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lady-of-the-lotus · 4 years ago

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Fractured Ice - Ch. 3/7

Xue Yang whisks a solipsistic Lan Xichen off on a murder roadtrip to raise Xiao Xingchen and Meng Yao from the grave. Because that will solve all of their problems, right?

Your hand,” he says. He can’t think straight, but that much he knows to say. “Show me your hand, and I’ll tell you what he said.”

There’s no hesitation in the imposter’s movements. He unwinds the bandages, drops them to the floor, and eyes the naked clan leader evenly.

A black glove. The glove is distinctively fingerless save for the cloth-covered little finger, which sticks up stiffly.

“...Xue Yang.”

XueXiao & XiYao - Rated M

Read on AO3! Tumblr: Ch. 1 Ch. 2 Ch. 4

Ch. 3: shadows and monsters

Lan Xichen doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there, staring at the guqin, before Xiao Xingchen—

No. Not Xiao Xingchen.

—before the liar—the fraud—the imposter speaks.

“Well?” The imposter’s face is white, voice strained, eyes hot, but he’s sitting very, very still. “What did he say?”

That’s the last thing Lan Xichen is certain of for a while. Those words: What did he say? ringing in his ears, the desperation in the imposter’s eyes, and then, abruptly, icy-cold water on his skin, frigid water flowing around him, as he kneels naked in the stream outside.

The crane is nowhere to be seen, but Xiao—the imposter is on the bank. Sitting on a rock, as if he’s been there for a long time.

“Come on out, Zewu-jun,” he says coaxingly, as if he’s trying to lure a cat off a roof. Lan Xichen’s clothes are draped over his arm and there’s a blanket on his lap. “Let’s talk.”

Lan Xichen doesn’t remember crawling out of the stream any more than he remembers entering it, but he must have, because suddenly he’s being wrapped in the blanket and bundled back into the house.

The imposter sets the clothes down on a chair in Lan Xichen’s old bedroom and stands beside the bed.

“What did he say?” he asks. “He’s in there, isn’t he? I knew he was! I knew he wasn’t gone—”

Lan Xichen barely hears him. He’s almost completely numb, either from the icy stream or shock, but he’s almost certain he’s floating above the bed.

He tilts his head towards the imposter.

“Your hand,” he says. He can’t think straight, but that much he knows to say. “Show me your hand, and I’ll tell you what he said.”

There’s no hesitation in the imposter’s movements. He unwinds the bandages, drops them to the floor, and eyes the naked clan leader evenly.

A black glove. The glove is distinctively fingerless save for the cloth-covered little finger, which sticks up stiffly.

“...Xue Yang.”

The words hang in the air between them, blazing with the full heat of the betrayal, but Xue Yang doesn’t so much as blink.

Instead he claps slowly, grinning as if he’s enjoying himself. “Excellent detective work, Zewu-jun. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, tell me, what did he say?”

“Xue Yang,” Lan Xichen repeats. He’s not sure what he expected, but it was not this. He struggles to put names and events together, find some explanation, but his mind is a throbbing blank. “Xue Yang.”

There’s a knife in Xue Yang’s hand. He’s still grinning, but it’s a grin full of fangs. “Tell me what he said,” he says, “and I won’t slice your face off.”

Lan Xichen hears someone laughing, realizes it’s him, but he can’t stop. He’s overwhelmed with it, suffused with it, completely awash with amusement, laughter gushing through him and clawing its way out through his throat.

And then Xue Yang is laughing too, his knife back wherever it came from, his shoulders shaking with mirth.

It’s a long time before either of them get themselves under control. Lan Xichen feels warm despite the wet hair sticking to his bare shoulders. That old swelling, growing feeling is back in his chest, and he could swear that he’s glowing in the dimness.

“Nothing matters,” he informs Xue Yang. The monster has brought the chair over beside the bed and is sitting on Lan Xichen’s robes, feet up on the bed. “Nothing at all.”

“I guess not,” says Xue Yang. He tilts his head at Lan Xichen. “And, as that’s the case, maybe you can tell me what he said?”

“ ‘Xiao Xingchen.’ ��

Xue Yang closes his eyes in a kind of ecstasy. “He said that?”

“His name would be impossible to confuse with any other words.”

A shudder passes through Xue Yang. “I knew he was still in there,” he says. “I knew it—” He opens his eyes. “I did it,” he says. “ I brought him back, I nursed his spirit—”

Lan Xichen wants to ask him about how Xiao Xingchen ended up in the bag. Not for any real reason. Just base curiosity. It doesn’t matter, after all. He had been right, after all, no matter what Lan Qiren had tried to convince him of. The world is all shadows, all shades, all layers upon layers of curtains and veils.

It can wait.

“My brother didn’t recognize you,” he says.

Xue Yang points to his face. His voice is steady, but his hand trembles slightly. “Face-mirroring talisman. Itchy, but it comes in handy. I didn’t stick around long, though.”

Another layer, another curtain. Lan Xichen is glad of it. More proof that nothing is real, that nothing matters, that he can finally let go.

“Let me see your true face.”

He expects an argument, but Xue Yang just sighs and grips the side of his face. Tugs, peels off his skin. Drops the mask into the pitcher of water he’s set beside the bed and turns to Lan Xichen.

“A bit of a downgrade,” he says, rubbing at the skin around his jaw and temples, “but I haven’t gotten many complaints.”

He’s quite good-looking, actually, in a jarringly youthful, innocent way. Far different from the elegant beauty of the mask. Softer, with no sharp angles anywhere on him, and a well-formed nose. A surprise. Lan Xichen had never actually met him despite Xue Yang’s years as a Jin Clan guest disciple, but the idea of him as a grotesque monster has been fixed in his mind since his slaughter ( supposed slaughter, reminds himself) of the Chang Clan. His voice is lighter than before, almost flippant, with nothing of the genteel tones he’d used to impersonate Xiao Xingchen.

“And underneath?” Lan Xichen asks.

Xue Yang raises an eyebrow. “Underneath?”

Lan Xichen leaves it alone. He’ll peel off the next layer when he’s ready, shed his skin, reveal another level of reality.

“Xue Yang was always described to me as a madman,” Lan Xichen says. “But you…”

“By a group of self-righteous fucks who met me for five minutes as an adolescent?” Xue Yang grins. The half-feral grin feels more natural when coupled with this face, deceivingly innocent as it is, as does the intensity of his eyes and foul language. “Perhaps they were right. Perhaps they were wrong. Does that really matter to Zewu-jun?”

Lan Xichen doesn’t respond. It’s true, Wangji and Wei Wuxian had only met Xue Yang for the few days it took to travel to the Unclean Realm, and Nie Mingjue had only interrogated Xue Yang once.

All three had been unanimous in their verdict that Xue Yang was not right in the head. A sadistic monster with no true emotion, an animal who killed for pleasure instead of necessity.

A-Yao, though…

Jin Guangshan had pushed A-Yao to take a special interest in the young man after all the hoopla over the Chang Clan massacre, and A-Yao had dropped a few words to him about Xue Yang over the years, mostly in response to Nie Mingjue’s tantrums over Xue Yang’s death sentence having been commuted to life imprisonment.

He can hear A-Yao’s voice in his head as if it were yesterday.

“Xue Yang is not a madman,” he had told Lan Xichen during one of their late-night talks. A-Yao had been lounging in his most casual robes, the collar open, belt loosely tied. “He has violent tendencies, yes, and I can see why the false rumors were spread about him. He is often quite rude—” being rude, going by A-Yao’s tone, was a worse trait than any potential for sociopathy “—but he is deceptively clever, hard-working, and brimming with raw talent. The Jin Clan needs more disciples like him.”

And a different time: “If only he had been instructed from childhood, he would have been one of the greats by now.” And then, as if rethinking that, “Or perhaps not. He sits outside of everything. Sometimes I think that is his greatest strength.”

There had been a sense of envy in the way A-Yao spoke the words “outside of everything.” A-Yao, who had spent his entire life doing everything in his power to get on the inside, to climb to the top of the pyramid.

Lan Xichen hadn’t understood it then.

He did now.

He looks at Xue Yang. The delinquent cultivator is sitting with one arm dangling indolently over the side of his chair, his feet still up on the bed frame, not even trying to hide his smile. He’s staring at the ceiling as if counting something invisible up there, twirling his hair with his good hand.

Rule 8: Do not sit with a disgraceful pose.

Xue Yang gives a cheery little wave when he notices Lan Xichen’s attention. Despite everything, the young man looks so—so innocent —

A-Yao had been certain that Xue Yang had not been responsible for the Chang Clan massacre.

Perhaps he had been right, despite what Nie Mingjue had very emphatically believed.

Lan Xichen should ask Xue Yang about it.

He knows he should.

Demand a full account of the slaughter—

But, “Were you flirting with me before?” he hears himself asking instead. He doesn’t think he’s ever spoken that ridiculous, adolescent word out loud, but it’s the only one he can think of that fits.

Xue Yang starts. “What?”

Lan Xichen is thinking of A-Yao’s half-open robes. A-Yao had never so much as made a move—chaste as his marriage was, he’d valued his vows and Qin Su too much to betray them like that—but during their time living together in cramped inns before the Sunshot Campaign, there had been little privacy, and he had not been above an occasional open robe, the occasional outfit change in front of Lan Xichen out of necessity, the occasional soft look when he thought Lan Xichen wasn’t looking, and after his marriage he hadn’t bothered breaking himself of those habits during their late-night talks.

Things Lan Xichen had always dismissed. A-Yao, he knew, had an almost obsessive dread of anyone associating him with his mother’s profession in any way. Had never said anything that could be taken the wrong way, be it to a man or a woman. Dressed neatly and simply. Never indulged in off-color jokes or humor, avoided so much as traveling through the low parts of town, had always been uncomfortable when certain topics came up.

But if he’s right about Xue Yang, perhaps his judgment isn’t so far off after all, and if so, that might mean that A-Yao—

“Before,” he explains. “Because I can’t always tell.”

Xue Yang laughs. His knife is back in his hand, but there’s no threat there anymore. He seems to like fidgeting with things—the knife, his hair, that leaf. He tosses the blade idly into the air, catching it deftly.

“Honestly, I didn’t think you’d say no to a pretty young man,” he admits.

“You were trying to…” Lan Xichen forces his tongue to form the words, uncomfortable as they feel in his mouth “… seduce me into helping you?”

Xue Yang shrugs. “I’ve done far worse trying to get him back than fuck another man.”

So Lan Xichen’s paranoia was justified, for once, but instead of this knowledge grounding him, it all strikes him as the funniest thing he’s ever heard. That Xue Yang should think infidelity is the issue here. That Xue Yang should have zero shame about it when all Lan Xichen has ever felt about anything that deviated slightly from the straight and narrow has been shame.

It’s all just so—so funny .

He shakes with silent laughter beneath his damp blanket, laughs until tears drip from his chin, till his ribs ache and throat is sore.

“What now?” he asks when the fit has subsided. Xue Yang is still tossing the knife up and down, patiently waiting for him to come back to himself. “What was your plan, exactly?”

Xue Yang straightens up. “You’re going to help me?”

“Of course not. But I’m curious.” Saying this out loud feels indescribably…luxurious is the wrong word, but it’s the one that comes to mind. Curiosity for curiosity’s sake has always been frowned upon in the Cloud Recesses. There is no single rule against it, but it violates a cross-section of rules ranging from admonishments to mind one’s own business to rules forbidding idle speculation.

Xue Yang is staring at his bandaged hand. “I was going to tell you that I know for a fact that there’s a ritual for bringing someone back to life in that forbidden library of yours, and, in exchange for you helping me bring back Xiao Xingchen, I would do everything in my power to help you bring back Jin Guangyao despite the fact that the little weasel did his best to murder me.”

“Execute you.”

Xue Yang shrugs. “Murder, execute, same thing.”

“What could you do?”

Xue Yang looks up from his hand. “Everything you aren’t willing to.”

“Get out.”

“But—”

“Get the hell out.”

Xue Yang reaches into his qiankun sleeve, pulls out a second spirit-trapping pouch, and sets it on the table.

“For your friend,” he says, and leaves.

* * * * *

Lan Xichen stares at the small brown pouch for a long time after Xue Yang leaves.

It stares back at him.

He gets out of bed, blanket pulled tightly around his naked body, and begins to pace the room, pouch in hand, rubbing his cheek on the soft material.

He feels—feels—feels surprisingly good , actually.

Nothing is real. Nothing matters.

And if nothing matters, if nothing is real, then A-Yao’s crimes don’t matter, his crimes aren’t real. All that’s real is the fact that A-Yao is trapped forever in a coffin with a vindictive spirit, stranded in limbo, never to ascend to the afterlife.

A-Yao. His A-Yao.

Nothing’s real, nothing matters.

Nothing but the fact that he wants him back.

Nothing’s real, nothing matters.

Nothing but the fact that the thought of A-Yao makes him happy. That emotion is real. Nothing around him is real, but the feelings inside him are, and right now the thought of A-Yao standing before him again makes his chest swell with warmth, makes him feel like he can jump swordless off the roof and soar, swoop through the air, glide over the treetops and fill his lungs with starlight.

Perhaps he has spent the night flying, soaring above it all. It’s almost morning when he returns fully to himself, standing naked in his mother’s courtyard, inhaling the moonlight, A-Yao’s spirit-trapping pouch still in his hand.

He throws his clothes on and hurries to Xue Yang’s room, yanking the door open so hard he rips the lock off.

Shocked awake, Xue Yang shoots upright, snatching the ornate knife resting on the bed frame. Shuanghua’s frosted white hilt peeks up from under the covers.

“Oh, it’s just you,” he says, breathing hard. He’s still gripping the knife, as if trying to ground himself with the feel of the cold metal on his skin and reassuring weight in his hand. “I almost bit my tongue off!”

“The library,” Lan Xichen says. “Now.”

Xue Yang bites his lip so hard he draws blood.

* * * * *

They spend all morning in the library. All day. All night.

All week.

“You said you knew for a fact that there’s a way to bring them back,” Lan Xichen says on the eighth day. “How do you know this?”

They’re sitting in the main library, eating a very late supper. Eating is forbidden in the library, but nobody dared refuse the Clan Leader’s orders.

Daily Tally:

Rule 40: Speaking during mealtimes is forbidden

Rule 43: Eating is prohibited inside the library

Rule 44: Eating is forbidden outside mealtimes

Rule 528: Do not conceal your intentions

Rule 2,007: Abuse not your authority

Rule 1,959: Reject the crooked road

And, of course, Rule 52: Do not befriend the evil , and the fifty-odd rules relating to demonic cultivation.

Xue Yang looks up from the honey-fried dumplings Lan Xichen specially ordered for him. Nobody has ever looked less evil. His mask is off, resting in a bowl of water beside him, and he looks like a sixteen-year-old who had led a particularly blameless life, albeit a particularly blameless life that’s kept him from getting enough sleep. “Did I say that?”

“Clearly.”

Xue Yang eats a few dumplings before answering. His table manners were better when he was pretending to be Xiao Xingchen. Lan Xichen wonders if he’s intentionally trying to provoke him by keeping his elbows on the table. If so, he’s failed. If anything, Lan Xichen finds the delinquent cultivator—the madman—the monster—fascinating. He’s so utterly different from anyone Lan Xichen has ever known.

He wonders how A-Yao got on with Xue Yang, his mirror opposite. Much as he’s always tried to suppress it, Lan Xichen has always had a taste for the absurd, and he regrets that he never got to witness them interacting.

Well, if all goes well, he’ll have that opportunity soon enough.

“I must have been talking about that thing I saw once,” Xue Yang shrugs finally, licking honey from his lips.

Lan Xichen resists the urge to remind him of Rule 23, Speak clearly . It’s hard to shake decades of being trained to think a certain way, to see rule infractions in every innocuous interaction. “What ‘thing’?”

“A page from a book originating here in this library. It discussed a ritual, but didn’t have all of the details.”

“Do you have the page?”

“It was destroyed in a fire, my luck.”

“What book was it from?”

“I don’t know. It was torn out. I’ve been looking for a book with a torn page.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me sooner?”

Xue Yang shrugs again. “Then you’d only be looking for a torn book instead of looking for potential alternatives. For example, at first I thought we could find the location of Baoshan Sanren’s mountain somewhere in the books, though it’s become clear that that’s impossible. No sense in closing off other potential avenues.”

Lan Xichen rises with a sigh. “Put your face back on. We’re leaving.”

Wrinkling his nose, Xue Yang replaces his face and follows Lan Xichen from the library to his chambers.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” Lan Xichen pulls an elegantly-carved blue chest from under his bed. Inside are bundles of books, scrolls, and wooden slips. Each has a portion missing, a page torn out, a section mysteriously shortened.

“Intellectual mice?”

Lan Xichen doesn’t respond. Xue Yang doesn’t need to know that he spent days going through the forbidden pavilion after Guanyin Temple, removing everything A-Yao had gotten to.

He seats himself at his table while Xue Yang goes through the chest. Touching the same books that A-Yao touched is too much right now.

He’s glad he hadn’t put A-Yao’s hat in the same box.

Xue Yang talks non-stop as he rifles through the chest. “…Not many cookbooks vandalized, I’ll guess. The food at Koi Tower was always good. Too oily though. Hell on your stomach, but no need to steal recipes from the Lan, of all people—Ah. Here it is.” Grinning, he holds up an ancient-looking book with unraveling binding and no title. “Let’s take a look, shall we?” He sets it on the low table and kneels across from Lan Xichen.

But Lan Xichen rises, still unwilling to touch the book. “You read it,” he says, crossing the room standing in the door, looking out over the silent Family Courtyard. The shadows are deep, the moon hidden behind mist, the world utterly still.

He wonders if the crane is back in the stream.

Humming to himself, Xue Yang reviews the book, pulls a few others out from the chest, starts copying sections out using Lan Xichen’s calligraphy set.

Eventually Lan Xichen takes out Liebing and begins to play. The music soothes his nerves, quiets the anxious thoughts starting to buzz though his brain: the fear of being so close to bringing A-Yao back, of not being close of enough, of what if this is all a farce, what if what Xue Yang found is nothing, after all—

“Here.” Xue Yang is beside him, papers in hand. “Want to take a look?”

Lan Xichen puts his flute away. “No. Just tell me what my role in all this is.”

Xue Yang grins, tucking the pages away in his qiankun sleeve. “Traveling expenses, mostly. Unless we fly—”

“No flying unless necessary.” Lan Xichen is relieved Xue Yang agrees on this point. He doesn’t want his dreams bleeding into whatever this all is. Not exactly reality, but not exactly not reality. “I’ll make the preparations. Where are we going?”

“The Unclean Realm. We need to extract his spirit from the sarcophagus before we can do anything else. Yes, we’re starting with that dimpled little freak. I figure he’s smart, he can help us with my half—”

Lan Xichen barely hears him. “I’m not going to Qinghe.”

“Clan Leader Nie has the coffin.”

“I refuse to so much as speak to that—that—” Words fail him. It’s not like he doesn’t know any appropriate curse words, but none come close to expressing the hatred he feels at the mere thought of Nie Huaisang.

Nie Huaisang, lying to his face. Nie Huaisang, picking up A-Yao’s hat without a trace of emotion. Brushing the dust off. Looking at the blood on his hand.

A-Yao’s blood.

“That twat-nosed little fucker,” Xue Yang suggests, though he can’t possibly understand why Lan Xichen feels the way he does.

“That—” Fucker .

“Fucker,” Xue Yang says encouragingly.

Lan Xichen shakes his head.

Xue Yang pats his arm, far too familiarly. “I’ll do all the talking to that half-witted little fucktoad, my friend. You just try not to trip and accidentally-on-purpose impale anyone on your hairpiece.”

Lan Xichen’s jaw tightens. “The mere idea of being in the same room as him makes me want to peel my own skin off.”

“Like this?” Heedless of the fact that he’s in full view of anyone strolling through the courtyard, Xue Yang tugs off his mask, laughing.

Lan Xichen slides the door shut. “Put your face back on, please, and please leave.”

Instead Xue Yang clicks his tongue and follows him back to the table. He sits on the corner, tapping his knee with his knife as Lan Xichen sets the table right, straightening the papers and brush set and wiping up the ink splatters. The table is lacquered to prevent permanent stains, and he ought to just wait until a servant comes to clean in the morning, but he can’t abide messes.

“What were you planning for the journey?” Xue Yang asks Lan Xichen as he tidies. “Full procession, servants, half-dozen outfit changes, increasingly ridiculous hairpieces, inns fit for an emperor—”

He doesn’t typically travel with a full procession, but the rest of it is fair. “What other way is there?”

Xue Yang smiles. “Leave it to me.”

***

Up Next: Lan Xichen + Xue Yang road trip.

Or: An innkeeper may or may not meet an untimely end, depending on your interpretation of, “Of course I didn’t kill him. Not even a little.”

Chapter 4

#Lan Xichen decides that solipsism and nihilism make an excellent combination #Or: The joys of library research are many and varied #Fractured Ice #fanfic #xue yang #lan xichen #xiyao #xuexiao

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maximows · 5 years ago

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Against the Odds - Chapter X

Half of McDonald’s menu,

MASTERLIST (mobile) AO3

Warnings: fluff and adult language

„What if it hurts?” I whispered, staring blankly into the wall. “I mean, I’m putting some stick up my uterus.”

Chris squeezed my hand and wrapped the other around me. “It’s about an inch long, very thin and much more comfortable than taking a pill every day. Also, you took a lot of painkillers and they’ll give you numbing meds, alright?”

