#CHAPTER ONE OF ICHOR IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION

[maybeamiles]

Hey guess what i'm doing

[baepsaetan]

Banner by @thebannershop​

Summary: In a futuristic age where a person can be coded and inserted into a new body, the rich can live forever. Born to a wealthy family, Jin expects to live life at a lofty and uncaring height. His expectations go awry when his body is murdered and a small gang steals his ‘stack’ and resleeves him in a criminal. Thrust into a gritty, neon world far below his life as an immortal, where death can be Real, Jin will discover truths that challenge his perceptions and make him wonder what - if anything - immortality is worth.

Chapters: pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3, pt. 4, pt.5, pt. 6, pt. 7

Genre: Altered Carbon Fusion, Science Fiction/Futuristic, Slow Burn, Smut, Angst, Murder Mystery

Warnings: Shifting PoVs (primarily Jin), minor character death, abuse, torture, gangs, drug addiction, drug use, references to depression, body dysphoria, animal death, swearing, smut in future chapters

Length: 7.4k

//

The gang he’s been kidnapped by apparently doesn’t own – or at least use – a car, not even a terrain-exclusive one, and they set off on foot from the little apartment complex the men live in. He doesn’t know what time it is, and the sky’s too clouded to give much of an indication, but it’s too light to be night. Mid-afternoon, maybe? There are a fair few people out, and they wind through a series of side streets, cutting by buildings that are tall but also sagging, as if the weight of keeping themselves and their hundreds of thousands of inhabitants upright for half a century or so is becoming too much. Jin considers running, or calling for help, but Jungkook had none-too-subtly shown him the pistol he’s carrying before they’d left, and he hasn’t put it away, either. Besides, when they break through the side roads into what seems to be a main street, Seokjin has other things to think about.

He’s lived in Triptych all his life, but it might be more accurate to say he’s lived in Glass Harbour, instead. The neighbourhood – built in the ocean a short way from Triptych’s shoreline – is of course isolated from the rest of the city, but Seokjin has never realized just how removed he’s been, too. He’s been outside of Glass Harbour plenty of times – even been to the Curve, where they clearly are, given the general disrepair and the lack of multileveled streets – but never without at least several guards and a friend or two, and never really on the streets, either. His family owns several hovercars that simply coast up to whatever place he wants to go; walking the pavement is for the poor.

Triptych is a sprawling city of towering steel and glass buildings, shining pathways of cable and artificial stone arching across various levels, letting citizens walk in the sky as they move through their lives. Far younger than the Bay Area, it is a city of technological advancement and drive, of lights and steel and laws written by a Meth chequebook.

The Curve is an exception to that rule. In the early days of its inception, Triptych had been built on what was essentially two hills, with a deep cleft between the pair. That inconvenience was offset by the location – close to the shore, and, more important for the three Meth families who founded the city, perfectly situated next to a wide ocean shelf on which they could begin to build their Glass Harbour. As the city grew, all soaring heights and chrome exteriors, the gap between the two hills was overwhelmed by the buildings going up on all sides. A deep dip in the urban landscape, it received less sunlight and fresh air than neighbouring districts, and so was forgotten by the Meths who poured money into construction and maintenance.

In a city devoted to worshipping the future, the Curve is a neighbourhood left in the past. There are no networks of raised walkways to direct people through the area. Everyone too poor to move elsewhere operates on one level: the ground.

And there are apparently plenty of those people. The trek through the narrow, pitted roads, Namjoon ahead and Jungkook behind, has revealed more citizens than Jin was even aware lived in Triptych. They have to push through several crowds, hassled people in impatient groups shuffling outside a building or at a transit stop, waiting for things and headed for places he can’t conceive. Even though it’s raining, a miserable shower that sinks straight through his sweater and makes things worse, almost no one has an umbrella, or even a hood. They just accept the rain.

In the same passive way, they accept the haze smearing across neon-bright signs set up far above their heads, the pollution distorting ads for any number of cheap looking products, most of which Seokjin can’t guess the purpose of. Everyone walks quickly, eyes down or on their companions, and accepts – or ignores, it is hard to see a difference – the constant noise of the advertisements. The disembodied voices fall down from the signs and the smog like the conversations of chain-smoking angels, never quite fully understood, too distorted to catch.

“Get a… Won’t regret the…”

“…seat in the back and…”

“…like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Buy now!”

The noise and lights and people crash over Seokjin with a weight that feels more physical than mental, and he guesses these people can’t even afford neural implants or ONIs. That must be why all of the ads are out in the open instead of transmitting into the ocular displays of specific consumers, targeted based on purchasing history and tendencies. He’s only experienced op ads once – no business would dare bother a Meth without permission, and he’d just tried it for fun, at Taehyung’s suggestion – but even that hectic mess of visual heckling had been less overwhelming than the blaring sounds and sights assaulting him now.

And then there’s the sheer struggle of getting where they need to be. Jin actually finds himself grateful for Namjoon. The pink haired man seems to have no issue cutting through the crowds, and, deliberately or otherwise, usually clears enough space for Jin to get through in the process. A few times it isn’t quite enough, and, unused to the broad-shouldered sleeve, Jin jostles against a passerby or two – with irritated responses – but without Namjoon, he probably would have drowned trying to get just a few steps, let alone miles.

When they finally slow, approaching the mouth of an alley off the main street, Jin’s feet are aching. The once white sneakers they gave him have seen better days, and they’re even worse now than when he put them on more than an hour ago; it feels like the three of them walked through enough trash and mud to build a small mountain on the way here, and his shoes reflect that. Namjoon and Jungkook had been oblivious, but he’d spent most of the trip trying (and failing) to navigate puddles, wrappers, cigarette butts and things he couldn’t identify and didn’t want to.            

That, coupled with Jungkook almost literally breathing down his neck the entire time, gun in hand, and snickering whenever Jin slipped or winced or hesitated, has put him in a mood that could only charitably be called bad.

There’s also the whole being kidnapped and forced to return to the spot of his death thing.

“Will you stop that?” he demands when a foot knocks painfully against his heel for the umpteenth time, whipping around to glare at the (presumably) younger man. Jungkook puffs out his cheeks and smiles, a small overbite becoming evident with the little grin, and the innocent expression is infuriating.

No Meth would ever leave a defect like an overbite alone. So far as Seokjin is concerned, it screams poverty. And this drudge had the nerve to kick him! Repeatedly! And grin about it!

If the irritation boiling under his skin is any indication, he’s probably turning an unattractive shade of red, but before Seokjin can make what might be described as a mistake and take a swing at Jungkook, Namjoon intervenes. “Leave him alone, Kookie,” he orders. “Go watch the entrance, make sure no one’s going to start anything.”

Jin is dismally certain that the chances of that are low. He’d tried making eye contact with anyone even remotely respectable in appearance on their way here, some half-baked notion of escape in his head, but very few people even looked at him. Those that did were quick to look away, and he hadn’t been able to tell if that was the fault of the intimidating sleeve he’d been stuck in, or Jungkook looming over his shoulder and scowling, or something else altogether. Regardless, the small number of passersby who happen to glance into the alley all suddenly remember important engagements elsewhere and rush off, leaving Jin stranded.

Better to just bide his time. Or something that sounds similarly calm and planned and definitely not freaking out.

“So,” he says, looking around the alley, and falls silent. It’s certainly not a glamorous spot to die in, or even breathe in. Jin literally can’t imagine why he would have been here. There’s dirt and garbage on the ground, like a carpet of very dubious design that releases an odor he suspects hints at the more disgusting uses this alley has been put to. A bunch of graffiti is scrawled on the walls, senseless black and red scribbles splattered across the bricks like blood and ichor. Someone even rigged up a holographic bit of disruption, a horrifyingly grotesque man, rail thin and warped, who flickers into being (and scares the hell out of Jin) when they get close enough to activate its sensors. The image is deteriorating, pixels missing here and there, and the whole figure wavers in and out of existence erratically. However, that doesn’t stop the holographic from going through a series of obscene gestures, the least of which is giving viewers the finger.

Namjoon is staring at the wavering vandalism. “Do you know,” he asks suddenly, “how hard those are to make?”

“Ah…” The random question takes Jin off guard, and besides, graphics have never been one of his interests.

“It’s hard. Not if you have a computer program to do it all for you, but the program would cost too much for an individual to own.” His heavy eyes flick to Jin and then back to the figure. “Most individuals. So, someone built that, piece by piece, in some kind of limited process, and they did a decent job. It looks good.”

“Good,” Seokjin repeats doubtfully as he stares at the holographic, wondering if there’s something he’s missing about the distorted piece. Or maybe Namjoon’s just a nutcase.

“Not the subject, obviously,” snorts the nutcase in question. “But the skill is there. Good rendering, skin tones… The facial expressions are on point, too. Took time, took effort, took knowledge… and it’s sitting out here, in some random alleyway, just to fuck with whatever police were here to investigate your murder. See, the mechanism is latched in place? The police didn’t even bother to get rid of it, and since they’re not around anymore, it’s not getting seen by anyone.”

This doesn’t exactly feel like small talk, but if Namjoon is trying to make a point, it’s joining the advertisements prattling above Jin’s head, lost in the haze. He rolls his shoulders, impatient, and moves away from the holographic. A few seconds later it dies away. “Look, I got killed here and I don’t care about the quality of some stupid vandalism. You dragged me to this place, now tell me what’s next.”

Taking that with a mouth that twists a little, Namjoon pivots, points to a spot on the ground. It is conspicuously less filthy than any other spot. “You were found around there. This alley is a dead end, so the guy who killed you was probably close to the entrance when he did it… unless he was supposed to meet with you or set up an ambush or something. Just… try to picture it all. See if anything comes back.”  

