#had to queue this so I would not be there to witness my own evils when it posted

[eustacedekolta]

where is the antinous calling telemachus 'puppy' content. where is it besides in my own head obsessively

[silence-burns]

Please Hate Me //part 48

Fandom: Marvel

Summary: Based on: “Imagine having a love/hate relationship with Loki.” by @thefandomimagine​ Who would have thought that babysitting a god could be so much fun?

Genre: slow-burn, enemies to lovers, banter, smut

Being the friendly neighborhood Spiderman always gave Peter a sense of pride and purpose, even if he could only share it openly with a few people. It was the kind of accomplishment that made all the hardships seem worth it in the end. It also made him happy in a way he couldn't really explain, but which involved a certain connection between him and the people he protected and got familiar with over the course of his superhero patrols.

But being the friendly neighborhood Spiderman was difficult in a neighborhood where no one was actually friendly in return.

Peter’s frown grew the further into the building he went. He was pretty sure it was the same one Loki and you had been renting an apartment in, and since he was a rather frequent guest, the neighbours should recognize him by now enough to at least return his greetings. 

That was what logic dictated, but Peter was pretty certain the people he met in the hallway only gave him a stern, disapproving look before walking past him quickly.

Peter was still frowning when he moved up the stairs, juggling the keys in his hand. Then he stopped. The unearthly screams of the damned were muffled, but most definitely coming from apartment number 13. 

Opening the door quietly, he slid into the familiar interior, now echoing with pain and suffering so loud, Peter had to cover his ears just enough to move to the root of all evil  - the bathroom. 

There were many inexplicable things Peter had witnessed happening in the apartment 13, and to some extent he got used to the thrill of not knowing what he'd face next time he paid a visit. Still, he hadn't expected to see various parts of a half-drowned owl sticking out of the sink filled thick with foam and bubbles. The owl must've struggled a lot, judging by the amount of water splashed on every possible surface, and the iron grip you and Loki still kept on the bird. Even if Loki was not wearing his usual features, it was still obvious who your partner in crime was.

The two of you froze. Soap and foam dripped to the floor. Loki's new form shimmered with a glamour only magic could achieve.

"Um, what are you guys doing?" Peter asked.

"Trying a new disguise?" The curtain of Loki's new long hair was luscious and utterly drenched. 

"No, I meant-"

"Listen, boy, as surprising as it might be for you, I'm still me, just with a less… criminally wanted image."

"Yeah, only if 'ME' stands for mischief embodied," you laughed.

"It literally doesn't. It's smooth, but it doesn't."

"Thank you, love. Now, could you please stop drowning poor Barbara?"

Loki sighed, but relaxed his grip on the bird just enough to allow it to peak its head out from under the surface and take a deep, long breath. 

Peter put his backpack down and meandered closer, dodging the growing puddles. "Why is there an owl in the sink?"

"Because I'm not allowing any fleas into my house," you firmly stated, pushing the wings back under the water. "And I don't care how many hours we'll spend here, I'm getting all the mud and dirt out."

Barbara clung to her dirt with all her might, but was overpowered and utterly misunderstood. Loki's new form was slimmer, but held the bird with his usual strength and a big dose of satisfaction. The smirk on his face was unchanged, even if the features were new.

"What do you need a disguise for anyway?" Peter asked, looking for a towel. "Can I go with you?"

"I'm afraid that as wildly chaotic and lawless as our destination is, you'd still be age-checked," Loki cooled his enthusiasm.

Barbara rushed to the towel and clung to it, loudly exclaiming what, precisely, she thought about her caretakers. Peter tried to dry her up as best as he could through her wriggling and screams. 

"Are you sure all this soap is good for her? Did you use any animal-friendly shampoo?"

Loki shrugged. "I doubt she can get any more dead."

The boy looked at the owl. The owl looked at the boy. The ruffled and drenched feathers were sticking out in all directions, uncovering a deep and no doubt fatal hole in her side. 

"You got a dead owl…?"

"It was not my idea," Loki groaned, casting the bird a disgusted stare in the mirror where he tried to change the shape of his eyebrows. 

"You're just angry because she likes me more," you laughed while mopping the floor.

Peter did his best to become invisible and not stare too openly at the ribs poking out of the feathers. Barbara puffed them every time he moved the towel around. The boy couldn't speak owlish, but the small, crittering noises she made were definitely far from happy.

"Where will you be going?" Peter asked. The owl sat on his knees and refused to move even after he finished drying her on the couch.

"To the largest casino on the Moon."

"Wait- There are casinos up there?"

"Not for kids your age," Loki said.

Peter slumped on the couch. "That's not fair."

"We'll be back before you notice." You threw the wet rag to the sink. "Of course, as long as a certain someone FINALLY decides what to wear."

Loki ignored your pointed look, too busy with changing his hair color. No matter how many little details he changed, he still struggled with finding a form he was sure would allow him to pass through the guards unnoticed and unrecognized. It was a shame he couldn't use his own - it felt like a waste to hide a face like his. 

The owl settled on Peter's shoulder, immobilizing him with the claws buried in his skin. But even from the couch, the boy could see the remnants of a hurricane that had thrown a rather alarming amount of clothes around the apartment.

"I thought these were yours," he admitted. The owl kept on looking through his hair with the utmost scrutiny and very little gentleness.

"I've settled long ago on what I'm going to wear. As for the diva himself, though…" you gestured around.

"I need it to be perfect," Loki said. "I have an important role to play, I can't just waltz in there and be recognized."

"You could go blond," Peter suggested.

"Ew, I don't want to look anything like my brother- Wait, that's actually a great idea."

Before any of you managed to protest, a full-grown Thor stood in Loki's place, watching himself from all angles in the mirror. The clothes no longer fit, so he dropped them and dove into the closet again.

"...what have I done?"

You patted Peter's free shoulder. Barbara nested in the crook of his neck. "Nothing they can prove. Hopefully."

*

"I am not my father's servant," not-Thor downed another beer. "And if I want to relax for just one evening, I shall!"

The tankard broke into tiny pieces as he smashed it on the ground. The loud applause and waves of laughter followed the very Thor-like outburst, making Loki relieved he was playing his role well. Even in a place like this, crowded with drunkards and gamblers from all over the universe, it was common knowledge what the god of thunder enjoyed.

Loki forced his glamoured face to remain cheerful as another tankard of beer had been brought to him, disgustingly sour and rough. He knew his brother well, and was sure he'd love it, but Loki himself would rather bite off his tongue than willingly digest any more if only he had an actual choice. He didn't, and therefore swallowed another gulp to the cheering from the crowds gathered at his table. The cards had been laid out, waiting for the victors to celebrate their success, and the rest to decide how much more money they were willing to lose to the god of thunder.

Seated in a great hall of marble and gold, Loki wished he could play the way he actually wanted to, which was the very same way that got him banned from the Moon last time he had visited. But for the sake of the mission, he stayed just above the line between bankrupting and winning money, which added to the body he was wearing, was just big enough temptation to keep his table busy.

Everyone entering the biggest casino on the Moon was inclined to try their luck, or at least take a quick look. It was a perfect, if rather boring, way of scanning everyone who entered the rich complex of buildings. The few fountains set further in the back murmured as they shot curtains of water. The air was thick and warm, making crowds of people inevitably gravitate towards them in search of any cold. With the tall, lush plants artistically winding over and between the pillars, it created little areas dotting the impossibly high hall, where the pleasant breeze gathered the people looking for just a moment of relief. You occupied a spot beneath the fountains, where most people would wind up going to at some point, and used it as a second checkpoint, just in case anyone missed Loki's, or rather his brother's table.

"Come on, does anyone else want to lose their fingers?" Loki heard you call out to the crowds.

Between their never ending sessions of losing and winning the money back just to lose them again, there were many individuals in need of a drink and a quick break from the gambling. How easy it was to grab their attention with a loud voice and a dead owl.

Loki stretched his neck and looked over to where you had sat down the bird with all kinds of currency piled between its claws and a single coin shining through the open ribcage. 

"All you need is to get the coin out, what's the matter, people? Is there no one brave enough to win all this money?"

Greed has always been a major deciding factor for the living beings regardless of race and the world of origin. The queue only rose in length as everyone wanted to try their luck. 

The table under Barbara grew more and more slick with blood from cut and bitten fingers. Pure malice shone in her dead eyes.

"What an awful creature," Loki muttered to himself. 

He could sense the stolen pin somewhere in the vicinity, but the casino was a loud and chaotic place, with multiple areas each centered around a different type of entertainment. More than an hour had already passed, but whoever was currently holding onto the pin, had not yet ventured anywhere near.

The two of you were slowly but inevitably running out of time. Odin might've been old and naive, but his spies' eyes reached far and wide. Loki had little doubt he would be interested in his favourite son's apparent evening fun, especially if he had that particular son with him, in the palace. Thor was a good cover, but not for much longer.

And then, by chance or a generous turn of fate, the shadows stirred and whispered. 

Loki cast the dice, not paying attention whether he'd won or lost. His money wasn't real anyway.

There - by the high palms stood the Hoarders, clad in the worn out rags and way too much jewelry. With their grey skin and long limbs, it was no wonder how easily they blended in with the shadows, using their skills to warp their surroundings and get in places others would consider highly secure. But their success was not measured in how many places they were capable of breaking in themselves, but rather how many individuals of all races they could easily befriend and bend to their will. Although, to be quite honest, Loki doubted the necromancer had needed much convincing. 

There were only three of them, each almost an identical copy of the others, but the Hoarders were encircled by both their partners for the evening and whatever scum tried to befriend them. That made it so much harder to approach them, but Loki was already thinking of a good excuse when he rose from his seat. People parted, giving him space - much more that would be granted to Loki's original form. 

The shadows whispered again. One of the ladies separated from the group, with an annoyed expression on her face.

Loki stretched, making sure to put his hands high. Once he caught your attention, he followed the lady at a leisurely pace.

"What do we do?" You asked once both of you entered the corridor and disappeared behind the corner. 

"She's got the pin."

One more turn took you in front of the ladies restroom. 

"Time for Plan C.” Loki began undressing quickly.

Holding a spare dress in your bottomless pocket was not the wisest choice, but it apparently paid off, even if fishing it out took you a moment. Your hands shook. Someone might have walked in on you at any time. While Loki would be doing whatever it took to get the pin back, you would be the one making sure no one interrupted him…

Like distracting the waiter that was now staring at both of you. Focused on the contents of your pocket, you hadn’t even noticed him approaching. Loki clad in only Thor's skin, blinked. 

The waiter turned on his heel and disappeared.

"I can already feel the gossip stirring," Loki shifted into a more feminine body, quickly putting on the dress. "They are going to eat my brother alive."

"Do you feel bad about it?"

"Oh, my heart is breaking into a million pieces," Loki assured you with a smile far too wide for that to be true. 

He kissed you quickly before disappearing into the restroom. 

Life felt amazing. Loki couldn't help but imagine the amount of trouble his brother would get once the word spread about his whereabouts.

His imagination was running wild, but the one thing Loki couldn't imagine was how, merely thirty minutes later, he'd find himself in the dungeons deep beneath the surface of the Moon, half-drowned, and viciously bitten.

[freudensteins-monster]

You Say “Mad Scientist” Like It’s A Bad Thing

Based on my own tumblr post: 3am thoughts… Has anyone written Jane Foster as a mad scientist, I mean like a villain?

Chaotic neutral Darcy and Jane featuring modern/human SHIELD Agent Bucky.

Available on AO3.

Content Warnings: Implied/Referenced Torture, Aftermath of Torture, Amnesia, Memory Suppressing Machine | The Chair (Marvel), Dark, Sort Of, Ambiguous/Open Ending...

In a world full of megalomaniacs, straight up supervillains, and fricking aliens, mad scientists were a dime a dozen. Dr Foster was one such scientist who was quickly moving from mildly irritating to SHIELD’s Most Wanted.

Dr Foster’s gimmick was portals. She first gained international attention when she claimed responsibility (via an untraceable Instagram account, @dr-mthrfckng-foster) for diverting LA’s 405 to a dirt road in rural Australia. Then came a string of impossible robberies – bank vaults and the private collections of the world's richest assholes stripped bare in seconds. Then she created a portal that caused an Indonesian typhoon to bear down on Wall Street, flooding the trading floor. And then she robbed a top secret government black site of some classified technology.

And that’s when Director Nick Fury made finding and stopping Dr Foster SHIELD’s number one priority.

Agent James Barnes had been stuck on suspension for two weeks, with two more to go, and was itching to get back into the field. He had way too much free time on his hands: he’d caught up on his sleep and everything in his Netflix queue. He’d cleaned out his refrigerator, done laundry and enough meal prep to last him until next month. He’d caught up with his family, cleaned his whole goddamn apartment twice, and now he was well and truly bored.

He was out for his fifth run of the week (and it wasn’t even Wednesday) when his work phone rang.

“Thank Christ,” he muttered before answering.

“Barnes.”

“It’s Hill. How’s the arm?”

“Fine,” Barnes grunted, rotating his metal shoulder irritably. “You got something for me?”

“Are you up for a recon mission?”

Usually he would have protested. He headed tactical units. He was an elite ‘first through the door’ kind of field agent. Not that he couldn’t be stealthy and patient - he’d been a sniper in the army for christ's sake - but going unnoticed in public was kind of a problem for him these days; he’d have to wear jackets and gloves in the middle of August to hide his prosthetic for starters.

On the other hand, his mother had been calling him every second day to feed him carb-heavy meals in exchange for help around the house, all while dropping not-so-subtle hints that he should start dating again. Requests for more grandchildren couldn’t be far behind.

“I’ll be there in thirty.”

Thirty-five minutes later Agent Barnes was back at his desk at SHIELD HQ perusing through the increasingly large file of one Dr Jane Foster. 

She had been a brilliant student and had earned a PhD in Astrophysics from Culver University by the age of 25. By all accounts she should have been one of the leading researchers in her field, and if doctoral programs handed out superlatives Dr Foster’s would have been “Most Likely To Win a Nobel Prize By 30”. 

Unfortunately for Dr Foster, and the rest of the world, she had been forced from that path by a sexist tenured professor who publicly denounced her theories, and the woman herself, as crazy, discredited her published work, and used his influence to ensure she was denied all of the more lucrative research grants.

When federal agents went to interview him after the 405 incident they found his office looking like a tornado had gone through it and the professor himself was nowhere to be found. A few weeks later he stumbled into a US Embassy in Russia after being found wandering in from the forests outside Vladivostok, half mad and still decrying the evils of allowing women into scientific fields.

He had been placed into witness protection and promptly admitted into a psychiatric facility under his new name, and was being monitored by several undercover agents in case Dr Foster felt like punishing him some more. 

Anyone else who had a part in ruining Dr Foster’s legitimate career was also under surveillance, as was her mother in London, a terrified ex-boyfriend in Boston, and a handful of known associates, though Dr Foster hadn’t been in contact with any of them in years.

SHIELD and other federal agencies had tried the usual methods of tracking down a rogue mad scientist. They tried to find out where her base of operations was, firstly by looking for any properties in her name, but Dr Foster had been a broke student with an impressive amount of debt (until the day she decided to wipe it, and the rest of Culver’s student debt, out). So if she had property it would definitely not be in her legal name and all but impossible to trace back to her. Then they tried to look for drains on the powergrid. However she managed to generate her portals - SHIELD scientists still hadn’t figured that out - it surely had to be using huge amounts of electricity. So far they’d found six grow labs and two server rooms running illegal god-knows-what, but no Dr Foster.

Agent Barnes read the file twice, reviewed all the transcripts of the interviews with her known associates, and came to one very important conclusion: she had an accomplice. 

As smart as Dr Foster was there was nothing in her academic history to suggest that she had a background in computer science that would account for the notable hacks and the untraceable nature of her activities. To add to that several interviewees had made passing remarks about her not having a cell phone for most of her academic career, and how she had zero interest in social media.

Two days later, after getting the okay for a field trip from Hill, Agent Barnes made his way to Culver University to speak to anyone who had even the vaguest recollection of Dr Foster. And that’s how he learnt about the intern.

He’d started by dropping by one of the physics labs where Dr Foster had spent most of her time, and by pure chance met a doctoral candidate who remembered her, and her intern.

“I think her name was Darlene. Glasses. Always on her phone.”

…which led him to the academic advisor who put the two of them together...

“Darcy. Darcy Lewis. She was actually a PoliSci major but left it too late and Dr Foster’s internship was the only one available. She had only been working with her for a few weeks before… before Dr Foster’s funding was revoked and she was asked to leave.”

...who pointed him to one of Darcy’s former professors…

“Average student. Good debater. Often late, and always had a coffee in her hand.”

...who gave him a few names of some former classmates who might remember her…

“Not the worst person to be stuck with on a group assignment. Pulled her weight. Obsessed with her stupid iPod.”

“I swear she lived off pop tarts and coffee. And not Starbucks either. Some stupid hipster chain.”

“Deja Brew. Serious problem. Went through one of those loyalty punch cards every week. Always complained about having to go home for the holidays and resort to big chain coffee shops.”

...which had him driving out to Darcy Lewis’ hometown, located a few hours south of Roanoke, Virginia, stopping first at the local high school to speak to the school principal…

“She’d always been good with computers but wasn’t allowed to use them at home for some reason so she spent a lot of time at the local library using theirs. We had to suspend her once. One of her classmates accused her of accepting payment from other students to hack the school’s records and alter their grades. Their grades were definitely getting altered, but we couldn’t get any concrete proof it was her.”

...who was able to find a photo of 16 year old Darcy in an old yearbook and told him what bar he could find Darcy’s mother in.

“She knows not to come to me if she’s in the shit, because I would call the cops in a heartbeat. Especially after that stunt she pulled before she went off to college…”

“What stunt was that, Ms Bennett?” Agent Barnes asked patiently, hoping he wouldn’t have to enable her alcoholism to get some useful information. 

“I made some mistakes, okay,” she slurred defensively. “I was having an affair with my boss. Don’t know how Darcy knew. She told her stepfather but he didn’t believe her. Then a few weeks later we went out to dinner for my boss’s birthday... all the tv’s in the bar start showing security camera footage of us falling into offices and motel rooms. Took her all of a minute to ruin two marriages and a law firm.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he replied diplomatically. “Is there anyone she could turn to for help? Her father, perhaps.”

“He died when she was about twelve. They were as thick as thieves,” she recalled with a tinge of bitterness.

“Was there any place that was special to them? Someone she might go to ground?”

She shook her head. “He used to rent this old cabin near the Catskills off a buddy of his every other year. Winter or summer, Darcy loved it. But it's long gone. Forest fire, I think, the year before his accident.”

Back in his car Agent Barnes reviewed the data points.

Dr Foster had a base of operations somewhere. Had to be private, and as best SHIELD could guess it must be off the grid and Dr Foster must be generating her own power.

Dr Foster was a space nut at heart, and while an abandoned observatory might be too much to ask for, she’d probably want somewhere with minimal light pollution.

And while they could portal anywhere, neither of them spoke any other languages and had no familiarity with any international locations, so they were most likely still State-side. (Dr Foster’s mother had moved to London when Jane was twenty-three, but she’d never found the time to visit.)

Miss Lewis was familiar with the Catskills area. A base of operations there could be very isolated.

Dr Foster was most likely building and modifying her own own equipment so she had to be able to access materials. Sure, she could portal to her local hardware store, but having Darcy drive into the nearest town for supplies would attract less attention.

Miss Lewis had an addiction to coffee procured from Deja Brew, a small hipster chain with only a handful of locations along on the east coast. While she could have found another way to get her caffeine fix, people were creatures of habit.

Miss Lewis was also known for stocking up on poptarts. In one of the only images of the other side of one of Dr Foster’s portals there was what appeared to be, if one squinted, a box of limited edition pop tarts on a counter.

He plugged it all into SHIELD fancy search engines and got a few results back. The most promising was an abandoned ski chalet turned abandoned research station halfway up a mountain, an hour drive away from an up and coming tourist town, whose main street hosted a Deja Brew cafe. They also had a small mom and pop hardware store, as well as a post office, and a grocery store that had still been selling pumpkin pie pop tarts around the time Dr Foster’s portal had been caught on camera.

Agent Barnes came to with a groan. The flesh of his shoulder where it met his prosthetic felt like it was on fire, and he was pretty sure he could smell fried wiring.

The research station had come up in SHIELD’s initial search for a potential mad scientist's lair, but had been dismissed for not using any power and for not sending back any heat signature readings. Perhaps they’d found a way to fool the scanners. Or maybe they just weren’t in the day the readings were taken. Whatever the reason, Agent Barnes had a good feeling about it. He filled his tank up at the nearest gas station and got on the highway, forgoing checking in at the Triskelion on his way past in favour of driving all night. He’d call Hill when he had something solid. 

** *** **

“Fuck…”

He willed his eyes open and came face to face with Darth Vader.

Barnes reeled back at the sound of the synthesized voice. “Who sent you? Who do you work for?! The Rebellion?” 

“What the fuck!”

It took him until his eyes adjusted to the fluorescent lighting to realise that Darth Vader was wearing a grey knit dress and black tights. Darth Vader laughed and ripped off his mask to reveal a smiling bespectacled brunette underneath. The accomplice. Darcy Lewis.

“Sorry, I was just messing with you, dude,” she teased, tossing the mask over her shoulder. “I’ve always wanted to do that. But seriously, who do you work for? Who knows you’re here?”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he lied. “I was just camping in the woods, man. I saw the lights and decided to check it out,” he rambled in a lazy Canadian accent. “How the hell did I get here? Did you electrocute me?”

He used his not-quite fake panic to test the limits of his restraints. He’d been strapped into some sort of junkstore barber chair, with thick metal shackles locked around his wrists, ankles, and chest. His metal arm could probably make quick work of them but the damn thing was not responding. His panic became a little less fake.

“Just camping, huh?” she echoed back with a raised eyebrow, leaning forward to the point where Barnes couldn’t avoid getting a good look down her top and the 15-carat pink diamond (worth about 40mil and reported stolen in one of Dr Foster’s vault heists two months ago) hanging around her neck. “So that wasn’t you poking around town this morning?” she asked pointedly, drawing his attention to the wall of monitors he hadn’t noticed showing various street cameras around the town. “I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere, dude. You got into town bright and early in a beat up looking truck with plates that didn’t exist two weeks ago and started flashing my yearbook photo around. So, who do you work for?”

He levelled his best steely-eyed agent stare at her and switched back to his native pissed-off Brooklynite accent. “I ain’t tellin you shit, sweetheart.”

“C’mon now,” she cooed, taking a seat on his lap. “Who do you work for? FBI? Interpol? SHIELD? Crawford County Library Services? Listen, I was totally going to return Eat Pray Love, but we had to skip town in a hurry and it got lost in the move. I will totally pay to replace it.”

Years of training (and regular poker games with the Black Widow) had taught him to school his features, even if that last one threw him for a loop.

“Nothing? You sure you don’t want to talk to me? Fine,” she whined. “Jane!”

It was only then that Barnes switched his focus from his captor to his surroundings and realised that there was another occupant puttering about on the other side of the large telescope that took pride of place on a hydraulic platform underneath the research station's retractable roof. The infamous Dr Foster.

“Jane!”

“What?” came the irritated reply. 

“Come over here and practise your monologue. Look! You’ve got a captive audience and everything!” she announced, laughing at her own joke. 

“I don’t have time, Darcy,” the disgruntled voice argued. 

“Hey! I spent two days writing up that monologue, the least you can do is spend twenty-five minutes reading it out loud so I can make sure it doesn’t make you sound too much like a cartoon villain.” 

“Twenty-five minutes?! Are you kidding me?” Dr Foster stormed out from behind the telescope to wave a wrench at her assistant. She looked less put together than her ID photo, appearing to be long overdue for both a shower and a nap. “I’m in the middle of something. I’ve almost figured the problem with the mobile portal generator, and… Darcy, why is there a man tied to a chair in my lab?”

“This man?” Darcy snorted, taking Barnes’s chin in her hands and wiggling it about. “This is the intruder. You remember the intruder alert, like fifteen minutes ago? Lots of flashing lights and alarms? Well, I found this guy passed out on the lawn. For most people, hitting my force field would be like getting lightly tased, but this bad boy,” she continued, tapping a fingernail against his dead metal arm, “meant you ended up getting the full 50,000 volts to your heart. Thanks for letting me practice my CPR by the way,” she added with a wink.

“It’s not a force field, Darcy. It’s a glorified invisible pet fence, upsized and modified so it reacts to the electrical impulses in the human body.”

“It keeps people out; I’m calling it a force field.”

This was definitely the weirdest interrogation he had endured by a large margin, Barnes mused as he followed their bickering like a pingpong game.

“Who is he, Darcy?” Jane sighed wearily. “What is he doing here?”

“Fiiiine. Janey, meet Agent James Barnes of SHIELD.”

“What?! SHIELD?!!”Jane screeched. “Why did you bring him here?”

“He found us, Jane. What was I supposed to do?”

“Something other than bringing him inside our secret hideout.”

“I am not killing him and burying him in the woods; I just did my nails.”

Jane scowled, turning the full force of her overtired fury on James. “Why can’t you SHIELD issue jackbooted thugs just leave me alone? Can’t you understand how important my work is? I am challenging the very foundations of modern science - of the laws of the universe! I am on the verge of a breakthrough! And if you or Nick Fury think you can stop me, you’ve got another thing coming!”

Before his mouth could betray him and ask how the hell they knew his boss Darcy spoke up.

“A little off script, but I like the energy, Jane. Very much the mad scientist vibe we’re going for. But next time, try not to make it so personal – we’ve got to hide the target of our frustrations, remember? Instead of saying “SHIELD” say “government”, instead of saying “Nick Fury” say “president”.”

“Right, right,” Jane nodded absently, tapping the side of her head with the wrench she had just been waving around like a weapon.

“Now, go back to work. I’ll handle this.”

“Okay, thanks Darce. Oh, have you seen my soldering iron around?”

“It’s in the locked cabinet because you’re not allowed to use it unsupervised, you know that. Gimme ten minutes, I’ll bring it to you.”

Jane wandered back to her side of the observatory, muttering under her breath, leaving Barnes at Darcy’s mercy.

“She’s not the criminal mastermind here, is she?” he wondered, his eyes roaming over the strange cupcake of a woman in his lap.

“Not exactly,” Darcy admitted. “I mean, it’s not like she set out to be a mad scientist. I kind of rebranded her after that little freeway incident.”

“Rebranded?”

“Yeah. She was in a bad way after New Mexico and then when the first live test of her portal engine went a little sideways I didn’t want dudebros on the internet coming after her, so I changed the narrative. Instead of ‘girl scientist makes mistake, should stick to making sandwiches’ I changed it to ‘Dr Foster, genius astrophysicist, causes chaos, totally on purpose.’”

“And all those robberies?”

“I may have encouraged that. I’m all for sticking it to the one percenters, and Jane needed to fund her experiments somehow,” she added with a shrug.

“So Jane’s the absent-minded professor and you’re the brains behind this operation, huh?”

Darcy laughed and slid out of his lap causing a distracting amount of friction. “I’m really not. So you, Coulson, and Fury should be really, really scared.”

“How do you know those names?” he had to know, cover be damned.

“You don’t know? Of course you don’t,” she huffed. “Fury and his clearance levels. I’d tell you to ask him about New Mexico sometime, but you’re not going to be able to.”

“Why not? What are you going to do to me?” Barnes fretted, unable to ignore the sinking feeling that he was in big trouble; she wouldn’t have told him anything if she intended on letting him walk out of here.

“Oh, relax. I’m not going to kill you. I’m just gonna scramble your brain a little.”

She circled his chair, flipping switches as she went, and something behind him started humming ominously.

“So, admittedly I didn’t major in hard sciences. I had an ex who did, but he also fancied himself something of a cat burglar, so when he went to jail I liberated all his college textbooks and gave myself a crash course in electrical engineering. And it helped that those HYDRA designs were really easy to follow.”

“HYDRA?” Barnes cursed.

HYDRA had been the scientific branch of the Nazi regime and believed that discovery required (human) experimentation. They were supposedly eradicated at the end of WWII but Project Paperclip saved some of HYDRA’s greatest minds, giving them immunity in exchange for their genius. If Foster or, more worryingly, Darcy had aligned themselves with some surviving HYDRA faction the results could be catastrophic.

“Yeah, I found them in that SHIELD warehouse when we recovered Jane’s stolen research.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They just call it ‘The Chair’, which is totally not creepy at all,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “And this is the Halo,” she added, drawing Barnes’s attention to the whirring circle of metal that was lowering itself over his head.

“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted, renewing his efforts to break free of his restraints. “Get that piece of scrap metal the fuck away from me!”

“Hey! Don’t mock my work. It may look like I raided a junkyard for the components - and I did - but my welding game is on point. It’s totally safe. Mostly safe. It’s just going to send focused electrical pulses to your…” she paused to consult some smudged writing on her hand, “hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.”

The Halo stopped moving and two metal plates extended, pressing against the sides of his head, holding it like a vice.

“Please… don’t do this,” he begged as she approached him with a rubber mouthguard.

“C’mon, open wide. You don’t want to end up braindead and unable to chew your food,” she jested, waving the thing in front of him. “Oh, just one question before I fry your brain,” she added just when he was about to give in. “How did you find us? I was so careful,” she whined.

Agent Barnes, terrified as he was, still managed to look smug at his small, short lived success. “Deja Brew coffee.”

“Curses!” she wailed theatrically. “Betrayed by my one true love!” 

Darcy huffed and quickly returned her attention to the matter at hand. 

“Thanks for that,” she said with a smile as she forced him to bite down on the mouthguard. “I’ll know better for next time. Start making my own coffee at home… but it never tastes as good,” she muttered to herself.

She stepped away from him and bent down to pick up a similarly frankensteined industrial remote with long wires snaking back to the chair and a clichéd big red button at its centre. He began struggling anew, screaming around the foul tasting rubber, begging for mercy.

She took great delight in his terrified expression and put on her best supervillain voice, “Give my regards to Nick Fury.”

Nick Fury observed his agent from behind a two way mirror as he sat behind a table in an interrogation room. Barnes had been sitting there for the past hour as still as a statue, except for his unfocused eyes which flitted about the room. 

In true horror movie fashion, Agent Barnes’ screams echoed down the mountainside like an avalanche, sending animals fleeing in terror for miles around.

** *** **

Local LEO’s had found him wandering aimlessly down a stretch of highway just outside the ruins of what had previously been Puente Antiguo, New Mexico, and ten minutes after they ran his prints Agent Romanoff had been on a quinjet to collect him. She’d been directed to the nearest hospital and found him sitting up on a bed but not responding or reacting to any of the medical staff as they buzzed around him. Agent Romanoff took a cautious step forward and held her breath as his unfocused eyes settled on her. 

“Hello James...”

An excruciating minute later the veil lifted and he attempted a smile. 

“Hey Tasha.”

She’d brought him back to base and dragged him to SHIELD’s medical bay for more tests - not that Barnes put up much of a fight, in fact he was terrifyingly compliant. The SHIELD doctors confirmed what the New Mexico doctors suspected: the bruising and electrical burns around his temples and his memory loss were indicative of some back alley version of electroshock therapy. His memories should come back in time - how long was anybody’s guess - but for the moment Agent James Barnes had no memory of the last four weeks.

Fury picked up a tablet with depressingly little information on its screen and stepped into the room, waiting for Barnes eyes to focus on him before taking a seat. 

“Agent Barnes.”

“Director.”

“I know you’re probably sick of questions by now, but I have a few more for you, if that’s alright.”

“Yeah, sure…”

It rankled Fury to no end how meak and passive Barnes seemed. Heaven help him, he missed the argumentative sonofabitch.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Being called into your office.”

“What for?”

“I punched Rumlow.”

“Why?”

“He was bragging about taking advantage of a drunk woman at a club when he was last on leave. He didn’t like me calling out his shitty behaviour. He punched me, I punched him back.”

Fury sighed. He hadn't gotten a straight answer out of Barnes at the time of the incident and he couldn’t feel happy about getting one now. 

“Do you remember what happened once I called you into my office?”

His brow creased and his eyes zipped back and forth like the carriage of a printer as his mind searched for the elusive memory.

“You suspended me?”

“I did,” Fury confirmed. “For a whole month. But two weeks into it I pulled you in for a special assignment.”

Barnes tensed, shrinking in on himself. The confusion about his lost time seemed to be the only thing that got under his skin, but only when someone brought it up. Once the moment passed he forgot to be concerned about it.

Fury took pity on him. “For the past two weeks I had you running down leads on the whereabouts of Dr Jane Foster.”

“The scientist with the portals? Did she do this to me?”

“It’s not exactly her MO, but then again no law enforcement agency’s ever managed to have a confrontation with her. Never had the chance. Those portals of hers let her keep at a distance. You might have been the first person to have a face to face with her, but I can’t confirm it because I don’t know where the hell you were when this happened,” he grumbled, letting a little more of his usual exasperated tone filter through. “You missed check in by two days. The last we heard from you, you were at Culver running down leads on what you said was a potential accomplice. We found your car in Tromso, Norway, a day after you were found on the side of a road in New Mexico. You don’t appear on any security footage or speed cameras in the area. There’s no activity on your work or personal credit cards. Your activity logs on our highly secure system for the last two weeks are nonexistent, as are your call logs on your work phone. Even the messages you sent Romanoff from your personal phone complaining about your assignment have since been deleted - from her phone too. She’s real pissed about it. As far as your digital footprint is concerned you disappeared from a gas station outside Roanoke, Virginia, last week - do you know how weird it is to know you were headed out towards a place called Roanoke only to up and vanish?” He sighed at Barnes’ painful silence. “Is there anything you can remember, anything at all about Dr Foster or her accomplice? Anything that will help us catch up to you without talking to everyone on campus to figure out what you discovered?”

