#go back to sleep. Marcia will carry him around on her back while she makes hot chocolate

[septimus-heap]

Also I think he's small enough that marcia can just pick him up and carry him around. And she does sometimes

Idk if I've ever actually said this before,, I probably have but anyway I hc that sep is like. Rlly rlly short even for a 10 yr old. Like he looks Way younger than he actually is and if he hadn't told marcia how old he was then they probably would've assumed he was maybe 8 at the oldest

[wonder-womans-ex]

And The Song Keeps Playing

Part 2

The days drag on. Then they turn into weeks, and months, and those drag on, too. The whirlwind that was Sirius has disappeared from Remus’s life, and he is left drifting aimlessly from decision to decision, not quite sure what to do. 

There is no determination in Remus’s life, There is no passion. There isn’t much of anything, really, if you don’t count the empty space on the other side of the bed and the late nights spent at the bar down the street. The only thing he truly has to live for are memories, because his past with Sirius is the most important thing in the world—someone has to remember it, and he knows that somewhere, Sirius is trying his hardest not to. 

It’s funny, really, that he didn’t realize just how large a part of his life Sirius was until Sirius was gone. He has no one to go to, no shoulder to cry on, because it was always supposed to be Sirius’s shoulder. Before they were lovers, they were friends, and it never really occurred to either of them that they could ever be nothing at all. 

Well, it probably occurred to Sirius. But he’s not going to think about that. 

In any case, Remus has only four contacts in his phone. One is Sirius’s cell, one is Sirius’s old work number, and the other two… well, he’s not about to call his mother or his Great Aunt Caroline and tell them that his first real relationship—with a man, no less—has reached its—in hindsight, somewhat inevitable—end. 

All of which means he’s left, heartbroken, in an apartment he can’t afford on his own with nothing but photo albums he should really throw out but can’t bring himself to and an engagement ring that never got to see the light of day to keep him company. Remus has a gaping hole in his heart that can’t be filled with anything but Sirius, and since Sirius is no longer there, he has no choice but to not try to fill it at all. 

He writes. 

He writes because that’s all he knows how to do. He puts pencil to paper and spins stories of completely fictional people who are, in no way, shape, or form, anything like anyone who happens to be named Sirius Orion Black. No, his characters are blond and red-haired; his characters have spring-green and ocean blue eyes; his characters have skin like cream or terra cotta or freshly churned soil. Not one of them is pale bronze with thick dark hair and grey eyes that darken with anger or fear or sadness or lust. Not one of them loves like it’s all he was born to do. 

Marcia at the bookstore still smiles at him when he arrives for his shift. She still rolls her eyes and pretends not to notice when she catches him reading on the job. But Marcia, the only person he ever used to willingly make conversation with—other than Sirius, obviously—has no idea that every time he catches a whiff of one of the cigarettes she smokes on her break, he has to fight back tears. 

It only takes three months—which is longer than he had expected, actually—for him to look at what he has and know, with sickening surety, that there’s no way he can make rent. Barely a week later, he’s locking his apartment door for the final time and handing over the key to the lady (Janine, her name says) behind the front desk. 

He’s got a duffel bag in one hand, full of as many clothes as he could fit. In the other—or, technically, balanced against his hip—is the huge blue tupperware bin full of vinyl records—mostly Sirius’s, but six of them are his own, and that’s the excuse he gives himself for keeping them. Everything else is on the moving van: the turntable and the toaster and the sofa he almost put up for sale on eBay but eventually decided against. He and Sirius bought that sofa together, which of course has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. 

There’s only one thing Remus can’t excuse; there’s only one thing that makes his carefully woven story of not missing Sirius begin to crumble: that ugly old bird paperweight that Sirius had loved so much. It’s funny, in a morbid sort of way, because Remus used to spend so much time trying to convince him to get rid of it, but now, strangely, bitterly, it’s all he truly has left of him. 

In truth, he’s not sure how he does anything anymore. His head is still a storm of fresh heartbreak and poisoned Cupid’s arrows and the all-consuming need that is Sirius—or, rather, the lack of him. Sirius isn’t there, which means love isn’t, either, and the truth is that time passes a lot more painfully quickly without those two vitally connected things there to make everything real and meaningful and worth remembering. 

So he finds himself standing in the middle of an empty apartment, staring up at the water stains on the ceiling, not knowing what truly happened to get him here, except for that it is in every way Sirius’s fault. 

It feels strange when he thinks about it, but this is the first time he’s ever lived alone. He and Sirius, when they made the inevitable change from friends to more at age fifteen—after three years of lingering gazes and hugs that lasted just a few seconds longer than necessary—had immediately known, deep inside, that somewhere out there, there was a one-bedroom apartment and a life together waiting for them. It’s common knowledge that teenage romances never go far, but that was never supposed to apply to them. 

He wonders how long Sirius had been planning his escape to greatness, and then he decides that knowing the answer to that question would be what undoes him completely. 

So Remus waits. He goes to the bookstore and waits for customers; he lies awake in bed at night and waits for sleep to come to him; he reads the newspaper every morning and waits for Sirius’s name. His heart breaks a little more as first September, then October comes to a close and the possibility that Sirius left him for nothing becomes more and more real. It’s been almost a year, and Sirius’s promise of I’m going to be famous doesn’t look like it’s going to stop being broken anytime soon. 

Them just as quickly, it has been a year—November sixth will forever be etched into his memory; he knows that as sure as anything—and Remus Lupin finds himself in a dimly lit bar nursing a whiskey that tastes like crying himself to sleep. Or, at least, he thinks it’s whiskey. He wasn’t really paying attention when he ordered. As long as it does its job of erasing tonight from his memory, it’s good enough for him. 

Over in one corner of the bar, there’s one of those Coca-Cola ads—the retro ones with old-fashioned teenagers in old-fashioned clothing. This one shows a redhead girl and a dark-haired boy on a picnic blanket, and the happy smiles on their faces seem to Remus to be taunting him. At the bottom, it’s captioned ‘make it a date — share a coke!’ and he tries to think of something witty and wry to say about it, but all his mind provides is the way Sirius’s eyes used to crinkle when he laughed. Hell, maybe they still do, and Remus has to squeeze his eyes closed to stop himself from crying when he wonders who the cause of Sirius’s laughter—his happiness—is nowadays. It isn’t him, that’s for sure. 

Under the sign is a piano. There’s a man sitting there; his fingers dance along the keys to create a melody Remus hasn’t let himself notice until now. 

He takes first one step, then another in that direction, and before he knows it—before he’s truly ready—he’s meeting a pair of dark hazel eyes from just a few feet away. The man smiles when he sees him. 

“Got any requests?”

As soon as he says it, Remus will wish he hadn’t, but he has to anyway. He owes it to himself. “Play us a song; you’re the piano man,” he whispers, and his voice carries well in the far-too-silent bar. 

A grin. “I’d been hoping someone would ask.”

It’s fine, at first. He lets the music wash over him; he takes in the story of a man with not quite enough to live for. But then the barely-there ache begins to consume him. This is, in a way, his story—his and Sirius’s—and with every word, he feels as if his heart is being laid bare. Before, he was hurting because Sirius left him, but now he’s just hurting because Sirius is gone. 

It’s the last epiphany he wants to have while he’s here, in a bar at the end of nowhere street, listening to this fucking song and trying for the life of him not to cry. 

He can’t do this. 

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out, stepping away from the piano before he can see the expression on the man’s face. A woman by the door turns around indignantly when he shoulders past her, but he barely notices. He’s outside, and he can breathe again, and he stands in the red glow of the neon sign and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and sobs. 

[bold-writing]

The One With Silver Scars || 6 || Submission and Reward

Warnings: Swearing, mensions of abuse, swearing, violent thoughts.

Words: 3100+

Previous || Next

~6~

Claire refused to so much as look at Adelais.

 Of course, this bothered the other blonde not a bit. She was taking the time of reprieve to lessen her headache that occasionally still throbbed behind her eyes. Marcia had returned from the washroom, clean and appearing slightly more relaxed now that she wasn’t thinking about being covered in urine. Her presence distracted Claire away from Adelais, at least.

Casey disappeared into the washroom next; but she did not shower. They could hear the tap running in the sink and the brunette had re-emerged only short minutes later, face slightly pinkened from washing it. All of her oversized clothes remained bundled around her, a shield against the rest of the world.

 Hoping to distract herself, Adelais started to wander around the room again, fingers gently tracing along imperfections in the walls as she paced. She examined the door pointlessly, knowing there was no chance of breaking it down or hoping it remained unlocked. A peek through the tiny gap showed her nothing new and let her move on without thought.

 The lights inside the small room had been mostly turned off, leaving only the softer lights on the far wall on while the longer, brighter lights along the side walls were dark. Outside of the room, however, was just as bright as before.

 Her dried hair fell into her face when she bent, prompting her to stand up and brush it back from her face and pull it over her shoulder again. A wet spot was left behind from the water leeching out of her hair and into the fabric. The natural wave had returned to it after washing away the crimps and curls of her braid. The discomfort in her scalp from the pins had also eased. If the man had not removed them, they would probably have remained pricking uncomfortably at her skull.

 Keeping her back to the other girls, she lifted a hand to her mouth and covered her lips as she remembered. He had been so gentle as he removed each pin, each section of braid, until her hair had fallen free around her shoulders. Then the woman had stroked her hair like one would a cat, soothing her into assumed sleep.

 Adelais closed her eyes.

 She was sure that if the gentle strokes had been continuous, she would have drifted off to sleep.

 It was a dangerous addiction. To know a comforting, gentle touch for the first time. As far back as she could remember, her parents had handled her roughly. Even when she had been good, had done no wrong, the hands that guided her had been a solid as a shackle and bruised her soft, malnourished skin. The awkward but soothing hug from the monochrome man, the gentle sway as they danced, the soft caress of calloused hands along her hair and cheek—she craved it.

 Did that make her a terrible person?

 She desperately wanted the touch of her captor—captors?—while the thought of her parents made her skin burn with discomfort.

 Little freak.

 Marcia’s words returned her focus inside the room. “He was having a full-on conversation with himself.” Adelais had already explained the best reason for that, but Clair’s superiority complex extended to her knowledge as well. She wanted to be the one with all the answers, and therefore refused to accept Adelais’s. “What was that line about ‘the food it waiting’?”

 Glancing over her shoulder, Adelais frowned. When had that been said?

 “What?” she asked, drawing the gazes of the three to her. “When did he say that?”

 Claire pinched her lips into a thin line, refusing to speak. Marcia did so instead. “When we were listening at the door, before…she came in. He said, “The food is waiting”. What could that mean?”

 “Does everyone get how wacked this is?” Claire demanded suddenly, glancing between Adelais and Casey—as though anything had changed. “We need to get out of here, now-”

 The overhead lights clicked on, stopping Claire’s words with a choked gasp as she and Marcia ducked together again. Casey only looked up, toward Adelais and the door, and remained in her usual, curled up position. Only this time she was against the far wall, closer to Claire and Marcia so they could talk between themselves without speaking too loudly.

 Adelais only took a step to the side, freeing the space directly in front of the door. The back of her heel bumped the leg of the cot she and Casey usually sat on, halting her from moving any further. The door unlocked and swung open, revealing the monochrome man. He spared a glance at the three farthest from him, then over to where Adelais stood blocking the bathroom entrance.

 Overall, he looked the same as the last time she had encountered him. Except for the grey pail he carried with him, with spray bottles and cloths inside.

 Cleaning supplies.

 Thinking back to when Casey had emerged from the washroom, Adelais had used the excuse of needing to pee again when she stepped into the small room and quickly cleaned up after the other two girls. She did not want to dirty one of the face cloths they had been provided, so she bunched up a small bit of toilet paper and wiped around the sink to collect the spilled water. Not wanting to risk the wad of toilet paper blocking the toilet, she tossed it into the small bin directly next to it. Then she straightened Marcia’s towel and Casey’s face cloth.

 She had cleaned everything as best she could.

 Do better!

 Understanding his intent, she moved her leg around the end of the cot to open the way to the bathroom. Other than the shift of her legs, the rest of her body barely moved or swayed. His gunmetal eyes tracked her until she stopped, having only taken two simple steps to her left. When he knew she was not making a move to run, he left the door wide open to approach the bathroom she had opened up to him.

 He passed close enough to her that she could feel the warmth of his body heat.

 Stopping in the door, he took in the bathroom.

 Was it obvious that someone had attempted to clean it? She was sure no bits of the toilet paper had been left on the sink, and there was not much she could do for the water in the shower. The effort she had put into this room would not have been enough for her mother; she would already be carrying new bruises if that were all she did while under her parents’ roof.

 The man glanced over his shoulder, but he looked down near her hands rather than up at Adelais’s face. “Who cleaned?” he asked. So, he had noticed.

 “I tried,” she admitted calmly, quietly, while keeping her focus on the wall directly across from her. She repressed the bone-deep urge to flinch at her own words.

 Did I tell you to try? No! When I tell you to do something, do it properly!

 Her attention tracked him in her peripheral vision without actually looking at him. Turning at her declaration, he stared at her face for a moment before refocusing on the other three. “Please, keep your area neat. An unclean bathroom is unacceptable.” He lifted the bucket and pulled one of the bottles out. “To make it simple, I’ve colour-coded these; blue is for the floor, and the pink bottle for the ceramic surfaces.”

 He appeared to want to say more but stopped himself, releasing a long sigh as he glanced toward the main door for a moment. Finally, he lifted the bucket up in front of himself. He cast his gaze down to the floor, standing stiff on the opposite side of the bathroom doorway as Adelais. She heard no movement from the others, so her hand automatically reached out for the handle of the bucket.

 Too long, too slow.

 The frightening reflexes the man had used to snatch Marcia returned when his free hand snapped out to shackle Adelais’s thin wrist in his hold. She could not supress the jump of surprise and fright, nearly biting her tongue when her body went from placidly waiting to strung up like a bowstring. A gasp sounded from behind her, but from which of the girls she was not sure.

 Initially, she kept her eyes down in the hopes that remaining still and timid would soothe the man’s anger. Yet he made no other move; not to hurt her nor release her. So, she raised her gaze from where it had been locked on the bucket to meet the hard stare being used to pin her in place. There was no way to understand what was going through his mind; he looked stern and tense by his expression, but the longer Adelais looked at him the softer his grip on her wrist became—for which she was thankful, since he had grabbed her directly over a still-tender bruise.

 When he finally released her completely, she dropped her hand back down to her side. Do not take the bucket—she could understand the message.

 Still holding the bucket out, he motioned with his free hand toward the other girls in a ‘come hither’ gesture. Finally, movement sounded behind Adelais as Casey rushed past her first, taking the proffered bucket. Claire and Marcia came next, more hesitant, then rushed quickly into the bathroom so as not to linger in his reach for too long.

 Adelais remained where she stood.

 He moved into the space of the door, blocking in the three that were now crouching on the floor around the sink. The oldest of them was left staring at the wall again, his focus turned from her completely. Was it trust that prompted him to give her such an open opportunity, or was he confident that she could not escape past the numerous locked doors?

 What did it mean for her that she didn’t even glance toward the door in consideration?

 “Patricia has reminded me that I was sent to get you for a reason,” he explained calmly, though she could hear the reluctance in his voice. Adelais could not begin to understand the nuances of his mind, but it was clear that he had been scolded by the woman. She was the one who claimed she could talk to him, that he listens to her. Patricia.

 It only solidified Adelais’s belief that this was someone with D.I.D.

 “You are sacred food, and I promise not to bother you again.”

 Fighting against a frown, she continued to stare at the wall with unfocused green eyes. Food? Sacred food?

 Even as he walked past her, Adelais kept her eyes forward. She tracked him in her peripheral without actually moving her gaze, noticing immediately when he seemed to shudder and halt just in front of the door. The only sound in the room was the ring of metal as he pulled a cluster of keys out of his pocket. Instead of just closing to door and sealing them in again, he glanced over to Adelais. The stiff look remained, but there was less reluctance than before as he looked at her.

 “You, come with me.”

 The same prickle-shiver from earlier danced across her skin.

 Obeying the order, the blonde turned her back on the other three and slowly followed his path. He kept to the side so she could exit through the door ahead of him, stopping in the same place as last time while he closed and locked the door behind them. She wanted to look around again, but kept her eyes focused down at the floor instead. She still was not sure whether she was in trouble or not. A reason for his displeasure was elusive, but there had to be a cause for grabbing her wrist.

 She could feel the body heat he let off when he came to stand behind her, the soft exhale of his breath shifting her freshly dried hair at the back of her skull. Remaining still was a bit more of a chore this time around, now that she knew what it felt like when he touched her.

 Surprisingly gentle fingers moved her hair aside to reveal the wet material beneath, dropping the waving strands of dark blonde over her right shoulder. “Your sweater’s wet.” His voice was rough, deep, and seemed to rattle her down to her core when he spoke so close behind her. Then he moved away. “You should take if off, you’ll get cold.”

 All of the blood in her body went cold.

 “If I take this off, can I have my scarf back?” she requested, knowing that speaking in outright refusal might upset him. “I’ll be cold without my sweater.”

 He said nothing for the longest time. If the exit had not been in front of her, she may have assumed that he’d snuck out of the room. Then her scarf appeared in her view, finally pulling her attention from the floor. It took more effort than she expected to stop her hand from shaking as she reached out to reclaim her scarf. The fabric was soft and familiar, easing her tension just a bit. Holding the material to her chest, she glanced to where he remained standing to her right.

 Neither moved for a long moment, a steady pause held between blue and green as they watched one another carefully.

 It was Adelais who dropped her gaze first. She stepped to the left just one pace, putting some distance between them before she draped her scarf over one arm and slipped her fingers beneath the hem of her sweater. With careful and conscious motions, she pulled only her sweater up and left the undershirt in place. Her hair remained draped over her right shoulder, blocking her neck from the man’s view, when she pulled her sweater over her shoulder and immediately draped the scarf around her neck and shoulders.

 Once certain she was as covered as could be, she glanced at the man through her peripheral—trying to peek throughout her own hair at the same time. He remained exactly the same, waiting as she pulled the sleeves of her sweater off of her arms and diligently righted the inside-out appearance. Only once everything was as it should be—as though she was preparing to hang it in her closet—did she turn to the man and offer it.

 He was still looking at her scarf-covered shoulders but took the fabric from her all the same.

 The undershirt she had donned that morning—or was it yesterday?—was thinner than she would prefer but even then it hadn’t been her choice. Her small waist was even more prominent than it had been when he held her and danced with her. The only assurance she had was that the shirt was not see-though.

 Finally, he stepped away from her and carefully draped the sweater over the chair that was situated in front of the computer.

 It was there that he lingered, as though taking a moment to organize his thoughts.

 Adelais fought the urge to fuss with her scarf, wanting to be certain that it was covering her throat. Instead, she let her eyes scan over him from her place out of his view. The clothes he wore were the same, she could even see the outline of the colourful cloth he carried in his pocket. The strain of muscle against cloth was obvious and she was reminded of his chest pressed to hers as they had swayed together in their awkward dance.

 Was he deprived of contact, same as she had been? Did he crave a touch that wouldn’t hurt him; instead, one that offered protection behind the simple contact?

 When he looked to her, she was too slow to avert her eyes to a neutral place. His gaze caught hers and held. She could almost swear the stern lines of his face softened just a fraction.

 Abandoning the chair and her draped sweater, he returned to stand in front of her. She held his gaze as he moved, leaving her tipping her head back once he was standing directly in front of her. With slow movements, he carefully slipped his fingers beneath her hair and pulled it free from where her scarf had trapped it against her throat. Thankfully, the scarf remained in place. The familiar sensation of his roughened fingers glided across her jawbone, just barely ghosting the base of her hairline before he lifted the strands free.

 Whether to recall her previous words or because he spotted an unknown reaction from Adelais, he asked, “Are you cold?” On the contrary, she assumed she was on fire.

 Her skin was uncomfortably warm beneath her clothes, but she knew it was not from the temperature of the basement they were in.

 “No, thank you.”

 Nodding sharply, he let his hands linger at her shoulders for a moment more before she felt the slight pull of his fingers. Her body was prompted forward with the simple nudge. Drawn in against his chest again, her heart rate picked up. Was this anticipation? It was so different from the fear she carried with her when she knew something was coming, knew that her mother as on a warpath that day. Yet, both made her heart race, both had her skin prickling with the eventual touch.

 He had not ordered her to close her eyes this time, so she held his gaze until he had moved past her view to rest his chin on her shoulder. The warm breaths of air were not as easily felt through her scarf, but she knew they were there.

 Hold me.

 His arms went around her gradually. Hands starting at her shoulders, they slid down her back and tightened until her arms were pinned at her sides and the hot press of his palms seemed to span the length of her spine.

 This time, she could not repress her shiver. He tightened his hold on her in response, pulling her in closer until she could feel the press of muscular thighs against her thinner ones, the toes of his shoes tapping the outsides of her small boots.

 Compelled by a foreign desire, Adelais let her head tip forward.

 Stand up straight, what have I told you about slouching?

 Her cheek came to rest on the carefully pressed material covering his shoulder. Arms remained at her sides, but she allowed herself to relax enough that she was fully leaning into him. The shift of his head was felt from where she was resting on him, then the cool tip of his nose skimmed her ear as he inhaled the scent of her hair.

 “Adelais.”

Previous || Next

[zoequeenz]

Plain Sight (Part 3)

A/N: okay okay biggest sorry ever for not posting last month. Started a new position at my job and then had to deal with some miscommunication that made me believe I was gonna lose that position. Thought I had COVID twice (no matter how safe you are you are always in danger) and that threw me through a loop. Then I started college and that was a whole crazy thing, so my August was anxiety filled and very demanding. So sorry, so I will be posting twice this month to finish this part.

MASTERLIST

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

We had Detective Martin round up all the other officers to listen to our profile. They all sat, ready with their pens and paper as Gideon began to talk.

“The Unsub brought his weapons with him. Tape, glue, wire. He did not leave them at the scene. He took them when he left. He has a kind of killing kit that he carries.” Gideon informs.

“Organized killers usually have a skilled job, likely technology related, which may involve the use of the hands. The crime scenes are far enough apart that he needs a vehicle. This will be well kept, obsessively clean, as will be his home. He’s diurnal, the attacks occurred during the day, so the vehicle may be related to his work, possibly a company car or truck.” Hotch continues.

“We believe he watches the victims for a time, learns the rhythm of the home, knows his time frame.” Derek adds on.

“You’re not gonna catch him accidentally.” Hotch says.

“He destroys symbols of wealth in the victims’ homes. He harbors envy of and hatred toward people of a higher social class.” Gideon says, walking towards the murder board.

“He feels invisible around them.”

“Class is the theme of the poem which he left at the various crime scenes. At one point in the poem, the woman attempts to bribe death, but he doesn’t accept it. He says this is the one moment when riches mean nothing. When death comes, the poor and the rich are exactly alike.” Spencer explains.

“So he’s poor.” A Detective asks.

“Probably middle class.” I answer.

“A decidedly lower class person would stick out in a highly patrolled neighborhood. This guy appears to belong there. He blends in.” Hotch elaborates.

“Why does he glue the eyes open?” Detective Martin asks.

“The Unsub is an exploitative rapist. Most rape victims close their eyes during the attack, turn their heads. For some rapists, this ruins the fantasy. For this type of rapist, the goal is more related to the victim watching him than the act itself.” Elle explains.

“He wants them to see him, he is often overlooked. The open eyes give him that satisfaction.” I add.

“The verses the staging, the aggressive language, “I am Death,” this is a guy who, while being in control at the crime scene, almost certainly feels inadequate in the rest of his life.” Hotch explains.

“That’s why he couldn’t wait for you to figure out what he’d done, why he needed to make sure all of his crimes were counted. His victims, they represent whatever it is that’s controlling him, and he wants that control back. He is under the thumb of a powerful woman who frightens him. And a final point. He is white.” Gideon clarifies.

“We have witnesses that identify him as a black male.” The same Detective argues.

“The attacker was black. He is not the Tommy Killer.” Gideon tells him.

“Mrs.Gordon’s husband came home at the same time that he always does. The Tommy Killer would’ve known that.” Hotch adds.

“And Mrs.Gordon’s attacker wore a ski mask. The Unsub knows when he walks into a house, he’s going to kill the woman who lives there. If you’re not leaving any witnesses, why wear a ski mask?” Elle asks rhetorically.

“And he wants the victim to see him anyway.” Derek adds.

“The attempted rapist is a garden variety disorganized young man.” Hotch explains.

“As the victim’s age goes up, generally, the attacker’s age goes down. Mrs.Gordon is about 60, which puts her rapist at about 20.” Elle informs.

“And it takes years to develop the level of calm and sophistication that Tommy displays at a crime scene, and the rapist is far too young for that.” Gideon says.

“Mrs.Gordon told me that there’s a young man who delivers groceries to their home. He fits a lot of what we’re describing here.” Elle adds.

“Great. So we’re back to zero on Tommy.” The Detective sighs.

“Not at all.” Hotch objects.

“May I see you in your office for a moment?”

They walk off.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

We had located Marcia’s rapist. Elle, Derek, and I were sent to go arrest him. He was walking back to get something from one of the trucks when Elle and I turned the corner.

“FBI. You’re under arrest.” Elle states, he then tries to run for it but Derek already knew he was gonna run and cut him off.

“You’re under arrest for the attempted rape of Marcia Gordon.” Derek tells him.

“What?!” He questions.

Though this was our rapist, he wasn’t out Tommy but this was the only way we were gonna get Tommy to contact us. We pull up as JJ is giving a press conference, just as planned. Morgan pulls him out while Elle and I follow through the crowd of reporters to get into the police station. Hotch meets us as we walk in and Elle tells him that he had already confessed. Our plan was moving accordingly. One bad guy off the street and so close to the other. We just had to wait. We were just waiting at this point. I was sitting across from Spencer and next to Derek, who had just angryily slammed his phone down.

