#also i drew all of these in the span of two days while home early from work because i have a terrible awful cold

[pigeonclaw]

ASC is over, which means it's time for... Moonpaw!

[dourpeep]

The men of Genshin as romance types:

This just kind popped up in my head after thinking about Xiao's characterization! I might add to this in the future, but for now it's just a small list of headcanons + a short blurb :>

Contains: Lots of fluff, lightly suggestive

Features: Albedo, Venti, Kaeya, Xiao, Zhongli, Childe, and Diluc

Note: you can be soft and still top btw, this is only for how they'd be romantically

Sweet:

Albedo

Albedo is also shown canonically to do little gestures like give people the sketch he did of them to see them smile, this man might seem kinda standoffish at first, but he's not cold

From his voicelines and story, we also know that Albedo is the type of person to think pretty deeply about everything around him

His brain goes 100 miles an hour with all the possibilities and scenarios he can think of

So with his s/o, the best thing that could happen is that he'll take the time to really slow down and unwind

Being a busy, busy man in pursuit of knowledge beyond anyone's comprehension, Albedo rarely gets time off (his sketches are considered research, in a way, no?)

So once he's finally at home, there will be lots of little shows of affection

Passing behind you, perhaps a light touch on your back or shoulder to let you know he's there

On a particularly rough day, he'll sit facing you with his forehead resting on your chest and just--take your hands and put them in his hair

Not really the type to pamper, but there's no doubt of his love

Probably the type of guy to like sitting close in silence

Maybe on the nights you cook, he'll come and wrap his arms around your waist, head leaning on your shoulder as he watches you work

Quietly, you lay on the couch tangled up in his arms, the soft sound of breathing and the light warmth you feel lulling you to sleep. It seems that, even though Albedo is left half asleep from a long day of research, he still continues to trace mindless little patterns on the back of your hand with his thumb. You shift, and he hums, pulling you closer.

Venti

The man’s been through so much, honestly

He's lost his closest friend, helped a rebellion usurp a tyrant, been through a war that lasted centuries, watched as another friend he'd known since birth fall to corruption (but ultimately was saved)

Point being, he's tired and just wants to have his fun

True to his nature, he likes to tease and poke at his s/o, but nothing that can't be undone (after all, a prank isn't funny if it's permanent)

Hand holding, is a must! Venti is a very affectionate person who isn't afraid to express his feelings when it comes to his s/o

Lots of smooches too! (Please smooch him back)

Speaking of hands and smooches, he's the type to bring your hand to his lips and give each your fingertips a little kiss. They've done so much for you and allow him the joy of holding them, so it's the least he can do!

His type of love is free and sweeter than the scent of cecelias, soft as the wind that kisses your skin

Really, he wants to be able to treasure you as much as he can in the time you have together

Today was a picnic date kind of day. A basket filled with fresh, ripe sunsettias and a few dishes you both worked together to make (mostly you, after what happened with Venti's apple cake) sat on top of a sturdy blanket laid on the grass. Head laid in your lap, the wandering bard strummed idly on his lyre, adding a lovely backdrop to an already perfect day.

Romantic:

Kaeya

Of course, the suave Captain doesn't stop with honeyed words

Mysterious as he is, he takes what he does in stride

If he could spend all his life entwined with you, he'd die a happy man

Kaeya is the type of partner to romance with candlelight and nighttime strolls on the beach

A little cheesy, yes, but all the more to sweep you off your feet

Flirty, he likes to take his time with his love and while he similarly treasures his s/o, it's in the way the fairytales are written

Perhaps a little cliche at times

Nevertheless, he's the type of partner to sweep you into a dance despite there being no music and dip you low (whether you both lose balance and fall is up to gravity)

He'll show his affection physically, whether through a quick kiss when you stop by the Favonious Knight's HQ, or pulling you close when you walk through a crowd on a market day

Teasing is also a big thing, if he can make you blush, his mission is accomplished

In privacy, expect his treatment to be the same--it wouldn't do any good if he leaves his dear s/o confused about how he feels

Once again, you take his hand and he sweeps you into a lively waltz, sweeping across the living room floor. Not once do his eyes leave yours. All he ever needs is the feel of you close and the rush of his heart in his chest that bubbles into something fonder when your laugh reaches his ears.

Xiao

Not the best with words, Xiao shows his love through his actions

Little gifts, helping now and then with commissions and clearing the road, he'll do it all with no expectation of thanks (should you thank him, he'll be extremely grateful for the recognition but also perhaps unsure how to react)

He doesn't tend towards physically showing affection to his s/o, so when he does, expect them to show his utter devotion

Often, Xiao questions what it is that he did to deserve such a love, but as soon as you appear in his view, it no longer matters because as long as you believe him to be worthy, why wouldn't he be?

His love is based deeply in trust. The heart is a fragile thing and to someone who's suffered so much in his lifetime, he guards it fiercely to protect himself

When he finally does allow himself the comfort of a relationship, he'll soak it up entirely

Nights spent stargazing on the top of Wangshu Inn, pinkies intertwined, or bodies held together tightly with the sweet exchange of breath

Every touch that he offers is gentle, reverent, and serves to remind him that what he's experiencing is real

He tried, really, for the thing on the plate to turn out the way that you usually make it. It's a far cry from what he remembers, but you set it down and bring your hands to his face. The sight of your beaming smile warms him deeply and he pulls you in close for a kiss.

Zhongli

Be still, my beating heart-

Just as he's full of information from the flowers of Liyue to the deepest cracks in the soil, he loves fully and unapologetically

He's lived through many eras and seen so much that it's hard to not want to express how he feels as he feels it

Deeply appreciative of whatever his s/o does and does for him

He indulges in every word, touch, feeling, and look- He's not a greedy man, but when it comes to love? There's a deep desire to feel it all

There are many ways that Zhongli expresses that love, a few being through your daily strolls through Liyue Harbor and the daily and nightly rituals the two of you have settled down into

His favorite is probably the mornings

There's something about waking up wrapped up in your lover's arms, head resting on their chest as the sun's warm beams shine through the windows that's utterly satisfying

Zhongli indulges in these little moments, favoring them over all else

Once in a while, he'll take you back to where your first date was to reminisce, perhaps even (jokingly) mention little embarrassing things either of you did

Zhongli watches as you sip at your drink and admires the way the sun compliments your eyes. You're preoccupied by the falling leaves, it seems, mentioning how they're just as brilliant gold as his. Though the feeling he feels is far from the excitement of butterflies, it has settled into a comforting sort of warmth that hopes you feel as well.

Passionate:

Childe

This man's love is wild like his personality

Loud, fun, and never quite predictable, he loves like a whirlwind and with an enthusiasm to match no other

Lots of teasing going on here, to make you blush or to mess with you, you'll never know

But it's his unapologetic fire that drew you to him to begin with

When he's not occupied with work, he'll drag you to go sight seeing

Every experience is a new experience, no matter if it's something that seems so everyday or not

His affection is in the form of tightly held hands (he doesn't want to lose you with how quickly he weaves through the crowd), well-placed winks, and kisses to steal your breath away

He also loves in a way that's fiercely protective. His job is a dangerous one and, with the way he's open with your relationship, his affection serves to protect you

But don't forget that despite his passion, he's a man who deeply treasures those close to him and, as his s/o, you'll be showered with only the best he can give you

It was only a quick break in your day, he'd assured, but it quickly became another round of seeing Liyue through his eyes. In the span of only an hour, you've already spotted an untouched patch of glaze lilies, sampled rich Li-style cuisine and fresh Yue-style cuisine, helped a young girl fetch her kite from atop a tree, and now are working your way (or rather, Childe is working your way for you) to a little area behind the busy streets to show you a pack of dogs he'd befriended. Fondly, you smile and watch as he beckons them out of hiding.

Diluc

Diluc lives for the way that his s/o brings the best out of him and, in return, he does the same back

He exudes the air of a gentleman with the way he shows his affection, but, whether intentionally or not, in an utterly enticing way

Being busy during the day with running the tavern and the winery as well as at night as the Darknight Hero (he insists you stop calling him that as well, but you don't miss the light flush of pride each time), the time he dedicates to you is left in the early morning long before you leave for the day and the evening as he settles just before he sets off

During morning time, he's often fond of running his hands over you, feeling each dip and curve, memorizing the way your hair falls and the way your lips curve when you smile

It's a quiet sort of passion

His love is expressed in the fond murmurs against your shoulder and head, sharing those moments of deep intimacy both physical and not

In the evenings, you both settle in front of the fireplace, sharing a drink or two

There's sometimes a certain look in his eye that sets your heart aflame in the dimly lit room, and sometimes he sets off a little later that night in lieu of a few more stolen moments with you

Diluc slides into your shared bed in the early hours of the morning, a bit later than usual. The shift stirs you just enough to wake up to two arms pulling you to his chest and a deep breath with his nose buried in your hair. He's no doubt exhausted. Eyes bleary, you turn until you're facing him and loosely wrap an arm around his waist. In the moments you're still half-awake, you hear a low murmur of 'love you' and you smile against his skin.

[knives-out20]

The Impact Of The Intergalactic - David Bowie Opinion Essay - by Beck S.

This is an essay I wrote about the span of David Bowie's career. I wrote it for a summer school course I took last year (August 2021) for a course called History of Rock & Roll.

My teacher gave nice feedback after he marked it, talking about how it was an "Excellent paper. It charts Bowie's progress throughout his career well, and includes significant detail. I could really feel the passion you have about him throughout. In fact, there is *too much* detail! The paper was supposed to be 3 pages max, double-spaced. Still, this is a good problem to have; better too much than too little."

So...enjoy!!

From his early works like Hunky Dory, to Black Tie White Noise in the 1990’s and stretching over to Blackstar as his final album, David Bowie has rarely had a bad album or song- in my opinion. His career has had ups and downs, his musical creations ranging in the way he would pitch his voice and what instruments he would use, the people he would produce with, and the wild things he would say. Charting David Bowie’s development over time is in fact an interesting journey.

Early on in his dreamy career, Bowie would have done nearly anything- or in fact, anyone- to grow in the music world. Hopping from band to band (like The Velvet Underground), producer to producer, doing whatever he could do to get ‘in’ in the industry. His early albums weren’t taken very highly in their times- especially with the ‘man-dress’ he wore on the British release of his The Man Who Sold The World album. Although, this dress was only the start of the androgynous appearance he would soon be known for, over the course of his 5-decade-spanning career.

The 1970’s were strange, to say the least. He married Angela Bowie at the start of the decade, then welcomed their son Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones a year later. Bowie went on to be hopped up on cocaine. David donned the look of one of his famous personas, The Thin White Duke. The same persona with slicked-back ginger hair, a white button-up under a black waistcoat and paired with black dress pants. The same Duke who called Adolf Hitler one of the first ‘rock stars’ and gave off a lot of faschist energy. He said many statements he’d later apologize for and grow as a better man from, which is good- it’s better than standing by then, or even backing himself up and supporting them. David Bowie called that period the darkest days of his life, and blamed the crazy statements on his horrid addiction and deteriorating mental state. The late 1970’s were more favorable, seeing as it gave the world what was dubbed the Berlin Trilogy alongside Brian Eno and David’s personal friend, Iggy Pop. Made up of three of his albums: Low and Heroes (both in 1977) and Lodger (1978). He moved from Los Angeles to Switzerland, then to Berlin as a further decision to escape his addiction (the reason he moved away from LA in the first place). It was in Berlin, of course, where he wrote his famous song Heroes, about two lovers, one from East Berlin and one from West.

Speaking of Berlin, David Bowie performed near the west of the Berlin Wall in 1987; he played so loud that crowds gathered on the east to listen. At this time, Bowie had no idea he would be the beginning of the city’s soon-coming unifying. After his death in 2016, the German government thanked him for bringing the wall down and unifying a divided Germany.

Music isn’t all he is known for, though it is a majority. He also starred in movies from time to time. Being the titular man in The Man Who Fell To Earth in 1976, Jareth the moody goblin king in Jim Henson’s 1986 Labyrinth film (what is most likely his most famous role), Monte the barman in the 1991 movie The Linguini Incident, cameoing as himself in Zoolander (2001), Nikola Tesla in the 2006 movie The Prestige, and even Lord Royal Highness in Spongebob Squarepants’ Atlantis Squarepantis in 2007, among a few others. David Bowie dabbled in the art of acting, and was not that bad at it. He was good enough to gain a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, too. Sometimes it bends my mind that my first introduction to my all-time favourite musician was in a Spongebob Squarepants movie, back before I knew who he was, but David Bowie was never one to shy away from foreshadowing. At least one song from many of his albums would hint at the direction he’d go in for his next release. For example, his track Queen Bitch on Hunky Dory foreshadowed his soon-coming Ziggy Stardust. And the Diamond Dogs track 1984 actually hinted at the Philadelphian soul of Young Americans, which is a more famous song of his, which he went on to perform on The Cher Show with its host.

The 1990’s were certainly an experimental time for David Bowie. But to my knowledge, I think the 1990’s was a time for everyone. He married supermodel Iman some days after performing at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, and released the album I named earlier, Black Tie White Noise. It is known to have had a prominent use of electronic instruments, as was his other 1990’s album, Earthling. The early 1990’s greeted David’s first real band since the Spiders From Mars, dubbed Tin Machine. They recorded three guitar-driven albums which received mixed reviews from the masses, but Bowie looks back at this period- as do I- with a certain fondness; “a glorious disaster” he called it, when talking to journalist Mick Brown. Tin Machine is a period I don’t listen to often, compared to his solo stuff, but I don’t press the skip button when it comes on.

Alas, the starman’s career drew to a close as the 2000s rolled in. David Bowie greeted the 2000’s with the birth of his and Iman’s daughter, the beautiful Alexandria Zahra Jones. After suffering a- strange, as it were- heart attack symptoms mid-song during a concert in 2004, he took a hiatus from his career. I say strange because given what I know, he was trying his best to stay healthy at the time. According to my special Rolling Stone edition magazine about David Bowie (released at the start of this year), he was on tour and performing in a really hot arena. But Bowie was sober, and had quit smoking. He was taking medication to lower his cholesterol, and worked out with a trainer. Bowie looked great, and yet he felt a pain in his shoulder and chest, along with a shortness for breath. A bodyguard rushed onstage to usher Bowie off of it, cutting the concert short. He only performed live once or twice after that point, but was set on never going live ever again. And he kept his word on that, unfortunately but also fortunately. Unfortunately, because David Bowie live would have been quite the experience- I wouldn’t know, personally. But fortunately, because I do not believe anyone needs a repeat of the 2004 Reality scare.

I am actually not too fond of speaking of his final years. Nobody really likes to speak of the last years of their idols’ life before their death, so it’s no surprise. Blackstar was David Bowie’s 25th and final album, recorded entirely in secret in New York alongside his long-time producer, Tony Visconti. The album's central theme lyrically is mortality, and seeing as Bowie was undergoing chemotherapy for his cancer at the time, I see it as his way of coping with his incoming death. His producer Tony Visconti called him a ‘canny bastard’, when he realized Bowie was essentially writing a farewell album. Every song on the album is what is considered a swan song, a swan song in question being a phrase for a final gesture of some sort before retirement or death. In this case, death. Over the course of recording the album, David Bowie’s chemotherapy had actually been working and he had an eerie optimism while recording. But by the time they shot the two music videos Blackstar and Lazarus, where he showed off the definite passage of time and cruelty of chemotherapy through sparse and gray hair with sagging skin, he knew his condition was terminal and that this would be a battle he would lose. Blackstar wasn’t the first album to have been made by a musician succumbing to a fatal illness, but in my opinion it is in fact the most beautiful. It’s jazzy, and elegant, showing how at peace he had become with dying.

Blackstar the album was released on January 8th, 2016. Also known as David Bowie’s 69th birthday. Two days later, David Bowie died at his Lafayette Street home on January 10th after living with liver cancer for up to 18 months. Beforehand, he had let it be known he did not want a funeral nor a burial, but rather that his body be cremated and the ashes to be scattered in Bali by his loved ones. His wish was received, and planet Earth was very much bluer and quieter without his colour and wonderful noise.

As I said earlier on, David Bowie’s career came with ups and downs. His mysteriously close relationship with Mick Jagger, his cross with famous underage groupie Lori Maddox, the births of his two talented children, his faschist bender in the 70’s, and final bang of Blackstar in his final year on earth. Through the highs and lows, his career and his music meant a lot to the quote-unquote misfits and freaks of the world, myself included. David Bowie turned and faced the strange, shouted “you’re not alone!” To those who felt the loneliest, he surely spent his career helping those who needed to be themselves, feel more freer and braver in doing so, no matter what they may be when they are themselves. He never went boring, he never went stale, he sang what he wanted and dressed how he pleased, and kept to his word on how much more to life there is when you’re just that; yourself. A year after David Bowie’s untimely passing, his son Duncan Jones accepted an award for British album of the year that was won by Blackstar at the 37th annual Brit Awards. When he accepted it, he made a speech about his father that I will leave here, and never forget. Seeing as it perfectly encapsulates David Bowie’ legacy, and the true meaning of his extraordinary career.

“I lost my dad last year, but I also became a dad. And, uhm, I was spending a lot of time- after getting over the shock- of trying to work out what would I want my son to know about his granddad? And I think it would be the same thing that most of my dad's fans have taken over the last 50 years. That he’s always been there supporting people who think they’re a little bit weird or a little bit strange, a little bit different, and he’s always been there for them. So...this award is for all the kooks, and all the people who make the kooks. Thanks, Brits, and thanks to his fans.” - Duncan Z. H. Jones (February 22 2017, at The O2 Arena in London.)

[birdsaesthetic]

Jane’s sketchbook

Summary: Jane freaking out over losing her sketchbook, my participation for 12 Days of Blindspot.

A/N: I wrote this a while ago then ignored it... But then I saw these prompts from @holidayblindspot which reminded me of already having written something that goes with one of the prompts, so I thought this was a sign for me to edit it real quick and post it. I’m so exited to be sharing this here because it’s beautiful and really worth sharing. ENJOY! 

Day 5: A ruined day. 

“Kurt,” Jane called from across the front room, to which Kurt immediately looked up and responded, “Yeah?”

“Have you seen my sketchbook?”

Looking around him quickly yet carefully, Kurt murmured, “No,” he then looked up at her, who seemed stunned at having heard the No from him. 

The two were in the middle of unpacking the boxes they brought up with them from their old apartment in New York all the way to the new one in Colorado, which, after managing to unpack the majority of the boxes and placing their contents ever since morning, it finally started to feel like home. Like their old apartment in New York. 

Doing so had been so fun at first, each one was having a glass of red wine in hand and there was loud music playing in the background and, since there weren’t curtains covering the windows just yet, there was the beautiful addition of bright and warm sunlight streaming inside the spacious front room that felt so rewarding and motivating. But when the sun went down, taking with it its light and warmth, the work got monotonous, and so by now they were both exhausted and hungry. 

Jane was also confused now. 

She looked down at all the boxes scattered on the floor around her, which were almost empty by now, and she felt the world spinning around her in confusion and fear for having been unable to locate her sketchbook among all these boxes. 

“Why? Couldn’t you find it?” Asked Kurt, seemingly confused too as he approached her.

Creases were starting to form on her forehead as she shook her head in confusion. “No,” she said quietly, then jumped from one box to another, double checking each one, randomly, quickly and with both hands, as if she were digging into a hole. And then, after all of that, which was in a span of thirty seconds, she shook her head yet again, though this time in disappointment, and looked up at Kurt in a plea for understanding. “I don’t know why I can’t find it because it should be here. I put it here. I put all my small things here, and I didn’t have a lot of things!” 

Kurt was standing right before her by now, hunching over to check inside the boxes again. It was helpless, he knew; she’d already rummaged in all those boxes with eager hands and big eyes and yet found nothing... But if there was a one-in-a-million chance, he would absolutely take it when it came to her.

When his eyes, wide open, met hers, he suggested, “Okay, maybe you’ve just got confused. Try to remember where you’ve last seen it.” She swallowed hard and tried to do as told, mouth slightly open. She settled her gaze at a random spot on his chest as both of them stood close against one another, then she pushed her mind so hard to visualize where she’d last seen the sketchbook and what she was doing, so she could retrace her steps in the process and hopefully remember something. 

But it was after a long, unbearable moment when Jane pushed her lower lip out in a sad pout and gave a shake of her head. Kurt hugged her loosely then. “It’s okay, we still have another set of boxes to be delivered here tomorrow morning.” He reminded her. “Hopefully we find it within one of the boxes then.”

Jane pulled back to look up at him, the sad look remained on her face. “But those coming boxes only have the kitchen supplies!” 

“You don’t know, maybe you forgot it there!”

“It’s not possible... I put it here,”

“Everything is possible.” He encouraged, then added, “Aren’t you hungry by now, though? Because I’m so hungry! How about pb&j for dinner, huh?”

“I don’t mind.” Jane muttered with a shrug. 

Together they decided to call it a day after dinner and climbed into bed, crawling close to each other as they lied down against the mattress. Their foreheads were touching as they shared a loving gaze, then Kurt whispered, “Can I get my good night kiss, or you don’t feel like—”

“No—yes, of course you’re getting your good night kiss!” She rushed to say, reassuring him just before she smiled the tiniest of smiles and kissed him hard on the lips, to which he kissed her back even harder. After that, she placed her hand over his arm that had been wrapped around her waist beneath the blanket, lifted it, rolled over to her side, and again let his arm be wrapped around her waist. This was how she’d always loved to sleep with him: she’d turn her back to him and he’d take the cue and cuddle her from behind with a light arm across her waist beneath the blanket and a soft kiss right behind her ear that would make her hum and snuggle deeper into his embrace until they’d look like two spoons in a drawer, very tight against each other. 

As she closed her eyes and tried to sleep, hoping to raise up to a promising morning that would bring with it her sketchbook, she could swear she saw the vague afterimage of the sketchbook in her eyes, but then she opened her eyes and only saw the darkness of the bedroom...

She didn’t own a lot of things, really. The only things she owned and loved so much were that sketchbook and her marriage ring. The engagement ring was as if glued to her finger ever since she had worn it years ago. As for the sketchbook, she had always made sure to keep it within her hand reach, though this time around it oddly disappeared! 

It was the very first purchase she made solely for herself when she started to receive a regular paycheck after working formally for the FBI. At first she didn’t know what to do with such a decent amount of money since she’d already been provided with a place to stay in, clothes, a cell phone and food—usually her detail had dropped food at her place without even asking for anything back, which made her really embarrassed.

It could be the crack of dawn or early morning when Jane fluttered her eyes open the next day, and after a long moment of gazing at Kurt’s sleeping face, she gave him a soft kiss on the temple then eased herself out of bed. With her eyes half closed, she managed to step the few paces toward the bathroom, rinsed her face in the sink, brushed her teeth and finally put on a comfy sweater she gripped from the hanger. 

Yawing, she stumbled across the front room that was messy with boxes they hadn’t even bothered to flatten or push away last night, until she made it into the kitchen. There she stood in the center, stretched her neck, and yawned some more with her eyes pressed close. When she reopened her eyes, the sight of a can of cocoa shoved in the far corner suddenly inspired her. And so, as if drawn by a magnet, she stepped toward the refrigerator, opened it and examined its contents, though there wasn’t much to see. There was random stuff and among them was a brand-new bottle of milk, which she only needed to fix a cup of hot cocoa for now.

She took it out then brought up a pan. There she poured some of the milk, dissolved cocoa powder, and finally put it on the stove to simmer. Standing with folded arms in the dim lighting in the kitchen, she stared down at the pan as the milk boiled within it, and after a full minute of waiting, small curls of steam rose into the air and the scents of cocoa powered revolved all around her, to which she felt torn between wanting to savour it immediately or just stand there and inhale it. But she awaited a bit more. Next she poured everything into an oversized cup with a faint smile. 

Warming her fingers with the cup, she made her way to the dining table, then settled on a seat there as she began taking small sips of the hot cocoa before it had even cooled off, to which it took her by surprise at first at how hot it was, scalding even. 

During such times, when she woke earlier than she would and was by herself, she would bring up her sketchbook and sketch on it whatever she was feeling at the given moment. It was the perfect timing and place to do so; her thoughts would emerge so originally in the early mornings, they wouldn’t be conflicted nor affected by the day’s activities just yet. 