Barnes’ brow creased in painful confusion.

“I think… I think I saw Darth Vadar.”

Director Fury blinked. “Right…” He took a deep breath to stop himself from venting his frustrations at Barnes, the sorry bastard looked like a kicked puppy as it was. Instead he got up and tapped the tablet against the metal tabletop harder than strictly necessary. “Well, I’ll just go put out a BOLO out for Darth Vadar then.”

“Okay,” Barnes murmured, and promptly zoned out again.

Agent Romanoff exited the viewing room looking uncharacteristically unsettled. 

“I want a full detail on him at all times,” Fury ordered as he stormed off towards the elevators. Hill had just stepped off and was looking even more grim than usual. “Until his memories come back he’s vulnerable, and once they do he’ll be a target.”

“I’ll get a STRIKE team on it. Not Rumlow’s.”

“Get another one along with any assets currently not on assignment. Flood that campus, interrogate everybody. I wanna know who the hell Dr Foster’s accomplice is, and I wanna know yesterday. Understood?”

“I think we might have more pressing concerns, sir,” Hill reported, tapping at her tablet as it beeped erratically. “Coulson’s said there’s an issue with the Tesseract. Dr. Selvig read an energy surge from it fifteen minutes ago.”

“NASA didn't authorise Selvig to test phase,” he grunted, taking the tablet from Hill.

“He wasn't testing it, he wasn't even in the room. Spontaneous advancement.”

“Motherfucker.”

[aikidoheroine]

Tenmaki -Understanding-

Backflip, backflip, backflip

Tenko Chabashira, Ultimate Aikido Master (Or a variant of it anyway) kept twisting and edging backwards in fluid motion; sounds of air cuts passing by her. If one were to slow down, they could see knives being the thing making the sound through the air. Knives courtesy of Maki Harukawa, former Ultimate Babysitter, current Ultimate Assassin.

The two are locked in what was going to be a simple spar, but it grew to become a heated battle because Tenko is as aggressive with her mouth as her kicks and punches entail.

It all started 1 minute ago.

“Say Maki-chan, being alone and aloof from everyone else…that is no way to live! You should make friends and try to unburden yourself! If you like someone, you should be able to trust them, right? That’s what friends do. They trust each other.”

Tenko had no idea what caused Maki to explode, but she found herself dodging knives. Where is Maki even keeping those knives, Tenko has no idea. She lost count after 29. Doesn’t Maki carry 30? usually? At least, that’s what Kokichi said once. But who knows if that was lie. Almost everything out of that clown’s mouth is a lie in some sort of fashion.

After the 7th flip, Tenko lands on her feet, thankful that she felt the knife rain finally come to an end (that’s going to be a mess to clean up later), but the rain of pain came to her. Maki, despite her thin body shape, is surprisingly agile. Agile enough to close in on Tenko in seconds with another knife (There’s the 30th one), and strike at Tenko.

While Tenko acknowledges Maki is faster, and possibly stronger (Tenko witnessed the girl lift a 100 pound rocket launcher like was nothing), Maki lacks in ways Tenko excels at.

Namely, reflexes. Tenko already knew Maki would have closed the gap between them; its what Maki does, unconsciously or not (Assassin perks, maybe). Even before Maki began the strike, Tenko moved just as fast and with one hand, grips Maki’s wrist holding the knife, and the other one, she strikes an open palm right onto Maki’s chest.

The impact was quick. Maki dropped the knife and coughed her breath out. But she wasn’t out, not by a longshot. She didn’t earn the title of Ultimate Assassin by cowering under simple blows. She retaliates as quickly, leaping; she catches Tenko’s neck with her legs and twists her sideways, pulling both of them down. Tenko landed on her back (Thankful for the mats, otherwise that would have hurt), while Maki lands on her 4 feet like a cat. She grabs the fallen knife with her teeth (What are you Maki, a dog?), and leaps onto Tenko’s lap, about to swipe again at Tenko.

Tenko’s reflexes save her again, able to block the swipe by forming an X with her hands, and pushes them on Maki’s neck; narrowly avoiding the swipe and keeping Maki back. Maki however, persists and pushes forward, twisting her mouth and lips to grab the knife from the hilt and pushes down to try and stab Tenko.

“This is…ridiculous!” Tenko yells, teeth grit. She’s able to move her legs and lifts them back to wrap around Maki’s neck, and then pushes back with both arms and legs. “Off Maki!”

Tenko’s strength and position helps in this case, and she’s able to get Maki off her, one last push gets Maki to flip backwards and skid a little back; though she sprints back at Tenko with no intention of letting the Aikido Master get up.

Tenko does manage to get up. As soon as she got Maki off her, she spun herself in a manner similar to breakdancing, then users her legs as a weight, and lifts herself back up like a trampoline swing. “Aha!” And quickly, back on the defensive she is, as Maki dropped the knife from her mouth, back to her hand and goes for a flurry of strikes and swipes.

Tenko thankfully is skilled enough to parry each one, hands balled to fists, she punches the strikes away from dealing any real damage; though the constant clashes, and being pushed back got to Tenko.

She formulated a plan; simple and to the point. ‘Steady…steady…now!’ finding just the right time to counter, Tenko instead, ducks under one of Maki’s swipes, and sweeps her leg, knocking Maki off-balance. Tenko then leaps and grabs Maki by her sides and slams her down “HAAH!” no mercy for the Assassin.

Once Maki hit the mats (and pretty damn hard. Tenko did not hold back that one time), the force of the impact gets her to drop her knife, and Tenko then sits on Maki’s lap and holds her two arms by her wrists. Neutralization, success.

“…Phew.” Tenko let out a sigh of relief. Now that the 'spar’ finally stopped, she realized just how fast her heart is racing, and the sweat she fells all over. It was a quick fight, but still, it put her on edge. Maki was using real knives. It could have hurt her, or worse. “I would normally say that was fun spar Maki-chan, but you were using real weapons! I could have been hurt!” Tenko said with a frown. “I apologize for any rudeness in my earlier comment, but I meant what I said.”

“…You actually managed to beat me.” Maki said, surprised. She didn’t make any motion to try and get out; she admits defeat. “…I guess that makes it 2-1 for now, still leading.”

Tenko would have been flattered, under normal circumstances, but not this time. “Please don’t flatter me Maki-chan; especially when you don’t mean it.”

“…” Maki grumpily stayed quiet, not even looking at Tenko anymore. “I don’t rely on others Chabashira. I’m an Assassin, get it? I kill people; for a living.” she sighs, and decides to look at Tenko “Whether my target is innocent or guilty, it doesn’t matter. I silence them forever, get paid, move on to the next one. I don’t feel anything, I shouldn’t, feel anything; especially friendship or…anything deeper than that.”

“…You don’t believe that.” Tenko said. “I can tell Maki-chan. Not just by words, but your body. You put on a brave face, threatening anyone, always trying to be intimidating…but I see it. At the table, at the trials, when you see other people talking like friends, like Shuichi and Kaito. You have that look of sadness in your face, showing your true emotions.”

Whether Tenko’s words hit Maki or not, Maki didn’t show it. “Its not your problem to solve.”

“Maybe not.” Tenko admits as much. “But this isn’t an assassin’s mission, is it Maki-chan? We’re trapped, with other people. People that regardless of how you and I feel about, have to work together to get out of this mess.”

“Akamatsu tried. You saw how that worked out.”

Kaede…It may have been more than a week since then, but to Tenko, its like it happened hours ago. Its still vivid in her head. The imagery, Kaede’s look of despair as death slowly took hold of her, and nobody was able to do anything about it. Spectators to an execution no one wanted, for a crime Kaede didn’t even want to commit.

To Tenko, a defender of justice, protector of the weak; it was an insult to her pride and honor.

“I don’t need to be reminded of that.” Tenko said. “But I have never doubted Kaede-chan’s words. To get out of here alive, all of us.” her eyes drooped a little. “…I admit that while I don’t show it, I am afraid of what may come next.”

“I’m not.” Maki replies bluntly.

“Liar.” Tenko frowns again. “In this fight we just had, you told me otherwise.”

Maki didn’t say anything to that, staying strangely quiet. Tenko took this is a queue to continue. “Every swipe, stab, every movement you did…it wasn’t normal for you. Your movements were quick, but sloppy. With determination, but no end goal. Every attack has shown to me that you’re afraid, desperate to exit this confounding prison that Monokuma created against our wills.”

“If you were really aiming to kill me Maki, you would have done so much easier than what you showed me today. I know full well your capabilities to end a life. You did not end mine…so I know, that you are afraid too, for what comes after death here, is facing your own death; and that terrifies you.”

“As strong as you are…facing death, that should never be done alone.”

Maki bit her lip, annoyed and…admittedly showing her fear now, if only a little. “Strength of my own is all I know Chabashira. I never had to rely on anyone else but myself.”

Tenko nods. Her grip on Maki loosens “I know this…I know you are strong Maki-chan.” She lets go of Maki’s wrists, and looses her own hands, relaxed…comfortable. “But someone that has always fought alone, will never know the strength of fighting alongside others. The kind of strength Kaede wanted from us.” Tenko gets off Maki’s lap and stands up, still staring at her, but now a gaze; A strange mix of sorrow and hopeful “The kind of strength I want to hope, can get us to escape with no more victims or murderers. Back to where we belong.”

“…” Maki didn’t move from her spot, though relieved Tenko got off her at least. “…You never spoke with Akamatsu. Why are you holding her in such a strong regard?”

“…” Tenko takes a step forward and slowly sits next to Maki, looking opposite of where Maki is. “It is true…we only spoke once, before the murder of Rantaro. I suppose its not really about Kaede herself, as a wonderful person I’m sure she was; rather…” Tenko bit her lip. “What she represents to me.”

Maki raised an eyebrow, confused. Clearing her throat, Tenko continues.

“As someone that upholds protecting the weak, the innocent, seeing Kaede die the way she did, in such a cruel, unfitting matter…God you have no idea how badly I wanted to crush Monokuma and those damn cubs of his. But it would have been for nothing. I know that, I felt that…but I still wanted to. Because Kaede deserved better; killer or not of that degenerate Rantaro; she wouldn’t have done that if Monokuma had forced us to this evil game of his.”

As she spoke, Tenko’s sadness turned to grief, to anger, to hopelessness. Tears nearly threatened to leave her eyes, and they did. “This killing game goes against everything I believe in; and I hate it. I hate the very idea of it. Comrades and friends being forced to kill each other for some sick proof of an ideal is no way to live; no matter if the whole world wants to think that way, it being acceptable doesn’t mean that it should be ok for anyone to not question it. We question drugs, we question the morality of mental health, but we don’t question abuse? murders?” Tenko shook her head. “We are Ultimates. We bring hope to those that can’t do so, in odd ways, yes. But we still do our parts every day, with hard work and determination.” Tenko shook vividly as she said this. “Monokuma took that hope, and twisted it to something of pure evil; all for laughs.” she stood up again, wiping her eyes from the tears and the sniffs. “I can never forgive a person like that, or anyone that supports such actions and ideals. So for that…I have to fight to keep us together, to work together and live another day. Kaede would have wanted that. I, want that.” Tenko greatly emphasizes in her grief.

“…” Maki didn’t know what to say. What could she say? Tenko’s speech caught her off-guard. In truth, Maki never really thought of it that way. A simple life, compared to Tenko’s complex one. To kill, and to protect.

’…Would killing the mastermind truly end this?’ Maki thought to herself. 'Who’s to say someone else will take their place? Someone with equally twisted ideals?’ history shows as much. You kill one dictator, 2 more pop up someone else. Its like killing ants in a way.

’…Have my killings served any purpose, I wonder…’ Maki mused. 'Were they for the greater good? Or for the selfish ambitions of another? …did my actions caused others to die?’

…Well, whatever the answers to that, it doesn’t matter now. Too late to look back on done deeds. But maybe this once…

“…Hey.” Maki got up, and grabbed her knife. She pockets it. “…Tomorrow, same time?” Maki pauses for a moment. “…No knives.”

Surprised, Tenko looks at Maki wide eyed and mouth agape “Maki-chan…?”

Maki stands up and dusts herself off. “I’ll see you then…Tenko.” With that, Maki leaves the Gym, leaving a flabbergasted Tenko behind.

Though once she left, Maki looks at her knife, her own reflection in the silver blade. ’…Fight for others…its not my thing. I doubt it could ever be my thing.’ Maki pockets it again. 'But…maybe just this once…I can try, if only for Tenko, and Kaede. I am an assassin, that will never change. …Yet, would the kids at the orphanage…would they admire me if they knew what I did? What I’ve done?’

Himiko, Angie! I made friends with Maki-chan! I got her to acknowledge me as a friend!

That’s great Tenko! Atua has blessed you indeed!

“Oi, don’t let it go to your head!” Maki yelled angrily, yet couldn’t help herself to smile…if only once.

“Wow, thank you so much, Goryuck! I didn’t expect something like this, but this is such a sweet surprise! I’m going to cherish this forever!”

[sambinnie]

1. Happy Mabon! Every autumn, I forget that the darkness comes clanging down in a great rush in the mornings. One day, I am greeted by a pinking sunrise. 48 hours later, it’s so dark on my run to the river that I have to stop a passing runner and check the time, in case my disturbed sleep sent me dressing and leaving the house at 2am. This summer may not have given us those mornings where it’s so hot I can barely get out of the water, where those early hours feel like full silent days carved out just for me to sit in the light and wait for everyone else to wake up, where the only extra thing I put on to run home is my trainers — I look at my waiting winter gear, neoprene socks and gloves, head torch, two more thickening jumpers, hat, thermal mittens — but every season, every day, is beautiful.

Today we go early for celebrations, and the water is silky, and Orion hangs over us with his phallic sword dangling and Betelgeuse winking on one shoulder. The near-full moon spotlights us and I feel almost ready for the shortening days.

2. Hilary Mantel continues to be a literary god. How does she write with that clarity? How can I ever speak with her calm good sense and wit? 

3. We have two main problems at the moment, as far as I can see. a) What we’re doing (“curating” our lives; twitter spats; purity spirals; division and isolation; wanting ‘debates’ that can only be won or lost; encouraging people to buy more things; trying to buy our happiness; letting marketers tell us how we feel about the world rather than encouraging major moral lessons from throughout the ages to challenge us on our weaknesses; refusing to accept that life is suffering; asking self-care to be a plaster for everything we don’t have) and b) what we’re not doing (joining together to stand against those with more money and power; protecting the people who have even less power and voice than we do as a matter of course; learning from history; protecting nature above all else; prioritising going for walks; learning to repair things and campaigning to make things repairable; having a basic belief in human dignity for all, not just those with whom we agree; accepting that truly, we are all different and no amount of shaming or disgust will change that; working to shape our societies, culture, economies, production, food supplies and communications around improving — not just sustaining — the air, water and land, and fighting to ensure all of those new shapes protect women and children).

Individualism has morphed into something so completely self-destructive that we’ve forgotten we need nature more than anything — literally, more than anything — and we need to unionise and unite and put aside differences and work together even with people we don’t like. 

Because when there are wicked people in power, when it’s genuinely exhausting to think about all the corrupt, venal, toxic, divisive, false, and cruel things they have done since coming to power, those people love to watch everyone below pointing their fingers at one another, saying, You, You’re The Enemy, You’re The Problem, while corrupt populist leaders rub their bellies and chuckle at another promise broken, another mass death on their hands, another building site on a protected forest. Do you understand the stakes here? Do you understand that it’s actual survival? It’s not about being right any more, it’s not about besting someone in the argument. It’s about having decision makers who can not only ensure there is still food to eat and air to breathe, but that relations both within a country and between countries are built on care, and support, and compassion, and believing in human dignity. And while it sounds wishy-washy and hands-clappy it’s the schmaltzy, sentimental truth. It’s the only one, really. 

If we instead continue to believe every single day that my feelings are the most important, that my beliefs are the right ones, that I’ve got to prove those baddies there are evil and awful and wrong, then honestly, what the fuck? If we’re happy to live in a country where hostile architecture is the starting point for all public builds, where we send refugee boats away from our shores, where affiliate links are a career goal, where we haven’t stormed the Daily Mail offices with accounts of all our lovely immigrant friends and family and had a huge feast together and compared our long and tangled family trees, then come on. It’s only a race to the bottom if we all keep running. 

Because, pressingly, whatever the spark of a major global conflict — assassination, fuel shortages, hyperinflation, invasion — the kindling is almost always a populace fed pure hatred for months, for years, until they can’t even taste it anymore but are ready to spew it out again, and are ready to use another populace as the receptacle. And hatred is brewed up in silence and isolation, and in the ashes of bridges burned between disparate groups. 

And on that note, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, mainly because I don’t believe governments are generally competent enough to manage Grand Plans, but it’s annoying that technology and social trends and culture have developed in such a way that no one knocks on anyone’s door for a chat as a matter of course now, that it’s a given that a ringing phone triggers anxiety, that it’s not the norm for cups of tea with your neighbours, that we don’t know each other’s neighbourhoods, that we don’t even talk on the phone, with live words and intonation and synchronised laughter, but in text, in WhatsApp chats, in tapped out words and symbols that we know can be screen-grabbed and misinterpreted, that we know are kept, filtered and sold by the tech companies. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s just a reality that every single one of us can choose to do differently. 

Sometimes exactly the right thing comes along at the right time. All of us here watched About a Boy at the weekend, a film which is so wonkily weighted and oddly rhythmed, but a perfect depiction of everything I’m banging on about here. Hugh Grant’s character likes being alone. He’s happy that way. It suits him. It’s his choice. Then, between one thing and another, he finds himself drawn into a world of a suicidal single mother, a duck-murdering young boy, more single mothers, more tricky teens, plus exes and mothers-in-law and awkward support groups. And it turns out that actually, being with people is better. Being uncomfortable often develops you as a person. Constantly prioritising only yourself produces a waxen, pointless baby. Making shared sacrifices might just be the point of being alive. Remember that to be human is to be flawed. That no one is ever completely right, and no one is ever completely wrong. That the boring stuff makes us feel good, and the glossy stuff, if all we strive for is gloss, doesn’t. 

If you want anything practical, here are the things that have really helped me over the last few years:

Writing a letter or email regularly to my MP, to CEOs of organisations, to anyone I want to communicate my strong feelings and how I’d like things to be done better. Tweeting eats your soul. It’s a horrible myth the media pretends is important. It really, really isn’t.

Inviting people to go in front of me in queues, in traffic, getting on to buses and trains. It lowers my stress levels right down.

Learning the names of my neighbours and people I meet regularly on walks and letting them learn mine. (I definitely haven’t just decided I loathe a neighbour because they cut a bird-hatching tree down in their garden on the last day of the year it was legal to do so. It’s fine.)

Joining a few political parties, and the closest thing I have to a union

Making something, anything — everything can be done with love, and learning to not get sucked into the capitalist conceit of having to make it perfect, sellable, exhibitable is a genuine gift to yourself; making a cake or a film or a coaster and not putting it on social media, letting it be ugly or serviceless and loving it anyway. I felt extremely overwhelmed the other evening, but instead of doom-scrolling I knitted a… I don’t know, something flat and woollen, and it helped to have my hands and eyes working on directionless introspective creation. 

Trying to stop hating. Every time I want to tell a negative story in my head about someone, I attempt to turn it into something positive: how unhappy that person must be, what they must be missing out on. It’s so nauseatingly Pollyanna-ish, and of course it isn’t always successful, and of course every single day brings a hundred thousand examples of cruelty and injustice and wickedness, but the alternative only makes my life feel worse, so why would I indulge that? 

Teaching myself the names of birds, trees, flowers, clouds and constellations. I’m still at the most basic levels on all of these, but the difference one feels in the world when you can name things  — let alone use them and know their stories — is a very real sort of magic. (For that reason I hope to read this book very soon.) This episode of The Cut is also good on the wonder and power of learning the names of the weeds that grow in your nearest pavement crack. 

4. Creating anything is always a gamble, isn’t it, but writing a book you actually like for once and seeing it slowly and beautifully sink to the bottom of a river never to be seen again is ever so slightly crushing. However, it turns out even Thom Yorke feels that way, so I am comforted. 

5. I’m sure I’ve mentioned plenty of these before, but if you want some suggestions of where to find joy, here are my favourites from the last year or so:

I was given Lucy Easthope’s book, When the Dust Settles, for work recently, and I was surprised and delighted to discover the most uplifting, hopeful, human and rightfully angry book I’ve read in a long time. Do yourself a favour and preorder it. I bought this other book for my own birthday, gave it to a housemate to give to me, forgot about it, and was delighted to later unwrap He Used Thought As A Wife. Laughed a lot, cried twice. Marvellous. 

Now even the youngest housemate here can recite John Finnemore sketches and sing the songs. Has also taught them various composers, gods, logical fallacies and gothic story tropes. Also v funny. Oh, Kate Beaton! Her two books (Hark! A Vagrant and Step Aside Pops) are a bit like a comic-book version of Finnemore, but swearier and sexier and utterly unsuitable for all the housemates who have read it and been educated about the Brontes, Katherine Sui Fun Cheung, Tom Longboat, Nancy Drew, Ida B. Wells, Sacagawea, and the Borgias. 

Had to give Inside a restraining order against me for the sake of us all, but Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade is a masterpiece of writing, acting, sound design and optimism. Spy is dumb action comedy polished to perfection, and Yasujirō Ozu’s Good Morning seems like the inspiration for almost all US arthouse films since 1990, and is also beautiful, funny, thoughtful, and good. 

Taylor Swift’s Evermore, like all brilliant albums, isn’t completely perfect. But most of the songs are. And Hole’s classic Live Through This is still just ideal for turning up very, very loud after a tricky day, for the enjoyment of any neighbours who may have hacked down a bird-friendly tree on the last day of February. 

Watched both series of Liam Williams’ Ladhood when I had a week off this summer, and really relished the location, the intention, and the writing. More please. 

Miles Jupp and Justin Edwards continue to be my comforting bedtime listening in In and Out of the Kitchen. Has it ruined Nigel Slater for me? Well, a bit, but no more than any of us deserved. 

I thought this would be a book I’d mumble through the first chapter of, then let get buried in my To Read pile, never to re-open. Instead, I found Whatever Happened to Margo? laugh-out-loud funny, drily written, and full of humanity. Excellent Women has made me want to read everything written by Barbara Pym, a goal I am slowly but surely working towards. 

6. I’ve spent the last few years trying to find hazelnut trees, and finally found a copse between a car park and a play area, full of nuts the squirrels hadn’t noticed. Now I’ve found them, the spell has been cast and I see hazel trees everywhere, on walks and on pavements and running along motorway slip roads. A tray of green and brown frilled hazelnuts now dries with the laundry. They are so beautiful. 

[chibimyumi]

Kuro 159 Summary & Thoughts

その執事、 配送 : 碧落を射抜く、梟の瞳

That Butler, Delivery: Penetrating a thousand miles, the eyes of the owl

In the previous chapter (158) Rin’s friends were disposed of as excess, while Rin herself was taken by the Mafia to work as their tool for evil. Rin was but a young child, and we knew of her future encounter with our protagonists. But how their encounter would take shape was anyone’s guess.

This chapter shines more light on the transformation from Rin to Meyrin.

Rin has now officially become a member of the Chinese mafia, and her gift is being made full advantage of.

“Our next objective is the leader of the Elders Brothers Society, a man named Yang,” the mafia don instructs his sniper. He explains that the Elders Brothers Society has trespassed his own territory, and is selling drugs without their permission. If the Society were to find out that the don attacked however, the situation would develop into a full-fledged war,” the don believes.

They take Rin to the rooftop of a building, and the don asks her whether she can see what is happening on the top floor in the building across, to which Rin replies positively.

Rin reports that she sees a bald man with a young woman. A fellow mafia member criticises the man for having too much fun, while the don jests about how he’ll let the man have some enjoyment for it will be his last night on earth.

The don throws a rifle at Rin and offers her two choices: “I’ve already made you practise right? You have but two options: use that rifle to blast a whole in that old geezer’s head, or refuse and follow your friends.”

Rin remembers the desperate and frightened expressions of her deceased companions very well, the fear in her ringing through her entire body. 'Two choices’,  the don said, but it really was an impossible decision.

For better or for worse, the decision was already made for her, as the don lifted the rifle in her arms, whispering false reassurance into her ears.

“Don’t worry, the target is bigger than earrings this time. Just take your time to take aim, and press the trigger, that is all.” And with that a deafening bang pierced through the peaceful night.

10 years have passed, and we are brought to what seems to be a Chinese district in Limehouse - London. The Chinese district appears to be home for both comfort and decay, for business and addiction. The ultimate place where merchants thrived on the misery of victims.

Behind the scenes of a certain opium den, two members of the mafia are enjoying their break. One man complains about his fatigue for his hard work, but the other thinks the complaint is undue. “You are merely responsible for driving right? It was the owl who did all the work. She finished off five targets today!” To which another man praisess in kind: “The ultimate hawkeye is what people often call her. The infallible precision regardless of distance brings me in awe.”

“Right, Owl?” The man turns, and we see Rin sitting against the wall with fatigue and lifelessness in equal measure in her eyes. We don’t need to see the events of what had happened in the past decade to know that nothing but misery occurred in Rin’s life.

Rin’s eyes told the tragedy of an orphan who used her gift to get a living, transformed into a tool for spreading further suffering. It is anyone’s guess what Rin was thinking, but if one day she would decide that this empty carcass of hers is no longer worth preserving in exchange for other people’s lives, it would not have surprised me.

“Hey, you should eat too, it’s an incredible treat,” the man invited rin as he offered Rin a plate.

She was hungry after all, and decided to accept the man’s kindness. Only when she took a bite however, did she realise she had been had.

“Gyahahahaha, this one really was gnawing on my shoe, she really can’t see anything up close, huh!”

Rin was quite upset, but knew better than to be disappointed. What levels of lowness had she not witnessed before, after all?

The don of the mafia was less eager to join the laughter and put a stop to the teasing. Not out of compassion or anything as it seems, but simply because his mood had already been sullen for quite a while, as it appears.

As it turns out, the restrictions on opium and prostitution had tightened, and the profit turned from this business was only half of what it used to be a decade earlier.

“Bastard!” the don curses. “England is obviously profiting from its sales of opium to the entire world, ‘but now the world is changing, the circulation of opium must also be decreased’? How dare he say such ridiculous things with a straight face...? Damn the Queen’s dog!” He exclaims as he clenches his wrist around a letter with the Phantomhive logo printed on it.

When it seemed like the don’s mood could not sink even deeper, a henchman comes to deliver additional bad news. “Don, a message came from our fatherland, saying they are sending in another manager. It is a man who was originally in charge of the Bund in Shanghai, named Lau.”

“That lad who uses any means possible to climb upwards? I alone am enough to handle this business in England.” Being denied by both the English law as well as the decision makers in China, the don cannot help but feel his position threatened.

He blames the tightened regulations, but before he even finished his sentence he came to a new realisation. “No, it is ‘his’ control, and if that is the case...”

The don orders for his owl to set out for her next prey. “And what is that?” Rin asks. “The Queen’s Watchdog’s head of course! Finish off Earl Phantomhive!”

At last we return to our protagonists in the Phantomhive mansion.

“Young Master, a letter has arrived for you,” Sebastian announces. “From whom?” the young boy asks.

“My, from your dearest of course.”

With the roads between the Phantomhive household, Rin and Lau connected, this chapter ends.

I personally feel a level of excitement I have not felt in a long time reading ‘Kuroshitsuji’. The previous chapters build up towards an excitement, but none of them really hit that glorious button for me.

Chapter 159 however, managed to hit the button right on its head!

So far, Rin is probably not really used to being met with much resistance as her victims would never even have suspected her eyes had already been set on them before meeting their sudden demise. The Phantomhive household however, is clearly different.

How will Sebastian prevent the head-shot aimed for his master? Will he snatch the bullet from midair, or will he notice Rin’s presence even before she pulls the trigger?

The development that ultimately hyped me up is the introduction of Lau as the replacement for the obstacle O!Ciel was succeeding in removing. As we see from the flashback, he wore his hair in the traditional Qing Dynasty style: the queue.

Hair is something considered a sacred symbol full of emotional significance in traditional Chinese culture. Cutting the hair is one of the ultimate taboos; a blasphemy almost.

Cutting the hair bore many terrifying meanings as long hair stood for a person’s legitimacy and familial legacy. Cutting off one’s hair was a penalty for minor crimes, for example. Cutting your own hair however was an altogether different taboo, as it signified breaking off all ties with your family, to even cursing your parents to death. (Yes, though so epic, that scene where Mulan cuts her hair was one of Disney’s biggest mess-ups ( ´艸｀))

When China was forced to westernise and adopt the ‘civilised short hairstyle for men’, it was the greatest humiliation for many.

What happened to Lau that he would cut off his queue, and wear his hair in a short crop for the current timeline? Was his hair cut by someone else, or did he take the scissors in his own hands? Did he do so on his own volition, or was he forced to do so to prove a point?

How did Lau feel about his cut hair, and how did that change him?

I am very thrilled to find out both about Rin’s encounter with the Phantomhive household, and Lau’s backstory.

I signed up for Meyrin’s backstory, but am I going to get Lau’s as a bonus?

[hobbledhobbit]

Paint and Patience

Another part of the tales of the Institute Green. This one following the Illustrator, Ms. Steam. .

A puff of smoke dissipated after swirling and distorting the stars it hovered in front of.

"Fear is strange. Was there any reason not to have it that you can be certain of?"

"For myself?"

"No, of course not." The pale man made a vague gesture into the building from their spot on the balcony. "Their fear."

He took another deep drag, awaiting her answer.

"All mortals have fear, Mr. Pale. The end always looms like the back cover."

He contemplated, letting his gaze take in the curvy and soft form of his coworker. She liked her candy striper outfit most of all and it let the inviting roundness of her form offer refuge in the form of a vast change in scenery from the black iron and gold speckled dark wood of their world.

"That's what I had figured too. But the fear is on all aspects. They love, there's fear; they succeed, there's fear; they give up...you get the idea."

Ms. Steam gave an amused hum before turning to him fully. "They are yellow. Maybe it's not the fear that gives you pause when dealing with them?"

Ms. Steam took the spent cigarette out of his hand and flicked it over the railing. He had a nasty habit of burning the filter when he was lost in thought. The smell was never pleasant. 

Mr. Pale was slender and ordinary, his overall countenance being somewhat "beige", though his eyes held a sharp intelligence and his tongue a wicked wit. 

Ms. Steam liked talking to the scrivener, he was always agitated over their charges and the conditions in which they were formed. The illustrator had an idea that it may be his only way to show his caring side for anything.

"I believe you're right," he finally said, "I am more enraged by those who live without that...I guess it would be more a concern for the welfare of others than fear…"

"Compassion?"

"Compassion! Yes, thank you. Those that lack compassion for others and make grand swathes of suffering. They hold my ire."

"Had one recently that's got you in this tizzy?"

"No. It'll be later this evening. I would feel bile rising in my throat if I had the capability. I taste the lies and excuses on my tongue and moving through my fingertips to take the last vestiges of their existence to print." 

His voice grew ever darker, as he mimicked typing on his typewriter, his hands looking suddenly more large and sharp, his plain face gaining sharp edges and wider eyes, his teeth sharpening and slowly multiplying.

"Sickening, wretched filth!" He gurgled out.

Ms. Steam shrugged, unbothered. "We are only the record keepers. No need to grow attached."

He cleared his throat and fixed his appearance, brushing his blond hair back and suddenly looking more to his normal human-like form. 

"We aren't machines, Ms. Steam. Every monster we document can feed our own monstrous nature, teach us our own excuses for screwing over other lives."

"What do you suppose we do for it then? Become judges for life forms that are under our care?"

"Teachers. I think the Evil need to be taught a lesson. We should make an example."

Ms. Steam waited for Mr. Pale to continue, but it was obvious from the way his eyes darted around in his head that the idea was still cooking. 

She pat his head and made him look her in the eye.

"When you figure it out, set it up. I'm in thorough need of distraction. But for now, we must tend to our duties."

He gave a small nod and a tight lipped smile. It was no secret that he disliked his job, but he was the best at it.

She took her leave, walking in from the cold of outside to the warm hallway. Her shoes were almost silent upon the hard wood. The reflection of the candy striper outfit was blurred for a moment in the polished floor before it showed Ms. Steam in a plain, floral, flowy dress. She used the key around her neck to unlock her office door and step in. 

The yellow glow of the human soul took a moment to take shape. Young and small.

"Sorry for being late," she smiled, "Are you ready for your portrait?"

The 'studio' was large. The ceiling was high and vaulted, the floor had many different colors and textures that one couldn't tell if it was made of dirt, marble, wood, or any of the other things floors are usually made of. There looked to be all sorts of settings along the long wall. Beaches to mansions, forests to kitchenettes, mountains to dumpsters.

The girl looked to be a little younger than a teenager. Short dark hair and brown eyes, sun-kissed skin and a strong jaw.  She was in night clothes and looked overwhelmed, looking around from her seat on a fainting chair.

Ms. Steam went to her large desk and picked up some materials. She loaded a small tray with chalk pastels and paint. 

"Take your time," she said to the girl, then paused giving her an understanding and patient look. "Tell me what you think is happening. This fear will go away soon, I promise."

"He killed Mom. I went to go hide my little sisters, but I guess he killed me too." She started to cry in earnest. "They're probably so scared. I don't know what to do! There's nothing I can do! I'm dead!" 

She sobbed and screamed her dismay while Ms. Steam set up the easel near a beach setting.

"Angels are supposed to help the innocent!" The girl accused from her seat. She smacked her bare feet against the ground and stomped over to Ms. Steam. "You're supposed to protect us and God's supposed to deliver us from evil!"