I decided to get an IUD as a new method of birth control, because lately I have been forgetting to take my pills with me and didn’t want an accident to happen. We had once spend almost two weeks in London and because I didn’t have my pills with me, Chris actually had to run to get a condom a few times, then eventually got a small box of them and that was when we noticed how much sex we are having.

“Can we go to McDonald’s afterwards?” I asked, nuzzling my face against his bicep. “I shouldn’t eat junk food, I don’t want a break out on my face before the wedding…”

“We’ll get the food and then I’ll make you drink enough water to get it out of your system.” He promised. “But we also have to pick up the rings.”

“Mhm,” I mumbled as I closed my eyes and leaned my head on his shoulder. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

“With the wedding rings?”

“IUD is much more permanent than pills, I haven’t thought about when I’d want to take it out and, uh, try…” I explained.

“Put it in and don’t think about kids right now, ok? I’m fine and I’m going to wait for you to be ready and be as comfortable as possible until then. But please don't make wait until I’m 50.”

I sighed and smiled at him. “How are you so perfect, you sick fuck?”

The doctor came out of her office and invited me in. “I know it sounds weird, but there’s really nothing to worry about. After it’s been put in, you might feel period like cramps for a few hours and it’s done.”

She put on her gloved and shoved me the object. “I know that ‘opening the cervix’ sounds horrible, but it’s not a baby, IUD is very thin and after I give you numbing meds, you won’t even feel it.”

I nodded lightly and sat on the hair. I wore a skirt and Chris' sweater, so it would be comfortable for her to access and so I could smell Chris' scent, which is soothing for me.

She put a cold gel around the area and waited some time before getting to work. “So, is it actually easier to get pregnant after taking out a IUD rather than after pills?” I asked.

“Definitely. Even with hormonal IUDs, they aren’t as invasive as pills. I’ve had patients who got pregnant during their first cycle after IUD.” She answered, already starting to do something around my crotch, but I figured she was just preparing me.

“Oh, okay. So, if I wanted to keep it for like a year and then take out, then even the hormones shouldn’t affect my ability to get pregnant?”

“Not at all, it doesn’t work the same way pills do. Technically, you could get pregnant right after taking it out. With pills, even if you forget one, it shouldn’t be a problem. You provide your body with such a big dose of hormones that it takes time for it to wear off completely,” she explained. “You might feel a little uncomfortable right now.

I felt something, like a pulling sensation, which I couldn’t really describe. I figured she was preparing me for the procedure. “Aaaand... it’s done.”

I opened my eyes and saw that she was actually taking her gloves off. “Is it, really?”

She smiled and nodded. “Stay like this for a few moments. The numbing meds I’ve given you might make it a bit hard for you to walk now, so I’d suggest you wait a few more minutes. Also, it would be great if your partner could help you walk.”

“Oh, he wouldn’t leave my side anyway, so that won’t be a problem.”

Soon she told me I was ok to go and let Chris in. He looked at me with a concerned face. Even though he kept calming me down earlier, he was probably more nervous than I was. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah, I didn’t even know it was happening, I’m alright.” I smiled and sat up on the chair in order to get up. Chris wrapped his arm tightly around my waist and tried to put all of my weight on him, but it felt like I was able to walk normally, so I wouldn’t let him.

We walked slowly to our car and Chris opened the door for me. “I should’ve got a ‘brave patient’ badge’.” I said as Chris started the car.

“I’ll buy you half of the McDonald’s menu for being a brave patient.” Chris smiled.

“Only a half of it?”

“I would buy you the whole restaurant, but I’m a hundred percent sure that in a month you would complain about not fitting into your wedding dress and blame it on me.” He laughed.

When we arrived at the jeweller’s, Chris hopped out of the car and went there to get our wedding bands. They had already been altered, so I didn’t have to go with him. I scrolled through the songs on my phone and played something. When I put my phone back, I looked ahead through the windscreen and saw a photographer taking photos in the distance. I sighed, putting my sunglasses on. The last time we were caught by photographers was the night before Chris’ birthday and that started a shit storm of people against both me and Stella. People were doing everything to find out if there’s any evidence of Chris cheating on her with me. It became so awful, that Chris had to stop having his daily checks of Twitter, because stuff about us was all over it. I actually asked Hannah to release a statement a few days after it all blew up, because I was so sick of the messages and e-mails.

“I have been asked by my client, Emilia Dawson, to release the following statement:

I have never been overly concerned about details of my private life coming out, because I do like to share some of it with my fans and followers. Unfortunately, now I am forced to share some of the details as for the last few days I have been one of the main topics of conversation on social media platforms and media outlets and both my loved ones and I are tired of it.

I met my partner in February 2014 at a party thrown by him for some of our fellow Marvel actors. I had only been a part of that cast for a few months and only knew a couple of fellow Brits there. We spent the majority of the next day together as well as the next few weeks, when we were able to take some time off from our commitments.

I am releasing this statement to deny some of the accusations that have apparently been made against me and spread by the media, without being fact checked.

Shortly after meeting my partner, I have been made aware of a break up he went through two months prior to our first meeting, which directly meant that he was a single man. There was also no way anyone had been living in my partner's house in February 2014.

If the rumours that are being spread have a an actual source, other than a very creative mind of a gossip site ‘journalist', I would like it to also release a statement citing reasons for why they would come up with lies like that and spread them.

As I am one hundred percent sure that all of this information is completely false, I would like to say that from this day onwards, every news outlet that shares any of this nonsense, will be sued. If (or when) I win the case, the money will be divided between animal shelters.”

Chris didn’t like the statement or me getting involved in this case at all. But to be honest, he didn’t have much to say – all of the articles portrayed me as a homewrecker and skipped over the fact that it takes two people to have an alleged affair. Although there were some people who wanted to ‘cancel’ him because of this, the majority only looked at my supposed behaviour and called me various names because of it.

The statement and ‘suit threat’ worked – gossip sites stopped the articles and the only people that couldn’t let this go were some of Twitter users who seemed to just love drama. Chris had messaged Stella, asking to get involved and at least deny the cheating rumours, as ‘we all knew this isn’t true’, but she wouldn’t do that. He said that she was probably just petty, because he didn’t propose to her in the 5 years they dated on and off. More so, he never even suggested they move in together. And it only took him less than two years to propose to me. He always said that it was because it felt like Stella was a bit distant and she wasn’t treating their relationship seriously, so they were both wasting their time until a one day came and he decided that he’s had enough. In my opinion, she was just trying to play hard to get and it went a bit too far.

“I called you,” I heard Chris say as he entered the car. “Don’t tell me you were thinking about that thing again.”

“Maybe,” I murmured, looking down at my phone to discover 3 missed phone calls from Chris. “What did you want?”

“They had a few boxes to choose from and I didn’t know which one you’d like.” He explained showing me the dark green one he picked. “I thought this one would match our theme the most.”

I raised my eyebrow. “We have a theme?”

“We’re getting married in Norway, of course we have a theme.” He laughed. “So, is this one alright?”

“Perfect,” I smiled. “I think our relationship is having a great impact on your taste.”

Chris grinned and started the car. “I know it for sure.” He leaned in to kiss me. His lips captured my lower lip and I moaned lightly as his teeth bit on it lightly.

“Don’t do that,” I whined. “ We’re supposed to last 4 more weeks without sex.” Chris ignored me and deepened the kiss, his hand travelling to my face to hold me closer.

“That was your stupid idea,” He murmured against my lips. “The only reason I agreed to this is because you made it into a bet and I’m always willing to participate in a bet I’m sure I’m going to win.”

“We’ve been through one week of sex embargo, we can do 4 more.” I said, placing my hand on his chest and pushing him away gently.

Chris leaned back on the driver’s seat and sighed. “We’re not even married yet and you’re denying the love of your life sex already.” He said jokingly. I knew he was kidding, because he was as eager to see the outcome of this bet as I was.

I came up with this when one time were hanging out with our friends in our garden and Scott said that in the nearly two and a half years of our relationship we’ve had as much sex as a regular couple would have during a lifetime. Somehow that has led to us coming up with the idea of not having sex for 5 weeks before the wedding, which is also the same time we waited until our first time.

It went on and on for some time, until we arrived at the drive though at McDonald’s and I got busy reading the menu. “Baby, give me a maximum amount of items I can get or I’ll go crazy.”

“Ok, you can get 4 things and that’s including a drink and something sweet,” he said.

I sighed and chose chips, some double burger (because he didn’t specify the size) a cookie and a Coke. Chris quickly drove back home, so I could eat my junk there. Dodger greeted us happily and jumped around us, asking for some loving.

We all laid down on the couch, in front of the TV. I had my comfort food on my lap and placed my feet on Chris'.

“So have you decided on our honeymoon destinations?” I asked after stuffing my mouth with chips. “I know mine.” We decided to have a 4-week honeymoon and go to four places and spend a week in each one. Both of us were supposed to choose two places. “I bet it’s someplace cold.”

“Keep up the attitude and it will get colder.” I snapped. “We're going to Iceland and New Zealand.”

“Oh, that’s a jetlag nightmare,” Chris sighed. “I chose Italy and France.”

“That’s so cliché, hubby.”

For the next two weeks we were so busy with wedding preparations that we didn’t even have time for sex, so the bet turned out to be useless. Chris spent one week away in Atlanta, doing additional shoots for Gifted, while Claire and I took care of the finishing touches to the ceremony. We were supposed to fly in 2 days before, to see the preparations and have our bachelorette and bachelor's parties there. Although we invited around 50 people, not all of them were able to attend and the final number was about 40 guests. We rented a few cabins for them in a resort near the spot we were getting married in. Ours was a bit sedated just to make sure we had a bit of privacy for our wedding night.

I have to say, I was starting to get a little bit nervous and everyone said it was because I haven’t seen the venue or anything, but that wasn’t it. I was nervous because I was getting married to the most eligible bachelor in Hollywood. The purest man of them all. The man who files in early for me, because he knows I’m not feeling well. The man who decides he’ll wait for me to be ready for children, even though he has already waited a long time. He’s changed so much for me and I wanted to repay him.

I knew he wouldn’t even dare to mention it, but I decided to change my name to Emily Evans. I was torn between this and Emily Dawson-Evans, but I figured that if we’re already causing such a stir in the media, we might as well start the Evans clan.

Chris joined me at the airport for our trip to Bergen. He was a little bit tanned from filming, with a new haircut and a groomed beard (although it doesn’t require much grooming). The producers were very lucky that it was a look he wanted to go with for the wedding.

“Hello, my intended,” He grinned as his arms slipped around my waist to give me a welcome kiss. “How have you been doing this past week?”

He gave me a loving kiss on the lips and then pressed his lips against my forehead. “We’re one plane trip away from being married.”

“It’s a bloody long trip though,” I chuckled. “We’re leaving LA at 1PM and will be in Paris at 9AM European time, then 5 hours at the airport and another 2 hour flight. We’re gonna need to nap a lot.”

“Napping is my second favourite thing to do with you.” He joked.

Even though we were never fans of this solution, we decided to rent a private jet in order to make the trip as comfortable for Dodger, as we could. We realised that we were spending so much money on the wedding then we might as well treat ourselves and have a nice flight alone to Norway.

Although Dodger was quite used to travelling by now, he still required some attention during the take off, but was fine once we were allowed to unfasten our seatbelts. As soon as we could, we went to the bed. Dodger laid down next to me, while Chris was behind me squeezing me into his body. He pressed his face into my neck, inhaling my scent. “I can’t believe they’re going to take you away from me right before the wedding.”

“It’s so you can get shitfaced and run away while you still can.” I joked. “And so the girls can ask me about our sex life.”

“Which has been non-existent for the past month?” Chris inquired. “Just tell them that you can never walk normally after we have sex.”

“Why would I lie?” I laughed and my fiancé responded by biting me on the shoulder. “Let's sleep while we can.”

The noise of the engines actually helped us fall asleep, which meant we would avoid a massive jetlag in Europe. The stewardess woke us up before the landing, so we could fasten our seatbelts again. “Have I told you that I might be taking on a new movie and they’re asking me to grow out my hair and a real beard?”

“You have a real beard already,” I said, imagining him with longer hair and instantly getting excited. “And I love that idea, you should say yes.”

“Oh, that’s just a stubble.” He mumbled, scratching his hand against his facial hair. “I’m surprised you let me have a beard for the wedding.”

I turned from the window to frown at him. “The only thing I’m ever going to forbid is that stupid idea you had for a white suit for the wedding, honestly. I thought Lisa raised you better.”

We arrived at the village and were guided to our cabin. All of them were wooden and so simple yet unique. I knew Chris loved them too and was excited about the idea of getting married here even if he didn’t want to admit.

Before we could settle in there, we heard more cars arrive. Our guests were arriving from different parts of the world.

The first ones to arrive after us were our closest families. We separated to help them put their luggage in their houses. I spent some time with my mum first and then with my dad.

While they were settling in, Chris and I met up to check out the venue for the first time. Chris came out from his family’s cabin. I waited for him as he walked towards me. He was wearing a plaid shirt, dark jeans and sunglasses. “That is one handsome boy I’m marrying,” I grinned and put my hands in my pockets. “Can’t wait until he has a wedding band on his finger, so other girls know he’s mine.”

He looked around and shrugged. “What girls? I haven’t seen any other girls in almost 3 years, it’s like they disappeared...”

“Oh, you always know what to say, don’t you?” I grinned and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Yeah, I’m like that,” he nodded. “Now let’s see that wedding venue.” Dodger followed us closely and run around the field, sniffing everything.

I took Chris' hand and we marched up the hill. I saw a tree on the edge of the hill, which was decorated with delicate flowers. Its branches were low enough to make it look like some kind of an arch. It was surrounded with dark wooden chairs with flower stalks on them. “Oh God, Chris,” I gasped when I took it all in. “This is so beautiful, so simple... Can we just get married right here, right now?”

“I told you I wanted to elope as soon as you said yes.” he sighed and pulled me toward the tree. I took a closer look at the flowers and stalks and just the whole thing that really looked good altogether. “But I’m really glad we came here to do this.”

I noticed candle stands and flowerbeds waiting to be filled tomorrow. Claire joined us and showed some details. “I know you wanted the ceremony to start at 6pm, but I’d suggest you move it to 6:39, because the sunset will give us a perfect lightning.”

We both agreed. She moved us to the actual venue, which was a bigger cabin with only one, big room inside. All the tables were set already, the walls decorated with lights, plants and more flowers. It was so simple, yet thought through. The roof was completely covered with light that haven’t been lit yet. I was speechless.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to enjoy the moment for too long. Our party squad had arrived and they wanted to start our bachelor’s and bachelorette’s right away. We managed to put those off until the rest of our guests arrived.

When we went back to our bedroom, I noticed that our baggage had already been brought in. My dress was hidden in the wardrobe, while Chris' suit was out. Dodger was walking around behind us, sniffing every corner of the room. “Why is it not unlucky for a bride to see her groom's suit?” I wondered, touching the rich fabric of the Gucci suit. The team came in one day and took Chris' measurements to make him the well-tailored suit in front of me. It was black – I was rooting for dark blue, because Chris looks amazing in it, but they decided against it.

“I have no idea, but it’s probably because men are helpless without women and need their opinions on everything,” he wrapped his arms around my waist and rest his head on my shoulder. “We’re getting married in 30 hours.”

“Yeah, and they’re trying to separate us for the majority of the time we have left as an engaged couple.”

“We have to get though this,” he cheered. “If we got through 5 weeks of no sex, then we can get through this.”

I sighed, looking out the window and seeing Amy come closer to our house. “I still can’t believe we actually did that.”

Soon enough, there were two crowds of people in our cabin, waiting for us to separate. Neither of us really wanted that. We were a little tired and wanted to continue our nap. “If you don’t do this, we’re going to cancel the whole wedding, tell everyone you’re both crack addicts and can’t make your own decisions.” Sophie said with her arms crossed on her chest, keeping her threatening gaze on us.

“Whoa, that’s rough.” Adam commented. “We just want to get him shitfaced, not ruin his life.”

Chris was still holding me tightly against his body. We honestly didn’t want to go. He was probably the only reason I was still quite calm, even though I was FUCKING GETTING MARRIED TOMORROW.

“Guys, how about you give us 30 minutes, huh? We haven’t seen each other in a week and honestly fell asleep the same moment we entered the plane. Give us half an hour and we’re ready to go, alright?” Chris asked. They all agreed to give us some more time, so we laid down on the bed to get some more rest together. Dodger seemed to realise that we needed to be close to each other right now and laid next to Chris’ legs.

“So, if there something you’d like to tell me before we get married?” I asked.

Chris glanced at me curiously, probably surprised by the question. “What do you mean?”

I giggled. “Like, if you ever killed anyone and was too scared to admit it.”

He was visibly relieved and probably thought I was going to accuse him of infidelity or something. “No, nothing like that. I think you should know by now that I’m not like that.”

I turned to lay on my side and look at him. “I know, baby,” I smiled and pressed a kiss against his bicep. “That’s why I’m marrying you. Also, because of your big dick.”

Chris burst out laughing. “Yeah, I mean, good dick is important, right,” he admitted. “So, is there anything you’d like to tell me before I tie myself up to you forever?”

I sat up next to him and snuck my hand under his shirt to scratch he hair on his chest. “I’m changing my name to Emilia Evans,” I smiled. Chris also pulled himself up to face me. “I don’t know if I’m going to use it professionally yet, but I’m definitely changing it legally.”

“Oh my God,” he lit up and wrapped his arms around me. “But you said that you weren’t so sure about this.”

“Well, yeah, but I thought about it and figured that I’m not too attached to my last name and if it’s important to you, I want to do this.” I explained.

“I can’t believe this,” Chris sighed. I smiled at his excitement and put my hands on each side of his face and pulled him in for a kiss. Chris licked my bottom lip playfully and tackled me down to lay under him. When I was right under him, he pulled away to look at me. “I’m still not entirely convinced it's real life, baby”

“It is, Evans,” I sighed. “It only gets better from here...”

I heard a loud knock on the bedroom door and we knew that our 30 minutes had come to an end. We were soon violently torn away from each other and brought to different cabins for the festivities prepared for us. Amy, Marie and Sophie were the ones who had me for the evening. Scarlett was supposed to join too, but she couldn’t fly in so early with her daughter.

Chris was kidnapped by Adam, Seth, Sam and Tom, who wouldn’t tell him or me where they were going, but I knew that Sebastian, Anthony and Hemsworth were supposed to join them soon. The girls took me to their cabin, which was meant to be our party spot for the evening.

They were kind enough you hang balloons spelling “Fun is over” above a table full of food and colourful drinks. I noticed that they also prepared some games (obviously). “Emily, this is your last night as a single woman. Sit down and let us entertain you,” They sat me down and took a photo of me holding a drink and sitting under the balloons. “You can post it on Instagram when you decide to let the people know about your wedding.” Amy grinned.

“You can drink all you want, but for every glass of alcohol, we're making you drink a glass of water, so you’re not completely hangover tomorrow.” Mary said, handing me my first mojito of the night. “That’s us being responsible.”

They started off by saying how beautiful they think everything looked and were impressed by how much can be done without even visiting the site before the actual wedding. They all talked about how they want to get married too.

“I think it’s weird that I never really thought of getting married before I met Chris. Like, I thought of having a fairy tale wedding when I had that crush on Steven in second grade, but I never thought I’d get married before the age of 24.” I took a sip of my drink through a metal straw.

“Yeah. To be honest, out of 4 of us, I always thought that you'd be the last one to get married,” Amy agreed. “Not that you wouldn’t find a man or anything, I just though you were too independent for this.”

I tilted my head to the side. “Oh, he doesn’t affect my independence in any way. I was worried about that at first, before we talked about our future together, children and stuff, but now it’s all sorted out.” I explained. “I actually got an IUD last month, so he realises that having children isn’t only one missed pill away now, it’s one medical procedure away. He was fine with it.”

“I’m glad then,” Amy smiled. “You’re strong, but him being 11 years older and stuff, I was afraid he’d maybe try to force you or something. Don’t take this the wrong way, but sometimes when they ask him about having children in the future during interviews, he sounds a bit desperate.”

I laughed. “Yeah, he does. He really loves children, so I’m not surprised. I just got used to it.”

“Does he have a breeding kink?” Sophie asked out of nowhere. I nearly choked on my drink and Mary froze with a mouth full of Cheetos. “What? It’s very common.”

“Sophie, that’s surely the most private thing you have asked any of us, ever.” Mary laughed.

“She told us about the time they tried anal!” Sophie yelled.

“Two times.” I corrected. “And I don’t think he has it or at least he’s ever done anything that would resemble it, but that would be kind of hot.”

“Em, you should know, every smutty game we're going to play was her idea.” Mary sighed. “I’m only in charge of your answers for the newlyweds game.”

“And I’m charge of asking about how big his penis is.” Amy grinned. “You only ever said that it’s big, but that could mean so many things...”

“18 centimetres,” I answered quickly. “By the way, I really hope this isn’t our last night to do immature stuff.”

Mary shook her head. “Of course not, there’s at least 3 more bachelorette parties ahead of us,” she reminded. “And also, what the fuck!? He's 18 centimetres? How do you walk? Harry is 15 and I can barely... wow.”

“Ok, I think we've already established that Chris isn't only well endowed, but also skilled, so it’s not the matter of his length.” Sophie said.

“Yeah, he’s... do you remember when I spent that night with ??? and I told you that there must be something wrong with me, because I felt nothing, and I literally mean nothing? Like, he was going down on me and I had to take every movement and sound I was making. I was so afraid of our first time with Chris, because it was not only us having sex for the first time, but also me having my first time at all. And it was just incredible, because I didn’t have to fake anything! I was moaning so much that I was afraid he’d think I’m faking.”