She hadn’t known how good she was at sketching until one day she held a pencil, a very sharp one, and began sketching without any struggle. Back then, when solving her tattoos had been what her life was basically all about, she used to sketch them individually in hopes of finding any connection that might help figure out what they actually meant. But then as the days passed, she thought she wanted to do something else, something that was in a good way stirring her heart down to the depths, just like the way her spoon was stirring her cup of cocoa now.

And so, with her pencil sharp, she began with a light outline of a face, next she worked on the eyes, which she made them like the shape of almond. She let out a sigh then,  knowing that the eyes must be the toughest part, before continuing with them. She drew the first pupil, purposely making it darker than the eye, then did the same for the other eye. She added a little shading underneath the eyes and from there she started with the nose, extending two lines where the inner corners of each eye were located. 

The rest went easy: she did the eyebrows, the lips, the beard and then the hair, creating a solid and visible looking hairline from the sides of the head. 

It was Kurt’s face that she sketched and it looked impressive at the end. She made him look as if staring at her, and made his expression soft with a faint smile—the way he’d usually look at her. 

It was quiet around her now, not a single sound, until she heard running waters within the bathroom and, a minute later, she saw Kurt emerge and approach her. “Mornin,” he smiled, his face awash with decent sleep, his hair... so fluffy she couldn’t help but think it needed a trim, so badly.

“Mornin,” she replied. 

He bent down and stole his morning kiss from her then hummed. “You taste like a really good hot cocoa!”

“Because I was drinking one.” She told him, showing him her cup, almost empty by now. 

“Can I have the same?”

“Sure.” She got up and started doing the same thing she did earlier, taking the same measurements. 

“Did you sleep well, Jane?” He asked as she waited by the stove for the cocoa to simmer. “Yeah.”

“You don’t look like you slept well.” He claimed. 

“I slept well, Kurt. Now tell me, when is our ship  gonna get here?”

“Maybe after a bit.”

She served him his cocoa in a brand-new cup, and he took it with all smiles after thanking her. 

When their another set of boxes arrived, after some time, Jane tucked all of her hair back behind her ears and, kneeling down, she eagerly began looking thoroughly in each box along with Kurt. As she’d said before, the boxes contain kitchen supplies: dishes, cups, mixing bowls, knives and spoons, a cutting board, blender, vegetable peeler and a number of whisks. 

But even after all this effort, they couldn’t find it, Jane’s sketchbook, among all of those things. 

She stood up on her feet then, and took a deep breath, tired and disappointed, her palm wiping away the sweat on her forehead and her eyes, helplessly, maintained searching in the mess of boxes on the floor. 

“It’s alright, I’ll get you a new one, I promise.” Kurt tried to soothe her, to which she looked up at him and, shaking her head, she complained, “It’s not about getting a new one, Kurt. I need my old one back. It carries lots of memories and...” she trailed off with her head falling down, but after a moment of silence Kurt approached forward until he closed the gap between them and cupped her face in his hands, lifting it to his level. “We will be making new memories here. Beautiful ones.”

“I know, but...there’s just one drawing of you within the sketchbook that I just love so much and I want it back.”

“You have lots of pencils and papers here. You also have me here. I will sit still the whole day so that you can draw me, I really wouldn’t mind, you know me.” He suggested, to which she smiled the way one corner of her mouth tilted up whenever she felt affection for him, then chuckled. “You don’t have to. I can draw you easily without having to look at you.”

He grinned. “Right, because you’re the most talented person I’ve ever met.”

“It’s not wholly because I’m that talented though. I wouldn’t be able to do that with anyone else except for you, because I always have you in my head—this is how and why I drew you in the first place. I know your face very well—even more than my own, I would say—and I know how you would look from every angle.”

He pushed his lower lip out in an impressive pout, feeling awash with affection for her. “You know lots of things about me! Do you also wanna know what I know about you?” He asked, having already slipped both hands from her face down her neck, shoulders, and finally her waist. And before she could say anything in response, he was tickling her there. “I know how to make you laugh, and laugh, and laugh.”

She was laughing then, pleading him to stop it, squirming her body out of his arms, and calling his name aloud and repeatedly, but that was only for him to reward her with more stroking against her waist, the area where he knew was very sensitive for her. She tried to fight his firm grip around her, tried to push him away, tried to run away, but seconds later she was, almost instinctively, clutching into him hard, as if holding for her life, and kept laughing nonstop, like she never had in her whole life, head dropped back exposing her neck for him to bury his face there, mouth open to the fullest, and eyes squeezed. Her laughters rolled about the front room in the early morning, like a child's spinning top, vibrant and heart-warming as it moved around them in its chaotic way. It came in fits and bursts—loud to soft to nothing when she was gasping for breaths in-between, then back to loud again and so on.

Just like this, her previous, sad face was replaced with a happy and laughing one.

He really knew how to butter her up. Always had.

A/N: I don’t really support the idea of Jeller moving out of New York after canon. I love them to be there and I think it suits them perfectly to be New Yorkers. But I had to fake it only for this fic’s plot. So they’re still in New York in my head now, enjoying themselves...

[press-x-tojason]

Giant Bomb is dead, and I care way less than I thought I would. Probably because 83% of the people who I ever cared about had already left or died, or were already relegated to reduced content roles. 

Honestly, though, the writing’s been on the wall for a bit. They haven’t had anything worthy of paying for premium in several years, and, even though they’ve had well over a year to figure out a plan for the COVID era, they maybe made it a month with their plans to have a series of streams daily. I actually managed to forget I followed them on Twitch at all, for about 4 months, because they only streamed the podcasts and the occasional former Harmonix employee (who was literally paid to make content with their games while employed at Giant Bomb, which was funny because he blocked me on Twitter for making a post, addressing no one, back in 2014, which was asking about the legitimacy of the leaked list of “games “””””journalists”””””” who had taken money from publishers for positive reviews, a list which included him and multiple then-coworkers. I didn’t follow him, he didn’t follow me. He was manually searching the keywords, because he was, and is, a prick.) solo Rock Band stream in the last 8 months or so. Even when Jeff would manage to do one of his 20 streams from home a year, it would be on his own channel. There was just no content. And they’re surprised their “pay for our unique premium content!” model failed. They always “feigned” anger at Dan for “making” them do the Mario Party Parties, and literally never promoted his and Drew’s Metal Gear series after the first game... but I bet that, when only those, UPF, and the ad-free versions of the podcasts were premium features, those two series were keeping them afloat. Well, that and the remaining goodwill they miraculously managed to hold onto for a few years after Ryan died.  Shit, I follow several people who are GB staff-adjacent, and... I can’t think of the last time they mentioned anything that happened on-site. Even the people who’ve been directly supporting them for over 10 years were out. 

But yeah, the site is super dead. They pretended in the announcements like they’re going to make a go of it still, but... you’ve got like 4 content people left, and the only one people give a shit about is Jeff. You just saw 3/4 of the side of the site that was still trying these past several months jump ship in a 3 month span. One of those was, by nearly any definition, a founding member. Of which you had already lost one, and are losing another from the main side. Jeff’s been way less active until the last week or two, probably because he heard they were leaving and was like “oops, should probably check on the ship that’s been sinking for years!” Then you have Jason “The Human Mumble” Oestricher, the charisma vacuum, whose legitimate public-facing reaction to first hearing that all but one of his GB predecessors were going to be gone. was, and I quote, “Hoo Boy.” Ben and Jan are the definition of “fine”. They would have been great, as they are today, as secondary members 8-10 years ago. But carry the site, they cannot. They’re down to, what, 5 named members now? It hasn’t been that dire since the beginning of 2009, before they hired Drew, when they hadn’t even started the P4 endurance run. You know, that surprise massive, internet-changing thing that essentially popularized the Let’s Play concept, loosening its definition and making it something that could be as personality-driven as game-driven, made simply to give them something to put on the website, beyond the rare review and, slightly later, quick look. This kinda illustrates the problem with modern Giant Bomb. When they were figuring shit out, flying by the seats of their pants, they came up with great shit, and they gave enough of a shit to make it happen. 0.000% chance they do a 10 hour Thanksgiving Kinect stream if the Kinect was new today. 0.000% chance the core members would have done an endurance run in the last 10 years if CT and Shenmue (which I haven’t watched) weren’t driven by the younger members. And you could see it in the fact that they never made a real, true mobile app. The number one thing that would have made them indispensable this past decade, an app to integrate premium features, the podcast, their video player, etc. all in one place in a mobile-friendly package, that could sync with the website... and they never even raised the idea publicly. I wonder how much of the innovation was the group think-tank of the first 5 years. Beyond Dan’s couple major contributions, I don’t think they added a single new type of content after 2012, which... still means the last 6.5 years lacked any semblance of innovation. I guess that’s a big part of why I fell off tremendously quickly after late 2014. There was just nothing new, and believe me, I was looking. I wanted reasons to stay watching. I supported them with my dollar. I believed in those brave early days. And I went back yesterday to watch the DP endurance run from VJ again. I still miss that rapport. And really, that hurt, too. Vinny moving back east, less than a year after Ryan passed... short term, it was fine. You had more people than ever to cover the gaps. But the spark was gone. The chemistry made the site. When I think of Giant Bomb, I still think of Jeff, Vinny, and Ryan, first and foremost. Those early podcasts, the NintenDownloads, the crazy tangents that everyone could seamlessly follow up on(well, except Brad, because he essentially slept through most of the podcasts, unless he was talking about the thing he did that week), the weird high-concept GOTY stuff... it wasn’t perfect, but you were entertained. You laughed. You were engaged. It never felt like you were watching them working, even though you could see the work they put in. It felt like, when they released something, you were experiencing a group of legitimate friends doing what they wanted to do anyways.(And boy have I seen enough groups do everything they can to NOT be enjoying doing that, and break up as a result due to hating the jobs that they chose to do). 

Part of me would love to make it as simple as “Ryan died, and so did the original spirit”, and... to a degree, it’s true. If you go back to any retrospective they’ve done about the founding of the site, or the podcast they recorded after Ryan passed, you can’t help but recognize that Giant Bomb never happens if these core members don’t all quit their jobs, led by Ryan,  because they respect their boss/manager, Jeff, and know he’s doing the right things(for them, for the reader/viewer, etc.) ahead of what GameSpot management wants him to do. Jeff could have been left in the wilderness, trying find a spot elsewhere, with the rumor going around between executives that Jeff wasn’t going to help them promote anything, essentially killing their revenue. He would have been done in terms of getting employed by a major site. But Ryan first, and soon after, Vinny and Brad, gave up their jobs to make this fledgling little project go. As much as the ERs brought me in and gave the impression that Jeff and Vinny were the long-standing duo, no, it was Ryan who was Jeff’s partner in crime. And, 8 years later, I can comfortably say... Giant Bomb never recovered from losing him. 

But it was so much more. Everything that set them apart slowly went away,  in time. I don’t think they’ve posted reviews for games in consecutive MONTHS since 2017; 2018 at the latest. They have done one Endurance Run in 9 years. They have not had a meaningful live event in 6 years. Unprofessional Fridays were more formulaic and lesser in volume and frequency after the major players started moving east. The lack of coordination between coasts killed the camaraderie, to the point that I think one of the last 5 true gameplay crossovers was their series of 2016-2017 PUBG shitfests. I remember when Vinny starting GBEast was supposed to be the start of a new era of content, and... it was, but not in a positive way, like it sounded. When half of each side seemed to constantly have no interest in making anything, nothing got made. But I guess that’s what happens when your second in command in one of your headquarters is just a former marketing grunt with an attitude problem, and the guy with the biggest ego on the team is the one who refuses to move to join either side, and just pushes out the most self-important drivel as a header to what were literally just copy-pasted articles from other sites every week while sitting at his desk, dreaming of the days Gawker would pay him to plagiarize political drivel instead, because that’s what really gets the soulless clicks. One of your founding members becomes depressed due to losing his two closest work friends, one for real, one to a 3000 mile separation, within a year, while the other one who is left virtually stopped playing anything but DOTA 2 for 2 years. Suddenly your most prominent personalities are the 2 new guys(one the aforementioned charisma vacuum, the other a walking mark) and your previously-mostly-off-camera producer who is best known to the wider Internet for... blinking. So, yeah, lifeless. And NOW, all you’ve got is old melancholy dad, charisma vacuum dad, and the two ADHD kids whose defining trait is that they choose to exclusively refer to their partners as “my partner” in voices that make it sound like they are embarrassed to have partners, while also talking more about what their partners are doing than what they do.  It’s confounding.

But yeah, TL:DR: RIP zombie Giant Bomb. Glad you’re finally getting taken behind the shed. It took 3 years too long, minimum.

[kaileeandag]

American Girl: Where Are They Now?

I wonder “What did the historical characters do when they grew up?” So,here’s what I think.

Kaya: becomes a famous warrior after inheriting the name Swan Circling. Contracts Yellow Fever in 1804 and passes away soon after, at the age of 50.

Felicity Merriman: becomes owner of her father’s shop when she was 20. Marries Benjamin Davidson at the age of 18, once the war is over. Passes away peacefully in her sleep in 1854, at the age of 89. Via adoption, her descendant is comedian Tommy Davidson.

Elizabeth Cole: becomes a schoolteacher. Is arrested in 1795 and executed for treason in 1796 at the age of 31.

Caroline Abbott: at the age of 25, becomes a ship captain. Passes away in childbirth five years later, leaving her daughter to be raised by her father.

Josefina Montoya: opens her own imports store in 1855 with the help of her nephews. Never has children and never marries, passing away in her sleep in 1900 at the age of 85.

Kirsten Larson: thanks to her teacher Miss Winston, chooses to become a teacher. Later becomes an advocate for better travel conditions for immigrants in honor of her friend Marta. Passes away at the age of 99 in 1943 surrounded by her family.

Cecile Rey: becomes a nurse along with Marie Grace. Passes away in 1930 at the age of 75 due to complications from Pneumonia.

Marie Grace Gardener: works as a nurse along with Cecile. Contracts Yellow Fever in 1872, but survives. Passes away in 1935 at the age of 90 due to Alzheimer’s Disease.

Addy Walker: becomes a schoolteacher. She never has children, but sees her nieces and nephews, as well as her students, as her children. Writes a book called Running In The Night, publishing it in 1917. Passes away in her sleep at the age of 93 in 1948.

Samantha Parkington: thanks to her aunt Cornelia’s influence, she becomes a suffragist. Votes for the first time in the 1924 Presidential election. Also becomes an advocate for open adoption sometime in the 1960s. Marries her rival Eddie Ryland in 1918, with whom she has two daughters, Deborah in 1931 and Sarah in 1941. Passes away at the age of 88 in 1983. 

Nellie O’Malley: speaks out against child labor and advocates for safer work conditions after her adoptive parents Cornelia and Gardner approve of the idea. Is the only one of her siblings to make it to old age, after Jenny passes away in 1930 due to Breast Cancer and Bridget is killed in a car accident in 1920, although her niece survives the accident, and William passes away in 1945 after a sudden heart attack. Appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in 2000 to discuss her cousin/adoptive sister Samantha’s legacy. Passes away at the age of 105 on September 11, 2001, hours prior to the attacks on the World Trade Center. Nellie’s son Joshua passed away in 1977 at the age of 50 due to Lung Cancer, while her daughter Jennifer (born in 1930) is still living at the age of 90.

Rebecca Rubin: becomes a famous actress, making her speaking debut in the 1933 adaptation of King Kong. Her final on-screen appearance is in the 1997 Kirsten Dunst and Britney Murphy film The Devil’s Arithmetic, playing a Holocaust survivor. Marries classmate Otto Geller and has one child with him, son David in 1931. David becomes an actor himself in the early 1960s, his career spanning 55 years prior to his passing in 2015. Passes away in October 2002 at the age of 97. Considered one of the most prominent Jewish-American actresses of all time.

Kit Kittredge: becomes a reporter in the late 1940s, with her first major article being about Joseph McCarthy’s attempt to purge Communism from the country. She criticizes McCarthy in the article, feeling he is fear mongering. Marries Will Shepherd in 1945 when he returns from combat after the end of World War II. After struggling to have children for close to fourteen years, they adopt twin children Justin and Augusta in 1961. Will and Kit become grandparents when their daughter gives birth to a daughter named Amelia in 1990 and when Justin’s son Skylar and daughter Olivia are born in 1992. Retires from journalism in 2010, but comes out of retirement temporarily following the Ferguson Missouri protests in 2014. Passes away at the age of 94 in 2017.

Will Shepherd: manages to make enough money so that he can bring his family to Cincinnati. Is drafted into the Army following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He promises to marry a now adult Kit if he returns home safely, a promise he ends up keeping. Upon his return, he attends college, graduating with his degree in History in 1950. Works as a high school History teacher until his retirement in the early 1990s. When he becomes a grandfather, he dotes on his grandchildren, always taking them to the movies when he is able to do so. Passes away on January 4th, 2019, at the age of 103.

Ruthie Smithens: becomes a nurse, being sent overseas to help injured Allied soldiers during the last year of World War II. Marries Stirling Howard prior to him being shipped off to war, having his daughter Heather in 1943 when he is away. Is diagnosed with Breast Cancer in 1978, but survives. Eventually, she passes away in 1995 at the age of 72 due to a lung fungus called Aspergillosis.

Nanea Mitchell: becomes an advocate for the rights of Japanese-Americans following the end of World War II. Marries her friend Lily Suda’s older brother Gene in 1952 and has twin children Thomas and Sarah with him in 1965. Later becomes a Hawaii state senator in 1980, despite her opponent’s efforts to discredit her because of a meeting she had with former Emperor Showa (Hirohito) to discuss peace between America and Japan. Becomes very popular in Japan due to her advocacy for the rights of Japanese-Americans, becoming an honorary citizen of Tokyo in the late 1980s. Meets with double atomic bomb survivor Tsutomu Yamaguchi in 2006. Passes away three days after her 88th birthday, on April 14th, 2020, due to natural causes.

Molly McIntire: becomes a lawyer in 1950. Becomes known in the Chicago area after being asked to defend John Wayne Gacy during his trial. Is shot into the national spotlight after Ron Goldman’s family hires her to work for them during the OJ Simpson trial. Marries Howie Munson in 1950, their marriage lasting for 16 years prior to their divorce in 1966. Molly and Howie move to England in 1963 and after the divorce, Howie moves back to the States, leaving Molly to raise their 2 year old son Austin. Becomes a grandmother when Austin’s wife gives birth to a daughter named Taylor in 1992 and son Richard in 1993. Molly moves back to Illinois in 1976 with a now 11 year old Austin, settling in Chicago. Becomes a United States Senator in 1996 and votes for senator Barack Obama in the 2008 and the 2012 presidential elections.

Emily Bennett: upon her finishing secondary school, attended college in order to become a teacher. Gives birth to a son named Albion on July 4th, 1964, the same day that Molly gives birth to her son Austin. Emily raises Albion as a single mother due to the father abandoning her shortly after her son’s birth. Moves to Chicago in 1983, reuniting with Molly after she moved back to the States. Publishes a series of children’s books about her friendship with Molly starting in 1988. Her grandson Alastair is born on September 14th, 1992. She publishes an autobiography in 2017, appearing on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah to promote it. Alastair drew the cover of the book, which depicts Molly and Emily as children sitting under an oak tree.

Maryellen Larkin: marries classmate Davy Fenstermacher in 1963 following her high school graduation. Her motive is believed to be that she doesn’t want Davy to fight in Vietnam, so she chose to marry him so he wouldn’t be drafted. Their son Thomas is born in 1965 and when Thomas is in 5th grade, Maryellen goes to college in order to get her degree. She becomes a special education teacher, working for 31 years prior to her retirement in 2011. Her choice to allow her students to take part in mainstream classes such as choir confuses her co-workers. However, this becomes the norm following the passing of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990. Her granddaughter Vanessa is born in July 1992 and due to her being her only grandchild, she spoils her rotten.

Melody Ellison: attends medical school, earning her medical license in 1983 at the age of 29. Gives birth to her only child Donna Summer Ellison on January 15th, 1992, on what would have been Martin Luther King Jr.’s 63rd birthday. Her daughter was conceived via In-Vitro Fertilization. Adores her only child and her various nieces and nephews. Is going to retire as a doctor in 2022, at the age of 68.

Julie Albright: wants to become a basketball player, but she is unable to due to the WNBA not existing until 1996. Becomes a professional wrestler in 1987 at the age of 21. She marries classmate T.J. Jefferson in 1989, during the few months she had off. Retires temporarily in April 1992 following the birth of her twin children Rachel Tracy Joyce and Damien Thomas Daniel. Her daughter’s middle names come from her aunt Tracy and maternal grandmother Joyce Albright, while Damian’s middle names come from his father and maternal grandfather Daniel Albright. Returns to pro wrestling in 1995, working with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) until its closure in 2001, retiring permanently soon after. When she was away wrestling, her children would stay with her sister Tracy, Tracy’s husband Mike Stenger, and Julie’s nephew Jonah (born 1988) and niece Aubrey (born 1992.) Becomes an advocate for the rights of LGBT individuals after her son Damian comes out as gay in his Junior year of high school and her nephew Jonah comes out in 2006, during his Senior year of high school.

Ivy Ling: works as a special education teacher until 2003, when she becomes a stand up comedian. She says that her primary influence for pursuing a career in stand up was Margaret Cho. Her daughter Julie was born in November 1991 and was named after her best friend Julie. Her daughter even inherited the nickname ‘Alley Oop’ from her honorary aunt.

Let me know what you guys think! This is just what I think happened.

[lymazhu]

Rating: PG (cw: anxiety, mild implied homophobia, slight self-injury during a panic attack)

Pairing: Jon/Martin

Set before the end of 160

I went for something a little different that I think still follows the prompt of treating/distracting from injury by focusing on psychological damage rather than physical. 

(edit: AO3 link https://archiveofourown.org/works/26119015 )

“I suppose we can’t really put it off any longer, can we?” Martin’s voice was cheerful, but Jon could hear the strained undertone as the man searched through the empty cupboards. Unbidden, the knowledge came to him that even before being trapped in his flat for two weeks Martin had always feared the sight of bare pantry shelves. He didn’t want to know that Martin used to plan meals around what he found on deep discount at the grocer’s, so of course the Eye told him. 

“Well, i-it’s a nice day for a walk, at least,” Jon replied, hoping that if the two of them started a proper conversation he would forget the things he’d just learned. It never worked that way, but when had he ever stopped doing something just because it had never succeeded before? Martin’s laughter startled him out of his thoughts. 

“Jon, we haven’t seen the sun in days!” There was a mix of fondness and mild exasperation on his partner’s face, replacing whatever expression had been there before Martin had turned to face him. 

“All the more reason to get some fresh air,” Jon couldn’t help the slight sullenness that tainted his reply, but by now Martin would know that he was just trying to cover his embarrassment so he didn’t force himself to try harder to clarify. His partner’s soft chuckle had the same effect it always did; the still-unfamiliar sensation of something warm and pleasant in his chest rather than the icy grip of fear or pain.

“Right. You’re up for it?” Before Jon could reply, a thought came unbidden to the forefront of his mind.

He’s afraid of being alone for too long, and he isn’t wrong to be. 

“I’ll be fine.” It wasn’t, strictly speaking, a lie. Jon knew that Martin would match his pace, find some reason for them to stop for a moment if he needed to sit down, help the time pass faster with light conversation. And in return, neither of them would have to be afraid of the consequences of Martin being alone with no way to contact him. 

For a lot of the travel time, Jon led the way, but as they drew closer to the village he stopped to wrap his scarf around not only his neck but also the lower part of his face. He’d chosen to put his hair up for the trip in case it was windy, so the wool would have to do for covering many of the small, round scars dotting his chin and cheeks. Martin took the chance to fuss over him a little, adjusting the scarf in what he claimed was a more aesthetic way, then took Jon’s hand. 

He does that to hide your burns. So nobody will have to look at them.