"Deliver you where?" Ms. Steam turned to the girl, eyebrow slightly raised. She felt it wouldn't be the best option to tell the girl she wasn't an angel.

The girl's righteous fury was snuffed out by the calm of the question. She looked lost and on the verge of more tears. 

"I-I don't know. If you're good, evil isn't supposed to happen to you." She sniffled, "And you're supposed to get rewarded for being good."

Ms. Steam sat on a stool to look the girl in the eye and wipe her tears with her skirt. 

"I'm sorry, little one. The universe doesn't do good or evil. That's a human thing. Kind or cruel are choices people make."

Ms. Steam offered a hug to the child, who was falling apart again in tears. She accepted the hug, was wrapped in strong arms, and felt light as a cloud.

"The nightmare is over. I know it's scary to not know what comes next. But even your choices mattered so much at the end."

The girl was hiccupping through her sobs, clinging tightly to Ms. Steam. "They're so-s-so little and he's gonna hurt them!"

Ms. Steam rocked her lightly and pet her hair. "I know...what if I brought them here? Would you feel better knowing where they are? They would probably like to know where you are too."

Fear stabbed through the girl and she looked at Ms. Steam. "He killed them too?!"

"Long ago already. They're in my queue."

"What's going to happen?"

"I'm going to paint your picture of what you want to be remembered forever as. You're a good older sister. Brave, just, and with so much love in your heart that your last moments were thinking of nothing but protecting others. Rewards aren't in my job description, but I think that I could work one up for you."

"Holly!" Called two little voices from the fainting couch.

The girl turned and let go of Ms. Steam, running to the two blonde children running towards her in their pajamas. 

"Katie! Kathy!" She called to the twins, hugging them tight to her and hurrying her face in their disheveled blonde curls. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!"

"Sorry for what?" asked Kathy.

"Why are you sad?" asked Katie.

Before Holly could answer, they both noticed the beach and dragged Holly towards it. 

Holly noticed that they were all in their bathing suits, and the studio had faded away entirely-there was only the beach then. She saw Ms. Steam still standing there, starting to work on the canvas in front of her. She gave Holly a wink before going back to her work.

Holly looked at her sisters who were already splashing in the water and got to playing with them. They built sand castles and played in the water together. The sun didn't bother any of them much, and they felt full and content. 

Ms. Steam stepped back from her work, looking at the picture of Holly pulling her sisters through the water as the little ones kicked up a spray behind them.

The twins looked caught in a moment of trust and fun as Holly tried to teach them to swim.

The studio had phased back to its normal state, the girls now residing as the artwork. Ms.Steam added a single small cloud in the distance as her signature and bowed low at the piece. 

"Thank you for the opportunity," she said.

When she stood back up, the canvas had a frame of glittering gold. She took it and wrapped it in plain brown paper before placing it in an adjacent room for delivery.

Ms. Steam dealt more with children and those that didn't have a command over their language. She found that younger children were more accepting of their fates than older ones. Responsibility and shame hadn't really had a chance to stick in yet and make them second guess everything.

She went about putting away her supplies and let out a sigh. She placed the last brush behind her ear and exited her studio. So long as her things weren’t all in place, the next soul wouldn’t show up. 

The door she approached was labeled “Mr. Slow: Security” on a gold plaque. She knocked and entered, finding the large form of her colleague sitting at his desk, shining his shoes. He looked up boredly, eyes crinkling at the side once he recognized his visitor. 

“Ms. Steam. What an unexpected and fun surprise. What brings you to my office?” His voice was deep and had an edge of threat to it. Unfortunately for Mr. Slow, she had taken the centuries to become immune to his specific charm. 

“Mischief brings me here, Bacchus.  Do you intend on participating or trying to subdue?” She leaned on the doorway, pushing her hair behind an ear. “I do so hate to lose out on the fun because someone had to distract you.”

Mr. Slow sat up and put his hands on his desk. “So long as the mischief isn’t brought to these halls, there’s no reason for us to tussle. I do have a feeling that I will be having to teach Mr. Pale a lesson later today, but that won’t likely interfere.”

This was met with an amused hum. She covered her mouth to feign hiding a smile, “I am starting to think Bartleby likes your teaching method. You boys and your roughhousing.”

Mr. Slow went back to shining his shoes, “I’ve been informed, Ms. Steam. Go back to your room. The day isn’t out yet, no matter how many clients you put in a single frame. Only the frame counts.”

“Pushy,” she teased, straightening herself out. “I’ll see you at the diner afterwards, Mr. Slow.”

The door closed, leaving Mr. Slow alone. He leaned back in his chair and thought about the conversation he had overheard on the balcony during his rounds. Redirecting fear could be a fun way to spend an afternoon.

[valwrite]

strawberry yogurt; sam wilson

masterlist.

summary: sam wilson uses his friendship with one captain america for his own personal gain.

warnings: fluff(kinda?).

fic type: drabble.

word count: 633.

author’s note: sam wilson deserves more love and respect, and not just as some background character gdi. yes, this is completely inspired by something sam said in CA:TWS.

Sam Wilson had always prided himself on being observant. 

There wasn’t much that could pass by him unnoticed. For example, he’d very easily caught on to the habit Steve Rogers had of cracking his knuckles whenever he had something to say that his manners would stop him from doing. Or how he’d witnessed Natasha Romanoff had the routine of sneaking out every morning to feed the stray cats that circulated the avengers compound.

He had the watchful eyes of a hawk, despite being The Falcon. And, it was with those same eyes he’d first spotted Y/N L/N, a few months into being the leader of his support group. He’d heard talk of a new girl manning the front desk, whispers about her raw beauty and magnetic personality, but none of it had prepared him for the day they first properly met: her, with an accusatory tone to her voice, and him, with his spoon deep in a tub of strawberry yogurt he’d found abandoned in the staff fridge. 

He’d very quickly picked up on her routine, and that could be because he had a tendency to watch her any given chance. He’d realized how each Monday she brought in some fresh fruit fro the staff room; she always had chipped nail polish, she liked her coffees with three pumps pf creamer; and, most of all, every month on the 20th day, she brought her nephew into work.

Given the fact that Sam had more or less dropped everything in agreement to help Captain America and his Russian spy friend take down some group evil old white dudes who just so happened to be holding his other Russian spy friend hostage since the second world war, the man figured it was time he asked for his own little favor from Steve Rogers. And, really, helping a dude out by putting on some spandex wasn't exactly asking for much.

“Sam!” Y/N’s pure excitement as he walked through the doors, the way she'd called out to him whilst rising from her desk chair, filled his insides with something fuzzy. “It's been a few weeks since you were last here, I was getting a little worried.”

“Worried? About old me? You're too sweet, doll.” Sam rested his hip against the edge of the front desk and peered behind him, smiling in triumph when he saw the familiar little boy sat with his console in hand. “Hey, Milo, buddy, I got someone here who's been meaning to meet you.”

Right on queue, Captain America walked through the building doors, dressed in full gear and with his shield in hand. Both Y/N and Milo let out a gasp before the little boy was running out from behind the desk, heading right at a grinning Steve, who'd already bent down to be at height with his enthusiastic fan.

Y/N watched in awe as her nephew met his hero and Sam watched her in awe of the radiant smile she wore. Now to see just how well his whole impressing plan had worked.

“Y'know, you should probably gimme your number.” He relished in the way he could still catch her attention with the super soldier only a few steps away. “Could arrange for Milo to meet the rest of the Avengers.”

“Hmm,” Her head tilted to the side, her eyes ran over the details of his face. “you sure that's all you want my number for?”

“Well, that depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether you want me to want your number for something more.” Maybe the two hadn't noticed how they'd inched a little closer but Steve Rogers had certainly noticed.

“Tell you what,” She picked up a pen, writing down a few digits and ripped off the corner of paper. “you stop eating my yogurt and I'll give you my number, for you to do whatever you want with.”

[thecorteztwins]

(I wanted to write about Mindmeld coming back on Krakoa. It ended up having less of the personality I envision for her, and actually being more about Emma, to my surprise, even though Emma isn’t a character I consider myself capable of writing. But, tagging @badmusesdoitwell for Emma and @sammysdewysensitiveeyes @esteicy-blog since I know you guys like Mindmeld!)

Like all the others, Mindmeld’s resurrection took place in front of a crowd of Krakoans to witness her rebirth. But all she saw when she spilled out of her golden egg was Shinobi Shaw, her former employer and ex boyfriend, standing in front of her, bending his knees, smiling and reaching down. ”Mindmeld,” someone said, “How do we know it is you?” The words didn’t even reach her ears above her own scream of rage as she launched herself from the ground on to Shinobi, clawing and kicking. ”Whoa!” he exclaimed in shock. “You left me!” she yelled, not ceasing in her blows,  “You bastard!” “Whoa, hey, calm down,” Shinobi pleased, shifting to his super dense state so she couldn’t hurt him, though she was still trying. “You left me to die!” “Mindmeld, baby, you knew the risks---” “You betrayed me!” “You were paid t---aaah not the hair!”

Even his super-dense state couldn’t ward off a good hair pull, something he would have enjoyed under different circumstances. Among those watching, Emma and Sebastian where at the front of the crowd. or two people who hated each other, they often were in close proximity. Insert that old adage here about where to keep your enemies. “I suppose you’re just going to let this undignified display go on?” Emma asked. “You don’t find it terribly entertaining?” “I’m very sure Shinobi deserves it, but does the young lady?” “Well, do something, then, if you have a problem.” “He’s your son and this was your recommendation for resurrection--you do something.” Sebastian squinted at her. Why did she care about this ‘Mindmeld’ person that his son had asked to be pushed to the head of the revival queue? She had an angle, he just didn’t know what it was. He seldom did. She’d become so much more unpredictable since she joined the X-men. He really hated her for that. But this was admittedly getting out of hand. As amusing as it was, Shinobi being the Black Bishop meant that his follies---especially the very public ones---reflected on the Hellfire Club as a whole, and more importantly, on Blackstone, Sebastian’s segment of it. So he sighed, and, hoping he wasn’t literally walking into some scheme of Emmas, strode to where Mindmeld was still walloping the beejeesus out of his idiot offspring in front of the laughing crowd. “Excuse me, young lady?” Mindmeld downright snarled in reply, a back-off warning if there ever was one. “Not that I’m sure my son doesn’t deserve this,” Sebastian continued, and indeed he was just as sure in that was Emma was, “But were you aware, in your ire, that you are on display?” “Wh--” Mindmeld realized, really realized, at that moment, that she was in front of crowd. She looked out at the Krakoans, and she stopped her assault. She shrank in on herself, confused and embarrassed and all too aware of her exposing nudity, a state that was for more vulnerable and humiliating and unsafe for her even than most. There was a sudden weight on her bare-no-longer shoulders; Shaw had dropped his overcoat over them. “I’d suggest you get up and come with me, Miss Mindmeld. I think we’re all satisfied it’s really you. Shinobi, get up, you’ve embarrassed ALL of us enough for today.” Emma did not follow the trio as they departed the scene, but she was watching. Sebastian could feel her eyes boring into his back like diamond drills. Had she put this idea in his son’s head to begin with, perhaps? He decided he’d keep an eye on this ‘Mindmeld’. *** “DON’T FUCK MY DAD!” These were the words that echoed down the hall of Blackstone that Sebastian Shaw was presently passing through, shirt off and coffee cup in hand. Well. That was interesting. Seemed Shinobi and Mindmeld were getting along about the same as they had before. “Well I might!” Mindmeld’s voice came now from behind the same door that Shinobi’s had ejected from,  “You don’t own me! I will if I want!” “Come on, you can’t do that!” “I can’t?! I CAN’T?! I could do it even if we WERE still together, which we’re NOT! You threw ALL THIS away, Shinobi, and worse! I should fuck your dad, just to fuck YOU! And I’m gonna go do it RIGHT NOW!” “You wouldn’t!” “Watch me! Literally, watch me!” With that, the door opened, just as Sebastian was passing by it, and the silver-skinned mutant waked right out into him. She paled as she realized who it was. “You heard,” she said in a small, oh-shit voice. “I did,” he said, closing the door behind her. “I, uh, I was...I was just...I didn’t really.” “We can, you know,” he offered calmly, “Or not, and just say we did. If you’d like that.” “That...would be great, actually.” She grinned in relief...and then much more wickedly.

*** “MY DAD IS FUCKING MY GIRLFRIEND!” “That can’t possibly surprise you, Shinobi,” said Emma. She had no idea WHY Shaw’s son had come to HER to complain, but then, she supposed the poor boy had no one else. Well, Christian, maybe... “You know your father.” “Yeah but why would SHE fuck him? That’s what I wanna know!” “Well darling, there’s money, there’s power, there’s a hard cock, and there’s sticking it to you. All very attractive things.” “Listen, just I because might have betrayed her horribly ONE TIME does not warrant this kind of treatment!” “I agree,” said Emma, hiding her shock that she could actually find common ground with him on anything, “Vengeance is worth a lot of things  but not degrading oneself in terms of bedroom partners. The poor girl. I’ll set her up with someone far more suitable. Meaning, someone who isn’t either of you.” “Hey! That’s NOT what I’m asking for here!” “I hope you weren’t expecting HELP with this.” Emma said coldly, knowing that it’s EXACTLY what he was expecting. “Aw come on, how can I win her back, Emma, please?” “How would I know?” “You’re blonde, psychic, stylish, and mean! You’re practically the same person! You would know!” Ah. Now Emma understood. Shinobi hadn’t brought Mindmeld back out of love, nor for some sinister plot to use her against Emma or Sebastian or anyone else. He just wanted his own shiny-skinned psychic with a sharp tongue and fabulous fashion sense, and succeed where his father failed by actually keeping her on his side.  A feat he’d botched before he’d even began it, clearly. “Grovel,” said the White Queen flatly. “That’ll get her back?” “No, but you should do it anyway, you owe it to her from what I understand.” Emma didn’t know WHAT Shinobi had done to that woman, but she had no doubt it was something typical of how this family treated its allies---one could just ask Sage about that. *** “You’re Emma Frost,” Mindmeld said in awe. “I am. And you’re better than them.” Mindmeld immediately knew who she meant. “Is that supposed to be an accomplishment?” she asked with a sneer, directed not at Emma but at the pair they were discussing. “Oh good,” Emma grinned, “I like you, I was so hoping that I would. Now tell me darling---how is it someone with such good taste in shoes has such poor taste in men?” Mindmeld put up her beautifully-manicured hands, “If you’re trying to get me to back off one or both, consider it done. I’m not getting in your way. Just because I was technically born last week doesn’t make me an idiot.” Emma nearly laughed, “Oh darling, you misunderstand me terribly! And here you seemed so bright. I’m about as keen to have one of those two inside me as I am an enema-by-Sentinel-canon. “Oh,” Mindmeld paused, “So, what do you care then? You hate them, so you’re cockblocking?” “I get the feeling you’re not used to anyone doing you any favors, are you Mindmeld?” Emma asked, her tone slightly softer. Mindmeld’s suspicious face at this told her all she needed to know. Emma didn’t need to be a mind-reader to know that the moment Emma had made herself seem like she was doing this out of genuine concern and not some petty schoolgirl agenda, Mindmeld had doubted her. It wasn’t anything personal, she didn’t know Emma--did know OF her, admired the hell out of her, what a QUEEN, what an ICON, she was everything Mindmeld wanted to be---it was just that was what she thought of people. Emma was right, no one did her any favors, not without wanting something in return, and she didn’t expect Emma to be the first. She would have been less defensive if Emma had come in quid pro quo because she’d see Emma as being upfront in her intentions, instead of hiding them as she now did. Not unlike Sebastian himself, Emma noted. She supposed the only way Mindmeld would trust her is if she met the other woman where she was at, meaning she must appear to be coming from a place of spite instead of altruism. “Well, I’m not in the habit of doing favors,” she amended, putting some of the customary ice in her tone, “Not unless they get done for me in return.” Now Mindmeld looked interested again. “Go on.” Inwardly, Emma sighed. This felt oh-so-regressive. Here she was, trying to be a better person, and yet the only way she could help this mutant---whom she didn’t even know but had an automatic sense of empathy for--was by pretending to be the manipulative bitch everyone thought she was. But, that was how it always wasn’t it? That she had to be the bitch to get things done. “Alright, Mindmeld darling,” she continued in her very best evil-plotting voice, “Here’s what you’re going to do for me...” (I don’t know what Emma suggests Mindmeld do but it’s probably hilarious and nasty! Mindmeld did not sleep with Sebastian, she just told Shinobi that, as he suggested.)

[roses-ruby]

Desperandum Victum Chapter 2

Jimin x Female Reader

Genre: Demon AU, Angst, Fluff, Smut (future chapters), Mature, Slow Burn

Warnings: The story will get really fucking dark, including themes of incest, cannibalism, rape, murder, slavery, gore, yandere, religion, and way more oof. This chapter has mentions of violence and gore at the end.

Word Count: 10,129

Summary: You’ve had a traumatizing hard life and you move to a new town for new beginnings. But what if this town was hiding secrets of it’s own?

A/N: Sorry I’m late, this was supposed to be out hours ago but I just got home and don’t know how to use the fucking queue. This was originally due weeks ago, but I redid the story 3 times because I didn’t like how it kept turning out hahahaha wrote over 34k words and for what??? Anyway, last boring chapter I promise! Shit’s about to hit the fan ya’ll. Unedited, sorry, let me know of you find any mistakes!

Buying an old house was perdition disguised as a home.

Jun scoured through the wires of the electrical system. FallHaven weather circumstances were something he was cautioned about beforehand. Days consisted of hard-hitting heat, while the dusks were frigid and aloof. The outdated HVAC wiring had made the temperatures of the self-contained rooms a roller coaster, never knowing how severely the ventilation of said room would get tropical or glacial. Behind him, beyond the croaking and crickets; laid his back-porch barrier, it’s paint chipping from the fractured foundation. He previously spent $1000 to fix the asbestos grit around the house, and just yesterday he made a call to confirm the rumors of lead paint. Never has he regretted anything more than not contacting a house inspector prior the move.

Closing the chaotic cabinet of cables, Jun huffs, patting the few beads of sweat with the bottom of his tank top. He’ll ask uncle Alp about it in the morning. Maybe he should start a fire tonight. Taking a few steps to his back door, he opens it and squints at the hallway’s light. Locking the knob, he turns around, treading into the hall leading into the living room, before he stops in front of your decrepit door.

Right after you stepped into the house, you shut yourself in your room. Not responding to any of his inquiries or pleads. The hours had passed on in silence, and the house seemed too lonely for the night. Your food was left untouched on the table. Wanting you to come out, he had made your favorite stew with the produce he bought today. Its rich spice had glided throughout the capacity. He knew it was fruitless, and he tried to be patient, but his mind glimmered with hope that you’ll come out your door in any moment, drool at the side of your mouth, ogling his food like a bear ogles at honey. He chuckled at the image.

But it didn’t come true. You hadn’t come out. You hadn’t even made a sound, and that to him was worrisome more than anything. As someone who always had a comment on everything, much to Jun’s displeasure, to see you so mute reminds him of those days. The worst fucking mistake of his life. A nightmare that often visits him still, making a nest in his subconscious like a fatal tumor. And then there’s the wounds on your wrist.

Jun wasn’t an impatient man; high off his own ego plenty to break down your protective barrier. It was something he had to teach himself, just like most of the things in his life, coming from a place where you don’t learn anything from anyone, but see it all anyway. Yet his intolerance for desolation splintered the shield that was his reasoning. He grew up this way. A string of impulsive verdicts-results of mental burdens, dissociating him from himself. They could only lead to tragedy and he’s had abundant amounts of that serving. So instead he’ll pride himself in being cautious, especially when it comes to you.

Staring at the imbedded wooden material, he starts fretting about your bruise. The color is probably richer and unusual. You hadn’t even let him look properly, and there’s no aid in your room. Biting his nails, he contemplates urgently of what to do. Teenagers are impossible, he sighs, you were much easier to handle when you were a kid. Not to mention cuter.

That’s when it hits him. He’ll sing that song you love, just like he used to when you were a kid! Yet he cringes as soon as he thinks it. It’s been a few years, and you were way older now. Still, it worked before, it worked during that nightmare. He soundlessly pleads with the god you believe in.

Quietly clearing his throat, he hums almost inaudibly. Can’t believe I’m getting warmed up for this, he reflects. If you don’t come out subsequently, he’ll die of grief or shame. Whichever hits him first. Pacing back a bit, away from your heavy door, he slowly begins to sing,

“Somewhere over the rainbowww-,”

…

“Waaa-y up high”

“There's a land that I heard of once, in a lullaby…”

“Somewhere over the rainbowww-, skies are blue,”

…

“And the dreams that you dare to dream…”

“…really do come true…”

A second passed. Then 10…eventually 30.

2 minutes had passed.

He looks down, dejected. Despair coursing his veins, he lets out a heavy breath; he didn’t want to go through this once more.

The lock clicks open!

His head jumps up to face the door being pulled in and your timid figure walking out. He wants to cry and give you a huge hug; wrap you around in his arms with love and comfort, but he doesn’t have the heart to scare you again, so he just stands there as you do too. You stare at him with meek eyes, the dark bags laying just beneath them pull at the strings of his heart.

Pulling his thoughts together he softly speaks to you,

“Hey”

He’s not sure what to say though

Does he question who that lady was? Does he ask about your wrist? Or dinner? Should he drop the topic and make a joke about something entirely different instead? Which option would make you open up? He’s as naïve as he was 3 years ago.

“Hi” you whisper

“Listen I know you don-”

“I don’t know” you interrupt Jun, “I don’t know who that lady was and I don’t want to”

“I’m gonna talk to some people about her tomorrow, someone should know” he cautiously puts his hand on your shoulder, squeezing it slightly in comfort, “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna let her come near you again”

You stare at the floor, not saying a word while Jun analyzes even the tiniest twitch of your nose

“Can I look at your wrist, princess?”

Shutting your eyes, you tense your shoulders. It’s all right, it’s just Jun you think, as you bring your wrist into view. The both of you were examining the purple blue hues around the skin together. Jun touches it lightly with his digits making you flinch, so he backs up before marginally trying yet again. Making contact with your cold casing, he shudders and averts his head before he grabs your fingers in his own and tugs your hand back down. He can’t come to terms with it still like a run-away, and it’s the one thing he deters from. How much of a coward he is.

“Jun-”

“Sorry, yeah I know,” He knows better than anyone, that’s what he said. But he doesn’t know when you make his way into his chest and wrap your arms over his trembling limbs. Doesn’t know he needs comfort more than you. Doesn’t know why you still trust him. Doesn’t know when you’ve grown up so much.

“Jun” you stifle in his shoulders, “It’s alright now, I’m fine. My wrist. My wounds…it doesn’t hurt, I don’t feel anything”

“I’m just sad,” He feels your tears on his shirt as you let out a choked sob, “That nothing has changed within 3 years. That I’m still so weak…she could’ve done anything”

“No, no, no!” Jun holds you protectively, “nothing is gonna happen to you…not when I’m around”

And you weren’t.

His evil mind brands the painful statement of his truth as he secures his senses and holds you tighter.

“…I just want to forget today Jun…please. I don’t want to talk about it again. Not when we have so much to look forward to”

“Anything…”

Just like him you don’t want to go through this again. You scarcely survived last time, and its misery expanses through your blood, the evidence on your wrist. Adversity is what you were doomed with, you were aware-made peace with it long ago. And so, like any survivor would; you did what you had to do to move on. Block out the pain and smile. Even if it kills you.

Removing your face off his torso, you wipe your tears with your fist.

“Did they find Mojo?”

“Mojo? …Oh, the dog? They did!” Jun laughs helping you wipe your tears, “He was found barking at a fresh beef jerky station”

Thank God he was safe. For some reason you assumed the old woman kidnapped him. Found barking at beef jerky huh…that sounds delicious.

 “I’m hungry” your lips form into a pout and you pat at your lowly rumbling stomach and Jun gives you the biggest grin

“Excellent” he says while fiddling his fingers together like an evil cartoon character “Let me go fix your plate and grab the first aid mwahahaha”

You’re extremely confused with his demeanor and make it known by scrunching your face in half confusion and half disgust

“Did you poison the food?”

“Ahahaha…no,” He starts stepping away towards the kitchen, “Some things just work out according to your plan”

“Like the lullaby?”

He stops in the middle of the hallway as the expressions on your face’s switches with each other “I didn’t know you were still so soft Junie”

“Shut up”

“And your voice! Have you been sneakily practicing Mr. Sinatra?”

“M-m-maybe you sh-should go to bed without food!” He stutters with a red face and his hands on his hips

That shuts you up as you give him a ‘Hmph!” and pass him on the hall into the dining room. “Whoa!” you gasp as you notice the clock, “11:41 already”

“WHAT?!” Jun shouts rushing into the room and witnessing your comment “You have school tomorrow! This isn’t good,” he grabs your plate at the table and speeds to the microwave

“Does this mean I get to stay up till 2?”

“NO!”

_

The weather was frosty these days, tickling you through the ruffles of your tight purple dress. You skipped amongst the inner lining of the wooded area, close enough to see the highway through the shrubs, holding tiny rocks in your fist. You weren’t fully clothed for the temperature, short sleeves and loose tights making your tiny limbs tremble for a good 20 minutes; you wanted to go home. Instead you distracted yourself by picking up little bits of the earth.

“Don’t get too close to the water” you hear from behind. Twirling on one leg, you observe the petite woman towering on the upper side of the ditch, glaring through your soul. She stood by one of the large dead trees, her arms folded across her chest.

There are shadows under her eyes, stiffening the complexion of her pale skin. She stares down at you with her flooded pupils. Her fingers scratching at her arm through the warm jacket she wore.

“The water…don’t get too close” She repeats in the familiar fatigued tone. Her scarf seems to be suffocating her neck, and the padded jacket made a sleek noise every time she made a move. You can spot her steady breaths in the bitter air. For a moment there’s nothing but silenced stares shared between you and her.

That vanishes as soon as a large black car passes by. She whips her head into the direction of the street she’s near, as her breath comes out in a speedier rate. You also turn away from her stature, focused on finding more rocks. They lead into the mini creek in the end of the ditch. Walking up to the creek, you squat to watch your reflection in the water. It was better than your small mirror, you think, fixing your beanie and wiping the stray hairs irritating your face.

“Hey! What did I tell you?” you once again turn to find her figure in your direction once again. There was a hint of anger in her pupils, she appears like she’ll walk up to you any second now until you hear another voice.

“It’s you right?” The stranger wearing all black paces up to her, he seemed scary – you couldn’t see his face by his hood covering, but he was taller than her and you were scared for her.

“Nice place you picked, asshole” She grits at him, having completely forgotten about your presence, digging into her purse feverously

“Come on, it’s a dead road sweetheart. No one comes around these parts” he laughs at her annoyed attitude.

He makes eye contact with you, and you sense your heart skip a beat. “Cute kid” he smiles at you.

The woman gives you a quick glance from her rummaging, “You’re scaring her” she returns to her digging

“Aww why? I’m not a bad guy,” he gives you a wave as she snorts

She gets out a bunch of money, you don’t know how much, it’s all stuffed and crumpled in her hand. Giving it a glance over, she shoves it into his chest. You watch him sigh, and mildly remove the cash from her fingers. He straightens out the bills and begins counting them.

“You’re short” He says, folding the notes and fitting them into his back pocket. “15 milligrams only”

“15?” she shouts before noticing her surroundings, and harshly whispers “You gave me 30 for this much last time”

“That was last time sweetheart, price’s changed”

You gawk as she leaps at him, her palms clutching the sides of his hoodie, having you seal your tiny rocks into your own palm. “P-Please – don’t do this” she spits out “It doesn’t – it barely works anymore, it hurts, it hurts so much – everywhere I-I can’t”

He pushes her off him, into the ground making you stand up straight as heat fills your bones. “That’s not my problem, don’t spit on me bitch” he yells as she heaves on the scattered dead leaves. He watches her struggle a bit before taking a long breath, “Shit, I didn’t mean that…I’ve already been having a bad day, don’t just jump up on me” he messes with his hoodie

Dragging her up to her feet, he takes out a petty clear bag, filled with white powder. Her neck’s bending towards the ground, she refuses to look up at him, which gets him rowdier. He pulls her arm up and crams the bag into her hand.

“You want more? Get more money” he sneers, “Sell that kid” he points at you

“Or better yet, buy her a jacket” he finishes, stomping away with his hands in his jacket’s pouch.

You watch him leave as the freezing wind picks up again. She doesn’t move a muscle facing away from your view. Having the alarms in your head pacified by the lull of the forest, you return your gaze to the creek. There’s a shiny rock in the center of the stream, which makes you squat out of curiosity once again. It’s shimmering the light of the sun, which you were sure was covered by fluffy clouds when you stepped outside. Your face turns up, as you make direct eye contact with the ball of glaring fury. Squinting at the flares you bring your small fist up to protect your sight.

At that moment you hear the crunching of leaves by your rear, a voice deeply surrounding your passive frame –

“What did I tell you about the water”

_

Sitting up in your bed you stare off into the corner of your messy mattress. The lining seems to be ripping from the sheet due to your endless fluster. You’re deep in your thoughts, not being comprehensively conscious to the morning chirps of blue jays – their high-pitched revenue placating you to doze off. In brief, you were still perplexed by your dream. It’s been a long while since you’ve thought of her.

Saturday was finally here. The rest day for a million chores, sunny and bright for your pleasure. You think back on the week, which has been smooth sailing minus a few unintentional mishaps. It's been an easy couple of days, if you take away your anxiety and the few occurrences where you’d look over your shoulder to make sure no elderly lady was following you. Yesterday you almost peed yourself when you ran into the neighbor lady. It was a coincidence, you didn’t know she’d be standing right in front of the entryway as you opened the door to leave for school, and she didn’t know you’d scream right in her face. Long story short, after you screamed, and she screamed, and Jun scolded you; she gave you some lemon meringues. The reason she was at your house. They were so delicious, you’d become fond of her.

Jun had been dropping you off to school these days. It was cute at first, until you realized all he would talk about was his favorite Alfred Hitchcock movies. Since almost all of them made you fall asleep, you weren’t exactly a fan. You didn’t heed to anything as soon as you caught other voices though, most likely students indicating the school building was near, so you booked it. Registering him running after you with a ‘Hey wait up’, you dashed into the gates and onto the platform leading inside the school. You were going to ignore him the whole way, but you had to feel guilt-ridden and twirled about to see him waving goodbye. Smiling, you return the gesture only to regret it as soon as he shouts

“Have a good day! I love you princess!”

-at the top of his lungs. That’s it. You were going to kill him. Spotting some students staring at you, the source of the weird old guy yelling, you sprint into the building with a muffled scream.

That was yesterday, and sadly he’s still alive and well.

Today was your officially your first church visit, hopefully to become a certified member of FallHaven Baptist Church. For some cause, you couldn’t deny you were nervous; the church had a bit of an intimidating exterior. Well at least you’d finally get to buy new shoes for school.

Speaking of school, you had made friends! Or well, Candance and ‘a’ friend. Her name was Jasmine, and she was the nicest red head, a complete package of glasses and freckles. She came over to ask if you were okay when you had a terrible headache on Wednesday. Afterwards you noticed her in a few other periods, which wouldn’t be odd considering there are 60 kids in senior year. Jasmine joined you and Candance for lunch since then. Maybe you’re becoming a bit too attached to both too quickly, fault of only your own social awkwardness. But you knew they’re both great people, as well as members of today’s church.

You feel guilty for even thinking this, but you hadn’t had a run-in Jimin around after the strange incident on Monday. Sometimes you’d spot him talking to a pretty girl in the back of the class. Or well, she would talk, sitting right on his lap while he looked out through the window. His guard would stand behind him without an expression and you found yourself growing even more interested in his world. It’s not that you had feelings for him, you knew yourself and that was impossible. You tried but you couldn’t get Jimin out of your head…or that look in his eye. His aura was magnetic, and you were drawn to him by an invisible force. Is Jimin also a member of the church? He must be, everyone else is. Then again Jimin wasn’t like anybody else, not with those enflamed locks and sharp abyss eyes.

Knock Knock

You break from your thoughts as your door speaks, “Heyyy~ you up? We’ve got to leave in an hour” Jun hums in a hype tone.

Listening to the tune in his voice reminds you of Monday night, how you were swept in his large arms and you could smell his soft oceanic scent – rosemary and a hint of musk from his burdens lingering his neckline. His uncovered skin was on your lips, your torso swallowed by his. You turn a bright red, clenching the sheets around your fingers before you choke a shout

“I’ll be out in a minute”

“Alright, breakfast is on the table” He responds and finishes walking away. Taking a huge sigh, you wake yourself by smacking your cheeks, swinging your legs off the bed and stretching your rigid physique. It’s going to be a long day.

The walk to the Church was a good 20 minutes. Jun had insisted today, no matter how many times you begged him not to, to conversate about how Casablanca was the greatest movie in American cinema. You didn’t know why he knew every character’s name by hand, but that was another mystery of the Fabulous Jun. Letting him talk to his fulfillment was the best option, sighting how he sulked the tiniest every time you interrupted him.

By now, it should be obvious that Jun doesn’t have a car. Ironic, seeing where he works. It’s another reason why you moved here, everything was meters from each other. The town’s population was about 2100 folks from what Uncle Alp told you, and that number seemed so miniscule compared to the busy city. You think Jun was the most excited to move here, he was never much of a people’s person and the somber skies, reticent road gave him comfort. Your poor lone wolf.

“And that’s why Rick doesn’t believe in god”

“…Wait, what?” You turn to stare at him, the sentence your ear caught far more interesting than the pebble you were kicking with your feet.