“Chill, Derek. He will call.” I say calmly.

“I know Little One.” He sighs leaning back.

I knew better than to talk to him, and chose to listen to Elle and Spencer.

“God, I hate waiting like this.” She said.

“Do you think it’s weird that I knew that ballad?” He asks playing with a Rubix Cube.

“I don’t know how it is that you know half the things you know, but I’m glad you do.” She answers.

“Do you think it’s why I can’t get a date?” He asks again and my heart pangs. If only he knew how many women would kill to be with him.

“You ever ask anyone out?” She asks back.

“No.” He replies.

“That’s why you can’t get a date.” She says simply.

“I’m sure there is someone waiting for you to ask them anyway…”she winks.

What does she mean by that. Her? Does Elle like Spencer. No no no, Percy. She does not. Maybe she means JJ. God it is definitely JJ. I mean, they were totally flirting and he was checking her out at his birthday thing and ugh-

The phone rings.

“Detective Martin. Hey,hey” he says grabbing our attention.

“Line 6, Penelope. Line 6.” JJ says.

“You stupid incompetent sons of bitches! I don’t make mistakes! I am Death! You hear me?! I AM DEATH! You’ll see now. Tomorrow. Mark my words, you will see. And while I am taking her, I’m gonna be thinking of you.” Tommy shouts.

JJ asks Penny if she got anything, but sadly she got nothing. Confusion was all around. How could we miss him. We all sigh in defeat. My nerves begin to rise. He was so aggressive and his threat was so terrifying. I couldn’t breathe, luckily Spencer was there. I couldn’t really register it but I knew his hand was in mine. I breathe in and out for a bit, look at Spencer and I am okay.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

It was a very restless night for everyone. Elle and I could barely sleep so we occupied ourselves by watching whatever shitty movie was on the TV. I eventually got an hour or two of shut eye but it was all I really needed.

“We have an undercover car for each of your teams, and the entire damn department out there, too.” The Chief said.

“Remember a truck. Maybe a work truck, in excellent condition.” Gideon says.

“Everyone knows.” The Chief says.

“All right, he might make a mistake today. He’s angry, and he probably hasn’t done the kind of surveillance he’d like.” Hotch informs us. We all nod.

“Yeah, well, neither have we.” Derek adds coming up next to Spencer and I.

“Let’s go Reid, Chase.” We follow him out.

Derek drives us to our lookout spot. It was mostly quiet and I was two seconds away from sleep. I thought those couple hours were enough but the warm air and the birds singing was lulling me to sleep. At least until Derek sighs.

“It’s 10:30 already.” He says.

“All he said was tomorrow. He didn’t specify morning.” Spencer says.

“For all we know, he could strike later in the day.” I add.

“This guy’s gotta spend a lot of time in that house. A lot. He needs it to be morning.” Derek says. Spencer looks around.

“Are we sure this is a good spot?” He asks.

“Three of the victims lived within a block of this street. It’s the main artery through the neighborhood.” Derek answers.

“True, but three victims in the same block could mean he’s done with the area.” Spencer suggests.

“Or that he’s just really familiar with it.” Derek charges back.

“And comfortable in it.” Spencer adds.

“But then, on the other hand, the other victims lived more than a mile in either direction.” Derek continues.

“Right.” Spencer says.

“God,” Derek says, hitting the wheel.

“I hate not having a plan. We’re looking for a needle in a haystack here.”

“Spencer would argue a needle in a pile of needles.” I say, Spencer looks back and smiles at me. I know him so well.

“What?” Derek asks.

“A needle would stand out in a haystack.” Spencer explains making Derek laugh.

“And we’re not looking for someone who stands out?” Derek starts.

“No. We’re looking for a particular needle in a pile of needles.” Spencer further explains grabbing his binoculars.

Derek looks back at me smirking. I roll my eyes and feel my face heat up. I punch him in the arm, lightly of course, as a way to tell him to shut it. He just laughs. I rest my head on Spencer’s seat causing him to look back and smile at me. I couldn’t take my eyes off his face. He did his little smile and went back to looking out. It may very well be a long day but I was with my favorite boys so it didn’t matter.

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TAGLIST

@thesailbells​

[amydancepants-peralta]

i love your precious heart

(chapter seven of we’re the fortunate ones) ♥️

season seven: i love your precious heart

For the longest time, there was a part of Jake Peralta that genuinely didn’t believe he was deserving of any special kind of love or affection.  Years of rejection; from the revolving doors made up of fathers, step-fathers and short-lived relationships, had led to the once quiet inner voices growing louder - reminding him every chance they could that any state of legitimate happiness simply was not meant for him.

(Dr. Marcia, the therapist he’s been seeing once a fortnight for a close to a year now, has helped him to understand this.)

This New Year’s Eve, standing here on the fire escape that runs along the outside of the apartment he shares with his wife, is not one of those moments.

Their plans for the evening had skewed slightly from their original schedule, partially because Jake had heard the sighs of dejection Amy made when she’d returned yet another ill-fitting dress back into their wardrobe.  Her body is changing in a lot of ways this year - some of them rapidly, others sneaking up on her so slowly it drove her insane - and when he remembered that Amy hadn’t really had the chance to go shopping for a decent range of maternity clothes yet, Jake had moved quickly to devise an alternative plan that seemed both spontaneous and not-at-all-related to a lack of party outfit options.  

Pouring them each a glass of sparkling apple cider (if Amy can’t drink, then Jake can’t drink - and he’s not interested in hearing arguments that suggest otherwise), he had googled events that were happening nearby, found one with fireworks, and with his brilliant detective skills had deduced that their fire escape will face exactly the right direction to watch the show without ever having to leave their house.  And maybe Amy had already been hoping that he would come to the same conclusion, or maybe she was just a really big fan of fire escape parties (he suspects, though, that it is the former) but either way, her dress had been swapped for sweatpants within minutes of Jake’s suggestion, and the relaxation on her face simply made her all the more beautiful.

They’d spent the entire evening rotating between the living room and the tiny space outside that Jake had stocked up with blankets and snacks, talking and laughing as they reminisced the year that was.  There had even been a sweet little slow dance, to a song playing on Jake’s phone as it stayed nestled in his pocket - and it would have been totally romantic, if it hadn’t been interrupted by some dude yarfing onto the street below.   Still, the feeling of holding his wife in his arms, while their baby stayed nestled in-between them, was something that Jake will hold onto forever.  

The breeze has grown colder now, the wind rustling through Jake’s hair as he waits for Amy to return from her seventeenth trip to the bathroom (sadly, not an exaggeration), and as he reaches into the storage box for another blanket for his wife, Jake finds himself looking back on the last few months with a smile.  Even now, there’s a tiny piece of his mind that is still incredulous that she is pregnant - that the two of them are having a baby.  In just four short months, there will be a tiny human that is part Amy, part Jake and wholly them, and he’s never ever been more excited for the future.  

He can still recall the moment it had all changed for the better - when Amy had turned to him with the brightest smile he had ever seen, and nodded her head.  He’d sat beside her on the floor of their bathroom for longer than he’d realised, staring at the plastic stick with it’s stamped lettering and two thin red lines that told him that Amy was pregnant.  His eyes had kept darting from left to right, his brain frantically trying to reassure himself that he was, in fact, reading it all correctly.  That the love of his life was carrying his child, and the world as he knew it was never going to be the same again.  It just … hadn’t made any sense, how easily it had all changed.  Every part of his life involved filling out some sort of paperwork or prior approval or whatever - it was a reality that he merely tolerated, but Amy adored.  But, in the blink of an eye (and a round of admittedly great sex), Jake Peralta was going to be a father.    

Deciding to start trying had been one of the most uncomplicated decisions of his life, and one that he hasn’t reconsidered for a second (it had surprised him at first, how easily it came to him - but that’s the thing about finally being in a secure relationship.  Even the things that terrified him the most, suddenly didn’t seem so bad when he knew Amy would be by his side).  But it had stunned him, how in just one moment, seeing the word pregnant on a little piece of plastic had made him fall in love with something (or someone, really) that he hadn’t even met.  

He had known, in approximately 0.0003 seconds after seeing their daughter for the very first time on the ultrasound screen, that he wouldn’t ever do anything that could hurt her.  That he will fight for her safety and security, with every fibre of his being, until the very last day of his life.  This tiny little shadow on the screen, with it’s echoing heartbeat and what thankfully looked to be Amy’s nose, was now the single-most greatest thing that Jake had ever done: and nothing was ever going to change that.  These past few months have made Jake understand his father even less, and appreciate Amy all the more, if for nothing else than the fact that she’d given Jake a second chance to show just how capable - and deserving - of love he can be.  

Hearing a soft grunt to his left, Jake turns his head in time to see Amy wriggling through the window frame, the swell of her belly turning what used to be an easy move into something that requires a little more finesse.  There’s a soft metallic thud that reverberates towards the empty streets below as both of her slipper covered feet hit the gridded surface, and she grins in triumph before making her way over to Jake.  

“Starting to get over this whole ‘needing to pee every half hour’ thing that I’ve got going on.”

Grinning, Jake leans against the balustrade of their makeshift balcony, ignoring the gentle dig of the metal against his skin.  “I mean, you know my feelings about water, hun.”

Raising an eyebrow, Amy shakes her head in response.  “Hate to tell you this, but all I’ve been drinking today is orange soda - and we both know that’s your genes at play here, Peralta.”  Amy winks at Jake’s responsive wince, cupping his chin in her hand as she pulls him closer for a quick kiss.  “It’s a good thing that I love you, huh?”

“Oh, it’s a very good thing, Ames.”  The best thing ever, actually, that she loves him.  She tells him a lot - even more so since falling pregnant, a side effect that has been hated by absolutely no-one - and every time feels better than the last.  

A car passes them below, the loud music pumping from the speakers and filtering it’s way up to the two of them, and Amy looks down at her sweats, turning to give Jake an apprehensive look.  “What a wild New Year’s Eve we’ve ended up having.  Maybe we should have gone to Terry’s party after all?  I mean, it is the last child free one we’re going to have for a long time.”

Slinging an arm around Amy’s shoulders, Jake pulls her closer to him, smiling as her hand wraps around his waist in a move that is absolutely second nature.  “No way, Ames.  I’ve got my two best girls here with me, and in five minutes I’m going to have the greatest seats in New York as that building over there lets off fireworks from their roof.  Terry’s party can suck it.”  

Right now, a bunch of fugitives could climb out from the sewer clutching diamonds from the biggest jeweller in town, and he wouldn’t move.  Bruce Willis himself could knock on the door, and Jake would tell him that he needed to come back tomorrow (please, please, please - come back tomorrow).  

This was his home - he’d built a world between these four walls, with the love of his life - the only one to run a hand over his scars, both physical and mental, and still call him beautiful.  His partner, in every way imaginable, and easily the greatest person he’s ever known.  And just when he didn’t think she could be any more magic, she’d begun carrying their child, and now he is absolutely certain that Amy is completely made of stardust.  

Even when her hormones are out of control, and she’s yelling at him for not mixing enough pickles into her ice cream.

There was nowhere he’d rather be, and nobody he’d rather be with.  Literally everything he needed, for the rest of his life, was right here in his arms.  

(Okay yes, technically he would eventually need orange soda and gummy worms and maybe some water if Amy insisted.  But there was a healthy stock of all that in their kitchen, and by ‘right here’ he obviously means their apartment.)

Amy hums - this sweet little hmmming sound that Jake knows to mean contentment ever since he heard it on their first night together, a sound that he’s heard a million times since then and just never, ever fails to transcend him - and she leans a little more of her body weight against him, blinking slowly as fatigue begins to set in.  There were countless books and testimonials that told them to get as much sleep as they could, because once the baby came sleep would become a long-lost memory, and Jake could tell that Amy was secretly dying to curl up into bed.  Baby-growing, it would seem, was a highly exhaustive task - and in all honesty the idea of curling up underneath the blanket with her for the rest of the evening sounded kind of amazing.   

Jake’s just about to suggest a retreat to their bedroom when he hears the first whoosh of a firework streaking through the sky, the subsequent explosion of light piercing his eyes as tiny blue stars litter their previously dark canvas.  Either the revellers had decided to celebrate early, or his watch was slow (entirely possible, he’d bought it for three whole dollars at their local bodega) - whatever the reason, Jake cannot help the smile that stretches across his face as more colours begin to light the sky.  

Now completely awake, Amy moves closer still to Jake, standing in front of him and gripping his forearms in her hands when they wrap around her clavicle.  From behind Jake can hear her tiny gasps as each bang and pop takes place, and after a minute he cries out in surprise, moving quickly to place his hands on either side of Amy’s pregnant belly in a protective stance.

Shifting her head to the side, Amy looks at Jake in confusion, pointing downwards.  “What’s with the sudden coverage, babe?”

Eyes wide and earnest, Jake nods in the direction of his hands, explaining - “I’ve got to protect the baby’s ears, Ames!  These fireworks are loud - and what if she’s asleep right now?  She’s part Peralta, and you and I both know Peraltas are NOT a fan of being woken up.”

Amy laughs, her nose crinkling up in that completely adorable way that Jake absolutely loves, shaking her head as her fingers link with his on either side of her bump.  “Our baby is totally fine in there, Jake.  But I love you so much for thinking of her right now.”  There’s a slight shift underneath Jake’s hands, and he can’t be sure if it’s a kick of just a general nudge from their daughter, but either way he takes it as a sign that their little one agrees with Amy’s statement.  Nodding; he smiles at Amy, suddenly feeling a little foolish - but perhaps, he’s just foolishly in love.  Above them, the fireworks continue to explode, only now they don’t seem so loud.

Moving one hand away from his, Amy cups the back of Jake’s neck, gently pulling him downwards for a soft kiss.  “Only five months in, and you’re already the greatest dad ever,” she whispers against his lips, pressing against them with her own once more.  He’s blushing by the time she pulls away, he can feel it in the sudden tingle of his cheeks, but all he can think about is the title greatest dad ever, and how much he can’t wait until those very words are emblazoned on a mug or some other kind of gift their child decides to buy him.  He wants it on hats, and shirts, on socks and a keyring and everywhere in between - because when it came to Jake and fatherhood, there was not a chance in hell that history was going to end up repeating.        

“Hey,” came Amy’s soft voice, pulling Jake out of his thoughts as her fingers return to the back of his neck and toy with the curls that live along the bottom of his hairline.  Briefly, he remembers that he meant to get his hair cut two weeks ago.  “You okay, babe?”

Taking a deep breath, Jake smiles and nods, waiting until Amy has turned to face him completely before tucking a stray strand of hair back behind her ear.  “Happy New Year, Ames.  I know I’ve said this before, but this year is going to be totally amazing.”

Amy nods back, giggling as Jake swoops in for a kiss.  “I’m going to remember this moment when we’re elbow deep in dirty diapers and our eyelids are being held up by toothpicks.”

Joining in on Amy’s laughter, Jake shrugs his shoulders in defeat.  “This is probably going to sound insane, and I’m definitely going to deny I ever said this when we’re in that situation; but even that sounds a little bit awesome, because it’ll mean that she’s here and we can hold her and talk to her and just love her for reals.”

“Totally insane, and I completely agree.”

It’s less than an hour later that both Jake and Amy are tucked into bed, the sound of Amy’s gentle snores lulling Jake to sleep as 2020 begins to stretch her limbs.  Their apartment is quiet, but filled to the brim with love - right down to the printed sonogram, sharing the space of a heart-shaped magnet with a photo of a young couple falling for each other - and there is a small room adjacent to the kitchen that is almost ready for it’s tiny occupant to arrive.  

As his eyelids grow heavy, Jake thinks back to all the years he and Amy had spent together, and how many times they’ve had to push back against all the things that have tried to keep them apart.  He knows now that it was worth it - all of it was worth it - because truly, the best was yet to come.  

[curiosity-killed]

a misadventure

@tybalt-tisk this got. so out of hand

Word count: 5108

22. Caught in a storm

For the team’s two strategists, the whole trip is a spectacular failure of planning. A back-roads trip across the state was one thing, but starting that trip at four PM on a day with ninety percent chance of thunderstorms for the next seven hours was something else entirely. And that something else was, simply put, just stupid. They’d pulled off onto the shoulder to figure out where they were since road signs were largely obscured by the pouring rain, and Shiro had shut off the car because they were approaching empty faster than they could find a gas station. And then, once they’d figured out the quickest route to a station, he’d gone to turn the car back on – and it had sat there, dead and dark as the castleship after being hit by an entire fleet. “No no no no come on,” Shiro coaxes, and gives the key a twist. For its part, the engine seems to try – it whines and almost starts to catch only to sputter out into nothing. Shiro gives one more try before slumping back, defeated. He stares at the steering wheel, hand still on the key as if he can’t quite comprehend their current circumstances.

Allura isn’t much help; they’d agreed she could drive – but only on back roads and only when there weren’t any cops or houses around. The speed limits on the roads here, in a wholly new and mostly incomprehensible unit, feel too slow after a lifetime of hyperspeed, and she has an unfortunate habit of misjudging their speed until she’s going nearly double the recommended limit. It was fine in the empty desert around Keith’s old home, but it isn’t so fine on highways with other cars around to be demolished.

“Shit,” Shiro finally says. “Is there a way to restart it?” Allura asks. Finally relinquishing the key, Shiro rubs the back of his neck and shakes his head.

“Not without another car,” he says, “and not in rain like this.” He pulls his phone from the charging port in the middle console and thumbs it on. Blue light bursts into the dark car, illuminating the way he purses his lips in an annoyed twist. “Do you have any service?” he asks, looking up. The backlight catches in his eyes with the motion, picking out bright specks till they almost look starry. Allura taps her own phone, a gift from the Garrison, and shakes her head. “Nothing,” she admits. Sighing, Shiro leans back in his seat and tilts his head back as if he’ll hear some answer from the drumming of the rain on the roof. Allura stares into the dark, trying to summon up even the faintest sketch of a plan. She knows what to do if her ship dies, knows who to contact and how and different fixes to try, but these cars are a totally different type of technology than what she’s used to. It doesn’t help that rain isn’t exactly a concern in deep space. She frowns. Cants her head and squints into the night. “Look,” she says, pointing. “There’s a light.” Shiro follows the gesture, squinting past her finger into the night. After a moment, he gives up and turns to her. “I can’t see it,” he admits. “Is it moving? Like another car?” She shakes her head. It’s a wavering thing in the rain, but the light shines steady and gold up ahead. She can’t tell how far it is – is still unused to measuring distance in something other than time – but it doesn’t seem terribly far off. “I think it’s a house,” she says. They sit on that for a moment, both staring in the same direction and mulling over the idea neither one wants to be the first to suggest. At last, Shiro reaches down and unbuckles his seatbelt. The key gets tucked into his pocket and he looks to her as his hand settles on the door handle. “Is it close enough to run?” he asks. Allura tilts her head, eyeballing the distance. They could both probably make it, she thinks, but with the weather and the mud, it’s safer not to. She says as much to Shiro and he nods. “Alright. Ready?” he asks. They duck into the rain and catch each other at the hood of the car, colliding as the mud sucks down their feet and sends Shiro sliding towards her. She catches him, laughing, and pushes him back toward the middle of the road. The rain is coming down hard enough to almost hurt now, sheets of it pouring on her head and shoulders like some goliath upending a lake on their heads.

Together, they slip and slide toward the flickering light. The road seems like it’s meant to be rocky, but most of it has turned to a custard-like consistency, with chips of gravel mixed in throughout. Within minutes, their clothes are so saturated that the water starts running straight off them and not even soaking in, and when they’re close enough to make out the outline of the house through a windbreak of feathery trees, bowed in the wind, Allura’s shoe gets caught in the goop and Shiro has to help tug her free. When they finally get her foot loose, it’s minus the shoe. “Whatever,” she says. “Come on, let’s run!” It’s a wild last sprint, their feet still sinking in too deep to get good purchase, and the rain spitting in their eyes hard enough to make them squint. When they finally reach the front door, they’re laughing and disastrous. Her hair’s gone stringy and lanky with the water, sticking to her face, and Shiro’s bangs are plastered in a white spread over his forehead. They steady each other on the front porch, finally out of the freezing torrent, and take a deep breath before Shiro reaches out to press the doorbell. There’s a minute where it seems they’ve made it all this way for no reason; the house lays silent and dark before them, no movement within. Just when Allura’s about to ask if they can just sit it out under this little roof, a light turns on inside and footsteps approach the door. A middle-aged woman opens the door, wearing a thick sweater and frowning. Her gaze runs over the both of them before falling on Allura’s ears and freezing. For a moment, Allura can see them exactly as this stranger does. Mud coats them from feet to knees and splattered up the rest of their legs. She’s wearing one battered and mud-soaked shoe, her other foot encased in a thick layer of muck that’s slowly sliding off her skin to leave a messy outline on the floor, and her ears stick out from her bedraggled hair, clearly alien. “Hi,” the woman says. “Hi,” Shiro replies, “sorry to bother you so late, but our car broke down about a half mile back and we were wondering if we could borrow your phone.” The woman follows his gesture back the way they came, as if she’ll be able to spot their little SUV alone in the dark, before turning back to them. She runs her gaze over the two of them one more time, still seemingly unconvinced, before nodding. “Alright,” she says. “Come on in.” “Are you sure? We can wait out here so we don’t track mud in,” Allura offers. The woman snorts and waves off the offer, stepping inside to hold the door open for them. “I have three kids in elementary,” she says. “Mud is nothing new.” They traipse in obediently after that, though Allura catches Shiro wincing at the tracks they leave on the dark tile. Before they leave, he’s going to offer to clean them up, she knows. Their host disappears around a corner and returns with a slim black phone that she offers out to Shiro. He has to pull out his own phone to get the rental car company’s number, and then he tucks the phone between his ear and shoulder, turning slightly away. Allura chafes at her arms, letting her gaze wander over the home while Shiro talks. She can hear voices, children’s, coming from a bottom floor though she can’t make out what they’re saying. It certainly sounds like more than three, but children seem to have the ability to impersonate a crowd even when they’re alone. “You have a beautiful home,” she remarks. The woman smiles, following Allura’s gaze around the exposed dining room and sitting area. They’re simple but clearly well cared-for: the carved wood trim looks old but recently polished, and the furniture is tidy and arranged around a fireplace built into the wall. “Thank you,” the woman says. Footsteps approach, and a second woman rounds the corner carrying towels. She offers one out to Allura first, who takes it gratefully and wraps it around her shoulders. She’s still dripping a steady puddle onto the tile, but the towel is an immediate buffer against the chill, and she pulls it tight around her. “Thank you,” she says. “We really are sorry to intrude on you like this.” The newcomer brushes off the thanks and settles in beside the first woman, giving her shoulder a little squeeze. “Don’t worry about it,” she says. “Marcia and I’ve been there before, and this weather is hell to be stuck in. I’m glad you found us at least.” The first woman, Marcia, hums and gives a little nod of assent. She only comes to the other woman’s shoulder, even with her hair pulled up high in a ponytail, but the way she’s got her arms crossed over her chest and feet set make Allura think she’s used to being underestimated. Shiro hangs up with a sigh and offers the phone back to Marcia who takes it and folds it back into her crossed arms. He turns to Allura, looking tired. “They can’t do anything till morning,” he says. It’s not a total surprise, but she’s still disappointed. That had really been their only avenue. To have it fall through makes their entire chaotic run through the rain seem worthless. “We have a guest room,” the second woman says. “Why don’t you just stay the night?” “Oh, no, we’ve already interrupted your night,” Shiro starts. “What are you going to do? Go sleep in your car?” Marcia interjects. “This way you can wash up, get a good night’s sleep, and figure it out in the morning.” Shiro subsides, shoulders bowing a little meekly, as if he’s been chastised. Allura has to bite her bottom lip not to laugh, and she turns back to the women instead. “That would be wonderful,” she says. “Thank you so much.” Marcia seems appeased, and moreso when Shiro accepts the other towel. It doesn’t reach all the way around his shoulders, but it makes a good effort. “If you want to leave your shoes here, I can take you to the room so you can wash up,” the other woman says. “I’m Casey, by the way.” Being barefoot somehow makes the muddiness of their legs that much more striking, but they leave their three shoes in a muddy little line by the door. “Thank you again, Casey,” Shiro says. “I’m Shiro and this is Allura.” Allura wouldn’t be surprised at all to find that the introduction is unnecessary - the two of them make a distinctive pair, and they’ve been on every kind of media since the war’s end - but neither Marcia nor Casey comment. Instead they form a little line as Casey leads them to the guest room and Marcia follows a step behind them. It’s on the ground floor and has an attached bathroom that seems easy enough to negotiate. There’s only one bed, but Allura brushes that from her mind. All the paladins - and Coran and Kosmo - have spent nights huddled together for warmth or comfort or lack of space. Just because it’s only her and Shiro now doesn’t make it any different. “I’m sure we have some clothes that would fit you, Allura,” Marcia says, “but I’m afraid nothing will be your size, Shiro.”

