#i am very. tired lately. and very very *tv static noises*

[yaburnaee]

considering [redacted] temp closing all solo blogs and sitting here for awhile until i get my mental health back under quasi control

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #66

Today's letter is maybe a little early, I know. But my mind is all abuzz with various things. In light of the realizations I've been having, it has occurred to me: though I am skilled at taking care of everyone in my general vicinity, I have no idea what taking care of myself really looks like, outside of a purely theoretical sense. And theory alone is difficult to follow through on.

So, whenever I try to imagine whatever it is that I might want and need at any given moment, my mind typically comes up with a big huge blank. If you asked me what I want right now, or what I need right now, I wouldn't be able to tell you. Most likely, I'd just stare at you, utterly baffled and looking stupid as I keep opening and closing my mouth, trying to come up with an answer and receiving only what effectively amounts to static noises and TV snow:

There are a lot of reasons for this. First of all, I've been trained to basically discount my own needs; saying that I'm hungry or thirsty or sleepy, for example, was a great way to get screamed at or smacked around in days past, so my mind has had to learn how to automatically ignore most sensations of discomfort that my body is trying to tell me, before I even consciously perceive that the discomfort is there. Especially if I'm focused on some task, I typically don't realize I'm hungry, thirsty, tired, or in pain until someone else tells me I'm being a crabbypants. My sense of interoception is very poor, and I'm not sure if that's the autism or the fact that I've had to learn from an early age to dissociate even from extreme stimuli.

Even for the pain from the rib injury, too; in an effort to protect itself from those who would get violent with me if I complained about pain or was slowed down from pain in any way (these people no longer exist in my life, and yet…), my mind automatically pushes the brunt of it out of my conscious perception (even though I no longer want it to do this; I'm working on it…), and what I'm left with is a sensation that's not… exactly pain as much as it is kind of a vague, dull, heavy cloud of general and poorly-defined unpleasantness that has settled itself into the upper right quadrant of my torso. And while this is an amazing skill to have (even if the price to get it was steep) because it allows me to mostly function through it, this also comes at a significant and ongoing energy cost; dissociation doesn't come cheap.

…So that's an obstacle between me and the whole "self-care" and "treating oneself gently" thing. Other obstacles include fun stuff like executive dysfunction (starting tasks is hard even if they're fun; stopping tasks is hard even if I hate them, and being reliably able to plan and prioritize multi-step tasks effectively is nothing but a distant fantasy for me) and impaired object permanence (this is why I forget that there are vegetables in the crisper drawer of the fridge until they start to smell weird). Then there's the rib injury itself, which limits my mobility and ability to do things in a given day, and the fact that my body does not tell me that I've done too much until it's too late (combination of dyspraxia and poor interoception), and then I gotta spend the next day paying for it.

Caffeine helps a little with the executive dysfunction, but it also makes me more prone to getting flashbacks, so I have to be very careful about how I use it. But I'm often not careful about how I use it, because I want to function. So by the end of all this, the general flow of my life looks kinda like this:

…And it's only taken me like 12 years, but I'm FINALLY starting to actually realize that this is very much NOT sustainable. I'm a squishy mammal, not a machine. And I can't exactly be hanging out over here, imploring you to take care of yourself while I'm over here being kind of a dumpster fire, right? Something about rocks and glass houses. So something has to change. But I'm not exactly sure what yet.

On Tuesday, my therapist asked me to chew on the question of "What does taking care of a Lumine actually look like?" And so far, all I've come up with is a list of obstacles that stand in the way. But it's better than the nothing that I had previously, right? I can build from something that is not a nothing; I can work with that.

One of the things I think I need in order to not feel overwhelmed is "not clutter". But we are a neurodivergent house, and all three of us tend to set things down in weird places and then immediately forget that they exist. Today, in an attempt to try to remedy this, one of the things I came up with (don't laugh at me too hard for this) is to try to treat my house as though it's yours and we're just watching over it and waiting for you to come back home (silly, impossible, and ridiculous for a variety of reasons, I know; but hey, whatever keeps me motivated, right?).

I don't know how sustainable this will be in the long term (for a variety of obvious reasons), but I suppose the process of trying to learn how to keep myself motivated to tend to myself and my space properly will involve me making a lot of mistakes along the way to try to figure out what works and what doesn't. Better to start from shaky ground than from no ground at all, and to try to build a solid foundation from there.

Another thing I came up with is to try to be alert and mindful about myself in the same way that I am alert and mindful about the people I care about in my immediate vicinity. To be fair, this "alertness" and "mindfulness" comes about as a result of the hypervigilance that the C-PTSD leaves me with, but I wonder if I can learn to take a more wholesome approach to it, and then learn to turn that lens inward upon myself in a more merciful fashion than I have in the past. I don't really know what this will look like yet, but maybe I can start by setting an alarm to check in with myself at least once an hour.

I'm tired of it being the case that I either break myself from not doing enough for myself, or break myself from trying to do too much in one sitting. In service to the goal that is trying to build a routine that isn't unreasonable in light of my limitations, I'm going to try to set hard limits on how many things I do in a given day. So for example, maybe I'll wash 10 dishes. Maybe I'll fold 10 clothing items. Maybe I'll vacuum one room. And even if I can "technically" do more, maybe I'll just leave it at that, because doing any of these for any amount of time causes a lot of pain in the affected side of my body.

Up until now, I've swung wildly between "doing nothing" and "doing all of it at once", and… this doesn't work. So I think I might have to try to start small by building a very gentle routine (the ADHD despises routine, while the autism desperately craves the structure, so this is a fun dynamic to have to try to play with…) and adding to it as I grow accustomed and comfortable. I think it's time to work with my neurotype and physical composition instead of punishing myself for the fact that neither of these things exist in a way that's considered "normal".

I might ask my friends for ideas, too; when the task at hand is difficult, you're supposed to ask for help. Humans are social creatures (yes, even if developmental trauma can sometimes make people think like they're "born solitary"). Maybe they'll have some ideas about what I can do, and about what proper self-care ought to look like; it'll be educational. To be sure, I have no idea what I'm doing, and there's a lot that I don't know.

But I'm going to try to blaze the path forward anyway and write down what I learn along the way, so that when you decide you're ready, you won't have to start from scratch; I don't know what good any of this will do, but I would almost rather stop breathing permanently than see you get cut down again, so I have to try something. Anything. Even if it means I gotta do something I'm terrified of doing (like acting as though I'm worth my own effort and compassion) in order to model for you how it's done.

In the meantime, while I'm trying to figure all this stuff out, I've done a few things around the house and poured myself a lovely cup of the biscuit tea (I know I said before that it's unremarkable, but it's growing on me nonetheless). I'll share with you a few of today's highlights, just on the off-chance that any of it might give you even a small reason to smile today.

Here is the biscuit tea I made for myself, before and after stirring:

Here is some salmon, before and after steaming. It's important to get your omega-3s while trying to build new neural connections.

Here is some rice, before and after cooking. Remember the jar of rendered chicken juices from my 64th letter to you? That was used to make this rice.

Sliced fresh carrots, steamed as the rice cooked:

Here's the balanced and wholesome meal that I made out of all this. I wish more than anything that I could hand you a bowl filled with these same contents.

And here's a freshly-made bed! Bubbles, my giant lovely orca plush, is having a marvelous time chilling out on a bed that has THREE blankets on it!! I'm gonna be so warm and toasty when I go to sleep!! It's gonna be great!!

You deserve all these things. You deserve a good tea, a wholesome, balanced, delicious meal, and a toasty, comfy bed all to yourself, where you can feel safe. Because all humans deserve these things; you're not an exception. So I'm gonna keep trying to help you. I'm gonna keep trying to call you back to yourself so you can build for yourself a life in which you can have this. I'm gonna keep trying because I love you in the same way that anyone loves a friend, and because there's lots of other people who love you, too.

We don't wanna see any more bad things happen to you, but really, only you have the power to make the kinds of choices that will lead you to peace and safety; all we can do is try to encourage you and cheer you on from here. I'll pray to every deity in my world that you might hear us and turn yourself around. So make good choices. Take care of yourself. Don't go so far away that the light of all the things that are beautiful and good cannot reach you. Sephiroth... please?

I'll write again tomorrow. I will always make the time to write to you, regardless of what I'm doing and no matter how tired I am. I'll always be right here.

Your friend, Lumine

[shapeshifterrr]

TV.

. CHAPTER 1 / 2

Content: T rating / Shin x Noi / mess and headache / light angst / This fic takes place after chapter167, the final one. Unquestionably, spoiler alert / Enjoy the light reading / too much thinking

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. ThereboutsVanished

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Ordinary night, quiet and dark enough to merge within, Shin likes it that way. Taking off his black suit and his mask, both are submerged in blood of those he murdered. In his apartment, there’s only him alone after he’s done with his job, he’d want nothing to do with anyone.

“Is this it?” he looks outside the window “This is my life?” he shakes off his head to forget. Those weird new thoughts going through his mind, where did those weird questions came from anyway? In the bathroom, the water runs on his blood filled hands but it takes some time till he can see his hands without blood again. The mirror reflects a tired face with some scars around, he has not even sensed something injuring his face “tsk, I’d tell Noi to fix it later” he mutters to himself— he stopped for a second then continued to wash his clothes.

On the bed he rest under a warm blanket, his head is drowned in insoluble noise “What’s wrong with me?” it is starting to irritate him, this state of unknown agitation have been a constant occurrence since they’ve ended everything in Hole. That massive ‘hole’ monster, whatever it was, it got purged and with that many new things has branched. He press on the bridge of his nose, press his palms against his forehead, and take a big sigh out. Maybe the overwhelming pressure of that time still got him, but he’s fine. Shin is fine, it’s whatever.

Shin blames every inconvenience on his human genes, would he be feeling stable if he were fully a sorcerer? But if he were not half human he would’ve lived a very different life back then, an ordinary hole civilian— “stop, this is dumb” – what if he were a full sorcerer?! Would En, his boss, raise his wage? And what about En’s cousin, Noi? Would he have had a chance with— “AAGh!” Shin sits up on the bed “am I hungry?” He went on to the fridge to get something to eat, he turned the TV on and adjusted the volume high enough to not hear himself thinking “Why am I acting weird? I’m fine!? Did something hit my head- no”

There was meat pie leftover, taste fantastic, thick seasoned gravy that oozes out of the pie’s shortcrust pastry and the minced meat— with mushroom… (of course, it’s from En’s chosen pie shop inside his massive ‘city’ inside the palace) It tastes rich and filling, something he’d have never knew the taste of had he not found this job a—-- Shin picks the phone to order some more, that pie is so well made he could chomp 10 at the same time, right now, instead of sleeping. Anything, just get the unbearable noise out of his head.

A sunny morning

Shin wakes up with a severe headache; he lingers on bed for an hour waiting for it to get better. Maybe the meat pies were a bad idea. The atmosphere in En’s mansion is still in shambles, after all the theft, wreckage and absolute desolation happened on the hands of the crosseye gang. It might be fine for him to just stay in bed and rest, since his boss’s entire focus is solely fixed on the restoration of his mansion lately, which would require at least a full year to finish. Shin those days has to deal with the few sorcerers left causing tension beside the ones left making threats opposing his boss.

Very still and reposed, Shin’s eyes looks up at the ceiling, his apartment is filled with quiet static sounds. The little rays of sunlight snuck above and through the curtains, reaching the blanket he rests comfortably beneath. The rays were nice and warm resting on his hand, as if the sun is propelling him to wake up. In his head he repeats “I have to wake up” His headache seems to only get worse, he close his eyes inevitably, gradually falling asleep again. Overthinking is not his speciality.

A grand change just happened before everyone’s eyes recently, the world has shifted up and down with no remorse, perplexing all of what was known the norm. Sorcerers and humans today are considered allies, what does that even look like. Shin in the back of his mind; sensing something peculiar, this new headache that lasted longer than his ability to ignore it.

-

Outside Shin’s apartment, Noi stood. Confused of what could have happened to Shin, she knocks on the door very loud “SENPAI!” “Something happened to you?!”

“…”

Noi warns “I’m going to break the door, excuse me-” the door opened and left half open, Noi gently pushes the door in to see Shin sitting on the edge of the bed. Being super quiet, well he is a cool guy but this is dead silence. Noi stands before him, looking around “Nothing… I thought someone attacked you, it’s not usual for you to wake up this late.” “…”

Noi crouches then look at him “Are you ok? You need some… uh, coffee? You love coffee”

“I’m fine, you go and I’ll come in 5 minutes”

She notice the scars on his face from last night “Wait, your face, let me heal that” Shin refuses saying “It’s just some scratches, don’t bother now” backing a little knowing she’s not going to listen, he’s not in the mood. She grip his face with her large strong hand as he try to escape “Hold on!” she said irritated, clenching his wrist while he’s pulling his arm away to release it. All the tussling led Noi to trip and fall on top of him on the bed. Instantly she put her forearms to lift herself off him “Sorry, Senpai!”

Few seconds of silence down on the soft bed and her fluffy longhair falls on his face. Embarrassed, he looks away; she’s so strong and huge while he’s too tired to quarrel. Letting her use her black smoke to heal him or whatever, just be done with this – “Ok, I’ll do it now” Noi says nonchalant on top of him, she blows some black smoke out of her lips and cure those scars.

After, as soon as she’s done, his hands on both her shoulders pushing her off him. Noi falls to the other side of the bed saying, “If you weren’t so stubborn”

Shin sigh, standing up to grab his suit, his back to her “Now let me get done, I’m coming in 5 minutes” He said in his typical cool tone.

“YOU HAD MEAT PIES AND DIDN’T EVEN TELL ME?!” Noi suddenly says after seeing the multiple boxes on his bedside

“Why would I tell you?” He ask

“I really love meat pies”

“… The shop is nearby go get pies on your own, idiot—” “Now get out”

Noi have no idea what’s wrong with him. Outside, she wonders if that’s just another one of those days when he becomes… more distant than before? Going around the wrecked halls of the mansion, thinking: ‘Shin is acting weird today 1. He overslept 2. He ate millions of meat pies IN THE MIDDLE OF NIGHT 3. He didn’t tell me about his late night feast 4. He didn’t tell me to fix his injuries 5. He doesn’t want coffee? 6. He did NOT have coffee this morning?!’ – Strange enough, but when Noi thinks about it, he’s been definitely acting strange these days, he’s her partner and so she believes her instinct when she sense something is wrong with him. She can’t point out what is it though; maybe the state of the destroyed mansion got him upset? Maybe something important was stolen from his room during all that mess. Noi stops at some room that’s cluttered with dust, garbage and ruined furniture

“Ugh, the vibes are off after all what the crosseyed did, that Hole thing, whatever it was” She looks at the broken ceiling where the big glistening chandeliers used to be “How long will this take to fix?”

Behind her stood little Ebisu calling “Noi”, Noi turns and pet her head “What’s up?”

“I want to play video games but no one wants to play with me” Noi looks around “I guess, there’s nothing to do- let’s go”

They both went to Ebisu’s room that’s still covered in broken glass, yanked door, flipped bed and table

Noi says “Damn, En didn’t tell his workers to clean your room yet??”

Ebisu near her console clicking buttons, getting the second controller. They both sit on a boulder near the TV, which its screen is nearly giving up.

Noi wasn’t super into the game that Ebisu plays but somehow she was good at the game and kept beating Ebisu. Cheering, screaming, laughing, sometimes having little argue while gaming for a while. Noi turned her head a little off the screen and the sun is already setting, time went by so fast “Ooah!” “I got to go”

“WHyyy!?” Ebisu started crying “NOOOooooo”

“I have to go check on Senpai”

“Why? Is he sick???”

“… hm” Noi thinks for a second “He might be sick!” Then Noi swiftly stands up and leaves while Ebisu is crying for attention.

“Where is he?” Noi walks around the wreckage, “Ugh he surly is wondering where I went” she can’t find him anywhere in this huge mansion and she only searched 5% of it. Shin usually hangs outside when he’s waiting for something so Noi went to that area but to no avail, it was empty. Maybe En sent him on a mission without telling her, that idea alone boiled her blood, she went to En’s office “EN!!!”

En is sitting comfortably on a cozy chair by the huge desk “Hm? Noi why are you here? Did you two forget to keep guarding t-” Noi cuts his slow talking “Where’s senpai????”

He raises an eyebrow “what do you mean? He disappeared?”

“No, your stupid big cluttered mansion makes it hard to find anyone”

“humph” he sighs “We’re working on that, it’d take sometime to clear and restore my precious mansion. In the meantime you two make sure to keep the—” She cuts him off again

“You talk too slow for me, just say did you send him on a mission alone?!”

“No”

“ugh” Noi sighs

En grabs his warm cup of coffee saying “If he’s not outside protecting the—” Noi cuts him off for the third time “Stop repeating stuff, we’re on it”

En gets irritated of the constant interruption, how rude “Noi, if you need to find your partner, you can sense where they’re at. It’s easy. The contract signed inside both of you should be the key to figuring out the destination you need to be. Just calm down and take a deep breath (slow inhale, slow exhale) like that, do it with me (inhale, exhale). It’s necessary to control your anger, I personally, find it hard to sense my partner when I’m not stable. You’re so mad for some reason you need to regain your focus and try to sense y—”

Noi leaves saying “You’re annoying me, I can’t sense SH*T” slamming the door behind her

……………………

……………………

………..…………. En “Did she just-”

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[jessie-writes-things]

From the Darkness | Part 1

This is a commission from the lovely @grogusmum! I'm so so so sorry for how late this is love! Life got in the way a bit. Originally I was gonna do this as one giant piece, but you've been waiting too long and so I just needed to get something out. This ended up being a bit more soft-angst rather than fluff but I tried my best to balance it out. The next part will be full-on found family fluff though! 🥰

This whole thing stemmed from that throwaway line 'I've spent much time on Tatooine' from The Marshall. Basically, I just liked the idea of Din having a somewhat secret life hidden away there. It gets explained a bit more in the second part, but that's really all the context you need right now. 😅🥰

Pairing: Din Djarin x Neutral Reader

Words: 2.5k

Genre: Found family, fluff, soft angst

Warnings: Star Wars level violence, vague mentions of PTSD/Trauma, nightmares

Summary: Din comes home to Tattooine and you spend the night on the Razor Crest.

You always heard the Razor Crest before you saw it. The loud hum of the clunky engine made you jump every single time and you had always wondered how long it would be until the ship just dropped out the sky.

Your answer came quicker than you thought. It was around midnight when the first signs came, snippets of voices fluttered by like quiet, sleep-laced whispers on the wind.

See you we do! Coming home we are!

Then came the ship barrelling onto the landing pad, and you weren’t dramatic in saying you thought the planet was about to explode; walls rumbling, ground vibrating. Peli had been prompted to spew out a few choice words, stepping outside just as you did to watch the slivers of silver moonlight spring off the ship as it finally settled down.

The landing had been…less than graceful to say the least. The engine sounded worse than you’ve ever heard. One of her feet had been ripped clear off, making her tilt to the side at an unnerving angle and you didn’t even want to think about the number of outer plates there were to replace.

What worried you more was the look of annoyance on your boss’s face, pinched and red, and you just had enough time to convince her to head back to bed, promising to deal with The Mandalorian until morning. And thank every planet in the galaxy she listened because if the Crest hadn’t woken up the neighbourhood, you knew she sure as hell would of.

There was an etiquette, you learned through years of working on the hanger; you should never enter a person’s ship first. To regulars, it was like walking into someone’s home without being invited. But so early in the morning you weren’t for niceties.

You walked up that ramp like pray on a hunt, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes and you may have stumbled a bit, but it was a hunt.

The Mandalorian was clearly waiting for you, sitting in the cockpit, the baby asleep in his pod although you had no doubt he was listening to every word.

Very out of character, he was the first to speak, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.’

‘It’s okay.’ It wasn’t…well, it was. You were just grumpy and tired and wanted to go back to bed, ‘She looks a mess.’

‘Can you fix her?’

You had assumed her mess from the work of another bounty gone wrong, maybe Mar again but you weren’t in the right mind to ask. ‘Depends.’

‘On?’

‘What you’re about to ask me to do next.’

There was a silence, a comfortable one but silence, nevertheless. Eyes heavy, you were fading fast, head resting against the passenger seat you had claimed as your own. You weren’t too sure if you had fallen asleep or not. You closed your eyes for what felt like a moment too long and when they opened again, Din had shifted his seat to look at you.

‘We need to stay for a few days.’ His head tilted like a little puppy dog. Helmet still on, you were left trying to imagine how he looked in that moment; eyes squinted, crinkled around the sides in admiration.

Not the exact words you wanted to hear, but not surprising in the slightest.

You decided to push again, ‘Anything else?’

He was smiling, at least you were sure he was, his voice sounding a little lighter despite the artificial muffle of the modulator, ‘Come to bed?’

---

I caught a frog today. Very big frog. I wanted to show you. But ManDad was not very happy with the frog in the big ship. So I ate it, I did. Miss you lots, I did. And so did ManDad. Smiles when he thinks about you, he does. I feel the happiness. Thank you for making him happy.

---

Turns out it hadn’t been Mar that took a hit at his ship.

There had been an incident, Din told you in the quiet of darkness, arms wrapped around you, his head buried safely. Long tufts of hair tickled your jaw and chin whenever he moved or talked, about due for a haircut but that was a battle for another day.

‘Moff Gideon is dead.’ But so was Kuill, the kind Ugnaught who had helped at the start of all this mess. Whatever was left of the Empire was still after the kid and Din still needed to find the Jedi. ‘Karga’s still alive.’

‘I thought he double-crossed you?’ At some point his head had moved onto your chest, letting your fingers card through his hair. You could just about see his face in the small cracks of light, not that he needed to hide anymore, sometimes you think the dark was comforting for him.

The smallest of smiles tugging at the corners of his lips and you really hoped it was because of your touch and not the thought of the Guild agent. Small wins and all that, you guessed. Better to have Greef around than no one at all.

‘I can’t stay long.’ His voice wavered, ever so slightly. You had become accustomed to the bittersweetness of it all, stroking the back of his neck as your heavy eyes began to droop again.

‘That’s okay.’ While it felt like a brick being thrown at your chest, you understood. Truly. The entire Empire was after the kid and, subsequently, him. Not to mention the constant battle against other hunters who had it out for his head.

Because while you knew time was finite with him, at least you had something.

---

Happy to be home we are. ManDad gets lonely sometimes. Feel it I do. I try my best to make him smile but sometimes it does not work. Make him happy, you do. A man should not be lonely for too long, he must not, for loneliness can be deadly. When I am gone, look after him you must. Promise?

---

Quiet moments in the dark were always the loudest for Grogu. Like father like son, you guessed. Neither of them liked the stillness much, both of their minds racing faster than the speed of light. It was always easier to read them in these moments. Flashes of images blended into a mosaic behind your eyes as you tried to hold down a specific part of a memory or a dream.

Some nights it was easier than others. There were times Grogu would sense you in his mind and would purposefully push an image forward, always something he thought was silly like a particularly funny looking frog or a memory of Din singing to some cheesy eighties song you had left behind on a CD during their last visit.

The colourful rhythm and syncopated beats making the walls of the Razor Crest dance along with them and you did everything not to burst out laughing in the still night, biting your lip only for a small snort to escape. Din caught on, barely opening his eyes a crack to mumble out some half-arsed are you okay before rolling over and heading back to sleep again.

It was easier to read Din when he was asleep. Not that you did it much or even intended to in the first place. But sleep tore down the walls he had spent years building up, subconsciously pushing the dreams into your mind. If Grogu’s thoughts were a lulled whisper, Din’s were white noise. Fuzzy static took up most of the space, at times slipping to let through blips of voices or a grainy picture of long past memories. They were too quick to get a full idea of what he was dreaming about.

A boy.

The pop of blasters.

A woman screaming.

One deep breath and the image faded. Din would wake for a moment, eyes closed and he’d turn back to face you. His chest shook, barely and nothing noticeable normally, but you caught it, pressing a kiss to the top of his head, and mumbling a soft it’s okay as he settled back into you.

---

Today was not so bad, it was not. But sometimes I still think about the dark place. Scary and lonely was I. For a long, long time. Then there’s light and I see ManDad for the first time. And then everything is better, it is! No longer do I need to fear the dark.

---

Like always, Grogu climbed out of his pod early morning and forced the doors of the sleeping pad open, giving him room to wiggle his way between Din and you. These were the times you’d feel the tug of his mind at the doors of yours, asking permission to be allowed in.

If your consciousness was awake enough, you’d let him, letting the Green Bean explore the distorted images of Earth and your past life. You would find him standing next to you, present you, in the middle of the dirtied street, dark and damp as rain pounded on the concrete around you, drowning out the screams of the people as they rushed by.

He’d hold his arms up, a quiet hold me please passing by and you’d take him in your arms, holding him close. Sparks of fear rolled through you, weighed down by dread and it was hard to tell if it was coming from Grogu or your past self.

Clouds filled the sky like grey shadows. It had taken you a long time to realise they weren’t normal, that the clouds were too big, were floating by too quick to be anything natural.

That had been the first time you saw them. Aliens. Or what people on Earth would think of as aliens. Tall, grey, slimy, the stuff you had only ever seen on TV and they were now shooting from the skies in streaks of red light. Streets pathed in dust that smelt like ash and day-old water.

The two of you walked through the mess like ghosts, people running left and right and through you, some in slow motion while some were ungodly in their speed. They all died in the end. Zapped out of existence by a singular lazar.

Someone yelled about children. Save the children. Spare the children. Collect the children. Round them up near the hanger, discard the ones we don’t need, you know the ones I mean, don’t talk back to me. Their voice washed over you in cold chills, sounding so far underwater that they might as well not be there at all.

A man stopped in front of you. Tall dressed in all black. A human man staring right at you. He didn’t look panicked like the rest, was calm and collected as he pulled out his gun and aimed so perfectly right at your head. You didn’t move, didn’t duck for cover as he pulled the trigger.

You should know better than to look.

There’s a woman behind you. Was a woman behind you. She’s dead when you turn around, a pile of smoking ash on the cobbled path, already being washed away by the rain.

Then there was the child, arms still stretched out to hold their mother’s hand, eyes wide in fear but they don’t cry. No matter how much their heart is racing. No matter how much they want to scream as the man grabs their arm and drags them away, throwing them in line with the rest of them, waiting for their turn to be scanned and thrown in the hanger.

They don’t scream, even when the doors slam shut and darkness is all that’s left.

---

Awake, are you? Sleep I cannot. Wonder if ManDad knows how much I love him, I do. ManDad is amazing he is. He saved me from the dark and keeps me safe, he does. Let’s me eat cookies, he does. Such lovely cookies. Try some, you must. But ManDad hurts, I feel. Feel his heavy heart, I do. So much pain and loss cause a man to be sad. Want him to be sad I do not. When I am gone, please tell him all the time that he is special, he is. Always be my buir, he will.

---

‘Buir.’ Grogu sat on your stomach, watching with wide, curious eyes as he followed your finger to where Din moved back and forth getting ready to head out. It was just some low-level bounty, armature work really, but that didn’t stop the anxiety from budding in the pit of your stomach. Distractions curved the nausea, curled up with the pod door open, blanket tucked under your chin with the residual warmth of his body still hugging you, ‘He’s your buir.’

Din hadn’t put his helmet back on yet, the roll of his eyes contrasted with the small half-smile on his lips. In the light, it was easier to see the damage he had taken during his last fight. There was only so much an ex-bounty-turned-nursing droid and some bacta spray could do. The large gash across his forehead looked painful and you made a mental note to check it over when he returned.

‘Don’t teach him that.’

‘Why not?’

There was a pause. You caught the way the small smile faltered, wavering with doubt and uncertainty and maybe a hint of sadness although that last part was hard to tell. And while the wall Din had built around himself was thick, sadness was strong enough to creep through the cracks. Even Grogu noticed, large ears pricking, head tilting in ManDad’s direction with a small coo.

‘Aliit ori'shya tal'din.’

‘You’ve been practicing.’ The words were light, a brow quirked in your direction and you knew what it meant; you’re adorable. Thank you for trying. At least he was smiling, finishing up the last buckle on his holster ‘Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum.’

Maybe you should have been more surprised by the slip of his tongue. The way he carried on getting dressed, not even pausing once at his mistake.

You had heard him say those words before a hundrad times or more. But you wondered how long he had meant those words. Months? Years? Was it a new development? Was it something he had always known?

But there was no surprise. Instead, a warmth planted itself in your chest, and it grew, branches stretching to fill every ounce of your being until it was all you could feel.

‘Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum.’ His eyes widened at your mimicked words. The pronunciation was still a bit off and sometimes the emphasis was stressed on the wrong bits, but it was nice to know you were close enough that he understood you, ‘I know what it means now. You can’t trick me anymore.’

Din picked up the helmet and put it on before you had the chance to see the full smile that bloomed, but you heard it, the hints of pure happiness shining through the modulated, ‘I was never trying to trick you.’

You fought back your own smile. The heat spreading across your cheeks told a different story though, serving as a reminder of years old built-up emotions neither of you had time to unpack at that moment.

So, you did what you both did best. You quickly changed the topic, shifting your attention back to the Green Bean plopped on your stomach, happily teething on the small silver ball he sneakily snatched from the controls. A few seconds later and his attention found yours, giving you a gleeful smile as he held out the ball as a peace offering.

‘Ba'buir.’ You pointed back at Din and Grogu laughed, ‘He’s your Ba'buir.’

But Din was already out of sight, halfway to the door when he called back, ‘He’s older than me!’

Older, I surely am. And wiser. Yet know, you do not. Be careful ManDad For space can be dark and dangerous.

The lock hissed as it opened, seemingly louder in the suddenly quiet Razor Crest, ‘Be careful.’

‘Always.’

---

buir = parent

Aliit ori'shya tal'din = "Family is more than blood."

Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum ="I love you."; literally: "I will know you forever."

Ba'buir = grandparent

[rohad93]

Moonlit Masquerade: ch 3

Also on Ao3

She was exhausted.

Which is what happens when you don’t sleep, like, at all. 

Luz could barely keep her eyes open during her bard classes. If it weren’t for the constant loud noises and music that was often blaring from the hallway that housed the bard track students she probably would have passed out long before lunch.

She sighed tiredly as she picked at her lunch, she’s been so preoccupied trying to just get herself moving this morning she’d completely forgotten to pack her lunch today and had to get something from the school cafeteria.

Not that whatever it was they had slopped on her tray was really doing it for her nonexistent appetite anyway.

The fact that whatever it was, was looking back at her did not help. She shoved the tray away with a frown.

Gus and Willow shared a concerned look from their side of the table. Gus shrugged and Willow looked back at their usually energetic friend.

“You okay, Luz?” she asked tentatively. 

“Huh?” Luz looked up, blinking tiredly. “Oh, yeah, I’m fine, I just didn’t sleep much last night is all.” She smiled, but it took noticeable effort and she knew right away that Willow wasn’t buying it. 

“Makes sense,” Gus answered before the plant witch could say anything. The small smile that crawled on Luz’s face was genuine as she looked at her friends. Bless Gus.  

She knew Willow wasn’t so easily fooled but luckily she didn’t have plant track until tomorrow. Hopefully, she’d get some sleep tonight and not look quite so much like something Hooty had hacked up.

She wanted to talk to her friends, she really did, but she didn’t know what to say, she wasn’t even entirely sure what was wrong.

She’d laid in bed last night staring up at the ceiling, trying to figure out why she suddenly couldn’t keep Amity Blight off her brain. The way she smiled or laughed, gold eyes lighting up with the acts. The thoughts made her stomach twist and flip like she’d drank a glass of milk.

Before she knew it the sun had started streaming in through her window and it was time for school. 

She managed to avoid Amity by waiting till after the bell had rung to go into the building, she’d been late to her first class but sometimes you just had to make sacrifices.

Lunch ended and she hurried off to her oracle classes with a brief goodbye to her friends, Willow giving her a look that Luz deliberately ignored. She knew she was only worried about her but she really didn’t wanna talk about it right now, what would she say?

‘Sorry, I’m just tired because I didn’t sleep, I was too busy freaking out about the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about Amity all night.’ Yeah, she couldn’t even begin to guess how Willow and Gus would react to that. 

The rest of her day passed in a sleepy haze, at one point she must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew the screaming of the bell made her jerk out of her seat and topple to the floor in a groggy heap.