“Weren’t you listening? I was just explaining the bane of existence Rick Blaine has to deal with!”

“Jun, we’re literally walking to church, would you please knock it off with the jokes?”

“Come on” He winks, “We’re going to be Christians in a good hour, can’t I have my fun while it lasts”

You roll your eyes to hide a smirk, ready to leave him behind once again when you spot huge white gate tubes from the corner of your eyes.

As you come face to face with the front gate, you stare at the gigantic structure known as the church. The white bricked building made the holy edifice seem even holier. The place was built like a palace, complete with a royal entrance pathway you walk through with Jun. Each side of the pathway had an endless field of grass, containing some of the most colorful flowers on earth.

“Not bad” He whispers

As you walk up to the building, you notice the gray bell tower on the right side of the roof. You wonder which lucky fellow gets to ring that bell. Once you get inside though, is when even Jun becomes speechless.

The interior stretches for a mile, the chapel big enough to seat the whole town. A warm aroma sifts through the wood of the benches, and you feel like you can stay in this golden-lit room forever. Stained glass was at every corner of the room, letting through the light the images wished. At the altar resided a large organ piano, candles decorating the pillars of the organs, burning an intense flame for it’s visitors.  Above the piano stood the crucified Jesus, the pain sculptured on his face an intimidating reminder for anyone that comes across the his eyes. The chapel seemed decorated. White flowers adorned the benches of the sanctuary, and people seemed to be polishing the walls. A set of people were on a ladder, pulling up a decorative banner. You spot Joan at the right side of the room, by a small statue of Mary, chatting with 2 strangers that seemed to be closely heeding her words.

“Joan,” Jun calls out to her, and when she turns to him, he waves. She says her farewell to the strangers and comes your way. You wish there was someone else who could show you around, but alas luck was not on your side.

“Welcome, we have been patiently awaiting your arrival” Joan smiles, walking up to you with her hands held together

“Are the preparations for us? You shouldn’t have!” Jun jokes

Joan gives him a swift gaudy chortle, making you squint. That bad gag sure made her happy. Actually, everything seems to make her happy.

“We are getting ready for the arrival of one of our most cherished facility members. He will be attending our sermon tomorrow, you two have arrived on a marvelous period for the town” She gleams

“He sounds like someone special…has he been gone somewhere?” You question

“Yes, he has been lending a hand to the victims of the tragedy in Samaria in the beginning of the month…he has currently completed his concerns on the town and is returning home. His family is holding a ceremony for him tomorrow to reward his efforts”

You and Jun offer sympathetic glances.

The fire in Samaria had been circulating on television for weeks. In the beginning of the month, a local well-loved priest in the small town of Samaria had shut in worshippers during mass and torched the statue of Jesus on the cross in the front of the altar. 300 lives suffered grave deaths, including his own. It was said spectators could hear the vibration of children screaming through the blaze from a hundred miles around, as firefighters tried to tear down the bolted doors. Not a single survivor.

“We would love to be here tomorrow,” Jun smiles

“And we would love to have you. Now please come this way,” She extends her arm toward the inner hall on the right, “Our Archbishop is quite excited to meet you”

You follow Joan along the hall, her heel’s clacking echoing around the assembly of the broad interior. The ceiling was caved outward and dispersed among the hallway to the very end. It was the biggest building you had ever been inside, and your neck ached as you pressured your marveled gaze upon everything. The church had a dim, golden color and you walked along indoor pillars; each pillar encompassing a soft light fixture and a holy cross. Every column had a large brown door.

“Um, Joan, I read on your brochure this place has a confessional? As far as I know New Testament Christians don’t believe in the confessional method.” You see Jun’s expression out of the corner of your eye at your question. He was dazzled at your knowledge. Heh, how insulting.

“You are absolutely right, ___” She turns her head a bit and you spot her pleasant expression beyond her blonde tresses, “Actually, we are the only place of worship for many for around a thousand miles. This Church is also famous for its beauty. Everyone becomes enraptured with it, like you have,” She laughs as you blush. When did she catch you in amazement? “Members of our family come from far and wide to seek refuge in our humble Church, and therefore to ease their souls, we offer a great many sources for all kinds of our relatives. Including Protestants and Evangelist. We also offer everyone a place at the Holy Communion, baptized or not .”

“That’s…amazing. And so kind.” You awe. This was great, I mean you still wanted to be baptized along with Jun. New beginnings and all, but it’s great that you’re Church is so open hearted.

“Are there any problems because of this? Like do any leaders from those other tribes get upset?” Jun casually ponders, while you elbow him for asking something so insensitive…and did he just call them tribes?

“Au contrair!” Joan giggles, “We have the Vatican’s blessing, and many devout religious leaders visit our Church with boundless respect” She stops and turns her body toward the right side of the hallway, while you both have a clear view of her face. She smiles way too much. “So yes, our “tribes” get along well”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to be rude” Jun mutters, scratching the back of his head

“Oh no, I didn’t take your words for offense, Jun” Joan steps closer to the wall, hidden from your sight by a pillar “This is our Archbishop’s office” She knocks on what you believe is a door.

You hold your breath as the door glides open, the slight creaking at the hinges relaying it’s ancient age.

Out steps a sharply dressed tall old man. He embodied a tan-colored suit, edges ironed to perfection and not a fringe out of place in his off white head of hair, combed perfectly neat to the right. There was a handkerchief poking out from his front pocket and a brown bow tie adorning his collar. You couldn’t recognize any signs of fatigue and barely that of aging. The facial format of his appearance communicated passion and vigor, the wrinkles around his clear coffee eyes were soft and fresh, while the lines of his mouth were welcoming. Nothing but his hair gave away his age, not even a sun spot adorned his porcelain skin. He had the same stretchy smile on his features like Joan.

“Are these two beautiful souls our new neighbors?” He spoke in a harmonious tone of voice. You could sift the aura of a dominant charisma emitting from his stature from every word.

“Yes, they are!” Joan replies, “They want to become members of our Church, isn’t that wonderful, Robert? This is Robert,” She directs her words at Jun, “the Archbishop and eldest head of our Church”

They both stare at you, practically illuminating holy lights out of their asses, temporarily blinding you and Jun.

“Yeah, It’s nice to meet you, sir” Jun steps up and held out his hand; which the pastor, who you notice is taller than Jun, encompasses in both his palms, for an extra friendly greeting “My name is Jun and this is my sister, we just moved here last week, looking forward to joining your lovely Church, if you’d let us”

“This Church is open to any soul submitting himself to God” Robert speaks, rubbing Jun’s hand with both of his own, to which Jun uncomfortably laughs

“And you” He turns to you as you slightly startle, “Are you willing to submit your being to the high and mighty, little lamb?” He lets go of Jun’s hand and faces you. As do Jun and Joan, which irks the anti-attention personality in you.

“Um yes, I’m ___” You offer him your hand, which is easily taken in both of his own again. You immediately feel his warmth traveling through your arm from contact of his fingers, as he glides it over your casing delicately. It was as if he was a furnace. Goosebumps arrive on the affected area of the skin.

He pauses just a bit suddenly, and you watch his eyes open a bit further through his big smile, the corner of his lip turning downward. The chocolate of his iris had become darkened until it was an endless black, staring through your outer layers. You felt naked even with your clothes on, and it frightened you so you slowly pull your hand back. Trying not to make a rash movement.

Yet as soon as it came, it was gone.

He pulled your hand towards him again, and the blank gaze had dissolved into the familiar sweet caramel expression – not giving you a chance to react. You look at Jun and his relaxed expression, neither of the other two noticed your discomfort. Which was rare for Jun.

“Joan, You’ve done right by bringing these two here. I can tell they’ll fit right in and bring much fortune! You both are official FallHaven Baptist Church members”

“Oh wonderful!” Joan claps in celebration

Robert puts his arms in the air, his fingers and head raised towards the sky, “I can feel it already, the lord sending a message through me.” You stay still and watch as Joan immediately pulls out a wooden cross from underneath her blouse, bringing it up to her lips and chanting something under her breath. Jun takes a step back.

“He wants me to do it as soon as possible, he wants it done immediately. Yes Lord! For I am your humble servant! You both,” He turns back to you, “Will be baptized at tomorrows communion! Praise the Lord!”

“Amen!” Joan shouts, a bit out of breath and you notice how much her pupils dilated.

“Alright then boy,” He lets go of holding you under his intense gaze and rotates to Jun while you discreetly rub at your hand through your extra-long sleeves.

“Why don’t you and I have a little chat about some grown up stuff, while Joan gives a sort of tour of our holy house to the little lamb here” He puts his hand on your shoulder to refer to you and you stiffen immediately

“Sounds good” Jun raises a eyebrow at you “You alright with that?”

Alone with Joan?

“…Yes”

“Oh small one,” Robert slightly rubs his thumb around the back of your shoulder, “You’ve done so well by accepting Jesus. No longer will you grieve alone, for he will be by your side. He’s made it clear to you, he has!”

“I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born, says the Lord! And that’s you!” He raises his finger into your face, his voice dominating through the walls of the hallway, echoing off the corners of the roof “You’re born again!”

“You’re free from your suffering!”

_

Walking down the left hallway on the second floor, you marvel at the glass ceiling, the cloudless sky letting in all the wonders of the world. Through the golden hues, you watch as Joan struts in front of you in the glittering hallway, occasionally detailing the authenticity of paintings and figurines decorating each side of the walls. So far, you’ve had the pleasure of seeing the study, the confessional also known as the reconciliation room, and the bell tower.

She displayed the charisma and pride of an honest church member. Bragging about many key aspects the large shelter provided. In total, the cathedral could serve up to 2000 worshippers at a time. It wasn’t the Jubilee, but it was still an amazing feat.

There were a few things you had learned already. The youth bible study met up twice a week after school. Classes for certain instruments and vocal lessons were also available. You signed the roster immediately after seeing the name of the person that led the group. Sunday mass lasts an hour after sunrise, led by the Archbishop and called for by the large bell tower. For those who miss it, there’s a make-up held by one of the priests and a deacon in the evenings. On Easter, mass lasts 3 hours with additional services including altar calls and extra hymns led by the youth group. It was so surreal, you were now actually apart of a community and you were going to do things with them…like a family does. For so long, it’s been just you and Jun. Speaking of him, you muse on how touchy he’ll get at you coming home late, or how cranky he’ll be in the early mornings for mass.

You let out a soft chuckle imagining his furrowed eyebrow, and the corners of his mouth flipped downside in a strong pout. Joan steps up to a door and you follow close behind, she pushes it open and turns to you.

“This is our Biblical library! The 4th largest in the world!” She pleasantly brags about the brightly lit room, where you have to keep your jaw from dropping. It finally made sense as to why this church was as big as it was.

Your eyes glaze over the giant cherry wood shelves, towering over the lax white chamber, straining your neck to the clouds. They pushed on for miles, one shelf after the other harboring hundreds of books. It was a bit intimidating. There were tables containing a few busy bodies lingering the maroon carpet in the front, and everything was vast and silent. At the front desk, there was a lady with a pointy nose which her bifocals rested upon, reading a blank brown covered book and whispering to herself inaudibly. She covered herself from head to toe with a black veil wrapped around her figure, a tunic like dress connected to a bib at the neck-line. A nun.

“Sister Haggith” Joan leans in to whisper to you, “She oversees the library and everything that comes with such a task. She knows every nook and cranny of this place, including each book and it’s location. Sister Haggith is an amazing woman, and another trusted member of the board”

“Wow” You gasp, “Is she from the monastery?”

“Yes, she has been with us for 21 years. Actually quite a few of our sisters have work around town. Have you gotten the chance to visit your school’s infirmary?”

“No, not yet. But I’ll be sure to check it out,” you tell her and she replies with a smile.

In the corner of the room, one of the clear glass cases catch your eye. Inside the display case was a worn out piece of khaki paper, looking about 100 years old. The paper was thin and fragile, torn the slightest at each of the ends. There was something written in shrill black ink, but you were too far away for it to be anything but blurry.

“Um, may I ask about that?” You shyly point at your object of interest and Joan follows your line of sight.

“Oh!” She chirps “The scripture of Nathanael”

When you give her a confused look, she leads you toward the stand with a ‘come with me’. Next to the  display case were a few other ones, containing more ancient objects. Another that caught your eye was an extremely rusted dagger.

You examine the tabloid carefully, now that you were closer, you could easily read the paper. Or not? The writing wasn’t in English.

“What does it say?”

“It’s in Hebrew” Joan answers, “It was given to us by an angel from the heavens. He identified himself as Nathanael”

She bends down and reads a sentence off the paper, “thy fate lies in the conscious of thy choices; of thy wilt to serve the mighty”

Immediately your mind rushes toward what Candance had told you; about the tower and the famine and the ‘great warning.’

“It’s true” you accidently whisper out loud

“So, you have been enlightened?” Joan asks

“Yeah…I think…” You grin awkwardly

“There is no need to worry, there’s quite a few fables made about the tower” Joan giggles, “The reality is simple though. 120 years ago, our town was made up of devout Christians, filled to the brim with their love for our father.” She looks toward the ceiling happily, “They were refugees of the south, unbinding from their laws and wars, seeking a place to start over. However, we were new to this land. We settled into it’s foundation in the beginning of that year.” Her tone suddenly deepens and she slowly brings her head back down, “And you see, sometimes foundations become barren. Sometimes they crack. Then comes the drought”

For the first time you see Joan frown. That one word has her staring deep off into space, no longer a silver of light in her eyes. She stands there, glaring a hole through the white wall, and time slows around you both as you shift uncomfortably at the heavy atmosphere. You much rather have her creepily smiling.

“The drought” she whispers “That summer, the heat…the sounds of battle cries over the horizon…so endless, so suffocating. Oh how bad the drought was” she closes her eyelids as she shivers slightly. “We prayed and prayed and prayed for the bad drought to go away, on our knees till they bled, till our mouths were dry and our eyes felt that they would fall off. Oh bad drought go away, Oh Lord save us! And it happened” She raises her arms up into the air and open her eyes with one sudden motion, as you watch with astonishment

“Just like he promised! A miracle, a great mercy! He came down to us, he saved our damned souls!” the corners of her eyes well up, as she breathes heavily into the air practically yelling each syllable, “We-

“Joan!”

You both jump as a stern voice interrupts the silence of your small corner. There you spot Sister Haggith, quiet and still, her intimidating aura making you feel small. She appeared out of nowhere.

“You are being too loud, child. Shall I remind you of what a library is?” She speaks, staring through Joan as someone insignificant and you can feel the lady beside you straighten herself.

“Y-you are correct. I am so sorry” she takes a handkerchief out of her blazer’s breast pocket. She dabs  sweat from her forehead with her fabric and turns to you. You notice how dilated her pupils are again, and you find yourself worrying for her.

“I-I am sorry, the moral of the story is that angel Nathanael saved us from the drought and laid down ground rules, which are written in the scripture. Alright, we should get on our way,” Grabbing your arm, she commences to walk away from the displays, around the woman who hadn’t moved an inch and toward the large doors as you wince.

You make a grunt of disapproval which has her peeking back and letting go of your arm. As you both step out of the library onto the foyer of the hallway, she treads quietly in front of you, until you both are once again in the chapel.

She turns around, and looks at you with apology.

“I am sorry, once again for my behavior. I get deep into my feelings about our lord, but a library is no place to behave that way.”

“No, I didn’t…think anything…”

“Is your wrist alright?” She questions suddenly

“Um-what…”

“You seemed like you were in pain when I held your arm,”

“Oh yeah,” You bring your arms up and pull down your sleeve to revel a thin layer of bandage around your wrist.

“My goodness,” Says a shocked Joan

“Oh no! It’s not what you think! Jun is just easily suggestible, and it’s just on until the bruise vanishes”

“Bruise?” She says, even more worried than before

“No – I mean yes, I ran into a small accident, but it’s no big deal really!” You flail your arms around in denial, trying desperately to mend her concern

“There you are!” A familiar jolly voice interjects you

“Robert!”

“Jun!”

You both shout in unison, a wave of relief unapologetically obvious in your voices.

“You ladies have a grand time?” Robert asks as he walks up to you and Jun trails behind with a wide grin

“Just wonderful” Joan answers, her blinding smile re-embellished on her features

“It was great, I learned a lot” You reply, taking a peek at Jun and his suggestive expression. He was holding in a laugh.

“Now that’s what I like to hear ‘round here!” Robert laughs out loud, “Me on the other hand loves this goofy fella” He pats Jun on the back

Jun jokes back at the senior, “Not as much as we love Thanksgiving dinner” he winks

You pale at the horrendous joke, while Robert cackles louder and pats Jun harder as he holds his abdomens with his other arm, seemingly in better spirits than in the morning. Joan covers her mouth and lets out a tiny giggle as well, while you make a strange ‘ha ha’ sound.

“See, see, what I tell ya, he’s goofy!”

Jun looks at you with accomplishment while you subtly roll your eyes at his ‘charm act.

“Alright then, I’ll see you both here in the early morning! Your baptism will be right in front of the chapel, after the service!” Robert informs you

The four of you exchange a few other pleasantries, and before you know it you’re on your way home with a slushy and a new pair of shoes in your hand.

“I didn’t know there were so many cake varieties before!” You chirp, marveling at the cake shop you had stopped by in the mall.

“Well I for one, am excited to try out this new electric hand mixer” Jun takes out a box from his shopping bag of said item, “Always wanted one of these”

“$4 bucks says you break on the third try” You squint your eyes, teasing the tall boy next to you

“And where will you get that money?” He asks as a matter of fact, making you ‘hmph’ in return

“…Do you like the church?” Jun questions

“…I do” You return, looking at his expression for something hidden. You just could never tell what he was thinking.

He smiles, “Robert’s quite the character, huh?”

“Yeah, Robert’s…something”

As you’re discerning, you make a turn at the intersection just to trip over one of your shoes and fall onto the pavement. Thank god your drink was almost empty, you think as the slushy falls by your side. You catch your body on your hand and knees as your bag slips out of your hand and into the ditch on the side of the sidewalk. Jun shouts your name as he bends down to check on you and you let out a curse watching the bag roll down the patchy green hill, toward the canal. Quickly, you get up and run after it while Jun runs after you, still yelling your name and telling you to stop.

Before your bag goes anywhere near the water, a long silhouette halts the object and picks it up with one hand. When you get closer you recognize the figure to be a young man, wearing a white suit. Your running ends and you stand a feet away from him, when he turns to look at you, taking away your breath for a good minute.

In the serenity of that afternoon, when the sun was at it’s highest and the nightingale sprung it’s chorus; the water reflected the colors of the rainbow and the winds softly whispered through your body, you met an angel.

“Hi, I’m Namjoon. Is this yours?”

He hands you the bag you had already long forgotten about. You stare at him, as motionless as a feather while you watch his face turn to one of confusion.

“Yup, that’s hers! Thanks man!” Jun breaks you out of your daze as he takes the bag from his fingers.

“Um, yes. Thank you so much!” You splutter, embarrassed              

“It’s nothing” He smiles and your jaw drops open

Dimples.

“Bye the way, you took quite a fall back there. Are you alright?” He asks

When you fail to answer, Jun nudges you, breaking you out of your daze for a second time.

“M-more than! I don’t feel any pai-ow!” You grab your wrist and remember your injury. It feels suggestively worse than when you first got it. It couldn’t be that you sprained it…could it.

“Shit, I knew it was just a matter of time!” Jun shouts, grabbing your wrist to take a look himself

“Owwww, don’t pull it!” You whine tugging your arm back

You play tug of war for a bit, before you feel someone else gently grab your wrist and you both freeze. Namjoon opens your sleeve, and places his fingers on your wrist. He delicately presses down a few times,

“Does it hurt?”

“No,” and it didn’t. All the pain had evaporated just like that while a strong warmth spreads in place of any discomfort. Namjoon concentrates on your bandage, and it appears as if he could see through it, which makes you subconsciously draw your arm back. He couldn’t notice it, could he. While you stare at him, Jun’s head awkwardly angled to the side slides into the corner of your eye.

“I’m glad, must’ve been temporary” Namjoon says, releasing your hand and backing away, “Are you both new in town?”

“Yes, we just moved in a week ago!” Jun responds

“And how do you like my town?” He asks, putting his hands in his pockets.

“It’s been well, the house is old so adjusting’s a bit tough but we’ll get the hang of it”

“Where did you both move in from?”

“One of the inner cities from the north”

Namjoon becomes silent. “The one where they…uh…I-I’m sorry”

“It’s no big deal” Jun thwarts his worry, “Everyone’s reaction is the same, so we keep it hush-hush, but yeah”

“We’re town-folk now” You add

Both men look at you for a moment before they laugh.

“That’s right” Jun says through a gummy smile

“Of course,” Namjoon pipes in with his dimples

“We should get going, I need to make a few arrangements,” Jun shakes Namjoon’s hand as they exchange names, “See you around Namjoon? At the pub maybe?”

“Maybe, but not there,” Namjoon chuckles, “I’m still in school”

You and Jun look like a fish out of the water. I mean, he looks so mature? So wise? Which high schooler could be this angelic?

“So maybe I’ll see you around” He winks at you

You feel your legs give out but you hold still to not further your humiliation “H-how-”

“Every kid at FallHaven high wears those” He points at your shoes “Which grade are you in”

“S-senior year”

“Me too! Hopefully we’ll be class buddies”

“But I haven’t seen you around before?” You say

“I’ve been on a trip, just returned today. Monday will be my first day back”

“Wow! This is so cool cause she doesn’t have a lot of friends but you look like a popular guy, Namjoon! Take care of her! Hey come on over after class sometime and I’ll make you my famous choco-“

“Let’s go!” You push a rambling Jun, red-faced at his blabbering

“Wait, I’m just talking to the nice young ma-”

“Jun, we’re leaving!” you shout at the older boy

“B-bye, see you at school” You shyly shout back at Namjoon through the idiot’s screeching. Blushing harder when he waves a goodbye with an amused expression

As he leaves your view, you thought you spotted someone running up to his side, but maybe you were mistaken.

“I like him!”

“I get it Jun, you’ve said it a hundred times” You giggle at the child-like expression on his face. As you take one step after the other, almost at your house, Jun wouldn’t stop talking about the encounter with Namjoon. You liked him too. He was such a gentleman, so much class. School was going to get so much more interesting. Wait…Why was everyone at your school so good-looking. What’s up with that. How’re you going to survive being surrounded by hot people? Especially that one guy,

“Jimin”

“Who?”

It takes you a second to figure out you’ve said his name out loud, and when you take your eyes off the ground, Jun is glaring a hole right through your face.

“W-what?”

“Who’s Jimin” He questions with his breath in your face

“Nothing, go away” You avoid him

“First you’re a blushing mess in front of Namjoon, and now you’re whispering a name of a boy I never heard about?”

“I-I wasn-”

“I guess it’s time to tell you this” He looks ahead suddenly, his features hardened and serious

You watch him breathe through his nose, and blink slowly and you find yourself becoming nervous “Tell me w-what”

“The moment has come” He stops walking as your right in front of your house and puts all his focus on you, which in return makes you gulp.

“Princess…” the wind picks up and you gaze at him with goosebumps on your skin

“When a man and woman fall in love, sometimes they get these urges to become one, now what those are-”

“Say one more word and you won’t be able to pee standing up again”

_

You were making your bed after setting up the alarm clock Jun had bought you. It was time to sleep for tomorrow’s big day and your teeth were chattering just thinking about it. That and it was really cold inside the house. Uncle Alp had told Jun he would talk to some guy he knows, but so far you haven’t heard anything further. Hopefully it would be fixed by the end of next week. You don’t know how many more nights you’ll have to survive sweating through your house in the middle of the day and becoming a frozen statue on your bed at night.

In the mall, before you had lunch, Jun reminded you a hundred times to get a heater, but guess who forgot. Honestly you did it on purpose so he’d take you shopping again, but he doesn’t need to know that. What you didn’t like about today was Joan calling Jun by his name. I mean, adults call each other Mr. last name unless they’re close, right? Especially respectful ones like ‘Joan’ but here she was “hahaha Jun this hahaha Jun that.’ Ok, maybe you were being a bit mean. You felt really bad when Joan got yelled at by that elder lady. There is something about the old people in this town that freaks you out. Learning more about the town was a good thing. You were gonna revisit that Scripture and see what else you can find out about FallHaven. At least there’s no cannibalism.

You walk by your closet and take off your dress. It was when you were changing into your pajamas that you notice your wrist. The bandage was still wrapped around it but it didn’t hurt. It hadn’t hurt all day. Curious, you remove the tape and unwind the white ribbons off your wrist. Your heart beats a bit louder as it clears itself off your skin.

You let out a gasp.

Smooth, clean, no signs of staining or any discoloration. Twisting your wrist around, you decide to give it a flick. And still, no pain, no ache.

This morning, you had opened up the bandage to find a light purple bruise. Then just a few hours later…it vanished? Something wasn’t adding up. You recall how the pain had disappeared when Namjoon had touched it. Could he have somehow healed you?

Did people like that exist?

But then again. Those marks were still there. The reminders of your hell still scarred into your vision. If he had healing abilities…wouldn’t he have healed these? Definitely. So he’s not a healer, just a very good-looking boy. But then…where’s your bruise?

Argh, it was giving you a headache. Either way you won’t need this stupid bandage anymore, you think as you stand up and throw it in the dust bin. Shutting your door closed, and lights off, you cheerily skip onto your bedside and jump onto the springy mattress. Lying in bed and wrapping the covers around yourself tightly, you close your eyes in hopes to doze off into a new bright and sunny day. Today was over, and you and Jun were safe. In the end that’s all that mattered.

_

Bzzz Bzzz

It’s fully dark when you regain conscious and there’s something light knocking into your face. With your eyes closed in discomfort you swat away at whatever’s bothering your slumber.

Bzzz Bzzz

You sigh, as you fan yourself. Why was it so hot? Did Jun get the heat to work again? You kick off your covers, but then realize that there’s nothing to kick off. There was nothing covering your body but your pajamas.

Bzzz Bzzz

“Fuck” You sit up in your pitch black room. Turning to check the time, you spot 2:57 on your clock. That’s when you see a little black dot fly into your view, and you work quickly to stamp your hands together. It works because you feel something between your palms. Hesitant to let go, you move your arms away from you and open them up.

“Ew what the-”

You say at the sticky black goo encasing both your palms. Examining in through the moonlight, you stare at the icky gunk on your hand as the curtain from the window brushes your shoulder.

Wait, what?

You whip your head toward the missing glass above your bed in horror. Why was your window open?

Who opened it?

Before you know it, you’re breathing heavily and you turn around into your dark room once again. The quiet no longer giving you a sense of calm, instead replaced with the terror of reality. Someone broke into your room, the alarms go off in your head, and your sense of rationality goes flying out the open window. It’s dark, but you can make out most of the furniture in your room. And that’s where you see it.

In the corner of your room, by your dresser stands a long, bulky dark shadow, the recognition had you tightening your fingers on your sheets.

At this point your hyper ventilating as tears stream down your face.

“W-who” Is all you manage to make out, closing in on yourself to protect your body from any potential harm.

Bzzz Bzzz

There’s a minute that goes by before the shadow moves closer, and this time there’s buzzing surrounding you. You look around the room and it’s filled with tiny black spots rummaging the shadows, you choke on your sobs, as the buzzing grows louder. One of the black dots land right on your hand. The moonlight exposing the common fly. Yet there was something off about it. You shoo it off, covering your ears with your hands, you shut your eyes tight as you fall over, face first onto the bed; trying to drown out this nightmare. Every second the buzzing becomes louder and unbearable and you feel the shadow right on your back.

Then it stops.

No buzzing

No shadow

No flies

You peek out from your hands staring at the spot once occupied by the thing when you feel something brush your ear

“Don’t be scared”

A deep, gruff voice is all you hear before your back is being plowed open by what seems like a claw. You scream out at the feeling of your skin being ripped open on your back. Something attaches itself to your spine as you cough out blood in the middle of your deafening shrieks. Writhing on bed as the shadow holds you down, you scream and whimper out your lungs. Flies cover your face and drown out your own ears until you can only hear your internal damnation. Years of deeply buried memories come swelling up, and you claw at your mattress for some sanity.

You feel every rip and tear of flesh, every drop of blood pour from your back, every nail of the claw digging into the deepest corners of your body,

and in that moment, you wish for death.

You wake up with a loud gasp, as tears stream down your face. Turning your eyes at every inch of your room, your hands rapidly move across your body. There’s no blood, no opening, no trace of any violence. Turning to face the window, you find it shut and barren. Shivers run up your body from the cold room. Which calms you down the slightest. Sweat pours through you like an open drain, your pores still living in your nightmare. You check your clock, the 3:00 am glares back at you in bold red. A dream.

Just a dream. You slow your heavy breathing wrapping your arms around your torso, yet there’s no end in sight for your tears.

You’re about to calm down when you feel it. There’s bile crawling up your throat, you’re aware of the suffocating substance littering your esophagus. Falling out of bed, you crawl your way out of the room. You drag your body with your hands, barely making it over the toilet. It doesn’t take long – just one groan and you’re disgorging today’s contents into the toilet bowl. Everything’s chaotic and wet, saliva attaching the last bit of your vomit to your mouth. Coughing out the last fillings of your insides, you spit into the putrid bowl, before flushing away any trace of retch. Grunting, you crawl back towards your room, there’s absolutely no sensation in your legs. You tremble as you make your way back into your mattress, pulling up the blankets on your sore limbs.

It was just a dream. You aren’t gonna tell Jun because it’s over. It was a dream. Some hellish nightmare born from the uneasiness of your past traumas and changes you aren’t comfortable with. You’re safe. There’s no shadow, there’s no monster. Dad’s not here. Jun doesn’t need to worry because of you. It’s over.

You shake like that for another hour or two, it feels like someone is smashing a hammer into the side of your skull, before you somehow pass out on your bed.

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG151 /o/

- And Peter’s “friend” was, in the end, Simon Fairchild:

(MAG144) PETER: I’m absolutely delighted with your progress, and I feel you’ve earned some straight answers. MARTIN: But not from you. PETER: Oh, no. That sort of conversation makes me very uncomfortable. No, I’m owed a favour by a friend of mine. I’ve asked him to stop by, when he’s back in the country.

(MAG151) SIMON: Peter asked me to look in on you and… have a small chat. Well! A big chat, really. Answer all those… nagging questions. […] I lost a bet, and this is how the good captain chooses to use that. The second is… sort of?

Simon himself pointed out the compatibility between The Lonely and The Vast, but the Lukases had also collaborated with the Fairchilds on the Daedalus project (together with the Church of the Divine Host, although they were mostly invited into that project by Rayner to cough up the funding, according to Manuela). And Peter was indeed “owed a favour” because said friend had lost another bet. (So, amongst the gambling club, we got Salesa > Peter > Simon, so far. … Given how Peter had apparently betted on MAG066’s statement-giver’s death with Salesa, I’m… not sure I want to know what Simon and Peter had betted about, for Peter to win.)

Jon had kinda jinxed us that we would meet Simon this season, but Jon also avoided the Worst Of It:

(MAG124) ARCHIVIST: Simon Fairchild is one of the… recurrent figures that I think disquiets me the most. Not simply for what he does, the endless spaces of highs or depths to which he’s so quick to condemn his victims, but… the joy he seems to take in doing so. And I don’t think there is much to this tale beyond that: an evil man tormenting and killing simply for his own pleasure, and to feed the power that sustains him. […] I do not think I ever wish to meet him.

Congrats, Jon, you managed to not meet him although he came to the Institute! /o/ Staying holed up in the Archives has its perks. (… Especially considering how Jon had lost it in front of Breekon, I’m… not sure that he wouldn’t have thrown a fit in front of Simon. I mean. If Martin lost his cool so easily despite knowing how dangerous Simon is, Jon would have been a living nightmare about that guy.)

“Simon Fairchild” had been linked with a few “firsts” in the history of the series. He was one of Jon’s first cases at the Institute; he was in the first Vast statement we heard in the series, which had… been interrupted by Martin himself, as Martin was just returning from Prentiss’s entrapment and would give his statement in the very next episode:

(MAG051) ARCHIVIST: […] One of my first cases as a researcher for the Institute in 2012 was looking into the history of a jeweller in Hackney, that had reported cases becoming cracked in the night. Nothing was ever taken but, each morning it would be like a heavy weight had been dropped upon them. Looking into it, it turned out that the jewels had, in the 1930s, belonged to a con artist and fence, who had attracted the displeasure of the local population. When one particularly irate customer threw him out of a fourth-floor window into a crowded street at midday… no one claimed to have seen anything. A minor possible haunting with a decidedly pedestrian backstory, but notable because while I was never able to discover the original name of the con artist, one of his many, many aliases was Simon Fairchild, and it appeared on several business listings around the time. Whether it’s a coincidence or not is something of a moot point at this stage, however.

(MAG021) ARCHIVIST: […] It might just be a coincidence, but I recall the name “Simon Fairchild” was one of the ones used by– [DOOR OPENS, CHAIR TUMBLES] My god! Martin?! [SOMETHING SQUELCHES] What… What the hell is–? What are these things?! [CLICK.]

MAG124, “Left Hanging”, which featured Simon in the statement, also marked the first time that Jon had tried to interact with Martin since he had awakened from his ~coma~. So: it feels like “Simon” had been around for a while, surrounding important events but always escaping us a bit, before, finally, we met him in (what’s left of) the flesh.

- We had heard the name “Fairchild” since MAG021, and Gerry had mentioned that it wasn’t actually a family (MAG111: “Well, Fairchild’s just a name, they’re not really family.”) but we had heard of them as being… a clan of some sort (MAG089, Jude Perry: “Hangs around with the Fairchilds sometimes.”):

(MAG051) ARCHIVIST: […] A cursory bit of research reveals the Fairchilds in question to be an exceptionally wealthy family, based down in Cornwall. No real business to speak of, but it appears they’ve invested very wisely in aerospace technology, shipping logistics and underwater drilling and construction. Whatever their origin, I feel it’s worth keeping an eye on them.