It makes sense; both of them are shorter than Allura, but she’s closer to their size - and can shift if necessary. It would take about five of Marcia to match up to Shiro’s height and breadth. “That’s alright,” Shiro says, though he has to be thinking of the duffel bags they both left in the car out in the storm. “If you want to change into a towel, we can give your clothes a quick wash at least so they’re clean and dry once you’re out of the shower,” Casey volunteers. It’s an innocent enough offer and a generous one at that, but Shiro still flushes till the tips of his ears are bright red. He mumbles out agreement and thanks, and the two women step out of the room, closing the door behind them. There are two sets of towels hanging in the bathroom, and Shiro passes her one of them as he walks around to the other side of the bed to change. Living in the kind of close quarters they have these last many years, they’ve had to change in the same room before. Still, something about this setting - the single bed, the soft lamp glow - turns them sheepish, and they turn their backs to give each other privacy. Allura can hear him tug off his clothing, the wet slap of his t-shirt falling to the ground and the quiet sound of him stepping out of his pants. She resolutely doesn’t glance back. It would be wrong, she knows, even as she wonders if he’s thinking of the same thing. When they’re both wrapped in the matching beige towels, Allura takes their wet clothing to Casey, waiting outside the door. Shiro had put up token protest, but the towel is only large enough to wrap around his waist, and she knows he hates when people stare at the scars covering his chest and back and arms. Some are gnarled and twisted beyond comprehension and some cut too precise a line to be anything but intentional surgery. Even when they’re trying to be polite, strangers can’t keep their eyes from catching on them, whether the poison-purpled knots dotting his left hip or the precise pink Y cutting across his chest and down to his navel. She doesn’t want that reaction marring this sweet little home, and so she tells him to hop in the shower instead. “We’ll get these washed and dried as quick as possible,” Casey says, taking the sopping bundle gingerly. “When y’all are done cleaning up, feel free to come out to the kitchen for something warm to drink.” Allura smiles her thanks and heads back to sit on the foot of the bed and wait. Shiro’s prosthesis sits on one of the nightstands, powered down and oddly large alone on the nightstand. It’s always seemed the right size on Shiro’s frame, but placed beside a lamp and small stack of books, it seems bigger than usual. Shiro takes a quick shower, but she still has a few minutes to sit and eye the chipped purple polish Lance painted on her toenails three weeks ago. She could shift them into any color in existence and some past the bounds of human sight, but she likes the process of painting them instead. There’s something about sitting together in their pajamas, her knees tucked to her chest and facemask drying tight on her skin, while Lance methodically strokes a new color over them. It makes her feel young, somehow, carefree even if only for an hour. The bathroom door opens. “All yours,” Shiro says. She looks up with a smile and drops her feet down from the bed to walk over. His hair’s still dripping, but it’s ruffled up on all sides from the towel. Her shower is quick and perfunctory. Mostly, she just wants to get the mud off and warm up, and scalding water achieves both goals quickly. After drying off her hair, she wraps the towel around her once more before going back to the bedroom. Opening the door, she nearly laughs aloud. In her absence, Shiro has nestled under the covers and brought them up around his shoulders until he’s only a face and a shock of white hair amidst marigold-and-tan fabric. Leaning against the door frame, Allura suppresses a smile. “Cold?” she asks. The blankets shift in a way that suggests he’s shrugged underneath them, and he grins a little, sheepish. “The towel doesn’t do a whole lot,” he answers. She snorts and walks over to hop up onto the bed, on top of the covers. She isn’t quite bold enough to join him fully, and one hand keeps a firm hold on where her towel’s tucked into itself over her chest. Still, she settles in close enough that their shoulders are touching through the blanket.

“Casey said to come out for warm drinks after we showered,” she says. Shiro hums and closes his eyes partway as if already enjoying the bliss of tea or cocoa or whatever drink. She smiles at the sight, endeared by the silliness of it. He has to spend so much of his time focused, serious, calculating odds and determining best strategies. It’s good to see him relaxed like this. It makes her relax more fully into the pillows propping them both up, settling into the warmth of their body heat. “Think she’ll return my pants first?” Shiro asks. “No, I think the two wives are going to make you walk around naked while their children are home,” Allura retorts. “Oh, so it’s only because the children are here?” Shiro replies. One side of his lips is quirked up in a grin, teasing and amused in equal parts.    “Of course. Otherwise, it would just be a private show for the three of us,” she replies. “To pay for their hospitality.” “The three of you?” Shiro objects, laughing outright now. “So you get a free stay and I have to do all the work?” She hadn’t realized her slip-up till he pointed out, but she plays it off. “Well, as Coran would say, you’re the one with the sex appeal, Shiro the Hero,” she teases. That makes him fake gag, and she starts laughing, the banter broken. He grins at her laughter, and they catch each other’s eye. For a moment that should feel too long, they simply sit there smiling at each other. They’ve been here before, caught in a beat that stretches into timelessness until one of them finally looks away, but now, Allura thinks she might – There’s a knock at the door. The moment breaks as they both turn towards it, jerkily, as if startled out of a dream. It takes another beat before Allura realizes she should get up and answer it and then makes her body follow that impetus. Marcia stands on the other side with a neat stack of clothing. “Here you go,” she says. “They’re just some sweats, but we also found a set my brother left here a couple Christmases ago that might fit Shiro.” “Oh, thank you!” Allura says, accepting the stack. The whole set is ridiculously soft. “Whenever you’re ready, the kettle’s hot,” Marcia says before stepping back and letting the door close. Allura turns back to the room and holds the stack aloft as if it’s a trophy. “Clothes,” she announces. Her tongue is suddenly clumsy, as if still tangled around the words she didn’t get to say in that gilded moment. Shiro pops a thumbs-up out of the blankets and makes his way out of the cocoon to take the clothes she passes to him. Like Marcia said, they aren’t anything fancy. A pair of black sweatpants combined with a faded red t-shirt with the name of some university half-erased from the front. They’re both nubby and soft, though, and Allura sighs in relief as she gives her hair a last squeeze with the towel before hanging it back up in the bathroom. Shiro’s changed into his borrowed clothes, as well and stands rubbing the fabric of the t-shirt between his flesh fingers. He looks up when she comes back in and lets go of the fabric. “It’s soft,” he says. Neither of them have had much chance to wear - or feel - soft things recently. Their flight suits aren’t uncomfortable, but they’re utilitarian. They’re tough enough to offer protection against attacks and flexible enough to let them bend and fight and maneuver. Formalwear for all their diplomatic functions is always a little too stiff, a little too neatly pressed. Soft is something almost alien nowadays. “Tea?” she asks. A smile curls up his lips, and he gives a nod. They walk together to the kitchen, following the sound of Marcia’s quiet voice and the yellow light splashing out of the room and across the hallway. Casey’s standing by the stove, a hip leaned into the counter, while Marcia sits across from her, tucked up on a barstool. They both look up at their entrance and smile. “You look a little warmer at least,” Casey says. “Much,” Allura affirms. Marcia pats the stool next to her in invitation, and they settle in at the counter as well. There’s a small black kettle on the stove and a mug in front of Casey and Marcia both. Two others, the same watercolor navy, sit empty by the stove. “Tea or cocoa?” Casey asks. “Tea, please,” Shiro says while Allura opts for the sweeter option. Casey adds a dollop of whipped cream to the top of the cocoa like a puffy white hat, and Allura smiles as she cups her hands around the mug, delighted. Watching her, Shiro shakes his head. There’s a little smile on his lips. “I don’t get how you think that’s better than milkshakes,” he admits. “Because I saw where milkshakes come from,” Allura retorts. It’s well-worn, now, but she can still recall the horror she and Coran shared when Lance first showed them Kaltenecker’s secret. She has since been introduced to myriad dairy-based foods but the original horror still shadows milkshakes. “She’s kind of a city girl,” Shiro explains to the other two, as if they aren’t all extremely aware that Allura wasn’t from any city they might know. “Being introduced to cows can be a lot to take in,” Casey admits, but she’s smiling as if amused. Before they can say any more, there’s the pattering of bare feet up stairs and across the hall. “Mom—” A little child, with round cheeks reminiscent of a toddler, stands in the kitchen entryway, eyes wide and mouth parted. Their eyes are, undeniably, all on Shiro and Allura. “Is that – Princess Allura? and Captain Shiro?” they demand in a whisper. There’s a moment where Casey and Marcia seem posed to intervene, to cover for them and claim it’s just a coincidental resemblance. Instead, Allura lifts her hand and gives a little wave. “I am,” she admits. “Hi.” If their expression before was shock, now the child turns to limp-bodied awe. Their shoulders slump, eyes widening further still. For a moment, no one in the kitchen moves. Finally, uncertain, Allura sets down her cocoa and stands up to walk over to the child. She can’t help feeling a little ridiculous and almost sorry: this child is probably used to pictures of her in sweeping gowns or at least her paladin armor, and now she’s padding across the tile in someone else’s old sweatpants. She bends down a little and offers out her hand anyway. The child takes it tentatively, as if they aren’t quite sure it’s real.

“Hi,” Allura repeats. “What’s your name?”

“Lyra,” they answer rotely. “It’s nice to meet you Lyra,” Allura says. “Your moms are helping Shiro and I on a very important mission for Voltron.” If possible, Lyra seems even more stunned by this information. They don’t take their hand back, still gently moving hers up and down as if they’ve forgotten to let go. “Would you like to meet Captain Shiro, too?” Allura offers. The title feels funny in her mouth, not one she’s ever used. He’s always been Shiro or the Black Paladin or, rarely, in stolen moments that seem centuries ago, Takashi. Lyra nods, and Allura guides them gently to where Shiro’s stepped down from the stool and crouched so that he doesn’t tower over the child. He offers out his prosthesis, and Lyra takes it as readily as they took Allura’s hand. “Hi Lyra,” Shiro says. “It’s nice to meet you.” Lyra looks between the two of them slowly, as if trying to make sense of this situation. They look to their moms, still waiting patiently by the stove.

“Why’d you come up, Lyra?” Marcia asks. That seems to jar the kid enough that they finally let go of Shiro’s hand, though they can’t bring theirself to step away. “We ran out of snacks,” they explain. They turn back to Shiro and Allura. “It’s my birthday. Do you want to watch the movie with us?” It comes out all in one rush, and Shiro freezes before turning his head to catch Allura’s gaze. She shrugs. There is no way they can say no.

“If it’s okay with your moms, we’d love to,” she says. There’s the sound of the fridge door opening and closing, and Casey rounds the corner of the counter with a tub of grapes balanced on her palm. Allura snags her and Shiro’s mugs from the counter, passing Shiro’s to him when he straightens. Lyra latches onto his free hand to pull him down the hall and downstairs, and the rest follow. “I appreciate you humoring her, but you really don’t have to,” Marcia says quietly as they wait to file down the stairs. “I’m sure you both have more important things than watching kids’ movies.” Allura gives a little shrug and smile. “We came out here because we heard there was a giant corn palace,” she confesses. “I think this actually is the more important thing.” Marcia’s eyes go wide briefly, and she bites down on a laugh that still emerges as a smile. She gives a nod. “Alright,” she says. “That seems pretty fair.” They wind up squished into the couch with Lyra and two other children her age. Allura’s pressed into Shiro’s side, nearly on his lap, in order to fit, and Lyra squeezes in on her other side. If they were still cold from the rain, they certainly aren’t now. The movie seems to be a sort of animated fairytale, with talking animals and a captive princess. She’s not familiar with the story, but it’s easy enough to pick up. She settles in, cocoa still held in one hand and the other arm pinched between her and Shiro. Halfway through the movie, Shiro jostles her side and murmurs a quiet ‘sorry’ as he pulls his arm out from between them and stretches it up and around her shoulders. A little smile escapes her, and she rests her head on his shoulder as if it’s nothing at all. His hand falls against her arm, fingertips gently brushing back and forth over her skin. By the time the princess is returned to her family and the roguish love interest redeemed, Allura’s mug is empty and Lyra’s collapsed against her arm, fast asleep. She catches Shiro looking at her, expression all soft, and Allura smiles.

Marcia rises on quiet feet, a silhouette in the blue-lit room, and shuts off the TV. The children are carefully situated on makeshift beds on the floor, and Shiro settles a blanket over Lyra before they tiptoe out of the room after Marcia and Casey. “Thank you both,” Casey says when they’ve made it back upstairs. “It was nothing, really,” Shiro says. “Especially with how generous you have been.” Marcia shrugs. “You both have done more for the entire planet than we know, I imagine,” she says. “Universe,” Casey corrects mildly. Allura gives a sheepish smile, and Shiro rubs the back of his neck. The whole situation feels somehow much sillier now that they’re outside the comfortable darkness and fantasy of the children’s movie. Standing in their borrowed clothes with hands cupped around empty mugs, Allura can’t imagine feeling any less like a defender of the universe. They part ways shortly after, Marcia and Casey heading upstairs, presumably to their own room, while Shiro and Allura head to their own. The bed’s cool after the warm press of the couch, and they gravitate towards the middle together. In the darkness, Shiro’s hair nearly glows, and Allura reaches up to brush his bangs back from his forehead with a gentle hand. She’s tired enough, comfortable enough, that the gesture comes without thought. He presses into the motion just a little, like a cat into a caress. A smile curls up his lips, and his gaze rests warm on her face. “Sorry I got us stuck in this mess,” he says, though he doesn’t really sound apologetic. Laying here like this, Allura can hardly imagine the night going any other way. Where else would they be? Staying in some hotel room, five feet apart in separate beds after an uneventful drive through the rolling hills. It seems so bland in comparison to all this, to the warmth of this family’s farmhouse and the softness of Shiro’s gaze on her. “We wanted an adventure, didn’t we?” she asks. She trails her hand down through his hair before letting it fall to the mattress between them, aimless. That earlier moment, suspended, comes back to her, but she still doesn’t know what to say in it. Before she decides on anything, Shiro’s hand emerges from the blankets to rest over hers. His fingers slide into the gaps between hers and he gives a little squeeze. She smiles, tugging in her bottom lip under her teeth. It’s hardly a daring move, but something effervescent tingles deep in the base of her spine. “Long as it’s with you,” Shiro says.

She closes her fingers over his, rubs her thumbtip against his pinky. She doesn’t know what to say in response to that, except that, perhaps, there isn’t anything to say at all. She shifts to bring them a little closer, so that their ankles tangle together, and Shiro unfolds his arm to stretch out behind her pillow. Outside, the rain pours on, thundering into the roof and lashing against the walls. Here, nestled together in their borrowed sweats under the heavy quilt, she’s exactly where she wants to be.

[changingourdestiny]

Coronation Part 7: Love’s a Gambit

Summary:

In a burst of Light, Marcia - now free from any corruption - lands the finishing blow to the Primeval. While the rest of the Vanguard return to the Tower, Fireteam Paralight and the Drifter, with an unconscious Marcia, regroup at the Derelict.

Previous Part: Here

Epilogue: Here

“I DIDN’T THINK THIS THROUGH!!!”

Rae desperately held onto her Dawnblade, which was buried deep into one of the spaces between the Chimera Primeval’s shell, as it spun and whipped around furiously in an attempt to shake her off. “Oh no…” Rae felt her Super fade as the blade disappeared and she fell off the Primeval, “Oh no, no, no, no!” As she fell, Rae suddenly felt herself being caught by someone before being teleported back down to the ground. Ikora had glided up to her and then blinked the both of them back down to safety. “Thank me later.” Ikora set Rae on the ground before attacking the Primeval with her shotgun, the Invective. “Guys, the seal!” Blaze exclaimed. “Yeah, we know! We’re fighting as fast as we can.” Rae called back as she went to town on the Primeval with her auto-rifle.

“No! Look!”

Rae glanced up at the ceiling of the Dreadnaught and her eyes went wide. The seal was retreating backwards and disappearing completely in some patches. “The seal…it’s disappearing?” Drifter muttered as he stared at it. “Drifter, watch your six!” Blaze exclaimed. Drifter spun around to see the Primeval about to fire right at him.

*Whoosh!!!*

A gold blur when darting past Drifter and alongside the Primeval, carving a golden line along it and making it roar in pain. “Oi, ugly!” A familiar voice yelled out. Everyone, Primeval included looked up to where the gold blur had soared into the air and was hovering above the Primeval. Eyes glowing gold and white, golden wings stretched wide with beautiful white markings and matching horns, markings no longer a mix of purple and sickly teal green but a beautiful bright gold. There, no longer corrupted and flying high in her now purified Starlight form, was Marcia Wyverk – Starlight of Tribe Claw. “No way…” Rae gasped. Marcia smirked at the Primeval as she spun her scythe a few times before dive bombing the Primeval, zipping around it as she landed blow after blow with her scythe. The Primeval fired a blast of Taken energy at Marcia, but she sliced through it – using the scythe’s ability to negate any Darkness that came her way. “Take this, you ascendant dolt!” Marcia yelled as she swung her scythe down heavily, causing a blade of golden Light to go soaring right into the Primeval’s mouth. Golden cracks appeared across the Primeval before it exploded into pieces. Marcia was breathing heavily as she gently glided back down to the ground before her Starlight form disappeared. She looked over her shoulder at Drifter and gave him a weak smile and a thumbs up…before collapsing to the ground. Drifter, breaking out of his shocked stupor, sprinted over to the unconscious Hunter and checked her over. She was alive and breathing, just passed-out from exhaustion. “Is she okay?!” Rae asked, sprinting over to the two rogues with the rest of Paralight and the Vanguard not far behind. “Yeah. She’s just tired. Thankfully…” Drifter muttered the last part. “Uh, guys?” Cayde spoke up as he spotted more Taken flooding into the hull breach. Rae turned to Blaze, “I’ll take Marcia. You take Drifter and we’ll regroup at the Derelict.” Rae then turned to her fellow Vanguard, “I’ll meet you guys back at the Tower once we make sure Marcia’s alright.” The group sprinted towards their own jumpships and soared away from the Dreadnaught as fast as they could.

———————————————————————

Carrying Marcia bridal-style, Rae felt her feet land on the solid floor of the Derelict. She had only ever been in the Derelict’s ready room when Blaze managed to drag her into a round of Gambit every once in a while but had never actually seen the rest of the ship. She knew Blaze had been inside while helping Drifter with ‘business’, as he’d put it. Knowing him, it was probably something that would get him in serious trouble with the Vanguard. Rae looked down at the unconscious Marcia in her arms and noticed something. Her arm markings, which was originally a dull periwinkle that turned into the sickly dark teal that was similar to the colour of the Taken were now a bright periwinkle. It confirmed Rae’s suspicions; Marcia was no longer corrupted at all. Her Light had completely returned. But how? One moment she was on the verge of becoming Taken, the next she was in a completely purified Starlight form. What caused the sudden change?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Drifter, Adam and Blaze arriving behind her. “Geez. Glad I was ridin’ with Blaze.” Drifter chuckled, “You fly like it was the end of the universe or somethin’.”

“I told you that you fly too fast!” Ghost piped up as he appeared beside his Guardian. “Yeah, yeah.” Rae rolled her eyes playfully as she gently pushed Ghost down, causing him to disappear. “Anyway, follow me. Marcia can stay in my room.” Drifter motioned for the group to follow him as he walked down a catwalk to the left. As they walked down the dark corridors of the Derelict, Rae shivered as she felt an icy-cold draft blow past her. “The hell? Why’s it so-?” Rae cut herself off as they turned a corner and arrived in a large room full of snow and ice crystals. “…cold.” Rae finished as she stared wide-eyed at the snow filled room before turning to Drifter, “How…when did…do I want to know?”

“Probably not.” Drifter shrugged with a smirk, “C’mon. Room’s right ahead!” Drifter lead the small Fireteam to what seemed like a small shipping container with a light illuminating the inside. “You…sleep in the snow?” Adam asked in disbelief as they trudged through the snow.

“Trust me, brother. I’ve slept in worse.” Drifter replied simply.

“Again, do I wanna know?” Rae asked.

“Again, probably not.”

They arrived inside the container. It had some boxes and miscellaneous items – one box having what seemed like a Vex arm sticking out – littered about with what seemed like a work table with a couple of guns and some papers strewn about and a banner hung above it with the Gambit symbol on it. Opposite the table was a table with a blue and orange sleeping bag on it and a red pillow lying on it. Drifter sauntered up to the sleeping bag, opened it up and placed the pillow inside it. “I got ‘er.” Drifter took carefully took Marcia from Rae’s arms and laid her inside the sleeping bag, zipping her up in it. “There we go. Give ‘er some rest and she’ll be back to action in no time.” Drifter sighed, Rae hearing a tad of relief in his voice. “Hey, Adam.” Blaze grinned, motioning to the snow with her head, “Snowball fight?”

“Considering I still need to get you back for that New Year’s video,” Adam smirked, “You’re on!” The two Guardians ran off into the snow and began pelting each other with snowballs. “Ah, guys! Wait, you don’t know if- I dunno if it’s actually sno- ugh, they’re gone.” Rae sighed in defeat. “Ah, don’t worry about ‘em.” Drifter chuckled, “Marcia’s pelted me with plenty o’ them snowballs and I’m fine, ain’t I?”

“Do you want me to answer honestly or…?” Rae smirked. “Oh, ha ha.” Drifter rolled his eyes sarcastically, ”Are the rest of the Vanguard as funny as you?”

“Cayde? Yes – funnier even. Ikora? She’s more into witty comebacks to the jokes Cayde and I make. Zavala? Well…not so much.”

“Figured.”

Drifter plopped down on a nearby box with a sigh as she glanced at the sleeping Marcia, “I swear, one of these days, that woman’s gonna give me a heart attack. Seems like avoiding death by a hair’s length is a common thing for her.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” Rae chuckled slightly as she recalled their adventure on the Moon. Rae glanced between him and Marcia, “So…what is the relationship between you too?”

“What’cha mean?”

“Well, from what Blaze tells me, you aren’t really one for getting close to people. However, it seems like you care an awful lot about Marcia. And from what I’ve seen, she cares a lot about you too.” Drifter let out a heavy exhale as he stared down at his feet, thinking about how to word his thoughts, “Well…when you’ve been out in the wilds as long as I have, you learn that gettin’ too close to people will only get ya hurt in the end. However…there are some people that, no matter how ya try, just seem to stick with ya. Here’s the thing about Marcia. She’s tough. Granted, most of you Guardians are. But not like she is. She’s been to hell ‘n’ back and has stared death in the face who knows how many times. Hell, from what she tells me, she’s stared death in the face even before she was revived. The fact that she’s gone through all of that and has still managed to keep herself and her Ghost intact…well, that’s beyond me. But if there’s one or two things I’ve learned about that kid, it’s that she’s loyal and honest. Secretive, maybe. But ‘ey, you gotta be to survive. Even so, you can trust ‘er to tell ya the truth when it matters. When I first met ‘er, I figured those things were gonna get ‘er killed at some point. Yet here she is. Even if we went our separate ways once or twice, she always had my back. Even if she knew there was a high chance she’d get herself killed, she still stuck with me. Dunno why. Maybe she liked the danger. Maybe she had a death wish. Maybe she was just as nuts as I was. Maybe all of ‘em. Either way, it got to a point where…I’ll be honest here, I began to miss havin’ ‘er by me when we would be split. When she showed up at your first Gambit, I immediately knew it was ‘er. I only knew one person that could fight how she did. And I gotta admit, I was relieved seein’ ‘er there. After findin’ out what the Red Legion did to a lotta Guardians…well I immediately assumed the worst. I was kickin’ myself ‘cause I kept tellin’ myself I’d only wind up getting’ hurt if I kept carin’ about ‘er and there I was hurtin’. And I felt the same way again seein’ ‘er practically dyin’ there on the Dreadnaught…with nothin’ I could do to save ‘er. Yet both times, she managed to prove me wrong. I guess…well, I guess since I just can’t seem to shake ‘er, might as well face facts, right?” Drifter lifted his gaze from the ground and faced Rae, “You wanna know what’s my relationship with Marcia? Well…I love ‘er. And while it ain’t sayin’ much comin’ from me, it’s the straight and honest truth.”

Rae gave an understanding smile, “I had a feeling. Seeing the dynamic you two have, it reminded me a lot of myself and Cayde. Well, if Cayde and I were ten-times crazier.”

“Heh. True that. Seems like nothin’s able to separate you two, eh? Crazy Cabal overlord shows up, you manage to find and save ‘im on a Vex-infested planet. Ex-Awoken prince and his undead Fallen posse beat ‘em up, you manage to bring ‘im and his Ghost back to life. I don’t know that guy as well as you do – personally, knew enough to know I didn’t like ‘im all that much – but a lotta people would kill for what you have.” Drifter chuckled.

“I’ll be honest,” Rae began, “I’m surprised you’re telling me this. I figured the last person you’d open up to is a Vanguard. Then again, you could be lying for all I know, but…something tells me you’re not.”

“Well, you’re right. About both of those things actually.” Drifter shrugged, “But Marcia trusts you and your little crew. If she trusts ya, then I trust ya. Even if ya are a snitch.” Rae went to say something but was interrupted by a snowball hitting her in the side of her head. “Oops!” Rae heard Blaze exclaim, “Rae, uh…Adam did it!”

“Oh no, you’re not pinning this on me!” Adam argued. As the two Guardians bickered, Rae glanced at Drifter, “Wanna show ‘em how it’s done?”

“Hmm…never thought I’d team up with a Vanguard…” Drifter feigned thought but shrugged, “Eh. First time for everything, right?” Blaze and Adam continued to argue until Blaze heard the sound of two pairs of footsteps running through the snow. She turned to see Rae and Drifter charging at them with snowballs in hand. “We’re invading!” Rae yelled with a smirk as she lobbed a snowball at Blaze. “Make a mess!” Drifter finished as he aimed for Adam. “Oh geez, run!!” Blaze laughed in a mix of joy and terror as she and Adam dodged the incoming snow barrage as they retaliated with snowballs of their own. Little did they know that as their snowball fight raged on, a certain Hunter had woken up and was watching from the edge of the container. She smiled and chuckled to herself before returning to the sleeping bag, still tired from the last few days’ craziness.

To Be Continued…

[calleo-bricriu]

Guess what I’m still reading? Still reading out of spite but, still reading?

That awful book.

Right, let's get back to the worst book I've ever read and, to note, I am including every single malicious, aggressive, definitely is trying to kill you it's not your imagination Dark Arts book I have ever handled in my entire life, just so we're clear about how bad this story is.

