Not you too! Why is everyone but me and Melanie a fucking Sims apologist?”

“Jon and Jonah are...they’re weird, okay?” Sasha moved to chewing her hair, uncertain of how to describe it. If it should even be described. It seemed so private, so unsuitable to name...but maybe everybody thinking that was how these things stayed perpetuated for so long. “I think Jonah’s kind of, you know, abusive?”

The line went silent again. 

“Wow,” Tim said finally, “Martin’s going to be so disappointed his boyfriend’s taken.”

“They’re just friends! I think. I’m like, ninety percent sure. But you didn’t hear them, Tim. They’re really...it’s messed up. Trust me.”

“Jesus, Sash, why are you defending someone who fucked all of us over like this? Sims is a big boy, he’s responsible for his own shitty decisions and the shitty company he keeps.” Tim snorted. “I’ve heard them talk, anyway. If anything, Magnus is the one always giving into Sims and his little tantrums. Jesus, I just want to throttle the both of them.”

“Maybe you need to get over your anger issues and focus on actually solving the problem for once,” Sasha snapped. “Nobody has time for your revenge fantasy, Tim! We need to fix all of this.”

“Which one is it, Sash?” Tim asked coldly. “Was I manipulated, or was it my anger issues and hero complex? Are you going to decide if this is my fault or not?”

Sasha’s heart stuttered in her chest. She didn’t know how to explain to him what she knew - that it was everything, that it was all of the above, that he was manipulated through his anger issues and hero complex, that Tim had been pushed in a direction but he had taken the steps all by himself. But she couldn’t blame him entirely, because Sasha had been manipulated the same way, and so had Jon and Martin and Georgie, and if she started thinking like that then she would have to start hating the whole damn world. 

“Tim, are we going to stay together?” Sasha whispered, broken-hearted. “Can we even still be together? I love you. I want you here with me. But there’s so much ugliness that’s growing between us. I don’t know if this can be fixed.”

A long silence again. Sasha wanted to be there with him, to read his face, to see what he was thinking. She had always understood him so well, or at least she thought that he did. 

“I love you too,” Tim said finally. “I want to fix this too. I - I don’t know, Sasha. I love you. The thought of you alone, in danger, and not even knowing where you are, is fucking me up. It’s like Danny all over again, Sasha, I can’t handle this. Can we have this conversation again when I know you’re safe?”

“Okay,” Sasha said, and she knew that this was probably the best both of them could do right now. “Are we staying together?”

“...I don’t know.”

“...are we breaking up?”

“...still don’t know.”

“Okay,” Sasha repeated again, and sighed. “I won’t call you from this phone twice. I’m doing the best I can here. I’m safe, I think. Things will be okay, Tim.”

“Sash,” Tim said, “I don’t remember the last time things were okay.”

And neither did she, and they both knew it, and she hung up on him without saying anything further. She lay on the bed, listening faintly to the sound of the housekeeper vacuuming, staring up at the fan as it beat in a steady rhythm on the ceiling. 

Was Tim right? Was she reading too much into Jon and Jonah? It wasn’t her job to fix Jon, to puzzle out his weird psychology. Maybe he was just an asshole without a spine,and there wasn’t anything more to that.

No. Sasha didn’t believe that. This was a puzzle that she hadn’t solved yet, and she had the feeling that at the heart of this puzzle was the key to finally keeping herself and Tim safe. She couldn’t abide a mystery, couldn’t trick herself into thinking that the truth wasn’t important. The truth was all Sasha had. She couldn’t close her eyes to it, that awful and ugly reality. 

Tim...he had been such a bad idea. But he had always been her favorite one: the way he could always cheer her up, his bright and bold smile, his courage and heart and sensitivity and vulnerability. He had loved her, truly and wholly, for who she was. He knew the ugly corners of her and loved them as much as he loved her best attributes. 

Was that still true? Was Sasha turning into a person that Tim just couldn’t love? Was Tim turning into someone that Sasha couldn’t love? 

People changed. Sometimes they changed apart. And for some strange reason, Sasha just couldn’t bear the thought of that. 

Lying on the bed of a grim reaper, crying like a broken-hearted teenager, Sasha didn’t notice that the housekeeper’s vacuum had stopped running. She didn’t notice the knock on the door, or the creak of the door opening, or the gentle rise and fall of voices. She only heard it when there was a soft knock at her own door, and she was forced to roll off the bed to open her bedroom door. 

Standing in front of her, looking nervous, was the housekeeper. Standing behind her was Jonathan Sims. 

He looked pretty bad, Sasha noted clinically. Eye bags, even more pronounced than usual, stood starkly under his eyes, and his hair wasn’t as cropped short and styled as it usually was. It had grown out a little, making Jon look more like a tired modern guy walking the streets of London than a centuries old immortal psychic vampire. He was still dressed in a suit, as he always was, but the suit jacket was off and his dress shirt was rolled up to the elbow.

He stared at Sasha, probably registering every minute change in her appearance as she did his, before glancing down at the housekeeper. “You’re excused for the day. Thank you for your time.”

He passed her something - probably neatly folded bills - and nodded at her as she shakily nodded back and escaped the flat as quickly as possible. Jon stepped backwards in the hallway, gesturing for her to come out, and walked back into the living room. Because Sasha was just slightly too prideful to barricade herself in the bedroom, and partly because she wasn’t sure that Jon wouldn’t break into a woman’s bedroom, she stepped out into the grandiose yet cluttered living room with him. He stood in the center, hands in his pockets, looking over the flat with a clinical eye. 

“Georgie’s sense of interior decoration is as immaculate as ever,” Jon noted clinically. “She used to spend months getting every house we ever lived in just right. Said it was her job as lady of the household. She had never been a lady of any household, of course, not in the way that Jonah and I had once known - but her fun’s important to her, and it doesn’t hurt anybody important.” He sniffed slightly. “You coming to stay here was for the best after all. She’s been lonely, I think.” 

“I’m staying here because I’m homeless,” Sasha said flatly. For the first time, she noticed a small manila envelope under his arm, tucked slightly into his back pocket. “Because of you.”

“I’ve kept your flat for you,” Jon said eagerly, stepping forward, and letting his cold mask fall. In him now was something eager, something almost pleading. Sasha forced herself not to step away. “All of your possessions are intact, and I can get your bank accounts unfrozen easily enough. Once all of this blows over, your life can be right back to normal.”

“Wow,” Sasha drawled, crossing her arms, “how kind. Were you so busy being this nice to me that you forgot that Georgie barred you from this flat because I don’t want to fucking look at you?”

“She’ll get over it,” Jon said dismissively. “She’s been wanting us to make up, anyhow.” He stepped closer again, fluorescent green eyes fixed on her large and warm brown ones, and Sasha fought the tingle crawling up her spine. “Sasha, I really am sorry. Jonah was out of line in what he did. But - but you know, he really does know best. Even if it doesn’t seem so. What we’re doing now, it’s for the best for your development. I promise this will all blow over soon, and things will be better. For all of us.”

“For a subject of a truth god,” Sasha said, voice dripping sarcasm, “you have a unique ability to lie to yourself.”

