#i do think its a combination of him ineffectually trying to put something between him and all the people watching

[grinchwrapsupreme]

any other character I might not have noticed, but the way Roman holds his arms in front of him when he's crying at the funeral like a shield... like he might get hit...

[photiniainsummer]

A Little Audience Participation Can Tip the Scales (4/?): Curiosity Killed the Cat...

Genre: GenFic - Action, Mystery, Humor

Rating: Teen and Up

Story Summary: There’s a strange group living at the old Markiplier Manor.

They’re the villains of their tales, they’re looking for information, and they need your help putting Mark’s scattered egos back together to get their lives back.

And stop Mark and the Entity breaking reality.

Small goals.

(Second Person POV, vaguely fem-coded Reader)

Chapter Summary: The one where you almost die.

Word Count: 5407

Author’s Note: I promise we're almost to the real meat of things - let me know what you think!! :)

On Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30510852/chapters/76436726

Curiosity Killed the Cat...

“Oh, come on,” you sigh, easily opening the metal door at the bottom of the outdoor staircase to Jonah’s apartment. He’s forgotten to lock it for the thousandth time, which always makes you slightly anxious - something you could really do without right now. His carelessness never ceases to amaze you; you’d gotten copies of the keys to both his doors early on in your friendship because the man could barely go a night out on the town without losing them. You’re the only reliable person that’s also foolish enough to go out drinking with him, so he dubbed you his personal keeper of the keys. At first it had been a mantle you bore begrudgingly, but it had been a big part of you two becoming so close - having to drunkenly help someone into their own apartment will really bond folks, you had learned. So far, you’ve never needed to use them without with him around, nor had you let anyone else borrow them, even for a bit of light pranking. Maybe it’s silly, but if you’re honest with yourself, the simple key ring feels like Jonah’s trust embodied. Nothing so far has proved to be worth more than that to you. Ascending the old stairs, you wonder if he’s noticed.

So far, your plan to check up on the crime reporter is not turning out to be the quick detour you had hoped. Lunch hour traffic had eaten into your hour and some change, and Thistle, the owner and proprietor of the downstairs combination health store/cafe had been no help. He had been busy serving up roasted halloumi paninis when you poked your head in a few minutes ago, and after investing time into waving off his concern about your busted-up face you’d found that he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Jonah since he’d left for work yesterday morning. “I went out before he got back, I suppose, and I was horribly drowsy this morning - big night,” he’d said with a wink. “So he could’ve left this morning and I just didn’t notice.” When his lack of information only deepened the furrow you’d been carrying in your brow all day, Thistle had pulled an apologetic expression before trying to sell you a CBD tincture for wrinkles.

The bushy-bearded man could be like that - simultaneously thoughtful and mildly insulting - but he made a mean panini, so you had taken one at his insistence. As much of a bust catching up with him had been, given how long-winded and very intent his sales pitches can be, you’re glad that you at least won’t go back to the office hungry. The sandwich’s warmth leaks through the paper bag at your side as you knock on Jonah’s door. It’s a beat-up thing, paint-chipped and worse for wear. Its best feature is that it keeps a whopping three-quarters of the rain out. It looks even more crooked than the last time you were here, something you hadn’t thought possible, and you make a mental note to rag Jonah to have his landlord fix it properly this time.

You listen for the man’s tell-tale heavy footsteps, wondering if he had just taken the day off. Maybe he unplugged the landline and curled up in bed to mope all day about not getting to go on your great adventure to the Manor. It sounded like something he might do - although the thought of all you’d been through as a ‘great adventure’ feels like the most gross mischaracterization you can think of. But here you’d be, banging on his door, a nervous wreck under your extensively bruised surface, having run halfway across town because he hasn’t called you back. He’d look at you like you were nuts and tease you mercilessly, you know. How did people cope before cell phones, you wonder, knocking again. Regardless of what Jonah might say, you’d happily bear the embarrassment for the comfort of seeing him in the flesh. Something really isn’t sitting right with you about all this.

“Jonah? It’s me, I brought lunch,” you call for good measure. Maybe food would tempt him out, if he was wallowing around inside and being a big ol’ sad sack. As you wait a little longer, you lean over slightly to the nearby window. Against your better judgement, you check for wrinkles. It’s not so much that you mind having them, if you do, but you hadn’t noticed them happening. Is time really moving so quickly, ravaging you already? You twist a few errant bits of your curly bangs to get them to hang right and peer at yourself, raising your brows and lowering them, just to see. Sure enough, a few persistent, thin lines remain when you relax your brow. Then you furrow it, even as you know it’s counterproductive. Cool, cool cool cool. Next will be the gray hairs. Maybe I need to drink more water…?

You meet your reflection’s gaze properly. You look more tired than usual, that’s for sure, and your bruises don’t really lend toward a relaxed expression. Your brow is slightly drawn up, stuck in a constant flinch against the steady, low-level pain of your sore face. It draws a sigh out of you - either you’re exhausted by it or you’re relaxing now that you’re conscious of it, but which one isn’t clear. At least that deer-in-the-headlights look you’d caught in the shattered mirror at the Manor hadn’t stuck around. That memory alone is enough to remind you that these aren’t normal circumstances, that nothing about this is normal by any stretch of the imagination. You realize just how much you can’t wait for this all to be over, for the simple explanation to win out and for your nerves to take a breather. Once we get all this sorted out, I’ll take a serious couple of naps, eat at least one vegetable, and I’ll be good as new. The thought sounds a lot more optimistic than you feel.

Finally, realizing nobody’s coming and Jonah is probably out, you resignedly turn from your self-involved and low-key mope session and make to descend the stairs and head back to work. But your eyes catch something as they unfocus from your own reflection, and you turn back to the window.

You can see into Jonah’s living room, which is odd, since you’re certain this window had blinds the last time you were here. Looking up, you realize said blinds hang at a sharp angle, half-torn from their molding and revealing the inside of the apartment. It’s a complete wreck. Furniture is overturned and papers are everywhere, as if a bomb had gone off.