… and turns out that HAHA:

(MAG151) SIMON: I’ve been “Simon Fairchild” about, um… eighty or ninety years, maybe? For business purposes, mainly – by which I mean I was bored of not being wealthy, so I made some arrangements and sent Mr. Fairchild on a very long fall. I could go into details, but without a certain amount of knowledge of 1930s tax practices, it wouldn’t mean very much to you.

It’s… not even a stolen name, it’s a stolen alias. And they all developed around it / kept Simon’s alias as a sign of respect / just used it for tax fraud and get rich, all along.

- Simon was a BLAST, rambly, jumpy, losing his breath here and there, living his best life of being terrible (only caring about the people he had traumatised/deprived of their closed ones when it came to introduce himself, casually threatening Martin, absolutely chill about the idea that yes, people are suffering and are meant to suffer or to disappear) – I’m especially fond of that moment:

(MAG151) SIMON: And honestly, the idea that this is all some… “grand cosmic joke”, thousands of us running around spreading horror and sabotaging each other pointlessly while these impossible, unknowable things just lurk out there, feeding off the misery we cause… [INHALE] I find that interpretation quite appealing…!

He just spat the whole sentence at full velocity, and we could hear the lack of oxygen towards the end, it was great and fitting for an avatar of The Vast! And he was an utter troll, to the point that Martin actually tried to threaten him?

(MAG151) SIMON: Peter said you’d have a lot of questions about that one. MARTIN: I do. [PAUSE] How are new powers born? SIMON: Hm… don’t know! MARTIN: How soon could it attempt its ritual? SIMON: No clue! MARTIN: How do we stop it? SIMON: Can’t help you! MARTIN: [THROUGH GRITTED TEETH] Could you, at least, try? SIMON: [FRANTIC] … No–no–no–no, you’re right, of course!

… TWICE:

(MAG151) MARTIN: I don’t see your point. SIMON: [INHALE] My point is… [PAUSE] … You know? I’ve quite forgotten! MARTIN: [EXASPERATED SIGH] SIMON: [PANICKED SOUNDS] I’ve just not been doing much recently, it’s not a good time for perspective, you see.

Martin meeting what is for us the oldest avatar around (… at least officially; what is Elias, etc.), even older than Rayner, somehow translated to “Martin on the verge of beating an old man, twice”. S2!Martin was bringing you tea; S4!Martin is done with each and every one of you and has gained so many levels in bossy from having to deal with Peter for excruciating months:

(MAG151) SIMON: [CHUCKLING] And this has been fun! [INHALE] Now. [CHAIR SCRAPING] If we’re about done– MARTIN: We’re not. Sit back down. SIMON: Boooold~ [CHUCKLE] [CHAIR SCRAPING] I like it.

(redusijnferd why did you sound so flirty, you pink skeleton of a man. Get in the queue to get a Power Claim on the boy.)

- We could perfectly feel that Simon was older than your regular avatar (if he worked under Tintoretto, it means he was born in the 16th century) through his way of looking at the Fears, the sheer… chillness? with the prospect of everyone dying/disappearing, but also more personally, in the portrait he was painting of Peter:

(MAG151) SIMON: Yes, well! You have to understand how it is with Peter. He finds talking to people directly very difficult, especially explaining the more, hum… esoteric side of things? MARTIN: Mm. SIMON: Charming chap, I’m sure you’ll agree, absolutely lovely, but… even if you can convince him to actually give you a straight answer, he’s just not that good at actually putting these things into words. Something to do with his upbringing, I think. [CONSPIRATORIALLY] I’m pretty sure he was home-schooled, you know! […] He is what he is, Martin. For a creature of The Lonely, the urge is always to isolate; never to communicate or connect. I suspect that’s why he’s so keen on wagers: it allows him a framework for cooperation that doesn’t risk any sort of intimacy.

… Simon was describing this awkward, kinda sweet guy who is trying his best to save the world but has a few disabilities and tries to manoeuvre around it. Meanwhile: we witnessed live Peter Lukas sending Brian Finlinson to The Lonely in MAG100 apparently Just Because He Could, and he whooshed two researchers who were only ignoring his directives while Jon was still unresponsive, and there is the whole Tundra deal; he also began to ramble in front of Martin about how he would have gone for Gertrude’s throat… I’m glad that Martin didn’t fall for it and was rightfully unimpressed (he also told Basira that Peter was “awful” right after). But it was telling that Simon would present Peter as this uwu sweet child uwu, when… really, absolutely nope.

(About the “home-school” bit: and how many Lukases children are “raised” in Moorland House, right now…?)

Simon was also… absolutely unsurprised by Little Institute Things:

(MAG151) SIMON: Ouuh! Hello? [CHAIR SCRAPING] Hmm~ […] Hm! No wonder I’m so sympathetic to The Lonely. You know: this really is a place for self-discovery, isn’t it? [CHUCKLE] “Statement ends”, I suppose! MARTIN: Uh… I’m sorry? SIMON: Oh! Nothing, just my own hubris. I should have known. When I came here, I said to myself: “Simon,” I said, “you’re going to answer this young man’s questions, but you’re not going to give The Watcher a statement. You’re better than that.” But it’s a hard one to resist, isn’t it? You get in the flow of talking about yourself, and it all just… tumbles out. MARTIN: Mm, does seem like it. SIMON: [CHUCKLING] And this has been fun!

(Oliver had also described Jon’s effect: “Be easier if you could talk back, right? Ask me questions and just have it tumble all out.” (MAG121)) Simon greeted the tape recorder (?), and knew about the “Statement ends” phrasing, and that one is… noteworthy, since it’s Jon’s trademark (later copied by Martin). Gertrude wasn’t using it, she immediately announced her “Final comments” after her readings - how did Simon know about Jon&Martin’s formulaic “Statement ends”? Did Peter describe it to him? (… Or Elias?)

- That episode was indeed a MAG111.2 (30th episode of season 3 / season 4!) – except it wasn’t Jon receiving the information, but Martin, and it was… less about categories and repartitions, more about how the Fears tend to operate in their irregularities. We didn’t even learn a lot about structures or terminology; technically, we… didn’t learn a lot, but mostly got a few confirmations for things that had been there for a while, although not fully assimilated, through an ~exterior~ point of view? The biggest information was probably that not all avatars are as afraid of The Extinction as Peter is:

(MAG151) SIMON: I’ve actually been toying with the idea of trying to do something with the scale of humanity itself; you know, emphasise all that “overpopulation” nonsense, but… honestly, it just… doesn’t ring true for me. We’re all just so tiny and pointless, you see; it’s hard to really get past it. Also, I worry it might be straying into territory that emboldens our potential new rival. MARTIN: … The Extinction. […] You don’t sound worried. SIMON: That’s because we disagree on exactly how bad it will be. Peter seems convinced that The Extinction is different. That its actual birth will be as bad or worse as another power fully manifesting. He believes its advent will be heralded by all sorts of disasters and catastrophes, and global upheavals, and whatnot. That kind of things. MARTIN: Sounds like a rich feeding ground. SIMON: Well, exactly! Peter, however, seems to think that it will upset the balance that we all have an awful lot invested in. And he’s not at all certain the world as we understand will come out the other side. MARTIN: And let me guess – you think he can’t see the “big picture”? […] You don’t think it will be the end of the world? SIMON: Oh! It very well might be, but… MARTIN: [EXPLOSIVE EXHALE] SIMON: Life has continued through dozens of apocalypses already. Ice ages; pandemics; calamities; extinctions… The only reason this one feels special is because, well… it’s happening to you. And that’s the sort of solipsism that tends to come with loneliness – in my experience. So. My feeling is that I’ll help out where I can; but ultimately, if this “Armageddon” comes off, then… so be it. Either billions suffer and life goes on; or billions suffer and life doesn’t. In the grand scheme of things, it’s all… much of a muchness.

(… That depiction of avatars as finance workers basically sharing the cake and eyeing cautiously the newcomer, not because of the positive or negative outcomes it could bring on clients/victims, but because it could steal some parts of their market…)

And it indeed fits: the one who had been doing all these researches about the new emergence is Adelard Dekker who, as far as we know, is human, and had explained in MAG113 how his own biggest fear had once been to die without realising it, such as in his sleep. It might have coloured how he researched and described The Extinction, how devastatingly annihilating he perceived it? And Peter has essentially based his own investigations on Adelard’s research, while Simon… tends to regard it as just another Fear – it’s bad, but then, they’re all bad and relying on people’s suffering (and coloured by his affiliation to The Vast – even if it’s worse than the others and supplants the other Fears, the universe will still be there, with or without humans).

So, at this point, it’s… possible that no, Peter and Martin won’t manage to stop The Extinction from being born, because it has already grown enough? But it doesn’t mean, either, that it would throw off the balance of the Fears game so much. However… it would probably be shattering for Martin, if his sacrificing his life for the Greater Good for almost a full year, not indulging in things he loved anymore (he stopped writing poetry, he turned away from Jon and contributed to his isolation, making him more susceptible to use his Powers thus going further into Beholding/monsterhood and increasing his victims count)… doesn’t lead to an achievement of any sort.

- In season 4’s own flavour: Simon also pursued the idea that nobody and nothing is exactly in control, that there is no Grand Scheme – but mostly things happening, an unidentified and anonymous system going around, in the frame of which avatars&monsters operate (and as Jon had put it in MAG145, run by the idea that “we’re all just… ‘groping about’. Trying desperately to find out what we’re actually meant to be doing.”). The Lightless Flame and The Dark respectively created Agnes and the Dark Sun mostly by believing strongly in their aims; and, overall, rituals are indeed attempts at putting a dream, a feeling into shape, and these translations are faillible on their own (if Jon&co hadn’t gone to The Unknowing, would it have stopped on its own…? Did Tim actually sacrifice himself stopping something that wouldn’t have worked anyway…?). Annabelle claimed to have a limited influence, and to not be aware of any greater plan from The Web. Elias (as much as we can trust what he wants to convey) is limited, erratic, and fallible – admitted that he had “overreacted” when he had killed Leitner, didn’t pay attention to the assistants’ plan to arrest him, claimed that he hadn’t seen that The Dark’s side had been too heavily damaged to even attempt a ritual. Martin got told that Peter in himself wasn’t such a big deal; that his promise to protect the Institute against unknown threats… had been mostly a smokescreen because he really wanted/needed Martin to work with him:

(MAG134) PETER: Martin, this is what we agreed. After The Flesh attacked, you came to me. MARTIN: [SIGH] PETER: And I’ve held up my end of the bargain, despite your continued hesitation. Your friends have been largely untroubled by the many – many – enemies that they have made. MARTIN: What about the delivery guy? Breekon. And the coffin?

(MAG151) MARTIN: How honest has he been with me? SIMON: About which part? MARTIN: Protecting the others. SIMON: I think he tried. I suspect he may have slightly exaggerated his abilities when you first made the deal, but he certainly expended a reasonable amount of influence and resources to follow through. MARTIN: But… [EXPLOSIVE SIGH] But that was never the endgame, was it? He just wanted me on side long enough to rope me into his… his plans for The Extinction. SIMON: Do you really need me to answer that one? […] I think… [INHALE] I think Peter is taking a rather large, but calculated gamble. Not just on you, but on a lot of things. If it works, he’ll be in a very strong position. And if he fails… it won’t be all that bad.

We had indeed never seen Peter actually doing anything regarding that “protection” bit: he found excuses for his inaction when Breekon breached in (Jon had been quicker), and blamed Jon’s decisions to get involved with spooks (back then, the coffin; and Martin had been unaware about the Svalbard trip until Daisy told him). Nothing about the spiders, either. And now: confirmation that Peter was actually useless but wanted to Sound Impressive to get Martin. It doesn’t mean that he can’t be damaging (Elias was absolutely awful on a one-on-one basis) but it paints him in a less threatening/all-controlling light, too.

(- Is Peter annoyed by analogies

(MAG151) SIMON: Alright. Let’s… try one of those analogies Peter finds so annoying.

… because they’re a way to connect and create links between what are essentially different ideas. That sounds like the nerdiest Lonely thing. (You want to kill a Lukas? Talk in *gasp* metaphors.))

- I loved how Martin wasn’t letting it go? Was pressing and cornering to get his answers? And was, at the same time, kinda poetic / very… sensible, in his approach?

(MAG151) MARTIN: It doesn’t scare you? SIMON: Martin. Taken on a cosmic scale, we’ve never even been alive…! Not in any way that might register, I mean, if this… dreadful little planet had a fractionally different orbit, and life had never even started here, then… ultimately, nothing of any real importance would have changed. [SILENCE] MARTIN: [POINTEDLY] I think our experience of the universe has value. Even if it disappears forever. SIMON: … What a Lonely way to look at things. Which makes sense, I suppose. […] MARTIN: And… and how did you get started with it all? Did you, did you, [SARCASTIC CHUCKLE] did you just look up at the sky one day, and fall head over heels in love?

1°) Of course, Martin would (even snarkily) describe the process of getting involved with a Fear as ~falling in love~.

2°) I… don’t have much to say about Simon and Martin’s opposition, but I like them both? I like how they’re both extremely valid, indeed, depending on the scale? (And it kind of resonates with Gertrude’s way of dealing with the Fears: she seemed to favour the “big picture” in her own way, sacrificing people if it means saving the world, multiple times; but every person she decided to sacrifice without their consent, or saw as a casualty to attain her goal… had value, too?)

- Interestingly, Martin still spontaneously identified the Distortion as “Michael” – not “Helen”?

(MAG151) MARTIN: Things like Mi– Hum, th– er, the Distortion. I thought they were part of the Entities themselves, ext– extensions. Surely, they know what’s going on? SIMON: Honestly, I think they have it a lot worse than we do. Imagine being a hand that can conceive of itself, having impulses shot through you, being moved and clenched by some unseen mind – but never knowing the reasoning behind your own actions, or even if you’re just some thoughtless reflex. Eww! Sounds horrid.

It sounds like Martin might have listened to the tape between Leitner and Jon, or that Jon kept them updated on that specific bit?

(MAG080) LEITNER: The books are, I think, their essences in a purer form. The other things that stalk us, from what I know of them, they have varying wills of their own. All in service of the thing they’re a part of, but not directly controlled by the mind beneath them. At least, inasmuch as these entities have something we could recognise as a mind. ARCHIVIST: Like a… a, a muscle, spasming on reflex? LEITNER: Yes, that’s actually rather good. ARCHIVIST: It would explain Michael’s identity issues. LEITNER: “Michael”? Oh… that, that’s what the Distortion calls itself these days, isn’t it?

(So… were Breekon&Hope in that category, too? And ;; it really doesn’t bode well regarding Helen’s looming presence around the Archives…)

- ………… I’m glad that Martin immediately thought about the Daedalus when it was about The Vast’s ritual attempt, and:

(MAG151) SIMON: … Do you know when the last ritual I attempted was? MARTIN: I… I don’t know, that space station? SIMON: Oh goodness no, that’s the future my boy! […] I’ve just not been doing much recently, it’s not a good time for perspective, you see. The world all feels too small, these days. I used to do a lot with religion, but it’s just not got the same conceptual scope that it used to. Honestly, I’m pinning most of my long-term hopes on space – but that’s at least a hundred years away.

Simon having Thoughts about the next one was mildly terrifying and atrociously funny: going “that’s the FUTURE” over your next planned apocalypse is…

- Updated list of rituals that aren’t a cause of concern (anymore):

* The Hunt: “The Everchase”, ongoing for at least the past two centuries, aggregating Hunters in America. Doesn’t have a culmination, revelling in the pursuit. (MAG133)

* The Vast: “The Awful Deep”, in 1853. Didn’t really work, and stopped by a Hunter. Simon Fairchild is banking on space for the next attempt. (MAG151)

* The Slaughter: “The Risen War”, should have happened centred around the Nemesis in late 1942, in the Pacific Ocean. It failed due to not meeting all the requirements – probably had a bomb planned that never came. Gertrude finally got confirmation in October 2014 that she didn’t need to worry about it; she threw out wild guesses that The Lonely or The Web could have been responsible for thwarting it. (MAG137)

* The Desolation: “The Scoured Earth”, relying on Agnes Montague, who was neutralised in the 70s when The Web tied her to Gertrude, and the chance got definitely destroyed in 2006 when Agnes began dating Jack Barnabas. Could take only a few decades before they get enough power again – or Agnes lied, and she successfully crashed their chance for this round herself. (MAG139, MAG145)

* The Buried: “The Sunken Sky”, 17th June 2008, in Bucoda, Washington (USA). Stopped by Gertrude by throwing pieces of Jan Kilbride’s Vast-touched body into the pit. (MAG097, MAG129)

* The Flesh: “The Last Feast”, October 2009, under an old Gnostic temple near Istanbul (Turkey). Stopped by Gertrude and Adelard Dekker thanks to a bunch of explosives. (MAG130)

* The Spiral: “The Great Twisting”, somewhere between October 2009 and 2011 (since Leitner told Jon that Gertrude has lost her last assistant “six years ago” in February 2017), in Sannikov Land, which does not exist somewhere in the Arctic. Stopped by Gertrude by sending Michael Shelley with a map inside of The Distortion, to fuse with it. (MAG101, MAG126)

* The Lonely: no name given, but a probable Story coming about that one. Gertrude took care of it, Peter is still cross about it. (MAG134, MAG151)

* The Dark: “The Extinguished Sun”, around the time a full solar eclipse was happening in Ny-Ålesund on 20th March 2015, three centuries after Edmond Halley was possessed by Dark water after Halley’s eclipse (which may have been a planned ritual attempt in itself). Didn’t work for unidentified reasons, might have been linked to Gertrude’s death or lack of faith, or not. (MAG025, MAG140, MAG143)

* The Stranger: “The Unknowing”, 7th August 2017, at the House of Wax in Great Yarmouth (UK). Gertrude had prepared the thwarting with Adelard’s help, stocking plastic explosives and understanding that it would take someone touched by Beholding in the middle of it, had thought of Gerry for that role though wasn’t sure he could pull it off (MAG137). The ritual was effectively stopped by Basira, Daisy, Tim and Jon using that plastic explosive (MAG118, MAG119): with a Beholding-touched person pulling the trigger in the middle of it – Tim. Previous attempt was in October 1787, at the Court Theatre of Buda, Hungary, and was interrupted by an agent of The Slaughter. (MAG116)

* The End: according to Peter, neither wants nor needs a ritual (MAG134: “it knows that it gets everything eventually, so why bother. The End manifesting would not be a new world of terror; it would be a lifeless world. Devoid of everything.”)

* The Web: according to Peter, has never tried to manifest or to get a ritual – though he didn’t sound absolutely sure about Her motives (MAG134: “The Web, I’ve never really been sure about: if I were to guess, I would say it actually prefers the world as is, playing everyone against each other, and so on.”)

We’re still lacking data about:

* ~The Corruption~, which is the Unloved Fear of this season. Gertrude’s laptop revealed that she had bought large amounts of pesticide (MAG066: “There’s also the matter of the products she was ordering. There were several online orders of petrol, lighter fluid, pesticides, and high-powered torches. They are sporadic, but notable, in that she did not drive, smoke or work in pest control.”) and there might have been something attempted during the Prentiss siege against the Magnus Institute on 29th July, 2016, with some of the worms forming a “ring” in the tunnels (MAG041: “Then I found the circle of worms. […] a few were still embedded in the wall providing the clear outline of a circle. The ceiling was higher here, and all told it must have been about… ten feet in diameter. Its size was not the most disconcerting thing though. Inside the circle, the stone was… wrong somehow.”)

* The Eye: “The Rite of the Watcher’s Crown”. According to Gerry Keay, it was the next one on Gertrude’s list together with “The Unknowing”, and she had already devised a plan to stop it (MAG111: “She didn’t tell me much about that one, just that she knew how to take care of it”), which might have involved reducing the Archives to ashes (MAG080: “I assume [Elias] discovered we were planning to destroy the Archives.”, “Planning a little light arson, are we Jurgen?” / MAG092: “So. For the avoidance of any doubt. I killed Gertrude Robinson because she intended to destroy the Archives.”). Robert Smirke feared that Jonah Magnus was trying to launch it in 1867 (MAG138). Might “have” to happen in 2018, as Jon noticed the two-hundred years anniversary of the Institute’s founding (MAG127) and is experiencing a feeling of urgency (MAG137: “I feel like I’m on a deadline, like I’m running out of time somehow”).

* + The Extinction’s own birth: incoming.

(… Now that I’m thinking again about it: if it turns out that Jonah had indeed tried to launch The Watcher’s Crown under the counter, and that Gertrude didn’t know about it, and that The Eye lost its chance 150 years ago…)

- With the casual reminder that Peter is originally a captain (MAG151, Simon: “The answer to the first is simple: I lost a bet, and this is how the good captain chooses to use that.”), a dimension which has been entirely absent throughout season 4 (Peter had made nautical puns in MAG120, though), and the mention that he was probably “home-schooled”, it feels like a Lukas statement could be (finally!) coming? We also got another confirmation that The Lonely has had its chance this round, and that it had been dealt with:

(MAG134) PETER: Martin… it’s going to be decades, if not centuries, before I get another chance to bring Forsaken into this world. Your last Archivist saw to that. Honestly, if Elias hadn’t killed that woman, I’d have been very tempted. I warned him she was a danger– MARTIN: Peter! PETER: –but he’s always– MARTIN: Peter. PETER: … Anyway. The point is that, yes, obviously, if I last that long, I’m going to try again. But I’m… rather keen for the world not to end, in the meantime?

(MAG151) MARTIN: Is Peter attempting a ritual? SIMON: Not in the sense that you’re used to. Him and his family made their play a few years ago and they failed. I’m sure he’d like me to explain it, but I think he can do that one himself.

So there is definitely a story behind this, and we might get lucky enough to get it directly from Peter’s mouth. Either with Peter telling Martin (on Martin’s request, as a guarantee?), either because Jon, starved and holding a Martin-shaped grudge, will jump at his throat and rip it out of him.

(- The “Great Twisting” happened after October 2009 and Peter had brought Gertrude and Michael Shelley there… so was that before or after Gertrude had crashed their ritual?

Probably before, but. Consider the following: Peter having lost a bet to Elias or to GERTRUDE HERSELF, and consequently being forced to escort Gertrude&Michael with the promise not to throw them overboard or to feed them to The Lonely. Would have been a lovely ride.)

- I’m specifically hysterical over the way Simon described how his last ritual attempt went:

(MAG151) SIMON: It’s all a matter of perspective, you see. My patron has gifted me with… quite frankly, an absurdly long life. An appropriate gift, and one that serves to provide a certain distance from things. Of course, a paltry few centuries is nothing, really, but it’s more than most get. And even in that brief time, I’ve seen all sorts of ebbs and flows to balance off things. … Do you know when the last ritual I attempted was? MARTIN: I… I don’t know, that space station? SIMON: Oh goodness no, that’s the future my boy! But no; it was 1853! The height of the aquarium mania! All over the Empire, people were starting to understand the depths of the terrible unknown below the ocean. And I thought that was a rich vein to be tapped. Even bothered old [Aullier?] into helping me design a special diving bell for the ritual. I called it “The Awful Deep” – and between you and me, I was rather proud of myself. MARTIN: … So why didn’t it work? SIMON: Because it… wasn’t a very good idea…? The Fear wasn’t out there, not like I hoped it was. It all sort of… fizzled. Also, a Hunter broke in and destroyed the mechanism, sent me and all my sacrifices plummeting to the bottom of the ocean.

(I still haven’t managed to catch the name of whoever helped him design the diving bell, but I discovered in the process of searching for it that Edmond Halley historically designed one, which, SCREAMS. But it didn’t sound like the way they have been pronouncing “Halley” until now so, relief.) (Welp no, apparently, it’s a possible pronunciation for “Halley”, so it was him. No wonder that the Fairchilds were invited to cough money for the space station, then, if they had already collaborated in the past.)

He sounds so excited over his failure, and just casually mentioned in passing how yeah, it still killed off a lot of people in the process. (… and it presumably ruined the chance of everyone feeling Vast-affiliated to get off their own ritual for a few centuries? And just because he got his fancy idea and ran with it? HE WAS SO PROUD OF “THE AWFUL DEEP” AND IT WAS SO UNINSPIRED, SIMON PLEASE……………)

- So, with the description of the failed ritual… What was “The Maria Fairchild”, wrecked off the coast of Nova Scotia?

(MAG051, Antonia Hayley) “The old man, Simon Fairchild, had come to us claiming that he had pinpointed the location he believed his great-grandfather’s sailing yacht had been sunk almost a hundred-and-twenty years ago, and he was keen to retrieve any heirlooms or curios he could from it. The only thing interesting or… unusual about his story, was the amount of money he was willing to throw around to back it up.”

1°) 120 years ago meant, at the time of the statement, around 1890s, which is not the aforementioned 1853.

2°) Simon hadn’t yet stolen the identity of “Simon Fairchild” in the 19th century, so the boat welcoming the ritual… couldn’t have been called “Fairchild” unless coincidence?

So, was it the boat from the ritual attempt but Jonny mixed up dates? Or, given that it’s Simon and, as far as I recall, no one else has mentioned the existence of “The Maria Fairchild” existence outside of him (no mention of whether the captain had corroborated Simon’s information, Jon hadn’t tried to fact-check because those events took place in Canada), did Simon just… bullshit that whole backstory in MAG051, just because he wanted new sacrifices and/or recruits and any boat would have done the trick? [Edit: the boat was named “Maria Fairchild” in MAG051, though, they read the plaque before diving.]

- Clock in the background during this episode, so… was it in Elias’s office? We had heard the clock in MAG067, MAG092, MAG102, MAG116, MAG120 (and for the last four, it was implied to indeed take place in Elias’s personal workplace); given how it was heard in MAG126 and MAG142, I had been assuming that Martin was in Elias’s old office, though it wasn’t the case in MAG134 and MAG144 (and MAG149… may have been the Archives’ other office?).

… so, if That Clock indeed means Elias’s office. Does it mean that I’m hearing everything right and have the correct assumptions for what these sounds mean:

(MAG151) [CLICK–] [CONSTANT CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] [FOOTSTEPS ECHOING IN THE BACKGROUND, COMING CLOSER] [CONSTANT STATIC BEGINS] SIMON: Ouuh! Hello? [CHAIR SCRAPING] Hmm~ [RUFFLING OF CLOTHES] Hm–mh! [CHAIR SCRAPING] [SELF-SATISFIED CHUCKLE] [DRAWERS OPENED?] [MORE CHUCKLING] MARTIN: [FAR] Ah! Uh, excuse me sir, you– [IN THE ROOM] Uh, sorry, you can’t actually be here… SIMON: Oh, not to worry! I seem to be doing alright so far. [PAPER SOUNDS] MARTIN: No, I– I mean, this area is actually off-limits to the public, so– SIMON: And quite~ right~ too~! Goodness! The things they could learn here…! Turn your hair white, eh? [CHUCKLE] Best to keep them out, I say! [TURNING A PAGE, HUMMING]

Was Simon just rummaging into Elias’s desk and looking through files like that, because sIMON AHAHAHAHAH.

- Aaaand we got a date for the statement: August 14th 2018!

Elias has been in prison for more than a year, YOUHOU!!!

… Which means precisely we’re past the one-year anniversary of The Unknowing (is it why Jon immediately thought about it in MAG150?), and precisely one year and one week since Tim’s death. SOB. (This season still feels so… strange to me, on the fact that: you don’t really feel like seasons 1 to 3 technically happened. There is virtually nothing left of Sasha (understandable: no certain memories of her) nor Tim, who has barely been mentioned. In the same way that this season has been physically more centred on the inside of the Institute compared to season 3 (the exceptions being four visits to Elias, a glimpse at Melanie’s therapist, MAG141 and MAG143 about the Svalbard trip, MAG147 at Hill Top Road), it’s like time… stopped a bit, too – there is barely any future except the prospect of The Extinction and the looming threat of The Watcher’s Crown, and the only relevant past has been about… spooks, rituals, Gertrude. Tim had worked in the Archives for almost two years, and yet, it doesn’t feel like… he ever existed there…? It’s as though, with Peter’s arrival, some of the relationship maps, present or past, have been broken, too. I still wonder if it’s just like that, if Tim&Sasha are just… not meant to be relevant ever again, or if feelings are meant to come out pouring, sticky and corrosive, at some point, when there would be an argument about self-sacrifice/dying/surviving. Same with Martin’s relationship to his mother.)

So, timeline time!

MAG121 (+MAG122?): February 15th 2018 MAG123: February 17th (“Two days out of a coma, and I’m already tired.”) MAG124: February 24th~ (“It’s been a week and… Melanie’s attitude towards me hasn’t softened.”) MAG125: ? MAG126: ? MAG127: ? MAG128: 3rd March [Jon extracting Breekon’s statement] MAG129: ? MAG130: 17th~ March (“It’s been two weeks since I heard from Basira”) [Gertrude recording] MAG131: 20th March [Jon taking Jared’s statement] MAG132: 24th March (given that Jon has been in the coffin for three days, either 21 to 24th, or 24 to 27th?) MAG133: ? MAG134: ? [Martin reading a statement] MAG135: ? MAG136: at the very least two weeks after MAG132 (since Jon hasn’t seen Daisy in his dreams “for the last couple of weeks”) MAG137: ? [Gertrude recording] MAG138: ? [Martin reading a statement] MAG139: ? MAG140: one day after MAG139; end of May 2018 (“Summer solstice is the 21st of June. So we leave in a fortnight, and should arrive about a week before.”) MAG141: June 11th 2018 (two days before arrival) MAG142: June 12th 2018 [Martin taking Jess Tyrell’s complaint] MAG143: June 16th 2018 [Jon taking Manuela’s statement] MAG144: ? (same day or shortly after MAG143, since Jon&Basira are “back”) [Martin reading a statement] MAG145: “just over a week” since Jon&Basira’s return [Gertrude recording] MAG146: (July 20th 2018 or the day prior?) MAG147: July 20th 2018 MAG148: ? MAG149: ? [Martin reading a statement] MAG150: ? MAG151: August 14th 2018 [Martin taking Simon’s statement]

* … I didn’t remember that gigantic gap between Jon’s return from Norway and the Hill Top Road expedition, wow.

* 2018 carries on. Jon is aware that it’s the 200th anniversary of the Institute, and the year… is not over yet, but only four months and a half remaining.

* Jon’s last live-statement was two months ago, and that’s when he also he destroyed the Dark Sun. (And he’s remained weak and hungry since then; we… still don’t know if the symptoms will fade with time, or if… they’ll just get worse.)

* When did Jon find Martin’s tapes?

(MAG151) BASIRA: I don’t think so. Three weeks I’ve been waiting to catch sight of you, and now I find you chatting with Simon Fairchild. No, you’re not pulling your little “vanishing act” on me. […] MARTIN: You–you know about that? BASIRA: Yeah. Jon found the tapes you made for him– MARTIN: SHH–SHH-SHH!! SHHHHH!!! BASIRA: [LOWER] Found a stash of them a while ago. I made sure he shared with the class. MARTIN: Oh, there you go, then!

Basira has been trying to get her hands on Martin for “three weeks”, which means since around July 25th, so… after the Annabelle expedition. So, looks like she followed the vein of paranoia and tried to check if something else was manipulating them / keeping an eye on them?

But it doesn’t mean that that was when Jon found the tapes: was it after Annabelle? Or after their return from Norway? Or even before the trip?

- Some tiny doubt regarding sound – was that static, or a ruffling of clothes?

(MAG151) MARTIN: [SIGH] BASIRA: Who was that? MARTIN: Basira, please, I don’t have time. BASIRA: Oh no, you don’t! [OUTBURST OF STATIC?] MARTIN: Basira, let. go. BASIRA: I don’t think so.

I thiiiiiiiiiink it was static given how it was “fading” when Martin spoke but I’m not sure about it (it lacked the faint distorted sounds that we could hear in MAG149, imitating Peter’s, but then, they were preceded with static at that time. Martin is just very faint compared to Jon or Peter). The way I understand it: Basira grabbed Martin before he could disappear like he had managed to do with Georgie? And Basira wasn’t surprised about it, so it maaaaybe indeed, when she had told Jon that Martin tended to “disappear”:

(MAG127) ARCHIVIST: Do they? … W–w–who else– Did Martin say something? BASIRA: … It was a few months back. After the attack. He’d started spending time with Lukas. At least, he said he was. And I wanted answers. He kept telling me to trust him, to hear the guy out even though he still wouldn’t actually show his face. I told him he could… drop me an email or vanish me. ARCHIVIST: … Right. BASIRA: Honestly, I kind of regret not just… grabbing Martin and shaking an explanation out of him. But I didn’t want to push it. He was in a… bad place, what with the attack and his mom and everything, so I didn’t press it. Now, I try and bring it up, he just… disappears. Nothing to be done.

… she meant that in a spooky way already? It was unclear to me whether she meant that he was just leaving and refusing to talk and hiding for a while every time she tried to talk to him, or whether he was disappearing in the Peter way.

(- So, it took Basira three weeks to get her hands on Martin, which means he’s (getting?) inaccessible. Yet, Daisy had managed to find him in MAG142 (in a room with a clock in the background) and in MAG144 (… without any clock). Which means he wasn’t in the same place that second time.

… Had Daisy been Hunting him back then, to be able to find him so easily…?)