“I remember. And I told you that there’s nothing wrong with you, he was just bad at sex. Chris is generous on a daily basis, so he’s also generous in bed.” Mary shrugged, taking another drink.

“What’s the most times he has made you come during one session?” Amy asked.

I sighed. “Well, if he’s well rested and hasn’t been to the gym that day then I cum twice for his one time. If he goes down on me then it, you know, depends on how long he’s willing to do that... or when I start asking him to stop.”

“You have to ask him to stop!?”

“Yeah, I get oversensitive sometimes.”

Mary sat back on the sofa, looking like she just found out that Santa Claus isn’t real. “You know, I was never jealous about your acting career, because we know that even if you earn more than decent money and have a month off, then it means you worked 18 hours a day for the last two. But for the love of God, you are less than 24 hours away from marrying a man who eats you out until you actually beg him to stop. I’m starting to get jealous.”

“He has bad qualities too, you know,” I sighed. “He’s very indecisive and, to be honest, he was the one with commitment issues. We had a few months last year, right after we moved in together and before we got engaged when we barely talked, because he felt like we would get tired of each other too soon. Even though he was the one who suggested we moved in together.”

They ran our of things to ask about our sex life, finally. Although, it was such a random conversation that I actually enjoyed it. They gave me some presents, actually showered me with them. “We have only just realised that half of them is sex accessories, sorry,” Amy shrugged, handing me another box. “Chris will probably enjoy them as much as you will, though.”

After my fourth drink and fourth glass of water, I was a little bit drunk already. “Do you think we will last?” I asked, laying down on the sofa, playing with the flowers in my flower crown.

“I think Chris is glued to you like my father's nose to his TV.” Sophie said. “If you called him right now, he would be here in a second.”

“There’s nothing you could ask him that he would say no to. Unless it’s a threesome, I don’t think he would want to share you.” Amy agreed.

“Yeah, but I mean... do you think we will be just another couple that divorces after 5 years? That’s probably what everyone thinks.”

“Who cares? You’re marrying Chris Evans, one of the hottest men on Earth, Captain America, with a big dick attached to him and a great personality, despite being a Gemini!” Sophie explained.

“A big dick attached to him!” Amy burst into laughter. “That is the best thing ever!”

We stayed up until 2 am, when I decided that I was tired enough to fall asleep without bigger problems. They made me sleep in one of their rooms, so I wouldn’t run back and sleep with Chris.

The moment I was alone, I texted Chris, asking if he was awake. He called right away. “Hi baby,” he said in a low voice.

“Wait, you were asleep?” I asked. “You finished your party earlier than we did?”

“Baby, I’m 35,” he whined. “If I want to be alright for a whole day of preparations, a wedding, reception and the whole night of lovemaking, I gotta get some quality sleep.”

I laughed. “Sure. I just called to check if you’re alright and not in Vegas by now.”

“Nah, we had a few drinks and talked. Also, I’m ashamed to admit that we did play a few drinking games.”

“Well, I forgive you. You don’t know any better.” I sighed into the pillow. “Are you nervous?”

“Like hell.” He admitted. “I can't believe this is finally happening. I can't believe it's already been a year since we got engaged.”

I remembered the day we drove to see Loch Ness and he just decided to drop on one knee. I can’t believe it’s been so long since that day. “I’m really glad you almost killed me at that airport.”

“Oh, that’s just exaggerating.”

We talked some more, but mostly just stayed silent, listening to each other's breaths. About an hour in, we decided we had to go to sleep. “I’ll see you at the altar, right?” he chuckled.

“Yeah, I can’t wait.” I turned to lay on to my back and stared at the ceiling. “Don’t be late, please.”

“Wouldn't dare, I’m counting seconds until I can finally see you, love.”

----

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joiesamevans · 5 years ago

Text

A Day At The Gym

Who: Sam Evans and Mercedes Jones @sassymercyj

When: Friday morning, 8 am

Where: Campus gym

What: Shirtless Sam, lots of flirting

Mercedes had been up for hours when she finally made her way to the gym, wearing a pair of hip hugging pink and black work out capri's, and a matching sports bra and using an oversized T, to cover herself up as she made her way across campus. Once getting to the gym, she stayed at the entrance waiting for Sam to arrive. She wouldn't lie and say that she wasn't excited to be spending time with him, while she had known him for a few years, they didn't really hang out one on one, it wasn't because she didn't find him attractive, it was just because she didn't think she was his type and to be honest a lot of guys around there only hung out with girls, when there was a promise of sex and though she knew he was different, she just didn't want to make a fool out of herself in front of him. Shocking herself by finally accepting his workout offer, she really was happy to see what he could teach her and if he did it shirtless that would make the entire experience even better. Plus it had been a long time since she had a really beneficial work out.(edited)

Sam walked across campus in a pair of basketball shorts and a tank since it was still hotter than the sun outside. Sometimes he really wished he could bring his horse up from home and just ride it around the city to create a nice breeze. He was excited to get to work out with Mercedes. It was always nice to have a work out buddy in general and all the better when it was a beautiful woman that he really got along with. Hitching his gym bag up on his shoulder, he smiled as he saw Mercedes waiting for him near the door. "You actually showed. I'm impressed."

When she saw Sam, she shifted her bag and nodded at his surprise, though they had talked about her coming to the gym she never really agreed to it. "I said I would come and I always keep my word." She said. "Shall we get inside?" Pulling out her student ID she opened the door, holding it for Sam to take, then made her way inside showing her ID to the person at the front. Placing her hair in a messy bun she looked around. "So what do you want to do first? I am here to learn." She said with a bright smile.(edited)

"I'll remember that," he replied easily, following in behind her. He knew most everyone who worked in here by now and offered them friendly smiles and a nod of the head, ignoring the pointed looks a couple of them were giving him since he wasn't alone today. "Always important to do some warm up stretches. I don't want you cramping up and suing me for pain and suffering," he teased.

Mercedes made her way to one of the work out rooms and tried not to laugh at the looks she was getting, she assumed its cause she was with Sam, but she couldn't be sure. "I wouldn't sue you for pain and suffering, I would sue you for misconduct!" She teased back. Putting her bag down, she pulled off her oversized shirt and glanced at him. "So whats first boss!"

"Don't mind them. They clearly have no lives." Sam rolled his eyes, but they still had the same sparkle in them they always did. "Boss, huh? I dig it." He pulled his water bottle from his bag before tossing the bag in the corner. Grabbing a couple mats from the stack, he laid them out beside one another. "Have a seat, stretch your legs out, and reach for the toes." He did the same thing himself to demonstrate. "So, you excited for Rush week?"

"If looks bothered me, I would spend my life alone in my room." She smirked. "Could do Sir too? Don't think you are a Daddy or Papi..." she teased. Grabbing her own bottle she watching him lay out the mats and sat down beside him. Reaching for her toes she gripped her sole as she got a good stretch. "Oh you have no idea. I love Rush week! And we are throwing a Party which I hope you plan on attending."

Sam sat up again, an offended look on his face. "I could be a Daddy," he declared just a little too loudly. He paused a moment and looked around, realizing what he'd said, and then burst out laughing. He bent one leg towards himself and stretched out to the side. "I mean... you know... maybe," he chuckled, a blush creeping up on his cheeks. Partying was a subject he could get behind though. "Oh, you know I'll be there. Gotta show the new kids how it's done."

Her laugh was louder than intended because she did not expect his response. Shaking her head she switched positions bringing both her heels in front of her and pushing them together before looking back at Sam. "So you want to be a "Daddy" or a "Dad -dy!" cause you know there is a difference." She rolled her neck as she straitened back up in that seated position. "Well I am sure you may have to be there since the Brothers are bringing the food and DJ i think... but its a 90's theme, gonna have spin the bottle, 7 minutes in heaven and all that good stuff. So you guys should have a great time."

"I kind of really want you to explain it to me now," Sam teased, though there was a touch of challenge in his voice as he winked at her. "I'm excellent at bringing the food. Especially if the food is Cool Ranch Doritos." He raised his eyebrows as Mercedes listed off all the activities. "Mix all that with some liquor and we'll have a real good time."

Mercedes stood up raising her hands above her head as she gave him raised an eyebrow blushing at his statement. Putting her arms down she shrugged. "Well there is "Daddy", you know you get treated like a real dad someone who looks out for a person, people look at you as the go to dude for all issues and all that." She smirked cocking her head towards him. "Then there;s "Dad-dy"." She said with a twinkle in her eye. "And thats a dude who can get that whoa-daddy." She did a body roll. "And heeeeeey daddy." She shook her hips. " and that good good daddy." She dropped it down low and picked it up with that last statement. Someone cat called and she laughed shaking her head. "Sorry but you wanted to know." Going back to stretching, she bent all the way down to the ground touching her toes. "I take it you like Cool Ranch Doritos? I mean liquor gives people courage to either do things they never thought they could or stupid things so either way..."

Sam made a little humming noise in consideration. "Probably not smart enough to be a regular Daddy then. But all those other ones you said?" He offered up his own body roll that he'd been perfecting since his freshman year. "I got that aaaaall day and night." He chuckled at himself and at Mercedes cool reaction. "Cool Ranch Doritos are my greatest weakness, girl. So either way it's gonna be a blast," he finished for her, nodding his head towards a couple of nearby treadmills.

Mercedes rolled her eyes Sam. "Don't make me slap you when we are having such a good time, you know I don't like it when you talk like that. I can see you being "Daddy." She watched his body roll and cleared her throat. "Umm yeah I bet you do." She bit her bottom lip, before turning away from him. It was getting a little hot. "You really shouldn't go around telling people your weakness, might give a girl like me some ideas." She said making her way to the treadmills like he nodded too.

Sam attempted to just shrug it off. "I'm just saying, I don't know if I'm like... the advice guy." He smirked slightly when Mercedes looked away, maybe just a little proud of himself. He couldn't deny that he loved getting a reaction. He hopped on the treadmill and started it up slowly to warm up. "A girl like you? I thought I could trust you!"

Mercedes shook her head. "You can be whatever and whoever you want to be, you just gotta see the you that I see." She licked her lips trying to shake off the warm feeling seeping through her body. "Well you can trust me, but you are begging for me to use cool ranch against you in some way..." She wouldn't say the way she was thinking because her mind was supposed to be out of the gutter, but Sam was not making it easy.

He tilted his head slightly as he looked over at her, his smile a little more genuine than just pure amusement. "And what exactly is the me that you see? Not that I'm fishing for compliments. I mean... maybe a little, but I'm curious too." He picked up his speed a little into an easy jog. "Hey, as long as I get the Doritos, feel free."

Mercedes started jogging at a steady pace, taking her hair down from the ponytail, and then putting it back into a messy bun. She didn't even need to think about Sam's question, she already knew the answer. Looking over to him she smiled. "I see someone who is more than just his hot body and cool demeanor, you are a kind soul, someone who is smart, funny, caring and sweet. You have an incredible voice, and when you get excited about something, like truly excited, its infectious and makes us all want to be apart of it." Looking away from him she continued to run. "You are also too hot for words and that smile is trouble, but I mean thats just my opinion." She shook her head smiling. "Well then I better stock up on Cool Ranch then." She increased her speed and ran in silent for a bit biting her bottom lip. "What do you think about me?"

Sam didn't even know what to say at first. They weren't things he heard very often except maybe from his parents, but that didn't really count since they were sort of biased. And sure, he had friends who liked him and thought he was cool, but not many of them really saw him that deeply. His smile returned at the compliment on it though. "Well, I think you complimenting me on my voice is a joke because you've got a voice that could make angels cry. And has made me cry. You're one of the smartest people I know. And not just like... book stuff. But real stuff. Like... emotionally smart or whatever they call it. You're always looking out for everybody, which is awesome. And you really pay attention too 'cause you care. Plus you're smokin'," he added with a casual grin.

Mercedes shook her head. "I complemented you on more than your voice. But thats neither here nor there." She listened to him and tried to hide her blush by continuing to run. His words touched her and she finally looked over at him. "Thank you. Never knew my singing made you cry." It was all she could say. She increased the speed once more. "Smokin;? Is that a good thing?"

"I know. I just... don't know what to say to all that. Most of the compliments I get are about my abs. And sometimes my hilarious impressions." He paused for a moment, sucking at his water bottle while he ran. "Well, I don't just go around telling people when I cry," he laughed. "Of course it's a good thing. You're like hotter than a backyard bonfire."

"I get that. But you should know, know that people see you, I see you." She slowed down on the treadmill and came to a stop, grabbing her own drink. "Yeah well I know I have a good voice just nothing to cry about." It wasn't true, many people cried on a song or another when she sang, at one point she thought that was enough...shaking off her thoughts she watched him run. "I do get the comment about your abs though, they are hot." She laughed at him for his comment. "I don't think I have ever been called smokin' before."

"Could you not make me cry while I'm trying to work out?" he teased, though it certainly had a touch of sincerity to it. "And you do not have a good voice. You have the most incredible voice I've ever heard and everyone needs to hear it." He slowed down himself, finally coming to a stop. He pulled his tank over his head and tossed it on top of his bag. Sure, it was convenient timing with the conversation, but he was also just sweaty. Totally. "Well, that's just a crying shame. Cause someone should be telling you on the daily. I'm gonna do some weight reps. You down for that?"

Mercedes smirked. "I can try but I am just speaking the truth." She looked down to her hands, not wanting him to see the sadness in her eyes, sadness that came every time she thought about her past. He stopped pulling off his tank top and her breath hitched at the sight. Why was he that hot? "Yeah maybe I should hire you for the job? Tell me how okay looking I am daily?" She said more breathless that she intended. Nodding she walked over to the weights to try and calm herself down. Half certain he was teasing her on purpose.(edited)

Sam didn't miss any of Mercedes reactions, both to his words and to his shirtlessness. He wasn't going to press her on either of them, but he took note of them both and filed the information away. "I'm happy to do it for free, but if you wanted to pay me in Doritos, I wouldn't complain about that either. And I believe the word I used was smokin', not okay looking," he reminded her. He grabbed a couple weights and started doing curls on one of the benches.

Mercedes smiled. "Cool Ranch Doritos for compliments? I mean I can see that working." She watching him doing curls and for a moment she just stood there mesmerized by him. "I think the only one who is smokin' in this gym is you. All the women are insanely jealous of me right now. Though we haven't given them a reason to be jealous." she said, though she would not be opposed to putting on a show. Shaking off her thoughts she sat across from him on a bench, if he could tease her with his shirtlessness then she could use the two gifts that kept on giving. Grabbing a few weights herself. She bent forward, giving him a clear view of the girls as she did her own reps.

"Again, I'll give you the compliments anyway, but I won't turn down the chips," he laughed. "Except if I eat too many of 'em, I might have to spend even more time in here." Sam watched her intently, glancing around the gym at her comment to see if there was actually anyone glancing at them. He wasn't unaware of the fact that he got attention around here, but he didn't really react to it too often. He smirked as she leaned forward though. If anyone could get a reaction out of him, it was going to be Mercedes. "No, I guess we haven't. Not yet anyway."

"How about we do it like for every 10 compliments you get a small bag of chips. That way you still get them and you won't over indulge. Its a win/win." She said as she continued to give him a show, pretending she didn't know what she was doing. She didn't know why it was so easy to flirt with Sam but she didn't want to stop it. "On not yet? What kind of show are you trying to put on dad-dy." She teased looking up at him as she slowly stood.

"I'm starting to think this might make me some sort of compliment gigolo," Sam chuckled. He chewed at his bottom lip as he watched her, trying not to be too obvious about it. His mother raised him to be a gentleman after all, at least until he was asked not to be. He followed suite when she stood up and moved to stand right behind her. He slid his hand down her arm until he met her hand where it held the weight, slowly helping her curl it back up toward her chest. "I'm sure we could think of something..."

Mercedes shrugged. "There could be worse type of gigolos to be though." She said with a laugh. Sam came behind her and her breath hitched. Feeling his hand slid down her arm, she shuttered not even hiding the effect he had on her. Turning her head towards him she stared into his green eyes. "Oh? And is anything coming to mind?"

Sam couldn't argue with that, though he was starting to think he'd be any kind of gigolo Mercedes asked him to be at this point. He licked his lips as Mercedes looked at him, their faces dangerously close. "Nothing that won't get us kicked out of here. And... all the other gyms are so far away." He ducked his head down as he chuckled. "You're gonna get me in a lotta trouble, Mercedes Jones."

What was she doing? She couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to kiss him. But kissing Sam was trouble. She licked her lips with a soft smiled. "I mean what is life without a little bit of trouble Sam Evans aka dad-dy. She reached over and kissed him on the cheek, then turned back to her work out. "So I think you need to hold me a little closer. Make sure I don't hurt myself."

Sam laughed again, shaking his head. Leaning in, he whispered near her ear. "You have got to stop calling me that in public or me standing this close to you is going to get awkward for a whole lot of reasons." His cheeks turned a faint pink at the kiss and his smile remained. He wrapped his other arm around her and let his fingers hold her wrists gently as he continued helping her through reps.

Mercedes bit her bottom lip with a smile. "I guess I could be persuaded to not call you that in public. I don't want things to get awkward for you." She let him wrap his arms around her and leaned back against him as he helped her. Heat grew within her body and she knew it was getting to be about that time she should walk always before something happened, and yet, she couldn't help but want to stay near him just a little bit longer. "You sure holding me this close won't cause an awkward situation as well?"

"Thanks for taking pity on me." Sam took a breath in as Mercedes leaned into him, willing himself to stay calm, so to speak. "Oh, it's a definite possibility. That's why I'm mentally building the world's biggest sandwich in my head," he joked, though it certainly wasn't a lie either. You gotta do what you gotta do.

Mercedes didn't know what got into her, she wasn't this bold, she wasn't like this but being around Sam, it did something to her. She bend down, pressing her backside against his front and dropping the weight. Standing, she faced him, running her hands down his arms the way he did her arm. "How is the sandwich making going now?"

Sam bit down hard on the inside of his cheek to keep from making a noise that would most certainly get them asked to leave. He gave in and let his eyes travel down her body and back up again. "It's, um, real.... tall right about now," he replied with a mischievous smirk.

Mercedes stood tall, still not coming close to Sam's height, bodies so close that one move and she would be in his arms. "I don't know what is is about you Sam." She said tempted to stand up on her tippy toes and kiss him, sit him on the bench straddle him and feel his hands all over her. But she also just wanted to stay in his presence keep talking to him, learning more about him.

Sam's hands naturally found their way to Mercedes' waist and rested there comfortably. They looked more like they were slow dancing down instead of working out, but he wasn't even aware of anybody else in the building right now. "Whatever it is... I hope it's good."

Her hands moved up his arms and she smiled. "I would lie and say the jury is still out on that but we both know its good." Her eyes went to his lips and everything in her told her to back away. She was setting herself up for failure, but her feet didn't step back, instead they stood up on her tippy toes, placing a soft kiss to his lips. She didn't care where they were, and if this moment was all she got, she would take full advantage of it.

Sam could sense her movements and leaned himself down a little to meet her lips with his own. Still a gentleman after all. His smile stretched across his whole face as he stood tall again and he was pretty sure he'd lost all ability to actually speak words. He was real good at the physical stuff, but the talking stuff always seemed to stop him up. "Well, I don't know about you, but this, uh... this is the best workout I've ever had."

Mercedes didn't know what had gotten into her but she was not mad at it, Sam kissing her back even for those few seconds made her day completely. She laughed nodding. "Best work out ever." She repeated. "I think we better go, because I am tempted to do that again."

Sam bit at his lip again and gave a little nod. He really didn't want their time together to end, but Mercedes was right about what might happen if they kept this up much longer. And he didn't want to mess up whatever was happening before it even started. Plus, he did actually have to get to class. "Probably a good idea. But I'll talk to you later, yeah?"

Reluctantly, she stepped away from him. "Yes you most definitely will talk to me later, as long as you want too." She turned to grab her things but stopped and turned back to Sam. Walking up to him she stood on her tippy toes to reach his ears. "Text me or write me later dad-dy. " Kissing his cheek, she grabbed her bag and top and made her way out of the gym with a smile on her face.

#pmercy #//i continue to suck at titles

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skia-oura · 6 years ago

Text

Orange Lilies, 8/12?

A/N: I wrote 11k in 48 hours. Please be prepared to read this in several sittings or not move for an hour or two. I apologize for its length.

Prologue // Previous // Next

Ao3 ff.net-->refuses to accept my copy and paste as non-coded text.

Enjoy!

Chapter 7: Lloyd Remnit is the Victim of a Break and Enter and Subsequent Theft

It takes several days of ever-heightening tensions to find Lloyd Remnit. In the interim, Torako shouts at Dipper twice to quit hovering (she wants to shout more), Dipper stubbornly refuses to answer any summons (the third time one comes through, he makes a disgruntled expression and mumbles something about an answering machine, whatever that is), and they have a harrowing experience at a Twin Souls convention in South-Central Canada because of a thief. Torako might have enjoyed Dipper’s shock and subsequent revulsion at a graphic Mizcor fanfic reading in room D27, but she was a little busy. Not only was she trying to hunt down the little shit that stole her phone and all the evidence on it, but her period was also square on day two. Yes, she had a MagixTampon in. Yes, she had extras. Also yes, stress fucked her period pain up to astronomical levels, and the cramping was making everything ten times worse than usual.

