#THE MACHINE HERALD GET DOWN

[dopehorsesposts]

i feel fucking crazy THANK YOU SEASON 2 ANNOUNCEMENT

[therabbitthatpostthings]

Headcanon that since it is canon that Viktor twirls his hair while thinking, all you would need to do is play with his hair or give him a head message if you wanted him to take a break or go to bed. He may have nerves of steel but, every human has a weak point.

[lowpolynpixelated]

Bloodborne PSX One of the best fanworks on the web

Though the PS4 boasted and still boasts an impressive library of releases, for many (myself included) the system served to be bought for initially one purpose, to be the Bloodborne Machine. Most of the people in my life who had a PS4 during its generation either bought one exclusively to play Fromsoftware’s Nightmare Hunting Adventure or had initially got one solely to play the game and ended up getting more games afterward. It’s a phenomenon the game industry sees time and time again, with previous generations having swathes of fans buying entire consoles for one or two games. As far as games go though, Bloodborne is at the very least worth the price of entry. At the time, it was heralded as Fromsoftware’s most cutting-edge and impressive game to date. A gorgeous gothic world filled with creatures ripped straight out of H.P Lovecraft’s nightmares, a haunting soundtrack showcasing beautifully composed choral scores and a combat system that incentivized aggression and speed to achieve brutal and bloody efficiency. It’s no wonder then why Bloodborne still has such a large following behind it. Fans of Fromsoftware have hoped for a sequel or PC port year after year to largely disappointing results. But where the community shines is in its fanworks. 

From fanart, comics, music, animations, and even fan-made video game spinoffs, the game has been shown a monumental amount of love since its debut in 2015. One of these fanworks was released back in 2022 and has since become one of the most famous pieces of fan-made content surrounding the game, this of course, being BloodbornePSX by LWMedia. An incredibly impressive feat of coding and art direction, the game serves as a “Demake” of Bloodborne’s first Yharnam segment, made to look like and play as if it were made on the very first PlayStation console. With some custom-made areas and an entirely unique boss to boot the perfectly paced experience is both a treat to fans who have been orbiting the game since its earliest days and new fans looking for the best and brightest fanworks to interact with. 

The game has since gone on to be covered by a variety of news outlets all over the web, along with its creator receiving much-deserved attention for her efforts. One Lilith Walther (AKA b0tster on social media) holds the title of developer for the project. A long-time video game enthusiast and FromSoftware fan herself, she’s had quite an impact on the community I’m sure she’s very proud to be a part of. Later in the article, we’ve got an interview with Lilith herself about both Bloodborne PSX and her current project, “Bloodborne Kart”, but first, let’s talk a bit more in-depth about BBPSX.

(Official launch trailer for Bloodborne PSX, uploaded January 31, 2022 by LWMedia on Youtube)

Bloodborne PSX:

So, what exactly is Bloodborne PSX? To start, let’s answer what precisely a “Demake” is first. Demakes often have the goal of remaking the likeness of a game either stylistically, mechanically, or both, as if it was developed on retro/outdated hardware. Famous examples of Demakes include “The Mummy Demastered” developed by Wayforward as a sort of tie-in to the 2017 film “The Mummy” in the stylings of a 16-bit run and gun adventure against armies of the undead, and “Pixel Force Halo” by Eric Ruth games which take the prolific XBOX franchise and shrinks it down to a Mega Man-esque platformer reminiscent of the NES’ 8-bit days. Demakes are intensely attractive looking, not only into the past of video games and their developments but just how creative developers can be with games that they love and appreciate. Bloodborne PSX hits as hard as a Demake can in my opinion, blending masterfully recreated graphics with perfectly clunky early PSX gameplay quirks that go above and beyond to make the game not only LOOK like it belongs on the nearly 30-year-old console but feel right at home on it as well.

(A screenshot depicting the player character “The Hunter” facing off against two fearsome Werewolf enemies. Screenshot sourced from the Bloodborne PSX Official itch.io page)

Gameplay:

Starting off with the masterfully recreated clunk in the gameplay, Bloodborne PSX “shows its age” by hearkening back to a time when being seamless just wasn’t an option. Much like adventure action games of the past (and much UNLIKE its modern inspiration), you’ll be cycling through your inventory delightfully more than you’d expect. Equipping keys, checking items, and even the trademark weapon transformations are all done through the wonderfully nostalgic menu and inventory screens. Taking one of the foundational parts of Bloodborne’s combat system and making it such a more encumbering mechanic is nothing short of sheer genius when it comes to ways to really make you feel like it’s 1994 again. On top of this, the Hunter’s movement itself has been made reminiscent of classic action titles. Somehow, both stiff enough to feel dated and fluid enough to make combat that same rush of bestial fun found in the original, it goes a long way towards the total immersion into that retro vibe the game sets out to give the player. Anyone who grew up with Fromsoftware’s earlier titles like Armored Core and the King’s Field series will be very familiar with this unique brand of “well-tuned clunk”.

(A delightfully dated looking diagram showing off the controller layout for Bloodborne PSX’s controls. Image sourced from the Bloodborne PSX Official itch.io page)

Graphics:

Speaking of old Fromsoftware games, though, let’s talk about the absolutely bit-crushingly beautiful graphical work on display. As I’m sure you’ve seen from the videos and screenshots included in the article, BBPSX’s art style and direction are nothing short of perfect for what it aims to be. While playing, I couldn’t help but notice every little detail (or lack thereof) in the environments meant to emulate the experience of a game made on 30-year-old hardware. Low render distances, chunky textures, blocky polygonal models, just the right amount of texture warp, it all blends together to create an atmosphere that I can 100% picture being shown off on the back of a jewel CD case with a T for Teen rating slapped into the lower corner. While playing, something rather specific that called out to me was the new way enemy names and health bars were displayed in the bottom right corner of the screen while fighting. As a big fan of the King’s Field games, this small detail went (probably too much of) a long way toward my love of how everything’s meant to feel older. Other games trying to match the more specific feel of King’s Field, like “Lunacid” created by KIRA LLC, also include this delightful little detail, a personal favorite for sure. 

(A screenshot depicting the second phase of Father Gascoigne’s boss fight, showing off the game’s perfectly retro art style. Image sourced from the Bloodborne PSX Official itch.io page)

Sound design/Soundtrack:

But where would a game be without its sound and score? No need to fear, however, because Bloodborne PSX comes complete with a chunky soundscape that will make you want to check and see if your TV is set to channel 3. A haunting set of tracks played by fittingly digital-sounding MIDIs ran through filters to sound just as crackly as you remember backs up crunchy sounds of spilling blood with low-poly weaponry. Original sounds from Bloodborne have been used for an authentic sounding experience, but have also been given the CRT speaker treatment and sound like something you remember playing on Halloween 20 years ago. If you watched the launch trailer featured above then you know exactly what I’m talking about. The Cleric Beast’s trademark screech and Gascoine’s signature howl after his beastly transformation have never sounded so beautifully dated, and I’m here for every bit of it. Even the horrific boss themes we know and love from the original Bloodborne have been brought through this portal to the past. One of my favourite tracks, the Cleric Beast boss theme, might just sound even better when played on a 16-bit sound chip. It really cannot be understated just how much weight the sound design of the game is pulling. In my opinion, the only thing missing is that sweet sweet PSX startup sound before the game starts crackling through the speakers of a TV in the computer room.

(The Bloodborne PSX rendition of the Cleric Beast’s boss theme. Created by and uploaded to Youtube by The Noble Demon on March 20, 2021)

Interview with the developer:

Before writing this article, I had the absolute pleasure and privilege of talking with Lilith Walther about some developmental notes and personal feelings about inspirations and challenges that can come with the daunting task of being a developer. Below are the nine (initially ten, but unfortunately, a bit of the interview was lost due to my recording software bugging out) questions I posed to Miss Lilith, along with her answers transcribed directly from the interview. 

I’d like to start this section of the article by saying Lilith was an absolute joy to talk to. During the interview, I really felt like she and I shared some common ground on some topics regarding how media can have an impact on you and what sorts of things come with video games as an art form. After some minor technical difficulties (and by that, I mean my video drivers crashed), I started off with something simple. The first question posited was: “What got you into video games initially?” Lilith’s response was as follows: “When I was a kid, the family member of a friend had a SNES lying around. I turned it on and didn’t really understand. I was a guy on top of a pyramid, I walked down the pyramid, and some big ogre killed me. Later I learned that was A Link to the past.” and after a brief laugh continued, “A couple years later my parents got a Nintendo 64 with Mario64 and Ocarina of Time and that was it. Never put the controller down since then.” 

She then went on to describe what precisely about Nintendo’s first foray into 3D Zelda had hooked her. “I’ve heard this story so many times. It’s like you’re not even playing the game. You’re just in the world hanging out in Kokiri forest collecting rupees to get the Deku shield, and the game expects you to! It was just, ‘run around this world and explore,’ and that really hooked me.” I couldn’t agree more with her statement about her experience. Not just with a game as prolific as Ocarina of Time but many experiences from older console generations that could be considered “the first of their kind”, or at the very least some of the earliest. Lilith also described her first experience with a PlayStation console, stating: “Later on I got a PS2 which played PS1 games. I didn’t end up getting a PS1 until around the PS3 era, so I guess I’m a poser. I remember my sister bringing home Final Fantasy 9 when it was a relatively new game. If it wasn’t my first PS1 game it was definitely my first Final Fantasy game. Of course I went back and played 8 and 7 afterwards.” A solid answer to a simple question. 

The second question I asked was one starting to move toward the topic of Bloodborne PSX and its namesake/inspiration. Or at least the family of systems it was released on: “What PlayStation console was your favorite and why?” Lilith’s answer surprised me a bit. Not because I disagreed, quite the opposite, actually. But with such a big inspiration for her work being games from the PSX-PS2 generations, what followed was a pleasant bit of insight into one of her favourite eras of gaming, to quote: “I can give you two answers here.” To which I assured her she was more than welcome to, but she was set on having something definitive. “No no I’m only going to give you one answer. I can give you the correct answer that I don’t want to admit, but it was the PlayStation 3. It’s so embarrassing but I genuinely was hooked into the marketing of the whole ‘The cell processor is the smartest thing in the world’ and all that. It really seemed like the future of gaming and I was all about it. I think I owned an XBOX360 before but I did eventually get it and really enjoyed it. It took a couple years for some of the best games to come out but I really did.” A few examples she cited as being some of her most memorable experiences on the console were Uncharted 2, Journey, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Warhawk. All games I’ve seen on several top 5 and top 10 lists throughout my life within the gaming space. A delightful show of affection for a generation personally very dear to me as well, in which she ended the segment by declaring “Hell yeag”, a bit of a catchphrase she’s coined online.

Getting into the topic proper, my third question was one about her personal relationship with Bloodborne: “How did Bloodborne impact/appeal to your interests?” A question that received perhaps my favourite answer of the whole interview. From her response: ”Oh that’s a big one. Going to the opposite end of the poser spectrum, I was a Fromsoftware fan before it was cool. One of the games I played religiously on my PS2 was Armored Core.” A statement which made more sense than perhaps anything else said during my time with her. “Then later in the PS3 era everyone was talking about Dark Souls, this was when I was in college. I finally caved and got it and saw the Fromsoftware logo and thought ‘Oh it’s the Armored Core people!’ I played and beat it, really enjoyed my time with it. I skipped Dark Souls 2 because everyone told me to hate it, I still need to go back to that one.” 

It’s something I would recommend anyone who hasn’t played Dark Souls 2 to go and do. “Then Bloodborne came out and I thought ‘Alright this is the new one, gotta play this one’ and I was a huge fan of all the gothic stuff in the aesthetic. And how do I explain this, I do really like Bloodborne. I like the design, and the mechanical suite of gameplay, as a video-gamey video game it’s very good.” The tone shifted here to something a bit more personal. “But as well, I was playing it at a specific time in my life. I came out in 2019, I know Bloodborne came out in 2015 but I was obviously just playing it non-stop. It was just one of my ‘coming out games’, you know?” For those who maybe don’t understand the statement there, “coming out” is a very common term used within the Queer community to describe the experience of revealing your identity to those around you. Whether it be to family, friends, or co-workers, almost every queer person has some sort of coming out story to tell. Lilith is speaking in reference to her coming out as a trans woman. She elaborated: “Obviously I can only speak for myself, but I just feel like when you make a decision like that, that part of my life just ended up seared into my brain, you know? Bloodborne was there, so now it’s just a part of me. And it definitely influenced some things about me. It was there because I was working on Bloodborne PSX at the time, but it had an impact on something I’ve heard a lot of other Trans people describe.” She went on to describe the concept of “Coming out a second time” as sort of “finding yourself more within your identity” and becoming more affirmed in it. She described both Bloodborne and her development on Bloodborne PSX influencing large parts of her life, a good example being how she dresses and presents. As a trans woman myself, this answer delighted me to no end. I, for one, can absolutely 100% relate to the notion of media you experience during such a radical turning point in your life sticking with you. There are plenty of games, shows, music, and books that I still hold very near and dear to me because, as Lilith stated, they were there. All the right things at the right time.

Halfway through our questions, we’ve finally arrived at one pertaining specifically to the development of Bloodborne PSX: “What are some unique challenges you’ve faced developing a game meant to look/play like something made on retro hardware?”

Lilith answers: “So there’s two things, two big things. One is rolling back all of the quality of life improvements we’ve gotten over the years in gaming. Not automatically using keys is always my go-to example.” Something as well I mentioned in my short talk about the game’s gloriously dated feeling gameplay above. “That was definitely very very intentional. Because it’s not just the graphics, right? It was the design sensibilities of the 90s. Bringing that to the surface was very challenging but very fun. Another big part was, since it was one of the first 3D consoles, I wanted to recreate the hype around the fact that ‘ITS IN 3D NOW!’ So if you go into your inventory you’ll see all the objects rendered in beautiful 3D while they slowly spin as you scroll through them.” This is a feature I very much miss seeing in modern video games. 

She continued, “I think the biggest one was the weapon changes. Bloodborne’s whole thing was the weapon transformations. Like, you could seamlessly change your weapons and work them into your combo and do a bunch of crazy stuff, and I kind of said ‘that needs to go immediately.’ So now you have to pause and go to your weapon and press L1 to transform it, that was extremely intentional. So once I had those three big things down it all just sort of fell into place. Like the clunky UI and the janky controls. You need jank and clunk, and I think that’s why Fromsoft games scale down so nicely, because they are jank and clunk.” 

A point I couldn’t agree with more. Despite all the modern streamlining and improvements to gameplay, Fromsoft’s ever-growing catalog of impressive experiences still contains some of that old-school video game stiffness we’ve (hopefully) come to appreciate. She went on to make a point I was very excited to share here in the article, “It was just a lot of trying to nail the feel of the games and not just the look, right? Like I’m not trying to recreate a screenshot; I’m trying to recreate the feeling of playing this weird game that’s barely holding together because the devs didn’t know what they were doing.” In my humble opinion, something she did an excellent job with. 

Fifth on the list was a question relating to her current project, Bloodborne Kart, a concept initially drawn from a popular meme shared around social media sites like Tumblr when the buzz of a Bloodborne sequel was keeping the talking spaces around Fromsoft alight: “Anything to say about the development of Bloodborne Kart or its inspiration?”

Lilith answers: “So first off Bloodborne Kart is less trying to be a simulation of a PS1 game and more just an indie game. It’s not trying to be a PS1 game, I just want it to be a fun kart racer first. Starting off of course is Mario Kart 64, that’s the one I played back in the day. But I looked at other games like Crash Team Racing and Diddy Kong Racing, but also stuff like Twisted Metal of course. I always used those as a template to sort of look at for design stuff like ‘how did they handle what happens to racers after player 1 crosses the finish line.” The next portion of her answer was initially a bit confusing but comes across better when you consider certain elements present in BBK’s battle mode. “And also Halo, like for the battle mode. I had to do a battle mode and it kind of just bubbled to the surface. Split Screen with my sister was such a big part of my childhood. Thinking about Halo multiplayer while I was making the battle mode stuff.” 

Her answer to the previous question began to dip into the topic of our sixth question: “Are there any unique challenges or enjoyable creative points that go into making something like Bloodborne Kart?”

As she continued from her previous answer: “One of the biggest quirks of the battle mode I had to figure out was how to tell what team you were on at a glance, and that came back to Halo again. I started thinking about how you could tell in that game and it hit me that the arms of your suit change to the color of whatever team you’re on. It was just something I never even thought of because it’s so seamless. So that gave me the idea to change the kart colours, and that’s the most recent example of me pulling directly from Halo. It’s wild how a small change like that can turn your game from something unplayable to something fun.” I would agree. Tons of small details and things you don’t think about go into making seamless multiplayer experiences. Some of which we take for granted nowadays. She then made a point about one of the most challenging aspects of BBK’s development, “The most challenging thing was definitely the Kart AI. AI is just my worst skill when it comes to game development among the massive array of skills you need to make a game. It’s really hard to find examples of people coding kart driving AI, You know? You need to make a biped walk around you can find a million tutorials online but if you need to make something drive a kart, not really. I was really on my own there. A lot of the examples out there are very simulation oriented. Like cars using suspension and whatnot, but I’m making a kart racer. So I started simple, I put a navpoint down and if it needs to turn left, turn left, if it needs to turn right, turn right. And I just kept adding features from there.”