Compliant, if not exactly confident, Jin looks around more carefully, willing himself to ignore the unpleasantness and stench and focus on the specifics instead. He trails his fingers over the cinder blocks with only a slight grimace for what his touch smears through, studies each line and scuff in the grime at his feet. There are no windows opening up onto this alley, just featureless walls rising up on either side, blank and disinterested in the little drama taking place between them.

"When did I get shot?" he asks.

"From the police files we, uh, liberated, around two in the morning."

So, it was dark when it happened. If they're close to Ringwanderung – Jin can't be sure, he hasn't seen the building so far and he doesn't remember it's exact location from the last visit he can remember – the roads probably weren't deserted. People would have heard him if he screamed. But did he scream?

The rasp of the ground is rough against his fingertips, and when he pulls them away, they're blackened with dirt. Just a bit of dirt, no blood, even though this is the spot he died in. The police apparently did a good job cleaning up; if his faulty memories are at all accurate, he bled like his heart was trying to water the dry ground. But what else is there? Night time...

He's starting to feel strange again. Disconnected, although this time it's not the sleeve that he's floating away from. No, this time the body stays with him as he detaches from the present, forcing his mind into the treacherous, bleak path of the shadowed past. There's nothing there that's solid. It's disintegrated even more than the vandalism Namjoon was so intrigued by. He has – feelings. Impressions. Maybe-might-if-could-be's that float through his head and come apart when he tries to grab them. Words lost on the tip of his tongue.

He didn't scream. Jin is suddenly certain of that. He didn't scream for help, because the man – threatened something. Threatened someone? Someone – Jin loses it. But the man – in his mind, the man is the holographic, twisted and broken and ominous as he looms up in the darkness, with no solid features to nail in place. He veers in and out of focus, and his words are as intangible as his features. Something about – about wanting, about plans collapsing, about frustration and fear, about defiance, about no no no no you can't–

With a gasp, Seokjin shoves himself up from his crouch, staggers into the wall and stays there, needing the uncaring surface to keep him upright. His chest is aching, fear closing ghostly fingers around his throat, the sensation a faded pressure. This time Namjoon doesn't try to help, but neither does he rush Jin or demand an update. That makes it – easier – to get his breathing under control, but it does nothing to help the simmering pressure bubbling under his skin. He's clenching his jaw, he realizes numbly after a moment, and can't seem to get himself to relax as dissatisfaction upbraids his self-assurance.

All of that, and he still has – nothing. Absolutely nothing. A bunch of gibberish, even less useful than a holographic placed in the middle of nowhere.

He hits his fist against the wall he’s leaning against, more of a tap than a punch, but Namjoon’s eyebrows lift at the aggravated display. “I’m guessing that means you can’t remember anything important?”

“I’m trying,” he pants. “But this is just – garbage and more garbage. I can’t put anything together.”

“Tell me a bit about it.”

“What’s there to tell? I – I got threatened by the guy, I think, and he wanted something. I don’t know if I gave it to him.” Jin coughs, trying to clear a throat that’s gone dry. “Just to be clear, that’s all maybes. I don’t – I can’t tell if it’s real or not.”

“What did he want?”

It’s not purposeful – or at least, Jin’s pretty sure it’s not – but there’s something extremely aggravating about the other man’s persistence. “Yah! Are you deaf? I told you, I don’t know!”  

Namjoon is silent for a moment, a muscle ticking in his jaw, before he turns away. "So, we're at more than one dead end," he comments, and though Jin catches an attempt at a smile at the corner of his mouth, he sounds dispirited. Not angry. Just… tired. Jin is surprised and relieved that his outburst hadn’t elicited a violent retaliation, but there’s something dimly reproachful keeping his throat tight as he follows the other man to the end of the alley. When Jungkook looks over inquiringly, Namjoon shakes his head.

"Let's go inside the Ring and see if there's anything we can pick up there." Passing a hand over his face, for a moment the pink-haired man doesn't follow his own command, just stands unmoving on the sidewalk. It lasts for all of two seconds, but it still makes discomfort sink seething hooks into Jin, somewhere low in his stomach. Obviously Namjoon is struggling to hold himself together, and that doesn't seem to speak well for Jin's immediate future. Or for any of their futures, actually. When he glances at Jungkook, the boy is biting at his lip and watching his leader from the corner of his eye, presumably just as concerned, albeit for entirely different reasons.

Dropping his hand, Namjoon gives himself a little shake. As though they were the ones dawdling, his voice sharpens as he snaps, "Let's go."

True to his capturers' words, the Ring is just a few buildings down, though the street curves sharply upward and had made it difficult to spot the sign from further down the way. The sign isn’t garish, which is surprising given how many eyesores Jin has seen on this street. Three neon rings surrounded by a fourth, all of them differing shades of blue, with Ringwanderung shot through them in a dark blue approaching black. The sign probably looks quite beautiful at night. The Ring itself is a squat building of modern black and grey angles, shorter by two or three floors than the ones on either side of it, but it's also wider than either of them. If Jin remembers correctly, it has several underground floors, too, where most of the drug dens and prostitute rooms are. Above ground, funny enough, was for above ground deals, like dancing, hanging out and eating, drinking alcohol and using some of the milder intoxicants available. Very PG 13.

There aren't all that many people frequenting the club when they enter the Ring, including security. That's not entirely a surprise, given the time, and Jin pauses just inside the entrance, letting his eyes adjust to the slightly dimmer setting while they scour the red and black couches scattered across the room. He's half-hoping he'll see a familiar face, someone to run to and beg for help – several of his friends, particularly Taehyung, like to come here, enjoying the establishment’s slight edges. Jin’s come to realize those are pretty laughable. What’s edgy about a building complete with a complement of security guards?

Although, now that he thinks about it... his friends might be wearing familiar faces, but he isn't. What would they do if some random stranger came up to them and started ranting about needing help?

Not react quickly enough to save him from being shot by Jungkook or Namjoon, Jin's pretty sure of that. Even Taehyung, with his special empathy implants, would probably take too long.

Both of his escorts are tenser in this closed setting, anyways. Somehow Jungkook manages to inch even closer to him than when they were walking, and Namjoon doesn't let the same amount of space grow between them as he leads the way through the lounge, deeper into the club. "Keep your head down," he mutters to Jin. "I don't want someone recognizing the sleeve."

Jin stops dead and hisses, “What do you mean, someone recognizing the sleeve?” Seconds later, as Namjoon regards him tight-lipped and silent, a horrified revelation stumbles into his mind. “You – I’m in – You put me in someone’s body illegally? Someone who lives here?”

“Now’s not the time to get into the details, Seokjin,” Namjoon says from between clenched teeth.

“Not the time!” His voice leaps like it’s trying to high-five the ceiling. “Where is – who is – how –” It hadn’t even remotely occurred to him that they might have put him in a sleeve with an owner who wasn’t either dead or locked away or had moved on from this sleeve. He’d just – Meths took their sleeves from others if they took a fancy to one, sure, but that was an exception, not the rule. Most of them were lab-created, or, if biologically based and from parents, at least genetically enhanced. The point being that they were new, and not… He’d known this was a used sleeve, the impulses proved that, but he hadn’t thought that the previous user might still be around! Or their friends!

Namjoon must see the alarm taking over Jin and tilting precariously towards a full-blown meltdown, because he steps closers, grabs Jin’s arm. “Relax, okay? I promise, we’ll fill you in on everything, but not right now.”

He stares wildly into Namjoon’s dark eyes, and they feel like locked doors with bright OPEN signs above them. A lie and a disappointment. “Just tell me. Are they dead? The person who had this sleeve… Did you kill them?”

The fingers wrapped around Seokjin’s arm tighten to the point of pain, but the other man doesn’t look away. Doesn’t hesitate when he says, “No. They’re not dead. Even if they deserve to be. We’ll talk about the rest later.”

Seokjin is released and his captor turns away, leaving a throbbing ache in Jin’s arm and a colder hurt in his chest. He doesn’t know if Namjoon is lying to get him to go along with this. Is that why this body is so bruised and battered? Because whoever had worn it before ‘deserved’ it?

“Like I said,” Namjoon tacks on, voice cool, “just keep your head down. Don’t look at anyone for too long. I don’t even think he went here that often, only a few times.” He starts to move away.  

"A few times is a few times too many! Maybe you should have thought of that before?" Jin gripes, unmoving, sweat pouring down his back and making his shirt stick to his skin uncomfortably. The wary looks he darts at the club inhabitants don’t reveal anyone particularly interested, even despite his outburst, but he feels like a target’s been put on his back. "This face isn't exactly indiscrete. It practically begs for attention. You should have grabbed me a hat or something."

Jungkook shoves him in the back, the gun's barrel pressing a painful indent into his body, but that doesn't stop Jin from seeing the way Namjoon grimaces, his head falling, accepting the blame as yet another heavy burden.

The dance area is even emptier than the lounge, with only a few groups of people standing here and there, drinks in hand. The small cluster of booths off to the side are completely empty. A trio of girls are swaying slowly in the middle of the floor. They can't be dancing to the music – there's a quiet but fast electro-pop song playing in the background – and he can only assume by the relaxed way they move that they've been sampling some of the wares that the Ring offers. There's a bar at the back of the room that might sell such wares, a long counter with a bunch of stools manned by a sole crewman. He's not exactly the friendliest looking person Jin's ever seen, with a bristling black beard and eyebrows so thick they could have crawled down his chin and formed another beard. He’s also giving them a once over.

Apparently failing to notice those alarming traits, Namjoon heads straight for the counter. "Arven," he says warmly.

“Namjoon!” the bartender calls back, just as warmly. “If it isn’t the bulletproof boy. I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.” When Jin moves to get closer, interested in spite of himself, Jungkook grabs his sweater, pulls him back with a warning look.

