#Horizon meets Mad Max

[lullabyes22-blog]

Snippet - Mad Maxxing - Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Just your average Zaunite road trip...

Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

"You're smiling," Sevika says.

"I know."

"Why?"

"You'll know soon enough."

And, daring, he lays a hand on the headrest of her seat. Nothing else. Just his hand, and the flying kiss of her hair against his knuckles.  But he can feel the border between public and private dissolving like a chalk sketch in the rain.

The subterfuge, he senses, has become a game of chicken. Sooner or later, one of them will break. The thrill is in feeling the tension ratchet higher and higher.

In bracing, as a magician prepares for the big reveal, for the pure, unbridled shock of inevitability.

A burst of white arcs across the horizon. The flash, so close and bright, nearly blinds them. A boom, seconds later, cracks the darkness open, from north to south.

Cursing, Sevika slams the brakes. Tires screech. Silco, jolted forward, catches himself against the dash. The entourage, likewise, rumbles to a halt. The air thickens with the scent of burning rubber. Silco hears, through the open window, the crackle of radios, and the rumble of idling engines, and the thunder of boots as a phalanx of blackguards swarm from their cars.

A second flare goes up. The light bathes the flatlands in a scorching flash.

"What the hell," Sevika mutters, and thumps a fist against the steering column. 

The radio crackles. She snatches the receiver, and the distorted squawks resolve: the scouts on duty, reporting back from the perimeter. The soundscape beyond the vehicle is a chorus of shouts and loading guns. At the horizon, a dark line bleeds into unreal brightness. The night's torn open. And spilling forth, by inches, is a row of armored vehicles.

"Shit," Sevika breathes, and turns the ignition.

"What is it?" Silco demands.

She jerks the gearstick. "Eramis."

"Ah."

Silco smiles.

There's the diversion. Right on schedule.

Sevika relays orders into the radio. The entourage rolls headlong into the fray. Silco, no longer smiling, keeps low in the seat. He'd anticipated that Eramis would retaliate to his township's takeover. That he's responded, so soon, with a show of force bodes well.

It means the bastard's rattled, and ripe for the picking.

Sevika, in her element, steers the entourage with ruthless efficiency. Over the radio, she raps a rapidfire succession of orders to the scouts, and relays a series of tactical maneuvers to the blackguards. Eramis' convoy is a dirty-dozen. Six motorcars are equipped with gun nests, and six semi-trucks are laden with canons.

A formidable force, if it weren't for one factor.

Sevika's own fleet has sevenfold the firepower. And, more importantly, she's got her finger on the pulse of Eramis' psyche.

"He's trying to pull a feint," she says, as she takes the first curve at full speed. "He knows his toys are no match for ours. He's planning something. I can feel it."

"So can I." Silco stares out into the jagged horizon. "The ravine's up ahead."

"He'll try to force us there with an arrowhead move, and pin us against the ridge. Then the trucks will roll in, and the canons will start blazing." Her face is set in grim concentration, and her hands move with the surety of oiled sprockets. "We'll split the caravan. Meet his charge with the first half, send the second half around. Box him in, and cut him down."

"Are the scouts prepped for the maneuver?"

"Stocked, locked, and ready."

"Then, by all means," Silco says, and his teeth cut bright as a blade in the dark. "Show him how it's done."

A third flare bursts overhead. In its brightness, the dimensions of the battle emerge. Eramis' troops, advancing steadily, have already breached the midway. As Sevika predicted, they are aimed for an arrowhead formation: six motorcars, at the vanguard, flanked by two semi-trucks. The canons, mounted atop the flatbeds, are armed and ready to rip.

Eramis himself will keep behind the convoy, in the biggest motorcar, until the battle's won. Then, the spoils will be his to collect, and the Ditch his to reclaim.

Except the spoils, and the Ditch, are already in the Eye's safekeeping.

The only thing waiting for Eramis is the long drop—and the short stop.

Sevika calls the entourage into formation. The two four-wheelers, armored and bristling, ride shotgun. The ten scouts, on the bikes, veer out, circling to form a blockade. The remaining entourage, zooming towards the arrowhead, cuts the distance in two.

As the gap shrinks, Eramis' troops open fire.

Machine-gun blasts rip through the night. The scouts, zigzagging across the plains, dodge the barrage with practiced ease. From their holsters, they unload, not gunfire but canisters, which they toss at the approaching motorcars. A shower of smoke pours from the canisters, and a thick miasma of smog rolls forth. The arrowhead, blinded, slows and stutters, losing momentum.

The blackguards, from the motorcars, make their move. Riding with the wind at their backs, they, too, split off and peel towards the arrowhead. Eramis' troops, struggling through the smoke, fire wildly. The air lights up. Bullets strike off the armor-plated cars. Divots ping against reinforced glass and alloyed chrome.

The entourage is undeterred.

With a surge of tremendous speed, the motorcars barrel forward. Then, at the last moment, they trifurcate into a three-pronged charge. One, a split-second ahead, veers sharply to the left. The second, at the rear, swerves hard to the right. The third, in the middle, plows forward, and drives the arrowhead broadside.

Gunfire cuts a wedge into the enemy's charge, and drives a spike through the core.  Eramis' troops, blindsided by the assault, struggle to hold their ground. Sparks fly and metal groans. The arrowhead becomes a sloppy arc, swinging wildly to and fro. Three of Eramis' motorcars begin fishtailing, then flipping, end over end, into the smoke. A truck skids to dodge the wreckage, and the canons, tipping with their weight, tear loose from their bindings. The vehicle tumbles, wheels-over-axels, and crashes into the dirt. The remaining three motorcars, screeching to a halt, are swallowed by the smog.

Meanwhile, the second prong of the entourage has circled around. It begins closing, by degrees, for the rear. The third, too, is closing in, from the opposite direction. As the smoke begins to clear, Eramis' troops find themselves pinned. Trapped by the wreckage and the Eye's encroaching riders, panic sets in. Retreat would be the sensible choice.

Eramis, tragically, is not a sensible man.

The remaining four semi-trucks, lagging behind the convoy, begin rolling full-tilt into the melee. Their canons, fully-operational, swivel and aim into the eye of the storm. With a deafening BOOM, the sky erupts. The force of the explosion splits the airwaves into a thousand screaming fragments. A  fireball rockets into the fray. The impact is a cataclysmic shockwave.

The Eye's entourage is thrown into disarray. One of the motorcars skids with a metallic screech, and rolls onto its side. A second, flipping, smashes head-on into the smoking hulk of Eramis' downed semi. The third, veering, narrowly misses a collision with a jutting boulder.  Three scouts, caught in the blast, are flung from their bikes. They land in the dirt, only to be crushed under the wheels of Eramis' advancing trucks.

Cursing, Sevika wrestles the wheel. Flaming spiders of debris pinball off the Humvee's windshield. A strip of metal, long as a broadsword, caroms off the hood and embeds itself in the asphalt. Silco braces himself against the dash. His ears are plugged as if with cotton. All he can hear is a high-pitched aria.

The curving sky beyond the glass is red with fire.

In her seat, Sevika stays centered. She's seen this scale of devastation before, and dished out worse. The canonfire is nasty, but its underlying impetus is a dead giveaway: Eramis has no clue what he's doing.

His only recourse is to run the field red. And take anyone and everyone down with him.

"Bastard," Sevika says, and floors it.

Tires shriek, and the Humvee shoots forward like earthbound lightning.  The road ahead, a patchwork of craters, is an obstacle course. But Sevika doesn't slow. She weaves, darts, and dodges, taking the terrain like a rampaging juggernaut.

When the chips are down, she's the best damn driver in the Fissures.

Over the radio, she shouts for the remaining troops to fall in. The second and third prongs of the entourage, shaken by the blast, regroup to surround her.  One, two, three, four, and they're rolling hot. The motorcars, pocked with scorchmarks, are still operational. The four-wheelers, similarly singed, have the treads to weather the worst. The surviving seven scouts have revved their bikes and are closing the gap.

"They're reloading for a second blast," Sevika shouts over the radio. "Don't give them the chance."

A chorus of affirmatives crackles over the line.

Silco keeps a steady grip on the dashboard. The road unspools beneath the tires. The night's clogged with fumes. But his adrenaline is redlined, and with it comes an absolute clarity of purpose: the cold-edged readiness for the kill.

The four semi-trucks, bearing down on them, are a wall of steel, with armor-plated grilles, battering-ram fronts and spike-studded chasers. Their canons, pouring smoke, are swiveling into position.

In Silco's own crosshairs falls a dinged-up Model T, fishtailing badly on its rightmost tread. It stays well back, behind the semi-trucks, and seems content to hang in the periphery. The glass is tinted and there are armed gunmen crouched on built-in platforms at either side of the hood. The passenger's an unknown quantity, but Silco recognizes the flashy gold-plated ornament winking on the bonnet: a gaudy pair of brass knuckles.

Eramis' calling card.

"Sevika," Silco says.

"I see the swine."

"Our priority target. The rest are window-dressing."

"Window-dressing with a side of canonfire."

"I've got a plan."

Sevika's eyes, in the rearview, cut him a glance. "Is it a good one?"

His lips tug, and Silco feels the smile down to the bone. "It will be."

Sevika listens to his terse instructions, and nods. With a flick of the radio switch, she passes the order along. 

The bikes, zigzagging in formation, break off from the Humvee's flank, and close the gap with the trucks. The canons, reloading, pivot to keep the bikes within their sightlines. Their artillery shells are the size of beer kegs, and the blast radius could level a railway. If the bikes get caught in the crossfire, they'll be obliterated.

"Stay tight," Sevika orders on the radio, "and keep a bead on the canons."

The bikes, in response, fan out, and close the gap further. They're a whirr of black chrome and flashing silver, their riders hunched low. The canons, tracking them, prepare to launch the second salvo. Sevika, watching through the rearview, grits her teeth.

"That's it," she mutters. "Just a little more..."

The canons' barrels swivel. A series of sharp clicks sound, as the mechanism locks. The gunners, braced, prepare to fire.

The scouts, a split-second in advance, make their move.

As one, they break formation, streaking off in separate directions. Reaching into their jackets, they lob a volley of little black spheres, which strike the semi-trucks with a resounding series of pings.  Each sphere is the size of a peach pit, and the surface is studded with tiny beads. As the spheres make contact, they burst, and a dark sticky webbing explodes from the center, adhering to the truck's wheels.

In an instant, the webbing solidifies, and the treads are locked into place. With a jolt, the semi-trucks lose traction. The canons, locked in position, are thrown off-balance—and wildly off-target. One truck swerves on its axis, and smashes broadside into the adjacent one. Its own cannons, ripped from their bindings, fly loose and pinwheel in a massive crunch of metal and sparks. The third truck, struggling to break, rams its cab into the wreckage. The canon arcs high and ejects a premature round. The shell, careening skyward, belches a rainbow of sizzling sparks.

"Now!" Sevika orders.

The bikes, dispersing, fall clear as the canons' artillery shell drops and detonates in mid-air—a moon-white zit swelling to swallow the stars. The concussion shears the night into pieces. The Deadlands are swallowed by a searing white light. As the heat washes over the plains, the air itself seems to liquify.

Silco's fingers, folded into Sevika's good ones, are the only anchor.

Her cybernetic handstays locked on the wheel. The Humvee's course is locked straight and steady.  As the blast ripples and ebbs into a distinct stink of ozone, the road resolves once more. The enemy's trucks are a wreckage enrobed in flames. Their canons are smoking hulks. The scout's bikes are circling in a tight formation, and the men, unharmed, are riding high.

All that guards Eramis' Model-T is one lone semi-truck.

Its treads are gummed up with the scouts' webbing. But its canons are intact. And the gunners, though shaken, are scrabbling along the flatbed, and struggling to reload a fresh round of shells.

The Humvee's wheels, spitting gravel, barrel straight ahead.

"Silco," Sevika says, and squeezes his hand before letting go. "In the back."

"The back?"

"Jinx. She left it there."

"Left what?"

"A parting gift." Her eyes lock on his in the rearview. "She must've stashed it, before she sailed off. I saw it in the backseat, when I went looking for you. Maybe she figured you'd need it."

Unbuckling his seatbelt, Silco turns, and reaches to the rear. His fingers grope blindly along the upholstery, until he finds the compartment beneath the backseat. Inside is a small wooden crate. It's wrapped, tightly, in canvas, and there's a note scrawled, in Jinx's unmistakably loopy handwriting.

Semper Paratus

XOXO

Silco pops the crate's lid. Inside, nestled on a bed of straw, are stacks of grenades. Chemical aerosols, shockwaves, incendiaries. And, a few rows down, the real gem: a trio of Chompers.  They're hand-tooled beauties, each with a detachable detonator that, at the squeeze of a button, will unleash a payload of barbed-wire shrapnel at a wounding radius of forty feet.

Silco chooses the biggest, and holds it up to the light. The canister's spraypainted with blue and pink stripes. The clockwork mechanism is crafted into a shark's pointy-toothed grin.

Silco's own grin threatens to split his face in half.

It's a as real as the risk. Real as the battle beyond. Real as the bloodied heart of Zaun waiting in the wings. 

Real as the girl who, wherever she goes, will always have his back.

"Sevika," he says.

"What?"

"Cut in close. I'm going to need a clear shot."

"Like hell," she says, not breaking her stride. "You stick your head out the window, they'll rip it clean off."

"I've no plans to stick my head out."

"Then where��"

"Eramis." He holds up the Chomper. "He deserves the honors."

It takes a moment for Sevika to catch on. When she does, a smile carves the stone of her features. Then, her hands a blur on the wheel, she cuts a hard left.  The Humvee accelerates to the head of the pack. The rest of the entourage follows, kicking up a roostertail of dust. Over the radio, Sevika issues her last orders.

"Blackguards," she raps, "engage. Scouts, with me."

As one, they blaze down the road.

Ahead, the sole remaining truck is struggling to regain traction. The treads are still gummed up. The axels are grinding, and the engine's whining at top pitch. But their artillery, as Sevika advances, is slotting into place. At a hundred yards equidistant, Eramis' Model-T is well out of range. But for the first time, the passenger window is rolled down. There's an unmistakable rotund silhouette peeking out at the advancing storm.  His guards, at the front, are already priming their weapons.

His cannons, finally reloaded, swivel and aimed square.  

"Ready?" Sevika calls.

Silco steadies himself against the seat. "Floor it."

Sevika veers left. The Humvee, swinging hard, cuts a diagonal, and closes the gap with the Model-T. Three scouts, in close pursuit, form a barricade at each flank. The rest of the entourage, in a V-formation, zoom straight for the truck. From beneath the chassis of each motorcar, a row of  cartridge ejectors emerges. Each is mounted with a nozzle, trigger, and a set of canisters.

"Blackguards," Sevika orders, "on my mark."

The canons hum. The blackguards' trajectory is a perfect bullseye.

"Fire."

The motorcars, in unison, unleash their payload. A thick cloud, acid green, spews from the nozzles and billows over the battlefield. Spreading, it envelopes the semi-truck in a haze. It is not the same smog the scouts used earlier to blind their foes. Rather, it's a concoction of potent Fissure gas and nitrous oxide that, in high concentrations, can induce delirium, dizziness, and, if not treated promptly, a long and lingering narcosis.

Both Jinx and Silco have used it: twice, to great effect.

That Sevika—both times—was the target only lends the moment an extra-personal piquancy.

The haze engulfs the semi-truck. The gunners, clinging to the flatbed, cough and cough. They cannot man the cannons. They cannot aim at their targets. They cannot even breathe. Their faces go bright-red, then purple. Their bodies, convulsing, drop like dominoes. A split-second later, the blackguards converge on the truck. As the last man falls, they disembark, masked and armed, and storm the flatbed. Their boots thunder across the metal, and their war-whoops fill the air.

Silco hears none of it.

All his attention is funneling into the distant speck of the Model-T until it swells to fill the glass. Sevika's foot is jammed hard on the gas. The Humvee leaps like a bucking bronco down the mythic Shuriman plains. At its flanks, the scouts keep pace. They are a tight, cohesive unit. Their bikes, like the spokes of a wheel, revolve around a single fixed point.

The Eye and his hand-delivered retribution.

Eramis' guards have already opened fire. The .50 caliber slugs, ripping through the night, land helter-skelter. Bullets zip off the Humvee's enforced plating, and drill small craters into the fender. The scouts, on either side, swerve and spin to evade the strafing. One bullet ricochets off a scout's helmet but doesn't penetrate, a tiny spiderwebbing of cracks fanning across the polycarbonate. Another, zinging past the rearguard, clips a second scout in the shin. He fishtails, but manages to regain control.

The Humvee is undeterred. Sevika keeps a deathgrip on the wheel. Beneath her boot, the accelerator is flush with the floor. The Model-T, with Eramis inside, is a hundred feet away. Then fifty. Then thirty. Then it's there.

Behind the glass, Eramis' face is a ballooning white moon. His eyes are the size of planets. He is howling like a madman.

Sevika relays the signal over the radio.

"Scouts," she shouts. "Break off."

The bikes, as one, peel off the Humvee's flanks. As they do, Sevika yanks the wheel hard right. The Humvee, braking, slides at an angle. Grit fans out. Tires shriek. The rear, jackknifing, cuts a precise U-turn. The momentum sends the guards tumbling over like bowling pins. Their guns go flying. Their bodies roll across the gravel. An unlucky few catch the full brunt of the Humvee's weight, and are crushed underfoot.

As the dust settles, the Humvee is poised, nose-to-nose, with the Model-T.

The two vehicles are separated by mere feet.

The scouts, circling, blockade the spaces in between. Each one is poised on their bike, guns leveled. They are prepared, at a moment's notice, to mow down any survivors.

In the Model-T, Eramis is still howling. His face is a mottled caricature of terror. 

The Humvee's door swings open. Silco slinks out, and steps into the descending silence.

The air is clogged with the stink of cooked rubber and creosote. The moon, cutting its delicate incision through the clouds, unveils a scene of utter carnage. The six motorcars are reduced to flaming heaps. The semi-trucks, gutted and overturned, are a twist of mangled metal. Men are laid out in coffins of hardpacked dirt. Others, twitching feebly, are trapped inside the wreckage.

The final count will be a body-bag or a dozen.

Beyond the perimeter, blackguards, rifles poised, are securing the perimeter. They've already disarmed the straggling guards. The men, cowed, are being lined up against the hoods of their mauled vehicles. The few blackguards wounded in the fray are being hauled off to the medick's vehicle.

In the space of twenty minutes, the battle is done.

Silco takes a savoring breath.  It is a moment of rare serenity, before the next inevitable wave of violence.

But he's ready to meet it—and mete out worse.

With a measured tread, he approaches the Model-T. The windshield is a warped distortion of the smoke-scudded horizon. Behind the glass, Eramis is petrified. A pistol—gold-plated—is brandished in his meaty grip. The safety's off, but the barrel's too shaky to present a real threat.

It's the last showoffishish bluff of a man who's been beaten, and knows it.

"Eramis," Silco says. "Hello."

[fedorasquidwithglasses]

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is like post apocalyptic mythology

This movie was amazing and has a hold on me.

Spoilers below

So, the whole thing comes off as a story about a demigod or folk hero story. So much of it is references to various mythologies, Christian, Greek, Norse, it’s quite amazing.

Christian; Furiosa is called a dark angel, the fifth horseman of the apocalypse, she’s got halo imagery in the posters. Demetus is followed by four bikers until his end, his four horsemen and he is the apocalypse. At the very end, there’s fruit of knowledge imagery with the five wives that Furiosa saves, but first she gives them the peach, the gift of knowledge.

Greek: The cyclops, the whole story being about trying and failing for years to get home like the odyssey, pretending to be someone you aren’t as a disguise for safety (adding with her pretending to be a boy being much like Achilles’s mother disguising him as a girl to protect him), she is this world’s Odysseus. She also escapes the underworld (the maggot farm) to continue her journey while being told death is a better option.

Norse: The crows, and Demetus’s fate of having a tree planted on him and growing, eating his flesh. As well as when Furiosa drops the water into his eye like the snake dropped venom in the same myth.

Now I probably missed some references, but there’s much more that’s just mythology

She comes from a place, a paradise that’s incomprehensible to some people in the story, and she was ripped away from it.

She escapes multiple fates, but also doesn’t escape some because she tries to go back to save people, her mother, Jack, the wives, and in Fury Road, the people of the Citadel.

She has a moment of death and resurrection.

She has a companion and mentor who helps her survive and she loses him. She meets an old face from her past in a moment before going into battle.

Then there’s Mad Max, who could be considered a folk hero, a name given to men who match the description of the cop who survived the apocalypse and went around helping. It’s quite possible that Furiosa and Fury Road happen long after the original Max is long dead, and the Max we see if a different one who takes the place of the original. In Furiosa’s death, he appears on the horizon, only his back and his stead are seen and it’s very reminiscent of the beginning of Fury Road. We don’t see him help her, but it’s implied he is why she ends up in the maggot farm. He appears both as the mysterious folk hero leading her to where she needs to go, both in this and Fury Road, but also almost like the Reaper or Chiron, there to take her to the underworld and leave her to it. He doesn’t resurrect her, she resurrects herself.

All this is what makes the parts of the movie that seem too out there better. Because it feels so much like a myth or a folk tale that you can forgive the parts that make no sense. The whole story is being told to us, there’s a narrator at the end who even mentions the possibility of the ending being changed because it wasn’t good enough, from her just shooting him through his child’s toy, the same one he gave her then ripped from her, to her killing him in the same way he killed Jack, the first person to truly want to help her, to finally, the tree straight out of norse mythology with a forbidden fruit mixed in.

It was amazing.

[aroadside-attraction]

Thinking about making Steddie a Fire AU

Monster!Eddie is raised on the fringes of the kingdom by Lord Wayne, an aging general who Mad King Richard destroyed and sent to the edges of the kingdom for some unknown crime. He raises Eddie to be good, to never use his powers the way that Al had- corrupting the king and sending the kingdom into a spiral.

After the Mad King finally dies, and the crown prince Steve takes the throne, he and his new General (Robin, his bastard half sister and best friend) decide they could use the wisdom of the great General Wayne, and they send Robin to his estate at the edge of the kingdom with the First Army, and leave with more than they bargained for- nobody realized that Al had fathered a monster child, hair like an oil slick, eyes black as pitch, dangerously powerful with his abilities of mind reading and thought control completely untrained. Robin knew the danger of leaving such a creature alone, especially with Vecna encroaching ever closer, a war looming ominously on the horizon.

The newly minted King Steve is, unfortunately, as susceptible to the allure of a monster as his father was. He makes a fool of himself in front of his entire council of advisors when he first lays eyes on Eddie when Robin brings him and Wayne to the war room- Robin and Nancy (the head of his council) have to physically drag him away from Eddie and out of the room. Argyle and Jonathan bustle Eddie out of the room and to the next safest spot- the kids’ room, who have all never seen a human monster before (they were born after Al “killed” himself- only one person alive knows the truth of how that monster met his end) and are endlessly fascinated by the man. Eddie falls in love with them.

And so Eddie becomes a part of castle life. He spends most of his days with the kids. Occasionally, if he knows the king is otherwise occupied, he wanders into the war room, gives his opinions on the various skirmishes that have begun to break out along the border. It’s during one of these sessions that he first sees the king again. He got too caught up in the war talk, he doesn’t realize how much time had passed, that the time for whatever royal duties that had occupied the king for the morning ran out. Eddie tensed when he realized what was happening, moments before the king entered the room. The entire room held their breath as they watched Steve register that Eddie is there, the emotions play over his face before he reigns himself in, giving the monster a brief nod and moving to plant himself firmly at Robin’s side, bowing his head to study the map at her table. At the end of the meeting, he approaches Eddie, Robin tight at his side, to apologize for his behavior upon their first meeting. Eddie forgives him, hesitantly, as he seems genuine in his words, but Wayne always taught him to be wary of the world.

A hesitant friendship forms between the king and the monster. Eddie learns what Steve (he is Steve now, to Eddie, no longer the king, after a rooftop confession about neither of them being confident in the position that life has dealt them) is truly like- a bit shy, incredibly protective of the people he loves and the kingdom he rules, a fierce warrior and a talented swordsman. Eddie shares bits of himself too- his love for music and storytelling, the way he’s grown to love the kids, his growing realization that he’s actually kinda good at the war strategy stuff. It’s after his confession about the kids that he comes to learn their importance to Steve, and why it seems they have the run of the castle (they do, Steve has too big of a soft spot for them all to get them to stop their nonsense.)

Just as their friendship moves into a space of gentle flirtation as they come to realize there are true feelings there, a change comes to the war. Vecna has, somehow, found a monster of his own. A young girl, the haggard spy tells the occupants of the war room, about Max’s age. She’s clearly a prisoner, the way that the shackles around her wrists and ankles have been welded on, so that she couldn’t enter the mind of a guard and get them to unlock them.

The war suddenly becomes very real.

Robin rides out immediately to join the First and Second Army. Steve follows at first light, riding with the Third and Fourth Army to the Eastern front. Eddie doesn’t even get the chance to say goodbye. He remains behind with Steve’s council, planning defenses for the King’s City, sending word to strongholds across the kingdom of what has occurred, warning them of what may come.

It’s one late night in the war room, just Eddie and Wayne left awake, that Wayne finally tells him the story. The story of how Eddie was not his father’s only child, that there was a girl born a few years before Eddie, to a young girl that Wayne was close with. He had helped the girl conceal her pregnancy, and when the little monster baby was born, Wayne snuck her out, found her a safe home with a family he knew. Only, it wasn’t as safe as he had thought. Word got to Al what he had done, and Al had the Mad King shatter his general’s legs, and send him broken back to his estate. Last he had heard of the girl- of Eddie’s *sister*, it would take a while to come around to the fact that Wayne had hidden that from him his entire life- she had vanished up north. It was his best guess, Wayne said, that the girl that Vecna had was Eddie’s niece.

Once again, his world was turned upside down. He knew he had to save her. He knew in his bones that he was the only one who could. So he did something that will get him scolded over the recklessness later- he packed the lightest provisions he thought he could get away with, manipulated a guard into looking away while he stole a horse from the stables, and rode off in the direction of the western front, where the latest reports had placed Vecna and his little monster girl.

Robin nearly had a heart attack when he swirled into her tent, a storm of emotion that he couldn’t help but project out onto everyone around him. She calmed him, let him know that Vecna had headed East to where Steve fought alongside the Third and Fourth. Eddie stays in the west for a handful of days, helps turn the tide of the battle there until Robin can leave the Second to mop up the stragglers, and they both ride with the First to join Steve.

The Third and Fourth are exhausted by the time their reinforcements arrive. Robin and Eddie immediately plunge into planning- there isn’t a moment to spare until the late hours of the night, when Eddie finally finds his way to Steve’s tents. He finds him there, strategizing with his captains, and Steve sends Eddie through to his sleeping quarters- it’s clear that the man hasn’t slept in days, and he collapses onto Steve’s cot. He wakes when Steve comes in, nearly an hour later, and they confess their feelings. A brief reprieve in the harshness of war.

Vecna sends word just before dawn, calling for a meeting between rulers, just the kings and their monsters. Eddie urges Steve to agree- he can use this to save the girl, he knows he can. So they meet, and as Vecna and Steve pretend to negotiate, Eddie uses his abilities to reach out to the girl, telling her everything that Wayne had told him about where the girl may come from. She returns the favor with a story of her own horrors. Eddie promises her safety, a home and a family, if she’ll just help them take down Vecna.

She does, of course. El is a good girl, all she’s ever wanted was just a little bit of love. With her help, they quickly win the war, with far too many lives lost, but that is war, after all.

They return to the King’s City triumphant, and tired. El falls in with the kids immediately, and Steve convinces Eddie to move into his rooms (it does not take much convincing.)

And they all live happily ever after.

[honourablejester]

Thoughts on Starfinder’s Pact Worlds Setting

So I went back and bought the Pact Worlds sourcebook as well, because the hints of the setting from the Core Rulebook were intriguing. I have not regretted it. There is an awful lot of fun stuff in here. I’m only partway through, but some thoughts so far:

The Sun is fucking cool. Even just the option that the sun is an interactable location in the system is fantastic. The Burning Archipelago is such a cool setting element and idea. I love Verdeon so much, this bubble city given over to horticulture and pleasure gardens in the surface of a star. A giant greenhouse with floating planting platforms, some angled straight into the sun’s burning light for extreme heat-thriving plants, and others angled outward into space for more shade-loving plants. Beautiful pleasure gardens, again, hanging inside a star. It’s fantastic.

Also, continuing the theme of solar horticulture, the NatuReal corporation with its orbital jungle boxes full of plant monsters and incredibly well-protected corporate HQ-slash-company-town in Fireside would make a great villain for an adventure. Investigating the oopsies in the jungle boxes and trying to figure out if there’s a more sinister pattern underlying what’s going dark (or a PC/NPC character who survived one of the ‘going dark’ incidents and wants revenge-slash-answers) could wind up with a party trying to do a heist on a fortified corporate HQ inside a fucking bubble city floating in the sun. Which, let’s be real, would be fun.

(If this has shown up already in an adventure, feel free to tell me!)

Verces is also really fucking cool. It’s not the planet I thought would be as cool as it is, but there’s a lot to work with on Verces. The whole tidally-locked thing, and the wildly diverse landscapes and timescapes that enables, are amazing. The perpetually night Darkside and the viciously sun-seared Fullbright, with the full cyberpunk equator-spanning city-belt in the middle, are a spectacular way to get a lot things going on on the same world. You’ve got full on (genuine, entirely literal) Mad Max, Warlords of Barsoom going on in one corner, cyberpunk terrorist shenanigans in the middle, and then John Carpenter’s The Thing on the other.

My horror-loving heart probably does love the Darkside best, naturally. This frozen evernight wasteland of ice and blood. The artificial lights of mining rigs and industrial platforms looming out of the ice and the darkness. The horrific creatures out on the ice who’ll bind you alive inside their bodies and slowly drain you of blood while you still live. The fucking cenobite monastery of terrifying ascetics who let frostbite eat their limbs so that they can be wired directly and bodily into starship drive systems. Verces’ Darkside is less Hoth, and more The Thing meets Event Horizon meets Hellraiser meets Chronicles of Riddick. I’m vibrating. It’s incredible.

