#I’m aware they might be a bit staticky I’ll live with that

[songofwizardry]

just moved into a new place that has a washing machine that *has a dryer* and in addition to the convenience of washing sheets, I am now convinced that all I need is to put all my bones into the washer-dryer for a good spin. and then they will be warm and sorted.

[brokeitwiththepowerofmathamatics]

Fanfic - Marks Upon the World

Marks Upon the World  (Ao3)

When Danny, Tucker, and Sam decided to make a stupid meme song, the last thing they expected to do was to get popular.

They were fully aware it might lead to a ghost attack, but that's just the norm.

That wasn't what they got though.

"So, what are you all planning on doing with all the money?" Tucker asked over the comms. His voice was staticky due to all the interference in the Ghost Zone. The giant rocks of ectoplasm making an asteroid field they were in wasn’t helping things, either. It took Danny a moment for him to parse the question and before he could ask what money, Tucker had continued, "I'm thinking personal VR arcade. Right in my basement."

"Tucker," Sam interrupted, "you don't have a basement." As if that were the problem with his idea, not the money.

"I'm going to add one." Tucker chuckled.

"One, do you have any idea how expensive that is?" Sam responded. "Two, I don't think your parents are gonna let you do that."

"It'll be fine," Tucker dismissed. "My parents were planning on selling the house after high school anyways. They wanted to move somewhere warmer and retire now that I'm almost done with high school. I'll buy the house, bum off your couch for a few months while we rebuild it, and then bam," his point was punctuated by him hitting something, probably the dash of the Specter Speeder, "personal VR arcade."

Danny scoffed into the silence that followed. "Dude, I can't imagine we're making that much money off one meme song."

There was a pause on the other end of the comms, which Danny took as a sign that Tucker had come down to Earth, but then Sam shouted, "Oh my God! That can't be right!"

"Nope, completely. And this is in four weeks! It's been gaining speed! Not only that, but I took a bit of a gamble and started selling merch. The Danny plushies have been selling like hotcakes!"

Danny paused in his flight and looked back across the Ghost Zone at the Specter Speeder, "The Danny what?"

"Danny plushies! They're like your ghost form but tiny. There are a couple of variations, but they all have big eyes and posable arms. And! We have a back order of them. Our supplier is currently trying to find another company to subcontract to, but the stipulations on the contract are slowing that down."

That was not the answer Danny wanted to hear.

"Tucker…" Sam began, "how long have you been selling these? Cause now I remember a few of the comments being something like, 'I can't believe someone made a song for those dolls'..."

Danny took a deep (though as a ghost, it wasn't real) breath and pinched his nose. That was also something he didn't want to hear.

"A while… like, a year? But yeah, people love 'em," Tucker continued. Danny was pretty sure he was taking psychic damage from this conversation. "So yeah, the video has made us about 400k each, and the merch sales is close to a 25k split each." There was a pause, and Danny assumed it was because Tucker was shrugging. "Should be enough for the down payment at minimum, and with you two helping footing the mortgage, we should be able to make the changes we want when you two move in."

"Excuse me?" Sam sneered. "Why would I move in with you?"

"Because Danny is going to, and the second you no longer have to live in your parents’ house, you're going to dip. And with the three of us living together, you and I can pay for Danny, and we can pretend Danny is making money off his parents' inventions. Easy excuse as to why Danny won't have a job."

Danny took that moment to chime back into the conversation. "Why wouldn't I have a job?"

"Because you're a superhero? Dude, it's already a problem at school, but you think even the Nasty Burger is gonna let you get away when you dip ‘cause a ghost showed up?"

Danny paused and thought about it. "Oh…" That was going to kill a lot of his job prospects.

Sam sighed. "For the record, I'm only mad 'cause you were assuming I was going to move in with you." She sighed again. "But… you're absolutely right. When you put it like that, it's absolutely what we're gonna do."

"Alright, well with that out of the way, what are you guys gonna spend the money on?"

Danny opened his mouth to make a quip about lawyers and trademarking his likeness, but before he could, he felt his breath get forced out of his body. The icy cold wisp that came out of his lungs and throat fogged the air in front of him, and he sighed. "Probably more weapons… I got incoming."

Sam or Tucker started responding, but he couldn't hear them over the scream of "Phantom!"

Danny looked up just in time to see Ember flying at him at full speed. By the time he had processed that ‘no, of course she’s not friendly’, it was too late to react. Ember collided with him in a full-body tackle that if he were human probably would have bisected him completely.

"I hate you!" she screamed right into his ear as she took the two of them flying across the zone. The crackle of her flaming hair drowned out anything else. The impact of stone only served to knock what little breath he thought he should have out of his lungs as Ember continued to drag him through several floating rocks. One, a second, and then a third, then she finally let go. Leaving him flying before he crashed into a fourth.

Danny blinked as he regained his bearings, half-buried in the ectoplasmic rock. He wasn't a stranger to people screaming about how they hated him — though that was usually reserved by his parents — but he wasn't normally accustomed to them crying while doing so.

With a heave, he pulled himself out of the asteroid. Ember wiped her tears and started growling as her hair flared up. There was a moment of stillness as he took in her appearance; she lacked a lot of the haughtiness that she usually carried, tall and proud of who she was. That wasn’t her right now; she was hunched over, angry and sad…. Mostly angry.

Danny wasn’t sure what was going on, but his gut (which he had learned to trust over years of heroing) told him it wasn’t a good idea to get the calvary to come charging in yet. Danny quickly reached up and activated the com link. "Guys, hang back-"

He didn't get a chance to explain himself as Ember charged him again. Without the advantage of flying at him at somewhere around 115 mph at his unsuspecting back, he was able to defend himself much better.

Much better than he really should have…

She wasn't throwing ectoblasts or using her guitar to fire off shockwaves. Instead, she was throwing punches and kicks. Ember was not a physical combatant, compared to Danny, who had to be one (with Skulker swinging that giant skinning knife around).

Compared to that, this was easy.

Though not easy enough to be distracted, he thought as she reached up and tried to claw at him. He continued to dodge wild grasping swings and saw Sam and Tucker flying up to the two of them. He looked Ember in the eyes, still filled with tears, and bit his lip. This is either gonna make her kill me harder, or it's gonna stop the fight…

The next time one of her telegraphed punches came flying, he ducked under her arm and got behind her. "What the!" gasped out of her mouth before he wrapped her in a hug. "What the- what the hell are you doing, dipstick!"

Ember continued to whirl around and try to hit Danny, but he kept himself pinned to her back. As a ghost, she probably could have contorted her body in some ungodly way, but like most ghosts, they avoided doing that.

“Let go of me!” Ember screamed. “Or I’m gonna kill you deader!”

“On account of you trying to rip my head off, I’m going to say no.”

Which of course served to just piss her off more. She continued to swing the two of them around, desperate to try and get out of his grip. It took an entire minute before Ember finally calmed down and stopped trying to hit Danny, but he still refused to let go. Especially when the fight left Ember and she started sobbing.

Having heard the fighting stop, Sam and Tucker pulled the Specter Speeder up next to the two of them. Their weapons were primed to save Danny if the fight had gone south, but seeing Danny holding Ember in his arms as she sobbed made them put them away.

Danny understood Tucker priming the weapons of the Specter Speeder, but seeing Sam putting her pistol away made him wonder if she was gonna hang out the door and shoot as Tucker flew by.

Sam made her way to the door of the Specter Speeder and opened it. “What’s going on?” she asked tentatively and thankfully clearly (they really needed to update the Fenton Phones to work better this deep in the zone).

Ember sniffed and rubbed her eyes. “Your stupid theme song...”

“My… what?” Of all the things for Ember to declare her hatred of him for, that hadn’t been it.

“You know… that stupid song you guys put out?” Ember growled. “It’s… it’s popular!”

Danny let go of Ember (probably stupidly) and floated a few feet away from her. “Why does that matter?”

“Why does it matter?” Ember screeched. She whirled on Danny, and he saw Sam reach for her gun, but then Ember calmed down. She paused and looked up for a while, unnaturally still, before she sighed. “I don’t want to explain this. It’ll be easier to show you. Come on.” With that, she started flying off into the ether of the Ghost Zone.

Danny blinked and looked at Sam. The two of them shrugged, and Danny flew after Ember as Sam closed the door to the Specter Speeder.

Ember flew through the Ghost Zone at full speed. Danny was barely gaining on her, and the Specter Speeder was slowly losing ground. They blazed through the Ghost Zone, flying through uncharted (to him at least) space. The further they flew, the more nervous Danny should have gotten.

Should have.

Instead of the fear and excitement they usually got when going through unexplored territory, Danny felt something else. It felt like when you were getting ready for bed after a long productive day, but you knew you had more to do tomorrow. Restful and content, yet stressed.

Danny was in the middle of trying to process that when he noticed that Ember had stopped, apparently reaching their destination.

When Danny got close, he stopped immediately. “Ember…” his voice came out as a whisper, “What the fuck is that?”

Ember tilted her head and looked at him, a sad smile on her face. “I think you know… don’t you?” She turned back and ran her hand over the metal of what was in front of them.

It was a metal hexagon. From inside edge to inside edge, it was about 15 feet across, which would be plenty of room for the Specter Speeder to fly through. The metal edges were about 4 feet wide, and though the inside of the circle was pitch black, Danny was sure that if he could see what was inside it, there would be a slowly closing corridor about 12 feet deep.

He died in it, after all. You didn’t just forget what that looked like.

Ember took his silence to be confirmation. “It’s your lair Baby-Pop…” she said, running her hands along the metal. “We’re lucky. Most ghosts… never find their lairs, or if they do, it’s long after they’ve forgotten anything about themselves. These are called the infinite realms, after all.”

Ember walked across thin air to stand in front of the portal. The pure inky blackness made her stand out as she folded her arms. “There’s nothing saying we don’t wake up near our lairs.”

Danny swallowed. That nervousness he felt approaching only grew stronger this close to his lair. “You mean… ghosts don’t wake up in their lair?”

“No…” Ember said, a melancholy tainting her voice. “We don’t.” She looked up as Sam and Tucker approached in the speeder. She sighed and turned. “Come on…” She glanced at Danny once before stepping into the black.

As she passed through, the edges of the black void in the center of this fake portal lit up, giving off a corona of fire and light for the brief second she passed through. Danny reached up and stuck his hand in, feeling no resistance as his hand pierced the veil. The moment his hand passed through, the edges lit up again, staying alight as he kept his arm in.

He took a deep breath and pushed through.

And immediately, his breath was stolen from him as the pure blackness gave way to a star-studded sky. Not just that, but what was quite clearly the International Space Station sat in front of him, where Ember sat on one of its solar arrays. Danny flew over to her. “Okay, this is officially one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen, but why are we here?”

Ember stood up. “Almost there, just follow me,” she said. “Tell your friends to stay put when they enter. They’d probably be fine, but Imma go ahead and guess you don’t want them crashing and breaking your ship.”

And with that cryptic statement, Ember started flying off again. Danny scrambled to repeat what Ember said to Sam and Tucker as the Specter Speeder made its way into his lair.

He’d deal with the fact that he was dead enough to have a lair later.

He and Ember flew through the night sky of his lair, but this time it was a much shorter trip. Only fifteen seconds or so at their top speeds. When Ember stopped, Danny slowed till he was next to her, and he realized something.

The stars in his night sky weren’t stars. They were names.

The names were inscribed on a solid black wall, and when he touched it, he could feel the curve of the wall, giving him the idea that his lair wasn’t an endless void but actually a sphere with the ISS in the center of it.

“This is what every artist wants, Phantom,” Ember whispered, running her finger along one of the names. Danny didn’t recognize the name at all; it was no one he knew. He quickly activated the comlink in his ear and switched the input to local mode, letting Sam and Tucker listen in as well. “When we create, the thing we create connects us, across time, across space, across lives…”

Ember’s hand dropped to her side. “When people sing our songs or tribute our work… when we touch them with our arts… their name gets inscribed into our lairs. A reminder that we are still affecting the world, that we had lived.” Her voice dropped. “It can’t just be a passing thing, something that you really connect with.”

Danny looked at each of the names inscribed in his lair, thousands, maybe even millions, of all various hues and brightnesses, and uttered in awe, “This many people cared about my stupid song?”

“Yes!” Ember hissed, and Danny jumped to move away from her, though she didn’t attack. “Your stupid song that you don’t even care about is something so many people love! I hate you so much right now!”

Danny frowned and folded his arms. “Why do you care so much? You’ve got to have like… billions of names in your lair, right?”

“How many fucking people remembered I even had a goddamn concert after your friend ruined it? Have you seen anyone with my merch afterward?” Danny blinked. Thinking about it, he couldn’t remember anyone walking around with Ember merch after the concert. At the time, he chalked that up to people losing interest after Tucker ruined her concert. But… no one mentioned Ember again, even though logically, there should have been something, even if it had been something like, ‘Did you see what happened during the concert?’

It was like they had completely forgotten she existed.

Ember pounded her fist against the wall, though it made barely any noise, sounding more like someone smacking a cornstarch and water mixture than a solid wall. “The only goddamn name I have in my lair is Tucker Foley, and it’s carved into the goddamn toilet!”

The bark of laughter from Sam came through before it was quickly cut off, and Danny was reminded that the default setting for “local” mode meant the output was also broadcast to the nearby area. Ember snapped her head toward the Specter Speeder and snarled.

Sam had the right idea and didn’t antagonize the ghost that had almost conquered the world at one point, she stopped laughing and got quiet. Tucker on the other hand…

“So, wait, I’m the only one who’s name is in your lair? Does that make us like, ghostly soulmates?”

"Not on your fucking afterlife!" Ember screeched, drawing more power than Danny had ever seen from her without her guitar. Her hand lit up with ectoplasm, outshining all the nearby stars.

Danny knew the look in Ember’s eyes. “Please don’t…” he begged, knowing that it would literally do nothing.

Ember responded by throwing an ectoblast at the Specter Speeder. Tucker let out a rather inglorious scream as the beam flew past Danny right at the vehicle. Danny turned, ready to do something when the beam destroyed their transport.

But he didn’t need to.

The beam curved at the last second, bending out of its path like it was circling a black hole. Danny’s brow furrowed as he wondered why Ember had pulled back, but she clicked her teeth. “Figures, you’re such a goody two shoes…”

“What do you mean?” Danny asked despite himself.

Ember huffed and waved her arms about. “There’s a reason why every ghost in Amity Park knows where your lair is, your lair prevents anyone from being harmed in it. It’s the perfect neutral ground.” She hummed and gave Danny an appraising look. “Your lair fufills your need to keep people safe… but there’s no one in it for you to keep safe.”

A chill ran down Danny’s spine. The way Ember phrased that… did he have an obsession? One that was driving him to protect people? On the surface, that sounded like a good thing… If Sam and Tucker were in danger and in the area, they could make their way to the safety of his lair.

But what if they got there, and his lair didn’t think it was safe for them to go out?

Would it trap them here?

Ember shifted, snapping Danny out of his thoughts. He watched her reach up and gently stroke the names along the wall of his lair. The motion was so soft and gentle that for a moment, Danny forgot that it was one of his enemies here.

It seemed she forgot that he was there too, because she turned and when their eyes met, she jumped. The look on her face made Danny’s breathing hitch. Her face had been filled with so much longing before it was replaced with a sneer. She scoffed and brushed her hair away from her face. “Whatever,” she snapped, “enjoy your fucking fame.”

Danny felt power rise in Ember, and he only had a second to react when he realized what she was doing. “Hey, wait!” he shouted, only to get pushed back as fire sprouted around Ember and burned away immediately, taking her with it as she teleported.

And for a few heartbeats, all Danny could do was sit there and stare at the names written in his lair.

The moment was broken by an alarm going off. “Ah, jeez!” Tucker shouted. “Danny! We got to book it! Your parents are gonna be home in thirty minutes, and we’re WAY farther from the portal than we’ve ever been!”

Danny gasped as Tucker turned the Specter Speeder around, dove inside the vehicle, and hoped the auto-mapping software in there could plot a way back home without going through any asteroid fields this time.

***

After a very tense 3 minutes of scrambling to get the ghost-hunting gear back into place, Danny had completely forgotten about what had happened with Ember. It was hard to worry about what had happened when he was worrying about what he was going to be doing the next minute.

But at 12:01 at night, Danny sat on his bed, finally able to actually decompress and think about what had happened.

He knew ghosts got a lair in the Ghost Zone when they died – he had read enough of his parents’ papers on the subject to know that much at least. He also knew that they were supposed to help a ghost sustain their obsession.

And he was dead enough to get a lair himself, and it actively protected people in it.

He had worried for a long time if he had an obsession. If he was only alive because some drive to do something was sustaining him.

Danny took a deep breath and put his fingers on the pulse point of his neck, and he counted the slow (too slow) beats and tried to think of better thoughts.

It wasn’t long until the image of his lair flooded his brain again, filled with a million stars.

Stars that Ember wanted.

Slowly he sat up and made his way over to his closet. It was an absolute mess. Too many instances of throwing stuff in there when his parents got on his case about the state of his room and never took any actual care to clean it. He never really needed to. He could just reach in and rummage around with his intangibility to find what he needed.

Though he wasn’t looking for something in his closet right now.

On the other side of the wall was Jazz’s closet.

He reached through and rummaged around in her closet, trying to find something that should have been there, assuming she hadn’t remembered to throw it out.

It was still there.

Pulling his arm back, he came back holding a guitar. The body had a flame pattern on it and was colored in Ember’s colors. Danny ran his fingers along the neck and came back with a literal pile of dust on them. He shook off the dust before clumsily plucking at the strings.

He wasn’t exactly a musician, but he knew enough to tell when something was out of tune.

This guitar had been sitting there, completely forgotten, at the back of Jazz’s closet for over two years, gathering nothing but dust.

His phone buzzed, and he jumped. It buzzed a second time, and he realized it wasn’t a text but a phone call. He reached over and grabbed it. A glance at the name had him answering. “Hey, Sam,” he whispered, careful not to accidentally wake anyone.

“Hey,” she whispered back. Her hushed tones made this feel like something illicit and made his heart race. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“No.” He chuckled and sat down on his bed. “I want to speak with whoever said, ‘I can sleep when I’m dead,’ 'cause they lied to me.”

Sam chuckled back at his stupid joke. “Good, I’m glad… I wanted someone to talk to.”

“And you called me at midnight?”

“Why would I call anyone else?” Sam laughed, though it quickly died. “I just… I dunno. I feel bad.”

“Ember?” Danny asked, needlessly clarifying.

“Mhmm…” Sam murmured into the phone. There was a rustle on the other side of the phone, probably her rolling over. “It’s… I’ve thought about it, you know? What kind of mark I’m gonna leave on the world.” She chuckled dryly. “It’s hard not to when we’re facing death all the time, right?”

Danny nodded instinctively. “Right,” he agreed. Though he had his own thoughts on the matter. “I personally try to avoid thinking about my mortality." He chuckled despite himself as he made his hand light up with ectoplasm. "I’ve been getting a lot of answers I don’t want lately.”

“Sorry,” Sam responded quickly. The word was terse, but her tone was somber.

“Don’t be. Not your fault.”

“It is, and you know it,” Sam responded immediately. Danny opened his mouth to disagree, but she sighed. “I don’t want to have that argument again. I…” She trailed off. “I don’t know what. I’m sitting here, feeling bad about Ember, and I don’t like sitting.

“I get that, I do…” Danny paused and looked down at his sister’s guitar. “I really do. But… what can we do?”

“Maybe…” Sam began but then trailed off. “I dunno. We could… we could do it ourselves… You know, sing Ember’s song… Remember? I think that’s what it was called. I dunno, I never got one of her CD’s.”

Danny thought for a second. “Tucker might still have it… he doesn’t like deleting anything. Gives him an excuse to buy another hard drive.”

“Think he’s up right now?”

“Nah,” Danny said, shaking his head. “He probably crashed the moment he went home.”

“Ugh, fine, we can call him tomorrow,” Sam said, actually sounding annoyed. She huffed, and there was a rustle again as she rolled around in her bed. “I guess I should let you sleep, too, huh?”

“Let’s not be too hasty.” He paused and looked down at the guitar in his lap. "Hey, Sam? Can you teach me how to play guitar?"

***

Weeks later, Ember awoke in her lair with a start. The crowds in it, that she could never find or play for, cheered wildly. Their screams shook the couch she was using as a bed.

But over all that, she could hear the sound of wood being carved.

Ember scrambled, throwing off the blanket as she snapped out of that in-between state of awareness and non-existence. Her eyes flitted across the walls, trying to find the change in her lair.

There.

Right above where she laid her head, in bright gold lettering.

Danny "Phantom" Fenton.

Samantha "Sam" Manson.

