#Also 'yeah /elias/ jesus..' 'I SAID I was sorry.'

[one-little-nerd-stayed-home]

Watching some Naddpod Animatics cause I finally have weekend tomorrow and shout out to this one for reminding me that the Moonshine and Hardwon wrestling match exists

This is one of my favourite interactions of Campaign one I think it is so unserious and it means everything to me

[rogue-durin-16]

HEAD-TO-HEAD (part I/?)

Summary: Joe thought she was pretty. Had he just said that, things might have been different for them. Maybe they wouldn't have gone head-to-head at each other for three years like it was a contest.

Pairing: Joseph Liebgott x Reader

Genre: angst splattered with fluff/rivals to lovers

Tags:

Head-to-head: @derersketnoget

Band Of Brothers: @fernando-jpg @chubbypotatoepie @tvserie-s-world @clumsy-wonderland @lordndsaviorwinters

Permanent taglist: @elia-the-bibliophile @randomparanoid @karlthecat15722 @thebutchersdaughtersblog @amourtentiaa @comfort-reads

Warnings: language

A/N: okay I'm like three parts into this and it's gonna have the same vibe as this other fanfic (I've been wanting to flesh it out for a while), so if you're not into multiparts and prefer a similar, shorter version, go check that one out. Also, let me know if you'd like to be tagged in this one. That said, enjoy <3

Head-to-head masterlist

Band of Brothers masterlist

Rogue-durin-16 masterlist

SLAM!

"Jesus!" Malarkey jolted on his bed, the cards Toye, Skip and him had been tossing on the mattress springing for an instant.

Maybe I had shut the barracks' door a bit too harsh.

"Tryna take it off the hinges?" Toye's tease was accompanied by a quirk of his brow and an unamused stare.

"Sorry." I grumbled with a wry face and not much feeling, making my way to my bed. "You seen Roe? Nixon's looking for him."

"I think he's on patrol duty in about an hour— what was that about?" Malark sat up straighter, setting his cards aside.

Before I could dismiss him whilst going through my belongings, Skip jumped into the conversation, feigning concentration in the game. "This is probably about Liebgott." A mischievous grin lit up his face when I looked over my shoulder to glare at him.

"Why would it be about Liebgott?" I hissed, turning to grab the book I was looking for.

Skip raised his eyes from the cards to give me a knowing stare. "Is it not?"

"So what if it is?" The three men shared a half amused, half stale glance and turned to me, the card game forgotten.

"What'd he do now?" Toye's question carried the exhaustion of a man who had listened to the same complaints too many times in the span of a few months.

"He just— ugh!" I threw my hands at the air, throwing my bag back under my bed with too much strength.

"Did he even have time to annoy you this much?" Skip was particularly enjoying this, unlike our two friends.

"Weren't you organizing supplies?"

"Yeah, Don. I was." I retraced my steps, not reaching the door just yet and instead making a stop by the boys' side. "But he was there. For fuck's sake— he's always there." I muttered the last part through my teeth, that anger I had barely gotten rid of growing exponentially at the mere thought of him. "Do you have any idea of how insufferable he is?"

Malarkey and Toye shared unspoken words momentarily before the redhead looked back up at me. "You could say we have some."

"He's not that annoying." Skip's oblivious comment earned him a slap from Don. "What?"

"He's not that annoying to you."

"Here we go." Toye groaned, fully shifting his body to me, knowing this wasn't going to be a short conversation.

"You have no idea of how much of a pain in the ass he can be." I began, already wound up by the not so willing interaction I was forced to have with Liebgott moments ago. "And you know why you don't know?"

"Surprise me." Skip was entertaining me. We all noticed, but I was yet to turn down an opportunity to rant about my own personal torment.

"Because it's not big stuff, it's— it's the endless little things. Like right now, you know what he did?" I didn't even wait for Skip's mock-serious cue. "I'm there, trying to organize the goddamn supplies and he just waltzes in with a shit ass comment about how I'm 'a bit too precise'." I accompanied the last part with a mocking tone and air quotation marks. "Who says that?! It's like he always has to get his two cents in, and I know he does it to bother me— don't give me that look." I warned Don, hitting his shoulder with the book in my hand.

"I didn't say anything!" He complained, trying and failing to hide the amused grin on his face.

"You know you're giving him what he wants, right?" Skip pointed out, taking the cigarette tucked behind his ear to his lips.

"What?"

"C'mon it's Liebgott. He wants to get a rise out of you." He shrugged, lighting up the smoke and taking a drag out of it. "And you're letting him."

"You think she doesn't know that?" Toye scoffed, giving me a side glance which I reciprocated.

"Oh, shut up." I rolled my eyes, plopping down on the bunk besides them. "I'm not gonna... What? Shut up and take it?"

"Have you tried that yet?" Skip asked with a raised brow.

"I'm not gonna try that." I stated, baffled at his suggestion. "That's what he wants. He wants me to go speechless, I just know. It's so obvious, with that damn attitude and the sarcasm and the way he'll just get me going until I run out of things to say— Don, I swear to God."

"I. Didn't. Say. Anything." He followed each of his words with a pause.

"You're looking at me like I'm nuts!"

"He's looking at you like you're stupid." Toye deadpanned taking the cigarette Skip offered him. " 'Cause you're fuckin' stupid, Y/n."

"I'm not stupid, I'm fed up." I hissed back at my friend. "Everyday, Toye, everyday for what? five months?" I stood up again. "He and his stupid jabs that are almost funny— like he's expecting me to, I don't know, laugh at them?"

"So you find him funny?"

"Don't put those words in my mouth." I warned Skip. "I said almost."

"Right."

There was a beat of silence from which I decided to move on, going back to the main topic. "It's not only that. It's the way he has to be right about everything, too. Like- first of all, he's not right about anything. Ever. Second of all—"

"Oh, and you are?" Skip cut me off, a taunting tinge in his question.

"Yeah, when it comes to him, I am." There was an unhealthy pride in my words, and by the look on Skip's face, that's exactly what he wanted. "And even if I wasn't, do you think I'd give him the satisfaction of—"

"Okay, this is ridiculous." He cut me off again, motioning at me whilst looking at our friends. "You noticed, right?"

"Hmm, I don't know Skip. We only had this conversation about a million times." Malark retorted.

"You're not annoyed by whatever Liebgott's doing." Muck spoke as if he had reached some kind of revelation. "You're annoyed because you two have the same playbook."

"I don't have—"

"Yeah, you do." Toye took a drag out of his recently lit Lucky Strike without sparing me a single glance.

"I don't. He's cocky and loud and argumentative and competitive—"

"And you're not." Skip could barely hold back his laugh, his eyes examining the two men's faces.

"I'm... Efficient."

Toye snorted. "That's what we're calling it now?"

"I'm calling it how it is."

"Face it. You're cut from the same cloth and it annoys the fuck out of you." Skip reached for the cards, silently agreeing with Toye and Malarkey that it was best to start over, and began to shuffle them.

"The same cloth my ass. He's an infuriating motherfucker." Don shook his head with a soft chuckle, taking the cards his best friend handed him. "I can't just— I have enough to worry about as it is, and he's out here making me argue over shit I don't even know if it's worth arguing over, just because— I don't know. It's not like he gives me time to think it through anyway."

"So you're also mad because he's quick. Or" Skip raised his pointer finger as if to sush me before I could argue back. "quick enough to keep up with you?"

It was the second time in the span of a couple of hours that I found myself at a loss of words— something I clearly wasn't a fan of.

"Okay, fuck this." I put a full stop on the conversation, muttering a mildly irritated goodbye to the boys before taking the barracks door and heading to the now empty mess hall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

JOE'S P. O. V.

"I seriously don't get why you like her." I heard a dramatic sigh coming from the adjacent toilet.

"We're gonna do this again?"

What a way to finish such a magnificent day— latrine duty with Luz and Penkala.

"We're gonna do this until I get why you think she's worth anyone's time." I retorted at the Portuguese jokester, moving on to another toilet.

"Because she's as tough as they come." George sounded a bit too tired of listening to me for someone whose personality was based on going on and on about the same topic for hours. "Back me up, Penk."

"She's real smart." Penkala jumped in with a shrug, mopping the far corner of the bathroom. "And quick with words."

"Yeah, she keeps up with pretty much everything."

"Oh, c'mon." I scoffed, sitting back on my heels. "She's just a glorified pretty face."

"You know it's the third time you called her pretty in" Luz checked his watch with an arched brow. "an hour?" I rolled my eyes at his tease, poorly masked as an observation.

"That's all she is. She shouldn't even be here." I cursed under my breath when Penkala accidentally hit me with the mop. "The fuck was that for?"

"You're being a dick." He deadpanned absentmindedly.

"And it's getting old." Luz said, passing behind me to clean a different toilet. "Just admit you're ticked 'cause you found someone who can give you a run for your money." Penkala's quiet laugh put a shit eating grin on George's face. "and it's a girl."

"Yeah, sure, a run for my money. She's all talk, always with her little comebacks. Miss always-gotta-have-the-last-word." My voice was a bitter mock. "Stubborn little bitch."

"Hey!" Luz's palm smacked the back of my neck, making my head snap in his direction with a warning glare. "You're not gonna land her with that shit, y'know?"

"What makes you think I wanna land her?"

Penkala left the mop aside and crouched to help Luz pick up the cloths we had used to clean everything. "You haven't shut up about her since we came in."

"Yeah," Luz breathed out an exhausted groan when both him and Penkala raised to their feet. "you're starting to sound a little obsessed. If it's always like this," George lend me a hand to pull me up, which I gladly took. "I feel sorry for Tab."

"You're so damn funny." I clapped back, sarcasm dripping from my tongue as George pulled me up. "Should start a comedy show."

"So I've been told." We hadn't even left the latrine and Luz was already pulling out his pack of cigarettes. "C'mon Penky," he called for our friend, placing a cigarette on his lips before offering me one from the pack. "we're waitin' on you."

He did the same with Penkala once he joined us to leave for the barracks. I was attempting to light the smoke Luz had given us with my worn out lighter when she walked out of the mess hall.

Luz cursed under his breath, doing a half turn when he noticed Y/n strolling past us like we weren't there.

"A bit late to be wandering around, don't you think?" I called out with the cigarette still in my mouth, loud enough for her to catch it clear as day.

"A bit late to be fucking annoying, don't you think?" Her spat matched my volume, barely throwing a glance over her shoulder without slowing down as she passed by.

"Jesus Christ... Good night, Y/n!" The wind brought us a faint 'Night, Luz!' before we lost her in the camp's pitch black night.

"She's unbelievable." I muttered under my breath, tilting my head down for Penkala to light my cigarette with his own lighter.

Luz shook his head with disappointment. "You're unbelievable."

Yeah, right. Me.

[morriganofcrowsandwar]

Hey I’m baaaaackkk! I’m on season five of The Magnus Archives now whoops! Uhm yeah it’s been quite a lot but here are my thoughts because Jesus Christ there are many. First of all Season four Recap:

#1)Peter Lukas is fucking dead and honestly I’m a bit sad. I think it’s hilarious that the entire thing with Martin literally boiled down to a bet between him and Elias. Also they were so gay like is anyone in this show straight???? lol I loved their little lover’s quarrel it’s so cute these old men(eldritch horrors) are so funny.

#2) SIMON FUCKING FAIRCHILD IS MY FAVORITE PERSON EVER! He basically slipped and fell into being an avatar(quite fitting I suppose) and he’s just a rad old man. Like all the stories about him made him seem so silly and then we met him and he was lol. ALSO MICHAEL CREW IS DEAD AND I WANT TO KILL DAISY FOR IT! AGH I LIKED THE GUY! This is why we can’t have nice things, fucking Daisy always ruins them.

#3) Continuing the topic of Daisy I do actually like her(except for her bullshit with abusing her position as a police officer). She’s one of the only people in the series that genuinely seemed to be trying to get better. Although it was all in vain she did end up being a pretty cool wolf dog thingy so that’s neat I guess. Meanwhile Basira doesn’t want to put up with this shit anymore. She hated it the second she got stuck. I think she’s simultaneously my favorite and least favorite character, but then again I feel that way about basically everybody in this story. Moral ambiguity is basically the entire podcast’s premise at this point. The point is Daisy has been a lost cause from the start and Basira is badass and deserves so much better than all of this.

#4) I love Martin so so much actually he’s grown so much and I adore him. I want to put him in a jar and shake him. Boi stood up for himself and just said “No” . Bro did not care he just knew he wasn’t letting Peter win. What a legend gotta love him.

#5)Small blurb about Melanie because I love her. She’s blind now but that’s alright because SHES DATING GEORGIE HEHE YAAAAYYY!!! I think it’s awesome and it’s just fitting that she gets her happy ending yk cause she spent her whole life fighting and now she has peace. I adore her and Georgie. BRO GEORGIE?? She’s AMAZING like she is genuinely such a great person and is just looking out for people and also keeping herself intact like what a queen. Slay.

#6) Okay fine I guess I’ll talk about Jon lol, he’s still definitely my favorite(although Martin is not far behind) and I adore the writing of his descent into an actual avatar of the eye. Also hehehehe he killed Peter Lukas and ventured right into the lonely just get Martin! Ah! I love love! That’s so sweet I’m actually still giddy about them. Martin is so soft with Jon and now Jon is really trying to make up for the past and the time lost. And I guess yeah he got tricked into starting the apocalypse but like does it matter? Everyone else he knows is dead or dying bro it’s really not that upsetting at this point. Except for fucking MELANIE AND GEORGIE AGH I genuinely NEED them to be okay. Like gosh just stay inside babies you’ll be fine. Anyways the apocalypse is so fun and I’m drawing it

P.s. I’m sorry I’ve been away. My partner got me into Arcane and it turned into a full blown hyper-fixation so hehe. I will be posting the art of that too at some point but I also hope I’ll update more often as I listen to season five. Also this podcast has consumed my life so much that my partner just changed their name to Martyn because they were yk in the market for a new one and I suggested it soooo ha I feel slightly crazy lol

[zabala0z]

Hi! Welcome back to “listening through TMA S5 for the first time” sorry I’ve been gone since fall break. School is an ass.

MAG 172: Strung Out

Diversity win! But also this episode made me viscerally sad. But I loved the format of the script and how everytime Jon said cue for laughter, you can hear the faint laughter off in the distance like Jesus. Also the concept of addiction being a domain for The Web was really smart. I did scream when the tiny spiders went everywhere.

Martin slapped Jon. I enjoyed that

MAG 173: Night Night

You guys CAN NOT do this to me, I WAS TRYING TO IGNORE THE CHILDREN. 😭

Callum was low-key funny “whatever 🙄” I would’ve hated this kid in elementary.

The format of this episode kinda gives off like a fairytale vibe. Like someone is telling a story at a library to the children. I guess Callum is still a child so Jon can’t do the whole “ceaseless watcher-“ Yada yada. He’s still hurting other kids but I can’t blame Jon

MAG 174: The Great Beast

Man I feel like this episode took an approach to The Vast that I thought was super unique. A woman trying to escape something that will inevitably come. Hell yeah, I’m down.

Simon Fairchild!! Ugh my favorite guy. Everyone who meets Jon now is pretty chill with him. I wonder how much they know to an extent like I guess they know he brought upon this apocalypse but did they know how? That he had to get marked to be able to? Peter did but he is going down on Elias so that makes sense

“Seems a bit rude to be honest” you’re so right Simon. He’s so chill. And then Jon let him go!! Like come on man, he’s old, he’s lived life.

I love Helen so much. I’m a Helen supporter. Hey girl, I’d let you put me in your hallways <333 she’s literally eating popcorn during this season. I’ll bet my bones. Jon keeps having a morality crisis at the worst times but again, can’t blame him so.

Okay that’s everything. Again, only 3 episodes but they are all like so taxing. Guys, my friend finished it. He keeps texting me what episode I’m on and I’m like “same as last week…” AND THEN HE SHAMES ME. I’m supposed to be the overly obsessed one!! 😭 he out-ADHD’d me. Damn it.

Anyways, thanks for reading. Or skimming. Or just absorbing my pain through this post

[ollieofthebeholder]

And If Thou Wilt, Forget: a TMA fanfic

Read from the beginning on Tumblr || AO3 || My Website

Chapter 28: Hope dead lives nevermore

[CLICK]

[EVERYTHING IS VAGUELY MUFFLED]

[CAR ENGINE RUMBLING, SLOWING DOWN, AND THEN SHUTTING OFF WITH A CLUNK]

GERRY

What the fuck…?

…Oh, God, no.

[CAR DOOR CREAKS OPEN, THEN SLAMS SHUT]

[VARIOUS CROWD SOUNDS, PUNCTUATED BY THE OCCASIONAL RADIO SQUEAK]

[FOOTSTEPS CRUNCHING ON GRAVEL]

GERRY

Excuse me! Hey, excuse me!

FEMALE VOICE

You need to back off. This is a restricted area right now.

GERRY

No, wait, look, I—I got a phone call, I’m—someone called Roy DeSoto called me? To…pick up my…partner…what the fuck is going on here?

FEMALE VOICE

Oh, yeah, he’s with the medics. Across the street over there. One of those two tents.

Should be good to go if they were calling you. Just don’t go in. And don’t get any closer.

GERRY

…Yeah. Sure.

Thanks, Officer…Hussein.

[FOOTSTEPS GO FROM GRAVEL TO PAVEMENT TO DRY GRASS, GETTING FASTER AS THEY GO]

MALE VOICE

Whoa, hey, sir—sir, you can’t be here—

GERRY

DeSoto—are you Roy DeSoto?

DESOTO

That’s me. Oh—wait, are you, uh, Delano? Jareth Delano? Tim Stoker’s point of contact?

GERRY

Yeah. He—h-how is he? What happened?

DESOTO

He’ll be fine. He’s doing good. Damn sight better than the other guy. (Grumbles) At least he’s not being too difficult.

He’s probably going to be sore for a while. Bandages need to stay on for at least the next twenty-four hours before changing them. We’ve called in a scrip for an antibiotic cream, but he might need help with that. We gave him some painkillers, too, and there’s a scrip in for that as well. Probably want to check in with his regular doctor to see how things are healing up.

Oh, and make sure he gets as much fresh air as possible for the next few days, too. Drinks a lot of water. And if you want to get some of those ice lollies for him to suck on, that might not be a bad thing, because he’s probably going to have a sore throat for a bit.

But he’s good to go. We don’t really have a reason to keep him anymore, and he says he doesn’t want to go to hospital, so you can take him home.

GERRY

…Thanks. Where is he?

DESOTO

Right in there. I—

DISTANT VOICE

Roy!

DESOTO

Coming!

Yeah, right in there, go ahead.

GERRY

Thanks.

[RUNNING FOOTSTEPS]

[SLIGHTLY MORE MEASURED FOOTSTEPS]

[DEEP BREATH]

[RATTLE OF PLASTIC]

TIM

(Tiredly) Hi, babe.

GERRY

(Horrified) Oh, Tim.

[FABRIC RUSTLES]

[STIFLED GROAN FROM TIM]

GERRY

Sorry, sorry!

Jesus. What happened?

Also, if you ever call me like that out of the clear blue sky again—

TIM

I know. I’m sorry.

Look, let’s…let’s get out of here. I can tell you everything when we get home.

GERRY

Okay, but one question before we leave.

TIM

Sure.

GERRY

Why is your belt around your head?

[CLICK]

———

[CLICK]

JON

Just have a seat, Tim, I—

Oh. Elias?

ELIAS

Yes. Tim has…left us, I’m afraid.

[CHAIR SCRAPES AND CLATTERS TO THE GROUND]

JON

What?!

ELIAS

I hadn’t seen him before I came down here. Not since he was taken into quarantine. But when you asked for him, of course, I went to find him, and when I couldn’t, I spoke to the paramedics.

They confirmed he was gone.

JON

(Voice tight) What happened?

ELIAS

Apparently they called his partner to come and get him. Once he was released from quarantine, there was no reason to keep him on the premises, and the police didn’t feel the need to speak to him. I believe they said he left an hour…ninety minutes ago.

[JON EXHALES HEAVILY, AND THERE IS A SOFT THUMP, LIKE HE’S SUDDENLY BRACING HIMSELF AGAINST A DESK]

Jon, are you all right?

JON

So he’s gone…home.

ELIAS

Yes, I—ah. I apologize, I didn’t think about how I was phrasing that.

Yes, Tim is alive and…about as well as you are, I suppose. Perhaps not. He did have to be in quarantine a fair bit longer than you were—I’m not certain as to why—but he’s been released.

JON

And he just left?

ELIAS

I’m sure he didn’t know you needed to speak with him. Why would he have run if he had?

[A FEW BEATS OF SILENCE]

JON

Does he know?

ELIAS

That Martin found…? I doubt it.

You can talk to him later, Jon. Not tonight. He’s likely as tired and sore as you are.

JON

I’m fine. And I don’t want this to wait.

ELIAS

Well, I suppose your choices are to call him—

JON

I need it on record.

ELIAS

—or to go and speak with him personally.

I gave you a copy of his CV, did I not? I believe it has his address at the top.

JON

(Unconvincingly) Yes. Yes, of—of course.

I’ll, I’ll do that. Thank you.

ELIAS

Right. In that case, are we done here?

JON

No. I still need to talk to the others.

Send Sasha in, then.

ELIAS

…Of course.

[CLICK]

———

[CLICK]

TIM

Yeah, looks like it’s got something in it, all right.

GERRY

I don’t remember grabbing it. I don’t even remember having it.

TIM

It’s mine. I thought I brought it to work with me today, but…well, guess I was a bit distracted this morning. I must’ve dropped it in your coat pocket by mistake.

Good thing, too. With everything that happened, I’d probably have lost it.

GERRY

Let me go walk the dog while you relax and then you can tell me all about it.

TIM

When’s the last time he went out?

GERRY

Just before the paramedic called me. I couldn’t get hold of you and I was having trouble concentrating.

Figured going for a bit of a walk might keep me distracted enough that I didn’t storm the Institute looking for you.

TIM

Then he should be fine for a bit before he needs to go out again.

I know he’s back in the bedroom. I also know you’re worried about him jumping on the holes, but, honestly, I’m so doped up right now I wouldn’t feel it if you jabbed a sword into my chest.

GERRY

You mean like this?

[TIM GIVES OUT A YELL OF PAIN]

[BARKING FROM DOWN THE HALL]

TIM

(A bit breathlessly) Okay, I might have slightly overestimated the efficacy of medical-grade narcotics, but…

GERRY

Sorry.

[SOFT KISS]

I’ll let him out. He’ll probably be gentle with you. Then we can…talk.

TIM

Sounds good. Thanks, babe.

[FOOTSTEPS DOWN THE HALL]

[TIM SIGHS HEAVILY]

[TOENAILS CLICKING ON HARDWOOD GETTING GRADUALLY LOUDER, JINGLING OF TAGS]

[SQUEAK OF SOFA SPRINGS]

[ENTHUSIASTIC LICKING]

TIM

Hey, yeah, good to see you, too. Yeah, I’m okay, I’m okay. Ow—ow—easy there, boy—(laughing) Okay, okay, enough. Enough.

Rowlf, down.

[LICKING STOPS]

[SOFA SPRINGS SQUEAK AGAIN]

GERRY

Hey, budge over, mutt, I want to sit down, too.

Actually, don’t bother. Sit up, Tim.

[SOUNDS OF SHIFTING, MORE SOFA SPRINGS SQUEAKING]

[TWIN SIGHS]

GERRY

This okay?

TIM

Yeah. Yeah, this is good.

GERRY

What happened? You called me in the middle of the workday, yelled that you loved me, and immediately hung up. Tried calling you back and went from not getting an answer to the connection not even going through, and the next thing I hear is six hours later from a blocked number saying you’re fine, but they don’t trust you to leave on your own. And then I get to the Institute and…

I saw the EDC truck. I’m not stupid. The Corruption attacked, didn’t it?

TIM

Long story short, yeah.

GERRY

And…short story long?

TIM

Anything by Ernest Hemingway.

[GERRY GIVES A LONG, DRAWN OUT, EXASPERATED GROAN]

GERRY

I’m serious. If ‘the Corruption attacked’ is the—what’s it called? The Cliff’s Notes version—at least give me the Readers Digest Condensed Version.

TIM

…I think the Web pushed the Corruption to attack.

GERRY

…

…Okay, you’re going to have to give me the full novel here, Stoker.

TIM

(A bit teasingly) You want my statement?

GERRY

Do I look Eye-aligned to you?

TIM

Yes.

GERRY

(Brief chuckle) Fair enough.

TIM

(Seriously) It was around lunchtime. Sasha and Martin were both out, and I was just packing up to go myself. Lou—you remember Lou, my old boss from Velvet and Crow?

GERRY

The one you said went to school with Gertrude?

TIM

Yeah. She—fuck, I’m going to have to reach out to her, she probably thinks I blew her off. Today’s her birthday, so she asked if I’d meet her for lunch. I was just getting ready to tell Jon I was going when I heard this…thumping noise from the Archivist’s office. I went in, and there was Jon, standing by the wreckage of the shelves. He said he’d been trying to kill a spider and the whole thing just…collapsed.

GERRY

And that’s why you think the Web was involved? Hate to break it to you, Tim, but spiders do occasionally turn up for innocuous reasons. Maybe it was just lost.

TIM

Believe me, I thought the same thing. But he described it as a “nasty, bulbous thing”—and, okay, Jon super hates spiders, which makes sense since he’s definitely been marked pretty deeply by the Web—

GERRY

How do you know that?

TIM

Please. After almost three years, if I can’t pick out a mark that obvious, you and Gertrude did a shitty job of training me.

But yeah, I guess there was the possibility Jon was exaggerating, either because his fear made it seem bigger and nastier than it was or because he needed it to be big and nasty so I wouldn’t get mad at him for killing a harmless little lint speck. You know how it goes. Except when I got closer and looked, I realized the shelves had made a hole in the wall. And I could smell it—that dry, musty, earthy smell I last smelled, or at least last smelled that strongly, when I went to Martin’s place.

I’m sure I’ve been smelling it around the Institute, too, but it just faded into the background after a while. This was intense.

GERRY

Are you telling me there were worms in the walls? I thought the building was solid stone.

TIM

It was. It is.

We thought the wall he went through was an exterior wall. Nope. It was just plasterboard, and…behind it was a space. Not just a gap of a few inches to allow for wiring or whatever, but actual tunnels. Deep ones. I realized later it was probably the remains of the old Millbank Prison.

GERRY

(Surprised) There actually are tunnels under the Institute? Fuck me. I thought the old bat was joking.

TIM

What? When?

GERRY

Not long after she told me about the rituals, right around the time I thought I found Leitner. She caught me snooping through her papers—

TIM

Seems to be a habit with you.

GERRY

Shut up. She asked if I’d found anything interesting, and I said I was looking for her nefarious plans…she said she wouldn’t keep those with her papers, and I made a joke about hidden underground tunnels, and she said that oh, yes, there was a whole network of tunnels under the Institute that she’d conveniently forgotten to mention. Her tone of voice sounded like she was joking, but…

TIM

(Slowly) At the time, maybe she was. I think you maybe got her curious, and that’s how she found them.

She definitely knew about them. I’m sure of it. It’s why those shelves were where they were. That was where the plasterboard was thinnest, she must have known if anything broke in it would be there. Wanted an early detection system, I guess.

