#- after being caught up in a fighting ring and being 'blackmailed' into it- wild I know lmao- never used the concept but I still have the-

[amazingdeadfish]

Do u think u could make an opera version of mayor? I've seen a few artists make diff opera wukong/Mac designs but I think a opera mayor design would look very cool :D

Not gonna lie, I was nervous to do this, but, I don't regret trying out this challenge.

RAMBLES + (literally only two) REFERANCES BELOW THE CUT:

The costume is based on the classic armor outfit in Chinese Peking Opera. Since, we all know that the Mayor doesn't actually have that many identifiable characteristics or, much of a role in the LMK show other than being LBD's foot soldier or, thrall. So, I had to reflect that in what's probably an incredibly basic interpretation for what their design could be (because if you actually see the insane level amount of detail in peking opera outfits, you'll understand that this drawing is heavily simplified and lacks detail).

The mask, is, also simple. I tried to look at numerous references and get my head around the insane amount of possibilities of patterns and designs and what they mean, as well as what the colours symbolize, but all that's important is that blue symbolizes stoicism, black for integrity, and white symbolizes evil (but of course these meanings for colours have leeway in between depending on what source you look at. There is no definitive answer).

The mask is also important because it creates the most visual distinction from Mayor being a Jing instead of a Sheng (male protagonist). And, even though it's a basic mask, I did create it to imply an almost 'skull' shape to it. But it's discrete and, you have to be looking for it to be there (which I suppose fits because, Mayor being LBD's thrall wasn't revealed straight away)

Now okay look, I'm- I'm not an expert on peking opera at all, I had to do a bit or research to do this in order to actually understand what I am doing when it comes to designing an outfit for Mayor. You might see a hint of his Chief costume in the chest plate I decided to keep, and all those skull motifs to show that he is a thrall of Lady Bone Demon. But in short, he is a warrior, a soldier, a chief of war, and he fights and works for Lady Bone Demon. He is to be a character with heavy, dramatic armor, and a mask to not only symbolize his role in whatever theatre show he lands himself in, but also for the shrouded identity he has and, well, not exactly being the most in-depth or open character in the show :))).

Anyways, here's a beta design back when I legitimately had no idea what I was doing and had done like zero research apart from looking at references I lied and, thinking Mayor would have a 'lighter (less heavy) and less decorative outfit (clearly I changed my mind later on):

I am, glad I did not follow through with this design. This is, not a peking opera outfit. Not a conventional one at least, that would reflect who the Mayor is (because this mf is conventional as hell, fitting in with modern times with his suit and all).

And here are the, uh, two references I used (obviously there's more but, these two were the ones I really picked apart and analyzed and, have clearly referenced):

And yes, I copied the pose on the right.

Design is welcome for critique (again, I am not an expert on peking opera (it's such a vast, complex, and wonderful artform that the more I found out the more I was intimidated by) and possibly subjected to be redesigned later on should I look back on this months-years later and cringe horrifically.

[i-put-the-yan-in-polyandry]

More Slime God in SAGAU

Me: Oh worm? No cap? Like, on god?

Someone, crying: Please, Your Grace, I don't understand what you're saying.

---

Me, in Mondstadt: I love all of my acolytes equally.

Jean: We were attacked while you were gone.

Me: Is Klee okay???

---

Me, again, in Liyue this time: I love all of my acolytes equally :)

Zhongli: The abyss attacked while you were gone.

Me: Are Xiao and Ganyu okay???

---

Me, once again, now in Inazuma: I definitely love all of my acolytes equally.

Yoimiya: Oh, by the way, there was an attack while you were gone.

Me: Is Thoma okay???

---

Me: There's absolutely no favoritism here :)

Literally everyone else: [presses X to doubt]

---

Zhongli: Okay, I’m going to get the wedding cake.

Venti: Perfect, while you do that I’ll check on the ring bear.

Zhongli: ...

Zhongli: You mean ring bearER, right?

Venti: ...

Zhongli: Look me in the eyes and tell me you are not going to bring a dangerous wild animal to Their Grace's wedding.

---

Yoimiya: I’ve never asked someone out. How do you even do it?

Me: Oh, what I do is, I look them up and down and I say: “Hey… how you doin’?”

Yoimiya, scoffing: Oh, please.

Me to Yoimiya: Hey, how you doin’?

Yoimiya:

Yoimiya: *giggles and blushes*

---

Me: Sometimes I get so caught up on being gay that I forget I’m actually grey ace.

---

Me: I am not a lunatic. I have the psychiatric report to prove it. A slender majority of the panel decided in my favour.

Someone: The panel is literally your cult.

---

Venti: You treat an outside wound with rubbing alcohol. You treat an inside wound with drinking alcohol.

---

Me: I hate how you're just born out of nowhere, and you're forced to go to school and get education so you can get a job. What if I wanted to be a duck? No one ever asked me if I want to be a duck!

Whoever's on duty that day: Your Grace, please—

---

Me, after accidentally making someone cry: I didn’t even realize how sarcastic I was being. It’s starting to become a problem, I think.

---

Me: Yum, thanks!

Treasure Hoarder: [puts more tape over my mouth] I said stop eating it.

---

Me at every moment with the cult: As someone who has a long history of not understanding anything, I feel confident in my ability to continue not knowing what is going on.

---

Me, trying to figure out how to realize my mega awesome god powers: I’m gonna mix a can of Red Bull with seventeen shots of espresso in a fishbowl and then chug it while Kids by MGMT plays in the background so I can perceive twenty-three spatial dimensions and fight my own soul.

Zhongli, already removing every potential hazard in my vicinity: How about you don't?

---

Me: But when all hope seemed lost, I had an epiphany!

Me, earlier that day when I was struggling with being a cult leader: I'm going to throw myself into the sea.

---

Me, surrounded by all these hot bitches: I love saying 'fuck me' because it can either be sexual or self-loathing and those are two things that describe me perfectly.

---

Childe: A fistfight CAN be romantic.

---

Me: No thanks

Me: I'm god

---

Venti: Now the recipe calls for two shots of vodka

Venti: [upends the bottle]

---

Me: Pretend I'm useful

---

Me: If I stay in bed I'll be warm. If I get in the bath, I'll also be warm. But the distance between the bed and bath? No. That is not warm.

---

Me doing cool cult things: Blackmail is such an ugly word. I prefer extortion. The X makes it sound cool.

---

Imposter: *transforms to look like me*

Me: Okay, are you like BLIND? You look nothing like me. First off, I'm way taller. Secondly, I DO NOT look so sleep deprived and lastly, if you could drag comb through that hair you're like a 7 on a good day and I've been told I'm a constant 10.

---

Me, seeing Kaeya, Childe, Diluc, and Venti on a single task: My expectations are low, but they can always go lower.

---

Me: You can de-escalate any situation by asking "are we about to kiss?"

Venti: Doesn't work to get out of public disturbance tickets though

---

Me with Klee: Arson? Oh, you mean "crime brûlée".

---

Me: I'm naturally funny because my life is a joke.

---

Me, T-posing over Ganyu: Go to Bed. This is no longer a request, This is now a Threat.

---

Me: We got a free day now. What do you wanna do? Eat? Sleep? Nap? Snack?

---

Me: My favorite outdoor activity is going back inside

---

Xiao: Could you be any more annoying?

Venti: Yes.

---

Ganyu: How are you today, Your Grace?

Me: Please don't make me think about life.

[lynne-monstr]

where brave and restless dreams are won and lost

Written for the malec secret santa 2019, for the lovely @gaywoodandbine

Summary: Magnus is a witch. Alec is the witch-hunter tasked with bringing him in. (Two of these things are true, one is only half-true)

ao3 link

.

In the last remaining hours before first light, Alec crouches behind a precariously balanced pile of steel rebar and observes his target.