“Jonah?” Your voice sounds unfamiliar, distant and panicked, as you knock on the door more insistently. It swings loosely inward from the force, the deadbolt already having been snapped through the weak wood of the doorframe. What the busted door reveals is much worse than the snapshot the window provided. Nothing is where it’s meant to be - pictures lie shattered on the floor or hang at strange angles from their nails; books’ pages are torn from their spines and scattered around; the floor is covered in a thin layer of cotton and feathers, the guts of cushions turned outward and furniture torn open. It’s devastating and all-encompassing, and you can barely process the wreckage laid out before you.

I should go get Thistle, is your first thought. Get someone, call the police, get away and get safe, is your second. Whoever had done this could still be inside, and you are now a witness. They could walk out from the back at any moment. They could be armed. But what if Jonah’s still inside, is your third and most arresting thought. Thistle had said he never heard him leave this morning, and he’d been out last night -- how recently had this happened? Your mind works quickly. It would have had to be at least some time between yesterday evening and now, of course, but there was no telling for certain. He could still be in here. He could be hurt. He could be dead.

Stepping over the threshold, you work to steady your breathing, which has become shallow in the shock. Like hell you’re going to ditch without even checking if he’s inside, attacker be damned. The part of the wall where the deadbolt typically slides into place is now splintered outward, ugly and sharp, and as you shut the door behind you, the piece of metal easily but ineffectually returns home. The metal casing from the doorframe lies discarded on the floor among the rest of the wreckage. Nearby are bits of shattered plastic, and tracking them to their source reveals the remains of an old landline. The cord has been pulled from the wall, the body broken open so its wiring curls in sad gnarls. It brings a new meaning to the line being ‘dead,’ you think humorlessly, but you have at least one more answer than you did before - Jonah didn’t answer this morning because he couldn’t. And yet, this only leaves you with a whole new pile of questions.

You move cautiously through the ruined apartment, not wanting to disturb the wreckage more than you have to. You’re already considering the inevitable police investigation, and you are going to make damn sure the police have as much unsullied evidence as they can find to put Jonah’s attacker away. Or attackers. You stop by his CD shelf - something you had teased him mercilessly for having the first time you visited because, seriously, who still has a CD shelf? It lies bare, now, contents scattered on the floor, but thankfully undisturbed behind it is a baseball. Jonah keeps it for moments like this, you imagine. Although, the hypothetical scenarios he had prepared for had probably involved him being the one wielding it You lift the bat to your shoulder. Just in case.

You continue your search, into the tiny half-room Jonah generously calls his study. Despite the room being equally torn apart as the rest of the apartment, the blinds here are intact. You crane your neck to see through their slits, careful not to touch them, wondering if something lies behind. Past the fire escape on the other side of the glass, the side of the neighboring building fills the window’s view. Directly across is a large window, propped open, curtains dancing slightly in the breeze. Without the blinds here, whoever lives next door would have a perfect view in, if they had a care to look. Someone was careful. Turning around, you can fully take in both the study and dining area - and the scope of their destruction. Sunlight falls across it all, cheerily at odds with how the floors are barely visible for the wreckage. There’s a path where you picked your way through, but otherwise it is trashed. Every shelf is laid bare.

Suddenly, a realization makes the hair on your neck prickle. As chaotic and troubling as the scene is, it isn’t random. The destruction is consistent - there is no corner untouched. No book remains intact, no container or bit of furniture unturned.

This isn’t random violence. It’s too careful. Like with the blinds being left up to shield the wreckage from prying eyes. Someone had come here, intentionally, and they had been looking for something. They had no idea where it could have been, but they were thorough in their search.

Had they found it?

You’re getting distracted, you’re not a cop building out a crime scene. You’re here to find Jonah and make sure he’s okay. Readying your bat in case you’re about to startle his attacker out of hiding, you call out. “Jo…?” Your voice betrays you, shaking. You clear your throat and push on. “It’s me, are you here?” No response, so you move through the mess more quickly, now. If whoever did this had found what they were looking for, they would have left Jonah behind. What state they would have left him in, though, is what you’re not sure of.

You worm around his overturned drafting desk table and check the back rooms. His bathroom and bedroom are a similar mess, clothes turned inside out and dumped everywhere, his medicine cabinet hanging open and the floor a mess of pill bottles and half-used shampoo. But there’s no sign of life. And no blood, either, you note with not a small bit of relief. You poke around the piles of Jonah’s clothes scattered through the bedroom and hallway, just to make sure he’s not hidden under them and wounded before returning to the study.

You feel lost, pumped full of adrenaline yet without an outlet. There aren’t any obvious clues to where Jonah could be, or where he could have gone. Had they taken him? Moreover, who had taken him, and why? What could Jonah have done to warrant… this? Taking a steadying breath, you pull your phone from your pocket, deciding that getting the police involved is the next logical step.

Then, voices, footsteps on the metal staircase.

Your heart rate shoots up as you strain your ears to pick out the voices, but they aren’t familiar tones. Without thinking and with your panic rising, you dive under Jonah’s upended desk, crouching yourself into a ball in the small space it makes between a bookshelf and the wall. It’s close, a little dark, and your breathing seems to echo in it - too loud and too hot all at once. Ignoring how your knees protest against the sudden, tight position, you press yourself further into the corner as the front door creaks open again.

“Je-sus, they really tore the shit out of this place.”

“Yup. Had to make sure he wasn’t hiding anything else, apparently. Muscle found a couple copies of stuff he’d hidden in different places, trying to be real slick, so they went through with a fine-toothed comb for good measure.” The first voice, reedy and exasperated, sighs and shuffles their feet.

“Really doesn’t make our job any easier. How’re we supposed to make any of this look normal? It’s insane.”

“That’s out of my pay grade, and yours. They’ll… put a dog in here or something, say it went bonkers being locked up alone. Give it a few days, it’ll live the mess in. But we gotta get it at least kind of decent, first. Now c’mon, help me with this couch.” The apparent clean-up crew shuts the door behind them and begins to shuffle around in the mess of Jonah’s apartment.