(Sidenote: I’m not sure on the timing here, but is it possible the Starfinder writers were taking some notes from Sunless Sea/Skies? There’s a couple of things on Verces that give me definite Unterzee vibes. Lempro and the intis in particular give me Whither/Codex vibes. There’s a lot of influences apparent in Starfinder, I’m catching pieces of so many of my favourite sci-fi/horror/fantasy canons, so I’m just idly wondering)

The Diaspora may well be my favourite of all the Pact Worlds. If you want space. That full kind of working-class SF, roguish SF, asteroid miners and smugglers flying junkers and the wrecks of derelict starships, the Diaspora is for you. The Expanse, Alien, Event Horizon. Godfall from Sunless Sea. The Millennium Falcon accidentally hiding inside the maw of an asteroid worm. Magnetic Rose. Captain Harlock/Queen Emeraldas. If you want to find strange objects and eldritch mysteries floating silently in space. If you want space pirate outpost-cities hidden in asteroids. If you want starship nomads on mobile trade and repair outposts servicing miners and outlaws. If you want vast mining facilities hanging gently in space. If you want underground slave-liberation movements hiding in the ‘mountains’ (asteroids) away from civilisation. If you want vast ship’s graveyards inexplicably bundled around innocuous points in space. The Diaspora has it all. It’s incredible. I would play a whole game that was just dootling around the Diaspora doing odd jobs and stumbling into horrifying mysteries. If Paizo ever wanted to make a Starfinder video game, set it here. I will play it.

Within the Diaspora, The Hum is so fucking good. Look. Vast fields of wrecked and disabled ships orbiting around a weird anomaly in space that makes them lethal to go near is a trope, it’s a fucking good trope, I love it a whole hell of a lot. A madness inducing anomaly that pulls people in and makes it near-impossible to escape is a fantastic mystery to just put there. Can you do anything with it? Maybe not, not survivably, but it’s an excellent thing to just have be there, a known weirdness and danger to shipping, a piece of the lore of a place.

I also really, really love the Farabarrium. A ratfolk trade and salvage barge made from a salvaged warship that they just took over, there’s vibes of Star Wars Legends in there, but also just … Ysoki are one of my favourite races, and them just operating a stolen/salvaged mobile garage/gas station out of a repurposed dead warship in this backwater area of space does something happy for me.

The fact that the Diaspora has significant quantities of ysoki, dwarves and sarcesians, three species that are rapidly coming to be my favourites, also does not hurt its place in my internal rankings. There’s a lot of just good stuff in the Diaspora. Mystic rivers that flow inexplicably through space. Rat-run flying petrol stations. Vacuum-capable player races with solar wings. Monasteries that are not-so-secretly worshipping Nyarlathotep. Strange wailing insane asylums/prisons that drive people insane and may involve the King in Yellow. Dwarven asteroid-cities. Robot liberation movements. The Diaspora is such a perfect intersection of so many things I like. It wins. It has to win.

But I still have six planets to go, so maybe we’ll see. Heh. This is a very fun setting. Also, I suspect I may be showing my tastes in fiction over here.

[systemadministratorclu]

⏪ rourke meets a little kid milo

//using futureverse here because that's the first thing I got an idea for. World/setting partially inspired by concepts from @the-haunted-office //

Lyle Rourke had made a pretty nice, easy life for himself. Which was a strange thing to say for someone who lived next to an immense mountain of garbage, junk, and other refuse. But in the desertlike wasteland the world had become, such mountains-once the megalandfills someone had thought would help clean up the world-were more like oases. One could find all sorts of materials and supplies in them. Certainly Rourke had, if the trailer/shack he'd built himself out of a camper he'd found was anything to go by. Since an occurrence he only thought of as The Split, he'd discovered he was actually a pretty good mechanic and engineer. A 'car guy' was one layman's term for him. 'Greasemonkey' was also accurate, as Rourke did often have grease in his hair and on his clothes, which looked like if a lumberjack decided to become a mechanic. He actually had his own place in the nearby settlement, but he rarely stayed there, except to shower, catch up on some news, and see if anyone needed work done. Anyone who had a machine (that wasn't a computer) usually brought it to him or had him come look at it. Rourke could fix just about anything.

His specialty, and what he spent a lot of his free time working on, was cars, and he had a little parking lot of finished projects. Half were restored (mostly. Enough they were usable) classic cars. The other half were his 'fun' projects, and these looked like something pulled from the world of Mad Max: Fury Road. Things he'd made because he could, or because it looked neat. There was also a pickup truck with computer circuitry patterns painted on it and the words 'cybertruck, hahaha' spray painted on the sides. Whatever project he was currently working on, be it his own or someone else's machine he was fixing, sat up on blocks near his shack. He really only had one hobby: playing music on an electronic keyboard he'd managed to restore and singing. He was good, but had never performed publicly, so no one knew of his talent, a fact he was just fine with. And that was how his days were spent, searching the Trash Mountain for materials and parts, working on his projects, or playing music in the shack.

He was about to sit down to dinner one night (reconstituted whatever ration pack he'd tossed into a pot of boiling water) when a sudden flickering of his lights and the sound of something falling right outside caught his attention. He opened the camper door and looked around, seeing nothing there. Then he heard it, a soft sniffling and whimpering. He looked down....and was struck dumb when he saw the source.

A tiny little boy, who couldn't have been more than two or three, sat on the porch he'd made out of concrete blocks and sheets of metal, curled up hugging his knees, face buried in them as he cried softly, his short brown hair a mess.

Rourke didn't know what to make of this. There weren't many kids in the settlement, and he couldn't remember ever seeing one like this there. And what the hell was the poor kid doing out here at this time?

"Hey there." Rourke said, causing the kid to look up, and Rourke nearly loosed a string of curses when he saw those big glasses on those big brown eyes. It was a face whose adult form he knew all too well, a face he frankly was not keen on seeing again any time soon. He had pushed the thoughts and memories from his mind, never talking about the incident, never even mentioning the name. And yet, somehow, the universe saw fit to play this cruel joke on him. Had this been the adult Milo, Rourke probably would've told him to leave and shut the door on him.

But this was a child. A scared, confused, helpless little child. Rourke was not heartless enough to turn him away. Milo or not, the poor kid couldn't stay out in the wasteland of the world. Looking out toward the horizon, Rourke could see the walls of oncoming storm clouds, and he could hear the distant deep rumble of thunder. That made up his mind. No way could he just leave the little boy outside in a storm. Especially not with all the things outside that could get knocked around by the winds and possibly hurt or kill the kid. Already the wind was starting to pick up. Rourke sighed in defeat as he stepped out and knelt down to Little Milo's level.

"Come on, kid. There's a storm coming, you'll get hurt if you stay out here. Let's get you inside where it's safe." The boy nodded, sniffing back more tears as Rourke carefully picked him up and carried him inside.

The shack was much sturdier than it looked, and parts of it were built onto the camper that was the majority of it, sealing up holes in the camper, so the inside was warm and cozy. Rourke set the child on the couch and checked him over, making sure he wasn't hurt. Then he noticed the boy shaking and put a blanket around him. Through it all, the kid just sat there, tears streaming down his little face. Rourke sat down beside him and put an arm around him.

"Hey, look at me son. You're okay. You're gonna be fine.......We'll let that storm pass and then I'll see about finding your parents, I'm sure they're....worried....." The boy started to cry more at the mention of his parents.

"I don't got any!" He sobbed out his first words and Rourke was hit with two more It's Milo blows. First, the dead parents. Second, that voice. Somehow, he knew exactly what it would sound like when the kid grew up. He bit back curses again. Whatever Rourke's problem, it wasn't relevant here. Yes, this was definitely a de-aged Milo. But it was also a tiny scared little boy, and right now he needed Rourke's help. He sighed inwardly and hugged the kid to his side.

"Okay. Okay. It's okay. We don't have to worry about that right now anyway, alright?" He heard the chiming of the timer he'd set for his meal.

"Instead, let's get you something to eat. I was just about to eat when I found you, actually." He went over to his stove to see his meal finished. Some kind of beef and pasta in a red sauce. He portioned some out into a bowl and brought it and a small folding tray table over to the couch. He set up the table in front of the boy and put the bowl on it with a fork.

"Here you go, nice and hot.....sorry it's nothing fancy, but.....reconstituted food never is." He watched to make sure the kid ate. Once he saw the little boy start eating slowly, Rourke got his own portion. Half of what he usually had, so he grabbed a bag of saltine crackers and a can of Spam (someone in the settlement had found a large store of it, still edible, and had given him a case after he fixed their truck). He then took a seat beside the little kid to eat his own meal.

"It's good.....Thank you, mister.....uh...." The boy paused, and Rourke realized what he wanted.

"Rourke. My name's Rourke." He didn't want to hear his first name in that voice.

"Thank you, Mister Rourke. I'm Milo." Milo then turned back to his meal.

As they ate, the winds picked up. Rain started to fall, hammering on the metal roof and walls. Thunder rumbled, and now there was lightning, too. Rourke took up the dishes and put them in the sink, then came back over to where Milo was huddled under his blanket and jumped at every sudden rumble of thunder. Rourke sat down and the boy immediately moved to his side, huddled against him.

Then a particularly loud thunderclap sounded and the lights went out. Milo screamed and grabbed for Rourke. Rourke quickly hugged the boy to his chest as he started to cry again, scared of the storm like most two or three year old kids. Rourke wasn't bothered, this usually happened in the bad storms. It meant something had knocked out his supply cable, linking him to the settlement's little 'power plant', really a solar and wind farm (and probably other power sources) cobbled together by a few residents who knew what they were doing enough to set up a power grid for the place. He would have to fix it again once the storm was over.

"It's okay, Milo. We're okay." He said calmly.

"I'm scared, Mister Rourke!" the boy cried.

"I know, and that's okay. It's okay to be scared." Not in his father's house, it just got you Jackson Rourke's rage, but Rourke wasn't his father.

"But I'm here. I got you, and I'm not gonna let anything bad happen to you, okay, Milo?" He heard a soft sniffle amongst the little sobs.

"You promise?" He said quietly.

"I promise." Rourke said. He then felt a pair of little arms around his neck.

They sat in silent darkness except for the sounds of the storm, and Milo's crying trailed off, until Rourke realized the boy had fallen asleep. Then it was just him, alone with his thoughts, especially what to do with little Milo.

But as Rourke had already said, those thoughts could wait until morning.

--------

//anon if you read this whole thing, I fucking applaud you. This got way longer than I ever meant for it to.//

[amanda-n-newman-author]

Camp NaNoWriMo

Hey everyone. So, it’s been a little while since I’ve updated here (between college and other irl stress) and I can’t promise how long this post will be. But, I’ve decided that I will be participating in Camp NaNoWriMo in April. Yeah, I know, I’m crazy for trying to balance a hard writing goal with school and work but I’m sure it’s doable. 

So, for my project... You might, or might not, know that I finished and am preparing my latest dystopian fantasy novel AToTB (sorry, still not revealing the full title yet) last summer and am planning to release it this fall. If you don’t know anything about AToTB, it’s a Horizon Zero Dawn and Borderlands 3 inspired book with Mad Max vibs

That being said, I’ve already started writing the sequel AToUB. So, for April’s Camp NaNoWriMo, I want to add at least 25k words to AToUB. 

Last time I set a 25k goal (which was for AToTB in July2021 Camp NaNoWriMo) I ended up hitting double my goal. Here’s to hoping I can do it again (and I’ll be taking all of you along for the ride by updating you here each week). 

[thou-breath-of-autumns-being]

Apocalypse World MDZS, Part One: The Jiang Clan

I like the RPG Apocalypse World. I like MDZS. Naturally, I started to think about how it would all fit together.

It shouldn’t require any familiarity with Apocalypse World to understand my posts, beyond the fact that the game is intended to simulate a Mad Max-like postapocalyptic society.

There are five stats in Apocalypse World: Hot, Cool, Hard, Sharp, and Weird. Hot governs seducing and manipulating people; Cool, staying calm in stressful situations; Hard, punching people; Sharp, understanding people and complex situations; and Weird, bizarre psychic powers. Because everyone in mdzs has bizarre psychic powers, I’m interpreting demonic cultivation as Weird and regular cultivation as... guns. 

Hx is a measurement of the strength of your relationship with someone; your ability to both help and hinder them.

I have opinions on which advancements each character takes and so will be statting them out through their first major advancement. 

The Jiang clan is a biker gang. It consists of about fifteen violent bastards with scavenged and makeshift weapons and no fucking discipline at all. They’re a nomadic gang, able to maintain their bikes without a home base; they’re also unusually well-armored. Thanks to Wei Wuxian’s intervention, their bikes are picky as hell and extremely high-maintenance. Good thing he’s not going to leave to protect the Wen remnants, right? Right?

Jiang Cheng

When his parents are alive, Jiang Cheng is a driver-- that is, a guy with a car who is really fucking good at driving. This is purely because of the Daredevil move. After his parents’ death, he spends a while as a Driver who happens to be running a biker gang, because he’s not at all ready to run a biker gang, but eventually he changes playbooks into Chopper (biker gang head). 

Unfortunately, by default Drivers have Cool +2, which our boy definitely does not have. I have decided to ignore the rules and give him Cool -1, Hard +2, Hot 0, Sharp +1, Weird +1. (He picked up the weird by having Wei Wuxian as his brother and he hates it.)

Starting Hx

Caught staring out at the horizon: Wei Wuxian. +3 Hx

Has been with me for days on the road: Jiang Yanli. +2 Hx

Got me out of some serious shit: this one puzzles me, our boy Jiang Cheng doesn’t so much have relationships at the beginning of the story... I’m sangcheng trash so I’m inclined to say that Nie Huaisang talked his way out of a conflict between the Jiang and Nie gangs.  +1 Hx

-1 Hx with everyone else

He Does Not Care About People

Advancement Progression

Starting Moves

Daredevil: if you go straight into danger without hedging your bets, you get +1 armor. If you happen to be leading a gang or convoy, it gets +1 armor too.

This is our boy Jiang Cheng tbh. 

Combat driver: when you use your vehicle as a weapon, inflict +1 harm. When you inflict v-harm [harm to a vehicle], add +1 to your target’s roll. When you suffer v-harm, take -1 to your roll.

This is him being actually very good at his job.

Get a new vehicle.

Reputation: when you meet someone important (your call), roll+cool. On a hit, they’ve heard of you, and you say what they’ve heard; the MC has them respond accordingly. On a 10+, you take +1 forward for dealing with them as well. On a miss, they’ve heard of you, but the MC decides what they’ve heard.

Jiang Cheng has developed a strong reputation in the Sunshot Campaign... unfortunately, it’s not a very good one because boy has Cool -1

Get a garage and crew.

My other car is a tank: you get a specialized battle vehicle.

Biker gang leaders get some nice shit. 

Change playbook to Chopper, starting moves:

Pack alpha: when you try to impose your will on your gang, roll+hard. On a 10+, all 3. On a 7–9, choose 1: they do what you want (otherwise, they refuse); they don’t fight back over it (otherwise, they do fight back); you don’t have to make an example of one of them (otherwise, you must) On a miss, someone in your gang makes a bid, idle or serious, to replace you for alpha.

Fucking thieves: when you have your gang search their pockets and saddlebags for something, roll+hard. It has to be something small enough to fit. On a 10+, one of you happens to have just the thing, or close enough. On a 7–9, one of you happens to have something pretty close, unless what you’re looking for is hi-tech, in which case no dice. On a miss, one of you used to have just the thing, but it turns out that some asswipe stole it from you.

Wei Wuxian 

Wei Wuxian is a savvyhead, who are people who repair cars and guns and shit and also do magic. This is pretty much the most Wei Wuxian imaginable splat. He’s the secret weapon of the Jiang biker gang: he can fix anything, he makes their bikes and armor better than anyone else’s, and he has a sixth sense for the psychic maelstrom that gives them a key advantage.

The interest in the psychic maelstrom also proves to be Wei Wuxian’s downfall: after Wen Chao kidnaps him and dumps him in an area of particular psychic strength, he grows more and more interested in the maelstrom and further and further disconnected from his family and the rest of the world. 

In this AU, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng are competing less than in mdzs proper. Jiang Cheng has a lot more of an expectation of Wei Wuxian as his right-hand man-- their skills are complementary in a way that they really aren’t in canon. 

I don’t like the stats that are possible according to the rules for Wei Wuxian either, so his stats are Cool -1, Hard +2, Hot 0, Sharp -1, Weird +3. (See starting moves below.) 

His workspace features a darkroom of raw materials, weird-ass electronica, and a relic of the golden age.

Starting Hx

Biggest potential problem: Jiang Cheng, Hx +2

Most strange: Lan Wangji, Hx +1

Everyone else: Hx -1

Wei Wuxian can’t be bothered to remember your names. 

No Hx with Yanli :( :( stupid rules

Advancement Progression

Starting Moves

Things speak: whenever you handle or examine something interesting, roll+weird. On a hit, you can ask the MC questions. On a 10+, ask 3. On a 7–9, ask 1: Who handled this last before me? Who made this? What strong emotions have been most recently nearby this? What words have been said most recently nearby this? •What has been done most recently with this, or to this?  What’s wrong with this, and how might I fix it? Treat a miss as though you’ve opened your brain to the world’s psychic maelstrom and missed the roll.

Deep insights: you get +1 weird (weird+3).

Spooky intense: when you do something under fire, stand overwatch, or bait a trap, roll+weird instead of roll+cool.

Traumatized torture!wwx.

Reality’s fraying edge: some component of your workspace, or some arrangement of components, is uniquely receptive to the world’s psychic maelstrom (+augury).

I think he picks this one up after the Burial Mounds-equivalent; probably something he got there.

Touched by death: when someone is unconscious in your care, you can use them for augury. When someone has died in your care, you can use their body for augury.

Obviously Wei Wuxian gets the death psychic powers option. 

Add life support to your workspace and now you can work on people there too.

Wen NING.

Direct-brain whisper projection: you can roll+weird to get the effects of going aggro, without going aggro. Your victim has to be able to see you, but you don’t have to interact. If your victim forces your hand, your mind counts as a weapon (1-harm ap close loud-optional)

I just think Wei Wuxian would not at all use this move responsibly and it would be fun.

Advance Augury, Open Your Brain To The Psychic Maelstrom, Go Aggro On Someone.

This gives you bonus better results on a 12+ roll... again, not at all something Wei Wuxian is going to use responsibly. 

Jiang Yanli

I was very confused about how to stat out Yanli until I found the Waterbearer in the extended rulebooks. This is kind of a weird Yanli but, eh, Apocalypse World is bad at sick characters and Yanli doesn’t have a hell of a lot of personality in canon to begin with. 

Yanli is the keeper of an oasis that only the Jiang clan knows about; its mysterious healing powers allow her to keep her chronic illness at bay. I’m envisioning it as being this pool of fragrant, icy-cold water in the middle of the desert, with wide flat rocks and lush vegetation and birds and birdsong.

The oasis also has its laws. Yanli didn’t create them. (I’m imagining Cangse Sanren teaching the Jiang clan about them, tbh.) The laws are: everyone eats, everyone drinks, no one goes without; a slave who crosses the threshold is free; honor the ghosts of the dead; do no violence and no intentional harm.

I’m thinking the Jiang slaughter happens at the oasis, actually? And of course “honor the ghosts of the dead” goes... interestingly... with the slaughter of the Wen. “Everyone eats, everyone drinks, no one goes without” is my reference to her famous lotus soup. 

I’m tempted by exile being the punishment but I bet you could do something interesting with the punishment being execution and Yanli’s death... although I’d be worried about taking too much blame away from Wei Wuxian. Hm. 

Her stats are Cool +2, Hard -1, Hot +1, Sharp +1, and Weird +0. 

Starting Hx

Gave me (metaphorical) water in the desert: Jin Zixuan, Hx +3

Serves the source (and also is her brother): Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng Hx+2

Advancement Progression

Starting Moves

Lawbringer: when someone breaks your law, roll+cool. On a 10+, choose: you let them off with a warning, reduced penalty, or reprieve; you make an exception for them and they have no blame; they must face the full penalty. On a 7-9, they must face the full penalty. On a miss, or if you are unable to enact judgment for any reason, responsibility falls to you, and you must face the penalty yourself.

Peacemaker: when you call for two rivals or enemies to come to you and meet, to settle things between them, roll+cool. On a hit, they must both come, at the time you specify. On a 10+, choose 2. On a 7–9, choose 1: they must come alone; they must come unarmed; they must bring gifts, peace offerings, prisoners to exchange, or tokens of good will. On a miss, they can make demands of you, and come only if you accede.

All are welcome: when you personally welcome newcomers in, roll+sharp. On a 10+, ask 3. On a 7-9, ask 2. On a miss, ask 1 anyway: are they hiding any weapons? are they hiding any valuables? are they hiding a disease? are they hiding my enemies among them? are they keeping any malicious secrets?

Step into the flow: when you lead a group in true ceremony, roll+cool. On a 10+, choose 2. On a 7–9, choose 1: anyone sick is healed; anyone injured is healed; anyone distraught is calmed; anyone bereft is comforted; anyone lost is reassured; the source speaks to you. On a miss, the world’s psychic maelstrom interferes. Open your brain instead.

Battlefield grace: while you are caring for people, not fighting, you get +1 armor

This she picks up during Sunshot.

+1 Sharp

+1 Hot

Perfect instincts: when you’ve read a charged situation and you’re acting on the MC’s answers, take +2 instead of +1.

She doesn’t get a major advancement because instead she dies. 

[matthiasschoenaertsdaily]

Matthias Schoenaerts full interview for De Morgen Magazine (original in Flemish, translated into English by @matthiasschoenaertsdaily​)

Interview by Els Maes, published on November 28, 2020

Even a global pandemic will not destroy the optimism of actor Matthias Schoenaerts (42). Because he knows from his own experience how much beauty can emerge from the most hopeless situations. "I've had my back against the wall often enough, I'll always find a way out."

A bleak autumn day on a concrete square. There is lukewarm coffee, lukewarm Chimay and rolling tobacco. At dusk we see the silhouettes of fat rats that shoot past our ankles. And yet Matthias Schoenaerts will tell us in a glowing argument that this, here and now, is the very best place to be. That there is so much beauty to discover, he says. Le paradis c'est ici. As long as we want to see it.

"It's strange to say in this unpleasant period, but I've enjoyed the past few months enormously. It's the first time in ten years, since Runskop actually, that I'll be home for a long period of time. This is so beneficial: I am photographing, painting, writing. I can devote time and attention to the very simple things we'd otherwise race past."

"Seriously, look at that," he says, picking a leaf off the ground. "Those colors, that pattern. I can spend hours looking at the pure beauty of the things that surround us."

Above us a pigeon is wreaking havoc between the thinned out foliage. "While you are singing about the wonderful beauty of nature, that animal is going to shit on our heads," I say. "And that too will be a s-p-l-e-n-d-i-d moment," Schoenaerts answers.

Matthias Schoenaerts is Belgium's most successful international film star. But here and now, on a bench in his hometown, he is a technically unemployed actor, an all-round searching artist, but above all: fighter of cynicism. "I refuse to go along with all negativity and fear. The true battle today is cynicism versus courage. And I always choose the latter."

We're on the Oudevaartplaats, the square that everyone knows as the Antwerp Bird Market, and where Schoenaerts' childhood memories are waiting to be picked up. It comes into the conversation just like that: Brando, the cute chow chow that little Matthias got from his mom on this square, when here on the bird market puppies were still sold. "My dogs were my great loves. The home situation was often difficult, and with my dogs I found security. We had three chow chows, those fluffy lion dogs with a blue tongue. Brando was the first, I loved that animal."

"We lived in a small apartment with three dogs, anything but ideal. One day we let them go, to people with a large estate. That was heartbreaking."

There is a beautiful lesson in that, about love and letting go. It would have been selfish to keep your dogs if you could give them a nicer life elsewhere, wouldn't it?

"Absolutely, but I obviously didn't process that departure properly. Brando still appears in my dreams, after all these years. Then he returns home unexpectedly, and am I mad with joy.

"I often dream about my parents too: that reunion is so intensely beautiful and warm. Oh, there you are, finally! Those dreams are true to life, and the awakening is rock-hard."

Is that one of the reasons why you like being here in Antwerp, because here you feel more connected to the people that you loved?

"This is my home, my zero, I can't imagine a place in the world where I would rather live. When my mom was alive, and especially when she got sick, in between filming I tried to be with her as much as possible here in Antwerp. In the meantime I have an apartment here, my first permanent place of my own, but I've hardly been there in recent years. Now I can finally enjoy my home, I find peace, tranquility and inspiration there. I have seen fantastic sunsets on my roof terrace in recent months. So much beauty, and you can just admire it there, every day, for free. As long as you take the time to enjoy it.

"Normally I would have started filming again in April, and left for a hectic ride of at least two years, with projects that would follow each other quickly. I was at my limits, sooner or later I was going to bang my head against the wall. I feel how beneficial it is to slow down for a moment. David Lynch said that: 'Just slow things down and it becomes more beautiful'.

"As an actor you have to work in a big machine, according to a tight schedule. I have now discovered the pleasure of creating things for myself very spontaneously in my own cadence."

Is that work something you ever want to go public with?

"I want to do something with my photography someday, but I'm in no hurry. I'm also writing a film script, I've had an idea for a trilogy for a long time. It's a very personal project, and it takes time for it to crystallize into something very pure and proper. Maybe those films will come within ten years, maybe never.

"The most important thing is to keep busy. You have to look for something, anything, on which you can focus your passion, love and attention. Of course I would like to return to set, and those projects will come back later. But if I can't change anything about a situation, why worry about it?

"From a very young age I learned that there are not many certainties in life, I adapt easily to unexpected circumstances. There is one thing I can't stand, and that is feeling powerless. I never want to be the victim of a situation, I will always think: what can I do myself? Which way can I go? I have often enough stood with my back against the wall, I will always find a way out and take matters into my own hands."

So Schoenaerts decided to use this period to put Zenith - his artist name as a street artist - to hard work. Since the lockdown he has already created nine impressive murals, including one in the courtyard of the Oudenaarde prison, and one at the beginning of this month in the Antwerp Begijnenstraat, on the bare walls that form their furthest horizon for the prisoners. A moving event, he says. Not only by the touching conversations with inmates, and the forty-minute applause with which the prisoners welcomed him. "The mural contains a poem by my father. While I am there painting those beautiful words of my dad on the wall, I suddenly remember that my mom used to give meditation lessons to the prisoners there in the Begijnenstraat. I had completely forgotten about that until I stood there. How beautiful that is. Suddenly I felt my parents very tangible, very close to me."

It's a bit funny: a long time ago you were arrested for graffiti, now they invite you to prison to make a mural.

"I used to tag a lot, but I really don't like the vandalism that sometimes comes with graffiti. Defacing a facade, that's just ridiculous. But trains, bridges, tunnels.... frankly I think that's the max. Soon I'm going to do another oldskool graffiti wall, with some friends, back to the roots. But with permission, yes."

Scary dudes

The problems of the Belgian detention system are well known: outdated infrastructure, overcrowding and a system of pre-trial detention which means that some people are innocently stuck for years. Schoenaerts: "These are human lives that are destroyed by the Belgian state, isn't that scandalous?"

Schoenaerts' engagement started years ago, after meeting Hans Claus, prison director in Oudenaarde, who contacted him when he wanted to organize a screening of Le Fidèle, the film by Michaël R. Roskam starring Schoenaerts. Claus has been fighting for many years for a reform of our detention system, among others with the non-profit organization De Huizen, small-scale centers that are more focused on rehabilitation and reintegration of the detainee. How does Schoenaerts see his role? "Those murals are a kind of lubricant for me, to get attention for this problem. I am not the expert and I am certainly not a politician. This injustice touches me as a human being, and my message is clear: please listen to the people who have been working hard for decades to reform the system from the inside."

In The Mustang, your last feature film to be seen here before the lockdown, you take on the role of a prisoner who learns to tame wild horses and his demons. Has that role changed your vision?

"That rehabilitation program with mustangs really exists, and the chance of recidivism is almost zero percent. I had a conversation in the Begijnenstraat with the minister of Justice Vincent Van Quickenborne (Open Vld, ed.), and he told me that the chance of relapse here is 40 to 50 percent. Isn't that madness?

"That's what fascinates me most of all: what do we do with those detainees while they're stuck? How can we help to break the destructive patterns that put them in prison? Imprisonment is a punishment in itself, but someday we'll send those people back into society, so let's mainly support them in their self-development.

"In preparation for The Mustang, I visited prisons in the U.S., and talked to men who had been detained for 20, 30 years. Heavy guys: Aryan Brotherhood (powerful crime syndicate of neo-Nazis in American prisons, ed.), Mexican gang leaders... real scary dudes. You know what those say to me? That they live in fear every day, but they must not show weakness. Psychological counseling and things like that have their value, but that's often very cerebral. I especially believe in the healing power of art. Imagine that inmates can express all those fucked up emotions through art: I think that there is an enormous potential in this."

I heard you're playing with the idea of giving acting lessons to inmates?

"That's not a concrete plan yet, but I would love it if people from the creative sector would commit themselves to this: musicians, sculptors, dancers. Or writers who help prisoners put their own story into words.

"The cultural sector needs to start sticking its neck out. The sector is lying flat, and that's terrible. But we have to keep moving. We can all do something for the community, without being paid for it. Planting small seeds, doing something good for your fellow man, something beautiful always comes out of it."

Had you been to a prison before The Mustang?

"To visit friends, yes. In Merksplas, Hoogstraten, Hasselt, Dendermonde... We shouldn't talk about that any further. A prison is deep tristesse. Who dares to call that 'a hotel', shame on you."

This summer you painted an impressive mural in Paris in honor of George Floyd, murdered by American officers. And in Ostend last week a new mural was unveiled, with a 'decapitated' Leopold II. Is activism an important part of your street art?

"Graffiti used to be more of a style exercise for me, you want to create things that get noticed within the scene. But gradually I felt like communicating with a wider audience. I like to incorporate a lot of symbolism in my paintings, such as the cracks I photograph all over the world and then magnify them in another place. And the praying hands, a universal image of hope and faith in yourself. Art has the power to speak to our deepest emotions, and that is what binds us to the other. Connectedness, empathy, harmony, solidarity, that's the essence for me."

