#wr cass

[letsbenditlikebennett]

TIMING: After this PARTIES: @chasseurdeloup @kadavernagh @magmahearts & @letsbenditlikebennett LOCATION: Office of the Medical Examiner SUMMARY: After Rhett attacks Cass and leaves her in a bad state, Alex gets her out of the woods and calls Kaden for a ride to the morgue as soon as she has cell reception. Or Regan, again, receives unexpected live patients at the morgue and Marcy needs a raise.

The time between when she hung up the phone with Kaden and when he actually arrived had felt like an eternity. Alex was certain that the warden wouldn't be moving again, at least for a little while, but the blood that clung to her wasn't just Rhett's. As if instinctively, it she gripped onto Cass tighter, desperately trying to keep them both upright until her cousin got there which was a far too grim reminder that too much of the blood that caked her skin was Cass's. She had to actively fight the sick feeling growing in her stomach. Even on a good day, she wasn't good with blood and now she was covered in it. Not even the spare giant t-shirt that went down to her knees was safe from it as her girlfriend continued to bleed and Alex tried to try pressure to the myriad of different wounds that covered the oread. 

“I just need you to stay with me a little longer, ok,” Alex practically pleaded though she tried to give her a voice a reassuring tone. She wasn't sure how much it covered up her own fear. She doubted it did at all. “Kaden'll be here any minute, it's going to be okay.”

She wasn't sure who she was reassuring, but when she saw headlights coming up the road and the familiar sound of Kaden's engine. Alex had never been so relieved to hear him approaching. She was pretty sure she could actually cry, but she wouldn't. Cass was hurt and she needed to be brave for Cass. Or at least try. 

When the car rolled to a stop, she waited for Kaden to rush to her side. “Thank you,” she huffed, “She's heavier than she looks... rock and all. I think I've been applying pressure to the worst of it. I can sit in the back with her on the way to the morgue.”

She had her suspicions about Regan being a nymph herself, but they were just that. Suspicions. Alex had no actual clue if the medical examiner would be able to work with... well, a girl made of rocks. “Dr. Kavanagh should be able to help her, right?“ Regan had to be able to help her because the alternative was too difficult to stomach. 

—

The keys were in Kaden’s hand and he was hopping into his truck before he’d even hung up with Alex. He didn’t know exactly what was going on, just that it was an emergency, in the woods, hurt. Cass. He considered using the work truck and flipping on the lights to get there even faster but he figured, whatever it was that had actually happened, he would want the space of his normal truck. He dared someone to pull him over on the way there. He’d run them over.

He saw their small figures across the way long before he was close enough to stop the car. It was hard to resist the temptation to throw it in park and sprint to them the second his eyes were on Alex and her girlfriend but he managed and pulled up as close as he possibly could, tires skidding into place.

“Putain,” he said, throwing himself out of the car. His eyes swept over Alex, trying to assess her wounds. She was roughed up but alright. His eyes fell over Cass and it was clear that she was far from okay. “Alex what the hell happened to her?” He knew she mentioned a hunter but he hadn’t assumed Cass was this injured. Crouching down beside her, it was hard to believe this was the same kid who had no trouble facing off with a pinball whirling towards her. She was beaten down, broken. The sparks of life she was filled to the brim with before were fading away. 

Kaden nodded at Alex’s words and reached under the nymph to carefully scoop her up. He didn’t have any plan on how to help her but he knew they had to do something. Fast. First step was to get her into the truck and away from here. 

Kavanagh? His brow furrowed at the mention of the medical examiner. Made sense. Was as good a plan as any. “Maybe. I think so.” He couldn’t think about anything beyond the immediate. “Fae. She knows about fae. And she’s a doctor.” He wasn’t sure if he was telling Alex or reminding himself. “We’ll get her there. Keep pressure and support her while I lift her. On three.” 

—

There was no room to do anything but push forward. It brought a certain sense of clarity with it. There wasn't room for panic or acknowledging the multitude of sensations that would make Alex sick to her stomach under less dire circumstances. If her head had been more clear maybe she would have thought of the miracle that was adrenaline, but all she could think of was making sure Cass was okay. So when she answered Kaden, the weight of her answer didn't fully register. 

“A warden... We met him before but didn't know he was— I heard her scream when I was hiking toward the cave and he had already grabbed her. He was going to kill her so I stopped him,” Alex said flatly, ”If he didn't bleed out already, he knows what I am.“ Whether or not Rhett was dead wasn't something she could think about when Cass was barely hanging on. Hell, she was barely hanging on in the strength department which became harder to ignore when Kaden lifted Cass into the truck and she realized her own legs were shaking.  

The weight Kaden lifted was more than a physical one as Alex felt some hint of relief once Cass was being lifted into the truck. Her left arm carefully kept the oread's neck upright as the other hand kept pressure against the wound on her shoulder. She was quick to follow into the truck once they got Cass inside; she knew she'd have to keep applying pressure to the wound in Cass's shoulder which looked so much worse than it ought to, even for an iron blade. Her already blood-caked hand found the wound and pressed down on it. ”I think she is fae,“ she added, ”But that's... She can help. She'll be able to make sure Cass is okay.“ 

There was an unspoken desperation in her words. Alex wasn't sure if that was part of what pushed Kaden to drive at such a rapid pace, but she found she didn't care even if the way the trees whipped by them was dizzying. ”It's going to be okay,“ she reassured quietly as she looked down at Cass. She wasn't sure entirely who she was trying to convince, but Cass being okay felt like the only option. ”I've got you,“ she whispered. She'd promise as much if Cass would let her. 

Trees kept zipping by through the window as Alex remained still as could be. She was afraid to move, to shift Cass in a way that might make things worse, but the stillness of it all let the events catch up to her a bit. ”We'll need to go back and check that he's,“ she trailed off, unable to fully let herself acknowledge that she very well may have killed Rhett— or worse, that some small part of her hoped he was dead.

—

A warden. Knew what Alex was. Nearly killed Cass. Was probably bleeding out. Kaden tried to process the information but there was too much happening all at once. He had to focus on the task at hand: save the nymph in the back of the truck. The rest he would file away for later, figure it out then. Like if there was a dead body they had to worry about. And if they should inform the medical examiner during this visit. 

None of that mattered as much as driving as fast and as carefully as he could directly to the morgue. As soon as he closed the door on Alex, he rushed to the driver’s seat and tore out of there and back onto the road. Hopefully he wasn’t bringing Regan another dead body. A pit dropped in his stomach at the thought. No. His grip tightened on the wheel. He wasn’t going to let that happen.

“Worry about that later,” he said to her, eyes pinned forward, not even allowing himself to look back at her through the rearview mirror. If he looked back, he’d lose focus, start worrying about what else they could do. He had to stay single minded, focus on the mission. It wasn’t a hunt but for once his training might save someone instead of hurting them. 

Kaden wove his truck through traffic, barely stopped at any signs or lights, and raced through town to get them to the morgue. He didn’t bother finding a spot, instead throwing the truck into park right along the curb outside the glass doors. It briefly occurred to him that it would be hard enough to explain why they were carrying someone alive into the morgue to see the medical examiner and even harder to explain what Cass was to the front desk. Putain de merde. 

He hadn’t come up with any sort of plan or anything at all by the time he was helping pull the fae out of the truck. “I’ve got her,” he told Alex. “Get the door, call for Regan. Maybe, I don’t know, tell the front desk to leave.” He winced once the full weight of Cass’s rock covered body was in his arms. It was strange that someone so small and who looked so fragile just then could be so heavy. It wouldn’t slow him down, he wouldn’t falter, he wouldn’t let himself. 

—

It was a small kindness that Kaden was willing to talk about the warden aspect of things later. Alex wasn’t sure she could rely on herself to really recount the details when Cass felt so cold in her arms. The blood was pooling in the hands that were desperately pressing down on the wound in her shoulder. It took a concentrated effort to keep her hands from shaking, surprisingly not because of the slick feeling of blood against her skin, but because she was terrified. Even when that ranger had a gun pointed in her direction, she couldn’t remember feeling this frightened. Cass was too quiet in her arms, her features too pained and contorted. All she could think of was how much the oread meant to her and the fact it felt like she was slipping away right there in her arms. 

The fact Kaden hadn’t bothered with parking etiquette was more than a relief to Alex. Every second between them and getting Cass proper help felt like an eternity. The truck was practically pulled up to the glass doors and Kaden was carefully extracting Cass from the truck. She hopped out following and nodded diligently as Kaden spoke. “Ok,” she answered, “I’ll get Marcy… to not be there. And get Dr. Kavanagh. Just… I’ll be quick.” Her eyes fell to Cass, “Hang in there, okay?” 

She wasn’t sure the oread could hear her so Alex simply ran off and into the fluorescent lighting of the morgue. She remembered Marcy from before and she seemed to be typing away on her computer. What was the best way to ensure Marcy didn’t follow Regan back to her desk? “Hi, Marcy,” she greeted more frantically than she would have liked, “I need to see Dr. Kavanagh… it’s important medical examiner business. Tell her it’s Alex Bennett. I… uh I have Animal Control Officer Langley outside, too. You should probably… I think you look like you totally deserve to take your lunch break like right after grabbing Dr. Kavanagh.” 

—

“Fiddlesticks, fudge, no, figh can’t be right…” Marcy glanced up from her phone as the doors opened and… oh, this had Dr. Kavanagh all over it. She remembered Alex Bennett, one of the doc’s oddball visitors, and apparently she brought company. Another person. No, wait, two other – oh. Oh, fiddlesticks. This seemed urgent enough to call the doctor instead of shooting her a text. She did so immediately. “Regan, we have a code ‘what the fuck’ up here.” Marcy looked nervously at the three mostly-strangers who had interrupted her game of Connections (today’s theme of f-expletives seemed appropriate, suddenly), her eyes wide with confusion and perhaps some degree of understanding. Her fingers danced across the tabletop and finally Regan picked up. 

“Can this wait?” the doctor asked, sounding exasperated, “I’m in the middle of a–” 

Marcy cut her off. “Please don’t tell me what body part your hand is in. This is, like, really ‘what the fuck’. Come now, okay?” 

Regan simply hung up, and Marcy stared blankly at Alex, trying not to look at the company she’d walked in with. Marcy usually lived for gossip (and both Regan and Morty were the perfect fodder) but this was something else. Regan couldn’t come fast enough.

The last time they’d had a code ‘what the fuck,’ it had been because a horde of crabs came scuttling in and nearly carried Marcy away with them. The crabs seemed to be gone, but Regan reasonably expected something else quite serious. She rushed out and up, barreling through the doors. Oh, how she wished it were crabs.

Kaden. Alex. Some lump in his arms. This cinniúint-amú family. Treating her morgue like a – She halted, midstep, feeling the presence of something, someone else. The lump was more than a lump. More than human, even. Regan raced to get closer, immediately setting her hands on the fae’s strange skin (was it part of what was wrong?). A girl, barely more than a child. Unconscious, or near it. 

Regan’s first instinct was to shout, break some lights, remind Kaden that this was not the emergency department and serious injuries needed to be attended to elsewhere. But the injured being fae changed the equation significantly. She could not go to a hospital, and especially not looking like this. And where better was there, really? Before Regan had arrived in Saol Eile, they had relied upon inexperienced hands and anecdotes reeking of homeopathy. Regan understood the lack of options. She just didn’t like it. “Langley. Why are you always involved in these things?” She narrowed her eyes at Kaden, who was too easy to blame, but really, Alex had been equally involved in her own injury and possibly what was happening right now. Kaden was older, though, and his shoulders were adequately-muscled for carrying blame.

Right now she needed him to carry their injured. “Hurry it up,” she said, carding the doors open and pointing; Kaden probably remembered where her office was, but they might need the space and tools the autopsy suite would afford them today. What a screaming mess this was. She wasn’t even sure the two of them knew the girl was fae. Regan waved a curt but grateful goodbye to Marcy, who needed no instruction on what to do next (stall Rickers). “Continue past my office and into the autopsy room. Give me as much medical history as you have and tell me what happened. And tell me what’s wrong with her skin.” Regan paused, feeling confident in her words, which seemed worth delivering. “She will not die here.”

In the autopsy suite, she did not waste a second. There were rarely emergencies here; the dead did not mind waiting for their procedures. But now she was filled with an energy and urgency she hadn’t felt in a long time. “On the table. Now.” There was a decedent lying on the adjacent autopsy table. Regan had just managed to stuff his organs back into him and stitch him up, but he needed to be put back in the fridge. She did not like the idea of anyone else touching her patients. She was even stingy when it came to Rickers and the techs. But… her eyes flicked between the dead and the living, and with a defeated sigh, she then looked over at Kaden. “He goes in 8F. If you drop him I will place you in there instead.” She turned to the girl, pulled open her eyelids. The pupils responded automatically to the harsh overhead light. Good. “Round, equal, and reactive.”

Her skin was hard, craggy like stone, and it defied anything Regan had ever seen before. Had the circumstances been different, she could have spent hours looking at it under a microscope and her scalpel. But the circumstances were what they were, and what could have been exciting and full of wonder was currently a hindrance, obscuring what she needed to see. She decided to take a gamble with their knowledge. “You need to get her to glamour.” Regan said, meeting Alex’s eyes with a deadly serious intensity. “She may not be able to hold it in place, but she must, even if it’s only around her injuries. I cannot see what’s going on under this… material. And would not know how to treat it like this.” There was one thing she could see plainly, though: a deep, smoking wound across her left shoulder, like a flaming blade had been plunged through muscle. It was open, exposing something underneath that glowed with orange, pulsing energy, but no blood. “I believe this is from cold iron. Quickly. If you cannot wake her, I can, but it will hurt.”

—

Kaden didn’t know Cass as well as he’d like but he knew enough. He knew was going to do every goddamn thing he could to keep her alive. He knew he was going to find that warden and— He didn’t know what came after that. Because first thing was carrying Cass into the morgue and forgetting that this building housed dead bodies. She wasn’t going to be one of them. “I’ve got you,” he said as his arms cradled her rock covered body. The edges and rough surface dug and pinched into his skin, likely leaving marks and bruises. If there was pain, he didn’t notice, just held on tighter. “Stay with me. Alex is inside.” His words came out like gasps and he couldn’t be sure if that was due to the adrenaline coursing through his veins or the fact that she was heavy in his arms. He was shuffling to the door as fast as he could, very aware of the fact that with Alex going ahead, no one was able to put pressure on the wounds. “Magma’s not going to go down like this, alright?” 

If there was anyone working the front desk, Kaden didn’t notice her. His eyes were searching for one person and one person only. He was already headed directly to her office when his eyes locked on hers, a tiny flick of hope lighting up in him. Apparently she wasn’t as thankful to see him. Right now, he didn’t give a shit if she wanted him there or not, she was going to help with the kid. “You can scream at me later, Kavanagh. Help her.” He barely had to pause as the doors slid open. Relief was a second away when she said to go to the autopsy suite instead. His head shot around to face her, his brows knit together and worry written across his face. She will not die here. He didn’t know if that was a wish or a fact, but Regan’s tone seemed to write it in stone. He was going to cling to them as tightly as he held Cass. 

Once they were inside the suite, Kaden did his best to set her down gently on the table, but it was difficult to rest rock on metal without any clashing. He winced at the sounds, hoping he hadn’t made anything worse, silently apologizing to her as he laid her down. Kaden backed away and thought that, for the time being, the extent of his ability to help was spent. He was shocked to hear that wasn’t the case. His eyes fell on the dead body next to Cass, sutures laced all the way down from his chest. He wasn’t a stranger to dead bodies, but he never saw them like this. His stomach churned and he could feel bile churning up to his throat. “He goes in… 8F?” he repeated, hoping that it might buy him the time to steady himself as he went pale. 

Putain de merde. This was stupid, he had dealt with much worse, scenes that were far more gruesome and had caused worse than that. In here, in this setting, surrounded by the cold and sterile medical supplies, it felt completely different. He took a deep breath before he nodded, grit his teeth, and decided to rip off the metaphorical band aid. Just pretend they’re alive, he thought as he rolled the body towards the right drawer. Fucking hell, he was putting a body in a drawer. Right. Easier said than done. Just had to make sure he didn’t vomit or pass out in the process. 

—

She will not die here.

There was no way those words could be spoken with absolute certainty, but Alex clung onto them like they were a liferaft. Her mind sunk its claws into them as if they were some tangible string she could tangle and keep in her grip. The alternative wasn’t something she could consider. The alternative terrified her. 

Though a small part of her felt guilty that Regan seemed to think Kaden was somehow involved in what happened to Cass or could have been the cause. Alex shook her head. “It’s not Kaden’s fault,” she explained, “I couldn’t carry her all the way– I needed a ride.” Given the bone nymph was straight on to business, which wasn’t at all surprising, she stopped herself from overexplaining because the truth of it was simple, wasn’t it? No matter how good Cass was, no matter how many people she helped during her patrols as Magma, there would always be a warden out there like Rhett who didn’t care and wanted her dead anyway. 

“This is my girlfriend, Cass,” Alex explained, looking at the oread in Kaden’s arms somewhat helplessly, “I was meeting her for a picnic and I found her being attacked by a warden. She probably… we met him before but didn’t know he was a warden. She probably…” The words caught in her throat. “He didn’t follow us, I promise,” she quickly added, hoping it answered enough that Regan and let her know there wasn’t an immediate threat following. 

Whatever Dr. Kavanagh asked of her, Alex would do it happily. Already, the medical examiner was taking control of the situation in a way that seemed practiced. It probably was practiced. Even if most of Regan’s patients were already dead, she was still a medical doctor. Emergency training was part of the education and well, Regan also seemed inclined to let the stray non-dead patient into her morgue too. If she wasn’t so damn scared that her girlfriend was about to be knocking death’s door, she may have watched Regan work with more admiration. As it was, she was quick to follow instructions. Any directive the doctor gave her was meant to help Cass, so aptly paid attention and followed into the autopsy room. 

The dead body on the table next to Cass hadn’t even fully registered until Regan was directing Kaden to put it in… a drawer. Alex knew how morgues worked in theory, but the normally unsettling idea was completely overlooked as she carefully looked over Cass. Regan mentioned a glamour and it made Alex positive that coming to the bone nymph was the right call… even if the doctor wouldn’t call herself a bone nymph. There was a weight in Regan’s gaze that made Alex immediately nod dutifully. 

“I’ll do what I can,” Alex agreed, “I don’t… she’s already in enough pain.” 