Chapter 5 opens with Leigh, the clear projection of the doctor-author himself, waking up in a room he doesn't recognise and not thinking anything about that is weird, instead writing it off as to it being his "inherent love for the sea" guiding him there.

He then talks for most of the rest of the page about how he has no idea how long he's been there and maybe it was his 'second personality' that was in control which is the first mention we see of that ever having been an issue from him--unless that's just his way of saying, "Must've gone on a bender again."

Tries for awhile to figure out what day it is, apparently gives up, and decides to re-focus on winning...something...from his sister and that doing that would save his son who, as far as we know (as he's only been briefly mentioned), is perfectly fine and not in need of any sort of saving.

Several paragraphs of rambling about how sane and calm he is to the point that he’s sort of proven he’s neither.

Buys a newspaper, finds out he's been blackout drunk for ten solid days, finds out from some random guy on the hotel porch that he bought a yacht.

At this point, I'll remind you that previous chapters indicate he hasn't held a steady job in over a year (mostly due to being drunk and crying to the barman that he's such a misunderstood genius), is always weeks behind on bills, and hasn't paid rent in a few months but somehow dredged up money to buy a yacht while on a bender.

Isn't bothered by this, doesn't think it's indicative of a drinking problem and also it's not his fault because the yacht seller should have known he was drunk and not sold it to him or something.

This is, like, four entire pages in to chapter five and I'm already so tired.

The Department of Magical Law Enforcement could read this book aloud in interrogations but even the Ministry might consider it torture.

Oh, Leigh’s problem isn't drinking, by the way; it's "psychic epilepsy" so it's definitely not his fault.

That's--not actually a real thing.

Anyway.

Dozen or so pages of him internally trying to figure out how the hell to get out of this, "I bought a yacht with money I have no idea how I got and possibly got by doing something very illegal" situation.

His wife is also apparently not bothered by this behaviour either, she's just happy to see him; I'd be the opposite because this has been shown to be a pattern of behaviour on his part but, well, she buys the "psychic epilepsy" excuse because she's terrified of being seen as a nag.

Nag him, good lord, do something that isn't completely enabling him to be this way.

Now the narrative is going on and on and on about "unreasonable women" who would pretty reasonably be upset if their husband couldn't hold a job, wouldn't even try to get one, wouldn't let her get one, couldn't pay the bills, and routinely did things like tell her he'd be home in a few hours then go on a 3-10 day bender and show back up without a word.

That's a reasonable set of behaviours to be at least a little annoyed about.

Leads into how it's hereditary, this psychic epilepsy thing, so absolutely not his fault.

He's a regularly paid published author now, by the way, and has been for some time despite this being the first time it's ever been mentioned in any capacity. The only two other careers we've seen from this guy are something to do with working in a laboratory in Germany and working at a hospital as a doctor before being almost immediately fired for a combination of the constant drinking and possibly just being sort of insufferable to be around at work.

Some guy named Rob walks in. No introductions apart from that, we're all just meant to know who the hell Rob is despite this being his first appearance.

Some guy named Charlie/Dr. Bell is also just randomly mentioned and is also in...the house sleeping. People think he's lazy but he's really just conservative, whatever that means.

Find out Mizpra was engaged to some guy named Moore who dumped her to go to Yale, which is evidently why she turned into a "masculine" bitch. Sure, why not?

Philosophy attempts again from Leigh the Misunderstood Genius (who definitely does not have a drinking problem and knows more than you about everything): "Love, Charlie, is  like medical treatment; if it is free, given lavishly and procured without sacrifice, it is thrown aside at pleasure, and the giver ridiculed and derided. Haud expertus loquor."

Okay, first of all, that's not what love OR medical treatment is like. Not even--remotely, especially medical treatment.

Second, stop trying to sound smart with the Latin; all you said was "not experience" there, Mr. Genius who is definitely not a direct projection of the quack doctor of an author.

Leigh used to pay stenographers to go to class for him and take notes so he could go and give theatrical performances to "insane patients". Lovely guy.

Just to remind you, we’re meant to be sympathising with Leigh in this story, not wanting to strangle him every time he opens his mouth to bore everyone for ten pages.

Leigh refuses a drink while they're all at dinner which is one of the few good choices he's made in 81 pages and a little over a year in terms of the story's time line but then ruins it all for answering a joke about it being because he's married with PAGES AND PAGES of him trying to be a fucking philosopher again and just boring the bollocks off of everyone both in the book and reading it. How the hell does this guy know what delirium tremens are yet still thinks his entire problem is caused by psychic epilepsy and not alcoholism?

Charlie asks about money for some reason, probably trying to change the topic and get this moron to stop pretending he knows what he's talking about in any capacity.

That triggers three pages of him doing the same thing, only about money this time. At least in this case, it's mentioned that Leigh "got carried away" so there's a glimmer of self awareness. Probably the only one we'll ever see.

They agree to play golf tomorrow and Leigh and Obera just--get up and leave, despite dinner having not even been delivered to the table yet. Nobody seems to notice.

Chapter 5 is now over.

Chapter 6 time skips an entire year and starts with Mrs. Newcomber and Mizpra sitting outside and it's mentioned it's been a year since Leigh tried to see her so--about a year passed between chapters five and six.

Mother dearest is described as a "pliant tool" that Mizpra somehow convinced to go to Colorado Springs to open up a school, and that's where we are now.

Colorado.

Mizpra gets to pick the ladies who get to go to the school and just seems to do so on a whim, which has made her and it wildly unpopular; fair reaction, no explanation given as to why she acts like that just that she did it "without giving any satisfactory reason."

Colorado has lots of "clever physicians" (but not enough, probably because Leigh isn't there. Yet.) but Colorado is populated by people who just hate doctors. Despite that, they keep moving there.

Then, it skips to Mizpra reading mail and one letter, "announced the  marriage of the plastic Zora to an untutored, scheming Yankee lawyer."

Okay.

First question: Who the HELL is Zora?

Second question: This isn't really a question, I'm just reasonably certain that lawyers, even lawyers in 1901, had to have some level of formal schooling. Then again, so did doctors and here we are with this guy who apparently just slept through every single year of med school he went to.

Someone named Marcia wrote as well and Mizpra doesn't like her either because she "insisted on standing for her rights" and was married to an "unknown quantity." No idea who Marcia is or how she knows Mizpra, it's not been explained yet but has been introduced in a way we’re supposed to know already.

Dr. Bell we finally fucking find out was a friend of her father's and that's why he knows both her and Leigh.

Could have explained that back in chapter five when the character was introduced but, hey, I'm no doctor, what do I know about constructing a coherent story?

Dr. Bell wrote to yell at Mizpra about her being mean to Leigh and his son. Not to Obera, to whom she has been directly mean multiple times so far, just to Leigh and his still unnamed son. The kid's like two years old now and we still haven't been told his name he's that irrelevant to the plot.

Somehow this trips her to decide she needs to just completely ruin Leigh's life because he's an obstacle to her 'designs and ambition' but it's never been explained what those are. It also doesn't explain what she's planning to do just that "she must place him in such a position as to make him helpless in his struggle for his rights. With these thoughts, horrible, fiendish, partly laid schemes arose".

They are never explained.

Maybe she's going to open another school that's just for boys and purposely and repeatedly deny his 2 year old son entrance, I have no idea at this point.

While she's distracted coming up with vague plans, her mother interrupts and says what amounts to, "I'm blind but even I can see you're an old maid."

Harsh.

Her response is to go on about how disgusting marriage is and "what poor, weak, helpless creatures women are! Such a degrading, vile, humiliating acceptance of the loss of personal freedom."

...okay. I guess that's one way of telling your mum to fuck off and that it's not that you CAN'T get married it's that you don't WANT to.

She calls some woman named Jane in to ask her if she...washed the horse yet.

The reply is "yes, mum" which is evidently how Jane pronounces ma'am. She tells Mizpra that she'd be better off hiring a man because mares respond better to men which is not at all how horses work.

Then, we have this exchange:

"No, Jane; what a man can do a woman can do better."

"You do be joking, Miss. How about the babies?"

"There are two many of them now. You should be a woman, Jane."

I was following Mizpra there up until the, "You should be a woman, Jane" bit when Jane has already been described as a woman several times in two paragraphs.

Jane tells her she is a woman and wants to get married and start a family some day, which makes Mizpra angry and somehow the author seems like this is a good time to mention her muscular frame because--that's not a thing women are allowed to have, and to emphasise that Mizpra is not a ‘good woman’, we just occasionally remind everyone how masculine she is.

I know we're meant to dislike Mizpra but, at this point, she's the most sympathetic character here, having to put up with all this nonsense and having the only reasons we're told she's 'bad' is because she has all these masculine traits (from previous chapters, broad shoulders, a deep voice, a square jaw, an 'unwomanly' figure, narrow hips, the author stopped just short of saying, "Yeah, she's basically a man in a dress that tells everyone she's my sister.")

This is page 88 of 403.

Anyway, Mizpra storms off because Jane's, "I want to get married some day" got her that mad, sits down at her desk, and starts reading which is also framed as a bad thing because Good Women don't use their brains for that, what's the matter with you?

Starts talking to herself about how her mom called her an old maid which, I mean, if she's single, not married, and implied to be over 40 that's--sort of what old maid meant. She says, to nobody in particular because she’s the only one in the room, "Well, I think I can show my sisters that I can throw off that appellation and still rule man!"

Now she needs a secretary and a lawyer to always be with her 24/7 and we finally find out that Zora and Marcia are her sisters.

That could have been mentioned much earlier in the story.

What is up with the naming conventions in this family anyway? Every other sibling gets a normal name and the others get names like Zora and Mizpra?

So, what we know now is that Mizpra:

A) Thinks her sister Zora is dumb as hell.

B) Thinks Marcia is whoring around and the way it's written comes off as envious not, "How shameful!" Nothing is stopping you from doing it too, Mizpra.

C) Thinks Leigh is a "clever fool" with a "spewing brat" and a "little, weak, dependent" all of which are entirely fair.

She goes off to arrange visiting Leigh, hoping the trip back East screws with their mother's health enough that she'll gain full power of attorney which is part of whatever evil devious plot she's got going.

Gets up to go to the mirror and get dressed, laments that she "had lost all youthful appearance of womanhood, though still young in years" gets mad at her reflection and throws everything on the vanity at the mirror then goes with, "No, I'll use my intellect, my power over him, not the feminine baubles of Eve."

Over who? Your brother? Please tell me you weren’t considering trying to be sexy for your brother.

She is then described as "short of hair and short of sex" on account simply because her hair is short. Again, the whole, "Hey, hey, have there been enough clues given to tell you that she's just straight up ugly like a man in a dress??" thing.

Even with the, "Hopefully this trip basically almost kills my mother so I can take all of her stuff and cut my brother out of the will" thing she's still the most sympathetic character so far.

Mrs. Newcomber's only real skill aside from being blind and insulting one of her daughters is droning on and on and on about the religious of ancient Egypt.

Then it goes into something that's--nice, actually, though probably wasn't considered a good thing at the time--about how more women should focus on getting an education so they're not stuck being a housewife if that's not what they want to do but, since it's 1901 that's not a thing and it wraps up with how they only think that because "neither knew they the emotions dormant in a woman's breast."

Which are, apparently, to be an uneducated housewife and mother because that’s what the men like.

We’ll just forget the fact that Mrs. Newcomber was married and has had at least four children that have made it to adulthood. That’s not important now. The important thing is she’s being an icky teacher and learning things now. How fucking unladylike.

Mizpra then goes outside, says hello to someone,  like that's it, "Hello, Burke!" and it's framed as a "clumsy attempt at coquetry". What? She--she literally just said hello to someone she knew! That's not how flirting works.

Burke, who is a pale, sickly young man, had evidently told her however long ago the other day was that he loved her and he thought she was mad at him about that.

She tells him she's not mad and explains she was in Denver and his response is to ask her why she's playing with him, she says she's not, he tells her she's being cruel (somehow? maybe because she keeps calling him a silly boy, which is, frankly, rude as hell), and we find out that Burke--as if the name and physical description weren't enough to indicate this--is kind of a social outcast because he's awkward and weird and more than a little bit dim.

But, he overheard some gossip about her and now she's literally shaking him down to make him tell her. Basically, The Men Folk don't like her ideas about women having an education, the public hates it too, and if it were the Middle Ages they'd just burn her at the stake.

Again, Mizpra comes off as the most sympathetic character in the story so far.

Oh, and she apparently doesn't like corsets and made some doctor's daughter, who is a student at her school, remove it at the front of the classroom then kept her standing there while showing all of the other girls the creases a corset puts into the skin which is admittedly entirely inappropriate for a dress code violation.

That's not the problem though, the problem is that Mizpra’s hands were "so cold and rough" that she fainted, and the implied manly hands and fainting are the part everyone is upset about.

Her reasoning for it was that the doctor's daughter, "is suffering from the feminine folly of imitating the male sex in all animal life on the globe--that is, the garnishing of the body to attract the opposite sex."

Again, not how that works; in most species, it's the male that gets all flashy and showy to attract a much drabber female's attention. I do sometimes listen to Lazarus ( @pocketsfullofspiders )  when he's talking about his work.

At the end of all that Burke...asks Mizpra to marry him at specifically 8pm that evening? What?

Okay.

Her response is to ask him if he knows how to use a typewriter. I actually kind of like her at this point, apart from the whole half undressing a teenager in front of the entire class thing.

Anyway, she agrees, because he knows how to use a typewriter so I think she just hired him as her secretary and he agreed to it because I guess his payment is getting to marry her at 8 that evening.

She leaves to go do the getting a marriage license thing and just talks to herself the whole way about how gross Burke is and, ew, he kissed her chin because she didn't get out of the way fast enough, what a fucking creep.

That's going to be a great marriage.

She chose her dressmaker based on the fact that that particular dressmaker's shop offers free cocktails to customers. Fair enough if you're getting fitted for a wedding dress to get married to someone you can't stand.

The reverend that's going to marry them is someone she's got under her thumb; she basically paid to clean up his reputation because he'd ruined it due to just sort of being a drunk, kind of like her brother. Takes him outside and first says she needs to ruin her brother's life.

With alcohol. "[...] and any other scheme you can concoct."

Leigh's weaknesses are, of course, alcohol and evidently women.

She'll pay him a salary to do this and also essentially said if he spends i ton gambling she'll track him down and break every bone in his body.

I'm still not really disliking her.

She then calls him a wind bag and a hypocrite, which he takes as a set of compliments.

He's also mad she's getting married but corrects himself and says it's a miracle; she tells him it's to Burke Wood, and gets, "He can't live six months; and married he won't live six weeks."

HAHAHA! Wives are terrible, am I right?

Her response to that is he definitely will because she's going to take good care of him and 'treat him humanely' which I feel like is the bare minimum required for a marriage, treating someone humanely.

His take on that is, "She is a eunuch in heart and mind! She possesses the soul of a sewer."

And Mizpra becomes an even more sympathetic character.

Some family she knows passed by in a carriage didn't see her so didn't wave to her and now she's also spitefully planning to ruin their lives over being blanked. Settle down, Mizpra.

Goes home, tells mom she thinks they should go see Leigh, mom rightfully points out that Mizpra has spent like two entire years repeatedly explaining why they shouldn't ever do that for any reason and that turns into a debate that the mother eventually loses and is convinced to sign over power of attorney to Mizpra.

She then explains she's getting married that evening then going to Denver the next day and her mother's only concerns about this are of her not--"taking care of Burke on your wedding night". Good priorities.

For some reason she goes off on how she has a fucking job and isn't getting married to turn herself into "a mere setting hen, a female destitute of all ideas save one--that of breeding" which is somehow shocking to her mother.

Mizpra isn't even going to tell Burke she's headed to Denver tomorrow morning until after they're married so he can't back out.

This honestly sounds like a lot of Pureblood marriages now.

Later on we find out that Burke has inexplicably been asking Mizpra to marry him for "some time" now so he's really bad at taking the hint.

So, those two are married now and he has no problems with her going to Denver on business and I'm not sure why the last half of the chapter was spent making it seem like that would be a Big Issue when his response was, more or less, "That's cool, I know how work is."

That's the end of chapter six and this is just so stupidly exhausting that I'm not even going to try to start chapter seven tonight.

Up to page 103 of 403 though!

[vintagemichelle91]

A Hard Lesson in Incrimination: Chapter 2

Authors’ Note: Happy Saturday everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the very first chapter!! @rauliskafan  and I so loved the feedback from chapter one and it feels so good to be back!! Now, let us check in on the Barbas! As always your feedback is very much appreciated!! 

           “I don’t know how it’s possible, but they get cuter every time I see them!”

           With Hazel in her lap as Dodds cradled Holly, Maggie pinched the twins’ two pairs of rosy cheeks one after the other, her giggles growing louder when Hazel reached past her sister and tried to take hold of the sergeant’s nose.

           “Hey watch it!” Dodds gently chided the baby girl. “I need that.”

           “Another girl with a thing for Roman noses!” Maggie chimed in. “Must run in the family. Right, Natty? Natty?”

           From her seat at the other end of the table, Natalia traced the rim of her wine glass with one finger and stared into the pool of scarlet liquid at rest in the crystal.  Her sister had to bring red wine; Natalia could only picture the apartment from five nights ago stained with Eve Selby’s blood… with her husband’s. Five nights… five sleepless sets of hours in bed. And Rafael was faring no better, his green eyes bleary, the sheets twisting and turning as he struggled and failed to find rest. At least he found her; even now, Natalia clasped his hand under the table as she had throughout the meal she barely touched. The feel of his flesh against hers was one of the few things keeping her grounded.

           “Earth to Natty!”

           Along with her babies.

           Releasing Rafael’s hand and managing a smile, Natalia reached for Holly and cuddled her close, kissing the top of her soft head and basking in her clean scent. Maybe it would all come out alright in the end. Rafael had done nothing wrong, and with each second that went by, trails had to grow cold…

           “Now, now, Hazel,” Maggie said to the other twin. “Tio Mike does need that big, beautiful nose. He has to sniff out the bad man who took an even worse woman down.”

           Holding Holly tighter, Natalia saw Rafael fidget in his chair, and Dodds took a quick drink as he waved one hand in the air.

           “Come on, Maggie,” he started. “Not tonight.”

           “I know, I know,” she said. “SVU is unofficially on the case since no sex crime was committed. But you’re being so unfair! What’s the point of being married to a cop if I don’t get the gory details now and then? Especially when it comes to the likes of her.”

           Dodds’ face flashed a brighter shade of pale. He laughed nervously and played a version of keep away Hazel’s nose which made Maggie chuckle. Just as quickly her eyes seemed to narrow, and Natalia bit her lip, fearing another litany of questions…

           “Look what we do!”

           A voice from on high or at least knee level when standing entered the room with Ashtonja at its side. Sighing in relief, Natalia saw Violetta balancing four cupcakes on one platter.

           “Easy, V,” Ashtonja cautioned. “Let me help.”

           “I got it, Ash.”

           Her words came true as she stood on the tips of her toes and placed the pastries on the table, sighing when the job was done and wiping her little hands together.

“For dessert, these are the blue velvet cupcakes!”

“Blue velvet?” Rafael echoed. “And the summer of David Lynch continues.”

Natalia had to smile at that, and she watched him take a bite followed by her brother-in-law.

“Delicious!” Dodds commented. How'd you manage it, Little V? Make it with some magic?”

“Oh, Tio Mike,” Violetta moaned. “Please. It done with food coloring. Next thing you say that Hazel and Holly bake them. But they can no even hold anything yet.”

“His nose would beg to differ,” Maggie quipped while lifting a treat to her mouth.

“What you mean by that?” Violetta asked.

“Never mind,” Maggie said, her lips tinged with frosting as she leaned in to kiss her husband’s cheek. “But when he’s right he’s right; this is scrumptious!”

Looking beyond proud of herself, Violetta raised her small hand and slapped Ashtonja high five.

“Now you, Mami,” Violetta insisted. “You not eating enough lately.”

“Natty, why’s that?” Maggie asked.

“It’s nothing,” Natalia said. “Time to take a taste.”

Not magic… all in the food coloring. In the darkness, it would pass for red velvet, and in another time, she would have popped the entire cupcake into her mouth and asked for another. But nothing tasted right with a belly full of fear.

“Natty,” Maggie pressed. “Is there something wrong?”

           “All good,” she said. “It’s wonderful. You girls did a fantastic job.”

“But you not finishing it,” Violetta observed.

“More for me then!” Rafael said as he polished off the cupcake and hugged his little girl when she raced forward to wrap her arms around his ankles.

“You really like, Papi?” Violetta knowingly asked with the smallest, slyest of winks.

“Everything you make is magic,” he stressed before mouthing a quick thank you to Ashtonja.

“Tell Mami to eat more!” Violetta demanded, bouncing up and down before Ashtonja placed one hand on her shoulder.

“Come on, V,” Ashtonja tenderly warned. “A good chef never puts pressure on the patrons.”

Natalia followed her husband’s lead and smiled. For Violetta’s sake, she was willing to try to at least finish off the frosting…

…but again, her eye caught the glass of red wine. Which she sipped while trying to push away other images cloaked in crimson. The wine did nothing but rush to her head, and she shuddered where she sat, taking some comfort in the feel of Rafael’s fingers just dancing across her thigh.

           “No pressure needed here, Violetta,” Maggie said, finishing her cupcake and taking a dollop of Dodds’ frosting with one finger. “Does my Hazel want to try some?” The baby’s eyes grew wide, and she made for Maggie’s hand as if it was Dodds’ nose when Natalia passed one twin to her husband and grabbed her other baby.

           “It’s not good for her,” Natalia said.

           “You’ll make Violetta even sadder,” Maggie said, and Natalia’s shoulders started to sag.

           “I’m not trying to do that.”

           The wine began to take over, and Natalia wobbled when Maggie dropped the joke along with her plate.

           “Hey… I was only kidding,” Maggie said.

           On her feet, she heard Hazel fuss and felt Maggie take her back into her arms.

           “Are you really okay?” the ballerina asked.

           “Hermosa?” Rafael quickly said, his hand at the small of her back.

           “Fine,” Natalia swore. “We just need some coffee. After the twins… go to bed…”

           “Let me help, Natalia,” Ashtonja said, taking up Holly.

           “Me, too!” Violetta chirped. Blinking fast, Natalia watched her babies in other women’s arms. For a second she was seized with the fear of being ripped away from them, the sounds of doors closing as she was cast into darkness.

           “Mami?”

           Shaken from her shadowy reverie, Natalia glanced down to see Violetta standing before her with arms stretched towards the ceiling.

           “Don’t look so sad,” Violetta said. “I a big girl now, but you can still carry me if you want.”

           “Oh, sweet pea…”

           She sank to her knees, gathering Violetta in her embrace and trying to keep her tears at bay when Rafael’s hands settled on her shoulders. He helped her to her feet, and they exchanged a quick glance.

           “Alright?” he quietly asked.

           For his sake, she had to be, and Natalia started for the steps.

           “I’ll put the coffee on,” Rafael called out.

           “Thank you, Atticus,” she murmured, glancing back, hating seeing him scared when Violetta tweaked her nose.

           “Don’t drink a lot of it, Mami,” Violetta said. “You up too much at night now.”

           “Something you need to tell me, Natty?” Maggie asked before her lips curled into a smirk.

           “No,” Natalia remarked, her eyes cutting back to Dodds. She saw the sergeant as good as his word when it came to keeping the secret for Maggie’s sake, for theirs. Staying silent, she carried Violetta up the stairs and wondered if this might be the night when she could give into sleep once more.

           “So… coffee?”

           Rafael waited and watched until Natalia ascended the steps and disappeared into the nursery, turning slowly at the sound of the door closing to see his brother-in-law searching for filters.

           “Not there,” Rafael said. “To your left.”

           “Ah,” Dodds declared, opening another cupboard to reveal several bags of black walnut, toasted almond, and vanilla cream. “Someone’s moved a few things around.”

           “Violetta speaks the truth,” Rafael said, fishing through the fridge for the cream and milk. “We’re not sleeping.”

           “I get it,” Dodds said once the coffee began to brew, and he gestured for Rafael to follow him to the balcony. The breeze scattered a few fallen petals from Natalia’s untended flowers, and Rafael looked over the railing, sighing heavily at the stars when Dodds stood at his side.

           “What can you tell me?” Rafael asked. “I’m completely out of the loop.”

           “Not forever,” Dodds assured him. “Which is why we’re doing this. Bet you’ll get a call from Cutter any day now.”

           “Wishful thinking,” Rafael snorted. “Tell me something.”

           With a quick look over his shoulder, Dodds spoke in hushed tones.

           “Here’s what I know,” he said. “Liv is going to call you.”

           “She is?” Rafael asked. “Haven’t heard anything from her since that day at---”

           “You have to see it from her side,” Dodds cut in. “Eve was our ADA when this went down. And no one knows the Frost case better than we do.”

           “Except maybe for me,” Rafael challenged. “So is the director a suspect?”

           “Waiting for a new trial and on the list,” Dodds said. “So is Marcia Brown.”

           “Guessing her show is a non-starter,” Rafael said.

           “Not happening,” Dodds confirmed. “Had to be one of them. And Liv wants this all above board. When she reaches out, you should go and talk to her.”

           “Giving me orders now, Mike?” Rafael asked. The sergeant stood up straighter and folded his arms across his chest.

           “Would you have rather I called her to Eve’s place when her body was barely cold?” Dodds asked.

           “Thought you said you didn’t think I---”

           “I know you didn’t do it,” Dodds said. “But we got to stick with this story. Any day now, we’ll make an arrest, you’ll get back to work, and everything will be fine.”

           “But not yet,” Rafael said. “My wife is a wreck. She can’t sleep.”

           “Maybe listen to your daughter and cut out the coffee.”