“They’re not talking about shit that concerns you, Meth,” Jungkook says. “Just some business deals. How ‘bout you just stand there and look good until they’re done? I bet you’re good at that.” The acerbic words sound a bit awkward, like the kid is trying them out for the first time, and after Jin stares at him for a few seconds, Jungkook flushes and looks away.

Jin mumbles, “I am good at looking good,” and yanks his sweater out of the other's grasp. Still uncomfortable, he scans the room, observation skipping over several people before he freezes. One of the girls on the dance floor, a red head in a floral green summer dress, is watching him, her gaze glassy, and he smiles nervously before looking away.

“Uh, Jungkook?” he whispers. “I think that girl recognizes me.”

“No, she doesn’t know…” The strangled way his guard’s words die might have been funny, if the girl wasn’t making her way over.

“What do I do!?”

“Get her to go away!”

“How?”

Jungkook doesn’t come up with anything before the girl is in hearing range, and a quick look at his wide, panicked eyes makes Jin suspect it would have taken awhile, anyways.

"Hey, Siwoo," the pale girl breathes in an uncomfortably familiar way when she halts in front of them. Her eyes trail across his face, noting the cuts and bruises, but she makes no comment. Is it the norm for this sleeve, or just not something you talk about in public? "It’s so weird to run into you now."

Jin casts a pleading look at Jungkook, but the young man just edges closer, hand under his coat and definitely cradling his gun. Seokjin doesn’t dare turn around enough to see if Namjoon has noticed their interaction, but surely he won’t be shot? If he can just fumble around and pretend to be who he’s not? And if he can’t? Is he – or the girl – going to be killed just because he can’t act like a thug? The unbidden thought sets his teeth on edge, and Jin tries to pull his face into something tough and removed.

"Uh, hey," he says, wondering if she's high enough to miss any discrepancies in his mannerisms. Her expression is spacey enough to give him hope. "I had something to pick up nearby, and I, uh, figured this place had a nice ring to it, you know? Hahaha." Her delicate brows furrow, button nose scrunching, and he thinks that maybe Siwoo doesn't use puns too often. Or maybe it was the way his laugh had spiked seventy octaves, nerves punting it up like a pro-kicker over a goalpost.

Before Jin can devolve into panic too much more, the perplexed expression dissolves, replaced by a knowing smile. "You picked up some of the new stuff from Kali, huh? Bet it's got you going." She steps closer, looking back at her friends suggestively. "If you shared some with us, I bet we could really keep you going, Siwoo."

"Ahaha..." His cheeks flaming red, Jin wonders if spontaneously combusting would destroy his stack, or just this sleeve. He also wonders what kind of guy Siwoo is, that girls are willing to make that kind of suggestion, and so boldly, too. The thought does nothing for his embarrassment. "I, uh, can't. Not this time. I’m meeting with, uh…"

A stroke of genius hits, sweeping away most of the mortification. Namjoon said that whoever this body belonged too, he deserved to be dead. Who else could that be, than one of the gang members targeting Namjoon’s group? If that were true… If this girl knows Siwoo, then maybe she knows something about that, too. And if he can find it out…

Jin slaps his forehead, thickens his voice further like he’s seriously intoxicated. “Damn… You know the one. He’s the guy who…” Jin leans closer, pitches his voice lower. “Well, you heard about that Meth that got murdered the other night? It’s the guy who offed him.”

She jerks back, alarmed even in her haze, and gives Jungkook a wary once over. Her voice lowers to a hiss. “Keep your voice down, Siwoo. Fuck, you’ve had too much if you’re talking about David. ‘Sides, that’s your guys’ business, not mine.”

“Yeah, yeah, David, sorry.” He tries to wave an airy hand, but it’s shaking too hard, so he runs it through his hair instead. The motion doesn’t do much to soothe his racing thoughts. “This shit I’m trying is just, uh, really heavy.” She nods slowly, but Jin doesn’t think she’s quite convinced. He tries a different tactic. “Actually, honestly, I’m just kind of pissed off. I heard David got a bunch of creds or something from getting that guy, and he isn’t sharing it with me. But I still gotta grab shit for him?”

As he hoped, the promise of gossip eases her a little, even as a confused frown slopes her mouth. “I heard it was a lot, too. Something big or something, everyone up top was freaking out. Someone said Rafa smiled when he heard. It’s weird he wouldn’t share, when I heard you’re the one who helped him out.” Jungkook moves, a sudden twitch, and she eyes him again. Jin could have kicked him in the shin. Abruptly losing interest, the girl shrugs. “Like I said, it’s not my business. Besides, you never introduced me to your… friend?” Jin stiffly nods. “Who is he? Have I seen you before?” That to Jungkook directly, and with her attention diverted, Jin is free to look at his guard, too.

He hadn’t realized it before, too engrossed in the pretence, but Jungkook might very well be having a heart attack. The kid is shaking and sweating, pink staining every visible patch of skin, and his head is ducked so low his chin might as well be fused to his throat. Jungkook stutters something that’s completely incomprehensible, before clearing his throat. In a very small voice, he says, “Probably. You probably saw me. I – I’ve been here before.”

Such a novel experience as his captor floundering should really be enjoyed, and Jin is spitefully ready to sit back and let Jungkook continue to struggle. It seems no more than justice.      

Unfortunately, impatient or too drugged to hold on to a train of thought, the girl shrugs again, not even interested enough to get a name. “Alright. Anyways, Siwoo, are you going to the Meth party? I’ve never been to one and I hear it's going to be wild! Some of the other girls were invited last week, but since that Meth got messed up, not many of you guys are coming here to throw around party invitations. So far none of you assholes have asked me to go. Plus I doubt any Meths are gonna be sending out invites, either."

The girl is definitely working another angle, and Jin blinks rapidly, trying to keep up with the information. "The party? Uh, I haven't decided yet. It's... when is it again?"

"Christ, Siwoo, maybe you should lay off the stuff for awhile. I heard everyone from your group is invited. It's, what, a few months from now? Remember? If you feel like going, you should hit me up; I want a pass."

"A pass?"

"Duh. Not like the Meths are gonna let just anyone stroll into Glass Harbour, especially not at a party like that." The redhead rolls her eyes. “Can’t have people like us dragging in mud, right? I want to –” One of the girls still on the dancefloor calls out a name, Natasha, and she glances back. Her friends make beckoning gestures. Natasha waves at them and looks ruefully at Jin. “My friends are calling. I’ll see you later, okay? Anytime. Hope stuff works out with you and David… And seriously, let me know if you’re going? Or if you just want to hang out…” She trails away without another look at either of them.

Beside him, Jungkook inhales violently. Within a few seconds Namjoon arrives at their side, face calm but eyes demanding as they turn to Jungkook. The brown-haired man hurriedly says, “I think it’s fine. She’s a friend or something, not someone that knows this asshole is missing.”

“And Seokjin didn’t…” Try to clue her in, Jin assumes Namjoon is asking. He lifts his chin, outraged by the question.

“No,” Jungkook replies, “nothing like that. Actually, he – I think he pretty much fooled her.” His tone could not have been more grudging if he’d made a concerted effort, though before Jin can smile at the faint praise, Jungkook cuts that pretty short. “She was so high I think a pole with a face stuck on it might have fooled her, though.”

“Hey! I’ll have you know that while Jungkook was imitating the pole he just mentioned, I was finding out things! A lot of help you were, by the way,” Jin adds with a sour look at Jungkook. Yeah, he definitely prefers the kid flushing in embarrassment instead of wearing a smug grin. At least the former is cute instead of insufferable.

Namjoon forestalls anything either of them might have added. “You can tell me about it when we leave. I talked to Arven, mostly business, but I asked him about the murder, too.” As Jin begins to frown at that information, he continues. “Not about you specifically, just in an indirect way. He didn’t know much about it. Said something about an unusual amount of Meths coming here, and not just thirteenth sons and daughters, either, but even a few heads of houses.”

He looks so excited by the news that Jin feels a little bad to let him down. “That’s not that weird. There are trends, right? Ringwanderung has been gathering popularity for awhile now; it’s not odd that some of the heavy weights would eventually stop by. It’ll be a thing for a bit – maybe a while longer than usual, since I got, uh, since I died – and they’ll move on to other things.”

The way Namjoon’s shoulders slump is distracting enough for Jin to ignore Jungkook’s comment about flighty bastards. Hands hovering and waving awkwardly, Seokjin says, “Well, it might be important. Maybe it’s not a coincidence that I got hurt just when they started coming here.” It’s definitely a coincidence, so far as he’s concerned, but it’s nice to see the gang leader take a deep breath and straighten a little.

“Okay. Well – we’ll figure it out. I’m guessing being here hasn’t struck anything in your memory?”

Jin looks around the Ring. He remembers it well enough, but just from night and weekend sprees, hazy and splotched with drugs and alcohol. There’s nothing immediate about the memories, nothing that says he’s about to stumble onto a massive revelation. Hesitantly, wanting to give it his best try, he spends a few minutes wandering around, his two captors tailing him, but by the time they circle back to the dancefloor, he hasn’t found anything. He doesn’t really want to go downstairs, either, not with this company. After a few more silent seconds of observation, he shakes his head.

His companion sighs, but less heavily than the last time. “It’s time for us to go, then. This was a long shot, anyways, and the less time you’re in the open, the better.” When he gestures, Jin precedes him out of the dance area, leaving the pop music behind, with Jungkook trailing them both.

They enter into the lounge again, soft lights a distinct change from the darker illumination of the dancefloor, the private conversations a pleasant background noise. Jin tunes them out; he’s attempting to calculate what else he has to offer, since this trip has been essentially a bust. Was the Meth party significant? Who was hosting it? He can’t remember being invited to one recently, but that could be his amnesia in general, or maybe he just wasn’t friends or acquaintances with the host. The latter was admittedly much less likely – there weren’t all that many Meths, especially ones influential enough to host parties that normies could be invited to – but if the whole gang was invited, that had to be important, right? Only, what could it mean? What…

“Ah, we’re gonna find something tonight! I can feel it!”