Her attention shifted to Cass and Alex leaned closer to the table as she looked the oread over. Neither arm looked too good, so she wasn’t sure hand was the right way to get Cass’s attention. Instead, her hand found Cass’s cheek and softly cupped it in her hand. “Cass,” she breathed out. No, she had to speak up. Her voice couldn’t be as small and scared as she felt. “Cass,” she spoke louder, “Babe, I need you to concentrate for a little while. I know it hurts… but we have help, ok? Dr. Kavanagh just needs you to put up your glamour, at least around your injuries so she can start taking care of them.” 

Cass stirred under her touch and Alex let out a breath she hadn’t realized she held in. “You can hold my hand as tight as you need, if it helps,” she added, “But you got this, ok? You’re like the bravest and strongest person I know… if anyone can throw on the ‘ol razzle dazzle in a time like this, it’s you. I think… focus on getting it on for your shoulder first?” She gave Regan an inquisitive look, hoping that she gave the right directive there. 

—

There were flashes, after the woods. She remembered walking with Alex, her feet so much heavier than they usually felt. Alex’s voice, talking first to her and then to someone else, their responses tinny and far away as they came through the speaker of a phone. Then Kaden was there, too, in the blink-of-an-eye kind of way that meant she was definitely losing time. Another blink, and she was laying across Alex’s lap in the backseat of an unfamiliar car. Another, and they were somewhere else. She heard Alex and Kaden talking, but she couldn’t track the conversation. Alex vanished for a moment, and Cass let out a low whine, feeling more like a child than she had in such a long time.

Another flash. Someone was holding her. They were moving, and she felt the vibrations but they were stilted, dull. Everything was, the world narrowed to the pain in her shoulder where Rhett’s knife had gone in. That hurt more than the broken arm, and there was something almost funny about that, wasn’t there? You’d think the broken thing would hurt more. You’d think. 

Kaden said something to her, and it took longer than it should have for it to register. Called her Magma, and she let out a quiet sound that was almost a laugh. Had she told him? She didn’t remember. Maybe he’d known all the while, the whole time. Or maybe she was Magma not Cass to him at the moment. Did Spider-Man have this problem? She swore she knew, but she couldn’t remember.

Another flash, and there was something solid under her back. It was cold; everything was cold. There was a flutter in her gut that was familiar, but felt as far away as the rest of it. Another fae? For a moment, some childish, outlandish part of her wondered if it was her father or someone from that long-forgotten aos si in Hawai’i. If one of them cared enough, somehow, to know she was in trouble and just… appear. But when her eyes were forced open and a flash of light shone into them, she caught a glimpse of white hair and pale skin that couldn’t belong to anyone with family ties with her. Her eyes fluttered shut again. Alone. She was alone.

But… that wasn’t true, was it? There was a presence at her side, worried and hovering. Alex’s voice cut through the haze, and it sounded like music. Concentrate. Glamour. “Anything for you, babe,” she murmured, and it came out more slurred than she’d wanted it to be. It was supposed to be smooth. Impressive. But she wasn’t either of those right now, was she?

Her eyes squeezed shut tightly, glamour flickering. It was hard to concentrate through the pain, but Alex asked her to do it so she would. The glamour was visibly unsteady, flickering on and off like a faulty lightbulb. Skin one moment, stone the next. She concentrated hard on her injured shoulder, letting out a low groan. “It hurts,” she whispered. “Is it — Am I doing it?”

—

As Kaden struggled with the decedent (but, fine, ultimately did an acceptable job stowing him away), Regan dedicated herself fully to her new patient as information poured out. Girlfriend. Alex had mentioned dating a fae. The pieces snapped together like dislocated bones popping into place. And a warden did this. Her teeth clenched as her jaw tightened around them. “I am not concerned about you being followed.” Normally she would have chastised the promise, but it was not the time. Nor was it the time to mention involving the authorities. Sure, they could not know what Cass was, but this was an unprovoked attack on a near-child. How could someone get away with such a thing, without an effort even being made to stop them? She thought of Teagan, whose assailant was still out there, as far as anyone knew. It could have been the same individual behind both attacks, but they had distinctly different flavors. Discussion for later.

Alex did an admirable job keeping herself together for Cass’s sake. When this was through, she would tell the child that. For now, though, Regan did not want to distract her – especially when her words of encouragement to her girlfriend seemed to be working to stir the patient. “Shoulder first. That is the most pressing concern.” If Regan was correct. It would be the most painful, too. The other incised wounds surely hurt, but they weren’t as deep or putrid. Alex was succeeding – and for that matter, so was Cass. Mostly. The tough material flickered away, replaced by skin, only to transform itself back again. “Keep it steady,” Regan said, “I can only be as steady as you are.” She left providing any comfort to Alex and dove right in, her hands carefully navigating the margins of the wound now that she could see clearly; they were semi-cauterized but still smoldered, and seemed to be almost expanding. If Regan was capable of paling, she might have.

Seeing the injury seared through Cass’s flesh only confirmed Regan’s suspicions. “This is a cold iron injury. Do you know what that is?” She truly did not know the knowledge base of her audience anymore. “It won’t heal by itself. And I cannot improve it. But I can stop it from getting worse, and permit it to heal on its own, given time.” Her palms stung with their own reminder. She had one cold iron blade, and even Cliodhna did not permit its use under typical circumstances. “Kaden,” she turned to him and was pleased to find her own seriousness reflected back at her. “Here is my ID. Card into my office and go into the bottom right drawer of my desk. There is a jar – small, plastic, red top. Bring it here.”

–

Instructions. Those were good. Kaden could follow those. It was better, even. Otherwise the best he could do was pace and wonder if he was in anyone’s way or distracting Regan. He took the ID card and ran off. Once he was out of the door, he hesitated, trying to remember the direction they came in. It was all a blur since they got there and he’d been carrying Cass, he hadn’t paid attention. 

Deep breath. He was pretty sure it was that way and soon enough he was sure once he saw the familiar door to Regan’s office. He fumbled with the card and slammed it against the reader a few different ways, but he didn’t need to put in all the effort, one tap was enough. He nearly pulled the door off its hinges and dove into the office.

Putain, what was it she said? Drawer, something about a drawer. He glanced around and saw a lot of those. Which fucking one? Desk, right, she’d mentioned that, too. Desk drawer. Narrowed it down but not completely. Kaden shut his eyes and tried to repeat the words over in his mind. Bottom drawer. Desk. Red top. That’s what he got. Yanking open the left drawer, all he saw were skulls. That was actually a pretty nice raccoon one but– Right. Task at hand. Better try the drawer on the right before digging around the bones. Sure enough, in the second drawer there was a flash of red. He leaned over and pulled a book out of the way. “How to Flirt Without Sounding like a Serial Killer.” Right. Good luck to her on that one. He set it aside and saw a jar, but reaching for it, it was clear it was just mayonnaise. Which brought some more questions. Either way, next to it was a second jar and there it was, just like she said: red lid, plastic jar. Kaden didn’t know what was in it, all he knew was they needed it and so he grabbed it, sprinting out of the office as fast as he’d gotten there.

“Here,” he said, practically shoving the jar into Regan’s hands. He was out of breath from running but hadn’t noticed until he’d had to speak. Lungs heaving, he backed away and watched. That was all that was left for him to do, wasn’t it? Just watch, hope, and try not to get in the way, wait for any more instructions, but otherwise watch and wonder.

–

Kaden made haste and Regan was left with the two children. Something squirmed inside of her, seeing their pain. Fortunately for all of them, he wasn’t gone long. There it was: the red jar. She accepted it with a nod of approval, and hovered over Cass’s injury as she uncapped it. “This is for… these kinds of injuries. It is likely to work, but I can’t say for certain. It might not be to her specifications, though.” Regan opened the small jar and breathed in the scent of old bone marrow mixed with something floral. It was the last of what she’d brought from Saol Eile. If this happened again, she would need to figure something else out. Somewhere in her cabin was a book with instructions on making more of the salve, and though the ingredient list made a strange kind of sense, it filled her with unease. Still, she did know it worked… on banshees. She had seen it. “I’m going to put this in her wounds. It might sting a little at first, but it will function as an analgesic when it sets in. Most importantly, it will prevent the necrosis of her… flesh.” If it could be called flesh. “Know that there may be other effects. If you have objections, voice them now.”

—

Somewhere in the background, Kaden had returned to her side after getting the descendent where Regan had directed. A distant part of Alex knew that it couldn’t have been an easy task for him, but everything else seemed like a blur as she focused on Cass. It needed to be a blur. If she let her mind drift to the feeling of blood caked to her skin or linger on the fact she was absolutely terrified, there’s no way she’d be able to keep helping. Cass needed her to be strong right now, so she had to be strong. She gently held the oread’s hand and smiled down at her. “You’re doing so good, babe,” she reassured, her voice coming out much more gravelly than she would have liked, “Just keep it up and steady around your shoulder, ok? You got this.” 

She stayed close to Cass as Dr. Kavanagh looked over her shoulder. Every so often, Alex offered whispered reassurances to the oread. Her shoulder looked so much worse with the glamour up. It was so easy to see where the iron had seared her skin and how it seemed to be worse than when they’d first left the forest. Given, the lighting now was much clearer and the werewolf knew she should look away. Her stomach practically begged her to, but she couldn’t scare Cass more. It was her turn to be the brave one and she gripped onto Cass’s hand enough to mask the tremor in her own fingers. 

Her attention turned to Dr. Kavanagh as she spoke of cold iron. None of it made any sense to Alex. How was cold iron any different from regular iron? She didn’t think werewolves were more sensitive to cold silver. That would have been somewhere in the ranger family playbook. She shook her head. “I know iron hurts her. Most of what I know about fae… she didn’t grow up with other fae. I told her that iron hurts her. Is cold iron worse,” she asked though she was fairly certain she already knew the answer. 

It wasn’t something that could heal on its own. Alex wasn’t sure if that made her more angry or afraid. There was some strange haze of both that hung over her as she practically squeaked out, “Please.” Cass was already in terrible shape. She wasn’t sure how much worse the oread could handle before she— She quickly shook her head. She couldn’t think like that. Regan said Cass wouldn’t die here and she wouldn’t. She offered Kaden a quick grateful look as he made off to fetch what Regan needed. 

By the sound of his footsteps, Alex could tell he was moving quickly, but time still seemed to move too slowly. Somewhere she could hear a wall clock and the detail seemed deafening, more so than her own heart hammering away so erratically she swore she could feel it in her throat. Kaden was back and she tuned into Dr. Kavanagh’s instructions. It was likely to work and the emphasis on specifications wasn’t lost on Alex. “So it was made with a different type of fae in mind,” she said lowly, not really speaking to anyone so much as thinking aloud. It was a sure deal, but it was their only chance. While medicine was hardly something she knew about, she sure as hell knew enough that necrosis of the flesh was not good. And since it wasn’t made for Cass, she was fairly certain that meant it was hard to know what the other effects would be. 

“Use it,” Alex decided quickly as she glanced down the wound that already looked worse, “Whatever the effects are can’t be worse than the pacman of stab wounds over here.” If Cass was listening, she’d appreciate the arcade game reference. Alex smiled weakly as she remembered Cass showing her how to play the game and she knelt back down by Cass. “Hey, rockstar,” she grinned weakly, “You’re doing great. I just need you to hold out a little longer. Dr. Kavanagh is going to put something that’ll help on your wounds, but it might sting first… There may be some side effects, but I got you, ok? I’ll be right here.” 

—

She was out of it. It was difficult to follow the conversation, so she stopped trying. Alex would pick up on the important parts and tell her later… if there was a later. The thought rose up without her permission, inky black and heavy. Cass wasn’t a pessimist. Quite the opposite, in fact. She’d been called naive in her optimism, but she clung to it all the same because what was the alternative? The world fucking sucked. If you didn’t hold on to the bright side, you’d lose yourself to the darkness. 

But Cass couldn’t find the bright side here. She couldn’t work out the positives of the situation, couldn’t unpack the good. Everything hurt, and she’d never died before but she was pretty sure this was what it felt like. The way her shoulder seemed to be spreading pain to the rest of her, the shivers she couldn’t stop from wracking her frame, the way Alex and Dr. Kavanagh spoke about her like she wasn’t there and the way she might as well have not been there for how well she could listen to them. Alex was saying things to her occasionally, and Cass clung to her voice like a lifeline even if she couldn’t make out the words.

Alex was beside her, then, and Cass tried with everything she had to listen. Her glamour flickered as he concentration shifted, but she understood what Alex was saying. The doctor was going to do something. It was going to hurt. But it would help her, too. She closed her eyes, nodding her head. “Do it,” she agreed. “Do whatever. I don’t — I don’t want to die.” She looked to Dr. Kavanagh as she said it, eyes feeling wet. “I don’t want to die, okay? Do what you need to do, but don’t let me die.”

—

Cass’s informed consent was, Regan thought, as good as it would get. “No questions or concerns, then. We proceed.” There was something almost familiar about Cass’s voice when she spoke, and as the glamour flickered off her face for a moment, Regan recognized her. Oh, that was too strange to even think of right now. She focused instead on the weak, unevenness of Cass’s plea, the mortal fear, and was determined to be the unmoving force she was required to be. Regan’s voice had an edge of authority and certainty. “You’re not going to die here, today.” 

She was in the rhythm of urgency now, and Alex and Kaden cleared the way for what needed to be done. Cass was still having trouble with her glamour, but she seemed to be able to muster enough resolve to hold it steady now. Whatever that strange, tough material Cass’s skin truly consisted of, it would have been impossible for Regan to access for application. “Good work.” She offered the rare praise, a reminder to hang on as long as she could. With careful hands, Regan dabbed the cream around the wound. What remained went into the other injuries, just in case those were from the same blade, though they didn’t look so malignant. It would help either way. And then that was it. The last of what she had brought from Saol Eile, exhausted. Traded for Cass. Please let it work. 

The wound pulsed with a strange darkness for a moment like the salve had stained it, then sizzled, the searing heat of the iron abating. It still gaped with toothy, jagged edges but now, given the time and proper care, Regan was confident that it would heal. At least until it happened again. These people… this town…  it was at times more rotten than anything in her morgue, and she ought to be grateful she would soon be leaving it. Her eyes ticked from Alex to Kaden, who were probably full of complicated emotions right now. Hope. Fear. Confusion. Her own concern gnawed at her but she set it on ice like her cadavers. Regan watched as the wound seemed to soak up the remaining darkness and waited. For what, she did not know.

—

Good work. It was stupid, she knew. The way those two words somehow meant more than the promise that she wouldn’t die here today, the way they sent a thrill of newfound energy surging through her veins that allowed her the concentration she needed to hold that glamour in place. The doctor, the fae doctor said good work, and Cass was eleven years old again, trying with everything she had to win the approval of nymphs who saw her as more of a bother than a person. Back then, she’d never earned anything resembling praise. But now? She was doing good work. Her smile was small and pained and tight, but it was still there. It was still real.

The doctor’s hands were at the injury on her shoulder, the one that burned and ached and felt hot and cold at the same time. She touched it with something cool, and it was like someone had injected darkness into her veins. The effect felt so instantaneous. The room dimmed. The temperature dropped. Cass blinked, and when she dragged her eyes back open, the morgue was full of strangers. A man with his chest hanging open, staples ripped out. A woman with goat’s legs and a darkening bruise around her throat. A teenager with a crown of blood encircling their head, eyes curious and sad. In the middle of them all, partially blocked off by their bodies, stood Rhett. Staring down at her with an expression of mild curiosity, like she was an animal in the zoo. The scratches Alex’s claws had left in his face were there, blood dry now. 

Were these ghosts, she wondered? A sea of the dead, beckoning for Cass to join them? Her eyes darted to Alex and Kaden and the doctor. There was a wound in Kaden’s side, freely bleeding. His shirt was so covered in blood that the fabric was hard to make out beneath it — had he been wearing red flannel, or did it just look that way now? Alex’s hair was the wrong shade of red, shining dully in the overhead lights of the morgue. It was wet. Not water. It wasn’t water soaking her head. The doctor was in black and white (was that why she looked familiar?), but there were spots of red slowly staining through, swirls of color that didn’t belong. Cass’s breath hitched, eyes darting between them all until something behind them caught her attention.

Kuma stood a few feet from Rhett, arms crossed over her chest. Debbie was beside her, the injuries that led to her death prevalent and obvious in the morgue. They both looked rotted. Everything ached.

And then, Cass blinked again, and it was all gone. It was just as it had been before. There was no blood in Alex’s hair. Kaden’s shirt was clean. The doctor wasn’t exactly colorful, still, white coat and all, but there was no red to be seen. And her shoulder didn’t burn, and she didn’t feel quite as cold, but the exhaustion that clung to her was hard to fight.

“Thank you,” she whispered to the doctor, squeezing her eyes shut. When she opened them again, they darted around for a moment before meeting Alex’s. Clear and blue and alive, like they were supposed to be. She offered the werewolf a small smile and let her consciousness flee. Safe. She was safe now.

—

Desperation had a way of making time seem slower. Alex knew the clock ticked at the same rhythm somewhere off in the distance, but it felt distorted as she gave the doctor room to take care of Cass’s wounds. It wasn’t the first time that Regan assured the oread wouldn’t die here. Fae couldn’t lie. Cass had told her that. Sure, the truth was subjective, but Dr. Kavanagh was a bone nymph. If she said Cass wasn’t going to die here that had to be the truth. At least, it alleviated some of her own fear so she could be the steady presence her girlfriend needed. Not that she would consider herself steady. The only thing that felt steady was the gaze she kept trained on Cass. Even blinking felt like a gamble that she only took when her eyes felt like they were burning. 

The salve seemed to create a cloud of darkness around it and Alex found herself having to cover her mouth and nose as the wound seared. It was strange. The autopsy suite didn’t smell like burning. The bite of medical grade cleaners was the predominant scent in the air, but underneath she could smell him. His blood still coated her body and she didn’t dare look down to find it drying on her skin. Just focus on Cass. 

It seemed like the remedy Dr. Kavanagh had given her was working though Alex couldn’t explain how. There had to be some supernatural fae aspect to it. She could hear the rapid pounding of Cass’s heart, but it was hard to discern anything wrong besides the obvious. Her eyes were darting around the morgue and the werewolf wasn’t sure what she was seeing. She could only hope it wasn’t anything too bad, but if it meant Cass would live, she guessed whatever it was had to be worth it. 

After what felt like an eternity, Cass thanked the doctor and locked eyes with Alex. It was the briefest glance before she watched the oread fully slump onto the table. The breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding came out as a small gasp and she felt everything she’d been compartmentalizing threatening to spill over with it. She took in a slow breath before looking up to Regan. “Dr. Kavanagh,” she started hesitantly. She wasn’t sure where to begin or what to say. All she could think was to express her gratitude, even if Regan would tell her it was foolish. “Thank you,” she said finally, “Really. You saved her. I–”

The words ‘almost lost her’ found themselves trapped in her throat and came out as a strangled sound. It was a floodgate that Alex couldn’t allow herself to open just yet so she shook her head. “I just appreciate it and I’m glad you’re still here.” Aside from the fact Cass would have likely literally died in her arms, she did like Regan. “Anything I need to do for her as far as healing and taking care of her goes, I’m all ears.” 