Moving onto our last three questions, we started to get a little more personal. Question seven being: “What’s your favorite part of Bloodborne Kart so far?”

Her answer was concise in what she was excited about most, quote: “The boss fights.” Short and sweet but she did elaborate. “Translating a big part of Bloodborne is the boss fights. So I made a short linear campaign which is basically AI battles and races strung together. Some of those stages are just boss fights which are unique to the rest of the game. When you make a video game you sit down and you make all your different modes of interactions, and then you make a multi-hour experience mixing and matching all those different modes in more complicated ways. I think the most interesting part is when that style tends to fall away and it ends up building something entirely unique to that experience.” An example she gave was the infamous “Eventide Island” in Breath of the wild, it being a unique experience where the game’s usual modes of interaction are stripped or limited, forcing you into a more structured experience that ends up being a majorly positive one. “That’s what the boss fights are in Bloodborne Kart. They do multiple game mechanics like a chase that ends in a battle mode. Like Father Gascoine’s fight where he chases you, and after you blow up his kart he turns into a beast and picks up a minigun.” That sounds absolutely incredible. It’s very easy to see why she’d pick the boss fights as her favorite element when they’re clearly intended to be such unique and memorable experiences. 

Our last two questions veer away from the topics of development proper and focus more on our dear dev’s personal thoughts on the matter. Question eight posits: “What’s your personal favorite part of being a game developer?”

After some thought, she gave a very impassioned talk about something she considers to be the best part of the experience: “When people who aren’t game developers think about game development they think of things like ‘oh well you just get to play video games all day and have fun’ but it’s not! Except for the 2% that is, and it’s near the end of development. When all the pieces fall into place and you start actually ‘making the game.’ Game development, especially solo, you’re so zoomed in on specific parts. Because you’re not making a game you’re programming software that’s what making a game is. You spend months working on different systems and then you actually sit down and make a level, and you hit play and it you go ‘Oh my god, I just made a game’. That part is what sustains me. It’s magical. That’s the best part when it comes to true appreciation of the craft aside from the reception.” An answer that I don’t think I could’ve put better if I tried. 

My last question is one that I consider to be the question when it comes to interviewing anyone who works on video games. Perhaps a bit basic, but heartfelt nonetheless: “Anything to say to anyone aspiring to be a game developer?”

Lilith’s answer: “Yes. Just do it. For real. This is what I did and it always felt wrong until I looked at more established devs echoing the sentiment. You cannot plan a game before you’ve started making one. The example I always bring up is the team behind Deus Ex wrote a 500 page design document for the game and almost immediately threw it out when they started development. Just start! You’re going to have unanswered questions and I think that trips people up. Don’t start with your magnum opus idea, start with something simple and achievable. I feel like a lot of people set out with the goal of making a triple-A game, and that’s good! But it can’t be your first game. Game development is creating art, just like any other form of art, and it’s like saying ‘my first drawing is going to be the Mona Lisa’ and it just doesn’t work like that. You need practice and development, and it’s difficult to see that because games take so long and so much, so it’s definitely seen as a bigger undertaking. But it’s still art. You’re still making mistakes and learning from them for your first project. Your next game will be better. View your career as a game developer as a series of games you want to make, and not just one big game.” A perfect response to an otherwise unassuming question. 

Lilith’s passion and love for video games were reflected very clearly in every response she gave during my time with her. Her dedication and appreciation for the art form can be seen in every pixel of Bloodborne PSX, as well as the development logs and test builds of Bloodborne Kart. I really do think that the way she answered my final question speaks volumes to the type of attitude someone should take up when endeavoring to make art as intensive as a video game. Whether it’s fanwork of a game that’s important to you or an entirely new concept, do it. 

(developer of Bloodborne PSX Lilith Walther, image provided by Lilith Walther via Twitter)

Closing:

If you’d like to check out the positively phenomenal experience that is Bloodborne PSX  I’ve included a link to the official itch.io page below the article, as well as a link to the official LWMedia Youtube page where you can check out Lilith’s dev logs, test videos, and animations about her work and other art. Thank you so much for reading, and another very special thank you to Lilith for setting aside some of her time to talk to me about this article. Now get out there and cleanse those foul streets!

Links:

Bloodborne PSX official itch.io page: https://b0tster.itch.io/bbpsx

LWMedia Official Youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/@b0tster

Lilith Walther Twitter page: https://twitter.com/b0tster

[thegnomelord]

CH 1: With a Spark It Starts Just Like It Ended

CW: NSFW Blood, gore, cannon typical violence, M reader but can be read as GN, Mage reader, Monster 141 AU, reader is described as having thick fucked up arms.

AO3 3.7k words, more of an intro to what's to come lol.

Old man Abdul had lived a good life. A harsh one. But a good one.

He was amongst the first to grab a gun and raise the fight against the Russians, risking life and limb for the freedom of Urzikstan even as members of his pack bled and died to artillery fire and noxious gas. And he alone had survived to see his country set free of tyranny and chose to stay in the military long after his hair had greyed.

And how was he rewarded for his service?

With a 'promotion' to guard the basement of a conference hall. They even called it the 'Peace House' as if that made his position grander, though in his humble opinion the only peaceful thing happening within the halls above was the lack of physical violence.

"Hey, did you fall asleep on me old man?" Taim, a bright eyed and gap-toothed human private so young he could've been one of his grandsons, asks as he throws down five playing cards on the floor between them. Royal flush, again.

Old man Abdul's eyes are soft with a glare and he throws down his own cards, already knowing he'd lost. "Go fish." He huffs, leaning back into the chair they'd been able to squirrel away.

It was embarrassing to think that boredom could torture him more than the Russians did, but they were only a few hours into their shift and he was already thinking of biting a bullet. Chances were they'd stay down here long after the diplomats up top finished bickering about who knows what...

"Hey," Taim perks up, and from the few weeks he's known him, Abdul knows the glint in his brown eyes heralds something stupid. "How about whoever loses this round takes a shot from your leg?"

He is proven correct.

"How about I throw you into a minefield so we can match?" Old man Abdul responds, his tail wagging from side to side. His tail looks more at home on a rat than any werewolf, the fur there an accidental casualty of a Russian fire mage's spell that had taken his leg off. The prosthetic leg only fitting on his human body isn't nearly as insulting as the warding totem they'd given him to protect against lethal magic after his leg had gone flying.

Taim gulps and holds his hands up. "There's no need for that sir." He quickly adds, clearing his throat and reaching to the floor to pick up their cards and shuffle them.

Taim's warding totem slips out from beneath his jacket, but it's different from old man Abdul's. Not in appearance, with the same materials every mage will make theirs differently, but in feel. It feels different...wrong.

Eyes narrowing he reaches out and holds the piece of faintly glowing rock between his claws. Heat radiates into his fingers, the magic inside pulsing in a steady even thrum like a machine instead of beating like a heartbeat; like something not quite alive.

Abdul had been in combat long enough to know how good a warding totem is with how his body reacts to it.

The shit one he'd been given barely gets the remaining fur on his tail to bristle.

Taim's makes his skin want to melt off.

"Where did you get this?" Abdul asks, tail curling up as he lets go of the totem with disgust clear on his face. "That rock could probably protect you from L3 mage without cracking, maybe even L4." Call him paranoid, but a private getting a totem to protect him from mages rarer than unicorns doesn't make any sense.

"Oh, that-" The young man clears his throat, the totem laying flat against his chest like an insult to life. "Came from up top a few days ago, guess all those terror attacks spooked command and they want to keep us normal people safe." He realizes his words and quickly adds. "-not that I'm calling you not normal or anything sir, it's just that-"

"-You're squishier than me, yes, I know." Old man Abdul rolls his eyes, leaning back into his chair with a huff.

Taim gives a nervous little giggle, scratching at his curly dark hair. "No offence sir. It's just...you know."

"We all look out for our kinfolk first." Old man Abdul sighs, going to wave him off.

His pointy ear twitches and immediately he's jumping to his feet when his sensitive hearing picks up the sound of the elevator mechanism running. No one is supposed to come down at this time, and Abdul already has his rifle raised to point at the elevator doors by the time Taim is able to get to his own feet. The old werewolf doesn't even need to say anything for the young man to stand on opposite side of him, they work together well, both guns aimed at the person revealed by the opening elevator doors.

It's just the janitor.

Taim lets out a small breath and lowers his gun, relaxing as the janitor gives them a small greeting both of them have to strain their ears to hear as a face mask muffles their words.

"That was a bit embarrassing." Taim chuckles weakly, nodding his own greeting and taking a step back so the janitor can push the heavy cart past them. Abdul notes the janitor's hands are thick and large, the veins poking out beneath latex gloves. Murky water sloshes inside the mop bucket, the trash bag filled to the brim and budging.

It's just a janitor.

But like an annoying tick on his ass, something doesn't let old man Abdul relax.

There's a buzz in the back of his mind like the one he'd get when he was being watched, and when he catches sight of the janitor's eyes beneath the wide-brimmed cap that buzzing stops; Instead replaced with a flash sense of wrongness in his bones and the feeling of tar inside his heart and an indescribable scent — like stale beer and burnt grass and deep dark rot — it has his fingers moving to the trigger before the sight of magic melting through latex can make the short trip from his eyes to his brain—

Glowing lines spring into thin air to form magic circles before their eyes.

The warding totems shatter.

'Pop' goes a head.

Both bodies drop to the ground.

"Could have told me there was a dog." Your words scrape against your throat like shards of glass from the disuse, melted latex stretching into long strands as you take off the cleaner gloves and throw them away, your fingers steaming and glowing hot with mana before you hide them away in tactical gloves.

"I-" Taim tries to say but his voice fails him, eyes and mind still blinded by the harsh glare of magical fire.

"Save it." You cut him off, pulling open the lip of the trash bag to dig out your facemask helmet. It's both a full face helmet and a gasmask, scratched up from years of use but still able to protect your head while keeping you anonymous. A shame it can't filter out the stench of burnt flesh, but you've gotten used to it.

Taim's vision clears and the moment his eyes settle on the charred remains of Abdul's head— the hollowed out skull where concentrated flame had burned a hole straight through everything in it's path, the flesh and bone charred black —he's scrambling away as fast as his feet can push him, the shattered remains of your warding totem crumbling beneath his fingers. Bile rises in his throat and he coughs when he breaths in, but his stomach is thankfully empty so he ends up dry heaving.

"On your feet." Your words are hard to understand under your gasmask, but you don't need to raise your voice. The tone you use has him scrambling to his feet in seconds.

"I- I- yes sir!" Taim manages to stutter out, doesn't even have to fake his fear as he stands at attention. He watches you reach into the dirty water to pull out a Handheld Personal Computer and shake off the residual droplets to ensure it still works before putting it in your pocket.

"When is the next check in?" You ask, reaching further into the trash bag to grasp the handhold on the heavy gas canister hidden beneath office trash. You pull it out without much effort, setting it carefully on the ground so you can recheck that the release valve is intact.

"20 minutes sir." Taim responds and he doesn't need to know Arabic to know what's inside the canister when a grinning skull is printed on the metal.

You let out a low sound, and Taim tries not to peer too closely at you. Sometimes he wonders what face a person who burns people alive without a single second of hesitation could have, but then you look at him and he sees that unnatural glow of mana in your eyes behind the darkened lenses of the helmet and he's glad he's met with the emotionless visage of the mask rather than the one beneath it.

"You have 10 to get out before Hell opens up." You say, standing back up and picking up the canister without complaint. "Use the emergency tunnels, don't spook the VIPs."

Taim is human, not sensitive to magic like the monsters are, but even he can feel the latent mana in your veins that strengthens your body. Like maggots at the back of his skull. It makes a second round of bile rise to his throat. "Yes sir."

You pay close attention to him until he disappears down the corridor before going the opposite way. Alone, it is easier to calm the lingering heat in your veins until the eternal engine of mana in your chest fizzles down to embers like a sleeping beast. Can't have your mana mess with sensitive electronics, even if that does leave you exposed on the cams (as if there's anyone alive to watch them)

"Ifrit, status?" The small radio in your ear crackles.

"Moving to the target, encountered and neutralized a wolf." You answer, taking sharp turns as you follow a path you'd memorized beforehand. "No other monsters to report."

You were lucky to run into one down in the bowels of the conference hall instead of at the front gate. Otherwise your espionage mission would have turned into a frontal assault. Not that Khaled would have minded, you were getting paid to send a loud statement after all.

"Good." You don't need to see his face to know he's smirking, your employer wasn't a huge fan of subhumans. "Continue to the objective."

You respond in affirmative, coming to a heavy metal door, locked with a passcode and even a palm scanner; It's all a valiant effort to keep sensitive data safe, but it may as well be cardboard to you. You summon another circle, this time right on the door, biting your tongue. You're not good with 'subtle' but you haven't forgotten what Taurus or Sierra had taught you; first pushing a bit of loose ash magic between the large atoms making up the metal to disrupt the bonds, then a single pulse of fire ignites the volatile ash and has the entire bottom half crumbling into red hot shards.

Molten slag drips down to the floor when you duck down under the remaining half of the door to find yourself in the server room. Steam rises when the cold air meets your hot skin, but you hardly notice as you first head to the ventilation system at the back of the room. It's dark, but you don't bother turning on the lights, the subtle mana in your eyes enough to give you primitive night vision.

"Ifrit to Alpha-Actual, connecting the payload right now." You say, setting the canister down. The ventilation collects the air from the server room to push it through the entire building and then outside, so all you have to do is melt a hole through the exit pipe until it's big enough for the hose on the canister to fit snugly inside.

"And the files?" Khaled's voice sounds in your ear once you're finished.

"Going now." Standing back up you head to the central server. Taking out the HPC you hook it up to the mainframe, watching the screen until it shows 'connection secure'. "I'm connected."

"Copy that." Your eyes scan the cracked screen (which you broke less than a week after getting it), seeing the file transfer start before Khaled even finishes speaking and trying to read and memorize the names of dozens the files but they change too quickly. "File transfer ETA 5 minutes. Sit tight."

Giving confirmation you keep an eye on the doorway. Though you are positioned in such a way that you'd see the shadow of someone coming in before they see you, years of being behind enemy lines and acting as a friendly to your foes has taught you to be careful. Especially when you can't use more than a smidgeon of mana without frying the entire server system.

You are lucky that no-one comes, the remaining guards too busy guarding the diplomats above you to check what's beneath their noses. While waiting you access the public stream to watch the peace talks, setting the sound to the lowest possible setting so you can keep an eye on the diplomats in case you need a change of plan.

"Got the files, you're clear to finish." You're moving before Khaled can finish speaking, leaving the HPC to hang by the cord from the server. "Oh, and remember: Loud."

"You get what you pay for sir." Kneeling down next to the gas canister you check to ensure your gas mask is firmly on and breathing in deeply; It restricts your breathing and makes muscles work harder, but your body is so used to it that it feels like coming back home.

"Letting the gas out now." Even with the gas mask you still hold your breath when you open the valve, the gas hissing as it escapes the canister, the fan right next to you helping push it through the system. You know there's not enough gas to reach the diplomats on the top floor, it's part of the plan, so when the gas pitters out you cast another circle inside the pipe.

The servers around you flicker meekly and crackle with electricity when you use your mana fully; Something intense and suffocating burns behind your sternum for just a second before liquid mana is rushing down your veins into your hands and coming out through the magic circle as copious amounts of ash.

The rotating fan right next to you spews some of your ash right back at you, flooding the server room in magic that has long since accepted your body enough not to hurt you. But even your seasoned stomach feels tight when you breathe in the mixture of ash and toxic gas, the chemicals turning your magic a nasty shade of green, and you make a mental note to change the filter when you're done with the op otherwise the toxified sediment collecting in there will poison you for months.

You can hear the diplomats begin to cough over the livestream in the HPC, but it all feels so distant when you shift and feel cold dog tags press against your burning chest. They're light like a noose around your neck, yet the absence of weight mocks you in a way their owners no longer can.

There's a familiar sting in your bones when your mana reservoir begins dwindling, but it's easy to push through it until the engine in your chest goes into overdrive from the stress the magic puts on your body. You only stop when the burning mana in your veins starts burning small holes in the sleeves of the janitor jacket, revealing bits of your mage marked skin.

Stopping the flow of ash your hands find themselves in your pocket, taking out a lighter. It's one of those old zippo lighters, the exterior is rusted from years of action and numerous initials are scratched into the metal, but somehow it still functions; It's the strange thing about it— the more you use it, the longer it lasts. Stop, and it dies.

