#fic: isn't it strange?

[kaizsche]

isn't it strange?

“You love me.” Elijah surmises.

“You hurt me, Elijah.” Her upper lip curls in a snarl.

Something inside him twists forward, to gather her in his arms, to pull her close to him. Like a forgotten memory, or perhaps a force of habit Elijah would never get to remember. To feel.

“You hurt me, Elijah!” Elena shouts again and again and again and Elijah desperately seeks her body curled tight against him again and again and again as well.

He makes a mistake.

“But I can’t remember that, Elena. Make me remember.” He beseeches, knees drawn on the ground. “I beg of you, make me remember everything.”

Hoping he might have a better understanding of what he did to her so that he may be absolved of his sins. She shakes her head violently that he can hear the air around her face startle from the sudden movement. “No, Elijah. Don’t. Don’t make me do that.”

“But how could I ever—”

“Just be like this.” She murmurs now, gazing upon him as if it is the last time he’ll see her. “Be a stranger for me, Elijah.”

from strangers to friends, friends into lovers, and strangers again. - CELESTE

[airas-story]

Nerds flirting nerdily: Ironstrange

(and I promise not to point out what I'd do differently this time)

(I know I prompt a lot but I love your writing)

Also Ironstrange flirting but noone else knows it's actually flirting

I TRIED, okay. Science isn't my thing. Flirting is REALLY not my thing. Using science talk to flirt is SO FAR from my thing... Having said that, this made me laugh, so maybe that makes it okay?

“I apologize, Captain Rogers, but the likelihood of me agreeing to that ranks within the infinitesimals.”

Tony leaned back in his chair, glancing at Stephen where he sat two seats down from him, Natasha and Clint between them.

“Seriously, Strange?” Was he seriously using math talk on Steve? Steve would hardly appreciate the answer for the clever line it was. Nothing against Steve, but he lacked knowledge of the finer intricacies.

Stephen arched an eyebrow. “My knowledge of dimensional matters goes beyond the mystic arts, Stark.” There was a look in his eyes, taunting Tony to respond.

Oh god, Stephen was flirting with him.

Tony smirked. “How’s your metallurgy?” he asked. “Because that’s some copper and tellurium math talk you’re using there, but not really up to standard.”

“Tony,” Steve sighed. “Please don’t start this again.”

Stephen’s expression remained neutral, but Tony could see the smile in his eyes. “I do appreciate some good chemistry,” he said. “Exothermic reactions in particular are fascinating.”

“Try Uranium and Iodine,” Tony said promptly. “They’re covalent.”

“Really,” Stephen said, he smirked. “A fascinating hypothesis, Stark. Care to plot some data points on the subject?”

“Is glass liquid?”

Stephen smirked. “Excellent, I’ll see you tonight.”

[majoris]

hi i feel 100% normal about this scene

[feroluce]

Thinking tonight about Caelus, and the nature of his loss and his grief after the Everything that went down in Penacony during 2.0.

Because Acheron, Black Swan, and Misha kind of knew of Firefly, they at least met her, but they didn't like really know her, and Caelus never even got the chance to introduce her to the rest of the Astral Express Crew. The only person who would have talked to her much was Sparkle, who is. Probably not really someone Caelus is interested in grieving with skznmsks

Anyway, all this to say, I like thinking about how alone poor Caelus is in his grief, because he was the only one who knew Firefly. He's the only one really mourning her. There's no one to talk about her with. There's no stories to trade or memories to reminisce with anyone over. It's not as though he knew her for long, but still. No one else knew her at all.

And I love the thought of all of this coming bubbling up, hot and acidic and bitter, during a conversation with Sampo, who Caelus just so happens to run into in the Golden Hour. Poor Sampo is kinda blindsided, he knew shit was going down in Penacony, but yeesh. And he just. Isn't quite sure what to say about it all, because he's never really encountered this before. His feelings about the Masked Fools are...a mixed bag, but he's been a part of them for a very long time, and when you're with a close organization like that, it's hard to feel alone, in grief or otherwise.

So Sampo sits there on their little bench that the two of them have occupied, and he thinks of his old friend April, how she'd died in his arms cackling and spitting her own blood after a heist gone wrong, and how after he'd dragged himself back to the World's End Tavern they'd all held a Fool's Funeral- which is basically just a big party where everyone gets really really drunk and reminisces and toasts the dead and celebrates their life.