—

There wasn’t anything left for Kaden to do to help Cass. He was just as helpless as she was to fix her at that moment. He stood back and tried not to be in the way. Alex was there to comfort her girlfriend, Regan was there to heal her, and as much as he wanted to peer over her shoulder and see what was going on, check if it was working, he knew better. Hovering could only make it worse if anything at all. 

Now that his part was done, his mind drifted to the cause of her wounds, the blood covering Alex’s clothes. A warden. Another hunter. Kaden had to wonder if it was someone he knew. His stomach dropped as the face of the hunter dying at Andy’s hand flashed into his memory. Would he see that same look all over again? Would it be at his hands this time? Or Alex’s? Had she already killed him? He didn’t know. He didn’t want this to keep happening. Death. Over and over again. A snake eating its tail. And Kaden didn’t know how to stop it when all he knew how to do was how to slice it in half. 

The gasp from the fae on the table pulled his focus back to the present. His own breath stopped as he waited to see what would happen next – would she pull through or would she pass out again? He reached out and put a hand on Alex’s shoulder, hoping to give some comfort to her while she was giving all hers away to Cass. 

The words ‘thank you’ felt like a sigh of relief, a sign that the course had corrected itself. For now. “Good work,” he said to Regan. “See, way better than a hospital.” He had no idea what it was she did, but he knew it worked. That was enough for him. But now that they were in the clear, thoughts of the hunter and the potentially dead body in the woods lingered. Putain. His eyes darted to Alex, then back to the medical examiner. He opened his mouth to speak. “I, uh, when you have a second I need to talk to–” He knew what he should do, he should report the potential dead body. Alex wouldn’t be implicated. She couldn’t. Right? It’s not like she was human when she did it. Actually, he didn’t know. He just assumed. 

He owed it to the hunter to say something, owed it to his family, but he owed Alex more. He couldn’t risk it. “Nevermind,” he said, waving it off. “Thanks again. Hopefully you won’t see me here again anytime soon.” He glanced back to Alex and gave her a nod. “Come on, let’s get her back home so she can rest.” 

—

Something was happening to Cass – her eyes went wide and scanned the room as if she was looking for something or seeing something, and Regan watched in silence for a moment. Whatever it was seemed to pass, but that didn’t mean it was the last of it. She glanced down to the empty jar, the remnants of the cream clinging to the neck of it. Do not let it be a mistake. The child was increasingly lucid, though, which had to be a good sign. Her other injuries were minor in comparison, and Regan bandaged them up, confident they needed no further attention from her. Cass was certainly benefiting from the diligent attention of her girlfriend, though. Probably an ill-advised relationship, if Cass’s lifespan was anything like that of a banshee’s. But happiness was a rare and often hard-won thing, and she would not spoil theirs, however useless she felt the emotion to be. Yes. Useless. Of course it was. She suppressed the trickle of doubt.

As Cass roused herself up and the two of them thanked her, Regan shook her head. Their gratitude was less than ideal – or at least the language used to express it, was. She let the thank yous linger, not accepting them nor chastising right now. “It’s not over yet. You have a lot of healing to do, and there may be lingering effects from the wound and what I applied to it. Monitor it closely and come to me if anything unexpected occurs.” Her voice lowered, something soft squirming through her that she barely recognized and did not particularly like. “I didn’t save her. I think you did that. Or perhaps she saved herself.”

And then there was Kaden. “I do not need your ‘good job’.” She narrowed her eyes at him. Demeaning. And what followed pulled at her temper, however much she tried to deny it. “Or your jokes. You come here instead of the hospital and you tell me good job.” Regan wrinkled her nose at him, but Cass was too much a priority for her aggravation at the remark to persist. Did Kaden have something to tell her? Or was he trying to tell something to Alex or Cass? She wasn’t going to figure it out now, apparently, as he seemed to cut himself off. Later, then. Maybe he was trying to tell her there was something to discuss later. She turned to address all three of them. “Not that you chose poorly, in this very specific instance. But we are not done here. Today, right now, we are, because… well, she is asleep.” Regan motioned toward Cass, whose eyes were shut and who looked entirely like a rock again. “But we will need to discuss this attempted murder. I don’t need another victim in here.”

—

Adrenaline was a funny thing. In the absence of an immediate threat and the knowledge Cass would be okay, the rush that had been pushing her forward had melted into lead. Or maybe peridotite would be more accurate. The metaphorical density of her bones was hardly the point, but Alex knew they felt heavy. So did the blood and flakes of rock on her skin. And her chest. She wasn’t sure if it was the firm kick from Rhett or the weight of what had just happened catching up to her somehow, but now it was sinking. 

Then the hand on her shoulder reminded Alex she didn’t have to carry this alone. Even as Kaden spoke again, there was something decisive in his tone. He knew as well as she did that Regan would have questions. She didn’t mind that so much. Even if Regan seemed to follow the letter of the law, she knew about this stuff. She was part of this stuff. She’d seen firsthand what Rhett had done to Cass. Even if the medical examiner did insist on going the official route, she doubted claw marks could truly be traced back to her. Plus, she was pretty sure some logic or law of self defense was on her side. There was a chance she killed him, but he’d been the one to lift the knife. She’s given him every chance. Her gaze drifted to her sleeping girlfriend and she couldn’t help but think maybe she’d given him too many chances. 

That thought hurt to linger on so Alex instead aptly listened to the doctor’s instructions. She’d need to monitor Cass closely. She could do that. Hell, she wasn’t sure it’d be so much a choice on her part. As tired as she was, she didn’t think she’d find sleep in the coming hours. She’d nodded diligently and had been prepared to accept the instructions as they were, but then there was something there again. It was the tiniest glimpse of something less cold in her eyes. It was brief and if the doctor’s words hadn’t matched that slight etch of something warmer in her features, she would have doubted she saw it all. “Oh,” she uttered with wide eyes. She hadn’t expected that. Dr. Kavanagh had called her a good child once, but this held something more. She saved someone. She saved Cass. She wasn’t too soft. She was soft and she’d protected those parts of herself by protecting the person who brought them out the most. And Cass saved herself too. She was proud of her for pushing through that pain so Dr. Kavanagh could treat her wounds even if the oread never should have experienced that pain in the first place.

If the creeping exhaustion hadn’t fully made itself at home in her body, Alex would have nudged her cousin. It wasn’t lost on her that jokes in the face of traumatic incidents was a shared family trait. Pointing it now wouldn’t hold the same satisfaction, especially not when there was something so comfortable in it for her. Dr. Kavanagh didn’t seem to appreciate it though. That wasn’t entirely surprising and if she wasn’t so tired, she’d feel bad that Kaden seemed to be taking the brunt of her frustration when all he did was drive the car. “We’ll get her home,” she assured, “Once she’s settled, I’ll answer anything you want to know. He won’t do this again.”

Alex didn’t know if he was dead, but some part of her knew he probably should be. That spark of hatred in his eyes was too familiar. She knew the only thing that put it out was blood. Or at least, if there had been some other answer, she wasn’t privy to it. If love had been enough, she had to think it would have made a difference with her parents. It didn’t matter anyway. She gave Cass’s hand one final squeeze before she moved aside to let Kaden pick her back up so they could go home. “You’re gonna be okay,” she whispered to the oread she knew couldn’t hear her, “I got you. We got you.” 

Because even if she couldn’t hear it, Alex still felt it was important to remind Cass she wasn’t alone in the world. Not anymore. 

#wr cass #wr kaden #wr regan #threads; with cass #threads; with kaden #threads; with regan #threads; with cass; emorguency room #threads; with kaden; emorguency room #threads; with regan; emorguency room #(never been a natural all i do is try try try) ;; writing #(the moonlight is blinding) ;; season 1 writing

[stainedglasstruth]

@magmahearts replied to your post “Okay, question because I'm curious: Do you...”:

I mean, if you don't want your birthday, I'll take it. Then I can have two!

​You cannot have my birthday, sorry. [...] I am kind of curious how that would even work, but not enough to find out. Good try, though.

#magmahearts #wr cass

[escudofracturado]

Left on Milo’s pillow, with a note:

Milo,

Peridot represents compassion. You have a lot of that. I hope you never, ever lose it. And I hope I never, ever lose you. I’m so lucky to get to call you my friend.

- Cass

[user gets a little emo about the sentiment, makes sure to put the stone on his nightstand where he will see it every day]

#submission #magmahearts #wr cass #tumblr mobile fucked this up

[canis-or-cannotis-lycaon]

Magna-tudes of Deep Discussion

TIMING: A few weeks ago LOCATION: A Latte to Love PARTIES: Cass and Gael SUMMARY: Gael promised to pay Cass for information about volcanoes. What they end up talking about is deeper than that. CONTENT WARNINGS: None Gael already seemed to have a “regular” here and he’d only been here twice in the past week. Then again… he’d already been at the little cafe twice this week. And he wore his glasses today like a hipster. Perhaps he should’ve told the girl he met online that he was supposed to be looking for in person what HE looked like.

Well, at least he was more prepared this time and while Gael didn’t tell her what he looked like, he did have a piece of paper with the name “CASS” written on it in thick black marker. And fortunately for him, he was sitting along the wall so he had the sign taped just above and behind him so whoever this supposed Cass was could at least find the sign. He did already have his notebook out, completing his look of either “homeless journalist” or “absent-minded professor” as he rifled through the pages fondly until he found the one labeled appropriately for the volcano enthusiast. While he traced back over the old pages of information he’d gathered, Gael kept his peripheral vision alert enough so he wouldn’t get unnecessarily surprised by the girl who was supposed to show up; he was on edge more often lately, which he didn’t like but he blamed the awful stench in the air. ___________________

It was always a little risky, binding someone in public. Usually, Cass would switch over to private messaging once she’d gotten the word or words she was looking for and inform the person that they owed her something, sometimes choosing to educate them in the process, but often just allowing the bind to do its thing. But… she’d noticed that people got upset when she did that. Metzli certainly had, and Eli hadn’t reacted much better. And she liked Gael. She thought Gael was neat. She didn’t want to upset him or make him dislike her. If she did this right, she thought, she could get the undisclosed amount of money he’d promised her without him ever knowing he’d been bound at all. Then she could afford a couple of meals and get a new friend out of the deal.

Or… maybe just one meal. She felt a little disappointed when she caught sight of him, endearingly sitting under a sign with her name scrawled on it so she could find him more easily. He didn’t look like someone who had a lot of money to take. If she were looking for a mark to pickpocket, he wouldn’t have even made the top ten. With the hair and the glasses and the frazzled appearance, he looked more homeless than Cass did, and she was the one who actually lived in a cave in the woods. 

But something was still better than nothing, and she still had her end of the promise to uphold, too. So she trotted over to the table, slipping into the seat across from him and waving a hand. “Hi,” she greeted with a bright smile. “I’m Cass. Like the sign!” ___________________ One moment Gael was casually thumbing through the various amounts of knowledge he’d accrued through other people and the next he was greeted by a girl who had taken the seat opposite him and offered him a smile. She was as young-looking as he had imagined her online, with dark hair and a rather youthful expression that betrayed her wisdom pertaining to money and knowledge. He glanced up at her with his own warm smile before looking over his shoulder at the sign. “Thank you! One day, I’ll realize that I should probably give people more to look for if we meet in person.” He turned his head again and regarded himself. “Sorry if I look a mess; today was one of those ‘comfort’ days, you know?” Gael waved himself off dismissively. “It’s good to meet you in person, Cass!” He said lightly. “Would you like for me to buy you a drink first, maybe break the ice or are you more to-the-point?” He asked, opening his journal to the page that had her name on it in neat lettering along with the factoids she’d already given him. And a poorly-drawn volcano in the corner. “Because I’m flexible; as I mentioned online, I don’t want to waste your time or energy but I just… I wanted to hear the passion in your voice.” He seemed to move in his chair as he said that and his expression got more enthusiastic as he kept his brown eyes on his new acquaintance. ___________________ Thank you. Cass smiled, nodding her head. “You’re welcome,” she replied, putting the thanks in her proverbial ‘piggy bank.’ She probably wouldn’t use it, but it would be good to have. The promise was great, but it was a little more restrictive. With a thanks, you could twist things into whatever you wanted them to be. Cass had always liked it a little more than she should. “I don’t think you look messy. I’ve seen a lot of people look a lot worse.” It was certainly the truth. She’d looked a lot messier than he did now; it was a miracle she didn’t at the moment. Living in a cave was nice and all, but it didn’t come with laundry or a shower.

“It’s good to meet you, too! I think we can start with a drink and break the ice. No need to rush or anything, right? I mean, I don’t have anywhere else to go.” It wasn’t like she had a real job to get to, and there was no one waiting for her at home. She figured the former probably wasn’t true for Gael, but maybe the latter was. Selfishly, she hoped so. If he was lonely, too, maybe he’d want to be friends. “Like I said, I’m happy to talk about it. I like talking about it. It’s fun. Most people just don’t want to listen for very long. Which, um, if you — If you get tired of it, you can let me know. I get it.” ___________________

“Well that’s good to know. I mean, I ain’t gonna judge someone for how they dress on their day off.” Gael replied, internally glad that she didn’t seemingly judge him too harshly based on first impressions, not that he was making a great one superficially. “I also have nowhere else to go; the rest of my afternoon is dedicated to spending time with you, señorita.” He assured her, maintaining eye contact with her as he spoke to establish that he wasn’t lying. That was something he learned very early on as a child, especially with four siblings - eye contact was important to making sure you meant what you said. Gael reached into his pocket and pulled out a ten-dollar bill, sliding it across the table to Cass. “Get yourself something to eat or drink or whatever you’d like then when you come back we can start the interrogation.” He said with mock seriousness but didn’t let it sit long before he leaned back and scoffed. “Joking, of course. But I would like to know more about you. And the stuff about the volcanoes of course; you can tell me all you want about those.” He said before adding “And don’t worry, I won’t cut you off or tell you to stop; I don’t know if I’d be able to live with myself if I did that.” A pause. “...I guess if we were in a life-or-death situation then MAYBE but certainly not now.” ___________________

“Me, either,” Cass assured him quickly. Judgment was something she generally tried to avoid where she could. If you didn’t want people to judge you, you had to avoid judging them where you could. Even the criminals she went after as Magma weren’t people she passed judgment on; Cass knew better than most that most crime came from a place of desperation. She never called the police on the criminals she thwarted unless they were dangerous. “Really? You blocked off the whole day?” She wasn’t sure anyone had ever done that for her before. It left a warmth in her chest, a quiet joy. Someone wanted to hang out with her enough to set aside time. When had that ever happened before?

Taking the bill, Cass offered Gael a grin and stood. “Start prepping your questions,” she teased, making her way to the front counter. She couldn’t help but wonder just what he planned on asking her. The volcano questions she was more than prepared for, but questions about her? Some days, she didn’t feel she knew herself at all. She’d stripped herself down to nothing and rebuilt herself as what the people around her wanted her to be so many times now that it seemed impossible to know what was real and what wasn’t, and she wasn’t sure what Gael wanted her to be. She’d figure it out, though. She always did. With a coffee and a scone in hand, she returned to the table and settled back down. “Okay,” she said, “fire away! What do you want to know?” ___________________ “Well, sure.” The professor gave a half-shrug. “I’m here to get to know you; if anyone else has a problem with it, unless it’s - once again - a life-or-death situation then they can wait. I’m talking to Cass, the Volcano Expert right now and they’re going to have to be okay with that.” Gael said matter-of-factly with a nod to emphasize his point. Thinking of questions, thinking of questions. Gael did that often, both thinking and questions. He cast her a smile as she took the cash and went to place her order. What did he want to know more about her without her thinking that he was being a weirdo? Well, hobbies aside from geology and place of origin might be good ones. He could also go the more superficial route and ask for standard opinions like favorite color and song choices. He remembered that she liked comics; that could be something worth talking about since she also seemed to have an interest in those. She didn’t seem to have a desire for school or a job, so he probably wasn’t going to press for those and while she said that money was overhyped, she did seem enthusiastic to jump on his offer to pay her for sharing her extensive knowledge of volcanoes with him. Then again, she was also young and he had spent enough time around kids to know that only the foolish or entitled among them would refuse money. He waited until she returned to the table when he took his hands apart from being laced on the surface, placing them palm-down now and he observed her for a few short moments. “I want to know about you!” Gael replied lightly. “I know you really like volcanoes but what else? Do you have any other hobbies? How old are you? From whence do you hail?” He asked the questions in a row, but made sure to include a little space between them to not make it seem like he was actually firing questions at her. “Also I’m here to let you know that you’re under no obligation to answer any of these. I’m just curious about you.” He recalled her surprisingly mature wisdom online, about how he thought she was rather strange but that it certainly wasn’t a bad thing. ___________________

It wasn’t as if no one had ever been curious about her before. In fact, plenty of people had. People wanted to know more about her when she stumbled across groups of them on the streets, asked her questions when she’d joined up with other groups throughout her journey. But it was only ever to determine how useful she might be. As much as Cass might have liked to pretend otherwise, she’d always known that curiosity about her and where she came from was so often tied to what purpose she might serve in some greater plan or heist, how she might be able to help people get ahead. Everyone had an angle. And maybe Gael did, too. Maybe she just hadn’t figured it out yet. But wasn’t it nice to pretend otherwise? Wasn’t it nice to let herself think, for a second, that someone might want to get to know her just for her and not for someone else?

As she settled back into her seat, she couldn’t help but lean forward a little. Anticipation was an itchy thing, crawling over her skin like the insects back in her cave, wanting to know what he might ask. The questions could help her better determine why he wanted to know what he wanted to know; with them in mind, she could better shape herself into what he wanted her to be. She was good at that, even if she wasn’t very good at lying. You could twist the truth however you needed to twist it if you were desperate enough. You could want to believe something so badly that your mind convinced itself it wasn’t a lie at all. 

