#i am resisting to make a joke about my tendency to archive all thoughts. as that is slightly too topical

[merlions]

Midway through typing this post my best friend called (she's the one who got me into tma to begin with back as the end of s1 was releasing and who's just as insane as me abt it, we talk about it literally every time we talk on the phone) and I was like, omg Lay do you remember that couple of months we had each been like taking a brief break from magnus and I got back from that plane ride where I caught up on it and as soon as I got back I was like "omg it has a plot, it's all connected, you just gotta get to like ep 140!!"

And she was like yeah, I was the one who picked you up from the airport and you fucking jumped into my car screaming that with the same energy as if I was the getaway driver for a heist and you were sprinting out of the bank just fucking drenched in colored ink

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(Followed quickly by: "Yeah why did we still think there wasn't a plot during worm hell"

"Oh that was cause we didn't notice it was significantly weird for worms to be a woman"

"Oh yeah and of course ol knife hands Mike"

"Of course")

I don't remember what I thought at the time on my first listen when magnus archives was first coming out, before I was aware it was gonna have an overarching larger plot beyond just the individual statements. But in retrospect I'm shocked I don't remember because when I think about it now, like imagining listening to the first few episodes assuming it won't ever have a larger plot, the conceit is so fucking funny.

A guy comes on mic, is extremely snarky and derisive to the recently deceased person he took over for, then tells an extremely scary story, then tells you all the reasons he doesn't believe a fucking word of it.

It's kinda like a reverse of the classic "goddamn you see that shit? That was fucking crazy. Anyways I'm rod sterling".

But instead it's: *terrifying monologue* "That was normal. Webbed corpses are normal, and meat apartment is normal. The only thing crazy about that statement is the statement giver's clearly abysmal mental health. Nothing supernatural could cause anything like that. Anyways I'm Jonathan Sims"

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 151

This chapter has been one that I have been dying to write for a while. I was worried that @baelpenrose would resist the idea, but he very much thought it was hilarious. As always, his input and riffing on this chapter has very much made it better and better.

However, it also made the chapter longer, lol. But there is just no way to trim it down without losing something that makes it all work, so this week is nearly double my normal length... break everyone’s heart, right? ;)

“I don’t like these numbers,” Parvati grumbled - as much as she was capable of grumbling - as she scrolled through the final counts of approval ratings on her and Hannah’s inaugural Food Festival.

The statistics had been dropped into our inboxes that morning, in the static of about a thousand other notifications now that Derek had finished the stress-test. Also included were the results of the last three invasion-prep drills, which I was in the process of scanning over.

“How bad are they?” I asked, half listening for a number. The drills were trending better, which was a good sign that the moves were effective.

Dismissing her display with a gesture of disgust, she sighed. “Seventy-four percent approval rating.”

I arched a brow and glanced over. “Did you adjust for those who did not attend?”

The glare she sent me wasn’t seen so much as felt. “Of course I did. First thing I ran…”

“Are you filtering by the day the comments came in?”

“I -” Bingo. She huffed. “No! These are intended to be ratings for the entirety of the event!”

I started scrolling through my own statistics. “Chart them out by the date the ratings came in, filtering out everyone who didn’t actually attend.”

A pause. “Oh… Oh! It’s showing ninety-three-point-four now!”

“Et voila,” I murmured. Louder, I clarified, “People like to weigh in early, and those who object in general tend to speak first.”

“I see that… how’s it going over there?” she asked, smoothing her braid over her shoulder as she turned to look at me directly.

“We are improving with every drill, marked upticks since the relocations. Arthur should be here in about - “ I glanced at a clock, “Seven minutes to go over next steps.”

Alistair breezed over to swap my empty bulb of cold coffee for a fresh one of water. “The appointment is in fifteen minutes.”

Parvati beat me to the punch.  “He is also compulsively early, meaning…. Six minutes now.”

He rolled his eyes hard enough that I wanted to giggle. “He doesn’t even have the decency to be fashionably late. Appalling.”

Surely enough, Arthur paged at the entrance - out of some sort of manners I accidentally instilled in him - exactly five minutes prior to our scheduled appointment. As he breezed into my office, he managed a half-assed glare at Alistair for abruptly turning away and focusing on my schedule rather than his usual tendency to get a beverage for any newcomers. “Okay, updated data on drills isn’t what I want it to be.”

