#its weird little sidekicks count too

[batboopp]

this is the first sign you see when you try to get into gotham

[suzukiblu]

WIP excerpt for Cheshire behind the cut; Billy adopts Conner and it actually goes pretty good! ( + non-chrono link for app users )

“Um, yeah,” Billy says, still internally cringing at himself. “Just–not just the bare minimum, I mean? Like–other things too. Books and games and snacks and . . . whatever you think’s fun, or whatever you want to learn about, or whatever.” 

He’s definitely been in “homes” that didn’t give him things like that. He doesn’t want Lynn to feel like . . . a burden, or a problem, or just unimportant and unwanted like that, so . . . yeah, he’s definitely gonna get him things that aren’t just the bare minimum. As many of those things as he can, he thinks. 

Batman gave them so much money, and that’s not even counting the stipend. Billy can definitely afford to give Lynn the kind of stuff none of his foster families wanted to give him. So, like–he’s gonna, obviously. 

Of course he’s gonna. 

Lynn ducks his head a little, then swallows uncomfortably. Billy resists the urge to nudge Tawky towards him again. He wonders if he could just, like . . . offer Lynn a hug, maybe? Maybe that’d be okay? 

Or maybe it’d be weird and pushy, or maybe stupid, or maybe just make Lynn feel uncomfortable. They’ve never met before today and they’ve barely spent any time together at all, and Billy doesn’t want to be the type of foster parent who demands a relationship that just isn’t there, even if he’s . . . well, not really just a foster parent, he hopes. But those fosters just always made him feel like they were more interested in getting attention and looking good to strangers than anything about him. 

He wants Lynn to feel like he’s interested in him–wants Lynn to know he’s interested in him, and cares about him, and isn’t gonna ignore him or hate him if he doesn’t follow some stupid script he’s got in his head of how he “should” be. 

He definitely wants that. 

“It’s okay if you don’t know what you think’s fun yet,” he tries, hoping he’s not assuming too much. “It’s probably kinda overwhelming, with, um . . . literally everything happening all at once and your whole life getting turned on its head, um . . . basically five minutes after it really started, so . . .” 

“I was alive before I woke up,” Lynn says, a little stilted. “I–saw things. Learned things.” 

“Things about yourself, or about how Cadmus wanted you to be?” Billy asks. 

Lynn–pauses. Frowns. 

“. . . um,” he says. “I . . . don’t know.” 

Billy is pretty sure Cadmus just sucks, actually. Like. A lot. 

“Okay,” he says. “Well, that’s okay too. You can take your time figuring it out. There’s no rush or anything.” 

“Superman won’t like me if I don’t figure it out,” Lynn says, his frown deepening. “If I’m not–useful.” 

. . . okay, Billy thinks. Cadmus really sucks, actually. 

“Superman doesn’t care about people being useful,” he says firmly. “That’s like, the last thing Superman cares about. He just likes people for who they are.” 

“. . . who I am is . . . fake, though,” Lynn says, his eyes slanting away. “It’s–programmed.” 

“So?” Billy asks, reminding himself superheroes don’t burn down weird basement labs outside of extenuating circumstances. And anyway, the sidekicks already messed Cadmus up pretty bad as it was. “Lots of people get programmed. Red Tornado’s programmed, and he’s really nice. And Wonder Woman got made out of clay as a little kid, so she got, like, magic programming. Like, to be her ‘age’, you know?” 

Lynn . . . blinks, slowly, and then glances back at him. 

“You really think that?” he asks. Billy’s a little confused by the question. He doesn’t think it; he knows it. 

“I mean, yeah?” he says. “I just mean–it doesn’t make you fake. That’s all. Especially ‘cuz you can, you know . . . learn stuff yourself, if you wanna. You don’t have to just stay the way you got taught to be.” 

Lynn stares at him for a long, silent moment, then looks down at the table again. 

“How long have you had–uh, Uncle Tawky?” he asks, abrupt and obviously trying to change the subject. That’s fine, Billy thinks; he doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable. And Lynn’s gotta learn how to do that kind of thing anyway, so it’s good practice for more complicated conversations, he figures. 

“Since I was ten,” he says. “He came from India! I met him in Fawcett, though, and he’s been my best friend ever since! He’s really great. And a respectable gentleman, so you don’t need to be scared of him or anything. I mean, I don’t know if you’re scared of tigers or not? Because probably you’re tiger-proof? Like–normally, I mean. But yeah.” 

“. . . I’m not scared of tigers,” Lynn says, looking a little bewildered, for some reason. Billy beams at him. 

“Great!” he says happily. Tawky could probably hurt Lynn, since he’s magic too, but he obviously wouldn’t, so he’s just . . . not gonna draw attention to that right now, obviously. That wouldn’t make Lynn feel very safe, he’s pretty sure. 

But Tawky could also probably stop Lynn if he got mind-controlled, so . . . maybe it would make him feel safer? Billy’s not sure, actually. 

. . . hm. Yeah, he needs to figure that out. 

“. . . you’ve really had him since you were ten?” Lynn asks, looking–hesitant, now. Billy doesn’t know why, but nods. 

“Yup!” he says. “He’s the best.” 

“. . . are you sure you want me to have him?” Lynn asks, still looking hesitant. 

“Yeah!” Billy confirms cheerfully. “Tawky’s the best! He’ll protect you. And keep you from having bad dreams, too.” Tawky’s really good at eating nightmares, so yeah, Lynn won’t have to worry about bad dreams at all. 

“Uh,” Lynn says, then very gingerly reaches over and picks up Tawky, and then sets him in his lap with a weird look on his face. He looks a little–emotional, maybe? At least for him, anyway. He’s not very expressive, so far. “Um. Okay.” 

Billy just beams at him again. He’s really glad they like each other. 

“. . . thanks,” Lynn says as he looks down at Tawky, voice a little abrupt again. “Um–Dad."

[citrus-cactus]

10 characters, 10 fandoms (obscure takes & slightly furry edition)

I was tagged by @tangledupblue and @reliablejoukido approximately forever ago! I’ve actually done this meme two times previously, but there are always more characters to talk about (that cannot be true forever, but we’ll say it’s true for now). So let’s get to it!

Also, I don't feel like tagging this one, but please feel free to do this if you want to! I always love to hear about peoples' favorite characters <3

1. Iago (Disney’s Aladdin)

I… I… I don't have any excuses, I just think he’s neat, ok?! There has always been something about the sarcastic talking animal sidekick trope that speaks to me, even though I can’t explain why. He’s just such a angry, self-centered, fun little guy, and he has a real character arc that runs through all of the 90s animated media! Love his role in the TV series, and I also love that he went off with Aladdin’s dad at the end of King of Thieves. For better or worse, he’s my favorite Disney character, period!

2. Bad Bird/Karamaru (Samurai Pizza Cats/Kyatto Ninden Teyandee)

SPC is a show from the mid-90s era of dubs, and it’s generally beloved for taking a rather loose approach to its translation of the original source material. Bad Bird is yet another bird-type henchman, a rival to the "star" character, a bit of a punching bag, and also not-really-all-that-evil. I uh… I guess I have a type? *shifty eyes*

3. Jose Carioca

Oh sh*t I lied, I do actually have ANOTHER favorite Disney character! Who is a bird!! I honestly don’t know why I have such an attachment to Jose. Three Caballeros was something I ONLY watched at my grandma’s house as a wee one, so I do have some very specific childhood memories of it, and little me always thought this charming parrot was the best part. I have never seen anything he featured in that didn’t originate in the 1940s (yeah, I slept on the DuckTales reunion because I don't have cable or Disney+), but I’ve heard he has (had?) his own long-running comic book series in Brazil. I’ve always wanted to see one of those!

I uh… I definitely have a type. Who knew?? ^^;

4. Ryouga Hibiki (Ranma 1/2)

Ok look. I came into Ranma 1/2 in a pretty weird way: looking it up obsessively on the late 90s Internet, falling in love with character descriptions, screenshots and promo art, and reading fanfiction before I was able to watch or read ANY significant portions of the source material. Ryouga was always kind of my favorite back then, and he still is now (even though I have only seen a few of the OVAs and read about half of the manga). He’s just. He’s such an idiot (affectionate). But he's a great rival, a dog person, has Feelings but is incredibly awkward, and generally means well.

5. Ben Wyatt (Parks and Rec)

Live action? GASP! Just… Ben Wyatt is a MOOD. The entire ensemble cast of P&R is amazing, but it’s incredible how much Adam Scott and Rob Lowe brought to the table. I am very normal about Ben, Cones of Dunshire, and the Letters to Cleo shirt (I am not).

6. Lily Aldrin (How I Met Your Mother)

While I will watch Alyson Hannigan act in pretty much anything, HIMYM is a total comfort show for me, and Lily is just *chef’s kiss.* Don’t really have much more to say than that!

7. Lum(?) (Urusei Yatsura)

UY has such a HUGE ensemble cast with tons of interdependencies, you practically can’t isolate one character without at least three others tagging along. You also can’t think too hard about them, because they are all idiots (affectionate) (there is definitely a distinction to make between characterization being good and characterization being deep). Lum is... not my favorite character (that might actually be the manga version of Mendo?), but she's such a dang icon, plus she’s the one I've tried to draw the most, so that… counts?? Much like Ranma 1/2, I also have to factor in all the years I spent wanting to experience UY. Amazingly enough, I've seen more of it than Ranma at this point!

Currently wishing I could watch the reboot too, because the manga characterization/version of events might actually be getting their day in the sun? :D

8. Bentley (Sly Cooper)

Oof. OOF. Why did I do this to myself. The Sly Cooper series is a 3D platforming series from the PS2 era of video games. Penelope from Sly 3 might be my favorite character conceptually (she brings something really fun to the table, and geek girls FTW!), but her being The Fave is hampered by the fact that she only appears in the one game (What's that? Sly 4? Sorry, don't know what you're talking about). Sly 2 is hands-down my favorite entry in the franchise, and while he’s really difficult to play as, Bentley’s development across the original trilogy is… ghhh. IT’S SO GOOD, as are his friendships with Sly and Murray. Bentley!!! (I still love you though Penelope, you got done so dirty).

9. Donatello (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

I don’t believe I’ve watched/played/read any TMNT property that is younger than a third-grader at this point. But Donnie’s the Smart One, and he is Purple. ‘Nuff said!!

OK so. Birds and smart turtles. We're learning more about what my types are all the time...

10. Daisuke Jigen (Lupin III)

I have not seen much Lupin III. But Jigen is cool <3

(I also like hats).

[burnedbyshoto]

sensei

— Being a Pro Hero means having a will of steel, too bad for Shinsou that will of steel has one major kryptonite: a schoolgirls skirt. —

pairing: pro hero!shinsou hitoshi x fem!reader

warnings: 18+, smut, dom!shinsou, bondage (capturing weapon), blindfold, orgasm denial, cursing, praising, mindcontrol, degradation, roleplay

word count: 6,789

a/n: this was a commission!!! omggg!!!! also i used the name mindjack for his pro hero name and neutralizer is your hero name! okay, so like, don’t come for me until you read the entire thing. if I get a single message about what I think ya’ll might come at me for imma spit on your butter. if you cant eat butter then your oat milk or whateva.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

Shinsou stood in the kitchen, his Pro-Hero costume on, and his hands pressed onto the countertop. Today was the day that his hero work student was coming in for a small dinner of celebration. After months of conducting some late-night hours and intensive fighting, they had finally taken down an underground crime ring that had been resurfacing in Japan. 

His fingers ran through his hair, the soft locks parting with his calloused fingers. Years of having to strengthen himself to keep up with physically powerful quirk holders had left his body sharp, hard, and rugged. There wasn’t a part of his body that hadn’t been bruised; that wasn’t without its imperfections.

It was almost hilarious to think of where he used to be, a child in high school who was no stronger than the average person in Japan, and where he was now. 

Placing his cup to his lip, Shinsou was about to take a drink of water when a knock was heard. A small grin quipped on his face knowing precisely who it was, placing the cup on the table and shoving his hands into his pocket, Shinsou walked over to the front door and opened it.

Opening the wooden door, his violet gaze locked onto a bright and eager set of eyes.

Outside his door stood a young woman who had just recently eighteen with your hair fluttering in the wind. You wore the well-recognized U.A. uniform, your backpack resting on your shoulders. A smile soon grew on your face at the sight of him, and you tilted your head with a small smile in greeting. 

“Neutralizer,” he greeted with a coy smile, and his body leaned onto the doorway. His eyes drank you in, the swell of your chest against the button up white shirt, the striking red tie, the jacket that remained unbuttoned on your body, the dark socks that reached your knees, and that stupidly short skirt.

“Hi, Mindjack-sensei,” you greeted with a bright smile, unfazed by the coyness of his energy and ignorant to his straying eyes. “You wanted to meet here today?”

He wet his lips and nodded his head, his eyes closing, “Well, I had to celebrate this joyful win with my favorite student, didn’t I?”

“I’m your only student,” you snorted, pushing past him and entering his house.

You didn’t seem to notice the way his eyes zeroed in on your ass when you passed him, nor did you see how he was nearly drunk off your figure when you bent down to exchange your shoes for his guest slippers. 

“I think that speaks volumes on how highly I perceive you,” Shinsou lazily grinned, taking your jacket and backpack and went to put them in his closet. “You’re so great that I don’t need to look for another helping hand.”

“What will you do when I graduate in these next months?” you asked teasingly, your focus back on Shinsou, and you both held each other’s gaze while standing in the hallway. 

“You’re trying to tell me that you won’t accept my offer to be my sidekick before you go pro?”

His gaze was dangerous, practically begging you in this subdued cat and mouse game to contradict his theory.

“Maybe I am.”

His eyes narrowed; to anyone else, they would’ve been daunting, menacing, threatening, but to you who had known him for years, you could see right past the playful glare.

“Watch it, punk.”

With that, you walked further into the household and having never been to his house before, you couldn’t help but point out the different pictures you saw. There was no stopping you on asserting how weird it was that he went to school with so many well-known heroes. U.A. sure was something else.

The conversation between the two of you flowed like water. There was no dull moment while you stood by the counter, mindlessly eating fruit while exchanging lively words. You had since reaching the bar rolled your sleeves up to your elbows while attempting to catch the fruit that Shinsou was now throwing at you, but most often, they continued to bounce off your nose and go flying onto the floor. 

“You’re horrible at this,” Shinsou snorts when you reappear from the floor with the slightly dirty fruit.

“Get a better aim,” you retorted with a snicker, eating the fruit.

But then Shinsou focused in the wrong area. His eyes focused on the way your lips gleamed under the fluorescent lights, coated with what was definitely your saliva and tinted with berry juices. Your lips stunned him with how delicate and soft they looked. How full and sinful they would feel pressed against his lips, wrapped around his—

“Mindjack-sensei?”

His eyes snapped up to meet your eyes that looked curious, naive to his thoughts, and with the slightest hint of embarrassment.

Recomposing himself, Shinsou cleared his throat and leaned against the counter again, the cold marble digging into his hip. “Y/l/n?”

“I was asking why you’re wearing your costume inside your house, it’s a bit dorkish.”

It seemed the embarrassment wasn’t from his drinking of your lips, but instead because of your question. Shinsou’s fingers fisted into the capturing weapon that rested around his neck. Honestly, he had no idea why he did; his costume was definitely a very comfortable piece, and well, he didn’t exactly go out on the field today, so it was clean.

But when he went to answer your question, his eyes saw the way your teeth gnawed on your bottom lip, and the way that you leaned in closer. Such a flustered school girl. How was he supposed to be professional when you did that? The only thing he could see — the only thing he wanted to see — was you gnawing at your lips when he was fucking you to the heavens, your embarrassment keeping you from being as loud as you could be.

“Come here,” Shinsou commanded, his head gesturing to you to move over to his side of the counter.

Obediently, you followed and stepped before him.

Fuck, you were tiny compared to him. Shinsou looked down at you, your eyes stared up at him curiously, unsure of what he was going to say or do.

“What do you think about me?”

Your eyes widened, your tongue coming out to lick your lips nervously. What was that kind of question? You thought he knew exactly what you thought about him? “Well, um, I think you’re an excellent Pro Hero! You’ve taught me a lot in my work-study, and I’ll forever be grateful for you!”

It seemed like an appropriate response, not too harsh, and it wouldn’t be enough to inflate his ego. But it seemed that he wasn’t in agreement with your thoughts, his hand came to rub his stubbled cheeks, and his eyes darkened.

“What else?”

The words sent a shiver down your spine at those words. There was so much intention behind what that could mean. What was he trying to insinuate here?

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”

Shinsou took a drink of his water, his eyes still focused on you. His gaze as calculating, as if he was studying a bug under a microscope. Your locked stares were unbreakable and soul searching, and as you were now just growing used to while on the field, a sense of an upcoming battle was flaring on your instincts. Placing the cup down, he took a step forward, a smirk pulling at his lips.

“What do you think of me?”

“I-I already told you,” you stammered, taking the smallest step back, but your didn’t retreat when he took another step closer. “You’re a very good—.”

“Not like that,” he growled lowly, his eyes dropping down to your breasts, to the swell of your hips.

It was becoming increasingly harder to breathe, his musky scent was overwhelming your nose, sending shivers down your spine, and there was nothing you could do but gasp for air.

“I don’t think I understand…”

Shinsou was now entirely parallel to you, your chest nearly touching his while he leaned down, his lips ghosting the shell of your ear. You could no longer breathe, unable to focus or think of anything but the fact that your boss — your mentor — was seemingly admitting that he was attracted to you.

“How do I make you feel?” he nearly panted in your ear. “All I know is that you drive me fucking insane with how beautiful you are, you’re so fucking pure, yet I know you know what you’ve been doing.”

“Mindjack-sensei—!” you squeak, your face radiated heat. You tried to stumble back, to deny his accusations, but his hands were on your waist, keeping you cemented in place.

“Do you want me the way I want you? The way I want to fuck you until your body is forever printed into the mattress of my bed? To have you begging until my bed frame breaks?”

Shinsou grin turned sly at the way you trembled against his hold.

“Don’t you think about fucking me, kitten? Because I can only think about your pretty lips and pussy around my cock. I bet you have such a pretty fucking pussy too.” An audible moan left your lips, and Shinsou’s fingers tightened around your waist to the point he was most likely leaving bruises. He was enjoying the way you were obviously enjoying this too. “You like this? Mm, of course, you would. Such a dirty little kitten, I bet you’re already fucking wet, wanting nothing more than my cock to fuck you into oblivion.”

“Mindjack-sensei,” you gasped in horror of his words despite your body pressing flush against his. His words hadn’t been false, by god did you want him to fuck you into oblivion, but you always pressed those feelings aside because he was a respected authority. He could have just about anyone as a top hero, so why would he want a high school student who worked for him? Shinsou let out a sharp stream of air at the feeling of your thigh rubbing against his growing boner. “We can’t do this! If we’re caught, we’ll—”

“We can’t do this? On the contrary, I think we can fucking do this. No one has to know, but if you don’t want me the way I want you, that’s okay. Tell me to stop then,” he interrupted you, his fingers pulling at the waistband of your skirt, his teeth nibbling at your ear. “Tell me you don’t feel the same way about me, and I’ll stop.”

Your chest heaved, your body screaming at you to let him fuck you. You’ve wanted him for so long, to have him buried balls deep within you, calling him yours and no one else’s. But your brain — your anxieties — screamed at you that this was wrong because he is your teacher. What if something terrible were to happen because of this?

“Nothing bad will happen,” Shinsou murmured, and you stopped breathing at the way his warm breath fanned against your neck. “I promise.”

You pushed away, your eyes wide while looking up at his violet gaze that seemed to grow impossibly darker. You had been under his mind control before, countless days being spent to see who could use their quirk faster, him or you. Each and every time so far, you had bitterly lost, you knew what it was like to be under control. To have your ability to choose what you wanted to do or not taken away. You knew what it was like to not have free will, but this was not it. 

You could choose.

You would choose.

Gulping, your fingers rose to his soft purple hair, raking through the short purple locks that were ever present in your fantasies and dreams.

“Fuck me then.”

His lips pressed against yours immediately, and your breathing nearly stopped at the immediate contact. The scruff on his cheeks, chin, and jaw tickled the softness of your own skin, and only continued to scratch against your skin when the kiss increased in intensity. His mouth drank you in quickly, the heat of his mouth making you overwhelmingly woozy. The kiss alone was sending throbbing heat to your core, your cunt already feeling slick with your essence just from this kiss that you’ve wanted for so long.

Shinsou then took a step forward, and you took a step back, a dance between these new lovers until your back was slammed against a wall. With the feeling of the cold wall pressing into your back, the knowledge of where this was going shot through you.

“How do you want me to fuck you, kitten?” Shinsou growled against your mouth, pulling away afterward so that his nearly black with lust irises burned into your own. “Tell me your deepest fantasy.”

You wheezed when he lifted you up, the height difference between the two of you was too grand for him to grind his hardened cock into you while merely standing. The growing slick in your panties grazed against his hardness, and you pressed your hands onto his shoulders. Your head lolled backward; the shuddering pleasure from the harsh graze was already overstimulating you. His mouth latched onto your exposed neck, pressing spicy-sweet kisses onto the soft skin, his hips pressing hardened circles into your growing heat. 

“I want you to,” you swallowed, your mouth running dry from his actions, mind unable to keep up with his pleasure gaining effects. 

“What do you want, kitten?” he growled against your growing slick neck. His fingers were kneading and pulling at your covered breasts, someone how managed to press onto your nipples despite not knowing your naked body. Fisting your hands into his hair, you tugged hard at the roots, the pleasure shooting through your body unignorable. 

“I want you to use your capturing weapon on me,” you plead, your hips jerking against his in frantic attempt to get this going. “I want you to blindfold me — fuck, I want you to use your quirk on me, deny me, overstimulate me, I don’t care. I just want your cock in my pussy.”

“My, my, you’ve been thinking about this for a while now, haven’t you?” Shinsou grinned with a burst of barking laughter at your embarrassment of being caught. “How many times have you thought about me bending you over in the middle of an alleyway, right after a successful mission, fucking you as congratulations?”

“S-Shinsou—!” you whimpered at the way his hips were now embedding into you as if you two weren’t fully clothed, but already fucking like savage animals.

“I want to hear you call me sensei when I’m fucking you,” he grunts against your throat.

“Not daddy?” you squeak when he pulls away from the wall, and your arms wrap around his neck in precaution. His hard cock now presses deliciously against your heated core, the movement of his walking legs adding to the slow and imbued sensations running their course through your body.

“Maybe another day,” he chuckled deep within his throat.

You felt a chill run through your spine at the way he possessively grabbed onto your waist, his body leaning down to press your back against the soft mattress of his bed. His lips were so ardent against your skin. The body heat expelling from his person, making you sweat when his lips dominated you again.

Your lips glided over each other, your fingers fisting into his shirt with undeniable electricity pouring down your spine. Powerful and sharp pulses slamming through your body when he ground his hips down onto you. 

“Sensei,” you whimpered when his needy lips pressed once more against your cold neck. The contradicting temperatures quickly spun your head, and your eyes clenched closed, trying to focus in on these exhilarating sensations. “Please, sensei do— oh my god.”

Shinsou’s hips were grinding insistently into your, his fingers now pressing into your clit above your panties, expertly rubbing figure eights into your puffy bundle of nerves. Your legs trembled around his waist, your head flying backward with the beating of your heart heavy between your thighs.

“Do what, kitten?” he asked, his teeth marking purple ringed bruises onto your collarbone, enjoying the angry warm colors appearing on your skin. “Is your sensei making you feel good? What do you want from me right now, use your words? Fuck, you’re gorgeous.”

The last bit is no louder than a mere whisper, but it’s loud in your ears. You hadn’t even stripped yet, and he had these opinions on you! The intensity of that piece of knowledge made your knees weak with the thought of how intense his own emotions were — for how long has he wanted you in the same way you wanted him? Your mouth opened with a chill running down your spine, your hips grinding down onto his circling fingers.

“Now, I don’t like being disrespected,” he warned, his finger stilling against your clit. You, however, were already consumed by the pleasure that throbbed deep in your core over his nimble fingers teasingly touching where you wanted him most. Your hips still roll against his stiff appendages, and he chuckles at the almost needy and pathetic whimpers that expel from your lips. Your eyes are again shut, mouth opened, and body begging for more.

“Stop grinding,” he commands, his left hand pressing onto your hip, stilling any and all actions from you. You groaned loudly, disappointment and disapproval profoundly evident on your face when you finally opened your eyes.

“Sensei—” you whined, but your hips stopped nonetheless, a pout on your lips. 

“I want you right now,” he says quietly, but his words are firm, unwavering, and genuine. His fingers trace the inside of your thighs, making you jerk with horny anticipation until you felt like taking in charge of him. “Can I fuck you right now, kitten?”

The words almost knock the wind out of you, the innocent yet well-knowing tone on his tongue enough to make you bite down on your lip harshly while you nodded. “Fuck me right now.”

Shinsou lips stretched into a cunning smirk, his teeth capturing his mouth while he nodded, “I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

Sitting up, your eyes took in his body that was hidden under his baggy clothes, much like his own mentor. You did nothing to conceal the way your teeth tugged at your lower lip in lustful need, and your hand pressed down onto the restrained bulge in his pants, grinning when he twitched under your hot hand. 

“I want sensei to fuck me, to fill me with his cock and cum until no one can deny that I’m yours, sensei,” you mewled in his ear.

Without a second thought or a moment to realize what was happening, your shirt was ripped off your person, the buttons scattering loudly against the wooden floor. You shouted in complete shock when Shinsou tugged the red tie off your neck and tossed it on the corner of the bed, and your skirt was thrown to the floor. You lay on the bed exposed in just your undergarments, but they were more than only your regular garments. Shinsou’s eyebrow quirked up upon recognizing that the piece you were wearing was lingerie — expensive lingerie at that.

His eyes met yours, and your eyes swam with confidence that made him stop.

“Were you expecting this?” he asked softly, his fingers grabbing onto the bridge of your bra. His touch so gentle, so soft, it was almost as if he touched it for too long he would destroy the lace fabric of your lingerie.

“It’s hard not to be extra prepared when celebrating with sensei,” you fluttered your eyelashes as you shifted so that you were now straddling his hips. Your body was pressed firmly against his, your mouth ghosting the shell of his ear, “Especially when I want my sensei to fuck me until I’m only his.”

The small victory you gained from being able to distract the Pro Hero was soon snuffed out when cold, and steel-like cloth wrapped all over your legs and arms and slipped between your teeth. The world spun when your face and chest was then shoved into the mattress.

“See what you make me do to you, kitten?”

You whimpered loudly at the arched position you were contorted into. Despite your discomfort, your core ached in need, flaring with this dominative aura that burned to life within him. This is what you had been craving since the beginning, you wanted nothing more than for the purple-haired hero to bend you to his will, to make you no better than some damn puppet while he fucked you deep into his bed.

“Look at you, you’re fucking soaked, and I haven’t done so much as grazing your clit!” Shinsou chuckles, leaning closer to you until you could feel his warm breath fanning against your clenching wet hole. “You’re such a dirty kitten, wanting your sensei’s cock. I guess your sensei is going to have to teach you a few things about mannerisms and make sure you’re fucked to completion.”

You chocked against the cloth in your mouth; it was pressing harshly against your tongue, riling your gag reflexes until saliva poured from your mouth. You weakly looked at Shinsou, your cheeks feeling like they were on fire, your pussy clenching in its attempt to draw him nearer. This was so dirty though, he was older than you, he was your mentor — your sensei. You shouldn’t be letting him talk to you this way, letting him tease your soaked folds, but you wanted his cock — you needed your sensei’s cock to ruin you for anyone ever again. 

Shinsou looked at you, his eyes glinting dangerously as if he could read your filthy thoughts while his fingers slid off the black panties until they bunched at your angled knees. Your arch deepens at the feeling of the cold air now reaching your blazing core, and your eyes rolled to the back of your head while you wantonly whine. The restraints on your wrists and ankles were tight, sending just the minutest bit of discomfort through your nerves to send you wiggling your ass impatiently.

But as you stared up at Shinsou, and the way his coarse fingers dug into your hips. His heated fingers dragged against your smooth skin until he caught you staring. “You don’t need to be looking at this, kitten.”

The binding left your mouth and wrapped around your eyes. The cold and wet with your saliva metal binding to your face caused a sensation to course through you that was foreign. It disgusted you on a shallow level but fueled the gagging moan that pressed in your throat.

“Sensei!” you squeaked, not expecting this to happen so soon. Especially with the fact that your body was ultimately under his domination. 

Your lack of sight immediately sent all your other senses to one hundred, and you were acutely aware of the fact that he was no longer touching you. You knew he was in the room, but you couldn’t sense him. You only knew that your ass was perked into the air, your arms shot before you in a position that you never knew you could achieve without weight to shove your chest further down.

Shinsou, however, was behind you, his eyes focused on your shining heated slick cunt. A groan emits slowly from his mouth, and he almost relishes in the way that you twitch towards him, the blindfold doing precisely what he had hoped for. Rumbling lowly in his chest, Shinsou inserted two nimble fingers into your wet cunt, moaning at the way that your walls are tight against him. It was so lewdish in the way that your walls were already milking his fingers, begging for more despite the initial entrance.

Your legs trembled, and your mouth fell at the feeling of his foreign fingers entering your spasming cunt. It’s a feeling you immediately burn into your skin. You want this; you crave this. His fingers reach knuckle deep against your heated walls, and they clench around him whenever he attempts to move.

“Your pussy is so pretty and so fucking tight, and all I have in you is my fingers,” Shinsou groans, his fingers curling smoothly within you. Your hips snap backward, trying to fuck yourself against his appendages, desperate the elevated pleasure felt as his fingers moved against you. Desire soaks your body, and you thrust your hips against his fingers, uncaring about how needy this looked.

His fingers were buried in your cunt, and you whined loudly at the feeling of his fingers pushing and pressing against your velvet walls. The feeling of his fingers stroking your walls, sending your body thrusting forward and backward. They continue this pace, not slow enough to be teasing, but not quick enough to satisfy your needs.

“Don’t tease me, sensei,” you pant, your ass moving and wiggling in the air while he manipulated your body under his ministrations. “I want you to — please, fuck my pussy so good!”

There was no response to your pleading, only action. His fingers then hooked within you, scissoring, and even pressing against your walls until nothing was coming out of you except the squelching noises of his fingers digging deeper into your cunt. His hero name a mantra on your lips. 

“Such a pretty little kitten, taking my fingers so well. I can’t wait to see how you’ll react against my cock. I bet your cries will be fucking cute to hear,” he chuckled, his thighs hugging against yours, and you moaned at the feeling of his hard cock pressing against your lower belly. You whimpered loudly at the sensation, craving nothing more than to have his cock buried deep within you instead of his fingers.

“Sensei, please!” you begged, the feeling of him all over you. Yet the denial of both seeing him and having his cock buried deep within you was too much. “I don’t want sensei’s fingers, I want sensei’s cock — fuck, please!”

Shinsou chuckled, his fingers left your cunt, and you whimpered at the way your body felt so cold and empty without him buried within you.

“You’ve been good so far, I think you deserve my cock,” he grinned, his breathing heavy and hot against your spine. Your back arched and your body trembled with excitement and nerves as he guided his cock against your wet slit.

Then his hips pressed forward, only the tip of his head pushing through your folds. Teasing you, tormenting you with this half fullness when you knew his cock was much bigger.

“Stop playing unfairly, sensei!” you squawk, your hips trying to slam back to take him more in, but he predicts it and moves back with you. More of his cock leaves you, and you cry in blatant need and horrid horniness. 

“Don’t you have any embarrassment?” he chuckles, his hands finally removing the bra on your chest, and his fingers grip and pull at your nipples. You shudder against his hold, curse that he was so much bigger than you. You needed more of his cock, but he didn’t seem willing to give it to you. “A schoolgirl asking her sensei to fuck her silly, do you know what you’re doing to me, kitten? So fucking dirty, so fucking needy. You want my goddamn dick, you better admit that you’re a stupid little girl who wants her sensei for the rest of her fucking life.”

There was nothing but pure electric shivers that poured through your body at those words, and still, you needed him. Your mouth let out a strained whimper; the slightly circling of his fat cock buried an inch into your cunt, a reminder that you needed to get him fully within you.

“I’m a dirty stupid fucking little girl who wants my sensei and his fucking cock for the rest of my fucking life,” you parrot with no shame, your hips bouncing in hopes of engaging him. “I only want my sensei!”

“Such a good kitten, saying such pretty things,” he sighs, but still, he doesn’t penetrate you fully. 

But he does begin to move.

It’s teasing and by every means maddening feeling the first three inches of his swollen dick push into you and exit. The feeling of the veins on his cock dragging against your sensitive walls made you stammer his name. But that wasn’t good enough, no Shinsou wanted you to howl his name to the heavens, to make sure that everyone knew what a good sensei he was.

His hips move in faster to meet the back of your thighs. With the slowly deepening penetration, your eyes lull to the back of your head, your tongue pooling from your mouth.

“Say more pretty things, or I’ll take my fucking cock away,” he growled, his fingers digging impossibly deeper into your waist.

“Sensei!” you squirm, your back arching like a cat the second the tip of his cock drags against your particular spot.

“What did I say about not following what I command!”

You splutter, your body thrashing against his stilling hips, “But sensei’s cock! It makes me so dumb!” you whine, your fingers digging into the mattress when he slowly starts again. “It’s so big, so thick in my tight pussy! Sensei, please defile me, please make me cum! Cum in my pussy, please! I need you, sensei!”

Those must have been some magic words because Shinsou snarled, and his hips hammered into you. Sending your arms sprawling, your scream of pleasure and glee dripping from your throat. The way that his cock is now brushing over your g-spot again and again was too much.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“Your pussy is so fucking tight,” he gasped, his hands slamming your ass back against him. The slapping of your skin on his pelvis sends your eyes fluttering behind the blindfold. He was contorting your body to his will. “After today, I’ll make sure you’ll always be able to take me, all of me, no matter how wet you are.”

Your voluptuous moans are untamable, your thighs trembling with the upcoming orgasm that you can feel throbbing from your toes.

“I needa cum!” you sob, hoping that with how he was drilling against your g-spot, it would be soon.

“You don’t get to cum yet.”

You cried when he pulled out of you completely, and the capturing weapon wrapped around your waist, and you were suddenly pulled to your knees. You heard a familiar sound of a body dropping to the bed, and his hands replaced the fabric around your waist.

“You’re going to ride your sensei’s cock,” he instructed, pulling you down towards him so that your dripping wet cunt was once against grinding against the tip of his dick. “Show sensei what a good kitten you’ve been, what a great hero you’ve become because of me.”

You swallow thickly, your mind swimming with lust and need while his swollen cock twitches at your entrance, “I’m going to show sensei that he’s taught me well.”

“Damn right, you will.”

And with that, he lowered you.

While the blindfold around your eyes obstructed your vision, your sight was wholly taken away from you by his actions. When Shinsou guided you onto his cock, the feeling of his thick veiny length reentering your cunt that begged for his return nearly took your sight away. He wasn’t even within you yet, only the tip of his cock penetrating your slit once more, teasing your walls that clenched in desperation for him. “Don’t tease me, sensei,” you pant, the capturing weapon preventing you from lowering yourself fully onto him, but surprisingly, he does as you hope for. 