Magnus Bane stands in the middle of the gutted out building with his arms outstretched, a king of concrete and scrap metal. It should look ridiculous but even Alec, with his affinity for nature-based magic, can feel the power swirling in the air.

Blistering gusts of wind cut through Alec’s jacket like knives as he watches the ritual unfold. Though the building is sealed off by hanging sheets of tarp, it does little to ward off the winter chill. Alec’s fingers twitch in their gloves, aching to draw warmth from the earth deep below the concrete foundation.

He doesn’t so much as shift. He’s too close to his goal to surrender to something as trivial as discomfort. Not when there’s so much at stake. He sacrificed too much to get where he is now. The closeness of his family, his morals, his self-respect. One by one, they all fell to his ultimate goal.

If he concentrates, he can still see Jace’s face on that fateful day. His brother’s usual teasing and bravado was gone, replaced by grim determination as he shoved Alec aside and cast his last spell to keep Alec still. To keep him hidden and safe.

Jace’s parting whisper of, ‘It’s okay, Alec. It’s better this way,’ haunts him to this day.

‘It’s not,’ Alec had wanted to scream, but couldn’t. Not with the spell binding him. ‘I’m not worth it.’

The smooth tones of Bane’s voice snap Alec back to the present. He shakes off the memory, focusing instead on picking out the individual words of the ritual. When he does, he nearly gives away his position with a hastily muffled snort.

Bane is reciting the New York City building code.

An urban witch. Alec has never met one before. Growing up, he’d been taught that urban magic was rough and unrefined, a substandard form of witchcraft for those who couldn’t harness the raw power of nature. Looking at Magnus Bane, nothing could be further from the truth.

Alec refrains from rolling his eyes at himself. He can spend his time in frivolous debate on the merits of magic or he can focus on the mission, the first one he’s been trusted with since infiltrating the ranks of the witch-hunters.

No matter how beautiful this man and his magic are, it isn’t enough to save him.

“I’m sorry,” Alec whispers to the concrete ground. Perhaps it’s enough to give his apology by proxy, spoken to the medium of this witch’s magic rather to the man himself. Alec hopes so.

Drawing his bow, Alec readies an arrow tipped in magic-suppressing poison and fires.

.

Magnus is sunk deep in his own spell, electricity in his blood and the bustle of early morning traffic in his veins. The ebb and flow of a city that never truly stops. All of it rushing into his lungs and bringing fresh waves of power in its wake. And something else. Something that pings on the edge of his senses, a tang of vinegar in a freshly uncorked bottle of wine.

He doesn’t know what brings him out of the ritual, only that it does. He heeds the warning of his magic, the growing itch under his skin, and opens his eyes to the sight of an object flying straight for him. An arrow unerringly seeking his heart.

Not his heart, a distant part of him notes. His shoulder. Whoever is after him wants him alive.

Magnus’ eyes flash yellow. The hue of blinking neon. Double lines on dark asphalt. Taxis trailing a cacophony of horns as they weave through overcrowded streets. He throws himself to the ground just in time to hear the arrow soar past, his hands scraping open on the loose gravel. His blood seeps out and the city rushes in to fill the void.

Wild magic flickers at his hands, called by the spilling of blood. He twirls his wrist and the pile of steel beams on the other side of the building collapses in a ringing clatter. The sounds of cursing follow.

The shadow of a man stands to his full height amidst the strewn pile of steel rebar. Even in the dark, the swoop of his impressively large bow blooms from his body like wings. An avenging angel crashed down to earth.

Magnus has never put much stock in angels.

“You must be a new recruit, I’d remember a build like yours,” he taunts. An attack like this could only come from a witch-hunter, and if this one is arrogant enough to try and take Magnus on his own home turf, he’s about to learn a very painful lesson. “It’s been a long time since one of you people dared to come after me.”

He expects another arrow. What he doesn’t expect is a gust of clean wind that knocks him clear off his feet.

The world spins and he grasps for power that’s gone slippery in the face of such distilled natural magic. Magnus recoils even as he rolls to his feet. The witch-hunter is a witch. His mind races, trying to process the impossible. The witch-hunters hated their kind for the gifts they possessed, for the sacrifices they were willing to make to wield their magic. It was a hatred borne of fear, of the unknown. For a witch to join their ranks was unthinkable.

Magnus dodges another attack. ”Why are you doing this?” he shouts across the empty space. “You must know they’ll put you down the moment they learn what you are.”

He doesn’t get an answer.

Being in the heart of a city, Magnus should have the upper hand but this witch came prepared. The man reaches into a pocket and pulls out a pinch of dirt from a small pouch. Time seems to slow as he flings the earth to the ground.

The moment it lands, the building’s concrete foundation shakes apart, small cracks growing into larger ones.

Magnus dances out of the way to keep from being swallowed, and not in the fun way. The power from his interrupted ritual has run dry and so has the boost he’d gotten when he scraped his hand. He bounces lightly on his feet and prepares to fight the mundane way while he preps another spell. Looks like all his years of Tai Chi practice are going to pay off. Balance and flexibility aren’t just good skills for the bedroom.

Several large, thick vines snake up from the widening cracks, writhing in the air.

“Kinky,” Magnus calls out to his opponent, watching the vines come at him. “I like that in a man.”

He dodges on nimble feet, keeping one step ahead of the vines as he reaches for his athame. To be fair, calling it an athame is generous. On a shopping trip many years ago, Magnus had seen one of those tiny pocket knives disguised as a lipstick and became instantly enamored. But that’s the beauty of magic. It’s the perfect marriage of tradition and interpretation. And so Magnus gets to see the scandalized look on the faces of other witches when he pulls out his lipstick knife.

Correction. He got to see it. He won’t get to see it anymore if the witch-hunters get their hands on him.

He doesn’t know what their organization did to recruit a witch to their cause, but it can’t be anything good. Magnus needs to escape, if for no other reason than to let the rest of his people know how much danger they’re all in.

The first vine breaks through his defenses and winds tight around Magnus’ wrists, jerking them apart and sending the matte gray lipstick case flying. Another set of vines encircles Magnus’ chest and creeps up his legs, tethering him to the ground.

Once he’s fully ensnared, the witch-hunter steps forward into a dim pool of emergency lighting.

Magnus’ mouth runs on autopilot as he tests the strength of the vines. It’s a good distraction for the panic threatening to claw up his throat. “This is a bit much for a first date, don’t you think? I’m afraid I have to insist on dinner and a safeword, first.”

The man’s eyes widen before his expression shutters shut. “It has to be like this.”

What a crime for such a plush mouth to utter such garbage. Magnus scoffs, even as he continues to struggle. It’s a waste of effort but it makes him feel less useless. “No it doesn’t. Lie to yourself as much as you want but don’t give me that crap. You’re hunting your own people and that’s a choice.”

“I have to.” A wave of grief flits across the man’s face so quickly that Magnus nearly misses it.

The acerbic response dies on Magnus’ tongue and he kicks himself for being too caught up in his own emotions to see the truth. Because why would a witch betray their own people? This young man is either power hungry to the point of self-destruction or being blackmailed.

Magnus has his money on the latter. “What do they have on you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I’m the one who’s going to die for it. I’d say it matters a lot.”

The verbal blow lands perfectly and his attacker’s pretty face freezes. If Magnus was a better man, he might feel bad about the manipulation but if he learned anything from growing up on the streets and leaning witchcraft on his own, it was that if he didn’t fight for himself, no one else would.

“It’s my brother,” the man whispers, not meeting Magnus’ gaze. “They took my brother.”

“And you think they’ll give him back in exchange for me? You’re a fool.”

The man shakes his head. “I know they won’t. But wherever they take you, that’s where he’ll be, too. I have to find him.”