He still thinks about her a lot, and he remembers how the time he'd most keenly felt her absence was on Jarilo-VI, the one place where he couldn't talk about her because he couldn't say anything to give himself away as an alien. The Fools still tell stories about her every time he goes back to the Tavern. His first toast of the night is always in her name. Even now, all these years after she'd died, Sampo is still learning new things about her. He's never had to grieve her alone.

Caelus doesn't have any of that.

He might never have that. As they speak, Caelus has no proof that Firefly was even her real name, or if she dreamt with her true appearance. He might not ever find out who she even was.

And just imagining that kind of loneliness hollows out a strange little pit, right behind his sternum, deep between his ribs.

So Sampo claps Caelus' shoulder and offers him a deal. Come find him outside of the dream. He knows a guy who can get them a lot of beer for really cheap-

("Is that guy you and your five finger discounts?" "Whatever do you mean, dear friend, I don't even know the meaning of the phrase, hehee.")

-and they can hole up in a bar or a hotel room or something, and get completely shitcanned. Tell him all about Firefly, tell him everything, and he'll tell Caelus about April and everyone else he's ever lost. Sampo will carry Caelus' memories of Firefly with him, and at least this way, Caelus will be a little less alone in remembering her. And the next time they cross paths, Sampo will be the one to bring her up, and to tell her stories, and Caelus can get to be the one listening. He won't have to be the only person to talk about her anymore.

Caelus rolls his eyes when Sampo avoids another remark about sticky fingers, but...ok, yeah. That sounds good. Nice, even. Thank you. Caelus bumps his shoulder against Sampo's. Sampo bumps back.

(They find each other again the next day, and true to their word, get themselves completely and utterly shitcanned. Caelus talks more than Sampo has ever heard him; every minute detail, every word choice, Firefly's every odd little mannerism and habit. Because Caelus wants to make sure this will outlive him, that even if the Stellaron dwelling within him finally burns him to a crisp and he really does up and kick the bucket, or even, godforbid, if he forgets, he wants to make sure someone remembers her. She deserved that.)

((And it takes quite a while, after that. Caelus doesn't see Sampo again until after everything has settled down. On his last day in Penacony, he finds the guy slinking out of a seedy back alley and all but runs right into him. Sampo happily leads him to some dive bar in an even seedier back alley that Caelus has never even heard of, and Sampo raises his glass. "To Firefly! Who sounds like she probably would have hated me at first, but I would have liked to have met her anyway."

And Caelus stares at him, almost looking startled, long enough that Sampo worries that he's read him wrong and brought this up too soon. He's halfway into planning how to talk himself out of this situation when Caelus finally throws back his head back and laughs, tells him that yeah, Firefly would have politely called him out on every lie he told, and all their conversations would take twice as long with the way Sampo is so full of shit.

And he can see it, the same way he watches and sees through everyone, that Caelus' eyes have a tightness to them, his knuckles are nearly white around the handle of his mug. But he smiles. He hits his glass against Sampo's far too hard and throws it back and gets foam everywhere like he does every time they drink because the guy's about as elegant as a raging bull, but those things don't lessen the genuineness of his smile.

The grief is there, but so is the elation, and those emotions aren't a sliding scale between one or the other. It is all of both and both at once, and that's what contents Sampo enough to throw his own mug back when Caelus makes a toast of his own, "to April!!".))

[rainboq]

@blusthings did some fanart for an unreleased chapter of my fic Arcadia is Burning as a birthday gift, thank you so much Blu!

[Image ID: Rachel is sitting on a starwell, with a bottle of liquor on the steps next to her, she is wearing red flannel, a print t-shirt, and torn skinny jeans. Chloe is crouching in front of her, applying an alcohol soaked pad to Rachel's skinned knee. Chloe has a smirk on her face and asks Rachel "So what, you thought you could do a kickflip and I'd like you or something?" Rachel blushes slightly, smiling and brushing back a lock of her hair as she asks "Did it work?" Chloe blushes in response.]

[atissi]

i’ll be real i did kinda forget how to draw him but im back in business now

[sisterdivinium]

Now is the time to place your bets on whether or not this hyper self-indulgent doctor superion Vampire the Masquerade AU fic will or won't get to 100 handwritten pages...

[maydaydiaz]

the policing of fics in this fandom is insane like what do you mean you're complaining about things you get FOR FREE

[crash-bump-bring-the-whump]

Whumptober 2024 - Day 9

Rex belongs to @cyberwhumper and Solomon belongs to @sunshiline-writes!! Thank you for letting me borrow your boys for military au fun!!

