#he saw what the institution did to messi once and said not again and i respect that

[meowmeowmessi]

laporta and co orchestrating the most heinous smear campaign known to man against messi and his entourage

[horizon-verizon]

I'm a bit confused as to why some people say Rhaenyra idealized Visenya? Because she wore the same hairstyle and wanted to name her daughter after Visenya? I think Rhaenyra didn’t even know anything about Visenya’s hairstyle, it’s unlikely that she was told about it in the lessons, it was information for the author of asoiaf portraits.

Rhaenyra had no interest in martial arts (at least she didn’t practice it), she loved music, feasts, beautiful dresses and jewelry, courtship and handsome men, she loved being a mother and even though she married Daemon in the valyrian tradition, she still had some respect before the seven on personal level, otherwise she would not have forced her sons to swear solemn oaths upon a copy of The Seven-Pointed Star. It wasn't made for public, but for her peace of mind that they would be in safe. We know that Mysaria drove Rhaenyra crazy, so we can’t say how she felt about dark magic as a child, but I think she wasn't interesed in it anyway, but Visenya, as some said, dabbled in dark sorceries.

I think that she could associate herself in some way with Visenya, since she was the elder sister and she ruled the seven kingdoms almost on a par with her brother and had no less rights than he did (there is a whole huge theory that she actually ran everything, but it is not in english language), and the order of succession from this point was somewhat messy, but not more than that.

*EDITED POST* (1/5/24)

We know that she wore her hair like Visenya through the So Spake Martin site HERE. That is what anon refers to.

To be honest, when I first read F&B and GRRM's description of Rhaneyra and her love for Visenya, I wondered what she found so inspiring, not because Visenya is incapable of being inspiring to anyone, but because I didn't parse out the appeal.

But once you look at the Dance through a feminist lens AND just reread it, it became very obvious to the point that I felt like slapping myself.

A)

Why wouldn't Rhaenyra know about Visenya's braid? Visenya was literally one of the Queens who implemented a whole new institution that the Westerosi monarchy still has today: the Kingsuard.

She conquered parts of Westeros alongside her brother-husband.

She is the one who flew up the Vale (Rhaenyra's mother Aemma's home region, which Rhaenyra's sigil incorporates into her own war banner [look below]) and got Queen Sharra to surrender the Vale.

All of this is recorded as well as all 3 of the conquerors' appearances, which is the simplest and most trustworthy note one can see in a record because it is a basic observation. We do not really have the beginning of the excuse of appearance until later when Baelor I orders the burning of books at the Citadel, two generations after Rhaenyra.

Visenya saw herself as a protector of the Targ legacy/dynasty/family (as Daemon does) and Rhaenyra admires her for that as well as being a woman aware of and unapologetic about her own abilities and "oppositional" womanhood to the Andal ideal of subservient and demure womanhood. That singular purpose is compelling to Rhaenyra and people in the fandom because it is, as I said, unapologetic but also focused and passionate all at the same time. Visenya, ironically, takes on some traits of Andal knighthood that you and I know Rhaenyra admires: the warrior's devotion proven through the warrior's sword. Again, while being a woman (subversive)! She wasn't incompetent in politics, either, despite what people will say about her & Maegor--yes, Aenys was too weak for their needs!

It's an exciting & self-affirming thing to witness when you live in that sort of society.

Plus, Rhaenys dies young and Visenya, who outlives her AND their brother-husband, just gets to do more. There is more material for a young Rhaenyra to explore and find her inspiration/female role model.

It's not about "Oh, she was good with a sword" and finding superficial traits to relate to. Rhaenyra may have been proud, loved to dress up, and showed her status through clothes to assert her status in the face of those trying to reduce it and as just how aristocrats do, was "hyper femme", but her psychosocial development wasn't as simple as some like to think. And these traits and behaviors are not in themselves indicators of frivolity, stupidity, or inherent femininity & womanhood--the last so much as socially coded femininity and womanhood.

In the pool of people who prefer and admire Visenya over her sister Rhaenys, some of them are people who do not feel comfortable with the idea of using any sort of martial skills or violence. They might say to you that if they had been born in a medieval society, they would not want to pick up a sword and fight in battles or become someone's guardswomen/men even if they were able to. Or become a fencer or something. They'd probably think they'd be more scholars or politicians or spiritual/philosophical thinkers, artists, playwrights, or "reformers" if they went back in time.

But they admire Visenya over Rhaenys because Visenya is all of those things PLUS her self-confidence & blatant claim/use of power with no shame or trepidation that they wish they could access or have allowed for them--as Visenya comes from a lineage and culture that is less violent and restrictive against women than Andal culture. OR Visenys embody that spirit they have in themselves but prefer to direct into nonwarrior/militant pursuits.

Even with Valyrian culture/society not being as egalitarian about gender and sexuality as the Rhoynish culture. BUT she also is blatantly the type of person to fully take advantage of this background and live in her own power. She is the fulfillment of autonomous, competent, and powerful womanhood-subsumed-under-personhood.

B)

1.

You: "[...] she still had some respect before the seven on personal level, otherwise she would not have forced her sons to swear solemn oaths upon a copy of The Seven-Pointed Star. It wasn't made for public, but for her peace of mind that they would be in safe."

Even if Rhaenyra was publicly OR sincerely of the Faith as her father was, there is always going to be contention between faith in the Faith and being a Targ for her. All Alicent and other non-Targ women (noble or otherwise) have had since childhood--as a well of knowledge and guide to self-esteem or awareness--is the Faith and its teachings about gender, marriage, violence, motherhood, sexuality, etc.

Simultaneously, all noblewomen/royal women can exhibit more of an intellectual remove from the Faith's ideologies as absolute, sincere "truths" of reality than common-born women, because as noble women, they are more complicit and active in the machinations or politics that their male relatives and spouses lead. Or they advise them.. Or they themselves lead projects, wars, etc either not long after obtaining power or/and learning from thise male relatives' actions or their private observations. (post by mononijikayu) :

it is within the narrative to say that both in the east and in the west, power derives from the familial structure and that women were the leading figures that maintained these close, familial ties—from marriage, blood ties, and even friendships. these structures of close power proximity in early medieval life tell us that women are trusted with the growth of their family’s influence. mothers and wives advising the men around them are lauded because they speak to determine what’s best for the family. it is why we see women like olga of kiev influence her son in terms of policies that allowed religious freedom and goodwill with other christian nations that surrounded the territory of rus to flourish and develop. this was seen as a means to further what rus is and the standing of her own family within the state they governed.

Either way, these witness with their own eyes that their authorities or other adults (parents, older siblings, cousins, etc., even some maesters) understand, shape, and define the contours of power and identity and learn their methods. They'd definitely learn how those with power, or seeking it, use and twist the Faith's teachings for their own use. Thereby disillusioning, revealing, or making them sense of the Faith's teachings AS inventions instead of absolute truths...to some. Women of this class can see religion as a political tool in itself, just as Cersei and Jaehaerys I do. This doesn't mean that many will not continue to believe in the actual religion, though, as with Alicent or Catelyn or Brienne.

Rhaenyra herself has her sons swear by the book before their envoy missions yes. None of this actually means that she was as devoted to the religion as Alysanne or Alicent. Nor does it mean that she didn't see how the institution subtly and unsubtly has in the past, continues to in the present, and will continue to undermine her & her family's overall right to rule in the future. Because again, its teachings are very anti-female rulership, anti-dragons, and at its cultural-historical core, anti-Targ. It is rather her acknowledging & using the Faith's influence in the psychosocial framework of her society & family to inspire her sons to take their mission seriously and follow her directions. If only to compel them to show how well they take oaths/the Faith seriously to any/all who witnessed this swearing for both her sons, her own, & their entire section of the family's reputation. Kill two birds with one stone.

Visenya takes it upon herself to publicly (no sneaking around or attempt at subtlety over a decade or so, like Alicent, which isn't the superior tactic, it's just circumstance & resources) crown her son over her sibling's grandson and consistently vocalize her disapproval of Aenys' actions regarding the Faith, itself and institution that Rhaenyra would have had experienced supplying the rhetoric and rationale for why she shouldn't rule as a woman. There is a certain release of inner tension or stress just seeing & imagining that an admired past family relative also sees & treats the Faith as a threat specifically to them AS WELL AS to the dynasty. See how they dealt with them, learning from them & their successes or mistakes. It's very personal and intimate, this connecting.

2.

The Faith religion--as opposed to the institution, but eh--and a lot of its teachings cannot be fully eradicated w/o eradicating the sociopolitical system of feudalism as they know it because the Andals came and assimilated into FM culture or conquered swathes of "Westerosi" lands way, way before the conquerors actually set their eyes on Westeros. It is inside the psychological/sociopolitical framework of the "Westerosi" society even when they were separate kingdoms, like the proto-English kingdoms of Mercia, Northumbria, East Anglia, etc. all sharing a specific religion and various Anglo-Saxon practices and ideals, yet simultaneously warring against each other for years.

The Faith institution--meaning its Septons and its hierarchy & cultural authority--has always been the main antagonizer of the Targs and their rival for dominance over Westerosi culture and society. As I said before, Rhaenyra herself grew up expecting to rule and had always felt she deserved to rule and continue her family's legacy.

In order to rule Westeros, the Targs basically decided to capitulate some. Though they had dragons and won the war, to actually rule a conquered place with many grumbling and possibly vengeful people and expect to maintain a dynasty for many generations, one has to have a stabler base while diminishing as much as possible the use of violence. Again, once one has already used violence and warfare to conquer said regions.

Maegor's battles with the Warrior's Sons and Poor Fellows were too direct an attack against the Faith and were seen as him being tyrannical. He flouted political monogamy and didn't even try to use subtler tactics to destabilize the Faith's/High Septon's word and acclimate the Westerosi public to his marriages + suppress the lesser backlash so he could be safer/freer to marry more than once. Jaehaerys I created a sort of compromise with the Faith through his use of several septons and septas to spread the Doctrine of Exceptionalism after Maegor's death and his own troubles with the Faith. AND by affirming male primogeniture both inside his family and in the public event of the GC of 101. Yet NEITHER of these men thought of ways or thought it worth it to try to think of ways to both destabilize the Faith AND incorporate women into their plans or seek to make their female relatives their partners. Trying to make use of the growingly smaller and smaller window of opportunity the conquerors opened for female leadership by working with their female relatives to gain more agency or ceding power to them to diminish the sense of female unfitness to rule. Rather, they even thought to suppress female leadership and personal agency as much as possible for their own claims.

The problem with that was now the Targs had a much smaller pool of possibly capable candidates for rulership and it encouraged resentment, emotional disconnection, misunderstandings of character or perception, & further abuse--which breeds disunity, internal distrust, and infighting.

How can you sit and think of ways to consolidate power for your house (or do it with full confidence and therefore produce more, innovative ideas) if you know or suspect that you will be ignored sidelined, or abused for doing exactly that? Not every girl/woman can continue to fight and resist such an uphill battle, and really that is what misogyny hopes for, and works toward. If most of what you think/feel from childhood (or what you experience) into adulthood is how your father, brother, sons, etc. wronged you--or if you realize even later in life all this and you contend with them as Rhaena and Alysanne did--then how can you really want to fully think about ways to be an untied front that collaborates together for the better of the entire house/family/unit?

We even see how much better it would have been for ALL women and children if Alysanne had just been as able as Visenya and Rhaenys to pass laws (and have them stick): the water in KL, girls being allowed into the Citadel, the abolishment of the right of first night and women's courts. To exclude and abuse nearly half of your population of the house is actually idiotic and unpragmatic. It comes back to bite eventually because no one/group can take constant oppression for very long, even if it takes a couple of generations (slavery rebellions, and not just in the U.S.). Yes, she manages to get Jaehaerys to agree by persistence...but again, is it really entirely her fault that her brother-husband didn't care about her ideas until she had to force him to listen, or have Septon Barth back her up?!

And Daemon and Viserys no doubt loved each other, but Viserys distrusted his own brother by:

not understanding Daemon's aims when he "acted out", seeing them as just rebellious/threatening to his own authority

thinking he had to please and make those outside of the family and mimicking Jaehaerys' policy of conciliation through his parties; displays of wealth and prosperity (that Alysanne and Jaehaerys are actually responsible for); and sticking his fingers into his ears when true conflict erupted between his family members

While he did confirm her position as the heir to the throne multiple times in the boo AND have Rhaenyra listen in on council meetings as she served as his exclusive cupbearer so she could familiarize herself and learn some ways a ruler can address and organize sociopolitical/economic needs, he also refused to:

stop impregnating Alicent. One boy wasn't enough for man to have AND a worry for Rhaenyra, his own chosen heir?! It's giving Rogar Baratheon and Alyssa Baratheon.

keep Otto out of the council

directly address the anger, entitlement, and plotting Alicent, her kids, and her faction had (and I say he knew that she was plotting at some level bc he himself said that Alicent only wanted Aegon to marry Rhaenyra so Aegon could be closer to having the throne)

not marry Rhaenyra off to a gay man instead of vowing to have her children with someone else marry a Velaryon or Velaryon scion

actually, make use of his brother and what he's capable of (that protectiveness he displayed at the GC), and marry him to his daughter to both make Daemon even more devoted to Rhaneyra's cause--bc if you truly think that he would undermine her or yourself, what better way to reduce that than by marrying her to him when you decide she is marriageable--AND working towards reinforcing her authority over his own before you die?! If you/he actually thought Daemons' actions were so rebellious instead of coming from feelings of disrespect?

ETC.

The point is that between brothers/two men we see how a refusal to listen to another in the family can affect a family. How much more when one of the parties is an abused or sidelined woman? And generation after generation who themselves are reading the long history of this fact as Dany has her entire Targ legacy back in Essos?! How does that affect a young Targ girl-older woman, to internalize the whittling of their agency & to not be able to dream bigger for themselves other than select roles of mother-wife-dowager?

C)

You: "We know that Mysaria drove Rhaenyra crazy, so we can’t say how she felt about dark magic as a child, but I think she wasn't interesed in it anyway, but Visenya, as some said, dabbled in dark sorceries."

Mysaria didn't drive Rhaenyra into her entire spiel of "madness"--which was not really "madness" but grief, elitism, and paranoia making her default to extreme self-defense. Rhaenyra had no known or recorded delusions or hallucinations and she was fully aware of her surroundings, she didn't perform absurd displays of cruelty. (If there were hallucinations like with Aerys--plus with how she is a woman and this text seeks to undermine her for it--they definitely would have found evidence of her going through that and emphasized or exaggerated it to make a point.)

Later-Rhaenyra is still not on par with Aerys II, who was actually driven slowly so mad from paranoia that he wanted to use wildfyre to destroy KL, had elaborate executions to mutilate people or drew out their pain and humiliated them before death with and without said substance, wasn't fully aware of how others perceived him and his appearance, was so out of it that he let his nails & hair grow too long, etc.

Mysaria gives her false information and triggers her final paranoid act, directing her already existing paranoia to Nettles & Daemon. But she does not inspire the actual paranoia. That came from the betrayal of Hugh and Ulf, the betrayal of the council people at the green council, her children's violent and painful deaths, the suddenness of her father's death compounded with her need to immediately answer the greens (inability to properly mourn him), the greens' usurpation, etc. One not taking long to follow the others.

And as I said above, actual magic and Rhaenyra's interest or disinterest in it had nothing to do with her admiration for Visenya. There isn't even any indication that Rhaenyra was interested in magic for herself, her accusations of magic against Nettles was purely driven by her desire to claim back some power she thought she lost.

Of course, none of this proves that she was totally against the Faith or was atheist or agnostic. What it indicates, however, is that she was not as devoted to, deferential of, or "respectful" of the religion as you may suspect.

[olddirtybadfic]

Jessie Drugs James and Is Generally Abusive: Jessie Evolves Into a 4chan Poster (part four of four)

I don't even know anymore.

Part one

Part two

Part three

Content Warning: First-person mixed points-of-view; abuse mentions; misunderstanding of medical and psychological issues; shaky understanding of mental institutions and psychopathy; general angst; hinting at a Pokémon/Human romantic relationship; out-of-character behavior for James and Meowth; absolute character assassination of Jessie; Jessie says "kys" to James; Meowth watches James sleep; abrupt ending where the issues are maybe not dealt with properly; Jesus Hades Christ twelve!me tortured James a lot in fic (I don't know why; he was and still is my favorite Pokémon character)

-O-o-O-o-O-

(Meowth's point of view)

James had changed.

I hardly knew him anymore. He was more serious and sad. His eyes had lost their light.

What had happened to the James I used to know? He didn't used to cry all the time. He had no reason to hate anyone or anything. He seemed to be sad all the time after the visit. I found out later it was because he felt he'd betrayed Jessie.

I told James he should try to patch things up with Jessie. He agreed reluctantly.

We went to the mental institution again. James took a shaky breath.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"I can't do it. I can't face her now," James said quietly.

"Maybe you should sleep on it," I said. "You'll feel better about it when you wake up."

We went back to our room. James took a nap. I thought about how James had changed and watched over him.

After a while, I noticed James was trembling. I took a closer look and saw that he was crying.

"James, why are you crying?" I asked.

"I don't want to hate Jessie anymore. I don't want to love….who I love anymore either," James said quietly.

This was ridiculous. Why was Jessie putting us through all this pain? Especially James. He never did anything to her. He always obeyed her.

I comforted James. He went back to sleep. I felt like I needed to pay James back for all the care he'd given me, although he never asked for anything in return.

But how could I do it so he didn't suspect my feelings for him?

I looked at him. He looked so cute and angelic when he was sleeping. Once, just before I had fallen asleep, he kissed me softly on my charm. He didn't realize it, but I replayed that moment a lot in my head.

I went over to James. He was fast asleep. I kissed him gently on his forehead.

Sweet dreams, Little Jim.

(James's point of view)

The next day, we visited Jessie again. The second visit was worse than the first.

Meowth went in first, alone. We wanted to go in alone because we thought it would be better than last time.

We were dead wrong.

Meowth went in. When he came out, he said, "Your turn."

I got up to go in. I was so nervous, I thought I was going to vomit.

I walked into the room. Jessie was in a straitjacket.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

"Just to see you," I said. I didn't like to see Jessie in a cage.

"You put me in here."

"I did it to help you!"

I regretted saying those words as soon as they came out of my mouth.

"Help me?! How the fuck did you think you were helping anyone? You're such a worthless bitch, James. Fuck you. You should've drank the poison yourself. I hate you."

I stood there, frozen. I knew tears were running down my cheeks, but I didn't try to wipe them away.

Jessie would never forgive me.

Jessie HATES me.

I ended up in the waiting room, not sure how I got there. Somehow, I ended up in the motel room, lying flat on my back on the bed.

Meowth sat next to me. "What happened?" he asked.

I never really told him.

(Meowth's point of view)

What happened to James?

He hardly smiled. He smiled a lot before the visit, but he didn't after the second one. He just sat around with a scared look on his face.

He was skinny before the second visit, but now he wasn't eating and he seemed to be wasting away.

He wasn't sleeping right. He had dark circles under his eyes and his hair was constantly messy.

He looked like a lost child.

What went wrong with the visit? What made James give up on life? What could I do to make him want to live again?

"What did Jessie do to you?" I asked.

James didn't answer.

"What did she do?!" I was almost hysterical.

James started crying.

"She….told me to kill myself," James sobbed.

I was pissed.

"That does it. Jessie has hurt you one too many times. Tomorrow, we're going back to that mental institution to straighten things out between you two. You don't deserve all this pain, James," I said.

James looked frightened.

"Will Jessie ever get out of the asylum?" James asked.

"Who knows?" I said.

(James's point of view)

Meowth and I walked back to the mental institution. I was really scared, but I had to straighten things out with Jessie.

"You can go to the bathroom if you need a break, but we're not leaving until we get things straightened out," Meowth had said.

I had no choice but to obey.

I walked into the room. Meowth followed.

"Why are you acting this way?" I managed to ask.

"What?!" Jessie said.

I was so startled I almost didn't answer. "Why are you acting this way" I repeated.

"You said I'm a psychopath," Jessie said.

"I want to know why you're a psychopath!" I didn't know why I was so cranky all of a sudden. I guess I didn't want to be bothered with smart arse comments.

"Fuck, you don't have to scream," Jessie said, uninterested.

"It's the only way you'll listen to me! Why did you want me to kill Meowth?! Why were you drugging me?!" I cried.

"To make Team Rocket better," Jessie said. The words "no, shit" would've fit perfectly in the sentence.

"How would that make us better? What does the word 'partner' mean to you? Meowth doesn't deserve to die and I don't deserve to be told to kill him! And I'm glad I lied and ran away! How would killing Meowth make Team Rocket better?!" I was trying to hold back tears, but I didn't seem to be doing a good job of it.

Jessie didn't look interested at all. I knew she could kick me or hit me from inside the cell (I was in kicking range).

Jessie kicked me in my side and punched me in the face. I was knocked over, of course.

Meowth jumped up and scratched Jessie across her face.