Your mind reels - so Jonah had been snatched up by god knows who, had been hiding files in his apartment, and now they were going to make it look like the break-in was… what, an accident? Like he had disappeared and left everything a wreck himself? What were they going to do with him? Unfortunately, you can’t say that this is the first time he’s gotten his nose in too deep about something, but you would have thought he had learned his lesson after his brush with being harassed and the rigamarole of getting restraining orders in place.

As sleepy as your city can be, there are a few folks everyone knows not to mess with. Everyone, of course, except Jonah, at least in any delicate sort of way. You laud him for his commitment even when the police balk from digging deeper, for being so full up with righteous fury that he puts stories to print as soon as he can. Even on the politics beat, you’ve come across your fair share of illicit wheeling and dealing - but there are ways to sound them out, you’ve learned how to sit on things and work with authorities until the time is right and publishing your piece won’t put you in imminent danger. Jonah, despite having a good number of years on you, seems not to have picked up on the same lessons. That, or he’s too committed to care. You mentally flip through the last few cases he’s mentioned that could be possible explanations, but nothing comes close to deserving something like this. Except…

But it seems ridiculous, like a murder mystery novel. There is no way whatever is going on surrounding Mark could possibly warrant Jonah being straight up kidnapped.

A heavy thud shakes the floor, and the deeper voice of the second intruder curls itself around some colorful curses.

“My foot was there, dumbass-”

“Maybe you oughtta move it, then,” the first snaps. The second seems to lose whatever is left of their patience, grunting in frustration.

“What the hell is going on with you? You’ve an attitude all damn day, I’m not doing this job with you in a huff.” It goes quiet, and after a while, the first intruder sighs.

“...I dunno. Johnny was just. He was running off at the mouth, you know him. It’s nothing.”

“Like hell it’s nothing, got you all worked up like this.” Another sigh. Is this… are they really doing a debrief in the middle of covering up a crime scene? You try to keep your breathing quiet as they continue.

“Basically called me too dumb to move up to internal affairs,” the first mumbles.

“Oh, hell, I’m gonna pull Johnny’s head out of his ass just so I can shove it back up there myself next time I see him. You know that’s bull, they said you just needed that computer class, right? Come on, what is it Mark always says?”

There’s a pause, but finally the first answers in a tone not unlike a sullen teenager. “...life is ours to choose.”

“There you go. And he runs us on that, right? And you’re choosing to move up, right? So he’ll see that, and I bet he’ll promote you soon as you graduate. Now c’mon get that look off your face and let’s get this done, huh? Dinner’ll be on me, and so will Johnny’s next knuckle sandwich.”

The pair returns to their work, but under the desk, a coldness has seized you. This cinched it - as absolutely insane as it sounds, it couldn’t possibly be a coincidence that these goons were answering to someone named Mark, cleaning up the kidnapping scene of someone who had been secretly digging into the mysterious history of a dead man with the same name. That the kidnapped man had only gotten suspicious because he works at one paper out of many that have been erasing or squashing any mention of said dead man, despite him being a native and a once-celebrity. That said paper, despite its lead editor’s obsession with careful filing, was missing any of those nixed stories. And that same filing system had been hiding a thick file, seemingly addressed to the dead man himself. Maybe you’re taking too many liberties, too many leaps in reasoning, but… despite how tenuous it all feels, it’s too much to ignore anymore.

How long had all of this been going on, right under all your noses? You feel sick, like the biggest idiot in the world - like you’ve been going about your life blindfolded all the while walking dangerously close to a cliff’s edge. Jonah had been the only one to see it clearly, and still, look where that got him. You remember the men at the office, Walker’s scared gaze. Had they been there about Jonah? If they had been here first and not found what they were looking for…

The folder’s weight in your bag, still slung across your chest, seems to chain you to the lightly feather-covered floor. Your heart pounds against your ribs, thunders in your ears. And god, your head aches like hell, everything just too much as you try to keep your breathing quiet. No wonder the men at the Manor had been so paranoid about you. If Mark could pull off something like this, disappear someone and send people to both destroy their place and clean it up to make it look like something else, all for just digging around on him, you’d be paranoid of anyone who suddenly busted into your hideout.

Well. You’d be paranoid anyway. But doubly so.

You know there’s no way you can stay here. The two workers are busying themselves around the apartment, the first apparently comforted enough by the second’s threats of violence against Johnny to hop to it. Discussing how to organize their approach, you can tell they’ll move on to the study soon enough. But they’re between you and the front door, will definitely get a head start on you as you awkwardly crawl out from behind the desk to escape. You could push it suddenly toward them once they were close, psyche them out and make a break for it while they’re startled. Which will only work if they’re close enough together and don’t flank you…

As you fumble for another option, the blinds behind you bounce slightly against the windowsill. A soft breeze caresses your face. Turning, you can see that the window is slightly open. Backlit by the afternoon sun, the dark metal of the fire escape casts a shadow across your face. There. It’ll be tight, but you can definitely crawl through the window from where you are without having to reveal your presence. At least, you won’t before you have the window between you and the clean-up crew. Then it’s just get down the escape before they do and book it as fast as you can.

As it’s the only route you can think of that doesn’t involve having to fight the men off, you decide it’s your best bet. Quietly scooting yourself toward the window, you crane your neck to ascertain the workers’ lines of sight. They’re occupied in the living room, trying to wade through the mess of stuffing and ripped up pages, well enough away and not looking in your general direction. You take your chance. You slip your hand behind the blinds and push up on the window.

The squeak it emits as it sticks, then rises sharply as you push it harder could shatter eardrums.

You only vaguely note the exclamations of the pair as panic overtakes you. Pushing out from behind the desk and under the blinds, you fling yourself out onto the sun-baked fire escape. The sunlight crashes down around you, forcing you to squint as you land and immediately scramble back to the window to close it. You shove down on it as hard as you can and the old thing jams crookedly in the casing with barely a half inch of space open at the bottom. Panicked fingers poke out from under it, trying to pull it up to no avail. The men holler in frustration behind the trembling blinds. With no time to waste, you turn and begin descending the metal scaffolding at a quick clip.