“Sir, it’s barely the evening and we just got here. Besides, we’ve been here so many times in the last few days. What makes today different?”

“It’s a feeling! I’m absolutely positive someone here knows something.”

“…sir, you’ve tried already… Why don’t we just go home…?”

Jin’s concentrating so hard that it takes him a moment to realize that he knows both of the voices coming from a cluster of couches not far from them. When he gawks in that direction, he definitely recognizes the tousled head of dark brown hair just visible above the chair’s back.

A surge of relief hits him, thunderous comfort resonating through his nerves, so powerful that he stops dead and feels tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. Without conscious decision, the name bursts from him, as natural as his own. “Taehyung!”

The gun that’s suddenly jammed against his spine, hard enough to make his mouth tighten in pain, is expected. After all, even as the word had left his lips, he’d regretted it, had wanted to pull it back and give himself time to think instead of showing his hand so early. He’d expected the consequences.

But he doesn’t expect the glacier cold voice that issues from behind him to belong to Namjoon.

“Put your head down, now,” demands the voice he hardly recognizes, and even as Taehyung stands up from the couch and turns their way, Seokjin complies, sets his stinging eyes on the red carpet at their feet. Namjoon snatches his arm, bodily forces him to sidestep away, and Jungkook casually paces in front of them, blocking Tae’s line of sight. “You say anything, you even breathe wrong, and you die. So does your friend,” Namjoon says quietly, his perfect enunciation of each word somehow more frightening than if he’d been shouting.

“What is it, sir?” asks Taehyung’s companion, and Jin knows it’s Drayton, the Kim family’s personal driver. Probably here to drag the man home on his father’s orders, but roped into whatever TaeTae is doing.

When Taehyung replies, he sounds miffed. “I thought I heard my name.”

“Really? I don’t think I…”

You did, Seokjin wants to scream, and he wants to cry too, because God, he’s been so alone, and Taehyung is right there. But a new terror is puncturing his lungs, making it hard to breathe, and this jagged fear has nothing to do with the pistol pressing into his back. It has to do with Taehyung’s curious, clever eyes, and the way he sees things that sometimes he shouldn’t, and the way he wants to help when he shouldn’t, too.

If Namjoon had been just a little slower – if Jin had been just a little louder – his friend would have seen him, maybe even recognized him. And Jin would have had just enough time to see something like bewildered joy bloom across Taehyung’s face before Taehyung, one of the best people he knows, was shot to death, and who cared if it was just a sleeve death? Jin is walking proof that the experience is a horrible one. And the possibility hadn’t even occurred to him until after the fact.

The thought makes him nauseous, literally nauseous, and Namjoon practically has to drag him through the lounge and outside. The air’s still stifling despite being outdoors, and when Seokjin looks up all he can see is buildings and grey haze. No sky to speak of. Yet somehow the rush of people is still present, going through their day as if they don’t have an ashen weight over their heads. It’s smothering and does nothing for the frenetic pounding in his chest or the queasiness in Jin’s stomach.

A harsh shove by Namjoon sets him into a stumbling walk, the gun falling away with his captors hemming him in on either side. After a few blocks, the pink-haired man asks tersely, “Do you think we’re being followed?”

Jungkook says, “I haven’t seen anyone. No… I don’t think so.” There’s a beat of silence between the three of them that’s so profound it almost blocks out the sounds of street traffic, the noisy chatter of the people they’re flowing through. Jungkook breaks it. “We shouldn’t have brought him. Or we should have made sure we had control of him. We shouldn’t –”

“I know, Jungkook. I know.”

Silence again, deep and miserable and difficult to walk in. Jin doesn’t know what to do, what to say. The constant fear that’s been lapping at his feet or swamping over his head is proving too much; his lips and fingertips are tingling, but Seokjin is numb to everything else. His feet slog through a sticky puddle of someone’s discarded drink without pause, and the clang of his foot hitting the mostly empty can doesn’t even make him glance down. It’s hard enough to just keep his legs moving.

They cover several more streets before Jungkook says, small and unhappy, “Sorry, hyung. I should have kept a closer watch, anyways. I got… distracted.”

“…Nah. S’not your fault. Just bad luck or something. Maybe we’re cursed.” It’s a joke that falls so flat it’s almost 2D, and when Jin’s eyes drift over to Namjoon’s tight face, the man doesn’t really look like he’s joking, anyways.

They’re off the main road now, passing through an industrial zone with cars lining both sides of the street, but few people are in sight among the clusters of squat, stained buildings. Jungkook kicks at the chain link fence they’re walking next to, making it rattle. “It’s not bad luck. It’s him. Why’d you have to go do something stupid like that, huh?” he abruptly demands of Jin.

Jin, grateful to be more or less ignored until now, hesitates to answer. Jungkook’s question isn’t even that mean, more frustrated than anything, but Seokjin can’t tear his gaze from the cracked pavement they’re walking over. Truth is, he’s been wondering the same thing himself. Had he really almost gotten Taehyung killed? All for – what? A second of relief that he wasn’t the only one in this horrible situation? He’d already concluded that no one could help, at least not quickly enough, but he’d called for his friend despite that.

What does that make him?

Once again, Namjoon intercedes on his behalf. Sort of. “It doesn’t matter now, Kookie. We got out without anyone important catching on. All’s well that ends well. A fairy-tale finish.” The bitterness is absolutely impossible to miss by the end, but when Jin risks a look, Namjoon isn’t directing the vitriol towards him. He’s wearing an indrawn expression, fine brows caving together, and Jin doesn’t think it’s the encounter with Taehyung that has him so upset. Or at least, that’s not the only thing.

Namjoon catches him watching, however, and his brows draw down even more. “Jungkook’s right, though. It was stupid. What did you think would happen?”

He waits to feel the sharp prick of defensiveness, but it doesn’t come. “I… I didn’t really think, it just… came out.”

The ice that was in Namjoon’s tone before has crept into his eyes when he says, “Next time – if there’s a next time – you have to think. Because I know this situation sucks, but I’m not risking my crew for a Meth who puts his mouth before his head again. Next time…”

“I get shot. I die. Yeah, I get it.” And he does. He really kind of does. So much so that it does nothing to the leaden mass sunk into every atom of his body.

The tight hollowness in his throat is only growing, a gaping emptiness that’s threatening to climb into his head and plummet into his chest. There’s regret, sure, regret for saying anything, regret for not saying enough, regret that he’s here at all, but the fear is a wrung-out towel, strangled and nearly dry. All Jin wants is to be somewhere else. It’s hard to look away from both Jungkook and Namjoon, since they’re on either side, so once again his gaze finds the ground.

Which is why Jin completely misses the woman, dressed in dark clothes with a black face mask, who suddenly steps out from behind one of the cars ahead of them. There’s a gun clutched in her hand. He misses the way she lifts up the weapon and aims – right at Jin.

He doesn’t miss the crack of the gun going off, though.

[thomasstalsworth]

Too Old ... Moray III

[ Prior Chapter ]

The tinny, silver bell aloft of the pub’s door jingled as Moray entered.

A plump young woman sat behind the counter nearby. She looked up from her paperback as he came inside, the first golden shavings of dawn following him. Her voice was prickled with a tease, thumb resting on the page of her novel to keep her place, “... Fancied a wee morning swim, did we?”

Moray was soaking wet.

The water from Stormwind’s harbour still swelled his form, clothes and particularly his boots riddled with the briny fluid. If the sensation was ill-comfort, the odor was worse. While he had not sustained any injuries himself the prior evening -- prior being only hours past at most -- he did still endure quite a sweat. A mariner’s pungent, personal odor of effort combined with the spume of so boisterous and busy a harbour as Stormwind’s own?

It was no gardenia or rose blossom, that was for sure.

But it had been necessary to take the long -- long -- way around. After he was forced to abscond from the scene of his would-be pirate massacre, there was a flurry of attention to the harbour from the Stormwind Guard. He could not blame them, in truth. It was quite literally their job, and he had quite literally murdered two men and rendered the rest unconscious. Well, he and the Tidemother. While he was not a man of great providence in legality -- at least those legalities of such merit that were not so forthright as maritime law -- he could presume that ‘the Tidemother’ was not going to be listed as an accomplice, nor sought out with warrant.

He shouldered the blame. Despite being quite assured of the moral excellence of his actions, he knew that the legal system of the lands of Wrynn would not look so kindly.

So, he took the long way around. After determining that his gnomecorder was shot, swollen with the ichorous waters of the harbour, Moray had hid within the underbrush of the wee beach head he swam to. It was not comfortable. Especially not given the chilly Spring evening and his entire self being soaked to the bone. But he had to wait out the worst of the patroller’s bells and lanterns.

And so he waited.

And waited.

… And waited.

It took until nearly the first warm tones of sky to mark the false dawn that whatever investigation was underway had concluded. At least, concluded enough for him to be able to swim around the southern dockheads and make his way up -- surrepetitiously -- to the pub wherein he was staying.

The Modern Ox Pub & Tavernhouse.

Moray looked down to his soaking wet body and the mild puddling of seawater that his boots issued forth. A low, lung-worn sigh escaped him. “It would appear so, ma’am,” he spoke simply, looking up to give a tight-cheeked smile to the young woman running the front counter of the pub. She looked as if she was fighting to hold back the at-his-expense smile and laughter clearly bubbling from his ridiculous appearance.

He did not blame her.

