#and i do think the circle taught him self-defense but only really against demons in the fade

[greyswarden]

back here again because i just wanted to say that i’d like to think that ariel started to get a little bit of training with swords/daggers from alistair, zevran and leliana, enough to be somewhat competent. he’s squishy and got knocked out during fights so often prior to arcane warrior specialization so it’s necessary!!!!!

[jingabitch]

Asmodeus

SUMMARY: While trying to summon a demon, you have an encounter with Namjoon.

PAIRING: Namjoon x witch!reader

GENRE: smut

WARNINGS: demons and witches and stuff, dirty sex in a graveyard, oral sex (f receiving), plot twist, kinda dark-ish?

Word Count: 3.6k

A/N: banner by @kookspierogis​, beta-ed by @hesperantha​, inspired by an ask by @wwilloww​. Hope you guys enjoy it (and appreciate that I actually managed to get this out well before my scheduled deadline!).

You pulled your jacket more tightly around your body and hitched your backpack up slightly, looking behind your shoulder to make sure you weren’t being followed. This graveyard gave you the creeps, and you really didn’t know why you’d agreed to do this  in the middle of the night. Was joining this coven really that important? Couldn’t you have attempted to summon a demon somewhere indoors and, most importantly, warm?

Sighing at your earlier self for making such poor decisions, you watched as your breath fogged up in front of you. “Jesus,” you muttered. Maybe you should just get this done as quickly as possible, so you could go back home and snuggle up under your warm duvet.

Finally reaching the small clearing in the middle of the cemetery, you stared up at the imposing griffin statue for a second before walking up to it and putting your backpack on the ground, leaning it against the base of the statue and kneeling down to take the necessary items out. Your grandmother’s grimoire, the candles, the ceremonial dagger.

It was so cold that your fingers were frozen, making it difficult to get the candles out of their plastic wrapper. Cursing, you blew on your hands and rubbed them together before picking up the package to try again.

Placing the five candles in a circle, you stepped into the middle and opened the book to the right page. “Why are all the summoning spells in ancient Latin?” you wondered to yourself, before kneeling on the ground and placing the book down in front of you.

As you chanted the first line of the spell, you felt the power start flowing through your veins, hot and electric, and placed your palm against the ground. As soon as your hand made contact, you clenched your teeth against the strange feeling of the magic leaving your body, shooting into the ground in the direction of the candles, which lit up immediately.

It was a windy night, but that didn’t matter, because the flames were fueled by your magic. A pentagram with the five points marked out by the candles began to glow on the ground, enclosed within a circle.

Lifting your palm off the ground, you refocused your attention on the spell in the book, picking up the knife by your side for the blood sacrifice. You would have to slice your palm open and drip a few drops of blood into the middle of the pentagram to bind your soul to the demon.

Before you could start chanting again, however, you heard the telltale rustling sound of leaves crunching underfoot, and whipped your head around. As you turned, you caught sight of someone standing behind you, staring down at you.

“What are you doing here?” you snapped, trying to hide your panic and shock.

He shrugged. “I could ask you the same question,” he pointed out, drawing closer.

Your mind kicked into overdrive, trying to find some rational explanation that wouldn’t lead to you being kicked out of the graveyard or arrested or sent to a mental facility.

“Giving a prayer to my grandparents,” you offered. It was a piss-poor excuse, and you knew it, but it was too late to do anything but double down. “They were really spiritual.”

He raised a brow at you.

“Anyway,” you continued defensively, “what are you doing here?” By which, of course, you meant, how had you missed him?

He stepped out of the shadows and into the moonlight, and your breath caught in your throat. Holy hell, how had you missed the fact that he was beautiful? Tall and broad, wearing a long black coat over a black turtleneck which contrasted against his ash grey hair. The coat wasn’t buttoned up, and you could see the YSL logo next to the buckle of his belt.

“Paying my respects,” he said vaguely. “I’m Namjoon, by the way.”

You stood up, compelled somehow by his gaze. “Y/n,” you introduced yourself against your better judgement. When it came to creeps in graveyards at midnight, you could never be too careful, you’d always thought, and yet your mouth had betrayed you before you could think it through.

He was just so beautiful it was disconcerting. Growing up around other witches, you’d never really been around men all that much, and you didn’t quite know what to do with yourself

“You shouldn’t be hanging around places like these late at night, you know,” he cautioned. His voice was soft and low, pleasing to the ears. You strained to hear more of it.

He stepped closer still, until he stopped right outside the circle you’d marked out with your candles. “You never know who’s going to be around.”

“Like you?” you shot back breathlessly. The moonlight reflected off his fair skin, making him all but glow in the darkness of the night.

The half-smirk he gave you was sinister, dark and dangerous. It should scare you, but instead you felt arousal coil in your lower belly.

“Exactly like me,” he agreed easily. He smiled at you, showing off his dimples.

“You don’t look very dangerous,” you observed.

“Well, maybe you should take a closer look, then,” he invited with a shrug.

Step out of the pentagram? You hesitated for a moment. One of the first things you’d been taught when you started learning magic was never to do that – the pentagram was the only thing that protected you from the demon you were summoning. Outside of it, the balance of power shifted dramatically.

But Namjoon raised his hand, palm out, for you, and before you knew it, your hand was in his and you let him pull you out of the pentagram. “You mean like this?” you asked as you slung your other arm around his shoulders.

You thought you saw his eyes flash, but dismissed it as a trick of the light in the second before his lips descended on yours. “No, I meant like this,” he growled.

Your eyes snapped shut immediately as you lost yourself in the feeling of his lips moving against yours. It had been so long since you’d been kissed, and never like this. Never with such skill and dexterity. His hands crept up your abdomen under your shirt, and even though they should have been cold, his fingers were deliciously warm, making you want to press yourself against him like a cat.

He backed you up into the base of the statue, crowding close and pressing the hard rod of his erection into your belly as he towered over you. It should have been menacing, but everything was, instead, endlessly titillating.

“You like that?” he said in a low, raspy voice that tied your stomach in knots. “You do, don’t you?”

You didn’t have it in you to answer, but he certainly didn’t need you to reply verbally. Not when the way you mewled as you tried to get closer to him, sliding your hands greedily into his coat, told him everything he needed to know.

Witches were always so easy. These closed communities of all-female witches meant it was difficult for them to have their needs met, and they were consequently easy pickings for any man who happened to set his eyes on them. Really, he thought, you’d think that after so many years, they’d have wised up to the pitfalls of the coven structure, but it appeared not.

“I’m going to take care of you,” he promised darkly, the sound making heat pool in your lower belly as you clenched on yourself, uncomfortably aware of how empty you felt. His fingers trailed down your abdomen now, in the opposite direction from before, headed for the button on your jeans.

You barely registered the fact that he was pushing you back gently until your back hit the base of the statue, knocking the air out of your lungs. He crowded close, pressing you back into it, towering over you with his broad frame. One of his hands pushed your sweater up, bunching the fabric under your arms, while his other undid the button on your jeans, sneaking his fingers into your panties.

He didn’t bother to hide his satisfaction, letting out a small noise and lifting his head to smirk down at you. “You’re so wet,” he purred, running his fingers along your slit. With a precision that seemed almost inhuman, he found your clit, rubbing his slickened fingers across it.

A choked moan forced its way out of you as you threw your head back against the cool marble of the statue’s base, your eyes fluttering shut as you rocked your hips into his fingers.

The feeling of him withdrawing his hand from your panties was so objectionable that you opened your eyes, making a sound of indignation. All fight automatically left you, however, when you saw him sucking on his fingers, staring you down with hooded eyes. “I want to taste it from the source,” he told you, his voice deep.

Holding back a shudder, you nodded. “Yeah, we can definitely do that,” you managed, your voice shaky.

He leaned down to kiss you, then started trailing kisses down your neck, before kneeling. Your eyes wide, you watched him get on his knees as you started pulling your sweater down, back over your body.

“Don’t,” he said, a steely undercurrent in his voice that sent a little shiver down your spine. The glint in his eyes let you know that he meant business. Still, despite being mid-hook up with a random stranger in a graveyard – you stared down the neat rows of tombstones – you hadn’t taken complete leave of your senses.

“It’s cold,” you protested with a pout.

“Don’t worry,” he told you. His voice oozed with confidence. “You won’t get cold.”

You were about to say more, but he silenced you with a stern look. With a sigh, you acquiesced, lifting the shirt back up as you leaned your head back against the statue. You were going to catch your death out here, you thought mournfully, staring up at the full, round, white moon. Hopefully he’d at least get you to the little death first.

He ripped your jeans and panties down your legs, knocking off one of your sneakers carelessly as he did so. Your clothes remained bunched around the other ankle, in what surely was the most undignified position you’d ever been in.

Then his tongue touched your body, and as you stiffened and squeaked in surprise, all of those thoughts flew out of your head. The only thing that mattered to you was how talented he was with the appendage, and you adjusted your stance to give him greater access.

Namjoon lapped at your slit with long, broad strokes, bumping your clit every time. You rocked your hips slightly to get more friction, and he reacted by holding your hips still with his strong, big hands, making the thought that he must be the devil flash across your mind in frustration. Then he shifted closer, using his broad shoulders to open your legs wider, and placed his mouth on your pussy, and that last shred of coherent thought left the chat.

The hand holding your sweater up drifted slightly, your fingers ducking into the cup of your bra to circle your nipple as your thumb stayed hooked under the cozy knit material. Your other hand slid down your bare abdomen before your fingers threaded themselves through his hair just to have something to hold on to as he relentlessly attacked your clit.

“Mmf, fuck,” you mumbled around a lock of hair that had fallen into your mouth with all the thrashing around you were doing. It didn’t matter, though. Nothing mattered but Namjoon and his wonderful, awful tongue. Tears squeezed out of your eyes, which were tightly shut, running down the sides of your face.

“That’s it,” he encouraged you as he detached for a second to catch his breath, using his thumb to rub over your clit as he fucked you with his fingers. “You’re close, aren’t you? Come for me like a good girl,” he said slightly breathlessly before once more ducking his head to your core.

Helplessly, you obeyed, your entire body seizing up as you clenched around his fingers, rocking your hips against him as you rode out your orgasm.

When it was over, you slumped limply against the marble statue, blinking up at him with slightly blurry vision as he rose to his full height. In the pale, weak light of the full moon, his cheeks and chin gleamed. He didn’t bother to wipe it away, instead grinning down at you as he braced his weight on the statue, his hands on either side of your shoulders.

“Good girl,” he purred as he leaned in to kiss you. You tilted your head up automatically to receive his kiss, uncaring of the fact that you could taste yourself on his lips. As he slid his tongue against yours sensuously, you eagerly reached to unbutton his trousers. With a chuckle, he leaned back to give you more space, but didn’t otherwise help you.

You were so distracted trying to get into his pants that you didn’t notice how warm your fingers were. You still had full mobility, contrary to your expectations that you’d be frozen solid by now, after his insistence that you expose yourself to the elements the way he’d ordered you to.

Then your hands were full of dick, and you moaned in unison. You would have been more embarrassed about that had your body not been thrumming with arousal still. It had just been so long since you’d touched a man. Training to become a witch didn’t leave you with much free time or access, after all.

“Good girl, such a good girl,” he continued praising you, his voice gone raspy as you stroked him. You were about to get on your knees to return the favour, but he stopped you, instead hoisting you up and pressing you against the statue. There was a vague sense of being pinned like an insect, but the thought vanished like so many had tonight the moment you felt him pressing, hot and hard, against you.

Then you felt your softness yield to him as he pushed into you, sliding deep into you with a grunt. Your fingers scrabbled for purchase along his shoulders, but the solid wool coat resisted. The cashmere of his sweater brushed against your skin, and although it was the softest, most luxurious sweater you’d ever felt, it was almost abrasive, reminding you that although you were pretty much fully exposed, he was still completely clothed.

Your head tipped back helplessly. You felt so incredibly full, the stretch riding the line between pleasure and pain. Namjoon, in response, bent his head to the exposed skin of your neck, pressing soft, wet kisses to the sensitive flesh that turned into sucking.

“Namjoon,” you gasped, and he lifted his head to look down at you. For a split second, it seemed like his irises were glowing red, but he blinked and then it was gone, and you dismissed it as a trick of the light. Your paranoia and discomfort from earlier must have seeped into your subconscious somehow. Ridiculous, really, since as a witch, you were probably the thing to be feared the most in the graveyard tonight.

His hand came up, long fingers stretching around the column of your neck.

“You’re mine,” he snarled. The unexpectedly possessive statement should have alarmed you. After all, he was a random stranger you’d met in dubious circumstances, even if you were currently getting to know each other on a very intimate level. Instead of uneasiness, however, his declaration only served to egg you on more, the rightness of it all settling deep within your bones.

Simultaneously, he pulled his hips back and then thrust into you again, bumping your clit with his pelvis.

“Yesss,” you groaned, although you weren’t sure if it was in response to his words or his actions. How was it possible for a man to be this good with his hips? The few sexual encounters you’d had before this had been fumbling, awkward and ultimately, you’d thought after, not worth it. Namjoon was like a whole different species.

He seemed to enjoy your enthusiastic approval, if the satisfied smirk he shot you was any indication. His body moved like a lithe, well-oiled machine, his arms hitching you up slightly higher to adjust the angle as he slammed into you. There would definitely be bruises on your hips from where they were hitting the marble, but it would be so worth it.

Helpless moans and yelps filled the air. As wrecked as you were, the only indication you had that he was feeling the same way was the way his breaths puffed against your neck. He seemed completely composed otherwise, keeping up a stream of filth murmured into your ear, so lewd it made even you blush.

There was no way, you thought, hurtling towards your second orgasm of the night, that he was a regular man. This level of prowess… it had to be something else.

As your moans reached a crescendo, Namjoon growled again, a delicious sound to your ears. You felt his mouth open slightly against your neck and felt the press of his teeth, but you were distracted and dismissed it as him taking in a gulp of air.

A second later, he struck. His teeth sank so deeply into your flesh that blunt human teeth couldn’t have done it. You should have been terrified, should have pushed him away and run screaming, but instead – completely bizarrely – the searing pain pushed you over the precipice. You came harder than you ever had in your life, the sensations so strong that they teetered on the fine line between pleasure and pain.

When the wave finally ebbed, you sagged against the marble of the statue, your arms loosening around Namjoon’s neck. He was approaching his own orgasm, you could feel it from the way his hips stuttered against yours. Thankfully, he’d removed his teeth from your neck, although he continued lapping haphazardly at the wound.

Exhausted, you marshalled the last of your strength to straighten up. “Come on,” you urged, stroking the back of his neck. Sweat was dripping down it and into his collar, you noted absently. When he finally released into you, it was a relief for the both of you.

In the wake of everything, you both slumped against the statue. The air felt almost eerily still and quiet after everything that had transpired before, and awkwardness started setting in.

Slightly uncomfortable now, you wriggled to be let down, and he acquiesced, stepping away to give you some room. You immediately began tugging on your clothes, trying to put yourself back to rights and studiously avoiding eye contact with him.

“Well,” you said in a voice that seemed entirely too loud, piercing through the silence that had settled over the graveyard. “That was fun.”

“Yes,” he said in a slightly amused voice. “I hope you don’t make a habit of this, though.”

Frowning, you raised your head to glare at him. “And what if I do?” you asked slightly irritably. You weren’t really in the mood to be judged for a random hookup by the man who’d just been railing you into next week.

He shrugged, raising his hands up placatingly. You turned away from him and bent to pick up your things. There was no way you were summoning a demon tonight, you thought. Your concentration was shot to hell, and your energy was all over the place. You’d have to try again tomorrow night.

Namjoon perched on a gravestone nearby, the disrespect of him sitting so cavalierly on someone’s headstone making you cringe internally. “I’ll see you around, I guess,” he said, watching you pack your things.

“Uh, yeah…” you said, your voice betraying your confusion. Who was in the habit of continuing to meet their random hookups? You knew it was probably one of those polite platitudes people exchanged, but the way he’d said it was different, like he really did mean it.

Namjoon laughed at your tone. “You didn’t think you’d escape me that easily, did you?” he asked, standing up. His hands were in his pockets as he walked towards you, looking completely nonchalant. Leaning in, he raised his hand to your neck, running his thumb over the bite mark he’d left. His face was so close to yours that for a moment, you thought he was going to kiss you again, but instead, he looked you directly in the eyes. “You’re mine now, after all,” he purred, as his eyes flashed red again.

Your breath caught in your throat, and your heart started pounding again, although for an entirely different reason this time. This was definitely not a trick of the light, and now that your brain wasn’t so clouded, all the little warning signs you’d dismissed earlier came back to mind.

“Who are you?” you breathed, trying to stop the tremor in your voice.

He chuckled and stepped away from you.

“My name is Namjoon,” he told you, shrugging. As he turned and started walking away into the darkness, though, he called over his shoulder, “But you might know me better by my title, Asmodeus.”

Shocked, you slapped your hand over the bite mark, staring at him as the fog swallowed his tall, lithe figure up. Asmodeus, the demon of lust. So you had managed to summon a demon after all. And, it seemed, a high-ranking one.

Running your fingers over the bite mark, you couldn’t stop the satisfaction from bleeding through you. As a disciple of Asmodeus, you were sure to rise through the ranks of the coven in no time.

[freedom-in-the-dark]

James Flint Is Gay: A Meta Post

[slides into the Black Sails fandom late with Starbucks]

Hey! What’s up! Here’s a post no one asked for but I wrote mostly for me. Before we get into it, I’ve got some big notices to put on the top here.

DISCLAIMER: If you interpret James as bi, and you prefer that, I am not trying to say you can’t do that or to convince you otherwise! 

You do you! If you’re not cool with seeing him as gay, please do us both a favor and keep scrolling past this post! I’m mildly aware that this fandom has a history of rough discourse surrounding this topic, but I cannot emphasize enough that I am new here, and this post is not an attack. Please do me the courtesy of not attacking me or blocking me or whatnot because I’m not trying to start drama lol. And for what it’s worth, I myself am bi (well, bi ace), so I’d like to think I’m being objective.

This post exists simply because I like to write meta out with my arguments / evidence lined up in a row; it gets things out of my head and onto a screen, and I find it satisfying. And if I’m doing it anyway, I might as well share.

So if you see James as gay, or have an open mind to that interpretation… please allow me to take you on this adventure under the cut. I’m sure it’s obvious, but this contains spoilers? Lol.

Here we go!

Compulsory Heterosexuality vs “Bi Erasure”

Firstly… to address some stuff I’ve seen in my limited Black Sails fandom travels right out of the gate: I’ve seen people imply that interpreting James as gay is “bi erasure,” or they ask “Why are you erasing that James was attracted to Miranda and had an affair with her?”

But to that I say: it’s far more complicated than that.

Gay people can have sexual relationships with people of the opposite sex, especially until / or before they identify as gay. This is how so many gay people can be married to the opposite sex and have biological kids, and then later realize their truth and come out to themselves and their families. Having those experiences or even some variation of actionable attraction to people of other sexes in the past doesn’t negate their ability to later identify as gay, once they stop burying those parts of themselves and/or experience something that “brings that part of them into the light.”

This is why the phrase compulsory heterosexuality exists. The phrase was originally coined by Adrienne Rich in a 1980 essay titled “Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Experience.” So yes, let me make this clear: this term originated in reference to lesbians and feminist theory, and then the idea was later expanded upon to include discussions of gay men by other academics in the early 2000s. I’m not gonna dive too deeply into it here, but in essence–as the name implies–this is the idea that patriarchal and heteronormative societies are viewed as the default, so individuals are assumed (by themselves and otherwise) to be heterosexual until “proven” otherwise. Through these standards that are seen as “normal,” people are also taught from a young age–whether explicitly or subconsciously through society–that anything that deviates from those ~straight norms~ leads to negative consequences. And so, society encourages people to avoid sexual exploration, because having experiences with someone of the same sex is what can often bring their gay identity into focus.

In the case of Black Sails, this is all very much emphasized at the forefront because it’s a historical drama. Aside from racism/slavery, patriarchy and heteronormativity are what the characters are actively going to war against.

So, the point in me defining all of this? No one—or at least, not me—is saying that James didn’t have a sexual relationship with Miranda. That’s not in question. But that doesn’t necessarily make him bi, and it doesn’t mean the narrative isn’t structured in various ways that indicate otherwise.

Just keep this in the back of your brain, because I’m going to circle back around to it.

Anne, Flint, & Gay Rage

In the wise words of an old pirate captain: “Fruit, fruit. Tits, tits.” This show thrives on parallels, and gives us lines / scenes that apply to more than one character; it’s partially why the themes are so consistent, and if you ignore that, you can miss a lot of the nuance. Our resident angry gay gingers are one of the paralleled sets of characters.

This is not a meta about Anne… but talking about parts of Anne’s story can help to highlight some things about James’ story.

I tweeted this once: “Flint and Anne’s sexualities paralleled to show struggles with compulsive heterosexuality, fighting for the sake of fighting, bringing parts of themselves into the light, wrestling with being told they’re monsters and their distorted senses of self, etc.” and really, now I’m just here to elaborate.

-----

The word “monster” is a recurring theme in this show. It’s tied mostly to Flint and how he is told he is monstrous for loving a man, fears being “the villain” or “monster” in everyone’s stories, and eventually embraces that monstrous portrayal in service of his goals–even as the violence is slowly devastating to him. But the other character the word “monster” is used in reference to? Anne.

A quote by Max:

“Idelle, how would you feel if the one man you thought would never betray you did? If he purchased for himself a future through that betrayal? If you were told by a world full of men that that betrayal confirmed for them that they were right to see you as a monster to be shunned? She's not mad. She is adrift.”

In some ways, this quote is also the story of what has happened to James in his life, over and over. (Not to say this is what Jack intended to do to Anne, but the parallels inherent in Max’s line itself cannot be denied.) 

James is repeatedly betrayed by those he trusts: Admiral Hennessey; Peter Ashe; Hal Gates. All of them try to get him to conform to heteronormative society–including Gates, because even if he didn’t know it, that’s what he was doing by trying to get James to take a pardon. That’s why James reacts with such instinctual panic and kills him; the idea of being forced to apologize to and assimilate back into heteronormative society puts him at a breaking point. (It can even be argued that Miranda “betrays” James in this way too by trying to get him to take a pardon and go to Boston–which is where his “and they called me a monster” speech comes in–and that also contributed to how James later panics and kills Gates for trying to force him to do the same. Miranda tried in a well-meaning way to get James to move on, because she isn’t fully understanding what James wrestles with; but I’ll go back to that.)

Again, these parallels are deliberate. Anne and Flint are the two main gay characters who wrestle with their supposed “monstrosity” in the eyes of everyone else, because they don’t fit in. They are “othered.” It’s not simply about their violence; for these characters, it’s about what their violence is in service of achieving, which is tied to their sexuality.

Anne is seen as a “monster” for slaughtering the men who abused Max, who is not only a fellow woman but also a fellow lesbian, in a way that Anne is undeniably drawn to even before she lets herself acknowledge the feeling. We as viewers are meant to see this and understand this, and we do. Anne is ostracized for violence that was motivated by her sexuality, which is partially why Max tells her that she understands her violence and will protect her–because Max is not only also a woman in a patriarchal society, but she is gay too.

Flint is seen as a “monster” first and foremost by England, for his sexuality… and then, later, by everyone else for the actions he takes because of his sexuality. Again: the violence he commits cannot be divorced from his sexuality because it is the reason for it. It’s what informs it.

I tweeted about this once too, but in many ways Anne and Flint’s kindred displays of brutality and anger and “fighting for the sake of fighting” (a quote by Miranda which applies to them both) are informed by their desire/need for gay tenderness. The world has too often denied them that tenderness and their expressions of their sexualities, or demonized them for wanting it, and their violence is the result. 