The corona crisis is one big exercise in empathy and solidarity. Sometimes we seem to lack that.

"I refuse to surrender to cynicism, and I surround myself with positive people who do beautiful things for others. This period would lead us to insights: how do we deal with each other? Do we help each other, or is it every man for himself? A human is such a wonderful creature, but we mess it up so much for ourselves.

"Yeah, I know. Some people who read this will think: this guy is smoking too many joints. (laughs) I don't smoke joints, and I'm not an unworldly idealist. But I will always focus my attention on the good, in spite of everything."

If you always want to see the good in people, are you sometimes disappointed?

"Yes, of course. I'm not a naive brat, I've learned to guard my boundaries. I can't please everyone all the time, and I don't let anyone rush me. I react badly when people put pressure on me because they want things from me. The perception of me that others have of me, I can't control. I don't let myself put out of balance easily anymore."

I saw that on your Instagram Stories you warned about fake profiles on social media, of people pretending to be you. That made you visibly angry.

"Really, that makes me angry. Every day I receive screenshots from people who have been tricked by crooks who approach innocent victims with my name and my pictures. There are stories of fans who have paid thousands of euros because they were promised a meet-and-greet with me. How disgusting is that? One person has transferred 14,000 euros to someone who pretended to be my manager.

"Of course, that raises questions about how gullible some people can be. But I've seen those chat conversations for myself: those criminals are terribly sneaky. They know how to play on the vulnerabilities of their victims in a very cunning way. This is manipulation and swindle of the filthiest kind.

"Really, I get physically unwell when I think about it. How can someone be so mean? If I ever catch these guys, I'm gonna bash their skulls in, I'm not kidding. Sorry."

Or: those crooks get a jail sentence, where you're going to give them acting lessons.

(laughs) "Okay, let it be clear that I think everyone should be punished for their crimes. My commitment to the prison system is not a plea for impunity, and I certainly don't want to romanticize crime.

"But when someone abuses innocent people's trust in such a cunning way, the question is: how did you derail so morally? And above all: how can we initiate a transformation in that person? Surely you can't lock someone up and expect that person to suddenly make better choices years later? First such a person has to take responsibility for his own actions."

Do you have something criminal on your conscience?

"No." (Thinks for a second) "No. Thank God. I couldn't live with that.

"I've probably hurt people in my life, like everybody else. Sometimes we just hurt people because of who we are, or because we can't fulfill what others want from us. But I have never harmed anyone consciously or criminally, no."

As a teenager you sometimes came into contact with the juvenile court, for vandalism. Do you think you could have ended up on the other side of the bars?

"Probably, a life can take strange turns sometimes."

What made you sit here today, and not get on the 'wrong' path?

"Wait... that's a good question. There's the one terrible dramatic event that caused a total turnaround in my life: when my dad went into a coma after a psychosis, and I was told he only had 24 hours left to live.

"I was 21 then, thrown out of school for the umpteenth time. I was doing graffiti and wanted to find my way creatively. But I was messing around, going with friends who... Anyway, there was latent danger, it threatened to go a little bit the wrong way.

"And then I got that phone call: come and say goodbye. Bam. The relationship with my father had been sour for years, we hardly saw each other. Until I stood there at his deathbed in intensive care... I only felt love, a wave of emotions that I had pushed down very deeply. That realization was rock-hard: this was it. My father and I will never get the chance to figure shit out, I thought.

"Long story, the rest is known: after 72 hours my father woke up from a coma against all odds. Like a plant: he could not speak, reacted to nothing or nobody. According to the chief psychiatrist, we had to accept that his condition would never improve. That was without the fighting spirit of my mother and me.

"It's because of that unlikely event that I've changed my whole lifestyle. For eight months, my mother and I went to visit my father every day. We talked to him, but he seemed to look straight through us. For hours we sat with him at the psychiatry department of Stuivenberg, how desperate those first months were also. We continued to fight, taught him to talk, to eat, to walk. A miracle, the doctors called it. Bullshit of course. It was love, dedication and stubbornness. Especially thanks to my mother, the lioness who kept fighting for him. And see how much beauty came out of it. My life then received an entirely different impulse.

"I suddenly think of an anecdote I've never told before. After a while we were allowed to take my father to the cafeteria once in a while, or to the garden. But he was absolutely not allowed to leave the hospital. Fuck it. I hid a bag of clothes for him, secretly dressed him in the toilet and took my father to the city. By bus, because I didn't have a driver's license. I wanted to stimulate his senses, test if any memories would come back. He was fond of Our Lady's Cathedral, so that's where I wanted to take him."

Matthiaske, why am I crying?

He plays it out. The written version here is only a dead script compared to the lived-through performance, right there on that dark square, just around the corner of the Arenbergschouwburg, where Matthias made his stage debut as a 9-year-old boy next to father Julien, as The Little Prince.

Matthias shows how he supported his frail dad, and how they shuffled in small, careful steps towards the cathedral. Dad looking at the ground to be sure not to fall. "I say, 'Dad, look up'. He looks up, and I see the tears rolling down his cheeks. I had never seen my father cry. 'Matthiaske,' he says, 'can you tell me why I'm crying?'

"I had already decided then that I would take my father into my house. Overconfident, yes, at that age, but they have become the most beautiful years of my life. Mom came by every day to help. Suddenly we were a bit of a family again, something we had only been for a short time when I was young."

It was at that time that you decided to become an actor. Why did you decide to become an actor?

"I had always resisted following in my father's footsteps. In my youth I mainly wanted to break away from my father, and seek my own path. I didn't want to have anything to do with him and all those loudmouths around him in the theater world. But most of all I was terrified that compared to the great Julien Schoenaerts I would never be good enough.

"Only now do I understand why I then decided to go to the conservatory. Not to become an actor, but to understand my father. We had so many years together, and now that we had been given a second chance, I wanted to get to know him as well as possible. By acting, maybe I could get closer to him." (pauses)

Sentimental fuss

He banishes the tears. It's one of the many things he has in common with his father, he says: they're both very emotional, but they hate sentimental fuss. "Come on, Matthias: breathe," he commands himself.

"Voilà, see how much beauty can come out of misery. What a chain of beautiful things came out of the fight my mother and I put up in the most hopeless situation. Who knows how differently my life would have turned out?"

"There are so many lessons in that. If we just talked about the rehabilitation of detainees, for example. It takes commitment. Not a workshop of two hours. You have to persevere, even in the event of a setback, with no guarantee of a happy ending. That's why I think it's so important to keep telling that story about my dad. Those are the values I believe in: dedication, stamina, attention, love. You can apply that to everything in life. Love is the fuel."

You often talk about your parents as if you want to keep them alive with your words.

"Because my mom and dad are the people I've loved most. With them I shared the most important moments, built the most beautiful memories. That loss is enormous. Life has been really fucking tough since they've been gone.

"That's what grabs me so much in this period. How many people have died of corona in Belgium?"

According to Google, today, on the day of the interview, the counter stands at almost 14,000 deaths.

"Fourteen thousand! Imagine how many people that has an impact on? How many people have suddenly lost their mother, father, brother, sister, best friend or neighbor? Behind those figures lie tens of thousands of poignant stories, of people who see a loved one torn from their lives. That is a mountain of unresolved grief, and far too little attention is paid to it."

Earlier during our conversation a guy had walked past coughing and maskless. It pissed Schoenaerts off: "And whining about masks or strict measures. Grow some fucking balls. Having to say goodbye to a loved one, that's the worst thing."

"Isn't that what this period teaches us? That our time here is limited? And what really counts in life: sharing moments of beauty with the people you hold most dear. All the rest is wallpaper. Having success, making movies, that's all fun. But the day you lie on your deathbed, you really don't think about the professional successes on your resume. No way."

[sodalitefully]

It’s hazardous to breathe... [GNR Mad Max AU, pt. 2]

This is the second and final half of @smokeandmirrorz’s and my GNR AU inspired by the movie Mad Max: Fury Road! Thank you for reading, enjoy 😊

*Contains mpreg, character death, and plenty of unpleasant things from the Mad Max universe, including implied/referenced sexual violence, some regular violence/gore, and Immortan Joe.*

[part 1]

----

The sun-baked sand stung the soles of Slash's bare feet as he curled his toes and bit his lip and tried not to let the pain show on his face.

After the sandstorm and all the chaos that came before it, Izzy had decided that there was enough space between them and the War Party to take a much-needed break.  And as much as Slash appreciated a drink of water and a chance to stretch his legs, he was more than ready for them to pack it up and keep moving.

With every gust of wind, he thought he could hear drums pounding and engines roaring, and with every step, he scalded his sensitive soles.  But he didn’t like the idea of voicing his discomfort to the others, so instead he tiptoed back into the shade of the War Rig and sat on the side of the fuel pod, carefully perching his feet so that they wouldn’t touch the ground.

It had been years since Slash last found himself surrounded by people that he mostly-almost-kinda-sorta trusted, and he thought it might be a few more years before he relearned to act like it.  

Steven was happily banging sand off the sides of the War Rig with a spare pipe.  Duff was fiddling with the hose, looking at it in fascination like it was the Fountain of Life itself.  Axl was taking inventory of the weapons, which spoke volumes about how much Izzy trusted him, and Izzy himself...

"Are you just planning on sitting there, or are you going to help, Princess?"

"Well I –" Slash wasn’t sure if he’d rather get up and tough it out, or explain the problem to Izzy, but Steven interrupted him before he could decide:

"How can you talk to him like that, Imperator?!" Offense was plain on his face, his sand-clearing weapon hovering near his head mid-strike.

Oh no. 

"I'll talk to him however I want," Stradlin retorted, rather unhelpfully in Slash’s opinion.

"He's a wife!  He was chosen by the Immortan himself to be one of his prized breeders!  He's the most shiny, chrome –"

"Steven, stop, put that down..." Slash's weak attempt to defuse the conversation went unnoticed.

“You can give up the zealot act, the Immortan’s not here to give you a pat on the head for it! Slash isn’t his wife anymore and he’s never going to be again, so you better get used to it.”

The bomb went off. Axl drifted closer as Steven started shouting at Izzy, who tensed up, ready for a fight.

"You – You 'traitored him?  You're stealing his wife for yourself, is that it? How could you, you fucking – "

"I knew you should have killed him to begin with.  He's a fanatic, there's no saving him – "

"Slash deserves better than a weak, 'traitoring coward and his feral bloodbag!  You're mad if you think you can get away with this, when the Immortan catches you, he'll – "

"Steven!"

Finally, Slash got his attention.

"Just... Come here.  Stradlin, Axl, fuck off for a minute.  See if you can pry Duff away from the hose or something, I don't care, just let me talk to Steven.

"Look, Stevie, just listen to me, alright?  I asked Izzy to get me away from Joe because he was cruel and he was a liar, and we all deserve a better life than we were living there.  None of us were happy at the Citadel, we just stayed because we believed him when he told us we had no choice.  I'm not his wife anymore and I never was any different than anyone else, that was a lie too." He got up from his perch on the Rig, and tried not to flinch when his feet touched the burning sand.  "Do you believe me?"

Steven didn't respond, couldn't even meet his eyes.  

Slash didn't expect it would be easy for Steven to reconcile a lifetime of indoctrination with the truth that he suspected the War Boy knew, deep down, but the silent treatment still stung.  

He sighed, and looked over to where the others were hunched over the War Rig's engine.  Slash was practically useless when it came to mechanics, but surely there was something he could do to help.

He started to head over, but stopped in his tracks when something landed in the sand beside him: Steven's pair of heavy leather boots, a godsend to Slash's aching feet.  He turned around to thank Steven, but his friend had already picked up his pipe and ducked around to the other side of the Rig.  

--

"Why didn't you stay with me?" Axl asked, his hushed voice drifting on the bone-dry desert wind.  "We could have survived together, had each other's backs.  Why did you leave?"

It was past time for Izzy to go to sleep and let Axl take over keeping watch, but instead they were sitting side by side in the still-warm sand, staring at the lights in the sky in companionable silence.  Just like old times.

"Resources.  Better odds.  The Citadel had water and I thought that if I played along with their little society for a while, I would come out ahead in the end."

"That's what you told me then, too... Your choice didn't exactly pay off for you, did it?"

Izzy clenched his jaw, swallowing the urge to snap at Axl's bluntness.

"... I thought it would be nice, that it would be the next best thing to what it was like before.  I thought the Citadel would be civilized.  I was wrong."

"What happened, Izzy?"  Axl turned to look at him when he didn't get a response.  Izzy could feel him eyeing the scars on his face, and wished he hadn't left his bandana in the Rig.  "Why the fuck won't you tell me anything?"

"Why won't you stop asking?"

"I don't know, maybe because I care about you? I care about whatever happened to you while we were apart!  I guess you wouldn't know anything about that, though, you haven't asked me what I've done in the past two thousand days – not even once!"

Izzy kept his eyes pinned on the dark horizon.  

"For fuck's sake, you're going to have to tell me eventually."  Silence. "Fine."  Axl got up and brushed the sand off his clothes.  "Why don't you just get some sleep, Izzy."  

Izzy didn't move, but he could hear Axl walking around to the other side of the Rig, and climbing up into the turret.  Stubbornly, he waited a few minutes before rising to his feet, climbing into the cab, and sitting down as if he was about to drive, with his eyes on the windshield and his hands on the wheel.  

"Why won't you tell him?"

Izzy jumped at the whispered voice.  He turned to see Slash, wide awake and staring at him, his eyes glittering black behind his hair.

"How long have you been awake?"

"I remember the first time I saw your scars," Slash told him, ignoring Izzy's attempts to signal that he absolutely did not want to talk about it.

Izzy remembered too, and it was far from one of his fondest memories.  The Organic had just released him the day after the accident, and Izzy was still in a haze of pain when Immortan Joe summoned him to one of his chambers at the top of the tower.

Apparently, Joe just couldn't wait another minute to explain to Izzy in great detail what a disappointment he was.   He sat on a cushioned throne with his wives gracefully positioned at his feet, and recited a speech that Izzy had heard a dozen times before – though usually not directed at him.  Blah, blah, "mediocre," blah, blah, "not worthy to call himself a follower of the V8..."

The performance culminated when Joe informed Izzy that he would no longer hold the honorable position of his wives' personal guard.  The Immortan could no longer trust someone so pathetic and disgraceful with their safety.

Izzy grinned at the irony.  The scar on his face flexed, and Slash flinched.  Immortan Joe laughed and took Slash's face into his hand so that he couldn't look away.

"Hideous, isn't it?  Unlike you, my Desire, perfect in every way..." Slash had to stretch as Joe lifted his jaw higher, putting his body on display.  "He may be a full life, but he's damaged, just like all the others.  Even if he is chosen for the halls of Valhalla, he will never be as flawless as you.  Do not be afraid, my Desire, for the Imperator is unworthy of your fear."

"I'm not afraid."

"Of course not, you're under my protection, after all..." The Immortan kept talking but all Izzy could remember was the way that Slash stared at him dead in the eye, his gaze darkened with an emotion that Izzy couldn't quite pinpoint.

At this point, Slash had only been at the Citadel for a hundred, maybe two hundred days, and even though Izzy was around the wives almost every day, he still felt like he didn't really know the newest addition to Joe's treasure vault.  Slash was quiet and withdrawn, even from the other wives.  He didn't talk about his life before Joe imprisoned him, but he must have been one of the more fortunate survivors, because he wasn't dazzled by the wive's luxurious lifestyle for even a second.  Instead, he focused all his energy on fighting Joe with tooth and nail.

In the Immortan's eyes, Slash's wildness only increased his appeal, and fueled Joe's desire to tame his prize – turning tempestuous Slash into the the object of his Desire. Izzy could tell that Slash was smart, he quickly learned how to choose his battles without fully giving in.  But what he didn't realize was that Slash's observant gaze was so often turned towards him, silently evaluating a potential enemy or ally.  

In the present, Slash was giving him the exact same stare.  Wide-eyed and piercing, as intense as the sun but as dark as night.

"I was jealous," he told Izzy with complete conviction, as if that was the only sensible reaction to fresh, disfiguring burn scars.  "I wanted your scars, so that Joe would only look at me the way he looked at you then.  You're lucky, you know?"

--

By the next morning, the past was forgotten – or at least, Izzy, Axl, and Slash collectively decided not to bring it up again.  There were more pressing matters, plans to be drawn and decisions to be made.  Just about nothing in the past 24 hours had gone the way Izzy imagined it would: First they took on a stowaway War Boy, then the deal with the Buzzards fell through, and now they found themselves aimless in the middle of the Wasteland with only another day's worth of guzzoline.

Ahead of them – barren desert, uncharted wastes, and a seemingly infinite expanse of lifeless salt flats.  And behind them – as Axl helpfully pointed out – fresh water, green plants, and a veritable fortress.  

And a War Party, did he forget about the War Party?  God, maybe Axl really was mad, suggesting that they go back the way they came and face Immortan Joe and his lackeys head on.  Or maybe, Izzy wondered, they were all mad for agreeing to go along with his plan.  

As they prepared the War Rig for a very hard day's ride, Slash approached Izzy in private.

"Look... Stradlin.  I know this wasn't what you planned.  I'm sorry that you and Axl didn't get to make a clean getaway and put this hell behind you,  I really am.  But... Thank you."

"Thank me if we survive tomorrow," Izzy replied.  Maybe he was trying to sound gruff and indifferent, but he and Slash both knew the Citadel’s ghosts far too well to believe it.

--

The Gigahorse was gaining on the War Rig fast, its monstrous tires bumping against the rear of the truck like a dog trying to mount a bitch, but neither Slash nor Duff payed the beast any attention.

Slash couldn’t tear his eyes away from the dark red stain on Duff's bandaged chest.  It was growing – not like a seed, but like a wildfire, fast and merciless and deadly.  He didn't know that it was still possible to feel like the world was ending, but now he thought that the emptiness in his chest, the cold heartbreak and furious hopelessness – this must be how people before felt when the world died.  

Duff's fingertips touched Slash's chin and gently tilted his head up.  Slash tore his eyes away from the bleeding wound to meet Duff's gaze.

"Slash, it's okay.  It's all going to be fine." He took a labored breath. "Just... Remember me, alright?"  

He was smiling, like he really, truly believed that everything would work out, even as he dropped his hands from Slash's face to pick up their last exploding lance and a half-gallon of guzzoline.  

"No, Duff, please don't – " Don't go, don't leave me... The words died on Slash's tongue.  It was hard to beg for mercy when he had long since forgone the belief that the Wasteland was capable of giving any.

Duff though, he believed.  Maybe that was Slash's fault, or maybe it was something ingrained in Duff's soul from birth, almost a half-lifetime ago, but he believed he had a purpose, that he could put all the misery at the Citadel to an end, that he could help Slash to start his new life, that he could put an end to his own body's slow decay.

Duff took his last look at Slash's dust-streaked, grief-struck face – and then jumped.

At that moment, Slash wouldn't have noticed if the sun fell out of the sky.  He didn't move or even breathe as the Gigahorse blossomed into a mass of blazing orange petals that forced apart its metal hull and consumed Duff and Immortan Joe alike.  

Slash stared as the wreckage shrank away in the wake of the War Rig.  Only a rising column of heavy black smoke was still visible when Axl reached a hand to his shoulder and gently guided him back to the cab.  

--

They had to stop the Rig to collect Joe's body, knowing that they couldn't claim to have killed the Immortan, the undying, a god among men without proof.  Steven jumped off the Rig before it fully stopped and took off running to see the corpse of a man he once worshipped with his own eyes.  Slash moved to follow, but Axl blocked him and gave Izzy a pointed look.

For once, Izzy conceded without a fight.  He wrapped an arm around Slash's shoulder and guided him back to his seat.

"Slash, you need to rest.  Steven and Axl will take care of it."  

Satisfied that Izzy would look after Slash, who was obviously in shock, Axl turned to follow after Steven, gravel and charred bits of metal crunching beneath his feet.

Steven stared into the gruesome wreckage, quieter than Axl had ever seen him and looking like he couldn't decide whether he'd rather run away from the pale corpse, or beat it with a lug wrench.  Axl couldn't blame him, just the knowledge that the man had hurt Izzy for years was enough to make him want to spit down his ruptured esophagus.  In the end though, exhaustion won over and they hauled the mangled body back to the War Rig without any additional desecration.  

The rest of the wreck was... not salvageable.  The Gigahorse might have been Joe's pride and glory when he was alive, but now it was no more than a heap of charred steel, a grim warning to all those who pass.  

And as for Duff... There would be no gravedigging in the hard-packed clay, but Axl didn't think Duff would want to be buried in the toxic soil anyway.  A mound of rocks would suffice instead, a tribute that Axl hoped would last for the rest of the lifetime Duff deserved.

When they finally climbed back into the cab of the Rig, Axl twisted around and reached into the backseat to press a dirty lock and chain into Slash's hands.  

--

"Izzy... you have a responsibility for these people."

"Responsibility? I don't owe them shit.  I was as much a prisoner at the Citadel as any of them, I'm not going back and if they have any sense they won't either."

"The water at the Citadel is too important to abandon.  You have to make sure that no one else tries to do what Immortan Joe did, to hoard the water and use it to own people instead of helping them."

"Didn't realize that spending two thousand days on your own would make you care so much about the common good."

Axl turned away with a grimace. "You don't know what I've been doing since you left."  He tried not to let it sound like an accusation, but Izzy got the message anyway.

“The kids are going to need you,” he added, still looking at the horizon instead of Izzy. “I mean, Slash is pregnant for fuck’s sake. You’re not just going to drop him off to deal with all the ghosts in that hellhole alone, are you? Especially after...” He glanced at the figure curled under his old leather jacket in the rearview mirror, making sure that Slash was still sleeping like the dead in the backseat.

"You're right.  Again."  Izzy sighed.  "Fine. I'll stay at the Citadel, for a little while."

"Good."  Axl rested a reassuring hand on Izzy's arm.  "I'll go with you, alright?  I'll help you do what you need to do, and then we can leave and never look back."

--

Slash stood on the carved outcrop jutting out from the tallest tower in the Citadel.  His skin was tanned, his hair was wild, and a steel chain with a broken lock was twisted into the stained cloth at his waist.  Above his head, the skull edifice was scarred by a jagged gash, no longer a monument to the Immortan's false glory.  Below his feet, fresh, cold water churned impatiently in the irrigation channels, desperate to be released.  

Steven stood behind him, a bit battered, but the encouraging grin on his face was no worse for wear.  On his other side, Izzy surveyed the scene below, and a few steps deeper in the shadows Axl lurked impatiently, trying not to let on his anticipation.

The crowd of formerly-Wretched roared when Slash stepped forward and rested his hands on the levers, their shouts echoing between the towers.  It felt like the largest crowd of people that Slash had seen in his life, and every one of them was watching him.  For a moment, he wondered if Duff would be proud – but Slash didn't feel proud, he felt like his knees might buckle.

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut.  Fuck victory speeches, he just wanted everyone to get the water they deserved.  He thrust the levers forward, and listened to the water as it burst from the pipes and rained down to the ground, a thunderous cascade almost as loud as the overwhelming relief ringing in his ears. 

----

[malecsecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, arialerendeair!

For @arialerendeair, I hope you like it; I tried to put as many of your favorite things!

Read On AO3

*****

Whose Eyes See All and Still Gazes in Earnest

The day Alec gets his first few gray hairs, Magnus sighs happily.

“Finally,” he grins, “I’ve always thought you’d look good a silver fox.”

Alec rolls his eyes, a small smile playing on his lips as Magnus crawls onto his lap. “Didn’t know you had a thing for old men,” he quips.

“Three gray hairs do not make an old man, Alexander,” Magnus chuckles as he noses into Alec’s neck, “Take it from someone who’s actually an old man.”

Alec looks at Magnus, his gaze pointed. “You say that as if you didn’t go ballistic at the sight of one gray hair on your head.”

Magnus remembers when the memory gave him merciless pain. Nowadays, he lets himself chuckle at the thought. “Was admittedly not my best self that night.”

Alec’s palms press against Magnus’ side, comforting. “Understandably,” he murmurs, before asking, “Can you promise me one thing?”

Alec’s tone is suddenly serious as he looks imploringly into Magnus’ eyes. Magnus sits back onto Alec’s thighs, concerned. “Of course, darling. Anything.”

Alec grasps Magnus’ shoulders, forlorn. “If it comes down to it,” he draws in a staggering breath, “Magic my bald spot away.”

Magnus blinks, watching as Alec loses his cool and finally erupts into a side-splitting laugh. Alec throws his head back until it butts against the back of the couch, a palm pressed against the spot where his heart rests. The lines around his eyes crease beautifully, now a little bit more pronounced than before.

“You’re a little shit,” Magnus complains, and Alec takes Magnus’ face within his hands and presses a chaste kiss on his lips.

“Don’t let me end up looking like my dad,” he wheezes, “God, please don’t.”

Magnus ends up laughing too, kissing the lines around Alec’s eyes.

“Fine,” Magnus says, “Now fuck me before the kids get home. Or do you need help with your back too?”

A smirk grows on Alec’s mouth, the same mouth that swallows Magnus’ yell as Alec flips both of them onto the couch.

They have an hour before a portal from the academy materializes inside their living room.

*****

Magnus sighs, his brow scrunched in annoyance. He takes a big breath and yells up the flight of stairs, “Max Michael Lightwood-Bane, Raphael Santiago Lightwood-Bane!”

Magnus waits, fingers impatiently drumming against the wooden railing, as a muffled mess of a response echoes from behind closed doors. He hears one door being thrown open.

“Dad, I’m still trying to figure out this suit,” Rafe yells, “How are there three pieces?!”

Magnus calls out, “Max, help your brother!”

One room down, Magnus hears his other son snort.

“If he’s twenty-three years old and still doesn’t know how a suit works, that’s on him,” Max sneers, which earns him an irate suck my dick, asshole from his older brother. A loud scuffling ensues, and even without seeing it, Magnus knows they’re trying to punch at each other’s private parts.

Magnus sighs exasperatedly. These boys are in their early twenties, and they’re trying to ball-tap each other into submission. Magnus wonders if all this tomfoolery would have been circumvented by having girls instead.

“By Lucifer’s light, if you both don’t get down from there, I will lose it!” Magnus nearly bellows, and the threat successfully brings his two sons thundering down the stairs.

“We’re here,” Max pants, hands held out in placation, “Don’t get mad.”

“A little too late for that,” Magnus huffs in front of a mirror as he smoothens the creases on his jacket, staring down his reflection with a frown.

“We’re sorry, dad,” Max nearly pouts as he lays his head against Magnus’ shoulder, “We were just messing around. It’s those childhood bedrooms, it brings us back, you know?”

Rafe presses his palms over Magnus’ shoulders. “I know you’re stressed,” he says, “It’s dad’s fiftieth, after all.”

Magnus sighs as he reaches back to ruffle both Max and Rafe’s hair. He pats the back of Max’s hand.

“I just want it to be perfect,” Magnus admits.

“It will be,” Rafe presses, “We planned this thing down to those little things of food that goes on trays.”

Max rolls his eyes – it’s called hors d'oeuvres stupid – looking like the spitting image of a younger Alec as he does. He definitely got his sass from his other father, Magnus affectionately thinks.

“Dad will love it,” Max assures, “I promise.”

Magnus smiles at his two boys, perfect in their formal clothes. Max has hidden away his warlock’s mark, and Rafe’s runes peek slightly from underneath his sleeves. Magnus remembers when they were just little children, running around the living room with their small feet padding against the wooden floor. Now, Magnus has to look up at them.

Magnus remembers mournfully telling Alec about being the shortest person in the family, who only chuckles in response as he plants a kiss on Magnus’ cheek. Magnus realizes he misses his husband terribly already.

“We gotta move,” Rafe says as he scrolls through his phone, “Uncle Jace says he’s taking dad to the New York Institute soon.”

“Let me,” Max says, “I’ve been practicing.”

“You better not singe my hair,” Rafe warns.

Max retorts, “It’ll be a great improvement.”

“Boys,” Magnus says before they delve into yet another scuffle. It effectively silences them both.

Max goes through the motions of creating a portal. A golden, circular rift erupts in the middle of the living room, the air around it distorting the fabric of reality. With a careful step, Rafe speedily enters. Magnus follows with Max quick on his tail, and before they know it, the darkness winks away into the grand hall of the New York Institute.

*****

“Happy birthday, Consul Lightwood,” Alicante’s weapon’s master greets him as she passes by the open door of his office.

Alec peers over his reading glasses, smiling. “Thanks, Margo. Just Alec, remember?”

Margo turns a soft pink, chuckling. “Ah, yes. I always forget. I’ll leave you to your work.”

“Grab some cake on your way out,” Alec says, motioning towards the open box on the coffee table, “The students from the Academy sent it over.”

Margo’s brows rise in interest as she cautiously crosses the room and takes a peek into the box. Alec knows she has a sweet tooth.

“The students sent it?” she asks, “They must like you a lot. Most trainees are scared of their Consuls.”

“I do guest lectures on Nephilim-Down World Relations when I have the time,” Alec says as he scribbles something down on the document before him. He adds with a smile, “I give them archery pointers too.”

Margo ahhs, nodding with understanding. She picks up a paper plate and eyes the cake with interest.

“Take as much as you want,” Alec smirks to himself, “My husband’s on a warpath against processed sugar and will have a coronary if he sees me take all of this home.”

“Diabetes?” Margo asks with humor, as to which Alec laughs.

“Pre,” he points out.

“How is Magnus, by the way?” Margo asks.

The ease of Magnus’ name coming out of her mouth is a testament to his personability. Everybody likes Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Alicante. That and the fact that he has extended his services free of charge to Margo when he heard about her wish to transition. Alec and Magnus welcome Margo into their home every month for what Magnus calls ‘rebalancing appointments’.

“He’s alright,” Alec answers, “Meeting the whole family for dinner tonight. Rafe and Max portalled in this morning.”

Margo notes through a forkful of icing, “Must be something big.”

Alec chuckles, flipping to the next page of the document. “I have a feeling it might be bigger than what he lets on.”