Even without having the knowledge whispered to him in the back of his mind, Jon had been well-aware of why Martin favored holding his bad hand when they were out in public. What the Eye had left out, seeking to prey on his insecurities, was why. And perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered what Martin told him before everything they’d been through; he would have pushed aside the kind words as a pacifying lie. Now, though...now Jon knew that his partner was well aware of how much he hated that particular scar and that the weight of a larger, softer hand in his own helped to ground him. 

It wasn’t a surprise that as they walked down the main road of the village, the sound of whispers and, in some cases, stage whispers followed them. It might have been a bit disappointing, a tad stressful, but it wasn’t a shock. After all, they were strangers first and foremost. Even before someone had the chance to register that they were two men walking hand-in-hand, they’d notice that they were unfamiliar faces and make snap judgments based on that. 

Martin greeted everyone they passed, and Jon knew that none of them would notice the subtle tells that the man was giving off. Even if they’d looked, Martin had far too much practice hiding his true feelings for just anyone to recognize that anything was wrong. Truthfully, Jon wasn’t confident about whether he would have known if it weren’t for how long he’d spent studying Martin since they returned from the Lonely. He had never been the best at reading faces or social cues, but by now he was at least well-studied in Martin’s tells. “The Eye has helpfully informed me that sheep have caused more deaths here than human action has,” was what he wound up breaking the silence with. It worked, in that it made Martin stop short with a sound Jon wasn’t sure how to categorize as he covered his mouth with the back of his free hand. Suddenly, Martin’s hand felt a little more solid in his own. 

“Jon.” The name came out a little more high-pitched than Martin intended, going off of the slight blush that followed soon after. 

“Yes, Martin?” His crooked smile might have been hidden behind a wall of dark green wool, but it was apparent enough from the tone of his voice. It was deeply comforting to know that at least when it came to talking with Martin, he would be understood. 

“You-” Martin shook his head, gently squeezing Jon’s fingers. “You are unbelievable, you know that?” Jon made a small sound of agreement, doing his best to squeeze back as they resumed walking. 

There wasn’t terribly much to see in the little grocery, and the amount of time it would take them to get home eliminated even some of the store did have in stock from consideration. They were quietly debating the merits of shelf-stable milk when Jon felt a small tug on the hem of his jumper. Heart racing, he whirled, adrenaline already dumping into his system before he had the chance to register that his assailant was a small child who stared up at him with wide eyes. 

“What’re you doing here, ma’am? An’ who’s he? My ma knows everyone and she was saying to Miss Mason that she’s never seen y-whoa, what’s wrong with your hand?” As soon as Jon realized that the burns were visible, he tucked his hand in the sleeve of the jumper and moved it behind him. He’d been debating loosening the scarf while they were inside, as it had begun to get uncomfortably warm. Thank god he hadn’t done so. 

“Hello, little miss. I’m Martin, and this is Jon. He,” and Martin stressed the pronoun a little, “is my boyfriend and we’re visiting here for a little while. Does your mum know you’ve wandered off?” 

“You’re English!” She sounded like she was torn between being awed and horrified at the revelation, and Jon tried to focus on how charming that was even as instinct still screamed at him to run. Children’s attention spans could be measured in seconds, he told himself. She didn’t actually register the way the burns enveloping his hand formed a shape, she just saw something unusual and blurted out the first thing that came to her mind. Jon cleared his throat, contemplating whether he trusted his voice before thinking better of it. 

“Becca! What have I told you about talking to strangers?” A woman who looked to be in her early thirties pulled the child back, kneeling to tap her on the nose with a smile before looking up at them. 

“I’m sorry, you two. Are you...on vacation together?” The moment that she noticed the steadying hand Martin had on Jon’s forearm was audible. Just a slight hesitation, and the slightest shift in tone, but Jon was all too familiar with it. He registered somewhere in the back of his mind that his jaw ached, and unclenched his teeth.

“Yes, we’ve always wanted to see the Highlands in person.” Martin’s voice was polite, but left little room for further conversation. “We’ll let you get back to your shopping.” 

“We’ll have to talk more another time, when you come down just to visit.” The woman motioned at her basket, as though its contents were the only reason she had no interest in dallying longer, and her daughter gave them both an overdramatic wave goodbye before she ran off behind her. 

Jon’s hands scrabbled at the scarf. Suddenly it felt far too tight around his neck, and the feeling of scratchy fabric against his face was too close to that of rough dirt. Once he could breathe again, he realized how much he’d been struggling for air. He hadn’t noticed Martin moving, hiding him from view as best he could without making contact. He was grateful that Martin knew better than to touch him at times like this. Jon met his eyes and mouthed thank you in between deep, shaky breaths. He did his best to stay silent even as his mind screamed at him to gasp for whatever air he could manage to pull in. 

“You’re all right, Jon…” Martin told him softly, continuing with reassurances as Jon fought to calm himself. They’d found out together what worked for each of them through more...incidents than Jon wanted to think about. He forced the self-loathing down, tried to ignore the Eye telling him what a spectacle he was making of himself the first time he’d dared to try to blend in after getting to the safehouse. A quiet clap brought him back to reality, and he was once again hearing his partner’s voice. 

“Jon, you’re digging your nails in. Flex your fingers for me, okay?” Martin imitated the gesture for him, and Jon looked down at his own hands, at the crescent-shaped indents he’d left between two of the scars left by Jude’s fingers. “Ah.” It was all he could manage to say, but he followed the instruction. His eyes flicked to Martin’s face, automatically searching for some manner of disgust or disdain. He couldn’t find any, though; just sincere concern. However, something was different. Taking another steadying breath, it occurred to him what it was. Once he’d pulled off the scarf, Martin must have taken it and wrapped it around his own shoulders to get it out of the way. 

“Do you want to get some fresh air while I finish up in here?” 

“N-no, I think I’d rather stay by your side. If that’s alright.” Jon still didn’t feel ready for direct touch, which ruled out hand-holding, but he carefully linked their arms. He knew perfectly well how he would feel once the adrenaline faded entirely. Having support would help soon enough, both physically and not, and he bit his lip against a surge of emotion at the knowledge that for once, he could count on having it. 

[sweet-curried-powder]

Happy Birthday, Edward!

Technically, Edward’s birthday isn’t until tomorrow, but I was too damn excited!!

I really wanted to do something special for Edward’s birthday, so I thought I’d write him a little something to celebrate!

There’s also some self-indulgent Chredwis in here, because there isn’t enough of that out there.

Characters: Edward Quinton, Chris Jackson, Drew and Nevin Jovel, Isaac Beamer, Ell Fisher

Word count: 2,164

Warnings: Swearing

The boys belong to @onebizarrekai​, Ell belongs to me, and the picture was drawn by my good friend @oakskull​!

Fic is under the cut!

Happy birthday, Edward!

***

Chris was ten seconds away from a fucking panic attack. He was pacing back and forth, muttering to himself, finishing off his fourth chocolate bar in the span of ten minutes.

“Okay, so Ell’s baking the cake, Nevin’s cooking other stuff, Drew’s finishing up the playlist for the party…wait, what about the decorations? OH GOD, ARE THE DECORATIONS DONE?! THIS PARTY’S GONNA SUCK ASS IF THERE ISN’T ANY DECORA-”

“Calm your tits, man!” Isaac sighed, walking in the room with a box of handmade decorations. He put them down and held up a banner that said, ‘Happy Birthday, King Edward Quinton!’ There were crowns drawn on it with shiny markers, and it was covered in rhinestones and glitter. “Also gonna toot my own horn and say it’s some of my best work.”

“Oh, thank Kai,” Chris sighed, relaxing. “...Why is it so shiny, though?”

“It’s Edward’s birthday. Everyone knows that your birthday is the one day per year that you get to feel important!” Isaac grinned. “Plus I wanted to use a ton of glitter and rhinestones.”

“Isaac, honey, I love you, but how much did you even USE?” Drew cried, squinting at the banner and shielding his eyes.

“You remember when I went to the arts and crafts store with the five hundred dollars Ell gave me?”

“Yeah?”

“Two hundred and fifty dollars were spent on anything that sparkled.”

Drew facepalmed.

“Well, the aesthetic does look pretty nice,” Chris nodded. “Ell, do me a favor and use your telekinesis to help hang all of these up.”

“Gotcha, Chris-cross!” Ell grinned, lifting her hand. The banner lifted in the air all on its own. She lifted the box up with her hands and wandered off to decorate the rest of Chris’s house.

“I can’t believe that your dad’s okay with holding Ed’s party here,” Isaac said. “I figured that he’d say no to this.”

“Oh, Dad doesn’t know,” Chris replied. “He’s been on a business trip since Monday. He won’t be back until late next week. As long as we clean everything up afterwards, he won’t suspect a thing.”

“Damn, you’re being a rebel, aren’t you?” Drew raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, because this is important! Tomorrow is Ed’s big day!” Chris cried. “Tomorrow has to be absolutely perfect! Just like he is…”

“What was that last part?” Nevin asked, leaning closer to the monochromatic teenager.

“NOTHING!” Chris shouted, face going red, turning to Ell. “Ell, you’re gonna pick Ed up later so he can spend the night at your house, right? You know, to keep him busy so we can set up the finishing touches the next morning?”

“Uh-huh!” Ell gave Chris a thumbs up. “I’m gonna get up early and sneak over here to bake and decorate the cake. If all goes well, I should be back before Edward even wakes up.”

“Remind me why Edward’s gonna stay the night at Ell’s house, again?” Isaac asked. “He could’ve stayed at my place. We’re on pretty good terms.”

“Ell lives the furthest away from all of us,” Chris reminded him. “I’d have him stay at my house, but obviously we can’t, since we’re having the party here.”

“And we all know what Chris would do to Ed if they spent the night alone with each other,” Ell added.

“Jesus fucking Christ, guys! It’s not like that!” Chris cried. “We’d just play birthday games.”

“Birthday games?” Drew repeated.

“Yeah! Like Spin the Bottle, 7 Minutes in Heaven…”

“Chris, those aren’t birthday games,” Isaac facepalmed. “Those are the types of games that horny teenagers play at parties.”

“Hey, who can blame him? That’s how I would want to ring in MY birthday.” Ell’s face started to turn red. “But with somebody else, if you catch my drift…”

“Ell, stop it. You’re gonna bleed on the carpet.” Drew sighed, pulling out a tissue and handing it to Ell.

“Alright, everyone regroup here tomorrow morning at 8 am to put on the finishing touches! Ed’s… er, cronies will arrive a few hours before, and Ell and Ed should be here at noon! Don’t be late!”

Everyone said their goodbyes and went their separate ways, Isaac getting into his car, Drew and Nevin heading home, and Ell walking towards Ed’s house.

Chris shut the door behind him, sliding to the floor. He was nervous. So, so nervous. This party was one of the many surprises that he had for Edward, when tomorrow came.

“Tomorrow is going to be perfect,” Chris said aloud to the empty house. “It has to be. For Edward.”

********************************************

Edward’s cake looked amazing. It was several layers tall, and was frosted in different colors, and even had a tiny little Edward made of modeling chocolate and fondant.

“It’s not really one of my best creations, but Ed’ll like it,” Ell shrugged, wiping some frosting off of her cheek.

“Not one of your best?!” Chris cried. “This is the best birthday cake I’ve ever seen in my life! How did you even manage to make this in two hours?”

“I’ve been in a ton of baking competitions before. No biggie.” Ell blew some hair out of her face. “You gotta learn to work quickly in those sort of things.”

“Did you win a few of them?” Chris asked, intrigued.

“Nope. I won them all.” Ell grinned. “What did you think all those trophies in my living room came from?”

“Martial arts competitions,” Chris replied without hesitation.

“You’re not wrong, actually. I just keep those trophies in my room.” Ell checked the time. “I better go. Ed’s gonna wake up any minute now, and I need to keep the B-day boy distracted.”

“Alright,” Chris sighed. “I’ll call you if I need you to distract him for even longer.”

“That won’t happen.” Ell smiled at Chris, confident.

“How do you know?”

“Let me ask you a question.” Ell leaned in close to Chris. “Do you love Edward?”

Chris’s face went completely and totally red.

“Well, the same generic and platonic love I share with all of my friends and family-”

“No, you dumbass! I mean romantically! Sexually! That kind of love! Do you love Edward in that way?”

Chris balled his hands up into fists. He could lie in this situation, say that he didn’t, but Ell could read minds, and on top of that, she could instantly tell whether someone was lying or telling the truth, so denying that he loved Edward in this situation proved moot.

“Yes. I romantically and sexually love Edward,” Chris admitted, his cheeks warming.

“In that case, I believe that you’ve got this in the bag,” Ell smiled. “You won’t let anything go wrong for him. It’s his birthday, and you want to make it really special for him. You want to give him a birthday that he’ll never forget, in the best way possible. And you’ll succeed.”

“You really think so?”

“I don’t think so. I know so. Telekinetic’s intuition.” Ell tapped her head, looking like the guy from the “you can’t do” meme.

Chris chuckled. “Thanks, Ell. You’re the best.”

“You’re welcome. That’ll be thirty bucks.”

“WHAT?!”

“I’m kidding! God…”

******************************

Edward felt something sit down on his chest, followed by a heavenly smell. He opened his eyes, and Ell was sitting on him, a party horn in her mouth, holding a tray.

Ell blew on the horn, and she took it out of her mouth using her telekinesis. “Bon anniversaire! Feliz cumpleanos! Happy birthday!”

“You made me breakfast in bed? That’s awfully nice of you!” Edward grinned, taking the tray. “Ooh! French toast!”

“Not just any French toast!” Ell grinned. “It’s my grandmother’s special Nutella French toast! The recipe’s been in my family since the day Nutella was first sold in 1964!”

Edward took a bite of it, and his eyes lit up. “Holy shit, this tastes amazing! Nevin would probably kill for this recipe!”

“Yeah, I figured, which is why I haven’t told him about this,” Ell chuckled. “Do me a solid and keep this under wraps, will you?”

“It’s the least I can do,” Edward nodded, taking another bite. “Damn, I gotta say, you’re a really good cook.”

“Oh, thanks. I’m mostly self-taught.” Ell crossed her legs. “So, do you have any plans for today?”

“I usually go out for dinner on my birthday with my family, but I’m pretty much free until then,” Edward said. “I think I might go see Chris. My cronies probably got me something. Well, at least Cody, probably.”

“Oh, I bet you’ll see them soon,” Ell smiled. “Trust me.”

“Okay…” Edward took another bite. While he was distracted, Ell checked the time. She needed to keep Edward distracted for four hours. While some people would think that was impossible, she knew how to do it.

“You know, there’s this new store that opened up nearby that’s full of weird stuff,” Ell said, rubbing her thumb and forefinger together. “And I heard this rumor from one of the librarians that the place had some haunted items…”

“Haunted? As in, ghosts?” Edward leaned forward.

Ell nodded.

“Well, what are we waiting for?! LET’S GO!” Edward shoved the rest of the toast in his mouth and started taking his shirt off.

“HEY! Girl in the room!!” ********************************

“You want… that book?” Ell asked, raising an eyebrow as Edward held up a dusty, old book with some kind of symbol on the cover.

“Yep!” Edward grinned.

Ell breathed in deeply. “Dude, I know it’s your birthday, and I don’t mean to shoot you down on your special day, but I haven’t seen you pick up a book that wasn’t assigned to you for class.”

“Well, unlike you, I do all my recreational reading in the comfort of my own home, and only there,” Edward said, holding the book to his chest. “Besides, this book is just oozing with supernatural stuff. I can feel it in my bones.”

“Alright, if you say so,” Ell shrugged, giving the cashier several hundred dollar bills. “Keep the change, m’theydy.”

The cashier looked confused, but put the money in the register without complaint.

It was almost noon. Time for Ed to get so fucking surprised.

“Hey, Chris just texted me,” Ell said, looking at Edward with a gleam in her eyes. “He asked me to bring you over to his house. He has something for you.”

Edward’s cheeks dusted pink.

“Edward? You alright, buddy?” Ell asked.

“I-I’m fine!” Edward said rather quickly. “L-let’s hurry up.” Ell grinned, grabbed Edward’s hand, and fucking ran. For someone who was the shortest person in Foxfield High School, she was fast.

“Ell, slow down! Christ alive!” Edward cried, stumbling to catch up to his younger friend.

Ell finally screeched to a stop in front of Chris’s house.

“Chris said to just go on in,” Ell said, panting slightly. “I’m gonna go use the bathroom.” She dashed inside the house, opening and shutting the door quickly.

“Okay, everyone! He’s here!” Ell whispered.

“Okay everyone, go and hide!” Chris hissed. “When Ed comes in, count to three, and then jump out and yell, ‘Surprise’! Got that?”

Everyone nodded, scrambling to find a hiding spot. Ell used her powers to turn the lights off as she hid behind the couch next to the twins.

Edward opened the door, entering the dark house. “Hello? Chris?” He squinted, looking around the pitch-black house. “Are you home?”

Ell turned the lights back on, and everyone jumped out from their hiding spots.

“SURPRISE!” Everyone yelled. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”

“W-what? A… a party?” Edward looked around the room in disbelief. “You guys set this all up?”

“Actually, it was Chris,” Isaac admitted, elbowing Chris in the side. “He got the idea in the first place. The rest of us helped in our own little ways. I made the decorations, if you can guess.”

Edward held back laughter as he looked at the extremely glittery banner that was hanging on a wall. He turned to Chris. “You planned all of this by yourself?”

Chris nodded, his face turning slightly pink. “It’s your birthday. I wanted to make it really special for you. I hope you like it.”

“Well, I don’t like it.”

Chris felt his heart sink. “O-oh. I’m-”

“I love it!”

Chris blinked. “Y-you do?”

“Yeah!” Edward grinned. “I can’t believe you went through the trouble of planning a huge surprise party just for me. It’s such a great birthday gift.”

Chris looked at Ell from the corner of his eye. She gave him a knowing look, and nodded, as if she was telling her to go for it. Chris took a deep breath.

“Well, can I give you another gift?” Chris asked.

“Sure! What is-”

Chris grabbed Edward, dipped him down, and gave him a long, deep, passionate kiss. Isaac and Nevin fucking sceamed, while everyone else stared in awe.

After thirty thrilling seconds, Chris separated from a blushing Edward.

“Happy birthday,” Chris grinned.

Edward stood there, frozen for a good while, before he smiled back, tears of joy streaming down his face.

“Thank you.”

[seawitchkaraoke]

Sketch in Shadows

(ao3 link in the notes)

This whole idea was stupid. It was way too early, barely even afternoon, she should be in bed and instead, here she was, sitting at a too small desk on an uncomfortable chair, listening to this human guy talking about some other long dead human guy, who had apparently been really good at drawing sunflowers.

The whole thing had been Toby‘s idea – of course. She‘d suggested that going to university would help her learn about the modern world and at the same time continue the „figure out what you actually like and what your mom made you like“ thing Raysel and her had going on and August had agreed, because she was bored, and she didn‘t have anything else to do and hey it might be an adventure, except this time without the getting lost for a hundred years part. So she‘d looked up some classes that sounded interesting and snuck out way too early, letting Raysel sleep who had wisely refused the education plan.

She had been bored. Somehow, she was even more bored now; she‘d really thought that art history would include a little more art and a little less life stories of dead humans.

August leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes for just a second, sighing. She could leave anytime, it‘s not like she‘d signed up for anything or like she was actually planning on getting a degree.

She opened her eyes again.

There was a cat on her desk.

She stared. The cat stared back.

August blinked. The cat did not. It also didn‘t disappear, which would have been convenient.

„Um.“ said August, intelligently „I kinda need that desk. You‘re sitting on my things“

The cat said nothing.

August sighed. „Fine. I wasn‘t taking notes anyway, but once the class is over you have to let me get my stuff“ She reached out, petting the cat behind the ears. It was very fluffy, with long grey and white fur, making it look almost silver. It was a beautiful cat.

August leaned back, her hand still buried in the cat‘s fur, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She couldn‘t wait to get out of here, beautiful cat or not.

The air smelled of paper and dust and human sweat and the violets and dry hay of the Daoine Sidhe changeling in the second row and the peppermint and burning walnut wood of the Cait Sidhe in front of -

She yanked her hand back so fast, she almost overbalanced, as she stared at the not at all normal cat in front of her.

The cat blinked, slowly, deliberately. August did not. She stared.

„You‘re Cait Sidhe! What are you- never mind, I don‘t care what you‘re doing here, why are you on my things?“

The Cait Sidhe, still, did not say anything. Of course not. They couldn‘t exactly transform back into a form capable of the English language in the middle of a lecture hall after all. They just looked at her with big purple eyes.

Right. Mortal cats didn‘t have purple eyes. She really must be more tired than she‘d thought.

„Ugh fine! Just give me my stuff back once the class is over okay? And then I can go home and tell my sister this was a stupid idea and you can do, whatever it is Cait Sidhe do all day“

The cat, again, said nothing, just looked at her out of big purple eyes that really should have ticked her off earlier that this was not a mortal cat.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The cat‘s name, it turned out, was Zircon and they were part of the Court of Golden Cats (which was ironic considering how silver they were), though they mostly stayed at the university, helping out stressed students and making sure none of the faerie brides were stirring up trouble. They told August all this in the span of the few minutes it took to walk back to the carpark, where Quentin would hopefully be waiting with the car.

„That‘s all great but it doesn‘t explain why you were sitting on my things. I‘m not planning to ‚stir up trouble‘ as you said, I‘m just here because my stupid sister convinced me that university might be fun and not boring“

„Excuse me, you find me boring? And that, when I was trying so hard to entertain you, I don‘t know whether to be hurt or insulted“ they smirked, walking backwards, facing August „you might say you don‘t want to stir up any trouble, but I always check out the new fae on campus just to make sure. And you‘re not exactly just any random fae, August Torquill, you said your name was? I met your sister, though I doubt she realized, she was covered in quite a lot of blood at the time. More importantly I heard what your mother did to the king of dreaming cats to force your sister to bring you home. So I hope you can forgive me, if I need to make my own picture of whether you‘ll stir up trouble“

„Great so you‘ll judge me because of what my mother did? You just said yourself I wasn‘t there for that! I was the one who made her give Tybalt and Jazz back, but no one ever seems to remember that”

That was the wrong thing to say. Zircon hissed and was suddenly too close to her face, the smell of peppermint and burning walnut wood welling up all around them „you want a price for doing the bare minimum? For not being as horrible as your mother? Should I get you a medal?“

August paled, “No! I…. I’m sorry, I’m just really exhausted and tired of people looking at me and only seeing my mother”

Zircon stopped at that, stepping back, slightly „Okay. I won‘t judge you by your mother‘s actions but I know how dangerous your family is, I‘m not so stupid to think you wouldn‘t be as well.“ They looked at August, smiling, showing their far too sharp teeth „you‘re welcome to continue classes here if you decide it isn‘t too boring after all. But this university is mine as much as it is anyone‘s and if I think that you are going to cause anyone here harm either by yourself or by bringing your cursed mother down on us, I will not hesitate to rip you apart. I‘ve heard how fast your sister heals, so I‘m sure I wouldn‘t need to worry about breaking Oberon‘s law“

They stepped back and grinned, teeth having lost their inhuman sharpness and said, almost joyfully „If you‘re interested in art but not the ‚boring‘ stories about dead human artists, you might want to check out some of the more practical classes, I‘m sure you‘d enjoy them“

With that, they sauntered around a corner and a moment later a long haired silver cat with bright purple eyes ran off over the yard.

Well. That could have gone better.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

August dropped in the passenger‘s seat of the car, groaning. She just wanted to go home and sleep some more and not deal with any stupid cats anymore.