"Don't you ever hurt James like that!" he yelled. He was crying. "Why are you acting like a psychopathical asshole?! Just cut out the shit and stop hurting us! We can't go a fuckin' day without worrying whether you got your ass thrown in jail or escaped! Why are you suddenly such a dickhead, anyway?"

Meowth continued ranting and swearing at Jessie. Jessie still looked bored. Meowth must've realized she wasn't listening to him.

"C'mon, James. Let's go," he said, sounding depressed.

I struggled to get up. Meowth and I walked back to the motel.

Then Meowth was the one sitting around, looking ready to cry.

"Even yelling and swearing didn't make her listen," I said.

Meowth began to cry. I held him. The poor kitty. I had to protect him.

"I just wanted to get Jessie back," Meowth said.

We stared into each other's eyes. Meowth's pretty blue eyes had tears in them. I wiped away one of his tears.

"Maybe we will, Meowth. Maybe we will."

(Meowth's point of view)

Here's what happened.

James and I got out of the motel. We set up our tent next to the mental institution and went in there every day.

Jessie eventually got back to normal. I acted like nothing happened, but it took a while for James to get used to her.

A kind of happy ending to an unhappy experience.

Life isn't half bad.

-O-o-O-o-O-

Moral of the story: When a cat watches someone sleep, it's generally not creepy. If a sapient talking cat Pokémon watches someone sleep, well....It's still a better love story than Twilight.

[steddielvr]

afraid of me

matthew fairchild x herondale!reader

warnings: angst, arguing

word count: 1312 words

summary/request: ‘more matthew x y/n herondale pls’ and ‘can I please get a Matthew Fairchild fic? Make it angsty I wanna cry’ from anons :) and this idea from @livvyheronstairs: ‘maybe something where there’s a fight and the reader thinks he’s going to hit her/him and that just makes more emotions come out 🤔’

a/n: in honour of there being less than a week until COI, here you go!! okay, this fic is a bit messy and i wrote it at like 1am, but i was in my matthew feels. i feel like my inner conflict between matthew and alastair really came out in this and i apologise profusely if this is horrible😬but here we go <3

“By the Angel, why can’t you just see my side in this?”

You let out a frustrated groan at his words, running a hand down your face as you pace back and forth before the settee in the sitting room of the Institute.

“I am seeing your side, Matthew.” you sigh, trying to keep your voice steady and calm, not wanting to alert your family. “But I see his side too.”

He scoffs, shaking his head and dragging a hand through his blond locks before settling his arms against the mantelpiece, his back to you.

The two of you had been at this for what felt like forever, arguing back and forth with neither of you willing to see reason. What were you fighting about you may ask? None other than Alastair Carstairs himself.

What started as a normal conversation had somehow progressed into a full blown argument at the mere mention of the boy’s name. It was no secret that you had grown somewhat friendly with the eldest Carstairs, what with his growing closeness with your parabatai Thomas, and Matthew despised it. And to make matters worse, you were well aware of exactly what had gone down between the two of them at the Academy (save the chain of events that it led to for Matthew, of course) and still chose to befriend him.

“How could you ever see his side and actively try to defend him in front of me? You know exactly what he said about me at the Academy. What he said about Thomas!” Matthew yelled, voice getting progressively louder and you winced at that fact, praying your parents and siblings weren’t listening to all of this unfold. 

“Of course I know what happened, Matthew. I was there. I saw and heard with my own eyes and ears what he did and said. Not just to you and Tom, but to me and Jamie too.” you replied, pinching the bridge of your nose as you try to reel in your anger. “But people can change! We were all young then, we’ve all said things we didn’t mean, done things we aren’t proud of. But it isn’t as if we aren’t going to be seeing him often now that Cordelia is a part of our little group. So, I think it’s only right that we give him a chance to-”

“A chance?! You think I should sit and listen to what Alastair Carstairs has to say?” Matthew laughs bitterly, knuckles white from the tightness of his grip in the mantelpiece. “The day I listen to that will be my most desperate day.”

“Oh my-do you even hear yourself, Matthew? You sound like a child!” you bite, pausing your pacing to stare at him in disbelief. “If Thomas can forgive him after all the wrong he did to him, why are you so different?”

Matthew whips his head around to you at that, and you find yourself retreating slightly as you catch sight of his eyes blazing with rage as he lets go of the mantelpiece, turning his body fully towards you and beginning to walk in your direction.

“Why am I so different? You have absolutely no idea why I’m so different, Y/N. You could never even comprehend the things he made me feel, made me think, the things his words led me to do-“

He cuts himself off at that, eyes widening as he realises his mistake. Realises that he had almost revealed to you his most deeply guarded secret in his anger. He swallows deeply, clenching his hands into fists and turning his back to you once again.

You stare at him in a mixture of shock and confusion. Shock at the manner of the way he had spoken to you, which he had never done before, and confusion at what he had meant by his words. What he had just barely stopped himself from revealing.

“What are you talking about?” you question softly, moving closer at his lack of response and placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Matthew, if something happened, you can tell me. I’m not going anywhere.”

He tenses up at the promise in your words, shrugging your hand from his shoulder, suddenly feeling utterly unworthy of your touch. He turns back to you, eyes a tad softer this time but still holding all that barely restrained anger and frustration. 

“You can’t help me. And you can’t promise that. If you knew..” he trails off, smiling sadly at the ground as he avoids all eye contact. “If you knew, you’d hate me as much as I hate myself.”

“Matthew please…” you beg, heart clenching at the truth in his words as you inch closer to him, missing the way he tenses further due to your concern. “Whatever it is, I promise-“

“Stop making promises you can’t keep!” he explodes, voice loud and laced with fury.

He brings his hand up sharply and that’s all you see as you gasp and flinch back, eyes squeezed shut as you wait for the blow. When it doesn’t come, you slowly open your eyes and the sight you are met with breaks your heart even further.

Matthew is frozen in place, the raised hand now tangled in his hair. His face is crumpled, silver lining his eyes as he stares at your defensive form in horror. 

“You-you thought I was going to…” he whispers, voice breaking as the reality of the situation sets in. As he takes in the utter fear on your face. Fear of him. “By the Angel, Y/N, I would never, ever hurt you.”

Your mouth falls open in surprise. Not surprised at his words, for you of course knew that Matthew Fairchild, your sweet, selfless Matthew, would never in a million years harm a single hair on your head. But rather, surprise at yourself and at your response to his simple action of running a hand through his hair. 

Raziel, how had the two of you let the argument go this far? 

“Matthew, I’m sorry” you manage to say, your resolve collapsing at the look of utter heartbreak on the golden-haired boy's face. “I know you would never. I guess I was just..” 

“Afraid of me.” he finishes for you, slowly beginning to back away from you in the direction of the doorway. “You were afraid of me. I made you afraid of me.”

“No, Matthew, of course you didn’t. That’s not what-“ you pause, expression turning to panic as he reaches blindly for his jacket, sad eyes not leaving you for a second. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t-I can’t be here. I…” he glances around, eyes falling on the wide eyed faces of the Herondales gathered at the top of the staircase. “I’m so sorry.”

And then he was gone. Out of the door before you even have a chance to speak, to try and reason with him. You stare at the door in disbelief, eyes quickly filling with tears as you process what had just occurred .

“Oh, cariad.” you hear your father’s soothing voice before you are pulled into a warm embrace, his arms tight around you as you bury your head into his chest, sobs racking your frame. 

Three more bodies join the embrace, your mother, brother and sister squeezing you tight, each of them uttering comforting words to you. You don’t say a word and just nestle further into them, not trusting yourself to speak right now.

The four of you stay like that for a while, nobody mentioning the events that had just occurred in the sitting room. But the scene was replaying in your mind, those haunted eyes plaguing your thoughts. 

You had no idea where the Fairchild boy had gone but you knew that he hadn’t left empty handed. Wherever he was, he had taken the broken pieces of your heart with him.

[beclynn-herondale]

Another thing with Clace I wrote and never posted

Jace was taking the subway to go to Clary's house. She'd messaged him asking him to come. So he snuck out of the Institute, not because he wasn't allowed to but because he didn't want to answer anyone's questions. and so he didn't wake them.

As he rode on the subway he listened to music. He had headphones in; Clary had given them to him, saying this way he could listen to music all the time. She'd also picked music for him to listen to.

Once he walked down the street to her house, he went around to where her window was and opened it. He knew it'd be unlocked, they'd done this a million times, okay maybe not a million but enough times. He pulled himself up through the window and landed onto her bed.

Once he looked up, he saw her sitting on the edge. Her red curls messy from the tossing and turning of wanting sleep, but sleep didn't always come. After what happened with Simon, Clary hadn't been sleeping as well. Not unless Jace was there. He understood, he slept better when she was beside him.

"Clary," he whispered, "are you okay?"

She turned her head and smiled at him, but he saw her eyes were shiny with unshed tears.

"Hey, you," she said, quietly. Not wanting to wake her mother, who might chase Jace away if she found them.

"Clary," he said again. This time his voice gentle and worried.

"I'm okay," she said. "Also take your boots off."

There she was. "Alright," he said.

She crawled into the bed, over to him. Helping him untie his boots. "I got it," he said.

"I know. I just want to help."

"You help enough."

"Do I?"

He sucked his breath in, knowing there was a deeper meaning to that. "Clary. . ."

"Sorry," she said. "Damnit. I need to stop."

"You don't need to stop," he said. "Clary, you can grieve as long as you need to."

She looked up at him and those unshed tears fell. He took his boots off and tossed them aside. Then took her into his arms, stroking her hair, and kissing her head.

"It's alright," he said. "Take as long as you need."

She sniffled into his shoulder.

Simon's memory loss had hit all of them pretty hard, but not as hard as it hit Clary and Izzy. It sucked watching the love of your life and your sister who you would do anything for and loved dearly, be in such unsupportable pain and grief. Magnus seemed like he felt so guilty. Alec blamed himself too. And Jace could just watch, as they all went through their grief. He did what he could for them, but Jace wasn't all that great at the comfort stuff. He tried to be though. He tried to comfort Izzy as best he could, he remembered the night Magnus had thrown a party and he offered to dance with her, and got her to laugh for the first time in weeks. Or the night when him and Alec had stayed with her and she slept completely through the night. but it wasn't the same as when Alec and Magnus broke up, because it wasn't a break up. Simon sacrificed himself for everyone else, leaving Izzy behind, forgetting her, but it wasn't his fault. But Izzy's heart was still hurting, she was hurting and there was no way to make it better. It wasn't fair, he would think to himself, when he'd catch Izzy crying but trying not to or Clary breaking down. Clary also, he'd forgotten Clary and Jace saw how much it hurts her, after everything, everything she sacrificed and gave up, in the end she had to give more.

They sat like this, Clary crying silently into his shoulder and him kissing stroking her hair for a while. When she pulled away and looked up at him; he saw there were still tears running down her face. He reached up to wipe them away. This he could do.

"Thank you," she said, her voice almost hoarse.

"For what?"

"For coming tonight. For coming every night I ask you to."

"I'll always come when you need me," he said.

"Same here," she said. "I feel like I am always worried about only me and my grief these days. Izzy will occasionally be honest with me but she's stubborn. I also forget to ask you how you're handling it."

"Me?" he said, and smiled. "I'm fine. I'm always fine."

She looked at him. He'd never been able to hide his true feelings fully from Clary. she always saw right through him.

"You aren't fine," she said. "Are you?"

"Clary, don't—"

"Jace. . ."

"Okay," he said. "Yeah, I'm not one hundred percent okay. But it doesn't matter. Right now you and Izzy need me, so I'm here."

"You can bend a little," she said. "You know that, right?"

"I. . ."

"You miss Simon too," said Clary. "Don't you?"

"Yes," he admitted, surprising himself a little. "It's odd not having him around to poke fun at." He grinned.

"Jace, be serious."

He sighed. "It sucks, Clares," he said. "You and Izzy are both wrecks. Magnus and Alec blame themselves in ways. And I guess I lost someone I would call a friend, maybe." Now he was just being ridiculous. He knew Simon was a friend but wouldn't admit it, even now.

"Jace," she said, "you can grieve too."

He pulled her close to him. "I know," he said, being vulnerable and honest for a moment. "There just seems to be so much to grieve for. Simon, My biological parents, Max, the Cold Peace, my childhood and the things my father did; my father as well and more." He paused and took a deep breath. "Clary," he said, "if I think about it all too much, I'll lose it. And I can't do that right now."

"Jace, if you hold it all in then it'll only simmer until it boils over," she said, "and when it boils over it will be worse."

"I know," he admitted, "it's just. . .you know I suck with feelings."

"Look at me," she said. He looked at her. "This is part of healing and growing, you have to practice getting better at the things you aren't so great at. Doesn't mean you do great the first time or even the first hundred times but it does mean practice is key."

"Why do you have to be so wise?"

"I'm not. I just know," she said. "And for all you know I got that from a motivational poster."

He stared at her.

"You know, you're amazing and I love you," he said. Kissing her forehead.

"Stop," said Clary, "you'll make me start crying again."

"Cry as much as you need to."

"I know that," she said.

"I know you do."

"I want you to know" she said. "If you need to cry, my shoulder is here."

"I love you, so much," he said, and felt himself slightly tear up. Maybe he was actually going to cry, it was so odd to him. But he felt something wet run down his face. though everything since Clary had been odd in its way, she brought out the good in him, he'd say. More importantly she brought out the love, kindness, and gentleness he had kept hidden away and only have bits of it here there for so long. But she made him want to give more. Alec too, of course, he was the better half of Jace in a sense.

"I love you, so much, too."

Then she tackled him into a hug, and they laid down under the covers. Snuggled up together, whispering sweetly to each other; talking about what they both did today. giving kisses of comfort to each other. And finally falling asleep together.

Tag list: @khaleesiofalicante @chibi-tsukiko @spotsandclawsthings @megs-readstoomuch @magnus-the-maqnificent @replayfootsteps @my-archerboy @jazzkaurtheglorious @simply-ellas-stuff @bookfast-at-tiffanys

[melanielocke]

Because I was following him

I rewrote the CoI scene where Alastair comes to Thomas’ rescue from Alastair’s POV a while back.

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31310876

Alastair cursed underneath his breath when he witnessed what happened at the Golden Square. Of course Thomas had to let himself get caught by Inquisitor Bridgestock. Now everyone thought he was the killer, and Alastair was the only one who could testify on his behalf.

He quietly followed the Inquisitor and his patrol, who were dragging Thomas along with him. None of them had any idea he was there and Alastair intended for it to stay that way. Bridgestock did not like him much and might even use his presence as an excuse to accuse Alastair of the murders. Better to wait until the Consul was there, and then testify.

He had never intended for anyone to know about him following Thomas. He knew it wouldn’t change anything, he knew Thomas would not forgive him. Nor did he deserve that. But he would still do the best he could to keep Thomas safe, to make sure his recklessness wouldn’t get him killed. He could live with Thomas hating him, but he could not live with the idea of him dying. How any of those fools were still alive, Alastair had no idea.

He followed Bridgestock’s party into the Institute. None of them noticed he was there as they dragged Thomas to the sanctuary to lock him up there while Alastair stayed behind, and that gave him the time to think. He couldn’t go in like this, his hair was a mess and he looked very distraught. He would need to compose himself, to put on the mask from the academy, otherwise everyone would be able to tell that he loved Thomas.

He needed a good reason why he’d been following Thomas too, no one would believe him being there was just a coincidence and he couldn’t tell anyone the real reason he’d followed Thomas. As far as anyone else knew, he disliked Thomas as much as the Merry Thieves disliked him. Of course, Cordelia did like those boys. And he figured that was a good enough excuse. Cordelia was fond of Thomas, he was one of her husband’s closest friends after all. He’d made sure to keep Thomas safe because he didn’t want his sister to lose a friend.

Alastair slipped into a nearby bathroom, trying to fix his hair and his clothes, but no matter what he did his hair wouldn’t lie flat. Some of the black dye had faded and left a few patches of blonde is his predominantly black hair. He sighed. He guessed it didn’t matter, he looked like he had been on the streets all night, sleep deprived and messy. Some day soon he’d fix his hair but right now he had other priorities.

He took in a deep breath and made his way to the Sanctuary. Thomas’ friends had made it there already, and his older sister Eugenia was standing outside the door. She eyed him suspiciously.

‘What are you doing here, Carstairs?’

‘I’m here to get your brother out of prison,’ Alastair said.

‘How?’ Eugenia let go of her hostility.

‘I saw what happened. I’ve been following him ever since he started going out on these patrols alone. He didn’t kill Lillian Highsmith.’

‘You realize Bridgestock might try to pin suspicion on you instead, or claim that you’re lying on his behalf. He’s in quite a state and refuses to admit he’s wrong about having found the killer.’

Alastair shrugged. ‘That’s a risk I’m willing to take.’

‘Why were you there anyway? Thomas was caught very early in the morning, why would you be out at such an hour?’

Alastair sighed, letting go of the mask. ‘Because I was following him.’

‘You were… why would you do that?’

Alastair hesitated. He couldn’t exactly explain why he had been following Thomas to his sister. Nor to the Consul and Inquisitor. Good time to try his excuse. If Eugenia didn’t believe it, he’d know he’d have to think of something better.

‘Cordelia is fond of him and his friends, someone had to keep him safe. I figured it was the least I could do.’

Eugenia didn’t seem suspicious, at least. ‘Thank you. Alright, go in.’

Alastair put on the mask again and walked in. Chin up, posture straight, making sure he looked every bit the arrogant bastard he used to be. He hated that person, hated that mask, but it was a necessary evil. Everything so they wouldn’t realize he loved Thomas.

‘Dear God,’ said Matthew Fairchild with obvious loathing. ‘Could this day get any worse? What the hell are you doing here, Carstairs?’

Alastair glared at him. Even now Matthew Fairchild always managed to get under his skin.

‘Alastair,’ said the consul, ‘I’m afraid I must ask you to go, these are private.’ She frowned at Thomas’ father, who looked angry. At him, or because his son was wrongfully imprisoned? Alastair hoped it was the latter. ‘Has the front door become unlocked?’

Alastair glanced at Thomas for only a moment, he was absolutely terrified and Alastair suspected that was because of him. It stung, but Alastair kept his chin up. They wouldn’t see.

‘No, the door was not unlocked,’ he said, ‘at least not when I came in. Which was some time ago. You see, I followed Thomas here and came in with the Inquisitor and his patrol. I witnessed miss Highsmith’s death, the entire incident.’

Matthew Fairchild sprang to his feet. ‘Alastair, if you’re lying, I swear on the angel-‘ His mother didn’t let him finish that sentence.

‘Stop!’ the consul yelled, her hand up. ‘Alastair, say what you mean. Now.’

‘As I said, I was in the Golden Square when Thomas was passing through. I also heard Lillian Highsmith scream. I saw Thomas run to help her. She was already dying when he got there. He never harmed her. I’ll swear to it.’

Matthew sat back down. Alastair dared once more to look at Thomas, he seemed confused but at least he was no longer scared. Thomas’ father seemed rather pleased, which only made Alastair feel ashamed. Gideon Lightwood likely had no clue of the past between him and his son, and ought to hate him as much as the Merry Thieves did.

‘Er – what?’ Christopher asked.

The Inquisitor sneered at him. ‘So it’s a coincidence on top of coincidence, then. Tell me, Carstairs, what possible reason could you have had to be in Golden Square at the same time as Thomas Lightwood.’

Alastair looked disdainful at the Inquisitor, making no effort to conceal his hatred for the man. ‘Because I was following him. I’ve been following Thomas for days. I knew he was going out on these insane night patrols by himself, and I wanted to make sure that he was safe. Cordelia is fond of him.’

Thomas looked as him as if he was watching water as it burnt. ‘You’re the one who’s been following me?’

‘You knew someone was following you?’ Matthew shouted. ‘And you didn’t say anything? Thomas!’

As much as Alastair hated to admit it, Fairchild had a point. But Thomas was bloody stubborn, and of course he’d continued his patrols even knowing someone was following him. It might just as well have been the killer. How any of these Thieves were still alive today, Alastair had no idea.

‘Everyone be quiet,’ Charlotte said, calm but determined.

She reminded him of Charles right now, a thought that made him nauseous as he always was when he thought of his former lover. Determined not to show any emotion, Alastair studied his nails.

‘This is preposterous, Charlotte. Carstairs is lying to cover up for his friend,’ Bridgestock said.

‘They’re not friends,’ said James. ‘One of us might lie for Thomas. Not Alastair.’

That wasn’t quite true, Alastair would certainly lie for Thomas if it would save his life. Fortunately, he didn’t have to.

‘Then he’s probably mad with grief over his father’s death. Either way he’s not credible,’ Bridgestock snarled, looking at him with a rage that made Alastair suspect this was personal to him somehow.  

‘And yet we are going to hear him out, and Thomas as well, because that is the task that is appointed to us,’ Charlotte Fairchild said, her tone cold as ice. Again she sounded just like her oldest son. ‘Thomas and Alastair both will be held here in the Sanctuary until they can be tried by the Mortal Sword.’