"It's a bit like you, firebug."

Absentmindedly you trace the scratched initials in the metal, trying to ignore the hollowness in your chest when the screams beyond the smokescreen of ash start sounding familiar.

"Going dark." You say to them, flicking it open.

One spark is all it takes.

. . .

With Makarov having gone underground like a wanker after his escape from the gulag, Price and Laswell had been stuck with their heads in mountains of paperwork searching for the bastard. Price had known he'd be in for a headache the moment he agreed to let the boys watch a live football game between England and Scotland, but he reasoned they'd all been working hard enough to earn even a small break.

At the very least it gave them all a moment of reprieve from the stress of a possible world war.

It didn't stop Soap from being a bloody muppet.

"Oh fockin' 'ell!" Soap roars and jumps to his feet, growling at the teli where a ref held a red card above her head. "That should've been a yellow! Fock, one more eye and the ref's a right cyclops." He waves obscenities at the teli as if the ref can see them, his tail hitting Gaz every time it wagged.

"Soap!" Gaz groans and stretches one black wing to smack the werewolf over the head with his long flight feathers to stop him blocking the screen.

Though Gaz's wings are hollow, the smack still hurts. "Ow, what's that for?" Soap groans, rubbing the back of his head.

"At least take your defeat with a wee bit of dignity." Gaz smirks, folding his wings.

"Bold assumption he has any." Ghost mutters next to Price, making him chuckle.

“Oh ho! I’ll get me dignity when the bloody ref gets off 'er knees an’ stops blowing the entire game.” Soap turns to playfully snap his teeth at Gaz. "And what's tha-"

The football match cuts out, replaced with a news segment.

"-Oh, what the fock?" Soap grows quiet when the newscaster begins speaking.

"We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you breaking news. As we speak, the conference hall in Al Mazra, where diplomats from over 40 countries had come to discuss peace and trade agreements with the newly reinstated Urzikstan government, burns in the flames of another terrorist attack."

The footage shifts to a drone filming a bird's eye view shot of violent flames spewing from every hole and window to engulf the entire three story building in consuming fire, heavy plumes of smoke rising into the sky like a maw of a hungering beast to spew a storm of ash and cinders down to the ground. The clouds of ash have a sick green undertone to them.

"Shit." Gaz sucks in a breath.

"Mokarov's done hiding." Ghost notes, leaning in to look closely at the screen with narrowed eyes.

"How the fock did we miss this?" Soap asks the question in their minds, turning to look at Price. "This popped up like bloody whack-a-mole."

At that same time Price's phone rings. The dragon quickly fishes it out of his pocket, seeing Laswell's name as the caller ID before he picks it up while the reporter drawls on.

"Price, are you-"

"Yeah, I'm watching the teli." He cuts her off, knowing what she's going to say. Distantly he can hear the same news report sounding on her end.

"Authorities warn citizens to vacate the immediate area as toxic gas has been detected in the air. Military forces are already enroute, but the prospects for the diplomats survival are nonexistent."

Price's draconic eyes focus on the screen when the footage shifts to that inside the conference hall. Two diplomats argue about something Price can't begin to try and untangle, his focus on one man near the back who begins coughing. More follow suit, and even over the screen Price can tell the signs of toxic gas inhalation by the way more diplomats begin wheezing and coughing wetly.

"This isn't the Russians." Kate says after Price has put her on speaker.

"How come? Looks like some terrorist shite Makarov would pull." Johnny says, his tail curled up and the tip wagging occasionally as he pays attention to the screen.

Seconds later plumes of blackish-green smog erupt from the vents above the diplomats, spewing out with such force it knocks the the camera and the man behind it down to the ground. Ash Magic, Price realizes when he sees smoldering cinders drift almost peacefully in the all consuming fog. Seconds later something causes a spark and the volatile ash magic explodes.

"Ash mage." Ghost grunts, "Just great."

"Makarov doesn't use mages." Price says, scratching his beard.

"No, but Al-Asad does." Kate's voice drifts through the silent room as they watch several APC's arrive on the scene, armored soldiers exiting. But without any monsters who can stomach the heat like Price and with the fog of ash so thick it could be cut with a knife, the best they can do is secure the perimeter. "The CIA intercepted his broadcast before it went public, this is just the start."

Gaz hops off the couch, crossing the small distance to tap one claw at the screen. "What is that?" He asks. Seemingly hearing him, the drone camera focuses on where the main entrance of the building had been.

A dark silhouette of a person can be seen in the flames, growing darker and more refined until finally a featureless helmet emerges from the flames, a deep glow emanating from behind the lenses. It's followed by a body, clothes burnt away in some parts but the flesh beneath unharmed. Price can tell immediately it's a mage by the state of the arms — even from far away it's easy to tell the mage marks, the skin turned rough and dark like cooled magma, veins brimming with volatile mana.

Before the soldiers can fire a single bullet you lift one hand up, the dark mage marks turning to bright like fresh lava when mana flows from your chest to your fingers. A magic circle etches itself into the ground in an instant, so large the surrounding buildings fall into it's perimeter.

And with a second motion of your hand everything erupts into an all consuming cloud of ash.

Laswell's voice rings out. "That's Khaled's new attack dog."

Price and Ghost share a look, both know what will happen long before some nervous soldier caught in the ash cloud pulls the trigger. The cloud of ash explodes the second a spark is created in a weapon's chamber, plunging everything into chaos.

Great, a new wanker to worry about.

Price sighs, brows furrowing. "That's trouble all right."

Tag list: @resident-cryptid @diejager @lovingtyrantkitten @lieutnt

Masterlist <- Chapter 1 (you are here) -> Chapter 2

You can imagine the helmet however you want, but it's in the style of the Devtac Ronin helmet.

[lullabyes22-blog]

Le Rite sacré de l'amour magique - The Sacred Ritual of Magical Love.

Mild NSFW

I feel so sad whenever I read about how this scene was 'cringe' and 'unnecessary' and 'awkward' - given it's visually and narratively a feast of subtext, and full of delicious tidbits about the essential nature of Hex-tech as a magical system.

It also wonderfully highlights the fusion of a pure source powered by the crystallization of celestial bodies with the viscerality of blood as a sacrificial link to esoteric knowledge - but at the cost of forfeiting one's 'tether' to humanity.

We have Viktor literally having a brush with death and nearly transcending the physical plane, while the Hex-gem takes away his life force and infuses it into its internal matrix - a literal melding between man and magic that, sadly, also requires the forfeiture of his fundamental humanity.

All while simultaneously, Jayce and Mel are making love, in a gorgeously animated sequence which is allllll about prioritizing female pleasure (and showing a female orgasm onscreen in a PG-13 kids' show - like, y'all, that takes balls, given if it were a mainstream Hollywood film, it'd earn an NC-17 rating or get slapped with a big ol' R for its trouble.)

And there's so many wonderful interpretive lenses we can apply to the juxtaposition between Viktor and Jayce - all while sex, death and magic are happening onscreen. On one level it represents Jayce's seduction, and by proxy corruption, at the hands of Mel - all while the Hex-core is corrupted by human blood that belongs to a man who has grown up in toxic environs and carries their lived legacy in his body to the point it's killing him from the inside out.

And on the other hand, we can see it as a divergence between the two routes of magical power as a means to channel transcendent knowledge - one through the brutal solitude of Viktor's path, which will ultimately set him in Machine Herald territory, and have him casting off his 'earthly ties' - right down to everything that makes him human. For him, the Hex-core is knowledge to be penetrated and absorbed, and its secrets require a sacrifice of the highest order. And on the other hand, we have Mel and Jayce literally melding together with astral imagery in the background, to show a different route that magic allows one to take, namely where two life-forces come together and engender something sublime between them (or possibly even make a baby? It's a popular fan theory and I can certainly see the potential.)

Magic, for Arcane, seems to be a means of interconnecting different facets into a unified whole (not unlike the way the series mirrors and makes parallels between a host of characters and circumstances, almost like they're different faces of a Hex-gem). And this scene sums up so powerfully what that system of science and magic is about - and the extreme highs and lows it can take you to.

And of course, right at the heels of this intense interplay between sex and death, two different types of la petite mort, we have the ultimate confluence between the two:

Rebirth.

And who better to embody it than two characters who carry their dead selves behind them like corpses shackled to their heels, in different ways?

Tbh I read these scenes as a trilogy for explaining Arcane's magic system - with Jinx being that final spark - literally the Powder - that blasts Hex-tech in all its destructive and yet empowering potential wide open.

Also a separate aside, I find this scene way more uncomfortable than the earlier two, simply because the interactions between Silco and Jinx are so fraught and charged. The first time you watch it, there's that almost-kiss Gotcha! that makes you spit-take, like: Wait are they...? And then the whiplash is so extreme because in a blink it goes from uncomfortably full of romantic undercurrents to strangely tender, verging on reverent. A moment of perfect and pure trust between two monsters whose entire conception of trust has been trampled into shards that they now use to cut others with.

But for me the pinnacle is this scene.

Other fan theories have also stated that they see Jinx as sort of the unwitting embodiment of the Hex-crystal's power paired with the dark potency of Shimmer, and for me this is one of the biggest visual metaphors. This girl, caught in a blissful gyre of fulfillment and serene frenzy, unmade and then remade, as she deciphers the codes of the Hex-gem and feels, for the first time, at one with herself and with her potential to unlock secrets and usher in miracles.

And madness, too, but that's a whole 'nother analysis.

tl;dr - Please Fortiche. Release an art book. I will shell out the big bucks<3

[teaboot]

Your post about art vs content got me thinking about the differences between the two. To me there is no difference besides the mindsets. One is of creator and the enjoyer, the other is content and consumer it removes the personhood, the joy/emotion, from the equation. Like a writer or video creator may not see their work as art so content creator maybe a way to refer to themselves comfortably but it sounds so machine, emotionless and lifeless, like a cookie cutter recipe mass producing something verses people lovingly crafting something...then again Disney uses a cookie cutter recipe for the most part and it brings out bangers cause people lovingly make it their own so maybe I'm thinking too hard on this

Does my long-winded rant make sense?

see, I get what you mean, but I still feel like the willingness to entertain calling art of any kind "content" reduces it to the facet of consumption where in reality, the experience of consuming art is not the sole defining trait of it.

Reducing arts like music, writing, painting, dance, voice acting, theater, etc. to the role of "content"- a thing created to be consumed, measured and valued by how pleasant or easy it is to digest- I feel that it was our biggest red flag to herald the incoming tide of AI "art".

Because if art is "content", if arts are nothing but consumable matter, then obviously the key to success is to produce as much soft, tasty, edible paste as we possibly can at the lowest possible expense.

It's the same issue I have with "meal replacements", diet culture, nutrient slurries, twenty-step skincare routines, 24/7 body padding and shapewear and laxative teas and "grind culture". It's not a cause, but a symptom, of the disease that is late-stage capitalism.

Things must be produced at low cost and remain in high demand forever. Things must be perfect and palatable and the new hit trend forever. People must pay hand over fist to consume without asking anything in return, and if they start dropping like flies at the unending unrewarded thankless demand of it all, then that must be treated as a weakness. We should all take pride in how much we can spend, pay, give, produce, and think as little as possible about what we ask for ourselves.

So, who cares if, of two identical paintings, one was made by a person and one was made by a computer program? It's the same work, so what does it matter? What does it matter?

I am an artist. I make art. I ask a question, make a statement, declare something horrific or challenging or upsetting or wrong or grotesque, and when you respond, we are together experiencing a conversation. We are existing, two people living one life and reaching out and touching across time and space. No matter the work, you're at the barest minimum saying, "I'm alive, and you're alive, and at one time or another we shared this same world, and at the end of the day we aren't too terribly different. My heart is worth sharing, and your heart is worth the struggle of understanding."

An AI-generated piece, a computer-generated voice, a CGI puppet of someone long since dead and gone, they cannot speak. They have no voice. Ay best, they are the most chewable, consumable, landlord-beige common denominator possible that you can sit and listen to like the lone survivor of a shipwreck listening to the same three songs on a broken record, and at worst, they're the uncaring vomit of an empty, unloving, value-addled hack wearing the skin of someone I know over their own.

When you abandon art to say that you make content, that should not be a point of pride. That's an embarrassment. That's not sitting down for an intelligent discussion with an equal, that's kneeling at the feet of the crowd and saying, "what do you want to see me do? I can be anyone you've ever loved. I can be them, I can be anyone, as long as you love me."

I can make content. I can be consumed. What do you want to consume? I'll make myself consumable. I'll make myself just like anything you like. And I'll make so much of it that you'll never have to go anywhere else, because it'll all be right here, and under all the cut-and-paste schlock you've seen before I will sit alone in the dark and the silence and I will know that I am safe, because I am valued, because I am desired, and I need to be desired or else I am worthless like a factory that no longer churns out steel or a hen that no longer lays eggs or a cow that is too old to make milk.

Content, the most literal meaning, is something which is contained inside a container. What it is doesn't really matter, and the best it can hope to be is something worthy of being scooped out and used.

Art is an experience that transcends value. Art is something you can eat without paying for. You can make it out of anything and anyone can do it. It can be crude and vulgar and bad, and that's a strength because it means something. It always, always means something, and it doesn't matter if you like it or not. It's not content because it doesn't fill anything. It's a living, breathing thing, and whether you want to birth it or eat it, then you're going to have to be willing to put the fucking work in

[sunshinesprats]

yellow

part 2 is here

Up until you met a certain someone, your soulmate, your world was always destined to forever be in shades of grey, and black and white. It was a relatively uncommon experience for anyone to meet their soulmate on the Luofu. With most people choosing to stay on the ship for their entire lives, there was no way to get out into the galaxy and meet your other half. You had met a very small number of people who had met their soulmate on the ship. They were very fond of talking about how beautiful the world was, now that it was bathed in color. Everything was so exciting and new, they always had this sort of sparkle around them as they spoke. You tried to be happy for them, you really did, but the things they spoke about always went over your head. You were a simple mechanic, you were sure you’d never experience the joys they spoke of. Nobody paid attention to the likes of you.

A power line being down on a civilian street was practically unheard of on the Luofu. If there were issues with the power supply, it was always within the depths of the ship that you and your team of mechanics, along with countless others were intimately familiar with.

It was easy to hide away from the prying eyes of the people, being heralded as silent heroes who saved the ship from little disasters while remaining unseen. That’s how a portion of the Luofu civilians saw people who worked in your position. A larger number of them regarded lowly mechanics as untouchables, and not in a good way. It made you scoff, you were the ones responsible for keeping the ship they lived on intact, and that was the thanks they gave you? It wasn’t fair for them to look down on you, but they’d never understand the hardships you had to go through to live this life. They could shove their opinions elsewhere, you thought, and left it at that. They should really be grateful now, here you were, in plain sight. Aurum Alley’s power supply had been cut off when a group of young adults were inappropriately, and dangerously, playing with a firearm one of their comrades had bought and was showing off, in the street and it misfired. The situation was quickly brought to the attention of the Cloud Knights and they took control of the area, calling for a mechanic squad to quickly resolve the power issue right away. 

You were grateful nobody had been hurt, but were angry at the carelessness of the young people who had caused this disruption. Thankfully it would be an easy fix, this was a very short section of wire and tubing that needed to be replaced, but it was in a high place. The hole in the side, and the burnt smell of plastoid wafted down the street as you and the team made your way to the job. You guys hadn’t been on a job when the call had been made, so it was yours. Your team began to gear up to fix the issue, but you were given the most attention. You were the best at handling jobs that required you to go up on the crane arms, you were the steadiest of them all. You clipped on your harness and motioned for the crane to raise you up. Soon you were standing on top of the arm. You frowned. This was one of the older models of arms, and it didn’t have a railing. You looked down at your comrades, who were setting up their equipment to shut this section of the line down for sure, so you wouldn’t potentially get electrocuted removing the line. You made eye contact with Jinshui, one of your close friends on the team. He gave you a thumbs up and smiled. You nodded and gave him a thumbs up in return, tugging on your harness to ensure it was secure and got to work. 

Could you have gotten a more awful crane to stand on? This one was terrifying, it creaked when you moved and at one point you could have sworn it shifted under your weight. You were sweating in your uniform, less from the heat of the shining artificial sun, but from the stress of being up so high on a shitty machine. Your palms were sweaty inside your gloves and you took them off to wipe them on your pants. 

“Is everything ok?” Jinshui called up to you. You turned your head to look down at him, afraid to turn your entire body. 

