#unless I found somebody to beta for me

[coochiequeens]

Sounds like the fertility agency misled the couple into thinking that twins were guaranteed so worth the price which led to a feeling of not getting what they paid for. If she aborted they might not have had to pay her so they could save that money for another try at twins.

"It's a baby. It's a healthy baby. I'm not understanding," the surrogate recalls

By Hannah Sacks Published on January 23, 2024

Signing up to be a surrogate can be a way to give a gift to another couple — but what happens if they change their mind?

A TikTok user named Heathyr signed up to be a surrogate in the middle of 2019 after she spent nearly five years wanting to get involved with the process.

"For me to be a parent, that is literally my favorite thing in the world," Heathyr says in a series of videos posted to her TikTok account. "And to be a surrogate, to give somebody else that feeling, like being a parent. That is why I wanted to be a surrogate."

Though it took a while for Heathyr to match with a couple, she eventually found one that she felt was "on the same page" as her. She says that from the beginning, she made it clear that the one thing that was very important to her was her stance on termination.

"I personally, this is my own opinion, you don't have to agree with me. I personally do not believe in termination unless there is something that will hurt the quality of life of the child," she shares. Heathyr says that while she is largely against abortions, she thinks it isn't fair to bring a child into the world if there is a life-threatening disease or injury.

The couple she matched with said they were Catholic and didn't believe in termination, so Heathyr says she figured they would get along well. The parents were hoping to have twins, a boy and a girl, which Heathyr says they told her repeatedly.

She proceeded with the surrogacy process, however, the first transfer didn't take. In February of 2020, they did another transfer and Heathyr successfully got pregnant — but things weren't exactly as the couple had hoped.

"When I went to get my ultrasound done, my first ultrasound, it only showed one sac, which just means that only one of the embryos attached," Heathyr explains. "So we didn't know if it was the boy or the girl but we knew that I was pregnant and the beta numbers were rising accordingly, which is the start of showing it's a healthy, successful pregnancy."

Soon after, Heathyr called the mom to tell her the exciting news, but the mom voiced some concerns, saying that she wasn't sure why both the sacs didn't stick. "This really confused me," Heathyr says in the video. "What do you mean? It's a baby. It's a healthy baby. I'm not understanding."

The couple wanted her to have another ultrasound to double-check that there was no twin hiding. After having another ultrasound, Heathyr confirmed that there was just one sac and that this time, there was a heartbeat.

By the time the next ultrasound came around, the COVID-19 pandemic had started to shut down parts of the world. At around seven or eight weeks pregnant, Heathyr got an email from her match manager at the surrogate agency who asked her to call her.

"She's like, 'I want to read you a letter from [the parents] because they are just very heartbroken and they don't know how to tell you this. So they wrote this letter and they want me to read it to you,' " Heathyr recalls.

"So she reads me this letter and the gist of it was, 'Heathyr we are so sorry, but you know, this virus is getting pretty bad and we just think it would be best for you to have a termination at this time. And we will try again when the virus is over with and we would be happy to work with you again.' "

The note came as a shock to Heathyr, who says she started to cry and thought the couple was messing with her. She decided to call her lawyer and ask if she had to go through with the termination, even though the baby was completely healthy.

She was told to set up a Zoom call with her lawyer and the parents, where the dad proceeded to yell at her for not respecting their wishes. "I'm just bawling and I ended up getting off the phone," she remembers.

"I talked to my lawyer and she pretty much just made it clear, 'Heathyr, I went over and over this contract and you do not have to have a termination. Obviously, that is your decision. They cannot sue you. In the contract, it states that you would only have a termination for a medical reason that would end in quality of life issues for the child.' "

She got a few other opinions from different lawyers, who all told her that the couple would not be able to sue her if she decided not to terminate the baby. While Heathyr notes that things could've changed if she'd contracted COVID-19, she never got the virus and the baby was perfectly healthy.

In May, Heathyr got a call from her OB, who told her that the intended dad was sending her doctor emails every day about different COVID-19 cases. "He was sending her certified mail to the office about the emails. They were pretty much just printed out. And he was calling the office every day," she says.

When the time came to give birth, Heathyr says the couple flew out to her home state of Ohio to pick up their baby. Although the intended mom had expressed wanting to be in the delivery room, she ended up changing her mind and decided to stay in the waiting room.

After Heathyr delivered the baby boy, she says that the parents completely changed their tune. "The parents kept bringing him into my room. I would be wheeled over to him in their room. I got to hold him and get pictures with him. They each wrote me cards thanking me for all I did and how I kept their baby safe."

"And how they'd never forget me and they just appreciate what I've done for them, I've completed their family. You wouldn't have thought those last 9½, 10 months happened because it was just surreal."

At the end of the day, Heathyr was happy that the parents seemed to be excited when they met their son.

"I just know I saw the way they looked at him and the mom was just so happy and crying," she shares. "And that's what I wanted. You can't force somebody to want a baby, but the whole journey I was so scared. And I just knew when I saw them that they are happy."

#Anti surrogacy #Babies are not commodities #If the couple was really catholic they wouldn't have tried surrogacy in the first place #Reproductive purchasers changing their mind during the pregnancy #The purchasers ended up wanting the baby anyway #They subjected their surrogate to all that stress just to take the kid anyway #Reproductive purchasers trying to force a woman into abortion #Was she paid? Or did they try to weasel out of that?

[bibmob]

So, how did Snape and Harry first meet? Was Snape sent by Dumbledore to check up on him, or did Harry run away and he found him in an alley or something? (Love you're art btw!)

Thank you!

And to answer your question, in the draft I wrote back when I started drawing severitus Harry gets left behind during a shopping day in London. He wanders around for a while trying to find his aunt when a strangely dressed man catches his attention, entering a bar that he could swear wasn't there a second ago. He followes him and lo and behold he finds himself in the Leaky Cauldron. The man exits through the back so he sneakes after him and gets into Diagon Alley. He finds Severus in a café and in a very Potter fashion begins bothering him about the moving pictures in his newspaper. Snape doesn't realise who he's talking to until he begrudingly gets Harry home. He can't get the boy out of his head so he decides to check on him and he finds out about the Dursleys etc etc

It's in dire need of a rewrite tbh. I'd change quite a few things about it if I ever did it.

#ask #severitus #au #even if I did rewrite it #I probably wouldn't publish it tho #unless I found somebody to beta for me #but alas #i do have another hp fanfic that i begun a while ago #which is sort of severitus but also not exactly #i shan't say more than that

[makeroomforthejolyghost]

In Search of Lost Screws (RQBB '21)

Here at last is my entry for the 2021 Rusty Quill Big Bang!

Fandom: The Magnus Archives Rating: T Word count: ~30k Warnings: Chronic Illness, Mild Body Horror, Internalized Ableism, Canon-Typical Spiders, Mention of Canon-Typical Suicidal Ideation, Alcohol Other tags: Cane-user Jon, EDS Jon, Canon-compliant, Season 5, Set in 180-181 (Upton Safehouse period) Characters: Jon Sims, Martin Blackwood, Mikaele Salesa (secondary), Annabelle Cane (secondary) Relationships: Jon/Martin Summary: While staying at Upton House, Jon and Martin accidentally break their bedroom’s doorknob, and can’t get back into the room until they fix it. Meanwhile Jon tries not to break into literal pieces without the Eye, and also to pretend he’s having a good time as he and Martin lunch with Annabelle, parry gifts from Salesa, and quarrel about whether Jon’s okay or not. He's fine! It's just that the apocalypse runs on dream logic, and chronic pain feels worse when you're awake. Excerpt:

“Have I mentioned how weird it is you’re the one who keeps asking me this stuff?” “I’m sorry. I’m trying to help? I just…” Jon closed his eyes, which itched with the warehouse’s dust, and rubbed their lids with an index finger. “I can’t seem to corral my thoughts here.” “Don’t worry about it. It’s actually kind of fun, it’s just—I’m so used to being the sidekick,” Martin laughed. “Besides, I miss my eldritch Google.” “Should I go back out there, ask the Eye about it, then come back?” Another laugh, this one less awkward. “No. That won’t work, remember? This place is a ‘blind spot,’ you said.” The words in inverted commas he said with a frown and in a deeper voice. “Right, right. I forgot,” Jon sighed. He lowered himself to the floor and examined the finger he’d felt snap back into place when he let go his cane. During the five seconds he’d allowed himself to entertain it, the idea of heading back out there had excited him a little. A few minutes to check on Basira, verify what Salesa had told them about his life before the change, make sure the world hadn’t somehow ended twice over. Give himself a few minutes’ freedom of movement, for that matter. Out there he could run, jump, open jars, pick up full mugs of tea without worrying a screw in his hand would come loose and make him drop them. He could stand up as quickly as he thought the words, I think I’ll stand up now, without his vision going dark. God, and even if it did, it wouldn’t matter! He would just know every tripping hazard and every look on Martin’s face, without having to ask these clumsy human eyes to show them to him. “Honestly, it’d almost feel worth it to go back out there just to formulate a plan to find them. At least I can think out there.” “Hey.” Martin elbowed him slightly in the ribs. Jon fought with himself not to resent the very gentleness of it. “I think I’ll come up with the plan for once, thanks. Some of us can think just fine here.” Was it just because of Hopworth that Martin’s elbow barely touched him? Or because Martin feared that Jon would break in here, in a way he’d learnt not to fear out there?

Huge thanks to @pilesofnonsense for hosting this event; to @connanro for beta-reading; and to @silmapeli for their amazing illustration, whose own post you can find here.

If you prefer, you can read this fic instead on Ao3. I won't link it directly, since Tumblr has trouble with external links, but if you google the title and add "echinoderms" (my Ao3 handle), it should come up!

Crunch. “Oh god. Shit! Oh god, oh no—”

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

A clatter, then a noise like a small rock scraping a large one. Jon’s heart plunged; halfway through his question he knew the answer.

“I—I broke it? Look, see, the whole thing just—take this.” Martin tore his hand out of Jon’s and dropped the severed doorknob in it instead. Then he dropped to the floor, diving head- and hands-first for the crack between it and the door as if that crack were a portal between dimensions. Jon closed his eyes and shook this image away, hoping when he opened them again he could focus on what was real.

He should have known this would happen from the moment they left for breakfast. Every time he’d opened that door its knob felt a little looser. Why hadn’t he warned Martin? Well, alright, he didn’t need powers to know that one. He just hadn’t thought of it. Been a bit preoccupied, after all. And even if he had thought of it, that was exactly the kind of conversation he’d been shying away from all week. Watch out for that doorknob; it’s a little loose, he would say, and yeah, probably Martin would answer, Oh, thanks. But there was a chance Martin would say instead, Why didn’t you tell me?—and all week Jon had obeyed an instinct to avoid prompting that question. All week he had made sure to enter and exit their room a few steps ahead of Martin, and hold the door open for him. Martin probably just saw it as Jon’s way of apologizing for their first few months in the Archives together, and once that thought occurred to him Jon had started to look at it that way himself. Maybe that’s why he’d forgot this time.

“Nooo-oooo, come on come on!”

“I don’t think you’ll fit,” Jon said, when he looked again and found Martin trying to wedge his fingers under the door.

(Martin used to leave Jon’s office door open behind him—perhaps absentmindedly, but more likely as a gesture of friendship and openness, which the Jon of that time would not suffer. Sasha and Tim, n.b., only left his door open on their way into his office, when they didn’t intend to stay long; Martin would leave it gaping even if he didn’t mean to come back. Every time Jon had sighed, pulled himself to his feet, and closed the door behind Martin, drawing out the click of its tongue in the latch. And a few times he’d closed the door in front of him, so as to exclude him from a conversation between Jon and Tim or Sasha that he, Martin, had tried to weigh in on from outside Jon’s office.)

“What are you looking for?”

“The—the screw, I saw it roll under there. It fell down on our side. Oh, my god, it was so close—if I’d reacted just half a second earlier, I could’ve?—shit.”

“Oh.” Jon huffed out a cynical laugh.

“I can’t believe it. I broke Salesa’s door! He welcomes us in to an oasis, and I break the door. Oh, god—I’ve broken an irreplaceable door, in a stately historic mansion!”

A few more demonstrative huffs of laughter. “No you didn’t.”

Martin paused. He didn’t get up, but did turn his head to look at Jon. “Yes I did. It’s right there in your hand, Jon—”

“I should’ve known. Check for cobwebs, Martin.”

“Oh come on.”

“This can’t be your fault—it’s far too neat. This is all part of Annabelle’s plan.”

“Do you know that?”

“W-well, no. I can’t, not here. I just—”

“Yeah, I don’t think so, Jon. Pretty sure it’s just an old doorknob.”

“Did you check for cobwebs?”

“Of course there are no cobwebs. A spider wouldn’t even have time to finish building the web before somebody wrecked it opening the door!”

“Then what’s that?” With the tip of his cane Jon tapped the floor in front of a clot of gray fluff in the seam between two walls next to the door, making sure not to let it touch the clot itself.

Martin rolled over to see where he was pointing, and almost stuck his elbow in it. “Ah. Gross. Gross, is what that is.”

“Christ, I should’ve known this would happen. I did know this would happen,” Jon reminded himself—“just ignored the warning signs because I can’t think straight here.”

“It doesn’t mean anything, Jon. It’s a corner. Spiders love corners. I mean, unless you can prove the corner of our doorway has more spiderwebs than anywhere else in the house—”

“Well, of course not. You forget she’s got her own corner somewhere, which we still haven’t found by the way—”

“So, what, you think Annabelle Cane lassoed the screw with a strand of cobweb.”

“Not literally? She could be sitting on the other side of the door with a magnet for all we know!”

Martin peered under the door again with an exasperated sigh. “She’s not.”

“Not now she’s heard us talking about her.”

God, what a delicate web that would be, if all he had to do to avoid the spider’s clutches was reach a door before Martin did. Perhaps if he’d knocked first that’d have saved him. Maybe Martin was right. How could Annabelle know him well enough to foresee this mistake? Most of the time he hated people opening doors for him, after all.

Why do people see someone with a cane and think, Only one free hand? How ever will he open the door!? They don’t do that for people with shopping bags—not ones his age, at least. Letting another person open a door for him felt to Jon like… defeat, somehow. Like admitting the dolce et decorum estness of this version of reality all nondisabled people seemed to live in where he couldn’t open doors. And that version of reality horrified him. Not so much the idea of being too weak to open them—that sounded merely annoying. Like knocking the sides of jar lids on tables and swearing, only with doors. He had beat his fists against enough Pull doors in his time to figure he could live with that. It was more the idea of becoming that way. Letting his door-opening muscles atrophy ‘til it became the truth.

But sometimes you just let a thing happen, and forget to hate it. That was the thing about pride. Sometimes your convictions and your habits stop fitting together—you believe Fuck this job with all your heart, but still tuck in your shirt when you come to the office. And then you fly back from America in borrowed clothes, and pop in at the Institute like that on your way to Gertrude’s storage unit, and that’s what changes your habits. Not the knowledge you can’t be fired; not your now-boyfriend’s plot to put your then-boss behind bars. A thirdhand t-shirt with a slogan on it about how to outrun bears.

On his way out this morning the doorknob had felt so loose in Jon’s hand he almost had told Martin about it. But Martin had been full of let’s-go-on-an-adventure-together-style chatter—like when they’d left Daisy’s safehouse, only, get this, without the dread of entering an apocalyptic wasteland—and listening to him put the door out of Jon’s mind before he’d had time to interject.

Their first day here—or at least, the first they spent awake—Jon had inadvertently taught Martin not to accept invitations from Salesa. The latter had bounded up after Martin’s lunch in linen shirt and whooshy shorts and was, to Martin’s then-unseasoned heart, impossible to deny. So Jon had spent thirty minutes on a creaky folding chair, lunging out of his seat on occasion to collect a ball one of the other two had hit wrong, and trying to keep Salesa’s too-bright white socks out of sight. He’d pretended he preferred to sit out, knowing Martin would worry if he tried to play. But he hadn’t done as good a job hiding his boredom as he thought. “Thanks for putting up with that. Sorry it went on so long,” Martin had said as they re-entered their bedroom. “I just couldn’t say no to him, you know? For such a cynical old man he’s got impressive puppy eyes.”

“It’s fine? You know me, I don’t mind… watching.”

“I just mean, I’m sorry you couldn’t play. How’s your leg, by the way? Er—both your legs, I guess.”

“It’s fine. They’re both fine. I didn’t want to play anyway, remember? I don’t know how.”

“Sure you don’t,” Martin replied, words tripping over a fond laugh.

“I don’t!”

“Come on, Jon. Everyone knows how to play ping-pong.”

Martin had turned down Salesa when he showed up the next day in khaki shorts and a pith helmet with three butterfly nets, without Jon’s having to say a word. More emphatically still did he turn him down when Salesa mentioned the house had an indoor pool, and offered to lend them both antique bathing suits like the one he had on, “Free of charge! A debtor is an enemy, after all, and in this new world I have no wish to make an enemy of” (sarcastic whisper, fingers wiggling) “the Ceaseless Watcher who rules it. I have nothing to hide from you,” he’d alleged, for the… third time that day, maybe? Each morning Jon resolved to count such references; he rarely missed one, as far as he knew, but kept forgetting how many he’d counted.

But Salesa was a salesman, and over time his efforts had grown more subtle. He stopped showing up already dressed for the activity he had in mind, and instead would drop hints at meals about all the fun things they could do if only they would let him show them. Martin loved how the winter sunlight caught, every afternoon around four, in the branches of a tree visible outside the window of their bedroom. “Ah, yes,” Salesa had agreed when he remarked on it one morning. “Turning it periwinkle and the golden green of champagne.” (He poured sparkling wine—the cheap stuff, he said, not real champagne—into an empty juice glass still lined with orange pulp. Over and over, without once overflowing. The oranges weren’t ripe enough to drink their juice plain yet, he said. But they’d still run out of juice first.) “If you think that’s beautiful”—he paused to swallow bubbles come up from his throat, waved his hand, shook his head. “No. On one tree, yes, it is beautiful. But on a whole orchard of bare trees in winter”—he nodded in the direction of Upton’s orchards—“the afternoon sun is sublime. You can see how the twigs shrink and shiver under its gaze; the grass rustles with a hitch in its breath as if it fears to be seen, but with each undulation a new blade flashes gold like a coin,” &c., &c.

“Wow. Sounds like you really got lucky, finding such a nice place to, uh. Sssset up camp?”

Jon knew Martin well enough to hear the judgment in his voice; if Salesa recognized it then he was an expert at pretending not to. “And it's only a two-minute walk away,” he’d said, instead of taking Martin’s bait. “It would be such a shame for my guests not to see it.”

“Oh, well. Maybe in a few days? It’s just, we’ve been outside nonstop for ages. It’s nice to be between four walls again. Besides, we don’t know the grounds as well as you do—and the border isn’t all that stable, you said? Right?”

“It is if you know how to follow it! I could accompany you—show you all the best sights, with no risk of wandering back out into the hellscape by mistake.”

“We’re just not really ready for that, I don’t think. Right, Jon?”

“Mm.”

“Are you sure? If it were me, a foray into a beautiful natural oasis would be just what I needed to convince myself that my peace—my sanctuary—is real.”

“If it is real,” Jon couldn’t stop himself from muttering.

Salesa remained impervious. “You would be surprised how difficult it is to feel fear in a place like that. I don’t think that is just the camera.”

“We‘ll think about it,” Martin conceded.

“Yes—you should both think about it. I am at your disposal whenever you change your mind.”

And so on that morning they had narrowly escaped. Would they had fared so well today. The problem was, on these early occasions Jon had interpreted Martin’s No thankses as being, well, Martin’s. But after a few more of Salesa’s sales pitches Jon began to second-guess that.

“Is it warm enough in here for you both?” Salesa had asked them last night at dinner. “I worry too much, perhaps. I only wish the place took less time to warm up in the morning. At breakfast time, in sunny weather like we've been having, I’ll bet you anything you like it’s warmer out there than in here.”

“It’s alright; we’re not too cold in the mornings either. Right, Jon?”

“Hm? Oh—no.”

“Perhaps we three could take breakfast out there, before the weather changes.”

“Ha—that’s right,” Martin had laughed. “I forgot you still had that out here. Weather changes. Brave new world, I guess.”

Salesa smirked and shrugged. “Well, braver than the rest of it.”

“R…ight. ‘We three,’ you said—so not Annabelle?”

“Mmmmno, probably not her. I have tried taking spiders outside before; they never seem to like it much.”

Nearly every day, here, Jon found a spider in their bathtub. The first time Martin had been with him. Martin had picked the thing up with his fingers and tried to coax it to leave out the window, but by the time he got there it’d crawled up his sleeve.

“Excuse me.”

Martin pulled back his own chair too and frowned up at him. “You okay?”

“Just needed the toilet.” He tried to arrange his mouth into a gentle smile. “Think I can do that on my own.”

The other two resumed their conversation the moment Jon left the dining room. Before the intervening walls muffled their voices Jon heard:

“I suppose that does sound pretty nice.”

“Pretty nice, you suppose? Martin, Martin—it’s a beautiful oasis! What a shame it will be if you leave this place having done no more than suppose about it.”

“It is a bit of a waste, I guess.”

“You wouldn’t need to sit on the ground, if that’s what concerns you. There are benches everywhere.”

He’d been just about to cross through a doorway and out of earshot when he froze, hearing his name:

“Oh, ha—not me, but, Jon might find that nice to know,” Martin said. “Thanks for.” And then silence.

Was that the whole reason he kept declining invitations to explore the grounds? To keep grass stains out of Jon’s trousers? Martin was the one who’d sat down on that godforsaken Extinction couch; why did he think—?

Not the point, Jon told himself as he sat on the toilet and set his forehead on the heels of his palms. He tried to watch the floor for spiders, but his eyes kept crossing. The point was that if—? If Martin was lying about wanting to stay inside—or, more charitably, if he was telling the truth but wanted that only because he thought Jon would have as dismal a time out in the garden as he had at ping-pong—then…?

He imagined holding hands with Martin while surrounded by green. Gravel crunching under their feet. Martin smiling, with sunlight caught in the strands of his hair that a slight breeze had blown upright.

“And if you get too warm,” he heard Salesa tell Martin, as he headed back into the dining room, “we can move into the shade of the pines! You know, they don’t just grow year-round? They also shed year-round. The floor under them is always carpeted in needles, so you need never get mud on your shoes.”

“Huh,” Martin laughed. “Never thought of it that way.”

“But of course there are benches there too,” Salesa added, his eyes flickering up to Jon.

As Jon hauled himself into his seat he asked, in a voice he hoped the strain made sound distracted ergo casual, “So, what, like a picnic, you mean.”

Not a fun picnic. Not very romantic, since their third wheel was the first to invite himself. Salesa neglected to mention how much wet grass they would have to trek through to get to his favorite spot; that there were benches everywhere didn’t matter since they couldn’t all three fit on one, so they ended up sat in the dirt after all—and n.b. it required a second trek to find a patch of dirt dry enough to sit on at this time of morning. Jon was so sick with fatigue by the time they sat down he could barely eat a thing, though he did dispatch most of Martin’s thermos of tea. His hands shook and buzzed, and felt clumsy, like they’d fallen asleep; he ended up getting more jam in the dirt than on Salesa’s soggy, pre-buttered toast. He felt as though the rest of his flesh had melted three feet to the left of his eyes, bones and mind. Eventually he elected to blame his dizziness on the sun. When his forehead and upper lip started to prickle, threatening sweat, he stood up and announced, “It’s too hot here.”

Or tried to stand, anyway. One leg had oozed just far enough out of its joint that it buckled when he tried to stand; indigo and fuchsia blotches overtook his sight. He pitched forward, free arm pinwheeling—might have fallen into the boiled eggs if Martin hadn’t caught him. “Jon! Are you okay?”

God, why was Martin so surprised? This must have been the fifth or sixth time he had asked him that question since they left the house. One time Jon had bent down to brush dirt off his leg and Martin had thought he was scratching his bandages. So he asked him were they itchy, had they started to peel, did they need changing again, were they cutting off his circulation (no, not yet, not yet, and no). How could someone be so attentive to imaginary ills and yet miss the real ones? At another point, an enormous blue dragonfly had buzzed past, and instead of Did you see that? Martin had turned around to ask Are you okay. Now, on this fifth or sixth occasion, for a few seconds of pure, nonsensical rage he wondered how Martin dared stoop to such emotional blackmail. Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies, Jon thought; aloud he snorted, as in malicious laughter. His throat felt thick, like he might cry.

“Fine, I’m just—sick of it here.” He pulled his arm free of Martin’s and overbalanced. Didn’t fall, just. Staggered a little.

“Should we move to the shade? We could try to find those famous pines, I guess.”

Jon sank back to the ground. “What about Salesa? Do we just leave him here?”

“Oh. Right,” said Martin. Salesa had eaten most of Jon’s share, and drunk both Jon’s and Martin’s shares of wine. Now he lay asleep in the dirt, head pillowed on one elbow, the other hand’s fingers curled round the stem of a glass still half full. “I guess, yeah? I mean he seems to know the place pretty well, so. It’s not like he’ll get lost out here.”

“We might, though.”

Martin sighed. “True. Should we just head back to our room, then? Maybe get you a snack.”

“Not hungry.”

“A statement, I meant.”

“Oh. Alright, sure,” Jon made himself say. “That sounds like—sure.”

So then they’d headed back, and only Martin had a free hand, and Jon was too tired by that point to distinguish his mind’s vague warning not to let Martin open the door from his usual pride on that subject—and that kind of pride never does seem as important when it’s your boyfriend offering. So he’d dismissed the warning and, well, look what happened.

When he got up from his knees and turned round Martin frowned at Jon. “Are you alright? You’re sat on the floor.”

Jon frowned, too—at the seam between the floor and the hallway’s opposite wall. “I was tired.”

“You hate sitting on the floor.”

“I sat on the ground out there,” Jon said, with a shrug that morphed into a nod in the direction they’d come from.

“Yeah, under duress,” Martin scoffed. “In the Extinction domain you wouldn’t even sit on the couch.”

There was something odd in Martin’s bringing that up now; somewhere, in the back of his mind, Jon could hear a pillar of thought crumbling. But he lacked the energy to find out which of his mind’s structures now stood crooked. “I think this floor is a lot cleaner than that couch,” he said instead, with an incredulous laugh.

“Even with the cobwebs?” Martin didn’t wait for Jon’s answering nod. “Fair enough,” he said, one hand on the back of his neck as he twisted it back and forth. He dropped the hand, sighed, cracked his knuckles. Looked at Jon again. “Yeah, okay. Guess we don’t have to deal with this right now. Let’s find you another bedroom first.”

“Maybe that’s just what Annabelle wants,” Jon muttered, deadpanning so he wouldn’t have to decide whether this was a joke.

Martin snorted. “I’ll risk it.”

Find was a generous way to put it; in fact there was another bedroom only two doors down. By the time Jon got his legs unfolded he could hear the squeak of a door swinging open down the hall. When he looked up, Martin said as their eyes met, “Nope—bed’s too small. You good there ‘til I find one that’ll work?”

“Seems that way.” Jon tried to smile, relief warring with his usual If you want something done right urge. In the quiet moment after Martin neglected to close that door and before he swung open the next one, Jon made himself add, “Thank you.”

“Of course. Oh wow,” Martin said of the next room, in whose doorway he’d stopped. “This one’s a lot nicer than ours. It’s got a balcony. Wallpaper’s pretty loud though. D’you think that’ll keep you awake?” Laughingly, “I know you don’t close your eyes to sleep anymore, so.”

“How loud is ‘pretty loud’?”

“Sort of a… dark, orangey red, with flowers?”

Jon shrugged. “I won’t see it at night.”

“Oh, god. I hope it doesn’t come to that. Should we do this one, then?” Instead of closing the door, Martin swung it the rest of the way open, then strode back to Jon’s side of the corridor, arm already outstretched. Jon managed to stand before Martin could reach him, but, as it had done outside, his vision went dark for a few seconds. He felt Martin’s hand on his shoulder before he could see his frown.

“You alright?” Martin asked yet again.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“It’s just—you don’t usually blink anymore, except for effect.”

“Oh.”

Out there, none of the watchers blinked. At first, soon after the change, Martin had asked Jon to try, “Because it just feels so weird. Like I’m under constant scrutiny. Literally constant, Jon. You get why that feels weird, right?” (Jon had agreed—sincerely, though he wondered why Martin needed to ask that question in a world whose central conceit was that being watched felt weird. He’d also chosen not to point out that his scrutiny, like that of Jonah Magnus, was not, technically, constant, since he did sometimes look at other things. But he still rehearsed this retort in his mind every time he remembered that conversation.) Turned out it was hard to time your blinks properly when your eyeballs didn’t need the moisture. He’d forget about it for who knew how long, then remember and overcompensate by blinking so often Martin at first thought he was exaggerating it on purpose as a joke. It got old fast, in Jon’s opinion, but even after he learnt Jon didn’t intend it as a joke Martin still found it funny. “You’re doing it again,” he’d say every time, shoulders wiggling. Eventually Jon had asked him,

“You know you don’t blink anymore either, right?”

“Oh god, don’t I?” When Jon shook his head, with a smile whose teeth he tried to keep covered, Martin squeezed his own eyes shut and pushed their lids back and forth with his fingers. “Ugh—gross!” And for the next half hour he’d done the whole forget-to-blink-for-five-minutes-then-do-it-ten-times-in-as-many-seconds routine, too. After that they had both agreed to pretend not to notice the lack of blinking. Jon figured he couldn’t hold it against Martin that he’d broken this rule though, since Jon himself had broken it first, on their first morning here:

“You blinked,” he had informed Martin as he watched him stir sugar into his tea. Martin, who had not only blinked but broken eye contact to make sure he dropped the sugar cube in the right place, replied with a scoff,

“Didn’t know it was a staring contest.”

“No, I mean—”

“Oh! I blinked!”

“…Right,” Jon said now. “I’m—it’s nothing.”

Martin sighed. He closed his eyes, but probably rolled them under their lids. Jon used the inspection of their new room as an excuse to look away, but took in nothing other than the presence of a large bed and the flowered wallpaper Martin had warned him about.

“‘Kay. If you’re sure.”

Taking a seat at the foot of the bed, Jon looked down at his grass-stained knees and prepared himself to ask, Look, does it matter? I’m about to lie down anyway, so, functionally speaking, yes, I am fine.

“So, you’ll be okay here for a bit while I go figure out what to do about the door?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. I’ll come check on you as soon as I know anything, yeah?”

“Of course.”

“Although—if you’re asleep, should I wake you up?”

“Yes,” Jon replied before Martin had even got the last word out. He heard a short, emphatic exhale, presumably of laughter. “Wait—how would you know, anyway?”

“Oh. Yeah, good point.”

Jon looked down at his shoes. His fingers throbbed in anticipation, but he figured he should spare Martin the horror of getting grass stains on a second bedroom’s counterpane. The first shoe he pulled off without untying, since he could step on its heel with the other one. But he had to bend over to reach the second one’s incongruously bright white laces, biting his lip when he felt his right femur poke past the bounds of its socket as between a cage’s bars. On his way back up his vision quivered like a heat mirage, but didn’t go dark. He scooched himself up to the head of the bed. Made sure to face the ceiling rather than the red wallpaper.

A few months into his tenure in the Archives, Jon had discovered that if you close your eyes at your desk, even just for a minute, you can trick your whole body into thinking you’ve been gentle with it. But that trick didn’t work anymore. Out there, this made sense; interposing his eyelids between himself and the world’s new horrors couldn’t push them out of his consciousness, any more than it had helped to close the curtains at Daisy’s safehouse. Martin’s sentimental attachment to sleep had baffled him, as had his insistence on closing his eyes even though they’d pop back open as soon as his body went limp. Here, though, Jon sympathized with Martin’s wish. He too missed that magic link between closed eyes and sleep. Probably he should just be grateful for this rest from knowing other people’s suffering? The thing he had wished to close his eyes against was gone here. But now that most of his bodily wants had synced up with his actions again, it felt… wrong, like a tangible loss, that he couldn’t assert It’s time for rest now by closing his eyelids. That it took effort to keep them joined. Jon even found himself missing the crust that used to stick them together on mornings after long sleep.

That should have been his first sensation on waking, their first morning here. After seventy-one hours his eyelids should’ve been practically super-glued together. Instead, they’d apparently stayed open the entire time. It wasn’t uncomfortable—he hadn’t woken up with them smarting or anything. Hadn’t noticed one way or the other; after all, when not forced awake by an alarm, one rarely notices the moment one opens one’s eyes in the morning. He just didn’t like knowing that he looked the same waking and sleeping. It didn’t make sense. The dreams hadn’t followed him here, so what was he watching? He could see nothing but the ceiling.

He rolled over, hoping to look out the window. Doors, technically. Between gauzy curtains he could make out only wrought-iron bars and the tops of a few trees. A nice view, he could tell; when he got his second wind he was sure he’d find it pretty. For now he wondered how much more energy debt he had put himself in by rolling over.

Drowning in debt? We can help!

How had he not foreseen how horrible it would be inside the Buried? The inability to move or speak without pain and loss of breath—“Just imagine,” he muttered sarcastically to the empty air, as though addressing his past self. “What might that be like.” He’d lived for years with the weight of exhaustion on his back—heavier at that time than it’d ever been before. And he knew how it felt to risk injury with every movement. What an odd frame of mind he must have lived in then, to think his magic healing wouldn’t let him get scratched up down there. Had he thought it would protect him from fear? I must save my friend from this horrible place! But also, If I get stuck there forever, no big deal; I deserve it, after all. There seemed something so arrogant about that now, that idea that deserving pain could somehow mitigate it. That because monsterhood made him less innocent, it would make him less of a victim. How could he have thought that, when he’d known pulling her out of there didn’t mean he forgave her? He should apologize to Daisy for—

Right. Nope, never mind.

He began to regret rolling over. If he planned to stay on his side like this for long, he shouldn’t leave his shoulder and hip dangling. He could already feel their joints beginning to slide apart. But his body had started to drift to that faraway place from which no grievance ever seemed urgent enough to recall it—neither pain now nor the threat of greater pain later. Nor the three cups of tea he’d drunk.

After he and Martin had fallen asleep on Salesa’s doorstep, Jon had vague memories of being led up the stairs to their bedroom, though he remembered neither being shaken awake nor getting into bed. Just a seventy-odd-hour blank spot, followed by pain of a kind he had thought he’d left behind.

It wasn’t that watchers couldn’t feel pain, after the change. They could, but it was like how real-world pain felt through the veil of a dream. Your actions didn’t affect it as directly as they should. In the Necropolis Martin had asked him, “How exactly does a leg wound make you faster?” If he’d had the courage to answer, at the time he would have said something about his own wounds not seeming important now that he had to tune out those of the whole world. That wasn’t it though, he knew now. Pain just worked differently out there. When Daisy attacked him, it had hurt—but the wound she left him hadn’t protested movement. Not until he and Martin entered the grounds of Upton House. You could bear weight on an injured leg just fine out there, because it wouldn’t hurt more when you stood on it than otherwise.

Sometimes, when his joints slid apart while he slept, he could still feel it in his dreams. Up until 13th January 2016 (for months after which date he dreamt Naomi Herne’s graveyard and nothing else), his sleeping mind used to craft scenarios to explain its own pain and panic to itself. Running from an exploding grenade, staying awake through surgery, that sort of thing. But over the years, as the sensation grew familiar, his dreams about it became less urgent, their anxieties more mundane. He’d shout for help from passing cars, then feel like he’d lied to the stranger who opened their door to him when it turned out running to get in the car hurt no more than standing still.

Even before the change, it’d been ages since he’d had to worry about that. Since the coma, Beholding had fixed all these accidents, the way it’d fixed the finger he tried to chop off. They wouldn’t reset with a clunk, the way they had when he used to fix them by hand. It was more like his body reverted to a version the Eye had saved before the moment of injury. When he tried to pull open a Push door he’d hear the first clunk, followed by about half a second of pain, then after a gentle burst of static—nothing. Just a door handle between his fingers that needed pushing. If he tripped on uneven pavement he might still go down, but his ankle wouldn’t hurt when he stood back up, and the scrapes on his hands would heal before he could inspect them. Here, though, in this place the Eye couldn’t see, Jon lacked such protections. He didn’t have the dreams either? And that was more than worth it as a tradeoff, he was sure. But it still smarted to remember that pain had been his first sensation waking up in an oasis. Not birdsong, not sunshine striped across linen, not the warm weight of another person next to him. He knew he’d come back to a place ruled by physics rather than fear because he’d woken up with gaps between his bones.

“Jon? Are you awake?”

“Hm? Oh. Yes.”

“Cool.” Martin sat down on what felt like the corner of bed nearest the door. “I think I know how to do this now.”

“How to put the doorknob back on?”

“Yeah. God, I still can’t believe it twisted clean off in my hand like that. With no warning—like, zero to sixty in less than a second. I mean, can you believe our luck? The thing’s perfectly functional, and then suddenly it just—comes off!”

“Er…”

“Oh, god, sorry—I didn’t mean—”

“What? Oh—hrkgh”—Jon rolled around to face Martin, hoping the little yelp he let out when his leg slopped back into joint would sound like a noise of exasperation rather than pain. He found Martin sat looking down at the severed doorknob which poked up from between his knees. “No, Martin, of course not, I know—”

“Still, I’m sorry about—”

“No, it’s—it’s fine?”

On that first morning, Jon had managed to get his limbs screwed back on properly without making enough noise to wake up Martin. He’d limped out of their room and down the hall, pushing doors open until he’d found a toilet, whereupon he sat to pee and marveled that the flush and sink still worked. It was bright enough inside that he hadn’t thought to try the light switch on his way in—too busy contorting his neck to look for the sun out the window. On his way out, though, he flicked it on, then off. Then on again and off again. How could it work, when there was no power grid the house could connect to? Automatically Jon tried to search his mind’s Eye for a domain based in a power plant or something. Right, no, of course—that power did not work here.

When he got back to their room he found Martin awake. “Oh—morning,” Jon told him with a shy laugh.

“It—it is morning, isn’t it,” Martin marveled. Then he asked if Jon could hand him the map sticking out of his backpack’s side pocket. (What good are maps when the very Earth logic no longer applied here, after all. But Martin was rubbish at geography, so Jon still had to provide the You Are Here sign with his finger for him.) Jon grabbed the map on his way back to bed, and was about to tell him about the miracles of plumbing and electricity he’d just witnessed—not to mention the bathtub he’d admired on the long trek from toilet to sink—when Martin frowned and asked, “Why are you limping?”

“Am I?” Jon had shrugged, then cleared his throat when the motion made his shoulder audibly click. “Daisy, must be.”

“No, Jon. That’s the wrong leg.”

He slid both legs out of sight under the blankets and handed Martin the map. “It’s nothing. It just… came off a bit. Last night."

Before Jon could add It’s fixed now though, Martin said, “I’m sorry, what?”

Jon had assumed Martin understood the kind of thing he meant, but that he’d misled him as to its degree—i.e., that Martin objected to his talking about a full hip dislocation like it mattered less than what happened with Daisy. So he’d said,

“No, sorry, not all the way off—”

And Martin just laughed. “What, and you taped it back up like—like an old computer cable?”

“Sort of, yeah? It—it does still work, more or less.”

“Right, of course. No need to get a new one, yet; you can just limp along with this one. No big deal! Just make sure you don’t pull too hard on it.”

“I mean.” By now he could sense Martin’s sarcasm, his bitterness; that didn’t mean he knew what to do with them. So he'd said with a huff of laughter, “I can’t just send for a new one. That’s—that’s not how bodies work. You have to….” Wait for it to sort itself out was the natural end to that sentence. But he hadn’t been sure he could say that without opening a can of worms.

“Wait so… what actually happened? Are you okay?”

Only at this point had Jon recognized Martin’s response as one of incomprehension. What happened exactly? he had asked, too, when Jon told him the ice-cream anecdote. Did no one ever listen when you told them about these things?

“Nothing. Never mind. It’s fine.”

“Oh come on.”

“It’s. Fine! It’s not important.”

And then for days Martin kept alluding to it. Like some kind of reminder to Jon that he hadn’t opened up, disguised as a joke. Every time something came out or fell down he’d mutter, “So it came off, you might say.” Eventually they’d fallen out over it, and now neither one could come near the phrase without this song and dance.

“Don’t worry about it, Martin,” Jon assured him now; “I’m over it.”

“…Uh huh. Well, putting that to one side for the moment—I think I can fix this?”

