#i just call that penumbra because its Fancy

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Weird “Halloween”

Whipped something up for you guys this morning. Though, I would appreciate any prompts or ideas you guys have. I am going through a bit of an idea slump and need some inspiration :) Just like this story, bing suggested to me by an outside party. 

Krill awoke, well not really awoke because Vrul don’t sleep, but more like drifted out of a daydream, completely unsuspecting. Then again, when it came to humans, he was almost always completely unsuspecting. 

Krill generally took his hiatus in the in the medical bay, since he spent so much time there. There was, however, one drawback to this…. He woke to the sight of Conn, the starborn, floating suspended in a corner of the room. His large black eyes were wide and unseeing, his large, round mouth was parted revealing the sharp interior vortex of teeth. He saw nothing, ad he responded to nothing. It had been months since the event at the prison, and still, the starborn remained comatose. Internal cranial scans had not shown anything definitive. Starborn were difficult to read when compared to humans, but still it was frustrating they could find nothing.

Over all else, Commander Vir blamed himself, Conn had saved his life before falling into a coma, and the man seemed to think it was partially him to blame, Krill couldn’t have disagreed more, but there was no arguing with the man.

It was rather early, and the medical bay was empty, the lights above had been dimmed to mirror solar cycles and allow for the proper function of the human circadian rhythm. The biggest protest Krill had against this practice was it made everything dark and kind of creepy, especially when you had a brain dead starborn floating in the corner. The shuttered internally and turned away from the corner quickly making his way from the room and into the dark hall.

Admittedly it wasn’t much better out here. While the  medical bay had a comatose starborn, the outside hallways were covered in an exposed layer of pipe, and without the reflective white surface of the hospital interior, the hallways were much darker. 

Due to safety concerns, the hallways were lit by a single light every twenty feet, but that was seriously no help. He swallowed his concern beating it back with logic and made his way down the hall. The Commander would be awake soon, and krill had a few concerns he wanted to bring before the man.

He was passing a T intersection on his way to the bridge when an echoing clatter reached him from down the hall. He turned peering into the darkness, his night vision was relatively poor, so he saw nothing, but switching over to his thermal vision, he could see the faint figure of a human standing in the hallway. It was a rather hunched person, but other than its heat signature, he couldn't see anything else.

He switched back to his regular vision, “Hello?” he called into the darkness.

Another soft clattering, and a figure appeared from the balck stepping into the penumbra of light right at the edge of darkness and visible light. Krill blinked in confusion. 

It was a woman, or at least he thought it was. She had her face concealed by ragged drapes of long black hair, her head tilted down towards the floor. Her shoulders were hunched, and her hands were held down to the side. She wore only a long white t-shirt, or perhaps a night dress. Krill might have mistaken it as a hospital gown.

Seemed odd, usually the crew were at least somewhat dressed and presentable? Perhaps they were sleepwalking, humans did that sometimes, “Hello.” Krill called again.”

He took a step forward, and before he knew what was happening, she was crawling across the floor limbs contorted feet scrabbling. 

Krill leat off a high pitched squeal turned and ran even as her scuttling followed after him a horrible brushing slapping noise as her hands came in contact with the metal. 

She was so close he could hear her breath.

He shrieked again, and somewhere along the hall a door opened.

A large blue head appeared form the doorway blearily blinking, “Krill what.” Sunny froze when she turned to look eyes growing wide, then grabbing krill up in one arm, she crouched into a fighting stance head lowered.

The ‘thing’ pulled up short, and then sat back on its heels. Dark hair parted about a grotesque face grey and cold with dark black about the eyes and a horrid blackness about the lips, “That is really hard on the shoulders, by the way.”

Sunny and Krill stared at the creature in surprise as the woman got to her feet dusting off her hands and knees throwing her dark hair over her shoulder. She giggled, “You should have seen your face.”

“Damn Cortney, that was just mean.” Krill and sunny turned again to find the Commander standing at the end of the hall followed by a possy of other humans, and all of them were….. Well they were dressed very strangely. The Commander himself was wearing a maroon button up shirt tucked into tan pants and a brown leather gunbelt and boots. Over that he wore a brown leather jacket that reached almost to the floor. Most surprisingly is he had replaced his eyepatch with a prosthetic eye. 

Sunny cocked her head, in confusion, “What is this all about?”

“Hold on, Krill though, that’s low hanging fruit.”

The woman shrugged, “He was the only one I knew who I could scare and not get stomped, besides.” She grinned, “He squeals like a child.”

“Captain, we’re wasting time.” One of the bridge crew had stepped up to the Commander’s side. He was wearing a strange blue long sleeve shirt, black pants…. And well his ears seemed rather pointir than they should have been.

“And You are absolutely right.” he motioned the group behind him forward, “Come on wouldn’t want to miss anything.”

Sunny and Krill stood by in confusion as the humans walked past in the wake of the captain. Behind him, a bearded man in tan robes and a brown cloak followed by another in a strange blck suit of armor with some serious breathing issues, and then a bunch of white armored men after that. In stark contrast to that a few people came by in very dated clothing the women with large skirts, and the men with fancy tipped canes. Sunny found one of the costumes quite unsettling, a human painted with a whte face but bright red lips, and nose with a shock of orange hair and a very strange lacy costume. When he smiled at her, it made her shiver.

After that, A human in a long black and red cape, dark hair slicked back. He smiled at them, and his teeth were far longer than they should have been. Sunny could tell by the way krill cringed, that he wasn’t particularly pleased with this. 

They continued to parade past in a column, strange armor, stranger clothing. Sunny recognized some of them from the multitudinous amount of movies Vir had made her watch. 

A woman in full plate armor clanked her way past walking side by side with a man wearing ablack suit, dark hair reaching to his shoulders. He had a very closely cropped dark beard, and under one arm he held a stuffed beagle…. Whatever that was about.

After they had gone past, sunny and Krill tagged onto the end of the line following the group of humans into the rec room where they ranged themselves comfortably. Commander Vir motioned them closer, “Come on you two, don't’ think I didn’t forget about you.” Sunny was a bit confused when he handed her a very strange looking weapon shaped sort of like a teardrop, but with two prongs. When she pressed a button near the handle, the entire thing lit up with analogue blue electricity. 

Kril got some sort of black covering with a red hourglass shape on the back.

“What is this?” Krill demanded 

The commander grinned and opened his arms wide, “This my friend is october 31st, Halloween.”

“A hallow whatsis?” 

“No Hloween. Probably about the greatest holiday ever.”

“Like christmas?” Krill wondered.

“Exactly like christmas. A pagan holiday evolved overtime for commercialization to squeeze every drop of income out of the general populace, and absolutely the best.” Krill and Sunny looked back and forth between each other in confusion 

“What does that have to do with the costumes?”

“Well originally i think it had to do something with wearing masks so a demon couldn’t see your real face or something, but now you just dress up as whatever is cool, and then the kids go around asking people for candy. For adults it's an excuse to get drunk, eat their kids candy, and watch a scary movie marathon.” 

Sunny crossed her arms, “And which one of those will we be doing now?”

The Commander grinned at her, “Well, now that we are dressed up, we will be doing a scary movie marathon, eating candy, and then later we are going to party and get drunk…. Within reason.”

Oh great, this was going to be a disaster. Humans always thought alcohol was a good idea….. It never was.

The commander took  a seat on one of the couches and then patted the cushions next to him, “See, I Reserved seats for the three of us…. oh , just one warning though, I am a total pansy when it comes to scary movies. I will scream, no question about it.” 

“Than….. Why are we doing it?” Sunny wondered 

“Because it's halloween, the entire point is to be scared at at least some point during the day.” 

-

He was very much ot kidding. He did scream, a lot, and he had a habit of grabbing sunny rather violently when anything jumped out at them. Sunny personally didn’t see the big deal, there wasn’t any monster for real, and even if there was, she had a couple of ideas on how to get rid of them, and most of them involved a sharp stick of some sort, or a grenade. It also didn’t help that the humans were always stupid, she knew humans and she was very aware of how well their flight or fight system worked. No human she knew would walk into a dark room after something creepy happened to them. 

But these humans, they loved it, if they weren’t freaking out they were laughing at the others freaking out, and even those who were freaking out ended up laughing a few seconds later. She was sure that Krill had some paper in mind about human social bonding, or perhaps a theory about the calibration of the flight or fight system encouraged by the viewing of scary movies, but she wasn’t convinced.

Watching Adam almost pee himself was rather entertaining, and out of the two of them, she liked it when he was forced to rely on her. In this case, he mostly just borrowed her as a shield, but still, it was funny.

Krill was not particularly happy with the amount of trash food consumed. He hadn’t exactly known about health science when he started, kind of assuming that humans could just eat anything they wanted, but now he knew better, and knowing better meant being annoyed at the human’s poor life choices. 

As for the strange costumes, it turned out that the humans had dressed themselves up as popular characters from movies, books, or history. If not a specific person, than they chose for an aesthetic. The woman in white was from a centuries old horror movie called, the ring. As for Commander Vir, he described his costume as “Coming from the best underrated sci-fi television show to ever grace planet earth.

She would have placed him in a western rather than science fiction, but it seemed as if humans didn’t like following the rules of their own genres. 

As for Krill, he did have a couple of theories to write about. Yes, sunny was right about the first two, and in conjunction with each other. Laughter was, mostly, a social emotion, sure humans laughed to themselves, but they did it at a much higher frequency around other humans. Furthermore, from what he could tell, many humans didn’t like to watch these sort of movies alone which condcluded to him that fear was designed to be a social experience. In fact, humanity seemed to have designed a way to foster greater social bonds in people by having them experience fear together, not only that, but the human sympathetic nervous system was allowed to work in a safe environment readying itself for if something DID happen, and practicing for the eventuality.

He came to the conclusion that it was probably a good practice for the humans. It was a safe way for them to experience stress with other humans and prepare mentally for dangerous situations. For once, Krill actually approved of the behavior, it was safe, nothing dangerous about watching a movie.

As for the costumes, he had a theory about that too. Humans, and partially the Drev, were the only creatures known to design fictional events through fiction, as demonstrated by the movies. The Drev had generally used it the purpose of religion creating gand epics of fantastic warriors in order to teach their children attributes proper for a warrior. Humans would make up anything for the entertainment of it, they had an uncanny ability to imagine themselves in fantastic situations, and many spent time looking for these stories actively. Krill wondered if it was a way to practice empathy, putting yourself in the shoes of another, or if it was some sort of learning. Perhaps they gleaned information from unusual situations preparing themselves in case something were to happen.

The Commander’s opinion? Well he pointed out that it was fun to be someone else for a while, someone who was braver than you, smarter than you, better looking than you, or maybe had a more interesting life then you. It gave you an excuse to act in ways you wouldn't normally do, and allowed others to accept your actions as, not you, bu of another person.

Humanity desired nothing more than adventure, and perhaps…. That’s why they went to space before bothering to find out what was in the depths of their own ocean.

[noire-queen]

Through the mist

It has taken me ages, and many, many hours, but here is your gift, #38, for the @capri-secretsanta!

I hope you’ll enjoy it despite my very ehm personal take on the prompts. And about that, none of this would have been possible hadn't it been for @helaris Who took this story, and turned it on its head with her incredible imagination.

A smutty epilogue will follow, because I realized I bit off more than I could chew with the worldbuilding, and it just didn’t fit all in! All the same, I hope you enjoy it, and I wish you happy holidays and a wonderful 2018.

November

The first time Damen saw it, he thought it was an illusion. A fancy brought on by the fog that clung to his skin and snuck down his throat, not letting him breathe. That must be it, he’d thought.

He’d walked hundreds of times down this alley, and he was pretty sure he knew it by now.

It’s the kind of place only someone like Damen could walk at night. With only a few street lamps here and there, shop-less, without any habitations, it looked more like a black hole than a street.

Still, it was the fastest way to get to his place from work. And even though both Jokaste and Nikandros had agreed that it constantly felt like someone was watching you, Damen had never met a single soul here.

It wasn’t exactly the best place to set up shop though.

But there, in darkest, most secluded part of the narrow street, was a door. A glass door, with a white frame. Light spilled out of it, diffusing to nothing in the mist, never quite reaching the floor.

For a moment, Damen stood there. Then he got closer to it. When trying to peer inside showed him nothing but light, he went for the round brass doorknob. It was covered in ice, the thin needles prickling his skin. When Damen turned it, it gave, the door opened, and Damen stepped in.  

The door shut on its own behind him the second both his feet were inside. Damen hardly noticed.

Despite the light spilling outside, the lighting of the room was feeble. Shelves lined the walls on either side. On each of them, glass jars were filled with what looked to be dry flowers, herbs and powders, the colors of which Damen couldn’t make out in the penumbra. Despite the corks closing them, the contents of the jars filled the air with a sharp and spicy smell of cinnamon. Damen took a step forward, and the smell changed, molding itself in a fruity fragrance that reminded him of the red berries tea his mother drank.

The room was longer than it was large. Little cages in which plants were growing, their branches overflowing out of the lit bars, hung from the ceiling. It was the ceiling itself that left Damen breathless. Or rather, the lack  of it. Where the ceiling should have been, Damen could see only the dark, ink-black night, and the stars sparkling within it, as purple clouds passed by

A noise drew his attention back to the rest of the place. The ringing of a pendulum. It came from the wall farthest away from Damen. On it, there were at least ten different clocks. It was too dark to read the hours on them. In front of the wall, at the very end of the room, was a counter. Some steps before it, a blackboard, like those you find outside of bars, of cafes. On it, written in white, was a message:

“Hi” It read “ I’m Auguste, and this is my shop.

I don’t know what you’re looking for. I don’t know if it is for you to take a breather, determination, the love of your life.

I don’t know what you need, but the shop does.

In fact, if the shop has found you - that’s likely the reason.