Perfect

She picked herself up and gathered her things before slowly making her way toward the front of the school. Her mind was blank save for the quiet, sleep deprived induced white noise that filled her head, like the static on one of the broken TV’s Eda would try to sell at the market. 

She was too tired to even think about Amity right now, all she could think about was her bed.

“Hey, Luz.”

She jerked, the static vanished from her mind as she turned toward the familiar voice calling her name, stomach doing somersaults. 

Amity was walking down the front steps toward her, books cradled in her arms and a small smile pulling at her lips.

“Oh, h-hey Amity!” She smiled nervously as the youngest Blight stopped in front of her.

“I didn’t see you this morning, I must have missed you.”

“Oh, I uh, was late.” she shrugged nervously, playing with the strap of her bag, eyes looking anywhere but at her as she felt her face heating up against her will.

The look on Amity’s face turned concerned as she really took in Luz’s appearance. Her face seemed to sag and the area beneath her eyes was heavy with shadow as though she hadn’t slept in days, those normally bright, brown eyes were dull and hazy. 

“Are you okay? You don’t look well.” The concern in her tone was palpable and it made Luz’s stomach twist up in knots. She frowned, still not able to meet her friend’s gaze.

“Actually, no, I’m not feeling very good, I gotta go!” She turned and bolted, if Amity called after her she didn’t hear as she ran straight for the owl house.

“Luz is home!” Hooty screeched, the door swinging open for her.

“Thanks Hooty…,” she mumbled quietly as she walked through the empty living room. She dropped her bag on the floor and flung herself face down onto the couch before letting out a frustrated yell into the cushions.

“Oh, your home, how was school, kid?” Eda’s head poked out of the kitchen to look at the ruckus in the living room. 

Again Luz groaned into the couch before sitting up to look at her mentor. Dual colored eyes blinked. 

“Yowza, what’s the matter with you?” she asked, walking into the room the second she saw Luz’s face.

“That’s the problem, I don’t know!” She flung her hands out, exasperated as Eda sat next to her. “I was up all night and I couldn’t focus all day, I couldn’t stop thinking about her!" 

"Her? Her who?" 

Luz blinked, face reddening as she realized what she had just said, her eyes slid to Eda who was looking at her expectantly. 

"Uh…” she bit her lip.

“Is some kid picking on you, do we need to feed someone to Hooty?” the owl lady asked with a frown.

“No, no… we don’t need to feed anyone to Hooty.” Luz shook her head. “I didn’t sleep at all last night…I…” she glanced up at Eda who was looking at her encouragingly. 

“I couldn’t stop thinking about Amity,” she admitted, fiddling with her fingers.

“What do you mean, thinking about her how?” Eda scratched the back of her head, frowning. 

If possible Luz’s already flushed face turned even redder at the prospect of saying it out loud.

“Like… how smart and cool she is! She’s so good at magic and grudgeby and she’s so pretty…” She was cut off by Eda’s burst of laughter. Luz looked at her mentor, red faced as Eda threw her head back and howled with laughter. 

“What’s so funny!?” she demanded. 

“What is all the racquet in here?” Lilith asked as she stood in the entrance to the kitchen, a tea cup in hand as she looked curiously at them.

“Luz here has it bad for the tiniest Blight,” Eda managed to snort between laughter.

“Oh?” Lillith cocked a brow as her gaze turned to Luz, looking mildly amused. 

“It? What It?!” 

“Kid, I knew you could be a little hard headed but come on,” Eda chuckled, wiping away the tears that had gathered in the corner of her eyes.  “You have a crush on Amity, it happens.” Eda smiled at her apprentice, reaching out to ruffle her hair.

“A crush!? We’re friends, I don’t have a crush! ” Luz jumped up like she’d been scalded, face hot as she looked wildly between both sisters who were looking at her with mild amusement.

“You didn’t sleep all night because you were thinking about how smart she was…” Eda stood from the couch and set both hands on her hips. 

“Well…” Luz hummed.

“How cool she is…”  Eda went on.

“She…” Luz yelped.

“And how pretty she is.” Eda smirked, leaning forward.

“I…” Luz wheezed. 

“Perhaps even, being around her makes you nervous, excited, flushed?” Lilith asked before taking a sip of her tea, but never took her eyes off Luz over the rim of her cup. 

At the suggestion Luz’s face did in fact flush.

Her brain was zipping with lightning paced thoughts as she thought about her interactions with Amity. 

Amity helping her with her homework in class, laughing as she ate lunch with her, Gus and Willow… saving her from being sliced in half in grudgby… Grom!

Despite the fight with the horrible fear monster she looked so happy and pretty as they danced…

Luz’s eyes widened as her face turned impossibly crimson.

“Here it comes…” Eda grinned, waiting for the incoming explosion.  

“Oh crammity, I have a crush on Amity!” She slapped her hands against the sides of her face, looking horrified at the sudden realization.

“There it is!” Eda draped an arm over her apprentice’s shoulder and tugged her in close. “Ah, young love, I remember it like it was yesterday,” the witch sighed wistfully, eyes starting into the distance as she seemed to be remembering something.

“Love?!” Luz yelped.

Lilith rolled her eyes as she watched Eda squeeze the shaken human.

“Edalyn, you’re scaring her…,” Lilith drawled. 

“Hmm?” She glanced down at Luz who seemed to be on the verge of hyperventilating. “Oh, right,” she mumbled. “Hey, don’t sweat it, kid, it’s just a little crush…well, maybe a big crush…,” she chuckled, seeing just how red the girl was. 

“I-I can’t have a crush on Amity, we’re friends!” she insisted. 

“That’s how it starts…” Eda nodded her head knowingly. “You start as friends and then you know you got things in common." 

"Who dares disturb the king of demons!? What’s going on here?” King stomped into the room.

“Luz is having a teenage crisis,” Eda supplied.

“Meh…” King didn’t look impressed before heading up the stairs.

“What am I gonna do?” Luz drug her hands through her hair anxiously.

“Well, based on my previous experience, the way I see it you have two options.” Eda held up two fingers. 

“Which are?” Luz looked at the older witch hopefully 

“You can run away and start a new life, maybe on the knee, or we can get rid of her..” she offered.

“What, no! Neither!"  she shouted.

“Edalyn!” Lilith scolded at the same time.

“What? She said she couldn’t have a crush!” She held up a hand.

“I just mean…I…” Luz wasn’t sure what she meant, but she definitely wasn’t going to run way from Amity and she really didn’t want anyone ‘getting rid of her’. “I just don’t know what to do…” 

“You could pursue it,” Lillith offered with a quirk of her brow as though it were the most obvious answer.

Luz seized up at the suggestion.

“I guess she could do that too.” Eda shrugged. “If you’re into that kind of thing.” she scratched her nose and Lillith rolled her eyes. 

“I uh, think I’m just gonna go lay down…,” Luz mumbled tiredly, her exhaustion from the day hitting her like a freight train all of a sudden.

“Sure, kid.” Eda patted her shoulder, looking down at her apprentice sympathetically.  She watched the girl climb the stairs and listened for the shutting of her door before she shook her head with a chuckle. “This is gonna be interesting…,” she said with a shake of her head.

“How so?” Lilith cocked a brow at her sister.

“Cause that girl already had it bad for Luz for weeks now,” she said like it was the most obvious thing in all the Boiling Isles as she walked back into the kitchen, Lilith trailing behind her.

“Why didn’t you tell her that?” she frowned as Eda shook her head, going back to the bubbling green pot of goo she had been mixing before Luz got home.

“Naw, they need to figure it out on their own. That kid is braver than most people I know, now that she’s clued in on her feelings maybe they’ll get somewhere; otherwise this is gonna be painful to watch.” She frowned.

Upstairs Luz had dropped onto her sleeping bag with a sigh, she could barely keep her eyes open, even as her mind was buzzing with this new realization of her crush on Amity.

She buried her face in her hands and groaned.

What was she gonna do? She couldn’t just ‘pursue’ her, as Lillith had suggested…

Could she? Would she think it was weird? 

She’d come to terms with being bi last year after a long and awkward talk with her mom, but she’d still never actually had a real crush on anyone before, heck, she didn’t even have any friends back in the human world, much less love interests. 

No one wanted to even be friends with the weird girl that had ‘backup snakes’ much less date her. 

She frowned up at the ceiling. 

It was different here though wasn’t it? She had friends, sure she was still kind of an outcast as far as the majority of the student body was concerned, being the only human and all, but no one really thought she was weird, she had classmates who had six arms or just a giant eye for a head, she was pretty tame by comparison, in fact if she just had pointed ears no one would even look twice at her.

She needed some help.

Eda meant well but she thrived on being an outcast, and while she accepted she was always going to be on the fringes for being herself no matter what world she lived in, which she was mostly fine with, she still wanted to belong somewhere. Now that she finally had that, did she really want to risk one of those precious friendships because one of her friends was just so smart and cool and cute?

“Ughh!” She kicked her feet helplessly. 

“Nghh, why are you so loud, can’t you see I’m trying to sleep?” 

She jerked, turning her head to see King curled up in a pile of her clothes, one eye open to look at her, but despite his words he didn’t look annoyed at all.

“I’m just tired…,” she lied, not up for talking about this anymore right now.

The tiny demon huffed, getting up and trotting over to her. He flopped down beside her and curled into a ball at her side. 

“Go to sleep then…,” he grumbled.

A small smile pulled at her lips as she ran a hand through his fur.

“Yeah…,” she mumbled, head rolling back to look at the ceiling before she closed her eyes and tried to push away all her conflicting thoughts. 

Within a few minutes she was out. 

~ ~ ~

Luz woke up feeling so much better than she had yesterday, though still conflicted on what to do about her crush. 

At least she wouldn’t be by herself today.

On Thursday Luz had plant track classes with Willow. 

She tried to act more casual and upbeat than she had at lunch yesterday, but Willow seemed to pick up on her less than chipper mood pretty quickly anyway.

“So, do you want to tell me what’s wrong?” she asked as they stood in a somewhat isolated corner of the green house carefully trimming a pair of snapping gargoyle lilies.

“What makes you think something is wrong?” Luz laughed nervously, only just jerking her fingers out of the way before one of the red flowers could snap its fanged petals around her fingers. She glared at it. 

“Come on Luz, you really haven’t been yourself lately, you know you can talk to me right?” Willow asked with a smile. 

Luz frowned as she snipped another dead branch of the writhing and growling demon plant with some shears. 

“Of course I know…,” she finally said. “I guess, I’m just… embarrassed?” That was definitely one of the things she was feeling. Nervous, anxious, unsure? 

Definitely those things too.

“It’s okay,” Willow assured her again.

Luz made a nervous humming sound as she glanced around at the other students, none close enough to really over hear them if they spoke quietly. 

“I… have a crush…” she finally admitted, cheeks dusted pink. Willow’s face lit up with a bright smile.

“Aw, that’s great, Luz! That’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” her friend assured her.

“That’s not the embarrassing part…” Luz mumbled, glancing around anxiously. How did people on the Boiling isles even feel about someone having romantic feelings for someone of the same gender? She knew that it could go either way in the human world, was it like that here? Worse?

She swallowed thickly. Willow was her friend, and Willow had two dads, even if it was, she would understand.

“It’s a girl,” she admitted, testing the waters before she told Willow who it was exactly.

Willow frowned, looking at her strangely.

“Why would that be embarrassing?” 

“I dunno it’s just… in the human world there are a lot of places and people that REALLY don’t like that… like… kill people because of it,” she grimaced and the shock was easy to see in the plant witch’s face.

“What, why!?” 

Luz shrugged helplessly, a tinge of anger igniting in her gut, she wasn’t sure she could really explain the way different religions and politics influenced culture in her world, and even if she could it would probably take a lot longer than they had for class.

“It’s just, the way it is…” she trailed off and Willow seemed to understand that Luz couldn’t answer her question, though she still looked disturbed by this and Luz didn’t blame her.

“Well, it’s not like that here, no one cares about that stuff I guess,” she said, and Luz sagged in relief at this and Willow could tell. “You don’t need to worry about that, Luz.” She patted the other girl’s shoulder.

“That is a relief.” she nodded but paused, biting her lip. In for a penny in for a pound, that was the saying right?

“There’s one more thing…,” she trailed off, looking at Willow nervously, but she only smiled encouragingly. “It’s Amity.” 

“What!?” she dropped her own shears as she stared at Luz as though she had grown another head. Luz’s faded flush burst back into life as she jerked back at Willow’s loud cry. 

Willow quickly calmed herself at seeing Luz’s distress. 

“Amity?” she asked, much quieter. Luz nodded, scratching the back of her head. 

Somewhere in the back of her thoughts Willow thought that if Amity could hear that she would have passed out from sheer joy.

“Are you mad?” the latina asked nervously, which quickly brought Willow back to the conversation at hand, her surprise morphing into confusion.

“What, why would I be mad?” she blinked.

“I mean, I know you and Amity still don’t have the best relationship…” Luz trailed off, unsure.

Oh, trust Luz to worry about something like that.

“I’m surprised,” she admitted. “But I’m not mad, Luz. Amity and I are working things out, but that’s between us, that shouldn’t affect your relationship.” 

Luz’s face flared at the word. 

“That’s why you’ve been upset? You have a crush on Amity?” she asked quietly and Luz nodded. 

“That… and I’m not sure what I should do about it…” She thumbed the shears in her hand. 

“Well… you like her… why don’t you ask her out?” Willow suggested with a shrug. “Isn’t that what most people do?”

“I can’t just ask her out!” Luz threw out her arms, eyes wide and almost panicked looking. “We’re friends and she’s so awesome…,” she trailed off.

Amity would definitely die if she were here, Willow thought, amused.

"What kind of chance do I have?” Luz asked morosely, looking down at the floor.

Willow really wanted to tell Luz about Amity but stopped, she couldn’t.

“Well… you won’t know if you don’t try,” she finally said, smiling.

Luz blinked back at her, eyes wide.

“You… you really think I should go after Amity?” she asked quietly, glancing around at the other students in the greenhouse, but her voice was filled with disbelief that made Willow smile almost sadly at her friend. 

“Yes, Luz. I think you should, I know you’re friends, but knowing Amity, she’d never not want to be friends with you, even if she didn’t return your feelings, and if she does, then you get to be more than friends.” She reached out and rested a hand on the human girl’s shoulder.

“But… what about her grom crush? There was someone she wanted to invite to grom but was too afraid to be rejected by…,” she said uncertainly.

She wanted her friends to be happy and she really wanted that for Amity, it felt selfish to try and get in the way of Amity and whoever she already had feelings for. 

It took everything Willow had not to laugh. She loved Luz and the girl was much too caring and selfless, but also a little dense. 

“Well, they say love is war right?”

“No one said anything about love!” Luz choked, clutching the shears, face a bright shade of scarlet that made Willow giggle. 

“I just mean you have to fight for something sometimes if you really want it. You need to show Amity why she should be looking at you and not someone else. You’re funny, kind, and smart, show her.” She smiled encouragingly as she tried to hype up her unsure friend. 

Luz seemed to be thinking as she fiddled with the shears in her hands anxiously before her grip on them turned solid and a look of determination settled on her face.

“You’re right!” she said, standing up straight. “I’m going to make her forget all about whoever she was going to ask to Grom.” 

“Yeah!” Willow cheered her on, but internally the irony was hilarious and killing her inside simultaneously. 

“I’m going to romance the heck out of her!” Luz declared, thrusting her hand, fisted around the shears into the air. 

Several other students were now looking over at them strangely and Luz’s face turned red again and her hand shot back down as she hunkered over their table. Willow just smiled at her friend and shook her head, patting her on the back

She felt a little bad for Amity, knowing what was coming, because if she knew Luz, it was going to be a lot. More than the hopelessly smitten girl was probably ready for.

She really wanted to tell Luz, but she knew it wasn’t her place to tell her about Amity’s feelings. It wouldn’t be right for her to hear it from her and not Amity. 

The rest of the class went by with Luz trying to hide her bright red face behind some of the plants she was supposed to be working with.

[ghosttotheparty]

while the world ends around us (make believe with me)

5. We let the freckles on our faces make a million stars AO3

When Jens’s phone buzzed late last night, he ignored it, simply glancing at the brightening screen before looking away, back at the video game he was engrossed in. Lotte and his mom were both in bed, probably snoring, but he couldn’t fall asleep, hard as he tried. 

It was almost midnight when he finally took off the headset and shut off the tv, rubbing his sore ears and blinking in the dim light of the hallway seeping into the living room after staring at the bright, fluorescent screen for so long. As he moved down the hallway, it was like the music and booms and crashes of the game were echoing, rattling around in his skull, clashing with the deafening silence as he cracked Lotte’s door open and gazed at her for a second, his phone, notification forgotten, in the pocket of his sweatpants. 

He’d left his light off when he threw himself onto the bed, the door shut gently behind him. The windows were cracked open, the pale yellow curtains parted to let light from street lamps leak into the room, the quiet city just out of reach as he stepped between the window and his bed to grab his earbuds from the floor. 

He fell onto the bed, causing a quiet thump and he buried himself under his blanket, hiding from the soft breeze sneaking into the room. He finally pulled his phone out, struggling for a second before managing to plug in his earbuds, and he opened his phone, flinching as it shone too brightly in the dark. His eyes caught on a notification as the phone opened too quickly for him to read it beyond a phone number he didn’t recognise.  He let out a quiet “Oh,” as he swiped on the screen until his messages were open, remembering suddenly, his heart picking up its pace until he could hear it. 

l: hey this is lucas :)

Jens smiled, hurriedly sending a hey whats up?? before adding the number as a contact, as lucas :). (He’d used a smiley face in the initial email, so maybe it was a Lucas thing.) Before he could leave the app to open his music, Lucas had texted back. 

l: not much just staring at the ceiling

Jens had laughed lightly, rolling over so he was on his belly, propping himself up on his elbows with his phone in front of him. 

j: oh same

He paused before typing again. 

j: sooooo how are you liking antwerp

He watched as a bubble appears, and then disappears, and then appears again. 

l: im sure if i went out into the city and actually did stuff i’d like it more

Jens had chuckled, tilted his head understandingly.

j: very valid

j: it’s not the same rn bc of covid but there are still some cool places to see

He watched the bubble again. 

l: i haven’t really left my apartment since i got here :( but i do want to go places l: my friends are pressuring me to be adventurous

j: when it’s safe for people to meet up i can show you around

j: we can go on some adventures

After hitting send he paused, biting his lip, wondering if it was too… forward, straight-up, blunt. If it was too early, too soon for a let’s hang out invitation. But then Lucas responded with his little :)and it was fine. 

Jens started getting sleepy as they chatted, as Lucas told him about Utrecht and about what he did with his friends. 

l: we used to get fries a lot l: too often maybe

l: no such thing j: so we’re getting fries when we meet up it’s decided

l: a man after my own heart

j: stomach

l: oh yea

He wakes up to shifting on his bed, and his eyes open, just a bit. It’s still a little dim out, too early for him to be worried about missing a class, too early for him to be worried about sleeping through an alarm. 

It’s the first time he’s woken up in the morning without earbuds tangled around him. He sees them when he opens his eyes, a fuzzy, white, tangled mess on the edge of his bed like he placed them there (maybe he did), and a part of him says huh, seeming to forget that it’s actually possible to fall asleep without his head full of noise. 

He glances down, still too tired to really move, and sees Lotte crawling up his bed, a little blurry. He moves his arm so she can climb under it, and realises his fingers are resting on top of his phone, also dangerously close to the edge of the bed. He pulls it closer and slides it up to a safe place before lifting his arm up more, feeling Lotte’s small hands pull at his bicep until it’s in the air, and she flops down next to him, narrowly missing his face. He scoffs and pulls her close, resting his chin on her head. 

When he wakes up again it’s brighter, and there’s a jolt in his chest before he reaches up, around Lotte (the arm she’s laying on it filled with static but he’s careful not to move her), and snatches his phone, bringing it close enough to his face to read the time. There are only a few minutes before his alarm is going to go off. 

“Lotte,” he whispers, and she just nuzzles her face into Jens’s chest. “Hey.”

She groans quietly and furrows her brows, a hand coming up and curling under her chin softly. 

“Lotte, I have a class soon.” 

“I don’t wanna go,” she mumbles, moving closer, and he sighs, running a hand over her hair. 

“Will you stay quiet while I’m in class?” he asks after a second. 

“Mm-hmm.” She nods, moving closer, but Jens sits up, pushing her away, and she ends up with her head on his leg, seemingly undisturbed as Jens bends around her to pick up his laptop and set it in front of himself. She’s snoring softly by the time the video call is open, by the time Jens’s glasses are on his face, by the time the teacher’s droning voice is talking about the homework Jens did last class, still with a few minutes before class actually starts. (Chemistry. Jens suspects Mr Claes is just about as done with virtual learning as the rest of them. Classes are quick, just attendance and instruction. The minimal amount of learning Jens does in this class is through the assignments: YouTube videos and Google Forms. Modern education.) 

Jens ends up running his hand over Lotte’s hair, waiting until Mr Claes dismisses them with too much time left over like usual so he can go and make breakfast. 

As Mr Claes is talking to Mathijs (“Why didn’t you do last week’s assignment?” Jens winces in sympathy for him.), Jens’s phone buzzes, back on his bed where he had put it before Lotte crawled in and he leans back, pulling it close and looking at the notification, a text from Lucas :).

i: i have dupont first l: any advice

Jens opens the messages, skimming the ones from last night, that took up too much of the night, that are probably the reason Jens’s eyes are struggling to stay open this morning more than usual, and types a response, lifting his hand from Lotte’s head to do so.

j: never had him :/ 

Lucas responds soon after a second. 

l: ugh l: disappointing

Jens scoffs, glancing up as Claes starts discussing the day’s assignment. 

j: my apologies j: good luck

He sighs, leaning back as he waits for a response. 

“So,” Claes is saying, his voice echoey. “It’s the same as last class, just make sure to turn it in before three today.” None of the other students have their cameras on, and Claes stares blankly, waiting for a response, reminding Jens of Dora the Explorer. After a second, he gives up and says, “Okay, guys, I guess I’ll see you Tuesday.” A pause. “Or I’ll talk to you next Tuesday, I guess. Email me if you have questions.”

Jens’s phone buzzes in his lap but he ignores it long enough to lean forward and unmute himself to say, “Bye, Mr Claes.”

He shuts his laptop quietly when he leaves the meeting, setting the assignment on a to-do shelf in his brain, and lifts his phone to read the text. 

l: ok he’s just telling personal anecdotes about his cats i think he’s bored l: but i am too so what’s up

Jens smiles again, pushing his glasses up his nose and pushing his laptop away.

j: my sister is asleep on my leg and my teacher just dismissed us j: so i’m going to make breakfast or something

Jens yawns after hitting send, arching his back as he stretches and hearing it crack softly, taking care to not move his leg and bother Lotte, who’s still sleeping peacefully. One of her hands is under her chin, her fingers pressed between her face and Jens’s leg, making her cheek squish, and Jens gently brushes her hair back.

l: wait that’s so cute how old is she l: also what are you making can i have some l: also dupont just dismissed us, do you want to call bc i don’t have anything to do

Jens grins, quickly reaching up to push his glasses again (they fall when he looks down at his phone; tightening them has been on his to-do list for a while), and responding.

j: she’s eight j: eggs probably come on down j: yes i’ll call you in a minute

“Lotte,” he says softly, clicking off his phone and tossing it away. He touches the top of her head, rustling her hair gently, and she lets out a disgruntled groan, turning her face into Jens’s leg. He laughs, rustling her hair again. 

“I’m going to make breakfast, but you have to get off me first.” She doesn’t move. “Do you wanna eat?”

Her eyes open and she glares at him groggily. 

“You can stay here if you want, I just have to get up.”

“But you’re so comfy,” she says, nuzzling her face into his leg again.

“Well so are pillows and that’s what they’re actually for.”

“Ugh.” 

She finally moves, rolling off of his leg and squirming around like a fish until she finds the pillows, and she clutches the end of the blanket and she buries her face in them. 

“I’ll wake you up later.”

“Don’t,” she grumbles into the pillow, and he almost doesn’t hear her. 

Before leaving, he reaches over her, snatching his earbuds and pressing a chaste kiss to her head. 

As he makes his way to the kitchen, he struggles to plug the earbuds into his phone, lifting it closer to his face to see and bumping into the doorframe of the kitchen, wincing as his shoulder hits a sharp corner. 

He calls Lucas, hesitating for only a second to take a deep breath, as he opens the pan cabinet. 

“Hey,” he says when Lucas picks up.

“You said you’re making eggs?” Lucas says, sans greeting, and Jens startles, snorting and trying to stifle a cackle as he flips the pan in his hand and turns on the stove. His voice is different than it was during class, over the video call. It sounds... closer. Softer, even though he’s speaking with his chest more so than he did when he was in class. 

“Yes? What’s your problem with eggs?”

“I don’t have a problem, it’s just fucking gross.”

The laugh breaks through loudly as he sets the pan on the stove, leaning over the counter to grab the non-stick spray. 

“This is not a conversation I was expecting to have today— Are you vegan?” 

“No, I’m not vegan. Why, what’s your problem with vegans?” 

“I don’t have a problem with vegans.”  He spins on his heel to go to the fridge and pulls three eggs out of the carton, leaving two. He makes a mental note to get eggs next time he takes Lotte grocery shopping.

“Just like I don’t have a problem with eggs.” 

“Listen… I respect veganism.” He cracks an egg.

“Did you… Just tell me to shut up so I could hear you crack an egg?”

“I…” Jens looks at the eggshells in his hand. “That was not on purpose.”

“The amount of disrespect.”

“I just said I respect vegans!”

“And I just said I’m not vegan!”

“Oh my god…” 

Jens laughs as he drops the eggshells in the bin, turning back to twist the knob on the stove to turn down the heat.

“Anyway,” Lucas says lightly. “How are you today?”

Jens scoffs, grabbing a plate from the counter as the egg cooks.

“Fine? I’ve been awake for approximately ten minutes, so we’re going pretty good. You?”

“I’m dead inside, thanks for asking—” Jens interrupts him with a laugh— “But this class doesn’t seem too hard, so that’s nice.”

“Cool, which class is it?” 

“Biology.”

“Oh, gross. I just had chemistry.”

“Biology is better than chemistry.”

“Incorrect,” Jens says after scoffing. 

“Actually, I’m always correct.”

“I think your brain is broken.”

Lucas lets out a quiet laugh. 

“Just a little bit.”

Jens laughs, carefully shimmying the spatula under the egg to flip it.  

“What have you been up to other than classes?” He asks after a second, and there’s a slight pause before Lucas answers. 

“Just hanging out in my room, I guess. I haven’t done much.” 

“You said you’re an artist, right?”

“Uh— Yeah,” Lucas says, sounding hesitant.

“What kind of art do you do?”

“Visual,” he says. “Mostly portraits in pencil or pen, but I really like watercolour.”

“How come  you don’t have art or anything on your wall?” Jens asks as he drops the cooked egg on a plate and sprays the pan again. “One of my friends is an artist and his wall is covered.”

Lucas sighs. 

“I would, but I’m not allowed to put anything up.”

“Like your landlord won’t let you put pins or anything?” 

“No, like my dad won’t even let me use tape, it’s ridiculous.”

Jens makes a face even though Lucas can’t see him.

“That’s stupid,” he says, cracking the other two eggs and mixing them together when one of the yolks breaks. 

“He is stupid,” Lucas grumbles, and his voice has changed. It’s lower, less playful than when he picked up.

“How come you live with him?” Jens asks, something in him recognizing the result of divorced parents. Lucas doesn’t answer, though, and Jens regrets asking as he hears Lucas let out a quiet sigh. 

“We can talk about something else,” he says gently. 

“Thanks,” Lucas says softly.

“So you only do portraits?” Jens asks, changing his tone so it’s more conversational. 

“Usually, yeah.” There’s a clicking sound on Lucas’s end, sounding like the mouse of a laptop. “Every once in a while I’ll draw something else, but it’s typically faces.”

“Do you do people from real life?” Jens asks curiously. “Or do you do like… I don’t know.”

“Both,” Lucas says. “I use references and I like drawing my friends with pictures they send me, but sometimes I just… draw whatever comes to mind. Random faces and stuff.”

“I wish I could do something like that,” Jens sighs. “My sister is the artist of the family.”

“I already love your sister.” “Everyone loves my sister.”

“What do you do?” Lucas asks, and Jens shrugs, mixing the eggs around a little with the spatula. 

“Not much. Before covid I went skating with my friends, I went to parties and stuff. Now I just play video games and play guitar on occasion.”

“You play guitar?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re an artist.”

Jens scoffs, laughing lightly, but Lucas insists, “You are! Music is an art and you make music. Artist.”

“If you say so.”

“I told you I’m always right,” Lucas sighs. “Ah, shit.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Dupont actually assigned homework.”

“He’s a teacher, Lucas, that’s what they do.”

Lucas sighs again, sounding forlorn. 

“Yeah, but I was hoping he’d be easy.”

“It’s biology.” 

Lucas groans loudly, and Jens winces, laughing. 

“Go do your homework,” he says when Lucas stops. “I’m gonna wake up my sister to eat. Are you still coming by for breakfast?” 

“If I’m ever going to your place it’s not gonna be for eggs. It’ll be to hang out with your sister, because she’s probably cooler than you”

“...Wow.”

“Did that hurt your feelings?”

“Little bit.” 

“Good. Build some character.”

Jens lets out a laugh that sounds a little much like a giggle for his liking, and his face burns as he turns to pull the fridge open.

“Go do your homework,” he says as he pulls the orange juice out.  (Lotte’s favourite. She would drink it like water if Jens let her.) 

“I don’t wanna….” Lucas whines. 

“My hands are full, you have to be the one to hang up,” Jens says, lifting a plate and trying carefully not to drop the juice. 

“Are you already tired of me?” Lucas asks, and Jens can hear him stifling a laugh.

“I’ve known you for less than twenty-four hours.”

“And yet…” Lucas sighs forlornly. “I’ll let you go, I guess.” 

“Text me later.” 

“Will do. Bye-bye-e-e.”

Jens sets the other plate on the table just as Lucas hangs up, and he stops, his eyes stuck on the table in front of him. Lucas’s voice is still rattling in his head, a stark difference from the sudden silence of the flat. He sounded like he could be in the same room, right next to Jens, teasing him and laughing with him like they’ve known each other for years. Jens briefly wonders if this is how Robbe felt when he met Sander, but he shakes his head, dismissing the thought. 

---

Jens twists his back, popping it, and winces in the bright sunlight streaming through his window that falls on his face. 

“And I want you all to get some fresh air today too,” Ms Peeters is saying. Her hair is tied up today. Jens has never seen her with her hair tied up. He’s reminded that she does have ears, even though they’re typically covered by her curls. “Take a walk or open a window. It’s nice out today.” “My window is stuck closed,” someone says after a second, the bubble with his initial in it moving as he speaks. Ms Peeters opens her mouth to say something before another student, Liam, interrupts, “Smash it.”

“No, I don’t recommend that,” Ms Peeters says, and Jens hears Liam’s snicker echoing in his speakers. Liam makes similar comments in class. 

Jens laughs, glancing down to the little box with Lucas’s face in it and feeling a little rush at Lucas’s grin. 

“Okay, anyway,” Ms Peeters says, and it takes a second for Jens to look back at her. “Matthew, don’t do that please. And if you do, I had nothing to do with it, I don’t want a phonecall from your parents. Anyway, you all remember what I said about a project, right?”

Almost every student throws their head back, rolling their eyes, and Jens sighs deeply, mentally adding the unexplained work to his to-do list. 

“Well, you’ll be happy, because you can really do whatever you want.”

“Does that mean I can do nothing?” Liam asks, and Jens wonders if he leaves his microphone on just so he can cut in easily. 

“Liam, I will fail you,” she dismissed him. “That means you can do an essay, a powerpoint, a poster, whatever. If we were still in person, I’d want you and your partner to present it to the rest of the class, but I won’t make you do that.

“Your assignment is to read a book. A classic,” she clarifies. “And to complete something, powerpoint, essay, whatever.” “Are you assigning partners?” Ella asks after a second, and Jens finds himself glancing at Lucas's box again. 

“No, you guys can pick partners yourself. No more than three to a book, and you can all probably find the books online as PDFs.” She pauses, her eyes scanning her screen. “Any more questions?”