Jon puffed up, scowling down at her. “That’s ridiculous. I -”

“Does Jonah Magnus respect you?” Sasha pressed. 

Jon...hesitated, and they both saw it. Jon frantically tried to cover, quickly saying, “Of course he does. I’m his partner, and we’ve been partners for two hundred years. There’s nobody on earth he respects more than me. There’s nobody he respects but me.”

“Then why does he talk to you like you’re an idiot?”

“He talks to everyone like that.”

“Because he doesn’t respect anyone but you. You just said that. But if he respects you, then wouldn’t he talk to you differently?”

There it is - Jon’s shoulders hunched slightly, unconsciously on the defensive. “Does he give you equal input on decisions?”

“I always give my -”

“Does he listen to them?”

Jon was silent. Finally, slowly, he said, “Jonah was right. He said you’d get like this.”

Fuck. Sasha’s heart sank, even as her jaw dropped in incredulity. She had lost him. “You must be kidding.”

“He said you’d get jealous.” Jon crossed his arms, turning slightly away from her, but what he clearly meant to be a closed-off stance just seemed defensive. “He said that you’d get upset that I’m more loyal to him than to you. What we’re doing now is for your own good, Miss James. You’ll see one day that this - this unpleasantness is helping you grow.”

Unpleasantness? Unpleasantness?! Putting her life at risk was an inconvenience? “I’ll see, huh?” Sasha said bitterly. “Just like you saw? Just like how you changed your mind from this being cruel and traumatic to it being a momentary unpleasantness?” She barked a short laugh, not very humorous at all. “I was there. He called you stupid, he said that you couldn’t trust anybody but him, and he called you an idiot. Are those the words of someone who respects you? Of someone who even likes you?”

Jon stiffened, mouth tightening, and he broke eye contact and looked away. “Don’t concern yourself with the private business between Jonah and I.”

“When you’re having the conversation over a cooling corpse that you framed me for then you’re making it my business, you absolute shitheel!” Sasha yelled, finally losing her temper. “Your bullshit is ruining my life! Your complete inability to stand up to that sack of shit is ruining my life!”

“Shut up!” Jon yelled, seemingly having taken her losing her temper as permission to lose his. Distantly, Sasha was aware of his stupid this must have looked: two fully grown adults, yelling in a living room like children. “You’re a spoiled child who doesn’t know anything! All I’ve ever done is try to help you, and you spit in my face! You’re no better than Martin!”

Abruptly, strangely, Jon stopped short. He seemed almost embarrassed, almost in pain. 

And just like that, Sasha knew. “He’s not letting you see Martin, is he.”

For just a split second, Jon’s expression crumpled, but he forced it back into his haughty mask. “I decided that it was best I didn’t waste my time with manipulative traitors.”

“Was that your idea?” Sasha asked flatly, abruptly extremely tired. “Or was it Jonah’s?”

Jon was silent. They both knew the answer. 

“If you walked up to Jonah now and told him that you wanted to start dating Martin, do you think that you’d leave that conversation still wanting to do it? Or would you somehow decide, all by yourself, that you’ll end up doing what Jonah wants anyway?”

Jon didn’t say anything.

A strange mix of emotions swirled in Sasha’s stomach. Anger and disgust mixed with pity and sadness. What had Jon been like, before he met Jonah Magnus? Had he been a good person?

But maybe that wasn’t so important. Maybe the question that had to be asked was - what kind of person would Jonathan Sims be without Jonah Magnus in his life?

All at once, the fight seemed to go out of Jon. His shoulders sagged, and he abruptly deflated. He looked down at the ground, ashamed and aware of it. He had always been aware of it. He had just been lying to himself. Maybe it was impossible to live without it. 

“I don’t know what to do without him,” Jon said quietly. “I’ve never - I need him.”

“You don’t,” Sasha said, abruptly exhausted. “You want to help me, Jon? You want to protect me and Martin? You can’t do that while staying friends with Jonah Magnus. You have to choose. So long as you stay close to him, you are going to stay within his complete control. That’s what he does. He controls everybody and everything. And you’re letting him. You’re justifying it. You’re doing his work for him. Everybody around him is - even Georgie. There are two people in your life who are trying to get you away from him, and he’s trying to convince you to cut them out of your life. You think that’s a coincidence?”

Jon opened his mouth, then closed it. Weakly, he said, “You’re wrong.”

“I need your help, Jon,” Sasha whispered, and to her shame found her voice cracking. “I need someone on my side. I can do it alone, but - but I’m scared. And I don’t want to. I need help. I’m scared.”

But she knew, even as she said it, that Jon was scared too. He couldn’t reach out a hand to her - not now, not here. Jon had carried around his fear for hundreds of years, pushing it down and pretending it wasn’t there, and it informed everything he’d ever done. Scrambling for power, exerting that power, desperately dominating even as he was dominated - it stemmed from that fear, all of it. And Jonah Magnus kept those flames fanned, because a Jon who was afraid was a Jon who could be controlled. 

A Sasha who was afraid, who was isolated, who was trapped, was one who could be controlled. 

The realization was dizzying. Somehow, the thought that kept running through her mind was - who’d do that? Who was such a terrible person that they’d go through all that trouble, all of that plotting, just to make someone suffer? Not because they disliked them, not in revenge, not because of any human emotion - but just because it was convenient? Useful?

Because you could?

So this was what power did to a person, Sasha realized. So this was what power and immortality and money and supernatural gifts did to you. It made you someone who Sasha could never hope to understand, whose depths of depravity she could never truly rationalize. To Sasha, who prided herself on knowing people and being able to understand them and their motives - it was almost a relief, almost a blessing, that she couldn’t possibly understand the motives of Jonah Magnus at all. 

Jon stared at her, fluorescent green eyes wide, and for just a minute she could see the fear that she knew was there written all over his face. For just a minute, Sasha and Jon were scared together, both trapped in tumultuous waters that they couldn’t control. For the first time Sasha empathized with Jon. 

Jonah Magnus was somebody that Sasha could never understand. But Jon was, and for the first time Sasha knew what Martin meant when he said that he felt as if Jon had been a good person, a long time ago. 

You can’t understand someone and hate them. Not really. You could be angry, upset, betrayed...but if you really understood someone, backwards and forwards, true hate was difficult to find. 

“I have to go,” Jon said, almost dizzily. He shoved the manila folder at her, both of them having forgotten that it was even there in the first place. He glanced at it, frightened and guilty. “Be - be careful when meeting Jude Perry. Don’t take her at her word. I have to go.”

He fled, as if the hounds of hell themselves were snapping at his heels, and Sasha was left standing in an opulent hallway, clutching a manila folder as if it was a time bomb, completely certain that it was meant to hurt her and cause her pain and damage her, completely certain that she was going to read it anyway. 

Like Jon - what choice did she have? 

But as she stumbled back to her room, as she sat down on the comfortable chair and thumbed on the tape recorder that sat at the desk, the words of Jonathan Sims ran through her mind. His warning. A clumsy attempt at protection. At the very least, a signifier of desire. 