Alastair suspected something like this might happen, but did not look forward to the prospect of being locked up with Thomas Lightwood. He wasn’t sure he could take Thomas’ anger, even if it was completely justified. He would have to wear the mask until the consul came back.

‘You cannot make that decision without me,’ Bridgestock said. ‘I would try them right now, if not for the fact that the Mortal Sword is currently in Paris.’ Alastair couldn’t place the loathing in the Inquisitor’s voice when he said Paris.

‘Fortunately, Will and Tessa will be here tomorrow morning with the sword,’ said Charlotte. ‘Now, Maurice, I fear your eagerness to make your arrest known has only stoked panic. You had best come with me to the courtyard, to communicate that the Enclave has the matter well in hand. The identity of the accused will not be released until the Mortal Sword is employed tomorrow.’

Bridgestock gave one last furious look at the consul and then stalked out of the room. Alastair wondered, if someone did manage to break in here and take matters into his own hand, would they come for him first? Certainly, he looked a lot more murderous than Thomas.

Cordelia slipped through the entrance before the Inquisitor closed the door. Had she been here all this time? Alastair hadn’t seen her.

‘I heard,’ she said, pressing her forehead against his shoulder. ‘I was outside with Eugenia. I heard everything.’

‘Ghoseh nakhor, hamechi dorost mishe,’ Alastair said, stroking Cordelia’s back. Everything will be alright.

He lowered his voice. ‘Listen to me, Layla. I haven’t wanted to fret you, but Maman has been told by the Silent Brothers to keep to her bed, for the sake of her health and the baby’s. I do not think we should worry her more. Tell her I’m spending the night at the Institute to keep Christopher company.’

Cordelia blinked, Alastair could tell she was trying to hold back tears. ‘Yes, I’ll send a runner with a message, but will she believe that? You hardly know Christopher.’

He kissed his sister’s forehead, closing his eyes, letting go of the mask for a moment. ‘She’ll just be glad to think I have a friend, I suspect.’

His mother was always so concerned about his lack of friends, and Christopher was at least believable, he liked anyone who was willing to listen to his ramblings about science. Thomas had told him as much when they’d made the antidote together all those months ago.

‘Alastair,’ Layla said.

The consul didn’t let her finish. ‘This room has become entirely too crowded. All of you, save Alastair and Thomas, clear out. You too, Gideon. We must be seen to be cooperating, you do understand that.’

‘Indeed,’ Gideon Lightwood said, but Alastair wasn’t so sure he understood.

He smiled at Thomas, and it hurt to see the way they exchanged looks. What was it like, to have a father like that? Someone who cared enough to defend his son when he was accused of murder, who was offended at the idea of Thomas being locked in here.

“But it’s ridiculous just leaving them here, they need blankets, food, they’re not being tortured, Charlotte.’

‘Indeed not. They’ll have everything they need. Now Gideon, Christopher, Matthew, James, and you too, Cordelia, you must go.’

Reluctantly, all of them left, stopping next to Thomas for some encouraging words. Cordelia released him reluctantly and left with the boys. She turned around one last time. ‘If they don’t have the Mortal Sword here by tomorrow morning, I’ll break you out with Cortana.’

Alastair guessed that was something to look forward to.

‘I heard that!’ the consul scolded, but Alastair could see a faint smile on her face that was very much unlike Charles.

Everyone left, with ultimately the consul locking the door behind them, leaving him behind with Thomas. Good thing he’d brought a book, as he’d need to avoid Thomas’ anger for some time.

[dahniwitchoflight]

man, a lot been happening on the internet lately, talking about content creators and parasocial relationships being a big topic recently

I almost don’t wanna post anything about it, cuz I’m not sure how to avoid any sort of stirring of the pot, but there’s an angle to this situation that I think a lot of people are confused about, and that’s “where does the fault lie when a person gets hurt in a parasocial relationship?”

And people I guess are thinking this is some sort of case of power dynamic’s, but I think thinking of it in these terms is incorrect to be perfectly honest

does a content creator seem to have a lot of sway over someone who’s fallen into a parasocial relationship with them? sure it can seem that way

but is that the content creator’s fault? No, as bad as that sounds to the tumblr crowd

this is NOT the power dynamic between an abusive father and their child, or a skeezy boss and their secretary, or any other real abusive power dynamic where the victim faces some sort of real consequence for not being compliant with the abuser’s wishes

this is the dynamic between a casino and someone with a gambling addiction.

can you argue that the gambling addiction/parasocial relationship wouldn’t exist without the casino/creator existing? sure you can

can you argue that it’s within the interests of the casino/content creator to get customers and fans? absolutely

but can you also say that the problem in the situation here is inherent to the person with the actual addiction problem here? someone who gets too invested in the scenario through their own desires and or addiction problems? That many people can go to a casino or be a fan of a person in a perfectly reasonable healthy amount and never get hurt or encounter any issues? Yeah

Even if you dislike the casino/creator and have hard feelings for putting you into a situation where you believed you were gonna win it all, even though the odds of that happening were never in your favor, and rightfully feel you’ve been victimized by them, the casino/creator existing and doing there thing I really don’t believe is the thing at fault here

I think there’s something to the idea that people who are vulnerable to addictions like gambling and thinking that theyll win the jackpot of millions against impossible odds is not too dissimilar from a singular fan of some content creator thinking, this is it, I’m the one theyll fall in love with over everyone else, against all the odds itll be me

and also whatever prevents them from realizing that the consequences of losing would apply to them as well, other people in the casino might lose all their savings, but it wont happen to me. Other people might get lost in the fantasy and then end up being dumped, but it wont be me

I think the brain juice would see these as very similar situations, and this addiction angle I think explains a lot for how people get into parasocial relationships in the first place and why they feel like it’s so hard to get out 

but people are still free to believe that casino’s/content creators are morally corrupt institutions, just from their nature of the fact that their livelihood depends on people and fans crowding to their type of entertainment

At the end of the day, they cannot control what their fans are going to do, they can’t read the minds of anyone who chooses to come to their establishment, they can’t know at a glance or through conversation who’s going to get addicted and who isn’t, they can only see warnings signs after the fact and then damage control, it’s just a messy reality of life that it happens

There are best practices to prevent these types of things sure but those don’t catch every case and inevitably there are going to be people who fall through the cracks anyway

the correct approach here is to mitigate the addiction problem. that’s the real thing at fault here, not any one person

so to answer the question, where does the fault lie when someone gets hurt in a parasocial relationship?

you might be a victim yes, but not a victim of the casino, as much as it can feel like that, your a victim of an unfortunate affliction

people can be dismissive and yell all they want about alcoholics being drunks, or gamblers having no spine and should just be able to not go to a casino, or people who are overinvested fans should just be able to stop back and not care about a creator so much, but I understand that it’s not that easy

but it still doesn’t make it the fault of whatever you got addicted to, It doesn’t make it anyone’s fault, and the casino/creator has less power over an addicted individual than you think, short of banning them entirely, there isn’t much they can do from their end to mitigate an individual’s behavior, I think that is something some people need to hear, I hope people don’t think I’m callous or believe that people weren’t genuinely hurt by the events that happened to them or something

but the fix to this problem doesn’t lie on the casino’s/creator’s end, it lies in mitigating the addictive disorder in the individual’s in particular’s end

this is purely speaking from someone who runs a blog and has thoughts for a fandom that once upon a time a lot of people seem really invested in, (not so much nowadays lol) 

I cannot control anyone of you, I don’t know any one of you, no matter how much I might try or get close or how close any person out there gets to me, I still can’t predict when I might encounter someone who seems overly starstruck, and in no way do I have the ability to navigate those kinds of relationships properly. I simply do not have that sort of therapeutic training and I think it’s a little bit unreasonable for people to expect that from me, despite how charismatic or not I seem like

I just have indeed had instances where another person got really overinvested in “Dahni Witch of Light”  and wanted to be in my inner circle of socialness and friends and might have been hurt when I declined that, but at the same time, I can’t do anything about that  (thankfully I’m not any sort of real popular LOL and it’s only really happened like once or twice, that I know of, since they made their feelings clear to me in private, but that’s still one or two people that might have gotten hurt)

So what does this all have to do with stuff?

I’ve read all the anecdotes about both Dan Avidan and Vinny Vinesauce, read all the docs, see all these people’s point of view, and yeah it sucks that they got hurt by the circumstances, but all that stuff meant to paint these people in a bad light? did more to me to paint them in a really good light

I saw nothing but people making sure they had the comfort and consent of everything they were involved in, doing best practices when it comes to relationships, talking about their feelings, about their expectations and also doing what they can to protect themselves and their privacy

again the worst things I saw about either of them, is danny building up the fantasy of being with a rockstar a bit too much, egging on any potential parasocial relationship issues that might have already existed, and vinny giving someone HPV (which, is debunked in of itself because that’s not how HPV works in men, even outside of vinny that’s just not how it works.)

the rest of all the stuff I saw esp in the vinny doc, was people not even accusing vinny of saying or doing anything wrong either, but miles and miles of “I assumed he was thinking x” or ”I assumed he was feeling y” and no attempts to communicate with him about any issues they had with him, because they felt awkward doing so, and instead let it fester inside them until they got hurt by it

this is not sexual assault, their mild discomfort about stuff never even happened over sexual topics, just bland things like him over-venting to them sometimes or having lowkey mental issues like being paranoid a little, this is not even being intentionally hurt by someone,  this is being bad at communicating with your partner and letting yourself endure a relationship you weren’t actually happy with, because you didn’t want to get dumped by the person you were invested in

and if you feel like you can’t honestly communicate with your partner, not because of anything they did to you, but because of your own internal conflict over how famous he is, and feeling like you’re forced to endure things you aren’t vibing with in a personal relationship

(mind you, I mean the things they said they endured in the doc which was, they didn’t like when vinny would get ranty about his friends or previous sexual encounters he had that went bad or they got weirded out because they thought he was too paranoid about stuff when they were together....which... okay so like tell him you don’t want to hear about that stuff? communicate your problems to your partner? end of story? you never even attempted that, you never even gave examples of things you thought he would do to you other than dump you if you spoke up...... which, I’m sorry, but that’s not some sort of consequence a victim faces from their abuser.... so you can’t even say he would have had a bad reaction, especially when you give examples of him doing exactly the opposite, apologizing for things that made other people uncomfortable WHEN theyve actually communicated to him that they were uncomfortable with it)

 -Those are signs that you are too overinvested and too parasocially invested with a person to have an honest relationship with them

like, heck these things aren’t even unique to partnerships, you should be able to communicate when anyone around you is making you uncomfortable, even friends, but if you can’t and the only reason you can’t is because of a parasocial investment in that person, that’s not healthy on your end

Danny sure seems to have been a little bit at fault for building up the fantasy of catching feelings for a famous dude when he intended one night stands, is that the best way to have navigated the situation? No probably not, but to a person who doesn’t have a parasocial relationship with him, this behavior would just be disappointing when the fantasy fizzled out, it’s not inherently harmful

after that point, if after the fact a person who had any sort of interaction with them felt hurt by the experience, there honestly is not much more a content creator could have done to mitigate that, in fact Vinesauce I think seems at least more aware of the parasocial thing and tried more strongly to vet the people he was with to not be those kind of people, but again people aren’t mind readers and nothing will ever be foolproof like that, and I guess some people even took him trying to vet that kind of behavior as hurtful in and of itself, (they took him venting about previous parasocial relationships he had and how paranoid and upsetting they were to him, and took it as some sort of threat against them personally, like they were trying to mindgame what exactly he was telling them, assuming he was saying something else that he wasn’t, which, is assumptions that live entirely in their own minds) but I’m just sitting here like, what else could they have done?

I get that people who had sexual relationships with these people could come away feeling really awful about it, feeling manipulated or duped in some way, but what else could have been done to prevent that from happening other than the people in question just, never interacting with anyone? Which is not a realistic solution, and doesn’t fix the problem of the victim in question moving on and getting starstruck by someone else and having it happen it all over again

If these people want to make friends, want to make relationships with anyone, want to have casual sex, want to have any sort of human connection, there unfortunately gonna have to sort the people they encounter into two different groups, people who have parasocial relationships with them and people who don’t, (and this is NOT people are fans of them and people who are not, you can be a fan and not get caught into the parasocial thing) and it is impossible to get this correct in every single individual social experience that theyre gonna have with every single individual human being, regardless if it’s a sexual relationship or not

in conclusion, I really do hope the people who were hurt by all this can truly heal and move on eventually from this, in no way am I trying to lessen their experiences, but I really don’t think other people deserved to be hung from the gallows over this, it’s no one person’s fault, neither the fan’s or the content creator’s, it’s just a messy interpersonal situation

I believe the correct thing to do is spread awareness about the warnings signs that you might be falling into a parasocial relationship, more effort needs to be put into what this looks like, what it feels like, how to avoid it, how to mitigate it, and how to regulate the very real feelings of love and affection someone might have for a person they see all the time in media but don’t have a real connection with, with the understanding of yeah, if you really can’t enter a casino without losing your life savings, a very real conversation needs to be had if you should even be entering these casino’s/watching their content at all

[hello-nichya-here]

Why does comics!Zuko keep trying to show Azula sympathy/care when Azula hasn't really reciprocated and he himself have taken actions that indicate that he still hates Azula for abusing him, or at least partake in Ozai's abuse of him, thinks Azula's birth has made his life harder, and thinks of her a ghost of the past? In light of Iroh's "She's crazy and needs to go down" line, wouldn't it be better for everyone if Zuko cut Azula out of his life, or at least until she starts trying to act better?

Disclaimer: Comics!Zuko is an insult to the character because his “kindness” to Azula involved abandoning her in a institution that neglected and abused her, and didn’t even think about her until he needed her help. I refuse to accept that Zuko, after all the growth he went through, would accept such a place even existing in his nation, let alone send his sister there, regardless of whether he still had any love for Azula. But I’m going to pretend the comics didn’t botch him (which meant that Azula had every reason to mistrust his “kindness” considering it brought her nothing but misery) so I can clarify some important things.

“Why does he show her sympathy/care when she doesn’t reciprocate it?” Emotions aren’t rational. You don’t need someone to show you sympathy and care to feel that way about them.

“Why does he show her sympathy if it’s shown that he still resents/hate her on some level?” Feelings are complicated, messy and often contradictory, especially for someone as young and traumatized as Zuko (seriously, get that boy some therapy). He and Azula were taught to see each other as enemies, and have acted as such for a long time. Her breakdown after their Agni Kai humanized her in his eyes again and made him want to give her the same chances he was given, but that doesn’t mean all that baggage would suddenly disappear. It isn’t weird for him to care about her, but still have negative feelings towards her (Important: resenting or even hating her doesn’t mean he would be okay with her being a victim of any kind of abuse, and he sure as fuck wouldn’t be the one responsible for her suffering said abuse in the first place).

“She's crazy and needs to go down" That line is a “funny” (in 2005 logic) joke Iroh made about the character who could have killed him. It also gets a gross, dangerous conotation once the finale happens and Azula has a mental breakdown - the sadly still common idea that the disabled and mentally ill are fundamentally broken and need to be locked away or killed. It could have been seen as a moment that aged badly in a mostly great show, and most people would see it as a unfortunate case of the writers not thinking of the implications of saying something like that about a character that was then shown to be mentally ill. Unfortunately, it was said by Iroh, the character fans refuse to admit is also flawed and can be unfair to others - especially to Azula. So, they act like that bullshit is another case of “Wise words from uncle Iroh” instead of seeing it for what it is: a bad joke/Iroh pulling a Zuko and saying something horrible when he is angry. Don’t repeat that kind of ableist shit like it’s some kind of gospel truth.

“Wouldn't it be better for everyone if Zuko cut Azula out of his life?“ There are only two people being affected by Zuko still having contact with Azula: Zuko and Azula themselves. She has no political power anymore, she can’t fight the whole world by herself (and trying to do so could lead to Aang taking away her bending), and she is in a fragile mental state, meaning she is completely dependent on Zuko since he is the family member taking care of her. She isn’t a treat to anyone around her anymore, so their opinion on the matter doesn’t mean shit. Which leads us to:

“Wouldn’t it be better for Zuko if he cut her out of his life?” In my interpretation of Zuko, no. He thought that he had no choice but to his sister enemy forever, or until one of them died (possibly by the other’s hand), but the Agni Kai changed everything for him. On that moment, he saw that this rivalry Ozai forced upon them hurt her just as badly as it hurt him. He saw how Azula destroyed herself to gain Ozai’s approval, and he saw himself in her, because that would have also been his fate if he had not been banished and found people who cared for him and taught him to be better. He loved Azula when they were little, and wishes things had been different. And now he knows that things can still be salvaged between them. He made horrible mistakes too, but he managed to turn things around, so it makes sense that he would want to give Azula as many chances as she needed to become a better person - just like Iroh did to him. Giving up on his “evil” sister, would be giving up on the family they once were, and on the family that he now knows for a fact that they could still be.

“Would this radical decision from Zuko “teach her a lesson” and make her change for the better?” OF COURSE NOT! Why would it? Not only did every adult in Azula’s life fail to protect and guide her, the one defense mechanism she was taught by Ozai was to always find a way to be above everyone else, which meant she couldn’t truly connect with her friends and her brother. Azula ended up becoming such a cold and even cruel character because all she ever knew was isolation. Zuko turning his back on her would just confirm her fears that is fundamentally broken and can never change, meaning she wouldn’t even try because what would be the point? Zuko changed because he always Iroh by his side, even after his betrayal - the most he ever did was give him the cold shoulder for a few episodes, then he went right back to helping him, going as far as to tell him about Sozin and Roku. No one can change if they don’t have someone to help them see what they did wrong, why it was wrong, how to do better, and to support them, even on their bad days and relapses. Especially on their bad days and relapses. Zuko knows that better than anyone, so once he decided he wanted to help Azula, he would keep on showing her that he believed in her, even when he got frustrated, sad or angry.

“Until she starts trying to act better” I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you mean that she should act like the best version of herself while still being a complex, flawed human being, like Zuko did, instead of becoming a hollow, empty shell (like Zuko was trying to be in his false redemption in Ba Sing Se, where he went from trying to be whatever Ozai expected of him to trying to be whatever Iroh expected of him, which wasn’t healthy at all). Should Azula try to be better? Obviously, but remember: she is a literal child-soldier who was taught that she doesn’t have to be kind or even see other’s as humans at all. “But so was Zuko!” some people will say, completely forgeting that Zuko spent three years away from Ozai, getting advice from Iroh, and he still was a complete disaster of a person until the second half of book three. Zuko spent 5/6 of the show failing to be better, yet the fandom as a whole loves him. Why is Azula expected to just magically heal when Zuko spent literal years refusing to cooperate? Why does the same fandom that sees Iroh’s attempts to save his nephew from himself as something noble, see Zuko’s attempt to do the same for his 14 year old sister as completely incomprehensible?

[yellowocaballero]

Desolation Destroyed My P****: Web!Jon, Gertrude/Agnes Repressed Homoeroticism, and Gerry faking his own death

Another installment in the slowly complicating Web!Jon AU based off The Convention on Chronographer Lane/The Monster at the End of This Book. You don’t need to know anything about the other two installments, the main story, or the actual Web!Jon story that will get WRITTEN once I’m done with Space Cadet. Full story under the cut. GERTRUDE POV BABY LET’S GO DON’T BE A COWARD AND EMBRACE THE GERIATRIC LESBIANS. 

CW for body horror

2002

People did not call Gertrude for favors. 

Somehow most of the community had fallen under the impression that it was a bad idea to owe a favor to Gertrude Robinson, because she always came to collect. Gertrude had worked hard to enforce this. Most of those in her...field knew better than to ask an enemy for favors, and Gertrude made a habit of collecting enemies. She was not in the habit of collecting friends. 

Allies, maybe. She could count her allies on one aging hand and have fingers left over. Unfortunately, Agnes Montague was one of them. 

Also unfortunately, Agnes disliked and distrusted the Institute so severely she only ever called when she knew Gertrude would be in her own home - so, at one am, on a Saturday. The shrill blaring of Gertrude’s almost unused home phone startled her from her nightly reading, and she was forced to bookmark her place before picking up the phone. 

She never spoke first on the phone, and old precaution, but Agnes knew that. “Don’t worry. I’m only calling for business reasons. I need another favor.”

Gertrude’s lips thinned. “Agnes. It’s been a while.”

Six months and a week, not that Gertrude was counting. The last time Agnes had called her up asking for a favor was the first time they had ever spoken: a request for help escaping her cult. It had been a long, messy business. The burn scar had only just healed. 

They had a moment of sentimentality, then. A moment of sentimentality that had begun so many years ago as their lives were tied together in that forest, and stretched forward in time and space to culminate in a single mistake. It was a mistake Gertrude was afraid she was still making now. 

“I would have called, but it was still dangerous,” Agnes said cheerfully. She had been a morose and sulky woman, when Gertrude first met her. She had brightened considerably since they had won her freedom: like the turn of winter into spring. “It’s settled down quite a bit, which is why I need the favor.”

“You still haven’t paid me back for last time,” Gertrude said mildly. 