- It was minor but at the same time… I got Feelings over the fact that Basira, who had pointed out to Jon that she hadn’t managed to get a lot from Martin’s mouth, who told Jon she hadn’t wanted to “push” Martin given his circumstances, snapped this time and didn’t let it go. Wanted to hear, from Martin himself, that he wasn’t betraying them; asked/ordered him to talk to her:

(MAG151) BASIRA: That makes me worried. Makes me suspicious. [SILENCE] Tell me I’m wrong. MARTIN: [INSTANTLY] You’re wrong. BASIRA: So what’s going on, then? [SILENCE] Talk to me. MARTIN: It’s complicated.

It’s… probably worrisome from Basira – she’s been way too suspicious of everyone, she even used the same vocabulary with Martin as the one Melanie had used to depict her (… so Melanie wasn’t exaggerating):

(MAG131) MELANIE: [LONG EXHALE] Basira is, hum… Basira deals in “intel” these days, in “usable data”; assets, not “feelings”, not… “people”. Crying, shaking, nightmares, that is “better”. It doesn’t feel like it, but as far as Basira sees it, I’m not compromised anymore, and… that is “better”.

(MAG151) BASIRA: Jon may be going through a whole “we have to trust Martin” thing, but I’m not. As far as I can see, you’re either compromised, or you’re being played. And I want to know which.

But at the same time, she let him go and her “Don’t make me regret this.” was saying that she would let him do his thing. So. She finally (kind of) shook an explanation out of him, in the end, and… she knows what he’s heading for. Was it the self-sacrificing bit which convinced her of his good faith – since she… should guess that, indeed, if Jon knew about it, Jon would probably try to prevent it?

- On the other hand: Basira’s paranoia spiral is very reminiscent of Jon’s in season 2, mixed with her background as a police officer – is that… a Beholding effect at work? She was also very quick at pinpointing that the guy Martin had spoken with was Simon:

(MAG151) BASIRA: I don’t think so. Three weeks I’ve been waiting to catch sight of you, and now I find you chatting with Simon Fairchild. No, you’re not pulling your little “vanishing act” on me. MARTIN: How did you know about– BASIRA: Yeah, Jon’s not the only one who listens to statements.

We got a description of Simon in MAG051 (“He must have been pushing a hundred years old, just a tiny pink skeleton of a man”) so it could have been thanks to that… but randomly knowing stuff and claiming to have read it in a statement was also what happened with Jon:

(MAG102) ARCHIVIST: Is there anyone else who might know what it is, or– or where? Aside from Leitner, or Gerard. ELIAS: … Sorry? Gerard Keay? ARCHIVIST: Uh… yes…? ELIAS: How did you… Who, who told you he was working with Gertrude? ARCHIVIST: No-one, I–I–I just, I… I read it in one of the statements. ELIAS: I don’t think you did. ARCHIVIST: I… but… aaah… ELIAS: You just… knew it! ARCHIVIST: What, no, I, I… Th– that’s not a– ELIAS: No, no, no. No, Jon, this is good. It’s a promising development!

(Jon had already casually put Gerry in the list of people who had worked with Gertrude in MAG099; so he hadn’t noticed that he had Known about it… like that, for a while.)

So. Maybe Basira just guessed because “tiny pink skeleton of a man” + spook translates into Simon Fairchild (we listeners would also think about it), but… there is also the possibility that she’s going through a s2!Jon phase without realising, falling deeper into Beholding. ;;

- Though, AHAHAH, obviously, Basira would be extremely suspicious and cautious about the idea of “x is following a Spook’s leads (and it will end badly)”.

(MAG151) MARTIN: … It’s none of your business. BASIRA: No? ‘Cause it seems to me like you’re panning around two very dangerous people right around the time you’re cutting all of us out. […] MARTIN: Look, I don’t have time for this. I–I don’t like that I have to work with Peter any more than you do, and I didn’t know that Simon was involved until today. But I would hope that you and Jon understood the importance of preventing an apocalypse. BASIRA: [SIGH] I guess I’m just a bit burned out on the end of the world. MARTIN: Yeah, well… that’s your problem. […] BASIRA: You’re not expecting to come out of this, are you? MARTIN: … I’ll do what I have to. If I’m right… no one else needs to get hurt. [SILENCE] BASIRA: [SIGH] … Okay. You want to do whatever “grand sacrifice” you think is going to save everyone, go ahead. But you’d best be sure you’re not just playing their game. MARTIN: I know what I’m doing. BASIRA: We’ll see. [PAUSE] Don’t make me regret this.

From her perspective, Martin is… doing with Peter exactly what she had done with Elias: and when she planned to prevent an apocalypse by going to Norway with Jon, it only resulted in Jon attacking Floyd, and indeed neutralising the Dark Sun – but becoming weaker and hungry in the process. And even before that: The Unknowing had cost her Daisy a first time, and she had spent seven months trying to convince herself that, even though there was no body, Daisy was dead. I don’t think that Basira is trying to make amends of the fact that she had hidden that she was following Elias’s leads, however; it was a sore spot when Jon tried to reproach it in MAG148 and she had immediately bit back. She’s been grown quite dry and hypocritical since The Unknowing? Only able to trust herself, like she told Jon in MAG128? But, at the very least, she would know from experience that… no, following Peter/Elias’s leads only serves their plans.

- !! I had already squinted hard over Jon’s description of Martin’s situation last episode:

(MAG150) ARCHIVIST: And at least none of us is suffering alone. … Martin’s got it the worst, of course. But it still seems to be his choice. And I have to trust that he knows what he’s doing.

And INDEED, it makes a lot of sense that he had known for a while a bit More about Martin’s situation than we thought.

(MAG151) BASIRA: Yeah. Jon found the tapes you made for him– MARTIN: SHH–SHH-SHH!! SHHHHH!!! BASIRA: [LOWER] Found a stash of them a while ago. I made sure he shared with the class. MARTIN: Oh, there you go, then! BASIRA: Jon may be going through a whole “we have to trust Martin” thing, but I’m not.

So that’s why Jon knew that Martin had it bad with The Lonely, and how he knew that Martin had a plan and wasn’t just a victim or being held hostage by Peter! But that raises a few questions:

* How long has Jon known about it? Was it only recently (after Norway or after Hill Top Road) or for longer? In MAG139 already, Jon had wondered why they had been “chosen” and had asked the question about Martin specifically; he knew that Peter had plans, and was exceptionally worried about Martin, to the point of trying to use his powers to Know about Peter’s projects:

(MAG139) ARCHIVIST: Why were we chosen? Agnes was created – crafted with a specific purpose so finely tuned that even a grain of uncertainty threatened the entirety of her being. [CHORTLING] But I’m so full of doubt it feels like there’s no room for anything else, and… I’m sure Martin is the same…! […] [SIGH] I’m just worried about Martin. … Christ… Every other Avatar gets to have their feelings… burned right out of them, but me? I’ve… just got to sit in mine. … I know he said he had everything under control. I need… to trust him; whatever he’s doing with Peter, he’s… he knows what he’s doing. Probably. I just– … [VERY FAST] I need him to be okay. I just do. … If I… Knew… what his plan was; if I knew what Peter was doing; if I just– [WHISPERING] … Can I…?

… Had Jon already listened to one of the tapes, back then?

* … Which tapes has Jon listened to?

-> MAG149: Martin read a note from Gertrude (the statement-giver had been sent by Adelard, and Gertrude was aware that Adelard was calling what he suspected to be a new Fear “The Extinction”). Martin highlighted that Peter abandoning him was probably in order to increase his loneliness/Lonely-compatibity. … It………….. also contains Georgie and Martin’s exchange, and AOUCH AOUCH AOUCH if Jon heard that one……………………

-> MAG144: the other side of Martin pushing Daisy away – that he was fearing that Peter would go after her. The keyword “Extinction” mentioned multiple times, Martin exceptionally snappy at Peter and trying to get answers, Peter announcing that Martin would meet someone and get a few answers.

-> MAG142: Martin (?) had already got that one through to Basira&Melanie&Daisy by MAG146.

-> MAG138: was directly addressed to Jon at the end, though the statement mostly dealt with The Eye and Smirke’s Architecture (The Extinction was only namedropped by Martin once during the post-statement). Martin warned that Peter might be interested in the tunnels below the Institute. It also gave some information about Jonah Magnus / a potential Watcher’s Crown attempt, or project, and Jon, who had been exceptionally impatient on that subject in MAG137… just stopped mentioning it afterwards.

-> MAG134: was the one which talked in great length about The Extinction, with both Adelard’s and Peter’s inputs. It was also when Peter confirmed that The Lonely has already attempted its ritual during the current cycle, and that both The Web and The End were assumed to be uninterested in trying to pull one off. It… would make sense that Jon and the others listened to this one, given how Jon didn’t mention researching the rituals of the Web and the End (and, indeed, if he knew that they’re not a current concern… there’s no need to focus on them). Interestingly: it’s also during that post-statement that Peter and Martin discussed Jon’s journey in the coffin, and how Martin had put the tape recorders around it. So: Jon would know that Martin was still keen on protecting him.

Tl;dr Especially with MAG134 and MAG138, Jon would have had proof that, no, Martin was not abandoning them and was still… very much on their (Jon’s) side.

* And that’s also why the Team Archives seem to be on standby since Hill Top Road – they’re indeed waiting, because they’re aware that Martin is the one dealing with a current threat!

* Jon seems to be sticking to his decision from MAG117 to “trust” the assistants… but given how Tim died/sacrificed himself on him through that trust, I wonder if that’s his entire reason. Is Jon taking some comfort in the distance with Martin, because it means not having to face Martin after what Jon did to the five people he attacked in season 4…?

* Will Jon&co find another of Dekker’s statements (Peter had told Martin that he hadn’t found all of them as of MAG144) in the Archives? Or something about Dekker’s whereabouts? What happened to Dekker, why is he absolutely silent right now…

(My bets are on either “became one of the first Extinction avatars somehow”, either “got killed by Peter who ‘overreacted’ like Elias had done with Leitner”.)

* Heyheyheyhey, I was already wondering why Jon had read MAG150’s statement and if something had been influencing him – why reach the conclusion that he had to keep trusting Martin and not do anything, when the statement was demonstrating that affection and trying to reach could break through The Lonely?

1°) That’s because Jon doesn’t think, at the moment, that Martin needs to be “saved”, because he has proof (Martin’s tapes) that Martin is planning something – and not simply swallowed into something he doesn’t understand at all. (Though, yeah, we know, it will… likely backfire.)

2°) That’s also giving clues, as a safety net, to maybe manage to get Martin back in case everything goes to hell thanks to Peter.

3°) ……………………. DID JON

SPECIFICALLY

PICK

THAT STATEMENT

AS A SORT-OF-INDIRECT-MESSAGE TO MARTIN

BECAUSE IT WAS GIVING HIM AN OCCASION TO SAY “I LOVE YOU”……………

- We got Simon, absolutely chill and casually gleeful about sacrificing people and, Jon, at least in MAG146, wasn’t… fine with it (Helen’s “It would be better if you embraced it.” was telling: he currently isn’t).

That question has been at the back of my mind since we’ve begun to meet avatars: Jude quite easily butchered her first victim, Mike Crew explained that he had discovered he didn’t mind killing to reach his goal while on his quest to escape The Spiral, Simon said he “never looked back” since he embraced The Vast, Oliver said that he had understood what he had to do on the boat (meaning, shooting the captain and leading everyone to their deaths)… Did all of them rewrite their own history after the fact, presenting their pasts as more “coherent” with who they currently are, and was there a time they actually used to be more ashamed and desperate about their own actions and sacrifices; or were they already quite down with murder from the start? (Oliver is probably the most ambiguous case: he sounded absolutely hopeful and Trying His Best in MAG011, but present!Oliver talked of his past self as mostly naïve… and admitted that he had even lied through omission, back then.)

Jon mentioned a “bias of survivorship” in MAG129 regarding victims; is there one regarding avatars, too, because usually, the ones choosing these paths would already have been quite ruthless? Is that an ineluctable progression (through habit, desensitisation, repetition), or was Jon a bit of an… outlier, from the start, potentially by accident – although he had been giving the impression of being dry and cruel at the start of the series, we discovered that it… was mostly a façade, in his case, because he tends to Hide Himself quite efficiently?

- Simon’s and Arthur Nolan’s words about Rituals/Entities/their relationships to their patrons were… quite similar?

(MAG145) ARTHUR: You’ve never really had to bother with it, have you? You got him upstairs to point the way as often as not, and the rest of the time you’re just figuring out people – or things that used to be people. You never try to talk with that Eye of yours. You never had to second-guess a god. ‘Cause that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? We feel Its joy and Its… anger; It warps us, and changes us, and feeds on us, though not in the ways we expect. The one thing It never does is just… tell us what to do. It seeds us with this… aching, impossible desire to change the world, to bring It to us. Then, It leaves us to guess and bicker and fight over how the hell you can actually do it. … If it’s possible. Sometimes, I think They understand us as… little as we understand Them. We don’t think like They do. GERTRUDE: I’m not actually convinced they “think” at all. ARTHUR: You might be right. But Agnes did. That’s the thing about an… “incarnation”, isn’t it? […] Find me one so-called “expert” on all of this who didn’t end up regretting all of it! … That’s the trouble with overthinking any of this: you ignore your gut. And to my mind, that’s the only part any of Them Beyond… actually care about. They don’t give a toss about your “rules”, or “systems”. They only care about what feels right, what freezes your belly with terror.

(MAG151) SIMON: The thing you have to remember is that no one actually knows how these things work. Not really. There’s always been plenty of theories, of course, and over a century or two you do start to get an intuitive feel for it, but… there’s really no hard and fast “rules”. The Powers, or Entities, or Fears, or whatever you want to call them, are bound up in… emotion. In feeling. How they exist, what they can do, how they interact with the world, it… it all makes about as much logical sense as a nightmare. Which is to say, there is a certain sort of emotional logic to it all. Things feel like they flow together in a way that makes sense, but if you try to stop and… do the maths, then it all comes apart. At least, in my experience. “When is a new Power born?” Well; when does it feel like its birth would be right? When enough creatures suffer a terror of it that feels distinct, that feels truly its own… then it would probably feel right for it to emerge into its own. Or perhaps there’s a ritual, if it feels right to enact some sort of birthing ceremony, some… apocalyptic midwifery. […] MARTIN: You make it sound like the… the Entities don’t even know that they’re doing. SIMON: I have no idea if they’re doing anything at all – if they’re even capable of “doing” things. I know that most of their servants are simply doing their best to interpret and serve something that is almost definitively inconceivable. MARTIN: You can’t be serious…! SIMON: Alright. Let’s… try one of those analogies Peter finds so annoying. Hum… imagine you are deaf. But every night, you hear the most beautiful music in yours dreams. And your every waking thought is consumed by trying to reproduce that music. Oh! You’re mute, as well, in this analogy, or at least you can’t sing. And you need to invent the idea of a musical instrument from scratch. Everyone else is also deaf, and mute, and, hum… MARTIN: Yes, yes, I think I get it. SIMON: Yes, well, the point is, most of us are trying so desperately to recreate our own dream symphony that… we bring an awful lot of our own baggage into the mix. […] And honestly, the idea that this is all some… “grand cosmic joke”, thousands of us running around spreading horror and sabotaging each other pointlessly while these impossible, unknowable things just lurk out there, feeding off the misery we cause… [INHALE] I find that interpretation quite appealing…! MARTIN: … “But”? SIMON: I still hear the music in my dreams.

………………. but it raises, more and more, the question: Jon, what music do you hear in your own dreams? (Jon was especially worrisome in MAG145’s post-statement…)

At least, Jon is currently accepting the cold turkey (or at least, as far as we know, he hasn’t wrestled Basira&Daisy&Melanie to try to get out to go hunt) but… how long can it even go on…

- Reassuring point: Team Archives has actually been communicating in the tapes’ backs, since Jon shared his discoveries with the others and they all know about The Extinction. When Jon was describing their less-than-ideal-but-we’re-trying-to-face-Peter’s-effects in MAG150, it had sounded absolutely cold but… there is a bit more substance to it, then (they’re indeed sharing, and hiding from the tapes).

Good: Martin still Very Aware that Peter is bad, because the fact that he was growing accustomed to his presence / was desperate to the point of almost-missing-Peter-as-he-was-the-last-person-he-could-interact-with had me a bit worried.

(MAG142) MARTIN: [SIGH] Th–the worst part is I don’t even want to talk to him about it. I’m just… [SIGH] I suppose I’m just getting comfortable with the distance. [SIGH] Cut off. [DRY CHUCKLE] “Lonely”. [INHALE] Mind you, Peter’s not wrong. It really is easier than actually just trying to communicate with people.

(MAG149) MARTIN: Sort of… surprised Peter hasn’t rocked up with some more… “insights”? Haven’t seen him around for a while, actually. I mean… eh, it’s not like I miss him [CHUCKLING] but, at least he was someone to– [PAUSE] … Ah. [HUFF] [PAPER RUSTLING] Yeah, that makes sense. [EXHALE] A’ight, fine. Just… me on my lonesome for a while, then. … Could be worse. … Peaceful, at least. … I don’t miss all the shouting. [CHUCKLE]

(MAG151) MARTIN: Look, I don’t have time for this. I–I don’t like that I have to work with Peter any more than you do, and I didn’t know that Simon was involved until today. But I would hope that you and Jon understood the importance of preventing an apocalypse. […] Peter’s the one with the plan, and… it needs me to be alone. BASIRA: And you don’t see anything suspicious about that? MARTIN: Of course I do! But it… might be the only way and… [INHALE] So far, at least, he’s been honest with me. Awful, but… honest. I need to do this. For everyone.

Bad: HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, super worried that Basira and Martin, although they (… naïvely?!) tried to keep quiet, explicitly discussed what Martin was doing behind Peter’s back……………….

(MAG151) MARTIN: It’s complicated. BASIRA: What? They’re just here out of the goodness of their hearts? Helping you save the world from Extinction? MARTIN: You–you know about that? BASIRA: Yeah. Jon found the tapes you made for him– MARTIN: SHH–SHH-SHH!! SHHHHH!!! BASIRA: [LOWER] Found a stash of them a while ago. I made sure he shared with the class. MARTIN: Oh, there you go, then!

mARTIN, BABE??? I don’t think that trying to keep your voices low helped in any way?! If Peter was there eavesdropping, then he’s still there and listening. If whatever-is-listening-through-the-tape-recorders didn’t already know already that Martin had a stash of tapes, and that Jon&co had listened to them already, then It knows now. If Elias was Watching you two and is planning to tell Peter… then he will be able to do it anyway.

And even: Elias called Martin out on being a manipulator back in MAG138; he… probably saw Martin stashing the tapes, Jon discovering them and sharing them with the others? So if he’s in this with Peter… he’ll probably tell him, or has told him already. Which. Shit. The fact that Martin is still trying to hide his double-agenda sounds more and more useless…?

I’m a bit afraid that Martin has been trying what worked with Elias with Peter: staying close, focusing on their shared goals (stopping The Unknowing / The Extinction), roughly following the path he’s assigned (reading statements, staying at the Institute while he “officially” wanted to go with the others / agreeing to cut ties with the others) while showing his discontentment for good measure… and planning to backstab when he’d find a weakness. But Peter is not Elias (and we’re not even sure that Elias wasn’t counting on the others to take him down and send him to prison, given how it had been “easy” for Melanie to find evidence against him…); Gerry had pointed out to Jon that the Lukases were “very good” at pushing people “in the right direction” amongst the family.

- Simon technically avoided to answer one of Martin’s Big Questions:

(MAG151) MARTIN: … Fine. So why me? What’s his plan? Why not get the others involved? SIMON: He is what he is, Martin. For a creature of The Lonely, the urge is always to isolate; never to communicate or connect. I suspect that’s why he’s so keen on wagers: it allows him a framework for cooperation that doesn’t risk any sort of intimacy. As for his plan… [INHALE] I don’t know the details. But I believe there’s something in the Institute that he thinks can help his cause. MARTIN: … And he needs me to use it. SIMON: Presumably – from what he said, it must be “powerfully aligned to The Watcher”. If he wishes to use it, it would need someone already touched by The Eye. And if he wants to control that someone… MARTIN: They need to serve The Lonely.

Why Martin? Peter had highlighted that Martin was already Lonely-compatible, and Elias acknowledged that he had basically given Martin to him:

(MAG134) MARTIN: Mm–okay. Okay, so, so let’s say, for now, that I believe you. Hypothetically. Wh–what does this have to do with me? PETER: [BREATHES] I’m still working out some of the kinks. But I believe I have a plan. However, it requires this place, and it requires someone touched by The Beholding. Elias was, perhaps unsurprisingly, unwilling to help. MARTIN: And you thought that since I’m so lonely already, I’d be ideal. PETER: Yes!

(MAG138) MARTIN: So why haven’t you helped him?! […] ELIAS: Anyway, I have helped him. I’ve given him control of the Institute, I’ve provided him with–   MARTIN: Me? ELIAS: –any manpower he might require.

Which, indeed, we saw happening in MAG108:

(MAG108) MARTIN: Oh. You’re… one of them, aren’t you. A… a Lukas. PETER: Yes, that’s– Peter. Pleased to meet you. Now, how did you know that? MARTIN: I, I was just reading? Jon left some notes, and… PETER: Ah, I see. I’m sorry to have disturbed you. It’s one of Elias’s little jokes. MARTIN: I don– What? PETER: Did he suggest you record a statement today? One that mentioned me? MARTIN: … yeah? Sssort of? I mean… not you specifically, but… PETER: I have a meeting with him today. He suggested… I’m sure he’s watching from his office, grinning from ear to ear. MARTIN: I… don’t… PETER: I almost thought he genuinely wanted me to meet the team! Oh well. MARTIN: I’m really sorry, I… I don’t actually…

So, Elias had orchestrated Martin’s and Peter’s meeting, knew that Martin would catch Peter’s interest, Peter is indeed all set on Martin helping/being used for his plan against The Extinction – but why Martin specifically? There was a large pool of Beholding-trapped assistants at the time of MAG108: Basira was around (though she was together with Daisy so that was probably making her lose Lonely points); Melanie had already read two statements and Elias had just pointed out how her life was “indeed shockingly absent of any meaningful connections. That’s actually one of the reasons I chose you for this job” (MAG106; though Elias also pulverised her in that episode and Martin&Basira witnessed how she was having a bad time afterwards); Tim… had been shown to be particularly impacted by Sasha’s death, had just described how his brother had died a few years ago, had been dangerously antagonising towards Elias (MAG104), and had decided to turn his back on everyone in the Archives to go it solo. Martin indeed sounded like a logical choice, but there were still other options – so what was the tipping argument to throw Martin at Peter? Was it because Elias had never been fond of Martin in the first place (he tended to treat him with casual contempt in MAG060 and MAG084)? Was it because Martin’s ~hopeless crush~ and situation with his mother made him especially isolated/lonely? Was it because Martin was the most “actively” Beholding amongst the assistants in the statements-reading area? That was the reason why Elias had jumped on the idea of keeping him at the Institute when the others were planning the trip for The Unknowing:

(MAG116) MARTIN: No, no, I can help, I’ve been reading the statements! ELIAS: … Quite right, er, probably best he does stay behind. BASIRA: What, so you have a backup if Jon doesn’t make it? ELIAS: I’m sure that won’t be necessary.

(-> Elias didn’t confirm that he was planning to use Martin as a back-up Archivist, but the fact that he had read statements was a Super Effective argument, so it… mattered, in one way or another.)

(I think it’s very likely, in canon, that Martin’s lineage is absolutely unspooky, and that his family story is a “normal” family drama, as painful and tragic and heart-breaking as it is already? But I’m also very very very onboard with the Lukas!Martin theory and won’t give up on it as long as I don’t have Martin’s birth certificate and a dozen blood-testing results from different labs to prove that his father wasn’t a runaway Lukas, so:

(MAG151) MARTIN: …. Who are you? Did Peter send you? SIMON: Ah, you must be Martin? Goodness! He was not exaggerating. MARTIN: What’s that supposed to mean? SIMON: Oh, come now, don’t be like that.

… What was that “He was not exaggerating” referring to? Was it to Martin’s behaviour (the fact he was a bit nagging, or trying to keep people away from dangerous areas, or quickly understanding that this old man could be acquainted with Peter)? Or was it about Martin’s physical appearance – Martin, who is apparently the spitting image of his father…?)

(Other possibility: Simon went “He was not exaggerating” because Martin, who wasn’t canonically “the hot one” in MAG052 (that was Tim.), is actually the “ASTOUNDINGLY AND INCREDIBLY hot one” in the team.)

- I’m impressed at how Martin has learned to navigate amongst the Fears architecture on his own? Even in season 3, he had a lot of trouble with the powers and recurring figures:

(MAG098) MARTIN: [SIGH] I wish John kept better organised notes because I know he’s mentioned someone called Maxwell Rayner, but I cannot find much in the way of any info–

Back then, “Maxwell Rayner” shouldn’t have been such a vague name for Martin, given how he had participated in the researches around Hither Green in MAG025 and the Montauk case in MAG052. But here, Martin immediately identified “Simon Fairchild” as The One:

(MAG151) SIMON: Oh, come now, don’t be like that. [INHALE] Let’s start over. Simon – Simon Fairchild. Peter asked me to look in on you and… have a small chat. Well! A big chat, really. Answer all those… nagging questions. MARTIN: Simon Fairchild. [PAUSE] [NERVOUS CHUCKLE] Wait, “Simon Fairchild” as in… SIMON: As in “all those people who said I did horrible things to them and their loved ones”? Yes. They have been in, haven’t they? I’d hate to think I’m underrepresented in here, not when Peter tells me that that… “bone” fellow has at least half a dozen. MARTIN: N–no, no, [NERVOUS CHUCKLE], not… not at all. Y–you’ve sent plenty of people our way.

(It’s still… something, that avatars are both looking down at The Eye for being a “bottom feeder” or for robbing part of the fear, but at the same time, are preoccupied by the amount of statements mentioning them, as if they were competing about it. (… why are they all looking down on Jared.)) Martin was able to be exceptionally diplomatic (mix of honesty and not-pissing-off-something-that-could-wreck-you), to immediately ask good and relevant questions although he hadn’t been warned that he would encounter Simon right now, cautious enough to check that there wouldn’t be any “trick” in the fact he was allowed to ask questions:

(MAG151) MARTIN: And you do it? Why? SIMON: Is that your first question? MARTIN: … Is there a limit? SIMON: Only until I get bored. And that does tend to come more quickly, these days. MARTIN: O–okay, okay, then sure, sure. First question, then: “why are you helping Peter?” D–don’t you serve different… you know… Fears? […] How are new powers born? SIMON: Hm… don’t know! MARTIN: How soon could it attempt its ritual? SIMON: No clue! MARTIN: How do we stop it? SIMON: Can’t help you! MARTIN: [THROUGH GRITTED TEETH] Could you, at least, try? […] And how close is it, do you think? […] You don’t sound worried. […] And let me guess – you think he can’t see the “big picture”? […] … So why didn’t it work? […] Assuming The Extinction doesn’t derail everything…! SIMON: Which is why… I’m happy helping Peter. But! If it does: then I’ll either be dead, which will be fine, or… I’ll adjust. MARTIN: It doesn’t scare you? […] So what do you do, then, if, if the world is pointless and your god is so weak right now? […] I thought you said that the maths doesn’t work. SIMON: Oh, you are a quick one! […] MARTIN: … What about the monsters? […] So– [EXHALE] So if no one’s ever actually communicated with their patron, how do you know they even want rituals? H–h–how does anyone know if they could ever even work?! SIMON: We don’t. MARTIN: [INCREDULOUS SCOFF] SIMON: And honestly, the idea that this is all some… “grand cosmic joke”, thousands of us running around spreading horror and sabotaging each other pointlessly while these impossible, unknowable things just lurk out there, feeding off the misery we cause… [INHALE] I find that interpretation quite appealing…! MARTIN: … “But”? SIMON: I still hear the music in my dreams. MARTIN: Hm. [SILENCE] Who are you? No, no: who were you? […] You said you were here to answer my questions for Peter, but so far you’ve told me basically nothing of any use. SIMON: The big answers are rarely helpful. MARTIN: Then let’s try some smaller ones. Is Peter attempting a ritual? SIMON: Not in the sense that you’re used to. Him and his family made their play a few years ago and they failed. I’m sure he’d like me to explain it, but I think he can do that one himself. MARTIN: How honest has he been with me? SIMON: About which part? MARTIN: Protecting the others. […] … How do you feel about this? SIMON: You might need to be a tad more specific. MARTIN: All of it. Peter’s plan, The Extinction, me…

All of his questions were excellent ones: he was able to keep in mind the data Simon was providing, he was extending questions to his current situation (outside of The Extinction itself), he was able to use his snark and sass to squeeze more answers and knowledge out of Simon, he was able to ask for contextualisation and keep in mind how Powers tend to oppose each other. Simon was absolutely willing to talk but Martin honestly made the best use of it – I found the way he led the interview even more impressive than the way Jon had dealt with Gerry? And asking questions is supposed to be Jon’s thing as The Archivist. (Well. Getting answers, whatever his questions are, technically, but.)

When pressed, Martin was also able to find the best possible answer to Simon’s jovial threat:

(MAG151) SIMON: And I never looked back. I tried to share it with others, not just as sacrifices; but they often find it difficult to keep up with the, hum… velocity I tend to live at. They tend to get left behind, and I suppose it doesn’t help that I can’t… bring myself to see any of them as anything other than trivial. […] I’d say “anytime”, but honestly, if you see me again… I may just throw you off something for a joke. How do you feel about… rollercoasters? MARTIN: Uh… Neutral. SIMON: Oh… [CHAIR SCRAPING] You’re no fun.

That was the only safe possible answer: if Martin was positive about it, it would mean being a potential recruit; if he was showing discomfort, that would make him a sacrifice. And Martin was able to improvise the it, although he had been known as The Assistant Of Many Fears:

(MAG015) ARCHIVIST: I sent Tim to check the details – Martin declined to help with this investigation as he’s “a bit claustrophobic” […].

(MAG022) MARTIN: The light from the window behind me cast it pretty clearly on the floor, and looking at it I swear the edges seemed to move. It was like a… like a, like an undulation, like, like they were being shifted by something. I mean… look, I know you hate the word, but it was really… spooky. […] I think I might have… lost my mind a bit, then. It all… feels very… strange, blurry. I–I remember stamping and stamping as-as more made their way under my doorway. I-I remember grabbing every towel, sock, bit of fabric scrap that I could find, stuffing them under the door, into the cracks around the window.

(MAG039) TIM: Martin’s gone. ARCHIVIST: I’m getting to that. Martin has disappeared. Tim was right about there being fewer worms down here, but they are much faster. More aggressive. None of us have been hit yet but… during one of the more alarming encounters, Martin ran off. TIM: He thought we were behind him, I think. ARCHIVIST: He didn’t think at all.

(MAG040) MARTIN: Sorry. ARCHIVIST: Ah, it’s fine. I just… I only need from when you got separated. From when you got lost in the tunnels. MARTIN: No, I mean… I’m sorry I left you. ARCHIVIST: … Oh Martin. MARTIN: [TEARFUL] It was an accident. I thought you two were with me! I mean, the worms came at us, and they were so much faster, and then there was the gas, and the running, and I just… I, I thought you were right behind me. But when I turned round, you were gone. You were both gone. It was an accident.

(MAG072) ARCHIVIST: I’ve had Martin looking into the case of John Haan, though it’s slow going as whenever there’s a picture he ends up needing to take a breath of fresh air.

(MAG108) MARTIN: I’m really sorry, I… I don't actually… PETER: Do I scare you Martin? MARTIN:  Yes…! PETER: Hm. Probably for the best.

(MAG117) MARTIN: I… I’m scared, I guess. No, wait– No! No, I mean– uh… Oh, I don’t want that to be my last message, the thing that defines me. “Martin Blackwood: he was always scared, then he died. The end.” I don’t want that. … But it’s true, isn’t it? I mean, if you’re right, if these things out there are eating our fears, then I’m a… a luxury smörgåsbord, I suppose. I’m just afraid all the time! I know, I know, I’m not gonna die, I’m not even going to be on the incredibly dangerous mission. Me and Melanie, well… Well, I don’t think “death” is really the worry, it’s just… [SIGH] It feels like an ending? Or… something. Like nothing can go back to normal after this. […] I need them to be safe. I need him to be okay. … So–sorry, hum. I–I’m not afraid for me, though. Isn’t that weird…? I mean, it’s not like I’m going to be safe, like, my plan’s not dangerous but it’s… it’s mine? These last couple of years, I’ve always been... running, always hiding, caught in someone else’s trap, but… but now it’s my trap. And, well. I think it will work.

From Martin who was regularly presented as incompetent back in season 1 (to the point of surprising Jon when demonstrating otherwise during the worms crisis) and who was too honest for his own good when he met Peter, to Martin who is able to swim through the Fears politics, to ask good questions, to snap and squirm and get out of Simon’s grasp… He has learned to deal with the spooks quite efficiently, huh?

- In Jon’s tracks, Martin has been slowly moving forwards when it came to the Archival work. Pushed by Elias, he was the first one of the assistants to read statements aloud and “ritually” starting season 3, and, although he was aware that they were hard on him, he was the only one who kept reading them – Tim tried once and immediately gave up in MAG086; Melanie read two statements but stopped after MAG106’s (and, given her declaration that she would stop feeding The Eye in MAG150, she’s not planning to go back to it); Basira read one in MAG112 and never tried again (and her distaste of the tape recorders and her unwillingness to stay in the room while Jon is recording in season 4 seem to point out that she doesn’t plan on doing it again either).