I laughed. “You’re joking, right? Your team and Michael’s haven’t gotten past deck four by more than three percent in the last seven exercises.”

“Any percent above zero is unacceptable,” he grumbled. I chalked it up to the indignity of being forced to get his own tea from the console.

Almost as though to spite Arthur, Alistair made a point to set a refreshed water bulb in front of everyone except the professor. “There are guards on the other levels for a reason,” he suggested drily.

“And I would rather those guards be idle, thank you,” Arthur threw back in a near-venomous tone.

“Us guards would rather be prepared for any eventuality, which you may do well to plan for in your petty drills.”

I didn’t even try to intervene. Clearly there was some blatantly disagreement between my  admin and my friend, and I was exhausted from trying to make them cooperate.

“If I’m doing my job, you should be so grateful as to be idle,” Arthur drawled.

Alistair scoffed. “As if being left to rest and get fatter than a Christmas goose is a blessing…”

“You’ll live longer!”

“And get lax in my duties, which I will not stand for!”

“Get fat! Get lazy! LIVE! I don’t care! I’m not going to be lax in my duties to allow you the opportunity of getting practice at fighting.” Standing, Arthur buried both hands in his hair, but it looked less like he was running his fingers through it than pulling on it. “Are we really discussing this when we are training to fight in living body condoms?”

“I need to defend the Archives!”

“And Michael and I need to defend everyone! Us doing our job means you don’t need to do yours.”

My neck snapped back at the vehemence in his tone. This wasn’t their normal sparring… they may have never truly gotten along, but even in the beginning it was never so vicious.

To my further alarm, Alistair took a long stride forward and stared down his nose at Arthur. “We both know that she - “ his hand flung out to point at me “is either the luckiest or unluckiest person in existence. You can’t really believe that, in an actual assault on this ship, that she won’t be in danger. Which will place Tyche, the Archives, Derek Okafor, and Samuel Richardson in equal danger. You aren’t an idiot, you know this.” The hand pointing toward me turned, and time seemed to slow down as he stabbed Arthur in the sternum with it, punctuating each of his next words. “Stop lying to yourself.”

“Poke me again, and the finger comes off.”

“I would dearly love to see you try.”

Hannah and Parvati had jumped to their feet when Alistair approached Arthur, but were now slowly moving around to my position, safely behind my desk. Hannah hissed at me through clenched teeth, “You had to tell them to fight it out.”

“I thought they would use a gym, not the damned office,” I hissed back.

Before she could respond, Alistair spoke again. “You aren’t the only one on the Ark who wants to protect everyone. You need to trust us to do our bloody jobs.”

“The last time I trusted anyone else to protect people, I lost fourteen students,” came the ground out response. “I’m not backing down on this.”

“You will, or I will sedate you and strap you to a medical berth for the next four months.” Alistair stepped back and crossed his arms with finality.

A trickle of nerves ran down my spine as I watched Arthur clench his fists and release them. “You think the solution to everything is to tie it up, I swear.”

“Stop changing the topic. I am deadly serious, Farro.”

Arthur turned away from him, waving him off. “Try something else, you would never just sedate me for months on end.” Before we could stop anything, Alistair leapt forward and put Arthur in a headlock, only to be immediately flipped over the other man’s shoulder and onto the table. “Tch. Sloppy. I know you can do better.”

“I thought you wanted me to get fat and lazy,” Alistair grunted as he sucker-punched Arthur in the stomach and rolled for the other side.  Once on his feet, he eyed Arthur carefully as he circled the table. “You stubborn ass, you know I am right.  You are putting everyone in the lower levels at risk by not running preparedness drills with them, because you don’t want to factor in the fact that one of the offensive teams could fail.”

“We don’t have the luxury of failing, so no. If we do our jobs correctly, everyone who matters will be safe at the other end of the Ark.”

They didn’t seem to be at each other’s throats anymore, but the arguing wasn’t getting anywhere. “Guys - “ I tried.

Both men turned and practically screamed at me with their glares to stop talking.  Oookay. I held up my hands in surrender and decided to let them sort it out their way.

Damned if the console wasn’t on the other side of them, though. I couldn’t even get popcorn and a drink.