Quentin shot her a sidelong look, as he drew out of the parking spot „So who was that person you were talking to? Cait Sidhe?“

„Their name is Zircon and yeah they‘re Cait Sidhe. They don‘t like me on account of my mother being the worst, they threatened me in case I was planning to start trouble for ‚their‘ university and they told me to try practical drawing classes since art history was boring“

Quentin blinked. That seemed to be the motto of today. „Huh. Well, I can‘t say I can fault them for disliking your mother-“ „Who could“, August muttered, „-but practical drawing classes might be a good idea if art history was too theoretical?“

„ Less theoretical, more just talking about the life and death of some human artist who was really good at sunflowers or whatever“

„Van Gogh?“

„Yes him. And I‘m sure that‘s interesting for the humans, but I wanted to hear about history of art, not history of dead artists“, she sighed, sinking deeper into the car seat „This whole thing was a stupid idea, I can learn about art by practicing, I don‘t need classes, especially not at a university with a cat who hates me“

Quentin looked at her for a second, then turned back to the road, „You know Toby used to be convinced Tybalt hated her. It was all she ever talked about“, he smirked, „so… you know how that ended“

„I‘m not Toby, I‘m not going to fuck a cat!“, Quentin shot her a look, “sorry, sorry I know I shouldn’t say it like that but still. I’m not gonna have sex with the first person I meet who isn’t related to me or a teenager, Cait Sidhe or not”

Privately, she thought she really didn‘t think she wanted to have sex with anyone, cat or no, but that wasn‘t something to discuss with her sister‘s teenaged squire

„and anyway, I‘m not going to see them again, I‘m not going back“

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two weeks later, August was once again standing in Berkeley, this time with art supplies slung over her shoulder and at a more reasonable hour – thank Oberon for evening classes. She hadn’t wanted to come back, but while going shopping with Raysel and occasionally May was fun and drawing on the giant chalkboard in Raysel and her shared room was enjoyable and occasionally incredibly cathartic, she’d been hanging around Raysel for months now and as much as she was learning to love her cousin, occasionally she needed some time away from her and away from the house that had a far too high average number of screaming teenagers in residence than August was entirely comfortable with.

So here she was, stepping out of Walther’s office, that Chelsea had opened a portal to – after calling first, to make sure Jack or some other mortal grad student wasn’t in – waving goodbye to the alchemist, who was working on some project or other in between his classes, and walking over to the art building.

She had barely set her things down, and there they were, a silver cat, with ridiculously fluffy fur and clearly unnatural purple eyes. August wondered briefly if any of the veterinary or biology students had ever tried to catch and study them; it should really be obvious to them that those eyes weren’t mortal. Then again, humans could dismiss a lot of things and would probably not jump straight from “cat with purple eyes” to “fae are real and walk among us”. Still it seemed irresponsible.

Irresponsible or not, they were strolling in casually, looping around students’ legs who cooed and occasionally bent down to pet them. August smoothed out her face, it wouldn’t do to be caught glowering at the campus cat, that would just make her stand out and not in a good way.

She shrugged out of her denim jacket – full of patches and glued on rhinestones and metal studs, because it turned out she liked being able to customize her own clothing however she wished – and sat in her chair. The teacher called the room to silence: “Welcome everyone! I’m sure Zaddy here is very happy to have your attention but I’ll need you to focus on me now. My name is Professor Smith and today we’re gonna learn how to draw a still life – though when we get to animals, you’ll be free to focus on Zaddy all lesson long….”

She kept talking, explaining the concept of a still life – apparently a drawing of unmoving inanimate objects – and setting down various things for them to use as models. August did her best to ignore Zircon – who had stalked over to her and was now sitting on a nearby shelf full of art supplies, yawning and showing off all their teeth – and listened intently to the teacher, already thinking on which of the objects she would like to draw most. There was a vase of flowers, though thankfully no roses, making the decision easy enough.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After the lesson ended, August packed up her half finished drawing and walked outside. Zircon had left at some point during the lesson, but she didn’t worry about them, if they wanted to talk, they’d find her before she called Chelsea and left, if not, all the better for her. She did not want to talk to the cat. If they had decided to leave her alone, that was exactly what she wanted anyway.

No such luck. She turned the corner and there they were, leaning against a wall, human disguise firmly in place. Their eyes were a dark blue in this form, their fluffy hair, that would surely be striped silver, grey and white in their true from, simply black. They looked good, of course, it would be silly to choose a human disguise that made them look bad, and yet August suddenly really wanted to know what they looked like in truth.

She pushed the thought away just as Zircon pushed off the wall and fell into step beside her

“I can’t say, it isn’t a delight to see you again, but I thought you’d said you found this place “boring” and didn’t wish to return?”

“Yes, and I thought you might not bother me with a speech today, but I guess we’re all mistaken sometimes. Also, you can drop the pretentious speech, if you’ve been living at this university for as long as you implied, there’s no way you speak like that”

Zircon laughed at that, “Ah but it’s that or speak in memes, which might at best confuse and at worst horrify you. I would have thought you’d prefer this sort of speech, after all as far as I know, you haven’t been living in the mortal world much?”

“Right because you’d know how much exposure to the mortal world I’ve had. I live with an average of 2 to 4 teenagers, I pick things up. Anyway, what do you want? I already told you I’m not here to make trouble.” August inwardly prepared herself for another round of threats. Maybe she should just find another university to attend; true Berkeley was neutral territory and therefore convenient but surely she could figure something out.

Zircon shock their head: “I know, and I already warned you what would happen if you changed your mind on that. As far as I’m concerned we’re good; no, I am here to tell you the same thing I tell every fae student here and to ask you a question that’s just for you”

August frowned “okay? And what would that be?”

“First, I’ve been taking care of this university for a long time. I protect and help the students, both mortal and not and in return no one minds when I steal some snacks from the cafeteria or curl up in someone’s office. That means if you’re planning to attend regularly, I’ll be happy to help you too. You’re unlikely to need this, but if you ever need a place to sleep or a warm meal, just find me and I’ll help you. If you need advice on what classes to take or where the best spots are to get someone to teleport you out of here, if you want somewhere closer to the art building than Professor Davies’ office, I’ll be happy to give suggestions.”

“And you offer this to everyone?”

“Yes, although obviously I can’t just say it to the humans. With them I have to be a little more subtle, but I help them all the same”

“I’m sorry but aren’t Cait Sidhe supposed to, I don’t know, keep to the court of cats and run around chasing rats all day or something? Tybalt is going to have to give up being king when he marries Toby, because it’s a conflict of interest, how is taking care of an entire university not a conflict of interest?”, she stopped herself, “um, no offense or anything.”

Zircon laughed lightly: “ah, see Tybalt is a king and I am just a normal Cait Sidhe who finds that “chasing after rats” all day gets old quickly”

August reddened in embarrassment “I didn’t mean it like that, I’m sorry, I’m still…. I’m still unlearning a lot of the things my mom taught me”, this was getting uncomfortable, “um, but you said you had a question?”

“Yes!”, Zircon grinned, “would you like to go for coffee?”

Wait what?

“Excuse me?!”

“I asked if you would like to go for coffee. Or tea if you prefer, of course.”

“Caffeine doesn’t work on me, so I would prefer tea actually, or hot chocolate, but that’s not the point-  are you asking me on a date?! Last time we talked you threatened to rip me apart!”

“True and you came back here anyway and didn’t try to hurt me or set your mother or your sister on me. You’re the daughter of a firstborn but you attend art classes at a human university and wear a denim jacket with patches and stuts and glitter and you haven’t called me a beast or vermin even once. You’re intriguing and I’d like to get to know you better. Call it a date, if you like, or a call it just a friendly chat between acquaintances”, they smiled, this time almost softly and August knew she would say yes, “or call it nothing at all and decide afterwards what it was. Now I ask again, though slightly amended: Would you like to grab a hot chocolate?”

The night had barely started, and Chelsea wouldn’t mind picking her up later – it wasn’t like it would take her much time after all. And Toby always said she should meet more people.

“Yes” August said, a smile of her own forming on her face, “I think I’d like that. Just one condition”

“And what’s that?”

“We go somewhere run by fae if there is such a place around here. If were gonna get to know each other better, I want to see your actual face”

Zircon smiled.

[meetevieinthehallway]

why would you keep something like this for me?

in which she’s been feeling uncomfortable and doesn’t tell harry.

this piece is kind of a mess.

this deals with subjects of harassment, sexual harassment, etc.

-

the rain is bothersome.

it hasn’t been this way.

it’s been sunny this entire week— a comfortable few days of only a gentle breeze and a hot glow casting over, pressing kisses to leaves and warming the ponds. spring is finally fucking developing— growing and sprouting and shifting and the soil and air can’t get enough of the radiating warmth coating everything in sight. the birds have been singing after their long time of being silenced or being absent— joyful and celebratory songs for this unfamiliar, newfound, utter peacefulness—

she thinks the birds have been drowned in the rain.

there’s no brightness, liveliness, there’s only coldness and dampness and she hopes the birds have drowned.

call it pessimism, or utter brutality— but as much as she wants the sunshine and birds chirping placidly she may actually choke out a helpless creature if it starts singing sweetly in her ear.

to say it gently,

she hasn’t had the best day.

to say the least, she’s infuriated— a mix of pure anger but also a pinch of sadness and a bit of disappointment. nothing could go right, and she’s muttering to herself as she storms to her parked car in a heap of red, tears stinging at her eyes because there’s too many emotions right now.

she cries on the way home.

she isn’t a cryer.

but she full out sobs, her cheeks paralleling her blurry windshield and it’s doubling the difficulty of seeing clearly and seeing the road and she misses three turns because she’s that much of a mess.

god, just let me get home.

the rain is pounding on the glass and trying to break through it—trying to soak her cheeks more than her tears already have—and she can’t see and she doesn’t know how or when she makes it home and she doesn’t know why she’s soaking wet.

you left your window open.

another cry rips through her soul.

she feels pathetic.

she feels as if she’s the dumbest person to ever exist— because now she’s miserable and cold and exhausted and she wants to crawl into a hole and never come out. maybe her boss is right— that she can’t do anything right—not even the job she studied brutally for six years—and she despises the look of disappointment on her employer’s face when he sighs and hands her report back to her and shakes his head and shoos her away with a wave of his hand.

she shifts up to meet her eyes in the rearview mirror, and she catches the glaze of letdown in her own irises.

her boss is a straight up asshole.

he’s the boss that every high school and college professor rants of, the unfair one that establishes their fucking superiority complex in the first minute of knowing them. but it’s not a roughness of sophistication— but the exact opposite, one of immaturity and pure ignorance; she doesn’t know how he got so high up in status when he doesn’t even do anything. she swears he is straight out of the devil wears prada, but miranda priestly is a prententious fashion designer and that is kind of to be expected?

she never expected her own boss to be such a prick.

she’s dreamed about her job since she was an early teen—one where she feels accepted and wanted and valid in the workplace—and the level of sorrow she feels that her dream has diminished before her eyes is heartbreaking.

this boss has ruined it for her.

a man who definitely believes women are less than men—evident by the snide, sexist comments and the obvious stares and the groping and sexual harassment of female colleagues who quit days later—because she is one of the now only two women working there and somehow the work gets piled on top of them but the men get to sit in the workroom and watch football games together during their “extended lunch break.”

while her boss joins.

it’s nothing against the male colleagues she works with— they are hard workers and they are intelligent but she works twice as much as them and harder and she still gets paid less.

another tear runs down her cheek.

her fingers are still wrapped around her steering wheel in a vice grip although she’s been pulled in the garage for god knows how long, and her hands are starting to ache and throb.

she wants harry.

harry who isn’t a sexist and who understands she is valid and equal and works hard and well at what she does and—

she wants harry.

her head turns slowly to the left and she sees his car sitting next to hers. her brain is slow and her breathing catches and speeds up as she’s flying herself out the door.

she’s sobbing again, flinging the door open and she doesn’t know the last time she has broken down so extremely— and she isn’t kicking off her shoes as she races through the house.

“lovie?”

she sobs.

she is literally sprinting towards the sound of his voice and she can hear music halt and she rounds a corner and slams into his chest.

“woah—”

she’s sobbing.

harry takes a moment to register how intensely upset she is, and his mouth guppies for a moment before he wraps his arms around her.

“love— are you... are you okay?”

she shakes her head and she’s hysterical and his eyebrows are furrowed over his widened eyes.

“what’s... what’s happened? hey— hey breathe.”

she whines and her hands are shaking and she moves to place them over her face and she feels pathetic.

his hands are on her shoulders as he hold her away from him, his neck bent down and forward as he tries to see her face.

“lovie.”

he says it quite sternly but instantly regrets it because she lets out harsher cries and shakes her head.

he doesn’t know what’s wrong and he doesn’t know how to help and he has never seen her this upset.

“are..— are you hurt? did someone do something?”

head shakes.

“just..” he closes his eyes and exhales. “a bad day?”

her hands fall from her eyes and she sniffles and her mascara is running down her cheeks and he is so alarmed that he pulls her close. her face is coated in tears and redness and the back of her hand comes up to her eye and presses against it as she cries. her arm shakily wraps around harry’s middle as he leans down to press kisses to her temple, gently, shushing her and murmuring just breathe, breathe.

she’s hiccuping and she can’t really breathe and her mind is warped and dizzy and wrapped in harryharryharry and she lets her mind be at ease for a moment.

maybe it’s her brain—she doesn’t know how she is this aware to think of this right now while she’s sobbing into her fiancé—but maybe her brain is letting her breathe in harry to take away some of that pain from inside her being.

she remembers reading that sometimes the brain sends someone to a peaceful place to cope with stress— like a state of shock— and she feels harry take her by the shoulders again and back away and lean down to meet her eyes.

“love, look at me, please?”

her eyes move gently and slowly to meet his and she doesn’t blink. she only sniffles and he pushes his sleeve over his palm. her eyes close when he reaches to swipe away her tears with his sweater, and she feels like a toddler but her heart is thrumming.

“wanna bath.”

it’s the first thing she says and she’s so dazed and out of it when she speaks like a young child— monotonous and sad and harry nods quickly.

“what?”

“a bath. want a bath.”

her finger wipes under her nose and she hiccups.

“okay—.. um, okay i—... let’s get you in the bath.”

—

“i wish i was a kid again.”

the bathroom is warm.

harry drew her bath— so hot that it steamed up the room and fogged up the mirrors but somehow the air is thin and pure enough to let her breathe easy.

her cheeks are still red and it’s breaking harry’s heart every second that the color doesn’t dissipate, because he still doesn’t understand what even happened, what she’s upset over.

he can’t believe he has gone from being so excited to being so terrified in the span of an hour.

all he knows is that he was so unbelievably elated— came home from the studio early and picked up her favorite cupcakes on the way home, because this is the night.

he can feel it.

there was a quirk to his smile and a beautiful tone to his simple humming and a glistening to his eyes—

and to the ring in his left pocket.

harry wasn’t nervous.

he had a couple glasses of wine to loosen him up before she got home, so along with his gentle humming was a soft sway to his body as he practically danced around the kitchen with her voice filling his head.

but now they’re here.

and the ring is forgotten about— for good reason.

harry’s hand gets drenched when he moves his hand downward behind her, cupping his palm to scoop some water and to drape it over her spine. she sighs when he does so, her arms loosening around her knees.

“hm?”

her eyes flutter open and she rests her cheek on her knees, staring at her boyfriend outside of the bathtub.

her heart is throbbing at how careful he’s being.

“wish i was a kid.”

she sniffles after she says it and she’s looking at him so intensely that it causes his eyes to shift to meet hers.

he cups more water and lets it run down her back.

“why?”

she blinks.

“less to worry about. carefree— y’know, h?”

he bites his lip and looks at where her hand is now placed on the side of the tub. his fingers reach to lay on hers, and she sniffles again.

“i wanna quit m’job.”

the water falls between his fingers and runs between the spaces to crash to the bubbles below.

his eyes go wide and he’s startled— because he genuinely doesn’t understand.

“love— you... you wanna quit your job?”

she nods with the saddest smile and swallows as tears resurface.

“no no.. don’t cry. just—” he sits up on his knees and leans over the water, “just explain it to me, sweet.”

she wipes at her cheek with her hand and she feels so dumb and pathetic because her skin is already wet with bath water.

“m’boss doesn’t... treat me right.” she looks up at him. “like—...” she hiccups, “he’s sexist, a-and— i know he’s sexist and a pig and he is so hard on me and i didn’t think it’d be this hard.” she’s shaking her head.

“what do you mean? did...” he’s looking away and racking his brain and he’s trying to comprehend—

his head snaps up.

“lovie.” he says it seriously and he places a hand on her knee as she cries. “don’t... don’t tell me he’s.. touched you, or summat. has he?”

she shakes her head and watches her reflection ripple as her tear hits the water.

“he hasn’t?”

“no, har.” she whispers. “but—... but he’s... grabbed? groped— i dunno the word but...” her bottom lip shakes and she shudders. “all the women that have quit or left did so.. for a reason a-and i’m scared because he... he’ll say things and stare and—”

she breaks down into tears. full fledged— once again.

he doesn’t know what to do.

his heart is racing: at the thought of women being touched inappropriately, of his love being harrassed or even just uncomfortable and that alone? there’s no excuse—

“you... lovie.”

she swallows.

she turns her face to meet his eyes and he’s guppying his mouth and his throat his dry. she feels embarrassed—and she doesn’t know why—none of this is her fault. but there’s a feeling of genuine guilt and nervousness and she can’t pinpoint why.

“how long has this been going on?”

she shrugs.

he swallows.

“since i started.”

her eyes are burning and his are starting to and all he does is nod because he feels so stupid.

he should’ve noticed when she would shrug when he asked how work was or how her day had been— has she really felt uncomfortable for this long of a time? has she really felt unsafe in her work environment for this long?

“since you started.”

he says it to himself mostly, trying to ground his mind into some sort of realization.

“why... why would you keep something like this from me?”

she lets out a soft cry and the water sloshes as her chin falls to her chest. her skin is shaking and she’s tired of feeling so drained and she leans into his shirt when he pulls her to the edge of the tub.

“harry i don’t know.” she’s sobbing now. “i don’t know anything anymore.”

harry’s shirt has soaked through but he’s leaning over her and pressing kisses to her hair because he doesn’t know what to do.

“thought i could be strong a-and—...” she swallows. “ignore it? i—”

“y-you can’t ignore something like this.” he pulls back and turns her so she’s looking at him in the eyes. “this is serious, love, i-i wish you hadn’t let it blow over.” he whispers.

he knows it’s from fear.

he knows that she is only justifying it because her own head is terrified— coupled on how society is nowadays. luckily it’s bettering—all the awareness and movements and empowerments—but the media and the world still think women can be pushed around and objectified.

he feels nauseous.

“well, you’re gonna leave, okay?”

he’s rubbing her cheek now.

“and i’m gonna do anything and everything to make sure this guy gets ruined for what he’s done.”

—

“let me care for you.”

he whispers it.

she’s tracing her fingertip along his collarbone as he whispers it and disrupts the sound of silence in their moonlit room.

he can’t sleep.

every time he closes his eyes his brain won’t fog and transform into colors and waves and images— he’s just staring at a black, blank canvas and helplessly trying to rest. he just isn’t comfortable— even with her body wrapped up in his hold and her calves tangled amongst his legs and the knowledge in his mind that she is safe.

they had shared tears on the side of the bathtub and he had held her over the edge and caressed at her skin and he had lifted her out and to their bed.

she looks up towards his face, slowly, sleepily.

her finger is still running down his clavicle and his chest.

she looks down towards his stomach from where her cheek is pressed against her pillow, nibbling on her lip.

she feels bad for gently coercing him to stay awake with her own lack of sleep— but it makes her heart swell multiple sizes at his care and his love for her.

“what?”

he smiles small.

“i am a man.” he whispers it and she furrows her eyebrows. “and you are a woman.”

“glad your observational skills are this good, h.”

he chuckles and shakes his head. his eyes are glimmering and they flick around her face.

“i am a man and you are a woman.” his hand reaches to catch hers at his chest. he holds it carefully, bringing her fingers to his lips and she smiles small. “i understand that we are equals. you can get another job after this one, or you can just... let me care for you.”

she blinks. “what?”

“i can take care of us, if you want.”

she bites her lip. “i don’t wanna take your money, hazza—”

“hey.” harry whispers it and he leans his head forward so his forehead is touching hers. “what is mine is what’s yours.”

her eyes look at him.

“yeah?” he mumbles, awaiting any response.

he does it gently— the way that he leans forward lazily and pushes his lips against hers. she moans softly the minute he delves into her— drinking her in and caressing her lips and she doesn’t know the last time she’s felt so at peace—

felt so loved.

she pulls away and her head is dizzy when he follows her lips, addicted to her kiss.

“really?”

his eyes flutter open.

he nods slowly, his hand coming up to brush a hair away from her forehead.

“i have a ring in my jean pocket to prove it.”

her eyes widen.

[blackjack-15]

All Aboard the Hardy Boys — Thoughts on: Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon (TRN)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it. 

There will be an additional section between The Intro and The Title on the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Supermysteries, as this game is the first to pull from them and because the game (and the Hardy Boys) benefit from exploring and understanding that universe.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: TRN, mention of ICE, mentions of WAC, mention of John Grey in SAW, SPY.

The Intro:

Yeah, I’m not sorry for that title.

Coming off a solid, in-joke heavy game like CLK, Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon could have been anything — and it rose to the occasion like few other games in the entire series. It was the unprecedented 13th game in a 12-game series, and boy did they start the next phase with a bang.

Our next jet-setting game, we leave 1930s Titusville behind in favor of the modern day — albeit the modern day inside a train from the late 1800s, staffed with every kind of celebrity from the 2000s — socialites, authors, tv personalities, and Miami-Vice-meets-Ice-T cops.

Honestly, had they included a teenybopper pop star, I would have said that this game wasn’t just an excellent game, but a time capsule for 2005.

This odd location for a game not only solidifies its place in the Jetsetting Games, it also behaves as a Locked Room Mystery, the first one in a while (FIN being the only other one so far). Nancy can’t leave the train until 2/3rds through the game — but neither can anyone else, resulting in not only the perfect place to commit a crime, but also the perfect place to interrogate suspects.

TRN is perhaps most famous for its on-screen appearance of the Hardy Boys, who invite Nancy with them on this invite-only trip to make it more fun for themselves (and so that HER could experiment with playing from a non-Nancy [and even better, a Frank] point of view, even if it is just to make cheeseburgers). Honestly, it should be famous for it. 

Not only is this a huge mechanics change, but it also blasts open the Nancy Drew Universe — the Drewniverse, if you will — and introduces both the games and players to the world of the 80s/90s Supermysteries by basing itself on #8 of the series, aptly titled Mystery Train (which we’ll talk about in the following section).

TRN also boasts one of the largest casts in the Nancy Drew games series, with 7 voiced in-person characters, two phone friends, and 3 extras. The choice to put in more characters into a smaller location really helps the locked room feel of the game, and leads to a game that is slightly more centered around interrogation than concrete investigation (which is the correct choice for a locked room mystery).

While TRN’s historical backstory isn’t quite prominent enough to get its own section here, it is worth dipping our toes in it here in the intro section. This game’s backstory (handled with a light hand) takes place during the late 1800s and finishes early years of the 1900s — 1903, to be exact, during the Edwardian Era and before World War I — when Jake Hurley’s beautiful train is found abandoned with only the dead engineer onboard. It overlaps with the Colorado Gold Rush in the United States, where Americans and immigrants alike made a mad dash out west in order to strike it rich.

This was a time when trains were the beautiful and incredibly fast (relatively) way to travel in America, especially out west as they were safer and quicker than taking the route in covered wagons or handcarts. Public trains were well-furnished and comfortable, but private trains like Jake Hurley’s were luxuriously and gorgeously decorated with all the amenities that were possible at the time and were meant to entertain guests as well as convey them from point A to point B.

The lush decorations in Camille and Jake’s cars are especially good representations of just how comfortable and flashy private trains could be; these trains that exist today in museums or private collections recall a bygone age where travel was a thing to look forward to, rather than a necessary evil to be suffered through.

The last bit of introduction I’ll do for TRN proper before we delve into the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew supermysteries is its wonderful way with locations. By limiting its locations to really one at a time, TRN very neatly creates a semi-linear playthrough while still allowing the player the freedom to solve Jake and Camille’s mysteries in most any order they choose. It’s a great trick to make the game feel a bit more open while still telling a linear story, and TRN pulls it off better than most other early Nancy games.

Now that we’ve introduced the game, let’s get on to the Drewniverse.

The Supermysteries:

Pairing Nancy Drew actively with the Hardy Boys (live and in person) was hardly a new thing in 2005, even though it was the first time it had been accomplished in the game series’ history. The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew TV series from the 70s was the first big screen meetup of the two sleuthing parties, both owned by the Stratmeyer Syndicate. 