She ran her fingers over the names, echos of the two of them singing her song. Really singing it. Putting their heart and soul into it. She closed her eyes and let the feeling take her, letting her see when and where this was sung.

She smiled as she saw them singing and filming a music video. They used Phantom's lair as the backdrop.

Tucker had been there too, filming them and helping edit the video before posting it.

Where others would hear her song too.

Maybe it'd touch them too.

Ember took a step back and looked over the writing another time, and smiled.

She'd have to do something nice for them sometime soon.

[transientwordsmith]

Went to my room at 8, told myself i'd write for a bit, its now nearly 11 and im not done, nearly 3000 words later, a billion uquizzes later confirming that i am jon himself; i am absolutely vibrating

Self indulgent TMA self insert told in the style of recording. I also have no idea what the dates in the show are but this is supposed to take place after Jon was in that coma where he made a deal with death or whatever.

Jonathan "Archivist" "Jon" Sims, You (or whoever you want "you" to be) | ~3000 words

*recording begins*

*door creaking open, creaking shut*

[Receptionist]: Hi there, can I help you?

[You]: Hi, I need to speak with the archivist here?

[Receptionist]: I’m sorry, you’ll need to be more specific than that. We have quite a few archivists here at the Institute.

[You]: The best one, then.

[Receptionist]: Hmm…(they consider this for a moment.) Alright, I’ll fetch him for you. You can take a seat in there if you like.

*rustling of fabric*

*a chair is drawn out, scraping the floor loudly in an otherwise quiet room*

*crinkle of paper*

[Archivist]: (distant) …didn’t even ask who they were--ah. Hello.

[Receptionist]: (to you) This is the head archivist at the institute.

*boots click as they walk away*

[You]: (to the Archivist) Hello.

[Archivist]: Uh…what brings you to the Institute?

[You]: (chuckling to yourself) It’s kind of a long story. And a weird one, at that. If you’ll indulge me for a little while, I’ll leave here and never return at your request.

[Archivist]: Sure.

*another chair is drawn out loudly against the quiet room*

*more rustling fabric*

*something rigid is placed on the table*

[Archivist]: I hope you don’t mind if I record whatever it is you have to say. We get our fair share of…strange stories that I’d rather be able to recall than not.

[You]: That’s fine by me. I was already sort of aware of the Institutes association with the paranormal and such.

*tape recorder clicks*

[Archivist]: Statement of…

[You]: Y/n.

[Archivist]: regarding…

[You]: Strange experiences involving the idea of the Magnus Institute.

[Archivist]: Original statement recorded live from subject on the ninth of March, two thousand and nineteen. (To you) Whenever you’re ready.

[You]: (hesitant) I don’t really know where to begin with this. Well, I guess I do. (sigh) I guess I should just say it. This whole ordeal started this past summer, in the beginning of June. I was fine one day, and then the next day, something felt different. I had always felt satisfaction in knowing all there was to know about something I was interested in, but after that date, it felt more like satiation rather than satisfaction. And I can say that in confidence because I spent many a sleepless night thinking about it.

In addition to the newfound satiation from learning, I also began to see…eyes. Everywhere. I was never that put off by eyes in general, I mean, hell, I have two of them, but it felt like an explosion of eyes. I thought at first it might have been Baader-Meinhof syndrome, but then I realized eyes weren’t new to me.

Another thing was that I started seeing the word Magnus pop up everywhere. This one was especially creepy to me. I had read the Magnus Chase series some years back and had the books on my shelf. The more I tried to ignore all of the eyes and the Magnus bullshit, the more likely I was to trip on one of those damn books in the middle of the night. It felt like Magnus Chase himself was out to get me. It actually worked in my favor, though. That’s how I found your Institute. But more on that later.

The last thing to start happening, and the strangest by far was all of the recording. My phone would just start recording sometimes. It would start and stop like it was being operated by someone. I choose to treat this ghost operator like a friend.

[Archivist]: Is it on now?

[You]: Yup.

*rustle of fabric*

*rigid item being placed on a flat surface*

[Archivist]: When did all this start?

*the tape recording begins to get staticky*

*the phone recording begins to have lots of snow and glitching voices*

[You]: I said. Last June.

[Archivist]: But when? What date?

[You]: Um…The 5th or 6th, I suppose. I’m not quite sure the exact date.

*static and glitches end*

[You]: Should I continue? (pause) Great. As I said, the appearance of the word Magnus everywhere was not limited to anything. Every guy named Magnus was commenting on my online posts. Any organization with Magnus in the name was coming up in my feed. Hell, even my top recommended artists on Spotify were people named Magnus.

Anyway, one day I opened my web browser and there was an article on the front page about paranormal activity. It mentioned some American media like Buzzfeed Unsolved, but also Ghost Hunt UK, and finally it mentioned the Magnus Institute at the end of the article as the UK hub for all things paranormal and creepy. They also mentioned that all of the employees were quite elusive and not likely to allow the general pubic to read their files. I see they’re somewhat right about all that.

That night, though, I had a strange dream. I often have dreams that make no sense, but this one felt like a warning or a call. I remember, in the dream, I flew to London. Then, I came here and spoke to someone who, now that I think about it, looked remarkably like you. And then the eyes started to show up and before I knew it everything was covered in eyes. That’s really all that matters anyway from that dream.

[Archivist]: There’s more?

[You]: The rest of the dream entails a strange sort of grocery-store police chase and then everyone ended up jumping off the side of a boat.

[Archivist]: …Interesting. Ever tried dream interpretation?

[You]: I don’t want to know what the rest of that dream means. The most important part was clear enough to me: something was telling me to meet you in London. So I made the arrangements, and I came to the Institute. And now I’m here.

[Archivist]: (bemused) I was expecting that story to be a bit…

[You]: More exciting?

[Archivist]: I suppose. Maybe a bit gorier as well.

[You]: Apologies. I could add some gore if you’d like?

[Archivist]: No! No, that’s…it’s fine as it is. I do have a few questions though, that may seem a bit…strange.

[You]: You think I care about some strange questions after seeing eyes everywhere for months?

[Archivist]: Touche’. (inhale) Have you ever experienced the ability to draw any sort of information out of someone, no matter how cagey they may be?

[You]: (heh) I guess you were right, that is certainly an interesting question. Uh, I can’t think that I’ve ever done that on purpose, though I like to think of myself as the type of person that people wouldn’t ever keep secrets from for no reason.

[Archivist]: Hmm…Have you ever experienced just…knowing things that you would not usually be able to know? Sort of like clairvoyance, in a way?

[You]: (scoffing) Clairvoyance is not real. I’m sorry, but as invested as I am in this institute and its paranormality, I do not believe in clairvoyance. No, I have never experienced that. Anyone who tells you that someone can see the future is probably too dumb to realize that the person is just really adept at reading body language and such.

[Archivist]: The pot calling the kettle black, don’t you think?

[You]: How do you mean?

[Archivist]: You just told me a story of books throwing themselves off shelves and how you arranged to meet me in London because of a dream.

*deep sigh*

[You]: I’m sorry.

[Archivist]: It’s alright. I was skeptical at first as well.

[You]: How does someone become the head archivist here being skeptical?

*static and glitches begin again*

[Archivist]: I was an an archival assistant to the archivist before me. After she passed, my boss, who really runs this place, appointed me to the position. Sometimes I feel like someone else might have been a better choice but I’m in too deep to have thoughts like that…

*static and glitches end*

[Archivist]: (sharp inhale) How did you do that?

[You]: Do what?

[Archivist]: You just compelled me!

[You]: Compelled you to do what?

[Archivist]: To answer your question. You drew the answer out of me.

[You]: I didn’t do anything. You answered on your own volition.

[Archivist]: (chuckling confusedly) No, I didn’t. You asked me a question, and I had to answer. I need to test something. Will you excuse me for a moment?

*a pause before the chair squeals against the floor*

*shoes slap against the archive floor*

[You]: (to no one) I don’t need two recordings of this…

*phone recording ends*

*phone recording begins*

[You]: I guess I do need two recordings of this.

*footsteps approach*

*papers rustle*

*rigid item is placed on the table*

[Archivist]: This isn’t usually something we do here at all, but I need to test something.

*paper slides*

[Archivist]: I’d like to ask you to read this statement on recording.

[You]:(weirded out) …Alright.

[Archivist]: Great. Let me just turn this off…

*tape recorder clicks off*

[Archivist]: If you could turn off your phone recording as well, please.

[You]: I’ll try--

*phone recording ends*

*tape recorder clicks on*

[Archivist]: Just as I said it.

[You]: I don’t remember how you said it.

[Archivist]: Just read it, then.

[You]: Fine. Statement of Amaya Reynolds regarding the disappearance of the Davidson Family. Original statement given on September twenty-third, two thousand and nine. Audio Recording by y/n, guest.

*pause*

[Archivist]: (whispers) Statement begins…

[You]: Oh--statement begins:

*tape recorder clicks on*

*phone recording begins*

[You]: Woah…

[Archivist]: That’s strange…continue on anyway. I’ll protect you if anything dangerous happens.

[You]: I can hold my own, but thank you. Uh, statement really begins, I guess.

When I met the Davidson’s, they were a completely normal family. They were right up until the week they disappeared. I had put up an classified advert for babysitting, and they were one of the first ones to call. They had a lovely little boy--Max was his name. I played all sorts of games with Max, and the parents seemed to like me well enough. I only saw him on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, but we were still pretty close. The strange part began about a week before they disappeared. I was playing with Max indoors that day because it was pretty wet outside. We were about to round the corner when he suddenly came to a stop and shushed me. I remember it vividly. This little boy, no older than eight was checking around the corner as if there was someone with a semi-automatic on the other side. I asked him why we had stopped. “She’s coming,” he had said. I asked him if he meant his mum, but he shook his head. I began to speculate if maybe his mother was pregnant, but I didn’t ask Max about that. I asked him after a minute or so if “she” was gone, but he said no, and that he would tell me. We ended up waiting at the corner for nearly ten whole minutes. Then, Max turned to me, and he seemed a completely different boy when he asked me “Amaya, what are we waiting for?” Needless to say, I was thoroughly spooked. I asked Max the next day (which was a Wednesday) if he remembered hiding behind the corner. He said no. I was pretty sure he was being honest and not contrary, but you can never tell. The important thing I remember about that day was around dinner time. I was preparing a place at the table for Max, since the table was fairly cluttered, and I remember clearing away some papers detailing the purchase of a house somewhere in Sussex by Mr. and Mrs. Davidson. They didn’t seem to be packing up their house, though. That Thursday was fairly normal. But I remember asking Mrs. Davidson if they were planning on moving soon. She told me no, and asked me why. I told her I just had a feeling. Max did feel a bit off that day, though. Usually, at the end of each day, especially a Thursday, he’d give me a big hug and tell me he would miss me. That day, though, he hid behind his parent’s legs and just gave me a shy wave. I brushed it off and figured I would ask him about it on Tuesday. Only when I knocked on the Davidson’s door on Tuesday, no one answered. I peeked in the window and the house looked completely empty. No furniture, no nothing. I looked on the lawn to see if there was a sign or anything but there was absolutely nothing. I decided to knock on the neighbor’s door and ask about it, but both neighboring houses said the same thing: There hadn’t been a family living in that house for years, and there were no Davidsons. I seemed to be the only one who remembered them. Even my own friends and family didn’t remember the Davidsons. I talked about Max endlessly to them because to me, he was the cutest little boy ever. But they said they’d never heard of this family. I guess I just pushed down my anxiety about it until recently because it never seemed to bother me all that much. A friend suggested I come here after I told him the story.

Um…statement ends.

[Archivist]: The archival assistants followed up on that one, and it seems that the Davidson’s truly did disappear. They were on the most recent census before then, and then never showed up again, at least in England. And that house that they bought doesn’t seem to exist anymore either. No Davidsons matching the description of this family own any property in Sussex.

*heavy breathing*

[Archivist]: How do you feel?

[You]: Like I took a shot of the strongest shit there is…

[Archivist]: That’s what I thought. Recording End.

*tape recorder clicks off*

[Archivist]: I have something to tell you. At the moment it’s basically a theory, but I’m very inclined to believe it.

[You]: Alright.

[Archivist]: To make a very, very, very long story short: in the world there are entities that draw power from primordial fears such as darkness or falling. The fear of being watched or of being known is one of them. That is the one that the head archivist here is usually the patron of. Unlike the other entities, though, there is usually only one patron to the Watcher at a time. One takes over when the previous one dies and all that. Other than one exception, this is how it has been, and how I assume it will be. However, I had a…run in with death as one might say in the early hours of June 6th this past year. Clinically, I died for a few minutes and was in a coma for months afterward. The Watcher might have chosen a new patron during the time I was dead, not anticipating that I would pull through.

[You]: Like Buffy and Faith.

[Archivist]: What?

[You]: From Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Usually there’s only one slayer, Buffy, but she dies once and then comes back to life, and while she was dead, a new slayer appeared even though she was only dead for like 30 seconds.

[Archivist]: Uh…sure, then. Like Buffy and Faith.

[You]: Oh…but that makes me Faith. Sorry about that. I’ll try to not be evil and everything.

[Archivist]: Thanks. (he inhales to start a sentence, but stops himself; then starts again) Is that a CV?

[You]: This? Oh…yeah.

*paper rustling*

[Archivist]: Were you going to apply for a job here?

[You]: Yeah…but it was really on a whim…I guess that’s kind of obvious though seeing as it’s handwritten…

[Archivist]: Well, I mean with all the present information out in the open, I’d be willing to look this over and present it to my boss who is the real hiring manager…

[You]: Really?

[Archivist]: Well…if this were a normal job I would of course, but I should warn you if you are serious about this.

[You]: Excuse my bluntness, but you just told me essentially that magic of sorts is real. And that anything paranormal could have a legitimate explanation in a domain I didn’t even know about until a minute ago. And you also just told me you almost died and that’s why I’m here. And also no one is talking in here. Or if they are, it’s really quiet. That is not the sound of a lively, fun work environment.

*pause*

[You]: I have the feeling that you’re about to tell me that taking a job here is a death sentence. And I’m not suicidal, but reading that file felt amazing. I would love to learn everything there is to know about these primordial fear entities just for the sake of knowing, and maybe as a little side-quest, try to organize this place. It does not look organized at all.

[Archivist]: It’s not, but it’s better that way. (pause) It really is, I promise.

[You]: Right. Anyway, where do I sign?

[Archivist]: I think you might want to take back that bit about not being suicidal.

*tape recorder clicks off*

*phone recording ends*

[imagining-in-the-margins]

Here to Misbehave (Pt. 17 | S.R.)

Series Masterlist | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Finale |

Summary: Spencer is concerned about Reader’s growing impulsiveness, but Reader is the one who gets a call from JJ asking if she can come get her boyfriend. Couple: Spencer/Fem!Reader 
 Category: Smut (NSFW, 18+) 
 Content Warning: Discussions of drugs, death/dying, suicide, overdose; Alcohol, addiction, oral (male receiving), handjob, fingering, Daddy Kink, fights, PTSD, hospital talk, drunk smut w/ blanket consent Word Count: 12.5k

MASTERLIST

—————————————————

When I opened the front door, I realized that I had returned to an empty home. I wasn’t sure which was weirder; the realization that the house was empty, or the fact that I was referring to her apartment as my home. It certainly had started to feel that way.

It never stopped being a shock that I would find a home in someone so quickly and with such little self-awareness. I'd certainly never suspected   that the house we’d be in would also be shared with several other people, all of whom were significantly younger than me and shared almost no similarities with me beyond our love for (y/n).

And even if it wasn’t the weirder of the two realizations, the fact that she wasn’t there was definitely the more troubling one. I tried to gather at least a little evidence before I called her; I wasn’t exactly excited about being blindsided again. Judging by the red solo cups that were scattered in the kitchen, I had an idea of how her friends had spent the night. The fact that no one was here led me to another conclusion that I desperately hoped was inaccurate.

Her phone rang four times before she picked up, which was strange in itself. When she did pick up, she sounded like I expected her to. Tired. Groggy.

“Hello?”

“Hey little girl, where are you?” I hoped she couldn’t hear the fumbling of my keys in my pocket, or any other sign of just how anxious I’d gotten in the last three minutes. “Oh. I’m sorry, Spencer, I forgot I was supposed to see you today.” She mumbled, sounding genuinely apologetic if not a little confused.

“You… forgot?” I repeated, quickly making my way over to the calendar hung on a bulletin board outside the kitchen, noting the nothingness over both the current and following week.

“Yeah, I guess I got carried away with school.”

She was lying. I couldn’t be for sure about what, but it was obvious. If she was really having that much trouble with classes, she would have told me. We’d gotten past the whole insecurity over me thinking she was stupid thing a long time ago, and she knew I would always let her learn it on her own if she didn’t want my help.

“... What are you not telling me?” I tried to make the words playful, although my hand was now nervously patting the side of my hip at an alarming rate.

“Nothing! I just got distracted. I’m... a little busy today so we should just meet up again next weekend.”

“A week?” I knew she was probably getting tired of me parroting her words, but that just seemed like a ludicrous amount of time. Usually, we went barely a day or two without seeing each other when I was in the city, cherishing the time together when I wasn't called away to attend to crimes halfway across the country.  

“What’s going on?” My voice was quickly falling into that register that warned her I was about to start profiling her, whether I wanted to or not. And unfortunately, she chose the worst possible reaction to that warning, further tipping me off to the fact that something wasn't quite right.

“Spencer, stop being weird.”

But I wasn’t. I knew that I could be weird; it’s kind of my thing. If you looked up weird in the dictionary, you wouldn’t find my name, but you’d definitely find a description that perfectly characterized my personality.

“You’re the one being weird. Turn on your camera.”

“I can’t. It’s dark in here.” She shot back her answer so quickly, I knew that she had already anticipated the request.

“Then move.” I ordered more than suggested. She understandably didn’t take kindly to my reaction, but I know she also knew why I was doing it. The excuses she was giving weren’t even well thought out.

“What is this? An interrogation?” She scoffed, “Do you think I’m cheating on you with barely dissolved stitches in my intestines?”

I took a deep breath, sitting down at the kitchen table still sticky with leftover sugary liquor and turned the phone onto speaker. “Turn it on.” This time, my voice broke with the order. As much as that didn’t make it sound authoritative, it did make her feel guilty.

As the screen lit up, it all made sense in the worst possible way. She was forcing a fake smile, her other hand resting against her face in a failed attempt to draw attention away from the the mottled skin of her left eye.

“I’m not cheating on you. Happy?” The words were sharp on her tongue, an anger in her features paired well with the understanding that I wasn’t wrong to be worried. I honestly think that was what bothered her the most – that she wanted it to be nothing, for me to be overreacting, but knew that it was a little more serious that she let on.  

“I’m definitely not happy. What happened?” I was already at the door by the time the sentence ended... She shut off her camera just as quickly, hearing the commotion from my side. “Where are you? I’m coming right now.”

She sighed, and I could see it clearly despite the fact that she wasn’t on my screen anymore. “I don’t want you to come here. Spencer, I’m fine.”

I might have believed her. I might have honestly given her the benefit of the doubt – let her lie to me a little, and just accept that a black eye wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened. Eventually, she would tell me how she got it, so I wouldn’t need to worry about it.

But it became very obvious very quickly that it was not just a black eye.

“Ms. (Y/l/n)?” A third voice announced in the background, accompanied by the distinct sound of an alarm sounding in the distance.

“... Are you in a hospital?!”

“For fucks sake. I hate dating a profiler.” She grumbled, implicitly admitting that my conclusion was right. She wouldn’t let me have another word, speedily slurring her goodbye. “I have to go, Spencer. I’ll call you later. Love you!”

—————————————————

Anyone who has spent a long time in inpatient knows that nosy nurses are both the best and worst kind of people to be assigned to your stay. They were the best because they always had the best gossip and would spend their precious little free time sharing stories about their lives that were always more entertaining than whatever poorly budgeted gameshow was on the old, staticky television.

They were the worst because one wrong move meant that you were the subject of gossip. And boy, were they good at getting it out of you.

“Trouble in paradise?” She sweetly hummed as she pushed my bed down the hall.

I wanted to tell her that there was trouble, and that it was through no fault of my own. If the other people in the hospital didn’t have the audacity to be sick at the same time that I needed a CT scan, then I wouldn’t have even still been here. I could have been back at home, where… well, I guess Spencer would have figured it out either way.

“Yeah, I guess.” I sadly admitted, playing with the string of my gown. “He’s just a worrywart.”

The woman had that glimmer in her eye, the kind that came from years of seeing the same stories over and over again. Although, I had a hard time believing she’d ever been in this exact scenario, I guess they were all kind of the same after a while, semantics aside.