“Uh-huh. Well nobody else is up, as you can see,” she informed with a wave of her free hand. The pub was distinctly empty. Not quite an uncommon state considering it must have been just before six in the morning. “-- nobody is up yet. May want to grab one of the tubs now before the hangovers start to run hot and everybody comes clamoring down for beer and bathwater.” The young woman spoke with a humor to her voice, a sort of lilt that -- perhaps once upon a time -- Moray would have found quite endearing, cute even.

But he was aching, soaked, tired and laden with a purposeful mind.

In reply, he merely gave a grunt of appreciation, nodding to the woman once. She arched a brow, but returned to her paperback as he began to slog past, leaving a trail of seawater across the floor of the pub. While he made his path along the well-worn, shiny wooden floor she spoke up again, “-- And it’s Amelia, not ‘ma’am’. I’m not that old and I’m not even married.”

Moray paused in his step, halfway across the empty pub with all it’s chairs upended on the numerous tables. Fine, aged wooden fractures of carpentry that spoke to an older styling of local house and tavern. He inhaled, head a bit spun from exertion and a lack of sleep.

“Amelia, right,” he replied quite flaccidly, turning back and continuing on to the bathrooms.

The Modern Ox Pub & Tavernhouse was an old, old institution.

A charming, wood and brass sort of public house that had withstood the test of time in Stormwind proper. It had exist for years before even the First War, a worn old symbol of alehouse antiquity for men and women of the working class to gather, drink, and discuss the troubles of the world. It bordered the Park District, laid along the canals through a small, blink-and-you-would-miss-it brass studded door. Famously, or infamously depending on if you were an irritated, new postal officer, the pub had no sign. Simply an old, well loved door that served as aperture to something of a time capsule.

When the Orcish Horde razed Stormwind and left nearly the entire city to crumble, the Ox died with it. Yet amidst the ruined stone and scorched landscape, two things survived: the original brass-topped bar counter, and the ancient wooden floors. Both were relics, craft of old Elwynn heartwood and Goldshire foundry metal. The floor was shit, in truth. It was warped in every fashion that could be. The old joke, even before the Cataclysm and the destruction of the nearby Park District, was that the floors were so fucked that everyone walked drunk even before their first pint.

After the construction of the greater Stormwind Harbour, the Ox ended up sandwiched in quite a unique position between the Park and the massive expanse of the harbour wall. Situated in a perfect little side-avenue, it retained its historical precedent and went, largely, untouched. Even when Deathwing himself came and assigned annihilation to the Park, the Ox was untouched. A proper piece of history for the Kingdom of Stormwind.

Moray had always liked the Ox. It was sturdy, smelled of old smoke, wood and good spirits. The notion of the locale had touched him, even as a man of Kul Tiras and her proper, emerald Isle. There was a beauty to the Ox and the providence it held, the perfect middling between old bones and new company. Not to mention it was one of the few places beyond the Isle where he had found a decent pint of grog with lime. Now, he really drank it for the flavor rather than the liquor. The old mariner did not really care for drunkenness. The few times he did indulge in a bout of liver abuse, he had tendency to take the expressway: goblin rocket fuel.

But such meanderings of thought were neither here, nor there. And Moray shook his head as he came into the bathing rooms of the Ox. Cleanse, return to room upstairs, regroup. That was as clear and simple a plan as could be imagined, and he engaged it with whole-heart.

Since he was fully, patently alone in the bathing room of the pub -- a large room reached by corridor past the bar and past the actual lavatories -- he found no cause to take a curtained wash tub. Indeed, he was too tired to even consider modesty. He simply began peeling off his sodden clothing with a ‘schhhlk!’. Profound as his form was, it took some grunting and maneuvering to finally achieve nudity.

Now, the plumbing of the Ox was not what one would consider ‘new’. It howled, screeched, gurgled and moaned after Moray twist the hot water knob. As he wait for the warm, clean water to begin to fill one of the washing tubs, bare ass facing the entry to the bathing room, he mentally reorganized.

What did he know?

The Red Fleet, the horrid conglomerate of faithful, devout pirates who sailed for their ‘Lord’, Abbidas Bonnet, had burned Birch Bay to the ground. The island and its eponymous harbour bay had been the place of berth for he and his Captain, Abighail Atwater. She helmed the Dancing Dolphin, and he stood beside as her First Mate, underneath and by command of the Anchor Trading Company …

The water finally began to pour, a whistling deluge that made the awkward, ill-fitted pipe hover above the tub to wobble to and fro from the pressure. He passed the back of one hand under it to test the temperature -- good. It was hot today. One could never be sure at the Ox.

Captain Atwater had ordered a retreat from Birch Bay while the crew were on shore leave. She had gone back to the burning city to try and rescue the missing crew members that were presumably captured -- or dead. She succeeded. He had gone to rescue her and acted in such brazen fashion that left him swinging his boarding axe at pirate skulls in the midst of the town square. There was a bonfire of .. corpses? Corpses and spent wood and --

Moray hissed as the water steamed, eliciting a pain from his hand. He grunt and twist the knob back a few inches in adjustment. The tub continued to fill.

Atop a horse, a damn brave mare from the outskirts stables of the city, he had lunged into the town square seeking his Captain. He found her, helped hoist her aboard the would-be warhorse and helped fend off the swarming pirates so they could make their escape. As they began to gallop away, he felt …

Something. A whisper of a memory of pain and heat in his chest, like a bad dream you were unable to forget. Something that had not happened, yet you could have sworn it had.

Only later did he learn from his Captain that he had died.

With the tub finally full of hot water -- but not too scorching -- he stepped inside. The volume of his person was extensive, and some water ‘slosh!’ed out of the washing tub as he sunk into the comfort of it. A low, belly-full and earnest groan of satisfaction left his salt-laced lungs.

He had died.

The Reverend -- or so the devout of the Red Fleet called him, second in command only to Abbidas himself -- Norric Hayhurst, burned him alive. The foul, portly and sunken man had stood at the helm of the great corpsefire, commanding the rapacious invaders. Apparently, in some branching pathway of the great Travel, the Reverend had seen fit to burn him alive with a holy fire. Moray had, as he was later told, gone up like kindling from the inside out, still riding the horse as he tried to ferry his Captain to safety outside the city.

But Captain Atwater had … moved the pieces around.

With some power of sorcery that was beyond his measured mind to understand, she had gone back through the expanse of the Travel and changed events. Done … something … to leave things as they had been but with the lacking of his demise.

And so he had lived, and so there he was, worn and aching and alive in a washing tub in the back of the Modern Ox Pub & Tavernhouse, having so recently worked to play folly to the men who called the Reverend their leader.

He did consider using the soap that was hung from a rope by the washing tub. But --

A grimace ate up his face, even as he felt such comfort and contentment from the hot water. The soap was fucking disgusting. Just because he was a sailor, a navyman by trade and profession for decades, did not mean he had no appreciation of personal hygiene. No, communal soap was not his destiny. Time had been worked to manifest his continued existence. To disparage such effort with hairy, publicly shared soap would be a great disgrace.

So, he rose from the pleasure of the hot bath and stepped out, dripping wet and nude, to walk down the toiletries closet. To those patrons of the ‘tavern’ portion of the Ox, there was a certain allotment of towels, soaps, napkins and other mild services. He sought out a fresh bar of soap.

They had escaped the burning of Birch Bay.

It had been a venture by the skin of their collective teeth -- in no small part due to the actions of Captain Atwater, quite literally in his own case -- but they survived. Only a few of the crew were lost, and so confirmed as such. Otherwise he had no doubt that the Captain would have gone back into that burning, ruined and plundered harbour city for even the chance of saving one more.

But they escaped. Losing the pirate’s chase in the foothills and then the forests of the island beyond the city, they regrouped with the shivering, terrified green-gill crew. To their credit, they had done as ordered and absconded immediately. No doubt it saved them all, fresh recruits to the Company as they were. And at least then they could say with truth that they had survived an attack from the otherwise mythical Red Fleet.

The Captain tore open a portal for them to Boralus, and so on carried the Travel.

Fresh soap seemed almost to be a pipe-dream. Moray’s chest sank, and he almost was ready to give up the search in the rather well-worn toiletries closet, bending over to unceremoniously present his backside to the large, empty room. But! Far at the back of the closet, hidden behind a trio of folded hand towels, there was a fresh bar still wrapped in butcher’s paper. He retrieved it, turned his eyes toward the sea and mouthed a short, ‘thanks, Mom’.

After Birch Bay came Hag Bay.

The Dolphin and her crew seemed to have poor luck with Bays of any kind, at least as such as were named to effect. Whereas Birch Bay had been -- had, being operative, considering -- a rather profitable mercantile port city, Hag Bay was a more open, neutral and in some ways ramshackle freewater port. But supplies were supplies, port was port, and for all its pomp Hag Bay was normally a rather calm place to lay anchor.

After anchoring off and a bit away from the razor-sharp reefs that made the Bay so hard to reach by common craft -- indeed, Hag Bay’s harbour was primarily staffed by tugboats, tiny sloops or rowboats -- the Captain went ashore. The rest of the crew had some sense of desire to shore leave, but there was not a great deal of shore to the Hag and -- in truth -- it was best time reserved for a port less likely to result in fisticuffs, gambling, or pregnancy.

Padding his sizable, wet feet back toward his washing tub, Moray began to hum a small tune. It was a memorable one for himself, as it set to recollection good memories of his time as a merchant mariner. Times before life became quite so … unique.

The marauders of the Red Fleet came for them in the night. With Captain Atwater ashore and the remainder of the crew mostly on board the Dolphin, the pirates snuck aboard. In retrospect, it seemed as if they quite literally scaled the anchor chain. A bold move, something more out of a paperback, pulp novel than reality. But when you possessed the kind of willpower and devoted action that the devout of the Red Lord did …

They sacked most of the crew, bludgeoning and sapping. But Moray had put up a fight, a proper one. The rest of the young lads and girls were green. A screaming, pyromantic pirate with sharp steel or a heavy cudgel was cause to howl and cry for mercy, if not simply flee. But Moray? He was disinterested in discussion nor in surrender. He fought to the nail.