“Uhm,” Ella says, looking hesitant. “When is this due?”

Ms Peeters sighs, looking away from her computer. 

“I don’t know yet. We’ll see. Probably not for a while, I know you’re all busy with your other classes and, you know, the pandemic. Don’t put it off though,” she adds. “I don’t want you to skim your book and throw something together the night before it’s due. I want to see effort.”

“Also--”

“Ella, stop asking questions,” Liam interrupts, and Jens decides that he definitely leaves his microphone on just to be able to annoy people better. He wonders if he does it in any of his other classes. Maybe not. None of Jens’s other teachers are as patient as Ms Peeters. 

“Someone has to,” Ella retorts. “Are we still doing poetry?” 

“Yeah, we’re going to do poetry in class and your project you’ll have to do on your own time.”

“Okay.”

“Any more questions? Comments, concerns? Debates, disputes, dilemmas?” Ms Peeters asks, her trademark end-of-class questions. “No?” 

Jens shakes his head, because he knows she can see him. 

“Okay, well I want you guys to enjoy today, so you’re free to go. Pick your partners and book and email me so I can keep track. Cool?”

Jens’s phone buzzes not five seconds after he leaves the meeting. (Ms Peeters always leaves last. He doesn’t know why, but he suspects it’s in case anyone wants to stay after and talk. She seems like that kind of person.) He shuts his laptop, leaning over his bed and pulling his phone up.

l: partners? I might already have a book

Jens grins, immediately typing a response. 

j: yea for sure j: what book do you have?

He lays back on his pillows as he waits for a response, pushing one of them under his head until it’s comfortable. 

l: the great gatsby? She never said it had to be a belgian classic

Jens scoffs, shaking his head. 

j: You’re turning into Liam  j: but sure whats she gonna do, make us start over?

l: I can send her an email and ask but i’m pretty sure shes gonna say sure

j: sounds good

Lucas responds with his signature smiley face, and Jens smiles at his phone before adding, 

j: i should warn you that youre making a mistake picking me as your partner though j: im not a reade

After hitting send he tosses the phone across the bed, stretching his back again and looking out his window. From his room he can see the buildings across the street. The windows are all shiny, reflecting the sunlight brightly, like the sun is inside the building itself, burning everything up except the structure and glass. Jens tosses his blanket aside, stretching his legs out and sighing before spinning to sit on the edge of his bed. His eyes drift shut as he sits there, supporting himself with his hands by his legs, digging into the mattress. 

It’s quiet, but he can hear Lotte’s TV show come through the walls and his door. The volume is low, per his instructions, and it’s just a gentle, inaudible hum. It makes him think of the music he’d be able to hear through the bathroom door at parties. 

His phone vibrates behind him and he reaches back to get it as he stands, opening his door. 

l: not to worry i like reading l: and ive read the great gatsby several times already

what are we gonna do our project on, though? Jens types, making his way down the hall, doing his best not to walk into the wall or door frame of the living room. like a powerpoint or an essay or??

l: powerpoint sounds easiest l: we can do like just a summary of it l: or analyze gatsby or something

j: whatever gets us a passing grade

l: got it

“Are you done with class?” Lotte asks, looking up at him with a cereal bowl under her face. She’s cross-legged on the floor in front of the television. 

“I’m done with that class,” he says, flopping onto the sofa. “My teacher let us out early so we can enjoy the weather.” 

“Are we gonna go on a walk?” she asks excitedly, spinning around on the floor, nearly spilling milk on the carpet. Jens raises an eyebrow at her. 

“We can if you finish eating first. And if you get dressed,” he adds, glancing at her pink pyjamas.

She eats her cereal as quickly as she can (Jens tells her not to choke on it.) before rushing off her to her room to change. Jens doesn’t bother changing out of the sweatpants and t-shirt he slept in. While she’s gone, no doubt wrecking her room by throwing clothes everywhere, Lucas texts again. 

l: I found my copy of it l: you should be able to find a pdf online but worst case scenario i read it to you over skype or something

Jens smiles. 

j: yea that could work

Lucas responds with another smiley, and Jens thinks about it. 

He supposes he could do something while Lucas reads it, take notes or work on the powerpoint. But part of him (most of him) wants to just listen. Lucas’s voice sounded different over the phone than it did during class. Jens wonders if it’ll sound different when it’s just the two of them.

Just the two of them.

Jens’s stomach flips over. 

He grabs a granola bar before he and Lotte leave.

---

He doesn’t bother putting in the effort to finding the PDF of the Great Gatsby online after Lucas says it’s a go. (Ms Peeters is indifferent. She says she just wants them reading.)

“Hey,” Lucas says when he appears on Jens’s screen, and Jens was right. He does sound different. He also, apparently, has freckles scattered across his nose, and a mole just above his lip that Jens can’t see when Lucas is stuck in a box as small as the one in class. After a brief pause, Jens turns up the volume a little on his laptop, adjusting his headphones as he sits back.

“Hey.”

“So. Storytime?” Lucas holds up the book, smiling. It’s dim in his room, like Jens’s, the setting sun making stripes on his wall glow orange.

“Yeah,” Jens says brightly, sliding down so he’s propped up on his pillows. (A stack of three. His mom hates it, but it works for him.) “Do you want me to take notes or something?” He has a notebook and pen next to him already.

“You can if you hear anything worth noting,” Lucas says, shrugging. “I already have a ton of annotations in here, so I wouldn’t worry.” 

“Okay.” Jens leaves his laptop propped up on his legs and crosses his arms over his chest, burying his chin in his elbow. 

“Okay,” Lucas says, smiling as he looks at Jens. There’s a long pause before he inhales sharply, looking away and opening the book. Jens’s face feels hot. “Okay. I’m skipping the preface because it’s like w quarter of the book and kind of unnecessary.”

“Do you have notes in that section too?” Jens says, and it’s meant to be a tease, but Lucas says, “Yeah,” and Jens snorts. 

“It’s a good book, you asshole,” Lucas retorts, grinning. 

“Proceed,” Jens says, gesturing politely with his hand. 

“Dick,” Lucas mutters, and Jens snickers as Lucas opens and flips through the book. 

“Okay. Ready?”

“Mm-hmm.” 

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice…”

Lucas’s voice shifts slightly when he reads. It’s lower, less him and more… Nick, Jens supposes. He can’t tell if Lucas is doing it on purpose. He doesn’t think he is. He reads a little quickly, but not so quickly that Jens can’t understand him. 

Lucas reads.

And reads. 

And reads. 

Jens can tell Lucas loves the book. 

He barely even looks up (which means Jens doesn’t feel embarrassed about how much he’s just staring at him (although to be fair he doesn’t have many other staring options)), completely engrossed in it, subtly shifting the octaves of his voice for the voices of  Jordan and Catherine and Myrtle. Jens finds himself smiling. 

The only time Lucas breaks character is to say, “This is my favourite line.” 

“Tell me,” Jens says softly, almost holding his breath to hear it. 

“Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I saw him too, looking up and wondering.” He pauses, taking a breath. “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” 

Lucas looks up, a small smile painting his face, and he looks almost proud. 

“Wow,” Jens whispers. “Do you have that highlighted?” 

“Underlined.” 

Jens hums. 

“Are you gonna fall asleep on me?” 

He hums again, moving his arms out of the way and rolling his head. 

“I’m sleepy but not like falling asleep, you know?”

 “Mm-hmm. We can finish this chapter; it’s only two more pages.” 

“How many chapters are there?” Jens asks, and he watches as Lucas flips through the book.

“Nine,” Lucas says after finding it. “And we have time, so…” 

“Yeah.” 

“Myrtle pulled her chair close to mine…”

When the chapter is finished, it’s dark out, and Lucas closes the book dramatically and sets it to his side with a flourish. 

“To be continued,” he says. 

“Spooky.”

“You’re falling asleep,” Lucas says, looking at him skeptically, cocking his head and smiling. 

“...Yeah.”

“Didn’t know my reading voice was so soothing.”

“Oh, so soothing. You should do stuff for the Calm app.”

“‘Stuff.’ Very specific.”

“I just said I’m falling asleep, and you expect me to be articulate?”

“Well I never expect you to be articulate.”

“Oof…” Jens winces, looking away from the computer as Lucas says, “Hah hah.”

“You’re too quick for me,” Jens says, sitting up slightly and pushing his laptop away. Lucas raises an eyebrow. There’s a curl that’s fallen in his face, and for a second, Jens wishes he could push it away. “I’m gonna have to kill you. I can’t have any competition.”

“Social distancing,” Lucas says, holding up a finger. “Murder responsibly.”

“Of course. Always.”

“Okay, got to bed, Jens. You look like you’re about to pass out.” 

Jens groans, shutting his eyes for a second, ignoring the strange flutter in his stomach.

“It’s only like ten.”

“Yeah, that’s bedtime by normal people standards.”

“Ugh. Fine. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

When they hang up, Jens finds himself smiling. 

Again. 

He lifts his eyes from his blank laptop screen after some time (he doesn’t know how long, and he can’t be bothered to look), and shakes his head.

[malecsecretsanta]

Merry Christmas ninwrites!

For @ninwrites. I was so thrilled to get you for Secret Santa this year as your Malec fics are some of the very first that I ever read when I fell into Shadowhunters way back in 2016. You gave me so many great prompts this year that I really struggled deciding what to write, especially because I know we share so many common interests! Part of me wanted to write a sweeping sci-fi, and another part of me wanted to write a clever procedural, and then I know how much you love superheroes and I also love superheroes, so that could've easily happened ...

But in the end, I decided to strip everything down and write a story about second chances. About seemingly unrequited yearning and human connection and liminal spaces and time unravelling backwards and friends-to-almost lovers-to-strangers until serendipity intervenes. Of course, I went drastically over the word limit but this happens every year so I am no longer surprised.

Merry Christmas! I hope you enjoy this little microcosm of a story!

Tags: malec | rated: t | extended oneshot | human AU, roadtrip, friends-to-lovers-to-strangers-to-lovers, hurt/comfort, surrealism

Read on AO3

*****

saudade in the key of highways

saudade

/saʊˈdɑːdə/

noun

(especially with reference to songs or poetry) a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one cares for and/or loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never be had again. It is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, and well-being, which now trigger the senses and make one experience the pain of separation from those joyous sensations. However it acknowledges that to long for the past would detract from the excitement you feel towards the future.

"as we fall / into the common, suspended disbelief of love, you ask / will I still be / here tomorrow, next week, tonight you ask am I really here."

— Olga Broumas, Beginning with O; “Bitterness”

first chord

There is rhythm to this loneliness.1

The endless darkness. Passing headlights; the hum of the engine; the splutter of the heater fighting against the cold that claws and scratches at the windshield. The highway, deserted, is like a strange and eerie dream that travels on and on and never ends.

The rental car: new. Nondescript in its newness. Two hands on the wheel; the faded hum of the radio, a soft accompaniment to the bright beam of the headlights. The car has a cassette player, but no cassettes. It never has any cassettes.

There’s a gas station like a beacon in the distance: a faint glow of sodium yellow that slinks along the horizon but never draws closer, spilling light like fuel out across the open fields.

Alec prefers driving at night. There is never any need to ask for directions because he never passes anyone he could ask for directions; he might be the only car he’s seen in fifty miles.

The radio crackles, then laughs, ‘ we know it’s only November but nothing gets us in the mood for Christmas like -’  

Almost immediately, the signal drops, but the interluding white noise is familiar too. It fills the silence with unimportance, an invisible presence in the passenger seat who doesn’t require conversation or stops to stretch their legs, but is company enough for long drives across the country.

Moments on the road are filled like this: a hundred similar soundtracks for a hundred indistinct highways, their miles wearing down the tread on Alec’s tires and the lines of Alec’s palms, where he grips the steering wheel for hours without a break, in much the same way.

‘So if you’re listening at home, or you’re stuck on a late-night shift, or if you’re driving cross-country and need a pick-me-up, give us a ring and tell us about your favourite ever Christmas song!’ says the radio. ‘But to get us started, we have Marnie from Portland on line one -’

Alec punches the buttons on the radio until he finds a classic rock station. He taps the steering wheel, not to the beat of the song, but to dispel some of the restless energy that tingles in his fingertips.

A sign on the roadside passes him by at high speed; it tells him that he’s a hundred miles from nowhere in particular - but at the last intersection, a similar sign told him he was a hundred-and-one, and now he’s acutely aware of creeping ever closer to his destination.

It’s a destination he’s not sure he wants to reach. A destination he calls home.

There is rhythm to this loneliness . Alec is used to it: the anxious churning of his stomach, the longing for the road to continue beyond its end; the endless, perpetual, and pointless journey of back-and-forths.

One: drive across the width of the country. Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Oregon, again and again. A country of ochre-yellow wheat; plains and flatlands; tractors abandoned on the roadside.

Two: report to the local field office, where he’s given a desk too small for his long legs and a computer he doesn’t have a password to. Talk to the county sheriff who snaps at him, ‘ the FBI has no business out here, we can handle this on our own ,’ and then to the man who refuses to open his door wide enough for Alec to get a good look at his face, but whose eyes skip over Alec’s badge and land on the gun on his hip and he thinks the same thing as the sheriff.  

Three: avert his eyes from the body lying on the steel table in the morgue. Pretend that federal intervention was warranted, even though he knows this case is another crime of opportunity and the sheriff was right. The sheriff is always right. ‘ Waste of the FBI’s time, if you ask me. ’

Four: write up another field report that uses all the same words as the one before. Mail it back to Washington. Hopefully it will reach the Assistant Director before he does.

Then, five, begin the drive home.

Rinse. Repeat. Repeat again. Avoid his mother’s calls when he stops for the night at an interstate motel. Make excuses not to see his father when he’s in town. Pretend like he’s not bothered missing out on another promotion, because that would mean moving to a desk job and he likes being out in the field.

He likes driving. This is the mantra he repeats in his head rather than listening to the song on the radio.

There is rhythm to this loneliness .

The car’s engine rumbles on an empty stomach and Alec glances down at the fuel meter, ticking ever closer to the red with each passing and uncountable mile. The gas station in the distance begins to draw closer, finally allowing Alec to catch up, as its cluster of lights shift and reform into the familiar shape of civilisation.

Alec’s turn signal lights up the immediate stretch of highway with flashing orange and a click-click-click sound in the front seat of the car. There’s no-one behind him and no-one ahead of him, but he slows almost to a stop as he eases the car off the road and onto the crunch of hard-packed sand.

A single streetlamp overlooks the highway, casting a pool of unsettled yellow-white light across a phone booth that stands slanted upon the roadside. The gas station lingers a little further back: a small, stout building with a flat roof and a pile of browning-Christmas trees propped up out front. Its two gas pumps advertise diesel at a discounted price, but one of them appears to be out of order.

Beside the gas station, there is a diner; it’s old and clapped-out and almost empty at this time of night, but the bright light beaming through its windows in all directions is painful to look at. The movement of people inside is like a scene playing out in an old movie, stuck on repeat over and over again, the tape unable to skip forward. A repeated moment, and one which Alec has played his part in too many times to count.

Again, his stomach rumbles loudly and he guides the car to a stop before pulling up the handbrake.

He’s alone at the pumps. As he steps out of the car, the silence greets him; the wind falls and the road is swallowed up behind him by an encroaching night, compressing the universe into a single point. A single flicker in time.

Alec retrieves his service weapon from the glove box and clips it onto his belt, pats his chest for his badge tucked into his breast pocket, before drawing his overcoat tight around him. He won’t linger out here, not when it feels like something just out of sight is holding its breath and shifting in and out of bounds; he’s far too afraid of falling back into the passage of time.

Instead, he turns towards the diner; the bell above the door jingles the same as it always does. The TV in the corner is on mute but hums with static. The sound of plates clattering in the kitchen is enough to drown out his shoes on the chequered floor as the waitress looks up at him but doesn’t say hello.

Corner booths are best placed for people-watching and people-hiding and Alec, in his non-descript suit that matches his non-descript car, sinks onto the squeaky red-leather bench without being seen at all. He sighs heavily, rolling the stiffness out of his shoulder that has been bothering him for the last fifty miles.

There are scuffs on the leather and old coffee stains on the table, but he fishes his keys, wallet, and badge out of his pocket and tosses them on top of the menu; he already knows what he’s going to order and there’s no need to look. He’s been craving something greasy since he left Portland this morning, fuelled only by a cup of filter coffee from the machine in the motel lobby.  

Alec grinds the heels of his palms into his eyes, a soft groan catching in his throat. In the same moment, the lights overhead seem to flicker, although not for long. Must be a short circuit. The waitress rubbing down the bar doesn’t look up, focused too intently on a coffee-ring stain that isn’t really there.

Diners late at night are strange places. Liminal places. Places of beginnings and endings and threshold moments and tangled journeys, forever caught in that feeling of arriving or departing - but the longer one lingers, the more reality begins to distort.

Alec is not alone in the diner, but the diner is alone in the night that laps and recedes against the windows that look out over the parking lot. Beyond, the gas station hums with a familiar argon sound, bright and electric and not-quite-right in the dark and, behind that, the edge of the highway outlines this displaced moment.

There is nothing else. Alec’s eyes haven’t adjusted to the dark, and for all he knows of the endless fields of wheat that stretch out to the horizon, he cannot see them. The bell above the door chimes again and a young couple slips into the diner, their arms slung low around each other’s waists, giggling as they take up two stools against the bar. Three seats down from them, an old man in a trucker hat and a Chicago Bulls’ jersey is frowning at the TV above his head, trying to lip-read the late-night news anchor because there are no subtitles. In the far corner of the diner, a group of teenagers are tossing fries at each other and one of them makes a milkshake bullseye.

Alec doesn’t know why these people are here, in the middle of a late-night nowhere. He can’t remember the name of the last town he passed through, but it wasn’t more than a handful of houses and a couple of telephone poles kept upright by plywood and nails.

He glances back out at the parking lot, but his rental is the only car there. Strange.  

Strange, but not unexpected. He has learned not to question it, these fragments of unaligned reality, because soon enough he’ll be on his way again, a burger in his belly and bacon grease smeared across the corner of his mouth, and this diner will cease to exist as soon as he’s out of sight and over the ridge of the highway.

Perhaps it will appear again somewhere else. Perhaps he will come across this place again, another mile or two down the road, inhabited by a different group of late-night travellers who will watch him from the corners of their eyes but not say a word, because a lone man in a cheap suit is no more out of place here than they are at two in the morning.

The waitress brings over his burger and a side of fries, setting a mug down in front of him and filling it up with coffee from her pot. Alec nods at her in thanks and she blows a bubble of gum that pops across her mouth and sticks to her teeth, before she retreats behind the register and starts again on that stain.

Alec doesn’t waste any time tucking a napkin into his shirt collar. His tie is cheap and he doesn’t really care if he ruins it; there’s a spare in the bag in the trunk of his car anyway. He takes a large swig of coffee, and then a bite out of his burger, and ketchup and burger juice leak out through his fingers, splattering on the paper wrapper that covers his plate.

It tastes the same as it always does. His stomach growls loudly as he takes another bite and ketchup drips down his thumb.

Movement through the window catches his eye. He looks up and there, on the very edge of the light emanating from the gas station, is a man in the phonebooth next to the road. His back is to Alec but he’s gesturing wildly as he talks into the receiver, and the wind, now returned, billows through his long woollen coat.

A slice of tomato falls out of Alec’s burger with a distinct plop . He’s not sure why the man draws his attention, but Alec has long since learned to trust his gut - it’s an invaluable skill to have in the Bureau , his father would say. It will get you places. It will make people see you as someone they can trust to watch their back. You can’t buy that sort of loyalty, Alec.

The man is tall. He has dark hair and long legs and he grips the edge of the phonebooth with his free hand. He seems to be having a very intense conversation, unlike the hum of background noise that surrounds Alec now.

The man is an anomaly. He is not someone Alec has seen at a diner before - not a truant teenager or a trucker or a pair of lovers on a late-night tryst - and he doesn’t fit the narrative.

Alec wolfs down the rest of his burger, barely pausing for breath, and washes it down with a swig of coffee that burns slightly too hot. He leaves his fries untouched and throws down a twenty dollar bill, stuffing his badge and wallet into his pockets as he makes for the door.

The bell jingles a third time. Alec wipes the back of his hand across his mouth as he steps out into the cold, no doubt smearing ketchup across his chin. He knows his suit is creased and his shirt is rumpled from the drive, his hair upswept by the sudden gust of wind that threatens to knock him off his feet, and he can almost hear Jace laughing in his ear, alright, G-Man?

Alec passes by his car and heads straight for the phonebooth, but the closer he gets, the more he can hear of the man’s one-sided conversation.

“And there’s no way you can get a guy out here tonight?” the man is saying. “I can pay extra for the trouble. Uh-huh. Yes. Yes, it’s pretty urgent.”

Alec draws to a stop when the length of his shadow steps upon the backs of the man’s shoes. He shoves his hands into his pockets so as to appear as unthreatening as possible when the man inevitably turns around, but -

“I don’t see how a service can advertise itself as 24-hour and then not be available in an emergency,” the man says into the phone. He sounds stressed; there’s something about the cadence of his voice that rumbles through Alec’s chest and draws the hair on the back of his neck up on end. Something decades-old familiar. “The least you can do is give me the number for another rental service. A cab company. Something. Anything .”

The man turns away from the phonebooth, catching sight of Alec from the corner of his eye and holding up a finger as if to say hold on a minute , but he stops, whatever words on his tongue extinguished into roadside dust.

Alec’s eyes widen. He knows this man.

Fuck. He more than knows this man. He remembers the first time they met, the firm confidence of his handshake, the bright colours of his shirt, the way Alec thought, at the time, this man is going to change you .

It’s Magnus. Magnus Bane.

Alec never expected to see Magnus again. Not since -

Well, not since then .

“Magnus,” says Alec, like an exhale. And God , his mouth has not formed that name in years; he’s heard it, sometimes, inside his memories, but never beyond. “What are you -”

Magnus stares at him in disbelief, and Alec can hear the man on the other end of the phone line asking hey, are you still there? Hello? where Magnus holds the receiver away from his ear.

Something doesn’t make sense here, but Alec can’t put his finger on it. Not once has he met someone at a diner who he recognises. They’re all meant to be faceless people; people he could meet again a hundred times and still not recognise.

But Alec would recognise Magnus Bane with his eyes closed. It’s been years, and yet the feeling that floods his chest now, is -

An ache.

“Yes, sorry,” Magnus says suddenly, half-turning back to this phone call. His disbelief becomes a scowl. “No, it’s fine. I’ll call them myself. Thank you. Okay. Goodnight.”

The man on the other end of the line hangs up first and the dial tone echoes in the night for a moment, and then another, and then another.

Alec swallows thickly. He draws his hands out of his pockets and folds them behind his back, clenching his fingers in a tight grip where they can’t be seen.

Carefully, Magnus sets the phone down inside the phonebooth, and turns back to Alec, and then - he smiles.

“Alexander Lightwood,” he says, with a shake of his head. His smile grows broad, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “God, what are the chances? Any other night, and I’d think this was a figment of my imagination, but with the way today’s been going, I-” He stops himself and takes a half-step forward. “I haven’t seen you since -”

“Since before Quantico,” Alec interrupts. He knows he’s staring but he can’t help it. “Ten years. Yeah.”

Ten years, three months, and twenty one days. Alec has been counting. If he looked down at his watch, he would know the amount of time that has passed to the minute, to the second, in fact, but he’s not about to admit to that.

He never expected to see Magnus again, and yet -

He hoped.  

“Ten years, really?” Magnus remarks, folding his arms across his chest. Alec follows the movement with his eyes. “Yes, I suppose it must be. 1985, wasn’t it? Christ, that makes me feel old.”

He looks Alec up and down, focusing on Alec’s dust-scuffed shoes, and then on the gun that sits snug on his hip. The corner of his mouth lifts, and his smile becomes a little more genuine.

“I see it’s Special Agent Lightwood now, though. Congratulations.”

“Alec’s still fine,” Alec says quickly. “I mean - you can still call me Alec. That’s fine.”

“Alec,” says Magnus, sounding it out. He’s always held Alec’s name with a special sort of care, but now, he says it like he’s saying it for the very first time. “Alexander.”

Alec doesn’t know what to say. He stares at Magnus, at the space between them that is too large for strangers who have just met, and which belongs only to two people who once knew each other well.

Serendipity laughs at Alec now; it sounds like the dull hum of neon light in a desert. It sounds like a hundred unanswered phone calls stretching back years.

“Alec -?”

“Sorry, this is - this is weird, I’m being weird,” Alec blurts. “I didn’t, uh - I really didn’t expect to see you, especially - especially here . I mean-” He squeezes his fingers tightly behind his back to stop himself from talking with his hands. “What, uh, what are you doing out here? I thought you still lived in L.A.?”

Magnus rolls his eyes. “Where to start?” he says softly, “I had some car trouble. The tire blew like a mile back and I swerved off the road and hit the fence. It won’t start now, which is something of a mild nuisance - because apparently we’re so deep in the ass-end of nowhere that I can’t get a mechanic to look at it until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest - but not as much of a nuisance as the meeting I will definitely miss if I’m stranded out here for the next God-forsaken twenty-four hours.”

Alec’s eyes flick to the highway, as if he might be able to see a mile into the distance and find the 1970 Dodge Challenger that Magnus had, far too many years ago and long-since sold for scrap, wrecked upon the roadside. It is, of course, too dark to see much of anything.

“I don’t even know if I’ll be able to call a cab out here,” Magnus continues, his mouth drawn down into a frown. “And I’m far too old to be hitch-hiking. The thrill of climbing into a potential serial killer’s car lost its appeal some decades ago.” With a brush of his fingers, he flicks away hair from his temple and huffs. “I suppose if I started walking now, I might reach Salt Lake by, I don’t know, Friday morning at best.”

Alec’s eyes snap back to Magnus. “You’re heading East?” he asks, far too eagerly. “Are you coming home?”

Something minute pinches in Magnus’ expression at that word. Home . Alec doesn’t miss it.

Magnus shakes his head.

“No,” he says, and he looks away, but there’s nothing there to pretend to be looking at. “No, not quite. If I had the time to drop by and see everyone, I would, but - I’m due in Baltimore in four days for a meeting with our investors.” He smiles wryly to himself. “And I thought it would be, oh, I don’t know, meditative or something equally asinine to make the drive across the country myself, rather than fly. See the sights. Enjoy being off-grid. Which, in hindsight, was very, very stupid.”

“What are you gonna do?”

Magnus shrugs. “Wait, I suppose. There’s not much else I can do. My cell phone is out of battery and I used up the last of my change on the payphone, so it looks like I’m stuck here until tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Alec says awkwardly.

“Yeah,” agrees Magnus.

In the glow of the gas station, reality trembles, hollowing out the shadows on Magnus’ face and flickering across the back of Alec’s knuckles. The motion of coming and going calls Alec back to the road and he glances back at his rental car.

It makes sense to offer Magnus a lift. Alec is heading in that direction, and he has an empty passenger seat and a working heater in the car, and a Bureau credit card in his back pocket.

It makes sense, and yet, he still hesitates.

“Well,” Magnus announces, “I don’t want to keep you. I might as well see what sort of coffee this place has on offer if I’m to be stuck here until tomorrow. I don’t suppose I could interest you in a drink before you go -”

“I’m actually on my way back to D.C.,” Alec says, thumbing over his shoulder at the car. He wets his lower lip with his tongue. “Baltimore’s not that far of a detour, so I, uh. I could give you a lift. If you want.”

“If I want?” Magnus repeats.

Alec swallows and nods. “If you want.”

Magnus’ face softens and he smiles at Alec. “Well, I’m not going to say no, am I? Although I don’t think I’m going to get my deposit back on my car.”

He looks over Alec’s shoulder at the rental. His expression changes, and if Alec were a kind stranger offering a ride to a man in trouble in the middle of the night, perhaps he wouldn’t notice.

But they’re not strangers, and in Magnus’ eyes, there is something Alec can’t quite place. It seems a little wistful. A little sad.

He says, “I would like that very much, Agent Lightwood.”

interlude

It’s 1985 and a man stands on the edge of the sidewalk, watching as a car turns right at the end of the street and disappears. He waits, half-expecting it to come back, circling around the block and pulling up beside him, the window already rolled down, but it doesn’t.

Ten years pass, and it doesn’t, and the man has to live with it.

Empty spaces and hands on the steering wheel and loneliness and want . In the end, that’s what everything boils down to.

I want you to come back. I want to see you again. I wanted you to stay.  

This is the rhythm Alec knows well, played out in the key of highways.

I want something I still don’t have a name for.

second chord

The soundtrack to night-driving is a composition of three things: the car heater as it puffs out warm air; the rental wheezing in the cold, coughing and spluttering with seasonal flu; and the deep stretch of silence.

Usually, Alec welcomes the silence.  

In the passenger seat, Magnus shrugs out of his overcoat and tosses it into the backseat, scrubbing his hands together in front of his mouth as he wills circulation back into his fingers. His shirt, open at the throat, looks thin and flimsy and hardly warm enough for a Midwest winter, but the soft shimmer of the satin is devoid of the harsh shadows that cut across Alec’s chest like the black line of a seatbelt.

Alec forces himself to look away. Keep your eyes on the road, he tells himself. And think of something to say before he thinks you’ve forgotten how to talk entirely. He fiddles with the dial on the radio until he finds the company of static, but it morphs all too quickly into Wham!’s Last Christmas .

Alec grumbles below his breath.

“Still a Grinch, I see,” Magnus says with a smirk. “Where’s your festive cheer?”

Alec returns both his hands to the wheel. “It’s too early for Christmas songs,” he replies, “Thanksgiving was literally three days ago and it’s not even December yet.”

“Are you saying the dulcet tones of George Michael don’t do it for you?”

“I prefer Mariah Carey,” Alec mutters. It makes Magnus laugh.

Alec glances at him from the corner of his eye as Magnus begins tapping his finger to the beat of the song against the door handle.

Alec, too, feels restless, but in a different way. He can’t stop looking, stealing glances at Magnus in the rearview mirror. Perhaps he is a trick of the light. Maybe Alec has been driving too long without a break and now he’s seeing people from his past who shouldn’t be here - but are.

Nothing that happens on the road is real, after all.

He digs his fingernail into the skin of his thumb and begins picking.

He’s lived this moment before; he knows he has. Him and Magnus alone in the front seat of a car and Alec’s tongue heavy in his mouth with all the things he doesn’t know how to say, and all the things he couldn’t say ten years ago, because he wasn’t brave enough then.

Hell, he’s hardly brave enough now. He wonders if Magnus remembers any of it.

The space between them is too large for small talk. Conversations that begin with All I Want For Christmas Is You is overrated though, now that you mention it , or so, how is your mother?, or even do you remember the last day we saw each other? are not enough to bridge the gap carved out by a decade of silence.

The thought stretches Alec so painfully thin. He picks at his thumbnail until it begins to sting, then winces, and draws it to his mouth to soothe it with his tongue.

“So,” Magnus begins, in the same instance. He’s still drumming his fingers to the beat of the radio, but now he’s slightly out of time. “What are you doing all the way out here in Idaho?”

Alec could laugh. “I was in Portland,” he says, “Local P.D. request FBI consultation on a case, so. Yeah. Turned out they didn’t need my help.”

“And they made you drive all the way out there?” Magnus asks, and Alec nods. “Sounds grim.” He stops tapping and runs his index finger across the dark polish on his thumb in thought. “Are you still living at home?”

Alec clenches his hands on the steering wheel. “No, I - I moved,” he says. “Uh, not long after I graduated the Academy, actually, but only to D.C.”

“Ah,” Magnus remarks. He pauses for a moment long enough to become awkward. “Still close enough to see your mom on the weekends, though.”

Alec nods again. Close enough , yes , but he doesn’t say it out loud. Close enough for New England ghosts to haunt every intersection between the city and his parents’ big white house in the country whenever he makes the drive upstate.

In ten years, he’s barely moved fifty miles, and Magnus -

Well. The same cannot be said for Magnus.  

Magnus clears his throat, louder than the hum of the radio. “And your parents?” he asks. “Isabelle?” He scans the horizon, fixed on the markings in the road disappearing beneath the wheels of the car. “How are they? Well, I hope?”

“Same as always,” Alec shrugs. “Overbearing. Dad’s retired now, and Iz moved to New York for work last year. Max is in college, so mom’s started questioning him about his life choices instead of mine.”