“Well, that makes sense considering your current state.” It was more of a reprimand than anything else, and I audibly groaned to try and get her to stop there. She didn’t, though, having spent enough time with me to know I needed to hear it. “You were very lucky, you know. If things had been even just a little bit different…”

Couldn’t you say that about everything? If things had been even just a little bit different, I never would have met Spencer in the first place. We never would have fallen in love or fought or done any of it at all.

I didn’t like thinking about that. I didn’t like even considering a life without Spencer. No matter how much pain I’d been through, or what traumatic memories were dug up, they were worth it.

That’s what she wanted me to realize, and she had succeeded. Suddenly, as we turned into the room, I was overcome with guilt at the way I’d ended my conversation with him.

The nurse knew it, too, because as she transferred me onto the scanner, she smiled. “I’m just saying, sweetheart. If he woke up next to your hospital bed last time, I understand why he’d be scared.”

Chewing on my lips, I thought about the last time I was in a hospital. I thought about how Spencer had curled his giant lanky body onto the bed and barely slept for 2 weeks. I could see the way his eyes got more sunken by the day, but never stopped shining with relief. I could hear him chewing on ice because he didn’t want to leave to grab food until after I’d woken up, and the cold would distract him from just how hungry he was.

“He must love you an awful lot to be that worried.”

I hated when they did that; when they read my mind and said exactly what I was thinking.

“Yeah, I know.” I tried to smile. It was hard with the stabbing pain in my stomach and the aching in the entire left side of my face, but I managed. It was just one of those things where if I thought of Spencer, my body had to react. It was as natural as breathing.

Which, speaking of…

“Take a deep breath in.” The technician alerted me from the speaker.

The high pitched whines of the CT scanner weren’t as obnoxious as the MRI machine. I was silently grateful that they were still too scared to use the giant magnet. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to be stuck in a confined space, listening to loud banging that sounded too much like gun shots for my comfort.

Even just the thought made me nauseous. I felt like a baby, to have such a strong reaction to something so stupid. I’d been in an MRI before. I was a in a hospital. Nothing bad was going to happen to me, and I knew that.

But even now, in a machine that made virtually no noise and barely covered half my body, I wasn’t able to hold in a breath. Each time I tried, it felt like I was choking on Spencer’s lap again. The stinging in my stomach felt so much stronger, even though I knew it was healed.

The world felt like it was closing in on me, and every second that passed felt like days. I couldn’t even trust myself to guess how long it took for them to get images that should have taken no longer than 5 minutes.

I felt like such a burden. Like I was in their way. Like I was doing it wrong. Like I was a little kid, thinking that she knew what she was doing and could do it on her own.

I wanted Spencer.

That was the only thing I could think, and although it should have been comforting, it just left me feeling empty. The thought of him wasn’t enough to stop the tears streaming down my cheeks. The hands of the nurses trying to calm me down didn’t help, either. They felt wrong. They felt cold.

I just wanted Spencer. I wanted him to be there to hold my hand and distract me from my own thoughts. I wanted him to replace them with other things, like he'd promised me. I wanted to make new memories far away from here.

But I couldn’t. I was an idiot and I’d gotten myself back in the hospital, and he wasn’t here because I told him I didn’t want him to be. Why had I told him that? There was no reason that made any sense.

Once we finally did get out of the damn radiology department, I could still only barely function. The ride back to my room was much quieter, and the nurse didn’t meddle anymore. Gossip was only fun when it didn’t hurt like this.

Again, I couldn’t trust myself to guess how long I’d been in the CT scanner, but as we crossed back into my room, an overwhelming sensation of relief washed over me when I saw his satchel in the seat beside my bed. I hated the knowledge that I’d wasted 45 minutes of the technician’s time, but I was just so fucking happy that he had actually come.

Being alone in my room wasn’t a big deal anymore, because I knew it was only temporary. So as soon as I could, I sat up and waited patiently for my favorite mop of curly brown hair to peek around the corner.

He didn’t disappoint. He rarely did.

“Hey little girl.”

All the tension melted from my muscles, my head finally resting against the pillow with a dopey smile on my face. “Spencer.” I sighed, holding my hand out to him to usher him closer.

He gladly took the invitation, taking wide steps so he could be with me sooner.

“You shouldn’t be here.” I grumbled, flicking him on the arm while I locked our hands together. “But I’m glad you are.”

It was obvious from the way he let out a deep breath that he was also relieved to see that I wasn’t angry at him for coming. However, that’s also where his relief stopped. Because he’d seen me an hour prior and knew that I hadn't been crying then. But now, on top of the black eye, he saw the red rimming my sclera.

Taking my hand into both of his, he pressed a hard kiss against the back of it. Without looking up, he muttered into the skin a sad plea.

“Talk to me.”

“About what?” I asked, pulling back on my hand so he would stop with the shameless display of romance in such an awful place.

“Whatever’s going on.” He paused, but was clearly unhappy with the open ended question, and just as quickly specified, “What happened last night?

Unfortunately, I still wasn’t in the giving mood, even when it was information, and even if the person begging me for it was the boyfriend that I’d just cried for in the CT Scanner. If anything, that almost made it worse.

I hated feeling like this. Vulnerable.

“Nothing.”

Spencer was getting fed up, but it was like I couldn’t stop myself from fighting with him. I didn’t want to. I wanted to tell him that I needed him to take care of me and ask him to hold me while I cried on his shoulder about nothing at all, but I couldn’t. He would do it in a heartbeat, but I couldn’t ask him to. I couldn’t ask him for anything.

I couldn’t need anything without feeling too horribly guilty.

“Please don’t lie to me.” He was begging again, looking up at me with those impossibly warm amber eyes. He smiled when he saw the way my lips curled at the sight of him, unable to be angry for too long.

“Am I not allowed to have any stories for myself?” I joked, reaching forward to poke his face. Instead of moving away to avoid my hand, he leaned into the touch.

“You can. I just...”

“I know. You’re worried.” I responded with an exasperated sigh, rolling my head back. I could still feel him watching me, though, with a precarious smile, happy to see my spirits relatively high while also being deeply unhappy about the circumstances.

Wanting to see that full, confident smile again, I realized I didn’t have much of a choice. I’m sure that whatever he’d come up with in his head was much more sinister than what had actually happened.

“Fine. Stop looking at me like that.” I mumbled, gesturing to the childlike pout and laughing when he sucked his lips into his mouth in an attempt to follow my direction. I was glad he was still in a joking mood, because I had a feeling it would disappear as soon as I started talking.

I took a deep breath, looking up and away before I began my explanation of the stupidest night.

“I went out for drinks with my friends–”

“Drinks?!”

It hadn’t even been five seconds and he’d already cut me off. I couldn’t blame him, but it was so freaking annoying. This was exactly why I hadn't told him. Well, that and the fact he could get in serious trouble.

“I didn’t have any! Geez. Chill out.” I yelled back, chuckling a little bit at the conflicting looks of terror and relief. Because while he obviously believed that I didn’t drink any myself, it gave ugly context to the nightmarish guesses his mind had concocted.

“And everything was fine. We were on our way home. But then some asshole started messing with my friend. And she was way too drunk and started crying.” I was groaning internally the whole time, thinking about all the different ways this whole situation could have been avoided. Honestly, I don’t know why she had decided to try and square up with a cat caller when she knew damn well that she would start crying the second he raised his voice.

Which, of course, he had.  

“So, I told the guy to fuck off. And he did not like it.”

There was a powerful rage boiling under the surface of Spencer’s skin, which was only betrayed by his clenched jaw and the sheets scrunched under his hand. “Did they arrest him?” He said, trying to calm the trembling in his voice. He wasn’t angry at me for being a victim, even if he was probably a little annoyed that I went out without telling him.

Not like he was even in the state, anyway.

“I didn’t press charges.”

He took a deep breath, clearly about to tell me that I was stupid for not holding him accountable. That I could’ve gotten hurt and he would’ve gotten away with it. That I could’ve died if he’d hurt me the wrong way.

I didn’t want to hear it.

“Stop. I didn’t want to go to court, and I’m fine. I didn’t even need invasive surgery again.”

Spencer was still angry but trying to settle himself down before he spoke. He could hardly even look at me, his hand leaving the bed to run through his hair and shake his keys in his pockets.

I wanted to tell him that the tension of silence was worse than if he’d just raised his voice at me, but I couldn’t even gather the energy to do that. My body and mind seemed resigned to their current state; they’d just given up.

“(Y/n)...” He started, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up at the use of my name. They didn’t retreat, especially not when he dragged a chair over to my bedside, sitting down and placing a gentle hand over mine again.

“Are you okay?”

It was so sincere. So pure, so unforgivably kind. My hand that had felt paralyzed seconds earlier twitched under his. “I just told you.” I shrugged, fighting the urge to pull my arm away again. I wanted him here. I wanted him to touch me.

So why did it hurt? Why did everything hurt?

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” His voice broke, and I saw the way he was holding back tears with his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth. He was biting back so many things he didn’t want me to know.

But again, I was too tired to fight it. So instead, I said nothing.

“It doesn’t take a profiler to see you’re hurting.” He continued, urging me to give him anything to work with. “How can I make it better?”

He just wanted to help. Why couldn’t I let him help?

“I’m fine. Nothing even happened to me.” My throat tried to reject the words, my brain screaming at me that they were fundamentally untrue. But my heart hurt, pounding louder in my chest to tell me that the logic was wrong. Because I was a big girl, and I shouldn’t be scared by things that already happened.

I’m safe, right? I don’t need to be scared, right?

Spencer could see the panic on my face because I couldn’t even have hid it if I'd wanted to. And my brain was telling me to not to. It told me that I needed to talk to him, to let him listen.

“That’s not true. You’ve been through a lot.” He bargained, trying to locate that little voice in my head with his offerings. He wanted to pull that small part of me out and force it to talk so that we might finally be able to start to move on.

“You go through worse every day.”

‘It’s common for patients suffering from PTSD to minimize their suffering or compare it to others. It’s a completely normal response, but I want you to try to resist belittling your own feelings. They’re yours, and no one else’s. Okay, sweetheart?’

The voice was so clear in my head, my body jerked in response. I looked around the room, looking for any sign of the man who’d told me them first. But he wasn’t here; he hadn’t been here for some time.

“Do you know how many profilers I’ve seen leave in my time at the bureau?” Spencer distracted me from the thought. He probably figured my flashbacks were more sinister than what they actually were. As upsetting as they had once been, hearing my dad’s voice in my head was usually oddly soothing.

“No.” I answered blankly, trying to pay all attention to the man who was still here.

“Four. And I’ve considered it myself.” There was a soft chuckle to hide the guilt in the admission.

I didn’t know why he felt bad for it; his job was so ridiculously difficult. On top of constantly having to rearrange his life on account of the various inextinguishable evils in the world, he had to face those evils every day and try to figure out their inner workings in order to thwart them. The only time I'd ever done that, I'd killed all three of them. Not the best track record.

“The first one, she... she reminds me a lot of you.” The soft twinkling in his eyes, much like emotional music in the movies, alerted me that a backstory was coming. Based on the extent of just how nostalgic he was coming, I guessed that whatever he was about to say was deeply important to him.

However, I was fragile enough as it was, and I didn’t need to add jealousy to my current emotional repertoire. “Is this another JJ origin story? Cause I don’t think I can handle it.”

He laughed, shaking his head at the frustrated pout that formed on my face. “No,” He said quietly, taking a pregnant pause to formulate the story. “Her name was Elle.”

The story he told was woven well, although I expected no less. He told it passionately and with absolute sincerity. He told me about the woman who was one of the first people he'd bonded with on the team. The playful relationship he described was painted so vividly in my imagination.

I wanted to meet her. But by the end of the story, it was obvious that it wasn’t an option. He didn’t say anything about it, but from the far off look I could guess that he hadn’t seen her since that last day.

“She was like a sister to me, and to see her fall apart and not be able to do anything to help her... it was one of the worst feelings in the world.”

And I understood then, why he was worried about me the way he was. He was projecting his previous experience on me, but things were different with me. At least, that’s what I told myself. Realistically I should have been reminding myself that she'd had the training and resources to overcome her obstacles, whereas I was basically still a stupid kid. The prospect of facing the reality was too difficult though; I just shrugged it off.

“Well, I already killed the people who did this to me.” I chuckled.

Spencer did not appreciate my humor. There was an even stronger concern that flashed over his features, worried by my flippancy over the death of three human beings.

Fuck, I should feel worse about it than I do, shouldn’t I? But if I thought about it, then it hurt so badly. If I had to pick one, I would pick apathy every time. I would choose the emptiness before the ocean of remorse.

“I’m not worried about them.”

I had drifted away from him again, and the sentence forced me to look at him.

‘I’m not worried about them. I’m worried about you.’

I’d said that before. Those were my words.

I pulled my hand back from Spencer, rubbing my forehead with both hands before wincing at the sharp pain around my eye socket. It took me a minute to focus on the sentence and dive deeper into its implications. But once I remembered why it instilled such a visceral reaction, I nearly gagged on the words.

“Wait, you think I’m going to kill myself?”

“I didn’t say that.” He quickly responded in the most defensive manner possible. If that was his attempt to calm me down, it did not work. It only pissed me off even more.

Because there was only one reason why he would think I was going to kill myself. I hadn’t given him any reason to believe that was a risk. Yeah, sure, I was being reckless and impulsive, but I was a teenager!

“Why would you think that?” I demanded an answer, and he was immediately hesitant to provide one. It was all the evidence I needed to reach my conclusion. “Don’t lie to me, Spencer Reid. You asked Hotch, didn’t you?”

He sighed, leaning back in his chair now that it was obvious, I wasn’t going to want him to touch me. “Yeah, I did.”

“You told me you wouldn’t, Spencer! You promised!” I ground the words out between my teeth, hoping he understood just how much I was holding back my volume.

He looked over at the screen monitoring my heart, noting the way the spikes appeared at an exponentially faster rate. “I know.” He whispered with an evident guilt.

“What did he tell you?” I hated the way my voice shrank with my shoulders, my body insisting that I assume to the smallest position I could. Because as much as I hated that Spencer had asked when he told me he wouldn’t, I was desperate for the information.

I’d always wanted to see the files, to hear the story as they knew it. I wanted to know what happened, and this was probably the closest I’d ever come to that, unless that whole Ouija board thing is real.

“Probably the same stuff that you already know.” He knew he was disappointing me. He shouldn’t have felt as bad about that as he did, but I’d take the implicit apology for what it was.

“Tell me anyway.”

Spencer should have been delighted to have the opportunity to talk at me for such a long time, but I also understood why he wasn’t. They weren’t the best topics of conversation, your ex-best friend and your girlfriend’s dead father. But he was a trooper and a skilled conversationalist, despite people not being able to understand that.

“He told me that there were several missions your father was a part of that ended controversially. That… he reported several violations that were never followed through on.”

The words so easily unlocked memories I had tightly and resolutely locked away, it was unsettling. I could hear my parents arguing about the philosophy of blame and responsibility. My dad always arguing that he couldn’t stand aside and let innocent people get hurt. My mom reminding him that he couldn’t save everyone.

‘We also get to see a lot of good.’ Spencer had said on our first not-a-date.

‘Yeah, but which do you see more of?’ I’d asked, and he’d avoided the question. I remembered seeing the question dance across his vision before he shut it out. He'd wondered why I was so confident in my conclusions.

“And the last mission…”

He didn’t have to wonder anymore.

“I saw the report.”

My breath was knocked from my lungs by an invisible fist to my damaged gut. I swallowed, trying to regulate my heart that was at risk of setting off the damn machine next to me. “What did it say?” I whispered, clutching onto the sheets and my gown, hoping it would be enough to keep me grounded.  

“Killed in action.”

“That’s fucking bullshit.” I barked, my brows furrowing regardless of just how badly it hurt to contort my face so badly.  “He didn’t– H-He wasn’t–“

“I know.” Spencer responded, a note of pity in his voice that made my face twitch in annoyance.

I turned to him with the same snarl, years of repressed anger resurfacing and wreaking even more havoc on my already destroyed life. “Do you? Do you know?”

“I mean, I can’t ever know for sure but… You weren’t the only one who felt that he...” He couldn’t say the word suicide, and for once, I was grateful. “It seems like all of his team had the same concerns.”

He was trying so hard to calm me down, to placate my fears and rage. He was sympathizing the best he could, but the truth was he would never be able to understand just how fucked up it was. He hadn't been there when it was happening, so the only thing he could do was try to slap a band-aid on a well-settled scar and hope that my not being able to see it made it hurt less.

“I’m sorry.” He uttered the two words cautiously, his heartbreak clear in his eyes. He had nothing to apologize for, but there he was, doing it anyway.

“For what?”

“That you’ll never have your answer.”

I don’t know what I expected him to say, but his answer took me by surprise. Of all the explanations I’d heard after an unnecessary platitudinous apology, I’d never heard that. And even worse, I’d never heard it in such a broken way, sounding for all the world like he believed he'd failed tremendously.

“I’m sorry that... that I couldn’t find it for you.”

I couldn’t stand the sight, and my hand found his cheek like it did so often, returning home to find that it was just a bit more stubbly than I remembered it. “It’s not your job, Spencer. We’re not one of your cases.” I assured him, running my thumb over the rough skin and remembering that he’d only just gotten home from exactly that: a case.

He did so much for me every day, but in the past few months he’d had to do so much more. And as much as I tried not to, I took him for granted so often. It was never as obvious to me as it was in that moment, when a tear slid down his cheek at the tenderness of my touch.  He always expected anger and pain. I didn’t want him to feel that way with me.

“But thank you for trying. I appreciate you.” I tried to throw my soul into the words as they formed on my tongue, but all that came out was a pathetic whimper. “I love you very much.”

“I love you, too.” He sighed into the small embrace, leaning his weight more heavily into my hand. Still holding back, he grimaced at the words he shared. “If I’m going to be honest, I looked something else up myself. Not on any FBI database just... old school research”

I wanted to act surprised, but it was the least shocking thing I’d heard in a while. So instead I just stared at him, with the closest I could come to boredom while still being interested in what he had to say.

“Yeah? What’d you find?” Finally settling into the inevitable resignation, I moved my hand up the side of his face to tangle in his hair. It was so soft despite not having been washed for a few days. I could tell he hadn’t slept much. I wondered why he'd bothered digging into my past in the precious little free time he had.

But then he said it, reminding me of the pain of the cemetery and the events that both preceded and followed it.

“Trent Loughton.”

My fingers stopped in their exploration of his curls for a second, but eventually continued. “I see.” I hummed, trying not to push the conversation any further than he wanted to take it. As emotional as the topic was for me, it must have been harder for him. After all, he was the one who shared the nasty habit with Trent.

“I-I saw how he died... and I think I can fill in the rest myself.”

“Mrs. Loughton did give a lot of clues.” I laughed, mostly to stop myself from crying. That woman didn’t deserve any more of my tears. It was because of her that I’d spent years trying to convince myself that Trent’s death wasn’t my fault. Deep down, a part of me still believed her.

But honestly, it wasn’t my opinion that really mattered to me. It was Spencer’s. If he thought I was a failure, or that it was my fault for what happened, I wasn’t sure we’d ever be able to move past it. I wasn’t sure that I would ever be able to move past it.

“The drugs he overdosed on... they weren’t yours.”

Relief washed over me, but my mind told me not to get too comfortable, yet. “No, they weren’t.” My body had such a strange reaction to the words being said without an argument. I didn’t need to convince Spencer; he already knew. He not only believed me – he had come to the conclusion himself.  

“So why did you say they were?”

It was such an easy answer, I knew he had to know it already. His hesitance to come to conclusions on my behalf, while appreciated, wasn’t necessary in this situation. “Pretty little girl with no record and a batshit war hero dad stood a better chance in the criminal justice system. I didn’t ask my dad to protect me, but he did.”

Spencer clearly sympathized with my father more so than me in that moment, which made my heart flutter in a remarkably inappropriate manner. I just couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that those damn psychologists were right – We really do sometimes pick men that remind us of our fathers.

“It wasn’t your fault.” Spencer said under his breath, and I wondered which one he was even talking about. It honestly could have applied to my whole life. He would have meant it each time, too. Because to him I couldn’t do anything wrong. I tried to take solace in that, but it honestly caused another voice to creep into the back of my mind.

I’d never be as good as he saw me. I’d never be worthy of his love.

Shoving those anxieties away again, I nodded in solemn recognition of the years I spent working to come to that same conclusion. “I know. It just took me a while to figure it out.”

My hand finally fell away from his face, although he grabbed my wrist to stop it from going too far. There was another hesitancy in his body language. His face turned down and his leg bouncing so gently I almost missed it.

“Is he the one you were talking about? The one you loved?”

Ah, nothing like a subtle hint of jealousy to boost a girl’s ego. I chuckled at the sound, swaying a bit in place to let him suffer a millisecond longer. “No. Not exactly.”