           Meeting his weak attempt at a joke with a sad smile, Rafael longed for a cup but stayed on the balcony and shuffled his feet.

           “I hate that she’s caught up in this,” he muttered. “And you.”

           “I’m touched, counselor,” Dodds sincerely stated. “But you’ll do none of us any favors if you crumb the play.”

           “I hardly know what that means,” Rafael said, raising his eyes.

           “Have Violetta explain it to you when she wakes---”

           “I said no more, Maggie!”

           Looking towards the crack in the French doors, Rafael saw Natalia’s silhouette staring Maggie down. With Dodds at his heels, they rushed back inside to find the sisters locked in a kind of combat.

           “Natty, what is wrong with you?” Maggie demanded. “I mean sure it’s sad… I suppose…”

           “You so sound like your mother right now,” Natalia sneered.

           “Low blow,” Maggie shot back.

           “Someone has died!” Natalia exclaimed, and Rafael tried to shush her with a quick look up the staircase.

           But Natalia would not be swayed.

           “I don’t appreciate you making a party game of it,” Natalia continued. “It’s unseemly.”

           “Um… sorry, Natty,” Maggie said. “Maybe I should take a page from your book and be a horrible hostess. Of course, you were all smiles when Eve Selby came around.”

           “Maggie---”

           “Same goes for you, Rafael,” Maggie said. “Why? Even then I knew that she was bad news.”

           He said nothing and hurried to Natalia’s side as her lip quivered, her hand rolling into a frustrated fist and unfurling just as fast.

           “Good on you,” Rafael said.

           “So why does this whole night feel like a wake?” Maggie asked. “Why are we in mourning?”

           “For Christ’s… I didn’t wish this on Eve,” Rafael said. “I want whoever did this to pay.”

           “Does Rikers have a luxury suite,” Maggie joked. “Because the killer deserves the best---”

           “Stop it!” Natalia screeched. Turning on her heel, she hurried up the steps, and Maggie cried after her when Rafael caught the ballerina in his arms.

           “Let me---”

           “No,” he said. “She’s tired.”

           “She’s my sister,” Maggie said, her eyes fixed in determination, Rafael feared that he would lose the battle and the house of cards would come toppling down until Dodds took his wife’s hand.

           “You can give her a call her later,” Dodds said.

           “Now you’re telling me what to do?” Maggie asked with eyes blazing. Holding his breath, Rafael watched the sergeant bring Maggie’s hand to his lips. He kissed her tenderly there, and pressed his brow to hers.

           “Never,” he said. “But Rafael has a point. All that red wine and… and blue cupcakes.”

           “I can’t just go without saying goodbye,” Maggie protested

           “I will have her phone you,” Rafael promised. “Thank you for helping get the girls to bed.”

           Raising an eyebrow and stamping her small foot, Maggie sighed dramatically and pushed Dodds towards the door.

           “If you did something, you have one night to make it up to her,” Maggie warned. “Fix it.”

           “Will do, little sister,” Rafael said, and Maggie rolled her eyes before blowing him a half-hearted kiss.

“Maybe let’s try this again some night next week,” Maggie murmured.

           Waiting until they were gone, Rafael locked the door and slowly climbed the steps. Peeking in on the twins and kissing them one after the other, he proceeded to Violetta’s room where Ashtonja sat on the edge of the bed, braiding the younger girl’s hair.

           “But why they fight?” Violetta asked.

           “Who knows?” Ashtonja said. “I’m sure it wasn’t the cupcakes. Because they were fabulous.”

           “I know that, Ash.”

           Laughing, Ashtonja looked up and met Rafael’s eyes in the doorway. Her gaze told him that a million hairdos and as many sweet words could not keep this at bay forever. Better to talk to Liv when she called, to tread lightly and hope that she would solve the crime. But that was for tomorrow. As for this night…

           “Hermosa?”

           He found Natalia huddled in the tub, and he pushed the shower curtain aside to join her in the bath.

           “You need to call your sister,” he said. “She’s gone but---”

           “She thinks it’s all a gag,” Natalia said, rubbing her hands over her face. “But she has no idea.”

           “A good thing,” Rafael tried to reason. “Dodds said we have to see this out.”

           “Even if it kills us?” Natalia asked.

           Seeing her pale and choking back tears, Rafael quickly pulled her close and kissed the top of her head.

           “Mike says that Liv is going to call,” he said.

           “Are you going to…?”

           “To feel her out,” he continued. “Mike swears there are other suspects.”

           “And you didn’t do it,” Natalia said. Cuddling closer, she winded her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. His lips met her fallen hair, and he kept her near until their eyes locked and he wiped the tears from her lashes.

           “You should get some rest tonight,” he said.

           “You, too.”

           “Me, too.”

           Helping her to stand, they made their way to the bed and shed their clothes. Easing her into a nightgown and wearing nothing but his boxers, Rafael joined her under the sheets. Their hands locked together, and Rafael looked up at the ceiling. The sounds of Violetta’s giggles courtesy of Ashtonja made him smile. Then there was only silence.

           “Are you awake?”

           And then there was the sound of Natalia’s voice nowhere near a dream. Pulling her to his chest, he kissed her, stroked her sides.

           “Te amo, mi hermosa flor,” he repeated over and over again, his heart falling when he heard her sniffling, whimpering. And when the dawn started to peek through the window and the twins stirred---

           “I have them,” Natalia said, beginning to leave the bed. He watched her slip into her robe as rays of sunlight streamed through her hair.

           “I’ll come with you, hermosa,” Rafael said, taking her hand and grabbing his own robe. She lingered in the doorway and helped him cinch the belt before kissing his lips.

           “Never leave me, Atticus,” she whispered.

           “Never,” he vowed.

Because even a sleepless night with Natalia was still a dream come true.

[reginaldbelchhuggins-blog]

The Short and Miserable Romance of Victor Criss

Chapter 6: Last Meeting

Pairings: Henry x Victor, with some side Butch x Mrs Criss Rating: M Warnings: Domestic abuse, noncon elements, major character death, canon-standard content, bullying, racist slurs, violence, strong language Chapters: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], 6, [7]

Ao3: [x] Summary: The end...

July 1989

“Get the fuck up and talk to Burp!” Victor didn’t open his eyes, moaning in protest when he felt the warm, cozy blanket disappear. Ice cold air conditioning stung against his skin, and forced him to curl up, his legs breaking out in gooseflesh. “I am tired of him calling!”

Not content with just stealing his comforter, his Mama grabbed the corners of his pillow, and pulled hard. His head struck against the lumpy mattress, jolting him wide awake. He rolled to try and grab it, but it was already too far out of reach.

Mama’s face was an emotionless mask – her eyes permanently fixed in a droopy, tired gaze. But Victor knew it was hiding a sadness that had been wrapped up inside bitterness and buried so deep, it was practically Mumm-Ra. He knew it had been his actions that had summoned the Ancient Spirits of Evil to create those feelings, and he was sorry, but his one attempt to apologize had been thwarted by Butch. Butch stood in the hallway with his back turned, telling Mama that some boys needed stronger discipline.

“Andy always was too soft,” Butch said, ominously. “Spare the rod, spoil the lamb, as the good Lord commanded.”

Victor hadn’t quite drawn up the strength to try again.

His Mama walked out the door, bedding in her arms, and Victor was glad to see her go. He glanced around the room. It was empty, but he still felt his skin crawling – leftover feelings from his nightmare. He wished he could pull his blanket in tight, and roll his face into his pillow. But it was time to wake up, apparently. Then again, maybe, if he turned just right, he could sleep without them.

After a few moments of mental debate, Victor rolled out of bed. The walk down the hall was slow, due in part to the swollen knee that Bill Denbrough left him with. In his ninja turtle boxers, he could very clearly see the yellow and purple decorating the skin around it. It was like someone had dipped his knee in watercolor, like an Easter egg. At least it wasn’t black anymore, or bleeding.

The other part was due to the headache throbbing away on the right side of his face. That, too, was because of a well-aimed rock. But while the swelling around the gash had lessened, the pain beneath it grew, and shifted, until every flash of light made him want to vomit.

When he turned the corner into the kitchen, he winced as the sunlight struck him dead on from the window. His Mama turned to look at him, and then gestured to the counter, where she had set the phone down. Without a word to him, she went back to making herself, and only herself, lunch.

Vic wasn’t hungry anyway.

“Hey Belch,” Victor said as soon as the phone was to his ear. He pressed his fingers into his head and turned away from the window. It soothed it a little, but the headache was persistent.

Henry’s voice came through the line on the other side, aggravating it even more, “Hey asshole, why are you avoiding me?”

“Megatron,” Victor said, pinching the bridge of his nose.  He was not in the mood to deal with this.

“That doesn’t work on conversations,” Henry stated, sounding more than a little annoyed. “Now, answer the question. Why. Are you. Avoiding me?”

“Fuck off, Henry. I’m not feeling well,” Victor lied. Well, only half lied. “I have a concussion, remember? Doctor says take it easy.”

“It’s been a week—”

“You know more than my doctor, do you?” Victor asked. He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice, but it crept out all the same.

“No, but I know you were feeling good enough to go to the movies with Peter Gordon last night,” Henry said. “He was getting awful chummy from what I saw.”

Victor’s nose flared as he took a deep breath, and suffocated that anger before it could break out and get him in trouble.

“What, you wanna say something about that?” Victor paused for a moment, wanting to say more, but his Mama was still within five feet. So instead, he said, “Marcia accused him of cheating, which is a bitch thing to do because Peter’s head over heels for her skanky ass. So we went out to get his mind off it.”

Victor paused again as his Mama passed. She carried a small thing of soup and a diet coke into the living room, where she was watching her Dallas VHS tapes. Lowering his voice, Victor added: “You know his girl, right? Marcia Fadden? She had a pregnancy scare last Christmas? Didn’t know whether it would be you or Peter was going to stand at the end of her daddy’s shotgun on her wedding day. Funny thing is, weren’t you seeing someone else around that time?”

“I didn’t…” Henry sighed. It was deep, and weighted. Victor could almost see Henry on the other end of the line, clutching the phone as he curled over it. It was the same way Henrietta had stood when talking on the phone. “Vic, I never had sex with her, or any of them.”

That was genuinely surprising. The tables flipped for a moment, Victor wasn’t sure if he believed Henry. Instead of looking at that deeper, he shook it off.

“Look, whatever, alright. I don’t care,” Victor said. “I’m just taking a breather. The last two times we hung out, we got hurt. So unless we’re talking Dairy Queen and a new Nintendo game, I’m out.”

Victor didn’t need to mention that Henry had promised they’d talk last time. It had been the selling point of his pitch, even.

“I’ll explain everything,” Henry had said, his tongue dripping silver and honey. But if it wasn’t Belch hovering around like he was the mother hen making sure his idiot chicks didn’t hurt themselves, it was Henry shutting down whenever Victor even started talking about it. His eyes would fall to the ground, his hands between his knees, and his mouth stubbornly silent until a distraction came along.

Trying to spell out his fear, and his needs, without accusing Henry of anything directly was trickier than anything Victor had ever done. But it was impossible when Henry refused to listen. So Victor resorted to the age old tradition amongst Criss men, which was avoiding the problem. He was a little young to drop a paycheck on some whiskey – and maybe he would’ve never done that anyway – so instead, it was kitten-napping.

That’s what Mrs Huggins called it when someone had a series of proper hour to two-hour long naps sandwiching a large snack – kitten-napping.

They couldn’t carry on as they were. Victor’s heart couldn’t take it. He loved Henry – loved him. But he also hated Henry so much more than he ever hated anyone in his life. Because Henry knew him better than anyone else on the planet, and still had the audacity to peg him for something he would never do.

“You weren’t exactly complaining,” Henry said, with a dangerous tone. “I mean, ain’t you the one that crushed that little Pickaninny’s fingers with your boot?”

That was true, and Victor regretted it. He regretted it long before Bill Denbrough and five other kids showed up armed to the teeth with large, jagged rocks. Victor regretted it the minute he got out of the car. By the time he actually put hands on the Hanlon boy, his mind had detached itself, and his emotions had become a void.

But once he was in it, he was in it. It was as always – every kick, every thrown rock, each one represented something he wanted to scream.

The rock that smacked Trashmouth between the eyes was Andy Criss leaving for Bangor after dragging his family to live some poor ass hick life on a farm. The one that hit Tits on the chest was stupid Henry, and stupid Henry’s stupid paranoia. The one that got Eddie was Butch Bowers playing with his hair, like a fucking creepazoid pervert.

Victor was almost feeling better when Bill Denbrough locked eyes with him. He knew it was over then, but he went down swinging. He got Bill so many times before that final blow took out his knee and Vic was out of the game. Even worse than the pain, though, was watching the kid let blow after blow fall off him, like he didn’t even feel it.

If you had told Vic a week ago that he’d be frightened of Stuttering Bill, he would’ve laughed. But that kid was the terminator, and Victor neverwanted to fuck with him again.

“That was him,” Victor finally said. “I said we got hurt. I got a concussion, man. Patrick’s dead. You couldn’t even stand up for like an hour. So how about I stay home today, okay?”

There was silence as both boys waited for the other to say something. Almost too quietly, Henry started filling it with what took Victor a moment to realize was song lyrics.

“Maybe I didn’t love you quite as often as I could,” he said, his voice tender. “And maybe I didn’t treat you quite as good as I should. If I made you feel second best, Vic I’m sorry I was blind. But you are always on my mind.”

Victor had to cover his face, physically trying to keep the smile from breaking out. It was such a stupid little thing, but it was everything. To hear him say things like that, even borrowed from someone else, it created that glow beneath Victor’s skin, warming his cheeks into a red splotchy blush. He didn’t want to let go of his anger, but it was slipping.

“Pretty ballsy using Elvis to try and apologize,” Victor commented. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure his Mama still wasn’t listening. She wasn’t. She couldn’t care less. “Wasn’t he the one who said ‘we can’t go on together with suspicious minds?’”

“Shut up. And I wasn’t quoting Elvis, that’s the Pet Shop Boys… isn’t it?” Henry asked. The smile on Victor’s face couldn’t have gotten any larger. He bit into his bottom lip to keep a laugh from escaping. Henry chuckled a little himself; it was low and throaty, and tickled Victor’s ear pleasantly. He felt himself leaning towards Henry’s charm, the trap closing in around him. He could almost feel the teeth of it digging right into his heart.

It was the same as last time, and Victor was aware of this. He still couldn’t stop it happening.

“It was Elvis first,” Victor said, the smile creeping into his voice. He twirled the phone cord around his finger, listening as Henry took several deep breaths, preparing for some kind of speech. Vic expected something cheesy, maybe something trashy. He didn’t expect anything close to what came next.

“Look, I don’t have a… suspicious mind,” Henry started, his words chosen carefully. “I know you aren’t like that. But Patrick…” Henry was speaking slowly, as he did when he didn’t want to say what he was about to. It immediately drew all of Victor’s attention. “He’s smarter than me. He dresses better. He has better hair, and all his teeth… and he wouldn’t ask you do weird shit during… you know…”

The silence was thick. The phone cord uncurled and fell free of Vic’s hands. He heard Henry sniffling, like he’d been crying. “Henry—”

“And I was afraid that you were getting tired of my shit,” Henry said, his voice cracking. “I know now it was a stupid thing to say. I wasn’t thinking when I said it. I was just scared because I’ve got nothing to give you.”

Victor knew he should’ve been angry still. After all, Henry wasn’t really saying anything different. The accusation was still there, only the narrative around it changed. But at the same time, hearing it in those words, Victor found some feelings of guilt surfacing.

Sure, he’d spent years soothing away all the shit Butch put in Henry, things like feeling stupid, or weak, or cruel. But who put it in his head that he was a bad boyfriend? Or that he, Henry fucking Bowers, whose hair was soft hay and skin was the sun itself, whose eyes were painted by the Gods, was anything less than desirable?

Victor would trade owning the world with anyone else for one private moment with Henry, and the idea that he had failed to somehow make that clear was both horrifying and heart-wrenching.

“I’m pretty sure Patrick was into weirder shit than hair pulling, first of all,” Victor said. Henry laughed, but the sound of it made Victor certain that Henry had been crying. “Second, I don’t want anything from you but you, and that’s something nobody else can ever give me.”

Mama was still not paying attention. Victor did a quick check when he realized what he said. On Henry’s line, he could hear noise in the background as someone moved around. Henry’s voice changed immediately, becoming louder, colder, “Anyway, my dad left his gun with me and he won’t be back until late. It’s just me, Belch, and some cold beers. Come on and let’s destroy some shit.”

Victor rubbed at his dull headache, knowing that loud noises were only going to make it worse. But the siren song of unsupervised target practice was hard to ignore by itself, let alone in the shadow of what Henry said. It dulled the warning bells telling Vic not to fall for it again.

Before he could say anything, Henry already knew his decision. He heard Henry’s hand close over the mouthpiece as he whispered very clearly to Belch, “he’s gonna say yes. Go! Now!”

“Tell him not to wait outside,” Belch said. He sounded far too excited, and Vic’s resolve was gone. He could practically see Belch’s face, all bright and happy, like a puppy waiting for his master to come home. It was that final thing needed to seal his fate. The trap closed completely, and Victor was a dead man walking.

“Alright,” Victor said, knowing he’d regret it later. “I’ll be there shortly.”

“Cool,” Henry said. “Belch will come get you.” Then, taking Vic completely by surprise: “I love you.”

The line went dead. Once the phone was back on the cradle, Victor walked back to his room to get dressed. He had to take a moment to lean against the door, his heart coming alive.

You’re such a fucking idiot, his brain supplied. Victor didn’t disagree. Still, he threw on that sleeveless shirt Henry liked, and fixed his hair.

His emotions were a roller coaster – soaring high when he remembered how it sounded to hear Henry say he loved him – and falling low when he thought of how many times he had overlooked some important clue to Henry’s insecurities.

When he heard Amy, Vic decided not to think about it, but just to continue forward with a better understanding of things.

He tried to say goodbye as he walked by his Mama for the last time, but she barely even looked up at him. She would remember it later – his little wave and quiet bye, mama. The way his face was young, and full of hope. It would be about the only thing she remembered, for as soon as the door was closed, she pulled out the vodka and rum Vic had brought her nearly a year ago.