But Gael’s questions did little to clear up his intentions. Cass was careful not to let the confusion show on her face as she propped her elbow on the table and rested her chin upon her hand, considering the questions. “I like comic books,” she said. “Superheroes. Movies, TV, all of it. I, um, I’m nineteen, but I’ll be twenty… next month.” Probably. No one had ever bothered to tell her her actual birthday, but she liked July well enough to claim it for herself. “I’m from Hawai’i, but I haven’t lived there in a long time. I’ve been all over since I left. I’ve been to every state at least once now, except Alaska.” Granted, most of them she’d only passed through, but she was counting it. “What about you? Where are you from?” ___________________ The professor kept his eyes on her as she spoke. He knew she liked comic books but the extent, which was a mystery to him before, was increased. Superheroes, the noble aspirations of children everywhere personified as an adult to look up to, learn lessons from, befriend on a page when they might not have had any in real life. He understood the sentiment as one who spent many a night with his nose in the pages of worn novels. Gael also seemed to have been right on her approximate age - he could only make educated guesses online but nineteen checked out. ___________________ When Cass mentioned that she was from Hawai’i, Gael shifted slightly in his seat; it had been a while since he met an individual from so far away. Even more surprising was that she’d reportedly been to every state, save Alaska. He wondered if she was perhaps counting passing through states to get to another via a road trip. By that measure, he had been to more states than he told people. Even if that was what she was doing, it’s not as though he was going to question it. “Hawai’i, I’ve heard that it’s beautiful,” He exhaled with a small smile. “The distance between there and here is great, though; I’ve met a handful of people now who are from the west coast.” He wasn’t telling her what she already knew insomuch as he was musing aloud but that wasn’t important, just an observation. “Me?” He asked, raising his eyebrows. “I’m from Guatemala,” He replied lightly. “More south than west but also quite a ways away. I moved to the states when I was eight years old.” He had another sip of his drink, glancing at nothing in particular as he remembered his family. “Four sisters and my parents.” He said softly, then looked at the girl again. “What about you? Do you have any family?” ___________________

Being from Hawai’i always made her interesting. Someone told her once, years ago, that Hawai’i wasn’t a place where people were from. It was a place people went, a place where they stayed temporarily when they needed a break from the real world. As if the island wasn’t part of the real world, as if there weren’t people stuck in that island traffic who were just trying to get to work, to get home, to live their lives. People forgot, sometimes, that they weren’t at the center of things. They went to places where other people lived and they called it a tourist destination. 

But Gael didn’t seem to be like that. Cass smiled, glad that he didn’t start in with some dream of a far-off vacation the way some people tended to do. “It is beautiful,” she replied quietly, and she hated that it was so hard to think of the place where she’d been born without aching. It was hard to separate the pain of being forced out from the beauty of the island. “People here are from all over,” she agreed, thinking of the ones she’d met already. Different countries, different continents. Wicked’s Rest, it seemed, was a place where anyone could belong. Cass just hoped that could extend to her, too.

“Was it a big change? Moving from there to here? Did you move to Wicked’s Rest when you were eight?” She was asking too many questions and she knew it, but it was hard not to. She wanted to know everything, because the more you knew about people the better you could make yourself into someone they might like. And Cass wanted Gael to like her. Cass wanted everyone to like her, but Gael was nice and kind and she wanted him to like her especially. Her expression faltered, though, when he asked about her family. She shrugged, looking down at the food in front of her and wondering why the ravenous appetite she’d walked in with seemed to be waning now. “No,” she admitted. “My mom gave me up when I was a baby, and my dad left before I was born. I don’t know if I have any other family.”  ___________________ His heart sank as Cass talked about her unfortunate family life, or lack thereof. Gael couldn’t imagine not having his family around, his support network always there for him to reach for when he was drowning. He had met a great many kids and young adults who had negative upbringings and he had learned that the best thing he could do, the best way he could help was just to try to provide the support and encouragement that they might not’ve received from anywhere else. Granted, he didn’t know each of those kids before getting TO know them - for all he knew, Cass had a healthy and thriving support network elsewhere whether it was friends she’d made or found family. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories,” He said gently, sympathetically. He also didn’t want to accidentally exacerbate those negative feelings that might’ve been starting to churn inside her by saying that he’d think her parents would be proud of her. So, Gael just… did what he knew and that was to answer her question, albeit with more grace and fewer details than he would’ve included before. “It was a big change - I moved to Arizona when I was eight. I actually didn’t move here until a few months ago.” He answered. He inhaled and stirred the straw in his drink absently. “The best kind of family is the one you make,” He said slowly, hoping he wouldn’t upset her too badly. “Like here; I moved here in January, no family yet.” Gael explained. “But I have a roommate and I’ve hung out with several people, like you!” He smiled. “So maybe not familia but friends?” A pause. “You’re special, Cass. I can feel it in my old man bones.” His expression was earnest, keeping his dark eyes on her and fully prepared to have said the wrong thing and driven her off. “The old man bones don’t lie.” ___________________

When it came to family, Cass often told herself that it was better to not have one than to have one and lose it. She’d seen so many people ache with that loss, seen it reflected in Van’s eyes when they played Go Fish and she avoided the subject. To never have something was to never know the pain of losing it. But hearing Gael talk about his family, seeing that spark in his eye as he mentioned them… That left an ache, too. And how could she say which ache was worse when it was impossible to feel them both? How could anyone know definitively whether it was better to have loved and lost or to have never loved at all when no one could possibly achieve them simultaneously? 

She smiled softly at Gael’s apology, shaking his head. “No, it’s okay. There’s no bad memories.” How could she have bad memories of her family when she had no memories of them at all? Still, it was a relief to move on to a different topic. She tried to imagine Gael, at eight years old, being pulled from one country to another. Was it scary? Confusing? She’d been both scared and confused when she’d moved from Hawai’i to the mainland, but she’d done it alone. Was it easier, maybe, to do it with a family? “Do you like it? The US, Wicked’s Rest, all of it. Do you like it here?”

As Gael continued, Cass averted her eyes. Building your own family, sure. She loved comic books and movies and shows where people did just that, watched them with wide eyes and bated breath. But she’d never been sure she was capable of it herself. People left. It was a simple fact of life, the only thing that had ever remained constant. Cass loved and loved and loved, and people left. No matter how special Gael’s bones told him she was. But she forced a smile, anyway, glad that she could lie with her expression even if she couldn’t do it with her words. You got good at working around the rules, as a fae. “Friends are good,” she agreed. “Friends are really good.” She just didn’t have any. At least, none that she wasn’t sure would disappear. “Do you have a lot of them?” ___________________

He contemplated her questions and he tapped his chin in thought once more. “I do, largely,” Gael responded, recalling how they’d gotten all their things together, how they essentially all moved so that his eldest sister wouldn’t go to the states by herself. His father didn’t take it very well but he adjusted. “Like it here, I mean.” He added. “The States have some problems but I think one would be hard-pressed to find a place anywhere that’s entirely perfect. And Wicked’s Rest is very curious but I really enjoy it here.” A smile crossed his face now. “I’ve met so many people, already learned so many interesting things from everyone.”

Gael wasn’t exaggerating as he thought back on the past couple weeks… sure, there were a few setbacks but largely, the weird supernatural stuff he refused to acknowledge aside, he HAD met a lot of people from many walks of life, some of which changed his life. “I like to think I do,” the professor said, looking over at Cass and catching her smile, responding with one of his own though his expression was bright and optimistic. “Friends are just strangers you haven’t met yet, after all.” He had heard that saying a long time ago and while it was probably foolish, he liked to think it was mostly true. He also really wanted to believe that people were largely, inherently good. Sure, truly evil things did exist - he went to church, after all - but on the day-to-day basis, he saw people who just needed some help most of the time. Bad things, not bad guys.

He was foolish, he knew. “Then again, I have no way of knowing, truly, if all those people I just thought of would call me their friend.” Gael mused. “I try to keep an easygoing approach to relationships nowadays - some of them aren’t friendships and sometimes you spend a lot of time with someone only to find out that it either wasn’t what you thought it was going to be or that person was putting on a mask for however long the relationship lasts.” He furrowed his brow as he moved his finger, as though double-checking to make sure the sentence was arranged correctly in his head. “So that can be rough but ideally if someone were to ask me to be their friend, I wouldn’t have the heart to say no; even if I’m their only friend or even the only person they know, that means they aren’t alone, right?” He asked, keeping his dark eyes on her. ___________________

 “There are a lot of cool people here,” she agreed. “I like it, too.” It had taken her a long time to like the continental United States after she’d ‘left’ her aos si. For all the mistreatment she’d faced there, there had been an undeniable sense of community among the nymphs she’d grown up with. It just… hadn’t been a community that Cass was a part of. And it wasn’t their fault, she knew; she was just too much. Too curious, too loud, too unruly. Anyone would have cast her aside, wouldn’t they? But losing that community still hurt, and she’d spent a lot of time hating the mainland as a result. But she liked it now. She liked it here, in Wicked’s Rest. There were people like Gael here, people who might decide to like her if she put on the right mask. Maybe even for more than just a little while.

But Gael spoke of the disappointment of learning that someone you’d befriended was wearing a mask, and Cass felt her heartbeat pick up just a little as the nerves struck her. He wouldn’t want to be her friend if he knew the real her, of course; no one ever had. But would he resent her if he inevitably discovered that she wasn’t who she pretended to be? Would he hate her for it? It wasn’t as if she’d be outright lying to him — she wasn’t much good at that. 

“There have to be some people you don’t want to be friends with,” she pointed out, glancing down at the table uncertainly. “Nobody wants to be friends with everyone.” Even Cass, who craved approval so much that she often felt she might choke on it, had met a few people she couldn’t help but dislike. People who were mean or scary or violent, people who scared her or upset her. The world wasn’t full of wonderful people; she knew that from experience. “Maybe there are some people who deserve to be alone, too.” She thought she might. After Kuma, after Debbie, after all of it… She thought she probably deserved at least some of that loneliness she felt. ___________________ “People who deserve to be alone?” Gael repeated, raising a brow in thought. “I don’t know. Everyone has at least someone, I figure.” He mused. The thoughts that trailed through his head were obvious examples but he was sure most people didn’t fit that criteria of checkboxes that warranted being alone. Humans were social creatures and they didn’t function too well by themselves - even the ones who insisted they didn’t need anyone had at least a pet or a companion of some sort. He gave a small, one-sided shrug. “I’m sure there are some but I don’t know if I’m the one who gets to judge people like that.” He replied. “And there are a lot of factors that contribute to a group’s assessment on whether or not an individual ‘deserves’ to be alone.” Gael inhaled softly as he said this and he himself traced a small thought in his head, the one that led to a dark mire in his mind where he thought of the inevitability of what would happen if HE were told that he deserved to be alone. He shook his head and cleared his throat. “But I’m the type of really annoying guy that tries to make things work,” He smiled. “Not everyone can vibe with everyone but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.” The tapping returned to Gael’s chin after he finished off his drink. “And sometimes, it just doesn’t but I can say that I did my best. And most of the time, it seems to help.” He leaned back in his seat, placing a hand on his lower back as he stretched it with a grunt. “Apologies niña, didn’t mean to lecture you… We can change the topic whenever you’d like.” The apology was said with a light scoff but it was said in earnest - he had a habit of getting onto his soapbox, even if it was small, which he was sure did him no favors when he was talking to acquaintances. ___________________

Was it true that no one deserved a life of solitude? Cass would like to believe so, but it was so strange to think. But she also knew enough to know that people rarely deserved what she got. There were people worse than her who still had families who loved them, people better than her who didn’t. She thought of Van in her big empty house, of Nora with her tattered clothes in the streets of New York. If people got what they deserved, her friends would have been dealt better hands.

Or maybe not. What factors did contribute to such a decision? Nora and Van had their parts in what had happened to Debbie, too; Nora was the one holding the knife, in the end. Worrying her lip between her teeth, Cass couldn’t help but ask, “Factors like what?” If she didn’t know, maybe Gael could tell her. He seemed smart.

Of course, he also seemed like the kind of person who would lie to protect her feelings. It was admirable, in a way, but a lie was still a lie. It didn’t matter if your intentions were good, didn’t matter if you were doing everything you knew how to do to make someone feel okay. Lying stung the same. “That’s okay,” she said, finding that the idea of changing the topic was more and more tempting as they went on. “But, um, we can talk about something else, if you want. Did you have any more questions you wanted to ask?” ___________________ “Okay, okay, factors real quick then we’ll switch topics,” Gael nodded before turning to the back of his journal and tearing out a page. “SO what factors determine whether or not a group of people - and we’re generalizing because no group of humans is going to be a hivemind,” He explained, his tone suddenly becoming even and maybe even a little louder. “So there are two categories - mutable and immutable.” He drew a quick, messy diagram as he spoke. “Immutable characteristics are things that are generally perceived can’t be changed; a few big ones are biological sex, sexual orientation and race.” He wrote those down. “People can discriminate based on these immutable characteristics but those people are called, if you’ll pardon the terminology, idiots.” He exhaled. “So don’t even worry about those; if someone judges you based on those factors, their opinion isn’t worth anything.” Gael crossed those out. “Mutable characteristics are more likely what we’re talking about.” He started writing the other list. “This one is a lot more extensive and subjective - we’re talking lifestyle, accents, what you decide to color your hair… pretty much anything that you have the power to change.” He explained. “Each of these are reasons why people might think someone ‘deserves to be alone’.” He paused. “And it’s… ridiculous because so many of these are what make people unique.” His cadence slowed down and his eyes danced over the page. He cleared his throat, shaking his head. “Then there are some things like ‘choosing to be a serial killer’ or ‘routinely breaking the law’, both of which are mutable but the first one is generally frowned upon by modern society and the second one is a case-by-case basis,” Gael explained, scooting the paper towards Cass. “Just keep in mind that any of these–” He tapped the paper with the pen. “Are aspects of what makes you you. And if someone thinks you deserve to be alone because of any of these, then they aren’t worth your time.” He said earnestly, keeping his eyes on her. “There’s a difference between ‘opting out of a relationship’ and ‘telling someone they deserve to be alone’.”  ___________________

Cass watched with a faint fascination as Gael wrote. She wondered, though she was too afraid to ask, if her unglamoured form counted as one of those immutable factors. It wasn’t something she could change, though it was something she could hide. Were the people who’d seen it and been afraid counted among the ‘idiots’ Gael was referring to now? She thought of Kuma, of the fear in her eyes when she’d come home to find Cass covered in rock and magma, when she’d screamed and ordered her away. She didn’t think Kuma had been an idiot. She’d just been scared. 

She pushed those thoughts away, because they weren’t the ones that mattered. Whether her unglamoured form was a valid reason for people to avoid her or not, it wasn’t something she could change. Gael said that the mutable characteristics, like the immutable ones, didn’t make a person deserving of loneliness, and there was some relief in that. Cass smiled faintly, feeling a little relieved…

Until he continued. Because those things could probably be applied to her, too, couldn’t they? She might not have hurt Kuma directly, but she could recognize that the woman’s death by broken promise was something that wouldn’t have happened if not for her. And though she hadn’t been the one to plunge that knife into Debbie, she’d still hurt her beforehand. She’d still helped to hide the body. Did two deaths make a person a serial killer? How many times could you hurt people and still be thought of as something redeemable? And as for breaking the law, Cass did that daily. There was a stolen wallet in her pocket right now, a stranger’s ID staring up from the folds. 

Trying not to let her discomfort show lest she give too much away, she focused on the paper to avoid having to meet Gael’s eye. “But some people do,” she gathered, still looking down. “Some people deserve to be alone. Right? Criminals and serial killers, that’s what you’re saying?” ___________________ His expression softened a little more, if that was possible, and he inhaled deeply. “It depends.” Gael replied. “Specifically I said “people who choose to be serial killers” for the former and that criminals should be judged on a case-by-case basis.” He explained. “And even then, murderers usually have at least one person who will stick by them regardless of what they've done, either in solidarity or out of love.” He tapped on his chin with the pen. “That’s why it’s so tricky to take someone at their word when they say ‘you deserve to be alone’, whether that’s one other person, a clique or even yourself.” It was Gael’s turn to look down as he thought. “Sometimes people turn all those things inward and even though other people may not say them, they tell themselves that they deserve to be alone; judging themselves because of these immutable or mutable characteristics. “Sometimes someone routinely breaks the law out of necessity, whether it’s to feed themselves or a loved one. Sometimes a killer is coerced into killing or manipulated into participating. Do they deserve to be alone? I’m sure some people might think so but…” He fell silent. “I don’t know, that's not for me to determine.” He regarded her once more. “But I do know getting out of that self-loathing and isolation takes a lot of strength and I can’t think of anyone who’s been able to do it alone. That’s the ironic part, isn’t it?” ___________________

Didn’t everyone choose? Wasn’t that what she’d learned in her comic books and her movies? Everyone got a choice, and some people made the wrong one. Cass made the wrong one, time and time again. But she couldn’t bring herself to argue that she might not deserve the companionship she so craved. If Gael thought she was worthy, she could let herself believe it for a little while. She wasn’t a good liar, but she was great at believing untrue things that sounded pretty. That was what fiction was all about. 

“So everyone deserves someone,” she surmised, hoping he wouldn’t reply that that wasn’t what he meant at all. If everyone deserved someone, then Cass did, too. If there were exceptions to the rules of killers and thieves being bad, then maybe Debbie’s rotting corpse in that pit or the stolen wallets in her cave didn’t say anything about her at all. It sounded so untrue, but she could cling to it anyways. 

She offered Gael a small smile, nodding her head. “I think you’re really smart,” she told him, and the compliment was a genuine one. Not fishing for a thank you, not a desperate ploy to make herself more likable. She thought Gael was really smart, and she thought it for real. Leaning back in her seat, she nibbled on her pastry. “Do you want to talk about more volcanoes?” 

#WR Writing #Writing: Magna-tudes of Deep Discussion #Writing With: Cass

[musickickztoo]

CONTRA2022 - 13  EASY WAY OUT

TRACKLIST:

01. Wild Evel & The Trashbones - Berlin On Fire 02. Hammered Hulls - Rights and Reproduction 03. Snapped Ankles - The Fish Needs A Bike 04. Cass McCombs + Weak Signal - Vacation From Thought 05. Wolfmanhattan Project - Silky Narcotic 06. Goat - Do The Dance 07. The Tashmints - Treated You Rough 08. 2nd Grade - Teenage Overpopulation 09. The Prize - Easy Way Out 10. THE WRS - Do It 11. Black Lips - Lost Angel 12. Acid Dad - Get Me High 13. Lost Cat - Cherry Bomb 14. The Bobby Lees - Bellevue 15. Split Second - Time Killer 16. DADAR - 112 17. Buzzcocks - Just Got To Let It Go 18. Die Nerven - 180°

The 13th playlist of the year!

