#and Susurrus is going to have a way worse time than he's having here by the time I'm done :P

[phoenixiancrystallist]

"You've flowers in your hair," Astra said, and Susurrus turned to her, a wide grin on his face.

"A helm fit only for the bravest and most noble of warriors, milady," he said, melodramatic and overflowing with delight. The child riding on his shoulders giggled as she wove yet another blossom into his coppery locks. Astra found herself staring, in part admiring the contrast of the delicate, slightly squished blooms against the regal lines and planes of his handsome face. And yet, she also found herself captivated by the way he interacted with the children. Susurrus was the most powerful combative mage in the armies under her command, ruthless and efficient on the battlefield. Yet here he was, children dangling off of him and a smile fit to outshine the sun swallowing his hazel eyes.

Another child hit him at the knees and he tumbled, careful and controlled so as not to harm the little ones that clung to his arms. Astra did not see how it was done, but despite no less than two gangly, uncoordinated bodies weighing each limb down, Susurrus managed to flip the child riding his shoulders so that she landed on his chest. His rich, sonorous laughter rang around the plaza like bells, accompanied by the raucous laughter of the children.

"I've been felled!" Susurrus said through his laughter, and the young lad who'd downed him leapt onto him, a battle cry in his throat that sent the other children scrambling. "Have mercy, have mercy!"

Astra found herself giggling as the other children ran past her, dispersing themselves around the plaza and hiding in garden beds and flowering bushes to prepare for a merry game of chase. But she had need of Susurrus, and so clapped her hands to get the children's collective attention focused on her.

"Come along now," she said, "don't you all have lessons to attend?"

The unanimous whine that met her words forced her to smother a smile. But a stern glance from Susurrus sent them scattering to the winds, off to seek some other entertainment for the day. Astra offered her hands to Susurrus to help him up, marveled at the warmth and gentleness in them belied by the rough calluses and scars he'd earned through battle.

"Bad news?" he asked, running his fingers through his hair. Each flower dislodged was gathered and carefully cradled in his free hand, held tenderly so as not to crush them.

"Nothing we hadn't anticipated," Astra assured him, even as her eyes tracked a delicate, yellow, star-shaped blossom. He noticed her attention on the bloom, and reached out to tuck it behind her ear. Though the gentle smile he gave her held a hint of harsh steel underneath, Astra breathed easier to see it.

[neep-neep-neep]

Auden had mentioned that Somaya's baby was expected that night. And that she would likely be called to help, and that if Frey did not see her in the morning when she came in to run her fingertip over the spines of the books like she was waking them, it meant the woman was yet in labor.

But Frey did find her. She was collecting plates and bowls from the table and stopped in her tracks, breath freezing in her chest. Auden was in her bed.

Frey had never seen Auden asleep while the sun was up. The woman had collapsed into the sheets after a night of midwifery.

"Fuck," Frey said under her breath. She went into stealth mode, setting the dishes down in the basin with stressed precision.

I was wondering how long it would take you to notice, quipped the stupid demon bracelet.

"You should have said something, asshole!" Frey hissed.

Wait, why was she talking? Auden was in the room! She turned and saw the woman shift beneath the coverlet, and her heart sank. She fucked everything up.

Minding the sound of the door, Frey slipped back into the library, and exhaled.

The peasant girl seems a light sleeper.

"Shut up," Frey walked over to a shelf, spying a sunset-colored tome she had left the night before. "Somaya's baby is healthy, or she wouldn't be here. It's a good sign."

It's a revolting spectacle.

"Oh fuck off. What does a stupid cuff know about the miracle of birth?"

You forget that I was present for yours?

Yes, Frey had forgotten. It also underscored how the demon had caused her, and so many others', suffering. She needed to find a way to torture him without harming her own skin, fast.

She hefted the book in the arm Cuff was marked on, and leafed through the pages with her left hand. It was a treatise on Visorian research.

"Maybe," Frey said, "Auden'll have one of her own someday."

And she won't care about you anymore? teased Cuff with venom. Like--what was it--that 'foster mother' you mentioned?

Frey ignored him, resting her knuckles against her cheek. "A little one that looks like her, a chubby healthy baby, and she'll let me pick them up and spin 'em around..."

The door creaked open and Frey's breath caught in her chest again. It was Auden, in her slip, rubbing one eye.

"Frey?'

"Fuck, I didn't mean to wake you up--

"Who are you speaking to?"

Frey had the feeling of one of those dreams where you realize there's no floor and start falling.

Magnificent, said Cuff.

"I--s-shit. Um. I. No," Frey inhaled and let the air out through her nostrils, turning to the woman. "I owe it to you not to lie. This...demon guy?" she tapped her right forearm. "Yeah he speaks to me in my mind."

Because that sounded normal.

Auden blinking at her, Cuff completely silent for once, and her mouth suddenly feeling dry.

"So no one else can hear him but he's kind of been talking to me the whole time, and it's annoying as shit."

Auden was looking at the gold markings that snaked around her wrist now.

Amazing, Cuff said, how you would jeopardize even a relationship you care for this much.

Frey shook him briefly but vigorously, and Auden brushed some errant strands from her face and looked up at Frey. "This must have been what drove the Tantas mad."

Frey's face was on fire. "G-Go back to sleep. You've had a long night."

"Susurrus speaking to you unbidden, Frey...I couldn't imagine the sacrifice..."

Tell her I help you. Tell her I've saved your life countless times.

"He's just an asshole," Frey said with a nervous laugh. "This gold prick can't drive me anywhere I haven't been already."

"You would say that," a smile appeared on Auden's lips.

"Seriously!" Frey took a couple of steps forward. "I've had worse internal monologues than him since I was like nine!"

This is meant to reassure the girl?

Auden failed to suppress a yawn. "You were--ah--experiencing things you never told any of us. We'll discuss it after I rest, Frey?"

"Sure."

Auden's hand raised, reaching out, and Frey lifted hers for Auden to grasp. She knew Auden would again express worry over her cold fingers, even just in the lines between her brows. Auden ran her thumb over Frey's knuckles and then let go, and let the door close again. Only once she'd left the room did Frey realize her heart was hammering.

Cuff said, You were saying she would let you hold her infant for you to then apply centrifugal force?

[shroudcore]

Speak now, or forever hold your peace. (II)

Summary: You crash the wedding with Grim and Ortho. Unlike the others, proposing isn’t on your mind. You come with a very different approach. 

An angstier take on Ghost Marriage. Idia x GN!reader. Reader is MC, or takes the role of MC in this story. (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

Warnings: none

If the students of NRC thought they’ve seen Eliza at her angriest, they were wrong. The fury she displayed now was incomparable. While Idia fawned over your dramatic anime-worthy entrance, the new interruption was getting on her last ghostly nerve.

“Guards! Seize them!” she roared. Immediately, the ghosts went into action. Idia held his breath as he watched the obedient ghosts charge at you, Grim, and Ortho. He hoped you didn’t barge in with no plan. If you didn’t come equipped with useful items, you would end up like everyone else. 

Chubby, determined to get rid of the intruders that caused distress to his beloved princess, was eager to get rid of you. (”Simp”, Idia muttered) However, eagerness wasn’t enough against an opponent equally as determined. As soon as he got too close, an unknown force threw him backwards to where Eliza floated, shocking the princess.

“Chubby! Are you alright?”

Idia, on the other hand, was elated. 

“Th-that’s so OP!” he exclaimed. He knew you heard him, because your gaze flicked to him for a split second before looking away. Embarrassed, Idia shut his mouth. He’d expected at least a smile. 

After Chubby’s failed attack, other ghosts attempted to face your group. They only met the same fate. Confused, they could only pay their apologies to the princess and watch on in helplessness. Just what did you have up your sleeve? Who did you get such an SS-tier item from?

“Princess, it’s impossible to stop them!” the last of Eliza’s guards told her. For the first time that night, she looked afraid. 

Grim guffawed, while you smirked. A familiar look. It was always there before you jumpscared an enemy, or before you checkmated a poor opponent. Idia might have thought it was kinda hot. At the moment, he was oblivious to his gaping mouth, and how wildly his hair blazed. What were once lightly blushing tips were now an alarming red—a level of ferocity never seen from him before. 

“You can’t touch or hurt us!” boasted Grim, a devious smirk on his face. “We had some he—mprfgh!” He was abruptly cut off by Ortho’s robotic arm covering his mouth. Idia’s brother shook his head at your noisy dorm mate. 

“Release my big brother now!” he demanded. Idia grimaced, but didn’t feel too worried. As long as Ortho was with you and your anti-ghost protective shield, he would be safe. 

As expected, the ghosts were affronted. 

“How dare he order the princess like that?”

“You ought to be punished for your insolence!”

“To intrude on a royal wedding and speak disrespectfully! 

“Send them to the gallows!”

One talked, and one talked over the other. Soon, all that could be heard was an unintelligible susurrus of disembodied voices. One ghost had enough of it, and shouted to Eliza: “Princess, the kiss! Do what must be done!” 

“NO!” You and Ortho yelled at the same time. You continued to walk towards the makeshift altar as your two companions followed close behind. Ghosts rushed to block your path, but you pressed on as your invisible shield threw them back. It looked absolutely badass. Well, anything you did was cool to Idia, anyway. 

 “Out of my way!” You commanded, strong and unwavering. He’d seen you annoyed and angry before, but never up to this point. It basically radiated off of you that a danger warning could be floating above your head. 

“S-so intimidating... “

“So scary!”

Sure, this wedding crasher looked like you, but something was different. An unexplainable sinister aura wreathed you tonight. Was it your glare, or was it that regal suit you wore? Idia must have been too distracted by you, that he only noticed now how your cape seemed to drag shadows with it. You were a villain... much like one of the villains from his video games! And something else that was familiar. 

Whatever it was and wherever it came from, there was a menacing presence in the hall tonight. 

All were silent, except for the wind whistling through the hall. If one listened more carefully, they would hear drowned-out cackles. But it is just the wind, right?

“Wh-who are you?” Eliza finally asked. The ghosts who were ashamed at being unable to seize you began to form a protective ring around their princess. Eliza herself, Idia noticed, was starting to curl in on herself—her presence shrinking the closer you approached. “What do you want?”

“The groom,” was all you said, staring her down as if eyes alone could exterminate the ghost in front of you. 

“Idia?” she asks weakly, glancing at her tied-up groom. Idia said nothing and did nothing but look at you, attempting to telepathically communicate his panic. You barely even looked at him. 

“He’s mine.” 

Hold up—?

More gasps and chatter. They sounded less like whispers and more like the buzzing insects he heard whenever he snuck out at midnight. The world spun. Idia stared at you open-mouthed. 

If he were asked to describe his state of mind at this moment, it would be similar to a loading screen. Suddenly, everything you did together played back in a 1.75x supercut sequence. 

Mine. 

Mine. 

Mine.  

“Wh-what?” Eliza sputtered. “What do you mean?” 

You answered her, voice losing the steadiness it possessed just moments ago. “You have the man I love.” 

Wha… 

KDJAFCKSAJHDKACBSXCJSIEUDS?

Idia.exe has crashed. Reboot? 

~~

The audience’s reactions were varied. Some students on the floor were amused by the spectacle and could have used some popcorn (and a comfortable position) during these times. Some were horrified and disappointed by the idea of the prefect being in love with Idia Shroud the shut-in. Some were much too confused to feel anything. 

“Pardon…? What did I just hear?” Azul asked the floor.

“Puppy love,” Lilia wept, sniffling very loudly. “You know, this reminds me of when I was young...” 

“Whaddaya mean when you were young?!” Floyd snapped. His irritability had spiked up even more when you arrived. His position prevented him from witnessing the events. Everyone on the floor could feel his bad mood rolling off of him in waves. 

“Hey! Watch your tone when speaking to Lilia!” scolded Sebek. 

“... Are they acting?” Leona mumbled. 

“Oh, this better be an act.”  said Vil.  “... though it does not seem to be.” The last part of his observation remained unheard by anyone else, except for Rook. 

“I believe we are witnessing a genuine love confession,” added the Chasseur d’Amour himself, voice soft as he sighed dreamily. “Engrave this moment into your memories, everyone! We are fortunate to witness it…”

But no one shared his enthusiasm about the situation. The others expressed their displeasure by groaning and complaining. “... well, even in this state we are in?” he added as a follow-up. 

~~

Reboot. 

You once fell asleep on Idia’s shoulder after finishing a movie. It was something you both only watched to make fun of, but you were apparently too tired to give your top-tier jokes and meme references. The contact sent his heart into overdrive as he froze, begging for option boxes to appear and help him. The flames of his hair blazed so brightly that it woke you back up. It was embarrassing, and sometimes he would remember it late at night and cringe. 

It was happening again, but worse. Any moment now, he was sure that he alone could burn down the cafeteria, if not the whole school. This was stupid. Why did he get that worked up over an obvious act? A mere ploy to get the ghosts to release him?

Reality catches up and deals him triple attack damage. Crowley probably put you up to this. You were probably annoyed that you were forced to do this, weren’t you? That’s why you couldn’t even look at him. It had to be the cruelest joke that fate ever threw his way. 

“I can’t say I don’t understand you, Princess,” you tell Eliza, forcing a smile. “Idia is perfect, is he not?” He felt your eyes on him. This time, it was he who couldn’t quite meet your gaze. Looking down at the floor was all he could do; it couldn’t judge his blushing face. Only when the warmth in his cheeks faded did he feel it safe to look back up again. 

“You see him, don’t you, Princess?” Your voice began to falter, losing the confidence and authority in it that scared the ghosts. “He’s so much more than what everyone else thinks! We agree on that, don’t we?”

Eliza’s face softened, nodding. “Yes. I’ve seen how these people insult him!” she tells you, gesturing to the ‘failed princes’ on the floor.

“But we’re still different,” you stepped closer, but still far enough so that your invisible anti-ghost forcefield wouldn’t activate. “You don’t want to marry Idia, you want to marry your fairytale prince.” 

Eliza appeared to be genuinely confused. She looked around at her companions, before turning back to you. “What do you mean?”

“You’re in love with your ideals, not the person himself,” you explain. “You only chose him for his appearance. Am I right? His personality, likes and dislikes, and possible flaws don’t matter to you.”

Eliza seemed deep in thought. While she was silent, you release a bitter laugh and threw your hands up.  “I mean, do you even know what his favorite candy is?”

Pomegranate drops. You asked to have some, but he refused to give you any. He wouldn’t tell you why, but he let you assume it was his favorite and didn’t want to share because of that. 

That wasn’t it, though. Maybe he’d tell you once you were both out of here. 

“You’ve never stayed up until 4am just to join him on a raid!” You waved your hands wildly, lost in your rant. Whether Eliza understood you or not, you seemed to have stopped giving a damn. 

“Weak!” he teased, noticing your drooping eyelids and reduced concentration. Deep down, he felt bad for keeping you up late.  “Look, it’s fine if you need to rest.”

“Nah, let’s finish this. What are you going to do without me?” you replied, smirking.

“You don’t even have 4-hour conversations with him on Magicord VC like I do!” 

It lasted up until 3am. You two were laughing at memes. He could hear a groggy Grim complain in the background about the noise. 

“Alright. Here’s a question, princess. How much would you risk for the man beside you right now? Bet that’s where we’re different...”

Eliza’s gaze darted back and forth between you and Idia. Even the other ghosts were silent, waiting for your next words. 

“... because if you ask me, I would risk everything! That’s why I’m here wearing this stupid suit!”

It’s not real. It’s not real. The emotion behind every word was a punch to the gut. If you kept this up, he might need a healer soon. Ever since he realized he was falling, he tried to quell the sparks of hope you ignited whenever you did something nice for him. All that hard work was gone. Each word you uttered was gasoline. 

“To think that if I arrived minutes later… th-that I would never see him again!” A sob escapes your throat, your intimidating persona crumbling.

No, don’t do that. Idia wanted to reassure you that he was still there and he was okay, but he couldn’t. It’s part of an act. It’s part of an act. 

“So please… just let him go.” The front you wore has completely dissolved. There you were, reduced to a sobbing mess in front of a ghost princess and the students of NRC. 

You weren’t the only one. All traces of anger or fear have vanished from Eliza’s face. Instead, she put her hands over her mouth. The princess had been moved to tears. Finally, she turns to Idia. “Idia, they seem to l-love you very much… ”

“That’s right.” You wiped your tear-streaked face and pointed an accusing finger at the ghosts. “And all of you! Are you going to enable her forever? Encourage her shallow ideas of what love should be?” 

They all looked down, unable to meet your eyes. 

“You have no right to just snatch him up and claim him as yours,” you told Eliza with an unfaltering resolve, despite your tear-covered face and your crumbled front of strength. “Did you never think… that there could have been someone waiting for him to return?” 

“I-I never meant to!” Eliza cried. “I was so blinded by my own happiness. I never thought… never even considered…” 

“Princess, it’s alright. We all make mistakes.” Chubby told her, trying to be reassuring. 

“Tell me, intruder. How else am I going to find my prince?” she asked you with no trace of hostility. You stopped for a while, staring at her. 

You must not have expected the question. Idia saw you look at him—it was the longest time you’d looked at him all evening. Clearing your throat, you began to explain. You fumbled a bit, scratching the back of your neck and tugging at the hem of your coat as you explained what a perfect partner should be. 

As you spoke, Idia was enthralled by your voice and most of all, the knowledge you possessed about love and romance. He hadn’t seen this side of you before. How did he ever think that a hundred dating sims could make him a romance expert?

“Is that so?” she sighs, bowing her head. “I understand now. I’m so sorry… for causing you so much grief.” 

She turns to her companions, giving them a sad smile. “There’s only one thing to do. Everyone, we must stop this wedding.” 

Idia wanted to fall to the floor in relief. At least a few exhausted sighs and weak cheers could be heard from the wedding “attendees”. You fell to your knees, exaggerating your gratitude. 

“Thank you, princess!”

“But Princess… what about your happily ever after?” Chubby interjected. 

“I can’t tear two lovers apart!” Eliza wipes a few of her own tears, then turns to you. “I was deeply moved by your words. I dream of having a lover like you,” she sighs dreamily, probably imagining her future lover already. 

While the students of NRC rejoiced at this victory, Idia’s heartbeat quickened in fear. What if Eliza decided to take you for herself?

“Princess…” Chubby muttered, sighing. Eliza only gave him a reassuring smile. Phew. Idia relaxed, grateful that she doesn’t have the idea… yet. He didn’t know what to do if that thought became reality. 

Eliza turns to address the hall with a smile. “I have decided.” Everyone waited with bated breath for her announcement. Idia squeezed his eyes shut and silently urged her to announce their departure already. 

“Idia and I will not be married anymore. She smiles wide, and clasps her hands together. “However, there will still be a wedding!”

Your smile faded. “What… what do you mean, princess?”

She beams. “To make up for my mistake, I will make sure that Idia and his lover are married tonight!” 

~~

To be continued.

Tagging: @teashopwritingzz @twistedcrumbs 

Well, that was long. To think that I was planning for the story to be a one-shot! Once again, keep an eye out for Part 3. Thank you for reading! 

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

[chiclet-go-boom]

nanowrimowut?

Well, I didn’t get very far, about 10k all told but honestly, it’s 10k more than I had at the start of the month and I did a whole bunch of daydreaming about it so I’m calling it a win. 

Here’s the first “chapter” of my indulgent foray into Emet-Selch shenanigans, with Endwalker mere days away that will no doubt turn all my closely held and personally satisfying head canons into so much confetti.

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

It’s the little things, really.

The heat of the stone through the folds of his robes in this case, just the right side of too warm so he doesn’t have to shift around to find a comfortable spot. He’s in the mood to be grateful for it when so little else has gone to expectation this day. The discomforts that irritate him so have finally had the time to fade into the background of his existence, but nothing reminds him of his temporary mortality more than scorching something delicate because he’s once again forgotten to check before touching. 

Omnipresent light has its downsides after all.

Emet-Selch dangles his feet over the ragged drop of the cracked wall, an easy hundred fulms to the ground if it’s an ilm and watches his current problem get farther and farther away. Sighing is fairly superfluous at this point but he does it anyway because lack of audience doesn’t mean he can’t indulge himself. After all, who will appreciate his sense of the ironic if he himself doesn’t bother to take the time? His booted heels tap against the stone, a rhythmic pattern.