What you need will appear on the counter. You can take it, it’s yours!

I sincerely hope you find what you need. Just keep in mind, that what you want and what you need, are not always the same thing.

Good luck!

Auguste”

“Excuse me?” Damen said. “ Auguste, sir?”

But no-one answered, so Damen went further into the shop, every-one of his steps echoing despite his wearing sneakers.

“Is anybody here?”

Again, no-one answered. So Damen kept walking until he was standing in front of the counter.

At first, he only noticed what was on it. A glass-vial, similar to the others that were on the shelves. It contained a purplish liquid. Hanging from the neck of the vial was a white tag:

“I know what you need.” It read.

For a moment, Damen hesitated. Once again, he lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “What is this place?” he asked out-loud.

“ One day a person smart enough to read that thing and understand it will walk through that door. That day isn’t today.”

“Pardon?” Damen said.

“Pardon?” the voice mimicked.

“Is anyone here?

“Is anyone here?” the voice mimicked again.

This time, the vial slid backwards on the surface. Damen followed it with his eyes and only when it stopped moving, did he see the hand that had gripped the tag and pulled it backwards.

Up until that moment, Dament hadn’t noticed the man sitting behind the counter before:

The man was slender. He was leaning backwards in his chair, his legs crossed. With one hand, he was toying with the tag of the vial, while the other kept drumming on the surface of the counter. His cool blue eyes stared straight into Damen’s. They stayed like that for a second, both immobile. Then, simultaneously, they snapped out of it. But while the man only narrowed his eyes, Damen asked: “ Excuse me, are you Auguste?”

The man’s eyes went wide. Damen kept on talking. “ You mustn’t have a lot of customers if that’s how you talk to them.”

The man shot up, and leaned over the counter, pressing his palms on it’s surface and bracing his weight that way. His face started getting closer and closer to Damen’s. “ You can see me?” the man managed to ask in a tone that was both incredulous and held also a hint of scorn in it.

He lifted one hand slowly, then moved it close to Damen’s face and then snapped his fingers right in front of his eyes.  Then he moved the hand away again.

“Shouldn’t I?”

The man kept moving the hand, observing, Damen supposed, if his eyes were tracking the movement. The man exhaled, and let his hand fall back on the counter.

“That’s novel.” He said. “ It had never happened to me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Damen said, shifting in his place, not daring to move. “Are you Auguste?” he asked again.

The man shook his head, but didn’t volunteer any more information. Then he took a step back,

“Who are you, then?”

“I own this place. That, technically, would make me the owner.”

“So you’re not Auguste,” Damen repeated.  

“No” the man shook his head “You may call me Owner, or Not-Auguste, or Owner Not-Auguste. Whichever puts your mind at ease. Shop-keeper is fine, too. I’d go for shop-keeper if you were to ask me. It has that-” the man rubbed the tips of his finger together, almost like he had forgotten a word and was trying to pull it out of thin air. “-That ring to it. Drives the message home on what my role in this place is.”

“No, you’re certainly not Auguste, Mr. Shop-keeper. He seems to be a much nicer fellow.”

The man’s shoulders went rigid and the corners of his lips twitched.

“We can at least agree on this one.”

Damen was expecting for the man to add something, but he didn’t. So, Damen asked:

“And do you have a name, Mr. Shop-keeper?”

“Laurent.”

Damen had nodded. When Laurent didn’t add anything, Damen said:  “I’m Damen. What is this place?”

Laurent shrugged, as if his question had been trivial:

“Since we’ve established that I’m a shop-keeper, that would make this a shop. That’s not the real question here. Rather; the question is: why can you see me, or hear me?”

Damen opened his mouth to answer, but Laurent waved a hand in front of his face as if to shake away an unbidden thought. “Nevermind , ” he picked the vial up by the tag and handed it to him. “ That’s why you’re here.”

Damen had kept on toying with the small vial all the way home. He kept upending it, watching the liquid make his way from one side to the other, before he turned it again and everything went back to the way it’d been.

Laurent had promised that whatever he needed, that tiny vial would give it to him.

Damen didn’t know if he believed it himself, but when he’d left the shop, he’d turned around, and the door had been gone. If it vouched for or against the liquid’s effects, Damen didn’t know. Nor did he know what he might have needed. He knew he wanted a lot of things:

To be able to cross that door and feel at home. To leave his jacket on the coat-hanger and not feel like he’d be picking it up in a few hours anyway to leave.

To quit feeling like a guest in his house, to be able to pull out those pictures they’d taken at the beach last summer. In them, he and Jokaste and Nikandros and Kastor, his brother, were laughing, half sprawled on the sand. Damen was leaning backwards. Jokaste was sitting in his lap and Nikandros and Kastor were leaning on them. He’d often tried to take them out of that box, the cardboard of which had gotten wavy from catching rain. But every time he saw his brother’s arm on Jokaste’s shoulder he wondered if they’d already been together, then. His stomach would churn as soon as his fingers opened the flaps of the box, and he wouldn’t manage more than to reach for the frames of those pictures, despite them being turned, their smiling faces facing the bottom of the box,

And although he’d tried to talk himself into throwing the vial away, in the end he’d settled for pocketing it, his every movement through the kitchen accompanied by the clinging of glass against the fake metal button on the inside of his pocket. It sounded nothing like the way his family ring did against the wine bottle when he took it out of the cabinet, or the way the wine glass sounded when he propped it on the crystal surface of the coffee table before letting himself fall on the couch. It was a lighter sound. Like the softest meowing, the sound of a string of honey swinging from left to right.

“You shouldn’t drink it.” A voice in his ear said. “ You’re too trusting. It could be poison, what then?”

It could. But the Shop-Keeper, Laurent, hadn’t struck him as evil. Pissed off, maybe. Irritated. All around unpleasant. Mostly lonely.

“You trust a pretty face too easily. What if I’d turned out to be different?” The voice repeated in his ear, low and persuasive. This time, he recognized it as Jokaste’s. An afterimage of a memory long gone.

For a moment, he stared at the now empty wine bottle, then his attention shifted to the glass which still held droplets in it.

He took a deep breath, then pulled the vial out of his pocket.

“What I really need” he thought, touching the brim of it to his lips, “is to move on.”

He kicked his head back, and the liquid went down his throat.

Damen hadn’t know what to expect.

The first day after drinking the potion - what is a potion? Was it a liquid ? It had tasted faintly like grapes, but that might just have been the wine he’d drunken prior- he’d walked around with the giddiness of the person who knows a surprise is waiting for him, but didn’t know what it was going to be.

He’d gone through his chores at the restaurant with an odd concentration he’d never felt before, waiting for something to change. But nothing did.

He almost took the alley, that evening, then chose to avoid it. First, he’d see how this thing turned out.

The second day, he faced without hope, but with the expectation that eventually, something out of the ordinary would happen.

But a week came and went. On the coldest day in the year, while Damen was crossing the street, he glimpsed in the corner of his eyes someone with the same build and the same hair as him. He jerked around.

It wasn’t Kastor just someone who looked a lot like him, but for the briefest instant Damen had thought he was. And in that second, a pang had gone through his chest, knocking the air out of him, leaving him standing in the middle of the pedestrian crossing, as people passed him on every side. That was the moment Damen knew, whatever that thing was, it hadn’t done anything for him.

That evening, he went looking for the shop. Unsurprisingly, the shop was gone.

He saw the door for the second time as he was walking home. It was exactly where it’d been the previous time, tucked into the wall, pouring light on the frozen concrete.

All around it, the air was still. In the week since it’d appeared the first time, kids had spray-painted a green and yellow tree of life onto the wall, and now it looked as if it was the door itself it grew out of.

Damen reached for the doorknob. It  was as cold as it’d been the previous time. Then he turned it, and let himself in.

The shop was more of less the way he remembered it.

The starry non-ceiling was the same, and there were still the cages with the lit bars lighting up the penumbra. It seemed like Laurent had added a series of globes at the feet of the counter, which Damen hadn’t noticed the time before.

Laurent himself, hadn’t changed at all though. He was standing in front of the counter, leaning against it, with his arms crossed and was looking at him with his brows furrowed.

“What are you doing here?” he asked him. Damen shrugged. “You tell me. You’re the one that has this- he waved his hand in front of him in a motion that was meant to encompass the whole of the shop. - thing. And also the one who sold me- although it’s true I didn’t pay for it - that potion. So I guess I shouldn’t be complaining but here I am, because it didn’t do anything.”

Laurent didn’t move, just stared at him. “I believe I haven’t heard you right.”

“How are these things supposed to work?” Damen asked. “Like, are you supposed to feel better right away or-?”

“It depends- The store gives you the means. That’s how Auguste thought it out. If the means to get what you need for you to feel better right away, that’s how you’ll feel.”

Damen snorted. “Well, I can’t be entirely sure it isn’t working, but I’m quite certain it isn’t.”

“That’s not possible,” Laurent said with certainty. “It’s never failed before. That’s not how Auguste thought this out.”

“Listen- as he said so, Laurent brought a hand to his lips in thought. Damen hadn’t noticed the previous time, but they were plump and looked really soft. Quite lovely.

In fact, now that Damen could take a closer look, all of Laurent was quite lovely. From his long legs, to his high cheekbones, to his lean body, back to those lips.

“What’s the point “ Lauren’t s cool voice broke his train of thought “ of starting a sentence with listen, if you’re not going to.” He paused. “Maybe, next time, I’ll start it with ogle. That way it’ll be easier for you to comply, I take it.”

Damen didn’t blush, and neither did he this time. But he grinned, and did his equivalent, which was laughing. “I’m sorry” he said. “I really, really am sorry. It’s just- he cut off for a second - it’s just you’re really quite lovely. I apologize, though. That was rather rude of me.”

Instead of replying, Laurent rolled his eyes, dismissing the compliment with a wave of his hand.

“Let’s say you’re telling the truth” he said, would you be willing to give it another try?”

Damen paused a second. “ Say this works, would it give me what I need?”

“Yes.” Laurent replied. “ It would.”

“Then I’m game.” Damen said.

“You are?” Laurent raised a brow. “ It could take a lot of time, you know? I’ve- something like this has never happened before.”

Damen shrugged. “I don’t mind. If it’ll help me, then I really don’t mind.”

“Suit yourself.” Laurent said, then headed for a cabinet underneath one of the clocks on the wall. Damen hadn’t noticed it before, but there were lots of things he hadn’t noticed before it seemed in this shop. The stars twinkling on Laurent’s suit were one of them.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Now he needs permission. You didn’t need it to undress me with your eyes, I hardly see why you would need it now.”

Again, Damen didn’t blush.

“You seemed rather certain the shop couldn’t be wrong before. Why did you choose to believe me?”

Laurent stopped in his movements, ceasing what he was doing for just the tiniest amount of time. His shoulders stiffened, then relaxed. Then he answered.

“You found the shop again. It doesn’t let itself be found by those who don’t have a need.”

December-January

And so it began. Almost on a weekly basis, Damen would stop at the shop. Every time, he would notice something new about it. Be it the astrolabes that lined the walls, just above the shelves, or the puddle of whatever on the floor. He’d crouched down to stare at it. It looked bottomless, mist rising from it, filling the air with different scents he’d never smelt before.

He’d looked up from that one to see Laurent through the mist, elegantly crouched next to the puddle. He was playing with the liquid, letting his hand disappear just beneath the surface, only to pull it out covered in a metallic sheen that looked like quicksilver.

“Don’t lean forward,” he’d warned Damen, “You might fall in. ”His blue eyes had shined like diamonds through the mist.

February

Every time, Laurent would rustle in the same cabinet and bring out new potions for him to try. Had they been poison, Damen thought, he’d be certainly dead by now. So, he went along with it.

At first, he’d felt more and more defeated every time the door appeared again. Lately, though, he was looking forward to his visits to the shop.

Laurent, on the other hand, was getting increasingly more frustrated every time Damen came back. Somewhere along the way had given up wearing always the same suit, ditching the jacket and the pants, and only keeping the shirt which he exchanged from time to time with dark-blue or black turtlenecks. Those were good days.

Today was one of those days, which led to Damen subtly admiring the way the turtleneck clung to Laurent’s chest, as the man kept pacing down the aisle of the shop, a cup of steaming tea in his hands. He was avoiding the weird things on the floor without even looking.

“I’ve tried everything with you. Everything. I’ve given you what the shop gave me for you, I’ve given you what I thought would help you. And still you keep coming back.”

“ Why do you mind so much?” Damen said, snatching a cookie from the plate that was sitting on the table.

“Don’t you enjoy my company? I actually look forward to yours, you know.”

If looks could kill, Damen would be dead by now. But as they couldn’t - not even in such a weird place - he kept on munching on his cookies.

“ I think” Damen said. “ I think it is getting better, if it makes you feel any better. So it’s not as if it’s completely useless, right?”

Laurent groaned, then threw his hot tea back. Damen was starting to get mildly worried about him.

It lasted just until Laurent cuffed him on the back of his head.

“I’ve done all the research I could. I’ve gone through all of Auguste books, and I haven’t found anything. My place is a mess now, and it’s still not working.”

“Wait- Damen asked – you have a place?”

Laurent didn’t say anything. Just threw back some more tea.

“I- I don’t really know anything about you.” Damen realized.

“That’s how it’s gotta be.”

“ Why?”

“Because once we figure out how to help you, the shop will start moving again.”

Damen never considered that.

“Can it go anywhere? How does it pick who to help?”

Laurent stopped pacing. “I don’t know. It used to be my brother’s, he’s invented it. He made the rules. He-” Laurent had started going through a series of white trunks on the floor “ -He created it for me, back when my parents passed away. At some point I didn’t need it anymore and he changed the settings of it and I don’t know-” he stopped, as his voice had gotten thinner and thinner the more he’d said.