Honestly, there were only a few things that saved the convention from being razed to the ground between Torako’s pain-enhanced irritation and Dipper’s Twin Souls related disgust. They were that one, Torako managed to corner the thief between a rarepair merch stall and somebody selling fanart just safe enough to be shown to the public and just raunchy enough to make Dipper squirm, two, Dipper remained stubbornly attached to her hip and was therefore unable to wreak havoc on the convention-goers, and three, the thief apologized in a small, tremulous voice before offering Torako all his money, please, just don’t hurt me I didn’t realize you were this intense. Torako showed mercy. Torako only took half—and she only took it because the thief had wasted time that she could have spent finding Bentley. Even half wasn’t an insignificant amount of cash.

In the end, however, Dipper managed to find Lloyd Remnit’s residence, and they blipped just outside the walls before continuing on.

“I still think you should have taken all that dude’s cash,” Dipper said in a (recently) rare display of emotion beyond guilt, protectiveness, or rage. His footsteps were purposefully heavy as they walked up the long gravel drive to Windfall Manor proper. There hadn’t even been a gate, but even with Dipper running interference the hum of the wards they passed through had set Torako’s teeth to vibrating. Rich people, Torako thought.

“Does this guy even need this much land? This much grass?” Torako said instead of answering Dipper’s question. It was moot point anyways. Torako looked out at the wide, hilly lawn surrounding them, exquisitely cultivated ornamental gardens dotting the landscape here and there. She hadn’t seen so much useless grass in one place in her life. The gardens didn’t even look like they had any fruit- or vegetable-bearing plants in them. It was, quite frankly, insane.

Dipper did his shrug thing. “Grass was pretty normal a millennia or so ago.”

“Weird,” Torako mumbled. She stared at a bush shaped like a narwhal as they passed. She half-suspected that it wasn’t even real. “This is a really weird dude.”

Dipper hummed. They then walked in relative silence, the crunch and rasping squeal of stone against stone the only sound. There was no birdsong, no rustling grass, just clear skies up above and a suspiciously perfect hill just ahead. When Torako took a deep breath in through her nose, she could only just smell wet earth and crisp grass, like a ghost of the real thing. Except, you know, less belligerent and murderous than a ghost. She hoped. Murderous grass was uncommon but not impossible, and she’d already had the dubious pleasure of such an encounter. She wasn’t exactly looking for another one.

At the crest of the hill, Torako hefted her bag up on her back. It was heavier, after a pit-stop at the grocery store for a bunch of goodies. She’d even picked up a box of Moffios before putting it back. She wanted Bentley to yell at her about sufficient nutrients and the folly of eating something literally made of sugar. And there, on that hill, Torako stared at the mansion for the first time, and felt her heart swell with hope.

And also vague disbelief. Windfall Manor was located down the other side of the hill and a few meters out from the bottom of the slope. It was one of the most ostentatious buildings she’d ever seen. Bits and pieces of what had to be rooms but weren’t shaped in any way like rooms were floating above the main structure, all elegant curves and impossible spires. There were no stairs, anywhere. So either the floaty bits were yet more ornamentation, or the entire house was connected by a localized teleportation system, which would be completely and utterly ridiculous. It would also be in line with what Torako had seen so far, and so she steeled herself for more extravagance. The walls were a beautiful creamy color that faded in and out of opalescence, and the edges and corners were gilded, shining—gorgeous, but enough that Torako could cry in frustration. The moment the thought struck her, Torako had a bad feeling about the situation.

“What a piece of work,” Torako said into the still air. Beside her, Dipper was forgetting to breathe convincingly. Oh well, it probably wouldn’t matter much longer.

“Bentley hasn’t pissed off any rich people, has he?” Dipper asked. Torako raised her eyebrows in his direction and told herself that Mr. Self-Laceration wouldn’t blame Bentley.

“Sure it’s not you?”

“Me?” Dipper gestured at the house. “I’m not the owner of that thing, as glorious as the spellwork and as handsome as the mathematical precision is.”

“No, idiot,” Torako said, frowning. “I mean, have you made any rich enemies that would target Ben in order to hurt you, seeing as you’re kind of hard to hurt yourself?”

Dipper tilted his head and looked up at the sky. “Not that I remember. You?”

Torako scowled. They were still standing up on top of the damn hill, having a stupid conversation about inconsequential things and her uterus was set on trying to mimic the pain of being torn apart. She was, perhaps, a little sharper than she meant to be. “Geez, I dunno, targeting him and then citing you as one of the reasons for kidnapping seems like a pretty good indicator that I’m at fault here. Clearly.”

Dipper drew in on himself, shoulders up and arms in. He turned away slightly. Torako felt both guilt and a kind of ugly triumph burn through her. She put her hand on his shoulder. She took a deep breath, and tried to focus on what was important.

“Let’s just…get Bentley.” Torako squinted at Windfall Manor. “I think this place looks promising. Enough money to have enough space to hold somebody, and definitely enough money to do whatever it is to dampen your connection to Ben.”

“Maybe,” Dipper said. He waited for her to step forward, her hand trailing down and off his arm, before he followed. Torako didn’t know if she felt more like a mob boss or an unwitting mother duck.

“Do we have a plan for this, anyways?” She asked a couple minutes later, just an arm’s length from the front door. The glass set into the front was frosted, but was also animated to swirl in aesthetically pleasing patterns at random. The door jam was adorned with gilded scrollwork, which in turn were inset with tiny runes and wards. Some of them were actually augmented with literal gemstones, which explained the thrum tugging on the edges of her ears, settling into her fingerbones. Torako whistled. She was looking forward to smashing this dude’s face in and then dragging Bentley out before suing the rich shit for all the money she could give to charity. And also invest in therapy for Bentley, because she’d be damned if a cent of his money went to fix things that he wasn’t even remotely responsible for.

“A plan?” Dipper came in closer and peered at the runes and wards. He didn’t touch her, didn’t drape all over her like she was his and he was hers. “I was just thinking find Ben and crush this place into dust.”

Torako tilted her head and grinned a little. It felt plastic on her face. Her eyes ached. “Sounds good to me. Want a pack of gunny bears in exchange for shutting down the Manor defenses?”

“It’s a deal,” Dipper said. They shook hands. A moment later, there was a harsh crack, the smell of burned ozone, and the gild had melted over splintered gemstones into a mess of dripping gold. It was somehow still elegant. Torako hated it.

The door, now unshackled by layers of what had to be intricate spellwork, drifted open. Torako reached out, pushed it in, and she and Dipper stepped into Windfall Manor. When she held out her hand, Mizar’s Cultbasher was deposited in it, heavy and comfortable in her grasp. It slid down until the end of it, the hilt of it, pressed into the edge of her palm and pinky finger, grounding her.

The door closed behind them. Dipper kept his feet on the ground, but that was probably because he liked how his steps echoed in the large reception room around them. Torako looked up and around; the ceiling was like that of a giant greenhouse’s, glass set against glass impossibly smooth. The floor was tile, patterned in giant floral swirls of color. It was cracked, in places, runes and wards and deployment circles cut into unsalvageable bits. Torako swung the bat up to rest against her shoulder.

It was quiet.

“Any sign of Ben?” she asked, surveying the empty room around them. It looked like on the end of the far room there was a chair like a throne, but it was empty. There were walls all around, walls of glass. No hallways. No way out except for the way they came in, and they weren’t leaving empty-handed.

“No,” Dipper said, a tightness in his voice. It sounded like he was on the verge of trembling, but from what Torako couldn’t guess.

“What about the other one? Lloyd?”

Dipper didn’t answer immediately. The silence had a cant of unsureness, a measure of disbelief and a dash of exhaustion.

“Dipper?” Torako turned to look at him. He had risen up, shedding the remains of his human form until he couldn’t be taken for anything but supernatural.

He avoided her gaze. “I’ll take you to him,” he said, and held out his hand.

Torako narrowed her eyes, swung the bat off her shoulder. “What price?”

“Just a small candy bar.” Dipper was quiet. The hair rose up on the back of her neck. Something was wrong, this wasn’t guilt-quiet, this was a dread-quiet.

“Dipper,” Torako asked, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing—” Dipper glanced at her and met her eyes for a second before looking away like she was the one who inspired instinctual fear. “Bentley’s gone, that’s all. Let’s—just get me the candy bar, and I’ll take you to—to Lloyd. Remnit. Him.”

Torako didn’t want to give the candy bar up until she found out what was wrong with Dipper. The room seemed to yawn around them, the space wide enough to swallow, wide enough to take the mere half-meter between them and twist it into an abyss. The false sunlight peering through was almost oppressive, the sparkling of the split tiles below vicious, like teeth, and Torako was hit with the sudden realization that they needed to fix whatever was between them, without Bentley there to cover up the divide and make it all better. But that was the thing, she thought to herself. Bentley wasn’t there. Bentley had been taken from them.

Torako stuck out her hand. “Deal,” she said.

Dipper shook it without ceremony. There was no flash of blue flames. He didn’t smile, roughish and dangerous in the corners or between the press of his teeth. Instead, there was the familiar sensation of being tugged somewhere, and suddenly they were in a bedroom.

It was dark. The curtains, heavy and thick and embroidered with giant moths, were drawn over one entire wall. She could just barely see the outside light hemmed in on the floor below what had to be windows. Torako walked over to them, traced the exquisite workmanship, the painstakingly stitched forms soft ridges under her fingertips. She looked back at Dipper, who was staring at the bed and the figure under the covers. They were snoring, just slightly. Dipper’s shoulders were slumped, but she couldn’t quite make out his features in the dimness, just the golden glow of his eyes.

She set the nailbat down, clenched the heavy curtain in her fists, got a feel for the fabric and the heft. “Dipper,” she said, quiet. The relative smallness of the room, the darkness, dampened the sound into something comfortable. Dipper turned his head to look at her.

She tilted her head, held her swathes of curtain up a little. Light billowed stronger onto the ground below, carpeted, spotted with burned magic.

“Okay,” Dipper said.

Torako took a deep breath. She closed her eyes, centered herself. Bentley, she told herself, and then she pulled the curtains back as hard as she could.

Sunlight shone in like a sound, like the sudden blare of a trumpet or the screech of bow against strings, harsh against the preceding silence. The curtains slid, silent, across an invisible track of magical technology. Torako squinted her eyes a little against the invading light, and looked out the window, across the land surrounding them.

It all seemed so small, from so far up.

A few moments later, Torako heard the man in the bed groan a little. She turned around, bent down, picked up her nailbat and stood, back to the window. It would disconcert, possibly even frighten, Mr. Remnit. Dipper made no such move, but he was a demon, which was kind of intimidating enough.

“What the…” the man groaned. He waved a hand at the light coming in. “Wals, I gave you the day off so I could sleep as much as I wanted all day, goddammit.”

Torako glanced at Dipper. Dipper was still staring at the man, at Lloyd, like he’d broken his favorite toy and then kicked a puppy or two. Alright, then, no help coming from that corner, so Torako opened her mouth and said, “Well, that explains why the place was so gosh darned empty! And why you’re still asleep at four in the afternoon. You’re wasting daylight!”

God, she was turning into her dad.

The figure on the bed didn’t move for a long moment. Then he snuggled back down into the blankets and pillows, grumbling something about awful dreams.

Torako closed her eyes. Then, she opened them and looked up like the ceiling held answers, but no, there were just—lots of images of coquettish, nearly-naked people of all species and gender. One of them winked at her. She felt herself flush, and looked back at the bed. Torako was hit with the sudden thought that maybe, possibly, this man was naked under the covers.

Torako steeled herself. She had endured horrors few others had, had seen dismembered corpses that still gave her nightmares, had come home to an empty apartment and evidence of kidnapping. She could handle one naked man.

“Sorry, buddy,” she said. “This isn’t a dream. Isn’t even a nightmare. Out of luck there. Yo, Dip, do you mind making our friend here a bit more aware of the situation he’s in?”

Dipper stared at her. She pantomimed pulling the sheets off. He stared at her longer, then looked back at the sheets, at the figure stubbornly underneath them, and then lifted his eyebrows in what was clearly a, he might be naked under there, do you really actually want me to do that? gesture.

She pressed her lips together and nodded once, short. It was her best attempt at a nonverbal no, I really don’t, but this is probably the best.

Dipper slowly reached his hand out and curled his fingers into the folds of the sheets. He looked back at her, almost pleading. She tilted her head at him and held up a free hand, because what else could they do?

Wide-eyed, Dipper pressed his lips together. He tugged the sheet once, sharp, but not hard enough to dislodge it. Before Torako could do more than wonder why exactly he was being so weird about it, he opened his mouth and spoke. “I don’t think you want to know what we’re going to do if you don’t get up.”

Lloyd Remnit shifted in bed, turning around enough to get a glimpse of Dipper. He blinked, then rubbed his eyes, and sat up. He definitely wasn’t wearing a shirt. Torako looked just enough to get an idea of physique; arms a little toned, but mostly old muscle and normal levels of fat for his age. He was a bit aged, Torako thought, but more like uncle than grandfather. Then he leaned back against the headboard, all casual, and smirked down at Dipper.

“Well, aren’t you a treat?” Lloyd Remnit said. He looked Dipper up and down. Dipper stepped back a little, clearly unnerved by this turn of events. Torako felt a well of anger at Remnit and stepped forward to put herself between Dipper—who clearly knew something she didn’t and was made uncomfortable by it—and the man they’d come to interrogate. That was working well.

The moment she did that, though, Remnit burst into action, slapping a hand against the closest bedpost. It lit up for a split second before cracking further, green sparks flying out to die, harmless, mid-air. Remnit stared at the bedpost. Torako smiled as she finished blocking Remnit’s view of Dipper.

“Yeah, we took care of that,” she said, affecting nonchalance and confidence. Even though the room was small, everything in here was clearly quality that would take a decent chunk out of her parents’ paychecks, even before donating a great deal of it to charity. “Any more questions?”

Remnit squinted at her. “Could you get out of the way? I’d at least like some eye candy to look at.”

Torako’s smile thinned. She made sure to heft her bat up again, so that Remnit clearly saw what exactly was in store for him if he didn’t stop with his shit. “I’m not eye candy enough for you?” she asked.

“He’s more my taste,” Remnit said.

Dipper put a hand on her shoulder. She raised her eyebrows at Remnit, even though she was really raising them at Dipper. There was a moment of silence from him, and then Dipper said, “It’s okay, Ra. If he wants eye candy, I’ll give him eye candy.”

Torako obliged, and stepped out of the way. Dipper strode past her, got closer to Remnit, and sat on the bed. Remnit seemed a bit taken aback by this gesture.

Then Dipper held up a hand, and Remnit recoiled, screaming. Sweets poured onto the bed. Torako connected the dots and had to swallow hard at the mental image that came forward.

“What the fuck!” Remnit screamed, on the other side of the bed. “What the fuck??”

“You don’t have to eat it,” Dipper said, quiet. “You just said you wanted to look, right? So here it is.”

“What the fuck are you?? Why are you here, holy fuck!”

Torako shifted so that she could tackle Remnit if need be. He might try to run. They weren’t going to let him. She would break his arm before letting him go. There was a wardrobe half in the way, but it would slow him down just enough to help her catch him easier.

“We’re here for an important friend of ours,” Dipper said. There was an undercurrent to his voice that had Remnit paling. “And last thing we found pointed to you.”

“In case you need reminding,” Torako said, an easy smile back on her face, “it has to do with a fridge you commissioned. Could transport live bodies?”

Remnit’s dark eyes, somewhat familiar, flickered between the two of them. “I have…hypothetical knowledge of that,” he whispered, then wet his lips. “What’s…in it for me?”

Torako laughed a little. “What do you think is in it for you?”

“You should probably answer wisely,” Dipper said, eyes clear, still on the bed. Anyone who didn’t know him wouldn’t see how wrong he was arranging himself into something casual, unaffected.

“I…” Remnit said. “I…didn’t get to where I am now by settling.”

Torako smirked, but she was watching Remnit’s hands. They were twitching in a way that seemed half-controlled. She thought about the level of magic set into the house, how much everything relied on it.

“Dipdop,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “He won’t do anything.”

Remnit’s movements faltered. “What?”

“He won’t want to tell us anything either,” Dipper said. He shifted. “If he’s anything like the man I once knew…is this about family, Lloyd?”

“I haven’t met you before,” Remnit said. He took a step back, back against the tall, ornate wardrobe Torako had noticed earlier. It was very clean, light glinting off it like the wood was alive. Torako’s smile felt frozen to her face.

“Not that you remember,” Dipper said. “And I guess that makes all the difference, doesn’t it? I’m not family, somebody else is. The somebody who has Bentley.”

“What are you even on about?” Remnit snapped. He slapped his hand against the wardrobe, transferred whatever spell he’d been crafting between his fingers into the wood. It crackled, distorted, then shot at both Torako and Dipper. Torako tucked into a smooth roll and slammed the nailbat into the wood hard enough to punch holes, the enchantments on the bat combating with the enchanted wardrobe.

Dipper had tessered right up against Remnit, who sucked in a quick breath and stilled. Torako stood, watched.

“Bentley,” Dipper said, “is my family. You were once, Stan. But that was lifetimes ago, so I can’t blame you for not being now, right?”

“Dipdop,” Torako said.

“What the fuck?” Remnit whispered.

“Except I will blame you,” Dipper said. He set his hand against Remnit’s forehead. “Your loyalty has been given to the wr̢ò͏n͏̢g̨҉ person this time, Stan. Tell me where m̘ͦͥ͆ͯ̀y̳̩̘͉̑̉̄̀̇ͨͦ ̡̈͊̚s̬̹̗͎̲͂̈́ì̥̩ͅst͇̙͙̝͓e̝̹̟̹̮̯͒̒ͧ̇̈́r̴̗̝̖̭̫͌̒̚ ̧͓͈̠̯ͦ̅́ͤ̑̆ͦi͓̞͕̮͉̳̫͡s̡̩̪̰̋̌ͧ̏.”

Torako’s smile slid off her face. She stepped forward.

“I don’t know,” Remnit said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Who did you commission the stasis fridge for?” Dipper crooned. “I will give you what you desire most if you just tell me who you commissioned that stasis fridge for.”

Torako took another step. “Dipper, stop. You’re getting out of hand. Dipper, stop.”

Remnit paused. Then, he laughed, hard and long, startling Dipper enough that he pulled away just a little, just enough for something in the air to loosen and for Torako to breathe a little easier.

“Nothing,” Remnit said, “is more important than family.”

Dipper didn’t even breathe. He canted his head back towards Torako. “I agree,” he said. Torako read the question in the quirk of his pointed ear, in the set of his hand on his hip. She pursed her lips.

“There’s no other way?” she asked.

“Stan is stubborn,” Dipper said. “I admired that, once.”

Torako readjusted the grip on her nailbat. “A bag of Octopods and a bag of Chocolate Chicken Waffle Chips?”

“And a lock of hair,” Dipper said.

Remnit had lost some of the courage he’d pulled together only moments before. It had, Torako thought, evidently fled in the pieces he’d finally put together. “No,” he said. “My wards, they’re too strong.”

“And a lock of my hair,” Torako said, “in return for the knowledge of who took Bentley, and where they live.”

“Who are you?” Remnit hissed. He held up a hand, desperate energy crackling in it, and shoved it into Dipper. Dipper looked down at it, then grinned at Remnit.

“Ḓ̸̥̯̈ͣ͌ͪ̇̏̎͢e̸̥͕̼̎̂͂ͤa̶̡̼̰͉͓ͭ̽̉ͤ̊ͭͅl̀̈̍̋͡͏̥̙͖̤̻̬͍̠ͅ,” he said, blue flaring high, and set his hands on Remnit’s head like he was going to pluck the strings of a harp, delicate but firm.

Remnit didn’t scream. He let out a hitched sob. Dipper withdrew something from Remnit’s mind, and then flung it out. A heartbeat, two, and then Torako knew.

Torako stared at Remnit. He was collapsed on the ground, a puppet with cut strings, a man whose base morals had been violated. Torako remembered Bentley, kneeling at his father’s funeral, accepting orange lilies with shaking hands. She remembered dark, flat eyes. Something dark and horrible and scared welled up in the pit of her chest, nearly choking her. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to kill Remnit.

“How dare you,” Torako told Remnit, voice shaking. “How fucking dare you hide behind family to justify their actions. You fucking supported them! What the actual fuck?”

“You took it from me,” Remnit whispered to his hands. “You took it from me.”

“And your nibling took my partner from me!” Torako screamed.

“Torako?” Dipper asked.

Torako lifted the nailbat. Her hand hurt from how tight she was gripping it. She wanted to drive Mizar’s Cultbasher into Remnit’s skull, over and over. How dare he. How dare he.

Bentley was more important.

“Dipper,” Torako said. She dropped the bat, stared at Remnit, heartbeat roaring in her ears. “I will give you another bag of candy, one in my bag, to make sure he can’t warn anybody about what’s coming for them. He can’t tell anybody we were here. He can’t tell anybody we’re coming. He can’t tell anybody what was done to him. He can’t let anybody know that they’re in danger.”

“I mean, okay, but Torako?”

“Do we have a deal or not, Alcor?” Torako snarled. Remnit flinched at Alcor’s name, started crying.

Dipper was silent for several rapid heartbeats, then he said, “Deal.” Torako’s backpack lightened again, and Dipper put his hand on Remnit’s head again. Blue flames flared, then died, and Remnit curled over, hiding his face in his hands.

“Let’s get out of here,” Torako said, after a long moment. She felt vindicated, and terrible, and angry and scared because Bentley had told them he was Mizar.

“Torako, who was it?” Dipper caught her arm, talons digging in just a little. Torako looked into his eyes. Her body was light, carried on a wave of turbulent emotion.