But then I genuinely couldn’t figure out how to say it. How could I describe what we had shared, when I'd spent so long trying to forget it? Had I loved him? Probably. No, I'd definitely loved him, just not in the way Spencer was thinking. Not like I loved Spencer.

“It was like, he always liked me, and I always thought we’d end up together because that’s how it happens in the movies, right? I was supposed to fall in love with him.” I ranted, trying to move my hands that were currently wrapped up in Spencer’s. “But I didn’t, and then he was gone and...”

We both stopped, his eyes trailing after me with questions he didn’t voice yet. He wanted me to finish before he decided whether or not they were worth it. I wanted to explain to him that they weren’t. As important as Trent was to me, he was gone.

“It’s fine. I’m sure he would be glad I found someone who makes me happy.” I was confident in that, at least. Because as I stared into those big hazel eyes, forcing themselves to stay open just to listen to me talk about my life, I was glad, too. “Even if that someone snoops too much for his own good.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

There were many reasons, most of which I didn’t want to go into. But the way he was looking at me shattered my heart into a million pieces, and I knew that if I lied to him now, it would only make it harder to put those parts back together.

He just wanted to help. I knew I should let him help.

“I didn’t want to think about it.” I admitted for the first time out loud. “I didn’t want to consider all the similarities. I didn’t want you to think I was just looking for a man to replace the ones I’ve lost.”

I couldn’t tell when I started to cry, but it was even more exhausting and painful than normal. Which is why I didn’t hesitate to accept Spencer’s offer when he stood up, wrapping his arms around me just tightly enough that it wouldn’t hurt.  

“I didn’t want to lose you, too.” I whined, the comforting scent of his cologne filling my lungs and reminding me of all the beautiful moments we’d shared so far. We had so many more to go.

“You won’t lose me. I’m here to stay.” He said, reading my mind like he always did.

“I know.” I started to laugh, but this time it wasn’t held back by secrets. “You’d think a girl could lose you by getting in a bar fight an hour away and going to an unnamed hospital but nooo...”

He laughed too, although his was much more reserved. Spoilsport.

Spencer’s arms tightened around me briefly, holding me closer to him before he backed away, his hands finding home on my cheeks. I anticipated a kiss, which was usually what happened when he held me like that. But he didn’t kiss me, instead giving me a gentle instruction.

“(Y/n), look at me.”

My eyes, bruised and dry, still opened at his command.

“No jokes. No lies.” He asked, clearly enunciating each word. “Should I be worried about you?”

All I could hear was the sound of my heart and the humming of the machines. I was brought back to the CT scanner, the way it felt to be choking on air. Flashes of other men I loved were racing through my mind. I couldn’t save them, I remembered, before my eyes landed back on Spencer.

My stomach twisted at the memory of a wooden box, a check, and suddenly all I smelled was the pine of the forest.

“(Y/n)?” He asked again, although I saw he’d already received half of the answer.

“No. I’m fine.”

The most terrifying part about it was that I believed what I said, but the look on Spencer’s face told me that I was lying. And I believed that, too.

—————————————————

The thing about coming back from a gunshot wound to the stomach is that it takes a ridiculously annoying amount of time. Like, yeah, the pain is something awful, but the wait for things to return to normal was even worse.

I didn’t even know how long it’d been, my brain blocking out anything that reminded me of that day. If I ever really needed to know, Spencer could tell me. I was basically only keeping track of the days by deadlines for school and the dwindling prescriptions I had left.

My follow-up appointment was next week, and it couldn’t come soon enough. Spencer told me he would come with me, but I hadn’t really heard from him in a couple of days. He didn’t even have time to tell me about the case, although I could tell it was one of the “bad” ones – not that there were really any “good” ones.

But still, it was almost 11pm and I was about to go to sleep, but I wanted to wait a little bit longer before I called it a night. I was just hoping that I’d be able to talk to him, even if it was just to say goodnight. I missed his voice like crazy.

So when my phone lit up, I didn’t even look at the caller ID. There weren’t many people who would call me this late on a Friday – my friends were all already out for the night.

“Hello?” I sang into the receiver, already excitedly spinning around in my chair.

But the voice that responded was decidedly not Spencer.

“Hey, (y/n), right? It’s JJ.”

Her voice rang like a record scratch through my head, and I halted in my chair. “Oh, hey JJ... Why are you calling me?” Suddenly, my enthusiasm morphed into an overwhelming anxiety and darkness that threatened to crush everything in its path. “I-Is everything alright?”

But then I heard it. The sound of terrible music, loud laughter, and the general bustle of a restaurant. It was followed by an even more nervous JJ, “Uhh, yeah. Everything is fine. I was calling because Spencer might have had a few too many drinks and—“

Above the chaotic noise that I just described, I heard Spencer Reid loud and clear. Well, maybe not the clear part. His inaudible slurring sounded vaguely like a rant I’d heard before. Then again, hadn't I heard them all at this point? ?

I hadn’t put it together yet, though, and once I did, I couldn’t help but laugh. “My boyfriend is drunk? Cute.”

I was already standing, gathering my things and tossing my jacket on to head out when I asked, “Do you want me to come get him?”

“Please.” I’d never heard a more relieved woman in my life. The very thought of him driving his best friends insane with his drunken lessons was enough to combat my exhaustion. The poor thing was probably humiliating himself one sip at a time.

But for every chuckle, I was really just hiding a deeper concern. Spencer wasn’t supposed to be drinking. Spencer wasn’t allowed to drink, and he knew that. Out of the two of us, he was the one who put himself at risk more often, and I had a goddamn bullet wound.

“Sure thing. Just send me the address.”

It dawned on me somewhere along the 20 minute drive that Spencer had not only finished his case, but also come home and gone out for a drink with his team. Normally that wouldn’t bother me, but the fact that he hadn’t told me about any of it...?

I tried not to think about it, knowing that talking to him about it tonight would be a waste of time, anyway. From the way he'd sounded over the phone, he wouldn’t be in any state to talk about the deep nuances of addiction and our relationship.

So I pushed it away, trying to enjoy the fact that I’d be able to see him again. Now that we’d cleared the air about my past, things felt strangely calm. I told myself it wasn’t just the eye of the storm because I  wasn't sure I could handle much more excitement lately.

Showing up at one of the bars I used to frequent didn’t do much to convince me otherwise, either. The stench of cigarette smoke and alcohol hit me like a freight train as soon as I stepped out of my car. How did I do this every other night before?

As I approached the door, I didn’t even recognize the bouncer’s figure in the shade of the dim porch light. I recognized his voice, though, that’s for sure.

“Hey Jailbait, haven’t seen you around.”

Shit. Slower now, I hesitantly approached him with the most innocent and well-meaning look I could muster, knowing full well that another part of my life was going to be exposed tonight. At least this time, Spencer was the story and not the listener.

“Hey Tom...” I nervously laughed, drawing out the words while I came to a stop.

“Heard some pretty crazy shit went down to keep you off the scene. Must be bad if it keeps you away from me.”

It was weird to think that they talked about me. But I guess it was to be expected; we were all friends before Spencer Reid. And when someone in those friend groups goes missing suddenly, there’s usually reason to be worried. But in my situation, the worry wasn’t really necessary (aside from the whole being shot thing, I guess).

“Crazy is a good word for it.”

He leaned forward, beckoning for me to move in even closer with a wave of his hand. I complied, although I was a little confused as to why we were being so secretive.

“Hey, sorry, but... I can’t let you in tonight. You know I normally would, but the place is swarming with feds tonight.”

Then I remembered that I actually had to explain the reason for my absence, rather than just think about it in the abstract. “Oh no, I know.” I peered around him, trying to spot the man past the door. It wasn’t hard, considering how goddamn tall he was.

I pointed to him, causing Tom to turn with an amused grin before I explained, “I’m here for the drunk noodle man.”

The look on his face – hilarious, and a little insulting.

“What? Jailbait’s picking up a fed? Damn girl what’ve you been into?” He laughed, barely able to control himself. He laughed so hard, in fact, I’m surprised there weren’t tears in his eyes.

“Stop that.” I whined, but he didn’t listen.

“Does he know who he’s dating?”

The question hurt more than he could have anticipated. I didn’t want to confront those messy feelings, so I bundled them all into an annoyed exclamation. “Yes, he knows!” I huffed, crossing my arms and turning away from him as I stepped towards the door. “So can I go get him?”

He composed himself rather quickly after that, shaking his head and unhooking the rope that blocked off the door. “Please do. If I have to hear one more fact about Ancient Rome, I might quit.”

With the last obstacle gone, I happily skipped through the door, the excitement returning in a bubbling wave through my chest. “Thanks, Tom!” I chirped, barely giving him a glance as I raced through the door.

The only person more surprised to see me than Tom was Spencer. Although, to his credit, I did practically launch myself at his side. We both nearly toppled to the ground thanks to  our lack of coordination, but we were luckily stopped by the bar he was leaning against.

“Boo!” I shouted in his ear, hearing a small, surprised gasp from my boyfriend.

“(Y/n)?” He turned towards me now, stars quickly forming in his eyes as a big, goofy smile spread across his face. It took him a minute, but eventually he recognized me in the dim light.

“Hey old man.”

Hugging me back just a little too tightly, he began to gush, “Oh my gosh. What are you doing here?” Of course, before I could answer, he came to several other conclusions. “Wait! This is a bar. You can’t be here! You aren’t twenty one!”

He thought he was whispering, but he definitely, definitely was not.

“I’m here to pick you up, not party.” I actually whispered back, turning to see JJ practically hiding at the table. I’m guessing he hasn't wanted her to call me, although I was pretty sure he wouldn’t care at this point. He seemed pretty happy I was there.

“You can’t pick me up. You’re hurt.”

I didn’t even know where to start with that, so I just chuckled. “Smart as a whip, Dr. Reid.”

I ran my hands over his shoulders, smoothing out the wrinkled dress shirt he'd either had no time to iron, or had worn to bed the night before.  I didn’t like either of those options. Spencer must have noticed me analyzing the fact, because his hand came up to stop me.

Trying to quickly change the subject, I blurted out over the terrible music, “Even when I’m hurt, I can probably still pick you up. You probably weigh the same as me.”

He scoffed, looking down at his lanky body compared to mine before shaking his head. “That’s hurtful, (y/n).” He attempted a puppy dog face, which only made laughter burst from my pursed lips.

Grabbing hold of his wrists and pulling him away from the bar, I turned and waved to the few team members I could spot among the crowd before returning to my drunken idiot of a boyfriend. “Come on, love. It’s time to take you home with me.”

When the cool autumn air hit him, I felt the goosebumps ripple over his arm. He leaned a bit closer, resting too much of his body weight on me for my comfort, but I wasn’t going to tell him to stop.

“How did you find me?” He mumbled, trying to touch me more than he currently was. Pushing him away from me was supposed to serve as a gentle reminder that we were in public, but he didn’t seem to care about that at all.

“JJ called me.”

“They all like you a lot. So do I.” His fast responses were a little less impressive considering how spontaneous they seemed, but I let it slide. As long as he was saying nice things, it was fine by me.

Guiding him as gently as possible, which is to say not gently at all considering he was essentially a human giraffe, I sighed. “I’m glad to hear it, Spencer. Maybe I can actually hang out with them one of these days.”

The guilt appeared before I could stop it, but it was the least of my worries at the moment. More concerning would be getting him into his house and in bed without either of us doing something stupid. After all, he was usually the one who stopped me from being stupid. And so far tonight, he’d already done something pretty damn stupid.

As I pulled the driver side door closed, a silence filled the car. Spencer was stuck between staring at me with a lovesick smile and looking away, probably because of his pink cheeks making him look a perfect combination of embarrassed and plastered.

“So what had you drinking, Spencer?”

“A case.” He shot back with that voice he usually reserved for the bedroom. It was the voice that told me not to press, to take his answer and let it die.

Unfortunately, I couldn't really do that this time, concerning this particular topic. . “Good thing or bad thing drinking?” I asked quietly.

I think he wanted to snap at me, to tell me that it was clear he didn’t want to talk about it, but he didn’t. The way my hands and words trembled told him that I was just as scared as he was that the answer might be the wrong one.

“I don’t know,” was what he said, instead.

“Okay.” I accepted that answer, understanding that it meant we could talk about it later, when his blood went back to normal and his mind was where it should be. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

And there we were, me sitting and staring at the indicators on the car as the engine turned, and him staring at me in the little light provided. After staring back at him for a moment, I had to ask the glaringly obvious question.

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

That’s when Spencer Reid let out an honest to god giggle, his hands reaching out to massage my face that no longer showed any signs of the black eye I'd received a few weeks prior. “You’re sooo pretty.” He drawled, slumping over in his seat so he could rest his face against my shoulder.

I couldn’t help but laugh back, petting his hair for a second before returning my attention to the wheel. “Oooh, I like this.” I whispered, letting my heart skip a few beats as he nuzzled into the warmth that only I could provide him.

“I love you.” He mumbled against my shirt, letting out a deep breath before apparently trying to fill his lungs with the smell of my laundry detergent.

The sensation of his breath hot against my neck caused a familiar desire to stir in me, just barely beaten out by the even more powerful adoration I had for the puppy-like man who was already practically asleep on my shoulder.

“I love you, too, darling.”

He didn’t hear me, his soft breath indicating that he would be out for the drive. Taking my time to avoid the roads with potholes and curves, I managed to keep Spencer on me the whole way back to his apartment. Once we were there, though, I didn’t have any option but to wake him up. Unlike him, I definitely could not carry him out of the car.

It took him a surprisingly long period of time to realize that we were not, in fact, at my place. As soon as he did notice, he rubbed his eyes like it would transform the door in front of him. “Why didn’t you take me home?”

“This is your apartment, babe.” I explained, digging through his pockets to find his keys. He jumped at the contact before letting out a sound that was way too close to a moan for him to be making in the hallway.

“Yeah that’s not home.” He answered, swallowing down other noises that threatened to erupt by the time I withdrew my hand. “But home is–“ He hiccuped, patting his finger on my nose as he tried to stabilize his feet. “Home is where you are.”

“Mmm, so smooth.” I hummed, unlocking the door and shoving his drunk ass into the apartment before he could do something else that made me question whether I should just turn around and go home.

But he just looked so proud of himself, spinning around on his feet and crashing into the table beside the door. “Thank you!” He chirped, reaching forward to grab my hand and pull me closer.

When our bodies pressed together, the first thing I noticed was the fact he was clearly much more excited to be home with me than he was letting on. The thin fabric of his slacks left little to the imagination, and when my hand slid over the tent in his pants, there was nothing left to wonder.

“I brought you here... because I didn’t want to have to be quiet.” I purred, palming his erection over his clothes.

Through his broken moans, he still managed to ask the silliest question: “Why are you going to be loud?”

He was so fucking cute; so remarkably innocent in his drunken stupor, it was hard to remember that he was the same man that once finger fucked me on the metro.

“Why do you think?” I asked just as sweetly, making quick work of the buttons on his shirt.

Spencer still just stared, mesmerized by the way the buttons slipped from the fabric between my fingers. Once they were all open, I ran my hands over his chest before wrapping my arms around his neck.

He was the one to close the gap, coming down to deliver a feverish kiss against my lips. He tasted like honey and whiskey, and I wanted nothing more than to drown in him. His hands were on my lower back, sneaking under my shirt and spreading goosebumps all over my skin.

I moaned into his mouth with the utmost desperation, murmuring words against his lips. “Take me to bed, Spencer,” I begged.

The words awoke something in him, and suddenly, his hands were off of me and raised in the air.

“Wait— I can’t.” He concluded, drawing in heavy breaths.

“Why not?”

I wasn’t sure which part of this situation did him in, although I had my suspicions. As much as I wanted him, I would suppress those urges if he was really, truly uncomfortable. I almost felt bad for a second, but then he spoke again.

“I have a girlfriend.”

With a few slow blinks, I tried to figure out how the hell I was supposed to return a serious answer. Deciding that was impossible, I deadpan replied, “I am your girlfriend, you absolute idiot.”

I took his stunned silence to be permission enough to start leading him into his room. He honestly looked like I’d just told him all the answers to the universe, and he trailed after me like my hand was a leash. Still, once I sat on the bed and pulled his body against mine, he paused again.

“My girlfriend can’t— she’s hurt. She can’t have sex with me.”

I got the impression he was trying to reason with himself more so than with me, which explained the third person. But it was deeply unsettling, because I really needed to know he was here in this moment with me.

“Stop saying 'she'. It’s me, babe.” I gently reminded, and I watched it dawn on him again, his eyes lighting up in the darkness. Sliding my hand up his arm, I pulled him forward to hopefully convince him to climb into the bed with me. “And we don’t have to have sex.”

Funny enough, Spencer was the one who had enough sense to strip off most of his clothes before he stumbled onto the mattress after me. His lack of coordination was even worse with the alcohol, and it reminded me of the virginal teenager I’m certain he once was.

It was strange to consider, that if we’d met each other under different circumstances, at a different time, our roles might have been somewhat reversed. To picture him as an innocent little thing was... kind of exciting.

But he was anything but innocent now, his face hanging over mine while he helped me disrobe, trying to focus his analytical abilities on me in his haze. Finding no pain or hesitancy, he crashed his lips over mine with an energy I hadn’t seen in some time.

And it was so invigorating, to feel his skin against mine without him having to constantly worry about whether or not he was hurting me. It’d been far too long since we shared a bed together like this, and now that it was happening, I could hardly breathe.  

“God, I love her.” He whispered against my skin, before quickly correcting himself, “I love you.”

I laughed, the kind that sputters from your lips when you try to hold it back. Pushing the hair from his face, I ran my fingers over his scalp. “How drunk are you?”

“I’m not drunk, I’m stupid.” He replied with a cheeky smirk, diving back down to kiss me again. I wasn’t going to argue with the brilliant Spencer Reid, even if the point he was making was that he was, in fact, stupid.

Maybe it was stupid, the two of us tangling up in his sheets despite the fact that I hadn’t been cleared for it yet by my doctor. I knew that it was coming soon – probably at my appointment in a couple weeks, actually – so why wait? I knew that Spencer would never hurt me. Even now, his hands were gentle in their insistence, raking over my hip and stopping just short of the place where I really wanted him.  

“Fuck, you’re so beautiful.” He groaned, his hips rocking forward and pressing his erection against my leg.

“Touch me.” I ordered, louder and more forcefully than I intended. I was expecting an argument, but I didn’t get one. In fact, Spencer’s finger had already breached my folds before I even finished talking. Unwilling to let him be the only one to enjoy himself, I reached down to grab his cock.

“Shit.” He hissed, biting down on his lip while he rutted against my hand. “I just want to hold you down and fuck you until you cry.” The restraint was obvious in the fingers slowly sinking into me, his jaw clenched and his eyes barely able to stay open. “But I can’t.”

Through my heavy breaths, I panted out another request. “Tell me more about it.”

He immediately realized why I’d asked, and his fingers began to pump in and out of me faster and with more force, his lips trailing kisses over to my ear. While I tried to keep up the pace of my strokes, it became more complicated when his breath fanned over my ear.

“It’s been so long since I bent you over and had my way with you like I did that morning over your kitchen counter...” He moaned, and I could almost feel the sensations as he remembered them. Although his fingers would never be the same, just having him inside me in any capacity felt like pure bliss.

But he wasn’t done, continuing to speak his thoughts into my ear. “I just want to—fuck, I want to fill you up.” I went to respond, but I choked on a sob, instead. The lewd sounds between us only aided his descriptions.

“God, I love the way you feel. You’re always so wet for me.” He whispered, beginning to make small thrusts with his hips. The movement essentially allowed him to use my hand to stroke himself, and he let out another unsteady moan at the contact. “Think about what it feels like, little girl.”

“I-I am.” I could barely make the words come out; my body too sensitive to his touch after being starved of it for so long. And Spencer was ready to take full advantage of that.

“I still have so much planned for you. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that little stunt you pulled when you got all riled up.” He growled, using his free hand to grab a fistful of my hair. He yanked my head further to the side, laying sloppy kisses along my jaw. “I told you I’d give you triple the marks you left on me, and I can’t wait to cover you with me.”

“Fuck. Please, Spencer.” I hoarsely begged, my hand on his shoulder tightening so that my nails dug into his skin. If his grip on my hair wasn’t so tight, I would have thrown my head back. Instead, I just squirmed underneath him, crying out, “I’m so close, Spencer, please!”

He did not disappoint, his fingers curling inside of me with each thrust, and by some grace of God, he was able to coordinate his thumb over my clit. As if that wasn’t enough, he pulled back to look me in the eyes.  

“I want to feel you come on my fingers.” It was more of a demand than a desire, as evidenced by the way his hand tugged on my hair. “Come on, little girl. Make daddy proud.”