“Oh? Great!—”

“—Yeah! It should be simple, actually. I think I just need to replace the screw that fell out? I mean, there doesn’t seem to be anything actually broken, just, you know,” with an awkward laugh, “the screw lives on the wrong side of the door now. But if we can just put a new one in the door should be fine.” He looked to Jon as if for help plotting their next steps.

“I—I don’t, um. Think we have one.”

Martin’s shoulders dropped; the corners of his mouth tightened. “Yeah, I know we don’t have one, Jon. I just mean, we need to find out where Salesa keeps them.”

“Oh!” Jon replied, in a brighter tone. Then he registered what this meant. “Oh. Right.”

“Y…eah.”

“Any idea where to look?”

They checked what seemed to Martin the most obvious place first. Salesa used one of the ground-floor drawing rooms as a sort of repository for everything he’d left as yet unpacked—all the practical items he hadn’t been able to repurpose as toys, plus some antiques he’d been too fond of or too nervous to part with. Two nights ago, Salesa had noticed the state of Jon’s and Martin’s shoelaces, and insisted they let him replace them with some from this little warehouse. “Please, come with me; I’ve nothing to hide. You can have a look around, see if I have anything that might help you on your journey….” As he said this he’d counted to two on his fingers, as though listing off attractions they should be sure not to miss.

Jon watched Martin perk right up at this. All week Salesa had kept pleading with them to tell him about any luxuries they had wanted while touring the apocalypse, so he could try to find something to fulfill those wants. “Well, I—I don’t know about luxuries,” Martin had ventured the third time this came up. “But I do think we might run out of bandages soon, so. If you’ve any extra?”

“Of course, of course, yes, how prudent of you, always with one eye on the future. Must be the Beholding in you.” (Neither Jon nor Martin knew what to say to that.) “But there will be plenty of time for that. I meant something for now, while you are here, while you don’t need to think of things like that.” And sure enough, each time Salesa had come to them with presents from his little warehouse (booze, butterfly nets, more booze, antique bathing suits, &c.), he’d forgot about Martin’s homely request for gauze and tape. Martin insisted they change the dressing on Jon’s leg every day; by now they’d run through the bandages he brought from Daisy’s safehouse. So when Salesa suggested they accompany him to his repository, Martin said,

“Sure, yeah! That sounds really helpful.” (Salesa clutched his heart as though he’d waited all his life to hear such praise.) “Er. The things in your warehouse, though. They’re not L—um.” Leitners, Martin had almost called them. “You don’t think they’ll develop any… strange properties, when we leave here, do you?”

“Of course not,” Salesa had answered, stopping and turning all the way around in the corridor to face Martin with a frown. “Martin, I promise, only my antiques are cursed—and even then, not all of them.” He’d resumed the walk toward his little warehouse, but turned around again and held up a hand, as if to preempt a question. “There are, indeed, yes, some items out there, touched by the Corruption, which can pass their infection on to other things they come in contact with. But, no,” he went on, his voice fighting off a joyous laugh, “no, the only item I have like that does almost the opposite.”

“Oh.”

Salesa nodded, but did not turn around this time. “Strange little thing. It’s an antique syringe that, so long as you keep it near you, repels the Crawling Rot. I like to think it helped dispatch that insect thing Annabelle chased away. But if you try to get rid of it,” he added in a darker tone, “all the sickness, the bugs, the smells, even stains on your clothes—everything disgusting that it’s kept away—they remember who you are, and they hunger for you more than anyone else. The man who sold it to me….” He shook his head ruefully, hand now resting on the door.

“Was eaten alive by mosquitoes,” Jon muttered.

“Something like that, yes,” said Salesa, as he jerked open the door.

Jon hated the way his and Martin’s shoes looked now. He hadn’t had to put new laces on a pair of old, dirty shoes since he was a kid, and the contrast looked wrong—the same way starched collars and slicked-back hair on kids look wrong. Jon’s trainers were gray, their laces a slightly darker gray, so these white ones wouldn’t have looked quite right even without the dirt. Martin’s had once been white, but their original laces were broad and flat, while these were narrow and more rounded. The replacements’ thin, clinical white lines looked something between depressing and menacing. Too much like spider web; too much like the stitching on Nikola’s minions. When they came undone on this morning’s walk, Jon had made sure to tread on them in the mud a few times before tying them back up. Poor Dr. Thompson’s syringe must have retained some of its power here, though, because they still looked pristine. Jon wondered if it had no effect on spiders, or if without it this whole place would have been draped in cobwebs.

Martin seemed pleased with their haul, though. Despite Salesa’s amnesia on the subject, his little warehouse held more plasters, gauze, medical tape, antibacterial ointment, alcohol wipes—the list went on—than one man could ever use. In a strange, raw moment Jon liked to pretend he hadn’t seen, Salesa had wrung his hands as his eyes passed over this hoard. His lip had quivered. He’d practically begged Martin to take the whole lot away with them. “What harm will come to me here? And if it does come, what good will it do, protecting one lonely old man from skinned knees and paper cuts? The two of you—where you are going—the gravity of your mission!” At this point he’d seized one of each their hands. “Everything I have that even might help, you must take it. Please.”

“I—yeah,” Martin stuttered. “This is—really helpful, yeah. We’ll take as much as we can fit in our bags.”

Salesa had let go their hands by this point, and crossed his arms. “Right, yes, bags, of course, the bags. Are you sure you don’t want my truck?”

“Oh, well, thanks, but I don’t think either of us knows how to—”

“To drive a truck?” Salesa uncrossed his arms and began to reach for Martin’s shoulder. “I could teach you—”

“It won’t work without the camera anyway,” pointed out Jon. “We have to walk.”

Martin sighed. ”That too. ‘The journey will be the journey,’ as Jon keeps saying.”

“I said that once,” Jon protested.

No such success on this return visit. They found a small pile of miscellaneous screws, one of which Martin said would work (though it was the wrong color, he alleged, and had clearly been meant for some other purpose), but the screwdriver they needed remained elusive. “I mean, I can’t be sure they’re not in here—the place is as bad as Gertrude’s storage unit. We could spend all day here and still not be sure—”

“Let’s not do that,” said Jon, pushing an always-warm candlestick with a pool of always-melted wax out of Martin’s way with his sleeve for what felt like the hundredth time.

“No arguments here.”

“Where to next?”

“I guess it makes sense that they’re not here. This room’s all stuff Salesa brought, and why would he bring home-repair stuff when he didn’t even know where he’d wind up.”

“Except for the screws.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t look like he keeps screws here, remember? There’s just a couple random ones lying around, like he forgot to put them away or something.”

Jon peered between the clouds in his mind, trying to catch sight of Martin’s thought train. “So you’re saying the screwdriver should be…?”

“Somewhere less… frequented, I guess? They’ll probably still be wherever they were when Salesa found the place.”

“Not somewhere that was open to the public, then.”

Martin sighed. ”I mean yeah, probably. Not that that narrows it down much.”

“Somewhere… banal, less posh.”

“Not sure how much less posh you can get than this place. But yeah, I guess. Have I mentioned how weird it is you’re the one who keeps asking me this stuff?”

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to help? I just…” Jon closed his eyes, which itched with the warehouse’s dust, and rubbed their lids with an index finger. Odd that his eyes weren’t immune to dust, when leaving them open for seventy straight hours hadn’t bothered them. And why didn’t the syringe keep dust away? In Dr. Snow’s day (not far removed from Smirke’s, n.b.), Jon seemed to recall that dust had been used as a euphemism for all waste, including the human kind Dr. Snow had found in the cholera water. It was like how people today use filth—hence the word dustbin. And hadn’t Elias once called the Corruption Filth? Jon opened his eyes and watched Martin swirl back to full color. “I can’t seem to corral my thoughts here,” he concluded.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s actually kind of fun, it’s just—I’m so used to being the sidekick,” Martin laughed. “Besides, I miss my eldritch Google.”

“Should I go back out there, ask the Eye about it, then come back?”

Another laugh, this one less awkward. “No. That won’t work, remember? This place is a ‘blind spot,’ you said.” The words in inverted commas he said with a frown and in a deeper voice.

“Right, right. I forgot,” Jon sighed. He lowered himself to the floor and examined the finger he’d felt snap back into place when he let go his cane. During the five seconds he’d allowed himself to entertain it, the idea of heading back out there had excited him a little. A few minutes to check on Basira, verify what Salesa had told them about his life before the change, make sure the world hadn’t somehow ended twice over. Give himself a few minutes’ freedom of movement, for that matter. Out there he could run, jump, open jars, pick up full mugs of tea without worrying a screw in his hand would come loose and make him drop them. He could stand up as quickly as he thought the words, I think I’ll stand up now, without his vision going dark. God, and even if it did, it wouldn’t matter! He would just know every tripping hazard and every look on Martin’s face, without having to ask these clumsy human eyes to show them to him.

“Honestly, it’d almost feel worth it to go back out there just to formulate a plan to find them. At least I can think out there.”

“Hey.” Martin elbowed him slightly in the ribs. Jon fought with himself not to resent the very gentleness of it. “I think I’ll come up with the plan for once, thanks. Some of us can think just fine here.”

Was it just because of Hopworth that Martin’s elbow barely touched him? Or because Martin feared that Jon would break in here, in a way he’d learnt not to fear out there?

“Oh—I know,” Martin said, clicking his fingers and pointing them at Jon like a gun. “We passed a shed this morning, remember?”

Jon squinted. “Not even remotely.”

“No yeah—on our walk with Salesa. I tried to ask him what it was for, but he kept droning on and on. By the time he stopped talking I’d forgot about it.”

“Huh,” said Jon, to show he was listening.

“That seems like a good place to keep screws and all, right? If it’s so nondescript you can’t even remember it.”

“Sure.”

“Great! Are you ready now, or d’you need to sit for a bit longer?”

“I’m ready.” This time he accepted Martin’s hand, not keen to trip on something cursed.

“Anyway, if we don’t find them and Salesa’s still out there, we can ask him on the way back.”

Jon’s heart shrunk before the prospect of inviting Salesa to be the hero of their story. Please, Mr. Salesa, save us from our screwdriver-less hell! They would never hear the end of it. It would inevitably remind the old man of the countless times in his youth when he’d been the only man in the antiques trade who knew where to find some priceless treasure. Let Salesa open their stuck door and they’d find Pandora’s bloody box of stories behind it. He winced and let out a grunt as of pain before he could stop himself. “Let’s not tell him, if we can help it.”

“Of course we should tell him,” Martin protested. “We can’t just leave it broken like this.”

“But if we can fix it without his help—?”

“What? No! Even then, he’s our host. We have to tell him. It’s his door, he deserves to know its—I don’t know, history?” Martin sighed, shoving one hand in his hair and holding out the other. “If he’s got a doorknob whose screw comes loose a lot, he should know that, so he can tighten it next time before it gets out of hand. I mean, we’re lucky it only chipped the paint when it—when it fell off, you know?” (Jon, for his part, hadn’t even noticed this chip of paint Martin referred to.) “And—and suppose he’s only got this one screw left,” tapping the one in his pocket, “and the next time it happens his last screw rolls under the door like this one did.”

“And what is he supposed to do to prevent that scenario? There aren’t exactly any hardware stores in the apocalypse.”

Big sigh. “Yeah, fair enough. I still think we should tell him. It just feels wrong to hide secrets from him about his own house, you know?”

“Fine,” sighed Jon in turn. ”Should we tell him about the scorch marks on the window sill as well?”

“No?” Martin turned to him with an incredulous look. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“I mean—I was, but—”

“Please tell me you get how that’s different.”

“Enlighten me,” Jon said wearily.

“Seriously? Of course you don’t tell him about the?—those were already there! If we’d put them there, then yeah, of course we’d need to tell him.”

“So it’s about confessing your guilt, then. Not about what Salesa makes of the information.”

“I mean, I guess?” Martin looked perplexed, lips drawn into his mouth. “Actually, no. Because those are just scorch marks, they don’t—you can still get into a room with scorch marks on the windowsill, Jon.”

“And yet if you’d left them you’d tell him about it?”

“Well yeah but if I told him about it now it’d just be like I was—leaving him a bad review, or something. It’d just be rude. ‘Lovely place you have, Salesa. So kind of you to share your limited provisions with us refugees from the apocalypse. Too bad you gave us a room whose windowsill could use repainting!’”

Jon laughed. “Yes, alright, I get it.”

Martin’s sigh of relief seemed only a little exaggerated. If he hadn’t wiped pretend sweat from his brow Jon might have bought it. “Okay, that’s good, ‘cause”—when Jon kept laughing, Martin cut himself off. “Hang on, were you joking this whole time?”

“Sort of?”

“Were you just playing devil’s advocate or something?”

“I mean—not exactly? For the first seventy or eighty percent of it I was completely serious.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know. It was just—fun. It felt nice to take a definite sta—aaaa-a-aa.” Something in Jon’s lower back went wrong somehow. An SI joint, probably? The pain caught him so much by surprise that when he stepped with that side’s leg he stumbled forward.

“Whoa!” Martin’s hand closed around his upper arm. Jon yelped again, from panic more than hurt this time, as his shoulder thunked in its socket. “Jon! Are you okay?”

“Don’t do that,” Jon hissed, trying lamely to shake his arm out of Martin’s grip. It didn’t work. The attempt just made his own arm ache, and produce more ominous clunking sounds.

“I—what?”

“It was fine. I don’t need you to catch me.”

Martin let his arm go. “You were about to fall on your face, Jon.”

“I’d already caught myself—just fine—with this.” He gestured to his cane, stirring its handle like a joystick.

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“I don’t know, look?”

“It’s not—?” Martin scoffed. “Look when? It’s not like a rational calculation. I can’t just go ‘Beep. Beep. See human trip. Will human fall on face? If yes, press A to catch! If not, press B to’— what, stand there and do nothing? It’s just human nature; when you see someone falling that’s just what you do. I’m not going to apologize for not calculating the risk properly.”

“Fine! Yes, okay, you’re right. Forget I said anything.” Throwing up his free hand in defeat, Jon set off again—tried to stride, but it was hard to do that with a limp. Even with his cane, he couldn’t step evenly enough to achieve a decisive gait.

It was fine, Jon reminded himself. He’d had this injury (if you could call it that) a thousand times before. When it came on suddenly like this it never stuck around long. Sure, yeah, for now every step hurt like an urgent crisis. But any second it would right itself as quickly as it had come undone.

“No, no, I understand! Point taken! Note to future Martin,” the latter shouted from behind Jon, voice troubled by hurried steps; “next time let him fall and break his bloody nose.”

Trusting Martin to shout directions if he went the wrong way, Jon pressed on, rehearsing comebacks in his mind. Is this not a boundary I’m allowed to set? You don’t let me read statements in front of you. Isn’t that part of human—isn’t that my nature, too?

Oh, yes, human nature, that must be it. You didn’t lunge after Salesa at ping-pong the other day, did you? I saw you opening doors for Melanie when she got back from India. You stopped for a while, did you know that? You all did, everyone in the Archives. And then—it’s the strangest thing!—you all started up again after Delano. Maybe you lot don’t see the common factor here; people always do seem to think it’s more polite not to notice.

So what if I had broken my nose? You nearly broke my shoulder, catching me like that. Does that not matter because you can’t see it? Because it wouldn’t scar?

They were all too petty to say aloud. Too incongruous with the quiet. He could hear his own footsteps, and Martin’s, and the clank of his cane’s metal segments each time it hit the ground, and a few crows exclaiming about something exciting they’d found on his right. Nothing else.

“Looks like Salesa went inside,” Martin shouted from behind him.

Jon stopped walking and turned around. “What?”

“Left a couple things out here, but yeah.” Martin jogged to catch up with him, from a greater distance than Jon would have expected given how much limping slowed him down. He must have veered off course to inspect the clearing Salesa had vacated. In one hand he carried an empty wine glass by its stem, which he lifted to show Jon.

“Huh.”

“Yeah.” When he caught up with Jon, Martin stood still and panted. “Guess it won’t be as easy to ask him about it as we thought. If we don’t find what we need in there,” he added, glancing demonstratively to something behind Jon.

Following Martin’s eyes, Jon finally saw the shed. Nondescript boards, worn black and white by the elements. Surrounded by hedges three months overgrown.

Turned out it wasn’t a shed anymore, though—Salesa had converted it to a chicken coop. “Explains the boiled eggs,” shrugged Jon.

“God, they’re adorable. Do you think it’s okay to pet one?” Martin crouched in front of a black hen with a puffball of feathers on top of her head. (Martin called her a hen, anyway, and Jon trusted his authority on animals other than cats). “I don’t really know, er, ch—hicken etiquette,” he mused, voice shot through with nervous laughter.

The black hen sat alone in a little box, and didn't seem to want attention. A little red one they’d found strutting around the coop, however, ventured right up to Martin and cocked her head, like she expected him to give her a present. While Martin cooed over her and the other chickens, Jon went outside and laid flat on his back in the grass under a tree. “Take your time,” he shouted. “I’m happy here.”

Sure enough, when Martin emerged from the coop and helped him stand back up, whatever cog in Jon’s pelvis or spine he had jammed earlier was turning again. And by the time they got back to the house, Martin had talked himself into the idea that maybe all the house’s doorknobs that looked like theirs came loose a lot, and Salesa had taken to keeping the screwdriver to fix them in, say, the hall closet, or in their toilet’s under-sink cabinet.

“I think we’re gonna have to find Salesa and ask him about it,” concluded Martin, when these locations turned up nothing they wanted either.

“If you’re sure.”

Jon sat down on the closed toilet seat. Hadn’t that been what he said just before the last time he sat down on the lid of a toilet before Martin? He’d dutifully turned away, that time, as Martin undressed, wanting to make sure he knew he’d still let him have some privacy. But then, of course: “Where should I put these, do you think? —Er, my clothes I mean.”

“Oh. Um.” Jon had turned his head to look at the stain on Daisy’s ceiling, for what must have been the tenth time already. “I can hold onto them if you like.” Which then meant Martin had to get them back on before Jon could undress for his own shower and hand him his clothes. As he’d piled his trousers into Martin’s hands a tape recorder fell out of one pocket and crashed to the floor, ejecting the tape with Peter’s statement on it. “Shit,” Jon had hissed and ducked to the floor to pick it up, trusting the slit in his towel to reveal nothing worse than thigh.

“Shit,” Martin echoed. “I hope that wasn’t your phone.”

“No—just the recorder.” Still on the floor, Jon clicked its little door shut and pressed play. Sound of waves, static, footsteps. He switched it off. “Seems alright.” Thank god, he stopped himself from adding. Jon didn’t want to lose this one, this record of how he’d found Martin, in case he lost him again. But he didn’t want Martin to hear the sounds of the Lonely again so soon, either. That was why he’d stayed with Martin while he showered, rather than waiting in the safehouse living room. He wouldn’t have insisted on it, of course. He didn’t exactly believe Martin would disappear again? But long showers were such a cliché of lonely people, and steam looked so much like the mist on Peter’s beach, and when Jon asked how he felt about it, Martin said that thought hadn’t occurred to him,

“But as soon as you started to say that, I.” He’d stood with his teeth bared, half smiling half grimacing, and bringing the tips of his fingers together and apart over and over. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Heh—it scares me too now, if I’m honest. That’s… a good sign, I guess, right?”

They had come a long way since then, Jon told himself. They were more comfortable with each other now. On their first morning here, they’d showered separately, but after (Martin’s) breakfast Jon’s irritation had faded and he had resolved to pretend along with Martin that this was a holiday. So they’d got to use the enormous bathtub after all— the one at whose soap dish Jon now found himself staring as he sat on the lid of the toilet. When the heat made him dizzier, as he’d known it would, he had relished getting to rest his cheek on Martin’s arm along the rim of the tub, where it had grown cool and soft in the few minutes he’d kept it above the water.

“Let’s have lunch first,” Martin said now; “you’re getting all….” While he looked for the right word he dropped his shoulders and jaw, and mimicked a thousand-yard stare. “Abstract, again. Distant. People food should help a little, yeah? Tie you back down to this plane a bit?”

“Probably,” Jon agreed, smiling at Martin’s tact.

But to get to the kitchen they had to pass through the dining room—where they found Salesa snoring in a chair at the head of the table. “Let’s just ask him now before he gets up and moves again,” maintained Martin. Jon shrugged his acquiescence and leant in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot. Why hadn’t he used the toilet before letting Martin lead him here?

”Um, Mikaele?” Martin inched a few steps toward him, but a distance of several feet still gaped between them. “We have something to ask you, if that’s—hello? Mikaele?”

A likely-sounding gap between snores—but nope. Still sound asleep. Salesa sighed, licked his lips, then began to snore again.

“Mikaele Salesa,” called out Jon from his post at the door, rather less gently. “Mikaele Salesa!” He turned to Martin, meaning to suggest that they eat now and trust the smell of food to wake Salesa, but stopped himself when he saw Martin creeping timidly toward Salesa with his hand outstretched.

“Sorry to disturbyouMikaele,” Martin squeaked out, so quickly that the words blended together. He gave Salesa’s shoulder the lightest possible tap with one fingertip, then snatched his hand back with a grimace of regret as Salesa’s own hand reached up, belatedly, as if to swat Martin’s away. “Oh, good, you’re—”

Salesa interrupted with a snore. Martin sighed and turned to Jon. “What d’you think? Should I shake him?”

Jon pulled out a neighboring chair and sat on it. “No need for anything so drastic. Try poking him a few more times first.”

“Right.”

Once he’d tired of rolling his cane between his palms Jon bent down to set it on the floor. He’d learnt his lesson about trying to hang it on the back of these chairs, though in this fog it had taken several incidents to stick. Every time it ended up crashing to the floor, when he scooched his chair back or when Martin tried to reach an arm around him. Then again—he conjectured, bent halfway to the floor with the cane still in his hand—if he did drop it, that might wake Salesa.

Two nights ago Jon had got up to use the toilet, and knocked his cane down from the wall on his way back to bed in the dark. It crashed to the floor; Jon swore and hopped on one foot back from it, imagining the other foot’s poor toenail smashed to jagged pieces as it thumped to life with pain. Meanwhile he heard rustling from the bed, and Martin’s voice, querulous with sleep. “Jon? Jon, what’s—happened, what—are you.”

“Nothing it’s fine go back to”—he’d hissed as his knee decided it had enough of hopping—“don’t get up, just. I’m gonna turn on the light, if that’s alright.”

“What fell? Are you okay?”

“The cane. I knocked it over in the dark.”

“Oh.”

He got no verbal response about the light, but guessed Martin had nodded.

From a distance his toe looked alright—no blood, anyway, so he could walk on it without risking the carpet. Jon picked his cane up from the floor and steered himself to the foot of the bed, where he sat down. His toenail had chipped, it looked like—only a little, but in that way that leaves a long crack. If he tried to pick it straight he’d tear out a big chunk and it would bleed. But if he left it like this it would snag on the sheets, on his socks, until some loose thread tore the chunk of nail off for him. What could he do for this kind of thing here? At home he’d file the nail down around the chip, then cover it in clear nail polish, and just hope that’d hold out until the crack grew out and he could clip it without bleeding. But here? A plaster would have to do, he guessed. They had plenty of those now.

Jon hated bandaging, ever since Prentiss—in much the same way that Martin hated sleeping in his pants. He’d had time to learn all its discomforts. How sweaty they got, the way they stuck to your hairs, the way lint collected in the adhesive residue they left. Didn’t help he associated them with that time of paranoia. They didn’t make him act paranoid, understand; he just habitually thought of bandage-wearing as what paranoid people do. It made an echo of his contempt for that time’s Jon cling to his perceptions of current Jon. On his first morning here, when the ones on his shin where Daisy’d bit him peeled off in the shower, he hadn’t bothered to replace them. After all, the bite only hurt when something pulled on it or poked or scraped against it, so he figured his trousers would provide enough protective barrier.

“That healed fast,” Martin had remarked, when he noticed the undressed wound in the bath—and then, when he looked again, “Yyyyeah I dunno, I think you might still want to bandage that. We don’t want dirt getting in there.”

“Do I have to?”

“Humor me.”

When they got back to their room he’d let Martin dress it himself. Martin had sucked air through his teeth. “This is days old—it shouldn’t be all hot and red like this.” According to him these were early signs of infection, which would get worse if they didn’t take better care of it—i.e., keep the wound freshly bandaged and ointmented. Jon refrained from pointing out that when the cut on his throat had got like that he’d left it uncovered and been fine. But he did ask what worse meant. “Really bad,” testified Martin. “I had a cut on my finger get infected once. Really disgusting. You don’t want to know.”

Jon smiled at him, raised his eyebrows. “After Jared’s mortal garden I think I can handle it.”

Martin smiled too, but wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “There was pus involved.”

“Oh, god! How could you tell me that!” gasped Jon, hand to his chest.

“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, it also hurt? A lot? And it can make you ill. So we should try to avoid it, yeah?”

He’d tried to disavow the disappointment in his sigh by exaggerating it. “Yes, alright.”

“Don’t know why you’d want to leave it exposed anyway. Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Well, sure, when you do that,” Jon had muttered, flinching away. As he asked the question Martin had lightly tapped the skin around the gash through its new bandage. A second or two later Jon added, “Less than when I got it? It’s hard to tell; it’s… different here.”

With a sigh that caught on phlegm and irritation, Martin asked, “Different how?”

He hadn’t been able to answer then, but he knew now, of course. It hurt the way things do when you’re awake. Not with the constant smart and throb it had when he’d first got it, but, it snagged on things now. Had opinions on how he moved. When he bent his knee more than ninety degrees, that stretched the skin around it painfully. Also if he knelt, since then the floor would press against it through his trousers. And stepping with that foot felt odd. Didn’t hurt, exactly, but sort of… rattled? Like a bad bruise would. This all seemed so small, compared to the moment of terror for his life that he’d felt when Daisy bit into him—that gaping wound in his new self-conception, which his healing powers had sewn up so quickly. The ritual of bandaging it every evening seemed so otiose, so laughably superstitious. He despised the thought of adding another step to it.

While Jon went on examining his toe, Martin asked, “What was the... thumping. It sounded like.”

“Oh—no—I didn’t fall; it’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“No—yes—stop, it’s nothing, don’t get up. I just forgot I left it on the—leaning against the doorwall” (he hadn’t decided in time whether to say doorway or wall and ended up with half of each) “so I walked into it, er, toe first.”

“Oh,” Martin said again. Jon could hear him subsiding against the pillows behind him. “It came down?”

Big sigh. Jon’s fingernails met his palms. He set his foot back on the floor, and when his hip whined in its socket he clenched his teeth and kept them that way. In his mind he heard days’ worth of similar jokes. When he couldn’t get a jammed jar open: So you’re saying it wouldn’t… come off? When they got back their clean laundry: Can you believe all those grass stains came out?—oh, sorry: that they came off, I meant. Always with an innocent laugh, like Jon’s original phrasing had been just, what, like a Freudian slip, rather than something perfectly comprehensible that Martin had refused to engage with, taken from him, and rendered meaningless on purpose. “No it did not,” he snapped, “and I would appreciate it if you’d quit throwing that back in my face.”

“Whoa, uh. O…kay. What’s… going on here exactly?”

“You—?”

His heart plummeted; his face stung with embarrassment. Came down, Martin had said—not came off. He’d just been confirming that Jon’s cane had fallen down.

“Oh, god—nothing, never mind. You did nothing.”

“Well that’s obviously not true.”

“I just—I thought you’d said ‘came off.’ I thought you meant, had my toe ‘come off.’”

“Oh,” said Martin, yet again. When Jon turned to look he found him still blinking and squinting against the light. “Do you… need me to not say that anymore?”

“Not when I—?” Not when I’ve hurt myself, Jon meant. But Martin hadn’t done that, so this grievance didn’t actually mean anything. He’d been seeing patterns where there were none, and now that he’d seen through the illusion Jon knew again that Martin never would say it like that. “No, it’s fine. Do whatever you want.”

Martin turned the tail end of his yawn into a huff of false laughter. “Nope. Still don’t believe you.”

“Everything you’ve said makes perfect sense with the information you have. It’s all just—me. Being cryptic again.”

“Okay, uh. Are you waiting for me to disagree? ‘Cause, uh. Yup—you’re still being cryptic. No arguments there.”

Jon just sighed, really scraping the back of his throat with it. Almost a scoff.

“Sooo do you wanna fill me in, or.”

“No?” With an incredulous laugh. “Well, yes, just.”

He hadn’t known how to start from there, while so tightly wound and defensive. It seemed cruel to raise such a sensitive subject when Martin sounded so eager to go back to sleep. Or maybe he just didn’t want to hear Martin whimper apologies. Didn’t want to deal with how fake they would sound. They wouldn’t be fake; he knew that. But they would sound fake, which meant it would take an effort of will, a deliberate exercise of empathy, to accept them as real. He wasn’t in the mood to hear yet another person say I’m sorry, I didn’t know; much less to respond with the requisite It’s okay; you didn’t know. It would take a strength of conviction he didn’t have right now.

“Y—you don’t have to explain it tonight? I’ll just, I’ll just not use that phrase anymore, and maybe in the morning you’ll be less in the mood to lash out at me for things that don’t make sense.”

And what was there to say to that? It had taken Jon three tries to force out, “Okay. I’m sorry.”

“Good night, Jon.”

“Good night. I still need the light, for.”

“That’s fine. Just turn it off when you come back to bed.”

“You won’t wake him up,” a new voice interjected.

Annabelle. Jon couldn’t see her, but he had learnt by now to recognize that voice, with its insufferable upbeat teasing inflection like every sentence she said was a riddle. He caught a glimpse of movement, then heard the click of her shoes on the floor. She must have poked her head round the doorway at the far end of the table while she spoke, then scuttled off again. At last he got a good look at her, as she put her blonde-and-gray head through the closer door.

“He’s a very heavy sleeper,” she informed them, with a smile and a shrug. “You can shake him all you want; it’s not going to work.”

Martin cleared his throat—trying to catch Jon’s attention, presumably. But Jon feared Annabelle would vanish again if he took his eyes off her. Not that he wanted her here, either, but?—he at least wanted to know which direction she went when she disappeared.

“What are you doing here, Annabelle.”

She shrugged two of her shoulders. “Just offering you some advice.” Then she used the momentum from the shrug to push herself backward, out of the doorway back into the corridor. Before the last of her hands disappeared off to the right, she waved to both of them.

“Well, how about some ‘advice’ about this, then—”

“She’s already gone, Martin.”

“Seriously? God—which way did she go?” Jon pointed; Martin bolted down the hallway after her. “Oi! Annabelle!”

“Shhh!”

“Annabelle! Do you know where Salesa keeps the—”

Jon did his best to follow him, praying all his limbs would go on straight this time. “Don’t!”

“What? Why not?” he heard, from the other side of the wall. Thankfully he could no longer hear Martin’s pounding footsteps. He overtook him in the hallway, just about able to make out his face around the dark swirls in his vision. “She’s as likely to know as Salesa, right?” Martin continued. “And it’s not like she’d lie about it. I mean, what would be the point?”

“I just don’t think we should give her any kind of advantage over us,” Jon snarled. The attempt to keep his voice down made the words come out sounding nastier than he intended.

Martin scoffed. “You don’t think maybe this is a bit more important than your stupid principle about not accepting help from her?”

“Is it?” Jon took hold of Martin’s sleeve, having just now caught up to him. “The new room’s fine. It’s even nicer than the old one, right? We could just stay there.”

“I already told you, Jon. I’m not just gonna leave it like this.”

“’Til Salesa sobers up, I meant.”

“If we have to, yeah, but—? All our stuff’s in that room. The statements’re in there.”

“I just don’t think we should show her that kind of vulnerability,” Jon hissed, shifting from foot to foot in his eagerness either to sit down or go somewhere else. “I don’t want to give Annabelle something she can use over us.”

“How does this make us more vulnerable than we are eating her food?”

“It doesn’t, alright? That doesn’t mean we should add more to the pile!” He watched Martin shrug and open his mouth, but cut him off in advance: “Last time we had this argument you were the one maintaining she was dangerous.”

It was on their first night here—their first awake here, anyway. They’d been heading back to their room, Martin lamenting that he’d not packed anything to sleep in when they left Daisy’s safehouse. “Won’t make much difference to me,” Jon had shrugged at first.

Martin had shaken his head, grimaced at something in his imagination. “I hate sleeping in my pants. It’s just gross. Dunno why anyone would choose to do it.”

“How is it gross?” Jon had laughed. He’d expected to hear some weird thing about its being unsanitary for that much leg to touch sheets that only got washed every two weeks, and to argue back that in that case shouldn’t he sleep in his socks. Disdain for the body seemed damn near universal, and yet manifested so differently in each person whose habits Jon had got to know up close. Georgie had heard that underarm hair helped wick away the smell of sweat—so she let that hair grow out, but shaved the ones on her stomach for fear they’d smell like navel lint. And Daisy, a woman who used to sniff her used-up plasters before throwing them in the bin, would spray cologne in the toilet every time she left it. Jon had enjoyed getting to know which of bodily self-contempt’s myriad forms Martin subscribed to.

But this turned out not to be one of them. Instead Martin explained, “It’s so sweaty. Like sitting on a leather couch in shorts, except the leather’s your other leg? Ugh. I hate waking up slippery.”

“That’s why I put a pillow between mine,” laughed Jon. “Suppose I will miss Trevor’s t-shirt, though. Now that I don’t have to worry about showing up in people’s dreams like that.”

“Oh, god, right—what is it? ‘You don’t have to be faster than the bear’—?”

“‘You just have to be faster than your friends,'” Jon completed, in the most sinister Ceaseless-Watcher voice he could muster. Martin snorted with laughter.

And then they’d opened the door to discover Annabelle had done them a fucking turndown service. Quilt folded back, mints on the pillows, and a pile of old-timey striped pajamas at the foot of the bed. “Huh. Cree…py, but convenient, I guess. Least they’re not black and white, right?” Martin unfolded the green-striped shirt on top, then handed it with its matching trousers to Jon. “These ones must be yours.”

“Mm.” Jon let Martin hand him the pajamas, then tossed them onto the chair in the opposite corner of the room (from which chair they promptly fell to the floor). The mint from his side of the bed he deposited in the bin under the bedside table.

“So who’s our good fairy, d’you think? Salesa, or.”

“Annabelle,” Jon hissed. “Salesa was with us all through dinner.”

Martin nodded and sighed. “Yeah.” He sat down on the bed, still regarding the other set of garments—these ones striped yellow and blue—with a puzzled frown. “God, I’ll look like a clown in these. You sure I won’t give you nightmares about the Unknowing?”

But Jon said nothing, still hoping he could avoid weighing in on Martin’s choice whether or not to accept Annabelle’s… gifts.

“It’s probably Salesa’s stuff, at least. Not Annabelle’s. I mean,” Martin mused with a brave laugh, “he’s got a lot of weird outfits on hand apparently.”

“Unless she wove them out of cobwebs.”

“That’s not a thing,” Martin groaned, making himself laugh too. “Spider webs aren’t strong enough to use as thread.”

“Not natural ones, maybe,” Jon said with a shrug and a careful half smile. With no less care, he turned the sheets and counterpane back up on his side of the bed, restoring the way it’d looked when he and Martin made up the bed that morning. Stacked the frontmost pillow back upright against the one behind it. Punched it a little, more as a way to break the silence than because it looked too fluffy. Then sat down in front of them and put his shoe up on the bedside table so he could untie it—glancing first at Martin to make sure he didn’t disapprove.

“I mean, I guess,” Martin mused meanwhile. “Not sure why she’d bother, though. Maybe it’s”—with a gasp and a smile Jon could hear in his voice—“maybe she’s put poison in the threads, and that’s why yours and mine are different. Mine’s got—I dunno, some kind of self-esteem poison, like, a reverse SSRI, to make me feel like you don’t need me, so when she kidnaps you I won’t try to save you. And yours….”

As Jon pulled off his now-untied shoe one of the bones in his hip jabbed against some bit of soft tissue it wasn’t supposed to touch. He gasped and dropped his shoe. It thudded on the floor.

“You alright?”

“Fine. Some kind of dex drain, probably.”

“Ha.”

After a silence, Martin spoke again: “Are you sure you’re okay staying here for a bit? Sorry—I kinda bulldozed over your objections earlier.”

Jon finished untying his other shoe, then paused to think while he shook the cramp out of his hand. “No,” he decided. “You didn’t bulldoze, you just…questioned. And you were right to.”

“Still, I mean. It might not be a great idea to stick around here with the spider lady who’s had it in for us since day one. Have you re-listened to the tapes from the day Prentiss attacked, by the way, since you got them back from the Not-Sasha thing?”

“Right—the spider, yes.”

“Yeah, exactly! You wouldn’t even have broke through that wall if it hadn’t been for the spider there!”

Jon nodded and scrubbed at his eyes, trying to muster the energy to match Martin’s tone. This was an important conversation to have, he knew. And a part of him shuddered with recognition to hear Martin talk about those tapes. He had re-listened to them—first at Georgie’s, one night in the small hours as he cleaned her kitchen, thinking clearly for the first time in months and trying to pinpoint the exact moment his thoughts had been clouded with paranoia, so that he might know what signs to look for if something else tried to infect his mind like that. And then again after Basira found the jar of ashes. That time he’d just wanted to suck all the marrow he could from the memory of Martin with his sensible corkscrew and his first answer to Why are you here, even if it did mean having to hear himself ask if Martin was a ghost. A few weeks later, however, after Hilltop Road, he’d done a fair bit of obsessing over the spider thing with Prentiss, yeah. He just wished he could remember what conclusion he’d come to.

All he could remember was going for those tapes yet again only to find them missing from his drawer. But he’d been chasing phantoms all day; it was late at night by then, and when he’d dashed out to tell Basira his fear Annabelle had stolen them, stolen his memories from him just like the Not-Them had, he’d stood there over her and Daisy’s frankenbag for what felt like an hour, mouth open, unable to utter a sound. It felt too much like going to wake up his grandmother after a dream. So he’d told himself to sleep on it—that he’d probably left the tapes in some other obvious place, and would find them in the morning. And when he remembered his panic, the next day at lunch, and checked his drawer again, the tapes were back, right where he expected them. He’d dismissed it as a dream after all. But no—Martin must have borrowed them. He must’ve been worried about the Web, too.

“It’s… it should be okay. I don’t think it’ll be like that here.”

Martin sighed. “Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“That thing where you just—decide how something is without even telling me why you think so. I mean it’s one thing out there, when you ‘know everything’” (this in a false deep voice) “and can’t possibly share it all, but here? When you’re just guessing, like everyone else? Why don’t you think it’ll be like that here? And what does ‘like that’ even mean?”

“I'm sorry—you’re right—I just mean, I don’t think she has her powers here. Based on what Salesa said about the camera, and on what happens when I try to use my powers….”

“Salesa just said the Eye can’t see this place, though. What about that insect thing he said found its way in?”

“I mean.” Jon shrugged. “We managed to find our way here without the Eye’s help.”

“Yeah, but if the Web has no power here then how could she have called me on a payphone? She had to have known where I was to do that, yeah? And she couldn’t know that from here unless the Web told her to do it, right?”

“Maybe? We don’t even know if the Web works like that.”

“Told her to do it, made her want to do it, gave her the tools to do it, whatever. You know what I mean. Look—we know the Eye’s not totally blind here, since it can still feed on statements. Right?”

Jon wondered now how either one of them could have been so sure of that. “Apparently,” he liked to think he had said—but more likely he’d replied simply, “Right.”

“So then by that logic the Web still probably likes it when she—I don’t know, when she manipulates people here. It probably still gets, like, live tweets from her about it. How do we know it can’t use that information to weave more plots around us?”

“If that’s even how it works,” Jon had replied again. “The other fears don’t work like that—they don’t plan, they just.” He tried to sort his intuition into Martin’s live tweet metaphor. “The fears just like their agents’ tweets, they don’t… comment on them, o-or build new opinions on what they’ve read. It boosts the avatar's… popularity, I guess? Their influence?” Jon hadn’t even logged into Twitter since before the Archives. “But unless the Web is different from all the other fears, it doesn’t—it’s not her boss. It doesn’t come up with the schemes, it just.”

“Isn’t it literally called the ‘Spinner of Schemes’, though? The ‘Mother of Puppets’?”

And Jon couldn’t remember what he’d said to brush off that one.

“Of course she’s dangerous,” Martin said now. “I just don’t see what sinister plot of hers we could possibly be enabling by asking her where to find screwdrivers.”

Jon scoffed. “She’s with the Web, Martin! The ‘Mother of Puppets,’ the ‘Spinner of Schemes’? You’re not supposed to be able to see how the threads connect. Anything we ask her gives her another opening to sink her hooks into.”