The view is not improving no matter how long he stares at it so eventually he leans back on his hands and stares at the sky instead. Light, light and yet more light. A constant susurrus of it over everything like a particularly bad glazing. The hardest part, he’s long ago decided, is the constant, incessant ringing as the aether talks to itself over and over again, winding around itself in agitated helixes because it can do nothing else; unable to disperse, unable to dissipate, completely unable to find a way to escape.  

It’ll only get worse, of course, as this world edges closer and closer to its inevitable fall. A constant, singing reminder of how close they came and is now just the persistent backdrop of a chorus to their failure.

When he bothers to look again, all that’s left of his erstwhile quarry is tiny specks of disappearing shadow just now working their way up into the treeline. He leans forward once more, lightly gripping the edge of the crumbling stonework as the remnants of the so-called Scions of the Seventh Dawn are reduced to waver and smudge at the limits of sight. If they keep going in that direction they’re going to tip over into the bedlam of the ever so quaintly named Il Mheg and who knows when they’ll wander their way back out again. Or in what condition for that matter.

It’s probably a deliberate plan. He can’t imagine anyone, even this particular set of bullheaded heroes, stumbling into dreamland by mistake. He’d wonder what they expect to find in there but he has more urgent things to consider. If he’s lucky the flowers will eat them and he’ll be saved from needing to do anything at all. 

Tedious, boring annoyances mucking around out of nowhere, churning the tangle he’s dealing with into even more froth and foam. The insertion of Vauthry’s favorite attack dog during this latest contretemps between the rising forces of Pesky Interference and the dogged armies of the Status Quo had been both unwelcome and unexpected, even if it had provided some entertainment of whatever dubious value. 

He would have thought it a calculated move if he didn’t know better. So much more likely the Eulmorian general had simply slipped his leash to hare off into the light blasted countryside after his wayward little Oracle like a particularly rabid bloodhound. Vauthry is, of course, not one to think beyond the doors of his receiving room and problems out of direct sight were most assuredly out of his tiny mind. Ran’jit himself hadn’t seemed particularly burdened by idiocy but everyone has a blind spot or twelve, as well he knows. Chivvying your enemy into running from you was a lovely way to have them drop right into the pit you’d just dug for them, as Emet-Selch himself had used before to great effect and would no doubt use again. 

But truly, the General was starting to show signs that he might be more trouble than bargain, daring to show up here when he hadn’t been explicitly invited to do so and in the process frightening off the quarry before he’d had a chance to do much of anything at all with them. He truly hoped this wasn’t a harbinger of things to come. Insubordination as a concept was near and dear to his heart but with all else in flux he had rather hoped to find a place to observe a little closer and discover more about this ambulatory new plan of the Exarch’s, only to find said plan already haring off into the countryside without so much as a by-your-leave.

Still, Emet-Selch couldn’t bring himself to care overmuch. A minor setback, if that. The motivations of those around him were to be known only insomuch as they could be understood and manipulated and it’s not as if this also couldn’t be made to serve, with or without his direct involvement at this stage. With all his delicate adjustments to this teetering world, yet more chaos could only work in his favor. 

He’d at least been able to take some measure of Lahabrea’s last vessel during the little scuffle which was a small consolation. Certainly a pretty enough puppet if you liked them fair and decently skilled as well with that blade of his. No doubt his brother had enjoyed that part, what with his recent penchant for unthinking, frustrated violence.

As if the thought alone was all that was needed, the aether around him twists with discordant vertigo, a crawling, unwilling desertion as if the star itself flinches at being forced to make way. It takes but a moment for Convocation robes to blink into existence, close enough then to brush his cheek with a sudden press of bone chilling metal against his shoulder. The grit of reality remains unmoved beneath a booted heel that hadn’t been there bare moments before and is not really here even now.

It appears his brother has left his borrowed flesh behind for this excursion. A possibly foolish choice, but who is he to offer advice in this matter? One more dead body laying on a bed somewhere will frighten only a passing chambermaid and spread yet more delicious rumors. It’s not as if he hasn’t done as much himself from time to time.

Together they stare down the road.

“They appear to be getting away,” Elidibus says after a time.

“It does appear that way, doesn’t it?” Emet-Selch narrows his eyes against the glare and once more sighs, this time for his audience of one who, of course, isn’t going to be the least impressed but truly, it is and always will be the spirit of the thing. “Alas. Whatever shall I do.”

“As you always do I should think.”

“And you would be so, so right.” 

“May I assume this to be a part of some plan?” 

His lips quirk in amusement at the not-quite note of dry exasperation. “Would it please you to hear me say not particularly?”

“You know it would not.”

Emet-Selch rolls his eyes. “All this time and you still have nothing in the way of a sense of humor. I despair of you, I truly do.”

“I wasn’t aware that humor was a requirement.” Silky soft, his brother’s deep voice falls like ash. He’s heard it before pronouncing judgement at the end of entire worlds. He is the only one left who can hear the fondness threaded through it like ribbon.

He taps a forefinger against his lips, the supple stretch of leather protesting gently. “Well, it certainly helps pass the time, don’t you think?” This form has had this pair of gloves for over a decade by any reckoning and still, not a crack in them. Say what you will about Garlean savagery, their artisans knew their worth. And charged their weight in gold for it but what was an imperial treasury for if not to spend as one wished? “Still, as much as it displeases me to say and you to have to hear, let us not fall prey to the terrible habit of making more of what is and less of what isn’t. Although I admit I have yet to see anything that is immediately helpful in the disruption scampering after the Exarch’s latest pets, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. And it’s not as if the old plan is suddenly and irredeemably broken. Bent, perhaps, I will concede. No more than that.”

“And you are Emet-Selch.”

“And I am Emet-Selch. And what am I, after all, if not the corrector of patterns?”

The heated breeze picks that moment to skirl up, bringing the taste of dust and stone. The metal filigree in the Emissary’s robes chimes to itself, an old brush of wayward music that recalls days forgotten. On a whim he presses his temple against his brother’s hip through the lingering chill of the fabric that is the gift of the void they move through and breathes out a sound to harmonize, making the air dance in reluctant delight. 

Elidibus rumbles in answer with the faintest exhale and that, too, is music. For that aching heartbeat it overwhelms the constant crying of the light and he closes his eyes against the ephemeral pain of it. So little remains now that all of it slices to the heart.

“Ah, well,” he says as the echoes fall and die. He shifts away, slouching forward on his perch to break the contact that has in the last instant become unbearable, hunching as if mere ilms will help. “Our Exarch has finally deigned to move beyond his crystal walls with these bright new pieces he has been collecting, so eager suddenly to play them upon this board which begs the question of why now in particular. If I have been caught sleeping the sleep of the righteous who do, I remind you, need to rest every now and again, then it is upon me to fix my lack of oversight. Even if I am not yet sure which thread will untangle this mess.”

“Why do you not slay the man outright? He is not beyond us.”   

“Do not tempt me. I have thought it, more so than ever as of late, but you must agree that his absence would be a hole not easily patched. The Tower alone, the blasted thing, would cry out for him and with all things in this new and annoying flux I would not risk losing more of what ground we already have. Unless you tell me to, of course.”

Elidibus is silent and Emet-Selch takes it for the acknowledgement that it is; that for all his sensitivity to the warp and weft of the turning worlds, he has no advice to give in this matter. 

It is true that he is as often against his brother as he is with him, both of their charges occasionally at odds but ever towards the same goal. It is true that should the Emissary tell him that the crystal irritation is to be shattered, he would do it without hesitation. But the resonating instability it would leave behind here in the First as the Tower lost its anchor might be irrecoverable. And if Lahabrea’s loss has reminded him of anything, it is not to trust that he sees all consequences to all actions.  

He is Emet-Selch but he is certainly not infallible. Witness the Thirteenth.

He looks again, only to discover his quarry is truly gone now beyond the line of trees leading into the rising hills, not even a drifting dust of leaves to show where they had been. “Ah, well,” he says, picking up the thread again, “fear not. I will find our new way as I always do and I do have some thoughts on the matter. I may very well decide to go with all of them actually, if only for the sheer confusion of the thing.” 

Between the singing light of the sky and the mask hiding within the shifting darkness of the hood it’s not as if he could see Elidibus’ face if he looked up, so he doesn’t lift his gaze. This is not a moment for reaching for anything more than he has already been granted, especially something as fraught as eye contact. Even should such a breach of manners be permitted while his brother’s soul is bare.

“Do as you do, then,” the Emissary answers finally. “The Source proceeds apace. Your Empire continues to crack along its fault lines and there is yet time to correct any imbalance there that arises. Yours is the timing now.”

Emet-Selch waves a dismissive hand in the air. “Yes, yes. Do take care of my little war in my absence, there’s a good little Paragon. You may leave the First to me once more. That is why you woke me up, is it not?”

An unexpected weight falls upon his head then, feather soft, the surprising cup of his brother’s hand. Claw tips made of nothing more than aether and will rest for a moment against his hair, long enough for his stupidly mortal heart to stutter with surprise before they slip through the sleek strands, scratching the lightest of lines across his scalp. He finds himself leaning once more against his brother’s side in unthinking response.

He closes his long eyes at the unexpected, piercing pleasure of it. Trust the fulcrum to know how to weight itself and others for balance.

“All paths.”

Emet-Selch sighs for the heartbreaking knowledge of it. “All paths, as always,” he murmurs. “Do go away now, you’re infecting me with your worry.” 

A flicker of air is his answer as Elidibus withdraws the comfort of his hand, stepping back off the broken wall into nothingness and Emet-Selch is left to brood at the heat and the empty road.

[aaluminiumas]

Die for Me

あなたこそが “ 海賊王 ” に なる男

Lukewarm blood gushed out from the deep wounds. Ripping apart huge chunks of flesh and feeling the solidity of a bone inside, Monet genuinely relished her superiority savoring every note of the harrowing, blood-curdling shriek the woman in her deadly embrace emitted.

That Marine girl was no good at all; her tactics may not be exactly lame or useless, nor did she lack fervor or courage, but she turned out to be too modest and polite to attack – and also feeble. While the Marines claimed to have implemented a variety of brand-new top-notch techniques that would improve fighting skills of nearly any novice, they tended to send weaklings barely able to resist a simple scuffle, let alone serious combat with high ranks such as her or Caesar. This one wasn’t an exception to the rule: though promoted, Tashigi proved her disability to be on the offensive, thus confirming Monet’s expectations and dispelling the illusion of power Smoker had successfully created earlier.

“I adore it when you yell so desperately,” the Harpy muttered nonchalantly in the unctuous voice, her lips smeared with blood. “So I might break your scapula just for fun. My fangs can go through bone like butter. What a lovely day we are having, aren’t we?.. Care to brighten it further?”

Monet’s viselike grip tightened, and a bone cracked; Tashigi’s scream of utter anguish pierced the chaos and turmoil. In a moment, the woman limped in the Harpy’s wings. This last shrill seemed to have deserted her internally, leaving little to no stamina to stand up for herself and resist the throes shooting through her fragile body. The Harpy, though, felt no remorse or contrition. Quite on the contrary, she yielded into the perverse pleasure of being in charge – her well-nurtured sadistic inclinations and proclivities could finally splurge and flourish. Normally, it was Doflamingo whose hatred of the Marines came unwrapped. He was always in command; he was always aware of the potential threat and danger that could strike at any given moment, and now she could defend him from this invasion without an innuendo on his part. He had protected her in the past, bestowed a shelter, and took care of her younger sister—

“Enough.”

A low voice, hardly louder than Tashigi’s shallow breath muffled all the sounds, including explosions and the clash in the distant rooms. A swordsman with cold resolution in the single eye stood there, unmoving, his face serious, yet completely unreadable.

Monet’s fine features contorted in a lopsided smirk, her head withdrawing from Tashigi’s injured shoulder. Spoiled by pride, the swordsman didn’t seem to see a worthy opponent in her. Good for him, she thought. The Marine’s death would be on his hands – after all, he couldn’t compare to one of the best soldiers among the Donquixotes.

“I said enough,” he growled quietly, advancing and raising his katana, the silver eye narrowing. “Didn’t you hear?”

“She shouted too loudly. Should I shut her up?” Monet’s voice remained vaguely flirtatious, her antics jaunty, but the swordsman betrayed no emotion whatsoever. Instead, without a single warning, he pivoted forward, sword at the ready. Prancing at superhuman speed, the man neatly cut her in half – her logia powers weren’t a mere obstacle to him or his blade.

“I’m a Logia, you fool,” Monet spat with a haughty grin, “You think I’m scared?”

That fact alone contributed to her arrogance and hoity-toity attitude. While the majority of the Donquixote Family had to satisfy themselves with commonplace and hackneyed Paramecias, she got lucky – Doflamingo brought in a Logia fruit, the rarest type, and presented it to her. He might have intended to give it to Vergo, who hadn’t joined the number of the fruit-eaters and preferred to use his innate physical force. At any rate, such thoughts barely intruded on her mind: Doflamingo, the Young Master she worshipped, literally made her a gift desired by many. And what a scenery it was: he called in a meeting, ordered his favorite delicacies, thus forcing the whole city to cook for him, and sprawled across his improvised throne. Trebol, giggling under his breath, Diamante with his ever-lasting smirk, the imperturbable Pica, Vergo with the rigorous mien… Well, she was never part of the elite – nor did she plan to climb higher. The seat beside Doflamingo’s feet seemed comfortable enough to occupy – this position turned her into a valuable asset, who caught all the messages and orders intoned in a low, seductive voice. Despite that, the Young Master did not banish her – he remained seated, asking her to tell them all about her first murder – committed with a taste.

Logia powers made the bearer almost invincible, and Monet, a proficient user, trained by the best, especially by Vergo, knew what she was worth.

“I’m a Logia,” the Harpy repeated, the blizzard howling louder. “It doesn’t hurt me.”

“We’ll see,” came the answer.

Not even looking at her, the man grabbed the wounded woman and hurried to the exit, while Monet, absolutely dumbfounded, discovered that she could not get together. What appeared to be a single cut turned out to be a series of swift swishes in the air that slashed her snow-made body in a split second with the power that significantly surpassed her own. The result unfolded in slow motion: the more time went, the more it hurt; paralyzed, she listlessly perused the gashes opening in her skin – the man had inflicted much more damage than she had initially anticipated.

Furious, lacerated by what seemed to be a hundred blades, Monet yelled – and realized that it caused another wound to splay. The flesh got torn apart somewhere in her stomach and sent an impetus to the lungs prompting another incision to dehisce. The blood spurted up and flushed out from her mouth, staining the green shirt. Coughing, gagging, and covering her lips with a defective wing that had also been slit and now painted vermillion, the Harpy leaned over a gigantic machine with a red button on its panel. Half-conscious, she stared at it – it certainly was a way out. If she pushes it, the whole island will go up in flames. Nobody survived, case closed. Nobody discovers the dirty scheme Vergo had initiated in the Marine to abduct kids; nobody learns about the dubious experiments of the ambiguous nature performed by Caesar. Nobody connects Young Master – her Young Master – to the helter-skelter in the lab, nobody–

Her consciousness drifted away; small lacerations proved to be even worse than the deeper ones – blood didn’t stop from dripping, and she couldn’t control the amount she had lost. Falling to the ground, quivering, Monet twitched her wings in a fruitless attempt to maintain balance. It was overkill, anyway, at least she deemed so. Her wounds were fatal; she very well understood that she was a goner – but it was still in her power to prevent future events from happening.

Suddenly, Monet heard the quiet mumbling of a snail. Caesar, concerned about Joker’s supervision and unremitting control (the notion he strongly believed but which wasn’t true to the fact: Doflamingo, after Monet’s infiltration, called every once in a while, just to give the man heebie-jeebies, in case he felt lazy), installed snails everywhere, each equipped with a unique number. Only Joker could have access to them – no one else would be able to call here, the sanctum sanctorum of the lab.

The injured wing reached for the receiver, then twitched and fell. Trembling, the Harpy moaned in agony, choked on the blood, and made a feeble attempt to get up. Didn’t work; her face contorted in pure anguish. Invincible, trained, fortified by a number of experiments conducted under Doflamingo’s supervision, she never expected a failure. Especially a failure like this.

The snail kept grumbling, Monet whimpered; struggling to stand up, the Harpy felt a million needles skewering into her body, avulsing the thinnest and the tiniest blood vessels. She had to be slow not to disturb the veins that still remained intact. Making a superhuman effort, Monet propped herself up, her chest heaving, her wings jittered ever so slightly.  Panting, leaning over the tremendous apparatus towering over her, the Harpy managed to answer the call.

“Monet?” called a low, mellifluous voice coming from a snail. “Monet, do you read?”

“Yes, Young Master,” she mustered her shattered self to respond.

“I do not have the slightest idea what is happening right now,” he drawled pensively, “But it is certainly far from the plan I have drawn up.”

“They– they snatched Caesar.”

Doflamingo paused, pondering over her words. That loudmouth fool, calling himself a genius, failed to kick the teenager’s ass and let himself get captured by a bunch of mere kids playing real pirates. It had been funny to hear that that Strawhat Luffy defeated Sir Crocodile, one of the most feared and infamous warlords; after all, Doflamingo shook hands with the man and knew exactly what his weaknesses were, but Caesar Clown was another thing. First off, he claimed himself to be a brilliant scientist, and, in fact, he had managed to synthesize a drug that made children comparable to giants in force and probably in size. Furthermore, he used his earlier formulae and calculations, retrieved the readouts of the past experiments to create artificial Devil Fruits. So, he clearly was not a complete idiot. However, he employed none of his ingenious tricks to kill the annoying brat on sight when he had the opportunity.  Too bad the factory couldn’t work without his involvement ��� otherwise, Doflamingo himself would’ve got disposed of Caesar as well.

“Monet,” he finally spoke, his voice dropping down a notch. “You were loyal to me.”

“Till the end, Young Master,” she muttered, her voice not louder than a susurrus of wind.

“Die for me.” He commanded coolly, his eyes staring into space unwinkingly. “Monet, die for me and send this place to hell. Take them all along with you.”

“Yes, Young Master. I will do as you please.”

Her lips, covered with blood and gore, stretched in a gentle smile addressed to no one in particular. He cared about her. He wanted her to perform this last task for him, in the name of his future achievements and accomplishments, and she would not let him down.

She raised her wing, slightly quavering, preparing to hit the red button. Exuding a quiet hum, the Harpy lowered it – and gasped, immediately falling onto the ground with a loud, heavy thump.

“Monet?.. Monet, what’s happened? Monet, can you hear me?..”

She uttered a wheezing sound, and her visage froze in a rictus of death.

[galahadwilder]

I donated $12 to Buggachat! Updates to a fic where Lila gets her comeuppance, like Thief or the one where Adrien exposes her through an interview, would be welcome if that offer’s still open!

All’s Fair in Love and War (And Turnabout’s Fair Play)

Chapter 3: There’s a Hole in my Soul, Can You Fill It?

This chapter of “Turnabout” is part of the “Fix @buggachat‘s Laptop Fic Drive.”

Turnabout Archive

*

There’s nothing quite like the heady feeling of power that comes with being Akumatized. Her whole body feels like it’s been plugged into a live wire, and she wants to laugh, to rejoice, to exult as she looks at herself in the mirror. She has power again.

Empathy looks almost exactly like Lila Rossi. She’s a masterpiece of subtlety, she thinks, pressing her fingers around her chin—her hair is maybe half a shade lighter, her eyes a little more flat, but if she hadn’t been looking for it she’d never have noticed.

The susurrus of sensations in the back of her mind grows, then dims, as Mireille passes by the bathroom door. Empathy grins. Hawkmoth has given her his own power, the power to read emotions. She was a master manipulator before. She can only imagine how much better she’ll be now.

And nobody will be able to blindside her again.