“Only took thirty-five years,” Magnus chuckles. “How is your mom? Are you seeing them for the holidays?”

Alec makes a noise that amounts to yeah, something like that .

What he doesn’t say is this: his parents’ marriage has been strained a while now - not as many years as Magnus has been gone, but close enough - and Alec is thirty years too old to be used as ammunition, or worse, a bartering tool in a messy ending. The divorce is only a matter of time now.

If only the road continued on forever, he would not have to go back home for the holidays. He wouldn’t have to sit through another Christmas of icy silences and thinly-veiled insults and his mother trying to butter him up while his father does the same to Isabelle. He wouldn’t have to lie awake in his childhood bedroom and listen to his parents screaming at each other downstairs, all the while wishing for the tap-tap-tap of pebbles thrown against his window, begging for it to be open.

A lot has changed since Magnus last saw him, and Alec didn’t have to move across the country for that.

A lot has changed since Alec stood on the sidewalk and watched Magnus’ car turn the corner at the end of the street for the very last time and not come back.

A semi-truck appears in the distance: first, as a pin-prick of light, and then as two beams of headlights striking the highway and the growl of its engine. The whole car rumbles and Alec grips tight to the steering wheel as the headlights blind him and shapes dance across his eyes. The light bleaches through Magnus’ dark hair and streaks across the skin visible beneath the open collar of his shirt; he holds his hand over his brow and winces.

The truck is thunder: a brief jolt and a flash, and then it’s gone, an aftershock of red light disappearing in the rearview mirror.

For a while, there is only silence. A mile, maybe more. Long past the truck vanishing from view, its light fading into the dark; and it’s the sort of silence that is thick and heavy and awkward.

At the five mile mark, Magnus inhales and turns in his seat to look at Alec.

“So, the FBI,” he says, like he has an obligation to fill the quiet, because letting it stew is somehow worse. “What’s that like? Maryse must be proud.”

“Yeah,” Alec mumbles. “She is.”

“It suits you, you know? Alec Lightwood, Special Agent. Not that I didn’t always know that it would.”

Alec’s mouth twitches, a smile in another lifetime. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Magnus gestures with his hand. There are rings on his fingers that fail to catch the thin and distant light, but his fingers, long and slender, draw focus.

“You’re smart. Logical. Far too severe for your own good, which I imagine serves you well in law enforcement. You’ve always had a keen sense of justice,” he explains. His voice softens. “You know I’ve always thought that about you.”

Alec swallows thickly. “Magnus, you don’t have to -”

“And besides,” Magnus interrupts. “I always knew you’d look good in a suit.”

Alec looks down at himself. “What, even a suit off the rack?”

“Well, I didn’t want to say anything.”

Shakily, Alec laughs under his breath, but he relaxes his hands on the wheel and his knuckles fade from white back to pink. He lets the tense line in his shoulders fall flat.

“I don’t really have anyone to give me advice on what I should be wearing anymore,” he admits. “Or what colour ties match my -”

“Complexion?”

“Yeah. That.”

“Green. It’s dark green,” Magnus says. He smiles to himself, amused by something far back in time. “Do you remember that time when-”

“Yes,” Alec says. Yes, of course I remember. I haven’t forgotten a single thing . “Yeah. Yeah, I do. I still have that tie, the one you picked out for me that Christmas.”

“And the pocket square? They were a matching set -”

“Still the only pocket square I own,” says Alec.  

Magnus chuckles to himself, swiping his thumb across his lower lip in thought. The nostalgia becomes him; his expression softens with the memory of something fond.

The same cannot be said for Alec.

If only pocket squares could be metaphors for other things. For years gone by and silences that were once not this awkward and filled with jilted conversation. Or for a place once frequented but now abandoned; or a past that Alec still calls his now .

Alec is too clumsy at this; he doesn’t know how to step back into a space once occupied with ease, making smalltalk and laughing about Christmases in 1979 as if they were yesterday and they haven’t gone ten years without talking.

He’s not like Magnus; he couldn’t drop everything and leave it all behind. He didn’t get to move on. He had nowhere to go, trapped in this endless back-and-forth of travelling, always returning to the very same place once departed.  

interlude

On a postcard never sent:

What is worse: the separation, or the place where we will meet again, afterwards, that looks and feels like nowhere and is no longer familiar?

I miss you. I am afraid that I will no longer know you when I see you again.

third chord

Two motel room doors. Two identical rooms with identical twin beds and box-set TVs with only five channels and VCRs that don’t really work. Two sets of keys, although the weight of the fob in Alec’s hand feels more like brass than cheap white plastic.

He’s been here before: a shared dorm room, long, long ago. And then, after that, two houses on the same suburban street, sharing the same zip code. And then, finally, two cities, half a world apart.

He and Magnus, half a lifetime spent apart.

Alec did not notice the growing distance until it was too late; in hindsight, he’s not sure if that hurts more or less, to be blindsided by a farawayness he never saw coming. But here, now, there’s five-and-a-half feet of space between his shoulder and Magnus’, standing in front of their respective motel room doors, and happenstance has crossed their lines again.

Alec looks down at the key in his hand and then back up.

Beside him, Magnus casts a long and lonely shadow, thin and black as it stretches back into the dark. The wind ruffles his hair and plunders the pockets of his coat in an act of midnight robbery. The cold has chapped his lips already and he grumbles below his breath as he jams his key into the lock with frost-bitten fingers.

Alec doesn’t mean to be looking, but he is. He’s not sure he’s looked away since Magnus stepped out of that phone booth, as if slipping through a gap in time connecting two unrelated places that somehow ended up overlapped.

Magnus’ door clicks and he pushes it open with a soft, “aha!”, flipping on the light inside. The light tumbles out of the room - cheap, yellow, glaring - and Magnus bends down to grab his bag from his feet.

He pauses, then, in his open doorway.

“Well, then,” he says, looking at Alec with a half smile. “Until tomorrow, I suppose?”

“Yeah,” says Alec. He clenches the key in his palm until the metal digs into his fingers. If Magnus notices, he doesn’t let on. “Listen, Magnus. About what happened, when you left-”

“I’m glad, you know,” Magnus interrupts. “For whatever serendipitous force brought you to that gas station tonight. It’s good to see you. I mean it.”

“It’s good to see you too,” Alec replies. “I didn’t think - I didn’t think that day was going to be goodbye. I didn’t realise. If I’d known, Magnus ...”

“I didn’t either,” replies Magnus. His voice becomes softer. His eyes, too. Apologetic in a way that might take Alec years to unravel - or seconds. “But these things happen. You can’t stay stuck in one place forever, Agent Lightwood.”

Alec nods stiffly but says nothing.

Magnus offers him another smile, leaning heavily on his door frame.

“Alexander?” he asks, as if oblivious.

Alec squeezes the key tighter in his hand. “Yeah?”

A pause, then. Deliberate and weighted, and for a moment, Alec wonders if Magnus is going to answer the question that hasn’t been asked.

(Do you remember the day you left?)

(Let’s not talk about it. Let’s not talk. It’s in the past and we’re both different people now.)

But, instead:

“I’ll see you in the morning, Alec,” he says. “Goodnight. And thank you, again.”

The door closes and the light vanishes, and Alec is left suddenly in the darkness, gazing at the space once occupied. The night around him is cold. A whisper sets heavily upon his tongue but goes unspoken.

Everything always goes unspoken.

interlude

Somewhere between here and 1985, there is a man who doesn’t regret letting his feelings go unsaid. There is a man who moved on with his life; a man who doesn’t live in a moment years ago, with someone else’s hand playing idly in his hair.

There is a man who meets an old friend at a gas station in rural Idaho and it doesn’t hurt in a way he can’t ever explain.

Alec wishes that he knew him.

fourth chord

It’s always night, on the road.

As with endless highways and endless diners, other things begin to repeat themselves too. Alec prefers driving at night. It’s quiet; he can hear himself think; he can run red lights without being pulled over, without anybody in the world seeing him at all. He affords himself this one little thrill, the knowledge that the power to swerve off the road is clenched in his fists.

A fuel tanker passes the car on the opposite side of the highway, the sound of its exhaust like a fog horn parting thick cloud; for a moment, the low hum of the radio is wiped from existence. Alec eases the car over into the middle of the lane with the barest adjustment of the wheel, avoiding the spray of wet grit kicked up by the truck’s wheel arches. As the rumble fades, the melody of late-night jazz begins anew.

He glances sideways at Magnus in the passenger seat. His temple rests against the window and his eyes are closed but he’s not asleep; Alec can tell by the way he’s drawing his thumb in tiny concentric circles against his index finger again, as if deep in thought.

It was always a tell of his.

There is so much of him that hasn’t changed. So much of him that has crossed the threshold from Alec’s memory and fanned out into reality, and Alec is not quite sure where it all meets and blends together. Magnus is half a stranger and half a man ten years younger than he is now, with expensive clothes and the same aftershave and a twinkle in his eye and a strange, unspoken grief on his face whenever he thinks Alec isn’t looking.

But Alec is always looking.

There are memories in the footwell and on the dashboard and in the usually-unoccupied passenger seat of his rental car. Memories that Alec often revisits on other long and inconsequential journeys as a way to pass the time as the odometer climbs.

Magnus is always the main feature of those memories.

It’s 1978 and Alec is a junior in college and Magnus is stumbling into a lecture hall half-an-hour late with a thermos in his hand. He’s wearing the shortest shorts Alec has ever seen, and he’s slumping into the seat next to Alec, whispering in Alec’s ear that he’s so hungover he’s about to revisit Thanksgiving dinner.

Then, it’s 1981 and Magnus is trading secrets with Isabelle at a drive-in movie theater while Alec buys the popcorn; and he’s flattering Maryse’s cooking while leant across the kitchen island, chin in his hand; and he’s slamming the door to his and Alec’s shared dorm, before sneaking back in an hour later, only to find Alec waiting up for him with an apology at the ready.

It’s 1982 and he’s laughing. He’s giving Alec the grand tour of his mother’s home, three streets down from the house where Alec’s parents live. I can’t believe it took moving away to college for us to meet , he says to Alec. We’ve lived this close for so long and we didn’t even know.

It’s 1984 and he’s curling his hand over the back of Alec’s neck, feeling out the knobs in Alec’s spine. His breath is warm against Alec’s jaw as he whispers gentle words into Alec’s ear.

It’s 1985 and he’s packing up his car for the very last time.

Yesterday is tangled in Magnus’ hair. Memories twist time out of alignment and rearrange it into something, and someone, that Alec does not recognise. Ahead of them, in the distance, on the horizon, is a year from a decade ago.  

But here in the car, moonlight makes crosses on Magnus’ body. He is beautiful, still. Older, more refined, more improbable , but the composition of him is something that makes Alec’s heart ache as if he’s eighteen again and they’ve only just met.

The mole above his eyebrow is too familiar.

The lines around his eyes that appeared only after his mother passed. Alec remembers that summer well. He remembers listening to Magnus cry as he stood in Magnus’ kitchen doing the dishes that had been neglected for a week.

The map of his hands. A journey that Alec never took but longed for. Longed for and left to gather dust, like an atlas tucked away on the highest shelf of a bookcase.

In the dark, Magnus cracks open one eye, as if aware of being scrutinised. Alec turns his attention back to the road, but it is too late. He’s been caught.

“What is it?” Magnus asks, and his voice is smooth and rich and fills the car like music, even so shortly after waking. “Are we out of gas already?”

“No,” says Alec. “We’ll be fine for a while.”

“Hungry, then? We could stop for a late dinner. Or early breakfast. I’m not entirely sure what time it is, but I can always eat.”

Alec doesn’t reply, but he presses his mouth into a thin line.

Magnus’ eyes narrow. “What is it?”

“What’s what?”

Magnus scoffs. “You’ve always been many things, Alec, but able to lie to me is not one of them.” He laughs a little. “You think I’ve forgotten the look on your face when you’re trying not to spill your heart?”

No , Alec thinks. No, of course you haven’t. You should’ve, but you haven’t. You should’ve, because then at least one of us could say they moved on.

Alec exhales through his nose and flexes his fingers on the steering wheel. He glances in the rearview mirror, but there’s nothing behind them for miles. Much like pocket squares, perhaps that is a metaphor too.

“You never called,” he says, trying to sound casual.

Immediately, Magnus tenses. He shifts in his seat and sits up a little straighter, angling himself to look at Alec.

“I did,” he says, “At the start. You never answered.”

“You were in L.A. The time zones -”

“Oh, come on,” Magnus laughs. “You could’ve called me, you had my number. I know you did, because I wrote it down for you and left it on your bedside table, the day I moved.”

Alec squeezes his eyes closed; for a brief moment of respite, the road ahead of him vanishes. He thinks about letting go of the wheel at 90 miles per hour - not because he wants to, but because the thought of picking up the phone and hearing Magnus’ voice on the other end was always something that felt like driving his car into a ditch.

It’s the fear of impact. It’s the old hurt of being abandoned. It’s the longing to have run after Magnus’ car and asked to go with him that day in 1985. It’s all such a blur. Alec cannot sift between it all.

Magnus sighs heavily, knocking his head back against the seat. He looks at Alec from the corner of his eye and studies him at length.

“Maybe we should stop,” he says slowly. “The next town, find a diner. Get some food.”

“It’s fine. I’d prefer to keep driving,” Alec says, “If we keep stopping, you won’t make your meeting in time.”

Magnus frowns.

You clearly want to talk about it , Alec imagines him saying. Evidently, there are things that went unsaid.  

Magnus says none of those things. His phone begins to ring and it shatters the strange tension in the front seat, splitting it like a sudden burst of lightning. Magnus twists around and reaches into the backseat, rummaging through his bag. He returns with a cellphone in his hand, pulling out the antenna and flipping it open.

He meets Alec’s eyes in the rearview mirror as he presses it to his ear.

“Magnus, speaking.”

Magnus listens to the voice on the other end of the line and taps his fingers on his knee. He makes a low noise of disapproval to whomever he’s speaking.

“Yes, yes, Raphael, I know,” he says. “My battery died and I didn’t have a chance to charge it - do you know how much payphones cost? Do I look like the sort of person who carries change in his pocket?” A brief pause. “Don’t answer that.”

Alec reaches for the dial on the radio, intending to turn the volume down, but Magnus’ free hand darts out and swats his fingers away.

He mouths the word no and returns to his phone call, but Alec’s hand remains outstretched.

There’s a tingle in his fingertips, a short spark of static that leapt from Magnus to him, and he stares down at his hand as if he’s been burned.

And it makes Alec realise, oh.

So you’re lonely -lonely.

“I’ll be in Baltimore in four days. I ran into an old friend who offered me a lift,” Magnus continues into his phone. He listens to the other speaker for a moment, glancing briefly at Alec’s hand and frowning. “You’re lucky I phoned you at all after all that car trouble. It was a courtesy only.”

The radio briefly breaks into static before the song resumes again. Magnus begins drumming his fingers on his leg, listening intently to his phone call. He uhms and ahs and says something about investors and capital and shareholders and begins talking numbers that are too big for Alec to really understand.

He opens up the glove box and pulls out an old diner napkin that Alec shoved in there three states ago, and scribbles down a note, but he has to tap his pen against his thigh for the ink to flow.

Alec curls his hand into a fist and rests it on his thigh, but the tingle doesn’t go away. He listens to Magnus talk - this whole other person that Alec doesn’t know, but who he was clearly always meant to be - but all he can think about is how long he has gone without being touched.

Do you know? he thinks. Do you know that the last person who touched me was you? Do you realise at all?

interlude

Driving is like running. The rhythm of the road; the splattering of rain against the windshield; the thrum of a heartbeat as the speedometer tips over ninety. Clear head. Relentless motion.

Forward, forward, forward, always and forever. Try to keep up. Don’t stop. Keep going. Don’t look back.

fifth chord

The diner is the first sign of civilisation that Alec has seen in over a hundred miles - and it is the same diner as it always is, an eminent glow on the 3AM horizon that creeps closer and closer like a spaceship hovering over the fields and drawing circles in the wheat and the barley.

It draws circles around Alec too, this singular moment in time. This microcosm that exists in the form of red leather seats and bright, fluorescent light, and the same empty parking lot and abandoned phonebooth on the highway verge. The waitress changes; sometimes, the group of teenagers in the booth at the back is an old couple embarking on a long trip south before they get too old to make the drive; and instead of a man at the bar watching the baseball, every few miles there will be an off-duty sheriff nursing a cup of diner coffee.

In the end, it’s all the same. A small pocket universe that Alec has crossed a thousand times in a thousand different rental cars.

Perhaps the people in the diner do not exist outside of it. Perhaps they are like pictures on a TV screen that cease to be once the lights have gone off and the static has fizzled and died.

Perhaps they exist only because Alec and Magnus are passing through, creating the world around them as they go. The Midwest has that quality about it.

“I can’t remember the last time I ate diner food,” Magnus says as Alec holds the door open for him and the bell jingles above their heads. “L.A. is on a health kick right now. Everything is kale. Try ordering a steak at any restaurant within a half-mile of downtown and they’ll have the bouncer throw you out on the sidewalk with your drink still in your hand.”

“Not sure they know what kale is out here,” Alec murmurs, leading the way to a booth by the window. He slides onto the bench as Magnus slumps down across from him, dramatically throwing his head back and closing his eyes. “You’re probably safe here.”

Magnus cracks open one eye to look at Alec. Beneath the table, his toes nudge against Alec’s, and then he shifts so that their knees knock together too. He throws a grin at Alec and expects a volley.

Alec tucks a smile into the corner of his mouth and rolls his eyes. He feels fragile, but he’s always been good at acting like he’s not. He picks up the menu and pretends like he doesn’t already know it like the back of his hand.

The waitress approaches their table with a megawatt smile that only brightens when Magnus turns his focus on her, casting her in spotlight. She laughs, tucks her hair behind her ear, and asks where they’re from. Magnus says Los Angeles. The waitress tells him she has a dream of becoming a singer and moving out West, seeing Hollywood and all that .

Alec has never been, but there was a summer back when Alec was in college, where Isabelle decided to follow a boy to California, swept up in the promise of love and adventure and new opportunities. Jace and Alec had protested, their mother had expressly forbid it, but Izzy had gone anyway, and it had ended in heartbreak six months later, as these things always do.

“Everybody in L.A. is from somewhere else,” Izzy had told him, when she came home for Christmas and Alec picked her up at the airport, her life packed up into suitcases in tow. “I don’t know how to explain it. You’re drawn there because of all the - you know, all the sparkle. The glamour, Alec. But really, people there are just running away from somewhere else. Somewhere they don’t really want to be.”

“You don’t want to be here?” Alec had asked.

Izzy shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s more … you don’t realise what was good in the place you left until you’re somewhere else. But then you’re too far to phone, or it costs too much to get a plane ticket, or you just don’t want to give people back home the satisfaction of knowing that they were right.”

Back in the diner, the waitress scribbles down their order on her notepad, pours Alec a coffee, and then tells Magnus she’ll be right back with his seltzer water.

Alec can’t help himself. “Seltzer water,” he murmurs. “And you say you don’t fit in in Los Angeles.”

Magnus laughs. “I didn’t say that .”

The diner coffee is cheap and watery; the burger Alec gets has no bacon, but too many gherkins soaked in brine. The fries are soggy, left bathing in grease all evening, but the waitress brings them an extra portion at no extra charge, because she mistakes Magnus’ friendly conversation for flirtation. Her number is tucked on a napkin beneath the plate.

Magnus rolls his eyes as he shows Alec, but he’s too good a person to crumple it up and toss it to the side. Instead, he slides the napkin into the pocket of his jacket, a keepsake. A souvenir of someone else’s dreams for the future. In that sense, it almost seems precious.  

“What?” Magnus asks when he notices Alec staring. “What’s the matter?”

Alec turns his attention back to his food, pulling out a soggy gherkin from his burger and draping it across the edge of his plate. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it. I was just thinking.”

“Thinking?”

Alec’s eyes dart to the pocket of Magnus’ jacket and then away again.

“Alec,” Magnus gently scolds. His smile becomes sympathetic. “Just ask me what you want to ask.”

“Are you gonna call her?”

Magnus shrugs. “Probably not. But who knows. Sometimes the people you meet by accident re-enter your life further down the line and become important. I don’t know where her story might take her.”

“What about your story?”

“My story?”

Alec nods, but says nothing.

Magnus leans forward across the table. “You know my story, Alec.”

A man lights a cigarette at the table two rows behind them; he draws smoke into his lungs and it escapes through his nose, a thin grey stream falling upwards, towards the tiled ceiling. Alec watches him tap the filter on the ashtray in the middle of his table and a clump of ash disintegrates from the lit end; it lands silently, like snow. Like dust on the highway.

Magnus follows Alec’s line of sight and turns in his seat, glancing over his shoulder at the man. When he looks back, he has one eyebrow raised expectantly.

The smell of cigarette smoke fills the diner - acrid, bitter, and faintly earthy. It takes Alec back to college, to sitting out on the back porch of Magnus’ mother’s house before Magnus sold it because he couldn’t bear to look at it any more. He can picture the pack of Morley's tucked beneath Magnus’ thigh. He can still remember the way the unlit cigarette bobbed between Magnus’ teeth as he told his secrets to both Alec and the dark.

“I quit, you know,” says Magnus, in the present. “They say it’s bad for you.”

“I always told you it was.”

Magnus smirks at him and leans forward again, his elbows resting on the table. He steals a limp fry from Alec’s plate and pops it into his mouth. “I listened, didn’t I?” He nods over his shoulder towards the cigarette-smoking man. “What do you think his story is?”

“Huh?”

“What do you think his story is? Why is he here, alone at a diner in the back-end of Wyoming, past midnight in the depths of November? Smoking a cigarette? He must have a story.”

Alec’s never really thought about it. He’s always imagined the inhabitants of the diner as a backdrop, not as characters in their own story.

He looks harder at the man now: he’s older than both Alec and Magnus, salt-and-pepper hair thinning at the back. Once handsome, perhaps, but the years have stretched out his face and made his jaw sag. He’s wearing an ill-fitting suit, his shirt rumpled and his tie missing, the top button of his collar undone. He takes a deep puff of his cigarette, looks at it, and then extinguishes the lit end, grinding it into the ashtray.

“I don’t know,” Alec says slowly, looking back at Magnus. “Some sort of business trip?”

Magnus’ mouth lifts at the corners, drawing Alec in. “Perhaps, but I don’t think so. You see how he’s fingertips aren’t yellow? He’s clearly not a smoker, but he’s stressed enough to do it now.” Magnus reaches across the table and taps his finger against Alec’s fourth knuckle on his left hand. “And he’s not wearing a wedding ring, although looks like he was until recently. You see the mark?”

Alec steals a glance at the man, and then shuffles forward on the bench, so that he might drop his voice low and conspiratorial.

“Divorced, then?” he proposes.

“Maybe,” Magnus grins, “Or cheating, and he’s about to go back home and face his wife and pretend like his fishing trip with the guys from the office didn’t turn up much success, so they’re going to try again next weekend. He’s probably never fished in his life.”

Alec laughs then, loud enough to draw some attention. The sound is foreign in his mouth and a flush surges up the back of his neck as he sinks lower in his seat, hunching his shoulders and biting down on his smile.

Magnus looks delighted; in his eyes, Alec sees the reflection of the fluorescent lights above their heads, laid out like stars.

“You just made all that up from looking at him?” Alec asks.

Magnus beams at him. He reaches out and touches Alec’s fourth knuckle again. “Why, of course,” he says, and then he nods his chin towards the sheriff sat alone at the bar, making smalltalk with the waitress. “Now, how about him?”

sixth chord

The sun rises over the endless Nebraskan fields in shards of light.

Alec adjusts the rearview mirror. He will remember this moment later in figments of pale winter blue, snow-hazed pink, and November sky through the passenger window as Magnus gazes out across the passing countryside: a blank canvas for a painter to fill with bodies.

The color changes depending on where Alec chooses to angle the reflection of the mirror. Slightly to the left, and Magnus’ hands are stained in a pale wavering indigo, a purple so rare that it is only ever seen in the fleeting hour between twilight and sunrise. Move the mirror to the right, and that colour becomes orange, then gold.

Magnus swipes his hand across the condensation forming on the inside of the window, smearing colour across the landscape, but the story he might paint is hidden from view. Alec knows the start and he knows the middle - the brushstrokes the ones Alec remembers, but it’s the details that differ now -  and it’s the end of the story that is vague and undefined in sepia.

Alec thinks about cigarettes again. He wants to ask Magnus who it was that finally got him to quit. Or when exactly he started drinking seltzer water instead of shitty beer from Walmart, or decided that listening to the dial tone while waiting for Alec to pick up the phone was too much.

‘Let’s start the morning right with some ‘old but gold’ ,’ announces the radio. ‘ We’re going back twelve years to 1983 with this first track …’

Magnus makes a nose of protest in the passenger seat. The indigo has already faded from his hands, moving on to become something else, something more.

Faithfully by Journey begins to play. Alec recognises the song; in much the same way that a breath of fresh air on a cold winter morning can take him back to another place and another time, the first note paints a picture in his memories.

“This song played at Isabelle’s quincea ñ era,” he remarks. “D’you remember?”

“I remember,” Magnus says, tipping his head back against the seat and staring up at the roof of the car. He closes his eyes and basks in the light of the early morning sun. His smile grows gold. “That was the summer she dragged us all to see them in concert, wasn’t it? Jace had me make a tape for her, for the party. She played it on repeat all night.” Magnus pauses for a moment, letting his words sink in. “I also remember asking you to dance to this.”

Alec remembers that too. “Dad didn’t like that. He was pissed.”

”I’m not surprised. He tolerated me, at best. He was clearly jealous.”

Alec huffs on a laugh. “Jealous? How’s that, exactly?”

“Mhm, jealous,” Magnus reminisces. “Specifically of when I spun you around and dropped you on your ass in the grass and you laughed like I’d never heard you laugh before.”

Alec’s neck grows warm, a flush curling around his throat. He pinches at the skin between his thumb and forefinger where his hands both rest on the wheel.

“I was drunk,” he says, like an excuse. “I don’t remember much after that.”

That’s a lie. He was drunk, but he remembers being sprawled out across the grass and staring at the sky and laughing, until Magnus dropped down beside him, his hands planted either side of Alec’s head as he bent over him, and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. And he had laughed it off like it was nothing, pulling Alec back to his feet, but Alec spent the rest of the summer picking that feeling out of his teeth.

Magnus turns his head to gaze out the window again. The curve of his smile speaks of fondness, of a quieted sense of longing and looking back. He seems at peace.

“I was drunk too,” he says, after a beat, to the countryside.

And oh, Alec wants that. He covets that like he covets touch. To be able to look back and not feel all this … regret.

Isabelle’s fifteenth birthday was the first and only time they kissed. Magnus probably doesn’t even remember that night, not beyond the dancing, the beer, the spinning around and around in dizzying circles. There’s no way he would remember a kiss that wasn’t really a kiss.

Alec never once told him how he wanted to do it again.

That was the problem, in the end.

interlude

“You haven’t moved on?” says a man, once, in a bar. He’s tall and handsome, with curly blonde hair and large hands that Alec has imagined once or twice upon his chest, although it never makes his heart leap like it should.

His name is Andrew. He works in the building next door to the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington. They met at a coffee cart on the corner of the block, and this, now, is their third date.

Alec had thought it was going well.

“What?” says Alec, turning to look at Andrew, leant beside him at the bar. “What do you mean?”

“You haven’t moved on from whoever it is that you loved first,” says Andrew. He pulls his American Express from his wallet and passes it to the bartender to settle their tab, but they’ve only had one drink so far. “And you know, that’s okay. I get it. The first is always different, especially when it gets left unfinished. But I can’t see this working between us if you’re still in that place. You’re a good guy, Alec, but I deserve more than that.”

seventh chord

“Take the next left.”

Alec scowls at the road before turning to look at Magnus. He is bent over an atlas he found beneath the passenger seat - it’s not Alec’s and must’ve been left behind by whoever rented the car before him. The pages are dog-eared and coffee ring-stained, and Magnus’ finger is pressed against the thin line of the highway that divides Nebraska in two.

“What? Why? This is the quickest way.”

Magnus glances up, a look of mischief on his face. He grins at Alec.

“There’s something I want to see and we’ll be passing right by. Seems like a shame to miss it while we’re here.”

“What is it?”

Magnus’ tongue pokes out between his teeth as his smile broadens. He mimes locking his mouth with an invisible key, tucking it into his shirt pocket.

Alec huffs. “Magnus, we’re in Nebraska. All they have here is grass. And nothing. And more grass, and more nothing.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Magnus folds the atlas up and sets it on his lap. He pats it with his hands. “What’s so wrong with a little spontaneity?”

“Uh, the fact that you have to be in Baltimore in three days? For an important meeting?” Alec says, gesturing with his flat palm at the road ahead. “You know I’m still on the clock, right? This is Bureau time you want to waste.”

“It’ll be an hour’s detour. We can afford it.”

“ Magnus .”

Magnus just grins at him. It’s the same grin that used to get Alec into so much trouble back in college; it leans against his doorframe with arms folded and a come-hither look in its eyes, and Alec has never been able to say no. Not to Magnus.

Magnus laughs. “Wow, they really did shove that stick right on up your ass at Quantico, didn’t they?”

Alec glares at him, but Magnus reaches out and pats Alec on the forearm, gently curling his fingers around Alec’s wrist. His touch, unfairly, is warm.

“Come on. The turning’s coming up,” he says. “Time to make a decision, Agent Lightwood. You don’t always have to play by the rules. Live a little.”

Alec rolls his eyes, but flicks the turn signal and merges into the outside lane, slowing as the turning approaches. Magnus beams at him and his laughter is buoyant, delighted as he claps Alec on the shoulder. His hand lingers, fingers pressing into Alec’s shirt, thumb against Alec’s pulse point.

Alec takes the turning.

He takes the turning and he wishes, only once, that Magnus might tell him exactly what those rules are. For a situation like this, he wonders, when you’re in the front seat of a car on an endless highway with a man you haven’t seen in years and who, once upon a time, you would’ve followed anywhere.

Although, in the end, not everywhere.  

A sign on the roadside welcomes them to Alliance, Nebraska, but instead of houses and street lamps, it’s grass that stretches for miles in every flat direction, endless swathes of frostbitten green. The road, now, is dirt and dust, and in the distance, a single white building and a cluster of standing stones appear as a landmark on the horizon.

Alec slows the car, but as the stones come into focus, he realises they’re not stones at all.

“Are those … cars ?” Alec asks, squinting into the distance. He looks sharply at Magnus. “Magnus, what -?”

Magnus holds up the atlas, his finger pressed against a roadside attraction labelled Carhenge .

“Please tell me that’s not what I think it is,” Alec says.

“Stonehenge replicated entirely out of cars, you mean?”

“Yes. That .”

“Well, it’s not as exciting as the World’s Biggest Ball of Paint , sure,” Magnus grins. “But when in Rome, Alexander. When in Rome.”

Alec pulls off the road, passing by the visitor’s sign that reads: Carhenge and Car Art Reserve. Welcome! The parking lot, little more than a field worn thin by tire treads, is scarred by muddy trenches that have frozen solid in the night and not yet thawed, and the rental’s suspension works hard to navigate them.

Alec huffs as he pulls up the handbrake and cuts the engine, but Magnus is already twisting in his seat to reach for his coat. He shoots Alec a cavalier grin as he opens the car door and tumbles out into the cold, and the blast of icy-cold air hits Alec square in the face.

Alec grimaces, but in front of the car, Magnus knocks his knuckles against the hood and gestures for Alec to follow him. Alec grumbles and pats himself down for his keys-wallet-ID-gun , before grabbing his own coat and shoving open the driver’s door.

The only other vehicle in the parking lot is a campervan, shiny and white and sparkling in the winter sunlight, either a midlife crisis or an early retirement investment. An older couple - a man and a woman - are standing in front of it, peering over a large DSLR camera. He’s in socks and sandals and she has binoculars looped around her neck, and if the weather was any warmer, Alec is sure they would both be in cargo shorts too.

“What attracts people to places like this?” Alec mutters, stuffing his hands into his pockets and turning up the collar of his overcoat as he hurries after Magnus. He hunches his shoulders, but the wind feels like it’s gusting through him, with nothing to stop or hinder it across the plains. “Why would you drive all the way out here to see … this ?”