“So what, you just don’t want to owe her a favor?”

“Yes?” Jon blinked—on purpose, needless to say. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. I mean—why do you think she’s here, Martin, ingratiating herself with us?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because it’s the one place on Earth that hasn’t been turned into a hell dimension?”

Jon snarled and set his head in his free hand. The dizziness was coming back. “In her statement Annabelle said the trick to manipulating people was to make sure they always either over or underestimate you.”

“Okay,” granted Martin, as though prompting Jon to explain how this was relevant.

“She’s trying to humanize herself,” he maintained, scratching an imaginary itch behind his glasses. “We shouldn’t let her.”

“I mean, she is physically more human here.”

“Is she? She doesn’t seem to be withdrawing from the Web; she’s not—like this.” Jon turned his wrist in a circle next to his head.

“Yeah but she’s been here for months, right? Maybe she’s passed through that stage.”

A bitter huff of laughter. “So you’re saying she’s reformed.”

“No. I’m saying the fact she’s not all—loopy here doesn’t necessarily mean she still has any power.”

“She’s got four arms and six eyes, Martin!”

“And you sleep with your eyes open and summon tape recorders, Jon!”

“Well,” mused Jon with a wry smile, “not on purpose.”

“That’s my point! You’ve only got—vestiges here, yeah? I’m not saying we should trust her; I don’t wanna be friends or anything. I’m just saying I don’t think the actual concrete danger she poses here is what’s making you hate the idea of asking her for directions.”

“What about that insect thing Salesa said she chased off. Does that not sound spidery to you?”

“We don’t know that! Maybe she waved his syringe at it.”

Jon took a deep, shaky breath through his nose. He’d hoped he wouldn’t have to bring up this next part; he feared it might make Martin too afraid to stay here any longer. “I think she’s plotting against us.”

Blink. “Well, yeah. Of course she is. She’s been plotting against us for—”

“Here, I mean. I mean, I think that’s why she’s here. She’s been hiding from the Eye on purpose so she could lure us into her trap with her spindly little”—Jon thought of the earrings that dangled from Annabelle’s ears like flies, swinging with her every sudden movement. Unconsciously he struck out with his hand as if to catch one, closing his fist around empty air. “Without my being able to see either her or the trap. At best, she’s here gathering information about us so she can report it back to her master.” He pictured the thousand spiders he’d seen birthed during Francis’s nightmare crawling back and forth with messages between here and the nearest Web domain—

“I thought you said the fears didn’t work that way,” pursued Martin—

“And every little thing we tell her is one more thread she can use to pull on us.”

“Okay, but, even if you’re right, ‘Hey Annabelle, our doorknob’s busted, can you help us find the tools to fix it’ isn’t actually a fact about us.”

“But that’s just the best-case scenario, Martin! The worst-case scenario is that she predicted we’d get locked out of our room, or even loosened the screw herself—”

“Not this again—”

“—because she knew we’d have to ask her for help, and wherever she tells us to look for the screwdriver is where she’s laid her trap! Think about it—this couldn’t happen outside the range of the camera, right? It would only work in a place where I can’t just know where to find something. That’s the only scenario where we’d ever ask her for directions.” Martin sighed, crossed his arms, rolled his eyes. Jon looked right at him, hoping to catch them on their way back down. “What if her plan is to trap us here forever so we can’t go stop Elias? What if by trusting her with this, we give her the tools to keep the world like this forever?”

Again Martin sighed. He bit his lip, at last seeming not to have an argument lined up already.

“I can’t actually stop you from going after her”—Jon heard Martin scoff, but pressed on—“but I can’t take part in this.”

“You sort of already did stop me, Jon.” He lifted his arm, pointing vaguely in the direction she’d gone. “We can’t catch up with her now.”

That wasn’t quite true, Jon knew; Martin had chosen to stop and listen to him. Instead of pointing this out in words Jon smiled, meekly, and reached for Martin’s hand. “Guess that’s true. Are you, er, ready for lunch now?”

His answering scoff sounded fond, indulgent, rather than incredulous. “Yeah, alright.”

With Martin’s hand still in his, Jon turned around—an awkward business, while holding hands in such a narrow passage—and began to walk back towards the dining room. At the end of the corridor stood a tall, thin, many-limbed figure, holding a water carafe, a stack of glasses, and four steaming plates of food.

“You boys getting hungry?” As she stepped toward them her shoes clacked against the floor. How had they not heard her approach? And what was she doing back at that end of the corridor?

“How did you—?”

“I have my ways. I’ve brought lunch for you both, if you’re amenable.”

“Oh—well, thanks, you’re, you’re just in time, actually.” Jon didn’t dare look away from Annabelle Cane long enough to confirm this, but suspected Martin had directed that last bit at him as much as her. “Can I help you with those?”

Annabelle managed to shrug without dislodging anything from the four plates in her hands. “You can take the napkins if you want,” she said, extending toward Martin the forearm from which they hung.

Jon sat back down in the chair he’d left at a haphazard angle—though it felt weird, since he usually sat on the table’s other side. He thanked Martin when he handed him a napkin, and allowed Annabelle to set an empty glass and a plate of food in front of him. It was a pasta dish, with clams—from a can, he reminded himself. A can and a jar of pasta sauce. Couldn’t have taken more than twenty minutes to put together.

“Salesa’s still out of it,” observed Martin. “Don’t think he’ll make too much of his.”

“A shame,” Annabelle agreed. She set a plate down in front of the sleeping Salesa anyway. “Maybe the smell of food’ll wake him up.”

“Are you going to eat with us?” Martin asked, as he and Jon both watched her deposit a fourth plate across the table from them.

“I may as well. We do still have to eat to live here, don’t we?” Jon could tell she meant this comment as an invitation for him to join their conversation, but he didn’t intend to take her bait. “Besides,” Annabelle went on, “this way you’ll know I’ve not saved the best for myself.” With one hand she picked up her own plate again; another of her long, thin arms reached out to take Jon’s plate.

He dragged it to the side, out of her reach. “No, thank you.”

“Alright. Martin,” she said, looking over at him with a patient, patronizing smile. “Will you switch plates with me?”

“Oh, my god,” Martin groaned into his hand. “Sure, why not.”

Something small and gray skittered across the table toward her. For half a second Annabelle took her eyes from Martin. Her nostrils flared; one of her eyes twitched; Jon heard a stifled squawk from behind her closed lips as she swept the skittery thing over her edge of the table. He made no such effort to hide his scoff. Did she think she could play nice, by declining to hold little spider conversations in front of them? That they’d think she was on their side as long as they couldn’t see her chatting to her little spies?

“Thank you,” Annabelle sing-songed meanwhile, returning her gaze to Martin. “You’re sweet.”

On their first morning here, after showering and then shuddering back into their filthy clothes, Jon and Martin had barely left their room before Annabelle dangled herself in their path, with cups of tea (Jon refused his) and an offer to show them to the pantry. From this tour Jon had concluded that all food in this place was tainted by her influence. And he didn’t actually feel hungry at that point? He remembered Martin remarking on his hunger before they’d both fallen asleep, but Jon had felt only tired. Surely that meant he still didn’t need food here, right? It’d been like that before the change, after the coma—he’d needed sleep and statements to keep up his strength, but could function just fine without… people food. So he’d resolved to accept nothing offered him here—or at least, nothing Salesa and Annabelle hadn’t already given him and Martin without their consent. No tea, none of Salesa’s booze, no use of the huge industrial washing machines, no food.

That resolution lasted about nine hours. He knew because on that first day time still felt like such a novelty he and Martin had counted every one. Once he’d tried and failed to compel Salesa—once he’d heard him give a statement and managed to space out for half of it, rather than transcending himself in the ecstasy of vicarious fear—Jon started to grow conscious of his hunger. After two hours he felt shaky; after four he started picking quarrels, first just with Annabelle when she showed up with snacks, then with Salesa, and then even with Martin; after six he felt first hot, then cold. Finally around the eight-hour mark he was hiding tears over an untied shoelace, and figured it was worth finding out how much of this torment people food could solve. He sat through dinner, flaunting his empty plate—then stole to the pantry for something he could make himself. Settled for dry toast and raisins. “Couldn’t you find the jam?” Martin had asked him.

“Didn’t think of it,” Jon lied, once he’d got his throat round a lump of under-chewed toast.

“You want me to get some for you? That looks pretty depressing without it,” Martin said, with his eyebrows and the line of his mouth both raised in a pitying smile.

“Better make it one of the sealed jars.”

“What, so Annabelle can’t have got to it?” Jon nodded, chewing so as to have neither to smile back nor decide not to. “You know she made the bread, right.”

Of course she had. Jon dropped his head onto his fists. “Fuck.”

“What did you think?” mused Martin with a laugh. “That Salesa just popped down to the supermarket?”

“I don’t know—that they’d taken it from the freezer, maybe?”

“I mean, that’s possible,” Martin granted with a shrug. “Should I get you that jam?”

Big sigh. “Fine.”

In reality he’d stared up at the row of jam jars in Salesa’s pantry for a full ten seconds before deciding not to have any. He feared spiders would spill out of the jar onto his hand as soon as he got it open. But he also feared he might not be able to open it at all—only hurt himself trying. Way back in their first year in the Archives together, Martin had once seen him struggling to get open the jar where he kept paperclips. Jon hadn’t realized he was being watched—or, that is, that Martin was watching him. In the Archives the sense of someone watching was so omnipresent one soon lost the ability to distinguish Elias’s evil Eye from other, more mundane eyes. Anyway, after three minutes’ effort and nothing to show for it but a misplaced MCP joint in his thumb, Jon had given up on paper-clipping the photos Tim had pilfered for him to their relevant statement and begun hunting through his desk drawers for a stapler instead. And then a high-pitched pop above his head made him startle so badly he gasped, choked on his own spit, and flung the picture in his hand across the room like a paper airplane.

Around the sound of his own cough he could hear Martin shouting Sorry, and Tim and Sasha laughing on the other side of the wall. Martin’s laugh soon joined theirs, though it sounded desperate, sheepish. He dove after the photo Jon had dropped, and then, when he came back with it, explained, “Got the paperclips for you.”

Jon frowned. “This is a photograph, Martin.”

“No, I mean—?” His laugh came out like a whimper; he picked the unlidded jar up an inch off the table, then set it back down. “Here.”

Okay, so, not exactly an auspicious start, but, it still became a thing? Martin opening his paperclip jar. At first he’d wished he could just remember not to seal it so tightly; he could get it just fine when he stopped turning it earlier. At least when the weather hadn’t changed since the last time he opened it. But then when they all started leaving the Archives less often, and the break-room fridge filled up with condiments that all seemed to have twist-off lids… he’d kind of liked that? Martin would hand him the peanut-butter jar, with its lid off and pinned to its side with one finger, before Jon had even finished asking for it. This seemed to be the pattern behind all his early positive impressions of Martin: the jar lids, the corkscrew, the way he managed to make mealtimes at the Institute feel like proper breaks. Martin had seemed like such an oaf to him at first—clumsy, absent-minded, always seeming to think that if he professed enough good will with his smiles and cups of tea and I know you won’t like this, but, then no one would notice his impertinent comments and all the doors he left wide open. All the dogs and worms and spiders he let in. He’d seemed to Jon the human embodiment of a fly left undone—more so than ever after the morning he’d walked in on him wearing naught but frog-print boxer shorts. But he had this easy grace with things that needed twisting off. Banana peels, bottle caps, wine corks, worms.

And then when he came back after the Unknowing Martin was never around. Jon and Basira and Melanie all lived in the Archives, like Martin had two years before, but by that point he wasn’t on Could you open this for me? terms with any of them. But he hadn’t needed people food anymore, and if he subluxed a joint it would heal instantly anyway. So he’d just struggled and sworn, feeling stupid for shrinking from the pain even after having chopped off his own finger. And it got easier with practice. By the time he and Martin reunited, he’d got so used to it that sometimes he’d hand jars to Martin already unlidded. Martin hadn’t seemed to notice. Finally, one evening a day or two after that row they had over the ice-cream thing, Jon had opened a jar of pasta sauce (he’d taken up people food again at Daisy’s safehouse, if only to make their time there feel more like a regular holiday), and reached out to hand it to Martin—then paused and retracted the hand that gripped the jar, remembering his promise to be more open about.

“This is, um.” He’d glanced up at Martin, then back to the floor as the latter said,

“Huh?”

“This is one of those things that’s got better since the coma. Since I became an avatar. I can, um. I can open jars now? Without.” He’d almost said Without hurting myself, then remembered that wasn’t technically true. Deep breath. “Without lasting harm. It—it hurts for a second? But the Eye heals it instantly. That's why I’ve been.”

“Oh,” Martin said, seeming to stall for time as he absorbed this information. He accepted the jar which Jon again held out to him, and turned it around in his hands, eyes on its label. “Yeah, I—I noticed, you’re really good at opening jars now,” he went on with a laugh. Again he paused, and blew a sigh out of his mouth. “Right. Okay. Thank you for telling me?”

“I’ll try and be better about….”

Martin nodded, turning back to the stove and beginning to stir sauce into the pasta. “Yeah. I, uh—I didn’t know that was why you used to need me to open them for you?” Since the other night’s argument, Jon had gathered as much. He nodded too. “I thought you were just, heh, you know. Weaker than me.”

“I mean, I am—”

“Well yeah but you know what I mean.”

“I do. I should’ve told you.”

“No, I—actually I think you’re in the clear on that one, if I’m honest. I just—it’s just weird? I thought I was done having to” (another blown-out sigh punctuated his speech) “having to reframe stuff I thought was normal around some unseen horror. Sorry,” he added when he’d finished beating sauce off Daisy’s wooden spoon; “that’s probably not a great way to.”

“No—it’s fine?”

“Suppose it sounds like an exaggeration, now, after all we’ve.”

Mechanically, Jon nodded, without deciding whether he agreed or not. Around an awkward laugh, he confessed, “‘Unseen horror’ might be the nicest way I’ve ever heard anyone describe it.”

“Er. Yikes? That sounds like you might need some better friends, Jon.”

“Maybe,” he conceded, laughing again. “I—I just mean, it’s nice to hear something other than?” Jon paused and pushed his little fingers back the hundred or so degrees they each would go. First the left, then the right. Other than what? Well, doubt, for a start. Though most of the doubt he heard from outside himself was implicit. Careful silence from people he told about it; requests people made of him seemingly just so he’d have to tell them he couldn’t do that; impatience, bafflement, suspicion from strangers. Why are you out of breath, the woman behind the Immigration desk had asked him at O’Hare, as if breathlessness incriminated him somehow. But that wasn’t the response he’d subconsciously measured Martin’s phrase against. What he had in mind now was more like… bland support. Hurried support. Assurances quick and dutiful, yet so vague he could tell the people who gave them were thinking only of the mistakes they might make, if they dared to acknowledge what he’d said with any more than half a sentence. The I’m sorry you’re in pain equivalents of Right away, Mr. Sims.

That was it—unseen horror was an original thought. Martin had put it in his own words, rather than either borrowing Jon’s or using none at all. “Other than a platitude.”

So at Salesa’s when Martin came back with the jam jar he handed it to Jon. Jon made a show of trying to open it, but could feel his middle finger threatening to leave its top half behind. It frightened him, in a way he’d forgot was even possible. For such a long time now, pain had just been pain? He’d grown so unused to the threat it held for normal people. The threat of actual danger, of injury. He’d set down the jar on the table in front of him, and crossed his arms in front of it.

“Can’t get it, huh?” Martin asked; Jon shook his head.

How much danger, though, he wondered. Earlier that day, after he and Martin got out of the bath, his left index finger had popped out while he was buttoning his shirt. It still ached when he used the finger, or thought about the cracking sound it had made—but didn’t throb anymore without provocation. Not much danger there; not even much inconvenience. He supposed if he hurt his middle finger too then he might have some trouble with his trouser button the next time he had to pee? Right, yes, what a cross to bear. I hurt myself doing x; now it hurts to do x. But it already hurt to do x, didn’t it? Didn’t x always hurt, before the change? Why did he so fear to face an hour or a day where it hurt more than usual, but not so much I can’t do it?

“So you’re saying it won’t… come off?”

“Ha, ha.”

“Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”

“What if I open it and it’s full of spiders?”

Martin had smiled, rolled his eyes, pulled the jar toward him, and twisted its lid off with a pop. “See? No spiders in this one.

“While you’re here, Annabelle,” Jon heard Martin say, “I don’t suppose you know anything about where Salesa keeps his screwdrivers?”

Annabelle tapped her chin and said, very pleasantly, “Hmmm. Perhaps they’re where he left them after the last time something broke.”

Martin’s lips drew closer together. “Yeah,” he nodded, “probably. Any idea where that might be?”

“Perhaps he keeps them next to whatever screw comes loose most often.”

“And do you know which screw that is?”

She shook her head, though who knew whether that meant she didn’t know or merely that she didn’t mean to tell him. “Perhaps he only uses the item when he’s alone,” she said, with a shrug and a sly smile.

“…Ew.” Annabelle cackled like a school kid pulling a prank. “Right, great,” sighed Martin. “Thanks a lot. Forget it. You done, Jon?”

Jon glanced sleepily down at his plate. Only half empty, but cold by now. “Yes.”

“Nice of you to grace us with your presence, Annabelle,” Martin said, sliding his and Jon’s plates toward her side of the table.

Instead of energy, lunch gave Jon only a slight queasy feeling—like one gets from eating sweets on an empty stomach.

“God”—hissed Martin, with clenched fists, as they ambled back to their room—“‘Perhaps he keeps them next to the screw that gets loose most often.’ Yeah, figured that out already, thanks! Can you even believe her? Sitting down to eat with us, as if she’s all ready to help, and then the best she can do is,” he paused and straightened, then said with a finger to his chin in imitation of Annabelle, “‘Oh, hm, guess he only uses it alone. Oh well!’”

“Don’t know what else you expected.”

Martin sighed, his arms crossed now. “Guess I should’ve done what you asked after all, since that accomplished nothing.” After a moment he went on, “Least it wasn’t a trap, right? I tried not to give her anything she could use against us.” With a smile Jon could hear without looking at him, “You notice how I pointedly didn’t offer to help clean up?”

“No, I didn’t,” Jon confessed, laughing a little.

“No?!” Again Martin paused on his feet, frowning, incredulous. Jon wished he wouldn’t; standing still made him dizzier, took more effort than walking, like that poor woman in Oliver’s domain. Daniela? Martin shook his head at himself. “Ugh—then who knows if she noticed, either. I thought I was being so obvious!”

“I mean—”

“Wait, hold up, let’s double back.”

“Are you going to go back and tell her it was on purpose?”

“No, just”—he echoed Jon’s laugh—“no, of course not. I just wanted to try that wing’s toilets next. Didn’t want her to see which way we were going.”

“Oh.” By this time Martin had turned around and started to walk the other way; Jon hung back. “Er. I thought—I thought we were going to our room first.”

“What, the new one you mean?” asked Martin, turning his head around to look back at him.

“…Yes,” Jon decided. Until this moment he’d forgot about that, and been daydreaming of their original bed.

“Sure, if you want. Do you need a break?”

“I… I think so, yes.”

Martin turned the rest of the way around, shuffled toward Jon and looked him over, with a concerned frown. He took his free hand between his fingers and thumb, brushing the latter over Jon’s knuckles. “Yeah, okay. You still seem pretty out of it. How are you feeling?”

“Not great,” answered Jon, though he smiled in relief at Martin’s willingness to change the plan for him.

“Food didn’t help?”

His stomach seemed hung with cobwebs; his mind, like a large room with half its lights burnt out. His light head seemed attached to his heavy, aching body only by a string, like a balloon tied to an Open-House sign. He still needed the toilet. “Not really?”

“Yeah, thought not. You need a statement, huh.”

Jon shrugged, avoiding Martin’s eyes. “Probably.”

In the interim bedroom Jon sat down at the edge of the bed, bent down over his legs, and untied his shoes, wondering why his life always came back around to this. His hip got stuck like a drawer that’s been pulled out crooked, so he had to lever himself back up with his arms, trapping fistfuls of counterpane between thumbs and the meat of his palms. It made his hands cramp, but that helped—the way it would have helped to bite his finger. When he’d got himself upright again he sat and blinked for a few seconds, hoping each time he opened his eyes that his vision would’ve cleared.

Martin sat down next to him and put his hand on Jon’s arm. “You’re blinking again. You okay?”

“Just… kind of dizzy? It’s an Eye thing.”

He let Martin pull him towards him until their shoulders touched. “Yeah. Makes sense. Nap should help. Statement’ll definitely help.”

“Right.”

They agreed to lie on the bed rather than properly in it, not wanting to have to put the covers back together afterward. Jon set his head on that squishy part of Martin’s chest where it started to give way to armpit, knowing to angle himself so the scar tissue pressed the hollow part of his cheek rather than anywhere bonier. It was normally dangerous to lie half on his back, half on his side like this, but he’d lately discovered he could use Martin’s leg to keep his hip from falling off. He could feel the muscles in his shoulder twitching and cramping, whether to pull the joint out or keep it in who could tell. But it’d be fine as long as he shrugged the arm every few minutes.

All the ways they knew to spend time in each other’s company had come together in Scotland, where he’d had none of these worries. Even after the change, on their journey, with nothing but sleeping bags between them and desecrated earth, he’d borne only the same aches he’d been ignoring since he read the statement that ended the world. Jon imagined lying next to Martin like this on the cold stone of a tomb in the Necropolis, surrounded by guardian angels’ malicious laughter. Not feeling the cold, or the grain of the stone against his ankles and the bandage on his shin—just knowing it was there, like when you watch someone suffer those things in a movie. Less vivid even than a statement about lying on a tomb; in Naomi Herne’s nightmare he’d felt the stone in her hands.

“Hfff, okay—ready to get back to it?”

“Mrrr.”

“…Jon, are you asleep?”

He shrugged his hanging shoulder. “No.”

Nose laugh. “Come on, wake up.”

“Mmrrrrrrr.”

“My arm’s asleep.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It won’t wake up ‘till you get up off of it, Jon,” said Martin, gently, between huffs of laughter.

“Hmr.” Jon rolled away to face the wall with the window, freeing Martin’s arm.

“Do you want me to go look without you?”

“Okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mhm.”

Cold air washed over his newly-exposed arm, ribcage, side of face, the outside of his sore hip. It was cold on this Martinless side of the bed, too. He rolled back over into the shadow of his warmth, but that still wasn’t as good as the real thing. Maybe he could pull the covers halfway out and roll himself up in them.

“Aaagh, no—Jon”—Martin’s cool hand on top of his as he tried to hook his fingers round the counterpane— “we’re trying to leave the room the way we found it, remember?”

“Hmmmrrgh.” He consented to leave his hand still when Martin’s departed from it. A few seconds later, a rustle against his ear, the smell of smoke and old clothes.

“Here.”

Jon crunched the jacket down so it wouldn’t itch his ear. “You won’t need it?”

“Probably not.”

“Hm.”

“I’ll be back for it if I have to go outside again, yeah?”

“Okay.”

In his mind’s eye they trudged into the wind, hand in hand. It blew Martin’s hood off his head, and inverted Jon’s cane like an umbrella. He shrunk himself further under Martin’s jacket, relishing the new pockets of warmth he created as his calves met his thighs and his hands gripped his shoulders.

“Ooookay…! Wish me luck?”

“Good luck,” managed Jon around a yawn.

Martin had been right about the wallpaper. Not only was the red too bright to look at comfortably; it also had the kind of flowered pattern just complex enough that every time you look back at it you’re compelled to double-check where it repeats. Every fourth stripe was the same as the first, right? Not every second? And that weird little scroll-shaped petal—he’d seen that one too recently. Was it the same as?—No, that one was a bud. He pulled Martin’s jacket up so it covered his eyes.

They’d put their jackets through the laundry with everything else, their first day here, but that hadn’t got the smell out. Enough time had passed between the burning building and their arrival here for the smoke to embed itself permanently into their jackets and shoes, like how duffel bags once taken camping always smell like barbecue. And everything they’d ever shoved in those backpacks still had some of that odd, sour, Ritz-cracker smell of clothes left unwashed too long.

Daisy used to smell like smoke and laundry, too, once she quit smelling like dirt. It was the smell of the old green sleeping bag she’d zipped up to Basira’s. She said she’d have showered it off if she could; she didn’t like it. To her it was a Hunt smell—it reminded her of her clearing in the woods. But there weren’t any showers in the Archives. She’d point this out every time, in the same wry voice, so Jon was sure she’d intended the metaphor. No showers in the Archives: you couldn’t hide your sins in a temple of the Eye. This had comforted Jon—or maybe flattered was the word, though he knew her better than to think she’d have done so on purpose. He just wasn’t sure he agreed. He’d hid his sins pretty well from himself, after the coma. It was easy; you just had to lose track of scale. No one could remember all of them at once, after all. Others had had to point the important ones out to him.

Were those footsteps he could hear out there? Not Annabelle’s—? No; her clicky shoes. These were blunter. Could be Salesa, awake at last, come to invite them to play a game with him. “How do you two feel about… foosball?” he would say, drawing out the last word in a husky whisper. Only then would he swing the door wide open to reveal himself in a shiny jersey, shorts, and studded shoes. He set his fists out before him and turned them in semicircles, pretending to manipulate the plastic rods of a foosball table. Jon curled still more tightly into himself at the thought of Salesa’s face, how his showman’s grin would crumple like a hole in a cellophane wrapper when he realized the fun one had gone and that he faced only the Archivist. “Oh—hello. Jon, is it? Where has your lovely Martin gone?”

“Oh, uh. Martin needs a screwdriver to fix our door, so I.”

He watched Martin march his silent way slowly, solemnly down a corridor that grew darker, grayer, vaguer with every step until the webs that lined its every side and hung in laces from the ceiling began to catch on his shoes, his belt, his glasses.

“I let him go off alone.”

Jon’s whole body flinched. He gasped awake—oh shit. How had he just let Martin go? He had to—couldn’t stay here—find Martin—keep him out of Annabelle’s clutches—

Stick-thin bristling spider legs tapped the floor of his mind like fingers on a table. Find Martin. Jon instructed himself to sit up, swing his legs over the side of the bed and reach down to grab his shoes. He twitched one finger. See? You can do this. In a minute he’d try again and be able to move his whole arm, push himself up onto one hand. Find Martin.

Also probably go to the toilet. With an empty bladder his head would be clearer, he could figure out which direction to look first.

After Hopworth, while he laid on the couch in his office waiting for the strength to throw himself into the Buried, Jon had imagined Martin and Georgie and Basira and Melanie all stood around that coffin, wearing black and holding flowers. Denise? No, it definitely had three syllables. A scattered applause began as Jonah Magnus emerged from his office, closed behind him the door printed with poor dead Bouchard’s name, and stepped up to the podium. Georgie, not knowing his face, began to clap; Melanie stayed her hands. Elagnus’s shirt, hidden behind suit except for the collar, was striped in black and white. A ball and chain hung from his sleeve like an enormous cufflink. He opened his mouth to speak, and a tape recorder began to hiss.

“What are you doing here?” asked Basira.

“Never underestimate how much I care for the tools I use, Detective. I wouldn’t miss my Archivist’s big day.”

“So they just let you out for this.”

Elias shrugged with false modesty. His chain jingled. “When I asked them nicely.”

“How did you even know he was dead?” interposed Melanie. “Basira, did you tell him about the—”

“She didn’t have to,” said Elias, raising his voice to cut Melanie’s off. “Nothing escapes my notice, and I like to keep an eye out for this sort of thing.”

“Well—it’s—good to see you.” Tim’s voice. Unconvincing, even then.

Jon steeled himself to hear his own voice stammer out, “Yes—y-yes!” but heard nothing except the hissing of the… tape. Yes, that was the wrong tape—the one from his birthday.

“Anyway. Somebody mentioned cake.” Elias jingled as he arranged his hands under his chin.

Tim scoffed. “They didn’t serve cake at my funeral.”

“I preferred going out for ice cream anyway,” pronounced Martin, his arms crossed and his nose in the air. Jon pushed himself up on shaking hands. Find Martin.

They had gone for ice cream at John O’Groats before the change, while living at Daisy’s safehouse. Martin had apologized on behalf of the kiosk for its measly selection—no rum and raisin. Jon pronounced a playful “Urgh,” assuming Martin had cited this flavor as a joke. “I think I’ll manage without that particular abomination.”

“Wait, what? Why did you order it at my birthday party then?”

Jon stood still with his ice cream cone, squinted into space, and blinked. “I did?”

“My first birthday in the Archives, yeah!”

“Huh. That’s… odd.” Martin placed a gentle hand on Jon’s back to remind him to resume walking. “I suppose I must have been—huh. Yes,” he mused, nodding slowly as his hypothesis came into focus between his eyes and the ground. “I must still have thought I was tired of all the good flavors at that point.”

He heard Martin scoff a few steps ahead of him. “What, and now you’re happy with plain old vanilla?” Then he heard arrhythmic footsteps thumping toward him from Martin’s direction; he looked up to find Martin reaching his napkin-draped free hand out toward Jon’s ice cream cone. “You’re dripping again,” he explained.

Jon mumbled thanks and shrugged a laugh. “I-I’ve, uh. Come back around on most of them.”

“Except rum and raisin?”

“No—I’ve come around on it, too, just, uh.” He tried to make the shape of a wheel with his ice-cream-cone-laden hand. It flicked drips of vanilla across his shirt. Martin came at him with the napkin again. “Thank you. I just disliked that one to start with.”

“…Right. Okay, so what revolution occurred in your life before the Archives that overturned all your opinions on ice cream flavors?”

So Jon had told Martin about that summer when his jaw kept subluxing. He’d used that word, assuming Martin was familiar with it already—incorrect, as he knew now. Presumably Martin had gathered from context that Jon meant he’d hurt his jaw, in some small-scale, no-big-deal way whose specifics he’d let slide as an unimportant detail. But then as the anecdote wore on he must have begun to feel the hole in his knowledge. And lo, at last Martin had invoked that dread specter the clarifying question.

“Okay but so your grandmother had no problem with you basically living off ice cream all summer?”

“Well, she did when I could chew. But not when it was that or tinned soup.”

“Ah—right. ‘Cause you hurt your… jaw, you said?” Jon nodded. “What happened exactly?”

“Oh. Uh. Happened? Nothing, just my—I was born, I guess. Just part of my genetic condition; I happened to get it especially bad in the jaw that year. I-it’s much better now, though,” he hastened to add when he noticed Martin’s frown.

“What genetic condition? You never told me you had one.”

“Didn’t I?”

At the time, the anger in Martin’s answering scoff had surprised him. “No, Jon, you never said.”

“Oh. Sorry? I—I mean, you’ve seen me with this for years—I just?—thought you knew.”

“Seen you with—what, the cane, you mean? I thought that was Prentiss!”

Jon glanced to the doorway to double-check that was where he’d left his cane.

“What? No,” he had mused. “Of course not. I’ve had this since….”

“But you never used it.”

“No—surely, I—”

“Not once before Prentiss.”

Even as he’d said the words, Jon’s memory of that time had returned to him and he’d known Martin was right. Before Prentiss attacked the Institute he’d brought his cane with him to work in the Archives every day, and every day left it folded up in his bag. All out of an obscure notion that if he’d used it before Elias and before his coworkers, they’d take it as a plea for mercy, an admission of weakness or incompetence. God, he was naïve back then. He’d used the cane often enough back in Research; why hadn’t he worried Tim and Sasha would find its new absence conspicuous? That they’d worry just as much about his refusal to use it? The whole thing seemed even more stupid, too, now that he knew Elias must have noticed the change. How it must have pleased him, to see his shiny new Archivist so obsessed with proving he was fit for the job.

“Yeah but,” Jon pursued, instead of voicing any of this, “Tim never—?”

Martin nodded and shrugged. “I don’t know; I figured Tim didn’t get them in the legs as much as you did. I didn’t see you guys after the attack, remember? Not ‘til you got out of quarantine.”

“Right, no, of course you didn’t. I’m sorry,” said Jon mechanically, already consumed with the question he asked next. “Martin—did you think it was the corkscrew?”

From Martin’s sigh Jon figured he’d been expecting this question. “Kinda? At first, yeah. Half for real, half just—you know, as a habit? Like, ‘Look, a way to blame yourself!’” He splayed out his hands, rolled his eyes.

“Yes—I do that too.” Jon barely got the words out above a whisper; he couldn’t not smile, but fought to keep it from showing teeth. A muscle under his chin spasmed with the effort.

“But then I noticed you switching sides with it a lot, so, yeah. I knew it couldn’t be just that.”

“Really?” He waited for Martin’s answering shrug. “You’re the first person who’s ever noticed that. Or at least commented on it.”

“Sorry?”

“No—it’s.”

This attempt to communicate a similar sentiment, Jon recalled as he reached for his shoes, hadn’t gone as well as the one a few days later (over unseen horror &c.). Beholding had at that moment presented him with the image of a fat, hunched woman in shorts. She shuffled forward a few steps in a queue at Boots, next to him, and shifted her weight so the cane in her right hand supported her nearer leg. He felt a strong impulse he knew wasn’t his own—one born partly of resentment, part exasperation, part concern—to tell the woman that was bad for her shoulder, that she should switch hands too. But knew if he tried she’d either pretend she hadn’t heard it, or tell him off for criticizing her. Jon didn’t know what she would say more specifically; the Eye didn’t do hypotheticals. It had given him no more than this single moment of preverbal intuition. After the change he could have sought out other conversations Martin had had with his mother, and they might have given him a pretty good idea. But he’d promised Martin not to look at things like that.

He managed to dislodge a finger while tying his shoe. The other shoe he’d pulled off without untying; in a fit of impatience he tried now to shove his foot into it as it was. No good—he got the shoe on, but it just made the other index finger, the one he’d hooked into the back of the shoe behind his heel for leverage, pop off to the side too. Jon was afraid to find out what shape it would end up in if he pulled his finger back out of the shoe like that, so he had to untie it after all, one-handed. Then carefully extract his finger. It sprung back into place as soon as he removed the offending pressure (namely, his heel), but he still whimpered and swore. The corners of his eyes pricked with indignation when he remembered he still had to pee.

In this case, for once, Beholding had told him the important part: that that was why Martin had noticed. Had he noticed Melanie, too, Jon wondered, when she got back from India? She would switch hands sometimes, too—but, of course, without switching legs. He wondered if that had picked at the same unacknowledged nerve of Martin’s that his mother’s habit had. It had bothered Jon, too, but in a different way. He’d resented it a little, but also felt humbled by it, the way he always did by others’ discomfort. Getting shot in the leg seemed so big? Like such an aberration. So uncontroversially important—probably because it was simple, legible. Georgie could convey its hugeness to him in three words. She got shot. Obviously there was more to the story than that; there were parts he could never…

Well, no. There was a part of it he felt he should say he could never understand: that she’d kept the cursed bullet because she wanted it. In fact he was pretty sure he did understand that. But he didn’t have the right to admit it, he didn’t think. And no reason to hope she would believe him if he did. The second he’d learnt the bullet was still in there, after all, he and Basira had rushed to dig it out. Surely, from her perspective that could only mean he didn’t and could never understand. Or maybe he just wanted her to see it that way—wanted her to get to keep that uncomplicated resentment of his ignorance. It made his perspective look stupid and ugly, sure. But the truth made it look self-absorbed and pitiful. The truth was that until Daisy insisted otherwise, he’d assumed only he could see his own corruption and assent to it: that the others must not have known what they were doing.

Then again, maybe even if Melanie knew that, she would see only that he had underestimated her. Maybe it didn’t matter how much she knew.

Melanie switched off which hand she held her white cane with now, too. But that was probably healthy? Jon knew no more than the average person about white-cane hygiene. He just remembered feeling the floor drop out of his stomach when they’d got coffee together during his time in hiding and he had seen her switch her original, silver cane from hand to hand. Part of him had wanted to scoff or rationalize it away. How much could the shot leg hurt, really, if she still noticed when her arms got tired? But another part of him shuddered at the thought one arm alone couldn’t compensate for the weight her leg refused to take—that she had to keep switching off when one arm got weak and shaky from supporting more weight than it should have to. It wasn’t that he hadn’t experienced pain or impairment on that scale. He had, though the thought of a single injury sufficing to cause it still made him feel cold inside. It was that he kept seeing proofs, all over, everywhere, that the parts of his life he’d only learnt to accept by assuming they were rare weren’t rare.

Leitner hadn’t made the evil books; he’d just noticed they were there. And then had his life ruined by their influence, like everyone who came across them. Jon had had no time and no right to deplore the holes Prentiss had left in him and Tim, because on the same damn day he learnt someone had shot the previous Archivist to death. Alright, so it was him, then, right? Him and Tim—just doomed, just preternaturally unlucky. Tim, handsome face half-eaten by worms, estranged (as Jon then assumed) from a brother who seemed so warm and accepting in that picture on his lock screen; Jon, saved from Mr. Spider only by his childhood bully, now fated to take the place of another murder victim—and also half-eaten by worms. But no; he and Tim had got off lightly. Look what had happened to Sasha the same fucking night. The very thing whose influence convinced him the world had it out for him? Had killed Sasha. Literally stolen her life. How many lives around him got stolen while he mourned his own?

“I want you to comment on it,” Jon had managed to clarify. But Martin had scoffed as he stood in the foyer of Daisy’s safehouse, hopping on one foot to pull off the other shoe:

“Yeah, well. You haven’t exactly led by example on that one.”

“How could I?”

He accepted Jon’s scarf and long-discarded jacket, hanging them up beside his own. “Gee, I don’t know—commenting on it yourself?”

“On… switching which side I used the cane on.”

“Don��t play dumb, Jon. On this ‘genetic condition’” (in a deep, posh voice, with a stodgy frown and fluttering eyelashes) “you’ve apparently had this entire time. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“I thought you knew, Martin! Why would I mention it in a childhood anecdote if I didn’t think...?”

“Well I didn’t know, okay? You never told me. You never tell anyone anything about what’s going on with you, you just—you just make everything into another heroic cross to bear.”

“That’s not—?” He wanted to tell Martin just how little that made him want to say about it. But he guessed Martin was really talking less about the EDS thing, more about how he’d spent their whole first year in the Archives pretending to dismiss the statements that scared him. How he’d sent Tim and Martin home when he’d found out about Sasha. How he’d stayed away from the Institute even after his name got cleared for Leitner’s murder. “What do you want to know.”

“Why you never—?” In a similar way, Martin seemed to reconsider his initial response. “Yeah, okay, right. Object-level stuff, yeah?” Jon nodded and wanly smiled. “Okay, so. What’s it called?”

After taking a minute to ditch his shoes, wash the sticky ice-cream residue off his hands, and drink some water, he’d sat down on the couch with Martin and told him its name, what it was, what it did. What does that mean, though, Martin kept asking, so he’d explained how it applied to the anecdote about his jaw. Martin asked why it meant he needed a cane.

“Be…cause all my joints are like that.”

“Yeah, but why does it help with that? What is the cane actually for, is what I’m asking.”

Jon hated being asked that question. “It—it means I don’t fall over when one of my joints stops working? A-and… also makes walking hurt less. I suppose.”

“So, when they’re working right, that’s when you don’t need it?”

“No—yes?—sort of. Now sometimes I just need it when it’s been too long since I had a statement. I get sort of. Weak.” Quickly Jon added, “But I don’t need it for stability so much since the coma.” He’d shown Martin how now, when he pulled out his finger, the Eye would just sort of erase that version of reality—how the dislocation wouldn’t snap back, but simply cease to exist. As if his body were a drawing on which the Beholding had corrected a mistake. He put his palms together behind his back, in the way he’d been told one couldn’t without subluxing both shoulders, and told Martin to watch how the hollows between his shoulder bones vanished. He opened his jaw ‘til it jarred to the side, and told Martin to listen for the static.

But Jon had never shown Martin how these things worked before the coma. Martin had no reference for this kind of thing; he understood only enough to find the sights unsettling. “That’s—no, that’s okay, I’ll”—he stuttered as Jon fumbled with his kneecap in search of a fourth example—“I-I get it. I’ll take your word for it.”

“I just thought.”

“No, I—? I don’t need you to prove it to me, Jon.” (The latter nodded, blushing, trying to smile.) “I get… I’m sorry. I guess I get why it’d feel easier not to say anything if? If you think it’s either that or have to convince people it’s a thing.”