Just like that, my body responded to his call, my muscles trembling from the tension as my orgasm hit me like a fucking freight train. It was such an overwhelming experience, to remember exactly how Spencer was capable of making me feel.

And he knew it, too. “Oh, good girl,” he cooed, continuing his kisses against my neck and murmuring the words as they came to him. “That’s my pretty little slut.”

After taking my time coming back to earth, I struggled from the overstimulation still burning between my legs. Spencer hadn’t stopped his fingers, which were diligently stroking inside of me while he continued to buck his hips against my hand.

“I want you to finish inside me.” I slurred in my delirium, withdrawing my hand from his dick while he whimpered.

“I-I can’t. I can’t fuck you.” He was asserting a necessary and understandable hard limit, and it was clear I wouldn’t be able to convince him to fuck me that night.

But that wasn’t the plan, anyway.  

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” I said between gasps, struggling against his fingers still inside me. “Come up here.” I whined, rubbing my hands on his shoulders while simultaneously trying to sit myself up.

The movement and the words made him withdraw completely. “(Y/n)...” He warned, running a hand through his hair while he sat up on his knees. “I could hurt you.”

“That’s always been a risk with us, Spencer.” My retort was both quick and persuasive, judging by the way he almost moved, but stopped himself yet again.

“Please. Please, do it. I want you to do it so fucking bad.” There was an obvious and deep desperation. I was literally begging him, to the point that I swore I almost cried. It felt stupid, but I needed him like I’d never needed anything in my life before. He’d spent months taking care of me, and I couldn’t do anything in return.

I just wanted to make him feel good, to give him something like we used to share.

Of course, I think those thoughts were also visible on my face, and they were obviously worrying him. With tender touches, Spencer’s fingers lightly trailed over the side of my face. The brief flashes of clarity alerted him of my struggle, and he let out a shaky breath at the war inside his own mind.  

“I want to feel you inside me, and this is the only way.” I concluded, trying to lead him to the simplest conclusion. It was the safest, easiest way to solve both of our current problems. And although I could see how hard the decision was for him, my pleading eventually bested him.

“Fuck.” He mumbled, leaning forward to grab the headboard, staring down at me as I shimmied further up the wood.

“Fuck!” He repeated, rolling his head back with a light groan when both of my hands reached forward to grab his hips. “Fine. You’re lucky you’re so fucking cute.”

A giggle bubbled through my throat, and my body actually bounced in excitement as he slowly positioned himself in front of me. I wasn’t even sure which I was more excited for, my own orgasm or getting to finally give him one again.

As soon as my mouth closed around the head of his dick, I got my answer. Spencer’s moan filled the room, his hands holding so firmly on the headboard that the entire bed creaked. Although I figured he’d been taking care of himself in my absence, it appeared that wasn’t entirely the case. He seemed just as starved as I was.

“Holy shit.” He groaned, dropping a hand to the top of my head. I had to remind myself that he was drunk, which explained why he seemed so much more responsive than normal, with whimpers and pants flowing steadily through his mouth. He only got louder as he began to slowly push himself further into my mouth, stopping every few inches to retreat before pressing further.

“God, I need to do this more often. No back talk, no whining.” He said in a low tone under his breath, beginning to settle on a steady rhythm.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t think of anything except how fucking good it felt to be useful again, to feel him struggling to hold himself back as he started to more aggressively fuck my mouth. My eyes could barely stay open, but I needed them to. I needed to see him in the dim light of the streetlights that peered through the window.

He looked so beautiful, so perfect, and so mine. Feeling him slide back and forth against my tongue revived memories from long before and reignited my longstanding desire to do anything to please him. In all his caretaking, I was worried he might have forgotten how to control me.

But he hadn't.  Thank god, he hadn’t.

“Come on, little girl. Earn your fill.” He whispered, burying himself in my throat and holding me against the headboard. I only lightly choked on the intrusion before my body complied, swallowing him further until my lips were pressed against the base of him.

Suddenly, Spencer withdrew, beginning a brutal, dizzying pace. Now, my eyes couldn’t stay open, rolling to the back of my head as I used my hands to steady myself against his thighs. The sobs trying to escape felt more like moans, and they shoved Spencer over the edge he’d been riding in his caution.

“That’s it. Take it.” He barked the instruction, looking down at me and smiling, “Don’t you dare spill any of it, do you hear me?”

My answer was stifled against him, just the way he wanted it to be. And with a few more rough thrusts, Spencer buried himself as deep as possible. I swore my heart synchronized with the pulsing against my tongue as his seed spilled down my throat.

I hollowed my cheeks, trying to drain every last drop from him as he finished. It had its desired effect, and Spencer grabbed my hair and forced himself deeper one more time with a growl. “Good girl.”

Once he had enough, he pulled out of me with a satisfied grunt, waiting just a second before clumsily falling onto the bed beside me. I laughed as he hit the pillows, obviously too tired to even reposition himself in the disastrous sheets.

“Thank you, daddy.” I spoke in the silence, gingerly cleaning the spit that had dripped down my chin.

“Fuck.” The curse was muffled in the pillow, but I understood it well enough. He seemed more concerned when I started to sink down into the sheets again, reaching a tentative hand out to him.

Finally rolling over, he grabbed my arm and guided me closer. “Come here.” He said with the tenderness I’d grown used to over the past few months. He turned towards me, apparently not ready for me to sleep on my side just yet.

He brushed my hair from my face, lifting the sheets to look at the now mostly healed wound. I hated it when he looked at it. It just reminded me that I’d never be the same girl he first met. Every time he saw it, he would remember that day. I didn’t want to think about it.

“Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

But even with the insecurity and anger in my gut, I wasn’t lying when I answered. “No, I’m fine.” My heart was so full, my body relaxing for the first time in so long. I was just so unbelievably happy to be together again. Even if it wasn’t like last time, it was still just as wonderful.

“I’m a little better than fine, actually.” I admitted with a bright smile.

Spencer hummed something in thought, but then winced. “Do me a favor.” He mumbled, rubbing his eyes and wiping a heavy hand over his face.

“Anything.”

“Kick my ass in the morning.”

He was caught off guard by my response, which was a full-hearted laugh that was too loud for how close the two of were. But I couldn’t help it, it was just so Spencer to still be punishing himself despite the fact that nothing bad had happened.

Once I calmed down enough to talk, I turned to him with a devilish grin. “I don’t wanna.”

Then were both laughing, and Spencer pulled me close to him until he could rest his chin on the top of my head, curling up against my side. “Spoiled brat.” He whined, running his hand through my hair and down my arm.

When I smelled the whiskey on his breath, the guilt hit me just as hard as any of the pleasure. I'd been so excited to get to experience this with him again, I almost forgot the reason he didn’t want to do it in the first place.

He just didn’t want to hurt me. He just wanted to make me happy.

“I just wanted to be with you again... I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.” I whispered, pulling the covers up so that I could hide my shame beneath them.

“I wanted to be with you, too.” He reassured me, half asleep and barely able to talk but wanting to get the words out. “I know it’s important to you, but I need you to know I would be with you even if I never got to touch you again.”

“Please never stop touching me.” I quickly replied, a genuine worry in my eyes.

But when Spencer glanced over, he just laughed, “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

“No? Even when I get pregnant and have a big ol’ belly?” I playfully answered, bringing his hand to my stomach and pressing it against the side that still remained intact.

The familiar position caused a shift in Spencer’s body language, and suddenly he was even more insistent on being impossibly closer. “You’ll still be irresistible to me.” He said against my hair, running his fingers lightly over the unmarked skin of my lower stomach.

“We’ll see, I guess.” I mumbled, not realizing that I said it aloud until I heard his confused reply.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” The defensiveness in my voice was terrifyingly transparent, and I hoped that if his drinking made him forget anything, it would be this conversation. “Go to sleep, drunk ass.”

“I need hugs and kisses first.” He complained, rubbing his nose against me in a way that should have been irritating instead of adorable.

“Spoiled.” I grumbled, reaching a hand up to play with his hair. I turned to kiss his cheek through the smile that was plastered over my cheeks.

Already half snoring in his sleepy state, he got out one more cringe worthy joke before he succumbed to his exhaustion. “What’s good for the goose...”  

“...is good for the gander.” I finished for him, before taking the advice and following him to sleep.

 —————————————————

| Part 18 |

[theworstjedi]

Backalley Medicine.

The heavy smell of blaster fire settled on the back of Friyr’s throat, making him cough. He was bleeding. He could smell the rusty smell under the sting of laser cauterized flesh.

He kicked the blaster he dropped away from the security officer’s prone body. He’d pistol whipped a good-sized concussion into her, but he didn’t want her to start blasting again when she came to.

Friyr’s fingers shook as he pulled a burner holo from inside his robes. The pads of his fingers fed him too many details about the way the cheap plas felt weird against his skin. The seams of where it had been melted togther bothered him at the best of times, but his mind was racing through sensory input at miles a minute, as though the fight was still happening. Unable to slow down.

“Sudas,” he mumbled as he punched in the frequency by muscle memory.

The buttons were stiff and slow, and the Jedi cursed again before he got the number right. It rang in a tinsly tone once before the holo flared to life. The light flare made Friyr’s head dance with pressure points.

“I need a doctor or something,” he said without wating for a greeting. “Some contact I was talkin’ to drank somethin’ spiked an’ attacked me. She needs to live.”

“Where are you?” the staticky figure asked.

“I need her to live-- uhhhh-- Sudas.” He  pressed the inside of his wrist to his forehead. He knew it popped him out of frame, but the cool pressure relieved the tension building inside of his head. Kark sighted people.“--Where am I?” He exhaled. “Red-- Red Light. Red Light District. ‘M in the Howlin’ Gauntlet slums.”

“You’re in luck. There’s a clinic on Boonta and one-fifteenth.”

“That’s-- That’s cross the way. Thanks.”

“Force be with you, Knight Illust--”

Friyr punched the disconnect key.

____

Zentra’s body was heavy. She was slipping. His arms were insufficiently skinny and his chest was narrow. Illustratum was built for running from one moment to the next. He wizzed away before life’s teeth caught up at him. He wasn’t durable, and he was woefully aware of this as Zentra’s body weighed the Jedi to the empty street pavement. He stumbled forward blindly, darting into the street before his arms could fully fail and running across it with the recycled wind in his ears.

The metal-pave of the other side caught his sandal, a droid screamed behind him, and the world tipped. Friyr’s heart fell into his mouth as the moment slowed itself amidst the panic. His arm holding Zentra’s legs had stretched out as though to stop the ground rushing up. They both lurched to a stop mid motion as the Force’s arms caught them both midtumble and lowered them both down to the metal ground.

Cold. Scuffed. It did bad things to his skin that cold sweat didn’t allieviate, but Friyr didn’t linger. Had to move on. Had to move on. He was vaguely aware of being on his knees (haha) and unthinkingly was digging his hands into Zentra’s arm pits and dragging backward aimlessly. His need to keep moving quenched the terror of being blind and lost in a world so many used their eyes to navigate.

“More to the right, Jedi.”

Friyr’s shoulders relaxed as the grumbly layers of Zentra’s wan voice flushed into the air. He didn’t allow himself to stop, but he did pause as she stirred. Grunting to pick herself up witha few choice Huttese words.

“I hate to say it, but I’m glad they didn’t get you. Where-- where did they go?”

Instead of answering, Friyr lifted under her pits until the weight of her rose. She stumbled against him, grasping for purchase on his arms. His breath staggered for a second, but Friyr stayed steady.

“That might be a liddle bit better.”

She sagged against his shoulder groaning and cracking the pain in his chest open with a fresh mallet. But she was here, and something frantic inside of Friyr’s chest settled with a finality. The body he held, the Force murmured, was a corpse already. The Force lingered. Over her, like a buzzard and in other people who saw them.

People didn’t spare the two a second glance. And Friyr - who was used to wide berths normally - could feel the tension of their repulsion to death and violence pricking at him. They emptied several blocks. “We’re goin’ to the clinic on Boonta. Tell me where to go. You c’n pull my clothes in a certain direction if you can’t talk. It’ll be slow, but I’ll eventually figure you out.”

Her hair tickled his cheek as she nodded. “Okay, Jedi. You’re facing the right way.”

She walked, both of them clinging to each other the way they were clinging onto life. Zentra was slower than he was. For every two steps his heels scuffed into the metal, she took one and a half. They ambled, like a  two headed akk. Their pulse was too slow. The lukewarm stale air around them was growing too cold. But Friyr was determined.

“Where are they?” she asked again.

“Where’re who?” Friyr asked as calmly as he could between clipped breaths.

“There were monsters, and I couldn’t see you anymore, and one of them-- lunged at me.”

Friyr winced as Zentra’s body shuddered. He wanted to tell her the monsters were dead. Sheilding her from the processing of her own horror the way one might shield a child. But Zentra was no child, and he needed her sharp.

“You had a bad trip,” Friyr said with a  heavy heart. “The water bottles’re spiked with whatever made the other two shooters go crazy.”

Zentra let loose a string of profanities. “Aren’t you a Jedi? Can’t you feel that stuff?”

“I-- The Force didn’ tell me until you’d already-- I think this is how the Force meant to show me.”

“You’re so bad at your job, the Force needed me to-- Kark. You remember what happened to those other people? The drug bleeds them, Illustratum. It bleeds them.”

Friyr remembered. He nodded silently.

“And you’re just okay with that?”

Friyr responded shakily. “Me personal? I don’ know what ‘m okay with. I trust in the Force and--if she’s takin’ you back,” he sighed a hot dry breath. “then its your time, Zentra. Not a thing I c’n do to stop it. But I need to know what you know, we can stop other people from..."

There was only the scuff of their boots for a few precious seconds on the metal.

“We’re almost there,” Zentra said softly.

Her voice below his ear was meek and he could smell the traces of stim coating the air. Hospitals smelled clean, but there was nothing more pungent than the shacks that took in bodies on Nar Shaddaa. Friyr had to fight down bile to stop his stomach from rolling.

“Jedi?” she asked, turning Friyr’s thoughts from morbidity.

“Mmn.”

“If you end up in a story, make my part a good one. I took down two gangsters and a Hutt ‘fore I went down. Real blaze of glory stuff.”

Friyr laughed shakily. The sound escaping his lips dislodged something in his throat, making his face flush hot and his brain shut off in a doorway that smelled recklessly chemical. He scrubbed at his cheek with a sleeve to wipe away any tears, but his face was dry.

“Hey! We need help!” he shouted into the darkness. The rest of Nar Shaddaa soundlessly shouted the same words back through the Force

___

“Kark, you wanna scare everyone else in here more or what? Think you’re the only one who’s having a bad night?” the doctor had said, then had shoved his body into a bed and something up his arm.

And Zentra-- Zentra was somewhere to his right. This had been both a relief and a torment once the Force around her started to sound like death.

“You must be pretty jumped up, guy. The amount of pain killers you’re on should’ve put you under an hour ago,” she sounded like she was talking through a wall. The world was-- a radio out of tune.

“No, I feel ‘em,” Friyr responded delayed. “I just-- when did she die?”

“She’s stable,” the doctor who had told him to shut up when he came in, sounded tired now. “Remember? Your girlfriend’s stable, and you were shot in the chest four times. You need to save your strength worrying.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.” She had been investigating the murders with him and would’ve hated any insinuation she and Friyr had known each other tangibly. “You’re a bad doctor,” Friyr mumbled.

The Force ate at the edge of his soundscape, pressing his broken cheek against the pillow.

“I’m a bad Jedi,” Friyr mumbled even more quietly.

“Why is everyone in the slums half-crazy before they get here?” the doctor muttered. “Even the Jedi’re loony.”

Somewhere in Friyr’s tired brain, he new she would’ve dismissed him had he not the robes and lightsabers to proove it... He was.... fading... to the hum of...... narcotics......... slugging through his veins. He could almost.................................... see them if he tried. But he...... could still hear...................................................................... Zentra’s song............................................................................................................ fading. Faster than he ..........................................................................................................did.

...........................................................................................................................

“What the fuck is going on?” The doctor sounded urgent.

............................................................. “Hemorraging? .......Impossible......she.. stable! She was just stable. I need twenty mils of..............”

Zentra sounded wet, and the air was rusty, like the inside of a body without the body smell. ....... Friyr’s brain at delay supplied that a ‘hemorrage’ was a lot of blood. ............... He bet Sahley could’ve told him.......................

“We can use her parts for someone else....”

...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Why were hospitals always cold when you woke up? Not that he was complaining. Air against his bare skin had always steadied him. Friyr couldn’t feel his fingers, but he could flex them. The short nails scraped into his palm jaggedly. Ah, well. There went his acrylics. They had cost a lot. Friyr idly wondered how much Zentra must’ve cost on the black market without stopping to think where he’d learned the knowledge that she was to be recycled.

The air smelled like every cheap cleaner in the world and like security agent insides. He should know, he used that brand and Zentra had died on his watch.

He bent his arm. Much like getting stiff doll limbs to marrionette, Friyr’s body responded jerkily. The needle in his arm was tight. Frankly, the mental numbness just meant the traumatic parts had passed; he could work again for a little before it caught back up to him.

He paused. Realizing for a second that he hadn’t been bare when he came in. His fingers came up to touch his chest. Instad of skin, gauze snagged at his finger pads in that skin-crawlingly rough texture. It took all of Friyr’s willpower not to yank them off. As if on response, his chest ached deeply. Sudas, he felt pulverized.

“At least the guys’ll find the scars hot when you get back out there.”

Friyr’s head snapped to the sound of a familiar Core Wolder voice to his left, and his chest ow.

"What’re you doin’ here?” the Jedi whimpered despite himself.

“Why’d you think HQ sent you here? I’m apparently an organ harvester lookin’ to make a clean run, Investigator Illustratum.”

Friyr frowned at the allusion to their mutual disingenuity and shushed.

“It’s fine, everyone’s gone. You and your contact were the last of the night. The doctor went to clear her head.... Who did that to you?”

Friyr tilted his head grimly to the right where--- Zentra had been and the smell of her citrus cleaner blood remained.

The undercover Republic plant whistled. “No kidding? Your contact ambushed you? We really need to vet these psychos properly. I thought she was just Cartel.”

“She... was.” Friyr puased, loathe to try and unpack how wrong the past-tense sounded. His tongue dragged agaisnt his dry lips instead. “She drank something that drove her up the wall--” Friyr tried to gesture with an arm, but they wouldn’t lift without a fresh nauseating roll of pain.

Ah. Reality. Welcome back.

A warm hand rested on his forearm. “Take it easy.”

Friyr shook his head without thinking. “I have work to do.” A fearful sweat popped into existence along the craig of his skinny shoulder bones. “I hate hospital beds. You know that. And--?” Friyr wore at the sheets beneath him with his broken nails. They were the kind of soft that only threadbare brought.

“And--?”

“There’s a guy who died from Howlin’ Gauntlet a little while back. Outside of territory. He was stabbed, but a sniper got him or somethin’.”

“Ah-- heard about that one. There was no holovid feed of it happening or something? All the cameras had been taken offline. It was probably just some gang killing, honestly. Everyone’s got a slicer these days. Probably some guys looking to digitally flex a little on the Gauntlet.”

Friyr shook his head at the expense of another nauseated roll. “I think-- I think it’s connected. Too much is goin’ on with that sector. I gotta rule it out myself.”

The other agent exhaled, and there was a few beats of silence before his clothing rustled. Friyr listened to the other man tap tap tap. A digital chime of confirmation. “I can get the body here for you to do your uhh-- thing. One of our guys’ll move it. Pretend it’s a part scrap or something.” Friyr winged at the phrasing. “Do you need help with it?”

“I don’ think I can stand by myself.”

“I’ll help you piss, then we can do your space magic. But first--” The agent began fiddling with something that pulled at the line in Friyr’s arm. The tugging sensation made him curl a lip. There was a pressurized hiss and the fiddling stopped.

“Goody!” Friyr rasped in a highly disaffected manner. Perhaps the first time in a while he hadn’t been enthused about another man talking about his dick. “Also uh-- start puttin’ recalls or warnings out about the bottled water or something.”

“Bottled water? Why?”

“It’s what she drank.”

“Force. Okay. I can tell field agents, but we can’t go public with this.”

“But--”

“None of that Jedi talk about morals,” the agent cut Friyr off. “If you expose the lead, the guy’ll know he’s been fingered. You should lay low for a while.”

The fight left Friyr’s body. His neck rolled back onto the pillow. His veins were warm and tingly. “I hate that,” was all he managed to say beneath the outrage stuck in his throat. Partially for the dead people he’d met this morning, for Zentra, and for every person on Nar Shaddaa looking for a way off of it. ... Partly because he realized that pressurized hiss had been the SIS agent dosing him with more pain meds.Then sleep collapsed onto his small abused body like a ton of bricks in that ramshackle slum clinic.