“Well, good luck,” Margo grins as she slips out the door, “Hope you have a good birthday, Alec. And thanks for the cake.”

“Thanks and you’re welcome,” Alec says before reminding her, “Tomorrow, general assembly.”

“See you then,” Margo says before disappearing into the hallway.

Alec sighs, leaning back onto his chair that creaks under the shift of his weight. He takes his phone and opens the many birthday greetings that have trickled into his message box the past few hours, taking note to reply to all of them at the end of the day. He pulls up his conversation with Magnus and sees a reply from his last text.

Remember, 8 PM tonight. Love you :)

Alec can’t help but smile. He shoots a quick reply that consists of an I love you too that makes his heart flutter in his chest even to this day. He figures he should at least get to a bathroom and see if he needs to make himself more presentable after a twelve-hour workday.

Alec rises from his chair and maneuvers through a moderately busy hallway. He returns all the birthday greetings with a polite expression of gratitude until he slips into the private bathroom reserved only for him. The door closes with a click, and with that, he takes in his reflection in the mirror. He takes off his reading glasses and tucks them into the pocket of his jacket.

“Happy fiftieth birthday, old man,” he says under his breath.

Alec takes stock of himself. He still stands tall even after fifty years of being alive. Despite the deep-seated aches in his muscles, his body can still withstand an interdimensional battle or two. His hair is more gray than black now, and every day, he discovers new lines on his face that weren’t there before. He doesn’t need to smile for his eye lines to show; it’s the most pronounced its ever been.

I like them, Magnus would always say with fondness, I used to have to wait until you smiled to see these lines. Now, you look like you’re happy all the time.

For a long time, Magnus’ immortality had long been the crack on the floor Alec chose to cover up instead of addressing. It was easy – so painfully easy – to forget the years of existence Magnus has in his back pocket when the only villainous things on the horizon were hell spawns and the madmen. Alec tended to forget that Magnus will be immortalized like this; smooth skin, shining eyes, for the rest of his life as Alec aged around him. But with Valentine gone and Edom in ruins, the battles Alec fought for the first few years of their marriage were the ones he was the most terrified of confronting.

Now, Alec believes he has grappled with the worst of it all. The fights he and Magnus used to have were agonizing; an exchange of caustic words that sometimes, despite their best efforts, were meant to maim. Hurting someone as steadfast as Alec Lightwood is a highly specialized skill, one only a few people truly possess. After all, it is the people who you love most who hurt you best.

Nowadays, a hard-fought acceptance is sheathed where helplessness used to be. At almost half-a-century old, Alec fights the fatalistic monster of his mortality differently.

He touches first. His fingers, aching at the joints, find Magnus’ sides like they always do. Magnus knowingly turns away from his work – potions, spells, politics – without a second thought, spinning easily on his heels, before gently culling Alec into his arms. Alec sinks into the crook of Magnus’ neck, breathing the scent of sage and castor oil deep into his lungs, a memory to keep.

There you are, Magnus would say, his mouth against Alec’s neck.

And like clockwork, Alec would say, there you are.

It doesn’t alleviate the ache, but it helps.

“Chop chop, old man,” Jace’s unmistakable voice calls, “We’re supposed to be meeting the family for your birthday dinner!”

The knock on the door wrenches Alec away from his thoughts, which is admittedly a welcome intrusion. With a thorough scrub of his hands under running water, Alec rolls his eyes. “I’m only two years older than you,” he calls back.

Jace teases from behind the door, “Still the first to hit fifty though. How does it feel to be decrepit?”

After drying his hands with a paper towel and a quick combing of his fingers through his hair, Alec emerges from the bathroom.

“I don’t know, how does it feel to have a bald spot?” Alec wonders with a smirk.

“Fucking rude,” Jace laughs as they both make their way through the hall, “Just because you have Magnus giving you magical hair plugs.”

“I’m married to a guy who will never age out of his hotness,” Alec says, “A full head of hair is non-negotiable. Also, this is all mine.”

“Bullshit,” Jace retorts, “You’re too old to lie about your looks, Alec.”

“I’m not lying,” Alec smirks, “Ask Magnus.”

“Sure, let me just ask the least biased guy in the world,” Jace scoffs before saying defensively, “Clary still finds me hot, I’ll have you know.”

Alec winces in disgust. “Did you really need to have me know?”

This earns Alec a kick on the shin, one that causes him to stumble. He snickers as he easily catches himself. They step out the ornate, arching door that opens into the courtyard where one of Alicante’s warlock mission specialists awaits.

“Anyway,” Jace says, his tone suddenly somber, “How are you feeling? This is a lot. With Magnus’ immortality and all.”

Alec doesn’t look at Jace as they cross the courtyard. Age has brought more than aching muscles and gray hair to their relationship. It has also gifted them with an openness that their younger selves were too stubborn to afford. Sometimes, Alec wonders what kinds of pain they would’ve been able to spare each other if they had learned to talk a lot sooner.

“I’m fine,” Alec says, instead, looking down momentarily at his hands. He sees the slight sag of skin there, as well as the softening callouses brought about by years of consul work.

“Be honest,” Jace says, and Alec feels his lips upturn into a small smile.

“I am,” Alec says gently, “I’ve thought about this. Tortured myself with it even, back when it all seemed too big to grasp.”

“And?” Jace prods.

“We’re happy,” Alec says, “That’s all that matters.”

“That simple, huh?” Jace says with wonder in his voice.

Alec shrugs. “We had to make it simple or else we’d lose our minds.”

“I miss being young,” Jace sighs as he follows suit, “Don’t you miss it?”

“I do miss waking up with my back not aching,” Alec admits.

They both settle to a stop. Alec nods politely at the warlock and a portal erupts before them, its edges tugging at the fabric of this dimension. Before stepping in, Jace places a sympathetic hand on Alec’s shoulder.

“There’s a stretch I do to loosen my back muscles,” Jace says, “It’s called sex. You’ve probably forgotten what that’s like.”

Jace looks immensely proud of himself.

“No,” Alec hums, “I got a pretty good reminder this morning.”

Jace’s deep laugh carries into the portal as they both step in. The last thing they hear from Alicante is the choking noise that comes out of the young warlock that closes the portal behind them.

Alec makes it a point to apologize to him the moment he gets back to Idris.

*****

Oh, darling, Magnus murmurs, fingers spreading oil over the swollen knuckles of Alec’s hands.

Winter always does this to Alec’s bones. The chill seeps in deeply. All those years spent gripping seraph blades and drawing bows have worn down the cartilage in Alec’s joints. The arthritis gets exceptionally bad first thing in the morning.

Alec watches as Magnus kneads the stiffness away, the pads of his thumb circling the meeting points of his brittle bones. There's magic in the oil that no angelic rune or mundane remedy could match. Magnus wakes up early in the morning to brew it, just so he can ease Alec’s body into the day. Every stiff spot, every stubborn knot – Magnus knows them all by heart now.

Sorry, Alec whispers.

Magnus wonders, whatever for?

I don’t know, Alec admits.

Magnus digs his thumbs across the palm of Alec’s hand, releasing the tension that grips the muscles and tendons.

I’m happiest like this, Magnus says simply, nothing more.

By the time Magnus finishes, he presses a kiss onto the back of Alec’s hand. Magnus rises from the bed, muttering something about portalling to Rome for a cappuccino. He waits for Alec to ease himself off the bed and onto his feet. He takes Alec’s hand as they pad out of the bedroom.

From then on, Alec tries his hardest not to apologize anymore.

*****

A chorus of happy birthday erupts the moment Alec sets foot onto the Grand Hall of the New York Institute.

Alec’s suspicion of the event, surprisingly, couldn’t dampen the grin that spreads over his face. Jace laughs beside him, palming his shoulder merrily. Izzy is the first to get to him with a tight hug that makes his bones ache. Unlike Alec and Jace, Izzy’s hair remains sleek-black and tied up in a ponytail. She is as young as the day she chose immortality.

“Happy birthday, Alec,” she says before looking up at him with a teasing grin, “You old fart.”

“Shut up,” Alec says fondly. He presses a kiss on her head because it’s hard not to when she looks so young. “Thank you. Where’s Simon?”

Izzy laughs. “Bathroom.”

“Typical,” Jace smirks.

“Alec!” Clary exclaims, taking Izzy’s place in his arms, “Happy birthday!”

“Thanks, Clary,” Alec smiles, “And how long were you in on this?”

“Too long,” Clary sighs, “I was in charge of the guest list.”

Alec looks around, surprised at the volume of friends and family within the spacious hall.

“Don’t worry,” Clary whispers knowingly, “I didn’t invite the Pearlhearts.”

Alec squeezes Clary’s shoulder in gratitude. “Good.”

Alec finally makes his way through the crowd. He smiles at his guests, shaking the hands of those he recognizes and embracing those who he hasn’t seen in a very long time. Maia, who is with Izzy and Simon, gives Alec a kiss on the cheek when he gets close enough. She apologizes for not being able to stay for long; alpha business, she says. Aline and Helen, who now oversees the entirety of the European Institutes as Idris delegates to Europe, have portalled in from Switzerland for the occasion. Lydia waves at Alec from where she and Catarina are chatting. Alec hasn’t seen them both in so long. Catarina spent years with Nursing Without Borders in typhoon-ravaged parts of South East Asia, while Lydia, who elected to leave Shadowhunter politics entirely, is now an educator in Shadowhunter Academies all over the world.

It’s an overwhelming sight to see, but in a good way.

Inevitably, Alec’s gaze is caught by the soft tangle flowers that spread over the ceiling. Yellow blooms dangle over their heads, surrounded by lush foliage of leaves and dotted with twinkling lights. It speaks of Magnus’ meticulous design.

Alec walks along the sprawling, meticulously set table, his steps calm but quick. Everything thrums of Magnus’ intricate handiwork, from the table settings to the sprigs of rosemary and sage pinned onto the folded napkin. Like a treasure at the end of a rainbow, he finds his family at the table’s end. They wait for him patiently.

I love them, Alec thinks, just because.

“Small dinner?” Alec laughs as he corrals his two boys into his arms, “I raised liars!”

“It’s all dad’s idea! We did it under duress,” Max grins with a kiss to Alec’s cheek, “Happy birthday, dad.”

“Happy birthday, dad,” Rafe greets with a smile, his arm winding around Alec’s back.

“Thank you,” Alec murmurs, his palms brushing against his sons’ shoulders. They both slip out of his embrace as if in anticipation. They stand by Alec’s side, watching affectionately as Alec finally finds his husband’s gaze.

“Well?” Alec asks mirthfully. Magnus, looking as beautiful as ever, saunters towards Alec with a teasing smile on his lips. Alec’s hand rests onto Magnus’ hip as he asks, “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“It’s your birthday, darling,” Magus grins, “I should be asking you that.”

Kiss him, someone from the back howls – no doubt Jace – and if there’s anything Jace can do with the utmost skill, it’s riling people up. Magnus and Alec’s spectators hoot and clap as if it’s the reception to their wedding and not a birthday. It’s Max and Rafe’s defeated sighs that make Alec want to sweep Magnus off his feet and into his arms for maximum carnage.

Alec rolls his eyes instead, visibly fighting a smile. “You guys are ridiculous.”

Magnus raises a brow. “So you won’t kiss your husband of more than twenty years?”

“Now, now, I didn’t say that,” Alec hums as he guides Magnus into his arms and grinning into a chaste kiss that they waste no time sharing. Magnus laughs as the crowd around them swells with applause, and finally, he wraps Alec into a comfortable embrace.

“Happy birthday, Alexander,” Magnus says.

Alec kisses the shoulder of Magnus’ jacket. “Thank you, Magnus,” he murmurs, “I love you.”

Magnus kisses his I love you too onto Alec’s cheek as he peels himself out of Alec’s arms.

“Dinner first, dancing later!” Magnus calls out, and with a graceful flick of the wrist, the table is magicked with fancy food from end to end.

As their guests happily settle into their seats, Alec whispers, “Dancing?”

“Don’t make excuses because I won’t take them,” Magnus says with a tone of finality.

Alec laughs. He’s learned a lot in the past twenty or so years.

“Wasn’t gonna,” Alec whispers.

Alec takes a flute of champagne from one of the servers and takes a sip. From the head of the table, he sees every person who has mattered to him in the entirety of his life.

“Darling,” Magnus says, tugging at his hand.

Alec smiles. “Coming.”

*****

Magnus laughs as he is swept off his feet and into Alec’s arms. He locks his legs around Alec’s torso, his ankles hooking against each other as Alec kisses a trail down his neck. Magnus is pressed against the wall of their foyer, gasping as Alec’s teeth sink softly into his skin.

It has been three minutes since Alec and Magnus closed the door behind their youngest who had just moved out.

Magnus grins as he lazily rolls his hips against Alec’s. “If I knew an empty nest turned you on this much,” he teases, “I would’ve kicked Max out a long time ago.”

“Liar,” Alec laughs, fumbling with the clasp of Magnus’ intricate vintage belt, “You would’ve kept at least one of them here five more years if you had it your way.”

“I’m a softie, Alexander,” Magnus whines. His head butts back onto the wall as Alec outlines Magnus’ cock through his underwear. “Fuck.. Let me down, darling..”

Alec lets Magnus dismount, and with one snap of Magnus’ fingers, he is naked under Alec’s touch. Alec sighs blissfully as he takes Magnus’ lips back against his, tongue licking into Magnus’ mouth, fingernails scratching lines over smooth skin. Magnus doesn’t magic away Alec’s clothes; he has always found satisfaction in peeling every layer with his own hands. It’s a pleasure he indulges in no matter how strung tight they both are.

Alec kneels, ignoring the ache it brings as his knees kiss the wooden floor. Instead, he loses himself in pressing his mouth and lapping his tongue over every inch of skin he meets on his way down. Magnus’ body, untouched by time, undulates under Alec’s hands. Alec pins Magnus’ hips against the wall, a silent command that brings a haze of pleasure over Magnus’ eyes. Alec springs Magnus’ cock from his underwear, lips gently dragging over the sensitive nerve endings at the head.

“Alexander,” Magnus nearly pleads, his fingers threading through Alec’s salt-and-pepper hair.

“Patience,” Alec murmurs, to which Magnus huffs no. Alec chuckles, barely kissing the crown of Magnus’ cock in admonishment.

“If you don’t fuck me now –” Magnus’ threat crumbles on the tip of his tongue as Alec sinks down onto his cock with no preamble. His words escape him in a full-body shudder.

“Alexander, fuck,” Magnus gasps, watching as Alec languidly drags the warmth of his mouth back onto the head of Magnus’ cock before engulfing it again down to the hilt. Magnus clips a leg over Alec’s shoulder, drawing him even closer.

The fixture above their heads casts a brightness over their fucking like a spotlight onto a painting. Magnus’ moans hang in the air as Alec sucks him off with a skill that came to fruition after years of repetition. Every crest Magnus hits with every brush of Alec’s lips and every stroke of Alec’s tongue is its own masterpiece to behold. Just as Magnus knows every arthritic swell on Alec’s bones, Alec knows all the ways Magnus’ body likes to be praised. Alec kisses Magnus’ shaft and gently presses a thumb against Magnus’ hole. By the time Alec has palmed Magnus’ tightened sac, Magnus is already fucking into his mouth uncontrollably.

“Yes, darling, just like that,” Magnus whispers, urgently rutting into the wet heat of Alec’s mouth, “Look at you.. Just as beautiful as the day I first saw you..”

Surprising wetness lines Alec’s eyes, growing heavily at the corners.

Magnus’ breath hitches, his muscles clenching and unclenching as his orgasm builds with turbulence that makes the rhythm of his fucking falter. “I could find you in a crowded room, Alexander,” he says, “I could find you even if you were a dot in the universe.”

Alec palms his own cock as he blinks away tears that cling onto his lashes. He could feel the pads of Magnus’ fingers pressed against his scalp as if his nerves have taken hold of the sensation and refuse to let go.

“I’m gonna come,” Magnus gasps. Alec nods, his other hand gripping the firm muscle of Magnus’ ass.

Magnus hits his crest with Alec’s name on his tongue. He curls over Alec with Alec’s head cradled within his arms, a near recreation of the golden embrace of a Gustav Klimt. Magnus breathes deeply, pressing his lips against Alec’s hair as Alec releases Magnus’ spent cock. Alec swallows the spunk that sits on his tongue, and it tastes like the Magnus he knows and loves.

Magnus tips Alec’s chin to meet his gaze. He asks softly, “Have I made you cry?”

Alec sniffs, joking, “What’s new?” He wipes his cheeks with the back of his hand.

“I didn’t mean to,” Magnus murmurs, “I love you.”

Alec kisses Magnus; deeply, longingly. He rises to his feet. “I know,” he says when he pulls away, “Of course I know.”

“Let’s go to the bed,” Magnus says cheekily, “Your turn.”

Alec shakes his head, pressing his palm against Magnus’ jaw. “I didn’t take my pill,” he murmurs, “I think that’s it for me tonight. I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Magnus leans into Alec’s touch, “No apologies, remember?”

Magnus walks backward towards their bedroom, pulling Alec by the hand. Alec lets himself be led into the bedroom and out of his remaining clothes.

“Besides,” Magnus winks, “You know I love a challenge.”

Alec rolls his eyes. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling if he wanted to.

*****

“Dad can’t be hot,” Max protests, “He’s dad.”

Magnus laughs, limbs all loose, his head tossed back. Alec snorts as he takes the martini glass from Magnus’ hand before the contents find themselves all over Magnus’ trousers. The family sits in a loose circle at the end of the table; Jace, Clary, Simon, and Izzy had all pulled their chairs closer fifteen minutes ago. The rest of their guests have elected to fill the dancefloor.

“Your father wasn’t always the silver fox that he is now,” Magnus says, “You were too young to remember. Rafe does though, right?”

Rafe nods. “Dad’s right,” he says, hands up in the air in defeat, “Dad was pretty good looking.”

Alec raises a brow at his eldest. “Excuse me? Was?”

“Gross Rafe,” Max exclaims, “Take it back! I don’t want that idea in my brain!”

“Look, I’m not one to compliment the guy,” Jace says, “But Alec was a total looker. Not as much as I was, but a close second.”

Clary giggles into her drink, mumbling under her breath. It sounded something along the lines of pretty boy, to which Jace gives her a snickering shh. Izzy, however, has already caught it with her ridiculously acute hearing.

“Oh my god,” Izzy says, “Pretty boy.”

Magnus laughs again, eyes scrunched close as he leans his head against the bulk of Alec’s shoulder. Alec grins into Magnus’ martini as he takes a sip.

“What’s pretty boy?” Rafe asks.

Izzy bounces on her seat with excitement.

“Easy,” Simon laughs, but Izzy still delves into the story with the same high-level gusto.

“The first time your dads met, we were in the middle of some kind of mission.”

“Unsanctioned, by the way,” Alec points out, which causes the circle to boo him mercilessly. He snickers, taking another sip from Magnus’ drink.

“There was so much flirting,” Izzy groans, fingers pressed into her temples, “An insane amount.”

“Ugh, what’s new?” Max asks, which earns him a pinch in the side from Magnus.

“Kids, this is how your dad,” Izzy looks pointedly at Magnus and then at Alec, “Reeled in your dad.”

Everybody else watches in anticipation, grinning from ear to ear while Magnus and Alec curl into each other comfortably.

“We needed to summon a memory demon that night. So your dad goes,” Izzy then says in her best impersonation of Magnus, “Pretty boy, get your team ready.”

Magnus looks impressed.

Izzy continues. “And your Uncle Jace, because he thinks the entire world wants to sleep with him, goes I know what to do, like an idiot.”

Clary giggles even louder, hiding her eyes behind her hand. Jace, pink in the face at the memory, cringes. He receives a sympathetic pat on the shoulder from Simon.

“But then your dad rolls his eyes, holds out his hand, and says, I’m not talking you,” Izzy continues, her own arm barricading Simon by the chest, who affectionately squeezes her wrist. Grinning, she gracefully points a finger towards Alec’s direction, the perfect imitation of Magnus’ gesture.

“I’m talking to you.”

The circle howls, bursting into applause as if they just sealed yet another rift from yet another circle of hell. Magnus collapses against Alec, completely bereft of air as laughter consumes him from head to toe. Alec snickers, hand smoothing the fabric of Magnus’ jacket.

“I still hate that I wasn’t there for that,” Simon sighs.

“God, dad’s got game,” Max says, appalled, “By the damn angel.”

“It’s only good if it actually worked,” Rafe corrects, turning to Izzy, “Aunt Iz, what happened next?”

Izzy melts, pressing her hands to her heart. “Oh, Rafe. Your dad had the biggest, softest smile. I hadn’t seen him smile like that, ever.”

She turns to Magnus and Alec, eyes glassy. “It’s the smile of someone who finally felt seen.”

The corner of Alec’s mouth quirks upwards. Magnus burrows deeper into the crook of Alec’s neck, a reminiscent smile curling the edges of his lips. Magnus touches his temple with two fingers, and with a flash of magic, he plucks a memory from his mind.

He presents it to Alec.

“You looked beautiful, love,” Magnus says, threading his fingers against Alec’s. “So beautiful.”

Alec smudges something invisible on the surface of the photograph. He sees his younger self look up at him as if to ask, why are you so happy?

Just you wait, Alec thinks, you haven’t seen nothing yet.

Rafe and Max take the photo, looking at it with absolute wonder. Izzy’s hand finds her trembling mouth, and Clary holds Izzy’s hand soothingly. Magnus presses a kiss onto Alec’s lips.

“Love you,” Magnus says.

Fondly, Alec answers, “Love you too.”

*****

Alec, with his head thrown back in mid-laugh, is watching Magnus spin Izzy on the dancefloor when someone offers him a well-manicured hand.

“Care to dance, Consul Lightwood?”

Alec abruptly looks up, mildly surprised, until he realizes who he’s talking to. He rolls his eyes, ones that dance with mirth at the sight of an old friend.

Alec smirks. “Told you not to call me that, Professor Branwell.”

“Touché,” Lydia laughs. She motions her outstretched hand towards Alec again. “Well? Are you going to keep a lady waiting?”

“You don’t get to dip me, Branwell,” Alec jokes as he rises to his feet.

Lydia snorts. “Don’t worry, Lightwood,” she says, “I know you’re too old to bend your spine more than forty-five degrees.”

“Speaking from experience, I see,” Alec quips, which rewards him a teasing elbow in the side.

Alec moves them deeper into the dancefloor in a little a maneuver he learned from many nights in small, dimly-lit Cuban salsa clubs with Magnus and Izzy. Lydia is impressed as she steps into Alec’s arms with easy grace. With Alec’s hand on Lydia’s waist and hers on his shoulder, they sway to the music’s languid tempo.

“I heard you can add ‘professor’ to your long list of achievements,” Lydia teases, “Alicante’s Shadowhunter trainees just can’t seem to stop gushing over you.”

Alec schools the grin on his mouth. “Are they, now?”

“Oh, please,” Lydia accuses with a laugh, “You so like it!”

Alec chuckles, “It’s just a couple of guest lectures.” He leans in, whispering, “Admittedly, it is a bit of an ego boost.”

“Oh, it’s absolute confidence fuel,” Lydia agrees. She smiles up at Alec, looking at him like she can’t believe how much time has passed since their last meeting.

“How are you?” she asks, and coming from her, it’s a loaded question.

Alec and Lydia know each other in such a distinct, irreplicable manner, one that stems from their commonalities as people and their shared experiences. It’s a special understanding that even Magnus can’t duplicate, and that understanding steadily grew into friendship. Alec and Magnus were even guests at Lydia’s wedding to her recently late husband.

“I’m okay, Lyds. You?” Alec asks gently, “It’s been way too long.”

Lydia presses her lips together in a small, sad smile. “It has been,” she says, “I needed some time to be alone for a while. Far away.”

Alec’s hand squeezes comfortingly against Lydia’s. “Did you find some peace?”

“Found some in the English countryside,” Lydia chuckles, “Farm animals are oddly therapeutic.”

“That’s where you’ve been?” Alec asks in disbelief, “By the angel, I was asking them to check as far as Jaipur!”

Lydia laughs fully now. “You didn’t have to keep tabs on me, you loon.”

“Of course I had to,” Alec mumbles, “How can I not?”

Lydia places a hand to her heart, grinning. “Well, I’m touched. To think that this friendship started from our aborted wedding – who would’ve thought?”

The memory makes Alec cringe. “Oh, god,” he begs, “Please don’t remind me.”

Lydia giggles, “What, that you left me at the altar to make out with the love of your life?”

Alec groans. “Enough.”

“Not quite the right tone,” Lydia teases, “Less whiney, more commanding. Like you’re about to stick it to your parents.”

“You’re impossible,” Alec complains, and Lydia throws her head back in laughter. Magnus catches Alec’s eyes from across the dancefloor, exquisitely amused, and Alec rolls his eyes in fond resignation.

Lydia settles down to a grin. “Do you ever wonder where we would all be if Magnus didn’t storm into that chapel that night?”

The mere notion makes Alec think. “I don’t know,” he admits.

“By the angel, Alec,” Lydia says in disbelief, “Would you have actually married me?”

Alec raises a brow at her. “Would you?”

Lydia presses her lips together. “I don’t know. It all made sense in our heads back then. It seemed like a plausible idea.” She shakes her head. “That’s terrifying. To know that even the most rational thing could still be wrong.”

Alec smiles, his gaze mildly cautious. “Is that why you left politics for education?”

Lydia angles her head in thought. “That, and more.”

Alec doesn’t know what these other reasons are. Knowing Lydia, if she hasn’t told him yet, she never will.

His expertise of Lydia as a person came to him late. It took three years into his and Magnus’ marriage for her to be reintegrated back into their lives. The day Lydia handed in her resignation from her Council position to pursue a career in education was the day she became a steady fixture in his life. Alec regrets letting an exorbitant amount of time pass before they became friends.

“Was there something I could’ve done that would’ve made you stay?” Alec asks.

Lydia gazes at Alec as if she knows exactly what he means to ask. Did I not do enough as Consul? As a friend?

“Oh, Alec,” she says softly, “I would’ve left either way. Despite all the great work you've done and still do.”

Alec exhales. “It’s hard to feel that way nowadays,” he mutters, “Not with the Pearlhearts and their constituents blocking my every movement.”

“Screw the Pearlhearts,” Lydia says bluntly, and Alec laughs. “Do you even remember the things you’ve done the past fifteen years as Consul?”

Alec doesn’t. Everything has been a blur.

“Then let me remind you that you were handed a Shadow World that was burning when you took the office,” Lydia says, “Iterations of The Circle persisting everywhere you look, mutinies from the Europen vampire clans, power plays from the new Seelie Queen. You put out all these fires within three years of your leadership because unlike every other Consul that came before you, you were the first to have the Downworld’s trust. Trust that you built not as an afterthought, but as the cornerstone of your consulship. Your cabinet was used as the blueprint for fostering transparency between Institutes and the Downworld all over the world.”

“I can’t take credit for that,” Alec says, “I was only one piece on that intricate chessboard.”

“And the changes you instituted after?” Lydia asks, “You restructured the entire government system to focus on service, not control. You reformed the council to integrate Downworld representatives, and most importantly, you dismantled The Gard and its ancient doctrines that center on maximum brutality. ”

Alec shakes his head. “I had a lot of help, Lyds.”

“Still,” Lydia insists, “Someone had to start. Someone actually had to care enough to ask for help in the first place.”

Alec has forgotten how good of a speaker Lydia is. He would mourn the loss of such a great political comrade if he isn't so busy celebrating the achievement of having such an amazing educator within the walls of Shadowhunter Academies all over the world.

Lydia is somber when she speaks again. “The Clave will never outlive the evils of its past. But this work, from the big battles to the small, from the demons we slay to the signatures on report documents.. it’s change. Small, tedious, continuous change.” Lydia presses a warm hand against Alec’s cheek, just like she did at the altar when she gave him her blessing to go. “The one thing I do regret about leaving Clave politics is not being by your side as you changed it for the better.”

Alec smiles into Lydia’s palm. “Thank you, Lyds.”

“Anytime,” Lydia says, “I met Henry because of you, did you know?”

Alec raises a brow, curious. “Me?”

“By opening Idris to the Down World,” she says, a reminiscent smile on her lips, “He was on his way to applying to be a werewolf mission specialist when I bumped into him on my way back from handing in my resignation. Whatever amount of time we had with each other – our walks through Brocelind, our dates by Lake Lynn, our wedding in Alicante.. we owe it to you.”

“I’m glad that I helped,” Alec says.

Lydia looks up at Alec, her head shaking in wonder. “Where did you get the will to do all that, Alec?” she asks, “Who were you changing the whole world for?”

From afar, Alec hears an unmistakable laugh, one he knows the sound of as it echoes from across the room or rumbling sleepily against the shell of his ear.

Alec smiles.

*****

“Blue, no flying! Mijito, don’t you run away with your brother!”

Alec laughs as he watches Magnus run across the grass in pursuit of their two boys. Max, in his bat form, flaps away with his older brother giggling behind him in a chase that would have ended a long time ago if Magnus simply magicked on a pair of sneakers.

I don’t do active-wear, Alexander, Magnus had scoffed with an offended look on his face, Not in public.

So, Alec sits back on the picnic blanket, legs kicked out. He contentedly digests his afternoon snack under the same tree that he sat under as a child when he wants a moment to himself. The green hills that overlook the entirety of Alicante sprawl before him, the view only made better by his family running across it.

The memories that accompany this spot weren’t always happy.

He hated himself under this tree. He asked all the divinities in the universe if who he is – how he is – is wrong. He climbed onto the branches, clinging onto it for hours; he punished his muscles and tendons for the missed shots and longing thoughts. He remembers the many cliff-edges he’s had to talk himself off of because no one else would.

He remembers wondering for how long he could do this for.

From afar, Magnus throws his hands in the air in surrender. Max flaps circles around his head in jest while Rafe jogs circles around Magnus’ feet.

Magnus, with a great, heavy sigh, snaps his fingers. Sparkly runners replace his fancy dress shoes, and Alec finally tips over in unabashed laughter. Magnus notices this, and in an act of pure vengeance, sics their children onto Alec. Alec realizes the velocity of their approach too late.