“Is Auguste your brother?”

And Laurent stopped in his movement altogether. “ Yes,” came his answer. “ He is.” Then “He was.” Then again, this time in a more controlled voice “He is.”

Laurent stayed crouched like that. His hands not rummaging anymore, not talking, not speaking. Only rigid. So Damen stood up, went to him and offered him a hand.

“Sir Shop-Keeper” he said. Laurent stared at the hand for a moment, then put his now-empty tea-cup on it and stood up.

“ That’s not what the hand was mean for, you know.”

“ Really? I’m sorry, I must have not realized it.”

Laurent didn’t look his way as he said it, but he smirked. And that made Damen laugh. It wasn’t one of his nervous laughs, nor one of those full-belly, to the tears laugh, but it was a spontaneous laugh nonetheless- it’d been a long time since he’d had a genuine laugh. How long he couldn’t remember.

The act of laughing brought those pictures at the beach to mind and the usual pang went through him. It was sharp, but duller than he was used to, and it passed as soon as he set eyes on Laurent again. He thought back to the pictures, and got an idea.

“Can you go outside?”

It had taken the answering of some questions. ( “People can’t see me inside here because the shop hides me.” “So it didn’t hide you from me? Why?” “Because it’s a douchebag.”)

It had taken a lot of begging, and an agreement.

“I’ll say yes only if you put on the first thing that you’ll find there”. He’d said, pointing to the big white trunk he’d been rummaging in earlier.

So Damen had gone for it. The first thing he’d found in the trunk, he’d put on.

To his chagrin, and Laurent’s amusement, it had been a mask.

Not one of those pretty venetian masks or one of those with an elastic band.

It had been a rubber mask. A horse-head. It’s mane in real fur. When Damen had put it on, the neck of the mask had been long enough to cover his neck and rest on his shoulders.

Why Laurent had something like that lying around in his shop, Damen wondered as he put it on, was anyone’s guess.

He hadn’t indulged too long in those thoughts, though, because through the little holes placed in the horse’s eyeballs, Damen could see Laurent doubling over. At first there was only a low sound that he could barely make out. It grew louder, and louder until Damen recognized it as laughter. Laughter so strong, Laurent tried to suffocate it first with a hand on his mouth, and then by biting his palm.

Neither worked.

Eventually, the laughter subsided. When Damen was allowed to take his mask off, Laurent only patted him on the head. “Good horsey” he’d said. Then started laughing again. The sound had made Damen smile, and something low in his stomach flutter.

As it turned out Laurent had never tried it, they went out for coffee.

It didn’t go exactly as planned: Laurent hated coffee. It was, quote, disgusting, bitter, why would anyone in their sane drink something like this willingly, unquote.

That was the day Damen started storing away small information about Laurent.

February

Laurent liked the color blue.

He was twenty-one years old.

He did live in the shop, in a way. There was a trap door behind the counter that led to his apartment, which seemed to be enchanted as well, but to which Damen hadn’t so far gained access to.

The apartment was enchanted because his brother had been a magician, a warlock? Something like that. Magic was for sure involved.

He liked reading.

He had lots of books.

He had a cat.

He didn’t, to Damen’s knowledge, have any friend despite someone called Nicaise that would visit him from time to time.

He was determined, he was clever. He knew how to make Damen laugh.

He was gorgeous.

He was starting to become a problem.

March

It was starting to become a problem. Somewhere along the way, he’d forgotten about the pictures in the cardboard boxes and had started stopping more and more at the store.

He’d started bringing Laurent small gifts. Cookies to have with his tea, coffee - it had turned out he liked it, after all, with lots of sugar -.

He hadn’t thought, not even for a minute, that it might have been too much when he’d gotten the box of chocolates. Not when the clerk at the store had asked him if he wanted it wrapped, or when a colleague had asked who the lucky lady was. It had just come so natural to him, that he hadn’t realized, until he’d handed the chocolates with a huge golden bow on them to Laurent, and Laurent had lifted a brow at him, that somewhere along the way, he’d started turning friendship into courtship.

Laurent had accepted the chocolates all the same, “It’s very kind” he’d said, putting emphasis on the kind.

And Damen had felt like he was teetering on the edge. One step away from falling. He could still back out. He could still backtrack. They could still go back to that delicate friendship they’d grown comfortable with over the past few months.

He could joke about it, say it was nothing, and they’d go back to how things were before this very moment.

Damen was still thinking it over as a lock of hair that Laurent had tucked behind his ear got lose and fell in front of his face, catching on his lips.

They’d always been gorgeous lips. Somehow, in the last months, he’d gone from admiring them like you’d admire a model on a magazine, to wanting to kiss them.

Wanting to feel them give under his own. Again and again, he’d asked himself how much he’d have to suck on the pale skin of Laurent’s throat to make a love-bite form on it. And now, in this moment, he asked himself what it would be like to hold Laurent’s hand, to make him laugh, to bring him out to dinner and to see him in the kind of soft, post love-making clothing only lovers get to see each-other in.

So, instead of joking, back-tracking, Damen took one of Laurent’s fine-boned hands in his, and kissed the back of it. “Anytime” he said. Laurent blushed, and that was the moment Damen felt something settle inside.

Something settled under his feet, too. A sound, like a cog turning and locking in place echoed around the shop, and Laurent’s eyes narrowed.

“You better not let me down,” he said, looking Damen straight in the eye. “You better not let me down.”

April

Dating, Jokaste had once told him, was like getting to know someone all over again.

They’d known each-other for a fairly long time, and still it seemed to him as if he hadn’t know her well enough, because if there’s one thing he’d never expected from her, it had been unfaithfulness. He had loved her, and he knew she had loved him.

But she had moved on, and as he stared at Laurent sitting in front of him, looking far too real to have come out of a magical shop, he realized he had, too.

“You know” Laurent started. “ I think you may be more trouble than you’re worth, Damen.”

Damen reached for Laurent’s hand on the table. “I think I’m just enough trouble. No more than needed.”

Laurent smiled, leaned back.

“I’ve seen the world with that shop. Some of those globes in there? They don’t show this earth, they don’t show this world. Why would you be worth staying?”

Damen grinned, slowly closing his fingers around Laurent’s.

“ I don’t know" Damen said. “ But you do. If you didn’t think it’d be worth, then you wouldn’t be here. So, would you mind answering that question for me?”

Laurent shook his head, his fingers running along Damen’s.

The booth Damen had gotten them was on the smaller, more private side. Admittedly a bit too tiny for Damen himself. But it gave the illusion of it being them and nobody else well enough, so Damen didn’t mind.

“ I was under the impression the shop moved of its own volition.” Damen said

Laurent shook his head. “In a way.” Then he kept talking.

“ Auguste.” He took a deep breath “ He never actually changed the settings. My needs,” Laurent’s voice was getting lower, his feet caressing Damen’s shin slowly. “ come before anything else.”

“ Really?” Damen smiled at him. He leaned forward, bringing himself as close to Laurent as the table between them allowed him to.

“ And what would those be?”

Laurent brought his thumb to his lips, in the way he did when he was thoughtful enough to forget himself. “ I need someone determined. I need someone who’ll come for five months straight to the same shop on the off chance that something will change. Do you happen to know someone like that?”

Laurent smirked, his foot still moving up and down Damen’s shin.

“ I may" Damen said “ but how is he going to find you?”

Laurent leaned forward, his hands finding the lapels of Damen’s jacket and pulling him towards him, half sprawling him over the table.

“As long as he needs me, he won’t ever have any trouble.”

Then Laurent kissed him. And his lips were both as soft as Damen had imagined, and nowhere as pliant.

And somehow, he thought, they tasted like magic.

[demonsonthemoon]

The Rest of Us Live There

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast Pairing: past Juno Steel/Peter Nureyev, Juno Steel/confused feelings Word Count: 7663 Summary: Juno left Nureyev. That's a fact he's very slowly learning to deal with. Then he receives a gift, of all things, because it seems the master thief isn't done with him. Mind games. Damn, but Juno hates those. Note: The first part of it just wouldn't leave me alone, as an idea, but I started writing it without any idea of where the whole thing was going and... this is the result. No idea if it makes any sense.

Also available on AO3.

There's a very specific feeling attached to the act of walking into your office first thing in the morning and immediately spotting the empty bottle on your desk.

Juno Steel, private eye, knows that feeling well.

His headache, a potent blend of sleep-deprivation and hangover, is just as familiar. At least he actually went back to his apartment last night.

Juno sighs. He picks up the empty bottle and drops it in a box already containing a few of its friends. He's pretty sure he hadn't used a glass last night, but checks anyway. He's already broken one a week ago, and is hoping he won't have to blow is already thin budget on glassware of all things. He sits down at his desk.

There's not actually anything for him to do. He doesn't have a case. He's stretched the paperwork for the last one probably as long as he can. There's no real reason for him to be in his office this early, except the habit of it. And the fact that being alone in his apartment scares him shitless if he's not drunk when he gets there.

At least, in the office, he has Rita. He has the comforting sound of streams playing from another room.

He closes his eyes - his eye, really - elbows on desk and head in his hands.

This is what he wanted. This is what he fucking chose for himself.

He left. And leaving means this. It means whiskey, and Hyperion City, and trying to help but failing. It means being even more useless than before, because he can't shoot.

He hears Rita walk into the office. He sits up and considers making himself look busy, but thinks better of it. Rita opens the door to his separate room, a bright smile on her face.

"Good morning mister Steel!" she exclaims, drawing out the single syllable of his name. "You've got mail today!"

Juno frowns. Most of the mail they get is digital, so this is a rare occurence. And Rita looks much too excited for the package to contain tax papers.

She hands him a small, thin box, the kind of envelopes they use for interplanetary shippings. Juno turns it around in his hands. There's no return address.

Rita is still standing in front of him, moving from one foot to the other and worrying her lower lip.

"Well? Aren't you gonna open it? I wanna know what it is!!! Well, except if it's a bomb... Oh no! Do you think it's a bomb mister Steel?"

"They scan interplanetary correspondance before delivering it. If it's a bomb, it's a damn good one and I probably couldn't disarm it anyway."

"That's... reassuring?" Rita asked, wringing her hands together.

Juno shaked his head, still turning the package over in his hands. "I hope this isn't a mistake," he said as he finally opened it. He couldn't blame Rita when she took a step backward.

Nothing happened as he opened the box, which contained a small dark bag. The cloth felt silky to the touch. Juno touched it carefully, trying to guess what was inside. It was small, and thin. He couldn't guess more from touch alone, and carefully untied the black ribbon that closed the small bag. Rita was watching him anxiously from a few steps away. This job really wasn't good for either of their mental health. Poor Rita.

He dropped the mysterious object in his palm, and stared at it for a few seconds. It was a tie pin. A tie pin made of a silver-colored metal, carefully decorated with a spiralling design. At the end of it, inside a blooming flower made out of the same metal, sat a small gem. The stone was a light lavender color, a natural smoke-like pattern adding variety to its shades. It was beautiful.

And probably cost more than two months of Juno's rent.

"What is it? What is it boss?! Do I need to run? Do I need to call the HCPD. Tell me what it is, boss, tell me!!!"

He finally looked up at Rita, and held the pin towards her. "A tie pin."

"What?" Rita frowned and came closer. She had to bend across Juno's desk to get a good look, but he was reluctant to stop holding the gift. He couldn't really have said why.

"It's beautiful," Rita exhaled, looking much calmer than just a minute previously. There was a spark in her eyes as her fingers closed around Juno's so she could touch the pin lightly. "Who sent it to you?"

Juno shaked his head, taking back the pin and laying it on its small bag. There was no note inside the bag, nothing on the box, and nothing within it either.

"I don't know," he said, though the knot in his stomach told a slightly different story. He could guess, maybe. It didn't make a lot of sense, he had no idea what it meant, but he could guess. He didn't say anything to Rita.

"A secret admirer! I had no idea you had a secret admirer! And from another planet! Oh, it's so romantic, it makes me think of this movie called Sand the Color of her Hair which is a really nice movie, let me tell you, it's about this lady from Tau Ceti who's never left her planet before, and she meets this stranger who's tall and handsome and who's just run away from their husband and..."

Juno tunes Rita out, picking up the tie pin again and tracing its markings with one of his fingers. The thing looks so delicate he feels it might just break in his grip. At the same time, he knows the metal would be very resistant. It's worth a lot, Juno's sure.

"So they escape together from the invasion, but Nergüi still hasn't told Clarisse that they're on the run, and they want to keep their promise except-"

"Hey Rita?"

"Yes boss?"

"Could you try to trace back where this package's from for me?"

"Uh, sure boss. There's no tracking number, though. And if there's not return address, it probably means the sender didn't want to be recognized."

"I know, Rita," Juno acknowledges. "That's why I'm asking you to do it instead of trying it myself. You've got much better chances at getting anywhere with this."

"Oh boss," Rita replies, fiddling with a strand of her hair.

Juno forces his face to relax and sends her a warm smile, one that attempts to exude confidence and ease.

"I'll get to it right away. My show only starts in twenty minutes anyways."

She closes the door behind her, and Juno can hear her giggle to herself as she sits at her desk.

He waits a total of two seconds before pushing his chair back and standing up. He leaves the tie pin on his desk and stares at it as he starts pacing.

Why would he do something like that? There has to be a reason, a meaning. There has to be something that will have the whole thing make sense.

He stops pacing, and stares at the pin, like he's trying to set it aflame with his eye, or trying to read its thoughts using alien technology.

Of course, the only thing it does is make his one eye start to throb with overexertion.

He opens his top-right drawer, and pulls out the last bottle of whiskey he has in the office. He sits down, doesn't bother looking for a glass, and takes a swig.

The alcohol burns slightly as it goes down his throat. He can feel the previous night's hangover laugh at him and at his sorry state, and takes another gulp.