Alistair blew a harsh breath through his nose. “If you won’t include the lower decks in your drills, I will start sparring with Jokul.”

“He would kill you,” Arthur barked in the most miserable laugh I’ve ever heard.

“God forbid,” Alistair mocked. “If I were gone, who would make your tea in the morning.”

“The same person who picks up the socks that magically appear all over my quarters every day, obviously. Worthington, I’m serious, he could really hurt you. He has really hurt me. And Charly.”

That last part was dismissed with a wave. “Madam Charles the First put the fear of herself into him.”

“And you haven’t. He could kill you by accident, and he’d never forgive himself.”

“Maybe that wouldn’t be the case if you would let me train more!”

Arthur groaned and ran a hand down his face. “You are an adult, we’ve talked about this. Train all you want, with whoever you want - Charly, Sophia, Tyche… hell, train with Evan or Michael, I don’t care. Just, not Jokul.”

When did they talk about this? I wondered. It had to be during a sparring session or something, because it definitely wasn’t in my office during one of our meetings. A glance at Hannah showed she was watching everything unfold like it was the most riveting show she had ever seen, and Parvati’s squint of consideration wasn’t much better.

“As you said, I’m an adult. Perhaps I should take your advice, and train with Charly - “

“See - “

“- and Jokul. She will make sure I don’t get hurt.”

Arthur flung his hands up in frustration. “You are so stubborn, I swear!” Growling, he paced in a circle. “Fine! Train with Charly and Jokul. IN the bivouac suit, though! And I don’t want to hear a word when you end up confined in a med bay yourself.”

Alistair’s smug grin showed just how much he seemed to care. “At least I would be spared of picking up the trail of dishes that seem to follow you around.”

“For the love of - they are my quarters! Mine! And I don’t want to hear about it when your bloody socks are constantly getting lost behind my sofa!”

Oh. Oh no. Nonononononono.

“My socks can go wherever they fucking want to, when I am constantly cleaning your disgusting whiskers out of the sink!”

“You know what would fix you having to clean whiskers out of the sink? I could just stop shaving altogether. How about...that…” Arthur trailed off and very slowly turned toward the three of us behind my desk with a look of dawning horror.

And I tried. I really, really tried not to laugh.  I could feel my face reddening, my chest aching with the effort of holding it in.  

Hannah’s snort was my undoing. As soon as that tiny noise escaped her, all three of us erupted into hysterical, stomach-cramping, tearful laughter.  I felt stabbing in my arm as Parvati dug her nails in, trying desperately not to fall.  Unfortunately for her, Hannah grabbed me at the same time and all three of us toppled to the floor. The sight of Arthur rolling his eyes and crossing his arms only made me escalate from laughing to shrieking in hysterics and relief.

I couldn’t speak for the other two ladies, but I thought the two men were going to end up killing each other… At no point did I think they took the other option when I told them to either fight it out or….

I gasped for breath, trying to get myself under control. Wobbling to my feet with the help of my trusty desk and a couple yanks to free my shirt from Parvati’s desperate clutching, I pointed between them. “This… how long? Can’t believe… didn’t figure it out.”

“Not everyone is as… public… as you, Conor, and Maverick are,” Arthur snarked at me. “You know, private lives should be private and all that?”

“Must be for you,” I confided in Alistair’s direction, where he had turned his back to our fit.  “He’s never not told me when he was dating someone. Or thinking of dating someone. Or potentially interested in seeing if he was interested in dating someone… Best friend privileges and all that.”  While I waited for Alistair to respond, my mind whirled through all the things I had brushed off before but were very obvious in retrospect.

Glancing at Arthur for a hint yielded nothing but a flat stare that all but declared in flashing lights You Aren’t Stupid.

I tilted my head at that, and kept thinking. There had been genuine animosity on Alistair’s side in the beginning, and not a small amount of needling on Arthur’s.  So I knew it wasn’t something that had always been going on. My mind came to a screeching halt, however, when I remembered something - the day Alistair, Tyche, and I decided that, when I vacated my position on the Council, they would vacate roles as well to leave behind a ‘clean slate’. “Four years, holy shit,” I gasped. “Four years!?”