Here’s a quote from Deborah Tolman with regards to how compulsory heterosexuality affects men, which she calls “hegemonic masculinity”:

"These norms demand that men deny most emotions, save for anger; be hard at all times and in all ways; engage in objectification of women and sex itself; and participate in the continuum of violence against women."

The anger and hardness is a huge part of the personas both Flint and Anne have to put on for survival. I include Anne in this because she uniquely lives her life in a “male” role to survive the male-dominated world of piracy, and she’s clearly not immune from these unspoken masculine guidelines: she refers to Max as “the whore” half the time as a defense mechanism. Flint and Anne lash out, they’re hard and angry and violent for the sake of their personas, and it’s all because... inside, they just want to be soft and gay with who they love.

Anne, Flint, & Compulsory Heterosexuality (Not Bi Erasure)

In Black Sails, we are shown the story of a gay person who has a consistent sexual relationship with someone of the opposite sex, but is running from internal truths about themselves in some ways in the process. That person is Anne.

Struggling with compulsory heterosexuality is explicitly Anne Bonny’s prime storyline in the show and that is not up for debate (and I’ve rarely seen people disagree); but I argue that it is also part of James’ storyline, and he is paralleled significantly with Anne to make that clear. It’s just overall more subtle because it’s not the prime focus of James’ story the way it is for Anne, because James’ realizations happened largely in the past and we’re seeing the aftermath of it. The parallels are there, and I’ll be breaking some of them down.

----

From episode one, we are told that Anne has a sexual relationship with Jack…. But later on, she tells Jack that she “can’t be [his] wife,” even though they’ll be partners forever. Why? What changed? The answer is that she’s been with Max and realized that she’s gay. It doesn’t mean Anne didn’t have sex with a man in the past and even enjoy it on some level, but it does mean that she knows now that she was using that sex partially to distract from things about herself that she was doing her best to ignore.

Multiple lines by Max (to Anne) tell us this:

3x03: “When you and I began you did not choose me. Something that lives inside you beyond choice made it so.”

2x01: “But perhaps there is something else underlying it. Something hiding in a place not even you can see. Perhaps… we would do well to bring it into the light.”

Before I continue, let me remind you of something: when writers decide to show viewers something on screen, that is done with intent, especially in a show like Black Sails where not a single moment is wasted. Remember this. What they show us, and what they don’t show us, are both deliberate choices.

So what are we shown about Anne’s sexual relationship with Jack? We get exactly one scene of her having sex with him. We are shown Anne riding Jack in a way where neither party was particularly enthused. Does this mean they definitely never had sex in the past that they both enjoyed on some level? No. But they showed us this one scene on purpose: to emphasize the stark difference when Anne has enjoyable sex with Max, an experience that forever changes her.

So what are we shown about James’ sexual relationship with Miranda? We get exactly one scene of him having sex with her. It is the most depressing sex scene of all time, James is just lying there to try to be helpful for her to chase her own pleasure, and he doesn’t even touch her. Does this mean they never had sex in the past that they both enjoyed, especially back during their affair in London? No. But we are never shown any of that. We never see them have sex in London before James’ relationship with Thomas; we never see them having good sex with each other after it all goes to hell. And that is a deliberate choice.

Why? Because all of the above info about Anne and her compulsory heterosexuality journey also applies to James McGraw, and his relationships with Miranda and Thomas.

“They paint the world full of shadows... and then tell their children to stay close to the light. Their light. Their reasons, their judgments. Because in the darkness, there be dragons. But it isn't true. We can prove that it isn't true. In the dark, there is discovery, there is possibility, there is freedom in the dark once someone has illuminated it.”

The realizations James came to about his sexuality (just like Anne did) inform much of his tangled story with the Hamiltons, and much of the tragedy of Miranda and James’ situation after the loss of Thomas. We are shown the way James and Miranda are no longer perfectly aligned after that loss, and grief is undeniably a part of it… but it goes beyond that. It’s more complicated than that. 

That sad sex scene is not solely about grief; remember, that scene takes place ten years after they lose Thomas. It takes place during a time where Miranda is already thinking about and will soon actively try to tell James that they need to move on, without understanding why the loss of Thomas affects him in a profoundly different way than it affects her. I am not minimizing her loss or her grief whatsoever; but it is undeniably more complicated for James, and it’s why he can’t move on.

In episode 1x07:

James: “Have you no memory of how we got here? What they took from us?”

Miranda: “What does it matter now? What does it matter? What does it matter what happened then if we have no life now?”

James is, of course, appalled by this. I’ll talk about why momentarily.

The next time James is in Nassau (2x03), he goes to see Miranda and tries to apologize that night, but she’s otherwise engaged. So he stands outside of her window looking in, surrounded by darkness, while she’s playing the clavichord with children in the light. It is symbolically the domestic version of a heterosexual ideal. He is “othered” by the camera angles / framing, and the dark / light aspects. James is relegated to being an outsider literally because as Flint he’s a pirate, but metaphorically because he’s gay; the reason we as viewers are given that scene is to underscore that he feels he has no place in that display.

Ultimately, James is misaligned with Miranda after the loss of Thomas (shown in both the sad sex scene and arguments) in a way that goes beyond grief. The implication is that things cannot ever be the same for him again since the loss of “his truest love” and the truths he learned about himself.

If James and Miranda were simply at odds with one another because of grief, it would be far less of a “tragedy” in some ways. But James cannot heal the way Miranda slowly finds the way to over ten years, because Thomas signifies things for James that Miranda cannot relate to. In London, when Thomas is taken from them, Miranda even yells to James, “He is my husband!” Her grief and rage are shown as equal to James at the start and have extreme validity; the two of them are partners in the plan to kill Alfred Hamilton for revenge; but then she is able to somewhat move on, whereas James is not.

Why? Because, for James, Thomas was not just his (truest) love; Thomas was the awakening of his fullest self as a gay man.

In the same way that Anne can’t be Jack’s “wife” after she’s been with Max and realizes she’s gay, James cannot content himself with fulfilling the role of Miranda’s “husband” after he’s been with Thomas and realizes he’s gay. Neither of these facts minimize Anne’s love and devotion to Jack, or James’ love and devotion to Miranda; they are undeniably two sets of partners. But Anne and James are forever altered by their experiences with same sex lovers, and the truths about themselves that were brought into the light as a result.

----

Another part of the tragedy of James and Miranda is what happens right when we see Miranda grasp the significance of all of the above. Whether or not she grasped it before in the past, we are shown it only once on screen, and that’s in Charlestown. 

Peter Ashe says this in 2x09:

“You will tell them about the affair with Thomas. You will tell them how it ended. You will explain to them what it drove you to do. You will reveal everything. And when you do, Captain Flint will be unmasked, the monster slain. And in his place will stand before all the world a flawed man, a man that England can relate to and offer its forgiveness.”

This is James’ worst nightmare; we know as such from what he told Miranda back in 1x07, and from when he killed Gates. And yet, here and now in 2x09, he is exhausted from pushing back against heteronormative society, all he wants is to retire the mantle of Flint born of gay rage, and he actually contemplates playing by their rules and giving into their judgements of his sexuality... until Miranda comes to his defense.

In season 1, Miranda didn’t seem to fully understand James’ thoughts on this, but here–in combination with her realizations about Peter Ashe’s betrayals–she finally does. And she’s not having it.

“What forgiveness are you entitled to while you stand back in the shadows pushing James out in front of the world to be laid bear for the sake of the truth? Tell me, sir, when does the truth about your sins come to light?”

And the moment she is yelling in rage on behalf of James, and their combined loss, and how Peter would dare to force James to experience shame about his sexuality again–she is instantly shot for it. A woman who’s yelling on behalf of a gay man? In a patriarchal heteronormative society? It has no place. England makes that clear.

It all further underlines James’ sense of “otherness”... and now he decides to embrace it, even at his own emotional detriment. He will no longer try to fit in or reason with them; he will no longer accept their halfway measures of pardons. He can’t, because in the eyes of England, all that he is as a gay man is abhorrent.

2x10: “Everyone is a monster to someone. Since you are so convinced that I am yours, I will be it.”

3x05, to the Maroon Queen: “...England takes whatever, whenever, however it wants. Lives. Loves. Labor. Spirits. Homes. It has taken them from me. I imagine that it has taken it from you.”

The Way James Views Miranda

And here is where I simply give you more food for thought–or further “evidence” of James being gay, if you will.

All of Flint’s lines about how he views Miranda are worded very, very deliberately.

Here’s a minor one, from 1x05:

“So you can probably guess it isn't as much fun to tell stories about how your captain makes a home with a nice Puritan woman who shares his love of books.”

There is nothing overtly romantic or sexual about this. It’s said in a one-on-one conversation with Billy, where Flint neither has to make the relationship sound like something it isn’t nor refuse to give any info whatsoever. So he goes with what is the seemingly-mild truth.

But 3x01, convincing the men to forego pardons:

“But what price surrender? To beg forgiveness from a thing that took my woman from me? My friend?”

“My woman” is what Flint says for the benefit of the men… these men who are part of the heteronormative world they all live in, and still value sexual relationships with women above all else. It’s about hegemonic masculinity, remember? (“Objectification of women and sex itself.”) He’s doing his best to speak their language. 

But “my friend” is a secondary line that was not needed for the purposes of this speech, but James could not keep himself from adding it in a quieter tone–because that’s who Miranda was to him. His friend. Not his woman, which drips sexism and sexual undertones. Not his wife. Not even his “love,” which he could’ve used if he wanted to be ambiguous and sneak a Thomas reference in; he said “my woman” to appeal to the men, and then he added “my friend” because in the face of her memory he couldn’t help it.

And lastly, in 3x03, we begin to hear from “ghost Miranda.” 

But what is ghost Miranda? She’s a voice from James’ traumatized mind. Everything she says to him is about truths he already knows and/or things he is hiding from himself. So what “she” says here is a voice from James’ mind; it’s about how James sees her, and subtly elaborates on his sexuality in the process.

“When I first met you, you were so... Unformed. And then I spoke and bade you cast aside your shame, and Captain Flint was born into the world... the part of you that always existed yet never were you willing to allow into the light of day. I was mistress to you when you needed love. I was wife to you when you needed understanding. But first and before all... I was mother. I have known you like no other. So I love you like no other. I will guide you through it, but at its end is where you must leave me. At its end is where you will find the peace that eludes you, and at its end lies the answer you refuse to see.”

This does not diminish Miranda’s importance to James in the least! In fact, it emphasizes it, and it is all part of why he is so ruined over her! But it is also, in the oddest way, an elaboration upon how he isn’t bi: Miranda was his partner in many things, including shared grief and revenge and some semblance of life for ten long years; and she was also was instrumental to his formation of himself as a person (“mother”), and his acceptance of himself as a gay man (“love” and “understanding”). This is how he sees her. Mistress and wife were roles she filled in his life, but above all, she contributed to the birth of Captain Flint–the personification of James’ gay rage.

Of course, the “answer” that ghost Miranda (the depths of James’ brain) alludes to here as well as her later words of “you are not alone” are all about James needing to recognize that Silver is a newfound partner and love for him… but that’s a whole other meta entirely.

Closing Thoughts

Look, did I consult a couple of specific scenes and look up transcripts to put quotes in this? Yes. But have I still only seen the show in its entirety once? Also yes. My point in mentioning this is that, if I did a full rewatch, there might even be more evidence I haven’t mentioned here. This isn’t meant to be comprehensive, but I do feel that it... certainly conveys the gist of the mood.

You may still agree to disagree if you prefer to see James Flint as bi; I’m not here to fight you on it and what queer characters mean to you personally. 

But for me, when surveying all available evidence, the narrative screams that he’s gay. In that sense, my thoughts on this matter are similar to my thoughts on the ending; sure, you can interpret it one way if you look at certain details, but if you take in all the evidence and the big picture as a whole… there’s a specific conclusion to be drawn.

Last thing I’ll say is this: Steinberg himself has said that Flint is gay, which I found out way after watching the show and forming this interpretation. And like... not that if I wanted to hardcore argue he was bi I wouldn’t disregard Steinberg’s words, because in my experience the narrative speaking for itself is always more important than than creators’ words, but... in this instance (as in all Black Sails instances I’ve come across), his words just underscore what the well-crafted narrative is already telling us, because the creators wrote this show with intent. They knew what they were doing.

And thus, I will quote him (from these GIFs) below.

“When we were trying to build the story, we wanted whatever this thing was that made [Flint] feel alienated to be so deeply tied into who he was that there was no way he was every going to dismiss this thing that happened to him. We wanted to make sure we understood what the reality was in England in terms of how homosexuality was perceived. In some ways it was more tolerated, in some ways it was significantly less tolerated. I think in terms of Flint being gay, it’s about the fact that it is a tool that is used politically when convenient to make somebody be a monster… and it isn’t even really about the relationship.”

(If you buy the series on iTunes, you get an “inside” look at every episode, including this one from 2x05.)

EDIT: I had no idea Toby Stephens basically confirmed my thoughts that James' relationship with Thomas was his actualization as a gay man, so excuse me as I lose my mind for a moment:

“I think his relationship to Thomas Hamilton, the initial friendship and then becoming lovers is sort of like the realization of himself. I think he became himself with Thomas Hamilton. His potential was unleashed with Hamilton.”

And just for fun, since I’m here anyway, here’s a piece of a Steinberg quote about Anne from the Fathoms Deep podcast.

“In terms of Rackham and Bonny, I think that was another thing that I assumed for a long time could never go away. That they were essentially, you know, that they were married. You know not legally, but they were functionally married. And then this story happened in Season 2 with Bonny, that I think with like with a gun to my head of things that I’m proud of with the show, probably at the top is this story of this woman coming out and understanding that she’s gay. . . And so when we got to a point where it was like, I think she’s gay? Like I don’t think this is something we want to be wishy-washy about. It required getting over that hump with Rackham of, ‘Well like what am I going to do with this relationship? I don’t want to split them up?’ And I think it became something way more interesting.”

Thanks for coming to my TED talk. I love James Flint and his gay rage, I love you if you read all of this, and I love my friend @sunbardy who dealt with me yelling about this in DMs and then proofread the doc.

Hit me up on Twitter @gaypiracy if you want, where I do most of my Black Sails related yelling. And shitposting. Because I contain multitudes.

Know No Shame, my friends.

[rhosyn-du]

Title: A Wonderful Institution Artist: @bidnezz​ Pairings: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, various background pairings Word Count: ~53k Warnings: graphic depictions of violence, discrimination against Downworlders, reference to rape, Clave-typical homophobia, implied character death, minor character death Summary: Magnus doesn’t have time for this bullshit. Warlocks are disappearing in New York City—five people in less than three months—and Magnus is determined to find them and protect the rest of his people from whatever took them. He doesn’t have time for politics, and he certainly doesn’t have time for whatever nonsense the Clave is proposing about marrying a Shadowhunter to a Downworlder as part of the new Accords. He doesn’t really have time for a pretty Shadowhunter who’s surprisingly kind to warlock children, either, but, well, he’s always been good at multitasking.

Alec always knew he couldn’t have what he wanted, but he’s spent the nearly four years since the newly-appointed Consul recalled his parents to Idris without explanation making the best of what he can have. When life suddenly offers up almost everything Alec actually wants on a silver platter, he can’t quite bring himself to trust it, especially when it comes with a million caveats and a side of impending disaster. But he knows how to handle disasters, even if the return of the Circle on top of Clave secrets that could destroy the Accords is way beyond the disasters he’s used to fielding. Hope, on the other hand? He doesn’t know what to do with that.

This fic was created for the @malecdiscordserver​​ Mini Bang 2020.

Chapter Three

Alec told himself he was just doing his due diligence when he spent what little free time he had in the week following his second meeting with Magnus Bane investigating the recent warlock disappearances. Demons were involved, which made it Shadowhunter business, he reasoned, and it was happening in New York, which made it his Institute’s business. Plus, it was an excellent distraction from his mother’s presence and the impending negotiations with the Downworld, with everything that implied.

It had nothing at all to do with helping Magnus, or worrying that Magnus might be making himself a target, or how very badly he wished he could have accepted Magnus’s offer to join him for drinks.

It couldn’t have anything to do with Magnus. He barely knew Magnus. Magnus, who was centuries old and quite possibly one of the most powerful living warlocks in the world and easily the most beautiful man Alec had met in his entire life. Magnus, who made his stomach churn in a way that was both exhilarating and terrifying. Magnus, who had probably only invited him for drinks because it made sense for the High Warlock of Brooklyn to get to know the Acting Head of the New York Institute, anyway.

Magnus, who looked at Alec like he could actually see him—and liked what he saw.

Alec got the names of the other missing warlocks from Catarina. He’d visited with Madzie three more times, all at Catarina’s request, and he and Catarina had formed a tentative sort of bond over their shared concern for the girl. Catarina didn’t mention Magnus, and Alec didn’t ask, and he ignored the small comfort he felt over the probability that if anything had happened to Magnus, Catarina would have mentioned it.

He didn’t mention the missing warlocks to his mother, or anyone else. Yes, she was Head of the Institute, and since she was actually in the Institute for once, she was also in charge of all ongoing missions and investigations. But she was busy preparing to receive dignitaries from the Clave and envoys from the Downworld, and Alec justified keeping it from her on those grounds. He had Jace and Izzy to help with investigation, and that was more than enough.

And Izzy helping with the investigation kept her from pestering Alec about his impending wedding. Mostly, anyway. He only wished it did half as good a job distracting him.

“According to her upstairs neighbor, Evangeline Grim is polite, fond of cats, and makes a great lavender shortbread,” Jace reported.

“Perfect,” Alec said. “Maybe whoever is kidnapping warlocks is hoping to start a magical bakery.”

“The couple who live next door thought she might have been keeping a cat in the apartment even though it's supposedly a pet-free building,” Izzy offered.

“Okay, we'll just forget about Evangeline Grim for now,” Alec decided. “Anything new on any of the other victims?”

“I confirmed that Bastian Pyre did several jobs for the seelies,” Izzy said, “but I don’t know if that’s helpful. A lot of warlocks do work for seelies.”

Alec felt a headache building behind his eyes. They'd been at this for a week, and they'd found nothing that gave any clue to where the missing warlocks might have gone. He was starting to understand why Magnus was so frustrated by the disappearances.

“Maybe we should call it a day,” Jace suggested. “Do some training, grab some dinner, maybe get a little downtime before tomorrow.”

Tomorrow, when the negotiations to finalize the revised Accords would begin. Tomorrow, when Alec would find out the name of the complete stranger he'd agreed to marry. Alec wasn't ready to think about tomorrow.

“I just,” Alec said, staring down at his assorted notes. “I just need a little more time.” He ignored the look that Jace and Izzy shared. “There's gotta be something in the information we've gathered.”

“Maybe,” Izzy said slowly, “you could try calling Magnus.”

Alec's eyes snapped up to look at his sister. “Why would I call Magnus?” He could hear the defensiveness in his own voice, and he hated it.

“Because he's investigating the same disappearances we are,” Izzy said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Which, Alec realized, it kind of was. “And he's been doing it longer. It makes sense to share information.”

Dammit, it did make sense. And there was a part of Alec that was desperate for an excuse to see Magnus again. But there was an even bigger part, the one in charge of important things like self-preservation, that knew it was a bad idea. He'd met Magnus Bane twice and had barely convinced himself to walk away the last time. Who knew what he'd do if he let himself see Magnus again?

“I'm sure Magnus has more important things to do than talk to me about the lack of information we’ve found,” Alec said in a tone that made it clear the matter wasn't up for discussion. “You two go ahead and take that break. I'll catch up with you at dinner.”

The look Izzy gave him as she left said he was being an idiot, but Alec ignored it. He was in no mood for his sister's well-meaning critiques of his life.

Jace paused on his way out. “Hey,” he said, laying a hand on Alec’s shoulder. “Whatever you need to do, I’ve got your back. You know that, right?”

“I do.” It should have been comforting that at least his parabatai trusted him to make his own choices when the rest of his family didn’t. A week ago, it would have been. A week ago, Alec trusted himself. “Thank you,” he said anyway.

“Any time,” Jace said. “But if you work through dinner, I’ll let Izzy come find you.”

Alec rolled his eyes. “What happened to having my back?”

“That is having your back,” Jace told him.

With a heavy sigh, Alec turned back to the notes spread out in front of him. Come hell or high water, he was going to make sense out of this mess.

Magnus portalled himself and the three other Downworld representatives to the Institute for the negotiations, as they had decided it made sense to present a unified front to the Clave. This supposed unified front was of course somewhat undercut by the fact that the Downworld factions had sent representatives of wildly varying rank.

The Spiral Council had managed to convince Magnus that he should act as the warlock representative on the grounds that these final negotiations were being held in New York, and he couldn’t deny that it made sense for the High Warlock of Brooklyn to attend. The New York werewolf pack had sent their Second, a woman named Gretel who Magnus had only met in passing, and the vampires had sent Raphael, who held a similar position in the New York vampire clan.

The Seelie Queen herself represented the seelies in the negotiations, and while it made a sort of sense as it was a seelie who had finally been chosen to be married off to whichever Shadowhunter the Clave put forward (something about the woman having half-nephilim cousins she was fond of making her a good choice), her presence made Magnus uneasy.

Magnus thought perhaps the glass of whiskey he brought with him—his third for the evening, or was it fourth?—might also ruin the unified front a bit, but he'd promised the Spiral Council he would treat these proceedings with the respect and decorum they deserved, and they did not come close to deserving him sober.

The Clave representatives did not meet them at the entrance to the Institute. Magnus couldn’t help keeping an eye out—subtly, of course—for Alec as the two Shadowhunters who met the Downworld delegation led them to the room where the negotiations were to take place. He couldn’t help his disappointment when he failed to catch sight of him, either. Seeing Alec, even for a moment, would have vastly improved this trip.

The Clave delegation was already seated around a large cherry wood table when they arrived, looking for all the world like they’d been kept waiting despite the fact that he and the other Downworld representatives had arrived several minutes early. Magnus refrained from rolling his eyes at the obvious power play but did sip his drink with affected disinterest. And then proceeded to nearly choke on his drink when he spotted a familiar figure among the rest of the Clave representatives.

Alec's shoulders were taught with tension, and there was a furrow between his brows that Magnus wanted to reach out and smooth away with his fingertips. Instead, he banished the glass from his hand and straightened from his dismissive slouch. The Clave might not deserve his respect, but he could pretend for Alec.

He even made an effort to smile politely at each representative’s introduction. Even Inquisitor Herondale, who looked at him with the same distaste he imagined she might look at something she found on the bottom of her shoe.

Magnus's smile froze, though—along with every muscle in his body—at Alec's introduction. Because Alec was Alec Lightwood, Acting Head of the New York Institute, and now that he knew, Magnus didn't know how he hadn't seen it before. Standing there next to Maryse and Robert, Alec was so obviously their son.

Except Alec had done things Magnus never would have expected from a Lightwood. He’d protected Madzie. He’d thanked Magnus for healing him. He'd looked at Magnus like he was everything worth looking at. So maybe it wasn't that strange Magnus hadn't realized who his family was.

Their eyes met briefly as Magnus made his own introduction, but Alec kept his face carefully neutral. Magnus hated it, hated whatever had put that rigid tension in Alec's posture, hated the storm of emotion he couldn’t identify hiding in Alec's eyes.