Dread lodges in a tight ball behind Magnus’ sternum. The fate in store for him isn’t a pleasant one. Even so, he can almost understand. There isn’t much he wouldn’t do for his own patchwork family. “I can help you if you let me. I’ve fought them before and I can do it again. We can find another way.”

Hope flares in the other man’s eyes but it’s extinguished just as quickly. Despair races through Magnus as his attacker pulls out another arrow. He can sense the poison on the tip, the way his magic tries to shrink away from the substance.

Magnus’ mind races, searching for anything he can use, anything that will stop what’s about to happen. The sharp point of the arrow descends towards Magnus’ unprotected neck just as a last-ditch idea forms too late.

The arrow stops in mid-air.

Magnus doesn’t waste the opportunity. Words spill from deep within his chest, echoing like the clanging of steel on steel. He throws the last dregs of his magic into the words and hopes it’s enough to work on a witch who isn’t bound by city rules. His voice booms in the dead of the night, echoing around the deserted site.

“Special authorization must be granted to work after hours. You must apply for an after-hours variance. If you do not have an after-hours variance, all work must cease immediately.”

It isn’t magic, not really. Magnus calls on the city and it comes to his aid.

As if from far away, Magnus can hear the sounds of traffic, the unceasing horns and the pounding rhythm of footsteps on concrete. The shouted cursing and the chatter of conversation. The music wafting out from bars and strip clubs. The thud of the subway snaking its way in all directions like living, metal tendrils of lifeblood. It builds from a roar into a deafening crescendo, pulsing in time with Magnus’ racing heart until it spills forth in a loud crack.

The witch-hunter is thrown backwards, crumbling to the group in an unmoving heap. His handsome features go slack and he doesn’t get up. The vines holding Magnus loosen their grip and wither, sinking back into the ground.

Magnus runs.

He takes the unconscious witch-hunter with him.

.

Alec wakes as he always does, to a familiar litany of failure. Jace is gone. Isabelle is in hiding. He’s alone and it’s up to him to bring his family back together. For a blissful moment, he can almost pretend that’s all there is to it.

One thought topples into the next like falling dominoes and the full sense of his failure comes crashing down. His family. Jace. Magnus Bane. He had one shot to fix things and he ruined it.

Alec bolts upright, the fight he lost settling into his mind like the first crisp fall of leaves. He takes in the unfamiliar room around him. The clean lines and large windows. Modern architecture and exposed brick. Not a plant in sight.

The urban witch. He’s in the home of his enemy.

“Alexander Lightwood.”

A lifetime living under his parents’ strict rules keeps Alec from doing anything as embarrassing as startling when Magnus Bane appears from nowhere. Not nowhere, he realizes, studying the layout of the living room. From some sort of hallway.

“How do you know my name?” Alec asks, playing along until he gets a better feel for the situation.

“Magic.” Bane’s smile would be flirty if not for the sharp curl of his lip. “Actually, no. I picked your pocket.”

Alec pats down his clothes, alarm replaced by confusion when he feels the familiar bulge of his wallet.

Bane responds without missing a beat. “I gave it back.”

Despite himself, Alec is a little bit charmed. And trying not to think about where Bane had to put his hands to get at his wallet. Which is when he realizes that it isn’t his money or identification he should be concerned about. He was carrying something far more important. Panic quickens his breath and he struggles not to let it show on his face.

He must fail, because Bane’s smile widens and from behind his back, he pulls out a familiar cloth pouch.

For witches like Alec and his family—natural witches, they liked to call themselves—being in the heart of a city is like trying to do magic with dampeners. There are small patches of tree lined streets, flocks of pigeons, small parks, weeds valiantly trying to grow even in the most developed of places, but using it is the magical equivalent of drawing well water from a dirty, shallow puddle.

Clutched in Bane’s manicured hand is the dirt from the Lightwood family estate, Alec’s conduit to the woodlands and lakes of his childhood home.

“Looking for this?” Bane asks.

Even his gloating is elegant. Alec hates him a little bit. “That’s mine.” Alec leans forward before he can stop himself.

“Not anymore. Perhaps you should have thought of that before you turned against your own kind.” Bane claps his hands once, “Let’s talk, shall we.” He settles himself into a disturbingly bright blue side chair and turns to face Alec on the couch.

In Alec’s experience, talk means something more along the lines of interrogation or execution. He doesn’t take the flashy witch in front of him as the type to soil his expensive furniture but it would hardly be the first time Alec’s wrong about someone. Cut off from his natural witchcraft, he feels exposed and vulnerable and very alone.

His hands clench into fists. Jace is counting on him and so is Isabelle. “What’s there to talk about? Are you going to kill me or not?”

“Not all of us are so cavalier about killing other witches.”

Denial is on the tip of Alec’s tongue, and it trails a bitter line down his throat as he swallows. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t intend to kill Bane or that he hesitated in the final moments, caught by an overwhelming sense of wrongness. He would have gotten over it, shoved down the sick feeling in his gut and done his duty.

His fingers flex against the throw blanket next to him. It’s a cotton blend, the soft material against his fingers soothing to his magic.

He could draw strength from it with the right incantation and a little spilled blood. Not for the first time, he’s grateful for the rigorous training his parents put him and his siblings through when they were children. Most natural witches specialize in a certain type of magic, and while Alec prefers the soil of the earth, he can draw power from nearly anything. He’s at a disadvantage here in his enemy’s lair but he’s far from helpless.

“Nothing to say?” Silence falls between them and then completely unexpectedly, Bane’s laughs. The force of it shakes his entire body, his chest and arm muscles straining against his tight Henley. “I suppose I should thank you. I had suspected your employers were after me for quite some time, and now I know for sure.”

Alec scrambles to adjust from potential impeding execution to unexpected humor. How many times was this urban witch going to surprise him? Alec should hate it in the same way he hates everything he can’t plan for, but he can’t deny the thrill that runs down his spine.

“What will you do?” Alec asks. It’s meant as an accusation and a challenge. What is Bane going to do with Alec? Instead, the words come out sounding like concern for Bane, as if the two of them are old friends rather than enemies.

For a strange moment, Alec wishes it were true, they they had met under different circumstances. What would it be like to combine their magic, opposite forces joining together into something new? Alec feels a pang of regret that he’ll never know.

Perhaps Bane hears it too because he squares his shoulders, a strange combination of fierce and resigned. “What I always do. Survive.”

A rush of shame beats against Alec’s chest at the part he played in tonight’s events. Another crests hot on its heels—because even if he had the chance to overpower Magnus Bane and bring him in, Alec’s not sure he could go through with it. Not now that the other man is more than words in a file.

He isn’t sure whether that makes him a good person or a terrible brother. Maybe both.

“I wasn’t going to go through with it,” Alec blurts out, and immediately regrets it. When Isabelle used to tell him to be more open about his feelings, he didn’t think she meant to his enemies. “I know it doesn’t mean much but it’s the truth.”

For the first time, the smile on Bane’s face is real. “I figured that much out. I don’t take just anyone home, you know.” The man honest-to-god winks before adding, “But I appreciate the sentiment, Alexander.”

Something flutters in Alec’s belly. Before he can think too hard on it, movement catches the corner of his eye. Never has he been more grateful for a distraction. He reacts without thinking, his hand reaching out to catch an object in mid-air. He looks down at it and blinks.

His earthen pouch is in his hand.

Power surges through his veins and he stifles a gasp. With effort, he tears his eyes away towards Magnus, slouched his chair like a king in a castle rather than a lone man in his modest apartment. There’s amusement in his eyes but beneath the arrogance is something else, something that softens the harsh planes of his face.

“Why?” Alec asks. His fingers curl protectively around the little pouch.