Sasha knew, as she sometimes knew things, that Jon had started out somebody who deeply desired to protect others like him. To take revenge, to grab power, yes, but also to spread that precious knowledge and resources around. He had never stopped thinking of himself as one of those vulnerable people, people who society had stepped on and ground into the dirt. Deep down he had just wanted things to be fair, wanted some justice in the world. Jon, at one point, had only wanted to help. 

Maybe she wasn’t so alone after all. 

“Statement of Sasha James, Head Archivist…”

#my writing #YES I KNOW THIS IS TOO LONG FOR A TUMBLR POST BUT CONSIDER: ITS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR AO3 AND MY STANDARDS ARE INSANE #jonathan sims #georgie barker #sasha james #archivist!sasha #human relations #tma #the magnus archives #tma fanfic #jonmartin #jason's tims age

[fictionissocialinquiry]

A million years ago, when I was writing Mending Wounds, I was trying to write Blue Spirit shenanigans into the story. Unfortunately... I couldn’t make it work within MW-verse so I wrote another whole story called Rumour Has It because I have no self control. BUT! Today I was going through old fic planning documents and found this scene from the cutting room floor! I thought I’d share it :D

This would have taken place during Chapter 5: The Beach (I think? Its been a while since I’ve visited MW-verse). Its unedited and rough but enjoy!

It started with Katara finding a blue and white mask loosely wrapped in Zuko’s rucksack.  She’d been looking for his Fire Nation spices — paprika, turmeric, ginger — to flavour the red sea bream he’d proudly caught earlier that day. She hadn’t meant to pry. She’d been into his bag for spices a dozen times before.

The Fire Prince was reclining against a palm tree on the other side of their fire, his head bowed over Avatar Yangchen’s The Spiritual Awakening of the Foggy Swamp.

‘Have you read this bit yet? About how the Banyan Spirit times its revelations? Listen to this: “It must be assumed that the Banyan Spirit has a level of clairvoyance beyond that of humanity. It’s mystery, then, is in what principle, what consciousness, guides its decisions and judgements. What motivation acts to set in motion some things and not others? By which criteria does it choose?” Urg. This sounds like the books on the Spirit World the Fire Sages made us study in school.’

Katara traced the pale brow of the Blue Spirit, a million miles away from swamps and spirits of the banyan variety. ‘Zuko…’

‘I know, I know, I’m trying, but this Avatar speaks in riddles, Katara.’

‘No, Zuko…’ She turned to him, wide-eyed, the mask grimacing at her side.

His expression was that of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He took one look at the mask and lurched for it, the book narrowly avoiding the campfire.

Startled, Katara back pedalled, yanking the mask with her. ‘What was that for?’

But Zuko’s face was red as his element, and just as indignant. ‘Why are you going through my stuff?!’ he shouted, holding out his hand stiffly. ‘Give it back.’

‘You’re the Blue Spirit.’ It wasn’t quite a question, but she had to make sure this wasn’t just some sort of bizarre coincidence. ‘It was you that saved Aang from Zhao?’

Thunderclouds gathered behind the fire bender’s eyes. ‘Give it back, Katara.’

The mask was cool against her skin, but the Fire Prince’s discomfit was anything but. ‘I didn’t go through your stuff,’ she explained, smiling hesitantly. ‘I really wasn’t. I was looking for your spices and the wrapping just sort of fell off… When… how long have you been…?’

Zuko shook his head once, twice, before turning away with a curse. ‘You’re impossible!’

She shadowed him back to the palm tree. ‘Does your uncle know? Your sister?’

‘No! Agni, Katara, just put it away!’

‘Where are your swords?’

His flustered expression drew a giggle from her. ‘I­— They’re not— look, just drop it, okay?’ He sat, arms crossed, discussion over.

But the Water Tribe girl had other ideas.

Kneeling by his side, she held the blue and white up until it hid his pink cheeks. ‘Fifty gold coins if I turn you in to the Fire Nation,’ she teased gently, peering at him over the mask.

Zuko sighed and tipped his head back to glower at the dark canopy. ‘I became the Blue Spirit to free Aang from Zhao… so I could capture him myself. The only way I thought I could get home was with the Avatar in chains, remember? And then it just became… it became a way for me to make right the wrongs my father was committing against the Earth Kingdom. My uncle doesn’t know, my sister definitely doesn’t know. Can you put it away now?’ Please.

‘Did Aang know it was you?’

‘He didn’t tell you?’

Katara lowered the mask, studying the Fire Prince carefully. ‘I always admired the Blue Spirit,’ she admitted, reaching over to take the fish off the fire. ‘When Aang told us what happened, how you and he fought side by side… it was brave.’ He glanced at her covertly. ‘Stupid, but brave.’

‘I did it for myself,’ he reminded her.

‘Maybe, but Aang still went free.’ She set the fish down beside them. ‘And I heard the Blue Spirit has robbed more than a few munitions factories in the Colonies.’

Zuko shook his head. ‘That wasn’t me. After the wanted posters appeared and the stories about the Blue Spirit spread, copy cats must have stolen the name, copied the mask…’

‘I know that, you were too busy stalking us across the Earth Kingdom. But don’t you see? You inspired people! You stood up to the Fire Nation when you freed Aang, and inspired others to do the same.’ She laughed, crossing her feet beneath her. ‘Gosh you should hear the way Sokka goes on about it. In Gaoling, he nearly got the Blue Spirit tattooed across his back.’

The corner of Zuko’s lip twitched. ‘You can’t tell him.’

‘Oh, I have to tell him.’

Zuko gripped her arm. ‘Katara… please. You can’t tell anyone. Sneaking around, committing treason… people can’t know it was me.’

She covered his hand with hers. ‘Oh, come on, it’s just Sokka.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Okay, fine… I won’t tell him.’

‘Or anyone else.’

‘Or anyone else.’

‘Especially not my sister.’

‘I’m telling your uncle before I tell your sister.’

‘No! Definitely not Uncle Iroh!’

‘Alright, I get what “tell nobody” means.’ His hand was hot against her elbow, almost as warm as the heat from the fire at her back. Could he not see the warmth spread by the legacy of the man in the mask? Not understand what such a figure meant to people under the thumb of villains like Ozai and starvation, and a hundred years of war?

‘It suits you,’ she commented lightly, brushing back the hair that obscured his scar. ‘A shame that it covers your eyes.’

He stilled under her touch. ‘That was the point.’

She dropped her hand from the sensitive skin of his scar, afraid to push him to a place of fire and banishment, but the prince caught her hand before it could wander away. He traced her palm with his thumb. Slowly. Softly. He took away two weeks of anguish with that touch, and buried them in the furthest reaches of her mind.

‘When you… before, when you said that Aang told you about our escape… you said… um…’

Katara grinned; she’d never seen the boy’s eyes so wide, vulnerable. ‘That I admired him. The Blue Spirit.’

‘Yeah. That.’

‘I did. I do.’

‘Oh.’

#Mending Wounds #scenes from the cutting room floor #zutara #zuko #katara #not canon for MW but still kinda cute

[ill-skillsgard]

Six Years - Axel Cluney

Title: Six Years

Characters: AU Axel Cluney x ambiguous female OC

Description: Six years, ten years, twenty... No amount of jail time will stop Axel from taking back his throne.

