#Go to @Sapphic-Starlight for the next bit!

[half-dead-ham]

“Do we really need to do this now Tucker?“ Valerie asked for the third time since they decided to hang back in the school's computer room. Tucker was starting to get tired of it. Was it even a good idea for him to be doing this for her? Offering his services, his precious time to her to make sure nothing was going wrong with her suit's operating systems?

After all, just because Valerie was part of team Phantom now doesn't mean she didn't work for Vlad before all this.

Tiredly, Tucker sighed as he got through his own encryption into their private server. Being the IT guy for a group of six very active teenagers was sometimes very rewarding, but most often it was nothing but trouble. Case in point; ”You know my suit does all its diagnostics automatically right?“

”Of course I know that Val, but it's always better to be sure when the tech you're using was made by Vlad. It's nothing personal, really. I just wanna make sure he's not using you to listen in on us or anything.“ Valerie sank back into the school chair she was seated in, but didn't argue with him anymore. Truly a blessing for him.

”Also, if we get that done quick enough, I can see about adding some upgrades to it,“ he added with only a slightly cheeky smirk as he held out the cable that would connect the computer tower to the other teen's suit.

For that Valerie smacked his arm, taking the offered cable with a grumble. ”Nothing personal my ass. You just wanna one up the Frootloop by replacing his tech so he can't use it.”

”And? You're saying you don't wanna piss off Vlad?“

”...Point.“

The sound of clicking keys filled the silence the two fell into, both content to engrose themselves in their own tasks; Tucker pouring himself into his coding and Valerie pulling out her phone to do something Tucker couldn't see.

After an indeterminable amount of time (but not really, Tucker could see the time at the bottom corner of his screen, he just didn't care,) Valerie absently asked, ”when do you think the others are gonna get back with the shakes?

”Dunno, your sensor hasn't gone off at all, so there probably aren't any ghosts keeping them.“

He could see Valerie's frown from the corner of his eye. ”Then they should be back by now, Nasty Burger isn't that far a walk from here.“

Tucker checked the time again, doing the quick mental math to calculate their time to get to the Nasty Burger and back, only for a frown to grace his features too. ”You're right, they should be back by now.“

”You think it is a ghost?“ Valerie asks now, more alert and tucking her phone back into... wherever she’d pulled it out from. Where did she store that? Tucker didn't see any visible pocket seams in her suit.

Refocusing, Tucker closed the coding window he had for the debugging, letting it run on auto in the background, and pulled up the tracking app he installed into each of their phones. A sigh of relief passed Tucker's lips as the app showed Danny's position, nearing the edge of town but still there. Dani and Sam's trackers were stationary around the Nasty Burger’s location, so Tucker could deduce what most likely happened. ”Danny dude's racing on the other side of town right now, probably chasing a ghost. He'd call it in if he needs back up, and the girls are probably just stuck in line, so there's nothing to worry about.“

Valerie didn't look so convinced, but relaxed almost to her previous position anyway. Satisfied with the reaction, Tucker moved his mouse to the taskbar, about to click open the coding program to resume his debugging, when a sudden change of pixels made him pause.

Jazz and Wes' trackers just went offline.

That wouldn't usually be a concern for one of their group, if it weren't Jazz and Wes. Jazz was rearguard for their team, after one too many near misses with an ecto weapon towards the rest of their group she was delegated to medic. And Wes, Wes wasn't even a part of team Phantom. The only reason he even had a tracker was because he was a constant thorn in their side and would not stop pestering them. To Tucker it always seemed like a good idea to know where he was just in case. To see those two of all people going offline so suddenly was more than odd.

Before he could even say anything about it though a klaxon blared from beside him. Hastily he moves to cover his ears, and turns just in time to see Valerie plummet through the floor.

Wait.

Not the floor.

A portal.

Tucker had just enough time to think 'ah shit' before he felt an odd sensation in his stomach -like that of sand falling- before the floor dropped out from under his chair and his vision was filled with green.

Weltschmerz: The Moon & The Tower

hello everyone!!! me, @gremlin-bot, @half-dead-ham, and @bewitched-forest are happy to bring you our Patrol Partners fic! This will be the first part of our first chapter 😊

How posting is going to work. Each chapter, the person who started the chapter is going to post their part. Then the rest of us will reblog with the parts we wrote in order. The final reblogs will be collected at this master post, or you can read it at this ao3 link. Happy reading!!!

The Moon & The Tower | Verse I: Tomorrows problems are happening today.