While the earlier episodes of the show trade back and forth between Nancy and the boys, the second season saw increasingly frequent mashups of the two separate storylines, allowing for much bigger risks and much more satisfying stories — and, of course, the now famous love line between Nancy Drew and Frank Hardy.

After the TV show, there was now an uptick in Nancy/Hardy Boys interest — the two had become linked by more than just the Syndicate. That interest created the space for the 80s/90s series of books referred to as the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Supermysteries (not to be confused with the series of the same name that came out after the turn of the millennium, which are less flirty, less well-written, and much shorter as a series).

Wildly popular, the Supermysteries have 36 titles to their name and span over a decade of heart-racing, Nancy-tingling fun. The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew are either assigned to sister cases or discover the other party on the same case, and take turns helping the other out. Often, Joe separates (sometimes with whatever party Nancy brings along or with a pretty suspect) and leaves Nancy and Frank to work in tandem, giving opportunities for the two sleuths to flirt (and sometimes more) in relative peace.

If there’s one thing that the Supermysteries are really famous for, however, it’s the relationship between Nancy and Frank. Seemingly every book starts with reminding us that Frank and Nancy both have “steadies” back home, to use Dave Gregory’s terminology, and then promptly describing Frank as an Adonis and setting Nancy’s “tingle” (80s/90s code for arousal) ablaze as they work in closer and closer quarters and have some Experiences together, including an on-screen kiss and a sexy fade-to-black — and then reluctantly going back to their boyfriend/girlfriend at the end of the book.

TRN is based specifically on parts of Supermystery #8, Mystery Train, where the Hardy Boys are lured in by the promise of $25k if they can find the Comstock Diamond, stolen 15 years earlier. Nancy happens to be on the same train, accompanied by the best of the best sleuths of the day — and a beautiful actress that catches Joe’s attention.

You can see the ties to TRN — a ‘beautiful’ socialite, a band of detectives and researchers, a lost treasure — all present in both the book and the game. Though the game takes a slightly different course, it owes its strong foundation to the Supermystery that proceeded it.

The Title:

Harking back to Supermystery #8 (Mystery Train), Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon is one of the finest titles that HER ever came up with. Appropriately pulpy, it gives a sense of urgency, history, and mystery all at once while still pointing to the focal point of the game: the train.

After playing the game, it’s also a little ironic — it might be the last train to Blue Moon Canyon, but it’ll hardly be the last visitor to the historic spot, once the world gets wind of exactly what was there and the history behind it.

Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon is honestly a much better title than Mystery Train, and the title (plus the wonderful cover art) is part of the reason that this game is so well-known among casual and hardcore fans alike.

The Mystery:

Summoned by her good (phone) friends the Hardy Boys, Nancy embarks on a train ride to Blue Moon Canyon, the last known location of wealthy eccentric Jake Hurley’s personal train, and rumored to be the spot where he left his treasure. The train having been purchased and restored by socialite Paris Hil — ah, I mean Lori Girard, it once again houses the notable travelers of the day…and possibly the spirit of Jake Hurley’s wife, Camille.

Not 10 minutes into their journey, Lori disappears with a scream and a crash, and the hunt is on — not only to find their missing hostess, but to unravel the secrets of Jake Hurley’s train, Camille’s ghost, and the treasure that may be hiding in Blue Moon Canyon. It won’t be an easy task even for three seasoned teen sleuths, not with a cagey wonder-cop, irritable historical romance writer, and techy ghost hunter all trying to keep their motivations and actions a mystery.

TRN is superb in most respects, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that the mystery is 90% perfect — barring one unfortunate plot point, which I’ll cover in at least 3 sections below, and the next paragraph. Tightly paced with suspicion spread thickly and nigh-evenly, TRN doesn’t run into the trouble of knowing who the culprit is from the first 20 minutes of the game and doesn’t feel the need to clear one suspect earlier than the others so that they can help Nancy — Frank and Joe take that job instead, leaving a pretty clear field through most of the game.

The biggest problem with TRN is the identity of the “final” culprit — that is, the culprit who leaves Nancy behind in the crumbling mine in order to generate some good publicity for herself and who knows about Jake Hurley’s final “treasure” all along: Lori. Her reveal as the first culprit is wonderful and logical, even if it’s not too hard to figure out that she kidnapped herself. Her reveal as the second culprit, however, is so odd and against her character that it doesn’t just feel like a mistake — it actually reads as a mistake as well.

To have the entire game culminate in a culprit that 1) doesn’t make any sense to be the culprit and 2) must behave in a completely out-of-character way in order to be the culprit is the one black mark on TRN’s otherwise spotless record. Other than that, this mystery is one of the best of the series so far and is a fully enjoyable ride from start to almost-finish.

The Suspects:

Lori Girard, Paris-Hilton-expy and socialite extraordinaire, is the hostess of the little trip down to Blue Moon Canyon with a streak of ruthless camera-whoring that nearly matches the level of the other camera whore on board (see next suspect).

Lori is, rather gloriously, the first culprit — the one who kidnapped herself, showing her love for flair, her smarts, and her enjoyment of detective stories. Kidnapping herself is right along with the character we see she has, and makes so much sense that it doesn’t feel like a let-down that the player (and a few other characters) figure it out — rather, it feels like her character is introduced strongly and well.

Lori is, completely unbelievably, the second culprit as well. Lori’s previous stunts — i.e. her previous ‘kidnapping’ before the story begins, the train disappearance — involve herself, have no danger to them at all, are intensely theatrical, and rely on the willing cooperation of others. Trapping Nancy in the mine and trying to kill her doesn’t involve Lori at all, has a ton of danger (not to mention a death toll), and isn’t theatrical at all — it happens all ‘off camera’.

We’ll get to more problems with this in The Unfavorite, but making Lori the second culprit was a huge mistake, and her character — and the game — suffer from it.

Tony Balducci is a self-described wonder cop and sometime lover of Lori who wants nothing more than to toot his own horn…provided he leaves out some of the less flattering notes. Having caught two bank robbers by luckily being in the right place at the right time, Tony now tries to live up to the name of ace detective — mainly by being a giant douchebag towards everyone.

As a culprit, Tony would have been an interesting choice, as someone driven by the hanging spectre of his own ego, desperately trying to catch it while knowing deep down that he’s just not good enough to do so. He’s just a little too obvious, a little too hateable, and a little too in-your-face to be the proper culprit for this game.

He instead lives to fight another day to show up in ICE, where no one asked for nor wanted him. A douche to the end.

Charleena Purcell of Secret of Shadow Ranch fame is live and in person this time, having accepted Lori’s invitation out of curiosity for what really happened to Jake — and a bit of a guilty conscience.

As a reoccurring character, Charleena wasn’t going to be the culprit, but I do love that she’s a character who does some morally questionable things — like taking Lori’s suggestions for a new book and incorporating them without crediting Lori. While legally she’s fine, it is a total dick move, and she deserves to get reamed for it.

I love that Charleena’s a bit uptight and snappy while still being a ‘good guy’ (or at least not a baddie), and I do love that she did something wrong that has no impact on the actual crime at all. While she’s not in my top 5 of reoccurring characters/characters that appear in more than one game, she is a nice representation of what most authors are like (dedicated researchers and hard workers, not people who have wacky hijinks with the mystical people in their head that talk to them).

John Grey is a ghost hunter who relies more on tech than on spiritual intuition and hosts his own TV show dedicated to proving the existence of ghosts and spirits. He’s convinced — or rather really hoping — that he can prove the existence of Camille’s ghost and attribute her power to all the wacky things happening on the train.

He also really hates it when Nancy plays the piano around his sensitive audio equipment, which is the biggest reason to play the piano around his sensitive audio equipment that I can think of.

Heartbreakingly, John is the perfect culprit; he lies just under the radar enough not to be immediately obvious, but isn’t immediately discounted either. He also has the perfect motivation: with his show failing, he really needs a show-stopping apparition like Camille’s ghost to boost his ratings and save his show. He’d be an Abby Sideris-type culprit Writ Large, but this time he’d be manipulating people’s perceptions of an actual ghost that truly exists on the train.

John’s status as, frankly, no villain at all is the single biggest flaw in TRN, and it makes me sad every time I play it.

Listed officially as a suspect, Fatima of Copper Gorge is a Charleena fangirl and taffy enthusiast, with a temper as wide as Copper Gorge itself. She constantly wears an old-timey miner’s costume — foam head mask and all — and can apparently even sleep in it.

As a culprit, Fatima would have obviously been a poor choice for a Nancy Drew style game — she barely appears, and is there for a puzzle and a task and that’s pretty much it. She is however incredibly intriguing, as…well, she never takes off the mask. As a fair-play mystery, Fatima was never an option; she does stand out among all masked characters as one of the few that is never revealed to the player/Nancy.

Though they’re not officially suspects, the Hardy Boys both deserve a breakdown in this area.

Franklin Hardy is the elder of the two and barely counts as a teenager (being 19), though he does work for ATAC (American Teens Against Crime, which is the funniest acronym in the world). Detail-oriented with a dry sense of humor, Frank is the de facto leader of the Hardy Boys and far less hot-headed than his brother Joe.

A great researcher and planner, Frank knows a little bit about almost everything, and is more cautious (as most older siblings are) about the danger of any particular situation than either Joe or Nancy tend to be. Fiercely loyal and indisputably protective, Frank believes in the power of teamwork and is constantly on watch for people who might want to hurt his friends and family. In SPY, his bio specifies a “strong connection to [Nancy]” as not only an example of this loyalty but also as a point towards his feelings for her.

It would do Frank a disservice to boil his entire characterization down to his relationship with Nancy, but it is worth mentioning briefly. There are hints of his affection towards Nancy pre-TRN, but it’s really post-TRN that it kicks into high gear (probably because of working in close circumstances with her during TRN).

TRN is, possibly coincidentally and possibly not, the last game where Wayne Rawley voices Frank, as the man/myth/legend Jonah Von Spreecken takes over in the next game Danger by Design. Not only is JVS’s Frank a little less subtle about his feelings for Nancy, he’s also a little younger sounding (more like his actual age) and a little more enthusiastic (while still being very dry). As any reader of any of these metas could probably tell you, I find JVS’s Frank to be the best of his VAs, and he’s only enhanced when Nik takes over from WAC on.

Joseph Hardy, to contrast, is the 18 year old younger brother (and, if HER is working off the supermysteries, skipped a grade to be in Frank’s graduating class) and the more impulsive of the two. Generally laid-back in contrast to Frank’s meticulous nature, Joe is no less quick and is noted in his character bio from SPY to be an “extremely proficient tactician” — a role generally reserved by lesser writers for more uptight characters.

While easily distracted and a bit prone to conspiracy theories, Joe is quick to discover interpersonal links and motives and is at least somewhat handy with mechanics. His seemingly odd fixations usually lead (in a roundabout way) to finding out the truth behind crimes and leading him to a cool treasure or historical fact along the way. He’s big-picture in a way that Frank is not, which helps him both as he sifts through Nancy’s mysteries, and when he and Frank are on the job for ATAC.

As of Lani’s departure as Nancy Drew, Rob Jones (Joe’s voice actor) is the only VA to have voiced the same character for the entirety of their presence in the series. As much as I praise JVS in all of his roles (Frank and others) Rob really deserves 90% of the credit for Joe being as loved and wonderful as he is. Rob’s voice gives Joe the correct amount of youthful enthusiasm, glee in bad puns, and continual just plain enjoyment of the world he lives in and the job he has.

The Favorite:

If it wasn’t obvious, TRN is one of my favorite Nancy Drew games — definitely in the top 5, almost definitely in the top 3 — and that makes this section really easy.

First off is the physical presence of the Hardy Boys. It feels really natural to have them appear after being in most of the games leading up to TRN, and they make every second of this game better. From Joe’s cheeseburger face to playing briefly as Frank and eavesdropping (a minigame that would reach its Pinnacle in WAC) to watching Nancy sit down with the boys and pow-wow to figure out the mysteries, the Hardy Boys are a delight from beginning to end,

My favorite moment in the game is that lovely moment where Nancy sees Camille’s ghost dancing along the train window. Camille’s spirit looks so cheerful and effervescent, gently bubbling along her beloved husband’s train, and it’s a beautiful moment. 

It’s also a crucial moment in the Nancy Drew game series and lore as a whole, as it, for the first time, clearly and plainly establishes what it’s hinted at since MHM — that in the Nancy Drew universe, ghosts and spirits are real. They’re almost never the culprit, and they don’t often look like Scary Cartoon ghosts, but they’re real all the same. This moment does so much for the game and for the series that it will forever be one of my favorite moments in the series, not just in this game.

My favorite puzzle would have to be finding and placing all the gemstones. I’ve always loved gemstones, and this game really increased my love of them (and interest in their meanings/folklore). Figuring out which animal goes with which stone — and mastering what the “hand from the deep” actually looks like — is a lot of fun, and the animatic of all the different parts whirring and coming together is beautiful. It’s often placed alongside one of the best quotes of this game: “above all…let nothing happen to my train; it holds wonderful things”.

 I also love the “true treasure” of the game; sure, Nancy’s line about friendship is a bit corny, but ND has always been a bit corny, and it’s a wonderful sentiment that a true gift can simply be your ability to make connections, rather than any material possessions or social standing.

Camille is one of my favorite “historical characters” in the series, and I know I’ve mentioned her ghost just above, but I love how personal and friendly she feels; you really do get the sense as the player that she’s there, helping Nancy along. It’s Jake’s mystery, and Jake’s mine, Jake’s friends, and Jake’s treasure, but to me, Jake Hurley’s train forever belongs to Camille.

The Un-Favorite:

As far as my least favorite puzzle in TRN goes…I don’t think I have one. I enjoy all of them for their varied styles, their tie-ins to the time period and to palace trains in general – they don’t exactly feel like puzzles, even, more like well-integrated plot points. I think this is one of the few — if not the only one — that absolutely no puzzle comes to mind, so good on TRN.

Alright, you knew it was coming. My least favorite moment in the game is where Lori reveals herself as the second culprit and tries to trap Nancy in the crumbling mine (and the fallout in the letter Nancy writes). I’ve already gone into how Lori makes no sense as the actual culprit from a characterization point of view — and TRN runs on characterization — so I won’t repeat it. But I do have problems with it besides that.

TRN feels like it was set up to have a “culprit” — Lori, kidnapping herself — and then an actual culprit. Lori wanting to find Jake’s treasure as a publicity thing is totally fine, but the whole mystery feels like there’s another sinister presence working on Lori and the rest of the cast the entire time, trying to steer them to where they want them for their own machinations.

It would shock me not at all to find out that this scenario was the original plan, cut for time. TRN came out in mid-September of 2005, not even two months after CLK. While I know that different games are worked on simultaneously, that’s still quite a quick schedule to keep — especially since game #13 (TRN) wasn’t in the cards at all, the game series meant to be 12 games in total.

The ending feeling slapdash — “ah, we don’t have time to work out a criminal, let’s just have it be Lori again” — isn’t shocking looking at the timetable and circumstances behind TRN even becoming a game. While I understand it, I feel like the lack of thought put into the last 5 minutes or so of the game is really noticeable, and undermines both character and theming.

The Fix:

So how would I fix Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon?

Unsurprisingly (and since the rest of the game is borderline perfect), the one change/fix I would make is to the identity of the final culprit. John’s ‘arc’ is somewhat anticlimactic — he’s the only character to sort of drop off the face of the game at the 2/3rds mark — and I truly believe that it’s because the seeds are there to reveal him as the true villain, but it was never carried out.

My proposal is this: the vast majority of the game stays exactly as it is. Lori kidnaps herself, is found by Nancy, and rewards her by giving her all the information she has about the location of the mine — there being a small reference to Jake receiving a letter from an “important friend” or some such descriptor.

Nancy, of course, wonders briefly about the letter and then moves on to solving the location of the mind, working in tandem with the Hardy Boys — but because John has listening devices all over the train, he hears about the letter and begins to research on a hunch that this letter has information that can help him “establish” Camille’s ghost better and make her hauntings more plausible.

In this canon, of course, John’s show really is on the brink of being cancelled without being picked up by any major network, and his paranormal tours that the player finds out about in SAW (and is referenced again in TMB) aren’t doing so well either, so he needs a huge boost to his credibility. Camille’s story — and the treasure/letter that Jake Hurley left behind — is the perfect thing to get him back on top, if he could just get the nosy detectives out of the way.

By listening in on Nancy and the Hardy Boys, John knows just as much as they do — and more, thanks to his research team for Ghost Chasers turning up a connection between Jake and Abraham Lincoln — and decides that the best way to frame this for his show is to have “Camille’s wrath” come upon the uppity teen detective, collapsing the mine to protect Jake’s treasure as soon as she finds it (and he can take it from her).

Used to working in the dark and moving quietly, John, directed by Lori (who he’s manipulated into having him follow Nancy with cameras to capture the moment), follows Nancy into the mine, helping out with a few “good guesses” (actually his knowledge from listening in and researching) and snapping a few pictures of the treasure when they find it. After asking Nancy to hand him Lincoln’s letter so that he can film it better, John runs out of the room and blocks up the exit, standing outside to gloat to Nancy.

John talks about how he manipulated Lori, how he listened in, how this is the thing he needs to boost his show up to be the most-watched program in the ghost hunting business, how clever he was to run rings around Tony, Lori, Charleena, and most of all the Hardy Boys and Nancy herself. He then tells Nancy that she won’t live to tell the tale, but he’ll get footage of “Camille” causing a quake in the mine to protect her husband’s treasure — running as the mine begins to collapse.

From there, the game would continue as normal until Nancy catches the culprit (the only difference being who the culprit is) and rides to safety.

While this section seems really long, this change isn’t actually that big in the scheme of things — it just makes far more sense to have Lori only be the first culprit while having the second culprit be someone with a lot more to lose and a lot more to gain. In general with mysteries, your culprit should always be the person with the most to lose (though the detective and/or player shouldn’t know how much everyone has to lose from the beginning), and John suits that far more than Lori does.

That being said, this is the only change I’d make; I think the rest of the game not only was great at the time of its release but has also stood the test of time a decade and a half later. The change I’ve proposed would simply take the game from being a classic with a slight blemish to a truly perfect game.

[juliepop]

Inchworm

[Elliott Witt-Centric Fic] AO3 Link: here

Rating: General Audiences Warning: Sad feels? (A/N): That tweet about Elliott piano playing for his mom? Yeeeah, I had to write something because the song on the piano is so sad and slow.

Song link for your listening pleasure: here

Summary: A song can hold a lot of different meanings to people, and this song just means safety to Elliott.

Two and two are four

For as long as he could remember, his mother always sang him to sleep from a nightmare. Elliott could recall waking up from a dream when he was young, maybe four or five, and having his beautiful mother rush into his room. He was crying, great heaving sobs shaking his body as he babbled through an explanation about a monster coming to get him when his mother swept him into her arms.

Evelyn Witt had sung him to sleep, fingers gently combing through his curls as Elliott tucked against her neck and fell asleep to the soothing voice of his favourite person in the whole wide world.

Four and four are eight

When Elliott was eight, he got hurt really bad. It was an accident, his brothers had gotten stuck with babysitting duty, and the youngest Witt was a mischievous kid. He’d snuck into his mom’s workshop in the garage, a place meant to be locked, but some days she forgot to, and this was one.

Elliott had tried to grab something from the tall metal work table, chubby little fingers tugging at the overhanging rag his mother used to wipe off parts she worked with and managed to pull it down.

He also yanked down the array of heavy metal tools laid on top of it, one of the sharper edges of a tool smashing across the bridge of his nose and slicing it open.

He’d fallen backward and screamed, feeling his wet and warm tears mingle with the blood pouring down his small rounded face and alerting his brothers to where he was. Emmett had been the one to get there first, seeing Elliott curled up on the concrete floor sobbing and sweeping him up into his arms with a bark at the other two to call their mom.

The drive to the hospital was a blur, Elliott sobbing about being sorry and having to be sat on his brother Everitt’s lap even though he was too old to be doing that.

They’d gotten him seen right away; the little boy terrified that he was going to be in trouble for getting into his mom’s workshop when he knew he wasn’t supposed to. Except as soon as his mom saw him, she rushed over, smelling strongly of burning steel and the soft undercurrents of cinnamon as she drew Elliott into a tear-filled hug.

He’d needed to get stitches, Elliott recalling how he’d been held on his mother’s lap because he asked while the doctors came at him with needles and scary instruments. His mother had laid a hand over his eyes, whispering it wouldn’t hurt and how he shouldn’t look before she’d begun to sing.

Emmett had sung along too, Elliott relaxing into his mother’s arms as he cried a little but focused on the voices blending together and making him feel safe.

Eight and eight are sixteen

When Elliott was sixteen, his brothers died.

He’d answered the door to uniformed men looking solemn, asking very politely if his mother was home and Elliott had known then that something was very wrong. It was like having a boulder push up from your stomach to your throat, Elliott could barely breathe past the lump there as he panicked and called for his mother.

As soon as Evelyn poked her head around the corner, she knew, oil smudged face crumpling as she saw the two men stood at her door, and Elliott had managed to take two steps forward in a bid to get into the safety of her arms when they spoke behind him.

They were very sorry about their loss.

The officials kept talking then, speaking of how the three men in their service had gone MIA on a mission. They spoke of their sympathy and how truly sorry they felt, but all of that fell on deaf ears as Elliott felt his world-shattering. His mother had joined him on the ground at some point, Elliott not even remembering how he got there, the two knelt there caught in the unrelenting waves of grief that seemed to drown them with every passing moment long after the men had left.

Three lives had been taken, in an instant. Elliott had seen his brothers as invincible; they were all so young. It wasn’t fair, none of this was fair. Elijah was never going to marry his girlfriend and have that baby they wanted, and Emmett would never be a doctor. Everett wasn’t ever going to finish the bike he had sitting in the garage, and Elliott felt that like a tear in his heart. His brothers, the men who had taught him so much, were all dead.

Eventually, they got up, zombie-like in their mourning as the two climbed onto his mother’s bed to cry some more. Elliott wasn’t sure who started it, but sure as rain the soft sound of the lullaby his mother had sung to all the boys when they were feeling unwell sounded.

It was a duet, it had always been, and Elliott hadn’t realized it until he was older, and his mom taught him the song on the piano. It was the only song he knew, and the two of them sang it to one another between the tears.

Elliott wished he’d known how often he would sing it later on in his life.

Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two

On his thirty-second birthday, Elliott did as he usually did, woke up early to eat breakfast alone in his small one-bedroom apartment before heading out. The care home nurse smiled when Elliott came by, waving him toward his mother's room with a comment that she was fairing well today but had not gotten much sleep.

It was a better day then.

Elliott rapped on the door sharply before letting himself in, smiling at the sight of his mother sitting on her bed with her hair braided to one side and staring out of the window. She barely reacted to his presence, just watching the birds outside as Elliott took his usual spot at her bedside table.

"Hey ma, you're looking extra beautiful today." Elliott greeted, lips curved up into a soft smile even as he was ignored. The steady drip of her IV was the only sound in the room for a while, Evelyn had been refusing to eat and drink, so they'd had to hook her up to a few things to remedy that. Elliott reached for her hand, feeling how cold it was and quickly stood to tuck a blanket around her.

Evelyn didn't even flinch.

"It's my birthday today, by the way. I know you sometimes forget it, but I thought maybe we could have some cake?" His mother doesn't respond, staring blankly outside the window and Elliott goes back to holding her hand in his. She's still cold, the doctor said giving her IVs for fluid would make it so, and despite the room being so warm, it doesn't help.

She used to reply when her sickness wasn't as bad. Some days they would have whole conversations, Elliott telling her about everything he could and watching as recognition flared in those hazel eyes. Then she slowly forgot more and more, asking him mundane questions over and over in the span of a few minutes, and sometimes she didn't even recognize him anymore. Now she kind of just sat there, coming in and out of her state, but those moments were few and far between.

Elliott still talked though, he told her about his day and what he had for breakfast. He spoke about funny bar stories that happened when he worked, talked about his training that was happening during the offseason of Apex.

He lied and talked about huge birthday plans tonight, saying that so many of his friends had planned something and tried to keep it a secret. He didn't mention he was going to go home after this, eat dinner by himself and go to sleep after he went to the gym.