Alec groans, clutching his stomach as Rafe tumbles into him, all sharp elbows. Max flaps his wings across Alec’s forehead, displacing his hair all over.

“I deserved that,” Alec breathes out as Magnus topples onto the spot beside him.

Magnus smirks. “Yes, you do.” He collapses onto the blanket, exhausted. “Your turn, darling. I’m going to nap.”

Alec laughs. “Fine.” He turns to their children. “Who wants to do cartwheels?”

Max plops onto Alec’s lap with a shrill meee, accompanied by Rafe’s monstrous shout. Alec scoops both in his arms and runs, leaving shrieks of happiness in their wake. Magnus’ laugh carries beautifully from where he is sprawled under Alec’s tree.

Another sad tree memory dispels in Alec’s mind.

*****

Alec opens presents.

Jace and Clary gift Alec with a quiver of special arrows, a set of ten crafted by the Iron Sisters themselves. Vessels within the arrowheads were made to hold Magnus’ magic within its core. It is common knowledge that every single weapon in the Consul’s personal arsenal is imbued with electric blues and golden yellows. Like urban legend, it is whispered among throngs of young Shadowhunters that seeing the Lightwood-Banes in battle is like watching a roiling thunderstorm – it’s a kind of devastation from which you cannot look away.

Izzy and Simon’s gift is a rare tome they tracked down in a small European town called Arnis. It dates back to the years of the first community Shadowhunters that took root in New York, and how it ended up in rural Germany, nobody truly knows. Alec leafs through some pages and already found references to their early ancestors. My, my, Adette, Magnus murmurs, his chin propped against Alec’s shoulder. Alec hums in agreement; Adette Lightwood’s a looker.

The remaining presents sit on a hill on Alec’s left, and he is left to apologize to his guests. He promises to open them all at home, joking that the New York Institute probably needs their space back. He is presented with one last gift to open, one that he doesn’t hesitate to take in his hands.

“Here, dad,” Rafe says, handing Alec a small envelope.

Max offers a disclaimer. “This is last minute,” he says, “We were gonna give you something dumb.”

Alec hooks a finger into the envelope and rips it open. Within it, he pulls out two photographs. Alec looks at both of them with wonder.

One is slightly hazy. It bears the image of a man looking down at the camera, and even with the blurriness of it, Alec could see the smile spreads across his face. The other photograph, clearer than the first, unmistakably bears Alec’s likeness. It looks like a picture taken from behind a wooden cart of some kind as if the photographer was peeking from a hiding spot. Alec is squinting under the brightness of the sun, donned in battle-wear with an arrow drawn. He stands side-by-side with Lily Chen, the current head of the New York Vampire Clan.

Alec looks up in realization. “This is Buenos Aires. And this..”

Max shrugs. “Mine’s a bit faint, but I was a baby. Now you have all three of ours.”

Rafe smiles, reminiscing. “It’s our first memories of you, Dad.”

Magnus looks at Max. “When did you learn how to do this, Blue?”

“What, like it’s hard?” Max grins, “Figured it out from when you did it earlier.”

“You okay, dad?” Rafe asks.

Alec brushes his fingers over his nose, sniffing. He blinks furiously down at his hands, ones that hold memories of himself through the eyes of his family. They feel heavier than paper, weighted with love and gratitude built over time. He feels Rafe’s hand on his back and Max’s chin on his shoulder.

“You changed our lives, Dad,” Max murmurs, “Thank you for that.”

Alec gingerly rises to his feet, pulling his sons into his arms. He reaches out for Magnus’ hand, gripping it tightly within his. Magnus thumbs the tears from Alec’s eyes. His touch lingers on the lines at its corners.

The photographs don’t leave Alec’s hands the entire night.

*****

“Don’t, Alexander,” Magnus commands through teary eyes and gritted teeth, “Don’t you dare.”

Alec stumbles, taken aback. He watches as Magnus strides away from him, his hands curled into fists. Alec follows suit with long loping steps across their living room.

“Magnus,” Alec calls out, confused, “What the hell are you talking about?”

Magnus turns to Alec, his gaze accusing. “You don’t want immortality. You never have, Alexander, so why are you asking for it now?”

“Despite popular belief, Magnus,” Alec grits out, his tone acidic, “People’s minds do change.”

Magnus scoffs. “And what a lovely coincidence that it changed right after Izzy chose to turn.”

Alec blinks in disbelief. “Why does it matter, why are you picking a fight?!” he asks, voice rising, “Do you think I’m lying? Is this what this is?”

Magnus spins on his heels, angrily busying himself with reshelving the open tomes that lay on his desk. “Typical Nephilim,” he mutters, “No insight, whatsoever.”

“Hey, if you’re itching for an argument, at least have the decency to at least look at me,” Alec demands, “Or at least tell me what the fuck I did wrong by telling you I want to spend an eternity with you!”

“You get to pick, Alexander!” Magnus shouts.

“How can you fault me for having a choice?” Alec yells, “You don’t want me forever, is that it? You’ll move on the moment I hit the ground?”

Pain twists Magnus’ face as he whispers hollowly, “How can you even say that?”

Alec shakes his head, lost. His hands falter to his sides. “Then what is it?” he asks, his words coming out of him in twisted sobs, “Why won’t you want me for more years than I can give?”

Magnus falls silent. He shakes his head too as he leans onto the bookshelf. For a moment, he doesn’t know what to say. Alec’s gaze is pleading when Magnus finally meets it.

“Two years ago, we got married,” Magnus mutters, “Do you know what I dream of since then?”

Alec shakes his head despite knowing the question doesn’t need an answer.

“I dream of us in five hundred years,” Magnus says. He wraps his arms around himself.

“We’re in Budapest, watching a particularly beautiful sunrise,” he murmurs, “Or in Paris, recreating our honeymoon. Or in Indonesia, by the beach, with everyone ogling you. I get to glare them all away.”

Alec closes his eyes momentarily. He almost smiles.

Magnus sounds broken when he speaks again. “But then I remember what that means. It means you’ve watched your family die. Everybody that is precious to you, you’ve outlived. You’ve buried your mother, your father, your siblings, your future children. You’re now burdened with sorrow your shoulders weren’t built to carry.”

Alec steadily cuts away the distance between him and Magnus. Rivulets roll down Magnus’ cheek as he stubbornly wipes them away.

Magnus sniffs and then exhales. “I know you love me very much, Alexander, but you don’t love me blindly,” he says, head shaking, “And I don’t want you to. I’ve made peace with my impending solitude a long time ago.”

“Magnus,” Alec reaches for him, but Magnus shakes his head again, openly weeping now. Magnus holds his hands out before him; he keeps Alec at bay like it’s his final line of defense.

“I’ve accepted it,” Magnus says shakily, “So please don’t tell me you want to be with me forever as if you’ve thought about it for a split-second, not when this thought has plagued me for hundreds of years –” Magnus’ breath hitches, “I can’t have false hopes, Alexander, please –”

Alec pulls Magnus into his arms and there, the earth finally collapses under them both. Magnus sobs unapologetically within the tight cradle of Alec's arms as Alec wipes the tears from his own face. Growing wetness seeps through the shoulder of his shirt. He presses his mouth against the side Magnus’ head, murmuring his quiet apologies and declarations of love. They hold onto each other like hands clasped in prayer.

Alec ushers them both to bed. Alec takes off Magnus’ shoes and socks, and Magnus, exhausted beyond measure, curls into Alec and closes his tired eyes. They shelve whatever they have to say to each other for the morning.

Alec wakes up to the sensation of bare feet against his.

“Sorry,” Magnus whispers, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“S’okay,” Alec mumbles. He yawns, blinking himself to full consciousness. When he settles, he asks, “How are you feeling?”

“Dismal,” Magnus admits, “I'm sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Alec mutters, brow furrowed so early in the morning, “I didn’t think of it that way. I hurt you.”

“It’s okay,” Magnus says, fingers to Alec’s cheek, “I shouldn’t have yelled.”

Alec exhales as he threads his fingers against Magnus. “I hate that you think that me being with you is an afterthought.”

Magnus’ smile is pained when he imparts it. His fingers tighten against Alec’s. “Old habits die hard, I suppose.”

Alec shakes his head. “You will never be an afterthought,” he says, “You’re all I think about, Magnus. In my past, in this present, and in our future. You’re my stream of consciousness.”

“Sweet,” Magnus murmurs fondly.

Alec chuckles. “Unsurprisingly, I hope.”

Magnus presses into his husband, imparting a gentle kiss on his lips. Alec palms Magnus’ cheek softly.

When they falter apart, Alec says, “I still think some things are lightbulb moments.. But I promise to think about it.”

Magnus nods. “Okay.”

Alec’s thumb draws circles over Magnus’ knuckle.

“Okay.”

*****

Alec leans over the balcony of the New York Institute, fingers twined around his glass.

Below him is a meticulously kept courtyard with an aged oak standing proudly in its center. He sees Helen and Aline sitting in one of the stone benches, looking up at the tree’s encompassing foliage. Behind him, Magnus and Max are magically sweeping away the remnants of Alec’s fiftieth birthday party.

“Nightcap?” Izzy asks as she settles beside Alec.

Alec takes a gulp from his glass. “Just water,” he says with humor, “Some of us actually have to think about our livers.”

Izzy laughs. She spins on her heels, her back pressed against the stone railing. “I’m not gonna lie, I miss drinking actual alcohol.”

Alec cringes. “Is it the viscosity?”

“Yes,” Izzy gushes, “Plasma’s a party starter, but by the angel. It’s like chugging molasses.”

“God, I didn’t need to hear that,” Alec groans. He finishes off his glass of water.

Izzy smiles at Alec, peering into his eyes. She looks so young, Alec thinks. She still looks like the little sister he would sacrifice everything for.

“Did you have fun, Alec?” she asks, but he knows what she means. Are you happy?

“Yes. I thought it was going to be a lot harder,” Alec admits. Below them, Aline leans her head onto Helen’s shoulder. The gray of their hair shines under the moonlight.

“It’s because you’re brave, Alec,” Izzy says, “To choose this for yourself and for Magnus – it’s exceptionally brave.”

“I would argue it makes me a coward,” Alec answers matter-of-factly, straightening, “I’m not brave enough to watch everyone I love die.”

Izzy actually laughs. She shakes her head. “Alec, I chose immortality because I was scared.”

Alec watches as Izzy sighs, her head tipped back in thought. “I couldn’t bear the thought of growing old while Simon’s body stayed in stasis,” she mutters, “I think of the things I will miss, moments that I won’t get to experience with the person that I love – and it’s like I couldn’t breathe.”

She sighs. “We’re all differently but just as equally scared. And it really never goes away.”

Alec turns his glass within his palms. “Does Simon know this?” he asks.

Izzy nods. “Simon knows,” she says, “Mammoth things like immortality.. the only way to make it easier to bear is if you parse through it with brutal honesty.”

Izzy turns to Alec. With her fingers curled around his arms, she murmurs, “I know it brought you a lot of unspoken grief when I decided to turn, and not just because of the obvious reasons. It was supposed to be your thing, the immortality debacle.”

Alec shakes his head. “Look, Iz, I don’t get to monopolize problems –”

“No, Alec,” Izzy presses, her grip tightening, “You and Magnus were figuring it out. My hasty decision threw a wrench in the works, I know it. I’m so sorry.”

Alec’s mouth quirks at one corner. He squeezes Izzy’s hand affectionately. “Don’t be,” he says gently, “Magnus has five hundred years in his back pocket and I’m stubborn. Our experience with immortality was always going to be different.”

“You could’ve started early,” Izzy mourns, “You could’ve been younger.”

Alec looks down onto the courtyard again, smiling. “I don’t care about that anymore.”

Izzy has always had the special skill of knowing exactly what Alec means. She gazes at him, eyes soft.

“When did you know you wanted to turn for Simon?” Alec asks simply. Izzy’s gaze turns calculating, which he decides to dispel right away. “I’m just curious.”

Izzy presses her lips together in thought. “It just.. happened,” she says, “A lightbulb moment.”

Alec smiles.

“You don’t say.”

*****

“Be safe,” Magnus says, pressing kisses onto Max and Rafe’s cheeks, “Call frequently.”

Rafe pins Magnus against him in a brief embrace. “Will do.”

“Max, no more unnecessary magic,” Magnus warns, “If I get another call from the head of the Paris Institute –”

“Okay, okay, I promise,” Max sighs before blurting out, “Rafe went on an unsanctioned mission in Barcelona, by the way.”

Rafe scrambles to grab anything of Max, only to snatch a handful of air. “You little –”

Magnus’ jaw grows slack. “Raphael, you did what?”

“Go,” Alec urges with a laugh, snaking an arm around Magnus’ waist, “I got it.”

Max whips up a portal so fast Alec swears he feels a gust of wind sweep through the apartment. The gateway winks out of existence alongside their boys.

Magnus moans, fingers pressed against his temples. “Your children will be the death of me.”

“So they’re only mine when they mess up?” Alec smirks. He plants a kiss on Magnus’ cheek before pulling away. He pulls open a cabinet door and reaches for his pillbox before another bottle catches his attention.

Alec turns to Magnus, pill bottle in hand. “Did you plan birthday sex for me?” he bluntly asks, “Not that I’m demanding it, but if you are and you want my cock’s participation, I better take one of these now.”

Magnus chuckles. “Oh, I definitely planned birthday sex for you,” he drawls, “But you won’t be needing pharmaceutical help.”

Alec raises a brow. “You might want to adjust those expectations, Magnus. I just hit half a century, after all.”

Magnus’ cheeky grin is suddenly softened by hesitance, and for a moment, Alec worries. Alec places the bottle on the counter before taking a few tentative steps towards his husband.

“I’ve been working on this for the past year,” Magnus says, the pads of his fingers rubbing together just like it would in times of reluctance, “And last month, I finally figured out the right magic.”

Magnus fingers flutter in the air in an unsure gesture. “My gift is a memory,” he says, “One we can relive. It doesn’t meddle with time; it’s a projection of a recollection. Like a photograph pulled from my mind.”

Alec wonders why Magnus is so nervous about his gift; it sounds lovely.

“If you would have it,” Magnus hesitates, “You get to be young again for a night.”

Ah.

Alec gazes affectionately at Magnus as he stands before him, fiddling with his hands. It’s a fine line of a gift, Alec realizes, one that could clearly offend if given to the wrong person, in the wrong context. Alec could see how it could potentially hurt him.

But of course, it doesn’t. It’s Magnus, whose eyes see all of Alec and still chooses to gaze in earnest. He who knows every swollen knot in Alec’s body. The person who could hurt him most, but also love him best.

Alec dispels the distance between them. He reaches out, the pads of his fingers sinking into the well of Magnus’ palm.

With utmost affection, Alec says, “Show me.”

A relieved exhale leaves Magnus’ lips. With Alec’s hand in his, Magnus faces the empty expanse of their living room. He draws a circle in the air the same way he does when he creates portals, but instead of a golden swirl of magic, a tunnel of white light erupts before them. Magnus presses his fingers to his temples again, pulling another photograph from his mind. This one he throws into the brightness.

Magnus turns to Alec, his grip tightening. “Ready, darling?” he asks, but Alec knows he means are you sure?

“Lead the way,” Alec says, except he means with you, always.

They walk into the light.

*****

It’s glaringly bright, Alec thinks.

The light feels like mist to Alec’s touch, the coolness brushing over his skin. It wafts over his face as the brightness swells around him even more, making him squint. Magnus is nothing but a faint silhouette before him as he drowns in the light of the magic he has summoned.

And then, it starts at his fingertips.

The temperature suddenly shifts, comfortably warm like a thermostat perfectly tuned to Alec’s preference. The more steps Alec takes, the farther the warmth spreads; up to his arms, to his shoulder, until it kisses the line of his jaw. The brightness dulls too; his eyes regain the image of Magnus walking backward as he leads him out of the portal and into this small fragment of his mind. Alec tightens his grasp and finds hardened callouses on the spots where office work has softened them. Alec’s arthritic joints are quiet where they would usually creak.

Alec finally emerges, his feet sinking into carpeting that feels familiar against the soles of his bare feet. His toes curl into the wool fibers.

Alec looks up at Magnus, who looks the same, but somehow inexplicably young. Behind him, Magnus is backdropped by golden sheets. Alec couldn’t help but toy at the necklaces that hang from Magnus’ neck in layers.

“Hi,” Magnus whispers.

When Alec speaks, his voice is strong. He gently tugs Magnus closer by the chain of his jewelry. “Hi,” he whispers back, “How do I look?”

“Like you haven’t aged a day,” Magnus jokes.

Alec chuckles, as if to say, funny. He turns to where he knows Magnus’ mirror stands, unsurprised by the young man that meets him. Instead, he beholds the image with affection. As much as he misses this Alec, he doesn’t envy him. This Alec has yet to experience the kinds of happiness he doesn’t even know he gets to have.

“Forgot I had these,” Alec mutters, looking down at himself as he smooths a hand over his abdomen. He peeks into his shirt and then laughs. “Magnus, your favorite part of my body’s back for a one-night encore.”

Magnus laughs too. He pulls Alec by the buckle of his belt. “Then we best not keep the audience waiting.”

With the gentle press of Magnus’ lips on his, Alec’s laugh settles to a small smile. Alec tries to lift his shirt from his body, but Magnus gently knocks Alec’s hands away as if to say that’s for me to do. Alec’s chuckle huffs out of his nose; two can play this game. He peels off Magnus’ pesky jacket, unearthing a black, form-fitting sweater that Alec still thinks about to this day.

Just like before, Alec still fumbles horribly with his pants, and Magnus still tries to catch his lips as he does. Magnus still laughs, and Alec still swallows the laughter from Magnus’ mouth with a kiss that shifts the earth under their feet.

Magnus puts them both to bed, nearly gymnastic, the way he does it. That was graceful.

Alec pulls the shirt of Magnus’ back, refusing to break their kiss until absolutely necessary. Shadowhunter.

Magnus draws away momentarily as he casts his shirt onto the floor. He gently rakes through the thick smattering of hair across Alec’s chest, now black instead of gray. Magnus’ touch lingers, and so does Alec’s thoughts.

Alec’s chest rises to meet Magnus’ mouth as he plants a kiss at the valley of Alec’s chest. Magnus thumbs a nipple before taking it gently between his teeth.

“Magnus,” Alec sighs.

Alec’s body sinks into the mattress as Magnus lavishes over the puckered bud. Alec cups Magnus’ neck, holding him in place, and there Magnus gladly stays. This was once Alec’s favorite things in bed, something time changed in the most unusual ways. Once-dull nerve endings muted by age jolts back to life with every nip of Magnus’ teeth and swirl of his tongue. Alec savors every bolt of warm electricity that crackles down his spine as if it’s something he won’t get to have tomorrow.

Magnus presses a final kiss on Alec’s chest before making his way down Alec’s body. He palms Alec’s cock through his unzipped trousers; he noses the shaft, outlining its shape.

Alec whispers, “Suck me off, Magnus. Please.”

“Of course, love,” Magnus says, hands working to release Alec’s cock from his underwear, “Anything you want. Everything.”

Alec’s hardness stands tall and proud with ease, hefty against Magnus’ palm. Magnus kisses Alec once at the base before dragging his lips up the shaft. Alec plays with the short buzz of hair in Magnus’ neck, entranced by the texture, and his grip tightens when Magnus mouths along the crown and finally engulfs Alec whole.

Alec swears the ceiling flushes pink. “Fuck, Magnus..”

Magnus relishes in coaxing every helpless moan and hitched whimper out of Alec’s lips. Every flick of the tongue, gulp of the throat, hollowing of the cheeks - Magnus sucks Alec’s cock in the ways he likes the most, gleaned from years and years of learning Alec down to his very bones. All Alec could do is watch through pleasure-hazed eyes and thick lashes as Magnus tells him, in yet another way, how much he is thoroughly known.

How much he is thoroughly loved.

Alec caresses Magnus’ cheek, thumb pressing onto the corner of Magnus’ stretched mouth. “You’re everything to me,” Alec whispers, rolling his hips gently as if to seek permission. Magnus thrums around Alec as he moans his enthusiastic yes.

Alec fucks into Magnus’ mouth ardently, his young body arching off the bed and into the warm tightness that is provided to him. This ageless body he wears feels old but new at the same time; it feels every undulation of Magnus’ tongue against his shaft, responds vigorously to Magnus’ every touch. Alec feels so absolutely himself but, at the same time, inexplicably not. Magnus reaches back and sinks lube-slicked fingers into his own ass, and seeing Magnus spread himself open before him with unfettered pleasure surprisingly moves Alec’s heart.

With a final roll of the hip, Alec gasps, planting both his palms against Magnus’ jaw. He quietly urges Magnus off him before he fully topples off the edge. Magnus crawls the length of Alec’s body, only stopping when Alec is within kissing distance again. With the press of Magnus’ tongue against his, Alec suddenly finds a profound ache blooming in his chest, beautiful but wistful. Dazed.

“Do you prefer me like this?” Alec murmurs, “Young?”

He asks the question with no malice. Nothing but a simple curiosity, and after twenty years of marriage, Magnus doesn’t misconstrue.

Magnus kisses the corner of Alec’s mouth. Straddling Alec’s hips, he answers, “I simply prefer you.”

Alec chuckles. “Sweet.”

The lopsided smile that grows on Alec’s mouth is short-lived as it is soon replaced by another shuddering exhale. Magnus palms Alec’s cock, thumbing the slit.

“You forget how utterly enraptured I am of you, Alexander,” Magnus whispers, “Did you think that enchantment would simply go away with time?”

Alec’s breath hitches on his throat as he feels his cockhead kiss Magnus’ puckered ring. “Yes,” he admits.

Magnus caresses Alec’s cheek. “Oh, darling,” he says, his smile forlorn, “You’ve never been more wrong.” With that, he sinks down onto Alec’s cock.

“Gods,” Alec hisses as Magnus shudders a breathy moan as he inches himself down Alec’s length. Alec palms Magnus’ ass, kneading the firm muscle underneath.

“Darling, you feel divine,” Magnus gasps. He bottoms out, ass cheeks nestled into the nest of Alec’s pubic hair.

Alec scrambles for Magnus’ face, kissing him deeply. Magnus holds onto Alec’s wrists as he rocks forward, his hips curling commas in the air as he sets a steady pace for them both. Magnus fucks himself onto Alec’s cock with vigor that mirrors the adamancy of his words, every high whine and deep-seated groan presenting Alec with the eloquence Magnus, at the moment, does not have.

“God you feel so good,” Alec groans, fucking up into Magnus who rides him with equal urgency.

“Just like that, darling,” Magnus whimpers, eyes screwed shut as he presses their foreheads together, “Oh, angel, how I love you.. do you know that?”

I do, Alec thinks through the haze of his pleasure.

“Alexander,” Magnus whispers desperately, “I was so unbearably lonely.”

Alec’s gaze blurs.

Magnus cradles Alec’s head, fingers curled tightly into his hair. “And I am unfathomably changed because of you.”

Alec breathlessly sits up, culling Magnus tightly within his arms as he ruts deeper and deeper. Their once steady rhythm becomes more volatile, their orgasms mercurial within their cores as it spits and bubbles like a mixture about to explode. The bed squeaks and groans under them.

Magnus’s body tightens against Alec’s as he throatily begs, “Oh, darling, don’t stop –”

Alec buries his face against the crook of Magnus’ neck, and if he embraces Magnus any tighter he might disappear within his grasp.

“Right there, right there, please – ”

They come together, Magnus untouched and gasping, Alec in a dizzying, blinding mixture of white-hot pleasure and unbridled happiness. His orgasm flushes through every winding vein, his muscles clenching and unclenching in an attempt to wring every droplet of pleasure out of his body. Magnus shudders around him in boneless satiation, thighs shaking around Alec’s hips. They breathe for what it feels like a long time. When Alec finally blinks up from Magnus’ neck, he is teary-eyed and breathless.

“I love you, Alexander,” Magnus whispers, breathless with affection, and he says it again just because. “I love you.”

Alec thumbs Magnus’ cheek.

“I love you too, Magnus,” he musters through the ache of his throat, “More than you could ever know.”

Magnus presses their foreheads together. “I know, darling,” he murmurs, “Don’t worry. I know.”

Alec doesn’t say anything as he buries Magnus into the mattress, fisting Magnus’ half-hard cock in his hand. Alec presses a sinking kiss into Magnus’ mouth, one that is telling of the things left unsaid.

They don’t leave the memory until the morning.

*****

When Alec wakes up, Magnus is gazing at him, fingers combing through his scalp.

Alec shifts in bed, and when he does, his bones ache. His hand joins Magnus’ and finds grainy and fragile hair between the pads of his fingers. His skin wrinkles, and his body sags. The lines of his eyes are the most pronounced it’s ever been.

Despite all of it, Magnus still looks at him. Magnus, whose eyes see all of Alec and still chooses to gaze in earnest.

“There you are,” Magnus murmurs, full of affection.

Alec’s mouth quirks into a smile. He blinks the sleep from his eyes and holds Magnus’ wandering hand within his. Alec’s thumb draws circles over Magnus’ knuckle.

“There you are.”

*****

Epilogue

“Do you need the machine?”

Magnus reaches into his coat pocket and magics some bills between his fingers. “No, thank you,” he answers in his well-practiced French, “Keep the change.”

The café owner, usually a touch ornery, takes the bill from the counter with a thoroughly impressed expression on his face. “Much appreciated. ”

“Can I sit here for a moment? ” Magnus asks, motioning to the empty patio chairs.

The man waves a dismissive hand in the air. “With the tip you gave me, you can do whatever you want.”

It makes Magnus laugh. He places his paper bag of fresh croissants and a cup of to-go cappuccino onto the table before gracefully depositing himself onto an empty chair. The nearby chapel rings its early morning call for its parishioners, and Magnus watches people ascend the steps to its gigantic, arched doors.

Early morning Paris is quiet, and early morning Paris in a café tucked away from its busier streets is quieter. After his three-hundredth-fifty-sixth visit to the French capital, Magnus has chosen to forgo his home away from home; usually, a penthouse overlooking an essential Parisian monument. This time, he ventures deeper into a small residential area a handful of metro stops away from the city center. When he looks out of his balcony, he sees his temporary neighbors: a chain-smoking woman in her forties and a college student whose head is consistently buried into a three-inch-thick textbook. He hasn’t waved at them in greeting; he knows better than to engage.

It’s been five hundred years.

Magnus is still quietly floored as to how little has changed in the world. New York still has the best pizza, Paris is still somewhat pretentious. Magnus still wears a goatee, and he still loves his martinis dearly.

Magnus doesn’t deign try to recount the many ways his life has arched in highs and lows, coiling within itself in the five centuries that had passed. He is no longer the High Warlock of anything; only surfacing when his help is direly needed. His brownstone in Brooklyn and home in Alicante is resided by strangers now. He has diminished his treasured things into a small ornate box, and the rest of his possessions are tucked away in a pocket of the twelfth dimension.

He has welcomed people in his arms just as much as he has buried his friends and family into the ground. He eats croissants and drinks coffee. He remembers the people he loved – still loves.

He breathes in and out, the air heavy in his lungs as he does. The sun filters through the shelled border of Le Pavillon’s awning and onto the back of his hand, warm and temperate.

Sometimes, Magnus wonders for how long he could do this.

A touch alights onto his shoulder, squeezing gently.

Magnus, just as he has for the past five hundred years, despite the tragic losses and unfathomable despair, smiles. He threads his fingers through arthritic hands of which he knows every painful swell. He looks back and sees eyes that see all, but still gazes in earnest.

“There you are,” Alec says.

And Magnus, just as he has for the past five hundred years, answers.

“There you are.”

[sinceileftyoublog]

Riot Fest 2021: 9/16-9/19, Douglass Park

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Much like Pitchfork Music Festival earlier this month, this past weekend’s Riot Fest felt relatively normal. Arriving at Douglas Park every day, you were greeted by the usual deluge of attendees in Misfits t-shirts and dyed hair, the sound of faint screams and breakneck guitars and drums emanating from nearby stages. The abnormal aspects of the fest, at least as compared to previous incarnations, we’re already used to by now from 2021 shows: To get in, you had to show proof of vaccination and/or a negative test no older than 48 hours, which means that unvaxxed 4-day attendees had to get multiple tests. Props to the always awesome staff at Riot Fest for actually checking the cards against the names on government-issued IDs.

For a festival that dealt with a plethora of last-minute changes due to bands dropping out because of COVID-19 caution (Nine Inch Nails, Pixies, Dinosaur Jr.) or other reasons (Faith No More/Mr. Bungle because of concerns around Mike Patton’s well-being), there were very few bumps in the road. Whether Riot Fest had bands like Slipknot, Anthrax, or Rise Against in their back pocket as replacements or not, it very much felt like who we saw Thursday-Sunday was always supposed to be the lineup, even when laying your eyes on countless “Death to the Pixies” shirts. Sure, one of the fest’s main gimmicks--peeling back the label on Goose Island’s Riot Fest Sucks Pale Ale to reveal the schedule--was out of date with inaccurate set times and bands, and it still would have been so had Faith No More and Mr. Bungle stayed, since Fucked Up had to drop out last minute due to border issues. But the festival, as always, rolled with the punches.

The sets themselves offered the circle pit and crowdsurfing-inducing punk and metal you’re used to, with a few genre outliers. For so many bands of all styles, Riot Fest represented their first live show in years, and a few acts knew the exact number of days since their last show. For every single set, the catharsis in the crowd and on stage was palpable, not exactly anger, or elation, but pure release.

Here were our favorite sets of the festival, in chronological order.

WDRL

Last October, WDRL (which, amazingly, stands for We Don’t Ride Llamas) announced themselves with a Tweet: “y’all been looking for an alt black band,, well here you go”. A band of Gen Z siblings, Chase (lead guitar), Max (lead vocals), Blake (drums), and Kit Mitchell (bass guitar), WDRL is aware, much like Meet Me @ The Altar (who, despite my hyping, I couldn’t make it in time to see) that they’re one of too few bands of POCs in the Riot Fest-adjacent scene. Their set, one of the very first of the weekend during Thursday’s pre-party, showed them leading by example, the type of band to inspire potentially discouraged Black and brown folks to start punk bands. Max is a terrific vocalist, able to scream over post-punk, scat over funk, and coo over slow, soulful R&B swayers with the same ease. The rest of the band was equally versatile, able to pivot on a dime from scuzzy rock to hip hop to twinkling dream pop. Bonus points for covering Splendora’s “You’re Standing On My Neck”, aka the Daria theme song.