Clockwork looked into the swirling vortex of violet and electric blue. He willed it to take form, show him what he desires, without a single word. It only took an off handed thought for the image of a young boy to appear.

The boy is curled up in a ball, his carrot colored hair falling into his face. Between his hands he grips a singular worn photo. 

Clockwork knew the photo well, even if no other living being does. Clockwork spent maybe just as much time staring at it as the boy.

After all, letting an entire timeline collapse was not an easy decision, no matter how bleak the future.

The moment Clockwork was waiting for comes sooner than he anticipated. Or perhaps he was just losing his edge. It was bound to happen after the first thousand millenia or so.

There was no explosion. No scream, no fight, no speech. 

Just a single, silent tear. 

Clockwork has seen this moment thousands, if not millions of times. Even if the boy did not understand the significance of this moment in the grand scheme of the cosmos, Clockwork does.

It was much more than a boy trying to swim though immeasurable grief. It was the end of what would have been, and the acceptance of what will be.

Clockwork could feel the universe shake. It trembled in tandem with the breathing of the boy. Each tear was a new rift in the space-time continuum, each gasp a shattering quake.

The Infinite Realms tried to patch herself up, fill in the holes to stop the dimension from completely collapsing in on itself. She was something of a cosmic nurse, the safeguard between multiversal dimensions. 

Forever fated to watch and wait. To fix the broken. Give the lost a place in the cosmos.

She is much kinder than he is, Clockwork thinks idly. If she knew what was coming next would she stop it? Probably.

It was a good thing then, that it was up to him. He could make the hard decisions.

Clockwork watches as power surges from one dimension to another. It wouldn’t be long now.

Not long at all.

[alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer]

you're not living in this world alone

i wrote this in one sitting and i'm sorry i don't really know what the point is i was just frustrated lmao, the song title is from "enjoy your life" by marina which is what i'm manifesting for COT. i don't think there are any triggers beyond what you would expect: mentions of bullying and elias' shitty parenting

Fanfiction Masterlist | AO3

“And how would you know where Alastair was yesterday afternoon?” Matthew mused.

Thomas exhaled. The truth was a long time coming. “Because I was with him. Alastair and I are friends.”

“Friends? After everything he’s done? You can forgive him so easily?”

“It’s been years since school, Matthew. He’s grown and changed since then, just as you and I have. I have forgiven him, and I ask that you respect that, even if you choose not to.”

“Respect that? Thomas, how could I-” He moved closer and lowered his voice as if that would effectively prevent Cordelia from hearing him, despite her sitting mere feet away. “I don’t know what he said to you, but you don’t owe him anything just because he helped you with the whole serial killer business. Listen, Thomas, you’re very kind, and Alastair… Well, I know what type of person Alastair is, and he’s the kind that understands well how to take advantage of kindness. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Thomas could see Cordelia straining to stop herself from reacting. “You don’t know anything about him.”

“And you do?”

“I know more than you, continuing to reduce him to the horrible nonsense he said over four years ago.”

Matthew flinched. “Horrible nonsense? That’s what you’d call the things he said about my parents, about your parents, the things that made your mother cry?”

Thomas bit back involuntary tears. He knew how those words had hurt his family. His intention was never to reduce the gravity of them. “Don’t you dare use my own words against me! What about the things you said, Matthew?”

Matthew crossed his arms. “I have not a clue what you’re talking about. Whatever he told you were lies, I’m sure-”

“Did you forget that I was there that day? I’d nearly forgotten because it was so long ago, but I remember. I was trying to help Alastair because he was in a very bad way. Clive had just died. I know that the prank affected you, too, maybe even more so, but Alastair said that the prank wasn’t his idea, and I believe him. Clive was Alastair’s bully long before he was any of ours, and I don’t blame Alastair for fearing his own safety and going along with his stupid, dangerous plan. At the end of the day, it’s just not something you need to blame someone for. Alastair learned his lesson in the worst way possible. Someone died.

“I could tell that the other boys’ parents coming to the school in the aftermath of it all was upsetting him because he knew that Elias would never come to his rescue. You can jest all you’d like, Matthew, about how if he was your son, you wouldn’t care about him either, but it’s never going to be funny.”

A stillness fell on the room, a look of guilt creeping over James’ face, a look of panic having set in on Matthew’s shortly after Thomas began speaking. Cordelia stood up abruptly. “Excuse me?” She turned to Matthew. “Tell me that isn’t true.”