It doesn’t make sense. Why would Magnus give him this? Alec had been caught by surprise during their first fight but he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice if they came to blows again. Magnus has no real reason to trust his words; he could easily be signing his own death warrant with one act of kindness.

Except Alec knows he isn’t.

“A witch’s power is a precious thing,” is all Magnus says before getting up from his chair to show Alec to the door. It’s a clear dismissal but any reluctance Alec feels is overshadowed by the surprise of seeing his bow and quiver hanging in the entraceway. Alec shoulders them both, half expecting Magnus to protest but unsurprised when he doesn’t.

Magnus sends him off with a final parting shot. “You’re not the only one who’s lost someone to them. If you wanted my help, you could’ve just asked. Remember that in the future.”

Alec hears the echo of those words for a long time after he leaves the loft behind.

.

By some miracle, he isn’t punished by his superiors for his complete failure of a first mission. Instead of assuaging his fears, it puts him on high alert. What if someone figured out his connection to Jace and was silently tightening the net around him? What if they were biding their time in hopes he’d lead them to Isabelle?

An attack never comes and Alec eventually stops holding his breath. Right up until he overhears a conversation in the research lab.

“…taking another run at Magnus Bane. Not even he can fight off a dozen of us.”

Alec flattens himself against the wall as the pair leaves, too lost in their chatter to notice him. The pounding in his chest crescendos in his ears as the voices fade. He can pretend he never heard it. If he plays his cards right, he can arrange to be here when they bring Magnus in. Surely his conscience would be appeased if he isn’t the one to capture Magnus. His original plan to find Jace can proceed.

He knows before the thought finishes that it’s a lie.

In his mind’s eye he sees kind eyes and magic that gleams like fresh neon. A man whose response to being attacked was a soft, ‘If you wanted my help, you could have just asked.’

Alec doesn’t stop to put on his jacket. He walks to the nearest oasis of greenery and kneels in the dirt. His fingers sink into the freezing ground, pulling the familiar power of the earth into his hands. On a crisp breeze, his message drifts towards a loft in Brooklyn.

‘Whatever you’re doing tonight, cancel it. It’s an ambush.

PS – you said I could just ask for your help. This is me asking.’

The message should feel like the end of something. Like he’s giving up on his family, like he’s abandoning the only people he’s ever loved. But as Alec gets to his feet, he feels renewed hope spring to life in his chest, a tiny sapling pushing its way into the light.

He can’t save his family alone and he doesn’t have to.

With that thought, another piece falls into place. He isn’t doing his sister any favors by keeping her sheltered from the fight. Eventually she’ll lose patience and leave and when she does, Alec won’t be there to watch her back. Before he can change his mind, he sends off another message, this time to Isabelle.

A laugh bubbles up in his chest as he imagines introducing her to Magnus Bane. He has a feeling the two of them will get along a little too well. When he finally gets back to the Institute, he feels lighter than he has since this mess started.

This isn’t an end, it’s a beginning.

[requiem-wra]

Conscience

One of the dawn’s newest recruits tries to put his head straight and winds up talking to the past. 

CW: Hallucinations or ghosts, vague references to self-destructive tendencies, antagonistic friendship

Whatever D’lta’s projections, when it came down to it, he shook the eyes of his watchers easily. The surviving Pandaren villagers do their unwitting part to distract the Dawn, and he steps into the shadows and up. Not that his companions in arms seemed too interested in keeping track. He doesn’t think Basteala and Barnabas have let the majority of them in on his dirty laundry yet, though he still hasn’t determined why. Are they trying to limit the possibility Stormwind might find out they’re harboring a deserter, or do they mean to give him a fair chance? Jury’s still out on that one. He doesn’t know them well enough yet to be able to tell.

He lets his knees bend, bare wrists resting against them as he perches on the temple eaves. His gaze catches on the way skin seared by void magic shines dully in the moonlight. Looks a lot better than it felt when the rays of darkness plowed right through him. He thinks maybe he’s got the tall Draenei to thank for that, but the remainder still stings. A pile of bandages sits pooled over his lap, waiting for him to get his shit together and finish wrapping the minor wounds. He’ll get to it eventually. Just needs his head to stop racing first.  

“Th’ fuck am I doing here?” He mumbles to himself, words jumbled in an exhale. Sure, they’ve got blackmail on him. Sure, they’ll alert Rena to his position if they make a fuss about his whereabouts, and yeah things would get a whole lot easier if he could get one of his names cleared, but…

But they’re a goddamn mess. Commanders running suicide marches as atonement, almost no tactics to speak of, low battlefield cohesion and a whole lot of people who fancy themselves heroes running at wild odds head first with their eyes to the ground—they’re a disaster zone waiting to happen and suddenly he understands how Raelenin fits right in. He doesn’t know why he stuck around after he left the damn boat. He should have turned right around the minute someone mentioned void tears in the Jade Forest and the whole thing be damned, but...

“You going back to your marsh, golden boy?” He hears that long-gone voice tease, and doesn’t turn to look. Bad enough to hallucinate his voice without the image to back it up—too many memories and his head already hurts enough.

“Nah,” he grouches back, “I’ve got too much to do.”

“Hmm…. and you’re still sticking around this place?” The hallucination settles in his awareness, kneeling on the eaves to rest at his side. “I’d have thought you’d leave before next sunrise. There’s nothing they can really offer you, is there?”

“Yeah, well…” He waives a hand through the air. His voice rings out to no one, and he knows it. He rants to a ghost only he can hear, but there’s no one else up here to see him now. He might as well. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s not just about me.” However scrambled the Dawn might have shown itself, the Pandaren civilians don’t deserve to face the void alone. Maybe he just doesn’t want to be complicit in leaving them to a terrible fate.

His apparition fakes a gasp. He feels the memory of those hands pushing playfully against his shoulder.

“Aurelian Mistfury recognizes there’s something bigger than himself!? Truly we have reached the end of days.”

“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, asshole. My conscience might be more recent than yours, but it’s been stringing me along since you died. Not my fault you’ve missed out on all that.”

A beat of blessed silence follows. He tears his gaze away from damaged skin and presses his fingers to his eyes instead. The exhaustion must finally have caught up with him, to ring that damn voice so clearly through his head. “Not my fault either.” The illusion adds, quiet beneath the rushing in his ears.

He starts to wonder then… whether that voice only exists in his head, or whether Elune’s light has drawn something real of his squadmate from the afterlife to speak. He’s hallucinated before, but those phantoms never sound so—

His hands don’t shake as he lets them fall back down to his knees. He’s worked too hard to control himself for that, but Elune above do they want to. His head turns slowly, eyes widening as his gaze catches the hazy form of a shadow on the roof beside him.

“Quinn, if that’s really you and not just—” “Come on, dumbass. You know that’s not how this works.” He doesn’t know—never managed to figure out—how a man can sound so derisive and so damn fond at the same time. He doesn’t think his daydreams ever captured the effect so well… He has to swallow before he can speak again. His throat fights the motion, dry as the desert.

“I don’t know that, actually. Are there rules to being a ghost and or figment of my imagination?” The formless shadow of what might be a remnant of his friend, might not, just laughs. As he watches, shadowy substance fades and re-solidifies like a heartbeat. Golden eyes flick back to his knees. If this is a daydream, it’s a fucked up one, and if not—

Well. maybe he doesn’t want to see Quinn go.

“More rules than you’d ever follow.” He doesn’t actually feel the gentle smack on the back of his head, but he knows where it would have happened—a ghost of sensation that has his heart racing and his hair standing on end.

If this is real, and not some trick of the void and moonlight…

“There were a lot of things I never got to say to you.”

“You’ll have plenty of time to tell me later, golden boy. Not much left now though. Don’t get distracted.”