Again Jon nodded. He suspected Martin wasn’t through talking yet. But Martin still wasn’t looking at him, eyes squeezed tight against Jon’s party tricks. So, to show he was listening, Jon said, “Yes. Er—thank you, Martin.”

“I just don’t like it when you hide things from me.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You could at least ask if I want to know about them, yeah?”

Even at the time, Jon had doubted this. If they’d had this conversation after the change, he might have pointed out to Martin that when you mention something the other person has no inkling of, you make them too curious to decline your offer of more information, even if afterward they’ll admit they wish you’d never told them.

“Or ask me if I even recognize what you’re talking about, the next time you start going on about some childhood anecdote where you incidentally had a dislocated jaw. Honestly, would it kill you to start with, ‘Hey, did I ever tell you about x’?”

“No, it wouldn’t. You’re right. I’ll try. What… kinds of things did you—? For the future, I mean. What kinds of things did you want to make sure I tell you about.”

Martin sighed, in that way he did when he thought Jon was going about something all wrong. But after a pause to think, he did ask, “About this, or in general?”

“Either—both—first one, then the other.”

“Okay. I guess… I want to know when you’re hurt, mostly. Like—I can’t believe I even have to say this—that’s kind of important, actually? How am I supposed to know how to behave around you if I never know whether you're secretly in pain or not?”

This seemed weird—both now and at the time. Jon figured he must be missing something. If Martin thought he only needed the cane because of Prentiss then, sure, that might have affected how he imagined Jon’s discomfort to himself, but? Wasn’t the cane itself an admission of pain? Why did Martin think he owed him more than that—that he had owed him more than that at the time, no less? Did he not realize how fucking private that was? What a surrender of privacy the cane represented?

But, no, he reminded himself now; nondisabled people don’t realize that, unless you tell them about it. Repeatedly. Over and over. It only seems obvious to you because you lived it already.

“Er.” At the time he’d just shown Martin his teeth, with the points of his left-side canines joined. Nominally a smile, but more like a show of hiding the grimace beneath than an actual attempt to hide it. “That’s harder than you might think? Technically I’m always….”

“Oh.”

“Sorr—”

“—What do you mean, ‘technically’?”

“I’m—not always aware of it?” He disliked that phrase, in pain—how it implied a discrete and exclusive state. One could not be in Paris and at the same time in London; similarly, most people seemed to assume one could not be in pain and also in a good mood. In raptures. In a transport of laughter. That when one admits to being in pain, one implies that’s the most important thing they’re conscious of.

“Well that doesn’t make sense.”

“Yes, I know—‘if a tree falls down in a forest’—blah blah blah.” With a gentle smile to acknowledge he’d picked up this mode of speech from Martin. He turned his wrist in circles so it clicked like an old film reel. “Philosophically speaking, if you’re not aware of pain, you can’t be in it. Maybe ‘technically’ isn’t the right word.”

“Oh yeah ‘cause that’s the angle I want to know about this from.”

Jon sighed. “I know. I’m sorry. I just mean, it doesn’t always matter to me.”

“Well it matters to me,” Martin scoffed.

“Yeah—I’m getting that. Is there any way I can explain this that you won’t jump down my throat for?”

Martin sighed, groaned, pulled at his hair a little but made himself stop. (He doesn’t pull it out, Jon knows—he just likes having something to grab onto during awkward conversations. Usually emerges from them looking like a cartoon scientist.) “Okay, yeah,” said Martin. “I get it. I’m sorry too.”

“I mean—when you get a paper cut, that hurts, technically, right?”

“Well yeah, a little, but that’s not the kind of—”

“But just because you notice that hurt doesn’t mean?” He paused to rearrange his words. “You’re not going to remember it later unless someone asks why you’ve got blood on your sleeve.”

“Y—eah. Sure.”

“Is that…?”

“When you’re suffering, then. I want you to tell me that. And—whenever something weird happens? Like, before it stops being weird and you talk to me like I’m stupid for not already knowing about it.”

“What if”—this far into his question, Jon worried it might come off as a smart-alecky, devil’s-advocate thing. So he paused, pretending he needed time to formulate its words. “What if I haven’t decided yet whether it’s weird or not.”

“That in itself is pretty weird, Jon.”

“Fair enough.”

“I want to be part of that conversation. I want you to trust me enough to bounce ideas off me! It’s not like—? I mean why wouldn’t you do that?”

Jon had shrugged and grimaced, hands in his trouser pockets. “Not to worry you?” he’d suggested. But as he bit his lip and shimmied down from the bed Jon knew now that that was the sanitized version—and probably, if you’d asked him a day before or afterward, his past self would have known that too. Most things you told Martin, he’d either ignore them completely or latch onto them, refuse to let them go, and interpret everything else you said in the light they cast. Jon had learnt not to raise any given topic with him until he was sure he wanted to risk its becoming a long, painful discussion. This was part of why he hadn’t kept his promise, he told himself as he turned their interim bedroom’s doorknob. Why he’d said so little about anything weird that had happened to him at Upton House.

“Martin?”

“Oh hey, Jon—you’re awake.” Martin glanced in his vague direction but stayed bent over his work, so Jon could not meet his eyes.

“You found the screwdriver.”

“Yeah! And a screw that matches better, see?” He fished the first one they'd found out of his pocket and held it up next to the door for comparison. Jon supposed they looked a little different—bright yellowy gold vs. a darker gold. “They were in the library, of all places. There’s a little box full of ‘em that he keeps right next to his reading glasses, apparently. Guess he must break them a lot. How are yours, by the way? Any bits feel loose?”

Dutifully, trying to keep his dazed smile to himself, Jon pulled off his glasses. Folded and unfolded each arm, jiggled the little nose pieces. He shook his head. “Don’t think so. You can have a look yourself though, if you like.”

“Remind me later. Should’ve brought the whole box, probably,” Martin said, voice strained as he twisted the screw that last little bit. “There!” His open mouth broadened into a smile. “Time to see if it worked. You wanna do the honors?”

Jon shook his head, breathed a laugh through his nose. “You should do it. You’re the reason it’s fixed.”

“I mean, yeah,” shrugged Martin as his hand closed round the doorknob, “but I’m also the reason it broke.” It opened with a click. “Ha-ha! Success! Statements—our own clothes—our own bed! Er. Ish.”

Something tugged in Jon’s chest; he’d forgot the statements were why Martin thought this quest so urgent. He lingered at the side of the bed while Martin rummaged in his backpack, remembering for once to toe his first shoe off while standing.

“Man. Looks sorta underwhelming now, after the other room, huh?”

“Least our wallpaper’s better.”

“Tsshhyeah, and our view.”

Jon didn’t turn around, but surmised Martin must be looking out at that tree he liked. “Is it four already?”

“Uhh—nearly, yeah. You were out for a while; took me ages to find that damn thing. Here you go,” announced Martin as he slapped a zip-loc bag full of statement down on the bed.

(“So they won’t get water damage,” he had answered a few days ago, when Jon asked him why he’d individually wrapped each statement like snacks in a bagged lunch. “What? It’s not like we have to worry about landfills anymore. If I put them all in the same bag, you’d take one out and not be able to get it back in.”)

“What happened to my jacket, by the way? And yours?”

“Uhhh.”

“Right, okay,” Martin laughed; “I’ll go get them before I forget. I’ll put this away too, I guess” (meaning the screwdriver still in his hand). “Don’t wait for me, yeah? I don’t mind missing the trailers.”

Jon smiled. “Sure.”

As Martin hurried off, Jon sat down to untie and pull off his other shoe, threaded the lace back through the final eyelet from which it’d come loose, picked up the first shoe and untied that one, then stood up and set them by the door next to his cane. Both hips and all ten fingers behaved themselves throughout. As he walked by the vanity he grabbed the coins he’d removed to do laundry the other day and stuck them back in his trouser pocket. Useless, of course, but he’d missed having something to fidget with. He squatted down and peered under the vanity for the hair tie he’d dropped, for the fifth or sixth time since he’d misplaced it. Didn’t find it. That was fine; he had another one around his wrist. His knees felt weak, so instead of standing back up he crab-walked to the foot of the bed and sat down with his back against it. Straightened his legs out before him on the floor. Then he dug the coins from his pocket and counted them. Yup—still 74p.

Danika! Not Daniela—Danika Gelsthorpe. God, he would never forget one of their names out there. Never underestimate how much I care for the

“I'm back. What’s down there? Did you find the screw?” asked Martin as he hung their jackets up behind the door.

Jon shook his head. “Forgot about it. I was looking for that hair tie.”

“Well you’re on your own there; I’m done finding things today. The screw can wait,” Martin laughed—“he’s got a whole bag inside that box in the library. Do you need a hand getting up?”

He let Martin help him. Both knees cracked; the world’s edges went dark for a second. “Thank you,” he said, and it came out more peremptory than he’d meant it.

“Statement time?”

“Right. You don’t mind? I can wait ’til we’ve both had a rest, if you don’t want to be in the room while I.”

“No, I’m alright; I’ll stay here.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you hated statements.”

Martin shrugged. “Not these ones so much, now that. Heh—they’re almost nostalgic, if I’m honest. ‘Can it be real? I think I’ve seen a monster!’”

“They are a bit,” agreed Jon, looking down at the plastic-sleeved statement and making himself smile.

“Go on. Seeing you feel better will make me feel better too.”

That made it a bit easier to motivate himself, Jon supposed. From the moment he’d lain down on the bed he’d felt like he was floating on gentle waves—like if he let himself listen to them he could fall asleep in seconds. But that wouldn’t make Martin feel better. And no guarantee it would him, either, once he woke up again. He rearranged the pillows behind himself so he’d have to sit up a little; this might help keep him awake, and it meant he could rest his elbows on the bed while he held up the statement, rather than having to lift them up before his eyes. It made his neck sore, a bit, this angle, but that was fine. That might help keep him awake, too.

He sighed, readying himself for speech. Then heard a click, and felt a familiar buzz and weight against his stomach. The tape recorder had manifested inside his hoodie’s kangaroo pocket.

“Statement of Miranda Lautz, regarding, er… a botched home-repair job. Heh. Seems appropriate. Original statement given March twenty-sixth, 2004. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.”

[Image ID: A digital painting of Jon and Martin on an old-fashioned canopy bed with white sheets and orange drapes. Jon sits on the near side of the bed, reading a paper statement. He frowns slightly, looking down at the statement in his hands; he wears round glasses perched low on his nose. He’s a thin man, with medium brown skin dotted by scars left from the worms, and another scar on his neck from Daisy's knife. His hair is long and curly, gray and white hairs among the black. Jon sits supported by pillows—several big, white, lace-trimmed ones behind his back, and one under his knees. His right leg is slightly crossed over his left ankle, on which a clean white bandage peeks out beneath his cuffed, dark green trousers. He wears an oversized red hoodie and red-toed brown socks. Sat on the far side of the bed, next to Jon but facing away from both him and the viewer, is Martin—a tall and fat white man with short, curly, reddish brown hair and a short beard. He has glasses and is wearing a dark blue jumper and gray-brown trousers. Past the bed on Martin’s side, the bedroom door hangs ajar; in this light, it and the wall glow bluish green. On the near side, though, the light grows warmer, the orange canopy behind Jon casting pink and brown tints onto the white pillows and sheets. End ID.]

It seemed to be a Corruption statement, or maybe the Spiral. Possibly the Buried? A leak in Ms. Lautz’s roof caused a pill-shaped bulge to appear in her kitchen ceiling, about the size of a bread loaf. Water burst from it like pus from an abscess (as she described it. Nothing else Fleshy though, so far). Ms. Lautz repaired the hole in her ceiling, but every morning a new one reappeared somewhere else. Sometimes they appeared bulging and pill-shaped like the first one; other times she found them already burst, covering the room in water shot through with dark specks like coffee grounds.

Jon wished he’d refilled his empty water glass before starting to record. His mouth was so dry that every time he pronounced an L his tongue stuck to its roof. At this point he’d welcome a hole to burst in it and flood his mouth with water. Then again, he did still have to pee.

Eventually she and her spouse hired someone to find out what was wrong with the roof. She described hearing boots tramping around up there for half a day while they checked out all the spots where she and Alex had reported leaks. The inside of Jon’s trouser leg pulled at the bandage on his shin, making it itch. The repair men told Ms. Lautz it’d be safer and barely any more expensive to replace the whole thing. The ring and little fingers of Jon’s left hand were starting to go numb from having that elbow too long pressed against the bed. Miranda and Alex thanked the roof people and sent them off, saying they’d think it over.

He began to regret crossing his legs this way. He’d balanced his right heel in the hollow between his left foot’s ankle and instep, and in the time since he’d arranged them that way gravity had slowly pushed his foot more and more to the side, widening that gap. By this time he was sure it was hyperextended—possibly subluxed? It hurt already, and, he knew, would hurt more when he tried to move it. This rather ruined his fantasy of heading straight for the toilet when he finished reading.

Martin was right; these old statements seemed positively tame, now. He knew he owed it to Ms. Lautz to engage with her fate, but?

No. No buts. Whatever hell she lived in now, it looked just like the one she was about to describe for him, only worse. You can’t even pretend you’re sorry she’s living out her worst fear if you stop in the middle of reading that fear’s origin story. Never underestimate how much I

Once the repair men had left, Miranda Lautz wandered into her kitchen for lunch. She found her ceiling bulging halfway to the floor, with the impression of a face and two twisted arms at its center. Like someone had fallen through her roof, head first. Jon’s stiff neck twinged in sympathy. Miranda screamed and strode to the other side of the house in search of beer, figuring she'd find better answers at the bottom of a bottle than in her own head. When she got back to the kitchen with them, the beer bottles didn’t know what to do either, but said—

“God damn it. Not ‘ales’—‘Alex’. Obviously.”

He let the statement’s pages flop over the back of his hand, let his head tip backward until the top of it bumped against headboard and his eyes faced the ceiling. That settled it, then, didn’t it. If he had the Ceaseless Watcher looking through his eyes, he wouldn’t make a mistake like that—and he certainly couldn’t change position while recording. On top of his more substantial regrets, Jon had spent their whole odyssey before they came to Upton House ruing that he’d sat at the dining-room table to read Magnus’s statement, rather than on the couch or the bed. The chairs at that table had plain, flat wood seats—no cushion, no contouring for the shape of an arse. When he opened the door to the changed world, the cataclysm had preserved his bodily sensations at that moment like a mosquito in amber. He’d had a sore tailbone and pins and needles down his legs for untold eons. Right up until he and Martin crossed from the Necropolis onto the grounds protected by Salesa’s camera, where his tailbone faded out of awareness and his head filled up with cotton.

“Ohhh. ‘Alex’. Okay, that makes a lot more sense,” laughed Martin meanwhile. Jon could feel Martin’s shoulder bouncing against his. “She must’ve written it in cursive, huh.”

“I can’t do this right now, Martin.”

“Oh—okay, yeah. You rest; I’ll finish it for you.”

Jon closed his eyes and let air gush out from his nostrils. But you hate the statements, he knew he should say. Wouldn’t this make it easier, though? To let Martin have out this last bit of denial first?

The tape recorder in his pocket still hissed, still warmed and weighted down his stomach like a meal.

“Thank you,” he said.

The operator on the phone said she and Alex should wait for the ambulance to arrive, rather than try to free the man in the ceiling by themselves. Jon turned his neck back and forth, hoping Martin couldn’t hear its joints’ snap/crackle/pop. He picked his elbow up off the bed and shook out his hand. But when the paramedics cut the ceiling open, only a torrent of water gushed into their kitchen—water flecked with a great deal of what looked like coffee grounds. A day or two later the roof people called, to ask if they’d decided whether to have the roof repaired or replaced. They assured her none of their employees had gone missing. At the time of writing, Miranda and Alex still hadn’t decided what to do about the roof. A week ago, they’d found a squirrel-shaped bulge in their bedroom ceiling; they’d packed their bags and come to stay with Alex’s sister in London.

“Right! That wasn’t so bad.” Martin set the statement down and stretched his arms over his head. “Huh.”

“Hm?”

“Oh, I don’t know, just—it’s been a while. Thought it might feel, I don’t know, worse than that? Or better, I guess, since the Eye’s so ‘fond’ of me now.”

“I don’t think they work here.”

“What?”

“The statements. The Eye can’t see their fear.”

“Oh.” Jon could feel Martin deflating. He let himself avalanche over to fill the space. “You don’t feel better, do you.”

“No.”

“Maybe it’s just—slower here, like it’s taking a while to load or something. Remember how long the tape recorder took to come on last time? It was like—you were like— ‘“Statement of Blankety Blank, regarding an encounter with”—Oh, right,’ click.”

That was true. The tapes had known Salesa would give a statement before it happened, but with these paper ones they’d seemed slow on the uptake. Martin had also sworn the recorder that manifested to tape Mr. Andrade’s statement was a different machine than the one Salesa’d spotted that first morning. Jon wondered which machine the one in his pocket was.

Not relevant, he decided. He shook his head in his palm, stroking the lids of his closed eyes. “No—if they worked here I wouldn’t be able to stop in the middle of one.” As soon as he said it he winced, bracing himself for argument.

After the change he remembered wailing to Martin about how he couldn’t stop reading Magnus’s statement—how its words had possessed his whole body, forced him to do the worst thing any person ever had, and forced him to like it, to feel Magnus’s triumph as they both opened the door. Martin had pressed Jon’s face into his clavicle, rubbed his nose in the scent of Daisy’s laundry soap, covered the back of Jon’s head with his hands. Tried to interpose what he must then have still called the real world between Jon and what he could see outside. He’d said over and over, I know, and We‘ll be okay. Jon had known that meant he wasn’t listening, and yet still hadn’t been prepared for the argument they had later, when he mentioned in sobriety the same things he’d wailed back then.

“Hang on”—Martin had pleaded—“no, that can’t be true. I’ve been interrupted in the middle of a statement loads of times—and I know you have too.”

“By outside forces, yes, but you can’t decide to stop reading one. Believe me, Martin, I wouldn’t have—”

“Tim did.”

“No, he didn’t—”

“Yes he did! He was gonna do one and then Melanie—”

“No, Martin, I’ve heard the tape you’re talking about. Tim introduced the statement but didn’t actually start—”

“He did so! He read the first bit, and then stopped. ‘My parents never let me have a night light. I was—’”

“‘Always afraid, but they were just’....” Behind his own eyes he’d felt the Eye shudder and throb with gratitude. Just that sort of stubborn, it had seemed to sing, in a bizarre combination of his own voice with Jonah’s with Melanie’s, which doubled down when I screamed or cried about something, instead of actually listening.

“Yeah,” said Martin, forehead wrinkling. “And then he said, ‘This is stupid,’ and stopped.”

“You’re right.”

Jon still had no satisfying answer to that one, and cursed himself for having opened that can of worms back up again. It had been Tim’s first-ever statement, he reminded himself, and maybe Tim had never intended to get even that far. Maybe he’d been waiting for someone to interrupt him, as Melanie eventually did. Even out there, the Eye couldn’t really show him things like that. He could find out what Tim had said—could look it up, as it were—and what he’d thought, but motivation was a bit too murky, multilayered, complicated. It wasn’t real telepathy? The vicarious emotions the Eye gave him access to worked in broad strokes, generalities—just like common or garden empathy. Sure, he could imagine other people’s points of view more vividly, now that he could see through their eyes. But he still had to imagine them to life, based on the clues around him and what emotions those clues stirred in him. It didn’t work well for situations like this; he could hear Melanie’s footsteps and feel Tim’s reluctance to read a statement, but that was it. Enough to concoct plausible explanations; not enough to pick out the truth from a list of them. Plausibilities were too much like hypotheticals.

In the timelessness since that argument with Martin, though, Jon had also wondered whether it mattered if Tim had read the statement before recording it. He didn’t have footage, as it were, of Tim doing so; either the Eye had more copies of the statement’s events than it needed already and so had deleted that one from storage, or, conversely, perhaps it could no longer see versions of it that relied too heavily on the pages Mr. Hatendi had written it on, since Martin had burned those. But Tim’s summary, before he started reading. Blanket, monster, dead friend. It was bad, sure (like the assistants’ summaries always were, a ghost of past Jon interposed). But it sounded like the summary of a man who’d read it with his mind on other things. Inevitable and gruesome end. How he tried to hide; he couldn’t. Not at all like that of someone skimming it for the first time as he spoke. He did rifle through the papers though? So Jon couldn’t be sure. The suspicion ate at his mind, especially here. Could he have kept the world from ending just by—reading Magnus’s statement, before he went to record it? The way he used to way back at the start, before he trusted himself to speak the words perfectly on the first try? You didn’t mean to record it, did you? No, I’m sure you told Melanie and Basira you were just going to

“Guess that makes sense,” Martin said now. “So, you’re still feeling…?”

“Not great?”

“Yeah.”

“I… I feel human, here.”

“Oh wow. That’s—”

Jon told himself to put the hope in Martin’s voice to bed as soon as possible. “I know I’m not—not fully.” He allowed a smile to twitch the corners of his lips, flared his nostrils around an exhale that almost passed as a laugh. “Most humans don’t spontaneously summon tape recorders. Or sleep with their eyes open.”

“Yeah, but still, you don’t think maybe—?”

Again Jon hastened to cut Martin off. “A-and even if I was, it’s. I know that should be a good thing? But—”

At this point Martin interposed, “Should be, yeah! You don’t think it might mean you could—I don’t know, go back to normal? If we stayed here for a while?”

“Maybe? I-I might stop craving the Eye so much, but we’d still have to go back out there eventually, to face Elias, and. To be honest with you, Martin?” He huffed a laugh out, bitterly. “My ‘normal’ wasn’t exactly...”

“Right.” Martin sighed. “So you mean you feel like you used to, as a human. Which was…”

“Not great.”

“Right.”

“I haven’t been very well, here.” Jon shrugged for the excuse to duck his head. He could feel himself blushing, the heat spilling from his face all down both arms. Good thing the tape recorder in his pocket had gone cold.

Next to him, Martin puffed air out of his cheeks. “Yeah, I know.”

“I’m dizzy and confused without the Eye, and it—it can’t fix me here? When I.” He drew in breath, lifted his heel off his ankle and set that leg to the side, letting its foot roll into Martin’s shin. Bit his lip and scrunched his nose in preparation. Flexed the other foot’s toes, trying to isolate the lever in his ankle that would—there. Clunk. Then a noisy exhale: “Jyyrrggh. When that happens,” he choked out, voice strained by both pain and nerves. “It’s like before I became an avatar. I have to fix it myself, and it doesn’t just.” Magically stop hurting, he hoped went without saying; already he could hear Martin sucking air through his teeth. It made Jon’s cheeks itch. “Shouldn’t have let myself get used to a higher standard, I suppose.”

“What? No—of course you should have. Did you think I was gonna say that?”

“No, of course not; I just meant—”

“You deserve to feel healthy, Jon.”

“Do I? Health is clumsy, it’s callous, it, it lets terrible things happen because they don’t feel real—it can’t imagine them properly, can’t understand what they mean….”

“Okay, first of all, ouch.” Jon snarled a laugh at that, without knowing whether Martin meant it as a joke. “Second of all, that is not why you—why the world ended, okay? Especially, ‘cause, you weren’t ‘healthy’ then. You read Elias’s bloody statement because you were starving, remember?”

“Hmrph,” pronounced Jon, to concede he was listening without either confirming or denying the point.

“And thirdly, you’re not ‘callous’ out there? You don’t”—a scoff interrupted his words. “You don’t ‘let things happen because they don’t feel real’—that’s sure not how I remember it. Okay? I remember you crying for—god, I don’t know, days, maybe? Weeks?—about how you could feel everything, and couldn’t stop any of it. That’s the thing we’re hiding from here, Jon, so if you don’t actually feel any healthier here then what even is the point?”

In a voice embarrassment made small Jon managed, “I mean? I’m still kind of having fun.”

“Really? You don’t seem like it—”

“Not today, maybe—”

“Right, yeah, no; spending all day trying to fix a doorknob isn’t exactly—”

“But I don’t want to leave yet. I should still have a few good days left before the distance from the Eye gets too….”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.” For a few seconds he tried to think of something better to say, then gave up and told the truth, though in a jocular voice to hide his self-consciousness. “Always was the person who got ill on holiday.”

“Oh, god, of course you were—”

Voice growing higher in pitch, Jon pleaded, “It didn’t usually stop me from enjoying it?”

“What about America?” laughed Martin. “Did you still enjoy that one?”

“Of course not—I got kidnapped.”

“I mean, yeah, but you were pretty used to that too by then, right?”

“God.” Jon sniffed, crunchily, reeling back in the snot he’d laughed out. “Besides. That was a business engagement.”

Martin acknowledged this comment with a quick Psh, as he turned himself around on the bed to face Jon a little more. “Can I trust you to”—he stopped.

“Yes.”

“No, let me—that wasn’t fair; I can’t ask you that yet.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, Martin; I didn’t—”

“Of me, I meant, it wasn’t fair.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I’ve been ignoring your distress all week because I wanted it not to matter.”

“I don’t know if I’d call it ‘distress,’” pointed out Jon. “Plus, I have been sort of, er. Secretive, about it.”

The exasperation in Martin’s sigh was probably meant for him, not for Jon, the latter reminded himself. “Yeah, but you’re not subtle. I can tell when you’re hiding something. It wasn’t exactly a big leap to figure out what. But I told myself it was temporary, and that you were acting like.”

Jon laughed preemptively. “Yes?”

“Like a little kid in line for a theme-park ride.” Again Jon laughed—less at the comparison itself than at how much Martin winced to hear himself say it. “I’m sorry. I should’ve taken you more seriously.”

“And I should have told you what was going on with me.”

“Yup,” concurred Martin at once.

“I know you hate it when I keep things from you.”

“I do—I hate it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry too.” Martin waved this away like a fly. “I just—you said you think we’ve got a few more days, before it gets too much or whatever.”

“Yes.”

“Can I trust you to tell me when we need to leave?”

Jon tried not to answer too quickly, knowing vaguely that that might sound insincere. “Yes,” he said again, after pausing for a second. “You can trust me.”

“Okay? Don’t try to spare my feelings, or anything like that. Like—don’t just go, ‘Oh, well, he’s having a good time. That’s fine; I don’t have to.’ Yeah? ‘Cause I won’t have a good time if I’m worried you’re secretly suffering.”

This Jon did know; it sent a thrill of recognition down his spine, as he remembered their first day’s ping-pong adventure. “Right. I’ll do my suffering as publicly as possible.”

“Uh huh.” Martin’s arm tightened around Jon’s shoulder. “Just don’t worry about disappointing me? I mean, sure, I like it here, with the whole ‘not being an evil wasteland’ thing, but I’d much rather be out there with you happy than with you than spend one more minute in paradise with her.”

With a smile, Jon replied, “That might just be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Yeah, yeah. Come on. We’ve got a job to do.”

“I suppose we do.”

As they walked on out of the range of Salesa’s camera, Jon glanced backward one more time and thought, Yes, that makes sense—but couldn’t quite recall what he had expected to see. It was like when you look at a clock, and tick Check the time off your mental to-do list, then realize you never internalized what time it was. “Pity,” he mused.

“What?”

“It’s, er, going away. That peace, the safety, the memory of ignorance.”

“That’s… Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Do you remember any of it? W-What Salesa said? Annabelle?”

“Some, I think. It’s, uh… do you mind filling me in?”

“Wait, you need me to tell you something for once?”

“I guess so. It’s, er… it’s gone. Like a dream. What was it like?”

After a pause Martin said, “Nice. It was… it was really nice.”

“Even though Annabelle was there?”

“I mean, yeah, but she didn’t do anything,” shrugged Martin. “Except cook for us. That was weird.”

“She cooked?” Jon watched Martin nod and smile around a wince. “And we let her do that? I let her do that?”

With a scoff Martin answered, “Under duress, yeah.”

“Huh.” Jon twirled his cane in circles, wondering why he’d thought he would need it. “Well, she didn’t poison us, apparently.”

“Nope. And believe me, we had that conversation plenty of times already. Er—maybe just let me put that away for you before you take somebody’s eye out, yeah?”

Jon nodded, folded his cane and handed it to Martin, then made himself laugh. “Was I… a bit neurotic about it.”

“About Annabelle?” Again Jon nodded. “Oh, we both were. We kept switching sides—one day I’d be like, ‘But she’s got four arms, Jon!’ and the next you’d be like—”

“She had four arms?”

“Yup. And six eyes. But your powers didn’t work there, so we thought maybe hers didn’t either? Never did find out for sure. God—you remember the day we got locked out of our room?”

“Er….”

“So that’s a no, then.”

“Sorry.”

Martin’s lips billowed in a sigh. “No, don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.”

“So… what happened? Who locked us out? Was it Annabelle?”

“No, no, no one locked us out. It was just me, I uh—I sorta broke the doorknob? God, it was awful. Went to open it and the whole thing just came off in my hand, like” (he made the motion of turning a doorknob in empty air, and imitated the sound Jon figured it must have made coming off) “krrruk-krr.” Jon fondly laughed; he could imagine Martin’s horror at breaking something in a historic mansion. “It was just one screw that came loose, though, so you’d think, easy fix, right? Except the bloody screwdriver took forever to find. Turns out Salesa kept them in the library, of all places.”

“S-sorry—what does this have to do with Annabelle?”

“Oh—nothing ultimately, just.” Martin grimaced at his own recollection. “God, we had this whole argument over whether to ask her about it, and when I finally did can you guess what she told us?”

“What?” managed Jon; his throat felt small and weak all of a sudden.

Martin put a finger to his chin, and blinked his eyes out of sync. “‘Perhaps he keeps them next to something that breaks a lot,’” he recited, with an inane, self-congratulating smile. For a fraction of a second Jon could recognize it as Annabelle’s I’ve-just-told-a-riddle expression. But the memory faded and he could picture her face only as he’d seen it in pictures before the change.

“O…kay. And was that… true?”

“I mean, yeah, technically. Useless, though. And after we spent so long agonizing over whether it was safe to ask her….”

Jon allowed himself a cynical laugh. “Are you sure she didn’t orchestrate the whole thing?”

“Ugh—no, it wasn’t her. We had this conversation at the time. You made me check for cobwebs and everything.”

“And you… didn’t find any?”

“Of course not, Jon; it was a doorway.”

“Right. Doorway, yes.”

“Are you sure you’re feeling better? You still seem a bit….”

“No, I’m—I feel fine, I just can’t seem to. Retain anything concrete about… where did you say it was? Upton House? God that’s strange, that it would just be….”

Part of Jon felt tempted to deplore it as a waste of space, on the apocalypse’s part. These stretches of empty land were one thing, but a mansion? Couldn’t they at least get a Spiral domain out of it?

“I mean, not really. He told us all about it, remember? With the magic camera?”

“Right, yes,” Jon agreed.

“Well, we got it all on tape, if you want to listen to it later.”

“Yes, that sounds—all of it?”

“Well not the whole week or anything. It just came on whenever it thought it was important, I guess.”

“So not the part about the doorway.”

“Nope.”

“Pity.”

#tma fic #the magnus archives #rqbb2021 #rusty quill big bang 2021 #jonmartin #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #suddenly a tma blog #scri wrote something

[boop-le-snoot]

skin starving

tony stark x f!reader fluff. no warnings, just a few f-bombs. touch starved tony’s third person pov. words: 2,5k. no beta because i just really needed to get this off my chest.

recommended music to go with the story: two feet - 'love is a bitch' & 'quick musical doodles'. Or any lo-fi hip-hop radio really.

It started as an itch. At first, a small but bothersome thing, that kept him up at night, steering the already unreasonable hours of wakefulness into dangerous territory. The cold of his bed was unappealing and more often than not, he’d started passing out on the flat surfaces nearest to him: workshop, lab, common room couch, the lazy boy in Bruce’s apartment.

The team noticed, of course, they weren’t blind. They all had been on edge the first few months after Pepper left him. They expected him to act out, lock himself up in his lab or go back to his old habits of boozing and bringing home a different girl every night. And he had tried that, once or twice, but airheaded twenty-somethings weren’t appealing anymore. Most of the time their ass kissing and blatantly flattery annoyed him further into self-loathing abyss. He simply couldn’t step up to be the kind of man they described him to be - it seemed as if every woman on planet Earth had a whole list of expectations he specifically could not meet.

With Thor off planet, not one remaining person on the team was particularly touchy-feely. And that was the thing with Tony Stark: as an engineer, as a mechanic, he made his way through the world hands-first, every approach he had was hands-on. During late nights and early mornings, he laid in bed, sleepless and dreamless, desperately refusing to admit his own touch starvation.

Whenever Rogers threw an arm around his shoulders during a particularly successful team bonding activity, it took every ounce of willpower Tony had to not lean into it and purr like a cat. He hadn’t truly forgiven Steve for his cold, cruel words of criticism shortly after Pepper’s departing. He wasn’t going to chummy up to a man who thought him selfish, opportunistic and self-absorbed.

Tony became irritable and withdrawn. He simultaneously craved and avoided even the casual, friendlier attention his teammates gave him on a daily basis. His usual snark became that much more biting, having caused several people to storm out of team meetings.

On a cold autumn morning, Tony had found his way at the tower’s Starbucks on the employee floor. He had squeezed a generous five hours of restless sleep and he was sick of the plain black coffee in his kitchen. A spontaneous desire for something sweet and creamy and caffeinated led him to the place in line at the cafeteria, only a few early birds ahead of him.

Tony’s brain was hazy as it had been past few weeks, dull from the lack of rest and the hyperfixation of his own skin feeling alien to him. For once, he wasn’t typing away on his StarkPhone as he usually did to avoid being bothered; Tony stared straight ahead, unseeing, nothing but white noise in his usually racing brain.

Two women stood in front of him and he couldn’t help but overhear a part of their conversation.

“… Are you really horny or just lonely or touch-starved, though? I mean, Tinder? It’s not really your style.”

“Eh, I dunno. Probably the second but it’s not like men go on Tinder to find a cuddle buddy.”

“Well, maybe? I’ve heard about arrangements like that.”

“No offense, babe, but it’s probably kids in their early twenties. Those gen-z’s, babe, are weird. I’m not really up to date on all of that.”

The topic of the conversation was what piqued Tony’s interest; the world liked rubbing salt into his wounds and hysterically laugh at his misfortune. Bleary-eyed, he briefly scanned the two women: both appeared to be interns or junior techs in his company, evident by the purple employee badges hanging from their bags.

“So what are you going to do?” One woman asked the other as their turn to order took Tony one step closer to obtaining his desired caffeine.

“Unless someone normal magically appears with an offer of no-strings-attached, good ole’ snuggle fest, I guess I’m getting dicked down on Saturday,” The other replied with a teasing tone. The lack of excitement in the last part of the sentence was obvious.

“Gross,” The first one shook her head and hurriedly rattled off her order to the barista who looked about as disgruntled as Tony felt.

Hours and three coffees later, Tony’s overactive brain was still stuck on that woman from the cafeteria. Her back, her purse stuffed full of colorful manila folders, her neatly gathered hair - Tony Stark had nearly perfect memory and he remembered every single detail despite his brain fog. Objectively, she was attractive, no more no less than a different dozen of women he’d seen at any point in his life before. So why was he hung up on her?

It didn’t take him a long time to find her file, faster than he’d liked to admit. Manually sorting through hundreds of interns, lab technicians and various second-tier employees wasn’t exactly considered productive but with Pepper and her nagging out of the picture, Tony could afford to slack off a little bit.

So he found her name and her e-mail address, skimmed over her performance report with satisfaction, finding her to be a busy bee in the 90-th percentile. Her superiors considered her trustworthy, hard-working and communicative, all good traits.

Pepper’s absence meant he’d have no one to cover his ass should he get slapped with a harassment suit; however, he was the Tony Stark after all. He had more money that he’d cared to count and an army of lawyers at his disposal 24/7.

Amidst the jumbled mess of wires, circuit boards, tablets, empty coffee cups and the occasional piece of paper, Tony typed up an e-mail to the woman sharing his… Condition.

“I heard you and your friend talking at Starbucks. I could use a cuddle buddy. Wine and Netflix at my place? What’s your takeout preference?”

No. That came off way too creepy, like he was some kind of a dirty eavesdropper.

He contemplated some more, typing up and erasing multiple e-mails with various proposals: his penthouse, her place, a three Michelin star restaurant, a walk in the park. Almost all of it screamed ‘date’, like he’d drag her off to bed the very moment an opportunity wouldn’t present itself. It wasn’t so: Tony Stark, the playboy genius, had his dick firmly tucked into his pants. The thought of fucking her crossed his mind only briefly, quickly being chased away by the thought of her fingers running through his hair. Her warm, soft body in his arms. Just laying on his couch, eyes closed, reveling in each other’s arms.

Tony hit send on the least obnoxious option. He baited his breath, clicking his fingers in anticipation as the message showed itself to having been delivered.

“Mary, is this you trying to be funny? Stark is going to fire you if he finds out you’re impersonating him to stop your friend from going on a questionable date. Grow up.” Came the very prompt reply, ending with a short string of angry emojis. Tony could totally trust a person who used emojis unironically and generously.

“For the record, I wouldn’t be mad if somebody pretended to be me for the sake of saving their cute friend from a creep. The problem would be making it look credible.” Tony typed up the answer without thinking, quickly snapping a picture of himself holding the Starbucks cup with his name written on it, throwing his usual sloppy peace sign. He attached it to the email and hit send.

“WTF” Came the reply not a minute afterwards. He let it sink in, giving the woman some time to gather her wits. She did not disappoint. “Okay, even if we pretend this is real - which I doubt - what’s in it for you? If you heard our conversation, you surely know my stance on the matter.”

“I’m always glad to prove you wrong. I’m a genius - comes with the territory.” Tony simply couldn’t resist adding a generous dose of snark. “You’re welcome to meet me after clocking out. Use the private elevator, my AI will beam you up.”

The reply took a considerably long amount of time, seeing as previously, she typed back rather quickly. “Please don’t be a creepy rapist, Scotty. Fingers crossed.” Tony managed to almost break his stylus twice. His hands shook, and he had to tell himself to breathe - still, he laughed at the clever way she replied.

Several more hours later, during which Tony had nearly paced a hole through various floors on the residential side of the tower, he took a quick shower, dressed in a flattering but comfortable designer sweatpants and polo combo and made himself at home on the obscenely large living room sofa on his own, private penthouse floor.

He was up and running towards the elevator when Friday’s voice notified him of the woman entering the elevator on the employee floor. Tony tousled his hair, adjusted his glasses, fiddled with the drawstring of his pants.

The woman was wearing casual office wear, pants and a loose blouse, a lab coat loosely draped over her arm and her purse hanging off the shoulder on a thin strap. Her hair was loose now, a little frizzy as if she continuously ran her hands through it. Tony quietly rejoiced at not being the only nervous one.

Clever eyes scanned the room with unhurried interest before finally landing on him. “Not too shabby, if I say so myself,” The corners of her mouth tilted in an attempt at a smile, it was obvious she was studying him.

“Thanks, I try my best,” Tony smirked. Humble he was not. “So, how do you want to do this?”

“I see a comfortable couch,” She looked to be grateful for being given the opportunity to lead this interaction. “Let’s park our behinds on it, bicker for ten minutes about a movie choice and settle on one none of us really like. Then we can tell each other our no-no zones and, well, yeah,” She started out confidently. Probably practiced in the elevator. But towards the end, her shyness took over.

For Tony, it was kind of cute. A nice change from suck-ups that flocked him at every social gathering in hopes of getting something out of him. The woman that had tossed her bag carelessly on the far end of the couch and untucked her blouse looked and felt like the exact opposite of those people. She looked willing to give.

Tony sat next to her, keeping a couple of inches of free space between them. “Food preferences? Food allergies?” He asked, tapping the food delivery application.

“Nope, and I will eat just about anything.” He felt more than saw her side-eyeing him. Both of them were jittery. So uncharacteristic for Tony, to be blushing and stammering like a high school boy. Sex was easy, but intimacy? Complex. It was addictive and eventually, painful.

Movie decisions were surprisingly easy and she said so. They settled on a Tarantino classic, an old flick neither of them had watched in a long time. As the discussion progressed, Tony used his wits to find out more about her without making it seem like an interrogation. He had run a background check on the woman and her family but those only went that far, besides, it was a great opportunity to practice the tips Natasha had shared with him at one point or another. Being friends with spies had it’s perks.

They ate their food until their bellies were full. A comfortable, relaxing stupor, being warm from the inside out.

Tony noticed when the woman spoke, she spoke with her hands. She had caught herself grasping his forearm multiple times when they’d got more passionate about their discussion. And what Tony loved the most was that she refused to apologize. He saw a kindred soul in the woman; quiet until something struck her fancy. Then, she became a whirlwind of ideas and opinions.