TWs: bruises, mention of abuse

Obsession | Broken Window | Bruises | “Frame me up on the wall, just to keep me out of trouble.”

"You're hurt."

Mariano's voice was low in the sniper's nest. They didn't have to be quiet, necessarily, but he tried to be mindful of Rex's hearing. The fluffy wolf ears atop his head were incredible, far more sensitive than his own. It was only polite to speak gently.

Rex looked at him, and then down at his knuckles. They were bruised, the mottled color fading halfway to his wrist. "It's nothing to worry about." He said, voice gruff.

"It's not, but it has to be uncomfortable." Mariano said, ignoring Rex's tone. He reached into the pouch at his side, pulling a little container from it. He slipped off one of his casting gloves and unscrewed the lid, offering it out to Rex to look at. "It helps bruises heal faster and makes them hurt less."

"I don't need it, kid."

"I never thought I did, either." Mariano said, reaching for Rex's hand. Rex didn't fight him.

He didn't pull away when Mariano dipped his fingertips into the cooling cream, or when he started to massage it into Rex's knuckles. "Manuel told me about this brand. It clears mine up overnight unless they're really bad, so yours should be gone by dinner."

Gold and silver eyes lingered on the mostly-empty container. "Why don't you just go to Manuel for some when you need it? Or Solomon?"

"I just got into the habit of keeping some around." Mariano said with a shrug, working the cream into the rest of the bruise. "Dimitri lost his temper a lot. It would've been annoying for Manuel to bother him for it all the time."

"Hm." Rex turned his gaze back to the area they were supposed to keep watching. He stayed silent as Mariano finished and released him, putting the medicine away and settling back in with his equipment. "And you don't need it as much anymore?"

Mariano hummed and shook his head. "No, no. I don't see Dimitri very much anymore. It's nice."

"Good." Rex didn't say anything else, and the silence that settled in was comfortable. Mariano didn't say anything, even if he noticed Rex's hand relaxing more as the day went on.

All that mattered was his sniper was taken care of.

@whump-captain @whumpr @whumperofworlds @lektricwhump @cyberwhumper

@bxtterflystxtches @inscrutable-shadow @whumpbees

[sobeautifullyobsessed]

Just watched No Way Home, and it got me to wondering...

After working that huge memory spell to make Peter be completely forgotten, did Strange have to sleep for like 3 days straight or something? 'Cuz that had to expend a tremendous amount of energy and surely he would need to seriously recharge his magical batteries.

[satelliteinasupernova]

Rewatching the final episode now recognizing that the Jughead walking along side Betty in the finale is writer!Jughead, who just wants to make sure Betty is happy and fulfilled with the ending that he wrote for her... Sorry to everyone who was frustrated with the finale centering around Betty, but RAS wrote that episode framing just for me.

[foggieststars]

no but really who has ever is ever or will ever do it like lana on the bridge of terrence loves you

[dollyboned]

i made an ao3 account! english isn't my first language (and it probably shows) but i will try on translating every longfic im planning to wattpad. sophfearsteens on both if you're able to read brazilian portuguese or is trying to learn!! i promise my grammatical errors are almost nonexistent and if happens to occur it's probably because portuguese is so damn hard and confuse that i cried over the 4 ways we've of saying "why/what" when i was 9 <3

kisses, love ya!

[gh-0-stcup]

The weirdest thing happened! So I read that one band AU (Indigo Overture) and it made me long for Riley of all people?

I feel like Riley would wipe the floor with this Angel in just the most satisfying way. Buffy's good little college boyfriend from the cornfields of Iowa. Mr Polite and Chivalrous who says things like ma'am and sir and holds doors for all the girls. Who likes hiking and country music and his mother's pies.

Oh and also it just so happens he's in the military. He can and will break Angel's face if he dares say anything out of line.

Idk what can I say - I've got a thing for narcissists getting their egos bitchslapped into next Tuesday. I also think Riley's version of love would be lovely for this universe's Buffy. He'd be getting her out to Iowa every holiday without question. Working out with her everyday. Just...being all wholesome and dedicated.