“Right, sorry.” His voice doesn’t waver, but something sharp scrapes up against his ribs when he exhales, buried feelings jagged enough to slice him up inside. “Please continue with your much more urgent message.”

“Did you already forget why you came up here? Didn’t realize your hard head was empty too.” He hates the nostalgia that threatens to choke him as much as he can’t stop the smile that forces its way onto his face.

“Asshole. Alright. Fine. Great and wise imaginary friend, what do you think? Would you split and leave these sanctimonius do-gooders to themselves as I plot ecoterrorism against the forces of the void?” He expects Quinn to say something about obligation or duty, or the need to protect those people in the Dawn who just want to do good in the world. He doesn’t expect—

“Take them up on their offer. Take them seriously, and get your stupid name cleared. You can do what you want after that.”

He blinks. He can’t help looking Quinn’s way, hair swinging in its braid with the speed at which he turns.

“The hell…? Not gonna lecture me about being in it for others?” Somehow, he gets the impression of familiar concern from that formless face.

“’Lian, you keep trying to do things the way I would want. You ever think maybe what I want is for you to do something that makes you happy?” Shadow pulses, fades pulses…. And blinks out. The sharp-edged knot in his chest digs deeper. He releases a wet exhale to the night sky, fingers clenching around the twisted mess of bandages in his lap.

Fucking hallucinations.

He should tear off this roof and run. He should leave this offer in the dust. He should—he should—

He should sit here and wrap his damn arm, and he should wait for the self-sacrificial commander to march back through the gate. And if the commander comes back mind-controlled he should get help. And when his self-imposed shift ends, he’ll haul off and find a hole to collapse into and sleep before he asks the boss lady for more orders.

He never had been good at denying Quinn anything.

“I’m doin’ it, but it’s not gonna make me happy, asshole!” He shouts to the moon, because Elune’s the best proxy he can think of to reach his dumbass squadmate. He feels the weight of someone’s gaze and looks down to find a temple initiate staring up. “Ah, sorry—" He calls down, waving with a grin until the confused initiate moves along.

Great. Now the Dawnsmen will think he’s mad AND a vicious murdering thief.

He smooths the bandages over his lap, finds an edge to start wrapping with and wonders whether the assumption doesn’t fit.

[storyknitter]

Kiss Goodbye

So an AU where my Consular Rineth is the Outlander has been rattling around in my head since the end of summer, when I wrapped up SoR with her.

In my canon, Sanna and Rinnie both go to meet with Marr on behalf of the Jedi/Republic in chapter 1 of KotFE. Now, just before you get to the scene where you tell your crew to either high-tail it out of Wild Space or stay and fight this new huge fleet, there’s a room with a few escape pods. So what really happens is that Sanna stuffs her younger sister – whose husband is onboard the Defender, waiting for them to come back – into an escape pod, tells Kira to be sure to pick up the pods, then get back to the Republic.

Well, as I was prepping to run Rinnie through the expansions, this crazy AU of “What would have happened if Rineth was the one to ensure her sister and crew’s safety instead of the other way around?” Rinnie would have killed Valkorion, becoming the Outlander trapped in carbonite for five years while her crew falls apart. Vassanna would have made it back to the Republic (wracked with guilt) and turned to Theron for comfort. They would have started a relationship and been happy together in stolen moments between assignments, falling hard and fast.

But they’re at war. Sanna is continually thrown at as many fights as she can get to, slowly worn down and exhausted by the constant losses to the Eternal Empire. Theron’s off doing his spy thing, trying to find a weakness that the Republic can exploit. The timeline’s a little wonky, but whatever. This is AU fanfic so I can do what I want and handwave the timeline as I see fit.

This is the only part I have completely worked up at the moment (and it’s near the middle). I do have the entire storyline in my head and scribbled down, but it hurts to write out and I don’t work on it much. So grab a box of tissues and... enjoy?

Warning: major character death

One morning in the middle of Melona, Vassanna and Theron dragged themselves out of each other's arms and the warm, cozy hotel bed to prepare for the day ahead. His heart swelled with pride as she slipped a gold chain over her head, its white and purple crystal pendant resting perfectly against her chest, near her heart. He may not be able to travel with her, but his gift could stay close.

Theron couldn’t help himself: he reached out and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her close and pressing a kiss to the side of her neck. “I love you,” he whispered in her ear, eliciting a giggle. Hells, he was certain his heart would explode every time she did that.

“That tickled,” she said as she turned around in his arms, draping hers over his shoulders and running her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. Their eyes met and time stood still, melancholy creeping and tangling around them as their time together came to an end. Sanna kissed him deeply, her palm cool on his cheek. “I love you, Theron Shan.”

He nodded, nuzzling her nose. “Love you too.” He hesitated only briefly before putting voice to the thoughts that had been bouncing around his head for the last day and a half: “Be careful. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

She gave him a soft, sweet smile. “You always have a bad feeling about this. But I don't like leaving you, either,” she said, growing serious. “Come with me. There's room on my ship.”

Theron sighed, a sad smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “You know, I was so ready to go with you out to Wild Space, but... they need me here, at the SIS.”

“I know, but–”

“Sanna, this is how I protect the Republic. You defend us with glowing plasma swords and the Force – I use intel, blasters, and sneaky stuff.”

“Fine,” she said with a frown, her mouth twisting with concern. “Just... make sure you're in more than your underwear this time, okay?”

“I never should've told you that story," Theron said ruefully, shaking his head. They both chuckled and his laugh turned into a heavy sigh as he glanced at the chrono on the wall. “They need you out there, beautiful.”

“And I need you, so stay safe.”

“Hey, that's my line,” Theron murmured, a smirk creeping onto his lips. Tenderly brushing a wisp of hair off her forehead, he kissed her temple. “I love you.” He pressed his lips to Sanna’s cheek. “Come back to me,” he whispered.

She nodded. “I love you too. I'll come back, promise.”

He sent Sanna off to the spaceport with a bittersweet farewell kiss and a new datastick tucked in her pocket – a few weeks ago, she’d mentioned that the Defender was quieter than ever with Rusk recalled by the military and the loss of Scourge, so Theron had put together a new playlist of music for her, Kira, and Doc as a surprise.

Theron's shuttle was scheduled to depart for Nar Shaddaa an hour after she and her crew headed to Arsei 5. A week and a half later, he’d completed his mission for the SIS – gathering intel on the so-called Star Fortress and its planetside bunker – and was relaxing in the safe house, mostly ignoring one Jonas Balkar. His colleague had been trying his damnedest to get Theron out to the clubs around the Red Light Sector and, failing that, the Promenade.

“You think I don’t remember the last time you talked me into going to the bar with you? My bruises had bruises,” he said, scowling. “And no amount of blackmail will change my mind.”

“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun. And I swear, there’s no undercover work this time. Just two co-workers getting a drink off the clock...”

Theron didn’t hear the end of the recruitment speech. Something thumped in his chest, twisted his insides, and an ice-cold wave washed over him, sending goosebumps prickling across his skin. “Something’s wrong,” he murmured.

Jonas stopped speaking immediately and reached for his datapad. “I know better than to doubt your intuition.” Before the dark-haired spy finished his sentence, an encrypted notification arrived for them both: Arsei 5 had fallen to the Eternal Empire.

“No,” Theron whispered, his heart in his throat. Grabbing his comm, he stood abruptly and turned toward the bedroom. “I, uh... I gotta make a call.” He barely recognized his own voice, strangled and panicked as it was.

He dialed Sanna’s comm frequency, pacing furiously as it rang and rang and rang. He hung up and counted to sixty before punching in the frequency again; his stomach flopped as there was still no answer. Ice crept into his chest, making it near-impossible to breathe or think rationally. Terminating the call after long moments, Theron forced himself to wait until he read through Trant’s missive regarding the planet’s capture before attempting to contact her once more.