She would still be sitting there, drunk and crying, when she got the call later from Officer Conley.

~~~

There was a power in holding a gun that just couldn’t be matched with anything else in the world. Not fucking someone so hard they forgot how to be human; not getting off a good comeback and shattering someone’s ego; not diving off a cliff or screaming at tornadoes. Being on the right side of a firearm felt like what Victor imagined He-Man felt like as he thrust the Power Sword to the sky.

For those few seconds before you pulled that trigger, you were immortal.

He couldn’t imagine being on the wrong side of one. Staring into an endless dark barrel, knowing that death was one quick burst away, could make a man crumble – not a man made of paper, as Butch so eloquently put it, but even the ones made of stone and steel and leather. It made men who hated life remember what was worth living for, and it could make men who lived it to the fullest realize that they just want it all to end.

But Butch wasn’t God, and he wasn’t Superman. He might’ve felt like it when he held up that gun, the same as Victor had. But he was the paper man, not Henry. He was a paper man with a powerful toy, and he needed to prove something to someone, though Victor didn’t know who. Maybe it was himself.

Regardless, he casually aimed that gun, and then he pulled the trigger.

Don’t show him you’re afraid…

As Vic leaned back and tried to block the light with his bangs, his headache having taken over the back side of his head completely, he glanced over to where Henry had been sitting. The older boy was no longer there, but was coming down the driveway. Victor hadn’t seen him move, but judging by the stiff way he was walking, he still hadn’t quite recovered.

They’d all been sure Butch was going to actually hit Henry – none more than the target himself. But instead of Henry’s chest, it was the ground at his feet that exploded. Three shots, each one getting closer and closer to Henry’s boot, until one left a scuff mark, and a dark, dampness spread across Henry’s lap.

Victor watched Henry shuffle past them, heading towards his house. Victor started to walk towards him, but Henry just gave him a look, silently commanding Victor to stay put. He stood outside on his porch for a few moments, and then disappeared behind the front door. Victor did not follow, but he didn’t like it.

“Maybe he’s just getting some clean pants,” Belch said, his voice dropping into a whisper. “Look, when he comes back, let’s just go straight to ma’s house. My mom can take in my old clothes to fit him, and we can figure out the sleeping arrangements later, but the basement ain’t that cold right now. It ain’t the best solution, but there won’t be no fuckin’ crazies tryin’ to put holes in him neither.”

“Butch knows that trick now,” Vic said, crossing his arms. He rolled a rock around with the toe of his boot, thinking. “What if we just… kept driving? How long you think before we reach Canada?”

“I can’t leave my mom. I’m the only one she’s got,” he said. Vic turned around, closed his eyes, and pressed his forehead against Amy’s roof. All he needed was one good idea— “What the fuck?”

Victor looked up at his friend. Belch was slowly leaning away from Amy, his fists clenching. Vic spun around to see whatever it was, preparing to punch someone.

Henry was back on the porch, the screen door slamming shut behind him. He turned to face them, slow, stiff, like he was thinking. Vic’s eyes fixated on the red spots on Henry’s face, watching as they slowly ran down his face, becoming red streaks. As soon as Vic realized that it was blood decorating his boyfriend, the panic was immediate.

“Vic, no…”

He forgot Belch was even there as he moved towards Henry, a singular train of thought taking over the whole station: Henry’s hurt.

He was going to cup Henry’s face, push back his hair, and find out where the wounds were – find out how to fix them. Vic didn’t see the knife in Henry’s hand, at first. Belch did, but he might as well have been shouting at a wall, because Vic didn’t hear him over the sound of his own anger rising. Just as soon as he realized what Henry’s intentions were, it was already done. The blade moved left to right, leaving a red smile in its wake.

Victor felt nothing worse than the prick of a mosquito bite. It was the heat in his throat as he desperately tried to pull another breath through it that told him something was wrong.

Belch was screaming, but it was far away. Blood crept between Vic’s fingers as he tried to push it back in. He felt it moving through his throat, rushing to the newly created opening, trying to escape. It flew out of his mouth as he choked on it, speckling Henry’s face even worse than before.

Victor stepped away from Henry, landing on his hurt leg wrong. His knee buckled, and his ankle twisted. His headache was screaming when his skull collided with firm soil, but then numbed itself to nothing. Lying there face down in the warm grass, it occurred to Victor that he was dying, and it had been Henry that killed him.

It just didn’t feel real. His body was working a wonderful magic, trying to lull him to sleep. Everything felt dull, and dreamlike. Even Butch looked like some child’s nightmarish take on himself. His skin sallow and eyes sunken, looking more Frankenstein than police officer, with orange pom poms instead of buttons on his uniform. If Victor could’ve felt anything, he might’ve felt fear. But even that was lost.

“That Hank. Always did like putting his little sword in the throats of pretty boys. Just like his old man,” Butch said, his voice sounding off with its playful tone. He crept closer, moving in large, slow jerks. “I know what you think about me, you disgusting, dirty little thing. You tease and taunt, but you always run away. Now you can’t run, can you?”

He smiled a hideous grin, teeth as sharp as a shark’s beneath the layers of rot. Victor’s scream was as much blood as it was air. The Butchenstein would’ve lunged for him if Belch hadn’t hit the ground between them, Henry following after. Vic realized that he had to have tripped over Victor’s body, but he didn’t feel anything at all.

Henry threw a punch, and Belch caught it, and then twisted Henry’s wrist. Henry let out a feral cry, and brought his other hand down. There was an odd squelch – the same sound a cantaloupe made when being cut open. When his hand came back up, it was covered in blood, the glint of the knife barely visible beneath it. Henry was bringing his knife down again, and again, and again, but Victor could only hear it.

His eyes were fixed on Butch, who was leaning over him, pulling his hands away from his neck.

“Now it’s my turn to eat you, pretty boy.”

But the world had already turned a bright white for a few seconds, and then, it went black.

[nowitsdarkfic]

chapter eight (the man in black knows all)

November 24, 1988. Buffalo, New York.

The moon is extra big and full tonight and that's very kind of her to do so, given there was a rather decent sized blizzard over the past two days and now the whole entirety of upstate is blanketed in a fine layer of pure white. I'm out here with my parents to spend Thanksgiving with my aunt and uncle and my cousins, and now I'm bunking in the little twin bed in the upstairs guest bedroom.

It always reminds me of all the times I'd come out here during the summer time when I was in school. I'm looking out the window at the moon and her big white full belly shining through the glass at me.

Speaking of full bellies… stick a fork in me, I'm done. I can't believe I ate the whole thing. Again. Alas, this is Thanksgiving with the Bellardinis: we do it 'til our stomachs are distended and we have to curl up to take a nap or run around like a bunch of brats. Even with my shirt off, I'm as warm as I'll ever be right here without the blankets covering me.

All that nice linguine with that decadent sauce with bits of sausage mixed in, all that lovely squash and zucchini with those tomatoes, that fresh baked bread straight out of the oven courtesy of my mom and my aunt…

And then there was that tiramisu cake and that chocolate gelato. Oh. My God.

I'm laying here in bed, flat on my back and my knees bent up from off of the mattress, with nothing more than my flannel bottoms because it's about ten degrees cooler in here than in the rest of the house and yet I'm willing to sleep with no shirt on. Come to think of it, I don't think they even changed the mattress because it's as bouncy as ever, if not more.

Since I'm alone again, there's a part of me that wants to reach down my pants and touch myself but I've had a lot to eat tonight.

Sadly, I haven't been able to eat that wedge Maya got for me the other day. Oh, well. Maybe when I get home and I'm absolutely starved beyond reason I can eat it. I still can't believe she stuffed me full like that. I also still can't believe she kissed me the way she did, either.

I think back to what she said about me in the latest edition of After the Watershed. I think I'm just overreacting when I confess that I don't know how to feel about it. I'm sure of it: Maya means well. She likes me and I should just accept it. At least it's not the messy kind of attraction with Marcia.

Or maybe it is. I don't know. There's still so much to Maya that I'm trying to uncover and it all feels like a vast ocean, more vast than the big feeling inside of me or the moon beams shining through the window to my right.

I roll over onto my side once I hear the bedroom door down the hall close. My parents went to bed, which means I can now fall asleep for myself. I reach up to switch off the lamp and, once the room is engulfed in darkness, I reach down for the blankets. I nestle down in this twin bed, with my head buried in the soft pillow and part of my hair already falling over my face like a curtain. I pull up my knees a bit and cock out my hips in order to relax my stomach.

I'm thinking of those little belly kisses she gave me after I laid down on the couch with my pants unbuttoned. There was something so weirdly intimate about those. Maybe it's because they were so far down, a mere inch over the belt. She was that close to either riding me or blowing me. As I'm laying here with my eyes closed, I've got one arm around my waist to touch myself there, right below my belly button.

Yeah that was definitely it. Ugh. Good night.

At some point, though, I wake up again because I'm so thirsty.

And the moon has barely moved at all in the sky: the window is still brightly lit as if it's the day time. I lay there on my back, staring up at the pitch black sloped wooden ceiling overhead with some of my hair spead across my face. I still feel full but I need something to drink.

I slide out from under the covers because I want them to stay warm when I come back. I risk it still with no shirt on as I'm heading out to the hallway.

The stairwell still smells of bread and tomatoes as I'm making my way down to the kitchen for a glass of water. The whole house is dead silent as I walk through the dark dining room and the entrance of the kitchen. I click on the light and, after I blink several times, I look up at the clock on the wall above the fridge.

How the hell is it only a quarter to one.

I head for the cupboard for a clean glass and some of the water out of the fridge.

A quarter to one. It's gonna be a long night.

As I'm taking a drink of water, I'm still thinking about those belly kisses. I could use some more of those.

I fill up the glass again with more water.

I'm alone again, and I don't want to really risk it with everyone sleeping so near to me.

I turn towards the entrance of the kitchen again when I swear I see something moving about in the dining room. Something black and cavernous.

Oh, no.

I don't have my dream catcher with me, either.

Oh. Oh NO.

I freeze right there on the spot when I feel the hair on my arms rise up on end. Chills run over the skin on my chest. I hold still right there as the figure makes its way towards the entrance of the kitchen. The bright lights over me cast over it so I can see it.

But there's something else here. Tendrils of curly dark green hair floating past the shoulders and cradling a pallid, gaunt face. It's like the female version of myself with her willowy body wrapped in an oversized emerald green cloak and matching dress: the sleeves bag around her elbows which in turn emphasize her lanky arms, so lanky that they're sparse with flesh.

And my grandmother thinks I need to gain weight: I'm chubby compared to this little lady.

Her long boney fingers curl towards her chest as if protecting herself from me. Her hollow cavernous eyes gape back at me like the eye sockets of a skull.

“You need me,” she whispers to me, her voice echoing over the walls and the linoleum as though she's a mile away.

“I do?”

“I'm the lady you need and fear. From the heart of the machine.”

The folds in her dress seem to glow with a bright neon green light, much like the lights in the heart of downtown Seattle and the ones across the lake from Rochester. The green carries with it glimmers of blue and yellow; I catch the shape of the heads of bolts around her waist, as if her skirt had been fused to her body by mechanical means.

“The machine?” I try to follow along; it's late and all I want to do is go back to bed. I don't want to think right now. “As in—robotics?”

“Lonely boy,” she whispers to me, “darling lonely boy—tread carefully around the machine. Heed the warnings of the Man in Black.”

I shift my weight at the very mention of the Man in Black. I swear, the goose pimples over my skin have goose pimples sprouting up it's so cold in here. The warm smell of dinner from earlier has gone away. Cold and sterile, like the inside of a machine.

“Lady—” I whisper to her. “—is there a reason why?”

The Lady in Green seems to float around me towards the sink and the dishwasher. Moving my feet just a mere few inches, I follow the sight of her while keeping in place right there on the linoleum.

“The Man in Black,” she whispers to me, her knobbly fingers reaching out for me, “knows all—”

Her fingertips caress my face, and the sides of my neck, and my collar bones. The waves of her hair flow back from her head as though it's windy in here. Her full lips, which have like a pale green gloss over that pure ghostly white, loom in closer to mine. I still have the glass of water in hand as she nears me, as if about to kiss me.

“Heed—the warning,” she whispers again, “—of the Man in Black—”

Her lips brush against mine before she vaporizes into wisps of light green followed by nothing. The chills are still spread over my skin as I'm alone in the kitchen once again.

Without wasting another second, I head on out of there, switching off the lights right behind me.

I hesitate there in the dining room with the glass of water still in hand so as to let my eyes adjust to the darkness again. Once they do, I continue on back upstairs to the room. I hear my dad snoring in the room down the hall as I duck through the doorway. I shut the door and make my way back to the bed using the bright light from the moon still shining through the window. I take another big gulp of water before setting the glass down on the nightstand and crawling back under the covers.

I lay back onto my side and push my hair forward so it covers my face again once I've got my face in the pillow again.

I close my eyes and fall back asleep.

I wake up again, this time to an orange creamsicle colored sky and a heavy feeling underneath me.

It takes me a minute to realize that heavy feeling is me.

But I can't look down for examination of myself.

I can only feel the increasing weight of my body dragging me down towards the earth as if I gained hundreds of pounds.

I can hardly breathe. I'm like the center of the Sun, so heavy it's making me too hot.

Then over my head, within the soft swirling orange collecting and changing colors from orange to red to pink to white right before my eyes, a feathery plume of jet black shoots out and takes the form of the Man in Black. His massive eyes gape back at me from his pale withered face. His hair drifts up from his head as if he's underwater. Oh God, what does he want.

I catch the faces of Chris and Matt floating right behind him. They're like fleeting glimpses but they're there, looking on at me with worry before withering away into the pale orange.

“The boy,” he shouts at me in a voice so loud it hurts my ears. “You—the boy—” He clutches onto my wrists—at least, I think they're my wrists. I open my mouth to say something but I can't. My hands are starting to ache me from him holding so tight.

“The boy of water! The boy of water! THE BOY OF WATER!”

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN.

“THE BOY OF WATER! THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE!”

I shake myself awake to find myself back in the guest room again. It's still night as far as I can tell, except this time there's a bit of gray morning light shining through the window behind me. My hands are aching me, and then I realize I've had them shoved in between my thighs. They fell asleep.

I roll over onto my back and then shake them about over the edge of the blankets to get the blood flowing again. I hold onto the blankets as I lay there, still as warm as ever.

Just a dream. But I think about what the Lady in Green had told me.

That didn't sound like a warning as much as it did just the Man in Black yelling at me.

But the Man in Black terrifies me so much that anything he says should be serious business. Whatever it means, I should take it to heart when I make my trip over to Boston.

I'm also thinking of returning to the Northwest because I think I can find some more answers up there. I'm sure of it.

[pendragonfics]

The Tests of Time

Paring: Bucky Barnes/Reader

Tags: gender neutral reader, POV reader, reader is a mutant, and also a secret agent with S.H.I.E.L.D., slow build, storytelling, radio communication, compliant with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, featuring Winder Soldier too, Bucky has issues, a few words in some languages (Russian, Polish), set both before and after Captain America: Civil War, heavy angst, fluff. 

Summary:  Maybe it was because you were the only one who had connected the dots - who had figured out that the angry angel and the flighty one-handed man were the same person.

Word Count: 3,975

Posting Date:  2017-04-24

Current Date: 2017-06-16

You were a second-generation immigrant, but that didn't stop those cruel words. Even if you were American, there was just something about you - perhaps it was the appearance, or that name of yours, or even what you brought to eat for lunch in your Tupperware - which made those nasty comments and grubby handed people treat you like you were a second-class citizen. Just because you spoke another language at home behind the closed doors of the apartment. Just because your blood came from the cold and the snow and had a deep history of being wrapped in things greater than itself.

There was a sort of story, a folk tale that your grandmother had told your mother, and a story that your mother had, and she'd told you both accounts as a child. It was fantastical, phantasmagorical for bloodlines to have a story that was passed on, and this one was no different.

There was the narrative of Grandmother Svetlana, who on the way to return from town selling coal in the colds of the Polish winter, had been lost in a snow drift too far from the house for a search party to have found her.

She would have died there, but her stories told of a man, with wild eyes, the only words she had shared were her thanks, and his curt Russian accent calling her a 'zgubione kaczątko '. Lost duckling. He had been walking by, wearing one of the military coats she had seen on Russian soldiers by the boarder, and had shed it to share once he had taken her from the snow.

That coat was the only reminder of that day - a remnant of a sort of fairy-tale. Grandmother Svetlana's story was of a man who had saved her life; she would always talk of him as if he was an angry angel, who had delivered her to her doorstep from the grasps of the old Gods, who had disappeared before her father had answered the door. The memory of the angry angelic man stayed with her, even when she began to lose her mind following the death of your dear Grandfather.

Your mother's story was different. She was not being protected by someone in her account, but rather, protecting.

She'd just uprooted her mother and father from living in Pennsylvania, to move to a little place in the East of Minnesota, in a more manageable property for her ageing parents, and, to find a place where she could raise the child she was carrying with a stable living. Not a soul knew of the father, of who he was and did and did to her, and she kept it that way. It was a long drive over, and wanting to take it in two days, Marcia _______ had stopped at a cheap motel overnight, had settled in her ageing parents to sleep, and took a little walk through a corn field.

Not in her greatest imagination had she thought to come across a wounded man. Eyes marked with bruises and black dust, they were staring deep into her soul, the shade of blood mottling his paling skin, a silver space-age hand, dark blood soaking the black clothes he wore.

Your mother said of him uttering in a mixture of Russian, French, Czech, Polish - and only because of your mother's heritage, she knew what he was speaking of, what he needed. Luckily again, your mother was a nurse, and before too long, he was cleaned up.

The man had noticed her abdomen protruding through her shirt, and had commented, his words rusty from years of disuse, "You are with a child. You help me, when I could hurt you ... why?"

As a kid, you'd always found that part fascinating. Perhaps it was because it was you he was talking about, or maybe because your mother was such a trusting and compassionate woman and would defend those who could not defend themselves with her strength and every breath she had in her body.

Apparently, she'd just replied something along the lines of being a good person, and had given him a sandwich she'd had tucked in her jacket. She took him to the motel, and buying out another room, gave him a bed for the night. Her story ended there, as the next morning, the bed was bare, with no signs that a soul had been there except the military-like made bed, and a do not disturb sign crushed by a firm grip.

It was those stories you grew up on - while the kids your age played with fashion toys and watched Spongebob Square-Pants, you had a cloth doll who wore a thick jacket, and had a silver hand and a mask of black dust covering his eyes. Even though you were eight, your drawings would be full of the mysterious man who had graced both the matriarchs of your family's lives. Maybe it was because you were the only one who had connected the dots - who had figured out that the angry angel and the flighty one-handed man were the same person.

 ---

But that was all in the past. Therapists called it a phase, and some people thought it to be an obsession, or a really messed up idea of idealising something that happened years and years ago. Heck, even a fortune teller your grandmother knew thought you were odd, but perhaps it was because four years later you found yourself locked in a secure area for super powered people. You know, slightly-more-serious-than-personality-odd kind of odd. It was then your mother visited you in the S. H. I. E. L. D. facility, and confessed that your father had been a delinquent metal-manipulating mutant, and she had run off with you to keep you safe from him.

It was the heartfelt heart-to-heart that swayed, S. H. I. E. L. D., and they decided to train you up, and take you on as a young apprentice, becoming a part of a response team for super-powered people like you. After all, you were the tough one - with an indestructible body that, from many simulations, had withstood the force of skyscrapers falling onto you.

And that, apparently, gave you the authority to lead. And leading - that was something you did very well.

It was a Sunday, and with not many stores open around the area, you found yourself and your response team in the quinjet, waiting around on the outskirts of Washington D. C., chilling near the Patuxent River. Your team was a mis-match of Coulson's on a good day, filled with the people who had nowhere to go, and nothing to do better than standing up for the little guys, and giving them a fresh start. A few people were mutants like you, a few ... not so much. Just last week you took in three teens from an accident and give them a place to live and not go mad with their new abilities. Work perks.

But now, you were just sitting. Lounging. Waiting. But it was then your radio was patched into - only S. H. I. E. L. D. personnel knew the code - and you were, to your surprise, on the receiving end of the iconic voice of Steve Rogers, the Captain America.

"Agent, ______, come in, Agent ______, 4-10?" his all-American voice crackled over the static connection.

Instantly, you felt your limbs at odds, reaching as fast as you could for the radio. "10-4, Agent _______ speaking. Is this Captain Rogers?" You ask, and before he can respond, you add, "We're at radio silence, nobody is coming in on our outward calls. What is going on?"

You hear a dark laugh at his end, but instead of his voice replying, you hear another legendary superstar of the workplace, Natasha Romanov. "Agent ______, an enemy named HYDRA has infiltrated S. H. I. E. L. D. 10-33, the Winter Soldier has risen from the dead, and is currently attacking the base in Washington D. C. Roger."

Without hesitation, you speak up, "10-200, Rogers, Romanov?" you ask, and clicking the connection off, you call your team together, and make organisations to drop the camouflage, raise the shields and make way to the location that was only a quick ride into the city.

"S. H. I. E. L. D. HQ, Agent _______." Romanov replied. "We're counting on your unit. Make contact on arrival. 4-10?"

You nod, radioing back in. "10-4. Over and out, Captain Rogers, Agent Romanov."

---

The ride in was quick, but what was even faster was the melee before you. The Helecarriers you were supposed to be assigned to almost a week ago were falling from the sky, or in the process of it. You could see where one was coming down, falling into the water before the headquarters. But if your eyes were wrong - and they were rarely wrong - you were watching a man in all black dragging the good captain Rogers from the depths of the lake.

"Report to Agent Romanov immediately," you delegate, turning to your team. "It's a long shot, me trusting you, because even if you are sleeping HYDRA agents, we've had a good run. Don't go shooting each other." You give them a sly smirk, "Don't want to blow this shit-show higher than it is already."

At that, you left your team to their devices, tracking the footsteps of where the Winter Soldier himself stood. You had a relatively normal childhood beside the obsession with the guy from your mother's and grandmother's stories, and tracking full grown men in the woods was not a big hobby of yours. But, it seemed fruitful - as in the clearing, stood HYDRA's weapon of mass destruction, the man himself.

But it's then it hits you, and you realise.

The man with a silver space age hand who wore all black and covered his face in black dust, he was no myth. Your family had met him. Just like Natasha Romanov had told you of the Winter Soldier, the guy who had shot through her body on a mission years back. Because both people were real, and they were the man standing before you.

"Отойди!" He growled. Back off.

Putting two hands up, you cursed yourself for wearing the standard outfit for S. H. I. E. L. D. agents, surrendering to the man who was reaching for a weapon that he didn't have at his waist. Like your mother, and her mother, you had never left your roots, and dabbled in bits and pieces of Slavic languages, and knew what he was getting across.

"Я здесь не для того, чтобы причинить тебе боль," you cry out, your hands raised high and your boots being quaked in. I'm not here to hurt you. Even though you can't get injured, thanks to your mutant gene, any blow he lands on you will probably hurt like hell, and you're sure that you're scared. Heart racing as he walks toward you, you panic. "You know me - Ты знаешь меня!"

He stops still.

"I was not born, and you met a woman who looked a little like me, oh my god, you probably don't remember - uh, years and years ago. She cleaned your wounds and gave you a bed to rest, ah...Я не родился, а ты -,"

"-the Nurse," he whispered. His eyes were sad, and lost. "She gave me a Бутерброд. My mind is full of sludge, I can't remember much, but - the lost duckling, who looked like you as well ... and the man on the bridge, I knew him too, and he knew me..." He breathes. "Why can't I remember?"

Slowly, you lower your hands. "You mean Captain America, uh, Steve Rogers?" you ask him. "I know people who can help, we can help you remember. I work with Steve Rogers," it wasn't technically a lie, since you were both linked through the S. H. I. E. L. D. workplace. "My name is ________," you reach a hand to him, but the spell is broken.

"Нет!" No! He cries, taking a step back. "Не трогайте меня, я раняю все, что я касаюсь!" Do not touch me, I hurt everything that I touch!

You can't help but laugh at that, albeit lightly not to spook the Winter Soldier. "Nothing can hurt me, Енот." You grin. Raccoon. "You have a name, that you know? Or am I just going to call you piękny chłopak?" Beautiful boy.

He shakes his head. "The man on the bridge ... he called me Bucky." He sighed, wiping a hand over his face. "Дерьмо." shit. "How do I know I can really trust you, though, little _________?" He asks.

You were a second-generation immigrant, and even if you were American, there was just something about you - which made people often ask you that question. Perhaps it was the appearance, or that name of yours, or even what you brought to eat for lunch. You take a step toward Bucky, reaching a hand out to his once more.

"My mother raised me on stories of you, nice stories where you did no harm to my blood relatives, Баки - Bucky, you can trust me because I am not the men who did this to you. I'm American born. I'm from a line of survivors, Bucky." Your hand touches his, and feeling the cool skin on his hand, you wrap your fingers around his palm, between his fingers. "I want to see if I can rub my luck off on you. Позволь мне спасти тебя." You plead.

Let me save you.

He nods, slowly, eyes grazing behind you to see if anyone had followed you. But there was not a soul there, and you did not expect him to agree.

"Do you have a safe house?" He asks, those eyes of his fluttering around like fireflies in mid night. And just because your blood came from the cold and the snow and had a deep history of being wrapped in things greater than itself, you nodded. "Take me."

---

In the safe house you stayed with him, until he decided that he had enough of U.S.A., and together, you arranged with contacts you knew from working on the field for a place to live in Romania. It took time, like everything does, to get settled, to help him wind down from all the drugs and the training, but without it, he was cold turkey, sometimes better off with them at small dosages than without. Some nights, you would be by his side, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a rag after his nightmares, other nights, locking yourself in the closet to get away from the thrashing and crashing that followed the outbursts of the soldier with no general.

But you’d read up on him – after all, after you’d gone AWOL, S. H. I. E. L. D. did all it could to have you taken care of remotely. Your mission wasn’t like any other you’d been on, what, with extraction of mutants and people in the field, but something a little closer to home: you were his career. If you weren’t there making sure that James Buchannan “Bucky” Barnes was taking care of himself, HYDRA could come in and swoop him off to being a machine again.

Unluckily for you, you were doing something that was much closer to home than ever: falling in love. While Bucky took his time, slowly filling a backpack up with memories and fragments of moments in notebooks, you couldn’t help but fall deeper and deeper for the man who you watched heal before you for years after the Washington incident. You both looked nothing like you did back then – you’d let your hair grow out, and he had taken to facial stubble, and tying his hair back with your headbands.

But came the day when the safe house was invaded, by Captain America, no less, and all three of you were running for your lives because who would know, by being a good guy and not leasing yourself off to become a service to government agencies (from your experience, often swayed by the likes of HYDRA) you were then a bad guy, and were running off.

But somehow, you were split up, and you’d lost the Star-Spangled Man, and your Bucky. You were left with the choice of running back into the fire (literal machine-gun fire) to be with the super soldiers, or, to just keep running. You were halfway across the country by the time the Director of S. H. I. E. L. D. found you, and halfway out of your comfort zone when you heard that everyone who had sided with Steve Rogers had been locked up in a secure facility for their ‘crimes’. But after your medical check-up, and a debriefing, you were given the keys to one of the bunks aboard the Helecarrier.