Listen:

https://www.mixcloud.com/Contraflow/contra2022-13-easy-way-out-all-new/

#all new #buzzcocks #snapped ankles #goat #the bobby lees #lost cat #die nerven #hammered hulls #the wrs #split second #wolfmanhattan project #cass maccombs + weak signal #the prize #black lips #acid dad #2nd grade #wild evel & the trashbones #dadar #the tashmints #garage rock #punk #post-punk #indie #alternative #playlist #mixcloud

[cassyapper]

i think of jolyne calling “dad?” and both jotaro and weather report respond “yeah?” cause they’ve never been in the same room before so jolyne hasn’t had a need to refer to them by different names until now

#they proceed to all stare at eahc other in the most awkward silence ever to exist #jjba #cass cries #also before someone misunderstands: the joke is not that jolyne and wr are together. it's just that he's a father figure to her

[zahri-melitor]

I don't know if it's just me but it feels like alot of the points people use to criticise Tim are things that can actually be seen with early Damian writing. The too smart, dangerous, over-competent and slightly murderous character doesn't really fit Tim as a character even though he's ascribed to that and criticised for it but it can easily be seen with Damian.

I don't hate Damian as a character, but I get what you mean about it being tiring that DC keeps pushing him to the top of the totem pole especially since the way the do that is by making other characters seem incompetent and by ignoring other characters. Also correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Cass, Barbara or Tim have been on the Justice League but Damian as a teen younger than them technically is/was?

Oh boy. Late response on this, but I've been playing with it for a while.

Starting with the last point first: Tim’s actually the only one of those three who hasn’t been on a main universe Justice League at any point.

Barbara was a member of the JLA after the Morrison reboot for quite a while between 1998-2000. She’s also got the tendency to pop up in JL stories and events as one of the computer folk helping maintain their systems. She’s certainly more focused on her OWN team and I don’t think she’s ever been a member as Batgirl, but as Oracle? As Lian Harper says in Titans #1 (1999), she’s secretly running the League.

Cass was a member of Justice League Elite, a morally ambiguous Justice League spinoff coming out of one of the more confusing JLA arcs. She was placed on the team undercover as ‘Kasumi’ by Bruce essentially as a spy. In tone it feels like DC trying their hand at a The Authority ripoff before they gobbled Wildstorm up. Is it a good series? No, but it does mean Cass has been on a Justice League team with Wally, Ollie, and a bunch of Z-listers you’ve never heard of. (Someone is now going to defend oh Manitou Dawn to me and while I DO like her, she's a Z-lister, sorry)

Digression aside!

I think a lot of the time when people are arguing against a character, they are frequently complaining about the flanderised, fanonised version of that character that they trip over in fic all the time more than the character on page in comics. Not always! But those do tend to irritate people more.

In terms of "what people want to argue fanon Tim to be, Damian already is" sort of? I mean there are multiple fanon versions of Tim, but yes, "too smart, dangerous, over-competent and slightly murderous" is a common one among people who want to really insist Tim killed lots and lots and lots of people in Red Robin #8 (a reading I do not subscribe to). It is equally an okay but not great description of Damian, in that I would mostly place even early Damian as 'dangerously violent' not 'murderous' by BFTC.

I don't think it's great in terms of complete accuracy for either of them, but yeah, if you boil things down, it's closer to Damian's actual character than Tim's.

In terms of DC pushing them: yeah, Damian by being THE Robin between 2009 and 2019 or so got a solid editorial pitch as a central character, because 'Robin' as a title has that extra cachet outside of intense comics nerd circles. There were events and storylines that centred his position as The Robin, but equally it comes out in basic things like...which characters are prioritised to appear in anthologies! If we are writing a Batman Christmas story, let's have it feature Bruce and Damian, or Bruce, Dick, Damian and Barbara. And so on.

Now whether Damian's getting prioritised over every other 'kid' of the family is a murky discussion - there's a place for the conversation that certain writers in particular had a tendency to focus on Damian being Bruce's biological kid, over and above the adopted children - but generally it comes and goes in waves and with what stories are pitched. It's very clear when you read comics that some writers just like using particular characters more than others. There's often stories written where to make the story work, someone has to be left holding the idiot ball or being needlessly aggressive, to provide conflict, and writers who do this obviously have to choose someone to do it for them. If a story is centring Damian, generally he isn't going to be the one who finds out he's wrong after providing the conflict. If it's centring say Tim, then Damian might be used to push the narrative forward. And when a writer does like one character more than another, they might choose the one they don't intend to write often as the one who gets stuck being idiot ball.

TL;DR: on some occasions Damian might be being prioritised. On others he isn't. He got a lot of spotlight to himself during the 2010s; that's been more balanced since then (honestly Dick has been the one hogging spotlight for the last few years, if anyone).

[slutsofren]

how cass felt when the reader kissed him?? could we have a director's cut on his thoughts??

I GOT YOU BABYYYY

reminder this is reader x cass/az/rhys polyamory & fmmm

content warnings: horny, biting instinct (doesnt happen), male masturbation, slight MM action, voyeurism, no sword crossing ⚔️, slight praise

notes: please read after chapter 28 :)

summary: after cassian finally gets his way with your lips, he flies away and takes his cock in hand. and another bat boy enjoys what he sees.

word count: 1,508

read on ao3 here / high lady masterlist

Cassian didn't know he was holding his breath until he saw you again. When you arrived back to the townhouse, he felt it.

He felt you.

He had been harsh on himself internally since his shameless flirting from a few days prior but he couldn't help himself around you. You were his mate, his first ever mate.

Centuries ago, he wouldn't have believed himself worthy of such a thing and yet here you were.

He had been in the front sitting room with Morrigan and Azriel discussing matters of the Court of Nightmares when something inside him sang with such profound beauty.

One look to Azriel and he knew what it was.

The moment he sensed your return he practically flew up the stairs of the townhouse, wings be damned.

Being the first to arrive, he flung the door open with such a force he was almost afraid it would dent the wall just as he called out for Rhysand.

But his eyes quickly found your frame.

You looked tired, a bit exhausted around the edges, but beautiful nonetheless. He drank your presence in like a lifeline and he couldn't help but let the feeling of pure unadulterated joy emanate from him.

You returned back to him.

Cassian watched on with Azriel beside him as you opened the wretched box and revealed the Book of Breathings. The voice that spoke from the object with light and airy, almost taunting in it's feigned innocence yet vicious in its own right.

He shifted from one foot to the next, only watching you. Watching how your shoulders tensed during this whole interaction yet your kept level headed when Rhysand was pushing you.

A fine warrior's spirit, Rhysands mother would have said.

Just as you were prompting to leave, his hand reached out to grab yours. Your hands were so small in his and he would do everything he could to make sure they stayed clean of blood.

The moment his skin touched yours, he felt something jolt through him, finding it's home at the base of his spine. It was warm and he savored it. “Are you okay,” he asked.

He watched closely as you looked towards the rest of the group as they discussed the Book. “I'm good. Tired,” you say honestly.

He noticed how you didn't remove your hand from his so he took it as a sign. Stars, he was grateful your new fae hearing wasn't as sharp as it could be lest you heard his pathetic, traitorous heart pounding in his chest at the mere chance at being close to you.

“Can I walk you to your room,” he asked foolishly. He wanted more time with you, he missed you. Missed how you'd waltz around with a glint in your eyes, knowing you were the most cunning of them all. He loved it.

After you agreed, he reveled in being in the same proximity with you for just that much more longer.

Cassian noticed how your heart seemed to beat in rhythm with his when you wanted to approach a difficult subject so he steeled himself for the worst.

But then you said something he wasn’t expecting.

“Rhysand wants to talk about,” you said as you made a wide gesture, “everything with me later.”

He wanted to play with you like you played with Rhys, so he pushed hard with his tactics. He flirted, eyes dropping down to your lips faster than you noticed.

“Fuck it,” you murmured hust as you kissed him.

It wasn't elegant, it was all teeth against his chapped lips but he was stunned you actually did it and he groaned in the pleasure of feeling your body wrap around his.

It took him a few more seconds before he gathered his mind together and kissed you back earnestly. His wings wrapped around the two of you as he pressed you against your bedroom door.

“Cass,” you whined against his lips as he began to lick and nip a trail down your throat.

Stars be damned, he was never into biting, not like Azriel, he had a few marks to prove it. But shit, he wanted to bite this pretty little neck of yours. So smooth against his tongue, so free of blemishes.

He quickly returned back to your lips, deepening the kiss until your hands found their way to his hair, knocking the strands loose from his leather strap.

Cassian could feel himself grow hard under your influence and it took everything in him to pull away.

Logic was out the window the moment your lips met his but he couldn't be the one to tell you he was your mate, that you had three.

Rhysand, the one you trusted most, had to be the one.

The two of you were like lost stars in the vast and endless abyss of the night sky and seemed to always find each other and Cassian wanted to be a part of that song so bad, just like Azriel. But for now, it wasn't about him and he was happy your body seemed as receptive of him as he was of you.

He could only hope your heart was the same.

So he mustered as much power as he could to pull you away, kissing you gently over your cheeks.

Fucking stars, he thought, he was still so painfully hard beneath his trousers. But he had to walk away or make a very big mistake.

“I want you so fucking bad,” he whispered in your ear, his breath fanning over your hair.

He could feel your breath hitch in your throat as he took a step back. “But that is a game for another day,” he smiled something fiendish at you.

“Of course,” you said catching your breath.

The two of you locked eyes as he did the dutiful thing and walked back down the hall to his own borrowed bedroom, he didn't wait to listen for you to shut your door as he shut his.

He paced his bedroom, back and forth, palming his hardened cock.

Without a second thought he threw open his balcony window, one that was in only his and Azriel’s rooms, and took to the skies.

He had to leave, he had to.

The scent of your lust permeated his nose and was starting to cloud his judgement and he had to get as far as he could away.

Thoughts of taking you every which way in your bed, against the wall, in your bathtub, on the floor, all of it stained his imagination. He wanted all of it.

Cassian landed very ungratefully on the training balcony of the House of Wind and shot himself to his actual bedroom. He didn't bother with shutting the door only to strip his clothes down to nothing as he began to touch himself.

“Ahh, fuck,” he growled as his palm grazed his bare cock.

Cassian prided himself on his sexual escapades but he couldn't help but wish he was watching your hand take him now. He spit into his hand and hissed as he took himself in his palm, stroking hard and soft, mirroring what imaginary-you would do to him.

“She got to you too,” a male voice laughed gently behind him.

He whipped around and saw Azriel leaning against his doorway, arms crossed. Az’s eyes flecked down to Cassian's exposed cock but looked back up to his eyes, “Well don't let me stop you. I've been touching my own since that day she let me hold her on our way to her sisters.”

“Well are you just going to stand there,” Cassian said, cock still in hand.

Azriel pondered for a moment before he nodded. “I think I might. Continue with your work.”

Cass rolled his eyes and continued to stoke. It wasn't the first time the two Illyrians had watched each other in the past and maybe that was a part of this mutual mating bond with the same female that made them so comfortable around each other but Cassian wasn't embarrassed. He wasn't even going to kick him out.

He just continued his moments.

A sharp gasp escaped him as he sped his movements up, chasing the same high he felt when he had you pressed up against your door. He could still taste your lips on his but he imagined the sweet tangy scent of your cunt preening for him instead, stars he wanted to taste you.

That imaginary scent had him spilling over the top as he came with a deep guttural groan. He came all over his deep bronze hands and already missed the way you felt against him in his mind.

Fuck, he was doomed.

Cassian fell to his knees, still feeling his orgasmic high coursing through him as his lungs ached for a full breath. He looked up as Azriel shifted in the doorway with a lustful knowing smirk, “Good boy.”

His heart skipped a beat as he watched Az walk away, satisfied enough with the sight of the Lord of Bloodshed on his knees.

#acotar rewrite #the high lady of cunning #the high lady talks #directors commentary #cassian acotar #cassian x reader #cassian x y/n

[ijustreallylovethem]

Ok but…

Inexperienced reader making Tyler cum in his pants for the first time

it’s before she’s gone down on him but after he’s gone down on her. they’re making out, she’s in his lap and she’s grinding down against him. she doesn’t realize how much it’s affecting him until he grabs her hips and stops her, lifting her off his lap a few inches. she pulls away from his lips and glances over his face.

“what’s wrong? are you okay? did i do something wr-“

“no, cass, it’s okay. just need a second to… calm down.”

“oh. oh! uh, sorry, i didn’t realize…” she cuts herself off, thinking that this could be her chance to make him feel good like he made her feel good. she pulls his hands from his hips and sits herself back in his lap, slowly starting to grind against him again. he takes in a breath, looking up at her.

“cassidy.”

“wanna make you feel good, ty.” she watched as his breathing picks up and she leans down to kiss and nip at his neck. his hands return to her hips, this time helping her move against him. it’s only moments later that he’s making her still again and his hips involuntarily thrust up into hers. he lets out a few grunts and cassidy loves the sound of them in her ear.

“fuck, cass.” his head falls back against the couch and she just smiles innocently down at him. she lets her fingers twirl a few strands of hair and she watches his eyes close and he starts to calm down.

“feel good?” he just nods in response. “good.” she presses a quick kiss to his cheek, her fingers still playing with his hair.

#raegan talks about blurbs #tyler duke #tyler x cassidy

[themculibrary]

Letters Masterlist

1796 Broadway (ao3) - rainproof, teaberryblue steve/tony, bruce/natasha M, 460k

Summary: Captain America respectfully requests that all complaints be addressed to him in writing. On paper, the nice old-fashioned way, because the computer screen hurts his eyes.

Put your phone down, Tony.

all my love (ao3) - casdoms (moffwithhishead) sam/bucky, steve/bucky M, 4k

Summary: September 7th, 1943

Steve,

Tell me something good. Tell me a story about home, about the neighborhood. Give me something to live for, here, because I’m dying. I’m fucking dying. All these guys, dying, and they’re not even –

How are you? There’s been fewer letters from you. Hope you haven’t gotten yourself into trouble. Becca said in her last letter, that she hasn’t seen you in a while. I hope you didn’t do something stupid, you fucking moron.

I’ll be unreachable for a while. Keep sending letters, if you’re not dead. I want something to read when I get back.

Yours,

B

a whole new world (ao3) - Icylightning pepper/tony T, 18k

Summary: For last six months Tony and Pepper were looking for a child to adopt but luck wasn’t on their side. Until one day, Tony receives a letter from five year old Peter Parker.

better when i’m with you (ao3) - thelilacfield wanda/vision T, 69k

Summary: He’s had a number of firsts. Virginia Reed, his first crush. Wanda Maximoff, his first kiss. Eve Simon, his first heartbreak. Mandy Fournier, the first girl who said yes when he asked her to dance. And he’s becoming increasingly certain that Sam Wilson is his first love.

Vision writes a letter each time he has a crush so consuming he can’t forget it. They are tiny pieces of his heart, written out for his eyes only, a way to say goodbye.

Until the day they’re sent out.

Christmas Letters (ao3) - thesoundofasmile clint/laura T, 6k

Summary: In the lead up to Christmas while waiting for Clint to get home, Laura remembers some instances of Natasha celebrating the holiday with the Barton family, and Nathaniel inadvertently starts a new tradition to continue to include Natasha in their celebrations.

counted days, counted miles (ao3) - CrimsonPetrichor sam/bucky G, 2k

Summary: Separated for months by Captain America duties and missions with the Thunderbolts, Sam and Bucky somehow still manage to keep up their domestic squabbles, browbeat each other into taking care of themselves, and deal with their not-strictly-platonic feelings.

A story told in correspondence.

Dear Sam (ao3) - QuestinWitchFace sam/bucky M, 18k

Summary: Months after the events of TFATWS, Bucky and Sam are work partners and roommates living in a house together in Delacroix. Bucky's therapist suggests that, since Bucky has trouble verbalizing his feelings sometimes, he should try writing them out in letters to the people in his life. Bucky can only think of one person he wants to write to.

Dear Yelena (ao3) - flipflop_diva T, 1k

Summary: While the Avengers wait for word on Steve's quest to return the Soul Stone, Yelena reads a stack of old letters Natasha once wrote to her.

dust off our new love (ao3) - ArabellaAM steve/tony G, 1k

Summary: Tony’s clothes are full of dust when he finds the box.

Letters between Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes: 1942-45 (ao3) - Jakcett steve/bucky T, 4k

Summary: Content Summary:

Historical documents, with annotations.

Letters Never Sent (ao3) - wisteriafic wanda/vision T, 9k

Summary: Dear Family and Friends,

I’m not sure why I’m writing this. I don’t have any friends or family anymore to send it to. The moms on TV would write these holiday letters, and I guess I like the idea of putting the past year down on paper.

letters we never sent (ao3) - MissAmyShay bucky/sarah G, 6k

Summary: Bucky likes Sarah. Sarah likes Bucky.

Cass and AJ think it’s time for their relationship to progress to a new level.

Post Haste (ao3) - roboticonography steve/peggy T, 13k

Summary: Steve, Peggy, their friends and family, and a mad dash to the altar. A story in letters.

Read It and Go From There (ao3) - Write_To_You bruno/kamala G, 1k

Summary: A peek into Kamala’s mind when she reads Bruno’s letter.

Shallow Pockets (ao3) - Chargedlion T, 3k

Summary: Valentina doesn't recruit Yelena. Yelena doesn't dedicate her time to hunting and killing Clint Barton. Instead, she wakes up alone in a world without her sister.

All that was left of Natasha was her legacy and the vest she shared with Yelena. And there's something in one of the pockets.

sincerely, (ao3) - catjeno mj/peter G, 5k

Summary: It's been weeks since The Spell, since Peter Parker was erased from the Earth. And though he loves being Spider-Man full time, his new life is not an easy adjustment.

Peter needs someone to talk to. So he turns to his loved ones, in the only way he can.

The Notebooks (ao3) - Ribbonsflying steve/bucky G, 3k

Summary: To cope with his new reality, Steve wrote notebooks to Bucky long before Bucky was ever found.

to live without a lifeline (ao3) - himynameisv T, 1k

Summary: She allows herself one day to grieve.

She comes out the next day—ready and not ready at the same time—to face the world.

What happened during that time is between Natasha and the dead.

(Or: Nat writes a letter, of all the things left unsaid.)

To make things right (ao3) - missingcrowdsof1000s bruno/kamala T, 3k

Summary: A peek into Kamala’s mind as she finally reads Bruno’s letter (a.k.a. an alternate ending to Episode 6, in a world where the deleted scene “Just Friends” from Episode 3 is actual canon).

waiting on my soldier (ao3) - Areiton, BladeoftheNebula steve/tony, bucky/natasha M, 13k

Summary: Here, it feels like anything is possible, like he could ask for the world and actually get it. 

It’s that, more than anything, that makes him ask, “Can I write to you. When I’m gone? I don’t--I have Bucky and Ma, but I’d sure love to have a pretty omega like you waitin’ on my letters.” 

Tony leans into him a little heavier, and squeezes his hand as the sun begins to rise, and paint the sky purple and pink. “Yes,” he says simply.