He picks up the tie pin again. It's too precisely decorated, too thin to hide anything. The gem couldn't possibly hide a microphone, or even a transmitter. It really is just a beautiful tie pin.

It could be romantic, like Rita said. A beautiful gift. But there's no note, no explanation. No reason for him to send Juno anything, not without some kind of ulterior motive. Juno has to find it. Find out what it means.

Of course, the pin has to be stolen. Which means it should be returned. He runs his thumb over the metal. Of course he can't return it.

Reporting it to HCPD would be madness. It's most likely impossible to trace back the sender, even with Rita's skills. And the police holds enough of a grudge against Juno that they would jump on this occasion to put the crime on his back and have him jailed for a few years. Hell, he knows a few criminal families who wouldn't hesitate to help rig the case.

And even if someone believes him, there's no saying they would be able to trace back the owner of the object. The person could be anywhere. Not just anywhere on Mars, or even anywhere in this galaxy. They could be anywhere.

There's no use. He has to keep this thing. Keep it, and stare at it, and wonder what it means. There is nothing else to do, not if he feels uncomfortable bringing attention to him.

Juno closes his fist around the pin, feeling the petals of the metal flower bite into his skin like thorns.

Damnit, Nureyev. Is this the whole point? Some kind of psychological torture or test of morals? Is this supposed to be message? A taunt?

"Look at what you could have. Who you could be. I'm doing so well without you, darling. Don't forget what you threw away."

Juno opens his fist, dropping the pin on his desk. There is a red imprint left away on his skin, and he traces it with the fingers of his left hand.

Is this really Nureyev's style? Juno isn't sure. There is nothing he's really sure about, when it comes to Nureyev. The man is smart. Smarter than most. Juno is certain that the thief is at least partially aware of his own personal issues. Hell, he told him the first time they met. "I'm more of a catch-your-reflection-at-the-bottom-of-a-glass-and-feel-sick kind of guy."

So maybe it works. Juno stares at the pin, and he can imagine Nureyev's smile. He can see the man pick it up, hold it against the silk of a fancy tie, checking that the colors match. Juno can see Nureyev bending over him, adjusting his collar and putting the pin in place. He would have that smile on, the one that makes everything feel like a secret they're sharing.

Juno can see all of that, and it makes his chest ache.

He cannot throw the pin away. It's too beautiful, worth too much. Not only in terms of money.

There is a shrill voice, at the back of his head. "At least he hasn't forgotten you," the voice chants. Over, and over, and over again. At least he hasn't forgotten you. Yet.

Juno feels disgusted by his own selfishness. He takes another gulp of whiskey. Then he shoves the pin back into its bag, and dumps the whole thing in his bottom left drawer.

The drawer is empty, except for a crumpled note on white paper. He closes it without looking.

***

Juno receives a pendant next, in the same kind of sleek postal box. It lies at the end of a thin golden chain, a delicate crown decorated with almost transparent stones.

He receives it the day after his confrontation with the Proctor, and almost throws the box in his bin as soon as Rita gives it to him. Rita is looking at him with the considerate eyes that tell him she knows something is up.

He thought he was getting better. Thought he had gotten better. Now he thinks, again and again, of lashing out against Mick. He thinks of the Proctor's riddle, wishing desperately to be right, not really caring if he was wrong. Only realising later on what he had put his best friend through.

And now this. Another mysterious package with no return address, and Juno knows it's from Nureyev. It has to be.

He's sick of mind games. He doesn't have time, nor patience or energy for this.

Rita is looking at him with concern written all over her face, and he belatedly realises that his hand has been shaking the whole time, holding the package.

“Are you okay Mister Steel? Do you need something? Do you know who this package is from?”

Juno drops it on his desk and lays his hand next to it. He quickly uses his new cybernetic eye to scan it, making sure that it really is a new gift from Nureyev and not something dangerous.

“I'm fine, Rita. I... There's nothing dangerous in this package.”

Rita starts worrying one of her tight curls of hair. She looks like she is hesitating between coming closer and leaving the room entirely. She's much too silent to Juno's taste who, despite his constant complaints, has grown accustomed to her constant chatter.

“I'll leave you to it, then,” Rita finally says, turning around and finally leaving the room. Juno hears her load up a show on her computer screen, though he notices she keeps the volume quite low. She's probably listening in on him. Juno sighs. People and their damn concern.

He finally opens the box, in silence. He holds the chain in his left hand and watches the little crown dance, stomach twisting. He wishes he had a drink on his desk ready to be thrown back, but he doesn't. So instead he runs his finger over the delicately crafted pendant. Juno doesn't know what the stones are worth, but judging on craftmanship, he would say that the pendant is worth less than the tie pin of the previous month had been. It doesn't mean it's not worth a lot, of course not. But it puts things in a slightly different perspective.

The objects weren't picked just because of their value. They were chosen for what they meant. A flower, like Rose and Dahlia, and a crown for a king.

Mind games. Is he somehow supposed to guess what the next gift would be? Or has he relinquished the right to Peter Nureyev, now left with only the memories of some of his aliases? Juno has no idea. He's tired. Physically and mentally. Tired of it all.

He crosses his arms over his desk and settles his head against them. He closes his eyes. He still has paperwork to do from his last personal case, which his little stint with Ramses and the Proctor has already delayed. He'll get to it eventually. He'll sit up again, drop the necklace inside his bottom left drawer, and get to work.

In just a moment.

***

Ramses calls him like he usually does: last-minute, orders ready and a smug air about him. Damn, does Juno hate the man sometimes. Even though he stands by his goals, his personality is insufferable.

“What do you want?”, Juno snaps as he picks up the call.

Ramses – the bastard – only chuckles. “Got up on the wrong side of the bed detective?”

“Nah. Only realised you were the one calling me, soured my mood like cabbage in vinegar. Also, it's six thirty in the evening. So what do you want?”

“That you get dressed in the most elegant outfit you can muster in the next ten minutes. We're going to a party.”

“What.” Juno's voice is flat, no-nonsense. It doesn't work on Ramses, but you get nothing if you don't try.

“A party. A gathering of important people around fancy drinks and expensive food cut into the tiniest portions. A place where the rich pretend to like each other and enjoy themselves, all the while-”

“I know what a party is, Ramses.”

“Good. Because you're going to one, and I need you presentable.”

“I'm still at my office.”

There's a pause on the other end of the line while the man processes the information. “Well. That's a detour, but we can still make it fashionably late. Dress nice, Juno.”

Juno shivers, all of his body tensing up as the comm line closes. Something in Ramses' inflection had been too much the echo of another's. Juno has been haunted enough times already.

He forces himself to stand up and looks down at his clothes. They're crumpled, and there's a stain on his shirt. He sighs, frustrated, and looks around his office. Damned Ramses and his damned last-minute plans. Juno keeps a spare shirt in one of his cabinets. PI work has a tendency to get messy. The garment is a bit rumpled when he puts it on, but passable. He's lucky he was wearing one of his nicer jackets today. The trousers are a lost cause, but what can you do.

He rummages around. He should have a tie, somewhere, a Christmas gift he had forgotten after having worn it once on a night that had ended disastrously – story of his life. On his way he finds a half-empty tube of lipstick, a nice shade which matches his jacket, and puts it on. He also borrows a bit of eyeliner from the stash Rita keeps in one of her drawers.

Ten minutes pass, which means he has maybe three more before Ramses knocks on his door and takes him who-knows-where. Juno will look out of place. He always does, during such events. Even more so if he doesn't find his damn tie – there. He finds it at the back of a cupboard next to a box he doesn't remember ever putting there. A mystery to investigate later.

He loops the tie around his neck efficiently, with a simple well-practiced knot. As he straightens it, his hands still.

He bursts into laughter.

The giggles run through him like sobs. He must be a lot more tired than he thought. Still, the idea is there in his mind, and he has to laugh if he doesn't want to cry about it.

The color of the stone on Nureyev's tie pin matches his outfit.

Still shaking from a laughter tainted with fear, Juno opens his bottom-left drawer. He opens the little black bag and picks up the pin between two of his fingers, taking the time to look at it again. He uses it to hold his tie in place, and it feels like exhaling a breath held too long.

He still has a smile on his face when he slides into Ramses' car, which seems to throw the man off for a moment. He quickly recovers, though, looking Juno up and down and shrugging. “It will have to do,” he says, and signals to the driver to start the car again.

Ramses explains a few things on the way, no more than Juno has to know. The party they're going to is organised by some offensively rich proprietors in Hyperion, and everybody who's important enough in purse or function is going to be there. Obviously, a good number of those people aren't exactly Ramses' friends. So that's where Juno comes in, acting half as a bodyguard and half as a spy. Ramses point to his cybernetic eye with a smile of complicity. Something churns in Juno's stomach. Here comes the paycheck.

In nervousness, he traces the length of his tie pin, once. The ridges of the sculpted ornament bite at his skin like tiny pinpricks.

Juno straightens his tie, nods at Ramses, and steps out of the car. He spends the night exchanging niceties and spying on people, and after a few drinks he feels detached enough not to care.

***

From then on, there are bad days and good days. He is highly conscious of having become Ramses' puppet, and plays along while trying to find out anything about what the man really wants. Some days, Juno actually lets himself believe there is at least one person in Hyperion City who still has ideals. Other days he feels like when the mask finally falls off, he will have deserved no better.

Some days, bottom-left drawer firmly closed and mind entirely focused on his work, Juno barely remembers that a man called Peter Nureyev exists. Other days he carries a crown pendant under his clothes like a dog tag, and it feels like hope and punishment all at once, like something that burns.

There's no more packages, then there's no more time to worry about that.

The mayoral campaign is at its peak, tensions at their highest, and someone tries to kill Ramses O'Flaherty.

There have been doubts in Juno's mind, fuelled by hunches, stray words suppressed too late, silences lasting too long. After the laser blast grazes Ramses' shoulder instead of hitting him in the heart, there is one thing he has no doubt about. This is wrong. This, this election, this system. It's wrong. Maybe Ramses has a secret agenda, but he's also the only one even hinting at a change in things. He has to be protected.

Juno's the one to bring up the idea of staying at Ramses' place. The politician, shoulder still bandaged up, agrees.

The house is big, definitely a rich person's, but it's smaller than it could have been and – thankfully – not in one of the flying estates. Juno would probably have reconsidered his plan otherwise.

He gets a room on the ground floor, with en-suite bathroom and everything. The bed alone is probably only slightly smaller than the size of Juno's kitchen. Ramses catches him staring as they're taking a tour of the house, and shrugs. “You don't get far into politics if you can't prove other politicians that you're playing on the same level as them. And that often means showing you've got enough money to be considered a big fish.”

Juno doesn't like it. He distrusts money in general, though he's still got to pay the bills, like everyone else. Still, he guesses he can see a certain appeal in the large bathtub and the soft sheets of his bed. He knows he'd better not get used to it, though.

Living in Ramses' place means he stops taking on more cases, finishing the ones he had already signed on only when he knows Ramses is in a safe place with an adequate numbers of bodyguards around him. The whole arrangement means it's easier and more convenient for Ramses to order him around, and the man enthusiastically makes use of this new advantage. Still, Juno is restless. He's waiting for something to happen, and he doesn't like that. Trouble usually finds him quickly enough. There has never been a need to go look for it. He feels caged inside Ramses' house. He misses his work. He misses his tiny office. Damn, does he miss Rita.

Considering his profession and the added circumstances, it's not surprising that Juno's sleep tends to be very light these days. He usually wakes up at least once a night, quite regularly two. If he can't fall back asleep immediately, he'll stand up and walk through the ground floor of the house, checking that everything is in its place.

Tonight, it's the second time he gets up. It's a bit after three in the morning. The house is as silent as ever. Juno starts what he's been calling his round for the last ten days. Nothing looks undisturbed, until he reaches the door to Ramses' secondary office. (Juno hasn't asked why the guy needs two offices in one house, and then an official one in the city on top of that. To each their own. Rich people always feel entitled to more than they need anyway. Whatever.)

There is light coming from the room, just the barest hint of it. If Juno had to guess, he would say that the desk lamp is on while the rest of the room stays in the dark.

It's suspicious. There is a chance that it's just Ramses working off a bout of insomnia, but the fact he would have only secondary lighting on in the middle of the night is weird.

Juno focuses his synthetic eye on the door, activating the heat sensors to determine how many people (if any) are in the room. The image he gets isn't perfect, and superimposes itselt on top of his normal vision in a confusing and uncomfortable way. Still, he's now certain there's only one person in the room, and from the look of it they're standing up, bent slightly over the desk. The fact that they aren't sitting makes the hypothesis that it is in fact just Ramses working even more implausible.

He can't just open the door and shoot blindly (ah!), even on stun. There still is a chance that the person in the room has a perfectly valid reason to be there that doesn't involve a crime and a threat to Ramses' safety. Juno can't actually see through walls.

He calms his breathing down and pulls his gun out of its holster. He opens the door in one fluid motion and raises his weapon. “Hands where I can see them,” he orders clearly. His cybernetic eye is locked on target, but it takes him a second to actually see who the target is.

“Hello Juno,” Peter Nureyev says, voice low and serious but with a hint of a smile behind it.

Juno freezes. His gun is still held up in the air. He can't look away. He physically can't, not when his eye is still locked in target mode. He has to remember to breathe.

Nureyev is slowly raising his hands above his head, staring at Juno with an expression so neutral it could be cast from plaster.

Juno breathes. He can feel the crown-shaped pendant he's wearing under the t-shirt he sleeps in. It feels like it's burning his skin. Juno still doesn't know why he started wearing the damn thing, but he curses himself for it.

“What are you doing here?” He lets out, voice low but cutting.

At least Nureyev seems to be taking him seriously, because he doesn't try to crack a joke or charm his way out. And he carefully leaves his hands up in the air.