Joyce Manor

Joyce Manor’s self-titled debut is classic. The best part of it as an album play-through at a festival? It’s so short that you can hear it and you’ll still have half a set for other favorites. So while the bouncy “Orange Julius”", “Ashtray Petting Zoo”, and ultimate singalong “Constant Headache” were set highlights, the Torrance, CA band was able to burn through lots from Never Hungover Again, Cody, Million Dollars to Kill Me, and their rarities collection Songs From Northern Torrance. Apart from not playing anything from Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired (seriously, am I the only one who loves that record?), Joyce Manor were stellar, from the undeniable hooks of “Heart Tattoo” to the churning power chords of “Catalina Fight Song”. After playing “Christmas Card”, Johnson and company gave one final nod to the original fest cancellation, My Chemical Romance, who were slated to headline 2020, then 2021, and now 2022. If you ever wondered what it would sound like hearing a concise punk band like Joyce Manor take on the bombast of “Helena”, you found out. Hey, it was actually pretty good!

Patti Smith

Behold: a full Patti Smith set! After being shafted by the weather last time around, a sunglasses-laden Smith decided not to fuck around, leading with the inspiring “People Have The Power”, her voice as powerful as I’ve ever heard it. Maybe it was the influence of Riot Fest, but she dropped as many f-bombs as Corey Taylor did during Slipknot’s Sunday night headlining set. After reluctantly signing an adoring crowd member’s copy of Horses, she quipped, “I feel bad for you have to cart that fucking thing around.” It wasn’t just the filthy banter: This was Smith at her most enraptured and incendiary, belting during “Because The Night” and spitting during a “Land/Gloria” medley, reciting stream-of-consciousness hallucinogenic lyrics about the power of escape in the greatest display of stamina the festival had to offer.

Circa Survive

“It feels good to dance,” declared Circa Survive lead singer Anthony Green. The heart and soul of the Philadelphia rock band, who cover ground from prog rock to post-hardcore and emo, Green was in full form during the band’s early Friday set, his falsetto carrying the rolling “The Difference Between Medicine and Poising Is in the Dose” and the chugging “Rites of Investiture”. While the band, too, can throw down, they’re equally interesting when softer and more melodic, Brendan Ekstrom‘s twinkling guitars lifting “Child of the Desert” and “Suitcase”. Ending with the one-two punch of debut Juturna’s introspective “Act Appalled” and Blue Sky Noise’s skyward “Get Out”, Green announced the band would have a new record coming soon, one you hope will cover the sonic and thematic ground of even just those two tracks.

Thrice

Thrice played their first show since February 2020 the same day they’d release their 11th studio album, Horizons/East (Epitaph). To a crowd of fans that came to hear their favorite songs, though, the Irvine, California band knew better than to play a lot of the new record, instead favoring tracks like The Artist in the Ambulance’s spritely title cut and Vheissu standout “The Earth Will Shake”. Yeah, they led with a Horizons/East song making its live debut, the dreamy, almost Deftones-esque “Scavengers”, and later in the set they’d reveal the impassioned “Summer Set Fire to the Rain”. But the set more prominently served to emphasize lead vocalist Dustin Kensrue’s gruff delivery, on “All the World Is Mad” and “in Exile”, the rhythm section’s propulsive playing buoying his fervency. And how about Teppei Teranishi’s finger tapping on “Black Honey”?!? Thrice often favor the slow build-up, but they offered plenty of individually awesome moments.

Smashing Pumpkins

William Patrick Corgan entered the stage to dramatic strings, dressed in a robe, with white face paint except for red hearts under his eyes. He looked like a ghost. That’s pretty much where the semi-serious theatricality ended. The Smashing Pumpkins’ first Chicago festival headlining set in recent memory was the rawest they’ve sounded in a while, counting when they played an original lineup-only set at the United Center a few years back. It was also the most fun I’ve ever seen Corgan have on stage. Though they certainly selected and debuted from their latest electropop turn Cyr, Corgan, guitarist James Iha, drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, guitarist Jeff Schroeder, and company more notably dug deep into the vault, playing Gish’s “Crush” for the first time since 2008, Adore’s “Shame” for the first time since 2010, and Siamese Dream barnburner “Quiet” for the first time since 1994 (!). Best, every leftfield disco jam like set opener “The Colour Of Love”, “Cyr”, and “Ramona” was quickly followed by something heavy and/or recognizable, Chamberlin’s limber drum solos elevating even latter-day material like “Solara”. At one point, Corgan, a self-described “arty fuck,” admitted that years ago he would have opted for more experimental material, but he knew the crowd wanted to hear classics, the band then delving into a gorgeous acoustic version of “Tonight, Tonight”. And while Kate Bush coverer Meg Myers came out to sing Lost Highway soundtrack industrial ditty “Eye”, it was none other than legendary local shredder Michael Angelo Batio who stole the show, joining for the set closer, a pummeling version of Zeitgeist highlight “United States”. Leaning into the cheese looks good on you, Billy.

The Bronx

Credit to L.A. punk rock band The Bronx, playing early on a decidedly cooler Saturday early afternoon, for making me put in my earplugs outside of the photo pit. Dedicating “Shitty Future” to Fucked Up (who, as we mentioned, had to drop out), the entire band channeled Damian Abraham’s energy on piercing versions of “Heart Attack American” as well as “Superbloom” and “Curb Feelers” from their latest album Bronx VI (Cooking Vinyl). Joby J. Ford and Ken Horne’s guitars stood out, providing choppy rhythms on “Knifeman” and swirling solos on “Six Days A Week”.

Big Freedia

The New Orleans bounce artist has Big Diva Energy, for the most part. After her DJ pumped up the crowd to contemporary Southern rap staple “Ayy Ladies” by Travis Porter, Big Freedia walked out and showed that “BDE”, firing through singles like “Platinum” and “N.O. Bounce” as her on-stage dancers’ moves ranged from delicate to earth-shaking. At this point, Freedia can pretty much do whatever she wants, effortlessly segueing between a cover of Drake’s “Nice For What” to “Strut”, her single with electropop DJ Elohim, to a cover of Beyone’s “Formation”. Of course, the set highlight was when she had volunteers from the crowd come up and shake and twerk--two at a time to keep it COVID-safe--all while egging them on to go harder. Towards the end of the set, after performing the milquetoast “Goin’ Looney” from the even-worse-than-expected Space Jam: A New Legacy soundtrack, she pulled out the beloved “Gin in my System”. “I got that gin in my system,” she sang, the crowd singing back, “Somebody gonna be my victim,” a refrain that compositionally not only leaves plenty of room for the thundering bass but is thematically a statement of total power--over sexism, racism, the patriarchy--even in the face of control-altering substances.

Les Savy Fav

During Les Savy Fav’s set, lead singer Tim Harrington at various points--*big breath*--went into the crowd, deepthroated an audience member’s mohawk spike, found a discarded manikin head with a wig on it, revealed the words “deep” and “dish” painted on his thighs and a drawing of a Red Hot on his back, rode a crowd member like a horse, made a headband out of pink tape, donned ski goggles, surfed on top of a door carried by the crowd, squeezed his belly while the camera was on it to make it look like his belly button was singing, and referred to himself as a “slippery eel.” Indeed, the legend of Les Savy Fav’s live show starts and ends with Harrington’s ridiculous antics, as he’s all but out of breath when actually singing dance-punk classics like “Hold On To Your Genre”, “The Sweat Descends”, and “Rome (Written Upside Down)”. We haven’t heard much in terms of new music from Les Savy Fav in over 10 years--their most recent album was 2010′s Root For Ruin--but I could see them and the extremely Aughts genre in general become staples of Riot Fest as albums like Inches, The Rapture’s Echoes, and !!!’s Louden Up Now reach the 20-year mark. Dynamic vocalists, tight bands, and killer grooves: What’s not to love?

State Champs

This set likely wins the award for “most immediate crowd surfers,” which I guess is to be expected when you begin your set with a classic track 1--album 1 combination. “Elevated” is the State Champs number that will cause passers-by to stop and watch a couple songs, the type of song that can pretty much only open or close a set. And because they opened with it, the crowd immediately ramped up the energy. It’s been three years since the last State Champs full-length, Living Proof, so they were in prime position to play some new songs. As such, they performed their bubblegummy “Outta My Head” and “Just Sound” and faithfully covered Fall Out Boy’s “Chicago Is So Two Years Ago” (releasing a studio version earlier this week). But the tracks from The Finer Things and Around the World and Back were, as usual, the highlights, like “All You Are Is History”, “Remedy”, “Slow Burn”, and set closer “Secrets”. At the end of the day, it didn’t entirely matter: The crowd knew every word of every song.

Bayside

Putting State Champs and Bayside back-to-back on the same stage made an easy decision for the many pop-punk bands at Riot Fest. Bayside’s been at it for twice as long, so the breadth of their setlist across their discography is more variable. Moreover, they’ve thrice revisited their discography with acoustic albums of old songs, so even their staples are subject to change. They provided solid versions of Killing Time standouts “Already Gone” and “Sick, Sick, Sick”, Cult’s “Pigsty”, and older songs like their self-titled’s “Montauk” and Sirens and Condolences’ “Masterpiece”. For “Don’t Call Me Peanut”, though, they brought out--*gasp*--an acoustic guitar! It was a rare moment not just for one of the most popular pop punk sets but the festival in general, a breather before Vacancy shout-along “Mary”.

Rancid

“Rancid has always been anti-fascist and anti-racist,” said Tim Armstrong before the band played “Hooligans”. It was nice to hear an explicit declaration of solidarity from the street punks, reminding the crowd what really matters and why we come together to scream and mosh. The band expectedly favored ...And Out Come The Wolves, playing almost half of it, and they perfectly balanced their harder edges with more celebratory ska songs like “Where I’m Going” from their most recent album Trouble Maker (Hellcat/Epitaph). My two favorite moments? The breezy, keyboard-laden “Fall Back Down” from their supremely underrated 2001 album Indestructable, and when they asked the crowd whether they wanted the set to end with “Time Bomb” or “Ruby Soho”. “We have 4 minutes left, and it’s disrespectful to play over your set time,” said Armstrong. It’s easy to see why Rancid continues to make an impression--instrumental and moral--on touring bands new and old.

Run the Jewels

The brilliant hip hop duo are masters of balancing social consciousness with the desire to fuck shit up for fun. Live, the former tends to come in between-song banter, the latter with their actual charismatic, tit-for-tat performances of the songs. However, Run the Jewels also are probably the clearest live performers in hip hop today, Killer Mike and El-P’s words, hypersexual and woke alike, ringing in the ears of audience members who don’t even know the songs. (Looking around, I could see people smiling and laughing at every dick joke, nodding at each righteous proclamation.) Some of the best songs on their most recent album RTJ4 (Jewel Runners/BMG) are perfect for these multitudes. Hearing both RTJ MCs and the backing track of Pharrell Williams and Zack de la Rocha chanting “Look at all these slave masters posin’ on yo’ dollar” on “JU$T” as the rowdy crowd bounced up and down was the ultimate festival moment. For those who had never seen RTJ, it was clear from the get-go, as Killer Mike and EL-P traded bars on “yankee and the brave (ep. 4)” that they’re a unique hip hop act. For the rest of us, it was clear that Run the Jewels keep getting better.

The Gories

It felt a little weird that legendary Detroit trio The Gories were given the first set of the final day--I’d have thought they’d have more draw than that. No matter what, they provided one of the more satisfying and stylistically varied sets of the festival, showcasing their trademark balance of garage punk and blues. Mick Collins and Dan Kroha’s guitar and vocal harmonies were the perfect jangly balance to Peggy O’Neill’s meat and potatoes drumming on “Sister Ann” and “Charm Bag”, while folks less familiar with The Gories were treated to their fantastic covers of Suicide’s “Ghost Rider” and The Keggs’ “To Find Out”. Smells like time for the first Gories album in 20 years!

FACS

I thought it would be ill-fitting to watch a band like FACS in the hot sun, early in the day. Their monochrome brand of post-punk seems better suited for a dimly lit club. But the hypnotic nature of Brian Case’s swirling guitar and Alianna Kalaba’s slinky bass was oddly perfect in a sweltering, faint-inducing heat. Just when you thought you might fade, squalls of feedback and Noah Leger’s odd time signatures picked you back up. Songs from their new album Present Tense (Trouble In Mind) such as “Strawberry Cough” and “XOUT” were emblematic of this push-pull. And everything from the band’s red, white, and black color palate to their lack of stage banter suggested a cool minimalism that was rare at a festival that tends to book more outwardly emotional bands.

Alex G

On one hand, Alex G’s unique combination of twangy alt country and earnest indie rock makes him an outlier at Riot Fest, or at the very least a mostly Pitchfork/occasional Riot Fest type of booking. On the other hand, like a lot of bands at the festival, he has a rabid fanbase, one that knows his back catalog hits, like “Kute”, “Kicker”, and “Bug”, as much as if not more than hyped Rocket and House of Sugar singles, like “Bobby” and “Gretel”. Backed by a band that knows when to be loose and when to tighten up--and the instrumental chops to do so--Alex G was better than he was a Pitchfork three years ago. He still sings through his teeth, making it especially hard to hear him on louder tunes such as “Brick”. But when the honesty of his vocals combines with the dreamy guitars of “Southern Sky” and circular melodies of “Near”, it’s pure bliss. 

HEALTH

The formula for the LA industrial noise band has pretty much always been Jake Duzsik’s soft vocals contrasting John Famiglietti’s screeching bass and pedals and BJ Miller’s mammoth drums. Both in 2018 and Sunday at Riot Fest, the heat affected Famiglietti’s pedals, which were nonetheless obscured by tarp. Or so HEALTH claimed: You wouldn’t know the difference given how much their sound envelops your whole body during one of their live sets. Since their previous appearance at the festival, the prolific band has released two new records on Loma Vista, Vol. 4: Slaves of Fear and collaboration record Disco4: Part 1. Songs from those records occupied half of their excellent set, including battering opener “GOD BOTHERER”, “BODY/PRISON”, and “THE MESSAGE”. It was so wonderfully loud it drowned out K.Flay’s sound check drummer, thank the lord.

Thursday

Last time Thursday played Riot Fest, Geoff Rickly was battling heroin addiction, something he talked about during the band’s triumphant late afternoon set on Sunday. He mentioned the kindness of the late, great Riley Gale of Power Trip in extending a helping hand when he was down and extended his love to anybody in the crowd or even the world at large going through something similar. To say that this set was life-affirming would be an understatement; after 636 days of no shows, Rickly was at his most passionate. He introduced “Signals Over The Air” as a song the band “wrote about men beating up on women in the pit,” that a record exec at the time told them that it wouldn’t age well because he thought--no kidding--sexism would eventually end. Rickly’s voice, suffering from sound issues last time around, simply soared during Full Collapse’s “Cross Out The Eyes”, No Devolucion’s “Fast to the End”, and two inspired covers: Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” and Texas Is The Reason’s “If It's Here When We Get Back It's Ours”. The latter the band played because TITR guitarist Norman Brannon’s actually on tour with them, though Rickly emphasized the influence the NYC post-hardcore greats had on Thursday when they first started. Never forgetting where they’ve come from, with self-deprecating humor and radical empathy, Thursday are once again a force.

Devo

Much like the B-52′s in 2019, Devo was the set this year of a 70′s/80′s absurd punk band with some radio hits that everybody knows but with a swath of die-hard fans, too. It’s safe to say both groups were satisfied. You walked around the fest all day wondering whether the folks wearing Devo hats were actual fans or doing it for the novelty. By the time the band actually took the stage after a career-spanning video of their many phases, it didn’t really matter, because it was clear the band still had it, Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale’s vocals booming throughout a massive crowd. They ripped through “Peek-a-Boo”, “Going Under”, “That’s Good”, “Girl U Want”, and “Whip It”, which caused the fans waiting for Slipknot (and presumably some Devo heads) to form a circle pit. And that was all before the first costume change. Mark passed out hats to the crowd, fully embracing converts who might have only known “Whip It”. The feverish chants of “Uncontrollable Urge” and synth freakouts of “Jocko Homo” whipped everyone into a frenzy. And the band performed the “Freedom Of Choice” theme song for the first time since the early 80′s! I had seen Devo before, opening for Arcade Fire and Dan Deacon at the United Center, but the atmosphere at Riot Fest was more appropriately ludicrous.

Flaming Lips

“The Flaming Lips are the most COVID-safe band in the world,” went the ongoing joke, as throughout the pandemic they’d give audience members bubbles for their bubbles to be able to play shows. The normally goofy and interactive band scaled back for Riot Fest. Before launching into their traditional opener “Race For The Prize”, Wayne Coyne explained that while the band is normally proud of where they come from--Oklahoma City--they’re saddened by the local government’s ignorant pandemic response and wouldn’t risk launching balloons or walking into the crowd because they might be virus spreaders coming from such an under-vaccinated area. To his and the band’s credit, they wore masks during the performance, even when singing; Coyne removed his only when outside of his bubble that had to be deflated and inflated many times and that sometimes muffled his singing voice even more than a mask. Ever the innovative band, they still put on a stellar show. Coyne autotuned his voice on “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1″, making it another instrument filling the song’s glorious pop melodies. Less heavy on props, the band favored a glitchy, psychedelic setlist that alternated between beauty (”Flowers Of Neptune 6″, “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate”, “All We Have Is Now”) and two-drummed cacophony (“Silver Trembling Hands”, “The W.A.N.D.”). They’ll give a proper Lips show soon enough, but in the meantime, it was nice to see them not run through the motions.

Slipknot

Apart from maybe moments of Slayer, I’ve never witnessed a headliner at Riot Fest as heavy as Slipknot was. Even the minor ethereal elements present on their most recent and very good album We Are Not Your Kind, like the chorus of voices during “Unsainted”, were all but abandoned live in favor of straight up brutality. Sure, there were moments of theatricality--Corey Taylor’s menacing laugh on “Disasterpiece” and pyrotechnics in sequence with the instrumentation on “Before I Forget” and “All Out Life”--but for the most part, Slipknot was the ultimate exorcism. Taylor’s new mask, with unnaturally circular eyes, seemed like it came from a particularly uncomfortable skit from I Think You Should Leave. They bashed a baseball bat to a barrel during the pre-encore performance of “Duality”. And the songs played from tape, like the gasping-for-breath “(515)”, were designed to contrast Slipknot’s alien appearance with qualities that were uncannily human. For a band whose performances and instrumental dexterity are otherworldly--who else can pull off tempo changes over a hissing, Aphex Twin-like shuffling electronic beat on “Eyeless”--the pure seething emotion on songs like “Psychosocial” and “Wait and Bleed” shone through. Like Smashing Pumpkins, and like so many other successful Riot Fest headliners, Slipknot abandoned drama for pure, unadulterated dirt.

[leviathans-watching]

Sticks & Stones Chapter 1

You sighed, trying to ignore the thoughts bumping around in your head and instead focus on the conversation at hand.

"So anyway, I then saw this jacket and I just had to get it!" Mammon continued, trying to explain to Lucifer why Goldie had been maxed out already. "It's actually the jacket MC is wearing right now!"

When your name was said, you looked up, finding everyone's eyes on you. "What?" You asked, and Asmo poked your cheek, an amused expression sliding across his features.

"Have you even been paying attention?"

"Sorry," You looked around the table. "I zoned out."

"What's going on in that pretty little head of yours?" Asmo asked, and you felt your stomach turn slightly. "You've been off all week."

And you had. It had been hard to get yourself together lately.

"Nothing. Just have some homework still." Not hungry anymore, you pushed you food around on your plate until Beel finally took it off of your hands.

Thinly smiling at the brothers around you, you stood up. "I'm gonna go work on my stuff. Thanks for dinner. Anyone else done?" You offered, holding your hand out for dishes. After dropping a load in the kitchen, you made your way to your room  and shut the door, sitting on your bed.

It's not like you meant to be negative, but living with seven perfect brothers in a realm full of other perfect beings, it sometimes felt like you were less than they were, and not just because you were human.

No one could deny, they were all attractive, and you had always struggled with your self image. It had gotten better, but then getting thrown down here with a bunch of seemingly flawless people with no good coping mechanism was sending reeling.

You felt like you did during puberty.

You had lied, actually finishing all of your homework earlier and all you wanted to do was go to sleep, so you kicked off your shoes and got under your covers, hoping to take a quick nap.

* * *

"MC seemed off today, right?" Satan asked, looking at his brothers.

"For sure." Belphie agreed, and it was quiet for a moment.

"I was going to ask why they were wearing your jacket, Mammon, but now I'm more worried about this," Leviathan remarked, and Mammon smirked a little, but it was overshadowed by concern for his human.

"To be honest," Asmo dabbed at his mouth daintily with a napkin. "I've been noticing it for a little while now, not just today."

"As have I." Lucifer seemed more serious than usual. "It is our duty as MC's hosts to make sure that their time in the Devildom is satisfactory, and if they're feeling down, it would be a good idea to know why."

"Because we're their hosts," Mammon mocked. "Lucifer, we're all worried about them,  so ya can admit it too."

"But anyway," Satan ignored Mammon. "What do you guys mean?"

"Well," Asmo began. "I've been seeing a shift in their behavior. They don't really seem as lively, and they don't seem to be eating as much."

Beel looked at the napkin he held that had originally belonged to MC and nodded in agreement.

"Plus," He continued. "They won't take my compliments or let me get close to them anymore! It's weird!"

"Well not everyone is comfortable with that," Mammon defended, but Asmo shook his head.

"No, it's different. And something isn't right."

Lucifer cleared his throat. "Anyway, I believe it's Belphie and Beelzebub's turn to clean up, so I'm going to excuse myself."

They separated, but their thoughts were all on MC.

* * *

You were awoken by your door being thrown open. "Hey!" You protested, rolling over to see who had so rudely interrupted your nap.

Mammon stood in your doorway, thrown for a loop. "Were ya sleepin'?"

"I was," You said, throwing your covers off. "What's up?"

Mammon looked sheepish. "Sorry for wakin' ya."

You raised an eyebrow, walking over to the full length mirror Asmo had put in for you. "It's fine." Mammon came to stand by you as you tried to fix your hair, and you were struck by your differences.

He was in his human form but still looked way better than you. His glasses were perched perfectly on his nose like always, and his black shirt was just tight enough to outline a good body but not show it all off.

You were still wearing his jacket. He had let you borrow it when you had realized you had forgotten yours earlier in the day. He had told you he was only doing it so you wouldn't have to be cold or wear one of his brothers'. Whatever the reason, you were thankful.

Compared to him, you looked average, slightly below, if you were going to be honest.

Your fingers stilled from where they were combing out your hair and he noticed.

"Hey, MC, wanna get out of here?"

You looked at him in the mirror. "Yeah, that sounds great, actually."

You Lucifer wouldn't approve so you went out the back, managing to get away without alerting any of the others.

Smiling at Mammon,  you breathed in the spring air, stretching.

"Oh, tomorrow morning I have to leave early, so feel free to walk with Beel and Belphie, okay?" Mammon told you, so you made a mental reminder.

"Is everything alright?"

"Oh yeah, fine, I just got to talk to one of the Profs." Mammon reassured you.

It was still light, but you only had an hour or so before the Devildom sun went down. Mammon led you downtown, and the two of you just chilled, finding a park bench to watch the sunset on.

As the sun started to dip below the horizon, your DDD rang. Answering it without checking caller ID, you didn't expect to hear Lucifer through the line.

"MC, where are you and Mammon?" he all but growled, and Mammon looked up, hearing him even though you didn't have speaker on.

"Lucifer, relax. I needed this. We'll be back before it gets fully dark." You hung up before he could get a word in, feeling bold. Mammon whistled.

"He's gonna skin us alive when we get back."

You chuckled, a little nervous. "Yeah, but I told the truth. I did need this. Thanks, by the way." You leaned up against him, and Mammon seemed taken aback.

"Uh, I mean, somethin' was clearly botherin' ya, and I'm not the best with words, but I hoped this would help," He put his arm around you, and you looked up at him, blue eyes meeting yours.

"It did. My emotions are all over the place today, so sorry about that."

Mammon hesitated. "Do ya, maybe like, wanna talk about it?"

"I don't want to put you in an awkward spot or overshare," You were reluctant, but Mammon really seemed like he wanted to listen.

"You can tell me anything. After all, I am your fist man!" He puffed, and you laughed.

"Alright, you do have a point there." You tried to get your thoughts in order. "I don't know, it's just hard living with perfect people all the time. I've always struggled with my self-esteem, and it's, oh God, this sounds so dumb, but it's so obvious how much lower than you guys I am."

Mammon rubbed your arm encouragingly.

You started to get a little worked up, the words coming out more freely. "And it's like wow, I'm just readily telling you this, I must be some slut for attention, but it's like I just don't know how to deal with my emotions and-"

Mammon cut you off. "MC, it's okay. I don't think ya want attention for tellin' me this or are fishin' for compliments or whatever, so get that thought out of your head. You're my friend and I'm glad you're telllin' me this."

You nodded, and he tilted your face up towards his.

"We all have our days when we feel low. We just got to push through 'em! And MC, I'm the avatar of Greed! I know how it feels to want to things, to want more, to want to be more! It's okay to want that but we can't let those thoughts control us."

You nodded again.

"Not for nothin' but ya are my favorite human," Mammon whispered like he was telling you a secret and you couldn't help but smile.

"I'm glad," You pulled him up. "Now let’s get back before Lucifer gets any more pissed off."

While you were walking back, you impulsively grabbed Mammon's hand. He blushed, but let it happen.

* * *

Mammon < The Demon Brothers (New) (7): I found out what was wrong with MC

Leviathan < The Demon Brothers (New) (7): What? Already?

Mammon < The Demon Brothers (New) (7): Talk later I'm with them right now

* * *

Figuring Lucifer would be waiting for you, you just went in the front, and sure enough, there he was, sitting in a chair by the door.

He didn't look mad, which was odd, considering you had hung up on him and disobeyed the rules, so you decided to wait for him to make the first move.

"Ah, you're back. I take it you are feeling better?" His tone was light but also careful, nothing like you were expecting.

You nodded, and he seemed almost pleased. Turning to Mammon, you expected him to be as weirded out by his brother's behavior as you were, but he seemed to be engaging in a nonverbal conversation instead.

"If that's all," You said cautiously "I'm going to take a shower."

Lucifer gave you the go-ahead and thoroughly confused you made your way to your room.

S&S Masterlist

Chapter 2

[thranduilsperkybutt]

SO ANYWAYS

You can thank @vampiratesgrl​ for this excessively long 🌊 vikings 🌊 playlist. I’ve recced a few songs in this one for other playlists, before, but I also felt they fit well with the overall vibe of Vikings, too, so I included them here. I stand by my choices lol and hope you enjoy it, too.