“Once we get out,” Torako said, and no sooner had she spoken were they on the lawn by the wardstones, right at the beginning of the gravel path. The sky was still, there was no birdsong, and the grass under their feet was artificial at best. Everything was wide and open and wrong.

“Tell me,” Dipper said. She couldn’t stall any longer.

“Dr. Fantino,” Torako said. “Their name is Vallian. They gave Bentley orange lilies at Philip’s funeral.”

Dipper froze, eyes wide in horror. The air was suddenly like syrup, pressing down on her shoulders and leaving her slow, heavy. “The one that Bentley…”

“Cursed.” Torako gripped Dipper’s hand with everything she had. She laughed a little at a sudden thought, high and on the hysterical side. “Bentley really did piss off somebody rich, I guess.”

Dipper snarled. The air around him turned dark, almost misty. Everything around them seemed like it was moving, but Torako felt nothing. His wings curled and grew into a shroud around them, at once shielding and suffocating. “I̢̛͉̳̓̓ͯ̔ ̵̶̷͙͉͔͈̱̫͚̑̀̏̐̌ͫ͒ͅw̷̝̜̜͙̯̻ͧ̇̑̍͌ͅi̶̸̗̲̿͆l̵̖̻͈͈̙͙̱͉͑ͤ̽ͤ͑̇̔͢l̹̤̥̼̼ͦͦ̾̉͜ ̞̬͇̥̖̻̖̓̊̾̓͌̑̿̃͝d̸̶̮͍̠͇̂ͥe̛̝̻̖̰̥͕̓͌̍ͤs̛͕̭̟̔͗ť̬͔͍̍̽ͩ̌́̚͜r͋͂̀̊͏͏͙͈̥o͔̪̥̲̠̎͛ͧ͢ȳ͍ ̯͇͇̗̱̘̭͈̻́ͮ̊̌̊̇̒́͝ḩ̤̠̘̮̳̠̞̐ͭͩͤ͡i̴̼ͯͩ̈́͐ͣ̋m̪̫̠͑̓ͩ͊́͆ͥͩ̇͘͟,” Dipper said. “I̤̣̭̹̻̾̽̓͊͋̍̏̈́’̺͈̪̲̪̖̘͂̿̈̔͞l̞͇͈͔̩̩̙͙̗̊̋ͧ̚͘l̢̧̰̾̀ͩ̓ͭͭ͋͘—̛̬͕̗͍͇̲̜̫ͬͪ̇̐̾͘ͅ”

Torako’s phone chimed, the chime from Lata’s parents. It cut through the syrup around her; the last she’d heard from Lata’s parents hadn’t exactly been positive news. Her heart in her throat, she pulled it out, navigated to messages. She choked, her fear rising above her anger. Bentley was important, but Lata was—Lata was a baby.

“Dipper,” she said. “Lata’s missing. Lata’s—we have to find Lata.”

Dipper let out a noise that was more squealing tires and thunder than human, tugged her close, and they left Windfall Manor more abruptly than they’d arrived.

Bentley had lost track of time.

He also lost track of what it’s like to actually chew or ingest food orally; all of the nutrients his body requires have been supplied to him so far by a NutriPatch, even though those are really only supposed to be used short term. He should know, he visited Torako in the hospital and got that lecture from the nurse on Torako’s behalf. That had been a little uncomfortable. Maybe not as uncomfortable as the saline drip embedded in his arm—that was sure to leave a scar and he was high-key avoiding those thoughts—but certainly not fun.

Bentley had also lost track of what it’s like to move more than five steps at a time. He was always strapped down to the bed when people come in to check his vitals, take DNA samples for some awful reason that he would freak out over if he thought about it, so he didn’t. He also was reduced to dragging around his IV drip with him, because there was some sort of non-tamper seal on the drip and he hadn’t managed to get his hands on anything that would allow him to sigil it off. He wanted to save the last-resort of using his own blood as a medium until he had a clearer chance to escape.

What Bentley had gained, had slowly been gaining, was energy.

Not quickly. No, residual, fragmented nightmares kept him from actually getting the sleep he needed to make a decent recovery. At the same time, he also wasn’t being actively sucked of energy in order to fuel his own nightmares and keep him locked in a mirror hellscape funland of his own imagining, so, the pros were outweighing the cons at the moment. Bentley was going to take whatever the fuck he could get.

Which, he thought as he sat in a corner in the dark, pale hospital gown pooling around him, wasn’t exactly a lot.

He pressed his chin to the valley between his knees, looked out to where he knew the vase of orange lilies sat in a protective alcove. For somebody who professed not to ascribe to acting based on illogical emotion, Bentley thought, Dr. Fantino was really, almost hilariously petty. It made him really angry.

Even after what felt like at least a week of knowing the lilies were there, they made Bentley want to cry. The slight against his father had been turned into something worse, something to taunt and goad Bentley with rather than an honest, if despicable, act. Dr. Fantino, Bentley knew, was using Philip to get under Bentley’s skin, and it was working. When he wasn’t too exhausted to feel, or too stressed and sad to think, Bentley was constantly furious. Dr. Fantino being absent whenever Bentley was awake only fanned the flames higher; they had the gall to kidnap him, subject him to torture that was sure to set him back years’ worth of therapy, and then? They didn’t even? Interact? With him?

Bentley hugged himself tight, digging his hands into his legs. He was losing weight. His hair was uncomfortably long. His nails were kept trimmed and soft, but they would be longer than he was used to if they hadn’t been. Bentley was losing time.

He closed his eyes, started to doze in the corner. He woke an indeterminable amount of time later, feeling space closing in around him, crushing him, welding his throat shut and unable to make a single sound.

Bentley yelled at the walls to make himself feel better until nothing came out but a raspy, whistley noise. Then he couldn’t make noise with his throat, and it was awful, but drumming his fingers on the floor helped, standing and moving just because he could helped. When he was able to think again, Bentley set his forehead against the wall and closed his eyes.

He lifted his hand, one finger outstretched, and began to trace the shape of sigils into the wall. “Fire,” he said in a whisper, tracing fire and then breaking it. “Water. Earth. Lightning. Air. Connection,” and so on, creating and detonating in his mind’s eye. Every so often, he traced Alcor’s circle into the wall. Said please. Waited long moments in which he knew nothing would happen, but hoped anyways, before moving on to more complicated, more powerful, more theoretically dangerous things. Bentley wondered, absently, why Dipper hadn’t come yet.

Then, the lights came on and they gassed the room to knock him out. He drooped down the side of the wall, throat sore, and watched the blurry images of the nurses come in to bundle him back into bed. He was harmless. His limbs didn’t move. They showed no fear.

Bentley was losing time, but there was nothing he could do but bide it.

Lata was in Australia. Lata was safe. Lata was happily playing with a very tired woman Torako’s never met, who Lata apparently has and who Lata had also successfully conned into letting her visit. The woman did not yet know this. Lata had whispered it gleefully in Torako’s ear because Torako was the Fun One, right before Dipper had pulled Torako abruptly aside to demand they destroy everything Fantino held dear.

Torako had to convince Dipper that that did not mean it was time to lambast Fantino’s house, under her breath and doing her best not to let the woman whose house they were in know that, you know, she had let a demon inside.

“It’s home,” Torako hissed to Dipper. “Yeah it’s where he lives too, but you’ll go overboard and cause another international incident, beyond the mysterious glass found in the middle of the desert. Yes, I saw that article, you didn’t hide it nearly well enough.”

“Bentley could be there,” Dipper hissed back, his face inhuman because he wasn’t looking at the Australian woman—Torako thought her name was Tom, or Tam, or something. “We need to get Bentley and make that man pay.”

“We don’t even know if Ben’s in the house,” Torako said.

“We don’t even know that he isn’t,” Dipper retorted. Their faces were close in order to facilitate better hearing at lower decibels, and also in order to increase the intensity of their glaring at each other.

“Whatchu doing?” Lata asked, flopping over Torako’s back. Torako tipped forward at the unexpected weight. Her face smooshed into Dipper’s, her nose almost jamming into his eye.

“This is a private conversation,” Dipper said, tense but trying not to make Lata cry. Torako braced her hands on his shoulders and pushed herself back upright. Lata giggled.

“This’s private property, and it’s seven fucking thirty in the fucking morning,” the Australian Woman Tom Slash Tam said. “You got something to say, say it loud’n clear.”

Dipper and Torako exchanged a look. Torako turned to face Tom Slash Tam, and said in the flattest tone she could manage, “Lata did not tell you that their parents had no idea they were going to Australia.”

Tom Slash Tam stared. “What.”

“I got a text, just earlier today—” which was not a lie, just a very misleading turn of phrase “—in a panic about where Lata had disappeared off to. I need to let them know where they are. Dipper thinks we should return immediately. I think you need to be told what’s up.” That was a lie. They hadn’t even discussed it.

Tom Slash Tam gaze shifted to the limpet on Torako’s back. They had their face pressed into the back of Torako’s neck. “Lata,” Tom Slash Tam said.

Lata whined and squeezed Torako’s neck tighter. Torako choked a little and tapped Lata’s crossed arms furiously.

Tom Slash Tam crouched down lower. “Lata,” she said, voice low. “Did you lie to me?”

Lata whined again and kicked their feet against Torako’s butt. Torako pried their arms from around her neck and breathed a little easier, but didn’t move to make Lata face the other woman.

“Lata,” Dipper said. Torako glanced at him. His eyes were white and brown again, which was disconcerting every time she saw them like that. “Answer Tommy, please.”

Lata said something into Torako’s neck.

“Speak up, please,” Torako said.

“I said I don’t feel they right now, I feel she,” Lata said, directly into Torako’s ear.

Tommy nodded. “That’s fine, thank you for telling us. But Lata, did you lie to me about coming over?”

Lata paused. “No,” she said in a bald-faced lie.

Torako raised her eyebrows at Tommy. Tommy raised hers right back. They shared the look that adults do when kids decide to be more difficult than the situation calls for, and then Tommy pressed on.

“Then did…Torako, was it? Right, Torako. Then did Torako lie?”

Lata paused again. Torako knew that she was going to be thrown under the bus as last-minute sacrifice when Lata said, “Yes.”

“So,” Tommy drawled, “you didn’t actually try to pull the wool over my eyes by fabricating—making up—several messages saying that yes, they’d be glad to let you come see me, yes they were happy to’ve meet me and make sure I wasn’t some sort of creep after their kid and I made a real good impression, can you take our kid in a couple days?”

Torako did not point out that the whole situation was unrealistic. She honestly didn’t understand how Tommy could have been fooled by a five year old.

“Yes,” Lata said. She dug her hands into Torako’s shoulders, and Torako hissed in discomfort. “I’m only five.”

Tommy narrowed her eyes at Torako. Torako sighed, pulled out her phone, and navigated to the message in question. Tommy took the phone, read the message, and sighed back at Torako. “I’m a fuckwit,” Tommy said, before pulling out her own phone to call Lata’s parents and walking a few steps away.

Lata leaned into Torako and whispered, loudly, “You sold me out!”

Torako looked, unimpressed, at Dipper. At the look on his face, her expression faltered. “Dipper?” she asked.

“Are you done?” Dipper asked. He’d sunk his fingers into the floor, curved and rigid in ways human hands were never meant to be. Torako’s heart sunk, and she felt Lata scrunch down more behind Torako’s back. “Lata is fine. Lata is safe. We should be finding Bentley.”

Torako narrowed her eyes. “We’re not going to the CalFed.”

“It’s our only clue,” Dipper hissed.

“And they will know you’re there,” Torako said, straightening up. Lata slid off her. “Because you will have no chill while you’re there, and then they’ll find out that I’m involved, and we’ll never be let back into the country.”

Dipper snarled. His eyes flashed black and gold before they turned back to brown and white. “You’re worried about being let back in to the country?”

“My family lives there,” Torako snarled right back, nastiness blooming in her. “We are not putting them in danger.”

“They won’t be in danger.”

“Tell that to the glass in the Sahara Desert,” Torako said. She leaned forward and bared her teeth. Dipper bared his right back, sharp like sharks’ and wide enough to clamp around her throat. Torako didn’t back down.

“Do you even lo̕v̡e Bentley?” Dipper sneered, and it was like he’d stabbed her in the heart. “You’re messing around here and he’s in the hands of an egotistical shit who knows who he is and if you l̸o̸v͠ed̢ ̡ him, you’d go s̛͝͡av̵͡è̀͘ ̵h̵̵̡im͢.”

Torako moved through shock, to hurt, to grief and then back to anger fast enough that if it had been turns on a roller coaster, she’d have suffered whiplash. She surged forward, pushing her face up into Dipper’s and grabbing a fistful of his shirt. “Who was the fuckhead who ran off and wasn’t there for Bentley in the first fucking place?” she said, voice low, deep like it was coming from her chest.

Dipper’s face twisted in guilt and fury. His eyes flicked from her eyes down to just below her chin. She lifted it, exuding as much I’d like to see you try as she could. Deep down, underneath her hurt and anger, something was screaming at her to back down, to get away and to stop threat-posturing in front of something that could crush her without a second thought.

“What the fuck is going on here?”

Torako blinked. She remembered, suddenly, where they were, who they were with. She realized, a split second after remembering, that Dipper’s face was sporting some decidedly unhuman features, and she tugged Dipper in closer so that Tommy couldn’t see. Torako looked up at Tommy.

“We’re…fighting,” she said.

Lata was standing next to Tommy. Her eyes looked suspiciously shiny, and Torako watched as she tugged on Tommy’s well-worn shirt. “They said Uncle Ben is gone, and they gotta find him.”

Tommy crossed her arms. “I think you need to explain what batshit fuckery is going on. Not on the floor. We paid for the fucking couches, and so you’re going to use them and be civilized about it, not like a couple of pixies fighting over a scrap of magic in the local tarot reader’s dumpbin. “

Dipper stood. Torako knew that he hadn’t put his human guise back on by how Tommy inhaled sharply and took a step back, herding Lata behind herself.

“We don’t have time,” Dipper said. There was a buzz against Torako’s skin, like a cacophony of cicadas pressing into her. She took a deep breath. “Bentley isn’t safe, he is o͘u҉rs, he is m̧i̸͟n͏e̵̴, and he n͢͏̸e̷̴̕e̴͟͢ḑ̸͏s͟͞͠ ͜t̶҉o͜͠ ́b͝ȩ ͝s̛̛͜av͡͏ȩ͢͞d̡̛͟.”

Tommy looked between the two of them, eyes narrowed. Torako stood up, angling herself between Tommy and Dipper. She didn’t know which one of them she was supposed to end up stopping, if it came to blows.

“Dipper,” Torako said. “I told you, going to Fantino’s house isn’t going to help anything.”

Dipper dug his hand into her arm (again, what was with him and her arm lately) and spun her around. Something inside her strained at the manhandling. “Y̴̡o̶̵̢u͜ ́k̨ņow̢͘ ̷͡no͜t͡h́͝i̶n͞g of where he is,” he said, static peppering his voice and burrowing beneath her skin. The tone, the words, made that strained something snap, and Torako stood tall. “You are m̢͟͟͠͠o̡̡͜r̷̴̶̀͟ţa҉́͏̛ĺ̵̶͢ ̢̢̀͢͞ and you can’t b̴́e̵̢gin͠͠ t͠͞҉o͢ ̕u̢̕n̶d̡̢͢e̡r҉̴s̢t̴̢͞a̴n͏͟d͡ ̷͏w̶h̀͡a̢̕t̡ ͞it’̴̧͟s̡ l̴í̵͝k̕é—”

“I love him too,” Torako said, pushing right back, grabbing his arm right back and squeezing tight, curling her fingers as much into claws as she could. He had melted back into his suit, void-black and snow-white and intimidating as all fuck to people who didn’t know him, which was most of the planet and more. She knew him, though. She wasn’t fucking intimidated by his fancy-ass suit or his impossible fabric or even his goddamn teeth. Torako stared him down, using her height to her advantage. If he wanted to float and be taller that way, he’d have to shove her face out of the way. “I love him, I told you I love him more than I love myself—”

“Ć̷ĺ̴ęa̵̸͜r̡͢͞l̸y ỳo̧̕͘u͢ ͜d̴̛o҉̧n’̷͘t̛̕͟,̷͘͠ ̢b̡̛ȩc̷̡a̶̡u͝s̶͠e ̀y̷͡ou̸̕ ҉a̵r̵͟e̵ǹ̵̡’̷̧t̢͜͢ ̴͡ w̴͡í̴̡͝l̶͡ĺ̵͜͡҉i̕҉n̕g̢̀͡҉ t̸͠ơ̴͠—͟͞”

“I do, you absolute fuckface, and you also don’t know where he is, that’s the whole fucking reason he’s still not safe—”

Somebody was crying, but Torako didn’t care because Dipper needed to be shut down and also kicked a little, probably.

“I kn̶ow͏ m̸ore t́han y̧ou, y̵ou̧ w͝oul̸d ̶kn̡o͢w ͢nothi͠ng ҉i̷f̸ it ̵w̵eren’t̢—͝”

“And neither would you, because you left, you left and went off to have a fucking pity party instead of being with us—”

“HEY!”

Torako, without looking, snapped over her shoulder, “Shut up and stay out of it.”

Dipper hiss-snarled from around her shoulder. His wings had come out, sharp and wicked and shadow. Torako drew herself up even further and pushed down on his arm.

“Stop l̛̀͠ò̡̧͝o̷̷̧͘͞m̴̴i҉̨̛n̸̢͠͞͏g͠҉̵̕,” Dipper growled.

“Stop hurting me,” Torako growled right back.

“Jus̶t̡ ͟imagi͡ne wh̴at͞ Bȩntl̵ȩy’s ́g̛oinģ thro̷ug̴h͘,̡” Dipper said, “bec͞au̷se y͏o̢u ̧woưl̷d͞n’͠t ͘l̷e͠t̢ m͏e̛ ͏ t͏e̴a̛r ̢͞t̸͞h͏̸a҉t̶̷̨ p͢e͘r҉s̷̷on͠’̧̀s̴ ҉h̸͜o̢m͟e̡͠͠ ̷͝͡a̕͜p̸á̢͏r̸̡͡t̴҉ ̵̧t̕͞ǫ͝ ̵́́fín̨͟d̀ ͟͝hìm̕͠͏.̧”

“Just imagine what Bentley would feel,” Torako said right back, “when he found out you decimated the place he grew up because you weren’t thinking straight.”

“J̛́u͜s͜t̡ i̴͝m͢a҉g̸͝i͢͢ńe͏̧,” Dipper started, but never finished because suddenly there was a deluge of icy water being splashed on them. Torako shrieked. Dipper jumped up in the air and stayed there, blinking the water out of his eyes. Torako wiped soaking hair from out of her face and tried to process what had just happened.

“You get to clean that up, by the way,” Tommy said. Torako looked over, finally, and Tommy was holding Lata in one arm so that Lata could press her face into Tommy’s chest. There was a bucket in her other hand. “Towels’re in the bathroom. Get your arses dry and mop the floor up and then come sit on the damned couch. Stop making the kid cry.”

Torako, dripping water, exchanged a guilty glance with Dipper. Dipper caught her eye, and looked away.

Yeah. Torako nodded, fight gone, and turned around to go get some towels. If she took a while coming back, and if her eyes were a little red when she finally emerged, then nobody would say anything.

Dipper curled up on one end of the couch. Torako was curled up on the other, a towel around her shoulders. There was as much space as possible between them.

Dipper hated and needed it all at once.

Across from them, on a ratty armchair that looked as though it was held up only by layers and layers of threadbare spells, Tommy nursed something slightly alcoholic and stared them down. Crackles of amber irritation lanced through her aura. She’d sent Lata to another room to play with their dog. Dipper hadn’t even noticed the dog, coming in, too caught up in Fantino, and Bentley, and the all-encompassing need to save and fix.

“So,” Tommy said, finally. “I’ve got a fuckin demon in my house.”

Dipper scrunched his shoulders and crossed his arms. He looked away at the bookshelf, which held an eclectic collection of physical books, datapads, storage drives and also various animal skulls.

“Which one is he?” Tommy asked. Dipper hunched over more and noted one book was about astrophysics. More specifically, he realized, the mingling of magic with astrophysics, and postulation as to whether or not there was a limit to how far magic extended from Earth, and if it was an Earth-only phenomenon or one that extended throughout the entire universe, or something inbetween.

“Alcor,” Torako said, quiet and not quite like herself. Dipper wondered if she’d ever been herself, since Bentley had been taken. He’d been too wrapped up in himself to notice.

“Of course,” Tommy drawled. “Of fucking course. I threw water on one of the most powerful known entities in the universe.”

Dipper thought of the glimpses of his future, aching loneliness and power enough to burn whatever he touched. He didn’t like thinking about that, so he started thinking about magic and astrophysics again, while half-paying attention to the conversation going on in the same room.

“It happens,” Torako said.

“And you!” Tommy said, louder. “You were going nose to nose with that overpowered soulsucker, what the fuck are you?”

“His…friend? Partner?” Torako paused. “I’m human, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Dipper switched his attention to the couch under his hand. He started to trace the weave with his claws, dulling their edges so that he didn’t snap the threads on accident.

“You arse-tipped dick-waffling crazy shit,” Tommy said. “And there’s…another one of you, right? The one that’s missing?”

Guilt and grief and anger gripped Dipper so tight he forgot himself, punching a hole into the couch. Seized by terror, he checked that connection between himself and Mizar again—still dampened, still there, butterfly-wingbeat-weak against his senses.

“My couch,” Tommy said.