Finally, Alistair moved. His back was still to us, but his arms went limp by his sides, and his head dropped down toward the floor. “It would be unseemly to have the new Councilor of Education in a relationship with the attache to the Councilor for Resources and Engagement. Or formerly in a relationship, should things not end well.”

“And since he won’t be taking his position until we are on Von,” I put together, “You are okay to serve out the rest of my term, just not Hannah’s or Parvati’s.”

“Correct.”

“Huh. That makes sense,” I admitted before hopping up to sit on my desk, the chair being a lost cause on the other side of two women who were still sniffling and giggling on the floor. “I learned a lot today.”

“Uh huh,” Arthur confirmed drily. “And it had better stay in this office.”

“What?” I managed a pretty convincing confused face before pretending to realize what he meant. “Oh! The relationship thing. Yeah, cool, whatever. That’s not what I was talking about, but you’re good.”

“Dare I even ask what you meant?” Alistair ventured, finally turning around so that he could give me a warning look.

“Uh, isn’t it obvious?” I asked, shaking my head and spreading my hands, palms up. When they both just stared at me, I finally broke and grinned. “Dude. You two are freaking slobs.”

The squeaking noises coming from the vicinity of my feet told me that no further work would be getting done for the rest of the day.

<< Prev  Masterlist  Next >>

[pantstomatch]

I think you should help me finish this HP romance novel...

so deep in the archives of my WIPs I found this unfinished Harry Potter AU gem from 2005 (yes, 2005!) that’s got all my favorite tropes: adventure, hurt/comfort, angst, childhood trauma (tw for mentions of abuse), found family, guns, threats of bodily harm, good guys masquerading as bad guys, an obvious plot set up to have Seamus Finnigan swoon into Theodore Nott’s manly arms, idek guys, but NEVILLE. The truly tragic thing, as I was bemoaning to @lissadiane , is that I have NO IDEA where I was going with this. Absolutely none, except for end-game Seamus/Theodore, and add that on top of the fact that it’s proven I am TERRIBLE at writing straight-up harlequin romance, you all should probably tell me EXACTLY, with bullet points and possibly an outline, how you think this should end. And then who knows maybe I can cross is off my WIP list (twelve years, guys. TWELVE.)

Seamus cursed under his breath. Even through the heavy sheets of rain he recognized the black barrels of the guns, and he was probably imagining the resonating clicks of them cocking, levelly trained, since the cascading water was a muted roar in his ears, but. He slowly lifted his hands out and away from his body. “Hands up, Nev,” he said to the man standing next to him, frozen in palpable nervous fear. “This is not a good day to die.” “Is there ever one?” Nev joked weakly. The guns seemed to be getting closer, and Seamus blinked rapidly to keep his gaze relatively clear, the rain drowning his skin, plastering his canvas clothing to his body. They’d only been out there for three days, and Seamus was so unprepared and so terminally wet that he felt like his pores would break open and he’d melt into the black, rich soil. Shit. If by some freakish chance they got out of there alive, Snape was going to kill them. The first thing he noticed was the man’s cold scowl. All right, honestly, the first thing he noticed was the man’s clinging black t-shirt, but the second thing he noticed was the man’s scowl, and the reflection of it in his eerie green eyes. “Dr. Neville Longbottom?” he growled. “Yes,” Seamus said hastily, ignoring the sharp look Nev sent him and resisting the urge to send a commiserating one right back at him. Way to be obvious. The man’s gaze narrowed, flicking between the two muddy, bedraggled men, and in that moment Seamus knew he didn’t believe him, wouldn’t have believed him even if he was the best liar in the world. “Dr. Longbottom,” the man said again, more firmly, turning towards Nev. “Come with me.” Another cold glance toward him told Seamus that they didn’t really care about him. No way was he about to leave Nev alone, though, even if he thought he could make it through the forest by himself. Which he held no illusions about. Nev was the one who knew all the flora and fauna. Seamus was just a useless mouth and steady support. “Seamus,” Nev whispered hoarsely, eyes wide and dark on the rigid… soldier? in front of them. He groped toward him with an open hand and Seamus caught his arm, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Not leaving you, Nev,” he said fiercely, because damn it. Nev was the closest thing to family he had.