Then, what you’ve wanted this entire time. His hips thrust forward at the same moment that you’re dropped onto his cock, and your jaw splits into a soundless scream.

“SHINSOU!” you scream, and his fingers that have your dried slick are placed into your mouth.

“Suck.”

Without arguing, your mouth clamps around his fingers and sucks your essence clean from his fingers. He holds you from behind, his free hand meshing and tweaking at your breasts, making sure to tease and pull at your sensitive nipples until your legs were shaking underneath you. 

His hand rips from your mouth, a trail of saliva following after his mouth. You can only cry louder, more wantonly of how the cold saliva dribbles onto your overheating body. Your head slams back against him, and his hot breath fans against your collarbone while the capturing weapon still proceeds to make you bounce against his cock. Every bounce sends his cock deeper within your clamping cunt, stretching you out in unimaginable ways until your walls spasming around his length because you need more.

You whine into his ear, your mouth pressing blind and sloppy kisses against his slick with sweat neck.

It’s when both his hands bring your hips down to him, his cock finally bottoming out entirely within you, does the most primal moan rip through your mouth. You convulse on his lap, trying to move as the head of his cock buries against your cervix, and you swear behind the blackness of your vision, you can see the entire galaxy. You tremble on top of him, wordless cries pittering from your mouth while he nibbles onto your earlobe.

“Fuck, kitten, I can feel your cervix against my cock,” Shinsou grunts, and you rise and falls against his throbbing cock. 

“You’re filling me out, sensei,” you cry, your hips bouncing up and down, the feeling of his cock pressing up against your cervix, making you dizzier by the second. “Sensei’s cock is so fucking big, he’s filling and stretching me out so much! My pussy can’t — fuck — I can’t take it, sensei!”

“You can take it,” Shinsou growls into your neck, his hands rising you up and down against his cock. The soft slapping of your ass meeting his thighs a drum in your ear. “You’re taking my cock so fucking well, I taught you — I’m teaching you better, I know you can do this kitten.”

You soon readjust to the numbing pleasure, the bruising pleasure, and pain that comes with his cock slamming against your cervix. The way that he thrusts up into you, stretching out your walls far more than you was ever used to.

“I can’t fuck you correctly like this,” he growled, and the restraints yanked you forward once more.

You yelped loudly when you were now on your back, your ankles by your wrists, and your cunt exposed to him completely. In seconds flat, he was buried back into you, but the angle of being on your back aided to the curve of his cock, and your spine nearly snapped in the way you reacted to the pleasure spasming in your toes. This was what you wanted. “Sensei, your cock! SHIT! Oh my god, oh my god, this angle—!”

Your voice lessened to a senseless babble, your sentences blurring together, and your cheek pressed into the mattress and drool pooled from your lips. You feel his hot and robust shoulder touch against the backside of your thighs. With your thighs to support him, he begins to drill his hips into you.

His pace is completely irreplicable, every maddening powerful thrust of his hips shoves you closer to the headboard. The wet slapping echoing throughout the room when he pierces into you almost drowned out both of your senseless cries. His fingers dig into your skin, leaving purple fingerprints on your soft skin, and it amplified your howls of pleasure. 

Fire erupts in your cunt, an overwhelming heat that throbs right in your core, and with every slam of his hips, it grows only more. 

Intensifying. 

Deepening. 

The temperature of your body sizzles off you in large heat, and you swear that your sweat evaporates with every slam of his hips. His lips press against yours, a maddening escape of lust and need exchanging between your parted lips. Your salvia is everywhere, covering both of their faces with the sticky coldness. But that didn’t stop him; it only fueled him to kiss you entirely, engulfing you with his mouth, daring you with his tongue.

You were barely keeping up with his snapping hips, your mouth begging for more when he suckled on your tongue.

Her walls fluttered and clamped around him, a constant reminder of the impending orgasm that you could no longer warn him about.

“Do you need to cum?” he huffs against the corner of your mouth, his hips continuing to drill dangerously fast and deep into you.

“Y-Yes, sensei, I needa come so badly! Let me come against sensei big cock, please!” you sobbed, your body trying to press even closer to him. It was at that moment, the revelation that you were close that his quirk washes over you. 

It’s a weird feeling, your body continues to feel disgustingly on fire, like an illness burning you from the inside out. But you’re no longer in control, your mind fuzzy and muggy, but he continues to fuck you as if you weren’t there. The coil that had wound so tightly in the core of your uterus seemed frozen. No longer tightening to the point of snapping, but so tight that it pained you that he now denied you a release.

“Well, I’m not ready,” he pants, “you don’t cum until I do.”

His hips now work against you with untapped vigor he had not been using before. One hand holding your leg over his shoulder, the other keeping your hips in place as he continued to push his cock deep within you. Your body was by all terms relaxed, not a single muscle was tense while he drilled into you, his fingers massaging your clit and nipples. But your mind was alert, thoroughly overworked, over thrilled, and feeling like you were moments from exploding with no choice but to keep it in. 

His sweat dripped onto your body, and your drool slowly slipped from your lips. 

It pained you not to moan, the inability to move your hips against his rutting ones nearly driving you insane until he was snarling like a savage beast, and with his teeth buried into your neck, you only heard one thing before your vision turned white.

“Cum.”

You weren’t sure whether you broke free from his quirk because he let you go or because the orgasm that crashed through you sent your body snapping up and rolling them over so that Shinsou was on his back. But the orgasm was still ripping through you. Powerful waves of insane pleasure drumming deep within you until there was nothing left but that hollowness that came after an orgasm.

Your breathing was erratic, your heartbeat on your tongue while you looked down at him with a frazzled expression.

“Holy fuck, ‘toshi,” you gasped, your hands pulling away at the tie from your eyes, and now you held onto your breasts. Your brain must have short-circuited because nothing was running through your mind, no matter what you tried to think about. 

“Look at that,” he mused, looking down at his lower abdomen. You followed his eyes, and a blush brightened your face at the clear liquid that coated his abs. 

You had squirted.

“Well, that was fucking hot, I don’t blame ya,” he chuckles, bringing you in. “How are you feeling? I know I was pretty deep in you, sorry.”

You sighed, nestling into his chest, finally relaxed. It took a bit of willpower to ignore the slick wetness that came with your mixed cum sprayed out onto his lower stomach. His lips pressed against your temple, and you sighed wistfully, tiredly.

“I’m fine, ‘toshi,” you affirm, grinning at him. “I might have problems walking tomorrow, so you’ll just needa help me.” 

He chuckles but nods in agreement. Tapping you on your waist, he rolls you over so that you’re relaxing on the bed, and he pulls out, and you groan at the lack of his dick in you. Waving off your protests, he leaves and reappears with a damp washcloth. Without speaking, he begins to gently clean you up, placing tender and scratchy kisses against your body.

You grin when your husband finally collapses back onto the bed and pulls you in close, his nose rubbing against your bruised collarbones, eliciting a sharp squeal from you.

“Maybe I’ll pull out my old schoolgirl skirt more often,” you giggle, and he hummed in agreement. “It was fun.”

“I think that would be perfect.”

“Happy anniversary, sensei.”

“Happy anniversary, kitten.”

[honeypirate]

Can I request a All Might x reader where class 1-A finds out hes dating someone whose quirk is a siren (Can control someone when they sing)? Maybe the students reaction especially Midoryia?

I don’t know if I did this one justice hahah but I did my best!

AllMight x reader (I went for gn but I might have slipped up in a few places just let me know)

Hero name: Sirenity

“Okay class today we are having a surprise special guest coming to talk to you guys” Aizawa sounds completely uninterested in this day and honestly he did feel like it was a drag, but he figures with your lecture and answering questions he could buy at least a 30-40 minute nap, at best you’d take up the whole hour. That is if nothing went wrong and with you being the number 5 hero he doesnt think too much trouble will happen. “They are a fairly new hero but that didn’t stop them from rising to the top ten quickly” you walk through the door and chuckle when it seems you interrupted him introducing you.

“Sirenity here will be talking to you about their experience with hero training and being a side kick” You were a few minutes early and Aizawa was mentally adding the few minutes more to his nap time. As Aizawa was zipping up his sleeping bag you stopped in front of the class with a smile “Good morning class!” you say to the students who were freaking out talking to each other about how cool you are, you see a green haired boy absolutely losing his damn mind in the back, muttering to himself while staring with wide eyes. “QUIET!” Aizawa yelled from his place on the floor and the class stopped talking, the green haired boy snapping out of whatever he was doing.

“Hey guys! I’m Sirenity and if you aren't familiar with me my quirk is like a siren, I can control people when I sing. I’m also an amazing swimmer but it isn’t related” you chuckle and watch the green haired boy laugh and then scribble intensely in a notebook, a few other students gave you pity laughs or smiles and you took it, any laughter is good in your book.

“When I graduated from UA, I was actually in general studies. It wasn’t until I went to America and went to a hero university that I realized what I could offer as a hero. I actually had a little help and training from a friend to really encourage me to realize my dream.” green haired boy’s hand flies in the air, his other hand coming over his head to hold his elbow, his eyes shine as he waits for you to call on him. “Yes in the back? What’s your name?” he stands and bows “Izuku Midoriya Ma’am/Sir but my hero name is Deku!” you hold in a chuckle as you smile at his enthusiasm, realizing this is the boy that All Might talks about all the time. a blonde in the middle of class snickers but you ignore it “it’s a pleasure to meet you Deku” he stands up straight and sends you such an intensely excited look “did you know All Might in America?!” he asks and then sits back down

“I did actually, he was the friend i was talking about. I stayed in America though when he came back here” you smile at the young boy as he scribbles away again, his question and the subject making you think about those days when you first met All Might. Strong and cocky, always smiling. You didn’t like him when you first met him, thought it was weird that a kid in your same high school also came to the same area in America. You kept finding yourselves around the same people during parties which was even more annoying when you were actively avoiding him. You blame his best friend at the time who was dating your best friend at the time. After a party that ended in drinking games with truth or dare and spin the bottle, you got to know him a little bit better and you became actual friends when you both ditched before they could rope you into seven minutes in heaven.

“Hey” you say with a slight chuckle as he walks into the kitchen where you were “hey” he says as you open the fridge “do you want a bottle of water?” “yes please” you chuck one to him on the other side of the kitchen. “You’re a…. support student?” he asks and you shake your head “general studies right now, thinking about going into law” you involuntarily scowl at the thought, it was what your parents wanted and you thought they were right. “Why do you look like you would rather die than do that?” he asks, pulling a deep sigh as you confess “it’s what my parents want for me” he moves close to you until he’s leaning against the counter across from you “what do you want for you?” you shrug “I dont know” he chuckles and takes a sip of water “why do I feel like you do know?” your cheeks flush and you dont feel like you could really sell a lie right now, you sigh again “i’ve always had a dream to be a hero, but I was in the general studies course in high school and now I’m undecided here. I feel like I wasted time and now I don't have a choice” you hop on the countertop behind you, kicking your legs gently “but you always have a choice. It is never too late to be a hero someone can count on. You never know if you are the one hero that someone needs! You can do anything! What is your quirk?” you get shy from his intensity and you look at your thighs “I can control people when I sing” you whisper and he closes all distance between you, tilting your chin up to meet his eyes “that is an AMAZING quirk! You are going to be an amazing hero! I can help you if you want” he says and you feel for the first time in your whole life that maybe, just maybe you could be a hero even though you’re late to the game.

“But any more questions will have to wait until the end!” you say when you see Deku’s eyes flash up to you again, a million questions floating around his eyes and he laughs with a nod. You continue with your story, recounting the extra training you had done with All Might to prepare for your hero exams, the exams you didn't have to take in high school. How an encouraging word from a friend was all you needed at times to get your ass in gear. You talk to them about your internship with America’s #4 mind hero, Brian, who’s one choice behind his name was that he thought it was funny because its just one misspelt letter from being Brain. His birth name wasn’t even Brian.

“After my internship I was offered a sidekick position with him, around this time was when All Might came back here, I had plans to come back as well but I couldn't refuse his offer. I worked with Brian for three years, during those times I grew exponentially as a hero and as an individual. you may want to rush the process of being a sidekick so you can become your own solo heroes, getting all the praise for yourselves. But this time in your career will mean so much and I really insist that you take the opportunity every day to learn everything you can from the heroes you work with. As someone who was late to the game, I have no doubt you will grow into even more amazing and brilliant heroes. More so than those we have right now, and yes I do mean All Might. You guys are the heroes of tomorrow! That is amazing! And I’m telling you right now you have a lifelong fan already” you point at yourself and mouth ‘ME’ with a smile “I am behind you all, ready to support your dreams just like my hero supported mine.” You pause for a moment “Any questions?”

Deku’s hand was up first followed by half of the class all raising their hands. You beam at the kids response “okay when i call on you please tell me your name or hero name, whichever you are comfortable with. Deku” you look over at him “I’m guessing you have about a billion questions?” he nods shyly, his cheeks flushing “that’s fine, i feel flattered honestly how about you ask the biggest one you have right now and then after you can stay behind and i’ll answer every single one. That goes for everyone who has more than we can get through in the next 15 minutes of class” they all nod and you begin taking questions.

You had all questions about being a sidekick or a pro, how hard it was rising the ranks, a blonde boy who introduced himself as Aoyama, who you thought was adorable, asked you how to not get scared, you smiled warmly at him “to quote one of my favorite american movies, “courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something is more important than your fear. The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all.”

You paused for a moment as you looked across the class, some really thinking about what you have said “I have fear, I feel it often, but I let the fear fuel my actions, let it make me brave because my biggest fear is about what would happen if I didn’t act.” you see Deku pause for a moment to truly think about your words before he scribbles away again.

You call on a pink haired student “hi i’m Mina Ashido! Hero name Pinky!” you love her energy “what’s your question Pinky?” she grins “I read in Hero Daily that you said you still find time for dating as a pro and that your boyfriend is also a pro. Do we know him?” she sits down and then adds “oh! What was that American movie?” you chuckle, your cheeks heating thinking about your boyfriend.

Before you could answer the door opens and All Might walks in “speak of the devil” you say with a grin and then turn back to Mina “the movie is the princess diaries. And you guys do know him i think quite well actually. Just another rebut of advice, if you guys want to date as pros, then you can find time for it if you really want that. It isn't for everyone and that’s okay too. But there is someone out there who will be an understanding partner and help encourage you. Don't give up any of your dreams, you can have all of them if you want them.” All might has stopped next to you as you talk, his hand resting on the small of your back as he leans up to whisper in your ear “I couldn't wait any longer. I missed you” your cheeks flush and the class starts to put 2 and 2 together, whispering to each other as you turn and kiss his cheek, Mina squealing in excitement, whispers flying around, blonde boy that hasn’t said anything this entire time was staring with mouth open, and you can feel the energy Deku is pouring out as his scribbles freeze as he stares at his idol and hero. His hero had a significant other and he didnt know.. He knew everything about All Might so how come he never knew he had a S/O and why didnt All Might Say anything?! Waves were rolling off the kid but you didn’t say anything about it yet, you just leaned closer to All Might “I missed you too” you whisper back to him but before you can say anything else the bell rings, signaling the end of class.

Deku stays frozen in his seat as the rest of the students get their things together and leave the classroom, some stopping to shake your hand and talk to you for another second before leaving. All Might’s hand never leaving your back. When the room is clear, somehow Aizawa slipping out unnoticed as well, your eyes flick to Deku, still seated frozen. “Young man what’s wrong?” All Might says and he finally snaps out of it.

“Do they know about …?” he asks and you chuckle “yes I do. He talks about you a lot by the way” you say and smile at the sweet way the boy’s face flushes and his eyes widen, smiling like you just gave him the best news. “How come you never told me you were in a relationship?” Deku asks and All Might laughs “you never asked me about my dating life” you walk down the rows of desks and sit in the one next to Deku’s “I’m happy to answer any more questions you may have” you say and the boy short circuits again when you sit next to him. He cannot believe how lucky his day was, getting a one on one interview with an amazing pro hero that is also dating his Idol and father figure, give him a minute, he’ll pull himself together.

You spend the next 30 minutes answering every question the young hero had for you and All Might answered some for you, ones that you couldn't really explain correctly. This was probably your most favorite interview, his questions were almost entirely about your hero work, they were thought out and original questions that weren’t superficial to make the public interested in you. This boy wanted to know every single thing about you as a hero, not you as a public celebrity. His eyes bright as he learns more, asking how you defeated your worst villain, asking your weakness was a fun one, you never got that before since it was fairly obvious.”hard of hearing individuals, ear plugs” you say and he laughs “i should have known that” All Might shakes his head, sometimes common sense eluded the boy, he was so intelligent and unafraid of asking questions that sometimes he lacked common sense for seemingly simple things.

“I’m sorry Midoriya but Sirenity here has to get back to work now” Deku frowns but understands, you give him your personal email in case he has any more questions and then you follow All Might out of the classroom. You chuckle once you reach All Might’s office, he locks the door behind you and then pulls you into his arms “if you wanted some one on one time with Deku’s new favorite hero you should have just asked” you joke as you wrap your arms around him. “I know you dont have work but i do soon and i needed a little time with my brilliant and amazing partner before then. Midoriya will understand plus you gave him a way to contact you.” you nod into his neck “how long until you have to go?” you ask and he looks at his watch “20 minutes” you smile and take his hand, pulling him over to the couch he has in his office and you sit down with him, laying back and pulling his head to your chest, pulling your gloves off with your teeth, carding your fingers through his hair. The entire time he had was spent laying together, as he moves to get up you realize something, they think you are only partners, only dating… “Hey Yagi? How do you think Midoriya will react when you tell him that we aren't just dating and are in fact engaged?”

[headcans-oneshots-and-stuff]

Reality check

Fandom: DC Pairing: Damian Wayne x reader Word count: 4.1k Summary: It was a normal day for you when the sidewalk literally opens up and swallows you whole only to spit you back out into a world that you thought only existed in comics before. There you meet a certain Vigilante and things get more complicated very, very quickly... Warning: I think this classifies as angst, not sure though, Definitly almost drowning tho, also multiple instances of unconciousness, lil bit of fluff if you squint, also me trying to be funny and failing Requested by the incredibly, amazing, breathtaking @dudeidkwhattoputformyusername: Hi! I love your work! is it possible for u to do a Damian Wayne x reader one shot, where reader comes from reality and bumps into Damian in Robin form. Then u can develop from there anyway u like! preferably fluff tho. thank u!!!!!!!!!!

Everything was blurry and your head was throbbing like someone was working on it with a jackhammer. The pain was the first thing that you felt during the process of waking up, no other sense quiet activated yet. Next was the realization that your body was shivering uncontrollably and wherever you were laying definitely wasn’t a bed for as far as you remembered, beds weren’t usually wet, cold and stone-hard. Following was your eyesight that finally returned to you, alongside with your smell and hearing, and as if they were high-school bullies who were teaming up against the local geek in a 90’s sitcom, they all came crashing up upon you like a train. Now theoretically seen, you were able to see, hear and smell again, but practically seen, asking you to do either of the three was like asking someone to find a needle in a needlestack, or a single straw of hay in a haystack. It was just too much, definite sensory overload. A few minutes you couldn’t do anything but lay there, shivering and cold and miserable, before slowly your brain started to work through all the input and sort through it until you were able to comprehend it. The first thing you noticed was the smell. It wasn’t a very pleasant one, it smelled like you fish, water and something rotten and if you had any more control over your body you probably would have thrown up. The sounds that you could hear now put the smells a little bit more into perspective. What sounded like screams and the end of the world before was now identifiable as the screeching of seagulls, the honking of boats and the soft crashing of waves. So you were near a harbor or port? The last puzzle piece was the view you got when you opened your eyes. The cold, wet, stone-hard ‘not-bed’ that you had been lying on was in fact a concrete jetty. Only a few feet away from you was the cold dark sea and above you was the night sky. How long have you been lying here? What happened? How did you get there? As you were staring up into the sky something about it made you uneasy, the way the stars were shining, the darkness of the universe, the fullness of the moon- Wait, wasn’t it a new moon just a few days ago? You sat up suddenly, immediately regretting it when the pain shook through your head again, re-starting the throbbin at 100%, and - after you could open your eyes again - looked down at your body. You were wearing a soaked through sweater that you had bought a few days prior and just as soaked through jeans and socks, your shoes nowhere in sight. The sea was restless and splashed against the sides of the jetty, dops landing on your sleeves and face. For some reason, the sensation of the liquid against your skin brought forth a flashback that completely blinded you. It was like you were watching from above as you relieved the last thing you remembered, how you had been going home after your part-time job at the library when the floor had literally peeled open below you and you fell into a cold nothingless, only for water to come crashing down at you from all sides. When you finally realized that you were not on the sidewalk a few blocks away from your home anymore, but in raging water, somewhere below the surface you were already only seconds away from drowning. With all the power you could muster and adrenaline rushing through your veins you managed to fight your way upwards and upwards until your hand finally broke through the water’s surface. The breath that you took when you made it up completely must have been the best and somehow worst gulp of air you had ever taken in. The adrenaline was ebbing off and the exhaustion made its way through all your muscles, but when you saw the lights in the distance you managed to keep on going until you had managed to pull yourself up a concrete jetty where you finally blacked out. Your mind made its way back into your body and you grasped the situation, even though believing it still wasn’t the easiest task. I mean the earth quite literally swallowing you up? That doesn't sound reasonable. And yet, it was the thing you remembered so you would have to live with that truth until someone could prove you otherwise. More and more questions started to swirl through your mind - an unreasonable amount of them quite honestly - but you knew you had to take things one step at a time. Okay, what did you know? You were in an unknown location so there was no new there, but your former question of ‘how long have you been there’ was now answered. Given the state of your clothes and the fact that it was still deep, dark night you couldn’t have been unconscious for long. But that didn’t help you much - you were still sitting there freezing cold and soaked with no idea where you actually were. What would you do usually when you were lost? Phone, ah, right. You patted over your pockets and actually found it, only to be very unsurprised when it only gave you a black void to stare into. Sadly you didn’t have a bag of rice to put it into in the other pocket, instead only a set of keys that you didn’t recognize along with something that looked like a keychain in form of a piece of polished wood with the letters D and (Your first initial) with a plus in between engraved into it. “Great, I can open some doors now, too bad I don’t know which,” you spoke aloud to yourself, only for the worlds to come out stuttered thanks to your teeth that were shaking just as much as the rest of you. You stuffed the keys and the broken phone back into your pockets and managed to pull yourself up and stand, even though all your muscles were screaming in despair. The thing you really wanted to do was lie back down and fall asleep again, wait for the sun to rise and dry your clothes, but you knew that with the coldness and the water all around you, you’d probably be dead or at least deadly sick by morning, so you had to find shelter, warmth and - maybe most importantly - answers. With slow, little steps you walked down the jetty, towards the buildings that looked unoccupied at that time of day, with an unknown city stretching out behind it that promised life and warmth. For what felt like hours, but was probably just minutes, you managed to walk a few feet until you were a safe distance away from the water and near a bench that must have been put there for people who wanted to watch the water or have a break from work or similar things. It looked at you so invitingly, so comfortably, so perfect. Deep inside you knew that you should probably not sit down, even if you told yourself it would be just for a few minutes, but your exhaustion took over and you sunk down onto it, falling to the side and rolling as good as it was possible together into a little roll. You’d take a nap, just a quick one, only a few minutes, then you’d get up with new energy and find the warmth you were looking for. The longer you sat there the heavier your eyelids got until you couldn’t take it anymore and the darkness enveloped you into its safety again.

The next time you woke up, things weren’t so bad anymore, it wasn’t all that blurry and the throbbing had dialed down a bit, but your body was shaking worse than before. In fact, it was shaking so bad that your shoulder thumbed against the backrest of the bench before being pulled forward again and repeating the circle, the only weird thing was that it was just your shoulder. And there was this weird pressure around it. Wait! You weren’t shaking worse, someone else was shaking you as if they were trying to wake you up. You peeled your eyes completely opened and looked into white voids surrounded by black and like your eyes were the camera of a 2000’ kids-camera they slowly zoomed out and revealed the white voids to be the eye-parts of a mask sitting on the face of a masked (duh) boy who was wearing a very, very colorful and bright outfit. It seemed familiar and the gears in your head started turning. “Habibti, you’re okay,” the boy said in a relieved tone and while he helped you sit up you mustered him with a confused look. “That’s not my name, it’s Y/N.” The way his mask contorted gave off a sense of confusion that mirrored yours, just with a little bit more worry in it, but before he could say anything else you motioned to his outfit. “What is it with the outfit? It isn’t Halloween yet, is it?” “You don’t recognize me?” he asked you and the tone of voice he used almost made you feel sorry for him, but given that you had no idea what he was talking about you would probably be able to cope. “No, sorry…” you started before the gears finally fell into place and you recognized it, “Oh, wait, I think I do, you’re playing Batman’s sidekick right? I think it was Robin. That’s so cool, I myself was always more of a Marvel fan - you know with Black Widow and all that - but both are super valid so cool hobby dude. It looks pretty rad too.” Even with the mask you could see the complete bedazzlement in his face and you wondered if your weird world-swallowing-experience had magically changed the language you spoke from English to Mandarine. “What- What do you mean?” “You’re Cosplaying right? Dressing up as a Comic Character?” you tried to explain and you could feel a slight anger building up at how stupid he made you feel without even being able to see his eyes. “I’m not Cosplaying a comic character?” he said in a questioning manner. “Yes, you are. You’re wearing the outfit and everything, like the guy in the Comics who works with Batman. I think his name was Richard or something, but you should know better, you’re cosplaying him after all,” you tried to explain yet again, seriously questioning your sanity. Now he really didn’t need the mask to hide the fact that he was seriously triggered by what you had said - even though you weren’t quite sure why. Had Robin been cancelled over twitter while you were unconscious? “I think it’d be better if I bring you to safety and get you checked out,” he averted the topic of the conversation and started to position his hands like he wanted to pick you up, but you put a stop to it when you pressed him away. “Listen, I appreciate the help, but I’ll definitely not be going with a complete stranger in a comic costume, so if you could just give me your phone so that I can call my parents or my friends that’d be great.” For a few seconds he just sat there straight, as if unsure of the best course of action, before he sight and pulled a phone out, unlocking it and handing it to you. Your fingers hovered over the keyboard as you thought about who to call, thankful that your mum had made you learn her number by heart, but when you went to dial it your whole body stopped working, like there was a physical restriction keeping you from typing. Suddenly you realized it. You didn’t know the number - you knew you should, that you had been using it for years upon years and that you definitely should know it - and your eyes grew wide. You scavenged through your head searching for more numbers, but then you realized another thing. There were none. How was that possible? You didn’t even know the area code from where you lived. “I- I don’t- what?” you looked up at the boy with tearful eyes, the reality of the situation just too much for you. “It’s okay, I’m sure it will come back to you,” he tried to sooth you, but you were too frustrated and sad to be happy about soothing from some creepy geek. “Would you please finally tell me why you’re in costume?” you asked exasperated and moved further away from him. “I-” The answer of the boy was cut short when a ‘whooshing’ sound echoed around the area and a booming voice called out: “Robin”. The boy shot you another look before shouting back. “I’m here, I’ve-” he obviously wanted to add something, but he cut himself off this time and just looked at you. A man in a black, leather suit with a black cowl over his face that you noticed to be definitely inspired by Batman and very well done came rushing towards you. Again, you couldn’t see his eyes, but you recognized the same worried look that the boy already had. “Oh no, not another one,” you sighed and pushed your hair back, “Is there some kind of Comic Convention here? Or is this a weird sexual thing?” Now the man looked at the boy even more confused, and the boy just shrugged, but instead of answering you, he brought his hand up to where his ear was under the cowl and spoke to himself: “I’ve found Robin, he’s found her, we’re going to come back now.” If it had only been the first and last part of that sentence you would have made a joke about them being into LRPG or something, but the ‘her’ part scared you for some reason. You stood up and backed away, happy that the boy didn’t keep the grip on even though his eyes were following your every move. “This was fun and all, but I’m still soaked and really cold, and I had a nice swim earlier which I want to calm down from again, so I think I’ll just go back home now, call myself a cab or something,” you turned around, more than ready to strain your muscles yet again with running away, but it never got to that point, because a second later you were ripped up from the ground and sizzled through the air. It was so surprising that you didn’t even manage to scream before you found yourself with hard ground under your feet again. You looked up at what had pulled you through the skies and found the boys face yet again and - may it have been from the scare of everything finally becoming to much - the last thing you could say before you blacked out for the third time that night was: “That’s some on point cosplay dude.”

The soft sheets of your bed gave you a sense of relief as you woke up from that weird ass dream that you were having. You were unsure about why exactly your unconsciousness was making you see these things, but you made a mental note about checking the dream meaning of getting swallowed by the sidewalk later on. For now all you wanted was to go have some breakfast and call your mom to tell her about that dream. So you opened your eyes and threw the blanket back only to be surprised by the ceiling that was definitely not yours. There was a sound beside you and you looked over to see a boy about your age, black hair standing up from his head a little spiky and green eyes focused entirely on you. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” you cursed and moved as far away from the boy as possible, “Who are you?!” “What do you remember?” the boy asked you, completely ignoring your question. Your eyes flew to the door that was right behind him and you found that there was no way for you to get to it without having to overthrow the boy - but by the looks of him he’d knock you out easily. “I was on my way home from my job when the fucking ground opened up, swallowed me, thrw me back up into the ocean and then I met two werid ass cosplayers before I woke up here.” “You still think we’re cosplayers?” “We?” “Yes,” he just nodded with complete ease. “Well, I gotta admit that flying thing was pretty rad. What was that? Are you actors and you’re making a movie? Because if so then I’m sorry for bursting onto the shooting site.” “We’re not making a movie,” he stated, still completely chilled, even though there was something else lying under it. “What then? You telling me you’re actually Robin? Because if so I’m not the only one who needs to have her head checked out,” you scoffed and rolled your eyes, arms crossing in front of your chest. The boy just mirrored your look, completely stern and serious. “You’re not serious, are you?” you couldn’t help but let out an unbelieving chuckle. He kept silent and just observed you. “You fucking are, oh my gosh.” “How can I prove it to you?” he asked, still so incredibly serious that you felt like you were a clown walking in on a job interview. “Oh, I don’t know. Call Flash, Superman and the easter bunny over so we can have tea with the tooth fairy,” you answered ironically and made a ‘cray-cray’ gesture with your hand going in circles beside your temple, but instead of being offended by your comment, he just pulled out his phone - the same phone you had tried to use earlier you noted. “What are you doing?” you asked, but he just held his hand up to sush you and raised the phone to his ear. “Hello, it’s Damian Wayne,” he introduced himself to the other person -  and you noted that he was not a ‘Richard’ after all, “Yes, could you do me a favor? Could you come to the Manor real quick? Yes, yes I know, no it’s not an emergency. The suit would be great, yes. See you in a bit. You opened your mouth again when he hung up to ask who he called over, but he kept his hand up and motioned to you to wait, while he opened up the window, even though it was still cold out. A gust of wind filled the room and suddenly there was another boy standing besides the original boy - Damian as he had introduced himself - who was wearing a cape, a shirt with a logo that was definitely Supermans and ripped jeans. “H-How the fuck did he just? Was he here this whole time? What? How?” you stuttered and looked between Damian and the other boy who looked at you even more confused than you felt, but Damian waved him off and motioned for him to leave, which he promptly did. The new boy looked at Damian with question marks in his eyes, but he just waved him off. “You believe me now?” he asked, directed towards you and you had to admit it was pretty convincing. “But how? I’m in a comic?” “Y/N, this isn’t a comic, this is reality,” Damian told you with a soft voice, but your eyes just widened and you tried to move back even further. “How do you know my name?” “In your left pocket there is a set of keys and keychains. One of these keychains is a piece of wood with two letters engraved. A D and a (Your first initial), am I right?” Your heart stopped for a second and you patted the pocket where that exact thing was still lying. “H-How do you know my name?” “What do you remember about your life, about how you ended up in the water?” he avoided the question like a pro and you decided to play along, just in hope he’d answer your question sooner or later. “I was born the daughter of Y/Parents/N in Y/H/T. I grew up normally and went to school, nothing special, got a job on the side and when I went home yesterday the sidewalk started to open up like there was an earthquake and I was suddenly in the water, I told you about that part already.” “And you have never met me in your life?” he asked and sounded almost disappointed. “No, an hour ago I thought you didn’t exist outside of paper, the internet and movies,” you huffed and tried to figure out what his endgame was with this, when he pulled his phone out again and tapped on it for a bit before shoving it in your direction. “How do you explain this then?” You moved forwards with caution until you could see the screen and your breath stopped. It was a picture of you. Of Damian and you to be precise. The two of you were sitting on a bench, laughing and smiling and obviously happy, a cute dog on the ground between the two of you where something else drew your attention. In the photograph your left hand was intertwined with his right one. “W-What is this? Some sick kind of joke?” “You really don’t remember? Not at all?” he asked flabbergasted. “Remember what? What is going on here?” you almost shouted, the frustration becoming just a little bit too much, “Please just give me some explanation, please.” “You’re Y/N Y/L/N, you really are the daughter of Y/Parents/N, but you didn’t grow up in Y/H/T, you grew up here in Gotham. You went to Gotham academy, where the two of us met and...became friends. You found out about me being Robin and my father being Batman rather quickly too,” Damian explained and even though it didn’t match up even slightly with what you remembered, it felt weirdly accurate. You went to the bed again and sucked down onto it, before thinking back to the picture and raised an eyebrow at Damian. “Not that I say it’s true what you’re saying, but if we hypothetically say it was, then we weren’t just friends, right? We’re together?” “Yes.” “Okay,” a sigh escaped you and everything was feeling blurry, but you had to continue asking, wanting to know the truth, “Then how do you explain me ending up in the ocean?” “That’s where things get a bit harsher,” Damian sight too, but obviously for other reasons, “Yesterday evening you accompanied me to a party - a family thing - on a yacht and things were going great, but something went wrong. No one had an idea that the weather would shift like that, but a storm came and the yacht was thrown around and you - you were thrown off, I thought you died, I was devastated, but- uhm...well… You remembered that keychain? I gave it to you for our first year anniversary and it may or may not have a tracker in it, so that I could find you in a worst case scenario and if that wasn’t a worst case scenario then I don’t know what is.” For a few minutes silence filled the room as you worked through all of the new information, but the sad look on Damian’s face, the seriousness in his voice, the entire situation in itself? They made it hard to doubt what he was telling you. Your gaze was stuck on your fidgeting hands when you asked the one underlying question. “Why can’t I remember?” “I don’t know, I think you must have hit your head when you fell off and your mind mixed things up - mixed reality into something else and took a few actual things and made them fiction,” Damian gave you his half-assed, definitely not medically appropriate explanation, but you couldn’t blame him for that, you had no idea either. You pulled your legs up and hugged your knees close as you looked at him, really trying to see this supposed boyfriend of yours, but your mind just turned up blank. “What if I’ll never remember? What if that’s the way it’ll be from now on?” “I’m positive that things will turn out fine, we have friends who have the best medical experience you can get, we even have mind readers who could probably help you and if not, we’ll help you make new memories, I’ll help you and I’ll wait for the memories to come back just in case.” “That’s not fair on you though, Right now I’m not the girl you’re with, you shouldn’t have to go through this,” tears were now welling up at your eyes, even though you weren’t completely sure why your emotions were so strong. “I don’t care, I really don’t, because no matter what you remember or don’t, I love you and I really hope you’ll remember that you love me too…”

[makeroomforthejolyghost]

In Search of Lost Screws (RQBB '21)

Here at last is my entry for the 2021 Rusty Quill Big Bang!