[scapegoated]

Monumental [Kaid/Oz]

They sailed across the Stillwater Sea on their way to the Crystal City once again, its glittering reflection almost unbroken on the surface, like a mirror. Kaid munched on some of the mushroom jerky the new ferryman Cheech had given to him as he gazed through rose-coloured spectacles. The Dwarf ferry driver puffed up and blew into the sails with quite a waft of some kind of smoke—piloting the craft same way his predecessor Merren did—propelling the boat across the glass-like surface.

Merren's snack mix had been a little bit more to Kaid's taste than the dried mushrooms, but, well, what can you do? The Daddies had elected him as a government official and so the Warlock doubted that the former ferry driver had much time for making copious amounts of munchies.

Hans and Charlie were kicking back in the small boat, watching the clear water.

It wasn't too long before they arrived in the port and jumped onto the docks. If they had thought the city was thriving the last time they were there, they were mistaken—it was easily twice as bustling this time, and their fans were out in full force. The Daddies were notorious, and that hadn't changed.

Saving a city does wonders for your reputation.

Kaid didn't like to let it go to his head too much, preferring to be a little less infamous, especially with his continued... interest in the Crystal City. Speaking of which...

"Hey guys, do you mind if we, uh... head to the Temple District?" Kaid asked Hans and Charlie, darting his eyes to avoid eye contact. "Maybe we could try and be a little more subtle, too?"

Hans was sauntering in a satisfied manner, his posture tall. Maybe basking in the praises of the fans a little bit? For such a sneaky Rogue he could sure draw attention, Kaid thought.

"No problem, Kaid. Wouldn't want to keep you from your BF." Charlie grinned and nudged him with an elbow. "Can't tone this down though." He gestured to Hans, whose red cape was billowing, a severed and preserved Drow priestess head on each hip.

In fact, subtlety was quite out of the question, as they would soon find when they arrived in the Temple District. They found that their modest group statue was gone. The one that had been constructed soon after they eliminated the Crystal Cult from the city, effectively saving it from destruction.

In its place was something new. This was way bigger. The smaller monument had been replaced with a huge metal sculpture of the three of them, easily twice their height. Posed in the midst of battle, the three of them looked heroic and magnificent.

That being said, the posing was a little... unusual, for someone aware of the group dynamic. To start, their tallest and most imposing, Hans. Giant metal Hans was crouched at the bottom front, daggers ready to strike. Looking intense, of course, but still. 

Charlie was next up, the surprisingly beefy former Ranger, now Blood Hunter. Dealer of massive damage. Giant metal Charlie had an arrow knocked, bow pulled taut, about to loose. That typical aloof and relaxed expression on his metal face.

Last, typically found in a corner to cover his back, or about 120 feet away from a threat, was the Tiefling Warlock Kaid. Metal Kaid was posed at the top of the monument, his hair still long, hands casting a familiar spell. Looking… actually kind of badass? Little, real Kaid squinted upwards. Hold up a second, did this monument look kinda handsomer than would be accurate?

"Huh, that's interesting." The Warlock heard Charlie, who was taking a look at the affixed plaque’s inscription.

"What is it?" Kaid jogged over.

"Look here, 'Sponsored and built by Oz, the Shepherd of Ermath.'" The Dhampir pointed out, his chill expression curling into a little smile.

Hans crossed his arms, looking at the inscription and then back at how the statue was posed. He threw a little side eye at the shorter Tiefling, "I see how it is."

Kaid threw up his hands, flushing a little. "Look there's some clear favouritism here... and I'm not mad about it," he declared suddenly. As much as he liked flying under the radar, he was honestly extremely touched by this masterpiece.

Charlie clapped him on the back and Kaid jumped. "Go find Oz. Let's hit the bar, we'll meet you there!"

"Crystal Mug. See you there," Hans nodded Kaid's way. He turned and his cape swirled around him. God that guy was cool. Charlie gave the Warlock a wink and a lazy salute as he strode to catch up with the taller Half Elf.

Kaid took another admiring look at the massive piece of art and then hustled off to find his favourite Cleric.

The Warlock guesstimated that it was about evening time so he headed directly for Oz's cottage. Knock or unlock. Knock or unlock... he fiddled with the key around his neck on the way over. The one Oz had given him last time.

Unlock. Came a command inside his mind.

Kaid sighed slightly. The voice of his Patron was harder and harder to ignore.

Look Zathog, I'm not soliciting relationship advice from you.

...

The staticky and warped “silence” spoke volumes.

You know what? Unlock sounds alright. Kaid thought better of pressing this issue, palming the key, and flipping it towards the lock in a little flourish.

He opened the door noisily, trying to make it obvious that someone was coming in. Kaid coughed. "Honey, I'm home...?" he tried the phrase on for size. Fuck, that sounded dumb—

Too late to overthink it, the familiar and beaming face of Oz popped around the wall from the living room, toothy grin widening as he visually confirmed the situation. "Kaid! You're back!"

"It's me, haha, in the flesh, it's so good to see yo—" he had been awkwardly turning to shut the door and found himself interrupted by a tight hug.

Oh my god, why do I ever leave? The fleeting thought came to him as he relaxed, momentarily loosening the taller Tiefling's grip to turn to face him and return the embrace.

"From your letters I wasn't sure if you were heading back here at any point, or just going to send me another message telling me you almost died..." Oz's expression looked amused, but Kaid could tell there was some legitimate concern there.

"I didn't want to worry you, but it's been rough. For me. I'm not as strong as Charlie and Hans." Kaid recalled a couple of near brushes with death, in the ziggurat, against the Dracolich. "I wouldn't be here if it weren't for them."

"Well, we should celebrate, then!" Oz smiled. "Where are our other heroes?"

"Actually, I came to whisk you away to the bar. They're waiting for us! But, uh, first I wanted to say something." Kaid paused briefly, taking a breath, "Thank you, for the monument. I didn't know you were into such grand gestures."

"For the heroes of the city? It's nothing." Oz winked. Kaid could always tell, even with the one eye scarred and unopening.

"You know what I mean, Oz." Kaid grabbed his shirt lightly then pulled him in for a kiss.

  They weren't as late to the bar as you might have expected, but maybe not as punctual as Hans or Charlie would have liked. And it was hard for them not to get started… the patrons of the bar, I mean, when all the Dwarves at the bar were supplying the Daddies with drinks.

"Ozzie! Egg boy!" Charlie waved them over to the corner table. There were already a few empty glasses in front of him.

Oz shot Kaid an amused look. Egg boy?

Uhh, I'll explain later, came Kaid's telepathic response.

They slid into the booth, and Oz put an arm over Kaid's shoulders. "Welcome back to town, Daddies! I see you're being treated right already."

Raoul plopped two more glasses down on the table, sliding one in front of each of the Tieflings. Kaid eyeballed the size of the mug. What an absolute unit.

"Cheers, to your return!" Oz raised his glass, and the three Daddies toasted with the Cleric.

"Cheers, to your fine work on that monument," said Hans, starting the second toast and finishing his drink.

"Fuck, yeah, dude," Charlie nodded at Oz. "It's massive! How do you even make something that size?"

"Time and effort," Oz chuckled. "Plus, you've been gone a while, I had some free time on my hands." He squeezed Kaid's shoulder.

The smaller Tiefling took a big gulp of his drink, pointedly avoiding making a quippy comment for once in his goddamned life.

"What can we say, we've been pretty busy saving the world," the Rogue answered confidently. Raoul was already bringing over the next round of drinks. Kaid was not going to be able to keep up and keep his wits.

"No doubt! Tell me all about it! Kaid leaves out most of the juicy details in his letters. I suspect that he doesn't want me to know how much trouble he gets up to."

That was all it took to get Charlie and Hans into the tales of their battles, infiltrations, and espionage in the stretch since they'd left. It had been an eventful period, and the two strongest Daddies wasted no time getting into it, complete with gestures and re-enactments.

Charlie had undergone a complete transfusion, and transformation to a Blood Hunter. They'd faced off against hordes of the undead, against a Lich—not once, but twice! (Though, to be fair, the second time was because they botched the job the first time. Phylacteries are tricky business.)

They had gone on a side quest to the Faewild... maybe? That may have been a dream or a mass hallucination. But… then again they did have some souvenirs to prove it.

Dodging lightning through the desert, making deals with Djinn and dragons. Infiltrating the Vampire city stronghold. Collecting vials of exotic blood via Vampire B&Bs.

Oh wait, the vials… That struck a chord of fear into Kaid's heart, but at the moment he was too far gone to remember why.

They'd gone deep into the snowy mountains and made allies with a Storm Giant to take on a Dracolich, and then they'd gone deep into Kaid's mind, to the darkly Eldritch yet still glimmering halls of Glamathyst.

As their power grew exponentially, so did the dangers. At this point, everyone was quite drunk, and the whole bar was tuned in to the tale. Kaid figured that they were just about to become even more infamous here, as this epic was sure to make it out to husbands and wives and children in the Crystal City.

"Oz," Kaid whispered dizzily into Oz's ear, "we're legends."

Kaid remembered Oz kissed him then, but the next thing he knew distinctly was curling up in a cozy bed at home and drifting off to sleep. In between: darkness, stars.

  "...d? Kaid?" Oz was lightly touching his shoulder. The Warlock grimaced slightly, head pounding.

"Are you alright? I had to carry you home yesterday." The Cleric sounded amused yet somewhat concerned.

"Ughh... remind me to stick to cocoa next time." Kaid rubbed his eyes, trying to ignore his churning stomach.

"We probably should have cut you off. I'm used to drinking with my work buddies and they go hard. Also, they're Dwarves."

"Nnnhmmm," was about all Kaid could manage.

"I'm going to make some coffee, come down when you feel up to it, okay? Or do I have to brew up some Remove Curse for this hangover?" 

This time Kaid felt an otherworldly chuckle in his head, which made him even more queasy than before.

"Mm—be back—" is all he accomplished, before staggering off to the bathroom.

  Kaid stared down at the coffee he was slowly sipping.

"You're looking a little less green," Oz remarked. "Feeling any better?"

"Mmm, a bit. Better than getting sliced six ways to Sunday or being blasted to unconsciousness by freezing Dracolich breath."

"Most people couldn't draw that comparison from personal experience."

"Ugh, sometimes I wish I couldn't either."

"And yet... when are you leaving?"

Kaid sighed, "There's still things I want to do... need to do, in spite of myself. It's scary, but the power... has appeal." He looked up seriously, and found Oz staring at him with his good eye. It wasn’t a judgmental gaze, but it was evaluating.

"You have good friends. You take good care of each other... even though it often seems like you're protecting each other from bears, or rather, dragons that you didn't have to poke."

"Oz, you're not wrong," Kaid caught himself smirking a little bit, then tried to look serious. "Look, uh, I have something I want to talk about... but I don't know if the time is right. Or if it's right for me to ask."

Kaid pushed down the wavering feeling in his gut, trying to blame it on the hangover rather than nerves.

"Oz. There's a big battle coming. That I know for sure. It's going to be dangerous, and I'm afraid. There's so many variables I can't account for, and I hate those risks. Right now the only things I'm certain of in my life are my team... and you. I don't want to be apart any longer than we have to."

The Warlock took a big gulp of coffee.

"I want you by my side."

[bitchinlyras]

years that have gone, and years that will come - a mileven soulmate au

so this is my contribution to the stranger things big bang! it’s a soulmate au where you are born with the ability to feel the other’s emotions/pain. it was betaed by the wonderful @stardustsantiago​ (thank you!), and here you can find incredible fanart by the beautiful @raesberri​. alternatively, you can read it on ao3. i hope you all enjoy! get ready for some angst ;))

PART ONE: BEFORE

The pain had hardly been bearable before Mike had met her, but after — when she is gone — that is the definition of unbearable.

He had grown up with a constant ache of pain, an ache of panic, of loneliness. Never his, always hers. He’d been sure his soulmate was a her for as long as he could remember, despite knowing that some people could have a soulmate of the same sex, his definitely wasn’t.

His was a her.

He knew the difference between their emotions, he wasn’t really sure how he knew, he just did. One was his, and the other was hers.

When he was young, barely talking, that’s when he first felt the staticky flutters that were her emotions spike and become so vivid and real it was like someone was drilling into his arm, but it wasn’t his arm, it was her arm. But he could feel it, and it felt so real, he’d sat up in bed and screamed at a volume seemingly impossible for a child of his size. Ever since that night, the emotional connection between Mike and her (whoever she was) was strong. He could feel her every emotion, even when her heart just palpitated too fast.

It was unusual to have such a strong connection with your soulmate so young, unless you knew them from a young age, usually your connection with them didn’t become clear until you met them.

———

At age seven, Mike asked his sister (who was twelve, which to a seven-year-old is practically an adult), “Can you feel your soulmate?”

They were sitting on the floor of the living room, close to the TV so they didn’t have to get up off the couch and walk all the way to the TV if they wanted to change the channel.

Nancy shrugged, “Sometimes, but not very often… I’m only twelve, I just probably haven’t met him yet, I’ve got loads of time.”

A sudden terrifying question found its way into Mike’s mind, “What if you never meet your soulmate?”

Nancy glanced back into the kitchen — her mother inside it, cooking dinner for the whole family — and thought of her parents. “Some people never do, so they marry the wrong person for the wrong reasons because that’s easier than to continue to search for the right person.”

Mike sat there in shock of what his sister had said. What If he never found her?

“Now, scram,” Nancy said, shoving him lightly, “I’m trying to watch something.” She turned up the volume knob on the TV and Mike reluctantly left the room.

He walked up to his own room and shut his eyes hard. I’ll meet you, he thought, and he hoped she could hear him.

———

At age eight, he began watching the girls in school, not in a creepy way, just to see if their faces matched the emotions he could feel — they never did. He took out a book on the science of soulmates, which wasn’t very helpful. No one really seemed to have any solid answers to about how they worked, something to do with atoms and stardust, which to an eight-year-old (even one who read at a ninth grade level) sounded ridiculous.

———

At some point during the autumn of 1980, he found himself alone in the kitchen with his mother, helping her bake some muffins for Nancy’s bake sale (or something along those lines, he hadn’t really been paying attention). He watched his mother as she carefully filled up the patty pans, somehow managing to get every single one exactly even, which baffled him.

“Mom?”

“Hmm?” She doesn’t look up.

“How do you know when you’ve met your soulmate?”

Karen almost dropped the bowl of mixture. “You’re a bit young to be thinking about that, aren’t you, Mike?” She replied, after a moment.

Mike pulled himself up onto the kitchen counter. “I was just wondering, because what if I just see them in the street and then never again? How will I know it was them?”

Karen put down the bowl of mixture and looked at her tiny son sitting there on the kitchen bench, his legs barely dangling over the edge he was so small. He was young, too young to be worrying about things like this.

“Michael, one day, you’re going to meet a girl, who will be different from any other girl you’ve ever met, because she will be the girl meant for you. And maybe you won’t know right away, but it won’t take you long to work out, you’re a smart kid.”

Mike thought about what his mother said for a moment, it made sense, then he nodded and hopped down from the bench, leaving the kitchen.

“Michael!” Karen called out after him. “Do you want to lick out the bowl or not?”

Mike hurried back to the kitchen.

———

Sometimes the pain, sadness, scared or loneliness (or a melancholy mix of all four) was too great. Mike would lie on his bed and focus on his breathing and heart rate. He’d be able to feel her heart, as if beating next to his, and attempt to sync them.

“One day, when we meet,” he’d whisper, staring at the ceiling, “I’ll make you feel happy and safe. I promise.”

Somewhere, not too far away, a scared girl was sitting with her knees drawn up to chest all alone in a dark room. Every part of her hurt, but she could feel an emotion that wasn’t hers, and if she knew the word for it, she’d call it empathy.

———

In late 1982, and throughout ‘83, Mike began to get terrible headaches and often felt he was getting a nosebleed when he wasn’t. He was placed on numerous medications as the headaches were interfering with school, but nothing worked, because they weren’t his, they were hers. They weren’t just normal ones either, they were monster headaches, so Mike came to the conclusion that they were being caused by someone. The amount of fear and pain she felt had to be because of someone. Adults didn’t listen when he told them the reasons behind the headaches, not even the doctor believed him, because having that strong of a connection just didn’t happen.

One night, after nursing a particular painful headache, Mike laid in his bed. There had to be a reason for him being able to feel her so strongly, it had to be a sign of something, but of what?

At that exact moment, he felt sudden rush of fear and panic. He sat up in bed, his own heart race quickening.

Save her.

He had to save her.

———

He spent many days during the summer of 1983 biking to neighbouring towns and searching for her. Of course, he was too nervous to go up and talk to any girls around his age, so he watched them from afar, trying to picture how someone who has lived with fear and anger for so long would look. He was not successful, all the girls he saw looked (and sounded) too happy, and if there was one thing his soulmate had never felt, it was happiness.

Operation Save His Soulmate wasn’t going perfectly to plan, because it was impossible to save anyone if you didn’t know who or where they were.

It had occurred to him that maybe she was on the other side of the world, in some far off place like Australia or Russia, but something — instinct, or maybe just hope — told him that she had to be close. That had to be one of the reasons he could feel her so strongly. So when her emotions were running exceptionally high, he’d run outside and shut his eyes. He’d try to block out noise and thoughts, and focus solely on her emotions, in a hope that they would direct him, like a needle of a compass.

It didn’t work, he’d often find himself walking into the forest, and then the emotions would die down, from flames to embers, and they would no longer direct him. One time, they led him all the way to Hawkins Energy Lab; he’d stared at the place through its fence — it seemed to leer over him, its grey, prison like building was anything but welcoming, and definitely not the sort of place a twelve-year-old girl. He sighed and walked home.

Operation Save His Soulmate wasn’t going to plan at all.

———

November the Sixth, 1983. He’ll remember that date for as long as he lives, the day when everything began. He could feel something was different, and he should’ve realised that something was about to change. Maybe that way, he could’ve saved Will and the others from a whole lot of pain. He and the rest of the boys were into their eighth hour of the campaign, when he felt it — her panic, fear, her heart racing at the speed of light. She was screaming, he knew that because he could actually hear her, which was a first. Over the years, he had gotten good at compartmentalising her emotions — she’d been feeling anxious all day, but he’d managed to ignore it — but this? This was too much.

He pressed his hands over his ears to try and block out her screams, but it wasn’t working, the screams were inside his head; he crouched down, his eyes shut tight as his own heart began to beat into overdrive.

He was vaguely aware of the other boys crowding around him. “Mike? Mike! Are you okay? What’s wrong, Mike?!”

He didn’t reply, he couldn’t, he was too scared that if he did he’d vomit. He had no idea what was going on, whatever was going, she was scared it was going to kill her, and he was scared it would kill him too.

Suddenly finding the ability to control his own limbs again, he raced up the basement stairs, and dashed into the bathroom. He lent over the toilet, and wretched into it.

He sat there, slumped against the wall, trying to control his breathing. The screaming had stopped, but the fear and panic was just as evident.

But there was a new emotion, something mixed into the fear and the panic — excitement.

“Mike?” It was Lucas, knocking on the bathroom door. “Are you okay?”

Mike stood up slowly. “Y-yeah, I think so,”

He unlocked and opened the door, a concerned Lucas stood in front of him.

“Just one of my headaches, I’m okay now,”

Lucas didn’t look like he believed him.

“I think I might just have had food poisoning or something, as well,” Mike added, seeing Lucas’ sceptical expression.

“You sure you’re alright? Because we can get your mom—”

“No, not my mom. I’m fine, let’s just keep playing,” Mike walked past Lucas and headed for the basement. Lucas watched him for a moment, something was wrong, and Mike wasn’t telling him. It frustrated Lucas, because above all, all he wanted was to help his friends. He sighed, and followed Mike down to the basement.

Not too far away, a girl was running through a forest; her bare feet hardly touching the ground she was running so fast. She was free, for the first time in forever, and adrenaline was coursing through her veins. She ran into the night, away from her captors and towards her soulmate.

———

Mike awoke the next morning to a day like any other, except for one difference (he would soon discover that everything was different, but that’s for later), he felt — or rather, she felt — anticipation, an emotion he’d never known her to feel.

Anticipation when he woke up, curiosity as he got dressed, exhilaration as he ate breakfast, and anticipation once again as he brushed his teeth.

However, all care for his soulmate’s new emotions dissolved when Chief Hopper told them Will was missing; that’s when he realised everything was different.

Dustin and Lucas were babbling about Mirkwood; Mike sat in the middle, annoyed at the two of them, but mostly shocked — things like this just didn’t happen in Hawkins.

In a voice so deep and stern that they couldn’t help but be intimidated by him, Chief Hopper told them not to interfere, to go home, and not to do any detective work, despite their many protests.

“What are we going to do?” Mike asked the second they were out of earshot of Hopper.

“You heard the chief,” Lucas said.