(MAG084) MARTIN: [RAGGED BREATHING AS HE REGAINS HIS COMPOSURE] Well, I, er… I think that was okay. Er, yeah. To anyone listening, sorry about the change of tone. Jon, the, uh, Head Archivist is… absent, so I’ll be trying to fill in as best as I can. Um. Maybe Tim as well, if he… if he feels like it. It, it doesn’t matter, I suppose. Just as long as it gets done.

(MAG095) MARTIN: S–s–statement… done. [HEAVY BREATHING & TREMBLING AS MARTIN STEADIES HIMSELF] I don’t like recording these. There. I–I said it. I’m sorry whoever’s listening to this, I know it’s unprofessional, but they f… I don’t like it. I guess we’re past professionalism now. Probably. I don’t even know why I’m still doing them, since Jon’s back now.

(MAG098) MARTIN: I, um, I think I might need to sit down. Oh. Yeah, I am. Right. I don’t, uh, I’m not really sure if these are actually getting easier or harder. I mean I don’t feel–

(MAG108) MARTIN: Statement end. [LOW VOICE] That wasn’t so bad? [BREATHES] Hum, not sure there is anything to say about this one.

(Starting MAG108, it became easier for him: was it because it was a Lonely one, then a Web one? Was it because Jon told him he was okay with Martin continuing to read them in MAG102?)

I’m still eyeing the ways Jon is completing his own set of Fears through live-statements/nightmares/scars/encounters with direct manifestations of the Powers, but Martin, in his own way, has also been completing his own set of Fears through his written&live-statements:

* The Corruption (MAG084, Adrian Weiss) * The Buried (MAG088, Enrique MacMillan) * The Flesh (MAG090, Ross Davenport) * The Slaughter (MAG095, Luca Moretti) * The Dark (MAG098, Doctor Algernon Moss) * The Desolation (MAG100, Lynne Hammond’s (messy) live-statement) * The Stranger (MAG104, Tim Stocker’s live-statement) * The Lonely (MAG108, Adonis Biros) * The Web (MAG110, Alexia Crawley) * The Extinction (MAG134, Adelard Dekker; MAG144, Gary Boylan; MAG149, Judith O’Neill) * The Eye (MAG138, Robert Smirke; MAG142, Jess Tyrell’s live-statement/complaint) * The Vast (MAG151, Simon Fairchild’s live-statement)

He’s missing The End, The Hunt and The Spiral at the moment (although he experienced the latter when Tim and him were trapped in Michael’s corridor in MAG079-MAG080) but… he has already covered almost all of them…?

The previous time we had seen Martin (MAG149) highlighted that he was progressing with The Lonely, given how he disappeared on Georgie. Although Simon pointed out that Martin was fitting with his own conception of The Lonely in MAG151, we also got… clear indication that Martin is still very much aligned to Beholding:

(MAG151) MARTIN: Hm. [SILENCE] Who are you? No, no: who were you? SIMON: Originally? No one you would have heard of; no… great historical figure or atrocity-monger. I’ve been “Simon Fairchild” about, um… eighty or ninety years, maybe? […] Hm! No wonder I’m so sympathetic to The Lonely. You know: this really is a place for self-discovery, isn’t it? [CHUCKLE] “Statement ends”, I suppose! MARTIN: Uh… I’m sorry? SIMON: Oh! Nothing, just my own hubris. I should have known. When I came here, I said to myself: “Simon,” I said, “you’re going to answer this young man’s questions, but you’re not going to give The Watcher a statement. You’re better than that.” But it’s a hard one to resist, isn’t it? You get in the flow of talking about yourself, and it all just… tumbles out. MARTIN: Mm, does seem like it. SIMON: [CHUCKLING] And this has been fun! [INHALE] Now. [CHAIR SCRAPING] If we’re about done– MARTIN: We’re not. Sit back down. SIMON: Boooold~ [CHUCKLE] [CHAIR SCRAPING] I like it. MARTIN: You said you were here to answer my questions for Peter, but so far you’ve told me basically nothing of any use.

Martin’s shortness and impatience reminded me of Jon’s when he was trying to get answers from Jude Perry (MAG089: “You don’t even know what this is about, do you?” “So tell me!” “An Archivist pleading for knowledge. That, oh that is satisfying to see.” “Look, if you’re just… You’re just about my only lead, and if you’re… Just kill me, alright? If it’s so easy? If you’re not going to tell me anything worth my time.” “Now you’re sounding like an Archivist.”), but more importantly, it seems like Martin was used as a channel for the Institute to get Simon’s live-statement?

It’s certainly not going in-depths like Jon’s, but Simon still identified it as something he hadn’t been planning on giving and as, specifically, a statement. And that’s the third time something like this happens with Martin: he got Tim to tell him his story in MAG104, he managed to get Jess Tyrell’s complaint in MAG142 (although it was explicitly less complete than with Jon: “… And I start to tell him… everything. About the job, about the collapse, ab–about the hand… And more than I told you, even”). I’m guessing that it’s mostly thanks to the Institute’s effect, and I doubt that Martin could manage to get a statement outside like Jon did starting MAG089, but it has still happened thrice.

So. The Lonely got Martin, but he’s still very much Beholding? Peter’s goal relied on Martin becoming able to use two powers (MAG126: “The sort of power you’re going to need relies on your–” “Obedience.” “Isolation. It needs to be you, Martin. You’re the only one who could possibly balance between the two.”), and Simon confirmed that it required The Eye and The Lonely, so… Martin is getting there. Or is already there.

(- Obligatory Honorary Web-sounding Reminder (BECAUSE YES, I WON’T GIVE UP ON THAT EITHER AS LONG AS WE DON’T HOLLOW MARTIN OUT AND CONFIRM THAT HE’S NOT FULL OF SPIDERS) (… wait no, that’s a bad idea, no, don’t hollow Martin out, Jonny–) that:

(MAG138) MARTIN: … What? [HUFF] That’s it? No, no monologue, no mindgames? You love manipulating people! ELIAS: That makes two of us. MARTIN: [HUFF]

Which Martin masterfully demonstrated when he made Elias want to keep him at the Institute during The Unknowing, when he made Elias use his powers on him and lower his attention while Melanie was stealing stuff in his office, when he threw Elias in jail, and which Martin is demonstrating again by… finding loopholes in his agreement with Peter to still send information to the others. And Basira’s suspicion:

(MAG151) MARTIN: … I didn’t know Jon had listened to them already! BASIRA: Well, he has. He seems to think you’ll come to him when you need him. I think you’re feeding him what he needs to hear so he doesn’t bother you. MARTIN: Look, I don’t have time for this.

… sounded very very Web-y to me? So, is that paranoia or is that well-founded.

Also, it’s Aza’s pet-theory so, updating the list:

(MAG104) MARTIN: Elias seems to think that he’s the best chance that we have to stop them. TIM: And what? I’m supposed to just trust Elias now? MARTIN: Please. TIM: [EXHALE] Fine. Fine. I’ll tell him in person, when he gets back from… wherever it is that he’s vanished to.

(MAG118) MARTIN: Melanie. Melanie, please. MELANIE: … Alright. Let’s get these somewhere safe.

(MAG129) MARTIN: Stop. Stop, please, I–I shouldn’t know any of this, I… [PACKING UP] I–I–I really need to go, I–I’m… ARCHIVIST: Right. … right. MARTIN: Please, stop finding me.

(MAG142) MARTIN: Just… just tell me what happened. Hum, please. I–I won’t judge. [SILENCE] WOMAN: Alright.

(MAG151) MARTIN: Yeah… [PAUSE] Don’t… tell Jon. [SILENCE] Please. BASIRA: Fine.

… people’s tendency to do exactly what Martin Asked after he has said “Please”, although they were initially reluctant.

(Counterexamples: “just everyone please, make it back home…?” in MAG117 didn’t work, and neither did all his desperate “Please” to Jon in the season 4 trailer, but.))

- HEY MARTIN??

(MAG151) MARTIN: Look, I don’t have time for this. I–I don’t like that I have to work with Peter any more than you do, and I didn’t know that Simon was involved until today. But I would hope that you and Jon understood the importance of preventing an apocalypse.

DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH YOU’RE SOUNDING LIKE ELIAS

(MAG102) ELIAS: I should have thought preventing the horrific transformation of our world is not solely my concern!

(MAG135) ELIAS: I rather feel the real shame would be letting the entire world fall into Darkness because of a single person’s wounded pride. Detective. The stakes are far too high for that kind of… indulgence.

BECAUSE YOU ARE.

- This season, we saw Jon fumbling around, and only getting “victories” through personal accomplishments: saving Melanie from the bullet, saving Daisy from the coffin – and even then, those were tainted with the reveal that they had been followed by Jon attacking people from their statements right after, to feed/heal/feel good. Whenever Jon tried to meddle with bigger spooks, it resulted in disaster: trying to Know Peter’s plan hurt him in MAG139 (and that’s probably why he was so “ravenous” against Jess Tyrell?); going to Norway made him encounter Floyd and take his statement; the journey didn’t even serve the expected purpose – sure, he destroyed the Dark Sun, but it wasn’t an active threat and the act was probably the origin of his current “hunger” (as Jon has since then mentioned multiple times having not fully recovered from it). Given how Elias made sure that Basira would leave Jon alone with the coffin because he wanted Jon to develop his powers, and then sent them to Norway (and then claimed that it had been a “miscalculation”), it’s more than likely that they’ve just… been playing his game all through this season. That, or Elias indeed didn’t have any plan and constantly improvised and only pretended to be in control. The end result is still: Jon managed to save both Melanie and Daisy from the spooks, but hurt (and is still hurting) five more people in the process – and we heard Jess Tyrell, Jon didn’t “just” plague them with a few bad dreams, he directly and personally shattered them and their lives.

In parallel, Martin has been cutting his own (lonely) path, is getting more personally involved with spooks, and might be becoming our “protagonist” of the season: getting the “big” picture, receiving the input of other avatars (Peter, Simon) about the Fears architecture and the way they work, getting involved in active and current threats… So, what will be the downside to his actions – who will he hurt, outside of himself…? What is Peter expecting regarding his “progress” if, at this point already, his presence is enough to get an old avatar to give his statement, and if he is able to disappear on someone as he did with Georgie, what more could he need? Is it to simply grow more powerful in the Lonely area? … Because, as we saw with all the avatars, Jon included: using powers or simply staying alive comes hand in hand with sacrificing people. Martin told Basira that his current actions were motivated by the idea that “no one else needs to get hurt”, and I’m really afraid that he hasn’t factored in the idea that no, if some power is required, it will be from other innocents. And I don’t trust Peter to not put Martin in front of that fact at the last moment, when he would have no time to duly consider whether to sacrifice people or let The Extinction emerge completely…?

(…………… That, or Peter already has leverage to crush Martin last minute? Timeline-wise, Martin began to work with Peter two months after his mother’s death but. I’m still a bit afraid that The Lonely may have been involved in that one, to further cut Martin off from anything or anyone…………………)

- One of our current new mysteries is the thing Peter is planning to use:

(MAG151) MARTIN: Is Peter attempting a ritual? SIMON: Not in the sense that you’re used to. Him and his family made their play a few years ago and they failed. I’m sure he’d like me to explain it, but I think he can do that one himself. […] As for his plan… [INHALE] I don’t know the details. But I believe there’s something in the Institute that he thinks can help his cause. MARTIN: … And he needs me to use it. SIMON: Presumably – from what he said, it must be “powerfully aligned to The Watcher”. If he wishes to use it, it would need someone already touched by The Eye. And if he wants to control that someone… MARTIN: They need to serve The Lonely.

That’s technically only confirming what Peter had said in MAG134 (and Elias confirmed in MAG138, regarding the part where he hadn’t been willing to help):

(MAG134) PETER: [BREATHES] I’m still working out some of the kinks. But I believe I have a plan. However, it requires this place, and it requires someone touched by The Beholding. Elias was, perhaps unsurprisingly, unwilling to help. MARTIN: And you thought that since I’m so lonely already, I’d be ideal. PETER: Yes! MARTIN: You see, the thing is, Peter, I’m still not all that keen on being part of any ritual you set up. You know, in fact, if I were to be blunt, I’d say that would be suicidally stupid. PETER: Martin… it’s going to be decades, if not centuries, before I get another chance to bring Forsaken into this world. Your last Archivist saw to that.

… except for the part where it’s presented as a “ritual”: Peter denied that it was one, or changed the subject to mention that it wasn’t The Lonely’s; Simon… is less categoric – it’s not The Lonely’s ritual, but it’s kind-of-a-ritual still, and it requires… something.

* The Watcher’s Crown? The way Robert Smirke had worded it, it sounded like a physical, tangible item (MAG138: “I warn you again that if you have any remaining ambitions to use our work, to try and wear The Watcher’s Crown, you must abandon them! Not simply for the sake of your own soul, but for that of the world!”).

* Barnabas Bennett’s bones? They’re technically a link between Beholding and The Lonely, Elias pointed out that they were in his office (“[Jonah Magnus] retrieved those bones sadly enough when the time came. Bones that you can still find in my office, if you know where to look.”, MAG092), and we haven’t heard anything more about them since.

* Jon himself…? As he has proven with the Dark Sun (and potentially Breekon): he can be lethal towards other powers, and The Hive had been very angry towards the Institute because of how the Eye was… weakening? it through its study (MAG032, Jane Prentiss: “You can see it and log it and note its every detail but you can never understand it. You rob it of its fear even though your weak words have no right to do so.”). We’ve seen all through season 4 that Jon was affected by Martin’s absence – Martin has definitely grown to become a weak spot of his. But, aouch: if Martin was mostly meant to give Jon his Lonely scar, or to be used against Jon to stop The Extinction… it would be awfully nasty for Martin, who spent the last 8 months selling himself in the hope of protecting Basira&Melanie + now Jon (“… and Daisy I guess”). (Though: it would have required for Elias and/or Peter to know/guess that Jon’s weak spot would be Martin and… I have trouble picturing Elias going for it back in season 3 already? And from Peter, it would require taking into account the connections and affections of people; can he… even… do that…)

* The tunnels under the Institute? They’ve been thematically important since Jon&co discovered them at the end of season 1, they’re remnants of the Millbank prison (with the Panopticon sounding… very much like a Beholding project – maybe what powered the Institute in the first place? Was “the Fear/feeling of being watched” originally from the prisoners who couldn’t know when they were actually seen?), Robert Smirke was involved in their construction, even Jurgen Leitner (who had lived down there for years) wasn’t absolutely sure of the way they worked, Elias agreed to allow Jon to keep exploring them when he used… very Beholding-aligned arguments (“I need to know!”, MAG067); there is still the mystery of the “ring” of worms found by Tim and then Jon… and Martin was suspecting that Peter was mainly interested in them:

(MAG138) MARTIN: I don’t know what he’s talking about when he mentions Millbank. The old prison, I guess? Tim said the tunnels under the Institute were all that was left of it, but… Jon said he’d checked them pretty thoroughly. [SILENCE] [SIGH] I’m not the one who knows all about this stuff…! I wish– … No. No, it’s fine, I’m… fine, I… [EXHALE] I can do this. I don’t know what Peter’s planning, but my-my guess is that it might involve something below the Institute.

The tunnels have been… there, in season 4, too: it’s where Basira&Melanie took shelter, and Basira has been cautious about them (MAG125, Basira: “Got a camp bed at the other end, near the tunnels. I like to keep an eye on them.”); it’s where Jon and Basira operated on Melanie; judging from the sounds, it’s where Helen’s door has occasionally been (MAG131).

- Aaaaaaaaaand Martin is putting up his own death flags:

(MAG151) MARTIN: Look, I don’t have time for this. I–I don’t like that I have to work with Peter any more than you do, and I didn’t know that Simon was involved until today. But I would hope that you and Jon understood the importance of preventing an apocalypse. BASIRA: [SIGH] I guess I’m just a bit burned out on the end of the world. MARTIN: Yeah, well… that’s your problem. BASIRA: And if you really think this whole Extinction thing is it… why not come to us for help? MARTIN: I can’t. Peter’s the one with the plan, and… it needs me to be alone. […] I need to do this. For everyone. [SILENCE] BASIRA: You’re not expecting to come out of this, are you? MARTIN: … I’ll do what I have to. If I’m right… no one else needs to get hurt. [SILENCE] BASIRA: [SIGH] … Okay. You want to do whatever “grand sacrifice” you think is going to save everyone, go ahead. But you’d best be sure you’re not just playing their game. MARTIN: I know what I’m doing. BASIRA: We’ll see. [PAUSE] Don’t make me regret this. MARTIN: Yeah… [PAUSE] Don’t… tell Jon. [SILENCE] Please. BASIRA: Fine. I can’t promise you he won’t just know it, though.

… on the one hand: the fact that Martin is expecting it to happen, is getting ready to die… could mean that, precisely, it won’t happen, and he will come out of it somehow. On the other hand: Tim was spitting out his own death flags until the end (MAG116, MAG117, MAG118), was downright saying that he wasn’t expecting to come out of The Unknowing alive, even said that he wasn’t sure he wanted to survive it, and it didn’t prevent him from going out with a bang. On the third hand: it already happened with Tim, so rip Tim but Martin could be… different.

I have no idea. I think that for Martin, surviving while others die and/or surviving without having managed to achieve his goals is probably a worst outcome (meaning, more likely to happen) than sacrificing himself and reaching his objective in the process. He’s adopted the stance of sacrificing himself from a distance for a while: with his mother (she was refusing his visits), with Basira&Melanie (he accepted Peter’s deal to protect them and the Institute from external threats), plus now for Jon (he went to talk to Elias in MAG138, he has accepted to discuss with Daisy in MAG142, with Georgie in MAG149, now with Basira in MAG151… but Jon had been off-limits in MAG129). That, or… becoming something that would have hurt, or has to hurt innocents to survive.

(Does he even think that he matters for them? Basira had described to Jon that Martin had been in a very bad place after his mother’s death, and Elias had confronted him about the fact that she didn’t care about him two months prior. Begging Jon for help while he was in his coma in the trailer also didn’t result in anything; Martin had confirmation that he wouldn’t receive any help. But I… don’t think that Martin is aware of how much Jon has been impacted by his absence this season – would it make him reconsider/waver about the self-sacrificing bit…?)

- Basira agreed to not tell Jon but. She was the one staying behind with the tape at the end of the episode (Martin was the one to leave, while Basira was sighing).

The tape could disappear on its own but… so far… it means that it’s now in Basira’s possession. Would “giving the tape to Jon” count as “not telling him directly”.

- Currently: Jon is going cold turkey and still “hungry” and “weak”; Melanie is risking a slow death by Eye-deprivation, à la Tim in season 3 (his attempt to flee to Malaysia); Daisy has stopped Hunting as well (… although Jon’s “Daisy is… [PAUSE] [SIGH] Yeah. She’s managing.” from MAG148 makes me incredibly worried: was it to point out that their circumstances were different? Was it about a relapse that only Jon knows about? Was it about Daisy being actually slowly dying from the deprivation, like the people in MAG112?); Basira is deep into paranoia territory; and now, Martin… is going for a self-sacrifice.

That’s. Not a pretty picture right now, and the question goes back to “who will die first”.

(And I’m really not sure that Jon wouldn’t give up the “trusting Martin” trajectory and do something rash, if he learns about Martin’s plan to… not come back. Melanie already announced that she was ready to die: from Jon’s point of view, he’s been seeing the assistants disappear or going for their deaths. Sasha died because of the table that Jon wanted to keep. Screaming at Tim “I knew none of us might be coming back, and I’m not gonna let anyone get killed for nothing!” and “I am not losing you as well!!” (MAG118) still didn’t prevent Tim’s death. Martin is the last one of the original assistants and… so far, Martin’s plans had been based on the idea of everyone making it out alive at the end: imprisoning Elias was the way he had found to keep him away without risking to die with him. Right now, Jon&the others are apparently waiting for Martin to get on with his plan, but… probably on the assumption that Martin is planning to come back to them once he’s done. And it’s now officially not the case.)

MAG152’s title is a funny one considering that we’re bidding goodbye to the Kanto dex to head into the Johto region and it’s thus “the Chikorita episode” (the title is… quite fitting for Chikorita) /o/

I’d say End (nothing since Oliver; would Jon mention him in the post-statement…?), Corruption (so… unloved…) or Buried (… DIG/the tunnels?)? Or Lonely again?

[bluehhj]

listen to me — chapter 20

LISTEN TO ME  — 0020

listen to me masterlist;

WORDS: 2.5K

As they waited in the queue, Jinah repeated to herself that she didn't have to be afraid, for all that was fake blood, special effects and costumed people. There was nothing to fear, it was just a movie like any other.

Jisung, who was standing next to Choi, would choke out a laugh every now and then while looking at her out of the corner of his eye. Although he had seen more than three times, he had chosen the movie "The Nun" to make sure that Jinah had never been interested in even looking at the trailers, and the queue for that session wasn't so long and so they would've to be in the midst of so many people inside the movie theater, since neither of them liked crowded places.

"You know you don't have to go, do you?" Han asked as they advanced a little further toward the entrance. As much as he wanted to see her false pose of brave collapse like a house of cards, he didn't want her to be traumatized. "We can change and see a romance."

"I don't want to." Jinah smiled nervously. "This movie isn't scary, I don't know why you're so worried."

Jisung laughed and raised his eyebrows quickly, "All right, you're the one who knows."

When they handed in the tickets and entered the dark room, Jinah swallowed hard to note that besides her and Jisung, only about ten people were there, most of them concentrating on the front seats. Her intention was to have something to distract herself with, whether it was a child chewing popcorn or a couple kissing, but apparently she'd have to keep full attention in the movie until it finished and twisted to avoid suffering a panic attack during the mission.

Jisung chose a pair of seats from the next to last to sit down and Choi tried to see the bright side of the situation. At least if she was reasonably close to the door, she might run somewhere else if things started to run out of control — and out of control she meant witnessing some evil manifestation off the screen or something. The straw of the soda glass was stuck between her lips during the entire sequence of unnecessary trailers and advertisements, and Jinah even considered the possibility of actually watching that movie as a normal person, but then the following words came out before her eyes: "Based On Real Facts".

"Fuck, Jisung!" she complained, taking care not to speak as loudly as she wanted. "Why didn't you tell me that this shit really happened?"

"You said you weren't afraid."

"I-I..." Jinah thought for a moment and fell silent, regaining her composure. "I'm not afraid, I just don't like leaving my house uninformed," she lied.

Jisung laughed again, amused by all that, and murmured a "relax" before looking at the screen. The movie had just begun.

                                           ♡˖°

It was as if Jinah was a balloon about to burst with every new fright.

No matter how many times she looked at the clock, the minutes just didn't seem to go away. Her heart was so fast that she felt like an old woman with a tachycardia; her eyes didn't stop quietly anywhere and her nervous system was being extremely tested by Han, who laughed at her face every five minutes.

"I can also watch a horror movie, she said," Jisung mocked. "I wonder where that brave girl has gone now."

And even as she was about to ask for help, Jinah still wanted to support her fearless image: "I'm still fine, if you want to know."

"It's not what it looks like." Jisung put his hand on the girl's damp palm. "You're sweating, you're so nervous."

Choi would certainly say some tattered excuse, such as blaming the nonexistent heat, but, before she could open her mouth, the fucking idiot Nun reappeared just to put an end to the little self-control she still had and her first involuntary reaction was to squeal a little and squeezing Jisung's hand against hers, entwining their fingers without even realizing it, and then bringing close to her heart.

"I don't want anymore!" she whimpered.

The boy smiled and, even in the partial darkness, stopped to watch the girl's face as he felt the beating of her heart. It was undeniable the fact that he had found her beautiful from the first moment he laid eyes on hers, but he didn't always admire her details so closely. Jinah was sweet and sour in the right dose. Sometimes it sounded a bit childish, but it was captivating. Beautiful eyebrows, beautiful eyes, flawless smile, rosy lips; Jisung couldn't deny even to himself: she was beautiful at his sight.

"Why did you want to come, being so afraid of this kind of movie?" he asked without taking his eyes off Jinah's almost terrified face. Part of him wanted to hold her.

"'Cause I wanted to go out with you again" there was this detail: Choi didn't hide things when she got nervous.

"But we could go out anyway, you silly girl." Jisung got up and pulled the girl to do the same. "C’mon, let's eat something."

Jinah didn't protest and followed the boy out of the room. The funniest thing was that they were walking hand in hand around the mall as if they were a couple and only noticed it halfway to their chosen diner, which resulted in a minimally embarrassed Jisung and a half-annoyed Jinah cause she had lost the touch. After facing the queue of requests — Choi recovering from the trauma of the movie and Han teasing her —, they sat at a table by the window.

"How's the internship?" Jinah changed the subject, since she didn't want to talk about the events of minutes ago after having sworn that she'd never see another horror movie in her life. "I know it's only been three days, but do you feel well already?"

"Yes, it's interesting." Jisung took a sip of soda while his eyes searched the place to see if there was anyone he knew. "The only problem is that, sometimes, the people are too noisy."

"At least you're not in Changbin's place, who's going to start his next Monday. Imagine just having to put up with an entire classroom full of hyperactive kids." Jinah grimaced in disgust. She envied her friend's patience to deal with that sort of thing. "At the very least, I think I'd have a stroke."

"Does he really want to be a teacher?" Jisung frowned. "He'll scare the kids with his homicidal face."

"Of course not, Changbin's a baby inside."

"I don't know... This week even he was completely angry there in the store, just missing breaking everything."

"It must be because Jade and him were going through some problems, but now they're well again" Jinah glorified the heavens for that. It was horrible when the two of them weren't well, because a tense atmosphere settled in the apartment and everything seemed out of place. “The infamous jealousy."

Jisung shook his head in brief agreement and there was a pause in the conversation as they ate their sandwiches. Added to the topic of jealousy, it was a perfect loophole for him to begin to travel in his own thoughts and to bring up subjects he didn't want to revive, but which were always there, marking presence inside his head. Jinah soon noticed the boy's rapid change of mood.

"Are you thinking of her?" she asked cautiously and Jisung sighed. Han felt as if he could never be with Jinah without the shadow of Chaerin appearing between them as a barrier. He didn't want to ruin the night with his problems, but Choi was willing to listen to them, because, in her conception as a psychologist, you can't overcome anything by trying to choke it.

"No" Jisung lied and forced a slight smile. "It's just bullshit in my head."

"It's okay, you don't have to lie to me. You were like this after I told you about jealousy."

"We had a few crises," and before he could stop the words, Han was already venting. It wasn't his fault that talking to Jinah was so comfortable. "Or rather, I had a few crises..." another sigh. "Before I didn't realize it, but, looking better now, we haven't been well for a long time. It was a hard way to reach the last point."

"Can I ask how it happened? I mean, you say Chaerin ran away with another guy, but I wanted to get it right" Jinah knew she was stepping on eggshells by asking all those questions, but just kept insisting on them because the boy, however, didn't show any hesitation at the time of answering them.

"She had left home early that day" was the first time Jisung had spoken openly about it. He remembered hiding many details when he reported what had happened to Yoorim and Hyunjin. Not because he didn't trust his friends, but because he didn't feel comfortable enough. "I called and always fell in the mail box. She didn't even respond to the messages. She just came back at night, when I was already thinking that something serious had happened, she apologized before going to the room and packing" Jisung even would cry, but when it came to his ex-fiancée, his tears were already dry. "I asked what was going on, but she held the cry and didn't answer. Something told me it was a cry of guilt." rolled his eyes. "She left and I couldn't do anything. When I looked out the window I saw Seungmin's car and it was clear."

"So, you already suspected she might be having something with Seungmin before that happens?"

"Maybe" Jisung bit his lower lip for a moment. Even though it was complicated, he felt good talking about all those things that had been trapped in his throat for so long. "I had read some messages and noticed strange things, but it was always 'my head's thing'" he made quotations with his fingers, repeating what he heard so much from Chaerin's mouth whenever he asked about it. "But I can't feel as much anger at Seungmin as I wanted, after all, if Chaerin hadn't paid attention to him, we'd be fine now. It makes no sense to blame only the affair, because who really owed me respect didn't."

Jinah nodded, approving Jisung's way of thinking, so she wouldn't have the trouble to make him understand that part.

"When the two left," Han continued his account of the worst night of his life. "I felt the whole world fall on my back. It was difficult to clean up the mess of glass shards I made in the room, and, before I could ruin the whole kitchen too, I remembered the call center number. I meant to talk to Sorn, I think you know her." Jinah nodded again, smiling slightly as she remembered the Thai. "She had helped me a lot in the last few days, but it was you who answered this time. And by the way, the service wasn't one of the best," he joked, although he was telling the truth.

"I confess I felt a little bad for not having the standard treatment with you," Jinah admitted. "But I only started to act normally after I was sure you wouldn't do anything you could regret, otherwise I wouldn't have said so much bullshit. We would've extended the conversation if you hadn't turned it off."

"You threw it in my face that at least you hadn't been kicked by your fiancé, you wanted what?"

"But you did stress me first!" Jinah defended herself, patting the table as she remembered that Jisung had also thrown unnecessary things into her face. "I didn't return because I thought you wanted to be a little alone, or maybe you'd call again to talk to some other attendant, but, anyway, the idea of looking for you in college was already firmly in my head."

"I actually thought about calling again to talk to someone else, but your voice..." Jisung pressed his lips together as if he had no weapons to deal with. "It managed to calm me even by saying idiots."

"I realized you liked it" Jinah smiled. "So much that you must've wasted a good few minutes looking for my branch in the early morning."

"Just a few" Jisung smiled too. "Still, I thought you didn't care."

"You thought wrong. And I do care until today, you know that."

"Thank you, JinJin." Choi used all her willpower not to freak out when she heard Han call her that way without being drunk. "I don't even know how to thank you for all this."

"You could thank me by moving on," Jinah murmured, hesitantly for the first time. No one could blame her for looking at Jisung and feeling an overwhelming desire to kiss him, but not being able to do so, after all, the boy was still trapped in his old relationship. It wasn't as if she expected the love he felt for Chaerin to disappear overnight, but she believed he had to at least try, and Jinah was so willing to help him overcome all those bad things... "I know it's hard, but it's been almost a month. Life has to go on, don't you think?"

"With moving on," Jisung put his elbows on the table. "do you mean to get a good mood or open my heart to let other people in? Because, if it's the first choice, I think I'm already doing it."

"The two options sort of complete."

"I don't know, Jinah." Jisung ran a hand through his hair absently. Choi almost died without air. Why did he do that to her poor heart? "I don't want to be with someone while I love someone else, and it's not like I have too many suitors."

Jinah blushed, so much that it was impossible to hide from the boy.

"Wait..." Jisung's eyes widened. "Don't you-..."

"No! Of course not!" the girl had tried to fix it, but her face only turned redder. "Aish, don't start to misinterpret things!"

It wasn't the first time that Jinah had given him signals that shouldn't be given to mere friends, but Han always took it as a joke. However, since the small meeting at the home of Hyunjin and Yoorim, when Choi quietly asked for a kiss, a set of internal doubts struck Jisung. If Woojin was there, he'd probably tell him to stop being dumb and grab the opportunity, but, in his head, it wasn't as easy as it seemed.

"Sorry" he disguised as if he really had misunderstood and believed in the girl's acting. "Would you like some ice cream?"

He didn't even have to ask twice.

And as he looked at Jinah without her realizing it, Jisung wished, with all his heart, that he might correspond to her correctly someday.

[thecynicalm]

Gerard Nolst Trenité - The Chaos (1922)

This poem is great for training your pronunciation if you’re not a native speaker of english and I love it. Dearest creature in creation Studying English pronunciation,   I will teach you in my verse   Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy;   Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;   Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet, Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!   Just compare heart, hear and heard,   Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain (Mind the latter how it's written).   Made has not the sound of bade,   Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you With such words as vague and ague,   But be careful how you speak,   Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;   Woven, oven, how and low,   Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery: Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,   Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,   Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing, Same, examining, but mining,   Scholar, vicar, and cigar,   Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable-admirable from "admire", Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,   Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,   Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.   Gertrude, German, wind and wind,   Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather, Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.   This phonetic labyrinth   Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured To pronounce revered and severed,   Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,   Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet; Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.   Blood and flood are not like food,   Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet, Which exactly rhymes with khaki.   Discount, viscount, load and broad,   Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet? Right! Your pronunciation's OK.   Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,   Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your r correct in higher? Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.   Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,   Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision, Now: position and transition;   Would it tally with my rhyme   If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy, But cease, crease, grease and greasy?   Cornice, nice, valise, revise,   Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous, Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,   You'll envelop lists, I hope,   In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You'll have it! Affidavit, David, davit.   To abjure, to perjure. Sheik   Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.   We say hallowed, but allowed,   People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover, Between mover, plover, Dover.   Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,   Chalice, but police and lice,

Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label.   Petal, penal, and canal,   Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",   But it is not hard to tell   Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron, Timber, climber, bullion, lion,   Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,   Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour Has the a of drachm and hammer.   Pussy, hussy and possess,   Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.   Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,   Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker", Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",   Making, it is sad but true,   In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour.   Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,   Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic, Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.   Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,   Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle, Make the latter rhyme with eagle.   Mind! Meandering but mean,   Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny, You say mani-(fold) like many,   Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,   Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring Rhyme with herring or with stirring?   Prison, bison, treasure trove,   Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.   Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,   Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don't be down, my own, but rough it, And distinguish buffet, buffet;   Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,   Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.   Evil, devil, mezzotint,   Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention To such sounds as I don't mention,   Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,   Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included, Though I often heard, as you did,   Funny rhymes to unicorn,   Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely, I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.   No. Yet Froude compared with proud   Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial, Tripod, menial, denial,   Troll and trolley, realm and ream,   Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,   But you're not supposed to say   Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid Worthless documents? How pallid,   How uncouth he, couchant, looked,   When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite, Paramour, enamoured, flighty,   Episodes, antipodes,   Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don't monkey with the geyser, Don't peel 'taters with my razor,   Rather say in accents pure:   Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly, Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,   Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,   Wan, sedan and artisan.