No one had wished him a happy birthday.

When "lunch" arrives, the nurses bring in the cake Elliott had paid to have sent, two small pieces of chocolate sitting on thin paper plates with plastic forks. Evelyn doesn't react when they set up her actual lunch, the bag of artificial nutrition discreetly tucked away and leading to a tube that had gotten surgically inserted in her stomach. Elliott remains quiet when the care home workers do their job, waiting until the door is closed behind them before he perks up again.

"Hey, our cake is here! I'm not allowed a candle or anything because of oxygen or something, but we can pretend, and I'll make a wish." Elliott says brightly, tucking his chair closer to his mother as he moves the table hanging over her bed closer and starts singing happy birthday to himself. He makes it halfway through the song, voice cracking when the first few tears roll over his cheeks.

"...t-t-to me. Make a wish." Elliott rasps, shoulders shaking with the effort it takes not to just full-on sob as he holds his mother's hand. He pretends to blow out a candle, eyes slipping closed as he whispers the wish. "I wish you weren't sick anymore."

She doesn't react, and Elliott has to press his face against the bed in an attempt to compose himself. His mother needed him to be strong, he was her only living son. All they had were each other, and as badly as Elliott wanted just to curl up and cry, he couldn't. Not when she needed him.

"Inchworm, inchworm. Measuring the marigolds," A voice sounds softly, harsh from disuse but ringing clear in what was a deafening silence. Elliott jerks his head up, tears running down his face as his mother looks out the window but she sings. "You and your arithmetic, you'll probably go far."

He sobs openly then, hearing her voice for the first time in months, and Elliott breaks down. He shudders, trying to stifle his crying against the crisp white sheets of her bed and a small, frail hand presses to his head, resting there as his mother sings their song to him for the last time.

His final birthday present, before she was gone.

Inchworm, inchworm

Measuring the marigolds

Seems to me you'd stop and see

How beautiful they are

[entwinedmoon]

John Torrington: Reflections

(Previous posts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

Today, January 1, 2020, is the 174th anniversary of John Torrington’s death. Him dying on New Year’s Day must have dampened whatever celebrations the crew were most likely enjoying, a dark day in a quite literally dark month, as the sun would not return for some time. He would have been buried in that endless night, during a snowstorm (a layer of snow was still preserved on top of his coffin), the first death in what had so far been a successful expedition. A death so soon may have worried the crew, but since it was due to an illness he’d brought with him, it may have just been considered a fluke. They may not have been concerned, still thinking they would make it through and discover the last piece of the Northwest Passage. If they had succeeded, Torrington would have been a minor footnote in the history of a triumphant journey, his grave a small curiosity for anyone who may pass by. But no one made it home from the Franklin Expedition, and Torrington is now seen as an early warning sign of the tragedy awaiting the rest of the men.

Why is it that, after all these years, anyone still talks about Torrington? What is the fascination with him and the other men buried on Beechey? I know what draws me to his story, and while I can’t speak for everyone, I think there are at least some people who share the same reasons.

So what intrigues me about John Torrington? Why did I write this series, spanning eleven blog posts and over 25,000 words (that’s half a book!), about a 174-years-dead Victorian sailor, spending my spare time researching and dedicating long hours to studying his life and death?

In trying to pin down just what fascinates me about Torrington, I went through some of my old writing, and I found this little snippet from an essay I never finished. It was written almost ten years ago, on January 13, 2010:

It was all John Torrington’s fault. I couldn’t sleep because of that frozen grimace, mouth and eyes both slightly open—eyes, intact, seriously, staring back at me. He just stares, cold, frozen, dead. I’m not likely to go on a polar expedition any time soon and possibly die from lead-tainted food or whatever killed him, but it’s not that idea that frightens me. He stares at me in the night, in the corners, in the reflections in the moonlit mirror on my closet door, in the folds of the dirty laundry on the floor, he’s there, staring at me. Going to the bathroom at night is the worst, walking through the dark hallway, knowing he’s following me, just behind me, out of sight, but still manages to jump ahead to stare at me in the split second before the bathroom light comes on, inches from my face in the thick darkness, but then he runs and hides again in the shadows of the hall, lurking, waiting to follow me back to my room.

Sometimes it’s Otzi or Jaunita or Ida Girl or Cherchen Man. Never King Tut or Ramses II for some reason though. But John has always stood above the rest, just the memory of a picture haunting me.

As you can see, I had a slightly different attitude toward Torrington back then. To explain this, let me start from the beginning.

When I was about seven or eight, my older brother brought home a copy of Buried in Ice from school, where he was learning about the Franklin Expedition. He of course shared the pictures in the book with me and my older sister because he thought they were creepy and that’s what you do when you’re a kid, you share creepy stuff to try to scare your siblings. I’m in my early thirties now, so the memory has faded over the years, but there’s still a lot that stands out even now. I remember eating a particular type of corn chip that to this day I associate the flavor of with lead poisoning. My brother told me about how the brains of the three mummies had turned into a yellow liquid—something we thought was gross but also cool for some reason. I remember that there was no way to just flip the book over to cover up the picture of Torrington on the front cover because—oh goodie—there was a picture of him on the back too. My brother and I commented on the golden color of Torrington’s discolored skin (I don’t know why we thought “golden” instead of yellow—it sounds more poetic to call it “golden” but that was certainly not our intention). I also remember that later, after my brother had returned the book to school but we were still haunted by the images, we couldn’t recall the names of Hartnell and Braine, so we called them Big Head and Snarl Face instead. But we remembered the name Torrington, probably because he was featured more prominently in the book. And due to that prominence, Torrington was the one I would think of when lying in bed at night, watching shadows in the closet morph into monsters.

To try to combat my fear, I used a trick I’d learned where I turn the scary thing into something ridiculous (this was before Harry Potter was published, but it’s the same theory as how to fight a Boggart). I put the three mummies into a long-running story that I’d made up in my head—and I made them undead idiots. Like zombie versions of Beavis and Butthead. Yeah, I did that. I made them weird funny sidekicks in my story, but it didn’t really stop me being afraid when I saw pictures of them again.

Remarkably, despite being terrified of Torrington, I became obsessed with mummies as a kid, an obsession that continues to this day. I would marvel over pictures of Tollund Man, Ötzi, and the Qilakitsoq mummies of Greenland.

But not John Torrington.

Whenever I would flip through a book about mummies, if I encountered a picture of Torrington, I would slam my hand over the page to cover it. I would be creeped out by other mummies, but it was never to the same level as it was with Torrington. And yet, I would still be compelled to peek, even after covering the page. I would regret it immediately, but there was something that made me want to look, even though looking at him was the last thing I wanted to do.

Over the years, Torrington would find his way into a few more stories of mine, in some form or another. In college, I wrote a short story for a fiction writing class where the picture of Torrington on the cover of Frozen in Time started talking to a young woman, representing her repressed thoughts and fears (he cracked a lot of jokes in that one). At that point in time, however, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to read Frozen in Time. I had bought a copy a while ago—the 2004 revised edition—and when it arrived from Amazon I flipped through it, telling myself that I was an adult and I loved mummies and I could bravely face the pictures of these boogeymen from my childhood.

That last part turned out to be incorrect. Several weeks of being too afraid to turn off the light at night ensued. I wouldn’t read the book for another eight or nine years.

But eventually I did read it, multiple times in fact, and I’m no longer terrified of pictures of Torrington, or Hartnell and Braine. That all started a little less than two years ago.

It began with another story idea I had that incorporated Torrington, one I have yet to write. I thought I should do some research into him first if I was going to include him. Around the same time, The Terror was airing on AMC. The exact timeline is a little hazy for me, because the story idea actually first came to me at the end of 2017, but The Terror first aired in March 2018. I can’t remember if I had the idea to add Torrington to my story before I started watching The Terror or not, but I think it was before.

Once I started researching Torrington and the Franklin Expedition, I quickly became obsessed. I had poked around Franklin research before, but my fear of Torrington would always hold me back. I would peer through my fingers at pictures and facts, but I could never do more than that. But now I was hooked.

My childhood nightmares were there at first, just out of the corner of my eye, but my research started to shift those in strange ways. I had always seen Torrington as this ancient, towering monster, but then I discovered that he was only twenty when he died and stood at only five-foot-four. I’m older than him. I’m taller than him. His desiccated body weighed less than ninety pounds, which I definitely weigh more than. Basically, if he came charging out of the closet, I could take him.

But what really drew me in was realizing that we knew so little about him. I could look at a picture of his face, frozen in time, but I couldn’t reach back into the past to ask him about himself. I’ve known about him almost my whole life, with him skulking in a corner of my brain, stepping out of the shadows every now and then, but I didn’t really know who he was as a person. The Franklin Expedition can drive people mad with the mystery of what happened to the men after they entered the Arctic, but suddenly I became obsessed with knowing what had happened before the expedition. Who was John Torrington? Who was this guy that has occupied my dreams and nightmares, who has taken up a permanent residence in my mind ever since I first laid eyes on him? Who was this young man who has somehow been a part of my life for so long, but whom I know so little about?

I know I’m not the only one who has been asking these questions, or who has been living with the Franklin ice mummies in their heads. I’ve met some amazing people online who are just as obsessed, if not more so. Thanks to this series, I’ve had people contact me about their own interest in Torrington and the Beechey Boys and how they understand my love for them.

Many times before, I’ve attempted to put in words just what draws me to mummies. In 2011 I even started a long-since-abandoned blog about mummies called Digging the Dead, where I tried to explain my interest. But I’m going to try my best now to pin down what has compelled me to study Torrington, and why he keeps popping up in my life.

I think part of the appeal of Torrington—and Hartnell and Braine—is the shockingly alive appearance of their preserved bodies, with some morbid curiosity over their undead vibe thrown in. The preservation of a body, preventing the natural process of decay, is fascinating. It’s a type of immortality, although one the mummy doesn’t get to enjoy. Torrington looks like he could get up and walk around—possibly in a zombie-like way, but still. He looks more like a real person than some mummies, like bog bodies that became too twisted by the weight of the peat or desert mummies that have a freeze-dried appearance. But a large part of the fascination with Torrington, and mummies in general, is that it’s like touching a piece of the past. When we see their pictures, we’re looking at something that is from a time long gone, but they seem so very present, so tangible in the here and now. They are time travelers, in a way, and this is our way of reaching out to them across the years.

And with the mystery of the Franklin Expedition, Torrington, Hartnell, and Braine add an extra layer of intrigue as well as reminding us that there were more than just officers on board. We have pictures of Franklin, Crozier, Fitzjames, and many of the lieutenants and mates, but the ordinary sailors and marines didn’t have the luxury of having their pictures taken. What they looked like has been lost to time, but the preserved remains of Torrington and the Beechey Boys literally puts a human face on the ordinary men of the expedition, the ones who never wrote memoirs or had journals that were preserved for posterity. Men who have been largely forgotten by history, who don’t get the same reverence we give the captains, who don’t get memorials or landmarks in their names. When thinking of the men of the Franklin Expedition setting sail for their destiny, it’s easy to see Torrington on deck—alive, his striped shirt billowing in the wind as they sail toward Lancaster Sound—and to imagine that these were working ships, fully manned with ordinary people who led regular lives and had dreams of what they would do when they returned home to double pay and the fame of having helped discover the Northwest Passage.

But on January 1, 1846, those dreams winked out for one of those men. On this day, I think not about how well Torrington’s body has defied time and decomposition, but about who sat with him as he passed. Was he alone? Did he have friends on the crew? And what of his family back home? Did they toast him and his journey, not knowing that he was gone?

Who said a prayer for John Torrington 174 years ago?

If it’s not too late, I think I’ll say one for him today.

<<Back

Torrington Series Masterlist

[awkwardplantwrites]

Finding Magic Chapter Four

Posting early this week! 

Chapter 4: 2090 words / Reading time: 10 minutes

Genre: Fantasy/Adventure/Action

Find the chapter on wattpad (Bippick is my wattpad username)

New to the story? Missed some updates? Find all the chapters here on tumblr

(Artwork by @pe-ersona ~ Reblogs and comments are appreciated :D )

When Renato woke up the next morning, Pepi wasn't sitting by the door. Renato drew the curtains open and looked out the window. People pitched coloured tents in the town center, they hung triangles on strings between buildings, and children (or small people?) dressed in costumes of creatures he recognized from his folklore books. Someone knocked at the door.

"Come in," Renato said, rubbing his eyes.

Helaine walked in holding a hot drink that steamed. "Brought you a hangover cure. How are you feeling?"

"Fine, surprisingly. I don't even have a headache."

Helaine rolled her eyes and tutted. "To be young... Okay, in that case, this is a thank you for finding Rizze."

"Thank you. Or you're welcome? I would've brought him back even if you didn't serve me beverages." He took the drink from her and blew over the top, the liquid rippled. "You're ten years older than me, aren't you? Thirty-three is still young."

"A lot can change in ten years," she mused and sat on the bed. "For example, I travelled here from Bhārat as a merchant, selling my family's spices. Fell in love with a beautiful girl. Found myself at home in this town. Had an argument with my family that spanned hundreds of letters when I told them I wouldn't return. Opened a spice shop. Closed it. Re-opened and began selling flowers. Met a duo with outrageous ideas who pulled them off without a hitch. Earned a headache after a night of celebration..." Helaine grimaced and took a sip from her cup.

"What a wonderful way to spend ten years. Though last night was hardly without a hitch, we nearly got caught. Rizze kept scratching me on the way back too," Renato trailed off. "I think there's something going on with Pepi. He was cheerful last night, but it felt forced. Normally he waits until I wake up to wander off, but..." He gestured to the empty chair. "I'm not sure if I should ask him about it. Pepi's good at talking without saying much of anything at all."

"Kater is similar, I know how you feel."

"Don't you find it frustrating? How can you get along with someone who's like that? I feel like he's lying to me by not telling me the whole truth."

Taking another sip, Helaine was quiet as she thought. "It can be tiresome, having a relationship with someone who avoids issues when you'd rather confront them, get it over with. Kater gets so concerned about hurting my feelings."

Helaine pushed up her glasses. "Sometimes she avoids problems because she's indecisive, and would rather figure it out herself before giving me an answer. It's about trust. Sharing secrets means there's a chance the other person will learn the truth and never speak to them again. Or they'll think differently of that person for the rest of time. It's a vulnerable place to be. And it's not an unfounded fear, as no-one can predict the future."

"Try telling that to Pepi. He visited a diviner the other day."

"Kater tries to read her palms. She's convinced she'll die young because her'health line is shorter than average,'" Helaine chuckled. "You're a nice boy, I reckon Pepi trusts you but isn't ready to take down his emotional barriers. It's like a shield for him. He respects you too much and doesn't want to bother you."

Renato frowned. "Too much?"

"He's your squire, right?" Renato nodded. "That's not quite equal to a knight, is it? Especially not one chosen by a god." She scrunched her nose. "What does that mean exactly? How are you different from regular magic users?"

"Me spells are more powerful, and I'm able to use more magic than the average person. I can speak to Lidion if I stare long enough at some water. It's not all that special. Gives me a lot more work to do though."

"You're doing a great job. No-one would think you're ill," she remarked.

Renato blinked in surprise. "Apart from you, somehow."

"I like to pick up on the little things. They matter the most." Helaine smiled.

Nodding, Renato turned to look out the window again. "What's happening outside?"

Helaine peered out the window. "It's Spirt's Eve already? Oh, Kater will be in a hurry to set up decorations today. She's always leaving these things to the last minute."

"What's Spirit's Eve?"

Searching Renato's eyes, Helaine scrunched her nose. "It's a holiday, where we celebrate the lives of people who lived, and walk amongst beings and creatures from folklore."

"It looks exciting. We don't have holidays in Llantry."

"You celebrate nothing? You don't even have one day to share a feast? Or a day of rest?"

As Renato shrugged and shook his head, Kater's voice resounded through the Inn while she yelled.

"I'm telling you, I've met no one of the sort! Get out of my establishment!"

Pepi appeared at the door, poking his head through the crack. "I may have, uh, tipped off the folk at the manor about our location last night by accident. We should go."

Kater screamed downstairs. A glass smashed.

"Preferably now," Pepi added

Helaine rushed out the room. Renato threw his blanket to the side of the bed. He got dressed, brushing Pepi off when he tried to help, and told him to find a way out instead. Pepi left with Finlay trailing behind him, pulsing black and red light.

Renato stuffed his night clothes into his bag, taking out his pocket mirror for a moment to fix his hair. Pepi opened the door again.

"There's a patch of straw outside the hallway window," Pepi told Renato. "We have to jump, there's no other way out."

Wanting to protest, Renato opened his mouth, but closed it again when he realized he didn't have time to argue. The sound of shouting spurred him on. He clutched his bag to his chest and followed Pepi to the window. When it was his turn to jump, he sent a short prayer to Lidion, hoped he wouldn't break anything a healer couldn't fix, and leapt onto the straw. He landed with a roll and limped to the wagon, peeking at the front entrance of the Inn where Kater kept the Wakefield knights occupied. A man wearing an apron turned at the sound of their horse neighing, which Pepi tried to calm down, and he pointed in their direction.

"That's them! Hurry, before they get away!"

Renato tumbled into the back of the wagon, Pepi climbed into the jockey box and tugged at the reins.

"Bye Kater, Helaine! Nice meeting you for the first time, again!" Pepi yelled. "We'll come back someday. Save me some ale!"

Renato also called out a goodbye, waving from the rear of the wagon, then ducked down when the Wakefield knights started bombing them with spells. The wagon swerved, Pepi tried to dodge the spells and the tents on the street.

"Sorry!" Pepi shouted. "That pumpkin looked swell, carve another masterpiece, kid!"

Renato watched as the knights found a wagon of their own. "Pepi, they'll catch up soon, what do we do?"

"I don't know! You're the hero, figure something out, I'm driving!"

Searching for any tools, Renato noticed children hitting colourful horses with wooden sticks, which exploded with treats after being beaten. He grabbed the next one he found, snatching it off the string as children wailed. Ripping the horse apart, it revealed rock-solid cinnamon buns. Renato threw them at the knights chasing them.

"Are these supposed to be edible?" he cried.

They turned a sharp corner, and Renato lost his grip on the shredded treat filled horse, while Pepi struggled to steady the real horse. Renato watched the corner they'd passed, and a smile formed on his lips. They'd lost their chasers!

That smile vanished when the knights also turned the corner, using magic to propel their wagon to go faster.

"Stopcheating!" Renato made a face at the other wagon.

"Wha- are you a child?!" A knight he recognized from the previous night, who'd invited him to play Bone Crowns, shouted at him. "Stop your vehicle this instant!"

"I thought we were buddies!" Renato narrowly avoided being struck by another spell. "You said I was more fun than regular Larry, and I am! But I won't be if you try to kill me!"

"This isn't a game, you dunce!"

"It is so, now let me win!" Renato grabbed a flower basket, apologized to Helaine in his head, and threw it at the wagon. It hit a knight in the face. "Fifty points to me."

For a second they faltered, but they grew faster, eventually overtaking them. The knights banged the wagon into the side of theirs, tearing at the cover with daggers. Renato yelped and tried to stay on the safe side. Then Pepi cried out, and Renato saw they caught him in a magic rope that tied itself around his wrist. Their cart veered out of control. Renato raced over to the jockey box, yanking at the rope, which flew from the apron man's grasp. Unfortunately, that end of the rope tied itself around Renato's wrist, tying the two of them together. He scrambled for the reins with one hand and screamed with every ounce of energy in his body.

"LIDION, I NEED YOU! PLEASE!"

With a great gust of wind, Lidion answered his prayer; the wind slowed the other wagon down to a halt; the wheels snapped in half, rendering the knights immobile. For the first time in months, Renato laughed. It became hysterical, and he clutched his stomach when he saw the knights still trying to shoot spells at them as they rode away.

Then a ticking grenade landed inside the wagon and it wasn't funny anymore.

"Jump, Pepi!"

"I have to unharness the horse!"

"No time!" Renato pushed Pepi to the road.

The horse screeched in fear, racing on ahead with no-one to guide it. Lying on the road, Pepi and Renato shielded their eyes as the wagon exploded. A sharp, loud buzzing filled their ears. Pepi looked like he was shouting, but Renato couldn't hear his words. Looking back, he noticed the knights followed them on foot. He pulled Pepi up with the hand tied to him and ran past the wagon.

Pepi tried to go back for the horse but Renato had a firm grip on his hand and heaved the other man away from the scene. Glancing back at the knights, he saw they'd stopped running, standing at the outskirts of town where a sign stood, thanking them for visiting. He blew a raspberry at Wakefield and continued dragging Pepi as fast and far as they could go.

As Renato's hearing returned to normal, he noticed both their panting and slowed to a halt, shoving off his bag, collapsing alongside Pepi onto the grass. How far had they ran from Wakefield? He didn't know. It didn't matter as long as they were safe. He couldn't gather the strength to see where they lay. All he knew was: it was raining, the surrounding trees stood taller than any he'd ever seen, and Pepi's hand was warm in his.

"Pepi," he gasped. "Why didn't we take a boat?"

"... Shit. Wait, no, I can justify this! Uh... Do you know anyone who has a boat?" Finlay darted around Pepi, flashing a purple light.

"Well, no," Renato replied.

"Neither do I."

"We could have asked someone who has a boat though," Renato noted. "I don't think your reasoning covers up this plot hole or my wounded pride enough."

"In that case," Pepi breathed. "They enchanted the water around Adhur. See, Adhur's a low floating island. One too many ships bumped into it. So they cast a spell that meant no-one can sail near Adhur," Pepi explained. "Sailors get confused and go around it. The island has griffins that pick up people from the mainland."

Renato sighed. "Could've got a boat somewhere close to Adhur though."

"I get seasick?" Finlay began to turn orange. "Finlay stop giving me away, you're supposed to catch other people's lies not mine," Pepi whispered.

"Okay, and I'm afraid of large bodies of water. So that's why we couldn't sail. That makes a logical argument. I can sleep soundly knowing the plot makes sense."

"We could be sailors in another universe, another story." Pepi squeezed his hand.

Renato laced their fingers. "In another universe I'd be Rizze, sleeping all day in a sunny spot of The Ugly Snail."

Renato and Pepi wheezed with weak laughter, resting where they lay.

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[junionigiri]

Just Another Secretary Story! Chapter 4 - It’s Always Her

Chapter summary: Director Todoroki hires a new secretary.

Rating: T

It’s rare to see Midoriya as ill-tempered as he is now, yet Shouto is proud to say that when it happens it’s almost always because of him.

The green-haired executive moves to slam a handful of filled-out forms over his desk, but changes his mind at the last minute and places it gently in front of him instead. “Here’s what you asked for, Todoroki-kun. Don’t you ever make me do that again. I said so many lies I almost stress-barfed in your office! Twice!”

“Never again,” Shouto lies. “Brilliant execution as always, Midoriya. No-one suspected a thing. I could not ask for a better accomplice.”

“Flattery won’t get you anywhere,” he says with a hearty harrumph and a pleased little flush on his freckled cheeks that betrays what he just said. “Anyways I know how important this is to you so I’m glad I could help.”

The result of Midoriya’s hard work is the fake survey form that Shouto designed to help him woo Secretary Uraraka. To avoid Uraraka’s suspicions, he told the marketing chief give out other forms to anyone willing to answer them. By the end of the day he gets five neatly filled-out forms with a wealth of valuable information hidden within. Now...

“Which one is Secretary Uraraka’s?”

Midoriya looks at him incredulously. “Come on, Director. You don’t know how your own secretary’s handwriting looks like?”

“How would I know what it looks like? We don’t write each other letters.”

(But if Uraraka is inclined towards romantic handwritten letters, it won’t be difficult for him to deliver. Shouto is proud to say that his calligraphy skills are superb.)

“Oh man. Okay, I’ll help.” The chief starts sifting through the papers with intense concentration. “Okay, so this one is Ashido-san’s, I’m sure I saw her use a sparkly purple gel pen to sign all her documents and also it’s full of hand-drawn emojis. This one’s Iida-kun’s, since the writing’s so pressured and accurate and his ideal date is reading encyclopedias at the library with a scholarly individual who knows how to use the Dewey Decimal System. This one--”

Shouto cuts him off. “I thought this was a survey for women.”