“I wish you weren't involved in this, Juno, I really do.” Juno carefully refocuses his eyes on Nureyev, who seems to notice it and straighten imperceptibly. “I'm here to steal something. I guess you had already figured that one out. You're a detective after all.” The tiniest of smiles makes its way onto his features. It looks strained. “I'm here to steal information about Ramses' true plan.”

“True plan? What do you mean?” Juno knows Nureyev. He knows how slippery the man can be. Shooting on sight would be perfectly justified. He doesn't. He tries to tell himself that it's because of his own suspicions, because he wants to hear what Nureyev has to say before he brings him in. You can't blame a fool for trying.

“Your gun is making me slightly uncomfortable-”

“Good, it's supposed to.”

Nureyev raises an eyebrow but lets the interruption slide. “So I'm gonna be brief. Ramses O'Flaherty isn't who you think he is. He isn't who Hyperion City thinks he is. I know it's terribly tempting to believe him, to believe in him, but he's lying.”

Juno knew Nureyev would say that. He'd already known the answer when he asked. He sighs. “You say that. Do you have evidence? Do you have anything conclusive that proves Ramses isn't just one of the few people actually trying to do good in this shithole of a place?”

The look he receives is one of pity. It makes him feel so disgusted he has to force himself not to press his trigger there and then.

“You must have changed a lot if you now think guilty-until-proven-innocent is a healthy philosophy to hold in a city like Hyperion.”

“Maybe I have,” Juno replies defiantly. He doesn't like the look in Nureyev's eyes. In the months – nearly a year, really – since they had last seen each other, Juno has somehow forgotten how hard to read he is. It goes to prove that anything can be forgotten with enough time and applied willpower.

“You must have looked into the man. You must know that he appeared out of nowhere, fully formed. He has fabricated himself. That, and the fact he is a politician, I would think it makes him suspicious enough already. If I recall correctly, you used to find it quite important to know exactly who people were before acquainting yourself with them.”

At least he doesn't hide the reproach. Juno has the urge to look away. “Point taken. Still, like you said yourself, I knew that. It's not anything conclusive. It doesn't prove a damn thing.”

“As you're aware of, I have very personal reasons not to trust mysterious idealists who promise to save the world.” Juno can't help but flinch at that. The memory he had grasped from Nureyev's mind is still fresh in his. He can feel his heart breaking all over again, his trust being betrayed, his world turning upside down and the weight of it in the hands of a sixteen-year old. “That's why I did some digging. Deep digging. The kind you would frown upon.” The remark earns him a raised eyebrow. “I still haven't been able to find out who he really is. Being a bit of a master at creating identities myself, the fact that someone could one-up me is frustrating. And, again, incredibly suspicious. Still, I did find something.”

Juno makes a go on gesture with the hand holding his gun. It makes Nureyev flinch before he can stop himself. That feels pretty satisfying to Juno, because it means Nureyev is worried. Which means Juno might have a bit more control on the situation than what he feels he has. If he's honest with himself, he doesn't feel in control at all. He wants to believe Nureyev, and at the same time he absolutely does not. He wants to, because he's been having his own suspicions, because it all seemed to easy, because the story fits exactly what he would expect. He doesn't want to because it is such a perfect fit. And because Nureyev is dangerous, and dangerously good at manipulating all kinds of people. Still, he wants to believe, because Nureyev had asked him to trust him once, and he hadn't, and had regretted it for months. Ever since, actually.

The man goes on, apparently unaware of the turmoil of emotion boiling within Juno. “You're working quite closely with him, so I assume you also know he gets funding for his campaign through sponsoring. I took a look at how he spends it. There was some suspicious activity. It falls well in line with most others politicians, but well. Ramses does claim not to be like other politicians. I tried to trace the money. A ridiculously complicated process. I don't think my skills match your secretary's in that domain.”

Juno glares at him. There's no way things aren't going to get personal, not between them. But he's not gonna let other people be dragged into this. Especially not Rita.

“I figured it out, I think. Apparently the money was paid to someone working at Dark Matters. It was sent to an account opened by Dark Matters, as a matter of fact.”

Juno frowns. Nureyev does have a point in saying that this is suspicious enough to warrant more investigation.

“I can show you the transfers, if you want. There's an encrypted file in the external drive in my right pant pocket.”

Juno goes to check. He has to lower his weapon to do so, but Nureyev keeps still.

“I would advise against opening the file on this computer,” the thief says as Juno goes to turn on Ramses' laptop. “Just in case he has the activity on it monitored.”

Juno sighs. “I don't have a tablet with me and I'm not about to let you out of my sight. So we'll work on the basis that I'm believing you for now.” He doesn't hand the small drive back to Nureyev, a fact he is sure the man noticed. “What do you think you were going to find here?”

“Can I at least put my hands down? This is starting to get really uncomfortable.”

Juno feels nervous enough that he would like to start fidgeting with his pendant, but he also doesn't want to draw attention to it. “Keep them where I can see them. I'm not letting go of the gun.”

“Wouldn't have thought so.” Nureyev slowly lowers his arms, and shows Juno his palms for good measure. “I'm looking for information. Communication between Ramses and Dark Matters, times they might have crossed paths. At first I thought the money to Dark Matters was some sort of bribe, but the amounts vary from time to time. It's not surprising to learn even an organisation like Dark Matters is corrupt, but if it is it goes deeper than just on the level of a few individuals.”

“Dark Matters is partly independent from the government, right? But it still gets funded through them.”

“Quite so. Though if Ramses is any indication, private investors are starting to play a role in their dealings as well.”

“How much money are we talking about?”

“Like I said, not that much. Most payments are around the 10.000 creds mark.”

Not that much. It still is enough money to make Juno's head swim. He puts the hand that isn't holding his gun against his temple. This is not what he thought would happen when he woke up. He should already be back in bed. He wishes he could be back in bed by now.

“You said you dug around to get all this information. You got access to Ramses' private files?”

Nureyev shrugged. There were some filing cabinets along the wall, and he had started leaning against them. “Let's just say it's not the first time I've been in this house.”

Damnit. This is Juno's fault. A private company is in charge of securing Ramses' building, but the whole reason he's here is to make sure that that is enough. Obviously it isn't, since this is at least the second time Nureyev breaks in, and only the first time he's caught. “Damnit, Nureyev.”

“I did truly mean what I said, Juno.” Here is that sweet tone of his, the one that feels downright caring in a horribly wrong way. “I wish you didn't have to be involved in this. It would have been so much easier for both of us.”

“Ah. As if anything's ever been easy with both of us involved.”

“Well, we never did try to take the easy route, did we?” He raises one eyebrow as he says it, gracefully. The gesture is so familiar Juno aches with it. Because Nureyev's right. The worst thing is that he's right, because Juno could have tried, Juno could have stayed. By all means Nureyev's right to be pissed off with him, would be right to even be aggressive. That's not his style, though.

“I do wonder what's going to happen to me now,” Nureyev continues, acting like it only vaguely bothers him. “I've told you what I know and what I've come here for. I promise I'm not here to make money. I'm here to do something good, for once. I'm trying to do something good. You can believe me or not, that's your choice. I've learned there's no way I'll force you to trust me-”

“Stop that,” Juno cuts in. He says it louder than he intends to, and worries a second that somebody is gonna hear. “Stop with the games. Either make it personal or don't, but don't bring things up so casually just to-”

“Oh, so you think you can have me follow your rules? I'm at your mercy right now, detective Steel. There's nothing I could say or do that could probably land me in a bigger mess than this. But I knew the risks. I knew the risks and how personal they would be, and I took them, because this was important. Because it was personal. It was stupid and sentimental, but I took the risks because I needed to know. And because I don't want you to get hurt. Not like I did.”

Nureyev's voice stays even throughout his tirade, but Juno can feel it's not for lack of emotion. Nureyev's always been all about control.

“So you can believe me, or not. You can let me go, or not. You can let me get the information I've come here for, or not. I'm not sure I really care, Juno.” He lets out a huff of breath that might have been trying to be a laugh. The mostly neutral mask seems to fall instantly, replaced by a bone-deep tiredness. “I'm not sure I really care.”

“You can't say that.” Juno is still holding the gun, though it hasn't been pointing in Nureyev's direction for a while now. “You can't say you don't care when you're here and I... I... I don't know what to do, okay?” He feels pinpricks right behind his eyes. “You're not supposed to be here. It's not supposed to go like this.”

“Well, clearly...”

“Shut up!” Juno raises his voice slightly, and points the gun towards Nureyev again. He can see the man tense once more, though he tries to keep a composed air. “Shut up. Don't say anything. I need to think, okay, and I can't do that if you're here and playing those mind games of yours and-”

“Juno-”

Nureyev takes a step forward, despite the weapon trembling in Juno's hand. He reaches a hand out, but doesn't touch the detective. “You need to calm down. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not doing anything.”

“Don't. Don't... say that. You leave. That's what you do. You're always going somewhere.”

Nureyev takes in a sharp breath and takes back his hand. “I wasn't the one who left last time.”

“I know,” Juno all but whines. “I know! Don't you think I know that? Don't you think that's all I've thought about for months? But you would have. You would have left at some point, because that's how you work. I can't keep you with me, I can't... but then you sent me gifts, of all things, and what did they mean Nureyev? What the fuck did they mean? What kind of fucked-up game were you trying to play?”

Nureyev seems taken aback by the outburst. Juno knows he's shaking all over, his breathing coming out too fast and too loud and not pulling in enough air.

“I... I just...” Nureyev hesitates. He raises his hand, as if to start scratching his neck, but stops himself and carefully lowers it again. “You got those, uh? I...”

“Spit it out, Nureyev. Whatever you had in mind, I doubt it's worse than anything I could come up with...”

“Juno...”

“Spit. It. Out.”

Nureyev sighs, looking down. He looks smaller somehow. Vulnerable, but not in the purposefully non-threatening way Juno knows he's mastered. Just human. “I didn't think we would ever see each other again. I truly didn't. It was... It wasn't a game. I don't think so. It was just something stupid. The pendant, the pin, I... I saw them and I... thought of you. And that didn't seem fair. That you had left, had abandoned me without a word, after Miasma, after everything... and I would still see a stupid flower and think that color would suit him, as if that was ever something that had happened between us.”

Juno feels his anger deflate under the weight of those words. It's so similar to the things he has thought himself that if feels almost too easy to believe. Something at the back of his mind wonders if he could ever believe anything about Nureyev.

“I picked them up without really knowing what I was doing. They were there, it was so easy and then... And then I was left staring at them not knowing what to do. So I sent them. It was the easiest way to deal with things, in a sense. Get the problem far away from me. And I thought...” He starts laughing. It's a sad sound, something like a self-depricating chuckle. “I guess I thought if I had to think about you, you would have to think about me. Misery loves company. So I guess maybe I was playing some kind of mind game. You don't have to believe me, but I truly didn't even realise it.”

Juno lets his arm drop. He doesn't let go of his weapon, isn't sure he could at this point. It feels like his hand is going to be stuck in the same position forever. Damn, is he tired. Why couldn't he have just slept on, blissfully unaware? And waited until Ramses betrayed him or Nureyev brought him down. Whichever came first.

“I hadn't stopped thinking about you.” Nureyev looks up at him. Juno doesn't want to crush the hope in his eyes. “Even before I got your first... present. I couldn't stop thinking about you. It was... I was in a bad place. I had made my choice but that doesn't... Sometimes you can think something is the best option and still regret it with every fibre of your body. I meant what I said in that place. When Miasma...” He trails off.

 You're the best thing that's ever happened to me.

He takes a deep breath and pulls the chain out from under his t-shirt. The crown pendant dangles at its hand, the dim light of the room giving it a soft glow. “I thought you were mocking me. Playing with me. Sending me a message. I don't know. I thought you wanted to make me regret... more. Harder. I thought I deserved that.” He closes his eyes. Nureyev could have left by now. He could have slipped through the window, disappeared. Juno's hands are shaking, his grip on his gun could be broken in just a second. Nureyev definitely has the skill to do it. It wouldn't even have to hurt. He's still here though. Juno opens his eyes. “I started wearing this thing anyway. A month back, I think. It's always felt part-painful and part-comforting. I wear it anyway.”

“Juno...”

He chuckles, looking away from Nureyev once more. His breathing is still a bit ragged. “Don't make it personal, I said. Right.”

He looks over at Nureyev, standing in the middle of the room more awkwardly than Juno has ever seen him. Hell, part of him had been convinced that Nureyev just doesn't do awkward. He's wearing a dark collared shirt over slightly lighter jeans and has a pair of thin gloves on. It's an inconspicuous outfit, but easy to move in. Perfect for a robbery. Juno searches his face for a while. He finds everything he could have looked for. Nureyev's face hasn't changed a bit. The features that are there behind each of his masks, the features Juno has learned to associate with Nureyev himself, they're still there. He notices that the man looks tired. At least Juno's not alone in that, then. It hurts, him being here, like this. The choice between Nureyev and the life he had built for himself had nearly killed Juno once. Now he has to make it all over again.

“I can't just believe you,” Juno says and sees Nureyev react with a flinch. “Weirdly I... I think I do. I know something's off with Ramses, but... he's also the only one who even pretends to be trying. I need to believe in that, at least a little. So that's why I can't just believe you and not check.” He pulls out the external drive. “So I'll check. And I'll... I'll see if I can find more.” That will mean learning a bit more than the basics about how to use a computer, and probably asking a lot of help from Rita. But she's been telling him she's bored for months, now, so she probably won't mind. “I'm staying with Ramses for now. If you can convince me... I'll be able to keep on eye on him from the inside. If not... If I think you're wrong, please don't try anything again.” He looks Nureyev in the eye as he says it, making sure the man is taking him seriously.