Fandom: The Magnus Archives Rating: T Word count: ~30k Warnings: Chronic Illness, Mild Body Horror, Internalized Ableism, Canon-Typical Spiders, Mention of Canon-Typical Suicidal Ideation, Alcohol Other tags: Cane-user Jon, EDS Jon, Canon-compliant, Season 5, Set in 180-181 (Upton Safehouse period) Characters: Jon Sims, Martin Blackwood, Mikaele Salesa (secondary), Annabelle Cane (secondary) Relationships: Jon/Martin Summary: While staying at Upton House, Jon and Martin accidentally break their bedroom’s doorknob, and can’t get back into the room until they fix it. Meanwhile Jon tries not to break into literal pieces without the Eye, and also to pretend he’s having a good time as he and Martin lunch with Annabelle, parry gifts from Salesa, and quarrel about whether Jon’s okay or not. He's fine! It's just that the apocalypse runs on dream logic, and chronic pain feels worse when you're awake. Excerpt:

“Have I mentioned how weird it is you’re the one who keeps asking me this stuff?” “I’m sorry. I’m trying to help? I just…” Jon closed his eyes, which itched with the warehouse’s dust, and rubbed their lids with an index finger. “I can’t seem to corral my thoughts here.” “Don’t worry about it. It’s actually kind of fun, it’s just—I’m so used to being the sidekick,” Martin laughed. “Besides, I miss my eldritch Google.” “Should I go back out there, ask the Eye about it, then come back?” Another laugh, this one less awkward. “No. That won’t work, remember? This place is a ‘blind spot,’ you said.” The words in inverted commas he said with a frown and in a deeper voice. “Right, right. I forgot,” Jon sighed. He lowered himself to the floor and examined the finger he’d felt snap back into place when he let go his cane. During the five seconds he’d allowed himself to entertain it, the idea of heading back out there had excited him a little. A few minutes to check on Basira, verify what Salesa had told them about his life before the change, make sure the world hadn’t somehow ended twice over. Give himself a few minutes’ freedom of movement, for that matter. Out there he could run, jump, open jars, pick up full mugs of tea without worrying a screw in his hand would come loose and make him drop them. He could stand up as quickly as he thought the words, I think I’ll stand up now, without his vision going dark. God, and even if it did, it wouldn’t matter! He would just know every tripping hazard and every look on Martin’s face, without having to ask these clumsy human eyes to show them to him. “Honestly, it’d almost feel worth it to go back out there just to formulate a plan to find them. At least I can think out there.” “Hey.” Martin elbowed him slightly in the ribs. Jon fought with himself not to resent the very gentleness of it. “I think I’ll come up with the plan for once, thanks. Some of us can think just fine here.” Was it just because of Hopworth that Martin’s elbow barely touched him? Or because Martin feared that Jon would break in here, in a way he’d learnt not to fear out there?

Huge thanks to @pilesofnonsense for hosting this event; to @connanro for beta-reading; and to @silmapeli for their amazing illustration, whose own post you can find here.

If you prefer, you can read this fic instead on Ao3. I won't link it directly, since Tumblr has trouble with external links, but if you google the title and add "echinoderms" (my Ao3 handle), it should come up!

Crunch. “Oh god. Shit! Oh god, oh no—”

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

A clatter, then a noise like a small rock scraping a large one. Jon’s heart plunged; halfway through his question he knew the answer.

“I—I broke it? Look, see, the whole thing just—take this.” Martin tore his hand out of Jon’s and dropped the severed doorknob in it instead. Then he dropped to the floor, diving head- and hands-first for the crack between it and the door as if that crack were a portal between dimensions. Jon closed his eyes and shook this image away, hoping when he opened them again he could focus on what was real.

He should have known this would happen from the moment they left for breakfast. Every time he’d opened that door its knob felt a little looser. Why hadn’t he warned Martin? Well, alright, he didn’t need powers to know that one. He just hadn’t thought of it. Been a bit preoccupied, after all. And even if he had thought of it, that was exactly the kind of conversation he’d been shying away from all week. Watch out for that doorknob; it’s a little loose, he would say, and yeah, probably Martin would answer, Oh, thanks. But there was a chance Martin would say instead, Why didn’t you tell me?—and all week Jon had obeyed an instinct to avoid prompting that question. All week he had made sure to enter and exit their room a few steps ahead of Martin, and hold the door open for him. Martin probably just saw it as Jon’s way of apologizing for their first few months in the Archives together, and once that thought occurred to him Jon had started to look at it that way himself. Maybe that’s why he’d forgot this time.

“Nooo-oooo, come on come on!”

“I don’t think you’ll fit,” Jon said, when he looked again and found Martin trying to wedge his fingers under the door.

(Martin used to leave Jon’s office door open behind him—perhaps absentmindedly, but more likely as a gesture of friendship and openness, which the Jon of that time would not suffer. Sasha and Tim, n.b., only left his door open on their way into his office, when they didn’t intend to stay long; Martin would leave it gaping even if he didn’t mean to come back. Every time Jon had sighed, pulled himself to his feet, and closed the door behind Martin, drawing out the click of its tongue in the latch. And a few times he’d closed the door in front of him, so as to exclude him from a conversation between Jon and Tim or Sasha that he, Martin, had tried to weigh in on from outside Jon’s office.)

“What are you looking for?”

“The—the screw, I saw it roll under there. It fell down on our side. Oh, my god, it was so close—if I’d reacted just half a second earlier, I could’ve?—shit.”

“Oh.” Jon huffed out a cynical laugh.

“I can’t believe it. I broke Salesa’s door! He welcomes us in to an oasis, and I break the door. Oh, god—I’ve broken an irreplaceable door, in a stately historic mansion!”

A few more demonstrative huffs of laughter. “No you didn’t.”

Martin paused. He didn’t get up, but did turn his head to look at Jon. “Yes I did. It’s right there in your hand, Jon—”

“I should’ve known. Check for cobwebs, Martin.”

“Oh come on.”

“This can’t be your fault—it’s far too neat. This is all part of Annabelle’s plan.”

“Do you know that?”

“W-well, no. I can’t, not here. I just—”

“Yeah, I don’t think so, Jon. Pretty sure it’s just an old doorknob.”

“Did you check for cobwebs?”

“Of course there are no cobwebs. A spider wouldn’t even have time to finish building the web before somebody wrecked it opening the door!”

“Then what’s that?” With the tip of his cane Jon tapped the floor in front of a clot of gray fluff in the seam between two walls next to the door, making sure not to let it touch the clot itself.

Martin rolled over to see where he was pointing, and almost stuck his elbow in it. “Ah. Gross. Gross, is what that is.”

“Christ, I should’ve known this would happen. I did know this would happen,” Jon reminded himself—“just ignored the warning signs because I can’t think straight here.”

“It doesn’t mean anything, Jon. It’s a corner. Spiders love corners. I mean, unless you can prove the corner of our doorway has more spiderwebs than anywhere else in the house—”

“Well, of course not. You forget she’s got her own corner somewhere, which we still haven’t found by the way—”

“So, what, you think Annabelle Cane lassoed the screw with a strand of cobweb.”

“Not literally? She could be sitting on the other side of the door with a magnet for all we know!”

Martin peered under the door again with an exasperated sigh. “She’s not.”

“Not now she’s heard us talking about her.”

God, what a delicate web that would be, if all he had to do to avoid the spider’s clutches was reach a door before Martin did. Perhaps if he’d knocked first that’d have saved him. Maybe Martin was right. How could Annabelle know him well enough to foresee this mistake? Most of the time he hated people opening doors for him, after all.

Why do people see someone with a cane and think, Only one free hand? How ever will he open the door!? They don’t do that for people with shopping bags—not ones his age, at least. Letting another person open a door for him felt to Jon like… defeat, somehow. Like admitting the dolce et decorum estness of this version of reality all nondisabled people seemed to live in where he couldn’t open doors. And that version of reality horrified him. Not so much the idea of being too weak to open them—that sounded merely annoying. Like knocking the sides of jar lids on tables and swearing, only with doors. He had beat his fists against enough Pull doors in his time to figure he could live with that. It was more the idea of becoming that way. Letting his door-opening muscles atrophy ‘til it became the truth.

But sometimes you just let a thing happen, and forget to hate it. That was the thing about pride. Sometimes your convictions and your habits stop fitting together—you believe Fuck this job with all your heart, but still tuck in your shirt when you come to the office. And then you fly back from America in borrowed clothes, and pop in at the Institute like that on your way to Gertrude’s storage unit, and that’s what changes your habits. Not the knowledge you can’t be fired; not your now-boyfriend’s plot to put your then-boss behind bars. A thirdhand t-shirt with a slogan on it about how to outrun bears.

On his way out this morning the doorknob had felt so loose in Jon’s hand he almost had told Martin about it. But Martin had been full of let’s-go-on-an-adventure-together-style chatter—like when they’d left Daisy’s safehouse, only, get this, without the dread of entering an apocalyptic wasteland—and listening to him put the door out of Jon’s mind before he’d had time to interject.

Their first day here—or at least, the first they spent awake—Jon had inadvertently taught Martin not to accept invitations from Salesa. The latter had bounded up after Martin’s lunch in linen shirt and whooshy shorts and was, to Martin’s then-unseasoned heart, impossible to deny. So Jon had spent thirty minutes on a creaky folding chair, lunging out of his seat on occasion to collect a ball one of the other two had hit wrong, and trying to keep Salesa’s too-bright white socks out of sight. He’d pretended he preferred to sit out, knowing Martin would worry if he tried to play. But he hadn’t done as good a job hiding his boredom as he thought. “Thanks for putting up with that. Sorry it went on so long,” Martin had said as they re-entered their bedroom. “I just couldn’t say no to him, you know? For such a cynical old man he’s got impressive puppy eyes.”

“It’s fine? You know me, I don’t mind… watching.”

“I just mean, I’m sorry you couldn’t play. How’s your leg, by the way? Er—both your legs, I guess.”

“It’s fine. They’re both fine. I didn’t want to play anyway, remember? I don’t know how.”

“Sure you don’t,” Martin replied, words tripping over a fond laugh.

“I don’t!”

“Come on, Jon. Everyone knows how to play ping-pong.”

Martin had turned down Salesa when he showed up the next day in khaki shorts and a pith helmet with three butterfly nets, without Jon’s having to say a word. More emphatically still did he turn him down when Salesa mentioned the house had an indoor pool, and offered to lend them both antique bathing suits like the one he had on, “Free of charge! A debtor is an enemy, after all, and in this new world I have no wish to make an enemy of” (sarcastic whisper, fingers wiggling) “the Ceaseless Watcher who rules it. I have nothing to hide from you,” he’d alleged, for the… third time that day, maybe? Each morning Jon resolved to count such references; he rarely missed one, as far as he knew, but kept forgetting how many he’d counted.

But Salesa was a salesman, and over time his efforts had grown more subtle. He stopped showing up already dressed for the activity he had in mind, and instead would drop hints at meals about all the fun things they could do if only they would let him show them. Martin loved how the winter sunlight caught, every afternoon around four, in the branches of a tree visible outside the window of their bedroom. “Ah, yes,” Salesa had agreed when he remarked on it one morning. “Turning it periwinkle and the golden green of champagne.” (He poured sparkling wine—the cheap stuff, he said, not real champagne—into an empty juice glass still lined with orange pulp. Over and over, without once overflowing. The oranges weren’t ripe enough to drink their juice plain yet, he said. But they’d still run out of juice first.) “If you think that’s beautiful”—he paused to swallow bubbles come up from his throat, waved his hand, shook his head. “No. On one tree, yes, it is beautiful. But on a whole orchard of bare trees in winter”—he nodded in the direction of Upton’s orchards—“the afternoon sun is sublime. You can see how the twigs shrink and shiver under its gaze; the grass rustles with a hitch in its breath as if it fears to be seen, but with each undulation a new blade flashes gold like a coin,” &c., &c.

“Wow. Sounds like you really got lucky, finding such a nice place to, uh. Sssset up camp?”

Jon knew Martin well enough to hear the judgment in his voice; if Salesa recognized it then he was an expert at pretending not to. “And it's only a two-minute walk away,” he’d said, instead of taking Martin’s bait. “It would be such a shame for my guests not to see it.”

“Oh, well. Maybe in a few days? It’s just, we’ve been outside nonstop for ages. It’s nice to be between four walls again. Besides, we don’t know the grounds as well as you do—and the border isn’t all that stable, you said? Right?”

“It is if you know how to follow it! I could accompany you—show you all the best sights, with no risk of wandering back out into the hellscape by mistake.”

“We’re just not really ready for that, I don’t think. Right, Jon?”

“Mm.”

“Are you sure? If it were me, a foray into a beautiful natural oasis would be just what I needed to convince myself that my peace—my sanctuary—is real.”

“If it is real,” Jon couldn’t stop himself from muttering.

Salesa remained impervious. “You would be surprised how difficult it is to feel fear in a place like that. I don’t think that is just the camera.”

“We‘ll think about it,” Martin conceded.

“Yes—you should both think about it. I am at your disposal whenever you change your mind.”

And so on that morning they had narrowly escaped. Would they had fared so well today. The problem was, on these early occasions Jon had interpreted Martin’s No thankses as being, well, Martin’s. But after a few more of Salesa’s sales pitches Jon began to second-guess that.

“Is it warm enough in here for you both?” Salesa had asked them last night at dinner. “I worry too much, perhaps. I only wish the place took less time to warm up in the morning. At breakfast time, in sunny weather like we've been having, I’ll bet you anything you like it’s warmer out there than in here.”

“It’s alright; we’re not too cold in the mornings either. Right, Jon?”

“Hm? Oh—no.”

“Perhaps we three could take breakfast out there, before the weather changes.”

“Ha—that’s right,” Martin had laughed. “I forgot you still had that out here. Weather changes. Brave new world, I guess.”

Salesa smirked and shrugged. “Well, braver than the rest of it.”

“R…ight. ‘We three,’ you said—so not Annabelle?”

“Mmmmno, probably not her. I have tried taking spiders outside before; they never seem to like it much.”

Nearly every day, here, Jon found a spider in their bathtub. The first time Martin had been with him. Martin had picked the thing up with his fingers and tried to coax it to leave out the window, but by the time he got there it’d crawled up his sleeve.

“Excuse me.”

Martin pulled back his own chair too and frowned up at him. “You okay?”

“Just needed the toilet.” He tried to arrange his mouth into a gentle smile. “Think I can do that on my own.”

The other two resumed their conversation the moment Jon left the dining room. Before the intervening walls muffled their voices Jon heard:

“I suppose that does sound pretty nice.”

“Pretty nice, you suppose? Martin, Martin—it’s a beautiful oasis! What a shame it will be if you leave this place having done no more than suppose about it.”

“It is a bit of a waste, I guess.”

“You wouldn’t need to sit on the ground, if that’s what concerns you. There are benches everywhere.”

He’d been just about to cross through a doorway and out of earshot when he froze, hearing his name:

“Oh, ha—not me, but, Jon might find that nice to know,” Martin said. “Thanks for.” And then silence.

Was that the whole reason he kept declining invitations to explore the grounds? To keep grass stains out of Jon’s trousers? Martin was the one who’d sat down on that godforsaken Extinction couch; why did he think—?

Not the point, Jon told himself as he sat on the toilet and set his forehead on the heels of his palms. He tried to watch the floor for spiders, but his eyes kept crossing. The point was that if—? If Martin was lying about wanting to stay inside—or, more charitably, if he was telling the truth but wanted that only because he thought Jon would have as dismal a time out in the garden as he had at ping-pong—then…?

He imagined holding hands with Martin while surrounded by green. Gravel crunching under their feet. Martin smiling, with sunlight caught in the strands of his hair that a slight breeze had blown upright.

“And if you get too warm,” he heard Salesa tell Martin, as he headed back into the dining room, “we can move into the shade of the pines! You know, they don’t just grow year-round? They also shed year-round. The floor under them is always carpeted in needles, so you need never get mud on your shoes.”

“Huh,” Martin laughed. “Never thought of it that way.”

“But of course there are benches there too,” Salesa added, his eyes flickering up to Jon.

As Jon hauled himself into his seat he asked, in a voice he hoped the strain made sound distracted ergo casual, “So, what, like a picnic, you mean.”

Not a fun picnic. Not very romantic, since their third wheel was the first to invite himself. Salesa neglected to mention how much wet grass they would have to trek through to get to his favorite spot; that there were benches everywhere didn’t matter since they couldn’t all three fit on one, so they ended up sat in the dirt after all—and n.b. it required a second trek to find a patch of dirt dry enough to sit on at this time of morning. Jon was so sick with fatigue by the time they sat down he could barely eat a thing, though he did dispatch most of Martin’s thermos of tea. His hands shook and buzzed, and felt clumsy, like they’d fallen asleep; he ended up getting more jam in the dirt than on Salesa’s soggy, pre-buttered toast. He felt as though the rest of his flesh had melted three feet to the left of his eyes, bones and mind. Eventually he elected to blame his dizziness on the sun. When his forehead and upper lip started to prickle, threatening sweat, he stood up and announced, “It’s too hot here.”

Or tried to stand, anyway. One leg had oozed just far enough out of its joint that it buckled when he tried to stand; indigo and fuchsia blotches overtook his sight. He pitched forward, free arm pinwheeling—might have fallen into the boiled eggs if Martin hadn’t caught him. “Jon! Are you okay?”

God, why was Martin so surprised? This must have been the fifth or sixth time he had asked him that question since they left the house. One time Jon had bent down to brush dirt off his leg and Martin had thought he was scratching his bandages. So he asked him were they itchy, had they started to peel, did they need changing again, were they cutting off his circulation (no, not yet, not yet, and no). How could someone be so attentive to imaginary ills and yet miss the real ones? At another point, an enormous blue dragonfly had buzzed past, and instead of Did you see that? Martin had turned around to ask Are you okay. Now, on this fifth or sixth occasion, for a few seconds of pure, nonsensical rage he wondered how Martin dared stoop to such emotional blackmail. Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies, Jon thought; aloud he snorted, as in malicious laughter. His throat felt thick, like he might cry.

“Fine, I’m just—sick of it here.” He pulled his arm free of Martin’s and overbalanced. Didn’t fall, just. Staggered a little.

“Should we move to the shade? We could try to find those famous pines, I guess.”

Jon sank back to the ground. “What about Salesa? Do we just leave him here?”

“Oh. Right,” said Martin. Salesa had eaten most of Jon’s share, and drunk both Jon’s and Martin’s shares of wine. Now he lay asleep in the dirt, head pillowed on one elbow, the other hand’s fingers curled round the stem of a glass still half full. “I guess, yeah? I mean he seems to know the place pretty well, so. It’s not like he’ll get lost out here.”

“We might, though.”

Martin sighed. “True. Should we just head back to our room, then? Maybe get you a snack.”

“Not hungry.”

“A statement, I meant.”

“Oh. Alright, sure,” Jon made himself say. “That sounds like—sure.”

So then they’d headed back, and only Martin had a free hand, and Jon was too tired by that point to distinguish his mind’s vague warning not to let Martin open the door from his usual pride on that subject—and that kind of pride never does seem as important when it’s your boyfriend offering. So he’d dismissed the warning and, well, look what happened.

When he got up from his knees and turned round Martin frowned at Jon. “Are you alright? You’re sat on the floor.”

Jon frowned, too—at the seam between the floor and the hallway’s opposite wall. “I was tired.”

“You hate sitting on the floor.”

“I sat on the ground out there,” Jon said, with a shrug that morphed into a nod in the direction they’d come from.

“Yeah, under duress,” Martin scoffed. “In the Extinction domain you wouldn’t even sit on the couch.”

There was something odd in Martin’s bringing that up now; somewhere, in the back of his mind, Jon could hear a pillar of thought crumbling. But he lacked the energy to find out which of his mind’s structures now stood crooked. “I think this floor is a lot cleaner than that couch,” he said instead, with an incredulous laugh.

“Even with the cobwebs?” Martin didn’t wait for Jon’s answering nod. “Fair enough,” he said, one hand on the back of his neck as he twisted it back and forth. He dropped the hand, sighed, cracked his knuckles. Looked at Jon again. “Yeah, okay. Guess we don’t have to deal with this right now. Let’s find you another bedroom first.”

“Maybe that’s just what Annabelle wants,” Jon muttered, deadpanning so he wouldn’t have to decide whether this was a joke.

Martin snorted. “I’ll risk it.”

Find was a generous way to put it; in fact there was another bedroom only two doors down. By the time Jon got his legs unfolded he could hear the squeak of a door swinging open down the hall. When he looked up, Martin said as their eyes met, “Nope—bed’s too small. You good there ‘til I find one that’ll work?”

“Seems that way.” Jon tried to smile, relief warring with his usual If you want something done right urge. In the quiet moment after Martin neglected to close that door and before he swung open the next one, Jon made himself add, “Thank you.”

“Of course. Oh wow,” Martin said of the next room, in whose doorway he’d stopped. “This one’s a lot nicer than ours. It’s got a balcony. Wallpaper’s pretty loud though. D’you think that’ll keep you awake?” Laughingly, “I know you don’t close your eyes to sleep anymore, so.”

“How loud is ‘pretty loud’?”

“Sort of a… dark, orangey red, with flowers?”

Jon shrugged. “I won’t see it at night.”

“Oh, god. I hope it doesn’t come to that. Should we do this one, then?” Instead of closing the door, Martin swung it the rest of the way open, then strode back to Jon’s side of the corridor, arm already outstretched. Jon managed to stand before Martin could reach him, but, as it had done outside, his vision went dark for a few seconds. He felt Martin’s hand on his shoulder before he could see his frown.

“You alright?” Martin asked yet again.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“It’s just—you don’t usually blink anymore, except for effect.”

“Oh.”

Out there, none of the watchers blinked. At first, soon after the change, Martin had asked Jon to try, “Because it just feels so weird. Like I’m under constant scrutiny. Literally constant, Jon. You get why that feels weird, right?” (Jon had agreed—sincerely, though he wondered why Martin needed to ask that question in a world whose central conceit was that being watched felt weird. He’d also chosen not to point out that his scrutiny, like that of Jonah Magnus, was not, technically, constant, since he did sometimes look at other things. But he still rehearsed this retort in his mind every time he remembered that conversation.) Turned out it was hard to time your blinks properly when your eyeballs didn’t need the moisture. He’d forget about it for who knew how long, then remember and overcompensate by blinking so often Martin at first thought he was exaggerating it on purpose as a joke. It got old fast, in Jon’s opinion, but even after he learnt Jon didn’t intend it as a joke Martin still found it funny. “You’re doing it again,” he’d say every time, shoulders wiggling. Eventually Jon had asked him,

“You know you don’t blink anymore either, right?”

“Oh god, don’t I?” When Jon shook his head, with a smile whose teeth he tried to keep covered, Martin squeezed his own eyes shut and pushed their lids back and forth with his fingers. “Ugh—gross!” And for the next half hour he’d done the whole forget-to-blink-for-five-minutes-then-do-it-ten-times-in-as-many-seconds routine, too. After that they had both agreed to pretend not to notice the lack of blinking. Jon figured he couldn’t hold it against Martin that he’d broken this rule though, since Jon himself had broken it first, on their first morning here:

“You blinked,” he had informed Martin as he watched him stir sugar into his tea. Martin, who had not only blinked but broken eye contact to make sure he dropped the sugar cube in the right place, replied with a scoff,

“Didn’t know it was a staring contest.”

“No, I mean—”

“Oh! I blinked!”

“…Right,” Jon said now. “I’m—it’s nothing.”

Martin sighed. He closed his eyes, but probably rolled them under their lids. Jon used the inspection of their new room as an excuse to look away, but took in nothing other than the presence of a large bed and the flowered wallpaper Martin had warned him about.

“‘Kay. If you’re sure.”

Taking a seat at the foot of the bed, Jon looked down at his grass-stained knees and prepared himself to ask, Look, does it matter? I’m about to lie down anyway, so, functionally speaking, yes, I am fine.

“So, you’ll be okay here for a bit while I go figure out what to do about the door?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. I’ll come check on you as soon as I know anything, yeah?”

“Of course.”

“Although—if you’re asleep, should I wake you up?”

“Yes,” Jon replied before Martin had even got the last word out. He heard a short, emphatic exhale, presumably of laughter. “Wait—how would you know, anyway?”

“Oh. Yeah, good point.”

Jon looked down at his shoes. His fingers throbbed in anticipation, but he figured he should spare Martin the horror of getting grass stains on a second bedroom’s counterpane. The first shoe he pulled off without untying, since he could step on its heel with the other one. But he had to bend over to reach the second one’s incongruously bright white laces, biting his lip when he felt his right femur poke past the bounds of its socket as between a cage’s bars. On his way back up his vision quivered like a heat mirage, but didn’t go dark. He scooched himself up to the head of the bed. Made sure to face the ceiling rather than the red wallpaper.

A few months into his tenure in the Archives, Jon had discovered that if you close your eyes at your desk, even just for a minute, you can trick your whole body into thinking you’ve been gentle with it. But that trick didn’t work anymore. Out there, this made sense; interposing his eyelids between himself and the world’s new horrors couldn’t push them out of his consciousness, any more than it had helped to close the curtains at Daisy’s safehouse. Martin’s sentimental attachment to sleep had baffled him, as had his insistence on closing his eyes even though they’d pop back open as soon as his body went limp. Here, though, Jon sympathized with Martin’s wish. He too missed that magic link between closed eyes and sleep. Probably he should just be grateful for this rest from knowing other people’s suffering? The thing he had wished to close his eyes against was gone here. But now that most of his bodily wants had synced up with his actions again, it felt… wrong, like a tangible loss, that he couldn’t assert It’s time for rest now by closing his eyelids. That it took effort to keep them joined. Jon even found himself missing the crust that used to stick them together on mornings after long sleep.

That should have been his first sensation on waking, their first morning here. After seventy-one hours his eyelids should’ve been practically super-glued together. Instead, they’d apparently stayed open the entire time. It wasn’t uncomfortable—he hadn’t woken up with them smarting or anything. Hadn’t noticed one way or the other; after all, when not forced awake by an alarm, one rarely notices the moment one opens one’s eyes in the morning. He just didn’t like knowing that he looked the same waking and sleeping. It didn’t make sense. The dreams hadn’t followed him here, so what was he watching? He could see nothing but the ceiling.

He rolled over, hoping to look out the window. Doors, technically. Between gauzy curtains he could make out only wrought-iron bars and the tops of a few trees. A nice view, he could tell; when he got his second wind he was sure he’d find it pretty. For now he wondered how much more energy debt he had put himself in by rolling over.

Drowning in debt? We can help!

How had he not foreseen how horrible it would be inside the Buried? The inability to move or speak without pain and loss of breath—“Just imagine,” he muttered sarcastically to the empty air, as though addressing his past self. “What might that be like.” He’d lived for years with the weight of exhaustion on his back—heavier at that time than it’d ever been before. And he knew how it felt to risk injury with every movement. What an odd frame of mind he must have lived in then, to think his magic healing wouldn’t let him get scratched up down there. Had he thought it would protect him from fear? I must save my friend from this horrible place! But also, If I get stuck there forever, no big deal; I deserve it, after all. There seemed something so arrogant about that now, that idea that deserving pain could somehow mitigate it. That because monsterhood made him less innocent, it would make him less of a victim. How could he have thought that, when he’d known pulling her out of there didn’t mean he forgave her? He should apologize to Daisy for—

Right. Nope, never mind.

He began to regret rolling over. If he planned to stay on his side like this for long, he shouldn’t leave his shoulder and hip dangling. He could already feel their joints beginning to slide apart. But his body had started to drift to that faraway place from which no grievance ever seemed urgent enough to recall it—neither pain now nor the threat of greater pain later. Nor the three cups of tea he’d drunk.

After he and Martin had fallen asleep on Salesa’s doorstep, Jon had vague memories of being led up the stairs to their bedroom, though he remembered neither being shaken awake nor getting into bed. Just a seventy-odd-hour blank spot, followed by pain of a kind he had thought he’d left behind.

It wasn’t that watchers couldn’t feel pain, after the change. They could, but it was like how real-world pain felt through the veil of a dream. Your actions didn’t affect it as directly as they should. In the Necropolis Martin had asked him, “How exactly does a leg wound make you faster?” If he’d had the courage to answer, at the time he would have said something about his own wounds not seeming important now that he had to tune out those of the whole world. That wasn’t it though, he knew now. Pain just worked differently out there. When Daisy attacked him, it had hurt—but the wound she left him hadn’t protested movement. Not until he and Martin entered the grounds of Upton House. You could bear weight on an injured leg just fine out there, because it wouldn’t hurt more when you stood on it than otherwise.

Sometimes, when his joints slid apart while he slept, he could still feel it in his dreams. Up until 13th January 2016 (for months after which date he dreamt Naomi Herne’s graveyard and nothing else), his sleeping mind used to craft scenarios to explain its own pain and panic to itself. Running from an exploding grenade, staying awake through surgery, that sort of thing. But over the years, as the sensation grew familiar, his dreams about it became less urgent, their anxieties more mundane. He’d shout for help from passing cars, then feel like he’d lied to the stranger who opened their door to him when it turned out running to get in the car hurt no more than standing still.

Even before the change, it’d been ages since he’d had to worry about that. Since the coma, Beholding had fixed all these accidents, the way it’d fixed the finger he tried to chop off. They wouldn’t reset with a clunk, the way they had when he used to fix them by hand. It was more like his body reverted to a version the Eye had saved before the moment of injury. When he tried to pull open a Push door he’d hear the first clunk, followed by about half a second of pain, then after a gentle burst of static—nothing. Just a door handle between his fingers that needed pushing. If he tripped on uneven pavement he might still go down, but his ankle wouldn’t hurt when he stood back up, and the scrapes on his hands would heal before he could inspect them. Here, though, in this place the Eye couldn’t see, Jon lacked such protections. He didn’t have the dreams either? And that was more than worth it as a tradeoff, he was sure. But it still smarted to remember that pain had been his first sensation waking up in an oasis. Not birdsong, not sunshine striped across linen, not the warm weight of another person next to him. He knew he’d come back to a place ruled by physics rather than fear because he’d woken up with gaps between his bones.

“Jon? Are you awake?”

“Hm? Oh. Yes.”

“Cool.” Martin sat down on what felt like the corner of bed nearest the door. “I think I know how to do this now.”

“How to put the doorknob back on?”

“Yeah. God, I still can’t believe it twisted clean off in my hand like that. With no warning—like, zero to sixty in less than a second. I mean, can you believe our luck? The thing’s perfectly functional, and then suddenly it just—comes off!”

“Er…”

“Oh, god, sorry—I didn’t mean—”

“What? Oh—hrkgh”—Jon rolled around to face Martin, hoping the little yelp he let out when his leg slopped back into joint would sound like a noise of exasperation rather than pain. He found Martin sat looking down at the severed doorknob which poked up from between his knees. “No, Martin, of course not, I know—”

“Still, I’m sorry about—”

“No, it’s—it’s fine?”

On that first morning, Jon had managed to get his limbs screwed back on properly without making enough noise to wake up Martin. He’d limped out of their room and down the hall, pushing doors open until he’d found a toilet, whereupon he sat to pee and marveled that the flush and sink still worked. It was bright enough inside that he hadn’t thought to try the light switch on his way in—too busy contorting his neck to look for the sun out the window. On his way out, though, he flicked it on, then off. Then on again and off again. How could it work, when there was no power grid the house could connect to? Automatically Jon tried to search his mind’s Eye for a domain based in a power plant or something. Right, no, of course—that power did not work here.

When he got back to their room he found Martin awake. “Oh—morning,” Jon told him with a shy laugh.

“It—it is morning, isn’t it,” Martin marveled. Then he asked if Jon could hand him the map sticking out of his backpack’s side pocket. (What good are maps when the very Earth logic no longer applied here, after all. But Martin was rubbish at geography, so Jon still had to provide the You Are Here sign with his finger for him.) Jon grabbed the map on his way back to bed, and was about to tell him about the miracles of plumbing and electricity he’d just witnessed—not to mention the bathtub he’d admired on the long trek from toilet to sink—when Martin frowned and asked, “Why are you limping?”

“Am I?” Jon had shrugged, then cleared his throat when the motion made his shoulder audibly click. “Daisy, must be.”

“No, Jon. That’s the wrong leg.”

He slid both legs out of sight under the blankets and handed Martin the map. “It’s nothing. It just… came off a bit. Last night."

Before Jon could add It’s fixed now though, Martin said, “I’m sorry, what?”

Jon had assumed Martin understood the kind of thing he meant, but that he’d misled him as to its degree—i.e., that Martin objected to his talking about a full hip dislocation like it mattered less than what happened with Daisy. So he’d said,

“No, sorry, not all the way off—”

And Martin just laughed. “What, and you taped it back up like—like an old computer cable?”

“Sort of, yeah? It—it does still work, more or less.”

“Right, of course. No need to get a new one, yet; you can just limp along with this one. No big deal! Just make sure you don’t pull too hard on it.”

“I mean.” By now he could sense Martin’s sarcasm, his bitterness; that didn’t mean he knew what to do with them. So he'd said with a huff of laughter, “I can’t just send for a new one. That’s—that’s not how bodies work. You have to….” Wait for it to sort itself out was the natural end to that sentence. But he hadn’t been sure he could say that without opening a can of worms.

“Wait so… what actually happened? Are you okay?”

Only at this point had Jon recognized Martin’s response as one of incomprehension. What happened exactly? he had asked, too, when Jon told him the ice-cream anecdote. Did no one ever listen when you told them about these things?

“Nothing. Never mind. It’s fine.”

“Oh come on.”

“It’s. Fine! It’s not important.”

And then for days Martin kept alluding to it. Like some kind of reminder to Jon that he hadn’t opened up, disguised as a joke. Every time something came out or fell down he’d mutter, “So it came off, you might say.” Eventually they’d fallen out over it, and now neither one could come near the phrase without this song and dance.

“Don’t worry about it, Martin,” Jon assured him now; “I’m over it.”

“…Uh huh. Well, putting that to one side for the moment—I think I can fix this?”

“Oh? Great!—”

“—Yeah! It should be simple, actually. I think I just need to replace the screw that fell out? I mean, there doesn’t seem to be anything actually broken, just, you know,” with an awkward laugh, “the screw lives on the wrong side of the door now. But if we can just put a new one in the door should be fine.” He looked to Jon as if for help plotting their next steps.

“I—I don’t, um. Think we have one.”

Martin’s shoulders dropped; the corners of his mouth tightened. “Yeah, I know we don’t have one, Jon. I just mean, we need to find out where Salesa keeps them.”

“Oh!” Jon replied, in a brighter tone. Then he registered what this meant. “Oh. Right.”

“Y…eah.”

“Any idea where to look?”

They checked what seemed to Martin the most obvious place first. Salesa used one of the ground-floor drawing rooms as a sort of repository for everything he’d left as yet unpacked—all the practical items he hadn’t been able to repurpose as toys, plus some antiques he’d been too fond of or too nervous to part with. Two nights ago, Salesa had noticed the state of Jon’s and Martin’s shoelaces, and insisted they let him replace them with some from this little warehouse. “Please, come with me; I’ve nothing to hide. You can have a look around, see if I have anything that might help you on your journey….” As he said this he’d counted to two on his fingers, as though listing off attractions they should be sure not to miss.

Jon watched Martin perk right up at this. All week Salesa had kept pleading with them to tell him about any luxuries they had wanted while touring the apocalypse, so he could try to find something to fulfill those wants. “Well, I—I don’t know about luxuries,” Martin had ventured the third time this came up. “But I do think we might run out of bandages soon, so. If you’ve any extra?”

“Of course, of course, yes, how prudent of you, always with one eye on the future. Must be the Beholding in you.” (Neither Jon nor Martin knew what to say to that.) “But there will be plenty of time for that. I meant something for now, while you are here, while you don’t need to think of things like that.” And sure enough, each time Salesa had come to them with presents from his little warehouse (booze, butterfly nets, more booze, antique bathing suits, &c.), he’d forgot about Martin’s homely request for gauze and tape. Martin insisted they change the dressing on Jon’s leg every day; by now they’d run through the bandages he brought from Daisy’s safehouse. So when Salesa suggested they accompany him to his repository, Martin said,

“Sure, yeah! That sounds really helpful.” (Salesa clutched his heart as though he’d waited all his life to hear such praise.) “Er. The things in your warehouse, though. They’re not L—um.” Leitners, Martin had almost called them. “You don’t think they’ll develop any… strange properties, when we leave here, do you?”

“Of course not,” Salesa had answered, stopping and turning all the way around in the corridor to face Martin with a frown. “Martin, I promise, only my antiques are cursed—and even then, not all of them.” He’d resumed the walk toward his little warehouse, but turned around again and held up a hand, as if to preempt a question. “There are, indeed, yes, some items out there, touched by the Corruption, which can pass their infection on to other things they come in contact with. But, no,” he went on, his voice fighting off a joyous laugh, “no, the only item I have like that does almost the opposite.”

“Oh.”

Salesa nodded, but did not turn around this time. “Strange little thing. It’s an antique syringe that, so long as you keep it near you, repels the Crawling Rot. I like to think it helped dispatch that insect thing Annabelle chased away. But if you try to get rid of it,” he added in a darker tone, “all the sickness, the bugs, the smells, even stains on your clothes—everything disgusting that it’s kept away—they remember who you are, and they hunger for you more than anyone else. The man who sold it to me….” He shook his head ruefully, hand now resting on the door.

“Was eaten alive by mosquitoes,” Jon muttered.

“Something like that, yes,” said Salesa, as he jerked open the door.

Jon hated the way his and Martin’s shoes looked now. He hadn’t had to put new laces on a pair of old, dirty shoes since he was a kid, and the contrast looked wrong—the same way starched collars and slicked-back hair on kids look wrong. Jon’s trainers were gray, their laces a slightly darker gray, so these white ones wouldn’t have looked quite right even without the dirt. Martin’s had once been white, but their original laces were broad and flat, while these were narrow and more rounded. The replacements’ thin, clinical white lines looked something between depressing and menacing. Too much like spider web; too much like the stitching on Nikola’s minions. When they came undone on this morning’s walk, Jon had made sure to tread on them in the mud a few times before tying them back up. Poor Dr. Thompson’s syringe must have retained some of its power here, though, because they still looked pristine. Jon wondered if it had no effect on spiders, or if without it this whole place would have been draped in cobwebs.

Martin seemed pleased with their haul, though. Despite Salesa’s amnesia on the subject, his little warehouse held more plasters, gauze, medical tape, antibacterial ointment, alcohol wipes—the list went on—than one man could ever use. In a strange, raw moment Jon liked to pretend he hadn’t seen, Salesa had wrung his hands as his eyes passed over this hoard. His lip had quivered. He’d practically begged Martin to take the whole lot away with them. “What harm will come to me here? And if it does come, what good will it do, protecting one lonely old man from skinned knees and paper cuts? The two of you—where you are going—the gravity of your mission!” At this point he’d seized one of each their hands. “Everything I have that even might help, you must take it. Please.”

“I—yeah,” Martin stuttered. “This is—really helpful, yeah. We’ll take as much as we can fit in our bags.”

Salesa had let go their hands by this point, and crossed his arms. “Right, yes, bags, of course, the bags. Are you sure you don’t want my truck?”

“Oh, well, thanks, but I don’t think either of us knows how to—”

“To drive a truck?” Salesa uncrossed his arms and began to reach for Martin’s shoulder. “I could teach you—”

“It won’t work without the camera anyway,” pointed out Jon. “We have to walk.”

Martin sighed. ”That too. ‘The journey will be the journey,’ as Jon keeps saying.”

“I said that once,” Jon protested.

No such success on this return visit. They found a small pile of miscellaneous screws, one of which Martin said would work (though it was the wrong color, he alleged, and had clearly been meant for some other purpose), but the screwdriver they needed remained elusive. “I mean, I can’t be sure they’re not in here—the place is as bad as Gertrude’s storage unit. We could spend all day here and still not be sure—”

“Let’s not do that,” said Jon, pushing an always-warm candlestick with a pool of always-melted wax out of Martin’s way with his sleeve for what felt like the hundredth time.

“No arguments here.”

“Where to next?”

“I guess it makes sense that they’re not here. This room’s all stuff Salesa brought, and why would he bring home-repair stuff when he didn’t even know where he’d wind up.”

“Except for the screws.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t look like he keeps screws here, remember? There’s just a couple random ones lying around, like he forgot to put them away or something.”

Jon peered between the clouds in his mind, trying to catch sight of Martin’s thought train. “So you’re saying the screwdriver should be…?”

“Somewhere less… frequented, I guess? They’ll probably still be wherever they were when Salesa found the place.”

“Not somewhere that was open to the public, then.”

Martin sighed. ”I mean yeah, probably. Not that that narrows it down much.”

“Somewhere… banal, less posh.”

“Not sure how much less posh you can get than this place. But yeah, I guess. Have I mentioned how weird it is you’re the one who keeps asking me this stuff?”

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to help? I just…” Jon closed his eyes, which itched with the warehouse’s dust, and rubbed their lids with an index finger. Odd that his eyes weren’t immune to dust, when leaving them open for seventy straight hours hadn’t bothered them. And why didn’t the syringe keep dust away? In Dr. Snow’s day (not far removed from Smirke’s, n.b.), Jon seemed to recall that dust had been used as a euphemism for all waste, including the human kind Dr. Snow had found in the cholera water. It was like how people today use filth—hence the word dustbin. And hadn’t Elias once called the Corruption Filth? Jon opened his eyes and watched Martin swirl back to full color. “I can’t seem to corral my thoughts here,” he concluded.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s actually kind of fun, it’s just—I’m so used to being the sidekick,” Martin laughed. “Besides, I miss my eldritch Google.”

“Should I go back out there, ask the Eye about it, then come back?”

Another laugh, this one less awkward. “No. That won’t work, remember? This place is a ‘blind spot,’ you said.” The words in inverted commas he said with a frown and in a deeper voice.

“Right, right. I forgot,” Jon sighed. He lowered himself to the floor and examined the finger he’d felt snap back into place when he let go his cane. During the five seconds he’d allowed himself to entertain it, the idea of heading back out there had excited him a little. A few minutes to check on Basira, verify what Salesa had told them about his life before the change, make sure the world hadn’t somehow ended twice over. Give himself a few minutes’ freedom of movement, for that matter. Out there he could run, jump, open jars, pick up full mugs of tea without worrying a screw in his hand would come loose and make him drop them. He could stand up as quickly as he thought the words, I think I’ll stand up now, without his vision going dark. God, and even if it did, it wouldn’t matter! He would just know every tripping hazard and every look on Martin’s face, without having to ask these clumsy human eyes to show them to him.

“Honestly, it’d almost feel worth it to go back out there just to formulate a plan to find them. At least I can think out there.”

“Hey.” Martin elbowed him slightly in the ribs. Jon fought with himself not to resent the very gentleness of it. “I think I’ll come up with the plan for once, thanks. Some of us can think just fine here.”

Was it just because of Hopworth that Martin’s elbow barely touched him? Or because Martin feared that Jon would break in here, in a way he’d learnt not to fear out there?

“Oh—I know,” Martin said, clicking his fingers and pointing them at Jon like a gun. “We passed a shed this morning, remember?”

Jon squinted. “Not even remotely.”

“No yeah—on our walk with Salesa. I tried to ask him what it was for, but he kept droning on and on. By the time he stopped talking I’d forgot about it.”

“Huh,” said Jon, to show he was listening.

“That seems like a good place to keep screws and all, right? If it’s so nondescript you can’t even remember it.”

“Sure.”

“Great! Are you ready now, or d’you need to sit for a bit longer?”

“I’m ready.” This time he accepted Martin’s hand, not keen to trip on something cursed.

“Anyway, if we don’t find them and Salesa’s still out there, we can ask him on the way back.”

Jon’s heart shrunk before the prospect of inviting Salesa to be the hero of their story. Please, Mr. Salesa, save us from our screwdriver-less hell! They would never hear the end of it. It would inevitably remind the old man of the countless times in his youth when he’d been the only man in the antiques trade who knew where to find some priceless treasure. Let Salesa open their stuck door and they’d find Pandora’s bloody box of stories behind it. He winced and let out a grunt as of pain before he could stop himself. “Let’s not tell him, if we can help it.”

“Of course we should tell him,” Martin protested. “We can’t just leave it broken like this.”

“But if we can fix it without his help—?”

“What? No! Even then, he’s our host. We have to tell him. It’s his door, he deserves to know its—I don’t know, history?” Martin sighed, shoving one hand in his hair and holding out the other. “If he’s got a doorknob whose screw comes loose a lot, he should know that, so he can tighten it next time before it gets out of hand. I mean, we’re lucky it only chipped the paint when it—when it fell off, you know?” (Jon, for his part, hadn’t even noticed this chip of paint Martin referred to.) “And—and suppose he’s only got this one screw left,” tapping the one in his pocket, “and the next time it happens his last screw rolls under the door like this one did.”

“And what is he supposed to do to prevent that scenario? There aren’t exactly any hardware stores in the apocalypse.”

Big sigh. “Yeah, fair enough. I still think we should tell him. It just feels wrong to hide secrets from him about his own house, you know?”

“Fine,” sighed Jon in turn. ”Should we tell him about the scorch marks on the window sill as well?”

“No?” Martin turned to him with an incredulous look. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“I mean—I was, but—”

“Please tell me you get how that’s different.”

“Enlighten me,” Jon said wearily.

“Seriously? Of course you don’t tell him about the?—those were already there! If we’d put them there, then yeah, of course we’d need to tell him.”

“So it’s about confessing your guilt, then. Not about what Salesa makes of the information.”

“I mean, I guess?” Martin looked perplexed, lips drawn into his mouth. “Actually, no. Because those are just scorch marks, they don’t—you can still get into a room with scorch marks on the windowsill, Jon.”

“And yet if you’d left them you’d tell him about it?”

“Well yeah but if I told him about it now it’d just be like I was—leaving him a bad review, or something. It’d just be rude. ‘Lovely place you have, Salesa. So kind of you to share your limited provisions with us refugees from the apocalypse. Too bad you gave us a room whose windowsill could use repainting!’”

Jon laughed. “Yes, alright, I get it.”

Martin’s sigh of relief seemed only a little exaggerated. If he hadn’t wiped pretend sweat from his brow Jon might have bought it. “Okay, that’s good, ‘cause”—when Jon kept laughing, Martin cut himself off. “Hang on, were you joking this whole time?”

“Sort of?”

“Were you just playing devil’s advocate or something?”

“I mean—not exactly? For the first seventy or eighty percent of it I was completely serious.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know. It was just—fun. It felt nice to take a definite sta—aaaa-a-aa.” Something in Jon’s lower back went wrong somehow. An SI joint, probably? The pain caught him so much by surprise that when he stepped with that side’s leg he stumbled forward.

“Whoa!” Martin’s hand closed around his upper arm. Jon yelped again, from panic more than hurt this time, as his shoulder thunked in its socket. “Jon! Are you okay?”

“Don’t do that,” Jon hissed, trying lamely to shake his arm out of Martin’s grip. It didn’t work. The attempt just made his own arm ache, and produce more ominous clunking sounds.

“I—what?”

“It was fine. I don’t need you to catch me.”

Martin let his arm go. “You were about to fall on your face, Jon.”

“I’d already caught myself—just fine—with this.” He gestured to his cane, stirring its handle like a joystick.

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“I don’t know, look?”

“It’s not—?” Martin scoffed. “Look when? It’s not like a rational calculation. I can’t just go ‘Beep. Beep. See human trip. Will human fall on face? If yes, press A to catch! If not, press B to’— what, stand there and do nothing? It’s just human nature; when you see someone falling that’s just what you do. I’m not going to apologize for not calculating the risk properly.”

“Fine! Yes, okay, you’re right. Forget I said anything.” Throwing up his free hand in defeat, Jon set off again—tried to stride, but it was hard to do that with a limp. Even with his cane, he couldn’t step evenly enough to achieve a decisive gait.

It was fine, Jon reminded himself. He’d had this injury (if you could call it that) a thousand times before. When it came on suddenly like this it never stuck around long. Sure, yeah, for now every step hurt like an urgent crisis. But any second it would right itself as quickly as it had come undone.

“No, no, I understand! Point taken! Note to future Martin,” the latter shouted from behind Jon, voice troubled by hurried steps; “next time let him fall and break his bloody nose.”

Trusting Martin to shout directions if he went the wrong way, Jon pressed on, rehearsing comebacks in his mind. Is this not a boundary I’m allowed to set? You don’t let me read statements in front of you. Isn’t that part of human—isn’t that my nature, too?

Oh, yes, human nature, that must be it. You didn’t lunge after Salesa at ping-pong the other day, did you? I saw you opening doors for Melanie when she got back from India. You stopped for a while, did you know that? You all did, everyone in the Archives. And then—it’s the strangest thing!—you all started up again after Delano. Maybe you lot don’t see the common factor here; people always do seem to think it’s more polite not to notice.

So what if I had broken my nose? You nearly broke my shoulder, catching me like that. Does that not matter because you can’t see it? Because it wouldn’t scar?

They were all too petty to say aloud. Too incongruous with the quiet. He could hear his own footsteps, and Martin’s, and the clank of his cane’s metal segments each time it hit the ground, and a few crows exclaiming about something exciting they’d found on his right. Nothing else.

“Looks like Salesa went inside,” Martin shouted from behind him.

Jon stopped walking and turned around. “What?”

“Left a couple things out here, but yeah.” Martin jogged to catch up with him, from a greater distance than Jon would have expected given how much limping slowed him down. He must have veered off course to inspect the clearing Salesa had vacated. In one hand he carried an empty wine glass by its stem, which he lifted to show Jon.

“Huh.”

“Yeah.” When he caught up with Jon, Martin stood still and panted. “Guess it won’t be as easy to ask him about it as we thought. If we don’t find what we need in there,” he added, glancing demonstratively to something behind Jon.

Following Martin’s eyes, Jon finally saw the shed. Nondescript boards, worn black and white by the elements. Surrounded by hedges three months overgrown.

Turned out it wasn’t a shed anymore, though—Salesa had converted it to a chicken coop. “Explains the boiled eggs,” shrugged Jon.

“God, they’re adorable. Do you think it’s okay to pet one?” Martin crouched in front of a black hen with a puffball of feathers on top of her head. (Martin called her a hen, anyway, and Jon trusted his authority on animals other than cats). “I don’t really know, er, ch—hicken etiquette,” he mused, voice shot through with nervous laughter.

The black hen sat alone in a little box, and didn't seem to want attention. A little red one they’d found strutting around the coop, however, ventured right up to Martin and cocked her head, like she expected him to give her a present. While Martin cooed over her and the other chickens, Jon went outside and laid flat on his back in the grass under a tree. “Take your time,” he shouted. “I’m happy here.”

Sure enough, when Martin emerged from the coop and helped him stand back up, whatever cog in Jon’s pelvis or spine he had jammed earlier was turning again. And by the time they got back to the house, Martin had talked himself into the idea that maybe all the house’s doorknobs that looked like theirs came loose a lot, and Salesa had taken to keeping the screwdriver to fix them in, say, the hall closet, or in their toilet’s under-sink cabinet.

“I think we’re gonna have to find Salesa and ask him about it,” concluded Martin, when these locations turned up nothing they wanted either.

“If you’re sure.”

Jon sat down on the closed toilet seat. Hadn’t that been what he said just before the last time he sat down on the lid of a toilet before Martin? He’d dutifully turned away, that time, as Martin undressed, wanting to make sure he knew he’d still let him have some privacy. But then, of course: “Where should I put these, do you think? —Er, my clothes I mean.”

“Oh. Um.” Jon had turned his head to look at the stain on Daisy’s ceiling, for what must have been the tenth time already. “I can hold onto them if you like.” Which then meant Martin had to get them back on before Jon could undress for his own shower and hand him his clothes. As he’d piled his trousers into Martin’s hands a tape recorder fell out of one pocket and crashed to the floor, ejecting the tape with Peter’s statement on it. “Shit,” Jon had hissed and ducked to the floor to pick it up, trusting the slit in his towel to reveal nothing worse than thigh.

“Shit,” Martin echoed. “I hope that wasn’t your phone.”

“No—just the recorder.” Still on the floor, Jon clicked its little door shut and pressed play. Sound of waves, static, footsteps. He switched it off. “Seems alright.” Thank god, he stopped himself from adding. Jon didn’t want to lose this one, this record of how he’d found Martin, in case he lost him again. But he didn’t want Martin to hear the sounds of the Lonely again so soon, either. That was why he’d stayed with Martin while he showered, rather than waiting in the safehouse living room. He wouldn’t have insisted on it, of course. He didn’t exactly believe Martin would disappear again? But long showers were such a cliché of lonely people, and steam looked so much like the mist on Peter’s beach, and when Jon asked how he felt about it, Martin said that thought hadn’t occurred to him,

“But as soon as you started to say that, I.” He’d stood with his teeth bared, half smiling half grimacing, and bringing the tips of his fingers together and apart over and over. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Heh—it scares me too now, if I’m honest. That’s… a good sign, I guess, right?”

They had come a long way since then, Jon told himself. They were more comfortable with each other now. On their first morning here, they’d showered separately, but after (Martin’s) breakfast Jon’s irritation had faded and he had resolved to pretend along with Martin that this was a holiday. So they’d got to use the enormous bathtub after all— the one at whose soap dish Jon now found himself staring as he sat on the lid of the toilet. When the heat made him dizzier, as he’d known it would, he had relished getting to rest his cheek on Martin’s arm along the rim of the tub, where it had grown cool and soft in the few minutes he’d kept it above the water.

“Let’s have lunch first,” Martin said now; “you’re getting all….” While he looked for the right word he dropped his shoulders and jaw, and mimicked a thousand-yard stare. “Abstract, again. Distant. People food should help a little, yeah? Tie you back down to this plane a bit?”

“Probably,” Jon agreed, smiling at Martin’s tact.

But to get to the kitchen they had to pass through the dining room—where they found Salesa snoring in a chair at the head of the table. “Let’s just ask him now before he gets up and moves again,” maintained Martin. Jon shrugged his acquiescence and leant in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot. Why hadn’t he used the toilet before letting Martin lead him here?

”Um, Mikaele?” Martin inched a few steps toward him, but a distance of several feet still gaped between them. “We have something to ask you, if that’s—hello? Mikaele?”

A likely-sounding gap between snores—but nope. Still sound asleep. Salesa sighed, licked his lips, then began to snore again.

“Mikaele Salesa,” called out Jon from his post at the door, rather less gently. “Mikaele Salesa!” He turned to Martin, meaning to suggest that they eat now and trust the smell of food to wake Salesa, but stopped himself when he saw Martin creeping timidly toward Salesa with his hand outstretched.

“Sorry to disturbyouMikaele,” Martin squeaked out, so quickly that the words blended together. He gave Salesa’s shoulder the lightest possible tap with one fingertip, then snatched his hand back with a grimace of regret as Salesa’s own hand reached up, belatedly, as if to swat Martin’s away. ���Oh, good, you’re—”

Salesa interrupted with a snore. Martin sighed and turned to Jon. “What d’you think? Should I shake him?”

Jon pulled out a neighboring chair and sat on it. “No need for anything so drastic. Try poking him a few more times first.”

“Right.”

Once he’d tired of rolling his cane between his palms Jon bent down to set it on the floor. He’d learnt his lesson about trying to hang it on the back of these chairs, though in this fog it had taken several incidents to stick. Every time it ended up crashing to the floor, when he scooched his chair back or when Martin tried to reach an arm around him. Then again—he conjectured, bent halfway to the floor with the cane still in his hand—if he did drop it, that might wake Salesa.

Two nights ago Jon had got up to use the toilet, and knocked his cane down from the wall on his way back to bed in the dark. It crashed to the floor; Jon swore and hopped on one foot back from it, imagining the other foot’s poor toenail smashed to jagged pieces as it thumped to life with pain. Meanwhile he heard rustling from the bed, and Martin’s voice, querulous with sleep. “Jon? Jon, what’s—happened, what—are you.”

“Nothing it’s fine go back to”—he’d hissed as his knee decided it had enough of hopping—“don’t get up, just. I’m gonna turn on the light, if that’s alright.”

“What fell? Are you okay?”

“The cane. I knocked it over in the dark.”

“Oh.”

He got no verbal response about the light, but guessed Martin had nodded.

From a distance his toe looked alright—no blood, anyway, so he could walk on it without risking the carpet. Jon picked his cane up from the floor and steered himself to the foot of the bed, where he sat down. His toenail had chipped, it looked like—only a little, but in that way that leaves a long crack. If he tried to pick it straight he’d tear out a big chunk and it would bleed. But if he left it like this it would snag on the sheets, on his socks, until some loose thread tore the chunk of nail off for him. What could he do for this kind of thing here? At home he’d file the nail down around the chip, then cover it in clear nail polish, and just hope that’d hold out until the crack grew out and he could clip it without bleeding. But here? A plaster would have to do, he guessed. They had plenty of those now.

Jon hated bandaging, ever since Prentiss—in much the same way that Martin hated sleeping in his pants. He’d had time to learn all its discomforts. How sweaty they got, the way they stuck to your hairs, the way lint collected in the adhesive residue they left. Didn’t help he associated them with that time of paranoia. They didn’t make him act paranoid, understand; he just habitually thought of bandage-wearing as what paranoid people do. It made an echo of his contempt for that time’s Jon cling to his perceptions of current Jon. On his first morning here, when the ones on his shin where Daisy’d bit him peeled off in the shower, he hadn’t bothered to replace them. After all, the bite only hurt when something pulled on it or poked or scraped against it, so he figured his trousers would provide enough protective barrier.

“That healed fast,” Martin had remarked, when he noticed the undressed wound in the bath—and then, when he looked again, “Yyyyeah I dunno, I think you might still want to bandage that. We don’t want dirt getting in there.”

“Do I have to?”

“Humor me.”

When they got back to their room he’d let Martin dress it himself. Martin had sucked air through his teeth. “This is days old—it shouldn’t be all hot and red like this.” According to him these were early signs of infection, which would get worse if they didn’t take better care of it—i.e., keep the wound freshly bandaged and ointmented. Jon refrained from pointing out that when the cut on his throat had got like that he’d left it uncovered and been fine. But he did ask what worse meant. “Really bad,” testified Martin. “I had a cut on my finger get infected once. Really disgusting. You don’t want to know.”

Jon smiled at him, raised his eyebrows. “After Jared’s mortal garden I think I can handle it.”

Martin smiled too, but wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “There was pus involved.”

“Oh, god! How could you tell me that!” gasped Jon, hand to his chest.

“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, it also hurt? A lot? And it can make you ill. So we should try to avoid it, yeah?”

He’d tried to disavow the disappointment in his sigh by exaggerating it. “Yes, alright.”

“Don’t know why you’d want to leave it exposed anyway. Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Well, sure, when you do that,” Jon had muttered, flinching away. As he asked the question Martin had lightly tapped the skin around the gash through its new bandage. A second or two later Jon added, “Less than when I got it? It’s hard to tell; it’s… different here.”

With a sigh that caught on phlegm and irritation, Martin asked, “Different how?”

He hadn’t been able to answer then, but he knew now, of course. It hurt the way things do when you’re awake. Not with the constant smart and throb it had when he’d first got it, but, it snagged on things now. Had opinions on how he moved. When he bent his knee more than ninety degrees, that stretched the skin around it painfully. Also if he knelt, since then the floor would press against it through his trousers. And stepping with that foot felt odd. Didn’t hurt, exactly, but sort of… rattled? Like a bad bruise would. This all seemed so small, compared to the moment of terror for his life that he’d felt when Daisy bit into him—that gaping wound in his new self-conception, which his healing powers had sewn up so quickly. The ritual of bandaging it every evening seemed so otiose, so laughably superstitious. He despised the thought of adding another step to it.

While Jon went on examining his toe, Martin asked, “What was the... thumping. It sounded like.”

“Oh—no—I didn’t fall; it’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“No—yes—stop, it’s nothing, don’t get up. I just forgot I left it on the—leaning against the doorwall” (he hadn’t decided in time whether to say doorway or wall and ended up with half of each) “so I walked into it, er, toe first.”

“Oh,” Martin said again. Jon could hear him subsiding against the pillows behind him. “It came down?”

Big sigh. Jon’s fingernails met his palms. He set his foot back on the floor, and when his hip whined in its socket he clenched his teeth and kept them that way. In his mind he heard days’ worth of similar jokes. When he couldn’t get a jammed jar open: So you’re saying it wouldn’t… come off? When they got back their clean laundry: Can you believe all those grass stains came out?—oh, sorry: that they came off, I meant. Always with an innocent laugh, like Jon’s original phrasing had been just, what, like a Freudian slip, rather than something perfectly comprehensible that Martin had refused to engage with, taken from him, and rendered meaningless on purpose. “No it did not,” he snapped, “and I would appreciate it if you’d quit throwing that back in my face.”

“Whoa, uh. O…kay. What’s… going on here exactly?”

“You—?”

His heart plummeted; his face stung with embarrassment. Came down, Martin had said—not came off. He’d just been confirming that Jon’s cane had fallen down.

“Oh, god—nothing, never mind. You did nothing.”

“Well that’s obviously not true.”

“I just—I thought you’d said ‘came off.’ I thought you meant, had my toe ‘come off.’”

“Oh,” said Martin, yet again. When Jon turned to look he found him still blinking and squinting against the light. “Do you… need me to not say that anymore?”

“Not when I—?” Not when I’ve hurt myself, Jon meant. But Martin hadn’t done that, so this grievance didn’t actually mean anything. He’d been seeing patterns where there were none, and now that he’d seen through the illusion Jon knew again that Martin never would say it like that. “No, it’s fine. Do whatever you want.”

Martin turned the tail end of his yawn into a huff of false laughter. “Nope. Still don’t believe you.”

“Everything you’ve said makes perfect sense with the information you have. It’s all just—me. Being cryptic again.”

“Okay, uh. Are you waiting for me to disagree? ‘Cause, uh. Yup—you’re still being cryptic. No arguments there.”

Jon just sighed, really scraping the back of his throat with it. Almost a scoff.

“Sooo do you wanna fill me in, or.”

“No?” With an incredulous laugh. “Well, yes, just.”

He hadn’t known how to start from there, while so tightly wound and defensive. It seemed cruel to raise such a sensitive subject when Martin sounded so eager to go back to sleep. Or maybe he just didn’t want to hear Martin whimper apologies. Didn’t want to deal with how fake they would sound. They wouldn’t be fake; he knew that. But they would sound fake, which meant it would take an effort of will, a deliberate exercise of empathy, to accept them as real. He wasn’t in the mood to hear yet another person say I’m sorry, I didn’t know; much less to respond with the requisite It’s okay; you didn’t know. It would take a strength of conviction he didn’t have right now.

“Y—you don’t have to explain it tonight? I’ll just, I’ll just not use that phrase anymore, and maybe in the morning you’ll be less in the mood to lash out at me for things that don’t make sense.”

And what was there to say to that? It had taken Jon three tries to force out, “Okay. I’m sorry.”

“Good night, Jon.”

“Good night. I still need the light, for.”

“That’s fine. Just turn it off when you come back to bed.”

“You won’t wake him up,” a new voice interjected.

Annabelle. Jon couldn’t see her, but he had learnt by now to recognize that voice, with its insufferable upbeat teasing inflection like every sentence she said was a riddle. He caught a glimpse of movement, then heard the click of her shoes on the floor. She must have poked her head round the doorway at the far end of the table while she spoke, then scuttled off again. At last he got a good look at her, as she put her blonde-and-gray head through the closer door.

“He’s a very heavy sleeper,” she informed them, with a smile and a shrug. “You can shake him all you want; it’s not going to work.”

Martin cleared his throat—trying to catch Jon’s attention, presumably. But Jon feared Annabelle would vanish again if he took his eyes off her. Not that he wanted her here, either, but?—he at least wanted to know which direction she went when she disappeared.

“What are you doing here, Annabelle.”

She shrugged two of her shoulders. “Just offering you some advice.” Then she used the momentum from the shrug to push herself backward, out of the doorway back into the corridor. Before the last of her hands disappeared off to the right, she waved to both of them.

“Well, how about some ‘advice’ about this, then—”

“She’s already gone, Martin.”

“Seriously? God—which way did she go?” Jon pointed; Martin bolted down the hallway after her. “Oi! Annabelle!”

“Shhh!”

“Annabelle! Do you know where Salesa keeps the—”

Jon did his best to follow him, praying all his limbs would go on straight this time. “Don’t!”

“What? Why not?” he heard, from the other side of the wall. Thankfully he could no longer hear Martin’s pounding footsteps. He overtook him in the hallway, just about able to make out his face around the dark swirls in his vision. “She’s as likely to know as Salesa, right?” Martin continued. “And it’s not like she’d lie about it. I mean, what would be the point?”

“I just don’t think we should give her any kind of advantage over us,” Jon snarled. The attempt to keep his voice down made the words come out sounding nastier than he intended.

Martin scoffed. “You don’t think maybe this is a bit more important than your stupid principle about not accepting help from her?”

“Is it?” Jon took hold of Martin’s sleeve, having just now caught up to him. “The new room’s fine. It’s even nicer than the old one, right? We could just stay there.”

“I already told you, Jon. I’m not just gonna leave it like this.”

“’Til Salesa sobers up, I meant.”

“If we have to, yeah, but—? All our stuff’s in that room. The statements’re in there.”

“I just don’t think we should show her that kind of vulnerability,” Jon hissed, shifting from foot to foot in his eagerness either to sit down or go somewhere else. “I don’t want to give Annabelle something she can use over us.”

“How does this make us more vulnerable than we are eating her food?”

“It doesn’t, alright? That doesn’t mean we should add more to the pile!” He watched Martin shrug and open his mouth, but cut him off in advance: “Last time we had this argument you were the one maintaining she was dangerous.”

It was on their first night here—their first awake here, anyway. They’d been heading back to their room, Martin lamenting that he’d not packed anything to sleep in when they left Daisy’s safehouse. “Won’t make much difference to me,” Jon had shrugged at first.

Martin had shaken his head, grimaced at something in his imagination. “I hate sleeping in my pants. It’s just gross. Dunno why anyone would choose to do it.”

“How is it gross?” Jon had laughed. He’d expected to hear some weird thing about its being unsanitary for that much leg to touch sheets that only got washed every two weeks, and to argue back that in that case shouldn’t he sleep in his socks. Disdain for the body seemed damn near universal, and yet manifested so differently in each person whose habits Jon had got to know up close. Georgie had heard that underarm hair helped wick away the smell of sweat—so she let that hair grow out, but shaved the ones on her stomach for fear they’d smell like navel lint. And Daisy, a woman who used to sniff her used-up plasters before throwing them in the bin, would spray cologne in the toilet every time she left it. Jon had enjoyed getting to know which of bodily self-contempt’s myriad forms Martin subscribed to.

But this turned out not to be one of them. Instead Martin explained, “It’s so sweaty. Like sitting on a leather couch in shorts, except the leather’s your other leg? Ugh. I hate waking up slippery.”

“That’s why I put a pillow between mine,” laughed Jon. “Suppose I will miss Trevor’s t-shirt, though. Now that I don’t have to worry about showing up in people’s dreams like that.”

“Oh, god, right—what is it? ‘You don’t have to be faster than the bear’—?”

“‘You just have to be faster than your friends,'” Jon completed, in the most sinister Ceaseless-Watcher voice he could muster. Martin snorted with laughter.

And then they’d opened the door to discover Annabelle had done them a fucking turndown service. Quilt folded back, mints on the pillows, and a pile of old-timey striped pajamas at the foot of the bed. “Huh. Cree…py, but convenient, I guess. Least they’re not black and white, right?” Martin unfolded the green-striped shirt on top, then handed it with its matching trousers to Jon. “These ones must be yours.”

“Mm.” Jon let Martin hand him the pajamas, then tossed them onto the chair in the opposite corner of the room (from which chair they promptly fell to the floor). The mint from his side of the bed he deposited in the bin under the bedside table.

“So who’s our good fairy, d’you think? Salesa, or.”

“Annabelle,” Jon hissed. “Salesa was with us all through dinner.”

Martin nodded and sighed. “Yeah.” He sat down on the bed, still regarding the other set of garments—these ones striped yellow and blue—with a puzzled frown. “God, I’ll look like a clown in these. You sure I won’t give you nightmares about the Unknowing?”

But Jon said nothing, still hoping he could avoid weighing in on Martin’s choice whether or not to accept Annabelle’s… gifts.

“It’s probably Salesa’s stuff, at least. Not Annabelle’s. I mean,” Martin mused with a brave laugh, “he’s got a lot of weird outfits on hand apparently.”

“Unless she wove them out of cobwebs.”

“That’s not a thing,” Martin groaned, making himself laugh too. “Spider webs aren’t strong enough to use as thread.”

“Not natural ones, maybe,” Jon said with a shrug and a careful half smile. With no less care, he turned the sheets and counterpane back up on his side of the bed, restoring the way it’d looked when he and Martin made up the bed that morning. Stacked the frontmost pillow back upright against the one behind it. Punched it a little, more as a way to break the silence than because it looked too fluffy. Then sat down in front of them and put his shoe up on the bedside table so he could untie it—glancing first at Martin to make sure he didn’t disapprove.

“I mean, I guess,” Martin mused meanwhile. “Not sure why she’d bother, though. Maybe it’s”—with a gasp and a smile Jon could hear in his voice—“maybe she’s put poison in the threads, and that’s why yours and mine are different. Mine’s got—I dunno, some kind of self-esteem poison, like, a reverse SSRI, to make me feel like you don’t need me, so when she kidnaps you I won’t try to save you. And yours….”

As Jon pulled off his now-untied shoe one of the bones in his hip jabbed against some bit of soft tissue it wasn’t supposed to touch. He gasped and dropped his shoe. It thudded on the floor.

“You alright?”

“Fine. Some kind of dex drain, probably.”

“Ha.”

After a silence, Martin spoke again: “Are you sure you’re okay staying here for a bit? Sorry—I kinda bulldozed over your objections earlier.”

Jon finished untying his other shoe, then paused to think while he shook the cramp out of his hand. “No,” he decided. “You didn’t bulldoze, you just…questioned. And you were right to.”

“Still, I mean. It might not be a great idea to stick around here with the spider lady who’s had it in for us since day one. Have you re-listened to the tapes from the day Prentiss attacked, by the way, since you got them back from the Not-Sasha thing?”

“Right—the spider, yes.”

“Yeah, exactly! You wouldn’t even have broke through that wall if it hadn’t been for the spider there!”

Jon nodded and scrubbed at his eyes, trying to muster the energy to match Martin’s tone. This was an important conversation to have, he knew. And a part of him shuddered with recognition to hear Martin talk about those tapes. He had re-listened to them—first at Georgie’s, one night in the small hours as he cleaned her kitchen, thinking clearly for the first time in months and trying to pinpoint the exact moment his thoughts had been clouded with paranoia, so that he might know what signs to look for if something else tried to infect his mind like that. And then again after Basira found the jar of ashes. That time he’d just wanted to suck all the marrow he could from the memory of Martin with his sensible corkscrew and his first answer to Why are you here, even if it did mean having to hear himself ask if Martin was a ghost. A few weeks later, however, after Hilltop Road, he’d done a fair bit of obsessing over the spider thing with Prentiss, yeah. He just wished he could remember what conclusion he’d come to.

All he could remember was going for those tapes yet again only to find them missing from his drawer. But he’d been chasing phantoms all day; it was late at night by then, and when he’d dashed out to tell Basira his fear Annabelle had stolen them, stolen his memories from him just like the Not-Them had, he’d stood there over her and Daisy’s frankenbag for what felt like an hour, mouth open, unable to utter a sound. It felt too much like going to wake up his grandmother after a dream. So he’d told himself to sleep on it—that he’d probably left the tapes in some other obvious place, and would find them in the morning. And when he remembered his panic, the next day at lunch, and checked his drawer again, the tapes were back, right where he expected them. He’d dismissed it as a dream after all. But no—Martin must have borrowed them. He must’ve been worried about the Web, too.

“It’s… it should be okay. I don’t think it’ll be like that here.”

Martin sighed. “Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“That thing where you just—decide how something is without even telling me why you think so. I mean it’s one thing out there, when you ‘know everything’” (this in a false deep voice) “and can’t possibly share it all, but here? When you’re just guessing, like everyone else? Why don’t you think it’ll be like that here? And what does ‘like that’ even mean?”

“I'm sorry—you’re right—I just mean, I don’t think she has her powers here. Based on what Salesa said about the camera, and on what happens when I try to use my powers….”

“Salesa just said the Eye can’t see this place, though. What about that insect thing he said found its way in?”

“I mean.” Jon shrugged. “We managed to find our way here without the Eye’s help.”

“Yeah, but if the Web has no power here then how could she have called me on a payphone? She had to have known where I was to do that, yeah? And she couldn’t know that from here unless the Web told her to do it, right?”

“Maybe? We don’t even know if the Web works like that.”

“Told her to do it, made her want to do it, gave her the tools to do it, whatever. You know what I mean. Look—we know the Eye’s not totally blind here, since it can still feed on statements. Right?”

Jon wondered now how either one of them could have been so sure of that. “Apparently,” he liked to think he had said—but more likely he’d replied simply, “Right.”

“So then by that logic the Web still probably likes it when she—I don’t know, when she manipulates people here. It probably still gets, like, live tweets from her about it. How do we know it can’t use that information to weave more plots around us?”

“If that’s even how it works,” Jon had replied again. “The other fears don’t work like that—they don’t plan, they just.” He tried to sort his intuition into Martin’s live tweet metaphor. “The fears just like their agents’ tweets, they don’t… comment on them, o-or build new opinions on what they’ve read. It boosts the avatar's… popularity, I guess? Their influence?” Jon hadn’t even logged into Twitter since before the Archives. “But unless the Web is different from all the other fears, it doesn’t—it’s not her boss. It doesn’t come up with the schemes, it just.”

“Isn’t it literally called the ‘Spinner of Schemes’, though? The ‘Mother of Puppets’?”

And Jon couldn’t remember what he’d said to brush off that one.

“Of course she’s dangerous,” Martin said now. “I just don’t see what sinister plot of hers we could possibly be enabling by asking her where to find screwdrivers.”

Jon scoffed. “She’s with the Web, Martin! The ‘Mother of Puppets,’ the ‘Spinner of Schemes’? You’re not supposed to be able to see how the threads connect. Anything we ask her gives her another opening to sink her hooks into.”

“So what, you just don’t want to owe her a favor?”

“Yes?” Jon blinked—on purpose, needless to say. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. I mean—why do you think she’s here, Martin, ingratiating herself with us?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because it’s the one place on Earth that hasn’t been turned into a hell dimension?”

Jon snarled and set his head in his free hand. The dizziness was coming back. “In her statement Annabelle said the trick to manipulating people was to make sure they always either over or underestimate you.”

“Okay,” granted Martin, as though prompting Jon to explain how this was relevant.

“She’s trying to humanize herself,” he maintained, scratching an imaginary itch behind his glasses. “We shouldn’t let her.”

“I mean, she is physically more human here.”

“Is she? She doesn’t seem to be withdrawing from the Web; she’s not—like this.” Jon turned his wrist in a circle next to his head.

“Yeah but she’s been here for months, right? Maybe she’s passed through that stage.”

A bitter huff of laughter. “So you’re saying she’s reformed.”

“No. I’m saying the fact she’s not all—loopy here doesn’t necessarily mean she still has any power.”

“She’s got four arms and six eyes, Martin!”

“And you sleep with your eyes open and summon tape recorders, Jon!”

“Well,” mused Jon with a wry smile, “not on purpose.”

“That’s my point! You’ve only got—vestiges here, yeah? I’m not saying we should trust her; I don’t wanna be friends or anything. I’m just saying I don’t think the actual concrete danger she poses here is what’s making you hate the idea of asking her for directions.”

“What about that insect thing Salesa said she chased off. Does that not sound spidery to you?”

“We don’t know that! Maybe she waved his syringe at it.”

Jon took a deep, shaky breath through his nose. He’d hoped he wouldn’t have to bring up this next part; he feared it might make Martin too afraid to stay here any longer. “I think she’s plotting against us.”

Blink. “Well, yeah. Of course she is. She’s been plotting against us for—”

“Here, I mean. I mean, I think that’s why she’s here. She’s been hiding from the Eye on purpose so she could lure us into her trap with her spindly little”—Jon thought of the earrings that dangled from Annabelle’s ears like flies, swinging with her every sudden movement. Unconsciously he struck out with his hand as if to catch one, closing his fist around empty air. “Without my being able to see either her or the trap. At best, she’s here gathering information about us so she can report it back to her master.” He pictured the thousand spiders he’d seen birthed during Francis’s nightmare crawling back and forth with messages between here and the nearest Web domain—

“I thought you said the fears didn’t work that way,” pursued Martin—

“And every little thing we tell her is one more thread she can use to pull on us.”

“Okay, but, even if you’re right, ‘Hey Annabelle, our doorknob’s busted, can you help us find the tools to fix it’ isn’t actually a fact about us.”

“But that’s just the best-case scenario, Martin! The worst-case scenario is that she predicted we’d get locked out of our room, or even loosened the screw herself—”

“Not this again—”

“—because she knew we’d have to ask her for help, and wherever she tells us to look for the screwdriver is where she’s laid her trap! Think about it—this couldn’t happen outside the range of the camera, right? It would only work in a place where I can’t just know where to find something. That’s the only scenario where we’d ever ask her for directions.” Martin sighed, crossed his arms, rolled his eyes. Jon looked right at him, hoping to catch them on their way back down. “What if her plan is to trap us here forever so we can’t go stop Elias? What if by trusting her with this, we give her the tools to keep the world like this forever?”

Again Martin sighed. He bit his lip, at last seeming not to have an argument lined up already.

“I can’t actually stop you from going after her”—Jon heard Martin scoff, but pressed on—“but I can’t take part in this.”

“You sort of already did stop me, Jon.” He lifted his arm, pointing vaguely in the direction she’d gone. “We can’t catch up with her now.”

That wasn’t quite true, Jon knew; Martin had chosen to stop and listen to him. Instead of pointing this out in words Jon smiled, meekly, and reached for Martin’s hand. “Guess that’s true. Are you, er, ready for lunch now?”

His answering scoff sounded fond, indulgent, rather than incredulous. “Yeah, alright.”

With Martin’s hand still in his, Jon turned around—an awkward business, while holding hands in such a narrow passage—and began to walk back towards the dining room. At the end of the corridor stood a tall, thin, many-limbed figure, holding a water carafe, a stack of glasses, and four steaming plates of food.

“You boys getting hungry?” As she stepped toward them her shoes clacked against the floor. How had they not heard her approach? And what was she doing back at that end of the corridor?

“How did you—?”

“I have my ways. I’ve brought lunch for you both, if you’re amenable.”

“Oh—well, thanks, you’re, you’re just in time, actually.” Jon didn’t dare look away from Annabelle Cane long enough to confirm this, but suspected Martin had directed that last bit at him as much as her. “Can I help you with those?”

Annabelle managed to shrug without dislodging anything from the four plates in her hands. “You can take the napkins if you want,” she said, extending toward Martin the forearm from which they hung.

Jon sat back down in the chair he’d left at a haphazard angle—though it felt weird, since he usually sat on the table’s other side. He thanked Martin when he handed him a napkin, and allowed Annabelle to set an empty glass and a plate of food in front of him. It was a pasta dish, with clams—from a can, he reminded himself. A can and a jar of pasta sauce. Couldn’t have taken more than twenty minutes to put together.

“Salesa’s still out of it,” observed Martin. “Don’t think he’ll make too much of his.”

“A shame,” Annabelle agreed. She set a plate down in front of the sleeping Salesa anyway. “Maybe the smell of food’ll wake him up.”

“Are you going to eat with us?” Martin asked, as he and Jon both watched her deposit a fourth plate across the table from them.

“I may as well. We do still have to eat to live here, don’t we?” Jon could tell she meant this comment as an invitation for him to join their conversation, but he didn’t intend to take her bait. “Besides,” Annabelle went on, “this way you’ll know I’ve not saved the best for myself.” With one hand she picked up her own plate again; another of her long, thin arms reached out to take Jon’s plate.

He dragged it to the side, out of her reach. “No, thank you.”

“Alright. Martin,” she said, looking over at him with a patient, patronizing smile. “Will you switch plates with me?”

“Oh, my god,” Martin groaned into his hand. “Sure, why not.”

Something small and gray skittered across the table toward her. For half a second Annabelle took her eyes from Martin. Her nostrils flared; one of her eyes twitched; Jon heard a stifled squawk from behind her closed lips as she swept the skittery thing over her edge of the table. He made no such effort to hide his scoff. Did she think she could play nice, by declining to hold little spider conversations in front of them? That they’d think she was on their side as long as they couldn’t see her chatting to her little spies?

“Thank you,” Annabelle sing-songed meanwhile, returning her gaze to Martin. “You’re sweet.”

On their first morning here, after showering and then shuddering back into their filthy clothes, Jon and Martin had barely left their room before Annabelle dangled herself in their path, with cups of tea (Jon refused his) and an offer to show them to the pantry. From this tour Jon had concluded that all food in this place was tainted by her influence. And he didn’t actually feel hungry at that point? He remembered Martin remarking on his hunger before they’d both fallen asleep, but Jon had felt only tired. Surely that meant he still didn’t need food here, right? It’d been like that before the change, after the coma—he’d needed sleep and statements to keep up his strength, but could function just fine without… people food. So he’d resolved to accept nothing offered him here—or at least, nothing Salesa and Annabelle hadn’t already given him and Martin without their consent. No tea, none of Salesa’s booze, no use of the huge industrial washing machines, no food.

That resolution lasted about nine hours. He knew because on that first day time still felt like such a novelty he and Martin had counted every one. Once he’d tried and failed to compel Salesa—once he’d heard him give a statement and managed to space out for half of it, rather than transcending himself in the ecstasy of vicarious fear—Jon started to grow conscious of his hunger. After two hours he felt shaky; after four he started picking quarrels, first just with Annabelle when she showed up with snacks, then with Salesa, and then even with Martin; after six he felt first hot, then cold. Finally around the eight-hour mark he was hiding tears over an untied shoelace, and figured it was worth finding out how much of this torment people food could solve. He sat through dinner, flaunting his empty plate—then stole to the pantry for something he could make himself. Settled for dry toast and raisins. “Couldn’t you find the jam?” Martin had asked him.

“Didn’t think of it,” Jon lied, once he’d got his throat round a lump of under-chewed toast.

“You want me to get some for you? That looks pretty depressing without it,” Martin said, with his eyebrows and the line of his mouth both raised in a pitying smile.

“Better make it one of the sealed jars.”

“What, so Annabelle can’t have got to it?” Jon nodded, chewing so as to have neither to smile back nor decide not to. “You know she made the bread, right.”

Of course she had. Jon dropped his head onto his fists. “Fuck.”

“What did you think?” mused Martin with a laugh. “That Salesa just popped down to the supermarket?”

“I don’t know—that they’d taken it from the freezer, maybe?”

“I mean, that’s possible,” Martin granted with a shrug. “Should I get you that jam?”

Big sigh. “Fine.”

In reality he’d stared up at the row of jam jars in Salesa’s pantry for a full ten seconds before deciding not to have any. He feared spiders would spill out of the jar onto his hand as soon as he got it open. But he also feared he might not be able to open it at all—only hurt himself trying. Way back in their first year in the Archives together, Martin had once seen him struggling to get open the jar where he kept paperclips. Jon hadn’t realized he was being watched—or, that is, that Martin was watching him. In the Archives the sense of someone watching was so omnipresent one soon lost the ability to distinguish Elias’s evil Eye from other, more mundane eyes. Anyway, after three minutes’ effort and nothing to show for it but a misplaced MCP joint in his thumb, Jon had given up on paper-clipping the photos Tim had pilfered for him to their relevant statement and begun hunting through his desk drawers for a stapler instead. And then a high-pitched pop above his head made him startle so badly he gasped, choked on his own spit, and flung the picture in his hand across the room like a paper airplane.

Around the sound of his own cough he could hear Martin shouting Sorry, and Tim and Sasha laughing on the other side of the wall. Martin’s laugh soon joined theirs, though it sounded desperate, sheepish. He dove after the photo Jon had dropped, and then, when he came back with it, explained, “Got the paperclips for you.”

Jon frowned. “This is a photograph, Martin.”

“No, I mean—?” His laugh came out like a whimper; he picked the unlidded jar up an inch off the table, then set it back down. “Here.”

Okay, so, not exactly an auspicious start, but, it still became a thing? Martin opening his paperclip jar. At first he’d wished he could just remember not to seal it so tightly; he could get it just fine when he stopped turning it earlier. At least when the weather hadn’t changed since the last time he opened it. But then when they all started leaving the Archives less often, and the break-room fridge filled up with condiments that all seemed to have twist-off lids… he’d kind of liked that? Martin would hand him the peanut-butter jar, with its lid off and pinned to its side with one finger, before Jon had even finished asking for it. This seemed to be the pattern behind all his early positive impressions of Martin: the jar lids, the corkscrew, the way he managed to make mealtimes at the Institute feel like proper breaks. Martin had seemed like such an oaf to him at first—clumsy, absent-minded, always seeming to think that if he professed enough good will with his smiles and cups of tea and I know you won’t like this, but, then no one would notice his impertinent comments and all the doors he left wide open. All the dogs and worms and spiders he let in. He’d seemed to Jon the human embodiment of a fly left undone—more so than ever after the morning he’d walked in on him wearing naught but frog-print boxer shorts. But he had this easy grace with things that needed twisting off. Banana peels, bottle caps, wine corks, worms.

And then when he came back after the Unknowing Martin was never around. Jon and Basira and Melanie all lived in the Archives, like Martin had two years before, but by that point he wasn’t on Could you open this for me? terms with any of them. But he hadn’t needed people food anymore, and if he subluxed a joint it would heal instantly anyway. So he’d just struggled and sworn, feeling stupid for shrinking from the pain even after having chopped off his own finger. And it got easier with practice. By the time he and Martin reunited, he’d got so used to it that sometimes he’d hand jars to Martin already unlidded. Martin hadn’t seemed to notice. Finally, one evening a day or two after that row they had over the ice-cream thing, Jon had opened a jar of pasta sauce (he’d taken up people food again at Daisy’s safehouse, if only to make their time there feel more like a regular holiday), and reached out to hand it to Martin—then paused and retracted the hand that gripped the jar, remembering his promise to be more open about.

“This is, um.” He’d glanced up at Martin, then back to the floor as the latter said,

“Huh?”

“This is one of those things that’s got better since the coma. Since I became an avatar. I can, um. I can open jars now? Without.” He’d almost said Without hurting myself, then remembered that wasn’t technically true. Deep breath. “Without lasting harm. It—it hurts for a second? But the Eye heals it instantly. That's why I’ve been.”

“Oh,” Martin said, seeming to stall for time as he absorbed this information. He accepted the jar which Jon again held out to him, and turned it around in his hands, eyes on its label. “Yeah, I—I noticed, you’re really good at opening jars now,” he went on with a laugh. Again he paused, and blew a sigh out of his mouth. “Right. Okay. Thank you for telling me?”

“I’ll try and be better about….”

Martin nodded, turning back to the stove and beginning to stir sauce into the pasta. “Yeah. I, uh—I didn’t know that was why you used to need me to open them for you?” Since the other night’s argument, Jon had gathered as much. He nodded too. “I thought you were just, heh, you know. Weaker than me.”

“I mean, I am—”

“Well yeah but you know what I mean.”

“I do. I should’ve told you.”

“No, I—actually I think you’re in the clear on that one, if I’m honest. I just—it’s just weird? I thought I was done having to” (another blown-out sigh punctuated his speech) “having to reframe stuff I thought was normal around some unseen horror. Sorry,” he added when he’d finished beating sauce off Daisy’s wooden spoon; “that’s probably not a great way to.”

“No—it’s fine?”

“Suppose it sounds like an exaggeration, now, after all we’ve.”

Mechanically, Jon nodded, without deciding whether he agreed or not. Around an awkward laugh, he confessed, “‘Unseen horror’ might be the nicest way I’ve ever heard anyone describe it.”

“Er. Yikes? That sounds like you might need some better friends, Jon.”

“Maybe,” he conceded, laughing again. “I—I just mean, it’s nice to hear something other than?” Jon paused and pushed his little fingers back the hundred or so degrees they each would go. First the left, then the right. Other than what? Well, doubt, for a start. Though most of the doubt he heard from outside himself was implicit. Careful silence from people he told about it; requests people made of him seemingly just so he’d have to tell them he couldn’t do that; impatience, bafflement, suspicion from strangers. Why are you out of breath, the woman behind the Immigration desk had asked him at O’Hare, as if breathlessness incriminated him somehow. But that wasn’t the response he’d subconsciously measured Martin’s phrase against. What he had in mind now was more like… bland support. Hurried support. Assurances quick and dutiful, yet so vague he could tell the people who gave them were thinking only of the mistakes they might make, if they dared to acknowledge what he’d said with any more than half a sentence. The I’m sorry you’re in pain equivalents of Right away, Mr. Sims.

That was it—unseen horror was an original thought. Martin had put it in his own words, rather than either borrowing Jon’s or using none at all. “Other than a platitude.”

So at Salesa’s when Martin came back with the jam jar he handed it to Jon. Jon made a show of trying to open it, but could feel his middle finger threatening to leave its top half behind. It frightened him, in a way he’d forgot was even possible. For such a long time now, pain had just been pain? He’d grown so unused to the threat it held for normal people. The threat of actual danger, of injury. He’d set down the jar on the table in front of him, and crossed his arms in front of it.

“Can’t get it, huh?” Martin asked; Jon shook his head.

How much danger, though, he wondered. Earlier that day, after he and Martin got out of the bath, his left index finger had popped out while he was buttoning his shirt. It still ached when he used the finger, or thought about the cracking sound it had made—but didn’t throb anymore without provocation. Not much danger there; not even much inconvenience. He supposed if he hurt his middle finger too then he might have some trouble with his trouser button the next time he had to pee? Right, yes, what a cross to bear. I hurt myself doing x; now it hurts to do x. But it already hurt to do x, didn’t it? Didn’t x always hurt, before the change? Why did he so fear to face an hour or a day where it hurt more than usual, but not so much I can’t do it?

“So you’re saying it won’t… come off?”

“Ha, ha.”

“Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”

“What if I open it and it’s full of spiders?”

Martin had smiled, rolled his eyes, pulled the jar toward him, and twisted its lid off with a pop. “See? No spiders in this one.

“While you’re here, Annabelle,” Jon heard Martin say, “I don’t suppose you know anything about where Salesa keeps his screwdrivers?”

Annabelle tapped her chin and said, very pleasantly, “Hmmm. Perhaps they’re where he left them after the last time something broke.”

Martin’s lips drew closer together. “Yeah,” he nodded, “probably. Any idea where that might be?”

“Perhaps he keeps them next to whatever screw comes loose most often.”

“And do you know which screw that is?”

She shook her head, though who knew whether that meant she didn’t know or merely that she didn’t mean to tell him. “Perhaps he only uses the item when he’s alone,” she said, with a shrug and a sly smile.

“…Ew.” Annabelle cackled like a school kid pulling a prank. “Right, great,” sighed Martin. “Thanks a lot. Forget it. You done, Jon?”

Jon glanced sleepily down at his plate. Only half empty, but cold by now. “Yes.”

“Nice of you to grace us with your presence, Annabelle,” Martin said, sliding his and Jon’s plates toward her side of the table.

Instead of energy, lunch gave Jon only a slight queasy feeling—like one gets from eating sweets on an empty stomach.

“God”—hissed Martin, with clenched fists, as they ambled back to their room—“‘Perhaps he keeps them next to the screw that gets loose most often.’ Yeah, figured that out already, thanks! Can you even believe her? Sitting down to eat with us, as if she’s all ready to help, and then the best she can do is,” he paused and straightened, then said with a finger to his chin in imitation of Annabelle, “‘Oh, hm, guess he only uses it alone. Oh well!’”

“Don’t know what else you expected.”

Martin sighed, his arms crossed now. “Guess I should’ve done what you asked after all, since that accomplished nothing.” After a moment he went on, “Least it wasn’t a trap, right? I tried not to give her anything she could use against us.” With a smile Jon could hear without looking at him, “You notice how I pointedly didn’t offer to help clean up?”

“No, I didn’t,” Jon confessed, laughing a little.

“No?!” Again Martin paused on his feet, frowning, incredulous. Jon wished he wouldn’t; standing still made him dizzier, took more effort than walking, like that poor woman in Oliver’s domain. Daniela? Martin shook his head at himself. “Ugh—then who knows if she noticed, either. I thought I was being so obvious!”

“I mean—”

“Wait, hold up, let’s double back.”

“Are you going to go back and tell her it was on purpose?”

“No, just”—he echoed Jon’s laugh—“no, of course not. I just wanted to try that wing’s toilets next. Didn’t want her to see which way we were going.”

“Oh.” By this time Martin had turned around and started to walk the other way; Jon hung back. “Er. I thought—I thought we were going to our room first.”

“What, the new one you mean?” asked Martin, turning his head around to look back at him.

“…Yes,” Jon decided. Until this moment he’d forgot about that, and been daydreaming of their original bed.

“Sure, if you want. Do you need a break?”

“I… I think so, yes.”

Martin turned the rest of the way around, shuffled toward Jon and looked him over, with a concerned frown. He took his free hand between his fingers and thumb, brushing the latter over Jon’s knuckles. “Yeah, okay. You still seem pretty out of it. How are you feeling?”

“Not great,” answered Jon, though he smiled in relief at Martin’s willingness to change the plan for him.

“Food didn’t help?”

His stomach seemed hung with cobwebs; his mind, like a large room with half its lights burnt out. His light head seemed attached to his heavy, aching body only by a string, like a balloon tied to an Open-House sign. He still needed the toilet. “Not really?”

“Yeah, thought not. You need a statement, huh.”

Jon shrugged, avoiding Martin’s eyes. “Probably.”

In the interim bedroom Jon sat down at the edge of the bed, bent down over his legs, and untied his shoes, wondering why his life always came back around to this. His hip got stuck like a drawer that’s been pulled out crooked, so he had to lever himself back up with his arms, trapping fistfuls of counterpane between thumbs and the meat of his palms. It made his hands cramp, but that helped—the way it would have helped to bite his finger. When he’d got himself upright again he sat and blinked for a few seconds, hoping each time he opened his eyes that his vision would’ve cleared.

Martin sat down next to him and put his hand on Jon’s arm. “You’re blinking again. You okay?”

“Just… kind of dizzy? It’s an Eye thing.”

He let Martin pull him towards him until their shoulders touched. “Yeah. Makes sense. Nap should help. Statement’ll definitely help.”

“Right.”

They agreed to lie on the bed rather than properly in it, not wanting to have to put the covers back together afterward. Jon set his head on that squishy part of Martin’s chest where it started to give way to armpit, knowing to angle himself so the scar tissue pressed the hollow part of his cheek rather than anywhere bonier. It was normally dangerous to lie half on his back, half on his side like this, but he’d lately discovered he could use Martin’s leg to keep his hip from falling off. He could feel the muscles in his shoulder twitching and cramping, whether to pull the joint out or keep it in who could tell. But it’d be fine as long as he shrugged the arm every few minutes.

All the ways they knew to spend time in each other’s company had come together in Scotland, where he’d had none of these worries. Even after the change, on their journey, with nothing but sleeping bags between them and desecrated earth, he’d borne only the same aches he’d been ignoring since he read the statement that ended the world. Jon imagined lying next to Martin like this on the cold stone of a tomb in the Necropolis, surrounded by guardian angels’ malicious laughter. Not feeling the cold, or the grain of the stone against his ankles and the bandage on his shin—just knowing it was there, like when you watch someone suffer those things in a movie. Less vivid even than a statement about lying on a tomb; in Naomi Herne’s nightmare he’d felt the stone in her hands.

“Hfff, okay—ready to get back to it?”

“Mrrr.”

“…Jon, are you asleep?”

He shrugged his hanging shoulder. “No.”

Nose laugh. “Come on, wake up.”

“Mmrrrrrrr.”

“My arm’s asleep.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It won’t wake up ‘till you get up off of it, Jon,” said Martin, gently, between huffs of laughter.

“Hmr.” Jon rolled away to face the wall with the window, freeing Martin’s arm.

“Do you want me to go look without you?”

“Okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mhm.”

Cold air washed over his newly-exposed arm, ribcage, side of face, the outside of his sore hip. It was cold on this Martinless side of the bed, too. He rolled back over into the shadow of his warmth, but that still wasn’t as good as the real thing. Maybe he could pull the covers halfway out and roll himself up in them.

“Aaagh, no—Jon”—Martin’s cool hand on top of his as he tried to hook his fingers round the counterpane— “we’re trying to leave the room the way we found it, remember?”

“Hmmmrrgh.” He consented to leave his hand still when Martin’s departed from it. A few seconds later, a rustle against his ear, the smell of smoke and old clothes.

“Here.”

Jon crunched the jacket down so it wouldn’t itch his ear. “You won’t need it?”

“Probably not.”

“Hm.”

“I’ll be back for it if I have to go outside again, yeah?”

“Okay.”

In his mind’s eye they trudged into the wind, hand in hand. It blew Martin’s hood off his head, and inverted Jon’s cane like an umbrella. He shrunk himself further under Martin’s jacket, relishing the new pockets of warmth he created as his calves met his thighs and his hands gripped his shoulders.

“Ooookay…! Wish me luck?”

“Good luck,” managed Jon around a yawn.

Martin had been right about the wallpaper. Not only was the red too bright to look at comfortably; it also had the kind of flowered pattern just complex enough that every time you look back at it you’re compelled to double-check where it repeats. Every fourth stripe was the same as the first, right? Not every second? And that weird little scroll-shaped petal—he’d seen that one too recently. Was it the same as?—No, that one was a bud. He pulled Martin’s jacket up so it covered his eyes.

They’d put their jackets through the laundry with everything else, their first day here, but that hadn’t got the smell out. Enough time had passed between the burning building and their arrival here for the smoke to embed itself permanently into their jackets and shoes, like how duffel bags once taken camping always smell like barbecue. And everything they’d ever shoved in those backpacks still had some of that odd, sour, Ritz-cracker smell of clothes left unwashed too long.

Daisy used to smell like smoke and laundry, too, once she quit smelling like dirt. It was the smell of the old green sleeping bag she’d zipped up to Basira’s. She said she’d have showered it off if she could; she didn’t like it. To her it was a Hunt smell—it reminded her of her clearing in the woods. But there weren’t any showers in the Archives. She’d point this out every time, in the same wry voice, so Jon was sure she’d intended the metaphor. No showers in the Archives: you couldn’t hide your sins in a temple of the Eye. This had comforted Jon—or maybe flattered was the word, though he knew her better than to think she’d have done so on purpose. He just wasn’t sure he agreed. He’d hid his sins pretty well from himself, after the coma. It was easy; you just had to lose track of scale. No one could remember all of them at once, after all. Others had had to point the important ones out to him.

Were those footsteps he could hear out there? Not Annabelle’s—? No; her clicky shoes. These were blunter. Could be Salesa, awake at last, come to invite them to play a game with him. “How do you two feel about… foosball?” he would say, drawing out the last word in a husky whisper. Only then would he swing the door wide open to reveal himself in a shiny jersey, shorts, and studded shoes. He set his fists out before him and turned them in semicircles, pretending to manipulate the plastic rods of a foosball table. Jon curled still more tightly into himself at the thought of Salesa’s face, how his showman’s grin would crumple like a hole in a cellophane wrapper when he realized the fun one had gone and that he faced only the Archivist. “Oh—hello. Jon, is it? Where has your lovely Martin gone?”

“Oh, uh. Martin needs a screwdriver to fix our door, so I.”

He watched Martin march his silent way slowly, solemnly down a corridor that grew darker, grayer, vaguer with every step until the webs that lined its every side and hung in laces from the ceiling began to catch on his shoes, his belt, his glasses.

“I let him go off alone.”

Jon’s whole body flinched. He gasped awake—oh shit. How had he just let Martin go? He had to—couldn’t stay here—find Martin—keep him out of Annabelle’s clutches—

Stick-thin bristling spider legs tapped the floor of his mind like fingers on a table. Find Martin. Jon instructed himself to sit up, swing his legs over the side of the bed and reach down to grab his shoes. He twitched one finger. See? You can do this. In a minute he’d try again and be able to move his whole arm, push himself up onto one hand. Find Martin.

Also probably go to the toilet. With an empty bladder his head would be clearer, he could figure out which direction to look first.

After Hopworth, while he laid on the couch in his office waiting for the strength to throw himself into the Buried, Jon had imagined Martin and Georgie and Basira and Melanie all stood around that coffin, wearing black and holding flowers. Denise? No, it definitely had three syllables. A scattered applause began as Jonah Magnus emerged from his office, closed behind him the door printed with poor dead Bouchard’s name, and stepped up to the podium. Georgie, not knowing his face, began to clap; Melanie stayed her hands. Elagnus’s shirt, hidden behind suit except for the collar, was striped in black and white. A ball and chain hung from his sleeve like an enormous cufflink. He opened his mouth to speak, and a tape recorder began to hiss.

“What are you doing here?” asked Basira.

“Never underestimate how much I care for the tools I use, Detective. I wouldn’t miss my Archivist’s big day.”

“So they just let you out for this.”

Elias shrugged with false modesty. His chain jingled. “When I asked them nicely.”

“How did you even know he was dead?” interposed Melanie. “Basira, did you tell him about the—”

“She didn’t have to,” said Elias, raising his voice to cut Melanie’s off. “Nothing escapes my notice, and I like to keep an eye out for this sort of thing.”

“Well—it’s—good to see you.” Tim’s voice. Unconvincing, even then.

Jon steeled himself to hear his own voice stammer out, “Yes—y-yes!” but heard nothing except the hissing of the… tape. Yes, that was the wrong tape—the one from his birthday.

“Anyway. Somebody mentioned cake.” Elias jingled as he arranged his hands under his chin.

Tim scoffed. “They didn’t serve cake at my funeral.”

“I preferred going out for ice cream anyway,” pronounced Martin, his arms crossed and his nose in the air. Jon pushed himself up on shaking hands. Find Martin.

They had gone for ice cream at John O’Groats before the change, while living at Daisy’s safehouse. Martin had apologized on behalf of the kiosk for its measly selection—no rum and raisin. Jon pronounced a playful “Urgh,” assuming Martin had cited this flavor as a joke. “I think I’ll manage without that particular abomination.”

“Wait, what? Why did you order it at my birthday party then?”

Jon stood still with his ice cream cone, squinted into space, and blinked. “I did?”

“My first birthday in the Archives, yeah!”

“Huh. That’s… odd.” Martin placed a gentle hand on Jon’s back to remind him to resume walking. “I suppose I must have been—huh. Yes,” he mused, nodding slowly as his hypothesis came into focus between his eyes and the ground. “I must still have thought I was tired of all the good flavors at that point.”

He heard Martin scoff a few steps ahead of him. “What, and now you’re happy with plain old vanilla?” Then he heard arrhythmic footsteps thumping toward him from Martin’s direction; he looked up to find Martin reaching his napkin-draped free hand out toward Jon’s ice cream cone. “You’re dripping again,” he explained.

Jon mumbled thanks and shrugged a laugh. “I-I’ve, uh. Come back around on most of them.”

“Except rum and raisin?”

“No—I’ve come around on it, too, just, uh.” He tried to make the shape of a wheel with his ice-cream-cone-laden hand. It flicked drips of vanilla across his shirt. Martin came at him with the napkin again. “Thank you. I just disliked that one to start with.”

“…Right. Okay, so what revolution occurred in your life before the Archives that overturned all your opinions on ice cream flavors?”

So Jon had told Martin about that summer when his jaw kept subluxing. He’d used that word, assuming Martin was familiar with it already—incorrect, as he knew now. Presumably Martin had gathered from context that Jon meant he’d hurt his jaw, in some small-scale, no-big-deal way whose specifics he’d let slide as an unimportant detail. But then as the anecdote wore on he must have begun to feel the hole in his knowledge. And lo, at last Martin had invoked that dread specter the clarifying question.

“Okay but so your grandmother had no problem with you basically living off ice cream all summer?”

“Well, she did when I could chew. But not when it was that or tinned soup.”

“Ah—right. ‘Cause you hurt your… jaw, you said?” Jon nodded. “What happened exactly?”

“Oh. Uh. Happened? Nothing, just my—I was born, I guess. Just part of my genetic condition; I happened to get it especially bad in the jaw that year. I-it’s much better now, though,” he hastened to add when he noticed Martin’s frown.

“What genetic condition? You never told me you had one.”

“Didn’t I?”

At the time, the anger in Martin’s answering scoff had surprised him. “No, Jon, you never said.”

“Oh. Sorry? I—I mean, you’ve seen me with this for years—I just?—thought you knew.”

“Seen you with—what, the cane, you mean? I thought that was Prentiss!”

Jon glanced to the doorway to double-check that was where he’d left his cane.

“What? No,” he had mused. “Of course not. I’ve had this since….”

“But you never used it.”

“No—surely, I—”

“Not once before Prentiss.”

Even as he’d said the words, Jon’s memory of that time had returned to him and he’d known Martin was right. Before Prentiss attacked the Institute he’d brought his cane with him to work in the Archives every day, and every day left it folded up in his bag. All out of an obscure notion that if he’d used it before Elias and before his coworkers, they’d take it as a plea for mercy, an admission of weakness or incompetence. God, he was naïve back then. He’d used the cane often enough back in Research; why hadn’t he worried Tim and Sasha would find its new absence conspicuous? That they’d worry just as much about his refusal to use it? The whole thing seemed even more stupid, too, now that he knew Elias must have noticed the change. How it must have pleased him, to see his shiny new Archivist so obsessed with proving he was fit for the job.

“Yeah but,” Jon pursued, instead of voicing any of this, “Tim never—?”

Martin nodded and shrugged. “I don’t know; I figured Tim didn’t get them in the legs as much as you did. I didn’t see you guys after the attack, remember? Not ‘til you got out of quarantine.”

“Right, no, of course you didn’t. I’m sorry,” said Jon mechanically, already consumed with the question he asked next. “Martin—did you think it was the corkscrew?”

From Martin’s sigh Jon figured he’d been expecting this question. “Kinda? At first, yeah. Half for real, half just—you know, as a habit? Like, ‘Look, a way to blame yourself!’” He splayed out his hands, rolled his eyes.

“Yes—I do that too.” Jon barely got the words out above a whisper; he couldn’t not smile, but fought to keep it from showing teeth. A muscle under his chin spasmed with the effort.

“But then I noticed you switching sides with it a lot, so, yeah. I knew it couldn’t be just that.”

“Really?” He waited for Martin’s answering shrug. “You’re the first person who’s ever noticed that. Or at least commented on it.”

“Sorry?”

“No—it’s.”

This attempt to communicate a similar sentiment, Jon recalled as he reached for his shoes, hadn’t gone as well as the one a few days later (over unseen horror &c.). Beholding had at that moment presented him with the image of a fat, hunched woman in shorts. She shuffled forward a few steps in a queue at Boots, next to him, and shifted her weight so the cane in her right hand supported her nearer leg. He felt a strong impulse he knew wasn’t his own—one born partly of resentment, part exasperation, part concern—to tell the woman that was bad for her shoulder, that she should switch hands too. But knew if he tried she’d either pretend she hadn’t heard it, or tell him off for criticizing her. Jon didn’t know what she would say more specifically; the Eye didn’t do hypotheticals. It had given him no more than this single moment of preverbal intuition. After the change he could have sought out other conversations Martin had had with his mother, and they might have given him a pretty good idea. But he’d promised Martin not to look at things like that.

He managed to dislodge a finger while tying his shoe. The other shoe he’d pulled off without untying; in a fit of impatience he tried now to shove his foot into it as it was. No good—he got the shoe on, but it just made the other index finger, the one he’d hooked into the back of the shoe behind his heel for leverage, pop off to the side too. Jon was afraid to find out what shape it would end up in if he pulled his finger back out of the shoe like that, so he had to untie it after all, one-handed. Then carefully extract his finger. It sprung back into place as soon as he removed the offending pressure (namely, his heel), but he still whimpered and swore. The corners of his eyes pricked with indignation when he remembered he still had to pee.

In this case, for once, Beholding had told him the important part: that that was why Martin had noticed. Had he noticed Melanie, too, Jon wondered, when she got back from India? She would switch hands sometimes, too—but, of course, without switching legs. He wondered if that had picked at the same unacknowledged nerve of Martin’s that his mother’s habit had. It had bothered Jon, too, but in a different way. He’d resented it a little, but also felt humbled by it, the way he always did by others’ discomfort. Getting shot in the leg seemed so big? Like such an aberration. So uncontroversially important—probably because it was simple, legible. Georgie could convey its hugeness to him in three words. She got shot. Obviously there was more to the story than that; there were parts he could never…

Well, no. There was a part of it he felt he should say he could never understand: that she’d kept the cursed bullet because she wanted it. In fact he was pretty sure he did understand that. But he didn’t have the right to admit it, he didn’t think. And no reason to hope she would believe him if he did. The second he’d learnt the bullet was still in there, after all, he and Basira had rushed to dig it out. Surely, from her perspective that could only mean he didn’t and could never understand. Or maybe he just wanted her to see it that way—wanted her to get to keep that uncomplicated resentment of his ignorance. It made his perspective look stupid and ugly, sure. But the truth made it look self-absorbed and pitiful. The truth was that until Daisy insisted otherwise, he’d assumed only he could see his own corruption and assent to it: that the others must not have known what they were doing.

Then again, maybe even if Melanie knew that, she would see only that he had underestimated her. Maybe it didn’t matter how much she knew.

Melanie switched off which hand she held her white cane with now, too. But that was probably healthy? Jon knew no more than the average person about white-cane hygiene. He just remembered feeling the floor drop out of his stomach when they’d got coffee together during his time in hiding and he had seen her switch her original, silver cane from hand to hand. Part of him had wanted to scoff or rationalize it away. How much could the shot leg hurt, really, if she still noticed when her arms got tired? But another part of him shuddered at the thought one arm alone couldn’t compensate for the weight her leg refused to take—that she had to keep switching off when one arm got weak and shaky from supporting more weight than it should have to. It wasn’t that he hadn’t experienced pain or impairment on that scale. He had, though the thought of a single injury sufficing to cause it still made him feel cold inside. It was that he kept seeing proofs, all over, everywhere, that the parts of his life he’d only learnt to accept by assuming they were rare weren’t rare.

Leitner hadn’t made the evil books; he’d just noticed they were there. And then had his life ruined by their influence, like everyone who came across them. Jon had had no time and no right to deplore the holes Prentiss had left in him and Tim, because on the same damn day he learnt someone had shot the previous Archivist to death. Alright, so it was him, then, right? Him and Tim—just doomed, just preternaturally unlucky. Tim, handsome face half-eaten by worms, estranged (as Jon then assumed) from a brother who seemed so warm and accepting in that picture on his lock screen; Jon, saved from Mr. Spider only by his childhood bully, now fated to take the place of another murder victim—and also half-eaten by worms. But no; he and Tim had got off lightly. Look what had happened to Sasha the same fucking night. The very thing whose influence convinced him the world had it out for him? Had killed Sasha. Literally stolen her life. How many lives around him got stolen while he mourned his own?

“I want you to comment on it,” Jon had managed to clarify. But Martin had scoffed as he stood in the foyer of Daisy’s safehouse, hopping on one foot to pull off the other shoe:

“Yeah, well. You haven’t exactly led by example on that one.”

“How could I?”

He accepted Jon’s scarf and long-discarded jacket, hanging them up beside his own. “Gee, I don’t know—commenting on it yourself?”

“On… switching which side I used the cane on.”

“Don’t play dumb, Jon. On this ‘genetic condition’” (in a deep, posh voice, with a stodgy frown and fluttering eyelashes) “you’ve apparently had this entire time. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“I thought you knew, Martin! Why would I mention it in a childhood anecdote if I didn’t think...?”

“Well I didn’t know, okay? You never told me. You never tell anyone anything about what’s going on with you, you just—you just make everything into another heroic cross to bear.”

“That’s not—?” He wanted to tell Martin just how little that made him want to say about it. But he guessed Martin was really talking less about the EDS thing, more about how he’d spent their whole first year in the Archives pretending to dismiss the statements that scared him. How he’d sent Tim and Martin home when he’d found out about Sasha. How he’d stayed away from the Institute even after his name got cleared for Leitner’s murder. “What do you want to know.”

“Why you never—?” In a similar way, Martin seemed to reconsider his initial response. “Yeah, okay, right. Object-level stuff, yeah?” Jon nodded and wanly smiled. “Okay, so. What’s it called?”

After taking a minute to ditch his shoes, wash the sticky ice-cream residue off his hands, and drink some water, he’d sat down on the couch with Martin and told him its name, what it was, what it did. What does that mean, though, Martin kept asking, so he’d explained how it applied to the anecdote about his jaw. Martin asked why it meant he needed a cane.

“Be…cause all my joints are like that.”

“Yeah, but why does it help with that? What is the cane actually for, is what I’m asking.”

Jon hated being asked that question. “It—it means I don’t fall over when one of my joints stops working? A-and… also makes walking hurt less. I suppose.”

“So, when they’re working right, that’s when you don’t need it?”

“No—yes?—sort of. Now sometimes I just need it when it’s been too long since I had a statement. I get sort of. Weak.” Quickly Jon added, “But I don’t need it for stability so much since the coma.” He’d shown Martin how now, when he pulled out his finger, the Eye would just sort of erase that version of reality—how the dislocation wouldn’t snap back, but simply cease to exist. As if his body were a drawing on which the Beholding had corrected a mistake. He put his palms together behind his back, in the way he’d been told one couldn’t without subluxing both shoulders, and told Martin to watch how the hollows between his shoulder bones vanished. He opened his jaw ‘til it jarred to the side, and told Martin to listen for the static.

But Jon had never shown Martin how these things worked before the coma. Martin had no reference for this kind of thing; he understood only enough to find the sights unsettling. “That’s—no, that’s okay, I’ll”—he stuttered as Jon fumbled with his kneecap in search of a fourth example—“I-I get it. I’ll take your word for it.”

“I just thought.”

“No, I—? I don’t need you to prove it to me, Jon.” (The latter nodded, blushing, trying to smile.) “I get… I’m sorry. I guess I get why it’d feel easier not to say anything if? If you think it’s either that or have to convince people it’s a thing.”

Again Jon nodded. He suspected Martin wasn’t through talking yet. But Martin still wasn’t looking at him, eyes squeezed tight against Jon’s party tricks. So, to show he was listening, Jon said, “Yes. Er—thank you, Martin.”

“I just don’t like it when you hide things from me.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You could at least ask if I want to know about them, yeah?”

Even at the time, Jon had doubted this. If they’d had this conversation after the change, he might have pointed out to Martin that when you mention something the other person has no inkling of, you make them too curious to decline your offer of more information, even if afterward they’ll admit they wish you’d never told them.

“Or ask me if I even recognize what you’re talking about, the next time you start going on about some childhood anecdote where you incidentally had a dislocated jaw. Honestly, would it kill you to start with, ‘Hey, did I ever tell you about x’?”

“No, it wouldn’t. You’re right. I’ll try. What… kinds of things did you—? For the future, I mean. What kinds of things did you want to make sure I tell you about.”

Martin sighed, in that way he did when he thought Jon was going about something all wrong. But after a pause to think, he did ask, “About this, or in general?”

“Either—both—first one, then the other.”

“Okay. I guess… I want to know when you’re hurt, mostly. Like—I can’t believe I even have to say this—that’s kind of important, actually? How am I supposed to know how to behave around you if I never know whether you're secretly in pain or not?”

This seemed weird—both now and at the time. Jon figured he must be missing something. If Martin thought he only needed the cane because of Prentiss then, sure, that might have affected how he imagined Jon’s discomfort to himself, but? Wasn’t the cane itself an admission of pain? Why did Martin think he owed him more than that—that he had owed him more than that at the time, no less? Did he not realize how fucking private that was? What a surrender of privacy the cane represented?

But, no, he reminded himself now; nondisabled people don’t realize that, unless you tell them about it. Repeatedly. Over and over. It only seems obvious to you because you lived it already.

“Er.” At the time he’d just shown Martin his teeth, with the points of his left-side canines joined. Nominally a smile, but more like a show of hiding the grimace beneath than an actual attempt to hide it. “That’s harder than you might think? Technically I’m always….”

“Oh.”

“Sorr—”

“—What do you mean, ‘technically’?”

“I’m—not always aware of it?” He disliked that phrase, in pain—how it implied a discrete and exclusive state. One could not be in Paris and at the same time in London; similarly, most people seemed to assume one could not be in pain and also in a good mood. In raptures. In a transport of laughter. That when one admits to being in pain, one implies that’s the most important thing they’re conscious of.

“Well that doesn’t make sense.”

“Yes, I know—‘if a tree falls down in a forest’—blah blah blah.” With a gentle smile to acknowledge he’d picked up this mode of speech from Martin. He turned his wrist in circles so it clicked like an old film reel. “Philosophically speaking, if you’re not aware of pain, you can’t be in it. Maybe ‘technically’ isn’t the right word.”

“Oh yeah ‘cause that’s the angle I want to know about this from.”

Jon sighed. “I know. I’m sorry. I just mean, it doesn’t always matter to me.”

“Well it matters to me,” Martin scoffed.

“Yeah—I’m getting that. Is there any way I can explain this that you won’t jump down my throat for?”

Martin sighed, groaned, pulled at his hair a little but made himself stop. (He doesn’t pull it out, Jon knows—he just likes having something to grab onto during awkward conversations. Usually emerges from them looking like a cartoon scientist.) “Okay, yeah,” said Martin. “I get it. I’m sorry too.”

“I mean—when you get a paper cut, that hurts, technically, right?”

“Well yeah, a little, but that’s not the kind of—”

“But just because you notice that hurt doesn’t mean?” He paused to rearrange his words. “You’re not going to remember it later unless someone asks why you’ve got blood on your sleeve.”

“Y—eah. Sure.”

“Is that…?”

“When you’re suffering, then. I want you to tell me that. And—whenever something weird happens? Like, before it stops being weird and you talk to me like I’m stupid for not already knowing about it.”

“What if”—this far into his question, Jon worried it might come off as a smart-alecky, devil’s-advocate thing. So he paused, pretending he needed time to formulate its words. “What if I haven’t decided yet whether it’s weird or not.”

“That in itself is pretty weird, Jon.”

“Fair enough.”

“I want to be part of that conversation. I want you to trust me enough to bounce ideas off me! It’s not like—? I mean why wouldn’t you do that?”

Jon had shrugged and grimaced, hands in his trouser pockets. “Not to worry you?” he’d suggested. But as he bit his lip and shimmied down from the bed Jon knew now that that was the sanitized version—and probably, if you’d asked him a day before or afterward, his past self would have known that too. Most things you told Martin, he’d either ignore them completely or latch onto them, refuse to let them go, and interpret everything else you said in the light they cast. Jon had learnt not to raise any given topic with him until he was sure he wanted to risk its becoming a long, painful discussion. This was part of why he hadn’t kept his promise, he told himself as he turned their interim bedroom’s doorknob. Why he’d said so little about anything weird that had happened to him at Upton House.

“Martin?”

“Oh hey, Jon—you’re awake.” Martin glanced in his vague direction but stayed bent over his work, so Jon could not meet his eyes.

“You found the screwdriver.”

“Yeah! And a screw that matches better, see?” He fished the first one they'd found out of his pocket and held it up next to the door for comparison. Jon supposed they looked a little different—bright yellowy gold vs. a darker gold. “They were in the library, of all places. There’s a little box full of ‘em that he keeps right next to his reading glasses, apparently. Guess he must break them a lot. How are yours, by the way? Any bits feel loose?”

Dutifully, trying to keep his dazed smile to himself, Jon pulled off his glasses. Folded and unfolded each arm, jiggled the little nose pieces. He shook his head. “Don’t think so. You can have a look yourself though, if you like.”

“Remind me later. Should’ve brought the whole box, probably,” Martin said, voice strained as he twisted the screw that last little bit. “There!” His open mouth broadened into a smile. “Time to see if it worked. You wanna do the honors?”

Jon shook his head, breathed a laugh through his nose. “You should do it. You’re the reason it’s fixed.”

“I mean, yeah,” shrugged Martin as his hand closed round the doorknob, “but I’m also the reason it broke.” It opened with a click. “Ha-ha! Success! Statements—our own clothes—our own bed! Er. Ish.”

Something tugged in Jon’s chest; he’d forgot the statements were why Martin thought this quest so urgent. He lingered at the side of the bed while Martin rummaged in his backpack, remembering for once to toe his first shoe off while standing.

“Man. Looks sorta underwhelming now, after the other room, huh?”

“Least our wallpaper’s better.”

“Tsshhyeah, and our view.”

Jon didn’t turn around, but surmised Martin must be looking out at that tree he liked. “Is it four already?”

“Uhh—nearly, yeah. You were out for a while; took me ages to find that damn thing. Here you go,” announced Martin as he slapped a zip-loc bag full of statement down on the bed.

(“So they won’t get water damage,” he had answered a few days ago, when Jon asked him why he’d individually wrapped each statement like snacks in a bagged lunch. “What? It’s not like we have to worry about landfills anymore. If I put them all in the same bag, you’d take one out and not be able to get it back in.”)

“What happened to my jacket, by the way? And yours?”

“Uhhh.”

“Right, okay,” Martin laughed; “I’ll go get them before I forget. I’ll put this away too, I guess” (meaning the screwdriver still in his hand). “Don’t wait for me, yeah? I don’t mind missing the trailers.”

Jon smiled. “Sure.”

As Martin hurried off, Jon sat down to untie and pull off his other shoe, threaded the lace back through the final eyelet from which it’d come loose, picked up the first shoe and untied that one, then stood up and set them by the door next to his cane. Both hips and all ten fingers behaved themselves throughout. As he walked by the vanity he grabbed the coins he’d removed to do laundry the other day and stuck them back in his trouser pocket. Useless, of course, but he’d missed having something to fidget with. He squatted down and peered under the vanity for the hair tie he’d dropped, for the fifth or sixth time since he’d misplaced it. Didn’t find it. That was fine; he had another one around his wrist. His knees felt weak, so instead of standing back up he crab-walked to the foot of the bed and sat down with his back against it. Straightened his legs out before him on the floor. Then he dug the coins from his pocket and counted them. Yup—still 74p.

Danika! Not Daniela—Danika Gelsthorpe. God, he would never forget one of their names out there. Never underestimate how much I care for the

“I'm back. What’s down there? Did you find the screw?” asked Martin as he hung their jackets up behind the door.

Jon shook his head. “Forgot about it. I was looking for that hair tie.”

“Well you’re on your own there; I’m done finding things today. The screw can wait,” Martin laughed—“he’s got a whole bag inside that box in the library. Do you need a hand getting up?”

He let Martin help him. Both knees cracked; the world’s edges went dark for a second. “Thank you,” he said, and it came out more peremptory than he’d meant it.

“Statement time?”

“Right. You don’t mind? I can wait ’til we’ve both had a rest, if you don’t want to be in the room while I.”

“No, I’m alright; I’ll stay here.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you hated statements.”

Martin shrugged. “Not these ones so much, now that. Heh—they’re almost nostalgic, if I’m honest. ‘Can it be real? I think I’ve seen a monster!’”

“They are a bit,” agreed Jon, looking down at the plastic-sleeved statement and making himself smile.

“Go on. Seeing you feel better will make me feel better too.”

That made it a bit easier to motivate himself, Jon supposed. From the moment he’d lain down on the bed he’d felt like he was floating on gentle waves—like if he let himself listen to them he could fall asleep in seconds. But that wouldn’t make Martin feel better. And no guarantee it would him, either, once he woke up again. He rearranged the pillows behind himself so he’d have to sit up a little; this might help keep him awake, and it meant he could rest his elbows on the bed while he held up the statement, rather than having to lift them up before his eyes. It made his neck sore, a bit, this angle, but that was fine. That might help keep him awake, too.

He sighed, readying himself for speech. Then heard a click, and felt a familiar buzz and weight against his stomach. The tape recorder had manifested inside his hoodie’s kangaroo pocket.

“Statement of Miranda Lautz, regarding, er… a botched home-repair job. Heh. Seems appropriate. Original statement given March twenty-sixth, 2004. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.”

[Image ID: A digital painting of Jon and Martin on an old-fashioned canopy bed with white sheets and orange drapes. Jon sits on the near side of the bed, reading a paper statement. He frowns slightly, looking down at the statement in his hands; he wears round glasses perched low on his nose. He’s a thin man, with medium brown skin dotted by scars left from the worms, and another scar on his neck from Daisy's knife. His hair is long and curly, gray and white hairs among the black. Jon sits supported by pillows—several big, white, lace-trimmed ones behind his back, and one under his knees. His right leg is slightly crossed over his left ankle, on which a clean white bandage peeks out beneath his cuffed, dark green trousers. He wears an oversized red hoodie and red-toed brown socks. Sat on the far side of the bed, next to Jon but facing away from both him and the viewer, is Martin—a tall and fat white man with short, curly, reddish brown hair and a short beard. He has glasses and is wearing a dark blue jumper and gray-brown trousers. Past the bed on Martin’s side, the bedroom door hangs ajar; in this light, it and the wall glow bluish green. On the near side, though, the light grows warmer, the orange canopy behind Jon casting pink and brown tints onto the white pillows and sheets. End ID.]

It seemed to be a Corruption statement, or maybe the Spiral. Possibly the Buried? A leak in Ms. Lautz’s roof caused a pill-shaped bulge to appear in her kitchen ceiling, about the size of a bread loaf. Water burst from it like pus from an abscess (as she described it. Nothing else Fleshy though, so far). Ms. Lautz repaired the hole in her ceiling, but every morning a new one reappeared somewhere else. Sometimes they appeared bulging and pill-shaped like the first one; other times she found them already burst, covering the room in water shot through with dark specks like coffee grounds.

Jon wished he’d refilled his empty water glass before starting to record. His mouth was so dry that every time he pronounced an L his tongue stuck to its roof. At this point he’d welcome a hole to burst in it and flood his mouth with water. Then again, he did still have to pee.

Eventually she and her spouse hired someone to find out what was wrong with the roof. She described hearing boots tramping around up there for half a day while they checked out all the spots where she and Alex had reported leaks. The inside of Jon’s trouser leg pulled at the bandage on his shin, making it itch. The repair men told Ms. Lautz it’d be safer and barely any more expensive to replace the whole thing. The ring and little fingers of Jon’s left hand were starting to go numb from having that elbow too long pressed against the bed. Miranda and Alex thanked the roof people and sent them off, saying they’d think it over.

He began to regret crossing his legs this way. He’d balanced his right heel in the hollow between his left foot’s ankle and instep, and in the time since he’d arranged them that way gravity had slowly pushed his foot more and more to the side, widening that gap. By this time he was sure it was hyperextended—possibly subluxed? It hurt already, and, he knew, would hurt more when he tried to move it. This rather ruined his fantasy of heading straight for the toilet when he finished reading.

Martin was right; these old statements seemed positively tame, now. He knew he owed it to Ms. Lautz to engage with her fate, but?

No. No buts. Whatever hell she lived in now, it looked just like the one she was about to describe for him, only worse. You can’t even pretend you’re sorry she’s living out her worst fear if you stop in the middle of reading that fear’s origin story. Never underestimate how much I

Once the repair men had left, Miranda Lautz wandered into her kitchen for lunch. She found her ceiling bulging halfway to the floor, with the impression of a face and two twisted arms at its center. Like someone had fallen through her roof, head first. Jon’s stiff neck twinged in sympathy. Miranda screamed and strode to the other side of the house in search of beer, figuring she'd find better answers at the bottom of a bottle than in her own head. When she got back to the kitchen with them, the beer bottles didn’t know what to do either, but said—

“God damn it. Not ‘ales’—‘Alex’. Obviously.”

He let the statement’s pages flop over the back of his hand, let his head tip backward until the top of it bumped against headboard and his eyes faced the ceiling. That settled it, then, didn’t it. If he had the Ceaseless Watcher looking through his eyes, he wouldn’t make a mistake like that—and he certainly couldn’t change position while recording. On top of his more substantial regrets, Jon had spent their whole odyssey before they came to Upton House ruing that he’d sat at the dining-room table to read Magnus’s statement, rather than on the couch or the bed. The chairs at that table had plain, flat wood seats—no cushion, no contouring for the shape of an arse. When he opened the door to the changed world, the cataclysm had preserved his bodily sensations at that moment like a mosquito in amber. He’d had a sore tailbone and pins and needles down his legs for untold eons. Right up until he and Martin crossed from the Necropolis onto the grounds protected by Salesa’s camera, where his tailbone faded out of awareness and his head filled up with cotton.

“Ohhh. ‘Alex’. Okay, that makes a lot more sense,” laughed Martin meanwhile. Jon could feel Martin’s shoulder bouncing against his. “She must’ve written it in cursive, huh.”

“I can’t do this right now, Martin.”

“Oh—okay, yeah. You rest; I’ll finish it for you.”

Jon closed his eyes and let air gush out from his nostrils. But you hate the statements, he knew he should say. Wouldn’t this make it easier, though? To let Martin have out this last bit of denial first?

The tape recorder in his pocket still hissed, still warmed and weighted down his stomach like a meal.

“Thank you,” he said.

The operator on the phone said she and Alex should wait for the ambulance to arrive, rather than try to free the man in the ceiling by themselves. Jon turned his neck back and forth, hoping Martin couldn’t hear its joints’ snap/crackle/pop. He picked his elbow up off the bed and shook out his hand. But when the paramedics cut the ceiling open, only a torrent of water gushed into their kitchen—water flecked with a great deal of what looked like coffee grounds. A day or two later the roof people called, to ask if they’d decided whether to have the roof repaired or replaced. They assured her none of their employees had gone missing. At the time of writing, Miranda and Alex still hadn’t decided what to do about the roof. A week ago, they’d found a squirrel-shaped bulge in their bedroom ceiling; they’d packed their bags and come to stay with Alex’s sister in London.

“Right! That wasn’t so bad.” Martin set the statement down and stretched his arms over his head. “Huh.”

“Hm?”

“Oh, I don’t know, just—it’s been a while. Thought it might feel, I don’t know, worse than that? Or better, I guess, since the Eye’s so ‘fond’ of me now.”

“I don’t think they work here.”

“What?”

“The statements. The Eye can’t see their fear.”

“Oh.” Jon could feel Martin deflating. He let himself avalanche over to fill the space. “You don’t feel better, do you.”

“No.”

“Maybe it’s just—slower here, like it’s taking a while to load or something. Remember how long the tape recorder took to come on last time? It was like—you were like— ‘“Statement of Blankety Blank, regarding an encounter with”—Oh, right,’ click.”

That was true. The tapes had known Salesa would give a statement before it happened, but with these paper ones they’d seemed slow on the uptake. Martin had also sworn the recorder that manifested to tape Mr. Andrade’s statement was a different machine than the one Salesa’d spotted that first morning. Jon wondered which machine the one in his pocket was.

Not relevant, he decided. He shook his head in his palm, stroking the lids of his closed eyes. “No—if they worked here I wouldn’t be able to stop in the middle of one.” As soon as he said it he winced, bracing himself for argument.

After the change he remembered wailing to Martin about how he couldn’t stop reading Magnus’s statement—how its words had possessed his whole body, forced him to do the worst thing any person ever had, and forced him to like it, to feel Magnus’s triumph as they both opened the door. Martin had pressed Jon’s face into his clavicle, rubbed his nose in the scent of Daisy’s laundry soap, covered the back of Jon’s head with his hands. Tried to interpose what he must then have still called the real world between Jon and what he could see outside. He’d said over and over, I know, and We‘ll be okay. Jon had known that meant he wasn’t listening, and yet still hadn’t been prepared for the argument they had later, when he mentioned in sobriety the same things he’d wailed back then.

“Hang on”—Martin had pleaded—“no, that can’t be true. I’ve been interrupted in the middle of a statement loads of times—and I know you have too.”

“By outside forces, yes, but you can’t decide to stop reading one. Believe me, Martin, I wouldn’t have—”

“Tim did.”

“No, he didn’t—”

“Yes he did! He was gonna do one and then Melanie—”

“No, Martin, I’ve heard the tape you’re talking about. Tim introduced the statement but didn’t actually start—”

“He did so! He read the first bit, and then stopped. ‘My parents never let me have a night light. I was—’”

“‘Always afraid, but they were just’....” Behind his own eyes he’d felt the Eye shudder and throb with gratitude. Just that sort of stubborn, it had seemed to sing, in a bizarre combination of his own voice with Jonah’s with Melanie’s, which doubled down when I screamed or cried about something, instead of actually listening.

“Yeah,” said Martin, forehead wrinkling. “And then he said, ‘This is stupid,’ and stopped.”

“You’re right.”

Jon still had no satisfying answer to that one, and cursed himself for having opened that can of worms back up again. It had been Tim’s first-ever statement, he reminded himself, and maybe Tim had never intended to get even that far. Maybe he’d been waiting for someone to interrupt him, as Melanie eventually did. Even out there, the Eye couldn’t really show him things like that. He could find out what Tim had said—could look it up, as it were—and what he’d thought, but motivation was a bit too murky, multilayered, complicated. It wasn’t real telepathy? The vicarious emotions the Eye gave him access to worked in broad strokes, generalities—just like common or garden empathy. Sure, he could imagine other people’s points of view more vividly, now that he could see through their eyes. But he still had to imagine them to life, based on the clues around him and what emotions those clues stirred in him. It didn’t work well for situations like this; he could hear Melanie’s footsteps and feel Tim’s reluctance to read a statement, but that was it. Enough to concoct plausible explanations; not enough to pick out the truth from a list of them. Plausibilities were too much like hypotheticals.

In the timelessness since that argument with Martin, though, Jon had also wondered whether it mattered if Tim had read the statement before recording it. He didn’t have footage, as it were, of Tim doing so; either the Eye had more copies of the statement’s events than it needed already and so had deleted that one from storage, or, conversely, perhaps it could no longer see versions of it that relied too heavily on the pages Mr. Hatendi had written it on, since Martin had burned those. But Tim’s summary, before he started reading. Blanket, monster, dead friend. It was bad, sure (like the assistants’ summaries always were, a ghost of past Jon interposed). But it sounded like the summary of a man who’d read it with his mind on other things. Inevitable and gruesome end. How he tried to hide; he couldn’t. Not at all like that of someone skimming it for the first time as he spoke. He did rifle through the papers though? So Jon couldn’t be sure. The suspicion ate at his mind, especially here. Could he have kept the world from ending just by—reading Magnus’s statement, before he went to record it? The way he used to way back at the start, before he trusted himself to speak the words perfectly on the first try? You didn’t mean to record it, did you? No, I’m sure you told Melanie and Basira you were just going to

“Guess that makes sense,” Martin said now. “So, you’re still feeling…?”

“Not great?”

“Yeah.”

“I… I feel human, here.”

“Oh wow. That’s—”

Jon told himself to put the hope in Martin’s voice to bed as soon as possible. “I know I’m not—not fully.” He allowed a smile to twitch the corners of his lips, flared his nostrils around an exhale that almost passed as a laugh. “Most humans don’t spontaneously summon tape recorders. Or sleep with their eyes open.”

“Yeah, but still, you don’t think maybe—?”

Again Jon hastened to cut Martin off. “A-and even if I was, it’s. I know that should be a good thing? But—”

At this point Martin interposed, “Should be, yeah! You don’t think it might mean you could—I don’t know, go back to normal? If we stayed here for a while?”

“Maybe? I-I might stop craving the Eye so much, but we’d still have to go back out there eventually, to face Elias, and. To be honest with you, Martin?” He huffed a laugh out, bitterly. “My ‘normal’ wasn’t exactly...”

“Right.” Martin sighed. “So you mean you feel like you used to, as a human. Which was…”

“Not great.”

“Right.”

“I haven’t been very well, here.” Jon shrugged for the excuse to duck his head. He could feel himself blushing, the heat spilling from his face all down both arms. Good thing the tape recorder in his pocket had gone cold.

Next to him, Martin puffed air out of his cheeks. “Yeah, I know.”

“I’m dizzy and confused without the Eye, and it—it can’t fix me here? When I.” He drew in breath, lifted his heel off his ankle and set that leg to the side, letting its foot roll into Martin’s shin. Bit his lip and scrunched his nose in preparation. Flexed the other foot’s toes, trying to isolate the lever in his ankle that would—there. Clunk. Then a noisy exhale: “Jyyrrggh. When that happens,” he choked out, voice strained by both pain and nerves. “It’s like before I became an avatar. I have to fix it myself, and it doesn’t just.” Magically stop hurting, he hoped went without saying; already he could hear Martin sucking air through his teeth. It made Jon’s cheeks itch. “Shouldn’t have let myself get used to a higher standard, I suppose.”

“What? No—of course you should have. Did you think I was gonna say that?”

“No, of course not; I just meant—”

“You deserve to feel healthy, Jon.”

“Do I? Health is clumsy, it’s callous, it, it lets terrible things happen because they don’t feel real—it can’t imagine them properly, can’t understand what they mean….”

“Okay, first of all, ouch.” Jon snarled a laugh at that, without knowing whether Martin meant it as a joke. “Second of all, that is not why you—why the world ended, okay? Especially, ‘cause, you weren’t ‘healthy’ then. You read Elias’s bloody statement because you were starving, remember?”

“Hmrph,” pronounced Jon, to concede he was listening without either confirming or denying the point.

“And thirdly, you’re not ‘callous’ out there? You don’t”—a scoff interrupted his words. “You don’t ‘let things happen because they don’t feel real’—that’s sure not how I remember it. Okay? I remember you crying for—god, I don’t know, days, maybe? Weeks?—about how you could feel everything, and couldn’t stop any of it. That’s the thing we’re hiding from here, Jon, so if you don’t actually feel any healthier here then what even is the point?”

In a voice embarrassment made small Jon managed, “I mean? I’m still kind of having fun.”

“Really? You don’t seem like it—”

“Not today, maybe—”

“Right, yeah, no; spending all day trying to fix a doorknob isn’t exactly—”

“But I don’t want to leave yet. I should still have a few good days left before the distance from the Eye gets too….”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.” For a few seconds he tried to think of something better to say, then gave up and told the truth, though in a jocular voice to hide his self-consciousness. “Always was the person who got ill on holiday.”

“Oh, god, of course you were—”

Voice growing higher in pitch, Jon pleaded, “It didn’t usually stop me from enjoying it?”

“What about America?” laughed Martin. “Did you still enjoy that one?”

“Of course not—I got kidnapped.”

“I mean, yeah, but you were pretty used to that too by then, right?”

“God.” Jon sniffed, crunchily, reeling back in the snot he’d laughed out. “Besides. That was a business engagement.”

Martin acknowledged this comment with a quick Psh, as he turned himself around on the bed to face Jon a little more. “Can I trust you to”—he stopped.

“Yes.”

“No, let me—that wasn’t fair; I can’t ask you that yet.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, Martin; I didn’t—”

“Of me, I meant, it wasn’t fair.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I’ve been ignoring your distress all week because I wanted it not to matter.”

“I don’t know if I’d call it ‘distress,’” pointed out Jon. “Plus, I have been sort of, er. Secretive, about it.”

The exasperation in Martin’s sigh was probably meant for him, not for Jon, the latter reminded himself. “Yeah, but you’re not subtle. I can tell when you’re hiding something. It wasn’t exactly a big leap to figure out what. But I told myself it was temporary, and that you were acting like.”

Jon laughed preemptively. “Yes?”

“Like a little kid in line for a theme-park ride.” Again Jon laughed—less at the comparison itself than at how much Martin winced to hear himself say it. “I’m sorry. I should’ve taken you more seriously.”

“And I should have told you what was going on with me.”

“Yup,” concurred Martin at once.

“I know you hate it when I keep things from you.”

“I do—I hate it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry too.” Martin waved this away like a fly. “I just—you said you think we’ve got a few more days, before it gets too much or whatever.”

“Yes.”

“Can I trust you to tell me when we need to leave?”

Jon tried not to answer too quickly, knowing vaguely that that might sound insincere. “Yes,” he said again, after pausing for a second. “You can trust me.”

“Okay? Don’t try to spare my feelings, or anything like that. Like—don’t just go, ‘Oh, well, he’s having a good time. That’s fine; I don’t have to.’ Yeah? ‘Cause I won’t have a good time if I’m worried you’re secretly suffering.”

This Jon did know; it sent a thrill of recognition down his spine, as he remembered their first day’s ping-pong adventure. “Right. I’ll do my suffering as publicly as possible.”

“Uh huh.” Martin’s arm tightened around Jon’s shoulder. “Just don’t worry about disappointing me? I mean, sure, I like it here, with the whole ‘not being an evil wasteland’ thing, but I’d much rather be out there with you happy than with you than spend one more minute in paradise with her.”

With a smile, Jon replied, “That might just be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Yeah, yeah. Come on. We’ve got a job to do.”

“I suppose we do.”

As they walked on out of the range of Salesa’s camera, Jon glanced backward one more time and thought, Yes, that makes sense—but couldn’t quite recall what he had expected to see. It was like when you look at a clock, and tick Check the time off your mental to-do list, then realize you never internalized what time it was. “Pity,” he mused.

“What?”

“It’s, er, going away. That peace, the safety, the memory of ignorance.”

“That’s… Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Do you remember any of it? W-What Salesa said? Annabelle?”

“Some, I think. It’s, uh… do you mind filling me in?”

“Wait, you need me to tell you something for once?”

“I guess so. It’s, er… it’s gone. Like a dream. What was it like?”

After a pause Martin said, “Nice. It was… it was really nice.”

“Even though Annabelle was there?”

“I mean, yeah, but she didn’t do anything,” shrugged Martin. “Except cook for us. That was weird.”

“She cooked?” Jon watched Martin nod and smile around a wince. “And we let her do that? I let her do that?”

With a scoff Martin answered, “Under duress, yeah.”

“Huh.” Jon twirled his cane in circles, wondering why he’d thought he would need it. “Well, she didn’t poison us, apparently.”

“Nope. And believe me, we had that conversation plenty of times already. Er—maybe just let me put that away for you before you take somebody’s eye out, yeah?”

Jon nodded, folded his cane and handed it to Martin, then made himself laugh. “Was I… a bit neurotic about it.”

“About Annabelle?” Again Jon nodded. “Oh, we both were. We kept switching sides—one day I’d be like, ‘But she’s got four arms, Jon!’ and the next you’d be like—”

“She had four arms?”

“Yup. And six eyes. But your powers didn’t work there, so we thought maybe hers didn’t either? Never did find out for sure. God—you remember the day we got locked out of our room?”

“Er….”

“So that’s a no, then.”

“Sorry.”

Martin’s lips billowed in a sigh. “No, don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.”

“So… what happened? Who locked us out? Was it Annabelle?”

“No, no, no one locked us out. It was just me, I uh—I sorta broke the doorknob? God, it was awful. Went to open it and the whole thing just came off in my hand, like” (he made the motion of turning a doorknob in empty air, and imitated the sound Jon figured it must have made coming off) “krrruk-krr.” Jon fondly laughed; he could imagine Martin’s horror at breaking something in a historic mansion. “It was just one screw that came loose, though, so you’d think, easy fix, right? Except the bloody screwdriver took forever to find. Turns out Salesa kept them in the library, of all places.”

“S-sorry—what does this have to do with Annabelle?”

“Oh—nothing ultimately, just.” Martin grimaced at his own recollection. “God, we had this whole argument over whether to ask her about it, and when I finally did can you guess what she told us?”

“What?” managed Jon; his throat felt small and weak all of a sudden.

Martin put a finger to his chin, and blinked his eyes out of sync. “‘Perhaps he keeps them next to something that breaks a lot,’” he recited, with an inane, self-congratulating smile. For a fraction of a second Jon could recognize it as Annabelle’s I’ve-just-told-a-riddle expression. But the memory faded and he could picture her face only as he’d seen it in pictures before the change.

“O…kay. And was that… true?”

“I mean, yeah, technically. Useless, though. And after we spent so long agonizing over whether it was safe to ask her….”

Jon allowed himself a cynical laugh. “Are you sure she didn’t orchestrate the whole thing?”

“Ugh—no, it wasn’t her. We had this conversation at the time. You made me check for cobwebs and everything.”

“And you… didn’t find any?”

“Of course not, Jon; it was a doorway.”

“Right. Doorway, yes.”

“Are you sure you’re feeling better? You still seem a bit….”

“No, I’m—I feel fine, I just can’t seem to. Retain anything concrete about… where did you say it was? Upton House? God that’s strange, that it would just be….”

Part of Jon felt tempted to deplore it as a waste of space, on the apocalypse’s part. These stretches of empty land were one thing, but a mansion? Couldn’t they at least get a Spiral domain out of it?

“I mean, not really. He told us all about it, remember? With the magic camera?”

“Right, yes,” Jon agreed.

“Well, we got it all on tape, if you want to listen to it later.”

“Yes, that sounds—all of it?”

“Well not the whole week or anything. It just came on whenever it thought it was important, I guess.”

“So not the part about the doorway.”

“Nope.”

“Pity.”

[yeahimaloser]

Cutie

Hawks X shy!reader

Hi there! So i posted the first part of my story and thank you to everyone who liked it! I may do a Dabi x reader one-shot a little later, but for now, birb man. 

This is a one shot with a shy reader and a little bit of a jealous Hawks. Basically, Hawks has a huge crush on you and you also like him. But you're too shy, but one day you go to the bar with hawks and he confesses to you.

No pronouns mentioned!!

Btw don’t worry I plan to make y/n a total badass in a different one shot ;)

Warnings: none just fluff

Word count: 1587

Edit: here’s part 2!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

God, you were so cute. 

Hawks was in his office, gazing at you as you talked to a coworker. He saw the way you timidly smiled, he saw the embarrassed look you gave him when you realized he was staring at you. He quickly looked away, not wanting to make you uncomfortable. 

Shit, he was in deep. But how could he resist you, you were just so adorable! The way you would timidly smile at him, the way you would get flustered so easily, the way you would trip over visibly nothing. He just thought you were so cute. 

He heard a quiet knock at his door, he peered over and saw you standing there, looking a bit embarrassed. 

“I’m so sorry Hawks sir, but it looks like I messed up some paperwork. I completely understand if you're mad or want me to work over time. I'm so sor-” but Hawks cut you off with a hearty laugh.

“Oh yeah I was notified about that, dont worry its all taken care of,” he said in his calm and composed tone. But he didn't miss the look of shock and embarrassment you gave back at him, only to then drop your gaze to your feet.

“Hey seriously, don't worry about it ok? We all make mistakes but you came in here to correct them quickly, right?” He said and gave an empathetic smile. you gave a nod, still looking down at your feet. 

He couldn't help but smile a little at how cute you were. Then he had an idea.

“How about this, a few of the other office workers and sidekicks are all gonna go out tonight for some drinks, you should come as you're supposed ‘over time’, ok,” he asked. Hawks was very good at hiding his emotions, if he wasn't you would probably catch on to how nervous he really was. He just didn't want you to turn him down.

Your head snapped up, looking obviously very flustered you said, “Me sir? Are you sure, I mean, I want to but-”

“Then you should come!” he said, maybe a little too excitedly, “come on, I’m being, like, 99% serious here!”

You giggled a little, “99? Not 100?”

“Well, you always have to be kidding by at least 1% of the time,” he said, putting on a reassuring smile, “come on I promise I'll make it fun ok? After all, my dream isn’t just to make hero’s have a little bit more free time, but for civilians as well!”

You nodded, a little bit more confident than before, “ok sir.”

Hawks couldn't help but smirk, “you can drop the formalities kiddo, just Hawks.”

You nodded, “Hawks, got it. Thank you so much Hawks!”

Hawks couldn't help but give you a loving smile as you left his office.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You smiled wide after leaving Hawkses office. My crush just asked me to come out for drinks!

Maybe you were looking too much into the situation, but still, you couldn't help it! Ever since you came to work at Hawkes agency, you couldn't help but really like him. He’s always so nice and goofy and so passionate about his job!

You let out a loving sigh, which one of your coworkers picked up on. 

she looked at you and said, “Well, well, well, what do we have here? What did the boss want to talk about, hmm?”

You looked back up, smiling a little too brightly, “he invited me out for drinks with the rest of you guys, he's always so nice.”

She nodded, but gave you a knowing look, “yeah he is, but be honest,” she smiled a little deviously, “you like him don't you.”

The flustered look on your face was all she needed. But she was right, you definitely had a massive crush on Hawks. He was always so kind to you and never failed to make you laugh. And yet, you knew it was futile. You were a shy, clumsy nobody, and he could have anyone he wanted. 

But nonetheless, you sighed and let yourself feel a twinge of giddiness at the prospect of going out for drinks with Hawks.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Going out was a mistake.

You liked your coworkers well enough, but right now? Not so much. They were all just so loud. You didn't really feel like drinking that night, just hanging out with the people you work with.

But by far the most memorable moment of the night was when some random guy came up to you to try and ask you out. He was obviously drunk, but still he should have seen how uncomfortable you were.

“Heyyyyy there cutie,” his words seem to slur together, you tried to back away from the guy but that just made him advance more towards you.

“What’s wrong sweetie? Come on lemme buy you something.” He said, cheeks rosy.

“N-no thank you sir, I’m good.” You say, obviously scared.

But he just wined, “come onnnnn have some fun.”

“No, really I don’t want to.”

He chuckled, taking a step closer to you. But he was cut off by a male figure.

Hawks smiled up at the guy, yet it wasn’t the same smile he would give to you. You noticed how he was in his normal clothes and not his hero outfit. You blushed a bit by how he protected you behind him.

“Alright pal, I think that’s enough. Find whoever you came with and go home, you’re way too drunk,” the guy huffed, but he seemed to know who he was talking to.

“Tch, whatever,” the guy said, clearly irritated. Nevertheless, he walked away from you and Hawks.

Hawks turned around to face you, “I’m so sorry about that, are you all right? He didn’t do anything, right? If he did I can always help you press charges-” this time you cut him off.

You giggled a little, “no really I’m ok. He just was really weird, that’s all.”

Hawk gave a comforting smile, “I’m glad. Hey,” he said looking around. “Do you wanna get out of here? I can take you back to your place.”

You looked down, a little flustered, “well I mean-”

Hawks just chuckled, “don’t worry, I’ll just walk you home. I promise, hero’s honor.”

You giggled, “sure why not. I trust you.”

——————————————————————————————————————

While Hawks walked you home he was a perfect gentleman.

He asked you how you liked your job and he asked what you did before you worked at his agency. 

You would also ask him questions, like what it was like being a hero, did he enjoy it, and who his favorite hero was.

“Hmmm,” he said, “it’s gotta be Endeavor. He's been my favorite since I was a kid!” He explained excitedly.

You giggled at how cute he was, and he smiled back at you.

You seemed to reach your house in no time. You didn’t really like how soon all of this had to end so quickly, it felt like you were on cloud 9. I mean, your crush was talking to you! And it was going so well.

As you approached your door, he stopped you, “hey I was wondering,” you looked at him, but he seemed to try to look anywhere but you. “Would you want to, I don’t know, go out for drinks… with just me?”

Your brain stopped working, your crush just asked you out for drinks.

He put his hand up after seeing your expression of shock, “or we could do something else! Or if your not interested that's totally fine, don’t worry about-”

But you cut him off, “no no no! Ummm…” you looked down at your feet. “M-maybe we could go out for lunch tomorrow?”

You looked back up at Hawks and saw him beam with happiness, “yeah! That sounds great!”

You smiled at him, and he smiled back. Soon, he was leaning into you.

“Is it ok if I kiss you,” he asked.

You were a little flustered but nodded non the less. 

He smiled, and leaned in.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your lips shaped his perfectly.

God, even kissing you was so cute. The way you shyly pressed your lips against his.

It only lasted for a little bit, but it had to be the best kiss of his life.

You shyly looked down at your feet again, “so umm, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

He chuckled and leaned over to kiss your check. He whispered, “anytime, cutie.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EEEEEEEEEE I LOVE THiS MANNNNN!!!!!

Ok but for real, I hoped you all like this oneshot a lot. I plan to make another Hawks oneshot, probably in the next 3 days or so. 

But don’t worry! Part 2 of Oh, To Be In Love is in the work, I just don’t want to rush it. Thank you all so much again! <3

[astriiformes]

hey i’ve been reading about filk after seeing you mention it and it sounds really interesting!! do you have any recommendations for songs or artists i could start listening to in the genre? thanks!

Do I ever! I love recommending filk music to people. I don't know what direction your particular tastes lean, either music genre or interest-wise (there's filk about just about everything) so this might be a little more of a loose primer than anything else, but hit me up if you ever want more specific recs.

The album that got me into filk is a 1983 collection of space travel songs called Minus Ten and Counting, which you can listen to in its entirety here. A few of the songs on here are really famous filk classics (as are many of the artists!) and also all absolute jams, especially if you, like me, have a lot of feelings about human space exploration.

A lot of other the recommendations I have (of the top of my head, at least) are more modern artists that I've heard at cons (pretty much all of whom I can confirm are also lovely people, as well). For a quick sampling though:

Cheshire Moon are a filk duo who write a lot of fantasy/witchy/mythological songs -- I love their sound, especially the violin on many of their tracks. Favorite of mine include Banshee and Build Your Wings

The Faithful Sidekicks are another duo, with more of a rock sound and a lot of very pop-culture-based songs (although they write about other things, too!). I really like their songs Fatty Bolger, Sancho Panza, and Spoons

Ben Newman does some extremely good filks, all very lyrically clever and all over the map in terms of subject matter. I have to include his stuff just because his songs Not All Who Wander Are Lost (In Space) (lyrics here, mp3 here) and Galadriel to Sam (again, lyrics here, mp3 here) are among my very favorite filk songs. He also gets bonus points for being the only person I've ever seen rap the plot of the Silmarillion, which really feels like the the kind of thing filk is all about.

Beth Kinderman & the Player Characters are some friends of mine who also make fantastic folk-rock style music -- their album The Hero's Journey is a great bit of trope deconstruction paired with really incredible instrumentals. On the sillier end, I love their song The Dread Gazebo very very much.

And for the lightning round: The Traveller by Julia Ecklar, Starsoul by Urban Tapestry, Somebody Will by Sassafrass, Cheshire Kitten by S.J. Tucker, Kitchen Heroes by Talis Kimberley, and Vixy & Tony's version of Dawson's Christian (a much older filk, I just love their version best)

Also, if it's not too gauche, can I link my own stuff, haha? @scribefindegil and I have a filk duo of our own called Astrisoni; we've only got a few of our songs up and recorded on Bandcamp, but we also both have filk tags on our tumblrs (mine is just "filk tag") where we've shared lyrics/recordings of some of our other songs, too. If you asked me for some favorites -- Pure of Heart, and Opportunity Lullaby off of our debut EP, and Time Waits for No Man and The Fastest Ship in the Galaxy off my blog (both rough recordings, but they're still some of my favorite songs I've written)

Hopefully that will give you a jumping-off point for some of your own exploring! Filk is a vast, fun, weird body of music that mostly lives in fan corners of the internet, old fanzines, and at conventions, which can make it tricky to unearth at times, but also really unique and charming & gives it a lovely sense of community alongside the great music. If you want to dig into it more yourself, I recommend both @filkyeahfilk (a blog run by some of my friends -- technically I'm a mod too, but I haven't actually posted there, whoops) and the podcast FilkCast (sort of like a filk radio program showcasing music from all over the community, run by Eric Coleman of the aforementioned Cheshire Moon).

[bubblemiya]

Ace of Spades ~ Natsuo Todoroki x Reader

Chapter 1 : First day disaster

Next | Masterlist

Warnings: blood mention, abduction mention

word count: 2.2k

A/N: This is my first fic on my new blog and I am so excited about it! I hope you enjoy

**************************

You knew hero work wasn't going to be easy but there was still a tiny part of you that thought you'd be snatched up by a top agency right away with your flashy suit and unique quirk. That wasn't quite the case. 

In fact the opposite happened, your strong quirk had very little drawbacks and many people saw it as dangerous, the nature of your quirk drew villain organisations to you. You defeated them, reported, even 'disposed' of some of them but there was one organisation you couldn't quite shake.

It was your loyalty to the side of heroes and your impressive skill set showcased in your fights that caught the eye of the Endeavour agency. Today was your first day at the agency, it had been a full year since your graduation from shiketsu, and it hadn't properly sank in yet until you were pulling on your hero suit in the women's changing room and a fiery haired sidekick basically pounced on you.

"Aren't you the new girl? I'm Moe Kamiji, my hero name is Burnin'" 

She was beautiful, her hair was unique and her loud personality made you envy her. Her inquisitive staring distracted you and you almost tripped pulling up your body suit. She chuckled and helped steady you before offering to help you zip up.

"I'm y/n l/n, my hero name is Phantom Light"

"from what I've seen of your quirk, you're like a ghost type pokemon! that's so cool"

If she sensed your nervousness or felt the heat rising in your face, she didn't mention it. She instead just waited for you to tug on your boots and rambled about how much she loves working at the agency. Her bright attitude was nowhere near what you expected walking into a workplace run by the most intimidating man you've ever seen. She had a natural warmth to her that seemed to calm your fears. You guessed that they sic her on all the newbies at the agency because of that. 

"well I'll show you around, newbie"

She looked confident and comfortable as she showed you around the main floors and you only hoped to feel the same way soon. You had already seen the reception and social media/pr team offices as they were on the way to the changing room but Moe had shown you the gyms with in-house saunas, break rooms, conferences rooms, and investigation rooms. The place was huge and despite being full of people, felt empty. It was terrifying, but still exactly what you expected from the new number one. Moe's phone beeped as you passed into another hallway and she pulled it from her bra to check.

"I regret not asking for pockets on this thing" she growled "shit, I'm being called to a villain attack not far from here, you're on your own for now, newbie." she turned to run down the hallway.

"Thank you Kami-"

"Call me Moe!" and before you could even respond she was gone. Your nerves suddenly came flooding back without your new friend there to ease them. With your 'almost fall' in the changing room and Moe leaving when you needed her most, it seemed lady luck was not on your side today. Right as you turned the corner you smacked right into someone exiting an office and they spilled their coffee down your shirt.

“Oh i’m so sorry!” 

“It's ok, my hero suit is quite thick so it's not that bad” you attempted to laugh it off but paused as you finally looked up. Your blood ran cold as you realised who you bumped into. The six foot five figure of your boss loomed over you. On your first day you just so happened to bump into Endeavour's son and cause a coffee spill right in front of the man himself. “I-it was my fault any-”

“You just started today and you’re already causing problems, we scouted you because of your impressive skill set but -”

“Shut up, old man” Endeavour's face immediately twitched in anger but he listened to his son, not wanting to cause a scene with him. “It was an accident and it was both of our faults” Endeavour looked embarrassed but grunted something inaudible under his breath. “I'm Natsuo, I'm sorry about your suit, take this” he held his jacket out to you.  

 “Its ok, it's just a stain”

“Please I insist”

You took it, not wanting him to be offended, and you got a chance to get a proper look at him. He awkwardly scratched his neck as you put on the jacket. There was a brief moment of awkward silence before Endeavour pushed Natsuo past you and carried on walking down the hall. You shook your head to try and rid you of your shame, you hoped you had not just ruined your big shot in the hero world. You walked back down to the offices, keeping your head down as you passed Endeavour and Natsuo to avoid the awkward eye contact. Endeavour was immensely intimidating so you wanted to avoid getting further onto his bad side as much as possible. You filled out the last of your paperwork and set out on your daily patrol.

You kept the jacket on during your patrol and kept in mind that you should take it off to fight but hoped that wouldn't be necessary. You wandered your designated streets, taking in the general hustle and bustle of the town. Bike bells and shop doors opening were sounds you considered comforting. You nodded at people as you passed them, even stopping to say hi to some kids, and stopped at a cafe for a drink. You walked with your drink, hoping for a peaceful end to your work day, until the bird chirping and happy kids turned to screams for help. Your feet, as if on autopilot, followed the sounds until you turned a corner and came face to face with a guy harassing a group of high school girls. You recognised his face from the news, he was a low level villain who had abducted some high school students over the last 3 weeks. He didn't have any strong quirk that you knew of so you went straight in with a strong punch. However, in your haste, you failed to notice the knife he had concealed until he swung it in your direction and he caught your stomach. It wasn't so deep that it needed immediate attention so you continued to fight him off. you had shouted at the girls to leave the alley but they were frozen in place. Fear sometimes acts as an invisible paralytic, 

one that we can't or struggle to fight against.

He had gotten in a couple of good swings but once you knocked the knife out of his hand he was pretty much useless. You gave him a harsh elbow to the nose that definitely broke it, a noise that you didn't wanna admit made you feel good and all but knocked him out with the hardest punch you could throw. While he was incapacitated you leaned down to slip him under your control into his body to possess him to make him easier to carry. Your quirk was called 'ghost' which not only gave you the ghostly ability to walk through walls but also to possess people and communicate with the dead. Your possession ability works like a telepathically controlled puppet instead of a typical spirit possession. Once you had his unconscious form up and ready to walk himself to the nearby police you made an attempt to calm the girls and make sure they followed you to the police so police could do safety checks and collect statements. You found it was easy to keep them distracted from their feelings by talking to them and answering questions they might have. You learned one of the girls, a short girl with black hair and black bunny ears, was named Hoshi.

"Are you a pro hero?"

"yup! I started at the Endeavour agency today!"

"Saturday is a weird day to start a new job"  

"There's no such thing as weekends when you're a hero" you chuckled at the way she rolled her eyes.

"Don't I know it. My dad is a pro too" 

"oh really?"

"yeah but he's away visiting my stepdad"

Your conversation abruptly stopped when police arrived on the scene and took both the unconscious villain and Hoshi away from your custody. The only thing left to do now was find where you had left Natsuo's jacket and head back to the agency to get stitched up. You ran back to a bench you passed to luckily find Natsuo's jacket still there. you didn't wanna get blood on it so you carried it back to the agency instead.

When you walked back in the agency building, Endeavour was standing in the office, handing paperwork to the receptionist, and he noticed you almost immediately.

"Phantom Light, what happened?"

"I got that guy who was abducting high school kids, the one that's been all over local news" Your chest felt heavy as you struggled to pant out your sentence. You were holding your free hand over the wound, putting as much pressure as possible on it to reduce bleeding.

"You're gonna need stitches, I'll take you to our in house doctor" He seemed a lot less tense than he did earlier and Natsuo was nowhere to be seen. You muttered a thank you and slowly walked behind him. He led you to a white door with a black metal name plate on it reading 'Dr.Kita'. You thanked Endeavour again and wandered into the room.

"Good work today, Phantom Light'' was the last thing he said before he shut the door behind you. He was being a lot nicer and even attempting to be encouraging which you figured was his own way of apologising for yelling at you earlier. 

The doctor was a tall guy around forty with yellow eyes and brunette hair that was already starting to grey. He welcomed you and got you to lie down on the bench so that he could stitch you back up. He was very talkative, as most doctors are as a way to distract from pain, and he asked about a couple other visible scars to focus your mind elsewhere. 

"I got the skin graft about a year ago, I got in a fight with some villain who had a fire quirk. I wasn't even at an agency yet, I was still looking to get scouted, but I walked past him harassing this man for money and I couldn't just walk past it" The doctor nodded as you told the story of the man with white hair and some nasty facial scars who burned you last year. You hissed as the final stitch went through and the doctor clasped his hands together.

"that's you all fixed up, now you just need to change and go home" he said, helping you off the bench and shaking your hand.

You walked back to the changing room and shoved your coffee and blood stained clothes in a bag and changed into your normal clothes. On your way out the building you passed Moe who all but begged for your phone number before you left.

The walk home was quiet and peaceful, The sunset was pretty and nice to watch as you made your way to the train station. The subway ride home had very few people and it was nice to have some time to yourself. You almost missed your stop though because your mind kept drifting back to white fluffy hair and pretty grey eyes. Natsuo was all you could think about. It didn't help that you had his jacket wrapped around you. The smell of an expensive cologne lingered around the collar, it was faint and softer than the cologne you expected him to wear. It was nice and comforting, a smell you could get used to.

Once you got back to your house you used your quirk to pass through the door - which is always locked because you used your quirk and had no reason to open it unless you were expecting food delivery. When you turned around to kick off your shoes you noticed the chain lock had been busted open. You quickly looked around the entrance to your house to check if anything was missing but everything was exactly as you left it in the morning. You dumped your duffle bag full of dirty clothes on the floor and went to check around the rest of the house. You upturned cushions, sifted through cupboards and looked underneath your copious number of house plants but everything seemed normal and in its right place. The only place left to check was your bedroom. Your hand shook as you grasped the door handle nervous to see if anything had been taken but when you walked in you couldn't see anything out of place until you turned your head to the dresser and there it was. Tucked into the frame of a photo of you and your brother sat a playing card, the ace of spades to be exact, with a time written on it.

"2:30 pm"

[sanchoyo]

danny phantom season 2, episode 17-20 thoughts! finishing up season two! the finale is the THIRD 2-PARTER OF SEASON 2. that's so many! I wonder how many season 3 will have?

see prev episode thoughts in this tag <3

-UERGH WHY DOES VLAD HAVE AN AI WITH MADDIE'S FACE ON IT. SOOO CREEPY. AND MORE 'CREATIONS' waiiiit. vlad is Dr. Frankenstein! (despite his ghost design obviously referencing vampires) HE HAS 'CREATIONS' HE MAKES THEN WONT TAKE REAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR!!! this bitch.

-danny was late and his friends immediately start going off about how hes inconsiderate, and has been treating them like sidekicks??? he just overslept, my god. chill. even if he has, be nicer about talking about it with him?? he really can't help that he sometimes has to chase the ghosts, or has a secret identity to protect...

-'what kind of ghost haunts a miniature golf course' umm. me as a ghost. next question

-imagine going home and theres a tiny child on your bed claiming to be your cousin. with as many cousins I have, I would probably believe her. but the 'ran away from home' BIT....SHES 12?? SHES SO TINY. I hate that they have her belly out in her ghost form, but I like how her colors are asymmetrical. something about her design...maybe the proportions?? are weird to me...anyway danny was good to feed her, but he shouldve taken her to his parents FIRST. or, tbh, probably jazz. (JAZZ DIDNT EVEN GET TO MEET HER!!! NOOO. I mean she said she'll be BACK BUT STILL)

-ANYWAY. shes voiced by AnnaSophia Robb, the girl who was in because of winn dixie, played as violet from charlie and the chocolate factory, and was the girl from bridge to terrabithia. (the movie that made me cry hysterically when I was 12 and I never watched it again because it Broke Me!) thats super cool.

-vlad sucks: the episode, basically. what's new!! I love how he's like, I'm Not A Villain. *immediately cuts to him torturing danny to make him transform, to get mid-transformation DNA, to perfect a Clone.* *immediately shows that he doesnt give a shit about his new daughter Dani and just wants a ''more perfect clone'' and will put her in danger to get that. will let her DIE to get that*

-Dani is danny's clone and is a girl? transgenderism....one of them has to be trans. or they both are.

-dani just. leaving at the end. WHAT? SHES 12. DONT JUST. NO!!! SHE WAS PROBABLY JUST BORN, A MONTH AGO AT MOST, RIGHT?? SHE NEEDS...SOMEWHERE TO LIVE. MONEY? FOOD?? A FAMILY?? AN EDUCATION???! WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE'S LEAVING!!! OKAY BYE I GUESS!!! D: concern!!!

-the next ep opens with skulker chasing a ghost down. ...does skulker count as a ghost hunter in the way valerie and danny do? I mean, sure, he hunts the good guys too, but he. he hunts ghosts...also, we haven't seen his Real Form since his debut episode! tiny...

-the guys in white are back! ngl, I assumed they were a gag for that one episode. you're telling me they might actually be a threat? ok.

-valerie in her lil nasty burger uniform looks so cute!! glad shes not in that mascot uniform this time. I guess she stopped hiding that she's working there now?

-gregor having white hair, dressed in black and white...and green eyes...sam has a Type, I guess.

-danny being unnecessarily hostile about gregor. danny!!! hes been nice so far. he looks a little...tall to be 14, but. danny doesnt know anything about him! (he does Suspect, but...you cant just spy on people and be rude to them from a hunch.) also, gregor kissed her, and when she freaked out, he was like 'oh no!! sorry, we can take it slow! I understand!' which was NICE. I hate jealousy plots still tho.

-altho. umm. tucker, being concerned about danny spying on them??? SAM AND YOU WERE SPYING ON DANNY AND VALERIE A FEW EPISODES AGO!!!!! im not saying its RIGHT, but dont be a hypocrite!!! AND THEN SAM BEING MAD ABOUT IT, TOO.

-DANNY IS A 7 ON THE SCALE OF ECTOPLASMIC POWER!!! out of 10? so I want to know where the other ghosts rank...I mean it's a list from the guys in white, so, it may not even be accurate, like, they havent seen ALL of his powers, have they?

-Lancer being like 'im not cooperating with the FEDS' until they said they could access his tax records. they already did that joke with jack, but like, its still funny. kings of tax evasion.

-tucker's aggressive third-wheeling. but gregor being super into it. gregor/tucker is the real ship here. then gregor kissing danny on both cheeks after hugging him. bi poly king gregor. (he does turn out to be a liar with a phoney accent. unsurprising, BUT THE CONCEPT OF HIM BEING GENUINE AND THEM ALL DATING IS FUN)

-THE...GUYS IN WHITE THINKING GREGOR IS DANNY PHANTOM. LMAOOO. GET HIS ASS. or,, Elliot. lmfao

-sam saying tucker is part of the package because theyre friends was super sweet <3 but also 'part of the package'...polyships are obviously the solution to these dumb jealousy/love triangle plots.

-danny crashed a whole plane. the collateral damage...

-is he....

-you know....

.... (ITS NOT GAY IF YOU'RE DOING IT TO PRETEND TO BE SOMEONE YOU'RE NOT, AND LIE TO A GIRL. RIGHT? he was getting a little too into pretending to enjoy tucker's company, and the above...c'mon, guy.)

-lmao, freakshow is in actual prison. I didn't expect a follow up, or for him to show back up! in the finale of this season, too!

-THE SICK TATTOO GHOST IS NAMED LYDIA!!! more Lore On her. freakshow seemed genuinely concerned about her. also, is she mute? I don't think she talked the first time we saw her, either. and we didn't know freakshow 'envied' ghosts, either, the first time, we just knew he was controlling them. interesting!

-...they literally stole the infinity gauntlet from marvel and called it the reality gauntlet. is that legal. what the fuck. even with the gems in the lil slots, having different powers...they had freakshow in jail, but didnt check his pockets??! hes just still in his lil outfit??? what kind of ...oh, its in amity park. yeah, all of the adults are idiots, okay, sure.

-'freakshow!' 'in the anemic flesh!' dude take some iron pills then. also, sure, the red eyes could be contacts for his aesthetic, but the whites of his eyes are yellow! does he have jaundice?! he severely needs more...like, every kind of vitamin. (this is what im worried about as freakshow attacks danny with giant robots)

-again, goth circus is a sick theme, and I love his goth train.

-oh FUCK every single person saw danny transform. on a stage. including his parents via TV. oh god. the guys in white and immediately like 'youre coming in for experiments!' SCARY. at least the crowd is willing to help him to escape...perks of now being a local celeb! even the kids at school are accepting :) this is what, the third time his family has found out? its always been an alt timeline tho. and danny fully intending to just rewrite things again instead of...I dunno, trying to roll with it this time? hes really worried his family won't accept him, huh...

-'maybe our son IS THE GHOST BOY, but its not as if our family's ghostly activities have EVER PUT YOUR FAMILIES IN DANGER' maddie. mmmmmmmmmmmm. okay.

-danny 100% prepared to run away from home because of this :( oh :( and saying his parents are 'looking for him, or a scalpel to dissect him with' ouch...

-THE GUYS IN WHITE TRYING TO ARREST A 14 YEAR OLD. fuck da feds.

-side note (another one about voice actors...) freakshow's voice actor, Jon Cryer, was lex luthor in pretty much every DC tv show, which is why I recognized his voice, because my dad loves those shows so I've seen a good bit of them without seeking them out...)

-the old man saying 'hey, i still had minutes left!' and danny saying 'you gotta watch those roaming charges!' about danny destroying the people in the diner's phones so no one could report seeing him...would kids today understand these things. can you even BUY minutes anymore...I remember my first phone being a flip phone, and the fact I always had minutes when my sister ran out super fast, because I didnt have friends calling or texting me like she did...:/

-the fentons being genuinely like 'why didnt danny trust us and tell us this, we love him :(' and JAZZ LAYING INTO THEM WITH THE 'DISSECTION/MOLECULE BY MOLECULE' LINES. LITERALLLLY. they need to apologize

-technically, lydias stronger than you! -jazz lesbianism moments! when did you even learn her name!!! but also get freakshows ass. lydia is also cooler looking. looove her design sm still.

-jazz psychoanalyzing freakshow... (also, her also having ghost envy? au where jazz is a ghost!! id like to see it)

-im glad the kids still got to go to their respective vacation things, even if they cant really stick around and enjoy them much...

-furry: confirmed. (also tucker calling her hot. tucker is a furry confirmed)

-danny being mad someone at the comic con is selling comics of him without permission, lmfao. give him his royalties!

-freakshow > thanos because hes a drama clown and does use his gauntlet to be FLASHY AND DRAMATIC.

-jazz's 'USE PYSCOLOGY' to danny about freakshow LMAOO. AND THEN IT WORKING. but, oh, freakshow's ghost form sucks. I like him as a clown better tbh. good thing danny took away his ghost powers!

-his parents hugging him and saying theyre proud :"( and saying 'of course you lied to us, we never gave you a reason not to!' and saying they were in the wrong basically for always talking about hurting ghosts aaaa :""(

-then he WIPED THEIR MEMORIES AGAIN!!! FUCK. I can understand him wiping the goverments/student bodies' memories, but why his parents?? they were being accepting!! ARGHHH. season 3 couldve been them all trying to adjust to them knowing!

-I know, on a meta level the showrunners probably wanted to just reset things to the status quo of him having a secret identity. But. We've been doing that for (2) seasons, I'd love if season 3 could be like, his parents adjusting to this and trying way harder to learn more and accept it (and the shenanigans that could come from that) and for fun, if he didn't wipe the students memories, it could be him being popular for a while, then everyone slowly realizing, oh, he's still Danny. Like. he might have ghost powers but hes Just The Same Guy instead of putting him on a pedestal (and seeing them all try and help him hide it from the giw/people who don't know!!)