Warning: 18+ sex/oral/cheating/dub-con (kind of, not really)/creampie - This is intended for a mature adult audience. All opinions and occurrences in this piece are purely fictitious and do not reflect any real person or event. Please read at your own discretion.

Note: I feel really bad for having no time to work on drabble requests and stuff. I’m sure you all understand now isn’t the easiest time and my silence is for no reason other than focusing more energy on important matters. Here’s a piece from my Patreon for those of you who don’t subscribe. And anyone who is a patron, I’ve just dropped a surprise for you guys over that way. 

I hope you guys enjoy!

+

She gasped, not from pleasant surprise—though Axel’s presence indeed came unexpected—but from utter shock. How dare he knock on her door late at night and how dare he dawn that crooked, criminal smile. How dare he pitch his arm against the doorjamb, wearing his pants low on his hips with the band of his underwear on display, his own version of a supermodel. And how dare he try to reach out and touch her face.

Fantasies of this exact situation had frolicked in her daydreams for years, but she never expected them to manifest on her doorstep. Yet there he stood, winking one green eye. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, wearing his neglect on his chin and upper lip in that fashionably scruffy way. Though his upbeat energy hadn’t dwindled an inch, something about him had changed. She spent a breathless moment trying to pick out the detail.

It was the tattoos. Axel had accumulated a considerable amount of ink since last they saw each other before he went away. Her eyes studied the markings on his arms, glimmering as they moved along the crude images.

Why he chose her doorstep to reveal himself was no mystery. His grimy smile said it all. She glanced back, then stepped into the hall and shut the door. Axel gave her space—another surprise.

“What the hell are you doing here, Axel? How did you find out where I live?”

Axel flashed a lopsided grin. “That’s not important. Say, who were you talking to in there? S’that your roommate?”

He had nerves. Enough to stand at the door, listening to the mutters of conversation before knocking, interrupting her boyfriend in the middle of another political speech in which she had no volley. She had about thirty seconds—a minute, tops—to shoo her ex away before her current flame got curious.

Her choices were to tell him off, but Axel would never leave if he had already jumped through hoops to find her address, or push him down the hall into the stairwell to buy a couple more minutes of conversation. She chose the latter, and motioned him away, realizing her tank top and pyjama shorts were a drastic step-down from casual. The seam of her bottoms rode up, revealing two swells of muscle that tantalized the man following her.

Behind the fire door, he cornered her on the landing between two flights of concrete steps. Her breaths echoed off the cement and carried off above and below.

“Axel, I can’t,” she said.

“Sh, baby, don’t say that.”

A tingle of danger spread through her hands and feet—that sensation from another age when her only obligations were schoolwork and not becoming another teenage pregnancy statistic.

Axel followed her until they came eye-to-eye, her three steps up on the flight, and he on the landing.

“You look so good,” Axel said, reaching out to graze her bare legs. “I missed you.”

“Please, I can’t... My boyfriend. He’s in my apartment,” she warned.

“Who’re you dating? Do I know him?”

“No, you don’t know him. He’s from out of town,” she said.

“Oh, yeah? How long you been seeing him for?” Axel asked.

Firecrackers went off in her stomach, reminding her of the time Axel brought a handful of black cats on one of their dates. He liked to stick them in places they had no business being inside. He did that a lot.

“It doesn’t matter. This can’t happen. I’m sorry. It’s been like six years, Axel. I’ve moved on.”

“Well, I haven’t,” Axel murmured. “You seriously don’t want to pick up where we left off? Man, I loved us together. We had such good times. Don’t you remember?”

“Yeah, Axe, they were good times, but that was forever ago. And I didn’t even know you were back in town! You can’t just show up out of the blue and expect me to jump into your arms.”

“I had to see you. Your brother gave me your address... After I bribed him with beer. I spent my only ten bucks in the world trying to find you.”

She cursed her sibling under her breath. He always liked Axel, and for beer, there wasn’t much he wouldn’t give up.

“Did you hear me?” Axel asked.

“Yes, I heard you!” She snapped. “It doesn’t matter, Axe. I’m not dumping my boyfriend for you.”

An oily smile slithered over his face. Axel took one step up, and she matched it, keeping their eye-level consistent. It was that smile that made her do bad things, those flashing teeth convincing her to disregard obligations. His lips had whispered and kissed her into breaking laws, promises and ties. Hell, they had nearly talked her into dropping out of school at one time. And for what? For her to become a criminal alongside him? No. She had a life to live, one that didn’t involve running from the law.

But Axel was nothing if not a persistent man. No was not a word he relished. Always one to spurn restrictions, Axel advanced on her until she turned and climbed up the stairs. He followed her to the top, licking his lips as he watched her ass moving from side to side with every step. The door to the roof stopped her as Axel grabbed her hips and pulled her backward.

Axel kissed the back of her thigh, and when she didn’t protest, stuffed his face between her legs.

“Oh, yes... Gimme that ass,” Axel shivered. “That’s mine.”

She hated that her love remained untainted by the years he spent locked up. When months had gone by she vowed to forget him, but the promise was made in vain. No man could usurp the throne she’d erected and hidden in the deepest recesses of her untamed heart. The thicket had only grown wilder and more resilient in his absence, waiting for his return to release its stranglehold.

And she hated herself for failing to resist now. Cursing her heart, she allowed him to curl his fingers under the waist of her shorts. The fireworks shooting off in her stomach began a great fire in her belly that ate away her reserve—not that her immunity to Axel’s whims had ever been any stronger than gossamer.

It was no secret that every man in her life after him had been a placeholder. Some were smart—much smarter than Axel—while others matched his look, but never mimicked his spark. Some had stable jobs, good habits and strong family ties, but they didn’t promise adventure. When she turned around to face Axel, it was like gazing into a crystal ball, watching the careless times of her life flashing in his eyes.  

He peeled her shorts off, lifted one thigh over his shoulder and yanked her panties aside to lick the parting of her folds. A moan drew from his throat, reminding her that this was real and not a fleeting vision to tickle her boredom. The sensation jarred her into the present, and she pushed his head away.

“Axel, I said I can’t.”

His hand flew out to bring her back in. “Too fucking late.”

He spun her around, pressed his palm against her tailbone, bending her over, and dove back in from behind. Ten long fingers clutched her cheeks, spreading her lips open for his tongue to explore. Her taste elated years-old desire, and soon he had her on the ground with her legs over his shoulders.

“Look at me,” he demanded. “See this pussy? You see this beautiful slit right here? That belongs to me. Do you understand, sweetheart? It doesn’t matter if they put me away for six years... Ten years. Twenty. No, it doesn’t matter because you’re mine, aren’t you?”

The courage to agree with him hadn’t arrived. She fought a battle in her mind even as he trailed the tip of his tongue around her clit. There he rang, summoning her audacity with gentle flickers and groans. The vibrations woke each nerve in her body—some she thought forever put to rest. But they sang beneath his praises, voices fanning the forest fire spreading through her body.

“Axel, oh my god.”

“Yeah, nobody eats it like I do, huh?”