Waking Up The Giants // Grizfolk

Glory & Gore // Lorde

Blood in the Water // Layup

Bottom Of The Deep Blue Sea // MISSIO

Fear // X Ambassadors // Imagine Dragons

Sail // AWOLNATION

Free Animal // Foreign Air

Let It Bleed // Unlike Pluto // Cristina Gatti

Electric // Alina Baraz // Khalid

JDNT // Glass Animals

Drop the Game // Flume // Chet Faker

Despicable // grandson

I Can Hold a Grudge Like Nobody’s Business // Adam Jensen

Headspace // Thomston

Sinners // Barns Courtney

Gold // Imagine Dragons

Eat You Alive // The Oh Hellos

Wild Horses // Bishop Briggs

Worst in Me // Unlike Pluto

Madness // Ruelle

Cringe // Matt Maeson

Numb to the Feeling // Chase Atlantic

Gods & Monsters // Lana Del Rey

Capsize // FRENSHIP // Emily Warren

Natural // Imagine Dragons

Fire // Barns Courtney

White Flag // Bishop Briggs

New Blood // Zayde Wølf

Young God // Halsey

Golden Dandelions // Barns Courtney 

Love Is Mystical // Cold War Kids

HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON’T // Fall Out Boy

Save Me Some Sunshine // Rafferty

Kings & Queens // Ava Max

Foreigner’s God // Hozier

Black Magic // Jaymes Young

Blood // Water // grandson

Come with Me Now // KONGOS

Habits of My Heart // Jaymes Young

Foreign Hands // George Ogilvie

Fire Meet Gasoline // Sia

Born To Die // Lana Del Rey

Bury Me Face Down // grandson

Don’t You Cry For Me // Cobi

Babylon // Barns Courtney

Follow You // Bring Me The Horizon

The Heat // The Score

Afterlife // XYLØ

❤

[shanascarlett]

Songs from Transformers playlist

Autobots

AC/DC - Thunderstruck

Art of Dying - Die Trying

Extreme Music - Skin Em Up

Glitch Mob - Better Hide, better run

Glitch Mob - Animus Vox

Hollywood Undead - How We Roll

ill Factor - Champion Sound

Imagine Dragons - Radioactive

Imagine Dragons - Cha-Ching (Till We Grow Older)

Imagine Dragons - I’m So Sorry

Imagine Dragons - Warriors

Imagine Dragons - Battle Cry

Lemaitre - Day Two

Linkin Park - Final Masquerade

Linkin Park - A line in the sand

Linkin Park - Lost in the Echo

Linkin Park - Burn it Down

Linkin Park - Road Untraveled

Linkin Park - Leave Out All The Rest

Linkin Park - Shadow of the Day

Linkin Park - What I’ve Done

Linkin Park - The Little Things Give You Away

Linkin Park - Iridescent

Ryan Star - Brand New Day

Skillet - Feel Invincible

two door cinema club - Undercover Martyn

USS - Who's With Me

Fall Out Boy  The Last of the Real Ones

Linkin Park ft. Steve Aoki - A Light That Never Comes

One Republic - Counting Stars

USS - Work Shoes

Panic! At The Disco - Victorious

Worlds Collide - Extended Orchestra Mix (ft. Nicki Taylor)

Youngblood Hawke - Pressure

Optimus Prime

As Lions - World on Fire

Fired Earth Music - Aphelion

Hammock - Numinous

Hollywood Undead - Take Me Home

Immediate Music - Rising Empire

Immediate Music - WIth Great Power

Linkin Park - I’ll be gone

Linkin Park - Powerless

Linkin Park - Leave Out All The Rest

Poets of the Fall - No End, No Beginning

Red - House of Glass 

Tribal Society  – Kings

Bumblebee

Arcade Fire - Rococo

Avicii - Wake me Up

Imagine Dragons - It’s Time

Imagine Dragons - Cha-Ching (Till We Grow Older)

Linkin Park - Road Untraveled

Linkin Park - Robot Boy

Swedish House Mafia - Don’t you worry child

Panic! At The Disco - Vegas Lights

Sideburns VS Matisyahu - Let Go (Fight Like A Warrior)

TobyMac - Ignition

Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime

Fitz & The Tantrums - HandClap

Hollywood Undead - Live Fast Die Young

Linkin Park - Road Untraveled

Bassnectar - Into the Sun

Saint Mesa - Lion

Skillet - You Take My Rights Away

Thousand Foot Krutch - Untraveled Road

two door cinema club - Undercover Martyn

You Me At Six - Fast Foward

Panic! At The Disco - Vegas Lights

One Republic - Counting Stars

TobyMac - Ignition

Panic! At The Disco - Victorious

Vincent Steele, Michael Woodenbridge & Nine One One - Rise UP

Elita-One

Flume - Greatest View

Icon For Hire - Too Loud

Ironhide

Papa Roach - Maniac

Ill Factor - Champion Sound

Prowl

Linkin Park - Crawling

Linkin Park - Road Untraveled

Linkin Park - Blackout

Sidewalks And Skeletons - Morphine

Meg Myers - Make A Shadow

Dirty Palm - Oblivion

Vincent Steele, Michael Woodenbridge & Nine One One - Rise UP

Paramore - Ignorance (Animated ver)

Icon For Hire - Iodine

Icon For Hire - The Grey

Ratchet

Imagine Dragons - Gold

Woodkid feat. Max Richter - The golden age - embers

Arcee

Icon For Hire - Pulse

Icon For Hire - Demons

Icon For Hire - Make A Move

Drift

Linkin Park - Crawling

Linkin Park - Waiting For The End

Klangkarussell - Sternenkinder

Within Temptation - Running Up That Hill

Dirty Palm - Oblivion

Vincent Steele, Michael Woodenbridge & Nine One One - Rise UP

Sideswipe

TobyMac - Ignition

Suntreaker

Papa Roach - Maniac

TobyMac - Ignition

Vincent Steele, Michael Woodenbridge & Nine One One - Rise UP

Icon For Hire - Hope of Morning

Windblade

Dpen and Nick Varon - Grasshopper

Within Temptation - Running Up That Hill

Within Temptation - Mercy Mirror

Tommee Profitt - Enchantment (feat. HEAVYOCITY)

Tommee Profitt - This Ship Is Going Down (feat. Xeah)

Mistress of Flame

Within Temptation - Mercy Mirror

Blurr

Skillet - You Take My Rights Away

You Me At Six - Fast Foward

The Prodigy - Wild Frontier

TobyMac - Ignition

Skids

Linkin Park - Roads Untraveled

TobyMac - Ignition

Dirty Palm - Oblivion

Kup

Papa Roach - Maniac

Tailgate

Foster The People - Helena Beat

Foster The People - Houdini

Chromedome

Dirty Palm - Oblivion

Rewind

two door cinema club - Undercover Martyn

Grimlock

Foo FIghters - Rope

Alpha Trion

Ryan Star - Brand New Day

Decepticons

Deuce - I Came To Party

Hollywood Undead - Apologize

Hollywood Undead - Lights Out

Hollywood Undead - Tendencies

Hollywood Undead - Lump Your Head

Hollywood Undead - Le Deux

Hollywood Undead - War Child

Hollywood Undead - Comin In Hot

Hollywood Undead - Dead Bite

Hollywood Undead - We Are

Imagine Dragons - Who We Are

Julien-K - This Machine

Linkin Park - Plc.4 Mie Haed

Linkin Park - When They Come For Me

Powerman 5000 - How to be a human

Red - Outside

Within Temptation - Tell Me Why

Front Line Assembly - Sturm (Seekers Theme)

Clarx - H.E.Y. (Seekers Theme)

Within Temptation - Mad World

Powerman 5000 - Invade, Destroy, Repeat

Powerman 5000 - We Want It All

grandson - Blood Water

Megatron

Adelitas Way - Sick

Hollywood Undead - Dove and Grenade

Imagine Dragons - Monster

In This Moment - Adrenalize

Nine Ich Nails - Meet Your Master

Nostalghia - Homeostasis

Red - Damage

Warmer - in my head its like hell

Starscream

Franz Ferdinand - Evil Eye

Hollywood Undead - Levitate

Inner Party System - Don’t Stop

Missio - Twisted

Bring Me The Horizon - nihilist blues ft. Grimes

3OH!3 - Anything I Want

Machinae Supremacy - Gimme More

PhemieC – Ugly Story

USS - This Is The Best

Soundwave

Current Value - Dark Rain

Dead Fetus - Mind of God

King Plague - Ave Plague

Shockwave

ZAYDE WOLF - COLD-BLOODED

Knockout

Angelsplit - 100%

Family Force - Chainsaw

Franz Ferdinand - Evil Eye

Ken Ashcorp - Absolute

Prodigy - Destroy

Rabbit Junk - IDONTGIVEAFUCK

Breakdown

55 Escape - Addiction

Airachnid

Sayonara Maxwell - Decay Queen

Cyclonus

Imagine Dragons - Demons

Three Days Grace - I Am Machine

Three Days Grace - Just Like You

Action

Actual Phantom - 7 Nation of Army

Barns Courtney - Champion

Beastie Boys - Sabotage

Blue Stahli - You’ll get what’s coming

Bring Me The Horizon - Mantra

Celdweller - Own Little World

Celdweller - IRIA

Celdweller - Shapeshifter

DVBBS & Borgeous - Tsunami

Hollywood Undead - Pray

Imagine Dragons - Battle Cry

Inner Party System - Don’t Stop

Kings & Creatures (Wolfpack) - Hunted

Linkin Park - Wastelands

Linkin Park - With you

Linkin Park - Points of Authority

Linkin Park - Burn it Down

Linkin Park - Lies Greed Misery

Linkin Park - Pts. Of. Athrty

Linkin Park - P5hng Me A_wy

Linkin Park - Rnw@y

Linkin Park - By_Myslf

Linkin Park - Kyur4 Th Ich

Otep - Lie

Red - Falling Sky 

Red - Death of Me (Guillotine Remix)

The Used - Revolution

USS - Yin Yang

Within Temptation - Endless War

Fall Out Boy – Light Em Up

Hollywood Undead - Already Dead

Within Temptation - Holy Ground

Imagine Dragons - Believer

Within Temptation - In Vain

Within Temptation - Raise Your Banner

Within Temptation - Reckoning

Tommee Profitt - In The End

Julien-K - Technical Difficulties

Calm time

Arcade Fire - Suburbs

Arcade Fire - Rococo

Dirty South - Unknown

Ellie Goulding - Your Song

Everything Everything - Blast Doors

Florence And The Machine - Hurricane Drunk

IAMX - Alive in New Light

Imagine Dragons - Tokyo

Imagine Dragons - Working Man

Imagine Dragons - Radioactive (Synchronice Remix)

Imagine Dragons - Fall

The Kills - Sour Cherry

Lemaitre - Day Two

Ludovico Einaudi - Life

Raign - Empire of our own

Battle Tapes - Feel The Same

Ki:Theory - Kitty Hawk (Break Science Remix)

Leon Else - Tomorrow Land (All Fall Down)

Tom Day - Who We Want To Be

Fall Out Boy - Centuries (Gazzo Remix)

Fever Ray – If I Had A Heart

Glitch Mob - Fortune Days

Panic! At The Disco - Vegas Lights

Rabbit Junk - Bubble

Ruelle  - Take It All

Ruelle - Until We Go Down

USS - Work Shoes

Cybertron

As Lions - World on Fire

Bastille - Pompeii

Imagine Dragons - Nothing Left to Say

Linkin Park - P5hng Me A_wy

Linkin Park - Fallout

Perfume Genius - Longpig

Confidential Music – Albatross

Ruelle - Until We Go Down

Woodkid feat. Max Richter - The golden age - embers

Unicron

Dead Can Dance - Black Sun

Optimus x Elita

Avril Lavigne feat. Nickelback - Let Me Go

Linkin Park - Jornada Del Muerto

Adam Lambert - Evil In The Night Lyrics (Transformers Animated Ver)

Hot Rod x Arcee

Of Monsters And Men - Wolves without teeth

Goo Goo Dolls - Before It's Too Late

Starscream x Windblade

Twenty One Pilots - Doubt

Bring Me The Horizon - in the dark

[yurtletheturtlehenderson]

S.T. REWRITE - S2:E6; Chapter Six, The Spy - [Pt. 4 - FINAL PART]

A Will Byers x Reader Series

Will’s connection to a shadowy evil grows stronger, but no one’s quite sure how to stop it. Elsewhere, Dustin and Steve forge an unlikely bond.

||3rd Person POV||

Will stares ahead at the map of pictures sprawled across the table before him. Per his instruction, the medical team had gathered and allowed his mother, Bob, Mike and more importantly, himself to see their record of the maps he had created. The other doctor stands with the others impatiently, finally, he breaks the silence.

"Sam, this is ludicrous."

Dr. Owens is quick to silence him.

"Just give him a moment, okay?"

"We don't have time--"

"Hey, jackass," Hopper calls, cutting the man off. "why don't you do us all a favor and shut up, okay?"

Will rises from his seat, and Owens begins to herd the doctors away, making room for him to circle the table. His eyes studiously scan the paper trails, and it brings him to the end of the conference table. With a steady hand, he points to the pooled photographs that form the hub.

"That's it."

Owens steps forward, leaning down ever slightly and speaks gently.

"That's what? What- What's there, Will?"

A frown flickers across his face.

"I don't know." He mumbles. "I just know he doesn't want me to see there. I think it's important."

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Under Owens’ word, a team of the lab's soldiers and scientists gear up for their journey into the tunnels.

Elsewhere, Steve and the kids prepare for Dart's arrival. Max, Dustin, and Lucas prepare the bus as their base while Steve secures the surrounding area.

The quarantine doors of the lab's entrance to the tunnels open with a hiss. The team of soldiers step forward and into the affected area and prepare the elevator. Hopper and Owens watch anxiously from the other side of the glass as the team lowers themselves into the network of underground tunnels.

Steve begins the trail of gasoline, starting at the pile of bait that had been left for Dart and towards the entrance of the bus. Max finds a rusted latter in a pile of clutter, the perfect size for the bus's roof entrance.

The elevator reaches the pit of the tunnels, the grated metal floor touches the molded ground and the team disperses. One of many soldiers steadily adjusts the attached camera on their suit. Above ground and back inside the lab, one scientist adjusts the screen and assures everything is in place. He unfolds the rough sketch of the tunneled system taken from the conference room map.

"Let's see if this kid's a wizard or schizo, Doc."

Owens and Hopper shift uneasily, and Hopper runs a coarse and calloused hand across his face in his nerves. The scientist at the control panel switches on the coms, the action creates a harsh ring as the sounds adjust and he leans forward into the mic.

"First door on your right, gentlemen."

The team in the tunnels steadily gather information, their flashlights raised and weapons poised as they begin their trek.

One by one, the kids file into the bus. Steve is the last to enter, assuring everyone makes it onto the bus. He takes one last lingering look around at their work and notes their timing. The sun had just begun to set and the golden rays of sunlight had just begun to kiss the horizon, they had finished just in time.

He steps inside and the bus door slams shut, closing them all inside as they begin their long wait.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Night has fallen and with it a soft sheet of fog blankets the junkyard. Far enough from city lights, the stars are visible, hanging brightly in the night sky. His binoculars around his neck, Lucas ascends the creaky latter to the top of the bus. He positions himself on his stomach, where he can safely hide behind the barricade of tires they had procured.

Ignoring the knots that cool in his stomach from the frightful thought, he begins his shift of lookout, eyes peeled for any sign of Dart.

Inside, the others rest wait patiently as for any signs of activity. Max has occupied one of the vacant bus seats, and she sits slouched, arms folded less than impressed with the outcome of the night. Bored, she watches Steve across the bus as he routinely flips and closes his lighter, his eyes trained on it in a weak attempt to combat boredom.

Anxious to pass the time, and her curiosity peaked as to why her high school stepbrothers rival was in on the charade, she attempts to make conversation.

"So you really fought one of these things before?"

He tears his eyes away from the small flame in his hands to meet her eye. He gives her a flat smile and nods silently before returning his attention to the lighter. With one swift hand movement, it clicks shut and he returns to his physical mantra of opening and closing the small device.

"And you're, like, totally, one hundred percent sure it wasn't a bear?"

Steve is surprised to find a weak and breathless chuckle escape him. Dustin - who had been nervously pacing the bus - stopped suddenly, turning tp her with his voice raised.

"Shit. Don't be an idiot. Okay? It wasn't a bear."

Max does a double-take, surprised at the kid's actions and it was enough to capture Steve's attention.

"Why are you even here if you don't believe us?" Dustin asks shortly. "Just go home."

Her eyebrows twitch up in surprise as she rises from her seat and heads for the latter.

"Geesh. Somebody's cranky. Past your bedtime?" She quips, before disappearing up the latter.

Steve watches in bemused shock, fighting the grin that twitches at his lips and his eyes fall to Dustin. The boy is still pacing, bow from stewing in anger that elicits several huffs from him.

"That's good." Steve praised. "Just show her you don't care."

Dustin stops suddenly, his voice flat but upset.

"I don't."

A sly grin forms on Steve's face, and he gives the boy a wink.

"Why are you winking?" Dustin asks, annoyed. "Steve? Stop."

With effort, Steve managed to put away the smirk and the two are soon cloaked in silence once more.

Up on the bus' roof, Max has joined Lucas's company and together, the two look out on the surrounding fog.

"It's kind of awesome." She says.

Lucas looks at her in surprise, his brows furrowing into a curious frown.

"Huh?"

"The fog, I mean." She says. "It looks like the ocean."

Lucas lowers the binoculars, his gaze turning to her.

"You miss it?"

"What?"

Lucas hoists himself up, bringing himself to a more comfortable sitting position. When he looks at her, it is not hard for him to notice the change in her. She gazes out at the landscape, her eyes occasionally flickering to his but most importantly he sees the forlorn look in them.

"The ocean," he says. "The waves? California?"

Max shrugs, her face melting into a weak frown and her attention shifts somewhere else. He smiles weakly.

"Hawkins seems pretty lame, I bet." He offered.

"No, no, no, it's not that." She says. "It's just..."

The words die on her tongue when she realizes who she is talking to, opening up to. What she is talking about. And yet, she doesn't let it stop her and she doesn't know why. Taking a deep breath, she lets the words spill out.

"My dad's still there. So..."

"Why?" Lucas asks sadly.

Her regular composure comes back in a fleeting moment, and she chuckles dryly.

"It's this legal term called "divorce." She quips. "See, when two married people don't love each other anymore..."

"Yeah." Lucas mumbles.

They share a weak smile, and reluctantly Max continues.

"My mom and my step-dad, they wanted a fresh start away from him. As if... As if he was the problem, which is total bull. And things... are just worse now."

Her saddened gaze hardens on the land below them, and Lucas can tell, in this moment, she is not all there.

"My step brother's always been a dick, but now he's just angry... all the time..." She sniffles, breaking her eyes away for a brief moment. "Well, he can't take it out on my mom, so..."

"So he takes it out on you?" Lucas asks, his heart aching.

She looks at him through the tears pooling in her eyes, and she looks just as surprised that she is sharing this. She shakes her head in hopes it will magically make everything better.

"I don't even know why I'm telling you this," Max says, the lump in her throat hardening as she struggles at what to say next. "It's just... I know that I can be a jerk like him sometimes, and I do not want to be like him. Ever. I guess I'm angry, too, and... I'm sorry."

Lucas says nothing, only staring at her in astonishment that she was opening up. The embarrassment grows in her and she angrily wipes away her tears once more.

She's embarrassed by the pitiful look in his eye, and her cheeks darken, already pink from crying. Angrily, she swipes at her cheek, catching her tears and laughs dryly at herself.

"Jesus! What is wrong with me?"

Lucas is snapped out of his daze and he sits up fully, leaning forward. When he speaks, his tone is soft and urgent. Reassuring.

"Hey, you're nothing like your brother, okay?"

Max listens, taken aback as he continues.

"You're cool and different. And you're super smart. And you're, like," he throws his hands up with a gesture, smirking. "totally tubular."

His antics crack a smile, and much to her surprise she feels a warmth spread in her chest. A warmth she hasn't felt in a long, long time.

"Nobody actually says that, you know."

"Well, I do now."

She nods, a sarcastic gleam in her eye.

"And it makes you seem really cool."

A thoughtful look crosses Lucas's face, and he tilts his head.

"I like talking with you, Mad Max."

"And I like talking with you, stalker." She smiles.

A wild growl echoes from the distance capturing everyone's attention. Down below, Steve and Dustin scurry to the nearest window, peering out into the fog. Hearts hammering in their chest, they scan the land for any signs of movement, their eyes peering through the grates window from behind the sheets of metal they had used to barricade the bus.

"You see him?" Dustin asks quietly.

"No."

Dustin turns, calling up to the roof.

"Lucas, what's going on?"

"Hold on!" He calls, binoculars aimed at junkyard entrance.

His view flies across the landscape in a hurry, Max watching anxiously beside him as she squints through the yard. Lucas tenses when he catches a soft and barely audible thump from the east entrance, and his binoculars land on a car in the distance he could have sworn moved.

"Shit." He breathes.

Max's gaze flickers to him for a brief moment before hastily scanning the fog once more.

"What? Did you see something?"

"I-I don't know-"

His thought is cut short by his own sudden gasp, the binoculars had found a four-legged figure stalking through the fog.

"I've got eyes!" He calls. "Ten o'clock. Ten o'clock!"

Sure enough, Steve and Dustin locked eyes on the dark figure making its way through the yard.

"There," Steve whispers, his heartbeat spiking.

"What's he doing?" Dustin asks.

"I don't know."

Lucas and Max study the horizon, and Max - who now holds the binoculars - spots a flurry legged creature hidden in the fog. She turns to Lucas, giving him a skeptical look.

"Wait. You sure that's not a dog?"

"What?"

A familiar chitter rings through the air, and everyone stiffens. A worried look crosses Steve's face when he sees Dart circling the bait.

"He's not taking the bait. Why's he not taking the bait?"

"Maybe he's not hungry?" Dustin offered.

"Maybe he's sick of cow,"

Steve backs away from the window, his heart hammering. He knows what he has to do, but he doesn't like it. Dustin looks at him worriedly, but Steve only nods before retrieving his bat and heading for the door.

"Steve? Steve, what are you doing? Steve?"

He turns, the moonlight pouring in from the roof hatch and illuminating his worried but determined features. He retrieves his lighter from his back pocket and holds it up.

"Just get ready." He says, tossing Dustin the lighter.

The bus doors open with a creak, and slowly Steve creeps outside, bat gripped tightly in hand. He takes a few cautious steps before the bus doors close with a creak. Slowly, he paces the grounds, twirling his bat in hands ready to strike. He whistles, hoping to draw Dart near but nothing happens.

"Come on, buddy."

Max climbs hastily down the ladder, joining Dustin by the window.

"What's he doing?"

"Expanding the menu."

"Come on, buddy," Steve repeats, his voice wavering. "Come on, buddy. Come on. Dinner time. Human tastes better than cat, I promise."

Max shakes her head in disbelief, unable to tear her eyes away from the scene.

Dustin only grins in a mix of pride and awe.

"He's awesome."

Catching a glimpse of movement, a darkness in the fog, Steve swings his bat back and forth, causing a rift in the sea of fog. Slowly it disperses, revealing a snarling and newly evolved Dart. Roughly the size of a small wolf, he now looked more like a demogorgan than ever.

Up above, Lucas spots two more figures closing in on Steve from behind.

"Steve, watch out!" He cries.

"A little busy here!" Steve snaps.

"Three o'clock! Three o'clock!"

Reluctantly, he turns and to his horror, he sees what Lucas was talking about. Scaling the surrounds vehicles, are two more Dart like creatures slowly advancing on him.

In the bus, Dustin jumps to action.

"Steve!" He rips the bus door open. "Steve! Abort! Abort!"

Dart lunges at Steve before he can make his escape. Steve is able to dodge the creature's attack, just barely, and manages to duck behind a car. He can hear rapidly approaching footsteps and he turns quickly, the sharp edges of the bat striking away another demogorgan mutant.

"Steve run!"

"Steve hurry!"

With his latest opponent still winded, it buys Steve enough time to make a break for the bus, another creature hot on his heels. He has to dive, but he just barely makes it. His toes cross the threshold as Dustin closes the door. A loud thump reverberates through the bus and it shakes violently upon impact. The mutant demogorgons efforts to get inside do not cease, the horrible sound of metal being clawed chills their ears and the bus door continues to move.

"Holy shit!"

"Are they rabid or something?" Max shrieks.

Steve grabs an extra sheet of metal from the windshield and places it against the bouncing door. He plants his feet against it, and the sheet begins to bounce just as so.

"They can't get in!" Lucas cries. "They can't!"

The bus takes several blows, and the whole bus rocks back and forth with it. The sound of metal hitting metal grabs their attention from the back of the bus. One of them had broken through a gap. Steve is there in seconds, with all his might he swings the bat at the slimy arm poking through.

Dustin grabs his headset, flipping it on screams into the mic.

"Is anyone there? Y/n? Mike? God! Anyone!"

Another break in the wall sends Max and Lucas across the bus, eliciting several horrified shrieks from each of them.

"We're at the old junkyard," Dustin continues. "and we are going to die!"

Another loud and heavy thump shakes the bus, turning Max's head. It had come from the back, but all she saw was Steve finishing off the first beach. Then another thump came, and that is when she noticed the ceiling of the bus bend under each thump.

One was on the bus, and it was heading straight for the roof hatch. It grew closer with every thump and slowly she looked up. For the briefest of seconds, all she saw was the night sky. Then slowly, a large slimy head came into view. Its grey, petal-liked head opened up as it snarled at her, revealing hundreds of its thorn shaped teeth and drool dribbled down the latter before her.

Her mouth opened, and her petrified screams hit her ears before she could even register she was screaming. Max stumbled back, and Steve's arm sweeping her aside assisting and he quickly took her place.

"Out of the way! Out of the way! You want some? Come get this!"

He has then spiked sat in the creature’s direction and it hunches down in an attack position. Its mouth opens once more, and it lets out awful roar. He grips the bat tighter, ready to swing when something catches its attention. Its guard lowers and looks off at the horizon in curiosity and Steve freezes.

The beast draws back in another snarl and in the blink of an eye, a thunderous boom echoes across the valley and sends it flying with a painful shriek. With it, a violent force rocks the bus that sends everyone in a mad scramble for balance. For a moment, Dustin fears in the midst of all the commotion, he had grown faint. A gust of warm wind accompanies the tremor that he first mistakes as hot flashes. But when his ears perk, they barely catch the fading echoes of stained scream.

Everyone has frozen, completely rooted in place in fear of another attack and Max is the only one brave enough to speak.

"What the hell was that?" She hissed.

More tremors shake the ground and several grunts and thumps are heard. Everyone scrambles to the window when they realize they are ni o longer the target. Dustin is the last to reach the window but he realizes exactly what it is before ever laying eyes on it.

"Stay back!" Cries a familiar voice. "Stay, the hell, back!"

Not single soul dares to blink, much too captivated by the change in events. Packed in against the windows, fighting for window space, they stare through the grated window in complete shock and awe as Y/n Henderson battles the mutants. They almost didn't recognize her. Besides the fact she was constantly moving - barely dodging their attacks - and the powerful bursts of energy emanating from her hands, she held herself differently.

She was also dressed in baggy, shoddy clothing. Ripped jeans two sizes too big that were buckled just above her waist, and several layered shirts Dustin nor Lucas had ever seen her wear. Everyone watched dumbfounded as she threw her hands up left and right, and with it, hot bursts of air blowing knocking back the creatures.

She bent over, grabbing her knees and they could see her swallowing as much air as she could, her knees wobbling. Before they could snap into action to help, she rose once more and held her hands out ready to strike once more.

"Steve! What the hell are we doing, we gotta go help her! Now!" Dustin hissed.

Steve nodded a bewildered look on his face still. Nevertheless, his feet finally began to respond to his brain’s signals and he headed for the door. The bus rattled with his movements and the Demogorgon's stilled, looking towards the bus. The kids' eyes widened and for a moment, Dustin feared they had been heard, further agitated the creatures. But much to everyone's surprise, one by one they retreated.

They circled Y/n, looking ready to pounce and several even snarled at her, but they kept moving. They ran straight for the bus and Y/n's eyes widened in fear, she ran after them, ready to strike again when she stopped.

The creatures had run around the bus, completely fleeing from the scene. When she was sure they were safe, she collapsed to her knees, panting heavily.

"What the fuck just happened?" Max exclaimed suddenly.

Her words snapped everyone out of their daze and hastily they fled the bus, pooling put onto the ground.

"Y/n! Oh, my God, what the shit!" Dustin cried, running to her figure and sliding across the grass to join her.

Y/n looked up from the ground, the color was drained from her face and branching put from her eyes and lips were a million tiny spider veins. She was still panting, gasping for breath but she was still very much aware of her surroundings.

"You're... welcome." She panted.

A squeaky, relieved laugh erupted from Dustin's throat and he tackled her in a hug, nearly sending her to the ground. Smiling, she reciprocated and after a moment the siblings parted.

She looked around at all the widened eyes, everyone was rendered speechless, waiting for her to speak. She licked her chapped lips and she hurriedly swiped away a drop of blood from her ears as it tickled her skin.

"I'll explain, I promise." She said, slowly regaining her composure. "But somebody better tell me why the everloving fuck are those back?"

"Are you kidding me? You can't just pull that shit and expect us to move on!" Lucas shouted.

"Shit," Max breathes, looking at Lucas in defeat. "So, like, you really weren't kidding. I owe you an apology."

Y/n blinked rapidly in surprise, her eyebrows shooting up. Her wild eyes flickered to Lucas questioningly. She had fully expected to have to explain herself to Max and Steve, but she never expected them to know.

"Lucas, you told her?" Y/n exclaims.

Lucas shifts uncomfortably on his feet, a sign of guilt despite his strong defense.

"I had to! Besides, she's been a big help and right now, we need a lot of that."

"Lucas," Y/n warns.

"What does it matter?" He snaps defensively. "You'd have to tell her anyway since she just saw all that!"

"Hey," Steve called.

"Well, she wouldn't be here if you hadn't involved her!" Y/n snapped back, the grass beginning to heat beneath her and Dustin.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey!"

Steve's voice rings out in the hearing, and finally everyone silences and looks to him meekly.

"Jesus, you shits never listen," He grumbles, running one hand through his hair. "Look, I don't know what the hell just happened, and I'd sure as hell love some answers, but we have a bigger problem on our hands. We've got a whole lot more of these things to deal with than we thought, and we need to know where they're headed so we can stop them."

"What are you talking about? Y/n scared them off," Dustin said.

Y/n shook her head, a quizzical look on her face.

"No. No, I don't think I did." She said in realization. "Sure I took by them by suprise, but I was vastly outnumbered. They could have put up a bigger fight, but..."

"But they just stopped." Max finished her voice grave.

Y/n nodded, lost in thought when Dustin rose to his feet, extending his hand for his sister. Grateful, she took it and wobbled to her feet, dusting off her palms and shins.

"Do you think they heard something?"

"I don't know," Steve mumbled, his bat coming to rest over his shoulder. "But whatever it is, it can't be good."

There was a pause as they each echoed around worriedly at one another. It was soon disturbed by Lucas, who exhaled sharply.

"Okay, seriously, I can't take it anymore!" Lucas huffed, crossing his arms. "Stop dodging the question, and tell us what the hell is going on!"

Y/n looked around at the curious faces and sighed.

"Christ! I will!" She said, eyes darting between Steve and Max. "But I at least have the right to know how and why they are here seeing as they're about to hear what I have to say."

"We're low on hands, seeing as you or Mike, or even Will haven't been answering," Dustin says, his gone slipping into a scold.

Y/n winces, taking in a sharp breath through her clenched teeth.

"About that..."

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Several beams of light crawl across the murky ground. Apart from the soft crackling of their comms, the squelching sound of footsteps bounce around the tunnel.

"Almost there, ladies."

"Roger."

After several twists and turns, the men find themselves at their target location. The tunnels have led them to the hub, they scan the area for any disturbances but find none. Just several other entrances to the hub, and among the small space are several giant spores that move as if they're breathing.

"Stay frosty, boys." One orders.

With great caution, they step forward, but a sudden snap echoes off the walls and they stand aside to see several bones scatter amongst the damp earth.

From up above in the lab, Hopper takes note of the dots on the screen. His eyes widen in recognition and he urgently steps forward to examine the monitor further.

"Wait. That's where I was?"

"What?" Owens asks, turning.

"It's that damn graveyard." He says.

The soldiers slowly scatter across the grounds, several bones crush beneath their feet. The team's leader grips his weapon tighter and scans the area further as he speaks.

"Sir, there's nothing here."

The man at the controls turns his head to address Owens. His lips press into a firm line and he shrugs halfheartedly.

"Looks like your kid's full of shit, Doc."

Hopper and Owens wear a similar frown and share an uneasy glance. They both know something is amiss, but they say why. Suddenly, as if to answer their suspicions, another high pitched growl echoes through the soldiers' coms.

The men turn in circles, to their surprise, large clouds of fog begin to pool in from every tunnel surrounding them. It engulfs their feet and settles around their ankles, spiking their nerves as they hear the growling grow closer.

Elsewhere in the facility, Will lays stiffly in his hospitality bed. He has paled once more and his lip quivers, her heart clenched with guilt.