***

Seamus had been a skinny preteen when he left Ireland and his father’s heavy fists, and a scruffy, lean-hungry teenager when Nev had found him curled up in his Gran’s shed. He snapped when Nev pet him, a wary, shivering mess of hurt and loneliness and bone-weary fear. But Nev was persistent, if fidgety with nerves, and Nev’s Gran was a force of pure stubborn energy, and Seamus didn’t stand a chance. He was clean, dry and well-fed within the space of mere hours. And within days he was tamed and in love with a seventy-year-old woman and a plump boy with a hiccupy stutter and a tendency to weather his peers’ taunts with all the bend and sway of a young sapling. So Seamus, more brain than brawn—and even that was debatable, according to Gran—fought back for Nev with his tongue, lashed out unashamedly and more often than not got beat to a bloody pulp for it, but Nev’s rueful smile was worth everything; every bruise, every cut lip, every pinch-mouthed tsk from Gran. They were brothers in every way except blood. ***

“Seamus?”

“It’s all right, Nev,” Seamus assured him, walking as close as he could to him as they stumbled after the men with the guns, conscious of even more men with guns stalking behind them. “Everything’ll be fine.” Of course, he didn’t know that. And Nev knew that he didn’t know that, that he was talking out of his arse—like usual—but it didn’t matter. Nev wasn’t asking for the truth. Seamus curled his fingers over Nev’s wrist and held on tightly. *** Gran’s death had been like a kick in the teeth, because neither of them had been expecting it. Seventy-nine and still flashing her ankles at all the bachelors in town, still mowing the lawn behind Seamus’ back, still cooking and driving and laughing and doing all the sorts of things that were supposed to stop first. Stop before her heart gave out, stop before she grew cold in her sleep, stop and give them some sort of warning, sign, anything. Seamus didn’t cry at the funeral, but Nev did. Hard, frame-wracking tears that were plentiful enough for both of them. Gran had left them the house jointly and they sold it along with her ancient rabbit auto, and then they got the hell out of town. Nev took a laboratory job in Brazil, head botanist for an experimental firm, and Seamus didn’t hesitate to go with him. He held his own degree in journalism, squeaked by at uni, and he was relatively good with languages, so Dr. Severus Snape—a hook-nosed, dark-eyed man that Seamus didn’t trust as far as he could spit—agreed to give him a chance in research. Seamus was willing to do almost anything to keep close to Nev. But they shouldn’t have been out in the rain forest. They shouldn’t have stepped out of the lab, even though Nev had been openly hurting and raw and shocked. Seamus hadn’t been. What else could they have been doing, secretive and covert in a lab no one knew existed? Biological warfare or something very nearly like it. It’d torn Nev up inside, and though Seamus didn’t particularly care one way or the other, he’d followed Nev blindly out into the lush tangle of lianas, out into the unforgiving, dense and deadly landscape. And now they were caught, well and good, and even if the men weren’t drug runners or guerillas, even if they weren’t mercenaries sent out by Snape, they had guns and knew who Nev was, and the outcome wasn’t likely to be pretty. *** Nev and Seamus had been wandering around for days, packs heavy and minds weighted with dread, so it didn’t surprise them that the men made them stop just before nightfall. They set up camp, efficiently, silently, and Seamus stood next to a shaking Nev until the first man, the man with the cold scowl, came up and forced them apart. It was a smart move, Seamus acknowledged. Neither of them would try to escape without the other. The man was looking at him speculatively now, probably because he knew it’d been worth it to let him tag along. Worth it to keep Nev in line. Briefly, Seamus wondered if it would’ve been better to have hung back, swooping in and snagging Nev from under their noses during the night. He doubted, though, that he could’ve gotten in and out of the camp alive. Seamus was loud, not stealthy. He was brash and lively and was possibly the worst person to have near in a crisis. He vibrated with the effort of holding his tongue. Nev needed him whole and thinking, and that was just about the only thing that could ever shut Seamus up. “You’re Seamus Finnigan,” he said, and his voice was smooth, cultured, English. A shiver spiked up Seamus’ spine, because that probably meant Snape, and Snape was not going to be happy with his little rogue scientist and comedic side-kick. “Yes,” he answered thickly, trying to swallow his heart back down his throat. The man lifted a long-fingered hand and skimmed it over Seamus’ left brow, over the curve of his cheek, the scar at the corner of his lower lip he’d had since he was eight, and the gentle exploration belied the impassive set of his mouth and the ever-present coldness in his eyes. “We’ve been looking for you.” Seamus blinked. “You. What?” Weird turn. Utterly odd turn. Hadn’t they wanted Neville? The man cleared his throat, dropped his hand abruptly and said, “Seamus Daniel Finnigan, son of Cara Elizabeth Bannon Finnigan and Daniel Joseph Finnigan of Kenmare, Ireland.” “I don’t.” Seamus paused, eyes darting around, instinctively trying to search out Nev. “Finnigan,” the man barked, and Seamus’ gaze flew back to his face, something jittery and panicked rabbiting about his stomach, “we’re taking you home.” If Seamus had eaten anything at all substantial in the past three days, he would’ve vomited all over his boots.