She straightens, brushing her hair out of her face with her fingers. Akumatization refreshed her makeup, purged the bags under her eyes, so she looks perfect. She’s ready to go. She can’t go subtle—if she wants to salvage her reputation, she needs to ruin Adrien and Marinette, and she needs to do it quickly. If she can take out Adrien’s reputation, if she can destroy people’s trust in him…

You’re not the only one who can play the victim, Agreste. And I’ve been doing it since I got here.

As she prepares to leave the bathroom, she notices a growing sensation in the back of her mind—concern. It feels odd. She’s… worried? About herself? It feels kind of removed, like—

The bathroom door opens, and in steps Rose—gentle, sweet, naïve Rose, and Empathy realizes exactly what’s happening. She’s feeling Rose’s emotions as if they were her own.

It’s… strange. Unfamiliar. Rose’s worry about something other than herself is something Empathy has never experienced before, but… well, she’s always known Rose was a bit dim. She just… revises her estimation of the girl’s intelligence slightly downward.

“Lila?” Rose says, her voice as soft as her footfalls. “Are you okay?” Her concern pulses in the back of Empathy’s mind, mixed in with fear and confusion and a stubborn determination to push those things aside. Lila can’t get a good enough read on her to know what, exactly, she’s worried about, but she can make a good guess.

She’s afraid that Lila is as bad as Adrien said. She’s afraid that she misread her. But she's also afraid that maybe Lila is perfectly normal, and kind, and Adrien may not be the golden boy they all believed him to be. She’s afraid that one of her friends is lying to her.

And now Empathy knows exactly which buttons to push.

She forces out a sob. “I don’t know,” she chokes out. “I thought—Adrien always said he was my friend.”

Empathy’s gut squeezes in an unfamiliar manner as anguish spikes in her mind, but it mixes with triumph that her words worked, and she fights down a grin. Check.

“What happened?” Rose says, and Empathy’s heart pounds in her chest. (It’s rather unpleasant.)

“I don’t even know,” Empathy mumbles, doing her best to appear like she’s trying not to cry. “All of that stuff was his idea, I don’t know why he’d…” She sobs, letting Rose fill in the rest.

Rose is confused, but Empathy can feel the doubt plant in her mind, and that’s a start. If she pushes too far, tries to suggest conclusions herself, Rose will suspect her. Better to let her come to her own conclusions.

Then Rose’s confusion hardens into resolve. “We should talk to Adrien!” she says brightly. “I’m sure the two of you can clear this up.”

Empathy’s eyes widen. No, she thinks. That cannot be allowed to happen. If Rose talks to them both at the same time, the whole thing will fall apart. “Um,” she says. “I—I’m… I don’t think I can face him right now.”

Rose’s sympathy burns in her mind, forcing her to feel the very fear she’s faking. “Oh,” Rose squeaks.

Empathy smiles, trying to make it look forced instead of victorious. “I’m… I’ll be okay,” she says.

*

The hallways are much worse than the bathroom was. There are too many people—everyone’s nervous, everyone’s panicking. Empathy can feel her nerves buzz, her hands shake, and—God, how do people like Rose live like this?

The pressure on her mind is astounding—she can’t tell anyone’s minds apart from each other, can’t pick out which sensations belong to whom. She feels like she’s drowning under the waves of anxiety that her schoolmates are throwing off like head from a busted lightbulb—everyone’s worried about something, and she can’t separate her own feelings from anyone else’s. She wants to—she wants to hide. To run back to the bathroom and not come back out, ever, not until everyone has left.

The tsunami of hatred that slams into her every time anyone looks in her direction is stunning, too. And completely unexpected. She hasn’t done anything to most of these people—or at least nothing most of them can prove; why do they all care about Adrien? Some of these people have never even interacted with him!

Her throat squeezes in on itself as she feels the hatred in her mind grow into something dark and violent. She wants to—she needs to be punished. She wants to hurt.

Keep it together, she thinks. That’s not your thought.

Tracking down Sabrina is difficult, to say the least. She can’t look anyone in the eye without feeling a rise of loathing for herself, and she keeps having to steer clear of people’s faces, but luckily Sabrina is always wearing those ugly sweater vests.

”Sabrina!” Empathy gasps, yanking on the sleeve of the redhead’s blouse. “I need to talk to you!”

Sabrina turns to her in rage, with what Empathy is sure is invective on her lips, but that rage quickly dies away when she locks eyes with Empathy, replaced with—what is that? Is that—is that pity?

”Oh, Lila,” Sabrina murmurs, and Empathy suddenly realizes how she looks to the other girl right now—she’s trembling and sweaty, and she must look as much like a cornered animal as the crash of everyone’s emotions is making her feel.

“He’s going after Chloé next,” Empathy gasps, and is rewarded with a sudden rush of mind-wrenching panic from Sabrina that makes her want to drop to her knees and scream. 

“What do you mean?” Sabrina says, her panic bleeding from her like blood in the water, and Empathy knows she’s guessed right—she found Sabrina’s weak point. This is where to keep pushing. 

Empathy grits her teeth, forcing through Sabrina’s overwhelming fear. “Listen—Brina,” she says, risking Chloé’s nickname for the other girl. Spike of annoyance. “Sorry, sorry, that’s—sorry,” Empathy mutters. Apparently that nickname is reserved for Chloé only. “Sabrina.” 

Sabrina’s annoyance subsides, much to Empathy’s relief—it’s replaced with gratefulness, that “Lila�� noticed how she was feeling, and that “Lila” was accommodating. Which makes this a perfect moment to strike.

”Adrien—he did this on purpose,” Empathy says. “He tricked me into—he told me he loved me, he tricked me into—and then he…” She grips Sabrina’s shoulders. “He’s been doing the same to Chloé,” she says. “I just found out. He’s going to ruin her.”

Sabrina’s emotions are mixed, confusing, much to Empathy’s delight. There’s jealousy in there, and relief, and anger, and shock, and possessiveness. And… wow. Sabrina doesn’t want to be just Chloé’s friend.

Which means she wants to believe Empathy. Wants to believe anything that will push Chloé away from Adrien.

“Chloé won’t listen to me,” Empathy says. “You need to get her away from him.” She squeezes Sabrina’s shoulder. “You have to warn her.”

Sabrina’s shock grows, almost overwhelms Empathy’s mind, until it hardens into something else. Something shaky and quiet. “Okay,” Sabrina says. “I’ll—I’ll make sure she knows.”

*

Empathy flexes her fingers. Two practice runs down, two rumors planted, though she has no idea if Rose will bear fruit. Enough practice, though—it’s time for the big run.

Alya Césaire.

Empathy skips the next class period: showing her face in front of the people who hate her is only going to make them angrier. She needs to make them think she’s hurting worse than she is.

And besides, in her current state, she’s not sure she’d be able to hold herself together for an entire class period with all of her classmates’ insipid emotions cavorting about her skull. What was Hawkmoth thinking? This ability—it’s useful, yeah, but there’s too many drawbacks. It hurts. It hurts too much to use it the way she should be able to.

It must’ve been an accident. She wants to yell at him for his incompetence, but the lack of the pressure indicating his voice in her head means that he must’ve detransformed, so no matter what she says, he can’t hear her.

Instead, she shuts herself away from the school and all their chaotic and useless emotions and goes over what she knows about Alya.

She’ll admit, Alya taking Adrien’s side—and taking down Lila’s interview—was a bit of a shock. Unexpected. But now that she’s had time to think about it, it makes sense: Alya Césaire is a journalist, and as a diplomat’s daughter, Lila knows journalists. They’ll do anything for a good story, and Adrien’s story is juicy beyond belief. Better than Lila’s was. Alya siding with Adrien makes sense now; she’s chasing the story, and she needed to get rid of the interview in order to keep consistency, keep her reputation.

Which means all Empathy needs to do to sway the reporter back to her side is give her a juicier story. One that implicates Adrien, and clears Lila. Alya won’t be able to resist, and she’ll drop Adrien like a hot potato as soon as Empathy gives her what she really wants.

And with her new powers, Empathy can figure out exactly what that is.

*

Empathy skirts the side of the cafeteria, trying to hide out on the edges of the waves of overwhelming emotion. There are simply too many people in the cafeteria, and any one of them seeing her could trigger a debilitating spike of hatred that would pin her to the floor. She’d prefer to get Alya alone, but the girl is a social butterfly—she never goes anywhere by herself. The cafeteria is the only place loud enough to give them any privacy.

“Guys, guys!” she hears Alya shout. “Give Adrien some space!”

There’s a crowd gathered off to the side of the cafeteria, and in the middle of it, a waterfall of red-brown hair. Alya is standing on a chair, pushing people away with a—well, Empathy can’t tell what that expression is, she’s too far away to get a good read. She’s with Adrien, and Nino, and Dupain-Cheng, and the rest of the class seems to be crowded around them, but at Alya’s words they begrudgingly back away.

Adrien says something that Empathy can’t hear, only to be interrupted by Nino, who says something in that annoyingly kind tone he makes when he’s trying to get into someone’s good graces. Dupain-Cheng looks away from them both with downcast eyes, and Ivan adds something, turns around, and begins to clear the rest of the class away.

Then he locks eyes with Empathy, and she doesn’t even need powers to feel the force of his anger. She shrinks, trying to appear nonthreatening.

He leans over toward his pig of a girlfriend and murmurs something in her ear. Immediately, the rest of the class turns to look at Empathy, and the surge of their collective hatred (where is this coming from? She did nothing to most of them! Or at least nothing they can prove) pushes her bodily against the wall.

She wants to hurt. Instead, she bolts from the room.

*

Lila has spent enough lunches with Alya that Empathy knows which bathroom she prefers. Without any ability to actually go into the cafeteria, she’s forced to wait for Alya to come to her. She’s already spent the whole day in the bathroom, hiding from all the goddamn emotions that are pressing on her mind.

Remember, Empathy, this is what you asked for.

“Hawkmoth,” she growls. “You want me to win? Help me out here.”

There’s no answer. Of course there’s no answer. She wants to—she wants to—

Actually, she feels… pretty good. A bit vindictively satisfied, maybe, but…

Wait that’s—

The door to the bathroom swings open and Alya steps through.

“Alya!” Empathy cries, grabbing at the other girl’s arm. “We need to talk—!”

Her sentence is cut off in a shiver as Alya’s eyes turn toward her, and everything Empathy has felt over the course of the morning jerks into perspective as Alya’s blood-curdling rage slams into her like a truck dropped from orbit.

“Rossi,” Alya snaps, her voice cold enough that Empathy actually feels the chill strike into the marrow of her bones. “I told you to stay away.”

Empathy gasps. “I know, I know,” she says. God, she must’ve risked more damage to Alya’s reputation than she thought if the girl is this angry. “I’m sorry. But—you need to hear this!”

Alya’s expression doesn’t change, and Empathy feels her veins catch fire as the other girl’s rage and hatred presses down on her. Come on, Rossi, she thinks. Just tough it out a few more seconds. Then she’ll be on your side again.

“Alya, Adrien is stalking Ladybug!” Empathy hisses.

She’s expecting Alya’s anger to instantly turn to interest. Empathy knows how Alya is about Ladybug, and this is a truly juicy scoop. It’s everything Alya could possibly want—

Why is she getting angrier?

“Why should I believe a single word you say?” Alya says.

Empathy is shaking with Alya’s rage at her words; she wants to smack something, to punch something, to pound her fist into the sink until the porcelain snaps. Not mine not mine not mine—

“Adrien was trying to discredit me,” she says. “I found out he was using me to get to Ladybug and—”

Bile surges up her throat, cutting her off mid-word.

“He was using you?” Alya hisses. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

Empathy shivers. “He—I found out he was—”

Alya snorts. “He was what, Lila?”

This—this isn’t working. Why isn’t it—this is the biggest story that’s come across Alya’s nose in months, why isn’t she biting? Why isn’t she at least entertaining the idea? Alya’s emotions aren’t making any sense. There’s no interest at all!

“What—what are you—” Empathy gasps, her heart pushing up on her sternum. “Why don’t you believe me?”

It takes a moment for Empathy to realize the confusion she’s feeling isn’t just her own.

Alya steps back, horrified. “Believe you?” she says. “You’ve been attacking my friend and lying to me about it for months.”

Empathy’s stomach swoops. “Marinette—she’s lying to you, she’s—”

A piledriver blend of indignation, disbelief, amusement, disgust, and condescension crashes through Empathy’s forehead. Alya shakes her head. “Should’ve known,” she murmurs. “Mari knew. Of course she did.” Alya narrows her eyes, and suddenly Empathy wants to—drop to her knees and beg forgiveness from that stupid hussy? Protect that ridiculous blond asshole? She wants to—she wants to—

Alya—Alya is actually their friend. Alya actually cares about them. No. Impossible. She can’t—she can’t be wrong, can she?

“Eat shit, Rossi,” Alya snarls, turning on her heel. “I’m gonna find another bathroom. Don’t follow me.”

As her rage retreats, Empathy is left with only her own emotions in her head. And they’re unfamiliar ones. She’s—she’s lost, she’s confused, she’s… she’s relieved that she’s not feeling the self-destructive force of Alya’s rage, and yet it’s like there’s a hole in her chest, right where her heart goes. Something is wrong. Something is—something is missing. Something that Alya had, something that—

No, she thinks. I can’t be wrong. The—the powers are useless. She collapses back against the wall, pressing her palms against her skull. Hawkmoth, she thinks, what have you done to me?

Turnabout Archive

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[cinebration]

The Darkest Shine (Dan Torrance x Reader) [Part 6]

I’M TAKING SOME CREATIVE LIBERTIES WITH THE STEPHEN KING UNIVERSE. PLEASE BE KIND.

The gif is of Matthew McConaughey as the Man in Black because even though the movie wasn’t great, he looked FINE.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14  | Part 15 | Part 16 | Epilogue

Tagged: @blackeasteagle​

Warnings: none

Gif source: jonathanmorgensterns

You left Dan’s apartment when the realization he was alive had sunk in deep enough for his racing mind and tripping heart to settle. Scribbling down your number, you told him to call at any time if he felt something change in his condition or if he simply needed to talk.

“Are you staying here in town?” he asked. There was the unmistakable note of urgency in his voice.

“For the night, at least.”

“Is there…someone waiting for you back home?” He struggled through the question without quite meeting your eyes.

“No.”

Home was the desert of Southern California in a house not much more than a shack, where the fastest way to a neighbor was on a dirt bike that you had let go to seed long ago. Where you were hidden and exposed to the creature of night that stalked you in shadows. Where the flat expanse around you meant you could see him coming.

You lived in the desert because at high noon, there were no shadows, and you could breathe in dusty air for some relief.

Alone in the desert, should you fall, as you knew you would, no one would have to hear your screams.

“Would you consider staying a while?” Dan asked.

There was something in his face you couldn’t identify, a look that made your heart hurt, though you couldn’t say why.

“Maybe. But for now, I’ll leave you alone.”

He offered to walk you downstairs to your car. Waving him away, you insisted you would be fine. You left before he could stop you.

The moment your feet hit the sidewalk, the hair on your neck rose, a psychic finger dragging down your spine.

“Hello, darling.”

The smooth, susurrus voice didn’t scrape the inside of your skull, instead tickling your physical ear drums.

Heart thundering in your chest, you turned. Lounging against a birch tree lining the street, the man dressed in all black, his hair unnaturally obsidian, surveyed you with eyes shining bright in the waning moon’s light. A light chuckle escaped him.

“I love it when I have that effect on you,” he purred. Pushing himself off the tree, he sauntered over, teeth bared in a smile.

Forcing yourself to hold your ground, you met his gaze. “What do you want?”

“Stupid question, darling. You already know the answer.”

The sound of metal twisting on impact, spilled gasoline assaulting your nose, pain through your chest, flared up in your sense memory.

The man in black stopped before you, dragged a long finger across your jawline. You flinched away from the unpleasant chill that knifed through you.

“Seems my experiments on you have borne fruit,” he cooed, “and what a forbidden one it has.”

Dan’s voice called out your name in his mind. Are you alright?

You glanced up as surreptitiously as you could. Dan stood at his window, peering down at you.

“Oh, pretty boy can’t see me,” the man in black whispered into your ear.

I’m fine, you lied to Dan. You strode over to your car mechanically, the man in black matching your strides easily.

“I do love to go for a drive,” he said. “I like it best when I have a driver.”

Your hand froze on the door handle. “I don’t want another crash.” The words oozed out of your mouth, thicker than molasses.

“Neither do I. I had something different planned for this time. Get in the car.”

Glancing back up at Dan, you slipped into the front seat, the man in back settling behind you in the back. You could just see him in the rear view mirror. His gaze fixated on Dan’s figure in the window, a finger tapping his chin thoughtfully.

You couldn’t drive away fast enough.

~~

The man in black went by many names. The one you knew him as was Walter, a common name for an uncommon man, if he was even that. In your mind, he was always the man in black, the dark not-angel that had dogged you your whole life. The fear and hatred he instilled in you by his very presence could be tasted on your tongue, bitter and vile.

It took all your concentration not to gag in the car. Between the panic and the taste in your mouth, you were struggling.

Walter guided you out of the sleepy New Hampshire town and over the state line into Maine. You drove for three hours until he had you pull off the road and into deep woods.

The headlights illuminated a shallow grave in which a simple pinewood box lay. Your heart leapt into your throat.

“Out, darling,” he ordered.

“I’ll stay dead this time.”

“I don’t think so. Come on, time’s a-wasting.”

You sat rooted to the seat, the horror of what was to come numbing you. It wouldn’t be a simple shot to the chest or fatal blow to the skull with the shovel. The man in black liked trauma, especially the psychological kind.

“That’s messed up,” Crow Daddy muttered, letting out a low whistle.

Before you could respond, the driver’s door opened. The man in black leaned down to look into the car.

“Crow Daddy, is it?” He smiled humorlessly. “Fuck off.”

Crow Daddy disappeared.

“Come on, darling.”

Dragging yourself out of the car, you followed Walter over to the grave. He gestured you into the box.

Looking down at the coffin, you wished your Shine was stronger, different. Capable of ending this man’s twisted games on you. If you tried to run, he would only make the dying worse, and his voice inside your skull would hold more sway over you.

You climbed into the box. Only after he placed the lid over you did you begin to tremble.

Earth rained down onto the wood.

[d20owlbear-deactivated]

Discorporation V

From the Ineffable Bingo prompt A2, “May I kiss you?”

1221

“Amabo te, angel, obsecro, possum tibi osculum?” Crowley asked lowly, his helmet off and tossed to the sand, and he reached up to cup the side of Aziraphale’s face. His eyes were on display, the yellow shining under pale moonlight and his pupils reflecting the light like the nocturnal creature he is.

Aziraphale can’t answer, not yet, the question has so many layers to it how could he? The request was formal, stunningly so from a creature like Crowley, Aziraphale thought. It was the sort of thing you asked someone of a higher station, to kiss them in greeting. Or reverence. His eyes grew wet and his chest felt caved in and if he were worse of an angel than he already was he might have started to curse aloud at their situation.

It all seemed just so… hopeless.

They’re on opposite sides of the crusades, which truly wasn’t so astonishing. It wasn’t so surprising which opposite sides they were on, either. It was, however, a bit shocking to find each other over and over again on the battlefield. This is the fifth crusade they’ve both been sent on and they’re in the dying heat of an Egyptian night once more. The air between them feels dead and old, but not stale, and unknowably familiar.

It feels like the night before the final plague. 

“Please don’t.” Aziraphale whispers, voice wavering as tears run down his face. Above all else, he looks tired. Worn in by overuse and made to act against his nature by those who ought to know better, Crowley thinks to himself.

Crowley sighed and ran the leather-gauntleted hand over his face. He turned to the side and looked up to the sky and traced all the stars in the Milky Way with longing fingers, wishing they were up there instead of down here. He always seems to wish that these days. If wishes were horses even beggars would ride, though. It’s likely for the best, Crowley can’t stand horses.

There was a long silence that stretched between the two of them, their swords drawn but held with their points down and loose by their sides. They didn’t want to fight, all they did these days seemed to be fighting. For the last bloody 200 years, nearly nonstop with these ghastly Crusades for the so-called Holy Lands. Crowley was done, he was tired, as tired as Aziraphale looked, it seemed like he was always tired these days. It was harder and harder to act like everything was fine and all “going according to plan, Crowley.”