You stop, though, as you recognize a pair of broad shoulders at the mouth to the side alley you’re perched above. Even from a distance, just from the way he holds himself, you can tell it’s one of the burly men from the office. The cold feeling of the scar-faced man’s gaze fresh in your mind, you spin on your heel and hurry back up the shaky steps. You’ll find another path down somehow, you’re sure of it. The workers are still desperately attempting to open the window as you pass, your fast steps rattling the metal beneath your feet and only inciting their ire. “Hey, hey, get back here! Get-- Laney, go get the guys, go-”

But your panicked pace has already alerted ‘the guys’ to your presence - the sound of the shaking metal echoing clearly in the tight brick alleyway has seen to that. As you take the next flight, you can see that the man at the entrance to the alley is already closing the distance to the bottom of the escape. Heart leaping in further panic, you will your legs to go faster as you climb, tightly rounding the bend on each flight of the stairs. The building is only a few stories tall, so you quickly reach the top. Your hands grasp your bag tightly to your chest to keep it from slapping against your legs as you start to run across the roof, just trying to put distance between you and whoever is making chase.

But you have no idea where you’re running to.

Jonah’s building backs up to another, slightly taller one, and so you cross the roof and scramble over the small wall that divides them. You check this building for a way down, swearing when there’s no obvious rooftop entrance to the building nor fire escape. The next building is too close to warrant one, but pushing yourself onward, you hop easily across to it. Nothing here, either, so you hurry across to the next, and the next, each time pulling yourself up the small walls or crossing the short gaps between the buildings. Your hands quickly get rubbed raw, chest aching with hard breaths. You hear yelling from behind you, now, multiple voices calling and the sound of pounding feet. The sun is hot, beating down on you as you force your legs to pump, to keep going, leaving off searching for an escape in favor of just trying to lose your pursuers. You cross building after building, thankful for a reason you never would have imagined before now that Jonah had decided to live near the densely-packed shopping district.

Your luck soon runs out, though. Now out of the dense, main collection of antique shops and specialty grocers, the buildings grow farther and farther apart. Your jumps leave you more and more startled when you land them, the last one far enough that you can’t even control your fall onto it, smacking into the roofing gravel hard. It finds you, but you’re in full panic mode at this point, run ragged, exhausted, and still having to push onward. From the dusty, gravely concrete, though, you see the scarred man steadily approaching, taking the jumps between buildings in stride. Whoever he was with before that you heard yelling must have peeled off, leaving just the two of you.

You push yourself to your feet, palms burning from being so skinned up and pushed into the hot, dirty roof. Your body hurts all over, something you’d think you would have gotten used to by now. As you turn to continue onward, you find yourself limping slightly, leg aching although it’s not clear if it’s just a cramp from your panicked run or something worse. Regardless, you find that the next gap between buildings is shorter than the last one, for sure. I can make it.

“There’s no point,” the man calls. “Even if you get away, I know you. Where you work… Where you live will be easy.” You turn now to see the imposing man, still on the opposite roof. He stands there, watching you with that same cold stare, his voice so assured it makes you sick. As if he knows you’ll give in, that he’s already won. “And I know you have something that belongs to my boss. So why not make this easy and just give it to me now.”

You edge back slightly toward the next gap, and the man’s face twitches. You still have energy left, air in your lungs. This isn’t over. But maybe if you can keep him talking… “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He stares you down. “You’re familiar enough with our work, now, I think. Your friend’s car, his apartment... I just want the file, don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

“Just leave me alone, all I know is that you started chasing me--”

The man growls and suddenly rears himself back. He leaps, landing on the roof only a few short feet away from you. It’s freaky, nothing about the motion feeling real or like something any human could do. It’s like a movie. You stumble backward toward the edge, leg bumping against the ledge. It twinges painfully. The man rises up and begins to approach, one pale, thick hand extending toward you. His scar is so obvious in the sun, from this close. His eyes are so cold.

“Give me the file.”

“Get away from me, I don’t. I don’t have any file.” You’ve apparently run out of lies for the day - it sounds weak, even to your ears. You step up onto the ledge, ignoring how your leg protests, readying to jump. Below you is a steep, multi-story drop into a trash-filled alley below. If you took a leading step, you could make the jump, though, you’re certain of it. But your heart is racing, your thoughts spinning. What if I fall? What if he grabs me? The man is approaching quickly now that you’ve stepped up, and you wind back.

“Just give it to me, and we can make this all go away…” His powerful hand reaches out, within your arm’s length, looking as if he’s offering to take your hand. Time seems to slow to a crawl around you. The man’s hand continues toward you as you make for the edge. You turn to face the open air, but your body feels like lead moving through deep water. The next building over is so close - maybe he won’t make this one, and you can get away properly.

You take the last step and leap. Pain spikes through your leg as you shove off, but you push as hard as you can.

As soon as your ascent begins, you know you won’t make it. You didn’t have enough lead-up, your push-off hindered by whatever you’ve done to your leg. Gravity quickly reasserts itself, and you’re falling. You twist in the air, curling around your bag to keep it from being snatched. Turning to face the sky above, you see the man still reaching for you, the sun catching in every drop of sweat on his bulging face as he hangs over the edge. Even shaded from behind, his cold eyes, lit with fury, are still visible.

You shut your own then, the wind rushing up around you. You don’t want to see what it’s like when you hit the ground. Maybe someone will see you fall, find you and the file before the man can get off the rooftop. Maybe the police will get ahold of it (and your pursuer) and some random girl falling to her death will be the thing to blow Mark’s operation open. Maybe someone will find Jonah, if he’s still alive. How would that be for the end to a grand adventure? It’s so cheesy and stupid that all you can wonder, wryly, is this is really my last thought?