But Agnes just laughed, warm and soft, despite the cold welcome. “I feel like we both got something out of that arrangement, don’t you?”

They did. Gertrude wasn’t sure which arrangement Agnes was referring to. “Fine. What is it you need? Within reason, Agnes. I’m not sure I have another great escape in me.”

“I need three false identities,” Agnes said, shocking Gertrude deeply. People only tended to call Gertrude when they need something murdered or blown up. Not that she minded. “You know everybody, and I’ve been a bit cloistered these past few years. I have a source who knows some people, but the person that we’ve been avoiding also knows those resources, so they’re right out.”

“Running an underground railroad, are we, Agnes?” Gertrude asked archly. 

Agnes laughed again, and despite herself the sound still rang something buried and cold in Gertrude’s heart. “I figured I’d try my hand at the good guy thing. What can I say, Gertrude? You were a good influence on me.”

“Don’t mock me.” But Gertrude sighed anyway, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’ll get you in touch with who I use. If you give me your email I can connect you.”

“...what’s -”

“Never mind. I’ll pass your phone number along. Goodnight, Agnes.”

But the line crackled and fuzzed, and Agnes didn’t hang up. Neither did Gertrude. When Agnes spoke again it was soft - not hesitant, Agnes was never hesitant, but gentle. Agnes, Gertrude had found, could be more gentle than anybody else. “We never visited that lake.”

“Those are just dreams, Agnes,” Gertrude said - harshly, maybe unkindly. She didn’t know how to be anything else. 

“Not to me. I - no, John, don’t eat that, you don’t know where it’s been!” Agnes sighed, sending a crackle of static over the line and catching Gertrude’s attention severely. “I have to go. Goodbye, Gertrude. Thank you for your help. Call me sometimes, will you? For personal reasons. I gave you my number for a reason.”

Gertrude hung up on her, deciding not to dignify any of that with a response. She hardly had the time to make - personal phone calls. 

 What foolishness. Agnes had infected her with such foolishness. 

Gertrude went back to her book, mind working furiously, trying to remember if she had ever read of a ‘John’. 

*****

Unfortunately, ‘John’ was about as common a name as they came. 

Gertrude herself scarcely had any time to follow-up. Judging from Agnes’ words and tone, John was a child of some sort - had Agnes kidnapped somebody else’s child? Her child? (Gertrude had a very ridiculous thought for a moment before dismissing it, before grudgingly accepting that Agnes was made out of wax and that nothing was technically impossible). She gave Agnes her guy’s phone number and wished she could wash her hands of the matter. What Agnes did from now on would hopefully be none of her business. 

Gertrude wished she could delude herself into believing that. 

But Gertrude’s work was picking up, the rituals coming in faster and faster, and she found herself running about much more than she should at her age. Emma was invaluable, Fiona worked hard in research, and Michael was...sweet, but she trusted them with little information and trusted them less to watch her back. She couldn’t dedicate the amount of time she wanted to a hunch.

To make matters worse, Mary Keay had seemed to misplace her child. She was torn up about it, in her...own way. Gertrude wasn’t concerned. The boy was seventeen. He’d be back in three months with another two piercings, a Grateful Dead shirt, and no money. Goodness knows Gertrude had done it enough at his age. Did kids still trail along at Grateful Dead concerts? What was Gerry always listening to these days, Green Day? Green Day concert. 

As such, it was two weeks before Gertrude even had time to follow up with her contact. It only took minimal application of her blackmail before he spilled what Agnes had him make, and the full details therein. Most importantly, her new listed address. That, at least, ought to be real. 

As Gertrude rode the Underground to the humble London neighborhood where Agnes had apparently escaped her followers, sneering at young men who tried to give her their seats, she flipped through the paperwork. Agnes Montague, twenty seven - my, wasn’t she vain - born in London, England. All of her details seemed fairly legitimate. New NIN, credit score, false history, the usual. So it wasn’t her she was trying to hide. 

The second file was more interesting. There was her mystery John. Jonathan, apparently. Jonathan Montague. 

Gertrude’s eyebrows crawled up. What was her game?

The announcement of her stop echoed smoothly through the train, and she quickly folded up the papers and stuffed them back in her purse. It was a short walk from the station to the flat complex where Agnes was now staying, and she found herself ridiculously wondering what Agnes would look like. 

Would her hair be the same color, the color of licks of fire straining into the night sky? Her eyes the same forest green, a rainforest any woman could drown in? Her skin rosy and soft, with full appearance of youth and longevity, never to age or decay? Gertrude was only barely sixty, but she was feeling her age with every year. Her living had been hard, and it was finally catching up with her.

What else would catch up with her, once she knocked on Agnes Montague’s door?

Apartment number 426,  1446 Frederick Street. The strange thing about it was the welcome mat set outside the door. There was a little smiley face. It was so incongruous with Agnes, yet so oddly fitting, that Gertrude found herself smiling. 

She knocked once, twice. Her lockpicks were up her sleeve. Hopefully Agnes wasn’t home and she could snoop, but - 

The door opened to reveal Gerard Keay, looking down at a loose crumple of bills in his hand. He was so busy counting them out that he didn’t see who was standing at his doorstep.

“Thanks, mate, we -” Gerard finally looked up, and his face whitened. “You aren’t pizza.”

“So I’ve been told,” Gertrude said dryly. “Are you going to let me in?”

He let her in. 

******

So that was where Gerard had gotten to. 

Agnes, who had been pulling soda out of the fridge in their small kitchenette, was much happier to see her than Gerard was. It was the first time anybody had been happy to see Gertrude suddenly turning up at their doorstep in a very long time, and it made Gertrude almost uncomfortable. 

“I’m here for business reasons,” Gertrude felt the need to tell her, as she glared Gerard into sulking miserably on the couch. He had dyed his beautiful hair some nasty black color, which was either for disguise purposes or for...what was the word...goth? Goth purposes? Gertrude was very thankful she did not have children. 

But Agnes just smiled at her, as if she saw straight through. Which was ridiculous. There was nothing to see straight through. “It would be pretty strange if you stalked me until you found my address and showed up at my home in the middle of the day holding lockpicks for business reasons, Gertrude!”

“It’s for personal reasons.”

“There we go. I would offer you some pizza, but it seems that it’s not here yet.”

“So it seems.” Gertrude turned her eyes on Gerard, who wilted. “I hope this is a valuable lesson in checking to see who is at the door before you answer it, young man.”

Gerard mumbled something. 

“I know for a fact your mother did not raise you to be this careless.”

“My mother barely raised me at all,” Gerard grumbled. 

“Fine. Then I did not teach you to be that careless.” That got an actual flinch out of him, and Gertrude sighed. “What is going on here, you two?”

“It’s a very long story,” Agnes said. 

“Containing very many events I am under pain of death not to tell you about,” Gerard added. “Are you going to tell Mum I’m here?”

Gertrude sighed. 

The flat was small, clearly newly rented. They had very little furniture, and what they did have was clearly liberated from charity shops and kerbs. Their living room held a battered television, one of those gaming consoles Gerard liked so much, a scuffed and thoroughly singed coffee table to match an equally singed couch, and a pair of overstuffed bookshelves. A cutaway wall revealed a small kitchen, with a nook that held a rickety kitchen table.  None of it seemed particularly out of the ordinary for two young people, strongly resembling Gertrude’s own first flat. 

She cautiously sniffed the air. No smell of candles. Hm. 

She was just about to push the matter of how exactly the Messiah of the Eternal Flame and a bookseller’s son met and became flatmates when a crash and a thump echoed from the hallway. Gerard jumped off the couch, and Agnes bit her lip. Another rattle echoed from the hallway, and something deep in Gertrude’s mind recognized the sounds as those of a caged animal. 

“What is that,” Gertrude said flatly. 

“I’ll check on him,” Gerard said quickly, fleeing into the hallway. He knocked on one of the doors - Gertrude noticed that there were two on each side, three bedrooms and a bathroom - and said something quietly against the door, before cracking the door open a few inches. Gertrude couldn’t see what was inside, and she couldn’t maneuver herself closer without alerting Agnes. 

There was another crash, and Gerard slammed the door shut quickly. He grinned broadly yet anxiously at Gertrude, tittering a laugh. “It’s nothing! Nothing to see here. Would you like a cuppa, Gertrude!”

“Hm,” Gertrude said. 

They gave her a cuppa. She sat on the couch, Agnes and Gerard anxiously standing in front of her wringing their hands, and pretended to sip the cuppa. 

“Promise there’s no human flesh in it,” Gerard said. Gertrude arched an eyebrow at him until he sighed, took it, took a small and exaggerated sip, and then passed it back. 

It was only then that Gertrude tried some. She couldn’t help but smile. Agnes’ tea was always perfect. 

“Can one of you tell me why, according to the government, you are now legally siblings?” Gertrude asked archly. She put one hand down on the cracks between the sofa cushions beside her, pretending it was for balance. “Without lying, please.”

Agnes shrugged helplessly. “Gerard didn’t want to live with his mother anymore and I wasn’t doing anything important.”

“We thought about faking a corpse but was afraid that would just excite her,” Gerard said, depressed. “Hopefully when I don’t turn up she’ll just assume I was eaten by a book.” He affected a faux-nasally tone that did, admittedly, sound a lot like Mary. “ ‘If he’s too incompetent to survive he’s no good to me as a son. Good riddance to bad rubbish, his whole line’.”

“Gerry won’t let me immolate her,” Agnes said seriously. 

“She’s my mum, Agnes!”

“Immolating parental figures is very therapeutic.” Agnes patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. “When I set everybody who ever loved me on fire, I felt great about it.”

“It seemed very cathartic,” Gertrude said dryly. She dug her fingers deeper into the crack between the cushions until something soft and thread-like rubbed between her fingers. Bingo. “Why the false identities? Why not simply let Gerard live with you until he turned 18?”

“We want him declared dead,” Agnes said simply. “And we want him to have an actual identity for when that happens. This is the best way to keep him away from his mum. Besides, Gerard Montague has his A Levels and a diploma for uni. ” She shrugged. “And hopefully he’ll be staying with me for quite a bit longer than a year.”

Interesting. They really did know each other. Maybe they were even really friends - although Gertrude was forced to wonder what a woman in her sixties and a teenager had in common. Gerard had mentioned wanting to go to university, but they had all known it was a pipe dream. Dreams like that often were. Gertrude neatly withdrew her hand from the cushion, folding her hands over each other in her lap. She rubbed the thread between her hands, satisfied when she felt its loose, sticky elasticity. 

 How interesting. 

“And Jonathan?”

Both of them froze. 

Gerard broke first, laughing nervously and high pitched. “Who’s that?”

Gertrude lifted her hand, showing both of them the thin strand of spider-silk pinched between two bony fingers. Both Agnes and Gerard whitened. “I imagine it’s whatever Avatar of the Web you have locked in the back room that is responsible for these.”

They winced simultaneously, glancing at each other. Doubtlessly trying to come up with a cover story. Gertrude sighed, standing up from the couch and straightening her skirts. Nothing for it then. Her Glock was still strapped to her thigh, and a hunting knife at her other. 

Gertrude knew very little about the Web. Just, she suspected, as it liked. It had no rituals, and held no explicit threat to the safety of the world. It was a threat, for sure. Even worse, a threat that Gertrude knew infuriatingly little about. But it was not the most immediate threat, and as Gertrude spent every day drowning under more and more immediate threats she held very little time for those which weren’t promising to end the world anytime soon.

Maybe that was why Gertrude was fully planning to leave this flat and never mention its inhabitants again - not to Mary, not to Dekker, and not to whatever scattered remnants of her cult that Agnes had left alive. Whatever Agnes wanted, it seemed to be closer to a normal life living with her friend than anything world-destroying. And whatever Gerard wanted...well, he was a good boy. He wouldn’t do anything dangerous to anybody other than himself. Mary didn’t have to know. Perhaps it was even for the best.

“You really don’t want to go in -”

“Gertrude, please, he’s in a rather delicate stage right now -”

Another thump against the door. As Gertrude left the living room, crisply walking down the thin and crowded hallway until she stood in front of a thin and battered-looking door, she could slowly begin to hear the faint but distinct sounds of...chittering. Skittering. It was a sound she had heard only once before, during a brush with the corruption.

Gertrude raised a hand to knock at the door. 

A hand shot out, pale and thin, and clasped Gertrude’s wrist in its grip firmly. Despite herself, Gertrude’s breath caught. Agnes’ touch still did that to her, it seemed. When she glanced to the side, she saw Agnes standing next to her, mouth stubbornly set firm. Her long and silky orange hair tumbled over her shoulder, glimmering under the soft lights.

“The world’s a cruel place, Gertrude,” Agnes said. “We’re just trying to look out for each other.”

“We all chose this life,” Gertrude said, voice tinged with reproach. 

But Agnes just set her jaw stubbornly. “We didn’t.”

It was a we that didn’t include Gertrude - but, of course, so little of Agnes’ life did. 

Gertrude let her hand drop to the doorknob, and she didn’t meet Agnes’ eyes as she twisted the knob and let herself in. 

Some part of her felt it very idiotic, to walk into what she knew was a spider’s lair. A ridiculous part of her mind couldn’t help but hum the little nursery rhyme she had learned as a girl. But if it was truly dangerous Agnes would have prevented her from going in, instead of asked her to. Some part of Gertrude trusted that, a part of Gertrude that somehow still survived despite everything. 

It wasn’t that Agnes appealed to the softer side of Gertrude. It was more that Agnes appealed to the hardest and cruellest parts of her, her tough outer shell, that ached for a reassurance that even a woman raised in utmost cruelty could make the choice to be kind. That there was still goodness in the world. If even a Messiah of the Eternal Flame could smile like that, could look at Gertrude with those deep and unfathomable eyes, then maybe all of Gertrude’s efforts weren’t for nothing. 

The room was white. No, not white - just covered in long, ropy strands of spider-web. Different shapes and sizes, different lengths and thicknesses. Some of it was wispy and gentle, like cotton fluff, while some of it was closer to rope. It wasn’t arranged in a spider’s beautiful pattern, an elegant nest: it was more like an explosion, as if it was thrown anywhere and everywhere without regard. 

The webs didn’t cover everything in the room. A bed was clearly visible, draped with webs as it was. There was a closet, and several boxes stacked in the corner with loose clothing draped over them. That was every piece of furniture and personal item in the room. It was a minor miracle that the living and dining rooms didn’t have more spidersilk in them - a testament to Agnes and Gerry’s tidiness, or a sign that the inhabitant rarely left the room. 

The inhabitant of the room was curled on the bed. It - he, perhaps? - was sitting upright against the wall, knees curled up against a chest, forehead resting on the knees. He was half-obscured by webs, but Gertrude could immediately tell that the figure wasn’t very old. Gerard’s age, or perhaps a bit younger. 

The webs did little to obscure the four arms - two flesh, two hinged and black and hairy - curled around the boy’s body. 

The boy didn’t look up when he saw her. Gertrude wondered if he even noticed. She was only just beginning to wonder what the thumps were when one of the spider arms lashed out and crashed against the wall, shaking the room. 

Hm. This was Gertrude’s first Web Avatar, but if they all looked and acted like this then she could only assume that they would be much more obvious than they are. New, then. Maybe as new as those identities Agnes had applied for. 

Normally she’d torch it and go home, but with both Agnes and Gerard in residence that option was out of the question. Her curiosity had been satisfied: she could turn around now and leave the room, knowing what it was Agnes and Gerard were protecting. She could let the inhabitants of this flat fade into obscurity, secure in the knowledge that none of them wished to harm her or the world. 

But Gertrude was a bit too curious for her own good, or perhaps a bit too soft, because she found herself stepping forward.

Her low-heeled boots didn’t slide on the web, but it did stick. When she lifted her feet they tracked up thin spiderweb, and she resolved to burn this outfit once she made her way back to the Archives. After a few breathless moments, Gertrude found herself standing in front of the boy, who hadn’t seemed to notice her yet. Poor situational awareness. He’d fit in well with Gerard. 

“Jonathan.”

The boy looked up at her, and anybody else would have bit back a scream. 

He had eight eyes - black, glistening, unreal. Bulbous and unsettling, they skittered and twitched in strange directions, as if uncertain how to work or how to see. New, brand-new. Uncontrolled. The boy’s mouth parted in slight surprise, but it was obviously difficult to read any sort of expression. 

He didn’t say anything. Gertrude found herself absently wondering if spiders had tongues. 

“Do you know what is happening to you?” 

The boy stared at her, long enough that Gertrude found herself wondering if he still clung to sentience, before slowly nodding his head. Good. 

“Then you know how to stop it,” Gertrude said sharply, and the boy sat up straighter. “Stop moping about, now. Look around. You’ve destroyed your room.” She gave the boy a moment to look around, expression still inscrutable, before she went back on the attack. “You’ve sulked long enough. Put away those arms, now. Go on.”

The boy stared at her, coarse black spider arms twitching and curling. 

“You know what’s happening,” Gertrude said firmly. “It’s your body. Not theirs. It’s your body, Jonathan. Bend it to your will. Not theirs.”

Slowly, disgustingly, the arms began to recede. They slid back inside his torso, sucking into his ribcage, shifting and clicking and chittering, until there was nothing left but an ordinary chest. Gertrude was even now able to recognize his shirt. It was one of Gerard’s. Green Day. 

“Your eyes now. Come on, hurry up. I haven’t got all day.”

The eyes pulsed and twitched, bubbling strangely. One of them whirred, glistening with a thousand fractals. 

The boy opened his mouth, and garbled speech came out. “I can’t...I can’t…”

“You have no choice. You must, so you will. Come on, Jonathan. Listen to me. It’s your body. It’s not theirs.”

The eyes melted back into Jonathan’s face, and that was so disgusting Gertrude politely looked up. She had seen worse, but no point in subjecting herself to it. When she looked back down she was shocked to see, for all appearances, a teenage boy. 

He had a thin, severe face, and large cloudy grey eyes. His hair was curly and matted, and despite his posture Gertrude could tell that he was the kind of short and built that was straining up against an imminent growth spurt. His skin was a light brown, with thin lips and features that suggested mixed ancestry. He looked very much like a regular, if somewhat striking, teenage boy. 

“There you go,” Gertrude said, “that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Who the fuck are you,” the rude child said. 

“Jon!”

She had been so focused on Jonathan, that she hadn’t noticed when Gerard and Agnes entered. Gerard practically jumped onto Jonathan’s bed, mindless of the spiderwebs, and folded him into a tight hug. Jonathan clung back desperately. 

“Don’t worry us like that,” Agnes said. She had appeared at Gertrude’s elbow, and moved forward to sit on Jon’s other side and give him a tight hug too that he returned just as fiercely. She looked up at Gertrude over Jon’s shoulder and mouthed ‘thank you’ to her, which she waved away. It had hardly been anything. 

“I think I’m rather owed a full explanation now,” Gertrude said pointedly. “And I think young Jonathan needs a bath.”

“What? No, I -” Jonathan separated from Gerard, and sniffed his shirt. He pulled a disgusted face. “Ew. Yeah, okay.”

******

They did not give her the full story. Gertrude wasn’t sure what she was expecting.

Oh, they gave her the broad strokes of it. All three of them were ‘old friends’, despite one of them being sixty and the other two being actual teeangers. Gerard and Agnes, especially, gave off the air of having known each other for years. They both seemed less familiar with Jon, though no less affectionate. Gertrude felt like she was trying to put together a puzzle with mittens and no idea what the final image would be. 

“I’ve been keeping an eye on Jon for a while,” Agnes said apologetically. They were all sitting around the rickety kitchen table now. Gertrude passed her teacup to reheat, which she did with a smile, and Gerard was at the door accepting the pizza from a confused deliveryman. Judging from the amount of takeaway containers, these two hadn’t been doing a lot of cooking. “He ran away from his grandmother’s a month ago. He made it to London and lived on the streets for a few weeks until I finally tracked him down. He’s been staying with us ever since.”

“When Agnes got in contact with me and told me that she found Jon, I figured it was time to bounce.” Gerard put some plates on the table and slid the pizza box into the center. Agnes eagerly grabbed the pizza and put a slice on her own plate. At Gerard’s look, Gertrude held up a hand in a ‘no thank you’ motion, and he shrugged. “Agnes has been trying to get me to stay with her since she lost her cult, but I figured I would just ditch Mum once I hit eighteen. Then...stuff happened...and I don’t really trust Agnes alone with a teenager anyway, so I left. Easy.”

“Thank goodness she’s only left alone with two teenagers now,” Gertrude said. She glanced at Agnes, who seemed unrepentant. “Is anybody looking for Jonathan?”

She shook her head. “Parents long dead. His Gran...she won’t look for him. Nobody will. I doubt any of them remember he exists. ”

“Did Jonathan make sure of that?”

Abruptly, Gerard looked very uncomfortable, but Agnes just nodded calmly. “Yes, likely.” At Gertrude’s ticked eyebrow, she continued, “She’s alive. But Jon...he’s convincing. We think. So far as we can tell. Nobody’s going to be looking for him, even the police.”