“Do you want to fight?” Crowley asked at last. Are you going to make me fight you? The true question lingered, unsaid but understood.

“It’s in our natures, my dear,” Aziraphale replied softly, hating the words as they entered the world, and hating himself for his part in how Crowley’s shoulders slumped at the Yes, we must.

“Ah,” Crowley said. So be it.

The air between them felt deader and deader until it seemed like nothing at all could ever exist between them, the chasms gaping wide and the endless void they court by fraternizing with each other bit at their feet. Slowly, Crowley drew his blade up and levelled the point at Aziraphale, making no move to recover his helmet in the sand. They’ve discorporated each other more or less in turns every Crusade since the first and, if they truly played by any rules of fairness, it would be Crowley’s turn to be sent back to his Head Offices looking for a new body to inhabit.

They fought in the sands by the Nile, constantly shifting under their feet and being kicked up in half-hearted dirty moves by the both of them. Neither of them was anything but tired. Tired to the bone, weary in their souls if they had them. 

Just, what was the point anymore? There’d be more wars, they’d have to fight like this over and over again, and they’d discorporate in turns and there’d be paperwork and the wheel would turn endlessly on as they dashed themselves against it in some useless attempt to keep things as they were. The Arrangement did nothing for this, not when they were both checked up on far more than normal during these horrific holy wars, changing sides as the Offices saw fit.

There was no Right or Wrong, no Good or Evil to be found like this. There was just war, and death, and everything that got left behind to mourn them. And, unfortunately, it was the best they could hope for. 

Their swords rang as they parried and blocked and struck at each other, moving slowly as if it were a dance. Perhaps it was, the only sort of dance they might be locked in. One that was meant to last forever. 

Their crossguards locked and they leaned in so close they might as well have nothing between them, only their breaths mingled and they paused. Crowley and Aziraphale leaned in as one, entranced by the brightness of the stars and the hypnotic steps of their entanglement.

And then, Crowley pushed. While normally he wouldn’t have the upper hand over Aziraphale in a martial duel of nearly any kind, he’d regained his thoughts a bit faster than the angel had this time, allowing him to surprise him.

Aziraphale fell, landing on his back and too slow to get up in his heavy armour. Crowley had always been the quicker of the two anyway, and in lighter leathers and chain besides, and without thinking about it he lunged forward and swung down to best use the weight of his sword and the force behind it to crush in the metal of Aziraphale’s breastplate.

It was habit, to make sure fallen opponents wouldn’t get up.

It was just as devastating as it always was knowing he’d killed Aziraphale in any way. 

Realizing what he’s done, Crowley flung his sword aside and fell to his knees, crawling up to lift Aziraphale’s head onto his lap.

“I’m sorry.” He said, whispering. Aziraphale huffed weakly in response.

“Was your turn, you devil.” The angel replied wetly, blood filling his lungs and air filling his chest in all the wrong ways as he slowly drowned. 

“I’m sorry,” Crowley repeated with a dry sob, voice cracking.

“It’s alright, we knew it would come to this.” Aziraphale said slowly, every word an effort and he groaned loudly at the hacking cough that wracked his body. “Crowley, please.” He croaked. Death was different for them, it wasn’t really an end or even the end of their time on earth. They’d be reincorporated quickly, especially in tumultuous times like these, but even knowing that there was always an unignorable pang in Crowley’s heart whenever he had to hurt Aziraphale like this, like he was asking for. Even if it was to save him some minutes of agony.

“Of course, angel.” Crowley pulled a sharp little knife from his boot, most useful for things like cutting rope or perhaps filleting a fish, or even cutting up an apple, but it would do and he had no desire to leave his spot to let Aziraphale’s head fall back into the sand to take his sword in hand again.

“Me basia sis?” Aziraphale asked softly, gently, like he wasn’t aware of all the things he was asking. Crowley let out a shuddering breath, wet with grief. Like he wasn’t being asked by the only higher power he felt worthy of the title to come to the same level, to meet him and to kiss him in the way lovers kissed rather than the way subjects of a king did.

“Best not, angel,” Crowley whispered mournfully, barely louder than the susurrus noise of a serpent slithering across desert sand. He hated the way guilt and regret sat on his tongue, tasting of bile and impossible to be rid of from the back of his throat, stuck there like phlegm.

Without another word, Aziraphale left his corporeal form with the help of Crowley’s bloody boot knife. Only once he was sure Aziraphale had departed from it fully when the body was cold and lifeless, he kissed Aziraphale’s lips for only the briefest second and closed the angel’s unseeing eyes.

“Best not,” Crowley repeated, though there was no one else to understand that he meant I wish desperately we could by it. So, he stood and gathered his sword and helmet and passed once more across the Nile to speak with those who would report his success to al-Kamil at making sure the European Crusaders would remain unthinking of the time of year it was and their proximity to the largest river in the known world.

[Footnotes: In essence, Crowley is using extremely formal terms that are relatively female-coded with “Amabo te, angel, obsecro, possum tibi osculum”. More or less literally translated it should be “Please, angel (as a title), I implore you, kiss me.” It’s clear that Crowley is requesting a kiss to the cheek or the hand here as a way to cede their meeting to Aziraphale and denoting himself as lower in status than him due to his word choice.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, was speaking in a much less formal sense when he said “Me basia sis”, which translates to “kiss me, if you want” in question form. It’s spoken with the verbiage used by those higher in station to those lower but he uses a different verb for “to kiss,” being a middle ground between ‘osculari’ and ‘saviari’ (which was an erotic kiss that would be seen in places like a brothel and absolutely not fit for public), which came much later and was often used to denote a romantic type of kiss.]

[high-tidethunder]

even oaks must bend

Joe has to leave the safehouse. He can’t deal with the look on Andy’s face, the desperation in her eyes that mirrors that of a wild animal about to be dealt a death blow.

The idea is stifling, forces his breath from his lungs in quick, shallow beats that come ragged from his throat, out of sync with the erratic rhythm of his heart in a way that makes him feel dizzy, unbalanced. It flits through his mind that he, too, feels like a wild animal, that Andy’s request is a rock hurled at him with the force of a great beast and all he can do is watch.

Because how could he say no? How could he tell a woman who’s friendship had lasted nearly a millennium, a woman who was the most vulnerable she had ever been, a woman who was hiding all her despair in her eyes and showing none of it on her face, that he would not help her keep a promise she had feared would be broken forever?

The problem is that the price of saying yes weighs heavy on his heart and he’s not sure how easily he can pay it. Not when it was the betrayal of the one he’d be paying it to that had caused him the worst wounds of his centuries on this earth.

He has seen his own flesh rended so many times, stood up and seen pieces of himself strewn on the ground and known himself still to be whole, taken so much injury and kept going, and maybe, in the beginning, it had been hard to forget these moments but as time carried ever onward it became...ordinary.

But these wounds—

He may no longer feel them, and there is no mark on his skin as proof they happened, but he remembers the pain.

More than that, he remembers the terror, that it was ice cold, how it spread through him with each new level of depravity their captors had reached until it was entrenched in his bones. He wasn’t sure he would ever be able to rip it out.

He thinks that these wounds might just be the ones that do him in, despite the years that have passed since they’d been inflicted.

He can hear Nicky calling for him over the cacophony of his thoughts and stops in his tracks, the gravel garden path of this safehouse shifting under him, and he notices that the air is sharp and cold. It bites his lungs with each breath, desperate things that come in staccato waves and sting the back of his throat. He feels his chest tighten more with each inhale, though whether it’s from the cold or the panic he can’t tell.

He feels a hand on his shoulder and leans into the touch, though his mind still races and heart still pounds, he feels his muscles uncoil, the tension fading as Nicky loops his arms around his waist, careful to slip them under Joe’s where they hang at his sides and rests his head on his shoulder.

«Breathe, love,» he whispers. The Arabic falls from his tongue like leaves in an autumn wind, gentle and susurrus, and Joe sinks into him. He lets his shoulders go loose, tries to match the rise and fall of Nicky’s chest with shuddering breaths until his head no longer swims and his pulse steadies. Something they’ve had to learn how to do for one another, over the years, since the first night of sleep that had been shattered by screaming after a dream contorted into a memory.

He’d love to say it’s gotten easier with time. Remembering.

They’re not sure how long they let the silence sit in the air, a placid kind of silence, muted by the surrounding forest and the mist that rolls off the nearby lake, but it’s comfortable. A necessary quiet, one that allows the men to think, to compose themselves and their thoughts before having to step back out into the world.

«I don’t know how to face him,» Joe admits, voice quiet, thick. «I don’t think I will ever be able to forgive him for—» he swallows through the tightness in his throat and blinks the glassiness from his eyes, but he can’t bring himself to finish the thought.

He doesn’t need to.

«Yusuf,» Nicky says, and his voice sounds so full of pain, and worry, and love that Joe is afraid he’s about to shatter, «I know, love,» his voice goes rough and he buries his face in Joe’s neck where it slopes into his shoulder. «I know. Some things are not so easily forgotten.» He takes a breath, brings a hand up so that it sits over Joe’s heart, and Joe finds himself instinctually bringing his own hand to Nicky’s, lacing their fingers together. «So we do not bring forgiveness, we don’t call it that. But we do this anyways. We do this for Quynh because we couldn’t before.»

“Work with someone we don’t want to eat with?” Joe asks with a small smile, the favorite proverb of Andy’s tripping from his tongue in reluctant English, and Nicky lets out a laugh.

“Yes, work with someone we don’t want to eat with.”

They fall quiet again, only for a moment, before Joe takes a breath and settles back into the language of his far-gone youth. «Maybe one day we’ll want to eat with him again.»

Nicky stills behind him. «I hope so.»

~*~

When they tell Andy they’ll do it, she looks like the weight of the world has lifted from her shoulders.

~*~

They land at Charles de Gaulle and Joe’s skin prickles, too close to the old safehouse for any measure of comfort. He glances at Nicky and sees the same anxiety written on his face, the shadow cast by his hood seeming to darken the expression so it reads like a thundercloud about to crack. He reaches over, wraps an arm around Nicky’s shoulders, and pulls him close, the line of contact between their torsos the only part of him that buzzes with something other than apprehension. Nicky looks at him, a small, tight smile adorning his face for a split second before it falls flat, and Joe’s heart aches.

«We’re safe, my heart,» he whispers, and Nicky’s shoulders drop. The movement is small enough that it would be imperceptible to anyone who hadn’t memorized the lines of his body in a way intent upon worship, the way a priest memorizes scripture, but to Joe, it sings of relief.

When he looks to the women again, the sympathy and worry on Nile’s face is so raw and open that it hurts, and he has to cut his eyes away to not break where he stands.

~*~

The sidestreets are dead silent compared to the bustle of downtown, letting both ease and worry simmer in Joe’s bones as they pass only occasional pedestrians on their walk to the address Copley had given them. It’s a small apartment, part of a stonework building that’s likely just as old as Booker himself and a part of Joe wonders if he’d chosen it for the familiarity. A bigger part of him finds that it still hurts to care.

Nile steps forward and knocks on the door with a steady hand and Joe feels himself tense, as if he were heading into battle rather than seeing an old friend.

Maybe he is, though. Whatever lies ahead won’t be pretty, and it certainly won’t be painless, but it has to be done. The way it’s been for every battle he’s fought.

It’s not a thought he has much time to mull over before Booker opens the door, looking run-down but not worse for wear as Joe had suspected he might. His eyes land on Nile first and fear shoots through them.

“She’s not—” he begins to ask, the tremor in his voice another thing Joe wishes he could just not care about. He guesses he should be grateful it doesn’t take long for Booker to see Andy and sigh away the tension in his shoulders.

“You’re not rid of me yet, Book,” she says, voice soft but tight, and steps around Nile to pull him in for a hug. Joe has to look away to keep the pain that’s fisted around his heart from tightening. After a moment, Andy steps back, one hand still on Booker’s shoulder. He looks at the group, gaze lingering too long on the crumbling brick of the wall behind Joe and Nicky.

“Just Nile I might understand,” he starts, cutting his eyes to the youngest immortal, “but why are you all here? Ninety years premature, not even a heads up from Copely, what is it you’re trusting me with and not him?” he asks, the question infused with a wry laugh.

“Well, I don’t have ninety years.” Andy says, matter-of-fact, “And let’s be clear, I’m still pissed at you, but what I do have is a promise to keep and a lead on Quynh. And you have penance to pay so you’re going to help us follow it.”

Booker stares at Andy for a second, then steps back from the doorway and motions the group in.

He doesn’t make eye contact, as they enter. Joe can’t tell if he wishes he would.

~*~

They’re spread around what little space is available in Booker’s cramped apartment, every surface not occupied by a body is holding atlases from the past 5 centuries, seafloor maps as old as they could find, and any old mariner’s record Andy had figured might help them in their quest. Andy holds onto the copies of the diary pages she’d gotten from the museum under the guise that she was a history professor working on a research project with her students.

(It wasn’t technically a lie, she’d protested. She had been a history professor, nevermind that it was for 6 weeks, 150 years ago, and she’d been going by Andrew to do it.)

There’s a boat sitting at a marina an hour away, full of sonar equipment (mostly stolen) and diving gear (mostly not), waiting for them to make sense of it all.

It feels as though the tension in the room is muting any sound.

“Right,” Andy says, finally, slapping her hands on her thighs and standing. “Well, Nile and I are going to get food—”

“We are?”

“—Booker, where’s the nearest grocer?”

“Straight shot north, once you reach the main road,” he responds, as if on auto-pilot, and Andy takes Nile’s hand and pulls her up from her seat, tugging her towards the door.

What remains is the sounds of a pen scratching paper just a little too hard, pages being turned with unnecessary force, sounds that grate the ears and rake the mind.

It’s Nicky who breaks first, or maybe this is his version of offering a truce, setting his pen down to mark his place in the book he’s consulting before looking up. “We loved you as a brother, Sebastien,” he says, with a cold sort of softness, and the immediacy with which guilt floods Booker’s expression is like an arrow to the heart. It doesn’t stop Nicky, whose hands shake where he’s clasped them in his lap, though his voice remains steady. “No, actually, we still do. And that’s the knife in the wound, isn’t it? Because somewhere along the way, you stopped. You stopped seeing us as family and started seeing us as a means to an end, and all we ever saw you as was—” he cuts himself off with a scoff and looks away.

Joe stands silently from his chair across the room and walks to him, stopping behind him and laying a gentle hand on his shoulder.

Booker’s eyes tighten and he swallows hard, looks down at his hands, tracing an invisible line on a map. “I never—” he takes a deep breath, lets it out shakily. “I never thought anyone would get hurt. I never meant for that. I don’t know why I thought it would be any different than what it was.”

“But why?” Joe hears himself ask. “Why do it in the first place?”

Booker shrugs, raises his head like it pains him to do so, and looks between Joe and Nicky. “Because for the better part of two hundred years I felt alone?”

And, oh. There’s that old anger.

Joe feels a hand on his and realizes how tightly he’d been gripping Nicky’s shoulder. He eases, flexes his fingers under Nicky’s by way of apology and takes the answering stroke of a thumb over his knuckles as reply, and lets out a sharp breath. “Well, you were wrong. You weren’t alone. You chose to be. We were always there for you.”

“I know, and I know ‘I’m sorry’ isn’t enough, I know there’s nothing I could say, there’s probably nothing I could do that would ever earn your forgiveness, and I don’t blame you, but I am sorry. I’ve been sorry since I first set up that fucking meeting, I was just too caught up in my own grief to back down. I should’ve just given myself over at the start.”

Joe sighs. What he wants to say is that he should have talked to them from the start. From before Copley even entered the picture. The first time he’d had the hare-brained idea. But he knows that won’t help anyone now, so what comes out instead is, “Just, help Andy with this. It’s as good a first step as any.”

Joe holds Booker’s gaze just a beat longer before the other man clears his throat and looks back down at the map in front of him, but Joe can tell he’s not really studying it anymore. He feels Nicky’s shoulders sag more than he hears the heavy breath he’s let out, feels the hand on his slip away, watches it fall to Nicky’s lap the moment his head drops.

The silence is broken by a loud knock on the door and a man’s call, muffled by the heavy wood. « Jean-Paul! Es-tu en ici? »

« Ouais! J’arrive! », Booker calls, and stands, turning to look at Joe and Nicky again, frozen in their solemnity. “For what it’s worth,” he says, “I did see you as family. I still do. I just didn’t know how to reconcile that with what family has meant for me.” He pauses a moment, then gives a small nod and walks to the door.

~*~

The sun beats relentlessly on the deck of the rented boat, at its nth stop in the middle of the ocean, little cobalt waves lapping at its hull almost mockingly. Or maybe it just feels that way, with heavy, drowsy sun-sickness set in countless hours ago and nothing to do but wait. It reminds Joe of when he was a young man (well, younger), becalmed on the ocean voyage that had led him to Andy and Quynh for the first time. He’s pretty sure he’d knitted enough socks to ensure all the armies of the world would have warm feet.

He idly wonders if he should have brought some needles and yarn, remembers that Nile had been curious to learn, when the surface of the water breaks again.

This time, Sebastien’s not alone.

The relief that blossoms in Joe’s chest threatens to choke him with tangled vines that reach up into his throat and encircle his heart. At its root, a bud of forgiveness, beginning to twist into bloom.

Maybe, he thinks, between pulling Quynh onto the deck and helping her into Andy’s arms, you can’t go right to wanting to eat with someone.

He leans over the gunwale again, extends a hand to Sebastien, still treading water. Maybe, first, you have to tolerate the walk to the grocery store.

[spacedaddyincarnate]

A Meeting in the City

New York City was like many other metropolises Yondu had found himself in, anywhere else in the galaxy. Bustling. Never-sleeping. Full to the brim.

Filthy.

It was about as stark a contrast with St. Charles, Missouri as Centaur-IV was with Contraxia; where he and Quill were bumpkins - or would have been, had they not each been forcibly removed from their respective homes - New York was full of rough-looking, unsmiling Terrans who seemed to be in a hurry to get from point A to point B with as much haste and bitterness as they could carry. Maybe it was the damn weather, Yondu reflected as he turned up the collar of his coat. Rather than remaining the pristine p o w d e r it tended to on Contraxia, the falling snow turned to slush the second it hit the roadways here, dirt churned into it by the vehicles that ran on ancient organics refined into fuel along the ground beside him. Unnerving, having foot traffic and vehicles confined to the same level. Worse, given they spat out fumes that were clearly poison. The susurrus of snowfall was shot through with blares of noise from here and there as drivers laid on their horns or shouted; two or three times, now, Terrans on two-wheeled, kinetically powered and unarmored vehicles had nearly taken him out, one screaming directly into his ear as they'd done so. Assholes.

He was nearing his destination, now. The Avengers tower, where he'd landed an M-ship two nights prior. Quill had been inducted into some sort of bullshit capes-and-tights league, based here on Terra, and wanted Yondu along for strategical assistance. After the kid had nearly lost him a few years prior they'd gotten in the habit of spending more time together; much as he'd never admit it, the Centaurian was enjoying bonding with him, now that the cards were on the table. It seemed like Quill was beginning to let go of past tensions and was willing to let bygones be bygones after Yondu's efforts with the boy's son. Thank the stars. It had begun to seem like the kid was never going to let the jokes about eating him slide, but after having met his blood progenitor and having seen what an asshole the guy was for himself, he had started to accept that Yondu wasn't such a bad surrogate daddy after all.

The trip into the city had been an effort to see Terrans as what they really were; see the way they moved, how they reacted to aliens, what their thoughts and feelings amounted to. After the invasion at the hands of a rogue Asgardian a few years back, metropolitans were coming to accept the presence of aliens with reluctance - Yondu had wanted to see for himself their discomfort and the way they handled it for himself. Quill had been terrified when they’d picked him up, but he’d also been a child. The reactions of the city dwellers in New York had ranged from annoyance to intrigue to plain old boredom. He mused on it as he brushed the snow off his long, oxblood leathers before it had the chance to melt and keyed in the code that allowed him to access the uppermost floors of the tower. It was a long ride up, but it gave him a chance to chew over his ideations for strategy.