For the next four hours until touchdown, you cried, not only thinking of how you’d screwed up what mission they’d assigned to you after you had latched onto James Buchanan Barnes, but how you’d left him just like that in Romania, and that this was it. Just like the generations before you who had a moment with him in which that was passed down to the next person, this was your story. That you fell for the guy, brought him out of that dark place in his head … but left him in the instant the fire was reigning.

Thank goodness that the bunks were sound-proofed.

---

It’s three months later and you’re still without a new mission, just spending all your time in the S. H. I. E. L. D. facility that you started all this super-powered journey on. Every once in a while, an Avenger would pop on in, and say hello to the personnel in the area, do their job and such. If they saw you, they didn’t see Agent ______, like they would have before the incident, no, they just saw the mutant who had lived with the freaking Winter Soldier, man! for a year, or give you a sad sort of side-eye if you were in the same room. But you didn’t live with the Winter Soldier. You’d lived with Bucky.

The Winter Soldier was HYRDA’s creation. Bucky Barnes was not, and would never be.

Bucky, he liked to eat ice-cream, but didn’t like caramel. Plums were his favourite fruit, but if they weren’t in season, he’d be okay with grapes, or mango. He’d dream of 1942 too often, waking up to be disappointed to be stuck in a boarded up flat on a continent he wasn’t born on. He liked rock music, though, how you’d dance to it, and you’d get him from the table, and dancing along to The Clash or whatever was on the radio. He liked to shower with the door locked, and would often leave his towel out, and you’d have to trade it through the barely-open door to him. He liked to watch you as you read a foreign book in the moonlight, trying to understand another language, and how he’d end up teaching you bits and pieces of new words.

It was a Sunday when you were organising your room. You’d seemed to have gathered a collection of books, all replacements of the ones you’d left in the safe house in Romania, but they were all over the place, and so was the bed, and the closet – ugh, you didn’t even want to think about that mess. But with the door open, you were pumping the original recording of Should I Stay or Should I Go, and with your hair tied up, you delved into the housework.

But not a minute after the song began, there was a knock at your door.

“Daisy, if you’ve got a problem with The Clash, you know where you can shove it,” you shouted above the punk band’s guitar riff, but turning, you didn’t see Daisy Johnson, fellow agent, but the form of the guy who haunted your dreams, with his getting-too-long hair, and the eyes that knew your freaking soul and that silver prosthesis that you’d held when dancing with him back in Romania. “Bucky?”

A smile grew on his face. “________.”

Immediately, you turn to music off, and whatever was in your hands they were dropped, and rushing toward him, you wrapped your arms around his waist, holding him tight, inhaling the scent that was completely Bucky. “Oh my gosh, I had no idea if you made it out, there were no reports on you … I – I was so worried about you!” you cry out, your head pressed against his chest. You weren’t sure if there were tears coming from your eyes, or if there was just a little precipitation, but you couldn’t help it. “Wait, your arm, it isn’t the same –,”

He nods, stepping back from your embrace. “I lost it in the fight with Stark, and then King T’Challa of Wakanda built another one for me. It’s not heavy, it – it almost feels like a real arm. Except, it’s silver,” he jokes. Your hand glides over the metal, seeing the way it’s plated, how it works.

“Remind me to send the King of Wakanda a thank you note,” you muse. You meet Bucky’s gaze, and hurriedly, you add, “I mean,” you drop your hand from touching his arm, “It’s nice. Looks good. How are you, Bucky?”

There’s a pause. Then, “It’s not the same without you.” His eyes follow the room behind you, taking in the half-cleaned mess of a sleeping area you’re calling home as of now. “Wait, is that – that’s the book we were reading before they framed me, right there,” he points to the shelf across from the bed where the book with the green cover is lying down. “Don’t tell me you gave up and bough the English edition.”

You shake your head. “Nope, it’s in Romanian.” You grin.

Bucky beams. “I’m between jobs, what, with the Avengers on suspension, and, ah, if you’re not too busy, maybe we can read it together sometime? I –,”

“I’m between missions,” you interrupt, almost incredulous from the parallels. “I’m free now, if you are.”

---

It’s three years later, and you’ve been cleared for the Avengers Initiative, and so has Bucky, and you’re both living in the facility in upstate New York like two homeless people with superpowers beyond their wants and needs. You’re often tempted to finally make some sort of contact with your father, but after meeting the Maximoff twins, and realising who their father was, you just gave up. Erik Lehnsherr could just go to hell. You’re also often tempted to dig deeper into your history despite knowing your maternal side’s ongoing meetings with Bucky Barnes throughout the ages, but you don’t.

Somethings are left better buried.

In the Avengers facility, it’s quiet in the afternoons when nobody has anything on. There are birds, and the trees turn colours in the seasons and the chitter of chatter and friendly banter from the warriors who assemble to protect the world flows out through the open glass doors, the open plan living area something from the dreams of middle class citizens, or just those who are like Mr. Tony Stark, and built it all himself.

You’re sitting beside Bucky, a glass of orange juice in one hand, his in the other. The sun is warming your back, your head upon his shoulder, and surrounded by friends, this moment if almost a nirvana. You’ve been to hell and back with James Buchanan Barnes, sure, but the hell-scape of the cold and snow that your blood had been born from, and his turned into had ended. Sure, you were a second-generation immigrant, and he was a guy torn from his home to become something he was not, but you had made it through the fire. The tests of time.

[mbtizone]

Kathryn Merteuil (Cruel Intentions): ENTJ

Dominant Extroverted Thinking [Te]: Kathryn is confident, decisive, and wants to be in control of everything and everyone around her. She uses people as pawns and every move she makes is calculated. She is good at developing plans to get what she wants. Kathryn is a high-achiever and has established a pure, successful reputation for herself. Because she needs to be in control of her environment, she projects a certain image of herself because her status is very important to her. She needs people to continue to love her and respect her so she can carry on pulling everyone’s strings. Kathryn is intelligent and admired by people who don’t know the real her. She gets very good grades and is student body president. club at Manchester, the school she attends. She takes a younger girl under her wing and aids her in planning her curriculum at Manchester, all as part of a plot to get revenge on her ex-boyfriend, who dumped her, and is now setting his sights on Cecile. When Kathryn realizes that Sebastian is truly in love with Annette and she can no longer control him, she manipulates Ronald into going after him.

Auxiliary Introverted Intuition [Ni]: Life is a giant game of chess to Kathryn. She always stays multiple steps ahead of her opponents. She’s a master manipulator and knows exactly what needs to be done to accomplish her mission. Sebastian needs to seduce Cecile and open her up to promiscuity, which will hurt Court, who is interested in her because of her chastity. While she’s corrupting an innocent girl for the sake of her plot, she’s simultaneously manipulating Sebastian into ruining things with Annette. She hates that he’s falling for her because he used to worship her. If he’s in love with somebody else, she can’t control him, so she convinces him that Annette has made him weak and ruined him, effectively destroying their relationship. She’s cunning and uses her insights to get her way. She doesn’t go after Court directly, and instead tries to get to him through Cecile because if she makes a move on Court, it could be traced back to her, which she can’t have. She knows that Sebastian will take the bet because she knows that it makes him crazy that she’s the only person he can’t have. Kathryn is immediately able to sense that there’s something going on between Ronald and Cecile…

Tertiary Extroverted Sensing [Se]: … and uses that to her advantage. Kathryn is opportunistic and able to revise her plans as she discovers new potential in her environment. Physical appearances and luxury are important to Kathryn and she enjoys looking good. Kathryn struggles with bulimia because she’s so preoccupied with looking perfect. She is fashionable and extremely well-groomed. Kathryn is highly sexual and takes great pleasure in her various exploits. She gets a thrill out of participating in risky schemes. Kathryn uses cocaine regularly (possibly as a way to cope with her inner turmoil) and keeps her drugs hidden inside of a crucifix, which she wears around her neck. When she makes the bet with Sebastian, she decides that she wants that “hot little car” of his, because it’s a status symbol.

Inferior Introverted Feeling [Fi]: Kathryn abides by no moral code. She has no regard for the people around her and only cares about her own personal objectives. She lacks compassion and empathy, and is unbelievably selfish. Kathryn looks down on people who express their emotions and feelings. She berates Sebastian for being weak when his conscience begins to leak through. When he begins to show signs of morality, she feels betrayed, because she always thought they were two of a kind and, as a result, decides to make Sebastian feel ashamed of his feelings for Annette and ruin his relationship with her. Kathryn has trouble dealing with other people’s emotions and despises the facade she is forced to put up in order to uphold her squeaky clean reputation. Because she’s so concerned with her status, the false image she projects to the world causes a certain amount of self-loathing, because she isn’t being true to who she really is. She does feel strongly about double standards within society, but plays the game anyway in order to remain on top.

Enneagram: 3w4 8w7 5w6 Sp/Sx

Note: Kathryn is an extremely unhealthy character with narcissistic, sociopathic tendencies. She could be viewed as an unhealthy ENFJ. She’s manipulative and uses people’s emotions against them to advance her own goals. Everything she does is part of a plot to get back at Court for breaking up with her, which could seem Fe. However, I think her motivation comes from a need to be in control of her environment (as opposed to having hurt feelings about being dumped) and get ahead in life, which jives more with Te. She’s not acting from an emotional place, but because she’s realized she can no longer control, so now she feels the need to ruin him.

Quotes:

Sebastian: Who are you calling? Kathryn: Cecile. [Sebastian hangs up the phone.] Kathryn: What are you doing? Sebastian: Before we go through with this, I just want you to be aware of the damage we’re going to cause. Kathryn: I’m aware. [She picks up the phone and he hangs it up again.] Sebastian: Are you really? I mean, we’ve done some pretty fucked up shit in our time but this… I mean, we’re destroying an innocent girl. You do realize that. Kathryn: Court Renolds is going down and if you’re not going to help me, someone else will. Sebastian: You amaze me. Kathryn: Eat me, Sebastian. It’s okay for guys like you and Court to fuck everyone. But when I do it, I get dumped for innocent little twits like Cecile. God forbid, I exude confidence and enjoy sex. Do you think I relish the fact that I have to act like Mary Sunshine 24/7 so I can be considered a lady? I’m the Marcia fucking Brady of the Upper East Side, and sometimes I want to kill myself. So there’s your psychoanalysis, Dr. Freud. Now tell me, are you in… or are you out?

Kathryn: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. When I get through with her, she’ll be the premier Blow Job Queen of the New York area and poor little Court’s heart will be shattered. Sebastian: Why go through Cecile? Why not just attack Court? Kathryn: Because if there’s an attack made on Court it could be traced back to me. I can’t allow that to happen. Everybody loves me and I intend to keep it that way.

Sebastian: What’s your plan of attack? Kathryn: I rat Cecile out to mommy. Mommy goes ballistic and ends their relationship. Boo hoo.

Sebastian: Sounds great… I love you too. Kathryn: [mocking Sebastian] “I love you”? My God. You are completely pussy-whipped. Sebastian: Stop it. Kathryn: What happened to us? Sebastian: Nothing’s changed. Kathryn: Yes it has. You’re in love with her, you don’t love me anymore. Sebastian: Come on, Kathryn, it’s just a bet. Sebastian: [after being kissed by Kathryn and pushing her away] This is ridiculous. Kathryn: What’s ridiculous, dear brother, is you! Look at yourself, look at what you’ve been reduced to! Have you given any thought to what’s going to happen when school starts? Not only are you dating Miss Seventeen Magazine, but she’s also the new headmaster’s daughter. Before you know it, you’ll be giving campus tours with her. Oh, wait, her father doesn’t know about your past, does he? I doubt he’d let his little princess be seen with the likes of you. Hmm… It’s so disappointing to see Annette’s manifesto was a total sham. Though, as student body president, I feel it’s my sworn duty to tell him. [picks up the phone and starts dialing] Sebastian: Put the phone down. Kathryn: Shh, this will only take a second. Kathryn: [after Sebastian grabs the phone and slams it down] Hmm, quite the predicament you’re in. Sebastian: I don’t care what you say. The fact of the matter is that I was planning on telling her everything this afternoon. Kathryn: Oh, that’s right, I forgot, you’re so in love. Do you honestly believe you’ve done a complete 180 in the few days you’ve known her? Well let me tell you something, people don’t change overnight. You and I are two of a kind. At least I have the guts to admit it. You were going to leave school a legend, now you’re going to leave a joke. Sebastian: Well, I’m willing to take my chances. Kathryn: Don’t do it, Sebastian. Not only will you ruin your reputation, you’ll destroy hers.

Kathryn: You’re just a toy, Sebastian. A little toy I like to play with.

Kathryn: You’re telling me you had the chance to fuck her and you didn’t? God, are you a chump.

Kathryn: My advice is to sleep with as many people as possible. Cecile: But that would make me a slut, wouldn’t it? Kathryn: Cecile, everybody does it; it’s just that nobody talks about it. Cecile: So, it’s like a secret society? Kathryn: That’s one way looking at it. [under her breath] Kathryn: Fucking idiot…

Sebastian: What makes you think I’d go for that bet? That’s a seventy-thousand dollar car. Kathryn: Because I’m the only person you can’t have and it kills you.

Kathryn: Oh, she’s crying. Wittle baby’s upset by the big bad book. Sebastian: Shut up. Kathryn: What’s your problem? Sebastian: Nothing. Kathryn: She’s really getting to you, isn’t she? Sebastian: If you must know, yes. I don’t know what to do. I can’t stand that holier-than-thou bullshit and yet, I’m completely infatuated with her. She made me laugh.

Sebastian: What shall we toast to? Kathryn: To my triumph. Sebastian: It’s not my choice of toast, but it’s your call. To your triumph over Annette. [Kathryn laughs] Sebastian: What’s so funny? Kathryn: Silly rabbit. My triumph isn’t over her. It’s over you. Sebastian: Come again? Kathryn: You were very much in love with her. And you’re still in love with her. But it amused me to make you ashamed of it. You gave up on the first person you ever loved because I threatened your reputation. Don’t you get it? You’re just a toy, Sebastian. A little toy I like to play with. And now you’ve completely blown it with her. I think it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. [drinks champagne] Kathryn: Tastes good. So, I assume you’ve come here to make arrangements. But unfortunately, I don’t fuck losers.

Kathryn Merteuil (Cruel Intentions): ENTJ was originally published on MBTI Zone

[childrenofhypnos]

Chapter 26: Like Tea

It now felt like days were passing instead of hours.

Ares followed Emery and Wes around for the rest of the day, asking them questions about their professors, the curriculum, what the campus looked like in the spring, and even how well the air conditioning worked when it got hot in the summer. Though he ate almost nothing, he’d seemed to come to a conclusion about the food quality himself (“excellent!”), and stopped random students and staff passing by to ask how they liked living there.

The hairs on Emery’s neck stood on end the entire time, the need to check over her shoulder so fierce it felt like her insides were on fire. It was only the outpouring of Dream pressure from Ares, not a result of any nightmare—or doppelgänger—coming closer to her, but rationality couldn’t pierce the paranoia. It didn’t help that she’d lost her edge around Ares. Anything smart or sarcastic she could’ve said died inside her with the worry that he’d glean some hidden information in it. He was a trained spy and interrogator. He could probably get information from anything she said. Hypnos’s balls, he could probably get information from anything she didn’t say.

Wes didn’t seem as perturbed, but then Wes never seemed perturbed. She couldn’t talk to him with Ares around, so she couldn’t ask what else he knew about his uncle that she didn’t. He must have known Ares worked in Argos, and that was why he hadn’t been thrilled to see Ares in Grandpa Al’s office. But if he had known, why hadn’t he said anything while they were fixing Ares’s room? Or on their way to weapons training? Did he think she wouldn’t give anything away without knowing where Ares was from?

Ares finally left them after dinner—he wanted to supervise some of the student hunter missions, and Wes and Emery weren’t allowed off-campus—and the first thing Emery did while they still sat at their table was pull out her phone and scroll through the texts from Joel and Jacqueline that she’d been ignoring all day.

From Jacqueline: What’s taking so long? I thought there was a rush on this thing—let’s go!

From Joel: operation gateway to heaven is a go, meet in kirk lobby

“Joel found a place we can practice,” Emery said. “We have to meet up in Kirkland.”

“Tonight?”

“If Ares is going to watch students on missions every night, when else would be a good time?”

“What if the mission ends early and he comes back?”

“Then we stop and take care of it.” Emery put her phone down. “Did you know that he was with Argos?”

“I—yeah, I knew, but I—I didn’t know if he was here for that or if he was really just here for the review.”

“Even if he was just here for the review, you didn’t think it would be prudent to tell me your uncle was a spy? And that he might, I don’t know, pick up on something? You cannot get on me for thinking my grandpa’s gonna be cool with knowing about my doppelgänger when you do stuff like this.”

Wes held his hands up and lowered his voice. “I get it. I’m sorry, you’re right.”

Emery narrowed her eyes at him until she felt he’d appropriately submitted. “Is there anything else I need to know about him?”

“He’s a huge softie.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“He knows how to torture people.”

“Got that too.”

“If he’s here for Klaus, we might be shorter on time than we thought.”

“Then we need to go right now and find Jacqueline and the others.”

As Emery stood from the table, a familiar hum roved up behind her.

“Emery Ashworth, just who I wanted to see.”

A new sort of unease tickled the back of Emery’s neck. She turned slowly to see Lana approaching through the atrium tables.

“You sound serious,” Emery said.

“I am serious.” Lana smiled.

“You’re smiling.”

“Is there something wrong with that?”

“You wanted to see me and you’re smiling. Are you going to take out my kidneys or something? Lana. Do you run a black market for dreamhunter organs?”

Emery could practically hear Wes rolling his eyes.

Lana stopped close enough that no one at nearby tables would hear them, and said, “Marcia said you got Klaus to talk. If he’s got a soft spot for you, I need to exploit it.”

“For what? We’re kind of busy.”

“I need to know about this sleeping sand he makes. And I need to give him a little to keep him awake. If you come along, I don’t have to blackmail him into telling me what I want by threatening to withhold his drugs.”

“That’s dark,” Wes grunted.

“So you agree,” Lana said. “Wonderful. I’ll only need Emery for this one, Wes, I’m sorry. Though I do encourage you to try to break into my labs again and see who comes running this time.”

Wes stared at his plate, eyes wide.

“I’ll meet you back in Kirkland,” Emery said, and followed Lana out of the cafeteria.

~

This time, Emery entered the Fenhallow Underground without any sneaking around. She followed Lana into the elevator in the administration building, then through the bowels of the Underground. It was still empty, and as they passed through the main hub with the many hallways branching off, Emery said, “Is this place always so dead?”

“There are other entrances,” Lana said, “and many other sections that are fully staffed. Still, that may only mean two or three people in an area at a time, so yes, it’s usually fairly empty.

The staircases they had to descend to get to the cells had a track on either side that clamped onto the wheels of Lana’s chair and carried her to the bottom. Emery followed behind, and when they entered the hallway of cells, they found a new guard at the door, one of the full-time dreamhunters. He frowned at them.

“I don’t think she’s supposed to be down here,” he said, nodding at Emery.

“Calm down, Luke, she’s for leverage. There are cameras, they’re going to know she’s with me.” Lana waved him off. He stepped to the side and let them into the door.

The lights came up inside the cell. Klaus was slumped in the corner, one knee pulled up to his chest, hands limp on the ground, skin covered in sweat and his eyes glazed over. He looked even more thin and gaunt than before, like someone had started vacuuming out his insides, but stopped halfway through. His breathing was fast and shallow.

Lana paused at the door. Emery had never seen Lana shocked before, but she was now, and she hurried to pull an eyedropper of lavender liquid from a small box she’d been holding on her lap. She hurried to the Plexiglas wall, to where a tray had been installed to pass food and objects to the other side without opening the door. She pulled the tray out and held the eyedropper up.

“Klaus,” she said, firmly. His head didn’t move, but his eye turned upward, as if pulled to her face by a magnet. “You need this. We found it with your things. There’s only enough for three drops in each eye, so use it carefully.”

She put the eyedropper in the tray and slammed the tray back through the wall.

In the blink of an eye, Klaus was on his feet, fingers scrabbling against the metal for the eyedropper. His pupils were dilated, his cheeks and neck flushed. The hand holding the dropper shook so badly he had to cup his other hand around the tip, as if hoping to catch any liquid that leaked out. He tilted his head back, pulled down his right eyelid, and calmed the quaking of his limbs enough to squeeze the dropper above it. When the first drop hit his eye, he sighed and stood very very still for a long moment. He did the next two drops, then switched eyes and did the last three.

Afterward, he collapsed next to the empty bedframe. He still looked gaunt, but not quite so lifeless.

Had it been the three years on the run that had done this to him? Or the sleeplessness? Or the sand—the liquid—whatever it was he’d made to keep himself awake? Maybe it was some combination of all three. Emery pitied him. She didn’t want to, but there it was: regardless of whether he was telling them the truth, he didn’t deserve this. No one did. And instead of at least easing some of the pain, the Ward was letting him go into withdrawal and holding his drugs for leverage.

“You’re going to answer some questions for me, Klaus,” Lana said. “The more you answer, the sooner we’ll give you more of that stuff. The less you answer, the longer we’ll keep it away.”

Klaus let his head fall back as he looked up at them. His expression was smooth for a moment until his eyes focused, and then it crumpled in.

"Lana? Lana--what happened?"

Lana paused looking unsure, then seemed to register the question. "Oh--oh, I forgot, you weren't around." She patted the arm of her chair. "Doppelgänger. You think you have them pinned and then whoom--severed spinal cord. They don't normally hurt their hunters. I think she knew it was the end. Had a couple surgeries, doctors are still looking into options."

"They could dreamform you something."

"Fixing or replacing a spine with dreamforms is almost as difficult as fixing or replacing a brain. And I’d want to do it myself—I’m not having someone build me a new spine just to have it disappear when they die. But I don’t have the time, with all my research piled up like it is. Surgery and therapy will do for now.” Lana sighed, and smiled. “Still, I killed her. Killed her dead.”

Klaus smiled back. It filled out his face a little more, brightened his eyes. “Lana the Dreamkiller. What questions did you want to ask me?”

“You’ve been the one trying to break into my labs, yes?”

“Not trying,” Klaus said cheerfully, “I have broken in.”

Lana’s smile went rigid.

"Your alarm system is good, though; even I couldn't avoid tripping it a few times."

"It's a Van Der Gelt," Lana said. "We've found over half a pound of fine-grain, high-grade sand missing since your spree started. Half a pound, Klaus. That's enough to put a herd of elephants to sleep for a week. You can't be shocked that the Ward went after you. Dump that into the ventilation system of city hall and it'd be considered a terrorist attack. What were you possibly doing with it?"

Klaus motioned to Emery. "Are you okay discussing this in front of the students? I thought the Ward didn't want them to know about all the dirty parts of dreamhunting."

"I can handle it--" Emery started.

Lana held up a hand. "Enough with the jabs at the Ward. Why did you take the sand?"

Klaus sighed and grabbed the edge of the bedframe behind him. Pushing himself up seemed like an arduous endeavor; his arms still shook slightly, and when he finally got his feet beneath himself, he stood as if his bones were toothpicks. He approached the Plexiglas and leaned heavily against it, resting his temple near one of the small circular holes cut into it.

"I needed it for what you just gave to me. I needed sand to make it. I could have gotten the sand myself, but I didn't want to risk the dreamers by skinning their dreams, so I thought I'd skim it off a source that retrieved it with all the proper safety measures."

"You want to tell me how you altered the composition of sleeping sand to keep you reliably awake for so long?"

"You sound surprised. I thought you'd have figured it out by now."

"Humor me."

Klaus scratched at his scruff. "I'd rather not say, actually."

Lana just stared at him. She held up the empty eyedropper.

Klaus's expression turned wary. He said, "I steeped it. Like tea."

"Steeped it…in what?" Lana frowned. "Water? That does nothing. We both know this."

"Not water. Well, not water from the waking world. You've seen the lake, haven't you?"

"The lake. In No Man's Land? The Waking Lake?"

"Yes."

Emery looked between the two of them, nonplussed. "Are you talking about the lake in the Dream? Beneath that big snowcapped mountain?"

"That one," Klaus said. Then, when he noticed Emery's confusion, said, "They haven't taught you about that, have they? There's a reason that lake is the only body of water in the No Man's Land of the Dream. The No Man's Land represents the subconsciouses of all the people currently alive on Earth. That lake, then, is the conscious minds of all of humanity. The more people living on the planet, the bigger the lake gets. You sat there for a while when you were in the Dream, didn't you? It felt more peaceful than the rest of the Dream, right? Felt a little safer? The windows didn't come as close."

"Yeah, I guess."

"A lot of hunters who stumble into the Dream are too weary to notice by the time they reach it, if they ever do." Klaus looked back to Lana. "It was a simple equation. Waking Lake water keeps you safe from that digging at your mind that the Dream does--how it tries to get at your memories, to shove you so deep into your own subconscious you can't get out. Sleeping sand is purely a product of dreams and nightmares. When you soak it in water from the Waking Lake, the water absorbs those properties of the dream or nightmare, but cancels out that clawing effect that puts you to sleep. It clears your mind. Keeps you mentally springy. Like a dreamkiller; no sleep required. And that’s where I got the name: sleeping sand, waking water. Good, right?”

Lana rubbed her temple so hard it looked like she was trying to dig her brain out.

“Trust me, it took a lot of experimenting to figure out the right amount of water for the dose of sand. The two have to balance each other. Take too much pure water outside the Dream and you have visions like some kind of oracle."

Lana carefully tucked both sides of her hair behind her ears, breathing deep, gathering herself. "Klaus. Please tell me you didn't drink the water of the Waking Lake."

Emery froze. "Wes and I drank it," she blurted out. "When we were there--we'd been in the Dream for so long, we drank some of it. Is that bad? We didn't know."

Klaus shook his head. "You'll be fine. You'd been heavily battered by the Dream's influence before that, and you didn't gorge yourself. You had enough to get back to the right mental state." Then, to Lana: "Of course I didn't drink it, not unless I was already in the Dream. I put it in my eyes. But yes--sometimes we have to make do with the test subjects we have on hand."

Lana said nothing for several long moments, apparently lost in thought. In her silence, Klaus looked at Emery again and smiled. She expected a vapid, drug-haze smile, but he seemed lucid. Lucid, malnourished, and still in desperate need of a real shower.

"So the sand really was just for you, for the waking water,“ Emery said, "And that's why the State was after you? Because they thought you were going to use the sand to do something terrible."

"Yes, exactly," Klaus said, shaking his head no. Lana still hadn't looked up.

Lana didn't know. Lana wasn't supposed to know. Klaus held up his right hand. Blood was caked beneath the nail of his index finger, and the nail itself had turned purple and looked in the process of falling off. The shock of seeing it threw Emery off; it took her a moment too long to realize it was the result of torture.

Ares Montgomery had already been down here. He had already come to see Klaus, but judging by Klaus's calmness, he hadn't found anything out.

Yet.

(Next time on The Children of Hypnos —> Horror Movie Tropes!)

[childrenofhypnos]

Chapter 24: Research

The second half of October settled over the Sleeping City in a blanket of dark clouds and cold winds. The sun crept late over the skyline in the mornings, and at night the ever-burning lights of the city seemed far away in the gloom, despite the skyscrapers surrounding the campus on all sides. The great glowing sign—FIND HOME HERE, CHILDREN OF HYPNOS—that overlooked the city became a great white will-o’-the-wisp in the sky, unreadable and untethered from the earth.

In the days following the visit to the Sandman, the hairs on the back of Emery’s neck prickled for every possible reason. Small sounds behind her. Movements in the corner of her eyes. The heater beneath her dorm room window turning off suddenly in the middle of the night, just as it always had. Most of the time she could tell herself she was paranoid, that her doppelgänger—if it was even actually active—would not yet be outside the Dream. But even when she knew that beyond a doubt, she still hurried a little faster to somewhere that she could press her back in a corner.

If her doppelgänger wasn’t active now, it would be after all this. When she wasn’t paranoid, she was wondering if this was part of the reason the Insanity Prime began so soon: because so many dreamhunters feared it. Because they’d grown up fearing it, and it wore on them until it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Wes, on the other hand, had gone about his days as if nothing had changed. He’d always been stone-faced, but this was a new level. He faced their classes, their classmates, and their teachers with the same frown he always had. He had no reason to be paranoid about a doppelgänger, but it was like he wasn’t worried about the other things Klaus had said, either, and whether or not those were true. The dreamkiller coup. The cover-ups. The withholding of information they should be learning. He sat with her and Edgar during breakfast, sometimes joined her and Joel and Jacqueline for lunch, but at dinner she caught him always walking back to Kirkland from the Crossing with a boxed dinner, watching his feet instead of the path ahead, eyebrows furrowed together.