GERRY

So what happened after you smelled the Corruption in the tunnels? Please tell me you didn’t go down looking for it.

TIM

No, it came up looking for us. Jon poked at the hole and made it a bit bigger, and the next thing I knew the office was teeming with worms.

Martin was back by then. I managed to get him and Jon back into that secure Document Storage room, the climate-controlled one, you know? Not easily, mind you. Jon was insistent on bringing the recorders along, I’m still not sure what that was about. Not like the tape would have survived if he hadn’t. We made it, but he got bitten on the way, so I had to get that out…Sasha was still out there, though, and, well, I was worried about the worms. So I went out to fight them off. Got Sasha out of the Archives, told her to get help, and I wound up in the Archivist’s office.

I, uh…they were close. Really close. The worms, I mean. I wound up falling into some case boxes that turned out to have fire extinguishers in them, so I was attacking the worms, but…

GERRY

These would be the extinguishers that are useless for the kind of fire you expect at the Institute? The ones filled with carbon dioxide?

TIM

Yeah. They do work on the worms, though.

GERRY

Most things die when you suck the oxygen out of their lungs.

Speaking of, do you want some water or something? Medic said you’ll probably have a sore throat for a while, I assume because you were breathing carbon dioxide.

TIM

I’m okay for now, but…yeah. That’s what was going on. Got a little lightheaded, too. But I did realize I needed to get out of there somehow.

That’s when I called you.

GERRY

Oh, good. I’m so glad that was on your list of priorities.

TIM

Making sure you got to hear my voice one last time, just in case I didn’t make it out of there alive? Yeah, that was pretty much top of my list.

GERRY

Okay, now I have to kill you.

[TIM LAUGHS]

I’m not joking, Stoker. Do you have any idea what it would have done to me if that had been the last communication I ever had with you?

You didn’t even give me a chance to say it back.

TIM

…I know. I’m sorry.

I guess it was a little selfish. I was going to do something I knew was dangerous, and I wanted to hear your voice one last time, just in case I never heard another one.

Plus, you know, oxygen deprivation. Wasn’t exactly thinking the clearest.

GERRY

I’ll give you that one.

TIM

Anyway, I went down. God, it was like a maze down there. Down was up, up was down, left and right meant just about nothing…and I know what you’re thinking. I couldn’t sense the Spiral. Or the Buried, for that matter, so that was good. It was just…confusing.

If it’s the remains of Millbank Prison, that makes sense, really. Smirke designed it, and he obviously knew about the Fourteen, so he might have drawn on elements of the Spiral without actually…invoking it. Probably not to draw it. Probably just to make it confusing for any prisoners who managed to get out of their cells. The guards would have had maps and directions and all that sort of thing, but a convict making a break for freedom? They could wander for ages and not find the way out.

There weren’t as many worms down there, though. Not at first. Most of them must’ve been up in the Archives, which was not comforting, but I figured I’d worry about getting out and then I could worry about destroying Jane Prentiss and her filth. And then…I found a room full of them.

GERRY

(Quietly) Alive or dead?

TIM

Alive. Alive and building.

They were…Ger, I think I’m right, I think that was a Corruption ritual. Or at least it was meant to be one. The worms were stacking themselves together, kind of twisting around one another, and…it looked like they were making a doorway. I can only assume it was for the Creeping Rot to enter our world.

GERRY

You stopped it, though, right?

TIM

Oh, yeah. I pumped two and a half canisters of CO2 into that room. Nothing was getting out of there alive.

I wandered a bit after that and eventually came to a wall that looked different from the rest, like it was thinner. And I could hear voices on the other side—

GERRY

Voices?

TIM

—that I recognized as Jon and Martin’s. So I broke through the wall, and yeah, there was Document Storage. It’s on the same wall as the Archivist’s office.

The worms were getting pretty bad up there, so I figured my first priority was to get them out of there and somewhere safe. I reckoned if all the worms were in the Archives, they’d be all right in the tunnels. Jon was hurt, though, and his leg was slowing him down, and…there were enough worms in the tunnels. A wave of them came at us, and we lost—lost track of Martin.

I, I don’t know if he—I don’t know if he got out, Gerry. I don’t know if he found his way to the surface, or if he’s still trapped down there, or if something else got him or—

GERRY

Easy, babe. Easy.

[ROWLF WHINES SOFTLY]

TIM

Sorry. I’m good. I’m good.

[DEEP BREATH]

Anyway, we, um, turns out breaking through the walls isn’t the only way into the Archives from those tunnels. There’s a trapdoor. A big one. Jon and I found it and…I should have made him stay in the tunnels. I tried to make him stay in the tunnels, but Jesus Christ, we thought Gertrude was stubborn? Jon makes the Alps look easy to shift. So we went up together.

And Jane Prentiss was waiting for us.

GERRY

Shit. How’d you fight her off?

TIM

I didn’t. The fire suppressant system finally kicked in. Last thing I remember before I blacked out was the screaming.

GERRY

Jon?

TIM

The worms. I guess. Or maybe it was the dying scream of the ritual fizzling out, I dunno.

Just…that’s going to be haunting my dreams for a while, I think. Thousands of tiny things without mouths, screaming for a god that isn’t listening.

GERRY

And now that’s going to haunt my dreams, thanks.

TIM

You can’t imagine it unless you were there. Trust me. Whatever you’re thinking…it was a million times worse.

GERRY

I can imagine quite a lot.

TIM

I know.

[SEVERAL LONG MOMENTS OF SILENCE]

GERRY

You stopped her, Tim. Even if you’re not the one who kicked off the overhead system, you slowed her down enough that it could work, and you put Sasha in the position that she could do that.

You did good.

TIM

Yeah.

I’m just…I’m worried. About Martin. About Jon.

GERRY

Jon’s fine. Or at least fine enough to be a problem. When I picked you up, the paramedic was grumbling about “the other guy” being difficult, and I assume that was Jon.

TIM

That’s…good. I tried to take the brunt of it for him, but there’s only so much surface area to my body, you know?

GERRY

I am, in fact, quite aware of the surface area of your body.

[TIM LAUGHS]

You’re not worried about Sasha?

TIM

No. She got out. She’s probably fine.

And she’s short enough that the worms probably looked right over her.

[GERRY LAUGHS]

I mean, I am worried about her, but…less than the others.

GERRY

Gertrude’s going to be proud of you.

TIM

I hope so.

And I fucking hope she gets back soon, because if she doesn’t, I’m going to have to make a call myself.

GERRY

On whether to tell the others about…everything?

TIM

Yup.

I don’t think knowing would have kept them safe. Sure as fuck didn’t do jack shit for me. But going forward…God. Are they going to make smarter decisions if they know that stuff is literally trying to kill them?

GERRY/TIM (SIMULTANEOUSLY)

No.

[THEY BOTH LAUGH THIS TIME]

TIM

Really, I think…I think if I’m going to tell anyone, it would need to be Jon. I just…don’t know if I should.

GERRY

Why Jon? Why not Martin or Sasha?

TIM

Jon is…until Gertrude gets back, he’s the acting Archivist. I haven’t been calling him that, and I don’t think he’s noticed or really thought about it. But he’s still…

He’s at least nominally in charge. He’s the one calling the shots, or at least he should be. And I can’t help but wonder if he’d make different decisions if he knew everything.

GERRY

…I mean…

On the one hand, probably? If he knows about the Fourteen, if he knows Jane Prentiss wasn’t just an isolated thing, if he knows what’s going on behind everything, he might make different decisions. About research, about how to run the Archives, about what he should be doing. It’s highly likely.

On the other hand, I think the question you should actually be asking is if he’d make better decisions if he knew everything.

TIM

Yeah, that’s a good point.

He’s…curious. Too curious for his own damn good. And I know he makes bad decisions. He wouldn’t have got hurt today if he hadn’t gone back for the tape recorder—it slowed him getting out of the office, and then he dropped it on his way to Document Storage and that’s why he got bit. And he…focuses too much on the immediate problem and not long-term solutions.

Like the carbon dioxide system. I don’t know how he talked Elias into that. It doesn’t actually work on the kind of fires we’re likely to get in the Archives. I mean, it comes—came—out cold, and sinks to the bottom of the room, so that’s not the issue, but it doesn’t go deep enough to put out fires on, say, paper. And if it dissipates, but the actual source of the ignition isn’t removed, the fire’s quite likely to flare up again.

All of which he would have known if he’d done just a little bit of research, or put any thought into it. Collect the extinguishers, sure, but replacing the whole system? That was stupid. Now we’re safe from the Corruption—or specifically from the worms, which aren’t going to be a problem anymore—but we’re at risk from the Desolation.

GERRY

And if he’d known about both? Would he have done that? Got the extinguishers and not pushed about the overall system?

TIM

…No. No, I don’t think he would have. I think he’d have said to get the CO2 system and supplement with the ABC extinguishers rather than the other way around.

I’ll grant you that we probably wouldn’t have survived if he had done it the other way around, but…

GERRY

But Gertrude wouldn’t have.

TIM

Gertrude wouldn’t have involved Elias at all if she could help it. Also, I know she was trying to get the ABC system installed, because that’s what I gave her the recommendation for.

GERRY

Yeah, true.

So. What are you going to do about Jon?

TIM

Not sure yet. Luckily, I think I’ve got time to work that out.

GERRY

Did the paramedics tell you how long it’s going to be before you can go back to work?

TIM

Not their call. I’m going to have to go to a regular doc and get checked out. Probably tomorrow, but…fuck it, I might wait until Thursday or Friday and rest tomorrow.

I’m thinking probably a few weeks. Some of these holes are deep.

(Groans) Aaaaand the painkillers are starting to wear off.

GERRY

Hang on. I’ll go make tea and get the bottle out.

TIM

Thanks, Ger.

[FOOTSTEPS FADING INTO THE DISTANCE]

[FAINT SOUND OF RUNNING WATER]

[TIM SIGHS HEAVILY]

[SUDDEN JANGLE OF TAGS]

TIM

What? What is it, boy?

[KNOCKING AT THE DOOR]

[ROWLF BARKS EXCITEDLY]

[TOENAILS CLATTER ON FLOOR, TAGS JINGLING]

TIM

Ow! Christ—

GERRY

(From the other room) Tim, you stay right there. I’ll get it.

TIM

I’m—

GERRY

Don’t say you’re fine.

[FOOTSTEPS ALONG THE HALLWAY]

GERRY (DISTANTLY)

Get back, you menace. Rowlf, heel.

[DOOR CREAKS]

Can I help you? This is a private residence.

[FAINT, INDISTINCT VOICE]

Who’s asking?

[FAINT VOICE EVIDENTLY REPLIES]

Oh—yeah, yeah, come on in. Don’t mind the dog. Rowlf!

MARTIN (DISTANTLY)

It’s okay. I like dogs. And we’ve met before.

TIM

(Surprised) Martin?

GERRY

Timothy Rodolfo Anthony Stoker, you keep your ass on that sofa.

TIM

(Groans) Yes, Dad.

GERRY

Have a seat. I’m making tea.

MARTIN

No, no, it’s okay, it’s—I-I’m not staying long. I just…

I just wanted to make sure you were all right. Jon was, um, he said you left before he could get your statement.

TIM

He was—never mind.

I’m okay. Bit sore, but I’ll live, you know? Partner’s just a bit overprotective.

MARTIN

Right, right, yeah, that’s—you know, I don’t think you’ve, um, you haven’t mentioned his name before?

GERRY (CALLING FROM THE OTHER ROOM)

It’s Gerry.

MARTIN

Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

S-sorry, I—I shouldn’t have—I, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.

And…well, to say I was sorry. I—I didn’t mean to leave you behind, I—

TIM

What? No. No, no, no. Martin, it’s okay. It’s not your fault. I don’t blame you.

I should be the one apologizing. I—fuck it.

[SOFA SPRINGS SQUEAK OVER MILD SOUNDS OF PROTEST FROM MARTIN]

[FABRIC RUSTLES]

I’m sorry, kiddo. I shouldn’t have let you out of my sight. I was trying to get you both out safely, but…

MARTIN

You did, though. You—we’d both be dead if it weren’t for you.

Thank you. I, I don’t think I said that while we were in the tunnels, but…thank you. For looking out for us.

TIM

Hey, that’s what I’m here for.

You did good, too, Marto. You found your way out. You didn’t get bit, did you?

MARTIN

No, no, no. No, I—I didn’t see many worms. Actually, (nervous laugh) that worried me a bit, you know? Like if there weren’t any worms, I’d gone too far from the Institute. That’s what I told Jon.

I was just trying to find my way back, a-and then I heard the screams. And then I started finding all the withered worms in the tunnels, and that’s how I knew she—that Jane Prentiss was dead.

TIM

That’s…good to know, actually.

MARTIN

You didn’t know she was dead?

TIM

No, I did. She was looming right over me, and I sort of figured that was part of the screaming. I just didn’t think about the worms being…connected to her. Or part of her or whatever.

Anyway, I’m just glad you’re okay. What did you do, follow the worms out?

MARTIN

(Brief pause) Why didn’t I think of that? Stupid. Stupid. That would have been so much easier.

TIM

(Firmly) You’re not stupid.

MARTIN

Yeah, but I didn’t think to follow the obvious clue! I just, I just wandered, looking for a way out. I thought I found one—a-a door—but it turned out to just be a room.

TIM

Filled with dessicated worm corpses, right?

MARTIN

No. No, the worms didn’t…

Did, um—w-when did you leave?

TIM

Pretty much right after I got out of quarantine. I joked about itching a little with the paramedics and they kept me longer. Why?

MARTIN

Then you didn’t talk to anyone? Elias, maybe?

TIM

…About what?

MARTIN

O-oh. Um, um, you…you maybe want to sit down or���

TIM

Martin! Just say it, all right? What was in the room?

MARTIN

It—I-I found Gertrude Robinson.

TIM

(Exhales) So she was down there. I wondered…

MARTIN

Yeah. Sat on a wooden chair in the middle of the room. No worms. No cobwebs. Just…the dust and the cardboard boxes full of cassette tapes.

And an old corpse.

TIM

What?

MARTIN

I mean…it’s been more than a year, Tim. If it wasn’t so dry and dusty down there, I wouldn’t have recognized her, I don’t—

Tim? Tim, are you okay?

TIM

(Quietly) What happened to her?

MARTIN

…She was shot. Three times that I could see. In the chest.

TIM

…Jesus.

…

Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?

MARTIN

Yeah, I’m—I’m going back to my place.

I don’t know how long I’m going to stay there, honestly, but at least I know it’s safe now. And, um, Elias said we can take the rest of the week off.

I probably have to go back in tomorrow, though. The, the police want me to try and show them where her body is. I-I’m not sure I can find it again, but…

TIM

You’ve got my number. Call if you want company, okay?

MARTIN

I mean, I don’t think you’re in any fit state to go anywhere, but—sure, yeah, okay.

You’re sure you’re okay?

TIM

(Unconvincingly) Fit as a fiddle.

Go home and get some rest, okay, Marto? And…you did good today. Real good.

MARTIN

Thanks, Tim. You, too.

Bye, Rowlf.

[FOOTSTEPS ACROSS THE FLOOR, DOOR OPENING AND SHUTTING]

[SEVERAL SECONDS OF SILENCE]

GERRY

Tim?

TIM

“My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.”

GERRY

What? Jon or Sasha?

TIM

…You didn’t hear any of that, did you?

GERRY

Just you asking Martin if—Tim. Tim, what’s wrong, what is it?

What happened?

TIM

…

…Gertrude’s dead.

GERRY

What?! Dead? Since when?

TIM

From what Martin said…Elias was right. She’s been dead this whole time. Someone shot her and left her in the tunnels under the Institute.

Along with—(Sudden realization) the tapes. Martin said she was surrounded by cardboard boxes full of tapes.

GERRY

(Softly) Oh, God.

[FABRIC RUSTLES]

[SQUEAK OF SOFA SPRINGS]

You are not going down there looking for them. Not in the shape you’re in. We’ll have to…we’ll figure out how to get them later.

TIM

They’re probably going to be in a police evidence locker for a while. Assuming they find her.

GERRY

Won’t be the first time I’ve broken into a police station. Probably won’t be the last.

[SEVERAL LONG MOMENTS OF SILENCE]

What are you thinking?

TIM

I’m thinking that answers the question of whether or not to say anything to Jon.

GERRY

…Okay, you’re going to have to run that one by me. How?

TIM

He must know more than he’s letting on. He’s got to have some idea about all this already.

Or maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he’s just a power hungry idiot. I dunno. Doesn’t matter. I’m still not going to talk to him about all this, not yet.

GERRY

Why not?

TIM

Because right now, the best conclusion I can come to is that Jonathan Sims is the one who murdered Gertrude Robinson.

[CLICK]

[yellowocaballero]

Jon's Trapped in Temporal Time-Out: A TMA Time Travelling Tale

Sasha was tipping some whiskey from her secret flask into her tea when Tim poked his head into the breakroom and announced that he had found a corpse.

Sasha and Martin, hunched over their paltry lunches and pathetic lives situated upon a rickety metal breakroom table and equally rickety metal chairs, stared at him. 

“Like,” Sasha said finally, “a human one?”

Tim shrugged. “Humanoid? I didn’t want to poke it and see if it was fleshy, so I guess the jury’s out.”

Hm. Sasha put her flask away. The day was no longer boring, so it was unnecessary. 

The most relevant questions ought to be asked first. “Should we tell Jon?”

“He might throw a bitch fit about how corpses are unhygienic, so no?”

Martin drained his tea and stood up from the rickety metal chair, resigned. “I’ll get the broom.”

I kept on bitching about how much I dislike the beginning scenes of TMA time travelling AUs so my friend @lazuliquetzal​ (who wrote the best TMA time travelling fic in the fandom) told me to put my money where my mouth is. It’s nowhere near her level, but in my defense it’s probably even stupider than Reflection. 10K of stupid under the cut. 

Sasha was tipping some whiskey from her secret flask into her tea when Tim poked his head into the breakroom and announced that he had found a corpse.

Sasha and Martin, hunched over their paltry lunches and pathetic lives situated upon a rickety metal breakroom table and equally rickety metal chairs, stared at him. 

“Like,” Sasha said finally, “a human one?”

Tim shrugged. “Humanoid? I didn’t want to poke it and see if it was fleshy, so I guess the jury’s out.”

Hm. Sasha put her flask away. The day was no longer boring, so it was unnecessary. 

The most relevant questions ought to be asked first. “Should we tell Jon?”

“He might throw a bitch fit about how corpses are unhygienic, so no?”

Martin drained his tea and stood up from the rickety metal chair, resigned. “I’ll get the broom.”

****

There was, indeed, a corpse in the Archives.

More specifically, in the stacks. The worst place to die, or least be dumped. Sasha had to admit the logic of it: it was the darkest depths of the library that Martin had informed her was ‘somewhat creepy’ and ‘kind of ominous’ so ‘please stop sleeping there you’re going to give me a heart attack’. After Martin flipped on a few lights that were never flipped on (apparently Elias was a cheapskate, which explained the breakroom) they could all gawk at the corpse to their heart’s content. 

Very kindly and thoughtfully, Tim asked Martin if he wanted to stay out of the library and maybe to ‘tell someone’ or something. Both Sasha and Tim had mutually and silently agreed that Martin seemed the type to have a delicate constitution. Granted, he hadn’t seemed the type to win Magnus Anarchist every month by breaking into abandoned buildings with absolutely no shame, so maybe he was the kind that surprised you. 

But Martin had just looked a little unimpressed. “Do you seriously think this is my first corpse? I went to university.”

That somewhat intimidated Sasha, who abruptly worried that she had missed out on an essential university experience again. “Is that a typical university experience?”

Martin paused a beat. 

“Uh,” he said, “yeah, sure, of course. Hazing, you know.”

“Is that what hazing…?”

“Fraternities.”

Tim, from where he had been standing at the entrance to the stacks snapping on the sterile gloves he had liberated from the cleaning supply closet, looked delighted. “You were in a frat too, Martin? What kind of hardcore frat had corpse hazings? Was it the Sigma Gammas? My frat always thought they were way too crazy, but we were a business one -”

“You know what,” Martin said, “let’s just worry about the corpse.”

After Sasha tied her hair in a ponytail and Martin snapped on his own gloves, they awkwardly approached the aisle where Tim had been trying to find a reference book for Jon. Sasha was worried that they would have to hunt for it a little, or that there would be a bad jump scare, but when they found it she saw that it wasn’t subtle at all.

It was sprawled on the ground, face mashed into the cheap and somewhat gross carpet. Sasha approached it with absolutely no hesitation, which Tim and Martin gladly let her do, and squatted down to get a better look at the figure. 

She definitely needed to make a coroner’s report. She was the objective expert in coroner’s reports. 

 “Tim, can you run back and get one of Jon’s silly little tape recorders for my coroner’s report?”

“Did you just see that on the telly?” Tim asked skeptically. “Because if you did -”

“Oh, here one is. That’s really convenient!” Martin grabbed one off the shelf and pressed play, letting the tape roll. “Good idea, Sasha. We need proof to Jon that we were researching.”

Probably...not what Jon meant for them to be researching, but Sasha liked to believe that it was the intent that mattered. She pulled a pencil out of her pencil skirt pocket, poking the figure thoughtfully. “Report by Sasha James, Archival Assistant.” There, now it was work. “At 1:30pm today, Tim Stoker discovered a corpse in the Archives, thereby referred to as John Doe -”

“Do we have to call it John Doe?” Tim complained, standing next ot her and crossing his arms. “Then we have too many Johns, it’ll get confusing.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sasha said dismissively. “Ours is Jon, this guy’s John. Completely different.”

“Sasha, I’m not sure that’s how words work.”

“What are you, an English major?”

“Yes! I was an editor for a living!”

“Sorry if I don’t listen to guys who were fired from book editing school -”

“Uh,” Martin said, “have we checked to see if he’s actually dead?”

Sasha and Tim fell silent. Sasha looked at Tim. Tim shook his head. 

“Seriously, mate?” Sasha asked, unimpressed. 

“I didn’t want to touch the corpse!” Tim cried. “So sue me! It’s not as if he’s moving!”

Pussy. Sasha gently reached out and pushed aside a little of the corpse’s very long and pretty curly hair. What was that, 3C? Jesus, that had to be work. Sasha was 3A and the amount of hair care products she owned was insane.

She waved her hand at the boys for silence and put her thumb against his pulse, concentrating hard. Martin quietly walked over and crouched down too, eyeing his chest. 

“I don’t feel a pulse,” Sasha said finally. 

“Also, uh, I’m not a doctor,” Martin said, “but he’s definitely not breathing.”

“I told you,” Tim said defensively. “You just look at the thing, and you go - yep, that’s a corpse!”

“Corpse appears to be an ethnically ambiguous adult man with very nice hair,” Sasha said loudly. Martin helpfully held out the recorder to catch her voice better. “Maybe 190cm. Incredibly skinny - potential cause of death. He’s dressed in...some very ratty clothing. Potentially homeless.”

“It definitely smells,” Tim said, pinching his nose. Sasha didn’t blame him - the clothing was an overlarge green hoodie, ratty and threadbare, and his jeans weren’t any better. His boots were worn and soft leather. “Maybe he’s a homeless guy who snuck in and died?”

“That’s so sad,” Martin said softly. “Also a little gross.”

“Have some respect for the dead, guys,” Sasha said, as she poked the dead guy with a pencil. “Tim, go flip him over.”

Tim held his hands up, stepping away. “I couldn’t possibly. Martin loves flipping people over.”

“This again?” Martin asked, frustrated. “This is just like when you made me handle the Rawlings case because you’re scared of the suburbs!”

“They have too many eyes, Martin!”

“I am surrounded by cowards,” Sasha noted for the recorder. Nothing for it, then. Sasha carefully straightened, wobbling on her heels, before solidly wiggling her hands underneath the corpse’s chest. He was cold - dead a while. 

It was surprisingly difficult to flip over a limp adult man. Sasha was strong, but the corpse’s flesh was weak, and he was all floppy. Eventually Tim got over himself long enough to help her, making a very disgusted face the entire time, and they were able to finally get a good look at the man’s face.

Abruptly, upon seeing it, they all quieted. 

There was something about seeing a man splayed out on the ground that was a little funny, if you worked for the Magnus Institute and had probably encountered a Leitener two years ago and lost all empathy. No more impediments in the search for science. But there was something very different about looking at a person, who had a nose and lips and a very ratty hoodie, and knowing that it was no longer a person. Just a lot of cloth and meat and blood and organs and nice hair that once was a person, back when things were easier and the world was a little less harsh.

But maybe Sasha was caught by sentimentality: after all, the corpse looked a little like Jon.

Judging from the stunned faces of her compatriots as they all bent around the figure, they all thought the same thing. Tim’s jaw was open, and Martin’s hand was covering his mouth in shock. 

“Man,” Tim said. “This sucks. And it’s really creepy.”

“He must have been really gorgeous,” Martin said. “That’s so sad.” 

Actually, Sasha tilted her head and took another look. He had sharp and severe features, elegant and striking. A large and thin, sharp nose, and equally sharp lips. His face was just as sharp and gaunt, as emancipated as the rest of him. He had strange scars trailing up his neck and curving around his jaw, but it just kind of accentuated the intense atmosphere. 

It was probably a pretty stupid thing to focus on, but in her defense it wasn’t really the face of a homeless guy. Well, maybe. Hot homeless people existed.

Sasha frowned. She’s only met one other person this hot. 

“Hey,” she said, “doesn’t he look like Jon?”

Both the men titled their heads. 

Finally, Tim said, “Nah, he’s hotter.”

“Agreed,” Sasha said. “I think the scars really do it.” 

“Uh, guys,” Martin said. 

Sasha grabbed her tape recorder out of Martin’s hands, resuming her coroner’s report. “Subject appears to be in his thirties. Weirdly attractive, but that’s probably not as important as we feel it is.” She looked down at his hands, carefully using her pencil to push up the sleeve. “What looks like an aged and badly healed burn scar on his right hand. Supports homeless guy evidence.”

“Knife scar over his throat,” Tim quietly observed. “Someone tried to kill this guy.”

“Guys,” Martin said. 

“Well, I guess this is the point where we worry about body disposal,” Sasha said, straightening. “I think Elias could handle this discreetly and professionally, but that might involve letting Jon know. And I don’t think any of us want that kind of stress in our lives.”

“So, are we not even pretending to want to call the cops, or…?”

“Listen to me!”

Both Tim and Sasha shut up, somewhat guiltily. Martin had straightened too, fists balled, looking firm and determined and resolute - everything that Martin wasn’t, really. Martin lived unsure of himself, never expressing his own feelings or ending every opinion with an “I don’t know, maybe, that’s just my thoughts, what do you think?”. 

So Tim and Sasha paid attention, and when Sasha nodded encouragingly at him he seemed to find further courage. Solemnly, with the air of a wise man by the side of the road, Martin said, “This guy isn’t hotter than Jon.”

Christ. Sasha takes it all back.

 Tim propped a hand on his hip supportively as Sasha rolled her eyes. “Look, mate,” Tim said, “I know that you think Jon’s the hottest person in existence, and maybe objectively he’s fine as hell, but once you know him for longer than three months he loses all attractiveness. It would be like being into the DMV clerk. The really pretentious cousin at all of your family reunions who tries to explain your own job to you. The dude in your English class who thinks he invented feminism.”

“That was you,” Sasha said. 