“It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey, Alexander,” Magnus teases, walking backwards so that he can face Alec. “Why do we do anything without purpose? Because it’s there, and because we can.”

Behind him, the large circle of cars stands out of the landscape, spray-painted grey to look even less like standing stones. Alec grits his teeth.

“It’s about those little moments that break up a long drive,” Magnus continues, nudging Alec’s arm. “Or making small and inconsequential memories that can be revisited whenever one needs something slightly absurd to fall back on. It’s something to do with another person, even if that person is insistent on being a grouch the entire time we’re here-”

“Alright, alright, I get it,” Alec grumbles. “Let’s just hurry up and look because it’s fucking freezing out here and I wanna get back in the car.”

Alec’s dress shoes sink straight into the mud as they traipse across the grass towards the circle of cars; the squelch-squelch-squelch of his feet is loud enough to be heard over the wind. Along the horizon, the sun is weeping yellow, low in the sky and sinking moment by moment towards sunset, and the shadows that stretch out lengthways from the stones-that-are-not-stones are long and warped.

Alec stops when his toes meet one such shadow and he looks up at the stack of cars towering over him. He tilts his head to the side, but it looks no better from an angle. Magnus steps away from him, meandering over towards an information sign.

“ ‘Carhenge is formed from vintage American automobiles, all covered with gray spray paint,’ ” he reads out. “‘ Built by Jim Reinders, it was dedicated at the June 1987 summer solstice in memory of his father. ’ Huh. How about that.”

“My dad would kill me,” Alec mutters.

“Oh, yes, mine too,” says Magnus. He bends down and squints at the smaller text on the sign. “‘ Carhenge consists of 39 automobiles arranged in a circle measuring about 96 feet in diameter.’ ”

“That seems excessive.”

“I think it’s strangely compelling, actually,” Magnus says. “There’s something about roadside Americana that has its own distinct charm. It’s a product of human eccentricities and I like that.”

“Oh yeah, and what are you seeing?” Alec says, gesturing with his hand. “Because all I see is a 15ft tall metal monstrosity.”

Magnus wanders back over to him, pressing up against Alec’s arm for the sake of warmth. He folds his arms across his chest, shoving his hands under his arms, and huffs out warm air that forms white clouds. He gazes up at the monolith above them.

“Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Alexander,” he says. He frowns then, studying the twisted shapes of metal and fibreglass as if they’re some extraordinary work of art kept behind velvet ropes and a glass case and only allowed to be looked upon for a fleeting moment, and not an old car barely spared from rusting. “Michelangelo despised the roof of the Sistine Chapel, and yet it’s one of the most impressive feats of Renaissance art that still exists.”

“ Magnus ,” Alec presses.

“Mhm?”

Alec pauses. He studies Magnus’ face in profile: the line of his nose, the sharp cut of his jaw, the purse of his lips as he contemplates some deeper meaning that passes Alec by. High in his cheeks, the cold paints his skin red.

Alec thinks he understands a little, then. Nobody really comes to Alliance, Nebraska to see thirty-nine vintage cars spray painted grey and stacked together like some prehistoric monument from halfway across the world. There are other things worth looking at.

Alec shrinks down into the collar of his coat. “Michelangelo is overrated anyway,” he grumbles.

interlude

Here is the creation of a new memory: the orange-gold of a sunset, the cold metal of a rental car against the back of Alec’s thighs, and the warmth of a cheap coffee in his hands, steam rising and obscuring the face. The sky, shifting into navy, into darkness, into the pitting of stars as the temperature plummets and each breath becomes a plume of smoke rising heavenward.

Here, sat together on the hood of the car, Magnus touches him. Not an accidental brush of the fingers or a friendly hand on the arm while driving, but instead, Magnus tips his head to the side, letting his temple rest on Alec’s shoulder.

Here, Magnus’ whispered name crosses Alec’s lips. A question posed to the night, painful and tender and purple like a bruise (‘ what are you doing? ’), but Magnus doesn’t reply. He hums and turns his head and presses his nose to Alec’s coat.

Alec’s doesn’t dare move. Magnus’ hair tickles his jaw, and Alec wants to turn his head and press his nose there and breathe him in, but he doesn’t. Ten years ago, maybe. But not now.

So, he looks up, and he exhales as the last fragments of the sun shatter into a thousand tiny pieces. The night sky, in its infiniteness, mirrors the high plains of the Midwest: how endless, how deep, how black it all is, away from the city.

How less lonely it is with another body tucked against his shoulder. How much it hurts.

eighth chord

They find a cheap motel, afterwards, on the outskirts of the Alliance city limits. This time, there’s only one room left. One room with two twin beds made up in ugly floral sheets, and a TV without cable, and a minifridge, because that’s how it always is; how it’s meant to be; how it was, once, years ago.

Standing in the doorway of the room, Alec thinks back to their college dorm. He thinks about being eighteen and away from his parents’ home for the very first time - only one city over, but far enough, far enough to breathe - and Magnus crashing into that room, laden with boxes and a bright smile.

He thinks, aged eighteen, God, he’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen .

He thinks, aged thirty-something, that’s one thing that hasn’t changed.  

Magnus, in the present, slumps down on the bed furthest from the door with a heavy sigh and immediately toes off his shoes and flings off his coat. His suitcase is beside him on the bed, but Alec’s bag - Alec’s bag is still clenched tightly in his fingers.

He doesn’t move from the doorway. He can still feel Magnus’ head against his shoulder, Magnus’ weight against his side, and he’s not sure he’s taken a proper breath since; but then Magnus looks up and catches his eye and tilts his head as if to say, what next, Alexander?

He offers Alec a smile which Alec can’t return.

Alec swallows thickly and nudges the door closed with his hip. He pads over to the other bed, his feet sinking into the plush carpet and leaving tracks, and he sets his bag down on the very end of the mattress, and -

What next, Alexander?

There was never a what next . That’s the problem; it’s always been the problem. Alec, afraid to put a name to the feelings in his chest and step outside his comfort zone, and Magnus, unwilling to push him. This is the point they always reached: the touches, the glances, the wondering. The waiting for someone to do something. Around and around again, until Magnus couldn’t do it anymore.

This is always the point. The moment, repeated, just like the highway. Just like the diner.

Magnus exhales and cards a hand through his hair, combing it back against his head. He looks away from Alec, eyes drifting across the room until they settle on the cheap plywood door that leads to the ensuite.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he announces, and then he’s up, grabbing a towel off the bed and disappearing into the bathroom.

The shutting of the bathroom door is too soft and too careful, and Alec sinks down onto the end of his bed and rests his head in his hands. He closes his eyes and focuses on the outline of his badge in his jacket pocket, digging into his chest. The weight of his service weapon on his hip. The scratchy linen of the bed, the stains on the ceiling, the fuzzy TV as it cycles back and forth through the few sparse channels, even though the remote is on the bedside table and out of Alec’s reach.

He tries not to listen to the sound of rushing water through the walls.  

He goes to shower, after. When Magnus emerges from the bathroom with wet hair and a freshly-scrubbed face, there are no words exchanged as Alec passes him by.

The bathroom is small and full of steam, windowless and ventless and hot like a sauna and that’s definitely a fire hazard. Alec peels out of his suit and tugs the tie from his collar. His undershirt goes next, and then his belt, which hits the floor with a heavy clank. He stares at himself in the mirror but the reflection that stares back at him is blurred by condensation, and Alec’s finger is drawn to it, if only to leave a mark.

He wonders what Magnus would say if Alec told him of how he would write Magnus’ name in the steam on his mirror in the days after he left, standing in front of it to watch until it faded.

And it faded every time, until Alec stopped doing it.

He steps out of his pants and underwear, a puddle of creased suiting on the floor, and climbs into the shower, turning the dial up as hot as it goes. He stands beneath the spray until it scalds his skin pink, and then, once done, sits on the edge of the tub with a towel wrapped around his waist and finds himself craving a cigarette. He doesn’t smoke, not really. He just needs something to do with his hands.

When he leaves the bathroom, the TV is quiet and the light is off. A faint, electric glow escapes the bottom of the curtains, the same blue colour as the NO VACANCIES sign that overlooks the parking lot outside.

Magnus has his back to the bathroom door, his hands tucked beneath the pillow where he rests his head. He’s not asleep yet; Alec can tell from his breathing, not yet slowed. He will be able to count every long second that Alec spends staring at him, watching the rise and fall of his body beneath the covers, and he will be able to hear the moment Alec sighs and turns and leaves, padding across the room to his own empty bed.

Alec has lost count of the number of times he’s rolled over in the dark of a shuttered room that smells of mothballs and stale cigarette smoke, and reached for something that’s never been there. That hasn’t been there for years.

His mattress dips in the middle with the weight of one body. The pillow scratches at his cheek. He sets his service weapon on the bedside table, within easy reach, but hides his badge within the pocket of his jacket, out of sight but not quite out of mind. This is how it always is.

He listens to the rustle of blankets from the other bed and wonders, briefly, if Magnus has turned to look at him in the dark. He wonders what Magnus’ expression might be, and if Magnus stares at him now with the same sort of regret that Alec fails to hide.  

He is still in love with Magnus. He never stopped being in love with Magnus. This, too, is still the same.

interlude

In a wealth of human experience, the worst, by far, is what if .

ninth chord

Magnus taps his fingers against the car door, beating out an inconsistent rhythm. Alec knows it’s not a love song, but it could be something similar - a song about lost chances or maybe second chances. Sometimes, it’s difficult to distinguish between the two.

‘ THE PEOPLE OF IOWA WELCOME YOU ,’ reads a passing road sign, and it catches Magnus’ attention for a moment long enough to falter his rhythm. ‘ FIELDS OF OPPORTUNITIES. ’

There is little else to distinguish the crossing of the state line: the fields still stretch in endless directions, swathed in a fog the colour of glass. They set off late from the motel this morning because Magnus overslept and then insisted on breakfast, and refused to ask for the cheque until he had seen Alec consume something other than filter coffee.

He had offered to drive too, but Alec remembers what his driving is like: one arm propped on the wheel and the other fiddling with the radio, eyes barely on the road because, to Magnus, highways are straight lines from point A to point B and he has no time for speed traps or taking corners slowly or braking .

Alec, meanwhile, always has his hands at ten and two.

“Alexander, can I ask you something?”

Alec reaches for the dial of the radio and turns it down; this time, Magnus doesn’t try to stop him.

“I’m not stopping at another Carhenge,” Alec says. “Once is enough.”

Magnus rolls his eyes and continues tapping his finger against the car door.

“No,” he says, “No, I’ve seen my fill, I think.”

“But?”

Magnus smiles a little. “What makes you think there’s a but?”

“Because you haven’t said a word since I told you there’s no way in Hell you’re driving,” Alec chuckles. “And you’ve been thinking about something. I can tell. You do this thing with your hand -” He mimics the rubbing of his thumb and forefinger together, and then the touching of his ear. “And then you touch your ear. You used to have that piercing, remember? You’d always fiddle with it when something was on your mind.”

Magnus tugs gently at his earlobe. “I didn’t think I was so easy to read.”

“You’re not,” Alec smiles, “I’ve just known you too long. Or, uh. Knew you too long.”

Magnus hums at that. He begins spinning one of his fingers around his forefinger.

“Do you think I’ve changed? Since then?”

Alec shrugs. He’s never been that good of a liar, not in front of Magnus. And Magnus knows that; he told Alec as much, two days ago  “A bit. It would be weird if you hadn’t.”

“Hm,” Magnus considers. “You’ve changed, you know. And it’s like the strangest sense of deja-vu, because I know I know you, and yet there are these little details, these little things that seem slightly off. That I don’t recognise and I don’t know where they came from.” Abruptly, he stops fiddling with his ring and curls his fingers into the palm of his hand. He smiles wryly to himself. “And why should I? You don’t stay the same person your whole life.”

“I don’t think I’ve changed,” Alec murmurs, chewing on his lip. “I’m pretty much the same person I was back then.”

Magnus shakes his head, his smile fading. “That’s not true. I can see it in your face. You laugh more. You roll your eyes at me. Tell me no. You didn’t used to do that and I would drag you into so much shit , Alec. God, I was such a bad influence on you back then.” He pauses then, and his expression sobers. “But then, sometimes, when I catch you looking at me now, you seem ...”

He trails off, searching for the words with a flick of his hand. Alec doesn’t know what he means.

“I seem like what?” he asks.

“You seem so sad .”

Alec laughs in disbelief. “Sad? What - Magnus - I’m not sad, what do I have to be sad about?”

Magnus runs his thumb over his lower lip in thought. “That’s what I wanted to ask. Last night, in that motel room, I wondered - well. I wanted to ask if you resented me, after I left.”

Alec’s hands clench on the wheel. “If I resented you?” he repeats carefully. “Magnus, I didn’t resent you. Where’s this come from? What - what sort of question is that?”

“A genuine one,” says Magnus. “Just humour me a little. I want to know.”

Alec’s heart thumps in his chest. He forces himself to stay focused on the road. “Why are you asking about this now?”

“Why not two days ago when I found you at that gas station, you mean?”

No , Alec thinks. Not then. Before. Ten years ago, maybe.

Why didn’t you ask me then?

“Yeah,” Alec lies. “Something like that.”

Magnus frowns. “Do you not want to talk about it?” he asks.

“Do you?”

Magnus hesitates. He presses his mouth into a flat line and with his clenched fists, he taps his knuckles against the glass of the passenger window. The beat is one-two three-four , like a pair of heartbeats.

“I want to make sure you know why I had to go,” he says, eventually. “You understand that, right?”

“Right,” says Alec, unconvincingly.

Magnus huffs and leans his head into his hand, rubbing at his temple. When he continues, his words are addressed to the horizon and the straight line that leads them there and disappears into a singular point in time and space.

“I know I hurt you, Alec,” he says. “And I think you’re still hurt, in a way, because you’re both the most obtuse person I’ve ever met and yet the only person who I was always able to - who I can always see . And ... can I be honest here?”

Alec nods, but says nothing.

“Right, well,” Magnus continues. “How do I explain this? It’s … it’s frustrating . Sometimes. The way you keep looking at me out the corner of your eye like it causes you suffering to do so but you can’t help yourself. The way you didn’t pick up any of my phone calls, back then. The way we just … the way we just ended. Snuffed out like a candle.”

“But you’re the one who left , Magnus,” Alec interjects. “You’re the one who - it wasn’t me. I didn’t decide that.”

“I didn’t want to be stuck there. I wanted a career, Alec, I wanted to see what else there is ,” Magnus says, gesturing with his free hand to the open road and empty Iowan landscape. He sounds weary. “And there is so much else, so much more than a nice house in a nice neighbourhood with a white-picket fence and a dog and two-point-five kids. I couldn’t wait around for you to - I didn’t want to live the life my mom lived. She never left that place, not once. The same four walls, the same dead-end Middle American town until the end of her days. And that ... that was too small for me.”

He talks about getting out the same way painters talk about muses, the same way a traveler searches for God in the landscape: something they had to see before they died. A holy calling.

He always has.

Perhaps Alec is the ghost lingering at those New England intersections that keeps Magnus far and away from home. Alec, too afraid to cross over the threshold of a highway, destined to haunt the same small town for the rest of his life.

Too afraid to wander so far from home that he might not be allowed back. Too afraid to say something that he can’t recant, even if it’s the truth.  

Alec chews on the inside of his cheek. “Didn’t you ever ... didn’t you ever think about that sort of life? With the house, and the yard, and the dog?” he begins. “Just a little? Just a bit?”

Magnus shakes his head. “I didn’t want that,” he murmurs. “It’s not me. You know that. And after my mother passed and I sold the house, I - God, sometimes I would sit on the front porch and watch all the cars go by, passing through that town like it was nothing, like it wasn’t even a blip on their map, and I would think the world moves on without you . It doesn’t care if you don’t catch up. It doesn’t care if you’re - if you’re waiting for someone to say something they never want to say.”

He glances at Alec as he says it, and Alec realises then that he knows.

Magnus knows. Perhaps he’s known a while; perhaps he’s known since they were young that Alec loves him but refuses to say it. It is Alec’s worst kept secret, after all.

“I had to get out, Alec,” Magnus continues. “Sometimes I thought, if I stayed, I’d suffocate.”

I was suffocating too , Alec thinks. A gay man in the early 80s didn’t get to breathe . That’s just how it was.

Magnus, of course, already knows that. Alec would only be preaching to the choir if he said it aloud.

Instead, he mumbles, “I wanted to say it.”

“What was that?”

“I wanted to say it,” Alec repeats. He sinks his teeth into the inside of his cheek and wishes he could squeeze his eyes closed for just a moment - but there’s the road. There’s always the road. “I just - I couldn’t. Not then. But I wanted to say it. The thing you were waiting for. From me.”

Magnus’ mouth falls open a fraction, as if, somehow, he is surprised by such a revelation. Alec feels Magnus’ stare boring into the side of his face and he fights every muscle in his body not to turn and look back, because he knows exactly what he’ll find in Magnus’ eyes and he’s not sure he can stomach it.

He has looked at Alec this way before. Hell, a thousand times before. He’s trying to understand Alec - why here and why now, why are you finally saying something after all these years of pulling me along at the other end of a string, leaving me hoping and desperate and in love with someone who couldn’t ever say it back - but Alec is not that complicated.

He’s just scared. Scared of change. Scared of veering off the side of the highway that he has driven all his life, even though a part of him wants to know what it feels like. A part of him longs for the impact because, at least then, it will all be over.

And Magnus -

Magnus has always been so difficult to pin down, so close to chewing through his own foot to get away (and Alec had always hoped he’d never quite manage it, so that he might stay with Alec, forever, in some selfish vision of the future). It’s inside of him, that need to wander and see the world and meet new people and learn from them and be better and be something . The need to throw the roadmap out the window at high speed.

“Was that -” Alec begins, but clears his throat again. “Was that not enough? For you to stay, I mean?”

Magnus’ expression softens. His shoulders slump and his hand falls away from his temple and his mouth curves upwards at the corner and he says nothing. In his eyes, however, Alec finds an answer.

Sometimes, you cannot wait to be loved at someone else’s pace. Sometimes, you deserve more than that. I deserved more than that.

And maybe -

And maybe I’m still waiting.

interlude

Another postcard, this time purchased from a roadside gas station and then left crumpled in the glove box of a rental car:

I loved you then. I love you now. I still don’t know how to say it.

tenth chord

The day Magnus left was a Sunday. The beginning of August, 1985. The sun was bright that morning, harsh on the roof of Magnus’ new car as he piled boxes and suitcases into the trunk.  

Alec had not understood what ending meant until he was standing on the sidewalk and watching Magnus pack up his life into ten square feet. He had not understood that some endings aren’t peaceful or satisfying or tie up all the loose threads of a story tangled by the writer; some endings are excoriations. They leave you raw and wounded.

The realisation, now, is that letting Magnus go a second time will be a worse experience than the first. This time, Alec already knows what it’s going to feel like.

In the rental car, the heater works hard to circulate warm air into the front seat. The windshield wipers battle against the thick blanket of fog that has rolled in across Lake Michigan and which obscures the signposts for Chicago from view. Frost covers rural Illinois in a comb of silver, not quite yet snow, but soon. Soon enough, the country will be white and glistening in the low sunlight as far as the eye can see.  

Magnus has his coat draped over him like a blanket, his arms backwards through the sleeves and his head resting against the window. He hasn’t slept, but he’s been quiet for a while now, watching the world pass by with little commentary, save for when a song to which he knows the words plays on the radio.

On the side of the road, timber-frame houses disappear in and out of existence, reappearing in various states of disrepair. A barn, an old farmhouse, a disused gas station, a tiny church built on stilts that extends out over a frozen lake on a wooden walkway.

Magnus makes a noise of interest as they pass it by, turning in his seat to look back at it as it vanishes into the fog.

“Did you see that?” he asks. These are the first words he’s said to Alec in nearly a hundred miles. “That church.”

Alec glances in the rearview mirror but, as always, they are the only car on the road and the fog swallows up the passing seconds behind them. He’s not sure how long they’ve been on this road without a turning, nothing but an undeviated line for miles, and sooner or later, the end of the road is going to take them by surprise.

Alec takes his foot off the gas and presses down on the brake instead, and the car lurches to a near-stop. Magnus jolts forward in his seat, his seat belt cutting into his chest and stopping his momentum. He turns to stare at Alec, but Alec throws his arm over the back of his seat, knocks the gearstick into reverse, and spins the car into a three-point U-turn.

Magnus sits up in his seat, his coat slipping down from his shoulders and onto the floor.

“Baltimore not on the cards anymore?” Magnus asks, as Alec turns the car around and begins driving back the way they came. “Alec, what’s going on?”

Alec leans forward over the steering wheel, squinting out into the fog. The shape of the gas station reforms out of white cloud, and then, beside it, the shimmer of the frozen lake and the small church that sits atop it. A place for prayer amidst the smell of petrol fumes and gasoline and road dust.

A traveller’s chapel , Alec notes. It seems apt.

The church is small and squat and built of dark, gnarled wood, falling apart at the seams. From a distance, it seems almost black, but the need to pull off the road possesses Alec and he pulls into the parking lot of the gas station, before locking the handbrake.

Once parked, he turns to look at Magnus, both hands still clenched on the wheel. The radio crackles with white noise, interspersed with the tune of a Christmas song that Alec doesn’t recognise. Magnus reaches out and turns the volume down.

There’s never really been a need for words.

Alec unclips his seatbelt first. He doesn’t pat himself down for keys-wallet-ID-gun . He grabs his coat from the backseat and leaps out into the cold, and doesn’t look back when he hears the passenger door slam and Magnus follow after him, albeit at a distance.  

What Alec finds is this: the wind is brittle and the walkway that leads out over the lake creaks and groans beneath Alec’s weight, but doesn’t make a noise for Magnus. On the highway behind them, a truck rumbles past, but the fog is so deep that Alec cannot see it, save for the glow of its headlights. There is a small placard nailed to the outside of the church that reads: Visit Your Roadside Chapel and a big red arrow points down at the doorway.

Alec reaches for the doorknob and gives it a twist. Behind him, he can feel Magnus watching him, arms folded across his chest to ward off the cold, in silence. He says nothing to Alec, no witty remark about the FBI’s predilection for breaking and entering, no tired smile, no weary remark about how he’s tired of waiting, which they both know means far more than it seems.

The door to the church is not locked and it opens with a fair shove, and out spills the smell of damp wood and dust and old smoke. Magnus coughs lightly, wafting his hand in front of his mouth, but Alec steps inside.

The church itself is small and cramped, barely wider than the span of Alec’s arms from wall to wall, and the cold sweeps through the gaps in the walls, carrying with it the earthy smell of burning. There are no church pews, but a padded piece of wood for kneeling in prayer sits beneath a floor-to-ceiling cross, and bible verses are scratched into the plywood walls in a messy hand. Empty beer cans and extinguished cigarettes litter the floor, and cobwebs are strung like garlands above Alec’s head, which he reaches up to swipe away.

A row of candles stand where the altar should be. Soot still clings to the wicks, as if freshly extinguished.

Alec steps forward and his feet crunch on dried leaves that have blown in through the door. He lifts his foot and looks down and finds a crumpled receipt stuck to the sole of his shoe, grey with running ink and dozens of footprints that have come before Alec’s. The date on the receipt is fifteen years ago. It was issued in Dallas, Texas.

This is a space of comings and goings. Of passing throughs. The afterimages of a thousand travellers linger here like memories and, carved into the cross above Alec’s head, he notices the words: what is more important to the traveller, the journey or the destination?

The silence sings, or maybe it hisses, like the wind rustling through the endless miles of wheatfields between here and where they’ve come from.

What is more important to the traveller, the fact that we got lost along the way, or that we made it back here, in the end, and met again?

Alec looks back over his shoulder, and Magnus is there, standing in the open doorway, waiting. His nose is red with the cold. The light behind him casts him in the pale yellow of a winter twilight. He is watching Alec with an expression that Alec doesn’t understand.

“Magnus?” Alec asks, low and gentle.

“Yes?” he replies.

“Do you have a lighter?”

Magnus’ mouth tips upwards at the corner. “I said I quit, remember?” he says, but he reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a shiny, silver Zippo lighter, engraved with his initials. He places it in Alec’s outstretched hand, but his touch lingers against Alec’s wrist and the staccato of his pulse. “Here.”

Alec turns to the candles and flicks his thumb along the lighter. The flame is summoned into existence, its light dancing across Alec’s thumbnail as he lights the wick of the tallest candle.

He lights it for his mother, and then, once it catches, he lights another for Izzy, and then one for Jace and Max and his father. He recites the Catholic rotes his grandmother taught him beneath his breath, in Spanish, a whisper. Then, a prayer for Magnus, and for his mother too, wherever she might be.

And lastly, a prayer for himself, aged eighteen and away from home for the very first time. Aged twenty-three and in his graduation gown, Magus’ mortarboard on his head and Magnus’ arm around his shoulders, laughing in his ear. Aged ten years younger than he is now and standing on the sidewalk of his parents’ house, watching Magnus’ car pull away.

Magnus joins him at his side, his head bowed and his hands clasped in front of him. An inch of space exists between their shoulders, but, even now, Alec can feel the warmth of him through his coat.

Alec has missed this. He will miss it again, he’s all too sure, but maybe it’s okay to have it only for a moment.

Maybe that’s enough. Maybe it has to be.

“Alexander?”

“Yeah?”

“I meant what I said yesterday,” Magnus says quietly. He tugs on the sleeve of Alec’s coat and turns Alec to face him. His eyes are bright - not wet, but earnest - and drop to Alec’s lips before returning upwards. “That it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. You know that, right?”

He squeezes Alec’s arm. He wants Alec to understand something that still remains out-of-focus.

“What do you mean?” Alec asks.

“I am sorry for the way we left things,” Magnus says, “And I’m sorry that it hurt more than I realised it would. I really am. But it doesn’t have to end the same way this time. You can change the way you remember it. Make it mean something, something fond that you can look back on. You can make it good, if you want.”  

Alec frowns. They’re a day away from Baltimore. In forty-eight hours, Alec will be back home in D.C., and in a week, Magnus will return to L.A. and the life he has built there, where he drinks seltzer water and no longer smokes and talks a mile-a-minute on an expensive cell phone about investments and equity and big-ticket numbers, and is loved by Alec at a distance.

It’s not like the highway extends into the sea. All roads eventually end, and this one must too, amounting to nothing more than four days in a nondescript rental car with Christmas music playing on the radio, but -

This doesn’t have to end the same way this time.

“Doesn’t it?” Alec asks, unable to help himself.

Magnus shakes his head and lets go of Alec’s arm. He takes a step forward and lifts the last unlit candle, holding its wick to the flame of another until it catches.

“No,” he says. “No, it doesn’t.”

interlude

Nothing that happens on the road is real. This is what Alec tells himself between diners and gas stations and faded markings down the centre of the highway.

I can love you now, while the engine’s still running. And you might love me too, while the engine’s still running. Sometimes I think that you do, when I look at you from the corner of my eye.

In the distance, Chicago rises from the fog, lit up in one thousand pin-pricks of light. It makes the world glow in the colour of cities and concrete and it feels a bit like a dream after so long passing through nowheres.

If we drive far enough, we might make it back to the place we once called ‘now’. If we drive fast enough, maybe that day will end differently and you’ll stay.

The speedometer tips over ninety and the countryside blurs into rooftops and stop lights and traffic backed up across the bridge that spans the highway. Streetlights line the side of the road and pass across the rental car in flashes of strobe and yellow.

“I don’t want you to stay there,” says Magnus, in one such patch of light. Sometimes, it’s like he can read Alec’s mind. “I want you to write a different ending, Alec. I want you to want it.”

eleventh chord

Chicago is behind them as they cross into Indiana with the stroke of midnight, a dull orange glow that seems too bright for the eyes after so many repeated nights driving in near blackness.

Their destination is getting closer, and Alec eyes each passing road sign that counts down the miles to Cleveland, then Pittsburgh, then Baltimore, then home with a heaviness in his heart that beats a slow rhythm.

It’s the rhythm that he knows - that lonely beat that matches the roll of the odometer on the dashboard - and yet it seems too fast now, accelerating towards an end point at which he has a choice to make.  

He tries to match it, that rhythm. He tries to strike a chord with the bouncing of his leg in the footwell, with the tapping of his fingers on the steering wheel. He glances across at the passenger seat to see if Magnus is looking back at him, but he’s not - he’s staring ahead through the windshield and holding himself unnaturally still.

Alec wants to slow down below the speed limit; put his foot on the brake; stall the car. Drive it off the side of the road and into a ditch and then shrug and say, guess we’re stranded for another night ‘til the tow-truck can get here . And maybe that’s dishonest - or too honest, because the thought of spending the night in the car together, crowded around the heater as if it’s a bonfire keeping them warm, does something strange to Alec’s insides - but the relentless momentum if the car is no longer a balm on his nerves.

He can’t help but think about what lies in wait at the end of the road. Another goodbye. A polite smile and a parting hug and some kind and empty and wistful words; longing and loneliness and more of the same heartbreak, made worse by the fact he knows, now, what they could’ve had, if things had ended differently the first time.

Alec doesn’t want to leave this car; he wants to keep Magnus here forever, the two of them trapped in this rocking motion of roads and highways, where Magnus tells him over and over again that it doesn’t have to end and Alec believes him.

Alec wants to keep driving off the very edge of the continent and into the Atlantic Ocean. He wants to arrive in Baltimore and say, take me with you . He thinks about grabbing Magnus’ hand when he steps out of the car, and saying, don’t leave me behind this time. Take me with you. Take me somewhere that isn’t here. I’ve had enough of coming and going back to the same place as before. You’re right about that. You’ve always been right about me.

Magnus shifts in the passenger seat, clearing his throat.

“We should probably find a motel. It’s getting late,” he says. He doesn’t need to say it, because Alec is already thinking it: tonight is the last night. Tomorrow, Alec will be in his own bed, and Magnus, in some fancy hotel room paid for on a corporate credit card. “We both need a good night’s sleep. For tomorrow.”

“Right,” Alec echoes. He clenches his jaw. “Tomorrow.”

The air in the car is thick and heavy, so Alec reaches for the radio to try and suffocate his own thoughts. He skips through the stations until he finds one that sticks, and then turns up the volume. The voice of a man quoting late-night scripture fills the front seat:

‘So, flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord for a pure heart.’

Magnus exhales through his nose and runs his palms up and down his legs, digging his fingers into his thighs. His eyes catch Alec’s in the rearview mirror.

A decision, then. Alec has seen this look before.

“I really think we need to find a motel,” Magnus says again, more forcibly this time. “Let’s check the map. Can you pull over?”

“Huh?” says Alec, “Just switch the light on, it’s okay. I don’t mind. Pick somewhere that sounds good and tell me which exit I need to take.”

“Alec,” Magnus insists. “Pull over.”

Alec looks at him, confused. “What? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Really. I just need you to stop driving, please.”

“Okay, uh. Okay. Hang on, I’ll just -” The turn signal flashes and Alec steers the car off the side of the highway and onto the grassy verge. The tires sink into the mud and the car jostles them from side to side until, finally, coming to a stand still.

Magnus unclips his seatbelt and reaches for the glove box, retrieving the atlas from inside. He spreads it out on the dashboard between them, running his fingers down the page until he finds where they are, and then flicks on the cabin light above their heads.

The car becomes an island, then. The sky is clear and the road behind them is almost empty, and the world outside is completely black and they are floating in an endless void. And all that exists is Magnus leaning across the gearstick and grabbing Alec’s hand and pressing his fingertip to a point on the map and saying, “there.”

“There?” asks Alec, looking up at Magnus’ face. His voice is a whisper now. “What’s there? A motel?”

“A motel,” Magnus agrees, shifting forward on his seat, closer to Alec. His grip on Alec’s wrist is vice-tight, his rings cold against Alec’s skin. “What do you think?”

Alec pauses. There is an unasked question here, hidden in the silence between words. It’s a proposition and Alec wants to get the answer right.

But Alec also wants to kiss him. He can smell Magnus’ cologne, the aftershave patted onto the slope of his jaw in the bathroom of a cheap motel that morning. He can feel the heat of him. He can feel the flutter of Magnus’ pulse where Magnus’ thumb is pressed insistently against his skin.