With her hand clasped over her mouth, she muffled her reactions. The gasps that slipped from the cracks travelled down the stair shaft. To think any moment someone might open the door excited her heart to racing. Who knew what was beyond the exit or coming up the steps from below? All she knew was his lips sipping on the liquid he spat between her legs. He worked her into a lather with his tongue, then introduced one of his fingers slowly until the warm metal of a ring brushed her opening.

“Tell me you missed my fingers inside you, baby. That’s what I wanna hear—what I need to hear right now. Say your pussy will always belong to me.”

“Axel—” she choked, still unable to admit defeat even amidst an obscene display.

Axel splayed her thighs, holding the ditches of her knees, so all she had left to think about was his mouth trailing slobber and a lively tongue in luscious patterns over her pussy. No inch of her parts went untouched, unkissed or without admiration for long. And the noises—oh, the sweet sound of Axel’s purr against her clit, magnificent and just intense enough to tease her to the edge of orgasm. He added another finger and rubbed upwards while tickling her thighs with his scruff.

“I want your cum. Right now. It belongs to me, and I’ve come to take what’s mine. You can tell your pansy-ass boyfriend to pack his bags, ‘cause I’m home now,” Axel’s voice trailed into a giggle. She despised how cute he could be with his infectious laughter and straying eyes. “Be sure to thank him for keeping my pussy warm, though.”

A smirk broke over her face, setting Axel off on another filthy exclamation.

“Yeah, that’s right. You’ve been waiting for this big cock, haven’t you? Tell me, honey... Is he hung like me? Does he stretch your pussy out ‘til it’s sore like I do?”

Still, she remained silent. Axel could have her body, but he would never hear her say he was right. And it was that stubbornness he loved.

“Oh, come on, cat got your tongue, baby? Or is it you can’t think when I finger your wet little hole?”

He sped his strokes, angling his fingertips just so, reading her face even if she muffled her cries behind her hand. This skill he mastered long ago. Every bit of her body came alive beneath his touch, and he used each part to arouse her forth. Her nipples were subject to his free hand, pulled and pinched between his knuckles as he scooped up one breast and the other. When he had his fill of toying with her chest, his hand slithered to her neck, first caressing and then squeezing with care. A trapped moan buzzed in her throat, assuring him the motion he maintained with his other hand was well received.

Two fingers coaxing fluid, a pair of lips kissing and sucking at her clit, and a firm hold on her throat had her pleasure soaring until it hovered in the air, finally nose-diving into an explosion of pent up lust, heat and scandal. With the plummet came the harsh reality: she was unfaithful. It was too late; hammered in stone, factual. She was a cheater, and nothing would fix that. No amount of regret or sorrow could cleanse this mistake. But oh, how her womanhood trembled beneath his charge.

“Yes, that’s what I want. See? I knew you wanted it.”

Axel hadn’t finished when her tremors turned to shakes. He climbed the two remaining steps, took hold of her and flipped her onto her knees.

“My turn. Did you think I’d let you go without a little something for me? Without giving you this big cock?”

“I have to go. My boyfriend—”

The clap of a cupped hand meeting skin interrupted her protest and thundered down the stairwell.

“I didn’t come all this way not to pump you full of cum. So shut your mouth before I make you and take my fucking load like a good girl.”

Ever a man of his word, Axel made a quick act of finishing inside of her. He rubbed against her, balls emptying months of lust and abstinence while he laid his cheek against her back, panting.

“Did you miss me, baby?” Axel asked, feeling around for her shorts to hand back.

“I should have known you’d do something like this when you came home,” she dismissed.

“Honey, I did nothing I wasn’t allowed to do,” Axel chuckled. “Sure, I threw you off guard. But what does it matter? You’d have caught wind of my being home and dropped that little boyfriend of yours in a heartbeat. Know why?”

She twisted around to watch Axel helping her with her shorts. “Why?”

“Because you love me, and I love you, and we are meant for each other. Now go back to him with my cum inside you. Sleep beside him for one more night. I don’t care. You’ll be with me again soon.”

#axel cluney fanfiction #bill skarsgard fanfiction #bill skarsgard smut #bill skarsgard imagine #au fanfiction #fanfiction #axel stuff

[bonesthebeloved]

Complicated- creativitwins

Digging up old drafts baby here we goooo.

The father in this story doesn't have a name so you can imagine it as anyone you'd like/ as simply a stranger. Happy reading.

Trigger/ squick warning: father figures, complicated relationship with parental figures, mention of screaming, child services mention (in like...one sentence) mention of crying, mention of animal death (bunnies) mention of homophobia. <- if I missed any let me know.

Edit: I did not check spelling. We die like men

-

Pappa had always been with them.

When they were three and just formed their first memories they might remember in distant futures when all was quiet and nothing was holding them back from reminisent, they would remember about the time they’d gotten two big stuffed bears bigger than themselves When Papa had still been alone and Dad hadn’t been with them yet.

They would remember the soft fur in their little hands as they cuddled close to the things when it was naptime.

Pappa was always there for them

When Roman was five and he woke up from a nightmare where a squirrel was chasing him around the playground pappa was there to wrap his long arms around him and tell him that he was safe and that he would get his squirrel catching gear out of the supply closet the man they had started calling Dad had built for them, first thing in the morning.

When Remus faked being sick the first day of school because a kid in his class had laughed at the white streak in his hair he'd had since birth pappa had come and picked him up, explaining that poliosis is nothing to be ashamed of and laughing warmly as his son tried to pronouns the word.

-

Pappa would always protect them.

When Roman first talked about his pappa and dad in school the teacher had looked like she'd eaten something nasty. Later on Roman was moved to the same class as his brother, his own teacher saying she didn't want to be associated with his kind.

When Pappa came to pick him up that day Roman asked what that ment. And for one of the first times in his life he'd seen pappa frown.

They baked a cake to celebrate them being the same class that evening and Pappa and dad lifted the two of them high up in the air and twirled them around while cheerful music played.

When Remus got told off by a teacher for the first time because he had pushed another kid in his class he had to sit in the corner for ten minutes.

When he was allowed to go back to his spot Roman thanked him for protecting him and Remus threw the paper ball that had been thrown at him right back.

When Pappa came to pick him up he and the teacher had a long talk and they left quickly afterwards. Pappa holding both his and Roman's hands in his own big one's and telling them about how they had done the right thing.

-

Pappa would always comfort them.

When Roman came back home with scrapped knees and an attitude Pappa had asked him what had happened.

Roman hadn't answered and his brother had later told their dad's that he had seen Roman getting pushed around by some older kids. The had been yelling a word he didn't know the meaning of. When he had told it to pappa he had looked angry. And told his boys that those kids were mean and to never use that word because it made fun of good people.

When Remus began to get more friends his pappa asked him to include Roman in all of their games.

His brother had trouble connecting to people and was quickly becoming the bullied kid. And while Remus would gladly take any bullets for him he couldn't protect him at all times.

And while Remus played star wars with his friends, running around the playground and pretending to know the characters, Roman sat and drew in the little notebook pappa had given him for school.

And Remus bought him a new one with his own pocket money when a mean kid threw it in the lake nearby when they went there to explore with the class around the time that eggs would magically appear in their garden and they pretended like it was a bunny putting them there.