“I am the objective expert in Jon,” Martin said firmly, shutting down the dissent. “He’s, like, my muse, okay? And can I say, as I have spent so many long hours memorizing the curve of his jaw - that’s the same jaw.”

If Sasha had a retort to that, or if Tim wanted to judge Martin for his taste in men further, neither of them had a chance. There wasn't an opportunity to say anything more, because the corpse opened its eyes. 

Sasha’s first thought was this: wow, what green eyes. 

Sasha’s second thought was: the fuck?

His eyes didn’t focus on her, or snap anywhere. They drifted a little lazily, fixed on the right, but the man was undoubtedly aware. His fingers twitched, he tilted his head from left to right, and his left hand - doubtlessly the hand that still felt texture - clenched the thin and cheap rug. The man’s jaw slackened a little, as if in surprise. 

For their part, the Assistants frantically looked at each other, all conveying the exact same thought - you said he was dead!

Sasha froze to her spot, petrified. She could handle corpses, or coroner’s reports, or mysteries. Sasha was intelligent, unkind, firm, socially incompetent, and a Libra. She could handle the dead, but the living? Sasha had no idea what to do with alive people.

But Tim did. He hesitated two moments, reeling back in shock, before he abruptly composed himself. He crouched down to the guy, and modulated his voice to sound calming and firm. “Hey, don’t strain yourself. Are you alright? Do you hurt anywhere?”

The man turned his head in Tim's direction, hiding his expression from Sasha, but she saw Tim’s eyes widen. Martin, standing closer to his feet, wrung his hands - clearly torn on what to do, uncertain how to help. Martin always hated being uncertain how to help the most. Which was pretty unfortunate, because Martin always wanted to help, and Martin was always uncertain. 

“Can you speak?” Tim asked gently. “If you can’t speak, go ahead and knock on the floor for me, okay?”

“If we pack him into your car, we can say that we found him on the street,” Sasha piped up. As much as she distrusted NHS, and as much as the NHS refused to touch anybody who had ever stepped foot inside the Institute, they could hardly refuse somebody if they just lied their ass off about it. “They’ll have to treat him then, right?”

“We could make it so much worse if we move him,” Martin said quickly, just as strangely firm. “We need to take our chances with 999.”

“We don’t even know if he’s injured,” Sasha pointed out, somewhat optimistically. “Maybe this whole thing can just, like, not be a problem.”

Yeah, Sasha definitely preferred corpses. 

The man was opening and closing his mouth, before he coughed wetly. Sasha clinically noted that it was the first time she had seen his chest move. As Tim reached forward, murmuring gently, and helped the man sit up, she saw that his chest didn’t move at all.

“Alright, let’s try to get you up.” Tim helped the man shift so he was leaning against the bookcase - uncomfortable, but a better position if he started coughing up blood. “We should fetch you some water - Martin, I don’t think he has any injury like that, he just seems out of it. His eyes aren’t focusing on me at all.”

Strangely, the man scoffed at that. The sound made him cough again, but the derision was unmistakable.

The derision was extremely familiar. 

When Sasha looked at Martin his eyes were wide behind his glasses, and she knew that he had heard the same thing that she did. 

Finally, with a raspy and hoarse voice, the man said, “Well, isn’t this fucking fun.”

Everybody stared at him. His voice...different, definitely, with a less posh accent and strained vocal cords scratching his tones. But when Sasha glanced at Tim, she just knew that he was remembering when Jon had insisted on coming into work with a terrible cold and Martin had to bully him home. He had sounded eerily like…

“Is this your idea of a joke?” the man said. 

Tim, from where he was crouched next to the guy, turned his attention back to him. “I’m a funny guy, but last time I checked head injuries aren’t a joke.” He tracked his finger across the man’s eyes, frowning when they didn’t follow. “You definitely have a concussion, mate. If you can walk, we need to -”

“Lord, alright, I get it.” The man raised his burned hand and clumsily rubbed his eyes. “You’re mad at me, I’m sleeping on the couch, whatever. Is all of this really necessary?”

“Uh,” Tim said intelligently. “Mate, I’m not your boyfriend.”

The man waved his other hand in Tim’s direction as he pressed his fingers into his eyes in exhaustion. “I’m hardly speaking to you.” Tim’s jaw dropped in shock as the man angled his face upwards, the crown of his head jamming uncomfortably against the metal shelving. “In my defense, I was doing the best I could with the resources you gave me. It’s water under the bridge. I’ve forgotten about it already! So let’s just get back to our eldritch hellscape.”

Everybody stared at each other. 

“We should move this into the break room,” Martin said. “There’s tea there.”

“Oh, don’t be rude,” Jon said, “making Martin into a caricature of himself. You like Martin, you told me so.”

“Counterpoint,” Sasha said weakly, “the bullpen has Jon. And I really don’t want to explain this to Jon.”

“I don’t even know who this one is,” the man said. “What? Not going to tell me?”

“Okay, like, fucking rude, but whatever.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking to,” Tim said firmly, reaching out and putting a firm hand on the man’s arm. The man didn’t recoil or jerk away, just looking down in vague surprise. “But they aren’t here right now. You’re in the basement of the Magnus Institute, alright? I’m Tim Stoker, at your service, and these are my coworkers. I think you have a brain injury. If you can walk, we need to get you -”

“I can’t eat here,” the man said, but he made no effort to remove Tim’s arm. He moved his other hand, pressing it against Tim’s own, as if they were friends. “Cutting me off from my Knowledge -” it was capitalized, Sasha could hear it “ - chaining me to my desk, for - what? You’re not even answering me? Come on!” The man’s voice raised, and for the first time Sasha could hear something ragged in it. “Don’t give me the silent treatment!”

“Jon.”

It was Martin, standing at a distance from the man - from all of them. He was wringing his hands again, shoulders hunched and tense, but his expression was caught in that same mysterious firmness. 

The man didn't react. Not in surprise, not in shock, not in unrecognition. He just scowled a little, ignoring all of them. 

“Jon,” Martin said, louder. “This isn’t solving anything. Don’t be stubborn.”

“I’m not the one being stubborn, Martin,” Jon - Jon?! - muttered, folding his arms. Like an infant. Like, hypothetically, something Jon would do. “I just don’t think omniscient fear gods should be petty.”

Everybody looked at each other. 

“This needs tea,” Martin proclaimed finally, and everybody nodded in silent agreement.

Every nodded in agreement - even, strangely enough, Jonathan Sims himself. 

****

This plan had a few complexities. 

The first complexity was dealing with Jon - their Boss - himself. In an act of cunning psychological warfare, Martin had gone ahead of them and used his endless and infinite subtle acts of manipulation to guarantee that Jon wouldn’t interrupt them. This situation was already Quite A Bit, nobody wanted to babysit their boss. 

Who Sasha frequently felt as if she babysat a bit. Having the youngest person in the office be the very rigid and authoritarian boss was objectively a little funny. But you know what’s not funny? Transphobia. 

Eventually Martin came back and waved them forward, and Tim gently yet firmly dragged the man upwards and put a hand on his back. 

“Do you mind if I touch you?” Tim asked. He sounded resigned about it - barely expecting Jon to respond. “Let me know how you want me to guide you.”

“Oh, it’s whatever. If you’re going to play it this way.” Jon easily looped his arm through Tim’s, who didn’t bother to mask his shock. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Sasha went ahead of them, watching Tim walk Jon down the aisle - hah! - with his arm looped through his elbow and a hand on his back. It was exactly the kind of care and meticulousness that Sasha always saw in him when it came to others. He literally walked grannies across the street. It was horrendous. She got second-hand embarrassed whenever she saw it.

Tim was loudly, extremely, messily kind. He was a person who adopted lost causes, like young men too grumpy to make real friends and women who only knew academia and never people. Sasha told him that once he got his teeth into something he never let go. It would get him into trouble one day. Maybe it already had. 

Sure enough, when Sasha opened the library door for them and peeked her head into the hallway, she saw that Jon’s office door was very firmly shut and locked. Even more incriminatingly, she heard his cute little theater drama monologues starting. Tim had found Jon’s theater aspirations very adorable and he had tried recording them to put on his Snapchat and maybe get him discovered by an agent, but unfortunately the videos made Tim’s phone bleed. They had given Martin ten pounds to taste the blood. Man would do anything for ten pounds, but seeing as they all worked this job that probably applied to all them. 

A workplace made out of people who always picked ‘dare’ in truth or dare. It was kind of a miracle they were still alive. Sasha was a little uncertain how she had survived to thirty five, actually. 

Once Sasha gave the all clear, Tim was able to bring Jon (Neo-Jon? Nega-Jon? Dark Jon? Mean Jon? No, that was just Jon) into the bullpen. Softly narrating what he was doing, he pulled out a chair and lowered Jon into it. 

Homeless Jon hasn’t been blind for very long, Sasha noted clinically. Long enough that he seemed more mildly irritated by it than anything else, but instead of orienting himself or testing out where he was he just kind of slumped in his chair. 

“Jon - uh, the Boss is taken care of?” Tim asked Martin, who was rapidly bustling into the bullpen with four cups of tea that he seemed to be under the impression would help. Tim had sat Homeless Jon in Martin’s chair, which seemed to fluster Martin a bit. 

“Uh, yeah. Gave him a normal statement to get his guard down, then five of the - you know, weird - statements and said that he has to go through all of them today. He’ll be in there for an hour at least.” 

Sasha frowned. “After two he gets a headache and gets bitchy.”

“Three o’clock exactly,” Tim said solemnly.

“Oh, leave off,” Homeless Jon said, “it wasn’t that bad.”

Everybody double taked and looked at each other significantly - which was quickly becoming their predominant mode of communication in a ruthless act of ableism. But Martin just held out a cup of tea, faltering as he clearly stopped to wonder the easiest way to give it to him. 

“Can you hold out your hands, Jon? I have some tea for you. It’s hot, so be careful, okay?”

“If the tea’s spiders I’m going to take it out on Annabelle,” Weird Jon said, but he held out his hands anyway and let Martin put the mug in them. He sniffed it cautiously, checking for spiders, before taking a cautious sip. 

To Sasha and Tim, Martin said, “I know, he’s going to fall asleep after two. I mean, it might be because I drugged his tea a little -”

Weird Jon spat out his tea back into the mug. 

“ - so we shouldn’t be interrupted,” Martin said brightly, clapping his hands. “Now! I think it’s time for explanations, don’t you?” He turned his mighty gaze upon Thankfully Blind Jon, who was occupied carefully holding the tea away from himself. “Drink your tea, Jon.”

Jon drank his tea. His expression twisted. “It tastes just like his.”

Everybody looked at each other. Tim mouthed the word ‘time traveller’ very clearly. Both Sasha and Martin nodded. It was the obvious explanation. 

“An explanation now, please,” Martin said pleasantly. “If you’re a time traveller, you can tell us. This is a safe space.”

Jon-from-the-future’s expression harshened in creases. He hadn’t once relaxed, expression permanently tightened in annoyance and disgruntlement. It was ridiculously Jon. 

Definitely a time traveller. You didn’t work at the Magnus Institute without secretly spending your life deeply hoping you run into a time traveller. Every researcher upstairs secretly prayed to discover the majesty. Everyone in Artifact Storage eagerly gathered around mysterious clocks and dared each other to touch them. Sasha, Queen of Truth-or-Dare, was the undisputed expert in making other people touch weird clocks and recording their reactions.

“Fine,” Super Time Traveller Jon said. “I know this is what you want. Statement of a stupid punishment by the pettiest little color in the evil crayon box. Recorded by the Archivist, in situ. Statement begins.”

Wow, Jon still had his job in the future? That’s a surprise. 

Martin was mouthing the word ‘evil crayon box’ to himself, looking increasingly concerned. The forgotten tape recorder, clenched in Sasha’s fist without her even realizing it, clicked and whirred. 

Then the Archivist began to speak. 

***

In the hazy amber of a memory, there exists an office.

You can see it clearly in your mind’s Eye, even now. You could likely navigate all of it blindfolded - which you now see that your god has the intention to test. Every corner of it is known to you, in the most subtle and mundane of ways. There’s a dust bunny in that corner, never tidied. A mysterious stain on the far right ceiling. The faint smell of blood, just under the vents. The hot waft of tea; your hands wrapped around a mug. 

Through these lonely offices, ghosts roam. They cling to desks and chairs; lingering in favorite mugs or in forgotten hair ties. A metal file cabinet holding neat rows of clothing, blood-stained jackets abandoned. A whiteboard with stubborn flakes of dried marker, forgotten handwriting clinging to life. These imprints no longer evoke terror or grief or pain. They are as familiar as the bloodstains and tea. Even death, eventually, is familiar. After long enough in a nightmare, it becomes indistinguishable from reality. 

There is nothing unfamiliar in the Magnus Institute.

Nothing save these voices, emerging from nothing. Every one of your six million senses have been cut off - your hundred eyes reduced to none. You are cognizant only of two familiar voices, and one unfamiliar one. A firm hand, with calloused fingers from leafing through aged paper. A creaky desk chair - Martin’s, undoubtedly, always squeaking as he fidgeted in distraction. The air tastes the same as it used to back then, before the AC broke and no repairman would step inside to repair it. Daisy did, eventually. Three familiar voices, rendered unfamiliar by the harsh tides of wind and cruel plastic hands. 

You are afraid of very little, these days. In this world that you’ve built, there is nothing that can harm you. The twisted little puppet strung up in his tower has been long since been disposed of, and the awful and terrifying future has settled into a gentle present. The apocalypse grows tedious after a while, and the buffet of fears start tasting a little samey.

But if anything could frighten you, this would. If anything would petrify you, it would be Tim’s kind smile, which died a year before Tim did. If anything could freeze you to your chair, it would be the sight of Sasha with red-rimmed eyes asking why you never even noticed that she was gone. 

The sanctuary of memory corrupted. A mental place of safety infiltrated. A mind turned inside out, exposing its vulnerable flesh to the world. 

There is nothing else this could be but your own personal hell. 

Your loyal servant crouches on bended knee, giving this final prayer to you. He asks, humbly and with great reverence, one simple question:

Why couldn’t this have waited until after I got my milk?

***

The spell ruptured.

It was almost tangible, like a change in air pressure making your ears pop. Sasha blinked harshly, rubbing at her ears and trying to soothe strange ringing. Tim exhaled heavily and Martin screwed his eyes open and shut harshly, as if he was seeing spots. 

The only person unaffected was Weirdly Christian Jon, who was slumped in Martin’s chair with his arms folded over his chest. He was still looking at the ceiling - speaking to whoever he had been addressing this entire time. 

“Just one day,” Jon was saying. “Just one day! It was going to be a nice day! We had decided to take a day trip to the Flesh garden and have a picnic! My darling and beautiful husband was going to make us a cake! ‘Walk down to the Hell corner store’, my husband says. ‘Pick us up some Eldritch milk’, he says. ‘Why do I have to do it’, I says, ‘I’m in the middle of something’. ‘We need cake for bridge night with the girls and I’ll divorce you if you don’t do it’, he says. I didn’t even change out of my nightmare pyjamas! What did I ever do to you? How are you still upset about the eye thing?”

Sasha and the Assistants, still digesting the extremely disturbing monologue, let him talk. Sasha was caught up in how it felt exactly like Jon’s little drama monologues. Granted, he had obviously gotten a lot more practice - guy could go to Broadway - but the weird lilting and falling sing-songyness was just the same. And he only ever did that for the very weird ones. The ones that they were pretty certain were actually true. 

So that probably meant at one point in the future, if Jon was speaking about the Archives as if they had worked there for years. Probably during the apocalypse. Which was happening. Which Jon had...built? Like, as a personal thing, or in a metaphor for capitalism and the human race? Definitely the capitalism thing - Jon was prone to flights of filing-induced passion that sometimes accidentally resulted in a stapler flying and punching a hole through the wall, but she couldn’t even imagine him even purposefully punching someone, much less being the Antichrist. Unless it was one of those things that just happened to you, like a rare genetic defect. 

“Seriously. What was the alternative here? Endless horrorterrors, everybody screaming all the time? It was boring. You eat one Statement about somebody standing in line at a slaughterhouse conveyor belt and you’ve eaten them all. I didn’t do it because I didn’t like you, although for the record I don’t. But you have to admit that having Eldritch Lidls are much more practical than just having a bunch of people lying around screaming all the time. It’s not as if I don’t have other eyes, I hardly miss them. There’s no chocolate cakes in the swirling vortex of mankind’s worst nightmares!”

Okay. They had to find a way to engage with this guy. He was completely ignoring them, probably because he thought that they were mean ghosts. Sasha was only one of those things, and it was hurting her feelings. Judging from the expression on Tim’s face he was thinking the same thing. 

Or - wait, Sasha knew that eyebrow. That was the ‘please please please tell the apocalypse has zombies’ eyebrow. Great. 

But Martin was just looking thoughtful again. Sasha was pretty proud of him - it was probably very difficult for the poor man to remain coherent in the face of the crazy time-traveller who was definitely hotter than their already objectively unfairly hot boss. 

“Jon,” Martin said, cutting Jon’s tired rant about how eggs benedict were much better these days, “Uh, I have an idea? Maybe you can’t get out of the - nightmare by bargaining with it. Do you know how to normally escape these things?”

Jon angled his head down and frowned in Martin’s direction. So far Martin seemed to be the only person who could shut Jon up, which was a hilarious turnaround from normal life. Sasha hadn’t heard anything about Martin being a sad little ghost, but it was hard to believe that Martin was a survivor in the zombie apocalypse. 

“You go through the statement and you walk through it,” Jon said, in a very ‘duh’ kind of way. “Give the statement, highfive corpses, whatever.”

“Right, right.” Martin wrung his hands, biting at his lip. “So maybe it’s like that. Maybe instead of asking to be let out - you just have to walk through it. Like - like it’s a maze. Does that make sense? I’m not sure, it’s just an idea.”

Jon pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. “Right as always, Martin.” Everybody’s jaw dropped, and Martin squeaked. “Fine, fine. Let’s...interact with the evil ghosts.” Jon gestured out with his arms, in a very ‘come at me bro’ gesture. “Go ahead and shoot. Hit me with how much you hate me and how disappointed you are that I never amounted to anything and started the apocalypse.”

Finally! Interrogation time! 

But before Sasha could finally find out if global warming had killed the world, Tim jumped in. “Are there zombies in the apocalypse?!” Tim cried, way too excited. “Is it like the Walking Dead? Or is it more Last of Us?”

Jon squinted in Tim’s direction. “Define zombie.”

“...hunger for human flesh, shambling, gross looking?” Tim rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you still haven’t seen any zombie movies.”

“I’m omniscient, I’ve seen every zombie movie,” Jon lied blatantly. “I just think that you’re - you know, stereotyping. Sometimes people are the undead and eat humans and they’re - they’re very normal people.”

“Yeah, Tim, be sensitive,” Sasha said gleefully. She put the tape recorder on Martin’s desk, deciding that she would definitely need a transcript of this interview later. Also maybe ask more questions about that omniscient thing, but she was sure Jon was just exaggerating. If you asked Jon today if he was the smartest person on Earth he’d probably say yes. Jon wasn’t even the smartest person in the room.

For good measure, she drew out her little notebook from her pencil skirt pocket, flipping through it looking for a clean page. “The Archives have never gotten a time traveller before. This is unprecedented in its history.” Well, she really didn’t know what Gertrude had gotten up to, but she dearly hoped it wasn’t this. “Do you have any warnings? Desperate messages from a ruined world, that kind of thing?”

“I’m not a time traveller,” Jon said flatly, “so no.”

Everybody stared at him in abject pity.

“Mate,” Tim said sympathetically, “it’s 2015. You’re a time traveller.”

“No, I’m in a pocket hell dimension in a period beyond time and space,” Jon corrected arrogantly. “Time travel doesn’t exist.”

“The apocalypse exists but time travel doesn’t exist?” Martin cried. “That’s so unfair! Like, give us something, you know?”

“Your life is very hard,” the extratemporal reject said. 

Typical Jon. A classic case of time travel and here he was denying it. Sasha crossed her arms, upset that they were wasting time debating temporal physics when they could be talking about zombies. She was a historian and had priorities. “Your denial ain’t cute, mate. You’re just wasting all of our time.” Jon opened his mouth, but Sasha steamrolled over him. “You want evidence, right? Do you need to, like, touch my face? Make sure that I’m not a sexy ghost?”

“That’s a stereotype that nobody actually does,” Jon said. 

“Insensitive as always, Sasha,” Martin condemned. 

“How else are we going to prove it to him?” Sasha said, somewhat defensively. “It’s not as if we have any evidence that we’re not sexy ghosts.”

With utmost care and incredible gentleness, Tim reached out an open hand and gently smooshed it into Jon’s face.

Jon slumped in his seat, arms folded, unimpressed. 

“No mortal who is not my darling husband has dared to touch me since I became the Antichrist,” Jon said.

“I don’t know,” Tim said, withdrawing his hand and looking at Sasha. “What’s more unbelievable: Jon as the Antichrist or Jon with a husband?”

“Jon’s gay?” Martin cried, face beet red. “Gay Jon? Gay Jon real?”

“So, like, how do you get the Antichrist gig?” Sasha asked as she silently passed Tim a fiver. Her queerdar had never been so wrong. “Is it like an adventurer quest you can do or would you call it more of a rare genetic disorder thing?”

“Definitely rare genetic disorder.”

“Then does that mean that our Jon also has the Antichrist gene?” Tim asked, alarmed. “You’d never think so just looking at him! It’s always the quiet ones.”

“No, this makes sense,” Martin said.

Tim stared at him. “So, is that, like, a negative for you, or a positive…?”

Martin’s silence was incriminating. 

“It’s a positive,” Jon said helpfully, startling everyone. They had conveniently forgotten not to talk about one very horny man’s very horny crush in front of sad grumpy time travelling crush. “He’s into it.”

“Wow, Jon,” Tim said, “what would your husband say?”

In a completely pointless show of sass, Jon rolled his eyes. “My useless husband is likely much more concerned with how I managed to get trapped in a nightmare dimension on my way back from the Hell corner store.” He waved a hand absently. “So, if we can hurry this up? Get started on the whole torturing me thing? Right now you’re just on track to annoying me to death.”

“We annoy you to death now!” Tim exclaimed, as Martin’s eyes boggled. “Isn’t that more proof for the time traveller theory?”

“It wasn’t annoying,” Jon said curtly. “I secretly enjoyed it. I always felt a little bad that I wasn’t included. Or wouldn’t let myself be included.”

That, abruptly, made everyone feel a little bad. Not guilty, seeing as Jon neither wanted nor deserved their affection, but just kind of bad. Future Jon didn’t seem any happier than regular Jon. Sasha liked to imagine that if she was trapped in an indeterminate period in time and space in a post-apoc hellscape, she’d at least be having fun.

Everybody looked at each other, equally a little uncomfortable. Tim was the one who finally took control of the situation, as the self-appointed Jon & Everyone Else mediator. He had taken up the mantle years ago and worse it with pride, and occasional exhaustion. 

“Look,” Tim said, as reasonably as possible. “Let’s just say, hypothetically, this was super cool and awesome time travel. Let’s also say maybe this was completely baller and you’re from a post apoc future where everyone wears leather.”

“That’s just Melanie.”

“Put it down as one person who wears leather in the future!” Tim cried, and Sasha obediently jotted it down.”But let’s just put all of this in a hypothetical situation where you aren’t...uh, in a bad dream? So would there, hypothetically, be a way to stop the apocalypse or something?”

Jesus christ. What a try-hard. 

Sasha crossed her arms, glaring at Tim. From next to her, Martin looked just as peeved. “Seriously, dude? Like we can just up and stop capitalism?”

“I don’t want responsibility for stopping the apocalypse,” Martin protested. “I can barely navigate the bus system. What if the Terminator comes after my mother or something?”

“You’ll be a bit better off, frankly,” Jon said. Martin nodded, conceding the point, before looking faintly disturbed. 

“But he said that he caused it,” Tim protested. “Maybe the power of friendship can fix this? I mean, the apocalypse is cool, but I feel like this is the part where we’re all badasses and we fight evil or something.” Tim’s eyes widened. “That’s what the Magnus Institute is for. To stop the apocalypse!”

“Every day I feel a slight sense of emptiness due to my internalized guilt about your death, but you are usually wrong about things,” Jon said flatly, which seemed to both perk Tim up and depress him slightly. “And no. There’s nothing you can do. There’s no one event that precipitated the apocalypse; no rules of engagement. You are puppets on strings, indulging in the fantasy of free will. Yes, Sasha, the apocalypse is capitalism.”

Everybody stood in slightly depressed silence over this. Sasha, personally, was a little relieved. She really didn’t have to deal with the whole ‘preventing the apocalypse’ thing. She’d rather spend the finals days of the world in hedonism, frankly. 

Really, the unique providence of the millennial was to live your entire life half-way convinced you were in the twilight years of the world. This hedonism and apathy was second nature. Or maybe the apathy was a Leitner - Sasha had lost track of that too. 

“Aw, man,” Martin said, summarizing the abstract and complex feelings deftly and succinctly. “This sucks.”

“Yeah, this blows,” Tim agreed. “So should I buy my muscle car now, or later, or what?”

Then Martin and Tim started arguing over fuel efficiency in the apocalypse, and Jon royally checked out of the conversation. Sasha imagined that he was internally having a bit of a Saving Private Ryan moment where flashbacks of bombshells exploded behind his eyelids or whatever the fuck. The important thing is that everyone was distracted, and Sasha could finally check up on their most important gambit of the day: making sure Jon wasn’t bothering them. 

Sasha listened carefully for the sounds of Jon’s little theater monologues, and caught only faint hints of sound. She slipped past everyone into the hallway and approached Jon’s office door, pressing her ear against the cheap wood. But she didn’t need to worry: he was still reciting away, oblivious to the actual interesting shit that was happening outside his door. Jon was a delicate plant, you couldn’t stress him out too much or he would die. Hopefully Martin’s drugged tea would kick in soon -

But Antichrist Jon’s head jerked towards her, directly behind him, and Sasha saw his unfocused green eyes fixate directly on her. No, not on her - on the door, or something beyond it. For just a second, his eyes flared a sharp and toxic green. 

“There you are,” Creepy Jon hissed. 

Well, sorry for leaving rooms without telling him, but she hadn’t thought that he even noticed, much less got resentful about it. But Weird Jon was standing up with no hesitation, and effortlessly swerved around Martin’s desk and stalked into the hallway. For the first time, his expression looked a little dangerous. It was bizarre and off putting, like seeing a ragged yet murderous two meter kitten. 

He reached out an arm and let it trail across the wall, stopping short when he felt it hit wood instead of plaster. Tim and Martin surged forward to stop him, yelling warnings, but Sasha quickly stepped back. She never impeded the timeless march of science and progress. Sasha had done far worse in Artifact Storage for knowledge. 

Jon brushed his hand down the door until it hit the doorknob and angrily twisted it, heaving the door open with unnecessary force. Tim and Martin spilled into the hallway as Angry Jon stalked inside, and Sasha eagerly hung in the door frame for a front row seat into the drama. 

“This is your fault,” Jon intoned dangerously, directly in the face of a deathly affronted Jon. 

In the spirit of the First Directive, Sasha heroically stretched out an arm and prevented Tim and Martin from spilling into the office. It was the right call. Jon stalked forward into the office, hair whipping in a nonexistent wind, expression obscured but undoubtedly thunderous, advancing on the terrified Archivist, as -

He tripped over a chair left carelessly in the center of the office, rocketing forward to land flatly on his face. 