#themculibrary #marvel #mcu #masterlists #letters #letters masterlist

[tsuvvy]

CAN WR GET A SNEAK PEAKKJJ

“No,” The woman shook her head, refusing to accept the facts. “They can’t.” She swallowed her disgust, “They can’t possibly be. There is no way, David.” Her gaze shifted to him, then to me.

And my gaze stayed fearful. What is happening. Wasn’t I in that bed? Damian had left. It was.. It was night time. I shouldn’t be here. How am I here? I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be with dad. He’s mean. He’s scary and he’s angry. I want Damian. Cass. Where is Cassandra? I want Cassandra.

“Look at it!” The woman’s voice boomed. “It isn’t mine. How would you even..” She looked at dad. Her brows furrowed before her face relaxed with a realization that seemed to only disgust her more. “You psycho. You disgusting psychopath.” She muttered.

#༆oh sister of mine

[letsbenditlikebennett]

TIMING: Current PARTIES: @ironcladrhett @magmahearts & @letsbenditlikebennett SUMMARY: Rhett can sense there's a fae nearby and ends up following Cass towards the Magmacave where she's meeting Alex for date night. Having met Rhett before, Cass is friendly... Rhett? Not so much. CONTENT: Eye trauma, unsanitary (blood)

Date night was something Cass took pretty seriously now that she had a designated date night partner. There were so many things Alex hadn’t experienced throughout her life — an unfortunate side effect of her upbringing and her parents, the oread knew. It made her angry to think about, sometimes, made her upset to know that her girlfriend had suffered so much under the ‘care’ of people who made an active effort not to understand her… but it also meant she got to be the one to help rectify that. And that wasn’t all bad. She could show Alex the best movies, introduce her to the coolest comics. She got to be there to see the way the other girl’s face lit up when she experienced all of that for the first time, and that was a good thing.

It also meant that Cass was bound and determined to make everything as special as she could. She knew what Alex liked now, and she always made an effort to make sure she had as much of it as possible. Everything in the Magmacave was ready for a new kind of movie night. A projector she’d ‘acquired’ from Walmart that worked with her phone, a bunch of snacks she’d stored away just for this moment, blankets and pillows of every shape and size… It was bound to be one for the history books, she thought. She was just finishing up her very last snack run before Alex’s arrival, grocery bags slung over her arms as she made her way back to the cave with the less ‘nonperishable’ of movie night snacks. It was perfect. It was going to be perfect. 

She walked towards the cave with a spring in her step, pausing momentarily at the sound of something rustling behind her. If this was a monster that was going to ruin movie night — or worse, try to steal her carefully acquired snacks — she was going to be mad. Cass turned around, putting a hand to her hip as she prepared to scare off whatever animal was there, only to come face to face with a man instead. He looked familiar, though it took her a moment to place him. “Hey, I know you. You were at Alan’s that one time, right? With the pool!” She offered him a bright smile. “You probably shouldn’t be out here at night time. There’s animals and stuff in the woods, you know? You don’t wanna get eaten!”

—

It had been happenstance, really, that he saw the fae girl at the store. He’d not even been inside, but walking past outside when he felt that familiar, horrible feeling that accompanied the presence of fae. Diverting his path and forgoing whatever plans he’d had in mind, Rhett followed the sensation until the girl was in his sights, then tailed her at a respectable distance. She seemed distracted, which was good, or she might’ve noticed sooner that she had a shadow that was following her out of town and towards the Flat. He dropped back even further as their location became more and more remote, careful to just use his senses to keep track of her, even when he couldn’t see her. Not like his eyes were much fucking good, anyway.

She stopped, he stopped. Must have reached her destination, then. Or—oh. No. She’d spotted him. But she wasn’t scared, she was smiling. She recognized him. 

He managed to mirror the emotion, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Aye, with the pool,” he confirmed, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “That so? Well, don’t worry, I think I can handle any ol’ animal what wants to tango with me,” the warden chuckled. He glanced past her at the cave, brow raised. “You live in there?” he asked. “No judgment… live out the van, myself. Cool cave.”

—

What was he doing out here, she wondered? Had he seen her and grown concerned? It wasn’t entirely unheard of for people to worry when they saw someone Cass’s age walking alone into the woods at night, and he had met her at Alan’s, so maybe he felt some… silly sense of responsibility. It might have been exciting if she didn’t know it would likely be a temporary thing. Most adults only cared about a kid until it stopped being convenient for them to do so, and she doubted Alan’s boyfriend was any different in that regard. 

She glanced back to the cave with a shrug, opting not to answer the question verbally. He said he wouldn’t judge, but… Wait. He lived in a van? Cass squinted at him. Hadn’t Aria said the man who’d put her in his van had long gray hair, too? Uneasiness crept down the oread’s spine, but she was quick to shove it away. Alan trusted this guy, and Alex trusted Alan. It was probably just a coincidence, wasn’t it? “What are you doing out here, anyway? Just walking around? It’s kind of late for a hike, moke.” She let her tone take on a teasing lilt in spite of her uneasiness. It wasn’t fair to be suspicious of him, not really. Driving a van and having long hair wasn’t a crime or anything.

—

“Oh, night time walks are pretty much the only thing keepin' me sane these days,” Rhett laughed, though the gesture of friendliness didn't quite meet his eyes. It never seemed to, these days. He thought about how he needed to get in closer without spooking her off, and decided to lean into the misinterpretation she and Alex had had regarding his relationship with Alan. Or lack thereof, if you were the type that cared about semantics. Rhett was not one of those people. 

“Anyway, Alan says it's good fer me, so here I am. Walkin' out all the ol' troubles.” He was doing a pretty good job of being convincing, or so he thought. “Spotted you not far back... sorry I didn't call out sooner. Didn't wanna scare you. Guess followin' you ain't a much better choice, eh? Whoops.” He shrugged. “Say, Alex ain't around, is she? Been meanin' to ask her for a wee favor in regards to the grumpy ol' man back home, but ah... if she's here, could just get it outta the way now. You know how it is, I ain't great with the technology.” Now he was just lying, but it didn't really matter if this fae was going to die in the next ten minutes, did it? Besides, he felt this was a pretty decent way of making sure she was alone before moving in for the kill. Or... kidnapping. Again? Couldn't rightly kill her here, what if someone else did show up? What then? No, there'd have to be a secondary location. Didn't matter much where, just not here.

—

Old people did like night time walks, actually. Cass was pretty sure she’d seen commercials featuring old people walking at night while a disembodied voice read off a list of potential side effects, so it made sense that Rhett would rely on them. They probably kept him feeling young, or whatever. 

The oread softened a little at the mention of Alan, too, thinking of the two of them at Alex’s mentor’s house the night with the pink pool. Most of it was a little hazy — in retrospect, she so should have recognized the whole ‘high on mushrooms’ thing way before she had — but she remembered thinking they seemed good together. Balanced each other out, in a way, with Alan’s seriousness and Rhett’s willingness to join in on her and Alex’s little game.

“Yeeeaaah,” she said with a small laugh, “following a girl alone in the woods at night isn’t the best way to avoid scaring her, dude. But that’s okay.” At the mention of her girlfriend, she perked up a little. “Oh, she’s not here right now, but we’re meeting up later. I could pass along the message for you? No offense, but I don’t really want you crashing date night with my girl.” She wrinkled her nose at him, a teasing glint in her eye. 

—

“Ah! Of course, totally get that, no problem. Here, ah…” He patted his pockets for a second before fishing out a scrap of paper and a pen. “I’ll write it down just in case, howzat?” Not giving her much time to respond, the warden scribbled… well, nothing. It was just scribbles. Clicking the pen shut, he pocketed it again before folding the paper and closing the distance to hand it to Cass. “‘Preciate it, kid.” 

As he held out his hand, waiting for her to accept the paper, his heartbeat quickened. And when she mirrored the motion to take it, he struck out like a viper. The paper was dropped as that hand came to circle her wrist instead, the other jumping to her throat. He wasted no time with words, simply twisting them both around until he stood behind her, pinning her arms to her own torso while the other jumped to cover her mouth and stop her screaming. Alex was coming, and there was no telling when she’d arrive. Couldn’t stay here. Rhett began to back away from the cave entrance, dragging the nymph into the brush with some difficulty but not too much, thanks to his superior strength.

—

“Oh, that’s a really good idea!” If he wrote it down, they wouldn’t have to play the telephone game and whatever it was he needed to say wouldn’t have to go through Cass before getting to Alex. She’d probably have a hard time remembering it; when Alex was around, most of Cass’s thoughts were reduced to the gay kind. Rhett writing his thing down was a relief, and she waited patiently as he scribbled. It looked like it was probably going to be messy — she hoped Alex would be able to read it.

When he held out the page, she flashed him a quick grin and reached for it. But before her fingers could close against the paper, he grabbed her. His hand around her wrist was like a vice grip, too tight and bruising. The way he twisted her arm behind her hurt, too; she felt something snap under the pressure, but the resulting scream was muffled by the sudden presence of a second hand covering her mouth. The pain was momentarily blinding, and she checked out for half a second. When she was back to herself, she was already moving. Already being moved. He was dragging her away from the cave, and that was bad. She needed to be in the cave. She didn’t understand what he was doing or why, but she knew she didn’t want it, so she fought back. She kicked at his knees as best she could, tried to bite the hand over her mouth. Her glamour dropped, and she kept screaming throughout even though it was muffled. What was this? Why was he doing this? She didn’t understand.

—

Nearly the whole trek to the magmacave, Alex found herself wishing that she could convince Cass to stay at the cabin with her. She wasn't under some illusion that anywhere in Wicked's Rest was safe, but she at least knew there was no goo at the cabin for the time being. Every time she saw one of the faces around town, entrapped in the sludge that hardened around them, Alex couldn't help but see Cass. The pure black of the sludge was different from the obsidian and magma that made up her girlfriend. Light didn't catch the abnormality or the sludge in quite the same way. It was like there was only darkness there and it scared the hell out of her. She supposed that was part of the problem now. Her heart was too full. There were too many who's single misstep into the goo could break her. She didn't want to keep being a broken thing, not when she was only starting to piece together what she looked like as whole. 

Still, Alex wasn't going to let her own worries ruin date night. She was dating a superhero, a little bit of danger came with the territory. If she stopped Cass from protecting her cave, she'd be asking for her to give up some fundamental to who she was. It was part of her. That bravery and dedication to protecting her little piece of nature was something Alex loved about Cass. She found her cheeks grew flush at the thought and she held the little pouch of rocks she'd collected close to her chest. 

Her feet followed the familiar path to the cave and Alex smiled at the way she knew the way like the back of her own hand now. It was a pretty thought that was rudely interrupted as she heard what sounded like a whisper of a scream, as if it had been stamped or drowned out, and she felt something shift in her. All of her senses went into overdrive and she followed the sound of footsteps and dragging ahead past the cave. 

Part of her wanted to call out, but Alex didn't dare alert anyone to her presence. She could hear sounds and while there was no scream that followed, something heavy was dragging against the forest floor along with the footsteps and she had to follow it. She could smell Cass and something else vaguely familiar. 

She ran past the cave with careful steps. Alex moved as quickly as she could, avoiding patches of dead leaves that would crumble under her steps and alert someone to her presence. It had been a good move because when she rounded a tree, she was taken aback by what she saw. Cass's glamour was off and she could see a charred mark around her wrist. 

Then there was Rhett, holding her by the throat with hand over her mouth and Alex felt sick. What was this? She knew. Part of her knew right away, but it couldn't be right. Cass wasn't a monster to be hunted. It didn't compute in her mind despite what her eyes were showing her. Her eyes had to be betraying her. 

“Cass,” she called, “Rhett.” She looked between the two, begging for the picture to adjust and show her anything else, but it never did. Her fists clenched at her side and her features hardened as she found herself glaring at the warden. “Let go of her,” she demanded coldly, “Now.“ 

—

Rhett paid the screams no mind, determined to get Cass away from the cave mouth before someone came along. Someone like Alex. But, as was typical of late, the universe had other ideas, and those ideas consisted of throwing as massive a wrench in his plans as possible. 

Goddamnit.

“Doin’ you a favor, kid.” There was no surprise in Alex’s voice to see the nymph looking the way it did now, glamour dropped. That didn’t make things easier. She was a fae sympathizer. Fuck. Well, there was no point in trying to haul it off somewhere else before killing it, now. The thought that it might traumatize Alex to see her friend be killed crossed his mind but he didn’t care—just like he didn’t care about the fact that this would certainly… complicate things. He’d be alienating himself again. From Alex, which was no great loss, but then also probably from Alan, who he had a feeling she’d tattle on him to. That one hurt a little, but there was nothing to be done about it. The fae had to go. He’d wanted to see if it knew of anyone in the area named Ophelia, but that wasn’t gonna happen now. No, all he could do was draw his iron dagger and press it to Cass’ temple, his battle-hardened gaze fixed on Alex.

“Go on, nymph. Tell yer girl here how you’ve definitely never ever hurt someone. Definitely never killed anyone with yer promise binds.” It was literally a shot in the dark, but honestly, Rhett had met more fae that had killed with their words than he’d met ones that hadn’t. Not that it mattered, not that it’d stop him from burying that blade in the creature’s skull. But maybe, just maybe, it’d give Alex some clarity on the situation.

—

She was afraid, and she hated that. She hated the way her heart was pounding, the fact that she couldn’t think straight. She was a superhero. She was supposed to be a superhero. And what good was a superhero if she was trembling? What was a terrified hero worth? 

(About as much as a dead one, she thought, and if the hand around her throat was any indication, she’d be that soon, too.)

She kicked and struggled and screamed against the hand still pressed over her mouth, but Rhett was strong. It was like he didn’t notice her struggles at all, like she was a fly pounding against a glass someone had trapped her in. Her arm hurt where he’d twisted it; she thought she could feel bones grinding together in a way they really shouldn’t have been, like maybe something had broken. And the only thought her half-hysterical mind could come up with was that she’d never had an x-ray before. She’d only ever seen them on TV.

There was a quiet vibration of approaching footsteps, muted by her panic. She screamed against Rhett’s hand again, as loud as she could, and it was shameful. She wasn’t someone who needed saving. She was supposed to be the one who did the saving, supposed to be brave and fearless and invincible. But she saw a flash of red hair cutting through the brush, and all she could feel was a crushing relief because Alex was here. Alex was here, and Cass would be safe because Alex wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

The hand covering her mouth vanished, but Cass had only a moment to bask in the relief of it before something cold pressed against her temple. Even without the sharpness actually being driven in, the mere presence of the metal against her skin hurt. She didn’t understand it for a moment. Not until she remembered what Alex and Teagan had told her about fae and iron, about how there were metals made to kill her. Cass froze all at once, terrified that any continued struggle might make that blade find its home in her skull.

Rhett spoke; she felt the vibration of his voice rise up from his chest, like a dragon growling into the darkness. Her heart stuttered, because how had he known about that? How did he know about Kuma? Her eyes darted to Alex, fear suffocating her just as much as the hand gripping her throat. If Alex knew, would she leave Cass here? Would she walk away the same way everyone always had? 

“How many people have you killed?” She ground out, her voice distorted by the lack of glamour and strained by the hand around her throat. “You want to — want to talk about hurting people? You’re the one with the knife.”

Avoidance. It was a good way to lie without lying. Cass had always been so good at that.

—

There was a breath of a second where Alex found herself unable to move. She didn't trust herself to move. Every muscle in her body was already tensed as she watched the pained, contorted expression on Cass's face and the way Rhett seemed almost amused by it. Her arrival seemed to be more an annoyance than anything else and she wasn't sure she had ever felt so much anger coursing through her. It took everything in her to not snarl and pounce the moment she saw him, but maybe he didn't know. 

How could Rhett know that Cass was a superhero? How could he know that she spent her nights looking for people to help? She was good, maybe if he knew that, it'd make a difference. She wanted so badly for it to make a difference.

It was naive. Alex knew as much. Without the beard, there was no hiding the determined look on his face. There was a stubbornness in the tightness of his jaw that she recognized too well and even his touch was hurting Cass. “You're not doing anyone any favors here,” she spat, “Cass is good. She saves people and picks up litter... Doesn't look like you bothered to ask that though.” 

Because Alex knew that when he happened upon her, Cass hadn't been doing anything out of the ordinary. She was at the cave, probably about to get it all set up for their date night. She wasn't hurting anybody and here he was, holding her tightly in his grip like she was a thing that needed to be put down. He wouldn't even say her name. Her fists curled into balls at her side. “I don't need a man to tell me anything about my girl,” she barked out, “I know everything I need to know about Cass and she's good.” 

'Unlike you,' she thought bitterly. 

But then the iron blade was pressing into Cass's temple and Alex knew this was useless. That look in Rhett's eyes reminded her too much of her father's. There was no reasoning with that look and suddenly all the anger she had finally allowed herself to feel towards her parents had a convenient outlet. 

Alex let the green backpack slide off her shoulder and into the mess of fallen leaves on the ground. She thought of warning the warden this was his last chance to get away unscathed, but a warning was more kindness than Rhett deserved. Even with her true face, stony as it was, Alex could see the fear in her glowing eyes and her voice was so strained. He did that. 

She didn't let her eyes leave Rhett as she focused on the shift. Alex had been practicing and even had some success when it came to tracking down Gael with Ren, but she always closed her eyes when she pictured her own shift. She found she couldn't do that now and her glare remained trained on Rhett as she focused on the feelings in her body. She felt the ground beneath her boots and concentrated on how it felt when it was the forest floor beneath her paws. She imagined Rhett as the moose, muscles and sinew pulling apart beneath her claws and teeth. She remembered that feeling of connection that came with being part of a pack and how she felt more connected to Cass than any of the werewolves she knew. 

Alex tuned into how the werewolf in her felt when it was protecting Alan and she felt the claws emerging from her fingers. It stung lightly in the way they ripped from her skin, but it felt almost natural now, like slipping out of her sports bra at the end of a long day. Her bones creaked under her and red tufts of fur emerged from her skin, but icy blue eyes stayed trained on the warden, as if she could pounce mid shift if he so much as moved another inch to hurt Cass. 

She stood taller once her bones all shifted into place and drool was already hanging from angry jowls as she snarled at the warden. One last chance, the wolf thought. If her mark moved a muscle, she would tear out his gut and leave him there on the forest floor. 

—

“I don’t kill people, I kill abominations. I kill killers. S’what I was made for.” Rhett’s expression was callous, his heart unsympathetic to the claims that the nymph in his grasp had done good things in its life. That didn’t matter, that didn’t make up for the bad. Hell, it didn’t even make up for the potential bad, as far as he was concerned. That was what he’d been taught. They’d all do bad, given enough time. It wasn't their fault, not entirely. It was just in their nature. But that didn’t mean he had to sit by and let it happen. And he wouldn’t, not if he could help it. Not ever. 