Pappa would always be with them.

When they went to highschool and Remus his friends could no longer play starwars with him because one moved away, one said she’d never liked him and two others went to the same school but suddenly forgot about their being friends, he sat with his brother more often.

And when Roman got friends that he wasn’t sure he liked but hung around anyways because it was better than sitting alone, Remus was left sitting at a table at lunch, other kids coming to sit at the same one in the hopes he would get up and leave.

When he had refused to do just that they’d began whispering about him pretending he didn’t hear them. And when he acted like he didn’t hear they had began calling him mean things.

After two months at the new school they came home and both called for their Pappa with shaky voices too quiet to bare any sort of good news.

And when Remus showed off his bruised wrist he’d gotten when a kid had grabbed him harshly and Roman told him about how his friends hadn’t been friends but bullies in a trenchcoat and a mustache to make him think they were friends before telling him he was too weird to hang around, Pappa had brought them both into his arms. Whispering something like ‘oh my poor, brave boys,’ before holding them a bit tighter and then telling them that sometimes, the world was mean like that and that, sometimes, it takes a while before you find the right people.

And when they went to bed that night they laid in the room and stared at the same ceiling. Both pretending they couldn’t hear Pappa arguing with Dad in the hallway.

Both pretending they weren’t crying silently until they fell asleep to Dad accusing Pappa of being a vile and horrible human being.

Pappa didn’t have all the answers.

They learnt that when they were on their second year of highschool and both of their pet bunnies died in the same night. 

Roman had sniffled and stood near the gardendoor as he watched them dig a deep hole all the way at the back of their garden. 

Remus decided that he would be sad about this at night when nobody would see or worry and stood close by Pappa as he put the two bunnies in a shoebox and put it in the hole. Saying they had probably died because of the rat poision Dad had spread across the lawn and that the mice must’ve gotten into their food somehow.

They learnt this when Dad and him had sat them down after breakfast that had strawberries to tell them that sometimes love died and that weddingrings would rust and be put in two seperate homes in two seperate boxes that would never be opened again.

They learnt this the fifth time that Remus came home with bruises and Roman began to listen to darker music and emote less dramatically. Unlearning all the expressions he’d picked up from those animated childrens series they weren’t allowed to watch but watched them anyways. He faked having imagined a happy place when the woman that was supposed to help them through the divorce told him to invision one. Instead invisioning Remus, and how he should have punched the guy that had made him drop his books the moment he saw it happening.

Pappa was  a human being.

They realised this more clearly than ever when he’d found out why Remus only wore long sleeves and got sent to therapy after their Pappa had hysterically cried over it and begged his son not to leave them before he could grow old.

When Roman stared at the ceiling after he’d taken 14 paracetamol and googling how many it would take to leave them before he could grow old, only to find that he would probably be fine and go to school the next day feeling as empty as usual. Pappa had yelled at him when he had gotten back to be more careful and not get invloved with his brothers troubles after he’d shown off the scratched shoulder from where he’d been thrown against a fence when he'd tried to stand up for him.

And when Remus got diagnosed with dyslexia and Roman with depression they said nothing. Roman shaking his head when the doctor suggested therapy and Remus sitting quietly as they explained that he might have adhd aswell.

Their father wasn't perfect.

They learnt this when Remus came back from school with a black eye and a failed math test and the test was all that was focused on. Shouting not unlike the one they'd heard all those years ago when love began to die and rings began to rust booming through the house and piercing through the music Roman was listening to in his room. A bottle cap with water falling off his desk and the little growing plant in it falling with it.

They learnt this when Roman said he was asexual aromantic and their father said that he should consider therapy again because surely that couldn't be normal.

And when Roman told him that maybe they weren't normal he'd been send to his room. Doors slamming shut and noises too loud for Remus to process.

-

Their father was wrong sometimes.

They realised this when Remus first brought a friend home and jokes about countries the kid wasn't from were made around the otherwise uncomfortably quiet dinner table. And when religion was brought up in a house full of atheists Remus stood and took his friend's hand, saying that they'd eat something at a foodtruck and storming of, leaving Roman to feed little stripes of unseasoned meat to the cat.

-

Their father was bad sometimes.

They learned this when the both of them started college and the racist microagressions turned into jokes about how they'd never make it since they were both going to art schools.

And when Remus showed him his homemade costume he huffed and said it looked great in a tone that Implied anything but. And when Roman showed him the finished piece he'd worked months on he said it looked nice even if it had mistakes while pointing at every single one of them while his son, hands still stained with markers and pencil smudges, gave a watery smile and the artwork was put in a art map to never be looked at again.

Their father wasn't good for them.

They realised this. Finally realised this, when Remus was twenty and had decided to move out, getting a small apartment would have been to expensive had his brother not eagerly asked him if he could come with him.

And they told their father while their bags were already packed and the rent was already payed.

And their neighbours registered a noise complained and whispered about calling childservices when their father started another screaming match to tell them how much he didn't want them to leave and how they wouldn't make it.

And they painted the walls mint green while Roman painted a mural around the spot where their couch would be.

And they ate lukewarm noodles from the plastic canisters while sat on the empty apartment floor.

And Roman bought a dozen succulents to take care of and make it feel more like home.

And the wall was always covered in outfit designs and storyboards as the jar they had put the sticker 'for a couch' on slowly filled up.

And they still send him Christmas cards but didn't plan on visiting that house for a long long time.

And their father would have killed them for the mess they made of the apartment sometimes.

And they preferred it that way.

-

This is both an extremely specific vent and goes out to all the kids with complicated relationships with their parents.

You're allowed to not like your caretakers. You're allowed to not want contact with them after you've moved on. You're allowed to think how they treated you was unjust because it probably was.

-

-

Taglist

@purp-man @crazycookie13o @deceitifullies101 @sapphire-knight @ragingdumpsterfiremess @chronophobica @lance-alt @mylifeisadeceit

#sanders sides #roman sanders #remus sanders #thomas sanders #roman angst #ts roman #roman ts #remus and roman #remus angst #ts remus #Human au #I think??? #Vent fic #Hahaha this is too specific to be anything but #Don't be worried I'm fineeeeeee #Am I though? #Nah we good this is a old fix anyway #Angst #Crying #Narrative story #long post #My fic #sanders sides fic #fan fic #ficlet #Mention of homophobia

[doublegrinch]

Charmed! 2021 con log

takes out a chair and sets it down, sits on it backwards

Alright, shouting void, we need to talk.

So...last weekend, I attended Charmed!. Me, a tenured lurker who only a few short months ago was struggling to say one (1) thing in a Discord.

I can't tell you what that means to me.

(I mean, um. I'm gonna try. This is a con log.)

Now, obviously I can't name names, because of the private nature of the event; I'm gonna err on the side of caution on that one, as I understand one is meant to do. Some people reading this* might recognize themselves – and if you do, hi! You're awesome! – but I'll keep all the non-public details vague enough.

Thursday!

No, actually, things started the night before for me.

Wednesday!

As the server opened, people were posting intros, and after obsessing over mine for mumble I posted one. I'm sure glad I did, because a wonderful person decided to reach out to me.