“This stupid crane moves whenever I do. I’ll finish the job the best I can, but it’s making me nervous.” You replied and bent down to pick up your tools. The weight change on top of the crane made it shift and the head toppled off. You were falling towards the ground with it, facing up towards the sun. Air rushed past you as you fell, helpless. The line your harness was attached to was slack, until it tightened as it ran out of line, yanking you back violently. It gave you whiplash, but ultimately stopped your fall. You were suspended in the air, only hanging on by your harness. You gripped the safety line and looked down in horror, nausea causing your stomach to turn. You heard shouts below you but what they were saying didn’t register. You looked into the crowd gathered below, to the side of where the site had been blocked off. Lots of horrified eyes stared up at you dangling helplessly. You scanned the crowd, and something strange began to happen when you met a particular pair of eyes. 

Slowly, as if a piece of film was being pulled away from your eyes, what you could only guess was color, began to fill your vision. The bright colors on the street, and the sun reflecting off of the shiny metal made your eyes water, but you didn’t look away from the stranger. They had light colored eyes, you didn’t know what to call it, and very light hair in a long flowing ponytail. They were tall, towering over most of the crowd and were wearing armor that shone in the sun. You closed your eyes as you recognized the General of the Luofu, staring up at you. His expression became grim, and he finally broke eye contact, turning away and heading down the street away from the commotion. You barely registered that your team had started to bring you down safely from your perch with a winch, you helplessly watched the general go until he disappeared into the crowd.

Jingshui immediately approached you, his hands extended and tone gentle, as if you were a wounded animal that needed soothing. 

“A doctor is here to see you. It looked like you got jerked pretty badly by the line, so I figured it would be good if someone took a look at you…” 

You just nodded and sat down where he gently guided you and someone began to examine you. You heard her speaking, but your mind was too in shock to hear what she was saying. You were overstimulated by the sights in front of you. Your brain was unsure how to process so much visual information and it hurt. You closed your eyes and rested your head against the wall, its cool stone soothing your skin. General Jing Yuan was your soulmate and you couldn’t tell anyone about it. You sighed and shifted your position. The stone brick dug into your skin. It would definitely leave a mark.

“I’m just tired.” You said out loud, to anyone who may be listening. You weren’t sure if anyone had been speaking to you at this point, but the ringing in your ears seemed to have calmed for now. The doctor looked startled at your sudden exclamation, her tail bristling slightly, but nodded in response. 

“According to your friend, your supervisor has given you some time off. He sent the details to your phone. Please use the time you have to get some well deserved rest.” She shot you a serious look as she packed up her bag and began to leave the site. You sighed again and pulled out your phone, checking your messages. You squinted at the screen, it was far too bright and colorful for you at the moment. There were several messages from Jingshui, and one from your boss. He did, in fact, give you time off. A generous 3 days. You imagined you would spend that time brooding over the fact that you would most likely never have a relationship of any kind with your soulmate. And that thought hurt more than the occasional twinge in your neck. 

—

Your minor injury recovered within the three days you had off, and you were cleared by a doctor, deemed healthy enough to begin work again. Your teammates were happy to see you, welcoming you back with open arms. Luckily your first day back was only filled with light repairs. It didn’t strain your body at all, and you were grateful. Those three days had been boring, full of nothing but endless thinking. You had wondered countless times what would happen if you reached out to the general. Would he respond favorably, or would he push you away? You didn’t know, and had no way of knowing. This ate you up inside as you curled up in bed, Jingshui’s contact open. The cursor in the textbox blinked slowly at you. You hesitated, and decided it would be best to tell him in person. 

You didn’t need to set up a time to tell him, however, he asked if you wanted to get dinner as you left the last worksite of the day. 

“I just want to make sure you're doing ok.” He said with a smile. You returned his smile and made your way to Aurum Alley, chatting about the events of the day, and what you did during your time off. You sat down at the Delicacy Pavilion and ordered Signature Chili Oil Beef Offal Stew. There was a pleasant silence between the two of you as you waited for your food, Jingshui was people watching and you were racking your brain, trying to think of a way to break the news. You decided to just be upfront. 

“I um. I have something to tell you. But you can’t tell anyone else about it.” You swallowed thickly and clasped your sweaty palms together, your arms resting on the cool surface of the table. Jingshui turned to you, his expression serious. 

“I promise I won’t tell anyone. Your secret is safe with me.” 

You sighed and gripped your hands tighter, staring off into the distance. You were so unsure of how to begin. You closed your eyes and looked your friend in the face. Your food had arrived and he had begun to dig in. You felt the heat radiating from the bowl onto your chilled arms. He looked up at you, mouth full of beef. He gestured for you to speak. And so you did.

“Right… This has been eating me up for the past couple of days. Um. I’ve met my soulmate. Well, that’s not true. I’ve only seen them… made eye contact with them.” You wrung your hands as you began to explain your plight to Jingshui unsuccessfully. He raised an eyebrow curiously. You rambled on. 

Do you remember how General Jing Yuan was taking a stroll while we were fixing that powerline? There were tons of people looking up at me while I was dangling up in the air, but when I made eye contact with him specifically… my world exploded into color.” 

That was an exaggeration, the change was slow. But it felt instantaneous from the shock of being so high up in the air, with no way to help yourself escape.. Jingshui dropped a piece of beef back into his bowl as he looked up at you in shock. 

“And you’re certain it was him?!” 

“I know it was him. I couldn’t focus on anyone in the crowd other than him. He stood out for some strange reason... And then he left. I don’t know what to do. He’s practically unreachable.” You sighed and began to eat your food. You didn’t feel particularly hungry, your stomach was in knots, but you knew Jingshui would lecture you if you didn’t eat, so you tried anyway. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand and he lowered his chopsticks. 

“That's… wow. Do you have a plan to get in contact with him somehow?” 

“The only way I could do that is if I get assigned to fix something at the Seat of Divine Foresight… where there’s a slim chance he’ll be there and not out taking a walk. I just… Why did it have to be him?” You rested your head in your hands, sighing heavily. “This has to be a joke from the universe.” 

Jingshui shook his head. “Things happen for a reason. Next time there’s a job for someone at the Seat of Divine Foresight, I’ll make sure you get it. You have to try. It’s the least you can do.” His voice was full of determination as he finished off his stew. He swallowed and pointed at you, furrowing his eyebrows. “Don’t give up!” 

You nodded and finished your food as well. 

“I’ll try.” You promised, feeling uneasy. It was such a long shot that the Seat would need something to be fixed. Hardly anything there broke. But you held onto a small glimmer of hope that something would come up. 

—

It took weeks, but something eventually popped up. The general’s hologram projector was fried and needed to be fixed immediately. True to his word, Jingsui advocated for you to go, but you were sure you wouldn’t be picked. Fixing holograms was not your strong suit, but your dear friend pushed for you to go anyway. You didn’t try to refute his claims of you being the best choice. This was your only chance of making contact with the general, and you both knew it. You could do it. Your team leader sighed and flipped a coin, it was between you and a woman named Zhu Li. You held your breath as the coin flew up into the air and landed in your supervisor's palm. He slapped it onto the top of his other hand and briefly examined it. He looked up and called out your name. 

“They will be going to the Seat of Divine Foresight.” He held out a bag of special tools for you to take, while Zhu Li groaned and glared at you from the side. You shrugged and took the tools, your heart pounding in your chest. Your stomach turned with excitement and dread as you began to leave your team’s space. Jingshui smiled and gave you a thumbs up as you passed by him. You smiled weakly and returned the gesture, exiting the room. You got onto the star skiff that would take you to your destination and you patiently waited to arrive there, your mind swirling with possibilities of what could happen. You tried not to dwell on any negative scenarios, it was best not to give up hope before you’d even tried. Just like Jingshui had said all those weeks ago. 

You arrived and made your way inside after being cleared by the guards at the front door. Your bag of tools had been pretty self explanatory to them. Your heart caught in your throat as you made your way up the steps inside. The inside of the building was fairly empty, save for the standard array of Cloud Knights and other employees that worked here. You were shown the device that needed fixing by Qingzu, who thanked you for coming on such short notice. You smiled at her, placing your tool bag on the ground, and told her it was no trouble at all. It was your job after all. Before you began to work, you looked through the railing up at the general’s desk. He was not there. Your heart sank in your chest and you bit the inside of your cheek, returning your gaze to the broken projector. You tried to ignore the immense disappointment that settled in your chest like a weight as you opened the machine to see what was wrong. Of course he wasn’t here. You were foolish to think he would be, he spent lots of time outside of his office discussing matters with other Luofu officials. 

Some wires had fried inside of the machine. You frowned as you tried to pull them out, marveling at how frayed they had become. Had the protective layer just melted off? You couldn’t tell. The wires were stubborn and refused to come out of their plugs. You got on the ground, shimmying up to the projector on your stomach and reached in to grab the wires from this angle. Your fingers were very close to the power supply. As you yanked on the wires, finally freeing them, a shock jolted your arm, numbing your nerves. You swore and sat up instantly, ignoring the looks that were thrown your way. You hissed and rubbed your hand, exhaling deeply. Your muscles still worked thankfully, although you had no idea when the feeling would return to your arm. You felt someone was standing behind you, causing you to sit up straighter. The hairs on the back of your neck prickled as you felt their eyes on you.

“Sorry about the noise. It was just from a mistake I made. I’ll be out of here soon.” You explained, tone apologetic. If this person were a disgruntled employee, hopefully they would leave you alone for the duration of your project. The person chuckled and walked towards the steps on the right side of the room, allowing you to get a look at them. You froze in place as General Jing Yuan came into view. 

“Take all the time you need. I’m in no hurry to play starches any time soon.” His voice was deep, just how you remembered it from all of the addresses he’d made in the past, but his tone was kind. His usual relaxed expression was on his face as he looked at you with slight interest. You cleared your throat and sat up straighter. 

“Thank you sir.” Now that he was right in front of you, you had no idea what to say. You gripped the wires in your hand tightly as your mind raced. You never actually thought about a plan of what to say if you actually met him. You cleared your throat again. 

“If there are no more issues, it should be fixed in no time.” You turned away, unable to handle the weight of his gaze any longer. He radiated power, and it was intimidating. You scanned your tools and picked up the one you needed next, to open a different hatch inside of the projector. You breathed a sigh of relief when you heard him go up the steps to his desk, shortly followed by the rustling of papers. That went horribly, you thought as you began to repair the projector. There’s no way you could talk to him here. He had work to finish, it was foolish to even entertain the thought of having a meaningful conversation here. Disappointment took root in your heart once more as you swiftly finished repairing the projector. Your time at the Seat of Divine Foresight was finished, and you were still as far away from the general as you had been when you walked in. 

You picked up your bag of tools and stood up silently stretching before you left. What a wasted trip this was, your thoughts turned gloomy. Qingzu ordered a star skiff to come get you, she had you come up on the dais and manually type in your destination. Your heart pounded in such close proximity to the general. He was reading a report, completely engrossed in its contents. You finished typing and stepped back from Qingzu’s screen. The general looked up from his report at the movement. Your heart leapt in your chest as he made eye contact with you. 

“Leaving so soon?”

You nodded, adjusting your grip on your tools. 

“Yes sir, I’ve finished fixing the projector. Hopefully it won’t have any more problems in the future.” Did he want something? It was impossible to tell, he was unreadable. 

“Hmm. I have something for you.” Even Qingzu next to you looked shocked as he said this. He took a small piece of paper and wrote something on it, holding it out to you once he finished. His slight smile was present as always. You stepped forward and took the paper, ignoring how your face grew hot as you accidentally brushed your fingers against his. You folded up the paper and stuck it in your pocket. 

“Thank you…” You were unsure how to respond, and didn’t have time to. Qingzu informed you that your star skiff had arrived to take you back to work. You turned away from the general’s desk, trying to ignore your flaming cheeks as you walked down the steps and to the front door. 

A/N: Hii this is only part one to a longer fic! Please let me know what you think and as always, requests are open! :)

[dailyadventureprompts]

Villain: Finality 9, Arbiter of the End

For hours you and your allies have sheltered in place as the astral warships bombarded the city, feeling each impact as another block was levelled. Now you watch as the Flagship touches down, scarab like legs taller than spires unfolding from it's hull. It's going to be a bloody, brutal struggle fighting your way through the rubble and the burning streets up to the control deck, but It's your only hope of ending things without your home being razed to the ground.

The embodiment of a death sentence passed long before any of the heroes were ever born, the Marut Finality 9 and the Inevitable armada it commands serve only one purpose: to deliver violent and irrevocable endings to entities that should have died long ago.

Unfortunately for the party, whatever being(s) Finality 9 is hunting happen to reside on the same landmass as they do, and the Inevitable has no qualms levelling anything that gets in its way until the destruction of its target is confirmed. Like many creatures born from the shattered plane of order, Finality 9 and its construct legion have a very narrow set of operational directives, and "preserving life" ends up being the preview of a different order of celestial machines.

Finality 9's operations always follow the same protocol: After using divination to determine the vague location of their target Modron scouts will be sent to investigate, sending a transmission back to the ship to begin the invasion the moment they've determined the enemy's presence and threat level. After that it's bombardment and battalions in specified areas to soften up their target's defences before Finality 9 itself descends to finish the job.

Hooks:

One of Finality 9's scouts becomes attached to the party early in their adventures, following along and providing typical mascot antics until they stumble across evidence of the big bad. This starts a ticking clock for the party to find and oust this evil before the Inevitables arrive... a task the galactic forces of order were failing at for decades.

Every year the realm celebrates the festival of St. Altrin's Star, held on a night when a particular comet is viable to venerate the figure's many beneficent acts. This year however the comet is unusually bright, heralding the fact that it is not a star, but Finality 9's ship which has been circling the world for decades or even centuries waiting for the reemergence of a long dormant demi-lich which the party awoke earlier in their adventures.

The Inevitable does not warn or negotiate, and likely does not even speak the language of the lands it is razing but with some telepathy or a background in obscure astral dialects they might be able to get it to stop by presenting evidence that its target is already dead ( forcing them to do all the work) or that its actions are unlawful (which requires iron clad litigation skills and knowledge of multiple celestial law systems). If the heroes happen to have any favours with infernal deal makers or underworld bureaucrats, now would be the time to call them in.

In a desperate hour, the party must seek out finality 9's armada hovering dormant in wildspace in hopes of gaining their aid against a greater foe. Delving through the flagship in its hibernation mode will not be easy as not only are there defence systems to worry about but astral wildlife that have nested in the interior while the constructs within were in standby mode.

Art 1, Art 2

[catboydogma]

highly sought after

wc: 651

notes: this is not crack but perhaps more like crack's bastard nephew-cousin or something. i got tired of not writing and decided to enjoy myself and knock out a 15-min sprint instead :) hopefully more to follow since i would LIKE to do this every night however. enjoy? enjoy.

summary:

Cody and Fox have some nice relaxing bonding together. OR: what if you had a line of plushes marketed after you and all the people around you were shiteating smartasses

cross-posted to ao3

“These items are highly sought after,” Cody said dryly, keeping his eyes forward and his hands behind his back.

A furious-sounding pause followed.

“You’re fucking with me,” Fox said through gritted teeth. He looked like he was about to punch his fist through the flimsy glass wall in front of him, brows furrowed in a deep scowl and teeth bared. Cody amused himself for a few seconds by imagining Fox with a ruff of raised spines like a massiff’s doing a threat display.

“Commander,” Cody said, injecting his voice with as much solemnity as he could muster on short notice and while fighting off the shit-eating grin that was threatening, “I have never told a falsehood in my life.”

“You motherfucker,” Fox hissed. He looked like he was about to pop a vein. His eyes were glazed with fury and his grip was tight enough to whiten his knuckles.

“Their value may very well be unsurpassable.” Cody clasped Fox on the shoulder firmly, eyes still fixed straight ahead.

In front of him, Fox lost his tenuous grip on CC-3636 Commander Wolffe™ Grand Army of the Republic ActionPlush®! The top-heavy stuffed toy, with its gray-painted stuffed felt helmet the same size as the rest of the body, tumbled back to the bottom of its prison.

Fox howled in inarticulate rage.

Cody squeezed his shoulder a little more firmly in encouragement. “You’ll get him nex—”

“You jinxed me!” Fox batted at Cody’s hand on his shoulder and jabbed his thumb at the green “go” button again and again, furiously goading it into whirring back to life. The tickets Cody had indulgently fed into it five minutes ago were good for one more round.

“Better make it count,” Cody said pleasantly, unmoved by Fox’s elbow bruising the tender spot just below his floating ribs. “Better get it in one shot.”

“Not. One. Word.” Fox’s growl nearly vibrated the ground under their feet and his face was starting to approach the “alarming” side of the spectrum of blotchy maroon. He slowly inhaled, like a sniper about to line up a shot, and leaned forward until his nose was pressed against the glass.

The mechanism jerked to life. The rubber-tipped claws opened and closed, testing, as Fox toggled the squeaky joystick with infinitesimal adjustments. It lowered. Fox let out all his breath in one long, slow exhale, letting the claws close around the bulbous head of their vod. The felt dimpled slightly. It lifted.

It held.