The th will surely trouble you More than r, ch or w.   Say then these phonetic gems:   Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham, There are more but I forget 'em-   Wait! I've got it: Anthony,   Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;   With and forthwith, one has voice,   One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger; Then say: singer, ginger, linger.   Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,   Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very, Parry, tarry fury, bury,   Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,   Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners, Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners   Holm you know, but noes, canoes,   Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little, We say actual, but victual,   Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,   Put, nut, granite, and unite.

Reefer does not rhyme with deafer, Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.   Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,   Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific, Science, conscience, scientific;   Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,   Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit, Next omit, which differs from it   Bona fide, alibi   Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria.   Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,   Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion with battalion,   Rally with ally; yea, ye,   Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.   Never guess-it is not safe,   We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary, Crevice, but device, and eyrie,   Face, but preface, then grimace,   Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging, Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;   Ear, but earn; and ere and tear   Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the o of off and often Which may be pronounced as orphan,   With the sound of saw and sauce;   Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting? Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.   Respite, spite, consent, resent.   Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,   Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,   Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid vapour, S of news (compare newspaper),   G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,   I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers, Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.   Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,   Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation-think of Psyche!- Is a paling, stout and spiky.   Won't it make you lose your wits   Writing groats and saying "grits"?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,   Islington, and Isle of Wight,   Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, rather, Saying lather, bather, father?   Finally, which rhymes with enough,   Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of sup... My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

[something-fanfiction-ie]

A Pair of Fans

Pairing: Tom Holland x Reader

Warnings: Creepy guy follows you for like 2 paragraphs but you get a happy ending. Pinky promise.

A/N: I am so sorry this took so long to write, you guys! I’ve been hitting a writing wall like crazy and my life has just been a little hectic. This was a little rushed because I’ve been trying to get it out to you guys but I also have to leave for work in about an hour. Thank you so much for your patience and your love, I appreciate you guys. You’re the best. Remember to let me know what you think. Like, comment, reblog, message me, inbox me, I’m really friendly. I promise. @petah-parkah-and-potahtas and @i-am-lame-leave-me-alone

| part one: Fangirl | part two: Fanboy |

___

In the end, you met Tom by accident.

It was your last night in London and you decided to pull your lazy ass off the fancy hotel couch to wander the potentially dangerous London streets. The faults of your plan didn’t fully hit you until the street lights turned on and your phone died. Here you were, all alone, lost in the most unfamiliar of settings.

Which way was the way back to the hotel? The GPS had said to head south on this certain stretch of road before your phone had died, and that information would have been helpful if you knew which way was south. Why had Jason agreed to let you go out alone? In London.

Your current mission was to find a phone booth. You knew your mom’s phone number by heart and she could get in touch with Jason to come get you. She would be mad and you would never live down the time you got lost in London, but at least you wouldn’t be dead in some back alley.

Thankfully, the road you were on wasn’t very populated so you decided to walk with your hood down. If you bumped into a fan or two you wouldn’t mind. It was still a surreal feeling whenever someone came up to you and recognized you.

As you walked, the night grew darker and you couldn’t help but be paranoid about the guy walking several paces behind you. Hunching your shoulders, you glanced behind you and the predatory look on his face was enough to make the hair on the back of your neck raise.

You quickened your pace and took a sharp and sudden left through an alley which, thankfully, led to another street instead of your untimely doom. Still keeping your gaze behind you, you payed no mind to the road in front of you.

Never in all your wildest dreams did you ever think you would run smack dab into Tom Holland. Of course, you didn’t realize it was him until a little later. He was more solid than you would have imagined and he was warm. Almost like running straight into an open toaster oven. Or maybe you were just cold?

You grabbed very muscular biceps to keep yourself from falling on your ass and let out the smallest of surprised ‘Oh!’s known to man-kind. He responded with a grunt, ‘Oof.’ It was deep, not at all how you would think a Tom Holland ‘oof’ would sound.

You should have let go at this point, apologize for not paying attention, and maybe try to explain the situation. That’s what you would usually do, but when you heard footsteps echoing off the brick walls behind you, you abandoned all regards for societal norms.

You let go of the stranger’s biceps and threw your arms around him in a big hug, tilting your head at just the right angle to see the man slow his steps.

Showtime.

“Peter! I can’t believe I found you! I was so lost and my phone died. I’m sorry we fought, I promise to never walk away from you again.” Queue the tears and the sniffles. You buried you head into a chest that, thankfully, smelled amazing. Please just go along, please just go along. Arms circled your back and pulled you close. A strangely familiar American voice spoke back.

“Don’t worry, babe. Just calm down and let’s head back to the hotel. Yeah?” More footsteps except this time, they were receding. Your heart about burst with absolute joy. You stayed like that, encompassed in a stranger’s comforting embrace for what felt like eternity.

Once you both deemed the coast clear, you pulled back and almost chocked on your own spit in shock. Tom Holland stood in front of you, his curls a little disheveled and his cheeks a bit flushed, wearing a black shirt and jeans. His mouth dropped as the realization dawned on him.

He was standing in front of (Y/N) (Y/L/N).

You were standing in front of Tom Holland. Covering your mouth, you stared at him with wide eyes. When you finally spoke, you sounded like the stupidest person to ever exist.

“I thought you were American!” You were pointing your index finger at his chest. His very solid, warm, nice-smelling chest that you had buried your face into just moments ago. You were going to have a full blown anxiety attack from the sheer absurdity of the situation.

He smirked now, “I am not. It was just acting, darling.” Your heart fluttered. He just called you darling. How many times had you YouTubed compilations of him saying that to imagine him saying it to you? Enough to know that it never sounded like this, all breathless and heated and flirty.

He extended his hand and you watched as a little bit of the fanboy from the Jimmy Fallon interview brightened his eyes. “It’s lovely to finally meet you. I am a huge fan.”

You took his hand a little awkwardly, afraid to show just how much you were freaking out. “Likewise.”

“So where are you headed?”

“Brown’s Hotel.” He raised his eyebrows and informed you that you were going in the very wrong direction, Brown’s Hotel was the opposite direction. You laughed a little nervously, scratching the back of your neck as you explained your embarrassing situation. He laughed, shaking his head and squinting his eyes in the most adorable show of amusement you’d ever witnessed.

As you walked back, your shoulders bumping each other’s every once in a while, you talked about everything you could. When was the next time you would be able to walk the sparsely populated streets of a foreign country with your all time celebrity crush?

“What in the world made you choose Peter for a name?” He joked, looking down at you as he steered you around a corner. His hand lightly gripped the back of your lower bicep, sending electricity through your nervous system. If this was a Disney Pixar movie, the alarms in your head would be blaring as your emotions ran wild.

“It was the first name to come to mind. And I’m a huge Spider-Man fan.” You shrugged, self consciously tucking your hands deep into your pockets. Peeking at him through the corner of your eyes, you caught his gaze long enough to spike your heart rate. Which was already dangerously high.

The subject changed a billion different times, sometimes one of you would let a fan moment slip and the two of you would laugh.

Like when Tom said, “Your acting was seamless and beautiful. You weren’t even the lead and still you got the most attention for the movie! Somehow you managed to convey so many things with just facial expressions and body language and it was insane, as a fellow actor, to watch you. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought you were really your character and-“ he cut himself off, his cheeks a preciously dark pink.

“I’m sorry, I’m geeking a little.” The both of you laughed and he got to witness you geek a little later, gushing about his portrayal of a character you grew up with.

“To actually see this Peter as a teenager, and I mean a real teenager, it was refreshing. Tobey and Andrew did great, don’t get me wrong. They’re both amazing actors, but I just feel like you were the most accurate teenage Peter that has ever been on screen. I love watching you.” It took you a second to realize what exactly you had just said and immediately you tried to correct yourself, but Tom didn’t hear a word of it as his laughter roared through the street.

By the time you got to Brown’s, you didn’t want to leave. You stood awkwardly at the elevator doors, shuffling your feet and trying to make sure that no one recognized Tom. He had his back to the main lobby but it still felt a bit risky.

“Well...” He looked at you with the biggest brown eyed puppy dog look you’d ever seen. It twisted your heart a million different ways inside your chest.

“Well...” You repeated. It was quiet for just a beat and then he said the most precious thing.

“Would you mind if I hugged you goodbye?” Without replying, your threw your arms around him. It felt natural, your body pressed to his like this. His arms pulled you close and he buried his head into your hair.

The moment was so dream-like, that you were completely unaware of the sound of the elevator opening behind you until the people inside started speaking.

“Tom Holland!” He jerked up, catching sight of the three paparazzi behind you. As if it was somehow possible, he pulled you closer in a very intimately protective manner. His body felt rigid against you. You were frozen in place.

“Who is the girl?!” They all started asking, and somehow it felt like you were being swarmed in a mob with their thousand of questions flying at the two of you like daggers. Tom managed to evade both their questions and them by shuffling the two of you into the elevator and evil eyeing them out.

When the doors closed, he let you go and gave you an awakward smile.

“Going up?” After he walked you to your room and you said your goodbyes, a bit reluctantly, you slipped inside. He hadn’t even asked for your number, or if he could see you again. You didn’t try to deny the sadness that thought brought.

Until you shoved your hands into your jacket pocket, ready to march into the bedroom and find your charger so you could cry to your mom. Your hand brushed against something, and when you pulled it out, you realized it was a card. Spider-Man was on the front, the famous picture of him laying on his back in front of the New York skyline.

Flipping it to the back, you burst into giddy laughter.

Tom Holland

Peter Parker aka Spider-Man

Just beneath that was his phone number and social media accounts. At the very bottom, in hurried handwriting was a small sentence.

“I’ve been hoping to run into you.”

[bbclesmis]

The Guardian: Les Misérables episode two recap – simply electric

Spoiler alert: this recap is for people watching Les Misérables on the BBC. Please do not read on if you are not up to date.

Well that was emotional. Ride like the wind, Jean Valjean and save the (probably-actually-not-all-that) innocent man in Arras. Feel the searing pain of the hot coin of shame in your palm. Behold the memory of your giant beard of sorrow. Defend your honour.

This was an episode that was initially uneven and then suddenly soared to majestic heights, both of comedy and tragedy, showcasing some extraordinary, award-worthy performances from Dominic West (Valjean) and David Oyelowo (Javert), plus a jaw-dropping cameo from Ron Cook as a never-to-be-forgotten “hair and teeth dealer”. (That is his actual cast listing.)

There is a theory about great novels: that they tell their story by building up important scenes in sequence. This is true of Les Misérables, which is perhaps why this adaptation, so faithful to the original, came into its own here. This week the story was told in several key scenes, starting with the moment Javert witnesses that the strangely-familiar mayor has such superhuman strength that he can lift a cart off a dying man.

The chemistry between West and Oyelowo is incredible; it’s worth watching for that alone. Neither of them overplay their roles. Instead, both try to inject suspense and subtlety into what could be extremely hammy parts. The humiliation in Javert’s face when his accusation against the mayor was questioned! The cat and mouse game between the two of them is simply electric.

Back at the Queen Vic, sorry, Sergeant de Waterloo, the Thenardiers provided a comedic foil to the tension of the main storyline. You would happily leave your child with Olivia Colman, but perhaps not with her evil French ginger twin. On the other hand, seven francs a month for childcare seemed most appealing. Colman struck a brilliant balance between pathos and farce, managing to engineer some laughs while still leaving us shocked when her conman husband hit her. Similarly, Kathryn Hunter as Madame Victurnien (Fantine’s factory supervisor) managed to spin a small role into something spectacular, grimacing her disapproval at Fantine’s “secret”.

For me, though, the entire series took flight when Fantine had her teeth pulled. Cook as the teeth-puller was just sublime. As was the camera panning across the “instruments”. The smile after “You’re allowed to change your mind, you know …” was genius. I was screaming, “NO, NOT THE TEETH,” as he grinned, “Help me hold her still, mother …” It was beautifully shot, acted with cruel brilliance and perfect in its depiction of the physical horror of poverty. This scene, coupled with the elegant moments of dialogue — the ones when we are reminded why we are following this story (“I have bought your soul … You belong to good” versus “Next time it will be for life … You can never win”) — elevated this series into something special. (Which was not initially evident to me last week, I have to say. Plus, there are still a lot of digressions, it must be admitted.)

The appearance of the “ecrivan public” (Alan David as Letter Writer, AKA the Only Non-Illiterate in the Village) was fascinating too, although I couldn’t help blaming him for everything as he didn’t make it clear until it was too late that Fantine should become a prostitute before selling her teeth. Basic error. The main conclusions to be taken then? Suspense has been most satisfyingly ramped up for the battle between Javert and Valjean. Olivia Colman suits red hair. But most importantly this: the world would be a better place if more respectable property-owning citizens were attacked by semi-bald toothless women jumping on their backs and scratching their faces until they bled.

Least convincing romantic encounter

Well, it wasn’t so much unconvincing as an interesting attempt to turn the tables. The brief scene between Fantine (Lily Collins) and the man who called her “baldy” was a memorable moment. There was this immortal exchange: “How much do you charge, baldy?” “If you don’t want business, do me a favour and move along.” For a second we were rooting for Fantine and hoping that she would recover her dignity and get her own back on someone. But, of course, this is impossible because it is 19th-century France and she is a young woman who has borne a child out of wedlock and sold her teeth. Still, I enjoyed the possibility.

The Gwyneth Paltrow onion for tears on demand

This ought to go to Fantine (Collins) for perfecting a tuberculosis cough and a realistic death rattle. But in fact I found myself more moved by the moral turmoil facing Valjean (West). There is something touching and real about what West is portraying: he really knows how to show what Valjean is wrestling with both externally (against Javert) and internally (against his own conscience), depicting this with very few lines of dialogue. What a gift of an actor he is, with or without giant beard and glimpses of buttock.

“Ecoutez et repetez!” Classic miserable lines

• “Where’s hubby?” “He’s dead.” “Oh dear.” Olivia Colman’s sneer here was a wonder. I also enjoyed her singing a French song before bursting out in broad Cock-er-ney.

• “A man steals because he is degenerate.” “There I have to tell you that we disagree … How we turn out depends on our circumstances and how we are treated.” And in those two lines, we have the entire plot.

• “I wouldn’t mind spreading my wings in his bed.” Get in the queue.

• “Maman, I’m tired.” Ah, Cosette, we are all tired. We are all so tired. At least we still have our two front teeth, though.

The Guardian, 6 December 2019

[swanslieutenant]

from the sea - chapter two

Summary: When Emma becomes sheriff, the pressure of running a department with a dwindling budget becomes nothing but an exercise in frustration. That is, until she finds an unlikely ally in the town treasurer, a man who her kid Henry is convinced is not an ally at all, but rather a villainous enemy. Season 1 AU, Cursed!Killian.

Rating and Warnings: Teen.

Catch up: ch1

Read on AO3

Thanks for the feedback on the last chapter! I’m glad people are enjoying this :) 

A couple of days after her meeting with Newport, Emma heads over to Granny’s for her morning coffee. She’s already received a call from a little old lady complaining that someone keeps stealing her lawn gnomes and is planning to get the coffee to-go when instead, to her great delight, Henry is at one of the little tables. He’s seated by himself, a half-eaten plate of waffles to his left and his storybook propped open to his right.

“Emma!” he exclaims, eagerly waving her over.

It only takes a fraction of a second for Emma to decide that the old woman can wait. “Hey, kid,” she says, sitting down opposite him. “You here on your own?”

He nods. “My mom had to go to work early this morning. Granny’s watching me until my bus gets here.”

Ruby swings past, pouring Emma a cup of coffee before flitting away with hardly a word to her. Granny’s diner is busy this morning, people at every table, a line forming out the door. There’s a cold chill to the air from a storm that drifted in from the Atlantic last night, wafting in every time the door opens again. It seems everyone in Storybrooke is out searching for a hot beverage to warm them up in its wake, and the line had made her hesitate about getting the coffee at all, but now, seated with Henry, she’s glad she didn’t just keep on walking.

“So, what’s the story today?” Emma asks, sipping from her mug and peering down at the book. It’s upside down to her, but it looks like a scene in a dark, stony castle. A figure, features obscured by a black cloak, is exchanging blows with two guards Emma recognizes from other tales as the Evil Queen’s Black Knights.

Henry shrugs, and flips the book shut. “Just doing some fact checking.”

Emma looks at him, torn between amusement and concern, but simply nods at his serious expression. “Okay.”

He leans closer to her over the table and says, in a low voice, “Too many people here for Operation Cobra talk. My mom’s got spies everywhere.”

Emma nods seriously, and takes another drink of her coffee. Of course, she does.

The conversation turns to Henry telling her about his day at school yesterday. She nods along, thinking carefully for the right words to respond with when its her turn to speak. She always finds it a bit challenging to know what to say to Henry, always hovering on the edge of uncomfortable unfamiliarity that comes with each interaction with him. She never thought she’d be seated across from the child she felt growing within her for nine long, lonely months, the child she gave up and never expected to see again, and now here she is ... and she never knows quite what to say.

But at the same time, that unfamiliarity and uncertainty appears to be lessening with each and every moment she spends with him, the words come easier and easier; Emma’s not sure if she feels comforted or terrified by that just yet.

He’s talking about his classes, chattering excitedly about the recent English project. It is clear Henry shines in his English classes, and Mary Margaret has even commented on his proficiency in it. Emma feels a small bubble of pride grow in her chest, hearing him talk so proudly about his recent book report that earned top marks, and she asks, “Is English your favourite subject?”

He nods eagerly. “Yeah, for sure. What was your favourite in school?”

Emma opens her mouth, but then closes it again. It had been pretty hard for her to really focus on school when she’d been younger, having been uprooted and moved between schools as she shuffled from one foster family to the other. She’d tried her hardest, striving to do as good as she possibly could, but still. It had been tough.

“I guess my favourite was science,” she says, finally. When she had stayed in once place long enough to actually get invested in her classes, she’d always loved learning anything science-related and she’d especially excelled at human biology. If things had been different, she might have even considered going into a career in that field. She’d daydreamed about being a doctor one day: treating people, helping people, saving people. “Yeah, science.”

But Henry clearly doesn’t share her fondness for the subject: he makes a face at the mere mention of the word science.

“Science is hard,” he says, and his voice rings with dejection.

Emma’s heart sinks a little at his expression. “What do you find hard about it?”

“I don’t know. It’s just … complicated.”

Emma hesitates, the feeling of unfamiliar territory once more flushing over her, but she swallows it down. “Uh – do you need any help with it?”

He glances up at her, looking taken aback. “Really?”

Emma almost backs out of her offer, but she swallows back the fear of the unknown with a quick nod and smile. Henry returns her smile and immediately pulls out a bright green binder from the backpack beside him. He flips it open, undoing the rings, and hands Emma the worksheet. The current unit appears to be basic geology, mostly on ways to differentiate between different types of rocks and minerals. Emma feels like she hasn’t looked at this stuff in a thousand years, but she just smiles positively back at Henry. “Okay, kid. Let’s go through this together, yeah? Tell me about the different types of characteristics of rocks and minerals.”

They continue on for several minutes. Henry is tentative at first with his answers, but grows more confident as they work at it; by the time Emma has moved on from the general characteristics to the specifics of each identifier, Henry is much more assured in his answers. She is quizzing him on the Mohs hardness scale when Granny bustles up to their table, looking frazzled and at her wits’ end.

“Henry, it’s almost 8:15; your bus will be here soon, but I’ve got this huge order for the sailing guys that I need to get to them before they pack up and leave –”

“I’ll walk him out,” Emma volunteers immediately. “You get back to work.”

Granny shoots her a grateful look. “Thanks, Emma. Coffee’s on the house.”  

Henry stuffs his school stuff away, while Emma rises and swipes a paper coffee cup from the edge of the counter, pouring her half-full mug into it. They head out the main doors together, and it is perfect timing too, as the old, rattling school bus is just creaking to a stop down the road as they exit.

Henry yelps and takes off running, backpack nearly flapping up and over his head.

“Oh, okay, bye!” Emma calls as he swivels around the corner of the fence. She jogs forward to watch him take the last few steps towards the bus, and adds, “Have a good day at school!”

“Thanks! Bye, Emma!”

For a single, wild moment that seems to last an eternity, watching Henry clamber aboard, waving merrily at her as he steps on, she imagines this is an ordinary day. An everyday routine. Having breakfast while she helps her son with his homework, and walking him to the bus. Such normal things that she’d never even imagined doing with that small little baby she’d given up so many years ago.

Thoughts of the ‘big things’ had crept into her mind through the years, no matter how hard she’d tried to harden her heart against it. She’d spent countless hours wondering what his first words were, when he would have started walking, what he wore to his first day at school, whether he was nervous or excited or both. But stuff like this? Something so normal? She’d never even given it a thought.

If things had been different, she’d ��

She clenches her jaw and stops the thought in its track. No use wondering about that, she thinks firmly, steeling herself against the tightness in her heart as the bus pulls away from the curb, Henry waving from the window.

There’s no way to change what really happened, what her life really is.

And she has to live with that.

Emma stares after the bus until it disappears around the corner, lost in her thoughts. She’s so distracted she doesn’t even notice when someone speaks right beside her.

“Alright there, Swan?”

She jumps, swiveling around to see Wes Newport standing there. He’s dressed in a black pea coat today, the collar popped rather dramatically in a way that makes his appearance even more striking than the first time she’d met him.

“Oh,” Emma says, hoping her voice doesn’t reveal that she was getting emotional over a goddamn school bus. “I’m fine, I just – um – what are you doing here?”

He gestures to Granny’s behind them. “I was going to get a coffee and some breakfast, but the queue inside is just ridiculous. I’ll have to suffer that old machine we have at town hall instead.” His tone is light and jovial, and Emma feels a strange rush of relief that he seems to have no intention of turning the conversation back around on why she was staring longingly after a school bus.

She makes sure of it, saying, “Yeah, it’s super busy in there today. And, uh, not to put any pressure on you just yet, but speaking of town hall … have you talked to Regina yet about my budget?”

“I haven’t,” he confesses. “Friday was full of meetings, and she was already in a foul mood by the time I ran into her at the end of the afternoon. I figured I’d let her cool down over the weekend, and ask her today. I’m just heading into the office right now, actually.” He looks up to the dark, gloomy sky, and frowns. “Hopefully the rain will hold off until I get there.”

Emma raises an eyebrow; town hall is across town, at least a twenty-minute walk. “You’re walking all that way?”

He nods, and his eyes drift out across the street, towards the harbour and the waters of the ocean, turned choppy and grey by the cool weather. “I like walking along the boardwalk.” But then he frowns again. “Although, I’ve left it a little late this morning. Another reason to forgo the coffee, I suppose.”

He waves in departure, heading towards the boardwalk. Emma hesitates for a moment; the address of the little old lady and her lawn gnomes is just across from town hall, and before she can talk herself out of it, calls after him, “I could give you a ride.”

He pauses, turning back to face her, brows rising in surprise. “To town hall? Isn’t that out of your way?”

“I’ve got a call on Apple Avenue to get to, and town hall is right there.”

He looks taken aback for another moment, but then smiles. “That would be great. Thanks.”

Emma leads Newport to her little yellow Bug. Though he is perfectly polite the entire way over to her car, which is still parked a couple blocks down near the loft, and her lie detector doesn’t go off once in their entire conversation, but she can’t help her feeling of distrust and suspicion. Henry’s words of caution still niggling in the back of her mind don’t help either, nor Mary Margaret’s assertion of his nasty relationship with Mr. Gold. She may not believe he’s the living and breathing version of Captain Hook (especially with how he looks; has Henry ever even seen that Disney movie? Young and handsome and with no twirly mustache doesn’t exactly fit the bill of Captain Hook in her mind) but the allies with Regina bit? That’s an actual possibility.

She kind of feels like an idiot for offering him a ride – he is a stranger and one that works for Regina at that – but she figures that in spending a bit more time with him, even if it is only the fifteen or so minute drive, she can get to know him a little bit better and decide whether he’s just another of Regina’s pawns or not. And honestly, she tells herself firmly, she’s just being neighbourly, offering a man a ride so he doesn’t get rained on before the day has even begun. It also doesn’t hurt, she rationalizes again as they turn the final corner to her car, that this particular man is in charge of her department’s budget and endearing herself to him is probably something she should be doing anyways.

When they reach Emma’s car, Newport makes a comment about how its bright colour lights up the streets of Storybrooke, especially on a gloomy day such as this, and it sends an unexpected thrill of delight through Emma.

Okay, so maybe this won’t be too bad.

He tells her about last year’s sailing races as they drive by the harbour, where at least a dozen sailboats are berthed, thick, white sails billowing in the cold Atlantic wind as their sailors work tirelessly to reel them in safely. Emma feels a heavy pang looking at the boats, remembering a particular time when she’d watched similar races in the warm ocean in a small town just outside Tallahassee, waiting and waiting for a man who never showed up. She chances a glance at Newport, hoping he hasn’t noticed that she’s gripping the steering wheel tighter than normal, but he is completely preoccupied, gazing out at the sailboats as if he wished nothing more to be out there himself.

Emma remembers him mentioning that he’d lost his hand during a sailing accident, and feels a twinge of empathy for him. She’s never known quite what to say to someone else who has suffered a tragedy, even though she’s sure she’s one of the world’s leading experts. Talking about anyone else’s personal disasters tends to bring up her own, and those are raw wounds she’s never healed from.

Instead, she settles on a much more neutral topic, or at least attempts to. “You still sail?”

He turns back to her as they round the corner, the harbour and sailboats disappearing behind them, his eyes darker and shuttered. “No. I haven’t in many years.”

Even though she’d angled for ‘no tragedy-talk’, there is a hollow, painful wistfulness in his tone, and they descend into silence for several minutes. Her own thoughts have drifted back into the past in their silence, as she’s sure Newport has too. But, a few minutes he starts chattering again as if nothing had happened, pointing out Frediano’s Gelato, a small ice cream parlor run by a father and his daughter as Emma turns down another avenue. When Emma admits she hasn’t been there yet, he places a hand across his heart as if he is personally offended.

“They have the best spiced pear gelato I’ve ever tasted,” he says, as the car rumbles past. “You wouldn’t even think that would taste good as an ice cream, but it does. They also have one where they mix rum in with cinnamon and chocolate with a sprinkle of sea salt, and trust me, Swan, that is something you have to try. I’ve never tasted anything like it.”

“Rum,” Emma repeats, laughing. “Rum and ice cream?”

“You think it would be bad, Swan, but it isn’t. It tastes more like cinnamon and chocolate than anything, but the rum adds a little kick.”

“I’ll say,” she says, shaking her head with a chuckle. “I guess I’ll have to add the gelato shop to my rounds when I’m checking for drunk drivers.”

He laughs again. “How about you? What’s your favourite ice cream?”

“Rocky road,” Emma says automatically. “Henry’s favourite place is Any Given Sundae, right near Granny’s. Have you ever tried that place?”

He nods, and they continue exchanging favourite spots for the rest of the drive. Emma hasn’t been in Storybrooke long enough to have tried everywhere, and she’s surprisingly interested to hear about Wes’s preferred places. His favourite fish and chips place is a family owned establishment on the main street called Dave’s Fish and Chips, and he scolds her for not having gotten fish and chips yet – “You live in a seaside town, Swan!” – and he loves the Italian place simply called Tony’s Restaurant across from the Storybrooke cannery, which has Emma joking about The Lady & The Tramp. Internally, she’s rolling her eyes – leave it to Storybrooke, fairy tale capital of the world according to Henry, to have a restaurant literally named after an iconic Disney scene.

They lapse into a companionable silence for the last few minutes of the drive, and when Emma pulls to a stop in front of the bright yellow town hall and Newport gathers his briefcase from the floor, a strange sense of disappointment that the drive is over settles onto her.

“Thanks for the ride, Swan,” he says, propping the door open. “I really do appreciate it.”

“No problem.”

He turns to her before he hops out, shaking his head. “I forgot to ask – have you made that list of points for the budget that I can give Regina yet?”

She nods. “It’s at the station though.”

“That’s okay. I’ll try to see if I can convince Regina without them, but if not, I’ll swing by tomorrow morning and fetch them.”

Emma almost points out she could fax him a copy, but Newport is gone before she gets the chance. She watches as he jogs up to the doors and disappears within with another wave of departure.

After a morning filled with meetings and a late lunch date with some new property developers, Regina has been steadily at work for at least an hour and half when a knock on her door interrupts her pace.

“Come in,” she calls, not bothering to keep the irritation from her tone.

The door opens, revealing Wes Newport, briefcase in hand. He’s frowning and looks apprehensive, an unusual expression for him. He’s usually coolly confident, the glimmer of his former life still showing through, and this trepidation intrigues her.

“Wes,” she greets, beckoning him in, pushing the pages of work aside. “How are those tax forms coming along?”

“Fine,” he replies, closing the door firmly behind him, the latch loud in her wide, echoing office. “I’ll have them done by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.” He pauses, lifting his fake hand and scratching absently behind the back of his ear. “I actually came to discuss something else with you, Madam Mayor.”

Her mouth curls into a frown, not liking the tone to his voice. “By all means,” she says, and gestures to the empty seat in front of her desk. “Take a seat.”

He remains standing, bending down to set his briefcase down at his feet, and clasps his hands in front of him, his real one fiddling anxiously with the glove covering his prosthetic. He appears to be having some sort of internal struggle – a side effect of his life here – and he nearly stumbles over his words as he finally spits out, “I informed Sheriff Swan about the budget cuts, and she wasn’t happy.”

Regina’s lips thin into a grimace. Here it is. She’d known this was coming, sooner or later, as it always is these days. Sending Emma Swan out of the town limits with the woodcutter’s two brats had failed, and this subtler approach of telling her she wasn’t wanted in town had been her next gamble on getting the woman to leave Storybrooke. It had been just that – a gamble, and she’s not surprised that Emma would fight back.

“Oh?” she says, the single word slipping out in a hiss.

Newport narrows his eyes at her, and his voice is sharper as he says, “I did mention how this would create problems when you first brought up the idea, and I still stand by my thoughts. There is simply not enough money allotted to the sheriff’s department and Em-Sheriff Swan agrees with me. She’s put together some points as to why she thinks it needs restoring, and I’ll have that to you by tomorrow, but I wanted to see if there was any need for that. I still believe a respectable budget for her is of more use to the town than some of the other allocations. It’s not too late for me to make some changes without the sheriff having to come in at all.”

Regina leans back in her chair, surveying Newport, her eyes narrowed. She’d expected Emma to put up a fight, yes, but she hadn’t thought her treasurer would be on Emma’s side.

When she’d cast the curse, she’d kept Captain Hook close to her for the simple reason that he is useful. He had been the only one to succeed where all others had failed: killing her mother in Wonderland where Cora had taken up shop. And even though he was almost entirely focused on his vain search for vengeance, his soul darkened by the impossible task, it hadn’t dampened his resourcefulness - a perfect trait in an ally.

True, he had been of questionable loyalty in their old land, serving only himself and his own demented end; that had been the first thing she’d changed that when casting the curse, redirecting his devotion to the memory of his dead lover into obedience and allegiance to her. His fake memories provide him with a good enough reason for the loyalty, and sure, that irritating honourable streak she’d never even known him to have hasn’t been suffocated out entirely – he still likes to disagree with anything he finds to be ‘bad form’ – but in the end, he always bows to her requests.

But not, apparently, anymore.

Newport is waiting patiently for her to respond, watching her closely as trying to read her mind. She smiles coolly at him, and says, “And where do you think the money will come from? You yourself said at the last meeting that the budget is stretched thin.”

“It is,” he agrees, picking the briefcase up to just set it down on her desk, popping it open to rifle through the papers within, and she glares at him, which he ignores. “But it can still do with some reshuffling. I’ve already drawn up some plans for it, here –”

She snatches it from his grip, nearly ripping the page in half. It’s perfectly balanced in the way he wants it - a couple of local events, especially the bi-monthly Seaside Market, have suffered the worst cuts in order to restore a nearly full budget to the sheriff’s department. And, true enough, it is much more manageable and reasonable than what she had requested at the last meeting. More equally balanced and fair across the board.

Regina hates it.

But Regina is learning from her mistakes when it comes to Emma Swan. She has to be delicate. Cutting the department’s budget was another mistake, fueling Emma’s fire instead of quenching it. And, if Emma has already been able to manipulate Newport into fighting for her on this issue, Regina knows that pushing back against it will only cause more trouble for her with her never-ending Emma Swan Problem.

Time to cut my losses, she thinks grimly and hands the papers back to Newport. “Fine.”

His mouth drops open in shock. He begins to say an enthusiastic thank you, but she holds up a hand for silence, and he shuts his mouth instantly.

There is still something to be gained from this. First Graham and Henry, and now Newport. With apparently little to no effort, Emma Swan is able to twist the people around Regina into being hers instead. With Graham, it had escalated too far without her knowledge, and she has no intention of letting that happen this time.

Newport is her treasurer.

“It’s up to her, not you. If Ms. Swan can make a case for herself, I’ll consider it.” She glances at her watch. “Tell her to come in for three o’clock.”

Newport quickly agrees, gathering his things and departing under the space of ten seconds. Regina waits a few moments, listening to his footsteps fade before pulling out her own phone and dialing.

“There is something I want your opinion on,” she says once the line has been picked up on the other end. “Be here at ten after three and not a moment later.” And before she even receives a response, she disconnects the call.

Note: I thought I'd explain the references for Killian's cursed name too, in case some of you are wondering. I think some of you got the reference of Wes, which is after Westley from The Princess Bride. Newport is more of a niche reference; there was a real English captain named Christopher Newport who is believed to be one of the inspirations for J.M. Barrie's Captain Hook. He reportedly lost a hand in a battle and replaced it with a hook, and there's even accounts of him presenting crocodiles to the king of England at the time!