“Sorry,” Dipper said. He glanced over at Tommy, aura a confusing mix of colors, and then away. “Sorry.”

“Yeah,” Torako said. “Bentley. Um. It’s a long story.”

“That’s fine,” Tommy said. “Give me the important shit.”

“Um. I guess. Bentley got kidnapped, about five days ago? I can’t remember exactly. I was useless the first day, and after that things have gone so—so fast. We finally found out who took him, today, and we know why, but we don’t—we don’t agree on what to do next.”

“Shit,” Tommy said. “And you’ve only had each other for company for five days?”

Torako laughed. Dipper concentrated on curling in on himself as much as he could at the bitterness there. “Yeah. We—we’re kind of a mess, aren’t we?”

“Fuckin understandable, though,” Tommy said. She paused. “Is it normal for him, to, uh, do that?”

Torako shifted. She huffed a little, but when she spoke there was a bit of a smile in her voice. “Dipper, your tween is showing.”

Dipper looked back at her. She seemed a little larger than before, and with an aura dulled with emotional exhaustion it meant that he’d shrunk again. Dipper put his face in his hands.

“I take that as a yes.” Tommy was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, drink held loosely in one hand. “Not the weirdest thing I’ve seen, though.”

The front door opened. A voice floated in, strong and upbeat. “Darling, you called just a bit ago? Is everything all right?”

Dipper stared at Tommy over the tips of his claws. Tommy took a long, languid sip of her drink before answering. “In the living room, Filara! We’ve got some…disastrously interesting guests. Lata’s in the bedroom with Fuzzles.”

“That’s right,” Torako said, a little faintly. “You have a wife.”

“I do,” Tommy said, a kind of proud, self-satisfied grin on her face.

“She…going to be okay with this?”

“Well, she might be able to help you. She knows a bit of everything. Smart woman, my Filz.” Tommy’s grin took on a shit-eating cant. “Also the reaction’ll be balls hilarious.”

Dipper groaned. Pathetic. All-powerful demon and Acacia’s troublemaking nature always made him quail.

“What’s that about your balls?” Filara asked. Dipper looked at Filara, and then kept looking, because that was Lionel and what was Lionel doing married to Acacia?

“Our guests might have a couple of questions for you,” Tommy said. She gestured to the both of them, sad and huddled on the couch, like she was unveiling some great and wonderful monument to the world.

“Oh, I’m happy to answer…” Filara looked from Torako to Dipper and trailed off. She stared. Dipper stared back, still lost in the mental gymnastics of but this is my dad but that is my niece but this is my dad and my niece married???? and only distantly aware of the fact that he looked like a prepubescent non-human in an impossible suit.

There was a beat of silence born of mutual surprise.

“Uh,” Filara said. “Darling?”

Tommy took another sip of her drink. Out of the corner of his eye, Dipper could see smug pinpricks of orange-lilac in her aura. “Yes, Filz?”

“Ignoring the gorgeous woman on our couch,” Filara said, “there’s…a thirteen-year-old on our couch?”

Torako made a gurgling noise. Dipper was almost impressed. Most people pegged him for ten or eleven. Nobody overshot his age (even if it was just barely) in this form.

“Kind of,” Tommy said.

“And he’s…they’re…she’s…not…human?”

“That’s speciesist. Wow Filz. I expected better of you.”

Torako kind of half-raised her hand. “He’s a demon.”

“Yes, a demon. Thank you, gorgeous woman whose name I don’t know.” Filara took a half step forward as Torako gurgled again, and shifted her corrective lenses. He almost hadn’t seen them. “Darling, why is there a demon on our couch?”

Tommy hummed. “Ask him.”

Filara took a deep breath, then turned to face Dipper more squarely. “Why are you on our couch?”

Dipper gestured at Tommy, and every answer except for, “She told me to” escaped his mind in that moment.

Torako supplemented the information. “I got a text from Lata’s parents. They didn’t know she’d come here, though I think they know now, and they know where the bill for the ticket to get here came from.”

“Ah.” Filara said. She waved her hand, and a rocking chair appeared from nowhere to settle in next to Tommy’s threadbare monstrosity. Dipper recognized the echo of Lionel’s taste in furniture in the cushions, firm but not flat. “That explains a little more, but not enough. Start from the beginning?”

Dipper opened his mouth.

“Not you,” Filara said, and proceeded to point at Torako. Tommy took another smug sip of her alcohol. There was lemon in it. Dipper bet that it was something Torako would like. “You. Mr. Demon seems a little useless information-wise, and no offense but I’m not sure I would trust him. Also,” she said, glancing back at Dipper, “can I get a name so I don’t call you Mr. Demon? It seems a little odd to, especially when you’re being so quiet and polite and not actively bartering for my soul or my left arm.”

“I’m Tyrone,” said Dipper.

“He’s Alcor,” said Tommy a heartbeat later.

Filara settled back in her chair with an air of confusion and also mistrust. She looked at Torako.

“He’s both,” Torako said. “I call him by a nickname. You’d know him as Alcor.”

“Cool,” Filara said. “Cool cool cool, I’m just going to ignore that he’s Alcor in my sitting room. Please tell me why you’re here and what’s on your mind, Ms. Gorgeous.”

Torako gurgled again. Then she obliged.

“…and then we got into a big fight in front of Lata and your wife,” Torako said before taking a sip of the drink that Filara had insisted on getting for her. Lata had come out at some point, and was clinging to the Hangars’ beagle mix between Torako and Dipper. She was also asleep, so everybody was trying to be as calm as possible. Aside from a couple of tense moments, mostly because Dipper said something snide and Torako said something snide back, they had succeeded.

“She threw water on us,” Dipper said. “It was effective.”

Filara hummed. She seemed less concerned with the fact that Dipper was in the room and more preoccupied with what Torako had said. “And you said that Alcor said that he couldn’t feel Bentley very well?”

Torako nodded. “He can explain it better than I can, obviously.”

“Explain, please.” Filara pulled a stylus and pad out of what seemed to be thin air. Tommy had long since gone to the kitchen to make food. It was lunchtime. They had been in this house for hours. Torako was very, very hungry.

“So, it’s like he’s in another dimension,” Dipper said. “Except nobody should be able to do that? So it has to be a pocket dimension, but it doesn’t feel like a pocket dimension. It’s like, there’s more layers between us, muffling everything. I should be able to feel how he feels, but instead it’s hard enough to tell that he’s still alive.”

“A little creepy, but all right.” Filara jotted down notes, appraised them. “And you said the kidnapper has access to significant funds?”

“Yes,” Torako said.

“And also used cutting-edge technology to use a sophisticated but also very traceable way to transport Bentley while in forced stasis slash nightmares?”

“Also yes.” Torako took a swig of alcohol, closed her eyes at the sharp burn of liquor and citrus. It grounded her. Torako did not necessarily want to become an alcoholic, but by everything good was it helping. She had needed this.

She also, desperately, needed some of whatever was cooking in the kitchen, because it smelled absolutely wonderful.

“Interesting.” Filara continued taking notes, switching from her right to her left in order to gesture at the bookcase Dipper had been staring at earlier in sullen silence. A couple books and a datapad floated over to her. One title was in a language Torako couldn’t read, and the other was made up of such outdated terminology that Torako could barely understand it was about warding theory.

“Is it okay to be here, though?” Torako asked. “You came back from somewhere really early in the morning.”

Filara flapped her hand at Torako. “It’s fine, that contract was paying me pennies for the work they wanted anyways. I only took it because I was bored. I’ll find another short-term job soon enough.”

“Isn’t the Australian job market kind of bad right now?” Dipper asked. He was leaning back, a little more gangly and teenager than he had been earlier.

“That’s why I can’t find anything not short-term,” Filara said. “Also why I decided I’d throw my net wide instead of deep, so to speak. More variety of possible jobs. I let Tommy specialize.”

“Park management?”

“With endorsements in both mundane and supernatural creature handling,” Filara muttered. She flipped the warding book open to the back, indexed whatever she was looking to find, and then started turning back to the relevant page. “Specifications which are archaic and vestigial leftovers of an age shocked by the sudden appearance of unprecedented species, both sentient and not, but whatever they want, I guess.”

Torako saw Dipper perk up at the nerdspeak. “I agree,” Dipper said. “It’s literally been over two thousand years since the Transcendence. Why, with the evolution of language, do such—currently—arbitrary classifications exist? It would make far more sense to align everything on a scale of sentience alone. The laws of science have changed so much, and possibilities have altered to an extent that nullifies the importance of separating non-sentient and originally non-magical creatures from non-sentient and originally magical creatures.”

“True,” Filara said. “Okapi were once seen as utterly mundane until scientists observed the emergence of magical traits conducive to predator and sustenance detection…”

Torako tuned them out, looked down at the drink in her shaking hand. She swirled it a little, then watched the tumbler continue to tremble, ever so slightly. Torako admitted to herself, under the safe umbrella of being momentarily ignored, that she was tired. She was stressed, and scared. And she had begun taking it out on Dipper. And maybe, just maybe, Dipper was the same, and he’d started taking it out on her.

He was unstable without Bentley, even though they kept stressing to him that he had to be stable without Ben. Though, Torako thought, a wry smile on her lips, maybe she wasn’t so different. She felt pretty unstable herself.

They were going to be lucky to get out of it all in one piece. They were all definitely going to need therapy, group and individual. Torako wanted to laugh and cry, but there was a dull edge to her emotions that pressed the urge down into something less overwhelming. Where were they going to find a therapist that would take them seriously and not report things like Bentley being a reincarnation of Mizar, or Dipper being Alcor, or Torako breaking and entering and bartering for demonic force as a tool to suppress and punish people outside the court of law? Dipper and she had discussed it, back when Bentley had first been taken. Dipper had promised that he’d take care of it, but…somehow, that seemed like a really bad idea. Would it be better than no therapy? Worse?

Torako didn’t know. She swirled her drink again, then took another swig of it.

“Torako?”

She looked up. Filara had a manic gleam in her eyes, which shone a faint purple. Probably from magic exposure. “We figured something out, maybe.”

“It seems pretty possible,” Dipper said.

“Lay it on me,” Torako said, and leaned forward.

“So, this is highly theoretical stuff, and I’m definitely not a specialist in any practical sense so I don’t know how possible it is,” Filara said, drumming her manicured fingers on her knees in excitement. “But because extradimensional travel, like to legitimate other dimensions, is impossible by human means and, Alcor assures me, highly improbable even by demonic means, there’s only an infinitesimally, insignificantly small chance that Bentley has been spirited away to another dimension. Which means that to fit the parameters of ‘not being in this world proper,’ Bentley has to be in a pocket dimension. Which, in and of itself, is not sufficient, because Alcor can sense Mizar through those, right?”

Dipper nodded vigorously.

“Have to wonder how your kidnapper knew how to counteract that, but no matter. Might just be plain paranoia, which is healthy to have when kidnapping a Mizar attached to a very very powerful demon. Anyways!” Filara flicked up a screen and began to draw a quick sketch. It wasn’t very artistic. “so you have the pocket dimension, with Bentley in it, with Alcor here, and there’s extra stuff inbetween. It has to stop demons from entering. More than that, it has to stop a very strong, the strongest, demon from even sensing through it. Which is hard. It’s like, you have a window, so you can’t pass through the window, but you can see through it and sometimes even hear through it, right?”

“I get that,” Torako said. She set her drink on her left knee. “So something that would stop that would be, like…sigils, right?”

Filara blinked, stopped mid-drawing of a window with a person looking out of it. “Actually, yes, maybe? But there aren’t too many people who use sigils to that kind of degree, and they might be a little too finicky to mesh with a pocket dimension the way this kind of near-airtight technology requires. As it is, the pocket dimension is probably a bit destabilized by this. The theory is old, but incredibly difficult to actually execute. So if you’re looking for something reliable…”

Torako snapped her fingers as she connected the dots. She grinned. “Wards.”

“Right. Runes don’t pack enough punch and can get a little frisky, but wards are solid. They’re dependable. Reliable. They’re like a middle-aged rottweiler.” Filara drew a stick dog on the screen between them, then put a smiley face on it. “Loyal, and forgiving, but also capable of turning nasty if you poke it enough with the right stick, which is why this is still theory. Maybe. It might be real if Alcor’s unable to sense Bentley.”

Torako’s stomach turned and her good mood evaporated nearly as quickly as it had come on. Dipper was quiet, which could mean several things. She hoped he wasn’t going to sink into a brooding spiral again. “Which means Bentley’s stuck in something potentially unstable.”

“Unfortunately, yes.” Filara pinched the screen back into nonexistence. “And because Alcor is as powerful as he is, even the ward alone might not be enough. There’s possibly another element, which would destabilize it even further. Bentley could be younger when he comes out. He could have grown extra limbs. Maybe he knows more languages than he knew going in. Maybe he loses the ability to write, but gains the ability to telepathically communicate. Everything we know about unstable pocket dimensions comes from a long time ago when they were new and unrefined, and when you add magic to magic, weird things happen.”

Torako closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay. So we need—we need a good wardist. Who knows their stuff, and is connected to the warding professional world, and it can’t be Meung-soo because I hate her and also I don’t trust her to know enough after being kept in the dark about her own nephew. Fuck.”

Next to her, Lata slept on, curled around Fuzzles the beagle. Torako wished she was five and the world was uncomplicated again. She’d also settle for a long nap, at this point.

“I’m sorry,” Filara said, quietly. “The downside of casting your net wide, is, well, you don’t really know the super serious pros very well. Especially ones who don’t thinktank, and do stuff instead. I can’t help you there.”

Dipper straightened up. He looked solidly in the realm of his 20s now. That was both a promising and frankly miraculous sign, considering the situation was ‘Bentley trapped in an unstable affront against the laws of dimensional boundaries’ and his reaction to Bentley’s situation before this particular calamity. Torako was unable to wrap her head around how his brain worked, sometimes. “I do.”

Torako couldn’t even muster the energy to raise her eyebrows at him. “You do.”

“Yes.” He nodded, and stood. “Soos’s reincarnation’s mom is a wardist. She told me.”

“Who?” Torako asked. She couldn’t remember a Soos. Then she registered the word ‘reincarnation’ attached to Soos, and not knowing made more sense. Except, “When did you meet Soos’s reincarnation?”

“Last week,” Dipper said. “She gave me ice cream in exchange for homework. It was a nice deal. But, Soos’s reincarnation’s mom. She can help us. Definitely.”

Torako narrowed her eyes in confusion. “But…does she know you’re you?”

Dipper reached over Lata and grabbed Torako’s hand. She swore as she fought to keep her alcohol right-way up. “If she doesn’t now, then she absolutely will in about five seconds!”

“Wait, wait, where are they, Dipper?” Torako asked, but it was too late—she felt the tug across her body, and they were elsewhere.

Filara stared at the place Torako and Alcor had once been.

“Darling,” she called, after a few moments.

“Yes?” Tommy yelled back.

“Our guests left with a towel and a tumbler of your lemon cocktail,” she said. She tilted her head at Lata and Fuzzles, and added, “Also, they left sans child.”

There was a clang. Tommy appeared moments later at the entrance to the sitting room, staring at the empty spots on the couch, then at the backpack still on the floor.

“Dipshits,” Tommy said. She sighed. “I’ll call Lata’s parents and update them on the situation, then.”

“Thank you, darling,” Filara said. She stood, and stretched, and then stepped over to give Tommy a kiss on the cheek. “I appreciate it.”

Tommy grinned, kissed her back on the cheek. “Always, dear heart.”

On the couch, Lata shifted next to Fuzzles, but kept sleeping.

#orange lilies #my fic #fic #tau fic #dipper #torako #bentley #ensemble cast #transcendence au

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milothebastardman · 7 years ago

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Hi, I don't know how to start asks :D I was wondering what other ships you'd be willing to write about? Also, maybe a Radmond fic where the two are stuck in an awkward situation? Loveyourstories:3

First of all Nonny, same. I never know how to start asks so don’t worry ‘bout that! As for the ships I’m willing to write about… Get out your pen and paper kids, time for some notes!

I ship pretty much anything from OK KO and SU, as long as it isn’t something like Jaspis (not comfortable with it personally, don’t care if others like to write it. you do you, I’ll do me, we won’t do each other. probably) or anything involving a minor and a character that we know isn’t a minor. (yes this includes stuff like KO/Rad, which I’ve seen floating around, and stuff like Maxvid). Speaking of that, I also have lots of Camp Camp ships! I love anything involving Maxpres, the two magic kids, Harrison and Neil, Nerris and Nikki, basically anything that isn’t Maxvid or Nurf x Preston (abuse isn’t something I like writing sorry).

Those are just for cartoons. I also love musicals, so there’s a bunch of ships from them. RENT, Dear Evan Hansen, Be More Chill, and Heathers are my favorites off the top of my head, and I ship almost anyone with anyone in those.

Then there’s the lovely gold mine that is Polygrumps. (nothing involving Kevin of course, I respect him) Note: I generally include Mark (markiplier) as an honorary Grump for my own self-indulgent reasons.

Speaking of Mark, if you scroll back to some of my first blog posts, you’ll probably find some Septiplier. While I know that this ship, in general, isn’t always well received because of some of the actions other shippers exhibit, please know that I greatly love/respect Mark, Amy, Jack, and Signe. I never would post Septplier content in any of their respective tags, I know they don’t like to see 40,000+ words of them kissing and stuff. Should anyone ever request that sort of content, it will be tagged appropriately. I expect anyone who reblogs from me to do the same, that way others aren’t seeing stuff they don’t want to see. I will give y’all one warning if you reblog without tagging properly (like not tagging NSFW, using the Markiplier tag for Septiplier content, etc.), and if it happens again, I will straight up block you.

Anywhore… That’s about it! This has been a PSA by your favorite broke, tired nursing student! Onto the thingy!!!

“Of all the people to get stuck with in a closet…“, Raymond complained, shoving against Rad as he tried to get a little breathing room. Sure, he didn’t exactly need to breathe and all since he was a robot, but he still liked having his personal space thank you very much! Rad let out a muffled curse as he hit the wall, his eyes adjusting easily to the sudden darkness they had been plunged into. Being an alien from a planet with three hours of daylight certainly had its perks!

"Well, it’s not like I’m too happy either.”, he snapped back, kicking Raymond “accidentally” as he got his gangly legs sorted out. The two lapsed into silence for a few seconds, analyzing the hand they’d been dealt. Rad had just wanted to sneak around inside of Boxmore, just to see if Lord Boxman built any kind of weird robots in his spare time. Well, weirder than the ones he normally built. Raymond had been wandering around past his charging time, which was a big problem seeing as it was one of the few rules Coach Boxdad actually had in place. He’d rounded a corner and ran smack into Rad, as evidenced by a slight dent in the metal on his head. The alien had a rather nasty looking bruise forming on his own head, though, so Raymond didn’t really feel too bad about getting banged up.

That was bad enough, being caught by your crush worst enemy when you weren’t supposed to be somewhere, but then it got really bad. The rhythmic clicking of Lord Boxman’s boots echoed down the hall, and the two had panicked. Both would be in all sorts of trouble if they got caught, so Rad, in a brief moment of genius, grabbed Raymond by the arm and yanked him into a nearby closet. While the closet did keep them from being discovered by Lord Boxman, it wasn’t until the footsteps had faded away that Rad tried to open the door. He jiggled the knob, tensing slightly as he realized what had happened.

Like many mechanisms in the Boxmore building, this closet door had an automatic locking function installed. The door had been cracked slightly when Rad had noticed it, so they’d been lucky enough to be able to squeeze in. Of course, the moment the door shut, it locked back into place like it was supposed to. That led to their current position, crammed uncomfortably close inside a locked closet, one they couldn’t possibly get out of without making enough noise to draw the attention of Lord Boxman.So now they were just stuck together, the air getting thicker as every agonizing minute ticked by.

“… Dude, my legs are like, killing me.”, Rad grumbled, shifting his weight from one foot to the other in an attempt to relieve some of the tightness building in his legs. Sure, he was used to standing up all day at his job. The thing about that is, at his job, he actually had more than a couple feet of space to move around. Here, he had maybe six feet for the entire length of the closet, and Raymond was taking up a lot of space.

“Oh lord, tell me you aren’t going to whine about that all night, are you?”, he hissed back, the gears in his mind turning very quickly as he came up with an idea. He moved carefully, minding his spikes as he sat down on the closet floor. “Sit down and spread your legs.”, he demanded, his own night vision functioning at a capacity so that he could see the bright blue flush that spread across Rad’s cheeks. The alien really didn’t like the connotations that sentence could have, especially with the way in which Raymond said it, but he followed along hesitantly.

With the both of them sitting down, it did give Rad more leg room. He was actually able to stretch them out, as long as he didn’t mind the feeling of (surprisingly) warm metal against his skin. He was a little disturbed by the fact that he actually didn’t mind that, and he shook his head to clear away the haze in his head.

“Is this more suitable, Rad?”, Raymond drawled, feeling a smirk tugging at his lips when he felt cool skin against his legs. It was an interesting sensation, that was for sure. It wasn’t exactly like he went around letting organics touch his legs, so the feeling was entirely foreign. It was strange, but not altogether unpleasant. For some reason, he had expected Rad to feel much warmer…

“Yeah, yeah, it’s ‘suitable’… Maybe if you be quiet, I could catch a nap or something.”, Rad replied, letting his head rest against the wall gently. He felt exhausted all of a sudden, a deep sort of tiredness settling into his bones as he laid there. Raymond seemed to oblige him, falling back into silence as he observed the alien. Normally, being this close to him meant they were in the middle of a serious battle, so he never really had the chance to just look at Rad. Now, though… Well, he had plenty of time to just stare at the blue skinned alien. Questions began buzzing around his gears, questions about being having friends, having a real, paying job, and his life back on his home planet.