Fox didn’t waver for a second, smoothly guiding the claw back to the corner where the chute lay waiting. Cody found himself nearly leaning forward to match. Fox wasn’t breathing any longer: his hands were still enough to make a CMO jealous, and his face was completely smooth, like an ARC about to take an impossible shot.

The claws jerked open. Cody preemptively winced—but against all odds, the misshapen plush toy managed to fall at just the right angle into the nearly too-small chute—none of the legs caught, as they had the first time, and the head was angled just so it didn’t bounce off the side and back into its glass cage, as it had the fifth time, and the felt scrap blaster held outstretched in one spherical “hand” didn’t even make the toy jam halfway down the chute, as it had the eighth time.

A soft thup heralded their vod’s arrival. Fox let loose a primal howl of exultant triumph, voice nearly cracking with its pitch and volume. Cody discretely winced, then held open the flap of the machine so Fox could reach in and grab his bounty.

“What now?” Cody asked when Fox had the plush Wolffe in his hand, pretending to throttle its nearly non-existent neck for imagined crimes.

“Now I wait until the 104th is docked at Coruscant again,” Fox said with a smile that displayed every one of his pearly whites.

[blazingstar24]

Back on my Arcane/LoL bullshit, thinking about how the show makes Viktor’s eventual shift into being the Machine Herald kinda more tragic by making the Hexclaw something both Jayce and Viktor worked on.

I mean in general, Arcane is making him more sympathetic than the game lore does. It’s augmentation out of necessity rather than him being a mad scientist trope of robot=better. But specifically in the fact that Viktor’s signature weapon is no longer something he makes for fighting Jayce and others. It’s something that presumably him and Jayce made together, specifically for the purpose of helping out working citizens. The Hexclaw has a whole different connotation around it now in show. Of course it’s there for the cheeky wink to the gaming audience. But they also establish that it’s a project that Jayce and Viktor did together. So when we get the fall, the divorce arc as it’s been coined, it’s going to hit different when Viktor uses the Hexclaw as a weapon, against Jayce, against people. If they have another timeskip to establish the now enemies arc of Jayce and Viktor, seeing him wearing the product of their partnership is gonna hit different.

It’s not “oh shit Viktor made a fucking sick weapon.” It’s now symbolic of them taking their once shared dream into two very different directions. Even Jayce making the Mercury Hammer is the start of that and also the contrast in that it’s something Jayce makes on his own. And breaks the unspoken rule that they established together: hextech is not for weapons. Jayce is the one who breaks that moral line first. Viktor is the one who is going to take that and twist the knife deeper by taking something already made to help and using it to hurt. In a way that’s also quite a parallel in their dynamic in the show. The push and pull of Jayce starting the path down the slippery slope, but it’s always Viktor who is the one to go down it.

Jayce pulls back on safety and security due to political pressure. And then in the very next scene, Viktor’s fully disregarding safety and doing uncertain experiments on the Hexcore. Jayce gets Heimerdinger booted off the council, Viktor’s out here taking Shimmer and yoloing the Hexcore augments. Jayce starts them down the road, Viktor fucking hits the gas full throttle.

[seat-safety-switch]

Everyone knows me at the dump. I don’t mean this in a bragging sort of way. In fact, I hate this fact. The reason why everyone knows me at the dump is that Mr. Jones, the dump operator, has posted the CCTV footage and blurry cell-phone camera pictures of my face on the break room wall. Even the youngest probie at the dump will look at me, every morning, while they wait for the coffee machine to dispense their mandatory cup of black joy.

You can probably guess why this has happened to me. I love junk, and the dump has a lot of that junk. To me, it is offensive that the dump hoards that junk. They keep it from me, using excuses like “sanitation” and “safety,” but safety is my middle name. If they would just give me a chance, then I would be the best they’ve ever seen. I’d even remove and sort the little lithium-ion vape batteries that haven’t exploded yet, out of gratitude.

Of course, we both know why I’m digging through trash at the dump. I don’t want old Betamax VCRs, or mouldy cardboard boxes heralding products from a bygone era. Well, I do, but I don’t want them more than I want a two-stroke dirt bike, and I’ve seen tons of those over the years get callously tossed into the debris pile by the great unwashed. They’re always getting thrown out for little reasons, like “carb jet plugged,” or “caught on fire,” or “couldn’t get anyone to buy it on Craigslist for septuple the market value so I threw it away out of spite.” I could save these bikes, and to be not allowed to save them is literal torture.

Just like anyone else would in my shoes, I started wearing elaborate disguises to the dump. Sometimes I could loot one, and throw it into the back of my car, and be gone before the dump operators (there weren’t even security guards yet, back then) could catch up to me. I had enough disguises – and enough cars – that I could pull this off for a little while. Then, used cars got really expensive, and the folks in my neighbourhood started using security fasteners to hold on their license plates. I started to escape by tighter and tighter scrapes, until one fateful day.

That bastard Jones figured me out. He came from Chicago, of all places, a city which I’m pretty sure doesn’t even have a dump. And he knew my kind. He set a trap: an agonizingly pristine, 1989 Yamaha XT225. Sure, it was a four-stroke, but it was still love at first sight. It was planted right on top of one of the big piles of disposable diapers, visible even from the highway. Even knowing it was a trap, I made plans for months to grab it.

The joke’s on him, though. I’ve started my own private dump, and I’ve paid the government to start outsourcing dump operations to me. We’re an extremely efficient operation, much more affordable for the taxpayer than the wasteful public dump. How so, you ask? Well, we are much more selective with what waste we accept, and we wrote one helluva contract, which had a bunch of big words that confused the gin-addled politicos that signed it out of desperation to meet their “lower taxes” pledge.

Here’s how it works. We charge the city hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, and we get first pick of any internal combustion engines that are in the back of the garbage trucks. Everything else goes down the road to the regular dump. We’re making a fortune. If we keep putting out numbers like this, I’m sure there will soon be layoffs over at Jones’ shithole. Hell, maybe I’ll even hire him to manage security around these parts. Can’t have anyone walking off with my good trash.

[socially-awkward-skeleton]

tagged by: @thesingularityseries and @cassietrn thank you both!!

tagging: @roofgeese @henbased @cloudofbutterflies92 @aceghosts @galaxycunt @ocdemon-747 @unholymilf @wrathfulrook @amalkavian @fourlittleseedlings @mxanigel @finding-comfort-in-rain @carlosoliveiraa @trench-rot @nightbloodbix @inafieldofdaisies @voidika @kyber-infinitygems @clicheantagonist @adelaidedrubman @strafethesesinners @statichvm @josephslittledeputy @marivenah @simplegenius042 @josephseedismyfather @v0idbuggy @direwombat @florbelles @cassieuncaged @shallow-gravy @strangefable @stacispratt

Still Wednesday for me and chapter 52 of American Beasts has been kicking my ass, struggling with writing Kit coming to terms with her being in love. It's hard to write a deranged individual having an emotional epiphany. Anyways...here's the first bit of the chapter:

Hours of surgery, flayed flesh and sutures. Heart rate crashing, blood pressure falling. The bullet removed from tissue, dropped into the tray with a metallic clang. Tools dripping with blood. Iodine and alcohol perfuming the air. He was finally stable and she was still on her feet. A tube shoved into his chest, the air pumped out of the cavity for him by a machine. Kit couldn’t help but scoff at the irony of the situation, a man who had only ever spoken of how medicine and technology made mankind weaker, and here he was being kept alive by the very thing he spoke of hating. She was sure he would hold it against her for denying his words, but she didn’t much care, he could stay angry with her. She got what she wanted, denying him his need for sacrifice once more. He could bear it, just like she could bear the brunt of his rage. Some sacrifices were well worth making. 

Kit stood by the side of Jacob’s medical bed, staring down at him, watching his chest rise and fall like she had done a dozen times before. The way she always had when they were in bed together. Her comfort. Her home. Her will was done. The bruises on his chest and around the lung he nearly lost acted as a reminder of her own wounds that still needed to be treated, but still she watched. The same concerned gaze of a mother with her newborn and that fear that if she turned away his breath would falter and he would be lost to her forever. 

Morrison entered the room and her pale eyes lifted for just a moment before falling right back to the Herald. He stood there silently, unsure of how to break the bind she had placed upon herself to stand at the Herald’s side. Clearing his throat, he drew closer to the bed and rubbed at his stubble on his jaw. “Now that he’s stable, think I might be allowed to take a look at you?”

“I’m fine.”

“Didn’t sound that way when he made his way out to come get you.”

Sighing as she placed her hand on Jacob’s arm, her fingers traced small circles along his broken skin, over every rough patch of inflamed flesh and raised bump of scar tissue, ingraining it in her memory. She had come so very close to losing him, to being alone again…that was the scariest thought of all. 

“It’s my obligation to look after you.” His eyes fell to his patient. “He wouldn’t be too happy knowing I didn’t take care of you. He’s not going anywhere, I promise, sister.”

She took a deep breath and stepped back towards the other bed, feeling as though she was dragging a ball and chain with her, breaking some sort of duty she had to uphold as Jacob’s watchful guardian. Taking a seat on the bed, she kept her eyes focused on the other redhead in the room, not making any movement to help the medic and his desire to fix her. 

“You mind taking off the coat and sweater?”

Rolling her eyes, she stripped off her coat and laid it on the bed beside her, the inner lining of it stained with dried blood. Her sweater below was just as tainted with the remnants of her seeping wound and the sweat that poured from her, a hole ripped through the fibers allowing the white of her bandage to show through. Grunting and groaning as she rolled the sweater up her body, careful with her movements so as not to reopen her wound in her chest as she pulled it over her head. 

Morrison stopped and stared at her as her sweater came off, her chest bruised in shades of indigo, dappled in blue and purple and green. His mouth sat agape as he brought his hand to his brow to rub at it absent-mindedly as she peeled back the thick bandage she had used to cover the wound.  “I don’t know how the hell you keep managing to live,” he muttered in disbelief. “You got one hell of a guardian angel.”

Kit sighed, looking down at the loosely stitched hole in her chest, more poorly darned than a pair of old socks, the skin very clearly inflamed and angry around it.  Gripping at the thin mattress of the medical bed, she mumbled her words out towards the floor, “You have no idea.”

His eyes lifted from her wound to gaze back into hers, into the cold and empty stare as he brought the tray of tools closer to himself. “You know, I listen to the Father’s sermons sometimes, the ones about you, he says that God sent you to us. That you were a sign of the end, but also of the beginning. Judgement and divine wrath and all that.”

She huffed out a laugh, “I don’t know how divine all my wrath has been to be quite honest.”

“Whatever the case may be, something is looking out for you, and they are working overtime. If the sinners can’t see that, well, maybe they don’t deserve to be saved.” He paused and looked at her as he snipped open the sutures she had sewn in earlier. “You know for the first time in a long time since I joined the family, I understand. I believe again. Joseph is our prophet, he hears the lord, Jacob is like the mighty sword of Michael, and John is well…he's John. But you, you just can't be stopped, you keep fighting. I’ve never seen anything like it. You’ve been shot, stabbed, starved…You just might be a sign from God that there is a plan for us after all.”

Her eyes fell, she’d never heard herself spoken of that way by a follower. She had always been looked upon with fear and intimidation. A presence that bent people to her will because they were more fearful of the repercussions that came if they didn’t. It was never hope or belief. It was the same way she had always viewed her father, not with trust or love, but with the tiptoeing of a child afraid of meeting his ire.

“You’re not used to folks talking about you that way, are you? You’re a little more used to being seen as dangerous, something to keep content.”

She flexed her shoulders, the crunch and pop of tired joints the soundtrack to just how worn out she had become. Having acted as a protector to both sides, an angel of destruction and violence – wrath – she was feeling the brunt of it in every twinge that shot through her as the medic’s rough hands started to press at her tender flesh. “Ever since hell seemed to rain down upon this county…being given people’s hope…blind faith…I just don’t see how I deserve it.”

Morrison’s brow lifted as he continued to survey her injuries and the rush job she had done patching it up. “Y’know, in my experience, It’s usually the people who don’t think they deserve it that carry the most weight, they’re the ones who can handle the struggle.”

Her brow lifted, something in that tone, in those words – it bordered on heresy. There was one person in all of Hope County who believed he could take on the world in order to save it, who believed it was his God given right to do so. He deserved to lead people into the Garden, to have them join his family, to bear the weight of sin…

“Be careful what you say,” her tone was chilly enough to send a visible shiver down the medic’s spine. 

He took his hands off of her and backed up, wary of the Lion’s bite. “I’m only saying there’s a reason why the Father called upon you, sister. I mean nothing else.” His gaze shifted to his tools as his way out and then glanced back at her. “I’m gonna have to take a look at you proper to get that bullet out. Gonna need to put you under.”

“No.”

“What the hell d’you mean ‘no’?”

“I need to be awake for him.” She tilted her head in Jacob’s direction as he continued to lie in his unconscious state. 

“Well I have to give you some sort of anesthetic, it’s gonna hurt like a motherfucker if I don’t.”

The medic looked at her like she was a mad woman. As if the idea of her wanting to be aware was some unhinged or deranged notion. It didn’t much matter to her what he thought, she knew what she wanted. She wanted to be clear. 

“No anesthetic,” she snarled. “Save it for someone who needs it.”

She couldn’t be numb, she refused to be any longer. She wanted to feel every burst of pain that exploded through her nerves like a bombshell. Every beat of her heart as it raced and the cold sweat soaked her skin. Every wave of nausea that battered her like the shore in a storm, wracked with shudders that would make her entire body recoil. Anything was better than that empty nothingness she lived with for years while pretending to be sane in a world so devoid of logic or sense that it seemed as though everyone had been driven mad, there were just layers to it. Any reminder that she was alive, and so was he.

“I don’t wanna kill ya.”

“You already said I had something looking out for me,” she challenged him, staring straight into Morrison’s eyes as she cocked her brow. Kit knew she would win. 

His heavy sigh and slumped shoulders were enough to prove he had already rolled over to his whims. “Lay back.”

Rolling her legs up onto the bed, her muddy boots littering the bedding with streaks of thick dirt, Kit rested her head back and turned to look over at Jacob, the muscles at the back of her jaw tightening as she clenched it. Moving her hands to her belt, she unfastened it, pulling it from the loops, the soft jingling of metal filling the room. Folding it over, she brought it to her mouth and stuck it between her teeth to bite down on. It wouldn’t dull the pain, but it would help her through it, give her something to focus on. 

Her frozen stare landed on the medic that stood beside her, and with a nod of her head, he was given the go ahead to start her surgery. Kit couldn’t help but bring her attention back to Jacob, her eyes glued to him, even as the scalpel slipped through her skin, making a larger incision in her chest. As the blade dragged through her flesh, her eyes fluttered shut, her teeth digging into the supple leather below. She could take it, she could handle the pain. She was strong. 

The sharp stinging  that built from the side of her breast bone flared across her chest like wildfire, and her back arched as she screamed around the leather belt in her mouth, her nails digging into the bed she laid upon. She bit down harder and tears stung at the corners of her eyes, making her blue eyes bloodshot. 

“Sorry, ‘bout that.”

She shivered as her back lowered back against the thin mattress, her breath shallow. 

“I’m not gonna dig around for the bullet, at this point I’ll do more damage than good trying to get it out o’ you. Body will heal around it.”

More scar tissue added to the ever growing list inside and outside of her. Sometimes it felt like that was all she was. Marred by it. Wounds healed and opened over and over again, thickened until they were numb and harder to tear. She had always hated the scars that she carried after Afghanistan. Five years of fighting and they were all she had to show for it. Yet in just a few short months in Montana she carried more evidence of being a soldier in the war for the lives and souls of Hope County’s residents than she thought possible. Bullet and arrow entry and exit wounds, the sin she was forced to bear, two sets of torn open knuckles, and the word she had asked to be branded with. His word – Sacrifice. 

“Gonna seal up some of the torn muscles inside for you and then properly close the wound. It’s not gonna be pretty.”

It was the end of the world as they all knew it. What did she care? She wasn’t there to win the hearts and minds of people by being the pretty face to tempt or convince. She wasn’t John or Faith. She was the Lion. Scars were what made her who she was. Jacob had scars and it had never bothered her. Scars like this weren’t meant to be covered or hidden, they weren’t a source of shame. They were a sign of strength.

[bringthekaos]

And when post timeskip Jayce hears rumors about a mysterious hextech user down in the Undercity and he goes to investigate and suddenly gets ambushed by chembarons thugs BUT RIGHT WHEN THEY ARE ABOUT TO KILL HIM THE MACHINE HERALD STEPS IN AND SAVES HIM AND IT LOOKS LIKE THE MAGE FROM HIS CHILDHOOD AND JAYCE IS TOO STUNTED TO SPEAK BUT VIKTOR GIVES HIM A SMUG SMILE AND ASKS HIM "AM I INTERRUPTING?"

THEN WHAT HUH. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THEN

/j

Ajdnhsvavsjjaava and then they fuck right there in the street.