“So we’re just going to do nothing?” Mike asked incredulously.

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Lucas replied.

“We can’t really do anything big,” Dustin said to the two of them, “Did you hear Hopper? He sounded like he’d kill us if we don’t do what he said!”

“Hopper wouldn’t do that,” Mike protested.

Dustin rolled his eyes. “It’s called a figure of speech, Mike.”

Yet that night they found themselves out in the forest by Mirkwood, the rain thundering down.

Out there, in that same forest, she was there also.

The darkness was almost oppressive, and the forest for the first time in their lives felt small, as if the darkness was closing in on them.

The rain continued to pour down, the drops like bullets against the ground; a crack of thunder echoed suddenly through the trees.

The further they searched, the harder the rain came down, the darker it got, and the more helpless the whole situation began to feel.

It was Dustin who voiced his concerns first, “Guys, I really think we should turn back!”

Lucas fired back with a retort, which was Mike’s signal to tune himself out.

He could hear something… or rather he could hear someone.

Less than ten feet away, a girl was crouched in a bush, her heart racing as she watched the boys in front of her; her eyes fell on one of the boys, and she couldn’t say what it was about him, but a part of her was drawn to him, and before she knew what she was doing, she had rushed out of the bushes and was standing there in plain sight, waiting for them to see her.

They spun around, and she winced in the sudden beam of light from their torches, but there she stood, chest heaving, rooted to the spot; terrified.

Mike stared at the figure in the torch light, and it took him a second to process that she wasn’t boy, but a girl with a shaved head.

He stared at her, but it wasn’t the strangeness that made him stare, the shaved head, the large yellow Benny’s Burger shirt, or the fact that she was out in a forest in a storm in the middle of the night, there was just something about her, that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“Hello?!” Lucas said loudly to the girl, stepping towards her; bringing Mike back to reality.

The girl stepped away from Lucas, scared and unsure.

“We’re looking for our friend, have you seen him?” Lucas asked slowly and deliberately.

She didn’t reply, looking wildly at the other two boys, her eyes finding Mike’s.

He could see her emotions in them.

She was scared. She needed help.

He was so preoccupied in his own thoughts and own goings-ons that he didn’t put the fact that what his soulmate was feeling and what the strange girl was feeling were the same, together.

“Maybe she doesn’t speak English,” Mike offered.

“Or maybe she’s one of those savage children who are raised by wolves,” Dustin said in awe.

“I really highly doubt that, Dustin,” Mike replied.

“Look, whoever she is, she isn’t Will, which is who we need to find.” Lucas said firmly. “Let’s keep looking,”

“No,” Mike found himself saying, “we should go back, Dustin was right, it could be dangerous, and plus we’re not going to find him in these conditions, and —” he looked over at the girl “— she’s lost, we should help her.”

“We set out to find Will, and that’s what we’ll do!” Lucas responded stubbornly.

“We’re not going to find him like this, Lucas!” he gestured haphazardly to their surroundings. “Let’s go back to mine and figure out what to do there.”

“C’mon, Lucas, we’ll go tomorrow after school,” Dustin suggested.

Lucas sighed, he knew when he’d lost an argument, and he wasn’t afraid to admit it. “Okay, we’ll go,” he began to trudge off in the wrong direction.

“Uhh, Lucas?” Dustin called after him.

“Yeah?”

“It’s the other way.”

“Oh…” Lucas turned around and walked quickly in the correct direction this time, Dustin following after him.

Mike glanced at the girl. “Are you okay?”

No reply.

“Do you want to come with us?”

No reply.

“Are you cold?”

No reply.

“Here, you can have my jacket,”

No reply.

Mike shrugged off the jacket and approached the girl carefully, she took a step back, her eyes wide and fearful. He held the jacket out, she hesitated, before taking it and draping it over her shoulders. She nodded a thank you to Mike, a small smile ghosting her face.

“Mike!” Dustin called out. “Hurry!”

“Come with me,” Mike said to the girl, “I’ll keep you safe, I promise.”

He began to walk, slowly, so she’d know to follow.

She watched him, and after a moment — for a reason unbeknownst to even herself — she followed him.

———

Lucas rolled his eyes when he saw Mike emerge from the forest, the girl following him.

“We don’t know anything about her, this is a bad idea,” he said, as if the others were idiots.

“We know she’s scared and lost,” Mike argued, getting onto his bike.

Lucas sighed dramatically, but didn’t reply otherwise, as he hopped onto his bike.

Mike looked back at the girl, who was standing beside his bike looking lost and confused. Mike patted the back of the bike. “Sit here.”

She stared at him, her eyes wide, as if she’d never seen a bicycle; Dustin and Lucas both exchanged looks.

Mike patted the back of the bike again, and she took a tentative step forward before swinging her leg over the end of the bike, she grabbed ahold of Mike’s waist (so tightly that he could feel her fingers digging into his skin through his clothes) to pull herself up.

“Yeah, just like that,” he said encouragingly.

“She good?” Dustin called out, gesturing to the girl with his head.

“Yeah, I think,” Mike replied, turning his head to look at her, but her expression was just the same as before: wild, desperate, lost.

The boys began to peddle, and Mike heard the girl inhale sharply, and her hands tighten even more around him.

“It’s okay!” he said to her, his words carried away with the wind. “It’s okay!”

She didn’t reply.

———

“Eleven,” she murmured, pointing at herself.

None of the strangeness of the fact that she had a tattoo and a number for a name really processed in Mike’s mind; maybe that’s just what having your best friend go missing does though, everything else, no matter how odd, just seems pointless to fret over.

They’re in his basement and she’s sitting in a fort he constructed for her.

“Well my name’s Mike, short for Michael. Maybe we can call you El for short,” he suggested, kneeling in front of her.

Eleven nodded quickly, and Mike felt a sudden stroke an emotion that was almost like happiness, but not quite, come from his soulmate.

“Well… goodnight El,” he said to her, standing up.

She looked up at him, her large brown eyes shining in thanks. “Night, Mike,”

He smiled at her before he dropped the edge of the blanket down, and it fell down over the fort, hiding El from the world.

El listened to Mike’s footsteps as he climbed the stairs out of the basement; she heard the door at the top shut and she began to cry, and no amount of joy at the fact that the nice boy had given her a letter name, rather than a number name, could stop the tears. She was overwhelmed by everything that had happened in the last 24 hours — the bath, the monster, escaping, Benny, killing the two men, running and hiding, and finally being found by Mike.

She cried until it hurt, and she let out 12 years of pain with those tears; outside, the sky was crying too.

Upstairs Mike lay in his bed, unable to sleep; all he could think about was the strange girl in the basement (the strangeness of her was beginning to hit him); then he began to feel the pain of his soulmate. She was crying somewhere, he could tell, and he suddenly found tears on his own cheeks; he began to cry harder, not just because of what she was feeling, but because his friend was missing and he had no idea where he was or how to help him.

Downstairs, Eleven began to cry harder, as a sudden wave of helplessness that did not belong to her washed over her.

———

PART TWO: DURING

He looked over the edge of the cliff, at the still blue-black water, and tried to block out the cries of Dustin, Troy, and James.

He breathed in deeply.

This is how it ends.

He couldn’t let them hurt Dustin, he had to jump.

He might be okay, maybe.

He wondered where El was. He hoped she knew he was sorry.

He wondered how Will was. He hoped he was okay, he hoped they’d find him.

Breathing in deeply, he jumped, and he was falling, and it was both the strangest and most terrifying feeling he’d ever experienced.

Not far away, Eleven felt it too, this infinite helplessness, and her breath caught in her throat. With anger coursing through her veins, she stopped Mike mid-fall, and she felt his shock and bewilderment as she lifted him back into the air and onto the cliff.

Mike, shaken from his jump and rescue, suddenly felt the power of a storm inside of him, and he looked up, and there she was.

Eleven. A storm in a girl. Anger and power in human form.

And it hit him as she pushed James back with her mind and broke Troy’s arm, it was her. She was his soulmate.

“Go,” she growled, and her voice held such power, such command that Mike doubted there was a soul alive that wouldn’t fear her in that moment.

Troy and James ran, and Dustin chased after them, yelling gleefully.

Mike felt it before he saw it: she was weakening. She fell, and he ran to her.

“El,” he murmured, taking one of her hands in his.

He’d been drawn to her from the start, this strange girl that he;d found in the woods, but the tenderness he felt for her in that moment was indescribable.

Tears filled her eyes and her lips trembled. “I opened it.” she confessed, and the fear she felt that Mike would hate her, physically pained him. “I’m the monster.”

Mike smiled, wondering how she couldn’t see how amazing she was. “No.” he said firmly. “No, El, you’re not the monster. You saved me. Do you understand? You saved me.”

Gently, he pulled her up into a hug, wrapping his arms around her tightly. He felt he soften and relax almost immediately. Dustin joined them, wrapping his arms around both of them, and the three stayed like that for a long time, holding each other, warming each other.

———

PART THREE: AFTER

All at once, the flashing of the lights and the screaming of El and the monster stopped, leaving the boys in a room filled with a sudden eerie silence.

The pain had stopped too, the pain that had been so great that Mike thought his heart was going to be ripped from his chest with it.

Mike looked up, his eyes searching for El through the tears.

She wasn’t there.

Mike stood up quickly, “El! EL!” he called desperately. “ELEVEN!”

Dustin and Lucas called for her too, but Mike could barely hear their cries. He was trying to focus, to find El’s emotions, but the part of his heart he constantly felt her was empty for the first time in years.

“No,” he whispered to himself, his eyes shut tight. “El, where are you?”

“Mike,” he heard Lucas murmur, and he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Mike’s eyes snapped open, and he jerked Lucas off. “No!” he shouted fiercely, tears running down his cheeks. “No!” he repeated louder. “We have to find her!”

“Mike,” Dustin choked, “please, Mike,”

Mike looked from Lucas to Dustin wildly, at their upset faces, before shutting his eyes once more, and searching for El’s emotions with a hopeless desperation.

Nothing.

Mike opened his eyes to see Lucas and Dustin both staring back at him, concerned, and he broke.

“She’s gone,” he sobbed, and he felt as if the world was splitting down the middle and he was falling endlessly through it.

Dustin rushed to hug Mike, practically crushing him in an embrace; Mike felt himself sob uncontrollably. “She… I can’t,” he choked, “I can’t feel her anymore. I can always feel her, and now I can’t.”

Lucas walked over and wrapped his arms around the pair of them. He and Dustin exchanged a look of anguish, as their friend cried his heart out between them.

———

He couldn’t sleep that night, he lay awake, his eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Mike couldn’t describe the incredible emptiness he felt now that she was gone, like a part of him had died with her.

But that was the thing.

It had, because that’s what soulmates were: a part of you.

And she was gone, dead.

He’d promised to keep her safe, to make her happy all those years ago, and he’d failed.

Mike shut his eyes, and felt the tears well up in them.

“I’m sorry, El,” he whispered to the darkness, his voice trembling.

He opened his eyes and the tears rolled down the side of his face. “I’m so sorry,” he rolled over onto his side, and shut his eyes tight, begging for sleep.

———

He must’ve fallen asleep at some point, because he woke up the next morning determined not to think or cry about El at all that day. Will was alive, and he was supposed to be happy, and he hated himself for not being happy. What kind of friend was he?

He sat up slowly, his body aching. He felt old, as if he’d aged 8 years rather than 8 days since all of this had started. With heavy steps, he walked to the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror above the sink; his eyes were red and puffy from crying last night, and the rest of his face was so pale in contrast.

He splashed his face with water and shut his eyes, taking a few deep breaths.

Don’t think about her, don’t. Think about Will.

And then he felt it — a spark, a heartbeat that didn’t belong to him.

He opened his eyes and stared back at himself in the mirror, a grin spreading slowly across himself face.

She’s alive.

———

He practically raced to the hospital after wolfing down down his breakfast so fast he almost choked.

“Lucas! Dustin!” he shouted into his SuperCom as he pedalled to the hospital. “Get to the hospital! Now! Over!”

He burst into Will’s room, half expecting for Lucas and Dustin to be there already — they weren’t, just Joyce, snoozing in a chair in the corner. She practically jumped through the roof at the sound of Mike entering.

“Wha— What…” she looked around, disoriented.

“Oh, sorry,” Mike apologised, but Joyce didn’t seem to process this.

“Will! Will,” she got up and walked over to Will, lying in the bed.

Will, who’d been reading a book, but it down and smiled at his mom, as she stroked Will’s hair.

“You’re here, you’re here,” she whispered, her eyes filling up with tears, and Mike felt as if he was watching something private, and looked away.

“I’m here, Mom,” Will murmured, and she nodded, a single tear falling down her cheek.

Wiping her eyes, she looked up at Mike. “Hi, Mike,” she said, and Will grinned broadly at him.

“Hi.”

“You’re here early,” Joyce commented, as Mike perched himself on the end of Will’s bed. “I suppose you and the other boys will spending a lot of time here,”

Mike nodded, but his mind wasn’t on what Joyce was saying, it was on what El was feeling — cold, alone, scared.

“And Mike,” Joyce said to him, sensing that he wasn’t entirely there. Mike looked up at her. “I’m sorry about Eleven, I wish I could thank her for what she did for me,”

“Thanks,” Mike gulped, and Joyce smiled kindly at him.

The other boys arrived within the next ten minutes; like Mike, they entered loudly and breathlessly.

“Mike!” Lucas gasped. “What is it?”

Mike glanced quickly at Joyce and shook his head. “Later.”

It wasn’t until two hours later, when the boys were finally left alone.

“Okay, Mike, tell us what’s up,” Dustin said immediately.

“What do you mean?” Will asked, looking from Dustin to Mike.

Dustin shrugged. “We don’t know, Mike was acting like something had happened earlier,”

All three of the boys were looking at Mike now, who much to their amazement, was grinning from ear to ear.

“El’s alive.”

There was a pause as the boys processed this, and Dustin was the one who broke who the silence. “What? How do you know?”

But before Mike could even begin to answer, all three of them were bombarding him with questions.

“What?”

“How?”

“Where is she?”

“How do you know?”

“Then what happened to her?”

“I can feel her!” Mike blurted out, once he there was a gap in their questions. “I can feel her,” he repeated, and they stared at him, eyes wide.

“What do you mean?” Will asked, confused.

“El’s his soulmate,” Lucas told Will in a playful tone, and Mike felt his cheeks redden.

“Whoa,” Will looked at Mike, “really?”

Mike coughed loudly. “Uh, yeah,”

“If you can feel her now, why couldn’t you feel her before, when she disappeared?” Dustin asked.

Mike shrugged. “I dunno, killing the Demogorgon would’ve taken all the strength out of her, she must’ve been unconscious.”

“So what do we do? Should we tell the Chief?” Lucas suggested cautiously.

“I… I don’t know,” Mike replied honestly.

“He helped us last time,” Dustin commented.

“Yeah, but only after we had worked everything out,” Mike pointed out, “so I figure, we should work it all out, and then tell the Chief.”

Lucas nodded in agreement. “How do we know where El is though?” he asked; all heads turned to Mike again, and he gulped.

“I think—” his eyes met Will’s “—I think she’s in the Upside Down.”

———

And so began Operation Save His Soulmate 2.0. Every spare moment the boys got over the next week was spent discussing ideas and plans — mostly at the hospital with Will — with the adults under the pretence that they were planning a rather excessive campaign for Dungeon’s and Dragon’s.

The only problem was that they only way into the Upside Down was through the gate, and no matter what they schemed up, none of it seemed plausible enough to actually get them in and out Hawkins’ Energy unnoticed.

But still they soldiered on, drawing maps and pouring over library books about the history of Hawkin’s Energy, amongst other things, in the hopes of finding a secret tunnel (“Top secret military bases always have secret tunnels!” Dustin had insisted). Mike and Will had even managed to worm some information out of their siblings about the Demogorgon, in case that would give them a clue on how to get in.

Mike, however, felt an urgency that the others did not; it was hard to do nothing but research when he could every single emotion that was running like electricity through El, and they were never good, always fear, isolation and helplessness, and has the week wore on, Mike began to find himself feeling helpless too. Yet he knew he couldn’t give up, he’d promised her. He’d promised he’d save her all those years ago, and he;d praised that they’d go to the Snow Ball together, and he was not going to let either of those promises be broken.

———

Their breakthrough didn’t come till just over a week since Will’s return. It was his first day back home, and the boys were sitting in a circle in his living room, various books, notes and diagrams spread out in front of them.

“All I’m saying,” Lucas said in a hushed whisper, not wanting Joyce to overhear, “is that El had to have gotten out of the lab somehow, and that’s how we’ll get in.”

It was the same thing he’d been saying for days now, and Mike countered it with the same thing he’d also been saying for days now. “She’d just opened the gate though, the whole place was probably in chaos, it wouldn’t have been hard for her just to slip out unnoticed.”

“By using a secret tunnel,” Lucas retorted.

“We’ve searched the perimeter of the lab, we couldn’t find anything.” It was true, Dustin, Lucas, and Mike had spent a couple of hours riding around Hawkins’ Energy a few days ago with the hope of finding a clue, but they discovered nothing except the fact that the lab had somehow upped their already extensive security, making it impossible to sneak in there at all.

“But what if the tunnel doesn’t come out till later? Like somewhere in the forest?”

It was the first time he’d made this point, and the boys were silent for a moment.

As usual, it was Dustin who broke it, “It would take days to search the whole of the forest for a secret tunnel,” he said practically.

“But what of it’s our only way in, and our only way to save El?” Mike piped up.

The boys all shared glances, “Then I guess we have to do it,” Dustin murmured. “If only El could use her powers to communicate with us,” he added as an afterthought, but less than a split second after he said this Mike felt a shock of energy run through him, and the phone began to ring loudly and shrilly.

Will stood up to answer it, but Joyce, who’d been in the kitchen, go to it first.

“Hello?” she said into it; there was a pause before she repeated herself, louder as if the person on the other end couldn’t hear her or wasn’t replying.

Will looked around at all the boys, his eyes wide. “I used the phone,” he breathed, “when I was in the Upside Down, I used it to talk to mom.”

All four of them madly rushed over to Joyce and the phone, gathering around her.

“Mom, I think it might be for us,” Will said, “a— a friend from school,”

But Joyce looked disturbed, “It’s a child, they’re just breathing, Will,” her eyes were quickly filling with tears, memories of when it had been Will on the other end coming back to her. Then, as if something had startled her, she jumped and dropped the phone.  Mike grabbed for the swinging phone, “Eleven?!” he called desperately into it, his own eyes beginning to tear up.

He felt hope burst from his chest, her hope.

“Mike?” whispered the voice on the other end, and a tear trickled down his cheek, and it was no longer just her hope he was feeling, but his too.

“El, we’re coming, okay, we’re gonna get you out of there, I promise.”

Hope and happiness blossomed through them both. “Promise,” she whispered, her voice wavering ever so slightly.

Mike gulped to stop himself from crying. “Of course, El,”

But before she could reply, a bolt of electricity rushed through the phone so sharply that Mike dropped it in surprise; it hung upside down, swinging pointlessly, as he grabbed for it again. “El?!”

No reply.

He looked at the yellow phone, it was fried, blackened, well and truly dead.

His hands shaking, and his vision blurring with tears, he hung the phone up, and he looked at the others, who he realised had been staring at him the whole time.

“It stopped working,” he choked, and Joyce scooped him up into a motherly hug, and Mike cried softly into her for a few moments, before letting go, clearing his throat loudly and wiping his eyes, feeling embarrassed.

Dustin and Lucas were looking at him with pity, but Will wasn’t looking at him at all. He was looking from the boarded up hole in the wall to the alphabet on the wall to the phone, a broad grin spreading across his face.

Everyone was staring at him now, and he finally turned back to them, grinning still. “I’ve just had an idea,” he announced triumphantly.

The other three boys glanced at each other, before looking back at Will. “What is it?” Lucas asked.

“When the Demogorgon got me, it might’ve come through the gate, but it didn’t take me back through it. We were in the shed one minute and the next we were in the Upside Down.” Will paused, before looking up at Joyce and asking her, “You saw it come through the wall, right?”

“The- the monster, yeah,” Joyce stammered, looking bewildered.

“So did Jonathan,” Will commented.

“So?” Lucas asked, confused.

“So maybe we don’t need to go through the gate to find Eleven — the Demogorgon could create, like, temporary gates, what if El could do that?” Will explained with enthusiasm; the other boys nodded, beginning to understand his idea. “And we could do it here,” he continued, “because our house is so close to the gate, and the Demogorgon has come through here so many times, I think it means that…” Will trailed off, struggling to find the words.

“That the veil between the two worlds is thinner here,” Dustin finished for him.

“Yeah, exactly!” Will grinned.

“The more the dimensions are crossed, the thinner the veil between the two of them gets, in that spot, until you use it too much,” Dustin paused, frowning.