Your courageous self-sacrifice is rather rudely interrupted, though, as you’re seemingly hit by a freight train. Something solid going almost as fast as you are knocks the breath out of you, and the next thing you know, you’re tumbling across the ground ass over tea kettle.

When you come to a stop - surprise - everything hurts. It’s worse this time, though. Nothing feels like it’s in the right place anymore, your joints protesting like hell. You’ve never been hit by a car before, but you imagine this is what it might feel like. The sun is blinding you, and you wonder for a moment if what hit you was the pavement of the alley, if it had just knocked you out of your body and straight into heaven. Or whatever afterlife there might be. You’re no theological expert, but you feel like you recall that the afterlife isn’t supposed to hurt.

You groan, and a deep voice nearby echoes you, although it melts into a big belly laugh. Turning toward it and away from the sun, you blink your eyes open properly and relocate your limbs. Squinting past the spots in your eyes and the protesting of… well, every bit of you, you push yourself up and realize the owner of the voice is right here next to you, already starting to brush himself off. His dark hair is mussed and grass has stained his yellow button-up, but his crinkled-eye smile is the same as the night before. Another laugh bubbles out of Wilford, truly amused as you both come back to yourselves in the grass.

“Good lord, dear girl, you really don’t do things by half, eh?”

[stonefreeak]

Here we go, another month, another update! November was really busy, lemme tell you. But, we’re trucking along with this fic, and I hope y’all will be willing to continue to follow along until the end!

More and more senators get arrested, the holonet is in an uproar, and more and more planets find themselves suddenly needing to elect new representation for the Senate.

Obi-Wan and Ha'han-ash find themselves buried in paperwork and running like headless tookas trying to ensure a safe democratic process taking place in each of the affected planets—easier said than done considering many of the arrested senators were never democratically elected in the first place!

Couple the chaos of high-ranking Senators being arrested and tried in the courts for corruption, and in a few horrifying cases even treason due to the senators in question feeding information to the Separatists, with more Separatist worlds clamouring for negotiations of rejoining the Republic... Well, Obi-Wan is starting to feel as strung out and exhausted as he did just before Cody went and spoke with Master Yoda.

Which, of course, can only mean one thing: Obi-Wan needs to sleep. He needs rest. He's working himself to the bone, despite the fact that he's still recovering from an injury that almost killed him.

In all of the chaos that's going on, he hasn't had much time to lie down and rest. He has no doubt that if Vokara finds out, she'll have him by the neck and drag him to bed sit on him for a week if that's what it takes.

He really does appreciate her and her fire much more when they're peers than he ever did when he was a padawan, he thinks with a chuckle.

He stares at the murgröna-rose on his desk, strokes its leaves and considers his options for a moment.

Perhaps he should just... swallow his pride and ask Master Yoda for help... Again. It rankles, it does, but he's in no shape of doing this any other way. Asking for help is not something to be embarrassed about—regardless of what you're asking for help with.

Obi-Wan shuts down his holopad before the news report can unload more information that will no doubt cause an uproar hat he'll be forced to deal with, and starts heading out.

Blast falls in step with him without saying anything, just as he's been wont to do ever since the explosion. Obi-Wan has heard him talk with Cody, however, to ensure him of Obi-Wan's recovery as well as that of Waxer and Boil. Which was an enormous relief when Obi-Wan was told. They are good men, and he would have hated to lose them.

He allows Blast to escort him back to the Temple, there are few men he would trust more, and he is not yet in any condition to think he should handle himself. Another opportunistic assassin and it may just be the end of the line for him.