Perusing the blunt report, it appeared that only a small handful of ships had escaped the carnage; they were filled to bursting with as many beings from the forsaken planet as they could carry. One of the surviving vessels was listed as a Defender-class ship, and he breathed a little easier, able to wait five whole minutes before picking up his comm again and dialing her frequency by rote.

“C’mon, beautiful, pick up. Please pick up. Pick up pick up pick up,” Theron muttered as the ringing continued. He stopped counting the number of rings and froze, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. The spy slowly turned around, his stomach sinking to the floor as his gaze fell upon a glowing figure two meters away, its features heartbreakingly familiar: an ancient scar running diagonally across a beautifully peaceful face, diamonds dotted across soft cheeks, sorrowful eyes framed by long dark lashes.

He shook his head as he stared, his vision blurring; his heart had accepted the truth standing before him even as he denied it with his words.

“No. No, sweetheart, please no.”

“You should end the call, love,” Vassanna said, her voice a hollow echo of its soft, silvery tone. “I can’t answer it.”

“No!” he shouted, picking up the holocomm and hurling it across the room in a rage. The ghost of the woman he loved more than he'd thought possible reached out with the Force and caught the device, gently resting it on the dresser.

“You still need that. Kira’s trying to figure out how to break the news to you.” She gave him a small, infinitely sad smile as she stepped closer, within arm’s reach. “It’s going to take her a bit.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head. “This isn’t happening. You promised me. You promised,” he hissed through teeth clenched tight. She reached up to rest her hand on his cheek, a slight pressure reinforcing the fact that this wasn’t just some terrible nightmare.

“I know. I’m so sorry – I tried to keep my promise, I swear. Oh my love, I wanted so much to come home to you.”

Theron couldn’t answer; the grief that bubbled up from his heart choked him. Instead, out of habit, he leaned forward to kiss her forehead and was pleasantly surprised to find his lips met resistance. Shifting closer, he tentatively wrapped his arms around her translucent form. For the briefest of moments, he held Sanna close before his arms collapsed into his own chest. His Jedi gazed up at him, exhaustion in her features. “I’m sorry, Theron, I can’t...”

The reality of her death crashed into him and he dropped to his knees, folding his arms around himself to keep from falling apart.

“Theron.” He glanced up at his name, blinking away the blurriness in his vision. She brushed her fingers against his jaw and kissed him, as light as a feather, on his cheek. “I can’t stay now, though we’ll see each other again. But first....” Sanna trailed off as she took his hand in hers, turning it palm up, and rested her other hand on top. Frowning in concentration, she closed her eyes and her image flickered before him, as though a projector's power source had faltered.

“No, don’t go yet,” he whispered.

Vassanna looked up, meeting his gaze triumphantly, her smile brighter than a thousand suns. She removed her upper hand, revealing a gold chain with a white and purple-streaked crystal pendant resting cool and heavy in his palm. Theron’s fingers closed tight around it and, clutching the necklace to his chest, lost all control over the emotions roiling inside him.

He wanted to lash out, to break things, to rage against whatever destiny, whatever cruel fate had taken her away from him. Instead, he sniffled and a sob escaped him, followed shortly by another. Clamping a hand over his mouth and screwing his eyes shut, he berated himself. Come on. You’re a professional on the job, dammit. Pull it together, Shan. There is no emotion, there is only peace. There’s no emotion, no emotion. There's only the Force. A muffled keening sound startled him as he realized it was coming from his own throat.

Theron felt one last soft brush of her lips on his cheek and heard a whispered, “I love you, Theron. Always,” in his ear, and then– then she was gone as suddenly as she’d arrived.

“No, come back. I love you too. Come back Sanna, please. Don’t leave me. Come back, I love you...”

His holo-communicator buzzed, pulling him out of his misery. He didn’t need to look at the display to know the incoming call would be Vassanna’s former padawan and best friend. Dashing tears off his face with the sleeve of his jacket, he slipped the necklace over his head, tucking it under his shirt, close to his heart. Taking a deep breath, Theron answered and – without preamble – said flatly, “She’s gone, isn’t she?”

Kira Carsen’s mouth opened in surprise before her face collapsed, nodding and digging her fists into her hips. “I'm so sorry, Theron, it's all my fault,” she said, her voice breaking. “I missed a Knight mixed in with all the Skytroopers. There were too many and I – and she –”

“It’s not your fault, Kira. I don’t blame you,” he interrupted and swallowed another sob that threatened to slip out. “I seriously doubt she’d blame you, either.”

The red-haired Jedi nodded, wiping her eyes and sniffled again. “I need to contact the Council and the Senate. I called you first, you deserved to find out from me. And– oh Force, I need to comm her family.”

Something about the panic on Kira’s features prompted him to volunteer. He’d spoken to Sanna’s family occasionally after the war broke out – and not just that first disastrous time when she was heartbroken over the loss of her sister on Marr's ship. At first, he happened to be there when they chatted, but then everyone began checking in on one another. He liked her parents and they seemed to like him as well: it was shockingly domestic.

“Thank you, Spy Boy,” Kira said, giving him a forced smile. “She loved you so much. You know that, right? So much.”

Barely able to speak, Theron nodded, lips pursed. “Thanks, Kir,” he said, meeting her watery gaze. “May the Force be with you.”

“And with you, Theron. Farewell.”

As Kira disconnected, he sighed heavily and pulled up the appropriate Mirialan phrasing, the words Sanna had used ages ago to inform her parents that they’d lost a different daughter. Muttering a curse, he worried that the Nabeshin family would start refusing his calls if he kept giving them this type of news.

He punched in Sanna's parents’ frequency and Kethrys answered after precious few rings – there was no way that Theron was ready to have this conversation.

(If he were honest with himself, he would never have been ready for this conversation.)

“Theron! What a pleasure to speak with you again.” The Mirialan’s voice was soothing, calm, and the shape of her small smile was enough like his Jedi’s that he froze, staring, blinking hard as his vision blurred again. Swallowing the lump that had grown in his throat, he finally spoke, the foreign words tumbling clumsily off of his tongue:

“Solemn greetings, bereaved one.”

Her eyes widened and she shook her head, remembering the last time he’d said those words to her. Theron forged ahead, his voice breaking and fists clenched at his sides. “I share your sorrow over the death of San–” A harsh, gaspy breath snuck out before he could stop it. “Of Vassanna Nabeshin, Jedi Knight, Battlemaster of the Order, and daughter of Kethrys and Tomar. She...” He trailed off, grasping at the proper words amidst the grief swirling through him.

“Oh, not both of my girls,” the older woman cried, her fingers raised to her lips. “Not both of them, please. Oh, my girls...”

“I want her back, Keth,” he said, breaking from the traditional script in a moment of weakness. “This can’t be real, I want her back.”

The remainder of the conversation passed in a blur of denial and disbelief from both parties, and no small amount of tears. Theron ended the call and slid to the floor, forearms on his knees, his head against the wall. A quiet knock on the door cut through the fog of grief surrounding him.

“Go away,” he snarled at Jonas before the other spy could open the door.

“All right, all right. I’m gonna go grab some whiskey – the liquor cabinet is empty – but I’ll be right back. Okay?”

“Whatever, I’m a grown-up and can manage on my own while you go shopping.” Scrubbing his face with his hands, Theron unmuted his implants and picked up his datapad, reading the updates he’d missed in the last hour or so. He tried his best not to envision what the destruction of Arsei 5 looked like: it’d be less likely that his imagination would picture her there, lying lifeless and –

No, he thought to himself, this just can’t be real. This has to be the worst dream I’ve ever had. There’s no way she didn’t make it. She always makes it. Even when the odds are fucking terrible.