He can't say he hopes Nureyev is right. That would mean giving up on the last shred of hope he has for Hyperion City. Hope born out of desperation, but hope still. If Nureyev is wrong though, he can admit he hopes he won't see him again. The prospect reminds him too much of taking a knife to his own family, with hands not yet fully-grown. It's not the same. It's far from being the same, but both seem too painful to bear, and that's enough. Juno will do what he has to do. Just like Nureyev did.

The same thing goes if Nureyev's right. If there really is no hope for this city, if Ramses is the same kind of liar as all the others... He'll do what he has to do. He'll take the shot. And then... Then what? He'll stay and watch the world burn, like he always has? He'll try to put out a few flames, pretend it makes a diffence even if he can't breathe through the smoke?

He'll watch Nureyev leave again? He'll leave him again?

Months have passed. Nearly a year. He looks at Nureyev and sees all the things that could have been, so long ago. He wonders which of them could still be. He wonders in which ways they have changed, the both of them.

“I take it you're letting me go, then?” Nureyev asks, softly. Juno feels like he's a delicate flower, being handled with utmost care. It doesn't feel as frustrating as he thought it would.

“Yeah. For now.”

[hextual]

Podcast Recs

The following recs/summaries may contain light-to-moderate spoilers, though I try to keep things vague and rot13 the more specific stuff! Here is an abbreviated spoiler-free rec list, for the sensitive among you.

Night Vale Presents

The three non-WTNV shows have all finished their first seasons (and Alice Isn't Dead just started its second). They're relatively short and contain complete story arcs. 

WTNV: The ur-podcast, the light horror fiction narrative that kicked off the trend. Y'all know it or you don't. If you've somehow never heard it and don't want to start from the pilot, I recommend trying Episode 13; it's a stand-alone episode in a slightly different format than the rest, but it gives a good sense of WTNV's general aesthetic. Also it's just really really good.

Alice Isn't Dead: A surrealist horror roadtrip about a trucker searching for her wife Alice, who isn't dead. She's got nothing to lose and a lot of dangerous road to cover.

Orbiting Human Circus: Bizarre and magical and a little bit heartbreaking, like all good circuses should be. Julian is the janitor of a heavily fictionalized Eiffel Tower, and he desperately wants to be part of the Orbiting Human Circus show that he cleans up after every night.

Within the Wires: Dystopian sci-fi 1980s AU, told through a series of 'relaxation' cassettes. More grounded in reality than the others, though that's not saying much. The medium is also foregrounded much more in the narrative.

Hiatus

Wolf 359: SUPER dark, though you wouldn't know it from the first dozen episodes. However, the inflicting-trauma to coping-with-trauma ratio is low enough that I listened to the whole thing and will almost definitely listen to Season 4 when it's released starting this June. Also, no queerness whatsoever (making it unique on this list).  

Eos 10: Spaceship sitcom. Less artistically ambitious than most of the others on this list, which is not necessarily a point against it. 

Airing

The Strange Case of Starship Iris: Newer sci-fi podcast that I absolutely love; it ticks all my very specific boxes (including medium-as-message) and is also just really well constructed and executed. I adore every single one of the main characters. There are only 4 episodes but I'm so hyped about it. 

The Bright Sessions: Audio files from a therapist to teens and young adults with superpowers. Everything I ever wanted X-Men to be: light on the fight scenes/explosions, heavy on exploring what it means to have superhuman powers and how that might affect your life/relationships.

The Penumbra Podcast: Cyberpunk noir pastiche that sometimes gets a little too broad for me but is generally good fun of the Thrilling Tales! variety.

Ars Paradoxica: Time travel in one of its more complex interpretations. Paradox is a major plot element. Kind of sci-fi historical fiction?

Now for the more detailed writeups, including overviews of queerness and genre. As I said before, potential spoilers are rot13′d...but Here There Be Dragons etc.

Night Vale Presents

All of these are incredibly solid shows with an otherworldly feel to them that I love, despite being otherwise quite different.

All main characters are queer; WTNV has queer side characters (including nonbinary characters), but afaik the only other explicitly queer characters in AID/ORC/WTW are love interests of the MCs. That's pretty understandable, though, given that the casts of the three non-WTNV shows are exponentially smaller, and they've aired significantly fewer episodes.

I want to mention something in a totally value-neutral way: none of the shows feature homophobia or directly discuss queerness (lowkey exception for one episode of WTNV). I actually enjoy that, personally; it's usually very restful to spend time in worlds where queerness is normalized and unremarkable. Occasionally, however, I do want a slightly more direct approach, so I wanted to make a note in case you're in that kind of mood. 

Welcome to Night Vale The first and only podcast I listened to for about a year. Honestly, do I even need to say anything about WTNV?  I do want to mention that I think it's gotten a little bogged down in continuity over the last year. AFAIK it wasn't conceived as a long-running narrative arc, and a lot of its early charm came from the total lack of context. After Year 2, I feel like it did start spending a little too much time explaining things and filling out backstory for elements that, frankly, didn't need them. YMMV ofc, and I still listen to/enjoy every new episode, but I'm not madly in love with Year 3 the way I was with Year 1-2. Queerness: Queer af! The main character gets a full same-sex romance arc; V'q pnyy vg 'unccl-raqvat' ohg vg'f fgvyy batbvat nf n ybivat naq urnygul eryngvbafuvc, juvpu vf rira orggre. Multiple side characters are queer, including a few nonbinary characters who use they/them pronouns.  Genre: tucking into a short stack at 2am in a diner in the American Southwest, slowly realizing that the woman behind the counter called you by name even though you've never been here before, and also you can't quite remember how you got here in the first place. Alice Isn't Dead Beautiful, creepy, and acted by the brilliant Jasika Nicole. I'd place this more firmly in the horror genre than the others, so if you're sensitive to that kind of thing, take note; there's some suspense and a little bit of violence. That said, I am usually MASSIVELY sensitive and can't even watch trailers for horror movies (I have made my peace with never ever seeing Get Out), and I was perfectly fine with it. Queerness: The main character is a woman married to Alice, who isn't dead. It's like the opposite of the Bury Your Gays trope. Genre: driving along a nameless interstate late at night, the world around you narrowed to the section of road thrown into sharp relief by your headlights, and the occasional glint of animal eyes. The Orbiting Human Circus of the Air ORC is the most fanciful of the Night Vale family. The other shows seem like they take place in realities just a shade off from ours, but ORC completely throws any pretense of realism out the window. There's no real sense of a world outside the Circus, and why should there be? The Orbiting Human Circus of the Air has an infinitude of fantastical delights: singing saws, a bird that can mimic (almost) a full orchestra, tap-dancing mice. There's no trick or sleight of hand involved, not even a dusty tome of magic spells. ORC simply presents a world in which these wonders exist in hidden corners. The story is sometimes melancholy, and there are regular hints of a deep sadness underneath the surface, but the main character is defined by his determination and...well, 'optimism' would be too strong a word, but he has an unyielding sense of hope. He doesn't actually think things will turn out well for him (and he's so often right about that), but he clings to the hope that this time, maybe it might. Queerness: Gur znva punenpgre nyyhqrf gb na rk-oblsevraq bapr. This is one of the lighter touches of queerness in the Night Vale family. Genre: peering through a dusty velvet curtain just offstage, while brightly-costumed creatures dance to a tune you haven't heard since you were a child. Within the Wires While all Night Vale Presents shows have some kind of narrative conceit framing the audio medium (community radio station, trucker radio transmissions, broadcast wish fulfillment), those tend to be vehicles for the story and stylistic flourishes, rather than core elements of the story itself. WtW is presented as audio cassettes on full-body relaxation, and the cassettes themselves become key actors. This is not a story that could be told in any other medium, which personally I freaking love. This is also a more sci-fi show than the others, despite being set in AU 1980s, and more blatantly dystopic. The world-building's a little more evident, which is neither a good thing nor a bad thing; I think it's a side effect of being more sci-fi than fantasy. Everything feels like it has an explanation, even if the explanation is not provided, and it all fits together smoothly. Also: the narrator has a mild kiwi accent, which I find incredibly soothing. Queerness: Yep. Gur znva punenpgre unf n pbzcyvpngrq ohg qrpvqrqyl abg cyngbavp (s/s) eryngvbafuvc jvgu gur jbzna gur gncrf ner vagraqrq sbe.  Genre: lying quietly in a sensory isolation tank until you inexplicably start crying for the first time in years.

On hiatus

Wolf 359 So, there are a couple voice actors in Wolf 359 that don't do a whole lot for me, performance-wise. I don't want to get more specific because YMMV and I'm also just a really picky audio consumer, but there you have it. Mostly it's not an issue, though. This is also one of the darker shows I listen to, although it starts out with more of a zany sitcom vibe. There's a fair amount of murder, murder attempts, and general people-being-horrible-in-ways-they-believe-to-be-justified. It's not something I think I could sit through again, but it is a captivating story told well. There's a lot of focus on the emotional arcs and characters dealing with trauma, which I am All About in sci-fi. 

Queerness: zero. Zip. Zilch. It doesn't feature any romance arcs at all, though, so...I found it tolerable. Honestly, if it hadn't come so highly recommended, I probably would not have given it a shot. Genre: placing your hand on a rusty, unmarked door that wasn't in the ship schematics, and knowing you must step through—you must step through. Eos 10 After my first pass at this write-up, I realized that I was being really negative—far more negative than this show deserves. So I want to be clear: I listened to and enjoyed every extant episode of Eos 10, and I'm looking forward to Season 3, whenever it's released. It's a pleasantly entertaining space sitcom and I've gotten attached to the characters; the writing's solid and the voice acting is generally pretty great. It's just not quite tailored to my specific tastes. Ok, back to what I originally wrote: This podcast feels a lot more mainstream/conventional in its tropes than the others. Unlike most of the podcasts I listen to, the medium is invisible to the characters: it's not pitched as a radio show or a voice recorder or a series of motivational tapes. To me, this adds another layer of remove between the audience and the story. It's fine, it's just very straightforward in its presentation, with no medium-specific conceit or anything. It’s not really outsider art in any sense, and could legitimately be a TV show if it had the budget. That's a pretty good description of the show as a whole, honestly. It makes no pretense at being high-concept, it just does what it does. Queerness: This one...is not very queer. One of the side characters is gay but it doesn't really come up a lot. There's also a gay minor character that gets mentioned but never appears, and it's kind of a running gag that the gay character has a thing for the main character, who insists he's straight. It's a gross trope and I kind of winced at it, but it's usually framed by other characters as "are you sure you're not interested, because [gay character] is way out of your league and you're really not going to do better," which mitigates it somewhat for me? Also, gurer ner uvagf gung gur znva punenpgre zvtug npghnyyl or vagrerfgrq va gur tnl punenpgre, but only time will tell whether it's queerbaiting or not. Look, it's not an ideal situation. If it’s a dealbreaker, I totally understand, especially since there's no clear answer to the "is this queerbaiting" question and due to some unfortunate creator health issues, we might not get one for a while. Genre: ducking out of the way as a harried-looking man in a lab coat and stethoscope pelts down the hallway, yelling "GET ME FIVE UNITS OF ALIEN SEX POLLEN, STAT!"

Airing

The Strange Case of Starship Iris

I love this show a disproportionate amount, given that only four episodes have aired. This is a newer podcast, and one I stumbled on completely by accident! I wasn't expecting much, but it was sci-fi and the main character's last name was Liu, so I decided to give it a shot. And then it turned out to be not only awesome but also totally queer! I think I actually said "HAH! YES!" out loud when the queerness was canonized within the first few minutes. (This is why I live alone.) Plus, this is a small thing from a throwaway line, but...the main character weighs roughly the same amount as I do. Do you know how often that happens with Asian characters? Never, is how often. For possibly the first time in my life, I feel like I can legitimately headcanon a main character who looks exactly like me. I'm definitely going to do some incredibly self-indulgent fanart at some point. Unprecedented overidentifying with the main character aside: honestly, it's like this podcast was tailor-made for me. MAJOR SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 1 (and kind of 2): Vafrpher ovbybtvfg wbvaf ent-gnt perj bs fzhttyref jvgu n sbhaq-snzvyl ivor naq nyvra phygheny pynfurf, nyy senzrq va n fvavfgre zrgnaneengvir gung hfrf gur zrqvhz nf n cybg qrivpr, CYHF cbgragvny ebznapr orgjrra na Rnfg Nfvna jbzna naq n Fbhgu Nfvna jbzna? Um, sign me the fuck up.  The only downside is that this has definitely raised my expectations for new podcasts by an unreasonable amount. Every new podcast I've tried since Starship Iris has been vaguely disappointing. My podcast standards are way too high now, and it's all Starship Iris's fault.

Queerness: YES. The main character is a queer woman, there's a nonbinary alien species and the alien crew member uses they/them pronouns, and there's a trans guy. Also, this is wild speculation, but V guvax/oryvrir/ubcr gung bar bs gur bgure srznyr perj zrzoref vf orvat frg hc nf n ebznagvp vagrerfg sbe gur znva punenpgre. There's some explicit discussion of gender identity in a non-traumatic way which tbh is like water in the freaking desert.

Genre: ??? it's too new and I love it too much to assign it a genre. 

The Bright Sessions

As I said in the spoiler-free summary: this is everything I wanted X-Men to be. Hell, it's everything I ever want superhero stories to be, and it's why I've been drawn to superhero stories since I was a teenager. The Bright Sessions deals with the complex consequences of, e.g., having empathy powers as a teenager while learning how to manage your own emotions and maturity. The main character is Dr. Bright, a therapist specializing in people with superpowers, which naturally provides the perfect angle for those people to get really navel-gazey about their lives. There is an actual overarching plot with a shadowy government agency, of course, but that's definitely not what I'm here for and luckily that’s clearly just a vehicle for the feelings.