FR though, this is all I could ask for. The beauty and the symbolism and the callback to those words Viktor spoke on the day they met 😍 Also I’m a slut for “only I get to hurt you” tropes. Viktor watching and waiting, analyzing Jayce’s every move. He knows how Jayce fights, knows when it’s getting dangerous. He can see it when Jayce falters, can calculate two moves ahead—he knows when that fatal blow is coming, then and only then stepping in to intervene. It’s the old “I won’t let them kill you because only I get that honor.”

But then he has every opportunity and never takes it. Will you? Will you, Viktor? Or do you still love him and the only way you can cope with that is by telling yourself that you want him dead?

[monstersdownthepath]

Herald of Sarenrae: Sunlord Thalachos

CR 15

Neutral Good Large Outsider

Inner Sea Gods, pg. 306

Ahh, here we go, a battle-ready Herald, specifically the Herald of Sarenrae, goddess of the sun, healing, and redemption. This platinum-skinned emissary of sunlight, however, has little to do with those latter two; while he can certainly be merciful and indeed possesses an array healing magic (mainly Remove Disease, Curses, and Fear--all at-will), the Sunlord primarily serves as Sarenrae's praetorian guard, protecting mortals selected by the sun goddess until they no longer require his guidance, often appearing to chosen wards at their birth to shield them from the machinations of the wicked until they learn to defend themselves. Able to not only become invisible at will, but freely change into the form of any Small or Medium humanoid or elemental creature, those tended to by Thalachos rarely ever know who their mysterious protector is (if they even know he's around), and almost never find out until long after he departs... if ever at all.

Interestingly, the purpose behind the Herald's creation is stated to be to serve as Sarenrae's weapon against the Spawn of Rovagug... but, well, I hope that's not literal, because the majority of the Spawn wouldn't even register his presence. I'm personally choosing to interpret it as him being charged with stopping whatever malefic machinations the cult of the Rough Beast is setting into motion to awaken one of the Spawn, because otherwise the Sunlord will need major backup in order to even inconvenience the weakest of the Spawn... or at least better weapons, since he can't even pierce their DR/Epic with his +1 Holy Flaming Scimitars!

But, before you go thinking he's some laughingstock in too far over his head, let me explain something to you: Are you familiar with the concept of hunting with the wrong weapon? For example, a normal shotgun isn't especially effective when hunting elephants, but if you were to instead shoot a squirrel, you'll obliterate the squirrel and likely a good portion of the terrain behind it. I say this to impress upon you the fact that the Spawn are the elephants, Thalachos is the shotgun, and the average cultist of Rovagug is the squirrel.

Before we get to how well he can peel apart a mortal, it's more than a little funny to me how good Thalachos is at getting rid of Evil Outsiders, a foe he was not built to face but nonetheless excels at removing. The Hand of the Inheritor--whom I must apologize to for continuing to punch at every opportunity--is devoted almost entirely to destroying demons, but Thalachos has frankly unfairly potent powers when it comes to combating all Evil, starting at the ability to cast Holy Word AND Dispel Evil at-will, the former capable of simply erasing hoards of lesser fiends and cultists with a single utterance and the latter capable of undoing the magic or the calling of whatever fiend Thalachos gets ahold of. He's got an unrestricted Plane Shift at-will to go wherever he pleases OR slap someone into another dimension with a single failed DC 21 Will save. He can use Sunburst 1/day to bring down Sarenrae's wrath upon an area, scouring it of Undead and any other creature vulnerable to sunlight, and call down a Flame Strike 1/day as well for additional artillery power.

if that wasn't enough, he's got Holy Smite at-will to squash whatever withstood his Holy Word... and perhaps, most blatantly wacky, the level 8 spell Holy Aura at will. NOT 3/day, or 1/day, or even 5/day, but at-will. Holy Aura can bless upwards to 15 creatures per casting with +4 to AC and to saves, 25 SR versus any spell cast by an Evil creature, full mind shielding, AND the ability to inflict permanent blindness against any Evil which strikes a protected creature in melee. He can do this at will, and everyone blessed by this maintains the blessing for 15 rounds.

do you guys think he'd be willing to go north for a bit? y'know, for fun?

All of these blessings are almost strictly for other people, though. Thalachos has no need for his own buffs, shielded by the universal Protective Aura of all Angels, improving both his and nearby allies' defenses against the weapons and magic against the forces of evil and hedging out hostile spell effects of 3rd level or lower (adorably, his aura also gives everyone inside Endure Elements so it's always comfortable). He's also fully immune to Fire, Acid, AND Cold damage, denying the three most common vectors of elemental attack by any creature, let alone fiends. Despite being Large size, he's also got Uncanny Dodge for some reason, which I imagine must look especially uncanny when the solid platinum titan suddenly bends 90 degrees at the waist to avoid an incoming spell.

All that defense helps him (literally) shine where he's most dangerous: In melee. It probably comes as no surprise that the 8ft tall flaming four-armed angel is a melee beater, and a resilient one at that. With an aforementioned at-will Invisibility, you may not know he's nearby until he slams down directly behind you, trapping you and all your friends in his 20ft threat radius. While certainly proficient with his +1 Flaming Holy Composite Longbow (2d8+6 + 1d6 Fire + 2d6 vs Evil), his true threat lays in melee, and not just for his damage.

He's got every Two-Weapon Fighting feat all the way to Greater, allowing him to make three attacks with his off-hand weapons while adding his full Str mod to the damage, already making his Full-Attack hurt; he's armed with two +1 Flaming Holy Scimitars which hit six times a round if he manages to Full-Attack. The meager 1d8+8 damage (+1d6 Fire + 2d6 vs Evil) belies their true effectiveness, because six attacks make the 18-20 crit range of his chosen weapons far more frightening than the low damage would suggest... and taking damage from two of his attacks in a single round forces a DC 24 Fortitude save versus being stunned for 1d6 rounds.

There is no cooldown to this ability or 24 hour immunity clause, and he can affect as many creatures as he can hit twice a round, potentially letting him stun up to three targets in a single round. Since being stunned has an obvious visual sign--the target drops everything they're holding and becomes woozy--the Sunlord is intelligent and insightful enough to drop aggro on whoever he's stunned to focus on anyone else in his melee radius to spread it around. Thankfully, this ability doesn't trigger multiple times a round for a single target, as it only checks the first time the target is hit twice. Taking all six hits doesn't trigger the ability 3 times, all the more reason he should diversify the directions he swings his swords.

Being stun-locked in melee with someone who can throw out so many attacks a round is never fun, and do you want to know what's worse? He doesn't need to Full-Attack to do it! He's a TWF guy, remember? If he moves up to you (50ft movespeed, 100ft fly) and does a simple attack, he can still hit twice, potentially cause a stun, and then do a Full-Attack next round instead to keep the chain going as long as he can.

I think all of this all very firmly puts him into the territory of "Tide-turning superweapon" that all Divine Heralds should be. He's a very high bar to clear, and very few do, hence why he caps off Holy Heralds Month. Fitting, I feel, for a central goddess such as Sarenrae.

You can read more about him here.

[cubestrahm]

»{ Mark Hoffman x Peter Strahm }« ✦ { ao3 }

next chapter -»

✦ Summary: This moment in time feels inevitable. It is as though Peter was always meant to wind up in the crushing dark with Mark Hoffman, tangled in a deadly situation that neither man can escape from unscathed. ✦ Rating: 18+ for explicit mature content. ✦ Content/tags: Background Angelina Acomb/Lindsey Perez, Alternate Universe - Diners, Slow Burn, Canonical Character Death, Canon Typical Gore, Detailed Descriptions of Wounds, Improper Wound Care, Non-Sexual Nudity, Cannibalistic Thoughts, Mild Feeding Kink, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Divorced Peter Strahm ✦ Word count: 6,488 ✦ Status: Multi-chapter / Ongoing ✦ Author's note: Shout-out to @danime25/@hoffstrap-yuri. I wouldn't be chest deep in Saw hell if it weren't for her. ♥

Rhythmic passes of a damp cloth on a laminate counter, steady whooshes of breath as his body leans into each motion of his arm; this is as calm as Peter Strahm ever feels. Repetitive actions keep his mind occupied enough to not wander in search of some pressing issue to fixate on. Not that there is much to endlessly turn over in his brain at the diner, but he can always find something.

A loud clang of the metal bells bouncing off the front door and the scuff of shoes against the wood floor heralds the arrival of customers. The first ones of the day. Peter doesn’t bother to look up, choosing instead to let Lindsey be the face of the establishment. He is convinced that she’s the only reason this place stays afloat. He’d have run everyone off with his demeanor ages ago if he were the sole owner. As a supervisor had once said to him, Peter would cut off his own nose to spite his face.

Barely listening to his partner’s cheery banter and the responding pleasantries of the customers—two of them, he notes, a man and a woman—he tosses the rag in the sanitation bucket before making his way to the coffee machine. It’s finished brewing the pot he’d started just five minutes ago. He dumps the used grounds and resets the machine with a new filter of freshly ground beans. When they hit a rush, coffee is the first thing to go. Early on, he and Lindsey learned that lesson the hard way. Customers get downright vicious when they can't get their caffeine fix the instant they want it.

“Pete,” Lindsey says, sliding up alongside him behind the counter.

“Mm,” he responds as he takes the offered ticket from her hand. He looks over the order. Simple. Easy. No substitutions or alterations. He can appreciate that. “Need anything before I get this made?”

“No, I’ll try to not burn the place down while you’re in the back though.”

He snorts, amused. If anyone was going to be engaging in pyromania during work hours, it would be him.

Peter retreats to the kitchen. His shoulders relax in the privacy beyond the swinging door. He is used to eyes being on him, every moment analyzed and critiqued, but solace suits him better. He doesn’t have to put on the thin veneer of normalcy that he’s capable of.

Steady hands prepare the ingredients before laying them on the grill top. Cooking is immersive work, a different kind of toil than when he was in the FBI. The constant examination for guilt, the way he would dirty his hands with the worst humanity had to offer… it took a toll on him. He lost himself in his job. Back then, most days, he felt like he should be the one handcuffed to the table while an agent berated him with rapid-fire questions. He had gathered up parts of every criminal he ever investigated. Strahm had ingested those pieces like poison until they had become a part of him, lining his internal organs and threatening to spread like a cancer.

The only thing that had kept him from going into the restroom and closing his lips around the barrel of his own handgun at work had been Lindsey. There had been a day when he was uncharacteristically tidying his papers on his desk and she looked up from where her own desk butted right against his. She had taken in the sight of his drawn, exhausted face, the bags under his bloodshot eyes, and the faint tremor in his hands. She had known. She’d stood up, nearly sending her desk chair halfway across the room on its wobbly wheels. His partner had reached over their computer monitors and grabbed onto his forearm with determined desperation. She’d said, “Fuck this, we’re done.”

They had opened the diner five months later.

Conceptualizing the place had started off as a pipe dream between two friends. Strahm had cooked for Lindsey some nights, when there was a sliver of down time. He’d been the one to teach her how to make more than oven pizzas and the occasional grilled cheese. He had also been the one who taught her how to shoot a man in the chest without flinching.

Five years, they’d worked together as agents for the FBI. Lindsey had been fresh out of the academy, and he’d already begun his downward spiral when they were assigned one another. No one else had wanted the woman rookie or the wild-eyed man they swore must be doing drugs to be acting the way he did, no matter how many piss tests came back clean. Two misfits.

Their coworkers and supervisors thought that he would make her cry, that he would destroy her confidence. Hell, they’d hoped he would go so far as to convince her that a woman didn’t belong at the boys’ table. Instead, Strahm realized that there was someone he could be bothered to live for.

He plates the two meals, reminiscing over and set aside for now. Fingers long since desensitized to the feeling of hot ceramic against them, he carries one plate in each hand to the dining area. The man and the woman are still the only customers. It’s a small town. It’s far enough from the main city that they don’t get much traffic out here this early in the morning. Usually, their clientele starts trickling in a couple hours after they open. It’s a motley assortment of people. They get folks from all walks of life seeking a seat at their secondhand tables. Money had been tight when they opened the place. Now, they keep the mismatched furniture as part of the place’s charm. He leaves the decor up to Lindsey.

As Peter makes his way to the dark haired pair seated at a table by the windows that span the front of the diner, initial thoughts that they might be a couple are blown away by the way the two of them are interacting. She’s engaging in five finger fillet with the straw for her orange juice. The hand that she’s playing the game with belongs to her resigned companion rather than herself. They must be siblings in one way or another.

“Here you go,” he sets the plates in front of them. “Anything else I can get you?”

“Yeah,” the seated man says. He’s wearing a suit. There is a flash of something at his hip. A gun and a badge. Strahm realizes that the man is a cop. Great. “Some decent coffee would be nice.” Peter’s eyebrows shoot up at the brazen rudeness. Across the table, the woman hisses, “Mark! What the fuck!” and swats at the officer.

The man isn’t deterred, just continues to stare Peter down with a dumb look in his blue eyes and a faint curl to his overly large, fish-like lips. Strahm hates him immediately. His dislike is only furthered by the realization that the seated cop’s buttons are straining across his chest. Could he not afford better fitting shirts? Or is he just too stupid to know his own size? Peter isn’t completely sure, but he’s willing to hazard the guess it might be the latter.

He grits his teeth and puts on a smile that’s more similar to a snarl than a genuine stab at pleasantry. “And what’s wrong with it?”

“It tastes like it’s been sitting out for hours,” he says, wincing only a little when the woman manages to land a solid kick against his shin. Peter wishes he could also dig the tip of his shoe into that yielding body.

Snatching the mug off the counter, he barely avoids the impulse to dump it on the cop’s lap and give him something to actually complain about. He doesn’t quite storm off to the narrow space behind the counter but it’s a close thing. He still carries his anger around his throat like a noose. Leaving the FBI hadn’t changed that.

The expression on his face is thunderous enough that Lindsey looks alarmed. Rightfully so. “What’s wrong?”

“Jackass cop. They always think they can come in here and push everyone around. That one probably jerks off onto his badge every night.” He feels a muscle jump in his jaw.

“That was… descriptive.”

“Sorry,” he mutters, ditching the mug on the counter by the machine and picking up the glass coffeepot and a fresh mug.

Peter strides back over to the occupied table. He sets down the mug with a hard thud on the tablecloth-covered wood, enough so that the table rattles with the force of it. It’s a miracle the ceramic doesn’t shatter. Neither of the two men look away from each other as he slowly pours the dark liquid. Only rising steam blocks their view, faltering and diverting as though it were afraid to be in the middle of them.

He fills the mug as high as he can get it, surface tension being the only thing keeping the coffee contained. It will be impossible to pick up without spilling. The cop is going to have to drink from it like a dog if he wants it at all.

“Thank you, Peter.” His voice is low, throaty.

Strahm startles at the use of his first name. His fingers reflexively clench into a fist. He perpetually forgets about the name tags that Lindsey insists they both wear despite her being the only one he has ever grown accustomed to calling him anything but some variation of “Agent” and “Strahm.” Of course this bloated asshole would be presumptuous enough use his name.

Choosing not to respond, he leaves the table and retreats to the sanctuary behind the counter. Any satisfaction he might have felt at watching his customer debase himself is dashed when Mark seeks out his eyes once again with his own as he lowers his face to the table and presses those absurdly full lips against the rim of the coffee mug. Peter can’t look away as he watches Mark’s throat engage in gulping swallows to drain the mug to the point where he can pick it up and drink from it like a slightly more civilized ape. He doesn’t realize he’s trembling, nearly vibrating in place, until his partner taps him on the arm and takes the glass carafe from his hand.

Lindsey attends to the pair from that point on. He lets her. They both know things might escalate, with his fuse being an oil soaked scrap of already burning twine.

The cop is perfectly nice to her, even smiling and thanking her for another coffee refill. Strahm can still feel the other man’s eyes rest on him from time to time. There’s something about the weight of his stare that makes him want to scratch at a phantom itch under his collar until blood burrows its way beneath his nails.

He finds his relief when Lindsey brings out the bill. Mark leaves his sister behind to pay after he hands her his wallet. She approaches the register with the slip of paper, looking meeker, somehow smaller, without her brother around. He barely keeps the frown off his face at her body language. There’s a nervous look in her eyes.

“I’m so sorry about my brother. I don’t know what got into him. He’s never like that.”

She sounds so sincere that he feels his frustration ease off the gas a little. It wouldn’t be right of him to be pissed at her just because she has an asshole for a sibling. “Ah, don’t worry about it.”

“Please, keep the change,” she says, handing him a wad of bills.

He pauses, fingertips already on the smaller denominations in the cash drawer. “This is too much, really.”

“Call it a…” she raises her fingers in scare quotes, “‘Markup’.”

Strahm sighs. Both siblings are intolerable.

“Alright then…?”

“Angelina. Angie.”

“Have a nice day, Angelina.” He very politely does not tell her to inform her brother to go fuck himself. Preferably with his own loaded gun. Safety off.