Beside her, Martin went white as a sheet. “Oh no.”

Simultaneously, in complete and total unison, Jon and the Archivist yelled, “Martin!”

****

Jon and the Archivist sat across from each other, exuding waves of pure mutual hatred.

Tim had quickly helped the Archivist up, moving the chair forward and getting him situated there. The Archivist’s mood was not improved by any of this. Which was difficult enough to handle by itself, if manageable. Sasha knew how to manage grumpy time travelling blind Antichrists who had gotten lost on their way to the corner store.

She even knew how to handle their boss, who was extremely grumpy about being harassed by a random homeless person with nice hair. Jon hated statement givers at the best of times, much less seemingly homeless ex-corpses. Or, well, Sasha didn’t know if he was an ex-corpse, but he was certainly an animate one. 

They were both being so annoying about it Sasha was trying to determine if she should change their nicknames to something more derogatory. Thing 1 and Thing 2? Too long. 

Both of them were very grumpy about the fact that Martin had pushed aside the chair for guests in front of Jon’s desks when he deposited the drugged tea, accidentally moving it close to the center of the office. Jon had known this because he saw it happen. The Archivist had known this because he, apparently, knew Martin very well. 

Today had really been a bonding experience with Sasha, Martin, and Tim. Their skill at silent communication had reached borderline telepathy. They all looked at each other significantly as the Jons were caught in their mutual dyad of hatred, silently commiserating over the fact that their one goal had been spoiled by the greatest wildcard of all. Sasha privately liked to consider herself somewhat of a wildcard, but she was depressingly aware that the entire Archive team was composed of wildcards. Maybe that’s why half of them didn’t survive the apocalypse. 

It was a little unlikely that Jon was a survivor/instigator in the zombie apocalypse, actually. Dude definitely would have bit it if he wasn’t cheating with Antichrist powers. Now, if Sasha had Antichrist powers, this whole game would be looking very different -

“Boss, this is a statement giver,” Tim hinted desperately, hands clenched so hard on the back of the Archivist’s chair that his knuckles were turning white. “Remember what Elias said about statement givers? About how we can’t harass them?”

“I was in the middle of a recording and this man was unnecessarily confrontational,” Jon said crisply. Sasha caught her eye jumping frantically back and forth between the two, trying to reconcile them. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Martin’s horny surety, she wouldn’t have realized that they were the same person at all. The Archivist’s most defining attribute was his big and fluffy hair, and Jon was sadly lacking in the nice hair department. That fade and twists were the shackle around his ankle. So was the sweater vest, baggy tweed jacket, and ill-fitting.“He’s lucky I’m not throwing him out.”

Martin, who looked as if he was having his tenth gay crisis of the morning, didn’t seem to hold the same opinion, but he was king of bad taste anyway. 

“Remember what Elias said about harassing confused, blind statement givers? Remember that? Boss?”

Jon looked confused. “He didn’t specify the community of people with disabilities.”

“It was implied? Jon?”

“The optics would be terrible,” Sasha said, before snickering. Martin stomped on her foot. She stomped on his back, which definitely hurt a lot more. “Look, Jon, sorry about all of this. He was just - uh - really insistent that he talk to you -”

“I think if our visitor hassles Jon then maybe, objectively, you can say that Jon brought it on himself,” Martin said, in a daring show of anti-Jon sentiment.

This act of subtle rebellion was the first thing that broke the Archivist out of his cycle of hatred. He threw out a hand, bowling over Jon’s desktop cup of pens and sending them tumbling over the desk. Sasha saw him specifically orient his hand to do so. “Thank you, Martin! Your understanding of paraphysics is always immaculate.”

“Wow, really?”

“Stop complimenting my assistants,” Jon hissed, frantically diving to save his pens. “And stop - gesticulating over my desk! You did that on purpose!”

“Harassing the blind, Jon!”

“You don’t even need to tearfully blame me for how I ruined your life,” the Archivist said flatly. “You existing in my vicinity is torment enough.”

“That’s what I keep saying,” Sasha said, before pausing a beat. “I meant the first part, ha ha ha, obviously -”

“This man is a very normal statement giver who will be leaving any minute now,” Martin jumped in, “so there’s really no reason for us all to fight, when you think about it -”

“If you all don’t get out of my office, you are all fired -”

“You are listening.”

Everybody stopped talking at once, staring at the Archivist. He was still staring intently ahead, straight into his counterpart. Jon was hiding it, quite badly, but he was unsettled. He hadn’t even acknowledged that he and the man looked alike - the thought undoubtedly running through his brain and soundly dismissed - but it was clearly rattling him. But there was something else that was scaring him too - maybe the Archivist’s green eyes, so foreign from his own brown? His intense and furious expression, like cut glass? The particularly strange and heavy feeling in the air, prickling down the back of Sasha’s neck?

He hadn’t even stopped the recorder. 

“You are here,” the Archivist continued calmly. “You were listening in. Why you were listening in on him, and his regurgitated aftertaste of Statements, I do not know. I felt you, and I came to you. We cannot forsake each other. Do not hide yourself from me.”

The effect was immediate. 

The Archivist’s neck snapped forward, so harshly he cracked his head on Jon’s desk. Strangely enough, Jon screamed too, holding a hand to his temple as if he was suddenly pierced by a blinding headache. Tim immediately bent down to check on Archivist, making sure that he hadn’t hurt himself, as Martin bustled around the desk to check on Jon. Jon batted his hands away, scowling, so he was just fine. But the Archivist didn’t groan, or stir, or moan. He just lay there, still and limp, and when Tim shook him he didn’t even tense. 

The air was heavy, a tang of metal in her mouth like the crackle before a storm, and Sasha couldn’t fight a shiver. But she couldn’t take her eyes off Jon, either: the way he stared at the Archivist, hand on his forehead, eyes wide and growing wider. 

“Dad…?”

When the Archivist stirred, the spell was broken, and Jon’s mouth snapped shut so quickly it was as if he had never spoken at all. He turned his head and moaned, eyes opening uselessly. They were back to their usual toxic green, no flaring or flashing. 

“Mar’in? Where…”

“I’m here,” Martin said quickly, and ducked around the desk to grab the Archivist’s hand and squeeze. For just a second, Jon looked a little jealous. Sasha had the sense that Jon had never been mothered than anyone other than Martin and Tim, and the prospect confused and frightened him so much he reacted aggressively to it. “Everything alright? You hit your head.”

“How many eyes?” the Archivist asked weakly. 

“...physically, or functionally?”

But the Archivist just ran his burned hand over his smooth hand, kneading it and feeling the skin. “Still gone. Damn it.” He straightened, grimacing and spitting out a stray tendril of hair out of his mouth. “So it’s true…”

“So what’s true?” Tim asked urgently. “Do you finally believe us about the time travel thing? Because man, I have so many questions -”

He didn’t get the opportunity to say anything. The Archivist reached out a hand, fingers brushing against his shirt, and the Archivist’s hand abruptly clenched on the fabric. Tightly, roughly, the Archivist pulled him down and extended his other arm, and caught Tim in an awkward and lopsided hug. 

Tim carefully straightened him and returned the hug, gracing the Archivist with the patented Perfect Stoker Hug, and the Archivist buried his face in Tim’s shoulder. His chest didn’t heave, and his breath didn’t catch, but the element of desperation was pungent and unmistakable. 

“You were right,” Jon whispered. “We messed it all up.”

“Sure, yeah, totally!” Tim said, clapping the Archivist on the back in a masculine, yet sensitive way. “So, does this mean the zombie apocalypse is totally a-go, or…”

“Sasha,” the Archivist said, and Sasha chose to ignore her own personal distaste for hugs and being touched so she could step forward and hug him too. 

He clutched onto her just as tightly as he had Tim, which surprised her a little. Jon and Tim had probably been best friends in the future, and Sasha couldn’t imagine her and Jon ever truly being close. He respected her as a colleague, but that was probably because Sasha purposefully left her manuscripts around the office and aggressively used as many big words in front of him as possible. Jon had always been an obstacle to her - innocently stupid at best, malicious at worst. To think that he would grip her so tightly…

With meticulous care, the Archivist separated from her. His expression was crumpled, and for the first time Sasha saw something over than aggravation or impatience in Jon’s face. Relaxed and soft, he looked like a different man. No - he was a different man, it was just apparent. The change softened his sharp lines into something a little friendlier; his striking exterior melting into something pretty instead of imposing. 

Slowly, he raised his hand a little to tangle it in her hair. He frowned a little, gently tugging at it and feeling it spring back into place. “So it was curly…like mine…”

A lot of little hints snowballed into one strange and foreign realization. “Do you not remember me?”

“Dolls stole your identity,” the Archivist said apologetically. 

“Like credit card fraud, or -”

“Metaphysically.” He paused guiltily. “I mourned you as an abstract concept?”

“Like I’m every woman in Hollywood?” Sasha screeched, outraged. This was not trans rights. “Alright, royally fuck that. Feel my hair, mister. Full permission to touch it. Feel that? You call that abstract?” The Archivist shook his head, eyes wide, and Sasha gently moved his hand to rest on the top of her head. “Taller than you in eight cm heels, remember? You asked me how I walked in them, and I said -”

“ - Barbie’s Princess Charm School,” the Archivist said automatically, eyes widening. “I do remember.”

Martin clearly waited around to be tenderly embraced, and was disappointed. 

The Archivist stepped away from Sasha, expression creased in furious thought. “So it’s real. So far as anything’s real, I suppose. But I don’t understand how -” the Archivist’s eyes widened, and he snapped his fingers in realization. “The manhole!”

Everybody stared at him. 

“I’m sorry,” Jon said pleasantly, “what is going on -”

“I was walking down the street, and I remember hearing city work!” the Archivist said brightly. “They were doing their monthly ‘clearing the gators out of the sewer pipes’ maintenance! And the Beholding told me that there was an open manhole, and I said oh it’ll be fine, I’m a demigod on Earth, I don’t fall down manholes - and then -”

The door to Jon’s office dramatically crashed open, and everybody jumped straight in the air. Jon, whose office had seen two more incredibly theatrical entrances than usual today, immediately bristled and opened his mouth to earn them all another harassment complaint, before he abruptly shut his mouth. 

It was Elias, their miniature and unspeakably boring boss extraordinaire. He stood in the doorway, one hand clutching the doorframe, suit jacket askew and chest heaving. Had he ran down here?

“Is someone here?” the Archivist asked. 

“Uh, yeah,” Tim said, stepping forward cautiously. “It’s our boss, Mr. Bouchard. Elias, we’re taking a statement, can we help - ?”

“How did that get here?” Elias asked, voice strangely tense and coiled. “How did you - not even I could -”

“That makes sense!” Martin cried, thumping a fist on his open palm. “Elias wants to time travel just as much as everyone else in the Institute!”

“I’m sorry,” Jon said, pathetically behind, “time travel -”

“Did the time traveller sensor alarms in the basement go off?” Sasha asked, surprised. “I thought only Artifact Storage had those.”

“Uh, Mr. Statement Giver, are you okay?” Tim asked, but it was already too late.

The Archivist had turned to face Elias, expression unreadable. Sasha felt that crackle again, weighing down the air, and she saw the Archivist’s hair puff and frizz slightly with a green crackle. His neon green pupils shone again and spun, like an infernal wheel. 

“What’s wrong, Elias?” the Archivist mocked, as energy coursed through him. “Upset that Mama has a new favorite?”

And Sasha saw in that moment that the Archivist, who possessed the most inhuman green eyes she had ever seen, had eyes the same shade as Elias. 

“Oh, man,” Sasha said, “is Elias a time traveller too?”

“Only in the most mundane way. Can’t even get a little bit of special attention, Elias? Sad!” It was second-hand thrilling to watch someone mock their boss, living the dreams of everyone in the room. Even if it was a little weird how much Jon seemed to hate this guy - nobody hated Elias, just like nobody liked him, and nobody had any strong feelings at all besides unpromoted women.

 At the door, Elias’ expression was slack in - amazement? Was amazement the right word? He was staring at Jon as if...words didn’t even describe it. At least in any way that Sasha wanted to think about. 

“Mr. Bouchard, I swear I can explain,” Sasha, who could not explain, said hurriedly. “We found this corpse and we were going to tell you, but -”

But the Archivist cut her off, as if nothing was less important than explaining himself to Elias. “Did you want to know how to stop the apocalypse, Sasha?”

Sasha froze. Martin and Tim did too. Jon, who nobody had actually bothered to brief since he was kind of the fifth most important person in the room, dropped his pen. “Uh,” Sasha said, sweating. For the first time she understood the possible upsides of not knowing something. “I mean, if I have to, but you said that it was inevitable -”

“Oh, yes. But, just once every one or two centuries, a man comes along who fancies himself fate.” The Archivist raised a hand, eyes spinning and spinning, as Elias stood frozen in the doorframe. “I’ll be honest, Jonah. This isn’t to save the world. That’s so last year. I just really fucking hate you.” Something cracked in the air. “Ceaseless watcher, smite this -”

The door slammed shut. Sasha heard Elias lock it behind him. They all stood around as footsteps quickly echoed through the Archives, and another door slammed. Which was probably being locked too. 

They stood in silence, the Archivist having clearly heard the slams. He let his hand fall, but the energy didn’t cease crackling around him. He didn’t look resentful or disappointed - just thoughtful. 

“Everything in due time, I suppose. I guess it is pretty unfair to get to smite that man twice,” the Archivist said thoughtfully. “I’ll give someone else a turn.” His mouth twitched wryly. “You know, Sasha, there’s one other way to prevent the apocalypse.”

“Is it work?” Sasha asked tiredly. 

“You may kill the man who arranged the dominos,” the Archivist intoned, before hanging his head towards a petrified Jon. “Or you may kill the man who toppled them over.”

Sasha stared at Jon. Jon stared back, frozen like a deer in headlights.

Martin silently passed Sasha a penknife from Jon’s desk. 

“I’m very qualified for this job,” Jon protested weakly.

“Queen of feminism, I very much support you,” Tim said quickly, putting himself in between Sasha and Jon in a heroic display of stupidity, “but, maybe, killing your boss to take his job, is perhaps, maybe not that much of a great idea, just a thought?”

“The job’s being the Antichrist,” the Archivist pointed out, crossing his arms. 

“The direct action against sexism, xenophobia, and transphobia is very admirable,” Tim said, eyes held up as if he was placating a tiger, “but think of it this way - if you kill the Antichrist, then you become the Antichrist, like in - uh -”

“Pokemon,” Martin volunteered. 

Tim snapped his fingers. “Pokemon! So you shouldn’t -” He halted, turning back to Martin. “Pokemon? Seriously? That’s becoming champion -”

“A - alright, alright! Everybody stop!” Jon shakily stood up, brushing aside the empty tea mug right next to him. “That’s enough of all of this! I may not know what’s going on, or who this man is, or why he looks like me -”

“Hm,” Martin said, eyeing the empty tea mug. 

“ - why he looks like a homeless person, why he barged into my office and insulted me, why you are all defending this atrocious behavior, why you are calling it the work of time travel, which does not exist and you have no proof for it anyway -”

“Jon,” Martin said, watching Jon’s arm tremble, “maybe you should -”

“Shut up, Martin!”

“Don’t be rude to him!” the Archivist snapped. 

“You’ve been rude to him twice today!”

“I’m allowed to be rude to him! He’s even ruder to me! I’m the nice one!”

“ - and you were glowing in my office, which is just frankly rude,” Jon continued viciously, steamrolling over the Archivist. “You gave me a terrible headache, you hugged my assistants very inappropriately for the workplace, you made my boss walk in before trying to smite him, you encourage violence against my own person in revenge for a job that I definitely deserve -”

Both of Jon’s arms were shaking, and Tim’s eyebrows were slowly raising. “Boss, you should sit down, I think -”

“ - I want an explanation!” Jon yelled, slamming the desk. “And I’m not going to stop until you tell me what’s going on!”

Then Jon passed out. 

Everybody watched it happen. Everybody, save perhaps the Archivist, had noticed that it was about to happen: at first a tremor, then a shake, and then a final collapse. Like a marionette with his strings cut, Jon slumped over and crumpled solidly on the floor. 

Everybody stood in disaffected silence. Martin carefully stepped over and prodded Jon with his foot. “Out cold.” He shot a considering gaze at the empty tea mug. “Sorry, guys. Looks like I accidentally used the delayed action sedative.”

"It’s alright,” Tim said magnanimously. “At least that problem is solved now. Maybe we can convince him this was a bad dream when he wakes up.”

“If he insists it was real, we’ll just ask him for evidence and refuse to believe him without it,” Sasha suggested. 

“Isn’t that kinda gaslighting?” Martin asked. “Isn’t that, you know, a little morally dubious -”

“You did drug him,” Tim pointed out.

“I mean, hardly the first time?”

“Maybe Martin should be the Antichrist,” Sasha said thoughtfully.

The Archivist’s face was doing something extremely interesting, yet inscrutable.

“I really don’t want to be Antichrist, though,” Martin said apologetically. “Does it even pay?”

“Jon did say it was a job…” Sasha said, already considering herself in the role. “Do you guys think I’d be sexier as the Antichrist? Be honest.”

“Yes and completely,” Tim said immediately, before realizing that he said that too quickly. “I mean. I’d never objectify you. I respect women. But -”

“Oh, I see how it is,” Martin said, throwing up his hands. “When you think being the Antichrist is kind of hot it’s normal and M/F of you. But when I do it, then it’s ‘gross’ and ‘get that away from me’. Great double standards, guys.”

“It’s not the fact that it’s a guy,” Tim protested, “it’s the fact that it’s Jon -”

“Oh, when you think being the Antichrist is kind of hot then it’s normal and cis of you,” Sasha said heatedly, “but when Tim respects trans women, then it’s ‘gross’ and -”

“I respect all women,” Tim said, equally heatedly, “but I do want to acknowledge the systematic marginalization of trans women within the community, especially trans women of color like yourself -”

A hoarse wheeze echoed through the office.

Everyone froze, terrified by the haunted sound, but after a second Sasha realized it was the Archivist - Jon - who was laughing. 

They had never heard him laugh before. He was practically wheezing with it, bent over with his hands on his knees, with a strained cackle that fizzed with static around the corners. He was smiling broadly, his grin splitting his cheeks, for the first time that Sasha had ever seen. 

He straightened and threw his head back and laughed too, a greater belly-laugh that was so hysterical and fragile and free that it struck something strange and raw in Sasha’s heart. He rubbed his face with his hand, still laughing, and eventually broke into coughs. 

“I understand now,” Jon said, when he stopped coughing. “I thought that you had deposited me here in revenge. You had sensed that I was happy - that the green skies were beautiful, that your large eye seemed kind that day - and that you found it a waste of emotion. But that wasn’t true, was it? It must have been an accident. I’ve never been happier to hear these idiots arguing, and you’ve lost me like a toy behind a bookshelf. The strange stupidity of it! I’m enchanted.” He sombered a little, expression falling from hysterical glee into a soft and resigned happiness. He held up his hand, feeling the crackle of electricity run across his palms. “But you See me now. The foolish man brought you down upon us, and I intercepted your lightning bolt. His eyes, mundane and paltry, are closed, and you feel my consciousness in replacement of him. I can feel you already - my Eyes opening, the Reality that we built together calling me back. When your infinite grace re-aligns with every one of my atoms, forming the fabric of my world, I’ll snap back.”

Just like that?

Sasha had thought that there would be an...adventure, or quest, or something. At least a research binge. Some kind of heroic group effort. But the Archivist was a stretched rubber band, held tightly and out of position, and after long enough straining against its center it had to snap back. A telly flickering in and out, blaring the song of a dead channel. 

“Do we have time to group hug or something?” Tim offered weakly, undoubtedly thinking the same thing as she was. “Last goodbyes? Anything?”

“Howl’s Moving Castle moment?” Martin asked urgently. “I’ll find you in the future, right? We’re still together there, right?”

“Martin,” Jon said, strangely fond, “we were never apart.”

Martin turned a unique shade of red. 

But it was Sasha who Jon turned to, face angled to the sound of her voice. His expression was still distantly fond, but there was something strange in it too - a wry recognition, a subtle knowledge, a faint recollection of a joke that only he knew. 

“Sasha,” Jon said, “so long as you’re brave, and buy ten fire extinguishers and hide them around the office, things will be just fine. Buy twelve fire extinguishers, just to be safe. And don’t ever go inside Artifact Storage again. Not even for Alicia’s birthday party. If it’s a choice between worms and Artifact Storage then choose worms, the scars add a certain appeal. I cannot stress enough, not even if you lose your jacket in Artifact Storage -”

“Are you sure you don’t have anything to say to me?” Martin asked desperately, almost crying. Sasha, personally, wanted to circle back around to the worm thing. “Sad goodbyes? Waving a handkerchief? I thought you said I was alive? Don’t you have anything?”

Jon rolled his eyes. “Goodness, Martin, if you insist. There is something I’ve been meaning to tell you. In fact, I do believe it’s about time.” 

Martin’s mind clearly projected very loudly ‘I’ve been in love with you this entire time’ in blatant wish-fulfillment. Everybody held their breaths. 

Jon drew himself up to his full, imposing height, and sternly looked at all of them. “I’m tired of holding my tongue about this, Martin,” Jon said finally, and Martin qualified. “For the last time, I don’t load the dishwasher wrong. I load the dishwasher correctly. It’s you who’s always insisting that the cups go on the bottom. It’s a freakish way to live your life, and I’ll never forgive you for -”

Static blared in Sasha’s ears and overwrote her mind, and she screamed. The sensation was a pickaxe driven into her ears, an unforgivable rip and tear, and she heard her screams echoed in concert. 

Then the pain abated, and was gone. 

Sasha, Tim, and Martin were left standing in an empty office, accompanied only by the unconscious figure of their boss. There was nothing left of the Archivist, nor any suggestion that he had ever been here - just a drained mug, some scattered pens, and a lingering sense of malaise and confusion. 

Everybody looked at each other, feeling strangely and uniquely connected. It was hardly Sasha’s strangest Magnus Institute experience, but maybe it was the funnest. 

“Well,” Tim said finally, “at least one day this week wasn’t boring.”

“Yeah, I didn’t even have to get drunk today.” Sasha sighed. “We definitely have to gaslight Jon about this.”

Martin was already carefully lugging Jon onto his chair, arranging him so his arms were folded on the desk with his cheek resting on his forearm. “We’ll pretend it was just a weird dream.” He propped his hands on his hips, satisfied. “Hopefully this convinces him he needs more sleep.” Martin gasped in sudden realization. “Maybe he becomes the Antichrist because he needs more sleep! Guys, I have a great twenty step plan for saving the world.”

“Oh, come on, we said that was too much work.” Tim shrugged and opened the office door, holding it open and gesturing for them all to come out. “I think if we just friendship Jon to death, all of our problems will be solved.”

Martin just shrugged, following him out. They really did have paperwork that they needed to get back to. “Both are vital components. But...hey, it’s not weird to put the mugs on the bottom rack, is it? There’s not really that much of a difference, right?”

“Mate, you’re a fucking freak.” Tim looked backwards at Sasha, who was still standing in the office, dazed. “Sash, you coming? Let’s go day-drinking.”

“Yeah,” Sasha said, “in a sec.”

He shrugged and left the door propped open, and Sasha heard their bickering fade slowly as they walked down the hallway. 

But she couldn’t help staring at Jon sleeping at his desk, chest falling in and out, inhaling and exhaling slowly through his nose. His short, carefully maintained hair and meticulous fade. His baggy tweed and ill-fitting slacks. The subtle and shameful kind of earnestness, the desire mixed with fear mixed with hope mixed with genuine desire for a better future. He just wanted to be happy, to not be afraid anymore. He seemed weirdly human, when compared with his inhuman self. Or maybe it was the other way around. 

The tape recorder on Jon’s desk was still running. Sasha squinted at it, taking a second to listen to the staticy hiss. It was familiar, in the strangest possible way. It felt familiar -

Sasha reached out and grabbed the tape recorder, stuffing it in her pencil skirt pocket. “Just remember,” Sasha whispered, “I’d make a great candidate for Antichrist.”

She ran to go catch up with her coworkers, shutting the door behind them and leaving Jon sleeping contentedly in his office, head pillowed on his arms, dreaming strange and comforting dreams.

[zackcollins]

like my next boyfriend || brock boeser + elias pettersson

masterlist

Author’s Note: Hi! I know I’m supposed to be working on part 6 of the Tyson Jost series. But I needed a break from that for right now. Undertaking a month long writing project is a lot and it drains you, man. I just need a breather for a little while. I’ll get back to it soon. Don’t worry! (Literally as I say that, Love Wins comes on my fucking Spotify, EYE--) GIF credit to halvedhab!

Warnings: There is mentions and depictions of unfaithfulness in a relationship. If that bothers you, feel free to not read this. Other than that, I think everything is alright. Let me know if anything else needs a warning though. I’ll add anything anyone else feels needs one!

Word Count: 1.2k+

Translations: The first Swedish word means “son of a bitch”. The second one means “moron”. Of course, both of these are translated using Google, so take it with a grain of salt. This isn't exactly a translation. But for anyone that wants to know, Brock is saying "Pretty good battle" in the GIF I chose to use. Being able to read lips is fun :)

Title: Next Boyfriend by Lauren Alaina

Additional: Gender-neutral reader this time! I tried to be as non-descriptive as possible when referring to the reader’s appearance because me and one of my friends @matbaerzal​ did a survey and someone said they liked that. I also used they/them pronouns to refer to the reader because the survey said that most people who answered preferred that the reader be referred to that way. I hope that’s okay with everyone! And I hope you all enjoy this!! Feedback, reblogs, and likes are always greatly appreciated! <3

You went to bed on Saturday night not knowing if your fiance, Brock, would even be in the house on Sunday morning. He had been spending a lot of time with his best friend, Petey, recently. So much time that you were starting to wonder if the time was beginning to leak over into the realm of more than friendly. There had been rumours floating around the Vancouver Canucks organization that Brock and Petey were more than just friends but you never wanted to believe it. You wanted to believe that Brock loved you and only you. You were his fiance. That meant that he had no reason to go elsewhere. He loved you enough to want to dedicate himself to you for the rest of your lives. You wanted to believe that, you really did. And you were pretty sure that you did.

That was until that Sunday morning.

Brock hadn’t been in your bed. That was nothing unusual. He was rarely in bed anymore when you woke up. He usually got up a few hours earlier to let Milo and Coolie out and feed them. So, you didn’t panic when you slipped out of the bed and out into the hallway to go into the kitchen for some breakfast.

No, you panicked when you found Brock in the kitchen. He was making pancakes. That wasn't what made you panic. Brock often made you pancakes on Sunday mornings when he didn't have team activities to attend to. What made you panic was the fact that Petey was plastered against Brock's back, his hands around Brock's midsection. Petey was pressing kisses to Brock's clavicle and you thought you could hear him saying things softly in Swedish.

Without realizing it, your cellphone slipped from your hand. It hit the tiles and made a resounding echo in the room. Petey jumped backwards, looking in your direction with the guiltiest expression you had ever seen his face convey. Brock gingerly put down the spatula he had been holding before he dropped his shoulders and turned around. His face looked much the same as Petey's did.