A small smile began to eat his face as he sunk back into the hot water. He took four or five of them at least before they managed to stop him.

But they did stop him -- and the Quel’dorei that the Captain had brought aboard as a new crewman and sorcerer. Something silenced the elf’s magic and they nearly disemboweled him right there on the main deck. There was almost nothing Moray could do, simply watching and writhing against the pirates assaulting and apprehending him.

He had a gap in his memory then, as no doubt they broke his consciousness with a sap to the neck. But he would have preferred to lose it all from then until his return to Boralus far later the same night. What they did to him …

Moray sunk lower into the washing tub, the soap beginning to foam up in his hand as he ran it over his palms and then along his bare shoulders and chest. The water and the bubbling of simple, clean workman’s soap nearly covered the scars that were only just through the first stages of healing -- all across his body.

A trio of windows sat at the far end of the bathing room. They faced outward from the Ox’s footprint, out toward the harbour and lighthouse beyond. A grand view, in truth, especially for such a hideaway, working class tavernhouse. The view had only grown in time as the harbour was built up and the stature of New Stormwind grew.

He still thought of it as New Stormwind. He remembered coming to the reconstructed city to help train fresh, Wrynn-home naval cadets. That was before Kalimdor, though.

Seated deep in the water, merely his head visible above the soapy, foamed up bath’s edge, Moray cleared his throat. A little wobble pushed his chin port and starboard -- thoughts to discard. There was no time for such introspective indulgences. The men of the Reverend were in Stormwind now, and he had to find a way to contact the Captain without his gnomecorder. Not to mention he had to find out just what the fuck they were doing in Stormwind.

The only question was -- which would he handle first?

@abighail-stalsworth​ (mentioned!)

[bxsh-wxck]

     Piles of research littered his bed sheets as tomes stained brown from their old age;  several of them broken open to pages with diagrams and runes. His trips from the Mageia house were proving helpful as the son of Hephaestus jumped into trying to understand what he was and where his power came from. Topics written on pages and in scrolls ranged from: Pyromancy, Thermal Sublimation, The Four Pillar of Helios’ Law on Solar, Thermal, and Photokitenic Energies---all of them wrapped around him in a circle, while one of the parchments was held up for him to read...

      Archaic mages over the last century have always written the element of fire under guidelines of being dangerous, wildly passionate, or played it off as something the underworld dictated. Very few remember the source of flames, where hope and birth reigned---how it’s energy has been harnessed for the good of man; for change or revitalization. For the sun rules fire, with out it’s heat there would be no flame or warmth. It is true that in the wrong hands any magic can be darkened, however in nature you see the balance this savage, ephemeral energy brings. Every forest fire sprouts new birth, with wild flowers stretching across scorched earth. There is a balance and a place for all elements, in these chapters we’ll begin diving into the healing, protective, and rejuvenating nature of fire and thermic energies, while applying them to practical conjurations....                     ---- page 32 of Conflagration: The Secret Art of Rebirth

                                 2nd HOUR of STUDYING

    “Now if I can control heat and magma, I probably can do fire too?” he spoke his thoughts out loud, whilst searching for another sheet. Ever since his quest, the reality sunk in that things were going to get tougher. His heart was stubborn, as all this magic around forced himself to retreat introspectively. Mistrust was wired tight in Bastion, ever since a young age. What he couldn’t understand emotionally, he traded and trusted with his eyes. Information was is only vice as it had never led him astray, but with magic...there was information but it was only half of the puzzle. The other half demanded intuition; a trust he hadn’t forged yet. 

     When infection invades the body, there are a multitude of options to remedy the problem. From potions, to divine magic the body is a vessel of energy and understanding how energies converge then alter,  it the first step in rejuvenative arts. Fire being the fourth and last element of his tome, explains the advance techniques to apply fire to your healing craft. It is to be noted that fire is volatile, only those who have a broad and unique connection to this source should attempt to harness it....Heat and sickness have correlated since the early documentations of sickness and health. Fevers are the body's reaction to sickness and is your first step in constructing your spell work. Imagine your energy growing, increasing till your body feels flushed---continue to work on harnessing enough heat to the point that nothing other than what you allow in yourself is to be burned from it; from your spark.

         ---page 102 & 103 of Arcana in Restoration: Elemental Disciplines. 

                                 3rd HOUR of STUDYING

    Bastion started practicing breathing, feeling the oxygen in his lungs being pulled then strengthened; each breath increasing his heart rate and warmth. ”Father if you can hear me, know I’m trying...know that I want to be more than this.”  his mind whispered thoughts of desire up towards the heavens. Minutes turned into a full hour where Bastion did nothing but breathed and prayed and forced his mind to call forth every drop of ichor that was felt in his veins. “Come on...” he huffed out, beads of sweat starting to fall from his temples, as his body temperature rose to 103 degrees before the area around his eyes shifted. The space around them warped, diffraction of the air shifting like vapors from the heat he was producing. The spark he was fanning would travel down to his palms, pooling there feverishly... 

       Consecration of this spell work is keeping your spark constant but not ignited. You want the heat from the element but not it’s flames. In this wheel imagine this warmth as your positive, the yin or creation of the element. Where as it’s flames is the negative, the yang and destruction. Fire sways between both birth and death, hope and despair causing it to be the least stable and finicky of elemental healing. Superior elements like earth and water are natural contenders, fire is their outlier. Mastering this technique, is to harness heat to cleanse the body and purge the form---many cases of master pyromancers have eliminated poisons and diseases in history. 

---page 106 of Arcana in Restoration: Elemental Disciplines.pa

 BASTION WICK has learned CLEANSING FLAME/

[zacharybosch]

PLAYING DEAD - chapter 1

wheeeeeee here it is, the sequel to Playing God! which is my vampire AU for anyone who doesn’t know!

i’m also posting this as part of Vampire Hannibal Fest organised by @gleamingandwholeanddeadly!

read chapter 1 of Playing Dead below or on ao3! yayyyy!

Hannibal knows pain, and he knew fear, once. What he feels now is not quite akin to either, but shares more in common than it holds in opposition. It’s bizarre, the way he feels so entirely outside of his body, as though he’s floating four feet up in the air and is gazing down upon himself and all his blood on the beautiful marble floor of his entrance foyer.

He can hear great bells ringing, and the low rumble of huge drums, crashing in his ears like the restless roll of the ocean. The colours of his house alternately brighten and fade around him, and everything blurs, until it doesn’t, and becomes sharp, until it’s not.

The earth moves and shakes around him, and he’s in his kitchen, blacking out and coming to over and over again. The butcher block, he’s being butchered over the butcher block just as he’s butchered so many others before him. This can’t all be his blood, surely, there’s so much and it just keeps coming, filling his nose and mouth and ears and lungs, but then it’s only filling one ear because the other one is no longer attached to his head, and was it always like that? Hannibal can’t remember what his body was like, if he ever even had a body to begin with.

Every second stretches for an eternity and it’s like being born, but also dying, but also living, but it’s definitely like dying now because the Devil himself is looming over him, spilling black ichor on his skin, and Hannibal knew, he always knew that he would enter Hell as a king in splendor, to be greeted by Lucifer and all the legions of the dead.

He inclines his head and spreads his hands and takes a graceful step forwards into night.

***

The Santa Maria del Fiore was older than Will by all of twenty-two years, if he counted from the year that construction began. Counting from the year of completion, Will beat it by one hundred and eighteen. Not that it was a competition; indeed, he’d never even had a chance to visit the Duomo over the years, to compare cracks and weathering and general wear-and-tear.

Now that he walked past it on a near daily basis, Will had decided that it was in fact a competition, and that he was most certainly winning. All credit where it was due: the Duomo certainly looked impressive, but it required a huge amount of work to keep it that way, whereas Will remained damn near perfect with only minimal maintenance required.

It was a shame that Hannibal didn’t get to walk beside Will through the streets of Florence; he would’ve enjoyed it, and could even perhaps have been persuaded to admit that the Duomo’s magnificence was nothing compared to Will.

But it couldn’t be helped. Will had tried to turn him that night in Baltimore, but successfully turning a human was notoriously difficult even under perfect conditions, and given the circumstances at the time it was no wonder that Will had failed. But he would live with the consequences of his failure, just as he had lived for the past seven hundred years; there would be opportunities to begin again, somewhere new, anywhere he wanted. Florence was little more than an indulgence, really. A distraction. Hannibal had spoken of it so often, starry-eyed and staring off into the distance, so it only seemed appropriate that Will see what all the fuss was about. He’d missed the city entirely during the Renaissance, a good portion of which Will had spent in eastern Europe in thrall to the one who turned him. By the time he escaped the clutches of his maker, his taste for Europe had soured considerably, and he boarded a ship bound for the New World and never looked back.

Perhaps he had missed a trick there, in not coming to Florence when it was still the beating heart at the centre of the world. Modern Florence was uncomfortably heaving with tourists, and it seemed unthinkable that Hannibal could ever have loved such a place. The architecture was beautiful, yes, and the history that saturated the place was no doubt fascinating, but the effect was somewhat lessened by the noisy bar on the corner and the hawkers selling plastic trinkets on the Piazza. Probably better for everyone that Hannibal was out of the picture; Will could too easily envisage the countless unfortunate tourists that would’ve met an unhappy end at Hannibal’s hands.

Not that there weren’t a few who were meeting unhappy ends at Will’s hands. But that was beside the point.

Will wended his way through the crowded city streets until he came out onto a market square, no less filled with people but skewing slightly more towards locals than tourists. He had a few things to pick up, but otherwise little else to do that day but kill time. He didn’t like spending too much of his time in the house; it belonged to Hannibal, and was full of Hannibal’s things.