There was something about Alex’s body language that felt threatening, and soon enough, the warden was made to see why. Ah. Well… that was… a surprise. His eyes narrowed, his grip on the fae tightening. He didn’t have a lot of experience fighting werewolves, or at least… not shifted ones. He knew a bite from one would be his undoing, if it didn’t kill him. Which it seemed like Alex kind of wanted to do. Couldn’t blame her. Didn’t change anything, except that he’d have to try and kill her as well. 

Hey, at least then maybe the news wouldn’t make it back to Alan. Silver linings. 

The werewolf was staring him down like he’d be an easy meal, and he couldn’t help but wonder if that’s what he looked like to the supernatural things he killed. Hm. Wasn’t really food for thought. To the matter at hand—Rhett wrenched his arm up beneath the oread’s chin to hold its head in place so he could drive the blade into its temple, but he’d barely pierced the soft, thin space between rocky plates when the werewolf adjacent to him leaped forward, claws reaching out and slashing across his face, massive digits hooking around his head and ripping him away from the nymph. His blade did find purchase, but it was in the top of the fae’s shoulder, digging deep before his grip on it yanked it back out as he was thrown to the forest floor. He screamed, not out of fear but out of anger, feeling the adrenaline dump in his system as he wrestled with the beast atop him, trying to avoid a bite from those slobbering jaws.

—

Abominations. Killers. The words were hurled out in a way that was so matter of fact, not even spoken to Cass. Like she wasn’t worth speaking to at all, like she was nothing. She thought of the nymphs back on the island who’d never seen her as anything more than an inconvenience, of the kids she’d met throughout her ‘adventures’ as a homeless teen who were lost and traumatized just like she was and didn’t know how to get away from that without using someone else as a stepping stone. She thought of Kuma, of the look on her face when she’d finally seen Cass in her true form, of the fear in her eyes when she spat out the word monster instead of her name and told her never to come back. 

So many people, throughout her life, had treated her like she was nothing at all. She’d been a problem in the making in Hawai’i, a ticking timebomb whose eruption no one had wanted to be in the blast zone of. After, when she’d found herself alone on the mainland, she’d been largely ignored. Homeless kids were hard to look at, after all. They made people feel ways they didn’t like feeling, and it was so much easier for someone to avert their gaze than it was to do anything to help. Kuma hadn’t been a bad person, either, not really. She’d been afraid, but not malicious. Cass had just been a little too much for her, the same way she was a little too much for everyone. 

But she wasn’t too much for Alex. 

Alex didn’t look at her like she was nothing, didn’t avert her eyes. In fact, Alex looked at her like she was everything. She looked angry right now, but not at Cass. Never at Cass. Instead, she was angry for Cass. She was furious on the oread’s behalf, and how many people had ever been that? How many people would have stood up for her against a man with a knife and a terrible certainty that what he was doing was right? 

It didn’t remove the blade from where it rested against her skull. It didn’t ease the grip holding her in place. But if that knife found its home in her head, if she died on the forest floor just feet away from the cave where she would have been safe, at least she’d die seen. She’d never thought she’d have that before.

“I’m sorry,” she squeaked out. Not to Rhett. She wasn’t sorry to him at all. But to Alex. That she was here, that she had to see this even if Cass was grateful for it. There was more she wanted to say, too, but it seemed cruel, almost. To say the only other thing in her head and die right after would be terrible. Alex would never be the same.

But… hope sprung up in her chest as Alex’s skin began to ripple. Cass knew she’d been working with Alan, training to shift without the moon, but she hadn’t known how far she’d come with it. She never would have blamed Alex if the shift hadn’t come, of course, never would have held it against her. But her bones were cracking and her body was changing and maybe things would be all right after all.

Or maybe they wouldn’t.

One hand moved under her chin, holding her in place. Cass struggled anyway, letting out a scream as she kicked and swung her elbows and did anything she could to make the target harder to hit. She felt the knife pierce her head, and she closed her eyes and waited for it to go the rest of the way through, but it didn’t. Alex was there. 

There was only a heartbeat of relief before the pain hit. For a moment, she hadn’t even realized that the knife landed someplace else. She was so happy to be alive that it took her a moment to process the knife in her shoulder, buried to the hilt. The moment her mind caught up, the pain hit. With the hands holding her in place gone, there was nothing holding her upright, either, and Cass staggered forward, falling down to her knees. 

The knife had been yanked messily from her shoulder when Rhett fell backwards, leaving nothing to staunch the bleeding. The blood had followed the knife like a fountain when it was removed, and was gushing pretty heavily now. Cass moved to put a hand on top of it, because wasn’t that what they always did in the movies? But her arm hurt from where it had been wrenched, and any pressure applied made it so much worse. The blood seeped through her rocky fingers, staining stone. 

She felt cold. And that was funny, wasn’t it? She didn’t think she’d ever been cold before. How could she? There was magma running through her veins, lava pumping through her. Volcanoes didn’t get cold, and neither did Cass. So why was she shivering now?

“Alex,” she gasped out, looking for the wolf. There was blood on the ground. Not all of it was hers. Fear gripped her by the throat. “Alex. I — Alex, are you hurt?”

—

The furious gaze of icy blue eyes never left the warden. They couldn't—- not while Cass was so firmly in his grip. Alex felt a low growl rumble through her. He regarded Cass like she was nothing and it all clicked into place. Nothing was ever black and white and men like Rhett, like her father, were too stubborn to see anything else. It was its own form of evil and she knew he wouldn't let Cass go. As the warden's arm began to move, the werewolf sprung forward claws first toward him. 

Alex dug her claws firmly into the side of his head and dragged down his face, clinging onto him as her momentum sent them tumbling to the ground. Too much of the blood she smelled in the air wasn't his and it sent a guttural snarl through the wolf as jowls hung over the warden's face. Some part of her wanted to let go of control and tear into his throat. It'd be so easy even as Rhett wrestled beneath her. Both the wolf and person in her understood one thing, this man threatened the pack— her family. 

The warden wrestled beneath her and Alex rustled atop of him keeping sharp claws at the ready. Several blows were delivered to her sides before the warden managed a shove that sent her stumbling back with her claws dragging as he pushed her away from his head, leaving shallow claw marks down his chest. It ignited more of a fighting instinct in her, more feral than anything trained, and the pulsing in his throat was something of a temptation. The coppery scent of his blood already coated the air and he was beginning to look like more of a meal. And some instinct in her knew that he deserved it. 

But then the sound of her name came out as a gasp and Alex was pulled back to what was important. Cass. The werewolf bellowed and put all her strength into a swipe at the warden's upper leg. More blood splattered onto the werewolf's coat and she knew the warden wouldn't be moving for a while. Some bitter part of her hoped he bled out there. 

The werewolf dashed towards Cass and stood in front of her protectively. Alex grabbed the fallen iron knife with her still clawed hand and waited a beat, panting heavily as she watched the warden to make sure they were safe to run. 

As her breathing slowed, Alex relaxed back into feeling like herself. She needed to help Cass now, she was bleeding and it was pooling all around her. The sight made her sick but her bones shifted back into place and her form turned back into something more human. The air was chilly against her skin, but she still felt like she was on fire. 

“Cass,” she murmured, “I'm fine— I'm...“ Alex looked over Cass and there was so much blood. Fuck. She needed to get help. “He hurt you,” she said solemnly, grabbing for the bag that had fallen to the ground and throwing on an oversized t-shirt. They needed to get far away from Rhett.

She knelt down beside Cass eyes still watching the fallen warden. Alex extended her arm and braced herself to take on Cass's weight. ”Come on,“ she said, “We have to get out of here— I'll take care of you, ok? You're going to be ok.“ She had to be ok. 

—

For the briefest of moments, there was a flash of fear in the warden’s eyes. For a moment, terror gripped him, plunging him into an proverbial ice bath and delivering a shock to his system that woke parts of him that’d been dormant for decades. He didn’t beg, though, no—he only grit his teeth, set his jaw, and closed those useless eyes as he hiked his legs up to his chest and delivered a two-footed kick that knocked the werewolf away from him. The claws that raked across his chest and stomach pulled a groan from him, but he quickly tensed again as he waited for the beast to return. He couldn’t muster the strength to rise from the forest floor, and just as quickly as that instinctual drive to stay alive had descended upon him, it fled and left him empty once more. He coughed, blood staining the backs of his teeth, and then he felt the thing tearing into his leg. It ripped through denim, muscle, and bone with ease, and the pain was blinding. Truly blinding. What little sight remained in his right eye flashed with white and all he could do was inhale sharply, feeling that he might die. Was this it? At the mercy of a werewolf? Motherfucker. 

But then the monster was gone, retreating to aid the fae he’d stabbed, and Rhett let out a low, miserable moan. He tried to pick himself up, but his leg was ripped apart and the wounds on his face were bleeding into his eyes and everything hurt. All he could do was lay there, listening to them speak, promising to take care of one another. It made him sick to his stomach, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He was down, and unless someone came to get him like the werewolf was there to aid the fae, he’d probably bleed out. 

He waited until their uneven footsteps retreated before he dared move again, lifting his ass off the dirt with a pained grunt and digging his phone out of his back pocket. Holding the device between his teeth, the warden summoned the last of his strength to drag himself over to the nearest tree and prop his back against it, spitting out the phone and retching from the pain along the way. Once he was as settled as he was going to get, he reached for the phone and unlocked it, staring at the screen with exceptionally blurry, reddened vision. His thoughts were disjointed and growing more so by the minute—the clock was ticking, he knew. He thought about contacting Emilio, but… no.

His thumb found Parker’s name instead, and he pressed the call button. There was only a brief wait before the other warden picked up, and Rhett wasted no time with pleasantries. 

“Werewolf got me. Probably got ‘bout twenty minutes afore I bleed out. Bring supplies. It’s safe now. Send you the coordinates in a sec. Somewhere near the edge of the Flat.” He didn’t even wait for the other man to respond before hanging up, looking up his longitude and latitude and sending the number his friend’s way. If he made it out of this alive, he was definitely going to have to spring for that eyepatch. He was pretty sure lefty was toast based on feeling alone, but didn’t have the stomach to reach up and touch it. The phone slipped from his hand then, head leaning back against the trunk of the skinny tree, eyes closing again as he focused on keeping his heart rate down. 

Hellfire, that hadn’t gone to plan.

—

Black spots danced around the edge of her vision, and wasn’t it strange how everything hurt when she’d only been stabbed in one place? There was just that — bleeding more than she’d thought it would — and the broken arm, but wasn’t it silly for those two things to knock her down this hard? She thought of the comics she’d read, the movies she’d seen. In media, this kind of thing would have never been enough to keep someone down. People on TV got stabbed and finished the fight before they realized it had happened at all. People in comics lost limbs and stayed on their feet. It was misleading, she thought; none of it ever told you how much things hurt.

Alex’s face was blurry in front of her, those black spots trying as hard as they could to blot it out entirely. Cass squinted around them, letting out a small sigh when she came into focus. Alex didn’t look hurt. There was blood on her, but Cass couldn’t trace it back to any injuries. More likely, the blood wasn’t hers. She wondered how much of it was Rhett and how much of it had come from her. If she weren’t so out of it, she might have asked, might have said something about how it was almost romantic to see so much of her on her girlfriend’s skin. “You’re so beautiful,” she said instead, the words a quiet breath of air.

“I’m okay,” she murmured softly, reaching up to twist a strand of Alex’s hair around her finger absently. It hurt, but it was worth it, anyway. Alex’s hair was always so pretty, and Cass hadn’t touched it enough. She should have always had it twisted around her finger like this, should have kept it there. “I’m just kind of tired.” She knew you weren’t really supposed to sleep at a time like this, because that was always a dramatic point in every show, too. Someone was bleeding, someone closed their eyes. The episode faded to black, the words to be continued flashed across the screen. The audience waited weeks or months to find out if those eyes would open again, or the show was canceled and they never found out at all. Either way, it was simpler to experience it from your sofa than it was to live it. When this screen faded to black, Cass thought, she might never even see the words.

Alex reached down and helped her up, and it hurt, but Alex wanted her to walk so she walked. Or… maybe walked was a generous term. She was dragged, she was half-carried, she was draped over Alex and guilty for making her girlfriend do the majority of the work here when she’d done so much already. She stared at her feet, tried to get them to move. One foot in front of the other. One foot. The other. God, had her feet always been so heavy? Had it always been so cold here?

She faltered, tripped, would have fallen long ago if not for Alex holding her up. The black spots were bigger now, the world felt darker than it ought to. One foot stopped in front of the other, and she couldn’t lift it again. Her knees buckled. 

The screen faded to black, and she was right — she couldn’t read the words there.

#eye trauma tw #unsanitary tw #wr cass #wr rhett #threads; with cass #threads; with rhett #threads; with cass; fade to black #threads; with rhett; fade to black #(the moonlight is blinding) ;; season 1 writing #(never been a natural all i do is try try try) ;; writing

[stainedglasstruth]

[ Delivered to Arden’s office, because Cass has no clue where she lives but has seen her name in articles. There is a note. ]

Arden,

We don’t super know each other, but I still think you should get something cool for your birthday! This is citrine. It represents positivity. I hope it can bring you some!

- Cass.

PS: Give me your birthday.

[Arden walks into work the day after her bday with a massive coffee and a hangover. She pauses when she notices the stone and the note. She avoids touching the crystal until she reads the note. It makes her laugh, and something about the small gesture makes her feel kind of emotional]

#submission #magmahearts #wr cass

[escudofracturado]

@magmahearts replied to your post “[pm] Hi Milo! Sorry I missed your messages. Me and...”:

[pm] [a few minutes of typing bubbles appearing and going away.] It [...] wasn't great. I got stabbed. And broke my arm. But it's fine! I'm fine.

​[pm] [user doesn't think Alex, who tried to downplay getting shot, would say something was really bad if it wasn't actually pretty bad, but Cass doesn't seem to wanna talk about it and he's not gonna push it] Well, I'm sorry you got hurt. You shouldn't have I wish I could've Do you need or want anything? Anything I can do to help?

#magmahearts #wr cass

[supernaturalgirl31]

Castiel Confronts y/n

Y/n had been trying to hide from Castiel for a few days since she needed time to finger out how she was to tell him that she was prgeant . She sits in her motel room when she got a text from dean

(D-hey heads up castiel is on his way to you . Y/n- what i thought we had a deal that you weren't going to tell him ? D-wr did but he was geting worried so sam told him were you are but didnt tell him why you were there look just tell him ok he loves you and wants to be with you. Y/n-ok i will talk to him )

Just then there was knocke on the door she sees who it is and saw castiel and opens the door. "Hey cas" "hello y/n " she saw his look was mad and sad at the same time as he walks in . "Look im sorry i didnt tell you were i was going ok i just needed time " "y/n i beg you dont end things with me " "what?" "I know i did things in the past that made you want to rethink about being with me but i can change i promise " "cass clam down" y/n trys to talk . "No i need to tell you this "

"CASTIEL IM PRGEANT " y/n yells . Castiel looks at her . "What ? Y/n pulls out a test . "Your going to be a father ok . "I dont understand then why hide it ?" "Because i remember what happened what Jack's mother when she gave birth " Castiel sighs "y/n she died because he was born a Ark angel " "so you mean to tell me i can live ?" " Castiel nods "yes you can who knows this maybe human " "how ?" "Will i was human when we did it remember witch was a few weeks ago ". "So you think are child will be human?" "Theres a good chance yes " y/n smiled and kissed him

#supernatural #castiel x reader #cas+x+reader #misha collins

[nightmaretist]

TIMING: Recent PARTIES: Cass @magmahearts & Inge @nightmaretist LOCATION: Somewhere outside in WR SUMMARY: Cass wants to steal Inge's bag to nab her cash. Inge does not want Cass to steal her things and chases her. A supernatural stand off leads to leaking lava and no one getting anything, at the end of the day. CONTENT WARNINGS: N/A

There had once been a time where Inge had been afraid to walk around late at night all by herself. But things had happened since — her transformation and the subsequent boost in confidence, the lessons in martial arts she’d followed and the comfortable blanket of supposed invincibleness that she lived under. Truth be told, she was safest at night, where there was no sunlight to give her head aches and she could slip into the shadows and astral at will.

So she wasn’t being overly cautious as she walked the streets of Wicked’s Rest, sundown having occurred a while back. She was on her way to follow a whimsy, this whole online-dating thing something worth exploring in a town as interesting as this. In her bag, she carried her most valued essentials: cash, gum, hairbrush, a few trinkets from odd countries, that one picture of Vera she never looked at and, of course, her sketchbook. Filled with references from nightmares and other things, the basis of all her work.

She was not afraid, nor worried, nor cautious, so when her bag was snatched, it was safe to say Inge was surprised. Whipping around, she heard footsteps smacking on the dark, wet Maine streets. “Oi!” Sometimes the British inflections returned, despite her being neither a Brit or an American. “Get back here!”

—

She didn’t usually do this. At night, when Cass wandered the streets, she usually did so with the intention of stopping things like this. But money had been tight lately, and her stomach clenched with painful hunger cramps and sometimes, a kid just got desperate. The woman she spotted walking down the street looked well off enough to not be concerned and, tonight, that was good enough.

Cass ducked by the stranger, grabbing her bag as she did so and taking off into a sprint. She felt bad about it, but what could she do? Her stomach was rumbling, and while she had people she could ask for food… she didn’t want to be an inconvenience. She didn’t want to give anyone an excuse to abandon her. This was better. This worked better.

Or it would, if the woman would stop chasing her.

The oread’s feet pounded against the pavement as she ran, searching for a place she could use as a cover to slip out of sight. She should have done this closer to the woods, where she could have found a cave to slip into or a mine entrance to retreat to. Most people wouldn’t follow you there. But Cass wasn’t really thinking clearly, and they were far from her chosen element, so… Running. Running was what she was doing.

—

This kind of thing happened in New York and other large cities of the world, and perhaps Inge had been foolish to not think Wicked’s Rest the kind of place where muggers ran rampant. It was, after all, a small town – almost too small for comfort most of the time – and the risk of being caught by something supernatural or other was als pretty big.

Speaking of, she was hardly a helpless human! It was night, even, and her vision in the dark was better of that of any mortal. Inge started running after the thief, keeping her red eyes focused on her — her sunglasses abandoned, her supernatural nature exposed for all to see. What did it matter? She wanted her bag back. No, more pressingly, she wanted her notebook back. Money mattered, but her drawings? Those were priceless.