He wants to kiss him and muster the courage he could never find before, and he wants to say fuck it . Give him that moment of undoing, or redoing, or whatever the fuck it is that he wants the last few years to have meant.

He’s pretty sure that’s what Magnus wants too.

“Alexander?”

Kiss me now while the engine’s still running.

“I don’t want this to end.”

“I know you don’t,” says Magnus. “I don’t either.”

“No. No, Magnus, you don’t know. You don’t - you can’t ,” Alec insists. “You can’t know because I never said anything. That’s the whole point. I never said anything, even though we both knew how I felt. We both knew. And despite all that, we still didn’t do anything about it because in the end, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. I loved you and I think you loved me and it didn’t matter.”

He and Magnus exist in a not-time. This place isn’t real; Alec can speak to these feelings and not be beholden to them in the morning, or at the end of the road, or wherever it is that they’re heading. Not if he doesn’t want to.

But he does want. He wants more than one man with a body can bear.

I loved you then but it didn’t matter. But it matters now because I can say it. Because we have circled around and found each other again after all this time and that -

That has to mean something.

Magnus’ hand relaxes on Alec’s wrist; his fingertips brush across the back of Alec’s knuckles, across the roadmap between them on the console. It is tentative and questioning and even now, still says, you can drive away if you need to.

Alec inhales deeply. He shakes his head.

He meets Magnus’ eyes on purpose.

“I was afraid that the next time you walked into my life, I wouldn’t know how we fit together,” he whispers. “I was worried that something inside of me, inside of you, would’ve changed, because things always change after this long, but - it hasn’t.”

Beneath Alec’s palm, Washington lies hidden. In the dark, the paper rustles.

“You haven’t, Magnus. Not when it comes to me.”

interlude

The radio sings, ‘It will never be the same, baby.

We will always be the same, baby.’

twelfth chord

Alec’s hand shakes as he fumbles with the key in the motel room door.

Magnus stands a half step behind him, his breath forming white clouds that float and dissipate over Alec’s shoulder. The smell of his aftershave carries. There’s a deliberate space left between their bodies, greater than the distance that has existed between them in the car for the last four days.

It’s the furthest they’ve been apart since Alec approached that phone booth back in Idaho.

“Fuck,” Alec mutters, as the key sticks in the lock and refuses to turn. His palm is sweaty and anticipation licks up the side of his throat where the collar of his shirt is too tight. “Sorry, just give me a sec-”

Magnus leans over his shoulder and takes the key from him, sliding it into the lock with ease. The door clicks, and then swings open.

This motel room is just like all the rest: two beds, one TV, the oddly stained carpet. Thin plywood walls. A single light that plunges the whole room into that low-res yellow of cheap nighttime lodgings.

Alec places both their bags on one of the beds, exhales, and then, when he turns back, Magnus is standing against the closed door. His head is tilted back, his chin aloft, and his arms are folded across his chest, the sleeves of his coat tight around his arms.

His eyes are dark and molten. Where Alec is an unlit cigarette, he is the match.

And that’s enough. All things end and all endings are terrible in their own way, and Alec doesn’t know why he shouldn’t lean into the inevitable if it’s something he can’t avoid.

He abandons the bags and steps towards Magnus, grabs him by the lapels of his overcoat, and kisses him.

Immediately, Magnus opens his mouth to Alec; the sound he makes into the kiss has the hairs on the back of Alec’s neck standing on end. They stagger back against the door with a thud , and Magnus grabs at Alec’s coat, shoving it from his shoulders, then pulling Alec’s shirt out of his belt, his hands slipping beneath Alec’s undershirt so that he can feel skin.

Something rattles around inside of Alec and maybe it’s his heart come loose at last. He kisses Magnus ever deeper for it; his chest aches; his heart aches. He should’ve kissed Magnus sooner, and yet it feels like this is the only moment in time and space where it’s meant to happen: some dingy motel in rural America where it’s just the two of them and Alec has made a choice where he refuses to let this separation be the same as the last.

They’ve never needed to speak. The span of time hasn’t changed the connection between them; Alec could be his twenty-three year old self; he could be his eighteen year old self; his self from five days ago, picking up the keys to a rental car in the backwoods of Oregon state - he would still be in love with Magnus, whether or not he has said it out loud.

Alec cups the sides of Magnus’ jaw and tilts his head back, deepening the kiss. Magnus’ tongue presses into his mouth, his hand flat against the small of Alec’s back, his fingers pressed against Alec’s spine. He pulls Alec closer until their bodies are flush.

And oh, it’s so easy for Alec to lose himself to the push and pull of it: the lick of Magnus’ tongue, the pliance of his mouth. His hands are so warm as they settle on the slope of Alec’s waist.

Alec feels like he’s standing in the middle of a highway, staring down the headlights of an oncoming truck, willing it to move first or be moved . His heart is pounding loudly in his chest. The light is so bright that he is blind to everything else.

Is this driving off the edge of the road or is this the impact?

The kiss leads to the bed. The bed leads to shucked clothes and kicked-off shoes and Alec tossing his badge and service weapon blindly onto the bedside table as Magnus kisses down his throat and the blood rushes to Alec’s head.

Magnus pins him back against the starchy motel pillows, one hand splayed on Alec’s chest - stay still, don’t move - while his other hand cups Alec’s hip and his thumb slips into the band of Alec’s underwear.

No. It is the destination.

Magnus runs his hands down the inside of Alec’s legs, his palms smoothing across Alec’s thighs. His eyes meet Alec’s as he presses his mouth against Alec’s knee.

Alec’s eyes fall closed.

He wants to say something about endings, to gasp, to whisper it. He wants to ask what happens next: if he is to leave Magnus on the side of the road in Baltimore tomorrow and never hear from him again; or if Magnus will fly back to Los Angeles in a week’s time and only look back on this moment as one of those pocket memories of his, something fond to warm him on colder nights.

Alec doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want to be an uncalled telephone number in Magnus’ diary again; he doesn’t want to stop here , with Magnus’ mouth slowly kissing up his inner thigh. He cannot let Magnus slip through his fingers a second time, so he reaches out and pulls Magnus towards him, up the length of his body, crushing his mouth against Magnus’ and swallowing Magnus’ untethered gasp. He kisses Magnus’ jaw, and then the side of Magnus’ neck, and then he presses his nose to Magnus’ shoulder and breathes him in.

He says nothing, but he has to screw tight his eyes to stop himself from doing something stupid, like letting a stray tear roll down his cheek and wet the pillow. Magnus wraps his arms around him and holds him tight, words whispered in Alec’s ear that he’s been waiting ten years to hear and which Magnus thinks must all be said in one night.

Alec is too old for messes of the heart like this, but maybe that’s the problem: how long they’ve delayed this particular end, to the point that neither of them know how to exist in a world after .

interlude

The final postcard never sent:

“The boy in the yellow shirt walks like there is all the room in the world. I am standing on the edge of what is an ending world.” 2

I read this in a book that Catarina leant me. I think it’s about us, or at least it’s about me, the first time I laid eyes on you.

Come to L.A.

thirteenth chord

Alec wakes up alone in the bed, his arm outstretched across the mattress, his hand palm-up to the ceiling. There is an ache in his legs, bruises scattered across his thighs like the shattered glass of a windshield spread across the road. The smell of sex hangs heavy both in the air and on his skin where sweat has dried and not been scrubbed away, and when he tries to speak, his voice is hoarse and raspy.

Beside him on the bed, the pillow is cooling - but not yet cold.

Disappointment curls in Alec’s gut, but in his head - well, that’s empty, devoid of the constant noise that has existed there for the past few days, if not years. He hasn’t noticed until now that it mimics the sound of a car engine, a forever rumble.

There is simplicity to the silence now. The carpet is cold when Alec’s feet hit the floor, a draught slicing beneath the bed. Magnus’ suitcase is gone from the other bed; his clothes gathered from the floor. The smell of his cologne has faded, replaced by the musty smell of floral bedsheets and mothballs and wallpaper that has absorbed the smoke of a hundred cigarettes.

The only evidence of Magnus being here is his absence.

His absence - and the way Alec’s mouth tingles when he brings his fingers up to touch his lower lip.

Alec brushes his teeth to the sound of the faucet running, water gushing down the drain. He splashes his face and dresses in the crumpled clothes from yesterday that still smell like the front seat of the rental car and shakes carpet fibres out of his overcoat where it still lies by the door.

Keys. Wallet. ID. Gun. He moves through the motions on autopilot, patting his pockets and then his chest as he mentally tallies up the parts of himself worth collecting - but then stops. Standing in the middle of the motel room with his bag in his hand, he turns to look at the unmade bed, the sheets kicked into a pile, a backdrop to a journey he has taken so many times before.

The difference, now, is in the details. It feels significant. It’s worth remembering.  

Crossing to the window, he throws open the curtains and sunlight streams into the room, flooding every dark corner. Alec squints against the light, raising his hand to his face to shield his eyes. A faint sheen of frost forms fractals on the outside of the glass and, beyond that, the roof of the rental car, the prelude to the first snow of winter.

Leant against the side of the car is Magnus.

Alec inhales deeply, his breath clouding upon the window. The cold draws down into his lungs - a sharp ache inside of him that he holds for a count - and then he exhales. Deflates. Sinks back into a rhythm that is both familiar and somehow different to the one he has known for so long, as if the world now beats in imperfect time.

Magnus is propped against the hood of the car with his eyes closed and his head tipped back to catch the sun, and he doesn’t stir when Alec shuts the motel room door behind him and the gravel of the parking lot crunches beneath his shoes. On the side of Magnus’ neck, there is a hickey bitten darkly into his skin. It’s the colour of rare indigo.

Alec doesn’t feel the need to avert his gaze now.

“Have you ever been on a roadtrip?” Magnus asks, opening his eyes when he feels Alec’s shadow cross his body.

Alec frowns at him as he bends down to grab Magnus’ suitcase, before tossing both their bags into the backseat. “Isn’t this a roadtrip?”

Magnus waves his hand aimlessly. “No, this is serendipity, Alexander. I’m talking about a comprehensive tour of all the worst diner coffee in the continental United States. Hiking in the Grand Canyon. Exploring the redwood forests of the Pacific Northwest.” He looks at Alec and smiles a coy smile, pushing away from the car. “You know, in Indiana, they have the World’s Largest Ball of Paint? I’d like to see that sometime. All the best roadside Americana that the country has to offer.”

Alec rounds the car to the driver’s door, opens it, but doesn’t get in. He leans his arms on the roof of the car and Magnus, on the other side, turns to face him.

“But Baltimore,” says Alec.

Magnus’ smile softens. “But Baltimore,” he agrees, across the span of the roof. He glances at his watch. “Providing we don’t hit gridlock outside the city, I should be right on time for my meeting and Raphael won’t have the pleasure of removing my head from my shoulders. You always were excellent at keeping me punctual.”

Alec smiles quietly, ducking his head. “Yeah, well, one of us had to live in the real world.”

He climbs into the car and Magnus follows, folding himself into the passenger seat and draping his coat across his lap. He buckles himself in and then leans back to look at Alec as Alec slots the key into the ignition.

“What?” Alec asks. He reaches up to touch his neck, in the same place where the bruise forms on Magnus’ throat, but can’t find any tenderness. “Is there something on my face?”

“No,” Magnus says gently. “No, not at all. I was just thinking that sometimes the real world is rather overrated. In my experience, the longer one can put off returning to it, the better.”

Alec turns the key and the car splutters into life. The heater blows warm air into the front seat, condensing upon the windshield, and when Alec reaches out to direct the flow of air downwards, Magnus covers Alec’s hand with his.

It’s a reflection of the night before, but without the urgency.

Magnus curls his fingers around Alec’s hand and brushes his thumb over Alec’s knuckles. Then, he brings Alec’s hand up to his mouth and presses his lips to Alec’s fingers, his eyes falling closed and his eyelashes casting feathered shadows on his face.

Alec holds his breath. He waits for Magnus to say something, to say so let’s not go back to the real world yet because I’m happy here , but he doesn’t.

Happy is too vague a concept. Not that Alec isn’t happy here, in this particular not-real moment, but it’s a feeling that belongs to strange, liminal motels and repeated diners. It is hard to grasp, and harder still to fathom how it might slip into the spaces occupied by a life back in the city at the end of the road.

Magnus sets Alec’s hand down on the gearstick between them, and settles back into his seat, kicking his feet up on the dashboard. He tips his seat back and rests his head against the window as Alec puts the car into reverse.

The road is quiet but not deserted. Alec knows that they will meet traffic before too long, but, for a moment, he imagines the highway stretching beyond the horizon and continuing into the sky, winter-blue and endlessly deep, leading above and beyond the curve of the Earth.

There’s a very thin dusting of snow on the hard shoulder, and the sun, shockingly bright, refracts off it with a white glare. It’s the sort of daylight that possesses Alec, that fills him up and makes him feel separate from his body.

If Alec rolled down the window, that daylight would spill in and flood the car, crisp and cold and foreign. But here in the warmth, he unspools a story in his half-awake mind: him and Magnus and the unending road. If they stop moving, they’ll die. If they stop driving, they’ll die. There was a Keanu Reeves movie about that recently , Alec thinks. It probably didn’t end well.  

“Do you mind if I smoke?”

Alec glances sideways at Magnus. “What happened to quitting?”

“Oh, I did,” says Magnus. He produces an unopened pack of Morley’s from the folds of his coat and inspects it curiously. “But I got this from the motel reception this morning on a whim and it feels like a waste otherwise.”

Alec rolls his eyes. “Right,” he says, but he cracks open the driver’s window and the cold rushes in. The wind ruffles through his hair, funneled by the cuffs of his jacket up the length of his sleeves and into his coat. A shiver ripples down his spine and he grimaces.

Beside him, Magnus pulls a cigarette out of the pack with his teeth and cups his hand around his lighter as he lights it, before holding it out to Alec.

“I haven’t smoked in years,” Alec says, but he takes the cigarette anyway and taps the lit end against the ashtray on the console. “You can’t laugh.”

Magnus lights a second cigarette, the clink of his lighter sharp, like metal. He draws in a deep breath, pulling smoke down into his lungs, and then exhales. The grey plume rises towards the roof, only to be sucked suddenly out of the open window.

Magnus coughs, clearing his throat, and takes the cigarette from his mouth, only to pull a face at it.

“Tastes like what I imagine licking the floor of that motel would be like,” he says, before stubbing the cigarette out in the ashtray. He frowns at the packet in his hand, before throwing it into the glove box. “Let’s stop at the next gas station. I need something to wash that out of my mouth.”

“Okay,” says Alec, unable to stop himself from smiling. His cigarette warms his fingers. His stomach growls at the thought of cheap diner coffee and a greasy bacon burger for breakfast. He presses his foot down on the gas and shifts the engine up a gear.

A passing road sign reads: Baltimore, 405 km . About a five hour drive.

Alec will miss this rental car.

interlude

In the dark of a motel on the night before, Magnus’ eyes are almost black. Alec studies him from across the pillow, their noses nearly touching. Magnus’ hand, splayed on Alec’s ribs, draws gentle circles into Alec’s skin, while Alec’s ankle lies tangled with both of Magnus’ legs.

Magnus’ body is warm. It’s rhythm is familiar in the way that it matches Alec: how he moves, how he breathes, how the sound of his heartbeat disturbs the silence of the motel room.

If Magnus were to speak, he would say, ‘something is only beautiful because it does not last forever .’ But he does not speak, so Alec cannot say back, ‘ that’s not true. You’ve always been beautiful .’

Instead, he leans forward and he kisses Magnus and he earns a soft groan for his troubles as Magnus curves into him like the other side of a parenthesis, ‘til now unpaired.

Magnus’ hand slides upwards, cupping the back of Alec’s head. His thumb caresses the shell of Alec’s ear and the soft hair above it.

He pulls himself against Alec’s chest, his other hand trapped between them, pressed over Alec’s heart.

He kisses Alec back.

outro

The woman in the apartment above Alec’s has Christmas lights in her window: red and green flash in alternating patterns and Mariah Carey’s faint warble can be heard from the sidewalk as Alec gazes up at his building and allows himself to watch, if only for a moment.

His bag is heavy on his shoulder and his suit is stiff across his back; the thought of a shower is calling him home, but he wants to linger outside a little longer. The cold is sharp against his face and draws a red flush to his cheeks. His breath escapes him in white clouds, tumbling upwards. Baltimore lingers on his skin with the memory of a parting kiss.  

He is, now, alone.

On his doorstep, his neighbour has left him an early Christmas card; she has done the same for the last few years, concerned for the young man who lives alone and never has his family visit once December comes around. As Alec unlocks his front door, he slips his finger beneath the seal of the envelope and tears it open, and the message inside is the same as it always is, wishing him and his loved ones well for the holidays.

He places the card on the sideboard by the door as he toes off his shoes, and wanders into his living room, dumping his bag on the floor as he goes.

The stillness in his apartment is strange: the air is musty, the windows unopened for nearly two weeks now, and while there’s no dust on his coffee table yet, the scattered paperwork and unwashed coffee mug are somehow disturbed by his presence.

There are dishes in his kitchen sink and his bed is still unmade; the space is exactly as he left it, and returning to it feels a little like disembarking an airplane after a long journey spent cramped in one mindset, and now having to reacclimatise to solid ground.

Alec is not sure why he expected his apartment to be changed. Even in some small way, like the rotating characters at a diner, or the different coloured carpet at each roadside motel, or the occupancy of his passenger seat by a man he thought he’d never see again, he hoped for something new. Something welcomed but unrecognised, symbolic of a new start or, perhaps, a second chance.

Oh. Maybe he’s the one a little changed, then.

It’s not about the destination , after all , he tells himself, reaching for the remote to turn the TV on for background noise. It’s about the journey.

Briefly, he wonders if this happens every time: if each successive back-and-forth across America wears him down just a little, like the treads on car tires, and it’s only now that he has changed enough to notice that he no longer fits into the routine once occupied with ease. In his footsteps, he brings the liminality of the road into his own apartment, the threshold moment between one state of being and the next.

And Alec is okay with that.

He locks his service weapon in the safe on his desk. Loosens his tie. Pulls a bent postcard from Carhenge, Nebraska, a receipt from a gas station just outside of Baltimore, and a nearly-full pack of Morley’s from his jacket pocket and sets them all on the coffee table, before throwing his coat over the back of the couch to take to the dry cleaners tomorrow.

His suit jacket goes next - two days old and creased around the elbows - and then his belt, a heavy thunk on the floor, before he pads into the bathroom and turns on the shower so that the water might have time to heat up before he gets in.

He strips down to his underwear and wanders back out into his living room, and it’s then that he notices the red flashing light on his answering machine: a voicemail.

He hits the play button - ‘ you have three unread messages ,’ says the disembodied voice - and he pours himself a glass of water as he listens first to Jace ramble on about not coming home for the holidays, and then to his mother discuss her plans to visit her solicitor next week.

Alec empties his glass and sets it in the sink to be washed later. He heads back to the bathroom, rolling the stiffness out of his shoulders, and the answering machine beeps to signify the final message.

‘ Alexander, it’s me. ’

Alec stops and turns to stare at his answering machine as if it might come alive in front of him.

‘ You’re probably not even back in D.C. yet, but - well ,’ says Magnus. ‘ I made it on time to the meeting, in case you’re interested. I’m never going to hear the end of it from Rafael, of course, and he’s never going to let me drive anywhere alone again, but it’s looking like we’ll be able to close a deal before Christmas. It sounds like I’m going to be back and forth between L.A. and Baltimore a lot next quarter.’  

In the background, Alec can hear the sound of people, of a bustling street, of taxi cabs blasting their horns as Magnus tries to hail one down.

‘ But I all that aside, this couldn’t wait and, I suppose, serendipity can only get you so far.’

Alec reaches for the handset, poised above the redial button, but then something in Magnus’ tone changes. In his words, Alec can hear the sound of his smile.

‘ How far is the drive from Los Angeles to Indiana?’ Magnus asks. ‘No, wait, how far is the drive from Baltimore to Indiana? I’ve been thinking a little more about the World’s Biggest Ball of Paint. Perhaps you’d like to see it with me.’

The beat of Alec’s heart shifts in its rhythm once again. He holds his breath. He imagines himself taking a step over that imaginary threshold.  

‘There are too many things I haven’t told you yet. ’

*****

“They have worries, they're counting the miles, they're thinking about where to sleep tonight, how much money for gas, the weather, how they'll get there - and all the time they'll get there anyway, you see.”

― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

[goldenfawnwriting]

Birds Of A Feather - Part 14 Hawks Fic

Summary: Finch has changed, for the better or for worse?

A/N: Just got a new laptop for my birthday and I’m absolutely in love with it, only thing- the keyboard lights turn off when they go inactive and my eyesight is awful so when I go to start typing again I often mess up lol. Fun times tho.

Warnings: Angst, violence, abuse by the commission. 

It was late, Hawks was sitting up watching the news. That was when he got a call from an unknown number. Usually he wouldn’t answer to numbers he didn’t know, for fear of his phone number getting leaked but, for some reason a heavy feeling settled in his gut and he clicked answer quickly. 

“H-Hawks?”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Asami, Starlight.”

“Oh you’re Finch’s best friend right?”

“Ya actually, I was calling about Kore. I haven’t heard from her in awhile-”

“She’s been training for the commission. It’s been non-stop.”

There was a pause from the other side of the phone and then Asami continued. 

“Well, is she doing alright? She doesn’t usually ignore me like this.”

“U-uh,”

He contemplated telling Asami with the hope that she could help but he also didn’t want to worry her and end up getting her hurt.

“Ya, she’s doing great actually, she’s even tried flying a little.”

Asami gasped and made a little excited squeak.

“That’s amazing!”

“Ya, I’m sure she’ll give you a call soon, she’s just been super busy and worn out with all the work so...”

He trailed off. He hoped to god she wouldn’t try and go visit her or call. He feared Finch may snap on her or worse, him.

“Ok, well, I’ll let you go, sorry for disturbing you, I just thought I didn’t want to bother her so I’d call you. Y’know, she was really upset when you stopped visiting her in the hospital.”

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed.

“Ya I know... I just couldn’t get too close to her without the commission riding my ass about it. We talked it out though.”

They definitely hadn’t talked out all the harbored feelings with that situation but, he’d address that later. 

“Ok, well, let her know I called! Thanks Hawks~”

“No problem!”

He replied before she hung up, letting his throw his phone down on the couch and run a hand down his face with a sigh. He’d never be able to get to sleep at this rate. All he’d been able to do was worry about Finch since the last time he’d seen her, a couple days ago. He turned off his TV, making a decision.

As he flew through the night sky he couldn’t help but wonder if he was making the right decision. Would he be making the situation worse? Stressing her out more? When he got to her window he paused, his wings flapping to keep him in place. He sighed, sliding it open and pulling himself inside the dark bedroom. Maybe he should’ve went through the balcony door, he thought, stepping into the room. He spotted her passed out in her bed, curled up tight in a ball. He left his eyes on her for a moment longer before letting out what he thought was a silent sigh but man was he wrong. Finch popped out of bed at the speed of light and was immediately coming at him before he could even realize what was happening.

“Finch, Finch, it’s me!”

He yelled, grabbing her to stop her. She struggled against him, throwing punch after punch, Hawks blocking each one before finally grabbing her by the arms and turning her around, pinning her down on the bed roughly.

“Kore, it’s me Keigo!”

She was panting hard, and then suddenly, it was like she was back to normal again.

“K-keigo?”

She croaked in a hoarse voice. He could tell she had been crying.

“Keigo, what’s h-happening to me?”

She whimpered. Hawks wanted to let her up again but was still worried that she’d try and attack him again.

“Dove, you’ve gotta calm down, then I’ll let you go and we can talk.”

He tried to say gently, he was still panting, trying to prepare himself for the next round, if she decided to attack him again.

“Keigo I don’t know what’s happening-”

Her voice broke off into a harsh sob and Hawks could feel his heart break for her. She was in so much pain, so much torment. 

“Come on lovebird, I know you can do this, just breathe, we can fix this.”

It was like she was a mechanical warrior, like she was following a string of commands. Her wings finally relaxed, no long pushing against him and folding to her back. He sighed, finally trusting that she was calm again as her feathers smoothed down and her breathing evened. He let her up slowly, bracing himself for if he had to contain her again.

“Just go slow birdie, no quick moves.”

“Y-you don’t trust m-me?”

“You’ve gotta understand Finch, I’m in a whole new situation also.”

^^^

They sat on her couch, far away from eachother as Hawks questioned her.

“What was that about?”

“I don’t know, I just did it.”

“You just did it?”

“Yes- It’s like I couldn’t control myself...”

“What have they been doing to you?”

She paused.

“What do you mean?”

He ran a hand down his face. Maybe it was different for him to grow up learning this, they had more time to teach him things, so they didn’t have to rush, they could be a little more gentle with him but, for her they were trying to pump out a new hero as fast as they could. No time for her to absorb anything but being threatened with her life. 

“What kind of training are you doing Finch?”

“T-they just put me in a room, everything is black, no lights or anything, they play really loud static noise and then they come.”

“They come?”

“People start to attack me. They take away my sight and hearing and then they start attacking me, I think it’s 3 different people but I’m not sure, sometimes it less, sometimes it’s more. Then I just have to.. I don’t know, survive? Sense them and react?”

He was silent.

“What else?”

“Am I going to get in trouble for telling you this? You can’t go to them, I’ll get in a lot of trouble-”

“What else Finch.”

He growled, his feathers puffing up.

“U-uh... They do it under water too... I get in a pool, they blindfold me, and then I fight someone. That’s always one on one, never more. Recently they’d been putting me through flight training. Fast paced obstacle courses and stuff like that. Fighting in the air.”

“Have they been giving you any breaks?”

“Not usually no. Not until they let me go home. They don’t tell me the time very often. They just bring in food sometimes and let me eat and rest.”

That’s why he hasn’t seen her barely any at work anymore. She’s been occupied fully. No breaks. That’s why she’s so paranoid, why she randomly attacked him earlier. She doesn’t know anything but danger. She hasn’t had any time to process this.

“Finch, you’ve gotta stop this, we’ve got to give you a break, you’re stressing yourself way too much-”

“I can’t take a break now Keigo. I’ll lose everything I’ve worked so hard for. I can’t give it up now, I definitely can’t go through all this over again.”

She looked so tired. So exhausted. Like she hadn’t seen peace in weeks. And he knew she hadn’t. The commission was ruthless. This was their best creation yet, and the poor girl just happened to get caught in the middle of their aspirations. He had done this. It was his fault, he brought it up to the commission, he had convinced her to go through with it. 

“Finch, you’re gonna work yourself to death, this isn’t healthy. They need to cool it, you don’t have to be a hero tomorrow for god’s sake-”

“I want to be a hero as soon as possible. It’s my fault for not being better, they wouldn’t have to do this if I would just learn-”

“No Finch! That’s not how this is supposed to work! You’re not supposed to be some machine! You’re not a soldier that does whatever they want! There is no reason to be working so stupidly hard, you’re going to keel over at this rate.”

She didn’t reply, tears brimming her eyes. She couldn’t stop now, she was so close to her goal. She was so close to being exactly the way they wanted her to be.  

Keigo ran a hand down his face and scooted closer, gingerly pulling her into his lap and hugging her tightly. 

“Finch, babybird, we have to stop this, your heart is gonna give out with the stress.”

“I-I c-can’t!”

She sobbed, her face buried in his chest. He ran nimble fingers through her hair, the feeling relaxing her slightly. Her heart was beating so fast he was concerned. This couldn’t be good for her physical health, let alone her mental health. 

“Lets get you back to bed dove, have you ate recently?”

She shook her head into his chest but when he went to stand her hands clenched around his jacket.

“P-pleas- d-don’t le-leave me..”

He didn’t reply at first, trying to figure out what her problem was.

“I k-keep having n-nightmares, p-please d-don’t leave me a-alone...”

She whimpered. A coo erupted from his throat before he could even process it, his wings fluffing up and enveloping her.

“You’re safe birdie, I’ve got you, I’m not going anywhere. Lets get you something to eat and go to bed ok?”

He had no choice but to pick her up as he made his way into the kitchen area, setting her down on the counter and pulling her shaking hands off of him so he could get something for her to eat. He had to force himself to let go of her but he knew she needed something to eat desperately. 

After eating some yogurt and granola he picked her back up, holding her tight to his body before he had an even better idea than going to her bedroom.

“Hey Kore? Wanna go to my place? I think you’ll have a better time sleeping there.”

And so he flew them back to his apartment, holding onto her tightly before laying her down onto his bed. He knew it would feel safer for her, it would smell like him. He laid down next to her after peeling his jacket off and she curled up into him, letting him pull her close as her breathing evened and she fell asleep.

[writer-rochelle]

In the Still of the Night: Javier Peña x reader

(a/n originally this was a steve randle fic I cooked up once upon a sleepless night. but after re-reading it I decided to turn it into a javi one shot because pedro pascal owns my ass. this takes during season 2, specifically episode 6. Also for plot’s sake pretend you are a nurse who used to work with Connie) 

Javier trudged up the small flight of stairs that led to the front door of the apartment building. It had been another late night stuck behind a desk. Another late night with a plethora of leads that inevitably led nowhere. It had taken the pot of coffee he and Murphy had been drinking to gradually turn into hot burnt bean flavored water for the two exhausted Agents to finally throw in the towel. Maybe Javier could convince (y/n) to let him steal some of the gourmet coffee she had stashed at his place. 

Recently, he had taken to staying longer and later, trying desperately to weasel in the information he received from Los Pepes without causing suspicion. Javier knew he was on thin ice with Steve after that incident at the checkpoint when they were close to catching Blackie. It was a wonder his friend hadn’t let anything slip, but then again he knew Murphy was more inclined to let Javier deal with his shit on his own. Besides, he had told Steve he could handle it. Couldn’t he? 

Javier signed, leaning his forehead against the cool wooden door to his apartment. How had he never noticed how truly exhausted he was? He felt heavy, weighed down by all that had been happening in Columbia lately. His feet felt like cinder blocks as he took a step back to unlock the door. The seasoned agent wanted nothing more than to eat, sip an ice-cold beer, take a shower, and collapse into bed. Maybe he would be lucky enough to sleep soundly with little to no nightmares. Undisturbed till his alarm would sound off early the next morning. 

"Damn it", he groaned, searching blindly for his apartment key. He had forgotten to put it back on his key ring after he had made a copy for (y/n). He exhaled in relief, having found the piece of metal nestled in the pack of cigarettes in his breast pocket.  

‘I told you to put it back on there! One day you’re gonna lose that damn thing for sure, and I promise I’m not giving you my copy to get in!’, Javier smirked imagining his girlfriend scolding him. Her voice would be tinted with laughter, her threat empty. The pair had each other wrapped around their respective fingers. There wasn’t anything (within reason) that the young nurse wouldn’t do for Javier. And when the used to be bachelor was told he was whipped he simply shrugged and said, “Listen, when you really care for someone you’ll do whatever it takes to show them that. (y/n) says jump? I say how high.”

Much to the surprise of his colleagues (Steve included),  Javier had moved past the honeypot method to get what he wanted from certain informants. And to add more to the surprise, (y/n) was very much aware of the man Javier Pena used to be. It never ceased to amaze him how open-minded she was. Most women would have run-away after being told of the things he’d seen and done in the field. “At the end of the day, you come home in one piece to me. But don’t think about trying that crap again while you’re with me.” she had said one night during one of their few late-night conversations. 

"(y/n),cariño? You still here?", Javier called into the seemingly empty apartment. He stepped in, closing and locking the front door before moving towards the living room area where he threw his leather jacket over the arm of the cream-colored couch. All the lights were off, except the one in the kitchen. He turned on a lamp, the white envelopes sitting on the coffee table littered with some paperwork caught his eye. He’d deal with it tomorrow. 

"Babe?" he called again, climbing the steps that led up into the kitchen. He glanced at the clock built into the stove, the neon green glowing numbers reading 12:30. He spotted a plate of food resting on the small circle table, and a pink sticky note stuck to the top. He smiled softly, wondering how she managed to take care of herself, her busy workday, and still make time to cook for him. 

Javi,

I hope you came home at a decent hour. I’m still here, had a long day. You missed the dust bunnies I excavated from under your couch. 