Finally, he gathers the courage and strength to speak. Speak as himself. Though it is still with great difficulty, the second presence inside him fighting to keep him quiet but.

"I-I'm sorry." He whimpers.

Joyce and the others perk up in confusion, and Joyce wastes no time in reassuring him. She gently rubs his arm, and her heart is gripped by fear as she recognizes the same in her son.

"What? What do you mean, sweetie?" She cooes.

His breathing grows labored as he fights a losing battle against the tears forming his eyes. He looks to his mother, and he can feel himself drowning in guilt and regret. He shudders at the thought of what he has done and weakly he speaks through the tears.

"He made me do it." He sniffles.

Joyce rises to her feet to comfort her son, unaware of the thoughtful glance on Mike's face.

"Who? Who made you do what?"

Will's darkened pupils look up at her in fear, and he speaks through choked cries, his body shaking like a leaf.

"I told you," He says. "They upset him. They shouldn't have done that. They shouldn't have upset him."

Before Joyce can question him further, Mike looks up at his friend, completely aghast. His stomach plunges in fear and his eyes widen in realization.

"The spy." He says fearfully, and he sees Will subtly shake his head. "The spy!"

Mike jumps to his feet, startling Bob and Joyce in the process and bolts through the door.

Above the tunnels in the observation room, a scientist monitoring the radar turns suddenly addressing the team.

"We've got movement." She informs.

The man grips the microphone tightly, one eye on the radar as he attempts to alert the team.

"You've got company, fellas."

Back in the hallway, Mike crashed into the guards stationed by the closed-off hallway. He fights and kicks with all his might, his voice elevated and frightened.

"I need to get through! It's a trap!"

The guards roughly push him back where he fell into Bob's arms, who had followed Mike into the hall. He attempts to pull him back but Mike continues to fight against him.

"It's a trap! I need to warn them. It's a trap!" He screams.

The fog has now engulfed the hub, and the team's vision is blurred. Several frightened and overlapping voices spill out into the air as they form a tight circle.

"I can't see shit! Where are they? Where are they?"

"They're right on you!" The tech urges, growing more frightened.

The radar has completely lit up, dozens of shots sprinkle the area and all they can do is watch, hoping their warning is enough. The cameras are fogged, the radar their only hope at saving them.

"Wait, what?"

"What was that?"

Several horrific screeches pierce the air, barely muffled through the coms. The radio channel is soon filled with gunfire and terrible shrieks of agony, and all they can do now is watch and listen in horror, knowing there is little to no hope of saving them now.

And in a frantic effort to understand, Joyce lightly shakes Will's shoulders as he cries. She is choking back tears of her own as she does so.

"Will, sweets, talk to me. You got to help me understand."

Will is crying freely now, and he shakes violently with sobs.

"It's too late."

The last thing the observation team sees is the only remaining soldier scurry for the camera when all goes to static. Everyone is shocked into silence, and they look around at one another fearfully. Hopper is the only one to move, he has taken sight of the nearest radar and his blood runs cold. Every dot on the map in near-perfect sync flees through one tunnel.

The tunnel the soldiers had come from.

"You should go." Will sobs, his eyes filled with fear.

Moments later, the silence in the observation room is disturbed by familiar shrill cries that echo out from where the elevator had disappeared.

Hopper turns to face the glass as do the others, and everyone is suddenly aware - all too late - that things were only getting worse. He races to window, and from there, all he can see is the bottomless looking pit, but the shrill cries only grow stronger.

"They're almost here," Will says.

A concerned frown forms on Hopper's face as he studies the cables cautiously. The elevator cables begin to move, twist and twirl, creating a reverberating his of metal curling before settling into small vibrations. And out of the depths of the pit, one by one, the mutated army of Demogorgans emerges.

__________

Sorry if this chapter basically assumed what you usually wear. I normally stay away from all that, so if you usually wear that sort of stuff [I do too so I get it lol]. I do my best to let you guys imagine what you wear cause I always enjoy that in a reader insert. The clothes will be explained next episode! I just picture Y/n Henderson in clothes like max’s in season 2, handmedowns and stuff since the Hendersons probably aren't the *richest* and it's just Claudia Henderson so yeah

Just an fyi for chapter ahead:

Y/h = your height [tall, short, etc.] H/l = hair length H/t = hair type [curly, straight, etc.] H/c = hair color S/c = skin color

On that note, for reference for next chapter, I know we don't all look like our moms, but for the sake of the plot she looks like you in this story if she doesn't already. Thank you!

+++

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so just give me all of you

(AO3 link) Post-1x13 Malex ficlet. 

---------------

“Guerin?!”

Michael passed out in his truck a half mile from the junkyard, the fever panic of seeing Max’s lifeless body floating in that pod finally succumbing to the weight of days without sleep, to the adrenaline crash of weeks on edge.

He woke up to the frantic patting of Alex’s hands against his cheeks, to the shout of his name through the alarm beeping of a car door left ajar.

“Guerin, come on, wake up, fuck!” Alex’s voice was panicked as Michael groaned and scrunched his face against the light peeking through his eyelids.

Then relieved. “Guerin, thank god,” he said on a sigh. “Are you hurt? What happened?” Alex’s hands were warm on his face.

“Alex?” He tried opening his eyes again, blinking before he was able to bring Alex’s face into focus, eyes wide and brow scrunched together.

“There you are, hey. Are you okay? Does anything hurt?”

“I-” Michael closed his eyes, shaking his head, exhaling sharply through his nose. When he opened his eyes again, Alex ducked down to catch his line of sight, hands tightening on his cheeks.

“Guerin, talk to me. I need to know if we can move you.”

Michael looked around them. He was in the cab of his truck, engine still rumbling the floorboard under his feet. His hat was resting haphazard on the dashboard like it’d been thrown there, jacket half-slid from the seat to the floor next to him. The beeping noise was coming from his left - Alex’s truck, parked several feet away, driver’s door thrown open. Outside the passenger side window, the junkyard rose out of the desert, the clouds from the night’s storm retreating behind it along the horizon, sun high in the sky.

It shouldn’t be on the right. It should be in front of him.

Michael looked back to Alex. “What happened?”

Alex sighed. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. You went off the road.” Alex’s hands tilted Michael’s head into the light. “Are you drunk?”

Michael blinked, pulling away from Alex’s grip with a scoff. “No, I’m not fucking drunk, Alex.” He rubbed the bridge between his eyes with his left hand. “I-” He cut off, eyes catching on the colors shimmering on his hand, context sliding like oil into his mind.

Alex drew back in the small space, hands dropping as he pressed against the open truck door. He’d changed since the night before, deep red sweater under a black leather jacket. His hair was gel-spiked, carefully mussed - he hadn’t worn it that way since high school. Michael knew he wasn’t allowed the flush of content he got seeing Alex this way. He glanced away, focusing on his hand, tilting it toward him to get a better look at the shiny, multicolored handprint. It’d been years since Max had left a mark like that on him.

“Guerin. Your hand.”

Michael looked back up, meeting Alex’s wide-eyed stare. He tried not to think of the last time he’d seen Alex look so shell-shocked. Tried not to think of the prison, of buildings exploding, of dozens of voices going quiet in his mind. He swallowed. “Max is dead.”

Alex blinked. “What?”

Michael sighed. He was too tired for this, mind sluggish and heavy, the weight of an exhaustion headache pulling all his senses down. “Look, I know I said we’d talk but right now isn’t much better-”

“Guerin, stop, what do you mean, Max is dead? What happened?” When Michael didn’t say anything, just let his head drop into his hand, taking a deep breath, Alex’s voice went softer. “C’mon. You need to sleep.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Michael mumbled. He reached absently for the gear shift, catching only air before noting with surprise that it was in Drive instead of Park. He glanced down - his foot wasn’t on the brake.

Shit. He’d drifted to a stop. He’d gotten lucky - very lucky. His foot must have slid off the gas pedal when he passed out, but if it hadn’t… He looked up through the windshield, seeing the jutting landscape, heart clenching sharply in his chest at what could’ve happened. The road was off to the right, farther than he was comfortable with. He’d drifted through the cracked desert soil and scrub brush for a couple hundred feet.

Exhaling sharply, Michael moved his foot to the brake out of habit, hand reaching for the gear shift to put it in Reverse, but he was stopped when Alex reached out with lightning quick reflexes, stopping him in an iron grip around his forearm.

“What are you doing?”

“Going to bed? Watch out.” He shrugged out of Alex’s grip, almost surprised when he let go.

“You’re not driving.” His voice was firm, his tone leaving no room for arguments.

Michael was used to ignoring that tone, especially from Alex. “Alex, I’m fine. It’s right there.” He gestured out the window.

“No. Get in my car, I’m driving.”

Michael took a calming breath. “Look, you can follow behind if it makes you feel better, but I’m not leaving my truck out here.”

“Oh, and how is that supposed to help when you go off the road again and crash into Sanders’ house? Or go speeding into the desert and flip your truck on an outcrop?” He was glaring and tilting his head in that way Michael usually found cute.

It wasn’t cute now.

“God, Alex, I’ll be fine, I just want to go to sleep.”

“Fantastic, we’re on the same page for once. Now get out. You can walk if you want, but I doubt you’d make it very far.”

God, but Alex was infuriating. Michael was tired, he was drained beyond capacity, and there were too many memories fighting for space in his head, far more vivid than seemed fair when every other thought was foggy. He couldn’t deal with Alex right now.

“Alex, just go home. I can’t do this right now.”

“I’m not going anywhere until you get out of the truck.”

“I kissed Maria.”

He just blurted it out, thoughtless and sharp, the only thing his weary mind could rummage up to make Alex go away. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting. Alex to slam the truck door closed and go storming off, maybe. What he wasn’t expecting was for Alex to roll his eyes, mouth dropping open on an exasperated sigh.

“I’m aware. Now get out.”

Michael felt cold in the late November air. “Wh-” What does that mean? How did you know? Why are you still here?

“Maria called,” Alex answered the unspoken question, leaving the others floating dangerously between them. When Michael just stared, Alex leaned back against the door, eyebrows relaxing. “For fuck’s sake, Michael, I’m not leaving until you’re in bed. Either you get out of the car, or I drag you out. Your choice.” He reached around the wheel for the keys, but Michael got there first, batting him away and putting his hand over the keyring, the keys tinging as they knocked together.

“Have you forgotten the part where I’m telekinetic?” Michael was getting mad again.

Alex snorted, mocking smile tugging at his lips, eyebrows rising.

Michael sighed heavily, looking to the side. They both knew Alex was right - he didn’t even have to say it.

Fuck, he was tired. The longer he sat here arguing with Alex, the longer before he could pass out and try to forget this day - these last several days, in fact - ever happened.

“God, you’re fucking stubborn,” he spat out, angry as he gripped the gear shift and put the truck in Park.

Alex smiled, head tilted in sarcasm. “It’s part of my charm. Let’s go.”

Michael grabbed the keys and his jacket, swallowing down a growl of frustration before hopping out of the truck and stepping around Alex, pretending he didn’t notice Alex’s hand reach out when he wobbled on his feet. He shoved the keys into his pocket next to his phone and stepped forward, letting Alex close the door of his truck.

“Make that fucking beeping stop,” he growled as he made his way around the front of the Explorer.

He passed out against Alex’s passenger side window in the time it took Alex to turn his car around and drive the half mile down the dirt road to Sanders’ Auto. Alex was nudging him in the shoulder.

“Wake up, Guerin. I’m not gonna carry you.” He heard the click of a seat belt and sudden quiet of an engine shutting down before the nudging was back. “Let’s go. I know you can hear me.”

“Asshole.” Michael coaxed his eyes open, shoving away from the door enough for his hand to find the handle and pop it open. He tumbled out, hand reaching out to grip the top of the door to stabilize himself. The hubcaps clanged in the wind and he half turned his head back when he heard the driver’s door open. “Go home, Alex.”

“I told you,” he said, closing his door. “I’m not leaving until you’re in bed.”

Michael’s lips started to turn up into a snarl, but he didn’t have the energy to keep arguing. He threw the car door back behind him, letting it slam as he followed Alex into the airstream.

He didn’t think about the last time he’d followed Alex in here. Didn’t think about the events that followed. Didn’t think about the words Alex had said the last time he’d been standing in this space, only hours before. Didn’t think about how Max had still been alive then.

He just shoved past Alex, tossed his jacket on the chair, and flung himself into his bed, kicking off his boots. His eyelids were already too heavy to hold up as he mumbled a final dismissal into the pillow.

When he woke, the Airstream was dark, just a single lamp lit over the table at the other end of the cabin and another light source, bluish, that he couldn’t place amongst his catalogue of possessions. His head didn’t ache anymore, but he still felt groggy, that thick mental sludge of having slept too long. A pressure in his belly gnawed at him - he needed to piss. He lifted his head, squinting to make out the figure sitting in the chair, fingers clacking away on a laptop that definitely wasn’t his.

“Alex?”

Alex came into focus as his fingers paused, looking up at Michael, face half-shaded in the light from the lamp. “Finally.”

Michael groaned, letting his head drop back against the pillow. “I told you to go home.”

Alex’s eyes turned back down to the laptop screen, fingers moving again. “I did. You’ve been out for about... 14 hours.”

Sighing, Michael rolled himself out of the bed, catching his hand on the half wall to stand and only missing the full glass of water resting there by an inch. He stumbled toward the toilet, hands already working on his belt and jeans, pulling himself out with his left hand and dragging the curtain closed with his right, feeling it catch and snag along the rail from misuse. He let himself take a deep breath, resting his head on his forearm against the wall.

His eyes caught on the mirror on the wall behind him when he reached back to drag the curtain back after buttoning up, a flash of color where it shouldn’t be. Another handprint, this one along the front and side of his neck, barely a glimmer in the low light. Michael’s heart thudded painfully. He was covered, covered in Max’s mark on his skin, covered in reminders of the lengths Max went to to save his life, even after Michael betrayed him, attacked him.

Michael tore his eyes from the mirror, twisting out to step toward his bed. He snagged the water glass, downing it in one go. Alex ignored him, didn’t so much as glance up at the soft thud of the empty glass on the wood when Michael set it back down, and Michael didn’t know whether to be irritated or grateful. He’d changed again, layered in a dark t-shirt, yellow plaid button-up, and black hoodie.

Michael dropped back onto the bed, elbows resting on his thighs. He let his head hang low between his shoulders and took a moment to just let himself breathe, soothed by the rhythmic sound of keys clicking.

Max was dead. Died doing exactly what Michael had told him not to do.

Rosa was alive. Standing suspicious and uncharacteristically quiet in the corner of the cave, clutching the blanket tightly around her while Isobel and Liz wiped silver goo from their arms on Max’s clothes.

Liz had told him to go home, to sleep. She’d said he was no good to her like this, that she needed him to think. That she’d take care of Isobel, who was wide-eyed and bone-white in the shifting light of the pod. He’d wanted to protest - Isobel was his to take care of, especially now - but he was barely holding himself upright against the rock of the cave wall, body already sagging with exhaustion.

Liz said they’d figure this out, that they’d fix it, whatever that meant.

Max was dead.

Alex was here.

Alex, who said he wanted to be friends. Who said Michael was his family. Who said he didn’t look away. Who looked at Michael with want and said he wanted to fight his own battles.

Alex, who knew Michael had kissed Maria anyway. Who hadn’t even flinched when Michael threw that in his face.

Guilt burned dark and hot in Michael’s chest, rising up his throat. He was confused and frustrated - Alex never made any goddamn sense, not unless he was naked and panting under Michael’s hands. He didn’t understand what Alex wanted from him. He didn’t understand why Alex always left. He didn’t understand why he always came back.

He didn’t understand why Alex was here.

Michael loved him so fucking much, even after everything. In spite of everything. Because of everything. It was this heavy, intangible thing, pulling at him constantly, pulling him toward Alex, even when Alex pushed him away.

Even when he pushed Alex away.

Fuck.

“I shouldn’t have said that,’ he said, speaking the words to the floor between his dirty socked feet, eyes tracking the shape of Max’s handprint shimmering on his hand dangling between his knees. He saw Alex look up from the corner of his eye and the clacking stopped.

Michael sighed, turning to meet Alex’s eyes in the dim light. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.” He knew Alex knew what he was talking about. Hoped he knew how much he meant it.

Alex looked away, mouth opening and closing once before he spoke. “It’s not my business who you kiss, Guerin. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Bullshit.”

Alex snapped his head over to look back at Michael, brows furrowing.

“That’s bullshit, and you know it. You’re angry. You should be.”

Alex swallowed, lips pursing. He nodded. “I’m angry,” he admitted, edge slipping into his voice. “I’m hurt.”

It shouldn’t feel good to hear that, it shouldn’t. It shouldn’t curl happy and satisfied in his chest, quieting that piece of Michael’s heart that always doubted whether he meant anything to Alex. If he was angry, if he was hurt, that meant he cared.

But Michael could never truly relish in hurting Alex, not even the bitter parts that lashed out when Alex walked away. He never wanted to see Alex hurt.

“I don’t want her.” Michael stared down, not meeting Alex’s eyes. “I want to want her. It’d be easier. But I don’t.”

“That’s not fair.” Michael looked over to Alex, expecting pique but seeing only understanding in Alex’s eyes. “Not to her, or me.”

Swallowing, Michael nodded. He took a deep breath, wetting his lips. “I don’t know what you want from me.” I don’t know why you’re here.

It was a beat before Alex reacted, inhaling sharply and glancing back to the laptop long enough to pull the lid closed, cutting off the iridescent blue light. He looked back to Michael, tongue darting out before his mouth popped open on the exhale, long and steady.

In the past, this was the point in the conversation when Alex would stalk over, roll over, lean over, and kiss Michael stupid, make him forget the question. Make him forget his name. And a part of Michael ached for that, for the feel of Alex’s lips on his, but the rest of him knew it wouldn’t do them any good right now. Alex knew it, too.

Alex took another breath before he spoke. “I want... “ He closed his eyes, head shaking before he met Michael’s eyes again. “Everything?” He said it like a question, like he couldn’t not say it. Like he was scared of it.

Of all the things Michael thought he might hear, that wasn’t it. That wasn’t like Alex. It was declarative and undeniable. It was a lot. It was everything.

Michael huffed out a humorless laugh, fingers caught in tangles as he tried to drag his hand through his hair. “I’m a mess.” His voice cracked and he could feel the heat of tears welling at his eyes.

Alex nodded, swallowing. “I know.”

Michael choked back a sob that twitched through his chest, tears burning hot down both cheeks when he closed his eyes. Alex said that like it was simple. Like he could handle it. Like he wanted to.

Michael shook his head, drowning in the well of everything he was feeling- love and hope colliding with fear and worry, swirling around and making his head spin. He couldn’t catch up, couldn’t hold on, thoughts and feelings sliding out of grasp.

Movement caught his eye and he watched Alex set his laptop on the table and twist around to reach for something leaned against the door, standing up as he lifted it.

Michael’s eyes went wide when he recognized the shape of the black bag in the low light, breath hitching when Alex stepped across the small space toward him. His throat clicked on a swallow when Alex extended the bag to him, just waiting patiently for Michael to find his hands.

He did, accepting the guitar, brow furrowed in confusion. Alex gave a small smile before turning on his heel and stepping back to the other side of the Airstream. “That one is probably out of tune, hasn’t been played in years.” His voice was sharp, the heaviness already forgotten in the change of topics.

“I-” Michael let his hand drift down the bag, feeling the shape of the instrument underneath. He looked over to Alex, who had leaned against the table, arms braced against the edges on either side of his thighs.

“Thank you.” He felt the tingle of déjà vu against his skin, a moment relived. It was so similar, and yet everything had changed. Everything had changed, and it was still the two of them. Still Michael and Alex; except this time, Alex knew the gift he was giving. And Michael knew what Alex was saying.

Alex’s lips turned up, this smile more genuine than the last. He didn’t answer, just nodded, before slipping back into the chair and reaching for his laptop.

Michael unzipped the bag, pulling out the guitar and dropping the bag to the side. It felt good in his hands as he pulled it up into his lap, familiar in the way the guitar at the Pony hadn’t. The clicking had started up again, Alex seemingly paying him no attention as he worked. Michael started picking at the strings, listening and pausing to tune, plucking and tuning, again and again, until it finally sounded right.

Then he started to play. He took a deep breath as the feel of the strings’ vibrations reverberated through the fingers of his left hand, still unused to sensation after ten years of aching numbness. The music rolled through his mind, silencing the chaos, like the way the lid on a pot of boiling water quieted the babble.

His eyes drifted shut and he tilted his head into the void.

He wasn’t sure how long he played. When one song ended, another flowed through his fingers right behind it, seamlessly picking up the beat. He absently noted Alex getting up to leave the Airstream, returning a song or so later. Michael kept playing, letting the melody break through the churn of emotions - through the dual walls of grief, through the confusion, the heartbreak, the love, and the fear. He kept playing until everything settled, a peace within his mind that he hadn’t reached since the last time Alex had extended a hand to him.

His fingers stilled and Michael noted the light peeking through the newspaper-covered windows, sun rising on a new day.

Alex was still there. Still clicking away at his laptop. He paused when the music stopped, looking over to Michael with eyebrows raised.

“Hey.”

Michael swallowed. “Hey.” He pulled the guitar from his lap, bracing it on the floor between his feet. It was so similar, sitting here on the edge of a threadbare cot, Alex to his right, the weight of words said and unsaid hanging between them.

Shaking his head, Michael stood, propping the guitar against the wall and marching across the Airstream. Alex just watched like he was waiting, hand settling on the lid of the laptop and dropping it closed, placing it on the table as Michael reached him.

Michael bent down, hand wrapping around Alex’s neck as Alex’s hand slid into his hair, pulling together until their lips finally met. Michael sighed into the kiss, into the feeling, into the way his chest dropped in relief. Alex braced his free hand on the arm of the chair, pressing up and crowding against Michael as he stood, hand slipping against Michael’s waist when he was on his feet.

God, but nothing felt like this. Every nerve in Michael’s body was pinging, sounding off to his brain that this, this was right. This was it. Everywhere Alex was touching him was on fire, licking at him from the inside out, compelling him to step into the flames.

Alex walked him back to the fridge, cold and firm against Michael’s shoulders, as his fingers tightened around Michael’s hair, making him gasp into Alex’s mouth. The other hand slipped around to press against the small of Michael’s back, pulling him closer. He twisted into Michael, thigh pressing between Michael’s legs, and rolled his hips into Michael’s. Michael moaned and Alex nipped at his bottom lip before he drew back, breaking the kiss.

“You’re not the only mess here,” he said breathlessly, like he needed to say it, like he needed Michael to understand. He was staring into Michael’s eyes like he was pleading.

Michael just laughed softly, fingers brushing gently against Alex’s face. “I know,” he said, squeezing where his hand had landed on Alex’s hip, slipped beneath the hoodie. Alex huffed, nodding and smiling as he kissed Michael again.

Michael could stay here forever, locked in this moment with Alex. It was easy, when they were like this. When they were just two bodies fighting to share space, aching to touch more, feel more. To chase the energy that crackled whenever they were near, that simmered when they weren’t.

Michael had told Alex once that playing music was the only thing that made him feel quiet. It had been true, at the time; it just hadn’t been true for long.

Something vibrated against Michael’s leg and Alex jerked back, startled for a moment before his hand dropped from Michael’s back, leaving a cold spot as Alex shoved his hand into his pocket to pull out the ringing phone.

Liz’s name and smiling face lit up the display of Alex’s phone. He sighed, the hand still buried in Michael’s hair gripping lightly as he swiped to answer and brought the phone to his ear, letting his forehead drop against Michael’s.

“Hey, Liz. Any updates?” Alex was looking directly into Michael’s eyes, unblinking. Michael could only stare back, chest rising and falling against Alex’s.

“Isobel’s awake.” Michael heard Liz’s voice, tinny and low through the phone speaker. “Michael needs to get here.” Something crashed in the background, a loud boom accented with the shatter of glass. “Now. She’s throwing furniture around the room and I don’t think she knows how to stop.”

Shit. Fuck Max for being right and leaving Michael to deal with it on his own.

Alex sighed. “We’re on our way. Is Rosa still with Kyle?”

Liz answered in the affirmative, trailing off in a mutter of Spanish curses as another thud echoed through the phone. Michael’s eyebrows scrunched together, looking down as Alex asked another question, confirming some detail they must have discussed while Michael was passed out.

It was baffling - and a bit terrifying - just how much had changed in the last few months. Last June, it was just the three of them: Isobel, Michael, and Max. Them against the world. Aliens hiding in a hostile world.

And now there were these humans - Alex, Liz, even Kyle Valenti - that were helping them. Taking care of them. Protecting them. Watching over Isobel as she slept off her grief. Making sure Michael didn’t drive his truck off a cliff. Hiding away their secrets while they recovered.

Alex dropped the phone from his ear, tucking it back in his pocket with a frown. He took a deep breath, meeting Michael’s eyes, flicking down to his lips when Michael wet them. Michael surged forward, inhaling into the kiss, breathing Alex in, feeling that pleasure curl when Alex pulled at his hair to draw him closer.

It was so good, fuck, nothing ever felt so good. But it didn’t last, Alex shifting back, panting into the space between them.

“Isobel needs you,” he breathed out, eyebrows betraying how much he resented the words.

Michael nodded, swallowing. He was all Isobel had left - and wasn’t that a terrifying thought? He let himself drop back against the fridge, nodding again and loosening his hold on Alex, hand sliding down his neck to his chest as Alex stepped back, licking his lips and sniffing.

Michael put on his boots, newly-healed fingers clumsy on the laces, as Alex slid his laptop into its case and grabbed his backpack.

“C’mon,” he said as Michael was finishing up. “They’re at Isobel’s. I’ll drive you.”

Michael swallowed back an irritated sigh. Not this again. He looked up from his boots to see Alex standing over him, eyebrows raised expectantly. “I can drive.”

Alex’s jaw tensed and his eyes rolled, but he sighed and conceded. “Fine, I’ll take you to your truck.”

Cursing, Michael stood. He’d forgotten it was still out there, parked in the middle of the shrubs. “If someone stole my truck,” he started.

At that, Alex actually started laughing, that easy, giggling laughter that meant Michael had just said something ridiculous. “Guerin, I know you love that truck, but you’re the only one. Literally no one is gonna steal it.”

Michael frowned. “Liar. You love my truck.” He raised his eyebrows, daring Alex to deny it.

Alex’s expression softened, lips spreading from a mocking smile to a more gentle, sincere one. He opened his mouth, closing it again and swallowing before speaking. “She’s a good truck.”

“Damn right.” He reached over his head to pull his shirt off, twisting to grab the gray one that had fallen onto the pillow from the half wall. He sniffed it before pulling it over his head - it wasn’t freshly washed, but it was better than the bloodstained one on the floor and the one he’d slept in.

When he turned back, Alex had hitched his backpack over his shoulder and was watching him unabashedly. He met Michael’s eyes, inhaling. “Let’s go.” He chucked his head toward the door and spun around, Michael following, stretching to grab his jacket from where Alex had lain it across the back of the chair.

The air outside was chill as Michael shoved his arms through the sleeves, crossing the front of the Explorer to the passenger side. The sun was rising, painting the east in oranges and pinks that blended across the sky to the deep blues of the pre-dawn west.

They were silent as Alex turned around and exited the junkyard, following the dirt road out towards where Michael’s truck sat stark and blue against the tawny landscape.

“I thought you were kidding about the rattle,” Michael commented.

“Huh?” Alex glanced over, eyebrows pressed together in confusion before the expression cleared and he looked back out the windshield. “Oh. That’s been there forever.”

Michael suppressed a groan, running a hand over his face. “I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just say that.” Alex laughed. “You’re lucky it’s just a loose exhaust.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed out the windshield. “Do you actually know what that sounds like, or did you…” His hand lifted off the wheel, rotating on its wrist, before dropping back down. “Ya know?”

Michael rolled his eyes. “I don’t need to use my powers to know what a loose exhaust pipe sounds like.”

Alex’s fingers extended outward, head tilting to the side slightly. “Touchy.” He took a deep breath, lips pursing before he reached over and grabbed Michael’s hand. Michael looked down, confused, as Alex wrapped his hand around Michael’s, thumb rubbing along the top of his scarless fingers, shimmering pink and blue in the light.

Michael swallowed, resisting the urge to pull away. “I told him not to.” The words felt weird on his lips, like he was violating some rule about speaking ill of the dead, but he needed Alex to know that. “He wouldn’t listen.”

Alex looked over, meeting Michael’s eyes long enough to nod. He dropped Michael’s hand to turn the wheel, pulling off the road to rumble over the desert towards Michael’s truck, parking alongside and leaving several feet between the two driver’s side doors.

Michael got out, feet crunching on the dried soil and spindly plants as he made his way around. Alex was already rolling his window down when Michael approached, resting his forearms through the open window. “Are you meeting us at Isobel’s?”

Alex nodded. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Michael sighed, looking to the side, already weary with what was awaiting him.

“Guerin?” Michael looked back to Alex. “We’re gonna figure this out.”

Taking a deep breath, Michael stared at him. It didn’t make sense, that Alex could be so good, that this could be so right, when everything else was so wrong. They weren’t perfect, weren’t done talking, and it certainly wouldn’t be easy.

But it was something, that Alex was here, that Alex was looking at him like that, that Michael could duck through the window and press a kiss to Alex’s lips like it was normal, like that was just a thing he got to do.

Alex waited while Michael climbed into his truck, sliding his hat over his head and digging out his keys. His truck turned over on the first try, rumbling to life beneath his hands as he put her in Reverse and backed out around Alex’s front end, turning back for the road.

He didn’t know how he was going to face everything before him. Isobel and the horrifying reality of losing her husband and twin within days of each other. Having to teach her a kind of control he’d only been able to master out of sheer survivalistic need. The reality of a dead girl resurrected in a town that scorned her name. A shadowy government conspiracy he was sure they’d only scratched the surface of. Maria, and a conversation he really didn’t want to have, but owed her anyway.

Michael’s eyes flicked to his rearview mirror, seeing Alex through the dusty windshield of his Explorer, both hands on the wheel.

No, he wasn’t sure how he was going to face it all. But for the first time in his life, he knew he wouldn’t be facing it alone.