By the time he was approaching the conference room he’d agreed to meet with Quill and the others in - the man who owned the tower, his scientist friend, one or two redheaded women Yondu didn’t mind resting his eyes on, and a potential assortment of others - a more-than-vague plan had come together. As was his wont, he opened his mouth the second he was through the door only to find the dark-haired Terran - Tony, he reminded himself - in a one-on-one conversation with a fair-skinned woman with dark hair the Centaurian had yet to meet.

@murder-popsicle

[brightlilies-a]

fourfold flames.

   “there are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it.”               - edith wharton.

                                                                --- --- ---

   the orange glow flickers as it waves across the faces and bodies that surround it. a perfect centerpiece, and yet no eyes linger upon it, each of the outside circle looking to the children dancing on the inside, and each dancer looking to each other, caught up in the rhythm. light music floats on the air, played on lyres and pan flutes and improvised drums and the susurrus of idle conversation. overhead, menphina watches over her children, and whispers soft words through the leaves, that they may somehow reach their ears.

   a pair of amber gazes rest upon the smallest of the troupe, watching every rise and fall of the red and white colored crown with solemn expressions. albi’a shifts slowly to face his mother, and, noting her intensity, turns back to the campfire. crackle, fizzle, snap.  

   “i want bibi ta grow up happy.” there were only a few things he agreed upon with his mother anymore, now that he was older. before, it was easier to ignore all the problems, how utterly dysfunctional their lives had become in exchange for some semblance of togetherness and tradition that would otherwise fall apart at a moment’s notice. but, when it came to the beaming, giggling child who was still enamored with this horrid, cruel world, the two of them could set aside their differences… to an extent.

   “and you think i don’t?” she scoffs, refusing to even glance his way.

   that’s just like her. his eyes roll up and down as he shifts to plant the palms of his hands on the ground behind him, taking a more leisurely approach. “i think ye know he won’t be happy here. kahli’s too tough on him.”

   “just because you hate it doesn’t mean he will.” narrowed eyes glare at her following that, with a click of his tongue announcing his more immediate distaste. they could just dismiss it all as simply tradition, when they weren’t the ones who dealt with the scorn and biting remarks night-in and night-out. heaving a sigh, though, he straightens his posture, and raises a lackadaisical palm——getting mad wouldn’t get him anywhere, and worse, it’d likely drag the kit still skipping about the fire over in a fretful fit.

   no, another tactic would be better for proving his point.

   “ye really think he’ll take ta bein’ a wanderer all by his lonesome, ma? he cries if we ask him ta jus’ watch camp by himself. he’s too soft.” 

   finally deigning to grace him with her attention, aged amber shifts to her left, countering him with a calm flick of her tail, “and do you really think that becoming an adventurer is better-suited for him if he’s so kind? it’s just as dangerous, if not more.”

   “i think he’ll take ta helpin’ people. he likes ‘em plenty,” proudly relaxing, his lips tug into a smirk, “even if he prolly shouldn’t.”

   the matron huffs, folding her arms against her breast, “that’s because he’s mimicking you!”

   “then i’ll just become an adventurer so he’ll mimic that, too—” his teasing is cut short by a giggling shadow casting itself over the pair with its large, red ears standing tall and attentive compared to the rest of his diminutive stature. blue and orange peek out from beneath messy white bangs, wide and wondering and filled to the brim with twinkling pride as the child hovers, swaying this way and that.

   “bi’a!! mama!! didja see me?” the innocent voice beckoning them pulls them away from the moment prior, as their gazes soften and the frustration melts away. his mother is the first between them to speak, earnestly reaching up to tug upon the child’s freckled cheeks while taking a saccharine tone.

   “—of course, my bibi boy! you were so cute, dancing like your sisters!” 

   yer lying, albi’a thinks to himself, because ye only saw as much as i did.

   “don’t encourage him, he’s a boy.” unable to get a word in before a cold, harsh voice called from the group of girls near the fire, albi’a’s expression sours at his sister, if only momentarily.

   “stop being mean ta him, sis! yer jus’ jealous he’s better ‘an you are!” albi’a retorts back, letting his shite-eating grin grow as large as it could.

   “—i’m not jealous of him!” their elder sister huffs and stomps, with her red braids lifting as she turns away from the scene. unlike the two elder keepers willing to leave things at that, however, albi’to’s lips tug into a frown. a moment later, his red moccasins hit the ground, and soon after he takes his sister’s arm into his hold, quite stubbornly refusing to let go amid her attempts to wave him off.

   “i’ll teach ye, matar! it must be really hard ta move well, since ye have yer nose in books all day!”

   “get off me! your steps are clumsier than mine are!”

   looking to his mother’s face, albi’a finds himself staring at the lines, the cuts that didn’t heal right, the melancholy her expression always seemed to bear. he’d known, always, why bi’to was the favorite child——even if she tried to say there were no favorites. it came easier to like him. he wasn’t damaged; he hadn’t watched his father die. he and matar, on the other hand, grew up before their tenth namedays, while bi’to was still a child that saw the world in kinder lights than they. and what a treasure it was, what a thing to want to protect. how unrealistic; how horrible it would be for him later.

   “i don’t want him to be an adventurer, bi’a.” she speaks suddenly and he flinches, slack-jawed and blank of mind. he takes a moment, and newly recomposed, calmly retorts back,

   “yer fine with me wantin’ ta be one.”

   but she expects this, red crown shaking back and forth slowly. even as she takes her loose braid into her hands, laying it to rest over her shoulder and running her fingers over the flow of her hair, however, her eyes refuse to leave the child now tugging his elder sister around, speaking in excitable gibberish that would only make sense to he and his, “because it suits you. you’ve always wanted more than this life, but he… all that bibi wants is this. laughter and smiles and togetherness.”

   “it’ll get taken away from him when he’s an adult.”

   “maybe things will be different by then.”

   is that how it is? pray it changes fer his sake? the young man sighs, running a hand through his patches of red and white hair, tousling it for good measure. what a nice dream that would be, if it could be true. “hundreds a years o’ traditions won’t change in a few moons, ma.”

                                                                 --- --- ---

   after horrible things happen, the land grows quiet, as if also in mourning.

   holding his own makeshift skewer over the flame, albi’to watches the silhouette of the rat they’d found some malms back turn over and over, its lanky, skinned body little more than a weird tumor upon the branch. it wasn’t much by comparison. the twins had received dodo fledglings that hadn’t escaped the initial blaze for their help in the scavenging, pahje was happily licking her lips as she turned over her round of piglet, which had been otherwise split between kahli, his sister and his mother. and meanwhile, despite being the one who had found the piglet squealing in a bush and had put it out of its misery, he sat, staring at a rat.

   there wasn’t much meat on rodents, and even less given how much of it was taken by the fire that had killed it. but kahli’s decisions were final, and so the burdens were given the smallest amount. that was what she had started calling him since the lesser moon fell: a burden. he didn’t give it much thought——thinking about things was how one got upset about them, and it wouldn’t change anything even if he did. nobody talked back to kahli. kahli was the one who led the tribe. kahli’s decisions were final.

   even so, the crackle of the fire was one of the few sounds he could properly make out against the oppressive silence. occasionally, something would snap! or combust a little too quickly, a little too loudly, with such a suddenness against the pall of death that it startled the whole of their group, and it would take some few minutes before they all calmly sat once more. the earth was still; the smoke was somewhere to the north now; nobody, no animals, nothing passed them by this night. how strange, he muses silently as his gaze drifts upward, past the branches and leaves to the starry sky above, to see the night again, when just a few nights ago that unending crimson from the lover’s hound was all they knew.

   “we should celebrate,” he breaks the silence, raising his gaze from his poor excuse for a meal and the dancing flame to the people that encircled it, “since we’re alive.”

   he’s met with an uneasy silence and six pairs of eyes boring into his face, some losing interest quicker than others. after a few seconds, most of them had returned to their anxiety and disquieted thoughts, but a warm, gentle voice humors him quietly, “celebrate how, bibi?”

   his mother shifts, standing and shuffling to sit beside him with her pork skewer in hand. her shoulder nudges his in that encouraging way, as her crown dips to catch his gaze——as if he were only a few summers old and hiding secrets too big to hold. she continues to nudge and prod, with her elbow and the back of her hand and a few more times with her shoulder until his lips tug into a smile and he laughs. batting her away softly, he shakes his head, catching the bit of courage he had before it would fly away, like an ember up into the sky, and exhales.

   “we could…” cheeks bubble as his voice trails——he hadn’t thought that far. so he simmers in contemplation, focusing his attention on the firepit as he stomps in place, waiting for inspiration to come. what could they do, after all, with no food and only a fire? just a fire… but all they needed was a flame! “dance around the fire an’ send our thanks ta menphina fer protectin’ us! it’d be like old—”

   “as soon as we finish eating, we sleep.” opposite him, the silver haired chieftain stares him down, sharpened gold unwilling to budge. her voice, cold, dry, hollow, brings back the silence in an instant, and a chill runs back up his spine.

   “but—” the word has left before he realizes, but even that is cut short.

   “we will sleep through the night as most stragglers will pass through the day. if they find us, they’ll steal what we have and kill us for scavengers.” kahli succinctly lifts her skewer from the flame, blowing at the steaming meat as she gestures to the girl beside her with a nod, “pahje will take the first watch.”

   she wasn’t incorrect. few of the remaining survivors in the wood would travel by night, given the complexities of the paths prior to the devastation, and among them would be scavengers and bandits more than willing to take up the opportunity for easy pickings. but her honesty pulls his lips taut and sets a weight on his chest. pahje, however, the spitting image of her mother, looked more akin to a giggling jackal as she watched him through the fire——probably some secret between them, as there always was.

   “i can help her with that—” albi offers in spite of whatever had his tribal sister in stitches, but finds the pattern follows true. speaking only led to being silenced; male keepers were to be neither seen nor heard.

   “we don’t need a burden keeping watch.”

   a moment passes, and his mother’s hand lands comfortingly upon his own, fingers squeezing his. spitefully, though, the boy lifts his rat skewer to his lips, digging fang and teeth into the scalding hot flesh before ripping away. it hurt, it burned, it was way too hot going down and brought tears to his eyes as the pain sank in, but it’d stay his tongue. and that was all he needed.

   “kahli, you’re being too harsh—” with a sigh, his mother shakes her head in earnest defeat. she pauses, however, and after wrapping an arm about her son’s shoulder, squeezes him snugly against her side. “... you can sleep near me tonight, okay? i’ll feel better having you within reach, just in case.”

                                                                   --- --- ---

   there was no chimney in the renovated storehouse they called their home. in the middle of winter, the pair of keepers were wont to carve out a section of the floor, marked with gathered stones, and built small campfires to heat the cold air that now blew in from coerthas to the north. during those months, mother and son slept in the same bed in the room with the fire, buried under layers of ratty blankets, listening to the embers as they burned themselves out. tonight, though, the matron sits up, running her fingers through her slumbering child’s red locks, smiling wryly in the dark.

   “you’re not happy here, are you?” her hand comes to a slow, expression tightening as she shakes her head, “you’d lie, though. some awful lie with that sad smile he taught you.”

   the light from the fire flickers dimly, the small flame’s shadow dancing proudly upon the wall. outside the window, she catches the sound of strong winds blustering against the cabin walls, and instinctively reaches to pull one of the blankets more snugly over him, “you know… if we were still out there, we wouldn’t be together anymore. i’d still be with your sister and kahli and…” she pauses, flattening her lips, “you’d be… somewhere.”

   somewhere in the twelveswood, by himself, hunting game purely for company that would never want him for more than a few bells, never truly. perhaps they’d cross paths once if menphina blessed them, under the guise of scavenging in the same lands or chasing the same prey, but he’d never be able to stay. they’d say their hello’s, he’d lie horrible fibs to be pleasant, believing it wouldn’t worry her, and he���d disappear into the shade of night. was she so horrible, then, for thinking dalamud’s fall a blessing in disguise? so many people lost things, they lost things, but the young man clinging to his own tail was given a chance at finding joy in a life otherwise set up to disappoint him.

   “your brother was right, you know? you would never be happy with that life.” beginning to pry his fingers from the fabric of his tunic, the woman sighs, “maybe i’ve been holding onto you too tightly, though… people have a tendency to leave me, after all. your father, your brother… then your sister.”

   after tugging his arms apart and batting away the long-haired tail eating up needed space on this rather small, stained and torn mattress, she looks to his face, still calm, still asleep. how he ever slept so soundly was a miracle of its own, but it was a relief for nights like these. “you’re all i have left. my bibi, my precious bibi boy.” the three words that pull her lips into a delighted smile every time without fail, yet such elation quickly fades, “but i have to let you go now, don’t i? i knew one day i’d have to, but i didn’t think i’d have to give you a push to make you leave the nest, so it’s not that easy…”

   jumping as he shifts where he lays, she stifles the gasp that rises in her throat, exhaling a moment later when he settles again with a curse. twelve forfend, if he’s been listening...

   “give me a heart attack and i’ll leave you faster than you’ll leave me…!” with a scoff, the matron lowers herself into her spot and pulls the blankets over herself. she turns away to look at the fire, to watch the amber glow that reminded her of that life long gone, of shadows dancing around a fire, calling at her to watch them, to watch him. “he was wrong, though. all it took was a single moon, and everything’s different.”

                                                                   --- --- ---

   there’s something horrible about fire, albi’to thinks, when it rains from the sky. each rumble of the ground beneath them has him hesitate, has him second-guess when and where he is, because the smell of smoke and burning and panic and death never changes. the tightness in his chest from knowing a molten rock might come crashing down and steal him away to the lifestream never changes.

   it wasn’t intentional, because that would mean emet-selch cared enough to look into a shard of a person’s past, but damn did it cut deeply. that the glamour of the ascian’s most painful memory was so reminiscent of the seventh umbral calamity was a haunting, harrowing, horrible experience to both live and relive. it stole away his breath at times, forcing him to clutch his chest when his memory of the calamity bled over emet-selch’s, and he always brushed the looks that came his way off with unconvincing lies the scions wouldn’t press. the meteors that landed closer were the worst, the heat affronting him in gusts before the shards flew past, both real and unreal, painful and not. as they darted through the falling city, his gaze would occasionally linger on the faces and backs of his comrades, wondering if they felt the same.

   if they did, it likely wasn’t all that similar.

   none of them spoke of where they were when the lesser moon fell and the dreadwyrm rose. not many in eorzea did. mentions of the calamity came up every now and then, especially near the rising, but there was no pride in being a survivor to that nightmare. there was no winning in what happened that day, only loss.

   but it was a gut feeling of his that while he braved the land only malms from where one of dalamud’s fragments fell into the earth and set the land ablaze, that his companions in the scions watched the world irrevocably change from within walled venues. there was no shame in such, but it was a different experience. even among his friends, there were some chosen few he could think of that would’ve, based on the stories they exchanged, bore witness to the red sky from within eorzea.

   they were all experiencing walking through this hellscape, however. even if they felt no attachment to the simulacra running about, falling over, breaking apart, the carnage was real. the threat of death and the sight of loss was real. like an echo vision, specially tailored for those without the elder primal’s blessing.

   he brushes the soot off his arms, eyeing the portal of aether on the far side of the makeshift arena carefully. a dark, swirling vortex that was, like everything else in this liminal space, made for them to follow, made to guide them to the ascian himself. deeming themselves okay to proceed, the keeper’s ears twitch as their footfalls echo off the floor, and instinctively, he reaches out… and grabs nothing.

   “hold up,” pulling his closed fist back, he pauses, mulling over if he should speak——but he already had, so he might as well finish the thought, “we dunno what awaits us on the other side of that, so lemme say something.”

   silver-tongued words meet him just as quickly, and the teasing in thancred’s tone was only matched by the humored smile gracing his features. “i find it rather cliché to give a parting speech before what may be the final battle. friend.”

   “heh, maybe, but it ain’t a good-bye.” it was hard not to laugh as he shrugged, albeit airy and hoarse with all the soot and dust permeating the space, “... it’s a thank you.”

   “that might just be worse!”

   “then it’s worse, and i’m sayin’ it anyway.” a wag of his finger manages to quiet the hyur from any further complaints (a trick he’d picked up from her), and he tugs his lips into a gracious grin, looking to each of the scions softly, “thank ye, though, fer bein’ here fer me. i know minfilia was the one that wanted the scions ta be like family fer me, an’ she prolly said that ta any green recruit she got, but i really think of ye all that way. you, too, ryne.”

   pressing the tips of his fingers against his collarbone as he pauses to gather his thoughts, his chin dips, crown shaking subtly back and forth, “honestly, i didn’t think i’d get a family again after the calamity, but then, ‘fore i knew it, i did. the twelve blessed me with all o’ ye, so no matter what happens, i’ll always have yer backs, because ye guys have mine.”

   what greets him as he lifts his head, however, is a round of silence, as the group looks to one another with unreadable expressions. after a few seconds, all attention returns to face him, as if expecting something more——he hadn’t said anything wrong, had he? beginning to fear the worst, albi hurriedly goes back over his words in his head, trying to find the—

   “done yet?” alisaie chimes, smirking proudly.

   “h-huh?”

   urianger nods, continuing the charade, “tis no secret how highly you think of us.”

   “guys, come on…!” taken aback, the dancer’s expression widens with embarrassment, pink staining his freckled cheeks.

   “not that it isn’t pleasant to hear you say it every now and again.” y’shtola’s arms fold before her, humored visage tilting just for emphasis.

   in a last ditch effort for someone to not tease him so harshly, odd eyes plead with the elezen twin that’s so often stood at his side, that’s been characteristically quiet this entire time, “a-alphy, back me up…!”

   but given the smile playing upon his face, even alphinaud was caught up in the chance to catch the warrior of light off-guard, as he so pridefully chides, “personally, i could do with you mentioning it a little less.”

   even as his flustered face burns amid their amused giggling, however, albi cracks a smile and shakes his head. looking out at them, the group of scholars all brought together by a common cause that had welcomed him into their fold that day in thanalan, fills him with a comforting peace, a friendly reminder that all would be well, that all was how it should be. even if what awaited him on the other side was certain death, they had each other to defy the odds and face that future together with. and for now, they needed him to play his part, and so he would. 

   mustering the lingering hint of frustration before it might float away on the breeze, albi brushes past the group and jogs toward aetherial tear, calling out behind him, “f-fine! let’s move on then, if’n me sayin’ all that was really unnecessary…”

   the last thing he heard, though, before the flow pulled him in, was ryne’s concerned voice chasing after him, “aw, albi… i thought it was nice anyway…!”

[garglyswoof]

At the Seams

Happy holidays Kamille / @songof-thelark​! I hope you enjoy this fic. I lightly used your prompt of her telling him about her brother, but i definitely used it as more of a connection between them than a deliberate scene. I hope you still like it!

She feels guilty that she’s not fully bought in to Nelson, Murdock and Page. Don’t get her wrong, the concept is there in spades, and every once in a while when Foggy’s talking on the phone to a new client in that jocular way of his that still manages to be professional, or the office is quiet as Matt listens to legal briefs on the joke pair of Beats Karen had picked up for him, she is content. Moments of an almost aching joy she wants to trap in amber; fossilize Foggy’s laugh, Matt’s intoxicating smile.

But there’s so much in the way of these moments. Read here or on AO3

Karen stands and stretches, needing a break from the glare of the screen she’s been glued to since 10 am. Foggy looks up from his desk with a soft smile and her heart clenches at the easy acceptance in it. That’s Foggy, Champion of Good, way moreso than Matt if she’s being honest.

“Your eyes crossing?” Foggy teases, winging a pen back and forth between his fingers.

“Just a bit,” she responds with her own smile. They have a surprising caseload, though it really shouldn’t be considering Foggy’s fifteen minutes of DA fame. She’s just thankful their payment is in both casseroles and cash these days, the terrifying financial noose of the original firm’s run just a memory.

“Karen,” Foggy says, his eyes serious, and the suddenness of the change points to a thought long harbored. “What’s up with you and Matt?”

She grabs an elbow, continuing her stretch. Foggy’s pen is still. “Fog,” she mutters with a sigh, “we’re fine. As we can be.”