After introductions were done and all representatives had seated themselves around the table, the negotiations began. This last session was really more of a recap of the terms all parties had agreed to in previous sessions than anything else, and Magnus was pleasantly surprised to find that the terms of the revised Accords were mostly minor updates to the current version. Given the Clave's insistence that the revisions happen now instead of at their regularly scheduled time and their demand that a marriage be included, he'd expected a major overhaul, likely with further ridiculous demands from the Clave. That it wasn’t should have eased Magnus's concerns, but it didn't. Instead, it just made him more wary about what the Clave might be up to.

In the end, though, there was nothing he or any of the other Downworld representatives had major objections to. There were a few disagreements over wording, but in the end, they had a document all parties were happy with.

Magnus couldn't help the way his eyes wandered over to Alec during the discussion. Consul Penhallow did most of the talking on the Clave side, so Magnus didn't have the best excuse for watching Alec, but it was like his eyes had a mind of their own, drifting toward Alec any time he wasn’t consciously looking somewhere else, cataloguing every word, every movement, every breath.

It didn’t help, Magnus thought, that Alec avoided meeting his eyes once they were seated. Oh, he wasn’t obvious about it. He simply watched whoever was speaking, and if that person happened to be Magnus, Alec watched his hands, or fixed his gaze at a point over Magnus’s shoulder. Magnus hated it almost as much as the furrow in his brow. The furrow that seemed to deepen with every passing minute.

“Which brings us to the final updated clause,” the Consul was saying, and Magnus once again forced himself to look away from Alec and pay attention to the proceedings.

A decision he immediately regretted as she launched into a short but pointed speech about how the union between Shadowhunter and Downworlder would symbolize the enduring peace between their races. As if there had ever truly been peace between the Clave and the Downworld. As if Shadowhunters didn't assume the worst of Downworlders in any given situation. As if there weren't, even now, Shadowhunters who kept trophies of the Downworlders they killed. As if two of the Shadowhunters sitting at this very table hadn't been party to Valentine Morgenstern’s attempted genocide.

Truly, he pitied the poor seelie woman who'd been conscripted for this so-called symbolic union. No matter how fond of her cousins she might be, it couldn't possibly make it any less loathsome to be married to a—

Magnus's brain came to a screeching halt as several pieces clicked together to form a distressing whole. Married to a Lightwood. Catarina had said the Clave was putting forward one of the Lightwood children. And Alec… Alec, who sat across the table, hands clasped so tightly together that his knuckles shone white. Alec, who protected Madzie from demons without a second thought, who protected Magnus from demons even though Magnus was more than capable of protecting himself. Alec, whose smile made Magnus feel things he hadn't let himself feel in nearly a century. Alec was Maryse and Robert Lightwood’s son.

Magnus wished, suddenly and desperately, that he hadn't banished his drink earlier. He wished he hadn't agreed to come to this meeting at all. He wished with every fiber of his being that he'd put those pieces together wrong.

As usual, Magnus's wishes went unanswered by a cold and callous reality.

“For a century and a half, the Accords have brokered peace between the Clave and the Downworld,” Alec said. He addressed the table, but when he finally—finally—looked at Magnus, their eyes locked, and they were both caught. “But they haven’t done enough. We bind ourselves to their rules, Shadowhunters and Downworlders alike, and it’s enough to prevent all-out war, but only just. There’s still distrust and even hatred between the Clave and the Downworld.”

There was something in Alec’s gaze that Magnus couldn’t quite place—conviction or resignation or both—and he almost seemed to be willing Magnus to understand.

“This union, along with the other revisions to the Accords, gives us the chance to open a bridge of understanding between Shadowhunters and Downworlders,” Alec continued, and there was a flash of regret in his eyes, just like there had been when he turned down Magnus’s invitation for drinks, before he looked away, “and I am honored that the Clave has chosen me to be a part of this union.”

Even though he’d known it was coming, hearing Alec say it aloud was a shock, and Magnus drew in a quick, surprised breath.

“I have to say I’m a bit surprised the Clave conscripted you for this, Alec Lightwood,” the Seelie Queen commented, “given your family history.”

“I volunteered,” Alec told her, frowning.

“Is that a formal objection to the Clave’s choice?” the Consul asked.

“Not at all,” the Queen answered with a small smile. “Simply making an observation.”

“In that case,” the Consul said, “would you like to share who the Downworld has chosen as a representative in this union?”

“Of course,” the Seelie Queen answered.

When Raphael asked him about it later, Magnus would blame the whiskey, but the truth was he couldn’t stop thinking about the regret and resignation in Alexander’s gaze.

“That would be me,” Magnus said.

[tanookikiss]

~Burned Again~

Here’s a little KISSteriaverse one shot featuring my OC, Akai and her encounter with Prince StarChild and Nikolai.

A huge thank you to @cosmicrealmofkissteria​ for educating me on Sphynxia! and @misslivvie​ for brainstorming ideas with me!

Rating: T

...

“STARCHILD! STARCHILD!” Akai cried out, trailing behind the Star Prince like a lost puppy.

StarChild stopped dead in his tracks and gave an aggravated sigh.

How much longer could this possibly go on?

Sure, Akai’s infatuation was flattering but lately it was starting to grate on his nerves! He had tried to let her down easily, explaining his preference to men. No matter how many times he tried, it just seemed to fall on deaf ears. He was used to dealing with persistent groupies on earth but nothing like this stubborn pyrokinetic woman. He had decided to visit his friends in Sphynxia on a whim. It turns out Akai had found out about the Star Prince’s location and decided to coincidentally show up too. For the past three days StarChild had been trying to evade her advances.

“StarChild! I’m so glad I found you!”

StarChild turned around just as Akai lunged at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his torso. Her bright red hair shimmered in the sunlight as she gazed up at him with sparking blue eyes full of adoration.

“I was wondering if you wanted to—"

“Damnit Akai! Can’t you take a hint that I’m not interested in you?! I. Like. Men! Stop crowding me!” The Star Prince snapped, gripping her by the shoulders firmly. His words came out harsher than he truthfully intended them to.

Akai was shocked, not just of the fact that StarChild said he was not interested in her, but of the fact that he spoke so harshly to her. She was used to constant rejection from her peers but hearing it from StarChild hurt like hell. With flushed cheeks, she turned to get away from him. The last thing she wanted was to cry and lose control of her powers in front of him.

StarChild felt guilty inside for upsetting her. “Akai, wait!” he called out as he ran in front of her to block her path.

Akai stopped and looked up at him, tears brimming in her eyes.

“Look, Akai, sweetheart,” StarChild spoke gently, pressing his hands in a prayer-like motion to his lips.

He paused before speaking, contemplating his next words carefully. He didn’t want to hurt her nor did he want to be responsible for any raging wildfires in Sphynxia!

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to shout in your face. I was just irritated with you following me around all the time, but it was wrong of me to let it out on you. I’m so—”

“No!” Akai said, shaking her head. “StarChild, I should be sorry. I didn’t mean to annoy you. I should’ve known that I was a burden to you. I’m a burden to everyone. No one wants me around!” Cold tears streamed freely down her cheeks after that confession.

“You are not a burden,” StarChild said softly, using his thumbs to wipe the tears from her eyes. “I may not love you the way you love me, but I do care for you, no matter what. Don’t you ever forget that,” he said as he pulled her in for a gentle hug.

Akai sniffled as she hugged him back. “No one could ever love me,” she whispered in self-defeat.

StarChild broke the hug to cup his hands around her face, looking into her eyes intensely. “You’ll meet a great guy that’s going to fall head-over-heels for you. Trust me, the eye sees all,” he grinned, pointing to his star eye proudly. “And if anyone tries to break your heart, I’ll take care of them personally,” he declared with a stern thumb pointing to his chest.

Akai nodded, wiping the last bit of tears from her eyes. “Thank you, StarChild.”

“Anytime,” he winked. “I have to leave now. Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” Akai said trying her best to muster up a convincing smile.

“Well, alright. I’ll be seeing you around,” he said cheerfully, turning heel to take his leave.

“Goodbye StarChild,” Akai sighed sadly, watching the man of her dreams disappear out of sight.

…

Once StarChild was gone, Akai couldn’t hold back her emotions any longer. She broke down into a hysterical sob, igniting herself into a flaming inferno. Not wanting to freak out any Sphynxians, she quickly ran into the Temple of Horus to hide out, hoping to regain control of her powers there. Thankfully, she was the only inhabitant inside the temple.

Remembering the incantation Dahlia taught her, Akai chanted the mantra through heavy sobs. She took a deep breath and chanted again…and again. The fire slowly simmered down into a single flame on her hand. Akai watched the little flame crackle and burn through tear lidded eyes, shaking uncontrollably. She just wanted to damn pain to end already! Another heart wrenching sob escaped her throat as the flame started to grow again.

“You do know he prefers the company of men, right?”

Akai looked up in shock to see a dark shaggy haired lanky demon male standing a few feet away, towering over her. His dark eyes and horns gleamed from her firelight in the darkness.

“How long have you been here, Nikolai?” Akai said, quickly trying to regain her posture, hiding any evidence of her sorrow from him, despite the burning flame on her hand.

“I was on my way back from the marketplace when I overheard your recent exchange with Prince StarChild,” he said casually, taking a seat on the bench beside her. “I saw you burst into flame and run in here.”

“So, you decided to follow me? I have it under control, Nikolai. I’m not going to burn down the temple,” Akai replied defensively, clutching her fists, trying hard not to erupt into a full-on inferno again.

Oh, Goddess! She was getting tired of having to assure everyone’s safety whenever she was around!

“I was concerned for you,” he said softly, placing his hand onto her clutched fiery fist, extinguishing the flame instantly. His hand felt cool to her flushed skin, sending goosebumps up her arm. She looked at her flame less hand and then up at Nikolai’s eyes in amazement.

“Nikolai…”

“You didn’t answer my question. You are aware that the Star Prince prefers men, right?” he asked again still holding his gaze to hers.

“Yes...I heard about his engagement to the Jendell Prince. The wedding didn’t happen, so what?” Akai replied coolly with a shrug.

“He’s with Nikki Terror now,” Nikolai added still keeping his stoic posture.

Akai snorted. “And what exactly does Nikki Terror have that I don’t have?”

“Did you really come all the way to Sphynxia for an anatomy lesson?” Nikolai deadpanned; a soft grin blossomed across his face.

Akai broke out into a fit of giggles at the demon’s dry humor. “Yes, I know he likes men. I’m not an idiot. Why do you care so much?” she asked, realizing his hand was still on hers.

“I just don’t understand the energy invested into someone unattainable. Miss Rogers, your determination is one of your best traits. It would be better suited to pursuing a more worthy interest.”

Akai broke the gaze, looking down in deep thought.

“I don’t want the FireChild to get burned again. You don’t deserve that,” he confessed, absentmindedly rubbing his thumb over the top of her hand.

Before he could speak another word, Akai crushed her lips against his. Nikolai’s eyes widened at the sudden kiss. He was quite surprised. Her lips felt…nice. Nice and warm, just like her hand! He smiled as he leaned in to deepen the kiss, feeling her lovely warmth course from his lips through his entire body. It was a sensation he had never experienced before in his life. A sensation that he desperately wanted to explore…

Akai gasped as she felt something long and wet intrude its way into her mouth, massaging itself against her own tongue. She pulled back in shock, pushing him off of her.

Nikolai grinned deviously, wiggling his long tongue in a serpentine motion.

“You’re disgusting!” Akai huffed, getting up to go sit on another bench across the room. She turned her back to him, pretending to busy her interest in the elaborate Horus altar in front of her.

Nikolai chuckled at her coyish behavior. “I know you enjoyed it,” he said, approaching her from behind.

Akai didn’t look at him. She didn’t want to admit that she did secretly enjoy it. His touch was a cooling agent to her rising temperature. Whenever she could feel herself becoming overly heated, his touch seemed to regulate her body temperature. It was…strange?

Nikolai leaned over to whisper in her ear, “I want you to burn for me.” His fingertips caressed small circles on the sides of her shoulders, causing her to shiver to the core. She could feel herself heating up again, only this time the heat was rising in a different area…

Akai’s eyes widened when she felt something hard jabbing into her lower backside.

“Nikolai, if that’s what I think it is,” Akai growled, turning around slowly ready to punch him in the face.

“Huh?” Nikolai pulled away in confusion. He looked down and noticed his side satchel was pressed up against her back. “Oh? It’s just something I went to the marketplace for,” he said, pulling a dilapidated brown box out of his satchel.

“What is it?” Akai asked, eyeing the strange box suspiciously.

“It’s a headscarf for Ayesha, my sister. Father does not seem to understand the detrimental effect of the Sphynxian sun to a mortal’s delicate skin,” Nikolai explained matter-of-factly, opening the box to reveal a dark pink silky headscarf, neatly folded into a perfect triangle. “I picked a pink one because mortal girls like pink, I think,” he added with a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

Akai grinned at the pink scarf and then looked up to meet Nikolai’s eyes once again. “It’s beautiful! I’m sure she’ll love it. That was very sweet of you.”

Nikolai shuddered at that word. “Ooooh, please don’t call me that again. It makes me feel funny.”

Akai smirked as she watched him fumble to put his gift box back into his satchel safely.

“Well, shall we take our leave?” Nikolai asked, looking up at her.

“We?” Akai asked in confusion, arching her eyebrow.

“Yes. I don’t think you should be alone today. You should be in the company of a…friend,” Nikolai responded thoughtfully. “I’d like to introduce you to my family.”

Akai was pleased about the invite but was a bit hesitant at the same time. Her fiery accident in the KISSterian Court a few years ago injured a few Sphynxians. How would Demon and Vinneketh react to her?

“Nikolai, I don’t know…the fire,” Akai trailed off, tensing at that infamous memory. She could still hear those panicking screams echoing in her mind.

Nikolai waved his hand casually. “Ah, don’t worry about that. What’s in the past is in the past. Besides father had quite a hearty laugh over it all. He has…shall we say a distaste for the KISSterian nobles. They weren’t very kind to him.”

“What about Vinneketh and the other warriors?” Akai asked nervously. Rumor has it that one of the injured Sphynxians from the court fire was close to the Warrior Troupe. The thought of displeasing any of them unsettled her.

“I have grown quite fond of Vinneketh. He is a fair and compassionate man,” Nikolai paused before adding, “I think you would like him too. He likes giving…hugs.”

“I don’t know…” Akai sighed, shaking her head in disbelief. Ever since the fire, she preferred to keep a low profile. There were many who were sympathetic to her but there were also many who accused her of malicious intent.

“As for his men…you have my word that I will not allow any harm to befall upon you,” Nikolai promised, extending his hand to her. “Shall we?”

Akai looked at his hand hesitantly. She was unsure about all of this but Nikolai had been so kind to her. Looking into his dark eyes, she wanted to trust him.She wanted to believe that someone did want her around.

“Okay,” she smiled, reaching out to take his hand, feeling the pleasant cooling sensation make contact with her heated palm once more.

The two exited the temple hand in hand.

[spnjediavenger]

Chapter 12: The Boys Are Back

Disclaimers: I do not own Supernatural or any of its characters

Spoilers: Season 7/8?

Warnings: fluff

Trigger Warning: implied self-harm, talk/mention of scars

Notes: Please leave a comment and let me know what you think! And much love to those who have liked and/or reposted!!! <3

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, mini chapter 5.5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, The Kevin Chronicles: Part 1, The Kevin Chronicles: Part 2, The Kevin Chronicles: Part 3, The Kevin Chronicles: Part 4

Chapter 12: The Boys Are Back

It’s been a year and three months since Elliana found Kevin and they took off trying to find out what to do without Sam, Dean, or Cas. Throughout those 15 months, they’ve evaded a few remaining leviathans, some rogue demons, and a handful of angels trying to take Kevin away; Ellie taught Kevin the ins and outs of hunting, the two becoming quite the force to reckon with; and the two (Anaya still by their side) had settled into a routine they were finally comfortable with. They would find and complete a hunt, take a day or two off (depending on the length of the hunt), translate some of the tablet (Kevin had brought along the notes he had of it before storing it in the ‘safe location’), and take a day of travelling and looking for their next hunt.

Present day, the couple had been in an abandoned church the past couple months, as their money had run out. The Camero broke down with no one to fix it and there had been enough local cases to take, so Kevin and Ellie decided to stay put. They warded the building, set up some extra precautions, and made a little ‘home’ out of the church.

Unbeknownst to them, two people had approached the building that they would last expect to see.

“Kevin. It’s Sam and Dean Winchester, open up.”

They could hear the sounds of the locks being picked, and the old doors gently swinging open.

Kevin stood at the first corner, holding a gun filled with borax solution. Elliana had gone to the other side of the church with Anaya, making sure no one came in through the back anywhere.

Something of a weak struggle was heard but was followed by conversation so Ellie made her way to the front to see who it was. She whistled for Anaya to follow her.

Kevin had gotten the boys towels after spraying them and then led them towards the back of the church.

“Who taught you all this?” Ellie could hear Dean’s voice and she stopped dead in her tracks.

“Elliana did,” Kevin responded; she could hear the smile in his voice.

“Wait, Ellie is still with you?” Dean asked.

“Kevin, you tested them? Borax, holy water, silver?” Elliana stepped away from her corner but remained defensive.

“Yeah. But if you need to ask that, I must not have had a good enough teacher,” he smirked.

Ellie didn’t listen to anything beyond ‘yeah’ as she ran forward and threw her arms around Dean’s neck, tears quickly collecting in her eyes. Anaya danced happy circles around the boys as well.

“Dean, oh my God it’s you,” Elliana cried lightly. His arms quickly wrapped around her and he squeezed her tight, not wanting to let go.

He held a hand to her head and said, “It’s good to see ya, kid.”

Elliana reveled in the hug, also not wanting to let go. “I was afraid I was never going to see you again.” After awhile she reluctantly lowered to the floor but allowed a tearful smile at Dean, who returned one back.

Kevin, too, smiled at the scene before him, glad that Ellie was happy. That feeling was quickly relinquished when Ellie slapped Sam. Hard.

Holding a hand up to his stinging cheek, Sam looked at her with shock written on his face.

“What the hell, Sam?!” Elliana yelled. Sam took a surprised step back, not expecting this reaction from her, and Kevin had to grab Ellie’s arm to keep her from following him. “Where the hell have you been?! Do you know how many messages we left you?! Did you even get them?!”

“I…I put the phones away…after Dean vanished I quit hunting. When Dean found me he did play the messages…”

“So you just ditched us then? And you didn’t think to at least let us know you were quitting?!” Ellie began getting more emotional and tears of anger this time filled her eyes. “You just left us hanging to figure out for ourselves what to do while running from rogue demons, angels, and leftover leviathans?!”

“I didn’t know what to do, ok? Dean and Cas just vanished, Ellie; I had no family left!”

The young girl’s head perked and felt as if someone had stabbed her in the heart.

“I thought I was family?” her voice cracked and a few tears finally spilled over. She looked over to Kevin, silently asking permission to leave, to which he nodded understandingly. So she ran off to the back of the church again, Anaya on her heels, to her and Kevin’s makeshift bedroom.

“Nice one, man,” Dean said, throwing Sam a stern glance.

Sam, who had immediately regretted what he said, went to go after Ellie but Kevin held an arm out. “It’s best if you don’t. Give her time.”

Sam nodded sadly and stayed back and he, Dean, and Kevin caught up on tablet talk.

When the boys finished up, Sam went out to get some air and Dean went back to check on Ellie. He gently tapped on the door and stepped in when Ellie uttered a, ‘yeah.’

Elliana was lying on a mattress on the floor, holding Anaya close to her, face turned into her fur. Dean smiled at the sight, having truly missed the girl.

“How ya doin’, kid?” he said, sitting next to her on the edge of the mattress. When she only shrugged, Dean continued. “You know, purgatory was one hell of a place. Literally,” he chuckled. “Always somethin’ to fight, staying on edge all the time. Really got exhausting. But you know one of the things that kept me going?”

Ellie had turned her head to look at Dean and shook her head.

“You.”

The girl couldn’t help the smile that made its way onto her face.

“There it is,” Dean smiled back. But Ellie’s soon faded.

“Wait, Dean…where’s Cas?” Ellie asked, sitting up. “Isn’t he gonna meet up with us?”

At Dean’s pause, Elliana felt tears in her eyes again.

“Dean, where’s Cas?” she asked, emotion making her voice shaky.

“He uh…he didn’t make it, Ellie…”

“What do you mean ‘he didn’t make it’? What happened?”

Dean just shook his head and, by the look on his face, Ellie knew better than to push it.

After a long pause, Dean spoke up again. “Why don’t we go get something to eat, give everyone some time to get ahold of things?”

“I…I think I’m gonna pass for now, Dean. I just think I need to be alone for awhile,” Elliana said delicately, not wanting to hurt Dean’s feelings. Thankfully he understood and gave a half smile.

“No problem, kiddo. Let me know if you need anything, alright?”

Ellie nodded.

Dean put a hand on her shoulder, gave it a light squeeze, pat Anaya on the head, and walked out.

A little while later, there was another light tap on the doorframe. Elliana looked up to see Sam standing there, an apologetic look on his face.

“Hey,” he said. “Can I uh…can I come in?”

Ellie reluctantly nodded and sat up, allowing him space to sit down. It took him a moment to collect his thoughts before he spoke again.

“So I uh…I just talked to Kevin. And what I explained to him too, was when Dean disappeared I needed to clear my head. And I knew you were strong enough to make it on your own. But I didn’t take Kevin into account. And I didn’t take your feelings into account either…I guess I was no better than when I was soulless,” Sam said, emotion beginning to fill his voice. Tears stung Ellie’s eyes before she could stop them.

“Sam, no; don’t say that-“

“I never got to apologize for that, either. I mean, I know you were gone by the time I got my soul back but I should’ve tried harder to reach out to you. Because I haven’t forgiven myself for what I did then. And I don’t know if I’ll be able to forgive myself for this either,” Sam continued, gently taking Ellie’s left hand in his; he pulled the sleeve up to reveal a collection of scars, some old, some newer. “I’m so sorry, Ellie.” A couple tears ran down Sam’s face now. “I should have been there for you.”

Ellie was lightly crying as well as she pulled her hand away and rolled her sleeve back down. Before she could say anything, he continued, “and what I said was a really jerk move; you are family, Elliana. And I mean that. Ok?”

Ellie paused, wiping away a few tears, before answering him. “I know. I just…” She sighed before continuing, “I’m just gonna need time, Sam,” she said, turning to look at him again.

Sam expected this but still felt his heart ache at her words. He nodded and said, “Ok. I know you won’t forgive me right away – and I don’t blame you; but is there anything I can do?” He knew from the way their conversation was going and from the things he’s done that he had no place to say anything more about her scars; so he would start small and work his way closer again.

Ellie sighed softly again. “I’ll let you know.”

Sam nodded, then left the room. Kevin soon replaced him and sat next to Elliana.

“You ok?” he asked.

Ellie squeezed her eyes shut, a few tears releasing as she did, and shook her head.

Kevin wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. His pressed a light kiss to her temple and rested his head against hers. Elliana let out a sob as everything caught up to her.

“Cas- Cas is gone,” she whimpered, hugging Kevin closer.

The boy shushed her and ran a hand over her arm. He had no idea what to say to make her feel better; so he just held her.

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Witches, Chapter 13: no seriously we are finally at the end of this Tenma Taro thing we finally are seeing the last of it.

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

-

Isabella’s trial ends with her acquittal, and no indictment of another culprit. How could they? In the light of day, it’s that much harder to argue that the photos Athena has of scarred-up trees are evidence of a monster and not, say, a bear. (Apparently bears are pretty common out in the Vale and further north around Kurain Village. Who knew? Not Apollo, but Sebastian does, and he uses that fact.) They can argue it, and they do, and they succeed, but it’s a hell of an uphill slog with no real closure.

What could they do, anyway, to the real thief? Tenma Taro is trapped in a hollow iron statue inside a cavern warded with charms, and in a fae-induced coma. They can’t exactly bring it into court. And that’s even if a judge would let them. Maybe this one - a woman of indeterminate age, older than them and that’s all Apollo can guess, the way he couldn’t really at first place how old Iris was supposed to be, who looks like she was carved out of granite, stony and stern - would accept it. Maybe she wouldn’t. She gives no real indication either way through the trial, listening to all of their arguments with an impassive expression, and she asks sharp, cutting questions that throw both sides off-balance. If the judge who Apollo is used to generally trails behind the defense and prosecution, then this one is in line with them but a step to the side, considering a different angle. 

When court is dismissed, Isabella thanks them profusely in the lobby, cries some more, and hugs Athena. She's been terrified since they told her yes, they could personally confirm her suspicion was correct and Tenma Taro truly was the culprit, but with the most difficult parts behind them Apollo assures her she won't have to worry about the yokai running about the valley any longer. She stares at him wide-eyed, clutching at the wooden bead necklace she wears - surely another sort of lucky warding charm - and she tells him she believes him.

What does she think he is, he wonders, touching his eye. 

"I actually feel pretty good about what we've done these past two days," Athena says, flinging herself backwards into the lobby couch, slumping halfway off it like she's melting down to the floor.

"'Actually'?" Apollo echoes. 

"Well," she says, "considering what we made of it the first go-around, but we pulled it together okay. With help, and some bruises." She plucks at her tights and the material snaps back against her leg. "Ow."

"Maybe don't do that, then," Apollo says, vividly sure that some or another time he has had a conversation just like this with Trucy. Less and less coworkers and more the annoying younger sisters he's never had - was he this annoying to Nahyuta? He knows he wasn't, so this doesn't even make sense as karmic justice.

"Eh, it kinda hurts even when I don't do that," Athena says, sticking her legs out straight in front of her and bouncing her heels off the floor. "It's just the tightness of it, but what else am I gonna wear?"

"Slacks?" Apollo asks.

Athena snorts. "You know how hard it was to find a facsimile of a jacket, and skirts, in this color?" she asks, gesturing at her cropped jacket, which Apollo wasn't ever going to comment on to say that she looks like a high school student trying to shirk the dress code when Prosecutor Gavin still comes to court looking like that. "How am I getting slacks?"

"Mr Wright and I manage," Apollo says. "Try shopping in mens?"

"And just hem it, hm." Athena taps at her earring, sending it swinging back and forth. He hasn't ever yet seen her wearing an earring in the other ear, just that crescent, and he wonders whether the other hole closed itself up, she lost the matching piece, or it's a clip-on. "And there'd be pockets to start with, too! Magnifico!"

"You have pockets already," Apollo says. "I've seen you stash food in them."

"I sewed them in," she explains. "One of my - my best friend when I was young, before I moved away, her grandmother taught her how to sew practically from birth, and I picked it up from her, how to modify stuff. Haven't learned to make my own clothes, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation. Just—" She reaches into her skirt pocket and pulls out a granola bar.

"Clever," Apollo says. "All I've learned from my best friend is tracking salt all across the apartment floor when you step in your own salt circle" - or really it's just a line across the threshold - "and a lot about constellations." And astrology, but that wasn't learned so much from Clay as it was learned to annoy Clay. Okay, maybe that's why these annoying younger sisters are happening as comeuppance, even though Clay is four months younger than Apollo (by the guesstimated birthday Datz picked out) and is generally much worse to Apollo on a regular basis. "Yours is more practical."

"Is the salt circles because he's trying to summon a demon or keep the demons away?" Athena asks. 

"The latter."

"Could we theoretically just have gotten a salt lick and tossed it at Tenma Taro?" Athena asks. She grins to herself, and Apollo rolls his eyes at the image. Like that would work. "Or a bowl of Eldoons? But I guess there's probably someone out there somewhere you can impress with space facts." Like Ema, the few times she and Clay have crossed paths, but Apollo watches the smile fall off Athena's face. He glances around the lobby, surprised to find that it's empty still, that no one has entered, that there's no apparent catalyst to why Widget's blue has darkened. "Someone who thinks it's neat and not - deathly cold and empty and lonely."

"The ol' existential dread hits hard when you think about infinity, huh?" And yet looking up is still less terrifying than even considering what it would be to look across to the Twilight Realm, glean what the world of the fae is like. He asked Klavier; he's sure he can say that it's just as cold, and just as lonely.

"Oh yeah," she says. "Something like that. I'd rather take the ocean; it's still a cold abyss you might die in but you get anglerfish and giant squid with it." Widget lights back up to neutral blue and a second later flashes past it to cheery green. "And penguins! Does outer space have penguins? Check and mate!" 

"I am not going to argue to the existence of space penguins, no," Apollo says. He doesn't know of any penguin constellations; off the top of his head, there's a swan, and an eagle, and one summer Nahyuta charted a warbaa'd that Apollo no longer remembers how to find.

"Man, what kind of a lawyer are you if you can't even do that?" 

Kay announces her arrival with the nonsense she's made herself known for. She proved herself a detective as competent as any other on the stand today, self-assured as she always is but with seriousness she didn't even muster in their life-or-death struggle against Tenma Taro. When called on a contradiction, she swings back with ferocity, without waiting for the prosecution to square it away himself. She forced Apollo to stay on his toes, kept the case moving, up until Sebastian had to make an explanation that didn’t quite mesh with what Kay had argued, and there Apollo drove the wedge to split open the case. They sit almost on the same wavelength and work well together, miles better than Fulbright and Blackquill or Ema and Klavier, but Kay can lunge forward impulsively and Sebastian hesitate to overthink; Apollo remembers being forced to object to one of Athena's conclusions and sympathizes with the way they fall out of sync.

But the trial is over, the verdict passed, and Kay is Kay, off-hours, Detective Faraday no longer.  "Yeah, yeah, we handed that one to you," she says with a sharp grin that suggests she might not be speaking seriously, if the red flash of light that frames her lips doesn't give Apollo that hint. "Next time, we'll kick your ass." Competitiveness lingers, though. "Next time, when we're all not partying it up with the actual monster behind the thing and getting con-cu-ussed!" Her voice pitches into a sing-song at the end as she points at herself with both thumbs. "No biggie, really. You got a job to do so you do it, y'know? Like I investigated a crime scene while concussed and amnesiac, once."

"You what?" Widget yelps, and Athena is too shocked to try and stifle it. Apollo lets that stand as the only response. Sometimes it’s hard to wrap his head around Kay, especially because he knows she’s not lying.

“It wasn’t even your job then,” Sebastian says. Apollo isn’t surprised by his arrival, only that he wasn’t immediately beside Kay when she came bounding in. “It wasn’t even her job then.” He directs his statement directly at Apollo and Athena now. “She was just tagging along with Prosecutor Edgeworth.”

“And I was born to investigate, my dudes,” Kay replies, tipping herself backwards onto the couch, next to Athena. “Though maybe not any more today. I’ve got a headache.”

“You’d better be planning on going home and taking a nap after this.” 

Apollo jumps; Kay flinches, sitting up forward, and so does Athena, who loses the last of her tenuous balance and slides to the floor. Apparently none of them had been warned that Phoenix would be in attendance. 

The surprise now passed, Kay sinks back into the couch. “Yeah yeah, sure thing, Dad.”

Phoenix sighs and presses a hand across his eyes. “I’d tell you someone should talk to you about your lack of professionalism, but I don’t think anyone we know could give that speech without being a hypocrite.”

Apollo thinks himself plenty professional, but the trouble is no one - not Trucy or Klavier or Kay - responds in kind. 

Kay gives Phoenix a thumbs-up. “I didn’t know you were planning to come, Boss,” Athena says. 

“It was more a whim than a plan, really.” Phoenix gives them a small smile. “Had to make sure you were all keeping up the good work in the courtroom, too.” Kay shoots him another thumbs up. Sebastian fidgets like he doesn’t know if he should take Phoenix seriously, if he really did doubt how the trial would go. Apollo wishes he had some advice about understanding Phoenix to offer. After nearly a year, he does not. 

“If it isn’t Phoenix Wright, the man of the hour.”

Apollo knows that voice only because he spent the last several hours hearing her speak: the judge, still with her gavel in hand, tapping it against her palm. Her black hair sits immaculately braided into a crown atop her head, and her layered white cloak flutters delicately for several seconds after she stops moving. “Hello, Judge Courtney,” Phoenix says. Of course he knows her by name too; doesn’t he know everyone in the legal world? “Long time, no see.”

“Indeed it has been,” Courtney agrees. “I expect to see you soon again behind the bench, yes? Having made your latest turnabout last year.”

“Is there anyone who hasn’t been told that I’m retaking the Bar?” Phoenix asks, turning his eyes and hands pleadingly ceilingward. 

“Oh yeah, that’s really soon, isn’t it?” Athena asks. “Next week? You should probably be panicking more.”

“If that’s your official analytical psychology-based advice…” Phoenix shrugs again. Athena frowns, apparently considering whether she wants that to be her actual stance on the matter. “Anyway, Courtney, can I assume that you were put on this trial for a reason?”

“You may assume whatever you like,” she replies. “Though I do wish to speak to you about this entire matter, if you have the time.”

“I do have to run pretty soon,” Phoenix says, “but if you’re heading out too, then yeah, sure.” He turns toward the door, stops, and adds, “Why do I have this horrible feeling of dread already?”

“That’s your problem, not mine,” Courtney says. Her next words are directed at Apollo and Athena. “Mr Justice, Ms Cykes, I’ve heard promising things of you both. Forgive me for brushing you off in this moment, and for not introducing myself properly. You may call me Justine Courtney.”

A part of Apollo that considers itself both weary and savvy thinks that he should have expected it. 

Outside of a trial he’s surely allowed to address a judge by name. He knows this. “It’s very nice to meet you, Your Honor,” he says. Nailed it, but has anyone ever had problems born of being too respectful of the fae?

(Actually, probably. He’ll ask Clay if he’s ever heard of that one.)

“Oh!” Athena jumps like someone just hit her in the ribs. “Nice to meet you!” She flashes a nervous smile, having now remembered basic manners. 

Courtney smiles. It’s almost imperceptible; Apollo wouldn’t consider the expression on her face a smile if he hadn’t just watched the corners of her mouth twitch upwards a minuscule amount. “Sebastian has told you of me, I see.”

“Huh?” Athena asks, her fearful grin still frozen in place. “Why would you think that?”

“Those expressions of terror on both your faces tell me you surely know something of me.” There, more obviously a smile. “I assure you, unless you commit a crime, you have nothing to fear from me.”

Athena’s shoulders sag with relief. “Oh,” Apollo says. “Um. Thanks.”

“Good day to you all.”

She has barely left with Phoenix when Athena rushes over to the lobby doors, putting her ear up to the crack between them. “What?” she asks Apollo’s glare. “They might have something interesting to say! This isn’t a crime!”

“Just horribly impolite,” Apollo says. And fae society is founded on a thin veneer of politeness, with terrible consequences for its breaking. He might have thrown some eighty percent of his self-preservation instincts to the wind with Tenma Taro, but Athena is extra ridiculous. 

A minute passes. Athena’s forehead creases, her eyes narrowing. “Well?” Kay asks. 

“They’re just talking about their kids,” Athena says, and her disappointment couldn’t be more obvious if both she and Widget screamed it. 

-

“And what’s John up to, then? Shit, how old is he now, even? Nineteen?”

“Twenty-one, actually.”

“Where’s the time even go?” Trucy turned sixteen early in the spring and since then he’s had the nagging feeling that the world is ending. Isn’t she still the baby in his locket? Sometimes he thinks about how that little girl in pink, her round face and the eyes too big for it, is the last memory Zak had of her; he never got to see her grow up. (Never bothered to.) And here’s Phoenix, the one who gets to, dreading it. Funny thing, fatherhood. 

“I have no idea,” Courtney replies. And they say it’s only in the Twilight Realm that time works differently. “He’s taking a bit of a hiatus, you could say, from acting, considering what he wishes to do next. He’s concerned if he doesn’t do something he’ll be typecast for life in kaiju movies as the one human who the monster finds fondness for.” With a chuckle and a shake of her head, she adds, “Though I suppose there is some art imitation of life in that.”

“I wasn’t gonna be the one to say that,” Phoenix says. Think it, certainly, but say it? No. “Though you’re up to maybe half a dozen humans now?”

She raises her eyebrows but smiles and accepts the joke for what it is - a joke, and not Phoenix counting up her family, acquaintances, and coworkers and deciding which she presumably likes enough to spare when she smashes up Los Tokyo, which Phoenix would swear is a city name he once heard in one of those movies when he and Trucy went. “Something close to that, perhaps.” She smacks her gavel into the center of her palm and her long nails, even now reminiscent of the claws Phoenix could see if he looked at her through different eyes, curl around it. “Now. Mr Wright.”

He’ll probably never get used to hearing his name from her lips; she’s like Mia in this regard, a creature of the Court so determined to perform humanity that she overcomes their cultural hangup on names - somewhat. Mia still tripped, and Courtney has her own particular patterns. It makes her sound like an extremely polite person, he’s come to notice: it’s Mr or Ms and a surname to everyone, first-name basis reserved only for John and Sebastian. 

“Why was I not informed of everything that was planned to deal with the monster Tenma Taro until after the fact?”

“Sebastian didn’t tell you?” Phoenix asks.

Courtney levels a cold stare at him. “Do not shift the blame. He did not, because, as he explained to me this morning, he was aware that I had dinner plans with John last night and thus he didn’t want to bother me. You, however, Mr Wright, have no such knowledge of my schedule but do have my contact information, and therefore, had no reason to not have kept me abreast of the entire situation.”

“That I think Sebastian is a competent kid who’s more than capable of handling this? Is that not a reason?”

Her expression darkens into a scowl, her fingers tightening a little more around her gavel. “If you think him so, then, pray tell, why you also called upon one of your... ‘friends’ to deal with the beast?”

Something got lost in the telling, but it’s a relief if this is all she wants to chew him out for. “No, I didn’t call on anyone, beyond, y’know, the kids - it was a decision they made, no input from me.” Trucy had said that she was glad for Iris’ help, though, and also that Iris was terrifying, and Edgeworth gripped the steering wheel hard enough that his knuckles went white.

Courtney’s brow does not relax. “And that does not concern you? You may be content to place your child into the hands of one of Them, but do not expect me to be so nonchalant about mine.”

“I’d argue that Sebastian isn’t your child, but you have that look that says you would argue that on a technicality.”

“I in fact could,” she replies. “But you know as well as I that you are arguing on a technicality yourself, rather than address my concern.”

Phoenix glances back up the stairs. He doesn’t know how far Athena’s hearing ranges, but he does know that she’s damnably curious, and when it’s that easy to eavesdrop, he wouldn’t put it past her. “I’d need to fully grasp your concern to make an actual rebuttal. I mean, I understand in some capacity - they’re the royalty.” If he remembers the timeline, which he’s not sure he does, Courtney would have left the Court before Morgan’s incarceration. She would have known it as the nightmare it was under Elise’s absence and Morgan’s ambitions, and he can’t fault her for being wary of the next generation of women to rule over that den of vipers. 

“No,” she says. “That is not why. Mystics or no, I do not trust any of my kind who claim to love humans but then return to those frigid halls.”

How many stolen children had she known - disregarded, perhaps, back then - before John came into her care? She without a doubt knows what would have become of him had she raised him in the Twilight Realm. Thalassa and Klavier have gifts not worth the scars. Even a kindly fae guardian couldn’t protect a human child there. 

“I’d tend to disagree there, because they’re the Mystics,” Phoenix says. The courthouse doors swing closed behind them and they step into the bright sunlight and the noise. It’s easier to talk out on the street, their voices drowned out by the rest of the bustle. This is Los Angeles, crowded and noisy and the background radiation of Kurain, the fallout that drifted here, makes the city so damn weird that this conversation can’t be breaking the top ten of most bizarre conversations happening within this hour. “If they were just anyone, like you, I’d say yeah, leaving is best. But they’re at the top of the food chain - don’t they owe it to try and change things from up there?”

Had Elise and her fondness for humanity kept the throne, what then? Where would the Court be, anything or nothing changed? Or if Maya and Pearl left now, if Iris had kept to her self-exile, what would become of it? At the end of their bloodline, who would take their place as Mystics, on the throne, as Queen? How much worse can it get? (Better not to ask. Don’t tempt fate.)

“Would you tell Edgeworth to abandon the title of chief prosecutor because half the office is corrupt?” Phoenix adds. “That’s exactly why we need him there.”

On the sidewalk, Courtney stops to face him. “And I find that a very imperfect analogy,” she says.

“It’s an analogy - if it were perfect, it would be—”

She holds a finger up to her lips. Sometimes Phoenix would swear it’s more than just intimidation in that motion and that she puts magic behind it to make him or anyone trip over his tongue when she has a point she wants to make. “We need a justice system; we need prosecutors. We need to reform, to shine light on the shadows, for all our sakes. We do not need the Winter Court.”

“So you’re an advocate of fae anarchy?” Now there’s a sentence he didn’t expect to say. While he, and even Maya and Iris and Pearl, use it also to mean fae society as a whole, “the Winter Court” should, pedantically, refer only to their governance. He doesn’t know which Courtney means: that the fae hierarchy is unnecessary, or that they are.

“I am an advocate of us intermingling with humanity enough that we fade away entirely.”

The latter, then. “You might get that wish,” Phoenix says. He’s heard from Maya that they kill each other faster than they have children, and then those children that do happen get swapped for human ones, and every decision is one of impulse, a whim in the moment, no forethought, no concern for the repercussions, the inevitable societal collapse. And Maya has never sounded grieved by this. It’s a simple fact. Their dynasty will end with a whimper: that is their prophecy, and a self-inflicted one.

“I look forward to it. In the meantime, though, I must as of your ‘friends’ - do they think change is needed in the Court? Do they understand what it is that is so wrong there, or do they humor you and our morality as one would humor a child or a favorite pet?”

“If it’s getting a cat that makes you get rid of the toxic waste in your backyard, that’s still a good thing, right?” he asks irritably. If it ends at the same damn place— “You aren’t something different from them either, you know.”

“Of course I know.” She straightens her back, drawing herself up even straighter, and her cloak rustles, its movements continuing independently of her body, belying the two pairs of wings that under glamour pretend to be a garment. So far as he knows she can’t support herself to fly with those wings. They’re an aesthetic, part of her self-styled position as an avenging archangel of the Goddess of Law. “But that means I know how they are, as I once was. A question for you, Mr Wright, that I mean in the kindest way possible.” Part of him doubts that. “Do you believe, truly, that you have made enough of an impact on them that when you are gone, they will continue to respect the morality that you currently ask them to live by?”

“I—”

Iris would. Pearl - might. But he hasn’t seen Maya in years because he was afraid that even with him present, here, alive, she would go against his wishes and enact bloody vengeance on Kristoph. She offered it as a gift for free, like a cat would turn up a dead mouse on the doorstep. He can answer half the question, that he’s made an impact. She loves him. That isn’t what Courtney wants to know.

“We’re a bit off-track from your main concern, aren’t we?” A feeble redirect, but she doesn’t look smug so much as sad that she’s tripped him up here. “You wouldn’t trust them yourself, fine, but the question of what happens when I’m gone doesn’t have that much in common with you currently being angry that Sebastian was around them, now, when I’m still in the proximity.”

“I am what they are, of the fae. Sebastian is a witch - is my witch, you might say. In the Court, we hardwire ourselves into a particular way of thinking, whether we mean it or not. To survive, you learn that all others are threats, now or soon to be in the future, and if you cannot get at the threat itself right away, you wage a proxy war and strike against their resources, their tools, and their humans - who you would consider within the first two categories.”

Implication: obvious. Sort of. Part of it. “Why would they see you as a threat, though? You exiled yourself. You’ve said yourself you’re never going back.”

“It’s an instinct. Even I struggle with it.” Courtney steps closer to him, allow the sidewalk traffic to flow around them. Maybe they should start walking again, get out of the courthouse vicinity before the kids catch up. “Seeing another of my kind, or a changed child - my first impulse is to lash out. I find it incredibly unfortunate, not to mention distracting. I presided over a case the other day that Prosecutor Gavin was in charge of, and I believe we both found that profoundly uncomfortable, no matter how we reasonably know that we are very removed from that life.”

Profoundly uncomfortable is a decent way to describe how Phoenix feels at this thought, too. “Oh,” he says. “I see.”

“Yes. You understand, then, my concern that Sebastian will come to harm? You friends may protect your daughter and your proteges, because they are yours. But Sebastian…”

Those two are Edgeworth’s, not mine. He said it himself, shifted responsibility for their lives, because he’s already failing to convince himself that Athena and Apollo aren’t his responsibility, aren’t his kids. Didn’t he tell Iris they were, or at least implied it?

(And then Iris implied that Kay was right, that she and Sebastian were Phoenix’s too, by saying that Kay had decided for him. Of all that happened last night, that’s an inconsequential piece, and he remembers it vividly.)

(Which, actually, even if Iris hadn’t agreed, there’s still another question raised.)

“Yeah,” Phoenix agrees. “But, they know Edgeworth. My friends, I mean. They know he’s my friend. And they know who his - his people are, Kay, Sebastian, whoever else. That he wouldn’t be happy if anything happened to them, and I wouldn’t either.”

“Believe me, I do like to hear that,” Courtney says with a tiny smile. “But that is a chain too long for me to fully place my trust in. Understand where my concern comes from, and tell me in advance whenever you need the assistance of Sebastian the witch as much or more as Sebastian the prosecutor. Can we agree to that?”

“Absolutely,” Phoenix says. He could’ve agreed to it without the passive-aggressive shaming but - well, she probably thought she needed to do that to properly make her point. To make him understand, she would have thought it best to make him doubt first. How could she trust his fae when he isn’t certain that he himself does? Courtney’s won every hand this round. Probably time to step away from the table.

She smiles. “Good. Best of luck to you; I hope the Bar goes well.”

“Oh,” he says. “Uh, thanks.”

And then he winces, and she raises her eyebrows. The whole damn conversation, he was reminded, he was extra aware, of what she is, and then he slipped anyway. One of the first bits of advice Mia gave him, to never say thank you to Them. It’s an admission of owing a debt, however slight, and thank you does not fulfill a debt. “I hope you haven’t lost your touch,” Courtney adds, and it means double now. “I’ve wanted to someday see you in court, given how highly the chief prosecutor has spoken of you all these years.”

Implication: she can’t believe that the man Edgeworth so highly respects is the man standing before her. (Or maybe she does, and the one here who doesn’t believe such is Phoenix.)

“Well,” Phoenix says, “if you aren’t the judge on my first case back” - presumptuous to say he’ll be back, but confidence is a key point, though he’s pretty damn confident that Courtney wouldn’t be the judge, because he thinks he probably sealed some sort of accidental exclusivity pact with the one judge a long time ago - “you can come watch. I’ll let you know when. Or Edgeworth will.” Edgeworth might make a damn party out of it if Phoenix isn’t careful.

“I will look forward to it.” Courtney nods at him, one last acknowledgement. “Until next time.” She spins on her heel and weaves her way through the people on the sidewalk, a most mundane exit. Phoenix turns his eyes from her back, stares up at the courthouse behind them. Always something new to ponder, always another issue.

But dragging Sebastian out anywhere isn’t in future plans, so most of what he needs to concern himself with vis-à-vis Courtney is to extend to Trucy her offer that, if Trucy is interested in performing on the big screen and not the stage, Courtney will smack John into being in a good enough mood to accept any inquiries Trucy might have. 

Small mercies, that among everything else, Phoenix’s teenager has never been a moody teenager. He’s not sure how he would handle that.