Love, (y/n)

It read, her neat handwriting taking up little space on the small piece of paper. Javier paused a moment. Dust bunnies? Had she cleaned his apartment? He took a quick look around the area laid out in front of him. Gone were the empty bottles and cups he usually left lying around. The thin film of dust that usually graced his small television screen was gone, and it actually smelled nice in the room. The musty male and cigarette odor had been replaced with the smell of cleaning products and a candle she had left burning on the stove. Placing the note down, he turned to blow it out; the time now read 12:40. Javier turned to the fridge, grabbed a beer and took his lukewarm dinner in front of the TV in the adjoined living room. Maybe he could take a crack at some of those papers still sitting out there. 

[One hour later]

Javier woke with a start, the black and white static on the tv illuminating the room. He blinked blearily, standing up to stretch.  How long had he been asleep? He meandered over to the kitchen, disposing of his empty plate and bottle. The stove time now reading 3:00. 

‘May as well just head to bed, no point in showering now.’ Javier thought, making his way into his bedroom, turning off the few remaining lights as he went. 

He stood staring at himself in the bathroom mirror. Not necessarily enthralled with the tired, grumpy looking man staring back at him. The past few months had taken their toll on him, the bags under his eyes adding on a year or two. It didn’t help that  his vision hadn’t been up to par as of late either. He refused, however, to get glasses until absolutely necessary. He could already hear the jokes that would be made at his expense. “Having trouble in any other departments Pena?”

Rolling his eyes, he shut off the bathroom light and shivered as the cool ac hit his bare legs and chest. Clad in only his boxers, he moved out into the hallway, trudging zombie-like into his bedroom, his dark brown eyes taking a moment to adjust to the darkroom as he quietly shut the door behind him. Javier picked up on (y/n)’s soft breathing as she slept, everything but her head swallowed up by the thin white blanket on their bed. It was a wonder she had slept through the noise he had been making since he had gotten home hours earlier. She really must have had a long day. Ever since Connie and Olivia had left back to the States, the (y/h/c) nurse had taken more hours, helping to fill in the spot her blonde friend had left. And in some ways, maybe Steve had taken to staying longer to avoid an empty apartment. Something Javier had once been used to, but now the thought of having to start sleeping alone in his queen-sized bed made him cringe. 

An orange street light filtered in through his blinds, casting a soft spotlight onto the bed, drawing him closer. The "spotlight" shone on (y/n), illuminating the soft unique features of her face. Her mouth slightly open as quiet snores slipped through. Javier yearned to freeze time. To simply lay in this lumpy bed, with the most beautiful kind-hearted woman he’d ever met. His mother had only been the one other woman who cared this much about him, and it hurt that couldn’t she meet her. Javi was sure she’d love the passionate young woman as much as he did. He crept closer slipping under the covers, curling his arm around her waist to draw her closer to his bare chest. He lay a soft kiss to the back of her head, the sweet scent of her shampoo clouding his senses. He was content. 

“Javier? Is everything okay? What time is it?" the young woman mumbled her voice heavy with sleep, raising her head slightly to catch a glimpse of the alarm clock on the bedside table. 3:30 am.

"It's me, baby, everything is fine. Go back to sleep."

 "Okay. I love you."

"Love you too," the tired man said, kissing the back of her head as she fell back asleep. Javier lay awake for only a few moments more, finally succumbing to the slumber that was now his master.

Javier Pena knew that when the morning came he would have to return to that godforsaken office, and shift through the same pile of papers, and deal with the weight of his actions resting on his shoulders. But for the time being as he lay next to the love of his life in the fleetingly late hours of the night/early morning, he could pretend that he was just another man off the street, far away from Escobar, far from cocaine, and far from Columbia. 

A reality that only existed within the still if the night.

(i hope you all enjoyed my first Javi fic....and I hope i didn’t write him too OOC. Let me know what yall think, and my requests are open! more work to come soon. <3 roach) 

taglist: @sunshinepascal (dm to be added!) 

[larprealgirl]

Honey | Stan Uris

Stanley Uris/Reader College AU

CW: sexual content

word count: 2,156

Part 2 of Waiting [1] tag list: @lanezstuff

It had been weeks since you’d seen any of your friends aside from Beverly and Mike. You didn’t want to risk the embarrassment of seeing Stan, or hearing shit from the other guys if he had told them what happened.

But you were almost positive he hadn’t, so you couldn’t even be mad. You told Bev and Mike, of course, but detailed it more like a horror story. He would probably laugh it off as you being so desperate for him after all these months. That’s what you kept telling yourself.

Stan was kind. He didn’t like you, he wasn’t nice to you, but he was kind. He wouldn’t do something like that. And if he had, Richie would’ve called you 100 times already to mock the living shit out of you. You were basically off the hook. Basically.

Even though Stan hadn’t told anyone, you knew that it happened. You knew that a part of you, a very large one at that, had wanted Stan to some degree. It wasn’t as if you could blame it on the alcohol, either, because you had slept it all off. That feeling--the yearning, was all you. And you couldn’t live with it.

No part of you was mad at Stan. You were angry with yourself; angry for being so stupid, so desperate. Only to be rejected in the harshest and most literal means of the term. 

And it wasn’t like you could blame him, really. He just didn’t want you. That wasn’t his fault. You were expired milk; it was only rational to throw you out. After all, he wouldn’t want to make himself sick.

You felt like you were acting a fool. Which was true, obviously. You saw Stan a few days prior and, so shocked and flustered, you turned around so quickly that you banged your head into a hanging sign. You kept telling yourself he didn’t notice you.

But it was more than that. You were supposed to be this strong, great, vibrant person and you were reduced to hiding out in your room while embarrassment and pity ate away at you like mosquitos on a hot day. If you had felt pathetic sitting on Stan’s bedroom floor, the feeling was only growing. It didn’t feel like it would ever stop. And you needed it to stop. 

So you did the most rational thing you could think of. After a week of static from your end for the majority of your friends, you decided to make your grand return during your traditional movie night. You had missed it the week before and couldn’t help but wonder if Stan had gone. He would’ve been happy you weren’t there to ruin the movie with your endless questions. 

Truthfully, you didn’t know what you would gain from seeing Stan again. While you hoped it would bring you some closure, the possibilities were endless. Perhaps you would take one look at him and realize how grateful you were he had rejected you. Doubtful. 

When you weren’t wallowing in self-pity, you spent the last few days reminiscing about Stan’s lips against your own. How soft they were, how sweet they tasted, how gentle he was. You thought about how heavenly his moans were when he allowed them to slip from his mouth. You thought that it would be worth it to get dumped on his floor again if you got to make him moan like that one more time.

But those were silly, fruitless thoughts, you had decided. You didn’t know what you would achieve by seeing Stan again, but you knew you couldn’t do anything like that. Not that you would in the first place; he made it very clear he wanted no part in that.

All you wanted was to stop isolating yourself from your friends, to stop feeling like the first piece of bread in the box. The one that got thrown out. 

You burst through the door of Richie and Eddie’s shared dorm before your mind could make up an excuse to leave. Everyone was there. Including Stan. 

All eyes were on you. Except for Stan. He was purposely looking anywhere but you, his eyes scanning the dorm like he hadn’t been there a hundred times before. It almost made you pity him to see him squirm like that. Almost. 

“Oh, how nice of you to join us, (Y/N),” Richie remarked, breaking the tense silence and allowing a big grin to fill his face. “We were starting to think you hated us, which I totally get, by the way, Eddie completely sucks and--” 

Eddie hit Richie in the shoulder, just hard enough to get him to shut up. The smile never left Richie’s face. It was enough to make you feel at home again. 

“Yeah, because it’s so much better with (Y/N) here,” Stan muttered under his breath, loud enough for you to hear. He was seated on the floor by himself, glaring at you through his curls. 

“Stanley! The life of the party!” You replied sarcastically, begrudgingly sitting next to him on the floor, as you had arrived too late to secure a spot on either of the beds or the beanie bags in the small room. Still, you sat as far away from him as possible. 

Everyone rolled their eyes at the two of you, not wanting to spur the conflict on. They were used to it by now, but that didn’t mean it annoyed them any less. 

Much to your dismay, you had chosen the worst possible time to return to your mismatch group of friends. It was Bill’s turn to choose the movie, and he had so kindly decided you would be watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You absolutely hated scary movies, but you enjoyed the time with your friends, so you made the sacrifice. 

You were halfway into the movie when you decided you’d be watching the rest of it with your eyes covered. Even so, you could hear the awful noises coming from the TV, and not even Richie’s jokes calmed you down. 

One particularly gruesome scream made you let out a whimper, sinking deeper into your sweater. Your eyes were squeezed so tightly shut that you could see white spots, your shoulders shaking slightly. 

Slowly, you felt the air next to you be filled with warmth. It was Stanley fucking Uris. As if the night couldn’t get any worse.

“Are you okay?” he whispered softly, so softly you could barely hear him. But you did. 

You didn’t want to reply. You couldn’t, your body was so tense, but you wouldn’t either way. What type of games did he think he was playing? You didn’t know, but a red hot anger was slowly replacing the cold fear that had filled up your body.

His hand came down to rest on your knee, giving it a soft squeeze as if to reassure you. It took everything you had not to punch him, but you couldn’t deny the shiver you felt when he touched you. 

You couldn’t confront him there. But you knew he would be the first to leave, and you wouldn’t hesitate to follow him. He wasn’t going to continue making you feel this way if you had anything to say about it. 

And you were right. He left shortly after the movie ended, much to your relief. With the way you had been acting recently, it didn’t surprise anyone when you slipped out after him. 

It also didn’t surprise you when Beverly sent you an unsubtle wink as you left. 

You saw his silhouette just as you bounded off the staircase, lit up brightly by the lamps decorating the sidewalk of your campus. You weren’t very far behind.

“Stan! Hey, Uris! I know you hear me!” You yelled out, speedwalking to where he had come to an abrupt stop by one of the benches. He still had his back facing you. 

“Look at me.” 

He turned around. You wanted to focus on the way the light bounced off his curls, the way the cold lit up his face in soft shades of red, but you didn’t have time for that.

“What’s your problem?” 

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t play stupid with me, Uris. You know exactly what I mean.” 

He sighed, running his hand across his chin and staring down at you. His eyes were dark, and you couldn’t bear to look into them. 

“No, I don’t,” he retorted finally, then turned on his heel to leave. 

Without thinking, you grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and pulled him back to you. You weren’t going to let go until he explained his angle to you. You wouldn’t be made out as a fool. Not again. 

“You’re being a dick, Stan. Moreso than usual. You can’t just dump me on your fucking floor, then touch me like I’m some goddamn porcelain doll that’ll break any second. I’m not! If you think that kissing me was a mistake, fine, whatever. But you do not get to treat me like this. I mean it.” 

When you were done speaking, there were tears threatening to spill. You felt so stupid, pouring out your soul to stupid Stanley Uris who didn’t even care about what you had to say. 

He stared into your eyes, searching for something. The silence felt like it would last forever, and it was smothering you. You needed him to say something. Anything. But he didn’t.

He took your face in his hands, gentle as always, and pressed a kiss to your lips. They were chapped from the cold, but they still tasted like honey. His kiss was just as soft as you remembered and you wanted his lips on yours forever, but, fuck, he couldn’t do this to you again. 

“Kissing you wasn’t a mistake,” he whispered, his forehead pressed against yours as he looked into your eyes with an unreadable expression. “But I don’t want you to make a bigger one.” 

He left you in the cold. 

You stood there for maybe 10 minutes, maybe more, trying to process what happened. Once you did, you were freezing cold and angry. He couldn’t do this to you again.

You made your way to his dorm as quickly as possible, even more determined than the time before, and banged on the door until he answered.

Before he could even speak, you shoved your way past him into the room. Upon seeing his roommate was absent, you turned on him and began speaking with unfounded emotion.

“You are not doing this to me! I’m not going to sit here and think about kissing you and being thrown on your floor and how I’d let you do it to me again, just for you to waltz around and act like it doesn’t matter. If it isn’t a mistake, then don’t treat it like one, because I am tired of this shit! Tired, Stanley, do you hear me? I’m not--” 

His lips weren’t gentle this time. He kissed you with a force you didn’t know he possessed, spinning you around and pushing you against the wall. He had put on chapstick. His lips still tasted like honey. You would remember this feeling forever. 

He bit on your bottom lip gently, then moved his feverish kisses down your jawline and towards your neck. While his lips worked, nipping at the gentle exposed skin, he parted your legs with his knee, grinding against you like he wanted you to come undone then and there. 

He bit and sucked at your neck, sure to leave marks that would raise some questions. But you didn’t care. Right at the spot where your jawline and neck met, he took his time, licking and nipping softly. Your head was thrown back against the wall, your mouth had fallen open as quiet pleas slipped out. You wanted this feeling to go on and on and on; you could’ve stayed like that all night. 

But Stan seemed to have other plans. 

With his hands gripping your hips, he pushed you back, leading you until you fell against his bed. He wasted no time in climbing on top of you, using one hand to pin your own above your head. 

“Is this okay?” he asked breathlessly, gazing at you through hooded eyelids. 

You nodded eagerly, bucking your hips against him to create some type of friction. His lips were back on your body in no time. 

His hand found its way up your shirt, slowly sliding across your stomach until it reached your bra. 

You were about to beg him to take it off, to touch you, when the doorknob turning stopped you both dead in your tracks. You pushed him off of you, sitting up straight in the bed as you attempted to fix your shirt and your hair. 

In walked Stan’s roommate, staring at the two of you questioningly. 

Stan refused to look at you. 

“I think you should leave.”

[fandom-necromancer]

905. Why are you constantly carrying that thing around with you?

And another number 905 for the wonderful @markusandkaraandconnor! Thanks for prompting and enjoy!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900 (Warnings: Racism against Androids in the first two paragraphs)

‘Look at them… Damn android fuckers start to sprout like weeds everywhere!’ Gavin tried to filter it all out and enjoy the evening, but with them not even trying to keep it down to a whisper, that wasn’t really possible. ‘I mean look at that shit. Wine-flavoured Thirium? What the hell. As if these things would know the difference. How did they even test it? The stuff would be poisonous for humans anyway.’ Gavin stared down on his plate, only looking up to awkwardly smile at Nines, whose LED was at a steady red. He hadn’t looked their way yet, but from the corner of his eyes he saw them sitting at a table for two, much like him and Nines. This time the second person spoke up: ‘Look at the guy. Of course, he settled for a machine. With a face like that only an android could love you.’ Gavin sank further down into his seat, trying to gulp down a bit of his food, that only tasted like ashes now. Nines instead straightened his spine and fixed the pair. Two men, both human, wearing formal clothes. From facial structures alone the android detected a 73% chance they were brothers. ‘Would it be too much to ask that you keep your voice down, so we both could enjoy our meals in peace?’, he asked, keeping up the ever-polite outer shell to disguise his building rage.

Gavin was thankful to have him. Were he alone he had long taken their respective dishes and clubbed them to unconsciousness with them. And that was still well within the realm of possibilities as politeness just wouldn’t make them stop. ‘Oh, what? Did we hurt your feelings? Do you even have them?’ ‘Look at that red light. Goddamn thing needs a mood-light to emote, of course it has no feelings.’ Gavin clenched his teeth and laid down fork and knife not to attack the two with it if they only took so much as another breath his direction. ‘Hey! Hey, you! Yeah, I’m speaking to you, android-fucker. Does he do the windows-error noise when orgasm?’

‘Let’s go, Nines’, Gavin pressed through gritted teeth. ‘Detective, I don’t think that is nec-‘ ‘Nines. Let’s go.’ The android only ever called him by his title when in distress. Gavin knew they had to move now if they wanted to avoid this ending in a fight. And he wanted to avoid that, if not to stay out of a fight then to avoid the police being called and him explaining to his colleagues what had happened. ‘…Fine’, Nines nodded stiffly, standing up and putting on his jacket before walking around the table helping Gavin into his. ‘Aww, it seems they want to figure that one out right away’, one of them giggled and Gavin snapped. ‘You two are complete and utter assholes who don’t deserve my time, but I have you know that any organic you may have phcked or – if you are even capable of that – loved, won’t ever be fit to hold a candle to my partner. I surely hope you die alone in a cold, dark alleyway and that I don’t have to work on that case then. Thanks for ruining our evening.’ He had spoken in a cold, deadpan tune, while reaching over to the salt and decorating their respective meals with a generous amount of it. ‘Enjoy yours.’ With that he marched out, Nines following close.

They drove home in silence, Gavin only now calming down. He had his damn share of these people in his life already and he knew getting angry about it wouldn’t help. But he would be damned if he didn’t stand up for his partner. Nines didn’t deserve these sorts of comments. He hadn’t done anything wrong, Gavin being his first and most likely only love. Gavin would have accepted it if it was just on his person, he had phcked up numerous times already, had accepted and was happy to be alone forever until half a year ago. But not Nines. Never Nines.

He had hoped the android would have calmed down, too. But once they entered their home and Gavin had closed the door, Nines exploded. ‘Damn humans! Why would they do that? It had been a nice evening! Why would anyone have the desire to ruin someone else’s life this way? I can’t even begin to understand it. I-I-‘ Static mixed in with his voice and Gavin could only look at him in shock. ‘Gavin, I love you a lot and my feelings are real. Please believe me.’ There was a desperate, pleading look on his face he would never be able to forget, and it could as well have been a physical knife pushed into his heart and twisted around because this? This shit hurt.

‘Nines! Nines, don’t. Don’t say things like that, don’t let this get to you. Of course, you have feelings, of course you love me. I know that. I love you too. You are the best thing to ever happen to me! Please, forget their stupid comments. They mean nothing!’ ‘But they are right. I am a thing. I can’t know if flavoured thirium tastes like the real thing. Me acting like a human is just an act. I am a machine and nothing I do will ever change that.’ ‘Do you think that matters to me?’, Gavin asked, reaching out to hold Nines’ trembling hands. ‘Do you think it matters to me how human you are? Take this today as an example of how shitty humans can be. I don’t love you for your ability to taste food you can’t even eat. I love you for that weird look you gave me when we first tried flavoured thirium-drinks. That expression was priceless and you getting all excited about the different tastes and ingredients is one of my favourite memories of us.’ He moved up to cup his cheek. ‘Please. My love for you doesn’t come with any conditions. Especially not for how human you are. You have far exceeded the levels of humanity anyone of us could give.’

‘I just…’ Nines looked away, moving out of Gavin’s touch. ‘Sometimes I ask myself whether a human partner wouldn’t be better for you. I… We can’t even have sex.’ ‘Nines, just stop. Do you really think that shit is important? I like to have fun once in a while, but that doesn’t mean- Listen. No human would ever want me. And I don’t want any human. I want you. And only you.’ Gavin wanted to move in again, hold Nines and show him what he really meant for him, but the android evaded him once again, this time even moving a few steps away. ‘No. You are only saying that to make me feel better!’ He reached up to his temple, dug his fingers into the synth-skin there and before Gavin could shout at him to stop, Nines had pried off his LED, throwing it into the bin next to the door violently. ‘I- I have to go’, he muttered, static heavy in his voice and Thirium trailing down his face. In a heartbeat he had opened the door and slipped out, leaving Gavin behind.

He felt empty as he sunk to the floor against a wall. What had just happened? A few words spoken without care and taken too seriously were all it needed to blow any air right out of him. Gavin looked at the bin, remembered the exact sound the LED had made as it hit the plastic. ‘Phck’, he sighed to himself. Maybe he should have made a scene. Maybe he should have beaten the shit out of these two guys. If only his android would still be here with him then. He had become so used to Nines being around that their home now just felt empty. Lifeless even. He chuckled humourless close to tears. How phcking ironic.

He pushed himself from the ground what could be minutes or hours later and fetched the LED from the trash. He brushed over it a few times, freeing it from carrot pieces stuck to the half-evaporated Thirium on it. He took the little disk with him to the kitchen, carefully cleaning it with a sponge until he was sure there wasn’t any dirt on it. Then he changed into something comfortable and sat down on the couch so he could keep the door in view. All the time he held the LED fiercely in his grasp, holding it to his chest and kissing it gently in the futile hopes through whatever techno-magic they had built into it, Nines would be able to feel it. ‘Phck, Nines, please come home’, he pleaded through his grief-struck voice as he curled in on himself around the LED. He had cried enough so no new tears would come, and he only was immensely tired now. Darkness had settled around him as he hadn’t had the spirit to switch on any lights since they came home. It was late in the night already, maybe even very early morning, as Gavin fell asleep then and there on the couch, holding the disk close and muttering over and over: ‘Just come home. I love you.’

-

The next day he had woken up stiff, cold and alone. Oh, if that didn’t awake some unpleasant memories of the past… He had opted for a shower first, before trying to build up energy for a change into real clothes and breakfast. He succeeded in neither, spending the morning where he had spent the whole night, curled around the LED and turning it in his fingers. He had sent Nines a message on his phone, reading: I miss you babe. Please come home when you feel like it. I’m waiting for you and I’m worried. I love you. So far there hadn’t been an answer, but he was stuck on read. So at least he had seen it. He was probably fine then. At least not physically hurt. He spent all Saturday on that couch, turning on the TV in the hopes of being distracted. It didn’t work. He fell asleep to his plead to whoever was listening that Nines would come back. At least this time he had thought to get a blanket.

Sunday wasn’t better. No answer from Nines. Another text message from Gavin that he could come home whenever he was ready, that he hoped he was okay, that he missed him and loved him. Gavin felt as if he hadn’t done enough and at the same time didn’t know what else to do. Nines had told him he needed to go. And he would give him all the time he needed to think. Hell, even if he decided he didn’t want to be with him anymore… Gavin didn’t want to think about that too much as the knife in his chest reappeared every time he did, but… If Nines felt that way, Gavin would let him go. If only he knew he was happy and well then. The worry chewed away at him. He hadn’t eaten more than a piece of bread and some instant noodles the whole weekend and while he knew it wasn’t healthy, he just couldn’t get more down.

Everything in him was focussed on Monday. He would have never thought to look forward to a Monday while it was still weekend, but Nines would be at work, right? He would see him tomorrow for sure. He had to know he was alright.

It felt weird driving in his car without his partner sitting next to him. His LED was resting above the radio, Gavin’s constant companion by now. He didn’t even go to the toilet without it. He walked into the precinct like a ghost, several people even asking him if he was okay. He sat down on his chair, eyeing the desk in front of him. Shit, he had been so sure Nines would be there. Sitting there, staring at his screen. Ready to be hugged. Phck. He looked through the bullpen, his eyes locking on Connor. He had sworn to never talk to that tin-can again after that incident in the evidence room. But goddamn, this was for Nines.

‘Hey, Connor, err… Sorry to disturb, but-‘ ‘What do you want, Reed?’, the android brushed him off. ‘I was getting there, thank-‘ ‘I only tolerate you because my brother made the mistake of loving you. Now get to the point.’ Gavin swallowed. Yep, no chance in mending that shit-show. ‘Is he okay?’ That made Connor look up. ‘What? I worry about him, shit-head! Don’t look at me like that.’ ‘He is… He is getting better. He thinks about you a lot and from what he told me he misses you, too. He gave me his phone, so he wouldn’t answer.’ Gavin nodded. ‘Is he safe?’ He hated how weak he sounded, especially in front of Connor, but he just didn’t care anymore. Maybe that was what made Connor’s face soften. ‘He is. He is staying with us at the moment. Though I would advise you not to come over. He needs time.’ ‘I know. He told me and I will give him all the time he needs to figure it all out.’ He took a deep breath, but he was already so far in, what would it hurt to admit more. ‘I love him, Connor. I really do. Trust me, if I was ever true with anything in my life, it would be this. I just want him to be happy.’ ‘He loves you too. These idiots at the restaurant just struck every uncertainty he had about your… relationship. He will figure it out in time. If you believe me or not, I am on your side with this. You mean to much to him and he is too happy with you – whatever he sees in you – that I want him to come back to you, too.’ Gavin for once decided to be civil with the toaster. This really meant a lot. ‘Thank you, Connor.‘ ‘Don’t mention it.’

-

Still, Nines didn’t show up on Tuesday. Neither did he come Wednesday or Thursday. Gavin looked worse for wear every day, but no one questioned it. Maybe news had come around already. Maybe no one cared because that was “just Gavin”. But on Friday, Gavin walked into the precinct, slumped down behind his screen and mindlessly started scrolling through his emails before his brain caught up with him and he looked up. A familiar android looked back and Gavin could have cried in relief wouldn’t he be so uncertain of how things were between them. ‘H-Hey Nines’, he tried and was stupid enough to add a little wave. ‘How… How are you?’ His throat was dried up and speaking was hard.

The android stood up and came over, crouching in front of him. ‘I’m sorry, I stayed away for so long. I needed time to think’, he began and immediately Gavin was in the defensive. ‘No, that’s totally fine, really!’, he hurriedly said, to mask the fact that it had absolutely not been totally fine. He had lost a few kilos or more in that week and wondered how he could ever have functioned without the android. ‘You did mean it, right?’, Nines asked and took the man’s hand gently in his. ‘That you love me and don’t want any human? That you want me? And only me?’ ‘Yes!’, Gavin nodded quickly. ‘Yes, I meant that.’ ‘And that you don’t care about me being a machine?’ ‘Absolutely, Nines.’ ‘That’s good to hear’, the android sighed and relaxed, only to frown as he felt the LED trapped between their hands. He took it and held it up to inspect the disk. ‘Why are you constantly carrying that thing around with you?’, he asked. ‘Connor told me you had it with you the whole week.’ ‘Nines, I- I just-‘ ‘I threw it away for a reason, Gavin.’ Gavin just pulled Nines into a hug, regardless of who might be looking and how awkward it had to be. He didn’t care. He had yearned for this for a long time. ‘I don’t care, Nines. It is a part of you. Maybe you don’t like it or don’t want it, but I can’t throw away a part of you. I love you, with LED or without it. And I won’t let you throw away yourself just because some asshole talked shit about you. No one can ever change what I feel for you. And it’s good to have you back.’

[cursedvessels]

For the sleepy ones

Repost and Fill In!

Name: Ambrose Pnévma Æon

Ethnicity: Greek? Irish? God?

Residence: Portable prison

Average hours of sleep: 2-3 at most on average, 6 would be thriving though

Type of bed: What he wouldn’t give for a soft, squishy, memory foam mattress...or a waterbed

Amount of blankets: Blankets on blankets. Several layers on the bedding, rolled up at the end, a light one or two for going under and a nice big thick comforter as well as a fuzzier blanket to lay under or on top of depending on how much warmth is needed

Amount of pillows: Same situation as the blankets, tons for extra cushioning and cuddling, lining the edges of the bed, some for cuddling, a few for the head...The man loves to be crowded in his bed.

Type of clothing: Preference for darker colours, definitely makes a bit of a homeless rockstar fashion statement with a lot of his choices. Combat boots, skinny jeans, gothic almost vampire-esque jackets...But he also likes to accent all the black with some white here and there. Typically prefers not to wear a shirt, otherwise something loose or sheer or a crop top. Loves scarves and accessories

Do they sleep with company? No, but if he felt safe enough with someone/trusted someone enough/cared for them enough...Ideally he would always cuddle somebody in his sleep.

Do they sleep with plushies? Probably not? Though I am sort of picturing him snuggling a pillow shaped very suspiciously like a teddy bear or a puppy or something...

Do they sleep better with company? Absolutely. Obviously he’s generally alone and all the previously stated preferences are not his typical sleeping conditions, it’s just what he would prefer. The same is true of company. He’s a cuddler by nature, but none of his current conditions give him the opportunity to do so even to pillows...

Does it matter where they sleep? Technically, no, he could fall asleep anywhere if he were tired enough, but he certainly can act picky.

Frequent dreams, nightmares? Nightmares. Always nightmares. Never good. Some of them prophetic... A lot of them memories or the memories of other spirits...

What do they do if they cannot fall asleep? Smokes pot, has a drink, anything to try and quiet the screams of the dead... In particular, if he can, he’ll turn on the TV and sit right up against the screen, put the volume up as high as he can without disturbing anyone else and try to block out the voices and memories that way. Sometimes he’ll even just turn it to static to let the white noise drown it all out.

Deep slumber or naps? I feel like he’s pretty much a micro-sleeper in general, so I guess naps. He doesn’t technically need sleep? But since he’s trapped in a somewhat human state he needs sleep every once in a while, so sometimes he’ll pass out into a nice deep sleep for a while, but generally I’d say he takes naps.

When do they wake up? Whenever the nap is over? I feel like his waking times are inconsistent just because of the way he sleeps. Could get up as early as 3AM or as late as 3PM, really, depending on when he falls asleep and how long he needs to--or manages to--stay asleep. I imagine he probably wakes up several times throughout the night anyway.

When do they sleep? When he can, where he can, for however long he can. Even in the box, by himself, when he’s not tied to someone, he doesn’t get much sleep because it’s such an uncomfortable space. So even there I would say he only sleeps occasionally and not for long periods, which is probably what started the habit of micro-napping or micro-sleep. When he’s in the box he also can’t tell the time of day, so...

What could wake them up? Nightmares. I think nightmares wake him more often than anything else. Since he’s so sleep-deprived he’s a heavy sleeper, but the nightmares startle him awake easier than a gust of wind... He has to be ready to wake up to wake up if the nightmares haven’t woken him yet and even then you probably have to shake him a bit or tap on his forehead. You can’t really wake him very gently, even if you try he’ll probably startle awake anyway. Loud thunder paired with a bright flash of lightning from a storm is probably the only external force that would wake him.

Tagged by: @bornofbloodandwater​

Tagging: @heartxshaped-bruises​ @hcpefulblcnde​ whoever wants to!!

[tfwhynoy]

Hmmm, could we get some not poly Chromedome being naughty with a reader human *wink* *wink*

Sorry, I tried really hard to make this gender-neutral but I’m not good at gender-neutral smut. I mean since when I read “pussy” or “cunt” it ruins the mood so it could kinda be read as gender-neutral but probably not since it has heavily implied vagina. I’m fine with writing one or the other but when trying to write with both in mind words don’t fit very well.

Back on Earth, you had never thought yourself as someone with a robot kink. But back on Earth, you had also never seen all but about three of the Lost Light crew members and even then it was just on Tv.

You also didn’t know that cybertronians could even fuck each other let alone humans. You had definitely given a passing thought or two and even some digging for their equivalent of porn but only found weird rule 34 stuff back home. On the Lost Light, you could easily search and find what you were looking for on the Cybertronian internet and it was violent and had far fewer issues than the porn industry back on Earth. The idea of a dick larger than you made the idea of actually fucking a cybertronian a little terrifying though. The last thing you needed was “crushed by spike” or “drowned in a valve” as your cause of death on your death certificate.

It’s when you were more than a little buzzed at Swerve’s while hanging out with Chromedome that he reminded you that mass displacement and holo forms were both probable solutions to this problem. He had been flirty about it the whole time and while you would have certainly loved to get fucked at the moment you were both still rather drunk. You two agreed it’d be better to wait till the day after and, provided neither of you had bad hangovers and both were still interested, experiment as much as you two wanted.

In the morning after you showered and ate you decided to text him to see if Chromedome was still good with the arrangement. A quick message back saying he was getting Brainstorm’s displacement gun and that he was on his way and you were left waiting in your own room.

You had seen enough in your own research that you knew what to expect but seeing videos still isn’t the same thing as a first-hand experience. Plus who knows what Chromedome knows of the human body. Would he be disappointed that you only had one set instead of both?

The sound of the door sliding open broke through your thoughts. You naturally looked up expecting someone of the usual height around the ship only to realize it was Chromedome.

With a chuckle, you looked down and was met with Chromedome who was much shorter than normal but still big by human standards.

“Damn, even when you shrink yourself you still tower over me.” Chromedome was still a good three head taller and even excluding the tires he still had one of the broadest silhouettes you’ve seen.

“What, am I still too much for you to handle? I’d go back to get smaller but I think Brainstorm would ask to join in too.” You could damn near hear the smirk in his voice as he leaned down towards you. “Unless you’d be interested in that sort of thing?”

With Chromedome so much smaller than usual and so damn close you could properly look at him all at once. It sent a heat between your thighs as you spoke. “Na, I think inviting one cybertronian into my bed is plenty today.”

You pulled him by the servo towards your bed. You’d rather not experience the closest you’ve been to being literally between a rock and a hard place by avoiding fucking on the floor. The bed had already been prepared with a disposable pair of sheets and all other bedding removed just in case. 

To your surprise, it appeared that Chromedome was, in fact, a bottom as he took the opportunity to lay so he was slouching against the headboard and spread his legs wide apart.