“Can I get more than that? You know I don’t like butting in, but something feels wrong. We’re a team, Karen. I’ve wanted this my whole life, and when you came into the picture it’s like you were there all along. So please spare me the ‘we’re fine’s. Can I help? What can I do?”

Karen rounds her desk and perches on the edge of his, the glow of the banker’s light Foggy had stolen from his old office pooling on his desk. “I honestly meant it- we’re fine. Look, Matt and I, what we were starting, that’s never going to happen.” She looks down, staring fixedly at the blotter on his desk where he’s adorably doodled ‘Marcy’ in six different fonts. “I really, really liked him, Foggy. So there are times now where I remember that feeling and I get pissed off at what he did. It’s just going to take time, time and a bit of awkwardness when we look at each other and forget.” She laughs. “Or remember.” She reaches over and squeezes his hand, sliding off the desk, cocking her head at Foggy’s sad smile. “It’s ok, really.”

“I guess I’m still stuck on the dream of it all. My best friend in love with my new best friend. But I get it. Just-” Foggy searches her eyes, “you would tell me if it was more than just that, right?”

She responds with a nod because vocalizing a lie seems so much worse. Because the “more than just that” is wrapped up in both Murdock and Nelson. And her brother. And Frank Castle, if she lets herself open that door. She pulls her lips in, brushes her hands over her skirt, and heads back to her desk, wondering when this dream will shatter too.

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

He’s not fully bought into the rural lifestyle, but it does have its perks. The crisp snap in the air, the quiet disturbed only by the susurrus of the wind through the pines, the community in this space where the land seems to stretch out beyond normal confines. He’s made a deliberate choice to get to know his neighbors, to try to begin to gain a sense of normalcy. God, it was like the transition of military to civilian life but thousands of times worse.

Because how do you become human again when you’ve lost your ties to it? He’d tried living with his demons, waking up with sweat beaded at his temples, his hands bloody from the slide of the sledgehammer’s grip, the smell of Maria’s perfume somehow still in his nose.  It hadn’t worked.

So that’s why he’s here talking to Marjorie, who lives across the way in a tiny cabin with the most carefully tended garden he’s ever seen. The tract of land has houses built from stone and timber in the early part of the century, and no electricity lines mar the sky, only unbroken towers of spruce, the occasional maple tree flashing its bright fall plumage. His eyes crinkle at the corners at something Marjorie says, and he takes the casserole from her age-spotted hands with care.

“Thank you, ma’am. You set on firewood?” He says this with a tease - last time he’d chopped wood it seemed that Marjorie’s entire female friend circle just so happened to come by to chat.

“Young man, don’t begrudge them their simple pleasures,” Marjorie says, her voice a rasp to match his own, smiling and waving her hand idly at him as she turns to head back inside. “You going into town anytime soon?”

It had been weeks since he had. Despite Marjorie forcing him to kick his eating-out-of-the-can habit, there wasn’t much he needed out here. Time and books and the sweet company of an elderly woman telling tales from her past, the occasional visit from the taciturn old homesteader who brought his battery-powered stereo and blasted Springsteen to the skies. The guitar he stole from Lieberman. He shakes his head.

“Well, I’ll be heading up tomorrow. Need to keep up to date on what’s going on in the world since it’s all going to hell,” she says, the screen door slamming though she pauses for his response after, and he laughs, ducking his head.

“Yeh,” he mutters through the flash of his grin, that vocalization that’s more out of habit than an actual response. “Yeh, it sure is.” The smile drops and he can see Marjorie’s face soften through the screen.

She invites him for dinner and tells more of her stories. He finds himself returning the favor, stories of Frank Jr. and Lisa in trade for her own grandkids’ tales, and he heads back to his cabin with his heart a little bit lighter. It’s comfortable and safe and he knows it’s a respite, but holds on to his time here all the same. He hasn’t read papers or watched the news or even listened. It would just be fodder for a new list of takedowns, and he’s not ready for that. What he is ready for is realizing that his fight isn’t over. Just how he does it is. He’s always toed the line that is the brutality of death, but the emotion powering his vendetta confused things.

He is not like Red. He is fine with being judge, jury, and executioner. He doesn’t see it as playing god, if he even believed. It’s making a choice, and it is a deliberate one, and it doesn’t come without penalty.

He is just willing to do it.

Will there always be some criminal to fill the gap, come up the ranks? Of course. Thousands of years of human nature and the shit associated with it say a resounding yes. But he sees it like he saw all military work - to support a cause you believe, others may need to die. And he believes in getting the deep rooted conspiracy of scum out of their holes and into the streets.

He thinks of Lewis then. Thinks of the military and what it produces. Billy and Curtis and Lewis and him. Each with their own sense of order, instilled through military. He thinks how he shouldn’t have been there in that hotel, that it made no sense for him to be there, but he had been. Because talking with Lieberman, hell even Sarah, cemented it. Karen’s a sort of family now.  He thinks of her, wonders how she is. Wonders if she’s safe. It’s ok to just wonder.

He dreams less often.

----------

She wonders if he’s ok. Today’s daily thought devoted to Frank Castle comes as her hand grips her keys, eyes tracking her surroundings in the mall’s meager parking lot. She hates driving in the city, but had needed a new desk, and schlepping that on the subway all the way to Queens had not been on her list of fun things to do.

She hasn’t seen nor heard from him since the elevator, the memory of it foggy and displaced from the adrenaline and her injuries at the time. She sometimes touches her forehead unconsciously when she thinks about it, sees his eyes and the confused openness in them, the pain and adrenaline stripping everything away.

Where the hell is he? Where had he been when Fisk was raining terror on her and everyone she loved? It’s not like she waited for him to rescue her, she hadn’t expected that with Lewis either, but part of her...yeah part of her is still surprised he wasn’t there. That he didn’t show up, pumping a shotgun and unloading it in Dex’s heart.

It would have saved a lot of trouble. An agent’s life. Having to hear those desperately frustrated words from Matt’s mouth - god - that still hurt. She unlocks the car door with a flinch of remembrance, slides into the cracked pleather that needs a new layer of duct tape. There’s an old Jeep Cherokee staring at her accusedly from a space in front of her, a mirror image to the one she wrecked. She sighs and lowers her head and breathes, trying to remember what her thankfully-sliding-scale-therapist told her to do to quell the anxiety.

She remembers the look in both Foggy and Matt’s eyes when she’d told them. It had been what she expected, that mix of pity and incredulity and that judgment from Matt and an earnest attempt to understand from Foggy. She also remembers how it felt to tell Frank without saying a word. Because isn’t that it? Isn’t that why she’s held on to Frank, forgiven him with two hands clasped around his back in that hug she didn’t even know she wanted until he’d turned to leave?

All those unspoken conversations.

God, where the fuck is he? Her phone buzzes an interruption, juddering in the console where she’d stashed it.

“Karen Page,” she says, old habits from the paper dying hard.

“Ms. Page, free for dinner tonight? I know it’s a bit last minute but Lily’s been asking you to come visit for ages and I’m making Chicken Parmigiano and the kitchen smells fantastic and I thought of you.” A pause. “And that sounded incredibly wrong. But the offer stands.”

Karen smiles at Ellison’s awkward delivery. He’s really trying to regain her friendship, and the warmth of that realization suffuses from her heart through her chest.

“I would love to smell like Chicken parm,” she teases and checks the console’s clock. “What time?”

“An hou-”

She interrupts him. “And no matchmaking this time, right? I want to make that perfectly clear.”

Ellison laughs without a hint of embarrassment. “I promise I’ll give you fair warning if I try to set you up again. Though I have to say Karen, I thought you and Jason were gr-”

“OK yep, see you in an hour. Gotta go!” She cuts him off brightly and shifts the now-warm car into gear. It’ll take her most of the hour to get through Manhattan’s tangled streets, and she turns on her radio, grateful she has control courtesy of the free stereo repair from one of their lower-income clients.

Ellison greets her at the door with searching eyes and she pastes on the most sincere smile she can manage. It’s exhausting having people care, she thinks, then lets out a real laugh at the thought. It seems to appease Ellison as he takes her coat, the sound of Sinatra floating through the hall.

It’s just as comfortable as last time. She tells them about Nelson, Murdock & Page while Lily browbeats Ellison for letting her go, Ellison pulls a serious face as Lily brings out the dessert, “Tiramisu, from Geno’s. Mitchell can’t make desserts worth a damn.”

“What’s that face for,” Karen says suspiciously and Ellison leans over, fingers steepled below his chin. He stares at her for a moment as if composing what to say, so when he barks the words out, Karen jumps with their suddenness.

“Freelance. You up for it?”

She freezes and cants her eyes down, folds in on herself, hunched over her dessert. “I won’t tell you who he is.”

“I will never ask you that, not anymore.” His voice is warm, understanding, and she lifts her head to catch the softness in his eyes. Lily pushes back from the table and busies herself in the kitchen.

“I won’t give you Frank Castle either,” Karen says, steel in her voice, emboldened by his reaction.

“Karen, the attack on the bulletin messed with me hard. He attacked my family, in my home. A home as real as this one,” Ellison says, spreading his arms wide. “It put my trust in you to the test, because I know what I saw and heard and I know your tendency to-”

“To what?”

His mouth is open, lips moving to find the words. He knows he’s said the wrong thing and looks away to compose himself. “Karen, you’ve got a heart bigger than any I’ve known, and courage in spades, and you put yourself on the line for a story.” He shakes his head with a scoff. “That sounds like a hallmark card. Let me frame it another way. You are ruthless.”

Her eyes widen and her head shifts back, the words a blow. “Wh-what?”

“You’re ruthless in pursuit of a story. In protection of a source. In trusting in someone that’s earned it in your eyes despite evidence that would send someone else running.” Sinatra croons about flying to the moon as Ellison’s eyes catch hers. From the kitchen comes the smell of brewing coffee and Karen closes her eyes. “It’s a good thing. But it’s also a terrifying thing. It’s high stakes to trust you.” He holds up his hands in defense at her expression. “But I do, and I’m sorry that I didn’t show that. I’m showing it now. No Daredevil, no Frank Castle, no whomever comes next because apparently you’re a superhero slash villain magnet. Not unless it’s on your terms.”

Her whole body sags with relief and Ellison’s lip twitches in a half-smile hidden by his beard. Lily comes back to the table with freshly-brewed decaf, Karen smiling over her mug and trying hard not to think of diners and busted faces and what came after.

Where the hell is he?

It’s close to eleven when she finally heads up the stairs to her apartment, fishing out her keys from her purse as she sings Sinatra in a soft, out-of-key lilt. She’s at the stairs, the faint sound of music filtering down from her floor, which is a bit of a surprise. It’s usually pretty quiet, the building mainly full of retirees. She’d inherited the rent-controlled apartment from her grand aunt - there was no way in hell she could’ve paid Matt’s rent on top of a normal New York rent, even living out in Queens.

♫No matter who you are♫

Her step stutters and she dives a hand in her bag despite what the song playing must mean. Has to mean, right? She rounds the stairs and it’s there, sifting out from her apartment.

♫ Shining bright to see ♫

It feels a dream, and her steps are measured, one in front of the other as she approaches the door like it’s going to warp her to another dimension. Her hand lifts as if to knock before she shakes her head at the ridiculousness and places the key in the lock, the scrape of it echoing down to her toes. She pushes the door open, eyes scanning, her view of the living room frustratingly blocked by all her bookcases, but she doesn’t have to wait.

Her name is a rumble in his throat and her heart quakes.

“Karen.”

“Hi Frank,” she says in a clipped voice. “Drink? Oh, you’ve brought your own.” There’s a bottle of domestic she’d never buy in his grip. His hair is longer, not quite as full as his hipster ‘do, but definitely not the close shave she associates with The Punisher. His beard has made a return, close-cropped this time, and she knows these things are a conscious choice on his part, a way to separate himself.

“So what brings you by? I don’t work for the paper anymore so can’t help you as much these days.” She pulls her lips in, tucks an errant lock of hair behind her ear. Turns off the stereo god that song. Fidgeting. Pissed.

“I’m sorry.” It’s unexpected, this apology, and it breaks the floodgates of her thoughts.

“Where were you? Fisk fucked up so many lives. A good agent died. Many good agents. Blackmail and death. I thought this would be prime Punisher territory or is it because it doesn’t connect with your fam-” She stops. Too late.

He stands, his hurt and anger propelling him out of the seat. His voice is an open wound. “Guess you missed the memo when you became family, Karen.”

“I’m sorry, i had no right to say that. It’s not even-” she pauses, closes her eyes, her mouth stuttering as she tries to form her thoughts. What did he mean? “It’s not what I really think. I’m just angry, and I have no right to be. I have no claim on you.”

“But you do, Karen. You’re family. And I should have left some way to get in touch. I went off the grid, trying to figure it out, trying to change, trying to put that past behind me.” He’s at her bookshelves, scanning the titles. The window Matt uses to break in is to his side, the lights of the city bright and crisp in the fall air.

Her voice still holds tension, her question tight. “And did you?”

“No.” It’s as long of an answer as he’s willing to give right now, and she shakes her head in response, breath blowing out her nose.  He abandons the shelves, scrubs a hand over his face. “I- I’m glad you’re safe Karen.”

She’s staring at him, her eyes hard with the weight of emotion, and she launches herself at him. He’s prepared this time, his arms circling around her, hand up to touch the silk of her hair, feeling the rabbit pulse of her heart against his chest.

She pulls back first and he’s reluctant to release her. She turns and sits on the edge of the couch, fiddling with something on the coffee table’s burled wood. Her laugh is self-deprecating. “My old boss called me ruthless tonight. And I thought, ‘you don’t even know the half of it’.”

He crosses the room, avoiding the spot that always trips her, where the rug curls up. He always knows where he is, moving with a grace that belies his bulk. “Maria used to call me that.” He laughs. “Ruthless. Said I focused on one thing so hard I forgot what else was around.”

“Do you think she was right?”

“Depends on what you define ‘one thing’ as. What she meant it as? Nah. I disagreed, didn’t tell her that though.” His face is in shadow and she reaches to turn on the light. He squints until his eyes adjust. “Things were rocky those last couple tours. I was taking it home with me. So I just kinda took whatever she said. She was a real ballbuster, she was.” His smile is far away and he shakes his head like he’s shaking off a blow. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. Just reminded me.”

“It’s ok.” Her voice is soft. She spins her bottle on its edge, studying the condensation ring on the table. She’d forgot to put coasters out.

“What is it, Karen?”

She laughs once, an unhumorous huff, and then the words scratch out of a warring throat. “When I was nineteen, I killed my brother.”

--------

Frank had missed the city, the sounds and horrid fucking smells and the people and the sheer controlled chaos of the streets. So he feels at home in this weekly cash-up-front rental, his police scanner a low murmur in the background, the sirens and accented shouts are the background to his thoughts.

He’d swung by Curtis’ place, the man’s face still bearing the scars of Lewis’ brutality, and Curtis had tried to pry in that subtle, vet-meeting, questioning way which Frank had mostly dodged. He was getting soft, all these deep conversations and heart-to-hearts, swear to god. But Karen, she-

He’d known there was something, a darkness in her that called to his own, however goddamned sparkly vampire that sounded in his head. Just something off, then. Simple as like calls to like. He’d been wrong about her and Red. He wouldn’t be able to hold on to her, not with the pedestal he’d put her on.

Sometimes you’ve gotta recognize the darkness in others so you can understand it. It was something he’d started to teach Lisa, when that asshole bully at school tried to make her life miserable. He’d taught her how to recognize it, and at the right time, to use that understanding to make the bully stop. Her face as she ran off the bus that first day she’d stood up to him, running up into Frank’s arms with that grin so much like Maria’s it hurt, god.

So many things in that smile. A darkness in its own right.

He shook his head, picked up the book Karen had let him borrow, a gesture that made him smile himself, now, because it spoke of tomorrow. She’d joked that she’d put flowers in her window when she wanted the book back.

He hadn’t been sure if he was fooling himself with her friendship, not with the deaths on his hands, but she’d all but screamed her acceptance at him, and who was he to argue when it felt so good to feel connected to someone?

He isn’t stupid. She is a beautiful woman and they are clearly attracted to one another. But it isn’t why she’s family.

She’s family because she is ruthless, and so is he.

------

The new modus operandi of Nelson, Murdock and Page isn’t much different than the old one, they’re just more obvious about it. They still help those who aren’t getting a fair legal shake, and with that comes the inevitable investigation that uncovers the seedy underbelly of Hell’s Kitchen and beyond.

It’s a system that works surprisingly well. A dream scrawled on a napkin come to life. She looks into the cases, digging deep on the angles and motives. Matt does nighttime reconnaissance and rules the jurists’ box with compelling arguments. Foggy quotes legal precedent like it’s a Jeopardy category he’s just won.

And while they’re doing good work, a part of her wonders if they could do more, especially when they begin to realize something’s horning in on Fisk’s old territory. Something big. There’s whispers of it in the Kitchen, talk of a crime family with deep pockets and an even deeper streak of violence. She takes her work home with her, files she’s pulled from legal records, info from The Bulletin’s database. There’s a whiteboard in her kitchen that looks like a conspiracy theorist’s dream.

She brings it into the office, expecting Foggy to laugh, but he just calls them Team Awesome and moves a pushpin around.

“Seriously Karen, I’ve dreamed about this moment. You-” he points at her, “are helping Foggy Nelson realize a life’s dream.” He puts his hands in his pockets and leans back, observing. “Wow. It really does make things clear. I resolve we have this at all future Nelson, Murdock and Page meetings. By the way - we’ve got enough petty cash to pay for your investigator’s license. We should make this legal, huh?”

Matt smiles at her pleased surprise. “You’re part of our dream now, Karen. You didn’t think you’d escape did you?”

And despite all the bs between them, the shadow of his lies and those months where they’d presumed him dead and that desperate hopeful act of paying his rent, her smile at Matt is real, and the gleam in her eyes is too.

“Yeah, so,” she brushes the front of her skirt, motions to Matt, “when you got that name a few weeks ago, Blackwing, that broke things open.” She points to an article pinned in the upper right. “We’re dealing with the Maggias. An international crime organization that saw an opportunity in a Fisk-less New York. But look here,” she points to a picture with two strands of yarn leading from it. “This girl. If we get to her…” She trails off at their expressions. “What?”

“You are not going to directly involve yourself in this, Karen.” Matt’s the first to say it, but Foggy’s looking at her with the same stern face.

“Wait, what?”

“You can’t pull a Fisk on us again, we have to let law and research and Matt’s reflexes build our case for it.”

She’s pissed her actions have become a noun and says so.

“Look Karen, it’s hard enough to let a guy with supernatural reflexes out there and not worry to death,” Foggy’s saying, but she’s tuning him out. Because it’s what she expected from them, this overprotectiveness that will result in saving her life and hurting others. But she nods, they deserve her at least making the effort.

And so she does, tries to work on another angle for a few days, but the dangling possibility of investigating the crime lords’ mistress holds too much promise. She leaves work early, feigning cramps, a sadly still relevant way to avoid any questions from the boys.

She’s home in forty minutes, and is a whirlwind of activity, grabbing a notebook, pulling out some spare ammo from a drawer. When he speaks, her heart leaves her body.

“Going somewhere?”

She explains.

“Do you have a death wish Karen?” He asks as if he already knows the answer.

“No. Yes. Not really,” she answers and he nods, because it’s the truth. The question is the wrong one. It’s not about having a death wish. It’s something tangled up in a lack of self-preservation and her own sense of self-worth. Add a dash of genuine rage. Stir.

“Matt sees it as selfish,” she says suddenly. “I know he does. He said the same to me when he had to rescue me at the church. I blew his chance at Fisk because of my own bravado. God Frank, he was so mad.”

Frank stands during this, stalking towards her with an angry set to his jaw. “It sounds like me and Red need to have a talk.” He grabs her hands, holds them up so her palms are facing the ground, fingers pointing down in his grip. “You don’t have a death wish. And you’re not selfish. You follow your gut. You’re ruthless.”

Her eyes shine at this reminder of their talk, but she’s not ready to let go of her thoughts just yet. “But part of me thinks he’s right. When I go with my gut, people die. My brother. Ben. Father Lantom. So maybe I go, and i don’t involve anyone.”