-

Trucy arrives at the office after school, beaming once they tell her of their victory, and promising them that they are becoming the go-to law firm for the people of Nine-Tails Vale and Tenma Town. How is one supposed to feel when told that he might be the lawyer on retainer for a haunted valley? Word-of-mouth advertising is just about all the Wright Anything Agency has, and Apollo decides he’s going to skip thinking about this unless it becomes a problem again.

In a way that’s becoming a habit, the girls tear out of the office when the clock strikes five like their horses are going to turn into rodents again. “I’m too busy on weekends,” Trucy says, and she is, often, as a real magician trying to reintroduce stage magic to a city culturally wary of both, “but I’ve gotta show Athena all the coolest places around town as soon as possible!” 

“Didn’t you grow up here?” Apollo asks her, and Athena shrugs, and she and Trucy clamber into her car and honk and wave at him and are gone from the lot before Apollo has even unlocked his bike from the rack. 

Takes some getting used to, still, the new routine. Trucy going home with Athena even though Athena’s found somewhere to live that isn’t the Wright family couch. Since Christmas, Apollo and Trucy would bike part of the way home together - she had gotten hers as a present from “Uncle Miles - er, Mr Edgeworth, he’s awkward about me calling him that in front of people that he works with, I think it’s like a professionalism thing?” - but now—

Well, he can’t resent Trucy if she’d rather hang out with another girl her own age, and Athena’s a nice kid herself, and he doesn’t know where this thought is headed. Athena had offered to give him a lift, too, but accepting a ride from his coworker five years his junior, for more than heading to a crime scene, definitely feels undignified. What little dignity he has left.

Trucy never bothers to lock up her bike when she leaves it here, saying that Mia would make sure it wasn’t stolen. And it hasn’t ever been, yet - the only thing ever stolen from this office, far as Apollo knows, were Trucy’s magic panties; maybe Mia shares Apollo’s disdain for those things. But Apollo would rather trust something solid, and he still meticulously locks up his bike, and he still locks the office door behind him when he’s the last to leave.

About ready to go, sliding his lock into his backpack, someone behind him speaks. “Little dragon.”

Apollo whirls around, reflexively raising the lock in his hand like a weapon, letting his bicycle clatter to the ground. Iris flinches away, her hands coming up to protect her face, as though she couldn’t flatten him without touching him if she really wanted. Would she look more or less frightening if it was in the light of day that he saw her charcoal skin and red eyes? Kristoph under the clinical lights of the courtroom simply was.

“Why are you here?” Apollo asks, slowly lowering the lock, because it’s steel, not iron, and is not going to be of use. Hell, even iron doesn’t feel like enough, right now, not when he almost asked what do you want, a question that could surely be extorted into wrenching something away from him. What do you want, inches from, what can I give you, and the fae, tangling the lines.

“I have a piece of advice to offer,” Iris says. 

Apollo leans down to lift his bike from the ground, not breaking eye contact with her. Not enough eye contact is probably an offense. Too much is also probably an offense. The winning move is to not play and it’s far too late for that. “Am I allowed to refuse it?” he asks, and then he wants to stick his entire foot in his mouth, because advice doesn’t imply something binding, and he could disregard it without telling her that. Because this definitely is an offense, and Iris’ dark eyes narrow. He’d swear they flashed in the light, not red, but a white shine. He curls his hand around the handlebars and squeezes until he can feel the iron ring digging into his finger. 

“Yes, but I don’t believe you are so selfish, are you?” She scrutinizes him with a hard stare, wide eyes and a slack, blank face. 

“Er,” Apollo says. If he wants to ignore advice from dubious sources and gets ruined for it then that’s his problem, no one else’s. “Selfish?”

“Perhaps ‘advice’ is not the way to term it,” Iris says. She leans on the bike rack and her nails when they hit it make the soft tink of metal on metal. “An assurance, perhaps? And not only for you.”

“O...kay?” Do the fae enjoy being cryptic, or is it not on purpose and simply an impulse hardwired, a manner of speaking they think nothing of? Or is it for the sake of dramatics - it would explain a lot about Klavier if needless dramatics are a key cultural aspect of living among the fae. “For who, then?” If it was for anyone else - Trucy or Kay or Sebastian - she could have just said it last night, when they were all together. Why just ambush Apollo?

“Your friend,” she answers. That means nothing despite Apollo’s very limited number of friends. “The changed child, the lost boy. He is far from mad, I assure you - he is not twisted only in his own head, and he is not the only one who have ever seen through a looking glass a life that could have been.”

“Oh,” Apollo says. He hadn’t lent much credence to Klavier’s thought that his visions were just a psychological coping mechanism, honestly, but if Iris has insight then he won’t pass up the chance to learn more. “So, who else, then, has had that happen? If you can say,” he adds hastily. Maybe she can’t, or won’t, the way Klavier clams up.

“Little dragon,” she says, and Apollo doesn’t know if she’s teasing him or scolding him with that tone; it’s something almost in between, and a strange uncomfortable familiarity. “You have an eye for the Truth and a brick for a brain.”

“Eh?” Definitely not the best objection he could make to refute that. Even yelling “Objection!” might have been better. 

“Dense,” she says. “It’s me.”

“It’s - ah.” Right. Should he have guessed that? She knows about Klavier without - surely she hasn’t met him? She knows about something he only ever told Apollo. If she knows that, she might know anything, and she could be talking about anyone. “Why - why’s that happen, then? To you and Prosecutor Gavin but not - not—”

Not me, when I could very easily have lived several lives unfathomably different from each other? 

(Not that he wants to see it. Not that he envies Klavier at all. He doesn’t know if his heart would hold together at a glimpse of a life beside his brother.)

“I cannot say with total certainty, but he and I share something,” Iris says. “A complex, unfortunate entanglement with the name and life of another. His twin stole his life and name, while I borrowed both from mine.”

He feels like an echo in this conversation, adding nothing, just standing here in bewilderment asking for constant clarification. “His twin?” Apollo repeats. That’s - one way of putting it. Technically they are the same age, or supposed to be.

Iris nods solemnly, lowering her eyes, her lids heavy and hiding them entirely. “It is not quite the same. My sister was as fae as I am - we were born together, she the last red rays of a setting sun, and I the shadow of the horizon when the light sank away.” She pushes herself up off the bike rack, no longer leaning in toward Apollo but withdrawing into herself. “And I was indeed her shadow. We were not the daughters our mother wanted - my sister was powerful but not malleable, and I was weak and loved her more than I ever would our mother. She cast us aside and my sister set her sights on power among humans, not within the Court. I followed, because I was sure I would not live without her.”

My sister was, she said. Was. And that’s enough to know before Iris continues, lifting her chin and shaking her hair back out of her eyes. “But she is dead and I am still here, because her cruelest deeds caught up to her and I, all she had for a heart, could not shield her. All she knew was how to shed more blood, and she meant to, and instead I asked her, would she please not dirty her hands further, would she let me try to fix this my way; she allowed me to, and for the better part of a year our places were switched. Our name was Dahlia Hawthorne.” She tilts her head, studying Apollo intensely again, like she’s checking to see if the name means something to him. He isn’t sure that it doesn’t. 

“And I failed,” Iris continues, “and she acted her own way as she had wished to from the start - and then she failed, was judged and sentenced and taken from me and then from the world of the living, and I was left behind an echo. For years after that, I saw - not quite like your friend, not the one simple life that would have been, but many. A diamond, and its every facet a different alternative. A different possible life for Dahlia.” 

She lifts up a hand, her palm facing the sky, her fingers curled just slightly around a beveled gem that appears in her hand. Its clear body sparkles in the sunlight and Apollo sees flashes of movement inside of it, colors and shapes and people. “In one lifetime,” Iris says, and the gem, the diamond, floats in the air a few inches above her hand, “I never was her at all. I stepped aside and let my twin do what she would and never cared about the darkness we damned the legal system to languish in.” She twists her wrist and the diamond turns with it. “In another, I was Dahlia and after I did what I meant to I stayed, and then my sister killed him anyway because she could not bear for me to love anyone but her.”

“So your sister was a monster too,” Apollo blurts. He hopes she realizes the “too” refers to Kristoph, not to Iris. 

“Oh yes,” Iris says. “She was a demon; she was selfish and cruel and manipulative and she would have been an archetypal fae queen had she decided to fight for the throne. From the day we were born until the day she was executed, she cared about no one but herself. And from the day we were born, I have loved her, and until I die I will love her still. She is my sister and she is me and I was her - it’s a knotted mess, is it not, when there is someone else who is and isn’t you, and a name that is and isn’t yours.”

Apollo nods mutely. Did your sister care about you? he doesn’t ask, because while Iris has been open so far about her life story, and it’s a valid question given the way she talks about herself and her sister being one person, there’s got to be a line somewhere and he doesn’t want to meander across it. 

“I never did see a life where I did what I meant to and escaped without incurring an unpayable debt, nor did my sister ever choose a way to hide damning evidence that was not pawning it off on a naive boy who has since willed his heart to turn to stone because he loves so strongly that time and again it breaks.” Iris snaps her palm closed into a fist and the diamond vanishes, but her eyes hold a far-away look softer than the sharp movement. “It’s hard to believe in destiny when I’ve seen so many disparate possibilities, but I suppose it must exist in some form, and he always destined or damned to cross paths with the faes of Kurain.”

She isn’t talking about Phoenix, is she? “Do you still have visions?” Apollo asks instead. “Or how did you stop them?”

“For myself,” she says, and that sounds like a veiled warning that this isn’t going to help Klavier, that this is all subjective guesswork, and the fae’s prying eyes don’t have much help, “I needed a certain amount of closure. To see again the man I had most wronged, to tell him the truth, and that to see in spite of myself and my twin, he had survived and found people who loved him better than I ever could.”

He can’t not ask. The question is going to eat him otherwise. “So, erm, is this Mr Wright you’re referring to?” 

Iris stares at him with lifeless eyes. Apollo rubs the back of his head and decides that the best way to play is this is to make a plea deal by naming his co-conspirators. “And we were wondering, uh, me and Trucy and - and Athena, and Detective Faraday and Prosecutor Debeste - we were wondering, are you in love with Mr Wright?”

“No,” she says curtly.

“Oh.” He’d still sort of believe that single word, sharp and clipped as it was, to be a lie if she wasn’t fae. (And if he couldn’t see when humans are lying, sometimes. Most of the time. Whenever Blackquill isn’t involved.)

“Why did you think so?” she asks, studying him, her head tilting back and forth. Apollo regrets everything that brought him here, his bad choices and his friends who are bad choices themselves. “A moon rabbit heard something she thought was that?”

That has to mean Athena, “rabbit” an epithet commenting on her ears, though why “moon rabbit” in particular? (Apollo knows that some Asian cultures call it a rabbit in the moon, not because it was a Khura’inese story too - it’s not - and definitely not because he and Clay spent all of middle school and half of high school intensely into Sailor Moon - they definitely, totally didn’t.) What’s that got to do with Athena? Trucy a firebird, Apollo a dragon - what does Iris think she knows about Athena?

“No,” Apollo says. “It was just a kinda vibe that all of us felt?” He expends too much effort stopping his voice from cracking into a fearful squeak. “Can we forget that I asked that and just move on?”

“No,” Iris answers. Apollo’s heart sinks. “If I agreed, little dragon, that would be a deal, and a debt you owe to me.”

Shit. He’s done it again, said something wrong to her again, and he’s lucky that she’s - kind? Has a steep debt or her own and sympathizes? Or is she hoarding his missteps even while she points them out, waiting until there’s something she can get from him? 

“Didn’t your father teach you to better watch your words?”

Apollo tries very, very hard to pretend it’s just random that she said father over mother or parents - tries to pretend past the sticky dryness in his throat that she’s not fae, not of a habit of knowing things she has no way to know and not of a disposition to select every word with intricate care. And he tries to pretend that the most he learned from his father wasn’t the shapes of magatamas and mitamahs, an edict to hold his soul close, but that the people he loves are going to let him down sooner or later, or later. 

(Kristoph and Phoenix just reemphasized that one.)

“Entirely different question,” Apollo says. Better to move on. “Why did you tell me all this and not Prosecutor Gavin when he’s the one who actually…”

Actually is living with it and isn’t just Apollo, on the sidelines, the one who knows so many secrets, about Klavier, about Trucy and the Gramaryes, and now about Iris. (One of the fae, and he knows something so - so - about her.)

“And just how much do you suppose a man who was so stolen and changed wants to hear, unsolicited, anything from a royal creature of the Court that did this to him?”

Royalty, monsters, and Iris’ twin, the monster, who would have been the classic image of a queen. What’s their relation to Mia? How many are part of this royal family, and does Phoenix know all of them?

“Ah,” Apollo says. “Right. But I don’t really think he’s going to be much more receptive to me coming up to him and telling him what I’ve heard from one of the fae who impossibly knows things about him that she’s got know way of knowing!”

“Everyone you meet who’s magic brushes something off on you,” Iris explains. “Distinct traces, and one can learn a lot about someone else if she knows how to read it. And I am very familiar with your friend’s particular problem to recognize it.”

(If she sees all this about Klavier, could she tell Apollo what Dhurke is? And Nahyuta? If he wants information from her, what payment would she demand in return? Does he even want to know this?)

“It’s still creepy,” Apollo says. “And I’m not—” Not what? Equipped to handle any of this bugfuckery? Responsible for Klavier in any way? He’d like to be able to help him, sure, but this is - how much would it actually help?

Iris waits for him to finish the thought. 

“We’re barely friends,” Apollo adds, because she really looks like she’s going to stand there silently until he can stumble though some more words. “What am I supposed to do? Say ‘hey, I have it on good authority from one of the Fair Folk that you haven’t lost your mind, no she couldn’t tell you how to stop it, said some vague thing about getting closure’—”

“Come to think of it,” Iris muses, and dread coils up again in Apollo’s chest, “another factor in my visons ceasing may have been that at the same time of my gaining closure, or immediately after, I spent several years locked up in the iron hell that is prison, as an accomplice to covering up an act of voluntary manslaughter.”

“I - I’m sorry, you what?” 

With a tight, pursed-lip smile, Iris shakes her head. “That one is not a story that needs telling now.”

So her experiences are even less applicable to Klavier’s situation, then. Fantastic. “Why are you even telling me anything?” he asks. “I know you said it’s reassurance, for peace of mind, but, why?”

Why does she care?

“I believe that last night I assured Feenie that I would look after his children, yes? That I would not let them come to harm?” She sweeps her hair away from her face, back over her shoulder. “I am doing so.”

“I’m not - Prosecutor Gavin definitely isn’t - I don’t think that’s what Mr Wright meant.”

Her black eyes fix on him, stare straight through him. He’s pretty sure he knows what she’s saying. Do you think I don’t know that? 

But he’d rather think that she’s misunderstanding than consider the prospect that one of the fae has taken a kind of maternal interest in them. She’s still fae. Their families don’t function well, do they? She’s got to be expecting something in return, see something useful in them.

And Apollo’s not going to be anyone’s human weapon. 

“At any rate,” she says, finally ending that chilling silence that can’t have been more than ten seconds but also felt like it lasted about a thousand years, “you have more information now. Use it if you see the opportunity, as you judge fit and deem best. You know him better than I do.”

That can’t be hard, and doesn’t mean much. Apollo still doesn’t know how he’s supposed to say anything. It would be nice to give Klavier some reassurance that he isn’t cracked in the head more than any man who makes those deliberate aesthetic choices has to be, but this would probably just make him more paranoid. It’s making Apollo more paranoid, to begin to know the scope of what the fae can know, like he wasn’t freaked the hell out and has been ever since Iris called him a dragon. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”

“I regret that I know no better way to help than to put this on you,” she says. “That I ask you to be so responsible for someone else’s pain.” At least she acknowledges it. “You have enough troubles of your own to be concerned with.”

Coming from one of the fae, that is the single most ominous statement Apollo has ever heard. He decides like so much else, he’s going to ignore it. “It’s fine,” he says. Not the trouble part, but Klavier. It’s sort of like Phoenix asking him every so often - less frequently as the months pass and October is further away - if he’s heard from Prosecutor Gavin lately, how he’s doing. It’s the same concept, just with more mad fae magic. 

Iris scrutinizes him again. He doubts her eyes could be any more piercing when they’re glowing red. “It’s a difficult thing, to care so much for someone who has the same face as someone who so hurt you,” she says. “And a harder thing to see in a mirror.” Again, she sweeps her hair back out of her face, and the glossy red that hides in it the black catches the light. “I suppose I probably will see you again sooner or later, little dragon. Best of luck to you in the meantime - and if there could be any words that he might accept from a faery monster such as myself, I hope one day he will hurt less than I do.”

She’s fae. If she says it, it has to be the truth, in some way or another, but this one seems plain. 

Iris scuffs at the sidewalk with her sandal. “I wonder,” she says, “if one of my cousins purposely cracked this so circular.”

And without glancing at Apollo again, she vanishes instantly. None of the pomp of leaving the manor, no flowers left behind. Nothing but a gust of cold air. 

-

Apollo has been home for half an hour when he realizes something else he did wrong. Like a note that would have been left in the margins of one of his clunky middle school essays, reminding him to watch his tenses. What he should have asked Iris was, have you at any point been in love with Mr Wright? 

[dememarquette]

Midnight Caller

Adria's day went as well as they usually do.

Training drills. Stake outs. Patrols. It was all very normal if you didn't know better.

But she did. She felt it; Heaven was perpetually on edge. The polarizing shadow war had made itself into the atmosphere and into routine- the specifics of which she only knew from 'mistakes' as a lowly pawn, and the details she gleaned inbetween. At this point, the increase of raids was normalized. It was ordinary to systematically sneak out demon operations, no matter how trivial the charges. Specialized drills were more frequent, too.

All of the added procedures were tying her guts into knots. The situation was becoming more and more wrong each passing day, but there was no trade-off. There hasn't been an update in months. The park was in limbo. They  were asking every other time she dropped by until eventually realizing she had nothing to give. And may never. Cheerful as they were, nobody liked the quiet. Suspense bothered her, for their sake, for hers. Playing the long game in subterfuge meant she lived life in paranoia, yet not one iota of it was concerned with Hell. She was as scared of a demon as her shadow, but Heaven. Heaven was something to be feared.

She didn't know what to consider her role in this. Double-crossing? Triple? She tried not to think on it. It'd only get her worked up, but when that inevitably failed, she realized no treasonous term felt right. She didn't hate Heaven. She wasn't actively working against it. It's just her allegiance didn't fall into carefully sectioned off labels and sectors- it fell into place by virtue. And reason.

But being screamed at all day that her reasoning was wrong and flawed bred self-doubt. Her mind never seemed to shut off, even after the mission reports were read, and the raids concluded.

She lounged on her couch. Muscles in her back and shoulders were rigid after a stressful day, but there was one thing that always seemed to help: Colin. On top of everything she supposed she should feel guilty about that too but she absolutely did not. It was a little piece of wrong that felt right.

COLIN: How was work, sweetie?

He wrote. He just got off shift at a private rodeo show where it was not the bulls being wrangled. Her phone, thankfully, does not receive pictures but needless to say, he was happy to unwind and see her too.

ADRIA: THE NORMal. sarah is really a piece of work.

COLIN: Awh, what happened?

What happened!

What happened was her squad-mate’s penchant for public humiliation. Adria had a thick skin, but if you're going correct her on fighting form, you'd better be able to back it the fuck up! She punched at the keys with her thumbs, detailing the tiff in atrocious texting, 150 characters at a time. She sent a chain of three messages, the order of which they sent in was left in the hands of God, when her screen blacked out.

A cheerful ringtone replaced it. That delightful sequence of Nokia chirps had been featured in three separate horror movies in the past two decades, and that auditory connotation was no less portentous now. Demetrius’ name flashed in eight-bit.

She answered on first ring. "Demetri?"

"Adria, thank G-man."  He heaved. "I need you."

Adria cupped her phone with both hands. "What's wrong?"

“What’s wrong?” He wheezed. "What isn't?"

His first fake emergency was a text. His second very real! emergency was also a text. This was a call, and already his desperation pierced through her shitty reception in four syllables. Demetri’s voice was an octave higher than she'd ever heard it and hysterical. She'd seen this man handle pressure (and if you ignored his thing with snakes), nothing short of imminent doom bothered him.

The contrast was horrifying.

She launched off her couch, storming her quarters. The bedroom door rebounded off the wall as she breached her closet. The more utilitarian parts of her uniform were ripped from its display. She yanked a set of greaves over her knees. Her hair was a tousled mess, an ondoyant spread across her shoulders, but she had a band around her wrist to crudely tie it back should this turn into a brawl. At the time he was calling? The night couldn't go any other way. She wasn't on shift but they held raids at all hours.

She saw it: demons dusted into ash. One coming to the other's call only for a massacre. The Powers were organized and lethal, and her vague and sporadic feedback was never going to cut it, either to sate Heaven, or save them. She was stupid for trying. Her superiors hired on someone else to intervene, to gather intel, and now she was on the phone with Demetrius-

"Demetri?!" She panicked, shoving her forearms through her bracers. "Talk to me. I can't help if I don't know what's going on. Is Niko okay? Archer?"

The line went quiet and her wings folded out in a forceful draft. Adria was a full second away from making the plunge from Heaven to Hell, when over the line there was a single sniff.

“Look on th-...the tv- MTV." He said. "Righ'now.”

Adria's head snapped up. There was no 48-inch mounted on the wall. She didn’t have a smartphone, how would she have a cable?

But context worked with what she gathered from her time on the computer and the demon himself. MTV was no news outlet nor has it had any respectable programming since the 1990's. Their ragtag group was a spectacle but nothing she imagined making a time slot between Teen Mom and MTV Cribs.

(That's a compliment.)

"Excuse me?"

"Channel- channel forty-eight. PleaaaAAse."

She stiffly straightened up. She was half armored- the bottom half ready for the war that would be her fall from On High, while the other awaiting on conformation for where this was going. "You're...going to have to describe it to me. Where are you?"

"Home."

"And you're not dying?"

"I don't knooooow." He whined. "Probaply."

She audibly heard the melodramatic flop.

On the other end, he slapped against the counter top. Sulking on his kitchen island, his rings tangled in his bangs. He stared in disdain at the source of his despair. It was a frame paused on his television set. Depicted was an unflattering still of a suburban mom. Her jumpsuit was as orange as her fake tan, and two streams of black poured down her face like she tried her wings at a newer, trendier 270 degree angle.

Adria had no way of knowing this, else she had reason to hang up then and there. "What does that mean?! Is ANYONE in danger? Is ANYONE dying?"

"Are you even looking?!" He said, frustrated.

"No. No I am not. What is it?"

"They're taking Samantha in!"

"What."

He flailed his hand at the set. In his mind, he was the image of every tragic hero in a cathartic Renaissance painting. "She's getting arrested!" He cried. "Fuckin' Ricky set her up, th-the child suppor' payments. 'n after she got Kaytee and G-ma Hoovie in the pyramid scheme no one will talk to her-"

"And why do I care about this woman’s shitty decisions?"

"She's not gonna make it into season six!!" He shrieked.

"Oh Jesus."

She remembered that. She remembered a lot more than she thought she would. They were characters from a colorful cast from their last hangout.

It wasn't her idea, obviously. She owed him for their first training session. Retribution for her violation of his trust, he called it. Somehow it was separate from the favor she already promised him but that's what he dismissed as semantics, preceding a change of subject. Nevermind how he tricked her into a strip club, she arrived dutifully at his apartment in the forth circle of Hell. That was two months ago.