In no time, it became a natural action to extend his arm and wrap it around her shoulders, reclining backwards. There was little grace in laying belly-up like a dead fish but the woman didn’t seem to mind. Watching him out of the corner of her eye, she laid down sideways, throwing a leg over one of his own.

Her palm traced the outline of his arc reactor when something on the screen caught her in a moment of intense interest. Tony preferred to avoid the cursed thing - scars around it definitely did not do any favour to his aging, marked body - but he found himself exhaling the tension when it was obvious the woman really did not care. An occasional quiet hum of satisfaction was the only noise that came from her: he noticed the sound escaped her lips every time his thumb began fiddling with the sleeve of her blouse and rubbed against her arm.

He was quite content. It was warm, he was surrounded by so much warmth.

The hug was mutual when she left home, both of them comfortable with the gesture for people who had met in a rather unconventional way.

She started coming over a couple of times a week, a quiet evening of the best takeout in NYC and (mostly) interesting movies. A solace, always a single e-mail away.

Tony saw her in the cafeteria once or twice; he appreciated the brief, tiny secretive grin she gave him out of her friend’s eyesight. She never approached him. He was grateful for that. He didn’t want to deal with all the drama and all the fuss surrounding incidents between him and his employees. It was nobody’s business what any of them did after clocking out - and him and his cuddle buddy, they weren’t even fucking, for Thor’s sake.

Maybe they would get there someday. Or maybe they won’t. It was only now for Tony. The rare free Saturday night he had, he truly took a vacation from all the bullshit and lured her in with promises of very expensive wine, her favourite New York style pizza and the willingness to entertain watching a few of those funny YouTube videos she liked.

They did watch them and Tony didn’t mind. He stepped over the irrational fear and the initial discomfort and curled up around her, hiding his face in the soft cotton of her worn hoodie, his own breath tickling his face in warm puffs. The hand running through his hair was tender like it never was with Pepper - his ex was far too preoccupied to baby her grown-up boyfriend. But the woman moulded to his body like an extension of himself was happy to do so. Tony’s hair was longer now and it glided perfectly along the woman’s palms.

His heart was steady, thumping in his ears, overshadowing the noises coming from the TV. He exhaled and felt her other hand begin tracing circles on his back, as if she saw the stress and the bitterness leave his body with every caress, every brush of their bodies. Maybe she did?

He held onto her, held her back like she’d held him. Safekeeping the warmth inside of him. Guarding his peace.

#tony stark x reader #tony stark x y/n #tony stark fluff #tony stark feels #bun writes #bun writes: drabbles

[kerosene-insomniac]

To Be So Lonely

Pairing: Bakugou Katsuki x Midoriya Izuku

Warnings: alpha/beta/omega dynamics, violence, strong language, homosexual behavior, major character death {not bakudeku}

Word Count for Chapter: 3,715 words

Summary: Midoriya Izuku has always wanted to be a musician. Something about the lyric working with a melody to convey his feeling just made his heart race. After his father died when he was three, Izuku has always relied on his mother. She worked two jobs to care for him and always supported his dreams. But when his mother is diagnosed with breast cancer just after he graduated high school, Izuku has to shift his focus. Now he’s working two jobs and takes care of his mother with the help of his gay neighbors.

In an attempt to learn self-defense, Izuku takes a few classes at a local gym. It’s there that he meets Toshinori Yagi, an older beta who used to be a professional heavyweight boxer. Yagi notices Izuku’s potential and encourages the small omega to eventually go pro. So, in order to make more money, Izuku eventually agrees.

Bakugou Katsuki has only ever wanted to fight. Orphaned as the young age of four, Katsuki has been fighting to live for his entire life. Fighting is all he’s ever known. After fighting underground for a couple years, Katsuki is noticed by Todoroki Enji. The older alpha takes him in at 19 and names him the official successor of his legacy (especially since all of his actual kids hate him).

 Now, Katsuki is 25-years-old and the professional heavyweight champion.

In a whirlwind of events, Katsuki meets Izuku in the unlikeliest of places. He watches the small omega perform and can’t help it feel extremely protective and absolutely enamored with him. The older alpha gets to meet him and say goodbye without even learning the omega’s name. Katsuki isn’t sure that they’ll ever meet again.

That is, until Katsuki officially meets Izuku at a professional lunch with his manager’s rival.

{OR}

The one where Katsuki is a professional alpha boxer with arrogance issues and Izuku is a stubborn omega that’s way little too reckless with his well-being.

With a wacky cast of characters (including three idiots, a manly best friend, a traumatized bastard with daddy-issues, and many more) absolutely hell-bent on getting them together, neither men can seem to catch a break

{0.5} Icarus

“There are two circumstances that lead to arrogance: one is when you're wrong and you can't face it; the other is when you're right and nobody else can face it.”

― Criss Jami

I Z U K U

“It was nice seeing you after all these years, Enji.”

Izuku mentally groaned as Toshinori kept talking to the overgrown alpha. Their lunch had long since ended, so the small omega just wanted to head across the street and begin his warm-up.

And to get away from Katsuki Bakugou, who had been staring at him since this whole shit-show started.

Endeavor huffed in agreement and glanced in Izuku’s direction. “Your successor seems very headstrong, so I can’t wait to see how he fares today.”

I love that he’s talking like I’m not here.

“He’ll exceed your expectations. Let’s head out, Izuku.”

Izuku immediately relaxed, wagering standing to follow Toshinori out of the restaurant. His dress (which had been forced on him by Uraraka, who said something about looking nice for a certain alpha) brushed against his knees and tickled his legs.

Honestly, he couldn’t leave fast enough.

The small omega followed his teacher towards the exit, nodding respectively in Endeavor’s direction. And Todoroki’s.

When his gaze landed on Bakugou, he simply looked ahead.

The outside air caressed Izuku’s soft skin and made him sigh in relief. Compared to the tension in the restaurant, the slightest amount of breeze felt like a god-send.

“Young Bakugou seems very interested…”

Toshinori’s voice was teasing and affectionate, but Izuku immediately stiffened. There is no way that they were talking about the same alpha.

Izuku hummed lowly, adjusting his jacket. “I disagree, sensei. He seems arrogant and insufferable with a need to prove that he’s stronger than anybody else.”

“I think he’s just concerned for your well-being.”

The small omega huffed, his cheeks flushed a rosy pink as he glanced at his teacher. The idea of an attractive alpha feeling protective over him was flattering yet incredibly infuriating.

Izuku is here for one reason and one reason only.

“Deku! Wait!”

Fucking fuck.

Toshinori stopped and glanced behind them, his face lighting up in amusement. “It seems like someone wants to speak with you, Izuku. Don’t take too long and I’ll see you inside.”

The small omega paled.

Traitor.

His teacher hobbled away, chuckling to himself.

The familiar smell of caramel and cinnamon greeted Izuku’s senses. It was more than comforting, which made the small omega feel slightly mortified.

Izuku sighed in defeat and turned to face Bakugou, who had a less intense scowl on his face. His suit looked messier than before and the alpha appeared as if he had fought someone to catch up with him.

“What do you want?”

Bakugou didn’t even flinch at Izuku’s tone. “Nothing. I just wanted to-“

Izuku cut him off, crossing his arms. “If you’re to lecture me on my own idiocy, then don’t even try. You don’t even know me.”

“I just want to understand.”

That was enough to make Izuku freeze.

Izuku’s chest tightened as he locked eyes with alpha, who looked less angry than he had been during lunch. “There isn’t anything to understand. I’m doing this for the same reason as anyone else.”

Bakugou’s red eyes glinted. “But I’ve seen you perform, Deku. You fucking love music.”

“Stop calling me that.”

The alpha raised an eyebrow, smirking slightly. “I like that it pisses you off, so no. And don’t change the subject.”

Izuku scoffed. “Why are you so desperate to understand me? You shouldn’t concern yourself with my wellbeing.”

“Honestly? I have no fucking clue.”

Bakugou’s words hung in the air and floated amongst the tension. Izuku was a bright red as they stared at each other, searching for any sign of challenge.

Izuku swallowed thickly, looking away from the alpha. “Look, I’m well aware of the risks. I’ve been boxing underground for over a year and struggling to learn how to protect myself.”

“What if you get bitten, though?” Bakugou’s voice was rough.

The small omega sighed, anxiously rubbing his palm with his thumb. “As I said earlier, they would have to catch me first.”

Bakugou nodded after a moment, still studying him. “I still don’t understand your fucking need to be reckless. I also don’t get how everyone seems so fucking okay with it!”

“It’s not your job to worry about me.”

The alpha chuckled at that. “But someone obviously fucking needs to. I don’t give a shit about what your supposed friends think, but you’re going to be eaten alive tonight.”

Izuku’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The small omega hummed and took a few steps forward. Bakugou froze, his breath quickening as Izuku’s face became centimeters away from his own.

I hate that he smells so nice.

Izuku chuckled, pulling away from the surprised alpha. “Then I guess you’ll have to watch. I don’t need your concern and I certainly don’t need your fucking protection, Kacchan.”

Bakugou blinked, still processing. “What the fuck did you just call me?!”

“Kacchan.” Izuku purred smugly, stepping back. “Good luck on your match tonight. Not that you’ll need it, of course.”

The alpha snapped out of his daze, his skin flushing at the compliment. “Hold on a damn second, shitty Deku-“

Izuku ignored him and walked briskly towards the entrance to the venue. His own heart was racing in his chest from the interaction, especially since Bakugou was obviously just as enamored as him.

He glanced back, smirking softly.

“I’ll see you later, Kacchan.”

*********

*********

K A T S U K I

“-and it was like his brain short-circuited.”

“No shit?! I would’ve paid cash to see that!”

“So manly, Bakubro!”

Katsuki growled loudly as his idiots ran around him in circles. Todoroki, who had been re-telling the events of lunch, smirked at him with as much smugness his stupid face could muster.

Nobody was doing their fucking job.

Sero and Mina were supposed to be preparing the med-kit supplies for the match, but they were fucking around and wrapping bandages around Kaminari’s head. Kirishima was supposed to be talking strategy with him, but he was talking excitedly with Todoroki.

And that half-n-half bastard?

He was reveling in Katsuki’s embarrassment.

“I swear to fucking god…” Katsuki huffed, his eye visibly twitching. “I will fucking end each and every one of you if you don’t shut the fuck up!”

Everyone froze.

Kirishima laughed awkwardly, obviously trying to ease the tension. “Don’t be so angry, Bakubro. We’re all just excited that you’re finally interested in somebody…”

Katsuki flushed a bright red. “I’m not fucking interested in that shitty nerd Deku! I just don’t want to see a weak bastard get eaten alive!”

“Sure, Blasty, sure.” Mina muttered sarcastically.

Don’t commit homicide.

Don’t commit homicide.

Sero looked at Katsuki with an indifferent expression, a used roll of bandages in his hand. “You’re acting like being interested is a bad thing. We’re not saying that you wanna fuck the dude, Bakugou.”

Katsuki grumbled loudly, trying to hide his embarrassment.

I totally fucking do, and that’s what’s embarrassing.

“…unless you do…”

The red-eyed alpha clenched his jaw and growled indignantly in Kirishima’s direction. “I totally fucking don’t, Shitty Hair! Who the fuck would even be into a shitty nerd like Deku?!”

Kirishima, Mina, and Todoroki shared a glance.

Sero and Denki simply snorted.

“I thought he was cute.” Todoroki spoke evenly, his eyes challenging Katsuki. “I found his confidence quite attractive.”

Katsuki stiffened, his stomach churning at the idea of Deku and Icy-Hot interacting at all. Red hot jealousy bloomed in his chest and spread like a wildfire throughout his body.

I think the fuck not.

“Someone looks jealous.” Mina sang smugly, making Katsuki scoff.

Todoroki hummed in agreement.  “He does. If I wasn’t emotionally invested in an omega from my office, I’d pursue Midoriya out of spite.”

Kirishima perked up at the news. “You’re interested in an omega? Since when?!”

And just like that, the focus shifted.

Katsuki silently got to his feet and walked around the small locker-room. His match wasn’t till the end of the tournament, but he usually watched other matches with Kirishima and critiqued their strategy.

It’s a tradition at this point.

What the fuck happened earlier?

Deku stood so fucking close to him. All Katsuki could smell was chocolate and cherries with the faintest hint of vanilla, which hadn’t been noticeable before. His stupidly cute face was so close that Katsuki could’ve kissed him.

And then he fucking left.

Deku left and turned back with a stupid smirk that screamed sexual innuendos in Katsuki’s direction. He called the alpha a ridiculous name, and Katsuki fucking let him.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

“Alright, bro. You ready to go watch some matches?”

Katsuki snapped out of his memory-filled daze and grunted in response. “Let’s go watch some losers, Shitty Hair. I need to relax before I kick Togata’s ass tonight.”

Kirishima grinned. “And maybe impress a certain omega?”

“Shut up.”

Both alphas headed out of the locker-room and towards the arena. There was a specific box that Enji rented at every tournament specifically so he could watch. He didn't seem to mind that Katsuki did the same thing.

Even if he did, Katsuki didn’t care.

The sound of screaming fans, alphas and omega alike, immediately made Katsuki cringe. He could barely make out a few words, but he didn’t care enough to process any of them.

In the ring, an alpha female and a beta female were kick-boxing.

We’re still in this part of the tournament.

Good.

“OH FUCK! Hagakure delivers a stunning roundhouse kick!”

Katsuki took a seat a little ways away from Enji and focused on the match. It was Yaoyorozu vs Hagakure. He had seen them in regular boxing, so it wasn’t that much of a surprise to see them deviate sometimes.

As a beta, Hagakure was shorter and relied heavily on her legs. She was known for being a skilled southpaw, so upper-arm-strength wasn’t out of the question.

Yaoyorozu was one of the few female alphas that Katsuki’s met in his life. She could be jumpy at times, but she also struggled with predicting/preparing for her opponents moves. She relied on her height to get in close and hardly receive any damage to her face.

Katsuki fought her once or twice. She’s definitely skilled.

“I think Hagakure strained her left leg.” Katsuki murmured, watching the way that the beta favored her left side.

Kirishima narrowed his eyes and leaned forward.  “I think you’re right. Yaoyorozu hasn’t noticed yet, though.”

Katsuki shrugged. “She will. Eventually.”

Sure enough, Yaoyorozu glanced at Hagakure’s feet and her eyebrows furrowed in surprise. As the beta pulled back to land another kick, the female alpha hit her in the face with multiple jabs.

As soon as Hagakure was distracted, Yaoyorozu landed a harsh kick to her left leg and swept them out from under her.

The beta didn’t get back up.

As the crowd and commentator went wild, Katsuki sat back and glanced at Kirishima. “I told you that Ponytail would notice. She’s been training.”

“It’s a good thing that we didn’t bet this time.”

“Yeah. You would’ve fucking lost.”

Before Kirishima could respond, the familiar sound of an intermission rang through the air. They had about ten minutes till the next match, so the sound was to let people know that there was a break.

Katsuki cringed at the sound.

“After our break, we’ll see the professional debut of Midoriya Izuku against a crowd favorite, Monoma Neito!”

And that was enough to make Katsuki freeze.

Oh fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Monoma was an arrogant bastard that Katsuki hates with every fiber of his being. He was an alpha with a history of distaste for omegas, leading to an ever-growing fan base of shitty alphas.

Not only would he hate Deku, but he would try and rile him up the whole time.

This wouldn’t be a fair fight.

“Bakugou? You look pale.”

Katsuki snapped out of his daze and locked eyes with Kirishima. “I’m fucking fine, Shitty Hair. Monoma just pisses me off.”

Kirishima’s gaze softened. “You don’t have to watch, you know? I can just tell you what happened after the match is over.”

“I don’t need your pity. I’m fine.”

“Okay, bro. Whatever you say.”

*********                      

*********

*********

I Z U K U

“There. Feel tight enough?”

Izuku took his gloved hand away from Uraraka and moved his wrists. “They feel great. Thanks for being here, Uraraka.”

Uraraka grinned brightly, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail as she went over Izuku’s things again. “Of course! Iida and I wouldn’t miss this for the world, Deku! Plus, Aizawa threatened to ground us if we didn’t……”

Sounds about right.

“Midoriya! Where is your mouth guard?!”

Izuku glanced over at Iida, who had a professional-looking med-kit in hand. “I put it in my bag…I think…”

Iida sighed and bolted to Izuku’s gym bag, muttering things under his breath. He and Uraraka had been his friends ever since high school, long before Izuku’s mom got sick.

They graduated a little over a year ago.

Now Uraraka is attending University to be a teacher and Iida is studying to be a doctor. Sometimes, the older alpha will come over and give Izuku’s mom a once-over. His family helps out a lot with her treatment.

But not enough.

Which is why Izuku is here in the first place.

“Your mouth-guard is important, Midoriya!” Iida chided, handing the omega a green piece of plastic.

Izuku hung his head, slightly embarrassed that the alpha was reprimanding him. “I was training late last night. After the stuff this morning, I couldn’t remember if I packed it or not.”

Uraraka grinned, her eyes glinting mischievously. “Speaking of which….I saw you and Bakugou in front of the venue.”

Oh god.

“And it seemed pretty flirtatious, Deku.”

Izuku flushed a bright crimson, resisting the urge to hide his face. “It wasn’t flirting! He was just being stupidly overprotective when he didn’t have the right!”

Uraraka smirked. “Alphas tend to be protective over people they care about. Or, in your case, people they are attracted to.”

“I don’t think it’s like that.”

His best friend gave him a look before looking behind him. “Sensei?! What was your impression of Bakugou when you met him?”

Toshinori, who had been talking with a few betas, looked in their direction and grinned as he walked over. “Young Bakugou was very outspoken about his concern with Izuku’s second gender. He’s quite enamored.”

“My point exactly!”

Before Izuku could argue, a female referee appeared in the entrance to the locker-room.

It’s time.

**

**

Izuku feels nauseous.

The small omega can hear the crowd screaming as his opponent is announced, but his brain can barely process any of it. His silk robe (an emerald color) clung to his curves and covered his freckled skin.

Since he’s no longer underground, there’s no need for the bunny mask.

Then his name is announced and he’s shoved into the shark-infested water. Izuku focuses his gaze on the ring, acutely aware of his team following behind him in quick succession.

Izuku can feel the disgusted stares among the screaming.

“You’ll do great, my boy.”

Toshinor’s voice was gentle and firm as he made Izuku look at him. He looked proud and confident in his abilities, which made the omega feel better.

Izuku swallowed thickly as his robe was pulled off of him. “I’ll win. For you and for my mom.”

“I know you will.”

Izuku hugged him and turned to enter the ring.

His opponent is a short but burly alpha who was obviously slow on his feet. His blond hair was parted and his pale eyes were full of amused disgust.

“Alright, boys,” The referee crooned, her black hair tied back. “I want a clean and fair fight. No funny business or I will dish out some punishments.”

Izuku nodded, studying the alpha in front of him.

Monoma, however, ignored the omega’s attempt to touch gloves and retreated to his corner. He was smirking in Izuku’s direction, shamelessly checking out every inch of his body.

“And…FIGHT!”

Izuku stepped forward, carefully guarding his face and waiting for Monoma to make the first move. He needed a strategy, above all else.

Monoma smirked. “I didn’t think they’d make it this easy. Omegas can’t fight, doll. It’s a known fact.”

The small omega ignored him, staying carefully light on his feet as they circled each other. It was becoming obvious that Monoma just liked hearing himself talk, so he had to wait for an opening.

“You’re not mated? How pathetic.”

There.

His eyes flicker to the crowd when he talks. He’s speaking loud enough for them to hear, meaning that he wants to put on a show.

Monoma chuckled some more. “What? Too scared to make the first move? I can do this all-“

Izuku lunged and landed a right hook to the alpha’s jaw.

Retreat.

The small omega immediately retreated as Monoma stumbled back in surprise. The crowd fucking lost it, screaming a mix of cheers and curse words.

Monoma huffed, growling lowly in Izuku’s direction.

Then he charged.

Izuku dodged, guarding his face as Monoma initiated an onslaught of jabs and pummels. Sweat gathered on his brow and his breathing sped up as he looked for an opening.

There.

Izuku brought his leg up and kicked Monoma in the gut.

The larger alpha gasped in surprise, but that was the opening Izuku needed. In quick succession, the small omega hit him with three jabs and a left hook.

Not without consequence, though.

“You fucking bitch!!”

Monoma growled loudly and landed a solid left hook to Izuku’s face.

Pressure, pain, and high-pitched ringing erupted from his right side. Izuku grunted in a mix of surprise and pain, immediately retreating to his corner and settling into a guarding stance.

In his confusion, Izuku was attacked from the right side again.

Two kicks and a mix of punches pummeled themselves into Izuku’s stomach, making the small omega choke and gasp.

“Enough! Back off!”

Izuku gasped, still standing upright as the referee pulled Monoma back. He could taste blood in his mouth, but his adrenaline was too high to feel any pain.

My strength is in my legs.

I need to aim my kicks high enough to land on his face. The nose is the most sensitive, so it would be my safest bet.

Izuku hardened his gaze and glared at the alpha in front of him.

Monoma charged, heading straight for Izuku’s right side. This time, however, the small omega was prepared and effectively slipped.

As he ducked under, Izuku moved and delivered a high-kick to Monoma’s face. The alpha choked and stumbled backward, grasping his face as blood immediately started to pour.

Before the alpha can recover, Izuku charges and delivers strikes to Monoma’s jaw.

DING! DING!!

“That’s the bell! To your corners!”

Izuku backed off and retreated to his corner, sweating like a pig and gushing blood from his brow.

He sat down, allowing his team to work.

“You’re doing great, Deku!”

Uraraka’s voice sounded close by as Iida and Toshinori crowded him. The alpha got to work on bandaging his eyebrow as the beta placed the water spout between his bloody lips.

Izuku panted wildly, drinking the water. “He needs to get close to land a hit, sensei. I fucked up his nose, though.”

“You did.” Toshinori supplied, pulling the water away. “Don’t forget to parry. Meet his hits head on.”

Right.

“2nd round! On your feet!”

Izuku took a deep breath and got to his feet. He could see better without the flow of blood in his eyes, so he definitely noticed the look of hatred Monoma gave him.

Monoma looked pissed.

DING! DING!!

“Fight!”

Monoma moved first this time, furiously charging Izuku like a raging bull. Instead of dodging or slipping, the small omega met his kick head on.

Their legs clashed, which Monoma clearly didn’t expect.

Izuku used his body weight to shove the alpha backward, giving himself enough room to land a few side-kicks. He kept his moves fast and precise, knowing that any wasted second could make him lose.

Monoma swung, but he overcalculated.

Izuku dodged and landed a harsh upper-cut to the jaw. He could feel the crunch of bones and teeth, which was more than satisfying.

After that, Monoma didn’t stand a chance.

Before the alpha had a chance to recover, Izuku shoved him back with another side kick and prepared himself to finish the fight.

Roundhouse.

Izuku leaned back and put his entire body weight into the kick itself. He aimed high, specifically for Monoma’s broken nose, and fucking succeeded with a perfect landing. It was fucking perfect!

Monoma crumpled into a heap, completely unconscious.

“That’s a TKO! Midoriya wins the match!”

Izuku stumbled backward as the cheers rang loudly through the air. His right ear was still ringing, but he definitely heard most of them.

As he was swarmed by his team, Izuku glanced upward.

Katsuki Bakugou was watching and yelling animatedly from a private box. His face was red and he looked pumped as he grinned in Izuku’s direction.

That was the last thing Izuku saw before losing consciousness.

*************

******

K A T S U K I

“Holy fucking SHIT!”

Katsuki watched as Deku’s team dragged him out of the ring, but his mind was running a mile a minute.

Despite taking multiple hits, Deku’s form was fucking perfect. Every move he made was carefully calculated and planned, along with a surprising amount of raw fucking power.

It was hot as fuck.

“Did you fucking see that!?” Kirishima was just as hyped as Katsuki, sounding hoarse from the amount of screaming they’d done.

Katsuki nodded, almost breathless as he glanced at his best friend. “I’ve never seen anyone TKO Monoma. I could probably fucking do it too, but Jesus fucking Christ.”

Kirishima met his gaze, smirking.

Oh no.

“He didn’t need your protection after all, bro.”

Katsuki swallowed thickly, shooting a mock glare in Kirishima’s direction before getting to his feet. “Shut the fuck up. Deku may have kicked that bastard’s ass, but he barely held up.”

Kirishima raised an eyebrow. “And where are you going?”

“I still have a fight to prepare for, dumbfuck.”

***********

**

#alpha/beta/omega verse #alpha bakugou #omega deku #bottom deku #boxer au #bnha #bakugou x midoriya #bakudeku #bnha crack #bnha fanfiction #bakudeku fan fiction #fanfiction #fanfic

[youvebeenlivingfictional]

I’m Always Curious Part Nine

Previous Part | Next Part |  Masterlist Notes: Not beta-read. Synathehol is a TNG thing I think, so. On Earth in this story they drink alcohol, thank you. I hope everyone is well :) Thank you to everyone that’s read/liked/reblogged/replied! I really appreciate it! Summary: I’d become too engrossed in an argument with Spock (albeit a friendly one) on the effects (and logic) of using time travel to go back and change certain events. My idea was, if two totally separate events weren’t known to have any impact on one another, what would it matter which order you visited them in? 

Shock of all shocks, I didn’t sleep well. “What are you listening to?” Thira asked as I pulled my headphones out. “Oh, it’s...” I floundered before waving her off, “Don’t worry about it, I can only understand, like, some of it.” “What are you up to?” “I’ve got a lecture in--” I glanced at the time, “Like an hour, so I have got to run.” “Are you coming to Liquara tonight?” Thira asked, watching me gather my things. “Ah... I think so?” I glanced back at her as I packed my PADD into my bag. “You can take one night off,” Thira said, “Loosen up, have a couple of drinks...Maybe meet somebody?” She waggled her brows at me, and I laughed, unable to help it. “I don’t think that’ll be happening,” I said, pulling bag onto my shoulder. “Come on, when was the last time you dated?” Thira asked, folding her legs up under herself. “I don’t know, my last year of the Academy?” I shrugged. “...Yikes,” Thira muttered. “Thank you for that-- I’m leaving now!” I tacked on before hurrying out of our room. -- I did manage to make it to my Dominionese lecture on time, with a very large coffee (loaded with extra espresso and additional caramel drizzle). I got to the lecture hall just on time and took the only available seat left - right next to Captain Pike. I couldn’t help my stiff posture as I sat down, taking out my PADD and putting on the virtual display sensory headset that was left out for me. As the instructor began to lay out what we’d be working on, I felt Pike lean over, his bicep pressing against mine as he murmured, “Late night?”

I hummed the affirmative, picking up my coffee and taking a sip as if to prove it. I heard Pike chuckle beside me, and I fought the urge to turn my head, see the waiting smile. I kept my eyes on the instructor, then on the Dominionese that appeared on the headset. I could still feel Pike’s arm pressed to mine; that didn’t matter, right? I could focus on something other than contact. I zoned in on the text on the headset, letting my fingers move over my PADD as I worked through the first few rows of translations. Now and again, the instructor would interrupt us, calling on students to read their translations aloud, correcting for grammar and syntax. Pike and I escaped the questioning; I’d found that unless the workshops or classes were geared specifically toward alumni, instructors tended to leave visiting students alone. Pike didn’t lean over to chat anymore throughout the rest of the class, which was a relief, but he didn’t lean away, either. He was close throughout, arm still resting against mine, thighs occasionally brushing, or our feet would knock against one another under the desk. Every single time I’d tell myself that if this was Una, or Thira, it wouldn’t be making my heart jump the way it was. If this was Spock-- Actually, no. Spock would keep his limbs to himself.

Nevertheless, class passed without incident. I removed the headset as it ended, closing my eye for a moment to help it readjust. “Well, that was informative,” Pike piped up. I glanced over at him, nodding, and was more than a little relieved to find him focused on packing away his things. I turned back down to my PADD, saving the notes I’d taken as I saw Pike’s head turn back to me, presumably as a result of my lack of verbal response. “You heading back to the ship?” He prompted. “Ah-- No. There’s a language panel on Iconian in...”  I glanced at the time on my PADD, “Like ten minutes, so, I’m just gonna hang out here.” "Packed morning,” Pike commented, brows raised. I shrugged. “I just--” “Like to keep busy?” Pike finished knowingly, smiling. I returned the smile in spite of myself, nodding. “Exactly,” I confirmed. “Well, try to get some rest some time this week, lieutenant,” the Captain said, standing and patting me on the shoulder as he passed me. I returned my eyes to my PADD, unthinkingly answering, “Yeah, you, too.” I heard Pike’s steps falter, but I didn’t raise my eyes to meet what I was sure was a questioning gaze. I just reopened my Dominionese and reviewed my answers until I was sure he was gone. -- I did not want to go out. After the last 24 hours I’d had, I just wanted to take an extra long, extra hot shower and curl up in bed with my PADD and a bottle Risian wine. But I also knew that if I didn’t go, I wouldn’t hear the end of it from Thira -- and possibly from Una. I got to Liquara a little while after everyone else (the panel on Iconian had run long and delayed my getting back to the ship; I’d taken longer to get ready because I’d had to re-talk myself into going every five minutes). “You’re alive?” Thira teased as I settled into a seat beside hers and across from Una. There were a few others at the table - Spock, Nhan, and Connolly, as well as a few people from engineering that I vaguely recognized. “I was just telling everyone how you had your headphones on this morning and you were listening to something that sounded so harsh, but kinda...Lyrical. What was that?” Thira asked. The surrounding party looked at me expectantly and I answered, “Klingon poetry.” “I wasn’t aware there as an intensive on Klingon poetry this week,” Una commented, brow raised. “This was more of an independent study situation,” I admitted. “Is there anything in particular that sparked your sudden interest in such a topic?” Spock asked. I shrugged, reaching for a menu and skimming it in favor of meeting anyone’s eye. “Just had the urge, I guess,” I excused before looking around, “I haven’t been here in a while, so, someone refresh my memory: are the slush-o mixes worth the hangover?” -- I stayed out later than I had anticipated. I didn’t partake in many sugary alcoholic drinks on the Enterprise, so it didn’t take long for a decent buzz to kick in. People peeled off as the night wore on, until it was down to myself, Thira, Una, Spock, and Connolly -- practically the ready room crowd.

I should not have stayed out, though. I should’ve had one drink and then ducked out gracefully. But I’d become too engrossed in an argument with Spock (albeit a friendly one) on the effects (and logic) of using time travel to go back and change certain events. My idea was, if two totally separate events weren’t known to have any impact on one another, what would it matter which order you visited them in? “My point is, if I chose first to go back and stop T.S. Eliot from writing Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats and then subsequently traveled forward in time and stopped Oppenheimer from designing the atomic bomb--” “Why would you choose to halt the writing of a book rather than the creation of a catastrophic weapon?” Spock asked. “Okay, two reasons: One - It is a time machine, Spock, I’d have literally nothing but time. Two-- No, actually, three reasons-- two, that book came out in 1939, the Manhattan Project didn’t start until 1942, so I think it is safe to say that despite its historical significance to mankind, I would not be doing the world a disservice by visiting those events in chronological order.” “And the third reason?” Una asked. "The movie CATS was the first step to the subsequent tanking of Universal Studios in the 22nd century, so that’s my first priority if I ever get a personal time machine,” I said simply. His laugh joined in with the others-- my ear caught on that sound, the way it had the night before. My eyes darted to the other end of the table, and I felt my smile falter a little. I had been so engrossed in my conversation with Spock that I hadn’t even noticed the Captain settled on the other side of Connolly. Pike’s eyes met mine as the laughter settled, and I gave him a quick smile before averting my eyes. I could feel Una looking at me, and when I raised my eyes to hers, I found her brow quirked. She peered around Connolly at the Captain. “What kept you?” She asked. “I was speaking with Admiral Cornwall about our next mission. Nothing for us to discuss tonight. How was the lecture?” He asked. When silenced followed the question, I realized it had been directed at me. I met Pike’s eye again. “Informative.” I left it there, picking up the menu again and looking it over. Part of me already know I was going to be switching to water, though. -- I remembered why I’d liked being called to the ready room so much at the beginning - when there were so many of us, before I was better acquainted with the Captain, it was easier for me to hang back; I didn’t feel as pressured to speak up. And at Liquara, with Una, Thira, and Connolly there to steer the conversation, and Spock to interject (heavily), I didn’t feel that the conversation lagged anywhere. And I was being good - keeping my eyes to myself, only looking at the Captain when he was speaking; smiling and laughing an appropriate amount, and definitely, definitely not thinking about that sigh of his name and the giggle I’d heard the night before. “Don’t tell me you’re leaving.” Thira had managed to catch what I had assumed was a subtle shrugging on of my jacket, but what to her was apparently a beacon of retreat. I gave her a small, regretful smile. “I just realized how late it is.” “You’re not going to the long-range sensor lab again, are you?” Spock asked, watching me. Unbeknownst to me, he’d been there himself the night before, and had actually left shortly before I had. I laughed a little, shaking my head. “No, not tonight. I’ve got an Exoarchaeology and the 22nd Century intensive that I’ve gotta be up for,” I excused, “I already settled up at the bar.” “I thought you were going to ask about their drink special,” Una pointed out, raising a brow. I shrugged as I stood. “And I did. Right before I settled up. Have a good night, guys,” I cast a quick smile around, careful not to let my eyes linger on anyone for too long before I turned and left. That had been good, right? Natural. I had contributed to the conversation, I hadn’t hung on the Captain’s every word like some giggling schoolgirl. I’d more than earned that extra long, extra hot shower. And maybe one Klingon poem. “Headed for the shuttles?” Every single instinct told me to walk faster, pretend I hadn’t heard him. I turned in spite of this. He wasn’t too far behind me. I stopped walking, giving him the chance the catch up. "Sort of our only way to get back to the ship right now, so, that was the plan,” I nodded. Pike pulled his communicator out, raising it to his lips. I was a little tipsy, but I was looking at the communicator, I swear, not at Pike’s mouth. “Pike to transporter room. Two to beam up.” “But--” Before I could finish my sentence, we were in the transporter room. “But?” Pike asked before nodding to the crew. I gave them a quick wave before stepping off of the pads behind Pike. “But I thought the transporter room was out of commission until the Enterprise’s diagnostic was complete,” I said, following Pike to the turbolift. “Diagnostic was completed this morning, Enterprise was cleared,” Pike reported, brow furrowing, “I mentioned that earlier.” Maybe he had; I had been making an active effort at the bar to not listen too intently to what he was saying, and apparently I’d done too good of a job. I nodded once. “Right. Sorry, I must have slush-o mix in my ears,” I muttered. We stepped onto the turbolift, each reaching for the control panel. Pike and I both lowered our hands, and I heard Pike murmur, “Go ahead.” I entered my destination before Pike entered his. There was a pause before the lift hummed. “...Lieutenant, may I ask you something?” “‘Course.” “Please don’t take this unkindly, but,” Oh god, “Is everything alright?” I turned a frown up at Pike, confused. “Why do you ask?” “You seem to be burying yourself in work. Between the lectures yesterday and this morning,” How did he know about yesterday? “The long-range sensor lab last night, your lecture tomorrow-- I’ve been told you took Onafuwa’s one-day intensive?” Una. Blabbermouth. “All compelling evidence, but need I remind you, Captain, that we are in the same turbolift right now because we just left the same bar?” I pointed out. Pike’s brow quirked. “Be that as it may, I just wanted to ask the question on the off-chance it needed asking.” I turned my head again to face the turbolift doors. “I’m alright, Captain.” “...Then why couldn’t you look me in the eye and say that?” “Is that why you left?” I asked, looking up at him then. “Excuse me?” “The bar. Is that why you left the bar? To ask me this?” He blinked once, twice, then pursed his lips, shook his head once and said, “No.” I couldn’t help the smug look that overtook my features as the turbolift doors opened on my floor. Looking back, I’d pass the boldness off on the copious amount of slush-o mix I’d had at the bar. “Never join the Starfleet poker league, Captain. You don’t bluff well,” I said before stepping off of the lift and leaving him behind.

#Christopher Pike #Chris Pike #christopher pike/reader #christopher pike x reader #Christopher Pike/You #Christopher Pike Imagine #I'm Always Curious #captain pike #captain pike x reader #Captain Pike/Reader #Captain Pike Imagine #Captain Pike x You

[starlightsearches]

Advice on Advice

I’ve been seeing a lot of talk about fanfic writing and critique (ie when or if you should offer critique to fanfic writers, how fanfic writers respond, whether or not fanfic is “art” or whatever if the authors won’t accept criticism) and it’s made me think a lot about critique and how to do it effectively. So here is some advice from from somebody who gets paid to critique writing! This is advice you can hopefully use as a casual fan or as a beta reader.

Note: Most of the writing I see is from my students who typically range from 11-15 years old, which I think actually makes my advice better because they are 1) very sensitive about everything and 2) are not professional writers. I’ve found these tips to be the most effective in order to encourage improvement without hurting anyone’s feelings.

1. Giving advice should be consensual

If you are going to offer critique to a writer, you need to know if they are okay with receiving that critique first. Look for phrases like “let me know what you think!” or “feedback is always appreciated!” If you don’t see those (and maybe even if you do), you should probably ask the writer if they’d like to hear what you have to say. Something like “I loved this! I could give you more in-depth thoughts if you’re interested in hearing them?” If the writer in question does not want your help, don’t give it to them! Even if that means you don’t want to read there stuff anymore.

2. Compliment sandwiches!

Writers don’t just need to know what they should fix, they need to know what they’re doing well! I’ll typically write any critique I have surrounded by two compliments. For example:

“I love the way you used those metaphors to describe their relationship, but I’m wondering if there might be too many—it’s almost bogging down the scene. Maybe just choose one or two of your favorites. That way, your readers can focus on the beautiful dynamic you’ve set up between the characters!”

You start with a compliment, give the critique and advice on how to fix it, then add another compliment. This helps to ensure that the author isn’t discouraged by anything they need to fix.

3. Give advice in private

It can be embarrassing to receive critiques publicly. If the author you want to help agrees to accept your comments, ask them how you should contact them. Do not contact them anonymously (where they’ll have to post your response publicly if they want to respond) and don’t comment directly on the fic where other readers can see it.

4. Be sincere

While it may seem like lighthearted humor to you, sarcasm doesn’t read well through text, and can often come off rude. Unless you are good friends with the writer you’re helping and you know what they are and aren’t comfortable with, don’t make jokes about their writing.

5. Don’t try to correct everything at once

Improving your writing is a process, and taking every single critique at one time is only going to discourage a writer. Instead, focus on 2-3 big things that can be improved in a piece, and then move on from there.

6. Don’t be offended if writers don’t take your advice

Ultimately, this is their project, and if they don’t want to change something, be understanding. It’s not because they don’t think your advice is good—it’s because they have their own vision for how they want their story to turn out!

That’s it! Have fun commenting 💖

#fanfiction #writing advice #writing helps #writeblr #writblr #idk what I'm doing #just taking a break from my own writing i guess #feel free to reblog if you think it's helpful!

[greekgeek21]

A Percabeth Holiday AU

Hello, readers! I decided to write something last minute before xmas and it wasn't finished being edited until now, so I'm sorry about that. This might have a Part 2, Idk. It depends on the response to this. This is mostly just to give to my followers to hold them over until my Avengers/PJO fanfic is ready (early march?). It's kinda a Goodgirl!Annabeth and Punk/Badboy!Percy fanfic. Mortal au. And a special thanks to my amazing beta reader, JJ (nightskywithrainbows on Ao3). You are a really great person if you can sit through my unedited stuff, trust me. *shudders* Go check out their stuff on Ao3!

I hope you like this! Comment, like, and follow me pls! 

– your author

DISCLAIMER: Sadly, only rick has the pleasure of owning pjo.

Ω❖Ω

Annabeth wasn't sure who she offended, but it had to be somebody. There was no way her luck was just THIS BAD.

First, she found out that she's required to go to her family's Christmas dinner. You know, the one with the whole extended family as well. Then, her stupid pride got in the way again. Her evil stepmother was interrogating her on her nonexistent love life, and Annabeth, being stupid, said that she was bringing a date to dinner, even though she hadn't been planning on it. Now, Annabeth had one week to find someone willing to go to Hell with her.