You leaned against the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room, your eyes letting go of the tears you had been holding back. Petey looked at you sympathetically before he conked Brock on the back of the head, glaring wickedly at him.

"Jävel!" Petey sneered, hitting Brock on the back of the head again. "You told me that they knew!"

"I thought they did," Brock said, rubbing the back of his head as he looked at Petey. When he turned to look at you, he looked guilty and mouthed 'sorry'. He turned back to grab the spatula and flipped the pancakes, ignoring the way you whimpered in anguish.

"You… you 'thought?'" Petey blinked owlishly at the back of Brock's head. He ran a hand down his face, sighing. He looked over at you, sighing again and smiling sympathetically when you shook your head to indicate that you, in fact, didn't know about Brock's affair. "You mean to tell me that you did not actually use your words and tell your fiance that you were in a relationship with me as well? You just assumed that they could read your fucking mind?"

"I, uh… I… um," Brock stammered. He didn't look at either you or Petey, choosing instead to take the pancakes off the griddle and place them on the plate next to it. He grabbed the scoop from inside the bowl, scooping more batter onto the cooking surface. He sighed as he put the scoop back. "I guess it sounds stupid when you say it out loud. But, yeah. That's what I did."

“Brock, wh… why?” You asked, your voice absolutely shattered from how devastated you were and how hard you had been crying. You saw Brock’s shoulders sink and you heard him sigh. He ran a hand down his face as he held the spatula against the edge of the counter. You tried to take a steadying breath but all that came out was something that was halfway between a whimper and a hiccup. “Why would you do this to me? You know how much I love you. I thought you loved me too!”

Petey walked across the room to stand beside you. When he offered his embrace, you accepted because he wasn’t the one you were mad at. The way he and Brock were acting made it genuinely seem like Brock lied to him about you knowing about their affair. And you knew how naive Petey was in the first place so you couldn’t hold it against him if he genuinely thought it was okay for him to have the relationship with your fiance.

As you cried into Petey’s embrace, Brock remained silent. You cried harder and more violently the longer he went without answering your question. Petey seemed to notice because he sighed and ran his hand along your back.

“Brock, answer their damn question,” Petey said with exasperation. “You are making things worse by staying quiet. You realize that, do you not, dumhuvud?"

"I'm afraid my answer is gonna upset them," Brock said so quietly that you barely heard him.

You stepped back from Petey, looking at Brock. He still hadn't turned around so you couldn't tell what his facial expression was or get an accurate assessment of what he was feeling because you couldn't see his face. All you could tell was that his shoulders were slouched and he was shifting his weight slightly to the left, his hands gripping the edge of the counter.

"If you don't love me," you said, voice trembling. "You can just tell me. I'd rather you go be with Petey and be happy than stay with me and be miserable."

"I'm polyamorous. I want both of you," Brock blurted, finally turning around to face you and Petey.

Petey looked at you; you looked at Petey. You both blinked in surprise, mouths slightly agape. Your tears continued to stream, though they started to taper off somewhat. Brock seemed close to tears himself so you walked over and looked at your fiance.

"Jesus Christ," you mumbled, dropping your head against Brock. Brock sniffled, crying softly as you ran your fingers through his hair. You ran your hands along his ribcage, making sure to be as comforting about it as possible. "Why didn't you say so?" Your tears had mostly stopped now, only a few stray tears were now running down your cheeks. "Being poly is part of who you are. I'm sorry that you felt like you had to hide that from me."

"Same goes for me, Brock," Petey said, walking over. He placed his hands on Brock's shoulders, massaging them gently. Brock dropped his head back against Petey as Petey kissed Brock's clavicle in much the same way as he had been when you walked in on them earlier. "It doesn't change anything between us."

You chuckled, wrapping your arms around Brock and putting them on Petey's back. Petey, in turn, moved his hands from Brock's shoulders, wrapping them around Brock and placing them into your back. Brock placed one hand awkwardly on Petey's hip and the other hand on your hip. The three of you stood there, wrapped together peacefully.

You were the one that eventually broke the silence.

"It will actually change things between us," you said, kissing Brock's jaw. You then kissed Petey's cheek after he gave you permission. 

"What exactly will it change?" Brock asked, somewhat concerned. "I'll understand if you're brea--"

"I'm not breaking up with you," you chuckled, flicking your fiance's chin.

"What is the problem then?" Petey asked, equally as concerned.

"We're gonna need a bigger bed."

[extremelyblackandwhite]

handmaid - 18

PAIRING: mob!sebastian stan x ingenue!reader

WARNINGS: age gap

A/N: someone last chapter said y/n was like cinderella and now i can’t forget it. i just love that movie, it’s such a good live-action remake. hope you enjoy this chapter xxx

NEXT CHAPTER

    - Gwen, you don’t need all of this. - half the staff of the penthouse was carrying bags and more bags into the lift that was almost filled with what looked like the full contents of two medium sized bedrooms. - It’s only for three weeks, Gwen. Besides, it’s freezing cold you won’t need a bathing suit. 

    - What if dad takes me to the Caribbean for New Years? - she crossed her arms, still pulling more and more clothing off her chest of drawers making the room look more messy than a bin area. Y/N sighed, grabbing some clothes and starting to fold them, placing them on the bed. - I have to be prepared, Y/N. People cannot see me looking less than. 

   - No one would see you as less than, Gwen. - probably over the top but never less than, Y/N thought to herself. - I don’t think all of this is gonna fix in the car. You’ll probably need to put some in the front and back seat. 

   - That is a great idea. - she closed the drawer with her feet. - You can go tomorrow so we have more space in the car today. 

   - But ... Gwen.

   - You are so smart. - the heiress patted her shoulder, handing her one of her brand named luggage. Y/N just sighed, it was probably alright to go tomorrow but that meant she would miss the decorating of the big Christmas tree in the big lobby. But then again, it was Christmas, the time to think of others and if bringing the entire wardrobe made Gwen happy, then Y/N was happy.

With two luggage bags hanging from her arms and one being held in her arms, she adventured herself into the staircase. However, due to the fact her sight was obstructed by the amount of suitcases, her feet tripped over each other and soon enough she felt herself flying towards the ground. She awaited the impact but instead someone grabbed her by her arms, the only impact felt being the sound created by the bags as they hit the floor in loud bang noises. 

   - Slow down, little angel. - she bite on her lip, recognising the voice. - You could’ve hurt yourself.

   - Just some last minute packing. - Y/N jumped off his arms onto the marbled floors, straightening the fabric of her dress with her hands. 

   - Doesn’t look very last minute. - he commented. - Three weeks, huh? That’s a bit long without seeing your pretty face around. 

   - You should be saying three weeks without seeing your wife to be will be long. - she handed one of the valets Gwen’s bags before she came downstairs and started panicking. 

   - You shouldn’t lie during Christmas. It’s Jesus birthday. - he chuckled, immediately returning to his regular stoic presence once Gwen came down the stair holding another bag. - Genevieve, my whole staff should not be packing the car. 

   - Not your whole staff besides if you need anything ask Y/N, she’s still staying here for a day longer. 

   - Gwen needs space in the car. - Y/N spoke up and before Sebastian could argue her own selflessness, she, along with several bags and Gwen, were already going down in the lift to the entrance where several staff where waiting with golden rolling cages to put all the luggage in so it could be hauled easily into the car. As everything got settled and placed, Y/N peaked her head into the window. - Are you sure you’re alright going on your own?

   - Yes, Y/N. You can go now, I’ll send the car for you tomorrow.

Y/N stepped back, waving goodbye as the car drove the heiress back to her family home. Sure, deep on the inside where no one but herself could see it but her, she was grieving losing what they did just before Christmas Eve. The decorating of the tree where she could put her very old yet near and dear precious ornament on the tree, the baking of the dough for the sugar cookies so they could be baked tomorrow but Christmas was not about Y/N, it was not about just one individual, it was about being there for those you loved and despite all, Y/N loved Gwen as much as a friend could ... sadly, she might also love her husband to be. 

As the car disappeared in the horizon, Y/N returned to the lobby, smiling at the lobby staff before she entered the lift which took her back to the penthouse. She had to admit the penthouse looked beautiful in the Christmas spirit. As she noticed the Christmas tree by the piano, an idea came into her mind and like a flash, she went into her bedroom, grabbed the red box and returned to the living room. Her hands delicately opened the box, staring at the still intact by time golden ornament. In her wildest fantasies as a child, she dreamed of marrying a prince, living her own life in her own little kingdom and pass the bauble down to her offspring. Yet those were childish fantasies and every once in a while, people need to grow and get newer fantasies. 

   - Leaving the room will not stop me from arguing with you, angel. - she held the ornament to her chest, softly turning on her feet to see Sebastian standing there, looking at her with a teasing smile. - She doesn’t need all that luggage. 

   - It’s alright, Elias said he’d drive tomorrow. 

   - What do you have there? - he pointed at her red glossy box, noticing the gold written Cartier on top. - A present from Gwen?

   - Not quite. - she opened the little drawer, holding onto the golden string of the gold bauble. - Mr. Forrest gave it to me when I was little. I always put it on the Christmas tree on the 23rd. 

   - You sure you don’t want me to drive you there myself? I’m sure if ...

   - I don’t wanna bother you or the staff. They deserve a Christmas break too.

   - I don’t know if it helps but ... - he stepped next to her. - You can always put it on our Christmas tree. 

  - Why don’t you put it? - she handed him the bauble and he probably would’ve said no, had it not been by the soft smile and hopeful nature her shining eyes had as she held the string. Sebastian merely smiled back, putting the ornament in the first free branch he saw, something he hadn’t done since he was a young boy. - It looks lovely. Doesn’t it?

  - You find beauty in everything, angel. - his eyes glued on the golden necklace that was always wrapped around her neck which somehow seemed to glisten even more than before. - You know, you never really told me about that little necklace you lost when we first meet. 

  - Oh ... it was my mother’s. - she smiled. - It’s been with me for ages. It’s a robin you know? The bird. When I was a little girl I used to think that was her name, Robin. 

  - My father used to know someone named Robin. Peculiar name, isn’t it?

  - Yeah, I always wonder about them during the holidays. Do you not ... wonder about your parents that is?

  - My father and I didn’t have the best relationship but I do miss my mother. She passed away a long time ago but ... she used to have the best sugar cookie recipe. 

  - You don’t mean to tell me the mob boss cooks. - she poked his shoulder playfully. - You ought to teach me someday. 

  - Of course, now go pack. 

Y/N had spent most of the day packing, deciding what to bring and what to show to the house staff. Not that she had a lot that she could show for but she wanted to bring the dress Sebastian gave her to show to the maids of the kitchen. Also because it had quickly climbed up to be one of her favourite gowns even with all the hand me downs from Genevieve.

She had fallen asleep mumbling Christmas carols, her mind going to one of her favourite time of the years and to the smells of cooking in the kitchen. She woke up with an unusual cold rushing down her spine. She popped her head from under the covers, eyes gazing at the outside of the Upper East through her window only to see it fully covered with lots and lots of fluffy snow. Oh no.

She rushed down the stairs like a mad men, punching the button of the lift which seemed to take ages to arrive and even longer to reach the lobby. She ran to the doors, pushing it open to the see the very busy Upper East Side with nothing but people walking. 

   - I’m sorry, sir. Are any cars leaving? - she asked the valet outside the door

  - Not today, Miss. All the streets are blocked. Pretty bad blizzard last night. 

  - Oh ... - if her heart could physically break, it had just broken. - Thank y ...

  - MISS Y/N. - one of the bodyguards rushed after her. - You almost gave us a fright, you could’ve gotten hurt. 

  - There’s no cars leaving. - she spoke with the weight of the world on her voice, following the bodyguard onto the living room. Most of the staff was gone and only essential and in-house living staff was in, mostly cooking for the holidays. 

  - Angel, are you alright? - Sebastian showed up from her left, still dressed in what looked like his sleeping clothes. 

  - There’s no cars leaving NY. - Y/N didn’t dare look anyone in the eyes, afraid her overwhelming sadness would manifest into tears if she dared to do so. - The blizzard ... nothing’s leaving ... I can’t go home. 

  - Nonsense. There must be something leaving. - his hand rested against her shoulder which was rather cold due to the contact with the cold weather outside. - Why don’t you go with Amelia and have something to eat? We’ll figure it out. 

  - Yes, come Miss Y/N ... - Amelia put her hands in the small back of Y/N. - I’ll make you some warm tea before you get sick. Come on.

Y/N was rushed into the kitchen by the cook while Sebastian grabbed his phone. Surely something had to be working, it wasn’t like she could walk what would regularly be a half an hour ride, she would freeze to death. No planes or personal flying vehicles were clear for take off and no cars or drivers were being allowed to drive.

  - Angel ... - he called out for the young girl who looked bluer than night ice. - Why don’t you go and take a warm bath while I figure this out?

  - Come along now. - Amelia pushed her off her seat before she could rebuff him. As the two disappeared into the hallway, Sebastian called out whatever he had left of staff which wasn’t too much. Luckily the stores were open and brave souls could adventure themselves into walking into them.

  - Right, you all have exactly one hour to turn this house into a Christmas paradise. Food, carolling, movies, all of it. It’s an order. Now go.

tag list: @lilya-petrichor @xoxohannahlee @irespostthingsiwanttoseelater @nikkipea @madisonpillstrom @cevans98 @thelostallycat @sideeffectsofyou @anxiousdreamersworld @captainchrisstan @lookiamtrying @sarge-barnes-sir​ @stuffforreferences​ @thebadassbitchqueen

[tma-more-like-suffering]

How to Successfully Attempt Murder

starring, Elias Bouchard as the murder victim.

A/N: So even though this technically isn’t a reader insert, its still in second person because- uh- because I’m currently stuck writing in second person? Like, okay, I’m having fun, alright? Lemme be.

But hey. For everyone who has repressed feelings of anger towards one Jonah Magnus, this one’s for you.

-

"Hey Mel- oh. Are you... going somewhere?"

Melanie startles, almost dropping the cup of coffee she has clutched in one hand. You stop just shy of the kitchenette doorway, feeling awkward for have accidentally snuck up on her.

"Jesus- I didn't hear you coming at all."

"Yeah... sorry. What're you doing?"

"I'm-" her expression goes through a series of stages, each somehow more interpretive than the last, "I- I went out to get coffee, that's all. And I thought I'd bring some for Elias..."

You squint at her, suspicious, "Elias?"

You don't know how, but Melanie's expression remains completely smooth beside the slight twitch of her eye, "Yes."

"Riiiight." You know that she can probably tell you don’t believe her. Still, you gesture at the cup, "You're going up to deliver that to him, then?"

Melanie glances down at the beverage, "Ah- yeah." She pauses, seemingly thoughtful, before her eyes settle on you again, "D'you wanna come up with me?"

Frankly, Melanie is acting very suspiciously right now. You know for a fact that this isn't just her 'having' gotten Elias a coffee while she was out. But you don't quite know what she's actually up to, and you have a feeling that something is about to happen.

"Alright, I'll come with."

-

You're standing beside the door to Elias's office, falling just outside his line of sight. Melanie told you to wait out here as she delivered her 'coffee' but left the door ajar just so that the conversation inside can be easily overheard.

"-I assume you don't believe me, then? That murdering me would also kill you?"

You can only imagine what kind of look must be on Melanie's face, right about now, "I-I-I don't know what you're..."

Despite the topic of conversation, Elias sounds unnervingly calm. You're not even the one who’s tried to kill him and yet you still feel a twinge of annoyance, "Coffee is not as good for disguising tastes as you might think. And it's even worse at disguising texture. Dissolved pills always leave such a- hm- chalky residue."

Melanie bristles, "Look, Elias, I never-"

"I assume this is your first time attempting to poison someone." You silently shake your head. Poor Melanie, Elias doesn't even sound fazed, talking about an attempt on his life like he's just scolding her for coming into work late, "Do you actually know how many painkillers it takes to kill someone, or were you just hoping I'd take enough to get sick, and you could finish the job... manually?"

Melanie takes a deep breath, but even from here you can hear the fine tremor underneath it, "Why...? Why bother asking then? Why bother if you know everything?"

Elias chuckles, unperturbed, "I don't know everything, Melanie. Do you know how exhausting that would be?

"I'll tell you one thing I don't know," he continues, "and that's how to convince you that I'm trying to help. Honestly, you're one of the lucky ones. But not if we're all dead thanks to an... overzealous-" you wince, "-attempt at independence."

Melanie sounds like she's gearing up for a fight, like a toy with its key turned too many times, "I don't need you to-"

Elias interrupts, speaking with an infuriating condescendence, like he's just turning down Melanie's request for a promotion the third time this month, "Let's have no more clumsy assassination attempts, alright? And we'll say no more about it. Consider this your first warning." His voice swoops lower, quieter, dangerous, "Next time I shall have to escalate matters, and that won't be a pleasant process for anybody."

A pause for dramatics. "Understood?"

Melanie grits out her own assent, "Yes."

Melanie seems now to be a problem neatly taken care of and filed away, never to be considered again except maybe for his own occasional amusement. There's an audible smile in Elias's voice, "Good."

Next thing you know, Melanie storms out of the office and straight past you, looking too angry to have remembered that she left you standing there. You blankly watch her go, mind spinning in lazy circles while considering the conversation you overheard.

"Will you close the door before you leave, Alex?"

You don't bother to stop long enough in his office for a chat of your own.

-

It’s curious, really.

He said, 'I don't know everything. Do you know how exhausting that would be?'

He's some form of omniscient, that's for sure. Maybe like a maid working in a Victorian household, always on top of the gossip. Whether that be creating the gossip himself, or simply being the agent who spreads it, that depended on the time of day.

But he can't know everything, all the time. Because that would be too much.

Which means there are loopholes.

"Hey Rosie."

Little nosy Rosie looks up, smiling politely as you stop by to say hello. It's not a very comfortable smile, because anyone who's anyone knows to stay well away from the Archives and their staff. Not Rosie though, little Rosie has quite the fine palette for juicy bits of gossip, reason why she bothers talking to the lot of you, "Hello Alex. Everything well in the Archives?"

You wave your hand dismissively, "We're getting along, I suppose. Lot of excitement with all that murder business, you know how it is."

There's that gleam in her eyes now, that 'oh, what's this?' gleam of curiosity, "Not quite, no. Listen, did I hear it straight that Jon's back? Even after being accused of murder?”

You shift, getting yourself comfortable leaning against Rosie's desk, "Well, they dropped the charges, right? Turns out they had it all wrong, Jon wasn't the one who took a pipe to some old man's head. I mean, look at him? D'you think he'd do it?"

Rosie squirms under your gaze, looking distinctly guilty, "I suppose not. He's a bit of an arse sometimes but- maybe not murder."

"Oh, it's all right Rosie, if my body ever turns up dead you know where to look." You wink. Her lips quirk up in a smile. It's just a spot of joking you two are doing here, really. You turn your head then, just slightly, pretending to look around a bit when you spy a tea kettle boiling away in the corner. "Having a cuppa?"

"What?" She follows your gaze and startles, "Oh! No, no, that's for Mr. Bouchard. He takes his tea this time of day."

You make a low noise in the back of your throat, casually interested but not obviously, "That so. You deliver his tea all times of the day, then?"

Rosie gives you a bemused look, as if she suspects you're trying to turn your nose up on the fact that part of her job is to bring tea to her boss. "It's only twice a day. He's never broken from schedule, doesn't bother me for it otherwise."

You hum an empty agreement, "Seems like the kind of man to keep on schedule."

"I should get to that actually," She pushes away from her desk and starts to her feet, "The water's probably done."

"Yeah, alright." You push off of her desk, giving her nod as you wander over to the door of her office, "Nice chatting with you Rosie. You should come down to visit the Archives sometime."

The last thing you see is her indulgent smile, the kind you give someone when you're only putting up with them until they're gone. In this case specifically, it's a -I don’t want to get caught up in whatever goes down there in the Archives, no thank you- kind of smile.

Oh well. You got what you came for anyways.

It's rather easy after that.

A month of seeing neither hide nor hair of him, Jon comes back. He looks remarkably harried, and you don't think you'd have even noticed him coming into work had you not been in the reception area during that time. As such, you watch him rush straight past you and for the stairs, and you can make a guess for where he's headed with a single-minded focus like that. It seems like Elias has a lot to do with the nonsense that occurs down in the Archives, and people can't be happier having someone to blame.

You pop down in the Archives and tell Martin that Jon's back. He sighs in relief. Even before becoming scarce at his own workplace, it was always Martin that Jon kept the most contacts with, only to completely drop off the grid these last few weeks. Somewhere in the midst of your conversation Melanie comes marching in, a crazed look in her eye, and you know what she's planning too.

I mean, what better time than when the boss-bossman is distracted, eh?

An uncomfortable few seconds of watching Melanie stomp about before she leaves, the door closing behind her with a bang. Martin sighs tiredly and you know that he wishes she would just stop with all of this. These days, he’s more and more like a tired father of two toddler who has accepted his horrible lot in life, and yet still his children continue to insist on making it worse.

You give him a comforting little pat on the back. As far as you’re concerned, it's their loss if they insist on putting their heads in the lion's mouth.

Heading upstairs, you find Rosie's office empty. It must be if she’s settling the little dispute going on up in research. The kettle is however turned on, because Mr. Bouchard has always been a man of schedule.

It's easy, to slip in something into the water.

-

Elias can't know everything, all the time.

He knows he needs to keep an eye on his Archivist's development. The brunt of his gaze has always rested on Jon and it’s obvious that none of you Assistants can ever hope to stand in the same regard, not really.

Elias keeps an eye on Melanie. Melanie is unstable. She doesn't like her actions being controlled; she doesn't like being trapped here in this place. Never mind that she agreed to join the Institute on her own violation, it's her free will that matters to her now, or at least the illusion of it. Melanie is the kind of person who isn't afraid to fight for what she wants.

Elias keeps an eye on Tim too, though he pretends he doesn’t. It just makes sense. Tim is almost like Melanie, but he's been beaten down too much too soon, and won't take it out on Elias. His target is instead Jon, who seems to be at the center of most of his problems and is a much easiertarget. As long as that continues to be true, Tim is content on simply being indirectly snide towards Elias.

Elias doesn't really keep an eye on Martin. Oh, he knows that Martin is just as angry with him as any of others, but Martin has never been the kind of person to do anything about it.

Elias doesn't really keep an eye on you. You know what people think of you. That you're kind of an airhead. Always lost in your head, can't be bothered with the world outside it half the time. You're the kind of person that likes keeping their head down and quietly working away at your desk, and that hasn't much changed since... well, everything.

Nah. The murder thing isn't even on the top of your list. You'd just like some peace and quiet down here, for once. And, well, Elias seems to be the root of everyone's problems, including yours...

Still, there's no point in doing anything without at least enjoying the results. You researched extensively on what kind of poison to buy, taking into mind Elias’ oh-so-kind lecture to Melanie about picking your poison. It wouldn’t have done for him to taste something off about his tea the moment he took the first sip.

So, after exactly the time it would take for his tea to kick into effect, if you compensate for the time he would take to drink enough of it, you check in on Elias.

The first thing you see is the man collapsed onto his desk, eyes wide open and mouth frothing. The second you see is Jon, staring at the now dead body in front of him with surprise.

"Oh. It worked."

Jon's eyes snap toward you, "Wh- Alex? Did you do this?!"

You rub at your ears at the pitch of Jon's voice, an octave or two higher with hysteria, "I didn't know it'd work, you know?"

"You killed him!"

You shrug, slipping inside the room. "Sure." You can't be bothered to close the door behind you as cross over to the desk. Jon scampers out of his own seat, edging warily to the other side of the room. He can do whatever he wants as long as he doesn't call the cops immediately.

You check for a pulse on the body and find it missing.

From the furthest corner of the room, Jon stutters, "Y-you're insane."

You can't be bothered with an answer.

Fascinatingly enough though, Elias's eyes are still moving. They rove around wildly in his sockets, almost like they're the only way he can convey his surprise at being got. It's still unnatural though, and you have the strangest surety that it's an important detail.

Jon by this point has left the office, and you should really clean up here before someone comes in. Still, it almost feels like things aren't finished here. You have the strangest sense when it’s obvious that a story hasn't reached its conclusion.

You cast about the room and stop at the pen stand, holding fancy fountain pens that look like they cost more than your entire salary. You grab onto one, sliding the cap off by neatly jamming your thumb nail into the line where the cap meets the body of the pen, and look down contemplatively at the eyes that have stopped pinballing wildly, fixed on you. They almost look scared.

Well. This is going to get messy. At least you know that Melanie will be willing to help you clean up the body.

Tip of the pen poised; you get to work.

[waitineedaname]

frame the halves and call them a whole

also on ao3

--

“Alright, I’ve got a bad one.”

“Oh, lord.”

“Brace yourself.”

“I’m bracing!” Sasha made a show of gripping the short carpet on her living room floor and Tim grinned, leaning back against her coffee table.

“Would you rather… date a spider with the head of a human, or a human with the head of a spider?”

“Jesus. I see someone has been reading the discredited statements.”

“Guilty.” Tim shrugged cheekily. 

The two of them were sitting on the floor in Sasha’s flat, and she’d long since lost track of what time it was. Ever since they’d been moved to the Archives, they’d made an agreement to go out and do something together once a week. Sometimes that meant getting sloshed and losing at pub trivia, sometimes that meant dragging each other to whatever new film had made it to theaters that week, and sometimes that meant playing sleepover games in the middle of the night, as if they were twelve year olds and not thirty-somethings with 9-to-5’s. Neither of them had the energy to go out drinking and there wasn’t anything good in the theaters that week, so the third option had won out. They’d ended up on the floor when Sasha made an ill-advised comment about not being ticklish and Tim called her bluff. She’d dissolved into hysterical giggles and he’d said something about how being an oldest sibling meant having a sixth sense for someone’s ticklish spots, and then he’d gone very still and quiet. She’d taken his hand and squeezed and initiated the game of would-you-rather they found themselves in now.

“Okay. Let me think about this.” She drummed her fingers on her lips contemplatively. Tim smiled in that fond way he did when he didn’t want to outright laugh at her. “Are the human and spider bits proportional?”

“Ooh, very good question, Sash. Let’s say they’re the normal sizes for your average spiders and humans.”

“So my options are a human head scuttling around on spider legs or a human with an absolutely microscopic spider head?”

“Yep!” Tim said, popping the ‘p.’

“I’m going to go with option A. I mean, if it’s a human head, I could still hold a conversation with it, right? And I don’t think spiders would make good kissers.”

“I think some of our statement givers would disagree with that judgment.”

“Please don’t tell me we have a statement about a human body with a spider head. I don’t think I could take it.”

“Sure do! Statement number 9170108, or something like that. Some freaked out old coot convinced his neighbor’s head was fake and he was keeping a tiny little spider underneath the fake head.”

“Christ. I’m glad Jon didn’t ask me to look into that one. I might have quit on the spot.” Sasha laughed.

“Aw, and then leave me and Martin to deal with Jon? You know how he gets with the spider ones.” 

“Hm, fair. The Archives need someone sensible around.”

“Hey, you’re not the sole voice of reason down there!”

“You’re right. Martin can be fairly practical when he wants.” She failed to bite back her smirk when Tim clutched his chest, feigning pain.

“Oh, how you wound me, Ms. James! Here I was, thinking it was Tim and Sasha versus the world, but you’ve betrayed me for Martin!”