“Did we tell you how he was getting money while he was on the streets?” Gerard asked gleefully. “Apparently he can walk up to Canary Wharf bankers and convince them he’s their cousin visiting from out of state and ask them for spending money. They just believe him! Isn’t that wicked?”

“It’s easy. All you gotta do is make them feel guilty for forgetting you were coming.”

Jonathan, dripping wet from the shower and dressed in some cleaner hand-me-downs, appeared in the doorway. He walked forward until he was leaning against the kitchenette wall, accepting the pizza Gerard quickly passed to him. Clean and human, he looked like any other teenager. The only thing that revealed him for what he was were his eyes: empty, lifeless, and dull. 

“Hey, you’re still human!” Gerard said, perking up. “Are you feeling any better?”

“Yeah, tons.” Jonathan masticated his pizza, grease dripping down his chin. He locked eyes with Gertrude, who was careful not to blink as she stared back at him. “Who’re you?”

“The Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute,” Gertrude said crisply. “Gertrude Robinson.”

Jonathan’s mouth slowly fell open, revealing the primordial mass of globby cheese. Gerard was nearly bouncing in his seat, mouthing ‘It’s her!’ over and over again. 

“I told him about you,” Agnes said quickly - so quickly that it could have only been a lie. “Only good things, believe me!”

“I’m sure.”

“Wait,” Jonathan said, eyes darting back and forth between Agnes and Gertrude - who, Gertrude was somewhat embarrassed to find, were sitting somewhat close. “She’s the girl -”

“Girl who helped me get those new IDs for you guys,” Agnes said desperately. “Although she’s more of a woman. Say thank you, boys.”

Both boys mumbled thank-yous through mouthfuls of pizza. 

“How did it happen?” Gertrude asked Jonathan carefully. She was careful to keep that - pressure off her words. Very few reacted well to it, and she didn’t want to deal with a rampaging spider teenager again. “Your transformation. And don’t speak with your mouth full.”

Jonathan sassily made a show of swallowing the whole mouthful of pizza before he spoke. “I trapped my entire secondary school in a nightmare web where they all got turned into flies and eaten by spiders,” he drawled. “Oh, wait. I got bitten by a radioactive spider and ran away to London to fight crime.”

Gertrude gave him a very, very unimpressed stare. Jonathan smashed more pizza in his face. For a boy that must have been raised by his grandmother, he had no manners. 

A grandmother that he had likely done something to, to guarantee that she wouldn’t look for him. To ensure that an entire town wouldn’t search for him. Wiping a life off the map like that - what kind of teenager would do that without a second thought? 

A boy who found himself turning into a monster, fleeing the people he could hurt so he could reconvene with friends that understood?

Or a newly born monster that shed its old skin the minute it could?

Gertrude, as a younger woman, would have tended towards the latter. As an even younger woman, a child, she would have said the former. Now, she knew better than anyone how it could be both: a boy’s motivations propelled by a monster’s impulses, until even limbs of flesh were puppeted by silken threads. 

The Web was the fear of manipulation and being controlled, Gertrude repeated to herself, a mantra so familiar that it had worn grooves in her mind long ago. Jonathan had already proved adept at the art: swindling money to survive, erasing the imprints that a life left behind. 

Was she being controlled now? Was it any coincidence, that Jonathan ran into the arms of the one supernatural force in England that Gertrude wouldn’t shoot on sight? That he was lying in wait with the disappeared son of two people who had once been prominent in Gertrude’s life, a little boy she had seen grown up into a kind man despite all odds? 

Jonathan had inserted himself neatly, cleanly, and absolutely into Gertrude’s life. And he had done it almost even without her noticing. 

Of course, it was also the nature of the Web to make one ask these questions. It wasn’t just controlling - it was the fear of being controlled. By even thinking about this, Gertrude was playing straight into his hands -

“Gertrude.”

It was Agnes, sitting by her, looking at her with a softly sad expression. Her hands were in her lap, but they were twitching as if she wanted to reach out and take Gertrude’s hands in her own. They would be so different - they had always been different - but occasionally it felt as if whatever warmth they carried was the only heat that warmed Gertrude at all anymore. 

“If you don’t trust him, trust me.” Something flickered deep in Agnes’ eyes, like a hearth. Maybe that was Agnes: a hearth, house and home. “You can trust me.”

“Can I?” Gertrude asked, mouth unexpectedly dry. “How can someone like me trust someone like you, Agnes?”

Agnes smiled, baring teeth white and perfect as wax. “There’s nobody on Earth like you, Gertrude. You know that just as well as I do.”

Both boys had their hands slapped over their eyes, horrified. 

Maybe that was what convinced Gertrude: not Agnes’ promise of a safe place to rest in a tumultuous and dangerous world, but the fact that both these boys found that promise horrendously yucky. It wasn’t human - Gertrude had the feeling that no emotion from Jonathan could truly be human - but at least it was benign. In this world, sometimes that was the best you could ask for. 

“Fine. I put them in your charge, then, Agnes.” Gertrude drained the rest of her tea, eyeing the leaves critically in her cup as the boys whooped and Agnes exhaled heavily. Her tea leaves read a bad omen. That was comforting: she liked to know what was ahead of her. “If I hear any statements about a strange boy swindling businessmen out of their salaries then I’ll know exactly who is responsible. Am I understood?”

“They weren’t missing it,” Jonathan grumbled, before Gerard elbowed him in the side. “Fine! Fine, you won’t hear anything about it.”

Not what she had said, but she’d take it. The supernatural was at its least dangerous when it felt scared and hidden. Nothing was more dangerous than an Avatar who felt themself above human laws and rules. Or, at best, Gertrude. 

They never tended to live long. 

“Uh. Ms. Gertrude.” Gerard awkwardly creased his greasy napkin, expression tight. “Are you going to tell Mum?”

“Tell her what?” Gertrude asked archly. “I hardly think what Gerard Montague does is any of Mary Keay’s business.” As Gerard broke out into a relieved smile, Gertrude added, “Don’t give me any reason to charge after you, Gerard. You’re impulsive and reckless. Your mother’s kept you safe from yourself so far, but you’ve decided that you no longer need that protection. Don’t make me regret keeping my mouth shut.”

Jonathan snickered, ignoring Gerard’s flush. “Whipped.”

“I’ll speak to you outside, Jonathan.”

This time it was Gerard’s turn to snicker as Jonathan flushed and straightened away from the wall. “You’re in trou-ble!”

Good lord. This was why she hadn’t had children. 

But he followed her out the flat anyway. The flat complex was smaller, just a few buildings connected by sidewalks and catwalks, and the flats opened into the fresh air. As they emerged onto the first story, Gertrude let Jon lean against the railing and turn his head towards the sun. The wind blew softly, and Jon exhaled softly as he closed his eyes. Issues controlling a human form meant that he likely hadn’t been outside very often lately. 

“Tastes weird,” Jonathan decided finally, as if they had both been waiting solely for his judgement. “Air back home always tasted like salt. Everything was fresh and clean. It wasn’t anything like dirty, smoggy London.”

“Go back home, then.”

Jonathan snorted bitterly. He had turned his back to Gertrude, leaning on the railing to stick his head out. As if she wasn’t a threat. “Can’t. Gran doesn’t know I exist anymore. Trust me, nobody’s missing me back home.”

“How can that be? There must be school records, any kind of documentation. You must have known dozens of people.”

“Ah, that’s the genius of it.” Jon turned around, grinning lazily at her. He leaned against the railing, elbows back and resting on top of the metal frame. “All I needed to do was implant a few strategic suggestions. Just on the people who interacted with me the most, or the people most responsible for me. Gran, Mr. Heathcliff, Ms. Robbins, Dr. Yung.” He wriggled his fingers experimentally - like a magician doing a magic trick, or a puppeteer pulling strings. “Every time someone asks them where I am, they tell them that I never existed. And, you, know, wouldn’t they know? Jon’s Gran would know if Jon existed or not. So they doubt themselves too. Maybe Jon was never here, not really. Maybe he was just...a faint dream. The kind you forget the moment you wake up.”

“And the papers?”

Jon shrugged. “A person’s in charge of those papers. Ms. Hastings, school secretary. When she sees my student file, she’s going to ask my headmaster about it. And he’s going to say - who? And she’ll remember that I was nobody to remember at all. And those papers will become just so much garbage. When the cop, the government clerk, whoever, remembers that there’s no Jonathan to remember, that’s it.” Jon grinned at her, a proud kid showing her a perfect score on a report card.  “Anything is beatable, Ms. Gertrude, if there’s human error involved. You can build the most perfect machine in the world, but so long as a human’s involved in any step of that process then it can go wrong.”

 “Did the Web tell you that?”

“My Mother trades in lots of secrets, Ms. Gertrude,” Jonathan said, and in the turn of a second his eyes hardened into beetle-black shells, black and inhuman, before he forcibly pulled them back in again. Jonathan grimaced, gritting his teeth as he kept the transformation at bay. “Sorry. Sorry. I - I don’t want to hurt anyone. I won’t. Agnes and Gerry are going to help me. I’m going to choose what kind of mo - person I am. I’m going to choose right.”

“See to it that you do.” Gertrude stepped closer, and she knew that her face was stony and cold. Revealing nothing, with no weaknesses or cracks to exploit. She had lost every weakness long ago, save one. “I know where you live, Jonathan. I know what you’re capable of - even more, I suspect, than you yourself do. Mind yourself, and I won’t have to find a solution to your problem.” She let her eyes glint, just once. “I’m very good at finding solutions, Jonathan.”

Jonathan looked away first, of course. He swallowed heavily. “Mother told me about you.”

“All good things, I’m sure,” Gertrude said dryly. 

“She says I’m not ready yet. She said we have someone else for you, but I’m not ready yet. She says I’ll be the King one day, maybe, but not today. I’m...still hatching. It’s uncomfortable. It’s so -” Something haunted flashed through Jonathan’s lifeless grey eyes, and he shivered. “It hurts. So much.”

“So I hear,” Gertrude said, no trace of sympathy in her voice. “Good day, Jonathan.”

She left Jonathan there: shivering, alone, and human for now. 

She would see him again, she knew. A frightened teenage boy who promised her that he’d be king of the Web one day was a warning sign if she’d ever heard one. But if it was a warning sign, then it was one Gertrude was meant to hear. A shake of a rattlesnake’s tail: a creature that wants to go through the energy of biting you as little as you want to be bit, so save us both the trouble. 

And maybe Jonathan’s comment, so offhand he may not even have realized that he was making it, was a warning of its own: a spider in her own camp. Who?

Agnes was waiting for her, by the Underground station. She didn’t know she got there before her. Young people moved so fast these days. She smiled and waved when she saw Gertrude, as if they both had arranged to meet there. 

“What is it now?” Gertrude asked, exhausted. “Another favor?”

“Just a thank you for helping me keep the boys safe,” Agnes said cheekily. She stepped up, carefully, brushed a kiss to Gertrude’s cheek. Gertrude, idiotically, let her. “Call me, okay? For personal reasons.”

“Maybe,” Gertrude said, to the hearth that burned low in her heart, “if it’s for personal reasons.”

It wasn’t until she was halfway home on the Underground, thinking about noting down the address of Agnes’ apartment, that she found herself wondering what the address even was. Thomas Street...No, Jackson? 144...5?

What was she trying to remember?

No matter. Getting old again. Gertrude continued making notes in her notebook, reminding herself to search for a spider’s web, as the train rattled on for home, and the warmth of a kiss lingered on her cheek. 

[dreaming-in-alicante]

First chapter is up!

I have 5 more chapters planned out. It’ll depend on how much work I have with the end of the semester, but I hope to update weekly!

Chapter 1: A research opportunity

   _________________________________________________________

A month ago, Grace had sat shell-shocked in the Institute infirmary in the aftermath of the battle, attempting to process the bloodshed she had witnessed and the fact that Tatiana was dead. Jesse, busy talking to Lucie and her parents, making funeral arrangements, had left Grace alone for a while. It was Christopher Lightwood of all people who had noticed her sitting there frozen, who had walked over and offered an awkward pat on the shoulder. He expressed his sympathies and then, seemingly at a loss for a way to help her feel better, told Grace that she was welcome to come visit the lab at any time if she would like something to do to take her mind off of the circumstances. “You were a great help in figuring the function of the pithos that time,” he’d said before wandering off.

Of course that had been before. Before word of her confession had gotten out. Before her trial by Mortal Sword three weeks ago. The Consul had let Grace off without punishment because she was underage and influenced – manipulated – by her mother. No, not mother, Tatiana. You were never a daughter to her, Grace reminded herself. She bought you, you were only ever a weapon that she wielded.

Now that Tatiana was gone and Jesse was restored to life, Grace found herself adrift. Word spread quickly amongst the Clave about what she’d done: the misery she had inflicted on James and by extension Cordelia; her use of demon-gifted power to influence and seduce numerous men – including the Consul’s own son; her involvement in necromancy. She knew plenty of Shadowhunters would happily see her spend time imprisoned in the Silent City. She had made so many apologies that she had quite lost track, but it was not enough – might never be enough. She was still technically part of the Clave, yet no one seemed to know what to do with her. She was even invited to a party last week where everyone had given her a wide berth; a perfect example of how she remained part of things, but was held at a distance.

Grace had spent weeks alone in the apartment Jesse had found for them, reading like she had always done. Now that Jesse was not a ghost, he was no longer her constant companion. He was alive again, out making friends and experiencing the world anew. He had started training and was visiting all the sights of London with Lucie. It was everything Grace had wished for him for years, except now she found herself even lonelier than before. Jesse had invited her along to everything but it was awkward to be around even Lucie.  Despite their shared mission to restore Jesse to life and her newfound relationship with Jesse, Lucie was struggling to forgive Grace for her part in James and Cordelia’s suffering. After all, it was Lucie’s own brother and her future parabatai that Grace had hurt. So Grace continued a nearly isolated existence, most days only seeing Jesse briefly in the morning and evenings.

It was the boredom and loneliness that had finally driven Grace to make a call on the Consul’s house at Grosvenor Square. She had overheard Lucie telling Jesse that Christopher was hard at work on something and spending nearly every weekday in the lab there. Surely Christopher should despise Grace after the way she had hurt his friends. Yet he had offered a small wave and smile at the party several days ago when they passed each other near the refreshments. His small gesture and her desperate state had been enough for her to gather her courage and venture out today.

   ________________________________________________________

 Grace stifled a sneeze as she descended the steps into the laboratory. A smoky haze hung in the air and it smelled like… gunpowder? What on earth had Christopher been doing? She paused uncertainly and nearly turned in retreat before steeling her nerve and continuing down.

Grace reached the bottom of the stairs and peered around the lab. “Christopher?” she called tentatively. “Are you working down here?”

A messy head of brown hair, darkened by – was it gunpowder? – shot up from behind the lab bench on the far side of the room. Christopher pushed rounded goggles up onto his head as he strode over to her.  “Grace! How nice to see you again!” he greeted her. His skin and once-white shirt were also covered in a fine layer of dark dust. “I suppose I saw you a few days ago at the party but you weren’t there long were you? Jesse said you weren’t feeling well. I heard there was a cold going around, is that what you had? Are you feeling better now?” he asked kindly.

Grace hadn’t felt well at the party, but it had nothing to do with illness and everything to do with the fact that Jesse was the single truly friendly face in that enormous ballroom. Lucie had awkwardly engaged her in stilted conversation before being whisked off to the dance floor by Jesse. After half an hour hovering on the outskirts of the room Grace could simply not endure the suspicious glances from the other guests, and she fled back home. “No, I wasn’t feeling well, but I feel much better now,” she told him simply.

“That’s good to hear!” Christopher said earnestly. “It’s never fun being sick. I detest the medicine my mother makes me take for coughs. That’s actually a project I’d like to pursue at some point, to see if medicine can be flavored but still retain its potency. I think if one could take some fruit, for example, and isolate the components of the fruit – molecules they’re called – that cause the specific taste and – ” he cut himself off abruptly. “My apologies Grace, you obviously came here for a reason and here I am boring you. Did you need help with something?” he asked, looking at her expectantly.

Grace thought she could cry for the sense of normalcy in the conversation and the kindness in his gaze. It was the complete opposite of the stiff, clipped exchanges and distrustful stares she had received since her trial by the Mortal Sword. Jesse was there for support of course, but he also faced distrust – returning from the dead through necromancy tended to make people wary. So to have Christopher – one of the ‘Merry Thieves’ no less – act like nothing at all was wrong, it was a relief.

She would have told Christopher to keep talking about the cough medicine and molecules – the idea sounded quite fascinating – but he had asked her a question. “I…I came to take you up on your offer to help in the laboratory. That is, if you’re sure you still want my help” she said hesitantly, clasping her hands together. “I know you offered weeks ago and I understand if you would prefer me to stay away now that you’ve heard the full story of everything I’ve done…” she trailed off uncertainly.

Christopher blinked at her for a moment, seemingly in shock, before his face split in a wide grin. “Really? You’d like to work here in the lab? No one besides Henry has ever been interested!” He paused thoughtfully, adjusting his glasses. “Well, Thomas does often help but I believe he feels obligated as my cousin. It’s not that he has any deep fascination with science and invention. Although he did make the cure for the Mandikhor poison! But I don’t think he enjoyed the process.” He frowned. “I suppose solving the puzzle of a complicated antidote is much more stressful when people are about to die,” he concluded.

“So, you’re sure you would still like having me around?” Grace asked, tense. “After the pain I caused your friends, I understand if you don’t want my assistance.”

“Of course I’d like you to help!” Christopher replied excitedly. “Having another pair of hands is always useful, and you actually want to be here! As for everything with James and such,” he said seriously, “you apologized didn’t you? And I’m sure you won’t do it again if you feel so badly about it now.”

Grace was astounded. “I did apologize and no, I don’t plan to manipulate anyone in that way again,” she managed to say. “I couldn’t even if I wished to,” she added, “the Silent Brothers found a way to remove my power.” That ritual, performed two weeks by Broth Enoch, had made her ill. She spent the better part of a day asleep, and still felt exhausted the day afterward.

“Then it’s all settled!” Christopher proclaimed brightly. “Let’s see, there’s a space on the benchtop over here where you can work, I have some of my notes there now but I can clean those up, put them over with…” He scurried over to a bench on the left of the room and began tidying it, muttering to himself.

Grace followed slowly after him, still in some disbelief. Yes, she had traveled all the way over to the lab and hoped his offer to join him in the lab still stood. However, she had prepared herself to be brushed off. Had expected Christopher to distrust her now that he knew all of her questionable actions, the ways she had hurt his friends and cousins. Technically she also was, or had been, his cousin by adoption; for some reason she brushed the thought of it away. They weren’t actually related. Especially now that she had reclaimed the Cartwright surname, distancing herself from Tatiana.

“There!” Christopher announced, pulling Grace out of her thoughts. He had cleared the bench of papers and bottles and beakers, and brushed off a layer of dust. “This can be your work station,” he told her. “I’ll find you a notebook to record your findings in, and you can work with me on some projects! Or do you have any ideas or projects of your own you’d like to pursue?” he inquired.

“I read many books growing up, many containing scientific information, so I know some basic principles,” Grace said. “However, I fear that much of the information is decades out of , and I'm sure there are many advancements I have not learned of,” she confessed. “Perhaps you can tell me what you’re working on? Were you doing some experiment involving gun powder just now?”

“Indeed I was!” Christopher replied with a gleam in his eye. “For a years now I’ve been trying to adapt incendiary weapons for use against demons. Angelic runes prevent the gunpowder from igniting somehow, and unless runes are involved the demons can’t be harmed.” He gestured her over to the far side of the room where a couple of guns laid on the table, one partly disassembled, as well as a small grenade.

“You made the runed revolver for James, didn’t you?” she asked, trailing a finger over the rune inscribed on the barrel of the rifle laid out on the bench.

“I did,” Christopher replied. “The problem is, James is the only one who can use it. Something to do with his shadow powers. Even Lucie can’t make it work. Quite confounding.” He held up a very familiar object – the pithos that Belial had used to steal marks. “I’ve been testing different rune placements with this,” he said, “because I thought perhaps an indirect application would make a difference. I’ve tried inscribing inside and outside on different parts. I also have a collection of gunpowder that I put in this runed box.” He gestured with the pithos to a small cubic container, every side plastered with a variety of runes. “The gun still fires – that’s what I was testing before you came in. No telling whether it will have any effect on a demon though,” he said, “It depends on how the runes transfer energy, which is an area no one fully understands yet.” He paused uncertainly, and set the pithos back on the benchtop. “I know you said you’d like to learn, Grace, but I’m not boring you am I?” he asked, sounding troubled.

“No, not at all,” she said quickly, turning her attention away from the disassembled handgun she’d been inspecting to his face. “Truly, it’s fascinating. I enjoy learning and you do a wonderful job of explaining things.”

“Oh,” said Christopher, turning faintly pink at the compliment. “Well, jolly good then. Besides Henry, people never really want to hear details,” he confided.