To the enclosed market hall first, for another random selection of food that he thought probably looked like a reasonable meal but which he wasn’t going to eat. Perhaps he’d get some artichokes today; the neat symmetry of the vegetable was pleasing to look at, and counting the leaves as he tore them off one by one would be eminently satisfying. Not to mention, the grocer who owned the best vegetable stall in the market could tell that there was something off about Will, and it amused him to spend too long silently perusing the vegetables just to make the man unsettled.

The grocer, as expected, greeted Will with his usual wary signore, and Will, as expected, smiled and kept smiling and didn’t look away as he gathered up every artichoke the man had in stock.

Then to the second-hand clothing vendor out on the forecourt, for more shirts. Will seemed to be buying shirts nearly every week, and if it wasn’t shirts then it was trousers. He should really find some wholesaler and just start buying in bulk, great boxes full of cheap t-shirts and sweatpants, but the thought of keeping such ugly things in Hannibal’s house was uncomfortable in a way that Will couldn’t quite pinpoint. The house was like a mausoleum, and Will had always had a healthy sense of reverence and respect for death. At least the clothes from the market seller were of a good quality and solid construction, if a little musty with age.

The clothes seller didn’t find Will off-putting at all, and was always too happy to chatter mindlessly in his ear while Will idly inspected buttonholes and counted the stitches running along hemlines. It helped with the verisimilitude, if nothing else.

With his canvas shopping bag filled, Will ambled out of the square and onwards to a nearby public garden. It was as pleasant a place as any to spend the remainder of the day; the people-watching was good, and the noise of the city was muffled by the high surrounding walls and the spreading canopy of the trees.

It had been nearly six months since his escape from Baltimore, and the freedom to sit and wile away the day on a park bench still felt somewhat foreign to Will. He had known so many freedoms over the course of his long life; the freedom to live, in spite of the onward march of time; freedom to fight and kill and sing the praises of death on wide dusty plains, or out on the open ocean; freedom from the drudgery of bodily functions and needs; the freedom to be beholden to but one thing and one thing only: the call of blood.

But right now, to sit on a park bench in the full flush of the Florentine summer was perhaps the sweetest freedom of them all. He could sit there for a thousand years as the whole city crumbled around him, and remain perfectly content all the while so long as the sun kept shining and the Earth kept spinning.

Will did not sit there for a thousand years, but he did sit there long enough for the sun to start sinking, shadows stretching across the park and roseate light fading into dusk. He’d need to go home soon; he’d been too long out of the house already, and there were unfortunate necessities to which he should attend.

On his way back through the twisting little streets, Will came upon an easy mark. There was no reason to pounce; he’d drained someone dry just last week, and wouldn’t need to feed again for the rest of the month. But where need was satisfied, desire was not, and Will began to pursue the solitary figure down a darkening alleyway.

He was a middle-aged man, skin turned tough and coppery by a lifetime spent outdoors. He would taste clean and simple, of oil and bread and the rolling green hills of the Tuscan countryside. Will picked up his pace, quick, steady steps until he was almost breathing down the man’s neck. He threaded a finger into the gold chain laying across the man’s nape, using it to jerk him back lightning-fast against his chest, then slamming him forward into the wall.

It was quick work after that. Will pulled the man’s shirt aside and bit down deep where shoulder met neck. He was dazed from being thrown against the wall, and didn’t struggle much. Will didn’t take a lot of blood, just enough to satisfy his impulse and keep him from stalking several more people on the rest of his walk home. It wouldn’t be smart to drop another body so soon. It wasn’t smart to be feeding at all, really. He’d already lingered in Florence too long. Someone would start to notice.

Will pulled a small folding knife from his shopping bag and made a few cuts over the bite mark, back and forth through the punctures until the area was a checkerboard mess of skin and blood. Then he flipped the man around so they were face to face, and slapped at his cheek until he roused enough for Will to catch his gaze.

“What’s your name?” Will asked. “Do you understand me?”

“Fr… Franco…” the man said, and then he started to slump, arms hanging heavy at his side and legs on the verge of buckling. Will must’ve taken more blood than he thought, or the man was already infirm to begin with.

Will shoved Franco more forcefully up against the wall and held his lolling head in one firm hand. He had admittedly become lazy with clearing his tracks; too many random, unconnected victims across too many cities to bother wiping and replacing all their memories, and it didn’t matter if he left a few empty minds when they were all so scattered. But Will was sharply aware of the fact that he’d left too many blank holes in the heads of Florence already. It wouldn’t take much for someone to link them to the bodies and start seeing patterns.

“You’re drunk, Franco. You stumbled into a railing and lacerated your shoulder. When you look at the wound later in the mirror, it won’t bother you enough to question it. Sit down now, have a rest before you go home. You’re drunk.”

Franco stared hazily into Will’s eyes, unblinking and nodding. Will carefully removed his hands from where they pinned Franco to the wall, and then Franco was no longer staring at Will, but through him, and he wandered off haphazardly a short way down the alley before stopping and sitting down on the cool cobblestones.

Will melted back into the shadows of the alley and was gone in an instant.

The sun had fully set by the time Will got back to the house. It was an unassuming building from the outside, with its plain facade of smooth, pale stone and the high, solitary window that looked out over the street. The shutters were made of a dark cherry wood, and they were flung wide open.

Will stood outside the front door for a long time, just listening. He didn’t remember leaving the shutters open when he left that morning. He couldn’t hear any noises coming from inside the house, couldn’t see any light spilling from cracks in the doorframe. Cautiously, he opened the door and set his shopping bag down inside the hallway.

He crept silently across the floor, fangs already out and ready to clamp down on whoever had made the mistake of intruding. As he ascended the stairs, he had the absurd thought that maybe he hadn’t wiped Franco as thoroughly as he should have, and now he was here with the proverbial torch and pitchfork. Getting paranoid over humans was as clear a sign as any to Will that he should move on from Florence soon.

But Will’s paranoia proved entirely unfounded: there was no intruder in the house. Rounding the top of the stairs and coming out onto the landing, he could see that it was only Hannibal, shuffling around the room like a corpse with his IV drip and his petty little resentments. He had churlishly opened the window and flung wide the shutters in some attempt to cause trouble.

The first thing Will did was slam the shutters and close the window. He’d taken great pains to conceal Hannibal as they moved across the continent, and he was not prepared to have their cover blown now just because Hannibal was feeling grumpy.

The second thing Will did was to ignore Hannibal for the rest of the evening. It was juvenile, and ultimately useless, but he knew that if he spoke he would say something incendiary, and then Hannibal would fire back with something cruel, and they would waste another evening sniping at each other.

Will had brushed it off the first few times that Hannibal had acted out in such a manner, but with every new weight that strained the fragile bonds between them, Will thought again that maybe it would’ve been better if Hannibal had died in Baltimore.

[pisswizard420]

LMFAO this doesnt have a title

Since I don’t have an AO3 I’m shoving the 1st chapter of this thing here because why not. It’s all after the cut

Warnings- you know WOnderland? That’s the warning. There’s some stuff that makes me feel a bit squirmy. (Body horror, some violence, memory loss)

Lucretia leaves off into Wonderland, searching for a bell, and she doesn’t come out. It’s been two months, and Davenport drinks the Voidfish Ichor because he’s thirsty and hungry and there’s no water or food. He drinks it and he remembers and it is horrible and painful, and he goes to find his crew. He goes and grabs Taako, Barry, Magnus, Merle and they start looking for Lup again. They don’t look for Lucretia. At this point, they decide, Lucretia is dead; they see no point in going to find a corpse.

Lucretia leaves off into Wonderland, searching for a bell, and she doesn’t come out. It’s been six months and she and Cam aren’t doing well. Her body shakes, she’s been spasming since the boss fight. Her body remembers the damage done by that lich on the 90th cycle now- Wonderland exposing her to that agony again. The hosts offer a bonus round, and they choose the escape game. They both get stuck, neither willing to leave the other when they have to be so, so close. “You should’ve left, Luc.” He’s taken to calling her that, ignoring any complaints she raised. “You look like shit.”

Lucretia leaves off into Wonderland, searching for a bell, and she turns to Cam, “I couldn’t just leave you behind. You’d die in a second if I wasn’t here to watch your back.” He could hear the unspoken reason: they have to be close and even if they aren’t she can’t stop now, she’s committed herself to this , looking for the bell, spiting the liches, inducting him into her family. “Maybe we should rest for a bit before we go into the next room. We may not be able to heal magically, but you finally stopped bleeding from where that one got you.” He looks down and sees she’s right. “Let’s wait a bit.” She hands him some jerky she conjured into existence. He rolls his eyes at the showing off, and then he conjures them up some water.

Lucretia leaves off into Wonderland, searching for a bell, and it’s been a decade. They have a lead on Lup’s location and Lucretia’s location. Taako and Barry go off to meet up with some Dwarf named Gundren, who’s questing in the area where Lup disappeared. Davenport takes the Starblaster with Merle and Magnus to a clearing in the Felicity Wilds. The earth is charred, and they see four liches fighting, two on two, each team with one of the relics. They hear the bell, and there’s a shield that warps around the ship suddenly- Davenport fancies he can see the soundwaves bouncing off of the shield.

Lucretia leaves off into Wonderland, searching for a bell, and it’s been a decade. She looks at Cam, cataloging all that they’ve lost. There are patches of magic where skin should be and limbs have been replaced with enchanted constructs and he looks at her half wild. He looks at her, cataloging all that they’ve lost. She’s lost memories, and she’s thrown herself under the bus for him, giving him time to recover after the liches asked for too much (they always asked for too much, always always always asked for too much these days.) She lost her memories of home, and her family, and so much and so had he. All he remembered was Wonderland and the fact that they came looking for a bell- she once confessed the same. It was upsetting to think about.