Queerness: One of the main characters has a m/m romance arc; another main character is asexual; a side character (who may soon be considered a main character?) is bisexual. Because the conceit is therapy sessions, Dr. Bright does inquire delicately about how her patients may or may not be coping with emerging/existing queer identities, but none of them find it traumatic.

Genre: telekinetically fiddling with a desk puzzle limned in afternoon sun, as the doctor asks: "And how does that make you feel?"

The Penumbra Podcast

I'd had the Penumbra Podcast on my radar/subscriptions list for a while, but I'd never quite finished the first episode...until the remastered/rewritten first story was released. The difference is astronomical. The creators talk about audio quality etc. in their reasoning for recreating the first story, but for me, the main distinction is the skill in storytelling and the confidence to create noir without relying on questionable tropes to signal "hard-boiled!!!" I sometimes think the writing and characterizations are a little broad, but that may be down to genre. Penumbra doesn't really go for 'subtle' or 'realistic.' An important format note: there's a main character with episodic adventures, but in between the two-part adventures, there are one-shots in various genres. I actually skipped most of the one-shots because I'm not great with horror or kid stories.

Queerness: The main character of the main story is queer (jvgu na qryvtugshyyl rzbgvbanyyl pbafgvcngrq z/z ebznapr nep gung'f abg va n terng cynpr evtug abj), as are numerous side characters. It's a noir pastiche, though, so the main character is pretty self-sabotaging in all areas of his life; a 'happy ending' doesn't seem incredibly likely. One of the stand-alone stories is a queer Western, which I found delightful. It's also one of the few stand-alone stories that has a bonus follow-up episode.

Genre: taking a long, slow drag on a cigarette as the rain blurs the neon lights and filth of the alien city below.

Ars Paradoxica

Ars Paradoxica shares a producer with The Bright Sessions, which is why I tried it! Like all decent time travel stories, Ars Paradoxica is meticulously planned with a lot of moving parts. The worldbuilding is intense and requires actually paying attention, which can be challenging for me since I typically listen to podcasts while multitasking.  Frankly, it moves a little slow for me...which is odd to say about a show that regularly has timeskips of months or years and literally involves time travel. I guess I feel that way because there's a lot of attention paid to the action and plot, but less to the emotional character arcs. And obviously my narrative preferences run a certain way, so I'm only really paying attention to the character stuff. Which, to be fair, certainly exists and is carried through well—it's just not in my preferred proportions. Plus, the cast is quite sprawling compared to most other podcasts, and the tone is almost Crapsack World but not quite. 

Queerness: The main character is explicitly asexual and briefly explains it, and there are a handful of queer side characters. It's semi-historical, and there's some discussion of managing visibility etc. 

Genre: staring into the dusty gears of a massive clock running backwards as the minute hand slowly approaches a blinking red light.

[penumbra-rp]

Congratulations Ricci, you have been accepted for the role of Marlene Mckinnon!

Thirty’s a dirty word for a young woman. Simultaneously, she’s failed to grow up yet succeeds in decaying. Grief doesn’t die, and nor does guilt, but kinder feelings perish slowly, driving Marlene to sigh through Order meetings, feeling hope’s rotting carrion reek a new stench of cynicism. She admits to nobody that she doesn’t believe in any of it. Still, she tries to cling to their ideals, praying that she might earn something for herself as a witness to the sincerity of their hope, waiting for a spark of life to reawaken amidst their earnestness of their idealism.

Admin Becky: Marlene has shaken off her past and shed the weight of perfectionism like a creature determined to find a new, more comfortable skin to grow into. Her stubborn cynicism will undoubtedly help keep the Order grounded, whilst those who dream of cutting corruption out of society may provide her with sparks of hope to alight the kindling of blind rebellion in her chest. I adore how she has formed a sense of maternal kinship towards all those looking to do the same, turning her into something of a figurehead, a beacon, for all those who are lost in the world as she had once been. It makes her so perfect for the Leaky Bucket, her sharpness enough to defend a place that is much a home to some people as it is a refuge.

Please check out our checklist for joining Penumbra.

01. Out of Character

NAME: Ricci

AGE: 20

YOUR BIRTHDAY: 01/25/99

PRONOUNS: she/her

TIMEZONE: GMT+8

02. In Character

CHARACTER: Marlene McKinnon

CHARACTER’S PRONOUNS: she/her

FACECLAIM: I’d like to play Sonoya Mizuno because having no titties is integral to Marlene as a person.

CHARACTER’S BIRTHDAY: 05/27/89

PERSONALITY:

[ + ] Diligent - Though most may assume such based on the careless with which she carries herself, Marlene isn’t lazy, just selective about what matters to her. When she finds something she cares about, she puts her all into making it work. Seeing the fruit of heartful labor is incredibly rewarding for her.

[ + ] Understanding - An unexpectedly sharp mind accompanies a secretly tender heart, and the combination allows Marlene to easily see situations through the eyes of others… when she wants to.

[ + ] Maternal - Deny it she may, but behind her mask of recklessness and flippancy is a woman that cares deeply about the people in her life. She notices that Order members are getting younger and younger and is overwhelmed with the desire to protect them, wanting to save them from suffering from the same cynicism she regards the world with.

[ + ] Bold - Whether it’s feigned or not is up to debate, but Marlene carries herself with a certain kind of confidence, unwilling to expose her vulnerabilities to anybody she isn’t close to. She isn’t afraid to take risks if it’s for something she cares about or believes in.

[ + ] Self-destructive - Her past history with family deaths and abandonment has left residues of self-loathing within her. Though not explicitly self-hating, Marlene occasionally regards her life with very little care, preferring thrill and adrenaline over her own welfare and safety.

[ + ] Hedonistic - When the working day is done: girls – they wanna have fun. Girls just wanna have fun. That’s all they really want.

[ + ] Irresponsible - It’s the first thing anybody notices. Laid-back and free-spirited as she is, Marlene prefers not to take herself, or life, seriously, preferring to face the tragedies of the world with a sharp wit and a strange, vulgar sense of humor. If life’s a joke, be the first to laugh, she says.

[ + ] Turbulent - Though never easily angered, Marlene is prone to bouts of mania and sadness, her emotions as ever-shifting as the earth’s climate ( thank you, Carrow energies ). She is driven less by ambitions and more by impulses, riding the next new wave of excitement whenever it comes.

BRIEF BULLET POINT BIO:

- Marlene McKinnon is twenty-six years old when her mother takes her own life. Midori, she says, nervous fingers flicking the corners of a page she has yet to read as her gaze lifts to meet the pairs of eyes stare, with scrutiny or with pity, at the newly-orphaned woman standing behind the funeral parlor podium. It should be easy to talk about a woman so many had loved (West End loses its angel to heaven, the obituary had said,) — but Marlene knows her mother has never been one for platitudes. So she tries harder. Midori was a great woman. A great mother. A pause. A breath. There was this time, when I was a kid, I remember —  she starts, and doesn’t finish, because in the precise moment Marlene scours her mind for a happy memory, she comes up empty.

- After half a lifetime of striving to crawl out of her mother’s shadow, it is ironic that death makes Midori’s already pervasive presence near inescapable. Tabloid writers and so-called journalists  hound Marlene with questions and interview requests in some futile attempt at digging up whatever was left of the story her mother failed to bury. Marlene denies them any answers. The facts they pry out of less trustworthy sources are somehow mostly correct:  Her husband’s death years ago had devastated her, but the marriage was tumultuous. She has not spoken to her daughter in more than five years. She left her with nothing.

- Nothing material. That much is true. The pain of abandonment stings but the blow hardly hurts her financially. In fact, she’s proud to say that in half a decade of estrangement, Marlene has built herself a place she could call her own. London isn’t the kindest to neophyte businesswomen, yet the Leaky Bucket has only blossomed under Marlene’s management, slowly growing into a home for scrappy university students and young adult delinquents, far rowdier than the upper class crowd her mother once surrounded herself with. It’s chaos, but it’s hers. Sometimes, her self-made success bears fruit to kinder daydreams. In the best of her imagination, she gets to greet Midori’s disgusted scowl with a grin and a sardonic, “Love me yet, ma?” In her worst, it’s Midori that smiles. The woman’s expression softens at the sight of her daughter’s work, her small lips forming words she would never have spoken outside of this contrived daydream: Marlene, I’m so proud of you.

- Midori leaves no will, no note. But all mothers, in some way or another, leave their daughters an inheritance of scars.

- What is hard to love is even harder to grieve. If the world remembers Midori for her voice, Marlene remembers her for her silence. Wide-eyed and love-starved, a child Marlene had begged for her mother’s affection in the only language the woman seemed to speak: achievements. Thus began a childhood of ballet and piano and voice lessons she hardly enjoyed but felt she needed to pursue, insatiate heart seizing whatever scraps of love she might find in her mother’s smallest of smiles. The harder she tried, the harder it got, because the more she strove to become her mother, the more she learned to accept the impossibility of growing into her mother’s insufferable perfection. The child will spend ballet recitals staring at two empty seats, silently praying for an audience she knows will not come. When Midori does come home, exhausted from hours upon hours of theatre rehearsals, Marlene will have her Clair de Lune rendition be dismissed with a cold frown and the words: You can do better. Outside her family, she will receive more appreciation, but her efforts will no doubt invite the disappointed gazes of her mother’s peers, matched with hushed remarks that the demons lurking within Marlene’s mind will later on replay: not as talented, not as charming, not as electric, not as beautiful, not as poised — she’s not her mother.

- Grief, complicated and disquieting, writhes within her bones. “My ma’ named me after Marlene Dietrich,” the present Marlene half laughs as she addresses the funeral visitors. “Guess she knew I was gonna grow up wanting to wear suits and fight Nazis.” This is the the truth, but not the one her gut feels it needs to spit out. Family, she thinks, is synonymous with fracture. Once, she was content with neglecting the word’s brokenness, but death shatters it past the point of repair. Stammering out a eulogy feels like choking on the shards of whatever it was she failed to fix. Inside, the fragments wound her. Later on, the tabloids will speculate the reason behind Midori McKinnon’s death and come to ill-founded conclusions that a self-loathing Marlene will find herself agreeing with: It was her daughter’s fault.

- The desire to become worse than the bad daughter her parents seemed to believe her to be exacerbated during her college years, ignited by the unexpected invitation to a selective extra-curricular club headed by a certain Albus Dumbledore. Eighteen years old and already far too jaded to fully believe in their fanciful ideals of change, Marlene accepted the invitation half-heartedly, less for their causes and more for the new warmth of knowing she belonged somewhere. Still, in their presence, she found herself braver. The long stirring spark of anger finally turned flame, triggering a new pattern of explosive dinner rows with her father, which pushes an already silent Midori deeper and deeper into her shell. The Order of the Phoenix brought about a new era of rebellions: against corporate giants, against her family, against expectations.

- Mostly, she rebelled against herself. Graffitied a body that failed to be perfect, needling ink stains over skin she always loathed wearing, singed her insides with liquor and passed-around party pills. Here is the revolution against the girl who got it all wrong. Staring at the mirror, she made peace with the woman behind the glass — an unwanted daughter who will make herself repulsive if the only alternative was accepting that she was unlovable. Michaelangelo said: I saw an angel in the marble in and carved until I set him free. With the new knowledge that she was not made of marble and possessed no inner angel, Marlene stopped carving herself in her mother’s shape.

- Too many scandals. Too many arrests. They told her she couldn’t come home anymore. She wanted to tell them it never felt like a home anyway, but her anger was quieter than her grief. The stammering of her heart and her eyes’ threat of tears reminded her later that the daughter who craved their love hadn’t died in a revolution fire as she suspected. She just became quieter. The urge to beg for their acceptance was too loud to ignore, but she willed herself to forget it, and with a pocket full of too much borrowed money and her sights on a burnt wreckage, she set off to carve herself a place of her own.

-Only years into adulthood does Marlene learn to blame herself less. It happens sometimes. Some people are built with their atoms all wrong, their fuses too short, their gears too rusty. Brilliant as the public claimed her mind was, to those close to her, it seemed Midori’s brain was short of the ability to process happiness, to register hope. Perhaps it’s merely genetics, or the high stress of nightly West End performances, or perhaps her mother, and her mother’s mother, and every mother that preceded, had all starved their daughters of love — this is their heirloom, this absence — and none of them learned to give what they never received.

- The child Marlene’s dream of becoming her mother sees fruit later on, albeit in all the worst ways. Her eyes are her mother’s. The way they see the world in sepia tones. Her heart is her mother’s. The way it feels bone-hollow and restless in its hunger for colour. Her exhaustion. Her cynicism. Her loneliness. When she hears the news of her mother’s passing, all she can think of is that college summer spent driving a breaknecking Volvo down vacant roads if only to have that adrenaline-roused daydream of collision burst against all her empty.

- Thirty’s a dirty word for a young woman. Simultaneously, she’s failed to grow up yet succeeds in decaying. Grief doesn’t die, and nor does guilt, but kinder feelings perish slowly, driving Marlene to sigh through Order meetings, feeling hope’s rotting carrion reek a new stench of cynicism. She admits to nobody that she doesn’t believe in any of it. Still, she tries to cling to their ideals, praying that she might earn something for herself as a witness to the sincerity of their hope, waiting for a spark of life to reawaken amidst their earnestness of their idealism.

- The younger Order members, with willingness to throw their lives away for impossible ambitions, terrify her to no end. But they awaken something in her, a new protective instinct, a maternal spark. She wants to save them from her fate, defend their youthful optimism from whatever threatens it. Family, she has always believed, is synonymous with fracture. As the Leaky Bucket bustles with the liveliness of young rebels, they sweep up the shards of old and construct a new definition, one that allows hope to blossom, slowly and organically, within Marlene. If she cannot save the world, she will protect every bold soul that has the audacity to try.