Unfortunately, Annabeth wasn't exactly what one might call "popular." She had a group of friends at school, but they were all like her. They were smart and tended to act like know-it-alls. For that reason, she was having trouble finding someone good enough to go with. There was no way Annabeth was going to show up with anyone ordinary. If she was going to go through with this, it had to be spectacular. She had to show it to her judgemental extended family that she didn't care what they thought of her (even if she definitely did).

Her only option so far was the one boy at her table, Octavian and that was NOT an option she was willing to take. Nobody knew why he even sat with them, but they were too afraid to even ask him. He always just sat there staring at people. He was a real creep.

So that was a no.

Annabeth was stuck. She was desperate, and she would probably ask the next person who walked into their shitty school quad.

Just her luck that it was the school's resident bad boy, Percy Jackson.

Ω❖Ω

Annabeth decided to corner him after school, where there would hopefully less students around. Percy tended to hang around the more forgotten parts of the campus, so it shouldn't be too hard.

Not that Annabeth had been watching him, or anything. She just liked to observe the people around her. In her opinion, you can learn a lot about a person when they don't know you're looking.

As soon as the last bell rang, she was up and out of her seat, speed-walking out the classroom door and into the hallways. She didn't run, though. Even if what she was doing was the most stupid idea she'd ever had, it was the best option in the short amount of time before the dinner.

Her only worry was that he would say no. Of course, Annabeth was the best at manipulation, but she'd rather not use that. It made her feel sick inside.

So, her plan was to just ask first and MAYBE use some manipulation if necessary to get him to agree.

Percy ended up being right where she suspected: the roof. She had seen him and his friends heading up that way multiple times, so she thought she should start there. As always, her deduction was correct.

He was up there with his group of friends, so Annabeth figured she would need a way to separate him from them. It was already embarrassing enough to be asking this of him, let alone three others as well.

They hadn't heard her open the door, so Annabeth took a second to compose herself before approaching them. She evened out her expression and stood up tall, exuding an air of confidence. She was about to approach the "most dangerous" kids in school, so she had to be strong.

With a deep, calming breath, Annabeth strode over to the group. They noticed her when she was about half-way there. They were all either sitting on the ledge, or they were leaning up against the small wall. The group had just laughed at something one of them said, but their laughter died out at the sight of Annabeth.

Percy's friends were Nico di Angelo, Thalia Grace, and Grover Underwood. Grover wasn't like the other three in his fashion sense or personality, but he had been friends with them for longer than anyone knew, so nobody really questioned it. Annabeth suspected something, but she didn't want to delve too deep into the inner-workings of the clique.

They all stood up in a sort of defensive stance. None of them knew what to do with someone like Annabeth Chase walking up to them. They were ALL in undocumented territory here.

She walked right up to Percy, standing with her arms crossover in front of her. He raised his eyebrows and looked down at her, amused and confused at the same time. What would ANNABETH CHASE want with him. He didn't remember doing anything to piss her off.

"Yes?" he asked with his signature troublemaker smirk.

"Come with me," Annabeth ordered, turning around and starting to walk away.

When he didn't follow, she looked back at him and spoke again, this time with a more icy tone, "If you want to talk here, that's fine with me, but I'm not so sure you want your friends to hear what I have to say. Unless you want them to know how you're failing–"

"Stop! I'm coming," he interrupted, briskly following her through the roof-access door.

Sure, he trusted his friends, but he was still capable of embarrassment. It wasn't his fault that his Math teacher didn't care that he had dyslexia. So what if he was failing, anyway? He was barely passing in his other classes, and that was mostly because the teachers thought he would fight them or something if they failed him.

Percy didn't know how Annabeth knew he was failing, and he wasn't planning on keeping it that way. He knew her reputation. She had probably manipulated it out of the front office lady or something. She was known to be cold and ruthless. He wasn't afraid of her, but others were. That's part of the reason she was never asked out by any sane guys.

He didn't think she knew that, though. She had always acted indifferent when others whispered crude names about her, so he believed she had no idea what others thought about her. How she managed to miss that, he wasn't sure.

She just kept walking ahead of him, expecting him to follow. She never said a word the entire time. It was really getting on Percy's nerves.

"Hey, Blondie! Where are we going?" he asked, grabbing her arm to stop them as they were passing through one of the hallways.

Annabeth ripped her arm free of his grasp, a murderous look on her face. She didn't answer, but instead looked around their surroundings before her gaze sharpened on a door leading into a janitor's closet. Percy got even more confused when she grabbed his arm and pulled him into the closet with her.

This girl was so confusing.

"What are we doing here?" Percy asked, noting how close they were forced to be in the small space.

Annabeth had noticed, too, but she was determined to not let it bother her. She had already sacrificed all pride even walking up to the group, let alone shoving Percy Jackson into a closet with her. There was no turning back now.

"I have a proposition for you," she said.

Percy raised his eyebrows in amusement, "And what do you think you have that I would want?"

This was Annabeth's secret bargaining chip. She would never go into a confrontation without one.

"I'll tutor you," she stated simply.

She knew that Percy was failing Math. Annabeth was one of the students who offered to tutor others in lower classes. She was in Honors Calculus, and Percy was in Pre-Calculus. It would be easy to tutor him in a class she had taken last year.

Percy was still skeptical, though. Nobody did things like this without some serious reciprocation. Besides, he had long since given up on doing better in school. It was better to just make other think you weren't trying than to let them know you were stupid.

Still, he was interested. "And what do you want in return...?"

"A date." If Percy had been drinking something, he would have done a spit-take.

"I'm sorry, WHAT?!" he exclaimed.

Annabeth sighed. This is going to be harder than I thought.

"I want you to be my date to a family dinner," she over-pronounced every word to make sure he heard it all.

Percy was gaping like a fish out of water. He couldn't believe this! Why would someone like ANNABETH CHASE want HIM of all people to be her date, to a family dinner no less!

"You're joking, right? This was some sort of prank?" he said.

Annabeth wished that were true.

"No, this is not a prank. I really need you to be my date. I'm desperate," she sighed. "Why do you think I'm asking you?"

It was still pretty hard to believe, but Percy was trying to warm up to the idea. He really didn't want to see that same disappointed look on his mother's face the next time he came home with another failing grade.

"Alright, I'll consider it. I need more information first," he said.

Honestly, Percy was even surprising himself. How he was managing to not make a fool out of himself right now was a mystery and a miracle.

"We can't do that here," Annabeth pointed out, glancing around the tight space they were in.

"You're right," Then an idea came to Percy, "What if we go to your house. I'm gonna have to get to know you better, anyway."

Plus, Percy had a feeling that it would get under her skin to have him around her things, and annoying people was apparently what he did best. Even if this little deal did go well, he still had a reputation to uphold. He was the bad boy, the kid who you don't want dating your daughter, or whatever. For that reason, he wanted to make sure he knew what he was getting into first.

"Fine," Annabeth ground out through clenched teeth.

She was already regretting this decision.

Ω❖Ω

"Oh, no. I'm not getting on that thing," Annabeth planted her feet onto the ground.

After Percy had texted his friends saying he was heading home, him and Annabeth had gone out to the parking lot, and since Annabeth had missed her ride, their only options were walking or taking Percy's motorcycle. She would rather walk.

"Come on, blondie! Let's just get out of here!" Percy was getting agitated.

He did not want to be seen letting Annabeth onto his bike. He was known for not letting anyone touch it, let alone ride it.

"Do you know what the fatality rate for motorcyclists is?" she exclaimed.

Percy sighed, "No, and I really don't care. You can wear the helmet. We'll be fine. It's only, like, three miles, right?"

She had told Percy her address when he asked, and he had known the neighborhood. However, she was still refusing to get on that death trap.

Percy let out an almost animalistic growl, "Chase, get on the damn bike before someone sees you doing it and thinks we're going to hook up, or something."

Her eyes widened in fear. From him or the idea of hooking up with him, Percy didn't know, but it got the job done. She grabbed the helmet from his hands and slid onto the bike seat behind him.

He kicked the bike into gear and the engine roared to life, "Hold on!"

Tentatively, Annabeth wrapped her arms around his torso. Once she was secured, he hit the gas and they drove off campus.

Annabeth didn't want to admit it, but Percy was really warm and comforting. It was intoxicating just to be this close to him. His scent reminded her of a warm day at the beach, and she had to hold herself back from hugging him close when he sped up. She did not like Percy Jackson, and that was the end of it. This was just a business deal.

Percy was going through a similar problem. He thought that having Annabeth Chase's arms wrapped around him would make him flinch away, but he found himself leaning back into her embrace. It was so confusing. They had barely talked. The last time he had held something resembling a conversation with her was in Freshman Orientation four years ago.

He was lost in his thoughts, but he was still able to navigate his way to her house. He had lived in New York his whole life, and it was almost muscle memory getting everywhere by now.

"We're here," he told her as he turned the bike off in front of her apartment building.

She had subconsciously tucked her face into his back as the wind whipped against it on the trip. As soon as she realized, she jumped up from the bike and started taking the helmet off.

"Well...let's get inside," she said, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet.

Percy cleared his throat, "Right."

He climbed off, grabbed his bag, and followed Annabeth into her building and up the stairs. She hadn't spoken again, so he just followed her lead.

Stopping on the third floor platform, she silently walked into the hallway. She led them to apartment 3E before taking out a set of house-keys from her pocket and unlocking the door.

Before they could get farther than the entryway, she rounded back around at him, "Stay quiet. I don't want anyone knowing you're here."

"Got it," he nodded, resisting the urge to make a sarcastic remark. For some reason, he felt that it wasn't the right time to.

They tiptoed their way to the third door down before Annabeth once again shoved him into a room with her. Except this one was larger, cleaner, and brighter. Annabeth's room was nothing like he would expect. It was clean in the sense that there were no clothes sitting around in random places, but it was cluttered like nobody's business. Her desk was overflowing with blueprints and pencils and pens, and her large bookcase was bulging with more books than Percy had even heard of. She had an old fashioned, white dresser on the right covered in lotions and perfumes and other girl products. And then her bed: a white frame with a fluffy grey comforter and two marshmallow-like pillows. Even looking at it made him want to pass out. Upon further inspection, Percy saw that there were already three books sitting on the mattress, and two more on the nightstand. He knew she was smart, but not that she was a bookworm, though he supposed that came with being smart. You enjoyed doing things that others struggled with.

That just made him bitter towards her again. People like her used to patronize him all the time for his dyslexia and ADHD, and it pushed him to become who he was today. What right did they have to act all high-and-mighty just because they were a part of the few who did well in school?

Annabeth's voice broke through his thoughts, "Sorry for the mess. I didn't expect company today."

"It's whatever," he grumbled, crawling back into his rock-hard, badboy shell.

"Oh. Alright," Annabeth muttered, confused by his sudden change in demeanor, "Why don't we sit down and get started?"

She plopped herself down on her fluffy rug and learned back against her bed, staring up at him in wait. With another grumble, Percy sat down next to her, pulling out an old pen from his pocket. Annabeth didn't want to question it, but it was so tempting, and she's never been the best at curving her curiosity.

"Why do you have that?" she pointed at the ballpoint pen.

"It was a gift from my dad. I guess I just keep it around now," he shrugged, trying to downplay the actual enormity of the meaning it held.

It was the last thing his father had given him before he died, and he cherished it. Only his close friends knew why he kept it with him, and that was because most of them were his cousins.

"Oh. That's cool, I guess," Annabeth tried to get back on topic, "What do you want to know?"

"Um...I guess who's going to be there, stuff about them, and stuff about you. I feel like I should know more about you if I'm meeting your family. That usually means you're important," Percy answered, surprising himself and Annabeth with the unusually strategic answer.

"Well, it's going to be this immediate family, two of my dad's sibling's families, and my dad's parents," Annabeth said, and Percy noted how she never said her family.

"I have my dad, step-mom, and two half-brothers, respectively Fredrick Chase, Helen Chase, and Bobby and Matthew Chase. Dad is a US history-buff, so just ask him about his model-planes and he'll talk your ear off for the rest of the night. Helen is kinda a prude, but if you compliment the food or decor, she'll probably love you. Bobby and Matt are pretty simple. They're thirteen-year-old twin boys, and they're not that hard to impress. Just talk about your motorcycle or video games or something, and they'll never stop asking questions," she took a big breath of air, "That's the immediate family."

"Now for my aunt and uncle's families. My Aunt Darcy is divorced with one son in college, Malcolm. He's great, but he might be a little overprotective, so just be prepared for that. And my Uncle Casey has a wife and two daughters. His wife is named Carol, and she's a lot like Helen, but much worse, so avoid her at all costs. Their kids are alright, if not a little spoiled. Their names are Alexandra and Cassandra, and their 14 and 16 respectively. Alexandra goes by Lexi, and Cassandra goes by Cass," Annabeth said.

She could tell that everything she was saying was overwhelming Percy, but they were almost done, so she kept explaining the inner workings of her messed-up family.

"My grandparents hate me, so that will automatically transfer to you. Their names are Mary and John Chase, though they'll probably tell you what they want to be called," she informed, "And that's it! The dinner is in 7 days, so the third day of winter break."

It was the Wednesday before break as they were talking, so they had a while to prepare. Some might think Annabeth was overinforming Percy, but she wasn't exaggerating on anything. She was the mistake her father made in college, and nobody wanted her, not even her own mother. Annabeth hadn't even seen her mother in two years. The most she got were impersonal birthday cards and two hundred dollars into her college savings account. She was not winning in the motherly-love department, that's for sure.

"What about you? Or us? We need a reason for why you're bringing ME to a family dinner," Percy said.

"I've planned for that. You're a friend from school named Percy. We'll figure more stuff out at the dinner as we come up with stuff. And what do you want to know about me?" she said.

"Basic stuff, I guess. Like your favorite color, animal, what you want to be, middle name, favorite song..." he started listing off.

"Grey, owl, architect, I don't have a middle name, and I guess Immortals or The Run and Go," Annabeth answered.

That shocked Percy. Annabeth didn't seem like the kind of girl to listen to Fall Out Boy.

"You listen to Fall Out Boy?" Percy questioned.

"Sure, they're great," Annabeth shrugged, getting up and grabbing her backpack before sitting back down again, "But I feel like we should get a grasp on your studying situation now."

Percy really didn't feel like studying, but he knew he had to, "Fine."

"Great! Let's get started. Now what unit are you guys on right now?" she exclaimed, feigning excitement.

Honestly Annabeth didn't know what to expect going in besides a struggle. She had a pretty good idea of Percy's grades at the moment, and it would be a journey getting them to rise. However, she never backs down from a challenge, so she grabbed an old textbook, some scratch paper, and a couple pencils before sitting next to the mysterious bad boy of Goode High.

Little did she know, Annabeth was in for a lot more than she bargained for...

Ω❖Ω

"Annabeth!" Percy called out, running up to her in the hallways.

Annabeth's friends all turned to look at her in various degrees of shock. She just gave them a sheepish look in return. So what if she had conveniently forgot to tell them about her deal with Percy? It's not like it was that important, anyway.

It was the last day before break, Friday, and Percy was stressing about the test he had next period. It was in Math, and he knew that him and Annabeth had worked really hard getting him prepared the days before, but he was still convinced he was going to fail.

"I'm so screwed," he said as he reached her, not even paying a mind to her friends watching this interaction in confusion, "I'm so gonna fail!"

"Percy, you are going to do fine. You are prepared for this," Annabeth assured.

"No, I'm not! Everything you taught me is gone! It ran away in fear!" he protested.

Annabeth tried not to laugh, but a small smile graced her lips, "Just take a breath and relax. You're going to do great."

Personally, Percy thought that was a load of crap, but at that precise moment, he realized that almost everyone around them was staring at the baddest boy in school talking to the nerdiest girl, so he shut up. He turned and gave everyone his best wolf glare before walking away.

Annabeth watched him go with a fond sigh.

Then, she mentally slapped herself. Get a hold of yourself! You do NOT like Percy Jackson, she thought. There was no way.

It was hard not to, though. Annabeth didn't like lying to herself, so she admitted that she thought Percy was pretty hot. But they would never work. For starters, there was their respective social statuses. And then there's also the tiny part about how they even started becoming "friends" or whatever else you call their relationship.

So, she took a deep breath before walking to her first class, ignoring her friend's threats about interrogations later.

At lunch, before Annabeth could even make it to the cafeteria, a hand latched onto her arm and pulled her up to the roof. Of course, she realized it was Percy pretty fast, but she was still confused on what was going on.

When they got up there, he pulled up to the same spot from Wednesday and took a piece of paper out of his bag. He held it up proudly in front of her face without a word, displaying the large red B- on the paper.

Her face broke out into a grin and before she could realize what she was doing, Annabeth jumped up into his arms.

"Oh my god! You did it! Congrats!" she exclaimed.

He chuckled, and put her down before saying, "Thanks! The teacher graded it for me right after. I don't think I've gotten this good of a grade ever!"

"Well, now you have," Annabeth couldn't help it, she gave him one more, sweeter, hug.

"I couldn't have done it without you," Percy said, placing a calloused hand on her cheek.

Annabeth blushed and shook her head, "No, you did this all by yourself. I just helped push you along a little."

And, GOD, she smiled that cute smile and Percy really wanted to kiss her. Then he realized what he had just thought and quickly pulled his hand down. No, Percy was impulsive, but he wasn't that stupid.

Inside, Annabeth was a little disappointed, but she didn't show it on the outside. She just smiled at him once more before taking a step away.

Percy cleared his throat, "Well, I've gotta get going...somewhere. I'll see you Wednesday."

"Oh! Right. Yeah. See you Wednesday," Annabeth responded before remembering, "Oh! I almost forgot, dress nicely."

Percy grimaced, but he figured he owed her for helping him get this grade, so he nodded while opening the roof access door.

Both of them had a lot to think about. There was no way they were developing feelings for each other. It was impossible. Percy was Percy, and Annabeth was Annabeth. There was no Percy and Annabeth or Annabeth and Percy. They were two separate people in two completely different parts of the high school caste system.

Ω❖Ω

Annabeth was freaking out. It was a stupid idea to begin with, but she still did it. She let her emotions control her, and it led her to that morning; the morning of the dinner.

She was pacing back and forth, running a path along her carpet in her bedroom. She had two outfits laid out on her bed, but she wasn't too worried about those yet. What she was worried about was Percy. Annabeth had started to somewhat trust him, but as soon as she had woken up that morning, every possible way he could let her down popped into her head.

Sure, she kinda wanted him to surprise her father by his appearance, but that was only as a small act of rebellion. Her father had mentioned that he hadn't seen any boys around ever, and that he was concerned about her social life. Therefore, she decided to give him the opposite of what boy you bring home to your parents. She was giving him Percy Jackson.

Oh, she was such an idiot!! There was no way Percy was going to follow through with his side of the deal, he had already gotten what he wanted. She helped him pass his math test, and now she wasn't needed anymore. He could cut her loose, just like her mother.

Annabeth felt her chest constrict in anticipation of an anxiety attack. She knew what was going on, and how to handle it. These weren't uncommon with her. So, she sat herself down on her bed and started counting her breathing. Inhale two three four, hold two three four, exhale two three four, repeat. Soon enough, she was calming down, and then her mind realized how irrational she had been acting. There was no reason to doubt Percy until he gave her one. She had to put her trust in him, something she had done to hardly anyone.

But she had already committed, and Annabeth Chase does not back down from challenges. She could do this.

Ω❖Ω

Percy was also freaking out.

Okay, so not as badly as Annabeth, but it was bad in its own right. He had admitted days ago that he felt something more than friendship towards Annabeth, but he still refused to believe it was a crush. Percy Jackson didn't get crushes. Or at least, that's what everyone in school believed, and in high school, your reputation is hard to get rid of (mostly because nobody wants to). So what if he let everyone believe he was a womanizer? It's not like it was true, and he and his friends knew that. He respected women more than probably every boy in Goode. Being raised by Sally Jackson tends to do that to you.

So there he was, freaking out over not having anything to wear. Don't get him wrong, Percy had plenty of clothes, but not one of them was appropriate for a "formal dinner." And if he had any chance of furthering his relationship with Annabeth, he had to be perfect. This night had to be perfect, for her.

Oh god, he sounded like a lovesick puppy!

He took one last look at his closet before falling back onto his bed in defeat. That was when an idea struck him. Thalia, his cousin, had a brother (who could also be classified as a cousin), and he was dating Piper, a total fashionista. They had only really interacted a couple of times, but he knew that she was a nice person. If anyone could pull him out of the ditch he had dug himself, it would be her. The only problem with his plan was how he was going to convince her. He hadn't even told his mom about the deal with Annabeth, let alone his little cousin's girlfriend!

In his typical Percy way, he decided to just wing it.

He grabbed his phone off his bedside table and pulled up Jason's contact, which was labeled "Sparky." Percy quickly sent a text asking for Piper's number, and it took a while to convince Jason that he wasn't trying to make a move on her, but he eventually got it.

With speed his dyslexic brain didn't know it was capable of, he texted Piper, letting her know who he was and telling her it was urgent for her to get to his apartment. She responded with a question mark, and he let out a groan of frustration.

Didn't she understand that this was a life or death situation?!

Finally, he just decided to call Piper. His tone of voice would hopefully sway her.

"What do you want, Jackson?" she answered on the first ring.

"I need your help," he answered.

"Too bad. I don't feel like committing any felonies today, sorry," she said.

"No, nothing like that! I need you to come to my apartment," he responded.

She scoffed, "I'm definitely not doing that. What's this about?"

With a sigh, Percy relented in a whisper, "I need your fashion advice."

"Sorry, what was that? You need to speak up," she said.

"I said, I need your fashion advice. Actually, I need your help dressing for a formal dinner," he answered.

She actually burst out laughing.

"This isn't funny, Piper," he grumbled.

"No no, you're right. This is hilarious! Percy Jackson, asking for fashion advice for a formal dinner!" she broke out into another bout of laughter.

"McLean! Are you gonna help me or not?" Percy snapped.

The girl in question took a deep, calming breath before answering, "Sure. I'll be there in 20."

Without waiting for his response, she hung up.

Percy had the strange feeling that he had just made a huge mistake as he settled onto his living room couch, waiting to open the door for Piper.

Ω❖Ω

"Annabeth! Come down here! I need your help!" Helen called from downstairs.

Annabeth had managed to distract herself for another couple of hours with homework and reading, but now her step mother wanted her to help with preparations, which would only remind her that the dinner was coming up. She didn't want to be reminded, but she also wasn't in the mood for a fight with Helen. So, she pulled herself up from her desk chair and went downstairs.

What she found was not the downstairs of her home. It was completely different. Decorations were set up everywhere, and the living room had been stripped clean of any of Bobby and Matthew's toys. The dining room was where she found Helen, who was hurriedly setting the table.

Annabeth was a little confused. Last she checked, they still had an hour before anyone would be showing up, so why was Helen acting like they had five minutes?

"Helen?" she asked, "You do know we have another hour, right?"

Her step mother's head snapped up, "Yes, I do know that. That's why I'm rushing. I still have to finish making the food, and put more presents under the tree, and finish setting the table, and get your brothers to clean up upstairs. We're running out of time!"

Annabeth really didn't want to comfort Helen, but she seemed like she really needed it.

"I'll help you. We'll get it all done, okay? It's gonna be okay," she said, "Why don't you go finish dinner while I finish setting the table? Then we can get ready while the boys clean up upstairs. We'll figure out the rest after."

"O-okay. Just make sure it all matches! Lord knows I have enough issues with your grandparents already," Helen agreed with a deep breath.

"Bye," Annabeth nudged when Helen didn't move.

"Right! Bye," she walked into the kitchen.

With a sigh, Annabeth continued her stepmother's work. She knew that this dinner had to be perfect for more than just her now.

Ω❖Ω

"Thank god you're here!" Percy pulled Piper through the front door and to his bedroom, ignoring her sounds of shock and protest.

"What are you doing?!" she exclaimed.

"I told you. I need your help," Percy answered.

He pointed towards his closet, which was disappointing him more with every passing minute. Why couldn't he just be a good closet and produce some nice clothes to wear? Was that so much to ask?

"Okay, I know that, but can I have some background info? Like who you're doing this for?" Piper said.

"No," he answered on instinct.

No way was he telling her that it was for a sorta-date with Annabeth Chase. He knew her reputation of being a total matchmaker, and he was not in the mood for her canoodling. It was just part of a deal. He had to keep that mindset if he had any chance of getting through the night.

Okay, so he wasn't being completely honest with himself! So what?

"Percy, I need to know what kind of event I'm dressing you for," Piper said in a gentle, but urgent tone, "I promise I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to."

She seemed to be serious, so Percy relented, "I'm going to a formal dinner with Annabeth Chase's family."

Whatever she had been thinking, his answer clearly wasn't it. Her face split into one of shock and then giddiness.

"I knew it! Jason said I was crazy, but I knew it! You like her! Oh, you guys are such a cute couple!" she exclaimed, practically jumping up and down in excitement.

Percy rushed to correct her, "No no no! We're not dating! We made a deal. I would go to this dinner with her if she became my tutor."

Piper's face fell.

"Oh. Well, I guess I can still help you," she muttered, "But I still think you guys would make the cutest couple!"

Percy let out a sigh of relief. He had started to get really worried there.

Some might think it was odd for him to put this much effort into a date, but this was just the real him; the one he hid from the world. He refused to let anyone take away his power now; to hurt him. No more Gabes.

But that was all in the past.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" he yelled.

"No problem," Piper responded before walking up to his closet and starting to file through his clothes.

Every so often, she would make a click of disapprovement, or she would sigh in exasperation, but she never looked up at him. For the longest time, Percy had to hold in his comments. He figured that it was best to be silent while she worked.

This was her specialty, after all.

Piper pulled out a couple of random clothes and tossed them onto his bed.

"This is the best I could do. You seriously need some new clothes, by the way," she said.

By the way she was gazing at his clothes, it almost seemed like Piper was physically hurting for his lack of style. He wasn't sure whether to laugh or be offended.

She had pulled out a black button-up that he never remembered buying, and a pair of new, dark jeans. He would've never worn any of the items, so he concluded that his mother must have bought them for him when she still thought his choice of clothing was just a phase he was going through.

"Put them on!" Piper ordered when she saw him just staring at the outfit.

"Alright, alright. Can you turn around please?" he said, going to lift his shirt off.

She scoffed but complied.

Once he had finished, he told her she could look, and then they just stood in silence for a second. It worried Percy that Piper hadn't said a single word, and was just staring at him.

"Well...?" he prodded.

"Damn! You clean up good, Jackson," she exclaimed, finally.

He let out a laugh, but a slight blush was dusting his cheeks. So what if he wasn't actually a punky badboy? That was for him to know, and for nobody at school to find out.

The only reason he let Piper see this side of him is because it was obvious that Jason was going to marry her eventually. It was kinda sickening how cute they could be sometimes.

"Alright, how long until you need to be there?" Piper asked.

He checked his phone and let out a noise of panic once he saw the time: 4:30 PM. He had to be there at five, which meant he had to leave, like, now.

"Crap, I'm late!" he yelled, rushing around his room gathering his phone, wallet, shoes, and keys.

All he recognized was Piper's muffled laughter as he hurriedly left and told her to lock up on her way out. He didn't even care that he was walking in socks on the New York City sidewalks, just that he got into the car as soon as possible.

The car he was driving was an old, beat-up, blue Prius that his step-dad, Paul, owned. Percy had asked to borrow it for the night so that he would look more meet the parents-like.

It seemed he was starting to come to the conclusion that he really wanted something real with Annabeth. Maybe even accepting it, screw his reputation!

Ω❖Ω

He was late. That's all Annabeth's mind could focus on as she tugged on her nude, strappy heels for the night. She had decided to go with a lacy, burgundy, off-the-shoulder dress that ends at just above the knees. She was, of course, wearing her lotus flower necklace (a gift from her mother years ago), and her ears had some simple diamond studs. She had given herself a slight grey smokey-eye and a nude lip. Annabeth wanted to go with her natural curls, so all she did was make them slightly more organized.

To some families, this might seem like a bit much, but to the Chase's it was normal. They prided themselves on regalty and opulence. Annabeth had never liked that, but it was easier to comply with her father's wishes rather than fight them.

But back to Percy's tardiness.

He wasn't actually late, but he wasn't there when she told him to be. She told him to be there at five, rather than 5:30, because she wanted to get the immediate family introductions over with first. Plus, Annabeth liked to plan for things. Planning meant no possibilities of mistakes, and Percy was messing-up her plans.

Just as she was ready to call him and chew him out for being late, there was a ring from the doorbell, and Annabeth was dashing downstairs. She had hoped to beat Bobby and Matthew, but apparently, luck wasn't on her side that night because when she got there, she saw the twins standing in the doorway looking up at Percy in confusion.

Her half-brothers hadn't yet learned how to not be blunt, and it was showing in that moment.

"Who are you?"

"You're not supposed to be here."

"I'm Percy, Annabeth's date," Percy replied in his perfectly smooth voice.

"Bobby! Matthew! Go away!" she ordered before they could ask more questions.

Percy's head shot up at her voice, and his mouth literally fell open. His eyes tracked up and down her body slowly, growing wider by every inch while Annabeth just stood that with a light blush coating her cheeks.

"You're drooling," she joked.

"You look beautiful," he said.

She gave him a big smile and grabbed his hand, "Come on, let's meet the 'rents."

"Yay..." he cheered half-heartedly.

She pulled him over to the kitchen, where her father and step-mother were finishing up dinner preparations. She cleared her throat to get their attention and they both looked up, shocked at what they found.

Clearly, they hadn't believed Annabeth when she told them she was bringing a date.

"Dad, Helen, this is Percy Jackson. Percy, this is my dad and step-mom," she introduced, awkwardly waving her hand between the two groups.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Chase," Percy shook both their hands.

Annabeth, internally, was shocked, but she just beamed proudly on the outside. Who knew Percy Jackson had manners?

"Nice to meet you too, Percy," Helen said.

Mr. Chase just nodded, skeptic eyes analyzing every bit of Percy. His eyes locked onto something peeking up from under his shirt collar.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing to the blemish on the boy's skin.

That was the last thing Percy wanted to answer. He had tried to hide his tattoos, but the one on the back of his neck was hard to hide. It was trident.

"Oh," he glanced at Annabeth before answering, "It's a tattoo."

He might as well just get straight to the point, right?

Fredrick Chase raised his eyebrows at his daughter, who chose to not be phased. She had known Percy had tattoos going into this, and it just added to the appeal of rebellion against her parents.

"Any special meaning?" he asked.

"Um...it's a trident. It's for my father, who died in the Navy," Percy answered, shocking even Annabeth.

She hadn't known his father had died, or that he had been in the Navy. She had just figured he was one of those teens who got tattoos with no meaning. Guess even she could be wrong sometimes, and a lot of that was happening around Percy.

She guessed it just proved the "don't judge a book by its cover" thing.

"Interesting," Mr. Chase mused, but didn't comment any further.

He instead chose to continue cooking, so Annabeth grabbed Percy again and pulled him into the living room, where her brothers were playing.

"Boys, this is Percy," she said, getting their attention.

Their heads snapped up in almost-perfect sync.

"We know," Matthew answered, "We met him at the door."

"Right," she said, unsure of what else to say after that.

"Are you guys dating?" Bobby asked.

"No, we're not," Annabeth answered.

"Cuz Percy said that he was your date," Bobby continued.

"Well that's not the same as dating," Annabeth clarified.

"You guys seem like you're dating," Matthew said.

Annabeth and Percy looked at each other, noticing that they had gravitated to sit right next to each other on the couch, with Percy's arm resting behind her. It felt so natural, that they hadn't noticed their bodies doing it.

Neither of them knew what else to say to that statement, but they didn't have to because there was another ring of the doorbell soon after. Annabeth hopped up to go answer it, and she found that it was actually the entire rest of the family, punctual as always. The funny thing was, she didn't even bat an eyelash at it; just welcomed them in and took her grandparents' coats.

As they were walking further into the house, Malcolm walked up to her and whispered, "And so it begins."

She let out a snort, but tried to hide it with a cough.

Unfortunately, he wasn't so far off. Family gatherings were one of two things in her household: loud and full of anger, or silent and awkward. There was no in- between.

As they got into the living room, she noticed that everyone was staring at Percy, who hadn't even noticed it yet. He had gotten down onto the floor and was playing cars with Bobby and Matt. That sight brought a smile to her face for a moment, before she realized that she had to explain why there was a "stranger" in the house, playing with her little brothers.

She walked up to Percy and pulled him up, "Guys, this is Percy. Percy, this is my Aunt Darcy, Malcolm, Uncle Casey, Aunt Carol, and Lexi and Cass."

He waved awkwardly, making Annabeth do an internal face-palm. He had done so well up until that point!

Nobody really introduced themselves, and that was fine by Annabeth. The less confrontation, the better.

The group dissipated and spread throughout the house, with only Malcom staying in the living room. He had a major scowl going on, and he was staring down Percy, who seemed pretty intimidated by it for some reason.

Honestly, he was intimidated by Malcom. He wanted to impress Annabeth's family because he kinda wanted to date the girl! It was crucial that at least some of them enjoy his presence, or at least tolerate it.

"Hey, I'm Percy," he held out a hand for Malcom to shake.

He ignored it and just continued to analyze every inch of the teenager who was "dating" his little cousin.

"I'm Malcom, Annabeth's cousin. What are your intentions with her?" he got straight to the point.

"Um," Percy swallowed, "I would like to continue hanging out with her. She's really nice."

He wanted to punch himself. 'She's really nice'?! Stupid, Percy! Stupid, Percy!

Malcom still still didn't seem happy with Percy being there, but he decided to not continue any interrogations, so that was a plus.

Annabeth let out a sigh of relief, and pulled Percy down onto the couch with her. Not even caring about the implications of it, she rested her head against his shoulder and intertwined her fingers with his. It was all very coupley, but she didn't care. That was what she wanted this to lead to, right? And it seemed like Percy was the kind of guy who needed clear signals, and this was about as clear as she could get without straight-up kissing him.

Percy didn't end up commenting on it, but he did let a small, discrete smile slip onto his face. He had gotten the signals, and now he had a plan.

Ω❖Ω

Dinner ended up going relatively smoothly, for a Chase dinner at least. The adults held a sorta-steady conversation, while the kids occasionally talked. The most-common topic amongst the teens was Percy. Cassandra and Alexandra were extremely happy to learn more about the boy, as they so-obviously were attracted to him. Annabeth wasn't sure whether to be jealous or amused that Percy played along with them.

When the night was drawing to a close, and the extended family members had finished saying their goodbyes, Annabeth led Percy to his car. She wanted some privacy for this conversation.

But it was a little distracting that Percy Jackson, badboy, owned a blue Prius. Sure, it was his step-dad's but still!

"This is too great! Leo's gonna love this!" she exclaimed, laughing.

"Haha, so funny. Are you done?" Percy deadpanned.

"Sure, sure," she gasped, and then moved to a more serious tone, "But I do want to talk to you about something else."

"What is it?" Percy asked, leaning back against the car door.

He didn't want to worry, but his mind jumped to conclusions he didn't even know it could. What if she didn't want to talk to him ever again? What if she needed him to commit a murder? What if she was pregnant?! Okay, that last one's a little far-fetched, but his mind is a little odd, okay? Leave it be.

"I was wondering..." she started.

"Yes?" he nudged her with his foot..

"Would you maybe want to go on a real date?" she sped out.

Percy grinned, "Are you sure you wanna go out with rebellious teen Percy Jackson? Won't I be a bad influence?"

Annabeth smirked, "That's what I'm counting on."

And oh god, that was not the right thing to say to him unless she wanted to be kissed. Absolutely not.

Percy said in a very serious voice, "I'm going to kiss you now."

Annabeth smiled, "Okay."

Then his lips were on her, and the metaphorical fireworks were going off, and confetti was being thrown, and everything around them was blocked out, and it was perfect. Their lips fit perfectly with each other, one slightly-chapped and the other plump and moist.

Percy could kiss Annabeth all day, and it felt like they did when they pulled away, breathing heavily and trying to catch their breaths. They had basically just started making out eventually, but people (unfortunately) have to breathe at some point.

"Wow," is all Percy could come up with.

Annabeth giggled, and it was the best thing Percy had ever heard, "Very intelligent, Seaweed Brain."

"Seaweed Brain, huh?"

"It just slipped out, but I think it kinda fits," she answered.

"Fine, then I get to call you...Wise Girl," he declared, settling his hands lightly on her hips.

"You know that's a compliment, right?" Annabeth said.

"Whatever, it fits," he said.

And that was such a Percy statement that Annabeth had to give him one more peck on the lips. Then, she pulled away and started to walk backwards towards her house.

"I'll text you!" Percy called.

"I'll be waiting for it!" she called back.

And, okay, so maybe the dinner wasn't how they planned, but it was better.

Ω❖Ω

Part 2? This can also be found on FF, Ao3, Inkitt, Wattpad, and Webnovel.

#percabeth #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #Hereos of Olympus #teen #Goode High School #romance #Christmas

[twstankin]

Revisions ( My Twst Persona Au )

(Edited Version for spelling mistakes)

Prologue - Part One

Wake Up Call

It’s finally here! Part one of the story! Still super nervous but y’all seemed to like the Scarabia sneak peek. It’s gonna be a bit before we get there. I also have to note, it’s going to be awhile before we get to the juicy persona stuff because this story follows the game’s plot. I apologize for any errors, but no beta we die like men here. If anyone wants to beta read for me I’d be really greatful~

I hope you enjoy!

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The first thing Yuu’s mind registered when they drifted into consciousness was the rattling of a door. The second thing was how uncomfortable their body felt, like they were crammed into a small space. They were laying on their back on top of a wooden surface. They tried to shift their body to provide comfort, but they were stopped by the walls of the box. What the hell was going on? Are they dead? Kidnapped? Buried alive? Their cynical thoughts were interrupted by a scuffing sound from the world outside their dark boxy prison.

“Gotta hurry. People are coming. Gotta get a uniform…!” The lid rattled again, but with more force this time. Yuu found themselves frozen as they tried to comprehend what exactly was going on.

“Grr! Why is it so heavy? Open! Open!” The voice outside panted. Yuu was tempted to call out for help or try to push against the lid themself. “Time for my secret move! Fu~naaaa~!”

The box became an oven in an instant. Were they being cremated?! “GYAAAAAAAAAAH! HOT HOT HOT!” They screamed as they pressed their back onto the wooden one of the box. They squeezed their eyes shut and tried to move away from the heat. It was useless, but what else could they do? The heat left as quickly as it came. They heard the sound of the lid popping off and slowly opened up one eye.

They were met with the blue eyes and smug grin of… a raccoon? A cat? Whatever it was, it had grey fur and a white fluffy belly. A tattered black and white striped bow had been tied around its neck. Yuu could have confused it with a normal animal, except for the blue fire that lined its ears and the forked devil tail.

“Hehe~ your uniform is mine~.” The creature spoke. The voice fit the little monster. It hopped into the box and on top of Yuu and began to fiddle with the purple and black robes they wore. They didn’t have a chance to question their sudden wardrobe change, because their reflexes kicked in at the moment. They hoisted their body up which caused the monster to be knocked off of them.

“Don’t touch me!” 

“Geh-?! WHY ARE YOU UP?!”

Yuu blinked. “A talking raccoon in a room full of floating coffins… is this hell?”

The offended look on the monster's face made their heart drop. “I am not a raccoon! I am the great grim!” He huffed. “Whatever. Oí human! Give me those robes!”

Did… Did that fucking raccoon just order them to strip?!

“Otherwise…”  flames erupted around the two and Yuu found themselves moving away from the sudden heat again. “I’ll roast ya!”

While Yuu didn’t doubt that he would, but they had dignity! Anger flooded their body. This pint-sized little-. “Over my rotting corpse!” They yelled and yanked themselves out of the coffin. They booked it to the first entrance they saw.

“Oí! Get back here!” The raccoon’s voice faded away as they ran as fast as their legs would take them.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

After a mad dash through various rooms and hallways before Yuu found themselves in a library. ‘A perfect place to hide!’ A bit cliché but they were in no situation to judge. With their back pressed to a bookshelf, the reality of what was going on set in. “If I am dreaming, somebody please wake me up.” Unfortunately for them, blue fire ripped them from their thoughts a second time that night.

“Hehe, stupid human! You can’t escape from the great Grim’s awesome nose!” 

‘Ah. He found me.’

“I’ll say it again, hand over the robes or get burned to a- GYAA!” A whip wrapped around the monster and restrained him. “Ow! Where did this cord come from?” A figure behind him glared down at the him. 