Midoriya shrugs. “The guys felt left out, so I gave them some too.”

“Hm.”

“Anyhow… this one is Monoma-kun ‘cause it’s written entirely in French. And this one I think is by Kirishima-kun ‘cause he drew himself doing pull-ups at the gym...”

Shouto rubs the space between his eyes as he wonders how in the world this group of people manage to become the most productive set of people in the company.

“... oh! And here’s Uraraka-san’s.”

Midoriya hands him the form in question. The handwriting is small and messy, but legible. The few erasures were crossed out with a single line and countersigned. All in all a civilized entry, but only at about 85%.

Shouto wrinkles his nose in suspicion. “How are you sure that this is hers?”

“Process of elimination,” the freckled chief answers with confidence. “That, and… she wrote her name on it.”

True enough the characters for Uraraka Ochako are scrawled on top of the page. All right then.

Shouto reads through the answers within the span of a minute, absorbing every detail, and rereading them again. With each review, he feels the smile on his face grow larger.

Is this really the ordinary relationship with an ordinary person that Secretary Uraraka wants? While it’s nothing that he expected at all from his capable secretary…

“Todoroki-kun, you’re smiling a little too evilly there,” Midoriya mumbles nervously. “What are you planning?”

Isn’t this going to be too easy?  “Nothing special, Midoriya. Just something ordinary.”

With a new plan forming in his head, he’s sure that Uraraka isn’t going anywhere.

*

 The top of that day’s agenda is the interview for Secretary Uraraka’s replacement.

About a dozen men and women with all sorts of impressive accomplishments patiently wait for their turn outside the Office of the Executive Director. The first candidate sits politely on the plush sofa in front of Ochako and the Director himself.

Utsushimi Camie, 30 years old, a proud graduate of Shiketsu’s communications department. Not surprising. All of them tended to be from Shiketsu or UA or Ketsubutsu or some fancy university overseas. Ochako, who only finished a certificate course in secretarial work, has only dreamed of having that kind of education. It’s still baffling nine years later how an underqualified twenty-year old temp like her ever managed to get hired by Chairman Todoroki’s son.

Now that she’s at the other side of the table, maybe she’ll gain some insight on it. Ochako opens Utsushimi’s file and gives her a bright smile. “Utsushimi-san, thank you for coming. How are you feeling today?”

The first thing anyone will notice about Utsushimi is how gorgeous she is--long light-brown hair, full lips, a good figure, an elegant fashion sense. The confident way she carries herself makes her look like she belongs in this office. Ochako automatically thinks she’s perfect for the job.

And then she speaks. “Yeah, I’m totes… I mean, totally feeling super great today, thanks for asking! I’m so stoked to be here. Cool office, cool space… and you two are looking super hot today too, by the way.”

Ochako’s smile freezes on her face, while Director Todoroki’s face remains stoic. Okay then...

Clearing her throat, Ochako moves on to the first question. “So, Utsushimi-san--”

“You can call me Camie, I totally don’t mind.”

“... Utsushimi… Camie-san.” Keeping a careful side-eye on Director Todoroki, Ochako continues. “It says here that you worked at Orca Law Office before. What were your responsibilities there?”

“The low down in Law Town? Okay, I gotcha.” Confidently, she gives a breakdown of all the things she had to do and all the things she’s capable of doing. Ochako asks her a few more questions about what she knows of the company, current events, and hypothetical situations. Camie is able to answer them properly, although her language is too… casual for the setting.

Okay, so she isn’t bad. Ochako’s sure that the Director would reject her immediately, though. He had rejected applicants in the past just by the way they said their names. But the minutes pass by with Camie talking, and he has not said a single scathing word yet.

Ochako looks at him, and suddenly it’s apparent why he’s so silent--his odd eyes are staring at a spot in the ninth dimension. Looks like he hasn’t been listening at the very start. Ochako is rightfully irritated. Damn him if he thinks that he’ll make her do all the work here!

“Director, do you have anything you want to ask Utsushimi-san?”

Todoroki’s eyeballs moves to her in utter disinterest. “Must I?”

The smile on Ochako’s mouth strains. “Of course. She might be your future secretary, after all.”

He turns to Camie, who is looking too relaxed for the menacing gaze being directed at her. The Director taps his fingers on his armrest for a few tense moments, stretching the suffocating silence in between.

Just as Ochako considers breaking the silence with another question, Director Todoroki finally speaks up. “I have an important question for you, Utsushimi-san.”

A feeling of foreboding instantly fills Ochako’s chest. Utsushimi seems oblivious to the chill in the air as she asks, “Ya, fire away.”

He gives a meaningful side-glance to his present secretary as he asks, “If I hire you, how many years will it take before you quit?”

Ochako’s face stiffens.

Camie hums thoughtfully. “If I get this job, I’m defo not gonna think about quitting, y’know? Like, I came here to work, so, yeah. That’s just weird.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” Now he shows interest, and Ochako does not appreciate it at all. “But let’s say that you’re going to quit. That you have to quit because of something as trivial and vague as personal reasons. How many years will be acceptable before you get to that point? Say… three years? Five? Nine?”

Oh that’s just foul. Ochako barely keeps her jaw dropping at that blatant jab.

To the strange question, Camie merely chuckles. “A hundred? I’m kidding, I seriously dunno. I can tell you though that I’m too legit to quit, ya feel me? And if I have to quit, it’ll be legit. Vague is totally not my style.”

Ochako sees Todoroki’s mouth move again, but this time she beats him to it. “But Camie-san, the demands of this job are massive and unforgiving. What’ll you do if you and Director Todoroki’s definition of ‘legit’ don’t overlap?”

Camie shrugs. “Then I guess I won’t quit?”

“Great answer.” Todoroki smirks at Ochako. “Do you think these standards are worth attaining given the benefits you’ll be receiving? Health, security, experience--”

“Ya. They’re pretty lit~”

“So Camie-san, are you saying that you’ll be prepared to sacrifice everything for this job just for the benefits? It’s not just going to work early and going home late and not having days off. It’s literal blood, sweat, tears, heartache--”

“If I have to, sure. N-B-D.”

“But surely all the hours and blood and sweat and tears and heartache are necessary sacrifices for the good of the company. Didn’t you come here expecting to give your all for Endeavor Inc?”

“Sacrifices are okay, but Camie-san, sure you ain’t—I mean, you aren’t expecting to lose your sense of self just for the good of the company, are you?”

“Uh…”

Before either of them realize it, Director and Secretary have abandoned the interview completely in favor of glaring at each other from opposite ends of the couch. By the end of it Director Todoroki’s eyes are flaring, while Ochako’s knuckles are sore from gripping Camie’s file too hard.

“Utsushimi,” Todoroki calls, but he isn’t looking at her at all; he doesn’t even seem to be aware that she’s there anymore. No, all that cold, raw emotion behind is eyes is for Ochako and Ochako alone. “Do you think that nine years of working with me is... will be a waste of your life?”

A chill runs through her as if she’s struck by ice. There isn’t much that Ochako can do to stop her hands from shaking and her lower lip from quivering except to stare at him in shock.

Camie stares at them one after the other with an interested smile on her face. “Um. If you hire me, I’ll do my best,” is what she decides on saying after an awkward silence.

His glaring heterochromatic eyes not leaving Ochako’s, Director Todoroki raises his right hand and slams it on the table. “Great. You’re hired.”

“What?!” Ochako cries before she can stop herself.

“Whoa, for real?”

“Indeed. Welcome to the team.” Director Todoroki stands up from the couch, too self-satisfied for Ochako to feel comfortable. “Well then, Secretary Uraraka, I’ll leave the transfer of duties to you. I’m confident that you won’t leave until Secretary Utsushimi is able to do your job adequately.”

Trying to keep herself from clenching her jaw, Ochako smiles stiffly. “Of course, Director. You can count on me.”

She wonders if Camie’s actively choosing to ignore the drama or if she’s just that dense, but she is entirely unaffected by the showdown that took place. “You guys, you totes had me going there, I thought I was cancelled the moment I walked in! C’mere, c’mere, employment selfie yeahhhhhh!!!”

Before either of them can react, Camie already has her phone out and has expertly squooshed them together on the couch. Todoroki falls back on the cushions, Ochako half-stumbles over him, and Camie sits next to her brandishing a finger heart. “Let’s do this fam! Say Colorado~”

Say what you will about Utsushimi Camie, but her employment selfie with the famous icyhot Director and his stressed secretary earns her eight hundred likes and a hundred more followers within the next hour. 

 *

 Disastrous interview aside, Ochako thinks she can get along well with the new secretary. She may look too laid-back and casual on the surface, but it’s surprisingly easy to get a good conversation going with her. When she starts telling her about all the intimidating things she has to learn, the other girl accepts them with an easygoing smile.

“Like, so I get that Directoroki’s extra when it comes to work so I gotta be extra too… but dang, I gotta take care of the cat too?” 

“Try not to call him that,” Ochako says successfully without laughing her ass off. “Victoria’s got her own file right here--” she pats one of the thickest clearbooks in the pile of things Camie has to memorize by the end of the week, “--but it’ll be a while before you get cat duties, so don’t worry about her for now. For the first week, you’ll focus on the work in the office.”

“Gotcha, senpai. ”

“Oh, you don’t have to,” Ochako stammers, even though she feels her ears clapping happily at the feeling. “I mean--I’m a year younger than you, plus I’m quitting real soon, so I won’t be your senpai for long. Just Ochako is fine!”

“Hm… gotcha, Ocha-babes,” Camie says with a wink.

Ocha-babes?

“‘Cause you have such a baby face. I mean, you’re a real cutie pie. A Sanrio character. I bet your boyfriend pinches your cheeks all day. Oh my god.”

Ochako blushes all the way to the roots of her hair. “Thanks I think? But I don’t have a boyfriend...”

“Nah?” Camie asks with a pucker of her lips. “A girlfriend then? A nonbinary pal?”

“Nope! I’m single… since birth, ” she says, slurring over the last part.

“Oh, worm.” For the first time since she got here, Camie looks terribly puzzled. “Like, tell me if I’m wrong, ‘kay? I thought people can get it on here as long as it doesn’t get in the way of work?”

“Yeah, relationships aren’t a problem. Even married people can work in the same office,” Ochako confirms.

“Oh sis that’s great news. I thought it was gonna be like Orca’s again. People got fired all the time just ‘cause they made eye contact in the office. Big yikes, right?” The taller secretary looks visibly relieved at this. “Tho I’m real surprised when you said you didn’t have anyone? ‘Cause I totally thought you were having a lover’s quarrel with Directoroki back there.”

Ochako chokes on air. “Wh--me and Directoroki--I mean, Director Todoroki?! No, we’re nothing like that!”

Camie raises her eyebrows. “So, like. The nine years wasting your life thing? He wasn’t salty AF at you for dumping him or whatever?”

“No?!” Wait, she did dump him just a couple days ago, but-- “I mean, no, that doesn’t count! We aren’t… we never-- ”

“Chiiiill.” Camie seems too amused watching the different flustered expressions she’s making. “Sorry, okay? I thought I saw some serious chemistry, but I guess I was wrong.” Going back to the next file, she says, “How ‘bout this one? No kettles allowed near the Director. Seriously?”

Ochako nods. “That’s right. I know it’s weird, but you can’t forget it, okay? It’s really important...”

The other girl makes a face. “Uh-huh. Is it, like, a rich person thing? Is he too bourgeois for kettles or somethin’?”

She shakes her head. “... no. It’s because he doesn’t feel comfortable around them…”

She learned this the hard way during their first year of working together. She wanted to show him how earnest she was by making him tea without being asked. The kettle hadn’t even been on, it wasn’t going to hurt anyone, but he started shielding his face like it was going to burn him. He curled into himself and wouldn’t speak for what felt like hours, even after she threw the kettle out and apologized profusely and tried to comfort him.

When he finally found his voice and managed to curb the shaking, he asked her quietly to never let him near another kettle again. It was the first time he had asked her of something that wasn’t a command, but a plea--the first time he seemed so…

Human…

Even though she can’t keep her eyes off the scar, she never knew the story behind it. She never asked and he never said anything. She convinced herself that she can exist beside him without digging up that part of his past--she was afraid that she’d hurt him again if she did.

Forcing herself back to the present, she gives Camie a pleading smile. “I’m the same with fire, you know? If I see even a little flame from a lighter, I’d start shaking and crying like a baby even though I should know better... the Director doesn’t put me anywhere near them because he knows how I’m not comfortable around fire, so I try my best to keep him away from kettles. We should just respect that, okay?”

Camie looks at her carefully. “... aight. Any and all kettles shall be yeeted off the face of this earth. Gotcha.”

Ochako giggles. “The yeeting isn’t necessary, but thanks for understanding!”

Thankfully Camie doesn’t ask further about her or the Director. She wonders if she’s too protective of the Director, but she truly can’t stand to see him like that again. 

*

Later on she decides to introduce Camie to the rest of the office. They react about the same as she expected--Monoma sizes her up, Mina dances with her, Kirishima shakes her arm so hard it almost pops off its socket, and Iida gives her a stern lecture about formal workplace Japanese that lasts all of fifteen minutes.

“--and furthermore, unless you are speaking about lanterns, LEDs, hazardous fires, the sun, or other luminous things, kindly refrain from using the term lit to describe anything--”

What she doesn’t expect though, is Camie nudging Ochako in the middle of Iida’s impassioned, action-packed speech to whisper, “Yo, this one’s mine, ‘kay?” with a wink.

Ochako gives her a “go ahead then” nod.

By the time Iida is done, the work-day is pretty much done too. After shaking himself out of Iida-induced slumber, Kirishima gathers everyone ‘round. “Hey, I got an idea! We should throw Utsushimi the manliest welcome party ever!”

Everyone but Iida cheers. “A party?! Preposterous! It’s a weekday!” he protests. “We should concentrate on preserving our energies for attending to the Director’s needs tomorrow!”

“Iida, don’t be such an Iida ! You already bored her to death with your lecture, now we gotta prove to Camie-chan that we aren’t workbots like you!” Mina whines.

“Agreed.” Monoma directs an ominous smile at Camie. “It’ll be good for Utsushimi-san to have one last peaceful meal as a free person, right?”

“Ya, totes,” Camie answers, unfazed. It’s pretty satisfying how Monoma’s face sours at that, and how it sours more when Camie ignores his antics in favor of Iida. Turning to the glasses man with a flair that makes her hair swirl, she smiles and says, “Fam, we’re all going to be working together like real fam, right? Bonding is part of work too~”

Iida sputters like a malfunctioning engine. “Perhaps that is so, however, I do not see the need for high-cholesterol food and alcohol to--”

“ Mou! Ochako-chan, just tell us we’re allowed to party already!” Mina says, going into a full blown tantrum. “I want barbecue, barbecue!!! Oh, but don’t worry, the place I’m thinking of has electric grills, so no worries about fire or anything...”

She loves this office. She’s really going to miss them when she leaves. “Sure, why not? I’m starving!”

Again, everyone but Iida cheers. The glasses man just sputters more. “B-but the Director…!!”

“It’s fine, he let us go early so we can focus on Camie. Besides, if he needs you, Iida-kun, he’ll just pick you up at the party!”

Iida scowls through the jeers of the others in the office. “That is not funny, Uraraka-kun, nor is it accurate. You’re his priority, not me.”

“Yeah. He’d sooner join us at this plebe’s party than to let Uraraka out of his sight for one night,” Monoma comments idly as they trail out of the office one by one.

*

 On top of being the resident rat bastard (self-proclaimed), Monoma just might be the office prophet as well.

So there they were in the hole-in-the-wall barbecue place. The grill’s electric as Mina promised so they’re able to cook the beef belly slices without Ochako getting a panic attack. Monoma’s goading Camie into a fight, Mina’s goading Monoma, Camie’s flirting with Iida, Iida’s trying to decode her words as if they were the Hammurabi code, and Kirishima’s dumping overcooked meat onto everyone’s plates. There’s food and beer and everyone’s getting redder and redder in the face. It’s fun.

It happens at around the fifth batch of meat that Kirishima burns to a crisp. “I daresay, Kirishima! This beef is not beef anymore, but a piece of coal!” Iida complains.

“Bro, crispy meat’s manly! Come on, eat up!”

“Blegh. I prefer my meat to not be as dark and shrunken as Director Todoroki’s soul, thanks,” Monoma hiccups. “I can’t see anything ‘cause of all the smoke. Someone confiscate the tongs from Kirishima before I shove them right up--”

A cold, bitter wind from the dead of winter floods the air around them and stops all conversation in their tracks. Kirishima drops the meat tongs with a loud noise.

It’s impossible that the entire restaurant would fall so deathly silent, yet Ochako can hear nothing but the familiar footfalls of genuine Italian leather over the grimy concrete floor. Closer, and closer, and closer. Around the table, everyone but the confused Camie exchanges mildly horrified looks and then stare right at Ochako.

Don’t tell me…

“Secretary Uraraka.”

Out of the smoke of burnt spicy beef comes the silhouette of none other than Todoroki Shouto.

“Director?” Ochako is the first to stand to bow, followed by the rest of the table who is only half a millisecond slower to shift from completely drunk to painfully sober. “What are you doing here?”

The stoic executive has an ungodly strong presence that makes everyone in a hundred meter radius stop and stare. But the overall effect is different in this grimy barbecue place versus the lofty offices of Endeavor Towers--he sticks out less as a divine presence and more like a sore thumb. He’s entirely aware of this too, judging by the way his nose wrinkles in distaste.

“This is an activity of the Office of the Executive Director.” He points to himself. “I’m the Executive Director. I should be here.”

Ochako can almost hear the same panicked internal thoughts of every member of the team: shiiiiiiit. Who snitched?!

It’s probably too late to salvage this very awkward situation, but to Iida’s credit he is the first to gallantly try. He jumps off his spot and bows at perfect ninety-degree angles. “O-o-of course, the Director should be at the very forefront of this activity! How shameful we are to forget! Why, I am astonished! Ashamed! Utterly mortified that he is not involved at the very beginning!”

“As you should.” Todoroki breezes past him, uncaring of the way Iida flinches like he just got stabbed by an icicle through the gut and the way everyone else is suddenly paper white and shaking in their shoes. “Uraraka, I’ll forgive this oversight today. Just today. This will not stand in the future.”

“Of course not sir,” Ochako replies, scrambling for her polite and efficient and not-drunk secretary voice deep within her brain, “But you made it! In this, um, event without anyone telling you how to get here! So thank you for coming to Secretary Utsushimi’s welcome party!”

“You’re welcome.” And then with his version of a winning smile (which is just both corners of his mouth moving 2 picometers upward), he tells his hapless office, “Let’s continue then.” 

 *

 Since taking up his position as the Executive Director of Endeavor Inc three years ago and gradually picking out members of his team, he has never joined them for social gatherings like this. It’s not that he’s opposed to eating at ordinary (cheap) restaurants and eating ordinary (cheap) meat and drinking ordinary (cheap, and likely terrible) liquor like they do, just that he’s never considered it. If they had drinks at the upscale restaurants he liked maybe he’d join them, but then again socializing for work is exhausting enough as it is and he’d rather drink the aged whisky he kept at home.

That was then. Now he has something to prove: that he can be the ordinary man that Uraraka wants to marry. He’s going to ingest cheap meat and cheap liquor and he’s going to enjoy it so hard that Uraraka can’t say no to him.

He’s seated on an uncomfortable bench between Uraraka and Monoma, with Utsushimi on the other end; across from him are Iida, Ashido, and Kirishima. He would have seated himself at the head of the table as Iida has offered, but he didn’t like how Monoma could easily touch or grope or breathe in the general direction of his secretary. Not that he knew Monoma to do those unseemly things, but he had heard what cheap alcohol could do to any salaryman and he’s not risking his personal assistant going through any sort of harassment that will get her productivity down.

He doesn’t have any cause to worry right now though, because somehow they’re all enjoying the party in utter silence. They’ve abandoned their beers in favor of tea and ice-cold water. Ashido is the first to move since he sat down, and it is to sip at her drink with a shaking hand.

So this is how ordinary people have fun. Shouto isn’t that impressed, but far be it for him to judge anyone on how they spend their free time after work.

“S-so, Director. Would you like anything to drink?” Iida cautiously asks, face paler than usual. “Or perhaps, some beef?”

He carefully considers the dark matter on his plate. His nutritionist will take a month to correct the imbalance in his system if he ate this. “... a drink first,” he decides. Signalling one of the part-timers passing by, he says, “I’ll have a Boulevardier if it’s available.”

The part-timer stares at him blankly. “A what?”

So it’s not. He should have expected that from a place like this. “Never mind. I’ll have an amaretto sour instead.”

“ Oji-san, all we got here is beer or Pepsi, ‘kay. If ya want something fancy an’ sour I’ll boil the nicest pickles in the kitchen for ya.”

Oji-san? Since when did he become this kid’s uncle? Did any of his siblings sire a secret love child without him knowing?

Before he can ask, Secretary Uraraka covers for him. “He’ll have the tea too, thanks!”

He doesn’t know what he did to earn that flat-out glare he gets from the kitchen staff, but he isn’t going to let that deter him from his plan. “So. This is… enjoyable. You all seem to know how to have a good time.”

The strained silence over the table breaks into simultaneous laughter from all sides. “Y-yeah, we sure know how to party! Wh… Whoo-hoo!” Ashido cheers, her entire body trembling in what must be pure excitement.

“Yeah! This is fun and not awkward at all!” Monoma adds with a manic laugh bordering on insane. “So, so, so, soooo fun. My heart’s racing from 100% fun and 0% crippling fear!”

“Good.” If he can put a percentage to things, it must be accurate. Everyone else seems to agree so it looks like the evening (slash fool-proof plan) is going well. “Out of curiosity, how long does a standard party like this take?”

It is already eleven PM and late for a weeknight. It’s not a problem for him to stay out for longer--he has stayed up past midnight many times with Uraraka for work, after all, but he figured he should ask for posterity’s sake.

Uraraka clears her throat beside him. “Funny you should ask, Director! We’re actually almost done. This is our last round of drinks!”

Across from him, Ashido, Iida, and Monoma suddenly share wide-eyed looks that suspiciously look enlightened. “Th… that’s right! Because we’re responsible working adults and we must head home early on a weeknight! Now that we have thoroughly celebrated the employment of Utsushimi-kun we can happily head home to rest!”

They can go home now? It was that easy? Shouto keeps his smirk to himself. See how easy it is to do ordinary things, Uraraka? He truly isn’t a man to be underestimated.

Kirishima, however, looks puzzled over this. “Eh? But I went through all that trouble reserving the karaoke place, you guys! Did you all forget abou--ow, ow, ow, ow, Ashido!”

Oh, so they’re not yet done? How could they forget what’s on their agenda? Is that why Ashido is so angry at Kirishima? They must have been looking forward to this. Luckily for them, Shouto isn’t going to let such an ordinary mistake get in the way of their good time. “Karaoke after drinks sounds enjoyable. Let’s head out.”

And so Shouto loads them all in his car, with Uraraka on the passenger seat and the rest of them piled up at the back. The drive to the thoroughly unimpressive place Kirishima has picked out takes about ten gruelling crowded minutes. By the time they make it there, the rest of his team seem relieved to be able to finally breathe, but then make it to a just-as-suffocating small box with nauseating disco lights, an old machine, and an awful audio set-up.

And tambourines. God. He’s trying hard for Uraraka, but even she doesn’t seem to be enjoying herself in a sticky place like this. Shouto has to draw the line somewhere.

“Everyone get back in the car,” he commands darkly, and they’re all running out of the room after a beat.

It takes exactly one text message to the right person for his office to go to a better place they deserve. Shouto takes them to a small music theater in Kiyashi where the last run of Les Miserables was performed privately by his acquaintances from London’s West End. It’s unused at this time of night, so it was easy getting them to set-up for a karaoke party for seven people.

“Directoroki, you rock!” Utsushimi cheers as she rapidly takes photos of all angles of the stage.

He should probably mind the way she just stumbled over his name, but he doesn’t, because for once Uraraka seems impressed. “Let the party commence.”