She did have her weaknesses, though, and not being very fast was one of them. And so she was soon losing the other. Once Inge felt she could anticipate where the other was going, she let her body leave the earthly plane, slipping into the astral and following her there before reappearing about eight feet in front of her. “Give that back.” Eyes glowered red. She was pissed off, to be honest. She wished she had vampire fangs. “Now.”

—

It wasn’t a surprise that the woman chased her. After all, most people would pursue things stolen from them, especially if the thief wasn’t particularly physically imposing. Cass hadn’t used a weapon against her victim — she’d never do that. She wasn’t very large, either, her small frame obvious even in her dark clothing that she hoped would help her blend into the night a little better. She expected to be chased.

But she was pretty good at running.

She’d been living in Wicked’s Rest a while now, and a lot of that time was spent on the streets. Sure, she lived in the woods, but you couldn’t stay out there all the time. Not when you were someone like Cass, who loved humanity so much that she couldn’t bear to be separated from it. Losing this woman would be easy. All she had to do was slip down the right alley, get herself out of sight, and —

The woman appeared in front of her, out of nowhere. Like a ghost slipping in between the shadows, absent one moment but present the next. Cass stumbled backwards, the black bandana she’d pulled over her nose and mouth slipping just a little. The woman’s eyes were glowing, and she looked mad. Cass held the stolen bag close to her chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The lie twisted her stomach, made her nauseous. But there was nothing in her stomach to protest, nothing to expel. That was the whole problem. “Leave me alone.”

—

Wicked’s Rest had been telling her, time and time again, to be more careful. That this was a town that attracted the supernatural and with it, hunters. And yet here she was, mare powers on full display, dragging her mind and body into the astral only to pop up further down the street. But Inge wasn’t thinking about who might see her, moving from one place to the other, eyes burning bright in the darkness as she looked down the other.

She was short, so it was a miracle her legs had gotten her as far as they had. At least she was not turning around and running again — though if she did, Inge would just slip back into the astral and follow her. Maybe she’d reappear right above her and use gravity to her advantage. She wasn’t a fighter, per se, but she was good at using her gifts. Fights with hunters would hardly be evenly matched if she had just her strength to rely on, but with her sleep-touch and astral-jumping, Inge could at times be a formidable opponent.

Usually, though, her aim was to disrupt and then run. Now, she wanted something. “Leave you alone? You just stole my bag! Open it and you’ll see my face on the driver’s license, you dim —” She swallowed, moved forward towards the other, outstretching her hand. If this was a dream, she’d transform it into a claw. In stead there was just her perfect manicure. “Give. It. Back. It has my stuff in it. Mine!” Honestly, Inge could respect the grind. Just not when it affected her.

—

It’s my bag, Cass wanted to claim, but the lie she’d already told was clenching in her gut and she wasn’t sure she could handle adding to it. Desperation clung to her, whispering for her to do things she knew were wrong. There’s rock under your feet, deep in the earth. You could call it up, could split the ground with it. There’s lava under your skin. You could dispel it, could melt the flesh from her hand. Why was she thinking these things at all? Was the hunger really getting to her that much? She’d been hungry before, and she’d never wanted to melt anybody.

Well, except guys in front of her in the line at cafes who yelled at the baristas. She still wanted to melt them a little bit.

But not now. To want to attack someone just for asking for something she’d stolen from them back… That was shitty, wasn’t it? So was the way she clutched that stolen bag protectively to her chest, taking a step backwards. Her stomach rumbled. To her, it sounded loud enough to shake the alley, like a lion roaring behind her to scare the woman away. In reality, it was a pathetic thing.

“No. I — I need it.” She needed something. She couldn’t keep begging meals off Jonas or raiding Leila’s fridge for snacks, because then what would she do when they were gone? If she let herself keep relying on other people the way she had these last few months, where would she be when those people left her? No one stayed with her forever, no matter what promises they made. No one had ever been able to manage that. “Why can’t you just let it go? You’re being seriously uncool about this.”

—

Wasn’t someone supposed to fold when caught in the act? Inge was getting more and more frustrated as the other kept talking, rather than giving her her bag back and scurrying off. She wasn’t even going to call the cops! She just wanted her stuff back and keep going with her night, still half-interested in meeting the woman she’d been chatting up online. But here was this annoying obstacle.

She needed it! Oh, that was almost funny. A stupid, silly excuse. Look, it wasn’t like Inge didn’t understand necessity — there had been the days in Amsterdam, where she and Sanne had been dirt poor. She’d ran from hunters in southern Europe once, having to leave all her belongings behind and thus having to start anew. She grifted, she lied, she scammed — all to get her life to be comfortable again. She was stingy when she needed to be. 

She understood necessity. But there was more in that bag besides petty cash. There was inspiration, there was memory there was … well, sentimentalism, even if she didn’t like to admit to it. 

“You need my hair ties? My crumpled receipts? My notes and my Werther’s? Forget it. You are the one being seriously uncool, stealing people’s possessions.” Forgive her hypocrisy. Inge moved in closer. “This really doesn’t have to be a whole thing. You give it back. You scurry off. I forget all about it. I think that’s what you really need, right now. Some fucking grace.” 

—

The woman didn’t understand, because no one did. That was what Cass told herself in moments like this, at least. She knew, on her best days, that the world was full of people who had struggled the way she was struggling. She knew that everyone was in pain, that she wasn’t the only person starving on the streets. On her best days, she understood that she was just one of many people in just one of many terrible situations.

But today was not her best day.

On days like today, she was selfish. She was so sure that no one else alive could possibly understand what she was grappling with, was angry that they’d even try. What did this woman have that was so important? Why shouldn’t it belong to Cass instead? What would this woman even do with it? Go home to her nice, quiet life and share the story with the people who loved her? Cook a hot meal on a stove that worked, fetch a cold drink from a refrigerator? Cass didn’t have any of those things. This stranger could stand to part with her bag, Cass thought. She probably had more bags. But what did Cass have?

Her eyes flashed the dangerous orange of the magma beneath her glamour, and she wouldn’t usually allow such a reveal but she was hungry and angry with it. “Do you think I’m scared of you? I’m not. I said I needed it, and I do. I need it. You scurry off.” 

—

Red glowing eyes met glowing orange ones and Inge’s eyebrows raised, face nearly brightening. So this wasn’t just a normal thief. She was something not entirely human, those eyes burning in a most literal sense. It was quite beautiful, admittedly. But that didn’t take away from the fact that that was her bag with her stuff in it, and she would not lose it.

“You need my personal affects? Bull-shit.” She liked the display of bravery, though. Besides, Inge knew she wasn’t the most threatening presence when it was just her in her earthly body. It was in dreams where she was her best self, something transformative and terrifying. Here, she was glitter, skin and bone. Red glowing eyes. A sleepy touch. If the other was afraid of her on this boring, limiting plane of existence, that would be pitiful.

She considered her options, then slipped back into the astral. There were a few options now, and Inge wasn’t a fighter per se — her methods of violence were different, more subtle yet more intrusive. But she’d faced off her fair amount of hunters. She’d picked up some things. Reappearing behind the other, she yanked at her shoulder to twist her around and made to grab for her bag, faces now close together. “It’s mine. All you need is some cold hard cash.” If she was a proper robber, she’d just take out the wallet and drop the rest, but she couldn’t even do that. 

—

She didn’t even know why she wanted the bag so badly at this point. Was it just because the woman didn’t want to let her have it? Was it the glowing eyes, was it the brash attitude? Cass clung to her stolen goods like they were a lifeline, refusing to let go even when she knew she was the one in the wrong. She didn’t even know what was in the stupid bag. Probably nothing worthwhile. But she needed it. Her heels were dug in deep to the proverbial dirt, stubborn and determined.

The woman disappeared, but Cass wasn’t stupid enough to think that meant she’d won. Sure enough, she felt the presence reappear behind her just a moment before a hand yanked at her shoulder, spinning her around. The oread took a stumbling step back, still clutching that bag close to her chest. 

“I said leave me alone!” In her frustration, her glamour dropped fully. Her veins glowed with red hot magma, eyes still burning that dangerous orange. “You’re right, I do need cash. If you hadn’t chased me, I would have dropped your stupid bag after I got the wallet out. But you know what? You suck!” 

—

Inge let out a laugh, something cruel and hardly-amused. Something that had no emotion behind it at all besides indignation and disbelief. “Leave you alone? You stole my stuff and  now you’re fucking victim-blaming me for being too fast in catching up with you and that’s why you feel entitled to keeping it? If you were a proper mugger, you’d have already done that, but nooo. All my fault? Do you hear yourself?”

The other was not human, that much was clear, and Inge would have appreciate her natural form if she wasn’t so pissed off. Glowing, like embers or the pictures of magma she had seen in books and online. Dangerous, most likely. She pushed forward, however, trying to snatch the other’s wrist.

As finger’s snaked around her glowing skin, Inge tried to hold on despite the warmth, tried to make her tired. She wanted her bag back. She would not stop until she had her bag back. “I suck? You’re not even good at being a thief!” 

—

This lady was mean, and Cass didn’t feel bad for stealing from her anymore. Everything she said was cruel and harsh, like her stupid bag was more important than Cass’s empty stomach. The oread felt her control slipping more and more, and when the woman reached out to grab her wrist, the fire in her chest burned hotter.

“Let go of me,” she snapped, yanking on her wrist. The woman’s grip was tight and Cass, in response, flared. The magma beneath her rocky skin burned hotter, heating up the area gripped in the woman’s hand. It wasn’t entirely intentional, but it wasn’t entirely accidental, either. The motivation lay somewhere between the two.

“You do suck! You’re mean and stupid and I don’t even want your dumb bag, anyway!” The magma that flowed down her arm and into said bag was unintentional, but Cass didn’t exactly feel bad for it.

—

Her touch seemed to only awaken rage in the other, which was completely the opposite of what Inge was trying to achieve. Pulling back her hand, she hissed and stared down, wondering if blisters would form. Glittering wounds, shining in the bright fiery light — fucking shit. The skin already shone silvery. 

She would be in awe, if she wasn’t so pissed. Inge’s red eyes stared down the other, mouth opening to protest until she saw magma – yes, actual fucking magma – flow from the girl. “No, no —” She flew forward, wanting to grab for her bag but the heat that radiated making her jump back.

It wasn’t just anger now, but something more honest, something almost vulnerable. Those were not just her things, not just materialistic bits and bops but things she cared about. “Stop it, you  Jesus, you can have my money but that’s my stuff! Drop it!” Her octave had shot up an octave and later this would embarrass her. For now, however, Inge didn’t much care about her emotions taking the upperhand. 

—

Glitter. There was glitter on the wounds left by Cass’s smoldering skin. And Cass knew what that meant, stared down at it with wide eyes. She didn’t know a lot about mares and what they could do — Ariadne didn’t like to talk about it and after the mare had attacked her in her cave, Leila didn’t seem fond of it either — but she knew this much. She knew what that glittering wound meant. The stranger was a mare, like Leila, like Ariadne. And Cass had hurt her. 

She stumbled back, uncertain. The magma still poured from her and into the bag, and the mare looked desperate at the sight of it. She tried to make a grab for it, and that was stupid because it was lava. Thankfully, she jumped back without taking it, without hurting herself, without making Cass hurt her.

But she looked upset, and Cass felt guilty. The magma stopped flowing, though the searing liquid already in the bag bubbled and hardened around its contents as the air cooled it. Cass dropped the bag, taking another step back. “Sorry.” She sounded small now. “I’m sorry.”

—

The bag dropped between the pair of them and Inge stared at it for a moment before looking at the culprit, feeling no satisfaction at the resolution. The thief sounded small and young, rather than a proper hardened criminal who was easy to villainize and even worse, it seemed the contents of her bag had succumbed to the actual lava that had been poured in it.

“Jezus Christus,” she cursed in her native tongue, eyes rolling as she crouched near what remained of her bag. Inge didn’t know a whole lot about lava, but she had a feeling that sketchbooks and other things were not going to hold up against it. Even if it looked like a pretty snack sometimes.

She tried one of the handles, realized the bag was heavy and hot and decided to let go of it for now. “You’re sorry?” She lifted to her full height (which wasn’t a lot, but still more than the other had) and raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that. All of that — most of my stuff is melted now. Can you at least … try to save my sketchbook, assuming none of this heat bothers you? That would be a good way to show how sorry you are.” 

—

She wanted to warn the stranger to steer clear of the bag, but she was afraid of drawing attention back to herself. She was afraid of facing the consequences of what she’d done, even if the consequences only went as far as a stranger’s disappointment. She couldn’t stand the thought of someone being angry with her, even if that anger was deserved. Even if that anger came from someone she didn’t know.

Looking down at the bag, Cass nodded. The sketchbook, she suspected, was ruined. Paper and cardboard wouldn’t even hold up against a match, let alone the magma that had unintentionally dripped from the oread’s hand. But she was sorry, and she could prove it.

Carefully, she reached into the bag, digging around carefully. When she removed the notebook, there wasn’t much left of it. It was tattered, shambled, barely held together at all. But she held it out to the woman, anyway. “You shouldn’t touch it yet,” she said hesitantly, “but, um, I can put it on the ground for you or something.”

—

This was annoying. Inge wanted to be angry, the way she thought she deserved to be, and rage at this magma-filled child who had ruined her notebook. But she was trying, digging around for her notebook and saving whatever was left. She was apologetic. Inge would definitely prefer it if she remained proudly defiant, so her anger would feel more warranted, but alas.

She watched, discontent and frustrated, arms crossing and pinching into her own skin. It seemed they were both losing, and for a moment she wondered if the other would start crying. That would be even more annoying.

“Oh. Okay,” she said, staring at the sketchbook. So much work, gone. “Just put it on the ground. And — well, try and save whatever’s left.” Inge thought of her wallet, with all the cards she’d have to reapply for, which was going to be annoying what with her identity being a farce. She’d have to waste money on forgeries again. “Happy now? You didn’t even get any money.” 

—

Cass complied with the request, which seemed reasonable enough. Setting the ruined sketchbook on the ground, she winced at the way some of the pages crumbled against the concrete. She looked back to the bag — already, the magma inside had hardened against the much cooler air. Even in summer, Maine’s temperature was far, far colder than magma. Most things were, as it turned out. Still, Cass reached a hand inside the bag.

It was mostly for show, really; she knew there was nothing left to save, but she didn’t want it to look as if she’d just given up, either. Privately, part of her still thought that maybe the woman had deserved this, somehow. She thought it was a very nymph way of thinking, and she wasn’t sure she liked it, but… Well. Some habits were hard to break, weren’t they?

Admitting defeat, she pulled her hand from the bag with a shrug. “Nothing left,” she replied, almost apologetic. But, like the magma, she hardened a little against the stranger’s cold words. “If you hadn’t yelled at me, I would have just dropped the bag when I got the money out,” she mumbled. It was technically true, though she omitted the part where she likely would have taken more than just the money. The sketchbook was cool.

—

Inge was starting to think that she really, truly hated this town. From the dogs that people failed to control, to the plethora of hunters that hid in nooks and crannies, to this — being robbed by some kind of spellcaster or fae. Sure, she liked her job, and some of the people, but Jezus Christus, this was just getting ridiculous. 

She was watching the other sharply, her red glowing eyes narrowing as the other gave up. She almost looked defeated, this tiny little criminal, but Inge had little empathy for someone who had stolen from her. Besides, she thought guilt one of the more boring and annoying of human emotions. She couldn’t relate to it because she refused to, so she just wanted to roll her eyes.

“Uh,” she began, tone still sharp, “I’m sorry? Are you blaming me for not standing idly by as you robbed me? You know, if you hadn’t taken my stuff, I wouldn’t have yelled or chased you.” This was lacking in logic. Inge stared at her bag, rubbed at her hand, shook her head. “Well, it’s done now. I don’t assume you’ve got the cash to help me replace my lost cards and other belongings?” She crossed her arms. The girl seemed sorry. But she didn’t say she was sorry. “People barely carry cash these days anyway.”

—

“Oh,” Cass said, perking up a little as… ‘controlled listening’ allowed her to pick up only on parts of what the woman was saying, “apology accepted.” Logically, she knew that the apology had been sarcastic, but she felt bad and she didn’t want to, and this helped. Accepting an apology that wasn’t genuinely given eased some of the guilt in her chest, made her feel a little more of that slippery confidence she’d been chasing all her life. 

She shrugged at the request, because of course she didn’t have the cash to help the woman replace her lost cards. If she had, she wouldn’t be stealing in the first place. “I’m not very liquid right now,” she replied. “You, um… You can have some lava?”

—

“What?” She looked at the other with a frown. “I wasn’t — Jesus, forget it.” She wanted to jab a finger at the other, but resisted. Inge didn’t want to be called a Karen by another zoomer and so she refrained. “You owe me an apology too, you know. For the thieving and the destruction of property.” 

A laugh slipped past her lips, but it wasn’t a sound of amusement. It was something colder. “You seem … pretty liquid. What even are you? Spellcaster or nymph?” Inge would be more appreciative of the other’s powers and its potential scariness if she wasn’t so pissed off. “Keep your lava. I have no use of it, clearly.” Her gaze dropped to her sketchbook, and she looked almost mournful as she nudged her back with the toe of her boot.

—

“I already apologized for that,” Cass pointed out, “and you yelled at me.” She didn’t really want to be yelled at again — who did? — but the woman seemed… maybe not less mad, but a different kind of mad now. Like maybe she was finished yelling, at least. Like maybe she was willing to recognize that there was nothing more to be done.

The question stung a little, if only because it seemed harsh to ask. What are you? It was the what that brought on that quiet sting. Cass didn’t particularly want to be a what. She much preferred to be a who. “Nymph,” she replied, because it didn’t feel worth the lie and the woman knew enough to guess it, anyway. “You could make art with lava, you know. But whatever.”

—

“Just saying sorry isn’t an apology,” Inge said in return, but she didn’t go much further than that. Part of her wanted to yell again, to grab the girl and shake her as if that would make her see sense, but her hands was still aching. Apologies took stupid work, and neither she or the nymph seemed inclined to put in such labor.

Maybe the largest insult of the entire interaction was this: a nymph insinuating that Inge should make art with a substance she’d never be able to touch without getting hurt. Because God, would she like to! To create a sculpture with such a thing. “Why don’t you, huh? Go make some art with your lava rather than pour it into people’s bags. Maybe you’ll make some money that way.” 

She bent down, snatching up her bag and the ruined sketchbook, intent on claiming the hardened lava if anything. “Don’t try to rob me again, lava girl.” She prodded one finger towards the other, poking the air and after those final words, Inge disappeared into the astral, going home to assess the damage to her belongings and hand.

#threads. #losers weepers. #cass.