That day he opened the door more casual than she’d see him before, which wasn't saying much. He was still swanky- buttoned down in something she'd seen in an all-too-dramatic cologne commercial, hue set off with a matching Rolex that told time with three faces. She, on the other hand, arrived in gym shorts. He said 'no armor' on the summons so when he opened up, he tensed like a wild animal. His hands even raised like she taught him ("Protect your head!"), and it was a good fifteen minutes of her standing on his blistering doorstep, convincing him she wasn't there to pulverize his face before she was allowed inside. He relaxed.

And eventually, so did she.

She crashed on his couch. Arms wound around herself so tight, she was ready to make fun of every vapid star that strutted onto the screen. Reality shows were stupid. A waste of time, clearly staged, and air-headed entertainment. All she was here to do was get through four hours of this garbage so he'll trust her for self defenses classes again.

However, Demetri took criticism like a champ. He pointed out that she had literally no reference point at all for television programming (true), and hit play.

At first she was entirely correct in her assumptions. These Real Housewives were overacting, over-dramatic, and overly ridiculous- but around the twenty minute mark, the first twist, it was apparent that was the charm. They were ridiculous. They were all impossibly absurd, and no matter how much she had the gist of their one-dimensional personalities, they'd surprise her with a curveball she never saw coming, dramatic irony Shakespearen in any other context. When she stopped commenting on how these stupid things would never happen in real life, it clicked.

"So...why is this lady breaking into her cousin's flat?"  She picked at finger foods he set up on the table, small pastries he credited to Donnabelle. She needed something to do with her hands while she pretended to not be interested in the television she was very interested in.

"Hm?"

"I mean,” She shrugged, too jerky to be casual. “If they just made up. Why would she break in?" He quirked a brow.

Truth was he’d been a nervous wreck the whole time too- he just wasn't as transparent. Never had he cared more about anyone else’s usually-contrarian opinion more.  Covertly he watched her more than the re-run. It didn’t make sense, but when her question rang sincere he grinned. The arc maxed between his ears before it pulled back into something more restrained. "Ah, well. That's why she set up the brunch. Her cousin has incriminating photos on a flash drive."

"But we know this because it's been broadcasted to all of America."

"No actually," He sat up, invested. She noticed afterward that she leaned to follow. "We know they exist but we don't know what's on them. My guess is it's something to do with last year's bachelorette party since that got the fire department called, but the forum thinks it's..."

And that's how she started caring too much about some random group of nutjobs in the city.

She still believed it was staged bullshit, but it was fun staged bullshit. She watched nearly three hours of dramatic close-ups, cryfests, and varying degrees of misdemeanors until the night was called. Time flew before she knew it, and their goodbye was a lot less awkward than their hello.

She wasn't expecting to revisit any of that in the near future.

She stared at the keys of her phone as she snapped back to reality. Demetrius was slurring through a monologue calling for Samantha's salvation (eloquently coined "FreeSam2k-2k-shit-2k19?") when it registered: Samantha Drama was a lot more preferable than the alternative.

"-'ish not like the scheme was her fault, y'know. She's a business woman at heart."

"...She sure is."

"'scatcly!” He said, overly relieved. “You get it!"

She sighed, head in her hand. The restless energy she amassed depleted into pure appreciation of the overreaction. Her overreaction- and if he was oblivious to the whiplash she suffered, it was missed entirely. It was gone. Replacing it was the sound of her barely holding back laughter. She rubbed her eyes. God, what was he doing? "Demetri, are you drunk? Did Archer give you the pilfered party booze?"

"Aria-Adria, please. Less focus fer two secons."

"Okay, okay.”  She pulled the tie from her hair. “So. Samantha."

“Samantha, yes.”

She indulged, smiling. "Is this the one who uh....cheats at dog pageants?"

“NO that's Kristie!" He corrected, distressed.

“Oh- sorry. The lady that held the intervention at the baby shower?”

“Yes,” he sobbed.

“I’m...sorry??”

“She was just tryna- tryna show her kid that she- aw fuck.” Glass clinked. "Oh no."

"What?"

"I spilled it. Fuck."

The phone rustled loudly. She listened, with her head tilted into her phone. Demetrius was struggling, but she was too. She bit the corner of her lip so her laughing wouldn't carry over the line.

"Back." He rasped, returning like he lost the war.

"You okay over there?"

"No. I need- I need to bail her out." He said. He’d run out of options, his voice teetered on a whimper. "I jus' gotta."

She walked back to her living room. Hasty strides before were now a languid stroll, as the armored plates fell off her knees in a clatter. She threw her bracers into her pillow as she hit the sofa beside them. The threat was neutralized. "No,” she said. “You should not bail her out."

"I have to. She's all alone in there- y'know I'm good'for it, Adria. Issat short for Adriana by the way."

"No it is not, but I'm VERY sure she's fine."

"What do I do?!"

"You're still home right?" She barely got the question out with a straight face.  "Like you're not out, and definitely not in the Alpine area?"

"Wha' you tryna say? 'at I'm not r’sponsiple?"

"That you're drunk off your ass."

"Does that make any of it- any of it less real?" The volume softened as he scolded his phone. An old selfie that he used as her contact photo served as her avatar and the source of his betrayal. "I'm SO hurt. My feelings are real, Adria."

"Oh yeah?"  Her head canted. She was staring at a blank wall, but imagery from the other end of the line was so clear. She could see his face too. That lopsided grin. Bent brows when he feigned offense, even if his eyes were still smiling while he clutched his heart for the effect. So distinctively him. "I thought you were too cool for feelings."

"Welp. S'where you're wrong~"

"Am I? You're quick to make fun of other people's."

"Is 'is about yoouurs? Hmmmmm?"

She debated her answer as clinking and swearing reared up a second time. She heard him bat the glass around, coordination beyond her expert salvage, before he returned, forgoing the cup altogether. Whatever. He still had the bottle. "Maybe."

"Maybe what?"

"It seems at times you care more about Samantha’s. Like right now."

"Whaaaaa-!! Yer only sayin’ that cuz you like teasin’ her. Jus’like I like teasin’ you."

Her fingers combed through the waves rolling over her shoulders, as she smiled. “I got that much."

"I'd bail you outta jail too, y'know."

"You are not bailing Samantha out of jail."

"'n if I don't," He continued, galvanized into another tangent. "If I DON'T tease you! Then what we doin', hmm?"

She quirked a brow. She was going to love this. "What does that mean?"

"Whatdoyamean what’do I mean. I dunno how else t'talk to you!!" He said, phone brushing with static when he shrugged. "Yer somethin else. It's scary."

Or not.

The word punctured her bubble of amusement. Scary? She knew she could be intimidating. And sure, she beat him up more than once. And sure he was a baby about it, but before Adria’s heart had the chance to sink-

"I trust you so much," He continued, shrilly and mystified. "Isn't that crazy?"

Her heart caught. "W-what?"

"Riiiight? But it happens.” He shrugged. “It happens when, when people got this intense light. A light y'just wanna be a part of. D'you know how rare that is?"

"I don't-"

"You know!! Of course you know." He asserted, finding it inconceivable that she didn't understand. "Some people jus' got it. It draws you in. People like me don' got it- we don' got it- so its blindin' when we do see it. You got it, girl. You got it baaad," He sang. "I mean FUCK- yer "spyin'" on us and we take you everywhere we go! An’ an’ all I wanna do right now is invite you over. Have you here. Again."

Adria blanked.

Staring wide-eyed, she had no idea what to say.

“O-oh.”

Her wings slid down the sofa in a soft shh. Unsure she heard him right, praise was just something she couldn't wrap her head around. Even as the conversation devolved into an ad-libbed ‘Come on Over, Baby' Christina Aguilera parody (’Spy on Over, Baby’ - execution as good as one would imagine), no one thought that way about her. No one talked about her like that. No one ever had- no matter how much, how long, and how hard she tried to do the right thing. She was a series of failures, stemming all the way back from her first charge.

But Demetrius was more than happy to tell/sing to her otherwise. Her feedback wasn't necessary. In fact, she couldn't get a word in. He rambled hard and assiduous about that signature compassion he couldn't compute. About their classes against heavenly forces. About the way the right thing always just seemed to spring into her mind, without cause or consideration. His opinions had receipts- which was something Heaven never bothered to audit.

Thoughts of doubt were smothered before they had the chance to manifest. They tried. Unable to defend against his points, they wanted to dismiss the call as inebriated prattle, but she wouldn't. She refused- it felt nice. They were compliments with no ulterior motive. No seeds of manipulation she could detect, and he didn’t want anything from her this time.

She could have comfort this once, just this once, before jumping back into scrutiny tomorrow.

That in mind, when a lull settled in the conversation, she took it. She pulled her knees into her chest, and closed her eyes.

“Thank you...Thanks, Deme. That means a lot.”

But where she expected a stiff refute of anything tottering the edge of the sentimental (she tensed for it), or another bout of prattle, she heard a thump over the line.

A cold pause followed. She twitched from her pleasant smile. It stretched. Seconds feeling like minutes, the quiet was just short enough to spurn concern, but not enough to ask, when he broke it. He sucked in air through his teeth. Devoid of his former drunken rapture, the tacit draw unnerved her. “No problem.” He said.

Her world dimmed. Her confidence had barely got its bearings before being dashed. The beat of awkwardness was back. That void that pulled the light from their talks, how she could be enjoying herself before the tone flips on a dime and she regrets reaching out at all-

“...Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah...” He dragged his face. “No.” He sighed. “No I’m fuckin’ not.”

Just like the party. That’s what it took. She hit that mysterious trigger again. The precise sentiment she needed to wipe the audible grin off his face. It was her. It had to be her. She misread the entire situation. His admiration had been clear as day, but now it muddled.

“I’m sorry.” She hovered above a whisper, apologizing without knowing why.

“Don’t be. It was all me.”

“What was you…?”

“You. Me. This.”

It solidified the weight in her chest. All those positive thoughts had just blossomed. To tamp them down so soon as a regret... Demetri wasn’t a guy about that scene. She knew that, and yet-

That’s where her mistake was.

She’d been telling herself the same thing since the fair- she was delusional. She didn’t need it echoed.

“It’s fine.” She cut him off. “You should rest- night Demetri. I’ll, I’ll check in when I can-”

“I let you go.”

She stiffened.

“I saw that light and jus’....poof. Gave it away- like a joke.” He said, abruptly sober. “Who’m I kidding? It was a joke. On myself!! Were cowboy strippers worth it? I mean...t’see THAT ‘n let it slip. Who am I?” He brazenly interrogated his open apartment. His theater set-up was a whole five feet away, and it was a crime scene as far as he was concerned. He truly had fun with her that night. At the fair. Shopping. But it was Colin she was going home to, and that was entirely by his own hand. “Thas’not me.” He said. “Thas’never been me- I’m in hell fer wanting everything. Why would I learn now?”

Archer pushed him to make a move. He dismissed him. He was so damn sure he’d figure out his own way. Demetrius was convinced that honesty and upfront communication were tacky, and not because he was entirely inept at sincerity. But what he was realizing tonight was that window shut.   He’d earned one of her darkest secrets only to be iced-out of what was troubling her at the party. She stared at her phone the whole drive home. His moment passed. Now he was paying for it, but without the inhibition to suffer in silence.

“I made a mistake.” He said, with finality. “I want you. That’s what’s wrong.” “You...want me.” "Mmph. Fuckin’...cowboy strippers aren’t even that funny.” His muttering trailed off, disintegrating into incoherent rambling and something that sounded suspiciously like ‘Colin is a douche.’

Her mouth closed. She had nothing to say.

Whiplash was back, but this time there was no recovering. She had no words. No response. Nothing to fill the quiet, but he did not have much intention of doing so either. The clinking, clanking, and sentence fragments stopped. They both settled into quiet- an awkward, but powerful one.

It dragged for minute. Then five. She was reluctant leave it, to be the one to break it, but her head was buzzing and so was her phone. Missed texts were adding up. There must’ve been seven now. Someone else was impatient for her attention. And while Colin could wait...

"Demetri?"

"Hmmmm?" He hummed, sleepily but somber.

"Did you...did you mean-? Were you implying-" She cringed. She regretted the question before she asked. Maybe it was best not to pry. Just enjoy it. It’s how things had been going so far.

Besides.

What would happen if he did answer now?

She hugged her knees. Her heart had taken enough collateral damage. It was time to give it a break. Tonight changed things. She’d have to see what that meant. "Nevermind. Uh, thanks. I mean.Thanks again. I guess. Don’t go bailing anyone out of prison."

"Aye-aye," he mumbled.

On the other end, he slumped. Wine smeared around his table, he half-heartedly sopped it up with a rag before giving up. The marble was feeling awfully comfortable. His head propped against his shoulder, and it slid into lean.

She kept the phone affixed to her ear, eyes closing. The night opened with her walking the demon through the five stages of grief for a reality star. In a bizarre way, in a way neither could have expected, he provided a comparative comfort. These thoughts she’d been having- these errant ideas, these cues- were justified.

"Deme?" She finally asked.

But there was no response. He was out like a light, drooling on the marble.

She listened to a few breaths before bidding a quiet 'good night' and hanging up. Exhausted now, but in the best way, she posed to snap her phone shut.

Just before she did, the screen returned to Colin.

Her cursor flashed where she left it. It tailed the end of a long, angry message her heart was no longer in. Unwilling to tarnish her revelation, or feed the new, fresher guilt winding in her stomach, she hit the back key. One letter blinked out of existence at a time, then words, then entire lines.

ADRIA: actually dont worry about it. goodnight. COLIN: ok! Good night :D

[invisibletinkerer]

Fic: 30 Seconds Later (chapter 15)

Chapter 1 – Chapter 2 – Chapter 3 – Chapter 4 – Chapter 5 – Chapter 6 – Chapter 7 – Chapter 8 – Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14 - Chapter 15 - Chapter 16

Length: ~4500 words

AO3 Link.

It was like coming down from a high.

Despite taking the kind of bruising he was really starting to get too old for, Stan was happier than he’d ever deserved to be. Ford had his back. Ford cared. The second bubble robot left them alone like the Pines twins back in business was too much for an alien machine to handle – and then Ford collapsed like a ragdoll.

It wasn’t fair.

Nothing was ever fair – that was one of the first lessons life had ever taught him – but it was still the first objection that crossed Stan’s mind. This shouldn’t be happening, and Stan couldn’t even tell what ‘this’ was. He tried to ask, more and more frantically, but Ford himself didn’t seem to know. He spasmed once, twice, but by the time Stan managed to lower him down to the floor he was still again.

Too still.

“Stanford!” Stan was screaming now, panicking, and it was a good thing the fear-sensing drone was already gone. “Stay with me!”

“I’m trying,” Ford mumbled, his mouth barely moving. His eyes stayed half-open, but Stan wasn’t sure he could see him anymore.

He was fading too fast, too sudden, and this wasn’t like any concussion Stan had ever experienced or heard of. It had to be the wound, but it was barely bleeding, so it couldn’t be blood loss, but that just meant it could be anything. He could be dying. He’d said it was non-lethal, but did he know?

“Come on, Stanford!” Stan yelled, shaking his young twin as hard as he dared. “You can’t do this!” You can’t do this to me. Not now. “Tell me what I gotta do!”

Ford’s fingers twitched. Stan squeezed his hand, but there was no more response.

He was still as death.

No.

Hell no.

Stan shuddered and needed a deep breath before he managed to let go of Ford’s hand, putting a couple of stiff fingers on his throat instead, fumbling for a pulse. He didn’t release the breath until he found it. Was it weak, or was it just him being unable to judge? At least it was there. It seemed to be steady. Ford wasn’t dead. He was still breathing, too, his chest still rising and falling under the sweater west.

He was still alive and still here, not on the other side of any portal or – well, in outer space or something. Neither of them was.

It’d be fine. He was still here and still alive and he’d just saved Stan’s life. Stan wasn’t going to lose him again.

But he could be dying from some slow poison, or he could be going into a coma, or he could wake up perfectly fine in an hour, and Stan didn’t have the medical know-how to tell. He sure didn’t have thirty years to learn. He clenched both fists against Ford’s chest, trying to think around the tears gathering in his eyes.

Of course, Ford’s other problem made sure Stan wouldn’t be alone with this for long. Despite expecting it, Stan winced at the unnatural glint that lit up Ford’s glasses for a moment, like they were hit by light from below. Ford’s body didn’t go any less limp, but a toothy grin started to open up on his face. The next moment Ford’s glossy, half-lidded eyes were open wide and alert with a dim, creepy yellow glow.

“Hiya, Fez!” the demon said, though Stan wasn’t even wearing the hat. “Just the guy I’ve been meaning to talk to!”

“You.” Stan gripped Ford’s shoulders tightly. Yeah, this was bad – he couldn’t imagine being possessed by a demon was good for Ford now or ever – but right here, right now, it was almost welcome. It was a target. “What did you do to him?” he growled, leaning down over Ford’s face.

Bill snorted. “Pfft! I didn’t do a thing. This is the kind of predicament ol’ Fordsy gets into all without my help.”

That might be true or not, but Stan didn’t really care. “He got shot,” he snapped. “And you’re—”

“Sure did!” Bill interrupted. “Wanna know what it’s doing to him in great detail?”

That sounded like a taunt, or a challenge. Stan slammed a fist on the floor next to Ford’s face, because slamming it into Ford’s face wasn’t really an option no matter how much the guy wearing it deserved it. This was the guy who’d used and abused Ford to the point where he’d almost killed himself in self-defense. And he dared show himself in Ford’s body now. Like it belonged to him. “What do you want?” Stan snarled.

Bill didn’t even blink. Instead he laughed, a high-pitched, inhuman sound that should never come from Ford’s mouth. “That’s hilarious. Did you know he could have gotten away scot-free if he’d just run for it instead of deciding to save you? Bet he regrets that one now!”

Stan inhaled sharply before he could stop himself. “Well, you’re gonna regret a hell of a lotta things once I get a hold of you in person.” He wasn’t gonna rise to the bait, wasn’t gonna start doubting Ford’s choice just because he might possibly have been fine if he hadn’t cared.

“You’re in luck! I want to see you in person too!” Bill raised one of Ford’s lower arms with a jerky movement, making Stan press down harder on his shoulders, but he didn’t make any attempt to break free. “That’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Great.” Stan scowled, but this wasn’t a good time to lose his calm. “I’ll tell ya this: You don’t wanna meet me in person, ‘cause I will end you, demon or not. You’re not getting anything from me, and I’m not gonna let you hurt Ford anymore, so don’t even try. I suggest ya give it up and scram.”

“Feisty. I like it!” Bill chuckled. “But hey, I can help you! I mean, Sixer’s injury isn’t my fault, but it sure is serious, and I think you wanna do something about it. Before it’s too late, am I right?”

Stan stared at him. That was definitely a threat, and not one he could ignore.

“You want him ba-ack,” Bill drawled. “I’ve been watching you, you know. That’s your one and only motivation – don’t know how one man can be so stubborn, but hey, you want what you want, and I sure got some use out of this stupid meatbag! You could, too!”

“Shut up!” Stan leaned in over Bill again and shook him, though more gently than he would have liked. “What. Do. You. Want?” It came out as a clipped string of words.

Bill raised Ford’s chin and chuckled again, like he’d hooked Stan and was about to reel him in. “I just wanna talk!” he said. “You and me, we’re practical guys. I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”

Stan had heard spiels like that before, and they never led to anything good. Still, he didn’t have much choice. “Talk, then.”

“Oh no,” Bill said, stiffly raising Ford’s right arm and patting Stan’s hand on his shoulder. “Can’t have a gentlemanly discussion with me and Sixer lying on the floor like one of your human carpets!”

“Why the hell would I want to have a ‘gentlemanly discussion’?”

“Oh, I dunno.” Bill twitched Ford’s shoulders into an awkward restrained shrug. “For courtesy? Or because you’re wasting our time? I mean, Sixer’s time.”

“Stop calling him that!” The guy was already fraying Stan’s nerves with the yellow eyes and unnatural grin on Ford’s face, but Stan’s own nickname for his brother made it worse. Once was a fluke, but he kept doing it.

“No way, he likes it! Makes him feel right at home.” Bill laughed. “So, gonna let me up already?”

Stan tried not to shudder. As much as he wanted to keep some kind of control over the situation, this wasn’t helping Ford. The bastard knew that Stan was desperate, but he had to keep his head on. Get the other guy talking. Figure out the best way to get Ford out of this alive. He moved away and gave Bill some space to get up.

It was like watching a marionette show. Ford’s body was still unnaturally limp, even when Bill made it move. He rose to his feet in stages, using one joint at the time in jerky and uncoordinated movements. Even if it hadn’t been Ford, seeing a human being act like that would have been headache-inducing in a way that had nothing to do with the bump on the back of Stan’s head. What little he had seen of Bill possessing Ford back in the portal room hadn’t seemed this obviously off at all – it almost looked like the demon wasn’t really possessing Ford right now as much as he was puppeteering him on invisible strings.

“Whoa,” Bill said, spinning around with Ford’s arms outstretched. “This is interesting. That thing really did a number on him! Feels weird!” He stopped, using Ford’s hands to smack his chest a few times, grinning like a loon. “This is more like driving around dead meat than being in a living body.” He laughed as if he’d said something funny.

Stan rose to his feet and crossed his arms, deliberately keeping his face neutral. Ford wasn’t just asleep, that much was obvious, so of course Bill would feel that when possessing him. Made as much sense as anything.

Bill turned to face Stan. “Hi! Nice to meet you properly at last! I’d offer you tea, but there doesn’t seem to be any.” He made an exaggerated shrug with Ford’s limp arms.

Stan didn’t say anything, waiting for the demon to get on with it.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while,” Bill continued, starting to walk a slow circle around Stan. He was moving like a doll, half limp and half stiff. “It’s surprisingly hard to get a hold of you in the mindscape, I’ll tell you that! Hard to believe you’re related to this one.” He slapped Ford’s chest again with an open palm. “But here we are, face to face! More or less! Nice to meetcha, name’s Bill Cipher.” He stopped in front of Stan and offered up Ford’s hand for a handshake.

“I know.” Stan kept his arms crossed.

“And you’re Stanley Pines,” Bill said, turning the outreached hand into a pointing finger. “The man who punched a hole in this universe.”

“What’s your point?”

“The point is, that’s an accomplishment! You’re a clever guy. Not enough people give you credit for that.”

Flattery? Seriously? “Sure, and the ones who do tend to be the same ones who actually think I’m some kinda sucker.”

Bill laughed at that. “It’s funny how you think you understand anything!”

“I bet it is,” Stan said evenly. He was trying to be patient, but it was kinda hard when Ford was right there, and still out of reach in at least two ways. “So here’s my stupid human question – what is happening to Stanford and what are you suggesting I do about it?” He tried not to raise his voice.

“Oh. Right.” Bill’s grin grew wider as he stopped in front of Stan and put Ford’s hands on his hips. “He’s dying.”

Stan had braced himself for that answer. Whether it was true or not, it was the obvious thing for a demon with an agenda to say. Somehow it still felt like a slap to the face. For a moment all he could do was watch as Ford’s chest rose and fell under Bill’s grin. He was still breathing. Still alive.

“Wanna save him?” Bill tilted Ford’s head to the side.

So that’s how it was gonna be. Ice settled in Stan’s chest as he straightened his back, ready to listen to the demon’s pitch. He didn’t have much of a choice on that one. Bill knew that as well as Stan did. “How long does he have?”

“Oh, I’d say about thirty minutes, give or take some.” Bill slammed a fist into the wound on Ford’s side. “You should see the cellular degradation going on! The tragic thing is that there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. And neither can I! So he’s done for and you’re stuck with me for—”

“What!?” Stan reacted in spite of himself, heart beating painfully in his chest.