“This is no mere cord! It is a whip of love!” The mysterious man who had just saved their life was oddly dressed. He looked like a train driver. A coat with a blue collar and feathered shoulders rested on his back and a matching top hat with the same blue ribbon and feathers sat on his head. Under the coat his clothing was relatively normal. A black vest, tie, and pants with a white dress shirt. The truly odd thing about his appearance was the bird mask that rested on his face. His eyes didn’t show very much aside from the glowing yellow pupils. 

“Ah, I finally found you. Are you perhaps the missing student?” He turned to Yuu. “You really shouldn’t go off like that! Leaving the gate on your own!” He glared at the raccoon again. “And your familiar isn’t even tamed! Another violation of the school rules!” 

Both the monster and Yuu objected to that statement. No way was this hairball their familiar! After all the hell he’s put them through…

“Oí let me go! I’m not their familiar!”

“Right… he’s not-“

Birdman shook his head before cutting Yuu off. “Sure sure. The most rebellious ones always say that. Just zip it.” Then he gagged the monster. “How troublesome are you? A new student like yourself leaving the gate all on your own…”

“Never mind that, we’re late to the opening ceremony. Please follow me to the hall of mirrors.” Birdman began walking towards the exit dragging Yuu and the monster with him.

“Wait a moment… new student? And what’s a gate?” Yuu still had no idea about what was happening before them. They were already enrolled in a school from the few hazy memories that remained, and where the hell were they?!

Birdman acknowledged them this time, “ The room you awoke in, the one with all the doors. Those who wish to be students here must pass through one of the doors to arrive here. Normally, students wake up only after the door is unlocked with a special key but…” he trailed off. 

“Oh… so those coffins. They were actually doors.”

“The culprit here seems to be this familiar!” He tugged at Grim. “The rules state that if you are going to bring one, then you must take care and responsibility for it.” He paused for a moment. “Now isn’t the time to be scolding you. The ceremony will be done soon, so let’s hurry.” He nudged Yuu towards the door but they still had questions that needed to be answered. “Hold on! Where am I? And who are you?” 

“Hm? It appears the transportation magic has left you disoriented. It happens often! I’ll explain as we make our way, for I am so gracious.”

‘Gracious? Does everyone around here have an ego?’

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Once they entered what Yuu could call a courtyard, Bird man began to fill them in.

“You are currently In Night Raven College's Main building. This is a school for magicians blessed with a unique aptitude for magic from all over the world. It’s one of the most prestigious magical academies in Twisted wonderland. And I am the Headmaster, appointed to watch over this academy, Dire Crowley.” It was nice to finally stop calling him birdman all the time. But one thing was off.

“Magician? I think you have the wrong guy…”

Crowley ignored the last part of Yuu’s sentence in favor of continuing his explanation. “Only those magicians dubbed worthy by the dark mirror can attend this school. Potential students use the gates and are summoned from all over the world.”

 This dark mirror had clearly screwed up… unless Yuu was like a book protagonist and had a secret magic power?! Excitement and ideas of what might be raced through them. 

‘I take back my wish! I don’t want to wake up yet!’

“An Ebony carriage that carries the gate should have gone to meet you.” Alas poor Yuu could not remember such A thing. Hopefully their memories would come back to them soon. “The Carriage goes to welcome new students chosen by the dark mirror. A long time ago the market decided that carriages are used for special occasions to welcome people.”

“And where is this market?”

Crowley ignored him once again. ‘For someone so gracious he’s quite rude…’ “Come. We’re almost at the entrance ceremony.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The room that Crowley brought them to was packed full of students dressed in similar robes as Yuu, Black robes with purple and gold accents. It seemed as if the ceremony was already over. Students stood in large groups talking with each other, as other students began preparations to leave. It was nerve wracking to say the least. All of them could use magic? It was a bit of a scary thought. They all had a huge advantage over poor little Yuu! Most even towered over them.

“I am here~” Crowley called out into the room. All eyes turned to the trio. Yuu sunk into the hood of their robe. “Ah there he is.” A student said. “We were missing a student! I went out to go find them, for I am so kind~” he stopped addressing the mass of students and turned to Yuu. “As the only person left who has yet to be assigned a dorm, I shall keep the raccoon company. Go, step in front of the dark mirror.” Yuu did as they were told.

The walk to the mirror felt like a lifetime. Every pair of eyes in the room was trained on them. ‘No pressure.’ The so-called dark mirror floated in the middle of the room. It was larger than Yuu, and it had a beautiful golden trim. Green fire and a white mask with gold accents was reflected back at them. It was so cool, and Yuu had a feeling that they had seen this same mirror before.

“State thy name.”

“Yuu.”

“Yuu… The shape of Thy soul is…”

‘Here it comes…!’

“I do not know.”

‘...What?’

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Well here we are! God am I tired. Once I post this I’ll head to bed ;w;

... probably.

Tags: @lionheartanotheraccount @kimmy-banana

(If anyone wants to be tagged just ask me and I’ll happily do so)

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst oc #oop #oof #my wriitng #twst persona au #twst au #Twst grim #twst yuu #twst MC #dire crowley #the dark mirror #Revisions - Story #lets gooo #im very tired #im very nervous #lets gooooo #^^ #Mod ankin

[jynxes]

Leather n’ Red - Reggie Peters

Summary: Much like the deceased boys of Sunset Curve, Duchess died right before the gig that could’ve been her band’s big break. Thing is, she left the dark room a little earlier than they did, made a couple friends and learned a few tricks. What will happen when she and the boys can be seen when singing with Julie, the only alive person that can see them all?

Paring: Reggie Peters x Duchess Himura (OC)

Word count: 3.2k

Warnings: One f-bomb dropped, 2020 slang and the boys being confused

Thank you to @beansisarat7 for beta reading this chapter for me!

A/N: Here’s the second chapter! A quick little disclaimer, I’ve never actually been clubbing, so I’m sorry if this isn’t really right. That being said, I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, especially since I did it instead of doing homework, anyway, I hope you enjoy!

♪°•°∞°•°♪°•°∞°•°♪°•°∞°•°♪°•°∞°•°♪

Chapter 2 // No cap, but go off I guess

After hanging out in the garage for a bit, Luke poofs us somewhere. The guys grunt a little, not used to poofing everywhere.

Reggie looks down at himself for a second, letting out a "Huh?"

We all look out below us onto a familiar street, watching people passing on the sidewalk in silence.

Luke breaks it, "Hey, I know being dead isn't our first choice, but I mean, it sure is easy getting around."

"It's like, super easy to get everywhere," I agree.

"Easy for you, maybe," Reggie says, "I lost my shirt on that one," he gestures to his bare torso. I let my eyes linger a little longer than they should've.

Then his shirt poofs back and I let out an almost inaudible, "aww." Based on the look Alex gave me it wasn't as quiet as I meant for it to be.

"Ooh never mind! There it is," Reggie says, happy his shirt is back and Luke chuckles.

Alex and I notice the sound of neon buzzing and look up to see a sign for the Orpheum.

"Okay, so, why'd you bring us here?" Alex asks, "Just another painful reminder of where we never got to play?"

"Yeah, thanks Luke, not cool," I back him up, Luke and Reggie look up to the sign before Luke brings his eyes back to Alex and I.

"I mean, dudes, the game isn't over yet," Luke says before poofing us down onto the pavement below and begins walking, "I'm telling you, we've been given a second chance. Let's find some music. Let's see how many clubs we can hit before sunrise."

"We're going clubbing! A'right!" I exclaim, getting excited and giving Luke a high five.

We keep walking for a second when we realize Alex isn't with us, we turn around, walking backwards, "Hey Alex, you coming?" Luke asks.

"Let's go!" Reggie yells to him.

"We're partying tonight!" I yell before poofing away the red and black striped sweater below my AC/DC graphic tee.

"So, where are we hitting first?" Alex asks, running to catch up to us.

"I, uh, I actually have no idea," Luke reveals.

"Okay, don't worry, I know a few places," I say confidently before remembering that they think I arrived at the same time as them, "If they're still here that is."

"Okay, tell us, where we heading first?" Reggie grins excitedly.

"We're gonna see if we can get into The Doe," I tell them, "It's about three blocks over," and with that I poof us to The Doe.

The boys look at the sign for the club, and then to the line to get in. If we were alive then we'd have to wait like an hour to get in, but since we're ghosts we can sneak in in two seconds.

"Come on!" I say, grabbing their arms and dragging them in.

There's some music playing, but it's not any 90s songs, nothing they'd find familiar. It takes me a second but I'm pretty sure it's that band named 5 Seconds of Summer or something, Billy's been trying to get me up to date with music and I've been doing fine so far.

"She looks so perfect standing there

In my American Apparel underwear,"

Yup, it's 5SOS, Billy would be proud.

"Wow," Reggie says, looking around at all the lights and people on the dancefloor.

"Yeah," I smile, "What d'you think? Is music different now?"

"Well, this is one song, but it's pretty good, no Sunset Curve though," he grins.

"Yeah, I agree. But it's pop rock, so it won't be as full on as Sunset Curve."

"Wanna dance?" he asks me, extending a hand for me to take.

'Fuck it,' I think, "Sure," I take his hand and we begin to dance. It's not really a song you can dance with a partner to, unless you're grinding I guess, but we make it work, dancing next to each other and he spins me every now and then which is fun.

When the song finishes we go to check out what Alex and Luke are doing. When we find them they're looking at the DJ's playlist, and they are skimming through the names trying to figure out which are rock bands and which they think would be best to listen to.

"Luke," I say, taking his arm, "Just let the DJ play her playlist. If you wanna hear the new music then just listen to it."

"But, Duchess, I wanna hear the competition. I wanna find out what rock bands are like now!" he protests.

"Please Luke?" I say, tugging on his arm again, "I'll dance with you?" I offer.

"Ugh, fine, only because I can't say no to a pretty girl that wants to dance."

"Sure you can't Patterson," I smirk, pulling him onto the dance floor as a slower song begins. It takes me a second until I recognize it as a song by the Vamps, Somebody to You.

"Look at me now, I'm falling

I can't even talk, still stuttering,"

We hold hands and dance, lip-synching to a song we don't even know, laughing when we clearly mess up. He spins me around a couple times, and I dip him at the end of one of the choruses making us burst into giggles. I'm really starting to like hanging out with the boys, they're great fun to be around.

The song ends and we hug, "So," I begin, "What did you think of that song?"

"Well, it's not rock, and it's definitely not Sunset Curve," I roll my eyes at these observations, "But it was good, I had fun dancing to it."

"See? Just because it's not rock doesn't mean it's trash," I laugh, and he rolls his eyes.

I turn to Reggie and Alex before taking a step towards Alex, "Well, since I've danced with these two morons, I guess I owe you a dance?"

I put my hand out for him to take and after looking to Reggie and Luke, who both nod at him, he looks back to me and takes my hand.

The song we dance to is Girls Like You by Maroon 5. It's a nice song, slower and a pop rock song that's more pop than rock. We both have a lot of fun doing turns and exaggeratedly pointing to each other for every,

"When I come through

I need a girl like you, yeah yeah,"

Alex is definitely a dancer, and a good one at that. We both have fun dancing more hip-hop when we get to Cardi's verse and we're laughing the entire time.

When the song ends we join the other two and they just look at us both wide eyed.

"What?" we ask.

"You two really like to dance," Reggie says.

"Yeah, guess Alex isn't the only dancer in the group now," Luke comments. Oh, if only you knew.

"So, next club?" I ask.

"Sure, where to next?" Reggie asks me.

I think for a bit before deciding, "How about we go to Okay?"

"Okay?" the boys chorus.

"Yeah, Okay, it's a club, you down?"

The boys exchange a look before shrugging, "Sure," Luke says, "Take us to Okay."

♪°•°∞°•°♪°•°∞°•°♪°•°∞°•°♪°•°∞°•°♪

I take the guys to Okay and we dance for a bit, Okay plays a few older songs from like the 2000s and the 90s, so we actually know the words to these songs. We're goofing about and dancing when Reggie and I bump into someone, we exchange a look before looking back at the person we bumped into.

The person has short green hair, a long sleeved black and white top and a black skirt with black suspenders seemingly holding it up, they look great.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry," they say before realizing what just happened. "Ghosts?"

"Yeah, we're ghosts, I'm Duchess," I tell them.

"And I'm Reggie," Reggie says, putting out his hand to shake theirs.

"Well, I'm Kai," Kai says, shaking Reggie's hand," And in case you were wondering I use they/them pronouns."

"They— th- what?" Reggie stammers, confused.

"Oh, uh, Kai, Reggie died in the 90s and only just left the dark room, he's still catching up," I explain to them.

"Oh, that's okay, I can explain if you want," Kai offers, and Reggie nods his head.

"When we refer to people we use pronouns, right?" Reggie nods again, "Well, instead of using he/him or she/her, I use they. Like what you would do if you didn't know if someone was a he or a she. Think of it like you found a wallet, you'd say 'oh, someone left their wallet here, I'll leave it so that they can find it,' do you follow?"

"Yeah, I do. Thanks for teaching me," Reggie smiles, still slightly embarrassed, "I use he/him pronouns, is that right?"

"Yeah, it is," I smile, "And I use she/her."

"Well, now that we're properly introduced, do you wanna come meet my friends?" Kai asks.

"Sure, can we go get our friends, Alex and Luke?" I ask.

"Sure, go ahead," Kai says, "We'll be over in the booth over there," they point to a booth in the corner of the club.

They walk to their both and Reggie and I scramble to find Alex and Luke. When we do we tell them we found other ghosts and Reggie explains to them Kai's pronouns, he seemed really proud to be educating them and it was honestly adorable.

We go over to the booth Kai pointed out to us and meet their friends, Mel, who died in 2017, is cis and uses she/her and Eli, who died in 2019, is trans and uses he/him. They're really cool people who told us a lot about newer music, and what it's like being a ghost. They also told us that they like to prank alive people even though they don't really know how to do much as ghosts.

"Just because you can't touch 'em doesn't mean you can't mess with 'em," Eli says with an evil grin.

"What do you mean?" Luke asks.

"Well, for instance, they can't feel your skin, but they can feel fabric and texture," Mel explains, "They can feel the wetness of water on your hand but not your hand. Ya get me?"

"Yeah, I get you."

"I know this is off topic but tbh I don't care, Luke, your fit is so 90s but like it's also fire," Eli compliments.

"Uhhhh," the guys sit with their mouths open, not knowing what to say, because they are not up to date with 2020 slang.

"Eli, dude, they're literally from the 90s," I laugh, "They highkey have no clue what you're saying."

"Oohhh, tea," Mel gasps.

"Yeah, they make knowing basic slang seem like a flex," I giggle.

"Cap, that's gotta be cap," Eli shakes his head.

"No cap, but go off I guess," I shrug.

"Damn, no need to be salty."

"I'm not salty, they're just himbos."

"They're himbos?" Mel asks, "You sure?"

"Well, yeah, but like they also create a himbo when combined. Luke is beefy, you see those arms? And Reggie is dumb of ass," I say before turning to Reggie, "said with love. And Alex is pure of heart. Ergo, they create himbo."

"Can't argue with that logic, but I'm shook, how do you understand what we're saying, and they don't?"

"Well, first off I died in 2005, second off, I've been here a little bit longer than they have, that's why I have the 200 IQ plays that they don't."

"Still don't know what you're saying," Reggie says.

"Stop messing with them," Kai scolds, "I'm sorry about them, I died in 2014 and spent a little while in the dark room, it took me a while to figure out what they were saying."

"It's fine," Alex says, "We just, uh, just have a lot to catch up on I guess."

"You do, but it's getting late and if we don't yeet ourselves back home then Angel is gonna kill us, again," Eli says.

"Bet!" Mel agrees.

"We gotta get going, is what they mean, but we'll see you around?" Kai asks.

"Of course," I say, "See ya."

"Bye guys," they all say.

"Bye," the guys reply before Kai, Eli, and Mel poof away.

"Shall we hit the next club?" I ask the guys and they nod. And so I take them to what will be our final club of the night, a place called Midnight.

I poof us there and the guys drag me to a table before all turning to me.

"What?" I question, confused.

"How the hell do you know all that stuff?" Luke interrogates me.

"Yeah, I thought you showed up same time as us," Alex adds on.

"And what's a himbo?" Reggie asks, the guys look at him, "What? It's a valid question!"

"Okay, well, I didn't appear into the afterlife with you," I elucidate, "I just became visible to Julie with you guys. I've been here for like a month and a half already."

"A month and a half? And you didn't think to tell us?!" Alex all but yells at me.

"Sorry! I was confused when I was brought to you and Julie and then I realized who you were, and then I found out Julie could see me! Sorry if I didn't spill my life story to you," I sass.

"Yeah, no that makes sense," Reggie agrees.

"Yeah, I mean it's not every day you meet your music idols," Luke says arrogantly.

"And it's definitely not every day you realize they're huge dorks either," I say, pushing Luke's shoulder gently and he laughs.

"Reggie did raise a good question earlier though," Luke says.

"Oh? And what is that?" I ask.

"What is a himbo?"

"Ah, no. You're not ready to learn that yet."

"What do you mean?" Alex questions.

"You're just not ready. Trust me on that. Now come on, do we wanna stay here or will I show you some new things in LA?"

"Let's stay here a bit," Luke suggests, and the boys agree.

"Okay, let's dance then," I say grabbing them to the dance floor. It's definitely different clubbing as a ghost, there's no eating or drinking and no mingling unless you meet other ghosts.

After a bit of dancing the music quiets down, it's still playing but if you sang into the mic onstage then you could drown it out. I look to Reggie and he smiles at me, I nod to the mic and he taps Luke's shoulder and points to the mic, we smile and go onstage.

I look at the DJ's playlist and find a song that would absolutely be fun to sing with the boys. It's a song by Green Day and so although it came out in 2004, they'll still know the band. Before I put it on, I explain to them that although yes, the song does have a slur in it, it was meant as a reclamation and beyond that we can just not sing it, we agreed on the latter. I hit play on the karaoke option and make sure the boys can see the lyrics.

And so we begin as any normal person would start a song, screaming at the top of our lungs,

"DON'T WANNA BE AN AMERICAN IDIOT

DON'T WANT A NATION UNDER THE NEW MANIA,"

Singing with the boys was so much fun, honestly, I want to sing with them again for sure! People are confused when we finish because no one was up on the stage and we don't exactly sound like Green Day, but they enjoyed it, nonetheless.

♪°•°∞°•°♪°•°∞°•°♪°•°∞°•°♪°•°∞°•°♪

After staying in the club for a while the boys decided that they did want me to take them around the city. I show them all the new venues and places where bands play gigs, I show them what places shut down and what's there in their place.

The guys immediately stopped the tour when I revealed that I learned a couple ghosting tricks from my ghost friend. They really wanted to see what I could do, I can't really do much, but I showed them regardless. I lifted a couple things and set off a couple car alarms but I couldn't do much other than that. The guys found it really cool though, I gotta introduce them to Billy at some point.

The sun starts to rise and we decide that we need to start getting back to the Molina house, the boys want to wander for a bit longer, but I decide to go back to go check on Carlos, he's gotta be a little confused, especially after seeing Julie see me last night.

I poof to the door outside his room and knock quietly before hearing Carlos saying, "Come in."

"Hey Carlito," I smile after walking through the door.

"Hey Dee," he smiles, sitting on his bed, "What's up?"

"I just thought you'd want to know what's going on. Ya know, because of last night."

"Oh, yeah, could Julie see you?"

"Yeah, she, uh, she can."

"She can see you? How?!"

"Well, it's a long story, and I'm not 100% sure how she can see me either, but she can," I then whisper to myself, "I really don't understand why she can see the others and you can't though."

"What?" he asks.

"Oh, nothing. So, what's new, what are you gonna do today?" I deflect.

"Since we're moving, I have to pack my room, which means cleaning under my bed, and we both know that I don't wanna clean under my bed," the boy says, shaking his head.

"Hey!" I say, offended, "You found my demo under your bed!"

"Yeah, and who knows, I might find more demos and summon more demon ghosts!"

"I'm not a demon!" I protest, "I'm a ghost! A normal ghost, just tryna get through the afterlife."

"That's fair, well, I gotta get ready for school, but I'll see you after?"

"Yeah, of course Calo," I assure him, "I'll see you later."

"Bye DeeDee."

And with that I poof to the guys, they were still wandering around LA and when I show up we all decide to go back to the studio.

We all poof into the back of the studio and we hear Julie singing and playing the piano. This is surprising to the boys because she told them that she doesn't play, and it's surprising for me because I know that she hasn't played since her mom died, so it's a little crazy for all of us.

"Wake up your dream and make it true Look out, look inside of you When you feel lost Relight that spark, time to come out of the dark Wake up, mm-mm, wake up"

We all look at each other in awe of Julie. This girl has an incredible voice and she plays the piano amazingly, honestly I'm glad she's playing again, depriving the world of her talent is almost criminal!

When she's done, Julie lifts the last sheet of music off the piano reading the note that her mom left at the bottom of it before hugging it and crying softly.

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#reggie x oc #reggie peters fanfic #reggie peters fanfiction #reggie peters x oc #reggie peters #reginald peters fanfic #reginald peters fanfiction #reginald peters #reginald peters x oc #duchess himura #reggie x duchess himura #leather n’ red #nyxiefics #nyxie writes

[enchanted-prose]

#17 Blackberry Night ii

this wasn’t in my original outline for the series but here we are

Word count: 2,358

Characters: Tobias, Amarinda, Jaron, Imogen

Notes: huge shoutout to my darling beta, and also to my girl lu for being a tobias/amarinda stan

Enjoy!

Tobias didn’t always enjoy grand parties. They were too loud, too crowded. He picked at the color of his pale gold coat. Good thing he and Jaron decided to enter the great hall at different times, otherwise he’d be hearing comments about how poor he looked in the color he’d chosen.

Jaron’s leg caused too much pain to bear with talking to pompous nobles, Tobias and Harlowe both agreed to do the talking. 

The more nobles Tobias spoke to, the more he realized how much he didn’t fit in.

It was easy to ignore the divide between Tobias and the other nobles when he wasn’t around them. He avoided speaking to them unless he absolutely had to. Typically it worked. 

Some time ago, Roden explained how he was able to avoid unwanted conversation. He frowned slightly, lowered his brow, and always kept his posture straight. Nobody wanted to talk to somebody who had business to attend to.

However, Roden was far more intimidating than Tobias. It took several tries before Tobias was able to successfully avoid being cornered and questioned by a noble.

Too many people were at the Blackberry Night festivities, avoiding conversation was impossible.

When would he see Amarinda?

She was much more gracious at declining an invitation to tea from the eel eyed lord of Eberstein. When Tobias declined invitations, he felt rude, and was probably perceived as rude. He tried to avoid stepping on as many toes as he possibly could.

He was running out of excuses.

“I am so sorry Master Powys, my wife and I already have existing plans.”

“Ah! I can’t attend, I agreed to give medical attention to the poor in lower Drylliad!”

“Amarinda and I are going to be assisting the queen with washing her new cat, it’s been scheduled for months.”

“Unfortunately, Bymar holds a festival for their patron saint of cheese that day, and we can’t miss honoring him and risk ruining all of Bymar’s cheese product.”

There was no sign of Jaron or anybody else Tobias could talk to. He tugged at the sleeves of his coat. Glittering dust floated from the ceiling and was caught on the creases in Tobias’s coat.  The dust clung to his lashes.

It was more of an annoyance than a pretty thing.

Tobias rubbed the glitter out of his eyes, and threw himself into the crowd of dancing guests. He’d find Roden near the sweets table, he was sure of it.

Though his confidence took a blow when he reached the table and found no sign of his friends.

Now lonely despite the sea of people, Tobias made his way back into the center of the room, hoping that by some fluke he could locate Jaron. 

Both sides of the great hall were lined with trellises covered in plants; they formed tiny rooms complete with swinging trellis doors. One of them shifted ever so slightly. Jaron had to be hiding in there. He had to be.

Tobias wasn’t sure who he’d turn to if he was wrong again.

He’d almost managed to ignore the sudden wave of silence. Everything halted, from the dancers to the musicians. Nobody said a single word.

 His wife was responsible for the sudden reverence in the great hall.

 Amarinda walked down the stairs with her arm linked with Imogen’s. Her tardiness was easily excused; she captured the attention of everyone in the room.

One of the trellis walls wiggled, and Jaron’s head poked out from behind it.

The musicians began to play again, this time their piece started with a shy intro, playing with the softness a doe carried as she walked through the woods.

His face burned. You’d be a fool not to agree that Amarinda’s brilliance rivaled the legends of Carthya’s magical residents.

Her chestnut hair tumbled down her back, a gold net covering the top and sides of her head, framing her face in the process. The gown she wore boasted a high collar and wide, sweeping sleeves that threatened to brush the ground. White rosebuds clung to the hem, trailing up to bunch together at the edge of her gold bodice.

Jaron had forced his way over to Imogen; Tobias didn’t remember seeing him move.

 Was it allowed?

Was he allowed to speak to such an ethereal-

Of course he was! Amarinda was his wife!

Tobias pulled up the collar of his coat, smoothed back his hair, and marched through the bowing crowd. He’d married her, it was allowed. He’d married her, it was allowed.

“Somebody will write a sonnet about the way you look tonight,” Tobias blurted once he’d finally reached Amarinda. “After I have, of course.”

“I do love poetry,” Amarinda’s moonbeam smile was all too intoxicating. “Especially if you wrote it.”

“You look- you look absolutely stunning. Not that you don’t already always look stunning, it’s just- ah, I don’t know. Not quite sure of what I can say. If I wrote stories of magic and enchantresses, you’d always be my heroine.”

“And you’d always be my hero, Tobias,” Amarinda countered. She reached for his hand. “Dance with me?”

He took her by the waist, “I thought you’d never ask.”

The music grew louder; other couples joined the dance. Jaron and Imogen, Kerwyn and Mistress Orlaine. Several other young nobles twirled along with the rest. Tobias bit his tongue, praying his cheeks would return to a normal shade.

“I heard you used Saints Brigge and Naoise as an excuse to not go hunting with Master Previn,” Amarinda said.

Ah, Saints. Tobias’s face only burned fiercer. “I couldn’t think of anyone else, and I know how important Bymarian cheese is to you, we can’t risk their anger.”

“You’re absolutely right we can’t. Cheese carries far more value than we give credit.”

“I hope you’re not angry about not going hunting, you weren’t with me, and I wasn’t sure what to do.”

Amarinda laughed, and clung to Tobias’s shoulder as he dipped her. “Hunting is fun with the right company, but Master Previn has outdated views. He probably wanted us to accompany him so he could tell me about why I need to stop promoting trousers for women.”

“Maybe we should go hunting so you can wear trousers to anger him.”

“As funny as that would be, I’d rather face anger because of a declined invitation than turn Master Previn away from the crown. There are better battles to fight.”

“Battles like forcing Jaron to sit down and rest?” Tobias nodded towards Imogen, who was limping Jaron to one of the trellis walled spaces.

She nodded, “Exactly like that.”

Tobias raised their clasped hands, and guided her in a circle around himself. He remembered the first time he’d danced with her; truly, genuinely danced. It wasn’t as grand as Blackberry Night, and it never would be. They’d danced around the fire while smuggling Amarinda to Bymar during the Avenian war. Fink served as their musician by drumming on a log.

She’d taught him the steps to a Bymarian barn dance.

He practiced them in the privacy of his chambers after the war ended, only to be caught by Roden, which led Tobias to teaching Roden the same steps and a silent pact between the two of them to never speak of the experience again.

Roden occasionally served as Tobias’s partner when he couldn’t get the steps right. Tobias led, but he didn’t feel like he could ever truly lead a dance when his partner’s size rivaled that of a war torn bear.

Every practice session paid off when Tobias had the chance to lead Amarinda across the floor into the sounds of Bymarian pipes and drums.

Although the same couldn’t be said for Roden, who’d practiced the woman’s part too long and couldn’t quite get the man’s steps. 

He’d never forget the way Amarinda glided across the great hall’s stone floor after their wedding.

“I’ve been considering asking Jaron for a few days’ leave,” Tobias blurted as the music changed to a light reel. He tucked his left arm behind his back, and held his right as straight as he could while still holding onto Amarinda’s hand. “Just to escape to the countryside. Libeth, maybe.”

“Are you still thinking about the attack the Faola led against you?” Amarinda frowned.

“No, not really. A little, actually, but not often enough to put pressure on my work.”

It wasn’t quite a lie. Tobias had been in enough mishaps to understand when he was safe and when he wasn’t. The day after he’d been attacked had been-

Unpleasant.

He woke up the morning certain that somebody was watching him, only to find that Fink was waiting at the foot of his bed to deliver a message. Every creaking door reminded him of the way the Faola’s saber slipped from the scabbard. 

But he’d been safe in the castle the entire time.

Eventually, he recognized that. Recognized that he was no longer in danger.

And then he was able to continue on with his schedule as he always did.

“Where would we go?” Amarinda asked, pausing with the music.

Tobias shrugged, “Anywhere. To the south, to Mendenwal. I’d even go to Eberstein, even if there’s not much to do there.”

All he needed was Amarinda and he’d be fine.

Although a book would be nice too.

There was nothing more pleasant than the summer sun lazily pushing its way through trees while Amarinda was curled up in the crook of his elbow, reading the old tales of knights and vengeful spirits.

“Mendenwal is always very nice this time of year,” Amarinda mused, reaching to cross arms with Tobias as the dance continued. “There’s a village I’ve heard of that plants fields and fields of tulips. I’ve always wanted to go see them.”

“Then we’ll go,” said Tobias.

“And leave Jaron to his own devices?”

“He has Mott, Roden, and Imogen.”

“I don’t- I don’t know if I’d be able to look at flowers and eat chocolates knowing those three don’t have your voice of reason. Especially not after this most recent attack,” Amarinda took several steps back, a frown tugging at her lips. “I don’t think I can dance any longer, Tobias, there’s a lot of things on my mind.”

Tobias held out his elbow for her to take, “Then tell me what they are.”

They’d spent many a late night discussing Feall. Discussing Mireldis Thay. Saints, they’d even discussed Jolly, but that conversation quickly turned into a debate about a mandolin’s superiority to a lute.

He hadn’t had the chance to ask her how she felt about Renlyn’s confinement.

Amarinda soon took the lead, bypassing the trellis rooms and heading straight for the gardens outside. 

Distant music from the taverns fought for control against the uniform notes coming from the castle. The garden remained largely untouched, they were magnificent on their own with their immaculate shrubs and bursting vines.

And it was much less crowded than the great hall.

“I’ve been considering asking Feall about his relation to Mireldis Thay. He’s claimed so often that she wants to kill him, but perhaps he wants to kill her/ first,” Amarinda said. “Renlyn and Feall have been nothing but civil to each other. He accompanies her to lower Drylliad and when she wants to walk at night. Why wouldn’t she kill him during one of those outings?”

“To preserve her name so she can return to normal life once her goal has been reached,” Tobias shrugged.

“That’s what I thought. But why? Why does she want him dead so badly? And Renlyn never outright confessed to being Mireldis Thay, she was dancing around the question, almost like she was telling us what we wanted to hear rather than what we all needed.”

“We’ll speak with Feall when he can string together a coherent sentence, I promise,” said Tobias. 

“I’d feel much more comfortable leaving knowing we’ve done all that we can to help.”

How could he argue against that?

Tobias just didn’t want to admit that he was afraid that maybe there wouldn’t be a clear end to the Thay’s mess.

People disappeared all the time, they stole names, became new people. Tobias was ready to move on. He didn’t want to waste time searching for ghosts.

Especially after Renlyn’s humiliatingly calm reaction to being accused of treason.

He’d been so sure that Jolly’s hints were true. But perhaps Jolly’s claim to love Mireldis Thay more than he feared any king carried more weight than Tobias expected. Fear changed a person. It made them say things they’d never dare to think of just to feel safe again.

Jolly’s inability to tell Tobias where Mireldis was hiding technically fell under treason. He was aiding an assaulter of the king.

Would he really risk his neck for a woman he’d never been seen with?

Jolly of Angelmarr, a troubadour.

Tobias looked at Amarinda. A slight frown tugged at her lips, and her nose was crinkling as it always did when she was deep in thought. Intelligence burst from her dark eyes. She was forming a plan. A quiet plan; one that would bring her the best outcome at the lowest cost.

He knew he loved her more than he feared any king.

“We’ll fix what we can and then we’ll go to the tulip fields in Mendenwal,” Tobias slipped his arm around Amarinda’s waist, pulling her nearer to him. “And we’ll eat chocolate and say we’re going to be calm and not get involved in some whirlwind adventure and do the exact opposite.”

“Can we bring Jaron and Imogen? And Mott? And Roden?” Amarinda asked.

“If that’s what you want. We can turn it into a grand party, I’d do whatever you asked.”

“Even grew out a moustache?”

The thought of a line of hair covering his top lip made Tobias snort. “I’ll draw the line at a mustache.”

“Good,” Amarinda smiled. She reached up, and trailed her pointer finger along Tobias’s chin. “Mustaches are incredibly unflattering, and I’d make you shave it immediately anyways.”

He’d think about mustaches over dark deeds done by dark ghosts of the past any day.

The distraction was a welcome one.

#rheyre in love #tobias/amarinda #the ascendance series #the streets of drylliad #this #made me happy

[beerecordings]

How do we recognize ableist content like that? I've never been in situations like that, so something that look pretty harmless to me could be in fact quite shitty. I don't want to share stuff like that and be unaware of it, how do I learn?

well thank you for asking!!! but the first thing I’d like to do is make it clear that while I do trust myself to recognize many common ableist errors/choices, I do not pretend to be an authority on this issue any more than anyone else who’s done some research, talked with other people, and worked to recognize things. I need help sometimes too! Also I’d like to reiterate that I am able-bodied and people with disabilities are free to correct me.

The second thing to notice is that SOMETIMES these things are context-dependent. For instance, while I usually gag to see Jameson made into like the son of somebody the same age as him, if you’re actually writing an au where Jameson and maybe another character or two are actually children to another character, that can be pretty cute!!! In that case an adult is not being infantilized and he is not made into a child because of his disability - he’s being made into a child because he’s a literal four-year-old and that’s the premise of the story (and he still can’t talk). Alternatively, maybe Jameson needs extra attention and love and protection from older brothers after a traumatic event - but at some point, that Jameson should begin to regain his independence, should still experience a wide range of emotions, and should not be condescended to about his emotions or ability to function alone. However, please be careful with this… don’t use context to make excuses if you’re actually pulling ableist shit.

I think that list I gave in the post I made is a good (but not comprehensive!) starting point for some of the things to look for that are offensive to people with disabilities (some of these are specific to mutism). Let’s take another deeper look at these points:

Before reblogging something with Jameson in it, for instance, ask yourself - does this infantilize the character?

Is Jameson unable to function alone in society beyond the reasonable limitations we would expect of a person with a disability? Is Jameson babied to a ridiculous degree by the other egos? Does Jameson only experience basic emotions? Does Jameson ever stand up for himself or display “unpleasant” and unromanticized emotions such as anger, desire to isolate, desire for violence, ugly grief and sorrow, etc? Disabled adults are still ADULTS. Don’t treat them like little kids!!! If you want to portray Jameson’s trauma reactions - and you should!! he’s been through a lot!! - make sure this is more complex than just reducing him to a sweet needy baby who needs a hand to hold twenty-four seven. He should have ugly reactions too and be more complex than sad sometimes because he’s disabled and needs more attention. Otherwise you are infantilizing his mutism and romanticizing his trauma.

Does this erase Jameson’s disability completely or partially?

I have had people tell me it’s okay to erase Jameson’s disability because “they just wanted him to have a cute British accent.” I have had people to tell me to “chill out” because it “isn’t a big deal” that people erase his disability. I’ve heard people say “I couldn’t really get into Jameson for some reason, he just wasn’t my favorite character - so I decided to make him my own and give him new powers and let him talk and now I like him a lot!”

FUCK OFF M8

DON’T WRITE HIM IF YOU AREN’T WILLING TO INCORPORATE HIS DISABILITY AND YOU HATE DISABLED CHARACTERS. WHY ARE SOME OF U LIKE THIS. HOW DARE YOU qUITE FRANKLY

DO NOT SUPPORT CONTENT WITH A SPEAKING JAMESON UNLESS ANTI IS ABOUT TO SHOW UP AND CUT THAT BOY’S THROAT OR MAYBE IT’S AN AU WHERE SOMEBODY ELSE HAS THE DISABILITY BUT I’M NOT A HUNDRED PERCENT SURE ABOUT THAT ONE -

When you erase Jameson’s disability, you are telling every disabled person who might come across your writing that there is something wrong with being disabled and that they need to be fixed, as well as warping your own perception of the disabled people you will meet in your life. Do not use magic spells to erase Jameson’s inability to vocalize. Do not just decide you prefer a vocalizing Jamie.

Is this a respectful and accurate representation of a character who cannot vocalize?

If you are not disabled, you probably should not write pieces deeply exploring his relationship with his disability, because you just can’t do it right. I’m tired of seeing people write like ten thousand words of whump about how sad Jamie is about being disabled and how he longs desperately to just be normal like everyone else!! If only he didn’t have to sign!!! And he never seems to make any progress at accepting himself, he never seems to have any righteous anger at the people who treat him like shit, he always seems to let himself be comforted by other people telling him how to perceive himself instead of coming to terms with it with the help of both others and his own internal development. Incorporate his disability, and yes, it’s okay if it upsets him that other people react poorly to his inability to vocalize sometimes, but avoid stories which focus on him dealing with his disability exclusively if you are not disabled. If his disability is the only thing that ever makes him sad or makes him experience a negative emotion, you have fucked up again and you are using his disability for whump points like an asshole instead of seeing him holistically. I get upset sometimes because I see people will get prompts about JJ and it will be like… “job interview!” so they write one where Jameson gets turned down for a job because of a disability or it will be like “mourn!” and it’s about how he mourns his lost voice and “spell!” is about Marvin trying to fix him and just….. I guess it’s okay to write that stuff every now and then, but it’s a BIG RED FLAG if someone takes every single prompt or thought about JJ and makes it about him being sad about his disability.

Is this a respectful and accurate representation of sign language?

Please be aware that Jameson speaks BSL, not ASL! I think most people mess that one up just because they don’t know, not because they’re ableist, so it’s great to spread awareness! If you are writing something about Jamie, though, you really should know. You should also try to learn a little about the way people sign and just do some research! Also, when writing Jameson, be aware of the signing. If he is in another room than Jackie, then remember that Jackie can’t “hear” him. You just forgot he couldn’t talk! Double-check your work or ask someone to beta and this one is avoided easily. Be open to someone pointing out “actually, Jameson couldn’t do that, he was downstairs!” and work to accommodate him.

If I were unable to vocalize, would I be offended by this representation?

Many of us have disabilities of our own. Think about the things that bother you and how they apply to mutism or even other disabilities like Chase’s depression. One thing that always helps me (though I am not in a wheelchair!) is comparing this to people in wheelchairs. Would it be okay for me to write a fic where a person had their legs magically fixed after a lifetime of not being able to walk and then everybody liked them better and they finally found purpose? Would it be okay for me to write ten snippets in a row about how sad they are they can’t walk? Would it be okay for me to just decide they can walk now because I’m annoyed when I have to write in their wheelchair? Is it okay for me to say that they can’t wheel themselves around or that they use magic to move at all times and would not be able to move at all if someone were not pushing them or they lost their magic? Is it okay for everyone to treat the person like a helpless baby because they can’t walk? Honestly, I think we know more than we think if we take a moment to critically examine. Trust your gut.

Does this contain common problems in portrayal of characters with disabilities/mutism such as derision or lamentation towards sign language, making the character defined entirely by their disability (always a cheerful character except when reminded of their disability, for example), having other characters explain things about their disability to them, or treating the character as childish, needy, and unable to function in society because of their disability?

Pretty self-explanatory, but well worth repeating.

Do not show derision towards sign language (though a villain might, if it was clear that they are the villain and doing something wrong!). We have already discussed the complexities of lamentation and I suggest that you avoid that as well, especially if you are going to make his character flat. If you are not disabled, you really can’t portray it well, and it’s ableist to focus so much on the disability that you do not give the character any other complexity. Do not make the disability the “tragic backstory” of the character’s life. Complexity is important because it means you are seeing the person as more than their disability! You should know things about the character other than “they are happy and sweet and sugary and never get angry or make mistakes!! except sometimes… they are sad because they can’t talk uwuw poor baby” you look that shit in the eyes and you tell it to fuck off, you hear me? It’s great to have a sweet, nice, sugary baby brother Jameson as long as he is more complex than that, with real independence and abilities of his own and complex emotions and character! His disability should not be his one weak spot or his tragic backstory or some shit!