Take not your life for granted.

~~~~

“There is something I would like to say, though I am not sure if I should.” Plo Koon’s hologram looked conflicted, his brow lowered.

“Tell us, you should. Let the thoughts fester, you should not. Bad, it would be.” Master Yoda leans forward, tapping his gimer stick once.

“It seems like the Separatists are… floundering. Their plans are weaker, they’ve seen through far fewer of our strategies and we’ve experienced far fewer setbacks than usual.” Plo pauses and rubs his chin. “It’s… almost as if they’ve lost an important source of information.”

There’s a pause, complete silence stretches on. Obi-Wan strokes his beard thoughtfully.

There’s a horrible niggling suspicion in taking root in his mind. A few months ago he couldn’t even have considered it for a second, but in the light of everything else.

“As if the CIS has had an inside informer from the start—one who’s been able to feed them many of our plans and strategies—but in recent times said informant is lost to them?” He glances around the Council chamber, curious to see the reactions.

Plo nods slowly.

“That would fit, yes.”

There's an itching in the back of Obi-Wan's head, as if there's something he's missing. Something important. The feeling hasn't left him since he woke up from his coma, and regardless of what information he finds or is given, it doesn't go away. There is something.

Putting it out of his mind for now, he turns his attention back to the meeting. Considering how prolonged the war effort has been, considering how ineffectual Palpatine was... Considering the Jedi missions... Is it possible that Palpatine was a spy for the Separatists?

His sudden rise to power, the fact that a Sith lord is the head of the Separatists—sometimes Obi-Wan wonders how Qui-Gon would have taken the news of his old master's fall—and combining that with the fact that Palpatine likely has been a pawn to the Sith as well... Has he been leaking battle plans to Dooku? Or the Sith Master who in turn gave it to Dooku?

"Considering something, are you?" Yoda's voice breaks into his thoughts.

Obi-Wan looks up and realises that the entire council is looking at him with curious expressions.

"I... may have a suspicion regarding who the spy might be, but I have no solid proof. It makes sense, but I do not want to affect everyone else's ability to look at the situation with clear and unbiased eyes, so I must keep my silence for the time being."

Perhaps once the corruption investigation is finished he'll know more...

"Very well, that is a very reasonable position to take, Master Kenobi." Mace's voice is grave, but he doesn't seem upset. He likely knows as well as anyone the tightrope they walk.

The discussion continues and Obi-Wan listens intently to his fellow council members as they detail the necessary levels of clearance the spy would need—or at the very least what kind of person the spy would need access to in order to get information from them.

When Mace brings up the ecological damage to worlds where fighting has taken place, and the importance of helping the biological life on them recover, Obi-Wan is instantly and horribly reminded of the Zillo beast, and Mace's attempts to get it—the last surviving member of its species—relocated to a safe home. Only for those hopes to be dashed by Palpatine demanding it be taken to Coruscant for study... Coruscant where the beast ultimately was killed to save the members of the galactic senate.

Obi-Wan still cannot fathom what went through Palpatine's mind when he made that decision, that demand, but he knows that Mace is still working on letting go of his regret over what happened.

The regret of the innocents you failed to help, failed so save, are usually the regrets that weigh the heaviest on your soul.

Obi-Wan knows the feeling well and it's one many Jedi meditate on long and often.

"Well then," Master Ti says and folds her hands in her lap, "If we've finished today's session I believe it is time for me to return to the troops. There have been some irregularities that I need to address. For their own safety and that of the rest of their companies."

At the mention of the clone troopers, the itching in the back of Obi-Wan's head suddenly gives way to remembrance: the chips.

He'd been planning to ask Master Ti about the chips installed in the brains of the clone troopers.

"Master Ti, a moment please!"

The entire council freezes on the spot, and Master Ti's hand hovers in the air from where she was just about to shut off the holotransmission.

"Master Kenobi?" She blinks rapidly, and Obi-Wan doesn't think he's ever seen her look that surprised before. She's usually entirely unflappable.

"My apologies for the abruptness, I just..." He coughs. "I remembered something I've been meaning to speak with you about. Regarding the troopers."

Master Ti leans back in her chair and and she places her hands in her lap.

"Absolutely, Master Kenobi. If there's anything I can help you with..." She recovers quickly, which is very typical of her and Obi-Wan suppresses a smile at the thought.

He strokes his beard. "Some of the correspondence I saw between former Chancellor Palpatine and the Kaminoans mentioned... Microchips installed in the brains of every single trooper." He frowns. "There was nothing regarding their usage, but their presence worries me. Have the Kaminoans spoken to you about it?"

Master Ti's face changes from serene to grave and she purses her lips briefly. "No, they have not." She glances off to the side. "I will speak to them about it... But I will also do my own research. If they give me a benign answer for their presence, considering all of the conspiracies against us we've found so far... Well, I don't trust it. Especially since they have not been upfront about them."

"I agree," Mace says suddenly. "Utmost carefulness is imperative. As soon as you know more, Master Ti, please contact the council with your report."

"Of course, Master Windu." Master Ti inclines her head towards him.

"Dark, these times are. Dangerous, they are. And yet lightened, the Force has. What dangers stepped past unknowingly, have we?"

Master Yoda's words sends a chill through Obi-Wan's body, and the council meeting ends on that most chilling of thoughts.

—

(Supreme Chancellor Obi-Wan Kenobi masterpost)

[salaciouscrumpet]

Whumptober Day 2

Whumptober Day 2: Alternative Prompt #16 “Bound”

I just could not get the “explosion” prompt to work for me, so I’m using one of the alternate prompts instead because as soon as I saw it I had an idea. Again, this features characters from my original WIP and hasn’t really been edited.

Content Warning: graphic injury, blood, a whole lot of swearing

Characters: Kate, Luke

Consciousness came like a flash of lightning from a clear sky, only the lightning was white-hot pain and the sky was her body. Kate woke suddenly, a switch being flipped from off to on, and managed to bite back a cry of pain only through sheer force of will. She’d had a lot of rude awakenings in her life, but each one sucked in its own uniquely delightful way. 

She was bound, wrists manacled together over her head and – another muffled groan as she tilted her head back far enough to look up – chained to the cinder-block wall above her. Under normal circumstances the manacles wouldn’t be an issue, even sturdy-built ones like these: she was probably strong enough to rip them loose even if she couldn’t break the bands themselves, and failing that she could shift into something smaller that could just slip free. 

No, the chains didn’t really give her pause. The six-inch-long metal railroad spikes driven through her shoulders, however – yeah, those brought her up short. 