[rotisseries]

this year, I kept a reading log spreadsheet of all of the fanfiction I read. so, assuming I don't read anything else in these last few hours of 2022, these are my final stats. here is my ao3 wrapped!

i read 496 fics this year. these are surely rookie numbers 😃 (this picture isn't even the entire spreadsheet)

my total words read in fanfiction this year is 6,227,818. 6. million. and 22 thousand. words. 24 of these fics, or about 5% of the fics read, were of a length equivalent to that of a standard fiction novel, which is a length of 40,000 words at the lowest average count. I feel like it's necessary to state here that, whenever I read incomplete fics, I put their current word count, but when the fics updated, I did NOT update the listings, so this number is an estimate

my no.1 fandom this year was stranger things! at 74% and 441 fics read, a surprise to no one. the runners up are the legend of zelda, in no.2, with 24 fics and 11% of my reading, and avatar the last airbender, in no.3, with 18 fics and 8% of the stuff I read!

my no.1 pairing this year was byler, with 57% at a count of 289 fics read! again, a surprise to no one! runners up are, no.2, ronance, with 67 fics and about 14% of the fics I read, and no.3, steddie, with 58 fics and 12% of the stuff I read

my highest month for fanfiction reading was july! of the 496 fics I read this year, 162 of them were read in july, which is about 33%.

468 of the fics I read this year were completed when I read them, which is about 94%.

the author I read the most from was @andiwriteordie, with 34 fics, which is about 7% of the fics read. tbf though, this is because she's insane and wrote a LOT of stuff this year.

409 of the fics I read this year, or 82%, were oneshots.

and those are my ao3 reading habits for this year! I'm thinking that maybe I'll track some tags and other stuff for 2023

[aparticularbandit]

Agatha and Stephen Go on a Trip: Chapter Three

Summary: At Wanda’s request, Agatha questions Stephen about too-long absent members of their family.  When she recasts an old spell, they end up going on a journey that neither of them really wanted.

Sequel to Finding Family.

Chapter Rating: T. Fic Rating: T.

AO3

previous chapter | next chapter

Two years ago….

Neverland is broken beyond repair.

Wendy walks through the wreckage like a pirate queen, tricorne resting atop dark waves, thin captain’s coat barely any sort of protection from the wind whipping around her, blowing back the cape attached with golden clasps to her shoulders, all in the color of her newly claimed title – Scarlet Witch – blazing bright against the ebony of her ruffled peasant shirt, rimmed with the same threads of lavender that stitch her brown boots.  She would barely notice the single thick black feather in her scarlet hat if not for the wind whipping through it, would never have noticed its lavender streaks if the wind didn’t keep trying to blow it into her face.

That’s all Neverland is now, really: wind and silence and ash.

Ash.

Wendy giggles to herself, raising one hand to curve a finger just at her lips, and stops before she hunches over with the absurdity of it.

Pan kicks up a cloud of dust and grey and stares at it as it crumples back to the ground again.  “What’s so funny?” he asks before coughing twice, more than twice, hacking and hunching over as the broken air fills his lungs.

“Ash,” Wendy says, stretching out her hands and tilting her head back, pirouetting on one foot before coming to a standstill and smiling down at her twin brother.  She winks.  “You wouldn’t get it.”

Maybe it’s cruel of her to say that, but he asked, and she wasn’t going to just ignore him.  Not when they’re finally back together again, the way they always were before, the way they always should be—

Wendy stops in the middle of land that doesn’t look any different from everywhere else around it.  This is an entirely new continent from where Neverland originally was, but this is where she needs to be, this is where, if she tries hard enough, she will find her. She takes in a deep breath before drawing on the magic of the sickly green stone dangling from her left hand and then shoves her right hand deep into the soil.  The remains she wants are far beyond what her hand can reach, but she drags them up, up, and up.

Six feet under, so as not to have the body float if floods came, then three, then two, then one, and then—

Bones, mostly, arranging and rearranging themselves with scarlet-tinged chaos until they find their good and proper positions.

Pan hacks again, but it sounds more like he’s gagging – which would make sense if there was still rotten meat dripping from these bones, but they’ve been picked clean, likely centuries ago at this point.  He clears his throat with a rough sound.  “What are you doing, Wendy?  You can’t just bring someone back—”

“I need my Hook before I can bring yours back, Pan,” Wendy murmurs, and thin wisps of that same sickly green stretch out to the bones in front of her, clothing them with muscles, with twisting veins, recreating vital organs out of what appears to be nothing, drawing them back out of wherever they were before stitching porcelain skin over them.  As her body is reconstructed, as it becomes much more living in appearance, Wendy ties chaos to time, wrapping her in clothes much more fitting of their current time than her own, but not before she catches a glimpse of the rippling scars thick across her back. Seeing them, Wendy’s eyes narrow, and she erases them as though they had never been there – chaos fixing brokenness instead of reversed time.