Like...what? Someone wanted to talk to me? Just like that? I had gone into this thinking "oh these social rooms are so intimidating, welp guess it's wallflower time" but then this person just ups and talks to me. And we totally clicked! We'd end up chatting all through the weekend and beyond.

Like...what?! It's not even day one and I'm already making friends?

What?!

Thursday (for real this time)

Came right out of work – which was not a productive day, lemme tell you; somehow I was distracted – and into the 101. Four hours of intense learning goodness, and a perfect introduction to the wonderfulness that was that weekend.

I stayed engaged throughout – a testament to the skills of the presenters! – but socially crashed right after. That would become a running theme of the weekend; turns out even after being deprived of social contact for a whole-ass year, I am very much still an introvert.

Friday

Started the day off right with a class on consent. Not only was this very useful info and a great class, it was smaller and much more chill than the previous one, which was a perfect start for the day.

Then, I went to the coolest class on behavior and conditioning. Seriously, it was so informative. And funny! I kinda know the presenter too, and it was their first class, so I was all like "get it!!!" I came out of it with two main takeaways:

A whole new lens through which to view behavior and how it's influenced. Like, all behavior

A powerful need to buy a particular pen

Then the class on Imposter Syndrome. This was honestly just a balm on a lot of old fears. Not really about kink, because I'm so new I'm "pre-imposter", so to speak; but about writing, and work, and life in general.

I expected to come out with a better understanding of my feelings; I actually came out with not only that, but also some actionable techniques I could use to help with some of my nastier brain goblins. Seriously, if that class's presenter ever reads this : thank you, sincerely.

(Also, seeing some actual living legends attending that class drew in sharp relief what I always suspected to be true : we're all like this sometimes. We're all in this together.)

And then – are you exhausted reading this? Cause I sure was living it! – I went to my fourth class that day, and watched two presenters with such obvious chemistry demonstrate clearly how to Do Things and how Not To Do Things. It was funny, it was instructive, it was lovely. There was a cat at one point.

(Seriously, how is everybody at this con so nice?)

Then in the evening, I was the only one who showed up to a card game (I think everyone else was just exhausted). Only instead of having an Awkward Social Moment I ended up having a lovely chat with someone I'd seen in passing on the Discords but never really talked to before. I dunno what it is about the con atmosphere that just allows these connections to be made; just the tiny push you need to go out and meet people. It's great.

And then I went to bed EXHAUSTED, but so happy.

Saturday!

My brain woke me up at 6 am that morning. Which, since I live in the same timezone as the con, and had planned to skip the first round of classes, it did NOT need to do. Thanks, brain.

Classes!

Since I was up, I went to a class on safety. Good info, cause safety's important, yo.

I went to the Ace and Kinky roundtable! This was such a moment for me. Just sitting around and sharing experiences with people. Just...wow. As I said at the time : I am experiencing validation. Still processing what it means to me actually.

A class about how different dom styles are all valid! As someone who's very insecure in their toppiness, that's a wonderful help

And then, in the evening, the actual card game. Like any good Cards Against Humanity game, this had

Lots of people saying "oh no"

Being kind of skittish about being really awful, then getting a round so horrible you go "oh wow, people came to PLAY huh?"

"That one's too real"

Saying stuff aloud you really wish the neighbors don't hear

A whole bunch of quotes that #overhead-at-charmed was mercifully spared from

Laughter

Human bonding. From my end, at least

Then after we gave the winner the Shame Crown, I went to bed with an even bigger smile on my face. I mean come on! I'm supposed to be Double Grinch, no fair making me all happy and shit.

SuNdAy!

(Can you hear the exhaustion in that title?)

Started the day off with a writing class. Y'ever sit in on a panel of your favorite hypno-smut authors, some of whom have had a direct hand in your own work finally getting read after years of anxious avoidance, and watch them talk about a whole bunch of stuff that makes you go "they're just like me" among other wisdoms? Cause it's a weird, wonderful feeling

Also of note is I was "chatting in the back of the class" a lot of the time on Discord. Which was the best, most belonging-est feeling. And since it wasn't IRL, it didn't bother the presenters!

Weird non-convention pocket of time

So I was torn between which class to attend on the next block, or whether I should take it easy cause I was so tired you guys, oh my god, but then that choice was made for me when a friend from real life – remember real life? – called me to chat. I had A Real Time™ booting my brain in normal human mode for the duration of the call.

That call lasted until five minutes before the block after that one – I talk a lot. You're shocked, I know.

End weird non-convention pocket of time

Aaaand we're back in con space! Last class of the con was...intense, to say the least. Like not even in a bad way, necessarily, but with the exhaustion and all eventually the demo got to be Too Much and I had to bail. It was still good and informative and I took down lots of notes, but yeah, weird feeling.

And then, just like that, it was over! Just like my social meter.

When I went in to this, I had two goals:

Learn things

Be social

That's absolutely a check and check. Gotta think of some more ambitious goals for the next one. But keep those, too.

So, shouting void, what have we learned?

We've learned that I Can Go To Cons™. And that they can be wonderful, intense, magical, intense, spectacular, intense moments filled with learning and human connection.

And to the community builders out there. You know who you are. You folks made the spaces that felt safe enough for this aging fool to dust off an old dream. Thank you.

* except nobody reads this, right? Right.

#my writing #shouting into the void with elation

[deceiviious]

@perfect-fourth

Zed remembered the whispers among the Navori brotherhood from nineteen years ago. He had been little more than a boy, barely fifteen years of age, when some fellow disciples had returned to the temple of Thaanjul, wide-eyed, with gaping mouths and gossip to share. “There’s a demon,” one girl had blurted out. “He’s killed four people, but the master won’t let us see.”

Thinking back upon the conversation, Zed was relieved everybody save him and Shen had been spared of the unspeakable horrors that the so-called demon had caused. “The Golden Demon,” the townspeople of Gilur had coined after sixteen hardworking farmers had been left dead, assembled to what could be best described as a pyramid of corpses, each draped meticulously. The entrails were spread in an intricate pattern, leaving little to the imagination. He remembered the screams of an elderly housewife upon discovering her husband’s belt on one of the dismembered corpses – save for his clothing, he had been unidentifiable, as had the rest of them. Zed recalled the silence as one after the other body was lifted from the pile – they had been staked with metal and wooden poles – and the village had scattered around what human was left, praying desperately that it wasn’t a family member. That it was somebody else, but not their relative, friend, daughter, son. After the sixth body Zed had fled the scene, nauseated, his hands clenched to fists, digging his fingernails into his palms until he’d drawn blood.