Grace thought briefly that perhaps Tatiana had been right when she called the Clave a pack of fools. Was there genuinely no one besides Henry Fairchild who appreciated the extent of Christopher’s scientific work? Not even his friends? “How about this?” she said, turning fully to face him. “I promise that if I ever want you to stop talking I’ll tell you directly, but otherwise, I wish to hear every detail. Here, we can shake on it.” She extended her hand between them and asked, “Deal?”

Christopher looked bewildered for a moment, blinked, then took her hand and shook it. His strange violet eyes shone as they met hers and he said, “Deal.”

[haberdashing]

i’m begging of you, please...

Mid-Season 3, Martin gets suspicious of Jon’s new flatmate and investigates.

on AO3

Martin had wondered about Jon’s life outside the Institute for some time now; Jon wasn’t one to talk much about his private life in general, and the handful of tidbits he dropped just made Martin that much more curious about what else there was to know. He didn’t push Jon about it often, having learned quickly enough that Jon would sooner snap than break his self-set boundaries, but he still wondered.

Now that Martin knew Jon had found somebody to live with when he was wanted for murder without breaking a sweat, somebody whom Jon seemed to want to avoid discussing at all costs, that curiosity was beginning to harden into a cold certainty, and he felt the burning desire to learn more about the woman (one of the few things Jon had revealed about his living mate was her gender) with whom Jon was now sharing his life.

One evening spent keeping track of where Jon went after work was enough for Martin to get Jon’s new address--it wasn’t far from Martin’s own, as it turned out, making the hardest part of the night not following in Jon’s footsteps but leaving work as late as Jon did these days and then scrambling to make up for lost time once he finally got home.

It was a few days later that Martin stopped by the flat where Jon now lived well before Jon left work for the day, Martin’s heart pounding in his chest as he pounded on the front door.

“Hello?”

Martin heard the woman Jon was living with before he saw her, and neither her voice nor her appearance fit the mental picture Martin had developed for her. She was almost as chubby as Martin himself was, with short black curls and umber skin underneath her oversized dark hoodie, and her voice was friendly without being overly sweet.

Martin didn’t hesitate. “Are you the woman Jon’s been living with this whole time?”

The woman put one hand on her hip. “I prefer to be called Georgie, thanks, but that works too. Who’s asking?”

“I’m, uh, Martin. Martin Blackwood. Nice to meet you.” Martin extended his hand, and Georgie shook it, but between her removing her hand quickly and the strange look in her eyes, Martin could tell Georgie’s heart wasn’t in it.

“Ah, you’re Martin. What brings you here, then? If you’re looking for Jon, I was under the impression he was work today...”

“He is, yeah. It’s you I wanted to talk to, actually.”

“Oh?” Georgie looked Martin over for a long moment before opening her door wider and stepping back so that he could enter. “Well, c’mon in, I suppose. No need to stand out here making a scene, pretty sure my neighbors gossip about me plenty already...”

“R-right, sorry.”

Georgie’s flat was... small. Cozy. A little messy, with stray papers and books and cat hair covering almost every surface, but in a comfortable sort of way. Honestly, it reminded Martin a bit of his own more than anything.

“Go ahead and make yourself at home, there’s plenty of seats to go around.”

Martin nodded numbly and sat down on Georgie’s couch; Georgie took a seat in a chair opposite him before speaking up again.

“So what did you come to talk to me about, hmm?”

It was a lot easier to envision this conversation in the abstract than it was to engage in it here, now, while he was already sitting on Georgie’s surprisingly comfortable couch as she stared him down with an unwavering gaze. The words didn’t come as easily as Martin had hoped they would.

“I was wondering, uh... are you and Jon... together?”

Georgie’s laughter was sharp and sudden, enough that Martin jumped a little in his seat at the sound of it.

“God, no! Not since uni--and trust me, I have no intention of changing that. He’s just a friend now, that’s all.”

“Oh!” All the threads that had seemed to tie up so neatly in this one theory were unraveling in front of Martin’s eyes. “I, I just thought...”

“Nope. Not even a little bit.”

Then Martin remembered someone else that had raised his suspicions before, the one that Jon had used to access the Institute when he was still wanted for murder. Georgie must have been their go-between, so she had to know why Jon trusted her more than the rest of his employees, right?

“Is he with Melanie, then? Is that why...?”

Georgie’s laughter startled Martin only slightly less the second time around, and it proved no less boisterous than before.

“Oh, definitely not. I’m pretty sure Melanie has zero interest in the man. Not like that, anyway... actually, no, I was right the first time, I don’t think she cares about him in any way right about now.”

“Oh, I see.” Martin could feel his face heating up, though as the two denials synced up, two pieces of a puzzle fitting together in his head, he couldn’t stop himself from making one more assumption, though the possibility of Georgie laughing in his face again was clear enough in his mind. “The two of you then? You and, and Melanie, is that it?”

Martin wasn’t faced with laughter this time, though, only a thoughtful humming before Georgie responded.

“...maybe. It’s not official yet, we haven’t really talked about where we stand yet, but... I’m hopeful.”

“Ah, I see! Good for you. I wish you both well.”

“Thanks.” Georgie shot Martin a quick, toothy smile. “But you didn’t come here to talk about me and Melanie, right? You came to talk about Jon. So.” Georgie drummed her fingers on the side of her chair. “Why are you so concerned about who he’s with?”

“I, uh...” Martin’s face heated up again, and he wondered faintly if his face was even redder than his hair was now. “I just... I care about him.”

Georgie raised an eyebrow, and Martin remembered, belatedly, how she had referenced Melanie not caring about Jon earlier. “In what sense of the word?”

Oh, his face was definitely bright red now. “E-every sense?”

“...I see.”

Georgie stood up, and Martin’s pace quickened. Was she about to throw him out, to tell him why he wasn’t good enough for Jon? Because he was well aware of his own flaws and failures already without a lecture on the matter from someone he barely knew...

“I’m glad to hear that. From what he’s said about you, I’m pretty sure Jon cares about you too. So, good luck to the two of you as well.”

Martin didn’t know what to say to that, so he just sat in place silently, one arm gripping the couch’s armrest as if for dear life as his mouth went dry.

“Fancy a cuppa?”

Martin let out a soft, nervous laugh. “Absolutely.”

[bh7theseriesblog]

The Origins of Big Hero 7

Big Hero 7: The Series

Origins

*A flicker of black and white starts up for a while, static noises barely blocks out a voice*

Umm…Hello? Can you hear me?

*the flickering and static stops as it shows a 14 year old girl with dyed blue hair and purple eye contacts*

Can you hear me? Oh it's working!

*The girl sits on the chair in front of the camera. She smooths out her sea green skirt as she clears her throat*

Hi! So…after some thinking I decided to make a video diary so I can remember what I said. After all, who knows when it'll come in handy right? Oh right! I forgot to introduce myself! My name is Cora Mizichio.

*Cora chuckles slightly before continuing*

So I guess I should start with my life and such. Let me warn you though, it's kind of a long and wild story.

*she pulls out a phone and starts showing pictures*

I have lived in San Fransokyo for my whole life with my Dad, Mizuchi and Grandmama, Kaguya. My mom, Akemi passed away when I was a baby.

*image of a blonde hair woman smiled warmly before switching to Cora and her family. Her father being Goliath in stature and her grandmother dressed in a kimono with a cane*

Then my family found out that I'm incredibly intelligent for my age. I suppose hacking into your father's computer to send a birthday card at the age of 4 does that. My Dad is very sweet and an old softie, but is very protective of me and wasn't sure that I should go to school. So I was homeschooled, it was fun being taught by Grandmama and such about Marine biology, but…I felt kind of lonely…

After all my studies, I actually made a habit of bot fighting disguised as an unknown cat-masked competitor under the name 'Nekodomo'. It earned good money since at the time Dad hadn't gotten any luck with jobs due to his height. But it was my very first night of bot fighting that I met him…Hiro Hamada

*she flips the photo to a young Asian boy her age, with messy raven hair, large almond brown eyes and a tooth gap in his smile.*

I've never had very much luck when it came to making or having friends, so if I someone told me that I would end up dating this guy I would had laughed. But yeah we did. I was paired up with Hiro in one of those special bot fighting events like the duo duel. We won, but than the cops were coming and I was so scared of getting caught that I couldn't move. But then the next thing I know Hiro grabs my hand and we were running like crazy before the cops even spot us! I have no idea how long we had been running, but to be honest I didn't really care because I was still awe-struck by the fact that Hiro had save me from getting arrested and we didn't even know each other at the time. But that was all about to change, because as we were finally approaching a safe distance from the cops, it was at that moment where I tripped and fell flat on my face, and at the same time broke my mask. Thankfully Hiro picked me back up and we started running again, with me leaving my broken mask behind. Once we finally stopped and knew we were safe, that was when Hiro and I actually first met face-to-face. Now I have to be honest with you, I've never really known if the whole 'Love at first sight' thing was actually real or not, but it's the only thing I can describe how I felt when I first looked into Hiro's eyes. It was there when we properly introduced ourselves to each other and after that, we started seeing each other more. And it was only after 4 months of hanging out together, that I finally got to meet his family, and he got to meet mine.

*The picture now showed Hiro with a woman holding a calico japanese bobtail cat and a young man on either side of him.*

The woman on his left is his Aunt Cass, she runs a coffee shop called the Lucky Cat Cafe. The young man on his right is his older brother Tadashi. And the adorably cute kitty-cat Aunt Cass is holding is Mochi, their family pet. They are really cool people, and they always asked how I was doing and such, and Mochi is such a sweet kitty that he always tries to cuddle up to me whenever I come over. Hiro and I actually became an official thing one night when I saved his butt from Yama's minions. And boy were they surprised! Aunt Cass actually bounced when Hiro told them that I'm his girlfriend! Dad and Grandmama met them that night too, while dad wasn't too happy at first about me dating, Grandmama convinced him…after hitting him on the head with her cane.

*Cora giggled at the memory*

Anyway, After a slight misadventure where Hiro and Tadashi landed in jail and Cass had to bail them out, Tadashi actually took Hiro to SFIT, San Fransokyo institute of Technology that same night. Hiro told me that he met Tadashi's friends. There's Gogo: the cool biker chick, Honey Lemon: the stylish Chem genius, Wasabi: Laser neat freak, and Fred: the secret Billionaire super hero geek. Afterwards Hiro and I actually applied to SFIT by entering the showcase! Hiro made these miniature robots he called Microbots which he can control via head transmitter, I on the other hand did super strength suction cup shoes that can stick on any surface. We both won and we…were gonna celebrate until…a huge fire broke out in the showcase building and Tadashi ran back inside to help Callaghan, a teacher at the school….he didn't make it…

*Cora turned quiet, looking at her hands as she takes a deep breath*

Hiro wasn't himself for a while. I visited him a lot since the fire, and I mostly talked and tried to comfort and be there for him. Then came the day Hiro stubbed his toe and Baymax came along.

*A picture of a white inflated figure came to the picture*

Baymax was Tadashi's project, a robotic nurse to be more specific. He heard Hiro say ow and activated to help him. Then one of Hiro's microbots started acting weird, and Baymax followed the direction it went! It was then we found a guy in a kabuki mask controlling the Microbots. But they were destroyed at the fire right? Once Hiro pieced together that it was the kabuki-masked man that started the fire to steal them, which in turned killed Tadashi…Hiro decided to build Baymax some armor which…well

*the next picture showed Baymax in protective gear*

We traveled down to the port where we saw him take some type of machine out of the ocean. But then it turns out Baymax called the gang to help us, but sadly the guy in the mask saw us. We barely escaped with our lives that night! Thankfully Baymax being a walking marshmallow, also makes him an inflatable raft too. Afterwards we got to Fred's mansion and discussed over what to do next. Side note: it was weird to see that Fred is a billionaire.

*shows portrait of a young Fred and his parents in classy attire*

Hiro and I then built ourselves armor to fight the guy in the mask. Honey lemon got this cute chemistry purse to pull out what she needed, Gogo got some sick skates to zoom past us, Fred got a killer Kaiju costume that breaths fire, Wasabi got awesome laser blades on the backs of his hands, and I got my aquatic camouflage suit with squid strength suction cup shoes! And learning back from his previous work, Hiro turned Baymax from a stay puff marshmallow with bicycle gear to an awesome superhero!

*the next photo shows Baymax in his red armor*

After training and flying around the city we got down to business. We flew to Akuma island where the masked guy was, and it was there we learned something interesting. Krei and some government officials had something called 'Project Silent Sparrow'. It backfired when the portal sucked everything in, and the pilot was stuck. But then the masked guy attacked us! We tried to fight back but….

*a small clip showed Fred jumping only to be punched away *

We bombed, big time.

Hiro and I got lucky to get the mask…but the person was not who we thought….

Turns out Callaghan grabbed the transmitter and used it and the Microbots to protect himself in the fire…leaving Tadashi to die….

It was then that Hiro took out Baymax's health care chip and ordered him to kill Callaghan…

*Cora took a deep breathe before standing up and leaving the room, she returned back with a glass of water and started drinking it. Once she was done She then continued.*

Thankfully the gang got Baymax back to normal but Hiro was furious. He just left with Baymax…but we eventually met up with Hiro at his place, with a video of Tadashi…it was also when we showed him what we discovered. The pilot was no random person Krei hired. She was Callaghan's daughter, and Callaghan was out for blood.

We got to Krei Tech where Callaghan got his portal running. Hiro then learned what we needed to do to beat him; instead of the mask, we take out the Microbots, then he'd be powerless. But despite that, the portal was still open, and ready to tear itself to pieces. Then Baymax dropped the biggest bomb on us, Callaghan's daughter was still alive in there.

Hiro and I got on Baymax to rescue her. We found her pod but Baymax's thrusters were wrecked from the debris…

Baymax…he got us out by rocket punch…but stayed behind in the portal…

It's been weeks since then…

Krei agreed to keep our identities a secret, Callaghan is in prison, and his daughter is making a steady recovery at the hospital. And the news had been exploding over 'the mysterious group of heroes' that saved the city.

Hiro and I had been doing good, we talked to the gang a lot and we actually reapplied to SFIT again.

*Cora then looks at the clock beside her and gasped*

Oh man it's almost midnight! And first day of class is tomorrow! Anyway, thank you for listening! And…Baymax…I don't know if you can hear me..but Hiro has been doing good. We all miss you…especially me and Hiro...wish us good luck, cause who knows what happens tomorrow.

*Cora smiles at the camera before turning it off.*

A.N: This is an updated look for the prolouge chapter of Big Hero 7: The Series!

Liking the new visuals? ;3

This chapter has been edited by WolfWitchHuntress1318 at Fanfiction.net! Thank you for being my patient editor! Thank you for following and reading Big Hero 7! Love ya!

[scarabbai]

Dire Crowley is a man hard at work, one who wholeheartedly loves his school and every drop of sweat he’s shed while building, repairing, and maintaining its foundation. The scratch of his quill against parchment, the delicate yet deliberate lines of ink elegantly marking his documents, the low and thoughtful hum in his throat as he taps his claws against the table, all of it demonstrates his complete and utter concentration. New students, returning ones, management, fees, staff—he must keep track of it all, organizing existing assets and ordering whatever will be needed for the coming school year. With his mountain of tasks, he scarcely has the time to do anything, even things as simple as enjoying his afternoon tea! Ah, a true tragedy, but he mustn’t stop toiling away. Night Raven College is his pride and joy, and his continual efforts to care for it shall not cease even for a moment. He is kind, after all.

A knock at the door causes him to pause his writing, his quill suspended in midair as he stills. The wood remains unmoved as a ghost—Sir Mallow, one of his secretaries—phases his head through it. They blink at each other for a moment before the spectre clears his throat.

“Mister Crowley, sir?” Mallow brings the rest of his body inside, drifting into the room and hovering before Dire’s desk. “There’s someone here to see you.”

“A visitor? Asking for a meeting now?”

Dire brings a hand to his chin in consideration.

He doesn’t exactly enjoy being disturbed, especially when focused on such an arduous task, and this is rather sudden and unannounced. An excuse to chat or even stretch his legs a bit would be incredibly nice right about now, but he doesn’t have anything currently at the ready to entertain guests. Additionally, putting something together last minute would be a big hassle and not worth the trouble. Oh, unscheduled visits are such a headache to deal with even if they offer a much desired break from paperwork! It’s unfortunate, but he’ll have to decline.

“As much as I’d like to...” Dire heaves a dramatic, over-the-top sigh. “I’m rather busy at the moment. Could you please tell them to come at a later time?”

Sir Mallow wrings his hands—a habit much of the staff frequently point out—and frowns deeply. “That’s the thing, sir... He’s not taking no for an answer.”

“Hm?” Dire raises an eyebrow. “Who is?”

“One Mister Viper, sir.”

He snaps to attention at once, leaning forward in his chair. “Viper? As in, that Viper?”

Surely it couldn’t be that Mister Viper, meaning the famed noble of the Land of Hot Sands, with great power and even greater riches to his name? Of a family said to be the desendants of one of the Great Seven, the Sorcerer of the Desert himself? The man who recently graced the school with his presence, entering his office covered from head to toe in sparkling gold?

Just a couple weeks ago, Dire met with him to praise the flawless and outstanding performance his son—a quiet, brooding boy who spoke only once and glared viciously throughout the entire meeting—displayed during his entrance examinations. He congratulated him with utmost enthusiasm over his son’s acceptance to the school, expressing his overwhelming joy that the prestigious Viper family would even consider Night Raven College. Insisting the very institution was humbled by the Vipers’ presence, he quietly assured Mister Viper that his son would have been guaranteed a place at Night Raven even if he hadn’t passed. He would do anything to please the head of such an important family, after all.

Now, however, Dire is beginning to doubt the effectiveness of his previous displays of hospitality. Could it be that he upset the Vipers somehow? That would be disastrous! With their reputation and resources, they could easily destroy his school in just a few carefully planned moves. Surely that isn’t the case? Surely it is a mere misunderstanding, and Mister Viper isn’t the one knocking at his door?

Alas... “I believe so, Mister Crowley.”

Dread, cold and deep, crawls inside Dire’s chest. Despite this, he quickly wipes any apprehension from his features, turning his distressed frown into a warm, welcoming smile. After all, a good host never shows disdain in front of guests. Opening his arms with a cheerful and hearty laugh, he exclaims, “Well, why didn’t you say so! Please, let him in at once. We are kind, so we mustn’t keep our guest of honor waiting.”

Sir Mallow bows. “Yes, Crowley sir. Right away.”

The moment the ghost leaves the room, Dire leaps into action.

With a flick of his hand, magic surges outward. Stacks of both finished and unfinished paperwork burst into a flutter and begin to file themselves, sheet by sheet, away inside cabinets. Feather dusters spring to life and clean each and every exposed surface with mighty fervor. His work space rearranges itself, morphing from an office desk to an ornate tea table and placing down comfortable chairs. As he pulls his best tin of tea leaves out of a drawer, the table sets itself with his finest china and polished silverware. He rings the school chef for some refreshments to be prepared as quickly as possible before putting the kettle on and sitting down.

By the time Sir Mallow returns and knocks to announce the arrival of his guest, Dire is already pouring tea into his cup. “Do come in!” he chimes, his expression the epitome of cheer as the door creaks open.

He tries very hard not to go slack jawed in shock when it is not Mister Viper who enters his office—it is Mister Viper’s son!

Such an unexpected turn of events! Dire barely contains his sheer surprise and relief as he motions for the young Viper to take a seat, pouring tea for the young man.

The Viper heir—Jamil, he recalls his name was—carries himself with immense grace and poise as he sits across from him, as expected for someone of his social standing. Dire notes he’s looking much more composed and confident than the last time he saw him, his expression borderlining smug. How odd.

Nevertheless, he smiles brightly. “What a pleasure it is to see you again so soon, young Viper! You gave me quite the surprise, showing up unannounced the way you did. You must be tired from your trip here! Please, do have something to eat.” Dire gestures to the desserts lain out on the table, looking on with a pleased expression as the young man plucks a chocolate truffle from one of the trays. He waits for him to finish snacking on the sweet before continuing, “I must ask, are you here on behalf of your father? As I’m sure you remember, I met with him not long ago! He is a very outstanding and brilliant man, and he has many connections as well, correct? Ah, truly remarkable! Absolutely incredible! You know, I actually heard just last week he–”

“I’m not here to run my father’s errands,” Jamil states rather sharply. “I came here on my own. For my own reasons.”

“Oh!” Dire hadn’t even noticed the boy’s expression souring as he blathered on. Perhaps he hit a nerve. “I see,” he backtracks, toning down his enthusiasm. “Then what has brought you here today, young Viper?”

“I want to make a deal with you.”

“Hm?” Intriguing, but unrealistic. “With all due respect to your title, young Jamil, I don’t think it’s possible for me to–”

Out of thin air, the Viper heir materializes a glittering gold coin in his hand, holding it in front of Dire’s face. It gleams and glows like the sun even in the mediocre lighting of his office, and his eyes can’t help but follow its shiny surface as the coin sways back and forth. Crows adore sparkling trinkets after all, and Dire is no exception. Even as the gold piece is placed on the table, he remains greedily focused on it.