INTERVIEW

i. How do you feel about your current occupation?

Marlene lays her back against the wall of the Leaky Bucket’s storefront, offering a wide grin to the video camera in front of her. Turning away, she crosses one leg, plucks a cigarette out of a pack tucked in the small pocket of ripped black jeans, and sets the tail end ablaze with a lighter, less because she feels like having a drag and more because it might look cool on video.

Perhaps it doesn’t, but the inhale of smoke feels good anyway. “I feel incredibly lucky. Enjoying what you do isn’t a privilege everyone is afforded.” Marlene folds her arms, letting her cigarette dangle between two fingers. “My Ma’ used to say that life in late capitalism is like a Japanese claw machine. All the opportunities are laid out in front of you, seemingly within reach, but the chances of getting anything are actually slim to fuckin’ none.” Her mother never actually said that, but the metaphor was too good to go to waste, and attributing her own words to somebody else makes her seem far less pretentious than she feels at the moment. A knife of a smile cuts through her face. “So let’s fuck up all the claw machines, yeah?”

ii. What song would you say describes yourself?

The drums come first. Then, a single chord. Then, the abrupt, unwanted stab of truth — MY GOD, I’M SO LONELY, SO I OPEN THE —

“Off the top of my head?” Marlene laughs a little, a flippant shrug rolling off her shoulders. “No Scrubs?”

Despite her words, a different song plays in her mind without her warranting, echoing from the memory of having it on repeat weeks earlier, a day before her monthly cycle was due. In her hormone-induced despair, Marlene had drowned herself in cheap wine and the honesty of an annoyingly catchy pop song, all at the expense of any perceived rationality. No, she forces her mind to sing, I don’t want your number, no— nobody, nobody, nobody — I ain’t gonna give you mine and no — NOBODY, NOBODY, NOBODY —

The Marlene of memory sang along as she stared at the bathroom mirror, dragging cotton pads over the streaks of mascara running down her cheeks. Through her tears, she laughed about the melodrama of it all — the runny makeup, the snot on her nose, her being alone, her naked reflection, her illogical emotions — angry and amused when the more practical side of her mind had made an unglamorous acknowledgment of Maybelline eyeliner’s waterproof quality and interrupted the movie-worthiness of her misery, all while she adjusted the seriousness of her expression to validate herself to a nonexistent voyeur that might have found something poetic in her PMS. “I’ve been big and small,” she blubbered through snot and laughs and half-breaths, “And big and small… and big and small… again and…” And still, nobody wants me. Still, nobody… wants… me… “Give me one good movie kiss… and I’ll be…”

NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY!

The Marlene of present tilts her head, leaning back to take a long drag of her cigarette. “Nothing comes to mind, really.”

iii. Does reputation matter to you?

The chorus of tiny Mitskis fall silent in her mind as a new thought interrupts their melody, prompting her fingers to click against her skin with one abrupt snap. “Bad Reputation!” she says, grin falling open in excitement. “Joan Jett. What a fuckin’ banger. Bit cliche,” she adds, dismissing the notion of her own predictability with an expression of mild disdain and a noncommittal wave of her free hand, “but succinct enough to answer both questions. You could say it’s two birds with one Joan.” Marlene punctuates her sentence with a laugh that rings hollower by the second, ever mortified by her own cheesiness, then raises her chin to greet the camera with a wide, self-loathing grin. “Edit that out or I’ll stab somebody.”

iii. …Does reputation matter to you?

The breath she inhales comes out through her nose as a quiet chuckle. “What a unique question. Genuinely.” Her palm strikes her chest, above her heart. “I don’t think I’ve ever been asked this before.”

Marlene’s smile fades as she presses the tip of her cigarette to her lips. After one long drag, she exhales, letting a now pensive gaze rest on the wisps of dissipating smoke.

It’s hard to be honest when it comes at the risk of being known. Past the smoke tendrils, Marlene’s brown eyes linger on the camerawoman in front of her. Small ashes rain from the tail end of her cigarette. An expression of uncharacteristic earnestness sweeps over her features. “It’s a bit…” she trails, biting her lip. “Complicated.”  

If thirty years of life taught Marlene anything, it’s that most women spent their existences doing less growing, and more outgrowing. It’s a hasty generalization that she draws from the narrow pool of her own experiences, but sometimes, she thinks it’s true. Sometimes she looks at women and tries to guess what they hate about themselves. What they like, too. The camera operator is pudgy and small and square-jawed, but she carries herself with confidence behind the lens, as if she knows she belongs  there. The girl is beautiful. Marlene wonders if she can tell it to herself without doubt.

She thinks of a younger Marlene, sixteen and tightening a belt around her waist as far as it could go to create proportions that would distract from the absence in her chest. This younger Marlene is overcritical of her reflection: narrow eyes, a flat nose, small lips.  Reputations, Marlene thinks, stem from appearances, and appearances are all any girl is ever taught to care about. I think all women grow up hating themselves, she doesn’t say.

“The world we live in carries far too much prejudice,” she says instead, though she wonders if serious words carry any weight if they are said by a person that seems to never take anything seriously. Marlene furrows her eyebrows. “I’m a woman of colour and a lesbian. You get things like catcalling, sexism, homophobia, microaggressions. Not all the time, obviously — people aren’t as bad as we make them out to be — but you have all these unpleasant experiences scattered throughout your existence.”

The younger Marlene doesn’t look anyone in the eye. She keeps her head down, afraid that if anyone looks close enough, they’ll discover the dirty secret lurking in her gaze. In the rare occasions where one does find it, it’s not bad, because they’re ecstatic to unearth a glimpse the same irreverence reflected in somebody else’s. The younger Marlene lets another girl slip a hand under her Catholic school uniform and finds that her touch makes her hate herself less, but the thought of being seen sucks the air out of her lungs harder than a belt tied too tightly around her waist.

“Women like me,” she says, drawing her words out slowly as not to let any useless emotions spill out, “all we have to do is exist, and people of more small-minded worlds automatically draw their own conclusions.” Feeling a new load weighing down her shoulders, Marlene shrugs. “We’re born with bad reputations.”

She doesn’t know what she can do for the world. She doesn’t know how to pry the hatred out of women. How to help them outgrow the unnecessary need to be beautiful. She thinks of other, younger, smaller Marlenes out there, wants to teach them to laugh at the absence of mass on their chests and point instead to the pulse heaving against it — there, she will tell them. That’s the most beautiful part of you.

And she thinks of the Marlenes who are afraid of this pulse and what it wants to love. Her heart swells with the urge to save them, but she doesn’t know how. If she could build a world where love was easier, she would. “Does it matter to me? I like to pretend it doesn’t. But I know —“ she pauses, nervous, afraid of being misconstrued, and wills every bit of sincerity to leak through her words. “I know I don’t want anybody else to suffer. So it matters.”

iv. What is your relationship with your parents like?

With a scoff of relief, Marlene decides that her quota for serious answers has been met. “My Da’s Catholic. My Ma’s Asian. I’m a clinically depressed raging homosexual with sixteen tattoos, five piercings, two terminated pregnancies, three previous arrests, zero university diplomas, an alcohol business, a nicotine problem, and a mild to mildly severe addiction to being a little bit of a cunt.” The corner of her mouth curls into a small smirk. Marlene turns to the camera, shooting a wink that brims with both impishness and affection. “Naturally, I’m their pride and joy.”

v. What languages can you speak?

A length of sleek black hair falls over her face as Marlene throws her head down, hand hovering above her mouth to conceal the quiet laugh of a scoff that escapes her throat. “Trickiest question that’s been asked thus far.” Leaning back, Marlene raises an eyebrow, mouth quirked into a flippant smile. “Because I’m getting this sinking feeling there’s a secretly correct answer, and if I don’t give it, the Duolingo Owl will find my address and set my house on fire.”

vi. If your home was on fire and you could only save one item, what would you choose?

Brown eyes widen in mild horror. “…Russian For Beginners.”

vii. Which Hogwarts University faculty did you study at? The Gryffindor School of Applied Science, the Ravenclaw School of Humanities, the Slytherin School of Social Science, or the Hufflepuff School of Art?

“When I was younger, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, just that I wanted to do something good. So Environmental Science.” The fact that Marlene McKinnon studied in Gryffindor surprises a lot of people. The fact that she never finished the course surprises less. “It’s funny, because I think I did a lot more harm than good. In my second year I ended up dating someone in the non-renewable energy industry. I cheated on her — not my best moment — and it pissed her off — understandably so — and long story short, I guess it’s half my fault that there’s now a hole in the ozone layer in the shape of my pussy.”

vix. What is your social media username?

“I don’t want strangers on my personal accounts but —“ Marlene pauses to snag a slip of paper from her pocket, reading off a spiel she had prepared moments ago. “‘Follow The Leaky Bucket on Instagram at Instagram-Dot-Com-Slash-Capital-T-The-Dot-Capital-L-Leaky-Capital-B-Bucket for a chance to access our secret menu.’” Throwing her hand to her forehead in one lazy salute, Marlene turns to the camera and offers a smile and one last farewell wink. “And review us on Yelp, while you’re at it.”

[fic-dreamin]

I LOVED this book I read this entire book in the airport and on a flight from Italy to Boston. I couldn't stop reading it....I LOVED this book....It was so well written, both smart and funny (I laughed out loud on several occassions...probably to the dismay of the travelers on either side of me). I tend to read a lot of books about food and cooking...but this is not your typical foodie novel. A few people have said it wasn't "believable" but I don't mind a bit of fancy, or fantasy, mixed into a story - - I actually quite like it. Having worked in the tech industry in the Bay Area , I really enjoyed the parts that took place at work. Loved the Lois Club and the Beo email arcs as well. I haven't read any other books by Robin Sloan, but I ordered one immediately upon finishing this one.! Go to Amazon

Satisfying Reading I just finished reading Sourdough by Robin Sloan, an utterly quirky, yet charming novel. The star of the book is an exotic Sourdough starter left on Lois', our protagonist, doorstep by a local restaurant owner with immigration problems. Lois works a high tech job in the Bay Area for a company that makes and refines robotic arms. From there the story mushrooms into a series of fantastical events. Only the brilliant writing allows us disregard our skepticism of the plot which eventually leads us to a satisfying conclusion. Go to Amazon

Lovely book on several fronts This is a very fun read, humorous in a light way and yet thoughtful and carefully constructed. The novel takes place in a very central San Francisco, at the intersection of the newer hipster wave of startup companies, the unabashed role of the immigrant experience, and California cuisine and related bay area foodiness. As a bay area resident, startup worker, and foodie, this all resonated... Sometimes with tongue in cheek, and sometimes with a critical of not accusatory eye. I loved the image of the robotics software developer who scarcely sets for in her apartment and certainly never cooks being presented with a gift that calls on her to learn to bake bread from a magical sourdough. The novelty of the Mazg culture (in multiple senses) is amusing and creative. The depiction of startups is quite accurate but hilarious with images such as the table of dedicated slurry (read Soylent... not the only such equivalency in the book) drinkers among those enjoying the free gourmet meals. The conflict element between or heroine and the forces of darkness didn't grab me as much, but it worked well enough. Go to Amazon

Robin Sloan takes the edges of our technology and our obsessions and turn them into gently absurd and enjoyable stories If technology and biology were magic this novel would be Fantasy Story set in the kingdom of San Francisco and the Alameda Air Strip would be the forest with the wizards. Instead it's set in the present day. The story bleeds quietly into the fantastical but not too far. It sits there on the edge of things I recognize and know exist but touches them ever so lightly with the aroma of magic. That feeling that there is so much more in the world than we comprehend making me feel like I live in a world where magic also sits. Go to Amazon

I wish I coukd read everything Robin Sloan will write in rapid succession A wonderful, smart, quirky and hopeful journey through America's rapid blending if technology and life. unlike many technology-laced writers, Sloan is hopeful and has faith in the goodness of us. Like Mr. Penumbras, this book is devourable whole and leaves you thinking. I want to think this is a smart allegory for our civilization. Or maybe its valuable just because its a wonderful story. Thank you, Mr. Sloan! Go to Amazon

This was not for me! I thought the beginning of this book was much more interesting than the second half of the book. Who knew there was a "Lois Club" but sure enough, it exists. The computer programming aspect of this book as it relates to baking was bizarre to me. The concept of consuming Slurry made me nauseous which I think set the tone for me for the rest of the book. All of the offerings at the Marrow Fair were so strange so my level of interest was minimal. Go to Amazon

Lois stumbles through it at first but her result is very good, and before you know it she is embarking ... Lois, a newly hired software programmer at a robotics company in San Francisco, is so consumed by her job that her diet devolves to nutritive gel favored by her work colleagues and soup and bread she orders from a delivery service. When the delivery company goes out of business the owners leave Lois, who they dubbed as their number one eater, with their sourdough starter and give her a brief lesson on how to make bread. Lois stumbles through it at first but her result is very good, and before you know it she is embarking on a small commercial production. Lois competes for a spot at The Ferry Building and instead gets involved with a food lab whose goal is to disrupt food production through the creative application of technology. As you might expect, there are some wayward characters and unusual ideas involved along the way. Go to Amazon

Never dull and a pleasure to read! I chose to read this book because of the joy I felt with Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Book Store (by the same talented writer, Robin Sloan). I loved this book from the beginning. The main character held my interest throughout the entire book, and I believe most readers will relate to the diverse and interesting story line with good and fun characters. It was difficult to put down, but a gal's gotta bake! Do yourself a favour, read this book and smile! :) Go to Amazon

Five Stars Cyber Fairytale Strange If I Were Lost on a Desert Island.... Great for bakers and Non-Bakers alike Delicious Five Stars I loved this book at the beginning Four Stars This book is a pure delight. My husband bought it as a gift for ...