The metal looked to be silver-coated, which … did her captors think she was a fucking werewolf? At least, she was pretty sure they were just silver-coated and not actually made of silver, because silver was actually fairly soft and … okay, this maybe wasn’t the time for her to succumb to one of Syd’s science rants. In any event, there were actual bits of metal stuck through her shoulders, and sure, she could theoretically shift her way free of those, too – if she didn’t mind the metal dragging its way through muscle, bone and skin as she changed into something smaller. That was a sure-fire way to guarantee permanent damage, and frankly, Kate kind of liked having both arms. 

The spikes were only through her shoulders – and that was a sentence she never thought she’d feel relief about – and not through her hands or legs and feet. Her feet were bare and resting on what felt like cold, packed dirt; between her feet on the ground and her hands bound to the wall, her weight was not being supported by the metal spikes, and that was another positive thing in what was otherwise turning out to be a shit-sandwich kind of day. 

Because curiosity had always outweighed self-preservation in Kate’s mind, she gave her bindings a careful tug, testing their strength to see if there was any give. She could feel something grinding in her left shoulder, a sensation that made her stomach give a queasy flip, and suspected the spike was pushing against bone. Otherwise, nothing about her current predicament suggested that there would be an easy way out about this. Shoulders were – despite Hollywood’s tendency to imply otherwise – hardly a safe place for injury; there were a lot of complicated parts and a lot could go wrong with an impalement there. Her captors had clearly missed any of the arteries there, or she would already have bled to death by now, but there were nerves and muscles in there that were pretty obviously damaged, and if she shifted there was no way to be sure she wouldn’t tear the spikes through something vital. It wasn’t the silver that kept her pinned like one of Roxanne’s mounted butterflies, it was the placement of the spikes and the knowledge that she could permanently fuck herself up if she did the wrong thing. 

Of course, if it came between permanent injury and a far worse fate, well, Kate knew what her choice would be. 

Bizarrely, her first real thought was that someone needed to tell Ardyn and the rest of the Alliance that the hunters she and Luke had been sent out to locate were in fact Hunters. Not dumbass city boys hoping to bag themselves a deer, but (probably actually still dumbass) men and women who knew about the existence of monsters and were out in the woods to bring them down. As her current predicament demonstrated, Hunters didn’t actually need to be well-educated or right to occasionally be effective. 

Thinking about the reason she and Luke had been out in the woods in the first place made her think about Luke, and for one frantic moment Kate was terrified that he was staked to the wall with her, or worse, that the Hunters had already killed him and dumped his body somewhere. Before she could get too carried away with those fears, however, she managed to get her head turned enough to see off into the shadows to her right – turning her head hurt, both in the way it pulled at the muscles in her neck and back, and in the way the back of her skull brushed against the cinderblock wall, putting pressure on what was sure to be one hell of a goose-egg – where, to her immense relief, her boyfriend was lying in the corner. Unlike her, Luke wasn’t bound and staked to the wall; instead, he was curled up on the ground, his wrists and ankles securely bound with thick rope. 

On the one hand, Kate was glad that Luke was spared the distinctly unpleasant sensation of metal stabbing through his shoulders. On the other hand, what the actual fuck? Chain up the itty-bitty woman, but let’s just use some rope on the guy built like a brick shithouse? She didn’t know whether to be flattered or offended that their captors saw her as the real threat. 

Silly Hunters. They were both the real threat. 

Of course, Luke presently appeared to be unconscious, which was … rather less threatening than usual. She’d like to think that was why she got the vampire/werewolf double-bill treatment and he got to sleep it off in the dirt, but she’d been out cold, too, up until just a few minutes ago. No, for whatever reason their captors knew that Kate was more than just a tiny, apple-cheeked redhead, but they hadn’t figured out that the giant strongman was – actually, scratch that, their captors were clearly idiots if it hadn’t occurred to them that, supernaturally-enhanced or not, the 6’4” muscle-bound biker-looking dude was probably some kind of dangerous. 

That was okay. Kate could work with idiots. 

Across the room – which looked like a set piece from The Blair Witch Project – Luke groaned and then immediately went still as he became aware of his surroundings. Kate cleared her throat, hoping to get his attention before he realized he was bound and started freaking out. 

“Hey, baby,” she said, pitching her voice low in the hopes that only he would hear her. She’d yet to see any sign of their captors, but it was too much to wish that they were nowhere nearby. 

Luke lifted his head and – oh, that was a lot of blood. The entire right side of his face was painted red, and Kate tried not to panic because, let’s face it, Luke’s head bleeds a lot. Yeah, head injuries in general tended to be pretty messy, but it was Kate’s honest opinion that of all the times she’d witnessed them, for whatever reason Luke was the one whose head seemed to bleed the most. Of course, Luke and Charlie were pretty much the only people she gave a shit about and Charlie was smart enough to stay out of the field for the most part, but still. It was like Luke’s skull was a papier-mâché decoration filled with blood. 

“Hey, love,” she said again, watching him squint as he tried to focus on her. “Don’t freak out, okay? I’m –” 

She wasn’t sure what, exactly, she was going to say – some variation of “I’m fine, don’t worry about it,” probably – but that was when Luke realized that he was tied up – and that she was stuck to the wall like a really morbid art installation. One or the other he could have handled fine, but both combined, plus what was no doubt a vicious headache, made him immediately start hyperventilating. 

Luke did not do well with confinement. Granted, most people weren’t exactly cool with it, but Luke really wasn’t cool. 

Telling a panicking person to calm down was probably the least effective way of getting them to calm down, but under the circumstances Kate’s options were somewhat limited, and she didn’t want Luke to hurt himself. She called to him from across the room, trying to get him to breathe normally, to focus on breaking free of the ropes, but Luke’s panic made him flail ineffectually and whatever their captors had done to knock him out had left him uncoordinated and confused. When he finally stopped – lungs heaving with the effort to drag oxygen into his body – he flopped weakly on the ground, face pressed into the dirt. 

Normally Kate was willing to accept the Alliance’s general prohibition on murder. The usual protocol when dealing with newfound Hunters was to try to recruit them, because the Alliance had a sort of “the more, the merrier” outlook when it came to membership (which explained Kate’s presence, frankly). These Hunters, though? Kate was going to rip them limb from limb for putting Luke through this. There wasn’t going to be a heart left beating.

[spiderfan22]

DAY THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN - 3/26/18

“UNTITLED HOTEL ROOM PLAY (SCENE 6)” by DJS

On to the second half of the this. The Businessman returns! And the meta-nessssss begins.

(I’m as surprised as anybody.)

SCENE SIX

The Businessman is back.

It is late afternoon of the next day in the Businessman’s timeline.

We first see him passed out on one of the beds, on his stomach but facing the wrong direction—his bare feet up by the pillows, head hanging off the foot of the bed.

He is alone.

Bright daylight streams in from the windows. The curtains are wide open.

With a grunt, the Businessman wakes up. Rolls over onto his back and stares at the ceiling uncomprehendingly.