Just as he considers snatching it up for himself, the young man strikes, and the prize disappears back into his hand. He then tauntingly rolls the coin across his knuckles, showing off some sleight of hand and causing three more to appear before all four golden pieces vanish once more.

“Actually,” Jamil’s voice drips with arrogance as he nonchalantly examines his nails, “I think it is possible, Mister Crowley.”

Curse his feathers for being weak to such treasures! His inner crow can never resist such a dazzling gleam, and there might even be greater riches in waiting.

He must, at the very least, hear the offer.

Despite his immense irritation upon seeing the boy’s conceited smirk, Dire folds his hands and remains outwardly civil. “I’m listening.”

The Viper’s victorious grin turns downright egotistical as he sets down seven positively radiant golden discs between them. Pushing the coins toward Dire, he states his order:

“Fetch two files for me. I need records changed, information altered, and details fabricated. I’ll give you a basic story. Make it believable, and forge the evidence to back it up if need be.”

“And,” he silences the complaints on the tip of Dire’s tongue with a raised hand, “I want you to make it untraceable. No proof, no messiness. Like everything’s always been that way.”

The allure of the gold is tempting, but even Dire eyes the little snake and his offerings with suspicion. Such a sudden and specific request, and with so much to it as well! How troublesome. His lips curved downward in the smallest of frowns, he counters, “Now, young Jamil... What, pray tell, gives you the idea that I am capable of doing such things? I am merely the headmaster of a school, you know.”

The boy has the gall to laugh in his face.

With dramatic flourish, Jamil opens his hand to reveal a crisp slip of paper. Holding it up between his fingers, he waves it around in a mocking manner before placing it face down and sliding it across the table.

“See if this will change your mind.”

When Dire picks it up, his eyes nearly pop out of their sockets in shock, and his head spins with the number of zeroes staring him in the face.

Jamil, on the other hand, doesn’t even bat an eyelash as Crowley fusses over the cheque. Instead, he takes a moment to preen and bask in the glory of his success before growing bored, rolling his eyes, and snapping his fingers to get the attention back on him.

“You may be downplaying your talents in an attempt to worm your way out of this, but I know the truth.” He points a finger directly at the headmaster’s face. “You’re a powerful man, Mister Crowley. I’m sure you can figure it out and get the job done.”

The man—fae?—changes his tune quick as he pockets the bribes, becoming pleasant and cheerful once more. “Young Jamil, I will fulfill your request!” he declares in a booming voice. Then, in a much quieter one, he adds, “I shall listen, for I am kind.”

Jamil’s lips curl into a devious smile. Perfect.

“That’s what I thought.” He leans back in his chair. “Now, here’s what I have in mind...”

[falseroar]

Dog Days Part 21: Coffee with a Dash of Honesty

((Abe and Marvin meet for the first time and have a talk over some coffee.

Here are links to the series list and to Part 20: Making Plans.))

Abe showed up to the coffee shop fifteen minutes early the next day. He always liked to be the first one on the scene, get the lay of the land, that sort of thing. Even if said scene was a coffee shop that he had been to more times in the last week or two than he’d care to admit.

Not that it did him much good.

Carla spotted the hunter on his way to the counter and shook her head. “Don’t worry, I’ll bring your drinks over in a second. Marvin’s already paid.”

“What?” Abe followed her gesture and saw a man sitting in the corner booth that Abe normally staked out when he was here raise a hand and give a half-wave in his direction. Carla smiled at him, and Abe tried not to sound too accusing when he walked up to the booth and said, “You’re here early.”

Marvin shrugged and said, “Just happened to work out that way. Go ahead, take a seat.”

Just happened to work out that way, in that Chase and Jameson had made sure to bundle you into the car and drive off so that Marvin and Jackie had plenty of time to get here in advance. While Marvin had checked out the inside and everyone in it before chatting up the barista, Jackie was outside keeping watch across the street, ready to come in at the first sign of trouble.

Abe reluctantly slid into the open side of the booth, which left his back toward the counter and the front door, along with everyone else in the place. Definitely not the seat he would have chosen, if given the chance.

Marvin the Magnificent was a lean looking guy, with long brown hair streaked with green tied back into a messy ponytail, and had a pair of sunglasses obscuring his eyes despite the fact they were inside. He wore a well-tailored suit, but the green and blue of it made him look more like a stage magician than anything, and flashy jewelry hung around his neck, wrists, and one ear that Abe could see.

Flashy jewelry with charms worked in, judging by the sigils on the magician’s bracelets and the carved stone that was easy to miss next to the bright chain it was on. Most of them weren’t signs that Abe recognized, but a few of them looked very similar to the protection wards he kept on slips in his coat.

While Abe studied the magician, Marvin was taking his opportunity to look the hunter up and down. Abe had made the effort to at least look unarmed, with the smaller leather jacket and most of his regular equipment split between his office and the car, but with a push Marvin could sense the wards the hunter had on him. The standard stuff most hunters carried, although there was always the chance that he had other protections Marvin wouldn’t be able to sense until it was too late. And it wasn’t like he couldn’t see the gun holster from this side of the table.

“Here you go,” Carla said, appearing at the table with a cup of coffee for Abe and a fancy-looking latte for the magician. She hesitated and then said, “You two let me know if you need anything, okay?”

Abe nodded and Marvin purred, “Of course. Thank you very much, Carla.”

Carla suppressed a smile, or maybe it was a laugh at Abe’s expression as she walked away.

“Have you been here before?” Abe asked as he pulled his coffee close. Fortunately, it didn’t smell like Carla had added anything to it. Unlike that thing that could barely be called coffee that the magician studied with appreciation before answering.

“No, can’t say that I have. I just had some time to kill, and Carla was very interested to learn that I was waiting for you.” Marvin took his time sipping his drink, his eyes watching the hunter behind his shades before he said, “She had a lot to say about you.”

“She did?” Abe sounded genuinely surprised by that.

Which to be fair, Carla had actually spent most of the time grilling Marvin. It was a nice, polite conversation, which made it all the harder to dodge her questions and stick to the story that this was about a potential business deal. Not that she seemed to believe that, judging by the look the barista was giving their table now from the counter.

Still, the fact she seemed that protective of a customer said a lot on its own. Just not anything that helped Marvin, which is why he drummed his fingers on the table as though thinking, the gesture setting off the spell he had attached to the underside of the tabletop just as Abe walked in.

“You said you’re a hunter. How long have you been doing that?” Marvin asked.

Abe hesitated before saying, “A long time. Too long, really, but there’s something I need to finish before I hang up my hat.”

He caught himself before he said more, but his conversation with Carla from the other night was still fresh on his mind. What would he do, once he finally caught Wilford? The idea was tempting to consider, but after the disco tip fell through, he couldn’t find the heart to really consider it.

For a moment, he felt his age, the long years of hunting combined with the hopelessness of never finishing the one thing he set out to do after the party. After he lost his last partner. Then Marvin spoke again, snapping him out of those thoughts for a moment at least.

“You’re hunting something right now. That what you need help with?”

“Someone,” Abe corrected before he could stop himself. “But it’d be easy to mistake him for a monster.”

Marvin leaned forward, resting a chin on his fist. Interesting, but he tried not to sound too much like he cared as he said, “Sounds personal. You been at this for a while?”

“Yeah, it’s personal.” A series of emotions went over Abe’s face before he settled back into his usual expression of barely restrained anger. “But I don’t want to go into it if this isn’t going to go anywhere. You said you’re selective about clients—what would it take for me to prove you can trust me?”

“A lot,” Marvin said, putting too much emphasis on the words. “It’s…not impossible, but I have less than no reason to trust you with my magic, hunter.”

“You think highly of yourself,” Abe said, freezing in the action of taking a sip of coffee when he realized he just said that out loud. Where did that come from? Wasn’t the plan to schmooze up this magician long enough to see if he could help?

“Always act confident. Half of magic is getting them to believe it will work, the other half—” Marvin stopped himself, and Abe could see his face flush as he coughed and continued. “Something my old master used to say. But I know what magic can do, if it’s used incorrectly or frivolously by people who don’t understand what they’re working with. I’ve seen what can happen to those who overestimate their abilities, who dig where they’re not meant to be. And I like to know what my magic is going to be used for, which is why I do not appreciate the fact that someone handed off one of my potions to you without my knowledge. Care to explain?”

“I—” Abe stopped himself before he could let it slip that he bought it from Edgar, but when he started to speak again it almost slipped out. “I bought—what is going on?!”

“Truth spell,” Marvin answered without hesitation. “Just over this booth. If it makes you feel any better, it’s affecting me as well.”

“You could have told me,” Abe said, his face reddening, but the magician shrugged.

“I thought you might let something slip before you put your guard up. I know you called me yesterday just to set up this little meeting, and I don’t know what I can believe of anything you have to say to me.” Marvin sat back in his chair, his eyes meeting the hunter’s even through his shades. “Give me a reason to trust you, hunter. Give me a reason to believe anything I do to help you won’t just be turned around to hurt my friends or put more innocent people in the way of the Institute.”

“The Institute? I don’t care about them, I don’t work for or with them,” Abe said, feeling his anger rising with every word. “If I was one of them, do you think I’d be sitting here talking to someone who clearly isn’t human?”

Marvin’s eyebrows went up, and he sounded impressed when he said, “You noticed?”

“I—” It wasn’t even something Abe had consciously noticed, but now that he had said it out loud, he knew it was right. “There’s something off about you, yeah. Let me guess, your glasses have some kind of charm or something on them?”

Marvin smirked. “Rude, but correct. Or half right, anyways.”

The magician checked to make sure no one was looking before he pulled the sunglasses down. For a moment, his eyes seemed catlike with slitted pupils, his whole face pointed and with strange, angular features that were marred by…Abe frowned, a vague sense of a scar or something like it disappearing from his mind as soon as Marvin put the shades back on.

“I blame the glasses. My mask has a much better concealing spell on it, along with a few other tricks,” Marvin said. “But you wear a cat mask around town and people start making assumptions.”

“That you’re a furry?”

“…I was going to say in a cult.”

Not a denial then, but Abe was still trying to process the features he had seen. It took him a moment, because he wasn’t used to dealing with those people, but eventually the word came to mind.

“Fae.”

“Half,” Marvin answered. “Other half’s human, which believe me, is a combination that is guaranteed to tick everyone off no matter what realm you’re in. Ah, where do you think you’re going?”

He said this as Abe had already half-risen from his seat, his face pale. He had almost entered into a deal with one of the Fair Folk. Half or not, everyone knew that no one in their right mind would do something so stupid and dangerous.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all.”

Marvin smirked. “So much for not caring about who’s human or not, huh? That saves me some time, if whatever you’re after isn’t that important.”

Abe hesitated and sank back into his seat. “What kind of deals are you making with people?”

“The kind that usually involve the exchange of goods for money,” Marvin answered. “What? Groceries aren’t cheap, you know.”

“And what happens to someone who breaks your deal?” Abe asked.

“You mean like the client who handed off your potion?” Marvin asked. He tapped at the table, pretending to muse aloud as he said, “Well, I have been told our yard could use a new scarecrow…”

He shrugged and added, “Or I could just hire a cat to stare at him for a couple of weeks until he breaks and confesses what he did. That could be funny, too.”

“Hire a cat?”

“You’d be surprised what they’re willing to do for the right price,” Marvin answered. “Or if it’s funny enough. They don’t generally care about the reason for doing something, which brings us back to my point.”

“And what’s that supposed to be?”

“Why are you here, hunter? What are you after?”

“I told you, I’m looking for someone. I thought maybe you could help me, but maybe I was wrong,” Abe answered.

“Maybe you were. I don’t make it my business to help hunters, no matter who or what they claim to be hunting. I’ve found your kind can be the sort to jump to conclusions,” Marvin said, tapping on his sunglasses. “Why should I believe you’re any different?”

“There’s no jumping to conclusions here, this guy is as far from being ‘innocent’ as you can get! As for a reason to trust someone, why the hell should I trust you? Who uses a truth spell on someone without telling them or—”

“Everything okay over here?” Carla said with a tone that suggested everything had better be okay, and quick. Behind her, Marvin could see the few other patrons in the place looking their way, and with a flush of embarrassment he realized he probably should have taken the time for a spell that would have given them some privacy, or at least kept their voices from carrying.

“No,” Abe and Marvin said in unison, both internally cursing the spell on the table.

Marvin cleared his throat and said, “Sorry, we’re having a few issues trying to work something out. Abe wants my assistance trying to find someone, and I—”

He stopped himself with an effort, and Abe raised an eyebrow, but Carla’s expression changed.

“You can find people? Like using something they’ve owned?”

“…Yes?” Marvin answered, looking from her to Abe, who seemed just as clueless until he gave a soft, “Oh,” as Carla walked to the counter and returned with a long staff made of what looked like dark, twisted driftwood.

“This belongs to someone who comes around here sometimes,” Carla explained. “The other day, a man and his dog brought it in, and said it looked like he had been…That something bad happened.”

“The Host?” Marvin asked as it suddenly clicked. This was the place Chase had mentioned? How could he forget to mention that?

“How did you know that?” Abe asked suspiciously.

“I…” Marvin sighed. “I know the guy who found it. He asked me to look into it, but—but other things came up yesterday and I kind of forgot all about it.”

Sadly, true. You returning to normal had driven all thought of this missing Host from Marvin and the others’ mind, beyond Abe’s possible connection to it.

Abe paused. This would give him a chance to see what the guy could do, and it seemed to mean a lot to Carla. A thought he didn’t mean to actually say out loud, but thanks to the influence of the truth spell the words spilled out before he could stop himself.

“Would you?” Carla asked. “I’m sorry, I know this is a lot to spring on someone out of nowhere, but I’m worried about him. I don’t know if he has anyone else around to look out for him.”

“…I can try,” Marvin said, taking the staff and laying it on the table. It was so long that it hung off of one end, and he had to push what remained of his drink out of the way so that he could focus his whole attention on it. “It’s harder when I haven’t met the person, but having something that’s close to them helps, especially something like this that he probably carried around every day.”

He spoke out of reflex as he placed his hands on the driftwood, his eyes drifting to almost shut as he attempted to fix the owner in his mind.

“Wards and spells can protect someone from detection, but I have a lot of experience with…”

Marvin trailed off. There was an image of the owner of this staff in his mind, the essence of him, but when he reached out there was no sense of him anywhere. Not even the sense that he was dead, just…nothing.

Like when he used to look for you.

He had just enough time for that thought to cross his mind before the Host’s presence was suddenly there. Like someone had noticed he was looking and decided to let him through, but only after making it clear they were letting him know where the Host was.

Marvin opened his eyes and realized that both Carla and Abe were staring at him with something close to concern. He tried to speak, swallowed, and managed to say, “Your friend’s, uh, the downtown Institute complex.”

“That’s where they keep their holding cells,” Abe said. “They have some more outside the city, supposedly for monsters too big or dangerous to keep in the walls, but the one downtown is basically a prison for permit violations and stuff like that.”

“So he’s maybe just in trouble for not having a permit?” Carla asked, and Abe and Marvin both shared a look at the hopeful optimism in her voice.  

“There’s a chance of that, yeah,” Marvin said. A slim chance was still a chance.

“I know some people I can ask about recent intakes,” Abe said. Just because he asked didn’t mean he would actually get a real answer.

Carla smiled and offered to refill their drinks, which Marvin and Abe both reluctantly agreed to. The moment she was out of earshot, Abe muttered, “Your truth spell sucks.”

“Definitely could use some work,” Marvin agreed. “What do you know about this Host guy?”

Abe shrugged. “I only met him once, outside of this place. He warned me that I was being followed, and somehow managed to make me forget about it until I ‘needed to remember it’, which was apparently one morning when my stalker was a little too close. I tried to find him again because I thought he knew more about whoever was following me, only for the guy to go missing before I could get to him.”

“So you didn’t have anything to do with him getting captured?”

Abe frowned, thinking the magician didn’t have to sound that surprised. “Look, just because I’m a hunter doesn’t mean I go around hounding out people for the Institute to play with. Like you, I try to pick my clients, you know?”

Of course, Google popped up in Abe’s mind and he blurted out, “Not that I’ve been doing a great job of that lately.”

There it was. Marvin’s suspicions about Abe’s involvement with the Host were off, but he thought he knew where to go with this one.

“Found out you couldn’t trust someone, huh?” Marvin asked. “I know the feeling.”

“Yeah, one of your guys is reselling your product,” Abe said. “Meanwhile, I worked with someone who was obviously sketchy just because he seemed to know something about the guy I was looking for. Instead, he feeds me information too late to do anything with it, in exchange for—for trying to dig up something on someone who as far as I can tell wasn’t even doing anything wrong.”

“Wait, someone hired you to watch the doctor?” Marvin asked, the words slipping out before he could stop himself.

Abe stared at him, and they had a moment to both sit on what just happened when Carla returned with a new cup for Marvin and a pitcher of coffee that she used to refill Abe’s drink. They both awkwardly thanked her, not helped when she commented that they seemed to be getting along a little better now.

Wanting to keep that charade up a little longer after she left, Abe settled for lowering his voice as he leaned forward and asked, “How the hell do you know about that?”

Marvin hesitated, choosing his words carefully before he answered, “Dr. Schneeplestein is a friend of mine. He’s also not an idiot, and knows when someone’s been watching him if not why.”

Abe considered him for a long moment. The truth spell meant he was being honest, and if Abe could undo a little of whatever harm might come of working for Google and his client, then…

“Someone hired a magitek unit to get me to look into him and the people around him. They framed it like he was doing something illegal, but I think they just wanted proof that he was connected to a kid calling himself Chase Brody.”

“Chase?” Marvin’s surprise gave away that he knew who Abe was talking about, as well as his silence as he tried to work that one out. He knew about the Bronsons, of course, but hiring Abe for that seemed…off, even if Marvin couldn’t place his finger on exactly why. “Wait, so when you used my potion—”

“It was to follow the doctor home, see where he was living. I didn’t get all the way there, I was distracted by the whole being followed by someone thing, but I needed it because the doctor had…some serious…protections…” Abe trailed off before his hand went to his face and he sighed so hard he thought he might never stop. “It was your magic keeping him untraceable, wasn’t it?”

Marvin grabbed Abe’s hand and pulled it away from his face as he asked, “You didn’t lead them to the house, did you? You stopped before you got there?”

“Y-yes, I did,” Abe said, and the magician released him and slowly sank back into his seat. “What’s going on, who are you so afraid of?”

“…I’m not sure. I just know that twice now, in as many weeks, someone has tried to break through my defenses,” Marvin answered. “Using you and my own magic to get around them could have been…very bad for my friends.”

“What?” Abe felt a pit open in his stomach as he realized. The Host’s warning, it was the only thing that stopped him from following the doctor all the way home. From showing whoever was following him how to get there. They weren’t interested in him, they were interested in… “Wait, why is someone so interested in this doctor? Or in Chase, even if he is a Bronson? There has to be easier ways of getting to them than using me.”

Marvin didn’t answer. He didn’t trust himself, not with this spell in place. But if you had changed back after seeing Abe, there was every reason to believe you would have left the house if he had showed up there, or recognized you on one of Jameson and Chase’s attempts at a walk. Enough of a lure to get you out and that much easier of a target.

Abe waited, but got the sense that the magician wasn’t willing to talk about what he suspected. Fair enough, but he needed to do something to gain the magician’s trust and help.

“I’ve been trying to figure out who would have access to that kind of magitek,” Abe said. “That thing can almost pass for human, and apparently the lab that made Google came out with four of them before they were bought out by the Institute. One stayed with the lab and I ran into one over at the hospital.”

“And one went to whoever hired you,” Marvin finished. “Don’t suppose he ever told you who he was working for?”

Abe reluctantly had to admit that no, he hadn’t, and felt a spike of annoyance at the magician’s knowing reaction. He just didn’t know if he was angrier at Marvin or himself.

Marvin scoffed. “You ask me why I’m so particular about my clients, and here you are selling yourself to someone you don’t even know to harass an innocent doctor and his friends. How much was he paying you again?”

“It wasn’t about the money,” Abe said, and when Marvin had the nerve to look doubtful the hunter leaned forward, pushing his coffee cup out of the way so that there was as little distance as possible between him and the magician when he spoke. “He offered me information on how to find the man who killed my partner, someone that I—someone that I should have been there for, but wasn’t. Be careful what you say next, magician.”

“…What was your partner’s name?” Marvin asked.

“…Y/N.”

Marvin was glad for the shades covering his eyes, because he didn’t think his mask would have helped as much in trying not to react as he said, “Y/N. You…do you want to talk about—”

“No.” Abe paused, struggling for a moment against the truth spell before he said, “It…I don’t…Have you ever lost someone? Someone you—cared about?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Then you know…what it’s like, to have them there one second, and gone the next. If you knew someone had taken them away from you, and you could have done something to stop it, what would you do? What would you do, to find their killer?”

“…Did this Google give you anything? Anything to find them?”

Abe shook his head. “No, I mean—nothing I can do anything with. First he sent me to—to the place where it happened, and someone had been there, but I don’t…”

To Marvin’s surprise, the hunter pulled a notebook out of his pocket and flipped it open before turning it so that he could see the badly copied magic signs there.