“Just kidding!” Bill laughed, pointing at Stan with both hands. “There’s totally something I can do! But only if you help me, and only if we get going right away!”

Stan exhaled, but didn’t unclench his fists.

Bill threw Ford’s arm over Stan’s shoulders with a thump, imitating intimacy. “See, right now I’m incorporeal and can’t really do much of anything. But once I get all the way into this dimension, to be here in person – oh, I could do all sorts of things! This kinda damage would be a cinch to fix!” He made a clumsy attempt to snap Ford’s fingers.

There it was. “You want me to give you the rift. Or else Ford is gonna die.”

“Bingo!” He patted Stan’s shoulder. “I knew you were clever.”

Stan took a deep breath. “I don’t have it.”

“Sure you do!” Ford’s head twitched to the side. “It’s in your bag that you dropped in storage! Sixer didn’t want to leave it with the kids, remember? Get with it, Fez!” He released Stan and took an awkward step forwards, walking with all the grace of a determined puppet.

Stan didn’t stop him, but stepped up next to him, letting him lead. He might as well. The rift was in the bag, of course. Stan hadn’t wanted to bring it, but Ford had insisted that it wasn’t safe in the Shack, with only the kids to guard it in case Bill tried something. Stan had agreed eventually, as long as they packed the jar in a locked case with lots of padding, but none of that was gonna matter if he had to give it to Bill. Which was exactly what the demon was counting on.

When he closed his eyes he could still see Ford dangling from the bubble robot, struggling to bring it down and free Stan. Ford yelling at him that Stan could have died. Ford gasping in pain from an alien gunshot wound. Ford collapsing like his bones turned into jelly.

“Look,” he said to Bill, feigning casualness, “What makes ya think I wanna save him if it means you’re just gonna end the world right after?”

Bill gave him a giddy smile. “’Total Global Annihilation’!” he said, using air quotes. “That’s what he wrote, and you didn’t care last time. Of course,” he continued conversationally, “Sixer likes exaggerating. I’m not gonna annihilate the world – I’m gonna liberate it! Get rid of all these restricting laws and regulations that keep controlling your lives!” He skipped a step, stumbled, and almost fell over. Stan quietly grabbed him and kept him upright.

“Anyway, what did this orderly world ever do for you? I mean, Sixer, he’s a freak and a loner, but at least he could try to live within the lines! But you? How many times did you go to jail again?” He laughed, waving Ford’s arms around as he talked. “It’ll be a party, and you’re invited! You’ll love it!”

Stan didn’t reply. He kept walking, keeping an eye on his brother’s body in case it would stumble again.

Fortunately, it seemed Bill knew where they were going – Stan sure didn’t. The giant spaceship had gone by too fast from inside the bubble, and besides, he’d had other stuff to think about than geography at the time. So if nothing else—if nothing else, he was getting straight back to the storage facility instead of getting lost in an underground maze. And Bill walked, even though Ford couldn’t, so Stan didn’t have to carry him.

Bill hummed to himself as he walked along, some old tune that Stan only half-recognized. Once in a while he’d take a moment to pinch or hit some part of Ford’s body, like he was trying to find out how well it was holding up. Or just enjoying causing Ford pain – Stan couldn’t help wince every time he touched the wound itself, but Bill didn’t seem to notice or care.

At one point Stan deliberately tripped Bill up, giving himself an excuse to hold on to Ford for a moment while steadying him. He could tell that he was still warm and still breathing. Still alive, so far.

Please stay that way.

Eventually they reached a place where the reflected light from Stan’s pocket flashlight was joined by some other reflections from further along the hall, echoes of Ford’s light that had been left behind. Stan guessed it had been about ten minutes, maybe fifteen, since Ford’s collapse, even though it felt like it could have been much longer. Soon enough they reached the doorway that Stan had pushed open earlier. The cargo area was just as they’d left it on the other side, piles of six-sided boxes and all. Ford’s flashlight was standing on the floor near the panels, and Stan’s bag was right where he’d shrugged it off next to one of the piles.

Bill flopped onto the top of that pile in some kind of sitting marionette position, playing with Ford’s fingers and looking expectantly at Stan. “Fordsy’s still alive,” he reported. “But I can’t guarantee he’ll be that way for much longer unless I do something to fix him. Do we have a deal?”

Stan grunted as he sat down and opened the bag, checking the contents. The case holding the rift was right there. The key was in his chest pocket, not that he couldn’t just as easily open it with a paperclip. He forced himself into a salesman’s smile.

Bill tilted Ford’s head. “Just open the case and give it to me, Fez. It’s not portal science!”

“You know what?” Stan leaned back slightly, his hand still in the bag, artificially casual and artificially smiling. “I don’t think I will.”

That seemed to take Bill aback, but only for a moment. “Hah! Of course you will!” he said. “You’re really ready to lose him again? Permanently? After he just got himself hurt saving your skin? Oh, I don’t think so.”

“Maybe not,” Stan said. His heart seemed to be beating its way out of his chest, but he kept his tone casual. “But you don’t know me as well as you think you do.” He swallowed and slowly pulled the memory gun from the bag. After all, this kind of situation was exactly why Ford made him promise to carry the thing with him.

Bill blinked, one eye at a time, but then threw Ford’s head back with something between a screech and a laughter. “Oh sure! Erase his memory right when for once he doesn’t actually hate your guts? That sounds like something you’d do, alright!”

“If he’s about to die, what do we have to lose?” Stan asked rhetorically, fumbling with the dial to type his brother’s name.

“His life, knucklehead!” Bill threw Ford’s arms up, his smile wavering slightly. “Which is worth more to you, your brother’s life or a suffocating world order that never did anything but frustrate you? Come on, pal, we’re on the same side!”

“Could be, but I’ve got other family members who like it here.” He was almost done with the dial.

“They’re invited to the party, too! You and Sixer can name anyone you like for the VIP treatment!”

“Don’t want it.” Stan raised the gun, the words ‘Stanford Pines’ shining on the display. He was not letting his hand shake for this. “Don’t need it. We’re not gonna end the world today.”

Bill banged Ford’s hands on his knees. “And why not? Because Sixer’s a drama queen you decided to listen to him for once? I thought you were smarter than that, Fez!”

“Didya, now?”

“You’ll watch him die.” Bill’s voice changed into a roar, unnatural and almost definitely not coming from Ford’s throat.

“Maybe.” Stan forced a shrug, keeping the gun steadily pointed at Ford’s head. “Unless, of course, he’s not actually dying. I might be willing to talk, then.”

Bill’s smile faded.

“Don’t wanna die? Either show your cards or get outta here. I’ll give you to the count of three.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“One.”

“You’re on my bad side now, pal, and I’ll still get that rift one way or another!”

“Two.”

Ford’s body crumbled. He fell to the side, then rolled limply down the pile to the floor.

Stan almost crumbled too, only half in relief. The conviction that supported him seemed to run off like so much dishwater, leaving him empty. The hand holding the memory gun fell to his side, gun clattering on the floor, and the other hand clutched the edge of the bag with whitened knuckles. It felt like the security robot had captured him again, like he was enclosed in a small bubble where he could only see his surroundings through thick unbreakable glass. Ford was lying with his face averted a few feet away from him, still as death.

He was right. He knew he was right.

Just because Bill hadn’t chosen to stay and admit it didn’t mean he wasn’t right. It just meant that Ford was demon-free and able to rest, and there was a first-aid kit in the bag, so what was he waiting for?

Ford would yell at him for not pulling the trigger on Bill when he had the chance. But he would be alive to do that yelling.

‘Don’t listen to him.’

That’s what Ford said, both the first and the second time he’d expected to be possessed. Bill was a liar. Bill had tricked and manipulated Ford, and he’d do it to anyone. Besides, Stan knew cons, and claiming that Ford was dying in order to get make him do something he would otherwise never do was too perfect a con. Too perfect to be true.

Stan was a gambler, and the situation Bill had presented him with was rotten. Every instinct in his body told him he was right. He’d made the right bet, this was the only way to win.

But it wasn’t just his own life on the line, and the possibility that he was wrong held him down like shackles.

The memory eraser was still clenched in his hand. If he’d been wrong, he could—

He took a deep, shaking breath and dragged himself the few feet to Ford’s side. “Stanford?” he said softly, not expecting a reply.

Turning his brother around to lie on his back, he felt for a pulse on his throat. Still there, still steady. He removed Ford’s glasses and studied his eyes for a moment, but yeah, Bill was definitely gone.

Stan’s hands trembled slightly as he pulled at the cloth around the wound. It was ugly, like a mix between a burn and a bruise. He knew there’d been a lot of impact behind it – he’d felt as much when the first shot grazed his own shoulder. Of course, the one on his shoulder stung sort of like a burn too, now that he stopped to think about it. And Ford’s was much larger and darker, blistering and running with clear fluid, making the frayed clothing around it wet and sticky. There were some cracks in the skin where blood came through, but hardly a lot of it.

Something must have been riding on that shot and entered his body, or otherwise this unconsciousness wouldn’t be happening, but Stan had no idea what it could have been. Still, the aliens did take live prisoners, and Bill was a con artist with every reason to lie about it. In any case, cleaning and wrapping it up couldn’t hurt.

Ford kept breathing, but otherwise his body could have been dead meat, heavy and limp.

Stan propped up his head on a couple of the little boxes, then got the scissors from the first-aid kit to get rid of the sweaterwest. It already had a large hole, no point in trying to save it. Starting from the bottom hem, Stan opened the whole thing up at the front, pulling it to the sides before more carefully pulling away and cutting off the cloth from the area around the wound on Ford’s left side.

The dark blue shirt underneath turned out to be strangely dirty, or at least full of unexpected stains, but Stan didn’t get any further with that thought before he started unbuttoning it. The next moment, the sight of Ford’s skin made him curse out loud.

There wasn’t just the one wound. There were cuts – not deep enough to be dangerous as such, but a lot of them. The more buttons he opened, the more he realized they covered the entire front of Ford’s body. They weren’t fresh – not from today – but they weren’t healed, either. Some had turned into nice dark scabs, but a lot of them were red and swollen. Hot to the touch. Some filled with pus. There was dried blood as well, on his skin and on the shirt.

The cuts formed triangles. Of course they did.

Stan remembered the broken credit card from last night, and Ford’s insistence that he was fine. He’d been tortured in his sleep, and he hadn’t said a goddamn word about it.

“Damn you, Poindexter,” Stan muttered even as he carefully removed the sides of the shirt to free both the older wounds and the new one, but he didn’t feel it. He could have prevented this. He’d been trying to respect Ford’s privacy at a moment when he was clearly terrified, but he could have stopped this if he’d only been there. If he’d checked on Ford while this was going on—Shit, it must have taken hours to do all this with a broken credit card. And Stan hadn’t noticed.

These cuts would scar. Even after healing, Ford was going to be marked with that demon’s pattern, perhaps for the rest of his life. It was—it was amazingly petty. Stan couldn’t blame Ford for freaking out, but it had been almost two days, and the wounds hadn’t even been cleaned.

Stan pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes for a moment. At least he’d gotten the bastard to leave, for now. There were some water and disinfectant in the first-aid kit – probably not enough for all that, and the alien blaster wound was still the most dangerous one, but hell if some of those cuts wouldn’t lead to blood poisoning if they weren’t taken care of.  

The half-hour Bill had promised passed as Stan worked on cleaning the wounds, and Ford was breathing just as steadily as before – but not showing any signs of coming to, either.

Stan would wait as long as it took.

[ketzwrites]

Rewatch 103: Dead Man’s Party

First things first, I’m changing the format of these re-watch commentaries. I’ll be doing them act by act, scene by scene. It’s easier for me and I don’t have to do any editing afterward.

Anyway, this episode is incredibly uncomfortable to watch. Not only are the Shadowhunters’ racism framed as fun quips and badass action scenes, but there is also a lot of sexual assault. Really, a lot. And one of them was enabled by one of the “heroes”. Not great.

Also, Clary goes up and down in the “likeability” scale. I left the episode not knowing how I feel about her.

TEASER

These opening lines are so obviously written to glorify Clary’s point. If they were portrayed as Clary conducting the conversation to convince the Lightwood Trio to save Simon it would be one thing, but they are played straight because it’s not like Clary is working an angle, she is simply right because she’s the protagonist, full stop.

In fact, this whole teaser forces the idea that Clary is the beam of truth and reason. However, her arguments are: 1. do not report our findings to your boss because two people I love are in danger and doing so doesn’t specifically help them, and 2. I trusted you, Jace, now you all should trust me.

Clary ignores that Jace has the means and knowledge to act in the Shadow World, she does not. Jace (and his siblings) respond to the Clave, and she does not. Clary isn’t just ignoring rules she doesn’t know about; she’s guilt-tripping the Lightwoods into doing the same.

And it works. After displaying how racist they are against Downworlders (“Downworlders are slaves to their emotions, we’re not.”/“We all got our things.”/“Seelies have their charm.” “Right?”), Jace and Izzy decide to go along Clary’s “attack first, ask questions later” plan and Alec offers some light protesting before agreeing to it too. Maybe even worse, Jace makes blatant use of his favoritism and the Clave’s hatred against Downworlders: “the Clave will give us a lecture and then be glad we did it.” Translation: it’s okay if we break the Accords and attack an entire vampire lair because two vampires broke the Accords first.

Are we supposed to be rooting for these guys?

I like that, despite his fear of Raphael, Simon does not accept his position as a hostage meekly. He also has a mean throw. Too bad a mundane has little to no chances against a vampire.

Camille’s entrance is everything. She’s calm, collected, and menacing. A totally different level than Raphael: her mere presence shuts up Simon. This is a true villain.

ACT ONE

A little Shadowhunter History is always nice. Building up the mythology. We also get to see the Lightwood Trio working their plan of attack: the boys gather the weapons while Izzy finds a way into their target. They strike at sunrise. 

Clary is finally digesting the fact that Valentine is her father: not something easy to accept. Jace is there for her, which is cute. Alec, on the other hand, isn’t. He reads Jace’s insistence in helping Clary as another one of Jace’s female-related conquests and Jace is not having it. Only, he doesn’t explain to Alec why he trusts Clary. Maybe he himself doesn’t even know. Instead of saying so, though, Jace asks Alec to blindly trust him. They are both wrong and bad at communication.

But they do make up. Alec trusts Jace and he asks Jace never to doubt his loyalty again. Which Jace says he will do. It’s a nice moment but it doesn’t address their increasing conflict.

“Like in Pandemonium when I killed that demon?” Clary didn’t kill any demons. Jace impaled the demon on the blade she was holding while in shock. This arrogance is hard to defend, Clary.

Jace and Clary flirt while he trains her. Clary learns a sword move while Jace falls for her, gets spooked, and runs away. That is literally what he does, no kidding. 

Clary, on the other hand, has other worries. She doesn’t trust that either Izzy nor Alec will come back to help. Because, to her, one only helps those they like and Alec doesn’t like her. To that, Jace makes a rather dramatic speech about how he and Alec are Parabatai, and Parabatai are bonded, Parabatai are the best, Parabatai- Got it, you two are linked by your souls. Neat, I guess?

Simon desperately apologizes to Raphael about his ruined jacket and then Camille freezes him – using Encanto, I suppose. Anyway, Camille and Raphael have different philosophies. Raphael is against breaking the Accords (kidnapping Simon) because it means putting the clan at risk and antagonizing the Clave, their best chance against Valentine. Camille couldn’t care less about the safety of her clan or the power of the shadowhunters: the wants the Mortal Cup to become the most powerful creature in the Shadow World. Interestingly, Camille mentions the “heavenly” taste of Shadowhunter blood. Raphael has never had it: but he will in season 2. Foreshadowing?

Izzy meets with Meliorn – there’s lots of sexposition and information exchange. They are using each other and they know it. Funny how the only consensual relationship in the episode is also framed by manipulation.

Alec gets into the Institute and Jace takes Clary to a vamp bar, Hardtail. It’s full of images of Indians, for some reason. There, Jace teaches Clary how to look through the Veil that hides the Shadow World.

ACT TWO

This act is mostly sexposition: two non-consensual ones (Clary and Vamp/Simon and Camille) and one consensual (Izzy and Meliorn). That’s two yikes to one noice.

Jace keeps teaching Clary how to deal with the Shadow World, specifically with Encanto. It’s alarming that he pushes Clary into being hypnotized without her consent or explaining what is about to happen to her. Sure, Jace is there and keeping an eye on her but this scene is distressing to me. Is this some sort of punishment or test he’s doing after realizing he’s into her?

More rape-y scenes due to Encanto. Camille sexually assaults Simon to a sensual song. What the actual fuck, show? At least Camille is better at interrogations than the Shadowhunters. She gets to the info she wants: Magnus took away Clary’s memories.

Meliorn is one of the seelies scouts sent to spy on the Circle. Izzy keeps her benign casual racism (“Are you kidding? Some of us like a little spice.”) and uses the open status of her relationship with Meliorn to find a way into the DuMort.

And then there is Alec, being the opposite of discreet while he prepares arrows for battle in the middle of the Institute. Good thing Hodge plays favorites and Alec is his. Funny how last episode Hodge is all love for Jocelyn’s daughter but now that the audience knows who Clary’s father is, Hodge despises her for being Valentine’s daughter. Character consistency? I don’t know her.

ACT THREE

Back to Brad, the douche vamp, touching Clary without her consent. Jace gets tired of watching this sexual assault he created, so he punches the vamp and steals his bike. Clary is out of the Encanto’s influence but she doesn’t seem particularly bothered by Jace using her body to lure Brad into revealing his keys. It’s all good, they have a flying bike now. Fun times.

Camille continues to rape Simon with the escalation of making him drink her blood until she notices the shadowhunters getting close. More fun times.

Alec and Izzy’s sibling dynamic is honestly amazing. He doesn’t take her shit and she doesn’t take his. It’s too bad they have this conversation while trespassing vamp territory and planning to murder vamps as a distraction. It would be one thing if they knew for sure all vamps were involved in kidnapping Simon, but they don’t. All they know is that Raphael and another vamp did it and it never occurs to either Izzy or Alec that they might be working alone.

ACT FOUR

Camille sends her vamps to stop the shadowhunters and Jace prepares Clary for the fight. Now he explains about the Encanto and gives her the tools to fight it off. A little late for that, asshole. Jace continues to explain about vampires to Clary, which is a smart exposition tool. It makes sense that the writers left the vampire explanation to the episode where Clary is facing off vamps.

Also, Clary thinks that it is “awful” that a victim would have the hots for the vampire that bites them because it would make the victim feel attracted to the vampire. Which it is, but it is also exactly what happened to her with the Encanto, minus the bite. Jace seems puzzled as to why this lack of consent would be awful. Oh, no- Sorry, he thinks Clary means being in love must be awful which he wouldn’t know because love is a weakness to him.

I’m sorry. Am I supposed to feel sympathy for Jace in this episode? He pushes Clary into a situation of sexual assault for his own gain and then he doesn’t understand that she thinks lack of consent is awful. Part of his dismissal of love is due to his traumatic upbringing, but that doesn’t justify the danger he deliberately puts Clary in.

Interesting that Jace says “Alec would die for me” and not “I would die for Alec”.  

The attack on the vamps starts. Alec and Izzy form the front line, coming from the basement, while Jace and Clary infiltrate from the top. It’s well-organized and the Lightwoods are clearly competent in fighting. But they still have no way of knowing that the vamps aren’t just defending their territory, so it’s still murder.  

ACT FIVE

The attack continues. Even with Alec and Izzy taking most of the vampires, Jace and Clary are attacked. With the aid of her new rune, Clary is able to avoid Brad’s Encanto. The shadowhunters regroup: Alec uses the sunlight to kill Brad, Clary uses the move Jace taught her in Act Two, and Jace kills two other vamps. All justified because “they wanted to kill you.” In reality, Brad is the one acting in self-defense and Clary is the one going after him for the kill. He’s a rapist asshole and the Shadow World is better without him, but he had nothing to do with Simon’s kidnapping and thus, the shadowhunters’ flimsy justification for being at Hotel DuMort killing everything that moves doesn’t serve here.

“Thanks, but it’s not about me.” Clary shows some modicum of humbleness. That’s good: her priority is saving Simon, not getting praise.

Simon pretends to still be under the Encanto’s influence and tries to run again but Raphael stops him. How exactly did he get out of Camille’s influence? Anyway, Raphael then pretends to look after Camille: he convinces her to flee by promising to kill Simon and deal with the shadowhunters himself. Not that Simon knows he’s pretending, that is.

“We wanted you.” “Well, here I am.” Kat plays a great badass and I’m happy to see how brave Clary is.

Raphael gives Simon back once the shadowhunters go away. By doing so, he makes sure the shadowhunters know not all vampires were complicit to the kidnapping. Do we see any regret for attacking the whole clan? Nope.

ACT SIX

Simon and Jace’s little exchange about the daylight and the vampires is fun and fits the characters. Jace is used to vampires, Simon is scared and confused.

Clary has a meltdown now that Simon is safe. It’s heartfelt and fits all the craziness they have been enduring for days. Too bad it is used to show Simon’s feelings instead of further humanizing Clary: the audience is meant to feel sympathetic to Simon’s disappointment, the camera checks with him every two seconds. We’re meant to feel hopeful Clary will declare her love and then disappointed when she says Simon is her best friend. This is not a scene in which a young woman vents her frustration, it’s a scene where a young man has his heart broken.

Alec and Jace have a fallen down. Their unresolved issues from Act Two come back and – once again – they are unable to communicate. Jace questions Alec’s loyalty – which he promised he wouldn’t do anymore – and Alec is bitter that Clary’s presence keeps changing their dynamic. No making up this time.

The tag for the next episode? While Jace and Clary have a silent stare contest, Simon sees something else: Clary’s pulsing vein. All that talk in Act Four about how one transforms into a vampire after drinking vamp blood might come in handy now.

[asagimeta]

Double-Face's search for a "perfect host body" feels very much like the DDS experiments in s5. I wonder if maybe we're gonna get some kinda tragic ending for a character, since he's seeking a supernatural host with "something more" than the usual shift (like Scott's True Alpha power, or Theo's chimera, or the Hale full shift) and he (and host) end up locked away on the Other Side.