“You’re shitting me,” Seamus breathed, words spewing out instead of bile, stomach clenching with dry heaves. “I’m. You,” he stammered, unable to line up his thoughts properly with his words. “Did they—No.” There was no way, no fucking way Seamus was going back to Ireland. He was twenty-five for gods’ sake. A grown man. No one could make him do anything. The guns were really persuasive, of course, but short of killing him and dragging his dead carcass onto an overseas flight, Seamus wasn’t going anywhere near Ireland. The man had the gall to look almost apologetic. “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.” “You’re afraid?” He was shaking, deep down inside if not outwardly, and Seamus knew about being afraid. Scared shitless and helpless, and the idea of the cold bastard in front of him ever feeling anything remotely like that was laughable. “I’m not going back,” he said, choking on his rising panic. The man’s mouth tightened, but he just grabbed Seamus’ arm and tugged him further into camp, past men setting down arms to take up tent pegs, a man unfolding a small cooking stove and a communal pot, and Seamus dug his heels in stubbornly, gaze skimming over everyone and everything, looking for Nev. He stumbled and caught himself, stumbled and caught, stumbled and caught until the man brought him up short with a wordless snarl, and for a moment Seamus thought he was going to toss him over his shoulder. “They didn’t say I couldn’t hurt you,” he warned in a low voice. Seamus tipped his chin up, because it didn’t matter. Nothing did, if the result was going ‘home.’ A dangerous gleam flickered over the man’s eyes and he leaned in, nose pushing close to Seamus’, and rasped with perverse satisfaction, “And they didn’t say anything at all about your little science friend.” Pure anger flashed through Seamus, tinting his gaze and pooling hotly around his heart. “You harm one hair on his head and I will kill you.” “I could give him back to Snape, couldn’t I?” the man went on, dismissing Seamus’ threat, batting it away like an inconsequential gnat. “You don’t believe me?” Seamus growled, hands clenched. “The point, Finnigan,” the man said tightly, “is not what I believe, but what you believe.” And the point, Seamus realized, was that they had Nev, and as long as they had Nev Seamus would do whatever he needed to do to keep him safe. *** Seamus figured they wouldn’t have caught them at all if they hadn’t left the relative safety of the laboratory and compound. There was no way they could’ve gotten inside and gotten Seamus out cleanly. No, that wasn’t right; they could’ve gotten inside easily. They had gotten inside easily, slipped in far enough to slide an unmarked manila envelope under Nev’s door, far enough to know what kind of man Nev was and what kind of man Seamus was. Because they only had to lure him out, and what better way to do that than to use the horrible truth? Nev couldn’t stay where his work was possibly being used to harm others, and they’d played right into these men’s hands, whoever the hell they were. Seamus still wasn’t sure. He picked at the small bowl of stew they gave him, barely eating, chest tight. It was raining again, a steady pour, when the man made him get on his knees and crawl into a small, sodden tent. Then he crawled in after him, and there was barely enough room for him to crisscross his legs, large, menacing-looking gun lying across his lap, eyes sharply focused on Seamus even in the darkness. “Sleep,” he growled, and Seamus curled up on his side, determined to keep awake just for spite. His body was exhausted, though, and he didn’t last five minutes once his head touched the ground. *** When he was six, Seamus’ father gave him his first pony and his first broken arm. He’d been mouthy from the womb, a trait his mother told him he’d gotten from his grandfather, a cheerfully mischievous man that Seamus only vaguely recollected. He remembered the sweet tobacco smell of his pipe and his booming laugh and his lilting, teasing tone when he weaved stories, but he’d died before Seamus reached five years and, in retrospect, he knew that’s when everything had gone to shit. Seamus always thought the comparison to his grandfather was a good thing, great even, until his father knocked him into the doorframe for