“Is that what this is?” He lets go of a hand, circles his own in the air in reference to her frenetic packing. “You going off on your own? It didn’t work with Lewis, it’s not gonna work here.” She pulls from his grip, and he’s surprised at the anger on her face.

“So I just sit here, while the Maggias slip into Fisk’s shoes?”

He holds her gaze while shaking his head slowly. “Never said that, Karen. Wouldn’t say that.” The groove between his brows deepens and he cocks his head to the side, considering. He starts to say something, but his thoughts haven’t caught up to his voice and it comes out a low murmured rasp.  “You...Karen.” He pauses, his eyes darting around the room as he thinks. “You’ve got this thing about you. Like a pitbull. You don’t let go. And yeah, maybe it’s like Ellison says, you’re ruthless. You’ve got the killer instinct.”

She watches him without expression, her arms clasped across her body. A door creaks and slams closed nearby and she wonders at how normal it feels, Frank in her apartment. She stays silent, unsure if it’s more because she’s afraid of what he’ll say or that she needs it so much.

“Could your law friends dismantle this in a few years? Sure. Could Red beat up and threaten folks in the Kitchen until he gets lucky? Sure. But waiting means more people die. And you get that.”

Karen looks up sharply and Frank’s gaze narrows on her own. “Sometimes you gotta do something crazy to get results and you-” he breaks the stare, his teeth flashing in a smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes, “you don’t even pause to think about it. You just do, Karen.” He turns back to her, his brow clear, his stare piercing. “Now how’s somebody gonna say that’s selfish? Here’s the thing. You’re always left with the aftermath, but what if you hadn’t made your choices?”

“My brother would still be alive. Ben.”

“Bullshit. Your brother would be dead at your boyfriend’s hands, from what you told me. Ben might be alive but Fisk would’ve killed someone else. You uncover stuff, you worry it between your teeth. Pitbull, Karen.”

She smiles at this. “I’ve always loved dogs.”

“Heh.” Frank walks back to the couch, takes a pull off the beer sitting there. “So what’s this plan that’s got your lawyer friends in a tizzy?” He says the last word mockingly and circles the bottle in the air, an encouragement to speak.

She relaxes into another sort of tension, borne of facts and research. Turns towards the kitchen, grabs a Fat Tire from the fridge and sits down next to Frank. She watches his profile as he takes a drink, his throat working beneath the sharp cut of his jawline.

“The Maggias are divided right now. A bunch of hot-heads scrambling for power left in the void Fisk’s arrest made. And-” she says this last word like it’s a revelation, “two of them are after the same girl.”

Frank is nodding. “The mistress angle. Nice. She’s gotta be under a helluva lot of protection then.”

“Maybe,” Karen concedes, “but she’s not part of the family. From what I can tell she has no idea what they’re into, so if she has protection it’s well hidden. I want to talk to her. I want her to start asking questions. I want her questions to scare them into making a false move.”

“Is she...with both of them?”

“No. Neither. I think she senses something. But they’re obsessed.”

“That makes it easier to convince her. But what’s after that? Let’s assume she tells them, and they spook. So what?” He turns his body towards her, raises his bottle and ducks his head. “You acting as bait? That’s not gonna work with these guys.”

Karen looks down, her hands tangled in her lap. “Do -” she pauses, takes a sip of beer, “do you want to help?”

He stares at her and the silence stretches. She ventures a glance at him, and his eyes are tracing the planes of her face, his mouth open, his head nodding in a rhythm that speaks less of an acknowledgment than a means to think.

Frank breaks the silence with a croak of laughter, his head ducked down and that flash of teeth shining and it surprises her into her own laugh, though she’s unsure why she is.

“Just thinking last year I’d tell you hell no, I work alone. But maybe this is the new me. The new Frank.” His eyes dim for a moment. “I don’t pull punches Karen. If I help you, people will die. That part of me isn’t gone, never will be. But you know this. Right?” He looks up at her and there’s a vulnerability there that he’d deny if she pointed it out.

And that’s part of both of their stories, she thinks. Reaching out unconsciously to someone who just might understand. It’s human nature to want connection despite what terrors your own mind commits. And Frank may think his are on a different level - maybe they are - but she doesn’t see it that way. And she tells him so.

His face hardens for a moment in that inexplicable instinct to deny acceptance freely given, but his brow clears at her fierce expression. “Shit, Karen, you’re a firebrand,” there’s a smile in his voice. “So then,” he sets his beer down, holds his hand out. His fingers slide up her wrist when they shake and she shivers, unbidden.

“Partners?” He says and darts his eyes away, and her mouth curls up in the lightest of smiles as she responds.

“Sounds like a plan.”

[atropaazraelle]

83) “Stay there. I’m coming to get you.” How about some World of Ruin Gladnis when they didn’t really hunt together very much? *cough* bullshit *cough* I'd love to see Ignis managing totally fine, until he’s not.

So yeah, this one came to me this morning. I think I’d like to explore Ignis rescuing Gladio sometime, since that man doesn’t get beaten up enough in fics, and Ignis gets delightfully emotional when Gladio’s in danger or downed, but for now, there’s this.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. He’d got overconfident. Pain bloomed up his right leg, threatening to bring him crashing to the ground with every hurried, uneven step. Each hard breath sent sharp knives between his ribs. He cradled his right arm across his chest, blessedly numb even though he could feel the elbow bent unnaturally in his hand.

He’d been hunting alone for months, now. He was good at it, too, or so he’d thought. Moving in the dark was second nature, and the true darkness hadn’t descended until recently. Wearing torches only made a hunter into a beacon to the daemons, so the safest way to hunt was in total darkness. If you could handle it.

Ignis was stubborn. He’d handled it. He’d handled it many times in the last few months against the wishes of all who knew him. Why shouldn’t he hunt? he’d asked. What advantages did sighted hunters have over him, now? He was more accustomed to the darkness than any of them.

Gladio’s protests had fallen silent at those words. Ignis almost felt guilty for being so blasé about his own circumstances when he knew it still stung those he was closest to, but his point had been made. “Let him go,” Gladio had said, his voice full of quiet pain and surrender, “he’ll get himself killed proving his point if he has to.”

But Ignis hadn’t got himself killed, nor had he the next time, or the next, or the next. Daemons were a noisy bunch, and Ignis’s ears were sharp. They smelled of brimstone and ichor, and his nose was sensitive. The footfalls of the Giants made the ground rumble, and the magic of the Bombs made them light up in Ignis’s senses.

How embarrassing, then, to have been… ha! blindsided so by something as obvious as a Naga. He should have heard the tail sweeping in from his right, but he’d missed it until it hadn’t missed him, and then serpentine coils had snatched him up and squeezed.

He’d felt his elbow pop, where it was trapped at an awkward angle against his body. He’d felt ribs give way to the pressure with a series of dull noises, one, two, three, four, like someone snapping bubblewrap one blister at a time.

He’d tossed every grenade he held when she released him. The field had become thick with frost, and scorched with flame. The air had cracked with thunder, his hair standing on end with the charge. It had been enough to make her back off, it had been enough to give him a chance to escape.

Escape to wander in the daemon infested darkness with nothing but his daggers and polearm, neither of which he could sufficiently use. He didn’t know which way he was moving, either. Being thrown had stripped away his sense of direction; taking away that contact with the ground, turning him and stripping him of his reference points, leaving him blind in a way he hadn’t been for years.

He moved uphill. The slope was gentle, but it was enough to give him a direction. He listened for more daemons as he limped, but he followed another sense, one harder to explain. It was a gentle susurrus in his spine, a whisper across his skin, calling him.

His knee found the havenstone, looming in front of him, and Ignis stumbled around it to find an easier way on. He wasn’t up to climbing the sheer side of the rock that jutted from the ground like a blessing.

Exhaustion crept in quickly as adrenaline died. Ignis lowered himself to the stone as carefully as he could. The pain that should have been in his elbow was returning, eclipsing the pain of his leg, but doing little to let him forget about the pain of each breath. Sleep beckoned him; it would be so pleasant to just lie here, close his eyes, and surrender to it, to let his exhaustion overtake the pain.

Ignis resisted. Fishing his phone out of his left breast pocket with his left hand was tricky. but he couldn’t afford to give in to sleep. “Call Gladio,” he instructed, hoping the pressure that had cracked his ribs hadn’t rendered his phone useless.

His every breath felt ragged and laboured as he listened to his phone try to connect the call. It rang, and rang, and rang. “Loudspeaker,” Ignis commanded, lowering his arm and listening to his phone’s trill.

“Hello?” Gladio’s voice was groggy, as if he’d just woken. What time was it? That was one thing Ignis never could keep track of; he’d always woken early, and gone to bed when the demands of the day were done. Now time was just numbers; some nights he didn’t sleep at all, some days he slept until nearly afternoon.

“Gladio,” he said. His voice sounded weaker than he’d like, but breathing was agony and talking was worse.

“Iggy,” Gladio replied, sounding suddenly so much more awake. “What’s wrong, where are you?”

“I think it’s Sothmocke Haven,” Ignis replied, trying to keep the pain out of his voice.

“Stay there,” Gladio said, and Ignis would have laughed had he the breath. He wasn’t going anywhere under his own steam right now. “I’m coming to get you. You got a potion on you?” Gladio asked. Ignis could hear the rustle of material, and suddenly the sound went distant, as if he was listening to an entire room, not just to Gladio.

“It might make things worse,” Ignis said, quietly. Each breath sent a lancing pain through his chest that he’d only barely been aware of before.

Gladio’s voice came muffled, for a second, and Ignis could hear him hurrying to pull a shirt on, to pull leather trousers up, and zip and buckle them. “How bad is it?”

“Cracked ribs,” Ignis answered. “Breathing hurts but nothing’s punctured.” He’d know if anything was punctured, not that a potion would be much use if one of his ribs had pierced his lung because a potion couldn’t return bones to their original position. “My elbow is a mess,” he said, “and I think my knee was sprained.” Quietly he admitted, “I’m very tired.”

“Stay on the line with me, Iggy,” Gladio said. Ignis heard the stamp of boots being forced on as quickly as they could be. “Keep talking.”

“It hurts,” Ignis said. It hurt to talk, to breathe, to move. The stone floor of the haven felt soft and welcoming. It would be easy to slip into blissful sleep.

“Good,” Gladio answered, and his voice drew suddenly closer to the phone, “it means you ain’t dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Ignis said, listening to the sound of Gladio’s hurried, heavy breaths down the line.

“That better be the pain talking,” Gladio told him.

“You shouldn’t have to come and rescue me,” Ignis said. He shouldn’t have been out here, alone, fighting, and for what? To keep his pride? What good was pride to the dead? “I never wanted to be a burden.”

“Yeah,” Gladio agreed, “you owe me.” Ignis closed his eyes and swallowed, his throat burning. “So next time you can come rescue me.” There was the sound of heavy footsteps over a changing surface, and then the dull metalic click of a door opening. “Just because you’re blind doesn’t mean you have to be flawless to be out there,” Gladio added, his voice strong, and then it faded away to a quieter, “the rest of us aren’t. I’m sorry it took me so long to realise that.”

Ignis bit his lip. The burning in his throat intensified. “Iggy?” Gladio called down the phone, “Stay with me.”

“I’m still here,” Ignis answered. “Thank you.”

Gladio gave a grunt, and there was the sound of an engine starting up. “Tell me what you’re gonna cook me tonight,” he said. “I miss your cooking.”

Ignis smiled into the darkness, and tried to come up with a recipe.

[starcunning]

Suffer Me to Cherish You: 8 Nov

I don’t know why I find this harder to commentate than TBTRM. Maybe I just want it to speak for itself. Anyway, I made up some ground from yesterday.

Previously: Week One Previously: 4 Nov, 5 Nov, 6 Nov, 7 Nov

The Bowl of Embers was much as she remembered it: a vast plane of black basalt, scorched at its rim by unnatural fires. On the far side from her vantage was an altar—a bier of black stone flanked by torches and, every other time she had seen it, Amalj’aa priests. It was dim and silent now; Ifrit did not stir in the depths of that kiln. But she would wait for the aetherometer, she decided, and then she would make whatever call that dictated.

“What would you have done if you found Ifrit waiting here for you?” Fray asked her, looking down from where he stood over her. “I would have fought him,” Shasi said. “Alone?” She looked up from where she sat, holding fast his gaze. “I don’t know,” she said. “Would you have followed me? Even into that? I wouldn’t ask you to. Do you remember how we used to do it? How they dealt with primals before they had a Warrior of Light to call on?” “I do,” he said, settling in beside her with a grunt, watching the whirling of the aetherometer. “But you want to tell me, so tell me.” She looked down over the silent battlefield. “The first wave would charge, and they would do as much as they could,” she said, sweeping a finger over the circle of black to indicate a likely approach. “But they knew they were dead men. The first wave was for tempering.” “Then the second wave would approach from here,” Fray said, lifting his hand in turn. “And engage the first,” Shasi nodded. “And the third would come from the other flank—” she cast up her other hand— “and engage the primal. A man from the second or third waves might die, and might expect to. A man from the first wave knew he would.” Shasi let her hands drop into her lap.

“My friend,” Fray said, “the hero. She fought Ifrit once.” “When?” Shasi wondered. “A long time ago. Years. We weren’t alone here, and she charged in there like … well, like a woman possessed. I wanted to stop her, I shouted and begged for her to come back, but …” He sighed, reaching out to pick up a pebble from the plateau and cast it into the abyss of black stone. “She put that wall of flame between us. She went to fight that thing, that being of crystals and spite, for the sake of people who were already dead, or worse. If she heard me calling to her, she didn’t want to. Standing there … watching her … I thought I would die. Just from the sight.” Shasi furrowed her brow. “Did you love her?” Fray turned his golden eyes upon her. “She was the person I wanted to protect most in this world. When you find someone like that—someone you would give anything to save—your hearts are connected so deeply that there can be no barriers between you.” He turned his face away. “Or so I thought. It killed me to watch her go, not just because I was afraid for her, but because I could feel her slipping away from me. Because I knew I wouldn’t be able to save her. Not just then, but ever.” “What was her name?” “I can’t say,” Fray told her. Shasi glanced away. She watched the blue light of the aetherometer pan over the stone, over her folded hands and scraped knees, shadows shifting in its wake. She lifted a hand, held it before her, so that it was silhouetted by the azure glow, the way the Warriors of Light looked in her memories of Carteneau. “Is that why you didn’t want to go back to Ishgard?” she wondered. “Are you in disgrace because she died?” “Nothing like that,” Fray said. “I was in Ishgard when you came,” he added. “I only went to Mor Dhona to try to help a friend with his charge.” “And yours, when she fought Ifrit … was she afraid?” Shasi wondered. “I don’t know,” Fray said, and it seemed to trouble him. “She was cutting me off already even then. Were you?” “When I first came here? Of course,” she said. “My number was up. Me and my squad. First wave.” “But still you fought.” “I am usually afraid,” Shasi admitted. “And I always fight.”

Fray looked at her a long while, his gold eyes studying her with unusual intensity. “That tells me more about you than any number of Amalj’aa you could kill for me,” he said. “When you see this place now, what do you feel?” “Guilt,” she said. “My squad, they were all tempered, and they had to be executed. Everyone but me.” “Sometimes we can’t save everyone, Shasi,” Fray said. “Sometimes a dark knight is lucky just to save herself.” “I have to try,” she said. He gave no answer then, but she heard his breath leave him in a tired sigh. “What about the voice? The flame in the darkness? Do you still care about her?” Shasi drew back, affronted. “Of course I care about her.” “Then we should commune again.” “Well, if we climb back down and backtrack, there’s a way into one of the Amalj’aa dens, but …” “Were you listening to me just now?” Fray asked, pushing himself to stand. “You don’t have anything left to prove to me at this point. I wouldn’t say no, if that’s what you wanted to do.” “No, I … think I’d rather the Amalj’aa didn’t know we were here.” She pushed herself to her feet and dusted herself down as she continued. “If we just attack them, they’ll close ranks, they’ll get scared, and a frightened tribe summons. Unless we absolutely have to stop them right now, we shouldn’t interfere. I don’t know why Garlemald refuses to learn that lesson, but that’s my assessment as a Lieutenant of the Immortal Flames and as a professional god-killer.” Fray laughed. “Then give me your hands.”

She did, callused palms resting against cold steel. His gauntleted fingers closed over her hands. “Close your eyes,” he said. She did that too, the blue light of the aetherometer passing over her eyelids. She could still see its flicker against the darkness, hear the steady clicking of its flywheels, making it easy for her to count the seconds. “Breathe,” Fray told her, and she did, the scorched air filling her lungs. His hands were cold in her own despite the warmth of the air. She could taste brimstone. “Remember what happened here,” he said. “The moment you pulled the cold hands of fear from your throat and mastered yourself. Master yourself now and walk the path. Listen for the other—to her words, to her meaning. In her voice, discover your purpose …” She felt the heat spread from lungs to heart, welling and blistering inside her, the only warmth in the vastness of the whispering abyss. Shasi let it spill from her with each breath, and the susurrus seemed to shrink from her, to withdraw until there was one whisper left.

A thousand cries for help surround me, bury me; a thousand voices drowning out my own. If I have no voice, how can I convey my feelings? The pain and anger that fills me … has nowhere to go, and no one to hear it. But … if my voice is powerless … I can use another’s. So that you can hear me. So that you can feel my pain …

Shasi felt the damp clinging of her lashes, tears evaporating from her cheeks almost before they could fall. Fray sagged against her, and she caught him in her arms. He was cold as a Coerthan winter, his breath whistling through his mask just beside her ear. “Fray,” she said in alarm. “You heard her?” he asked. She nodded, buckling under his weight so that they both knelt on the stone. “Good,” he wheezed. “Good. I will not ask you what you heard, or how you feel, or what you think. What matters is … are you ready to go to her?” He closed his eyes, shivering. “Are you alright?” “It’s getting harder,” he said, “I don’t … know how long I can do this, but I …” “Have to?” she finished. “You need me,” Fray muttered, repeating it to himself like a mantra. “Are you ready?” he asked. “You stand at the precipice. Do not fear the fall.” “She needs me,” Shasi echoed. “It’s your choice, Shasi,” he said. “Always … your choice. This doesn’t have to be you. It could be me. I could take her and go.” “And what would I do?” “I think … we both know. But … it’s your choice,” he repeated, leaning back on his hands. “We could leave this place forever. We could run away together. There are still … places where no one knows you. Places … you could live. With her. With me. Whatever you choose.” “I can’t,” Shasi said, voice cracking. “I’m the Warrior of Light.” “You don’t have to be!” “Yes, I do!” The tears welled anew, and she pushed herself up to her knees. “Is that what you want?” Fray asked. “Is that really what you want? All these things you’ve tied yourself to … have bound your hands.” She set her jaw. “Then I can still strangle you with the chain between them,” she said, swallowing her tears.

That made him laugh, but soon it rumbled into a cough. “I don’t think … I have much time left.” She looked at him with pity, feeling the old ache in her chest. For all it was well to be forewarned, she found it didn’t help much. “Don’t worry ...” he said, looking at her face. “I’ll try to teach you as much as I can until then. But … if we’re not leaving … I want to go home.” “I understand,” she said softly, though the thought of Coerthas made her shiver. She thought of autumn storms, and of cold graves. “I can take you.” “Good,” he said. “I just need to … rest here a bit, and then … we can go.” Shasi nodded, turning back toward the aetherometer.

She pulled the tape through her hands, watching the fluctuations of the needle’s path during their observations. All seemed calm, the needle like a taut thread down the center of the paper.

“Fray,” she said softly, so that if he slept she would not wake him. “What?” replied the dark knight, voice as soft and brittle as ash. “Why did you ask me to go with you? I didn’t think you wanted me.” “I don’t,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. Why do you think you can solve all your problems by taking them to bed?” “Not all of them,” she protested. “You wanted to bed down with me.” “I considered it,” she admitted. No secret there, not after that fumbling seduction in the mountains. “But you never take your armor off, do you.” “Neither do you, Shasi Souleater,” he said.