To say he has a hangover would be an understatement.

He looks down at the lower half of his body.

BUSINESSMAN       When did I take off my socks?

Long pause. He rolls over onto his stomach again.

I think I’m gonna throw up. Seriously when did I take off my socks because I don’t remember. I don’t remember doing that. I know I got pretty hot last night—uh. Pretty warm I mean. Overheated. So it’d make sense I’d want to take off my socks at some point, I just don’t recall the actual—when I did that. I don’t—you see—I don’t like having gaps in my memory. It’s bad for business, you see. Like a steel trap—that’s how I want to be, that’s how I’d prefer to be known. In business circles, I mean. You can’t put anything over on me because I remember everything. And if we didn’t talk about it, if we didn’t agree to it—because a verbal contract’s a real thing, sometimes the only thing you have to go on—so knowing what was said but more importantly what was not said—do you follow? So people can’t put words in your mouth.

People should never put anything in your mouth you don’t want them—not against your will—unless you want them to. That’s a rule—or should be if this was any kind of just society.

I took my socks off—ok. But where am I? Where are my socks? Get to the point, Peter.

Pause. He sits up on one elbow.

My name’s not Peter by the way—in case you were wondering. You know me simply as “Businessman” and that’s good enough.

I’m gonna look for my sock now—socks now. Because they come in pairs. (Amused, he chuckles.) They come in pairs—you see? You see what I did there? They come in pairs, hehe, like all things do. Like all good things do. Come in puh—

It’s a sex joke.

He stumbles around the room looking for his socks.

Maybe we should—while I’m on the hunt—maybe we should go over a bit everything that happened in the first half. Because I see some confused faces out there. And you’re not wrong. It—the story, can be sorta all over the place. We’ll break it down by character.

First there’s me. The Businessman. Your basic mid-life crisis in motion. Loveless marriage, indifferent to my own kids—obsessed with work, I’m on the road half the time. So I’m in freefall, right?—the big downward spiral—nothing creative or revolutionary there—looking for any kind of thrill or sign of life I can as I spin desperately out of control. Hence the anonymous sex with a male prostitute—a first for me—not to mention the sudden urge to do a whole bunch of meth—I don’t know where that came from. But—and this bears out, some validity here I think—that there’s two things will get a man in trouble. Too much time and too much money. Any combination and you got yourselves a travesty waiting to happen. You can’t find a pair of socks in a three hundred twenty square foot room.

                                   Moving on. Second scene—Jay and Liv. And if you’re like me you may have found this story so far the most confusing. Very little in the way of context is giving. Obviously they’re a couple—I mean they seem romantic, but with the age difference you kind of get a father-daughter vibe from them. At least I do. Who knows, I could be wrong. Added to that, it’s never made clear just exactly what they’re in town for—that whole plotline, shrouded in mystery. They have a meeting, they’re meeting someone in a short time. Jay has shaved for the occasion and it’s important to Liv she look presentable as well. Maybe, you could say, they’re just going out, it’s not a big deal, whatever it is—nobody wants to look like shit, you put yourself together—but I don’t know, it seems bigger than that. And the whole Fox News thing. Well, I lean more conservative, it’s not so strange to me—but most liberals—or theater-going types, let’s be honest—you all—they’re gonna find that aspect, its inclusion, odd. I guess wait and see? Yeah.

                                   Then we have Ellen. You remember her. The “Mom” in the swimsuit, alone by herself in the room while her family’s down at the pool splashing around? The stereotypical husband doesn’t want to ask for directions? Part of me wonders if we’re supposed to get the contrast here—her disaffected Mother to my ineffectual Father. Remains to be seen. End of the day, she’s not exactly happy is she? And it looked like she was gonna play with herself for a second, didn’t it?

                                   We’ve touched on my scene with the unnamed Boy Hooker for some reason. I mean he’s unnamed for some reason, not that we touched on the scene for some reason, like it was arbitrarily thrown in there. I mean of course we touched on the scene—it happened, it was of consequence. But not too much consequence as we’ve established—I’m just going through my cliché mid-life crisis scenario thing. But the kid’s still kind of an enigma, right? Like a cipher. Is he just a means to an end? Will we even see him again? I’m sure the actor playing him hopes so. Probably—probably we will. There are some unanswered questions there.

                                   Last you got the sisters Margo and Shara and their whole fucked up scenario—trying to rescue their mom from some cult she’s in. Not exactly believable? (shrugs) I don’t know, you be the judge. But it was certainly compelling to watch, right? I mean the dynamic between those two opposing forces? One a bundle of nerves, insecure. The other more confident, only not so touchy-feely, business-minded, which I can obviously relate to.  And that’s pretty much it, that’s all you’re gonna get, because I’ll tell you right now, and not to spoil anything but, you don’t get to meet the mom—she’s not a character in this play. You’ll find out the reason why soon enough, but suffice it to say she’s not around anymore. So whatever happens, whatever’s left to be played, stays between the sisters themselves. But that’s good—I mean it’s not a bad thing, because they obviously have some shit to resolve—deal with. So…

The Businessman still can’t find his missing socks.

So he gives up, sits on the corner of the bed. Pause.

BUSINESSMAN       Also (clears throat) I had a dream last night. After I’d finally passed out. And bear in mind, y’know, I’d done a lot of meth before this, admittedly, so this might be colored by—by some of that. There may have been some influence I’m saying, chemical influences there, so…

                                   But in the dream, my dream, I’m eating a bowl of—well, I don’t know, like pasta, or cereal or something?—in a bowl, and in the bowl mixed in with the whatever it is I’m eating are these little pieces—of shit. Just little pieces of shit, you know? Like little turds, little turd-lets, so small. Like pet-, like cat—like when you scoop the catbox. That size. Bite-size. But unmistakable, you know? And they don’t smell, they don’t smell either, they just look—but unmistakably shit. And they’re mixed in, like they’re the protein in the, of the dish, like how you’d have chicken or shrimp, or sausage in your pasta, cut up and mixed—fettuccine alfredo. And I should have mentioned but I’m at this big table, or there are a bunch of tables, like in a restaurant, so there’s lots of people and everybody’s just—they’re chowing down, you know? All eating the same—eating this shit. Like it’s perfectly normal to be eating. And I’m the only one who notices or thinks anything’s weird with this. Everyone’s just going along, they’re—with no thought. This is the world we live in, must live in now, I think, in the dream. This is society now, this is the accepted—I mean this is where we’re at. And knowing all this, realizing, I still can’t bring myself to—likewise—to actually take a bite. It’s—I know too much, I remember what it used to be, how things used to—when we didn’t eat shit, that I can’t ignore the literal pieces of shit in my food. (pause)

Well then I woke up. Or I didn’t wake up, but the dream ended.

I don’t remember what happened next.

He stares forward.

End of scene.

 To be continued…