The young woman gives a little wave to Lindsey on her way out the door. His partner cheerfully returns it, her other arm laden down with the pair’s used plates. Peter loops around the counter to help her with bussing the table. He snatches up a clean rag on the way.

He’s not quite sure why the other man got under his skin so badly. It chafes at him. They have had more than a couple blowhard cops in the diner before, but they’ve never invoked the same visceral reaction from Strahm as Mark had. At least he can find solace in knowing that he will probably never have to see them again. They hadn’t seemed like locals, and it’s unlikely they’ll return, especially given the cop’s behavior towards him.

Hours pass, evening finally settles in after a long day. Diner traffic had ebbed and flowed along the usual patterns after the two siblings had left. Strahm and Perez had had the their typical rush around eight, followed by another burst of customers around noon, and the final crowd at six. There had been nothing else out of the ordinary to get Peter’s hackles up.

“Go on home, Linds,” he says to his partner as he flips the last chair onto one of the tables. He doesn’t want her to be stuck here all night while he meticulously combs over the diner in preparation for opening in the morning.

She stops, looks over at him with raised eyebrows. She’s got one hand on the dustpan and the other wrapped around the broom. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I could use the time to—“

“Get your homicidal urges under control?” she suggests with a grin.

He doesn’t dignify Lindsey with a response, just takes the broom from her before gently pressing his knuckles to her back to nudge her in the direction of the counter. “I’ll see you in the morning. Shoot me a message when you get home.”

“Oh, I’ll shoot you alright,” the woman mutters as she goes and gets her coat and purse.

“I wish you would. It would save me the trouble of doing it myself,” he calls after her.

The look he gets in return, all scrunched eyes and pursed lips, makes him smile. Lindsey’s “agent special”, as they jokingly call the expression they both slip into when agitated, would be enough to sour milk. He and his partner aren’t all that different. Their mannerisms have blurred together over the years. Lindsey is still his better half, though. She always will be.

“’Night, Pete.” She pauses with her hand on the front door’s handle. “You let me know too. When you get back to your place.”

“Goodnight,” he says, grudgingly tacking on “I will.” when she clears her throat in a pointed demand.

He finishes sweeping and is in the middle of mopping when his phone vibrates in the front pocket of his jeans. Without looking, he knows it’s the message from Lindsey. Still, he pulls the device out anyway and flips it open.

The text illuminated on the screen reads Im home :) Dont forget 2 eat

Satisfied that she’s safe, he doesn’t pick at the number pad and work up a reply. Peter merely closes the phone and returns it to his pocket. He’ll be messaging Lindsey about his return to his shitty rental soon enough. He’s almost done here, will be once he’s combed over every final detail down to the level the salt shakers are filled to. Strahm can’t help but treat every night at the diner like a case. All the parts have to be arranged in just the right order to construct the whole picture.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Early riser, is the first thing Strahm thinks the next morning when he hears the bells clatter against the glass of the front door. It is barely five minutes past six. Lindsey is in the back wrangling the day’s special; muffins. Much to his mixture of pride and chagrin, she’s become a substantially better baker than he. She has the patience for it.

“Welcome in,” he says, not looking up from the inventory list he’s in the middle of putting together.

He is going to have to call in an order to their supplier before noon today if they want it by Friday, which they do. Business is going to be elevated above average due to a local softball game on Saturday. One of them will be tasked with catering the event while the other stays behind to run the diner. He and Lindsey are going to have to draw straws for who gets what job. Peter is sure that she’s going to rig the game by changing the rules once the results are in so that she has be the person to go. His customer skills are better left unpracticed.

“Thanks, Peter,” comes a familiar voice.

Nearly snapping his own damn neck when he jerks his head up, he looks at the speaker. It’s Mark. He is holding the door open with a glove-clad hand for his presumed saint of a sister.

Anger sparks along his spine. He had bet wrong on never seeing the cop again, and with an aggressive motion, he snatches up only one menu. It’s only when he’s halfway to their table that he realizes he is rapidly clicking the pen he was using to write down notes for the order. He forces himself to stop.

Strahm can’t help but notice the other man is dressed the same as he was yesterday. He’s wearing the black blazer again, silk shirt is straining over his—what Peter can only call—breasts. He catches the sight of a thick suspender strap pressing into the softness of his chest, and finds that he has to look away and focus carefully on the menu he’s setting on the table in front of Angelina. He can tell that the other man is eyeing him questioningly.

“Where’s mine?” the cop asks, falling right into the trap Peter had impulsively set for him.

Turning to him with a fake as shit, winning smile, he says, “I thought your sister would be reading it to you. On account of you being a brain-damaged neanderthal.”

While Mark looks at him unblinkingly for a long moment and Angelina tries to smother her shocked laugh, Peter doesn’t let go of the smile. He rubs this thumb over the pen as he waits patiently for the cop to speak.

“Hm,” Mark finally says, considering, “Mother always did love dropping me on my head.”

Peter’s grin wavers, thinking the man might not be joking. His tone had been too serious. The amused expression falls off his face completely.

Fuck, he thinks, feeling a tinge of horror. Lindsey is going to kill him if he doesn’t kill himself first. Mark’s sister has her face buried in her hands. He’s royally cocked this up. He’s on the verge of apologizing when—

“I’m joking, Pete. I thought we were all friends here.”

Strahm relaxes, just marginally, but then Mark speaks again “Besides, I didn’t have a mother. In fact, you might be onto som—”

Peter interrupts him, turning to Angie, “What can I get you started with?”

“Orange juice, and some coffee for Oliver Twist over there.”

“Did you take him to the vet to get his taste buds looked at?” He’s still reflexively tapping his thumb against the clicker of the pen, not hard enough to trigger the mechanism.

She snaps her fingers, a smile playing at her mouth. “Damn, I forgot. I’m sure he’ll be nice this time,” she emphasizes with a pointed look at her brother.

Unable to help himself, he hazards a glance at the cop as well. Mark, upon realizing he’s being observed, darts his eyes from Peter’s right hand to his face. There’s something off about his expression, only furthered by a hard swallow. He looks almost… No. The idiot is probably just creaming himself over the thought of breakfast.

“I’ll be right out with that.”

When he pushes through the swinging door into the kitchen, he finds Lindsey pulling out another tray of muffins. She slides them onto the wheeled cooling rack and hums along to the radio blasting dad rock. His partner looks over at him with a smile. “Got a customer already?”

“Yeah,” he grumbles, snagging a glass serving decanter off a shelf, “jerkoff cop and his sister from yesterday.”

Peter can hear the frown in her voice as she speaks. “Want me to handle them?”

“No. I got it,” he calls on his way to the walk-in, decanter in hand. He fills it with orange juice from the dispenser before slipping out of the cooler and back into the main room of the kitchen to find and wrangle the lid onto the glass vessel.

Perez speaks like he hadn’t walked off, used to his comings and goings, “I’ll take the softball game then.”

“Not your call,” he says, thumbs bleaching white as he presses the sloped, metal lid down into the decanter until the rubber seal catches.

“Sure is, buddy. You’ll be using up all your goodwill today. I don’t want you terrorizing entire families this weekend. It’s bad for business.”

The retired agent lets out a ragged sigh on his way through the swinging door, finding himself unable to disagree. He knows his own limits, as much as he resents them, and so does Lindsey. Unlike her, he is willing to ignore them if it means getting the job done. It’s a miracle how she’s managed to stick around all these years. No one else has managed to tolerate his unwavering dedication. His first wife had left him for turning a blind eye to everything other than work, and the second had done the same for his devotion to Lindsey. Strahm is ever the dog with a bone, gnawing until he has reached the marrow and licked away every last trace of it.

He loves Perez like the sister he never got to have. Peter has both put his life on the line for her and taken the lives of other people for her continued survival. He has the unfortunate affliction of being willing to do anything for her, even going so far as to let her take some of the burden of this job off his shoulders. Atlas gets to have a partner.

Fetching a glass from under the counter, he tops it off with orange juice before stashing the serving jug in the mini-fridge where they keep the other cold items they need close at hand throughout the day—beverage pitchers, whipped cream, sliced lemons, the works.

Laughter travels across the diner, quick-footed and noisy. Strahm looks up at the interruption. The cop is holding the menu upside down and attempting to read the inverted text as he trails a thick finger over the print. He clearly cares about his sister. The love is written all over his stupid face, so thick that it’s enough to choke on.

Tamping down any lingering irritation as best as he can, Peter makes his way over to the siblings’ table. He is careful when he sets Angelina’s glass of orange juice down but doesn’t take the same care in the dismissive way he thunks Mark’s empty mug on the surface.

“Decided what you want yet?” he asks, pouring too much coffee into the mug in a repetition of yesterday. It laps the rim, begging to escape over the side.

At Angelina’s affirmative, Strahm sets the coffee carafe on the table and withdraws the notepad from his belt. While he jots down their order, he can’t help but be unsure if Mark is actually stupid or if he is just pretending. Either way, the man grates at him in such a way that he’d like to sink his fist into his face. It might relieve the inexplicable feeling crawling around under his skin like its trying to make a home. If he doesn’t act, it might buy real estate nestled away somewhere under his ribs.

Once he has everything marked down, he trades places with Lindsey after passing her the coffeepot and cooks the meal up in the back while she mans the front. They swap again as soon as he serves the places.

Behind the counter, he works at finishing up the restock order. Peter keeps finding his eyes wandering to the eating man rather than the task at hand. The solitude of the front only serves to allow him all the free rein he could possibly want to watch the man consume the meal Strahm had put in front of him. Each mouthful, each bob of that thick neck as he swallows, the tines of the fork disappearing between those overfilled lips; there’s something about it that he cannot look away from.

For now, he tells himself that the rapt attention is borne of disgust, that he’s watching for a complaint so he has cause to let out the aggression boiling inside of him. Later, once he has closed the diner for the night, he tries to convince himself that the tinge of satisfaction he’s feeling in this moment is because he is looking at proof of a job well done. The cop is clearly enjoying his food, and Strahm takes pride in his work.

Either way, he ignores the stirring that he feels in his jeans. He curses himself under his breath and puts all his focus into finishing the list he should have been locked into all along. He barely marks down the last item on the sheet before Lindsey pops through the swinging door, flushed from having completed her baking.

She ducks right under his arm and pulls the paper out from under his hand. Lindsey ignores his outraged noise. “Is this everything?”

“Yeah. Business has been picking up.”

“Mmm… Go water the plants for me? I’ll take over here.”

His partner makes a shooing gesture at him. She had been the one who insisted they have flowers in front of the diner and around the lot’s tree. Of course, the task of caring for them has fallen to Peter. He’d seen the state of her houseplants time and time again. Each of them inevitably finds a place at his rental home, handed over by a sheepish Lindsey. He all but has a jungle tucked away in his living room. Perez has many qualities. Unfortunately, a green thumb is not among them.

Casting a quick glance over at the table, he sees that the siblings are nearly done. They will be needing the check soon.

“Fine,” he says, giving in. It’s probably better for everyone is he’s not looking at the cop.

The bell chimes as he ducks out the front door. He checks the soil before he bothers to get the hose. In doing so, he finds out that Lindsey was right, the plants do need watered.

Peter is in the middle of watering the bed under the window when a shadow falls over the box. It consumes his, merges with it to create a twisted creature. There is something familiar in that figure, something deep in the core of his body groans in approval. Everything else fades away for a moment as he quietly observes it.

“Angie told me to apologize.”

Peter jerks, surprised by the rolling voice behind him. His finger slips off the sprayer. The water cuts off abruptly. He narrowly avoids clutching at his chest with his free hand like a stereotypical old man having a heart attack. With his heart pounding in his ears, he turns around to face Mark. Strahm doesn’t spay the cop with the hose. He wants to.

“So are you?” he asks with forced nonchalance.

Mark considers him. Those pale eyes survey the damp patches on Strahm’s jeans where the water had blown back. His stare seems to catch on the wet patch of t-shirt clinging to his stomach. “I don’t know. Is there something in it for me if I do?”

Strahm feels his neck go hot. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say the other man is flirting.

“Depends on how good the apology is.” The words are out of his mouth before his brain catches up. Damn it, Strahm, damn it, he thinks. His tendency to spout out whatever leapt to his tongue was a barely leashed thing that often broke free of its tether at the most inopportune of moments.

A smile curves the edges of Mark’s over-sized lips and the shorter man leans his bulk in just enough to make him feel cornered. Strahm has to fight not to react in any direction; either to shove him away or to pull him in. Disgust is warring with interest. He frowns. He barely knows this man. The retired agent would like to know what the fuck is wrong with him.

Sudden surprise flairs in those eyes and Mark withdraws, saying, “I’m sorry. Excuse me.”

Peter is left standing alone on the pavement, hose in hand, as the other man lumbers away to the navy Crown Victoria parked at the meter. He’s wet and confused. His jeans feel as tight as the scar cutting across his cheek.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Wednesday passes without further incident. Thursday’s only outstanding feature is the arrival of the order they had placed on Tuesday. Friday night sees Strahm helping to prepare everything for Lindsey’s catering on Saturday. There is no sign of Mark during the three day span. Only his sister stops by the diner. She gives no explanation for her brother’s absence and Peter does not ask.

Over the days, Strahm and Perez get to know Angelina. They learn that she loves her brother just as much as he loves her. She reveals that she and Mark were system kids. He has taken care of her like his own family since the moment they met at the home of shared foster parents. The adults had ended up not wanting Mark and despite only intending to send him back, they’d had to send both children away. Hoffman and Acomb had been stamped with a “do-not-separate” notice when Mark had later broken the nose of one of the staff members in response to being told they were going to be split up. Another family had wanted to foster just her.

Hoffman had filed for custody of her as soon as he aged out of the system and the means to show he could provide for her. He had been the youngest cop the precinct had assigned the role of detective to. Angie wishes her brother would hover less and worry about himself more. She thinks that he is burning the candle at both ends.

Over those days, Strahm’s worldview around the man shifts. The flames of disdain that had been raging inside of him peter out and turn into a charred bed of ash. He still wants to punch the man in the face, still wants to rough him up until he’s marked with the proof of Strahm’s fists—of his mouth—but he might soothe the man’s wounds afterwards with careful passes of his tongue.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Lindsey has just barely left for the softball field with her small truck laden down with the necessary food and supplies for the catering ordeal when the bell above the door jangles. Strahm looks up from the coffee filters he’s separating to see that it’s Mark. He is the first customer of the morning.

The detective doesn’t take a seat at the table, instead, he settles himself onto a stool at the counter. Strahm can’t help but notice that the seat Mark chooses is the one beside the stool that his sister has been occupying for the past few days. It’s as though his body instinctively knows where Angie resides and always keeps that space carved out for her. Peter is sure that if something were to ever happen to her, there would be a gaping hole in the detective’s life, a place where his sister should fill.

Something gives way in his chest at the sight of him. He’d never admit it, but he’s irrationally missed him.

“Morning,” he says, putting a mug down in front of him. He leaves enough room for Mark’s sugar this time as he pours the coffee in, unprompted. He’s being uncharacteristically nice. It could be that he’s making up for the lack of his partner. His rough edges can’t be too sharp when she’s not around to patch up the cuts he might make.

Any positive feelings at the other man being back at the diner are dashed when the first words out of his mouth aren’t a good morning in return, or even a thanks, but a “You wife has been getting real close with my sister. You guys a pineapple couple or what?”

Mark’s eyes are flat, deceptively calm. Uncomfortably, Peter feels as though he’s looking into the eyes of an attacking shark. He barely keeps the coffeepot he’s holding from slipping from his grasp. He’s suddenly all too aware of the wedding band weighing down his ring finger. It had been the same one from both his previous marriages. The retired FBI agent should have known the second marriage was doomed to fall apart from the moment he decided to not pick out new wedding rings with his fiancée. It probably hadn’t helped, that unbeknownst to ex-wife number two, he had proposed to her with the engagement ring he’d gotten back after the divorce of his first wife. Both women had been right to end their marriages to him. He’d been a shitty husband. His heart hadn’t been in it. Neither woman had been what he was really looking for.

On the Lindsey’s behalf, he’s offended for Mark even thinking she would stoop so low as to be married to him. She deserves better than his negligence and repression. He knows it and she knows it. In all the years that they’ve been partners, they have never done anything more than share a few awkward hugs.

“Lindsey and I aren’t married,” he says firmly.

“Just you then?”

“I’m not married. Neither of us are married.”

“You wear a ring. Seems awful married to me.”

“It keeps some of the old ladies from trying to mount me in the stock room,” he answers, dry.

They sit on that in silence. Strahm places the carafe back on the hotplate. Something nags at him. He turns to Mark only to find that he’s still staring at him. “What the fuck is a pineapple couple?”

“Swingers, Pete. I asked if you were a swinger.”

“What? No. Mark. No. No.”

The seated man looks strangely smug. “Good. I don’t share,” he says as if it were the most casual thing in the world and flips open a menu.