Something trembled, she realized. Some kind of aetherial disruption had rippled over the butte, had moved the needle. Looking at the reading, she heard it like an inchoate scream. She looked from the ticker tape to Fray’s still form, and thought of the long road ahead. Then she made a choice, and reached for her linkpearl.

The Scions agreed to send Arenvald, and Marshal Tarupin offered a crack squad to support him in observing the Amalj’aa further, and so Shasi and Fray returned to the road, following the Sunway east toward the border with the Black Shroud. The evening sun cast their shadows before them as they rode in silence, slowing as they approached the caravansary at Highbridge. They dismounted from chocoback to wind through the crowds, though the bridge itself was quite empty, the lamps already lit against the coming dark.

“How sure are you of your footing?” Fray asked as they climbed the stairway of the bridge. Shasi flicked her tail playfully. Patches of it were still bare, the white and grey fur growing back uneven. “Reasonably,” she said. He held out a gauntleted hand, motioning for her to pass over Anthea’s reins. Shasi obliged him, though the bird let out a squawk of protest. “I want to teach you something,” he said. “I’m listening,” Shasi said. “Ready your sword.” She retrieved the baldric from her pack, settling its familiar weight around her, and drew the longsword, holding it at the ready. “Look around you,” Fray said, “across the bridge.” She did so dutifully, her eyes scanning the vista from horizon to horizon—from the falls to the south and the twisted spires of corrupted crystal to the Belah’dian ruins to the north. “Not there,” Fray said. “In front of you. I need you to see everything in front of you on this bridge. And everything behind you.” She glanced back. The sun blazed low above the foothills and mesas on the far side of Camp Drybone. She shifted her weight so that one of the iron spires that rose above the bridge cast its shadows across her eyes, and her vision resolved. Past the throng she could see the grazing droves of myotraguses and the spreading branches of ironwood trees. “Higher,” Fray said. “Fix your eyes heavensward.” Nothing in the sky but clouds, and black iron barring her vision. “And the way we’re headed?” “More of those spires,” she said. “And stone posts.” “And if something waiting up there was a threat?” Fray asked. Shasi shook her head. She adjusted her grip on her sword, her rings glinting in the sun. The shard of Dalamud inset into one was brilliant crimson in the light—the unicorn was redder still. For just a moment, she could see it—the threat on the bridge. Not this one but another.

If she were a red mage she could draw tight a cord of aether. If she had been quick enough she might have done it then. But she was a dark knight, and too late. But if she could have done it—if she could have done it she would have led with her blade. She would need a step, maybe two, to build up the momentum, but she knew how to spring upward with force and accuracy to rival any of Ishgard’s dragoons.

She heard her footsteps on the stone, felt the wind ruffle through her hair, and brought her blade down just as she landed, directing all her momentum into that downward cleave. Aether leapt along her blade, and she heard the stone crack.

If she could have done it, she would have killed Zephirin de Valhourdin then and there.

Fray clapped, the sound echoing across the empty bridge. She turned back toward him, toward the setting sun, and blinked the tears from her eyes. Careful of her balance—and suddenly very mindful of the chasm underfoot—she wrenched her blade from the stone, returned it to its sheathe, and made the much shorter leap to the brick platform below.

Fray caught up to her a moment later. “You didn’t seem afraid at all,” he said. “I was thinking of someone I wanted to protect,” she said. “Once.” “Ah,” he said. “Greystone.” Shasi looked away. But her callused thumb ran along the inner edge of the silver signet ring she wore on her left hand. “Oh, come now,” Fray coaxed her. “All Ishgard knew you were sleeping together.” She looked back at her mentor. “We were never lovers,” Shasi said, her voice cracking right down the middle. Fray only fixed her with those golden eyes a long moment, and then he looked away.

[suitablysublime]

In the end of things it is her, and him, and the phantasms of Alice wavering between them; the fog peels back and the path ahead gleams wonderfully, brutally clear in her head. Hatter breathes in, and knows, and knows that Morris knows too when she folds the writ of execution into his hands and watches the terror bloom in his eyes.

“No,” he says, as he tries to press it back into hers. “Morris,” she whispers, and that’s as far as she gets before words fail and her throat closes up again with fear. She lunges forward to kiss him—a harsh, gasping, agonized thing, a final breath snatched before she dives beneath the waves. Morris clutches her desperately in return.

“No—!”

“It’s over, Morris.” Tears, his or hers, wet on her cheeks. His; she’s beyond crying, now. “It’s done. It’s all broken open and Alice—”

A garbled cry rips out of her throat and her knees buckle, but those are distant, meaningless sensations; Alice hurtles across the courtyard and pulls Chloe into her arms with a shuddering, heaving sob—and they’re not free yet, not out of danger yet, but her daughter is still alive, still whole, and hugging back so tight that Alice’s ribs creak and her breath comes short and nothing else matters just now—

“Hatter!”

Hatter. Hatter Hatter Hatter. Her.

Black spots swelling, bursting in her vision. Morris’s arm flung around her waist, pulling her off the brink of collapse.

Hatter chokes, and retches, and bile splatters the floor. Flecks of blood glitter like jewels amid the putrid bile; the tang of iron lingers on her lips.

Every time she slips into Alice’s mind, more of her gets scraped away. She feels ruined and corrupted and frail as rotten ice.

She slumps into Morris and rasps, “We’ve lost, darling.” I’m dying. I think I’m dying. “At least—at least—at least let me save you.”

”We—”

“Please.”

Morris cradles her closer, the writ of execution crinkling between them. Hatter shivers, leans into his chest and listens to his heart pounding in her ear. His breath comes fast and dry, crackling with nascent panic.

The tears on her cheeks belong to her too, now.

“She’ll kill you.”

Hatter manages a wan smile. “I’ve survived worse.”

“That’s not funny anymore, Hatter—!”

“I love you.”

And that stops him dead. Hatter closes her eyes, shuddering; a fresh tendril of icy self-loathing snakes through her gut. All these years struggling to force the words out at last, to tell him, to let him finally hear it—and she uses it for this.

To ask him to betray her.

Disgusting.

She opens her mouth and it slips out easy as breathing, because she needs it now, because it might be the only thing that can save him. “I love you, Morris. So do it.”

“I can’t—”

“Sacrifice me and save yourself,” she says, and kisses him again, blood and bile be damned. “I love you. I need you to survive this.”

Morris makes a shattered, hopeless little sound, and Hatter curls her fingers around his neck, rests her forehead against his cheek, and waits. “I love you too,” he whispers at last, and then, “I’ll—alright. Alright. I’ll do it.”

“I’m sorry,” Hatter breathes, dizzy with relief. “I’m so, so sorry, Morris.”

Sorry that this is how it ends, with her twisting the knife of their defeat; that in the end she never quite outgrew the chains and shadows of her past to love him as he deserves. Hatter trusts him to catch her meanings. A kiss, a kiss, a kiss, soft and endlessly grateful down the curve of his cheek, and then at last she dares to look at him.

His eyes are bleak, blasted desolation. Hatter can already see the fault lines along which he will break when she’s gone. The grief. The guilt.

“Morris—”

And what else can she say? Morris looks away, misery written across his face; she wants to say forgive me, but it seems a bridge too far. I’ll come back, but what if she is mistaken about her capacity to survive a beheading?

“I need to—” she begins, and falters. “I need to—speak to… to—her.”

Don’t say the name.

As it is, the edges of Alice’s mind wash against her own like the relentless surf crashing against a cliffside, and ghostly echoes of the courtyard flicker in her eyes. Hatter quivers.

Something she can’t name passes over Morris’s face, a spasm of some ugly emotion she’s never seen before, and then it’s gone and he whispers, “I’ll buy you time.”

He shakes himself out of her embrace, and leaves her to the cold silence of her office.

***

Step and step and step, and Hatter drifts from her tower to the deserted streets to the courtyard where Alice waits for her, stripping away everything but the things she wants to say, stripping herself of anger and grief and fear and hate and, hardest of all, love. Step and step and step, and everything sloughs away until nothing but her weariness remains.

She is so, so tired.

And Alice waits for her.

They’re gathered in front of the chopping block, Alice and her family, and Alice is like something out of legend: Limned in white-gold radiance by the setting sun, her eyes burning with grim, confident fury, and Hatter has to look away.

It was never about your weakness, was it, Alice?

Hatter finds she doesn’t know what to say after all.

“I want to know why,” Alice says, and the sedate resignation that carried Hatter here fractures a little further with each word.

She really doesn’t know.

She doesn’t—

She—

“…Do you see me, Alice?” Hatter whispers; the words are not the ones she composed moments ago, but they are the only ones she can produce from the sudden, thunderous silence filling her mind. “Do I look back at you when you stare yourself down in the mirror at night? Do I haunt you like you haunt me?”

Alice has gone very pale, and her eyes grow wide; for once, for once, Hatter cannot tell what she is feeling. They hang in a fragile balance, and there’s a ringing in Hatter’s ears.

“Who are you?”

That should not hurt as it does; Hatter clenches her fists and, like water roaring past a collapsing dam, the words flood out. “What did you think happened to everything you never wanted to feel?! Tear yourself to pieces and throw away the unattractive things if you must, but don’t delude yourself into thinking they’re gone forever, Alice! It doesn’t work that way!”

“Hatter—”

“They found me in the harbor, Alice! Twenty-one years ago, on the fourteenth of November, in the water, I couldn’t— I couldn’t—” Her lungs burned then as they’re burning now; Hatter gasps frantically for air and plunges on. “An amalgamation of—you were meant to come here, then, as a child. Wonderland needs its Alices.” She laughs bitterly. “And you didn’t, and so the Rabbit Hole jammed and something had to fall down, so Wonderland took whatever it could and—”

Water in her nose water in her throat water setting fire to her lungs; terror and darkness and cold and screaming screaming screaming—and then no more air left to scream—

Her voice breaks.

“…Hatter, I—”

“Don’t! Don’t—don’t—!” Hatter scuttles backward, catching her heels on the trailing hem of her coat, retreating from the awful compassion breaking across Alice’s face. If Alice can look at her that way now, after everything, then—

We were never enemies until I made us so.

And another life unfurls, hideously clear in hindsight; if she had only dared to reach for Alice, to make herself known, they might have built each other up instead of Alice forever tearing her down, and then— and then—

Perhaps it wouldn’t have hurt so much.

Hesitant, cautious, fumbling like someone feeling her way through darkness, Alice says, “So you’re… me? A part of me—?”

“The rotten things,” Hatter chokes out, not looking at her. “Every heartbreak and betrayal, all your anger, all your guilt, all the selfishness and distraction—everything you tried to push away…”

A brittle sigh leaves Alice’s lips; guilt and sorrow radiate out of her, for once not poisonous or smelling of decay. “I’m sorry,” she says, softly, softly.

It cuts Hatter to the bone; she flinches, and all her walls are crumbling now, and all the softness she purged from herself fourteen years ago rises wraithlike from the ashes of her past—not burned away but simply buried.

“No,” she snarls, but the word becomes a sob all the same.

And the brassy fanfare of the Queen of Hearts rings out, and Hatter turns, as straight-backed as she can manage, to meet her death with dignity.

The first thing Hatter sees is Morris, trotting along in the outskirts of the Queen’s entourage and avoiding her gaze; the second is the unfurled writ of execution, which dangles limp from the Queen’s hand.

“Hatter,” the queen says, in a quieter tone than Hatter expects, “is this true?”

Hatter glances again at Morris, who still does not look at her, and then back to the Queen. The brewing anguish in her head has quieted to a fragile, exhausted calm; she squares her shoulders and, in a whisper, replies, “Yes.”

The affirmation stirs the royal entourage to an excited susurrus, and Hatter’s gaze drifts to the gleaming curve of the headsman’s axe.

Will it hurt more or less than Alice’s intrusions?

More or less than drowning?

For how long? Seconds? Minutes—?

Hatter has heard that loss of consciousness follows in seconds, but here her unnatural resilience may well work against her.

Her imagine conjures unpleasant fantasies of being awake and aware while the Queen collected her head and brought it back to Argine, to be staked and left as an example in front of the castle gates. She shudders.

Then the Queen says, “I am going to pronounce the ultimate decree.”

No—!

Morris at last stops examining his shoes to return her panicked glance with one of his own, and Hatter distantly hears Alice say, “Your Majesty, please—”

The Queen rolls the writ of execution up and says, “For your crimes against all the people of Wonderland, and for premeditated acts of treason against Myself, which can neither be forgiven nor forgotten, Hatter, I hereby conde—”

It’s a thoughtless impulse to snarl “No!” and fling herself at Alice, to take a fistful of her curls and hold her fast while she tears the knife from her belt with the other hand and press it to the vulnerable flesh of Alice’s throat; Hatter blinks and Alice whimpers and it’s done, just like that.

The Queen stops her recitation mid-word.

Silence, save her own ragged breathing and Alice’s shallow, frightened gasps. Into the shocked silence, into the Queen’s hesitant reluctance to condemn an innocent person to the Dark Country, Hatter whispers, “Leave. Now. Or we’ll see what happens when an Alice dies in Wonderland.”

And then Alice grasps Hatter’s hand with both of her own and yanks, down and out, twisting herself free and trailing terror in her wake. Hatter lunges after her, too late; Jack is suddenly there, taking the wild slash of her knife across the shoulder and grabbing for her wrist before she can recover. The Queen’s voice rises behind her, triumphant.

“I condemn your—”

She feels Jack trying to disengage, trying to escape before the decree claims her and him with her; Hatter lets the knife fall and surges after him, wraps both arms around his neck.

“—soul!”

The air shrieks and tears itself apart as the decree sinks like a lash into her skin; the last thing Hatter sees before darkness subsumes her is the horrified shock in Alice’s eyes.

[haphazardlyparked]

write-o-ween! parts 1-4

just mushing them together bc i gotta catch up! 

doing the write-o-ween with @straycatreadsthat​!!! your uncanny valley first one plus me listening to the SYSK podcast o nthe uncanny valley has lead to... this? vague thing. 

i’ve also got maybe 6 more minutes of internet so hopefully can past this in and coax it to upload before we roll out of this train station D: 

---

uncanny

Lola avoids it -- being alone in the same room as Jasper -- as much as possible.

"Such paranoia," jokes Kate, shaking her head with mock-disapproval on their weekly Sunday Wine Day. "My therapist is still taking new clients, you know."

"Thanks," Lola says dryly, rolling her eyes. Kate is practically in love with her therapist, and sometimes they get coffee outside of their sessions. Lola thinks the therapist would much rather be something else to Kate than her therapist, but one could always trust Kate to forget about social mores like that. Lola's told herself she's not going to get into it again--if the doctor's serious about Kate, she can speak up for herself.

"Jokes aside," Ian says placatingly, "I can kind of see what you mean. It could be considered uncanny."

Lola rolls her eyes at that too. "Fuck off," she tells Ian succinctly. "I don't need your false sympathy."

"It's not false," Ian insists, while Kate sniggers into her cup. "I can just understand where you're coming from."

Lola looks at him long enough to flip him off, then turns her glare back on Jasper.

"I totally feel you," Kate starts in on it again, though this time she's making fun of Ian and his new resolve to always try to "see things from other people's perspectives" to "better understand where others are coming from" in order to "do his part to increase the amount of mutual understanding in the world." Lola thinks it sounds like a whole load of bullshit, and Kate just likes to antagonize Ian and then call him out on not understanding where she's coming from with her humor when he takes offense. "I mean, who fuck decided to call it Jasper, again? That's a name that's just like, begging something to happen. I completely understand your discomfort, Lola, it's important for me that you to know that."

"Kate," says Ian, predictably irritated.

Lola turns away from Jasper and its flat, blank eyes that light up only when you use the right phrases, and tries to ignore the feeling that the thing's artificial face has shifted minutely, just enough to express pity.

"Forget I said anything," she sighs. "We all know I'm an old fart about technology, it'll just take getting used to all of it."

chimerical 

The thing is, Lola's unease never goes away.

It gets worse - sometimes she'll be reading in the library, or having tea in the kitchen over the sink, and suddenly feel the hairs on her arm stand up. Sometimes, she'll turn and nothing will be there. Sometimes, she'll turn and Jasper will be there, blank-eyed and waiting for a command, and Lola will think that maybe she just hadn't noticed it lurking in the corner of the room on standby when she entered; maybe she'll roll her eyes and remind herself to bitch Kate out for sending Jasper to stalk her. And sometimes, Lola will tense up and lock her knees and won't turn around to check the room at all, filled with the dreading, stomach-twisting fear that just by /looking/ she's inviting the worst to happen.

It gets so bad that Ian corners her after breakfast one morning, oozing thoughtful concern that's honestly starting to grate, and suggests, "Maybe you should see Kate's therapist."

"As long as you understand me," Lola says, as tartly as possible, "I don't need anyone else."

Kate, for her part, starts spinning chimerical tales that grow increasingly ridiculous. They start with, "Maybe Jasper has a human soul trapped in his animatronic body, and he's just begging for you to help free him. You're the sensitive one, Lola, you're his only hope," and grow into, "I bet Sercorp Inc found a way to drag things over here from other dimensions, and have enslaved Jasper's people, who can only communicate telepathically, and he's desperately trying to establish a mental communication link with you."

"Aren't you late for coffee with your therapist?" Lola says, when Kate skips into the garden to deliver her latest theory, involving Sercorp Inc as a front for a secret underground magic community and Lola's prophesied role in saving the world from a dark spell gone awry.

"Sonnuvabitch!" Kate yelps, after checking the time.

Lola watches her run back into the boarding house, and normally she'd laugh at Kate's back but instead she has to fight the urge to shudder. She thinks she sees a figure standing by one of the windows on the second floor, just at the corner of her eye, but she resolutely turns her back on the windows and fixes her eyes on the fountain in front of her.

Susurrus

She starts waking up every night at four forty-four, on the dot. The first two nights, Lola doesn't know why; she struggles to calm her racing heart and shivers at the breeze that chills her sweat-soaked skin.

The third night, wiping sweat off her brow after checking the time on her phone, Lola thinks she hears something outside her bedroom door, some soft, ominous susurrus. It's the curtains, Lola tells herself. It's an old boarding house in the victorian style, so it's got a million windows all covered in delicate lace and ostentatious curtains bound with woven cords -- the house is creaking all the time. It just seems creepier at night.

It's not til the fourth night at four forty-four again, when she's signing gratefully at the breeze cooling her damp skin, that Lola realizes there shouldn't /be/ a breeze. She always sleeps with her windows closed.

aubade

Lola isn't an idiot. She doesn't get out of bed to investigate the now-open window; she just lays there, as motionless as possible, until the dark silence around her is nearly suffocating.

"Lola, Lola, it's all in your head," she tells herself in a whisper, before growing bolder. "Snap out of it, Lola. You're creeping /yourself/ out."

Talking out loud like this, calling out her overactive imagination, seems to do the trick. Or at least it drowns out the susurrations outside her door. Lola turns on her side, and goes back to sleep.

The next morning, at four forty-four am, she tries singing a couple of pop songs loudly. Kate and Ian both have rooms way down the hall, and there's no one else at the boarding house at the moment, so she doesn't worry about waking up anyone else. But the singing doesn't do the trick as well, and when she falters, forgetting some of the words, the looming silence comes crashing back down on her. Lola switches to the lullaby she remembers her dad always sang.

"Lola, Lola, close your eyes and sleep. Papa loves you, and will be here all week."

It was a dumb lullaby; Lola's dad hadn't been the most creative, and was honestly a bit tone deaf to boot, but it was comforting to repeat to herself until she fell back asleep.

The next morning, just after four forty-four, Lola hears, like some creepy aubade replacing the whisper of curtains at her door, "Lola, Lola, close your eyes and sleep. Lola, Lola, close your eyes and sleep."

Lola feels very, very cold. "S-screw you, Kate!" she snaps, because it's the only thing she can say that lets her pretend this is all normal. "Go back to sleep, you loser!"

Nothing replies. Lola buries her head under the covers, and resolves not to leave her room until Ian comes looking for her, which she knows he'll do if she skips breakfast. And then she'll change rooms, or find an excuse to spend the night with Kate. Not because there's anything out here -- she just needs a change of pace, is all.