“And then what happens, Dustin?” Lucas asked with concern.

Dustin gritted his teeth. “And then it opens, permanently.”

“Like the gate,” Lucas murmured.

“Yeah, that Eleven opened,” Dustin replied quietly.

They all looked at each other for a moment.

“We have to risk it,” Mike said firmly, and his eyes seemed to dare them to argue with them; they all nodded solemnly.

“Mom?” Will murmured to Joyce, who had been looking wildly between the boys.

She looked down at her son. “Yeah?”`

“Could we do that?”

“Is it to help save Eleven?” She asked.

Will nodded. “Yeah.”

“Then explain to me whatever it is you’re doing, and let’s do it.”

———

Over the next few hours, all their old plans and ideas were completely scrapped, and a new one was revised. The only problem was that their plan seemed to solely consist of Eleven creating a temporary gate, and getting herself out, despite the fact they had no proper way to communicate with El and convey this to her.

“We could try use the lights, like Mom did with me,” Will suggested.

Mike nodded, turning to Joyce. “Okay, what do I?”  

“Just talk,” she said, “talk and hope she hears you,”

Taking a deep breath, Mike stood up and faced the black alphabet on the wall.

“El?” he called loudly. “Eleven?” he could feel his heart beating in his head and his palms felt sweaty and his mouth suddenly dry. “Are you there?”

He waited a moment.

No response.

“Flash the lights once for yes, twice for no,” he added, as he realised he had no clue if El could read or write.

No response.

“El?” he called again, and his voice shook slightly.

He shut his eyes and breathed in deep, searching for her in his heart.

Nothing.

He could feel nothing, and he wanted to scream.

But it wasn different, he wasn’t feeling an empty void, but rather a blocked one, like she was somehow stopping him from feeling her emotions.

“Mike?” And it was like Will was calling him from far away rather than a couple of feet next to him.

He opened his eyes. “Can you feel her?” Will asked softly, walking up to him, and gently tugging on his sleeves.

Mike shook his head, and held back his tears. “No,” he breathed, and he saw the boys exchange looks.

“Mike, honey,” Joyce whispered, “we can do this another day.”

Mike shook his head vehemently. “It’s, it’s like she’s blocking me or something, like she doesn’t want me to feel her,”

“Maybe she’s scared that she’ll open another permanent gate,” Dustin suggested carefully.

“Then why’d she call?” Mike asked, and nobody replied.

They were all lost for ideas, and remained still for seconds, maybe minutes, standing, and sitting, just existing.

Dustin, the serial silence breaker, spoke first. “Why don’t we just call her?”

His suggestion, so wildly simple, took the others a moment to process. “Call her?” Lucas asked. “How?”

“By calling the number from this house to this house,” he shrugged, as if it was obvious.

It sounded stupid for a moment, but that was the magic of Dustin, to be able to solve the most complicated of problems with the most painfully simple solutions.

Joyce looked at the boys. “Well, I guess we’ll need a new phone then.”

———

Mike glanced over at the others, then back at the phone; his heart pounding as he dialed the Byers’ number into their phone.

It rang, and rang; Mike stood there, his left leg jiggling and his right hand anxiously twisting the cord; all of sense seemed hypervigilant, as if not being to sense Eleven had made him able to sense everything else so much more.

“Please pick up,” he murmured so quietly he could barely hear himself.

The phone stopped ringing; there was silence.

“El?” he breathed.

“Mike,” came her delicate reply.

“Eleven! We know how to get you out!” he told her excitedly, “We just need you to—”

“Mike,” she interrupted, and her voice trembled, but there was a firmness and seriousness to it that made him stop speaking. “I know what you’re going to say,” she said quietly, “I’ve been listening.”

“And you can do it?” he asked hopefully.

Silence.

“No,” she finally responded.

“No, El, you can, I know you can. I’ve seen what you can do it, and you can do this. I know it will hurt, El, I know, but,” he paused here and glanced back at the others, before edging away from them and dropping his voice, “we’ll be together again El, we can go to the Snow Ball, like we promised.”

She didn’t reply straight away, but he could tell she was crying, and it occurred to him that he could feel her again; she was no longer blocking him.

“Mike,” she finally responded, “there’s something outside, like the Demogorgon but worse. If I try to open a gate… it could come through.

“Worse than the Demogorgon?” His chest felt hollow with shock, and he heard the others exchange whispers.

“Yes,”

“How long has it been outside the house?”

“Since I last talked to you, I think it sensed my powers,” El told him quietly.

“El, you can’t stay there, you’re in danger!” He said hotly. “You have to come back, we can fight it, together.”

“Fight what?” Dustin asked, sounding slightly scared.

“Mike, it could kill us all,”

“It won’t. We’ll fight it. We’ll run. Together.”

“Mike…” she whispered, unsure.

“Nothing bad will happen. Promise.” he told her firmly.

“You can’t promise this. You can’t know,”

“El, please, you have to come back.” His voice broke on the last word and he once again blinked back tears — he seemed to be crying a lot lately.

“Mike,” Joyce came from behind him, and he turned around to face her, “put me on the phone.”

Mike handed it to her without protest, and stood back with the boys; Dustin reached out and squeezed his shoulder comfortingly. “She’ll come back,” he said to Mike, and Mike gave him a smile, before turning his eyes back on Joyce.

“El, honey, you can do this, okay? You are the bravest person I’ve ever met, did I tell you that?”

At those words Mike felt something in his chest that El had never felt before — that feeling one gets after bringing complimented, a mixture of pride and modestly, happiness and embarrassment — one of the world’s greatest feelings.

“Whatever monster is there with you, it won’t get you here. The second you get here, I’ll drive you far away from it, and you won’t have to fight it or think about it. Grown ups will take of it, because that’s what grown ups or supposed to do — protect children, and I know grown ups haven’t protected you before, darling, but they will now. You just have to come here, and let us help you, let me help you. I owe you so much.” Joyce’s voice throbbed with emotion, each word weighed down with it.

Joyce was silent as El replied to her and Mike searched her emotions for what she she might be saying.

She was scared, which really could be a yes or a no.

“Whenever you’re ready, honey. You can do this.” Joyce said tenderly into the phone, and Mike’s heart leapt. She was coming.

Joyce hung up the phones and turned to the boys.

“Well?” Will asked, as if the temptation was killing him.

“She’s coming,” Joyce told them, “she’ll come through any moment now; everyone be ready to run to the car, okay?”

The boys all nodded silently. They all stood in the Byers’ living room, unsure of where to look and how long they’d be waiting.

Mike felt other emotions quickly mix in with the fear — anticipation, anxiety, hope.

She was getting ready.

The lights began to flash wildly, and they looked around desperately for Eleven. A dark void-like hole was beginning to form on the wall with the alphabet, and with it a feeling inside Mike’s chest as if his heart was being stretched like a rubber band. He clutched at his chest as the rubber band was stretched tighter and tighter, and felt as if it would snap at any moment. He shut his eyes to block out the dizzying array of lights but the colours still flashed before him as his chest grew ever tighter and the hole ever wider.

Then the screaming began.

It was the same scream from way back when they’d been playing Dungeons and Dragons, before Will had gone missing and they’d found Eleven. It was the same scream from when she’d first opened the gate, except this time it wasn’t only in Mike’s head — they could all hear it, and it was the sword of sounds, so piercing it sounded as if it would slice them in two.

They crouched together at the edge of the living room, their hands over their ears, as a wind picked up and the lights above them began to shake. A shadowy figure appeared in the dark hole, their mouth open in a scream.

And as suddenly as the chaos of the wind and screaming and light and the void hole had started, it stopped; the rubber band in Mike’s chest snapped and he let out a howl as pain coursed through his body like electricity, and Eleven tumbled out of the hole. She let out a whimper and lay on the floor, her knees drawn up to her chest, and began to sob, her pain pouring out.

Mike stumbled over to her, his body trembling with her pain, whilst the others looked at what the void hole had become, and exchanged fearful looks with each other.

“El,” Mike whispered, curling his fingers around hers, and caressing the back of her hand gently with his thumb.

“Mike,” she sobbed, and she weakly squeezed his hand. She had blood around her nose and her ears, and Mike realised his own nose was bloody.

“You did it,” he smiled, tears blossoming in eyes, “and I am so proud of you. So proud.”

She gave him the weakest of smiles through her tears, blood, and pain, and they both felt a small spark of hope shine in their hearts — their own, and each others.

“Mike,” Dustin said, interrupting the two, and with a shaking finger he pointed at the hole, “look.”

Mike looked up at the hole and gulped. A large, jagged hole that reached from the top of the wall to the bottom had replaced the void hole, and it revealed the bedroom behind it — but it was different. Colder, darker, covered in vines, and fleshy webs. It was the Upside Down, and a deep rumbling was coming from it.

“Boys, you need to go get in the car,” Joyce told them, attempting to keep her voice steady.

“But Mom—” Will tried, but Joyce gave him a look, and he shut his mouth, beckoning Lucas and Dustin to follow him to the car.

Joyce quickly scooped Eleven up in her arms. “You’re such a brave girl,” she whispered to her, as they walked out to the car, Mike trotting along beside them, “That was amazing, what you did.”

A ghost of a smile appeared on El’s face. “Thank you,” she breathed quietly; Joyce’s eyes sparkled with tears and she smiled.

Mike hopped into the back of the car with Lucas, and Dustin — Will was in the front — and Joyce lay El across their laps, placing her head gently on Mike’s lap. El reached blindly out for Mike’s hand; he took her her hand in his and he felt her relax almost instantly. Using his other hand he began to gently wipe away the semi-crusty blood on her face with his t-shirt.

Joyce sat in the driver’s seat, her fingers wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel that her knuckles were white; her eyes were glued to the house, waiting for some sort of movement.

A high-pitched noise echoed from the house — a roar, not a scream. It was not a noise made in fear or pain, but rather a noise made in blood-curdling anger. A noise of a predator. A monster.

Then all at once, the entire house caved in on itself, and the only thing left standing was the wall with the hole. They all stared, shocked, as a the outline of a large shadowy figure appeared in the cloud of dust from the collapsed house.

“Holy shit!” yelled Dustin, and his voice seemed to lift the paralysing fear off everyone; Joyce put the car in reverse, slammed her foot on the pedal, and they shot backwards at an alarming rate.

“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!” Dustin cried, as Joyce spun the car around, and drove away from her ruined home as fast as possible.

Dustin, Lucas, and Will all turned in their seats, to stare at the horror they were leaving behind; Mike shut his eyes and concentrated on his and El’s synchronised heart beats, and the feel of her hand in his.

It’s going to be okay, each beat said. It’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay.

———

One Month Later

Mike fiddled nervously with his tie as he sat on the couch waiting for the others to arrive. Lucas arrived first, and Mike fiddled with his tie.

“Mike, relax, you’re just taking El,” Lucas told him.

“You don’t get it,” Mike huffed.

“Yeah, I know,” laughed Lucas, “you’re gonna—” and then he proceeded to make kissing noises at Mike.

Mike shoved him lightly away. “Shut up!” He told Lucas, his face glowing the deep red that only an embarrassed twelve-year-old could achieve.

Dustin arrived, and Mike fiddled with his tie.

“Mike, you gotta stop, you’re undoing the knot,” Dustin said to him.

Mike let his hands fall to his sides, but continued to move his fingers distractedly.

“He’s worried about—” Lucas made more kissing noises; Dustin laughed, and Mike flushed the red of before.

“You’ll be fine, Mike,” Dustin said with a shrug. “El adores you.”

“Yeah, she’s your soulmate,” Lucas added, less teasingly and more matter-of-factly.

Soulmate. This idea that you were put on this Earth to be with one person. An idea he’d been chasing for as long as he could remember. You’d think the whole destiny and meant-to-be-together bit would help make everything easier, or at least less awkward and nerve wracking. Now that everything was safe — or at least seemed it — he often felt awkward around El; it was strange being placed in a normal adolescent situation with her after everything that had happened, and it had all only ended two weeks ago, but it seemed like a lifetime ago.

The doorbell rang and woke Mike from his thoughts.

“Ted! That’ll be them!” Karen called from the kitchen. “Get the car ready!”

Ted replied with a humpf, and Lucas and Dustin made kissy noises at Mike. Mike went to answer the door, swatting Lucas and Dustin away as if they were flies.

“Hi Will! Hey Mrs Byers,” Mike greeted them brightly, and then his eyes fell on El. “H—hey El,” he said, his voice faltering slightly.

Her hair had grown enough in the past 6 weeks for El to use a headband; she had a simple black one in her hair, and she was wearing a satiny pale purple dress.

El smiled gently and her deep brown eyes sparkled. “Hi Mike,” she said in her soft voice, and she felt his heart flutter. He loved the way she said his name, the way she emphasised the ‘k’. It never failed to make him feel jittery and happy.

“You look… really pretty.” he said, surprised how it easy it was to tell her that.

He’d never seen her smile so wide, she was beaming, and light shone from her eyes. “Thank you,” she murmured.

“Hi Mike!” Will said loudly, a cheeky smirk on his face.

Mike tore his eyes quickly away from El and felt his face go red again — he had a feeling it would be doing that a lot tonight.

“H-hi Will,” he stammered.

Will smiled knowingly, before turning to his mom. “See ya, Mom,” he said.

“Bye, Joyce,” El said.

Joyce gave both Will and El a hug. “You both look wonderful,” she said, giving El a quick kiss on the crown of her head. “Bye, Mike, tell your mom I say,” Joyce said to him, before leaving.

“Okay,” Ted called from the living room. “Everybody ready?”

The five of them piled into the car and Ted drove them to the school, which had been decorated with tacky silver snowflakes on the outside.

The inside of the gym was even worse. Uneven blue and white streamers hung limply from the ceiling, along with a large disco ball, and the walls were completely plastered in the same snowflakes from outside; a huge sign, which had obviously been written by the students themselves, said ‘SNOW BALL’ in block letters had been half-coloured in with white paint, but they must’ve run out of paint, because the rest was clearly done with white-out, and the whole thing was drowning in silver glitter, but it made Mike smile. What better way to start El’s normal life than a tacky school dance?

Mike watched El as she looked around at the gym in amazement, the reflection of the silver snowflakes and the disco ball sparkling in her eyes like stars.

“C’mon, let’s go get some food,” Dustin said, motioning them over to the snack table.

“Do you ever think about anything other than eating?” Lucas asked as he and Will followed him, leaving Mike and El alone.

“Sometimes I think about sleeping,” Dustin replied.

El turned to Mike. “This place is really pretty,” she said genuinely.

He laughed nervously. “That’s one word for it.”

“This is the same place,” she said suddenly, looking around.

“What do you mean?”

“Where we made the bath.”

“Yeah, yeah it is.”

“It looks different.”

Mike looked her and smiled. “That’s what happens, I guess,” he replied after a moment, lost for words.

“I guess,” she breathed, her eyes still holding the stars.

The music, which was boppy, was nothing like the slow, romantic music Mike had been imagining would be playing, and he knew this was a perfect moment to ask El to dance, if the music was actually something one could dance to and not just jump up and down ridiculously to.

They joined the others by the food, and spent the next 20 minutes or so semi-mocking some of the kids who were ‘dancing’ to the music. El, much to Mike’s delight, was laughing, and even joined in on the mock jumping.

The lighting softened and the music slowed down, and Dustin said loudly, “Lucas! Will! We need to go over there for a reason!” before dragging them off to another corner of the gym.

Mike cleared his throat loudly. “Do you wanna dance?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound as awkward as he felt.

El smiled. “Yes, Mike,”

He held out a hand and she took it, and together they walked away from the dark walls onto the gently lit dance floor, when a thought suddenly hit him. “Wait, El, do you know how to dance?”

El smiled mysteriously at him, and placed his hands on her hips and her hands on his shoulders.

Mike smiled, once again amazed by the girl before him. “You do know how to dance.”

“Joyce and Jonathan have been teaching me,” she told him, as they began to dance slowly. “I like it, I like music.”

“You’re… you’re really good,” Mike told her.

“Thank you,”

They danced a few moments in silence, both marvelling in the fact that, after everything, they were at the Snow Ball, together.

“Mike,” El said after a moment, “can I ask you something?”

“Anything, you know that El,” he replied, looking into her eyes.

“Why can I… feel you?” she asked carefully.

“Feel me?”

“What you feel? I can feel it to.” she explained.

“Oh, do you… do you know what a Soulmate is?”

El shook her head.

“It’s like this person… who you have a special connection, an emotional connection with.”

“And you’re that person to me?” she asked.

He nodded. “And you’re that person to me.”

She smiled. “I like that,”

He smiled too, widely. “I like that too.”

A warmth that was both their own and the other’s, blossomed through them, and it would remain with them for the many years of their long life, together.

that was incredibly long, so if you made it through, i applaud you! i hope you enjoyed it :)

[enharmonics-blog1]

examine: an abandoned pokemon nest. two eggs are still inside! they're starting to get cold....

Go in my askbox, and give my muse an RPG-style command! (always accepting)

Oh no!

> Obviously, you have to do something, but what first?

[ Check surroundings / Check eggs / Talk to nearby Pokemon ]

> You’re just outside the Fuego Ironworks in Sinnoh, in a small cave where you discovered this den. There’s some faint static clinging to the area, and a short, blue strand of hair on the nest.

[ Check eggs / Talk to nearby Pokemon ]

> The only Pokemon you see is a Floatzel.

[ Is this nest abandoned? / QUICK SIT ON THESE EGGS FOR ME ]

> It informs you that yes, it’s probably abandoned. It remembers a Luxray used to live here, and so did many Shinx and Luxio, but one day, they all started leaving. The one that lived here was the last one– Floatzel wasn’t aware it had any eggs. It thought it might have seen Luxray leaving earlier, but thought it had to be a different one, this one never left its home often… How terrible to leave its children behind…

[ Check eggs ]

> Still warm, but they’re getting colder quickly. The energy they’re giving off is weak… Now that you know these to be Shinx eggs, you can choose a course of action.

[ Have Floatzel sit with the eggs / Have Ninetales sit with the eggs / Have Arcanine sit with the eggs / Sit on them yourself / Ask Floatzel if there are any Electric-types in the area / Talk to the eggs / Slap the eggs ]

> Floatzel is the furthest thing from staticky, and being near electricity wouldn’t be good for it. Arcanine isn’t an Electric-type either, but he’s warm and gentle, and these eggs need to be warmed back up as soon as possible– the shared egg group helps too. He curls his tail around them, gently pushing them into his belly.

[ Ask Floatzel if there are any Electric-types in the area / Talk to the eggs / Slap the eggs ]

> It thinks on it, but it’s not sure. Remember what it said about the Shinx? It wasn’t just them that started leaving, but all the Wingull, Pachirisu and Shellos left too. … Oh! It did see a Magnemite earlier, would that help?

[ Have Magnemite make Arcanine’s fur staticky / Have Magnemite zap the eggs / Have Magnemite sit on the eggs ]

> You explain the situation and Magnemite is happy to help. Arcanine has become staticky. The eggs should be fine for now.

[ Talk to the eggs / Slap the eggs ]

> They don’t respond. Their energy is still weak, so it would be best to let them recover. 

> There isn’t anything else you can do with the eggs right now. Arcanine is sitting in the nest, Magnemite is floating around the den to continue static-ing Arcanine when needed, and Floatzel is waiting outside, staying away from the electricity.

[ Talk to Floatzel / Talk to Arcanine / Talk to Magnemite ]

“Yes?”

[ Will you be okay waiting here for a bit? / Who’s a good boy? / Sit! / Stay! / Roll over! / Play dead! / Say please! / High five! / We’re going for a walk / We’re going to the vet ]

“Of course. Are you going somewhere?”

[ I’m going to look for their parent / I’m going to look for a Luxio or Luxray / I’m going to the park without you ]

“Alright. … I’ll be alright with guarding them if you can’t find any, though.”

> You head out of the den.

[ Talk to Floatzel ]

“Do you need my help?”

[ Do you know anywhere else nearby I might find a Luxio or Luxray? / Use Hydro Pump on Arcanine, it’ll be really funny / Do these pants make my legs look weird? ]

“Hmm… Erm… I think there are Shinx by Valley Windworks… I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a Luxio or Luxray there, though… The fastest way there is through the river.”

[ Can you take me there? / k cool thx *hops on my badass dragon and peaces the fuck out* / k cool thx *jumps in water and instantly drowns because i can’t swim* ]

“Of course!”

> You head off with Floatzel, and soon return with a Luxio, kept in a temporary Pokeball– unfortunately, it’s not old enough to care for the eggs by itself, but it can help until they hatch. You and Arcanine give it careful instructions, and it carefully huddles up next to the eggs, relieving Magnemite of its static duty.

> You suppose there’s not much left to do but wait.