ALSO DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT REFER TO JAMESON AS “THE MUTE.”

like dude even “the mute man” is pretty fucking shifty because why do you feel the need to define him by that??? but definitely not “the mute moved down the hallway” i will block you on sight and you will deserve it that is SO offensive would you call a person who can’t walk “the cripple???”

Don’t have a speaking character explain things about disabilities to characters with disabilities. Speaking characters should not be condescending towards the character about much of anything, really, or else you’re infantilizing - if you need someone to explain things, obviously that’s okay, but do it in a way that recognizes that this is a mature and independent adult.

The character with a disability should be able to function in society past the limitations that are to be expected. No, Jameson isn’t going to magically start talking, but if he wants to go on a walk alone, he can. Let him do things like writing or texting. Don’t be afraid to give him a cool job and awesome hobbies. Let him have independence. If you can’t imagine JJ living on his own because he can’t speak, you’re doing it wrong. Look for signs that Jameson is capable of things other than making tea and kissing his brothers good night.

It’s okay to have a Jameson with a slightly childish personality, and I love it when he’s a sweet boy! But there should be more to him than that. I’m just going to say it - you know when Jameson is being treated like a baby. You know the difference between infantilization and a nice friendly man with sweet cute hobbies and interests. You can see it. Trust yourself. Don’t buy it when you see it and if you’re writing him, make sure there is complexity instead of just sugar-sweet with a sugar-sweet filling. He’s an adult. Remember that and remember that it’s harmful to pretend otherwise.

Geez, that was a rant and a half. Again, I am not the perfect authority. But there are some tips.

Does that help at all?

Feel free to add on to that if you have seen specific things in the fandom that I might not have seen or you have a disability and have experience with being discriminated against.

[legedsrebornamyheroacademiastory]

Legends Reborn Chapter 6

Chapter 6: To Detroit

(Disclaimer!)

Deku and Uraraka were fast asleep in the bed.

Someone knocked on the door. 

“Miroriya, let’s get a move on,” Aizawa said, “We’re about to head to the next city, so get dressed.”

Deku slowly opened his eyes.

“Man, I haven’t slept this well in years,” he said to himself.

Uraraka started to slowly wake up.

“I hope you feel better,” she said.

“A lot,” Deku told her.

“Come on Deku we gotta get moving before all the good seats are taken!” Tsuyu said, “And Uraraka, I know you’re in there. Don’t have too much fun.”

The two of them begun to blush madly.

“Tsuyu that wasn’t really necessary,” Aizawa said, “Just ignore that you two.”

He carried her away.

“Oh before I forget, a package came for you Midoriya,” Aizawa said, “You’ll find it outside your door.”

Deku took the package and opened it.

“Its finally here,” he said.

He showed Uraraka what it was.

“Whoa…..” She said amazed.

After a few minutes they stepped out fully dressed.

Something was wrong.

“Where’s Mina?” Uraraka asked. 

She was nowhere to be seen.

There was some kind of letter on her room.

Mina woke up and found herself in some kind of secret area tied to a chair. 

“So glad you finally woke up,” said someone.

It was the Quirk Monger looking right at her.

“Who are you?” She asked.

“Let’s just say I’m somebody you use to know,” he said, “We were supposed to be part of a club together but something happened that prevented it. Remember?”

He removed his mask.

“How about now?” He asked

Mina started to remember.

In her earlier years she accidentally disfigured his face leaving him scarred.

Because of it, he considered himself an outcast and wore a mask to shield himself from the outside world.

“Yusuke?” She asked.

“In the flesh,” he said, “With you here, I can lure All Might’s successor and take his place as the true hero.”

She gasped.

“Deku….”

“So that is his name,” he said, “Finally, a worthy opponent.”

“Listen, this is between you and me,” Mina said, “Just leave me out of it!”

“On the contrary, this involves your friend Deku as well,” Yusuke said, “And once I have him in my grasp…..”

He smashed a monitor.

Aizawa was reading the letter.

“Looks like he’s got her held captive in Detroit,” he said. 

“Looks like we’ll have to bring a search party there, get her back, and put a stop to the Quirk Monger’s plot,” Deku said, “Beta, we can use your radar quirk to find the exact building where she is.”

“And then some of us can go and save Mina, while the others fight off Quirk Monger.”

“Well only one question remains,” Aizawa said, “Why are you wasting time talking your plan over with me?”

He passed Iida the keys to the van.

“Good luck,” he said.

“Let’s go guys,” Deku said.

He grabbed the package.

Iida was driving the group to Detroit. 

“Iida can’t you make this piece of shit go any faster?!” Bakugo said.

“You wanna drive?”

Beta was in a meditation pose trying to find Mina’s chi.

Tokoyami was astonished by what he was doing.

“Its like he’s in complete focus.”

Quirk Monger noticed them coming.

“Send them out,” he said.

Some thugs in trucks were heading right at them.

“We got company!” Bakugo said.

Amii jumped out.

“I’ll handle them,” she said.

She flew at one car and shot an energy blast at it.

Iida was busy keeping the car away from any harm. 

He suddenly stopped. 

“Dude what the fuck!?” Bakugo asked, “Keep moving!!!”

The light turned green and he sped up.

Amii was still fighting off the thugs who were trying to slow them down.

“turn left,” Beta said.

Iida did as instructed while turning his blinker on.

“Are you serious?” Bakugo asked, “That’s it, move!”

He took the wheel and sped up past 60mph.

“Everybody buckle up, its gonna be a bumpy ride!”

Deku was putting his costume on. 

“Bokugo I hope you’re not just trying to impress people again,” Kirishima said.

“Not really, but I’ll settle for scaring the shit out of you,” he answered.

Another car came by and he did a drift losing them.

“Eat that punk-ass!” He said.

Amii was following them while blasting away at the cars.

“These upgrades really did the trick!” She said.

They finally made it to the building where Mina was being held. 

Deku stepped out all dressed in his hero costume.

Everyone stepped out in their hero costumes ready to fight.

“Guys let’s go and save Mina!” Kirishima said, “I get first dibs on the punk that kidnapped her.”

They all started walking in. 

Kirishima busted the doors down.

Deku saw Mina tied to a chair.

“Mina!” Kirishima said rushing towards her.

Beta noticed something.

“Kirishima wait, it’s a…..”

He was too late.

A trap door opened and almost the entire team with the exception of Deku and Uraraka fell down.

“Guys!” Uraraka said.

“Don’t worry about us,” Kirishima said, “Just go stop him!”

Some of Quirk Monger’s henchmen surrounded them. 

“Listen creeps, I’m getting my girlfriend back and you’re not gonna stop me!” Kirishima said starting his quirk.

Deku and Uraraka were racing to the top to find Quirk Monger.

Some thugs were trying to stop them, but Deku used his new techniques to blow them away.

Kirishima was fighting off the thugs. 

Beta used his quirk to create weapons such as shurikens and small knives.

Jirou was making small soundwaves.

Everyone was doing their best to fight them off.

A scream was heard.

One of the thugs had Mina in his hands.

“Stand down, now!” He said, “Unless you wanna see your pretty friend die.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Kirishima said.

The thug had a knife near Mina’s face.

“Put the knife down,” Kirishima said.

“Kirishima, stand down,” Bakugo said.

“I’m not playing!” Kirishima said.

“Kirishima!”

He knew he had no choice.

“Shit.”

He stood down.

“Now you all are gonna stand quietly while I bring her to my boss,” the thug said. 

“I don’t think so,” said someone.

It was Aizawa.

He had the thug wrapped in tape.

Mina rushed into Kirishima’s arms.

“You came for me,” she said.

“Of course I did,” he said.

Deku and Uraraka made it to the top of the building. 

There was also a news helicopter picking up all of the footage.

“It seems that some heroes are on the way up to stop the mysterious Quirk Monger from wreaking havoc on Detroit,” said a news person, “From what I see, he seems to be the successor to the late All Might!”

Quirk Monger looked at them.

“So you finally decided to show up,” he said.

Deku got in a fighting stance.

“Your reign of terror ends here, and it ends now,” Deku said, “I am here!”

“I see you admire All Might.”

He remembered the day he saw All Might defeat All for One.

“He was a fool to have fought someone who gave him the quirk he possesses,” Quirk Monger said, “All for One turned him into a champion, and this is how he repays him.”

He faced Deku and Uraraka.

“Now I’m gonna return the favor, by sending you back to him….. in pieces.”

Using Uraraka’s quirk he summoned tons of debris and hurled it at them.

“Look out!” 

They both jumped out of the way. 

Deku went in using a Detroit Smash.

Quirk Monger analyzed the move and jumped out of the way.

“When are you gonna learn.”

They came close at hand to hand combat. 

Kirishima and some of the other students made it back to the bus watching the fight at the tower.

“Come on Deku, kick his ass!!” Kirishima said.

No matter how many attacks Deku threw, Quirk Monger was able to evade them. 

He did a back flip and kicked him to the side.

“Deku!” Uraraka said.

Quirk Monger grabbed her and pinned her back to a wall.

“Well, this was going to end without an unnecessary beating but….” Quirk Monger said before turning to Uraraka.

He was about to use her own power against her, but Deku swooped in and saved her.

“You threaten my best friend one more time,” he said, “And I’m gonna lose it.”

Deku did his trademark move to blow a gust of wind at Quirk Monger.

He opened his eyes to see Deku coming at him with a kick.

He then did a combo attack of various punches and kicks pushing him against a wall. 

Iida jumped up and found Uraraka.

“You’re safe,” he said.

“Thanks to Deku,” Uraraka said.

“Come on, we need to go now,” Mina said grabbing her hand.

Quirk Monger attempted to grab Deku in a hold using Aizawa’s binds, but Deku moved quickly evading capture.

“Is that all you got?”

“Not quite, but I appreciate the ask,” he answered.

He used Iida’s rocket quirk to speed up against Deku attempting to hit him.

Deku blocked.

“Detroit SMASH!”

He punched him hard and he landed on the ground.

Quirk Monger chuckled and got back up grinning.

“While I don’t consider the word fun while collecting quirks to become the ultimate hero, this does put a smile on my face,” he said, “The opportunity to fight and eliminate All Might’s successor.”

He wiped his cheek.

“After all that, all you managed to get from me was a small drop of blood.”

He charged at Deku again forcing him down, then started beating up on him.

People were watching from the big screen, even Uraraka.

“Deku come on…… Get up,” she said.

Deku kicked him away.

He then launched a barrage of Delaware smashes at him. 

Using Amii’s cosmic powers, he shielded himself from even flinching.

When he got close enough, he punched Deku hard. 

“Even All Might wouldn’t stand a chance against me,” Quirk Monger said, “You’re NOTHING!!!”

His costume was torn to shreds from the beating he endured earlier, but he didn’t back down.

He attempted to punch Quirk Monger but he quickly caught his punch. 

He then used Plasma Ninja’s plasma power and stabbed Deku.

Everyone gasped in horror.

“DEKUUUU!!!!!!!” Uraraka shouted.

#dekuraka #izuocha #izuku mydoria #deku my hero academia #deku and uraraka #ochako uraraka #kirimina #mina ashido #mha kirishima #bakugo #my hero academia iida #legends reborn #MHA legends reborn #my hero academia #boku no hero academia

[mycatshuman]

What If

Pairings: Prinxiety

Word count: 1, 202

Warnings: don't think there are any except deceit is in this, please let me know if I missed any.

Thank you to the wonderful @civilsounds17 for beta reading! You're the best!💚💚💚💚💚

And to you readers, this is a short reprieve in angst from me due to the recent posting of an angsty update to one of my fics and near future start of another fic that starts off quite angsty. So..please enjoy.

----

Roman and Virgil grew closer with each passing day. To most, it seemed an unlikely friendship. But to the other five in their friend group, it was a relationship long overdue. Patton and Logan, the resident mom and dad of the group, noticed the chemistry between the two before they were even friends. Remy, Emile, and Dante, noticed once the two grew closer and began their ever entertaining flirty banter. Remy, had started the betting pool of when the two wound finally get together, or at least go on a date, 2.5 seconds after he noticed.

Roman and Virgil were not stupid. Far from it, in fact. They knew of the betting pool, they rolled their eyes at the attempts of getting them together. But in all honesty, both found that they couldn't ignore or suppress their stronger feelings for each other. It was only a matter of time.

----

"You say what if I hurt you, what if I leave you

What if I find somebody else and I don't need you

What if this goes south, what if I mess you up

You say what if I break your heart in two then what"

Roman pouted in his room. Earlier, he had asked Virgil why they couldn't just date for the hell of it. The answer he received was ...not expected.

"I just-" Virgil paused, choosing his words carefully. "I don't want to be hurt, you know? And it could go bad. And then what? Would we stay friends? Would we not? I don't want to-" Virgil swallowed around the lump in his throat. "I don't want to lose you."

"Well I hear you girl, I feel you girl but not so fast

Before you make your mind up I gotta ask"

Roman understood, of course. He didn't want to lose Virgil either. But, he wanted more. And he wasn't sure if he could handle just being friends. When he loved someone, he really loved them. He poured his entire being into that feeling. But he also knew, he would break if Virgil wasn't a part of his life anymore.

"What if I was made for you and you were made for me

What if this is it, what if it's meant to be

What if I ain't one of them fools just playin' some game

What if I just pulled you close, what if I leaned in

And the stars line up and it's our last first kiss

What if one of these days baby I'd go and change your name

What if I loved all these what ifs away"

Roman was a romantic man. It's the way he was. And to not even have an opportunity to try and romance Virgil was too painful. So, he did what he did best, he prepared a dramatic proclamation of his love and made sure that everything was planned perfectly.

----

It was a busy night for most of Roman and Virgil's friends. Patton and Logan had a date. Remy and Emile had work, then they would meet up with Dante and out on their date. It was basically date night for the group, besides Roman and Virgil. But if Roman succeeded, then it truly would be date night all around.

Virgil was in the living room watching Haunted Towns reruns while he waited for the new episode as Roman stood in his room, nervously clutched his acoustic guitar. He had practiced the song probably close to two hundred times by now. But, he couldn't help the nervous jitters that seeped into his being. "What it's" ran through his head rapidly and he knew he couldn't let in any of the negative ones. However, just before he could walk down the hall, one of the thoughts popped through and he froze. What if he says yes?!?!?! Fear rooted Roman to the spot. In the living room, he heard the commercials turn on and he forced himself forward and into the living room.

Virgil sat curled up on the couch and scrolling through his phone while he waited for the show to return. Roman took a deep breath, tightening his grip on the neck of his guitar, and cleared his throat. Virgil's gaze snapped up to meet Roman's. He raised a questioning eyebrow as he noticed the instrument in Roman's hands.

"You need something, Ro?"

Roman swallowed thickly and nodded. "I just wanted to ask again."

Virgil glance flickered down the Roman's instrument. "And you need your guitar for this?"

Roman nodded. "Yeah, just-" he closed his eyes painfully. "Just please hear me out. I want you to give us- to give Me a chance. And since you weren't persuaded by words, I'm trying to persuade you by music."

Virgil frowned and crossed his arms. Roman supposed it was as good an invitation as he'd get. He sat down beside Virgil on the edge of the couch and being strumming the notes to the song. Virgil listened. He listened to the lyrics and he listened to the soft voice of Roman as he sung.

"What if the sky falls (sky falls) or the sun stops burnin'

We could worry about them what ifs 'til the world stops turnin'

Or I could kiss you (you should kiss me), what if you liked it (bet I'd like it)

Well we ain't never gonna know unless we try it

What if I was made for you and you were made for me

What if this is it, what if it's meant to be

What if I ain't one of them fools just playin' some game

What if I just pulled you close, what if I leaned in

And the stars line up and it's our last first kiss

What if one of these days baby I'd go and change your name

What if I loved all these what ifs away

Awe yeah

C'mon

You say what if I hurt you, what if I leave you

What if I find somebody else and I don't need you

Damn

What if I was made for you and you were made for me

What if this is it, what if it's meant to be

What if I ain't one of them fools just playin' some game

What if I just pulled you close, what if I leaned in

And the stars line up and it's our last first kiss

What if one of these days baby I'd go and change your name

What if I loved all these what ifs away

Away (away)"

Roman finished. His eyes closed as he prepared himself for rejection. Meanwhile, Virgil was ...well, he didn't know. He was touched, he was shocked, he was happy. But mostly, he was in love. Roman loved him enough, or liked him enough to plan all this, to play him a song, to learn the song, and- Virgil couldn't grasp it. The idea that Roman liked him enough to do this was blinding.

"Virgil?" Roman called tentatively.

Virgil launched himself into Roman's arms and buried his face in the others chest. "We can give it a shot," he whispered carefully. Roman smiled.

"That's all I ask, Stormcloud."

Virgil smiled gently. Maybe it would actually work out.

"What if?"

------

Taglist:@spxced-oxt @superwholocked-for-life @mirror2thespirit @aroundofapplesauce @roman-flair @lyditist

Masterlist

I have no self control. Please, let me know, was this worth it?

#ts deceit #ts roman #ts virgil #ts patton #ts logan #ts remy #ts emile #deceit sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #remy sanders #dr. emile picani #RED #Prinxeity #Logicality #logicality #prinxiety #ts red #ts prinxiety #ts logicality #thomas sanders #sanders sides #ts shorts character #sleep sanders #cartoon therapy character #one shot #sanders sides one shot #mycatshuman fics

[aprilwritesabook]

I appolgize in advance for this long ass post haha.

Alright, so here's the deal. This post is gonna be part rant, part confessional, and part inspirational speech. So if your following this blog purely for the updates on my books you can skip it haha.

I know a currently published author. I used to kinda be friends with them in highschool, but it was more like a friend of a friend type deal. But I digress. Point is. They recently released there second book on Amazon. And I really wanna be happy and proud of them, and to see it as an inspirational thing, buuuuut I'm almost 100 sure they are actually a fraud?

And that's not me being bitter. I really really really wish this wasn't the case. But I have the evidence to back this theory up.

1- they claimed that there first book sold out multiple times. And to be fair this one might be at least partially true. Its rated pretty high on amazon, But then again they only have 4 people rate it and three of those people are the editor formattor and artist for the book. Soooo. Yeah I sure hope they rated it well.

2- they are constantly posting stories to there social media that are far fetched at best. They work in a bookstore. And almost every other week its a slightly diffrent story about a customer who "didn't even know" he was the author who would "burst into tears" the second he told them what the book was about because they were just Soooo touched by the message that they wept to a total stranger??? If that had happened even once it would have been an odd occurance. And this is something that apparently happens alllll the time to them. (I hate to drudge up old memes like this, but)

3- this person has recently made a tick tock and a youtube channel. And like, the content isssss questionable? And that's not necessarily a crime or anything. But they give updates about it on social media as if they are speaking to a mass of adoring fans and like...you can see how many subs and views a person has. We know he dosn't have a big fan base. And I know that sounds harsh. But like, some more gullible people have asked him for advise on how to be "successful" and "gain a following", and he answers them with authority. Like he has the answers even though he clearly dosn't? And that feels really... disingenuous at best?

4- along the same vein as 3. They recently made a post on twitter about how they are "overwhelmed by the amount of love and support they have found on the site" and how they get "some many heartfelt messages." Annnd again. I clicked the account. They literally have 5 followers. And not a SINGLE person has EVER liked, retweeted, or commented on a SINGLE tweet of theirs. Not one. Soooo like not only are you pretending to have a huge fan base that dosn't exist your also making up there engagement with you? Which this alone I feel brings validate to my doubts about the other things. Clearly they arn't above blatant lying and extreme over exaggeration. And also they either don't realize we can all seeeee these facts. Or they don't think anyone will actually check and call them on it ?????

Now there's a lot of other examples I could give. But my point isn't to put this ONE person on blast. I'm not trying to start beef or cause damage to their reputation or anything. Which is why I won't say their name or what there books are. The only way you'd know who I'm talking is if you also knew them in real life. In which case you either already know all this, or you should, so you don't fall victim to their lies.

The reason I'm saying any of this at all is because I think I know why they are doing it. And why so many indie authors or would be media mogels feel the need to do this.

The issue with trying to "build an audience" and "self market" yourself, is that you really only have 2 ways of guaranteed sucess.

You either need to have a pre established audience based on success you've already had in the past. (IE youtubers and movie stars writing successful books cause there fans will buy anything of there's reguardless.)

Or you need to buy your way in. Be it by quitting your day job to make social media your full time job, buying ads, hiring a social media person,or hiring a team of people with their own audiences (audio book narrators, cover artists, managers, ect)

And if you don't ALREADY have an audience, and you don't have the funds to BUY your way in, then your just gonna have to get real lucky.

You can be lucky for knowing somebody with an "in". They work in publishing, or advertising, or they're your rich uncle. Just someone who you can go to to get that boost one way or another to get one of the first two methods going for you.

You can get lucky by commenting the right thing on the right post and gaining followers that way. Or by being in the right place at the right time to meet somebody important.

You can be lucky by having lots of supportive friends and family who will promote you and your work FOR you.

Or lastly (and this is in the realm of being a one in a million case here. So it basically never happens without one of the other things I mentioned also being true.)

You can be lucky by working REALLY hard, and being REALLY talented, and having the world actually NOTICE YOU somehow? Just one person with influence who can find you in your dark hole of insignificance and shine a light on you so now the world can actually seee you.

And that sucks.

You could write the greatest book in the whole world. Truly a masterpiece. But if nobody buys it or reads it because they don't know who you are??? Then it dosen't matter does it?

It sucks Soooo hard.

Because untill you get those people with influence to shine a light on you, theres nothing you can do. And the market is soooooo drenched in new indie authors that the odds of the right people finding and liking your book are slim to none.

Its super unfair.

The people who have the influence arn't gonna buy a book with 0 reviews and no social media following.

Why? Because THEIR brand depends on only recommending the good shit. And they need to find that good shit NOW. If they read every book written by nobody's online, they'd have to wade through ALOT of garbage. wasting all their valuable time and money till they found something worthy. And honestly, from a business stand point, you cant really fault them for that

This is where the lies come from.

So basically no matter how you look at it, or what your strategy is, In order to get fans, you need to ALREADY HAVE THEM.

When your just starting out. And I mean truly at square one. It really feels like the only way to "make it" is to "fake it"

If you PRETEND to have a big following. And you PRETEND your books are selling really well already. And you PRETEND that people care deeply about you and your work... Then there is a chance that nobody will do the homework to find out its all a lie.

And if they think your successful already, then it sends a message to the consumers brains of "well they must be good. Everybody loves it/them".

It sucks that so many people who have found real success did so with lies, cash, and being already well connected.

And then they buy it, and they follow you, and the confirmation bias sets in, and eventually you'll dupe enough people into liking you that you don't HAVE to lie anymore.

Those of us with no cash and too high a conscious to lie our way to the top are left with virtually no chance of succeeding no matter how hard we work or how good our content is.

And I'm not claiming to be "better than" or "more worthy" than anyone else. I wanna make it clear that of your in the portion of having it fake it so you can follow your dreams then more power to you. Its a valid strategy. I hate that it works and I hate that its the only option sometimes. But I don't hate the people as creators for "doing what it takes." I get it. Really I do.

And it suckks major ass that so many people feel like this is the only way.

My whole point here. Is that we have slowly built a system where this is our reality. And honestly? End of the day? There's not a damn thing we can do to change it at this point.

In a perfect world made of unicorns and puppies. I could say "hey lets all go ready books by completely unknown authors. Be the change you wanna see in the world." But at the end of the day, especially in the unfiltered world of self publishing, It would be a complete shot in the dark to spend your resources on something completely unknown. We rely on word of mouth, and "best sellers" and high following to do the work of filtering out the bad stuff for us and it would be unrealistic if not impossible to go back on it now. Even if we wanted to there algorithms and shit built into the code. You'll never find the books that Amazon dosnt want you to find unless you search for it directly.

Now comes the confession/inspirational bit

I know all of the above to be true...But I'm choosing not to care

I'm not gonna lie my way to the top. I'm not gonna hide my struggles out of fear of seeming inferior. So here goes

I struggle a lot with depression and anxiety. I've been working on it, and I've gotten so much better in recent years. But there are always gonna be times when I slip up and my mental illnesses take over

When I was writing my first book I felt really empowered and good about myself for finally getting past all my own barriers and following my dreams.

And then once I was done writting and editing and I was ready to show the world and get feedback. I flopped.

I couldn't find anyone willing to beta read. Those who said they would do it (even people who claimed they "couldn't wait") ghosted me after I actually sent it to them

I was hoping to get 20 people. I really wanted it to be the best it could be. Only 11 actully signed up. Of that 11, 5 people actually read it: My spouse, my brother, my best friend, and 2 others. Those two others read the first bit I sent them, took a few weeks to get back to me, said they loved it, but then Neeeeeeeeever got back to me when I sent them the next chunk.

Now you can look at all that and come to the conclusion that it sucks. I know I sure did.

The struggles at each step made me doubt myself more and more to the point that I almost gave up writing all together.

And I didn't want to take about it or how it was making me feel, even though it was having a serious impact on me. I wanted to bottle it all up and let it consume me. Allllll because I didn't want people online to write me off as a failure before even giving me the chance.

I wasn't lying about being successful. I was just trying to hide the fact that I wasn't.

And that's almost as bad. Because then all the new authors just feel worse about themselves and their journey because they think they are the only ones.

Your not alone.

Everyone is struggling.

We just aren't talking about it.

I haven't written a word in over a week because I've been so afraid my second book will be dead on arrival like my first.

And I KNOW somewhere out there is someone just like me whose thinking of giving up.

Don't.

Just keep going.

Do your best. And then come find another struggling writer and share with each other. The world outside might not understand your struggle. But another author might.

We can't change the market. We can't change the way social media works, or how people decide if they will buy things

But what we CAN change, is whether those of us within the community want to be honest about our struggles and frustrations. Or if we want to hide them away and lie about them for the sake of making more sales

I think by being honest with one another we can create a better network.

That way the next time you feel like garbage for not being an "instant celebrity" like everyone else. you can look at the community and realize that you were never the problem

If we just keep making new writing friends our collective reach will eventually take hold in the outside world. Don't wait for a random influencer to notice you. Just make one friend at a time. Be known amongst your peers and maybe the rest will follow

And if your a writer desperate for feedback, or just a friend to share your troubles with. Hit me up. My inbox is always open.

#writing advice #novel writing #my writing #writers #writing #writblr #writeblr #my rants #sorry for the rant #personal rant #stop lying #be honest #make friends #fake followers #influencer #kindle #amazon kdp #indie author #author #poetry #not an update #the strugge is real #beta reader #beta request #partner #ignore me #long post

[dreadnought-dear-captain]

Steve’s Ending: What the Fuck Just Happened?

                            ************WARNING*********** 

BIG-ASS ESSAY WITH SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS: ENDGAME AHOY

I have been largely out of the fandom sphere for a spell because of personal stuff that went down and then subsequent Endgame anxiety (I’m sorry, I really will get to some BW asks as soon as I’m done reeling from this film), but I wanted to get out some thoughts about Endgame while they are fresh in my mind. I have seen Endgame twice since its release. I saw it Friday morning, debriefed with my beta @pitchforkcentral86, and then turned around and bought tickets for an evening showing the same day. Why? Because I had to process Steve’s last scene. I had to see it twice just to comprehend what the hell happened and then try to interpret it. I went through several hypotheses and waves of accompanying emotion and then came to a tentative personal conclusion about what the hell Steve’s ending is to me.  But first I had to ask— Is this a true happy ending? Is this lazy writing? Is this a character assassination? Is this a legitimate choice Steve would make? Some combination of the above? So, here go my hypotheses—

Hypothesis 1: This is a legitimate happy ending for Steve and his timeline.

If you only look at the images shown to us and don’t devote much thought to the implications of Steve’s choice for other people in the world, it might appear to be a beautiful ending. After a decade-and-a-half of compass-gazing and pining for the good old days of segregation and boiled food, Steve gets what he wants. He gets the person who is — surprise! — “the love of his life.” This plays into the ongoing narrative that Steve has never been able to find contentment in the modern world or with modern people (some of whom he refers to as “family,” interestingly enough). This hypothesis also assumes that he can only be happy if he is with one woman, because he assumes shared life experience is a prerequisite for partnership, which means that he has essentially preemptively foreclosed on any relationship with anyone who is not Peggy.  Since Bucky’s name has barely even entered Steve’s consciousness lately, except to emotionally whump his past self into not choking him to death, even their friendship seems to be a question in the last two films in this series.

So if we take the arc of these films into consideration, including the last two films, he has apparently resigned himself to a position of “Peggy is my only viable romantic relationship, and she is dead, and I am incomplete as long as this is true.” When you write this thesis for Steve Rogers, which is a sad thesis indeed, this ending might seem like a relief for him. (It could also be argued that it is terribly lacking in resiliency and flexibility and is naive, at best, in terms of what is love versus infatuation versus idealization.) Problematic in this happy ending scenario: The writers clearly did not consider the second and third order effects of this decision. They just needed to tie up Steve’s timeline and get Chris Evans out of the franchise, and this was a way to do it that resonates at face value. Man out of time gets put back in his time. Gets love. Quote: “It was beautiful.” Ignore all of the following and more: -There will now be two Steve Rogers in this timeline. -One of them will presumably be with Peggy Carter for at least a good chunk of time, unless things went south. -Peggy Carter is the director of SHIELD. Her close associates are undoubtedly known to them as a result. -Thus, Steve Rogers probably could not just stay hidden in the pantry. SHIELD would want to debrief him. They would want to know how the hell he got there. Questions would get asked. This could not remain a secret forever. -Is Steve Rogers going to sit out history? Hang on the couch while the world burns, shield unused? -Is Steve Rogers, knowing that Bucky is alive, going to leave him to rot with Hydra? -Even if they made some sort of arrangement beforehand, like Bucky saying it’s okay, don’t come get me, would they both sit well with continuing to let him kill all of the innocents he killed? -If Steve did go get Bucky, he would likely find him some time in the span of however many years he’s in the past. The future would be completely changed. -If he intervened and found Bucky, Sam Wilson would not be Falcon because TWS would not happen. This version of Bucky would not exist. This end scene could not happen. -Thus, this does not seem to be something that Steve chose to do during his life with Peggy. (Debunked-ish, along with other “Back to the Future” science hereafter, below) Which brings me to my second hypothesis about this ending. Hypothesis 2: This was thought out, but it represents writers Markus and McFeely’s disconnect from the character they built. This is where the “there is no way in hell Steve would sit on the couch where the world burns, where Bucky suffers with Hydra etc.” argument comes in. This taints the ending in a particularly sour way, because they have labored so hard to build an image of Steve as someone who would wreck the world to save Bucky Barnes from harm and stop at nothing to prevent serious harm in the world where he could. It’s what he wanted in the first place! It’s where we all started in TFA! The Steve we know and love would want to go to Korea. To Vietnam. He would want to stop the Khmer Rouge and all the bad shit he could intervene with. Right? And his ass would try to save Bucky, especially knowing exactly where he’s kept! Right?? He would keep going and going until he was worn down into a nub of nothingness. Right??? Which meanders me to— Hypothesis 3: This was a decision that Steve Rogers made that is plausible for his character and was deliberate on the part of the writers. Second and third order effects included. This may be a stretch, but I think it could be argued on the grounds of good becomes great, bad becomes worse. Steve does nothing by half measures, an intrinsic trait that is amplified by his transformation. I have always argued that Steve has a very real selfish streak, or else he never would have tried to enlist in the Army so many times knowing he is absolutely unqualified to serve. Serving in his original condition would have put so many lives at risk, and others would have had to pick up his slack, because he would have been next to physically useless in combat as small Steve. But he would not accept reality, and he would not accept a “lesser” form of helping because it had to be the way that served his ego and his sense of rightness and justness for himself, consequences to other soldiers and the mission be damned. It was myopic and self-serving. And if good becomes great and bad becomes worse, maybe this is a form of that. Maybe he and Bucky agreed (because they were clearly in cahoots with that final scene business) that he would not intervene and rescue him, because then there would be no Falcon, or simply on the principle that the timeline must remain as undisturbed as possible. And maybe this one time, Steve didn’t say “fuck you, Bucky” and do what was right. Maybe Steve Rogers was done. Fucking done. Maybe he realized that what he first wanted at the beginning of TFA is not tenable. That he can’t fight forever. That he, like Tony, needs to rest, and that he can’t do that in the modern world. Which is interesting, because he essentially becomes Tony Stark v1.0 in the end, only caring about himself and his own. And Tony Stark becomes Steve Rogers, making the ultimate sacrifice for mankind. So Steve enjoys a life with Peggy while the world burns because he just can’t do it anymore. He’s paid his dues and he’s done being Captain America or Nomad or anyone else. (Wonder how she likes that version of Steve...?) Though how he could possibly say “It was beautiful” is utterly beyond me. I can’t fit that into this hypothesis, unless he has compartmentalized so hard and so well that he has forgotten about Bucky’s existence completely. And if he has, this is a very sad ending for his character.

There are probably many other hypotheses out there. They just didn’t percolate through my mind yet.

Which brings me to some things @pitchforkcentral86 brought up:

Why was Tony Stark’s arc so perfectly completed, so beautifully closed — truly, even I shed a tear — when we have to sit here writing stupid billion word theses on a nearly defunct blog site, grasping for straws, scratching our heads, wondering what the fuck just happened to Steve Rogers? It’s like getting to know somebody for eight years, being told the same stories about their behavior, learning their values system, their truths… and then being thrown a parting image that can only make sense if  a) the writers cannot be trusted — and maybe could not be trusted this whole time, or b) the character is actually not the person we thought he was.

Is either of these what we want to be left with as we close this phase of the MCU? Either the writers failed or Steve Rogers is not the person we love? And do we really not get to see Bucky and Steve’s friendship arc get closed in a meaningful way after building its depth for three movies? Are we really supposed to count a cheap recycling of a TFA line and some shimmery-eyed SebStan woobieface (TM) and some secret time travel hook-up conspiring off-camera (AS THEIR ENTIRE RELATIONSHIP HAS BEEN SINCE CIVIL WAR, PRESUMABLY, OFF-FUCKING-CAMERA) as “closure”? So, what do I think? I think this was lazy, crap writing, and I think Markus and McFeely thought we wouldn’t consider the timey-wimey implications too much. I think they know this character, and I don’t think they figured this would assassinate his character. I think they just really, really needed to tie this story up in a superficially pretty bow, and they couldn’t kill off both Tony and Steve, so they needed to give him something that took him out of the franchise. And that scene at the end with Peggy was aesthetically BEAUTIFUL. I smiled the first time, ear to ear, until my brain kicked in two minutes later and realized what it meant. They have been building up to this forever, kindling Steggy pretty much every movie. We Stucky people are all like yeah, yeah, Peggy, so sad, but the films have been consistent all along about saying a) Steve is a man out of time, and b) he loves Peggy Carter. (However you wanted to interpret that love... until the support group, where the interpretation is made for us). Support group side note: First, I squeed that Steve was running a support group in what I’m pretty sure is a VA auditorium. And on one hand, I loved the super chill gay Russo cameo and Steve’s untroubled reaction. Three cheers for the first openly gay character in the MCU [eyeroll]. But also, it felt like a total concession, like okay all you Stucky idiots we’ve been queer baiting over the years, we are gonna drop an A-bomb your little kingdom, but look, at least Steve isn’t a homophobe! See? He’s cool with the gays and so are we. Thanks for playing. Maybe you’ll get a REAL queer character in the next phase of the MCU! (If you even stick around after the shit we’ve just pulled.) But this laziness is problematic, because it feels terrible and discrepant. Intended or not, it does have serious implications for the timeline and/or the character, and the final scene existing the way it is potentially means at least one of two things: 1. Time doesn’t work the way we think it does. (In other words, what if there is a world where time travel Steve did all these good things like free Bucky, end the Vietnam War early, etc.?) However, since he is here on this bench with Bucky and Sam, dropping off this shield, this is implausible. If he just disappeared for good and Bucky explained the situation with a tiny, knowing smile, then it would be possible that he started an alternate reality where he did all these very Steve-congruent things and freed Bucky in that timeline, which would not affect this one. Wouldn’t that be nice? I could live with that. Just disappear into the sunset and we can write fics to fill in all the gaps of his Steve-ness. His core character is retained. Hooray. 

But if he started an alternate timeline, he would not be here with Bucky and Sam like this in the original timeline as an old man, which suggests that he jumped back in the same timeline. Unless they invented technology to jump between timelines. Or Dr. Strange jumped him back to this bench just to drop the shield off and high five with Sam and then is going to take him back any second or some dumb shit that has no basis in anything we have seen on screen (see @pitchforkcentral86’s point above about grasping for bullshit just to make sense of this). Or it means that— 2. Steve did not do anything and did not give a fuck about it. Both of these are terrible. Terrible. I would rather have had Steve die than have this ending. And this has nothing to do with Stucky for me, because Stucky is mostly just a fun fandom thing for me. I don’t mind that he ended up with Peggy per se. It’s the implication that he didn’t save his friend, knowing EXACTLY — geographically and historically — where he was, not only saving Bucky but also all the innocent people Bucky would kill. OR I hate the implication that the smug motherfucker let Bucky rot — perhaps per their agreement, maybe he kept a promise, whatever — and he had the gall to call it “beautiful.” And this is after Markus and McFeely slaved for three movies to convince us that these are best fucking friends from childhood who are with each other “‘til the end of the line.” At the very least, even if they are not going to be physically together, friends do not let friends suffer for decades at the hands of Hydra, and if they do, they do not fucking enjoy themselves while it’s happening. If this is the Steve they are leaving us with, I do not want him. And I kind of don’t know what to do now.

Am I missing something? Please tell me I am. I’m desperate for a way to make sense of this. Truly.

OKAY, EDIT: 

@koubashii  very kindly sent me a message reminding me that Bruce spent quite a bit of time belaboring on the point that changing the past doesn’t change the future. She reminded me that Nebula killing her past self didn’t obliterate her from existence. I did forget about all this. So I can’t use Sam and Bucky Prime’s existence in their current form as evidence that Steve did nothing, if he went back in time. Point taken. THANK YOU!! 

(Edit: As far as I can gather from some research from actual astrophysicists and not MCU Bruce Banner, this “changing the past doesn’t change the future” stuff is just one small theory and does not appear to be the prevailing theory. However, this is the quantum realm, so we can make up all sorts of silly rules about infinite possibilities, infinite realities, yada yada, because nobody understands quantum physics except Hank Pym. Comic book science wins again!)

So, if he’s creating a separate timeline, let’s say he rescued Bucky early. Is there another Bucky running around with him? (New fun theory to make the pain better: He danced with Peggy, had a good time, went to find Bucky, married HIM, and that’s why he doesn’t want to talk about it with Sam. THERE. Fixed it.) 

But this still suggests that he broke off into an alternate timeline, one that did not disturb the current one. So if he went off into this entirely new timeline, how did he bounce into this old one? Pym particles? Sure. Fine. Comic science Whatever. Maybe he gets some. Did he just drop in by the lake and pop a squat on the bench right before Bucky told Sam to look? Sure. Was he there the whole time? Perhaps. Fine. Who the hell knows. 

So, one possible explanation is that there IS an alternate timeline where Steve did the right thing. And he jumped back here because Pym particles. His character’s integrity is potentially saved and who the fuck knows who he ended up with in the end. Let your imaginations run wild. It’s too late for Bucky Prime to get saved, poor Bucky. At least he has Sam and their upcoming Disney spinoff series, which sounds like a fucking joke when I write it (but srsly I’m dying and cannot wait). 

And there are still problematic things with this narrative for me, such as the idea that Steve’s entire happiness hinges on one woman he barely knew, largely because she didn’t scoff at him when he was smol and I will be DAMNED if Peggy kept his picture on her desk, and there is no effing way that she would even have her back to the door, but whatever. And I still hate that Steve and Bucky’s relationship arc was treated so horribly by these last two films. NO HOMO, indeed. Just in case we got the wrong idea from the intensity of the relationship that the MCU created for us. I will be posting more on this later. 

AND STILL — we should not have to work SO HARD for this kind of "meh” explanation. You should not need a group effort to make sense of your character’s ending, after so much wallowing in despair. And this might still reek of bullshit to many of you. I need to percolate more. 

Pym particles and Wakandan Vibranium trauma-healing brain magic — quick and dirty shortcuts for real character development. Thanks, MCU. Consider my brain exploded.

#avengers endgame #help #endgame spoilers