“Is that your proposal for a Scott Pilgrim reboot? Am I Ramona in this scenario?”

“No, we’re both Scott Pilgrim because combined, we can equal the pure sexual energy of one Michael Cera.”

“Eugh! Gross!” She retched and kicked at him, making him laugh. 

“I’m kidding!”

“You better be! Any and all horniness for Michael Cera is banned in this flat!”

“That’s fair.” He caught her foot and shoved it back at her. “Knives and Ramona were both way too good for him, anyway. They should’ve ended up together at the end.”

“That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said all night.”

“You’re really not pulling any punches tonight, huh?”

“Nope. My turn. Would you rather...” She crossed her arms and stared him down long enough to make him squirm, “get stoned with Jon or Elias?”

Tim groaned so loud she worried her neighbors would complain. “No. Absolutely not. You cannot make me choose that.”

“Hey, you asked about spider people!”

“Yeah, and I’d argue that dealing with my bosses while stoned is worse than a human head skittering around on the walls!”

“Oh, come on. Jon isn’t that bad.”

“Sasha. You were friends with him in Research. I was friends with him in Research. Last time we got drinks, he talked about South American moths for forty minutes. I’m getting a headache just thinking about listening to him while he’s stoned.”

“Maybe it’ll calm him down.”

“Maybe.” Tim pouted, and Sasha did her best not to giggle. “Alright fine. I choose Jon, but only because I cannot imagine Elias getting within eyesight of anything as fun as weed without shriveling up and acting like an affronted Victorian gentleman.”

“Okay, first of all, the Victorians loved drugs, they were high on opiates all the time-"

"Like hell am I doing opiates with Elias."

"Second of all, I may have looked into what Elias was like before he got promoted…” She trailed off and bit back a laugh when Tim's jaw dropped.

“No.” 

“And he was a major stoner.”

“You can’t just say these things. I refuse to accept it.”

“I’m serious!”

“Are we talking about the same Elias? The Elias Bouchard that uses words like grandiloquent and apropos? The Elias Bouchard that gets pissy if you round up on your time card?”

“You know what’s even worse?”

“Please don’t make it worse.”

“I’ve seen him wear those socks with weed patterns on them.”

“I told you not to make it worse.” Tim wailed and covered his face. “I swear, if I saw that, I would gouge my eyes out without hesitation.” Sasha patted his leg sympathetically. 

“Well, good thing you chose Jon, then.”

“I guess so! Fuck’s sake.” He sighed and flopped over onto his side to lie on the floor. Sasha laughed at him goodnaturedly, and then joined him on the floor. She expected him to be thinking of his next would-you-rather prompt, but after a long minute of him silently running his fingers through the carpet, he surprised her by asking, “Do you ever miss Jon?”

“Sorry?” She said, confused. “We see him every day, Tim.”

“No, I…” He huffed, “You know what I mean. Do you miss the Jon we knew in Research?”

“Oh…” Sasha caught onto his drift and fell silent, unsure what to say. Tim was clearly brimming with emotions that he was struggling to get out, so she let him take a minute.

“Not saying he’s a completely different person now, but… I don’t know. We used to get drinks with him. He used to laugh at our jokes. He used to make jokes. Weird, dark jokes, but still jokes, you know? But these days, it’s all business, all the time. I don’t think I’ve seen him smile in months. All… All snappish comments and ‘research this, call this statement giver, stop goofing off during work hours.’ Never mind that just a year ago, he was the one using work hours to show us cat videos because he got distracted during his lunch break.” The side of Tim’s face was smushed into the floor and his one free eye was focused on the whorls he was creating with his fingers in the carpet. Up close as they were, Sasha could see the light scar on his chin that he’d once told her was the result of an ill-advised dare as a child, when his brother had challenged him to see if they could jump off the back deck of their house. She touched it, and he leaned into her hand, eyes distant and sad. “I just…” He spoke softly, “I miss my friend.”

“I miss him too.” Sasha said honestly, though she knew Tim was taking it harder than she was. “You know it’s not your fault, right?”

“I know that.” Tim said, and she believed him. “It’s this stupid job. The stupid Archives. I miss being in Research, where I could make fun of the weirdos in the Archives, but now we’re the weirdos in the Archives.”

“We work at an institute that studies the supernatural. I think we’re the weirdos no matter which department we’re in.” She said, aiming for some levity and feeling relieved when Tim let out a soft huff of laughter.

“Fair. Still. The vibes in there are…”

“Bad.” She finished for him.

“You can say that again.” He finally shifted to look at her again. “If you were the Head Archivist-”

“Tim-” She warned, not wanting to dig up an old sore point. 

“I’m serious. If you were the Archivist, do you think you’d act like this?”

“Would I push you away, you mean.” She said. He shrugged and nodded. “I don’t know. I really don’t, Tim. I’d like to say I wouldn’t, but who knows what kind of pressure it involves. I can be just as intense as Jon when I feel pressured.”

“Yeah, but you’d be way nicer than him.”

“You don’t know that.” Sasha said, firm but gentle. 

“...Guess I don’t.” Tim sighed and shut his eyes. She reached down and squeezed his hand. He squeezed back.

“Next time you’re missing Jon, call me instead, okay? Or Martin, he’d love that.” She ran her thumb over his and gave him a small smile. “You can always count on me.”

His gaze is impossibly soft as he looks up at her, and he seems to almost forget to respond at first. “Yeah.” He finally says. “I can always count on you, Sash.” A cheeky grin spread across his face, breaking the tender moment. “The Pilgrim to my Scott.”

She laughed and let go of his hand to push his shoulder into the leg of the coffee table playfully. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It makes perfect sense!” He protested despite his own laughter. “Okay, maybe it doesn’t make sense, but it’s the thought that counts. I’m poetic.”

“No, you’re sleep-deprived.” She sat up enough to eye the microwave from her vantage point in the kitchen. “Oh lord, it’s 2am, no wonder. You always get sappy at 2am.”

“I do not!”

“You do. Big sap.” She patted his cheek playfully and stood. “Want me to get you some extra blankets for the couch?”

“That’d be great.” He hauled himself to his feet, groaning all the way. She snickered.

“You sound like an old man.”

“I’ll have you know, I’m young and spry.” He complained, stretching.

“Mhm.” She rolled her eyes and went to the closet.

“At the prime of my life.”

“And yet you make dad noises getting out of a chair.”

“Hey, lying on the floor isn’t good for your back! Aren’t you older than me anyway?”

“Maybe, but I’m not the one complaining about my back.” She cut off whatever complaint he had prepared by throwing a quilt at him. He caught it and stuck his tongue out at her. She returned the gesture and grabbed another blanket. “Are two blankets good?”

“That’s perfect.” He took the blanket gratefully and settled on the couch. “Should I make breakfast as thanks?”

“You don’t have to,” Sasha immediately said out of politeness, but then added, “But if you want to make pancakes…”

“Understood. I’ll see you bright and early with some pancakes, then.” Tim smiled up at her and made himself comfortable on the couch.

“See you in the morning, Tim.” She turned to walk to her room, but stopped at the doorway when Tim piped up again.

“Sasha?”

“Hm?” She looked back at him and saw his best flirty grin on his face. He winked and blew a kiss at her. More than used to his nonsense, she gasped and pretended to catch the invisible kiss, then promptly put her hand to mouth and pretended to eat the kiss. Tim clutched his heart and fell back onto the couch, trying to act like he wasn’t holding back laughter. “No, you’re so cruel!”

“Good night, Tim.” She said, closing the door behind herself before her poker face could break.

“Good night, Sasha.” She heard through the door, full of fondness and amusement in equal parts. 

Sasha rolled out of bed the next morning to find Tim making pancakes, as promised. They sat at her kitchen table and bickered playfully about movies; Tim listened patiently as she infodumped about the history of science fiction as a genre, and she let him rant for the fiftieth time about Indiana Jones. Tim insisted on washing the dishes like a gentleman, and Sasha insisted on squirting bubbles out of the dish detergent bottle at him. They didn’t speak a word about work or their conversation from the night before, but she hugged him very tightly before he left, as if conveying all the emotion she could through touch alone. From the way he squished his face into her shoulder, it seemed the message came across. 

“I’ll make sure to get you the spider guy’s number.” He said when they finally pulled apart, and she snorted.

“You’re insufferable, you know that?” She said, shoving him out the door.

“So I’ve heard.” He winked and walked backwards down the hall outside her flat. She sighed and waved, a smile on her face as she shut the door.

If he bugged her and Martin more than usual after talking to Jon the following week, she didn’t mention it.

[smallestclowninthecircus]

Tma season 2 notes baybeee

I made myself take several breaks so I could give my frie d who is listening to it at the same time as me a chance to catch up. Honestly just posting them so I have them saved somewhere but whatever.

ep 41: real graham wrote keep watching before he was replaced. Jon feels like he's being watched. But they werent replaced by things related to the eye. It's the web that's on the box that replaces them. Endless hallways and doors to nowhere. I bet nicholas will have ideas what entity this relates to. If it even does. They're like the tunnels in the one with the builder guy. Tunnels closing in etc. Also like the cave diving one. He's assuming it's just one

ep 42: so 100 gecs? (IM SORRY I LIKE 100 GECS BUT LMAO) so there's some entity related to music right? There's the piper episode and the 27 w/ the calliope. Ah yes, this season is gonna be the season of Paranoid!Jon

ep 43: section 31? fucking books. god no. smashed lights? cult lady did that. covered the lights too. she mentioned a spooky clown doll. thats not random.

ep 44: is this that same circus that got mentioned before? it is! the pipe organ! pop off organ! pipe off! mouth on the stomach! yes! mouths in unusual places my beloved!

ep 45: antiques! like that one ep!

ep 46: every time books get mentioned i sigh. hhh sus smells. it got brighter. I get the vibes occasionally that the dark and the eye are sorta at odds with eachother. GRRR BARK BARK LEITNER. ayyy ex altiora. entity go brr. which entity do we thing it is? my guess is The Dark. The book buyer's name is Mike. He has scars? Electricity? The childhood friend of the guy who got it later on perhaps? The Vast? its formatted like an entity idk. This happened before the other one. He got trapped in the wood carving. a win for the web lol spiders go brr

ep 47: did i hear spiral? ITS THE NOT THING FROM THE EPISODE WITH NOT GRAHAM "it didnt move, it shifted" is like the exact same sentence as before. ay john's starting to remember. the laughing woah thats weird. is "michael" one of the entities? "you make it seem like theres a war" supports my theory that theres a struggle between a couple of the entities. I said i thought it was the eye and the dark i believe but im not sure. its whatever entity michael is vs the worms? what did nicholas say the worms were again? The Corruption? still dont know which one michael is tho.

Had to take a break after that episode. smth about the quality of michael's voice makes me feel like im gonna slip into one of those states where it feels like nothing is real, so i got a nice cold glass of water.

ep 48: jesus ok this one's kidna corny. you're telling me love made the crowd go away come on now. Ur losing it big J. also shouldnt it be more sus that "sasha" is so unaffected by the worm incident/ finding of gertrude's body

ep 49: haven't we heard hector's name before? oh is he the crime guy? fucking jared... so it's a throat? chompa chompa. (it's just a little bit hot) the good part about these episodes is that we know whoever's telling the story isn't gonna die. even if it's a close call, they're not dead. hotworth? ok not jared keay. it bothers me how theres so many repeated names, can they not come up with other names? "sasha"'s computer is breaking... sus. Elias our favorite weed man! jon ur so paranoid lmao

ep 50: robert smirk, at it again. this is like that one episode with the old dude who locked his door. who said idle beforehand? was it smirk? fingertips. thats so weird lmao. bahahah tim

ep 51: simon fairchild. im sure jon will mention the name at the end i cant remember where we've heard it. this is just like the cavediving episode. a hand? there was a hand in the last one right? the scalpel! and an eye thing. she's trying to throw them off.

ep 52: thats the guy from before! with the hearts! god i hate this guy writing the statement hh. lights blowing, and brackish water. we know how this ends but its still tense. rainer? reigner? rain man. we've seen him before

ep 53: pls not a leitner. oh boy mans scratched out his eyes. rip skelly. why would gertrude have had this statement off the books? jon stabbed himself?? bruh im? big man are you okay

ep 54: cockney boys! ayy its our favorite delivery men. she cut out their eyes. she knew that the eye was a thing?

ep 55: oily residue like the retirement home!

ep 56: worms? no. spiders?? bruhh. aaah yelling :(( aww martin anyways yeah i called it about paranoid!jon he needs to take a nap and drink some hot chocolate and calm down for once please

ep 57: just remembered, i think theres an entity called The Lonely?? This feels pretty lonely idk. fairchild, lukas/ lucas, some spooky place in norway idk. "sasha" knew he was recordinig hmm suspicious cmon jon figure it out. Sasha and tom. hm sus. for records sake i feel liek i should note here that I did have it spoiled to me simply that that's not sasha, but thats really all. i assumed it was like the thing that happened to graham in S1

ep 58: i feel like i recognize the name eustice (?) wick. someone please tell me im not just watching jon's descent into madness over the course of this podcast. im hoping it isnt so but, (and pardon the dsmp reference) im getting real wilbur vibes from this one.

ep 59: oh dear ok account from the fielding house. swirling designs? Spiral time? oh boyy. oh wait! 6 inch hole in the middle! is it not a spiderweb type design on the table? thats what i had assumed but that description sounds more like a spiral thing. cobwebs is a Web thing. ayy nicholas was right! the box goes in the table! the place that she kissed him was burning. Raymond is an avatar of The Web and agnes is the burning one. Lightless Flame! Why did she save him? i guess she was against this guy eating ppl or wtvr but why was she at the halfway house then? I think she's like michael.

ep 60: the eye go brr

ep 61: breacon and hope once again. tom. sasha's boyfriend. vampires sleep in coffins. the guy just walking in seems similar to the mind control of the vampires

ep 62: bones! its that one leitner. is this mother keay? the mom of gerard? this is what happened to her right? her skin was found on hooks? oh yeah thats what i thought the pages are made of skin. yeesh. The End!! sounds like an entity. phrased like one, and i think i remember it. are the people trapped in the pages? or... kept?

ep 63: eaten by the darkness! cavediving episode! (just like eaten by the sky) did my brain make up one called The Vast? it feels like it should be one, and all these episodes have some similar description about their feelings when they do whatever chosen hobby they have. ok now this one kinda feels like the dark. lights going out and all that. ok so not really a The Vast thing, its more of a Dark thing. feckin smirk gah.

ep 64: dice! the death guy! the death game thing! the person tricked somebody else into becoming death and then they were immortal? but if the egyptians wanted to kill him or punish him or whatever couldnt they just kill him? it worked in the end when he had the person giving the statement stab him, that did the job and actually killed him

ep 65: finally jon is actually acknowledging something is wrong.

So we know Mary Keay was revived most likely with the book by gerard.

Gertrude was way more aware of the entities than Jon. mary keay referenced The End openly and she cut the eyes out of her magazines and all that which makes me think she was aware of The Eye

ep 66: please not buried alive pleeaase not buried alive. lukas of the tundra? didnt we hear the name lukas before? she wanted it to be difficult to find important files because that way bad people couldnt find them?

ep 67: agnes... the girl in the hilltop house? agnes poppin off!! he's really not gonna question how she knew where he lived?? oh no D: the tree. were they the ones working on the house? aww they kissi- OH DEAR. why did she kiss him? it seemed like she cared about him? also she could kiss that other dude on the cheek and he was fine, but maybe it was cuz she was younger? lightless flame go brrrrr.

ep 68: oh god books. yup its bitchboy leitner. mans said "this seems supernatural, its a werd book!" bruuh.

ep 69: heh nice. aw cmon jon listen to martin. gahhh spiders. is that the class we heard about in the other doctor one with the teeth apple? some kind of psych class? oh dear. fucking spiders. aaaah. web do be goin brr. it's like the girl in the homeless shelter! who made the guy leave and she took his bed.

ep 70: is this gonna be the book that mary keay had? Most likely a leitner no matter what. Oh boy latin. Why did it start in latin then become old English? I'm guessing people put them in the book? He cant burn it. Phrophecies go brr. He says eh it's a decade in the future it's fine. Its gonna have changed. Ayy called it. Just accept it, it's a magic book. His death is getting closer. Leitner didnt make them but just collected them? Gertrude burned the book! She burned them down there so no one would know.

ep 71: oh boy tunnels. Our favorite thing /s. is The Buried a thing? Idk this seems pretty buried. Oh dear he's trapped here isnt he. "Not enough space to move, never enough to breathe" is that from the computer episode? With the guy who uploaded his consciousness? Somebody living down there. Hmmmm. Guesses: tom, sasha's boyfriend. Gertrude herself? (Though I doubt it)

ep 72: sweeney todd moment. Meat. The slaughter? Idk we'll see what the supernatural part is. Meat is meat. Similar to the slaughterhouse episode. Is it fucking Jared I swear to God it better not be. Hooligan teenagers, you know how it is. Meat is me lmao. Is the kid gonna be in the freezer. Ok that's good. OWW. Oddly textured candles. Made from people? Human fat or smth? Tom from the meat processing plant!

ep 73: outer bay shipping. Bet it's a subset of breacon and hope delivery. The Dark go brrr. Uh oh mans is gonna die. Leo or whatever. Cult ppl go brr. The people's church of the divine host. Who is the divine host? Is it reigner or whatever his name is? I dont think Jon can quit tbh. Probably an anonymous tip but from who?? One of the entities?

ep 74: fucking teeth hhh. I dont know which entity is related to teeth. Spiral. Isnt the spiral an entity. It feels like it could be related to many things idk. Yeah this sounds like the spiral. Heart attack at 29? Jesus... michael! That's kinda what I was thinking. Sasha goin in the tunnels. Hmm sus. They move the floor. Wack. Bet its tom.

ep 75: Man with a lightning scar. Has one of the leitner books. The childhood friend of the one who first introduced us to leitner. Oh my god that sounds terrifying. Michael crew.

ep 76: scalpel? Hmm spooky. NotSasha... think jon think.

ep 77: another double! NotThem, The Stranger. Not related to the table?

ep 78: what was that at the beginning? Question mark?? Oh boy more NotThem. Decker... what is the deal with the table. Does it contain the creature? Fucking Michael. Bitchboi himself.

ep 79: yes pop off martin. Ugh fucking Michael just leave man. I hate that dude. New person. Hmm. No idea who it is.

ep 80: shitener himself! Ok sir tell us the entities. Ayy The Spiral. Ok we know what that one is. The Eye is the beholding! Oooh. The Stranger. Did elias just kill leitner? Popping off honestly.

[one-leaf-grimoire]

“Illusion” ch 7!

Link to the full Ao3 work

Warnings: hangover, mentions of drinking/drugs

Also MC has a moment where she literally does this:

Uh oh... a hint of romance? Perhaps...

"Hey... you okay?"

Someone's voice softly pervades my mind, finally stirring it enough for consciousness to take hold. The first thing I do is wince, scrunching up my face. Ow ow ow! Fuck... My stomach feels like it's full of fire ants, crawling their way up my esophagus and into my throat. I splutter out a weak cough, someone pressing something cold onto my forehead. I can feel liquid dripping; whether it's from a wet cloth or my own sweat, I don't know. It feels good, though, on my burning skin.

"Hey, can you speak? I'm so scared..."

I open my mouth in an attempt to speak, but end up coughing instead. Ouch! It rips through my throat like barbed wire, but I manage to crack open my eyes. I see a familiar (albeit fuzzy) face peering down at me, her eyes full of worry and fear. "...Alice?"

She manages to smile, smoothing down my hair as she crouches next to my bed. "Thank god... I was worried you weren't going to wake up!"

I nod slowly, a little confused as to what's going on. Last night... we went out... and... That's where my memory runs out. "What happen- OUCH!" I cry out a small exclamation of pain as I sit up, my head throbbing. "Ow, ow, ow... Am I hungover?!"

Alice nods slowly, rubbing my shoulder. "Probably... geez, you really don't hold your liquor well, do you? I leave for one second and you wander off and collapse drunkenly in an alley!"

"You left?" I blink slowly, putting the puzzle pieces together with much difficulty. "I-I didn't go with you?"

"No, I asked if you wanted to, but you said no," Alice explains. "I don't blame you, Margery puke is something I don't want to see, either."

Right... Wren came in... he told us Margery was sick... and then... 

Did I drink anything after that? I suppose I wouldn't remember...

"Come on, you need a shower. You probably have alcohol poisoning or something." With some difficulty, Alice pries me out of bed, wraps me up in a blanket when I start shivering, and leads me out into the hallway. "Everyone else is out and about, I managed to get the Captain to give you the day off.

"Oh..." I say softly, for some reason feeling very upset by this news. My eyes even start to water a little. "That's... good, I guess."

Something doesn't add up. I was in an alley? Drunk? Wouldn't I have just stayed at the bar if I passed out? Unless someone dragged me out-

"Oh, good morning, you two! I'm glad to see you awake~"

...huh? That voice...

I look up and have to squint, but finally the face of the taller man grows into focus. OH... FUCK! 

"J-J-Julius?!" I stutter out, a lot louder than I mean to. I feel my face heating up for some reason. Ah! Get a grip! Why am I reacting this way... he literally just said good morning! "I mean... uh, good morning to you, too?" I wish I could shrink down and disappear into the blanket that's wrapped around me.

Despite the fact that I'm definitely blushing an embarrassingly dark shade of pink right now, Julius just smiles and lets out a relieved sigh, but the corners of his eyes crinkle with worry. "Ah, you're probably exhausted, I'll leave you to nurse that... hangover." He pats me on the shoulder, his hand lingering for a few moments longer than normal before letting go to brush past me. I stand there, still kind of stunned, before my senses hit me again. "Oh-" I turn around to see him glancing back at me. "Let me know if you need anything. You know where to find me!"

He finally disappears around the corner, and I let out a heaving sigh. Jesus, I must be really out of it... I hear a giggle and look over to see Alice smirking at me. "What was that?"

I suck in a breath through my nose and look away. "I-I don't know what you're talking about!"

"You're red as a beet! And you basically moaned his name!"

"What?! And I'm sick, of course I'm red! There was no moaning whatsoever!!"

"Hmm, whatever you say~"

"Alice!"

Eventually she stops teasing me, and I start to feel better after taking a shower. However, my stomach still feels all wonky and I end up throwing up into a toilet for about seven minutes straight. "I was wondering when this was going to happen," Alice says sadly as she hands me a glass of water after the "tide" has retreated. "You didn't throw up at all last night, and Julius said you hadn't when you were in the alley. I guess it has to happen sometime."

I nearly choke on my water. "H-Huh?! Julius... he was the one who found me?!"

"Yeah, actually. I guess you were lucky, he always knows what to do-" Alice freezes up as I suddenly clap my hands over my face and shamelessly burst into tears. "What? Hey, hey, it's not a big deal!"

I shake my head a little as I feel her arms wrap around me.

"Everyone has this happen... it's not something to be embarrassed about! Julius doesn't care, he's seen it all, I'm sure!"

Her embrace doesn't melt the growing icicle of fear away.

I'm not embarrassed... I'm happy.

Because... I can't put my finger on it, but I think something bad happened last night, I was in danger. But Julius...

I don't know why I can't shake that uneasy feeling throughout the day. A nagging suspicion in the back of my mind keeps kicking me, trying to force me to face the very real chance that I wasn't drunk.

If I wasn't drunk, then what was I?

At about five in the evening, Alice gets dressed to leave our room. "I have a patrol, it's going to go until tomorrow morning," she groans, even though this kind of mission is usual for her. "Are you going to be okay? I know you said that you don't think you have to worry about anyone here anymore-"

"I'll be fine!" I give her a smile from my bed, still sipping water. "See you later!"

Alice bids me farewell before leaving me alone once again. I sigh and flop back on my bed, closing my eyes and scraping the corners of my mind to find an explanation for these badly-fitting puzzle pieces. The dread won't go away, so it must mean something, right?

My friends... they wouldn't hurt me...

But the last thing I remember drinking, the Cinnamon Whiskey, it was bitter, not sweet or spicy.

I open my eyes again to stare at the ceiling blankly.

Did I really drink after that? I don't remember at all...

Suddenly, I get an idea. Without hesitation, I get up and pull on some clothes before running off towards Captain Hervey's office. Luckily, he's inside, working on some papers. "Oh, it's you," he greets sternly, getting up out of his chair as I close the door behind me. "I was wondering when you were going to show up... how are you feeling?"

"Er, good, sir," I reply, feeling my face heat up. "I'm really sorry about being a nuisance... I didn't mean to get so drunk or anything, to be honest, I don't really remember drinking very much, but it happens, I suppose."

Hervey eyes me curiously before letting out a hearty laugh. "It happens! You've got to work up your tolerance somehow, I suppose!" He suddenly grabs my head and shakes me around playfully, a little more rough than my stomach can bear right now. "Just don't embarrass the squad, that's all I ask!"

"Ah! Y-Yes sir!" He finally releases me and I straighten up. "I was wondering... do you still have last night's bar tab somewhere? I'd like to see it."

"Huh? Why?" I shrug, earning a sigh from the captain as he turns to rummage through the trash. "You're lucky... I just paid the tab, and was about to take out the trash." Hervey always pays for our nights out, which is why he has our tab. "Here, now scram!"

I catch the crumpled up paper he tosses me, squeak out a thank you then run back to my room. This should tell me something...

Once in my room, I uncrumple the tab and start skimming through it. There, that's the inn... and there's the drinks we got...

My blood runs cold.

According to the tab, we were served just five cinnamon whiskeys.

Just... five. 

Wait... if we just had five... then what the Hell did I drink later?! 

I loosen my grip, and the paper wafts down to the floor at my feet.

I... I can't have been... drugged?

The cinnamon whiskey was bitter.

No... I-

But, who would have done it? Some random guy at the bar? I didn't notice anyone else come close to us... then, the bartender? No, that would be too easy to trace! Then...

It was one of them... Giles, Elia, Nigel, Alice...

Maybe not Alice, but right now the dark cloud of paranoia won't let me let go of that option.

So... it wasn't just one of my squadmates. It was one of my very own friends...

The hope I started to feel is gone, leaving nothing but an empty, taunting shell. Because, it's not over. Once again, someone is trying to intimidate me, to harm me, to make me fear the people around me. They've succeeded.

Thank goodness Julius found me... who knows what would have happened, then? It explains the severity of my illness this morning. This isn't a hangover, it's the product of some potent, poisonous drug. My hands tremble where they rest on my bare knees, and suddenly my nightgown is not nearly enough to shield me from the chill of this room. 

I'm... still in danger... but why?! I ball up my fists, feeling hot tears on my cheeks again. At this point, I'm feeling more frustrated than afraid. Why would someone target me like this? What did I do?! How do I make it stop...

Suddenly, I've been sitting there in silence for a long time, longer than I meant to. I look up sharply at my door, faint light from the hallway spilling under the crack.

I... I'm alone... Alice... she's going to be gone all night...

The frustration decidedly turns into fear. Visceral fear. I could die tonight. Someone could kill me in my sleep.

So... I won't sleep!

I move mechanically, slipping off my bed and turning on a light. My fingers are shaking, fumbling at the lamp.

I...I'll be fine! I can do this alone... and in the morning, I'll tell Alice, and we'll tell the captain-

No. I won't be fine.

I...I can fight them off... I have magic!