For a moment, Strahm thinks his brain shuts off. He reaches blindly for a rag out of the sanitizer bucket and starts scrubbing the counter with it. Mark’s voice comes to him like Peter is under water, distorted and faint.

“Eggs and bacon for me today. Some multigrain if you’ve got it.”

Pulling his notepad from his belt, Strahm scribbles down the order. He doesn’t need to but he needs to fight for a finger hold of normality here.

“Small breakfast. Sure you don’t want to stuff your mouth with anything else?” As soon as the words hit the air, Strahm wishes he could somehow suck them back in. Why is he forever incapable of thinking before he speaks?

Hoffman shrugs. “Nah, Angie’s not here to steal half the food off my plate. Besides, what I want isn't on the menu anyway.” His eyes feel like a physical caress as they map over Peter’s body. The meaning is blatant, not remotely subtle.

Peter opens his mouth, closes it.

“I’ll be back with that,” he says. On his way to the kitchen’s swinging door, he tries to keep his pace measured as he escapes Mark’s all too interested eyes. He doesn't want the detective to see how much their interaction has rattled him.

Once in the kitchen, he realizes that he needs to get ingredients out of the walk-in and pops the latch to step inside the small space. Instead of gathering what he had come for, Peter finds himself sitting on a tomato box. He leans back, pressing the sides of his clenched hands to his brow bone. Letting out a loud sigh that’s more of a growl, the diner owner sags into the cold metal of the wall behind it. The change in temperature is enough of a difference to shock his system back into some sense of reality.

What the fuck? he thinks, irritation creeping into his thoughts like an old friend. The detective had acted like he would gladly engage him in a physical fight over coffee and now he’s making overt passes at him. It’s enough to send his head spinning. Going over their interactions, he’s drawing the conclusion that perhaps the other man had been flirting with him since the start, trying different tactics to get his attention like a snot-nosed brat pulling a girl’s hair on the playground before realizing that honey catches more flies.

Being in the cooler finally catches up with him and he wastes no time in getting to his feet. He hates tight spaces, always has. Eventually, they make him feel like the walls are closing in inch by anxiety-inducing inch. A nonsensical section of his hind brain fears he will get crushed between them, rendered into a pool of fat floating atop pulpy innards and shattered bones.

Once free of the walk-in, he fries up the bacon and the eggs. He slips some toast onto the plate before carrying it out to the front. It’s hot against his fingers, the heat soaking through his callouses.

Peter has a moment to observe Mark when he pauses in the doorway. The swinging door is propped open against his elbow. The detective is sitting quietly, sketching something out on a napkin with the pen that Strahm must have unintentionally left behind after he took down the order. Once Mark catches sight of him, he flips the napkin over. As he does, Peter gets a glimpse of the drawing. It’s depicting something mechanical, like a medieval torture device made modern. An alarm bell clangs in the back of his head.

Neither of them bring up the drawing. Mark steadily tucks into his breakfast. Peter pretends not to be watching him. He thinks part of his brain dies when Mark has to lick away a smear of ketchup off his own lip. For a moment, Peter has the thought of his own tongue doing the work for the detective instead.

The retired agent ends up nearly snarling at him when he asks for a coffee refill.

next chapter -»

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[cheerycherrycandy-resurrected]

Ghoulette Appreciation Week 8

Week 8: Coffee Shop AU & Sickfic

I've been excited for this one! Back to the Midwest Emo Ghouls AU, because they just won't stay outta my head for long!

When Mist doesn't show up to Aurora's coffee shop, she gets worried. Or, Mist and Aurora are hopelessly crushing on each other, but neither seems to realize their feeling are mutual.

Rating: G Content: Fluff, secret crushes, Rory taking care of Mist when she has a cold. Words: 2651

It would be remiss of me to write a Midwest Emo Ghouls Coffee shop AU and not mention @midnight-moth's ficlet (which I think technically they said is only adjacent to this AU? but I wrote this before double checking, oopsie!) with coffee-shop!Aurora and record-store!Mist, the og fic that had me sold on Mistrora! (go read it!)

As with anything I've written for this AU, all credit goes to @herbal-quintessence and friends for its creation, I've picked and chosen my favorite hcs for the ghouls when there are multiple, and for any other inconsistencies with the original creators's hcs and timeline let's just say I'm operating on a different branch at an indeterminant point in time, haha..!

Read below, or on AO3!

The screech of the coffee machine snapped Aurora out of her daydream. She shook her head slightly to dislodge her leftover thoughts, still drifting around about her favourite customer. Aurora kept expecting Mist to walk in the door any second, and she didn’t dare try to meet her eyes while simultaneously imagining herself staring into them under greatly different circumstances.

The door to the shop remained closed however; no tinkling of the bell to herald Mist’s arrival to the coffee shop, and the subsequent arrival of a swarm of butterflies into Aurora’s stomach. For the umpteenth time that day, Aurora squinted out the window to the record store opposite. The lights were still off, the sign still reading closed. Where was she?

Aurora had worked in the coffee shop for several years now. She had applied when she first moved to town as a broke student struggling to pay rent, and had loved every second of it. The coffee shop, it turned out, was the beating heart of this rural town: a social hub for almost all the denizens both ghoul and human. She had taken great delight in getting to know her new community and neighbours, and beginning to recognize people outside of the coffee-scented air of the café.

From her connections at the shop, Aurora had learned about the existence of the dark church, and in particular its close community of ghouls. She had found many of her new friends here, and even her new home. Aurora had got talking with two lunchtime regulars she recognized from the church: one the owner of the hardware store down the street, the other his husband joining him in town for lunch. She had quickly learned that they farmed the fields east of town, and when Aurora had mentioned in passing that she was looking for a place to stay over the summer semester break to keep working, they had offered their spare room. They were looking for a lodger, anyway.

Another regular was Zephyr: church organist, GP surgery receptionist, and one of the first people Aurora connected with in town. They always came in during the afternoon slump, and happily tried the newest and strangest flavours of tea the shop had ordered. Aurora would scribble notes on their thorough yet honest reviews, before they left with an extra-large, extra-strong black coffee for Omega, the surgery’s GP.

It was through Zephyr that Aurora had learned of their lodger Mist, who had recently opened a record store directly opposite the coffee shop. Mist was cool. Seriously, effortlessly, cool. Throughout the weeks that she had started coming to the coffee shop at Zephyr’s suggestion, her visits had become longer more regular. At one point, after Aurora brought over her third drink of the morning, her curiosity had got the better of her, and she had asked Mist if she actually sold any records, seeing as she spent more time in the café than her own shop.

It turned out that Mist had not only been an art student at Aurora’s college several years previously, but had also taken several courses in online business and marketing. She made most of her sales from her website, explaining how her shop kept running with seemingly few customers. Aurora thought she was amazing: smart, arty, stylish, cool... She felt like a schoolgirl with a crush on the homecoming queen. Mountain and Swiss thought this was adorable and frequently teased her about it, reminiscing on their own tentative courtship many years previously.

Mist had started bringing her laptop to the café, sitting by the window to keep half an eye on her own shopfront for customers while being plied with coffees and “free” cakes. She had quickly realized that no café had that good of a loyalty scheme, and that Aurora was instead buying them with her tip money. Secretly, she had started keeping track of what Aurora was spending on her, the notes tucked into the tip jar at the end of each day always covering the pastries, and then some.

As the frequency of Mist’s visits increased, Aurora had become deeply attuned to her presence. Mist was a welcome sight in her window armchair, a source of charming smiles and words which made her heart flutter. And so, on this day in the middle of a cold February week, Aurora had felt Mist’s absence before she consciously noticed it. All day, she had been distracted; one eye on the door or the conspicuously dark record store opposite.

She was so distracted, in fact, that Zephyr had cottoned onto it immediately when they entered for their afternoon break. They caught her eyes flickering to the empty shopfront opposite three separate times while ordering.

“Missing Mist today?” Zephyr asked kindly. Aurora blushed deeply; was it that obvious? “She’s at home sick today, she’s feeling pretty under the weather.”

Aurora’s concern must have shown on her face, and she started pressing herbal teas and cake upon Zephyr to bring to her.

“You could bring them yourself, if you want?” Zephyr smiled warmly: young love was such a precious thing. “She’s not contagious, Omega took a look at her this morning. She just needs some rest and TLC.”

Aurora nodded earnestly, not trying to hide how keen she was.

“You could meet us at the surgery after you close here? I can give you a lift once the Omega sees his last patient.”

“Thank you Zeph, that would be lovey. I’ll meet you there–”

Aurora’s eyes instinctively flickered to the door again as the bell chimed the arrival of a customer. She waved Zephyr and their good-natured smile goodbye, heading back behind the counter.

Before Aurora cashed out and locked up, she also gathered a selection of coffee beans and teas to bring for Omega and Zephyr. She closed the door the minute the clock hit six pm, and resisted the urge to run down the road to the Doctor’s surgery. They were a ten minute walk away at best, and Omega’s last appointment was at quarter-to-seven.

She decided to make a quick detour past the small grocery store. Tea and pastries were fine, but nothing beats the winter lurgy like hot soup. And crackers. Oh, and maybe chocolate, Aurora thought, throwing everything she could think of into her basket. At least with Mist living with a doctor, she would be well taken care of with painkillers and cold medication.

Her bag weighing heavily on her shoulder, she greeted Zephyr as she got to the surgery, perching on a chair in the waiting room while Omega finished seeing his last patient. Her feet swing nervously beneath her.

Aurora sat in the leather backseat of the silver saloon car, as Omega drove back to their house in the suburbs. As they pulled off the road, she saw Mist’s familiar ice-blue bicycle leaned against the side wall of the garage.

“Let me know when you want to go home, I can drive you back.” Zephyr offered, before directing Aurora to Mist’s room at the top of the stairs. She knocked shyly, it was too late to be scared of overstepping now.

“C’m’ in!” a croaky voice called from inside. Aurora gently opened the door, smiling cautiously at Mist and offering a small wave.

“Rory?” Mist’s eyes were rimmed with red, matching the colour of her nose, but they seemed to light up as the smaller ghoulette hovered in the doorway. “What’re you doing here?”

“Oh you poor thing!” Aurora cooed, dodging the question of why Mist’s casual workplace acquaintance was suddenly knocking on her bedroom door. Mist really did look terrible; her face was tired and haggard and her skin even paler than usual. “Can I come in?”

“’F course.” Mist sniffed, hauling herself upright in bed.

“I’ve brought you cake, and tea, and you’re not going to sneak money into my tip jar for once,” Aurora chattered nervously. “Can I run you a bath? Or fluff your pillows? Are you hungry, I brought soup?”

Mist smiled weakly at Aurora’s enthusiasm, a little overwhelmed at the small ghoulette’s whirlwind of fervent hospitality.

“A bath would be nice, this cold’s making me feel disgusting. So would some soup, I haven’t eaten since yesterday night…”

“A bath is is then!” chirped Aurora, “And I’ve got tomato, chicken noodle, or vegetable broth?”

“Tomato, please.” Mist rubbed at her red-raw nose with a tissue. “Zeph could do all this y’know? Or Meg. Did Zephy drag you here?” Conniving scoundrel, Mist thought to herself, anything to win that silly bet with Omega.

“I wanted to.” Aurora shrugged, trying to conceal just how eager she’d been to visit, “Zephyr just drove me.”

Mist struggled to pull herself more upright and swing her feet out of bed, and Aurora made a move to assist her. As she did so, she looked down at the armful of goodies she was still clutching, before whirling around to find somewhere to put them. Mist’s room wasn’t at all how Aurora had imagined: every available surface seemed to be covered in clutter and trinkets, the opposite of the cool, minimalist personality she exuded. The walls were plastered with artwork, lending everything a warm and cosy feeling. Aurora eventually made space on the desk, moving a few mugs – some with pencils in, some with leftover tea – and stacking the assortment of sketchbooks into a rough pile.

While Mist sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for the dizziness in her head to abate, Aurora headed into the en-suite and turned on the taps to warm up and begin to fill the bath. She looked around at the bottles on the windowsill, and poured in some blue bubble bath alongside the stream from the taps. Ocean Breeze, whatever that was meant to smell like.

“Thanks, ‘Ror,” rasped Mist, as she leaned against the doorframe, clean pyjamas in hand, “I can take it from here, unless you want to stay?” The exaggerated wink as she spoke told Aurora that she was only joking, and that despite Aurora secretly longing for more, this was just Mist’s normal flirtatious banter. At least she was feeling well enough for her usual wit to come through.

Aurora closed the door behind her as she left, and hovered in the bedroom until the taps turned off and the splashing sounds of Mist getting into the bathtub safely and without falling had quietened down. She grabbed some of her care package from the stash on the desk and headed back downstairs to make some tea and heat the soup.

Entering the kitchen, she found Zephyr at the table with a mug of the tea she gave them, grinning like a Cheshire cat. Omega paused where he was slicing vegetables and directed her to the kettle and microwave, grabbing a bowl and mug for her too. Aurora hovered awkwardly as she waited for the various liquids to heat, aware of Zephyr’s eyes burning a hole in her back the whole time. Out of the corner of her eye, she even thought she saw them making a gesture at Omega, like rubbing cash between their fingers and thumb. She put the bowl of soup and mug of tea onto a small tray Omega also presented, adding a few napkins and a spoon, before escaping back upstairs.

Balancing the tray in one hand, she knocked on the bedroom door again, entering when she got no response. The gentle sloshing sounds of water told her that Mist was still enjoying her soak, so she set the tray down on the desk and took a seat.

“I’m back!” she gently called at the bathroom door, “Let me know if you need anything else!” Mist hummed in acknowledgement.

Aurora took a look around the room while she waited, admiring the mishmash of colours and styles. Each item so clearly told a story, she wished she could ask about every single one. A small photo on the bookshelf made her smile: a younger Mist, probably round Aurora’s current age, was dressed in dungarees and pulling an uncharacteristically silly face at the camera from her seat atop a hay bale. A handsome dark-haired ghoul she recognised as the previous youth pastor Ifrit leaned against it, while Mountain and Swiss stood to one side, arms loosely around each other’s waists. Aurora couldn’t help the pang of jealousy she felt looking at the picture. Even though she knew they had only ever been friends, she was reminded that Mist had lived a life before she moved here, that there was no way she would ever fall for her young barista with a silly crush.

Abruptly, Aurora stood up and walked to the bed to straighten the duvet and fluff the pillows, perhaps with a little more force than was necessary. As she was tucking the foot of the blankets back in, Mist finally emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of fresh, ocean-scented steam. She looked to have more colour in her cheeks already, the worst of the pallid complexion she had worn before now gone.

“Feel better for that?” asked Aurora, smoothing the duvet with a final flourish, and moving out of Mist’s way.

“Much, thanks Rory,” Mist climbed back into bed, sighing as she sat up against Aurora’s carefully arranged stack of pillows. Once she was settled, Aurora brought over the tray, moving the mug to her bedside table so it didn’t spill. She tried not to stare too intently as Mist ate, smothering the protective fire that burned in her belly at seeing her devour the soup.

Instead, Aurora distracted herself by chattering at Mist about the daily gossip from the street. How Mrs Bloom from the flower shop had come in half an hour earlier than usual, coinciding with Mr Phipps from the jewellery boutique, and did this mean the elderly shopkeepers were finally getting together or not? And the teenager with the purple hair had been back to remove her Missing flyer from the noticeboard, as her pet cat had just been hiding in her neighbour’s garden shed the whole time, much to everyone’s relief.

As Aurora nattered away, she took Mist’s tray back to the desk once when she finished the soup and moved onto the tea, before lying back down under the covers. Aurora continued quietly recounting the day’s events until Mist’s breathing gradually slowed and evened out. Asleep. Aurora silently returned the empty mug to the tray, before grabbing a pencil and a scrap of paper to leave Mist a note in case she woke up wondering where her visitor had gone. She debated for a few seconds, before finally scribbling her mobile number on the bottom of the paper. Given how much time they spent together during the day, it was strange they hadn’t exchanged them yet, right?

She propped the note up on the bedside table and, in a moment of impulsivity, kissed two of her fingers before pressing them into the pillow, feeling Mist’s cool breath curl around them. Aurora shook her head, and grabbed the empty tray to leave before she made any more reckless confessions.

Zephyr drove her home in a comfortable, yet knowing, silence. Aurora felt slightly like she was the punchline to some joke she wasn’t aware of, but tried to think nothing of it. Surely spending your evening taking care of your favourite regular customer who might also be your friend but also might not be wasn’t that weird?

Aurora thanked Zephyr for the lift, choosing to slink off to her room as Swiss immediately invited them inside with promises of a fresh jar of honey from his bees. As she settled down for bed herself, mind still racing over the events of the day, her phone buzzed. Aurora felt her heart skip a beat as she read the message: Hi, it’s Mist. Thanks again for coming today, I’ll have to repay the favour sometime. xx