#it's still a slow process but much less upkeep

[brutal-nemesis]

YWDaC: Turns Out, Forever Is a Long Time

Ayo we have FINALLY arrived at the end of Castys's lil pirate misadventure I hope you have enjoyed all of the delicious lore

←Previous - Castys Masterlist

Ingredients: storm at sea activity, mentioned stabbing, suicide for "convenience" (it's not quite the usual level of he doesn't care but it's still not like bro wants to die yk), a little self harm (once again, out of practicality)

What Castys really wanted was to have something for breakfast, but responsibilities came first, so here he was, delivering a message that he could have ordered anyone else to relay, just so he could go back belowdecks and hopefully grab something on the way back, which made him wonder if he should have been given responsibilities in the first place, but oh well, he didn’t put himself in charge. Now, to get this done so he could eat. Castys knocked on the door in front of him, and upon hearing a noise that sounded like a word, he entered. Captain Izogie was sitting with her shirt partially off and her back to him, exposing the bold patterns of white fire ink curling around her dark shoulders. Alfyn was standing behind her with his hands on her bare back, clearly concentrating. It was a sight he’d seen before, but he always felt a little awkward stumbling upon it. 

“Uh, sorry, didn’t realize it was woman magic day.”

Izogie laughed a little as she turned her head to look at him. “Is that what you lot call it?”

“Less of a mouthful than whatever Alfyn says.”

Alfyn just sighed. “Estrogen production stimulation?”

Castys nodded. “Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Anyway, Captain, just thought I’d let you know the sunrise is red this morning, and given the clouds now, we’re all pretty sure it’s gonna storm. And yes,” Castys held up a hand, “preparations are already underway. Just wanted you to be aware.”

Alfyn, finished with Izogie’s treatment, stepped back. “In that case, I have a few things to secure in the med bay. If you’ll excuse me, Captain.”

Izogie nodded as she buttoned her shirt. “Thank you, Alfyn, you’re excused.” He gave Castys a smile as he left. “Thank you as well, Castys.” She gave him a thoughtful look as she pulled her coat on and stood up. “You know, when you first arrived, I wasn’t sure if you were going to last here, but here you are, my first mate, of all things. You’ve grown quite a bit.”

Castys rolled his eyes and smiled, leaning against the doorframe. “Well, yeah, a scared tied up kid rarely looks like he’s gonna amount to anything. And it took you a few years to get that mouth off of me,” he laughed.

“You say that like it’s gone completely,” Izogie said with a glint in her eye, coming up to stand in front of Castys. Despite more than a decade passing, she still towered over Castys, the passage of time only showing in the lines on her face and the gray streaking her hair. He hadn’t grown any taller, but he’d at least gained some muscle and quite a few scars, which was well within the realm of expectation for being a pirate. “Well then, let’s go help out, Castys. This isn’t our first storm, and we need to make sure it won’t be our last.”

“I’d prefer to go down to a sea monster, at least. And I can’t imagine anything short of a hurricane taking you, Captain.”

“I’d like to see one try.” 

The storm that night certainly did.

The rain came down in sheets, driven to needlepoints by the harsh winds. It was more difficult than ever to hear the shouts of the crew as reports and orders were passed around, and Castys’s throat was raw from relaying directions to the men at the helm. He was glad for the storm sails, because even though they hadn’t had time to put all of them up, they were still making good progress through the crashing waves. At least, he hoped so. 

The ship’s bow pierced through another wall of water, and it was all Castys could do to stay on his feet, holding tight to the rope tied around his waist. Shit, one of the men at the helm had collapsed, and there was no one else to take his place. Castys ran up, grabbing the wheel alongside the others as he continued to keep an eye on the angle of the bow and the oncoming waves. It was fine, he could keep this up even as his arms burned from the strain, the hairs that had escaped from his ponytail blowing in his eyes and sticking to his face, making it even harder to see, the ever-louder thunder overhead drowning out the sound of his own voice. Didn’t matter if things were only getting worse, they had to keep-

CRACK

Everything was too loud, or maybe too quiet, roaring and buzzing, he was pressed up against the soaking wood of the deck and there was a ball of dense, sharp agony buried in his chest, making it hard to breathe, he kept coughing, couldn’t stand, couldn’t see, the blackness was coming, fading in and out, and all of a sudden he was belowdecks, blood and rain puddling around him, hands on his chest, pulling up his shirt, the words muffled, his chin moved up, Alfyn’s eyes were gray and full of fear, he hadn’t seen that expression before, or maybe he had, and maybe he was going to die, here, because of the storm, because he couldn’t breathe, time was up, that was it, those thirty-four years were over and done he wasn’t getting that time back no more tries he was satisfied with that right he had to be he couldn’t have any regrets because he wasn’t supposed to but it would have been nice if…if…

Castys woke up to a vast expanse of yellowish-white, which was not the color he expected the afterlife to be. Upon further inspection, though, it turned out that it was just a sheet over his head. After tossing it off and sitting up, he was greeted by a shrill scream that should have come from a young girl but actually came from Alfyn. 

“Chill, dude, you shouldn’t have put that over me if you’d healed me.” Castys narrowed his eyes a bit as he talked. Did his voice always sound like that? Maybe whatever injuries he’d had had damaged his hearing or something. He wasn’t in any pain now, though, so that was good.

“C-Castys you-you’re-how are you-” Alfyn ran over, nearly tackling Castys as he pulled up his tattered shirt to reveal a rather bloodstained but otherwise perfectly fine torso. Castys gave him a weird look, leaning away.

“Uh, you’re the one who fixed whatever it was, weren’t you?” He brushed his wet hair off of his face as he stared down at himself. Why the fuck did he grow his hair out, again? It was annoying as hell like this. 

Alfyn shook his head in disbelief. “I didn’t heal you, Castys. You-you were…both of your lungs had collapsed and I-I couldn’t fix it but-” He looked Castys in the eye, frowning. “You…you look different. Younger.” He ran a hand over Castys’s ribs, and Castys was very glad that he was more than used to the medic touching his bare skin. “There’s no scar from what just-” 

“Hey, what are you-” Castys yelped as Alfyn forced him to lean forward, pulling up his shirt even more to expose his back.

“You still had scars from your first day, didn’t you? When you were flogged?”

“Uh, I think so? I don’t really make it a hobby to look at my back, so you’d probably know better than me.” 

Alfyn sighed, letting go of Castys and standing up. “Well, if they were there before, they’re gone now. You…” He looked around at the patients lying on the cots on the other side of the room. “Do you feel alright, Castys?”

“I think so? I’m not in any pain or anything, but…I dunno, does my voice sound weird to you?” There were a few other things that were bothering him, but he couldn’t really get a solid hold on what they were. He just felt different, his thoughts more scattered, his arms less muscular than he remembered, the persistent ache in his left knee from a battle wound a few years ago completely gone now.

Alfyn nodded slowly. “Now that you mention it, it does seem a little…off.” He frowned again. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on with you, Castys, but I have more urgent patients to attend to, and I’m going to ask you to stay put until we can get this sorted out.”

“But the s-”

“Fine then, I’m not asking, I’m ordering. Doctor’s orders supersede everything else, you know that. And the storm has almost passed. So stay. Put.”

Castys grumbled and crossed his arms, but he didn’t move to get up. He knew all too well that Alfyn wasn’t above restraining disobedient patients, and he’d rather avoid that today. Bored, he peeked at his chest again. It was very bloody, but there were no injuries anywhere, and poking his ribs didn’t hurt like a bitch, so they weren’t broken or anything. What was weird though was that he still had some scars, just not all of them. The twisted one on his tummy and the clean line over his heart were still there. He slapped a hand on his right cheek and tried very hard to smile, finding that, yup, he still couldn’t really do it on that side, so the remnant of the gash on his face was still there. But the one on his knee, on his arm, and apparently the ones on his back…gone. It didn’t make sense. Unless…

He put a hand over his heart. Every scar he still had now, he’d gotten before…before that day. The day he still didn’t want to believe had happened. Just as he was about to dig up that lovely little box of buried memories, Captain Izogie rushed in, worry etched in her face. 

“Alfyn, is it true Castys is-” she laid eyes on Castys and the tension visibly drained from her body. “Oh thank Mydnar.” She walked over and crouched down in front of where he was seated on the floor, eyeing him suspiciously. “What…what did Alfyn do to you? You look like a kid again.”

“Not my fault!” Alfyn called from where he was working on someone’s fucked-up arm.

“Uh, yeah, I, um,” Castys laughed nervously. “It’s my fault. I think. But I’m okay! All the breathing is happening fine.”

Izogie shook her head. “You’re not making any sense. Laias said a broken piece of the mizzen top yard poked a hole through your chest.”

“It did,” Alfyn said, wiping his hands as he walked over. “Both of his lungs were punctured. I worked as quickly as I could after I pulled it out, but…” he swallowed. “Your pulse was gone, Castys.”

“But I…I’m fine. I’m…” He swallowed. Everything was so cold all of a sudden, that was the only reason he’d be shaking like this, right? Had to be. Unsure if he even wanted to know the answer to this question, Castys lifted his shirt, poking at the scar on his stomach. “Alfyn…what if a person was…was stabbed right here. And the knife was dragged and twisted a bit before being pulled out. And then it went,” his finger was over his heart now, “right here. Would that person…would they die?”

Alfyn looked at Castys in slight horror before slowly nodding. “Without medical attention, in a matter of minutes. Possibly less depending on how much the stomach wound had bled and how much damage had been done.”

Every worry line in Izogie’s face stood out more than ever before. “Castys, you-what are you saying? Are those scars-”

“I think so.” Castys dropped his shirt. “At least, from what I can remember. So maybe I…I already died. Before this. All this time I just thought I might be remembering things wrong, but if what Alfyn said about earlier is true, then…and it might explain why I’m…different.”

“So you think you’re some kind of…” the furrow in Alfyn’s brow deepened, “immortal?”

Immortal. The thought was sort of exciting, as ridiculous as it seemed, but it was also sort of terrifying. Why the fuck was he one, anyway, if it was true? He was just Castys, a random pirate with incurable amnesia about his childhood and hadn’t done anything special besides the whole…maybe this was some kind of fucked-up reward for finishing his mission? But then where had-fuck, okay, no more of that, his brain hurt too much. Why think about things when he could get some results?

“Hey, Captain, could you stab me or something? I wanna see what happens.”

Izogie, who was still clearly trying to process whatever the hell was going on, gave him a very concerned look. “No, Castys, what-even if you think you’ll-you’ll come back what if-”

“Well, I should have died twice now. So I feel like I’ve already gotten a second chance if I was going to be dead anyway.” He glanced over at Alfyn. “Could you-”

“I’m a fucking doctor, Castys. My hands aren’t-I can’t. No.” The other pirates cursed pretty much every other word, but coming from Alfyn, that word might as well have been a cannon blast. Seeing that neither of his friends were willing to stab him for science, Castys dropped the idea and let them examine him for a bit before finally getting cleared to go back to his quarters. The crew gave him odd looks as he passed by, just hammering it in even more that he was different somehow. Either that or they’d heard he fucking died and was now walking around perfectly healthy, which was also probably cause for concern.

Once he was alone, he pulled out his sword and looked at his reflection in the blade. From what he could tell in this shitty makeshift mirror, his face did look a lot more youthful than he remembered. The scruff on his chin and his longer hair did make him look a bit older than the age he supposed his body was now, but the beard was itchy and long hair was a pain in the ass. Part of him wanted to hack his ponytail off right now with his knife, but he’d rather not look like a total mess on top of everything else, so he could wait to ask for a haircut tomorrow. He could shave, however, and he felt a lot better once it was done. 

Turning the razor over in his hands, Castys wondered if he really would come back to life again if he slit his throat or whatever. Well, only one way to find out. His clothes were already super bloody, anyway, so that wouldn’t be a problem. Here goes nothing, then.

Why were his hands shaking so much? It was just dying, he’d apparently done it before, it was fine, he’d come back, he wasn’t leaving anyone behind, just a quick swipe of the blade and then…then…he’d come back, right? Right. A-and if he didn’t, he’d already cheated death before, so it was only fair for things to end now. Deep breath maybe his last-

The blade moved a little more slowly than he would have liked, a flash of pain before-

Castys opened his eyes. He was still in his cabin, lying on the floor, razor still gripped in his hand, fresh blood warm and sticky on his neck. S-so then…he’d died. And come back. And wasn’t in any pain. 

Some sick fascination drove him to slice a deep gash in his arm before turning the blade on his neck again.

He woke up just as healthy as before, no cut in sight.

That settled it, then. Castys…he was immortal. A deep feeling of freedom unlike anything he’d ever known washed over him. He could do anything, go anywhere, not having to worry about wasting his time or being in danger, because fuck that he was immortal nothing would ever stop him again. 

Lying in a puddle of his own blood, Castys couldn’t help but laugh.

He got slapped and lectured the next day for testing things out on himself, sure, but it was nothing in the face of his infinite future. He could go on with everyone forever and e-

Kamon left. 

Alfyn died. 

Izogie retired.

And then, one day, Castys was standing on the deck of the ship, his ship, and he realized he didn’t recognize a single face looking back at him. Well, he recognized them, but he didn’t know them, didn’t remember any of them from his life before the years felt like minutes. There was a divide between them, and he wasn’t sure who put it there.

Immortality was…lonely. Isolating. 

Someone else like him had to be out there, right? So he’d look all over, chase down every lead, even an immortal monster or something would do, he just needed-

Castys felt as alone as he was all those years ago, trapped on that deserted island, the passage of time impossible to follow. 

But no matter what, he’d find that ship on the horizon. 

Castys Cult: @as-a-matter-of-whump​ @blackrosesandwhump​ @fanmanga1357-blog​​ @thehopelessopus​ @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi​ @hearse-song​ @muddy-swamp-bitch @whumpasaurus101 @yet-another-heathen​​ @galaxywhump​ @starnight-whump​ @his-unspoken-words​ @misspelledwitch @suspicious-whumping-egg​ @pumpkin-spice-whump​ @painsandconfusion @i-can-even-burn-salad​​ @befuddled-calico-whump​ @whumpinggrounds @whump-queen​ @whumpedydump @theelvishcowgirl​

[usmsgutterson]

anchor up to me love- okay! kiss prompts! The link is here, all that’s required for this prompt is that you send along a kiss prompt and whatever else you want to add

kaz brekker (x wife!reader) and prompt 17?

Weightless- K.B x fem! reader

okay! I aged up Kaz and the reader because writing this without doing so felt wrong, and I hope you enjoy it!

the prompt you requested was: kisses that occur on your wedding day

fic type- fluff with some angst

Warnings- mentions of Kaz's touch aversion

By the time that Kaz Brekker so much as proposed, you’d been together just shy of a decade; you’d gotten together at nineteen, and Kaz proposed when you were twenty seven. 

It had been small, certainly not something within the likes of the big proposals that could occasionally be seen by Fifth Harbor, not anything like the ones you’d see on the East Stave. There had been no tears, no dramatic confessions of love, no crowding on the streets as people watched Kaz bend down on one knee, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man called Dirtyhands proposing to the one person in the world he held dear. 

It’d happened while you and Kaz were in his office, you going over the plans for the upcoming job while Kaz made sure that everything was right in the Crow Club and checked items off a to-do list pertaining to the maintenance and upkeep of the Slat. 

The coffee Kaz was drinking had long gone cold and you’d drank yours as it were. You were about to go watch the sunset from one of Ketterdams many rooftops with Inej while she visited when Kaz opened a drawer and pulled out a ring box. 

And then, he just asked in a very Kaz-like manner, one that almost didn’t feel like he was popping the question at all. “We’ve been together long enough,” he’d said. “Feels like we’re married as it is.” 

And you’d said yes in a way that felt like yourself. “True enough, Brekker,” you’d said. “And yes, since you’re asking, I will marry you. I do want us to have a wedding, though. We are not getting married in a courthouse.” 

And Kaz had smirked, nodded. You took the ring box up from where he’d placed it on the desk, pocketed it, shot him a a smirk of your own, and left. 

All of that got you to that specific moment, engagement ring on your finger and Kaz’s own visible on the chain he’d kept around his neck, one that’d always been hidden to most but visible around the right people. 

Love was weakness to most in the Barrel even still, and though Kaz’s views on that had indeed gone through the slow process of change, keeping the ring hidden was what he’d always done. The only people who’d ever seen it were those he trusted the most in the Dregs--Anika, Pim, the crows--and nobody outside of that circle. 

You’d chosen Colm to officiate the small ceremony. It wasn’t much more than the crows, Anika and Pim, and the small gray stray cat that’d taken to sitting on the living room windowsil of the Van Eck mansion. 

The candles were lit and the lamps burning low. The entire room had a very distinct, very comfy-cozy feel to it. There were books lining the shelves, grins on the faces of everyone who watched. Wylan was playing flute music as the gray stray cat climbed into the area through the open window and settled at Jespers feet. 

The flute music died down and the atmosphere calmed a bit as Colm rubbed his hands together in an attempt to grab the attention of the small crowd. It worked to his advantage, and you noticed out of the corner of your eye as Wylan tucked his flute back into its case and joined Jesper, grin on his face as the pairs hands entwined. 

“We’re gathered here today, April 22nd, in the wedding of Kaz Brekker and Y/N L/N,” said Colm. “The two have written their own vows and promised to keep it short and sweet, so I’ll allow Y/N to state hers first.”

Kaz was looking at you in a way that he’d never looked at anyone before. The gaze was less neutral, the love he felt for you something he’d long learned how to school out of his gaze. He’d let it in that day and regardless, his pupils always dilated when he looked at you, if Ninas words had been the truth. 

“We did agree on short and sweet,” you said, grin spreading to your face as you looked at him. You knew your cheeks would be in pain by the end of the night because of your near-constant grin, the sheer happiness you felt that day having been unmatched to any day prior.  

“So, I’ll just say that the past eight years with you have been the best of my life, easily. I’ve loved you since I was nineteen years old, Kaz Brekker, and no amount of near death experiences, no amount of money in the world as a direct result of those near death experiences, could ever change that for even a moment.” 

There had been a plethora of close calls, too many times wherein a healer or a medik showed up at almost the wrong time. Too many to count, and neither you or Kaz had ever wanted to count your near deaths as it were; you just knew that you’d saved each other once when you were seventeen, again two years later, and your relationship had been a bit of a back and forth of saving each other ever since. 

“Kaz, it’s your turn,” said Colm. 

In a gesture that you knew was absentminded but everyone else in the room thought to be calculated, you saw Kaz’s hand stray to the engagement ring on the chain that sat on his neck. 

“I uh,” Kaz began. You felt the gaze of one of Wylans staff, knew that Kaz was trying to stall, see if they would leave and spread the rumors surrounding the ring on the chain around his neck. When they did go, Kaz continued. 

“I remember us agreeing on short and sweet, too, and I hope that this fits the bill for that well enough,” he said. “I suck with vows. I cannot do strongly worded love confessions or deep, meaningful professions of longing. In our time together, I don’t recall ever having written you a love note, but I do care. I care about you more than I have ever cared about anyone else, more than I ever will care about anyone who comes into our lives from this point on.” 

Kaz was the person who remembered dates. He remembered the day you’d gotten together ‘officially’--which really just meant the day that Jesper had asked you if you were together, and you’d both promptly said yes. That day had been January 18th--and he remembered random things. 

Things you’d said offhandedly, be it that you’d been craving the pastries from the bakery down the street, that you’d needed to get a new notebook for your journaling or that you loved the fit of his shirts and the smell of his cologne. 

“All right,” Colm said. “Kaz Brekker, if you take Y/N L/N as your wife, in sickness and in health, all that you have to say now are those two wonderful words always said at these ceremonies. Do you take her?” 

“I do.” 

Colm turned to you. “Do you take him as your husband? Sickness, health, and the rest of it?” 

The grin you held was beginning to hurt. “I do.” 

“The bride and groom may kiss,” Colm said. “Or, well, whatever it is the two of you have planned.” 

Whether or not you would kiss had been the topic of discussion nearly every single day you’d planned out the small ceremony. 

Since you and Kaz were twenty three, Kaz had been working on his touch aversion on a consistent basis. Some days were good, some days were bad and others certainly worse. It just came down to which number the dice would land on at that particular moment. 

Kaz stepped forward. “May I?” 

You nodded. “You may.” 

The kiss was quick, something that most would’ve thought to have barely been a kiss, but to you and Kaz both, it was everything. 

It was another step taken in his recovery, something as monumental as the feeling of his bare hand in yours, the brush of gloved fingers against your cheekbone on the boat back from a particularly deadly job in a different country. 

Kaz shot you a smirk to cover his relieved smile. He’d not felt the waters rise in that particular series of moments. He’d made it, he’d been okay. That ignited a flame of hope within him, one that would not be stomped out the next time he’d had a bad day. Hope was a very fickle thing, but since beginning to work on healing, Kaz had learned that it was a very strong thing, too. 

“The bride and groom, everyone!” Colm said. 

You were looking in Kaz’s eyes as Colm had spoken, heart heavy with the love you felt for him.

Kaz had been looking at you, too, a flame of hope ignited in his heart as it grew so light with the love he felt for you that it almost felt weightless. 

[vertebrae-entertainment]

5/13/2024 - The struggle!!

About time i updated y'all on the business side of things.

First things first, we're still alive and working! Downside is, its mostly non-Fangst related. Its hard times working in gamedev, and we're keeping the lights on by doing freelance. While Fangst is moving slowly these days, process is still being made- mostly in backgrounds and asset design!

Keen eyes in our local area may have noticed that the game business collective we were a part of, Hamar Game Collective, met its end earlier this year (link in Norwegian). Thankfully none of the member studios were harmed in the process, but its loss is felt and many are affected.

For us it has the very direct consequence that we soon no longer have an office space. Having this space and daily direct contact with other Hamar-based developers has been immensely helpful in helping us sustain and develop our freaky, gay-ass, hardly marketable little art business. We are very sad to see it go, but hopeful that another initiative takes its place in due time. Not quite sure where we'll go yet, but we'll try and keep you posted. We're at least staying in Hamar!

Vertebrae Entertainment has a long, weird history, arguably mostly running on spite and good ol' queer stubbornness- but in life you kind of have to be a cockroach to survive. Many things will try to squish you, the best you can do is refuse to give up! The next crumb may be just around the corner, after all.

Speaking of squishing, another reason things are going slow these days is that we are going through some absence due to illness!! Protip: If you're planning a project, make plenty of space for these kinds of things in your schedule- it does indeed happen, and can happen quite frequently!

How much absence affects your project depends on your team size- 100% if its only you, 50% if its two people, and so on and so on- halving with each additional team member. Having a small team is dreamy in regards to upkeep cost and communications, but the downside is abrupt stops when things get in the way of development.

If you have a larger team, production can move faster and with less capacity loss per individual absence, but at a greater cost. Your project will also be more prone to poor communication and creative differences turning into Big Deals. You will have to dedicate more time to proper meetings and communication- or ideally, hire a project manager to do this for you so you can actually focus on making a game. Project managers are basically the oil for the engine, in that sense- ensuring everything runs smoothly.

Whoops, this turned into a lil bit of a business 101- in short!! Hi, happy spring, we're still around and doing our best!! Consider thanking your project manager for their hard work today if you have one. RIP Hamar Game Collective, you were great. We'll do our best to keep the spirit alive!

-Hauk

[nerdydowntherabbithole]

Soo uhhhh was babysitting all today and didn't get a chance 2 write sooo. Posting this and then writing to avoid concequences but

Yeah made an iterator oc a while ago and here they are. Wishing on Falling Stars aka the king of cats. Long rambling lore under cut lmao

So! Star is a pretty young iterator who has,,,kinda abandoned their former purpose out of anger and spite. Star and her two brothers, Lands Unknown and Swiftly Rising Waters were built on VERY risky and unstable ground. The three are built next to (And INTO, in the case of Star) a mountain right next to the ocean. LU and SRW needed constant upkeep and adjustment. Due to this, shortly after the ascension, they both just completely collapsed from their own rains. Star, upon this happening, PANICKED. They adore their brothers, and was terrified of loosing them. So pretty quick, she started a breeding program for a ton of things to perform maintenance on the two. Which was the start of a...VERY slippery slope into crazy cat lady. Star is, generally, a VERY kind iterator. Helpful to a fault and far too caring. However, this made for some problems after ascension, because man she got lonely QUICK. Her brothers were the closest thing they had, and even while the two are similarly caring, it was tough. So when they started genetic engineering, they got. ATTACHED. So they bred more. And more. And uhhh woops! Suddenly Star's city is literally just full of creatures. Star is in no way unhappy with this. It was in their period of loneliness, however, that she got BITTER over the ancients abandoning them and leaving them to rot. INCREDIBLY so. In a fit of rage, she promised to never work on the Great Problem again, and has thus far stuck to it. Nowadays, she's still keeping busy! Realizing the whole thing with iterators slowly breaking down, she actually started a little program to send special units out to perform maintenance on iterators who request it, or scout out problems anybody thinks they may have. These units get around pretty much everywhere by using a smaller, faster, domesticated breed of vulture. NOW MORE RANDOM FACTS. -One of the smallest cans out there! Very tiny, in comparison. As such, their creators thought it funny to give them just a MASSIVE puppet. No specific height now but it could be anywhere from 10 feet or higher -Occasional fits of anger. She'll get masks to break nowadays since she already had all the art of the ancients torn down long ago. Never lets anyone see these. -Always has an overseer with their brothers at all times. -No less than 5 scugs in their chamber at all times. Occasionally babysits pups. -Has domesticated everything from aforementioned vultures to scavs to lizards to, well, most things. All too happy to send people blueprints and stuff of their process -Completely functional city! They grow and process food, make art, go about various jobs, it's kinda like it was before but with creatures. -Doesn't need payment for maintenance requests, but always appreciates whatever anybody gives. -Absolutely IMMACULATE can compared to a lot of iterators. Their creatures have learned to do their jobs well. -Trying to work on things to help the rot but it's slow going since she will NOT let any actual rot near her can, has to work with iterators who do have it remotely. -Sadder than you might think

[shadyufo]

hi, i’m a bit new to collecting skulls and bones, do you have any tips on how to preserve and clean them? or how to help the decaying processes on dead animals found to get the bones quicker? sorry if this is weird but idk what i’m doing

Hi Anon! Your question isn't weird at all! I'm always glad to talk bone cleaning shop with other folks interested in this hobby <3

There are a few different ways to go about processing bones. If you find some out in nature that are free of any hide or tissue and just dirty then all you'll likely have to do is give them a gentle scrub in some warm, soapy water to remove the dirt and then give them a soak in hydrogen peroxide to whiten and sanitize them. More on this process down below!

Now if you find something that still has hide/meat on it or are working with a fresh carcass then there are several other steps before getting to peroxide.

When starting with a whole carcass there are a few different cleaning methods to choose from. My own preferred methods are maceration, dermestid beetles, or one of the various forms of nature cleaning. 

Maceration is done by putting the carcass in a container of warm water and letting it rot down to bones. You’ll want to use a fish tank heater or bucket heater to keep the water around 85 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal results. Keep the container covered and don’t change the water or you’ll lose your bacteria colony which will slow the process down. Skinning and defleshing the carcass fish will definitely speed things up and save you from having to pick through fur to find tiny bones and teeth later but it’s okay to just macerate the whole carcass too if you’d rather. I’ve macerated whole carcasses plenty of times with no problems. Depending on the size of the specimen, maceration usually takes at least a couple of weeks—sometimes more, sometimes less.

Dermestid beetles are excellent little bone cleaners but they do require some upkeep so they aren’t for everyone. I haven’t had a colony in a few years now but I can’t recommend them enough especially for cleaning delicate skulls and skeletons.

There are various ways of “nature cleaning” a carcass. You can put it in a fine mesh bag and bury it in a flower pot or container of dirt. You can put the carcass in a cage and let nature do it’s thing. You can put the carcass in a plastic bag with a few holes poked in it then cover it with an overturned container to prevent scavengers from nabbing it. Lots of options with nature cleaning. And as with maceration, skinning and defleshing definitely speed to process up but you can skip that step for nature cleaning too if you’d rather.

Whichever method you choose, once all of the tissue has rotted off then you’ll be ready to degrease the bones. I use hot water and Dawn dish soap when I degrease. Put the bones in a bucket of water, keep the water heated to around 85-115 degrees Fahrenheit, and add a squirt or two of Dawn dish soap (or any other good grease-cutting soap). Change the water as it becomes cloudy or develops a film on the surface. Once the water starts staying clear let the bones dry and check for any bad odors or yellow/brown stains in the bone. Keep degreasing if necessary but if there aren’t any odors or in-the-bone stains then you are ready to whiten.

After all that you'll be ready to whiten the bones! Only use hydrogen peroxide for whitening—never use chlorine bleach. Even a brief soak in watered-down bleach will destroy bones over time. Hydrogen peroxide is the only way to go. I just use the plain old 3% solution sold in a brown bottle in grocery/drug stores. I soak bones in peroxide in an open container out in direct sunlight—the sunlight causes the peroxide to degrade faster so you may have to freshen it up as you go but I’ve always gotten much better results doing it this way. Let the bones soak until they are as white as you want and keep in mind they’ll dry whiter than they appear when wet if you are aiming for a certain shade. After all that you should be good to go!

I made a post called Bone Collecting for Beginners a while back that has some other info you might find helpful too, Anon! And lots more tips in my "bone cleaning" tag too.

Hope that helps get you started! If you have any other questions please feel free to ask and I'll do my best to help out. Good luck and happy collecting! <3

[autumnslance]

would you be willing to make a masterpost of all your sharlayan research and headcanons? please please please and THANK YOU if you do

I can certainly try! A lot of my info is from what little we have so far, and my own fics are where a lot of my headcanons go to live, with little snippets about various characters here and there in my scattered lore posts, as well as stuff I’ve collected from other players.

Other Resources In Louisoix’s Wake - The twins’ official Calamity short story on the Lodestone. One Name, One Promise - Thancred’s backstory, from Limsa to Sharlayan training to his early assignment in Ul’dah and then early Shadowbringers. Mirke’s Menagerie - A compilation of lore info from in game, lorebooks, panels, interviews, short stories, etc. There are about 4 or 5 Sharlayan-specific posts @mirkemenagerie has made.

Encyclopaedia Eorzea - If you can get your hands on copies (physical officially; digitally is Unofficial so far as I know), I recommend it! They’re both good reads, though EE 1 is the one with a blurb on Sharlayan as a nation.

Posts by Other People - that I have collected Leveva Comment About Archon Loaf - Keeping in mind Sharlayan’s bad cuisine has been canonical for years per lorebook 1. They care more about ease of eating while studying, also seeing culinary arts as an academic field, not a practical daily exercise. Lorebook 1 Astrologian Lore - screencaps from the lorebook. Phaedra’s Teen Scion Sharlayan Antics fic - I am happy to take responsibility for inspiring @phaedra-mero to write this delightful scene.

My Own Posts Red Mage Research - Includes books from Gubal Library. Scion Ages - Pointing out the ages of the Scions, particularly the Archons.

My Fics - Sometimes there’s more HC musings in the Notes and Comments. I try to stay close to canon, at least as it is when the fic was written. Rogue’s Prelude - Multichapter, teen Thancred meets Louisoix, Yda, and Papalymo. Written a year prior to Thancred’s official ShB story above. Aetherology & Skulking Boots-Beginnings - Y’shtola agrees to tutor Thancred in how to speak properly as teenagers in the colony. Chin Up - Yda gives Thancred advice as youths in the colony. Dreams of Home-Lucubration - Yda, Lyse, and Thancred in the colony. Younger Sister - Thancred’s relationships with the Hext sisters over time. In Violet’s Wake-Louisoix’s Children - A Master Matoya PoV from StB patches. There’s a brief chapter with her and Y’mhitra in Dreams of Home, too. Excerpts from other posts - things that ended up as commentary on other threads, with some editing since.

From a thread that started off as about Thancred’s Gear from ARR to HW:

Sharlayan is a nation on an island NW of Eorzea proper; the Sharlayan everyone we know hails from was a colony that became a city-state a few hundred years back and part of the Eorzean Alliance, in the Dravanian Hinterlands, where Idyllshire is now. After the fall of Ala Mhigo and then the Battle of Silvertear Skies, the Forum (their ruling body) decided to abandon the city and return to the motherland, a process that took 5 years before they all just teleported out in a day. Except Matoya, and those archons that worked for Louisoix and that he asked to stay and go to the remaining 3 Alliance cities. This would have been 15 years before ARR/Heavensward.

The Students of Baldesion are also Sharlayan; the Isle of Val, their headquarters, being under that nation’s banner. Sons of St Coinach are another offshoot; Rammbroes (Crystal Tower raid story) was originally part of Louisoix’s Circle of Knowing (who eventually became the Scions), and Y’shtola’s sister Y’mhitra is one of the Sons and part of the Summoner storyline.

Thancred got involved as a youth–by trying to pick Louisoix’s pocket, and impressing the old man with his skills, and so Louisoix brought Thancred back with him to give the kid an opportunity for study. Yda and Lyse escaped Ala Mhigo, and with help from Papalymo, who was part of an effort to help refugees seeking shelter in Sharlayan, they ended up there, and Yda is the one who actually became an archon.

Most of the other senior Scions, so far as I know, are native to Sharlayan, either the motherland or the colony. The Leveilleur twins were born in the Hinterlands Sharlayan, but raised in the motherland, as they were less than a year old when the exodus happened. The university they and Krile attended is the Studium. Becoming an Archon seems to be a separate process not everyone goes through, and is a demonstration of mastery in chosen field(s) of study. That’s the significance of the tattoos some of the Scions have on their necks or faces.

Sharlayan is basically a nation particularly focused on academia; the trouble is, for the last couple decades, it’s been controlled by a faction of isolationists who would rather hoard knowledge and sit in the proverbial ivory tower looking down on non-Sharlayans, claiming others would abuse their knowledge, and that they should simply observe history and not try to affect it. Louisoix, Matoya, and the organizations they associate with (the Circle of Knowing/Scions; Sons of St Coinach, the Students of Baldesion, etc), think that viewpoint is stupid and go against it. A big part of the Astrologian storyline is dealing with Sharlayans who dislike Leveva’s family sharing Sharlayan astrology with outsiders, for example.

What sort of relationship Sharlayan and Ishgard had before the exodus isn’t really detailed much; both were pretty insular and focused on their own issues (like many of Eorzea’s city-states outside of crises), and the Dravanian threat at the time might have kept them pretty separated by land. Sharlayan was responsible for Eorzea’s aetherytes and keeping the aethernets working, though, and it’s suggested they still handle that post-Calamity to some degree. We pay fees for teleports because reconstruction and upkeep is pricey for all of the city-states.

Next post:

The Isle of Val was the headquarters of the Students of Baldesion, Krile’s family and order, and was a Sharlayan institution. It’s destruction/missing status happened during the ARR patches, and Krile was saved by Hydaelyn as she has the Echo (as an aside: you can hear Minfilia talking to Krile via linkpearl in the background on the Enterprise after rescuing the Scions from Castrum Centri before Ultima, and she constantly refers to and worries about Krile after the Isle of Val goes missing, but then plot happened to Minfilia so we never see them together as friends). The Ascians seemed to have a hand in the Isle’s disappearance…but there’s story about the fate of the Isle of Val and the Students of Baldesion in Stormblood’s Eureka plotline.

As for the Archon Marks, if they do confer social benefits, aside from being an easily seen status symbol for some highly skilled & educated folks, it hasn’t been mentioned yet in concrete terms, though we know the rank has benefits (like access to forbidden lore). Mostly they are a way to tell at a glance who has obtained the rank. It’s like if people with doctorates had a tattoo of their degree symbol on them so you knew just by looking.

As of Shadowbringers 5.4, we know that to become an Archon a thesis is required, and it’s a great deal more work than a Studium graduate’s final thesis. It strikes me that Studium (which some of the Scion Archons also attended) is like undergrad or Masters studies, while Archon is a Doctorate level.

I personally headcanon that the arcane marks confer some minor, slowed visible aging and other vague magical benefits befitting their rank in Sharlayan society. Really, that’s a way for the devs to avoid new models and add to the confusion in 1.0′s intros and the running joke about Y’shtola’s age, BUT let’s come up with an in-world thing, too. There has to be some explanation for Thancred’s perpetual baby face when he’s not RPing a Mountain Hobo ;) Also we really don’t know for sure how old Matoya is. Just old.

Lorebook 2 Notes:

Mikoto Jinba (Return to Ivalice, Save the Queen storylines) worked on aetheric siphon research with Moenbryda, and at 29 is the youngest Raen with the rank of Archon in recent history. It was Jessie’s connections that brought her to Cid’s attention and got her involved in the Return to Ivalice story.

Ejika Tsunjika (Eureka storyline) went to school at the same time as Krile and Leveilleur twins, endorsed by Galuf Baldesion, who Ejika later chose to work under. He’s resentful of Krile and the twins as Ejika himself is of humble origins and had to struggle to get to where he is, yet hides his Archon brands with high collars as he refuses to believe himself unique or exceptional.

[tundrainafrica]

Title: Lovebug (11/14)

Summary:

“It might be a bug.”

“A bug?”

“Sometimes the developers of this application make mistakes. This is our first time meeting I’m sure so…Isn’t it a bit weird that we just met for the first time and it rings like this? And for two strangers to coincidentally ring each other’s alarms?“

Levi is the developer of the Love Alarm App and Hange is married to Zeke.

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Notes: Feedback is very much appreciated :D

Levi could only be grateful that Petra had taken charge.

He was in no mood to do much but sit down, maybe get the gears of his brain moving when questions on coding or troubleshooting were directed to him. When the questions were on expected behavior of application, on known bugs, the motions in his mind were automatic, the responses that followed were second nature.

In that particular role, he was certain he’d be functional at the least.

There were questions about the overall testing process though that required more consideration, more planning and maybe some drawing. They weren’t formulaic. They required an overall different approach, a different part of the brain and Levi was only further convinced of that as he watched Petra draw over the floor plan with pencil.

He didn’t make sense of it at first and maybe all he needed was just a little push in the right logical direction.

Petra’s explanations were a godsend. “With the size of the gym, we can manage thirty tests at once…” She drew circles over the gym, evenly spaced. “We do it all at once, then we have them exit through here. ” She continued to trace the path from the front of the gymnasium to the back. “Then they answer the questionnaire over here, then one of the facilitators will submit it to the moderator’s table.”

The line that weaved efficiently through markers was a sign enough that she had put much thought into the overall planning process.

The moderator's tables was strategically positioned on one corner of the gym, angled in such a way to be inconspicuous.

Levi looked back for a second, noting, it's almost invisible presence next to the stage and the stored sports equipment.

And all I have to do is sit here, listen and answer questions right? Levi wished he could have asked it out loud. What kind of head engineer would he seem like if he did though? He went for the less desirable option of just keeping quiet, instead letting whatever questions in his brain out as one raised eyebrow.

“We want to make the most of our resources here so Eld, Oluo, Gunther, can facilitate. Make sure that none of the Love Alarms are on silent, that all the questionnaires are answered then mark on the box if it did ring. And Levi…” Petra turned to Levi. “I recommend you stay in the moderator’s table, encode the data, and stand by for any issues that may come up.”

Levi nodded. “That sounds like a plan.” He forced those last words out of his mouth while brushing off the almost guilt inducing relief at the confirmation of his own job and soon after that, the painful awareness of his own strange disconnect from the overall testing process

Petra though, had proven more qualified to take over. She had taken it upon herself since even the planning stages, coordinating with the logistics team, coordinating with the marketing team. Thus, she was in a better position anyway to brief people.

More importantly, she was admirably calm and professional about the whole process of presenting a plan in front of one of the biggest investors of the company. A very glaring reminder why she had been assigned to front office work since the start.

It wasn’t at all difficult to admit that Petra deserved to manage it.

So he let her take free rein. Levi leaned back on the wall, arms crossed as he watched the hand drawn lines darken under Petra’s delicate motions. He was tempted to doze off and a few times he did, especially when Petra took some time out to mention the specific responsibilities of facilitators.

When she mentioned the data encoding process, Levi forced himself to listen. Moments after that, when Petra shifted to other topics, he found himself darting his eyes across the small crowd, letting his eyes land on Zeke. The view of Zeke standing on one side of the table, looking deep in thought sent a rush of urgency through him, a very natural reaction to money, corporate obligation.

And something else.

Something unfamiliar and unwelcome. Sadness? Before Levi could even pin down the emotion, he was already following Zeke’s gaze.

Those blue eyes were tracing the plans on the table. Levi observed for a while, making quick guesses of what Zeke had been watching on the table, maybe to get a glimmer of what the man could have been thinking. Just behind the table though, on their side, there was something that had caught his attention more quickly than some overly detailed plans and some notes he had seen too many times already.

There were two hands clasped together and before he even noticed it himself , Levi was staring, tracing the thumbs with his eyes. Soon, he concluded, the grip of one of those hands was all too familiar.

Levi looked up, only to confirm what he already knew.

Hange could have known he was watching but Levi liked to guess that she didn’t. After all, she didn’t meet his gaze, instead, her head shot up, her eyes shifted towards Zeke.

It felt like an unspoken rejection.

A very out-of-place feeling of rejection.

Why would she look at me? Levi looked back down at the plan, letting the mood whiplash that followed rush through him. In those few moments, nothing much had changed. The markers were just a little clearer, the black ink a stark contrast to the white paper but he only found as he continued to follow it, that he couldn't make much sense of it anymore.

“Are you okay with this plan?” Petra asked.

Levi wasn’t looking so he couldn’t be too sure who she was talking to. Her voice was careful, gentle, and her tone was very respectful. He took the risk of making eye contact.

“Boss, are you okay with it?” She repeated. “If you have any feedback…”

Out of instinct, Levi nodded. “Yes, it looks like a great plan.” He could only thank whatever god, or whatever natural forces had made his voice naturally toneless and uninterested. That was the most he could have feigned anyway in such an unexpectedly tense situation.

Petra nodded and moved on from there. And whether or not the others had been looking at him, Levi couldn't tell too much. Their eyes fell back on the table in front of them, Petra continued to prattle on about logistics and upkeep.

Soon, Levi decided, he could probably just learn along the way. All he had to do was keep watch on the moderator’s table and encode data anyway.

Right? “I’ll go to the toilet first,” Levi whispered from behind Petra.

Petra saw him off with a subtle eyebrow raise.

With that bout of freedom, Levi broke away from the small crowd and made his way out of the gym. There probably was a toilet inside the gym but he didn’t bother to search for it. The point of the toilet break was the break more than the actual toilet.

Over the long drawn orientation, Levi realized he was tired, unmotivated and maybe a little desolate. Everything had the potential to tick him off and he just needed some time to breathe.

Maybe a long walk could help. Maybe pretending Hange didn’t exist for just a few minutes would help.

His emotions were a mush and he found himself in some strange in-between state as he strolled aimlessly through the campus. He was looking for a way to get lost while at the same time, he was looking for the most efficient way to make it to some empty toilet.

After a good number of unproductive minutes and a not-too-comforting toilet break had passed, Levi conceded. He might really have to do a quick search to even find his way back in such a big campus. After opening the maps app and confirming location, Levi made one last check on one certain application to satisfy his curiosity.

Purple. His emotional alarm confirmed. He was going to have to be productive despite being very purple.

Levi pocketed his phone and made the familiar trek back to the gym.

**

The gym exploded into a cacophony of rings from that familiar alarm and very annoying echoes that never seemed to end, both sounds Levi was all too tired of hearing already.

It didn't help at all that booting up his laptop and opening the sheet had been also an excruciatingly slow.

When he organized the stack of questionnaires into a pile next to his desk, he was just a little disconcerted. Disconcerted enough that it took him some time to notice that someone had settled onto the seat next to him.

Recognition came quickly, the first question came out instinctively. “Why are you here?” They were still close enough at least that Hange seemed to have gotten his question even with the little effort he put into speaking over background noises.

The flash of surprise in her eyes, beautifully framed as Hange furrowed her brows was very telling of Levi’s tone. Was he too abrasive? Well, they had a pretty good send off yesterday. Right? He eventually concluded, he probably could have been a little nicer.

Hange was a distraction. When Hange was next to him on the moderator’s table, it felt like a carrot was being dangled in front of him. When it was him and her, in front of hundreds or other people, some of them people who could potentially ask about Hange, he couldn't even act naturally around Hange.

Levi could only entertain the possibility that it would have been easier if she wasn't present.

It didn’t help at all that Zeke was just a few feet behind Hange. Sometimes, the blonde was rattling on about possible investment plans with some very irritating enthusiasm. Sometimes, he was talking to some other school official and sometimes he was on the phone with god-knows who. And every now and then--- No, not every now and then--- In very regular intervals, Levi would notice the way Zeke would stare at the both of them for just a few seconds.

Not infrequently enough for Levi to blame his own paranoia, yet too often for Levi to have noticed some pattern.

Hange though, hadn’t been very helpful. She started to type on her laptop much louder. “I volunteered to help encode data. Petra said during the briefing that you wouldn't be able to do it alone. Weren't you listening?"

Maybe he hadn't been listening. That didn't mean he had to admit it. “Only one person needs to do it,” Levi responded.

“We’re looking at hundreds or even thousands of data points.”

“I’ve dealt with worse.”

Hange turned to him, her eyes observing. “And you seem tired.”

“Do I?” That last syllable came out as a croak. Hange’s own conjecture had left Levi thinking, then he was suddenly more aware of his own vulnerability.

When she stared at him for a while longer, her lips curling up into a soft smile, Levi had to acknowledge her ability to just see through him. He cleared his throat, swallowing that crack in his voice from a second ago.

“How are you feeling?” Hange asked. She continued to type, sometimes she shifted to clicking with the mouse, maybe preparing a spreadsheet.

The question had come out of nowhere and in the air between them, it seemed almost out of place. What could he expect though after their last encounter?

He silently stumbled upon the answer. Nothing. There was no well-backed formula to navigate such complex circumstances.

Levi didn’t answer immediately, allowing himself a few minutes to at least come up with something fair. He leaned back on the metal chair and stared up at the ceiling. He dug into his pants, searching for anything to hold onto, dryer lint, a few odds and ends to distract himself with. He was a naturally fastidious person and consequently, digging into pockets had left him empty handed. With no choice but to answer, He opened his mouth slowly, before he could even come up with something. “Purple,” he eventually whispered.

It was still loud enough for Hange to hear. She responded soon afterwards. “I’m feeling green, very green.”

Happy sad? Or sad happy? Those questions never left his mouth. Maybe he was a little terrified to know the answer. Maybe he just didn’t trust himself to function if by some chance she said something he didn’t want to hear.

Besides, this was a professional relationship. They were colleagues, business partners.

And once again, Levi reminded himself. Why should she think of him as anything more than that?

“You’re not joining testing?” Levi asked.

They had been silent for a while, long enough for Levi to get tired of staring at Zeke and Erwin who had been engaged in some other conversation on a table towards the corner of the gym, some area concealed by some makeshift stage. From the moderators table situated right beside the stage. Levi couldn’t make out conversations but he could make out some of the gestures and mannerisms

There was another man, someone Levi didn’t recognize. A School Official?

It didn’t seem necessary for him to think too much of it. After all, it had seemed like a more casual conversation. Zeke though, always seemed to be having a relaxed conversation while Erwin never looked like he was having one.

“I left my phone...” It had felt like ages before Hange replied.

He didn’t even notice he had been waiting for her reply until he turned back, and returned her gaze. Until he found himself unable to respond, possibly out of shock.

She continued. “Back in the house…” Her words came slowly. Maybe she had been too engrossed in something else in her laptop to tell.

We have test devices. The suggestion seemed almost automatic

Levi’s mouth was already halfway open when she interrupted. “I’d personally rather I didn’t test the Love Alarm today. He might insist we test it but I thought it worth a shot to at least not have my phone with me, to make it less convenient.” She shrugged then gave him a knowing look.

You know why… Those had been the silent words between them. And there could have been a silent conversation after that, or a silent moment of comprehension. Something only two people whose love alarms rang under the mercy of the most complex of circumstances could have ever understood.

In the silence that followed, Levi kept himself busy encoding some of the data that had already come in. He was grateful there were still parts of the spreadsheet that needed fixing. He managed to prolong his busy-ness and as they continued, he was committed to keeping both of them occupied.

The answered questionnaires came more quickly, in thicker stacks and Levi only got enough to seem productive, leaving Hange with a slightly bigger stack. The unsynchronized clacks of the keyboards were enough to fill the air of the room, for a good long hour.

He tried to take control in his own way, maybe find rhythm with Hange's typing.

A part of him was desperate to fill the air between them with some casual conversation but when he opened his mouth, nothing much else came out. They were doing what they were supposed to do but Levi felt like a fish out of water.

With time and the right prodding, his thoughts flew back to Hange’s words just yesterday. Maybe she had been right. They were at the mercy of circumstances.

An hour or so could have passed before Zeke sauntered back into their table with Erwin trailing behind. Zeke slammed both hands on the table in some strange greeting. "Did you have our chauffeur pick your phone up?"

Hange looked up at Zeke, her expression unreadable. "No, I didn’t.”

Zeke had the face of a wounded monkey. “So you really don’t plan on joining the testing?”

Hange shrugged. “I’m fine just helping out here. I’ve done enough testing with the app already.”

“I want to test it with you,” Zeke said.

Hange returned Zeke’s look with her own consoling one. “We could always try it together another time?” She suggested.

Zeke didn’t seem satisfied. “I’ll call someone to bring it over.” He pulled out his phone.

Hange put her hands up in defense. “No need, besides, there might be something wrong with my phone. I plan on having it checked.”

“You could use one of the test devices here?” Erwin suggested.

A very unwelcome suggestion. Levi was tempted to look at Erwin, shooting daggers with his stare. Instead he bent over, just a little hiding his face behind the laptop screen.

“No no, don’t trouble yourself, other people might need it more,” Hange said.

"We could always buy a new phone?" Zeke seemed pretty certain about his suggestion. He had pulled out his phone as he spoke.

If Levi had been drinking then, he could have spit it out. Instead he had to settle for choking on his own saliva. What?

Erwin raised both eyebrows in shock. "Mr. Jaeger, do you mean buying a new phone for testing? We have a few test devices here. You shouldn't put yourself thought the trou--"

Zeke shook his head. "Believe me it's no trouble." He started to type. "Leave the test devices for people who actually need them. Buying a phone is no problem for me.”

Hange had opened her mouth to protest. Something could have caught at her throat and she looked back down at her laptop. She started to type faster, much faster than a while ago. The quick and off rhythm clack of the keyboard mixed with Zeke’s very firm orders at whoever poor sap was on the phone.

“Any particular model you’d like?” Zeke asked.

Hange shook her head. “You know my stand on this Zeke.”

“It’s a quick test,” Zeke justified. Seeming unbothered, he turned to Levi. “What type of model does the love alarm work best in?”

Erwin had been looking at him expectantly then and Levi found himself dropping a typical model, muttering it under his breath.

It hadn’t done much anyway. Zeke acted as if he hadn't been listening to Levi in the first place. Maybe he hadn't, his focus completely on whoever he was talking to on the phone. “Just buy the best model available and get it down here stat... Money won’t be a problem.”

Still, it was a total waste of money. Levi snuck a glare at Zeke from just above his laptop and a part of him was hoping he had gotten the message.

It was just like Erwin to find a diplomatic way to make his own thoughts known. “You really didn’t have to go through the trouble. We have some working phones which Hange could have borrowed.”

Zeke put one finger up as if to silence Erwin. “I think it’s a fair price for convenience. Besides, if your phone is broken, better to replace it right?" He turned to Hange with those last words.

To Levi, it seemed almost like a challenge.

A challenge to what? There were too many things running through his brain, useless things like estimations of phone prices and a price that would have meant installments to most people, so casually dropped by someone as insufferable as Zeke Jaeger.

He didn't trust himself to speak. So he encoded the last few papers in front of him onto their electronic sheet, slowly yet very carefully, willing his eyes to run through each number multiple times.

His brain was barely moving though.

When the new stack of papers came, care of Eld, Levi was an odd mix between grateful and exasperated.

When Zeke invited Hange out for lunch, he was an odd mix between relieved and just slightly offended.

By what? Of course Zeke wouldn't invite him.

Still, maybe it hurt just a little bit to have the seat next to him empty.

***

Levi settled for a lunch of a sandwich and whatever drink he got his hands on first. Nutrition facts and long term consequences to his overall health could wait another few decades.

Just like with toilet breaks, Levi went for the farther convenience store for no specific reason. Maybe to see a little more green or to allow himself some brain space to think and walk.

And maybe to run into Hange and Zeke again. He found himself thinking back to Hange at the hotel restaurant. It had happened only last Friday but somehow, it had felt like ages ago.

He shifted his gaze, looking subtly through cafe windows, searching for a mop of brown hair or maybe the well kept golden blonde. He came up with nothing.

With time, he gave up, and turned back to the school, passing through one of the nearby entrances, quietly looking through the map on his phone for assurance that he was still on the right path back.

The uniforms were the first sign he was on the right path. The students that had strolled purposefully through the characteristic red brick roads of the school were another sign.

All he had to do was follow the signs to make it back to the gym.

And as he walked on, he noticed other signs, like people with their phones held up, as if looking for an app, maybe? He couldn't be too sure. That was until he noticed two people hunched over, screaming obscenities about love, relationships and some ridiculous app, to surmise he must be nearby.

"Why the hell did it ring?"

"Relax Connie, it's just an app."

"Just in case you forgot, you're in a relationship. Niccolo could kill me for this."

Levi looked back fast enough to catch the nonchalant shrug of the brunette.

"He won't," the brunette continued. "Besides, who cares about what an app says. I already committed to a relationship with him ----”

“I care!”

“Okay then,” She looked dumbfounded or maybe that had been her natural face. She paused for a second, looking upward, seeming deep in thought before she spoke up again. “Why are you so worked up over this?”

There was a bench nearby and for a good few seconds, Levi was eyeing it, especially while the two young students continued to chatter on about his application. The conversation got a little more interesting and it had been all the easier to decide to take a moment to settle on the bench and scroll through his own phone.

“Sasha, tell me… What did you put in the questionnaire.” Connie asked, only confirming the girl’s name for Levi.

“Isn’t that confidential?” Sasha challenged.

Technically it was confidential. Levi had to note and the two were talking in such a recklessly loud manner and even Levi a good few feet away was within earshot. Just to seem less like a peeping Tom, he put both earbuds on.

“I said I trusted you, that I’m happy with you. I think about you a lot. Maybe that’s why it rang for me.”

Levi noticed it from his peripherals, the way the girl named Sasha tensed up and froze on the spot. He found himself cheering silently for the young boy.

Connie, that’s his name right?

“Connie, we’ve been best friends for years… Of course I’d feel the same way about you.”

“So… If the alarm rang for both of us…” Connie never finished his sentence. Or maybe he did, his voice had slowly deadened into murmurs and in response.

Sasha’s jaw dropped, reminiscent of only Hange’s face just yesterday when they separated by the boarding gate.

In shock? In confusion? There were only too many reasons for that expression but Levi was feeling conservative with his guesses. They were a bunch of teenagers, what did they know about love and relationships?

Sasha’s expression softened into a kind smile. “We’ve been best friends for years...even if it is true…”

Their voices had softened to a whisper as the conversation only got more and more serious and Levi was starting not to make out most of what they were saying. He did notice though how she mentioned something about a man named Niccolo, something about a choice to date someone.

And he concluded, maybe it was for the better that he left the two alone to discuss their problems.

He silently scolded himself for even getting invested in that conversation in the first place.

***

Whatever results Connie and Sasha gave were completely anonymous and as Levi scrolled through the datasets on the sheet, he felt almost guilty for prying so deeply into some stranger's personal business. Embarrassingly, it had reached a point where he had been invested enough to guess which of the results were theirs based on the conversation a while ago.

After half an hour of fruitless searching, he let the guilt take over and he stopped himself. Instead, he turned back to the stack of papers that needed encoding.

Maybe one of the papers is there. Levi guessed then he mentally slapped himself for that bout of desperation.

“You should put a minimum age on this Love Alarm app.”

Levi looked up to see Hange had pulled back the seat and settled down next to him. “Why?” he asked. The question seemed more for posterity. Levi was starting to guess the answer himself.

“On the way back from lunch, we ran into a few students fighting.” She chuckled, her voice was light, her tone almost mischievous. “It looks like the love alarm might have started some drama.”

Levi wondered how she could even manage such a conversation when there were more pressing matters on hand. Still, he decided to engage. “I ran into two kids outside too. They were talking about their results with the love alarm.”

Hange raised one eyebrow in interest. “Oh?”

“And one of them’s in a relationship already.” Soon after those words leaked out, Levi wondered if he should have even admitted it. They seemed too painfully familiar.

“So, it just proves, even in a committed relationship, it could ring. Right?” Hange asked.

“Of course it would. The love alarm wouldn’t be able to tell if you’re in a relationship right?” Levi responded. “All the app measures is…” Love. He was careful that second time around. “Compatibility. Unable to multitask at that moment, he dropped his hand right next to the laptop. He looked to Hange, only to notice she hadn’t even started on the second stack yet.

Her eyes were on him and she was still looking very much invested in the conversation. “And I told you, I think your app is working fine.”

Levi continued. “But they’re high school students.”

“Are you saying high school students aren’t capable of love?”

Levi almost choked on his own saliva. “What? No, I never said that.” He took a deep breath. “But there are nuances when considering compatibilities right, something people wouldn’t figure out for themselves early in life.”

“Your application is able to detect those nuances even if people aren’t aware of it themselves then. Going back to those two kids you ran into, let’s assume the love alarm was correct and those two really were compatible with each other. Explain the situation Levi.”

Levi had to pick at his brain. He had to do and undo knots from inside him so maybe it had taken him a bit longer to get those words out. He stared in front of him, trying to find organization in the way Petra had guided the new set of volunteers in.

Luckily, Hange had been patient.

He didn’t spend too much time wondering how long he had made her wait, he looked up at her, and leaned his cheek further into the palm of his hand. He spoke up. “One of them is in a relationship already. Her name is Sasha. The other one—I think his name is Connie— is a childhood friend.”

“Oh, childhood friends to lovers huh?” Hange gestured playfully for him to continue speaking.

Levi had momentum in the conversation, so he willed himself to continue. “And it rang for both of them, and they were talking about it. I couldn’t tell too much from the conversation but---”

“Do you think Sasha would leave her boyfriend just because the love alarm rang?” Hange could have been a mind reader and it was just like her to go straight to the point. Her voice was a little louder. At that point, she leaned back on her chair, and stared straight ahead. Her expression was painfully unreadable.

That had shortened Levi’s tirade by minutes, maybe seconds. That unexpected query left Levi frozen for a while.

“Should a love alarm ringing be worth two people reconsidering long term relationships?” Hange pressed.

Even if he didn’t have an answer for himself. Levi bit his lip and stared straight ahead. It was an easy enough question to answer, a very logical one. All he had to do was look back at whatever snippets he got of the conversation back in the schoolyard to grasp for some right answer.

Even if it is true, we made our choices. And a high school student admitting that of all things, should have been a glaring sign that maybe Levi had been a little immature, having been bothered by the prospect of ‘love being a choice’ for so long.

No, a love alarm shouldn’t be worth it. Levi had opened his mouth, ready to answer it with a simple and most objectively correct answer.

Even if the love alarm was correct, we made our choices. He had accepted it already weeks back, a sad kind of happiness.

Acceptance. But why was a part of him still resisting? He was looking for something. He looked back at Hange who sat, unmoving, he continued to search for it, studying whatever features his eyes would land on, from her cold eyes right until her pursed lips.

Acceptance. Levi repeated to himself. That had been enough to quell the drive to search within him

“Is a loving alarm ringing, really worth it?” Hange asked again. She had more to say, it was very much apparent in her cold professional demeanor. He could have sworn he saw something else, something that made him reflect on whether that question had been rhetorical or whether Hange really expected him to answer.

Worth throwing our lives away? Levi finished the sentence for her in his head and he almost regretted it. His heart ached, he found himself almost unable to breathe. It had been a miracle he managed to continue speaking.

Acceptance. He had accepted it a long time ago already. Maybe that had been the reason he had still managed to look her in the eye then. Levi took a deep breath. “It isn’t,” he admitted.

Hange dropped her shoulders and leaned back on the chair. She closed her eyes and let out an exhale.

A natural response to the thick tension between them. Still, something inside him was desperate for an inkling of her truth and he continued to search.

Hange looked back at him. In those few seconds, she had managed to compose herself and Levi was just having a much harder time reading her.

She spoke up again. “Are you okay?”

“No I’m not,” Levi admitted.

“Is there anything else you wanna talk about?” Hange was once again cold and professional.

Brushing away disappointment, Levi shook his head. “No. Let’s go back to work.” It looked like that 'casual' conversation had taken some turn for the worse and he was just a little tired from that.

***

After an hour or so, Levi had attempted again to loosen whatever tension blanketed both of them with another light conversation topic.

The few times he tried, he was interrupted. Events were only happening one after the other and he was starting to realize how difficult it was to keep a calm and disconnected conversation. Every other few minutes, they were coming at him with new reports, new stacks of paper, new developments.

“This is the last time we’re testing on high school students,” Levi muttered. He was almost relieved their last conversation had ended on an abrupt note. Maybe that wasn’t a conversation they should have been reaching in such a hectic situation.

“I’ll tell Zeke about this,” Hange responded calmly.

A huge chunk of Levi’s attention was on the scene in front of him just a few rows back There were, two girls, a small blonde and a dark lanky brunette a few inches taller, right next to them was a burly blond man. The blond man seemed almost devastated, the brunette seemed defensive and it looked like the small blond girl was trying to pacify both of them with a rattled Oluo in tow.

“How did you even convince a bunch of high school students to volunteer to test the app?” Levi asked half heartedly. That seemed like a casual conversation starter. He kept a good amount of his focus to his side, just in case Hange spoke up, he wouldn’t miss it.

Hange put one finger to her chin. "Zeke was pretty smart about it…” He pointed out something. "Teenagers are very simple minded yet very cynical at the same time. Just put the right bribe in front of them, concert tickets, front row tickets to a game in exchange for testing some product which seemingly tests their status with love? Most teenagers took the bait. " She grinned and spoke up again, her tone a little higher. “What can a simple phone app say about something as complex as love? Besides, the love alarm is a pretty harmless app right?”

She didn't really believe that right?

I mean, technically it is. Theoretically, all it did was measure compatibility. Most people should have chalked it up to something similar to horoscopes, superstitions or fortune telling. That information was on a nice-to-know basis but not necessarily life changing.

Levi only had to look ahead again to be reminded, maybe the Love Alarm just had that effect on people. Maybe users were underestimating their own ability to be unaffected by some reading on an application. The success of the Love Alarm was enough of an answer. The proliferation of app usage in the dating sphere was another hint. And the love alarm and the emotions alarm having some reign over Levi’s moods lately should have been another huge, visceral hint.

Levi set aside that last hint as soon as he articulated it in his mind. Instead, he turned his thoughts to an exhausted Oluo who was making his way to the table.

"This is a good lesson boss. We really should put a minimum age restriction on this," Oluo said as he sat back down on the chair next to Levi, seeming completely spent.

"You're not the first one to tell me that," Levi responded.

"You see that couple there? That small girl and that brown haired girl are in a relationship already. And that big guy, he has a thing for the small girl," Oluo explained. It looked like he had tried to keep a facade of disinterest, a shoddy one.

Levi saw easily through it. "I can see that." He kept his own tone seemingly unaffected. He wondered if it showed.

Either way, Oluo seemed too invested in whatever love stories he was speculating. "And the love alarm just made things slightly… complicated."

Levi narrowed his eyes, following the trio that only a while ago had been fighting.

He focused then on the brunette and the blonde, the subtle way they held hands, the wide eyed, seemingly permanent smile on the small blonde’s face. The brunette on the other hand seemed to wear a permanent scowl on her face. That was, unless she was staring at the smaller girl. He then looked down at the two hands, held close to each other.

He shook his head when he realized he had been staring at it for a little too long. He looked back at the burly blonde man, who stepped back, seeming disappointed, almost embarrassed.

"It helps articulate emotions. That’s the point of the Love Alarm because some people don’t even know they’re feeling something until someone—or something points it out right?" He turned almost instinctively back to Hange, only to feel a slight drop in his stomach.

Hange didn’t look back at him, seeming focused on whatever was in front of her. Her concentration made it difficult to see what had caught her eye.

Oluo continued. "There are two blondes over there. I think their names were Aaron… Arnie…? Anyway they have almost similar names." He subtly pointed towards another pair.

Still, it had been easy for Levi to trace the view to the two blondes next to each other, seeming nervous as they made their way through the crowd then to the table with the questionnaires. There was an awkward air about them, but he couldn’t help but notice the subtle smile plastered on both of their faces.

It only pushed Levi to look more closely at the papers as they were submitted to Petra. Petra had conveniently piled them on top of the stack and Levi followed it all the way until the mods table.

He looked over the answers.

All Yes boxes were ticked. Did they trust each other? Yes. Did they think about each other a lot? Yes. Levi double checked the question on the remarks filled up by a facilitator.

Did the love alarm ring? The ‘Yes’ box was ticked on both papers

"It looks like the Love Alarm can tie up romantic loose ends," Hange commented.

Levi only noticed when she had spoken up that she had craned her neck to read the questionnaire next to him. It looked like she had been listening the whole time. She gestured towards the exit of the gym where the two blondes seemed to be deep in conversation. From the distance, he noticed the red tint in both of their cheeks.

Then one raised their hand slightly, the other clutched it. Then Levi conceded, there was some truth to Hange’s comment. But he was tempted to challenge it. "Maybe because they mustered the courage to confess," Levi suggested as he encoded the numbers onto the spreadsheet. “They allowed themselves to feel whatever they were actually feeling.”

"Well, circumstances were in their favor right? I'm sure there are a lot more cases where just admitting would be slightly more complicated than that, like those two kids you mentioned a while ago."

Levi turned towards Hange, keeping his face as serious as possible. "I wanna know, why would admitting it be hard?"

Hange hummed "Rejection maybe?" Her face seemed innocent, mockingly innocent.

A little ticked, Levi was uncharacteristically in the mood for a little back and forth. "You've been talking about reading and acting on circumstances so many times this past weekend, I'm sure you know it's not always about rejection."

For the first time in a while, Levi was raring to talk. From the messy facade of disconnect, Hange’s expression shifted to that of hesitance, nervousness. For a good few moments, she was frozen on her seat. And he started to realize why he had been so strangely talkative since a while ago.

He was in a strange state of mind, he desperately wanted answers to questions he couldn’t yet articulate. Was he just not satisfied? Or was Hange just deliberately not giving them?

"Do you think it's embarrassing to feel something for someone?" Levi broke the silence with one question he managed to forage from the back of his mind.

Hange answered with a quick sentence. “No, it’s not.”

"Of course it's not, but when you think about your situation and you realize you’re not supposed to be feeling a certain way... Should you be ashamed about feeling that way?" He pressed.

"We can't assume how we feel right? Before we even delve into that, we have to consider whether or not we really feel that emotion right?"

"But when we’re sure we already feel it,” Levi clarified.

"But if you allow your emotions to play a part, all you do is muddle your own ability to analyze. I think everyone should analyze the situation first with a very cal—"

"I think that's pride," Levi said firmly. "I think pride is refusing to let yourself feel it in the first place."

Hänge hummed. "Well, then assuming that circumstances are so simple that you can just feel whatever you want… that's prejudice right? You only get past initial prejudice when you learn to analyze what's beyond the situation. The more you know, the more you understand, the freer you are."

"But you're only free if you let yourself feel, then after that, you let yourself understand," Levi said. So maybe just letting go, enough to let yourself feel, maybe that's freedom?"

Hange shook her head. "Thinking while letting your emotions run free? It's not that easy. You’re just gonna end up a slave to your emotions."

“Well, would I rather be a slave to my cold calculating brain or to my emotions? We can’t control emotions. We can’t control circumstances either. So what now?” Levi said, looking pointedly at Hange. He only realized then when the hoarseness of his throat caught up to him, that somewhere along the way he had raised his voice.

Hange’s eyes were wide and when she spoke up again, her voice was notably softer. It looked like she had raised her voice as well. “I assess the situation, and then I decide what to feel, what to do.”

Levi sighed. "Hange, I have another theory,” he started. “What if freedom is acting logically and objectively despite emotions?" He only noticed it soon after, he had adopted Hange’s mannerisms with those last few sentences.

Hange seemed unsurprised. She shook her head. “You can take control of your emotions more easily than your circumstances.”

"I don’t agree with that. No one can control how they feel. So I don’t think anyone should be ashamed of how they feel? Why do people have to stop themselves from feeling?" Levi asked. "Connie, that guy I ran into, the love alarm rang... They're best friends...there's acceptance there… isn't what's important is what we do with the feelings? I understand the circumstan—"

"Do you really understand it Levi?" Hange asked. She gestured with her face towards what was in front of them. The voices, the background noise became somewhat clearer as he watched the scuffle in front of him.

Levi huffed. “I understand that the Love Alarm isn’t enough reason for anyone to switch up their relationships…”

Sasha’s words echoed in his head. We’ve been best friends for years...even if it is true…

He continued. “But if the love alarm was correct, if the love were true, real… shouldn’t the users just accept these feelings for what they are?” Levi only noticed it a second later, when his eyes had locked on Hange that he had mimicked her position, leaning back on the chair. “Is it really so wrong to just accept sometimes, that love is an emotion and sometimes we just can’t control how we feel right? Maybe there is still a lot we can learn from an unrequited love.”

Hange furrowed her eyebrows. “We?”

“‘We’ as in every single person, who ever had to deal with an unrequited love.”

Hange didn't respond to that, she made some other excuse about how they had to work on the next set of results conveniently stacked in front of them.

Another attempt at some light conversation had left Levi winded. The words on the paper then on the screen were starting to blur amongst one another. His head was starting to throb. He found himself lowering the screen of his laptop just a bit and staring straight ahead, just for a break from the soft white glare.

He snuck a glance at Hange, who seemed just a little exhausted as well, her shoulders dropped, her wrists falling more recklessly onto the table as she typed.

The more people that filed in through the entrance, the more Levi realized it was a busy day. They shouldn't have been spending too much time discussing the relationships of people they would never see again. They shouldn’t have spent too much time discussing some useless philosophy on love when there were more pressing things to deal with.

Levi couldn't help but wonder. How the hell did all of their light conversation topics end up so heavy?

Or maybe he was the only one feeling that way. It looked like Hange had recovered first from that casual conversation turned deep. She looked up in one swift movement and spoke up, breaking the ringing silence between them. "That's Eren, Zeke's brother," she subtly pointed her thumb towards the side and Levi had to crane his neck to see behind her.

It wasn't too hard to pick him up. Eren was a tall teenager and he was followed by a young girl with chin length hair and an almost demanding presence despite being a little shorter.

"And that's Mikasa, his best friend,” Hange added.

Levi followed Eren with his eyes to see that he had gone to that corner just to talk to Zeke. Whatever they were talking about, he couldn't tell much from his end.

He looked to Hange for answers.

There was a flash of excitement in her eyes and she looked very much like she was holding in some interesting story, torn between speaking and watching the developments closely.

"You wanna tell me about them?" Levi asked when the anticipation finally became unbearable.

Hange seemed particularly focused as she watched Zeke and Eren talk. Levi even guessed that she may have heard that hushed conversation between them.

"He and Mikasa have been best friends for years… You know it's funny, her last name is Ackerman too. Are you related?" She commented

Levi never had enough bougie connections to have any cousins in swanky private schools so he brushed that question away. "Okay, what about them?"

Hange tapped one hand on the space between them on the table then pointed their way as Mikasa and Eren started to tap at their phones, with Petra looking like she was explaining something on her own phone.

They were downloading the app.

A young boy, a few inches taller than Eren joined the crowd. Levi followed the taller boy's gaze as they landed on Mikasa.

He tried to make sense of the conversation. Lip reading had never been his forte though.

"I don't recognize the taller guy," Hange admitted.

It was someone else who answered the question. "That's one of Eren's friends, Jean."

Levi turned behind him to see Zeke, the latter making his way to the seat on the other side of Hange. And just like that, Hange had turned away from him and started to engage with Zeke. When Hange willed it, it looked like she had a way of just making her voice unintelligible to him. Levi considered craning his neck, just to pick up some of the conversation, yet it seemed almost intruding.

That was Zeke and Hange’s conversation not his.

So he stared at the trio in front of him. When he had nothing else to do but encode the stack of papers next to him or make some mental detour about how they should automate such an archaic process, he found it easy to remember the names of the three kids, all an even distance away from each other, their eyes all on their phones.

Eren, Mikasa and Jean. Levi leaned back and watched the events in front of him unfold.

The gym was a constant slew of echoes and alarms and he couldn’t really tell the exact alarm that could have been from any of the three of them. He had to rely on expressions.

Jean turned a bright red. Mikasa had made a seemingly apologetic look at Jean. Then at Eren?

Eren didn’t blush, but he had seemed a little uncomfortable at the turn of events, apparent in the way he had tensed up, the way he turned his head sharply towards Jean.

Mikasa walked in between both boys, holding her hands up as if to separate the two. Maybe the dark glare she had given both boys had done the trick. The tension remained but there seemed little to no threat of a scuffle anymore.

Somewhere along the way, Eld had appeared next to the three with six sheets of paper and three pens. Eren came from behind Mikasa, walking notably nearer to her than a while ago.

They were whispering. Mikasa turned behind her to Jean who was following behind, a wide eyed look on her face and soon after Eld left, Zeke appeared next to Eren. He looked like he was pacifying the young teenager while the latter had gripped at his two sheets a little too hard.

Talking to him? Advising him? Levi didn’t ponder for long. He decided he didn’t want to think about Zeke.

“Zeke filled me in.” Of all things, that had been Hange’s conversation starter.

Levi didn’t know if he should be grateful or just irritated that of all things Hange had to mention him. “Go on,” he said as if just speaking would be enough to get rid of that twinge of irritation.

“It looks like Eren doesn’t know yet that he likes Mikasa. Or that’s Zeke’s speculation. So Zeke expected it to ring.”

“Wow, your husband takes the time out of his busy schedule to actually speculate on the love life of his younger brother.” Levi attempted not to lace his tone with sarcasm. As it turned out, even a sentence like that sounding emotionless or even friendly would seem sarcastic.

If Hange did notice it, she ignored it. “With the looks on their faces, I’m guessing it did ring.”

“For both of them?”

“For both of them maybe,” Hange said.

Another stack of papers were dropped in front of them, a few greetings were exchanged care of Gunther and once again, Levi was sifting through the pile for the more crumpled papers.

There were no names but he could make an intelligent guess. The crumpled papers were Eren’s definitely.

Did the alarm ring with your partner? Yes.

Just under it were two more papers.

Did the alarm ring? Yes.

Did the alarm ring? Yes.

“That looks like Eren’s hand writing, and that one’s Mikasa,” Hange pointed out. “I knew it.”

“So this means, Mikasa’s alarm rang with both Eren and Jean,” Levi said as he ran his hands over the papers.

Did the alarm ring? Yes.

“Then maybe, Jean’s alarm rang with Mikasa?” Hange guessed, giving him an expectant look. “Jean is one of Eren’s close friends from school apparently, and according to Zeke, he has the hots for Mikasa too.”

Levi looked at Hange. Her eyebrows were raised, her mouth played into a wide grin and for just a second, Levi could have felt the hairs at the back of his neck stand. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Well who do you think Mikasa will pick?”

“That’s her choice right?”

“Zeke told me, one reason he wanted to test the love alarm here was to get his brother in one place with all the others who were crushing on Mikasa. He wanted Eren and Mikasa to realize something. Something that only the Love Alarm can prove maybe?"

"Love? Yearning?" Levi was spouting all too familiar emotions, or more specifically, he was spitting them out, like they were laced with poison.

Hange shrugged. "The love alarm causes chaos but sometimes it can tie loose ends."

Something inside him snapped. "Then why the fuck bring it up if you're just gonna answer with something vague."

Hange didn't seem surprised at all, and the more Levi stared, the more he realized he would have been annoyed either way.

A surprised Hange meant she probably didn't care. An expectant Hange meant she was hiding something.

"Levi…" Hange started. She took her time saying his name but she didn't say much else afterwards as if she was at a loss for words.

"We've been talking since a while ago. " Levi asked. "I wanna know, what are you trying to tell me? There must be a point to all these conversations."

"There's a point to this."

"Then, What. Is. It." Levi challenged.

"I told you, I don't want to rely on this love alarm to tell me how to feel. I want to decide how to feel."

"Want?"

"I will not allow it to tell me how I feel."

"Then I guess we won't agree. Look, I don't care about changing our circumstances right now. I don't give a fuck if after all this you leave." Levi mustered up some courage to look up at Hange.

She seemed lost in thought, yet at the same time, she seemed to be staring straight into him.

Levi only saw it as opportunity to continue but he was a little more careful that time, letting his voice soften into a whisper. "The most I want out of you is just some proof that this love alarm thing wasn't a sham. You said it yourself, it's not a bug right? Why did you say that? Why did you say that and now you're suddenly pretending that nothing happened?"

Hange opened her mouth to speak and she couldn't have gone any slower. He would have liked to blame the anticipation at first, the thick heavy tension that only made it harder to move.

When a box dropped in between both of them with a thump, Levi concluded, Hange had just been slow, fucking slow.

"We have a new phone. Download the app in, let's test," Zeke ordered. Who the hell was he ordering at that moment? Levi and Hange both couldn't tell.

Yet, their responses were surprisingly coordinated. Hange went for the box, quickly unwrapping it. Levi went for his laptop, pulling credentials from the system and a download link to be sent to the new phone.

It was only halfway through, when he was sending over the link did he notice it. Reciting the log-in details, he was only silently and peacefully walking to whatever chaos awaited them at the end. Yet, somehow he couldn't stop. Hange had seemed accepting too, overly professional about the whole process of testing and possibly inadvertently exposing her strange yet very personal love alarm results.

Around the time when Hange was going through the biometrics, Levi thought it polite to resist just a little. "You sure you wanna go through with this?"

"Who said I wanted to?" Hange asked.

"You know what I mean."

"Well, what do we tell Zeke then?"

Levi couldn't think up a response to that so he kept quiet. He let his mind wander. Then he agreed it wasn't a matter of Hange wanting to do something.

It was a matter of Zeke getting what he wanted.

Levi couldn't sit still. He couldn't bring himself to even get past the first paper on his new pile. His eyes were on the screen in front of him but he had snuck glances just above him towards the crowds of people so often that he might as well have just been looking ahead.

Eventually, he dropped the pile, gave up on getting any more done. He lost all self consciousness and just looked straight ahead.

It felt like he was watching an execution. It could have been his own execution, Hange’s execution or maybe even the whole company’s in slow motion.

He couldn't answer that particular question yet. With time, maybe he could. All he had to do was get past the few minutes that seemed like years, even decades.

Zeke was taking his sweet time, murmuring sweet nothings to Hange and Hange had taken her sweet time double checking those fucking biometrics. To the point where Levi actually spent a good amount of time brainstorming how to streamline the whole registration process.

The build up had been unbearably slow. Fucking slow. Petra stood next to them, preparing two sheets of paper and Levi found himself passing the time trying to answer it in his head.

The climax came very anticlimactically.

There were less people in the gym already, especially so late in the day. So when Levi craned his neck to hear it, he could almost pick it out, that one ring on their side of the gym. He only surmised that Hange's alarm rang when he noticed the way Zeke had wrinkled his nose and furrowed his brows.

Hange's back was to the moderator's table so Levi couldn't make out her face, as desperate as he was to know.

He wasn't that desperate yet. In fact, his own reaction to the chain of events didn't come as quickly as he had wanted to. Of all things, it had been Erwin’s expectant stare, the uncharacteristic panic in his eyes that had Levi standing.

“Levi could you check up on them?” It was Erwin’s order that had Levi making his way to them.

It had been the look of panic in Petra’s face that had him speeding up. And the closer he got, the more he realized how much he had wanted to see Hange’s face.

But business came first. “It looks like there’s still something wrong with the app.” Zeke’s words had surprisingly been polite. Levi’s first instinct was to search for the venom and the sarcasm and maybe he had sensed some.

For a mainly back office employee, diplomacy had seemed like the hardest part. There were only two things Levi would have been most comfortable doing then: turn to Petra and have her do the speaking or step forward, look back and take a peak at Hange who had stood unmoving since the alarm rang.

A sense of obligation was all he needed to meet Zeke’s eyes. He had to clench his jaw, he had to narrow his eyes just to keep some grip on the situation.

And it might only get worse.

He stepped forward, a few more steps then past Hange and it was only getting harder not to look back.

Zeke’s presence was domineering. His money, his power over whatever work Levi was doing was an unignorable reality. “It looks like the Love Alarm might not be working as expected," he said calmly.

Levi had his months worth of research and testing to look back to. And one thought, one long split second later, one deep breath later, he let it out, not confidently but just professional enough to at least get his point across.

“It’s working as expected,” Levi mustered. How many ways could he say something like that without insulting a billionaire? He wondered what Erwin would have said, what Hange would have said, what crazy lingo their marketing or public relations team would have come up with. Levi though had been the one who had slaved for years over that application. He would have been the only one to know the gravity of such a statement. “The love alarm is working as expected,” he repeated, just in case the message didn’t come across.

Maybe it didn’t. Zeke narrowed his eyes. “How can you be sure? Have you done the proper testing?”

“We’ve been testing this for months. Mr. Jaeger, it’s working as expected,” Levi repeated. He willed himself to keep the tone at the least, emotionless. At that moment, when he was also resisting the urge to look back at Hange it had been almost an impossible task.

Zeke let out one exhale. Then, his voice was soft, almost deathly cold. “Would you like to test again Mr. Ackerman?”

Test? Levi let his mouth drop just half way down. “Here?”

“You've taken a liking to Hange haven't you? I heard about it, if I've not noticed it myself.

Heard from who? Asking questions, Levi knew he would be only delaying the inevitable and a part of him wanted to delay it.

“Levi go turn on your Love Alarm,” Erwin ordered.

At the least, he had an excuse to look back. He caught Hange behind him for a split second. Her face was a strange mix between utter acceptance. The more Levi looked though, the easier it had been to pick out something else. A hint of pleading, too small that it could have been his imagination.

Levi looked away.

And Erwin wasn’t allowing him a second look. “Levi, is something wrong?” It wasn’t a question of concern. Levi had know Erwin enough to guess, it was merely a nice way of telling him to hurry.

Levi pulled his phone from his pocket, navigated to the application and activated in one quick motion. If he spared any more time, he might just hesitate.

There were three separate rings that filled the dead air between the four of them. At first, Levi had attributed the profundity, the implicit ringing in his ears to just the weight of the moment. Time was moving at a snail’s pace and by the time he had come to his senses, by the time Zeke had brought out his phone turning the empty screen towards him, Levi was suddenly aware that there were only three rings that graced the whole gym.

The gym had gone silent. All eyes were on them and the ringing of the three arms only continued, supplemented by whatever echoes followed.

And it would only continue unless someone moved to turn off their love alarm. Even in complete shock, Levi surmised that much.

Erwin had been the first to have composed himself. He took one to step back, then a few more. Then he was completely out of range of the love alarm.

The three alarms continued to ring.

Zeke was next to move. His face was completely unreadable and he had bent his head down, his eyes seeming glued to the screen.

From that angle, Levi could never be too sure of Zeke’s reaction.

Zeke eventually looked up, his face cold, almost expressionless. He held his phone up, only dangling it from the ground by three fingers.

The contents though were what had Levi still struggling to move. It had been expected, but to see it in the silence, when the air around them was heavy, when they were under close watch by tens if not hundreds of people, that had only served to make his stomach drop.

Zeke deactivated the alarm, and the alarm, barren of any hearts, shifted back to the title screen.

One sound disappeared. Two were left. And when everything else was silent, Levi couldn’t help but grovel silently at how annoyingly loud the ringing actually was.

He looked back at Hange. She had stood quiet and unmoving those few moments that seemed to last an eternity. When Levi looked back though, their gazes locked almost instantly.

Hange’s eyes were wide, her mouth pursed into some lopsided line and when Levi looked closer, he could have sworn he saw that flash of pleading again.

Pleading for what?

In such a fast paced world, on a Monday of all days, there was not much time to ponder. He had felt almost guilty staring, finding some way to placate her with his eyes alone. Eventually they were escorted out. Hange and Zeke went ahead and Hange as usual, had Zeke’s strong protective arm around her.

“Levi, we’re going to have to discuss this,” Erwin said. He walked ahead, gesturing for Levi to follow behind.

As always, Levi followed, slowly and sluggishly. It took him a minute more to realize he had almost forgotten to turn off the alarm.

***

“There’s no bug,” Levi repeated again. He attempted to compose himself but there was only so much he could do when he was the only one standing in the small conference room.

Zeke had settled on the sofa and as expected, no one protested. He put one hand to his chin, in mock surprise. “I could have sworn it had been working a few months ago.”

“We had a test build.” Hange spoke up from next to him, her voice was soft. It lacked the melody it usually had. “We needed the funds to continue digging into that bug so we created a build… for extra testing.”

“And I would have gladly given the funds either way,” Zeke said. “The burning question is, did you even find the bug?”

“There’s. No. Bug.” Levi kept his tone firm and professional. He wondered if the venom had made it out of his mouth.

“You gave up pretty fast,” Zeke commented.

And that was the moment Levi realized, there were things Zeke might never understand about the testing process. It was a complete waste of time explaining the difficulty of labor to someone who treated an ordinary person’s full time job as just another vessel for investment.

“Tell me, Mr. Ackerman. If there’s no bug, can you explain to me the reason behind the strange behavior of the application?” Zeke said.

The question had come as a challenge, something Levi was in no mood to take. When Erwin was giving him a long side eyed glance, he knew he’d have to make something work.

“It tests compatibility,” Levi said. “How well people would probably make as a pair, the potential to… get together.” He found himself dancing around definitions, avoiding the word ‘love’ like a plague.

But that wasn’t love. He would rather it wasn't love. Then and there, he almost considered applying for a name change.

“Zeke, love is a choice,” Hange said. “Whatever result the application gives is never going to affect this relationship. I wouldn’t let it.”

“Can you explain then why you have so much faith in this application then?”

Hange turned to Levi and nodded. “It has potential.”

“Potential for further research. You told me that before,” Zeke’s voice was only getting louder. “But can you really trust this application, this developer, after he inadvertently confesses, after your own application rings for him. And he refuses to admit to a bug.”

“Because it’s not a bug,” Hange said. “I was testing with him, I know.”

“So are you saying you’re in love with Mr. Ackerman?”

Hange dropped her shoulders, then looked straight ahead. “In another life, maybe we could have been compatible. If things didn’t end the way it did, maybe Levi and I could have gotten together and we would have been happy. I think that’s what the love alarm meant to say. Circumstances are different though. I’m married to you. I am committed to you.”

“But, are you in love with him?” Zeke pressed.

Hange shook her head. “I don’t think the Love Alarm measures love. It measures emotions, compatibility. Zeke, this thing between is, it's something we built overtime, something we grew together?”

Zeke narrowed his eyes at Hange and Levi followed his eyes back to her to see that pleading expression once again. Hange was still pleading, that time that expression was directed towards Zeke.

“Is it, Hange? Is love something which grows over time?” Zeke pressed.

Levi noticed Hange's face had fallen, her eyes widened but the pleading in her expression only grew. Then Levi made a silent yet outrageous guess.

Hange was pleading. Pleading for answers?

Zeke turned to Erwin then to Levi, his eyes once again cold and serious. "Can you give me and Hange some space first? We need to discuss something."

Maybe Zeke had guessed something similar and as Erwin led Levi out of the room, he was starting to accept that he might never know. Levi’s legs were heavy. The glass door had difficult to pull close and when he had shut the door behind him with a click, he felt like he had been lifting weights.

Or maybe he was just finding an excuse not to leave. There was that in between, something similar to the desolation of rejection and another pathetic emotion.

Denial. There was more to their circumstances for sure. Hange’s strange expression, the wide eyes, the almost seemingly curious glimmer and the pleading that never seemed to fall away.

Out of curiosity, or even desperation, Levi ended up waiting outside for a second longer, positioning himself somewhere where he wouldn’t so easily be seen.

The door was an orderly combination of frosted glass, wooden frames and transparent glass. When Levi sat on the sofa just in front of the doorway, burying himself into some social media timeline, he still had enough headspace to crane his neck up, and just make out positions just behind the frosted class.

Behind the portion of clearer glass, Levi could see Hange was still sitting on the sofa but her posture had shifted into something strangely uncharacteristic. She rested her forehead on her palm and she was bending over, staring at something at the palm of her hand.

The familiar silver of Zeke's phone. What was she staring at?

It felt almost intrusive asking, so Levi ended his own mental reflection there. Instead, he focused on how Hange had looked back up, a look of panic, concern. She was calling out to Zeke maybe?

In a few swift movements, Zeke had come right beside her, he pressed her towards the clear glass.

And he kissed her.

Head empty, thoughts elsewhere, Levi didn't feel it immediately. But eventually it did come. It was a strong wave and for a while, Levi was bombarded.

A second later, he was drowning.

Over a small view? Something between the slits of glass? When he got his grip back on reality, he let his eyes wander over the intricate design of the door and to to the only part of Hange that was reflecting some glimmer of protest.

The fingers of her right hand were pressed on the doorway and Levi continued to watch that less painful view from the one just above it. Hange’s hand continued to twitch, then it went back up and gripped Zeke by the waist. Then suddenly her arm had snaked over Zeke's back then pulled him into one tight embrace.

One tight embrace in front of him and Levi started to think it almost laughable that he had even searched for some rebellion in that intimate moment.

Why would she rebel? She told him herself, she loved him. Yet, why was he still searching for something? Why did he hyperfixate on such a subtle movement that could have meant nothing in that grand scheme of things.

And when Levi mustered the courage to look away from the hand, back up to the view of their heads pressed against each other, he noticed Zeke was looking in his direction. When their eyes met, Zeke narrowed them and raised his chin up in some strange indignance, some vague threat. Then his curled up into a small smile, not wide enough to have ever been genuine.

And the overall expression had Levi dropping his shadows in some cruel realization. Why did he feel like he had lost something? Not just someone but some game.

Had he even been playing?

With that strange expression directed towards him , Levi deemed his very small yet personal search useless and suspended it altogether.

Something pricked at his eyes, his lips trembled and by god, did he want to call it a day. His legs were jelly, deadweight at the same time. His hands didn't feel like his. Still, he moved mechanically to nothing, one step at a time towards the door.

Suddenly aware of social graces, he shook his head and scolded himself once again for getting in the way of such an intimate moment.

He met Erwin outside and by the time Erwin had asked why he had taken so long, Levi had already found ways to compose himself. “Just had to check something on my phone.” It didn’t make much sense but at that moment, sense was the last thing on Levi’s mind.

"I'm going to have a long talk with Zeke about that contract."

"Do you need help?" Levi asked.

Erwin shook his head. "No, this is between me and Zeke. Focus on the alarm."

"I will… No, Hange and I will." Adding her name had only made the prospect of bouncing back from such an ordeal almost stomachable.

But it had worked for only just a few minutes. When Hange and Zeke had left the office, it backfired magnificently.

And all he needed was that one-sided exchange to bring him back to that point of utter desolation.

"Hange, I'll see you tomorrow?" Levi asked.

Hange didn’t respond. Notably, she had been walking faster towards the exit of the gym, only trailing behind Zeke.

"Wait, where are you going?"

"Hange…" Before he knew it, he had followed her through the campus grounds. Before he even felt it, he had clutched a shaking hand.

'Levi, let me go, will you?" Hange didn’t seem at all angry. Hell, she had been smiling since even before their eyes locked. Her manner of speaking, her words, then that last expression before she turned her back on him, they all seemed to have a calming effect.

It was easier to let go of her hand, easier to watch silently as she and Zeke turned the corner towards the open parking lot.

But her final parting words burned into even the recesses of his mind. And those words stayed there, the whole train ride home, the whole trek back up to his small studio apartment.

For the first time, Levi went straight to sleep. Of course he would, it had been a long day, too many things happened and he was fucking tired.

But extreme exhaustion was never just exhaustion. Sometimes, he even forgot how much control emotions had over the physical.

Out of curiosity, he opened his alarm to make sense of that strange exhaustion. He noted the blur that came with his own bleary view.

Then the colors and contours settled. Then he noted a pale sky blue.

***

Levi had always been a stickler for cleanliness.

Hange's writings on the whiteboard was a nagging antithesis. They were a conglomerate of careless scribbles, some parts faint other parts dark. Hange never bothered to write over them, never bothered to write on the white board with the same pressure every time.

And she never even wrote in a straight line.

Wingsoffreedom123

Wingsoffreedom213

Wingsoffreedom231

Wingsoffreedom321

Wingsoffreedom312

Wingsoffreedom132

The lines only bent, fell over or climbed as she wrote them and they only acted as some sort of distraction especially when Levi was in a constant process of organizing and reorganizing both his thoughts and his actual belongings.

Yet somehow, Levi couldn't stop staring at the lines of used emails and the check marks next to them. Somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to erase it and write over it, despite the codes, the plans running through his mind, demanding to be let out.

Maybe he could ask her for permission, maybe scold her for not cleaning up.

At around ten that Tuesday morning, he called, only to receive a dial tone. And he listened to that dial tone for a few minutes longer, while staring at the messy white board on front of him.

Hange was an utter mess. He thought loudly to himself. Then he found himself a little more ticked to have a whiteboard with shitty scribbles on it.

The eraser was right under the board. Yet as easy as it would be to erase it, somehow he couldn’t.

He turned back to his computer, opened his workflow tracker and started a new project just for both of them. He added the resources, the codes and the latest build of that birthday present he had created just for her.

He opened a virtual drawing board on his tablet, drawing plans for new colors, plans to quantify emotions and plans to connect a phone to some desktop view dashboard.

He didn’t know what Hange would need, what Hange was envisioning or however way he could make sense of numbers or assign them into each emotion just yet.

If he just created a few formulas, suggested a few codes, Hange would give her feedback anyway. He booted his phone up and opened his chat with Hange.

11:00 AM

Hey, you’re going to the office today?

Lunch break passed without any hitches so Levi decided to stare at the whiteboard again just to annoy himself enough to want to message Hange again.

2:26 PM

Are you done with the whiteboard? I’m gonna erase what you wrote.

She didn’t reply.

He sent over those same questions, those same threats multiple times a day over the week and every time, the result had been the same.

No response.

As week turned into two weeks, then three, he realized he had never planned on erasing it in the first place. Somehow, he wanted that antithesis, that glaring reminder that it hadn’t just been his office space anymore.

Work and responsibilities had become some sort of a solace, a godsend in their own little way. With enough post release questions to answer, with enough data from the testing to make some sense of, Levi was constantly busy. With bugs constantly rearing their ugly heads, demanding to be solved, Levi had at least managed to pretend he wasn’t always thinking about her.

[ellohcee]

Ghosting

Jasper's gotten pretty used to being a ghost and things are actually going really well. He's dead, so there's not much else that can go wrong, right? ...Right?

AO3 if that suits your eyeballs better | Inspired by this lovely illustration here | Wordcount: 10,049

warnings: non graphic death mention (but not permanent because ghosts yknow? yeah)

- - - -

Out in the quiet countryside sat an old, decaying house. It stood imposing amidst the shady woods surrounding the grounds and the green fields beyond that. A large, three story beast cradled in isolation and feeling cut off from the rest of the world, the trees blocking sight of the nearby highway unless you stood directly on the long dirt road leading out. From there it was still probably a fifteen minute drive of open field until you could reach civilization, Jasper’s hometown to be precise.

The air tended to be quite still this time of day except for an occasional short lived breeze, the absolute quiet broken only by the rustle of leaves, the lonely chirping of a cricket, the occasional creak and moan of the old manor standing like a looming shadow in the fading light. The sun was dipped close to the horizon, ready to set away for the night and painting the sky with a wash of golds and pinks in its path.

Somewhere a frog started croaking softly. There was a small creek running through the woods that tended to bring around wildlife of a few sorts. Deer liked to graze and birds liked to forage in the overgrown lawns. Mice and rats had taken up residence in the debris of the old house, bringing feral cats, foxes, owls, and other small predators to make an opportune meal.

Nature hadn’t entirely taken back the house despite it’s lack of upkeep and crumbling state, but it had carved out a way for the wildlife to make use of it.

And now as he watched these happenings like usual, the day was coming to a close just as it did every other, but for Jasper it was just starting.

He hummed softly under his breath, eager, that familiar spark of excitement flickering in his chest like he was alive again. He watched the sun steadily descend beyond the skyline, the trees around them filtering golden rays of light into the garden, onto his love. It lit up David’s face in such a beautiful warmth he often had trouble believing the statue wasn’t really flesh and blood when the sun was setting.

At least while he waited he had a most wonderful view, thinking as always that whoever sculpted David did such an amazing job. Maybe he’d been modeled after someone the artist loved very dearly, to put such care and detail into his face and his hair and his hands… hell, everything about him was perfect. There had to have been love poured into the process, because there was no way a statue made simply to go in anyone’s garden could look so radiant.

Jasper had been dead for fifteen years, but David had been around for a lot longer, a marble statue poised in the middle of the old fountain in a long forgotten garden of a long forgotten house. He woke as the sun went down every night without fail, and Jasper waited the same way each evening, excited, ready to see his best friend and boyfriend after being alone all day. As the minutes wore on his anticipation grew, building.

Memories of life were sketchy for the ghost, sometimes lost in a heavy fog and sometimes as clear as the failing VHS tapes he’d kept from childhood, still able to be deciphered but a little flickering and fuzzy. When he wasn’t in the fog, he could recall how he died. He could remember going into that house, stupidly, hoping to find… what? It had been looted and gone through many times, so there was nothing of value left, he’d just wanted some excitement. To see something interesting, the passage of time on a once beloved, extravagant house.

Stupid.

It was right out of the old horror movies he loved, and it had just been too hard to resist. All the stories floating around town he’d eaten up as a child, being so interested in the paranormal. Not that he’d expected to find anything of that nature, no one ever had in that old place, but it just sounded so fun and creepy to go wandering an abandoned three story mansion. He’d gone into the house, exploring, turning things over, looking at old books and photos and trying to imagine what life had been like when it was occupied. Wondering why it had been left to the elements.

Stupid.

He’d eventually made his way upstairs to the third story, actually being very careful and minding the integrity of the steps beneath him, he swears, but still the boards at the top were far too gone to trust.

So stupid.

He’d never forget the lurching sensation in his stomach before he’d actually fallen, that sinking feeling as the step creaked far too loudly beneath his feet for just a second, a warning that came too short. Old, weathered wood gave way under his weight, splintering, probably going out all the faster for his last ditch attempt to jump away to the landing.

Down he’d fallen, straight down the center of the winding staircase, three stories, and that’s when things got hazy. Mercifully he’d never been able to recall any details, including if it was fast or slow. It couldn’t have been pretty was all he knew, as the house was littered with piles of debris and rotting wood. Lots of ways to make a three story fall lethal if it wasn’t already. His memory just skipped to waking up the next day, somehow knowing immediately something was wrong, that he was wrong. And upon looking down at his hands, seeing through to the floor beneath them, and stumbling backwards right through a solid wall…

That was that.

Some days he wondered if anyone found his body. He hadn’t checked in a while, he’d stopped going near the house once he met David. David was so much better than that old shitty house and the memories and the phantom pain of death that sometimes rendered him in the fog for days at a time. And that’s how it had been for a while, slipping in and out of that fog, floating around the house without knowing where or why he was going. Your typical lights-on-but-nobody-home wandering spirit, he thought to himself on occasion. At least his humor was in tact on his better days.

But good god then he’d met David. He’d wandered out one day when the airy voices of the house had grown too loud, when the image of rotting ceiling stretching away from him became too much. It had been just before sundown as he’d floated through the garden in curiosity, admiring the way it had taken back the man made structures. He’d been there before, he was sure, but obviously not at the opportune time.

It was probably filled with carefully tended flowers at some point, but now it was all overgrowth. Benches, trellis, the fountain, archways, cobble paths, all covered in moss, ivy, and other native plants. Except… the statue. He’d found it rather odd, how it looked almost entirely left alone compared to everything else. It still had some faint moss creeping along here and there, but nothing like the mass of clinging ivy that entombed everything else.

He’d been staring in wonder at the statue’s beautiful face, hovering closer to get a better look, admiring him and wondering how the sculptor had pocked individual freckles onto his cheeks with such delicate care. He must have been so entranced to not even notice the wash of color slowly spreading up through the pale marble, dim as it was out here in the fading light...

Then the sun flickered out behind the trees, and the statue’s eyes opened.

Being a ghost himself, shit like this shouldn’t have surprised him, but he’d never met anyone in or around the house since death, alive, dead, or in between. And boy this was some kind of in between he’d never expected so it did knock him back. The man previously made of pale stone was now looking alive and human and staring back at him in matching shock as Jasper scrambled away mid air.

“Wait, please,” the statue said softly, his voice warm and disarming, immediately making Jasper’s fear dissolve like drifting smoke. His eyes swept up and down, frowning as he took in everything wrong with Jasper. The way he hovered, the way he could see right through to the garden beyond, the slight wispy mist that hung around him. “You’re...”

“Uh, dead, yeah,” Jasper had replied, coming a little closer. “You’re…?” he trailed off uncertainly, an invitation to be filled in, because David’s case had been a lot less obvious at first glance. Was he himself the statue and he came to life at night? Was he a spirit possessing the statue and animating it? Was this some sort of illusion that came with a haunted house? He’d never met any other ghosts, was Jasper alone enough to consider the manor haunted when he didn’t even go in there most days?

But David himself wasn’t sure, he just knew that he ‘woke up’ every night with sundown, essentially asleep and unaware during the day, and it had been this way for longer than he could remember or even guess at. He must have been alone here for quite some time, that was for sure, and hazy as Jasper’s memory was for being dead a few years at that point, David’s must have been a sea of uncertainty.

But they’d got to talking after the initial shock, eager to finally have someone to interact with, getting to know each other, talking about their lives, becoming fast friends. He’d soon stopped wondering so much about what David was, because whatever he was, he must have been alive at some point. There was no way a soul so bright, so kind, so loving and warm could have been manufactured from nothing. He wasn’t just a statue that grew a personality when he woke up at night, he was far too complex and nuanced and beautiful. Sure he could be naïve, dense even, but he was the sweetest damn person Jasper could ever remember meeting.

And after a certain point, finding himself one day staring longingly at David with what must have been the silliest look and these types of thoughts waxing poetic, he’d realized his heart had run off without him.

Every day from then of he’d fallen deeper in love with the statue in the garden. And good grief, for amazing as David was, he’d somehow found Jasper worth loving right back. One otherwise inconsequential day they were doing their usual routine. The moon was high, bright and full and illuminating them both in a liquid silver. He remembered thinking how beautiful David looked. He was so suited to warmth and daylight and the sun, but god the moon sure didn’t hold back on him either. He’d gone quiet listening to David speak, not realizing he was staring openly and hopelessly love struck, lost in a haze, until David called his name.

“I love you,” Jasper had blurted without thinking, startled out of his haze on the exact thought that had been going through his head. David had frozen in surprise and they’d stared wide eyed at each other for a long few moments after the slip. Jasper’s long dead heart, or maybe a memory of it, pounded hard in mortification because oh fuck what if he’d just screwed up big time with his best and only friend, the love of his life and afterlife, his anchor in the fog of days that ran together-

“I love you too,” David had suddenly whispered, his eyes bright and glossy and more alive than ever and Jasper felt like he’d died all over again, but this time he’d gone straight to heaven. And it had remained like that from then on, better in fact.

Their nights spent together were always enjoyable, talking and telling stories and David getting confused by his slang. David himself spoke kind of prim and proper, simple but eloquent and precise with his words, always polite and friendly, never snobby. However old he was, he seemed to be at least several decades back in time. That left him understandably caught up on some of Jasper’s words and expressions, at which point he always stopped and explained to David what they meant, watching the understanding as he nodded, but still tinged with confusion because it sounded so odd to him

Be it a single word, a phrase, a concept, even things that were way beyond him like movies and video games and VHS tapes. He always wanted to know, and Jasper always took the time to explain, even if he wasn’t always the best at making it understandable. Sometimes Jasper thought he made things worse trying to explain tech to David, but it was still something to talk about, and a fun challenge to try and find the right words.

But it got easier and easier for them to converse all the time, and they had fun and never ran out of things to talk about. Sometimes they just wanted to sit together, silent but comfortable and just soaking up each other’s company. David couldn’t leave the garden for whatever reason, some shitty stipulation of whatever curse he was under, Jasper figured. Whenever he tried to go any further than about twenty feet from the fountain, his vision started going dark, his movements slowing as if the action was turning him back to stone on the spot. So they always just sat together in the garden.

Not that it made much difference where they were, Jasper being dead and David destined to turn back to stone upon daylight, but it would’ve been nice to at least walk around the woods or something. It would’ve been especially nice just to know that David wasn’t stuck on some invisible leash unable to follow Jasper beyond his garden home. Regardless, as long as they could be together it was no harm no foul to the statue. He was never too pressed about it anyway.

And now, years after Jasper dying in that stupid house and several more years after they’d met and formed the resident paranormal-odd-couple, things ran in much the same way as ever. And this found Jasper waiting like usual, antsy, giddy, ready to shoot the shit with his favorite person in the world in life or death.

He hovered closer to David’s pedestal in the middle of the old fountain, eager to see those beautiful eyes open and that perfect smile just for him. The sun was nearly gone, it would be soon, but not soon enough for Jasper. “Are you awake yet babe?” he whined softly, cradling the statue’s face with one hand. “I wanna see you,” he added, petulant.

Silence remained between them for a few more minutes as the last touch of light slowly faded off of David’s face, leaving the garden bathed more and more in the growing shadows of dusk by the moment. Jasper sucked in a gentle breath as color started bleeding into the pallid stone, life itself slowly flooding through David’s body and letting him know it was time, any second-

And then those eyes opened, and there was that beautiful smile that made him forget about being dead for the night or just plain not care. “Jasper,” David greeted softly, his voice warm like honey and just as sweet. “Good evening my darling.”

“Davey,” Jasper said in delight, hovering closer and hugging the man as David reached for him in turn, kissing him squarely on the lips and earning a pleased hum.

Jasper could remember a time where he’d thought nicknames like darling or sweetheart were so corny and frumpy. He thought he’d be caught dead being called something like that by his partner should he find one, and funny enough that ended up being the case. But he liked it. They sounded so wonderful coming from David, and maybe that was all the difference he needed, actually hearing those things from the voice of the one he loved. Instead of making fun of the love struck goobers on those cheesy romance flicks which he had definitely not indulged in as the occasional guilty pleasure.

Now he was the love struck goober. Such is life… death… whatever.

“How are you today?” Jasper hummed, planting another soft kiss on David’s lips after they’d spent a good minute or two hugging each other close.

“Seeing you first thing as I wake up? How could I be anything less than wonderful,” David replied with a sweet smile. “And you?”

“Much better now, it’s so boring all day without you,” Jasper pouted sadly, making David laugh at his childish expression. “I’d love to sleep during the day, just like, turn to fog or whatever the other dead dudes are doing, but I am just here waiting for you to wake up like a sad little puppy,” he lamented. He could kind of drift off and let his mind and focus wander, but that was the best he could manage. At least besides falling into the soul sucking fog, but he’d much rather be awake and bored and pining for David all day.

“You know I wish I could keep you company in the daytime,” David soothed, placing his hand on Jasper’s cheek, smiling at him. “But at least we have the night, always, just you and me,” he said gently, leaning in for another kiss, long and tender and filled with so much love Jasper swore he felt alive for a few moments. The warmth that kindled in his chest whenever David touched him grew and swelled like a tidal wave, making him feel ridiculously, stupidly happy and he never wanted to let go.

Who knew you could be so fucking happy and drowning in love in death. That you could go years and years in the same routine with one person and be just as hopelessly, giddy in love same as the day you first realized they loved you back? He figured it was possible, obviously, if you found the right person. And boy had he found that person, and sure it was the most absolutely unexpected time and circumstances, but he wouldn’t trade David for anything or anyone.

When they parted, eyes fluttering open to stare at each other in a pleasant haze, Jasper sighed heavily, a goofy smile stretching his lips. “I love you,” he said quietly.

“I love you too, so, so much,” David replied tenderly, his hand still on Jasper’s face, where the pad of his thumb swept so softly across his cheekbone, his smile warm and inviting and filling Jasper’s whole world to the brim.

“Now,” David sighed, breaking Jasper from his inner lovesick poet that emerged in full force conveniently around this time. “Tell me about your day, not just ‘boring,’ tell me what you did,” he invited warmly, always wanting to hear the details even though it was always more or less the same. But he never got tired of hearing it, never failed to ask, and never failed to make Jasper the happiest man in death. He couldn’t check with all the other ghosts but he was damn sure he was the happiest one because no other ghost -or living person- had David.

And that made him the clear winner. Not that he was smug about it. Of course not.

“Well, I floated down the path a bit towards the main road, back around the house, through the woods a bit… I found a flock of birds and tried to see how close I could get,” Jasper grinned. He’d long since discovered animals could see him, and it had become a game, his only daylight pastime of any amusement really, to see how close he could get. Sad, but he made due. He would gladly chuck rocks at the house if he could physically interact with anything other than David, but much as he tried, he could not. His career as a poltergeist was not going well.

“And how did you fare today?” David indulged kindly, amused by his game.

“Pretty close!” Jasper insisted. “Like I coulda reached out and touched the closest one, but some stool pigeon piped up and they took off,” he tsked. “Buncha bird brains,” he added slyly, grinning.

David choked back a laugh, his eyes crinkling adorably at the corners in the way Jasper loved so much. “Oh stop, you’re terrible,” he chastised, his words losing all bite with the smile on his face.

“Terribly handsome,” Jasper shot back, his smile growing in smug delight when David laughed again. “Look babe, this builds up in me all day, cookin’ away while I wait for you,” he insisted. “If I had someone to haunt I’d gladly bring them my material during the day and terrorize them, but it all comes to you. All this bullshit needs an outlet, and you’re the audience, you know this.”

“I know it very well, and much as I shouldn’t, I do love it,” David replied happily, delight still stretching his smile wide.

“Then we’re in agreement,” Jasper said matter-of-factly, leaning in to steal a kiss, muffling David’s next giggle. He was still caught up in the joy of David waking up for the night, joy for the fact that David thought his shitty jokes were funny. Joy that Jasper could always bring a laugh and a smile to his boyfriend’s face, because god damn it was like the best drug.

When they parted again he sighed in content, resting his forehead gently against David’s. “Thank you for always laughing at my jokes. You shouldn’t indulge me so much but I love that you do.”

“I don’t indulge you, I enjoy your jokes,” David rebuked firmly, but still smiling.

“Even when you don’t get ‘em?” Jasper teased.

“Even then, because the happy look your face while waiting for me to get it or not makes me happy, that’s the best part.”

Jasper paused, unable to come up with a witty response because sometimes David just knocked him so far sideways he had to take a moment to collect himself. Finally, he gave up on witty and just buried his face in the crook of David’s shoulder. “Holy schnikes dude, stop, you’ve turned me into such a giant sap,” he whined softly.

You absolute giant love struck goober, he chastised himself.

David chuckled, the wonderful sound making the embarrassment worth it, patting Jasper’s back in comfort as he let the ghost cling to him. “I’m sorry, I do believe I was born in an age of shamelessly poetic love, I can’t help it,” he smiled, resting his cheek against Jasper’s hair and sighing in content.

Embarrassed as he sometimes got, even still, Jasper would happily take an eternity of it to be ridiculously sappy with his Davey.

- - - -

That was how things continued to go for some time. Until one day, otherwise uneventful like all the rest, Jasper found his routine broken. And despite how much he often wished for something interesting to happen during the day to save a little sanity, this was not what he was looking for.

He watched a truck drive onto the property after hearing the engine approach from beyond the trees, hovering near David protectively as it parked and two men got out. They stood in the large roundabout driveway, talking, pointing at the house and across the grounds. They were in suits, something that made Jasper anxious, holding clipboards and going through paperwork, which made him double anxious.

These were not kids or ghost hunters here to poke around for fun.

He worried his lip for a few moments before placing a hand on David’s shoulder, even though he couldn’t feel or hear during the day. “I’ll be right back Davey,” he said softly, before hurrying over to the men to better hear what they were saying. Part of him knew, but…

“-and the permit will be in next week, then we can start demo and removal.”

Jasper didn’t have any practice haunting people since no one ever came around to the house, so all he could think to do was jump up in front of the men abruptly, yelling in their faces. But they were without care to his efforts, going on with their conversation while he hovered uselessly.

“We’ll need all the heavy duty, hm?”

Jasper’s face pulled into a pinched frown, abruptly waving his hand through the closer stranger’s clipboard in an attempt to knock the thing from his hands, but it remained stubbornly in place.

“Yes, a crane, a couple bulldozers, excavator, and several dump trucks. The whole crew, and we’ll get the house torn down.”

An icy feeling flooded Jasper’s veins (why could he still feel shit like this? He was dead!) and he turned to dart back over to David.

Next week. Next week these suits were going to come and rip down that old piece of shit mansion. Which was fine, he hated that fucking house, but… they wouldn’t stop there, he feared. They wouldn’t go to the bother of ripping down a decrepit old house without clearing the overgrown, decayed grounds, including the garden…

The anxiety swirled into an absolute storm within his chest in the short time it took to get back to David, hovering next to him in dread as he watched the men talk. They stayed for about twenty minutes, walking all around the manor in a circle, looking in the doors and windows, making notes, discussing, pointing.

Finally, as they were walking back towards the truck, they stopped and looked towards the garden, pointing practically right at him. Jasper sucked in a soft, anxious breath and wrapped his arms around David from behind, watching the men. He didn’t know what he could possibly do if they came over here and if they happened to threaten the statue, but he wouldn’t leave David. Maybe he could learn to pull some poltergeist shit before they came back to tear down the house if he practiced hard enough.

He waited and watched them like a hawk as they talked a little more, before finally getting back in the truck and driving away. Jasper slowly relaxed, but only a little, remaining wrapped around David as his mind whirled and his stomach churned.

As desperately as he wanted to talk to David and share this important information, he was stuck with his own thoughts until sundown, which was at least a few hours off yet. He swallowed thickly, moving his arms around David’s middle and resting his chin on the statue’s shoulder, staring unseeing at the house as he sunk into that familiar fog for the rest of the day. Except, it wasn’t the usual of just being lost to the living world, dazed and placid and without thought.

This time, it was filled with dread and fear, not for himself, but for David.

- - - -

When David woke up that evening, it took him a moment to clue into the embrace he’d been wrapped in. Jasper was still holding him from behind, arms around his middle and forehead resting on his shoulder, absolutely still and silent.

“Jasper?” David asked with a growing frown, turning his head to look at the ghost. When he received no answer, his worry increased, setting a hand over Jasper’s tense arms. “Jasper, sweetheart?” he pleaded softly.

Suddenly the ghost sucked in a breath, his head lifting from David’s shoulder as focus swam back to his cloudy eyes. He blinked, turning to look at David with his mouth open just a little. “Davey!” he said in a rush of exhaled breath.

David tried to turn in Jasper’s hold, reaching a hand up to cradle his cheek. “Darling, what’s wrong?” he asked, still frowning. He’d seen Jasper like this only a few times before, on really bad days where he’d fallen too far into that fog he spoke of. Like he’d lost himself, sunken down in some deep dark sea from which he had to swim back up to the surface.

Jasper swallowed, looking anxious. “Davey, there were some guys here today, at the house,” he said, jerking his head towards the looming building, still unwilling to relinquish his almost desperate hug.

David looked concerned, surely thinking of how Jasper died exploring the forgotten halls. “Did they go in?” he asked.

“No no, not like- not kids poking around. Like, business- or- construction guys. They were talking about- about ripping the house down,” Jasper said quietly, trying to keep his voice steady, his eyes worried. “And I think- I think they’re going to tear up the garden too,” he added grimly, seeing the realization dawn on David’s face at the same rate that Jasper’s chest filled with heartbreak on top of the dread.

“They- they’re going to...” David trailed off, sounding a little fearful and obviously trying to keep a cap on it. But it was clear as day in his eyes, David had never been good at hiding his emotions. He felt so strongly and wore his heart on his sleeve, so Jasper was able to see all too clearly and painfully the looming terror in his heart.

Jasper swallowed the lump in his throat, or tried, as it would not seem to budge. “I think they… might try to tear your fountain down,” he said thickly.

David’s face had gone pale, drained of color almost as if he was turning back to stone at this news. Instead, he took a long, shaky breath, eyes focused on Jasper’s shoulder. “Well,” he said shortly, his voice trembling a little as he tried to stay composed. “We- there’s… nothing really we can do about that, should they- should they try to-” he broke off, voice catching.

Jasper buried his face in the crook of David’s neck, holding him tight for both of their comfort, feeling David’s hands trembling just slightly where they rested on his back.

“When are they going to…?” he trailed off weakly.

“I dunno,” Jasper replied, muffled into David’s shoulder. “They just said ‘next week,’ so I don’t- I don’t know...”

“Mmm,” David hummed back, a deceptively calm reaction on the surface, because ‘next week’ was a lot to process. Next week was awful short notice to come to terms that you might be…

His hands clutched a little tighter against Jasper, staring out at the garden he’d called home for so many years. So many years spent alone in an endless existence of waking and sleeping with each night and day, blurring together in a stream. Not as many years (but a thousand times more important) since Jasper had wandered out to the garden at just the right time.

Years where time suddenly regained meaning for them both, the passing of the sun and moon becoming a countdown to see each other, to hold each other, to speak of anything and everything without ever becoming bored despite the lack of new topics. To just be together even if they didn’t feel like talking.

Suddenly there was a very real threat of that all coming to an end. And as much as David was afraid for himself, he was terrified for Jasper. He didn’t want the ghost to go back to being alone, the days passing in a blur without meaning. It had taken a little while into their friendship, but he’d gotten details from Jasper about that state he called ‘the fog.’ It sounded similar to what David had experienced before they’d met, and he badly, desperately did not wish to leave Jasper alone to go back to that…

It would still feel awful but not quite as much if there was someone else here to keep him company, some other ghosts, at least one for him to call a friend. But he would be left entirely alone, and David feared what that would do Jasper. Because if their positions were switched he knew without a doubt he would be an absolute wreck to lose Jasper. He couldn’t even fathom how it would feel, he didn’t want to.

He fought back tears, holding tight to his love as these thoughts swirled around in his head without mercy. There was nothing he could do. Nothing either of them could do. He couldn’t leave the garden, they couldn’t run off together to avoid the promise of what was to happen. David was stuck here and they would both have to simply wait for it to happen.

At least, he tried to reason, if he were to die it was nice to have Jasper by his side until then. A silver lining on a dark, dark cloud. But it wouldn’t help Jasper in the end, he would still be left alone, David would still be gone, so he couldn’t find any real comfort in this thought.

All he felt was fear.

- - - -

The days started passing in a heavy blanket of growing dread. Jasper stayed with David continuously, not daring to go drift through the woods or around the house like he normally did when his boyfriend was asleep. Their conversations became quieter, less casual chatter and more just taking each other in. As if to savor the time together when it was too hard to attempt faking their usual carefree interactions. It was just easier to admit they were scared.

They spent longer and longer saying ‘goodnight’ and ‘I love you’ as the sun started creeping up each morning. The words became much more solemn, heavy, more of a veiled ‘goodbye’ just in case things went wrong come daylight. Suddenly every parting was threatening to be their last, bringing a terrible, sick feeling, wondering ‘will this be it?’ with every passing of the moon. But on the flip side, every nightfall when David woke up, it was with the most intense relief and pained delight to see Jasper’s face. To see him possibly one more time. And they would hold each other silently for a long time, just soaking up the touch and love mixed with heartache.

As much as Jasper had seriously considered his poltergeist idea, he’d quickly abandoned it. He’d gone 15 years without being able to interact with anything around him besides David, it was highly unlikely to change now. He’d much rather stay close to David, both to have more time with him and to keep watch for when those men came back.

And sure enough, they did.

He’d lost track of time but six whole days passed since their last visit, and as soon as Jasper picked up the sound of tires and heavy engines approaching, his stomach dropped out. Now he watched as the trees surrounding the road revealed trucks and heavy construction vehicles. Bright, nauseating yellow harbingers rolling down the long dirt road from the nearby highway. The one white truck a week ago had been bad enough, now this whole squadron of people ready to flip his world upside down made him want to vomit.

“No,” he protested weakly, his hands starting to shake. “Not yet.”

He’d been hoping but not really believing that maybe they’d just… never come back. And things would go back to normal and they could go back to their routine after a false alarm. It was unfounded but he couldn’t help but cling to that little bit of desperation. That maybe it would all be okay.

So much for that.

He watched while holding tight to David as the vehicles rolled to a stop, scattered about the large driveway in front of the house. People started getting out, garbed in hardhats and bright vests, looking ready and willing to start their destruction for the day. Jasper’s stomach churned in such heavy dread, he was pretty sure he would be throwing up if he could.

There was really no amount of time long enough to come to terms that your boyfriend might be killed without a second thought, but six days had been nothing. Suddenly it felt like it had all gone in the blink of an eye, the years they’d spent together about to be ended, and it just wasn’t enough.

Jasper stayed like that for a while, arms wrapped tightly around his David, watching as people walked around and made their plans for the day and got their equipment ready. He spared no thought as someone operated the crane and wrecking ball towards the old house. Somewhere in the back of his mind he suddenly wondered if the house was what tethered him here as a ghost and what would happen once it fell, but he couldn’t spare it much thought.

All he could do was wait, wondering if they would start on the garden today or focus on the house. Would it be better or worse for it to be put off another day? If they were spared for the moment, how would he manage to tell David once he woke up tonight? Would he wake up to see the house half torn down and just know? It almost felt like… a mercy, for him not to know for sure. It was so… vague and nebulous not to know exactly when it would happen. What Jasper was feeling now was probably a mere fraction of what David would go through if he woke up tonight to be told ‘this is your last night.’

Jasper swallowed the lump in his throat, these thoughts quickly breaking him down. He shouldn’t have to think about shit like this. About losing the love of his life, about David dying, about never seeing his smile or hearing his laugh or being told how much David loved him ever again…

Without realizing that he’d started to fall into the fog, drowning in these terrible feelings, Jasper suddenly snapped out of it when a few of the crew broke off and headed his way. Suddenly he was back on high alert, every phantom nerve in his body firing with anxiety and fear. As terrible as this last week had been, telling himself he only had a finite amount of time left with David, it all suddenly became indisputably real.

Jasper watched the construction crew approaching, nerves relentlessly eating at him because they were talking about the fountain and if they were going to bring down the whole house they were surely going to tear up this entire garden without care to salvage anything, even a beautiful, lovely statue that had only a thin layer of moss here and there-

Without preamble, one of them approached with a sledgehammer and he panicked, his heart racing with unprecedented fear. He moved quickly around to hover between David and the approaching man. “No! Stay the fuck away from him I swear to god- do you fucking hear me? Stay away I’m warning you, asshole-!”

And without preamble or waiting until Jasper was properly done with his threat, the man swung the sledge hammer in a smooth but violent arc. It went right through Jasper’s body despite his instinctive move to block it, bringing with it a wave of nausea and dread so strong he almost passed out as he whirled around at the terrible sound behind him-

Just in time to see his David, his beautiful, perfect, loving David crumble into a heap of stone, chunks and dust scattering into the empty fountain and crumbling like his heart and Jasper screamed-

The demolition workers collectively paused, unable to hear him but seemingly feeling his anguish like a cold wind on this bright sunny day for just a moment. A couple of them shivered briefly as a haunting chill ran up their spines, before shaking it off and moving on with business.

And all Jasper could do was collapse onto his knees, shaking like he’d never done before in life or death and he already couldn’t see his lovers remains because the tears were so thick and burning in his eyes and they wouldn’t stop. “Davey,” he forced out in a harsh whisper, barely able to speak through the frantic breaths that he couldn’t control, ripping past his lips and catching his throat painfully. And fuck all- he’d never wondered if ghosts could still experience crying and hyperventilating but apparently yes he very well could- strongly at that.

Maybe in hindsight it was a fair trade, if he could still feel love and joy and elation, logically it would follow that could also feel heartbreak and desolation.

His shaking hands tried to scoop pieces of the destroyed statue, making him sob harder because they passed right through- he’d always been able to touch David, they could touch and feel each other and he’d never passed through David like he did other solid objects so did this mean- his soul was gone? That the worker had absolutely, unarguably murdered his love right before his eyes without knowing either discretion?

His shoulders quaked as he tried to hold himself together, because he’d been right and David had a soul, he was once alive and unique and now he was gone and Jasper’s hands passed through the stone like any other object and he couldn’t remember feeling more alone than in that moment. The pain was so unrelentingly sudden and vicious it threatened to rip him apart, like he could die all over again and he kind of wished he would, because he couldn’t- going back to that lonely routine without David, to have known his light and warmth and love and have that cruelly ripped away-

The worst part was none of them would ever know the passing of such a warm light from this world, of someone so bright and beautiful and kind, no one but Jasper knew or would remember David. It felt like such a grave injustice that he could be torn away so easily and the only person able to mourn him was Jasper.

But in his defense, it sure felt like a world’s worth of mourning...

He hunched in on himself tightly, feeling sick, his ears ringing as he choked on a hard sob, tears running down his face to drip onto the old stone fountain. Everything around him abruptly faded away, the construction workers, the sound of the house being torn down, the loud beeping and rumbling engines of heavy trucks, all fell away to a terrible hazy buzzing. It was as if he was sinking underwater, the depth muffling more and more of the sounds around him as he drifted.

He wanted very much to curl up and lay in the fountain in hopes that he’d somehow become solid and they could put him out of this absolute misery when they destroyed it, let his remains lay with David’s in a pile of stone to be discarded in a landfill somewhere. He didn’t care, he just wanted to be anywhere other than that creeping abyss pulling him down, because it had never been this dark and hopeless before, swallowing him up so ruthlessly like maybe his own soul was fizzing out with David’s and this was what it was like for a ghost to die-

Suddenly a glow appeared beyond the mess of tears that distorted his vision, making Jasper sit upright a little, swiping a hand over his eyes because it was practically shining in his face. He scrambled back a little as a mist floated up from David’s remains, coiling and twisting the air and gathering close, starting to take a shape that was almost human and making Jasper’s heart race.

He watched as features began to form, achingly, painfully familiar features constructed before his eyes as if painted into that delicate mist with the finest brush. That or he was already losing his mind from heartbreak and he was imagining all this but honestly he would take that over being alone.

And then eyes opened with a sharp gasp, looking around frantically before squinting against the sunlight, shielding his eyes because he’d never been awake during the day and goodness it was bright- why was he awake during the day??- then he spotted Jasper, a mix of confusion, fear, and concern turning his face. “Jasper?” He asked shakily, lowering down from where he’d been floating, reaching for him.

Jasper’s breathing came fast and shallow, tears still pouring down his face as he stared in shock at this specter, the spitting image of his love but now- now David was like him-

He choked on a rough sob, pushing himself up to lunge at David and capture in him in a desperate hug, shaking hard with emotion because he could feel David- he still felt warm and solid and he’s here he thought frantically-

“Jasper,” came that familiar, warm whisper, arms wrapping around him and holding him close. “Shhhh, it’s alright sweetheart, it’s okay,” he soothed, rubbing Jasper’s back.

“I t-thought he killed you,” Jasper cried roughly into his shoulder. “I thought you were gone- I thought he killed you-”

“I... think he did,” David whispered, sounding lost and confused. It hadn’t been what he’d meant to say, it surely wouldn’t be a comfort to Jasper at all but he couldn’t help it. He had to process here and now and it seemed it would be out loud. “I feel different than before, I can’t explain it but- I feel it.”

Everything was different, confusing. He’d expected to wake up at night like usual or not at all, not midday with things being torn down all around him, Jasper crying his heart out and mourning David, and himself now distinctly dead much like his love. It was both a relief to be gifted this chance and terribly world shaking to comprehend what was happening.

“But you’re not, you came b-back to me, I- I-” Jasper choked, feeling David hold him tighter as he rattled in the other man’s arms.

“Sshhh, easy, easy,” David soothed again, his heart wrenching to hear Jasper in such distress. “Come here, let’s go somewhere quieter,” he said, looking around at the construction workers moving through the garden without care to their emotional scene, feeling pain upon seeing ivy and arches being ripped down- his own crumbled remains lying strewn in the fountain churning his stomach-

He helped Jasper up, already seeming pretty adept at moving around as a ghost, and they floated away from the center of the garden, away from the house, where overgrown ivy met the nearby woods. The trees and foliage were so dense here that it helped to muffle the sounds of destruction and dim the light of the sun. It helped that they didn’t have to go far for some reprieve, finding a large rock to sit down together.

Jasper looked up as David cradled his face, swiping tears from his cheeks with such care and love it made them fall faster again. “Davey,” he hiccupped weakly, his voice broken and nearly lost under grief, leaning into the touch. “I thought you were gone, I thought I lost you,” he said again, shoulders hitching.

David’s face etched in sorrow to see him in so much pain, and he gave up on wiping the tears away to instead pull Jasper close in another hug. Jasper leaned into him desperately, needy for the reassurance that David was alive- well- as alive as they could get, but still here with him. But even so Jasper was going to see the image of David’s statue crumbling for years and years to come, he knew it would never leave his mind. Suddenly for the first time ever he was thankful he couldn’t sleep, for if he could it would haunt his nightmares without relent. One good thing about being dead, he had to admit.

They held each other tight for a long time as Jasper cried it all out of his system, for as quickly as David had come back the shock and pain of losing him had been immense and soul wrenching. He was still swimming out of that sea of despair and the thoughts of wanting to die right along with his love.

David was perfectly content to just give him all the time he needed, holding tight to assure Jasper he was still here and running a hand up and down his back. Wishing he could take all that heartache from his love, to share that burden with him and ease the pain if only a little.

Even long after Jasper stopped crying and went silent they stayed wrapped up in each other, Jasper leaning heavily against David as the other man supported him easily, protective, comforting, whispering the occasional soothing assurance to him. Reminding Jasper that he was right there with him. That he loved him.

When Jasper finally drew in a long, raspy breath and sat upright, he roughly scrubbed tears from his face. Once his hands were out of the way, David cradled his face and leaned in to give him a tender kiss, not even bothering to ask if he was okay because it was obvious he wouldn’t be okay for a while. He had one foot each in fucking great and fucking terrible and they met in a painfully jagged line.

When David pulled back to look at him sadly, but so full of love, Jasper almost started crying again but managed to keep himself together. David’s hands slid down to take his, and Jasper pulled one of them closer to inspect. “You’re like me now,” he whispered finally, rough and scratchy, his voice fighting past the lump of emotion that still wouldn’t go down.

“I am,” David replied softly, his eyes on their joined hands, a similar shade of misty gray that just barely revealed a hint of past life. His skin color was still there but transparent, muting it into a pallid shade as if a person could be washed and faded in the sun. “I suppose... I don’t know,” he added, uncertain, confused, because now he had more questions than ever before.

“Are you okay?” Jasper asked quietly, sodden eyes flickering up to David. Because sure he’d dealt with a soul crushing despair for those few terrible minutes, but how was David handling this?

“I- I think so,” he replied, tangling their fingers together and squeezing weakly. “I just... I don’t know what I am. More than ever. I still don’t remember how I came to be in that garden, I thought I was just... a statue, I hadn’t ever imagined I was alive enough to become a ghost,” he shrugged weakly.

“You were never just a statue,” Jasper insisted, weak but determined. “I knew from the start you were alive, you have a soul and heart, you’re the most beautiful, amazing person I’ve ever met and there’s no way someone as warm as you could be ‘just a statue.’ I don’t know how you ended up like that but you were alive in your own way,” he said firmly. “You still are. You’re still here with me.”

David’s eyes had gone glassy during Jasper’s muted but passionate words, and he sniffed softly as he looked down. “Now I’m going to cry,” he joked softly, almost inaudible, his voice catching just a little with the truth of the statement. “I suppose I can look on the bright side, I’m no longer condemned to that garden, we can- we can go wherever we want now, I can be with you during the day!” he insisted softly, suddenly grasping his new found freedom. He hadn’t even thought about his previous confinement, he’d just wanted to get Jasper away from the sounds of construction. “I won’t be... asleep, a statue anymore....” he said in wonder.

“All the perks of ghost world now,” Jasper quipped in an attempt at his usual humor to lighten the mood, even though his voice was still thin and shaky. “You can float, we can go haunting together, super romantic date material, that’s kinda rad, yeah?” he offered.

David’s breath caught on a weak laugh, earning an exhausted smile from Jasper at the familiar exchange. He knew David didn’t always get his humor or it wasn’t even particularly funny if he was being honest, but bless his heart he always laughed and Jasper couldn’t get enough.

David smiled, bringing their linked hands up and kissing Jasper’s knuckles for a long moment, sighing softly as those fingers gripped his own. “I hate that you had to suffer such hurt for this to happen, but I have to admit, it’s nicer this way,” he said quietly, smiling at Jasper.

“It is,” Jasper whispered, his heart stirring in happiness for the first time in what seemed like ages to see that smile once more on David’s freckled face. A frown didn’t suit him at all, not that it made him unattractive, but he was just… meant to shine like the sun, and a frown was very much akin to heavy clouds blocking out that warmth and light. Had David smiled at all since Jasper brought the news? He couldn’t recall, he didn’t think either of them had until this point. It felt good to smile again, to see David smile again even if it was still tinged with sadness. “Totes worth it, by the way,” he added, grinning.

David laughed again, leaning forward to pull Jasper into a tight hug. They stayed that way for a long time, wrapped up together, the sounds of the house being torn down lost on the wind for all they cared.

- - - -

Later that evening they found a spot to lay under the stars, the construction crew having called it for the day and leaving them in blessed silence once more. He’d obviously taken for granted the absolute quiet this area usually sat in, as it was now a godsend not to be hearing that heavy machinery and the house being torn down.

Jasper stared up at the sky s he soaked in this reprieve, his mind whirling over multiple things that had been coming to bother him since the fiasco earlier.

Eventually, David rolled on his side in the crook of Jasper’s arm, resting a hand on his chest. “Darling, what’s troubling you?” he asked softly, the unspoken ‘besides the obvious’ left off of his query. There was something else now weighing heavy on Jasper, he could tell.

Jasper took in a soft breath, measured, anxious. “I just- had these terrible thoughts and I’ve been thinking- what if- I… I don’t even want to say it...” he trailed off, frowning. It almost felt as if speaking the thought out loud would help it into existence. One of them, anyway.

“Tell me,” David encouraged gently, leaning a little closer. “Whatever it is I don’t want it resting on your shoulders alone, let me share it with you. Let me help.”

Jasper sniffed softly, his heart squeezing with so many emotions. He’d long gotten used to how sweet and caring David was, never taking that for granted of course, but after nearly losing him today those little things had started to hit him straight in the heart again. Every touch, kiss, sweet assurance and act of love from David made him think how close he came to never feeling those things again.

“Well… the first thing is uh. When. When he broke you,” Jasper said, his voice cracking a little on the word ‘broke.’ “Um, I started to think about if. What if you hadn’t come back like his?” he asked, gesturing vaguely to them both before resting his hand over David’s, still on his chest. Those fingers twined with his own, squeezing gently. “And what if. Like. You were still in there. And the sun sets and what if you woke up like normal but you- you were- Would it hurt? Would you be able to feel-” he cut off, unable to finish the sentence.

David frowned, a similar thought having passed through his mind, among many other possibilities ranging from simply being gone to a lot more terrifying and painful. He squeezed Jasper’s hand again, bringing it over to kiss his knuckles. “Well luckily none of that happened, but it does no good fretting over it and making yourself sick with worry or what could have gone wrong,” he assured, advice for both of them because he’d been fighting that scenario for a while.

“Yeah, guess so,” Jasper sighed.

“But it feels better getting it off your chest?” David asked hopefully.

“I think, yeah.”

“And what of your other worry?” David encouraged.

“Well, this one’s not really what could have been and more… what could happen?” Jasper said nervously, turning his hesitant gaze to David and seeing the beginnings of concern on his face. “Um, I still don’t- I don’t know if anyone ever found my body, in the house,” he said quietly, making David’s eyebrows furrow and Jasper knew he was starting to clue in where this thought was going.

“So I started worrying, what if it’s still there and what if they find me?” Jasper whispered, feeling David’s hand squeeze his a little tighter, that fear setting in for him well. “And if they do… will that like… will I ‘move on’ or whatever?” Jasper wondered, hearing David’s breath hitch. “I don’t… I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you alone, I want to stay with you,” he insisted, his voice starting to break. “And I’m scared that- if my body- or bones or whatever are still there and what happens if- if-” he broke off, putting his free hand over his mouth to ward away the oncoming burn of tears.

David took a long, slow breath. “I know I’m going to sound really selfish by saying this but… I don’t want you to leave either,” he whispered. “If you were unhappy like this and wanted to move on, I would understand… but we…” he trailed off, swallowing against the lump in his throat.

“Then I’m just as selfish, because when I thought you were gone, I- I fucking wanted to die too,” Jasper whispered brokenly, his voice dissolving as he spoke the words. “It hurt so much and I couldn’t imagine being stuck here alone without you,” he croaked. “I don’t want that for you either- I want to stay-”

“Shhh,” David soothed, pulling Jasper into his arms where he promptly buried his face in David’s shoulder. David let him work through another round of tears. It was quieter this time, less like the breaking dam from earlier and now a residual trickle of hurt. He’d gotten through the bulk of the water works earlier but there was still more to give, because that pain he felt, losing David for those few terrible minutes, would never leave him.

They stayed wrapped up like this for a long time, long after Jasper stopped crying again and remaining in silence for the rest of the night. They could not yet fall back on the routine of talking for hours, it was just too hard to speak pleasantries and jokes like usual. Today had been so much and there was still possible heartbreak on the horizon, so they just lay together quietly. It was reminiscent of the nights waiting for the demolition to start. A lot less dread weighing on them, yes, but still so far away from the usual mood before all of this had started looming over their heads.

In the morning when the sun started to break, peeking over the horizon and filtering through trees to cast a soft glow on the ghosts, David for once stayed with him. He wasn’t taken away or turned to stone by the light of day like in the past, no longer forcibly separated from Jasper. They remained silent and watched each other for a long time until the sun was well into the sky, when they were sure David wouldn’t be taken away. And when that finally did settle in, it certainly helped ease some of the pain of yesterday, leaving them with lighter hearts, even with the question of Jasper’s remains still weighing.

At least for now, they could be together in this peace, in each other’s arms, and that was enough. Whatever happened beyond that, they would face together.

[novapark]

Base Background Lore

The basis for my overall simverse (in not just REM but other stories) is rooted in stories I started writing some years ago about Earth in the midst of colonial expansion. I only uploaded the first book as part of Nanowrimo in 2018 but the overall series is named “Don’t Wake the Sleepers” or just “Sleepers” in my head. 

Anyway, my sims are living in a universe several hundred years out from that initial colonial effort and have been exposed to the elements on different planets and changed as a result. There will be more on the evolutionary changes and why they’ve occurred when I get into the different “aliens” we have running around and where they came from. For now I wanted to kick things off with where it all began on Earth. Here is my original timeline for that collection of stories with a few additions that are applicable to REM’s world building.

Please note that the last time I updated this timeline before today was in 2018 so some of this is kind of uncomfortable to go back and read given the current state of the world. 

Also I apologize in advance for how text heavy many of these codex entries will be. I’m just really into world building.

2020’s - Automation leads to civil unrest in the west and a “cold war” of sorts begins between the masses and the elite. This culminates in a progressive shift after the oligarchs realize they have lost control and need to move left to avoid full overthrow. A basic income is instituted and the half measures bring temporary relief for most in Western economies. Some social issues are addressed but income inequality is still a problem. 

2032 - Space is officially opened for commercial work in an effort to boost the stagnant world economy.

2040 - The new goods and services brought in with the new age of exploration creates an unprecedented economic boom. This results in greater intermingling between classes and improves upward mobility worldwide. Around this time people start to work on the first long term colonies throughout the solar system. Most colonies were on asteroids at first during the 2030’s since they were easier to adjust for human needs and for the most part people didn’t live there long term. However the first large scale Mars colonization mission was early in these ventures and while it struggled it eventually was able to gain a foothold in that environment.

2045 - Emboldened by their early success colonizing the solar system, dreams of finding a “New Earth” start to flood into society. Everyone comes together to look for a clean new start.  The first orbital colonies go up around earth as people prepare their bodies and minds for the next great step in humanity.  Near lightspeed drives are invented and robotic probes are sent out around the galaxy to find suitable options. 

2062 - The first ships to leave the solar system with human colonists take off from Earth. The demand is so great that ships leave almost monthly for a while until an obvious depopulation problem slows the process down.

2064 - Phase 3 sleeper ships are implemented, the founding populations of Kas, Simat, Mirindea, and Getan leave Earth. 

2065 - To combat systems collapse due to depopulation, the governments of Earth encourage their remaining citizens to move into large Arcologies.  Most people do this as they offer full services and a launch port for those looking to immigrate off world. As a byproduct a worldwide resurgence in environmental repair and conservation comes into play. Some even call for an end of colonization citing the destruction of their own planet as an example of why they should just clean up the mess and accept the fate all living creatures have to. These people are considered radicals but their message resonates with a large subset of society. A religious movement eventually springs out of it based on old Pagan and Animist principals. 

2066 - A respiratory plague hits some of the arcologies, wiping out the population of one of the largest ones in less than a year. The push to leave Earth gets another boost and a secondary wave as a bitter public feels betrayed by “the planet” for sending the blight. Later it’s discovered to have originated with the Mars colony when people were passing between worlds. A normal flu virus had mutated. The Martians, having changed with it, were immune but the Earthbound and other colonial populations were not. A vaccine based on Martian immunity is developed and the crisis ends but more stringent travel restrictions are put in place and travel between intersolar colonies becomes less common isolating the different groups of humanity further. Some on Earth start to see those who left as less human and some colonists start to see those on earth as evolutionarily inferior. With fewer humans on Earth to support the systems in place due to continued depopulation and disease the old burden of poverty returns as upward mobility breaks down. It’s all about leaving now for the majority. 

2095 - With so few humans left on Earth proper the governments of the World announce that the final long range colonization projects will come to an end. Intersolar system travel will still be a thing but that humanity on Earth no longer has the resources to support larger projects. As such another mad rush to leave the planet ensues with the final ships set to take off in

2098 - The humanity that remains on Earth is largely sparse and sickly. There is a tremendous breakdown in automation support so most of humanity live in the remaining arcologies to better pool resources. The surface of the planet has had a resurgence in animal life and vegetation but most humans live in their settlements much the same as they had for the last thirty years and have become fearful of the new wild space outside of it. Despite this exploring ruins is a popular pastime for the youth and there are some special places outside of big cities still regularly seen by human eyes but the majority of the planet has now been left to repair. 

The final colony ships go up in their drydocks and there is a mad dash for those who remain to get well enough to leave. As the time for the final liftoff approaches lotteries go up as people who find themselves suddenly unwell try to sell their tickets. In response to maximize profits the shipping companies make them non-transferrable and hold their own auctions. 

Contact with the other human settlements off Earth is extremely limited now. Mostly reserved for members of government, though the orbiting stations tend to have better communications on a wide scale than the ground based governments. Most of the extrasolar missions are far out of range and the long range communication relays fell into disrepair. There are occasional large scale transmissions that make it back from the first wave of colonization but in general all is lost to the vacuum. 

The orbital station and asteroid dwellers are caught between these two worlds since they aren’t exactly one or the other and their settlements require a great deal of upkeep to maintain. They are mostly self-automated but need a human hand once in a while. As such accidents have become very common in those places and the people who live there have a general sense of abandonment. There are a group of Earthbound humans that specialize in offering services to their “sky cousins” but these organizations are small and receive little funding.

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid

Pairing: Klance: Keith Kogane/Lance Mcclain

Tags: Vamp Lance | Klutz Lance | Idiot Keith | Shiro & Keith are adopted brothers | Enemies to idiots( ...I mean) | Enemies to idiots | Mentioned mpreg | Lance isn’t a full vampire( but keith is a full idiot) | Idiot Lance | Paranormal Investigators Pidge & Hunk | Hunk is a scaredy cat | Lance has a black cat name Blue | Fluffy bits | Lance is 44 | Hunk is 24 | Pidge is 22 | Keith is 26 | Shiro is 30 | Bottom Lance! | Vampire dynamics are a bit whack | Smutty bits | Mentions of men making babies | Lance might be a vamp but it turns out he’s useless | Lance’s mum’s name is Miriam | Papi Jorge | Keith is a special flower | Comin’ at ya in bite sized pieces | Fluffy dumbarsery with some tears | Slow build because they’re stupid heads | BOM are hunters | Shiro & Lance are lowkey bros | Keith’s got issues( but he’s got trauma to work through...that’s why he’s repetitive) | Updating tags to include mgreg themes | Not beta-ed | If pining was an Olympic sport these fools would share gold | Langst | Klangst | Hurt and comfort | 

Summary: Lance has lived a pretty simple life since being turned into a vampire. He’s got his house, his cat, and his two besties that have no idea he’s a vampire thanks to his awesome acting skills... He thought he was happy, that things were fine, that he wasn’t drawing too much attention to himself... and then he met Keith.Big, dumb, hot, emo, stupid Keith. Keith that went and flipped his life upside down, because, seriously, Keith really was a special kind of stupid.Vampire Lance x Vampire Hunter Keith

READ ON AO3

People sucked. People truly, madly, unequivocally, completely and totally sucked. That’s why Lance had brought his farmhouse outside a the tiny speck of a town barely found on most maps. He hadn’t lead a particularly long life, at least not when compared to others suffering from the same condition as he had, yet in his short time, he’d come to hate people. Don’t get him wrong, he didn’t hate everyone. He had two best friends that meant the world to him, Pidge and Hunk. Both paranormal investigators, and both blind to his unusualness. No. What Lance held issue with was the continued hunting of his kind by the Vatican. His “ancestors” may have bathed in blood, and sacrificed virgins, all that kind of hooky-huha that one reads in scary stories, but before he’d been made a vampire, he liked to think he’d been a happy enough well liked kid, and he liked to think that even these days he still carried an air of that charm whenever he was forced from his home.

Garrison was a tiny town 50kms away from Platt City, founded during the Third World War, the city held plenty of ghostly secrets which had drawn both Hunk and Pidge to the area. Boasting a single Main Street, the highlights of the town were limited to tourist traps and three pubs on the Main Street. It was while studying at Platt University that he’d met both his best friends, twenty years his juniors, yet thanks to his unwanted immortality his body had stopped maturing roughly around the age of 18, making it easy to join the crowded university with a few falsified papers. His intention was to refresh his legal skills in order to keep up with the time’s. With the help of his Mami, he’d moved somewhere small and private, to a dead beat town that accepted weirdness as an everyday occurrence thanks to the tourists that came to see the ghosts of soldiers passed. When he’d been a kid, he’d always dreamed of being an astronaut, yet had chosen law to help those less fortunate in some kind of redemption for his condition. Being immortal meant keeping up with the times, though his house retained much of its old “Victorian” charm. Plus, with Platt being so close, it made for an easy drive up there every three weeks to pick up new blood bags. He was in no way a stereotypical vampire other than his need for blood. He wore glasses, because his eyesight was so good his mind couldn’t process everything he was seeing. This came with the unfortunate side effect of being clumsy as hell. He’d come from a Catholic family, meaning he believed in the presence of God. He’d also never drunk from a human, and never taken a human as pet or a lover like some did. When he wasn’t tagging along with Pidge and Hunk to ensure they didn’t accidentally summon something nasty, most of his time was devoted to providing low cost family legal advise.

Perhaps because he hadn’t been born a vampire, he’d retained many of his human ways. Sunlight didn’t turn him to ashes. Garlic gave him pretty bad stomach cramps and indigestion, which could be fobbed off with the excuse of an allergy. Silver gave him hives, again, something that could be passed off as an allergic reaction. He refused to harm animals for blood. He refused to bite another human, despite the fact a bite wouldn’t turn one anyway. They needed to be drinking his blood for that to happen, and after how he’d been turned, there was no way he’d ever do that to a mortal. He showed up in photographs, though his eyes always came out red instead of their usual bright blue. Mirrors weren’t exactly his friend, but not because he couldn’t see himself, instead because he hated seeing himself. They didn’t magically show his “vampire face”, instead they reminded him he’d never grow old. At the ripe age of 44 he looked 18. Even when he turned 100, he’d still look 18. It was thoroughly depressing. Unlike some vampires he didn’t have a coven, or a pack. His house only held him and his cat Blue, who he’d found as a tiny kitten under the steps leading up to the porch. She’s was black, fluffy, and an absolute princess in his eyes. Other than the general upkeep of his house, blood costs and the very occasional splurge on new clothes, most of the money he made went to spoiling his little princess. He wasn’t sure if Blue was part vampire, her teeth had always been sharp, as kitten he’d dug her out by the scruff of the neck, her tiny little teeth were far too cute as they buried themselves into his hand. She’d never acted like she was, but she also preferred to stay inside and had a personality that rivalled some of the most twisted “Queen” vamps he’d met. Then again, everyone knew cats were temperamental arseholes, so maybe Blue was simply being the snobby cow she was born to be.

All in all, Lance had nothing to complain about in his life. He was happy, content, safe in the knowledge no one about to ruin that anytime soon.

*

Pulling into the parking lot of their usual dive, Sal’s burgers wasn’t the most popular place in town, making it the perfect place to hang out. Located 10kms out of town on the road to Platt City, seemingly an inconvenience the locals, most of Sal’s customers came from tourists needing to stop because their kids needed the toilet. A few of the older locals had dedicated seats at the service bar, and maybe one or twice a week people spiced it up from their usual coffee shops on Main Street, but all in all, the lack of customers is what Lance loved about it. The whole place looked as if the 50’s had left it behind, from its pastel pink exterior to the cheesy green and silver breakfast stools at the c go heck board service bar. From his parking space he could already see Pidge and Hunk waiting for him in their usual booth. Hunk’s head thrown back as he laughed at something, probably at Pidge’s expense.

Cutting the engine, Lance grabbed up his wallet, phone, and gloves. He wasn’t exactly the warmest of people to begin with, but this freezing weather was likely to turn him into an undead popsicle. Already dressed in his favourite khaki jacket, Lance did a quick double check pat down before climbing out his battered blue four wheel drive. She was old, had one too many rust spots and didn’t like starting on days like today, but he’d had her since he’d graduated college the first time around. His Mami was always nagging at him to get rid of her, to use some of his money to buy something better, something that didn’t have roll down windows and a dodgy CD player. His first car was his first real taste of freedom after being turned. They’d been through a lot together, leaving him unable to say goodbye to her. That’d be like cutting him own arm off.

Sal gave him a wave as Lance walked in, the man was a teddy bear under his perpetual 5 o’clock shadow and greasy apron. His policy seemed to be that if someone couldn’t respect him like this, they weren’t worth his respect in return

“Hey’a there, Lance. Pull up a seat and I’ll bring your usual over”

“Thanks, Sal. You’re the best!”

Sal grumbled, Lance pretending he didn��t hear every low word about him. Bringing up that Sal secretly liked him well enough would only leave the old man flustered. For the sake of their “friendship”, he played along with Sal’s mumbling translating into how much of a pain he was. With a bounce in his step, Lance headed over to Pidge and Hunk, throwing himself into the booth as he wrapped his arms around Hunk

“Lance!”

“It’s soooo cold! Warm me up!”

Hunk hugged him back

“I’ve got you, bro! You’re freezing...”

“And you’re late. You were supposed to be here half an hour ago”

Lance sighed dramatically as he rolled his eyes at his favourite tech gremlin

“You know how she gets in cold weather”

“Who? There better not be anything and wrong with my Princess”

“Pidge, you should know by now that when Lance talks like that, he’s talking about his car... right?”

Lance grinned

“Of course I’m talking about my girl. And my Princess is perfectly happy. Blue was curled up under my blankets when I left”

Pidge pouted at him

“You could have brought her with you. I miss my Blue cuddles”

“You could try coming by the house. She was in a mood when I left”

Lance had a backpack carrier for her, but Blue would have frozen her perfect little toe beans out in the weather today. He’d left the heated blanket on a timer for her, unable to keep from spoiling his princess. Pidge’s hand left her laptop keyboard to grab her mug of coffee

“But your house is soooo far away. Anyway, we’re here to talk about work. I was on this forum last night, and someone swore they met a werewolf. Can you imagine? Hunk told me to stop scaring him”

Hunk... Hunk was the biggest ray of sunshine Lance had ever met. The poor man got every single form of motion sickness know, but that never once stopped him. He was terrified of ghost stories, not the best constitution to have when one is a ghost hunter... No, paranormal investigator. He’d been told there was a difference, but honestly it all sounded the same. People loved to think of the unknown, that world existing just out of their everyday mundane lives. Having been in that world for as long as he had been, Lance would happily pay for a boring mundane life

“I wasn’t scared... I’m... cautious”

Pidge clucked at Hunk, Hunk flipping her off. Laughing at him, Pidge wasn’t easily swayed

“You’re a chicken. What about you, Lance? Do you believe in werewolves?”

Werewolves were dicks. He’d bumped into a few over the years, and they’d done nothing to persuade him that they weren’t. The only thing they had going for them was their commitment to their mates and family, other than that, they were testosterone filled morons with claws.

“I don’t know... I feel like they’d all be too stupid to hide their existence”

“Wolves are incredibly smart... Fine, let’s put that one the back burner. Now, about work, there’s a group of tourists that want to come through the old hospital. The visitors centre in town gave me a call about it. Apparently they pay reeeeeeally well”

They’d have to. The old hospital was “cursed”. It’d been converted into a professional centre, but three years after the renovations they closed the building down thanks to the high number of injuries. If there were ghosts there, it was doubtful they’d care to bother with the employees. They all had their own issues. Lance held the opinion it was more a spate of psychosomatic symptoms resulting from the first accident. The building had been handed back over to the town, where it’d sat empty until it reopened as a military museum. With a bored sigh, Lance resigned himself to the fact that Pidge had already gone ahead and decided this was happening. Patting Hunk on the arm, the big man let him go

“When is this all supposed to be happening?”

Pidge’s eyes twinkled with mischief. Lance loved that about her. The top of her head barely came to his chin, but her pint sized stature didn’t stop her. She was always up for a laugh, and frightfully adapt with all things technology based. One of their first conversations came about because Lance had dropped his phone down the stairwell, smashing the screen as it bounced. Seeing her notice pinned up at the campuses cafe, he’d reached out to her with no idea they’d still be besties so many years later. From memory she had an older brother who was as much of a nerd as she was, while her mother and her father both worked in some private sector. He’d met them once over a family dinner Pidge dragged him to, seen them half a dozen times on their front steps as Pidge fled from their parental yelling, and finally been stuck in a very awkward conversation with Pidge’s father, Sam, when he’d found Bae-Bae, the missing family dog who Pidge had brought along on one of their ghost hunts

“Tonight. We’ve got permission to start once the museum shuts for the day. The tour starts at 8, so we’ll go in, set up, have something to eat, then scare the shit out of them at 8”

“You didn’t tell me it’s tonight!”

Poor Hunk. His poor heart had no time to come to terms with this. His worrying only made Pidge smile wider

“Relax, it’ll be fiiiine. Lance is coming with us. He’ll protect you from anything spooky”

“Why do I have to protect you? What are you going to do? Sue the ghosts for giving you the heebie-jeebies? Sorry, that’s not my specialty”

Pidge slid her glasses down to the tip of her nose as she puffed her chest out

“Ha, he, ho, I’m Lance and I have a fancy law degree! Those ghosts better think twice before looking at me”

Lance laughed way too hard, tears leaking out the corners of his eyes, his black frame glasses nearly falling off. Pidge pushing her glasses back into place as Sal brought over Lance’s pancakes and coffee. The man simply placing them down before backing away without a word

“Oh my god, Pidge. That was awful”

“It wasn’t that awful. So, Hunk, you’re in snacks for the night. Lance is in charge of driving, and I’m in charge of the tech. What are we forgetting?”

“That we value our lives and don’t really want to do this?”

Pidge sank lower in her seat, a soft thud coming as Hunk gasped in pain

“What was that for?!”

“Being a chicken”

“I’m not a chicken”

“Are too...”

Picking up his fork, Lance calmly cut in on their fight

“Children, don’t make me seperate the pair of you. Hunk, you’re big, brave, and very manly. Pidge, you’re so fucking short you couldn’t even covertly kick him under the table. If we’re going out, I need to stop by home on the way. Blue needs her wet food for the night, and no, she’s not coming tonight. It’s going to storm as it is”

Crossing her arms, Pidge slumped back in her seat

“You just want to keep my Princess all to yourself. Hunk can leave his car here and we’ll take yours”

“I thought my house was too far away to visit?”

“It’s not when you’re the one driving. Hurry up and finish your pancakes, I wanna go already”

Lance looked down at the forkful he’d been about to load in his mouth, purposely cutting the stack in half to annoy Pidge. Scoffing down Sal’s pancakes was an insult to the man who’d made cigarette ash in pancakes edible. The lack of hygiene may have been another reason why the locals stayed away, but when you’re immortal, standards kind of went out the window

“Laaaaance. Nooo. What are you doing?”

“Enjoying my breakfast. Order another coffee... actually, order some warm milk, I can see you practically vibrating from the amount of caffeine in our bloodstream”

“I’ll have you know that the level of blood in my caffeine stream is just fine. Plus, you’re like the only person in the world who enjoys Sal’s pancakes!”

“Oi! I heard that, Katie Holt!”

Pidge ducked down further in her seat at Sal’s voice. A couple of regulars laughing at her embarrassment, as Pidge blushed

“Now look what you’ve done”

“Not my problem, Pidgeroonie”

“Watch your back, I’m going to get you tonight, then steal away Blue”

Lance shrugged, unfazed by her threat. Tonight would be another lame arse tour under the belt, the most exciting thing they could expect was some jump scare.

[sunnetrolls]

Project FLORA: Botanical Bioenhancement

Commonly referred to as a “plant symbiote,” Project Flora’s Empire Approved botanical bioenhancement is a symbiotic growth that utilizes trolls as hosts. The host is transformed into the ideal apex predator, primarily for use as an enhanced soldier.

(condensed version at the very end) (Google Docs link)

Three distinct generations of symbiotes can be utilized for different effects, all with their own benefits and drawbacks. These three generations are as follows: 

GEN 1: The first prototype symbiote. Hosts commonly experience moderate to extreme physical growth, including the alternation of limbs for grasping branches and efficient high-speed running. Rarer effects include loss of eyesight and other senses. This generation experiences far less aggression than intended and is not recommended for military use.

GEN 2: The second prototype symbiote. Hosts experience much more extreme growth than what is caused by first generation symbiotes, some subjects growing to ten or more feet tall. Hosts may potentially also experience aggressive, animalistic, or otherwise “feral” behaviors, as well as an extremely increased appetite. This generation is recommended for military use, but is not ideal.

GEN 3: The finished form of the symbiote. This fully realized form is solely recommended for military usage, as hosts develop extreme aggression and begin to lose a sense of self. All infected hosts display intense aggressive behaviors and have not demonstrated further instincts beyond survival. The only exception observed is hosts often killing other living creatures for entertainment rather than hunting.

DEVEOPMENT

Symbiote development occurs in three distinct stages: primary growth, settling, and residual growth. The full process occurs over one to three sweeps, with settling as both the most variable and longest stage on average.

PRIMARY GROWTH PHASE The primary stage of symbiote development occurs from initial contraction to when the host begins external plant growth. This stage can take anywhere from only a few weeks to one to three months, but very rarely any longer than three months. This stage is characterized by the development of the symbiote body generally on the host’s back. The symbiote is invisible to plain sight, but can be jostled to detect growth in the lower back. Symbiote development in other bodily regions must be terminated; it requires access to the spinal cord to begin the settling and residual growth stages. This stage ends when the symbiote ceases core growth and begins “branching out” with plant development, entering the settling phase.

SETTLING PHASE The settling phase of symbiote development occurs from initial plant growth and continues indefinitely. This stage is only terminated when the host regains physical control over newly-formed plant appendages, and can vary in length greatly between individuals, but generally lasts a minimum of 10 months to as many as three sweeps. During this stage, symbiotic growth is uncontrolled and must be monitored by an outside person. If left unchecked, symbiotes may cause irreversible damage to “weak” aspects of the host, potentially causing intense pain and lasting negative effects. Hosts with symbiotes of any generation are advised to ensure to have a caretaker for the settling phase to ensure lasting damage is avoided. This phase includes host growth and potential bone reconstruction in addition to plant growth. A majority of tested hosts experienced altered bone structure especially in the legs, often resulting in an avian appearance. This is unavoidable and cannot be reversed. The precise trigger for ending the settling stage is unknown, but some hosts have reported that intense fear reactions relying on plant use have proven efficient in ending the settling phase. This is called the “moment of control.”

RESIDUAL GROWTH PHASE The residual growth phase refers to growth past the moment of control until eventual host death. The core symbiote will produce additional growths at a much slower rate until host death, and generally requires frequent upkeep to ensure maximum efficiency. Trimming of hosts is not only recommended, but required of all military-employed persons. Consult your local botanist to decide what level of growth is appropriate for each host, as every symbiote will manifest in a unique way and has unique upkeep requirements. Only active growths require upkeep.

Symbiote development can be influenced by a variety of factors, including the host’s living environment, initial temperament, body type, and blood caste. Symbiotes will mimic the biome a host is held in during development; for ideal results, hosts should be kept in a carefully curated space for the entirety of development to ensure that undesirable growths do not occur.

Temperament of hosts can also vary between each individual, but the second and third generations of symbiotes have proven efficient in eliminating most “good” natured traits from individuals to ensure proper soldier development. First generation hosts have reported increased feelings of calm and compassion, but have also experienced far more unstable and violent tempers.

HOST CAPABILITIES

Host development is separated into two categories, active growth and passive growth. Not to be confused with the third developmental stage, active and passive growth refers to the types of plants a core symbiote can spawn.

There is an additional category of growths that refers to native items that are not directly spawned due to symbiote development. These are referred to as external growths.

Active growth refers to all growths a host can utilize after the moment of control. This section is typically limited in variety and each host rarely gains more than one or two types of active growths.

Back-spawned tendrils

Back-spawned carnivorous flora

Other bodily tendrils

Motile leaves or fronds

Passive growth refers to all other bodily growths that cannot be controlled by the host. The only limit to passive growth development is the biodiversity of the habitat the host develops in, and is not restricted to the following categories. 

Mosses

Leaves

Flowers (sweep-round)

Barks

External growths are anything beyond these categories that spawns on a host.

Mushrooms

Lichens

Other fungi

Active growths are arguably the most important development on any host, but also the most sensitive. These require frequent upkeep to ensure peak health and capabilities. Core symbiotes will continue to spawn active growths for the entire host life, but without proper supervision, these growths can begin to crowd the hose and limit functionality.

Generally, active growths are utilized for motion, but can be additionally used as limited extra limbs. Most categories of active growths are prehensile for this purpose. However, a majority of active growths are only revealed when the host experiences significant external injury. These internal growths function to pull injured flesh back together with the effectiveness of medical stitches.

The appearance of active growths is reliant on the host environment, and can have any number of additional features depending on native flora. A vast majority of bodily tendrils generally appear as vines or roots, as these structures easily accomplish the necessary tasks of mobile tendrils.

Passive growths accomplish tasks that are generally completed as background activity for hosts. All symbiotes are capable of photosynthesis via passive growths, but generally lack the efficiency to survive without dietary supplement. To complete this, hosts generally develop intense sunlight resistance and report increased desire to sunbathe.

Lastly, no natural deaths of symbiote hosts have been reported. It is theorized that through developmental supplementation from structures not present in hosts the FLORA symbiote allows hosts to survive indefinitely.

PROJECT FLORA: SPARKNOTES EDITION

Project FLORA is a plant symbiote that makes a troll into essentially a supersoldier. Its growth can span anywhere from about a sweep to more than three depending on the host troll.

This development has three stages: primary growth, settling, and residual growth. Primary growth is when the parasite develops, settling is when it grows plants, and residual growth is the slow growth after that. Settling is fun because the symbiote just grows and the host has no control over it- the border between phase 2 and 3 is called the “moment of control” and usually caused by a fear reaction.

The growth a host gets is determined by where they live during the settling phase, so it can vary a lot, and varies even more depending on the host’s physique and blood case. The host’s temperament can also change a lot but that also depends on if they have an early or later developed parasite.

The types of plants on a host fall into two and a half categories- active and passive growth, then external growth is the stuff that grows not as a result of the parasite. Active growth is stuff like back tendrils and movable plants, while passive growth is everything else. Mushrooms or other fungi on passive growth is external growth.

On top of this, hosts have active growths that are like baby tendrils all around in them that act like auto stitches if they get injured, basically pulling themselves back together. Hosts can also photosynthesize with passive growth but it’s not very efficient and they still need to eat other things.

Lastly, hosts are functionally immortal as supplemental growth from the core of the parasite reverses aging to an extent.

[nenuials]

A day in the life of Lothrin

How does a day in the life of Lothrin, Lady of Twilight, Sage of Annúminas and aid to the Dúnedain look like? More uneventful that one would expect. In order to better paint a picture of her daily schedule, I shall be using LOTRO canon, thus using the geography and settlements presented therein. Secondly, this schedule is applicable between the years of TA 2500 and TA 3019.

Lothrin’s usual residence and where she might be found most of the time is the keep of Tinnudir, in the heart of Evendim. Though depending on the season, she may move to the encampment at High King’s Crossing, the farms in Barandalf or the camp in the heart of Annúminas. More often than not, when not in Evendim, Lothrin can be found in Sarn Ford, Esteldin, Falathlorn or Imladris.

Mornings

If residing in Tinnudir, Lothrin is usually the first to stir awake, way before dawn. Elves sleep but a couple hours a night, usually about two to four, and can go entire days without rest. Early in the morning, she will rise and make a start on the chores of the day. Tinnudir, a keep of such size and the surrounding land are always in need of hands to tend to them.

She will quickly leave the keep and make her way to the animal pens. While LOTRO doesn’t show this detail to us, I strongly believe there were animals raised on the island. She will release the chickens and ducks from their coops, collect the eggs, feed the cows, goats, sheep, horses, and pigs and if time allows milk the cows and goats, then clean their spaces. If she is not present or otherwise occupied, someone else will take care of these duties. 

With a big chunk of the early morning gone, she will either help in the kitchens to prepare the meals of the day, or simply eat and be on her way. Depending on the season and food situation, in the morning or noon she may either go alone or take some company to cross the lake and hunt in the hills of Evendim.  Evendim is home to a big population of bears, so bear meat is plenty available to make stew or rugs from. 

Afternoons

With the time-sensitive chores out of the way and still plenty of daytime left, when in Tinnudir and not otherwise occupied with administrative duties, Lothrin’s hands would ever be busy with spinning thread or sewing clothing, as tailoring is one of her hobbies. In medieval societies aside from food, the two most important resources people needed were thread for cloth-making and wax for candle-making. The process involved in cloth-making is long and laborious, so everyone was urged to give a hand: from picking the plants, to dying the thread, to spinning it, to sewing the cloth itself and more. Making even one piece of a garment may take anywhere up to three hundred hours, depending on the complexity of the piece. 

If the weather is otherwise not foul, Lothrin will join the dúnedain in the small gardens surrounding Tinnudir and tend to the vegetable plantations. What gardening needs to be done wholly depends on whether it is planting or harvesting season, but she loves the harvest best and all the work that comes with the season. One may always find her carrying entire baskets of vegetables, and helping with the making of jams, sauces, pickled vegetables and more. If strong arms are needed, she will help with woodworking and the upkeep of the various buildings, mainly repairing rooftops, as the dúnedain do not possess her elven agility and ease of movement. On more than one occasion messengers would find her high atop a roof, hammering nails.

Evenings

One regular activity she pursues in the evenings is patrolling the roads up to the King’s Crossroad, for any signs of trouble. If all the other sentries are away on errands, she will gladly take their posts and stand guard the whole night. If present in Tinnudir, she will help with serving dinner to the whole encampment of roughly fifty people, then either tell a story or leave for her study and pursue various scholarly duties in candlelight. As she is the sage of Evendim, every couple of years she rewrites her various notes on the life of the northern dúnedain. She has kept meticulous notes that date back to the inception of Arnor, detailing genealogies, customs, lineages and more. Her various manuscripts have been a treasure to the modern-day dúnedain, mainly with helping them remember their customs and their lineages. 

Tinnudir is a keep with various floors. The ground floor is home to a small library, a study, a storage room, the kitchens, and some sleeping quarters placed around the inner pool. The upper floors are accessible through an inner stairway and are home to more sleeping-quarters and storage rooms. On the third floor rests the Study of Lothrin, a room filled to the brim with treasures of ages long past, scrolls and books, weapons, armour and in the middle of it all sits a desk, where Lothrin does her scholarly work. The room though cramped, is luminous.

If the evenings are calm and quiet, she will delight in teaching the dúnedain children their history, with as much detail as she can muster. She will speak of the marble columns of the throne-room of Elendil, of the beautiful gardens at the heart of Annúminas, of the various gatherings the nobles of Evendim used to have, of all the kind and brave working-people who fought so fiercely for their kingdom. 

Deviations

The schedule presented above may suffer alterations depending on a myriad of factors. If orcs have been spotted in the area, Lothrin will join patrols and guard the borders. If the harvests have been lacking, she will hunt more and gather whatever plants and roots available for eating. If the coffers are emptying, she will join in the making of various products to try and trade them in Bree or the Shire. If the day allows and no pressing matters are ahead of her, she will often train herself, then train some of the younger dúnedain in close, then ranged combat. She is a strict but fair teacher. 

Seasonal Work

If the summer weather is especially kind, she would often be found at the farms in Barandalf, in south Evendim. The farms are the main source of food for the dúnedain of Evendim, so tending to them is of utmost importance. The farms, though small, are close to hobbit lands, so trade often occurs. If the farms are otherwise staffed, and the sentries are away on various errands, she will stand guard at the bridge of High King’s Crossing, inquiring the business of any travellers that wish to pass into the heart of Evendim. If the day is particularly slow, she may talk to the others and try and tend to the bridge, although she is no stoneworker or architect. 

Although, she has long pled to the dúnedain that maintaining Annúminas is of utmost importance, the dúnedian are simply too few and too far spread to tend to a city the size of Annúminas. If present within the white-city, when not reminiscing about the past, Lothrin will help the sentries stationed there to maintain a road throughout the city, free of rubble. If otherwise unoccupied, she will scout the various half-flooded buildings for any objects of importance. If at Sarn Ford, she will act as a sentry and report to the on-field commander. Though her visits to Esteldin are rare, she will more often than not come for administrative business or high-councils, thus partake less in the day-by-day chores.

One of the big advantages elves possess is that they live for thousands of years. The lifespan of Lothrin, as of the War of the Ring is equal to that of fifty to a hundred human lives. In modern terms, in takes one human one lifetime to become an absolute expert in whatever domain they choose, can you imagine what we could do with fifty lifetimes? Lothrin, as an elf, had millennia of time to hone her skills, and thus can lend a hand to whatever needs doing.

She will do anything that needs doing from more household oriented activities like sewing, cooking, baking, soap-making, wine and beer-making, house repairs, cloth beating/washing, childcare, makeshift barbering, to more scholarly pursuits like candle making, writing, chronicling, teaching, book-binding, sending messages, to more administrative pursuits like tax-keeping, act as a clerk, act as a judge, act as a baliff, hold council, to more agricultural pursuits like bee-keeping, cattle-raising, farm-management, hunting, animal-skinning, bird-plucking, to more military pursuits like commanding guerrilla troops, maintaining armour and military strategy. Though it is worth mentioning that just because she can do something, it does not mean she can do it as well as someone whose job is only that specific thing like a full-time farmer or woodworker.

I hope you enjoyed reading this and that this small essay shed some light on my character.

[the-coldest-goodbye]

Sansa Stark - NSFW Alphabet Headcanons

Sansa Stark x fem!reader

Requested by Anonymous

A/N: I wanted to write something that acknowledged the trauma Sansa would have after her experiences. Because of that, this is less smutty than other NSFW alphabets I’ve written for other characters. It can be hard to figure out how to write trauma and recovery, so quite a bit of this is based on my own experiences with overcoming trauma. I hope I did an okay job.

TW: Mentions of abuse, rape, trauma, and Sansa’s struggles to overcome them.

Also, if you haven’t yet, make sure you check out my SFW alphabet headcanons for Sansa.

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Sansa requires a lot of aftercare to feel safe and secure. Cuddle up with her, get extra snug with some furs, and stroke her hair. Check in with how she’s feeling. It’ll mean a lot to her knowing that you care for her wellbeing. Her sexual experiences with you are nothing less than beautiful and loving, but they can still elicit some bad feelings, thoughts, and memories stemming from her past trauma, especially near the start of your physical relationship. Hold her. Listen to her. Make sure she’s warm. Maybe take a bath with her and brush out her hair. Most importantly, stay with her. Don’t rush off. She needs the security of knowing that you care about her and that you won’t leave her when she’s vulnerable.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

She has a difficult relationship with her body. She’s covered in scars, very real reminders of the abuse she suffered at the hands of Ramsay. Sansa rebuilding her appreciation for her body is a long process, but it starts off with her coming to like her hands. She loves the way her fingers look entwined with yours, the way they gently explore your skin, the way they can make you moan in pleasure.

Her favorite part of you is your neck and shoulders region, especially loving to place kisses there and against your collarbones. When you hold her, she’ll bury her face into the curve of your neck or rest her head on your shoulder, feeling secure and at ease.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Sansa finds nothing more beautiful or erotic than how you work so diligently to make her wet and how you then savor her juices. Her only physical experiences before you were with Ramsay, and he didn’t care whether or not it felt good to Sansa. In fact, he got more sick and twisted pleasure from having her suffer. Seeing the way you spend so long teasing her and stimulating her to make her wet and then seeing how you absolutely adore her juices, licking up every last drop, means the world to her. One of the most erotic moments she ever had was the very first time you brought your fingers up to her mouth after you gently dragged them through her folds, urging her to taste herself. Ramsay took pleasure in her pain. You took pleasure in her pleasure.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

I’ll explore this a little more under “W = Wild card,” but Sansa’s dirty secret (that you obviously come to learn) is that she’s not straight. In a society like Westeros where strict gender roles reign, queerness is taboo, particularly for someone as high-profile as Sansa.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Sansa’s not experienced when it comes to sex because her experiences with Ramsay weren’t sex; they were torture. She’s very slow to pursue a physical relationship with you, and it’s a learning experience for the both of you as you begin to open up to each other, explore your likes and dislikes at a mindful speed, and become more comfortable with each other. It’s a slow process, but it’s important not to push it too far or too fast.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Initially, Sansa would prefer being on top or having the two of you both laying on your sides because it helps her not feel completely powerless. As she becomes more comfortable with your physical relationship and works through some of her trauma, she sometimes allows you to be on top, but it would take a long time to build up that level of trust for her to feel fully comfortable in that kind of position.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Sansa is quite serious, but she can become a bit more playful and giggly once she feels more secure and becomes more confident during sex. It takes a while to get to that point, though, and sex will never be something she takes lightly. She views it as a very real commitment to each other, and so there will always be a fairly serious undertone during intimate moments.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Her hair down there is naturally pretty short and neat, and so it doesn’t require much upkeep to remain tidy, if any. It’s a similar shade to the color on her head, perhaps a little darker.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Sansa is used to being used as someone’s plaything, being treated like a literal object. Therefore, it’s of utmost importance to her that you two have a strong connection during any sexual act. To keep the experience feeling very real and very human, Sansa likes to make eye contact or be face-to-face. She always tries to remain fully present when the two of you are together. It feels like you’re the only two people in the world when you’re together. It’s never spur of the moment, and the build-up of passion that leads up to the sex really emphasizes the undeniable connection between you two when you make love.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Sansa rarely masturbates.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Honestly, Sansa wants and needs things to be pretty vanilla between you two in bed. Most kinks would either make her feel uncomfortable or foolish. 

This is not a kink per se, but Sansa does tend to be a bit more dominant in bed. She’s actually fairly vers, but she tends to take a slightly more dominant role in bed since she would want to be the one to set the pace and to take the lead to feel more empowered and confident in the experience. It’s a big deal when she is able to trust you enough and feel comfortable enough with you to just lay back and let you take the lead with pleasuring her.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Sex is something she would save for the bedroom. It’s the only place she’d find it appropriate.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

It takes a long time to get Sansa going. First and foremost, she needs to feel loved, secure, and empowered before anything goes down. You need to lay the groundwork much earlier and build up to it slowly over the course of the day with knowing glances, sly smiles, gentle touches, and loving words. There needs to be a development of tenderness and intimacy to make her want to bed you. She isn’t DTF at the drop of a hat.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Sansa would refuse to do anything that made either of you uncomfortable or that would hurt either of you. She is particularly turned off by bondage, gags, and pain. She isn’t into anything too rough or fast, and she also wouldn’t be into extreme dom/sub dynamics. Also, she wouldn’t feel comfortable with being penetrated, at least not for a long time.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Sansa starts off preferring to give oral rather than receive because she’s not ready to have anything like that done to her; but as she grows more comfortable with physical intimacy with you, she comes to enjoy giving and receiving equally. She doesn’t quite know what she’s doing at first, but she’s a fast learner and eager to please you, wanting to hear you whimper and feel you writhe in pleasure because of her.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Your earlier sexual experiences with Sansa are slow paced and shy because of her hesitance, but she becomes more sensual (but still fairly slow) as she grows in confidence. She would much rather take her time and savor the experience. Fast or rough sex would be avoided at all costs, and she would feel relieved that you understood and were fine with that.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Nope, no quickies here. She needs a slow build-up and lots of aftercare.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

At the beginning of your relationship, her past trauma makes any and all sexual interactions feel like a risk. It takes Sansa quite a long time before she even considers physical intimacy with you beyond kissing and cuddling, and so she isn’t game to get experimental too quickly in your sexual relationship. As she gets more confident, though, she’ll get more willing to try out new positions and techniques, but she still wouldn’t be willing to try anything too kinky or risky.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Usually one round is enough for Sansa to call it a night, but sometimes she might surprise you with a second round. Early on in your physical relationship, it takes her a fairly long time to reach orgasm, though, because she’s get stuck in her head and wouldn’t stay present in the moment. When she’d manage to shift her focus to being more in the moment with you, she’d cum quite a bit faster.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

She doesn’t own any toys. If you wanted her to use any on you, she’d be willing to give it a go. She likely wouldn’t want you to use them on her, though.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

As Sansa becomes more confident in her abilities to pleasure you, she sometimes can be a bit of a tease, liking to vary speed and pressure to keep you on your toes.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Sansa is pretty quiet in terms of volume. At first, she would be so quiet that she was very clearly lost in her own head instead of enjoying the moment. You wanted to make sure she was having a nice time, so you encouraged her to speak up and to tell you whether or not she liked what you were doing. She would be shy about it at first, but she would come to communicate quite a bit during sex, telling you what felt good, what didn’t feel good, what she wanted you to do, etc. It meant a lot to her that you always listened to her and empowered her to call the shots while physically intimate. When in pleasure, she moans and gasps lightly and whispers out, “Oh yes, Y/N! Right there. Right there.”

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

Sansa Stark ain’t straight!! (My *personal* headcanon is that she’s a lesbian; but for general audience purposes, I’ll just say here that she’s some flavor of Not Straight.) As a child, her fixation on finding her Prince Charming and her idealization of knights in shining armor was a result of their society teaching her that her only goal was to become the perfect wife to the perfect man and to give him the perfect babies to carry on his family name. It’s compulsory heterosexuality, baby!!

Her sapphic awakening came when she developed a crush on Margaery. Their interactions were particularly impactful on Sansa, especially when Margaery would imply that she was attracted to women. Sansa spent a long time repressing her feelings because it doesn’t follow the strict gender roles in Westeros, and so having Margaery imply this really put the idea on the table for Sansa to explore.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

Her body is fairly slender with light curves. However, she’s covered in scars and markings from Ramsay. She’d keep them covered up as much as possible because she didn’t want to see them.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Sansa’s sex drive is not very high. Sexual intimacy would happen only if/when she felt ready. She would never want to be used like a sex toy again. She hopes that she’ll have a partner who respects her enough to understand that she needs time instead of pressuring her into anything. 

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Sansa requires quite a bit of aftercare, so she doesn’t fall asleep quickly.

[violetsmoak]

Pieces of April [18/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21099044/chapters/50202530

Summary: On the anniversary of his death, Jason’s second life takes an abrupt new turn and he’s faced with a challenge that neither Batman nor the All-Caste prepared him for.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

Author’s Note: Sorry for the wait on the latest chapter, I spent the weekend plotting some original work and it sort of took over my brain for a while. Also, this chapter has been fighting me. Mostly because I’ve been working on the big Batfam discovery moment and I can’t wait to get there, and having to slow down and write everything in between is soooooo frustrating! But hopefully we’ll get there soon lol. In the meantime, enjoy!

First Chapter

________________________________________________________________

The next morning finds Jason once again in Tim’s kitchen, this time doing a fry-up of bacon and eggs. He’d been surprised to find either of those things in Tim’s fridge, having appeared as if by magic.

(Jason suspects Tim gets his groceries delivered instead of shopping like a normal person; he’s not going to complain, though, since food is food.)

From her carrier’s usual perch on the kitchen island, Luisa is frowning at him—or at least frowning at his general direction—in disapproval like a miniature, squishy Winston Churchill.

“What?” he asks her, feeling oddly judged. “You don’t like my fryin' technique?” She sticks her tongue out, and yawns, easing back in her carrier. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

He’d probably shit his pants if she actually spoke back, but he’s seen stranger things in his life.

Suddenly, there’s a sharp, explosive bang from outside as a car backfires, and Luisa jolts, eyes going wide in shock before she starts shrieking.

“Crap,” Jason grunts, dropping the spatula and hurrying over to pick up the startled baby. Lifting her up, he starts rocking her back and forth, trying to shush her and wincing as the crying just gets louder.

How does such a little thing make such a big noise?

Still trying to calm her, he goes to pick the spatula up off the floor to toss in the sink and glances around for another. Luisa keeps crying, little fists beating ineffectually at him, and no matter what position he holds her in she refuses to let up.

“I know you’ve never heard something that loud before, but don’t you think this is an overreaction?” he mutters, glancing desperately around for the cape Tim was using as a carrier the other day. It’s nowhere within range, and so he turns off the stove and shoves aside the pan to ensure the bacon doesn’t burn while he deals with the baby complication.

As he searches, rocking and shushing Luisa as he goes, he’s getting generally more frustrated at not being able to get her to stop wailing. He’s on the verge of giving up and going to wake Tim—which is embarrassing on so many levels—when he remembers what the kid told him yesterday about heartbeat and skin-to-skin contact.

Making a quick decision, he places the squalling infant on the couch for an instant while he shrugs out of his shirt. Then, ignoring the sense of awkwardness he picks her up to hold against his bare chest, cradling her head in support as he continues to rock subtly, bouncing somewhat on the balls of his feet.

Luisa’s still wailing, mushing her face into his chest almost in protest, and his ears are beginning to ring. But slowly, as the minutes creep by, the sound morphs into weak fussing. Her little ear settles against a spot near his breastbone, right over his heart, and that sound wanes as well.

There’s a sniffle, a wet almost-hiccup in her breathing, and then she goes silent and calm again.

Hey, look at that.

Jason actually managed to calm her down himself, instead of calling for help or putting her down to yell until she tired herself out. He’s not sure why he feels a stab of pride in that, but he decides it doesn’t matter in the face of the now silent baby.

He keeps hold of her until her breathing evens out and she passes out and then returns to the kitchen and the carrier.

Once she’s settled again, he notices that he’s being watched, and glances up to see Tim, ruffled and still blinking sleep out of his eyes even as he studies the scene in front of him.

Eyes raking up Jason’s form, he opens his mouth to say something, frowns to himself and shakes his head.

“I need coffee,” he mumbles at last and slouches into the kitchen to turn on the Keurig. While waiting for it to brew, he turns back to Jason, leaning against the counter and tilts his head to one side. “I didn’t know you had tattoos.”

Jason looks down his front at the All-Caste markings no longer hidden by the baby’s form.

They’re not tattoos. At least, not exactly.

But the real story’s too complicated and not something he wants to get back to the Bats, so he just shrugs and says, “I don’t exactly put out announcements in the Family newsletter.”

Tim nods, ceding the point.

“So, what do they mean?” he asks as his coffee finishes brewing.

“None of your damn business. Don’t you have work?”

The younger man raises an eyebrow. “It’s Saturday?”

Right. Weekends are a thing.

“I do have some online classes to log on for later, though,” Tim goes on. “But I don’t really have to dress up in a suit for that.” He smirks. “I’m not Damian.”

“I dunno—you’re both pint-sized pains in my ass,” Jason retorts, trying to hide his surprise that Tim is still in school. He thought he’d dropped out when Bruce went missing in the timestream; he didn’t realize the guy was still doing that.

God, he’s doing school on top of everything else? How is this kid still alive?

“I’m still taller than he is,” Tim hedges, with a trace of sulk in his voice.

Heh. Think we’ve hit a sore point there.

But he chooses not to pursue it; better for him if Tim’s in a good mood.

“I’m goin' out again today,” he informs him, trying not to grit his teeth at the effort it takes not to make it sound like a question. He doesn’t need permission, damn it! “Have a little conversation with Isabel’s ex, for all the good it’ll do.”

“I figured as much,” Tim replies, unbothered. He sips at his coffee. “Isa and I will be fine. Besides, when I’m done my classwork, I’ve got a lead I want to pursue. I might have tracked down some of Isabel’s blood relatives.”

Jason pauses, ears perking up. “Seriously?”

“I think so. Try not to get your hopes up, though.” He frowns then, tilting his head to one side. “You might want to do something about that before you go meeting with anyone.”  

He makes a circular motion around his own forehead.

Nonplussed, Jason wanders toward the mantlepiece and the mirror above it, making a noise of understanding when he realizes what Tim was pointing out.

“Noted,” he agrees, flicking at his hair.

The problem with dying his hair black is the need to touch it up every six weeks; the roots of his natural red coloring start to peek through around then, along with the thick white streak that sprouts from just above the scar in his hairline. The latter doesn’t hold the color for very long, fading to a washed-out gray-white within a few washes.

The upkeep is a pain in the ass, but black hair is a lot less memorable in his line of work, a lesson he learned quickly as both Robin and during his League training.

Once Tim’s settled into his temporary workstation at the kitchen table, with Luisa snoozing within easy reach, Jason takes off.

Like the day before, he commandeers one of Tim’s bikes and heads out to pharmacy near one of his safehouses in Midtown. He figures it’s best to keep any kind of chemical smell far away from the baby, and besides he kind of wants to avoid Tim walking in on the dyeing process. He needs to do his eyebrows, and if the younger man were to make a comment, Jason would have to punch him—which seems a poor reward for someone helping him out right now.

Once he’s applied the dye and is waiting for it to set, he uses the laptop in his bolt hole to remotely access the Cave systems again and brings up the phone records between Isabel and her group of friends, including Jonathan Sutter.

It feels morbid and invasive, but he needs a better sense of who these people are and how to approach them. The texts between her and her friends are the usual thing you’d expect from a group of twenty-somethings making plans or bitching about work. As for the exchanges between her and Sutter, there aren’t that many; it seems their relationship was mostly in person or by phone.

Jason’s relieved about that because he’s not sure he could stomach reading his dead ex-girlfriend’s sexting her boyfriend.

Because I don’t feel creepy enough about this as it is…

He finds reference to a few events they attended together—restaurant dinner, a trip to the opera, a Broadway play—

“Wow, this guy was predictable,” Jason mutters to himself before he finds something interesting.

Sutter’s accounting firm did work on a huge contract with WE the year before, resulting in invitations to one of their charity events. Sutter evidently invited Isabel to go with him, which could provide a good backstory for Jason.

He’s been to those things before, both under protest and undercover, and they all go down the same way. It’s an easy cover for what he needs.

Closing the laptop, he goes to wash the last of the dye off and then showers for good measure. He actually takes more than ten minutes for once, since he’s alone and doesn’t need to keep his ear out for a crying baby. Even when he knows Tim is watching her, he can’t help waiting for something bad to happen.

It’s a bit irritating, actually; he inherited all the worries a new parent might feel about screwing up their kid, and yet none of the connection. It’s not just because he’s holding himself back from it either; he wonders if he had known about the baby—if he and Isabel had been involved during her pregnancy—if he would feel more of a bond to Luisa.

“No point wonderin',” he mutters to himself as he gets out of the shower and towels off. He learned a long time ago that speculating over the ‘what-if’s’ of the past would just lead him down a dark pit of self-pity.

On a whim, he grabs the make-up and prosthetic’s kit from beneath the sink and sets about making himself a disguise. He doesn’t usually bother with disguises anymore—those undercover gigs with Bruce seem far too long ago—but since he’s just testing the waters, he doesn’t want to be too recognizable.

The end result is a passable imitation of the infamous Matches Malone look Bruce cultivated, though Jason makes an effort to look a lot more kempt, before setting out once more.

The cameras he left watching Sutter’s place, as well as the tracker on his car, put him at a strip-mall not far from his home. Upon investigation, Jason finds himself standing in front of a high-priced vegan grocery.

“Seriously?” Jason mutters to himself, wrinkling his nose in disgust. The store isn’t even one of the legit wholesale places filled with locally sourced products, but one of the trendy boutiques, stocked with items that are three times more expensive just to cover the import costs and the brand name.

He loiters around the shelves, pretending to be examining the dozens of different types of Norwegian water while keeping an eye out for his target.

Sutter appears at the head of the aisle moments later, pushing a cart and followed by a young brunette. Younger than him, at least; Sutter’s about thirty, which puts the woman he’s with at about ten years younger.

She says something to him, clearly cheerful and excited, and Sutter replies in kind, accepting whatever package she puts in the cart. She leans up to peck him on the cheek, and then practically bounces away. The minute she’s gone, Sutter’s expression becomes long-suffering. He checks his phone with an air of impatience.

So he’s not actually into his stuff, but faking it for her.

It’s possible that’s just him attempting to be a supportive boyfriend, Jason supposes. But it also suggests the decision-maker in the relationship is the girlfriend, which could be a problem.

Only one way to find out.

He makes a production of turning just as Sutter passes him, and then affects a double-take at seeing him for the first time.

“Hey, I know you!” he declares, earning a look of surprise, followed by the guy looking around with a ‘who me?’ kind of expression. Jason pretends not to see it. “Johnny—John? Sutter, right?”

The man stares at him, apprehensive. “Yes? Do I know you?”

“You don’t remember?” Jason says, affecting an amused chuckle. “Heh. Guess you wouldn’t, I look a lot spiffier in a tux.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t—"

“Peter Malone, Locke Insurance? We met at the WE charity ball last March.” Sutter continues to look wary. “You were there with that knockout—whatshername…Izzy? Annabelle?”

“Isabel?” Sutter supplies, expression slowly morphing from wary to uncomfortable. The expression of someone worried he’s about to be caught out for not remembering a name.

“Right! Yes, her—damn, she was a looker.”

“Yeah…sorry, but I don’t really remember you,” Sutter says, expression clearing, and adopting an apologetic grimace. “But there were a lot of hands to shake that night, so...”

“Don’t I know it,” Jason agrees. “I left with about six new clients that night. Pretty good for a charity event, eh?” He doesn’t give Sutter a chance to reply. “So, you still with her?”

“What?”

“Isabel—hot blond? Legs up to here?”

Sutter’s tone becomes clipped again. “No.”

Jason gives an exaggerated whistle. “Damn shame…damn shame. You two looked like you were having fun.”

“Yeah, well…” Sutter gives a tight smile, eyes flicking away like he’s looking for an exit. “Things don’t always work out.”

“You know if she’s still single now?” Jason prompts, laying on the smarm. “Think you could set us up?”

“I think you’re the last person she wants anything to do with right now,” Sutter replies coolly. “Now, if you excuse me—”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Don’t think she’d be into me? Everyone wants a piece of this.”

“Hope you like kids then,” the man mutters as he edges away.

Jason affects a wide-eyed gaze. “She’s got kids? Damn, she doesn’t look the type.”

He makes it sound like some kind of disease, earning a snort of agreement from Sutter, who says, “I thought so too.”

There’s a trace of bitterness there, one Jason recognizes intimately. He had foster parents that looked and sounded the same. Still, he presses on, pretending to be clueless at the cues the other man is trying to give him to end the conversation.

“Not a fan of the rugrats?”

“Not especially,” Sutter replies tightly. “And raising someone else’s kid? When you work the hours I do? I’ve got a career, my company’s got me flying from the East Coast to the West Coast every couple of weeks, my family’s already complicated—it’d be hard enough raising my own kid, let alone someone else’s.” He looks up as the blond from earlier appears, with some overpriced wafer crackers. “Anyway, nice catching up with you. See you around, I guess.”

He practically takes off at a run.

“Yeah, take it easy,” Jason replies dully. In three sentences, he’s learned everything he needed to know about the guy’s fitness as a parent.

This guy’s a hard ‘no’ then.

Jason leaves the store, mood dark. He takes a few hours to wander around Crime Alley and soak up the comings and goings without anyone recognizing him, before turning to Tim’s apartment via the underground entrance.

“Looks like it didn’t go too well,” Tim says when he sees him. He’s in the process of changing Luisa, who is making noises of disapproval. She doesn’t like to be wet, but she also doesn’t like being cold, so getting changed appears to be her least favorite part of the day.  

“He doesn’t want to be involved,” Jason says, not wanting to go into detail. “Which is what we figured would be the case.”

“Well, now you know for sure.”

“All I’m sure about is people suck.”

“So what’s the next step?”

“I’ve got a list of Isabel’s friends to contact. If they seem legit, I’ll see about figurin' out if they want to step up in honor of Isabel’s memory.”

He makes a face at that, knowing how it sounds, but being unable to think up any other alternative.

“I could come along,” Tim offers.

“No,” Jason says immediately. “People see you and they see dollar signs. Either for sellin' the story to the press or pretendin' their decent because they’ll think the kid means you bankrollin' them for the next eighteen years.”

“Point,” Tim says, and there’s a clench of his jaw that makes Jason think that scenario resonated with him personally for some reason. “I still don’t think you should go alone. You need someone along to soften your image, so you don’t come off as a creep.”

“I can be soft if I want to be,” Jason protests, offended.

“I have…no idea how to respond to that that won’t sound like Dick,” Tim tells him. “So I won’t.”

“Magnanimous of you."

“Here’s an idea—call Safiya. Ask if she’ll come with. She might even have met some of these people before.”

“Good point.” Jason makes a mental note to call her later, and wanders into the kitchen.

Noticing that other than the various plastic bottles and hastily closed formula containers there's no sign of plates or take-out, Jason determines Tim probably hasn’t made anything for dinner or even just for himself.

Assuming he even knows how to cook.

He opens the door to the fridge, and just stands there for a long moment, before shaking his head and closing it again when nothing immediately appeals to him.

Jason’s not entirely sure what he wants right now, his stomach growling in complaint for food having to compete with a pervading nausea at the idea of a heavy meal. He ends up cutting up a plate of fruit to tide him over until he can make a decision and wanders over to the space in the living room where Tim is working. Safiya is now nowhere in sight, but the baby monitor is on, the green lights lighting up and fading in tandem with distant sound of breathing.

“She actually let me put her down,” Tim explains when he notices where Jason’s looking.

“You’re the favorite,” Jason retorts, not sure why the idea doesn’t sit well with him. He supposes it’s left over from years of seeing Tim as the replacement everyone preferred to him. Rather than get trapped in that dark line of thinking, he offers the younger man his plate. “Any luck tracking down Luisa’s family?”

Tim absently accepts a few wedges of apple. “Yes and no.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Jason asks, throwing himself onto the couch. There’s a groan under his weight, which earns a pissy look from Tim, but the latter doesn’t address it.

“Isabel never told you much about her extended family, right?”

“Beyond the fact that they exist somewhere, not really. We didn’t really talk families, for obvious reasons.”

“Right.”

“She said she and her parents left Bogota before she was two, and if she met anyone before then she can’t remember.”

“Well, it turns out there’s a reason for that,” Tim says and slides his tablet over to Jason. When he picks it up, it takes a minute for his eyes to register the information Tim’s hunted up. “Her parents were fleeing Columbia to get away from them. It seems the Ardila family is in deep with the Medellin cartel there.”

“No shit,” Jason says, eyes wide.

This may actually explain Isabel’s lack of panicking in the face of aliens and mobsters…

“Isabel’s parents sought asylum in the US and eventually qualified for citizenship.”

“How’d they manage that if they were from a crime family?”

“My guess? Being good at bending the truth and having excellent forged documents.”

“Either way, that’s another option off the table,” Jason sighs, letting his head fall back on the couch in exasperation.

Tim hums in agreement and for a few moments, they simply sit in silence against the sense of defeat.

It’s not until the baby monitor suddenly gives a sudden series of noise—bursts of what at first sounds like static, but they then realize are tiny sneezes—that either of them moves again.

“I should check her,” Tim says, but Jason holds up a hand to stop him.

They listen a few moments longer, hear a bit of grumbling across the monitor, and then there’s only the sound of breathing.

“If you’re going to go running every time she sneezes or coughs, you’re going to give her a complex,” Jason informs him.

Tim raises an eyebrow. “Says the guy who was worried she had yellow fever.”

“I wasn’t worried, I was…concerned.”

“Now you sound like Bruce.”

“Take that back, Replacement.”

They glare at each other, but there’s little heat in it. At last, Tim rolls his eyes and looks away.

“On a somewhat related note—” Tim reaches for a file folder and takes out a piece of paper with a table on it, which Jason immediately recognizes as a schedule. Various duties have been written into the cells—feeding, changing, future bath times.

“You actually made one,” Jason says, somewhat disbelieving.

“Of course I made one. This last week, we’ve just been reacting to everything. We can’t keep going like that, and I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of the petty arguments about who does what.”

“Petty,” Jason repeats tonelessly.

“Petty,” Tim agrees. “As you can see here, these are the times when we might consider calling for outside help. I checked with Safiya about what days she’s conditionally available, and even Tam—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa—Tam agreed?”

“Well, she agreed for emergencies,” Tim allows. “Like, if it’s raining Joker toxin from the sky kind of emergencies.”

Jason scowls. “Don’t tempt fate with that shit.”

“You know what I mean. If there’s something big going on, she said she’ll cover for us. Since it’s all temporary, and all.”

“Right…” Jason agrees faintly, staring at the blinking lights of the baby monitor. “Temporary…”

The rest of what Tim's saying fades to background noise, as his thoughts are overwhelmed with a sudden worry:

What if we don't find anyone worth taking her?

⁂⁂⁂

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[theskyeandsea]

Class is in Session || Ricky & Skylar

Location: Ricky and Winston’s House

Summary: Skylar and Ricky meet and talk to each other, seal to seal.

TW: Chronic illness and depression mentions

It had taken far more convincing than Ricky thought it would, but, he had finally managed to convince Skylar to come to terms with what she was. Which meant now of course that he had to start putting together a curriculum for Selkie 101 apparently. Dragging himself laboriously from his spot on the couch he stumbled his way into the kitchen, wincing as the healing wound on his side tugged against its stitches. “Fuckkkkkkkkk” He muttered as he rifled through the cabinets for the coffee, grinding enough beans to start a pot and then leaning against the cold wood of the countertop as he waited for it to brew. It wasn’t terribly long before he heard the sound of tires on the driveway, just in time for him to pull two mugs down and set them on the counter, “Door’s unlocked!” He called out, not wanting to make the trek from the kitchen to the entryway, “I’m in the kitchen.” 

Stepping out of her car, Skylar juggled her keys from hand to hand, staring at the house with trepidation. She didn’t want to be here, definitely not after everything that had happened at the dinner only just a few nights ago. But… she needed answers. Ricky had been right about everything, about her teeth, her food, being color blind, the fatigue and fevers and everything. He knew it all. And she knew absolutely nothing. She had to find out the truth. Her backpack thumped against her spine as she let herself into the house at Ricky’s invitation, the weight of the pelt a reminder of what was at stake. She made her way into the kitchen and saw Ricky setting two mugs on the counter top. “Hi… How are you doing, is there anything I can help with?” She asked anxiously, fingers fidgeting with the edge of her shirt as she stood in the kitchen. 

Tugging a hoodie from a nearby chair, Ricky shrugged into it and zipped it up gingerly, “Cream or sugar? You shouldn’t really, too much will fuck with your stomach but a little now and again never hurt anybody.” He poured two large mugs full of the delicious smelling coffee and settled into a seat up on the counter, “Come on. Put the bag down and make yourself at home. This is scarier in your mind than it is in real life.” He hadn’t bothered to put his teeth in that morning, he hadn’t been planning on leaving the house and so he flashed Skylar a smile full of his pearly white fangs, “So. You’re a selkie. Like me. Welcome to the family.” He pushed the mug of coffee towards her and took a sip of his own, humming in delight, “Ah caffeine. Sweet delicious life giving caffeine. Thank god it exists.” He’d never really had cause to talk to other selkies who were less experienced than him, and felt like he was stumbling his way through this. Best he could do was just be a friend. 

Seeing Ricky’s teeth in the daylight was a shock. Skylar had seen them before, she knew what they looked like, but it still threw her for a loop to see it in the light of day. This was real. It was all real. “Black’s just fine. Um… I guess I can take these out.” She said, gesturing to her mouth before she removed the veneers from her teeth. She tucked them away in the little case she kept in her backpack. It was always a nice relief to have them out; she was used to having them in, but it always felt just a little uncomfortable. Lifting the mug to her lips, she blew on the liquid to cool it before taking a sip. It just gave her something to do other than acknowledge the whole, selkie situation. “Mhm.” She nodded, not really sure what else she could say. Her backpack was still resting on her shoulders, safe and secure. She didn’t want to let go of it, even if Ricky said it was okay. “So… you’re a selkie?” She asked, the word foreign to her mouth.

Ricky watched somewhat nonchalantly as Skylar removed her teeth and tucked them away in a small case from her bag. “Always feels better to have them out. I can always hear just the littlest shade of a lisp when I’ve got them in. I’m just used to talking without them.” He listened to the long stretching silence, determined to let her take the lead on any self discovery that might happen “We…” he correct gently, “We are selkies. Since I’m now more than reasonably confident in that assessment.” Another sip of coffee and he stretched his legs out before tucking one under him, “But yes. I”m a selkie. There’s probably some latin species name for us, but…. Selkie usually just does the trick. Subspecies of therianthrope, or shape shifter, much like a werewolf, though in far more control.”

Skylar took a seat at the counter next to Ricky, staring into her mug as he spoke. They were both selkies. She was a selkie. She was… a seal person. And as much as she wanted to protest against it, to turn off her hearing aids and just pretend she’d never heard any of this, she couldn’t. “I… How. How does it work? If we’re not like werewolves, how does it work?” She asked. “I’ve never been a seal. I wasn’t lying when I said that, I’ve never been a seal in my life. I think I’d remember turning into a blubbery fish eating… animal.” She shook her head. Even as she said that, the confused memories of waking up in her bathtub with the pelt next to her came back to her.

“Well… for one, selkism can’t be passed on through a bite. It’s simply genetic. As to how it works? You’ve got a skin. Your real skin. You simply……. Step into it and return to being a seal. Which I know sounds a little reductive but, that’s what happens. Your body secretes what is essentially lube, and you just pull it on and you’re back to being a seal again.” Another sip of coffee and he nodded slowly, pushing uncooperative curls out of his face, “that… doesn’t surprise me. It sounds like you spent a lot of time not knowing, which means your body put itself into some pretty dire situations to keep itself alive. Which isn’t ideal. That can’t be good for you long term. But… that is in the past now. Now that you know what you are, you can start to live in a way that makes it easier for you to live in comfort.”

“My real skin?” Skylar echoed, the weight of her backpack pressing down against her shoulders. The seal pelt. It was hers. Her skin. That she was meant to just slide into. That wasn’t possible, that couldn’t be real. There was just so much for her to process. “I don’t know anything about this.” Skylar said quietly before taking a long drink from her mug. Staring at her hands, she wrestled with how to talk about her family. “I’m not… My family…” Her words caught in the back of her throat, but she forced herself to continue. “Ricky. I didn’t know any of this because no one in my family knows any of this. I’m adopted. And, less than a year ago, I found out that when I was a baby, my mom found me on the beach with,” Skylar gestured to the bag, “a weird pelt wrapped around me. That was it. No one else was around, there was no note, nothing.”

Taking a long sip of coffee, Ricky nodded slowly as Skylar told her story, “That sounds about right. Makes sense that you wouldn’t know anything about how to survive as one, then. It’s real easy for us to pass as human, teeth not withstanding, but we do require some upkeep.” He hobbled over to the fridge and pulled out the omnipresent place of smoked salmon, “help yourself.” Resuming his seat on the counter he thoughtfully chewed on a piece of salmon while he listened, “Well… it’s functionally pointless to try to figure out the why of all of that. It happened, it’s unfortunate and I can’t help but think there could have been a better way but it happened. Now we gotta figure out how to get you good and ready to face the world as a selkie.” 

Not one to pass up the offer of fish, Skylar took a piece of salmon and popped it into her mouth. She hummed in response to his words. There was a lot in her past that she really didn’t want to get into and it was a relief that Ricky didn’t seem to want to hear about it. He knew what he needed to and now… he was going to Mr. Miyagi her into being a selkie? Or something like that? “You said that vampires and werewolves and stuff were real too. Does me being,” She took in a deep breath to steady herself, “A selkie, does that put me in danger? Does it put the people around me in danger? What does it even mean for me to be like this? Am I supposed to go out and just hop into the harbor and turn into some seal thing? Do I need to start learning whale calls? I don’t-- I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this information.”

A lot of questions tumbled out in short order and Ricky couldn’t help but chuckle to himself a little bit, “Woah woah woah killer. Slow your roll.” He polished off the mug of coffee and refilled it, “You being a selkie puts you more in danger from humans than from other members of the supernatural community. Except vampires, who love us. We got extra blood. We’re like a supersized combo for them. The biggest danger will always be human hunters. Always.” He ate some more of the salmon and chuckled again “Do I look like I know whale calls? Look at me. But yes. You are. Generally in the middle of the night, and only in places where you know you’re absolutely alone. Consider this your superhero secret identity.” 

A superhero identity. Yeah, right. No superhero she’d ever read about turned into a big ball of blubber. And had fangs. Sighing, Skylar rubbed her temples, trying to process everything. The supernatural community. Which meant there was more to it than just the magical stuff she’d seen Winston do and the basics of what Ricky had told her. There was a whole… secret society of people. Supernatural people. And she was suddenly apart of that too. “Human hunters? What do you mean by that? Someone going Captain Ahab on us?” She said, choosing to ignore the thing about vampires turning her into a happy meal. She would deal with that later. “I don’t,” Skylar squirmed in her seat, not sure how to say this. “I’mafraidoftheocean.” She confessed, the words coming out in a quiet jumble.

“Yup. Human hunters. Some of them have some weird pseudo-religious rabid need to cleanse the earth of the monsters…. Which is just weird and wrong on so many levels, and some of them just like to sell shit on the black market. And selkie skins are hella valuable.” That second part threw him for a loop, though. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard of a selkie who was afraid of the ocean. “Well…. That’s new.” He scratched at the stubble on his jaw thoughtfully, “Not the end of the world though. We can get you in a swimming pool or pond too. It’s really more about wearing the skin than like ocean deep dives. But…… we might have to work on fixing that fear.” 

“A black market? There’s a black market-- wait, they’d sell my skin?” Skylar asked, voice cracking slightly at the idea of the pelt, her pelt, getting taken away from her. She’d spent so long without knowing any of this, of never having her skin. The thought of someone stealing her skin, keeping it from her forever, it filled her stomach with dread. “The ocean freaks me out because of these,” She said, pushing her hair back to show her hearing aids, “I can’t get them wet. If they get wet, I’d have to replace them and I don’t have the money to do that. I need my hearing aids to work.” At Ricky’s reassurance that they could go elsewhere, Skylar shut her eyes, cringing a little. “And… if I told you I don’t know how to swim..?”

“There’s a black market for almost anything. But yes. They’d sell your skin. They’d kill you, and leave you dead and skinless, and your family would have to bury you in the ground because you didn’t have your skin with you. You couldn’t be burned and scattered to the tides, like selkies should be when they die.” No small amount of heat crept into his voice, and he took a deep breath and tamped it back down again, “well. I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know how hearing aids work with the transformation. My hearing is bad and all, but I always just leaned on lip reading. Can you remove them? Or are the stuck in like cochlear implants are?” He couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit at the last confession, “Believe me. The seal knows how to swim. The woman might not, but the seal does. They’ll take care of you in the water.” 

Skylar could hear the emotion in Ricky’s voice and she reached out to hold his hand, rubbing the back of his hand reassuringly with her thumb. The fate he described sounded awful, it sounded worse than anything she had ever imagined. And it seemed like it was something he knew too well. She didn’t want to pry, though. So instead, she nodded. “Got it. Keep my skin secret. And avoid hunters.” She said before pulling her hand back, her face warming with slight embarrassment. Skylar knew she didn’t always like being touched by other people and here she was, violating his personal space. “Ah. Sorry. Um… I can take them out. It’s just kinda scary being outside without them.” She admitted. His words about her seal side knowing how to swim were probably meant to reassure her, but all she could think was, What if he’s wrong? What if she’s not a selkie and all of this is just a delusion?

Skylar reached out to take his hand and Ricky held it tightly, sighing to himself as he nodded, confident she’d understood the gravity of human hunters and the extreme danger they posed. He couldn’t help but make a quiet noise to himself as she talked about the fear of being without her hearing aids and a small smile crossed his face, “Do you know why your hearing is so bad? Why mine is? Why every single member of our species has some level of auditory impairment? Our ears aren’t made for hearing in air. My hearing is amazing underwater. I can hear the sounds of schools of fish moving through the water, the telltale crunch of shifting stone…. There’s no impairment down there. So. I get that fear. But… the other side of the coin is that once you do conquer it, the impairment doesn’t exist below the waves. 

As Ricky described what it would be like underwater, a part of Skylar couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like. What it would feel like. To have her eyes opened to a whole new world, to a world that she’d never known she was a part of. The idea of just being able to be free-- it was tempting. It was so tempting. But, as she thought about it, the other side of the coin became readily apparent. If all of her challenges in life were because she was a selkie… if her hearing and her depression and the pain that wore her down and exhausted her every day was part of being a selkie and never knowing… Tears began to well up in her eyes. How could her parents have let her live like that? “You’re saying that if I go underwater, if I turn into a- a seal. I’ll be normal?”

Ricky’s heart broke a tiny bit at Skylar’s question and he took her hand again and squeezed it “Well…. No. Because you’re a seal and the general majority metric isn’t. But. Why would you want to be? You won’t be normal. But you’ll be a new part of yourself.” Refilling both their coffees and smiled, “you’ll be putting another piece of the puzzle in, one that’s going to help you feel more whole. But definitely your health is going to improve. Depriving yourself of the transformation is similar to not eating right or not getting enough sleep. You do it for long enough it’s going to start wearing your body now. But now that you know, you can stop feeling like that because you know the cure for it. “ 

Skylar bit the inside of her cheek, her fangs pinching together in a reminder of just how different, how strange, how not human she was. All she had ever wanted was to just be normal. To not be a burden. And now, no matter how she tried to spin it, her definitive abnormality was staring her right in the face. Staring at herr coffee mug, Skylar did her best to absorb everything Ricky was telling her. She was in it now and, if she wanted to get through this new life of hers, she would need all the help she could get. “Okay. Okay. I can… I can try. I can try to do that.” She said, unwilling to say the word, “My skin. How do I keep it safe?” Skylar asked, her free hand moving to clutch the strap of her backpack instinctively.

Knowing that this was a monumental amount of information for Skylar to absorb, Ricky sat quietly on the counter while she did, one foot swinging listlessly as he enjoyed the bitter taste of his coffee. “Trying is always a good start. It’s not going to come right away, this is still a big adjustment, but, you can keep trying and keep trying and keep trying and eventually it’s going to be second nature to you.” Hopping down from the counter he trudged over to retrieve his phone from where it’d been charging, bringing up an email confirmation that he went to forward onto her. “There’s a small fireproof safe that’s going to arrive sometime this week. It’s the same kind that I keep mine in. Try not to bring it with you places. Keep it safe, keep it secret, bring it out when you need to transform or if you’re travelling. Never travel outside the city without it. Even if you think it’s just an overnight trip. You want it with you in case you get waylaid or stuck somewhere.” 

When her phone buzzed with the email attachment, Skylar stared at it in confusion. A fireproof safe? He’d ordered one for her? He didn’t even know her and he was giving her that? And, and all of this information? It was too much. “How much do I owe you for the safe?” She asked, sliding her phone back into her pocket. “That all makes sense.” God, the fact that she was even saying that was insane. “Keep it locked away and, and, if I go on a road trip, make sure I’ve got it with me. Uh huh. Yeah. That… that makes sense.” She said before resting her head on the cool, clean counter top, her eyes squeezed shut. God. “Fuck.” She mumbled quietly.

Ricky’s brow furrowed for a moment. “Nothing. You owe me nothing. This is something your clan or your family was supposed to do. Teach you this. Help you figure out how to be safe. You apparently don’t have one. So. As the only other selkie in White Crest… you’re part of mine now. If you want to be of course.” Leaning forward he squeezed her shoulder lovingly, “You’re not alone anymore, Sky. You’ve got me… and the giant rambunctious family that comes with that” it was true. His mother’s family was loud and sometimes annoying, but they would have never abandoned a pup on the beach like somebody did to Skylar. “This only seems like a lot because it’s happening all at once. But. It’ll even out and life will be as it was. Just with the addition of frequent transformations.”

When Ricky squeezed her shoulder-- a gesture that would normally make her flinch away-- Skylar found herself relaxing at the touch. Something about it just felt… familiar. Even though she didn’t know him any better than she knew anyone in this town, his reassurance meant so much to her. “A clan?” She echoed. “A family?” The words felt so strange to her, because they meant that the people she had considered her family for so long were anything but. They’d kept the truth from her, caused her nothing but pain and hurt. They weren’t her family. And whoever her… true family, her true clan had been, they didn’t care about her. They’d left her all alone. Unable to say anything more, Skylar reached for her hearing aids, pulling them from her ears. She couldn’t bring herself to listen to this anymore. It was too much. 

It was clear to Ricky that they had long since past the point where Skylar was emotionally able to process the conversation they were having, and her removal of her hearing aids confirmed that for him. He refilled her coffee and patted her knee gently, gathering his own mug to head out to his workshop. Before he left though, he caught her eye one last time. Stay as long as you want, my home is yours, he managed to sign out in clumsy sign language. It was a lot for her to take in, but, hopefully she knew she had a place where she was always welcome.

[ferritin4]

Titans Together (3K Gen Jon Kent/Damian Wayne)

Here’s a thing I’ve never posted on here: DC comics fic! I’m one of those people that’s been reading comics since I was a kid, but never in a viciously completionist way. Then, as an adult, I went back and read the runs of things that were recommended or appealed to me, like, among many other things (buncha Batman, the Grayson run even though yes it kinda sucked, all of the new Midnighter before it got canceled), Super Sons. Which is hilarious, and the art is fabulous, and the characters are just perfect. Strong rec.

Like many people, I’m totally here for aged-up Jon Kent/Damian Wayne -- it’s like if Clark/Bruce were both more dramatic and less weird and awful about/to each other -- and I, personally, have a headcanon that Damian, though short now, really ought to grow up to be like 6′4″ and massive. Because his dad’s the tallest in the Batfam and very big, and his mom’s both tall and built for a woman. He has to be a low-grade celebrity at college: Bruce Wayne's son and a prodigy in every subject, a super intense giant scary ripped antisocial multimillionaire 21-year-old who's already halfway through his PhD and wears suits to class. 

And then I want Jon Kent to come visit him at Princeton and be a total fucking hayseed like, "Oh, whoa, wow! That building is so cool looking! What kind of style did you say it was, Dami?" in farm boy jeans and a Carhartt jacket and everyone is like whaaaat the fuuuuck

And that is this fic. (Yes. The art history is made up. That is intentional.)

—

Princeton was huge. Wow.

—

Jon didn’t expect it to be small — he had lived in Metropolis forever as a kid and he’d toured a couple colleges in Gotham, even. He knew Princeton wasn’t gonna be like, the size of Garden City Community College or something, but gosh. It was really, really big.

The administrative offices were right at the main entrance, and that was a good thing, because Jon needed a map, and some directions, and maybe a nametag?

“No, honey,” the woman at the desk said. Her desk plaque read Moira Reed and she looked kind of like his mom’s oldest cousin. “You don’t need a name tag, you just need to show me your ID and sign in so we know you’re on campus. Are you a prospective student?” she asked, taking his driver’s license. “Since you’re eighteen, you don’t need a guardian with you, but I would like an emergency contact, just in case.”

“Oh, sure,” Jon said. “And, no, I’m just visiting a friend who goes here. I live in Kansas,” he added, which — was probably super obvious from the whole Kansas state driver’s license thing. Duh. “You can, uh, tell, I guess. Thank you,” he said, taking it back.

She chuckled. “No worries. Do you need directions to their dorm? Or do they live off campus nearby?”

“No, thank you. He lives in grad student housing, I think?” Jon said. “But I do need directions to —” Jon pulled out his notebook “— Waterstone Hall? For ‘Art History 466’?”

Moira had a map, and a Sharpie, and a very, very patient smile, and Jon thanked her like five times before she kicked him out and told him to enjoy his class.

—

“Good lord,” an older woman’s voice said to Moira as Jon left the office. “Wasn’t he just the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“They have manners in Kansas!” Moira said, laughing. “Maybe he should teach a class.”

—

Waterstone Hall was a beautiful brick building with small, well-kept classrooms with sky-blue walls and new whiteboards. Jon poked his head into a couple of empty rooms before he found 343B.

The seats were angled like a movie theater, pretty steep, and Jon picked a seat about halfway back, on the aisle in case anybody needed him to move. There were maybe twenty students already there, but he didn’t know how many were supposed to come. Class didn’t start for — five more minutes, according to the super fancy old analog clock on the wall.

Everybody was pretty dressed up, except Jon. Did they dress up for class at Princeton? Maybe; maybe it was like private school except without uniforms. The kid next to him was wearing a sweater vest over a collared white button-down shirt, and the girl directly in front of him was wearing some kind of dark blue fancy-looking shirt and pearls.

Jon shrugged off his jacket and put his notebook on the desk in front of him. His flannel had a collar, but he didn’t think that really counted for anything at Princeton.

Somebody was looking at him.

“Hi,” Jon said to the sweater vest kid, who was staring at him like he could see straight through Jon’s head.

“Who are you?” Sweater Vest said. Not, like, meanly. More like Jon was a raccoon or something that had wandered into the classroom.

Or something. Jon didn’t know if they had a lot of raccoons in New Jersey.

“I’m Jon,” Jon said. “I’m just visiting a friend, and I thought I’d sit in on class. Don’t worry,” he added, smiling, “I won’t try to lead discussion group or anything.”

“This class doesn’t have a discussion group,” Sweater Vest said, still staring. “You’re visiting a friend? Who goes here? And they told you to come to this class?”

The girl in front of them swiveled around. “No,” she said. “They must have meant a different class.”

“Art History 466?” Jon said. Maybe he was in the wrong room and this was some — but what class would be bad to sit in on?

Sweater Vest’s stare got, if possible, even more bug-eyed.

“Your friend is an asshole,” he said. “You gotta get out of here, kid, I’m not joking. Just… go to a coffeeshop for an hour or something, seriously, you have like sixty seconds before —”

“Shh!” the girl in front of them hissed suddenly, and oh hey, class was about to start.

—

The online course catalog had had a little description of the class and then links to a bunch of weekly readings, all posted and numbered and dated, and then, right under the all-caps, fancy bold lettering for ART HISTORY 466, it had said Instructor of Record: Damian Wayne.

—

Most of Jon’s classes at community college were hands-on. He was there mostly to learn how to do upkeep on the farm and maintenance on the equipment. Jon wasn’t a bad student — he always did his homework — but he liked the chance to move around while he learned.

His mom liked to say that Jon could sit still for about forty-five seconds, if he tried really hard.

He folded his hands in his lap and tried, as hard as he could, to hold still.

Damian was wearing a suit, of course — he had started wearing suits every day, like his dad, when he turned sixteen and went to college, and maybe that was why everybody was dressed up, maybe class had a dress code. If anyone would make their college class have a dress code, it would totally be Damian, a PhD student who still showed up to teach art history in a ridiculously fancy suit that made him look just like his dad.

Jon had been glad when Damian got taller than him, and even gladder when Damian had finally filled out. It made him look so much more like Bruce, so much less like Talia, and that, well. Jon didn’t need to be the world’s greatest anything to know how important that was to Damian.

Damian still had her sharp features, her olive skin, her cruel streak, of course, but it sure put Jon’s heart at ease to know Damian didn’t have to look in the mirror each morning and see only her face.

Damian put his bag down on the big desk at the front and started taking out some papers, as Jon bit his lip and tried to modulate his breathing so he sounded like everyone else in class, so he wasn’t forgetting to take a breath for too long, because he could forget, easy, when he was distracted, but Damian would totally notice and Jon didn’t want him to figure it out early, he wanted to him to notice when —

Damian looked up and over the class, just a quick, dismissive glance, and Jon could practically hear the gravel crunching as his eyes ground to a halt on Jon.

Sweater Vest stopped breathing; the girl in front of them sucked in in a huge rush of air. No one had been talking, but now no one was moving, just a roomful of terrified, pounding hearts, and oh my God, Damian, Jon thought fondly, you total freaking lunatic.

Jon smiled. Damian’s eyebrow quirked, very slightly, and he looked away, going back to his papers.

Sweater Vest breathed out, slow and shaky.

Class began.

It was interesting. They were mostly talking about German and French weaving and some wall paintings — murals, duh, right — but from like, 900CE. There was a projector and Damian had put up a couple pictures of the big murals so they could look at them while he talked.

Damian knew his stuff. It wasn’t shocking; he’d written like four books about this that Jon knew of, and anyway, Damian had known more than anyone else about pretty much everything for like, the duration of Jon’s entire life.

“The repeating patterns you see here became more geometrically constrained starting around 955CE,” Damian was saying. “They also became more consistent both intra- and inter-artist. Ms. Braxton,” he said, fixing his eyes on a small, dark-skinned girl in the second row, “why is that?”

“Uh,” she said. “Is it because of the access to, uh, horsehair —”

“No,” he said. “Mr. Kendry?”

Mr. Kendry was a tall, lanky boy with pale skin and paler hair who was sitting five seats over from Jon. He had a fancy leather jacket on in class, which Jon had always thought was rude — weren’t you supposed to take your coat off inside?

“Because of the invention of higher mathematics,” Mr. Kendry said, shooting Ms. Braxton a disdainful look.

“In 955CE?” Damian said musingly. “What a charmingly Eurocentric perspective.”

“What?” Mr. Kendry said, wary.

“Who exactly invented the mathematics you’re discussing?” Damian said.

“I, uh,” Mr. Kendry babbled. “I’m not sure. This is art history, I mean, I didn’t —”

“Congratulations,” Damian said, in a voice like ice. “You’ve managed to put forth a single sentence, misleading at best, and yet you cannot even explain your own thought processes, much less provide any facts to back up your very incorrect theory.”

Jon leaned over to Sweater Vest, who flinched away from him, then took a breath and leaned back in.

“Do people do the reading for this class?” Jon whispered.

“What?” Sweater Vest whispered back. “Yeah, of —”

“Kent,” Damian snapped, “do you have something to add?”

Clothing rustled against seats; papers shifted under fingertips as twenty pairs of eyes slowly turned to stare at Jon.

“Yeah, I guess,” Jon said. “I just thought that you had said that that kind of geometry wasn’t really introduced until like fifty years after this.”

“I had said?” Damian asked, locking onto him. “When did I say that?”

It was a real question. Jon could tell — of course he could tell, like, it had only been eight years. Sometimes Damian asked rhetorical questions so he could go on and on about whatever point he was trying to make and sometimes he asked real questions that he wanted an answer to. He just wasn’t super good at making those two things sound different.

“In the reading?” Jon said. “Um, on page,” he flipped through his notebook, “fourteen? You said that, uh, the use of repeating patterns got better starting in the mid-900s, but that, then, on page twenty-one, you said that people had tried to introduce new kinds of math like, a bunch of times but nobody really paid any attention until King Rasbin IV and he didn’t start being king until 1005. I had to look that up, you didn’t say when he was king from,” Jon said, looking back up to meet Damian’s eyes.

The classroom was silent as a grave. Jon could hear each timid, careful breath from each student, the beat of every heart.

Damian was silent, too, which was way weirder. Come on, Jon thought. Did Damian really think he’d show up to Damian’s class and not even have done the reading? Damian had literally written the textbook.

“So it sounds like the art stuff got better before they really accepted the math stuff,” Jon added, in case he’d been confusing, not to Damian — who definitely knew what he meant to say; he almost always did — but to everyone else, who all still looked like Jon had turned them to stone.

Damian’s gaze shifted slightly, less hard and more impatient, and oh shit, Jon knew that look. Damn it.

“Um,” Jon said, scratching at his hair. That was all he knew about anything, Damian, geez. Call on someone else.

Keep talking, Damian’s expression said. Come on, Kent. You’re almost there.

He knew that look.

“Maybe, did the artists — oh! Were they trying to figure it out?” Jon said. “Like, maybe they were trying to make up this kind of geometry on their own, but King Rasbin, you said he liked this art style, he had a bunch of people painting his palace, so maybe, did he hear about the new math stuff and then go to his artists and say, like, ‘guys, this is like what you’re trying to do? But better, so you should try this instead?’”

The left side of Damian’s mouth twitched up; his brows found a distinctly satisfied tilt. Jon grinned.

“King Rasbin IV,” Damian said mildly. “King Rasbin was a powerless puppet ruler who was killed at fifteen. Otherwise, yes.”

The room, collectively, breathed out.

“Cool,” Jon said. Damian raised both eyebrows. “Not the puppet king thing,” Jon said, rolling his eyes. “The art thing! Cool that it was so popular that the artists convinced everyone to pay attention to the new math stuff.”

“Yes. Although in most academic circles it’s still considered a theory without clear evidence,” Damian told him.

“Oh,” Jon said.

“Don’t worry, I have a paper under review which will address that deficit,”  Damian said, flashing just a hint of teeth. “Unsurprisingly, some people aren’t very good at gathering evidence.”

Jon laughed.

“Don’t laugh at him!” Sweater Vest whispered furiously.

“Mr. Mitchell,” Damian said. Sweater Vest’s head snapped up.

“Yes,” Sweater Vest said weakly.

“In 1132CE, following the death of King Rasbin V, Guillaume Res wrote a treatise on the new bascura technique,” Damian said. “What were its immediate and long-term implications for palace artworks?”

Sweater Vest opened his mouth, then closed it.

Damian turned to his desk and started rifling through the papers. Sweater Vest looked like he was going to throw up.

“Mr. Mitchell, I will give you five seconds to produce something resembling a coherent, informed answer,” Damian pulled a packet of papers out of the pile, “before I discard your midterm paper and give you a zero.”

“Uh,” Sweater Vest said.

“Five,” Damian said. “Four.”

“If you don’t know, just guess something!” Jon whispered.

“Shut up, Kent,” Damian said, agate-hard. “You’re not allowed to help him. Three.”

“Aaauuuhh? I, um,” Sweater Vest said.

“Two,” Damian said. “One.”

“What’s the point of this? He obviously doesn’t know!” Jon said.

“You’re right,” Damian said, “he doesn’t.” He dropped the paper into the trash can by the desk. “Moving on.”

“Geez,” Jon muttered when Damian turned his back to them to advance the slideshow.

“You need to shut up, for real,” Sweater Vest told him, “before Wayne comes up here and stabs you.”

“Pff,” Jon said, just loud enough to carry. “Stab me? He could try.”

Damian’s spine straightened, briefly, but he just pushed a button and a new painting came up on the projector screen.

—

“Dismissed,” Damian said, finally, and the room burst into a rush of noise, closing books and scraping chairs.

“Thanks,” Sweater Vest said to Jon, not at all sarcastically.

“Huh?” Jon said.

“You distracted him for a while,” Sweater Vest said. “Thanks.”

“Uh, okay,” Jon said, and then, “you’re welcome,” because that’s what you said when somebody said thank you.

“Yep,” Sweater Vest said, standing up. “Now flee while you can.”

Jon didn’t, though; he was planning to wait until everyone was gone to go down to the front, but about half the students were still there when Damian snapped his bag shut and said, “Is something amiss? Did one of our fathers send you?”

Nobody else was near him. Nobody else would have heard him. He wasn’t talking to anyone else.

Jon got up and collected his jacket and notebook and walked down to the board as fast as he could without raising suspicion, or at least eyebrows.

“No, of course not,” Jon said, coming up behind Damian. He almost leaned on the desk next to where Damian was standing, but then he’d be like, one foot away from Damian and everyone else was giving them a good ten foot clearance, easy.

Definitely because of Damian, not because of Jon. Jon stopped a few feet away and put his hands in his pockets.

Damian shot him a look.

“If something bad was happening, I would call you,” Jon said. “I was just in the area because my friend Leah from home is moving to an apartment in Trenton to live near her mom, so —”

“Most people just say, ‘I was in the neighborhood,’” Damian said.

“Okay, fine,” Jon said. “I was in the neighborhood.”

Damian turned to face him, frowning. “Then what’s wrong with you, Kent? You’re not normally this standoffish.”

“What?” Jon said. “I’m not — you are, and anyway, all your students are still here! I don’t wanna be like, ‘hey buddy!’ and then you have to explain why you have some random kid who doesn’t even go here showing up and being weird.”

“Did you hit your head on the flight here? I don’t explain my interpersonal interactions to my undergraduates,” Damian said.

“Oh,” Jon said, feeling slightly silly. “Right.”

“Did you truly think I cared about them?” Damian said snidely. “I haven’t gotten that soft in my old age.”

“You’re not that old,” Jon said.

“Old enough,” Damian said, haughty, and Jon said, “I’ve seen you older,” because he was never ever letting Damian live down the time he got turned into a tiny little eighty-year-old man.

Damian narrowed his eyes and gave him a look that could cut glass.

“Anyway,” Jon said, “hey buddy! I was in the neighborhood and I thought I’d stop by,” and then, while Damian was still disoriented by being super mad at him, he stepped in for hug.

Somebody dropped a whole armful of books.

“Gah!” Damian said. “This is not what I was encouraging you —”

Jon patted him on the back and let him go. “Are you done? I’m starving.”

“Of course you are,” Damian said. “Fine. Come on, the chefs at the dining hall should be preparing my dinner. They’ll make you an extra serving if we catch them early enough.”

“I can just eat normal cafeteria food, or whatever,” Jon said.

“You could eat garbage off the ground,” Damian said. “I can’t. Let’s go.”

—

NOW THERE IS A SEQUEL! Did you want that? Well, I did.