My hands clutch my Grimoire as I sit cross-legged on the floor, staring with wide eyes at the door. There's no strength in my gaze.

They haven't even gotten here... but they've already defeated me...

My blood freezes in my veins as I hear a footstep.

Then another.

I-it's coming closer...

I can it so clearly. They're getting closer.

Okay... get ready...

I hold up my hand.

You can do it... if you cast Fear Landscape now...

The footsteps slow as they near my door. I squeeze my eyes shut.

Do it... please...

My body refuses to move. My magic refuses to move. I'm completely petrified with fear.

I... don't want to die... please...

The footsteps speed up, and disappear down the hall.

I stay sitting there for a moment, before my eyes snap back open, blinking away tears.

I'm pathetic... I'm right, they've already defeated me...

My Grimoire thunks to the ground as I drop it, and I stare at the pair of useless hands I've been cursed with.

There's an escape... maybe I should just leave now... I'll be to the castle by morning. Lawrence will protect me, right?

No. A life with Lawrence would be worse than anything I have to face tonight. No matter how nice or comforting he tries to be, he can't erase the past. He'll never bring me the same warmth from his smile as...

...

That's right... there's someone still here that I can trust!

The realization fills my limbs with purpose, and before I know it, I throw open my door and sprint away as quietly as I can. I turn a few corners, climb one set of stairs, and there it is, that room, his room!

I skid to a stop before I slam into the door and knock on the wood urgently, glancing behind me. Please be here! Please- I feel like a rabbit, being chased down by a ravenous pack of wolves, ready to tear me apart the moment I falter. Please... please!-

Mid-knock, the door opens, and Julius pokes his head out. "Oh! Good- evening-"

He doesn't get to finish as I push my way inside, bursting right past him, and slam the door shut with a loud bang. I gasp in a breath, adrenaline still filling my veins as I lean against the closed door. I did it! I escaped... I should be safe now... now that I'm...

I suddenly go pale.

...oops. I just broke into Julius's room, didn't I?

I turn around slowly to look back up at Julius, who is speechless, his mouth open wordlessly. Finally, he blinks a few times. "Er... to what do I owe the pleasure of this late-night-visit?" He closes his eyes as he smiles, still emanating that comforting aura that I was seeking out.

He looks... so warm... so... safe...

Safe.

It's something I desperately want to feel right now, but even here in this room, locked away from the danger outside, I can't relax. 

"...what's wrong?"

I get snapped from my thoughts as Julius gently touches my shoulder. I slowly look up at him, at his concerned face. He knows something is wrong...

"Hey, whatever it is, you can tell me, alright? Even if it's something, er- girly, although I'm sure Malota is better suited for that kind of- Ah! Why are you crying? Did I say something?"

I shake my head, and without another moment of thought I let the tears fall, and fling myself into his warm, safe chest.

OooooOooooOo ;.; Nice! Please comment and lmk what you think 0.0

I’m having so much fun writing this rn  I hope ya’ll like it too <3

[danwhobrowses]

WWE Royal Rumble 2021 - Initial Thoughts

I know I’m late, but employment is still a thing, and I had to prioritize that over an all-nighter, but it’s time for the Royal Rumble, one of the more exciting shows of WWE’s schedule, so let’s get on with it!

Spoilers for Royal Rumble, you have been Warned

I might not invest too much in kickoff matches but the Women’s Tag Match was not a good time

It was fine before the end, but who the hell decided that Charlotte should control 90% of the champions’ offense and have the hot tag!? Asuka is the RAW WOMEN’S CHAMPION, not Charlotte. After the tag Asuka literally had one spot and she was dead, completely taken out of the match for *checks notes* being thrown over the Announcer’s Table...you know that thing several wrestlers come back from easily.

The finish was just too much too, Ric distraction didn’t work, Lacey distraction didn’t work, Kirufuda Clutch didn’t work but then the brass knuckles did. Too much.

And why TF are we putting titles back on Nia!? We should’ve just given the titles to the Riotts, or the winner of the Women’s Dusty Classic. It also cuts me deep that Asuka and Shayna are treated this way, even as champion Asuka is a side character to Charlotte T_T

Main show though and I don’t like the package and interviews between entrances

Drew vs Goldberg was just...meaningless.

It was cringy enough that Cole had to spout drivel to make 60 year old Goldberg seem strong but to have Drew be ‘injured’ by a barricade spear - something much more tired wrestlers have and will get back up from in less time and continue a longer match - was daft. Also saying that Goldberg’s spear or jackhammer is the best move of all WWE is stupid, it was a WCW thing

Thank God Drew Won, but the post-match does remind you of the meaningless circumstances this feud came about. Suddenly Goldberg is okay with Drew’s same manners of respect

I mean, Carmella’s entrance and gear is cool, but do you think it eats at Corey a little that Carmella’s ‘behind the curtain’ bit is a tad...red light district?

Sasha’s promo didn’t hit for me unfortunately

Reginald didn’t deserve to be ejected for that! He caught Sasha and get beaten up for it

Jesus Carmella! Sasha got barely any of that dive

Screeching and faffing aside, Carmella got a good showing...I do hate quick tap outs in title matches though

Sami cuts a good promo, but his content wasn’t exactly the best. New Day are hardly the management’s faves, it’s taken this long for E to get a singles run, Fans literally had to Yes Movement their way into giving Kofi the world title.

New Day’s Brodie gear was good though

Bad Bunny as the ‘Biggest Latin Artist’? Is Cole for real? I didn’t even know who he was before today

If the song is about Booker T then why is he dancing around GI Bro?

Come on Book, you hang on the Sucka! That’d be like if the Rock just went ‘If ya smell what the Rock is cooking’ without the drags or pauses

Ric’s ‘with a tear in my eye’ promo was after the Rumble though...

It’s actually a sad stat that just over half of the Rumble winners win titles

No Morrison segment for the escape spot!? He did it as much as Kofi dammit!

Sorry Greatest Royal Rumble is not canon for me

This Stat Attack has taken far too long

I’m okay with Mike Rome but couldn’t a woman have announced the Women’s Rumble? Where’s Lillian at!?

NAOOOOOOOMIIIIIIIIIIIIII GIRL WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?

That hair is amazing as well

I know you can’t say it, but we all remember that Benoit won the rumble in the first two as well

Was...Bianca wearing earrings on her entrance, she looked like she was taking them off

Billie actually had the right idea, can’t be in the match until you enter the ring, it’s clever stuff

That tank did not look like it was meant to turn that direction XD

It actually surprises me every time how tall Shotzi is, I always imagine her short

Billie no...not with Shayna

The piped boos are highly unrealistic to boo even a heel Toni Storm

Shotzi eliminated and then horrible singer Jillian comes in? Urrrrgh, Bad Singer Jillian was terrible

Wrestling wise she hasn’t missed a beat though

Billie’s surprisingly being a highlight here with actual narra-OHMYSHITITSVICTORIA

Gear was a bit meh but Victoria definitely can still go

Oh Peyton the purple looks good on you, and her Widow’s Peak was not bad at all

Ah, good for Santana, for a moment I thought it said Santina and got a very bad chill

Damn Liv, Speed Machine!

Ooof, the betrayal is real Billie

THIS IS MY BRUTALITY!

Somehow I’m genuinely upset by every elimination so far, good job!

Aaaaaand then they got rid of Victoria and brought on Charlotte to immediately take out Rhea -_-

That was a clever move from Bayley but damn Ruby landed hard

Are we seeing a Bayley/Peyton team? Or is she just eliminating the Riotts for revenge for Billie, but also Liv Nooooo!

Torrie now, eh okay

Ouch for Dana

Lacey...no, this ain’t working

Poor Peyton, her elimination was a side chapter

And we missed Bayley’s elimination!? For Shame

Mickie! Good to see ya! Aaaaand being beaten by Charlotte...

Nikki Cross is back too! Hopefully they find a good story for her

Alicia Fox? I guess she sobered back into the good gra...R-Truth? No

Oh yeah, Humberto is a thing

Jerry shut the fuck up!

The 24/7 stuff was super unnecessary, we did not need to take focus off this match

Lacey eliminating Mickie, rude.

Dakota should’ve gotten more time, she barely lasted a minute

Reginald again deserves better

See Tamina vs Rhea would be exciting...if Tamina was booked better

Naomi’s chemistry with Bianca is really insane right now

Lana *reminded of her feud with Shayna and Nia* Also Lana *goes for Rhea*

That was a hard tackle on Alexa by Rhea...aaaaand she’s eliminated mid ‘transformation’ a bit worthless for me

Road Warrior Ember Moon! And right into the Eclipse that’s the good shit

Baszler probably shouldn’t have eliminated Lacey story-wise

The Betrayal is real for Tamina as well

What’s with the crazy camera cuts!?

Nia eliminating Baszler? Nah...

Hold on Cole, baiting Nia over the ropes isn’t a ‘tremendous elimination’

The betrayal is real for Lana too, Nattie sure shrugged off that double assault

I get that the narrative is that Charlotte has beaten both Bianca and Rhea before, but to hang against both of them after already being in a match and hanging on from two apron attacks was daft. Stop making her super strong, she’s mega talented yes but giving her the Brock Lesnar energy does her no favours

That close call though with Rhea and Bianca was great, need more spots of two wrestlers about to be eliminated at the same time

The final bit of chain wrestling too was great, that’s what you need at the final part of a rumble, the mini-match

I had Rhea as my win prediction but am more than happy for Bianca, who was my second choice. Winning at No. 3 is great and her emotional promo just gets her more over. Bianca vs Sasha’s gonna be wild too

Overall the Women’s Rumble was good, most of the women got shine and there were a few mini stories too, do wish that more time was given to some women and that Sonya was in the rumble but the returns were good and most of the eliminations got me good

Miz talking about guaranteeing a championship run like he didn’t lose the last cash-in and didn’t have a chance to cash in previously this night when Drew was ‘reeling’ from the barricade spear.

I reiterate that I wish Sonya was in the rumble, but do like her endorsement of Bianca

Again, this 24/7 stuff is wrong place and time right now

Last Man StANDing Match for the UniVERSal Championship

Cole, there is Champion’s Advantage. Triple H vs Michaels Last Man Standing, neither men made the 10 so Trips kept the title, 17 years ago. Royal Rumble 2004.

See, this is where a Finisher Spotfest works, because it’s not about pinfalls it’s about keeping people down

The camera switches are not doing good on this portion of the side of the thunderdome

Yes, attacking the knees, this is the Cerebral ‘rope breaks with his pinkie finger’ Owens I like to see

Ooof the Golf Cart, a la Kane and Stadium Stampede

Why is this training area just like a second arena

Lil’ running ref in the background

Right into that conveniently placed mini-ladder

Not the forklift! Think of Judy Bagwell!

Oh that curtain is the thing Becky took a photo of! I mean she was always gonna be backstage

Corey before the match ‘there must be a winner’, Corey after Owens went through the stage LED ‘The ref should consider stopping the match’

Did the Ciampa move there to stand up

I don’t think you’re allowed to use a Ref Bump that way

Then the Second Ref restarts the count and stops at 5!? If this doesn’t come back next SD it’ll be a misstep

It was a physical match, not the best I think the finish brought it down. The problem is that KO has lost 3 times now and the last time is a botch finish, and we can’t have him lose again - the poor guy needs a win

ON THIS DAY, I SEE CLEARLY!

I will say this immediately, revealing Edge and Orton as 1 and 2 beforehand was a terrible idea, just because you don’t have a live crowd doesn’t mean the people watching from home can’t be surprised

‘Number 3 is the worst number to draw on average’ - Belair just won at No. 3

Ali at 4? Then went after Edge and not Orton?

Sami, just don’t get in Orton’s face

Refs what are you doing? No rules in Rumble, where were you with Nia and Shayna with that logic

‘What does Shin need to do to be more successful?’ - for one not face AJ Styles, he is still a tag, US and IC champ as well as a RR winner, that’s quite successful

Carlito finally shows after the Legends Night tease and yes those are some abs

So...Randy’s just sleeping with this knee injury

Big E enters with some snappy camera angles again

I was hoping for more Ali - especially since Ricochet came immediately after - buy angry E was nice to see

Wait is that Elias’ entrance? Where’s the guitar strum?

Priesty, wonder if this is his main roster call

What DJ leaves his equipment on stage anyway?

‘The biggest star in the world in the music business’ - for real?

‘I’ve heard of flying squirrels but flying bunnies!?’ - Corey you need to watch Tokyo Joshi Pro, they got a flying sugar rabbit

To quote Ross Tweddell, MMMmmm Riddle...does not do it for me

Stop with the camera cuts I beg of you!

Mayor of Knox County!?

Ricochet eliminated by Kane, le sigh

The betrayal is real for DBry

Big Elim for Priesty though

‘Now it’s a Royal Rumble’ - reminder that Edge is a KOTR winner too, and that Nakamura is the King of Strong Sty-oh and Corbin eliminated him :/ what was the gauntlet about if you’re gonna Corbin him?

Otis’ new gear is slick

aaaaand Corbin’d again

Big Dom Fuck im Uhhhhhh Spinebuster’d

Damn he got him though

Dang that bounce sound from DBry

Bobby no why you gotta do Dom like that!?

Hurricane back from his Gangrel crossing and disposing Sammy Guevara’s broken body in Elite Deletion to do another rumble

One of these days, he’ll hit that Chokeslam and shit will go wild

Christian! This time getting the more emphatic reaction

Oh that smile, that hits you in the chest cavity...then Riddle ruins it

Rey comes in and WWE made him an advertisement ¬_¬

Edward James Omos what are you doing? well...I know what he’s doing, IC feud between AJ and E

Edward James Omos fuck you for eliminating Rey

The betrayal is real for Shamu

Cole how did you know it was Seth before his entrance hit?

I don’t think we were supposed to pick up Shamu welcoming Christian back but that was sweet

Then finally BWOAR

And Bwoar eliminates Cesaro, what was the point of his push? (it’s because his contract’s nearly up isn’t it?)

Again with the camera switching

Seth No! And where’s the boos pipe music!? DBry was a heavy favourite, that would’ve caused heat

Can’t believe Mmm Riddle lasted ahead of DBry

I didn’t forget about Orton, but the finish was good, that Orton tease got us good

It was a decent rumble, in hindsight you could tell Edge was winning given how they put express focus on Michaels winning at number on in the stat attack, Edge being face in peril for the first 10 entrants and Cole reminding us how long Edge has been in there

I don’t at all hate the end result, though I do question whether it was the best choice in the long run. Edge had his rumble win returning from injury already and throwing more legends at Drew does imply a heavy lack of depth in the current roster. Edge didn’t really need the win, but I’m not disappointed in him winning

The Men’s Rumble itself wasn’t as good as the women’s I don’t think, a lot of favourites of mine were unceremoniously dumped out quickly, any layered storytelling didn’t get enough time and it did feel a little by the numbers, almost a microcosm of modern WWE booking

Overall it was still a decent PPV, happy with the winners of the rumbles and that’s mostly all we need from a Royal Rumble. The Road to Wrestlemania starts here

[somuchbetterthanthat]

Look at me unable to shut up about soulmates. Like, literally. This is so long it should probably be on ao3 but also? i started on tumblr so you’ll get all the typos, sorry not sorry.

Jonah appears on Jon’s throat when he is eight years old; he probably wouldn’t have noticed, if his grandmother hadn’t raised his chin and frowned in a quiet, pensive way and asked: “Is that why you’ve been so agitated, Jonathan? Have you met him?” 

Jon has no idea what she’s talking about until he’s staring at the elegant, old-fashioned name on his skin in a mirror. He thinks of Mr Spider, and a cold, terrified chill runs down his spine. Can monsters have a first name? Is this a promise or a threat? Is it even linked at all? 

His body shakes badly, and in an unusual display of affection for both of them, his grandma pats his hair and sits him up her lap. 

“There there,” she says, and her voice is gentle. “No need to fuss, Jon. Whoever Jonah is, he’ll be good to you. Soulmates always are.”

*

Georgie appears barely two months after they’ve met; he wakes up one morning and it’s right there, on his hipbone. Maybe it was here before. Jon doesn’t spend a lot of time inspecting his body. 

The next time he sees her, Georgie’s grin is wide and warm and she hugs him just a bit tighter than she usually does. “Oh,” he says, and she laughs and says “Oh, indeed. Guess we’re stuck together, eh?”

Jon’s heart is hammering in his chest. He hugs Georgie a bit tighter, too, feeling overwhelmed and quite stupid. “What a bother,” he says dryly, and it means the world that Georgie just laughs harder and doesn’t let go. 

He’ll be good to you. Soulmates always are, had said his grandmother. Jon barely thinks of Jonah, these days. But now he’s got Georgie, and he thinks he definitely wants to be good to her. 

*

Well. He tries, at least. 

He’s pretty sure he does. 

When she says, “please Jon” tired and angry, he realizes that, maybe, being good to Georgie means stepping out of her life for good, and does just that, telling himself it doesn’t feel like losing a part of himself. 

*

“Did you know,” Elias Bouchard says slowly, at the end of Jon’s job interview, “that the Institute was founded by Jonah Magnus?”

Jon feels a speck of irritation cross his mind; of course he’s known. He read everything  he could about the Institute before applying here. Anybody googling the Magnus Institute would know, it’s one of the first line of its wikipedia page. 

“Yes, of course I do,” he says, and it comes out rude and disdainful; he winces, but Elias Bouchard only looks amused. 

“I didn’t mean to offend,” he says with the shadow of a smile. “I think that you’re going to fit just fine in our Institute, Jon. May I call you Jon?”

“I, er -- yes,” Jon blinks, startled. His past interviews have never left him with the impression that it should be so easy. “Does that mean --”

“The job is yours, if you want it,” Elias nods. “I can have your contract ready for next week.”

“Ah, uh -- good,” Jon says dumbly. “I mean -- Thank you, Mr Bouchard --”

“Oh, please,” Elias waves his hand; “Do call me Elias. Everybody does.”

“Right,” says Jon. “Elias.” 

(It feels -- odd in his mouth. Elias’ smile stays bland and polite, but his eyes fall on Jon’s throat, just for a second, before moving back up; they look piercing and hungry and pleased, and Jon leaves as fast as he can, his skin itching.)

*

Jonah Magnus being his soulmate becomes an office joke the moment his colleagues spot the name on his throat. It’s hilarious, you see, because Jonathan Sims never seems to leave the Magnus Institute, married to his work and to the place. Jon rolls his eyes and lets people talk. As far as teasing go, this one is mild enough not to be too bothersome and, besides, it’s not like he’s actually ever met his Jonah. (Not like he really wants to, when he thinks of what happened with Georgie.)

(And if, sometimes, he grows curious and look up as much as he can from the elusive Jonah Magnus, well.) (It’s not like anybody can see him do so.)

*

“So, are we going to talk about it or --” Tim says, staring quite obviously at the name on Jon’s wrist. 

Jon hates the way his cheeks flush. “I’m sure there are plenty of Gerard out there, Tim,” he says primly. “Besides, I don’t think chatting about soulmates is any way relevant to a good work environment --”

“I mean, it is sort of work related if your soulmate is Gerard Keay from the statements,” Sasha points out, and Jon stares at her like she’s thoroughly betrayed him as Tim laughs. 

She gives him a sheepish grin but still high-fives Tim when he holds his hand up. Jon scoffs. 

“We don’t have to talk about it if Jon doesn’t want to,” Martin snaps behind him. 

His tone is unusually biting and Jon is taken aback for a moment. He really didn’t think Martin of all people would defend him on this particular subject. The man is probably the sort of sappy and romantic person that thinks finding his soulmates means a happy ending. Jon, of course, knows better. Still.

“Right,” he says. “Thank you, Martin.” 

Sasha and Tim exchange a glance; now they’re looking properly chastised. Jon brush his fingers against Gerard’s name, and pretends he isn’t just a bit hopeful that this is Gerard Keay, and that somehow, it means he’s not as dead as his research has led him to believe.

*

“Jon,” says Martin in a rush when they scramble up to move far away from the wall which is starting to break right in front of their eyes. “There’s -- there’s something I think I should definitely tell you, I think, before --”

He doesn’t have time to finish his sentence. In the midst of everything else, Jon quite forgets it too.

*

It takes him three weeks of forced bedrest to realize there is a new name just above his heart; he stares at it for a very long time in the mirror, unable to think of what to do about the familiar, terrible handwriting of Martin Blackwood scribbled on his chest. 

*

Jon is still laughing, stupidely relieved, when Martin says: “Also you’re my soulmate. And I know I’m not yours, but I mean, since you want honesty --”

Jon’s laughter dies in a cough. Martin stares at him with wide eyes like he can’t believe he’s just said that, cheeks flushed bright red and chin  stubbornly up, and Jon opens his mouth, closes it back, and then he says “oh.”

“Yeah, so, I’ll just. Be. Going back to work, now,” Martin mutters. “Unless you want to, to accuse me of anything else or --”

“Martin,” says Jon, a bit helplessly. 

It would be so easy, to say, you’re my soulmate too. But he watches Martin’s tense posture, the way he’s looking at everything but Jon, and he remembers Georgie. The words die in his mouth, and Martin says, voice too high: “it’s alright, Jon.” and flees the room before Jon can figure out what to do. 

*

Jon tells himself it’s best not to tell Martin. Martin deserves someone who can be good to him, and that’s certainly not Jon, especially not -- now. 

Martin thinks that it’s alright to bully Jon into going for lunch now that Jon knows about the whole soulmate thing. 

Jon keeps agreeing, and Martin keeps smiling, and sometimes, Jon’s almost able to forget how hellish everything else in his life has become. 

*

He calls Martin first. He calls Martin first as he flees, and Martin doesn’t answer. 

Fair enough, he thinks, a bit hysterically. Jon messed up everything the second he didn’t tell him, anyway, and, and just because they’re soulmates --

*

“Hey,” he says numbly to Georgie when she opens the door. 

Georgie stares at him for a long time. “Jesus Christ, Jon.”

His hip itches. Jon makes a joke he doesn’t recall afterwards. Georgie lets him in, and hugs him tightly. It feels like coming home. 

*

“Is there anything else?” Elias asks. 

Jon stares at him for a very long time. “Are you still lying to me?” he asks; now that he knows what to look for, it’s like he can feel the power tingling in his throat. Elias’ eyes flutter and his mouth curls into a slow, intensely pleased smile. 

“Lying can have very many different meanings,” he tells Jon. “There are, indeed, a great deal of things I don’t intend to tell you until you figure them out. I don’t personnally consider it lying, though you might.”

“I --” 

“Go clean yourself up, Jon,” Elias continues. He sounds almost gentle, and Jon wants to rip his throat out. “We can discuss more about what will need to be done once you’re feeling a little bit less -- shaken up.”

“Fuck you,” says Jon.

Elias’ lips twitch again. 

*

Nikola caresses Jon’s hip; Jon’s wrist; Jon’s heart; she cooes at each name, teases Jon with every single one of them. She lets her thumb lingers on Jonah the longest. 

“Isn’t it quaint,” she laughs. “Do you think he’s listening?”

Jon makes a noise; she laughs harder. “Of course I’m sure he’d like to watch, but he can’t, can he? Oh, but we’ll find a way to talk to him, won’t we?”

Jon doesn’t know when the tape recorder appears; he merely knows he feels faintly relieved when Nikola grabs it and stops touching him, winking at him conspirationally instead. “Elias?” she preens into the recorder. “Can I call you Elias?”

*

“You’re mine, too,” Jon blurts out awkwardly.

Martin slowly blinks. “... What?” he asks.. 

He sounds like he’s been punched right into the stomach, high and breathless, but he’s still holding Jon to dear life, and Jon hides his face deeper into his shoulder, breathing in deeply, and he says, his voice hoarse: “You’re my soulmate too.”

“Oh.” Martin’s voice is small. “Oh. I mean did you -- is that -- where -- I --”

“I’m very bad at being a soulmate,” Jon cuts him off. He’s aware he’s gripping Martin’s too tight. “And I think I’m turning into something dangerous, and there are people out there who wants to kill me, and I need you safe -- Nikola saw -- she saw your name, and I don’t want her to --”

“You’ve -- got my name,” Martin merely says. 

“I -- yes, I’ve had for a -- it doesn’t matter, I’m saying you’re in danger --”

“You’ve got my name,” Martin repeats. 

It’s definitely giddy, now. Jon refuses to be endeared. “Martin -”

“No, no, I get it, danger and all -- but I mean, I mean, it’s been years Jon, literal years --”

Jon never asked Martin about it before; he doesn’t get to ask much more right then. Martin takes a step back, and he’s grinning wide and stupid, and Jon feels his own treacherous lips curl up in answer. It’s not exactly a surprise, when Martin bends down and presses his mouth against his. It’s a terrible idea, an absolutely horrendeous, awful idea, of course, but not a surprise. Jon lets himself be kissed and closes his eyes all the same. 

*

So Gerard is dead.

He’s no less impressive, and Jon feels awkward and eager and flushed. 

“Oh no, I’m er - Jonathan Sims? I’m with the Magnus Institute --”

Gerard stiffens. “Jonathan?” he repeats. 

Jon’s mouth runs dry. He carefully raises his left hand, and the name written on it. “Hi,” he says. 

Gerard looked at it for a long time, and then he huffs a laugh. “God, figure.”

His ghostly fingers meet Jon’s, cool and so light Jon barely feels them. On his right wrist, Jon’s name is written in his terrible, rushed handwritting. Jon’s heart skips a bit.

“Figure,” he agrees, and they both smile dryly at each other.

*

“Be careful,” says Georgie on the phone, soft and tired.  

“Please, don’t die,” Martin murmurs against his lips, terrified and hopeful all at once. 

“Thank you, Jon,” had merely said Gerry, when Jon had agreed to burn his page.

*

Elias stares right into his eyes, and his hand smooths over Jon’s collar; his thumb lingers on Jon’s neck, and Jon feels -- something.

“Good luck,” he tells him. 

“Do you have a back-up plan if I die?” Jon can’t help but ask. 

“You’ve been quite successful so far,” Elias tells him. “I’m sure you’ll be just as efficient tomorrow.”

“I’m glad one of us is feeling confident,” Jon mutters sarcastically. 

“Always, Jon,” Elias smiles, and Jon thoroughly wished it didn’t appease him as much as it does. 

*

Jon dies. 

Jon comes back.

Jon’s alone. 

It’s fitting, of course; Jon’s always been alone, apart for a few years, thanks to Georgie mostly, and he exhausted her into leaving, eventually -- not only once but twice, which has to be a rare enough feat to be mentionned. Nobody likes to speak about unhealhty soulmates, but Jon’s aware that it’s exactly what he is.

Four soulmates, and one of them is dead, the second knows better than to stay, the third is -- the third is so deep into danger than Jon has no idea if any of his words will ever bring him back, and the last never had the decency to show up.

Jon can’t think of Gerry, or Georgie, or, god, Martin;

So he stares at his throat, and looks over Jonah’s name. His oldest soulmate. He idly thinks that maybe they were all right, the ones who spent years joking about Jon being bounded to the Institute, to a man dead for centuries, the one who’d started it all, the one who was probably as much a monster as Jon has become --

Can monsters have first names? 

Jon does. He caresses Jonah’s name and thinks there’s something familiar in the pretentious and graceful way the ‘J’ is written. It’s right there, he muses. At the edge of his mind. The mysterious Jonah --

“Jon?” calls Daisy from behind him. 