You know Anon, it’s funny you should say that, because the meta pack has talked alot about sacrifices, specifically regarding two charectors: Scott and Peter, and your theory makes a hell of alot of sense…

Now, before we continue, it’s important to note that Scott and Peter aren’t the ONLY ones who need, thematically, to make a sacrifice, but they are the primary two, we’ll talk about the others later

First things first- the sacrifice you’re talking about is perfect because it’s a *TRUE* sacrifice, as in: There’s no “coming back” from it, this isn’t a situation where a person dies and comes back to life, or loses their powers and regains them, this also isn’t a situation where they get something out of the sacrifice that isn’t purely selfless (IE: If Jackson sacrificed his kanima powers and gained a full shift because of it, that sacrifice was not purely selfless, he never wanted his kanima powers anyway AND he got a reward) but this? There’s no reward for this, there’s no step up on the ladder, and there’s no “Oh I didn’t need that anyway” moment, it’s just sacrifice for the greater good, plain and simple

Now onto Scott and Peter and why they could both be perfect choices for this

Firstly, they both physically fit the bill, you said it yourself Anon, Anuk-Ite is looking for something *MORE*, not only harkening back to the Dread Doctors in season five, but also to THEO*, remember, Theo didn’t just want ANY pack- he wanted a DARK pack, he wanted SCOTT’S pack, because everyone in Scott’s pack was something *more*, he didn’t just have some betas and a couple of humans, he had the makings of something unique, to quote:

“I came for the werecoyote- the one who’s first instinct is to kill, I came for the banshee- the girl surrounded by death, I came for the dark kitsune, the beta with anger issues, I came for Void Stiles, that’s the pack I want”

Theo wanted a unique pack, a DARK pack, and we know that he’s not just talking about the species involved, werecoyotes don’t seem to be killers by nature, this is something Theo says but remember that Malia’s instincts are only as intense as they are because she lived in the wild during her formative years, we saw another werecoyote tonight- Edgar- who didn’t seem very violent, we can’t assume all werecoyotes are this way and even if we could, most packs don’t have any, coyotes- as stated by the beastiary- don’t like werewolves, and they CERTAINLY don’t like Alphas, so you’re hard-pressed to find one in a pack, banshees are also considerably rare if Jennifer and Arya’s reactions to Lydia are anything to go by, these are women who are DEEPLY involved in the supernatural and have been for most of their lives but they treat Lydia like a rare find, Theo then specifies he wants the DARK kitsune, not just any kitsune, and the beta “with anger issues”, not just any beta, but one who’s specially geared for violence, and, ofcourse, finally, VOID Stiles, not Stiles the human, VOID Stiles (seriously how does even know what that is??????? The thing possessing Stiles was called a nogitsune, Void Stiles was a term only used in private, so..??) Already we see that Scott’s pack has something *more* than most just in general, but back to my point

Scott is a True Alpha, a top of the line rare breed in the werewolf community, one that even most born wolves have only heard about in legend, and Peter is an odd case, he was a demon Alpha- wich in it’s self is not necessarily common- who died and was brought back to life via a convoluted banshee ritual, he also was taken by the Wild Hunt and escaped, he clearly has SOMETHING going on even if there isn’t a clever catch-all term for it, you also mentioned yourself that Theo is a chimera- a successfull one- but there’s something else special about Theo: He’s literally been to hell and back

*Theo is our third candidate, but we’ll talk about him later

SO why do Scott and Peter need to make sacrifices?

For Scott, it’s completing the hero’s journey, for Peter, it’s redemption

Scott has been stuck in stasis for a wile now because there are certain parts of his story that he refuses to allow to move forward, certain challenges he refuses to take and certain trials he refuses to face, and the more he refuses, the bigger his “debt” builds, think about it this way:

You have to get from Point A to Point B and along the way you have to eat a certain amount of candy, every few miles a peice is presented to you, now wile you CAN turn down the peice initially, you WILL have to eat it eventually before getting to Point B, if you keep denying peices along the way, then instead of eating one peice every five miles- wich is reasonable enough- you’ll get to the end with thirty peices waiting on you and you can’t advance until you eat all of them

Scott is facing something of the same problem, wile he does eat SOME of his peices when they’re initially presented, he’s saving alot of them for later, and those peices are building and building and building… and the bigger the pile of uneaten candy gets, the bigger his stomachache is going to get when he has to swallow down all of it at once

You can see even in recent episodes that there are still things that harkin back to Season One Scott, and NOT in the charming nostalgic way, let me give you a prime example-

In Magic Bullet when Derek tries to show Scott what hunters will do by telling him what happened to his family, what the Argents did, Scott replies with “Well then- they had a reason”, to put this at it’s most blatant: Scott is telling an innocent person that there MUST have been a reason his ENTIRE FAMILY deserved to be burned alive, for .. what? Being werewolves? Scott didn’t know the Hales, as evidenced by the fact that Stiles had to fill him in on everything regarding their family, what did he know about them besides the fact that they were werewolves and related to Derek? Pretty much nothing, so why else would he say something so crass? I get that he wanted to defend the Argents, but this kind of exceeds “defending the Argents” and goes straight into “Blaming the Hales”, Scott could have offered several different explanations- “Maybe it was an accident”, “Maybe they told someone else”, “Even if it was ONE Argent that doesn’t mean it’s ALL Argents”, but to imply Derek’s family MUST have done something to deserve being burned alive? Really? Now in “Pressure Test”, you have Scott ACTIVELY TRYING to throw two kids to the hunters- KNOWING they’ll be murdered- just because their eyes are blue, he seems determined not to see them as innocent people anymore the moment their eyes turn, even before they confessed to killing hunters (wich they didn’t actually do, by the way, they said they chased them down and tormented them) Mind you, Scott knows for a fact that not all blue-eyed wolves are vicious murderers, Derek and Malia both have blue eyes, and although his relationship with Derek is rocky at best, he’s downright DATING Malia now, either he believes his girlfreind is evil or he knows that eye color doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a cold-blooded murderer, but he’s ready to believe these kids *DESERVE* to be killed without even knowing WHY they have blue eyes… just like he was ready to believe the Hales deserved to be burned alive just for being werewolves

This is one small example of Scott circling the drain, but it nods to the much larger problem that he still has a type of internalized specism*, he’s always very quick to side with humans over werewolves even when the werewolves have done nothing wrong and the humans have (IE: Pressure Test) and is quicker to believe in evil supernatural people vs evil human people, he believes werewolfism needs to be suppressed, not controlled (there’s a difference, and the way Scott trained and taught Liam vs the way Derek trained and taught his betas is a good show of that difference, not that I think Derek’s teachings were all that grand, in fact, they were pretty cringey in their own rights, but the endgoals were VASTLY different, Derek wanted his betas to be able to defend themselves and work WITH their new power to do it, Scott wanted Liam to work AGAINST his power via control to the point of suppression and never taught him anything about self-defense, only control) Scott’s hero-journey has always been about finding harmony with himself as a werewolf and he still refuses to do that, he picks and chooses what parts he wants to take of being a hero and what parts he wants to take of being an Alpha, being a werewolf, being *other*, etc etc, and has refused to accept that these things are all fulltime and lifelong things, until he accepts all of that he’ll keep going in circles, collecting candy to stockpile until he reaches the end of his journey, and when he does reach that end, the sacrifice he’ll have to make (the candy he’s collected along the way) will be enormous…

Now let’s talk about Peter, who needs redemption, throughout the series Peter has toed the line between straight up villain and antihero, and before people start screaming, you have to look at how the charectors themselves treat him, particuarly in seasons three, four, and six, wile seasons one and two presented Peter as a Big Bad- end of story- you start seeing as of season three that the charectors are adjusting to him and reluctantly acceping his presence, when planning to break into the bank vault he’s sitting right there in the open and no one is trying to hurt him or even expressing anger at him, in fact, the only aggression he gets is a mild nip from Stiles and Stiles nips at everybody, he’s just an aggressive person that way, but there they are in 3A actively working with him, wich happens as well during Visionary with Cora and Stiles and again when Lydia and Allison seek his help, during none of these occassions did anyone act like they needed to kill Peter, just give him a swat on the head for being an irritation, that’s antihero interaction, not villain interaction, in season four Peter is back to plotting against Scott but before that he’s part of the deadpool and his interactions with Derek, again, show hero -> antihero interaction, not hero -> villain, even the sheriff lets Peter go along his merry way after killing The Mute, Derek takes pleasure in burning Peter but, again, that’s classic hero -> antihero banter, then in season six you have Peter actively helping the kids and you have more hero/anti-hero; Peter wants to use an innocent person as a guinia pig against Stiles’ wishes but ultimately it’s to HELP Stiles and himself, not just because he wants to see the kid die, later on we see the reluctance of Melissa helping Peter but she DOES help him- even if it’s just to use him- and wile Malia constantly gripes about having anything to do with Peter, she does seem sincere when she wakes him up and seemed sincerely concerned about him here and there, plus the very fact that Scott didn’t reach into his back pocket and dial Eichen to come pick him up when it was all over was probably telling to a degree

To be clear, I don’t like Peter, and I don’t forgive him for anything he’s done, but it doesn’t change the fact that there’s a very clear line between villain and anti-hero and Peter has been riding it like a mechanical bull since day one

But back on topic

Peter is still straddling that line both with fans and in the narrative as much of his anti-hero behavior has been fairly selfish/self-gratifying (he works with Stiles at the train station because he wants to get out of there, he’s hesitant to directly help Stiles just out of the goodness of his heart but the fact that he DOES is what has him sitting on the line of an anti-hero) and what few selfless things he DOES do (helping Stiles in 6A) are pretty small peas compared to the bad things he’s done (he gave the kids Roscoe’s keys but in the same breath encouraged them all to leave, regardless of what happened to Stiles after, this is a relatively tiny act of kindness and when you stack it against murdering his neice- just to compare to ONE- it really doesn’t hold up well as “Redemption”) The only way for Peter to get off the line between villain and anti-hero is to make a sacrifice worthy enough of pardoning some of his crimes, something selfless, something that shows that he DOES have compassion and a human soul and, preferrably, that he regrets the mistakes he made in the past, Crowly from Supernatural is the perfect example of what we’re talking about here, he straddles the villain/anti-hero line HARD series-long because even as of season 12 he was still plotting behind the Winchesters’ backs for his own selfish reasons, but then, you know, he killed himself to save them, wich was a big sacrifice that pretty much atoned for his behavior that season (throughout the series he’s had other moments of redeeming himself for crap he’s done but I’ll leave it others as to if he was really fully redeemed or not)

Scott and Peter both HAVE to make a big sacrifice for their narratives to work and to come full-circle, it’s just a matter of what that sacrifice is, the most common theories have been Peter’s death and Scott giving up his Alpha powers- or even his werewolf powers entirely**, but this could be a good way to avert either, though, if you want my honest opinion, I’d find it much more likely to be Peter’s sacrifice than Scott’s, I don’t think Teen Wolf will have a bleak ending (especially with the cast all being very excited and positive about it) and if Scott did, in fact, end that way, it would be an INCREDIBLY bleak way to end the show, Peter, however, isn’t, you know, the main charector, or even a hero, this would be a bittersweet moment and a great nod of redemption for him, it would give the show realistic depth and angst without going over the top and making the ending bleak and depressing

Now because I’ve talked so much about Theo- here’s the thing

This entire season is being played as Theo’s redemption arc, showing him living out of his car a few episodes ago was Teen Wolf’s way of punching you as hard in the feels as fast as they could to make you more primed to wanting to redeem him, it’s looking like they’re trying to turn Theo into more of a reluctant hero than a true anti-hero though, so in my opinion, his redemption moment will probably be alot smaller and not involve his own death, probably a really bad injuery that he sustains wile protecting Liam or saving Scott, maybe explaining his backstory or even apologizing to Scott would work, Theo is the world’s biggest dick but in comparison to Peter he hasn’t really done anything *THAT* bad, he’s tortured alot of people but only actually murdered one, who just popped back to life anyway, and in the realm of Teen Wolf that all seems like the sorta thing that can be washed away with a good chest wound and a sincere apology….. unfortunately…. but, I could always be wrong, this could be an interesting fit for Theo, my only problem is that it would be too close to what already happened to him- he was sent to hell, being locked in another dimension for eternity is too similar to that and would feel like a bland rehash instead of narrative genius

You mentioned Derek, but he’s pretty safe in my book, he completed his hero’s journey already and atoned for the wrongs he’s done, he EVOLVED, wich is the most textual nod to completing the journey I’ve ever heard of, he found peace within himself and has already made the big sacrifice he needed to acheive harmony and hero status by dieing in season four- and he came out of it evolved, not only did he spring back to life, but he brought a fancy new gift with him too, but this is where Derek and Scott are really different, Derek has spent the entire series eating his peices of candy as they come to him, if he made a mistake/took a step back, it was a small one and he paid for it pretty much right away, he didn’t keep looping around the same points and never learning from them, so when it came time for his big sacrifice, it wasn’t actually all that big, he didn’t have too much candy built up from other learning points in the series so he was able to swallow it without a problem, and he came out of it stronger- he DID make the sacrifice with death, he WAS prepared to die, and he had been slowly losing his powers and becoming human during season four, he had been preparing to die all along and making peace with it, even more of a reason for his evolution to have been well-deserved

I think our candidates, if this does in fact happen, are really just Scott and Peter, with my bets being placed 99% on Peter

*On the topic of internalized specism, Teen Wolf’s strongest allegory is that of sexuality, wich is probably why Jeff did the “There’s no homophobia in this universe” thing***, you see queer people who have internalized homophobia quite often, just like women can have internalized misogyny and POC can have internalized racism, belonging to an Other doesn’t exclude you from Othering, but I would say that internalized homophobia is probably one of the more common examples, I was just saying in the meta chat earlier that the confrontation in the bathroom between Edgar and Spider Dude reminded me of the stories I’ve always heard about and seen with homophobic and closeted queer people following someone they were just attacking into a bathroom/closet/motel room/whatever and essentially pulling the “I’m not gay, I just want to have sex” card, that’s an example of internalized homophobia- an extreme one, mind you, there are much more common smaller cases such as following standards of heteronormativity in queer relationships- Scott often displays internalized specism this way- on the less extreme end, again- he can say “I’m a werewolf and I accept that”, and he can kiss other werewolves and feel kinda ok about it, and he can preach that werewolves are just like everyone else, but at the end of the day if a human goes “Ow that werewolf hurt me” Scott is going to turn around and punish the werewolf without any proof because they’re a werewolf, do you see what I’m saying? (I hope you do, that was long winded)

**On the topic of losing his werewolf powers entirely, this goes back to the allegory, some people have thrown around the idea of Scott’s ultimate sacrifice being a full loss of his werewolf powers because he’s always wanted to be normal, he’s always complained so much about them and tried to ignore them and tried to pretend he was a normal human, he’s always seen them as a curse (except when they’re helping him with lacrosse) so it’d be, in some ways, a bittersweet poetry if he had to give up those powers to save everyone and became the only human in the group, being othered all over again but in a much different way (this, ofcourse, partly would depend on magic!Stiles being a thing because otherwise the impact wouldn’t be there because they’d BOTH be outsiders again just like season one and nothing woudl have changed) The problem I have with this is that it really tears apart the allegory, a gay kid can’t just release his gayness into the ether and then go about his life as a straight person, if Scott did the werewolf equivolant it would destroy the message

***On the topic of homophobia not existing in the world of Teen Wolf, we see no homophobia, true, but bisexuality is treated rather weirdly, the idea of being attracted to more than one gender seems to take people by surprise (Stiles and Liam specifically) and this is especially noticeable when Caitlyn and Stiles have their scene at the rave, Stiles seems surprised and confused by the idea of Caitlyn liking both girls and boys and doesn’t quite roll along with it as easily as he always does when someone mentions being gay, I still think we’re going to get a scene about bisxeuality between Jackson and Stiles with Stiles acting in surprise that Jackson is bi and Jackson rolling his eyes about it, bisexuality seems to just be extremely uncommon in the Teen Wolf world, there are allegories for that too but… it’s five A.M. and this has gone on long enough ;)

[sasukeuchiha-eternalmangekyou]

Sureen limited herself to letting him talk - sensing that this wasn't something Sasuke had ever really put into words before. Her eyes remained trained to the ground, focusing the iridescent dewdrops which were adorning the blades of grass like pearls.

And while Sasuke was slowly cleaving a way through the muddled, convoluted memories and emotions connected with his brother, Sureen didn't dare interrupt him, afraid it would make him lose his thread. "I'm sorry I made you go back there," she eventually stepped in. "I-I know it… it hurts, to put it nicely. Reliving the same situation over and over, I mean. But then again… I think there's no way to deal with it that would NOT hurt. But - huh?! Oh… oops~"

Sureen suddenly paused, feeling something move right next to her. Her eyes widened in shock as she noticed that she must have placed her hand on Sasuke's arm at some point. She could only guess how long she'd been like that when the other deliberately pulled back from her touch. So she hurried to pull her hand back as well, bashfully looking the other way and crossing both arms in front of her chest. As the moment of shock slowly subsided, Sureen continued, albeit with a low voice, little more than a whisper. "B-but you know… it needs to hurt. It's allowed to hurt. It's a thing that needs time and space… and a way to get out of your system, 'cause otherwise it's nothing but an endless, self-destructive circle. But once you find methods to interrupt the circle for a bit… sooner or later it becomes less unbearable and less… less hopeless. Like its impact begins to shrink, like… like there's land in sight. Well, or maybe that's just me, maybe it wouldn't work like that for anyone else.

"Either way, it really takes a LOT of time and space though. And simultaneously, it takes you to the very edge of your resilience and even beyond. I'm not sure if anyone could actually just hang in there and wait it out until it begins to get bearable. But I know it's definitely not something anyone could do alone. And I know that it's… very obvious and very human… to try and find different, more familiar ways to stop the pain. Like trying to kill yourself or kill everyone responsible, you know." A brief sarcastic chuckle escaped her, and she couldn't help but cast the ninja a telling glance.   "I guess it's boiling down to who we really are, indeed. But after all, my plan to stop the pain like that didn't work… so I ended up with the 'wait it out' version. Involuntarily. Nevertheless I managed to hang in there long enough to get over the worst bit. But that was because… at that point I wasn't alone anymore, I guess." As Sasuke took another break after telling her that his life had taught him happiness was simply out of reach for him, yet he couldn't stop wondering whether his chosen route was worth giving up everything else, Sureen took her chance to reply once more. "Yeah… happiness is a rather fragile, unpredictable thing. But at least those moments when you question everything… as painful as they may be… but at least they prove that you're not just darkness and hatred and revenge. Your real self is way more than that. You know that, right?" Again, she turned towards him and placed her hand on his arm - the former with more assertiveness, the latter on purpose now. This time it was Sasuke who looked the other way. "Well… at least I know. And the good thing is - trust me, your real self is pretty indestructible." With every word, her voice gained enthusiasm. Her hands started gesturing, and her eyes began to shine as she sensed the opportunity to finally let him know what she'd felt ever since their first encounter.

"Which means this is not a one-way-ticket! You can commit yourself to your chosen path all you want, with all your determination, with everything you've got, but your real self still won't vanish. It will hide in the farthest corner so you can't see it anymore, but in fact, it's - ugh. Yeah. Whatever. You don't want to hear a single word I'm saying, right," she suddenly cut herself off and dropped her hands as the waves of Sasuke's disagreement hit her.

"Sorry. I… I wasn't trying to talk you out of it or anything," she explained sheepishly, realizing she'd stepped on dangerous ground. If he wouldn't tolerate one thing it was people trying to convince him how "misguided" he was. "It's just… it's what I see whenever I look at you. That there's more to you," she added, her voice once again reduced to a whisper. He didn't reply. Instead, he started talking about Sureen, about her secret ability that wasn't so secret anymore by now. "Sometimes I think the only burden about it is that it's never mutual. That I'm the only one. I'm wondering if the world would actually be a better place… if everyone had that ability. Or, like, perhaps not a better place, but definitely a more honest one. With less lies, less misunderstandings. Deeper connections. More insight. Well… anyway. Not like we'll ever find out, huh…" she mused, shrugging her shoulders. "Um... but regarding my decision to either stay or leave. I thought about it a lot while I was on my way here, considering all the rumors I'd heard about you." With a sigh, Sureen brought herself back to the here and now, reluctant to disclose the truth.

"I… I can't stay. The obvious explanation would be - I'm not a ninja, I don't have any skills that would be useful for your mission, that could contribute to its implementation. But, in fact, I can't because… as much as your plans serve to save your sanity, Sasuke… they'd sure as hell make me lose mine. "Although it's almost 10 years by now - that they died, I mean - the last thing I could ever do in my life is... t-to help somebody destroy a village. N-no way. Just… no."

The torrent of wind twisted its invisible sway into the miles of forest beyond the coast, winding a misguided lurch of energy into the foliage before dying down. The sea breeze was less forgiving, hauling the spray of salt into the air. Waves silently crashed onto the sand, an almost motionless action as it disappeared into an engulfing abyss, only to be thrown forward once more.

“Space is what I initially needed, but all it made me realize was the cycle of repeat my left was circling me with back when I was in Konoha. Every day felt inclined to bring more sadness into my already unbearable anger I felt towards Itachi. But all those emotions existed due to a lie, the depths of an unfathomable reality I almost wish wasn’t real. He purposely gave me an outlet when I really only needed…” He paused, feeling his grief become heavier, aggressively pushing down on his chest with an intolerable amount of pain. “I needed him. Not this. I never asked for revenge. It’s what I decided to survive. Otherwise I would’ve given up a long time ago. Falling into sorrow is easier than holding onto a piece of choice. It took more out of me than most cared to realize.”

Sasuke nodded when reaching her glance, her eyes forever searching, always siphoning against any will of her own. He knew only what Sureen expressed in word pertaining to her past and it wasn’t too dissimilar to his own. But even a fragment of change can cause an avalanche of lost comprehension. No amount of strained voices could convince him understanding was a two way street. It lacked substance and accuracy when on the outside.

“Familiarity is a form of defense I’ll gladly take to my grave. Waiting for pain to subside or diminish may work for some, even be the only possibility, and in a way it’s a method of surrender when you can’t take anymore. At the same time, it’s not a weakness if it helps. In your case, it seemingly did. It must have taken a resilient amount of strength, but you’re standing outside the shadow of your past. I can clearly see that. Even if it manages to haunt you, it doesn’t define you. Unfortunately, I haven’t reached such an inward conclusion when weighing my vengeance. The complication leads to more contradiction if I cross my goals with my brother’s objective in all this. But I’m not like him. Our worlds were entirely different, unalike in many unforeseen ways.”

He allowed her arm to remain the second time, since she seemed to be finding her voice rather than stumbling through words of indecision to ease him. Her whispered tone, one carefully placed in order to create an unhostile conversation was an effective one. It maintained a calm most refused to use when pounding their ideology into his refutes.

“Happiness can be an illusion set in the mold of any structured lie. As I’ve said, I used to believe in it. My real self might reach beyond the border of darkness, but my mind isn’t as easily swayed as my heart,” he continued when she finished. “Regardless of all those memories or what I was told to be reality, it’s still there, dodging the light. My demons aren’t fully known to lack cruel reminders.”

It might be broken or flawed but his moral compass never held much virtue. When he was a child, striving in the simplicity of a happy life with family, he never anticipated the question of morality. He was too young to think outside the realm of discovery, of proving himself, and even of what the future could hold. But those confines soon shattered, revealing a cold mirror of reflective despair.

Sasuke exhaled, eyes being drawn back. “I know you weren’t trying to talk me out of anything. Trust me, I’ve listened to my fair share from people who try and continue to do so. But unlike you, they don’t comprehend the distance factor when it comes to aiming to locate a sense of clarity, whether I find a negative or positive one. All they want is to return me to a place where I no longer belong.”

It was hard to believe there was anything more to a shallow, soulless being such as himself. The darkness took its fair share of humanity from him. He willingly held tightly onto his reasons, but nothing beyond them. Sasuke’s love and devotion towards Itachi was buried under what he believed to be true. As it was gradually brought back to the surface, it stung.

“If everyone had your ability I think it’d be rather chaotic,” he added with a shrug. “If you consider the scope of your abilities, connections and insight are sure to be given, but in return no one would feel free to their secrets or able to maintain a stable way of growth, fight their inner struggles. Not everyone needs a guiding hand or someone else to pull them through self-discovery. But I can understand. You’re different and that makes it lonely.”

Starved of affection and closeness, what most define as care, it’s the price of being unique. It’s not asked for and doesn’t equate to the trail of living, but it’s there all the same. Being an Uchiha, he’s known the aspect of being overlooked as well as having all eyes preying on his movements.

Sasuke exhaled, the need of distraction tugging at the seams of his mind. It unraveled with precision, ribbons of agony scattered and discarded from the prior night of discussion. In the wake of a new dawn, the particulars could be looked at more clearly, with less aggravation swimming through his veins. He was set. Nothing could alter his decision.

“I expected your answer. I wouldn’t want to drag anyone down with me that wasn’t willing. I still have Taka on my side and they agreed to help me regardless of my shifting objective. I wouldn’t want you to lose your sanity over something so trivial as my own.”