His office crew’s aura is vastly different than in the barbecue place. They start drinking as soon as the cocktails are served and immediately start fighting over the microphone. Ashido wins first and slurs over a Nicki Minaj song. Kirishima tries to get Iida to sing “Be A Man” with him but ends up aggressively singing all the parts by himself. Etcetera, etcetera. With each song they sing, they progressively get drunker, bolder, and out of tune.

Surprisingly, Shouto doesn’t mind. Maybe because he’s finally drinking something that he’s sure doesn’t taste like piss. Or maybe because Uraraka’s sitting right next to him, clapping along happily as Utsushimi and Monoma sing a Carly Rae Jepsen song while threatening to judo-throw each other for the mic.

A warm feeling spreads over his chest when he looks at her. He knows it’s not just the highball he nurses over the span of an hour. He knows it’s not just the satisfaction of his plan going well. He knows it’s not indigestion from the burnt meat he didn’t eat back in the restaurant.

Uraraka’s smiling brown eyes turn to his. Suddenly his chest feels something akin to heartburn.

She says something that’s drowned out by Monoma and Utsushimi competitively screaming “I really really really really really really like you!!!” Shouto has to lean in closer to hear her. “What was that, Secretary Uraraka?”

She brings her mouth closer to his ear. Her warm breath smells like the strawberry syrup from whatever sweet drink is in her hand. It’s unnervingly pleasant. Shouto has to concentrate to understand what she’s saying. “I said, thanks Director! I really--”

--Really really really really really like you!.. And I want you! Do you want me?--

“--how about you?”

Shouto meets her expectant gaze, for once not knowing what to say. “... yes,” he answers, after a beat.

She smiles. Her cheeks are glowing light and pink, like sakura petals in the spring. “That’s awesome!” She says, for once letting go of the usual formal Japanese she uses with him. “You should join the team for drinks even after I quit, okay?”

“... ah.”

Suddenly irritated, he takes a good healthy swig of his drink and swallows with a grimace. Well… this is fine. This is only phase one of his plan. Knowing how decisive Uraraka is, she isn’t going to change her mind about him that easily. It’s actually better this way. That’s the secretary he hired, after all. That’s the person he wants to keep at his side.

Kirishima’s spiky head pushes between their conversation. “Heyyyy!! Uraraka! Are you thanking Directoroki over here?!! No fair, I wanna thank him too!”

“Excuse me?” Shouto says stiffly. The redhead ignores him though and traps him in a bone-crushing hug.

“I appreciate you! You… are the bestest, manliest boss ever, Directoroki!” Kirishima hiccups rather dramatically and rubs his cheek against Shouto’s. “And you deserve the world! And you should… you should--”

Shouto gives Uraraka a horrified look, which she throws right back at him. She visibly gains some sobriety as she attempts to pry off Kirishima’s muscular arm off of him with little success. “Kirishima-kun, you should drink some water and--”

“Heyyyyy Kiri move over! I wanna thank the Director too! Hic~” Suddenly, Shouto’s other side is being hugged by another unwelcome warm body reeking of alcohol. He freezes like a block of cement as Ashido straight-up cuddles him. “Like, you’re an awesome… awesome, handsome man, like oh my god I can’t believe how handsome you are up close, what the hell! Have you ever seen a man so beautiful you want to cry? Wait, what am I saying?…”

As Ashido starts weeping and getting lost in his face, Shouto decides he has had enough. He’s ready to shove the two assistants aside when another one decides he wants attention too.

Monoma has abandoned the stage and decides to join them. “How dare you smother the Director without me!” Fueled by alcohol, he reaches new heights of extraneousness and places himself across the increasingly uncomfortable Shouto’s lap. “Director, pick me! I’m your favorite, aren’t I?”

“Secretary Uraraka--” Shouto barks like an SOS.

Monoma pouts with a noise. “Her again? It’s always her! Are you in-love with her or something?”

It’s Uraraka’s turn to make an exasperated noise. “Honestly, you three! You are gonna get fired by tomorrow if you keep harassing the Director!”

It’s amazing how she’s still able to read Shouto’s mind so perfectly even in an absurd situation like this. But for all her warnings, all he gets for it is more unwanted bodily contact. “Harassment?! Not on my watch!”

Iida’s bellow is steadfast, but his gait is definitely not. It’s almost impressive how he keeps his body straight while also walking in an unsteady zigzag towards whatever it is that’s going on around Shouto and ends up dropping at his feet. Haplessly groping the director’s pants leg, he demands, “Cease this needless groping of the Director at once!”

“I’m getting major FOMO, y’all! Move over!” To top off this mess, Utsushimi sits near Shouto’s other foot next to Iida’s fallen body and takes her hundredth selfie with everyone. “Best party ever faaaam!!! Peace!”

That’s it, everyone is fired. Shouto is about ready to throw all of them to the floor and all their employment forms in the shredder, until a strange sound floats to his ear amidst all the drunken noises.

“Pffffttt--”

Uraraka is covering her mouth and holding onto her stomach in desperation. At first he’s worried that she’s in pain from a ruptured appendix, but further inspection reveals stuttered breathing, reddening cheeks, a smile so big that her trademark round cheeks are struggling to support it. It’s obvious that she worked so hard not to make the strange sound, but one snort and all anyone can do is watch the dam break.

Secretary Uraraka is laughing at him earnestly for the first time in nine years.

Now this shouldn’t be strange as Shouto is not a humorous man and has never given her any reason to laugh before. But now that he thinks about it, isn’t it strange to spend nine years with someone and never see them laugh or smile like this? Why hasn’t he noticed until now?

If--no, when he marries her (because he definitely will, there’s no way his plan is going to fail), is she going to allow herself to laugh like this?

“I’m s-sorry, Director,” she wheezes after another minute of desperate laughter. He’s never seen someone laugh so much that they’re in tears. He didn’t know it was a thing that happened. “I’m--we’re all going to write letters of apology tomorrow, I promise! Please don’t fire anyone!”

He takes a steadying breath. “All right. I’ll be expecting them at seven in the morning. Sharp.”

His team finally lets him go with a stunned air about them, staring at his face in interest.

“Uh… the Director’s smiling. I must be dreaming,” Ashido mumbles in a daze.

“Or wasted. I’m never drinking again.” Monoma says, holding back a gag.

The rest of the office agrees and follows the sober Shouto to his car. 

 *

 With Uraraka’s guidance, they’re able to drop off all the members of his office at their designated homes without much problems. Because her home is the farthest one, Shouto takes his time getting to the correct exits (he still had to make a couple of u-turns here and there) and driving his car slowly through the narrow streets to avoid any wayward pots. He is proud to say that he is able to make it without any further incidents. Uraraka gets down from his car safely.

He escorts her as far as the unimpressive entrance to her apartment. “So… this is me, Director,” she says quietly, feet shuffling against the welcome mat. “Um. Thanks for dropping me off, but you didn’t need to walk me all the way here.”

“It’s nothing.”

She has a difficult time keeping eye contact with him tonight, which is rare. Maybe it’s from her impulsive actions earlier, or maybe because she’s noticed the way he’s plotting the exact color and diameters of her wide brown eyes, her cheeks. The more he stares, the pinker her cheeks get. It’s an interesting scientific phenomenon.

Objectively speaking, Uraraka has an... acceptable face. People with acceptable faces tend to be subjected to prolonged looks. From experience he knows how uncomfortable this can get and hates that he’s subjecting her to the same treatment, but he can’t stop staring. She’s just so… round. And soft-looking. He’s tempted to touch her cheeks even if there’s no real purpose behind them than to see if they’re as soft as they appear.

He doesn’t usually get senseless impulses like this. Maybe he isn’t that sober after all.

Uraraka clears her throat and finally looks up at him. “Out of curiosity, Director. You never joined us for drinks before, but tonight you really… um…”

He hums. “Everyone needs an ordinary night out to unwind, once in a while.”

Upon the word ordinary, her face falters, and then contorts into laughter again--truly an interesting sound. “There’s nothing ordinary about the night you gave us, Director Todoroki! But it’s good. It’s fun. You really surprised us, in a good way.”

What, so his attempts at ordinary failed after all? He’s a little nonplussed about this, but the giggle from her tells him that it isn’t all for nothing.

“But please, no more surprises in the future, okay? I’m not sure if my heart can take it.”

“I make no such promises,” he says flatly, “but if your heart is not okay, please get a comprehensive cardiovascular workup done as soon as possible.”

Uraraka’s eyes crease in a way he’s never seen before. “Goodnight, Director Todoroki.”

He steps away from her with a feeling suspiciously similar to reluctance. She doesn’t go in immediately and instead sees him off at the entrance. Just before he gets back to the driver’s seat, he calls out, “Uraraka,”

“Yes, Director?” she calls out in mild surprise.

“I warned you not to underestimate me.” He gives her a little upturn of the lips and climbs aboard. “Goodnight.”

The last thing he sees of her is her stunned figure through the rearview mirror. Satisfied, he speeds off into the night without a second glance. 

[gumnut-logic]

Gordon (part one)

Title: Gordon

Part One

Marks series

Author: Gumnut

Jun 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: Golden tipped waves stretched to the horizon with no sign of his beloved younger brother to be seen.

Word count: 3082

Spoilers & warnings: Virgil/Kayo, Wing!fic.

Timeline: Before ‘In his Stead’, but it might pay to read the other fic first to get an idea of the universe.

Author’s note: For @godsliltippy cos I can :D This is part of the Marks universe, part of the original story I had planned that I have now adapted to align with the universe @the-lady-razorsharp and I have developed. It actually occurs before that story. Parts of it may even seem familiar as I’ve merged something I’ve written before into this :D This is mostly an exercise in exploring this new universe and its capabilities. Thank you for tolerating my delusions and I hope you enjoy this :D

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

“Virgil! Come home, please!”

The voice that pleaded over his comms obviously didn’t know what it was asking. “No! I will not give up. He’s here, somewhere.”

“You’ve been out there for hours. You’re tired, I can’t...please come home before I have to declare you missing as well.”

“John, if I don’t find him now, I never will. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t mean it.”

“I know, but it is irrelevant now. How are you going to find him? He could be anywhere and anything.”

“I’ll find him. I’ll know him.”

“How?”

“I just will.”

The wind up high was blustery and John was right, he was tired. His pinions ached and his bare chest and legs were cold in the late afternoon wind. Perhaps he should have launched his ‘bird, but he knew he had to do this manually, knew he had to reach out without the interference of the roar of engines and artificial flight. He had to listen. He had to feel.

And goddamnit, he had to find his brother.

Endless miles of ocean stretched out before him. He had been flying methodically, his jet black wings beating efficiently to conserve energy, spiralling out from Tracy Island. So much ocean and so little sign of Gordon.

It had been a stupid argument over nothing, but things had been said that should never have been said on both sides. Gordon had stormed off, throwing himself off the cliff in front of the villa. This was nothing out of the ordinary, the man was literally a fish, but he hadn’t come back.

He had been gone for hours, and Virgil had been searching for hours more.

“Virgil...”

John voice was pure pleading worry.

“I’m sorry, John.” He followed the words with an impression of love and apology.

The sense that was his brother wilted, resignation floating on the air currents. “Please be safe.”

“Will do my best.”

Scott and Alan were on the other side of the moon attempting to save a freighter from colliding with that same orbiting body. Virgil had no doubt that John, currently grounded on Tracy Island with a broken ankle, had been keeping his brothers updated on Virgil and Gordon’s antics. He also had absolutely no doubt that if he didn’t return soon, John would call in Kayo to rip him out of the sky with Shadow.

He stretched the aching muscles across his chest and shoulders, his whole eight metre span flexing as he let himself drop a few metres in exchange for a little relief. A warm updraft curled around his bare chest, tantalising his senses, and he couldn’t help but reach for it, pinions arching up and forcing him into the welcoming air current. It caught his wings and he lifted

A sigh passed his lips as he banked, his flight path calculated to efficiency, taking full advantage of the sudden warm boon.

Golden tipped waves stretched to the horizon with no sign of his beloved younger brother to be seen.

Gordon, where the hell are you?

For a moment Virgil closed his eyes. Perhaps if he searched with something other than his sight? Evening light played across his eyelids.

Gordon?

Please, Gordon?

Since the day Gordon was born, Virgil had been aware of his brother. The rapscallion little boy, mischievous little brat and water baby had been on the second eldest’s mind from day one. Virgil had never told anyone that he had ‘heard’ his little brother’s surprise and alarm at being born. Virgil had been asleep and really too young to understand what had woken him up. It wasn’t until many years later that he realised exactly what he had felt.

When he finally met his little brother, there was that same sense he had with John, but different. Little Gordon had been screaming his lungs out in his father’s arms. Virgil had clambered up on to the bed beside his parents and reached for his brother’s hand. The moment they touched, Gordon stilled, his fingers wrapping around Virgil’s and there was that sense, that familiar warmth.

It was that sense Virgil was looking for now.

Out here, somewhere in the blue was his odd little brother, the one who had fins instead of wings.

The boys’ marks had become apparent early in their lives. The trait came direct from their mother. Memories of being wrapped in the white down of her wings were cherished by all of them. They were also the reason why the family lived on a hidden island far away from prying eyes.

Jeff Tracy was many things, but he did not have a mark. Despite this, the trait bred true in all five sons. With the exception of Gordon.

Gordon’s mark was different from his brothers and from early on it had been thought that perhaps he wouldn’t be able to lift. There was concern Gordon would be left behind, that he wouldn’t feel the wonders of wind beneath flight feathers, that he wouldn’t be able to fly beside his brothers.

It wasn’t long before the true nature of his little brother’s mark surfaced.

Perhaps it was ironic that it had been a stranger, another little boy who forced the issue. A rip on an open beach while the Tracys were visiting on business. The chance that both Gordon and Virgil were on the beach at that very moment.

People screaming for help, Virgil’s little brother the expert swimmer already earning medals in the pool hadn’t hesitated, diving into the surf to save the little boy.

Halfway out, Gordon disappeared. Virgil, a much slower swimmer despite his strength didn’t notice at first, except perhaps a flicker of surprise amongst the adrenalin pumping through his veins, but the little boy soon had his hands wrapped around the dorsal fin of a dolphin, surfing towards shore.

Gordon was nowhere to be seen.

Virgil had panicked, but then the boy was being lifted from the shallows by the sun tanned limbs of his brother. Virgil was dumped by a stray wave as Gordon turned around, his eyes searching for him.

The elder brother made for shore and Gordon met him in thigh deep water, eyes dark with something. Virgil sensed shock, but there was wonder and amazement and that night the two of them had a very long talk.

Now Virgil was often the one waiting on the shore for Gordon to return. Their brothers grew to accept Gordon’s ability quite readily, though Scott, being Scott, worried more than all of them combined. And Virgil understood why.

Because Gordon was alone. None of them could follow him and one day he just simply might not come back.

God, please, let it not be today.

He banked towards the north, following his ever-widening search pattern. He fought the urge to yell his brother’s name, knowing it would be useless from this height or any height really. But he did try to call to him. They had never been able to speak to each other telepathically, but there was that sense. They could feel each other and it had helped in the past, and please let it help now.

Please.

The wind shifted slightly and Virgil fell into a spot of turbulence. Normally it would have been nothing. He would have bounced off it and skimmed across the top, but he was very tired and it snagged him, wrenching him around, breaking his beat and tangling his flight. He lost some of his momentum and fell.

He didn’t fall far. He was an experienced flyer, but he had to work his flight muscles hard to stabilise and, god, it hurt.

John was right, he had been out here too long.

Goddamnit.

Gordon, where are you?

Come back.

He closed his eyes again, desperate to find that connection.

And was blindsided by sudden terror.

Virgil stumbled mid-flight and lost even more height. As his wings struggled to regain pace, his mind darted about, desperate to find the source of the fear.

Gordon. It was definitely Gordon.

Direction? Direction?

He abandoned thought and simply flew. He swooped low to the water, skimming just above the waves, a manoeuvre that would have had Scott tearing him a new one if he caught him. The smallest error would see him catching a pinion on an errant wave. The result would be nasty. But Gordon, Gordon was here somewhere.

And there. Gordon was there. He couldn’t see him, but he was there.

Virgil back-winged, his massive span stirring up enough wind to disturb the water beneath him. A single stroke to push himself higher into the air, and he dove, folding his aching pinions and letting them go, feathers dissolving into his mark just as he hit the water.

Muffled silence enveloped him.

The sun was still at an angle to light the depths, though it was slowly fading. The yellow of the late afternoon shifted the water towards emerald. Virgil dove through the liquid beryl, bubbles of air refracting the light into shades of turquoise and aquamarine. Far below, in the shadows, was a shape.

Virgil’s shoulder muscles worked hard, pushing him deeper and deeper.

As he drew closer, the shape became that of a large squid. Far bigger than Virgil, tentacles stretching off into the distance, as alien as any cephalopod could be.

Yet undeniably Gordon.

Virgil’s lungs were already burning. He could swim, but he was no natural in the water. Not like his little brother. But he had to reach. He had to touch...

His fingers brushed across soft skin.

He had to return to the surface.

With as strong a kick as he could give, he pushed himself back up towards the light, climbing as his lungs burned until he burst through waves to gasp in the air he desperately needed.

“John, I’ve found him.”

“You have? Where?”

“Can you locate me? About fifteen to twenty metres below.”

“You’re over hundred kilometres out!”

Virgil spat water. “Am I?” A blink. “Something happened. Did you feel it?”

“Something...?”

A sigh. John was never comfortable with sensing his brothers. Virgil could feel his consternation from here. It wasn’t fear or dislike, more a wariness as if he hadn’t quite accepted that others could sense how he felt. Virgil thought it quite baffling considering his brother was a communication specialist.

“I need to get down to him again. Report momentarily.”

Several deep breaths and Virgil dove beneath the waves.

A more considered descent this time saw him reach his brother with more time to spare. He hovered beside the huge squid. In the distance a cloud of ink was dissipating.

What the hell happened?

He brushed his fingers across soft inhuman skin. Chromatophores lit and followed his touch, before he, again, had to climb for air.

He burst through the surface, gulped, over-oxygenated his system and dove yet again.

Gordon had slipped closer to the surface, but he was still quite a distance down. Considering his form, it was highly likely he wasn’t supposed to be this shallow in any case.

A giant eye was staring at him.

While Gordon was in form, Virgil could not sense him as clearly. It had something to do with the process, perhaps a change in thought as well as shape? Virgil didn’t know. So, the feel of his brother was unclear, the expression in that patented dark eye somewhat hidden.

Virgil reached for him anyway, placing his bare hand on his brother’s mantle. The colours immediately danced, dots and streaks homing in on his touch, outlining his hand to the point that when he once again had to let go, a hand print was left behind.

It persisted until Virgil could see it no longer, his climb towards the sky imperative.

When he dove again, the squid was gone.

Instant panic was not calmed by the eventual sight of his limp, now humanoid brother drifting in the water column.

If he could breathe water, Virgil would have screamed his brother’s name. As it was, he felt both his brothers flinch at his reaction anyway.

Both.

Virgil was often teased for his massive arms, but he was ever so thankful he had them as stroke after stroke drew him nearer until he was able to wrap those arms around his little brother and drag him towards the surface. He hoped to god he wasn’t deep enough to trigger decompression sickness. He hoped to god he could reach the surface in time.

He burst into the cooling air, gasping in breath and turning to his limp brother, desperate for signs of life.

Heartbeat. Slow but regular.

A moment of worried breathlessness before Gordon gasped as much as Virgil had and rolled in his grasp, spitting out seawater.

“Vir-gil?” Half-lidded brown eyes looked up at him as the swell rolled them in its embrace.

“Gordon, what happened?”

His brother blinked slowly, his eyelids clinging shut for a moment. “Argu-ment wi’ a whale.” Those eyes slipped closed again and Virgil had to clutch him tighter to stop his brother from slipping back under the surface.

A quick investigation of Gordon’s body found bleeding teethmarks in his side.

“John! I need Kayo. Now.”

“Already on her way.”

Predictable, thankfully.

Leaning back, there was little he could do for his brother other than support him. He managed some pressure to help with the bleeding, but the cool water was helping a little.

Gordon’s skin was cold.

The swell rose and dipped, lulling. With only the sound of wet lapping and no sight other than sea and sky, the ocean had never felt so vast. Virgil had never felt so small.

But he had his brother in his arms. His fish brother, who loved the water with his very soul. Virgil clung to him.

He kept them afloat with the occasional kick, but stayed as still as possible, because despite not having the marine knowledge that Gordon possessed, he knew what blood in the water meant. It could have been minutes, probably was, but time was warped by circumstance. In any case, it wasn’t long before the first shadow beneath the surface was outlined by the sinking sun.

“Kay? You out there?”

“Ten minutes, Virgil.” She had been on assignment, after all.

“Any chance of making it less?”

There must have been something in his voice. “I’ll do my best.”

“Please.”

Another dark shape joined the first.

Virgil had a healthy respect for the sea and its inhabitants. He knew enough to know not to mess with most of them. Particularly the ones with teeth.

His options were few. Getting lift this low in the water was pretty much impossible much less while dragging his brother. He could put up a good fight, he had feet and muscle, and living with Gordon had let a few important shark facts lodge in his brain. But ultimately, they were both very vulnerable and their only real hope was Kay.

C’mon, love.

A third dark shape had joined the circling by the time Thunderbird Shadow appeared on the horizon. One shark of unknown variety dared to swoop in and Virgil had to nudge it off with a good foot in the face.

His heartrate was unlikely to recover any time soon.

Gordon continued to lie slack in his embrace.

TBS came to a hover above them, and her engines frightened off their spectators. Virgil drew an uneven breath as his girlfriend inflated the floats on her ‘bird’s grappling claws enabling her to lower to a soft landing on the surface of the ocean.

Silence for a split second and Kay was climbing out of her cockpit and down onto the floats. Virgil made an awkward attempt to propel himself and Gordon towards her Thunderbird.

A line landed with a splat in the water beside him.

He grabbed it and clung.

Kay drew them both to her side.

“Thanks.” His voice was breathless.

Kay was all business. “Status?”

“He’s injured. Puncture wounds on his left side. Consciousness intermittent.” Virgil slipped under a moment as Gordon’s weight was taken from his arms, Kay hauling him up onto the float. He fumbled for a moment, limbs stiff, before his arm was grabbed, pulling him to the surface. Another fumble and he grabbed the float himself.

“Thanks.”

“Your status?”

Okay, her tone said everything. She was pissed. Probably scared-pissed, but pissed nonetheless.

“Tired, but functional.”

She didn’t acknowledge his statement, continuing to attend to Gordon, medpack in hand.

So pissed.

The floats were wide enough to support all of them and the moment she had Gordon secure, she reached down and helped Virgil out of the water. He flopped into a sitting position against a landing strut while Kay lowered the cockpit between the floats.

Shadow could only carry two, including her pilot.

They didn’t need to speak, which was probably just as well. Kay’s expression was enough to rip the skin off his face. Together they manhandled Gordon into the backseat and secured him.

“You fly him home. I’ll wait here.” Her voice was firm.

“No.” Visions of those shapes in the water came to the fore. “I’m fine. I’ll fly myself.”

“Virgil-“

“Kay, he needs to get home fast. I’m not leaving you out here alone in the dark.” Because yes, the sun was dipping and the waves were becoming little more than silhouettes. “I can lift and will meet you there.”

“It is over a hundred kilometres, Virgil! Equally in the dark!”

“Not the first time, unlikely the last.” And equally unpleasant. “You can always meet me halfway. In any case, no time for argument.” A brush of his lips against hers and he was clambering up Shadow’s landing strut, leaping onto her wing.

“Virgil!”

As he turned to look at her, he lifted, his feathers sprouting like shadows. He swallowed a groan as his painful pinions spread. This was going to hurt.

He forced a smile. “Race you home.”

Jump, step, leap and he was in the air, wings clawing upwards in great aching strokes. He was going to pay for this tomorrow, but there was no way he was leaving Kay out here by herself.

He made note of the sounds behind him as Shadow retracted her cockpit and fired her engines.

Okay, so perhaps he was going to pay for this in more ways than one, but as Shadow shot past him, he returned his focus to flying, making a beeline for that sense of John, Gordon and the island he called home.

-o-o-o-

End Part One