It was another strange but oddly pleasant feeling. The questions stayed trapped inside his head, though, the moment he caught sight of Rad’s chest. It rose and fell slowly, in time with his gentle breathing. It seemed that he’d already fallen asleep, after a mere minute or two of silence in the cramped space. Frankly, it was almost impressive. Rad reminded Raymond of a cat, in a way. Capable of sleeping at any time, in any place, no matter the situation. Content with the idea of his rival being cat-like, the robot felt his gears slowing to a stop as everything began shutting down. After a few moments, he too fell asleep.

Shannon had several questions the next morning when she opened the linens closet to find her baby brother and his rival sleeping together.

#radmond #rad #raymond #ok ko #ok ko let's be heroes #lots of ships mentioned #long post #ask #anon #whoops i got carried away

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rwt-mystic-corner · 5 years ago

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I’m sick from equal parts stomach bug and emet*phobia (basically: Phobia of Exactly what the Stomach Bug Does to you, for days on end... i’m finishing up day 6 at this point)... Figured, while I’m resting I’d pass some time filling one of these out.

Questions from here: https://prettyalice13.tumblr.com/post/125172483728/witchcraft-asks-1-105

1. Are you solitary or in a coven? Solitary. I've tried to find a coven, but Wicca has a pretty firm grasp on witchcraft in the area. (They even opened a "Witchcraft Museum" about 20 minutes away, and it's literally all entirely dedicated to Gardenian Wicca. I refuse to go in because I haven't figured out how to tactfully point out just how badly they're misinforming everyone...)

2. Do you consider yourself Wiccan, Pagan, witch, or other? Pagan and a witch!~ Though the term I like most is "mystic", because it's the Forces of the Universe that I play with, more than personal forces or tools. (I did start out as a Wiccan 12 years ago, though.)

3. What is your zodiac sign? Which zodiac? Chinese: Water Rooster. (And I absolutely claim that.) Greek: Aries Sun, Scorpio Ascendant, Cancer Moon.

4. Do you have a Patron God/dess? I have two, actually! Mielikki, and, well... the other one is one I'd rather keep under wraps. It involves pop culture paganism, astral travel, and something kind of, vaguely?, fiction-kin adjacent, but not like My ID, so even that technically isn't it? It's wild. Ask off anon if you'd like to talk about it, we prefer that she's only discussed in private.

5. Do you work with a Pantheon? No, the deities that have spoken to me come from all sorts of pantheons.

6. Do you use tarot, palmistry, or any other kind of divination? Rarely, anymore. I mostly go in with meditation (I think the term for it nowadays is "Accessing the Akashic Record"?), though I used to use tea leaves, scrying into teacups and rivers, and asked for Clues from the Universe when I'm out and about, and I read signs from whatever's around me. I had a serious knack for tarot when I was using it, though.

7. What are some of your favorite herbs to use in your practice? (if any) Oh, definitely lemon balm! I love that little mint. I've had it growing in my room twice. The first time, the chinchillas got to it, and for some reason it never grew back? The second time, it got hit with aerial blight when all the rest of the houseplants did. :c That little plant had hung in a lot longer than the others, but eventually it succumbed, and no amount of coaxing would bring it back.

8. How would you define your craft? "Shadow witchcraft", because I do a lot of the "confronting personal stuff that's really hard but necessary to grow", AND the "working with energies of the shadows, feeling safer in the dark, and using darkness as an energy source to recuperate, divine, and move energies for spells".

9. Do you curse? If not, do you accept others who do? Yes (but I've only actually done it once), and I accept others who do, yes. (I do not, however, accept those who only do it for selfish, malicious reasons. I recognize that there's a gray area, and I won't bother you for that, because it's your craft to do whatever you want with, not mine to judge. But if you're cursing just for the hell of it, I don't want you anywhere near me. Also, any kind of curse that could be considered Hate Speech or Incitement gets you blacklisted and blocked in my book.)

10. How long have you been practicing? Ooh, this one's complicated. See, consciously, intentionally, while calling it "energy work" or "witchcraft"? Since I was 14, so that's 12 years. But well before then, I was sensing energies, from plants and animals, I was acutely aware of others' emotions, sometimes even accidentally manipulating them. For as long as I can remember, I would lean against trees and "listen" to them, or wonder how I knew what it felt like to have your heart broken, when I'd never even been in a relationship? (Because I felt it from others!) So, I guess, I've been "practicing" without knowing there was a word for anything I did my whole life.

11. Do you currently or have you ever had any familiars? Not many, considering the sheer numbers of pets I've had, but: ~ I had a ring-necked dove once, who would come sit with me, in the dark attic half of my room, when I was meditating. Sometimes he'd drop in during a ritual, and join me in the circle until it was complete, and then he'd leave the room. He brought me feathers. Once, when his foot was injured, he stood absolutely still to let me perform a healing session on it for a week or two until it healed, and if you know doves, you know it's very rare for them to hold still for ten or fifteen minutes at a time. ~ I'm convinced my chinchilla Dusty is becoming a familiar. I don't practice nearly as often as I used to, but he always goes very still, and seems to be watching over me, whenever I'm meditating or energy-working. He always knows when I'm upset, and if I go near the cage when I'm depressed or in pain or struggling with chronic health issues, he'll sit at the door until I open it, and then he'll put his paws on me in this very specific way, and he just sits there for a minute. And when he finally goes to scamper off, I feel much more calm and able to cope with things.

12. Do you believe in Karma or Reincarnation? With all the memories I've had? There's no way I CAN'T believe in reincarnation. (As for Karma, I do believe there's a sense of balance the universe must keep, but I don't believe reincarnation is, at least not entirely, dictated by your other lives. There are too many errant patterns in the people I know to believe that.)

13. Do you have a magical name? Yes, a very personal one. "RWT" is the abbreviation, hence my URL.

14. Are you “out of the broom closet”? For most people, yes. I try to remain open and honest whenever the subject comes up, mostly due to a lack of fear. So what if people disapprove? It's my practice, not theirs. I don't go around totally advertising it to everyone I meet, but all of my friends and the closest members of my family know I practice.

15. What was the last spell you performed? Oh gosh, probably a healing to try soothing my stomach cramps? It worked... temporarily.

16. Would you consider yourself knowledgeable? More in a "jack of all trades" way, but yes.

17. Do you write your own spells? I rarely "write" them; to be honest I've always just kind of... improvised. I performed a couple rituals guided by Scott Cunningham's suggestions, but after that I was building my own meditations and doing whatever felt Right and Useful with the energies.

18. Do you have a book of shadows? If so, how is it written and/or set up? Closest thing I have is a "mirror book". I don't have the attention span to Compile Everything I know, I kinda just... act like a walking healing / empathic / meditation / astral projection / herbal medicine encyclopedia. 8F

19. Do you worship nature? What kind of pagan would I be if I didn't? "Nature" is such a broad term, but for me it involves wonderment and awe at the Earthly creations, receiving energies from celestial bodies, delighting in my connection to all forms of life, and even animism (though that one's more of a Venn Diagram with nature, where there just so happens to be some overlap.)

20. What is your favorite gemstone? Lapis lazuli! (It was my favorite long before SU personified it into such a relatable character. ;P) Sodalite is a close second, I really love larimar (but gosh it's expensive), obsidian has been the best grounding stone for me since I was a baby bat, it's not technically a gem but still a favorite-- actually, I don't think any of these are, oops. My favorite Actual Gem is probably Aquamarine. (Just so happens to be my birthstone.)

21. Do you use feathers, claws, fur, pelt, skeletons/bones, or any other animal body part for magical work? I use a lot of feathers (legally obtained from my own birds, don't worry-- being an ex-wildlife rehabilitator, I learned ALL about the MBTA), though I've collected fur from other pets just in case.

22. Do you have an altar? I used to. Now I kind of just... have a shelf, and a portable mental altar. Mielikki prefers to meet in a forest, and my other Goddess basically requires astral projection to get ahold of.

23. What is your preferred element? Water, far and away.

24. Do you consider yourself an Alchemist? No, since alchemy is the transformation of materials using tools, and the only "transformation" I get involved with is the transformation of negative energy or injuries into a production or "packet" of positive energy in healing.

25. Are you any other type of magical practitioner besides a witch? ....I don't know any other terms, what else would you call a magical practitioner? Energy worker, perhaps? Astral traveler? Does empathy count as magic (since, though I never use it on people, I DO have the ability to, basically magically, change someone's mood?)

26. What got you interested in witchcraft? I've been interested in it my whole life. No matter what kind of fantasy I was reading, I'd compare the kind of magic THEY do to the kind of magic I'D like to do. I just didn't know how to make it a part of my practical life back then.

27. Have you ever performed a spell or ritual with the company of anyone who was not a witch? ...Well there was ONE time... but it's a little ns//fw.

28. Have you ever used ouija? Multiple times. Always warding carefully, before and after, mostly at the behest of others.

29. Do you consider yourself a psychic? Yes. Well I'm an empath and I have a very strong sense of precognitive intuition, and I've interacted with spirits, so of course I do.

30. Do you have a spirit guide? If so, what is it? I do. It's... more of a "who" than a "what". But she's another one I'd rather discuss in private. (Equal parts my own inability to explain it, exactly, and her comfort.)

31. What is something you wish someone had told you when you first started? Don't be afraid of your own power.

32. Do you celebrate the Sabbats? If so which one is your favorite? Oh, Samhain, far and away with certainty! Making peace with the past, and letting it guide your future, has always been a huge theme in my life. Sensing the different kinds of spirits that wander around, being more able to detect the subtler energy layers of the world, the minimizing of energies that overwhelm me at times, while the quieter and gentler energies abound... And I've always had such wonderful meditations on Samhain, whether it was in astral travel, spirit work, or prayer.

33. Would you ever teach witchcraft to your children? I wouldn't force them to learn, but if they asked, I would answer. (I'm not very sure that I want kids at all, though...)

34. Do you meditate? It's essential to me. Used to do it every day. Now I kind of use it as an as-needed grounding tool, or to reach out to That Goddess who's Harder to Get Ahold Of.

35. What is your favorite season? Winter. ~<3 I pass out in 75F, I'm that bad with the heat. Winter, when it's below freezing every day? Winter, the season when the whole world goes just a little bit quieter? When everything outside either leaves or hibernates, and everyone inside does their best to lift their own spirits? It's the time of the year I'm most comfortable.

36. What is your favorite type of magick to perform? Astral projection, with empathic healing as a close second.

37. How do you incorporate your spirituality into your daily life? My (secret?) goddess's teachings help guide my decisions, big and small. My connection to others, human and animal and spirit alike, are highlighted by my empathy. Whenever I eat or drink, I can feel the energies of whatever touches my tongue, it's clairgustance, I've been told. I don't so much actively incorporate it, as passively revel in it.

38. What is your favorite witchy movie? Ooh, that's a hard one. Does The Crow count? I also liked The Covenant. And there's this heart-wrenching very-obscure movie called Powder, that deals with psychism and energy and psychic-level empathy as it relates to an outcasted anomaly. And THEN there's Justice League Dark, which nailed John Constantine's character far better than the Keanu Reeves movie and explored almost-- almost-- every single one of my favorite mystical heroes. i'll probably ALWAYS be saying Raven should join the JLD at some point, but we'll see if that ever happens.

39. What is your favorite witchy book, both fiction and non-fiction. Why? ~ Well fiction is, obviously, gestures vaguely at my avatar, practically anything with Raven in it. The comic series New Teen Titans was phenomenal, the Raven miniseries from 2008 was a story about empathy and compassion and struggling with these through high school, so of course I loved it, and the most recent Raven miniseries (2018 I believe?) harkened back to another comic series I absolutely LOVED, the 80's Night Force. (Again: featuring Mystical Heroes! That is EXACTLY my jam!) The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman incorporated a lot of metaphysical elements, so I'll count that one too. And for propriety, I suppose I'd better include a novel: The Winter Oak, by James A. Hetley. I did absolutely LOVE Harry Potter as a kid, and the entire Sevenwaters series by Juliet Mariller is probably my favorite novel series. ~As far as nonfiction, though? Honestly, don't laugh, but there's this book published by Llewellyn (I know, I know) called The Shadow Magick Compendium, by Raven Digitalis. His first book Goth Craft really resonated with me (a practicing ~"casual RomantiGoth"~) in middle school, and through all of high school and adulthood, I had a lot of personal struggles that shadow magic helped me pull through. Reading Shadow Magick helped me find the strength to admit that yes, I had flaws, fears, horrors, imperfections, but it also helped me find strength in who I am, flaws and all. I have a habit of being pretty divorced from my emotions, but that book... moved me to tears, more than once.

40. What is the first spell you ever preformed? Successful or not. That's... really freaking hard to trace back. I was sending out wishes to the world and sincerely expecting it to Change Things from a very, very young age. At age 14, I was performing energy exchanges / communions maybe? with plants in our backyard. My first intentional fully-craft-based Spell had to have been at 14, and I think it was a divination? I got the answer I needed, though I'd need to dig out my first mirrorbook to see what it was actually about. It must have been the answer I needed though, because I kept divining for years.

41. What’s the craziest witchcraft-related thing that’s happened to you? Well I didn't ASK for that blizzard thunderstorm, though that was pretty crazy! (Ohio weather, everyone. It was the most powerful weather I’ve ever lived through!) A lot of crazy things have happened to me though. The time I accidentally influenced the emotions of everyone in a ten-foot radius at school (before I even knew I could do that). The time I knew my doves needed me, and came to find that the cat was in the room chasing them around. The time I was helping give a back-massage to a very firm and outspoken nonbeliever in magic, bolstering it with healing/soothing magic, and he said "Where [RWT] is touching, it feels very warm, and it feels very good". The way that, as a teen, whenever I would get too emotional, and specifically when I was emotional, I'd static-zap anything I touched, and the way that, as a child, I could touch magnet-operated toys and they'd activate. The revelation of who my spirit guide is. My energies have always been an undeniably strong magic ride, guys.

42. What is your favourite type of candle to use? Well I do keep birds, and candles are very terribly dangerous for them! So I haven't used a candle in YEARS, unless I was outside or in another room (like the bathroom-- candles and baths are lovely together). I really love using beeswax candles, especially if I can find them made by a local apiary. Candles with an earthy, herbal, floral, or delicate scent are very nice too!-- as long as it's not overpowering.

43. What is your favorite witchy tool? My mind. If I have to choose a physical one, though, probably stones?

44. Do you or have you ever made your own witchy tools? Yep! I've wildcrafted and dried my own herbs, cooked my own foods for post-ritual recovery, and I guess it counts if I've set up crystal grids of my own design?

45. Have you ever worked with any magical creatures such as the fea or spirits? I met a animal-spirit guide the very first time I meditated, at least with Magical Intentions! I do a lot more encountering various spirits than "working with" them, meeting them and sometimes learning a bit before thanking them and leaving.

46. Do you practice color magic? Not really? I'm not a very visual person. Though I do perceive colors from certain spirits /places /people, and sometimes associate those colors with those things, I don't intentionally focus on the color as the backbone of the spell.

47. Do you or have you ever had a witchy teacher or mentor of any kind? Oh, absolutely. My spirit guide took it upon herself to help me work with my abilities, and every now and again my goddess will actually guide me in practice, if it's desperately needed. As far as humans go: I did, sort of, once, for a brief time. But he lived an hour and a half away, so we could really only meet on certain weekends, and then we sort of... lost touch.

48. What is your preferred way of shopping for witchcraft supplies? In person! I have to touch it, hold it, and feel out its energy myself before I take it home.

49. Do you believe in predestination or fate? I believe the universe only steps in when it Absolutely Must, and that there are certain... guideposts? that will be pre-ordained in your life, but how you deal with it and where it takes you from there is entirely up to you.

50. What do you do to reconnect when you are feeling out of touch with your practice? My goddess, my spirit guide, an assortment of crystals/stones, whatever I feel I need most-- but most importantly, I use them to connect with MYSELF.

51. Have you ever had any supernatural experiences? Oh, SO many. I've visited so many astral worlds, I've lost count. I've encountered (and... basically "consumed"?) parasitic entities at the park. I've viscerally FELT the energies of what I work. Empathy is a daily occurrence for me. The reason I went vegetarian is the vividness of what I'd sense from what I was eating. I've sent healing to people and watched the spring come back in their step, healed lethargic puppies and watched them go from dragging around to bounding away happily, taken terrified birds at a pet store and soothed them until they relax in my hands. It's an integral part of my life at this point.

52. What is your biggest witchy pet peeve? People telling others that the way they practice their craft is wrong, just because they don't believe, or they follow a different set of rules, or morality? Like, that’s all subjective. (Except, like I said before, where hate speech and incitement are concerned. Nobody has the right to harm others just because of the color of their skin, their gender, their religion, and such.)

53. Do you like incense? If so what’s your favorite scent? Oh sweet stars, I absolutely love incense. I found it at a local metaphysical shop that closed, and the last time I found it was when I visited New England for a high school field trip, but it's called "Spiritual Guide" by Padmini, and it smells JUST sweet and JUST soft and JUST earthy enough, with JUST the right balance of mid- and high notes that it simultaneously grounds me and lifts my spirit to the higher realms. Incense has so many applications and such a variety, I love picking and choosing which one to use (away from the birds, of course). I even use (unlit) incense as air fresheners in front of the air conditioner.

54. Do you keep a dream journal of any kind? Sort of. When my dreams are worth remembering, I used to write them down in my mirrorbook, but now I log them on my personal blog. 8P

55. What has been your biggest witchcraft disaster? ...Not knowing the way my spells affected others in the beginning. I'd rather not talk about that.

56. What has been your biggest witchcraft success? Learning to control it? Learning how to turn that terrifying power into something beautiful and healing? Taking ownership of MY power, and deciding how I WANTED to use it? Finding beneficial outlets for it?

57. What in your practice do you do that you may feel silly or embarrassed about? Mmmmh, worshipping the Other Goddess that I do, and who my spirit guide is. It's very complicated, and even I don't understand how it works, so I couldn't possibly explain it to people... but that's certainly who they are, and it's just... I know there are Many People who would be hostile to the idea of their existence.

58. Do you believe that you can be an atheist, Christian, Muslim or some other faith and still be a witch too? Absolutely! Your god can bestow gifts unto you, even gifts of personal power. First of all, God giving people the power to perform miracles in his name is all over the Old Testament. Secondly: King James added in lines of the bible that weren't there originally, so fearing witches isn't actually in God's Instructions to Mankind. Third of all, mind that I'm saying this as an ex-Christian, if the Abrahamic God gives you a GIFT, who are you to ignore it or suppress it? Are you going to say God made a mistake in giving this power to an individual of his creation? All that aside: Witchcraft doesn’t have to be associated with any gods at all!

59. Do you ever feel insecure, unsure or even scared of spell work? Not spell work itself. Just... the way things can go awry if I'm not very, very careful.

60. Do you ever hold yourself to a standard in your witchcraft that you feel you may never obtain? Nah, honestly I'm glad to do what I can do, and there's really no way to quantify the "success" of magic to me.

61. What is something witch related that you want right now? Rocks! I keep seeing these onyx crow/raven carvings, and gosh would I absolutely LOVE one, but alas: Finances. Rainbow fluorite! Amber! Ametrine! Azurite! So many stones I really feel drawn to, but just haven’t encountered at a small enough price tag.

62. What is your rune of choice? ...Iiiii actually don't use Futhark or Ogham runes, and the ones I do use are more... geometric? Specific? There's one I keep drawing, especially when I need to find peace or get in touch with my goddess, but it's for Personal Use Only. If I had to pick one from an established system though, it'd be Futhark "Isa".

63. What is your tarot card of choice? High Priestess.

64. Do you use essential oils? If so what is your favorite? Oh yes (but again, never around the pets). My favorites are pine, lavender, jasmine, and sandalwood. I once found this blend called MotionEaze or something, for motion sickness. Which didn't help much for that (my stomach is really touch and stubborn), but it DID help immensely with headaches, and keeping calm.

65. Have you ever taken any kind of witchcraft or pagan courses? I wanted to go to Sacred Mists college for awhile! But I don't have the money for that, even at $200/class, and right now it's on my dreambuilding list. I've always followed my books and my heart, and thus far it hasn't led me astray.

66. Do you wear pagan jewelry in public? Oh yeah. I used to wear either a pentacle necklace (usually under my shirt) or pentacle earrings (when I felt especially vulnerable) every day to high school. I even wore the necklace to my AP exams-- which were taken in a Catholic private school, so that was interesting. (I kept it hidden carefully the whole time. But one of the priests I encountered still watched me Uncomfortably Closely for the whole three minutes I was in that hall... I always wondered if he Suspected Anything.)

67. Have you ever been discriminated against because of your faith or being a witch? Well no, but I don't exactly make it public knowledge. I did wear a cloak as a jacket for several years (the only reason I don't anymore is that, A, it's tattered and badly needs mended, and B, I'm trying to get a Fancy Professional^tm Job). So of course I got a lot of questions like "Are you a witch?" "Are you a Wiccan?" And I got attempted evangelism just for wearing the cloak, but that was usually it. I tend to just say "I don't go to church because I work weekends", and when people ask what my religion is, I usually say "I'm nondenominational".

68. Do you read or subscribe to any pagan magazines? No, but one of my pictures was published in a pagan magazine! (I'd love to, but I don't think there are any local publications, and also those Cost Money. So... again, it's on the dreambuilding list.)