“Never to his face! It was just a joke. I didn’t mean it-”

“Is that supposed to make it better? All those times that you acted as if were some heroic feat for me to love him… Now I’m not sure if they were jokes or if you genuinely believe he’s less deserving of love than you or I. All this time my brother suffered in silence, he shielded me from it all so that I would never have to know what kind of person my father really was, he sacrificed his own well-being for mine, meanwhile… you all were here, making jokes about it.”

Thomas expected Cordelia to be angry, and she was, on some level. Her expression was haunted, however, her eyes holding even more guilt than Matthew’s. He realized, suddenly, what she must be thinking: How dare they discuss in passing something she never realized herself? How could Thomas and his friends see it so clearly when she could not? Thomas wanted to tell her that Alastair didn’t try to hide it from them, not in the way that he hid it from her, that he’s learned from his parents that in many cases you it’s more difficult to see the bad in those you love, your heart always searching for the good, but James began to speak instead.

“Daisy-” James started.

“No,” she interrupted. “I don’t want to hear it. Thomas, finish.”

“I- What?” he stammered, nearly forgetting how the conversation began. His heart was racing; he shouldn’t have said so much, he knew. It would only cause more pain. He simply needed all of this nonsense about Alastair to stop, and he did not know how besides telling the truth.

“What happened that day at the Academy,” she prompted.

“Right. He… he was in a bad way, because of Clive’s death and because of his father. He told me to leave him alone, but I didn’t because I thought that I could help. I… I thought that he shouldn’t be alone. Now I wish that I had gone, because Matthew went looking for me. He found me with Alastair and started insulting him. He made fun of his hair, which I know sounds silly, but it wasn’t, was it? That’s why he changed it,” Thomas realized as he spoke. “So that he would- so he wouldn’t look Persian. Matthew could tell that it bothered him so much, that’s why he continued to say it.”

Thomas sighed as he continued. Alastair should be the one saying all of this, but he would never, nor would Matthew ever hear it. “Matthew asked him if no one cared about him enough to tell him that he looked silly, not his friends or his father. He told him that the prank was entirely his fault, that it was his fault Clive was dead. And then Alastair asked me to leave. I assume that’s when Alastair said the things he did, and I’m assuming that’s where he got the bruise I saw on his face later.”

“And Matthew placed Alastair’s belongings in the wing that Christopher blew up,” James offered.

“Sorry,” Christopher chimed in, though no one was much concerned about him or his actions that day.

“What? Was I meant to not retaliate after he said those things to me?” Matthew’s eyes narrowed at them.

Thomas was exasperated. “Of course that’s not what I’m saying! I’m saying that you need to stop pretending like you haven’t said and done things to Alastair that were just as terrible as what he’s said to you!”

“Are you serious?” Matthew asked. He looked to James for a defense, but none came.

“This entire time you’ve acted as if the whole ordeal was one-sided,” Cordelia said. “Like you were just some child helpless against my brother’s cruel words, but that was never the case, was it?”

Matthew didn’t respond.

“I need some time to think,” she said finally, walking quickly out of the tavern without waiting for a response.

Matthew turned back to Thomas. “Is this how it’s going to be now?”

“What do you mean? Me, not letting you mercilessly take out your own problems on someone who’s been trying to make amends, someone who has been through far enough? I suppose so. It’s up to you, Matthew. As I said before, you don’t need to forgive him, but I have. You are my friend, but so is he. He doesn’t have a problem with that. Do you?”

Matthew finally resigned himself. “No,” he said quietly.

Thomas knew this was only the beginning. Cordelia was almost certainly on her way to confront her brother, and soon this would be an even larger discussion. There were apologies and amends that still needed to be made. Even more, Thomas knew that Matthew’s issues with Alastair ran deeper than his actual dislike for the man, but he knew that allowing him to continue to take his own guilt and self-hatred out on Alastair would only continue to make life more difficult for all of them. Both Alastair and Matthew deserved to be free of it. Once Matthew was free of this nonsense with Alastair, Thomas knew that the real work towards true freedom would begin. And once Alastair was free of it… Thomas could only hope for what would come next.

Thanks for reading! Tagging my usual suspects (lmk to be added/removed): @stxr-thxif @chaos-and-starlight @zosiaenrique @lifewouldbebetteronmars @littlx-songbxrd @dianasarrow @eugeniaslongsword @bookswitchcraftandcats @jamesherondaleofficial @thomas-gaypanic-lightwood @livingformyself @anarmorofwords @foxglove-airmid @writeforjordelia @sapphic-in @jem-nasium @fortheloveofthecarstairs