“Mmmh?”

“You okay? Basira said -- I mean, you’re getting pretty intense here.”

“Oh,” he says, letting his hand fall at his side again. “Sorry, I -- sorry.”

Daisy looks at him up and down. She looks as tired as he feels. “C’mon,” she says. “I’ve found board games we haven’t played yet.”

*

Jon looks at Georgie and Melanie from afar. He’d never realized, before, what it truly meant to be envious. Jealous. He turns away with damp eyes.

*

“Look, I know we can’t talk,” Jon manages to say. “But something’s real wrong and I just wanted to make sure --”

Martin sighs. He feels so distant Jon’s heart is growing cold just looking at him. “I’m fine, Jon; I’m handling it. Just - trust me, alright?”

“You know I do,” Jon says numbly. 

Martin’s kiss on his cheek is icy. “Thank you,” he whispers. And then, with a little itch breath he adds: “I love you.”

He’s gone before Jon gets a chance to say “me too.”

*

Jon stares at his throat every day, now. He feels restless and ravenous, pulled by something bigger than him, and he knows, deep in his bones, that he won’t be able to resist its call. He’s never been able to. 

“You’re losing it, Jon,” Basira says quietly. Dangerously.

“So are you,” Jon says. He doesn’t need to look at her to see her tense. He is still staring at his throat. “We need to go see Elias.”

“No, we’re not. He’s well proven by now he’s utterly useless --”

“I’m sorry,” says Jon calmly. “I didn’t say it right. I’m going to see Elias, and I don’t bloody care what you or him think about it.”

*

Elias smiles, when he sees him; of course he does. The prison suit doesn’t hide his throat like his pressed collars and ties used to, and Jon reads his own name on his skin without any surprise at all.

“Jonah,” he breathes out, and Elias’ smiles gets brigther, his thoughts melting gently into Jon’s. 

“Hello, Jon,” he says fondly. “Is it time?”

Jon has no idea what he’s talking about.

(Jon knows exactly what he’s talking about)

Yes, he thinks.

Marvellous, Jonah thinks back. We’re going to be so good to each other, Jon. Just wait and see. 

[azozzoni]

Apparently I lost the ask this prompt came from. Idk what Tumblr did. Luckily, I write everything down (and I’m sorry for taking like 8 months to write this).

Anon: Filo’s thoughts after the cafeteria scene, when he realizes he finds Elia really attractive and tries to find out if this boy is really that straight/ to get to know him better

*

It was Eleonora’s fault, Filippo decided, that he couldn’t stop wondering about Elia after he’d shown up that day at lunch. He may not have remembered him before, but he certainly did now.

“So,” he said, leaning in Eleonora’s doorway and she didn’t look up from her laptop. “How’s the plan going?”

“Plan?” she repeated, skeptical.

“To set up Elia with my Silvia?” He said it as casually as he could—Eleonora could be annoyingly perceptive and he didn’t want to raise any suspicions about why he cared about how things were going with a couple of high schoolers. He shouldn’t have cared. He should have been above it all.

Eleonora sighed, looking up from her laptop finally. “It’s not. We can’t seem to get them alone together.”

“Maybe it’s just not meant to be,” Filippo said with a shrug. “What do we know about this Elia anyway?”

Eleonora paused, seemingly thinking. Filippo was a little too eager to hear the reply if he was honest with himself.

“Marti seems to see something more in him,” she said at length, “but he’s mostly just immature and loud and impulsive.”

It didn’t sound too bad to Filippo, who was also all of those things.

“So why do you think he and Silvia would even be a good fit?”

“I just want her to get over Edoardo,” Eleonora admitted after a minute, glancing up at him. “Why do you care anyway?”

“I am just trying to make sure he’s good enough for my Silvia,” Filippo assured her, not bothering to mention that he hadn’t been lying when he said Elia was hot. He may or may not have checked out his ass the other day as he’d left too. “May I remind you, you’re the one who told me to talk up this guy I have barely met to my sweet Silvia.”

Rolling her eyes, Eleonora turned back to her laptop. “If you want to know about Elia, you should ask Martino. Maybe a different point of view would help get them together.”

Filippo merely hummed in reply, but he wasn’t thinking of getting Elia together with Silvia, not right now as he pulled up his phone and texted Martino as he turned from the bedroom.

*

“I’m pretty good at this,” Martino said as he held the battery for Filippo, and Filippo laughed.

“At being a film lackey?”

Martino nodded. “I should consider making this my career.”

“I wouldn’t mind having your pretty face following me around all day, carrying my gear, telling me how wonderful all my shots are,” Filippo said, taking the battery from Martino’s hand and replacing the one in his camera. He’d found this particular spot a few weeks ago, overgrown and covered with colorful graffiti, what looked like ruins on the far side, underneath a roadway. He glanced back at Martino, who had his hands on his hips, gazing around the brush-strewn path. “How are things with Nico?”

“Good.” Martino couldn’t stop his smile as he said it, and Filippo was happy for him, for both of them.

“And this plot to match up Elia and Silvia,” he said slowly, keeping an eye on Martino, but Martino didn’t react except to frown. “Any progress?”

“Elia keeps saying he doesn’t want anything serious, and even though Nico and Gio keep trying to say it doesn’t have to be serious, he doesn’t seem interested.”

“Maybe he’s not,” Filippo said carefully. “Have we considered he might be gay?”

Martino laughed, too long, as though the mere suggestion was ridiculous. “Are you kidding?” he asked finally, wiping tears out of his eyes. “Elia? Gay? He always talks about girls.”

“But not Silvia,” Filippo pointed out, a little annoyed that even the idea of Elia being into guys was laughable. Maybe he had it all wrong—after all, he’d done the ‘falling for a straight guy’ too many times before. “Bisexual people do exist.”

“I know,” Martino said, pausing. “I asked Nico about it once, how he could tell that he wasn’t only into guys or girls, how he… decided, I guess.”

Filippo watched him. “What did he say?”

Martino shrugged. “He said he didn’t choose, that he just knew that he liked me, not because I was a guy but because, well…” He blushed and didn’t go on. Filippo didn’t push him, setting his hand on Martino’s shoulder.

“I’m just saying, there’s got to be a reason Elia isn’t interested in Silvia. Has he hooked up with anyone else this year?”

“Not that I know of,” Martino admitted. “Actually, he hasn’t really even talked about anyone since Gio got together with Sophia. Maybe he’s not over Sophia. I didn’t think he was that into her.”

From the little Filippo had heard from Martino and others, it didn’t seem likely, but Filippo didn’t know well enough to comment.

“Maybe he just needs the right person to come along,” Filippo suggested, focusing his camera on a wall in the distance.

“Well, it’s not going to be Silvia,” Martino muttered, rolling his eyes. “But Luchino is half in love already, so maybe there’s still a shot.”

“I could talk to Elia, if you wanted,” Filippo offered, ignoring the way Martino’s head shot to him, eyebrows up. “Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone you don’t know as well. You did, after all.”

Martino seemed to consider the offer for a minute. In the end, he shrugged. “I guess it couldn’t hurt. Nico wants so badly to be a matchmaker.”

Smiling, Filippo shook his head. “Just tell me when and where. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

He was glad when Martino didn’t ask why he was offering because he didn’t have an answer that would satisfy him. He didn’t even have an answer to satisfy himself, but he didn’t stop Martino from texting Elia and suggesting they meet up later.

*

Martino conveniently received a text from his mom, telling him to come home, about five minutes after they met up with Elia at the bar, excusing himself and tossing a glance Filippo’s way before he left. Martino was smoother than Filippo had thought, turning to smile at Elia, who seemed a little confused at the whole situation.

Elia was cuter than he remembered, shrugging off his jacket and shoving the sleeves of his sweatshirt up to his elbows as their coffees were delivered.

“You were out with Marti?” he asked, but Filippo had no desire to talk about Martino.

“Photoshoot,” he said dismissively, setting his elbows on the table as Elia sipped his cappuccino. “He said something interesting, though, about you and Silvia.”

Elia immediately rolled his eyes, sitting back in his chair. “Jesus. I don’t know what is wrong with them. I don’t know how many times I have to say I don’t want to date her before they’ll drop it.”

“Maybe if you gave them a reason,” Filippo suggested, and Elia frowned.

“I have. Plenty. She’s squeaky and annoying and obsessed with that damn radio, plus she’s not that hot.”

“I think she���s pretty,” Filippo said, but Elia made a face.

“Well, you’re gay. You can say that.”

“And you can’t?”

“Not without someone taking it to mean I’d be willing to fuck her,” Elia replied, shoving a hand through his hair as he sighed. Filippo got the feeling he was tired of trying to explain himself.

“Okay,” Filippo said easily, smiling at Elia. “You don’t want to date Silvia. Is there anyone you are interested in?”

For a second, Elia didn’t reply, frowning at his cup. When he didn’t reply right away, Filippo sat back.

“I dated a girl once,” Filippo said, and Elia looked up, eyebrows furrowed, as though he couldn’t fathom the idea. “In middle school, so maybe it wasn’t technically dating, but we called it that. It didn’t last long, a few weeks maybe of eating lunch together, sloppy kisses that I can never forget.” He made a face. “But after we broke up, my friends kept asking who I was going to go after next, which girl I liked. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know really, not until I saw Andreas Rossi changing in gym class. It was like a brick to the head.”

Elia was frowning still. “You think I’m gay?”

“No,” Filippo said easily. He wouldn’t dare to presume anyone’s sexuality. “But if you’re confused, sometimes it helps to talk about it.”

“I’m not confused,” Elia said quickly, glancing up at Filippo. “I like girls.” He paused, swallowing. “And maybe I’ve thought about guys.”

It was a start. He remembered how reluctant Martino had been to even admit that he liked a guy.

Filippo smiled at Elia. “It’s not a crime.”

“My parents might disagree,” Elia muttered, but he didn’t elaborate, meeting Filippo’s questioning gaze. “I’m not keeping it from the guys. It’s just, there’s no reason to tell them. It’s not like I’m hooking up with someone.”

“So if you never find a guy, you’re just not going to tell them?” This was so far from the conversation Filippo had hoped they might have when he’d sat down across from Elia. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, that maybe Elia would reveal some secret crush on him.

Elia shrugged in response, pushing the cup around its plate.

“We could always go out,” Filippo suggested, and he realized what it sounded like when Elia’s eyes lifted to his again. “I mean, I could take you out, to a club or something where you could have no pressure. Nobody you know, no one you’ll have to talk to again, no strings.”

Some people would have hated that idea. He knew Martino would have balked at the idea had he suggested something similar last year, but Elia wasn’t Martino. Elia was watching him with a mixture of curiosity and consideration.

“And you’d come with me?” Elia asked after a minute, and Filippo smiled.

“Of course. I’d never let you go into the lion’s den unprotected. Unless you don’t want me to.”

Elia contemplated the question for a minute before he smiled, the first smile Filippo had gotten out of him so far.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “We could do that.”

Not exactly what Filippo had been planning for when he’d sat down, but he’d take it. It was much more important to help Elia than to listen to his own hormones. And if he caught Elia gazing at him later, looking away quickly, he didn’t mention it. There’d be plenty of time to figure that out later.

[ibroughtthisonmyselfpixels]

SoS 22 Replies

First of all, that post I just reblogged before this? That’s what our Discord chat looked like this past long weekend. There was a LOT of talk about SoS 22, which I am so so so so pleased about, and I’ll embed some of the best parts into this replies post as we go. So, without further ado:

@tiny-tany-thaanos​ replied to your photo “An extended cantata on a sacred subject.”

Oh

My

God

Three emphatic words of terror! An excellent start

@harmoniouspixels replied to the same:

/Oh shit/

I KNOW! I’m so pleased with how the shot came out, I was trying to replicate the other title ca-- oh, you mean oh shit they’re tied to chairs

@toxoplasmajuice replied to the same:

exsqueeze me?

Well, we all know it’s not exactly an ex squeezing them now,

@autistichatkid replied to the same: 

....... ah

Lissa said on Discord in reference to “Lethe: “I’m SO glad you’re awake. We’ve only got a little of tonight...”

Lethe: Hey, you. You're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there 

autistichatkid said in reference to the same or thereabouts:

lethe: who wants to play a game

Show of hands, who wants The Jigsaw Killer vs The Dragonborn

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Lyra: “Now, what’s this game you’re talking about?” Lethe: *back to...”

Lethe you /motherfucker/

autistichatkid said in reference to “Lethe: “Two more people die tonight - but who isn’t up to me anymore....”

whoa im WHAT lethe you cant DO THAT lethe u cant make them choose,,,,, lethe stop murder maybe

Like I said, this Sadistic Choice is one I’ve relished putting into partial play since the beginning so I’m glad it had the Desired Audience Effect. and the desired In Universe effect too, of course

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Lyra: “Let me.” Lorelei: “–w-what?” Lethe: “What?” Lyra: *slightly...”

😬

That sure is the face Lyra is making

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Lorelei: *comprehension dawning* “…want you to go…” *leans back in her...”

👀

That sure is the face Lorelei is mak--*bricked*

@bountifulberries replied to the same: 

ooooooh shit

toxoplasmajuice replied to the same: 

oh SHIIIIIIIIT

Mesh the two together and you get “ooooooh SHIIIIIIIIT”, and that sounds like a barbershop quartet rendition

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Lyra: “I can’t lose Felicity either!!” Felicity: 60.73 Percy: 46.23”

Holy shit Feli!! (Also I'm still ?? if it's her so I can't really react one way or the other rn so I'm just :eyes:)

Feli won!! If she hadn’t had so much murderous baggage attached to that victory, it would be incredible. ...as it is, it’s still incredible, just with extra murderous baggage

Also, this is your second victory, right? After that - one project? 

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Lethe: “…” Lorelei: *hand outstretched, waiting for another sound*...”

I'm??? Feeling things here??? (God if it really does end up being Feli my heart's gonna b r e a k)

💔

@melien​ replied to the same:

As usual I'm in awe because of your writing

??!!?! I’m so pleased!!

autistichatkid said in reference to the same:

okay so im leaning toward lethe being percy still but its gonna be Weird if lyra is like "yeah uhhhhh kill feli" and. lethe Is feli. i dont think it's feli but honestly idk i also dont think lyra is coming to a "decision", just killing time, but yknow weird hypotheticals

Me, literally, to Jack, when you said that hours after the fact: 😬

Jack: If this is about Kasper's current reactions I'm just like "Oh honey, you've got a big storm coming" 

autistichatkid said in reference to “Lyra: “…Okay. Okay. I - ” *sighs, part in dread and part from...”

THEY FREE

They’re not the only ones getting free tonight........

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Lyra: *louder, to be heard over the crying* “Lethe? Something happen...”

*Vibrating with suspense*

NOW YOU KNOW HOW I FELT SETTING THIS ALL UP 

@simstrations replied to the same:

Cliffhanger?!

Fortunately it’s only a very shallow cliff... with a pretty deep pit at the bottom, so win/win

bountifulberries replied to your photoset “Lyra: “Felicity.”

nooooooooooooooooooooooooo

harmoniouspixels replied to the same:

FUCK

toxoplasmajuice replied to the same:

OH FUCK

autistichatkid said in reference to the same:

OH FUCK ME IT'S FELI

I AM STILL SO SORRY IT HAD TO COME TO THIS

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Felicity: *sobbing too hard to even speak* ”

FUCK I CALLED THIS

tiny-tany-thaanos replied to the same:

Jeez, I guessed it right

simstrations replied to the same:

I thought so. This is good

Well, it was her or Percy at this point. Not like y’all had a lot of options :P

melien replied to the same:

This is sooooo intense

Interesting thing about Lethe compared to my other murderers, as you may or may not have picked up on: the murders are a lot simpler in scope. No convoluted set-ups with electromagnetic bombs, no risin poisoning or hypnosis - not even a Wounded Gazelle Gambit. They’re all just things that anybody, with a disability of any stripe or without, can do - partly to make things less painful for the victims, partly to make it easier for Feli to believe she was being kind, partly so that it looks like anyone could’ve done it

...wait, did I already explain this? I’m flying home today and it’s kind of been long so forgive me if I’m repeating myself

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Lyra: *voice breaking as she stumbles over* “Feli- you’ve been - it’s...”

😭😭😭

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Felicity: “W- why’d you come in here? Yo- I - I was being Lethe. Had...”

😭

Jack is NOT even exaggerating here. Per Discord: “Y’all I’m starting to get tipsy and I’m Big Sad as this is sinking in [...] I had the first MMBC where the murderer won and now my contestant is the murderer who won. This is incredibly fitting tbh. Still gonna have a billion crying emojis on the posts tho”

Let’s put that to the test, in fact. Crying count: 4

toxoplasmajuice replied to your photoset “Felicity: “Hey! How-” “Felicity! Thank god, you’re awake. I’ve–”...”

hmmmmmmmmmm

harmoniouspixels replied to the same:

🤔👀

Did y’all doubt Elias

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Elias: “You, you’ve got to send someone up! I don’t even know if it’s...”

OH HELL NO

toxoplasmajuice replied to the same:

HMMMMMMMMMMMM

Y’ALL BETTER NOT HAVE DOUBTED ELIAS

toxoplasmajuice replied to your photoset “Elias: “O-ow–!” Felicity: “Who-?!” Cathy Baines: “Don’t push your...”

CATHERINE MOTHERFUCKIGN BAINES

harmoniouspixels replied to the same:

OH MY FUCJING GOD CATHH FUCKING BAINES

HEAD CHEERLEADER

HOMECOMING QUEEN

PART TIME MOTHERFUCKING MODEL

autistichatkid said in reference to the same: 

oh hi cathy

Lisa, Lisa, you’re tearing me apAAAart!

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Cathy: “Felicity! Hi! So great to finally chat to you in person! I’ve...”

Holy fucking shit

yeah that about sums it up

Jack in Discord: I can only imagine reading this sober bc reading this tipsy is a trip

Clover: im sober but losing my mind so whats the difference

I’m teetotal and I was freaking out all days so here’s my stance on that

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Cathy: “You see… how do I put this delicately…? Oh! Have you ever...”

Oh my /god/. Oh my /*god*/

(Also may this just be the essence of Cathy, you are absolutely nailing her character here and I am Living for it)

I’ve already thanked you for thinking so, but thank you again for thinking so!! 

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Cathy: “Anywayyy, I didn’t just call to let you know how things’re...”

Oh Cathy you conniving little despair being you

Well done, Cathybot, have a biscuit

Jack: Also I reread a bit and her saying Riverview isn't a swing state? Classic Cathy right there

Fun fact: took me a while when writing to remember what a swing state was called. I think I initially wanted to call it a ‘stem state’ or some shit like that?

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Felicity: “…s-so… so - if I do this… if I… you’ll let Elias go?” ...”

😭😭😭

Crying count: 7

Jack: Catch me get emotional rn like I’m trying not to cry like poor Feli and fucking Cathy being That Despair Btich

Doesn’t seem to me like you’re trying very hard /TEASING

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Felicity: “Y… you are, Elias. You are. You’re my brother, you’re -...”

💔💔

I only wish my brother and I had that kinda relationship

autistichatkid said in reference to “Felicity: “I t- I tried - I tried to pr- protect you as much as I...”

oh god....... oh god

I didn’t even ‘learn’ that Chadrick used his teeth until the actual writing process; I was operating under the assumption he’d used a knife too. Fuck you for giving me the worst ideas at the best times, Brain

oh jesus the first time i read thru that i read "im sorry for LIVING" instead of "im sorry for lying" and i. didnt even question it. jesus fuck

D:

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Felicity: “–y- h- huh?” *realizes the hand in hers, looks up* “W…...”

😢

W......

Crying count: 8 (single tears count)

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Felicity, stumbling to her feet: “W- we are? You’re… really–?”...”

Lyra is? So good? I love her so much. And Feli (and Lor and her side)

THEY ARE ALL SO GOOD THOUGH. HOW DID I MAKE THESE

toxoplasmajuice replied to your photoset “Lorelei: “A- any luck?” Lyra: *through the door* “Yeah, there’s one...”

eden lee: you're all talking at once! / lorelei, lavandar, percy: *all talk at once again*

See, the difference is that that time they were all saying the same thing, which makes them much easier to be understood, and furthermore,

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Lorelei: “Lavandar!!” *grabs her hand* “We gotta go!”  Lavandar:...”

!!!!

autistichatkid replied to the same:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

EVERYBODY IS SCREAMING

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Lavandar: “B-but what go- good will I-” Lyra, from inside the car: “A...”

😢

Crying count: 9

melien replied to the same:

It's heartbreaking and I want to give them a big hug but I had a feeling it would happen

I’M NOT GOING TO LIE THOUGH MELIEN IT WAS A VERY CLOSE CALL WITHIN THE LAST  CHANCE ROOM FOR A SEC THERE. Eden Lee went first and their two Rant About Dark Rooms in a row bumped them up by six points per, and Lavandar did less interactions in the same amount of time but fortunately she was just ahead enough at the start of the day that a well placed Discuss SLR Cameras was enough to get her ahead, and I would’ve been happy whichever one of the two won but 

but come on having the one Lorelei confided her Melody backstory to win was A GREAT BONUS

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Lyra: “-so that’s about the size of that.” Lavandar: “G- god… fuck, no...”

1) I’m feeling the suspense of this 2) The driver is a mood

I’ve been getting a lot of Lyfts over the course of this holiday, and in fact I was up here when they had that strike - I feel worse for Lyft and Uber drivers now than I ever have before, and I already felt pretty bad

toxoplasmajuice replied to your photoset “Cathy: “–it over to Safehouse F!  “…no, I don’t care how, break it in...”

give her HELL lyra

harmoniouspixels replied to the same:

KICK 👏🏼 HER 👏🏼 ASS 👏🏼

Lyra: *kangaroo kicks down Cathy Baines with her leg, falls flat on her ass* CALLBACK HOLY FUCK

toxoplasmajuice replied to your photoset “Cathy: “I’ll be damned. Melody Buonarroti, back at last…” Lorelei: “C-...”

FUCK

harmoniouspixels replied to the same:

Oh shit!!

Bollocks! 

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Lyra: “Enough!! Leave everyone else out of this!! If you’re gonna fuck...”

Cathy what does that mean...

Cathy: you heard what I said little boy

toxoplasmajuice replied to your photoset “Cathy: “Are you so atrociously naive that you think it’s possible to...”

hey "cathy" go *be a good girl* and spontaneously combust please :)

Would that I could make her, Clover, would that I could make her

harmoniouspixels replied to the same:

😬

Teeth Grits

Jack in Discord: Again, you nailed her characterization. It perfectly illustrated how Junko influenced my writing on her and I was living for it It was a tone shift, but like I said, perfectly in-character and I loved

:D

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “*crunch* Lorelei: *gasp* Lavandar: “Oh god-!!”

😨

toxoplasmajuice replied to the same:

SHIT

autistichatkid replied to the same:

😬😰

Lyra picked a fight with the wrong arch enemy

@tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “Cathy: “…fine.” *Lyra drops to the ground, wheezing, taking in as...”

go eat cottage cheese and saltines in the dark, you triscuit looking bitch

I should note that Vidcund was coming back from Greece for much of this rigmarole. It’s, perhaps, very telling that her first and only “on-site” reply to this was the kind of threat that an angry Zeus would make.

autistichatkid replied to your photoset “Lyra: “…alive.” Felicity: *burying her head in Elias’s shoulder,...”

😭

toxoplasmajuice replied to the same:

1. 😭😭😭 2. my poses!

harmoniouspixels replied to the same:

😭😭

Other people’s crying counts too! Crying count: 15

autistichatkid replied to your photoset “Lyra: “Hey, Lor, new plan. Can you guys go on without me for a bit?” ...”

flower, gleam, and gl

Lavandar is Rapunzel under UV Light

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Lyra: “…Feli?” Felicity: *covers face to hide a fresh wave of tears,...”

💔

I mean Felicity’s concern isn’t? Invalid?

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Felicity: “You… you didn’t have to do a- any of this. Not for me....”

Fuck 😭

Crying count: 16

toxoplasmajuice replied to your photoset “Lyra: “C’mere.”  Felicity: *stiffens at her touch* “Lyra-?” ...”

theres somethign in my eye

harmoniouspixels replied to the same:

Oh fuck 💔😭

Hm. Do I count things being in Clover’s eye? ... eh, let’s do it. Crying count: 18

(I keep count, but I can’t talk - while writing this part I was fucking bawling)

Clover: im going to die because of this

Jack: Also Catch Troye Francis in the club obstructing Justice (But again, Cathy)  I know I say that but Dub I’m living for this finale. It’s so good

Honestly if Troye HAD obstructed Justice and they had won the Francis MMBC a whole lot of shit might not have gone down and it’d be a worse universe

autistichatkid reblogged your photoset and tagged:

#YES BABY YOU ARE!!! YOU ARE IM AAAAAAAAA

autistichatkid reblogged your photoset and tagged:

#😭😭😭😭❤❤❤ 

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “Lavandar: “Lorelei, I’m home!! I’m home, y- you’re home, we’re -...”

❤️😭

autistichatkid reblogged the same and added:

THEY’RE HOME 😭❤😭

Crying count: 25

melien replied to the same:

This is freaking cute ;_;

melien replied to your photoset “Lyra: “Hey, lovebirds, heh - Eden Lee’s still here.” Lavandar:...”

❤

Thanks for being so understanding about this, melien 

autistichatkid replied to your photoset “Lavandar: “Oooh, l- look at that one! It’s all sparkly, like your...”

😭

Crying count: 26. BRB building an ark

bountifulberries replied to your photoset “Lyra, as sirens rise in the distance: “You… sure did.” – End of...”

!!!!!!!!!!!!

harmoniouspixels replied to the same:

Oh shit 👀

toxoplasmajuice replied to the same:

AAAAAAAAAAA

SO MANY GHOSTS WENT UPSTAIRS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FOREVER THAT NIGHT

melien-simspiration (so basically melien) reblogged your photoset and tagged:

#yay birthmarks! #they look great and I love the naming choice

Thank!!! 

harmoniouspixels replied to your post “Murderers, Expectations, and the Unintended Benefits”

I’ve just finished reading this and?? Holy shit??? I’m so impressed with all that you put into this and the fact you were able to guide me into doing things (releasing Elias, asking about Veronica’s exes), without me being suspicious at all. Granted Elias was asked via a disguised anon, but the exes question (at least back then) I didn’t bat an eye at, and just figured it would be a good point of Veronica’s backstory. I’m just still so shook, and you deserve all the praise for this!

Part of me still feels like I don’t, but I’m trying to shut it up because?? AAA??? All this reception???!!!

Jack: Also if I’m remembering the post right, I do agree with Cathy’s death in Baines being... lackluster, unfitting for one of her caliber. I think it was part to do with my mental state at the time and wanting to leave simblr, so squashing a loose end like that felt right at the time. However, as I re-evaluated my stance and stuck around, that decision still haunts me, and I so desperately wish she was still alive on the surface for me to do stuff with. (Especially given my political interests and my quasi-real world events interlaced with the MMBC-verse, I would’ve had a field day writing for Cathy had she lived and won the congressional seat she was running for)

However, the continued existence of her robots have given me some... ideas, to say the least >:)

I have already evil grinned back at you, but here’s one more for the road: >:)

autistichatkid said of the same: 

finale / analysis thoughts: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA im. i loved that so fucking much oh my god

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA