#I’ve made mistakes in not reading dimensions or descriptions of things before but

[what-the-fuck-khr]

oh yeah I made miscalculations with some khr merch I bought and arrived recently. I’ve made the mistake of not reading sizes/dimensions on things before, but this one is….

I got the largest fucking acrylic stands I’ve ever seen in my fucking life. he’s the same size as a 1/6th figure I had come in recently. I have Bianchi as well. I have to find a place for two of these. and also

on the right, the largest badge I’ve ever seen in my life. it’s the size of my hand. it has a stand, like a photo frame. WHWRE DO I PUT THESE THINGS

[tokoyamisstuff]

Dark Side Of The Moon Ch. 1 - Dark! Loki x Reader

Chapter 1: Speak to Me/Breathe

Chapter Summary: The last thing you remember was being mortally wounded, now having woken up in a completely different reality. And you’d soon need to face the horrors of who would seek you out...

Warnings: Violence, Blood, Suicide Attempt, Graphic Descriptions of Death, Dark! Loki, Spoiler you kinda die but kinda don't

Words: approx. 3800

[Story Masterlist]

Masterlist to my other works right ->Here<-

Lyrics used from the Song: Kina ft. Snow - Get You The Moon

“Y/N, look out!”

The piercing sounds of gunfire nearby made your eardrums ring, yet Steve’s words got through to you nonetheless.

But you were determined to end this, here and now.

Tony was the first one at your side, catching you in his arms before you hit the floor. However, you could only do so much as whimper a silent apology to your friends, who now had to live with the consequences of your actions.

“Why did you do this?!” you heared Dr. Strange yell as he unsucessfully tried to close the deep cut in your gut. Too afraid of what you might see if you’d look at the wound, your glare was locked on the beautiful sky - yes, the sun was almost setting, and it was somehow calming to you that this would most likely the last thing you’d set eyes upon.

“There was no reason to be this reckless!” Steve followed close by, his scolding soon turning into desperate screams. “Fuck. FUCK!” If Captain America himself is cussing, then it’s as severe as you thought it to be.

Your wounds were lethal, that much was sure.

And of course they were right, as always: You didn’t need to play the martyr here, throwing yourself into danger to shield your comrades - well, you did anyway, and there was no going back now.

On the other hand, they were the ones taking a gravely depressed widow onto a dangerous mission. But you did not want your precious friends to blame themselves for that, for it was your own wish.

Dying in an honorable battle was what would send you to Valhalla, after all - where you could finally meet him again, hopefully.

The only one not having spoken a single word up until now was Thor, very well knowing what all this was about. It was no secret that you were sick and tired of how your life had turned out to be, ever since the Infinity War.

You felt empty. Incomplete. Desperate. Hallow.

The God of Thunder had turned his back to you, yet there was still agony radiating from that already broken man. Your almost-brother-in-law was the only one who could possibly understand your pain. Thor Odinson had lost everything: His homeland, most of his tribe, his family and best friend - and soon, you as well.

All this time, you wanted to be strong. For them, who had also lost so much!

But at some point things just got out of control.

“You can’t leave me alone, Lady Y/N! Not you too!” Thor finally whimpered as he fell onto his knees, softly squeezing your hand. “You’re the only thing I have left from him!

So this is what dying feels like.

The bloodloss caused your limps to go limp, and when the pain began to stop and got replaced by numbness, you knew it would soon be time. Your brain lost the remaining control over your body, and you found yourself encoated by pure nothingless.

Only able to listen by their screams, cries and kind words - at least you’d die surrounded by those marvellous people. It sure was a privilege knowing them.

You weren’t afraid - all in all, it had been a good life, after all. 

There were no regrets.

“Shh” you hushed them, using your last bit of strenght so your lips formed somewhat of a most broken smile, forming words between gurling on your own blood.

“It’s alright, I-” you cut yourself off, trying to scream as a last, torturing pain shot through your whole system. “I-I-I’ll-- meet him again...you know?”

“I’m no-not strong enough, please...” Thor cried out like you had never seen him before, feeling a tide of guilt wash over you. “Loki wouldn’t have wanted you to go like this! He told me to protect you, so you could lead a long and happy life!”

Without him? Impossible!

“You gave me a shoulder when I needed it

You showed me love when I wasn’t feeling it

You helped me fight when I was giving in

And you made me laugh when I was losing it”

Yes, indeed: You had been to selfish to keep on living just for the sake of your friends, burdening them with yet another loss.

“I-I don’t wanna go...this was a mistake, I- please...”

How badly did you want to soothe them right now, telling them that everything would be alright and you’d meet them again, eventually?

It was too late now.

Your body gave up earlier than your soul, which had endured and kept on all this time, even in it’s shattered state.

And when Tony’s palm gently closed your eyes, making it easier for you to embrace the cold darkness, the last thing you heared before your senses gave up were startling you enough to almost bring you back to life:

“I’m so sorry, Y/N.”

That voice was familiar, yet it didn’t belong to Loki. Dr. Strange, no- Stephen Strange, your friend and mentor of the mystic arts.

“I don’t have the heart to allow this to happen” he stated frantic, making you wonder if that was a dream of your hypoxic brain or if you were still able to hear them? People tend to say the sense of hearing dies last, after all. “She still has a pulse, even though weak. Hurry!”

Their voices were far in the back, words way too far out of your reach to understand. As if you were an outsider, only observing from a distance.

Your friends were fighting, or maybe discussing something. That much you could make up from their tone, but your mind was too exhausted to make sense of anything.

It felt as if you were already without a body, floating through the unknown like a feather in the wind - not knowing where fate would lead you to next.

Everything was numb - even your pain. It was soothing, somehow.

Because you had been a ghost way before, when you were alive even. An empty shell of a human, acting like they weren’t dead on the inside.

Coherent thoughts, memories, emotions...even the fractions of your own past you had both collected and surpressed. Right now, they were all restrained and pushed far in the back of your very core, where you were finally able to evaluate them without earthly bondings.

Was this heaven, hell - or maybe both or none or them?

____

"Be aware of the limits this tactic has. It’s a very drastic measurement that can most likely be used only once in your lifetime, and it is not guaranteed to work either.”

Stephen’s voice again. You recall that scene, it’s been long in the past...but why are you remembering it now?

Yes, this was familiar. All of you had been invited to the Sanctum Sanctorum, a fitting place to teach about this ancient knowledge.

You clearly remembered that Loki was absent in any of the Doctor’s lessons, feeling that a “puny human” was “unworthy” to teach him, and “it would be nothing new anyway, Y/N, I am a god and the way better wizard, I know it all already.”

What he was about to tell you back then was some kind of crazy emergency-plan: Dangerous, unpredictable and escpecially untested.

“I’ve only read about this tactic up until now” the mage pondered loudly as he picked at his goatee, earning some childish giggles by you and Tony. “So I cannot promise that it will function as planned. The Multiverse is dangerous and acts in unforseen ways.”

“Very reassuring” you had mocked at the time, not really biding the topic any importance or thought ever again.

But now...

The trick sounded way simpler than it actually was, being as complex as it is only natural for something like that, costing a huge prize at that:

Dr. Strange would send any of you who were on the brink of death through a portal, thus leading you into a random dimension of this endless Multiverse.

That dimension, in which your alternate self has most likely died, will gladly accept you as a “replacement”. Some kind of what Peter Parker called a “glitch” will occur, instantly healing all of your wounds - even fatal ones, so you could remain in the timeline that was missing you. 

Yet the consequences of this maneuvre would be unspeakable.

_____

“That bastard...” you gnarled internally, finally realizing why you would remember this of all things after apparently having just taken your dying breath. “He didn’t just-”

Eventually, you realized having escaped death’s grip, slowly beginning to regain your senses - yet still refusing to open your eyes.

“I don’t want to leave this place. My friends -- will I never see them again? No. NO! Life is meaningless. Just let me be with him. Please! Loki...”

“’Cause you are, you are

The reason why I’m still hanging on

‘Cause you are, you are

The reason why my head is still above water

And if I could I’d get you the moon

And give it to you

And if death was coming for you

I’d give my life for you”

Another part of Strange’s lesson echoed in your head, revealing that you were now in fact up on your own.

“Not even I can tell just how much this timeline will differ from what you know. Of course I will search for you right away, but considering the countless possibilities, it might very well be that we’ll never meet again. But you’re alive, and hopefully safe. That’s all that counts.”

Grass tickled your palm as you twitched your fingers, testing the limits of your body, which had literally just tricked death. Suddenly, you felt a stinging pain, almost like lightning boring into your temportal. The origin of this pain remained unknown.

When you finally found the courage to sit up, your flesh still feeling as heavy as lead, you realized that Stephen was most likely wrong: He assumed that you’d find yourself in a place you had a deep connection with, yet that place was unrecognizable to you.

Then why were you here of all places?

Actually, this location was incredibly beautiful, managing to stop the aching in your heart, if only for the fraction of a second.

Your former lover would’ve loved this place.

“'Cause you are, you are

The reason why I’m still hanging on

'Cause you are, you are

The reason why my head is still above water

And if I could I’d get you the moon

And give it to you

And if death was coming for you

I’d give my life for you”

Even though not all of Dr. Strange’s speculations were correct, you decided to stick to his emergency plan: Find as much information about this “new” earth as possible, point out the differences to your initial one, and then contact the Dr. Strange of this dimension.

Two mages working on crossing each other’s path would at least higher the stakes to find your original timeline.

Well, no one could guarantee you that the Avenger’s existed on this timeline, and they could as well be evil in this one...what a weird and horrifying imagination.

Knowledge really was power - that was another thing Loki had taught you a long time ago, and it would prove valuable, especially in this situation.

As you wandered this surprisingly extensive garden and getting lost in admiring the beauty of it’s nature, you found yourself devoid of any weapons. That fact made you slightly uncomfortable, even though your current location seemed absent of any ememies, making a peaceful impression. 

Seemingly there weren’t any evil schemes going on in this dimension.

It basically were only minor differences, at least that was your first impression. At least there were no changes in natural laws or something as big.

“I miss the days where magic and science didn’t mix up like this” you whispered, mainly to yourself as you examined the new, large scar on your abdomen - the only memory left of your “almost-suicide-mission”.

To be more precize: The only thing left from your former life, now leaving you able to start completely anew, wether you wanted it or not.

Sun had almost drowned behind the horizon, diving the sky in a deep orange. Your eyes were still adjusting, yet you could’ve sworn to see the silhouette of a person. It was far away, at the entrance on what appeared to be a palace belonging to this garden.

Apparently, you had invaded someone’s propery, and you could only pray that it was noone important - or worse, a owner who would defend their ground with violence.

You don’t think your earth had a place this...flashy. The castle was way bigger than any you knew on the other timeline. The first difference you had figured out, yet it was only a minor one.

Maybe the headache you were experiencing was from someone making you  out as an intruder?

One thing was sure: You had been noticed, and you immediately were on high alert.

Where to run to or at least hide?

There was a maze made out of bushed parting you and the palace, and since there was no better option, you’d enter it. Talking to that person and convincing them of your goodwill would make it way easier to gain information.

“You may come out” you declared as you made your way, unable to evaluate the situation properly. “I mean no harm. I’m just lost.”

Was it dangerous to be here? Obviously, you were not allowed to be here anyway.

However, when you had finally found the escape to that maze, only several hundret meters away from the building, the person was already gone.

Had your mind just played a dirty trick on you again? Wouldn’t be the firt time it’d betray you like this...

No. You clearly felt someone watching you.

And as soon as your senses had sharpened to your usual self again, you instantly jumped back, gaining some distance to the Citauri that had just appeared behing you.

Shit! You weren’t ready to fight again just yet. Not like this.

And where one of those vile beasts were, many others would appear. You knew that much.

Had Thanos invaded this earth? Oh god, not again...not him. You were so damn tired of those fights, escapes and especially the pain that always inevitable followed after.

Just when it was about to swing it’s weapon at your head, you felt dizziness crawl up your nerves, making you collapse on the floor. Lucky for you, because only like that, the stike didn’t hit you.

Even though having been taught basic magic skills, that certain kind of spell you were unable to fight against - only true masters of the art were able to perform a sorcery that well.

The Chitauri had left your line of sight, yet the other figure from before reappeared in a pace so fast that your eyes couldn’t follow. They sweeped you off the floor just before your head would meet the hard pavement.

“And now you will answer to me, shapeshifter.”

Once again someone robbed you of the control of your life and body, leaving you without a free will.

How long had you been passed out now? You didn’t know and honestly didn’t care either - since you had nothing to lose anymore.

In the meantime, the owner of those lands had dismissed his guards, not wanting to be disturbed as he was left alone with you in the giant throne room.

The apparent ruler of that unclassified location was sitting on his throne, warily observing you from above. You were lying to his feet at the bare floor, every piece of clothing robbed from you and restrained by a pile of chains. He watched every twitch, all breaths you’d take or groans escaping your mouth until you would finally awake.

Oh, how you really were just like he remembered you, with every little detail he had adored.

At long last, you would finally open your lids again, blinking heavily as you took in your surroundings - but when your eyes met certain emerald ones, they immediately sprung wide open, the emptiness in your heart being filled with all kinds of emotions once again.

The man - it was him!

“'Cause you are, you are

Oh, you are

Oh, you are

You are'Cause you are, you are

The reason why I’m still hanging on

'Cause you are, you are

The reason why my head is still above water

And if I could I’d get you the moon

And give it to you”

“Loki!” you screamed from the bottom of your heart. Without a single coherent thought, your legs would carry on their own as your weakened body stumbled in their attempt to climb those stairs.

For both of you, that momend of reuinion had waited far too long.

The god was temptated to approach you, his trembling hands already reaching out to catch your fragile body should you fall - but suddenly, you felt his knuckles digging into your cheekbone.

“Stay away from me, you fake!” Loki yelled furiously as you hit the ground, rubbing your cheek as you tried to understand what just happened.

Yeah, that sure brought you back to reality again, after such a short high.

Right.

That isn’t your Earth - and not your Loki either.

You couldn’t even be sure this world’s Y/N and Loki had the same kind of relationship the two of you had back in your timeline! The only thing you knew was that he knew you from his past, but as it seemed not pleasantly.

Now that you looked closely, he even had less scars, almost looking untouched and pure - like a true, invincible god. Maybe life here had treat him well, unlike his counterpart from your timeline.

He was still wearing that excessive outfit with the golden horns, and much to both your amazement and fear, it seemed that he still possessed theTesseract.

Could it be...

Before you could connect the dots, the king would soon interrupt your string of thoughts. “Drop that disguise, scum!”

Loki kept on degrading you as he paced in front of his throne, brow sinking deeper and deeper. “Don’t think you can somehow appeal to those pathetic sentiments” he explained, “I’ve freed myself from them long ago. Just stop making a fool out of yourself, and maybe I’ll reward it with a quicker death.”

Yet when he saw your most innocent smile, even this Loki would stand frozen in place, deeply in shock.

How he yearned to see it, all those years - to tell you just how sorry he was for everthing he’s done.

No.

He had left all of this behind - to claim his birthright and rule.

“I-I’m deeply so-sorry...that is a mistake” you whimmered with a broken voice, wiping a tear of joy out of your face. “My feelings overwhelmed me, I guess. I’ve never thought to see you again, even if you’re not the same Loki I know.”

Still cowering on the floor, you looked up to him with compassionate eyes, as if he had not just beat you before. You did not dare to make any more, wanting for Loki to try and understand himself.

“A variant?” he gnarled, just like you did when he realized.

No force in the world had allowed him to access other parts of the Multiverse, no matter how desperately he tried - and now fate had literally dropped you in front of his door.

Loki balled his fists in anger, making you flinch as you anticipated yet another blow.

“Dear, I-”

“Shut up!” the God of Mischief shoutet, causing his magic to break free. The walls of the palace were shaking, most windows and furniture having been destroyed. “It’s no use, woman!”

That man was way more powerful than the “puny god” people called names back on Asgard - and his sheer might made you quiver.

Just what kind of monster had he become, and why?

“L-Loki, please...” you tried to appeal to the last bit of humanity  he might possess, and your begging made his guts twist in agony. “You’re scaring me.”

“You better be scared!” he exclaimed, grabbing you by the chin and forcing you to look at him. “No matter what disgracefully weak “alter ego” of me you knew, I am built different. Stronger. Better. Everyone in the Nine Realms fears me, and I desire nothing else! Everything distracting me from fulfilling my destiny and reign over you dull creatures I got rid of. You���re nothing more than an insect I might as well crush right here and now!”

Choking on a sob, he tried to relish that last chance he got to admire you, smell you, touch what he cannot possess...no matter how many universes there may be.

A flood of tears cracked down your face at his words, yet you couldn’t be helped.

No matter what he would say - he looked just like him.

And that was enough for you to feel alive after such a long time of being a walking dead. There had to be a reason you landed right at his home, of all places in this universe. You had a connection, both of you felt it ever since you had been transported here.

"May I ask-” you disrupted yourself, awaiting some reaction. But the conqueror had seemed to have spoken what he thought important to say, not declining your question at all.

Whenever he seemed fit, he could disintegrate you - yet right now, this situation was way too intriguing.

“What happened to myself in this reality?”

Loki swallowed harshly, letting go off of you as he threw you down the stairs. He wouldn’t even bide you one look as he tried to surpress the turmoil of emotion still running through his veins, desperately keeping it from breaking free.

The outcome would always be the same: Suffering, for both of you.

“And if death was coming for you

I’d give my life for you.”

He only ever wanted it to stop hurting. To become unfeeling, since love had always been poisoning his mind, sometimes being gifted with it even though he knew he would never be worthy of anything else than disgust and hate.

And that contradiction caused him to throw away anything good that happened to him, through you. Let it be taken away from him just shortly after finally learning to remotely enjoy.

You deserved the truth, a reason to hate him even more than you probably already did.

Had you only come to his salvation earlier, then he might have been helped - yet now, he was beyond redemption. Broken. Sick. Dangerous.

And when the Chitauri dragged you away, his last words let your blood run cold:

“She died through my hands.”

_____

If you want to get on the taglist (or deleted from lmao) feel free to ask! ♡

Feedback is always appreciated!

[alittlefrenchtree]

Helloooo! Guess who’s back? The Dune notes! yaayyyyy!

ok, chill.

SPOILERS BOOK 2 : MUAD’DIB (Chapters 1-4)

Chapter 1:

I’m still struggling to get all the politic aspects and understand who’s on which side but that’s not what I’m focusing on right now. Once I’ve read the whole thing and had the whole picture, I’ll study all the details of this part of the story.

I loved this quote:

in the French translation, and thought it was beautiful to see Arrakis through Paul’s mind and eyes only to find out that the original quote said stuff like Cheddar-colored. Damn you, American people.

Chapter 2:

Bless you, Muad’Dib, your father and Princess Irulan. Might your words be heard loud and clear on every planet of every universe.

I love, love, love this chapter. This whole conversation between Hawat and the Fremen, the world building made through it and through the Fremen is really good. I don’t think the Fremen has a name because he’s exactly what he describing of his people. He’s only one to serve the whole clan.

Many interesting stuff about the conversation and the scene.

First, I wonder if the Mentat’s abilities can work on Fremens? This part seems to say that they can’t : "But still he did not know what this Fremen wanted and this rankled. Mentat training was supposed to give a man the power to see motives." Then here again : "He said worm. He was going to say something else. What? And what does he want of us?" It’s funny to see how Hawat’s powers seem to be limited after we saw part of what Jessica and Paul were able to do.

"You must make a water decision, friend."

is my favorite quote of the chapter. The whole chapter is built to make Hawat and the reader really understand how primordial the water is. Blood doesn’t exist in the Fremen’s mouth, life is all boiled down to water. They doesn’t seem to care about the Spice either. When he’s thinking in terms of currency, it’s not about the Spice or money, it’s still about water:

"You think we have the Byzantine corruption. You don’t know us. The Harkonnen have not water enough to buy the smallest child among us."

It’s one thing I find fascinating about sci-fi/fantasy writers who are creating whole new worlds in different universes. It’s not only about thinking about crazy new technologies or super powers or anything like this. It’s when they shift the whole logic because context is different and you see it in the smallest details, in ways of speaking, in turns of phrases. It’s where you find so much richness for a fandom. And get so easily immersed in the said new universe. Every time I'll get really thirsty in the future, I'll think about this chapter. And the water decision.

I’m guessing water is one of Dune’s real plot? Every stranger coming to Arrakis comes for the Spice, thinking it’s the goldmine of the planet, the way to conquer it and truly owns it. But it’s not and the Fremen are still the one owning the desert powers because they’re the only one seeing that Arrakis needs to be ruled by water and not by the Spice? I don’t know. But that’s where my guesses are heading at the moment.

About this,

I’m really curious about how they’re going to handle on screen the deep religious roots of a large part of the story. We all know how tricky it can be. Is it going to be tone down? Are we going to see people living in the desert worship a young white male? We’ll see.

Chapter 3:

It’s cute to see how, even if Paul sees himself as a some kind of monster or as something else and undefined, he’s still sensitive to what he sees with his powers of prescience. But it's difficult to get a grip on what he is exactly, and how he feels.

Ok-- wait a minute. Last time I’ve heard about Liet, it was supposed to be a local divinity and now… Liet is Kynes. Ok. If you say so. — does it mean there going to be some kind of competition between Liet and the Muad’Dib? About who has the biggest divine aura? About who’s supposed to lead?

Anyway, what Kynes says, it goes with what I mention earlier. About how all the different people who came on Arrakis have failed to make it a Paradise because they were all focused on the Spice instead of the water.

I love how convenient Paul and Jessica are as characters to introduce the descriptions of every room they step in. You can go wild on details and just be like that’s not me, the bene gesserit/mentat/whatever Paul is things are calling for all. the. details. I should do that. Only write characters who allow me to naturally waste 7 lines of words on the pattern of a wallpaper. Frank Herbert doesn’t do that, but I definitely would.

Again, it’ll be interesting to see how Tim is going to handle the Paul and Kynes’ confrontation/conversation. We’ve seen him touch on these kind of feelings and behavior with The King but Paul seems to require a lot more of everything. So I’m impatient to see.

And I’ve already leaked the quote but let's look at it once more time. Quickest way to prove Timmy is the right cast for Paul.

"In this moment he'd give his life for Paul, she thought. How do the Atreides accomplish this thing so quickly, so easily?"

Because that’s what Timmy does, right? Makes people ready to give their life for him.

Ok about Duncan… We’re back at it, right? He’s not dead until I’ve seen the body. And I didn’t see the body so, he’s not dead. I think? Paul’s abilities don’t seem to be 100% reliable (at least not yet) so even if he believes Duncan’s dead, he might not be. I certainly hope so. My boy Jason deserves more.

I still wonder how the power of prescience is working. Are the blind spots blind because Paul is living through them at the moment and can’t have knowledge of the immediate future OR would they have been blind even if he had looked in their direction long before?

I was also wondering if Paul was going to rely too much on the new dimension of his abilities and how long it was going to take until he realized he made that mistake. It was… quick but I guess it’s Paul, so it shouldn't be surprising.

And that fear litany ❤️ I could kill to write something as iconic and powerful. I could read it every day and still got the chills each time.

Chapter 4:

The Baron is like me, he needs to see bodies to believe in death. I’m delighted to have common ground with that creepy, disgusting asshole. Delighted. To be honest, I’m not that interested with the Baron himself. So far, he’s been nothing but clichés over clichés and really not the best ones. He’s the evil character so he's all the kinds of evil. Shocker. I usually like evil characters (very often more than I love "good" ones) but not him. Really not him. I hope it'll change but I’m afraid he’s too far gone and beyond redemption.

I’m very interested by what’s Hawat is going to become though. Will he turn his allegiance to the Baron? It kind of remind me of Teal’c in Stargate SG-1, but the other way around. The Baron opposes two things : Hawat’s loyalty and his admiration towards those who calculate without emotions. Based on what we know about Mentats and how the human part carried by the human body overpower the Mentat’s education and training, I’d say loyalty should win? And the part of me who is part Mentat agrees on the loyalty so, we’re all good. But it can be an interesting storyline, so I’m waiting for it.

What’s funny about this quote

is that he could very much be talking about Paul and still be right. Or the baby sister. Or Lady Jessica. All Harkonnens are waiting.

And what’s also funny is how The Baron thinks of Feyd-Rautha. In addition of being absolutely disgusting there are some similarities between what the Baron wants for Feyd and what Paul is meant to be/already is.

I wonder if Feyd is meant to become some kind of opposite alter-ego to Paul. A better, more subtle opposant than the Baron. Could be fun.

You know what? Every time I start this kind of post, I said to myself: I'm pretty sure I haven't that many notes this time, it should be quick. And then here we are again 🤷🏻‍♀️ See you next time! 🌖💛

[fandom-space-princess]

Every Day's Most Quiet Need

midam week prompt 5: whisper - (v) speak very softly using one's breath without one's vocal cords, especially for the sake of privacy/(n) a soft or confidential tone of voice; a whispered word or phrase

Rating: Teen [2.5k words, a tiny bit h/c, mostly just sort of sweet]

Some things can't be spoken aloud. The only way to get them out is to say them as softly as you can.

read below the cut, or on AO3

When Adam thinks of whispers, he thinks of Michael's wings.

-----

"Michael? Why are you shivering?"

Maybe a silly question. The Cage is cold. An understatement, of course, but trying to hyperbolize about it has never taken the sting out. No matter how Adam tries to wrap it up in description, thinking of it as frozen as the Arctic tundra or the original ice cube or goddamn Minneapolis in February is never enough to distract from bitter reality.

So: the Cage is cold.

Shouldn't matter, though, and usually it doesn't. Michael is an inferno inside his chest, and he runs hot even by angelic standards (at least, according to him; not that Adam has any basis for comparison). Adam barely registers the frigidity of the place, and as far as he knows the cold bothers Michael not at all, either from his vantage in Adam's head or, as he's taken to doing more and more lately, manifesting as a separate presence.

Not that he's really asked. They've been down here for close to two hundred years, and it's only the last fifty or so that the rapport between them has been something resembling friendly.

"It's nothing. Don't worry about it." Michael curls himself up smaller near the wall of the Cage, knees clasped to his chest, and slips into what Adam has privately begun to refer to as his Stoic Angel Face. The juxtaposition strikes him as odd: this intense, commanding creature, tucked into the corner like a human child, tight with tension, but wearing an expression that would seem more at home on a commander of armies, or carved into a mountainside.

Adam has been looking at Michael for two centuries, though. He's getting good at spotting the cracks in his masks.

He settles himself down next to Michael, a bare few inches separating them. "Ok. Say I believe you. You're still pretty clearly uncomfortable right now. Can I... is there anything I can do to help?" He rests a hand cautiously on Michael's arm, watching his face closely. Doesn't miss the flicker of Michael's eyes to where they touch, then away again, tight and guilty like he doesn't want Adam to see.

He leans into it, though, and Adam shifts to press into his side, shoulder to shoulder.

This close, he can feel the fine shivers still running through Michael's frame. Can make out the shallowness of his breathing.

"Michael. Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't usually hang around out here when you want to be left alone. So what's up?"

Michael sighs. "As you say, I am merely uncomfortable. I — the last time we fought —" He nods across the Cage, at the far shadowy corner where Lucifer broods in solitude, "— I sustained a few... minor injuries. Injuries I am incapable of healing except by waiting for my grace to recover. In much the same way as your body would heal naturally."

Adam blinks. He doesn't know what he'd expected, but that — that wasn't it. Lucifer and Michael often scrap with each other. When they first arrived, it had been out of genuine fury. But as they have settled into a more permanent resignation to life in this place, Adam has come to suspect that their ongoing fighting is mostly out of habit, and frustration.

At least now they do it in their own forms. Being conscripted into participation on a physical level, especially when Sam had still been present, had not been among Adam's favorite activities.

He casts his gaze over Michael, critically. "You don't look injured anywhere that I can see. Is it — it's an angel thing, isn't it."

"Yes." Michael fidgets against the wall. "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

Another bitter sigh. With a face like he regrets ever consenting to participate in this conversation at all, Michael mutters, "My wings hurt."

"Your... oh." He understands, suddenly, why Michael is reluctant to talk about this. While there is no longer any aspect of each other that either of them is uncomfortable with, at least on a physical level (Adam's body has been home to both archangelic grace and human soul for an order of magnitude longer than he had ever occupied it alone), Michael's wings aren't entirely physical, even by his particularly lax definition of the term. They're tied up too closely with his grace, with his power, with his place in Heaven and the burdens that come with it. Adam has seen them, time to time, out of the corner of his eye. Knows that Michael can and does manifest them when he's coping with some severe emotion.

Usually violence. Or fear.

He fidgets again, and shivers, and the emotionless mask he tries to keep in place is betrayed by the tightness around his eyes. Adam realizes that he's never seen Michael look quite so shaky, quite so miserable. How much pain does it take, he wonders, to make the Sword of Heaven look like he wants nothing more than to sink into merciful unconsciousness?

Which is a good point, actually.

"I know you've gotten in fights before, bad ones. I've never seen you like this." He nudges Michael gently with his shoulder. "What's so different now? Is it that we're stuck here, something about the Cage?"

"No, it's... well. To be blunt: I have never injured part of my noncorporeal form this badly while also possessing a corporeal one." His voice has dropped to a low murmur, and Adam tilts his head closer. He's curled in on himself, as though making himself as small as he can. "If I were to leave you, I could tend to the problem much more quickly. Given our circumstances, that would likely be unpleasant for me, and fatal for you." His eyes dart to Adam, then away again.

Oh.

"You'd rather be in pain then risk hurting me?" Adam asks softly.

A scowl is all the acknowledgement he gets for his trouble, before Michael returns to staring fixedly off into the middle distance.

"I care about you too, you know," he says. He rests a hand on the archangel's arm again, in reassurance. Once again, he leans into the contact, a response which seems almost involuntary.

Interesting.

Testing a theory, Adam leans back against the wall of the Cage. Slowly, allowing Michael time to object if desired, he stretches an arm out and settles it lightly over his shoulders. Michael goes utterly still, and Adam wonders if he's made a mistake. He's about to draw back, offer an apology, when some measure of the tension leaves Michael's frame and he relaxes fractionally against Adam.

"You'd tell me if there was anything I could do to help, right? I want to know, if there is."

"I don't want to presume upon you further than I already have. Given time, I'll be fine."

"So there is something. Come on, halo, out with it. Let me help."

Michael frowns, then shivers again, appears to reach a decision.

"Fine." He uncoils himself from Adam's embrace, and moves to kneel a few feet away. Pointedly meets Adam's gaze, and holds it, as if in challenge.

A crackle like embers from a fire along his skin, raising goosebumps over his arms, and a soft displacement of air. And then —

— he's seen them before, of course, but never dead on like this. Michael's wings are gigantic, and beautiful: the soft grey of storm clouds, fading to a darker slate blue at the tips of the largest feathers. Threads of silver and steel grey etch through them, and they refract the dim light oddly, half-translucent, as though they only partially exist in this plane. Which, now that Adam thinks about it, they probably do.

They're also a mess. From where he sits, Adam can see patches of broken and scorched feathers, clumps of dried blood and sulfur, places where the flesh has started to heal badly. A pang of sympathy, like a lightning bolt through his chest, and he's extending one hand out toward Michael on impulse before he realizes what he's doing.

"You can't reach them, can you? While you're possessing me? That's what you meant."

Michael's eyes track his hand, the aborted gesture hanging in midair. His face and posture have gone closed-off, rigid, like Adam might change his mind at the last moment and strike him instead. "The metaphor is imperfect, but that's essentially accurate. In Heaven, I could tend my own form. Here, my options are... limited."

Adam slides closer, until he sits at his side, facing him. Watching Michael for any sign of distress or hesitation, he extends his hand until the tips of his fingers brush a patch of uninjured feathers over his shoulder. They're softer than they look, and they buzz faintly under his touch, a barely perceptible hum of bioelectric feedback.

Jaw clenched, Michael looks away. Nods once. Presses the wing forward against Adam's hand.

"I'm going to clean the injured parts as much as I can, ok?" Adam says gently, trying to catch Michael's gaze. When that fails, he reaches out to clasp a hand to his shoulder, squeezes once. "Let me know if I should stop."

He grazes his fingertips over one of the burned patches, and Michael hisses, flinching away.

"No," he responds immediately as Adam draws back by reflex. He catches Adam's hand in one of his own, lightning quick, and shakes his head. Deliberately presses the hand back against the scorched feathers. A wince, but his eyes lock on Adam's. "You won't hurt me." His voice falls to nearly a whisper, and his hand drops away. "Please."

This time, when Adam touches him, he is still.

The damage is extensive, and Michael's wings are... well, there's a lot of ground to cover. Adam suspects that he's not getting the whole picture, somehow; that what he sees are only the parts of himself that Michael has chosen (or, perhaps, is able) to bring forward into this plane. That there might, in truth, be more injuries over more of him — and in more dimensions — than Adam's mind is capable of perceiving.

He hums as he works, fingers combing careful through clumps of feathers. Straightening those healthy enough to be salvaged, pulling away bits of dried blood and occasionally tugging free those feathers too bent or broken to be saved. Michael makes a low, pained sound deep in his chest at the first one, and Adam presses his hands back to the space immediately, soothing.

To get his mind off it, Adam speaks. "So, what, you'd do this yourself in Heaven? Or the — I dunno, whatever the metaphysical equivalent of grooming your wings is for angels?"

Michael leans into him, hip pressed to thigh and shoulder against his arm. "Yes. They'd heal more quickly if I was, as you say, able to 'reach' them. But much of my grace is currently constrained within your form. The ways in which I can manifest and manipulate it are comparatively limited."

"But you'd always do that for yourself? Not that a ton of the angels I've met seemed too friendly —" He snorts, thinking of Zachariah. "I wouldn't blame you if you were picky about who you let get that close. But you must have had someone."

For a moment, Michael goes tense against him, and his face clouds. Then it passes, as though it had never been. "No," he says, clearly unwilling to elaborate.

Adam doesn't press the issue. He leans back on his heels, then stands, stretches. "You doing ok? I should do the back." Michael nods up at him, from his place on the floor, and Adam circles behind him. Taps him on the shoulder. "Stop kneeling there and sit down." His voice is light, teasing. "I'm going to need all the height advantage I can get on your ridiculous, massive wings."

It startles a chuckle out of Michael, and Adam grins to himself. Michael settles near his feet, and Adam resumes carding through the wings. He starts at the tips and works inward, down along the leading edge, gradually moving back toward Michael's body.

When he's close enough, Michael relaxes back against his legs. Almost like he doesn't realize he's doing it, Adam thinks. He doesn't mention it, and when he moves away to start on the outer edge of the other wing, the quality of the silence between them is different than before. The pain seems to be fading, and Michael no longer shivers, but some less definite emotion is rooting in its place, something quieter and almost sorrowful.

When Adam kneels behind him to reach the places closest to Michael's body, he can feel the difference. It's in the way the wings press eagerly into his hands, rather than shying away. In the way the angel tilts back into him, posture more relaxed than Adam has seen him — maybe ever.

Adam encourages him, pressing his weight in turn against Michael's back. As levelly and casually as he can, he says, "What about the others? I was under the impression that you guys were, well, close. A family. For whatever that means for you."

"Heaven is not —" Michael tenses, but Adam just leans more firmly against him, fingers moving soothingly over his wings, and after a moment he relents. His words sound fragile, hollow, and his voice is almost too quiet to hear. As though speaking this too loudly would be too much, would mean acknowledging something he was unwilling or unable to acknowledge. "We aren't like humans; we don't interact like you do. We don't — we don't touch each other. Except to fight." He glances furtively across the Cage. In that moment, Adam sees a glimpse of his deeper nature, the weight of an impossible stretch of time on this being as old as the universe. "Once, perhaps. But not for a very long time."

Adam says nothing. Nothing needs to be said.

He sits against the wall of the Cage, spreads his legs out, and tugs at Michael's waist. Michael's wings vanish, and he turns his head to speak, but Adam cuts him off.

"Don't argue with me, ok? Just come over here."

Michael lets himself be pulled along, until he rests between Adam's legs. He leans back against his chest, and fidgets for a few moments. Then Adam curls his arms around his waist, and he settles.

"You deserve to be touched in something other than violence," he murmurs, chin hooked over Michael's shoulder. He runs hands down his arms, until their fingers twine together, pressing close to Michael's body. "Don't give me that 'not like humans' line. Just stay here with me for a few minutes."

He has no power to hold Michael here against his will, he knows. He could vanish, fly off, simply stand up and walk away — he is far stronger than Adam will ever be.

But Adam holds him, the only comfort he has to offer.

And Michael, a silent weight against his chest, doesn't move away.

[writingithink]

Tangled Timelines Chapter 4 Rated: T Chapter Word Count: 8,468 Chapter Summary: Their tour of Torchwood does not go well. Notes: Okay so it's been awhile, but I'm back! Life is still p busy and chaotic, buuut the muse is kinder to me when there's more sunshine, so ... *shrug* I can only hope the update is worth the wait XP Hopefully the fact that it's the longest chapter yet helps?

MASSIVE thanks to @hey-there-juliet for being an amazing beta, as always.

All mistakes are definitely mine, being as I cannot leave anything alone.

I own nothing.

Read it on AO3!!

<-Ch 3

They left the warehouse through a dingy corridor, which the Doctor suspected was actually a tunnel. The air felt stale and damp despite the ventilation shafts running above them. Plus, Yvonne was currently silent, not giving them an enthusiastic description of where they were or where they were going - likely an attempt to disorient them. Cheeky, really.

“All those times I’ve been to Earth, I’ve never heard of you,” he told her, mostly trying to figure out how that was even possible, and partly because hearing nothing but their echoing footsteps was starting to get on his nerves.

Rose was quiet, both verbally and in his head, as she continuously looked around them. Being escorted by armed guards through a creepy tunnel was putting her on edge. He squeezed her hand, but had a difficult time trying to project reassurance across their bond.

“But of course not. You’re the enemy,” Yvonne said. “You’re actually named in the Torchwood Foundation Charter of 1879 as an enemy of the Crown.”

Wait, 1879?! Torchwood, 1879.

“1879,” the Doctor repeated aloud this time. “That was called Torchwood, that house in Scotland.”

Just you?!, Rose exclaimed, outrage flitting through their connection. They don’t even mention me? Oh, that is just- just typical Victorian. I bet it’s because you said you bought me or whatever. I was just- just a thing. Good enough to be knighted and banished, but don’t get even a teeny tiny mention on this Charter of theirs?

I’m sorry, do you want to be declared an enemy of the crown?, he asked her. While he was able to keep his amusement off of his face, it was very apparent over the bond.

“That’s right,” Yvonne was saying, “where you encountered Queen Victoria and the werewolf.”

“I guess she really was NOT amused,” Rose quipped.

“Her Majesty created the Torchwood Institute with the express intention of keeping Britain great, and fighting the alien horde,” Yvonne informed them.

Suppose it’s best that I wasn’t mentioned, his wife admitted over the bond. Imagine what would’ve happened if Torchwood did know about me and snatched me up, took me prisoner or something before we even met?

She actually made a very good point.

“But if I’m the enemy, does that mean that I’m a prisoner?” the Doctor asked, more than a little worried.

Earth during this time, from his perspective? Mostly harmless. Torchwood, however, had an awful lot of very not-harmless extraterrestrial technology. And while they couldn’t get into the TARDIS and couldn’t actually stop him from sensing where she was, they did seem to have a sporting chance of keeping them from reaching her.

“Oh yes,” Yvonne answered as they made a sharp turn and exited the tunnel to stop abruptly in front of a heavily enforced door. “But we’ll make you perfectly comfortable. And there is so much you can teach us. Starting with this.”

The door slid open and she led them into what appeared to be some sort of laboratory. 

“Now, what do you make of that?” she asked, not needing to be any more specific. There was no way that he couldn’t know what she was referring to, the way the sphere was hovering at the end of the narrow space, every single piece of equipment in the room trained on it. And it was decidedly wrong. More wrong than the ghosts, than Torchwood’s existence, than … anything on the planet , really.

The Doctor couldn’t take his eyes off it.

All of his senses were going haywire, forcing him to block out most of the bond in order to shield Rose from just how- how awful this thing was.

“You must be the Doctor,” he was dimly aware that someone was speaking to him. “Rajesh Singh. It’s an honor, sir.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, still unable to look away from the sphere.

The timelines were tangling up around it, some passing over it as if the sphere didn’t exist, others indicating direct consequences of its future actions, or inaction - who knows. But those timelines were the only real sign, aside from the fact that he could see it, that his senses were giving him to prove that it did, in fact, exist at all.

“What is that?” his bondmate asked, dropping his hand. “It’s- it’s-”

“We got no idea,” Yvonne had no qualms to admit.

The Doctor shut down even more of the bond (a difficult feat), activating senses that he rarely used and was sure would only serve to give Rose a headache (or worse) if they leeched over to her. He had some ideas, none of them good, but still needed to narrow it down.

“It’s wrong,” his wife proclaimed.

“What makes you think there’s something wrong with it?” he vaguely heard the bloke - Rajesh - ask her.

“I … I can’t … I think I might be sick.”

His attention snapped back to his bondmate and the Doctor opened the bond a little bit more, as much he safely felt he could, attempting to comfort her while also determining exactly what she was sensing from the sphere. Rose was still new to telepathy, really, and there was a possibility that other senses were activating as well. Unfortunately, he also needed to figure out what the sphere really was, and couldn’t focus the majority of his attention on his wife as he walked up to the platform. All he could safely ascertain, without going too deep into her mind to focus on the task at hand, was that she wasn’t truly ill and that her mind wasn’t in any danger.

“Well, the sphere has that effect on everyone,” Yvonne said. “Makes you want to run and hide, like it’s forbidden.”

“We tried analyzing it using every device imaginable,” Rajesh explained as the Doctor re-blocked the bond and put on his 3D specs, hoping for once that he was wrong. “But according to our instruments, the sphere doesn’t exist.”

Oh, why couldn’t he have been wrong? The sphere was so steeped in Void particles that it almost looked as though it was made of the stuff.

Yvonne had said that the ghosts were a side effect. He was starting to get an idea of what may have happened.

“It weighs nothing,” Rajesh continued, “it doesn’t age. No heat, no radiation, and has no atomic mass.”

“But everyone can see it,” Rose pointed out in disbelief. “Touch it, I’m assuming. It’s there.”

“Fascinating, isn’t it? It upsets people because it gives off nothing. It is absent.”

The Doctor couldn’t stop looking at it. It was … well, obviously it wasn’t impossible, but it should be.

“Well, Doctor?” Yvonne asked, snapping him out of it.

“This is a Void Ship,” he admitted, refocusing on the weakening barriers he’d erected around their bond, trying to reinforce them in order to keep his anxiety and fear from crossing over. The blocks wouldn’t last much longer, the mental energy to keep them in place would be too great, but he just needed a little more time to get a handle on himself. They would figure this all out. They had to.

“And what is that?”

He could feel his wife attempting to reach him and hated that he was keeping her out. But really, they needed to avoid the inevitable negative feedback loop, especially since he had to do his best to appear calm and collected in front of these people. The Doctor took off his glasses, but still couldn’t stop looking at the ship.

“Well, it’s impossible for starters,” he told them, unable to think of a better word. “I always thought it was just a theory, but it’s a vessel designed to exist outside of time and space, traveling through the Void.”

Finally able to rip his gaze away from the sphere, he turned away, sitting down on the stairs leading up to the platform. Yvonne and Rajesh were quick to flank him, forcing Rose to squeeze past them in order to sit next to him. The Doctor put his arm around her automatically, and his barriers crumbled away. It was easier to keep himself calm (well, more calm) now that he wasn’t looking at the thing.

“And what’s the Void?” Rajesh asked.

It’s the space between parallel worlds, yeah?, his bondmate confirmed, attempting to send soothing waves of reassurance across their connection and dutifully not complaining about being cut off.

“The space between dimensions,” he explained to the others after mentally agreeing with his wife. “There’s all sorts of realities around us, different dimensions, billions of parallel universes all stacked up against each other. The Void is the space in between, containing absolutely nothing. Imagine that - nothing. No light, no dark, no up, no down, no life, no time.” The Doctor actually found himself feeling better, giving them a heavily edited lecture, separating himself from all of the potential ramifications for a moment. But only for a moment, before dread began to claw back up his spine. “My people called it the Void. The Eternals call it the Howling. But some people call it Hell.”

“But someone built the sphere,” Rajesh pointed out. “What for? Why go there?”

Oh, he did love it when people asked the important questions.

“To explore?” he hazarded. “To escape? You could sit inside that thing and eternity would pass you by. The Big Bang, end of the Universe, start of the next, wouldn’t even touch the sides. You’d exist outside the whole of creation.”

In a rare moment of complete synchronicity, he and Rose both thought of the Beast in the pit.

The Doctor hadn’t thought it possible, but the Void Ship suddenly seemed even more sinister.

Before time.

Perhaps a being could exist before time … if they crawled out of the Void. But how would that even work? He wanted to convince himself that it was impossible - had to be. But …

It doesn’t matter, Rose chimed in, easily getting his attention. We stopped him. Whatever’s in that thing, it isn’t that.

She seemed so certain of this that the Doctor couldn’t help but believe her.

“You see, we were right,” Yvonne said, smugly. “There is something inside there.”

“Oh, yes,” he agreed, frowning deeply as she smiled on.

His bondmate was now thinking of a different memory from Krop Tor. What the Beast had predicted for her.

The valiant child, who will die in battle so very soon.

He could feel the beginnings of the negative feedback loop that he’d been trying so hard to prevent.

I told you, it was wrong, the Doctor insisted, trying to project his complete certainty of this fact. Their timelines were entwined - it was all or nothing. And he still didn’t trust what he’d glimpsed at the Olympics, couldn’t allow that kind of hope to blind him of the danger of their current situation, but he played the memory for her anyway. He needed her to believe it. They just needed to get through this.

“So, how do we get in there?” Rajesh asked.

Oh, how he hated it when people asked the wrong questions.

“We don’t!” he ordered, launching himself up off the platform. “We send that thing back into Hell. How did it get here in the first place?”

There would have to be a tear in the fabric of reality for it to come through now that his people were gone. And he was going to have to figure out how to close it before it got bigger.

A tear in the fabric of reality?!, Rose shouted in his mind as she got up to follow him.

“Well, that’s how it all started,” Yvonne unknowingly saved him from having to respond to his seething wife. “The sphere came through into this world and the ghosts followed in its wake.”

“Show me,” the Doctor demanded, voice clipped as he took Rose’s hand and marched out of the room.

You’ve known about this Void stuff the whole bloody time, she continued complaining over the bond. Why the HELL didn’t you say something sooner?

I didn’t want to worry you unless I had to, he admitted. When it was just those ghosts, I thought that maybe it would be a simple fix. But that ship is corporeal. It made it properly through. The ghosts haven’t, so I thought I might just be dealing with a potential crack in the Universe. An almost crack. Like when you drop a mug and it gets a tiny hairline fracture. It hasn’t actually broken, just damaged enough that bacteria can get caught in it. You shouldn’t really drink out of it anymore if you can help it, but if you wanted to you could still use it to store pencils.

They took a left and barely made it past the door before he heard Yvonne shout, “No, Doctor.”

He quickly pivoted, accidentally dragging his bondmate in a circle, and then purposefully held his head high as they walked past the door again.

So the ship broke the mug, then, Rose continued as Yvonne and one of the soldiers caught up to them.

Yup. The metaphor kind of falls apart a bit after that, though. I’ll think of something better, just give us a tick. And … I’m sorry. It’s not like I thought you couldn’t handle it or anything.

They were directed to a lift, and as soon as they got inside his bondmate let go of his hand and crossed her arms.

Honestly, the Doctor pleaded across their bond, I was hoping that I was wrong. That it just appeared like they’d crossed the Void.

She glanced his way before eyeing the screen that was tracking their progress up the floors at a rate that was much faster than he could recall lifts being in this time period. The further up they went, the more his senses were screaming at him that things were not right. Timelines were twisting into strange shapes, and what was an occasional flicker everywhere else was more like a strobe as they shifted in and out of existence. The Doctor felt increasingly grateful that the barriers around his senses were much stronger than the rest.

You really weren’t trying to keep me out of some plan you’re cookin’?

Absolutely not, he hastily agreed. Me? A plan? Bold of you to think I have one.

His bondmate covered her mouth with a hand as her laughter rang out over their connection. Much better. Well, relatively. They were still in the middle of a gigantic potentially-Universe-ending catastrophe, but who said he couldn’t still appreciate the little things?

Yvonne led them out at the 45th floor - the very top of the building. Or maybe skyscraper was a better word.

“Right this way, then,” she said, and while Yvonne had started off leading them, they soon matched her pace - the breach was so large that there was no way the Doctor could have missed it even without the escort. 

Within moments they turned a corner and there it was. Dormant, but there.

“The sphere came through here,” Yvonne stated. “A hole in the world.”

The Doctor dropped Rose’s hand as he approached the tear. Even in its current state, he could tell how large it was - that it had been growing. He reached up a hand, tracing its edge. Tingly. Tingly, but the bad kind. His hairs stood on end.

Is that safe? His wife’s worry coated their bond.

It’s fine, he assured her. It’s closed … for now.

“Not active at the moment,” Yvonne continued, “but when we fire particle engines at that exact spot, the breach opens up.”

So they made the hole, then? Why?!

He could tell that his bondmate was wondering the exact same thing.

“How did you even find it?” the Doctor asked, deciding to start at the beginning (so to speak), as he backed away to look at the rip in reality in its entirety.

“We were getting warning signs for years. A radar black spot. So we built this place, Torchwood Tower. The breach was six hundred feet above sea level. It was the only way to reach it,” Yvonne answered as he put on his 3D glasses.

Oh. Oh. The edges were steeped in just as much Void particles as the ship - which was just about what he’d been thinking, but still. Anticipating and then seeing were two very different things. He didn’t want to see what it was like when active. It should have never been active.

Do they just have an unlimited budget, then? Country spending all it’s money on this?

The Doctor could tell that his wife wasn’t actually talking to him, but the thought was quite loud and quite irritated. He glanced back to see Rose standing a few feet behind him with her arms crossed, frowning as she glared at the back of Yvonne Hartman’s head.

“You built a skyscraper just to reach a spatial disturbance?” he couldn’t help but ask. “How much money have you got?”

“Enough,” Yvonne blithely answered before walking away.

Well, that was … fair? He never had figured out all of the rules for money, especially for talking about money. Humans were just so … so weird. The Doctor took off his glasses and tried not to roll his eyes.

“Look who’s talking,” Rose whispered in his ear.

“Oh, speaking aloud now, are we?” he muttered back.

“Mmhmm,” she responded with a cheeky grin. “Gonna let me try out your 3D glasses? Aren’t these from when we saw It Came from Outer Space after the last time we failed to see Elvis?” Turns out third time isn’t the charm.

This time the Doctor really did roll his eyes as he passed his bondmate the glasses. It really shouldn’t be this difficult to see Elvis Presley, really it-

He stopped himself from going down that train of thought. Much more important things to think about. Rose tilted her head as she stared at the breach, then turned toward him. Her jaw dropped.

“Doc-”

“Come on now, Doctor,” Yvonne called before Rose could finish her sentence.

“Yup! Coming!”

They both turned and followed their ‘tour guide’ away from the rip in the multiverse, his wife passing back the glasses as they went.

Why are those black things all over you, too? The, er, Void stuff, Rose asked over the bond.

They’re also on you. We’ve been through, remember? But we’ve just got a light dusting. Everything else, you can barely see the thing for the Void, he explained as they caught up with Yvonne only to be led into an office.

Rose paused by a window, pressing her face up against the glass as she looked down at the streets below them, while the Doctor … for lack of a better way to phrase it … wandered off. It was different, though! The rule was for Rose not to wander away from him. That didn’t mean he couldn’t wander away from … uptight know-it-all heads of shadow organizations. Whom his wife was- was guarding. While he investigated!

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of interest going on at the moment. And everyone was ignoring him. He was able to get a good look at their equipment, though, so at least there was that. It was simple enough, but he doubted he’d have enough time to dismantle it before a bunch of soldiers with guns came and stopped him.

“Oh!” he heard Rose exclaim from around the corner. “Look, we’re in Canary Wharf!”

The Doctor quickly placed them in his mental map of London. Good to know. He wasn’t yet sure why it would be good to know, but it couldn’t hurt. The ‘ghosts’ were everywhere, so it wouldn’t help with that, but if he needed to contact UNIT at any point, they would need to know his position.

“Well, that is the public name for it,” Yvonne was saying as he headed back toward them. “But to those in the know, it’s Torchwood.”

Right then. And now they were in the know, so it was time they listened.

“So,” he began as soon as he entered the room, “you find the breach, probe it, the sphere comes through six hundred feet above London, bam! It leaves a hole in the fabric of reality. And that hole, you think, oh, shall we leave it alone? Shall we back off? Shall we play it safe? Nah, you think let’s make it bigger!”

“It’s a massive source of energy,” Yvonne justified. “If we can harness that power, we need never depend on the Middle East again. Britain will become truly independent. Look, you can see for yourself. Next Ghost Shift’s in two minutes.”

She began leading them away, yet again, and he was tired of the tour.

“Cancel it,” he ordered as Yvonne walked past.

She’s not gonna listen to ya, his bondmate oh-so-helpfully pointed out.

“I don’t think so.”

The timelines were stretching taught all around him, blinking in and out even faster. He’d experienced temporal tipping points, he’d experienced fixed points, but he’d never experienced something like this. It was fraying his every nerve and it was taking most of his mental energy just to keep the effects of the anomaly from leaching across the bond.

“I’m warning you, cancel it,” he snarled. Why couldn’t she just listen? Why couldn’t she see that her actions right here, right now, could stop the Universe from being ripped apart?!

Rose, unaware of his mental turmoil, recoiled slightly, eyes widening. He could feel her prodding around the bond, trying to get further into his mind, asking what was wrong and baffled at his lack of response.

No no no no no. Not right now, not when he was constantly erecting and re-erecting barriers. It would be too much, if she got in his head fully. Too much, too much, too much.

Yvonne Hartman spun around, showing some real emotion for the first time since they landed at her precious headquarters that she had no idea may as well be a tomb.

“Oh, exactly as the legends would have it,” she said, voice dripping with condescension. “The Doctor, lording it over us, assuming alien authority over the Rights of Man.”

“Let me show you,” the Doctor panted, racing back behind a glass wall just as he succeeded in forcibly pushing Rose out of his head. Their bond went silent. A sinking feeling permeated his being, but … later. He’d deal with it later, explain later. One problem at a bloody time. “Sphere comes through,” he announced, pulling out his sonic and pointing it at the glass, making sure Hartman watched as it splintered around the initial impact site. “But when it made the hole, it cracked the world around it. The entire surface of this dimension splintered. And that’s how the ghosts get through. That’s how they get everywhere. They’re bleeding through the fault lines. Walking from their world, across the Void, and into yours, with the human race hoping and wishing and helping them along. But too many ghosts, and-” he gently poked the glass wall and the whole thing shattered onto the floor.

For a moment, everyone was silent. Maybe he’d gotten through to her.

“Well,” she finally said, “in that case, we’ll have to be more careful.”

He glanced at Rose, meeting her eyes for only a moment before she swallowed and looked away.

“Positions! Ghost Shift in one minute!”

In a few long strides, the Doctor avoided most of the glass, fully ready to beg.

“Miss Hartman, I am asking you, please don’t do it.”

“You’re putting everyone in danger,” his bondmate chimed in, and he didn’t like the panic and desperation in her voice, so he didn’t dare turn and try to look at her again. Seeing Rose upset wasn’t going to help. “Not just London or Britain, but the whole world! Maybe the whole Universe!”

“We have done this a thousand times!” Yvonne shot back, as if that somehow made it better.

“Then stop at a thousand!” he shouted, timelines strobing in and out so quickly that he could barely think straight, barriers beginning to crumble and he didn’t have the energy left to build more, not if he wanted to figure out how to stop whatever Miss Hartman seemed determined to start.

“We’re in control of the ghosts,” she tried to convince him. “The levers can open the breach, but equally they can close it.”

The Doctor stared at her, and came to a decision, though not the most ethical one. Still, desperate times called for desperate measures, and since he was no longer using all of his telepathic energy to keep his wife from stumbling into the minefield that was his mind, he could do something else. He could project towards Miss Yvonne Hartman. She worked right next to the breach, which means her brain was likely primed for this sort of thing. Universe ending? Fine. Fine. Let her end it, then. But could she make that call? Would she be able to live with herself … whether she lived at all?

“Okay,” he said brightly, breaking eye contact once the suggestion was made and practically skipping back toward the office.

“Sorry?” Yvonne asked, just as confused as he figured she’d be.

“Never mind. As you were,” the Doctor smiled, grabbing the nearest chair and rolling it over towards where Rose was standing, still preternaturally silent in his head despite the fact that his barriers were now almost non-existent.

“What, is that it?”

“No, fair enough. Said my bit, don’t mind me,” he replied, taking a seat and turning toward the nearest worker. “Any chance for a cup of tea?”

The woman at the desk ignored him, but she did turn toward Miss Hartman and announce, “Ghost Shift in twenty seconds.”

“Mmm, can’t wait to see it,” the Doctor said, over exaggerating his excitement, his clenched fists the only thing giving him away.

“You can’t stop us, Doctor,” Yvonne declared, though it didn’t seem like her heart was in it. Good.

“No, absolutely not,” he agreed, crossing his arms. “Come here, Rose. Come and watch the fireworks.”

His bondmate finally walked over to him, and he was quick to weave their fingers together. And just like that, every barrier he had, even the ones that were normally easy to maintain, fell away as if they’d never existed in the first place. Her eyes widened, a barely audible gasp escaping before she moved even closer, stumbling before taking a seat on his lap.

I thought-

She didn’t give him time to finish the thought.

Sod it! If this is as long as our forever might be, I’m not gonna spend it pretending that we’re not together, her mental voice a disconcerting mix of defiance, anger, sorrow, and fear.

“Ghost shift in ten seconds,” the woman at the computer announced.

Rose’s grip on his hand tightened.

“Nine.”

The Doctor locked eyes with Miss. Hartman.

“Eight.”

He could see the fear there, just under the surface.

“Seven.”

He raised his eyebrows, daring her.

“Six.”

I love you, Rose’s mental voice whispered across the bond, tentative, afraid to mess up the game of chicken he’d started, but also desperate with the need to tell him.

“Five.”

I love you too, the Doctor replied, squeezing her hand, eyes still never leaving Yvonne’s, grin still plastered on his face.

“Four.”

It was a staring contest, with the entire Universe at stake, and he could tell that the fact that he didn’t actually have to blink was beginning to unnerve her.

“Three.”

C’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon !

“Two.”

His respiratory bypass kicked in, though his smile didn’t falter.

The word ‘one’ was about to pass through the worker’s lips.

“Stop the shift,” Yvonne ordered. “I said stop.”

“Thank you,” he said, managing to not let on just how worried he’d been there for a second.

“Yeah,” Rose seconded, “thank you.”

“I suppose it makes sense to get as much intelligence as possible,” Yvonne said, visibly shaken though doing a pretty good job of trying to hide it from her employees. “But the program will recommence, as soon as you’ve explained everything.”

“We’re glad to be of help,” the Doctor replied, not wanting to push her any farther. It wasn’t safe to use telepathy around humans at the best of times, and his mind was all over the place.

What?!, his wife screeched in his head.

Not you, he quickly backpedalled. We’ve been over this, remember? You’ve got the activated genes for it.

Not that, you plum! You went in her head?!

“And someone clear up this glass,” Miss. Hartman was saying, interrupting the silent row that was starting up between them. “They did warn me, Doctor. They said you like to make a mess.”

“They’re not wrong there,” Rose agreed, standing up awfully primly and crossing her arms.

The Doctor pouted up at her.

I wasn’t in her head, it was just a projected suggestion. Just- just like really loudly thinking in her direction, he tried to explain. I’m a touch telepath, I can’t properly enter another mind without direct contact. Well, aside from you, obviously.

And that works? Thinking loudly at someone?, his bondmate scoffed over their connection, disbelief apparent.

When you’re a telepath? Yes. Sometimes.

And in his case, with great difficulty. Really, he’d just gotten lucky.

It was just luck?

The Doctor sighed before finally standing, forced to move out of the way by the workers who had arrived surprisingly quickly to clean up the glass. Right, no barriers at all now, and no mental energy to make more. Rose obviously still had her own, since he wasn’t getting a stream of endless random thoughts and feelings. Well, this was going to be embarrassing. Actually-

Do you have a headache right now?, he asked her, briefly glancing at the workers around them before taking her hand. The ones that were obviously part of the Ghost Shift program had started typing on their computers again.

No, not really.

How’s that?

It didn’t make sense. He felt awful, the Void and the shifting, snarled up timelines constantly grating at his senses.

I mean, for a second there I thought I might pass out, but then I just kind of … I dunno, turned off the weird stuff?

And oh, how he wished he could figure out exactly what she meant by that, but now - unfortunately - wasn’t the time. Glass taken care of, Yvonne was now entering her office, nodding at them to follow. They both glanced back at the wall where the Void sat, waiting.

“C’mon,” his wife whispered, finally giving him a smile as she grabbed the chair and pushed it in front of her.

His gratitude, the Doctor was sure, must have been abundantly apparent. He took a deep breath before they both followed Yvonne into her office. Rose took a seat in what had been his chair, so the Doctor took the other.

“No,” Miss. Hartman was quick to correct, hands on her hips, “that’s my seat. We’ll get another.”

He turned to his wife just in time to see her rolling her eyes while failing to suppress a grin. Yvonne made the request, and by the time he walked around the desk again, a worker was rolling another chair in. They were quite efficient, he’d give them that. Then again, they had still not managed to get him his tea, so …

They’re not getting paid to listen to you, Rose commented. They’d be paid to bring Yvonne Hartman tea. 

The Doctor smiled at her sarcasm as he got comfortable in his new chair, putting his feet up on the desk and leaning back. Blimey, he was tired.

“So these ghosts, whatever they are,” Yvonne asked, getting straight back into it, “did they build the sphere?”

“Must have,” he replied, not that he really knew. “Aimed it at this dimension like a cannonball.”

Though if the ‘ghosts’ were following in the void ship’s wake, he was partly curious and mostly terrified to find out what was actually inside the craft. Hopefully just more of whatever the ghosts really were, but possibly some sort of weapon. Who knew? Hopefully they would never have to find out.

Rose began chewing at a fingernail, looking out the window.

“And the energy?”

He raised both eyebrows, though wasn’t completely surprised that these humans would gladly siphon power even while not understanding how it was being generated. Problem was, they shouldn’t be able to do any of it and wouldn’t be able to do any of it without the alien technology they had stolen. Timelines strobed in and out, faster and faster and faster.

“I could use some energy,” the Doctor replied. “Quite the day I’ve been having. Where is that tea?”

His wife took his hand, weaving their fingers together as Miss. Hartman gazed skyward for a moment before (finally) ordering the tea.

Is there anything I can do to help?,  Rose asked.

I doubt it. Since you can’t sense all of this, and I would not want to show you, it’s not as if I can even-

Before he could finish the thought, his mind was suddenly full of Rose and light and love and over half of his senses cut off. There were no more tangling timelines blinking in and out of existence - there were no more timelines at all . 

The Doctor blinked, trying not to panic.

Yvonne said something, but he wasn’t sure what. Wasn’t paying attention, as he realized that his wife wasn’t in his head. 

No.

She had pulled him into hers.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” he asked, wiggling his fingers in front of his face. It was so strange. His mind was still in his body, but yet … not? There was a slight lag between thought and action - about 5 picoseconds. 

You are amazing, he exclaimed over the bond.

Rose grinned, mind radiating smugness.

How did you even figure out how to do this?

They certainly hadn’t gone over it during any of their telepathy lessons. And he hadn’t yet had the chance to look for more specific information, being as he’d only just found out how it all worked. 

I don’t know, Rose’s mental voice admitted, uncertainty coating the words. I just kinda imagined what I wanted to do and then … I don’t know.

Blimey, she was going to be a much stronger telepath than he was.

“I asked what you would have us do if you had your way. You said send it back, but how exactly do you propose we do that?”

Ah. Good question. And where things got downright complicated (not that they weren’t already). The Doctor gave Rose’s hand a squeeze and then let go, wanting to determine if touch was a factor in this newfound ability of hers? Theirs? He wasn’t sure, had only ever done anything remotely similar when invasively telepathically connected with someone, touching their psi-points. This was much, much different.

The connection held.

And most importantly, for the moment - overall it was completely unsustainable, not having access to most of his senses - he could think clearly.

“I’ll need access to your equipment, and a comprehensive list of exactly what alien technologies you have at your disposal, because there’s a chance you may have what I need to properly seal and contain excess void particles. And I’ll need the TARDIS.”

“A comprehensive list? Hah! Nice try, Doctor. The relevant equipment, I may be able to allow.”

“May?”

“Torchwood serves Queen and Country, and there are calls I would have to make.” Now she didn’t look amused.

“Make them,” he urged.

“And when they ask about the energy?” she requested, eyebrows raised.

Calculations raced through his head.

“Well, there’d have to be energy sending them back. So you’d have that, right?” Rose piped in before he could compare the results with historical precedence - took longer without his time senses.

Point was, his wife was right, pretty much. And now wasn’t really the time to get picky. They were going to have to compromise.

“A lot of energy in the transfer,” he agreed, nodding enthusiastically. “Run the maths yourself, but reversing all of the particles will take up the energy of key commands, power usage normal, and the energy created by all of the particles reversing at once would be massive. Long term may not be what you wanted, but I also doubt you wanted to annihilate the planet and potentially destroy all of reality, so …”

The Doctor shrugged.

Got a little rude, there, Rose oh so helpfully pointed out.

“We’ll just have to see what they say,” Yvonne said, though she didn’t look convinced, even as she began typing quickly on her computer.

You’ve got to admit, at least it’s progress, he had to point out.

Yvonne looked away from her computer, immediately turning toward the ghost shift control area right outside.

“Excuse me?” she called, getting up from her desk, “Everyone? I thought I said ‘stop the ghost shift’.”

Both he and Rose turned toward where she was now shouting out of the doorway.

“Who started the program?”

Not a single person was reacting. The Doctor stood up, taking his wife’s hand as they slowly followed Miss. Hartman out of her office. This was not good not good not good, and he could really use access to a few more senses right about now.

“But I ordered you to stop? Who’s doing this? Right, step away from the monitors, everyone.”

I’ve not exactly trapped you here, y’know, Rose pointed out, thoughts laced with anxiety as she looked from person to person, blankly typing at their monitors.

“Gareth, Addy, stop what you’re doing right now,” Yvonne ordered, the words having no effect. “Matt, step away from your desk.”

The Doctor stretched his awareness, finding that he had more energy than he thought he’d had as he tentatively shifted across their bond, the action feeling like simply walking through a door in his own mind for all of the effort it took. With great care, he was able to selectively access more of his senses without too much discomfort from all of his time senses.

“Matt, step away from your desk! That’s an order!” Yvonne shouted, and he now sensed her building panic. “Stop the levers! Andrew!”

Workers ran in, trying to manually stop the levers without much success.

He could sense nothing from the employees controlling the program. 

“Look at their ears,” Rose breathed, memories from their own trip across the void engulfing the part of his awareness still resting deeply within her mind. 

Their ears.

He listened for another moment before pinpointing the one typing the fastest.

“What’s she doing?” the Doctor wondered aloud as he marched over to the one who Rose identified as Addy, making note of how deeply connected they still were but unable to properly address it. Didn’t have the time.

“Addy, step away from the desk,” Yvonne urged as both she and Rose followed him.

He snapped his fingers in front of Addy’s eyes, not getting a single reaction. 

No one home.

“Listen to me,” Yvonne continued as Rose stifled a gasp before turning and waving her hand in front of the man across the aisle, “Step away from the desk - oh! The call’s connected!”

“She can’t hear you anyway,” he told her, dread forming in the pit of his stomach as he turned toward the monitor. “They’re overriding the system. We’re going into ghost shift.”

With great reluctance, well aware that the results would be exceedingly unpleasant, the Doctor reactivated his time senses. Because he needed to know what exactly was happening in order to fully monitor the situation.

“Hello, this is Torchwood One, calling mayday, threat level alpha, activation code eight- four- delta- whisky- zero- seven- foxtrot,” Yvonne recited over her comm.

Sensations slammed into him all at once, timelines knotted together and breaking off, the spin of the planet speeding up and slowing down at a rate unnoticeable to the humans. He zeroed in on the devices attached to Addy’s ears. 

“It’s the ear piece,” he bit out, swiftly becoming overwhelmed by the activating void but unable to retreat. He couldn’t afford the luxury. “It’s controlling them. I’ve seen this before.”

Of all the parallel worlds, really.

“Situation is dire,” Hartman continued into the phone. “We are requesting backup immediately. The Ghost Shift has been compromised, the Doctor is assisting.”

Hey, that’s where Mickey is, his wife pointed out even as she placed a hand between his shoulder blades, offering him comfort for what would have to come next. With great reluctance, the Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver.

“Sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He sonicked Addy’s ear pod, and within moments she and all of the other partially converted Torchwood employees screamed before collapsing at their desks.

“What happened?” Yvonne demanded, eyes wide in terror as she likely realized she’d lost complete control over the situation - welcome to his world, really. Typical Tuesday, that. “What did you just do?”

“They’re dead,” he informed her, not having time to sugar coat it.

Despite their connected minds, Rose reached down and felt around for Addy’s pulse point.

“Is it really …” his wife paused, finding herself unable to say it all out loud. “Again, but here? Or …”

The Doctor could feel her mind racing as he attempted to gain control of the ghost shift program. Yvonne’s attention returned to her call, though he stopped paying attention.

“I think I know exactly where they’re coming from,” he admitted, loathe to be the one to confirm her fears, but unwilling (not to mention completely unable) to lie to her.

“But … Mickey was- and Jake, and-”

An image of her parallel father flashed through both their minds as Rose clenched her jaw.

Every sense the Doctor had was positively screaming as the seconds ticked on by and the tear widened.

“We’ll figure it out,” he near shouted as it all became too much. 

Just as he managed to apologize mentally, Rose seemed to breach his mind even as a large portion of his consciousness remained in hers. The pain seemed to dull, sensations cushioned by the added presence.

Please, please tell me you can’t feel this, he found himself pleading, both grateful for the respite and horrified that the pain might simply be being transferred.

M’fine, his bondmate assured him. I’m just trying to help you make barriers.

Oh.

Well.

Huh.

While he had helped her construct some in their initial training, the Doctor had to admit that the sensation of someone doing it for him was novel.

“They’re patching into our systems. What are those ear pieces?” Yvonne asked.

“Don’t,” he ordered as he continued entering commands into the system. It wasn’t overly complex, but the time crunch was a bit of an ask. As much as he wanted to spare her the horror, he couldn’t afford to make time for sentiment.

“But they’re standard comms devices,” Miss. Hartman insisted as Rose stepped away from the desk, getting a better look at the levers.

“Trust me, leave them alone,” the Doctor insisted as he raced over to another terminal.

“But what are they?” he heard her ask, but ignored the question.

There were multiple universes on the line, after all. And nothing he tried was working.

“Ugh!” Yvonne’s exclaimed. “Oh, God!” He had warned her. “It goes inside their brain!”

“What about the Ghost Shift?” he asked, needing their host-slash-captor back on track. The Doctor looked up from the monitor at the bright, terrifying tear in spacetime opening up mere feet away from them all.

“Ninety percent there and still running,” she replied, quickly joining him at the desk. “Can’t you stop it?”

“They’re still controlling it, they’ve hijacked the system,” the Doctor quickly explained, standing up and pulling out his sonic screwdriver.

“Who’s they?” Yvonne asked, and nope! No time to get into that.

“It might be a remote transmitter,” he continued as he scanned the area, “but it’s got to be close by. I can trace it.”

With that, he ran, following the signal, dimly aware that Yvonne Hartman was tagging along. 

“Keep those levers down,” she ordered as they raced out of the room. “Keep them offline! Help is coming.”

Rose broke away from where she’d been helping the others holding the levers back, quickly overtaking Miss. Hartman but still hanging back slightly.

You weren’t tryin’ ta leave without me, were you?,  his wife asked, her mental landscape pulsing with agitation.

Wouldn’t dream of it, the Doctor assured her. After all, she had complete access to every single thought in his head now. He was fine to leave it entirely up to Rose, whether or not to follow him into near certain death. Not like he could stop her any other time.

“You two, you come with us,” Yvonne ordered a pair of soldiers walking past, not that it would do them any good.

They all slowed down, following his lead as they neared the source of the signal.

“What’s down here?” he asked as they reached a section of hall blocked off by plastic.

“I don’t- I don’t know,” Yvonne admitted. “I think it’s building work. It’s just renovations.”

“You should go back,” the Doctor told her, taking his wife’s hand before carefully passing into the cordoned off area.

“Think again,” Miss. Hartman scoffed, once again ignoring his advice. It’s as if she truly didn’t understand that he was trying to help her.

We’ll figure this out, Rose assured him this time, despite knowing that he was completely aware of the terror and doubt pulsing through her headspace.

I love you, the Doctor told her, hoping that it wouldn’t be his last chance to say it.

I love you, too.

It wasn’t long before they reached the source … though he couldn’t see anything. At least, nothing obvious.

“What is it?” Yvonne asked. “What’s down here?”

“Ear pieces, ear pods,” he finally began to explain. “This world’s colliding with another, and I think I know which one.”

“We’ve met them before,” Rose continued, just as metal footsteps began clanging from every direction, shadows appearing to circle them behind the flimsy curtains.

“Fell through a crack on accident. Should have been impossible. Now we know why,” the Doctor elaborated, shifting so that his wife was directly behind him - connected lifespans or not, he was the one who could regenerate (hopefully).

“What are they?”

“They came through first. The advanced guard,” he told her, trying to keep the fear out of his voice and doing a rather poor job of it as the creatures surrounding them ripped through the plastic. “Cybermen.”

Rose and Yvonne both ducked as the soldiers began to open fire, and he grabbed both their hands in an attempt to get away that was thwarted before they’d even managed to move more than a few feet.

“We surrender!” the Doctor quickly announced, raising his hands above his head to show he was unarmed as the sounds of gunfire faded. He swallowed, blinking a few times and not allowing himself to turn around.

“Yeah, we surrender!” Rose quickly followed suit, gaze straight forward.

He turned to Yvonne, raising his eyebrows and giving her a slight wave.

“I surrender,” she - finally - agreed through gritted teeth, throwing up her hands.

They were quickly marched back to the Ghost Shift area, escorted into the room with guns to their backs.

“Get away from the machines,” the Doctor shouted. “Do what they say. Don’t fight them!”

Before the scientists at the levers had time to move, they were shot down.

“We are the Cyberman,” one of their captors announced - likely the Cyberleader. “The Ghost Shift will be increased to one hundred percent.”

The timelines around them had become utter chaos within the past fifteen minutes - the Doctor wasn’t sure how he would possibly be able to see straight, never mind think properly once the breach was fully opened. 

If it’s not helping, just let go, his wife insisted, tugging him back toward her mind. Despite the fight or flight responses bombarding her systems, it was still much simpler in there, cut off from the nauseating sensations of slowly crumbling dimensions.

Glad my primitive human brain can help, Rose’s (slightly sarcastic) mental voice echoed around him as the levers raised.

“Here come the ghosts,” he warned, bracing himself.

Even cut off from his time senses, the full activation was brutal. The Doctor could sense the barriers Rose had made earlier shatter, despite his primary consciousness being nowhere near them. He grimaced, doing his best to keep the pain of it from touching his wife’s mind. No wonder it was so easy for her to move him telepathically - he no longer had any defenses.

They shielded their eyes, watching as a growing number of spectral figures approached through the rift.

“What are we going to do?” Rose asked, clinging to his side as the strain of protecting them both inside her head began to wear on her.

His precious girl. So, so strong. The last thing he wanted to tell her was that he didn’t know, but the most he could do was not say the words. The last thing he wanted her to feel was his own fear, but all he could do was put on a brave face. Everything else was transparent, an open book.

“Achieving full transfer,” the Cyberleader declared.

The Doctor watched as the forms solidified. “They’re Cybermen. All of the ghosts are Cybermen. Millions of them, right across the world.”

“They’re invading the whole planet,” Yvonne stated, and he noticed the blinking light on her ear piece indicating that she was still in a call.

“It’s not an invasion,” he corrected. “It’s too late for that. It’s a victory.”

“You’re the ones who gave it to them,” Rose couldn’t help but point out.

Yvonne opened her mouth only to clamp it shut again as the nearest computer began to repeat ‘Sphere Activated’ on a loop, claiming each of their attentions as data flashed on the screen. The Doctor frowned, eyes widening as he tried to make sense of it all.

How did a Cyber Invasion lead to a Void ship?

How did a Void ship lead to a Cyber Invasion?

Calculation after calculation, and none of them added up. 

“But I don’t understand,” the Doctor stepped forward, commanding notice, needing to know. “The Cybermen don’t have the technology to build a void ship. That’s way beyond you. How did you create the sphere?”

“The sphere is not ours,” the nearest Cyberman replied.

“What?”

But … it was active.

It had activated precisely when the Cybermen fully manifested out of the void.

Sure, it didn’t make much sense for it to be theirs, but if not …

“The sphere broke down the barriers between worlds. We only followed. Its origin is unknown,” the Cyberman continued.

“Then what’s inside it?” the Doctor asked, despite knowing that the answer wasn’t coming.

[thetypedwriter]

Imaginary Friend Book Review

Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky Book Review 

This is undoubtedly the weirdest book I have ever read. 

You might be thinking… but, thetypedwriter you read fanfiction! This can’t be the weirdest thing you’ve ever read! Things like ABO universes exist!

You would think that, wouldn’t you?

But no. 

I shall endeavor to give you a spoiler free synopsis of the book first followed by my thoughts and criticism, but note that this is an endeavor for a reason. I have now explained this novel in depth to two different people, and both times I have found myself completely and irrevocably stuck on how to even begin, let alone end. 

With that forewarning, here we go. 

The novel surrounds a single mother and her young son moving to a small Pennsylvania town in order to escape the tragedies of their past that include the passing of her husband and her current abusive boyfriend. 

However, while things in their new home start out well-they find solutions to unemployment, poverty, the son’s dyslexia, etc, things start to go awry when Christopher, the son, is lured into the Mission Street Woods at the edge of town by a voice only he seems to be able to hear. 

As Christopher continues to listen to the voice in the form of a cloud, or a plastic bag, or even inside of his mind, he starts recruiting his friends to build a treehouse in the woods that will transport him to a different time and place. The voice, lovingly called the Nice Man, instructs him to finish the tree house by Christmas Day. 

Or else everyone will die. 

As Christopher struggles with newfound powers and responsibilities, coping with two different worlds, his mother struggles with her son’s sanity, the town struggles with anger, blame, and temptation, and what follows is the chaotic descent of a small town into the throes of good versus evil, love and loss, and most importantly, trying to differentiate what is real versus what is imaginary. 

In the simplest terms possible (a facetious statement if there ever was one), I thought this was going to be a thriller mystery book about a single mother and her young seven-year-old son Christopher leaving their home and her abhorrent abusive boyfriend in order to start a new life with hope and potential. 

And it….is? 

But it doesn’t stop there. Chbosky crams so many genres, themes, motifs, and messages into this book that when you think about it, it’s unsurprising that it’s over 700 pages long with the tiniest, most miniscule font I have ever had to squint at. 

However, make no mistakes like I did, this book is horror. 

Yup. You read that right folks, horror. 

To preface, and I might have mentioned this in another post for another book at some point, but I vehemently dislike horror of any kind. This extends to books, movies, shows, etc. 

I understand that horror is a great joy and pleasure for a vast amount of people and that it contains its own literary merit, tropes, and rules, and I can appreciate that for what it is from afar, but I personally take very little enjoyment from consuming anything horror related (I apologize to all the Stephen King fans out there in the world). 

I did not fully realize the extent to which this book was a true horror. 

This is entirely my own fault. I was very much blinded by the rosy colored glasses from college when I first read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Chbosky’s first and only other novel. 

Perks is wonderful. It is a tragic, yet fundamentally hopeful and loving bildungsroman that shows the beauty and the pain of growing up and accepting yourself. The movie with Emma Watson is what dreams are made of. 

I committed author fraud when I picked up Imaginary Friend based on the pure speculation that I would most likely like it since he had written Perks, a book I adored as both a reader and a teacher. 

I’ve warned readers against this in the past, but it seems like I should have taken my own advice: just because an author has written one good book or one book you like, does not automatically mean you will like their second book, or any of their other books for that matter. 

This cannot possibly ring more true for Stephen Chbosky, as not only are his two books completely different in narrative and structure, but also vastly different in genre and purpose. 

I should have stuck with my gut and realized that I probably wouldn’t like this book based off the synopsis, the genre, and yes, even the cover (it looks scary to me, okay?), but I said noooooo, it’s Chbosky, you have to read it!

And this is where we ended up. 

First of all, I didn’t hate the book. 

I can recognize that it is extremely well written, well crafted, and well developed. I can enjoy a slew of characters, and oh boy are there a multitude to pick from, and I can give credit where credit is due. 

Chbosky is a talented writer. There is no doubt in my mind about this. The way he crafts words, the way he plays with texture and space, and with fonts and sizes, is nothing less of sheer brilliance. 

He undoubtedly is also masterful at motifs, foreshadowing, and symbolism. Notably, there were so many recurring objects, colors, metaphors, and so on that were sprinkled out so consecutively and intentionally throughout the novel-some I didn’t even pick up until the end-that I was left reeling from how immensely talented and brilliant he is. 

Things like his use of baby teeth, blue moon, and fogs/clouds/mist struck me in particular. I know this seems like gibberish, but Chbosky truly came across as understanding what he wanted to portray and how he wanted to deliver it. 

However, the biggest compliment I can give to Chbosky is the sheer magnitude of his imagination and creativity. This book almost overwhelmed me through the use of ideas and concepts I had never really thought of before. 

Alternate dimensions? Check. 

Supernatural powers? Check. 

Incredible use of diction and figurative language? Check and check. 

Chbosky had so many wild and tantalizing beautiful turns of phrases, expressions, and descriptions that it left me with the same sort of gasping epiphany that Maggie Steifvater’s writing always leaves me with, the feelings that writing can be so utterly beautiful and compelling, that it can be all-consuming as well as never ending with its potential to stun, to create, and to warp to unique needs and purposes. 

It definitely was a reading experience quite like any other I’ve had. 

Be that because of the horror genre or because of Chbosky’s odd, yet addicting writing style and this has definitely become a book that left me more than a bit dumbfounded. Although I’ve sung its praises and admitted to my own faults at this point, this book isn’t without flaws. 

To me the horror genre itself is just not my cup of tea like I’ve stated. Strike number one. 

Second, the book was...abysmally long. Atrociously long. As I’ve also said before, I do not mind large books. In fact, big books when you’re reading something you love is a true blessing. Finding that fanfiction at 3am that hooks you immediately and you look up to see its 300k? Amazing. 

Starting a new book series that you fall in love with body and soul and realize you have several installments left in the series to gorge and devour? Ecstasy. 

Sloughing through a single book that starts to drag on and on repetitiously for what seems like forever? Borderline hell. 

This book could have been 300 pages shorter and still contained everything Chbosky wanted to accomplish. It could have had the same brilliant writing, messages, and motifs, but without all of the never-ending back and forth between worlds and battles that just kept popping up time and time again. The abominable length considering its content is strike two. 

Last, the ending was a bit of a cluster. At this point in the novel, so much is going on, you are being exposed to so many pov’s that it’s almost stress-inducing, and events taking place are cataclysmic and 10/10 on drama. Chbosky bit off more than he could chew here. 

The book choked itself at the end, which, after reading for 700 pages is not the feeling you want to have. The ending left me befuddled, disappointed, and also bereft of a conclusive end and explanation for the shitstorm that had just rained down. It was not the ending I wanted, could understand, or could even really grasp. Strike three. 

This book has a plethora of merits followed by three enormous criticisms. If you like horror, then you’ve already crossed hurdle number one. If you can accept it’s repellant length (let alone have days upon days of free time to actually ingest said behemoth) then that’s hurdle number two. 

Hurdle three is up to you. Perhaps you would like the ending where as I found it lacking in structure, content, and answers. I like my endings tied up with neat little bows. I don’t like to be left thinking...hmmmm what does this mean? 

If I am going to read your massive book, I deserve an ending that satisfies the journey. Authors telling readers that it’s up for interpretation makes me want to strangle something. It comes across as enormously pretentious to me and oftentimes lazy. 

In the case of Chbosky, I think he had given himself so many loose threads that the neat little bow I desired was next to impossible. 

So he didn’t even try. 

Score: 6/10

Recommendation: If you love The Shining, are lacking bouts of creativity and imagination, have lots of free time during Quarantine, and don’t mind having an Inception-esque ending where you might not get all the answers you want, while being tasked with concocting it for yourself, Imaginary Friend might be your new best friend. 

Bonus: Here’s a pic of my kitty photo bombing this book shoot. Hope she brightens your day!

[apieters]

The clash of steel rang on the streets of the Magic Kingdom as a furious duel erupted in New Orleans Square. In the midst of a band of soldiers all the way from Agrabah, lead by Captain Razoul, two swordsman stood their ground, slashing and thrusting back-to-back against superior odds—in other words, it was a fairly average Friday afternoon for Christopher “Chris” Carnovo and André Caron, the Swashbucklers of the Magic Kingdom.

A stranger duo couldn’t be found from the Frozen lands of Arendelle to the Primeval World. Chris was a young, greyish-blue tyrannosaur, dressed in a blue pirate’s coat belted with a white sash, wielding a rapier with lightning-fast thrusts. André was a young man with shaggy brown hair and a black padded jacket, slashing violently at his foes with a sabre. The soldiers of Agrabah pressed hard on every side, but the odd pair had two things in their favor—they were both masters in the art of swordsmanship, and they had been fighting together since childhood.

Chris and André had a long and colorful career—starting as privateers in their youth, the two had almost single-handedly cleared the seas of pirates such as the notorious Captains Nathaniel Flint, Henry Morgan and “Black Bart” Roberts, before taking up service as fight choreographers in their young adult years. The two friends had choreographed almost every fight scene in almost every movie made in the Magic Kingdom, a land of princes and princesses, wizards and witches, pirates and knights, talking animals and other motley characters. Under the leadership of Mickey Mouse, the protégé of the late Good King Walt, the Magic Kingdom was a land of art, culture, and storytelling, producing some of the finest movies in the world. But while some made their names on the silver screen as actors or served the Kingdom as statesmen and captains of industry (often all three), others made their names behind the scenes. Chris and André belonged to the latter category, but their work had made them many friends all over the Magic Kingdom—friends that sometimes had need of their special set of skills.

“Just once, I’d like to be called in for a favor that doesn’t involve the risk of getting stabbed!” André Caron snapped at the tyrannosaur as he slashed up, knocking a sword out of a soldier’s hand.

“We’re professional swordsmen, André,” Chris shot back as he spiraled his rapier, sending another scimitar flying out of a soldier’s grip. “What kinds of favors do you expect people need from us?” He lunged to the side just as a soldier was trying to flank his friend, arresting the attack. The two shifted positions effortlessly, their efforts coordinated like a dance. “Besides,” he smirked, parrying a wild cut from another soldier, “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“I left it at home with the good book I was reading!” André shouted. A soldier rushed him and he grabbed the soldier’s wrist, wrenching his arm back before kicking him into his comrades.

“So, you don’t think we should be out here rescuing our friend?” Chris asked, spiraling his blade to intercept a cut and slashing at a second swordsman before thrusting over his shoulder at the first.

“I never said we shouldn’t be here,” André said, smashing his guard into a soldier’s forehead before parrying another incoming strike. “Just don’t expect me to be happy about it!” He swiped wide, left and right, whirling his sword in a dangerous dance of steel. He plowed through the soldiers, knocking them this way and that, clearing a way for the tyrannosaur. “Alright, Chris, I’m holding off as many as I can. Find Razoul and work your magic.”

This is the opening scene of a Disney fan-fiction story I’m rewriting. I started writing it for a couple reasons:

1) Chris needed a home. I’ve been drawing this swashbuckling tyrannosaur and his human companion (yes, André is named after me—there aren’t enough characters with my name, and that needs to be fixed) for just about 20 years now, and figured he needed a proper story. But what kind? Well, as I looked back, I realized that he was always sort of inserting himself into whatever I was interested in or reading at the time—piracy, Disney movies, books, etc. He was always a fan-fic character. So he needed to be in a fanfiction story. And as I tend to prefer a Disney-esque/traditional Western cartoon style, I decided he needed to be a Disney character—just one who works off-screen.

2) I really want to write original stories. I have at least 3 or 4 solid concepts, but when I decided in college that I wanted to write, I figured out I SUCKED at dialogue. And pretty much everything else. I had some raw talent, but of course that’s never enough—and being a perfectionist, I wasn’t going to waste an original story as my first attempt at learning the craft of writing. So I started exploring blogs about writing fantasy and credible, published authors all said the same thing: they started by writing fan-fiction. The reason they gave was that it was motivating because you already love the characters, and the world building and character creation is done for you (you can learn those skills later), leaving you free to focus on more fundamental aspects of writing craft—things like dialogue, pacing, plotting, planning, description, active vs. passive voice, all that jazz. So I decided to follow their advice.

I said earlier I was rewriting it—well, I got a little more than halfway through and the story just ran out of gas. The characters, I realized, would never and could never do the things necessary to advance the plot without breaking character, getting themselves killed, or using a dues ex machina. There were too many dangling plot threads, too many unnecessary characters, and after five years of intermittent drafting (I was in college, then I’ve had a day job or been job hunting ever since—I’m busy) I had gotten to know my characters (or my interpretations of several preexisting Disney characters) well enough that I could see major inconsistencies across the 200+ pages I had written. So I decided to go back to the beginning and rework the plot, making it a lot more consistent and focusing on a tighter core of characters. This scene was not in the original draft, and I think it establishes my characters far better than what I’d written before (which was essentially an info-dump of exposition—classic mistake).

Artist Behind the Scenes

Illustrating the picture presented several difficulties—one, I absolutely loathe myself for constantly choosing ground like grass or—in this case—cobblestones, which require a lot of repetitive, regular shapes. But that’s what the picture required, so I decided to make the cobblestones a little scribbled and blurry, and made the background lines thicker and fuzzier too. The biggest challenge was drawing multiple opponents—each guardsman is a unique person and requires individual attention to meet my minimum visual quality standards, and I can’t get away with vaguely soldier-looking blobs (as I’ve done in other pictures) since they are an integral part of the action that is the main focus of the piece.

The solution was to remember the adage, “the essence of the picture is the frame.” By positioning Chris and André just right in the frame and filling up as much space as I could using them, I could get away with only drawing parts of most of the guardsmen to give the effect of an outnumbered, chaotic street duel. I ended up framing the two characters with a ring of enemies, with Razoul appearing in the back to round out the impression of being surrounded on all sides.

The scimitar sabres (“scimitar” is a European butchering of the Persian shamshir) were a compromise between the way the Agrabah guards’ weapons appear in the movie Aladdin (where they are comically short and fat and have a clipped point) and real weapons. No actual Middle Eastern sword, to my knowledge, ever had a clipped point, which was actually a common feature of European single-edged swords like falchions and messers (which probably were the real inspiration behind Western artwork’s depictions of Eastern sabres); few sabres were ever as fat as the cartoons make them out to be; and most Middle Eastern sabres have straight, not recurved quillons. Most real sabres were relatively narrow, light swords meant for slashing/draw-cutting from horseback, not percussive chopping, and instead of a clipped point Turkish sabres often had a flared, double-edged tip called a yelman. I was thus faced with an artistic dilemma: integrity to reality or integrity to the source I was emulating. These are supposed to be the same guards as appeared in the “One Jump Ahead of the Breadline” musical number in Aladdin, armed with the same weapons; yet the action is taking place in “real life,” off-camera. I ultimately decided on a compromise: the scimitars would retain the same shape and features as in the movie, but I edited the dimensions to look a little more like real swords instead of meat cleavers.

(Disclaimer: Chris and André belong to me—everything else belongs to Disney).

[danny5218002-blog]

Communication 1-Week 3: Cross Sections & Dimensions

After what we have learnt in last 2 weeks, this week was when we had to put more efforts into this subject by learning to draw a complex 3D object, a machine component. We have to apply the principles of orthogonal projection incorporating dimensions. I am not going to talk about how I manage my tools to get my drawing done in step by step as I have mentioned it before in previous blogs. I’d only like to sort out what were the mistakes I've made during the drawings in order to convert them into ‘drawing tips’. Also, I would like to deliver my understanding of the process of engineering drawing.

Tip 1: Plan out by drafting

1.1 Layout planning

As what I've been always doing in drawing since the first task, I like to plan the layout for my drawing by drafting on a paper. This layout plan helps me a lot in directing and managing my drawing on the paper by how to locate which section the view goes to. There is a new thing for this time drawing which is we had to add a drawing frame by giving a 10mm wide border for A3 size paper. Base on the task requirements, I planned out how my drawing should go like in the image above. 

(Task requirements: Landscape format, top view, section view A-A in the front view normally is, the bottom view and right side view)

1.2 Sketching

In this part, I will sketch through all the required drawings by using projection lines without taking care of the dimensions (As I have mentioned before in previous blogs, ‘projection lines’ help to align and locate every detail in each view for each other of the object). We don't need to draw perfectly or spend so much time on this because this is just a map for the next step which I will put down the dimensions on this sketch. Final check before going to the next step is making sure each drawing is correct on each view side.

‘orthogonal projection (third-angle) should be applied like the back of your hand’

1.3 Measurement recording

After sketching, the next thing I will do is measurement recording. To carry this out, I read through all the dimensions provided in the brief (image above) and put down all the numbers on the sketching simultaneously. I find this step very important and must take it seriously if I don't want to crumple my drawing and throw it into the pin just because the circles have wrong diameters, that's the downside of it. But the good side of it seems to take over if what I get are accurate measurements (dimensions) which is time-saving for my real job by clarifying all the hidden and essential figures, that have not been mentioned in the description, with a little help of mathematics.

Exp: I got the total length of the object which is 102mm by adding the radius of the big cylinder (48mm/2) to the provided number 78mm. (image below)

This figure helps me to get a comprehensive view for the top view, section A-A and bottom view because they are sharing one dimension for the length and also assists to the alignment and location for the drawing on the A3 paper.

The image below is showing the result of combining 3 steps from Tip 1

Tip 2: Befriend with projection line

When a designer comes with an interesting idea and they must perform an initial sketch promptly on a paper or the Wacom, they will draw the object in 3 dimensions showing all angles and view sides to give a global picture of their desired product. After the sketch, they may do some retouch to make it more beautiful and clearer before acting on the dimensions. (image below)

The next job is to accomplish an engineering drawing by implementing the orthogonal projection. We have 6 view sides if we give a full orthogonal projection for an object. As we can see in the sketch (image above), the designer only hand out the object in 2 angles of viewing in 3 dimensions. 

Left-side sketch: showing the bottom side, rear side and the left side of the object. (image below)

Right-side sketch: showing the top side, front side and the left side of the object. (image below)

Apparently, we are not seeing the right side view of this object properly and if I am asked to give it a projection, I will use the front view side (as we can see it clearer) to project to the right side along with projection lines so I can have a better result shortly instead of drawing the right side view individually. (image below)

Correspondingly, if I am asked to give projections for the bottom view and top view together, I don't need a brainer but using projection lines to guide me through the process of completing those projections in different view sides. (image below)

Tip 3: Light pencil, black pencil then pen to finalise

Engineering drawing is a type of technical drawing to deliver a clear and accurate image for a particular engineering purpose in order to communicate ideas and send information from one mind to others. To make sure the process happen fluently, the drawing has to be clear and comprehensive. 

Engineering drawing implementation is a process of starting from sketching, measuring, drawing and finish in a complete image without any sketches and unnecessary lines. By doing this, people tend to use pen to give some bold outline and thinner line for information and smaller details.

According to my experience and to prevent my common mistake from happening in my future drawing (image below), I advise myself by taking the following steps:

Light pencil (for initial drawing, projection lines, dimensions): this step is taken for the first drawing which is editable because I can erase something and fix it without leaving any trace or mark on the paper.

Black pencil (for second drawing to shape up the image, no unnecessary lines or details): After finish the whole drawing on the paper, I will use black pencil to trace up and figure out the real image I need in the final drawing. Next, I will erase the unnecessary lines or details that I don't need without caring about erasing the whole image because the black pencil is dark enough to stay on the paper as I rub my eraser on the drawing with a same force. After this cleaning step, I will see the result of my desired drawing even if there's some adjustment need, I'm still able to fix it because this is still removable. I think this step is important and helpful as before I start using pen to finalise my image, every unnecessary lines become distractive and make it hard to trace up which I had an unpleasant result like the image below.

Pen (for the final drawing without any correction): This final step is to hand out the desired drawing which has to be clear and accurate. There's no ability to have some adjustment after this.

The bottom view shouldn't be seen with a rectangle shape which is built up on the top side only.

[stantoncassandra]

Published Art Essay

Tourniquet

Scene I: Finding L

I found you. Took me weeks, hours at a time. I figure you’d been anticipating my internal arrival because when I finally forced my way through the dark static blizzard, between imprinted afterburn of what I’d been seeing, the shadowed neon canvas parted like a white rip. Your eyes met me; sought me. As a child, I felt soothed by the movement still present in the dark after shutting my eyes. When you see a thing only you can see it’s as if the universe has a secret for you, like you’ll be okay because you’re here for a special reason. Of course, the sensation is simply blood pooling into my thin eyelids. I long for the strange hope that, like death, there would still always be something swimming beyond the permanent darkness. I do not have time for belief anymore. Death is fine, it hasn’t stopped me from finding you in its clammy palm of calamity. You sit there cross-legged. One of you sits. Dozens of you dance around the terrain in a frenzied symphony of body, but I long for stillness; stillness weighted enough to be envied by the silent hunter who waits patiently before ripping into its fruit. I am not sure what I am physically doing. I left my body limp somewhere hazy. A messy afterthought of an olive-skinned stocky figure lies in a room. I beat mindfulness into myself with a dull-headed hatchet. I search the taste of my recollection. I don’t risk the thought of another room. Being here takes everything. I am gulping the synesthetic taste of late noon on the gritty wallpaper of your basement. I didn’t break-in, I had a key cut hours before you died. I am violating your space. I am saying all of this to you without speaking. Longing is a language. I am certainly the shadow wrapping itself around all of you, not letting you go in any dimension. Our memories together are the thorns on a syndicated timeline. I pluck a thorn from the body my mind has made for me. A memory ensues.

Scene II: Barren Circus

When away from a person too long we experience corrosion. Whether the memory becomes corrosive or the details corrode incorrectly remains unknown. We visited a traveling circus in Alamosa; accidentally. Or maybe it came to visit us. There’d only been one act, a slew of similar people whose similarities made them not so human at all. I looked over at you often to protect you or read your reactions, whichever intention seemed more intentional. You never gave much away in the way of fear or excitement just constant straining inquisition. You said they reminded you of tourniquets, I told you you were thinking of the wrong word. You said you didn’t care, the word sounded exactly how you thought it should for what you saw, which was this: dozens of performers glittering the plain and plugging any blank space the eye searched for on the horizon. Ashen mountain backdrops gave an infinite stage effect. A barren, formless, full landscape of grandiose squalor due to the frantic static meddlesome motion of them. “Semi-organic apocalyptic phenomena,” I could hear you whispering all sorts of incomprehensible descriptions to my left. You with your words took a hotel painting and projected Basquiat all over the unhappening landscape. You were not wrong about the odd feeling they provoked. Contortionists put it mildly, acrobats from hell, they didn’t say a single word or burp up a goddamn sound while they twisted around for us, only us. Why wasn’t anyone else around that day? Their bodies played intimate Tetris together, I couldn’t look away, the completion felt satisfying, but I never admitted so to you. Instead, I feigned uncomfortable. The thought of you finding any satisfaction in their prickly postures meant another entity was pulling you away from me. Their springy motions were bizarre, the majority were smiling to themselves. Some looked critically at the others. This helped, knowing their eerie act had breaks in the execution. The way their garment wrapped around their bodies reminded me of artifacts on a sailboat we took out, just the two of us; a white beacon against the beastly Cerulean sea. You kept us afloat.

(We touch mouths somewhere)

Scene III: Evolving Ocean

I hear myself feeling this. My body jerks distantly in response, a tug in my chest and trousers. You still remain seated in front of me. This place is more familiar now. Another you I see from the corner of my vision drops its tongue to the ashen ground. A thorny vine takes its place. I allow myself to be taken for a moment: I fear you so deliciously. I want to eat your expressions from a depthless cereal bowl. I pleasure myself daily for drawing your face in the sand, remembering, finding your face in the marble veins of my shower, ripping a hole in the mattress where you slept. What’s an echo without the source? You’re always contradicting our pasts, so misdirection makes you my sole soul consumption. Locked into you, a freckled foe offering me a gift to husk hands-free in exchange for simple sanity. My mind has an ongoing affair with right and wrong. Avoidance places itself at the tip of that trismic palace we used to call home. I lied. I can’t say I’ve avoided a single inch between the whole passing of yes to no. You do not sit any longer. A pressure I can’t see is pressing onto you. Surrounded by leaping constant leaping, you now lay as still as the atmosphere allows. Your leaping is your longing. The twitches pull grafts of your flesh away. I’m losing you in this mind. You exist as time does in the loop of impossible roving. Magnets pulse behind your vision; features twitch with stagnant anoxia. The tongue is writing in the ash now. You’re begging me to remember our time at sea, so I do, and you pull yourself back into focus and speak inside out.

L: Evolution is a maxim. 

Me: I don’t know what that means.

L: Ev -olution- Ev -eryone- (ev) Something and everything has to apply to everyone. 

The vessel we rented was called Apocalypse, No! which you liked very much. I recall ruffling your hair as we walked towards the beached boat that just kissed the waterline. You didn’t like that very much. You walked ahead after confirming times with our Thai tour guide. You were a renegade trying to exsanguinate lightyears of evolutionary dilution by going about your ways in such obvious dissociative behavior. My mistake was seeing you as my novelty. At one point on the ship you read me something you’d written. The magic wouldn’t stop, minutes prior we’d seen a whale in the far distance, such a dark far-cry sounded so many miles away. Your words seemed the source of its pain.

Enigmatic loss becomes the sun

Animals fall dead in a consolatory clap

A wash of sanity sirenic at last. 

Beautiful suffocation blossoms grand singularity 

Enigmatic loss, a fortified wash to a quiet world. 

Your dark hair pooled in my lap while we floated aimlessly. When you slept the world had time to be without scrutiny. I don’t want to be in this memory any longer, why have you put me here?

Scene IV: Four Walls

The only way to find you is to swallow either side of symmetry. Fucking the life out of contradiction with the one state of being it cannot exist within; emptiness. I wonder where you sleep, nest or web. The only real difference between the two is life and death. Webs are mid-air traps spun for death’s sustenance. Nests are nourishing proof we’re all collectors. We collect materials for comfort, for new life. I prefer stolen comforts. I see you crowding yourself. I see your faces glitching with repetitive velocities, like a bullet shrouded in cotton pegging the sides, resuscitating truths. There is only your movement or stillness. I am violating the gray maggoted coils in my skull by forcing myself to stay just a bit longer. I am distantly evolved to simply get me through the day. This day is the pinhole I strain my whole being against wishing my two eyes could evolve to one in order to focus better. The smell of the oceanic air followed me back to this squandered present place. I slink from the memory of our sailing while rolling my eyes around to reset. I stay wrapped in your unempirical flicker. You stay folded in the mind desert around me. I spoke with a specialist about losing you. They suggested meditation. I would’ve taken sailing advice from the middle of the black ocean, from a tide trying to swallow my sails. I don’t trust professionals but such simple advice from a decorated person made me giddy. Triumphant deterioration of self. I release the grip. Strain is replaced by paresthesia. There is no loss. There is hard work. The days between my finding you will shrink into seconds. This is the only way to love, at either pole of perfection and destruction. You make feats of my dreams but not tonight. I feel a caressing between my shoulder blades and remove myself from the restraints, then the room, then your house. I walk into the night, picturing white rips opening the tight night. Sleep is soft, tempting, and terribly asking. Meditation is following something with your eyes while they’re closed. Forced meditation is being. Being without is living with death.

[igiveyouanumbrella-blog]

Shackled

Characters: Apostasia, Lord Knight

Words Count: 2974

Rating: Some blood, descriptions of injuries, some sadness. Elrios isn’t a kind place.

[Technically is connected to x, but to be honest you can treat this as a separate story. ]

There are times when he wondered if Gods make humans so foolish on purpose. 

1.

For a being borne out of divinity, he cannot understand its enchantment to the point of attracting worship.

Watching the Dark El crumbles before his eyes, its fragments scattering through air like flocks of songbirds orchestrating their funeral songs, he ponders the falsity of a potential salvation. What’s there in a title of a God, if Her powers has failed to reach the core of her most trusted servant?

(Is he still? He doesn’t know.)

The Goddess is not absolute. The Goddess is not all-encompassing. The thoughts, the hurt, they travel up his disfigured skin and taint him with disappointment, until he could do nothing but to dirty his hands with black blood for camouflage.

2.

He remembers being young.

He remembers Her voice too, when it sounds so much like music in his ears and not like a string of empty promises. She whispers importance into his being by motioning his gaze toward the other siblings who are still diluted lights with their fates unwritten. Like a fool, he places himself up the pedestal, looking down without realizing the perch is shallow.

He doesn’t know why She tells him to abandon feelings, to rescind from attachment, but does not take away the blooming pride in his chest. If she did let him be void of emotions, perhaps things could have turned out differently. But time doesn’t rewind for anyone, not even for a being abandoned by its own Absolute.

A scythe manifests and drowns everything in dark emptiness. Screams of demons turn into silence, alongside remnant whispers of regret. A fallen Celestial will relieve everything of all pains.

He can’t quite say this lingering wanting is strong enough to form a purpose, but It might keep him awake for a while longer.

3.

He encounters that mop of red hair while slaying down hordes of demons in a ransacked temple, their screams deafening the flutter of syllables tumbling out the other boy’s mouth caused by a slash of their claws.

What is this boy’s name, again? He doesn’t remember much about his past as a divine being, not anymore. Muddles of thoughts and emotions have become too much to bear over the years, so he tried quelling them down the void so many times until they become too vestigial to be recalled. However, now, the unease over his lack of remembrance seeps into his bones and makes them ache.

The boy’s body is in a horrible state, with liquids redder than his own hair tainting the iron armor in various gaping holes. His face looks older than the last time Ain has seen it, but his frame folds up like the vessel of a small child. 

“Ain…You’re…Ain. Right?” He shakes his head, but then stops the motion when the redhead gasps, choking on his own blood. In a distance, there are some voices other than demon screams beginning to filter into the chamber- the boy’s friends’. He resists a hiss, not wanting to let in more unnecessary disturbances to his supposed uneventful routine.

A gloved hand clutches his tainted wrist, making the blue marks hiss and the eyes engraved on his body growl. The boy’s mere presence is so disgustingly holy- the El- that he wants to flinch, before it dissipates when exhausted fingers eventually let go.

“Refrain from calling me by that name.” He mutters, picks up that familiar body, and dissipates into emptiness. For there’s no need to follow any rationality or reason; the only guiding light is the bubbling of something in the gaping hole that’s used to house his heart.

4.

Glave cackles at him when red blood spills on the floor of Henrir’s space like wine on glass, his gold eyes gleam with amusement.

“And I thought celestials are meant to be cold.”

“But I am not a celestial anymore,” he replies, and the man howls. A confused blink, then the sound of armor hits the space between them to snap Glave out of his mirth. If there’s one feeling he still remembers to express, that’s impatience.

“Heal him.”

“…Why didn’t you leave him be?”

“I don’t know.” A pause, “He was clinging onto my arms.” He corrects himself.

“I don’t like to aid the near-death, you know. Too many complications,” The air around them shifts and turns chilly, hisses resounding through the cold. Glave pauses when he saw the eyes on his body turned bloodshot, ready for destruction in resonance with his bubbling anger. “Then again, I also dislike fighting needless battles.” None of them do, really. Isn’t that why they all hide themselves in this virtual nothingness- to shut their eyes toward the physical world?

And yet, looking at the pool of red on his hands, he wonders what it takes for the child before him to readily throw himself into pointless conflicts, and what compels him to savage that flickering life in the first place.

But he cannot think too deeply, as all his mind can register is the faint cadence of the boy’s heartbeat.

5.

Glave warned that the aura in Henrir will cause harm to the armored boy, so he carries him out of the oppressive dimension into someplace more suitable for human occupation: the outskirts of Ruben. The bright sun burns his back and the green grass itch his skin, but he waits and stares at the way the boy’s chest move up and down, up and down, up and—

Until the claymore’s edge flash across his eyes and grazes his cheek. Ah, he recalls this boy’s speed has always been swift when it comes to destruction-a result borne from cruel expectations in an imperfect world.

“Are you…Ain? Or a demon that looks like him?” The boy’s eyes are as sharp as his sword, burning into the disfigured blue marks on his skin and the hissing eyes on his shell. His frame is still small, but the armor brings in more weight, more rigidity in his movement- the epitome of a perfect soldier fighting for a cause.

“I’m not Ain,” he insists in monotony; that name bears no relevance now. “But I’m also not a demon. I am—“ He pauses, not sure how to continue when he knows not of his label. The boy’s words fill in the space of silence before his can.

“Weird, because you sound a lot like him,” red eyes soften for a fraction in thought, before they settle into firmness. “Why did you save me?” The blade’s edge is still inches away from the skin on his neck, but he can perceive a small shaking movement. Try as he might, he can never understand puny humans and their unnecessary need to appear impervious to weakness.

“I don’t know.” He answers truthfully, as there’s little reason to be dishonest.

“Who are you really?”

“I don’t know.”

”How can you not know who you are?” The question is filled with more worry than frustration. It’s been years, but the child is still kind.

“Because I’ve abandoned everything, even my own memories.” They’re unnecessary, useless, worthless, unneeded, just like him. Per his answer, red eyes lose their sharpness, and straightforward brows droop down. The sight somehow made his eyes itch, so he continues, “But I know who you are. I just don’t remember your name.”

“Me?” The sword is lowered and sheathed with a quick, practiced flourish. “I’m Elsword.” Silver armor glints to distract from the ghost of a smile that he cannot read. Gloved hand still hovering the handle of his claymore-signs of caution. A long pause pass when they hold each other’s eyes, then, “Do you want to come with me?”

“Why?” Now that takes him by surprise.

“You killed a lot of demons. You saved the El in that temple from being corrupted.” The boy replies easily like he’s expelling air, as if everything that come out of his mouth make perfect sense.

“But I don’t care for the El. I actually hate the Goddess,” his throat hurts-he hasn’t talked this much for a long time, but somehow this boy- Elsword- is making him want to share more than to listen. It’s an uneasy feeling.

“I’m acquainted with a pair of demons, you know. They agreed to come, even if they don’t care for a God. We only want to restore the El together. Most of us, anyways.” Elsword smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. The redhead is much more calculated in his demeanors and reasoning now, and he’s not sure if he likes that.

“But why do you want to take me with you? I’m corrupted.” On cue, the eyes hiding in his shadows hiss again, their darkness creeping cold on his entire being. He tries to dig his mind for more coherent words, to persuade this boy to leave him alone. He’s so tired of being involved in any godly affair, of having false expectations that he’s needed. “Are you doing this out of…pity?”

“I do. But also, because you remind me of an old friend. So, maybe it’s out of selfishness?” A small grin stretches wider, but those red eyes look like they want to cry.

Perhaps, that is why he takes the boy’s outstretched hand.

“…For the time being, I will come with you.” It doesn’t matter whether the El will be restored or not-everything they do would be pointless when the cycle of death envelops every being. Helping a child in an overly big armor isn’t an exception to nihil when every act leads to the same end.

“Okay,” Elsword smiles. “And your name?”

He thinks about the grazing cold of his own core, the emptiness of unheard prayers, the foolishness of an abandoned servant waiting to be fed by an uncaring hand, and said, “Apostasia.”

Just a reminder to himself, so that he won’t make the same mistake.

6.

The party is understandably distrustful of his presence, suspicious of a man who has abandoned them in pursuit of a goal too far from their mortality. Their gazes sting more than the burns of Henrir on his core, but Apostasia learns to ignore them all, like he has done toward everything in life.

Everything, except for one.

“I knew it, you’re a great addition to the party.” Elsword’s words ring like a triumphant song to his ears from across the battlefield as one more demon get impaled with black thorns, and Apostasia cannot help but quirk his lips upward, the soft nostalgia from years past filled his stomach with more than just misery.

He missed this boy.

7.

“You’re Ain,” Elsword said one early morning when the sun still had not risen. Many things had changed other than the boy’s age and appearance-his sleeping patterns, for instance. Apostasia belatedly realizes that he was growing into more of a warrior ready for war. The knowledge causes an aching on his core that he could not quite categorize.

“That is not my designation anymore, I am-“

“But you’re still him. You feel like him.” There it was, the flash of stubbornness that used to irritated his celestial self, and it still does. Apostasia flicked his corrupted wrist, and eyes opened up on his belly, hissing in response to command of the hurt that never came.

“Does my body look like that Ain’s?” Grotesque and insidious, far from the image molded by God. It is something he had to grow comfortable with. 

“...No. But people change. You do too.” Elsword’s eyes burned away his rejections, and gloved hands covered up his tainted ones without flinches. “It’s not only similarities in appearance but...I know you’re Ain when you saved me in that ransacked temple, because you...You are always one of the first people to come to my aid.” If Apos saw a wet sheen on the corner of Elsword’s eyes, he didn’t comment on it. Dark eyes blinked slowly. Tired. Sorry.

He remembered now. It was this form of trust and kindness that make humans so weak and stupid, so quick to fall into misery. Easy to be used and discarded by a Goddess who has instilled into them a love for life. And yet-

Cold fingers wrapped around the boy’s gloves, clinging to their warmth. Who says he isn’t as stupid as them when he has been built from their image?

8.

Gold chains erupted from the grandmaster’s cores, slithering along her limbs like snakes. They held down the grand demon and smited it with holy flames. From her own essence, the song of divinity exuded its first note of regal power, scorching everything in its path faster than any flame magic. Apostasia hissed in pain as his eyes scream in fear of God’s presence, but Elsword watched on, enraptured by the otherworldly sight like his life had been built up for that moment. Even without any confirmation of Her agent, Apostasia already knew of the girl’s role, sensing the Goddess’ mark engraved in her fate as a tool to be discarded for the greater means.

That was the beginning of the end.

One day, a man in black and red came to reap happiness away, his flames promised the baptism of a new world without the El, all in protection of an unfortunate sacrifice. He emitted a grand defiance toward God that both intrigued and uneased Apostasia. Scorn was in his eyes and soul, anger lied in every thrust of sword he rains down on flesh. Lost love, Apostasia didn’t understand, but he knew of regret, of wanting things he can never have. So, he fought with everything he could muster, unable to disrespect the man’s will to establish influence in the world that doesn’t acknowledge his struggles.

But Elsword- the boy’s eyes looked directionless, the swings of his blade were damaging but driven on pure instinct rather than finesse. Still, he fought, blood pooling at his feet and teeth gritted tight in determination. Besides him, the grandmaster stood tall, her nimble dodges and decisive strikes in tandem with her brother’s, as if there’s no noose hanging on her neck.

Humans, he concluded, are stupid creatures. But they are not weak. 

Their adversary was powerful-he possessed an incredible aptitude of turning aged desperation into strength, and soon, the whole party, even the power of Void, shriveled and burnt under relentless torrent of flames. Only Elsword’s blazing mop of unkempt red hair remained tall, his armor broken but not shattered. Apostasia’s eyes could only register the screeching of bloodied sword, before blackness overtook him.

9.

When he woke, the powerful man was no more; only a black-haired corpse was left in its place. In his chest, lied a claymore serving as his tombstone, with his boyish gravedigger wearing heavy crosses on his neck. Besides him, the grandmas-Elesis, held his hands. They both were shaking, their postures looked every bit the children he finally recalled befriending years ago.

“I’ve made my decision.” Even after all these months, Elsword’s armor still looked too big for his frame. With all of the pieces in place, he looked every part the gear of the bigger machine called life. Apostasia wanted to smash them all, then he caught the glimmer in those stony red eyes and stopped himself. 

Was it a foolish decision on his part? He’s not quite sure. But still, he had no role in stopping this, no conscience of obstructing the boy who has granted him a new life and purpose in a world that promised him none.

10.

Apostasia watched as Elsword leaded his sister to her final resting place. Every step they took up the long stairs signaled one more year added to Elesis’s life sentence, every shuffle of feet left a vestige of resignation. Their two shadows flickered in the sun, merged, then only one was left behind.

Elsword dashed from the temple’s gates after, unmindful of worries exude from his friends and the priestesses, his legs hurried and clumsy. A gloved hand shielded the profile of his face. Apostasia wasted no moment to run toward the boy. Even if he doesn’t understand humans’ need to appear strong, he still felt the distress in abandonment. After all, wasn’t that the whole purpose of this cursed humanity that Ishmael molds him after: to relate to humans so much that he can feel the insignificance of their feelings, of their imperfections, of their lives, to the point it shattered his arrogance and makes him obey fate’s whims?

When corrupted arm reached the metal shoulder pad after a long distance, the boy came undone and collapsed in tears. Apostasia felt a pang of hurt reaching his empty hole of a heart, but no water came out to salve the ache. He could only wrap his tattered wings around that small frame and protect it from more offenses done by a callous God.

“It’s over now,” that’s not much of a consolation than a statement of truth, but the boy’s hiccups stopped.

11.

Elsword held his hand with a gloved palm, but it felt cold to the touch. Apostasia didn’t know why that bothered him, but it did.

“I want to go back home one last time, Ain.” Elsword’s calm words betrayed the liquid dripping down his cheeks, but the boy held his gaze firmly, steadily. “I want to see Ruben again, before I return to Sis.” His hand shuddered, and Apostasia tightened his grip, the holy song of the crystal inside the boy didn’t scream at him when they touched anymore. It’s now silent and peaceful in all of its negligence-their roles were finished.

Apostasia thought about how this boy’s claymore glistened in blood and blaze, burning out a girl’s life for a world that will eventually forget its own name. He pondered about the demons roaming the land with their miasma still scattering around the Earth, stewing for another generation of vengeance and itching to overthrow the divines. He contemplated the weakness of Gods, the futility of Devils, the certainty of struggles feeding into a cycle they can never escape.

He cannot imagine the end of this world will be pretty, and yet...

Elsword kept his gaze, pinning him in place despite his desire to slip through the cracks and float in the void. Apostasia nodded; all the brave man’s words he couldn’t say as Apostasia is neither man or brave, yet he knew he could at least offer the boy this:

“Let’s go.”

A/N: So this is an AU within the AU in this, in which the El is really the only thing that won’t screw the world over. Elsword succeeded in protecting the world like he should, yay!! Unfortunately, Solace got stabbed because, let’s face it, he would never compromise a chance at saving Harnier without a good fight. Even after the restoration of El is completed, because Apostasia’s connection with Ishmael is practically severed, he doesn’t get dissociated into light and gets to stay with Elsword and being his eternal silent observer. 

The changing between present and past tenses are intentional but hmm it probably doesn’t matter too much...for now ((pray that i can get the other stories in this AU published so things can make more sense without spoiling))