He railed at the Force, calling it a coward and a liar and a cheat because there was no possible way that she could be dead. He begged and pleaded for this all to be a terrible misunderstanding, for the intel to be wrong, for her to be a prisoner of war, anything but dead. He would accept any other outcome than her death. How the hells was this at all fair? She was so special, so indescribable – she didn’t deserve to die and be forgotten, left behind on a battlefield on a strange planet. Fuck the Force and Destiny and to the fucking Void with them all.

A new update pinged his implants. Finding it difficult to focus, he skimmed the message on his pad: the Republic and Sith Empire signed a peace treaty with Emperor Arcann, going behind Saresh’s back, and his barely contained rage boiled over.

“Why now, you cowardly fucks, and why not a Force-damned week ago? She’d still be alive!” he roared, heaving the offensive datapad across the room and into the wall with a satisfying crunch. The chrono from the nightstand followed it, shattering into pieces. Grabbing his holocomm, he hurled it across the room for the second time that day, only to have it snagged out of midair once again.

If looks could kill, Jonas Balkar would be a dead man.

Unfortunately, he’d known Theron long enough to be unimpressed by the scowl on the traditionally-grumpy spy’s face. “Come have a drink, Shan,” Jonas said, leveling a serious look at his colleague. “Just promise you won’t throw anything else.”

“The signed a fucking treaty!” he shouted, gesturing wildly.

“Yeah, I heard.”

Taking a deep breath, Theron made his way out of the room: whiskey sounded like a terrific idea right about now. Near the door, the image of Sanna that he'd tried so hard to ignore – lifeless and broken in the dirt – resurfaced. He let out a strangled cry and punched the wall, pain shooting up his arm. It barely dulled the ache in his chest. As he pulled his fist back again, Jonas tackled him, the punch grazing the side of his head.

“What the hells, man? Breaking your damned hand isn’t gonna bring her back.” The dark-haired spy’s words snapped Theron out of his reckless fury and he glanced over at the broken pieces of tech on the floor.

“You’re right, you’re right,” he said, still a bit dazed as Jonas steered him to the living room of the safehouse. “Oh hells, she’s really gone. She’s gone and it was pointless because they signed a treaty and fuck,” he swore emphatically as he plopped onto the sofa, burying his face in his hands. “She’s gone and I didn’t tell her I loved her enough and–”

A rude snort from Jonas interrupted his rambling. “Please. She knew how you felt. Unless she was a blind idiot – which she wasn’t – she knew.” Jonas sighed and clapped a hand to Theron’s shoulder. “Damn. I knew when you finally fell for somebody you’d fall hard. I just didn’t realize you already had.” He paused briefly, handing Theron a generous glass of whiskey with a smirk. “But don’t worry: I won’t tell anyone that you’ve actually got a heart.”

Theron rolled his eyes as he accepted the glass, wincing at the sharp pang leftover from picking a fight with a wall.

“To your Jedi,” Jonas said, solemnly raising his tumbler. “May she be at peace in the Force.”

Theron lightly tapped the rims of their glasses together before tossing back the contents of his own. With Jonas's help, he proceeded to get more drunk than ever before – and that was saying something. He knew he’d regret it in the morning, but couldn’t bring himself to care.

[brerediddy]

more than survive - chapter 16

The entire afternoon was spent with notebooks strewn across the bedroom and laptops open with reckless abandon. Michael was lying on his stomach, pondering his phone screen with his eyebrows creased and his head aching. Jeremy was resting his neck on the small of Michael’s back, eyes closed and heart racing.

“Are we still against running away?” Jeremy sighed in exaggeration.

“Still going to be a solid no on that one, dude. We can figure this out. Look, I have a plan. Or maybe it’s more like half of a plan, but it’s coming along.”

Jeremy sat up, leaning forward to examine Michael’s notes. “What are you thinking?”

“So, I asked the fanpage for help-”

“The what?”

Michael looked at him as if he was maybe a little dumb and said, “Jeremy, did you forget that I made a whole-ass fanpage for you?”

Jeremy felt his cheeks heating up. Oh. That. “No, I didn’t forget, I guess I just. Just blocked it out, or something.”

“What, are you embarrassed?” Michael said with a teasing edge to his voice. He loved to egg the other boy on and see how cute he was when he got flustered.

“No, it’s just...I have fans. That’s a little scary.”

“Well, don’t get too cocky. They aren’t Jeremy Heere fans, they’re Spider-Man fans. They don’t even know you exist, dude.”

“And that’s the way it should be,” he responded with a small laugh. “Anyway. What was your point?”

“My point?” Michael had forgotten entirely. He turned onto his back and propped his head up on his crossed arms. “Oh, right. The plan. I asked the fanpage for help tracking down information on the SQUIP. I thought that three-thousand minds would be better than two.”

“There are three-thousand fans? Are you shitting me, Michael?” Jeremy put his head in his hands. “So those are all the people I’m in danger of letting down?”

“It doesn’t matter because you aren’t going to.” Michael reached up to pull Jeremy’s hands down from his face and held them gently in his own. “Hey, when I said I believed in you, I meant it. You got this. We’re going to fix this together.”

The smaller boy let out a breath and shrugged. “Fine. Okay. Whatever you say.” He leant down for a quick kiss, which Michael happily obliged.

After they broke apart, he went on to explain his plan once more. Michael sat up to level himself with Jeremy. “So the fans were able to track down this guy named Sebastian Iscariot. Apparently, he was a scientist who used to work for the SQUIP. He went rogue a while back and he’s been trying to get some sort of message out, but the SQUIP keeps blocking him somehow.”

“Sebastian Iscariot? Were you able to find him?” Jeremy asked with great intrigue.

“I tracked him down. I sent him an email but I haven’t heard back yet. I asked him what he knew about the SQUIP and the pill he was interested in developing.”

“So, what now? We just have to wait and see if he responds?” Jeremy wasn’t especially fond of the concept of sitting around and doing nothing while the SQUIP was out wreaking havoc.

“I don't know what else we can do. I mean, if this Sebastian guy is devoted to getting his message out, I’m sure we’ll hear from him.” Michael cleared his throat and added, “Besides, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go out there without knowing what the SQUIP really wants.”

“Maybe I could distract him. Keep him occupied, y’know?” His blue eyes lit up and the prospect of actually doing something and he began to ramble. “What if I caught up to him and used myself as a block? He’d have to get through me before he could even begin to worry about the pills.”

The bigger boy shook his head. “No, Jeremy, listen,” he begged. “Do you hear yourself? You just want to go up against the SQUIP as a simple distraction? Not as an end to this fight?”

“Whatever I have to do to give you more time to figure this out.”

“No, Jere. No.” Michael let out a long breath and met Jeremy’s eyes. “I’m not letting you fight him again without a plan. He almost killed you. You could be dead right now.”

“But I’m not—”

“He almost killed you, Jeremy. Do you understand? I can’t lose you. I can’t.” Michael took off his glasses to rub at his eyes for a moment. “If you insist on confronting him with some impulsive vigilante action, that isn’t going to work. We need to be smart about this.”

Jeremy sighed. He knew Michael was right, as much as it pained him to admit it. He was itching for a fight, itching for this to be over. But it was true that if he just started throwing punches, that wouldn’t solve anything. They had to have a plan.

He needed to stop being an impulsive teenager and start acting like a superhero.

“Sorry. You’re right,” he amended, taking Michael’s hand in his own. “You’re so smart. If I had let you in sooner, you could have solved all of this by now.”

“I doubt that but I’ll take the compliment,” the other boy grinned, pressing a small kiss against Jeremy’s pale cheek. “I know you’re anxious. We just need to wait on this final puzzle piece before making our move, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” he nodded. Jeremy ran his free hand through his hair and said, “Michael?” At his best friend’s hum of acknowledgement, he said, “Thank you for helping me.”