He had felt similarly helpless back then as he did now, treading up the hill leading to the former Kinkou temple. Although he was heavily armed – not only with the familiar shurikens in each hand, but with various assortments of daggers and spikes – he felt naked heading towards what seemed like a nightmare. As desperately as he hoped Jhin hadn’t spared the main residence of the Shadow Order any attention, it seemed unlikely – after all, the former stagehand would never interrupt his carefully crafted routine or his obsession with the number four. The only logical conclusion – the only one left – was that he had immediately headed towards Thaanjul. The closer Zed drew, the larger the lump in his throat seemed to grow – he tried to swallow it down, but it seemed downright impossible with his dry mouth and sharp inhales that had grown rapid from trying to climb the hill as quickly as he could. At the edge of the clearing the building sat in, he paused momentarily to catch his breath, scanning the area for traces of an unfamiliar presence. He found none outside – no obvious fighting. Nevertheless, he couldn’t shake the eerie feeling – the feeling that something was horribly wrong. It was only split seconds before the realized what – it was quiet. Usually, around this time, the air was filled with shouts, laughter and strained grunts, members of his Order practicing magic in the gardens, some perhaps enjoying a meal outside after cooking together. Now, nobody paced through the tall grass – cautiously, he pushed himself along the backside of the temple, intent on staying unseen, especially from high ground.

Zed elected not to enter through the large opening in front of the building that was framed by two tall pillars, marbled, ivory twining up their length. Instead, he snuck in through a window that was about six feet off the ground – traditionally, neither the Kinkou nor his order had taken a particular liking to glass which resulted in every entrance being open so he wouldn’t have to shatter or make any sound to enter. Zed leapt, grabbing ahold of the cool stone of the windowsill, his shurikens tucked into his belt, pulling himself up with his arms and lifting his legs over the sill quietly. He landed in one of the shared sleeping areas, thudding to the ground as quietly as a cat would have.

The first observation the shadow master made was that the futons hadn’t been made – he would’ve expressed his displeasure otherwise upon discovering the scrambled blankets and pillows, now he ignored the chaos his students had left behind. The room contained four of the mattresses, but of the yánléi nobody was in sight. Zed frowned, pacing across the room and through the curtain that gave them the utmost privacy, entering one of the many long-winded hallways. Even through his mask, here, without the open windows to clear out the waft of smoke, Zed could taste a sickly sweet scent – a floral stench that immediately put him on edge, making him tighten his grip around his handheld weapons of choice. The air seemed heavier than usual, tinted in a violet shade – he removed his headpiece briefly to inhale and pressed it back onto his face. It made him lightheaded and dizzy and Zed staggered against the wall to stay on his feet.

It was already obvious that the Golden Demon had indeed been here – if not from the polluted air that Zed gaged to be some form of gas – then from of the next bedroom. He found one young man slumped over his futon and his stomach twisted as he knelt down, hesitating briefly before he reached for his wrist. He looked dead. What if they all were dead? The thought crossed his mind briefly, but he shoved it aside before it could consume him, turning the yánléi onto his back. His chest rose and fell shallowly and Zed exhaled sharply, relieved he had been spared, but dreading what he was to discover throughout the temple.

He found the first corpse in the hallway between Kayn’s and his own room – a fallen girl, laying on her stomach, a pool of blood oozing from the wound in her head. “Yena,” he said, voice devoid of emotions as he sat, pulling the knife from where it had gotten stuck in the bone of her skull. Zed had seen enough death for a lifetime, yet had always managed to distance himself from the kills on the battlefield, the Noxians slaying countless Ionians. That hadn’t been his fault – this was and his alone. He might have as well struck her down himself, he thought bitterly, swallowing down the strangled sob that threatened to claw its way out of his throat. Instead, he turned her head slightly – the white of the shattered bone, leaking brain matter and coagulated blood made him avert his gaze as he brushed over her eyelids to close them. Zed had only spared her face a brief gaze, but the expression had irreversibly etched itself into his mind – doe eyes, widened surprise. She hadn’t been afraid, she hadn’t had time to be – her life had ended before she had thudded to the ground. Zed blinked, his eyes watering. The desperate hope that it had been but a nightmare had long evaporated into thin air, leaving behind nothing but pure, stomach wrenching, gut-twisting terror. Quietly – still anxious Jhin was in his temple – Zed rose to his feet, pursing his lips, prepared to move on. Throughout the next few rooms, his students were slowly starting to stir, but he bid them to stay quiet. Yena’s corpse had been the sixth which meant that at least two more were left. Zed didn’t doubt Jhin had fulfilled his work.

The second body lay in the joined area used for cooking and conversing. Zed brushed aside the curtain that separated the area from the hallway and immediately realized he had found what he was searching for – the smell wasn’t strong yet, especially beneath his mask, but the pattern of innards and blood splashed across the ground wasn’t to be missed. Initially, Zed thought the pile at the end of the room to be a piece of blood drenched fabric, but as he drew closer, he recognized bones and flesh among the jumbled mess that sat atop a carpet… A rug that hadn’t been there before. Zed flinched, not stepping any closer to the husk of what had once been a yánléi. He couldn’t identify him and he could no longer ignore the overwhelming vertigo that forced him onto his knees in a puddle of blood, head lowered, breaths growing rapid. One word etched itself into his mind, repeating, screaming. ‘Why. Why me? What have I done?’

Zed pressed a gloved hand against his chest that rose and fell too quickly – the additional intake of oxygen was beginning to make him feel lightheaded, panic tightening his throat until he was certain he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move, much like the corpse – did it even deserve that name – the shreds of flesh that lay on the ground. There was one more – Zed knew there had to be. He felt his knees buckle when he climbed to his feet, steadying and balancing himself with the help of the nearby wall. He had combed through all of the bedrooms, now all that was left was the main hall that lead to the entrance of the temple. Slowly, he crept closer – blinking, trying to shake the past few images. He was surprised at the sight that confronted him – the hall was empty. Nobody. Nothing. A few seconds passed before he heard a shuffle from one corner, from behind one of the supporting pillars – immediately, he reached for a dagger as the figure stepped closer, swaying slightly – the demon was tall and slender, clad in his mask, the shoulder piece and surely armed. Close enough for his shadow step, Zed was able to dash in.

“How dare you! What have you done!” The scream caught in his throat, his voice broke as he tumbled into the man, both of them going to the ground, his blades plunging deeply into the other's heart. Zed yanked out the first shuriken and sliced his throat, feeling the satisfying warm liquid stain his gloves. Again, he stabbed the killer, until he had stopped twitching, until he felt the life had left him. Zed panted, gasped as he removed his own mask and bent over to do the same for Jhin. He tore it off and his mind refused to cooperate with the image. The man was dead, without a doubt – his eyelids had been sewn closed with golden thread, as had his lips, blood staining his face. He lay lifelessly and most importantly – the realization had dawned far earlier, the scream left his lips before Zed could consciously – it was not Jhin.

It was one of his own – one of his own he had brutally and remorselessly murdered, without much of a second thought. Zed scrambled down next to him, his hands already pressed against the wounds on his throat and chest as more and more blood leaked from the poor unsuspecting yánléi. “No… Please, c’mon! Wake up, dammit,” he snapped, voice breaking. He knew it was too late, it was little more than a desperate attempt to soothe his conscience. “Please…”

He was faint. The tears fell without his say, obscuring his vision, turning the world around him into a blurry mess as he let his head drop onto the body’s chest, cowering beside him, clutching him. “Please. I didn’t… Mean to,” he whispered.

#tw: gore #tw: panic attacks #tw jhin don't read this if you don't want graphic description of gore #mmH YES this took me so long but here is zorture #zhangst #he is.. not doing well