She can’t reverse time too much, or she’ll lose the one she wants.

Eventually, the woman turns to face them, and her eyes open to shine a brilliant blue bright.  Then, landing on Wendy, they narrow.  “Who are you,” Agatha Harkness asks, “and what do you want from me?”

Wendy smiles, her head tilting ever so slightly to one side, and says, “I’m the Scarlet Witch, and I need you to teach me.”

“And if I refuse?” Agatha asks, one brow raising.

It’s easy – so easy – for Wendy to let out another sort of disbelieving laugh.  It’s not the kind of cackle that her Hook would have given in the same circumstances, and it’s not the maniacal sort of giggling she gave off earlier at a joke that she couldn’t explain, and it’s not the hysterics Scarlet herself fell into when America wouldn’t quit coming to her cabin, but it’s somehow a combination of them all.  Then she glances up, meets Agatha’s eyes with her own emerald ones sparked through with glimmers of sickly green Time.  “You won’t.”

~

Now….

Agatha lands gentle in the base of the hunk of melted plastic meant to resemble a tree and finds herself surrounded by shredded blankets burned at their ends, hammocks half strung up and dangling like fishermen’s nets, and chunks of plastic in rainbow colors all melted together with no indicator of what they might have once originally been.  None of this surprises her.  To have survived what happened when they left Neverland—

She still has no idea how much time has passed since they left.  This sort of wreckage would make sense if it were immediately after the magic backlash, but something tells her it’s been longer than that.

Instinctively, Agatha reaches out with her little finger, looping it through the magic that thrums through the whole of this universe, the same that she does in her own when she’s feeling overwhelmed and needs something to ground her, but the magic here does not know her – or if it did, it was a version of her long since gone – and it bristles under her needing touch.  She stings with its recoiling, as though her hand has been slapped away.  Then she reaches out again, gentler, and skims her fingers along its quivering, caressing it the way she might a much more familiar lover.  Magic bucks beneath the gentler brush of her fingertips and curls itself around her wrists and arms.

Different universal magic or not, Agatha knows what magic likes.

A part of her expected to be greeted by more people when she landed in the base of this tree – or, at least, one person – but the hollow interior of the tree is hauntingly empty.  This bothers her less than it might have bothered other people, and this time when she tucks her littlest finger into the threads of magic surrounding her, she catches the barest hint of a spell being cast just on the other side of the curved wall.  She turns, steps in that direction, and places one palm flat against the wall until it moves out of the way.

Trick wall.  Fun.

A wry grin crosses her lips as Agatha steps forward to the young woman sitting cross-legged on the other side of the door.  Not a complete mimicry of herself – she still is unsure what happened to her in this universe, and she isn’t sure she wants to know – but the tenth of her name, the tenth in a long line of Agatha Harknesses, with hair so much more corkscrewed and kinky than Agatha’s own unruly waves, with that twisted and gnarled oaken hook growing out of the stump of her left arm, its once blunt end now with a sharp iron tip attached.  That tip digs lightly into one of her legs, cutting through the denim fabric of her pants, which are stained around it with fresh blood, as the fingers of her right hand move in specific moments, tucking into the magic around them, lips moving as she murmurs her spell in a multitude of fragmented languages.

When she is finished, Agatha reaches out and places a hand on her shoulder, and before the young woman can even open her eyes, she says, “You should be dead, hon.”  Her eyes narrow.  “Tell me: why would Wendy leave the Agatha she hates so much alive?”

“Because it’s more torturous if I can’t die,” the woman growls out.  Her eyes open – the whites stained bloody – and brushes Agatha’s hand from her shoulder the way she might brush dirt from her legs as she stands.  She lets out a grunt when she stabilizes herself, takes in a sharp, pained breath, and then says, “I’m James now.”  Her hook lifts, twists like a beacon.  “Can’t die until she sends a crocodile, might as well choose a better name than Pixie and that horrendous legacy—”

James is cut off by the sudden sound of feet landing at the base of the hollow, and that stern, annoyed voice calling out, “Agatha!”