“Do you know what this is?” Abe asked. “Why someone would write this on the floor, surrounded by a circle of candles?”

“Uh, well that—You really shouldn’t copy down magic writing you don’t understand,” Marvin said, struggling for an answer that would satisfy the hunter without giving away too much under the truth spell. “But, uh, that sigil would be used in things like summoning or—or that one is used for breaking spells or bindings, which you wouldn’t normally see together unless someone was combining multiple components together in a new arrangement.”

“So you couldn’t guess what it would be used for?” Abe asked.

“Not based on just what you have here,” Marvin answered, feeling the sweat break out on the back of his neck. Desperate to change the subject, he asked, “Anything else? At the—at the place where it happened, or…or somewhere else?”

Abe sighed. “That’s where I need your help. Google gave me an address, but Wilford had already left. I found a bullet he left behind and, it’s a long story, but I know that it’s one he’s had on him for a long time, ever since…”

Abe reached into his pocket and placed a single used silver bullet on the table, but Marvin’s ears were already buzzing and he thought the coffee shop might be spinning in the background.

“Wilford? As in Wilford Warfstache? That’s who you’re looking for?”

“…Yes?” Abe stared at Marvin. “Please don’t tell me you’re friends with him, too.”

“Wilford is the one who killed Y/N—but that…what?!”

“Back when I knew him, he was calling himself the Colonel, but he’s gone through a lot of names since then,” Abe said slowly, still trying to understand the magician’s reaction. “What the hell do you know about him?”

“That we need to go, now,” Marvin said, standing and then pulling the hunter up onto his feet. “Did you bring your car here?”

“Yes, but what—”

“Good, we can get there faster then.” Marvin pulled his phone and his wallet out at the same time, pressing a contact that was already up and ready on the phone’s screen while he threw some cash onto the table to pay for the drinks. “Jackie, meet me outside, now.”

Abe shrugged at Carla’s questioning stare as he followed the magician outside, only to stop short when a man dressed in jeans and a red hoodie appeared out of seemingly nowhere in between him and Marvin.

“Stand down, Jackie,” Marvin said. “Abe, which of these cars is yours?”

Jackie looked from Marvin to Abe and back again as he asked, “Wait, what’s going on?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out!” Abe said. “And who are you?!”

“Introduce yourselves in the car!” Marvin snapped. “Wilford is the Colonel, and he might be at the TV studio right now! Do either of you really need to know more than that?”

Abe wavered for a moment, but then his keys were out and the three of them were bundling into his car. He could ask questions and drive at the same time, after all.

((End of Part 21. Thanks for reading!

And here’s a link to Part 22: Very Important Person.

Tagging: @silver-owl413 @skyewardlight @withjust-a-bite @blackaquokat @catgirlwarrior @neverisadork @luna1350 @oh-so-creepy @weirdfoxalley @95fangirl @lilalovesinternet-l @thepoolofthedead @a-bit-dapper @randomartdudette @geekymushroom @cactipresident @hotcocoachia @purple-anxiety-blog @shyinspiredartist @avispate @missksketch @autumnrambles @authorracheljoy @liafoxyfox ))

[melanielocke]

The infirmary

I wrote a scene about Alastair visiting Charles in the infirmary (the second time), which was part of a fanfic of several chapters, but the whole thing was a bit messy and everything is in the wrong order on AO3 so chronologically this is the first, and can be ready seperately from the rest. (Chronological order of the chapters would be 4-2-1-3, but it doesn’t really matter in which order it’s read). Alastair and Charles do not yet know about Grace’s power here. 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31458650/chapters/79662967#workskin

‘I wasn’t sure you’d come back,’ Charles said.

In truth, Alastair hadn’t been sure either. It was the second time he’d gone to the infirmary to visit his former lover, this time less hesitant. He was still a bit upset about the way Matthew had guilt tripped him into seeing Charles. But he guessed he also owed him this. At least talking to Charles now would give him some closure. Perhaps then he wouldn’t feel so nauseous every time he even saw him.

‘I wasn’t either,’ Alastair said. ‘But I think we should talk.’

‘Surely you got some of my letters during the past months,’ Charles said, sitting up on the infirmary bed.

Alastair had rarely seen him so vulnerable. Even when they had been in bed together, Charles had always been in control, his composure intact. Now he looked terrible, his face a grayish pale color and his hair in disarray.

‘I burnt them,’ Alastair said evenly.

‘All of them?’ Charles asked. ‘Well, you always had a flair for the dramatic.’

Alastair didn’t respond to that. ‘I heard your fiancée left you.’

Charles sighed and he showed emotion as he rarely did. Like Alastair he was a guarded person. But where Alastair had opened up when they were together, had given his lover everything, Charles had remained guarded even as they were together, showing just enough to assure him he loved Alastair, to convince him to stay. If Cordelia had not confronted him with how cruel Charles was to him, he might have stayed too.

‘Terrible business,’ Charles said. ‘Leaving Ariadne for her did not exactly make me popular.’

‘I can’t imagine why leaving your unconscious fiancée for another was an unpopular decision,’ Alastair said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

‘The odd thing is, I don’t even remember why I did it,’ Charles said. ‘Politically, Ariadne had much more to offer me. Her father is the Inquisitor after all. Grace’ mother is a prisoner.’

‘A prisoner who recently escaped the Adamant Citadel,’ Alastair added. ‘As for miss Blackthorn, according to the letter my sister sent me, she left you for James Herondale.’

Alastair had considered murdering James Herondale for betraying his sister like that. He’d seen James loved Grace Blackthorn, of course, had assumed James would never love his sister like she loved him. But when they’d gotten married, Alastair had thought he’d changed his mind. He’d believed James did love his sister and they could be happy together. How long had he been deceiving her?

‘I’m sorry for your sister, Alastair,’ Charles said. ‘Last I heard, she ran off to Paris with my brother.’

Alastair sighed. ‘I wish she would have come home after finding out about miss Blackthorn instead of going to Matthew. I have been arranging for my father’s funeral all by myself.’

Alastair needed her. How could she have left, now of all times, with their father dead and their mother about to give birth? He had no one to talk to with his mother sick and no friends at all. He was speaking with Charles, of course, but he was not the person to talk about his feelings with. He had, in the past, which usually resulted in Charles telling him he shouldn’t be so sensitive. It wasn’t exactly masculine to cry, after all, and image was everything to Charles. Anger was far more acceptable, and although Alastair had his mother’s temper, anger was exhausting and lately Alastair was often just too tired to feel the anger he’d once felt.

‘If you want, I could write to the head of the Paris institute to look for them, keep them out of trouble or even send them home.’

‘Last I heard, the head of the Paris institute is out for your blood,’ Alastair said drily. ‘You really messed up in Paris, I’d surprised if they’d even let you into the city.’

‘I’ve heard people say you were cruel, but you were never cruel to me before,’ Charles said softly, showing a bit of vulnerability.

Alastair knew it was purposeful, an attempt to inspire pity in him. But it wasn’t cruel to confront Charles with his mistakes, was it? Arrogant and ambitious as he was, Alastair genuinely did not think Charles would make a good consul anymore.

‘Cruel?’ Alastair asked, raising his voice a little. ‘This is not cruelty, Charles. Becoming engaged while you were still with me and I was clearly uncomfortable with it, that was cruel. Leaving Ariadne while she was unconscious was cruel. You have been nothing but cruel to me while we were together.’

‘I never wanted to hurt you,’ Charles said.

‘Perhaps not, but you didn’t care either,’ Alastair. ‘You didn’t listen to me when I said you were hurting me. You assumed I’d change my mind and realize you were right eventually. That’s your problem, Charles, you only ever care about what you want, and you convince yourself that others around you want the same thing. And you do not listen to a single thing that tells you otherwise.’

Charles looked stunned, and Alastair felt a bit better, getting this off his chest. He’d spent much time thinking of Charles, and what had gone wrong. He’d blamed himself at times, as he always did. He should never have started a relationship with Charles, should never have let a much older man convince him that being hidden away like that was love. But Charles was at fault too, for taking advantage of him, for demanding Alastair’s time, his love and affection, and giving nothing back. He still felt nauseous whenever he thought of Charles touching him, couldn’t imagine why he’d ever allowed that.

‘I am not engaged anymore,’ Charles said. ‘So that is no longer a problem.’

Alastair hesitated. Did Charles mean what he said? He wasn’t engaged, that was true, but why would he assume Charles would do anything but find a new fiancée as soon as possible? He couldn’t have the world thinking he was unable to find and keep a wife, after all. He had to keep up appearances.

‘I still care for you Alastair.’ Charles paused for the slightest moment. ‘I missed you.’

He seemed so vulnerable in that moment, and it almost made Alastair want to give in, to go back to what he knew. The love he’d once felt for Charles resurfaced. But it had turned bitter too.

‘Is that why you wouldn’t leave me alone?’ Alastair asked. ‘If you’d really cared for me, you would have left me alone when I asked you. Instead you insulted me when I asked you to leave me alone, and you insulted my sister when she stood up for me. What did you think would happen?’

Alastair had never been fond of parties, he only had Cordelia and his mother to speak to and they both had their own group of friends they wanted to spend time with. Most of the time, he only attended because he had no choice but to at least show his face. But lately, going to parties not only meant being awkward and alone, but also trying his best to avoid Charles who just wouldn’t leave him alone.

‘I wasn’t thinking,’ Charles said. ‘I was lonely and I had just realized I’d made a terrible mistake in Paris and I needed you. Can’t you give me another chance? I won’t get engaged again, I promise.’

Alastair sighed. Charles had made many such promises when they’d been in Paris together. He’d broken all of them. He had no reason to believe Charles was genuine this time.

‘I nearly died,’ Charles added. ‘And all I could think about was you. How I wanted you to come back. Apparently I called out for you, although at the time I wasn’t exactly conscious and had no clue what I was doing.’

‘Yes, thanks for that,’ Alastair said. ‘Despite all your efforts to conceal who you really are, you might just have outed us both. So far, I don’t think anyone has figured it out, your brother is remarkably dense, but people still might.’

Alastair knew it wasn’t fair to blame Charles for that, he knew Charles had been nearly dead, but the idea of a half conscious Charles calling out for him was still uncomfortable. Some time ago, he might have thought it romantic, proof that Charles did love him. But they weren’t together anymore and now it was just a reminder that Charles had not moved on.

Charles seemed genuinely concerned by that statement. ‘You think they know?’

‘I honestly have no idea,’ Alastair said. ‘But you’re the one who called out for me, you’re the one who gets to figure out how to explain it.’

Alastair wasn’t exactly ready for people to know he liked men, but he didn’t know how to explain the situation either. He figured it was probably best to pretend none of it had happened, or that he had no clue why Charles had called his name.’

‘I will,’ Charles said. ‘Don’t worry about it, they won’t find out.’

Alastair couldn’t help but feel a bit annoyed that Charles cared so much more about people not knowing than about his comfort and happiness, even if he was also relieved people wouldn’t know, not yet.

‘But I mean it, about wanting you back,’ Charles said. ‘I won’t become engaged again. I would do that for you. I never realized how unhappy it made you.’

Alastair sighed. ‘You never realized because you didn’t care. I told you many times it made me unhappy, I tried to reason with you, tried to tell you it was unfair to both me and your fiancée. If not this, then there will be something else we do not agree on, and you never listen to what anyone else wants. I will not go back to being dismissed like that.’  

‘You do realize you want things that are impossible, don’t you?’ Charles asked with the arrogance he was so familiar with.

‘What I want is impossible? Charles, you want to be consul. You want the support of a wife, a perfect public image and you want me whenever is convenient for you. All I wanted was to have someone who loves me and makes time for me. Someone who cares about how I feel.’

Neither of them said anything for a while. ‘It wasn’t much I asked for,’ Alastair said, refusing to look Charles in the eye.

Charles put his hand on Alastair’s, but Alastair withdrew as if the touch burnt. In a way, it did. It made him feel sick like the sight of Charles often had the past months.

‘Do not touch me,’ Alastair hissed between his teeth.

Charles looked at him for a moment. ‘There’s someone else, isn’t there?’

Alastair wasn’t sure what had given it away, or why Charles would bring his suspicions up right now. His aversion to Charles’ touch wasn’t about Thomas.

‘And what if there were someone else? Does it matter?’ Alastair asked. ‘Because whatever it is we had, that’s done. You cannot expect me to give you another chance after breaking my trust so many times.’

‘Who is it?’ Charles asked, ignoring everything Alastair had said as he always did.

‘It’s none of your business,’ Alastair said.

He wasn’t about to explain that no matter how much he liked Thomas Lightwood, it was impossible because of his past mistakes. If thinking he had someone else would convince Charles to back off, that would be worth it.

‘You can’t really think he will be different,’ Charles said. ‘It’s always going to be a secret no matter who you are with, and if you can’t accept that, you are going to end up alone.’

Alastair’s dark eyes flashed dangerously. ‘I’d rather be alone than be with someone with whom I’m unhappy. Goodbye, Charles. I won’t be visiting again.’

Alastair left, refusing to look back at Charles who called after him. Asked him once again to stay. He should never have let Matthew pressure him into seeing Charles and her certainly shouldn’t have come back.

He hated how he’d been tempted, if only for a moment. He knew now that whatever it was Charles offered, it wasn’t love. He knew there was more to being in a relationship than just fulfilling Charles’ sexual needs. He remembered his last days in Paris, seeing the city with Thomas, going to a museum together, talking about their interests, art, travels… If only it were possible. If only he hadn’t ruined everything with those rumors, with everything he’d done at school.

But perhaps someday there would be another Thomas Lightwood, someone who wanted to take him to museums and mundane films, who was interested in what he had to say and not just in what he could offer in the bedroom. Charles would move on eventually, and Alastair felt relieved after telling Charles the truth. If anything, it brought some closure.

[timeaftertime-chriscornellfanfic]

Chapter 46 - Matter Of Time

Seattle Washington - Discovery Park, March 7 1991

(Andi is 20)

ANDI: "Ugh... what the fuck," I groan trying to lift myself up from the cold damp ground. I push my messy long dark curls out of my eyes and find myself somewhere outside in the middle of a dark forest. I can hear the waves softly crashing against the shoreline but I still couldn't make out just where I ended up. My head was pounding like something fierce and it was hard to open my eyes.

I knew I shouldn't have drank that much.

I slowly gather myself together, shivering like a leaf from the early spring breeze and try to focus on just where I was.

Fuck, it's so cold. Why is it so cold? Why did I have to slip?

Using my one arm to try to cover my chest, I take a few steps, using each tree for support, trying not to feel the pain of the various sticks, rocks and other materials beneath my feet. After a few moments, I make my way closer to the edge of the trees and see the open shoreline and the lighthouse far off in the distance.

I must be at Discovery Park, but why did I slip here?

As far as I could tell, there wasn't anyone here, except for a van that was parked just up from the campsite, and the sky was so clear and completely lit up by the incredible full moon. I decide to take my chances and see if that van was unlocked or if anyone was inside. I slowly make my way over the rocks and sand, wincing every few steps and shivering all along the way, finally making it to the sliding door of the van and peak inside. I see a ton of blankets and a couple of duffle bags in the back so I reach for the door handle to try my luck and low and behold, the van is open.

"Oh thank fuck," I say shakily, still shivering like crazy, climbing inside and sliding the door closed.

I quickly grab a blanket, wrap it around myself then rub my hands together, breathing on them to get warm. Still feeling somewhat drunk and a little warmer, I grab another blanket to wrap myself in and lay down curled up on the makeshift bed of whoever's van this is. At this point I don't care if someone finds me, I'm too cold and drowsy from the drinks to worry about it, and before long, I found myself drifting away to sleep in the bundle of blankets.

*****

"Hey! Hey, what are you doing in here?"

I faintly hear a voice as I slowly try to open my eyes and then I feel them push me to try and wake me.

"Hey, wake up!"

"Ok, ok I'm sorry," I say in my groggy hoarse voice, pushing my curls out of my eyes and sit up, pulling the blankets up over my chest to see Eddie looking back at me.

"Holy shit, Andi... omg I didn't know it was you, I'm so sorry," He says quickly changing his tone, his brow furrowing as he climbs in the back of the van and draws me into his arms. "Are you ok? What happened?"

"I'm ok, I uh... I don't know, I time slipped I think... um when am I?" I say when I pull away from him and he sweetly brushes my curls behind my ear.

"It's March '91... Jeezus Christ, I'm so sorry I thought you were a drifter or something," He says with a chuckle and I smile at him, his eyes gleaming in the darkness of the van with only the moonlight shining through.

"No, it's ok I mean, I can kinda see how you would think that... since I'm not looking my usual self y'know with... clothes and all that," I giggle and he offers a small smile.

"I didn't think I was gone that long, when did you end up here?" He asks, his brow furrowing again, those messy curls tucked behind his ears.

"Honestly I don't know. I was in the woods and pretty much stumbled my way to the shoreline and that's when I saw the van so I took a chance... obviously... I mean I was so cold but I didn't know this was your van - "

"Andi, it's ok. I'm glad it's you and not some weirdo - I mean -you know what I mean right?" He chuckles.

"Yea I know," I smile back. We sit with each other in silence for a few moments before Eddie decides to speak again.

"I uh, just wanted to get here early before everyone else showed up tomorrow -well today I guess you could say. Y'know just camp out here in the van, listen to the waves as the tide rolls in,"

"Camping trip?" I ask.

"No um, video shoot," He says and I look at him confused. "For Hunger Strike"

"Oh," I say. "... and everyone is supposed to be here?"

"Yea, I think you have a meeting with Susan right before, but you are supposed to meet us all here... wait... How does that work? How can you be here right now and still at home?"

Oh right, I forgot to explain to Eddie about how my whole time travel predicament takes place, so I give him the run down of how it works with my condition - you know, me being able to be with me at the same time with no effects on actual time discrepancies - He looks at me with that same look I always get when people are confused with how my time travel works.

"... I know it's crazy and believe me, it's a sight to see me with myself at the same time," I say as Eddie just still gives me that confused blank stare.

"And you remember the same moment and everything?"

"Yea, it's weird when it happens... I can feel the memory happen at the same time as I'm with myself. Fucking crazy right?" I laugh a little at the realization that I really do sound like I should be in an institution or something but I know I'm not crazy.

"So like, when are you coming from? I thought you hadn't time slipped in months?" He asks unzipping his leather moto jacket and reaching up to the front seat to turn the key on for a little bit of heat.

"Christmas eve '90. We uh, we are - were - over at Layne and Dem's apartment having a few drinks, and I think Dem and I got carried away. She... um... kissed me," I say shyly and awkwardly.

"What? Dem kissed you?" Eddie laughs as he looks back at and sits back down rubbing his hands together to get warm.

"Yea... and I kinda kissed her back without really thinking and then I started to panic so I ran - well stumbled - into the bathroom to try and get a hold of myself but... I was so drunk that I started spinning and feeling dizzy and when Chris found me I tried so hard not to slip but, well here I am. I think I'm still a little drunk though," I chuckle rubbing my temple and pushing my curls behind my ear.

"Huh," Eddie smirks.

"What?" I ask with a smirk.

"Nothing, it's just... Dem kissed you... huh," He says again thoughtfully.

"Well... maybe I misunderstood, I mean I was pretty wasted, and... well I hope this isn't weird but, I kinda liked it?" I say my voice questioning myself as to why I liked it, while Eddie just smirks at me and pushes his curls behind his ear.

"No, it's not weird" He shakes his head as if to disagree with me.

"Just don't tell Chris ok?" I say. I have no idea how Chris is going to react to that at all.

"Tell him what?" Eddie smirks at me again.

"That I kissed a girl and I liked it... ok?" I giggle.

"Well, you said that Dem kissed you though, so was it really the other way around?" Eddie says.

"No, she kissed me but I kissed her back and... ok let's just drop this cause I'm beginning to feel really bad about it,"

"Awe, Andi don't feel bad. I'm sure it was just an innocent thing," He says.

"I hope so... I don't want anyone upset or anything,"

"It'll be ok," Eddie re-assures me. What I wouldn't give to just be able to control it.

"So um, could you maybe, give me a ride home?" I ask after a few moments of silence between us.

"Yea, yea sure," Eddie says quickly and leans in to give me a kiss on my forehead, which instantly brought me back to when Andy used to do that. "Sorry, um... habit," he adds when he pulls away looking embarrassed. I give him a small smile and he makes his way up to the front of the van, climbing in the driver's seat. I guess we are pretty close friends by this time, since in my time Eddie and I are still really quiet around each other.

"It's ok," I say quietly when he glances back at me, then turns his attention back to the ignition, starts up the engine, and I move up closer staying behind the passenger seat but holding on as he drives us out to the back road. We talk quietly a little bit longer but once again, just as quickly as I showed up here, I suddenly could feel that dizzy nauseous sensation again. As I lean my head on the back of the passenger seat, the last thing I see is Eddie looking back at me, furrowing his brow once more as everything eventually turns to black.

*******************************************************************************************

Happy New Year Everybody!!!