sassing him and left four finger bruises on the backs of each of his stick-thin arms. He was small like his mum, fine boned at the wrists and quick as lightning on his feet, so he’d learned to hide until his father learned to starve him out, and nothing went right for Seamus from then on. He started hating his mother a little bit more every time she turned away. *** Seamus jerked awake, a hoarse yell caught in his throat, a warm hand holding him down, grip tightening on his shoulder as he tried to squirm away. He breathed out, “Stop, stop,” harshly, and tears pricked his eyes as he twisted onto his side and puked up what little he’d gotten down at supper. *** Seamus was fine by the time morning rolled around—absolutely fine—and he forced down breakfast and tried not to make his breath of relief too audible when they let him near Nev again. Seamus was sure there’d be plenty of opportunities to dodge the men with guns once they were out of the rainforest, once he could get his bearings on more familiar land. Seamus was downright cheery. “What’s going on?” Nev asked in a tense whisper as they were herded side-by-side over the lush growth on the rainforest floor. “Nothing,” he lied, and his forced grin felt more like a grimace. Nev looked at him askance, like he’d lost his mind. “Nothing? We’re not headed back toward the compound, so do you—do you think they’ll ransom us?” “No.” Seamus took a deep, bracing breath, then said in a rush, “They’re from my father, Nev.” “Your…?” Nev paused mid-step, staring at him incredulously, and then one of the men prodded him sharply in the back with the tip of his gun, spitting a terse, “Move it,” in German. Seamus automatically flipped him off, and the man, large and ham-fisted, down-turned mouth seemingly carved from granite, pushed Nev forward again and grabbed Seamus’ arm. “Have anything to say to that?” he demanded in heavily-accented English. Seamus squirmed and the man tightened his grasp, biting into his pale skin, and that was familiar. He knew how that worked. “Seamus,” Nev said nervously in his patented don’t-taunt-the-bear tone, worried brown eyes bouncing between them. Seamus ignored him, grinning up at the German. “You don’t touch him anymore, and we’ll be just fine.” Thick brows furrowed to a point over his nose. “Are you telling me what to do?” “I’m merely suggesting,” Seamus went on blithely, “that you not touch him.” His amiable tone seemed to confuse the man, but his menacing stance didn’t change. “Suggesting,” he echoed, like he couldn’t quite believe his captive’s sheer stupidity. Seamus gave him a purposefully lazy half-shrug. “Advising.” “And what would you be able to do about it?” the man sneered. “Oh, I can be creative,” he assured him, nodding, a small, cheeky grin gracing his face. The man growled, yanking Seamus up on his tiptoes, but then a voice cut through the thick, muffled jungle and he abruptly dropped him. Seamus barely caught his balance when the man with the cold scowl and moss-green eyes strode up, the tops of his cheeks red from anger that was strangely not directed at him. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Krum?” Ah, Krum. The German meathead had a name. Seamus waited patiently for Krum to fling out the other man’s alias, because he was honestly getting tired of calling him the man with the cold scowl in his head, although he supposed he could’ve just made up a name. Like Lou. Louis. He darted his eyes to Nev, who was gazing at him oddly and yeah. Seamus was well aware he was on his way to hysteria-land. He had a first class ticket. “What does it matter?” Krum snarled. “You damage the merchandise,” the man said simply and with deadly calm, “you don’t get paid.” He jerked his head toward the men in front. “Go on. I’ll stay back here with them.” “So now I can’t be damaged?” Seamus said recklessly, pushing because he always pushed. “What about before? You said they wouldn’t care if I was hurt.” The man studied him, scrutinized him with intense, hard eyes that gave nothing away, and he slipped off his army-green cap, running a hand roughly through his damp, straggly blond hair before firming the hat back on decisively. Finally, he said with almost whisper-soft threat, “If you measure it right, Finnigan, pain doesn’t have to leave any visible marks.”