Marcia had returned to teaching classes. She was angrier than ever, and was taking it out on the students by running them into the ground during fitness training and yelling in their ears during weapons work. Emery tried to catch her after class like she had before, to ask how many of Klaus’s claims she believed was real, but Marcia disappeared before Emery had a chance, and every other time Emery saw her, she was in the Crossing, surrounded by too many people to get her alone or to speak privately.

Emery was extra glad now that she’d pushed to include Joel, Jacqueline, Kris, and Lewis in on the research. They were the only ones she could talk to about it now. She hadn’t told Edgar anything new they’d found out; he didn’t need to know, he wouldn’t be able to help, and there was a chance—much bigger now than Emery would have guessed a month or two ago—that he would spill everything to Grandpa Al. The others didn’t have the same allegiance to Grandpa Al, not more than any other student on campus, and all of them knew it was important enough not to tell anyone else.

“We still don’t know how much of what he said is true.” Emery sat on her bed, back in the corner, hugging her pillow, while Joel sat close enough to hold her ankles. Kris sat in her desk chair, Lewis leaned on the desk beside her, and Jacqueline paced the room.

“He sounds like a conspiracy theorist,” Jacqueline said. She was in full Vice President mode, which meant zero nonsense taken and her complete focus set on solving the problem at hand.

“So you don’t believe him?” Lewis said.

“Oh, no.” Jacqueline snapped to a stop, hand raised. “I completely believe him. The dreamkillers lied and feared the possibility of their own powerlessness so much they overthrew an efficient dreamseeker government? Seems legit to me. I have no idea what the dreamseekers might have known about doppelgängers that caused all of this, but I believe it one hundred percent.”

“Jacqueline Fenhallow, conspiracy theorist,” Lewis said.

Kris gently hit his knee. “Jacqueline isn’t a conspiracy theorist.”

“If Jacqueline believes it, I believe it,” Emery added.

Lewis held both hands up. “So do I. Have I ever bet against her?”

“But what about your doppelgänger?” Kris said, her voice small and her eyes huge, and Emery just wanted to hug her. “Will you need help with that?”

“If it’s active, I can’t have help with it. Doppelgängers tear apart people who get between them and their hunter, the same way a normal nightmare will attack someone who gets between them and their dreamer.”

“It’s not supposed to happen until later, though,” Lewis said. “Isn’t this too early?”

“Yep.”

“So you don’t know what’s going on at all.”

“Not really, no.”

“And the plan is…?”

“Try to find what Klaus was talking about with the dreamseeker notes about doppelgängers. See if we can figure out what might have been cut out, then figure out if it has anything to do with why my doppelgänger is active.”

Joel, who had been quiet until then, looked up suddenly. “When?”

“Well…as soon as I told you guys.”

“So we’re helping.” It wasn’t a question; Joel said it with relief.

“Wait.” Lewis looked from Emery to Jacqueline, as if Jacqueline had some other answers for him. “Does this—your doppelgänger isn’t going to come after us for this, right? Because we’re helping you.”

Jacqueline shot him a nasty look.

“No,” Emery said. “At least, I’m pretty sure. Klaus said it hasn’t left the Dream yet, and even if it had, it’s more like…you have to physically put yourself between it and me. I don’t think doppelgängers care if you help me look some stuff up in a library.”

“Oh. Well. Good.”

“Let’s go, then,” Joel said, standing up and pulling Emery’s ankles.

Sliding off the bed, Emery glanced at her phone. “It’s nine thirty. You really want to start researching this late?”

“We’ve already wasted a lot of time,” he said.

Jacqueline was tapping away at her own phone. “I’m telling Ver that I can’t hang out tonight. Already texted Jager to meet us at the library, too. Kris, you’re in charge of snacks.”

“As always,” Kris said, beaming.

“Lewis, you get coffee.”

“As always,” Lewis replied, rolling his eyes.

The three of them marched out the door, not looking back to see if Emery and Joel were following. Joel had stopped tugging on Emery’s ankles, so she gently pulled her legs from his grasp and stood up, too.

“I figured you would help, but I didn’t think you’d be so…eager,” she said.

Joel rubbed the back of his head. “I don’t really care about the cover-ups and whatever happened with the Hypnos State. I mean, it’s interesting, and I want to know the truth, but if I don’t know, it won’t bother me. But I don’t want your doppelgänger to be—I don’t want you to have to—” He groaned. “All I’m trying to say is I always thought I was going to be useless when it came to your doppelgänger, but now I can actually help.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. Wait, seriously about the helping? Why wouldn’t I be serious about the helping?”

“No, are you serious about always thinking you were going to be useless.”

“What else would I have thought?”

Emery put her head in her hands and laughed. “It wasn’t what you thought. I didn’t know you thought about this at all. I thought the day division students never really thought about Insanity Primes or doppelgängers or anything.”

“Oh.” There was a pause. “You do when you care about someone who has to think about them. You’re my best friend, Em—I want you to be around for a long time. I know you’re awesome and nothing’s ever going to beat you, but if I can keep you safe, I’ll do whatever I have to.”

Order keeps us safe.

Emery hugged him, pressing her face into his shoulder. He put his arms around her immediately.

“You know I love you, right?” she said.

“I had a guess.” Joel trapped her head in the crook of his arm and kissed the side of her head. “I love you too. Let’s go be nerds.”

~

When they got to the library, Wes was waiting for them inside the front door with Ridley. She was holding an armful of banana nut muffins from the Crossing, carrying a backpack twice the size of her torso, and smiling like they were about to have a sleepover. Emery shot Wes a look; he shrugged and said, “You brought your friends, I brought mine.”

They found a table on the third floor, near the windows, where no one could sneak up on them behind a bookshelf. Kris, Lewis, and Joel had Fenhallow’s databases pulled up on their laptops while Emery, Wes, and Jacqueline amassed a stack of reference books. Ridley flitted between the books and the computers, unable to stay in her seat for more than a few minutes, taking breaks to make sure everyone always had a muffin or one of the sandwiches Kris made, or enough to drink.

“Has anyone found anything yet?” Emery said, head in one hand and a book as thick as her arm open in front of her. “All I’ve got is A History of the Hypnos State, Then and Now, and by ‘Now’ they mean the 1940s and world powers trying to recruit dreamhunters to fight in World War II. Back then everything they knew about doppelgängers was all like, carnival science. Phrenology and stuff.” She pushed the book aside.

“I haven’t found anything beyond what we already know,” Joel said. “Floating hair, bad temper, shows up during the Insanity Prime.”

Emery kicked Wes under the table. “What are you reading all frowny like that?”

Wes lifted the book. The front said Dreamseeking: The Pioneers of the Mind’s Frontier. “The first person to open a gateway was a dreamseeker.” He began to read. “‘One eyewitness reported Guinard holding her hands out, fingers clawed, as if to pry open the air. When she drew her hands apart, the fabric of the waking world followed her fingers, like curtains drawn back, leaving between them a dark entrance flanked by columns identical to those outside the justice building in the square she walked through each morning.’ This was in eighteen seventy-three, in France. According to this, Marie Guinard opening the first gateway was the inspiration for most of Fabian Fenhallow’s teachings. She was the one who taught him how.”

Jacqueline sighed. “I could have told you that.”

“And it doesn’t help us much,” Emery said.

“In class, Professor Lenton said it was a dreamhunter.” Wes flipped through a few more pages of the book. “Jonathan Arrington.”

“So either he lied or he was misinformed.”

Lewis shook his head. “Lenton doesn’t lie about facts. He would have been misinformed.”

“Then he’d have to be misinformed by the Hypnos State.” Wes said. “Why would they lie?”

“You mean besides because he was a dreamhunter, and the whole curriculum here is cherry-picked? Probably because Jonathan Arrington was an aristocratic white guy and Marie Guinard was a black woman and the daughter of slaves.” Jacqueline spit venom at her computer screen, never looking up. “History loves white guys.”

“It’s a start,” Emery said. “What we’re taught doesn’t match up to what we find. I’m surprised they didn’t take that book out of here completely.”

“They have to leave some things here, or else it would look too suspicious,” Wes said.

Kris raised her hand.

Emery said, “Kris, you can just talk, you don’t have to be called on.”

Kris jumped in. “The day division students, especially the ones in sleep research, have to use books like those for essay and project references. The dreamseekers are a big topic because of their immunity to the Dream’s mental pressure. If they removed books like that, we would notice.”

Emery sat up. “Klaus mentioned references! He said there were references in some articles or essays that didn’t lead back to anything, like their sources didn’t exist. He was trying to find more material on doppelgängers and that’s why he couldn’t. Look through the sources on the articles, not the articles themselves. Find the ones that are about doppelgängers or the Dream, or are written by dreamseekers, and try to locate those.”

They went back to work. Emery abandoned the dustier books she’d found for more recent essays and anthologies. Some of them had pages and pages of references, printed close together and in tiny font. Most, thankfully, weren’t by dreamseekers. Emery copied them down anyway, the names of the articles and the names of the authors, handing them over to Joel, Kris, and Lewis so they could try to look up the articles.

After nearly another hour of looking—during which Ridley got out of her seat fourteen times, and Kris and Joel alone made it through the rest of the snacks—Lewis went still, staring at his computer screen.

“I can’t find this one.” He held up the paper with Wes’s scrawled handwriting and tapped a title near the bottom. Hunting the Hunters: The Origins and Effects of the Manifestations of the Dreamhunter Subconscious. “I’ve looked through the library’s online database and their catalogue of physical copies, and then I went and Googled it just in case it was never in the collection. It didn’t come up at all. Anywhere. The Google results didn’t return anything remotely close to what we needed—it was like they were scrubbed clean.”

Jacqueline took the paper from him. “Gabriel Fenhallow. This was written by my dad.”

Her voice was very small and quiet when she said it, and they all looked at her. Wes glanced at the paper. “I thought he was probably related, but I didn’t know the date on that article.”

Jacqueline nodded, tossing the paper quickly back to Lewis and returning to her book. “Yeah, he was a scholar, or whatever. After they took the school from us he got really into researching the Dream. Well, he was always into researching the Dream, he published things before they took the school, but…” Jacqueline rubbed her forehead. Emery had never heard her ramble so much. Emery had never heard her ramble at all. Jacqueline didn’t ramble. She spoke, and she demanded.

A moment of quiet passed before she seemed to gather herself, and said, “So, this one is missing. One instance doesn’t make a trend.”

Over another hour and a half, they found over a dozen sources that led back to empty space on the internet and a blank library catalogue. All written by dreamseekers, all with titles relating to manifestation of the Dream. The information in the essays and books in which they’d been cited amounted to little; none of it was about doppelgängers, which Emery suspected was the reason those texts themselves hadn’t been pulled. One instance didn’t make a trend, but twelve could.

“I get that we’re students,” Emery said, glancing at Wes, “and most of us aren’t going to amount to much more than cannon fodder, but there’s a lot more going on that they’re not telling us about.”

“Well, yeah.” Ridley stood at the end of the table, paused in the process of picking apart a banana nut muffin. She hadn’t sat down once in the last half hour. Her eyebrows were furrowed, putting her in a surprisingly close imitation of Wes’s natural expression. She’d definitely spoken, though Emery didn’t immediately put the words to her. They weren’t perky enough.

“What does that mean?” Emery said.

“Most governments operate like that. Transparency seems like it’d be nice, but I don’t know…I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff going on that I don’t want or need to know about.”

“You sound like my grandpa. Heirarchy is there for a reason. Order keeps us safe.” Emery mimed her hands up and fingers spread, like a fanatic at a revival. She slumped in her chair. “You’re probably right. If everything knew Klaus had taken the sand, that even one doppelgänger was active before it should be, that the dreamseekers might have known something and the dreamkillers chased them all out…there’d be hysteria.”

Especially if it got out past the Sleeping City. There were so many other Hypnos State training facilities across the world, not to mention the Hypnos Centers in every major city. If there was hysteria, if something happened—if dreamhunters tried to revolt—what would happen to everyone else? What would happen when there were no dreamhunters to hunt dreams?

They all went quiet. It was easy to believe lies were necessary when Emery wasn’t involved, but whatever had happened with the dreamseekers, and the doppelgängers, and the dreamkillers—that affected her life, now. It affected Wes. It affected Jacqueline.

“Everyone doesn’t need to know, but I do.” Emery took a deep breath, trying to still the panicking of her heart in her chest. “I’m going to go find my doppelgänger. I need to know for sure that it’s real, and if it is, I need to kill it. As soon as I learn how to open a gateway.”

“I can help with that,” Jacqueline said. Her eyes were bright, her fists clenched on the table. All that rambling had vanished.

“And we’ll have to find a place to practice that no one will sense what we’re doing. A den mother passing by my dorm room will be able to feel a gateway open inside.”

“I can help with that,” Joel said. “I already have an idea. Just have to check a few things.”

Kris nudged Lewis in the arm. “We can’t do much, but we’re a good cheering squad.”

Ridley kept picking at her muffin.

Emery looked at Wes. He shrugged.

“I’m in,” he said.

It was all she needed to hear.

(Next time on The Children of Hypnos --> The God Of War Comes To Town)

[childrenofhypnos]

Chapter 25: Mr. God of War

Joel reported back two days later that his location for practicing gateways was free and clear, but the moment he texted Emery, she also got a call from Grandpa Al.

“The Ward reviewer has arrived,” he said. “Bring Wesley with you and come see me.”

As the governing body of the North American arm of the Hypnos State, the Ward was required to review every Hypnos education facility under its watch. Once a year, a reviewer was sent out to examine the campus, interview students, faculty, and staff, and sit in on classes. Once a year, Fenhallow received a high rating and a commendation from the State for continued excellence. Their reports were released into public record to show everyone outside the State how their protectors’ educations were proceeding.

The reviewers were usually tight-lipped executive types from the non-dreamhunter divisions of the Ward. They were always trained in proper procedure, but they were always from different departments, like they’d been volunteered for the job.

When Emery and Wes got to Grandpa Al’s office, Emery thought for a moment that she had the wrong room. Grandpa Al was there, sitting behind his desk, with the window where it always was and his tea cabinet behind him, and Grandma Juno’s famous powder-blue teacup resting next to his nameplate. But there was another man in the room with him, dark-skinned, barrel-chested, and bare-armed even in the cold depths of a northern October. A silver-and-gold tattoo of a handaxe lined each forearm, the axe heads curving against his biceps and triceps. He was perched on the edge of the desk, arms crossed, huge frame heaving with laughter.

Emery could sense dreamkiller all over him, like a stench.

“Oh no,” Wes said under his breath.

“Come in.” Grandpa Al motioned them into the room. The big man wiped his eyes as his laughter quieted. He slid off the desk and stood to his full height, a little taller than Wes.

“Westerman!” He threw an arm around Wes’s neck and pulled him in for a quick embrace. His voice rattled Emery’s bones; until then, she’d thought Wes’s voice was deep. “I heard you’ve been getting yourself into trouble.”

“Hi, Uncle Ares,” Wes grunted into a large armpit.

“Emery,” Grandpa Al said, motioning toward their guest, “This is Ares Montgomery, the reviewer from the Ward. You’ll be showing him around campus. I had David send you his requests for his rooms and what he’d like to see.”

“I’m pretty easy, don’t worry.” Ares released Wes. He paused, picked at Wes’s hair a bit, looking unimpressed. “You need a haircut, boy. Your momma would be sick. I’ll give you one while I’m here. I’m great with hair.”

Ares himself had only the barest of black stubble across his head.

“Yeah,” Wes said.

“Ares works in the higher echelons of the North American Ward,” Grandpa Al continued, “so it’s very important we make a good impression.”

“You’re gonna make them think I’m lying about being easy, Al.”

Grandpa Al smiled. “I wouldn’t want Em to think it’s not a challenge.”

Emery said nothing. This was Grandpa Al’s nice-to-visitors voice. When he glanced at her, there was a hesitation, a searching, in his gaze. He was still hiding something. He was still looking for something in her. He still knew she’d lied.

To get away from that gaze, she brought up her email on her phone and found a message from Receptionist David with an itinerary and a list of requests for the room.

“We’ll need a little while to get all this ready,” she said.

“Take your time,” Ares said. “I have a few things to check into in the city.”

Grandpa Al glanced again at Emery and smiling encouragingly. For a moment she wondered if he knew she’d been in the library, and if he knew what she’d been searching for. He did have eyes all over campus, after all…but they’d been careful not to let anyone near them, not to speak too loudly, and they all knew how important it was not to tell anyone else.

Then he looked away again, and her insides uncoiled, and she grabbed Wes and hurried out of the room.

~

Emery had only given Ares's list a cursory glance in Grandpa Al's office; when they actually got down to trying to fill the requests, Ares was not entirely as easy as he'd advertised.

The bed was to be made up with hospital corners, curtains were to be taken off all the windows in the room and stored "where they would not be seen," and all furniture was to be removed except for the bed and the writing desk. The list specifically stated that the writing desk's chair was also to be removed. He also wanted a minifridge, four wall mirrors--one for each wall--and a throw rug that would cover most of the floor, all of which to Emery made the "remove the furniture" request seem a little silly.

Emery glared at the list as they got started. "Cucumber water. He wants a minifridge filled with cucumber water?"

Wes shrugged. "It's good for you."

"And why did he need the bed made up? He's not going to sleep in it! Why didn't that get removed, too?"

Ares was staying in August House, the building used for faculty, staff, and guest housing on the west side of campus. They moved the furniture out of the room first. It was only a few chairs and an old armoire, and they shoved them into the unused room next door. The curtains came down too, and got stuffed inside the old armoire. Emery had a rug in her own room that they hauled across campus. It wasn’t wide enough to fill the floor, but by that point she didn’t really care. To acquire the minifridge and its cucumber water, she had to enlist Joel’s help; his schmoozing with the cafeteria members procured a loaned minifridge from their break room and a pitcher of cucumber water they tucked inside once the fridge was hooked up.

Ares wandered in as soon as the fridge door closed.

“Very nice,” he said, looking around. “And timely! But it looks like I took up most of your morning. Why don’t we get lunch? It’s on me.”

It was all on Fenhallow, really, because they didn’t pay for their meals. Students and staff could check in to the food lines in the Crossing’s atrium three times a day for food, and as the reviewer, Ares was going to be handed whatever he wanted. As they entered the Crossing, the lunch crowds parted for them, watching Ares pass with scared reverence. They didn’t have to know he was the reviewer; his presence filled the room without a title.

The tattoos helped. Emery glanced at them every chance she got; the lines of silver and gold glinted in the fluorescent lights, drawing her eye. Most dreamkillers wore their weapons as jewelry or additions to their clothes, like the dreamhunter students did. Emery hadn’t even known they could be carried around as tattoos.

Tattoos. So cool.

“What do you kids do for fun around here?” Ares said as they sat at a table near the fountain with their food. He had a surprisingly small amount of food on his plate for such a big person—just a banana and a cup of yogurt—and Emery tried to remember if the other dreamkillers she knew are so little. She rarely saw Grandpa Al eat, and she’d never even thought about her parents doing regular human things. They were parents.

Emery started in on her salad, pretending it was ice cream, and said, “You know. Play soccer. Get chased by urban legends. Normal stuff.”

“I heard about the Fox. Urban legends like those are tough to handle even for a dreamkiller. They require a little finesse.”

“Well, you know…” Emery settled her elbow on the table and her chin on her fist. Lettuce threatened to fall from the tines of her fork. “Finesse is my middle name.”

“No it’s not.” Edgar appeared from nowhere, sliding into the seat between Emery and Wes, with nothing on his lunch tray but a bowl full of pudding. “It’s Morrigan.”

Wes made a noise that might have been amusement. “Morrigan?”

Emery scowled. “Shut up. It’s some Irish goddess thing, my dad wanted it.” Then she flicked Edgar’s ear. “Where’d you come from?”

“Algebra,” he said.

“Hi there,” Ares said. “You must be Edgar.”

Edgar looked up slowly, eyes wide and face flushed, like he’d just realized Emery and Wes weren’t alone. Even sitting down on the other side of the table, Ares dwarfed him. He stared at Ares with his pudding bowl held close to his chest.

“Yes, this is Edgar,” Emery said when it was clear Edgar wasn’t going to respond.

“I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you two before,” Ares said, “though I have met your parents. Zoya and Liam.” He shook his head with a good-natured slurp of yogurt. “And people think I’m scary.”

“We’re pretty impressive,” Emery said, deadpan.

Ares laughed. “That sense of humor you definitely got from your dad. Biggest smartass I’ve ever met. You’d never guess it by looking at him.” He looked between the two of them. Edgar was still staring back, cradling his pudding bowl. “The State’s still pretty interested in you, little guy. And you, too, Emery—in both of you. This has been generations in the making, down from your great-grandparents. The leaders of the Hypnos State think you might mean a whole new future for dreamhunting. One where we don’t have to worry about the Insanity Prime and doppelgängers.”

All the muscles in Emery’s back knotted up. She forced herself to chew and swallow.

Wes cleared his throat and said, “I think that might still be a few generations away, Uncle Ares.”

“Sure, sure,” Ares said, still smiling. “But damn, it’s nice to wonder.”

~

Ares left them after lunch, citing a message he’d received on his cuff from the Hypnos Center down the street, and returned half an hour into their weapons class.

Class started off with several of their classmates spouting the rumors that had already begun popping up across campus: that the reviewer was a grade-A certified dreamkilling badass, a man who could behead his enemies with a single punch before he drank the blood from their gaping throats, who made the Dream itself tremble in fear. Isaiah and Sam Howard spent ten minutes pretending to reenact Ares’s dreamhunting exploits, despite having no idea who Ares was. They only stopped when Marcia blew threw the gym doors and snapped at them to get to their training posts.

Emery had switched to the moving targets in the shooting range by the time the rippling pressure of the Dream swept over Hothram Hall, the feeling of an approaching dreamkiller. The class shuddered, lowering weapons. Marcia’s quick sweeping glare sent them into action again, but with less vigor than before.

The gym doors opened. For a moment Ares stood there, framed by the doorway, looking serious and gigantic. The class stopped again and stared. Marcia started walking toward him.

Then the widest, happiest smile broke over Ares’s face, and he threw his massive arms out to the sides and yelled, “MARSHMALLOW!”

Marcia collided with him. He picked her up and swung her around. Emery had never thought of Marcia as a “pick her up and swing her around” kind of person, but here it was, happening—and Marcia was smiling when Ares set her back on her feet.

“Everyone over here,” Marcia called. The students left their posts and made their way to the far end of the track. With that smile on his face, Ares really did look more like an enormous teddy bear than a grade-A certified dreamkilling badass. When everyone was gathered around, faces shiny with sweat and weapons tucked away or leaned on for support, Marcia knocked on Ares’s barrel chest with one fist. “This is my father, Ares Montgomery. He’s a weapons expert, and part of Argos for the North American Ward.”

Argos? Emery glanced at Wes, who was looking right back at her. Grandpa Al had only said Ares worked in the higher echelons of the Ward, not that he was in a special sector—and not that he worked for nightmares-kill-her-now Hypnos State intelligence agency Argos.  

Ares Montgomery was part of the Hypnos State’s CIA.

“Ares, like the god of war?” This was Veronica Lash, leaning on the staff of her naginata near the back of the group.

“That’s Mr. God of War to you,” Ares said, and though his voice rumbled like thunder, he was still smiling. Marcia, fists planted on her hips, beamed with vicious pride. She looked like a slightly smaller version of him, with lighter skin and freckles and that bright orange hair.

“Are those really your weapons?” called Sam Howard, coming out of his brother’s shadow for the first time that day. He motioned to Ares’s arms with one of his two daggers.

Ares gripped his right forearm over the handle of the tattooed axe. When he lifted his hand, the handle came with it. A soft murmur of appreciation rose from the class. Even with the new sense of unease tightening at the base of her spine, Emery couldn’t help but be impressed. The axe emerged from Ares’s skin fully formed, like he was pulling it from a pool of water; the skin it left behind was smooth and unblemished. He swung the axe twice in the air to let the blade sing, then dipped it back into his arm. The tattoo rippled back into place along his muscles.

“When you’re dreamkillers,” he said, “these are the kinds of things you’ll be able to accomplish. I’ll be touring your campus and classes until the end of the week, and I hope to see you all working hard to be your best.”

“Back to stations,” Marcia snapped. “You’ve got a Ward official watching you. Act like it.”

The class dispersed.

“Emery, could I speak to you for a moment?” Ares said.

Emery glanced at Wes. He hesitated until Marcia waved him off.

“I didn’t get a chance to speak to you alone yet,” Ares said. “I wanted to get it out of the way.”

Emery was one of the few students whose weapon training didn’t make her sweat much, but she could feel it gathering under her clothes.

Ares laughed. “Relax! You look like I’m gonna cut your head off! You’re not in trouble. I want to ask you some questions.”

He couldn’t know about the doppelgänger. She barely knew about the doppelgänger.

She shifted feet. “About what? The Sandman?”

“Right on the money.”

“Is that part of the review?”

“No—I’m here for that, but I was also sent to investigate the Sandman’s activities, as they were rather concerning to the State. I read the reports of your missions, but I’d like to hear your experiences first hand. It’s not that I don’t believe your reports, I just prefer to hear the story myself, if I can. Makes it easier for me to separate myth from fact. You can start from the first night you were assigned the mission.”

Emery looked around. “Right now?”

Ares rolled his shoulders, settling in. “Right now.”

She glanced back at Wes before she began. He was watching them from the training dummies, but looked away quickly. Would Ares ask him for the same story later? What if their accounts didn’t match up?

She explained everything she could remember, careful to leave out any mention of doppelgängers or Klaus following her. They had been careful to keep any of those details from their mission reports, too, and that gave her hope that they could keep their stories straight without collaborating first. She finished with Klaus’s appearance on campus.

Ares nodded through the whole thing, expression never changing. “And you and Wes went to speak to the Sandman after his capture, didn’t you?”

Emery’s heart skipped a beat. Beside Ares, Marcia shifted out of her stance and said uncomfortably, “We all know his name. You don’t have to keep calling him that.”

Ares regarded her for a long moment, then said to Emery, “Why did you want to speak to Mr. Warwick?”

“We—we thought, since he came back to campus to help cure my poisoning, he might answer our questions. We wanted him to explain why he was stealing sand from the labs on campus.”

Ares made a noise. “Did he?”

“Yes. He said he’s addicted to it. It helps keep him awake.”

Another noise. Emery couldn’t tell if he was approving what she was telling him or shrugging it off as nonsense. She kept her face very still, afraid the slightest twitch of a muscle would give away the second layer of the story and the fear that had sat, twisted in the pit of her gut, since she saw that picture of her doppelgänger.

If he knew about it—and if anyone would have means to know, it would be an agent of Argos—the Ward would have already served Emery her termination papers.

“Interesting,” Ares said at last, and the tension blew out of Emery like air from a leaking balloon. “I don’t doubt that claim, but he may have had ulterior motives for that sand as well. I’ll be speaking to the S—to Mr. Warwick while I’m here to see what I can learn about his activities. If you remember anything he might have said or done that seemed suspicious, I’ll be here.”

He turned to Marcia, grabbed her around the neck, and pulled her over to kiss the top of her head. “Dinner’s on me tonight,” he said. Then he marched toward Wes’s station, calling out, “Westerman! Knock that thing’s head off, I want to see what that nonsense hammer can do.”

Emery and Marcia were left alone.

“I’ve always wondered what we could call you,” Emery said, shaky. “Like Marshy, or whatever. I should have thought of ‘Marshmallow’.”

To Emer’s suprise, Marcia didn’t even bat an eyelash. Like her father’s appearance had corked her rage. She kept her voice low. “If you for a second think he believed you, you’re stupider than I thought. He won’t press you here because it’s public and he knows you’ve been through a lot recently, but there’s a reason the dean assigned him to you and Wes.”

“So they know there’s more to this?”

“The definitely suspect there was more to what Klaus was doing, yes. They may not know exactly what, but they don’t call in Argos members for drug addiction cases. Either they think Klaus was stealing sand to make some kind of city-wide sleeping bomb, or they think he was up to something else.

“But look—there’s a reason they send my dad specifically. He used to interrogate dreamseekers on their activities in the Dream. Trying to interrogate a dreamseeker is like trying to punch through a concrete wall.”

“Your dad does look like someone who could punch through a concrete wall.”

“Watch what you say around him,” Marcia said. “If they find out you knew about your doppelgänger and didn’t report it, they’ll find out I was the one who told you to hide it. And if they find out Klaus was involved, they’ll sentence him to dream death. He’s already teetering on the edge of that sentencing anyway. So keep your mouth shut.”

All the clever sarcasm in the world couldn’t quell the upset in Emery’s stomach. She felt like a a very small mouse hiding in a field inhabited by very large predators, and one wrong move would turn them all in her direction.

(Next time on The Children of Hypnos —> sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss)