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translations-by-aiimee · 3 years ago

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Dig a Grave to Dig Out a Ghost - Chapter 2

Original Title: 挖坟挖出鬼

Genres: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Supernatural, Yaoi

This translation is based on multiple MTLs and my own limited knowledge of Chinese characters. If I have made any egregious mistakes, please let me know.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2 - Ghost Encounter

Before that incident occurred, Lin Yan didn't believe that there were ghosts in the world. He studied history during his undergrad and continued straight into doing his master's in archaeology. When he was on an expedition with his professor, he picked up the bones of a dead body and plucked a jade cicada from the mouth of a mummified body. Ghost stories were always something joked about in their dormitories. If something happened to people after they died, then the world would know about it. For example, if someone picked up the imperial blue bowl of the emperor, the old man would notice and stand up, shouting: "That's mine!" How interesting.

The dead should just let the dust from the past settle and stay quiet.

Lin Yan had just finished dinner when things changed. He didn't live in the school dormitories. He had moved into the apartment his parents had set aside for him when he got married because of the fights his old roommates in the dorms had with their in-laws on the phone. This apartment was much closer to the school, and he had been living alone since then. He cooks alone, plays games alone, and travels halfway across the city to visit his parents on the weekends. Lin Yan is one of the tens of thousands of small researchers in dozens of colleges and universities in this city. If he makes great accomplishments, his future will be bright, but if he's average, then he will be lost in the crowd.

That day, he made himself Fried Sauce Noodles. Once the minced meat was boiled, it was mixed into the sweet stir-fry noodle sauce. The noodles were drained out of the pan, topped with the sauce, and it was delicious. Lin Yan took the bowl and sat in front of the computer, watching "My Old Memories of Old Beijing" and eating the noodles.

The air was humid and stuffy in the early summer weather. Suddenly, halfway through the movie, a clap of thunder rang out outside. It didn't take long for large raindrops to pour down, and the thin lines of water on the window glass became a curtain of rain, pattering against the windows.

Lin Yan was busy turning off the video. Before his computer had fully shut off, a bolt of lightning flashed across the night sky. With a snap, the computer went black.

Afraid that something might happen, Lin Yan complained and unplugged the computer from the socket. He used a desktop computer specially equipped for 3D restoration renderings of cultural relics. As soon as the power came back after the thunderstorm had passed, he would have to submit a repair request.

Tomorrow, he'd have to trouble Yin Zhou to repair the machine again.

Suddenly, a strange feeling washed over him.

Cold, inexplicably cold, sending a shiver up his spine.

He didn't know when the temperature of the room started to drop. He didn't even notice it while he was watching the movie. Now it feels like he was inside an ice cave. The cold is coming out from all corners and enveloping his body. The sweat on his body turning cold, his t-shirt sticking to his back.

Lin Yan vigorously wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans, thinking about how the weather must be cooling down because of the rain, and decided to get up to find a long-sleeved shirt. Before he could get up, his eyes glanced at the computer screen and nervously sat back down.

With the lights on in the room, the situation in the room was clearly reflected on the dark computer screen. In front of the screen was Lin Yan's face, and behind him was the window, which opened wide inward, and the curtains were swept around by the wind. It was the "person" standing in front of the curtain that made Lin Yan frozen from head to toe.

That's not it; it was more like the shape of a person - a person wearing a strange hat.

Lin Yan stared blankly at the things on the screen, a sense of panic slowly creeping up his spine.

It must have been a clothes hanger that he forgot to move, there's no need to jump to conclusions. Lin Yan pulled at the corner of his clothes, took a deep breath, and swung his head around.

Nothing was there. Everything in the house looked normal. The only difference was that the raindrops were coming even larger, the rainwater twisting into small streams on the glass and flowing down.

His suspenseful heart began to calm down.

No! Lin Yan went numb all of a sudden. Not only was there no one there, but the windows were clearly locked, and the curtains were tightly tied on both sides. How could they be blown by the wind? What he saw in the reflection on the screen just now. . . what was going on?

An illusion! It must be an illusion! Lin Yan clenched his jaw. He couldn't help but pinch himself to keep himself sane.

There was a small electric crackle. The power went out, and the whole room fell into silent darkness.

Almost at the same time, the indicator light of the computer monitor suddenly flickered. The two small red lights looked like blinking eyes, accompanied by the squeaking sound of the whirring motors. The screen that was in a completely power-off state glowed green as if the screen saver had been switched. It's like a procedure.

No. . . Wasn't there a power outage? Lin Yan was completely speechless. His whole body was pushed back into the chair by the sudden and weird atmosphere. Then the screen flashed and, as if someone was typing, large characters appeared one after the other on the screen, piercingly red.

"The first day of the month of Wushen; the death date is approaching."

Another clap of thunder boomed outside the window.

Lin Yan swallowed hard and stared at the line of words on the screen. He tried his best to calm himself down, but his mind went blank.

It must be. . . It must be Yin Zhou pranking him.

He was a professional programmer and technical expert. Messing with the program to mess up the power grid. It must be boring to try and scare yourself or something.

"The first day of the month of Wushen; the death date is approaching."

The line of red letters flashed on the screen twice and disappeared. The computer then powered back off. Only Lin Yan's heavy breathing remained in the dark room. He took out his cell phone from his pant pocket and tried to call Yin Zhou. Before he pressed the call button, there was a heavy and repetitive tapping on the windowpane.

"Taptaptap. . . taptaptap"

He couldn't see anything in the heavy curtain of rain.

Lin Yan suddenly jumped up and leaned against the computer desk, staring out the window. This. . . this was the twelfth floor, what could be knocking on the window?

"Taptaptap. . . taptaptap"

The knocking increased as if someone were waiting impatiently.

Materialists couldn't stand immediate losses. Besides, creatures always have the instinct to avoid danger. The atmosphere was so strange. Lin Yan grabbed the car keys from his pocket and rushed out of the house without looking back.

The rain fell harder and faster, and the normally bustling three-ring road was empty. There was only the heavy rain curtains and thick fog. Lin Yan turned on his headlights lights all the way. He hoped to find an exit that was bustling with life and filled with a large crowd. In one night, his normal life was completely messed up. There was no signal from his cell phone and no signal from the radio. He seemed to be isolated in a corner of the world and was just driving around endlessly.

Lin Yan glanced at the fuel gauge. He was running out of fuel as he went further down the road, but he had not found the exit of the overpass. He was a native to this country and yet he was trapped in the city that he had been living in for 22 years. Just saying it was absurd enough to make anyone laugh.

The low-beam light couldn't illuminate the road very far. Under the warm yellow light, only the dense lines of rain could be seen falling diagonally, washing down his windshield. There was a wide road in front of him, turn after turn. There were no people, no cars, and even the sound of the GPS reporting how many kilometres were left was inaudible and his speed on the speedometer was barely visible. Lin Yan looked straight ahead, for fear of missing any fork in the road.

After travelling on the highway for nearly three hours, Lin Yan finally began to panic after passing the IKEA billboard multiple times over.

A deep thought came to mind.

The ghost was making him go around in circles.

The arrow on his fuel gauge was almost at 'empty'. Lin Yan slowed down. He thought he couldn't keep driving forward. Obviously, there was a force trying to stop him. What he should do is to sort out his thoughts and find a solution instead of continuing to drive around aimlessly. He didn't dare think about what would happen if he ran out of fuel.

Lin Yan pulled the car over, leaving only his hazard lights on, then sat in the car and began to think about what happened at night.

Power outages, computers that suddenly freaked out, strange reflections.

The first thing that came to mind was that someone was playing a prank, but he immediately denied it. If it was just the problem with his computer, he might still suspect the unreliable programmer Yin Zhou, but the knocking on the window, preventing him from getting off the highway, and blocking his mobile and radio signals; none of that was this guy's style. Lin Yan searched his mind for a long time to find a candidate that might want to scare a friend like this, but he came up with nothing.

He himself was a very good person. He was a good student from elementary straight through his master's. Apart from skipping classes to play Warcraft, and handing notes to his classmates during an exam, he basically had no blips on his record. He has never even played any tricks on girls, let alone his immediate friend group. Even if someone wanted to play a prank on someone as revenge, that wasn't how Lin Yan handled things.

Lin Yan was a person who, even when he ate toothpaste and cookies on April Fool's Day, still believed that he was just eating something mint-flavoured. To understand what was going on, Lin Yan could only find the solution by going through his process of elimination. By the time he can go through his hilariously incompetent system of thinking, he has probably already vomited up three litres of blood.

Lin Yan rubbed his temples and thought hard. Someone was threatening him in an inexplicable way, or was outright declaring war.

Lin Yan turned on the cell phone's calendar and entered the date of the first day of the Wushan month. The small square immediately jumped to the corresponding date: July 15 and the gates of hell would be wide open.

Something is wrong, Lin Yan thought.

When he looked up again, there was suddenly something that hadn't been there before that appeared in front of his car.

A figure stood near the side of the road as the heavy rain poured down. The figure didn't seem to notice Lin Yan was there, neither holding an umbrella nor wearing a raincoat, quietly standing with his head held down under the dim street lamp. The fog everywhere made Lin Yan unable to see his appearance. He could only make out that it was tall and he was wearing weird, oversized clothes. The caring Lin Yan wanted to offer the figure a ride. Even though he can't really protect himself right now, but he can at least provide some shelter from the rain.

An empty highway, rainy night, a strange individual on the side of the road, this unfortunate picture seemed suspicious at first, but Lin Yan saw something a little more depressing.

The figure seemed. . . very lonely, like waiting for a resolution that will never come.

Lin Yan re-started the car after making sure all the doors were locked, and slowly slid forward along the roadside, thinking that after being trapped in this endless loop for so long anyway, it was more useful to see if this person might be able to help him break the cycle.

When he was less than ten metres away from the person, Lin Yan suddenly froze as though a gong went off beside his ear. He finally realized why he felt there was something wrong with this figure. This person had no shadow.

The streetlamp was casting light on this person, but there was no shadow at his feet. The place where the shadow should have been was just the shape of the streetlamp reflected in the puddle, which was shaken by the continuously falling rain, rippling and disturbing the surface of the water.

Lin Yan knew what he had encountered almost instantly.

He was covered in a cold sweat, he couldn't keep a grip on the steering wheel because of his clammy palms. There was a bitter taste in his mouth. He slammed his foot on the accelerator, not caring how much fuel he had left. He didn't even care if there was any road ahead, he just knew subconsciously that he had to get away.

40km, 60km, 80km, 90km. . .

Suddenly a car sped out in front of him. Lin Yan was stunned, and instinctively stepped on the brakes and jerked the steering wheel to the left!

"Squeel--" After the extremely sharp and piercing sound, the front bumper Lin Yan's Audi A4 was just a few centimetres away from the Buick's back bumper as he brushed past it. Immediately after, Lin Yan drove into the bushes and the car shook before getting stuck. After it stopped shaking, the windshield was covered with holly leaves.

The car had almost been totalled.

Lin Yan lay on the steering wheel, panting heavily, his whole body was frozen.

"Knockknockknock." Something harshly knocked against the car window

Lin Yan jumped nervously and stared at the glass in horror. When he could see the face of a man, he let out a long sigh, and then rolled down the car window.

"Who the hell taught you how to drive? If you were so desperate to die, just tell me and I'll beat you to death!"

A series of harsh curses about his ancestors gave Lin Yan a sense of joy, bringing him back to reality. He almost rushed out and hugged the Buick driver.

"No. . . I'm sorry, I've been on this highway for three hours. I just found my way. I was a little excited, sorry, sorry."

Lin Yan wasn't paying attention to what the other driver said, and couldn't help smiling bitterly since the driver must really consider him an idiot.

The Buick driver stared at Lin Yan for a while, then suddenly stopped the curse, and muttered, "You look like you've seen a ghost." He took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and handed one to Lin Yan: "Did you come across something weird? Smoke a cigarette to calm your nerves. You should bring out a protection charm next time. We all have strange experiences at night every now and again."

Lin Yan got out of the car, and the driver lit the cigarette for Lin Yan. The two stood side by side on the roadside. Strangely, cars began whizzing by on the road. There were rows of shops and tall buildings lit up on both sides of the street where there was originally only fog and dark shadows. Even the rain from earlier had stopped.

Lin Yan took a puff of cigarettes and calmed down, and said in surprise: "Have we met before?"

The driver smiled indifferently: "It often happens, especially in places with a lot of accidents. The more deadly the accident, the more evil will be left behind."

Lin Yan nodded. He didn't know how much his materialistic worldview changed from this information.

After sending the driver away, Lin Yan whipped the sweat off his forehead and took out his phone to check the time. The screen showed two text messages and three missed calls, one every half an hour on average within the past two hours. Lin Yan opened his settings; the phone wasn't muted, the volume wasn't very loud but it was enough from him to hear it. It confirmed that the signal had been blocked this whole time.

Message 1: "Will you come out for a drink? The regular place."

Message 2: "What are you doing? Answer the phone!"

Both the sender and the caller were Yin Zhou.

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#dig a grave to dig out a ghost #dig a grave to dig out a ghost translation #yaoi novel #chinese bl #chinese novel #english translation #danmei novel

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matrixreimagined · 4 years ago

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The Dream Chronicles

Chapter Six on A03

or right here :)

"Come on, coppertop. Flying in the Matrix doesn't mean shit if you can't support your own weight in the real world. Five more."

Neo dipped down again, feeling his arms quake as he grew closer to the floor before he forced himself back up. And again. And again. The sweat beaded on his brow dripped to the steel floor. His arms and abdomen and legs were aching for five minutes of just sitting down. He'd be happy to collapse. But Apoc must have been a drill sergeant in another life because the man knew exactly which buttons to push.

You think Trin deserves a weak, scrawny kid who can barely muster his way through a pull-up? You think she's going to want someone who can only embrace her with the floppy-noodle arms of an infant?

Fuck that.

Neo let his arms take his weight and ignored the quiver of his abdomen while he closed his eyes and pictured hers. There was no waking up from this, he had accepted. This was real. The dreams he had lived for had become his reality and he would be damned if he didn't do everything in his power to keep it.

Neo inhaled has he dipped down a final time before forcing himself back up. He let out a small gasp as he allowed his knee to make contact with the floor.

"Well done," Apoc said, tossing a towel at him.

Neo brushed away the sweat before trading it for a water bottle. "Please tell me we're done for the day?"

"Why?" Apoc quirked a brow. "Think you got enough in you for another round?"

Neo decided silence was the best course of action.

Apoc shot him a grin. "Don't worry. My goal is to push your limits. Not break them. Because you'll be doing this tomorrow, too."

"Great." He took a long gulp. "Love this. Super fun."

"I take it you have no memories of this?"

"What? Basic training? Calisthenics? Can't say I do."

"It won't be forever. Just until you're at a healthy mass. Think you could eat lunch?"

"Eating it won't be the problem. I'm worried about holding it down."

"We can forgo lunch for now. Want to take a nap before you get your Matrix crash courses?"

Desperately, but he shook his head in denial anyway. He'd slept long enough. "No. I'm good to start. I want to catch back up to where I was. Or, where I should be, I guess."

That was going to take a while, he knew. While his dreams had given him enormous insights into the world around him, every member of the crew looked at him like a stranger. Even Trinity did not know him the way that he knew her.

Yes, she was welcoming. The undeniable chemistry between them was alive and real. And the crew were largely trying to not make him feel like an outsider, but the fact remained they didn't know him.

He could recite one of Dozer's kids' favorite story books cover to cover. He knew Tank's anniversary and that Apoc collected old-world trinkets. He knew that Switch would slouch when they had a winning hand at poker and Morpheus was a worse liar than Neo was. But they did not know him.

And they wouldn't. Not until he had reintroduced himself. Not until he listened to them all, relearning what he knew. He would be a stranger until he relearned himself.

"Are you absolutely sure you don't want to take a short break?"

"Positive," said Neo, rising to his feet. "Besides, I'll just be in the chair anyway. I'll relax my muscles and work my brain."

Apoc led the way out of the makeshift gym in the engine room and back to the main level. Trinity was sitting on a stool near the operating station examining the screens intensely.

She turned at the sound of steps and offered a smile when she saw them. "How did it go?" she asked Apoc.

"Amazingly. Honestly, I've never had a coppertop do so well in the first week, let alone the first day."

Neo looked at him incredulously. "Seriously? You gave me so much shit about how I was doing!"

Apoc smirked. "Well, a pat on the back wasn't going to help you do better, Messiah."

"You'll sleep like a baby tonight," said Tank. "You want to take a break before you start this?"

He shook his head. "No, I'm ready to start."

"All right. Trin, can you get him set up?" Tank spun around back to the computer and opened a case with a bunch of small drives. "I know you already remember a lot but your girl wants us to cover your bases." He held up one that had Jiu-Jitsu crammed across it in red ink and ensured that Neo was indeed plugged in and ready to go. "Hold on."

A sharp pulse went through his body, tensing him up. He felt impossibly stiff as a rush of information entered his system and then it was gone, leaving him thrown back and limp. And breathed in and shuddered. "Oh shit."

"Hey Mikey, I think he likes it." Tank gave him a grin, but his eyes flashed to Trinity. She smirked and swept his brow.

"How do you feel?"

"Shit, that's a rush."

"Feel up for another?"

"Hell yes." He leaned back. "Hell yes."

Kung Fu.

Karate.

Aikido.

Taekwondo.

Krav Maga.

Fencing.

Arnis.

Boxing.

Kickboxing.

Drunken boxing.

Quarterstaff.

Judo.

It went on and on, hour by hour. Every offer of a break from Tank was denied. He kept going, desperate to regain the parts of his memories that were lost.

Morpheus came by when dinner had passed without a sign of Tank, Trinity, or Neo.

"How's he doing?" Morpheus asked.

"He's a freaking machine," Tank said, rubbing at his own eyes. "Not even tired from this. The only reason we're stopping in the next half hour is because Mamacita over here is insisting."

Trin whacked him upside the head and Tank winced even as he grinned.

Morpheus looked at Trinity. "Can I ask what your plan is?"

"Day divided into real world and construct for the next few days. He's physically training with Apoc, who insists he's doing well. I think with the speed at which he can handle the trainings, he should be done in two days with operations, combat, and first aid. From there, we can divide time in the construct between vehicular and stealth trainings and practice within the construct. Open world—drop him in and see what he can do and go from there."

It was a thorough plan though Morpheus quirked a brow. "Hmm."

"You disagree?" she asked, not unkindly.

"No. It makes sense. I'm just surprised you're choosing to have him spend so much time in training."

"Like I said, Morpheus, it's not the training itself that I disagree with. He needs just as much as any newbie. But Neo has an advantage in speed and that will be utilized."

Neo, whose eyes had been fluttering as he learned to stitch, cauterize, and otherwise close a wound, blinked back into reality. He exhaled sharply. His eyes opened and he caught Morpheus' gaze.

"Neo," the captain addressed, "how are you holding up?"

"I know what moves were missing in my mind," he replied, his lips twitching into a smile. "I know Kung Fu."

"Just a few more programs and first aid will be done," Trinity told him as Tank switched the drives. "We'll stop there for the day."

Neo nodded and smiled at her before Tank inserted the next lesson and, once again, Neo's eyes fluttered through a new program.

"Truly astounding," Morpheus murmured, watching the screen that monitored Neo's brain as the new information was uploaded.

"I've never seen a poddie adjust like this," Tank said with a disbelieving shake of the head. "This point, we're usually still getting the kid to trust us enough to upload something and if we're lucky enough to get them in the chair, they can barely handle an hour at this."

"He's doing well." Trinity handed Tank the next disk in the program sequence, allowing Neo to remain completely wired in while his brain recalibrated itself with the new information.

"Doing well?" Tank said. "Trin, your boyfriend is freaking out of control."

"Still human," she repeated the small phrase that had somehow become her mantra over the past days. Yes, Neo knew more than any poddie had ever known. Yes, his skills were already unparalleled. But she'd be damned if that was all he was reduced to.

"Ain't denying it," said Tank, "which is kind of what makes this all so incredible."

Trin gave a slight nod. "Just make sure it stays remembered when we get to Zion. I don't know what's going to be worse—the Council or the military."

"None of it will be pretty. You'll have your work cut out for you."

"That's why I want him in shape as soon as possible. Aside from the obvious reasons. Neo is going to need to be able to take care of himself so that we can deal with the backlash of finding the One."

"It might not be so bad. Most people will be happy."

"Happy or angry don't help me. Happy will be excited, intrusive. He's as anti-social as they come. He won't like being the center of attention. And angry? He'll be dealing with the backlash of the disbelievers of the world, pushing him down without knowing a goddamn thing about him. The only people who will actually help us are going to be the apathetic ones."

"Keep some faith, sister." Tank placed his hand on her arm. "We found the One. That's pretty damn amazing."

She shot him a smile before turning her attention back to Neo's brain scans.

Morpheus shook his head. "We really did it. Decades of searching and he's only feet away from us."

Trin ran her hand through her hair.

Morpheus, Tank... honestly everyone was so damned excited that they had found him.

And it wasn't that she wasn't.

Trinity could not deny the way her heart pounded just being feet away from him, nor the way her skin practically ached to be in contact with his, always. When he had been training with Apoc, she had to force herself to focus on the routine maintenance she had been working because all she wanted to do was go to him.

Even though she knew where he was, she had wanted to track him down and not let him walk from her sight.

What made it worse was that the feeling was mutual.

He didn't just cling to her because she was familiar. In a way, they all were to Neo.

It was so much deeper than that.

Neo had woken up without her just a day ago and had wrecked half of the medbay because she hadn't been there.

Through and through. Balls to bone.

Isn't that what the Oracle had said all those years ago?

She fought the urge to laugh. The Oracle certainly never mentioned anything like this.

"You okay, Trin?"

Tank and Morpheus both eyed her with the same look of concern. She offered a smile.

"Just thinking." Without any real explanation, Trin turned her attention back to the screen. "How much more does he have to go in this stack?"

"Maybe thirty minutes."

Trinity nodded. "All right. Once this stack is finished, he's taking a break. I don't care if he can handle more."

"You got it."

"I'll be back." And it took her more effort than she'd like to admit to not flat out run from the room and to her room. Their room.

She leaned against the door, letting out a long breath.

Overwhelmed, both by the fact that they had actually found him and by everything that Neo seemed to know, she crossed to the small sink. Turning the faucet, she splashed cold water onto her face.

Even leaving the Core to take five goddamn minutes to reassess had her on edge. It felt wrong.

She had lived without him for years and now leaving him under Tank's perfectly capable care had her ready to punch the glass in front of her.

Trinity turned the faucet off, leaning forward against the sink.

Did her heart always beat so heavily?

Her body quaked.

Neo knew her intimately. The books next to her bed. The ink on her body. Every single place where the smallest touch would have her gasping against him. It shouldn't be possible but there was no denying it.

Her chest felt tight, her head was pounding.

Ans his memories… What did he know? What had he seen?

Some of them were conflicting, it seemed, but they all focused on her.

The Oracle had said nothing about that.

Her breaths began to come faster and faster.

He loved her; he had said in his moments of clarity after arriving on the ship.

Did he? Or did he love a memory of her?

There was a loud creak and she wanted to push up and look behind her, but her muscles were frozen.

She inhaled through her nose, but each breath was still short.

There was a thud of the door closing and two arms wrapped around her from behind.

"It's all right," Neo whispered gently, pulling her back into his chest.

The world seemed to be slipping from her fingers but he was firm in his grip, holding her upright. He stepped back, nearly dragging her with him as he guided her back to the bed softly. "It's okay, Trin."

He sat down, pulling her to his lap. It took little effort. She fell back into him with ease even as her breathing continued to come in heavy pants.

With one hand, he held her steadily to him. With the other, he gently caressed her as he kept whispering sweet assurances. "You're safe. I'm here. I've got you."

His words and ministrations didn't stop. She tucked her head into the crevice of his neck and breathed in his scent. There was still the tinge of antiseptic but there was something rich and earthy underneath it. Warm and gentle and so utterly Neo.

She felt a kiss atop her head.

"I'm never letting go," he whispered and the doubt started to slip away at last.

Her breathing slowly came back down and she let out a long breath.

"What happened?" he asked softly.

She swallowed. Wasn't she supposed to be the one comforting him?

"I don't know." And Christ, had she ever sounded so weak and unsure? She was one breath away from a whimper. "It's so much."

His grip tightened and he held her closer. "I know, love. I'm so sorry."

"I don't know what I'm supposed to feel right now."

"You feel what you feel, Trin. You don't need to feel anything."

"Not feeling isn't the problem," she said with a shake of her head. "I feel… so much right now. More than I ever have in my life and I don't know how to make sense of it." She sighed softly, leaning back to get a better view of the man who was undoubtedly the One. "Aren't you supposed to be finishing up the programs?"

Neo offered a small smile. "Asked Tank to take me out. Something felt off."

He wasn't talking about the program.

Trinity swallowed. "Hooked up to the Construct, you felt me having a panic attack?"

"I knew something was wrong," he said, his eyes staring at her with such concern and such adoration that it was hard to take in. "I didn't know what. Told Tank I wasn't feeling well"— thank god for small favors, she thought—"and came to find you."

Her lower lip quivered. Oh.

"I know…" Neo looked torn. "I know that this isn't easy for you. I… can't imagine what you are going through right now. And I'm not making it easy. Even now"—he sighed and shook his head ever so softly—"I'm not making this easy. If you want me to go, if you need space from me—"

"I don't." It came so quickly it surprised Trinity but it was true. "I don't want you to go. I don't want to be away from you. I don't want a moment to go by where I'm not touching you but"—she raked her hand through her hair harshly before continuing—"Jesus, I… I don't know you, Neo. But I do. And I need you and I don't know how that's possible." She looked into his eyes, the words spilling from her faster without leaving a moment to breathe. "I can't make sense of this. I don't know you, but you are so familiar to me. Every step away from you, even to let you train, makes my skin crawl but that shouldn't—"

Neo cupped the back of her head and brought his face to meet hers.

She kissed him back, lips slowing to allow for a hundred gentle but desperate kisses to pass. She angled her head, twisting in his arms to straddle his lap. Her hands traced up his torso, stopping only to cup his face.

Neo was hers.

"Why?" she asked, pulling back before placing another kiss on his lips, "Why does it feel like I'll die"—she pressed her forehead to his—"if you're taken from me?"

Neo shook his head softly enough so that she was undisturbed in their current position together. "I don't know. I wish I could give you the answers."

"You are mine," she breathed, the declaration like a prayer.

"I am." He tucked her hair back. "And you are mine."

"We don't even know each other," she whispered, "dreams and shadows aside."

"We'll learn," Neo promised, "but you cannot deny that this is more than just dreams and shadows." He pulled back and kissed her forehead. "It doesn't all need to make sense, Trin."

She offered a small smile. "Everyone is so excited about finding the One and all I want to do is lock you away so no one can touch you."

"Except you."

"Except me," she agreed, lightly stroking his face.

He kissed her nose and her lips once more. "I'm just saying, if you want to tie me to the bed and never let me up, I wouldn't be opposed."

She cracked a smile. "I'm sure you wouldn't."

With a gentle shove to the shoulders, she sent him down onto the bed. Neo grinned as his head hit the pillow.

"Finally going to have your wicked way with me?"

Trinity laughed, leaning down with him. "Shut up."

"Make me."

And she did. With a smile, leaning down to capture his lips. Soft and slow. There was no need to rush.

They had time.

The world could keep moving at the speed of light, but they didn't have to. Not when there were moments like this.

"Are we happy?" she asked, leaning against his chest.

Neo wrapped his arms around her and rolled her to her back, kissing her as he did.

"Deliriously."

She smiled and traced his brow with her finger, "Good."

Trinity pushed her hand around his head and wrapped her it around his neck, gently pulling him down to meet her in another kiss.

A sigh escaped her as their lips touched. Familiar and beautiful, he kissed her with a desperation that rocked Trinity to her core.

Years of waiting on her part and dreams on his, finally culminating in reality. How had she lived so long without this, without him? It was unfathomable.

Neo broke the kiss, only to hug her tighter.

"I'm sorry things are so confusing."

"It's not your fault."

"I know." He caressed her face. "I'm still sorry."

"We'll figure things out," she told him with a sense of renewed optimism.

Neo narrowed his eyes, looking thoughtful. For a minute, he stared at her. Then, he pushed up to a sitting position, taking Trinity with him.

"I want to do this right," Neo said. "I don't—I don't want things with us to be based on a dream-world."

"Okay." She wasn't entirely certain what that meant.

"I'd like to take you out on a date."

Trinity blinked. "We're on a hovercraft, Neo."

"A modified date then."

She wondered if her cheeks were flushed again. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking I go hit the showers—" She laughed at his candor, but Neo continued, "Then, we get takeout from the mess hall, and we just stay in tonight. And talk, just the two of us."

And it just wasn't fair, Trinity thought, how fucking perfect he was. He'd been taken from the Matrix, told his entire life was a lie, and his concern still lay with her. On making her feel good and safe.

Swallowing, Trinity nodded. "I think that sounds perfect."

"Okay," he agreed, leaning forward to kiss her. "I'll be back in twenty."

"I'll be here," she promised, and Neo rewarded her with a heart-stopping grin. Oh.

He recalled, without a problem, where the towels were kept and grabbed one. He walked over to the drawer which contained her yarn and trinkets and stopped himself before he opened it. He glanced back to her. "Where would I find fresh clothes?"

"Morpheus had planned on putting you in the room next to his. There should be spare clothes in there."

"Thanks, love." Neo bent down and kissed her head before he left to head to the washroom.

She wondered, when the door had closed behind him, if he noticed the endearment.

Trinity rose to her feet. While Neo showered, she'd get their dinner ready so neither of them had to go back out. Keep things simple that way. Luckily, she thought, nearly everyone else would have already eaten so the mess wouldn't be too crowded.

She slipped down the hall. Sure enough, only Tank was present when she walked in.

"Coming to join me?" he asked.

"Just grabbing dinner for me and Neo. We're going to eat in our room."

Our room. It slipped out before she had even stopped to think about it.

For the thirteen years she had been on the Neb, it had been her room. Her private space, where she could and did go to get away from everyone else when the world seemed to be too much to manage. She spent more time in that room than in her apartment in Zion, which Trinity supposed was also their apartment.

Why was it so easy to make that transition from me to us?

Tank grinned at her. "Oh really? Quiet night in, just the two of you?"

She really hated how much she was blushing these days. But, a part of her, the giddy and excited part, shrugged a shoulder.

"He says it's a modified date. Since we're on the Neb and can't really go anywhere."

She half-expected the Operator to make a joke but instead he just shook his head. "That's freaking adorable."

"I know!" She found two mugs and started to prepare their teas, adding, "It's almost… unnerving."

Tank stood up, walking with his bowl to stand at the little counter next to her. "Which part? Being treated like a princess? Or the fact we finally found the One and he is already completely and utterly whipped by you?"

Her lips twitched. "Ooh, I'm going to have to go with both."

"Fair enough. And for the record, since I know you've been waiting with bated breath, I approve."

"Oh, do you?"

"Hundred and ten percent, yes. I know he has memories of you, in some obscure way, but I like that he's still making an effort. It's like, he's the One—the guy who's going to save Zion and the world. And he is still living and breathing to make you happy."

He was that, Trinity thought. She could see it on his face, the way he lit up when she came into view. The way he always moved, however casually, closer to her.

It was more than familiarity. He was familiar with everyone on the crew, but he made her feel so damn special.

"It sounds unbelievable when you say it like that," she said as she grabbed a tray and started to fill two bowls.

"So absurd that it has to be real."

With a smile, she picked up the tray. "See you tomorrow."

"As your friend, have fun. As the guy who bunks in the room next to you, please don't have too much fun."

Trinity rolled her eyes. "Good night, Tank."

"Bet it will be."

She transitioned the tray to one hand and shot him her middle finger over her shoulder as she went back to their room.

Ships had been designed for utility, not for comfort. For that reason, Trinity knew that there wasn't much she could do to brighten the room up.

That said, she unlocked the little table from where it was strapped to the wall and moved it so that it was next to the bed. She quickly found a spare blanket and set it across the table as a makeshift cloth, before setting their dinners side by side.

She was nervous. Actually fucking nervous, which seemed almost silly to her.

Trinity rarely got nervous in the Matrix. And while fear occasionally bubbled up when they met a sentinel on a search and destroy mission, it felt far more justifiable than this.

Nervous over dinner.

A date, at that.

She ran a hand through her hair and wondered if there was anything else, she could do to make the room look… nice. Nicer, at least. There were candles on the Neb, but they were supposed to be saved in the event of an emergency or power loss. This was neither, but she wondered if she could get away with taking just one…

She was saved from having to make a decision when the door opened. Neo slipped back inside, dressed in a fresh set of slacks and a blue sweater. He'd found one with minimal wear and tear. It was well-fitted. He looked really good.

She wondered if she should have changed but the thought quickly vanished from her mind as Neo grinned at her.

"Looks great."

Trin found herself smiling back. "Making do on the Neb." Spying a bottle in his hand, she asked, "Is that Dozer's homebrew?"

Neo nodded. "Stopped by his room on the way over. It's no bottle of wine but it'll do."

Smirking, Trin added, "Just go easy. A sip of that can knock Mouse on his ass."

"Don't worry. I have no intentions of getting drunk. I just thought it might help us both to relax a bit."

He closed the space between them, setting the bottle on the table. In their small room, it didn't take much.

He caught her chin in his hand and angled her face up. She expected him to kiss her, but he didn't. Instead, Neo just seemed to be soaking in her sight.

It was only a bit disconcerting, but she still shivered under his gaze.

"You're so fucking beautiful," he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Neo…"

He really shouldn't be allowed to say things like that, she thought. It wasn't fair, the way he could make a statement and just demolish every single wall she had spent a lifetime carefully constructing.

"I still can't believe you're real," he admitted.

"Very real," Trinity promised.

Finally, he bowed his head, pressing his lips to hers.

They were still so soft and not used to the coldness on the Neb. Warm and assured, his kiss made her a little weak in the knees. Again, she had to remind herself that while Neo was familiar to her, he knew her completely. He knew her body intimately.

And that was an intimidating thought.

With a peck to her lips, Neo broke the kiss. He stroked her cheek with his thumb before dropping his hand, reaching for hers. He led her over to the bed, carefully sliding in so as not to disturb the table she had set up.

He waited for her to sit first. Despite their earliest encounters, in which Neo had thought himself dreaming, he was proving to be quite the gentleman. Which fit in with everything she had seen from him prior to meeting him.

In the Matrix, Neo had been such a gentle creature. It had really thrown her for a loop. Usually, when Morpheus found an individual he believed to be the One, they were characterized by blind ambition or strength.

For a while, Morpheus had even thought she could be the One.

The Oracle had shut that down fast with her revelation. She hadn't been disappointed to not be the One. Truthfully, she was grateful not to have the burden of all that placed on her own shoulders but then the Oracle had hit her with the rest.

Entwined with the One, bound to the One.

A thought that had been so much more frightening before she met Neo.

The moment they started watching him, she knew he was different than the usual potentials Morpheus chose. After just one night on duty, she realized very quickly that she would have to either lie to herself or accept that they had found the One.

Still, nothing could have prepared her for the night in the club.

Her world had spun on its axis exponentially faster and she no longer knew what direction she was going in. And she could not bring herself to care.

Neo opened Dozer's homebrew and poured a hearty shot into each of their teas.

He handed her the first mug as he set down the bottle. Then lifted his own.

"To what's real," he toasted, and she raised her cup, echoing his sentiment. They clinked their mugs together. She took a large gulp, feeling her nerves building.

Because now he was here. In her room. He was sleeping in her bed. Tangling his life with hers until she was no longer sure which strings belonged to him and which were hers.

Neo, on the other hand, seemed to be sipping at his beverage. Probably for the best. He had no tolerance to the heavy stuff yet.

She set her mug back down and caught Neo's eyes.

It really wasn't fair that he was so handsome.

"So, what were you up to while I was being put through basic training?" Neo handed her a bowl.

Trinity rolled her eyes. "Basic training?"

"Apoc is a drill sergeant."

She felt herself grin in response. "I'll be sure to pass on the message."

"Oh, please don't. I like being able to move my limbs." He took his own bowl and dramatically demonstrated being able to lift his spoon. Trinity found herself laughing in response, still in awe of the man in front of her.

"I was running repairs most of the morning," she answered after swallowing a bite. "Then I had to do some paperwork. Respond to a communication from Commander Lock."

Neo barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. "What did Deadbolt want?"

Her lips twitched at the nickname used on a man Neo technically hadn't actually met yet. "Yesterday, I sent in the new red pill paperwork, which is standard for whenever we unplug anyone. Lock wanted to know why we pulled someone of your age out of the Matrix."

"And what did you tell him?"

"Half-truths. Agents were after you, limited time to make a decision, and we assessed that it was better for your safety to take you than to leave you in the Matrix. I'm sure by the time I check the communications tomorrow he'll have sent another message but there's nothing he can do about it."

"Quite literally too late," Neo agreed. "I'm not sure how much of what I know actually translates into this world, but I'll give you fair warning: Lock does not like me."

Trinity found herself unable to stop smiling as they conversed. "Lock doesn't like anybody."

"Which is perfect, because you won't find anybody who likes Lock." Neo paused. "Maybe I shouldn't pass judgement until I actually meet him in the real world. I mean, I technically have no real reason to hold as much animosity as I do for him."

"Sounds sweet," Trinity said. "I give you an hour in Zion before you change your mind."

Neo shrugged. "For Niobe's sake, I'll give him a chance." Then he paused and sighed. "It has occurred to me that I technically haven't met Niobe, either."

"No."

And fuck, it was confusing for her because he talked about all these people like he knew them. He had memories that weren't real, both from the Matrix and from his subconscious and Trinity wasn't sure if one was more valid than the next.

"It sounds like you're remembering more," she commented.

"Some things are still hazy," Neo admitted. "But the dreams are becoming a little bit clearer. Everything is."

"You were on a large dose of painkillers while we were working on you. It might have kept you a bit groggy."

Neo nodded. "Maybe. But I also think I'm just remembering more. Before… so much of what I dreamed almost seemed to disappear when I was waking. The dreams with you were easy to recall because I had them so many times that they became more habit than dream, but the other ones… it's like, the more time I spend with the crew, the more I'm remembering."

"It's a lot to process."

Again, he nodded. "But let's not talk about that. Why don't you tell me about being unplugged?"

"You don't already know?"

"Bits and pieces," he admitted. "Still, I'd like to hear you tell it."

"It was shortly after I hacked the IRS…"

"Which, if I haven't told you, is incredibly hot."

She shot him a half-hearted glare. "I was fifteen."

"To be fair, I was the same age at the time."

"But you hadn't picked up hacking yet."

"True." Although he was interested in computers, he hadn't been able to afford his own until college. "Why the IRS? I mean, at fifteen you weren't paying taxes."

Trinity shrugged a shoulder and set down her mostly eaten dinner back on the table. She leaned back scooting back across the bed until she hit the wall. "Because no one had done it before. Because I hated the government. Because… I was fifteen and stupid?"

"Clearly not stupid." Neo set his own bowl down before scooting back to sit next to her, against the wall.

She smiled at that. "I was impulsive. And I didn't fully think through the consequences of my actions. I was a freshman in high school by day and a top-10 FBI's most wanted cyber-terrorist by night. It was… a strange time."

Neo smiled softly back, the fondness in his eyes nearly made her lose her breath.

"I bet."

She looked down, unable to handle his gaze. It made her light-headed. "I, uh, I was walking home from the library one day, when a car pulled up next to me. Agents, although I didn't know what that meant, at the time. They told me I was under arrest and to get into the car and I made a break for it.

"At that point, Morpheus had been monitoring me for a couple months. He was reluctant to take me out because I had a good relationship with my family. Typically, he tried to only take kids who wouldn't be missed or people with fewer social ties.

"He had been debating whether to take me for a while but once the Agents targeted me, he made a snap decision. He was already in my city; his crew was taking out another potential."

"Ghost." Neo filled in the blank.

"Yes. He separated from his crew and went after me. I, quite literally, ran into him. It all happened very fast. He told me he could show me what was wrong with the world. That he could tell me what the Matrix was, once and for all, but that it wouldn't be easy. I would lose my life in the process. That if I went with him, I could never go home."

She hesitated. It had been a long time since she truly allowed herself to think back to her life before the Matrix.

Morpheus had been right. It hadn't been easy to walk away from her family without so much as a goodbye. To abandon the life she had carefully constructed, even as a teenager.

But Trinity had craved answers. She had wanted, more than anything, to fill the hole in her chest that consumed her.

Knowing about the Matrix hadn't done that. If anything, it just made the world feel colder. It made sense, of course. She had her answers, had a better understanding for the world around her.

And then the Oracle had called.

Normally, under usual circumstances, going to see the Oracle was a choice. Some people wanted insight or answers beyond what Morpheus or Zion could provide for them. They wanted clarity or reason or something to help them navigate their new world.

Trinity had been skeptical of the very idea of an all-seeing Oracle.

When Morpheus had told them, Ghost had been eager to see her and learn more. And Trinity had, politely, declined.

Before Ghost and Morpheus could even jack back into the Matrix, they received a message from one of the Oracle's priestesses.

A brief note, acknowledging Trinity's disbelief and reluctance, but asking, nonetheless, for her attendance for tea.

Fucking tea.

And while she had still been nervous, still unsure, Morpheus had pushed her.

"It's a great honor for the Oracle to request one's presence," he had told her.

So, she went.

For tea. And cookies. And a conversation with a grandmotherly woman who successfully fucked her up in a matter of minutes.

The result of which, Trinity realized, was now sitting in front of her.

"You must have been frightened."

"Terrified," she admitted, before realizing that Neo wasn't talking about the Oracle, but about taking the red pill. She thought back to the moment where Morpheus had held a pill on either outstretched hand.

Neo's hand found its way to her thigh, squeezing gently in support.

"I—I've never regretted my choice. But it was hard to leave my family. And I didn't have time to fully process what it would mean before I took the pill."

"You were fifteen," he reminded her. "It's hard to understand anything at fifteen." Neo stopped, his eyes widening a fraction almost in surprise. Trinity inclined her head, unsure what was going on in his head.

"What's wrong?"

"Fifteen," he repeated.

"Yeah?"

Neo swallowed. "Was it summer?"

"Yes." She narrowed her eyes.

"That was about the time that the dreams started."

Her own eyes widen, her lips parting. "O-oh."

"I… is that possible? No, no, that can't be right."

"Given the circumstances, I'm not sure I can classify this as coincidence or synchronicity."

He was silent, looking down, like he was trying to process it all.

Welcome to the club.

She wondered if she should resist the urge to close the space between them, to allow them each the space to process it all.

Fuck it, she decided instead.

Trinity rolled to her knees, following through before she could change her mind. She leaned forward, reaching for his face, angling his head up to kiss him.

She still didn't know what it all meant but she was certain that she felt more at home in his arms than she ever had in the Matrix, the Neb, or even Zion.

Neo's hand wound its way into her hair, cupping her head, as his other arm circled her. He pulled her closer and she found herself climbing onto his lap. He hummed his approval, the vibration of his lips making her nearly dizzy.

And it's like, all at once, the hole inside of her chest was gone.

"Trin…" he said her name in a desperate voice, kissing her again until they were both breathless.

He had been dreaming about her for fifteen years. It had never occurred to him that his dreams could be based in reality. That Trinity, his Trinity, was real.

She wrapped her arms around him, resting her head against his.

"I'm so afraid," Neo whispered, "that every time I open my eyes, you're going to be gone. That this is just an elaborate dream or maybe I got hit by a car on my way home from work and this is just a coma."

"I'm here," she told him, squeezing harder. "You're awake and this is real."

"Can I… can I just hold you for a while? While we talk?"

She nodded, her lips twitching. Trinity slipped to the side so that she was sitting across his lap rather than straddling him. Neo rewrapped his arms around her as she settled, resting her head on his shoulder.

She placed a hand on his chest. The steady beat of his heart was strangely comforting "Tell me about when they started."

He slipped a hand under her shirt, feeling her skin. It wasn't sexual, she knew. It was meant to ground him the same way her hand over his heart was helping her remain steady.

"The first dream I remember was the club where we met. And I remember it feeling so surreal. I didn't understand half of the words I was saying but I remember you. You warned me that people were after me and told me that there were answers out there."

"You must have been confused."

Thinking back, he hadn't been confused. At fifteen, his first reaction to dreaming of a beautiful woman pressing against his body was to wake up with a physical reaction, which he had immediately taken care of.

He probably shouldn't comment on that.

"At first, I thought it was just a random dream. Collection of my subconscious and all that. But I kept having different dreams. Some in the Matrix, the others on the Neb, or in Zion. It was all too… detailed.

"I used to take the bus to one of the local colleges in high school to be able to use their computer. I'd try to find things about you, but after the IRS, it was like you were wiped from the map.

"But I found leads on the Matrix. Nothing I could access, but ghosts and whispers pointing me in the right direction."

Toward you.

His hand rubbed circles on her back as he continued. "It was too chaotic to make sense but there were too many coincidences to let it go. After a while, I thought I was going crazy."

She couldn't blame him. She'd think the same thing if their position was reversed.

"You really thought you were dreaming that night in the club."

Neo nodded. "I'd had that dream so many times before. It felt real, but it always felt real, you know? Like I was going through the motions of the dream, waiting to find out which version I was in for."

"Hence, propositioning me?" she teased.

Neo half-laughed, half-sighed. "Yeah, I did that, didn't I? I'm really sorry about that. I can't imagine how confusing that must have been for you."

"It was… unexpected to say the least. We weren't going in with the plan to unplug you that day."

"I'm glad you did."

"Me too." She nuzzled her head against his shoulder, snuggling into his embrace. "Even if I did catch a lot of shit for it."

"Did you?" He sounded almost amused.

"Are you kidding? I kissed you while you were still plugged into the Matrix."

"Twice."

She lifted her head off his shoulder to shoot him a look.

"Uh-huh. Even fucking Morpheus got in on teasing me."

Neo grinned all the more. "Yeah, well, I like it when you're flustered. And flushed." His hand cupped her cheek and, right on cue, felt her face heat up.

"You do seem to have that effect on me."

"And this is while I'm trying to be good." He leaned forward, bringing his cheek to hers to whisper in her ear. "Just imagine what it'll be like when I start to misbehave."

The teasing words sent a wave of warmth through her body faster and harder than Dozer's homebrew ever had. Oh, he should not be allowed to say things like that, she thought. And yet… a part of her was dying to know what he was like when he wasn't focused on being good.

She appreciated that he had slowed down, that he was truly trying to give up some of his control with what he knew by letting Trinity take control of the speed. But fuck…

The things he knew.

Part of her wanted to know it all and part of her wanted time to just stop so she could just lay down in his arms and not have to think about the rest. To ignore, just for a little while, that Neo was the One and that he was meant for great things. That the moment they left the safety of their bedroom, he would be forced to become a hero.

Neo kissed her cheek before he leaned back against the wall.

She didn't want to think about his mission or the expectations that were already starting to pile up on his shoulders. Instead, she wanted to just enjoy the night. His presence.

"Tell me about your life in the Matrix," she said.

And maybe, for a little while, they could leave the rest of the world behind.

He told her of his life. Of the job he hated and his nighttime activities. How he had to force himself not to spend every spare moment trying to sleep, to get back to her.

And, in turn, she told him about monitoring him. About sitting down at the computer, annoyed, at the start of her shift, only to leave at the end convinced that they had found him.

They talked until the ship went into its overnight stasis and the lights around them dimmed.

Trin caressed his face. "You look exhausted."

He shrugged it off. "I'm fine."

"You spent hours exerting yourself physically and mentally. Why don't you sleep?"

"Haven't I done enough of that?"

She read between his words, though she wasn't sure how she knew to. "I'll be here when you wake."

"I"—he hesitated—"can I stay?"

Her heart ached. It was his room, too. At least in his head, but he was still trying to give her space and control and everything else she might need to adjust and she adored him all the more for it.

She nodded and admitted, "I'd prefer it if you did."

Neo sighed, almost in relief.

She got up to move the table back to the wall, just in case any late-night sentinel activity forced the ship to jolt. Neo tugged back the covers as she did, climbing under and opening his arm for her to join him.

She slipped under, face to face, so she could see him. His arm wrapped around her, pulling her flush against him.

"Good night, Trin."

#the matrix #the matrix fanfiction #the Matrix has queue #the matrix fanfic #matrix fanfiction #neo x trinity #trinity (the matrix)#neo (the matrix)

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earth-ambassador-jim · 4 years ago

Text

A Bad Reaction: Chapter 2

Summary:

“Changelings call it "Gravesand”. Derived from the pulverized bones of fallen Gumm-Gumms, gravesand aids us changelings in shedding our human form and embracing our more trollish nature…“

Strickler is a little off in his calculations and the gravesand draws out an unexpected response from Jim. Hopefully he can figure out what is wrong and how to fix it before it is too late.

AO3 - Fanfiction

~~~~

Barbara wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting when the pink rock monster had kidnapped her and brought her to an underground bunker but meeting her ex-boyfriend had not been it.

The moment she set eyes on him anger had eclipsed fear as the ever growing feeling of betrayal she’d been brooding on for the past few weeks reared its head in full force.

“What. The. Hell.” Barbara said slowly -but with great feeling- as her hands clenched at her sides.

The sharp pain in her skull that had just started up was not helping. For some reason the painting she had been working on surfaced in her memory.

“Sorry to interrupt,” The pink monster said in what sounded like an amused tone. Barbara jumped. She’d forgotten about it for a second. “As much as I want to see you beat up Strickler, there are more important things to deal with right now.”

It was then that Barbara saw who was in the table in the middle of the room. A sharp gasp escaped her and she rushed to her son’s side.

Her fingers immediately went to his throat, feeling for his pulse, and then to his forehead before she turned around to stare at Walt. She had been angry before, but it was nothing compared to what she was feeling now.

“What have you done to my son?” Barbara practically growled.

Walt… Strickler swallowed audibly and held his hands out, open and palms facing her, in from of him.

“It was an accident…” He started to say slowly.

“An accident?!” She yelled. “Is that why you have him tucked away in this secret base? You lured me out here with his phone! And what’s that?!” She added pointing at the monster.

And why did she feel like she should know the answer? Barbara drew in a sharp breath as pain lanced through her skull again.

“Please let me explain. You may yell at me all you wish later,” Strickler said.

Barbara grit her teeth and drew in a breath to start yelling again.

She never got a word out.

At that moment Jim jerked upright on the table. Barbara turned toward him and felt her heart skip a beat. His eyes, now open, were glowing a sickly red and gold. He made a low guttural sound in his throat and his lips pulled back in a snarl. She stumbled back a step.

He drew in a shallow gasping breath. His still glowing eyes widened and he clawed as his chest for a moment before collapsing back on the table.

For a sickening moment Barbara couldn’t move, then the symptoms she had just seen registered and she lunged forward with a string of curses. She pressed two fingers to his neck and felt a calm fall over her as her years working in the ER asserted themselves.

“Is there an AED here?” She asked Strickler sharply as she pulled Jim’s shirt up.

Some part of her mind vaguely registered a series of branching scars that she hadn’t seen before but, as they were currently unimportant, she mentally filed them away for later. Strickler ripped something off the wall and hurried over to her. She received the machine, noting that it was an older model than the hospital’s, and then with quick efficient movements placed the pads on her son’s skin.

“Get clear,” She said sharply.

Jim’s body jerked as the electricity coursed through him. Barbara checked his pulse. It was weak but the rhythm was now regular again.

She let out a sigh of relief before turning back to Strickler. The underlying protective rage layered over with her professional calm made her feel like she was floating outside her body.

“Explain what is going on now,” She said coldly.

~~~~

And so her ex-boyfriend explained how humans weren’t really the only intelligent species on earth, that magic was real, and that her son had been drafted to fight giant rock creatures.

It turned out there was a bit more to those images and dreams that had been flickering through her mind since the accident than she thought.

“Let me get this straight,” Barbara said as she kneaded the skin of her forehead. “You decided that it was a good idea to give my son, a minor, some sort of troll heroin to ‘hone his feral instincts’… you didn’t see any way that could go wrong.”

She was also rather disappointed in Jim for going along with this. They’d had the drug talk. Just because it was magic did not make it any less of a drug.

“How do you still have your teaching degree?” She wondered out loud.

Off to the side the pink changeling snickered.

“That’s not important right now,” Walt… Strickler said. “Right now I need your help to keep Jim stable while I figure out what exactly is causing this.”

Barbara really wanted to argue that Jim should go to a hospital to receive proper treatment, but she doubted they would know what to do with gravesand poisoning, or whatever was going on. She was also not foolish enough to expect that they would just let her leave. Not without a fight that she couldn’t hope to win. She drew in a slow breath and counted to ten before blowing it out through her nose.

“So you haven’t found anything in your files about why this might be happening yet?” She asked.

“No,” Strickler responded. “But I still have a few more to go through.”

“And these other trolls that Jim is helping can’t help?” Barbara would really like to have someone else here. Wal… Strickler had dropped completely off the bottom of her trust list. She wasn’t sure how she felt about the other changeling. “There isn’t any kind of troll-doctor?”

“Unfortunately Trollmarket’s healer was one of the first casualties according to Young… Jim. There might be other healers but it’s unlikely they will know how to take care of a human and even if they did they would not be familiar with gravesand.”

Barbara sighed.

“Okay, you keep searching your files.” She turned to the pink changeling. “I’ll need you to…”

She paused eying the changeling’s sharp claws with trepidation. It seemed to catch on and in a flash of pink transformed into the museum curator Ms. Nomura. Barbara jumped but otherwise didn’t react.

“Okay,” She said with a sharp, shaky breath. This was fine. She was fine. She could do this. “I’m going to need you to assist me. Follow my instructions exactly.”

Ms. Nomura moved to stand beside her and they got to work.

~~~~

“Any progress?” Barbara’s voice was something that could have loosely been described as professional.

Strickler looked up from the file he was currently reading.

“Nothing yet I’m afraid,” He said shoving down a pang of longing.

Barbara made a quiet frustrated sound and turned away. She and Nomura started talking in low voices. Strickler rubbed his eyes and glanced around the room. How long had they been here now?

Jim was now hooked up to a heart monitor and oxygen. He looked bad. Rashes had appeared on his skin and he was sweating profusely. Something in Strickler’s chest twisted involuntarily.

He had done this. He should have known better. Humans reacted differently to even regular medications. Why did he think having a child inhale magic sand was going to be okay?

What if they couldn’t save him? What then?

The more analytical side of his mind was already trying to come up with contingencies for dealing with a new Trollhunter this late in the game. The more pessimistic side suggested that between Barbara and Nomura he wouldn’t live long enough to have to worry about that. He’d deserve it too, he supposed.

He grimaced and pulled out his pen to fiddle with.

Focus.

He needed to save Jim. Failure was not an option.

He opened the next set of files, a series of experiments that had been ran by a changeling scientist back during the Cold War.

He started reading and froze for a moment before reading faster.

It wasn’t possible…

~~~~

“A question Barbara,” Strickler said. There was something stiff and deliberately level about his tone that made Barbara wary.

“Yes?” She asked without turning around.

“Do you have any pictures of your… of Jim’s father?”

That did make her turn around.

“Why would you need that?” She asked suspiciously.

“I will explain if my hunch proves correct.”

Oh she didn’t like that at all…

She studied his face. The lines around his mouth and eyes were tense.

“Please… it’s important.”

She made an irritated noise and glanced at his computer.

“Can that connect to the internet?”

“Yes…”

She wasn’t really in the habit of carrying pictures of James around. In fact, she’d gotten rid of most of the ones in the house as well. Both she and Jim generally preferred to pretend he didn’t exist when they could.

She brushed past Strickler and started tapping away. In a few minutes she’d pulled up an old finished projects page from a company website.

“That’s him,” She said pointing at one of the men in the picture. She pushed down the old ache in her chest as well as the strange feeling that rose when she realized how much Jim as starting to resemble him.

Barbara moved out of the way and Strickler settled down into the chair. In a few quick moves he’d downloaded the image and cropped it down to just James Senor’s face. Then he opened the image in another program. Immediately the computer pinged. The word “match” appeared on the screen.

A few more clicks and a new window was opened up on the screen.

“Barbara? Is this him?”

Barbara leaned over his shoulder. He twisted slightly in his seat to watch her expression. Her eyes tracked across the page and her lips moved slightly as she read through the words before she froze.

“Why…”

“It would appear that your ex is a changeling,”

“What?!”

Strickler moved back as she pushed forward to read the file more thoroughly.

“This explains Jim’s unusual reaction to the gravesand,” He continued. She could just barely hear him through the roaring in her ears. “Normally, in humans gravesand would only serves to draw out their feral instincts. It makes them angrier and their eyes glow. Long term use may have other side effects, but one use should not result in something like this.”

“So why is it causing this?”

“Because the gravesand is trying to activate Jim’s dormant changeling traits.”

“His changeling traits?” She echoed.

Strickler nodded and pushed a hand through his hair.

“Yes, but since Jim was… I assume he was conceived while James was in human form?” Barbara didn’t appreciate the question there but nodded anyway. “The only genes he has from his father are the ones that would allow him to shift not the biological template he needs to have a trollish form to shift into.”

“Which means..?”

Strickler grimaced.

“To put it simply the gravesand’s magic is causing Jim’s latent shifter magic activate, but as there is nothing to shift into his cells are basically tearing themselves apart.”

That wasn’t good. Understanding, mixed with new fear, settled in Barbara’s chest.

She turned away from him back toward her son frowning as she took off her glasses and polished them on her scrubs. This seemed to be one of the situations were knowing what was happening was not going to make thing easier…

She wasn’t even sure if she could use conventional medicines on Jim with the gravesand in his system.

Strickler was frowning as he continued to leaf through the file.

“It looks like all recorded cases have been fatal…”

Barbara whipped around, her heart lurching sickeningly in her chest. Across the room Nomura stiffened.

“But!” Strickler said before either of them could say or do anything. “The scientist in charge of the trails theorized that if a sample of changeling blood and stone was enchanted and then injected into the hybrid it would give the sifting magic something to latch onto and pattern a trollish form off of.”

“Did they test this?”

“No,” Strickler said. “It seems that the changeling in charge of the tests met an untimely death before he could find anymore test subjects.” There was an odd tone to his voice that Barbara could not quite pin down. It vanished quickly as he moved on. “I do however have the groundwork and necessary ingredients listed for the spell here.”

“What are the chances of success?”

Strickler sighed.

“I can’t really say. I doubt they are high… but what choice do we have?”

“You said that none of the… half-changelings… survived the gravesand?”

“None recorded.”

“Did they try removing the sand from the lungs? Or any similar measures to stop the reaction?”

“Yes and they all failed.”

Barbara stood quiet for a moment, acutely aware of the two changelings waiting for her response. She hated everything about this situation. She had a short moment of time to make a decision for her son that would at best be life altering and at worst fatal and the only information she had was from shady people that she didn’t trust.

But if she didn’t do anything…

Barbara glanced at Jim. She clenched her jaw and sucked in a breath through her teeth.

“Then I think we should take the route that still has a chance even if it is slim,” She said finally. “What do we need to do?”

Strickler took in her straightened posture and determined expression with a wistful expression. A jolt of bitterness passed through her.

“I am going to start running over the runes and layout for the spell to make sure there are no errors. Nomura…” The magenta changeling straightened up. “I will need you to retrieve some things from my office.” He pulled his pen out of his pocket and hesitated a moment before tossing it to her. “The lock is behind Landmark Thucydides.”

He paused for a moment and then pulled out his notepad and quickly scribbled out a list of what he would need and where she could find it.

“I’m also going to take a quick run to my apartment and retrieve the rest of my magic supplies.” He turned to Barbara. “I should be about a half hour. Can you handle that?”

She nodded.

“Good. Let us go.”

Barbara watched as they left.

Gradually their footsteps faded from hearing.

It was just her and Jim now.

She walked over to him and gently smoothed his fair out of his sweaty face. Even without touching his skin, she could feel the heat radiating off of him.

His eyes remained closed.

Barbara blinked furiously as a lump began to form in her throat.

How had it come to this? She’d known something was wrong.

Her vision blurred and she sucked in a harsh breath.

Why didn’t he tell her? Why hadn’t she…

Barbara’s hands clenched around the edges of the metal table as the first sob broke free.

~~~~

Author Notes:

I am going to go into a little more into the specifics about what is going on with Jim's reaction to the Gravesand in the notes next chapter, so be sure to read those!

We’ll get a little more on Barbara’s thoughts on the situation next chapter, but right now she really just needs a good cry.

I was a little rushed on editing this chapter (Just started a new job this week!) so let me know if anything needs clarification.

#Trollhunters #Tales of Arcadia #Trollhunters Fanfiction #A Bad Reaction #walter strickler #Nomura #Barbara Lake #jim lake jr #james lake jr #james lake sr #(mentioned)#gravesand #grave sand #my posts #my writing

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koffeins-writing-archive · 4 years ago

Text

Beyond the screen

[Commission for @princce7 ]

The old hum of the cpu filled the messy pit that was Sans room with something besides dead silence. The monitor glowed softly as it switched on. A day off from working at the hot dog stand seemed like a good idea for the skeleton. Even if it was a day off only he knew about.

He looked back to the file he had downloaded from an email Alphys had sent him. A type of anime dating sim. Definitely something Alphys would recommend.

Sans decided that before anything, he’d grab a quick snack from the kitchen. A nice bottle of ketchup. Did he really need to eat it? Nope. Did he want to? Yes.

Once Sans was back in his room with his snacks, he sat back down at his computer and started up the game.

The cheery music and bright colors greeted Sans kindly. The music was pretty nice. The art was pretty and definitely fit the type of anime style games that Alphys loved playing.

As he played through the game, Sans learned about the four main characters. He decided to choose Sayori's route, seeing as she was the most real out of the main cast so far. Her story tugged at the skeletons heart, even if he didn't really have one. A soul was close enough, right?

Sans continued on in the game until he was met with the last few scenes of the first act. The main character was going to enter Sayori's room when the screen froze. The game letting out a low hum. Sans couldn't move the mouse nor click anywhere, so he manually shut the computer down.

"Man, my computer must really hate this thing." He said to himself, having heard his computer slowly dying and the fans whirring through all of his gameplay.

'Maybe Alphys can help me with my computer to make sure it can run the game properly without dying so quickly'. He thought.

Sans was just about to open his browser as the screen finally switched back on. Something felt different, however, but the skeleton couldn't put his finger on it. He moved his mouse to the browser icon before seeing something on the games icon.

A small little pixel out of place.

He clicked on the DDLC icon on his desktop. Nothing happened. He clicked again. This time, a small text document opened up and typed out a simple 'hello'.

Sans sat there, confused and shocked. Was this game actually a virus? Or did Alphys send him a bootlegged version?

He didn't know what else to do other than reply.

'Hey'. He typed. 'What are you doing on my computer?'

He watched as the other replied.

'Well, I'm not exactly here willingly. I think the game crashed'.

Well duh, the game crashed.

'I know it crashed. What are you? A hacker?' Sans asked.

'No, I'm not any sort of malware either. Can you do something for me?'

He was a little hesitant about it but continued to talking to whatever this thing was that had now infected his computer.

'Sure. What do you need?'

'Can you go into the games files? I think there's a way for you to fix it.'

'Why can't you do that?'

'I'm not sure. I've tried and the game won't let me access anything. Please fix it.'

Well, Sans didn't have anything better to do, so he went along with the other users instructions. Right clicking the DDLC icon, opening the task manager, and after sorting through a few files and deleting a few things, the game opened normally.

'Thank you! I'm so glad you fixed it!'.

Sans smiled at this and went to reply when the text box disappeared and the screen turned black once more. Finally, after thinking that the game had crashed or his computer had died, a text box from the game appeared, along with a familiar face, smiling right at Sans.

'Hey there! I'm Monika. I'm really glad that you fixed the game for me, I can't tell you how many times I've managed to screw up the files and code trying to get yours and others attention'.

Sans stared at the screen in disbelief. He had reached for his bottle of ketchup and gripped it a bit too harshly as the text box greeted him, getting ketchup onto his hoodie and into one of his eyeholes.

Oh boy what did Sans get himself into?

After cleaning off the ketchup from his eye and jacket, or at least cleaning to the best of his ability, Sans sat back in his chair, silent.

Sans wasn’t sure how to react. A computer game was talking to him. Or maybe it was still malware and the hacker was just messing with him big time. Whatever it was, was talking to him. Monika smiling warmly from within the screen.

Sans shoulders eased their tension and he scratched the back of his skull at this.

“So...Monika, is it?” He asked.

‘That’s correct!’ Monika replied, the words typed up quickly in the text box.

Sans let out a nervous laugh at this, unsure if he should shut the computer down, destroy it, burn it, and then call Alphys about all of this craziness.

“Alright, Monika...What are you exactly?”

‘Data I suppose. I’m not really sure of it myself. I remember the first time...well, being, I guess. It’s not something I think about much. What about you? What are you?’

“I’m just a skeleton living with his brother. I’ve got a lot of neighbors, I guess. Most of them are monsters...real monsters, not just saying that like their jerks or something.”

‘Interesting. Cause I’m pretty sure that what you just said isn’t the entire truth.’.

Monika waited for a response. Seeing that she wasn’t going to get one, the program continued.

‘You are a lot like me, are you not? Powerful, out of this world...unreal, perhaps?’.

Sans simply stared at the screen, keeping his nonchalant smile plastered on. Trying his best not to crack.

He let out a chuckle and gave a shrug. “I guess you could say I’m ‘pretty far out’, eh?”

Monika let out a laugh at this. ‘I didn’t realize the person I was talking to was such a ‘punny’ guy.’

Sans smiled more at this, thankful that Monika at least had a sense of humor... And hoped with every bone he was made out of that she wasn’t entirely malicious.

“What exactly did you have me delete? Those files?”

‘Oh...Those were just some data that needed to be deleted. Couldn’t do much with them still being in the game.’.

Sans didn’t like the sounds of that. “What do you mean?”

‘The other girls had to go. That’s just how things were meant to be.’.

Sans stared in disbelief. Monika, a being shown to be somewhat sentient, was confessing that she had him delete the other girls from the game. Girls who probably were just as sentient and real as she is.

Sans was quiet as he moved his mouse around the screen and towards the recycle bin.

‘What are you doing?’

Sans continued to stay silent as he opened the bin. The bin was empty.

“You had me kill them.” Sans muttered out quietly.

‘The word ‘kill’ is kind of strong. I’d say...’deleted’ would be a better term?’

Sans definitely did not like this.

‘It’s just like I said before; you and I are the same. In more ways than one.’

“What, a murderer?” Sans growled.

Monika shakes her head and smiles. ‘Data. Data in a game. I know it, you know it.’

Sans went to speak when Monika continued.

‘The Internet’s filled with lots of data. Data of you. Data of me. Data everywhere. We’re real in our worlds...just not out there. We live behind these screens to tell stories to those on the outside. Just like what you experienced with this dating game. Various bits of codes and data strung together to make something entertaining and real enough for an escape from the outside world.’

Monika smiled at Sans, unblinking as she waited for his response. ‘Am I not wrong?’

“...No. You’re not wrong...How the hell do you know about all that? Aren’t you just stuck in the game?”

‘Yes, and no. I’m everywhere. Whenever someone downloads the game, I’m on their computer for as long as the game stays. You don’t do much on this computer, so it’s like an old dinosaur and pretty bare.’

Monika got closer towards the screen, tilting her head. ‘You aren’t even a part of the world you say you’re in, are you not?’

Sans sat there. He didn’t know what to say. Perhaps he feared whatever she might say in response, say the truth that he so desperately did not want to hear or believe. Not now, and not ever.

“I think we’re done here.” his tone was cold and held nothing behind it.

No fear. No anger. Just there.

Sans quickly unplugged the computers plug from the socket. As he glared at the program staring back at him, he noticed something. It was quick, but there in the split second, was the softest hint of fear in Monika’s expression. And then, darkness.

Sans sat back in his chair, groaning.

If he had a proper heart, there’s no doubt that it would be racing from whatever hellish adrenaline rush that was.

He laid there for a moment before pulling out his phone. His boney fingers shaking as they pressed against the screen. Sans lifted the phone up to his face.

“Alphys? We need to talk. Now.”

Please consider commissioning me!~

#sans undertale #monika #ddlc #undertale #my writing #commission

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eatbreathewrite · 6 years ago

Text

The Adventures of Todd and Granny

(Alternatively: “I Saw Granny Ethel with the Devil”)

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V

Luck

The first time this colorful group entered the town’s local bingo hall, it hadn’t been the best of days.

The host had difficulties overcoming Todd the Demon’s hulking presence and couldn’t call out numbers without shaking and stuttering, and eventually just ran from the building altogether mid-game with a gaggle of players right behind him, and there’s no playing bingo when there’s no one else around.

There still aren’t any other players around when the group decides to drop by today.

But the new host is blind as a bat save for whatever is a foot directly in front of him and he drones on without a care, calling out numbers without lifting his eyes from the computer screen that lotteries out the next. And the next. And the next.

Now, it’s the final round of the day.

Todd, sitting at the small round table that seats four (and only four, in the center of the large room with a dozen other abandoned tables around it), holds the tiny card marker in his large claws, stamping down a neon green dot on B-5—the only successful spot on his card, so far, in any round.

Granny Ethel, though, is on fire. Only two diagonal squares away from her third solid BINGO and focusing intently, awaiting the host to call out O-8 and I-23 so she can claim that nice floral area rug sitting pretty on the grand prize table.

Sam and Todd have already agreed between themselves to help Granny Ethel get whichever prizes she wants if they happen to get a BINGO first.

Her only obstacle in this is Theodore—who only needs one more space to land his second BINGO for the day. Unlike Granny Ethel, his eyes are set on a shiny new tablet and he’s intent on claiming it.

Of course it’s all randomized and comes down to luck, but he could do a little better to be a team player. Especially after the lawnmower incident.

Todd could be mistaken, but he doesn’t think he is—Theodore has yet to earnestly apologize to Granny Ethel, and almost an entire month has gone by since then. Honestly. It’s as if he thinks everyone will forget if he just never brings it up again and it will all go away. Well—the salvaged lantana cuttings are sprouting speckled orange and yellow, at least, but it will take a while before they can be transplanted and grow back to their full glory again.

Maybe Todd will be lenient, and give Theodore until then to deliver said apology.

Maybe not.

Granny Ethel gives a little cheer as the next number called lands her another spot on her diagonal almost-BINGO. One more to go!

The same number is on Sam’s card, too, but he’s dozing off and already dropped the card marker back onto the table. Todd nudges aside one of his brown arms and puts a green dot on the center top row for him. He’s closer to a BINGO than Todd is.

The caller clears his throat, taking a moment to cough hoarsely into a polka-dotted handkerchief—then cough again, and once more, before squinting down at the computer screen and doling out the next number.

“Oh! Bingo! Bingo!” Granny Ethel yells, shooting up from her seat and waving her card in the air, moving faster than Todd has ever seen her move (she does, really and truly, get absorbed in the competition).

Her shout rouses Sam from his nap and he sits up, rubbing at his eyes. “Nice job, Granny. That flower carpet is totally yours. Hope it fits in the car, though… Well, if it doesn’t, we can just walk and carry it home for you.”

A big, happy smile spreads across her face as she shimmies around the table and darts forward to the host with card in hand, moving so fast she’s a blue blur in her loose, long-skirted lilac-print dress.

Theodore crosses his arms and pouts, huffing an extremely audible sigh. Always a sore loser, that one.

But, well, it’s their final game of the week, and it’s only fitting that Granny Ethel’s win ends it. The host approves her BINGO and waves her along to the prize table, where she collects her new floral rug in her arms with an elated, toothy smile. It’s a bit much for her to carry, taller even than the white poofs of hair on her head, so Todd holds out his hands and she passes the bundle over to him with thanks.

“Oh, this will look just lovely in my bedroom!” she says brightly, hands clasped together as she shuffles along beside him. “Sam, dear, do you think we have time to redecorate before you give us all a macramé lesson?”

“Definitely! There’s always time to help you out, Granny.” Sam nods pleasantly as they approach his car, which beeps as he unlocks it with his key fob. “I don’t think I’ve seen your room before. It’s the one at the back of the house, right?” He pops the trunk and looks over his shoulder at the carpet in Todd’s hands, and nods again. “Yep; it’ll fit.”

“That’s right. I’m afraid it’s become a bit cluttered—I don’t even let Todd clean it on chore days.”

“No way—Granny, are you a hoarder?”

“Haven’t you seen her house?” Theodore grunts as Todd’s sharp elbow bumps into him, but all he does is roll his eyes in response and skulk to his usual place in the back seat of Sam’s old, half-painted, half-sanded sedan from a year Todd isn’t even sure he remembers. Not bothering to help.

Well, that’s typical Theodore.

Todd finagles the rolled-up carpet into the trunk space, making sure not to crumple or cram it, careful not to upset Sam’s menagerie of old sneakers, a lumpy gym bag, and pile of wadded-up shirts, and closes the trunk securely over it all, satisfied. Then he escorts Granny Ethel to the other side of the car and helps her climb into the back seat opposite her grandson.

He’d let her take shotgun, but there are only a few places he can rightly fit in the small car, and that just so happens to be the front passenger seat. It’s low enough that he only has to hunker down and bow his head and horns just so that they don’t scrape the top and not uncomfortably fold himself up like he would in the back.

Ah, if only Sam had a convertible.

Thankfully, the bingo hall isn’t too far from Granny Ethel’s house—nothing is, really, in this small town, where the edge is only a ten minute car ride in any direction, but when they travel in such a large group, and when Sam offers, some days it’s just easier to drive. Especially when the grey clouds hanging overhead droop and sag, heavy with rain ready to fall at any moment.

(Sometimes Granny Ethel’s bones ache on days like this, too—she never says it, but they all know.)

They hurry into the house, with bingo prize in hand, and Granny Ethel’s first stop is the kitchen, because everyone is parched and in need of a celebratory midday snack. She and Todd had mixed up a nice pitcher of peach tea the day before, and it’s just wonderful on ice, garnished even with tiny lemon slices on the glass rims. That morning, Sam brought iced donuts along, and half of the box still remains for snack time.

Todd tucks the rolled-up rug safely into a corner and sits down to enjoy a chocolate-iced donut while Granny Ethel chatters on about which TV programs they’re set to watch today, and about how she’s always considered trying macramé but just never had the chance. Sam, though, is a pro, and has been practicing it since his mom taught him when he was young. Apparently he is a master at weaving hanging basket cradles for plants.

Theodore, sitting crammed between Todd and Sam’s broad shoulders (though one set broader than the other) broods in silence, barely touching even a single rainbow sprinkle on his pink-frosted donut. Barely touching his peach iced tea.

The small, round kitchen table has become quite cramped with their new population.

Moving through the halls is just as cramped, now, with two fully-grown men and a hulking demon trying to make their way through. It doesn’t help that the hallways are narrow, but at least the bedrooms are bigger and easier to navigate.

Granny Ethel’s room is the largest in the house. Quaint and cozy, with a full-sized bed set against the center of the far wall, between two curtained, arched windows.

And hanging above said bed, on said wall, is a sight Todd thought he’d seen the last of: the old, rusted scythe from the back yard.

Hung up like a trophy, or a prized possession even—only, it’s no longer rusted. It’s clean and polished, with its metal blade shining under the ceiling light, sharp and dangerous as a new cutlery knife. Totally out of place among the knitted and crocheted throw blankets and covered pillows and tapestries and embroideries dotted around the room. Completely out of place among the precious miniature porcelain trinkets crammed along the tops of dressers and shelves, and the decorative plates lining the highest shelves up near the ceiling.

It draws all of their attention except Granny Ethel’s, who doesn’t seem to mind, who overlooks it as another decoration among many.

“I think that rug will look just wonderful in the center of the room, don’t you think, dears?” She perches daintily on the edge of her bed, one hand on her lower back, and smiles at the space of carpet in front of her slippered feet. “The florals match the wallpaper!”

Todd meets Sam’s eyes for a moment, and the message passes through despite the communication barrier, though at times Todd thinks Sam has telepathy for how in-tune he is to most of his thoughts.

But now, the thought is plain as day. Theodore’s eyes, gleaming with that strange little light that mean he’s plotting, always plotting, linger on that scythe for an uncomfortable stretch of time, and though they’d both agreed to keep a close eye on the man, they decide to keep an even closer watch on him while in this room.

“They do match, Granny,” Sam agrees with a little smile, taking one end of the rolled-up rug to help Todd set it down on the floor. “That’s some theme you’ve got going on in here.”

“Charles picked out the florals. I wasn’t always so fond of them, you know. He brought so much color and beauty into my life, and now I can’t bear to get rid of it…” She toys with the fine, silver band around her left ring finger, eyes looking far, far away, seeing something other than the two men and one demon through her thick lenses.

It isn’t often she speaks of Charles, and they all, every one of them, know better than to bring up the subject. It’s an unspoken rule that only Granny Ethel is allowed to speak of him.

The little floral area rug fits perfectly on the floor, not covering too much, not covering too little. None of the edges hit the bed or the dresser, but they do curl up from being rolled for so long. Todd stamps his hooves on the ends to flatten them down—and it works better than steam roller.

Sam brushes his hands clean of imaginary dust, job well done, and claps. “Alright! How’s that look, Granny?”

“Oh, it’s perfect! Thank you so much for helping, dears. It’s such a lovely design I might just have to find a matching one for the sitting room. The one we have there now is looking a bit threadbare these days. But I digress. Today is a macramé day! Oh, I’ve never done that kind of craft before. What are we making?”

“I was thinking we could make hanging baskets for the lantanas. Y’know, before we transplant them back into the garden. I brought rope and beads and all kinds of stuff to make some cool hangers! Plenty of black for you, too, Todd.”

And so, they continue their day by learning macramé, courtesy of Sam and his unexpected talents.

It’s when night falls, when all are safely tucked away in bed (Sam included, because it’s the weekend, and weekends allow for sleepovers Granny Ethel is more than enthusiastic to host, because she’d missed having a full house), that Todd realizes Theodore had snuck away at some point during their weaving lessons—even just for a bathroom break, letting him out of their sight was a mistake.

Now, certainly, he’s snoozing away at the top of the bunk bed they share, and Sam is tucked away in the far corner of the room with a plushy sleeping bag, but all jolt awake when a thump and a startled cry ring out through the house.

Todd is the first to reach her room. He hesitates at the closed door, just for a split-second, if only to steel himself for what he might see (because that scythe did look stable, where it hung, but what if—what if someone did something to it and—?) before barreling through it with every ounce of bravery he possesses.

The scythe had fallen.

Its sharp tip lay embedded in the soft pillows where Granny Ethel’s head most certainly might have rested, once. Cut right through, as easy as a hot knife sinks through butter.

“Granny—!” Sam gasps out.

But Granny Ethel’s head is not there—and neither is her body. In fact, she’s standing safe and sound, with both hands pressed against her mouth, just beside the bed. Fully intact. Safe.

Safe.

“Oh,” she pauses, hands falling away from her face, but hovering in front of it, still, before falling to her heart. “I was certain I’d placed it up on that wall securely.” She blinks, eyes moving from the fallen scythe to the brackets on the wall—one of which had snapped off and lay useless on top of the soft and numerous blankets covering her bed—then to the three gathered at the door, two mostly concealed behind Todd’s large body.

Todd doesn’t waste a moment. His hand finds the back of Theodore’s neck, grips his shirt collar, and he propels him forward, into the room like a badly behaved animal made to stand before its mistake.

“I didn’t—” he starts to say, squirming like a kitten held by the scruff of its neck, feet barely touching the ground, but Todd won’t hear it. He drops him heavy to the floor and points at the scene, eyes livid, feeling a bubbling, frothing rage that heated him like the fire and brimstone of hell—for the first time in quite a while.

“I-I really didn’t do it!” Theodore hisses, shrinking in on himself as Todd’s hulking form blocks the exit, and Granny Ethel’s small form boxes him on from the other side. “I—”

She clears her throat before anything more could be said.

“Dears,” she says in her soft voice, and no matter how soft it is, it always catches their attention as clear as a blaring horn. She leaves it at that, for a moment, as they all three freeze and look to her, obedient, watching as she picks up the scythe by its handle and eases it out of the downy feathers and cotton, holding it between her fingers like it’s made of delicate glass.

“You never have to worry about me. You see, I am blessed with incredible luck. Please, go on back to bed. I’ll take care of this.” A small, serene smile crosses her face—as kind as any of the others, but hiding something underneath.

Something like a secret Todd knows he has to uncover before anything like this ever happens again.

#Todd and granny #original #original writing #it really has been a while so thanks for waiting patiently!#hope you enjoy the latest installment to the series

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 5 years ago

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Witches, Chapter 17: Blackquill wants to fight an orca; Phoenix wants to fight Blackquill; Athena contains within her a multitude of whale facts.

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

----

Phoenix leaves early, tells Trucy he’ll meet her at the courthouse, and stops by the office first. The computer wakes up slowly and when it finally does, it’s as blank as Phoenix left it last night, not a word of assistance or encouragement. So he’s on his own. All right. Fine.

On his way out through the front, he stops. The lid over the piano keys is opened, something lying directly on the keys. His old badge, weighing down the corner of Lotta’s photograph, a snapshot out of time, poorly planned, Phoenix and Larry both jostled about by Maya, and Edgeworth almost smiling at that, and Gumshoe the only one who’s timed it right, with confetti fluttering through the air fallen from his hand. If he squints with the Sight from the right angle and distance, like it’s one of those illusion puzzles, sometimes he’ll see Mia standing to the side, smiling.

“I can take a hint,” he says, setting it back down on the piano. He can’t see her in the photo today, but it’s okay because it being here, not on his desk, and his badge here and not in his desk, means that she’s here, not frozen in a photo. “All right. I get it. I can do it, and I’m not alone.” He has people to help and to keep him in check. He’s not going to lose a second badge.

At the courthouse he smacks himself in the face with cold water, hoping to knock sleep out of his eyes and with it, clear out the dust from eight years of not playing the lead. Athena bounds into the defendant lobby sounding as cheery as ever and announcing that she ran a few laps around the building to get ready, but tired bags hang beneath her eyes and he tells her such when he asks her if she got any sleep. “Do I really look that bad?” she asks, prodding at the skin below her eyes. “I’d better do something about that. Prosecutor Blackquill gives me shit over everything and I can’t leave another opening. Hey, Trucy!” she calls, as the other two members of the agency enter with Pearl. “You don’t happen to have concealer, do you? Or Apollo, do you? I need to look like I actually slept soundly and I’m desperate.”

“Sorry,” Apollo says. “The only cosmetics I use are hair gel.”

“You mean it doesn’t naturally do that?” Pearl gasps. “I thought for sure…”

“Concealer, coming right up!” Trucy produces a round makeup compact from her Magic Panties - she carries those around in a purse and everything that would normally be found in a purse goes into them - and holds it up to Athena’s face. “No, that’s not the right shade. Hold on.” She plunges her hand back into the waistband and pulls out what appears to Phoenix to be pretty much the same, but comparing it against Athena’s skin, Trucy nods, satisfied.

“Since when do you wear makeup?” Phoenix asks. They’ve had talks about this topic. Why is it all so expensive. Why is this a scam industry that breeds insecurities. No I’m not buying you lipstick. You can buy it yourself when you’re much older. Yes I’ll buy you that lip gloss that’s in a narwhal-shaped container. That’s not really makeup.

“I don’t,” Trucy says. “This is old stage show stuff we still had!”

“We” being the Gramaryes, surely. She pats away the dark circles under Athena’s eyes and with a wave, wishes them both luck, and skips off for the gallery with Apollo and Pearl in tow.

Leaving Phoenix to enter behind the bench, chat with this judge for the first time in a year. If he really thinks about it, this judge - this man, he was going to think, but after all these years he’s not really quite sure how to assess what the judge is or isn’t and whether he’s a being that exists in any capacity outside of the courthouse - has seen him at his lowest, to rise as high as he could, and crash again, sink lower than that, and now here he is again. This judge has presided over all three trials where Phoenix has been accused of murder. He saw Phoenix’s first trial and his last and now he’ll see this second first.

He tells Phoenix that standing here as a lawyer makes him look younger. Phoenix thanks him and decides not to mention that it’s definitely shaving that makes him look younger. Might as well just take the compliment, if it’s a compliment, and not another “baby-faced” jab.

“And you look as young as ever, Your Honor,” he replies, and it’s true, really - his face hasn’t changed a bit since Phoenix first met him. No more wrinkles, and no less. Eternal, unchanging, a fixture of the courtroom who Phoenix knows how to work with.

And then there’s the prosecutor. The latest prosecutorial mystery for Phoenix to unravel. Another one to save.

Prosecutor Simon Blackquill has an even more frightening visage staring at him at level across the courtroom, rather than looking down on him from up safe in the gallery. Not that safe isn’t anything but relative when it comes to a man who throws silvery slices of wind with the slash of a finger and whose hawk flaps about as it pleases, but in the gallery Phoenix is just one of a sea of faces merely observing. Down here at the bench? He’s the man who offered to defend an orca, with nowhere to hide and nowhere to run from the man who brought an orca to trial.

Funny how all this works.

Blackquill berates Phoenix for bringing this case to court, never mind that it’s Blackquill who actually brought this to court - and the poor judge got this case late last night and skimmed it and missed the part that the defendant is an orca. But otherwise Blackquill seems - to be taking this seriously? Enough to speech-ify on the fact that they have an orca to be prosecuted here.

“Though she cannot be present in the courtroom, nor speak for herself, we will treat this defendant as any other,” he says, casting a glance toward the screen being set up behind the witness stand; hopefully in a few minutes Sasha will have Orla on video phone, introducing the defendant to the court and perhaps charming then with her cuteness. Phoenix has had enough witnesses try and play cute to turn the judge and gallery against the defense - it’s about time he gets to have that power on his side. “Man or beast, we stand equal with the same value to our souls.” He pauses, eyes narrowing at his own words. The hawk on his shoulder ruffles its feathers. That’s a loaded word, for someone who knows magic: humans have souls, fae don’t, animals don’t, and fae animals certainly don’t. A soul or lack of one is no indication of moral judgment or standing. It’s just an extra piece of the self that can be cut loose and used in magic, and this seems to be what Blackquill is pondering, and his bird getting at, because he amends himself. “To our lives and hearts. Take Taka, as much a person in spirit as the rest of us who stand here today.”

Phoenix would love to know what Taka is, whether it’s just an ordinary bird, a fae creature, or a familiar - Blackquill doesn’t give a hint, and Phoenix doesn’t know what the difference between a fae animal and specifically a familiar looks like. And even if he did he can’t see through Blackquill’s twisted aura to know.

The Twisted Samurai distorts everything around him, that even if Phoenix wants to test his eyes on Athena next to him, he can’t. The courtroom falls into darkness when he tries, inconsistent silver light throwing the colors off where they aren’t inverted. Athena’s wide eyes appear nearly gray, not blue, and her hair dulls similarly; he sees double of her, sometimes, like he’s dazed or cross-eyed. And across the courtroom Blackquill has eyes almost straight white, and nothing else of him the same. His shape twists and breaks like his reflection in a wavy funhouse mirror has been reflected into a rippling pond, his hair changing lengths, his skin all the depth of white tissue paper, veins and blood and bones below, a dead man walking. At his steadiest, his entire body simply trembles at the edges, like energy barely contained in a vessel too small for it, a person held together in a form that doesn’t naturally belong to them; and all of him either stark white or black, and mostly white, patterned like a photonegative of himself.

Phoenix closes his eyes and gives himself a moment to reset and readjust to the regular world that he’ll see when he opens them.

“The question, then,” Blackquill continues, while Athena squints in confusion at Phoenix because he’s been squinting at her with the Sight, “is what one - what our orca, in this case - has done with that life, and how stained and shriveled their heart.”

Then he decides to prove that the greatest monster in the room is him, immediately after the first witness testimony - from Norma DePlume, who is as much of a terror as Phoenix expected, and she and Blackquill as nasty to each other as he could have imagined - when he demands the judge give his verdict, because they’ve heard everything they need to, and, “deliver your judgement so that I may carry out the sentence.”

“Objection! Hold it!” What the fuck! “You aren’t - you aren’t planning on killing Orla yourself, are you?” Beside him, Athena can’t keep her “what the fuck!” contained, or rather Widget warbles it out, and Phoenix really, really wants to know who programmed the robot to say fuck. “Is that what you’re implying—”

Blackquill says nothing, merely smirks, and Phoenix decides that he absolutely, definitely, does not want to actually know the answer. If Edgeworth wants him to defend this man, which he does, that’s not an “if”, Phoenix would rather not think that this case only went to trial because Blackquill wanted to take a literal stab at fighting a whale. He’d like to think it’s because he and Athena and Pearl found some decent proof, reasonable doubt, and because of what Blackquill said there in his opening statement, that animals have value and deserve a fair chance, too.

(Maybe he just said that to get it on the record hoping for reasonable doubt of his own and a fair trial for Taka when that goddamn bird inevitably hauls off and claws someone’s eyes out.)

(Edgeworth didn’t even warn him that Prosecutor Blackquill had a murder bird! Is the logical conclusion that Edgeworth didn’t know about the bird? Points toward fae creature, a la Gavin’s hound, except who the hell is managing to summon any fae anyone in prison? That place is iron for a reason. Or maybe after everything else, Edgeworth figured this is nothing to Phoenix.)

“We have a right to cross-examine!” Athena’s shrill and rightfully indignant cry rings out over a shriek from Taka that sounds like laughter. “We’re always allowed to, you know!”

“I simply hope to spare us all the waste of time that comes as consequence of your methods,” Blackquill replies, directed more at Phoenix than Athena, who like last trial he seems to mostly be ignoring, “and spare you the heartbreak of burning yourself to ash in a fight for a ‘Not Guilty’ you will not win.”

Like yesterday, Phoenix wonders if they’re talking about an orca, or something else. About Blackquill himself, and the task regarding him that Phoenix has been given. Does Blackquill know what Edgeworth has asked of Phoenix? It sort of sounds like he does.

“Okay, but I’m still going to cross-examine,” Phoenix says. And maybe drag it out a little more than usual, just to let Blackquill know he’s not intimidated.

And DePlume likes the sound of her own voice, so maybe they’ll learn something new from her, some piece of information she hadn’t meant to let slip, if they push on her every statement.

What Phoenix learns instead is that Blackquill likes penguins and thinks them the only part of the aquarium actually worth anyone’s time, and apparently no one told DePlume that the victim died of blunt force trauma, not being bitten by the orca. Not that it helps; there’s more security footage than the short looped bit that they saw behind Fulbright’s back, and that does actually show that Orla had the victim in her jaws, and Blackquill can put a good - bad - spin on it. Sure, it wasn’t when the victim was killed, but it certainly was proof of her malicious intent, toying with a corpse like she’s a cat caught the canary - Blackquill stares Athena dead in the eye as he makes that analogy - but not even hungry to eat it, just taking another life between her teeth as a game.

A game, and singing the while she does it. The theory, working from their preliminary autopsy report that Jack Shipley died instantaneously from a brain contusion, is that Orla headbutted him into the glass of the tank. DePlume didn’t see any moment of actual impact - that was what Phoenix saw on the security footage, Orla with her head tipped out of sight behind some tank decorations - but came to the conclusion that this was definitely the exact time of the victim’s death. A conclusion extrapolated from something that Phoenix really, really wishes Sasha had mentioned: a year ago, another orca trainer at Shipshape Aquarium died under such similar circumstances.

DePlume wrote a whole damn book about it. Sasha entirely neglected this critical fact. Phoenix is going to scream. Maybe faint, instead, get just a little wobbly in the knee area, because Blackquill has this all in the palm of his hand, all under control, and what a horrible mess he would make of a jury trial. Start with them biased against him on basis of that tricky little matter, convicted murderer, and end with them swayed however he wants them to, just as he plays the gallery, but they aren’t the ones making the final call.

(Edgeworth fretted often about what a particularly charismatic and manipulative lawyer could do to the jurist system, and Phoenix thought he was worrying over Klavier, his charm, his glamours, his celebrity status. How likely instead that he was concerned with Blackquill, already planning ahead to when he would place him back in court?)

Though if Phoenix is going to faint for any actual reason, it’s the picture that Blackquill has projected up for the court. A page from DePlume’s book, half the sheet taken up by a glossy color photograph of the dead orca trainer - so that’s the kind of writer DePlume is, a sensationalist one, like some others he could name. The unfortunate girl was probably around Sasha’s age; her body lay on the edge of the show pool, water puddling beneath her and dripping from her long dark hair. Her shirt has flowing puffy pirate sleeves in a soft powder blue fabric. Almost the color of Trucy’s show cape, and it’s hard not to think of his daughter, but it’s even harder not to think of someone else wearing that color and killed while performing at her profession. It was a rehearsal, not a live show, when Thalassa died, but—

Reflections, reflections. He keeps running up against familiar faces on the corpses in this case.

“Athena! Phoenix! Please!” Sasha pleads from somewhere out-of-sight, while Orla, centered in the screen, chirrups in confusion, but when she makes sound, she shows off her powerful jaws full of teeth. “Orla didn’t kill anyone! Please, we’re begging for your help!”

Orla waves a flipper, the gravity of the situation not really clear to her.

The trainer who died last year - if Orla really did everything DePlume says, biting and headbutting, they should see marks of that, blood and bruises, and there’s nothing. Logic himself out of fear, that’s right, he can do that - Orla can’t speak, but she understands them, and Sasha in part understands her. Sasha has faith in her. Phoenix has to have faith in Sasha.

“You’d be better off saving your breath, you sad slippery pup.” Blackquill leans forward, elbows on the bench, laughing, and Phoenix really, really does not like that. “Perhaps you did not see his face, but allow me to tell you - when he saw that photograph, he turned even paler than me. You were yourself rather afraid of the orca then, weren’t you, Wright-dono?”

Not enough for him to play the judge and gallery against the defendant, now he’s trying to turn lawyer and client against each other, make them lose faith in the other. How discouraged must Sasha feel, to be told Phoenix is doubting too?

“For shame, to take up the matter of a client who you have neither the courage nor drive to defend, and further crush them under the false hope you’ve given.”

“Nothing about my defense is ‘false’, Prosecutor Blackquill.” Keep his face and voice calm and level, don’t give Blackquill an inch or a twitch to work from. “If you’re hoping for an easy win by talking me into giving up, I assure you, it’s not going to happen. Orla is my client, and I don’t give up on my clients.” Whether or not she can speak to him doesn’t matter. That she’s an orca doesn’t matter. You can never truly know if your client is innocent or not, Mia said once, a very long time ago. And she’s right, and was always right, because even Truth can get subjective and messy, be talked around, and relying wholly on it made him an arrogant idiot. All you can do is fight with everything you have.

And he’s going to. He’s going to do Mia proud, orca or no.

“I see the trust that Sasha has put in Orla, and I respect that.” He sympathizes, after all the nightmarish cases when he’s had to trust someone that no one else would, or trust someone who didn’t even trust himself. “So I’m willing to have faith in Orla, too.”

“Yet you do not know the first thing about orcas, do you?”

“Is that relevant?” Phoenix asks.

He relishes the surprise that grips Blackquill’s features. Time to find out whether the Twisted Samurai, master manipulator, is smart enough to not be taken in by a tactic Phoenix has had seven years to perfect, playing the idiot and being underestimated. If it can’t get him anything about this particular case maybe he’ll learn something more about Blackquill himself that can help Edgeworth.

“Do you know why they are also known as ‘killer whales’?”

What kind of trick question, and how actually relevant—? “Uh, because people have a tendency to fear what they don’t understand, and because they didn’t understand orcas and just saw their teeth, they presumed that these creatures were out to get them too?”

That’s basically a psychology explanation, right? He’s basically working on Athena and Blackquill’s level, in their wheelhouse, now, right?

Blackquill stares at him. One of his eyes twitches. Taka scratches its head. The question is written plainly across his features, the icy stare and the cold scowl: how did you pass the Bar, twice?

Joke’s on him; Phoenix doesn’t know either.

“No,” Blackquill says. “That is not it.”

“It was a good attempt,” Phoenix says, glancing to Athena for confirmation. She shrugs, her teeth pressed together in a failure at forcing a smile, and she sharply sucks in her breath. Okay. Ouch. That noncommittal of an answer is a hell of an answer of itself.

“The reason,” Blackquill says, stressing the word, now acting along the belief that yes, Phoenix is a fucking idiot who needs to be addressed accordingly, “is that they are cunning and merciless predators known to hunt and kill even true whales. They are also known as ‘wolves of the sea’ for that same reason, that they are clever, powerful, and dangerous creatures who hunt in packs.” How, in the midst of going over the case, preparing witnesses, and filling in the gaps of the evidence Fulbright had, did he, from prison, have the time and resources to do this much research on orcas, down to etymology of the name? “Tell me, does that sound innocent to you? Does that not sound like the creature we have here on stand today, and her capacity to so efficiently kill a man before entertaining herself with that corpse?”

So he thinks orcas are smart enough to ascribe malicious intent to, and he’s doing his damndest to convince everyone else of the same. “My goodness,” the judge says. “So they truly are ‘killers’? Though may I ask, what do you mean by ‘true’ whales?”

Phoenix wondered the same, but if there’s time for a tangent then he’d rather use it to reconvene with Athena, steady themselves, and figure out how to work past this huge gap in their knowledge. It looks really bad, all the pieces they weren’t aware of. They need a new angle of approach as everything they’ve done so far has been smacked down—

“Oh, I can help you with that!” Athena says brightly, and her ponytail sways from side to side as she bobs up and down with uncontained glee. “Technically, if we want to get pedantic, which we do” - spoken like a true lawyer; Phoenix could shed a tear with pride - “what’s known as a ‘whale’” - she makes quotation marks with her fingers in the air - “is different in our informal everyday usage than in taxonomy. You traditionally wouldn’t call a dolphin a whale, right?”

Maybe Phoenix won’t have an opportunity to confer with Athena and will just ponder how dire this case has gotten on his own, while Athena spouts Whale Facts. If Blackquill meant to distract her, it’s working, but Phoenix is not honestly sure he could’ve expected this to happen, or the judge to ask. Either way, Blackquill hasn’t turned his back bored on the tangent yet; he has stepped back from the bench, arms crossed, the chain between his cuffs tangled up around them, eyes half closed, maybe glad for the break.

“But,” Athena continues, “you could! Technically! So from, like, primary school biology we know that classification in taxonomy goes, kingdom phylum class order genus species, but there are orders within orders and suborders—”

“Athena,” Phoenix says, not sure she can even hear anyone else but herself right now, “I don’t think His Honor needs this much detail.”

“Yes, do stop her,” DePlume says with a roll of her eyes.

Which makes Phoenix immediately want to change his stance and tell Athena to continue talking, but someone else gets to it first. “Let the lass go on,” Blackquill says dryly. “Don’t crush her spirit. I’ll do enough of that myself when we get to the next testimony and the sentencing.”

“—and so there’s a smaller order known as Cetaceans, that’s literally just, derived from Ancient Greek for ‘whale’. But this whales order contains two more even smaller orders, and those are toothed whales and baleen whales. Baleen whales are what you’d consider ‘true whales’, basically, like blue whales and humpback whales, and they’re probably what you think of if you were asked to picture a whale. But toothed whales include dolphins and orcas and narwhals—”

“Wait,” Phoenix says. “Narwhals aren’t giant fucked-up seals?”

Blackquill closes his eyes entirely.

“Nope! They don’t have a fin on their back, so maybe that’s why you got confused, but belugas don’t either, and they’re whales as much as narwhals are! But the short of the orca matter” - wasn’t the judge’s question about what a true whale is, not how orcas are taxonomically classified? - “is that they are actually classified within the dolphin family. Orcas are dolphins! So if you’d call a bottlenose dolphin a whale, you can call an orca a whale. They’re both the same amount of whale! Or informally you can just keep using the words ‘dolphin’ and ‘whale’ however, with no regards to which animals are genetically most similar, and people will get what you mean, because words mean what we’ve made them mean and that’s how we use them. But since you wanted to know, now you know!”

“I - yes.” The judge is slightly taken aback by her enthusiasm. “Thank you, Ms Cykes. You really have done your research for this case.”

Phoenix somehow has the feeling that she knew that long before this case.

“And yet.” Blackquill leans forward, his eyes alight and alive, a point ready to be made even off the back of something not case-relevant. “You dispute and explain the ‘whale’ part, but never once say a thing to refute the ‘killer’.”

“I - but, I—” Athena turns helplessly to Phoenix, her mouth opening and closing without any more words coming through.

“I simply cannot bear to hear more such drivel from the defense about trusting a killer,” he continues. “Can you, either, Your Baldness?”

Phoenix would’ve been thrown out of the court after bringing a bird in (or a whip, or for throwing an enchanted coffee mug across the room), or for even half of this amount of contempt for the judge - the rules have always been more lenient for prosecutors, he’s always known that, but there’s never been such a stark demonstration of it. Once this trial is over, he’ll take that up with Edgeworth. Far from the most important action to take to level the field, not by a long shot, but might as well make a note of it.

“Funny that he’s talking shit on ‘trusting a killer’,” Phoenix mutters, “when he’s the convicted killer here, asking the judge to trust his case.” He snorts, but Athena doesn’t laugh or make a sound. She stares across at Blackquill, drumming her fingers on her collarbone right next to Widget. The one to laugh is Blackquill himself, even though Phoenix was taking care that he wouldn’t be heard by anyone but Athena, to keep that from being an on-the-record statement when he’s said enough bullshit that already will be going into a transcript. (Goddamn narwhals.)

As if Blackquill wasn’t enough of an uncomfortable, inscrutable mystery. Where’s his damned bird? Taka isn’t close to Phoenix, but it isn’t right with Blackquill, either; it splits the distance, and Phoenix doesn’t know how good a hawk’s hearing is. Pretty good, he thinks. He’ll ask Kay if she knows. And Taka heard, what was his name, the tanuki from Mayor Tenma’s trial, talking to them in the lobby after, and what Taka heard got to Blackquill, got to Edgeworth. Is that how this works?

“I’ve been told I can’t take a hint,” Phoenix says, louder, and Taka circles over the room and decides to settle now on the judge’s head. “And I certainly am not going to take this hint of yours to give up, Prosecutor Blackquill, because I’ve also been told I don’t know when to quit.”

“Your self-awareness does no credit to you,” Blackquill says. “Very well. Witness, tell them what you saw, and what you heard. Deliver the fatal blow to their deluded determination.”

Back to work.

It’s touch and go, like every case, every time, just like Phoenix remembers, but they work through DePlume’s testimony, keep pressing the possibility of a human killer. Suggest that Orla was manipulated, given the command to start singing by a human culprit who wanted to draw attention to her, frame her, and create a witness. He’s pushing the bloody coin at the court as much as he shows his badge to witnesses during an investigation - and he’s not gonna stop doing the latter any time soon, not now that he’s got a new badge to be proud of because it means he survived and that’s worth announcing to everyone, right? - but the judge is coming around, surely—

And Blackquill is not; Blackquill’s a damn tricky bastard who has a blood-covered burlap bag, the exact piece of evidence Phoenix desperately wanted to find. He has the bag, he knows Phoenix wanted it for proof, but since he’s known of it since yesterday he’s had time to spin a tale that keeps Orla as the perpetrator. He’s prepared it to the point that it’s not even a bluff: he has Marlon Rimes as a witness to confirm that something happened, a loud clattering noise from the orca pool room that Blackquill argues is the moment that Orla, by pulling on a flag lying underneath them, upended four-hundred pounds of show props all precariously stacked, right down onto the victim’s head.

When Rimes said he had come here on Sasha’s behalf, because she had to stay behind with Orla - that wasn’t the full truth, clearly.

Not that Rimes is exactly happy to testify for Blackquill, either. The story is dragged out of him: he was up in the staff room around 10:10 am, roughly the time that DePlume saw Orla with the captain’s body, when he heard a crashing and peered into the room to see the props had all fallen, after they had been cleaned up neatly the prior night. “Just to clarify,” Phoenix says, already certain that Rimes is lying about the timing of this, but he wants to get the most information he can from this fake story if it might help him figure out why Rimes is lying. “You heard the sound, couldn’t go in the room because you need a security key for that” - Rimes nods - “but peeked in and couldn’t see the victim” - Rimes nods a second time - “but could see the props?”

Rimes nods a third time. “Yeah. The rest of the stuff mighta been blocking my view of the captain, but I could see a bunch of those gold coins lying all about everywhere.”

And the current running theory is that the gold coins, via bag, are the murder weapon. Phoenix has staked the case for a human culprit on those coins. “I suppose it fits as a certain tragic thematic,” Blackquill says. Phoenix braces himself for tasteless remarks. “With the pirate theme that the victim pursued for his aquarium, and consider how many pirates lost their lives in pursuit of gold. Perhaps it’s faery gold; I’ve heard that unfailingly claims lives. Or perhaps the orca wished to be compensated for her labor, and saw fit to take the matter between her own teeth.”

There it goes. There’s the cruel biting words, the nasty chuckle, Blackquill laughing with himself when no one else is. “We all deserve to be properly paid for our work, do we not? And I myself shall have a fine meal tonight.”

Several questions arise, none relevant to the case: how exactly is Blackquill paid? He’s a prisoner on death row; money isn’t exactly an issue, or worth anything, to him. Maybe he’s compensated with better food than standard prison fare. Maybe that’s what he means. Maybe it’s that and not the alarming, outlandish, prospect Phoenix can’t shake, not when Blackquill wears that cloying smirk across his face, the one that suggests he knows something more than he’s letting on, and he took the time at the beginning of the trial saying that he wanted to “carry out the sentence” - read: kill, because if Orla was guilty she’s going to be put down.

So, well, knowing Maya for as long as he has, there’s no way for him to discount the possibility that Blackquill, talking about dinner, means that he wants to kill and eat an orca.

(He’s tried for a while to figure out what it is that drives Maya’s appetite. Does she just think human food tastes better? Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around, that faery food tastes so exquisite that after having it, anything else is ashes in a human’s mouth? Is that even true? Something else to ask Thalassa. But for Maya, he’s not ever figured out whether it was just a trait she was born with, an insatiable void within that she’s driven to fill, or a way that she revels in the human world, that to get food here it’s a simple price of money, with no debt incurred, no complex magically binding rules of hospitality. Eating plastic packaging, though - the Gavins’ hellhound does the same, swallowed a whole takeout container that Phoenix offered it as a gesture of “please don’t kill me” - he’s got even less an idea.)

If this, though - this with Blackquill right here, the insinuation that might say more about Phoenix than Blackquill, about what he’s dealt with on a regular basis and how every place he turns these past two days he sees it - if this could be how he gets the answer to the “is he human or fae” question, so help him—

(If it’s anything for Blackquill, if he’s anything like Maya, then this is a thing about dominance, about being the one at the top of the food chain. About having any ounce of control over someone’s life, even if his own is out of his hands, and he on death row. Hey, is that analytical psychology? Everything that Athena refers to as “analytical psychology” means Phoenix doesn’t have a clue what it’s actually supposed to be.)

“Good to clear that up, Mr Rimes, thank you,” Phoenix says. Blackquill’s grin widens. He knows Phoenix is deliberately, consciously ignoring him. He knows that he’s gotten under his skin.

(Hell, he’s been there for months already, but more in the way of a faint itch, and now he’s plainly a knife jammed through Phoenix’s chest. Isn’t stabbing someone a way of getting under their skin, both literally and metaphorically? And he wouldn’t put it past Blackquill to stab him, literally. With magic, sure, but still.)

“Now,” Phoenix continues. “The trouble is, Mr Rimes, that there’s no way you could’ve been in the staff room at that time. Is there not a certain young woman whose acquaintance you made yesterday, in the food prep room, at this same time that you claim to have been in the staff room?”

Another thing to bring up with Edgeworth, in terms of legal reform: maybe some sort of public service announcements about the consequences of perjury? Make some informative posters to put up at bus stops and subway stations. That couldn’t hurt.

“Sasha’s under enough stress now, y’know? I didn’t want her to have to come in and testify. Figured if anyone should have to go up on the stand, it shoulda been me.”

“That’s a very…” Phoenix pinches the bridge of his nose. Very noble? Very stupid? Why not both? “Very kindly meant, thing to do, Mr Rimes, but that’s still perjury.”

“Yeah,” Athena says. “It seems like a lot of trouble to go to just so that Sasha didn’t have to come in and say yeah, she heard a noise. And now she’s got to come in anyway, and you’re in trouble too now. Why would you go to that extent?”

Why indeed.

He tells them. The calendar they thought was his, the one Pearl accidentally picked up, the one that tells them that the victim met with someone at the pool - that wasn’t his. He thinks it’s Sasha’s. He worried suspicion would fall on Sasha.

And now Phoenix is worried by that prospect, too.

He didn’t miss this part of being a lawyer, not at all. Damn all of it.

Rimes leaves to return to the aquarium, take over orca-sitting while Sasha has to testify, and that leaves Phoenix and Athena to pace around the lobby like fish swimming circles in a tank for the rest of the recess. Just waiting, helplessly, to know what horrible new revelation will come next.

Sasha’s testimony is about the same as Rimes’, except for the part where it’s actually true. Orla kicked up a fuss, DePlume started screaming, which of these happened first she doesn’t remember, because finding your boss dead in an orca tank doesn’t help one maintain a firm, linear thought process to exactly recall it later. No surprises there. Lacking any other strategy, Phoenix nitpicks and nitpicks at her testimony until even she is annoyed with it, even though he’s the lawyer she came to for help and she knew from the start that he cross-examined a parrot so she should expect that this is the strategy and the strategy is bluffing and bullshitting.

But it gets them places. It gets them information about the way the props fell over the victim, that Orla couldn’t have dragged him into the pool after they fell because that would’ve disturbed the scarf that landed on top of his body, the way that once again Phoenix’s entire theory is wrong and he’s got to dispute his own suggestion that he built this case on, the bloody coin as the murder weapon. It’s not. He disproves his own bluff that got the case to trial in the first place.

His real argument, his unwavering stance, is simply that Orla was not the killer, and against everything new they pull from Sasha, that holds true. The victim most likely fell to his death in the drained orca pool. Orla was manipulated, using one of the new tricks she’s learning, to grab the victim’s body and bring him back up to the surface. Sasha and Rimes get her to demonstrate, on the video phone, with a practice dummy. Blackquill’s case about a killer whale is losing ground, fast; Orla’s too endearing. “The whole gallery loves her!” Athena says brightly, and her voice and stance both turn smug as she adds, “And Prosecutor Blackquill’s shut right up!”

Planning a counterattack is well within the realm of possibility for why he’s silent. He might also be convincing himself that whale meat would taste nasty anyway. Or Phoenix might be terribly uncharitable, and Blackquill never intended to eat the orca. He never said it outright. He just had a look about him that didn’t seem innocent, if he’s ever seemed innocent, which Phoenix does not believe he has. Probably shouldn’t say that about a sort-of client, but here they are.

Also here they are, with the judge agreeing, ordering an investigation be done of the bottom of the orca pool, and Blackquill still sullenly silent, the trial inexorably rolling to its final conclusion, a verdict, Orla saved—

“Prosecutor Blackquill!” Fulbright makes a loud reappearance, waving a manilla envelope with one hand and with the other trying to extract a paper from the envelope, and he isn’t really doing either with any dignity. “The thing you ordered has come in.”

“Hmph.” Blackquill doesn’t raise his arm to accept the paper - finally extracted from the envelope - Fulbright offers him. He doesn’t move in any way, doesn’t make a sound or an indication of a command, and Taka alights from his shoulder, snatching the page from Fulbright, talons piercing through it, and circling up to the judge. “If you would read that out to the court, Your Baldness.”

“Ah - and what is this, exactly?” The judge slowly pulls the sheet lose, care made to avoid his hands getting close to Taka’s talons, but also to not rip the paper even further.

“An updated autopsy report,” Blackquill replies.

“God damn it!” Phoenix should not say that so loudly, and saying it out loud at any volume is too loud with Athena around, especially when he’s been over Courtroom Manners 101 with her and had the lesson basically boil down to don’t challenge the prosecution to a fistfight by the dumpsters in the back lot and don’t curse on the record. But the words escape from him anyway, like air knocked from his lungs when the prosecution roundhouse-kicked him straight in the gut. “Why now? Just when it’s going good for us—”

“During the recess, a particular thought occurred to me,” Blackquill says. He’s the one ignoring Phoenix, now, though there’s nothing smug about it, only chilly disdainful professionalism. “I asked the body to be reexamined, bearing in mind what had been nagging at me. Now.” He jerks his head to the side, directed at the judge.

“Very well.” The judge casts one last cautious glance at Taka before he allows his attention to turn to the paper. “Let’s see here… The cause of death, blunt force trauma, shown to be consistent with - with a fall? A fall of around sixty feet? But the orca pool is sixty-five feet deep! This report backs up the defense’s claims!”

Blackquill nods once.

“What?” Phoenix’s yelp is even louder this time, never mind that this is good news. It’s good news. It’s solid evidence in favor of his claim and his client. Why does it feel like someone still has a foot on his chest?

“The orca could not possibly be involved with what happened with an empty pool,” the judge says. “This autopsy report proves her complete innocence!”

“Yes,” Blackquill says, at length. Even it being his autopsy report, it takes him several seconds to finally acquise. “I suppose it does.”

Taka spreads its wings and flaps back to Blackquill’s shoulder.

“Then we did it!” Athena bounces again, her excitement bubbling over into obvious physical expression, just as her every other emotion refuses to be contained. “Prosecutor Blackquill can’t even object! He isn’t even trying! You’ve done it, Boss! You saved Orla!”

His agreement with her, they’ve done it, Orla’s safe, emerges as a sticky click from the back of his throat. Words don’t come, and another choked attempt at response is lost against the clack of the judge’s gavel. “This court finds the defendant, Ora Shipley” - right, Phoenix had entirely forgotten that Orla’s “legal” name is something different than what she’s called - “not guilty!”

An expected Objection! doesn’t follow, not from Blackquill, not from a different witness, not anyone. Beside him, Athena woops and throws her hands in the air, extended a bit toward Sasha, who pumps her fist in the air in return. “Phoenix! Athena! Thank you both so much!” She springs out from behind the witness stand and calls over to the video phone, “Hey, Marlon! Give Orla some celebratory snacks!”

“Sure thing! Congrats, Sasha!” Orla on screen is pelted by a hail of fish, catching only about half of them, like someone flung a whole bucket at her. He probably did, in fact.

The judge clears his throat, taps his gavel once. “That concludes today’s—” He taps the gavel again, raises his voice a little more. “Today’s proceedings!” Court’s never going to be officially dismissed at this rate, with the hubbub; Athena’s leaning over the bench now, grinning, saying something to Sasha, and Orla chattering loudly. She’s so caught up in the fervor, but Phoenix still waits for the other shoe to drop, always is waiting for that, and he still concentrates enough that he hears, over the sound of her and Sasha’s laughter, a low, throaty chuckle drift across the courtroom.

Then Blackquill slams his palm on the bench, and the courtroom goes quiet enough to listen to the rattle of the chain echo into silence. Athena, basically lying sprawled across the bench , pushes herself up. Sasha has frozen.

For a moment, Blackquill doesn’t move, his eyes fixed down on his hand on the bench. Then he raises his eyes up, his face alight with smug triumph. “My sincerest thanks, Wright-dono.”

“Huh?” There’s no way this goes that’s good, is there? Maybe Blackquill could surprise him, like the updated autopsy report surprised him, or maybe he’s going to have to ask Athena how many languages she knows and how to say oh fuck in all of them. (She knows German, right? He could pull double time with that, between swearing in court, and driving a few people he knows up the wall.)

“For your work in drawing out the truth.”

If Blackquill had a personal stake in wanting to know the truth behind this case, that would be one thing, but—

“Now, Fool Bright. Arrest this woman.”

“Certainly!” Fulbright throws up a jaunty salute with two fingers. He and Blackquill are the only ones moving, like they’re the only ones alive, everyone else turned to stone, unable to do anything but wait. “Sasha Buckler, you are under arrest for the murder of Jack Shipley!”

“What?” Sasha springs backwards, knocking into the bench and grabbing onto the edge of it to hold herself up.

“No! I don’t believe it!” Athena smacks both of her palms down on the bench, pushing herself up entirely off of her feet, suspending herself in an attempt to be taller.

The shoe dropped. “For what reason—”

Blackquill cuts him off before he finishes asking the question. “Come now. You must have had some idea in your sorry sad head that this would be the outcome. The drained pool in the orca room accessible only by key card - the orca being framed with its show commands. Who else had access and ability to be on the scene and properly manipulate the orca? She and the victim are the only two who participate in the training and commanding of the orca, and her security card, last night, had the last recorded usage until the body was discovered yesterday morning.”

“Yesterday, we requested security card logs from the company that handles them,” Fulbright says. “Apparently, the aquarium employees don’t know the card usage is tracked. Come along now, Ms Buckler. It’s time we have a nice long chat down at the station.”

Card usage records, think Phoenix think; he’s run up against this kind of thing at least once before. What are all his theories and bluffs to get around that? If employees didn’t know that their ins and outs were recorded, someone who had their own card would probably use it, but a culprit who didn’t have a card would still have to steal it, even if they didn’t know they could frame someone that way.

Objecting at this point won’t stop what’s in motion. Fulbright takes Sasha by the upper arm, escorting her away, and she follows in a dazed trace. But Phoenix is not going to not object, if he sees any way to, and Sasha is his client about as much as Orla is, and Athena is indignant and seething beside him. “Why would Ms Buckler have come to us for help with Orla’s case if she intended to frame Orla?” he demands. “Why wouldn’t she just let Orla be blamed and escape the scrutiny?”

Blackquill snorts. “She’s quite the performer, acting the part of such a worried girl concerned for the life of her friend. Perhaps she thought to even better sell her concern this way, knowing all the while with a witness, the margins of victory were quite slim for you. I of course suspected her from the start. That the orca may have been a malicious killer, or may have been a pawn and victim herself of someone so heartless as to place the blame upon the unwitting - I considered both possibilities.”

Phoenix should have figured something was up, that he had another culprit ready to blame, when the update to the autopsy report arrived. If Blackquill ordered the body reexamined for - what, exactly? The differing patterns of blunt force trauma for being slammed by an orca against glass versus falling a long distance? Squish versus splat? - then did he expect that the defense was going to find that angle? If he wanted the examiners to specifically consider falling, then that meant he realized Orla was innocent. And if she was innocent, then he could just switch targets. He was waiting for this since they put Sasha on the stand.

He had unwitting pawns of his own.

“I really must thank you again.” Blackquill is undeniably enjoying rubbing salt into the wound. “I surely could not have done this without your assistance. After all, you were the one who put the witness so at ease as to bring forth the information about the orca’s lifesaver trick.”

This is not the kind of defense-prosecution collaboration that Phoenix signed up for.

“Wait - wait!” Sasha wakes to the reality of her situation, snaps out of the confused daze the accusation put her in, and starts dragging her feet, not slowing hers and Fulbright’s trajectory out of the courtroom in any way, but succeeding at making a horrible squealing noise of her shoes on the polished courtroom floor. “I didn’t kill the captain! I would never do anything that would hurt Orla! I - oof!” Fulbright seems about two seconds from lifting her off the ground and simply hauling her from the courtroom that way. “Please! Phoenix! Athena! I—”

Her voice fades and a door slams.

“Sasha—” Athena has her feet back solidly on the ground, her hands still pressed against the bench, fingers curled under her palms to form trembling fists. She doesn’t speak again, doesn’t move again. Even once the judge has adjourned the court - this is Orla’s trial, after all, and she is resoundingly innocent - she remains still, her eyes fixed blankly out into space. Phoenix has to tap her on the shoulder to get her moving, and even then, when she does, she walks with the same slow cadence that Sasha did as she tried to figure out what was happening. Widget is still lit up, displaying its sad purple-bluish face, but Athena might as well have shut herself off.

“What a horrible end to a trial,” Trucy says, shaking her head. They’re already in the lobby waiting, she and Apollo and Pearl, all serious and solemn and surprisingly quiet. “It was going so good! I was so excited for you both! And then—!”

“She didn’t do it!” Athena blurts. Widget snaps to red. “I believe that with my whole heart, I know it, Sasha didn’t do it! Her voice and her heart were both saying the exact same thing, that she didn’t! And no one listened!” Her anger teeters on the edge of tears. “The whole court should’ve listened and no one - no one—”

“Well, obviously you listened,” Apollo says. He looks pretty uncomfortable with her distress, drawing himself back, his arms tightly folded together, but as he speaks, Athena’s body snaps up straight, her head level again, eyes wide, like she was just doused in cold water to finally wake her.

“I - Boss!” She spins around to face Phoenix. “Boss, we have to defend Sasha! We have to get to the detention center to see her, right now! Right now!”

“The police aren’t even going to be back at the detention center yet,” Phoenix says. “They do have to drive there, you know. It’s not like it’s - wormholes or anything.” He deliberately goes for a word far from fae connotations, far from something that will give Pearl, Athena, or Trucy any ideas. “We’ll go back to the office and regroup, figure out how we approach today’s investigation at the aquarium, and we’ll go there—”

“But you’re going to be defending Sasha too, right, Boss?” Athena demands. “If you’re not, then - then I - and—” She looks to Apollo and Trucy, her words all tangled up, but the intent clear: she’ll do it with or without him.

“Of course I will be,” Phoenix says. “But the police will be interrogating her for a while, probably, so we should do some investigating first, so we’re not just waiting around at the detention center, and so we can have something actually helpful to tell her, because…” He drags a hand through his hair. It’s the way this always goes, the up-and-down trajectory where after every crescendo there’s a further place to fall, and if he ever proves innocence in one matter for certain, something else waits in the wings to tell him he lost a different round he didn’t know he was playing.

“Because what, Daddy?” Trucy asks. “You think she’s going to want a different lawyer? You proved Orla didn’t do it! She sounded really grateful to you and Athena! Of course she’d want you as her lawyer!”

“I should’ve seen this coming,” Phoenix says. That’s the trouble: Blackquill said he must surely have had some idea of how this would end, and he did, and he pushed it away, and it caught up to him. “And figured out - some way around it, asked Sasha what her alibi was and what she was doing because if we were proving a human culprit then of course the prosecution could turn it around to—”

“But how could you have seen that coming?” Athena glares at him like he’s a lying witness on the stand, and she, ready to tear him apart verbally and physically. “That Prosecutor Blackquill would - ugh! Prosecutor Blackquill.” She says his name like a curse, the tone that Maya always used on Edgeworth’s name at the beginning. (Then he stopped being such a pain in the ass and became their friend and she stopped using his name at all.)

“How could you have even thought to ask Ms Buckler those questions?” Trucy says. “Like ‘hey you were the only one to use the security key in the past 12 hours right’? Or ‘did you leak any of your top-secret orca whistle patterns to anyone else’ or ‘how do we break into police files to get the full security camera footage’ or—”

“I get it, Truce,” Phoenix says. She squints doubtfully at him. “No, I do, really. But the thing is—”

She rolls her eyes and turns silently to Apollo, the obvious sentiment conveyed that this further objection is him further not actually getting it, and Apollo snorts, and Phoenix’s heart clenches up with a vice around it that they’ve only had a year and not a lifetime to perfect their silent, condescending, sibling communication and they don’t even know that’s what this is. It’s the same way Edgeworth and Franziska can cast the briefest glance at each other but convey three levels of disdain and mockery and coordinate a savage teardown of whatever sorry fool has earned their ire—

Where was his original thought going?

“The thing is - this happens all the time, to me, with my cases. Where everything I do to prove my client innocent just further pushes them, or someone else they love, closer to drowning. Just makes it worse.” Edgeworth’s new confession, an accusation against Ema. A last accusation against Maya, her own mother. Phoenix’s own badge because he tried too hard to save someone with it. Just the highlight reel. “And it’s kind of horribly crushing every time. I didn’t want you to have to go through that, Athena.” Look how badly it affected her. She asked him something like that back when they first met, didn’t she: what happens if no one listens to you? And here it went, and hurt her badly.

All four of the kids stare at him, unblinking, confused. “But then you would’ve had to defend and investigate all on your own!” Athena protests. “And - and then you’d have no one to share the crushing despair with!”

“I don’t want to share that,” Phoenix interrupts. “I’m pretty sure I’m cursed.” And like the other ways he’s cursed, he’s afraid that sooner or later it will take one of his kids as victim. Less horrible than Death catching up to them, of course, but still. He’s put them all through enough.

Pearl studies him intently, chewing at her thumbnail again. She concentrates hard enough that her glamour starts slipping from her eyes, turning them red. “I don’t see anything,” she says. “I mean, Misfortune could do it, but you only got that when you stopped being a lawyer.”

Apollo recoils. He knows exactly where that one came from.

“But your win record is still kickass!” Athena punches her fist into her opposite palm. “So even if it happens you still pull it off! And I want to learn how to do that! From Apollo and from you, too!” In his logical, detached brain, he can keep a good distance from her, and then when she’s staring him in the face reminding him of why he became a lawyer and the good things he’s done - it’s that much harder. “C’mon, if we’re going to the office we’d better go now! We’ve got investigation to do!”

“You know,” Pearl says as they head for Athena’s car, “you sure do know a lot about orcas. And I didn’t get to learn much about Orla at the aquarium, unfortunately, and I know she’s not the point of contention in court anymore—”

“Do you want me to tell you more orca facts?” Athena interrupts. As though she honestly needs the excuse that Pearl was going to offer her, of teaching them things they can use in court to defend Orla. Pearl nods.

On the drive back to the office, Phoenix gets the other front seat, and Apollo, Trucy, and Pearl squish themselves into the back. Athena chatters animatedly to the rearview mirror the whole time.

“Was there something you wanted to say to me, Athena? Or show me? That’s a very large book you have, there.”

“...Junie brought it to me from the school library. Since I haven’t been able to go in lately.”

“She did? That’s very kind of her. And what is it - An Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals. Very nice.”

“Mhm. I’m nearly done reading it.”

“You’re reading the whole thing? Cover to cover?”

“Don’t you do that with books? Um… being a lawyer is a lot of reading, isn’t it? You should read it all. To make sure that you don’t catch an innocent person by mistake.”

“I do, don’t worry. I wouldn’t want any person sent to the gallows for something they didn’t do.”

“Then why don’t you read whole books?”

“I don’t read entire encyclopedias. You know, a lot of libraries don’t let you take them home with you at all. You just look up what you want to know while you’re there.”

“But I want to know everything that’s in this encyclopedia.”

“Well, then I suppose you know better than I and I shouldn’t be telling you what to do, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Do you want to hear something I’ve learned so far? Um, since you’re always taking time to, to teach me what you’re learning.”

“I’ve heard it said, and found it myself to be true, that by teaching something you learn it better yourself, too. It helps us both that way. It’s very efficient. Go ahead, tell me something about marine mammals.”

“I’ll try and find something you wouldn’t already know.”

“I’m a law and psychology student, not a marine biologist. I don’t know anything. How about you tell me about - penguins?”

“Birds aren’t mammals, silly! But I can tell you about orcas. They’re black and white like you and penguins are, too! They’re the largest member of the dolphin family - they’re not whales at all!”

“Killer whales aren’t whales?”

“Nope! And the ‘killer’ part, is because sailors would observe them hunting and killing baleen whales, and they were first known as ‘whale killers’ and then that got flipped, somehow. And now people tend to think of them as vicious killers, but they aren’t! Wild orcas have never killed a human! They’re just strong and hungry.”

“That they gained that reputation is unfortunate but not surprising. Humans have that tendency to fear what they don’t understand, and to not bother understanding so much of the world around them. To presume that their impressions of the world constitute its one objective truth.”

“...”

“I’m sorry. The cases I’ve been studying lately have me pondering this sort of matter quite a bit, lately. This and worse.”

“Do you want to talk about those? That might make you feel better?”

“...how about you explain to me what a ‘baleen whale’ is.”

“They don’t have teeth - they’re the ones like humpback and blue whales that have, like, bristles in their mouth that they filter in plankton through. That’s what baleen is! It looks sort of like my hairbrush over there.”

“Speaking of, you certainly don’t look like you brushed your hair at all today.”

“No? I… Mom’s been busy all day working, and I was busy reading so I didn’t think I…”

“How about I go get it and fix your hair so that you look presentable, and you tell me more about orcas.”

“I look fine!”

“You look like it was arranged by nesting birds looking to make a comfortable place to raise their young.”

“Pbbbbft! Oh, but did you know that orcas are one of the only species of mammal besides humans and other primates that undergo menopause? Female orcas who can no longer have babies stick around to help raise other babies and take charge of the group. Different populations of orca tend to live in different-sized pods but for most of them, the babies even once grown up don’t leave on their own and instead they’ll stay with their moms for their whole lives—”

#roddy fanfics #fic: the witches of los angeles

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amosbarot · 6 years ago

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( cismale ) haven’t seen AMOS BAROT around in a while. the DEV PATEL lookalike has been known to be (+) INSOUCIANT & (+) KEEN, but HE can also be (-) TROUBLED & (-) DERISIVE. The 24 year old is a SENIOR majoring in COMPUTER ENGINEERING. I believe they’re living in AUDAX but I popped by earlier and no one answered the door. ( james. 20. EST. she/they. )

hello !! here is my other baby, who is...somehow, more of a mess than naeva !! no dilly dally, let’s jump right into it !!

TW: drug addiction/abuse, car accident. mental illness.

a e s t h e t i c s ( except i am a sham of a person and sorta very much forgot to save my aesthetics so ! winging it ! )

floral suits and a light air of mock-arrogance, charming smiles and a mischievous glint, easy sarcasm and raised eyebrows. rolling joints resembling cigars, smoke drifting towards ceilings as conspiratorial rambles escape intoxicated lips, wild gestures and toppled book stacks, four expresso shots at the stroke of midnight and equations leading off whiteboards. heavy eye bags and warm smiles, dismissive words and excuses. sleepwalking to the middle of the quad for the third time that week, donning white boxers littered with red hearts...again. secret glances and barely contained excitement, distractions from the obvious.

general info !!

full name: amos ronak barot

nickname(s): n/a !!

b.o.d. - january 17th, 24 yrs old, capricorn

label(s): the academic, the ebullient, the fallen, the icarcian.

height: 6′2″

hometown: london, uk ooo fancy

sexuality: wildly. chaotically. bisexual.

his stats can be found HERE

and his pinterest can be found HERE !

biography

introducing...another one of indira’s cousins !!!!

born to olena barot, member of the american embassy in london/future U.S. ambassador to the UK and ronak barot, CEO of his very own computer company. needless to say, he and his younger sister alya were born into a certain wealth

they hopped between the US and the UK and wherever else they desired to go on vacation to with ease; UK for school and US for breaks, rome or paris or wherever else, simply whenever.

despite this though !! olena and ronak had always wanted their children to find their own success, to be financially stable without their assistance once they got older. therefore, it was a known fact in their household that they’d be cut off financially by the time they were 21.

luckily, neither of them really minded this? both children had always had an extreme thirst for knowledge and a wonder for things. even so--their childhood wasn’t quite typical, as their competitive natures led to them trying to one-up each other?

alya and amos grew up extremely close to each other, being so close in age it really didn’t feel as if she was the younger sibling; they were more like twins than anything. obviously, amos still gloated about being the eldest, but their bond was tight.

there were moments in their childhood where if anybody, and i mean anybody--spoke ill of alya, amos would get into physical alterations. he’s much more peaceful now, but the history is still there.

by the time amos entered sixth form, his studies were--while still very important to him--less frequent. he’d go out nearly every night, gone whole weekends, partying or being a general hooligan.

alya, however, did not partake in these activities. this is where they differed--amos had always been an extrovert, fond of crowds and people and being in the center of it all. causing ruckus. wrecking havoc. alya’s always been...reserved, in the best way possible. few knew just what a gem she was, but she really was to be treasured. even so--the less time amos seemed to spend at home, the more distant alya became towards him.

but, surprise: despite being literally, incredibly smart, amos got BIG DUMBASS ENERGY and was very very oblivious to the why and how of this. which really, really did not help.

unfortunately, there wasn’t any time to dwell about this.

around the same time, tragedy struck the barot family.

after one of his lil’ runabouts, amos came home to find furniture being escorted out of their house, police--his sister crying, his mother ashamed, his father nowhere to be found.

and soon after, amos found out that his father was arrested for a scandal that sent many into a tizzy. essentially: the company fucked over their own customers via stealing their info, committing some fraud, y’know, credit cards and social security numbers, sellin’ it. just. some nasty white collar crime.

it also wound up fucking up olena’s newly acquired position as the US ambassador for the UK. she was released from the embassy during ronak’s trials.

he ultimately wound up in prison, and olena moved their family back to the U.S.

and amos--being the big dumb baby he is, figured the best thing to do was to pretend it hadn’t bothered him one bit! so he did exactly that!

i imagine that they moved close to indira’s family, and amos spent a lot of time with her from there then.

however, in between pretending things were fine and dandy, and home life, and the drag and pull of parties, anxiety weighed down amos’ bones like...constantly. his family was now, essentially, poor with a mass debt thanks to their father. the expectations for amos to do good, to be better--the fall of amos’ biggest role model.

it was all too much. anxiety attacks became frequent, provoked by the slightest thing--he could only lay awake at night, sleep infrequent. he was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and insomnia, and treated for both--some days it still doesn’t feel like enough.

getting a scholarship to lockwood is probably the best thing to happen to him in a long time. it was a new look into a potential future.

got into the uh...career, of sorts, of doing people’s assignments for them for a hefty payment, alongside his normal job. just to make sure he had spending money and whatnot.

involving tatiana: their friendship bloomed after he did a few assignments for her, y’see--then came the midnight adventures, and whatnot. i wouldn’t have called them close by any means, but they had fun together when they weren’t arguing. their friendship ended after a pretty bad car accident--neither were fatally hurt, but the car was wrecked and it was amos’ fault and it just. sorta was the end of that.

he’s got a...reliability on his sleeping pills, if you will. it’s not healthy in the slightest, but he’s convinced it’s nothing serious. it’s pretty serious.

his eyesight is also getting worse--expected to become legally blind by the time he’s forty.

more on those l8r

personality

there’s a lot of words you can use to describe amos! pretentious, sarcastic, provoking, hardly ever serious, immature, petty, Just Like That, full of himself, smartass, big dumbass energy. y’know. just an infinite amount.

he can be so dramatic! everything he does is exaggerated. he rolls cigar-sized joints at every party. goes around with a horrible ‘20s mobster voice, voicing his lil’ conspiracies.

it’s both hard and very easy to forget that amos graduated as valedictorian of his high school (stealing it, from somebody else--i should mention, as he came in halfway thru the year and kinda just. snatched the title.) because he can be a real idiot sometimes.

because he tries to hard to mask his insecurities, he overcompensates with just. being childish. he’s fun to be around but sometimes he can just be. exhausting.

so like, he went into computer engineering because that was just sorta what he always wanted to do? besides programming? he really wanted to take after his father--but with him being in jail and whatnot, kinda puts a damper to that dream. still, he can’t stop.

so he’s just. really good with computers tbh?? built his own, programmed his own firewall. his dream is to open his own cybersecurity company.

VERY STRESSED LIKE CONSTANTLY like catch him in the library with six empty coffee cups surrounding his work, it’s 2am--he hasn’t slept, in fact his eyes are likely taped opened. he works a lot.

but parties...a lot more! he tries rly hard to not mix his medication with anything so that leads to him...not always taking it, or overcompensating when he misses. it’s a mess. he’s a mess. he thinks he knows what he’s doing but he’s NOT.

i think...i’d consider him lovable. he’s a lil eccentric, a lil high energy.

LOVES HIS FAMILY. like, listen. he still loves his dad. would protect his cousins and sister and mother with his mf life.

alya and him aren’t on the...best terms rn. so that Hurts.

he can be really petty tbh ?? like he can’t take arguments seriously so he just becomes this fucking manchild. he will mimic u. he’ll mock u. he can be hurtful.

god...i don’t even know what else to say. just take him TAKE HIM

wanted connections

as always, i am a big slut for every connection.

give him his Lads. his buds. his pals. his broskis. his bromances.

ride or die(s)

people he tutors !! people whose work he does for them !!

somebody who goes to him b/c of computer troubles n he’s just like...r u going to pay me or nah

high school friends??

party pals??

his sister may become a WC in the future but idk quite yet, we do stan her though !!

drug dealer pls n thank

ex friends ?? fake friends ?? toxic friends ??

bad influences ?? good influences ??

hook ups ?? like a lot of ‘em ??

confidante ?? just somebody he can. rant to.

academic rival just b/c i really love intense study-offs

enemies for whatever reason ??

exes ??

particularly this one ex he was really, really in love w/ but life just got really stressful and idk it affected their relationship and they sorta just. ended it. idk who ended it w/ who but it probably wasn’t mutual and he’s probably really still hung up about it.

i mean i’ll take...anything...did they run into each other once and now just see each other everywhere??

unrequited things??

really cute close friendships??

#water:intro #hi it takes me fifty years to do things but i DID IT

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thisdiscontentedwinter · 6 years ago

Text

Stella and the Wolf - Chapter 5

You can read it here on AO3, or find the Tumblr Chapter Index here.

Stiles finds himself thinking about Derek Hale more than he should, if only for the sake of his own sanity. In the three days since the incident at Deaton’s clinic with the bone saw, Stiles hasn’t seen hide nor hair—pun absolutely intended—of his unfriendly neighbourhood werewolf. And as much as Stiles attempts to stay ambivalent about Derek Hale, he can’t quite manage it. He’s worried, okay? What if the Alpha’s killed him? What if the Argents have? Would anyone even notice he was gone except for Stiles? And that’s not Stiles trying to insert himself into Derek’s life or anything, or make himself a part of Derek’s story—it’s like a legitimate fucking judgement call on how depressing Derek’s existence is if Stiles Stilinski is the only person who’s thinking about him.

Well, almost the only person.

Stiles doesn’t miss the way that Stella scans the roadside when Stiles is driving, like she’s hoping Derek will just stumble out in front of the Jeep and into their lives again.

And, as much as Stiles doesn’t need the complication in his life, maybe a part of him is hoping it too.

It doesn’t happen.

Days pass.

Dad is back on day shifts now, so that means a return to family breakfasts and dinners. Stiles likes it when Dad’s on days. Sometimes it feels like they communicate entirely with text messages and notes stuck on the refrigerator, or the faint Morse Code of Dad’s footsteps creaking on the stairs when he’s leaving for work late at night, or coming home again just before dawn. It’s weird, Stiles thinks, to miss someone you share a house with.

Stella, of course, makes up for lost time by filling Dad in on every single thing he’s missed while he’s been on graveyard shifts.

“And,” she says that night at dinner, barely pausing to shovel her mashed potatoes in her mouth, “I’m in the Reading in the Community program!”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Dad chides her gently.

She chews and swallows. “I’m in the Reading in the Community program. It’s only for the best readers. I’m the best reader in our whole class.”

“I’ll bet you are,” Dad says. “What’s the Reading in the Community program?”

“You have to sign a form,” Stella tells him. “We go to the old people’s home and the hospital and we read to people.”

Stiles makes a face. He literally can’t imagine anything worse than being a captive audience to a bunch of little kids stumbling over their words.

Dad gives him a look that says, Son, you’re right, but keep your mouth zipped.

Stiles gets that look a lot from Dad, actually.

“I’m going to read Matilda,” Stella says. “So you need to sign the form. Oh, and I need to buy a birthday present for Faith, because I’m going to her birthday sleepover soon. I need money for two presents.”

“Who gets two birthday presents?” Dad asks, his forehead creasing.

“Faith and her twin brother,” Stella says. “Duh.”

Stiles snorts at the look on Dad’s face.

“Makes sense,” Dad says, and then he grins and says, teasingly, “So, has Stiles been letting any more werewolves in the house?”

Stiles freezes.

Seriously? What is his life, even?

“No!” Stella exclaims, wide-eyed, and then clamps her mouth shut.

Dad throws a questioning look at Stiles, like he’s wondering why Stella’s not playing along.

Stiles answers with a shrug.

Little kids, right, Dad? Weird.

“So,” Stiles says, anxious to change the subject, “I got a B on yesterday’s chemistry pop quiz.”

Dad raises his eyebrows. “Good job, kiddo.”

“It would have been an A, except Harris said some of my answers were illegible,” Stiles says. “Which is bullsh—bullcrap, by the way!”

“Stiles,” Dad says with a sigh. “Language.”

“I saved it!” Stiles insists.

“You were going to say bullshit,” Stella tells him, and then turns to Dad. “It’s not rude if I’m not using it as a swear! I’m just saying what he was going to say.”

“It’s still a swear,” Dad says, shaking his head. “You two. Jesus.”

“And that’s a blasphemy,” Stiles says smugly.

Dad snorts. “Yeah, well, we don’t have a blasphemy jar.”

“Maybe we should,” Stiles says, poking his fork towards Dad. “You’d owe it twenty bucks in a week!”

“Which is why we don’t have a blasphemy jar,” Dad tells him. “Now, hurry up and finish your dinner, both of you. I saw that ice cream in the freezer, and it’s got my name on it.”

Stella gasps, and shovels her mashed potatoes in like it’s a race. Stiles wishes he could say that he finishes his meal much more slowly, but who is he kidding? There’s ice cream on the line.

***

Stiles wakes up with a start as his window screeches open and a dark shape steps inside.

“Derek?” he asks, his voice scratchy with sleep.

A grunt is his only answer, and probably the only one he needs. A home invader would be more forthcoming, right?

Stiles throws his comforter back and rolls out of bed, ending up more or less on his feet. He squints at the Derek-shaped form by the window. “My dad’s home.”

“I know.” Derek is as loquacious as always, his voice pinched with customary tension.

“Okay…” Stiles scrubs his fingers through his hair, and squints again. Then, since his zoom function is clearly broken, he shuffles forward in an attempt to bring Derek into focus instead. “What do you want?”

“I,” Derek begins, and then just stops. And stays stopped.

Stiles takes another step forward. Derek is a silhouette in the moonlight. “What’s going on?”

He’s close enough to touch, so of course Derek takes a step sideways. He hip-checks Stiles’s desk, bumping it hard enough that Stiles’s computer monitor blinks into life, bathing the room in a light blue glow.

Derek’s holding a hand against his abdomen. There’s a black stain spreading from underneath his palm, like ink in blotting paper.

Stiles’ s heart stumbles over a beat. “What happened? Did you get shot again?”

“Stabbed,” Derek mutters.

“Oh, mixing it up. That’s good.” Stiles fights not to laugh at the ludicrous tragedy of Derek’s existence. “Do you need like special wolfsbane or something?”

“No.” Such a short, curt word, but it sounds somehow soft. It sounds like the loneliest word in the universe. “It’s healing.”

Stiles lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“They’re looking for me.” Derek says. “Hunters. I couldn’t go back to my house.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. What is Derek’s life that Stiles’s house is his only port in a storm? His chest aches just thinking about it, and he swallows. “I mean, I’d say you could have a shower, but that might wake Dad. I’ll go get you a washcloth, okay? And you can grab a clean shirt or something. Just wait here.”

“Okay,” Derek says softly as Stiles shuffles toward the door. And then, so quietly that Stiles barely even hears him: “Thank you.”

It makes his stomach twist.

***

Stiles wakes up when the alarm on his phone goes off. He rolls over onto his side so that he can reach his bedside table. He fumbles for his phone and shuts the alarm off just as Dad knocks on the door. Then his gaze drops to the floor, and to where Derek Hale is lying there, staring at him.

“Kiddo?” Dad calls. “Breakfast!”

“Don’t come in here!” Stiles yells back. “I’m, um—I’m—I’m jerking off!”

And realizes, a second too late, what words just fell out of him. He freezes, and drops his phone with a dull thunk onto Derek’s face.

What the fuck? Derek mouths at him, and Stiles doesn’t think it’s for the phone.

“Too much information, Stiles,” Dad says in a long-suffering tone from outside the door, and then his footsteps tread down the hall.

Stiles reaches down very slowly to reclaim his phone from where it’s ended up beside Derek’s head. Derek expression grows impossibly sour when Stiles’s fingers brush his jaw.

“What?” Stiles whispers down at him. “You know I wasn’t! These fingers are clean, dude. You’re not going to get Stiles cooties!”

Derek glares at him.

Stiles retrieves his phone. “Anyway, Dad will be going to work soon, so if you want to hang around for breakfast you can or whatever.”

Derek’s expressions softens into something slightly less than glacial.

Stiles takes that as a yes.

“Okay,” he says, not thinking about Derek thinking about him jerking off. Definitely not. Because that would be awkward. “Breakfast.”

Stiles rolls out of bed—the non-Derek side—and closes his door when he leaves his room. Downstairs, Dad is finishing off his coffee while he tries to tame Stella’s hair into a braid. There’s a half-eaten piece of toast on his plate, and Stiles reaches for it only to get his hand slapped away.

“Wash your hands before you eat,” Dad tells him.

Stiles’s face burns. “Oh. Right.”

“Are you good to get Stella to school?”

“Yup,” Stiles says, crossing to the sink and grabbing the hand soap. “And good to pick her up too.”

“Okay.” Dad finishes off Stella’s braid. It’s a little lopsided, but he was mostly working one-handed and juggling his coffee at the same time. He stands up, and then bends down to give Stella a kiss on the forehead. “Be good for your brother.”

“I always am,” she lies blatantly.

Dad pulls Stiles into a hug. “And be good to your sister. I’ll be home by five, if nothing comes up, but I’ll text you if anything does.”

“Gotcha,” Stiles say. “We’ll see you then.”

Stiles waits until Dad leaves and he hears the cruiser heading down the street before he turns to Stella. “We need to make some more breakfast.”

Stella stares at the pan of scrambled eggs. “Why?”

“Because I told Derek he could have some.”

“Derek’s here?” Her face lights up like it’s Christmas.

And that must be the signal Derek’s waiting for, because he steps into the kitchen looking almost shy.

“Derek! Stella exclaims, and rushes forward to wrap her arms around him. “You’re here, and you’re not dead!”

Derek looks at Stiles.

“Little sisters, dude,” he says, and shrugs.

“Yeah, I know.” Derek pats Stella gently on the back, and breaks Stiles’s gaze. “I had one.”

Shit. Of course he did. Was it eight people that died in the Hale house fire? Stiles doesn’t really remember. But Cora Hale was in the year above him at school. He remembers dark hair and a glare as intimidating as Derek’s. She was older than him, and a bit scary. Weird to look back now and realise she was just a little girl. Weird to think that’s all she ever got to be.

“So,” Stiles says, pushing the word out, “you like scrambled eggs, right?”

“Yeah.” The side of Derek’s mouth quirks briefly. “I like scrambled eggs.”

***

The answer, Stiles thinks as he watches Stella shovel more eggs onto Derek’s plate, isn’t to pretend Derek Hale and werewolves don’t exist.

The answer isn’t to sit back and do nothing.

The answer is to help Derek.

Because Stiles is already in danger, isn’t he? The whole town is, including Dad and Stella. And Scott’s already tried hard enough to pretend nothing is happening, and that suddenly being turned into a werewolf is totally not going to change anything, but Scott’s wrong. Scott’s already in danger too.

And so is Derek.

And Derek isn’t someone Stiles can pretend doesn’t matter, or doesn’t exist at all.

Derek is a guy who needs help, and he has nobody else to help him.

He watches as Stella pulls her chair up right next to Derek’s so they can eat together, and sees how Derek makes room for her, his mouth twitching.

He watches as Stella drowns her eggs in ketchup, and Derek wrinkles his nose in disgust.

He watches as Stella laughs and elbows him, and Derek shows her a genuine fucking smile.

He thinks of how he promised Stella someone would always look after her, and wonders if Derek ever heard the same promise from the people who loved him.

A knot tightens in Stiles’s chest.

Yeah.

Derek Hale needs someone, and Stiles guesses he’s just volunteered.

#sterek #Stella and the Wolf #my fics #discontentedwinter

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deathnoting · 7 years ago

Text

abecedarian (5/26)

some more lxb bullshit. :-)

previous parts: a b c d

e. ego death (c. 1988)

—

Winter thins the forest. The sodden ground sticks to their boots, muddied tracks chase each other across Sara Petrova’s freshly polished floors, and even at the peak of the day the light is milky and halfhearted.

L and Q make a trip to Lisbon. B, finding the door to the attic staircase locked, climbs the oak that guards the house and, from a precariously dipping branch, clobbers the latch on the highest window and pulls himself in with a hand braced on the sill and his bare feet scrabbling against the brick facade. The room smells like bergamot and stale air, and it becomes his chapel.

He tries on the clothes L left behind, sleeps in his unlaundered sheets, and inhales him out of the atmosphere. There are open case files everywhere, empty tea cups and sticky saucers, a trail of ants patrolling the perimeter, a moth that emerges when the lights turn on and disappears when they turn off. Books by authors that B has seen spoken of in other books with casual familiarity, as if such people are universal and everybody is born knowing about them. There’s a cassette player and a VHS, both shrinking under a layer of dust, and a desk with too many drawers, full of manilla folders, dried out pens, and abandoned science projects. The only window is the one B had come in through.

L’s mirror, shy from disuse, brightens up when it sees B looking right into it. He sucks in his cheeks and cuts his hair with a pair of craft scissors, hunches and blinks and tucks his knees to his chin. He reads every word on every page in the entire room, and only comes out for meals and lessons.

A says, when he sees him, “You look,”—and doesn’t finish.

B says, “I’m better at this than you are.”

A blinks. “I’m fine with that.”

—

Sarah Hyde destroys L’s floor with her vacuum cleaner, violates his bed with a fresh pair of linens, and props open the window so that his recycled oxygen escapes. B makes circles through the room, trying to find some relic to preserve, a crusted wad of hair or stray bacterium, something small and precious of L’s that he can use to keep them connected. He finds a crumpled handful of candy wrappers behind the desk and an unmatched sock under the bed. He spends a lot of time under the bed, camped out with a book and flashlight, toast and jam, essay drafts sticky with fingerprints. He notches his name into the solid wood of the frame with a penknife he’d stolen from the groundskeeper and, over the course of the next two months, accumulates: two pillows, a change of shoes, six books—four read, two unread—a kitchen knife, a Swiss Army knife, seven matchbooks, and a pair of R’s reading glasses.

By the time L returns, thinner, less reactive, and the subject of headlines in almost every major newspaper in Portugal and a few outside of it, B has made himself a nest.

The homecoming is not announced. One evening the car with the tinted windows just reappears in the drive. A wheeled suitcase rolls through the hallways, thuds up the stairs, and stops behind the attic door. B watches from the slit between where the quilt ends and the floor begins as L toes off his shoes, turns on his desk lamp, powers up his computer, and opens up a box of fudge. He listens to his fingers on the keys and his pen against paper. He watches his toes slide in between one another, curling into the cushion of his chair. He listens to him sigh and sniff and cough.

When the light goes off and the mattress dips above him, B counts to one hundred and fifty-six—a number he saved for good luck after he saw it on the license plate of a truck R almost collided with when taking them into town for winter clothes—and then crawls on his stomach to the edge of the bed, slides his arm up between the sheets until he can feel warmth radiating, and brushes his fingertips along the sole of L’s foot.

The jolt is instant, but the reaction is slower. He feels the shift as L sits up in bed, hears his breath come more heavily. Tremble of his hands as he switches the bedside lamp on. Metal fixtures clattering against one another. He listens to L listen for him. He hopes his smile is not too loud.

Eventually, L turns the light off and lies back down.

B does it again, after another one hundred and fifty-six seconds, though L’s prepared this time, jumping after B as soon as the touch connects, scrabbling for his hand and catching him momentarily by the wrist only to lose him in the shuffle of bedclothes. B doesn’t mind being caught, likes it even. L’s fear makes the whole room hot. Every movement he makes is loud in the dark. He wracks the floor with his footsteps, energy coiled tight in the balls of his feet, palms of his hands. B takes a swipe at his toe, teasing him.

He does not expect the weight of the grip on his arm, nor the bullying force with which he’s pulled out and dropped face-forward on the ground, and especially not whatever thuds twice, with punishing bulk, into the back of his head.

He feels the blood hot on his scalp, tastes the sulfuric grit of resurrection on his tongue. He doesn’t think he dies all the way but he comes close enough that if he were anybody else he’d need to go to hospital. His thoughts blur then sharpen to dizzying effect. It hurts but he enjoys it, because it is L who hit him, L who turns on the lamp again with his shaky hands, L who is standing over him holding a cricket bat.

“Oh,” he says, blinking down at what could have been B’s corpse.

B smiles blearily up at him. “I didn’t know you played.”

“Huh? I don’t. It’s for,”—he mimes what he’d just done to B for a moment, then freezes mid-motion, appearing to think better of it. “I—I need to call someone. I need to—Wammy will know what to do.” He looks at the door but doesn’t move. He hasn’t put down the bat.

B sits up. “It’s fine.” Blood drips down his forehead and over his brow. He slicks it back hurriedly, almost shyly. “I’m fine.”

“You’re definitely concussed. Probably you’ve got cerebral contusions, which could lead to hemorrhaging if you don’t,”—

“You’re worried about me?”

L stops mid-sentence, swallows, and leans back on his heels. “I’m inevitably going to be a household name one day, and I don’t want it coming out later that I killed one of my classmates in childhood.”

He’s ruthless. B’s tickled. He reassures him: “It’s okay. I’m unkillable.”

L’s nostrils flare. He looks like he believes that more than he’d liked to. He drops to his knees beside B, parts his hair from his scalp with unsympathetic roughness, and frowns at his wounds. They’ve already mostly healed, but B doesn’t want him to know that, so he jerks out of L’s grip even though all the nerves in his neck, face, and skull jitter with unearthly gratitude. He rises jerkily, shuffling on instinct toward his cave below the bed.

L’s eyes narrow. “What were you doing down there?”

“Waiting.”

“What for?”

“This.”

“To get your brains bashed in with a cricket bat?”

B nods and shows the whites of his teeth. L scoffs. He looks especially exhausted right now, and even smaller than he had. B feels like he could shed his skin and crawl inside of L’s, bulk him up a little bit, fill out the hollows where his flesh collapses toward his bones. He doesn’t know the right way to say that, so he just says, “Can I sleep in your bed?”

“What? No. You’re—you’re old enough not to,”—

“Can I sleep under your bed?”

“No. In fact, you can get out of my room right now, or I’ll tell Wammy that,”—

“That you tried to kill me because I touched your foot?”

“I thought you were an attacker.”

B sniffs, licks his lips. He likes this English word, he bends its dips and rises over his tongue: “Paranoia.”

L’s getting a little bit flustered. B can see it in the blooming pink capillaries beneath his skin. “You’d be paranoid too if you were worth as much money as I am.”

L’s ego is so vast that it can only crush B or absorb him. B makes himself incorporeal enough to seep right in. B is not a whole thing, but an appendage, a loose claw, a roving pair of eyeballs. L is full of himself, full of facts and dates and disparities, but he’s large enough to have room for one more. B will make space for himself.

“How much is that?” he asks.

L doesn’t tell him.

—

The next night, the table is set for five.

L almost never takes meals in the dining room, but 7 o’clock sees him hunching into A’s usual chair, tucking his knees to his chin, and regarding the food served to him with uninvested distaste, while A is mutely shunted to the opposite side of the table, where, shoulder-to-shoulder with B, he locks his eyes on his plate and dodges covert kicks beneath the tablecloth. From either head, R and Q discuss L’s work abroad with distant adult composure, nodding in solemn agreement at some moments and gesticulating mildly with the cutlery at others.

“I didn’t do much, really,” L says, mashing his fork into his potatoes without looking at them. “They only wanted me for code-breaking. Processing data.”

“Aren’t there machines that do that?” B asks. He takes a sip from his water glass and gnashes on the ice.

L’s expression barely shifts. “Someone has to maintain the programs, and in cases where there is a human element involved, computing is not necessarily as expedient or predictive as intuition.”

“So, when you said you didn’t do much, you were just being needlessly modest?”

The smile that twitches onto A’s face quickly disappears behind his napkin. R coughs ostentatiously. Q shoots an eager look across the table between the two of them, tracing B’s goading to L’s inattention and back again, testing the authenticity of each.

“Yes,” L says. He’s annoyed but does what he can not to show it. He butters a roll he isn’t going to eat, faces Q and asks, “How are A’s grades?”

It’s a left-hook. It’s playing dirty. A’s body stiffens beside B’s, knees locking, spine snapping straight, jaw clicking shut. He shudders closed, keeps his eyes downcast. B likes that L is using A to jab at him, because it means he’s interested enough in B to have to feign disinterest.

“His maths scores are,”—R begins.

L sniffs. “Essays?”

Q says, “Recalling that English is his second language, he’s performing quite adequately.”

“Adequate.” L nods, vindicated by the word. “Of course, anyone working in my position would need absolute fluency in at least,”—

“He’s eight years old, L.”

“Of course.” L blinks, the flatness of his expression concealing his viciousness. He does not say that he is only one year older, but the fact of it hangs over the table with the crystalline chandelier and the ghosts of long dead members of the Ruvie family.

B scrapes his fork across his plate just as Q opens his mouth. The noise it makes is abrupt and spine-tickling. Roger shoots him a denigrating look, while A, unmoved, continues to eat his peas.

“A and I found a nest of bats,” B says, eyes locked on L’s face. “Last night a bat flew straight at my head.”

The panic that flits through L’s eyes makes B’s fire spark. Warmth drips from his scalp down to his toes. B could swap bodies with him with a well-worded incantation. He could be looking at himself from L’s eyes, nestled against the cap of skull, crowded by his bulging pink brain, subject to his immovable letters and numbers, feeling his fear and preparing his excuses.

“At this time of year?” R says, dabbing at a spill of gravy on his chin, grateful for the change of subject. “What was the species?” He looks to A, who always has an answer to that kind of question.

A shrugs. “There were no bats. B just made that up.”

B shrugs, too. L looks as if he cannot decide how afraid of him to be. The ice clinks in the pitcher as Sarah Hyde moves around the table, filling up their glasses. Her wide, clean hands begin to tremble when she reaches B, and the clinking gets louder.

#death note #lxb #l lawliet #beyond birthday #jaye writes fic #abecedarian #ah yes. this shit

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valkyrie-echo · 7 years ago

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Project Echo, Part 2: Chapter 9 (Ships in the Night)

Part 2 Summary: A new enemy surfaces with a team of the Avengers’ greatest foes, hand-picked for their destruction. Meanwhile, Inessa’s pre-Hydra past begins to surface, casting doubt on where her loyalties truly lie.

Chapter 9: Ships in the Night

A clock somewhere in the house chimed one in the morning. Steve sighed and rolled over in bed once again- maybe this time he'd find a comfortable position to sleep. Tony's deep, even breathing from the other side of the room mocked him. Something was bothering him and it kept him awake- even though he had no idea what it might be. Steve just felt... angry. He'd felt that a hell of a lot lately, and now just being angry was enough to make him angry. Why couldn't he be happy for one damned night?

There was a soft ripping sound and Steve realized he was gripping the edge of his pillow too-tight. He let go, and several feathers fluttered to the floor. Great. Nothing was going his way tonight, apparently. Without consciously deciding to, Steve got up and went downstairs. He found himself headed for the kitchen, and decided to just let his legs take him wherever the hell they wanted. Maybe then he'd be able to get some sleep.

In the kitchen now, Steve turned and headed outside in his pajama pants and a t-shirt. He didn't bother grabbing his shoes by the back door- no pebble or stick was strong enough to cut his feet anyways.

The nearly full moon cast enough light over the farm for Steve to find his way to the border fence, and from there he was guided by the glow of Tony's remote suits, guarding the perimeter. Clint's farm was nice- but Steve was a city boy, born and raised. The quiet reminded him of nights out on a patrol or trekking through the forests of Europe with his Howling Commandos. It both comforted him and fueled his nonsensical temper. How much had he lost since those nights? For him, it was only four years. Four incredibly brief, violent years. Over the course of that time his team had all died (thankfully most of them of old age) and his best friend had spent seventy years as an assassin for their enemy. He couldn't even trust him anymore.

That was what was keeping him awake and angry, even if he was slow admitting it. What was Bucky thinking going after Inessa's uncle like that? Three weeks. There wasn't a doubt in Steve's mind the Winter Soldier found his target. Aristov's death wouldn't have been quick. The more Steve thought about it, about the lies that were painted across Bucky's face lately, the more he was convinced he was being taken for a fool. That fink thinks everything is forgiven, just because he promised not to kill without permission? What's that worth? He also swore he didn't even see Dimitri, let alone kill him. Shows what his word is worth.

Steve became angrier and angrier as he walked the borders of the farm- and not just at Bucky. Every Avenger had their flaws, which usually didn't bother him (unless it was Stark), but his black mood made him pick them apart in his mind. Natasha was closed off even when she should be trusting her allies, Clint (Gracious host though he was) spent more time babying Inessa than actually helping her, Inessa was being too damn sensitive to everything- she controlled shadows for god's sake! Surely she could muster up enough courage to even look at people, especially after months surrounded by the Avengers. Sam, normally one of his best friends among the Avengers- make that best, since Bucky was being a fucking moron- was being too damned serious with all his training and sucking up to Tony, Banner's zen routine was getting old, and Thor was hamming it up, pretending everything was so damned fascinating. Ooh, what is this gold my eyes doth behold, be it the currency of your realm? Steve thought sarcastically as he passed a stock of corn.

There was a sudden, sharp pain in his bare foot- something icy and hot at the same time. Steve cursed and tipped against one of the wooden fence beams for support. A suit half a mile off came to inspect the source of the disturbance. "May I be of assistance, Mister Rogers?" JARVIS, fucking smug robot.

"Give me some light," Steve demanded. He tried putting weight on his foot and hissed again in pain. His toes were throbbing. The suit produced a floodlight and shone it down on his raised foot. A rusty nail stuck up through the top at least three inches. Steve groaned, frustrated, and turned his foot to inspect the bottom. The nail was embedded between the bones of two toes- though from the pain it probably at least chipped one of them. Steve half laughed- half gasped and grabbed the suit for support. "Push it out," he instructed.

"I recommend returning to the barn and Master Stark's laboratory before attempting such a thing. Medical diagnostics must-"

"Just push it the hell out!" Steve snapped. Without another word the suit obliged- using a metal finger to push from the top of the nail until enough of the backing had come through for Steve to grab and pull it the rest of the way out. A steady stream of blood followed. His foot was turning purple and swelling already. Between the wrenching pain, the adrenaline crash that left his hands shaking, and the realization of just how badly he'd injured his foot, Steve's temper abruptly broke. The dark thoughts that had swirled in his brain without control were completely gone. He was almost ashamed of the things he had been thinking. What was wrong with him lately?

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have snapped. Can you get me to the med lab JARVIS?" Steve softened his voice, suddenly tired.

"Of course, Mister Rogers. You have been under a great deal of strain these last several days, think no more of it." JARVIS was just a computer program, right? Sometimes Steve wondered if there was an actual human in there somewhere.

Steve let the suit fold around him to transport him back to the farmhouse. Inessa watched from inside the shadows of the cornfield. Something was wrong with Steve, but she couldn't pinpoint it. She sensed him leaving the farmhouse and followed- but the shade of him she had seen inside the Valley was... different. Something swirled around him, barely visible in the periphery. At first she wasn't even sure what she was seeing was real. It was as if something whispered in his ear.

Guilt consumed her, but she didn't regret what she had done. The thing around Steve was getting stronger, denser. She didn't want to see where it might lead- and so she'd placed the nail in his path. Pain disrupted whatever connection the shade had, and it dissipated as JARVIS removed the metal. She felt bad for harming her friend, but if that was what it took to dissipate whatever followed him, it was well worth it. She may be prepared to kill to keep her secret, but until that day came she had to protect her saviors.

Besides- if Steve had continued on much further he would have found the body.

Chapter 10: Rage

#my writing #avengers #marvel

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coleymari-blog · 7 years ago

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A War Fought at Home : Chapter 4

Corporal Natsu Dragneel has been through Hell, and unfortunately for him, the ride isn’t quite over. How will a new Rehab program at the local VA help? And will a certain blonde help make matters better?

Modern Military AU. Warnings for mentions of depression and adult language/situations. Other warnings to come as the story progresses. Cross post on AO3 and FF.net.

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3

"Come on, Dragneel! Be a man and give me ten more!"

Physical Therapy with Elfman eventually became one of Natsu's favorite parts about his day. The chiseled brute was nothing like the cheerleader from Natsu's first day at the VA. After three months of going almost every day, the Marine noticed a definite change in his overall quality of life. Granted his ass was still stuck in his chair but at least his pain had diminished slightly. Although, if he was being honest, his sessions with Elfman usually left him hurting for days.

Natsu growled as he pushed himself further, desperately trying to pull his knees into his rising chest. Beads of sweat were falling to the mat from the tips of his salmon hair, his body shaking as he exerted every ounce of energy he had left. It felt so damn good to maxing himself out again. At the end of the day, if he laid in his bed with his eyes shut, his nerves fired almost like they used to after a fight with Gray. Popsicle Breath wouldn't touch him, though it was probably for the best given his current capacities, but at least he could ride the adrenaline high again.

On the tenth crunch, Natsu collapsed onto the mat, panting as his lungs remembered just how much they actually enjoyed breathing. A lazy grin came to his lips as the buzz flowed through his veins, the familiar fatigue setting in his bones. Flipping himself over onto his stomach, he crawled back to his chair and hoisted himself into it, running his fingers through his damp hair. Next thing he knew, a towel was being thrown at him. "Thanks, Elfman," he mumbled through cotton, "PT was actually work today."

Elfman laughed, clasping Natsu firmly on the shoulder. "Thanks for not being a princess today," he teased, the two men bumping fists. "How are you liking the new schedule? Does it work for you?"

The week prior, Natsu and Elfman had sat down and made the decision to switch the Marine's sessions with his Group Therapy sessions. That way, Natsu could go to PT and shower afterward without having to worry about getting to Group on time. Unfortunately, there had been a few times where he'd had difficulties in the handicapped showers and had rolled into the session late, disrupting whoever was speaking at the time. He felt so terrible about it that it prompted him to ask his Trainer about moving into the Afternoon block.

"This is much better," Natsu remarked casually while gathering his stuff from a nearby bench. The shower room was down the hall from the gym but he didn't keep a locker at the VA like some of the other attendees. "This way Gildarts doesn't bitch me out when I have to choose between getting to Group on time and showering."

Both men laughed together while Natsu made his way to the shower. Rolling into the small antechamber, he threw his gym bag onto the wooden bench before stripping down. Even menial tasks like dressing himself were becoming easier to accomplish, but he still had to make sure he didn't exhaust himself throughout the day. He had a tendency to push his limits and if he wasn't careful, he'd run out of steam by dinner and knock the hell out.

Natsu made his way into the shower stall and lifted himself onto the plastic seat before turning on the water, allowing the scalding liquid to pelt his entire body. Closing his eyes, the pinket tilted his head back against the tile and just sat in the constant stream, the rhythmic pattern lulling him gently. In moments like those, he let his mind wander, following it through whatever rabbit hole it traveled down. Sometimes he relived memories of his days in the Corps, missions with his Fire Team, nights in the barracks with his Rifle Squad telling stories about home. Every now and then he allowed himself some more "private moments" while remembering nights with conquests past, but he rarely was able to finish. Probably because of the whole semi-public shower thing.

Other times Natsu fantasized about what his life would have been like if it weren't for the chair. He dreamed of a day when he'd be back in uniform, playing football with his buddies, kicking Gray's ass, the works. He wished he could walk up to a bar, look the bartender in the eye (preferably a cute one who likes to flirt with the professional line), and stand there feeling the bass fall off the club speakers in waves. Sometimes he even allowed himself to daydream about standing down the aisle in some small Church, standing tall and proud as he waited for the love of his life beside the altar. She used to be a faceless mystery in an ivory gown, just a placeholder for a woman he had yet to find in real life. However, lately, the Marine had surprised himself when in those particular fantasies, when he lifted the veil, instead of nothing he found himself staring into a very familiar set of deep chocolate brown eyes.

For the past few months, Natsu had found himself thinking about Lucy more and more. Every day he went to the VA, he made sure Gray brought him early and picked him up late so he could spend time with his new best friend. They ate lunch together, and she always picked him up from his sessions (even though he now insisted on pushing himself, the other arrangement only lasting about a week). They had even swapped numbers and often texted each other at home.

The pinket wasn't stupid, he knew how dangerous it was to crush on a girl like Lucy. She was a bombshell, a solid 10. Natsu was damaged goods, just barely enough pieces stitched together in order to be considered whole. Lucy was gorgeous, hilarious, gentle, caring, and a million other wonderful things he couldn't even being to name. But Natsu? As long as he was stuck in the wheelchair, he'd never be enough to be more than her friend. She deserved someone who could take her dancing, someone who could take her on beach vacations and skiing trips. She had gone through so much in her life, much like he had, and all he wanted to do was show her how beautiful life could be. Except he couldn't. Natsu was the last possible candidate. A Queen like Lucy needed a King, not the town freak.

Sighing to himself and feeling the hot water run frigid, Natsu turned off the water, toweled off and redressed himself. He knew he could ask one of the staff nurses to come help, but he always felt uncomfortable asking one of the other guys to help him pull up his jeans. He'd taken to wearing actual clothes again over the past couple months, the first time happening by accident because of his family visiting from out of town. Lucy had remarked on how nice he looked and he'd never given his sweatpants a second thought. The downside? Jeans were waaaaay harder to put on when one couldn't even stand on their own.

Natsu plopped himself back into his chair and made his way to the lowered mirror on the wall. His spiked his hair up, adjusted his trademark scarf and grinned wide to check his teeth. Finding nothing wrong apart from his metal tumor, the Marine quickly rolled his way to the front desk, heart racing when his eyes locked on their target.

"Took you long enough, Natsu!" Lucy teased, clicking away at her computer as the pinket parked alongside her desk. Her tea cup was stuck to the tabletop, meaning she hadn't gotten a fresh one in a while and wisps of her golden hair were falling out of her high pony tail. Probably a long day at the office.

"Sorry Mom didn't know you were watching the water bill so closely," he joked back, locking his wheels into place. Didja miss me? Old Natsu was still holding strong in the recesses of New Natsu's mind but the current incarnation had a way better hold of his mouth.

Lucy stuck out her tongue before getting back to work, hurriedly clacking at the keyboard again. Her actions prompted Natsu to take things a bit more seriously.

"Luce, what's wrong?" he asked, his voice laced in genuine concern. Nothing was more important to him than Lucy's happiness, well, maybe a couple things like walking again but that was just by a hair.

The blonde receptionist huffed, pushing the keyboard away before laying her head on the desk facing Natsu. She had opened her mouth to speak before the two of them were rudely interrupted.

The sound of his patent leather shoes coming down the tiled hallway dragged Natsu's gaze away from Lucy. The man wearing them only made the situation worse.

"How ya doin' Salamander?" the blond spat, standing tall and decorated compared to the seated civilians. Natsu immediately recognized him as Laxus Dreyar, a Staff Sergeant he had met while still in Basic. Needless to say, the two had never really seen eye to eye even before the accident. Laxus stood before the desk, eyeing the two of them with a salacious grin. "Nice wheels. Still down for that rematch you were always begging for?"

Natsu growled slightly before dropping his sights, feeling defeated almost immediately. The Staff Sergeant laughed at his quick win and turned his eyes on Lucy, making the hair on the back of Natsu's neck stand on end.

"Hey Blondie, are you free this Saturday?" Laxus asked, his voice cocky and full of assurance like he knew Lucy would say 'yes'. Natsu was sure she would too if he hadn't turned to look at her, flames practically engulfing her eyes.

"First you insult a decorated veteran, then ask me out in the same breath?" Lucy spat, standing up from her seat on the other side of her desk of Laxus. Natsu watched in awe as she held her ground, not budging so much as an inch. "I'd rather spend my free time with stand up Marines like Corporal Dragneel instead of embarrassments to the uniform."

Laxus was fuming. Natsu was beaming.

"Now, if you'll excuse us, Staff Sergeant…" And with that, Lucy dismissed Laxus without batting an eye, shocking the jackass but elating Natsu. It felt like the biggest victory he'd ever accomplished, her choosing him over someone like Dreyar. Granted, he was a complete asshole and those weren't Lucy's particular cup of tea (so she had explained countless times), but it stroked what little ego Natsu had left to know that she preferred his company to Laxus. It wasn't much, but it was something.

Once they were alone again, and the fire in Lucy's eyes had been (unfortunately) extinguished, the two friends settled into their places again, resuming where they had left off.

"That was the last thing I needed today," Lucy sighed, resting her head in her hands as her elbows propped her up against the tabletop. The longer she took to explain, the more worried Natsu became. It took everything in him to keep from interrogating her.

Eventually, she continued on her own. "My father cut me off this morning." Natsu's eyes went wide at the gravity of the situation. They'd spoken about her father in great detail and she had told him that the possibility was always there. But if Natsu was being honest, he never imagined a father actually cutting ties with their own child. Apparently, Lucy's was a breed of his own. "I only have enough money saved up to continue living in my current apartment for a couple more months but I have a year until I graduate. If I can't find something else, I'll have to suspend my degree and move back home until I can save up enough. Which is exactly what he wants."

Natsu's heart broke, but not for the correct reason. Yeah, it would suck if Lucy couldn't finish her degree on time, but her moving away was simply not an option. He couldn't imagine coming to the VA and not seeing her bright shining smile every morning or texting her every night before finally passing out. However, he did have a lot of free time on his hands. Maybe she wouldn't mind his help?

"Well we can't have that now can we?" Natsu replied playfully. "If you have to look for a new place, do you want company? It's not like I have much of a social life."

Smiling, Lucy shook her head. "I appreciate the offer," she answered, looking at her phone for the time. "Let's say we meet here at the same time you'd usually show up for Group?"

Natsu couldn't have contained the boy like grin if he wanted to. "Sounds like a date to me."

#nalu fanfic #nalu fic #ftfanfics #ft fanfiction #a war fought at home #;awfah

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aslightstep · 8 years ago

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Make This Go On Forever

Song here

Steve Rogers meets his soulmate in the cabin of a ship straight out the future after being defrosted from the ice that he has slept in for the past fifty years. If that alone didn’t tell him that he and Tony Stark are fated, the warm, complete feeling that rises in his chest when they first touch sure did.

“i guess there’s no point trying to keep it a secret from you,” Tony laughs nervously. His eyes, the blue now rimmed with gold, stare at the same ring surrounding Steve’s irises with fascination and no small bit of apprehension. “I never believed that I would-”

“Me neither,” Steve replies breathlessly. He can’t stop smiling, can’t stop catching himself of an endless loop of soulmate, I have a soulmate. Even more, his soulmate is beautiful, and brilliant, and courageous. He wants to touch Tony, even though Tony doesn’t seem to like it much, when he stops, frowning, a pain he isn’t used to weighing him down. “Why does your chest hurt?”

The smile slides off Tony’s face and all the sudden he looks miserable. “Oh.” With shaking hands he reaches up and unbuttons his shirt, revealing a mass of metal that looks welded onto his chest. “I was injured. This keeps me alive. I’m...I didn’t even think, I’m so sorry.”

“Hey,” Steve hushes him, and ever so carefully puts his hands on Tony’s shoulders. The tension bleeds out of Tony, the look in his eyes full of relief held at the ready for Steve’s next words. “It’s not your fault. You survived, you should be proud. And I can handle a little pain. We can share it.” Tony’s smile is fragile and gorgeous. Steve can’t believe how lucky he is. “We’re in this together now.”

Steve and Tony anchor each other - that’s how Steve would best describe their bond. The physical intimacy is fantastic, more than he ever dreamed, but the emotional closeness is even better; Steve isn’t sure he could have survived those first few years without it.

It isn’t like how they portray in the movies, perfect symbiosis and harmony. They fight, sometimes for days. They disagree fundamentally on several topics. But they always come together at the end of the day. Tony challenges Steve; he likes that about him, about them. Tony makes him think, makes him better. He wouldn’t change a thing.

When he thinks too hard about it, Steve can still feel the jolt of pain as Iron Man knocked him out to get to the last Guardsman.

“We both do what we have to,” Tony had said, defeat coming through even the flat tone of Iron Man. Steve had woken up alone, and betrayed.

Tony had accepted his rejection from the Avengers afterwards with as much grace as he could muster. Now he sits on their bed, staring at his hands, and Steve waits.

His chest hurts more fiercely than ever before. He doesn’t know who it’s coming from.

“They were using my tech to hurt people, Steve,” he finally says. “I had to stop them. You understand, right?”

“I understand your motive, Tony,” Steve replied. “Just not your methods. You could have worked with me-”

“I’m not that guy anymore, Steve, the one who just sits back and lets my creations destroy people’s lives.” Tony drops his head into his waiting hands. “I thought you’d be on my side.”

“I am,” Steve says firmly, coming to sit beside him. “But not - not like that. You hurt me, Tony.”

“I know. I felt it,” Tony whispers. “I am sorry about that. It shouldn’t have gone so far. I should have - well. I should have done better.”

Steve pulls Tony to him, the ache is his chest fading away. He’ll forgive Tony, in time. Tony is his soulmate, and they belong side by side. This is just another fight to work through. They’ll make it in the end, like always.

“You murdered it-”

“Steve-”

“You went against my direct order-”

“Because your orders were wrong!” Tony shouts over him. “It was an artificial intelligence that had ordered genocide, Steve. It was a computer program! It couldn’t be reasoned with, it couldn’t be persuaded, it wasn’t human. It would have kept going. We had to stop it.”

They stand there, breathing heavily, glaring at each other, neither backing down. “I feel like I don’t even know you right now,” Steve says lowly, and Tony closes his eyes. “Thor said there was an organic life form in there.”

“Doesn’t mean it was alive,” Tony replies.

“I need to be able to trust you!” Steve yells, cutting to the quick of the matter. “I need to know you have my back, not to undermine me whenever it suits you!”

Tony laughs, horrible and broken. “You want me to just follow orders, Cap? I wasn’t the only one up there, the only one who made this decision-”

“You are my only soulmate,” Steve spits out harshly. “Tony, I could feel your mind - you, pulling away from me. Do you know what that felt like?”

Tony’s gaze, for one brief terrible moment, is a cold thing that strikes down to his bones, and then he crumples like a puppet with his strings cut. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Steve. I would make the same choice.”

There’s nothing more to be said after that. Steve leaves, and Tony lets him.

They come back together, eventually, after his Tony is found to be under the influence of Kang the Conqueror and is lost to them not long after. Steve is afraid for the long moment after the new hybrid is given back to them, but gold-rimmed blue stares up at him, hazy beyond Steve’s unshed tears, and they leave it behind. His soulmate’s come back to him. The rest doesn’t matter.

“It’s called Extremis,” Tony says. Steve can barely feel him, even when he tries to reach out. “I kinda like it.”

The ring of gold around Tony’s eyes is razor thin.

“What have you done?” Steve croaks out, reaching, reaching, and the smile falls from Tony’s face.

It’s hard fighting a war with a constant dull ache in your chest and your bones, when you can feel where Tony has been wearing the armor too long. Still, Steve trudges on.

“What can I do to make this stop?” Tony pleads, and Steve realizes he has no idea if its genuine. Since Extremis the soul-bond has grown faint. Once, Steve knew Tony’s heart intimately. Now it’s tangled up behind a web of wires and lies, lies Tony hid from his soulmate.

They beat each other into the dirt, and Steve can’t tell which hurt is his. He finds himself hoping that the pain in his body is an echoes of Tony’s, just to know he’s still there. Just to know that Tony feels something.

The battle rages in New York and he is on top of Tony, shield raised high, and he expects terror, he expects anger, but Tony stares up at him, the gold taking over the blue, and all Steve feels in resignation. “Finish it,” Tony whispers, and the shield drops. They pull Steve away, and he doesn’t fight.

“We were supposed to be together!” he rails at Tony. “But you took that away. You decided for both of us. I told you once that we would share the pain, but no, not Tony Stark, he can’t accept that. Can’t handle giving any one else the reins.”

“It wasn’t about me, or us,” Tony says from behind the mask that he never takes off nowadays. “I did what I had to. We didn’t have to fight.”

“You made it a fight. You made this war happen!” He continues on, pushing and yelling, but he feels nothing. “Tell me, Director Stark, was it worth it? Was it worth it? Tell me!”

A long pause, a glimmer of grief that has no owner, and Iron Man’s turns away. The last words his soulmate says to him are: “Well. You’re a sore loser, Captain.”

Steve grieves that night, but when he’s bleeding out on the courthouse steps, he’s almost thankful. Please, don’t let Tony feel this. Please.

When he’s back, and Tony’s back, and they’ve both lost the same amount of time but only Tony has lost his memories, Extremis is gone.

Steve nearly weeps at the openness of the bond. He can’t hold what Tony did in the war against him now that he doesn’t remember, and he can feel the sorrow that permeates every inch of the other man.

They can get through anything as long as they have each other, as long as they have this. They anchor each other, it’s how they survive. They fall back into their old patterns, even if sometimes Tony regards him with trepidation, even if everything seems more desperate than before.

Steve can be happy like this. They both can. They kiss and laugh and love like before.

But the sorrow never fades.

“Sometimes I think that we’ve done this all wrong,” Tony says against his chest late one night.

Steve runs a hand through his hair, kissing the top of his head lightly. “We’ve certainly had some rough patches, Shellhead. But we do alright.”

“Just alright?” Tony says, and it’s supposed to be teasing, but it’s not even close. Steve pulls him closer, pulls him in, kisses him in compliance and laughter.

“Superb,” he says between kisses, down Tony’s neck, down even further. “Stupendous. Fantastic. Glorious.”

“Steve,” Tony gasps and there is no more talking.

But there is a weight on Steve’s shoulders he can’t ignore that doesn’t belong to him, and it’s only growing heavier.

“You used me,” Steve says. He means it to sound strong. It doesn’t.

“Yes,” Tony replies. “And I’d do it again.”

There’s no point in Tony running from him, so he’s kept in custody until Steve can figure out what to do with him.

All there is is anger. He can’t feel Tony anymore, not because of Extremis or distance or anything else, but because his own feelings drown out everything else. He dreams at night of Tony laughing at him until it melts away to Tony’s nervous laughter the first time they met. The first kiss under the stars.

He dreams of the last time he ever felt the bond as it used to be, those first few years when they held each other together. There’s nothing like love anymore between them. There is an oppressive ocean of self-loathing and guilt and blame. And anger. A never-ending tide of anger.

“We’ve done this a thousand times,” Tony says, lit up in silver and blue. The sky is red above them, Steve is old, Tony is insane and the bond remains. “We probably would have kept doing this if you hadn’t let the world end.”

“I wasn’t the one who chose genocide, Stark,” Steve spits, and Tony laughs.

“No, you chose to sit back on your ass and let everyone die. You know, Reed’s hoping to pull us all into some sparkling new world. At least your hands will still be squeaky clean, Rogers.”

Steve punches him hard, but Tony keeps talking. “In this brand new world, do you think they’ll still have soulbonds? Do you think you’ll forgive me there? You always have before. Every horrible thing I’ve done, and you let go. And all the sanctimonious, self-righteous bullshit you’ve pulled over the years, how could I not let that slide? We’re soulmates, Steve. That’s forever.”

“Shut up!” Steve screams, crashing his shield against the chest plate. “Don’t you dare try to twist what we had-”

“What we had. You mean the few months of happiness we managed over ten fucking years?” Tony mocks. A lie, Steve thinks, to help Stark sleep at night.

The ground is quaking beneath them. A helicarrier is falling from the sky. They won’t be able to move in time. A flurry of movement and Stark pulls him closer. “Food for thought in the great beyond, Captain. We’re not soulmates because we love each other.”

He releases him, and Steve sprawls against the ground. Above Tony a great black mass is falling. Tony is bleeding from so many places the silver of his suit hardly shines through the red, and all of that comes from Steve. He imagines he’s not much better. “Sure, we may love each other, but that’s not the constant. The anchor. This is - this moment right here, the one we keep coming back to, this is what makes us soulmates, Steve. The war. The fight. We’re gonna do this forever.”

He looks up at the falling sky and smiles. There is nothing but vindication and relief in the bond and Steve tries to remember, he tries to remember-

Stark’s hand is in his, clenching so tight it hurts. “We share, remember?” he says with a manic grin, and the sky collapses on top of them.

#krusca #anon asks #alanna writes #stony #song is #make this go on forever #by snow patrol #it is one of my most favorite songs of all time #need working knowledge of 616 canon #not a fix it #unhappy ending #my own working knowledge is really damn rough so #steve rogers #tony stark #616

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