Lucretia leaves off into Wonderland, searching for a bell, and it’s been a decade. She looks at Cam, the only person in years that she hasn’t been pitted against. She looks at Cam, someone who she can fight with flawlessly, who there are inside jokes with, who she knows the favorite foods of, someone who is a brother to her in all but blood, her only family. She looks at Cam and she grins, and it is all wrong. Her cheeks stretch too wide and her eyes, her teeth, they all glint with strange new magic; the effect of the glinting and the unnatural movements would terrify most but not Cam, never Cam, he knows her too well for that. “I have an idea. What do you think about becoming liches?”

Cam looks at her, someone who he fights with flawlessly, who he shares inside jokes with, who he knows the favorite foods of, someone who is a sister to him in all but blood, his only family. He looks at her and he grins, and it is all wrong. His skin glows in patches, and his eyes seem to look almost through her. The effect of the glowing disjointed nature of his smile would terrify most but not Lucretia (Luc, his Luc), never Lucretia, she knows him too well for that. “Tell me more. This sounds like it could be useful.” He listens closely to her whispered words and- and- and he agrees that it would be a good idea- send two liches to beat two liches- necromancy against necromancy- complacency versus hungry determined angry. He thinks that it’s obvious who will win. He is the only one who thinks that.

Lucretia leaves off into Wonderland, searching for a bell, and its been a decade. Lucretia and Cam (Cam and Lucretia) set up and do a ritual to become liches, and they anchor themselves with each other, emotions tied together, stabilizing each other, keeping each other sane. It goes well and quickly and Lucretia casts a shield with that staff (Where did she get that staff from? She doesn’t remember) around their bodies to protect them. After that they start wrecking shit- trading focuses in midair and toying with the energy around them. They pull at the right string of necromantic energy and Wonderland burns away around them, freeing the other inhabitants. They don’t care about that though. Cam hurls off a spell that screams out wrongwrongeldritchwrong and it knocks Lydia back. Lucretia slams them between walls of magic. The twins retaliate.

Lucretia leaves off into Wonderland, looking for a bell, and its been a decade, and Davenport and Magnus and Merle can’t do anything except watch two sets of liches fight and fight and fight and fight and- and Taako calls Davenport on his stone of farspeech.  “So- there’s a bit of a-“ One of the liches bursts, taking another with it and Davenport can’t tell which duo won or whether or not it’s a good thing and the bell rings loud and clear and nothing happens and Taako says, “Is something going on?” The stone cuts out and the shield falls, and the two liches that survived drift over to the ship.

Lucretia leaves off into Wonderland, looking for a bell, and its been a decade. It’s been a decade and Wonderland is gone and she and Cam are free and they try and undo what the bell did and it doesn’t work, so Cam sets it down and she shields it and they drift over to the ship. In unison they touch down lightly on the deck. “Hello.” She smiles, and from the way that the gnome pales it doesn’t seem like she did a very good job. She probably didn’t- she doesn’t have lips in her lich form. “I’m Lucretia. You are?” Surprisingly enough, the gnome pales further, mouthing her name. She thinks he might know her. She feels a strange sort of disinterested curiosity. “This is Cam.” She doesn’t go into more detail; he doesn’t need more; it’s obvious who he is. She gestures at Cam, who gets less than a cursory glance. She notices that. She doesn’t like it.

Lucretia and Cam burn down Wonderland, after a decade of looking for a bell.  They burn it down, and they sit there watching a group of people looking a mix of horrified and sad and the tall tan ruffboi looks at Lucretia and puts a hand out to shake, saying, “I’m Magnus.” There’s a pause while she shakes his hand, and then he gestures to the dwarf and gnome. “These are Merle and Capnport. We knew you before that place.” His hands move around nervously at the end of his sentence. Lucretia looks at Cam, asking him, asking him something with her eyes.

Lucretia and Cam burn down Wonderland, after a decade of looking for a bell. They burn it down, and now Lucretia is looking at him wondering- just- just wondering and he nods. He vaguely remembers her mentioning them in the past. He opens his mouth to speak, to cover for her discomfort. “Why didn’t you come?” He sounds dangerous and for a moment seems to fizz with lightning and then Lucretia puts a hand on his shoulder and he zooms back into himself. “Why didn’t you come for her?” Her hand stays on his shoulder- a steady presence. A grounding presence.  

Taako and Barry go to find Lup, and Phandolin burns. Phandolin burns and they find Lup and Barry grabs the umbrella and smashes it and she flies out. She flies out and they wait for Davenport to come pick them up. Davenport comes and Lucretia-but not quite- and someone else are standing casually on the deck, each holding a relic, and neither recognizing any of them. Neither seem to recognize Taako or Lup or Barry and Taako walks over to Lucretia and opens his mouth and then in unison Lucretia and the other one say, “Don’t remember (she doesn’t remember) you sorry.”

“What the fuck, my dude.” For a moment he is shaken out of his anger, for a moment he sees the way magic seems to coat the pair, slick and oily and sliding down over their bodies. For a moment he sees two small elves, short golden hair and long golden braid. For a moment he is shaken out of his anger, and when that moment passes he shoves it to the side because he’s Taako and its no good being mad at someone if you can’t constantly rub in why you’re mad. “That’s some fucked up shit.”

“Big mood.” Lucretia-and-Cam, Cam-and-Lucretia have a habit of speaking in unison. Taako-and-Lup, Lup-and-Taako had a habit of doing that, so Taako isn’t overly weirded out by it. Lucretia grimaces a bit though and says, “Sorry. We’re trying to work on doing that a bit less often. It seems to be a bit of a thing when talking to other people.” Taako nods, jerky and stiff. He’s not really enjoying the similarities with a younger him and Lup (Lup and him) but- but- but they’re there. The similarities are there, the hungry eyes, and the standing close, and the speaking as one, and he understands. He pushes his understanding aside. He speaks.

“The name’s Taako.” He tries not to be a little unnerved by the lack of recognition in her eyes. He does, of course, succeed at that because he’s Taako mother-fucking [insert last name here] and it takes a little bit more than not being recognized at all from someone you spent one hundred years on a ship with to unnerve him. It takes a lot more than that (okay, so he wouldn’t admit it to anyone except maybe Lup, but it does unnerve him. It does scare him. It does make him uncomfortable- and where is Lup when you need your other half, your moral compass? And he looks at Lucretia and Lucretia stole Lup from him and look at her with all of them stolen from her, all of the crew, her home, her family, one hundred and twenty years gone, and how is he supposed to respond to that? Vindication? Anger? Anything would be better than this dull sense of empathy, this dull understanding that he doesn’t want to have.)

“Lucretia. Nice to meet you, again I suppose.” Her expression is bland. It is the polite disinterest when meeting a distant relative. He hates it. It makes him uncomfortable, especially because when he first saw Magnus, and Merle, and Davenport before he got inoculated he looked at them like that. Barry (his brother in law! The guy who married his sister!) looked at him like that. He really, really doesn’t like it.

“Cam,” says the tall half elf standing closely next to Lucretia. He looks at Taako like Taako is a threat (Which ‘cha boy is, natch, but still, it kind of stings.) “So, you knew Lucretia.” The tone is conversational- how about that weather- but the eyes are not- they’re more how about I kill you. Lucretia elbows Cam in the gut, and Cam and says nothing. Taako gets elbowed in the gut with an image of Lup doing the same to him, and then it hits him again. There’s a tiny hint of the closeness of a younger him and Lup, and of course there is. Of course there is, because look at the two of them and doesn’t it just ache with sick familiarity. Don’t they just reek of it, and each moment it hits him he hates it. He hates that everything about Lucretia and this stranger screams out in familiar wrongness. Its like the dark mirror version of him and Lup except one of them is an amnesiac traitor and the other is her amnesiac codependent lackey. He hates it so much, so much, so much.

Cam doesn’t know how he feels about these strangers, these ones that claim they know Lucretia. He doesn’t know how to feel about how in the two hours since they met both in and out of their bodies they’ve given Lucretia weird looks and him none at all- like he doesn’t exist or matter at all. He also doesn’t know how to feel about the elven wizard standing in front of them, looking at them with a strange expression on his face. Then the elf speaks, and Cam makes up his mind.

“Yeah,” the elf says. “How much have they told the both of you?” He puts an emphasis on both. Cam thinks he likes this elf.

“Nothing,” he replies.

Taako (the elf earned being called by his name rather than simply being “the elf”) tilts his head and begins, “Did they give you any of the ichor?”

“No.”

“Then this might be a bit hard to explain to you. Lucretia is around 130 years old.”

“What?” “What?”

“She died around” static “times, but she” static. “There’s a vore cloud. There’s also a memory voring” static “There was a plan to” static static static “but Lucretia didn’t agree with it so she” static static static “then she went into Wonderland, leaving the Captain alone, and he inoculated himself accidentally. He thought she was dead, so he didn’t go looking for her. He started looking for” static static static static static “Then a decade passed before he decided to go and find her body.” A beat. “We were angry.” He turns to Lucretia. “I’m sorry we didn’t force the issue.”

Lucretia stares at the elf (not Taako anymore) “I- thank you for telling me the truth. I’m sorry, for what I did to you. That was unfair to you.” The elf nods. He looks vaguely distressed, vaguely angry. He says nothing. He turns to Cam.

“How much did you understand?”

“Not much. It was mostly static.”

“I have a sister.” Pause “Lucretia.” Pause. “Stole” pause static static static.

“I didn’t get some of that.” Taako, Cam thinks he understands a bit now.

“We’ll have to get you inoculated.” Taako does a heel turn and starts walking off. “Have the two of you eaten?”