You removed your shirt and pants quickly since Cybertronian didn’t have a sense of clothing you figured a striptease wouldn’t be as fun as just getting down to business. As you removed the last of your clothes you heard Chromedome give a soft hum as his interface panel shifted away.

You looked at his fully pressurized spike a soaking wet valve with a small chuckle. “Oh, have you been thinking about me all day?” You placed yourself between his legs, arousal dripping from yourself at such a beautiful display.

“Couldn’t stop thinking since I left Swerve’s. Doesn’t help we don’t sleep as much as humans.” 

You ran your thumb from valve to his exterior node and began to rub in slow circles as you spoke back. “So much time to fantasize. Mind sharing?” 

Chromedome vented sharply as you gave an experimental lick to the head of his spike. He tasted metallic and left a slight tingling of electricity on your tongue for a moment.

“I don’t know how accurate I was with how human work or look. I know for sure I didn’t know you were so fuzzy between your legs and yet it just adds to your strange alien charm.” He began to pull at the bedsheets as you wrapped your lips around the head of his spike. Lazy you dragged your tongue across what was in your mouth and sucked slightly. you placed a hand on his hip as you remove your thumb from his node pressed two fingers into his already dripping valve with the same hand. You pushed in and out in time with your tongue for a moment before adjusting yourself to take more of his spike into your mouth. You pressed another finger into his valve and began to move faster. Chromedome gripped harder at the sheet as he tried not to buck back into your mouth. You could hear a slight static noise seep into his vocalizer with each new moan you got from his.

Watching Chromedome shudder and moan at your actions you come to remember your own unattended needs. 

Chromedome lets out a frustrated whine at the loss of contact when you remove your hands and pull away from his spike. You ignore him as you begin to position yourself over his spike. He quiets down as you slowly sink down on his spike and lets out a small succession of shaky gasps. He’s definitely large and you have to pause occasionally to adjust. It probably would have been a good idea to properly stretch yourself but it’s a bit late for this. 

As Chromedome’s spike is fully hilted into you he moves his servos to your hips for support. You move up slowly at first but begin to pick up the pace. Not a moment later and Chromedome’s servos begin to actively push you up and pull you down as he thrusts into you. You gasp as he rubs up against a spot within you and you have press your face into the crevice of his neck to muffle your moans. Chromedome places his faceplate and hums softly as he hums into your neck; the equivalent of a kiss for someone who didn’t have a mouth.

Chromedome lets out a low moan as he quickened his pace. You cried and held on as tight as you could to his shoulders. He tightened his grip on your hips as his movement became more erratic. 

You came with a struggled cry as you clenched around his spike. He came with one final thrust. You had already been so full and it became uncomfortable as his trans fluid gushed into you. You squirmed slightly and Chromedome pulled out before you could ask. His transfluid dribbled from your entrance and pooled onto the sheets beneath you.

Your voice was soft as your breathing returned to normal. “Give me like ten minutes and I’ll be ready to experiment again.”

Chromedome chuckled. “I’d enjoy that.”

[tonysopranosfeverdreams]

@glennatohowerton

42. “Why are you shaking?”

64. “Yell, scream, cry, please, just say something, anything.”

It was 3:27 am, the last time Dennis checked his watch, which meant that Mac has been out for approximately 6 hours.

 He was on a date with some  asshole named Sean, who appeared from the grindr profile that Mac had gleefully waved in his face over their shared cartons of Chinese takeout earlier that night, to be all of 25 years old, and, undeniably, a total beefcake. When Dennis  had made some snide remark about the kid probably needing to be home in time for curfew, Mac had just laughed it off in between mouthfuls of vegetable lo mein (stolen from Dennis’s plate), his eyes scrunching up at the edges. It made him look younger, somehow, vulnerable.  Dennis had stared at the table.

Mac had bounced out the door donning a dark green t-shirt, sheer and fitted so it clung to his muscles.  Mac’s hair was soft, ruffled, and he looked more confident and at ease than Dennis had seen him in  years, casting a bright  smile over his shoulder while Dennis not to wait up for him.  Dennis had nodded. Dennis had counted the beer stains on the beige living room carpet. Dennis had thrown a mug against the wall. Dennis had cut his fingers picking up the tiny pieces of china that covered the kitchen floor. Dennis had paced the length of the apartment over and over for approximately 45 minutes.

Inevitably,  Dennis finds himself awake in the middle of the goddamn night, taking generous swigs from a bottle of whiskey he had unearthed from the depths of the kitchen cabinet, and flipping aimlessly through channels featuring scantily clad women on a quest to find their soulmate while jump-starting their model careers and rich housewives whose faces were more plastic than flesh and bone- who talked too much but said nothing. He ultimately settled on some nature channel showing a series that documented different species of birds. Tonight, they were talking about blue jays, he noticed, watching as one of the stern-looking little  birds soared across his screen to settle on a tree branch next to another.

Blue jays mate for life, apparently. Dennis hadn’t known that.  The soft drone of the narrator served as adequate background noise for Dennis’s increasingly loud, alcohol-fueled thoughts.

It was fucking ridiculous, really. Dennis knew Mac had been with men in the past, so he really shouldn’t be so fixated on the happenings of Mac’s date. For all the grief Dennis gives him, he realizes that Mac is an objectively attractive man, and now that he’s happily out of the closet,  there’s no reason he shouldn’t be out playing the field, catching up on the feelings and experiences he’d pretended not to want for the past thirty years, embracing the parts of himself he’d tucked carefully away from the outside world (or only acknowledged in the dim backrooms of seedy bars, caught in the middle of glittering crowds of moving bodies on the dance floor, drunk enough for a moment that he forgot what he was so afraid of in the first place, under some spell  that inevitably broke the next morning. This thought makes Dennis’s chest constrict sharply, a dull, aching feeling he can’t quite pinpoint).

But now, Mac was healing. Mac was growing. Mac was out with a man with dimples and a six pack who was probably laughing at all of his stupid jokes, touching his arms lightly as he leaned in to whisper something in his ear, making Mac’s cheeks flush and his eyes gleam in the same way they would whenever Dennis would dole out a rare compliment or words of praise.  Mac was out with a man who presumably had a career and goals and real adult relationships, who could wake up in the morning and eat three meals a day like it was nothing, who would probably call Mac baby when he’s sober and let Mac hold his hand; someone who wouldn’t lash out at him with unnecessarily sharp words, but would make him feel good about himself,  who would give him Valentine’s presents and stay to make him breakfast in the morning. Mac would like that, Dennis thought.

Dennis pictures Mac as he always looked first thing in the morning padding quietly out of his bedroom blurry eyed and sleep-soft, expression warming when he lays eyes on Dennis. Imagines someone else seeing him like that every day. Dennis thinks of getting drunk with Mac, leaning heavily against his shoulder on countless late night walks home from the bar, peering up under his lashes to catch a glimpse of Mac’s face; his gelled hair falling messily across his forehead, mouth open in concentration on getting them both home in one piece. The smell of his old leather jacket mixing with his dollar store shampoo and cologne samples ripped from men’s magazines, his arm tightening around his waist when Dennis inevitably stumbled over an empty beer bottle or groove in the sidewalk.

He thinks of Mac as a teenager: the two of them sitting silently in his room after his father went to prison for the second time, Mac’s arms circled tight around knees, his gaze fixed vacantly on the paint peeling off his bedroom wall, sitting closely enough that the outside of their thighs just touched. He thinks of Mac as he might be when he’s older, with more specks of gray painting his dark hair, more wrinkles around his eyes, but with the same unchanging, almost childish smile.Thinks again of Mac dating, maybe even getting married, someday. Growing old with someone.

At this point, Dennis realizes he is having difficulty breathing, his breaths coming out shorter and quicker than they normally would, his heart beating so loudly  he swears it echoes in his ears. The adrenaline sets in. Dennis goes to take another swig of whiskey to calm himself down, before he notices the bottle is empty. Fuck.  He immediately senses that has to get out. He has to get out of this fucking apartment and flee to somewhere, anywhere else. He is vaguely considering going to the 7-11 down the street to pick up a 12 pack of beerbeer, and at least burn off all this weird fucking nervous energy when his thoughts are interrupted by sound of the front door opening.

Mac’s moving as quietly as possible, as if trying not to wake anyone up. Painted in the yellow light from the hallway, he kicks his shoes off and gently sets his keys on the kitchen counter, before he notices Dennis sitting on the sofa.

“Jesus Christ, Dude!  I had no idea you were awake,” he all but squawks “Fuck, man, you almost gave me a heart attack”

“Sorry,” Dennis offers, tonelessly.

Mac exhales through a tired grin, stifling a yawn with his fist as he steps closer to Dennis,  flinging himself into a chair opposite the couch and stretching his arms over his head. Dennis’s gaze lingers the curve of his upper arm, his fingers resting lightly against the back of the chair.

“Oh man, at first I was super worried I was gonna get catfished, and it was gonna turn out to be like a  gross old woman or some shit like you see on tv, you know?” Mac makes a disgusted face, lip curling up dramatically before laughing. “But then I get to the Rainbow and it turns out Sean is like. An actual personal trainer, and he sells his own line of like, protein shakes, I think?  And like, I’m pretty ripped dude, but I mean this dude is absolutely shredded, like way more bigger in person than the pictures.”

As Mac proceeds to talk more about his date (who apparently had been very interested in watching Mac’s Project Badass tapes, though Dennis expected this was mostly to get into his pants), Dennis finds his focus drifting.  Mac has a stray piece of glitter decorating the skin just above the collar of his t-shirt, Dennis notices absently, glimmering mildly in the faintly lit room, and drawing attention to the part of his body where the meat of his neck meets collarbone, surprisingly delicate.

Dennis looks down at the floor, then forces his eyes back on the tv screen, barely registering  the shapes of the tiny, brightly colored creatures collecting twigs to build their nest together. Vaguely, Dennis wonders what would happen  if something went wrong. If nature maybe fucks up now and then and one of the birds can’t figure out how to build nests properly, was born without the instinct, or just doesn’t know what to do when the time comes, and he fucks it all up? What happens to him then? Does he just fly away?

Mac must notice that something is off, because he stops talking.

“Dennis. Dennis dude, are you okay?” He looks genuinely confused, as his gaze skates across Dennis’s face. Suddenly his eyes widen, his brow creasing with worry.

“Dennis? Why are you shaking?”

Was he? Dennis hadn’t noticed.

“I’m going to get you a blanket, man. Just wait here a second.” Mac’s wringing his hands, biting his lip as he stares at him earnestly,  like he does when he realizes Dennis hasn’t eaten all day or when Dennis finally emerges from the bathroom after having locked himself inside for the better part of the night.

The softness, the sincerity of the expression makes something in Dennis snap, and all he hears is static electricity, all he sees is red.  Just as Mac  turns to go get the blanket from his room, Dennis calls out to him:

“So fucking typical isn’t it? You’re so desperate for affection you’ll open your legs for  the first decently attractive person who gives you the time of day, as if they actually give a shit about you” he punctuates the sentence with a cold, strangely strangled sounding laugh, schooling his expression into one of mock pity.

“ Anyway, this guy was probably just bored, looking for a quick lay to kill some time. Absolutely pathetic.”

Mac freezes from his position in the doorway, his back stiffening, and Dennis’s entire body goes suddenly cold with dread. But Mac just stands there, with his back to Dennis, as the seconds tick unbearably onward.

“Come on!” Dennis croaks, desperate now to evoke some kind of reaction. “Yell, scream, cry, please, just say something, anything!”

Mac turns slowly back to face Dennis, and when he does, Dennis sees an array of emotions plastered on his face; there’s pain etched into his features, and anger, but worst of all there’s this strange acceptance, like he had half expected Dennis to lash out like this, like he’s had years and years of practice. His voice is carefully controlled when he speaks next.

“Yeah, well, if I’m so pathetic, if I’m so desperate, then why the fuck did you come back in the first place? We were finally starting to get back to normal or like, I don’t know maybe an even better version of normal when you waltzed back in without any kind of explanation or apology for leaving us alone for over a year, Dennis.” Mac’s voice cracks, the way it does when he talks about his dad in prison, the way it does when he can’t but help but allow his carefully maintained facade of toughness to drop for just a moment.

Dennis sits frozen still, stunned. He wasn’t expecting this. He doesn’t know what he expected. Dennis doesn’t know if he’s imagining it, but Mac’s eyes are glossy when he continues

“There were… weeks, Dennis. When I couldn’t get out of bed, when Charlie would come to make sure I was….” he flounders  “to make sure I was okay. And even after that I was trying so hard not to think about it I did so much stupid shit just trying to forget about y-to forget about it ” He clears his throat, raises his head slightly to look Dennis in the eye. “I was in a really bad place, man.  You leaving didn’t just affect you.” He pauses, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. Dennis swallows, suddenly, against, a growing lump forming in his throat.

“And now you’re back and you keep talking about how much you hate me, or how annoying I am, or how much you wish you didn’t live with me?” he chuckles bitterly. “So what I’m having a hard time understanding is- why? Why, Dennis? Why did you leave your kid and your cushy life with Mandy and come back to Philly, back to our home if I’m so goddamn terrible?”

Mac has these bright pink splotches  high on his cheeks, his chest heaving with barely restrained emotion.

Dennis is paralyzed. He wants to flee. He wants to reach out and touch Mac. He wants to become as small as humanly possible, so small that no other person can ever see him again. He feels wetness forming on his cheeks, has no idea how it got there.

Mac’s body visibly deflates as he takes in the scene before him. He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck for a long moment, features softening. Moving quickly, he steps closer to Dennis, reaching out to touch him, hand  hovering near his shoulder before he thinks better and it drops to its side.

“Fuck, man. It’s late.” he forces a watery laugh, hand running through his own hair. “We’re just tired, saying shit we don’t mean.” He won’t quite meet Dennis’s eyes. “I’m going to go get you that blanket.”

Mac exits the room, and swiftly returns with the soft blue flannel blanket from his own bed, wrapping it loosely around Dennis’s shoulders with gentle, careful movements. He sits next to Dennis on the couch, leaving enough space that their legs don’t touch, but Dennis can still feel some of the warmth radiating from his body.

“Did you know that blue jays mate for life?” Dennis asks, abruptly. Mac pauses in his fussing with the blanket to lean back enough to look into Dennis’s eyes, cautious and confused. His whole face shifts, like he’s on the brink of something, but can’t fully bring himself to understand exactly what’s taking place.

“What? I don’t-” he starts

“Their whole life,” Dennis manages, feebly maintaining eye contact, his nails digging into his own thigh as he forces himself onward. He chokes on his words for a minute before continuing.  “ It’s just the one.”

“Dennis,” Mac breathes, his eyes wide with confusion, and fear, and something that looks suspiciously like hope. He reaches out and this time grabs Dennis���s hand where its curled into his thigh, squeezes it tight. “You’re okay. Dennis,  it’s going to be okay.”

And for the first time,  Dennis thought, maybe it was.

[turquoisemagpie]

Hope Springs Eternal. (1)

Hope moaned into her pillow, in confusion and annoyance that she was woken up by the harsh ringing of her phone. She lifted her head up from the pillow and sighed heavily as she read the time on her alarm clock. 4:21 am. She lazily picked up her cell phone from her side table and read the contact calling her. ‘Trick-shot Master’ was calling her at this unholy hour of the night. She accepted the call and moaned a tired and weak attempt of a greeting.

“Hope?” said a male voice at the other end of the line. It was broken and shivering, like he was cold.

“Yup?” she responded, coughing a little to clear her throat from sleep. “What’s wrong now, Chase?”

There was a long pause before Chase asked weakly, “Can I… stay at yours tonight?”

Hope sat up. ‘For fuck sake’ she thought, ‘Another one of these nights.’ She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and said, “What was it this time?”

There was a heavy sniff and a wet gasp. Hope recognised this noise and knew why his voice was shivering; he’d been crying. “Another falling out. I don’t… I don’t think Stacey… I don’t she’ll let me back this time.” There was another sniff. “I just… I need… I don’t know what to do.”

Hope got out of bed and slipped her slippers on. “Have you talked to her about it?” she asked, “Is it a fault on your end, or her end?”

“I don’t know.” Chase responded, “I think it’s the both of us. I feel bad about it, but she also made me feel bad about it. I just… I don’t want to tell you the details.”

“Why?” Hope said, walking out of her room and onto the upstairs landing. She headed towards a door at the end of the landing. “The only way you can solve this is to talk about it.” She opened the top draw of a dresser at the side of the door and retrieved a small key. She twisted it through the lock of the door and pushed the door open. Inside was a rather boringly clean, unused bedroom. “You know this, Chase. The counsellor has told you multiple times. And I have too. ‘Being silent won’t help you.’”

“I know.” Chase said, “But I mean… I don’t want to talk about it to you. It’s… it’s something me and Stacey have to talk about together.”

“Ok.” Hope said, a little confused by this, “So… why do you need to come to my place if you know you can talk it over with her and sort it all out?” She headed downstairs and walked across the hallway to the front door of her house and stood at the door.

Chase was silent for a while, until he started sniffing again. “She kicked me out. And I’m not ready to talk about it yet. I just… I need time away from her. Please. Can you just let me stay for a while?”

Hope clicked the door to unlock it and swung it open. A young man, standing at the side of the doorstep, a hefty backpack on his back and a flat rimmed baseball cap on his head, suddenly jumped in surprise at the door opening. He was on the phone, and his cheeks were damp with former tears.

“Well, it’s not like I have the choice to say ‘no’, do I?” Hope said, raising an eyebrow at the young man, still talking through the phone, but loud enough for him to hear her.

The pair of them hung up. Chase hung his head in shame, looking away so he didn’t meet his younger sister eye to eye. Still keeping a rather expressionless look on her face, Hope pulled him close and hugged him. They pulled away and already Chase’s eyes were watering, so Hope led him into the house, closing the door behind him. Hope took the bag off his back and went upstairs to throw the bag onto the bed of the spare room she recently unlocked, as her brother made his way slowly through to the kitchen. She followed him into the kitchen and clicked the kettle on as Chase sat himself down at the kitchen table, still refusing to lift his head up. Sleepily setting out two mugs at the kitchen counter, and dropping a tea bag into each cup, Hope yawned and turned to Chase and said, “Pretty late to have an argument at this time of night.”

Chase looked up at her for a split second before looking back at his fidgeting hands that rested on the table. “I walked here.” He said.

“You walked?”

“It took me over an hour to get here.” Chase explained, “I also had a few hours of… ‘thinking time’ after the argument.”

The kettle clicked off, and Hope turned to pour the boiled water into the cups. “Did you use that ‘thinking time’ to consider calling me before you set off for my house?” she said sarcastically, “What would you have done if I wasn’t in?”

Chase glanced at his phone that was lying on the table. A new message had arrived. On seeing his wife’s name, he reached out and locked the phone to turn completely off. “I don’t know.” he answered Hope, before asking, “Do you have a spare cell phone?”

“Maybe.” Hope said, twirling the spoons in the tea cups to mix the golden water and the milk together into a creamy beige, “If I do, it’ll be in the draw by the house phone. Why?”

“Just asking.” Chase said, quickly putting his phone away in his pocket as Hope approached him with their cups of tea.

“So, what happened?” Hope asked as she took her seat and sipped her tea.

Their conversation was slow and long. Chase took his time to think about how he would answer Hope’s questions, and every answer he gave was tediously vague. He didn’t drink much of his tea, so Hope finished his mug, hoping the caffeine would wake her up a bit so she could actually focus on what Chase was saying; not that he had much to say that wasn’t repetition. The only thing that was conclusive was that Chase had done something bad, he wasn’t prepared to go into detail about what he did, Stacey kicked him out, he wasn’t ready to talk it over with his wife, and, until he was ready, he needed a place to stay.

After an hour of talking and awkward pauses, Chase said he was tired and needed to sleep. He sent himself to bed and Hope, pretty much wide awake and seeing the pointlessness of trying to sleep herself, went to the lounge to turn the TV on; she wondered what crap was shown on very-very-early-morning-TV. After waiting until she was sure Chase was in bed, she picked up her cell phone and called Stacey’s number.

There was no response. Hope didn’t really expect one anyway. An automated message asked her to say what she needed to say after a whiny piercing beep.

“Hi, Stace. It’s Hope here. Just calling to say Chase is at my place, in case you were wondering where he went… He’ll probably be staying here for a while, until… until whatever it is that’s going on is sorted… Just so you know, I’m not blaming one or the other here for whatever’s happened between you- Chase hasn’t gone into detail about what happened anyway. And even if he did… It’s none of my business of course… Oh, yeah. He’s probably going to change his cell phone, knowing him. He always keeps away from whatever’s bothering him, so if you try to text him or call him, he probably won’t respond. So… yeah, call my house number if you want to talk to him…… Hope the kids are ok. He told me they don’t know about what happened. But I hope they’re not affected by this as much… Ok, I’m gonna end the message now. Thanks, bye.”

She ended the call. She put her phone away and started idly flicking through TV channels. Nothing but game show repeats and casino adverts were showing.

The house phone rang.

Hope sluggishly got up to answer it, trying to be quick to answer before more rings would wake up Chase. She picked up the phone and read the screen. Unknown. Who was calling this early in the morning?

She accepted the call and put the phone to her ear. “Hullo?” she called to the mouth piece.

No one answered. But a strange unstable hiss was heard through the ear piece. It clicked and buzzed at different notes, squeaking and squealing like a disordered tune of a broken electric keyboard, and the hiss sounded like white noise that warped and bent itself to sound almost like whispers.

“Hello?” Hope asked again, feeling a little concerned and puzzled.

There didn’t seem to be any coherent response. Just the same mishmash of noise. There were random bursts of stretched and quickly cut noises of what sound like words from another world, let alone words from another language. Hope couldn’t understand any of it. Thinking it was a prank call, she hung up.

As soon as she pressed the end-call button, the TV in the lounge suddenly gave a loud burst of noise before cutting to the same hissing sound that came from the phone. Hope put the phone down and looked to see the TV had turned the dot pixel pattern of grey static, the sound of white noise accompanied with it.

Hope walked to the TV and turned it off.

‘Weird’.

She sat back down on the couch and thought for a few minutes. She then got back up and headed upstairs. Maybe just a quick 40-winks would do her the world of good.

She left her cell phone on the coffee table. It buzzed as a new message from an unknown number was received.

‘esIahc eHpohA reVveroEf. ll’uCoy OreveMn hEcaer ti.’

The screen flickered like a faulty light and suddenly the message was gone.

[taztaas]

White Blank Page

Taako wakes up, hungover, in a stranger's house. That's nothing new, he was at a tavern last night. What is new, is that the man claims to know him. a repost from ao3

Relationship: Kravitz/Taako Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Memory Loss, Angst

Taako woke up slowly with a soft groan, turning in the soft sheets, trying to get out of their tangle. His head hurt and his tongue felt thick in his dry mouth. He sat up carefully on the bed, sheets pooling around him, and rubbed his hands over his eyes, trying to get his bearings. The room was dark, it was either really late or really early. Not that it mattered, since he had darkvision. Looking around he took in the unfamiliar room. He must’ve been out on the town last night, at some tavern. He must’ve followed someone home. Thankfully the room and the bed were empty, he was the only one in the room.

Taako gingerly moved to the edge of the bed, setting his feet on the soft carpet. He brushed his bangs out of his face and rubbed his fingers to his temples. Besides the headache, there was a buzzing of white noise in his brain that didn’t exactly feel like any other hangover he had ever had but he couldn’t think of any other explanation.

Taako searched the floor for his clothes and found a dress that he didn’t remember buying but looked like his style so he figured it was his. There was no way he had been drunk enough to leave the bar with a woman. And if it wasn’t his, well. It was a really nice dress. He pulled it on and spotted some stylish menswear folded over a nearby chair. He sighed in relief, definitely a guy. He didn’t see his boots or cape or bag anywhere so he guessed he had left them at the door, or scattered in the apartment, last night.

Taako didn’t see his “lover” anywhere and he was thankful for that. Leaving after a one-night stand was always awkward as hell if there was talking and explanations required. It was best to just sneak away unnoticed. Taako moved stealthily through the dark house towards what he supposed was the location of the door. It was a really nice place though, the owner must be loaded, and have really good taste, the interior design was right up Taako’s alley. He heard some noise from the kitchen as he passed it, so he was extra careful in sneaking into the foyer. He had just located his boots and was about pull them on when he was caught.

“What are you doing?”

Startled, Taako turned around and saw the definition of tall, dark and handsome standing behind him, looking disturbingly domestic with a mug of something hot in his hand and slippers on his feet. The white noise in Taako’s head grew stronger.

“Uhhh… I’m leaving?” He answered, and grinned placatingly at the other man who frowned in response.

“What? Why?”

Taako sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. This was exactly the thing he had been hoping to avoid. Talk about awkward. He waved his hand in dismissal.

“Umm, sorry bubbeleh, but this was a one-time thing, sorry you got the wrong idea…”

The man’s face grew more and more aghast with every word that came out of Taako’s mouth and it made Taako really uncomfortable. He just wanted to leave, to get out. This guy was starting to creep him out, as hot as he was. Taako though himself a good judge of character, but apparently he had made a mistake last night. He sighed again, looking at anything but the handsome man in front of him. It was just his luck, finding someone good to have a little fun with but ending up with a clingy and apparently super dense guy that just wouldn’t let go .

“Listen kemosabe, it’s nice that you uh, enjoyed it that much, wish I could say the same but last night is kind of a void to me honestly, I must’ve gotten pretty heavy with the wine-”

“Taako.” The man interrupted, “Do you know who I am?” Taako turned his gaze to him and holy shit, he actually looked worried. It made Taako’s skin crawl with unease.

“...A really hot guy who is quickly turning creepy as fuck because he won’t let me leave his fucking house?!”

“This is your house too Taako.” The man said, keeping calm but desperation was leaking into his tone. “This is our house, and I’m your husband, Kravitz.” He took a step closer to Taako who quickly moved away, his back hitting the front door.

Eyes wide as saucers, Taako chuckled nervously. “What? I’m not married.” He answered automatically, like it was obvious, because it was, because he wasn’t married. The buzzing in his brain got worse as he said that and he watched tall, dark and handsome raise his left hand and wiggle his fingers, showing Taako the ring on his finger. Alarmed, Taako quickly raised his own hand to eye-level and saw a matching ring in his own finger. He let out a short, hysterical laugh. This was ridiculous, he didn’t even know this guy and he claimed that they were fucking married? And he even - somehow - had put a ring on Taako’s finger and it was a perfect fit? What kind of sick stalker-

“Darling,” the man said, pleading, and yeah, that was definitely big a red flag-

“Do you know who you are?” He looked concerned, and sad, like Taako was the one out of his fucking mind here and it made the elf laugh out loud again, incredulous. Of course he knew. He pressed a hand to his chest dramatically, and waved the other one back in a grand gesture, preparing for his signature line.

“I’m Taako, you know, from-” He stopped mid-sentence as the static in his brain flared up. It was in his ears, blocking all sound, it was behind his eyes and it made his vision go fuzzy. “...From?” He continued unsurely, and suddenly he felt like his skull was being split open and his hands flew up to clutch at his head and hair. He grit his teeth against the sudden pain, as his body bent down slightly, defensively. He struggled to keep his balance and he gasped for breath because his head was fucking exploding and he was fucking losing it because he realized that he didn’t know, he couldn’t remember.

He didn’t know where he was, who the man claiming to be his husband was or remember how he ended up here. It should have been easy to say, he was Taako from TV, but that didn’t feel right, like it wasn’t true anymore, like he was supposed to be someone else now? He didn’t know, he couldn’t remember. Desperately, eyes shut tightly against the pain, he fumbled at the door for the handle, desperate to get out, to go somewhere safe to deal with this on his own but he couldn’t. He collapsed but he was caught before he hit the floor.

“Don’t…” Taako started weakly, he didn’t want the strange man to touch him, but somehow when Kravitz’s cold hands touched his skin his body relaxed against his will and he fell slack against him. Kravitz’s arms came around him and held him carefully, lowering them to sit on the floor. Taako was still holding his head, eyes closed and he could hardly hear the other speak over the static. He sounded frantic.

“Taako, do you want me to call someone? Lup? Or Magnus?”

Taako didn’t know either of those names. “...Magnus?”

Kravitz reacted immediately, apparently relieved that Taako recognized this person. “You want Magnus?” Taako shook his head but it just made the pain worse, and tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. “Who… I don’t know-” He struggled to string the words together, it was difficult to think, to speak. “I don’t know who that is!” He yelled, frustrated and in pain.

“Taako calm down, please darling, please.” Kravitz’s voice shook and so did his hands but he was desperately trying to help. “Just breathe. Who do you know? Who do you need?”

“Sazed…?” Taako said quietly because that was the only name floating around his brain, and he could remember, Sazed was the only person he had spent time with, the only person he knew . The man beside him stiffened.

“Taako, I don’t think you would be very happy to see him.”

“...Why?”

Taako choked, why, what was even happening. He was fucking dying on the floor of some guy - who he thought he just fucked last night - but who apparently was his fucking husband even though he had no memories of him and Sazed wasn’t around? But what about the show?

“I don’t-” he muttered, “ I don’t have anyone else…” and he lost consciousness.

When Taako came to, he felt exhausted, like he had died and come back again. His head was slightly pounding but the static was gone. Lying on his side, he opened his eyes and saw his bedroom, the same room in which he woke up before. He remembered now, but he had forgotten. His memory was fucked, his brain couldn't deal with the conflicting timelines so he forgot parts of his life. It had happened before, but it was small events, nothing of this caliber. It scared him. It scared him a lot. Who was he? Which Taako was the real one? If he forgot who he was, what was left? He forgot Kravitz this time, his husband. He had no idea how to deal with this, how Kravitz could deal with this.

Taako whimpered. “Kravitz?” He felt movement on the bed behind him, and then Kravitz was pressed against his back, holding him tightly. “I’m here,” whispered against his hair.

Taako grabbed at Kravitz’s hands, pressing them against his own chest and holding them in a crushing grip.

“I’m so sorry Kravitz…”

“Oh darling, please don’t apologize…” Kravitz murmured and tried to move his hands but Taako wouldn’t let him, holding him tight.

“But what if it happens again? What if you hadn’t been there to stop me, what if I had left!” The elf took a deep breath, fighting back tears because he wasn’t going to cry. “I forgot…”

“It’s alright Taako.”

“No, it’s not, I fucking FORGOT!” He was shouting now, angry and frustrated. Tears were escaping even though he had his eyes tightly shut. Kravitz coaxed his hands free of Taako’s grip and gently turned the elf around to hold him to his chest. Taako hid his face in Kravitz’s shirt and gripped his back, bunching the fabric in his fists. He had fought it so hard but now he was falling apart in his husband’s arms.

“Kravitz,” he sobbed, “please don’t get tired of me.” Kravitz stiffened, shocked, but tightened his arms around Taako, voice shaking, but only slightly as he replied.

“Taako, I would never-”

The elf shook his head and grabbed at Kravitz’s shirt tighter, movements frantic.

“Please don’t leave me Krav, I know I’m difficult-”

“Stop it, Taako stop it,” Kravitz said, pulling back to hold Taako’s face, to brush the tears off his cheeks, “Taako look at me.” He said, and Taako opened his eyes to meet Kravitz’s gaze.

“I love you, and I will always love you, no matter what.” He pressed a kiss to Taako’s forehead. ”I promise.”

Taako sniffed, closing his eyes. “You can’t-”

“I can and I mean it.” Kravitz moved close again and kissed both of his husband’s eyelids gently. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Taako whispered in reply. His death grip on Kravitz had loosened, and now he just held him back. He pressed his face to Kravitz’s neck and sighed, worn out. The reaper’s nimble fingers brushed through Taako’s mussed hair, sorting it out. His other hand sought out Taako’s and twined their fingers together.

“We’ll figure this out, all of us. You’re not alone. Everyone’s going to help you, and I’m not leaving your side.” Taako just nodded, concentrating on his breathing, and on the feeling of Kravitz’s touch. The reaper had no heartbeat, but Taako could hear the thrum of his soul in his chest. It was comforting. Maybe this promise could be kept. Maybe everything would be alright, in the end. Because he could trust Kravitz. He squeezed his eyes shut and tightened his grip on Kravitz’s hand. As long as he remembered him. If only he could keep the memory of him.