“I’d do anything for you, you know that,” Michael said sincerely. The sweetness in his voice made Jeremy’s stomach do aerobatics.

In the middle of the moment, Michael’s laptop produced a ding! Both of the boys stalled completely to look over.

“Do you think that’s—”

“It could be,” Michael said, fumbling to put on his glasses and open his email at the same time. His eyes scanned the page frantically. “It’s him. He wants to Skype and gave me his username. Says he can’t risk sending anything over email.”

“Oh my god, call him, call him,” Jeremy spoke.

“On it,” Michael responded. He was already frantically typing the scientist’s information into his computer. A moment later, the line was ringing. Jeremy and Michael arranged themselves into a respectable seating position, with their legs folded underneath them. The line rang and rang and rang and then:

A man picked up. The first notable feature was his wild blonde hair, wisps sticking up all over the place. He had bright green eyes and laugh lines, but the dark lighting of his room made both of those things seem much more sinister than they were. He was younger than Jeremy had been expecting. However, maybe that was just the fault of pop-culture for instilling a very different idea of “mad scientist” into his brain. Sebastian was wearing a gray sweatshirt and held onto a file folder in front of the webcam.

“Mr. Iscariot?” Michael ventured, looking for a response.

“Mr. Mell, nice to meet you. Prove to me you aren’t working with the SQUIP,” the man responded instantly. He didn’t blink.

“Um,” Michael said.

Jeremy cut in, “I’m Jeremy, sir. I recently...crossed paths with the SQUIP. He tried to drown me.” He could almost feel Michael stiffen at the mention of the incident. However, it seemed to appease Sebastian. He studied the two closely for another moment before his posture relaxed ever-so-slightly.

“Why?”

“Um,” Jeremy began uncertainty. “I’ve been...in his way, recently. I took one of the pills.”

“You took one?” Sebastian’s eyebrows raised towards his forehead. “And you’re okay?”

“Apparently,” he shrugged. He looked to Michael, who was eyeing him with suspicion.

“Why wouldn’t he be okay? What’s the pill for?” Michael prompted.

Sebastian licked his lips, eyes shifting to each corner of the room. “I started working for the SQUIP years ago. He needed my help in developing a completely new technology. He said it would change the way the world works. I-I didn’t know any better at the time. I was young, I had just gotten my first job in a lab. I thought I should just do what he wanted.”

“What did he want?” Jeremy asked. He chewed on his lower lip nervously.

“He wanted something akin to, well, mind control.”

Jeremy sucked in a deep breath and Michael’s brown eyes widened. “What do you mean, mind control?” Michael asked.

“The SQUIP wanted to put a piece of himself in this pill, part of his being. We used a bit of his DNA and supplemented with some of his cognitive processes. The other part of the pill was a neurotransmitter. Something to send and receive messages.”

“The SQUIP had you build a mind control device and you just went with it?” Jeremy asked indignantly. His hands turned to fists out of view of the webcam, his eyes narrowing at the man.

“I didn’t want to. It didn’t feel right. Around the time that he started bringing in test subjects, I backed out. I couldn’t do it anymore. We never perfected the technology, though. I never helped him finish it.”

“But I did,” Jeremy mumbled, unfurling his fists. He could scream. He couldn’t believe he had been so stupid. “I helped him with his tests. I was his willing subject.”

“What are you talking about, boy?” Sebastian asked, his green eyes darkening.

“I’m Spider-Man,” he blurted out. Michael pawed at Jeremy’s hand, trying to warn him to stop, but he didn’t. “He was blackmailing me and he had me work with him. He would make me show him how my powers worked and how much I could do. Then, he made me take a pill. He said I would be his test subject. Nothing happened, though, and I think that’s what pissed him off. After that, he tried to kill me.”

Sebastian tilted his head, analyzing Jeremy through the screen. It was uncomfortable. It felt all too vulnerable. Then, he spoke. “Good.”

“Excuse me?” Michael questioned with an edge in his voice.

“If I had to guess, I’d say he knew his mind control doesn’t work on you because of your powers. I imagine that’s why he was so interested in learning about you, so he could figure out how to beat you. But it still didn’t work, even when he updated the technology and made you try it. He wouldn’t have been so invested in getting rid of you if he didn’t think you were a threat.”

“I guess that makes sense. If he could get rid of me, then it wouldn’t matter whether or not the pill worked on me.”

“Precisely.” Sebastian squared his shoulders and said, “I’d wager that he was hoping to turn you into a soldier for him. Someone as powerful as you, under his command? He’d really be unstoppable. When that didn’t work, he had to figure out a new plan.”

Jeremy swallowed. He could have been turned into some mindless drone. He shook away the thoughts and inquired, “So, what do you think his plan is?”

“Oh, I know what his plan is. It’s been his plan from the start,” Sebastian said darkly. “I was just too stupid to see it. He wants to distribute the pills as some kind of supplement. Control the masses. Then, he can control the city.”

Jeremy countered with, “Who would be stupid enough to fall for that?”

“Oh shit,” said Michael, having worked it out for himself. He stood up quickly and ran to his desk, rummaging through the stacks of paper on top of it. He found a newspaper from the day before and held it up, flipping through the pages quickly. “Shit.”

“What is it, Mr. Mell?” Sebastian intoned.

“Here, right here,” he pointed out the article to Jeremy. “Some hot-shot doctor is offering a free sample of a new vitamin. He swears by it, says it improved his life. He personally vouches for it and...so does the FDA? They’re working on pushing it through the necessary trials. Why would they do that, if they know it’s not a vitamin?”

Jeremy raised a brow and said, “The SQUIP’s threatening them, I’ll bet.”

“A bunch of federal employees are scared of one guy?”

“He can be very...convincing,” the smaller boy said, the words caught in his throat. Michael noticed and rested a hand on his shoulder to comfort him.

“Where is this free vitamin being distributed?” Sebastian asked.

“Town Hall Center. During the Inventor’s Expo,” Michael read aloud. “Holy shit, it’s happening this afternoon. They’re unveiling the pill at the end. All of New Jersey will be there.”

Sebastian sighed. “Looks like Spider-Man will be, too.”

Jeremy nodded. “Thanks for all of your help, Mr. Iscariot. I’ll put an end to this.”

“I know you will. It’s too bad that you’re a kid, though. God, I thought Spider-Man would be an adult.”

“Tell me about it,” Michael quipped.

“This shouldn't fall on your shoulders. I’m sorry it does, Jeremy,” Sebastian mused. “You’re a much braver man than I was back then.”

“Thank you, Mr. Iscariot.” Jeremy gave a solemn nod.

The call ended and Michael turned to Jeremy. He wrapped his arms around the lanky boy, burying his face in his neck. “God, Jeremy,” he breathed. “I can’t believe this is your life.”

“Me neither,” he said softly. He squeezed Michael a little tighter and added, “Guess I better go suit up. I need to take this guy down before the Expo is over.”

They broke apart and Michael perked up. “Jere, what if your plan earlier was actually on the right track? The whole distraction technique?”

“What do you mean?” Jeremy asked, tilting his head in the way that the other boy found adorable.

“What if you distract him long enough for me to get a message out?”

“Are you talking about the fanpage?”

Michael nodded enigmatically. “If I can warn three-thousand people and tell them to pass it on, we may have less of a problem than we thought.”

“You’re a genius,” Jeremy complimented before kissing him. “You do that. Make sure no one takes the pill. I’ll take care of the SQUIP.” He turned on his heel to leave but Michael caught his arm easily.

“Be careful, please,” he requested, a tinge of sadness to his voice. “I want to see you in one piece when this is all over.”

“Of course,” Jeremy promised. “Anything for you.”

One kiss later, he was suited up and heading for Town Hall Center.