***

A twitchy bloke with fine brown hair and pale eyes shook Neville awake, but the night was still dark and heavy when he crawled out of the tent and blinked up at the man who’d been guarding Seamus so closely. Nott, he thought his name was, just as he knew they called the twitchy bloke Mouse and that one of the smaller ‘men’ was actually a woman. Neville had always been more observant than Seamus under stress. Nott had his gun slung over one shoulder and his scowl was more pinched than cold in the low-lantern light. “Dr. Longbottom,” he said, and Neville was struck, not for the first time, by how polite they’d all been to him. Waving guns, yes. And okay, sure, pointed threats were tossed about more than once, but. Besides the large German, no one seemed very intent on harming them, mentally or physically. “What’s wrong?” Neville asked, and Nott nodded across the camp to where a tall, gangly man called Boot was shifting drowsily on his feet. He yawned wide. Neville could practically hear the pop and grind of his jaw, and he rubbed his eyes in commiserating sympathy, swiping away the last of his interrupted sleep. And then he heard a low keening sound and snapped his gaze back to Nott, who visibly flinched, chased by a fleeting grimace before his face went stone-quiet again. All right. Neville knew what was wrong. Unsteadily, he stood up, keeping a wary eye on Nott as he crossed the camp and dropped to his knees again at the opening of Seamus’ tent. The flap was open, golden lamplight dimly outlining his restless form. Seamus was curled up on his side, arms tucked between his drawn up legs and his chest, and in the semi-darkness he looked exactly as he had as a boy, shivering cold no matter how many blankets he had, whimpers slipping past his lips no matter how tight his teeth were clenched. It’d broken Neville then, when they were barely thirteen, and it broke him now, seeing the dark jacket—Nott’s?—tucked over him, and the uncontrollable shivers that always grew more pronounced when his mind crawled desperately back toward consciousness. He knew what to look for in the moments before Seamus was going to wake up, the rapid shift of his eyes under thin-skinned lids, the panting breaths, a yell readying in the back of his mouth, but he never knew how to help. Neville sat on his heels and watched, hands fisted on his thighs. Nott was behind him, hovering. Neville felt his warmth at his back, his agitated movements, and finally Nott pressed against his side in the cramped tent and hissed, “Well? Do something.”

At Neville’s continued silence, he went to move past him, one hand already reaching out toward Seamus, and Neville caught hold of his forearm, clamping down hard with thick fingers. He shook his head slowly, mouth and lips and throat dry, making his voice just above a rasp when he said, “Touching him only makes it worse.” *** Seamus had been all bones and snarl when Neville first found him, skin pale and jaundiced under layered filth. Strangely confident, Neville had approached him exactly how he would a starving dog, palm out and up, unintelligible soothing nonsense spilling softly out his mouth, and Seamus had sat stone-still, growls dried up in his throat, large eyes watery, shoulders slumped in defeat. Neville had figured the boy thought he was going to toss him out on his rear, and it was pouring, a damp chill permeating the clapboard box. Neville could see all the hurt and acceptance and fear wrapped up in his dark hazel eyes. Gran made everything better, of course, because Gran had been stubborn and kindly firm from the first. She had Seamus doing chores by the end of the week. His eyes were bright, color a high rose, and he didn’t talk about the nightmares that stalked his sleep, the ones that kept Neville awake and helpless in the twin across their room. No, as soon as the sun hit the horizon, Seamus was… Seamus. Loud and laughing, with a flash-pan temper that was never once, in all their years as family, directed at Neville or Gran. And Seamus never, ever learned to shut up. He never learned control, never learned moderation, and it frankly terrified Neville to think of what would’ve happened if Seamus hadn’t run away, hadn’t curled up in a tense ball in Gran’s shed. There were so many infinitesimal ways Seamus’ life could’ve gone horribly worse than it had, and Neville… Neville felt guilty sometimes, because deep down he was selfishly glad that Seamus’ father had been so big a bastard. He couldn’t imagine living without him. *** Neville wasn’t stupid. Obviously. Twelve years was a long time to waste searching for a recalcitrant son, and by the look of things… these guys were professionals—efficient, spare, smart. They worked well together, worked good together. He eyed up his choices and finally approached Boot, long-limbed and shaggy with an easy grin that looked practiced, dangerous, but was a least overtly friendly…