69. Do you think it’s important to know the history of paganism and witchcraft? Oh, absolutely. Mostly because of all the misinformation that's out there; you have to shield your mind against lies, and the best way to do that is to know the truth. It's also essential to respect where practices come from, because that's the only way to know if it's a closed practice, or even if it's the kind of practice you want to engage in. (Like if you're looking to divine truth without any bias or bells, the last place you should probably look is a sensationalizing LaVeyan Satanism spell...)

70. What are your favorite things about being a witch? It gives this strange, powerful aspect of myself a safe outlet.

71. What are your least favorite things about being a witch? That strange, powerful aspect can be downright terrifying sometimes.

72. Do you listen to any pagan music? If so who is your favorite singer/band? Not exclusively "pagan", but I've used Elvenpath by Nightwish to worship Mielikki, Mother Earth by Within Temptation to worship nature, and I believe Disturbed has a Wiccan member, and I've always loved their music.

73. Do you celebrate the Esbbats? If so, how? I used to! Nowadays I kind of just, bask in the glow of the moon through an open window, and take in the energy when I have the time, or when I need it. (But that's not even exclusive to Esbats, just... whenever I feel like I can use a little bit of a lunar touch in my life.)

74. Do you ever work skyclad? I sleep skyclad, so while the answer is Yes, Occasionally, that's not exclusive to my working.

75. Do you think witchcraft has improved your life? If so, how? Oh gods, YES, in SO many ways! It helped me understand, shape, and take control of a big part of my daily experience. It helped me make sense of this entire world of experience that nothing before had ever explained. It gave me a safe outlet for the energies blazing through me, and of course that outlet gave me a sense of fulfillment through healing and protecting myself AND those I love.

76. Where do you draw inspiration from for your practice? Honestly... anything I encounter that inspires me. Even mundane, non-witchy things-- a puppy's energy at work! The flight of my doves through the room! The wind whispering promises through the trees! The resilience of trodden grass, the gentle tug of a forest brook, the gradual yet ready shift in the trees every autumn. Things people say. Quotes that spark a sense of Purpose within me. And of course, my guides have given me a lot of inspiration, too.

77. Do you believe in ‘fantasy’ creatures? (Unicorns, fairies, elves, gnomes, ghosts, etc) Some, yes (ghosts for sure), others I think may be real things taken to a creative extreme, and other still, I believe, if they're not on Earth, not on THIS Earth, they probably exist purely through the creation of thoughtforms by now.

78. What’s your favorite sigil/symbol? That personal one I mentioned awhile ago? It's an intricate symbol with many layers, large and small components, straight and round, extremely powerful as a protective symbol, and it always makes me feel so peaceful, free, alive and well. It connects me with my goddess, my purpose, my sense of self amongst the world, and yet helps me block out those things in the world that destroy those things.

79. Do you use blood magick in your practice? Why or why not? Not really? I've just never needed to. I can trace my energies' destination by either empathy or intuition, I don't need blood to personalize, attach, or anchor anything.

80. Could you ever be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t support your practice? Well, I'm already in a very close and trusting familiar relationship with my mother like that. I'm okay with it, as long as they respect my boundaries about what I don't want to be told, how I don't want to be talked to, and that they respect that my experience is my own to name, not theirs.

81. In what area or subject would you most like your craft to grow? Ooh, uhhm... My ability to heal myself? It's this very bittersweet kind of irony that I can provide almost instant relief to others so EASILY, but when it comes to soothing my stomach or bolstering my own energy levels, I really just can't seem to do it for some reason.

82. What’s your favorite candle scent? Do you use it in your practice? Ooh, well there's this big candle warehouse in Medina, Ohio called "Root" that has SO MANY lovely scents! Their candles burn clean, their scenes are satisfyingly determinable without being overwhelming, and they have pine! They also have a very nice "bamboo" one. I've used a lot of scents from there that I really like.

83. Do you have a pre-ritual ritual? (I.e. Something you do before rituals to prepare yourself for them). If so what is it? Typically meditation, and on special occasions it’s in a bath.

84. What real life witch most inspires your practice? Probably Scott Cunningham. Though @ breelandwalker is a great source of modern witch tips!

85. What is your favorite method of communicating with deity? Astral projection and meeting them in an in-between space that we can both access easily.

86. How do you like to organize all your witchy items and ingredients? Shelves, boxes, and not too particularly, heh.

87. Do you have any witches in your family that you know of? My dad is sort of a witch (he mostly uses protective folk magic), and my paternal grandmother has a connection to animals and nature but doesn't practice witchcraft.

88. How have you created your path? What is unique about it? This is going to sound so contrived, but genuinely just following my instincts. "Okay, I heard about using light to heal... that seems to work alright, but I think it works better for me if I visualize motion instead of light." The most unique thing is... hard to put into words. My past lives have been rather powerful, so I believe I came into this life with a lot of insight and stronger memories on how to use the abilities that followed me into this body. I haven't seen a whole lot of shadow witches around-- literally, just ONE other! So maybe that's unique, too.

89. Do you feel you have any natural gifts or affinities (premonitions, hearing spirits, etc.) that led you toward the craft? If so what are they? Oh GODS yes. Empathy, the capacity for healing, past life memories, precognitive dreams, energy-sensing in general, easily getting connected to people and nature, it's just... less that I was "led toward the craft", and more like "I was led to the realization that this is, in fact, what I've actually been doing my whole life, and here's how to do it BETTER".

90. Do you believe you can initiate yourself or do you have to be initiated by another witch or coven? That depends entirely on what you're being initiated into. Jewish or Hindu practice? Absolutely, you have to convert. Like really convert, with a leader in that practice. But Wicca? That's open as hell, the Wiccan God and Goddess are really the only initiators you need.

91. When you first started out in your path what was the first thing or things you bought? A gold pentacle censar with celtic knottery and jewels. (Not, like, real gold and real jewels, but it’s a gorgeous thing nonetheless.)

92. What is the most spiritual or magickal place you’ve been? Two words: Astral Travel. ~<3 (If I gave specifics, it just... wouldn't be something I can explain HOW.)

93. What’s one piece of advice you’d give someone who is searching for their matron and patron deities? If you need them and they want you, you'll find them. They'll make sure of it.

94. What techniques do you use to ‘get in the zone’ for meditation? Meditation IS how I "get in the zone". 8F But I use the "empty mind" technique-- you know, "clear your mind" and "let your thoughts float away". Hold still and focus on your breaths. Personally, I revel in the silence, and it makes a great headspace where I can focus on clearing out my filters, strengthening my shields, and projecting much clearer and more Exactly Directed energy.

95. Did visualization come easily to you or did you have to practice at it? I've been visualizing things intentionally since before I knew what magic really WAS (whether it was in prayer, trying to get the world to do what I willed it, or just visualizing fantasy/fiction stories), so it definitely came easily.

96. Do you prefer day or night? Why? Night, absolutely night. Unless we're comparing a winter day to a summer night, in which case I'll take a cool calm day over a warm active night. The energies of a world awake can be overwhelming to me. At night, people and animals and plants all go to sleep. (At least, enough of them that it quiets around my empathy.) I love the feeling of moonlight on my skin. The sun's energy is too hot, too bright, too active for me to handle sometimes. But I have never once been overwhelmed by the night. In fact, I've always felt safer, more alert, more ALIVE at night. I'm a lunar child, what can I say.

97. What do you think is the best time and place to do spell work? For me? When I have the energy. When I was in public school, it was Saturday nights, because I had been able to sleep in, and would be able to sleep in the next day! I always do my best workings around midnight.

98. How did you feel when you cast your first circle? Did you stumble or did it go smoothly? It went so smoothly, and I felt so safe. Energy work was something I didn't... exactly struggle to PROJECT, so much as I struggled to form it into what I needed. But I got it in the right shape, anchored with some stones and some candles, and

99. Do you believe witchcraft gets easier with time and practice? Oh yes. There will always be things that come easier than others, but with practices even the difficult things become easier.

100. Do you believe in many gods or one God with many faces? Many Gods. "Everything is one god" just doesn't make sense to me. That's like saying humanity is "one person with many faces".

101. Do you eat meat, eggs and dairy? Technically I'm pescatarian, and I really shouldn't eat dairy (lactose intolerant, possibly allergic?), and I do avoid heavily-dairy foods like yogurt (unless it's kefir) and straight-up milk, but some things, like ice cream, can't feasibly be replaced by non-dairy when you're on such a tight budget! Eggs and fish are the only Protein Foods I can eat that actually feel okay in my stomach. (Clairgustance with fish is usually pretty peaceful and calming, actually. Eggs kind of just taste like energy.)

102. What is your favorite color and why? Oh, indigo! I have a heavy bias towards blue, it's such a nice color. Calm, dark, cool. Serene. Indigo is a very dark blue with a sort of richness that reminds me of the night sky.

103. What is the one question you get asked most by non-practitioners or non-pagans? How do you usually respond? "Have you ever read the bible?" (Yes, yes I have. Book by book, chapter by chapter. I remained unconvinced.) I usually tell them "I have, cover to cover. It just didn't make my top 10 books list."

104. Which of your five senses would you say is your strongest? Touch, I absolutely experience the world through tactile touch-dominance. (I see you mentioned "five", though I believe there are nine? Empathy can be so strong it's debilitating sometimes, but it's not as constant as Touch.)

105. What is a pagan or witchcraft rule that you preach but don’t practice? I'm honestly not sure. I'm of the opinion that spirituality and a personal craft like witchcraft don't have any Hard and Fast "Rules" At All, and it's different for everyone. I do make a lot of recommendations for practices that might help other people though, even if it's not something I practice myself. The most common? Meditation styles. I come across a lot of witchlings wanting to practice meditation, but the kind I've always used, for 14 years and with immense success personally, was your classic "empty mind" meditation. But that doesn't help everyone. So I recommend other forms for them to try, like with mudras and mantras, using a fidget toy as mala beads, walking meditations, prayer/divinity meditations, ways to incorporate sonomancy or vision quests or logic puzzles (a la Zen). I've never tried them myself, because I've never needed to.

#rwt personal posts #IRL canon

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cut-off-the-grain · 8 years ago

Text

Work in Progress?

I started writing this a couple months ago for the wonderful @helliskylux She said she wanted something which explored intimacy between Hux and Kylo. Well, of course that’s when my brain decided to completely blank and refuse to cooperate (Why are you like this, brain? After all I do for you.) She waited very patiently while I tried to get my act together. I’m still not happy with what I’ve got, an unfortunately every time I try to work on it I’m less happy with it. But, I am very happy with this first scene, and it does well standing on its own. Maybe after a little distance I’ll be able to get it whipped into shape, but until then, I hope you enjoy this.

It’s well past the end of Alpha shift when he steps out of his shuttle into the perpetually chilly air of the hangar bay. Despite the hour Hux is waiting for him, shoulders drawn back and hands loosely resting in the small of his back, the picture of military perfection. Hux doesn’t say anything, only tilts his head in question at the limp in his stride, the obvious stiffness in the way Kylo is holding himself.

He nods, in greeting, in relief, and when Hux, without a word, turns on his heel and strides evenly across the hanger, he follows, his footsteps an unsteady downbeat to the even rhythm of Hux’s gait.

When they reach Hux’s chambers he pulls his mask off. The tip of his nose and the broad sweep of his forehead are chafed raw and red, dried sweat having worsened the spots his helmet already rubs uncomfortably on, his hair lank and dirty, his scalp itching from days’ worth of grease and dirt. He feels his cheeks flush when Hux makes a face of disgust, his nose twitching, pulling wrinkles across the bridge of it, his lips curling into a brief frown.

But Hux doesn’t say anything. That is, after all, why he’s here.

He follows Hux into his refresher. The luxury of Hux’s command allows him a ‘fresher with actual running water and as Kylo starts to shed the heavy layers of his robes, stiff with grime and sweat and blood, Hux twists on the spray and in moments steam is curling into the small room. Water is a scarce resource on a vessel like The Finalizer and continuously recycled. The steam smells slightly of the sharp tang of chlorine tablets necessary to sterilize it. Regardless, he inhales it deeply, feels muscles wound tight from long days of too much adrenaline and not enough sleep start to relax just in anticipation of hot water on his sore skin.

Hux tuts, a sharp click of his tongue, when Kylo finallys unfastens his trousers and reaches out to brush his fingers along the concave curve of his stomach, the hollow between his hips. “You haven’t been eating.”

Despite what Hux accuses him he does have a self-preservation instinct, so he resist the urge to roll his eyes.

“I was too busy trying to stay alive.”

Hux lays his hand, warm and smooth, flat against the plane of Kylo’s stomach, palm grazing the coarse curls of hair. He sucks in a breath at the touch, feels a hot throb of arousal shoot through his veins, his dick, lying soft and limp against his thigh, jumps.

“Clean up,” Hux says with tilt to his lips Kylo recognizes as the closest thing Hux ever gets to a smile. “And I’ll order dinner delivered for you.” Hux starts to step away and he reaches out, grabs his wrist.

“Stay,” he says, embarrassed by how desperate the one word sounds. He shivers, even in the balmy room, at the loss of Hux’s touch, chilled by the loss of contact.

Months ago, Hux, eyes red and weary after too many hours staring at screens following too little sleep, had looked at Kylo across battle plans and said ‘If you were as brave in your personal life as you are with your maneuvers you would’ve kissed me weeks ago.” Hux had smirked at the blush which bloomed on his cheeks, the shy duck of his head. “It’s late and I’m tired of looking at this,” Hux declared, rising from his chair. “I’m going to bed.” Kylo had sat, still, shocked, wondering desperately what he had done to give himself away, until Hux paused at the door and leveled him with a look that said he was clearly unimpressed. “Aren’t you coming?” He asked, and Kylo had never heard Hux sound so amused as he scrambled out of his chair, knocking it to the floor in his haste.

He had expected Hux to be quick and efficient, to bring them both off and send Kylo away once the flood of endorphins had ebbed enough their legs stopped shaking. He hadn’t anticipated the soft kisses Hux fluttered along his jaw, the possessive way Hux curled his fingers around his hip to coax him closer, the nudge of Hux’s nose in his hair as Hux puffed warm breath against the shell of his ear, sending shivers down his spine. He hadn’t thought to imagine the achingly tender way Hux stroked him, the touch almost reverent.

And after, their bodies pressed close despite the tacky come drying between them, Hux had kissed him, slow and soft and sweet. And when Hux pulled back he had keened and arched to follow and Hux had given him that hidden half-smile. “Greedy,” he had accused, but he relented and let Kylo take more kisses.

Hux had been right, he was greedy, is greedy. Gluttonous in his hunger for Hux, for the heat of Hux’s body against him, on top or beneath or inside him, for the way his skin prickled when Hux skimmed fingers over his flank, the ratcheting of his pulse when Hux nipped into the flesh of his thigh, nosed along the fold of skin where leg met his body. Desperate not just for release but for the warm press of fingers on skin too long untouched. It had been so long since he had been treated as anything more than a weapon that he hungered for familiar touch, relished the way Hux curled up beside him in bed as much as he enjoyed the orgasms Hux wrings from him.

That same desperation pulses in him now, a heady need to have Hux close. He needs touch to ground himself, to remind him that he means something to someone, that after weeks spent focusing only on bare necessity survival and his mission that the human parts of him are not lost, only buried, temporarily pushed aside until they can be coaxed out.

“Please,” he asks again, “stay.” Hux softens, the line of his shoulders falling just enough to be noticed, the steam filling the room causing a lock of hair to break free and hang on his brow which he doesn’t push aside.

“As you wish,” he says, and Kylo lets go of his wrist when he tugs gently. “Get in, get warm. I’ll join you shortly.” Hux gives his shoulder a gentle nudge to the refresher as he leaves to go change.

He steps into the stall with a sigh, the warm water even more relaxing with the promise that soon Hux will run soapy hands over him, wash the itchy, tight feeling off his skin.

Hux announces himself with a burst of cold air as he opens the door and a sharp hiss of breath, fingers ghosting over the bruise blooming black and purple low on Kylo’s back. “Have you had this looked at?” He asks, pressing lightly until Kylo sucks in a breath. “It looks deep.”

“No,” he says, and Hux’s hand slides away, wraps around to rest on his belly and pull him tight against Hux’s chest. “I came straight here.” I wanted to see you, he doesn’t say.

Hux doesn’t say anything for a long moment and he worries that somehow he’s projected the thought, sent it into Hux’s mind. “Tomorrow,” Hux finally says. “Get it checked tomorrow. It’s close to your kidney.”

They don’t say anything else as Hux cleans him up, leaves trails of suds over his chest, strong fingers tilt his head down to lather it, tilt it back to rinse it clean. Hux wipes a soapy hand over his cock and it fills with blood, his hips jerking forward into the warm touch.

His high, keening gasp gets lost beneath the patter of water on tile but he moans when Hux’s grasp tightens, feels the breath pulled from him with each drag of Hux’s hand on his hardened dick.

Hux works with with a tight fist, water and the remnants of soap easing the way to slick down Kylo’s cock, a drag of palm over the head making him whimper, pushing him closer to that ever-nearing tipping point. “Please,” he whines, breathless, “please Hux, I need-”

“I know what you need,” Hux growls, and snaps his teeth into Kylo’s neck, at the spot where it slopes into shoulder, and he knows he’ll have another bruise to add to the collection littering his body, one which will pull and smart whenever he turns his head, a reminder that he has returned to Hux.

That last thought, right as a sharp burst of pain flares as Hux breaks skin, sends him tumbling over the edge of pleasure, he sags forward, Hux’s arm braced around his middle as he catches himself on the slick wall, sucking in lungfuls of humid air to try and steady his legs as his cock drips a final few dribbles of come, the pearly liquid washed away by water.

Hux holds him, traps him between the solid line of Hux’s body and the tiled wall as his legs steady, releases his dick when it starts to soften. When Kylo can stand steady again Hux lets him go but keeps a grounding hand on his hip as he twists away to shut off the water.

Hux tugs him out, dries him with a towel made soft from repeated washings. He grins at the towel, grey although who knows what color it once was, because there are certain luxuries, like fluffy towels, even a general can’t expect aboard a Starship.

He follows Hux out into the room as he attempts to dry his dripping hair. There’s a fluid grace to Hux’s movements, a rigidity he drops behind closed doors that allows his muscles to flow and flex smoothly and Kyo finds it a pleasure to watch the shift of Hux’s naked body.

“Come,” Hux beckons, no command in his voice, but he finds himself obeying anyway, climbing onto the bed and mussing the perfect sheets. He stretches, the small standard-issue cot feeling extravagant after long nights spent cramped, sitting slouched over at the controls of his ship, attempting to catch brief minutes of fitful sleep.

Hux lifts something off the tray and holds it to Kylo’s lips. He bites into it, juice trickling down his chin as the sunny burst of citrus hits his tongue. “Good?” Hux asks, and he hums as he scrambles to wipe the liquid spilling down his chin up, licks the fresh flavor off because it’s too good to waste.

“Delicious,” he grins, and Hux ducks down, kisses him, and he finds the fruit tastes even better when he’s sharing the bright flavor with Hux.

He devours the rest of the fruit, gorges himself of fleshy, juice bites and sucks the lingering taste off Hux’s nimble fingers until the fruit is gone. Hux piles the detritus on the tray then lays down beside him with a soft sigh, his dick, shrunken in it’s unaroused state, tucked against the still damp skin of Kylo’s hip. He’s suddenly overcome by the lingering warmth of the shower, the fullness in his belly, the reassuring press of Hux’s naked body so close to his own, the memory of angles and sharp planes of Hux’s form a comfort he pulled around himself like a blanket on lonely nights.

He can’t fight the yawn he muffles against Hux’s shoulder, although he tries.

Because now, surely, Hux will send him away, will look at him and tell Kylo he’s clearly too tired for anything, he should return to his own bed. And it’s unfair, because he spent sleepless nights wishing to be right here, forced himself to stay awake when his eyes drifted close all for the chance to return to the warm press of Hux’s body that much sooner. And now, that stubbornness, that very determination, is what will betray him, because while he’s spent the night in Hux’s bed many times before it’s always after sex, after Hux leaves him trembling and shaking, and he’s never had the courage to knock on Hux’s door and look at him with weary eyes and ask to just be held, no matter that he aches for it. He feels Hux shift his hips away, his cock no longer pressed against Kylo’s body because Hux has clearly realized all his bedwarmer will be good for tonight is actually warming his bed.

He should leave before Hux has to kick him out, but he can’t find the strength to, closes his eyes when Hux starts to speak.

“You must be tired,” Hux says softly, and there’s a kick in his gut, worse than an unexpected punch, but Hux’s fingers are running through his hair, smoothing out the knots not worked out in the fresher, and Hux sighs, low and soft and sweet. “I’m glad you’re home,” he breathes, and the words ring true but there’s something else, something buried and hidden, in the same way Hux hides the softness he is capable of, the care he can give, beneath the hard lines of his uniform.

“Yes,” he agrees, “it’s good to be back.” Just like Hux the words are true but there’s something lurking beneath their surface, the words he wants to say. It’s good to be back with you. I will always come home to you.

Hux hums in response, doesn’t say anything even as they’re both lulled to sleep. He awakens a one point, sticky hot with the way Hux is curled around his back, a narrow arm tight around his middle. He could shift away, he could get up and leave, could wake Hux up too and coax Hux into fucking him. Instead he pushes to covers off and resettles on the pillow they’re sharing, and closes his eyes, content and warm.

To Be Continued?

#kylux #my wiritng #the softest of soft kylux

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