“Which one do you want, hon?” Agatha snaps back, crossing her arms. She meets James’s eyes with the slightest of nods.  “Your other namesake decided to be a shithead and send Wendy back—”

“Oh, so it’s your fault.”  James pushes past Agatha and doesn’t even appraise Stephen Strange before she slices her hook through his left shoulder and hooks it there.  Her bright blue eyes blaze up at him, and he recoils from her.  “You sent Wendy and Starlight back—”

“Wendy volunteered—”

“Which I told you was an ass move, and if you knew anything about Wendy, you would not have done,” Agatha snaps back at him.  Her eyes narrow.  “You know nothing of Neverland and nothing about what it means to Wendy and you didn’t even ask those of us who were there—”

But as Agatha continues her tirade, she realizes – America was there. America could have – should have – said no.  America was the one who had to stab Wendy as fatally as possible to break the spell she’d cast over this whole world, America was the one with the greatest lasting trauma from what Wendy had done, and America ��� in her right mind – would never have agreed to come back here, never have agreed to let Wendy go back – with or without her, because America would never have gone back.

America stood to the side while Wendy volunteered to be the base of Stephen’s experiment, knowing this would mean they would be sent back to Neverland, and did nothing.

Which suggests that there is something else going on here, something more than Stephen deemed Agatha worth knowing – perhaps something more than even he himself knew.

Agatha runs a finger along the Space Stone neither of them should have and meets his eyes.  “Maybe you should tell me how you ended up with this thing, kiddo.”

“I’m not a—”  Stephen grunts as James lifts him the slightest bit with his hook and glares down at the girl.  “Can you convince Stabby McGee here to let me go first?”  The edges of his cloak batter at James, but she stands still, returning his glare and saying nothing.

“What, can’t talk while dangling from a hook, hon?”  Agatha sighs and then places a hand on James’s shoulder.  “You can put him down, love.  He’s not going to hurt you more than he already has.” Her lips press together.  “I hope.”

Stephen’s glare moves from James to Agatha.  “I haven’t hurt anyone.”

Agatha doesn’t glare back at him like James does, but she doesn’t avoid his gaze either.  She returns it, firm and unyielding.  “You keep telling yourself that, dear.  It won’t make things hurt any less.”

“I haven’t—”

James pulls her hook from Stephen’s shoulder, and he drops.  Not much, but enough for his words to be cut off, enough for him to land with another, harsher, more frustrated grunt.  When he looks up at her, she continues to glare down at him.  Her lips curl into a sneer, and she holds out her hook to help him up.  “James Hook,” she says, “although if I call myself Agatha Stephen Harkness, you might know me better.”

As he avoids the outstretched hook, as he presses his hands into the ground to push himself up, Stephen’s eyes widen.  “You called me her other namesake,” his words stretch out, and his gaze returns to James, inquisitive. “Am I to believe that you are this universe’s me?”  He stares at her hook, and his eyes narrow.  “Why are you calling yourself by a fairytale name?”

“I told you, wonder boy, we are in Neverland.”  Agatha turns away from both of them, examines the half-hung hammocks, and uses magic to gently lift one end, to tie it.  “Everything here runs on theme naming.  Wendy. Peter.  James.  Even I was Hook for a while.”  The tree gives a shuddering creak as she climbs into the hammock before stilling just the same as she does.  “Now, I believe you have a story to tell me – to tell us.”  She taps the stone hung about her neck.  “Where did you get this flashy piece of jewelry?  And don’t skimp on the details.”

Stephen’s gaze moves from James, who doesn’t let hers move from him, even as she crosses her arms and hooks her hook on her bicep, and lands not on Agatha but on the stone she’d deftly stolen from him and still refused to give back. “I didn’t get it at all,” he says, finally.  “America found it on one of her travels and brought it back to me.”

“I said don’t skimp on the details—”

“Fine.”  Stephen raises a hand, brows furrowing.  “But there isn’t much I can tell you that I wasn’t already told.”

“Then tell us that,” James hisses, “and then tell us how you’re going to get Wendy and Starlight back home.”  The tip of her hook dips through her thin peasant shirt, and the smallest drip of blood springs from around it.  Her teeth grit together.

Stephen stares at her.  He gives the biggest nod that he can and then glances up at Agatha with a look that says little more than what is her deal, and Agatha doesn’t know how to tell him that right now, her deal is him and the consequences of actions he apparently had not thought through before enacting them.

But then she remembers America, and she again questions what she does not know.

Agatha leans into her hammock, settles back, and waits.  This story, whatever it is, had better be a good one.