-fuck they didn't even explain WHY he wiped everyone except sam, tucker and jazz's memories. he just Did It right when his parents were saying they loved/accepted him!! and sam and tucker didnt question it at all!!! HELLO??? very annoyed about this turn of events.

-anyway. onto season 3! I know its shorter than the first two seasons, and is the last season... I might just do it in 2 bursts if I can... :3c depends on the episodes' content and how much I want to say about each!

[falcor-thee-luck-dragon]

Klaus x Powered Reader

Summary: Reader is part of the umbrella academy but came when they were 12 due to parents needing help for them, ya know controlling powers and whatnot. They can shapeshift into any animal and their senses are heightened n such.

Warnings: bloody, fighting bad guys, bit of Klaus fluff

You know that moment in a movie where they freeze frame and then the character says something like “you’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation.”

Yeah with Klaus you have those moments more times then you could count. In fact, if you had a dollar for every time Klaus has gotten you into a freeze frame moment. (And you’ve thought about this often.)

You could probably afford a real nice apartment with actual food in its fridge. Instead of living at the Academy with some apples and Klaus’ latest alcoholic beverage.

But alas, here you are in a back alley as Klaus’ bodyguard waiting for some Italian mafia members to come get their money that he owes them. Well that’s what you’re assuming but Klaus insists they’re just some moody tough guys. Okay sure.

You watch Klaus as he paces back and forth in front of you counting his cash for about the 50th time in the past 10 minutes.

Klaus stops abruptly and turns to you with a smile, “You know what I love about you, Y/N, every time I think things could get worse I look at your pretty face and I know you got me.”

Sighing in knowing annoyance you look up at him, “Are you short.”

Klaus snorts, “No actually I’m pretty long.” He says with wink.

You look up to the sky trying not to crack, you couldn’t give him the satisfaction even if it was funny, not the time or place. Especially considering his dumbass is short some cash he definitely owes very soon.

You look over to Klaus again and raise an eyebrow.

“Alright how much?”

He twiddles is fingers while avoiding your curious gaze. “Oh you know...a couple hundred or so.”

“So that’s why I’m here, emotional support my ass”, You say rolling your eyes a bit amused nonetheless.

Klaus may be an idiot but he’s funny and kind and you love him. Also you do enjoy beating up gangsters or whoever these thugs of the hour are.

Folding your arms while giving Klaus a smirk you tell him, “Well your friends better get their asses here cause when they do. I’m gonna knock their teeth in for making us wait in this shit ally. I’ve been suppressing the urge to vomit for 10 minutes.”

He nods in agreement, glad you’re not about to rip him a new one for his latest antics.

“Wait, does it really smell that bad, I mean the dumpster is at the other end of the ally.” He says in confusion.

You put your hands on your hips glancing at the dumpster and then focusing on Klaus.

“I’ve got the whole animal kingdom inside me Klaus, I know you can kinda smell that dumpster from here, but listen. For me it’s 1000x worse and let me tell you it doesn’t smell like a bath and body works around here.”

Klaus laughs scratching the back of his head, “Right, right, sorry.”

Suddenly a sketchy looking black car rolls into the ally, coming to a halt as three angry looking men walk out. Clearly hiding something within their coats, the “leader” it seems steps up and speaks.

“You betta have that 1,000 you owe us right fucking now you little theif, I don’t appreciate you takin’ my mother’s gold necklace, rest her soul.” He growls.

Klaus raises his hands up, “Listen buddy, you stole that from your own mother at her funeral...and let me tell you she’s not to happy about it.” He says looking to his left where you assume this guys dead mother is standing.

The bald guy behind him shakes his head and says, “So fuckin what? We needed that shit for other important purposes raccoon eyes.”

Klaus now lost as to where this situation is about to turn looks over at you clearly needing assistance. While mouthing “help me”.

Walking past him you hold your hands up showing you have nothing to hide, “Now that’s not very nice, a real shit personality, your mother would be very disappointed in how you’ve turned out. Cause let’s be honest it’s not like your looks are doing anything for you either.” You say snickering trying to see how they’ll react.

The first guy smirks reaching into his coat to pull out a nasty looking knife. “See this right here, I’m a good old fashioned man, I don’t believe in guns.”

You raise your eyebrows at him, “Oh well in that case we should all be quite relieved then.”

Looking behind him you notice as his two friends pull their own weapons out, which consists of a hammer and some type of meat hook.

“Klaus couldn’t have picked an easier bunch of idiots to fuck up then these psychos.” You thought.

The bald one begins to move brushing past the first guy looking like he’s seeing red.

“Jesus, man I didn’t mean to offend, I’m just making friendly conversation.” You muse.

Baldy begins to charge holding up his hammer ready to strike. “Come here you bitch, that’s my husband you’re talking to.”

He swings as you side step him, tripping him as he falls directly onto the concrete. Conveniently dropping the hammer in the process. Klaus being the ever troublesomely fantastic sidekick, picks up the hammer and throws it at you.

Gripping the hammer tightly, baldy rises from the ground faster then you’d expected mouth bloody and boiling with rage.

But in a hot second his bearded buddy in crime sprints towards you with his meat hook seemingly out of nowhere.

Klaus yells for you to watch out but you didn’t even need to look, this guys heart beat is louder then a firework and you’re faster then a viper, your senses on overload. As you turn around in record time to grab the guys right arm with the meat hook.

With your left hand tight around this guys beefy one you hold on and push his assault giving him more power. Effectively fulfilling your plan and leading the hook right into baldys chest. Who was fortunately running towards you.

A split second later with the hammer in your right hand you swing it forcefully into the guys shins. Hearing a sweet sickly crunch sound and the wild howls protruding from your assailants throat.

“Sorry I didn’t know you were married.”

“Fuck you!” He screams.

You look up hearing the sting of metal being swung in the wind, to see a knife heading straight for your throat.

With lighting reflexes you grab his wrist, the knife inches from your vulnerable skin.

Klaus gasps in the background terrified and relieved at not getting your throat slit.

You turn your fingernails to sharp cat-like claws that dig dangerously into his flesh, causing hot blood to drip out. The man drops the knife and grimaces in pain.

“I don’t know about you but I don’t think my boyfriend owes you three motherfuckers shit.” You growl, eyes beginning to glow an electric blue while the whites of your eyes shift to black, something that happens when you start to use your power.

“Fuck you, and fuck that thieving piece of junky shit crying in the corner.”

Your mood darkens, “Wrong answer.”

Letting go of his bloody wrist you grip his throat with your left hand lifting him off the ground. He begins to choke and struggles against your tight grasp.

“I know you’ve heard of me from other friends of yours, so listen very closely. If you touch Klaus again or anyone else around here who’s just trying to survive in this city. I won’t be so generous next time. Or maybe I should rip your fucking face off right now.” You squeeze tighter drawing blood.

“Y/N.”  Klaus says softly.

“Let’s go home.” He asks with pleading eyes and you snap back to reality smelling the iron scent of blood on your hands.

Sometimes you can get carried away feeling the rush of the hunt, a taxing side affect of your power, one you’ve always struggled to control.

Letting the man go he slumps to the ground coughing and sucking in straggled breaths.

“ Alright, me..me and the boys...won’t do nothing....you have my...my word....no bullshit nothing....I swear.”

“Good cause your friends are gonna need more then some stitches.”

You quickly leave the ally and start walking down the street towards the Academy.

Breathing heavily, you look up at Klaus who’s at your side as you start to feel a bit embarrassed that he saw you lose it a little.

He holds onto your arms stopping you, “Don’t worry, we’ll have a bath and watch some movies...hey you like that Museum one?”

“The Night at the Museum.” You say smiling still feeling off.

Klaus’ face lights up, “Yeah that one, with the big T-Rex skeleton and President Roosevelt on a horse.”

He links your arms together and you both begin walking again.

“Y/N, I’m not afraid of you, you know. I never have been, I actually find it pretty sexy of you to beat up bad guys for me and keep the neighborhood safe-er. Ben thinks so too, minus the sexy part of course. Only I get to enjoy that.”

You relax more into his side and once again start to feel a bit more at ease with yourself.

“Oh wait a second, here put these sunglasses on, your eyes are still playing mood rings with us. Don’t wanna freak out the civilians” He laughs.

“Thanks, I did wonder why that kid back there looked like he just saw a ghost.”

Klaus winks, “Maybe he did, cough cough..Ben...cough cough.”

“You’re an ass.” You say while rolling your eyes

“Yes indeed my love but remember I deal with the supernatural of all sorts, from ghosts to monsters, nothing phases me.” Klaus states proudly.

You laugh, “ Okay Van Helsing, this monster wants a bath with her hunter then.”

Klaus kisses your cheek, “That can be arranged my dear.”

Smiling up at him you hold him tighter and think to yourself how weird your life is, but you wouldn’t change it for anything.

- okay wow alright, first story ever I hope it’s good or at least some people like it. It was honestly fun to write ngl.

[yandere-daydreams]

How do you think the Shiggy and Dabi would react to a student darling? (Not like in a romantic way that would be weird they’re almost all adults.) I mean like, a darling who goes to hero school but is constantly belittled due to having a “villainous” quirk? Like would they try to protect them or would they try to convince them to join them and forget about heroism?

You might’ve said ‘not in a romantic way’, but you gave me two disgusting men and an emotionally vulnerable (of age) student. There’s only so many placed my mind can go, with a prompt like that. Consider this one personal indulgence.

TW: Third-Year Reader Insert, Emotional Manipulation, Mentions of Stalking, and Quirk-Based Discrimination.

~

You’d never thought of yourself as a bad person.

It was a hard thing to do, but you really, really didn’t. Your quirk was strong, the kind of all-encompassing, destructive power that’d be more fitting of a force of nature than a human being, but you knew how to use it responsibly, you wanted to use it responsibly. That was the whole point of becoming a Hero, honestly, and you were determined to go through with it, regardless of how many times your peers tried to test your resolve. Still, you tried to be nice. You tried to be helpful, and kind, and patient. Meekness was best, for people as ‘dangerous’ as you.

That might’ve been why you didn’t report it. The bullying, the harassment, those awful, awful letters…

That might’ve been why you didn’t report them.

You couldn’t have imagined they’d make a move somewhere so public. You figured you’d be safe on the afternoon train, surrounded by civilians and protected by the warm, welcoming embrace of visibility, but they seemed to disregard the watchful eyes of strangers as easily as they had all of your other defenses. You’d barely found an empty place to stand when an arm wrapped around your waist, lanky but muscular, dragging you down until your knees buckled and you were forced into a lap just as smothering as the limb that’d pulled you into it. A glance towards the pale, lithe hand, four of its fingers now pressed against your side, provided the identity of your aggressor, not that it could’ve been anyone else. You almost deflated, your shock always muted when it came to Shigaraki, but pure, unadulterated dread was swift to take its place, only made worse by the breathy chuckle soon muffled by your shoulder, Shigaraki not hesitating to make himself as comfortable as possible.

You didn’t blame him. No part of you doubted that this was going to be a long ride, and if you weren’t so stubborn, you’d grit your teeth and try to do the same.

“Let me go,” You muttered, attempting to make yourself sound more confident than you felt. It was difficult, but the constant mummer of bystanders kept you from panicking, making it easier to justify staying quiet and trying to seem as small as possible. You could only hope Shigaraki didn’t notice how quickly you’d started to shake. “Let me go, or I swear to god, I’ll rip your arm off your shoulder and beat you to death with your own fucking fist.”

“Feisty today, aren’t we?” The response came in a familiar voice, but it wasn’t Shigaraki’s. It was all you could do to shudder and throw a glare in Dabi’s direction, the man balled into the corner of the row of seat, leaning against the thin, steel wall and trying desperately to look like he didn’t know his companion. A medical mask was pulled across the bottom half of his face, but other than that, he hadn’t made an attempt to disguise himself. If you didn’t know better, you’d say he wanted to be noticed, just so he had an excuse to turn something harmless and innocent into a pile of ash. He smirked, when his eyes met yours, his lips curling upwards underneath fabric and elastic. “We’ve been through this already, yeah? You can make your little threats, but if you do so much as scream, the Handy-Man over here will do his thing, and we’ll be cleaning you off our clothes with a lint roller in less than an hour.”

“Half an hour. We’re ahead of schedule.” Shigaraki squeezed your hip playfully, as if there was some joke only the two of you were in on. Some joke he wanted you to laugh at a little too much. “But, that’s only if our favorite little sidekick is bad, right? And I’m sure we’ve gotten past the point of petty arguments.” Shigaraki paused, letting the gaze burn into the nape of your neck, urging you to nod and play along. You only scowled at the tiled floor, staying quiet. Shigaraki continued with a hollow sigh, his voice taking on a patronizing tone. “Apparently, the bitch still has some spine. Even with such a considerate offer on the table.”

“What offer?” You replied, not thinking before you spat out the question. You made a half-hearted attempt to stand, but Shigaraki just pulled you further back, refusing to loosen his hold until your back was flush against his chest. “All you two do is stalk me--”

“That makes it sound wrong, doesn’t it? Stalk ‘s just too harsh.” Dabi clicked his tongue, shaking his head. He leaned towards you, slightly, a scarred hand coming to rest on your thigh. You felt his stare as he scanned over you, lingering on your uniform before he moved on, something spiteful flashing across his expression. As if something about the blank U.A. greys and greens was enough to set him off. “We’re recruitin’.”

You didn’t indulge him a second to think, only counting the seconds until your station arrived. “And if I don’t want to be recruited?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Shigaraki was still smug, as theatrical as he was pompous, but there was something genuine about his tone, too. You didn’t know whether to be concerned for yourself, or thankful that he believed his own mantra. “We’re you’re friends, aren’t we? Or, we’ve been hanging around you long enough to know you’re not buying into all this ‘heroism’ bullshit.” He raised his free hand, gesturing in some vague, abstract gesture as he rested his chin on your shoulder, staying just close enough to keep you on edge. “You’re strong, you know you are. You know that’s why they’re trying to hold you back, too. No one at your little Hero School cares about seeing you improve. They just want to take what you have and control it.”

You could’ve laughed. “And you don’t?”

“I never said that,” Shigaraki countered. “But, I’m honest about that. I’m not going to dress it up and say I’m helping you, like all those teachers who work you to the bone before throwing you to those lovely classmates of yours.”

You had to stop, for a moment. He wasn’t wrong. Life wasn’t easy, not with a reputation like yours. Among villains, you might’ve felt at home, you might’ve been happy. You could find friends and learn and help people, every now and then, in your own, devastating way. It wasn’t the first time you considered taking Shigaraki up on his proposal, and you were sure it wouldn’t be the last, but…

But, you couldn’t.

You were much too busy clinging to the idea that you weren’t a bad person, for that.

“Let me go,” You repeated, biting the inside of your cheek. “I’m not going with you.”

A heavy, frigid silence followed your rejection, and for a moment, you wondered if they’d finally given up. But, your hope was forced down back down as soon as it surfaced, drowned under the weight of laughter, something between a chuckle and a snort falling from Dabi’s lips in clumsy, stuttering waves, Shigaraki joining in after a second of hesitation. You made an honest effort to free yourself, this time, to get away and run, but your struggle was met with a tightened grip and more laughter, deafening laughter. As if your refusal was the funniest thing in the world.

You guessed it was, for them.

“That’s cute,” Dabi mumbled, as soon as he caught his breath enough to do so. “You still think you have a choice.”

[drazzilder]

A Hellish Encounter

By Drazzilder 

Chapter 30: Wedding Bells

It’s now June, Enji will be turning 44 in a few months and your 36. It’s wedding season and now it’s your turn to get hitched. After several months of planning and decisions, the time has finally come. Fuyumi and Sanji have planned the whole thing, without them nothing would have happened. You both decided something small would be best. You didn’t even know if you had family and Enji didn’t want the paparazzi all over it. It did take some time to decide a venue but you decided that your home would be best. There are only going to be around 20 guests and the yard is big enough for all of them. Plus, it makes it more intimate. Since he already was married in the traditional Japanese style, Enji decided on a more American wedding for you but you would have been happy with anything.

The day of the wedding couldn’t be more beautiful: perfect weather with clear skies. The ceremony starts at 4 but that’s not when your day starts. Sanji slept over the night before to make sure she was there to help Fuyumi with everything. The front door was non stop with people: florists, catering, cake delivery, rentals and more. You tried to help but was quickly pushed away. You decided to stay in the guest room while Enji was in his room. He liked the tradition of not seeing your partner before the wedding but he couldn’t help himself and texts you.

“I’m getting nervous.”

“You shouldn’t be texting me. What about the tradition?”

“I don’t care about that right now, I’m a little on edge.”

“Enji, you have nothing to worry about. It’s just 20 people who know you very well, half of them family.”

“I just want it to be perfect.”

“And it will be as long as you and I are there. Everything is getting taken care of, trust Fuyumi and Sanji.”

“But what if something goes wrong?”

“Nothing will go wrong, just relax please.”

“Fine. Why do you always have to be right?”

“Because I love you. Now go back to getting ready.”

The texts go silent as you are getting dressed. Yoshio is helping Enji get ready while All Might is helping you. It is funny seeing such a large man help you tie your tie and other things.

“You ready for the big day, (Y/N)?”

“I am, but I’ll admit after hearing Enji is nervous, it makes me a little on edge too.”

“Don’t worry, I AM HERE!” He says with a booming voice and a boasting smile.

“Yea I know, you are officiating the wedding.” You say rolling your eyes.

“You know back when I saw you at the hospital, I knew letting Enji take care of you was the best option.”

“Really?”

“I knew that you two would be good for each other. He acted differently around you, I saw something good forming. I didn’t see you two getting married, but that’s even better!”

“All Might, I never got to thank you for not arresting me at the stadium.”

“It’s the least I could do for a hero, and after hearing everything you do to save people, it makes it worth it.” He says putting both hands on your shoulders.

“Did you get in trouble with American officials?”

“Not too much, they knew that you were too powerful to be contained easily.”

“Do you think they are still looking for me?”

“I wish I could give you an answer, I really want to say no but I just don’t know. Anyway, it looks like you all set. Zaheer, what do you think?”

Zaheer comes outside of you. He is dressed in a perfectly fitted suit with red rose boutonnière. It’s weird seeing him with so much clothing on, plus you know he isn’t used to wearing shoes.

“I think he looks great. I just wish I didn’t have to wear this.”

“You agreed to walk me down the aisle, you knew what you were getting into.”

“Fine, but as soon as everyone leaves, I’m taking this off.”

~

“Do you think he will be nervous, Yoshio?”

“He is probably as nervous as you, now hold still.” He says trying to adjust Enji’s tie.

“I just want everything to go well.”

“And if it doesn’t everyone here will help, don’t worry so much. No wonder Sanji said you get worked up so easily. This isn’t even hero work.”

“I hope (Y/N) likes everything.”

“Knowing him, as long as your there, he is happy.”

4 PM sharp comes and Enji is standing next to All Might and Natsuo, the best man. Sanji, Fuyumi, and Yoshio are sitting with some other of closest sidekicks and heroes. Midnight and Hina even made it. Enji is wearing a black tuxedo with red tie and red boutonnière. He is about to break into a sweat from nervous energy but as soon as the violin starts playing, he finally sees Zaheer coming out and he steadies himself. When you come into view, he is speechless. You’re in a white tuxedo with red tie and a rose to match his. Even your shoes are perfectly white. It’s funny seeing your red tail coming out the back but he just can’t help staring at you. You just look perfect in his eyes, not a hair out of place: All Might does good work. As you and Zaheer walk down the aisle, you notice Enji getting a little blush on his face as you begin to approach him. Once next to Enji, he takes your hand and you both turn to face All Might. Enji is practically crushing your hand but you know he needs to do it.

“Thank you all for coming. We are gathered here today to witness the marriage of two great individuals, heroes in some eyes, parents in others, but none the less great. They would like to thank you all for coming, every single one of you means something special to them. You have brought them happiness, friendship, warmth and guidance throughout their relationship. Over their years together they have truly learned the meaning of love, family and friendship. Now, you may say your vows of love to each other.”

Enji goes first. “(Y/N), when I first saw you at the crossing, I knew you were special. Nothing in all of my life prepared me for everything you have done for me. You have brought me closer to my children, you have brought me love, you have showed me who I can really be. I wouldn’t be here with my family without you and nothing I say and ever show how much I love you for that.” He starts to choke up but continues. “You are my rock, my support, I can always count on you to be there, whether I ask for help or not. I may not be perfect but I love you, with all of my heart. I want to be with you for as long as this lifetime will let me. I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else.” He sighs, relieved to finally get that off his chest. He looks at you and you’re doing your best not to cry. He takes his thumb to wipe away one of the tears. “Now it’s your turn.” He says with the biggest smile.

“Enji, you are the reason I am here today. You not only saved me from my past but you gave me a future. That day I saw you for the first time, it gave me the energy to act, to move, to help others. You drive me, Enji. You are the reason I push myself, not just for you but to be a better me. It’s because of you that Zaheer stands behind me today, it’s because of you that I moved on from my past. Through our laughs and tears, we have fallen in love. I have seen you at your highest and your lowest and I love you all the more because of it. Your children have even come to accept me as part of the family. I know it might not be much to some, but having a family is something I have wanted for so long. I can’t thank you enough for it. I wish I could tell you I love you more, but I don’t know if that’s true.” You say as the tears have won the battle and start running down your face.

“Don’t cry (Y/N).”

“I’m sorry. I’m just so happy.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt but it’s time to exchange rings. Ring bearer, do you have the rings?” All Might interjects.

“I have the rings.” Shoto says as he walks down with the rings on a large pillow. As he approaches and you both take the rings for each other but something is off.

“Enji, why are there 3 rings?”

“You will see.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a unique experience here. Zaheer, please stand next to (Y/N).” Zaheer moves next to you with a puzzled look. “Enji, would you please place the rings on (Y/N) and Zaheer.”

You look at Enji with confusion. “This might be strange to most people, but for those who know you will understand.” He takes your hand and then Zaheer’s. “I give you both these rings as a sign of my love. Zaheer is a part of you so I am marrying him as well. Not giving him a ring seems wrong.”

Now Zaheer has tears in his eyes at the gesture. You look at the ring to find that is a custom band that looked black before you put it on but then blue marbling forms on its surface when you put it on. Zaheer’s is the same but with red. “Only you two can make those rings glow, Hina helped make them.” Enji tells you.

You take the ring Enji has seen before. “I give you this ring to so you my love, Enji.”

“If there are no objections to these individuals being wed, then I proclaim you married. You may now kiss your husband.” All Might says with a smile.

The moment the two of you kiss, a box opens up and dozens of doves fly out. “Really, Enji. Doves?”

“I’m sorry, is it too much?”

“Coming from you, it’s just right.” As you kiss again.

Everyone claps and cheers as you two walk back down the aisle. Everyone then goes inside as the wedding crew works their magic. All Might congratulates you two and is happy that you both found love. Fuyumi and Sanji are busy making everything happen but they do manage to both give you a hug. Everyone just chatted while drinking wine and sake. Once the outside was ready again, you see why it took an army of people. All of the chairs have been replaced with round tables with beautiful table arrangements on each. The center of the yard has a temporary dance floor with lights all around.

“Enji, you didn’t have to do this much.” You say as Enji wraps his arm around you.

“I know but I wanted to. Anything for my little flame.” He says as he lands a small kiss on your head.

You two then sit at your table and enjoy the rest of the night. The food was some of the most delicious you ever ate. After dinner you cut the cake with Enji, it was small but was just adorable. You wanted to smash some cake on his face but you didn’t want Enji to catch his suit on fire. The dance floor was then full of fun the rest of the night. First Enji danced with you, slowly, taking every step with care like it was the first time holding you. He just whispered “I love you…” at the end of the song. He then danced with Fuyumi which you couldn’t help yourself and tear up. Seeing him now holding his daughter, which only a few years ago she couldn’t stand being in the same room as him, just makes you so happy. Zaheer then danced with you. It was kind of funny dancing with him, being over 3 feet taller than you but you both manage something graceful. The rest of the night goes by in a flash as it ends with just the two of you in the house. Sanji and Fuyumi planned it so you two had the night alone.

“As wonderful as this day was, I’m glad it’s over. What about you, Enji?”

“I’m just happy to finally marry you.” He says as he brings you in close.

“I know we are alone and all, but can we just cuddle the rest of the night? I am really tired and just being next to you is all I need.”

“That sounds nice right about now. Zaheer, did you want to join us?”

Appearing in a flash of red light. “I thought you would never ask.”

You all move to the bedroom which now has a fairly new larger bed. Zaheer lies down first then you lie down on the left half of his body, Enji taking the right. All 3 of you begin to hug, feel, touch, caress each other all over; just enjoying each other bodies and presence. Eventually you all start to tire as Enji holds you tight and Zaheer lays his giant arms over the both of you. The motion of Zaheer’s breathing lulling Enji to sleep first. Enji starts snoring but you actually have grown to love the sound. It might be loud and rough but there is something about it that comforts you. It tells you you’re safe, he’s there right next to you to protect you. After a while, his snoring and Zaheer’s rumbles put you to sleep.

Next Chapter

[trashyswitch]

The Strangely Modified Robot

Remus and Virgil (mostly Remus) come across Logan who looks like he'd been quite busy with making a robot of some kind. Remus and Virgil follow Logan to his room to find out what it is.

This prompt was suggested by that EEF anon that has written to me a few times! HI EEF! I hope you enjoy the fanfic! And I also hope this still counts as a machine!

Virgil groaned as he was pulled all the way to Logan’s room by Remus’s strong grip. He was too tired to deal with this today. But, he made the mistake of letting Remus into his room and now; he’s gotta suffer through hours of gorey, stressful ‘playtime’ with Remus. Maybe Remus could compromise by giving him a dozen bat-spider sidekicks?

But everything screeched to a halt as Remus’s eyes fell on a nerd in his usual black shirt carrying tools, broken wires and a tire. Virgil’s body and face hit Remus’s back, halting Virgil upon impact.

“Hiiiii Logan! What are you up to?” Remus asked. He walked closer and pointed at one of the items. “And what’s with the tire?”

Logan smiled and started walking past them. “I’m making a robot. Would you like to see?” Logan told him.

Remus gasped and clapped his hands. “Would I?!” He replied excitedly, following Logan. Virgil groaned, but smiled and started to walk away.

“COME ON VIRGIL!” Remus grabbed his arm and pulled the emo along with him. Virgil yelped in surprise as he was literally dragged along for the ride. Logan had walked back into his room and placed his tools in a storage cabinet hidden in his closet. While Logan was doing that, Remus let Virgil lay onto the bed and sat down in the blue comfy chair in the corner of the room. “So: a robot?” Remus teased. “What kiiiind of robot?” Remus asked, leaning his chin on his palm.

Logan looked at Remus with a somewhat forced smile and grabbed the robot. “A car.”

Remus tilted his head as he looked at it. It...looked like a typical remote control truck. To be specific, it looked like a Monster Truck the size of a forearm with overly large wheels attached to it. It was...different.

Remus didn’t strike Logan as the monster truck type. He could imagine Logan with a James Bond kind of car, or maybe a police car.

But a monster truck? That was completely out of Logan’s comfort zone!

Remus carefully poked the monster truck with his finger. “Where did you buy this?” Remus asked.

“Best Buy.” Logan replied.

“Okay.” Remus picked it up and looked at the bottom of it. “Why a monster truck? You don’t look like a monster truck kind of person.” Remus admitted.

Logan chuckled. “I’m not. But, a monster truck was preferred for this specific type of machine.” Logan told him.

The nerd pulled out the remote control that was connected to it through bluetooth, and started clicking buttons. Suddenly, the wheels started spinning and turning! Remus quickly put it down, and watched as the truck drove around. “I’d like you to lay down and sit still, please.” Logan told Remus.

Remus tilted his head, but quickly laid himself down.

Using its wheels, the monster truck climbed itself up Remus’s belly and drove up the chest.

“Hehehehey! Ihihit tihihicklehes ahaha lihihihittle!” Remus giggled.

Logan couldn’t stop himself from smiling at that reaction. He brought the monster truck up the middle of Remus’s chest, and stopped it.

“What-” Remus lifted his head up, accidentally triggering a ‘scanning mode’. Remus widened his eyes and watched as the truck grew a helicopter propeller and lit up Remus’s face and chest with a darker blue light shining from its front headlamps. The truck flew backwards and scanned Remus’s body from head to toe with the dark blue light.

“Oooooh! Is it scanning me?” Remus asked.

Logan nodded. “Mhm! It is.” he replied.

Logan clicked one last button and watched as the helicopter lowered itself and landed on the ground. Then, Logan smiled and watched as the body scan revealed some sort of image on the roof of the truck. It was a reference image of a body from skull to the bottoms of the feet, and different colors had started highlighting the different spots on the body image.

Logan smiled at this. “Well, would you look at that:” Logan clicked the button to open its propellers and let it fly up and above Remus again. “You seem to be very sensitive.” Logan reacted.

The monster truck flew itself a little lower and started growing up to 10 separate thin arms with joints. Remus widened his eyes and let out an “Oooooh!” sound in curiosity. The 10 arms started lowering down to Remus’s body and focused on places like his sides, his armpits, his belly, his hips, and his abs.

“What are these supposed- GAHAA!” Remus threw his head back and guffawed in surprise as a two-second shocking, vibrating feeling from two of the arms, started zapping his sides. Logan walked up to Remus, put the remote control down beside him and pinned Remus’s arms above his head. “Wait, WHAT?! LOGAN! LET-!” Remus squealed and immediately started tugging as the ten separate arms zapped and prodded his ticklish spots. Virgil sat up and looked to where the danger was. But he quickly dropped his jaw as he stared at the confusing, yet somewhat amusing scene happening right beside him in the very same bedroom.

“Whahahahat IHIHIHIS thihihihihis?!” Remus asked.

“This is a Tickling Truck. It’s a monster truck modified with stimulating modules meant to stun and/or tickle you depending on your preference choice.” Logan told him, looking at the switch that had 3 settings it could switch to: Tickle, Stun, and Energize.

Virgil looked at the weird helicopter truck with thin arms poking and tickling different spots.

“The Tickle Truck is capable of scanning people’s sensitive areas, climbing around with its wheels and arms, and is capable of tickling people no matter the position the ticklee is in.” Logan further explained. “For example:”

Logan let go of Remus’s arms, picked up the truck’s controller and started clicking a couple buttons. Quickly, the arms stopped zapping and folded themselves into the shape of spider legs. The helicopter propeller shut off and went back inside the truck roof, and the truck started crawling like a spider towards the bed.

Virgil widened his eyes and yelped in horror. It was heading right towards him! But part of him wondered if the spider legs were even sturdy enough to climb the bed. But Logan smiled and watched in humble confidence as the arms grew claws at the ends and crawled all the way up Logan’s galaxy comforter.

“UH- LOGAN! I DON’T KNOW IF THIS IS-” Virgil warned, growing terrified. But once the truck was stable on the bed, the legs returned inside the truck and started driving towards Virgil. The emo tensed up at first, but still allowed himself to look at the truck.

...The truck’s windshield lit up and showed Virgil a white smiley face.

Virgil’s fear slightly lessened at that. But...why was it smiling at him?

Virgil watched nervously as the truck’s windshield displayed a message:

[Hi!]

Virgil stared at the message before looking at Logan. Logan was smiling and had a little pull-out keyboard attached to the remote control. Logan typed some more to the message:

[Are you scared?]

Virgil read the message and bit his lip. He nodded his head at Logan. Logan nodded and typed another message for the truck.

[I don’t have to tickle you]

Virgil read it and softened his expression. The words erased and new words showed up:

[-If you don’t want it.]

Virgil looked at Logan and slowly started to smile. Logan smiled as well and typed one last question:

[Do you want to be tickled?]

Virgil looked at Logan with more and nodded.

Logan beamed with excitement at seeing Virgil consent so quickly. He typed one last thing:

[I’ll start off light! :) ]

Virgil giggled and watched with wonder as the Tickle Truck drove up and rested its front wheels on his feet. The truck’s propeller was removed from the truck again and started spinning and raising the truck up. The truck’s dark blue headlamps started lighting up, and the truck started processing all the data it was presented.

It didn’t take long for the truck to scan everything. The body image relit up with new ticklish spots highlighted for the robot to follow as a reference.

Suddenly, the truck’s arms started removing themselves out of the truck. But this time, only 4 arms removed themself to start! The arms moved closer and closer to his belly and his ribs. Virgil couldn’t help the giggles that poured out of his mouth from anticipation. Here it was! It was finally happening! Aaaaand-

Virgil jumped and giggled a little hysterically from the first two zaps. “Thihihihis ihihihis soho weheheihihiHIHIRD!” Virgil giggled. The closer the arms got to his belly, the more hysterical his laughter became.

The zaps didn’t even feel like the type of tickles you’d get from the usual tickle tools! Not even a massager was capable of replicating this kind of zapping feeling! It was like a spark was touching you, and leaving you stunned. But because it was zapping your ticklish spots, it tickled you even more than you’d ever expect from a zap! It was almost like a robot was making your tickle spots more ticklish through every zap that hit him! The more times a specific ticklish spot was zapped, the longer your giggle fits lasted!

“Hahahahahahahehehehehehe! LOHOhohohohogahahahahahan! Cohohohome ohohohohohon!” Virgil laughed and begged.

Logan widened his eyes and quickly stopped. He was so scared he may have overdid it and broken his original promise of a light start! But Virgil seemed to enjoy being put into a giggly mess. Logan smiled as he noticed the light blush on Virgil’s face. His thoughts about the blush quickly reminded him of something else he added to the car!

“Do you want me to show you something?” Logan asked.

Virgil and Remus both looked at Logan and nodded. “Okay.” they both said.

Logan clicked a button and watched more arms rise out from inside the truck. Logan clicked a button on the top of the controller with his index finger. Suddenly, the ends of the arms sprouted little feathers and makeup brush heads of different shapes!

“Ohoho NOHO!” Virgil yelled, covering his eyes and shaking his head in fear and embarrassment. He even installed TINY BRUSHES AND FEATHERS?!

Remus bursted out laughing upon seeing such small tickle tools. “How in the hell are you gonna tickle ANYONE with those?!” Remus asked.

Logan looked over with a smirk. “Do you want me to demonstrate?” He asked.

Remus guffawed. “Just try me, nerd!” Remus replied confidently.

Logan smiled contently and started controlling the joysticks. “Okay.”

The truck drove itself right off the bed, and landed perfectly on the hardwood floor with a break-resistant thud. Then, the truck drove up to Remus and pulled the tools back inside the robot’s thin arms. The truck’s transporting strategy changed from driving to spider crawling in mere seconds, terrifying the mustache man. And before Remus could even attempt to flee, the Tickle Truck had reached his feet and brought out its helicopter propellers. With the push of a few buttons, the truck flew itself up, got the tickle tools to sprout from the arms and started zapping and tickling his feet with the tools and stimulators.

Remus shrieked and shouted in surprise at just how much it tickled! “WHYHYHYHY?! AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Remus laughed hysterically.

Logan clicked his tongue a few times. “You shouldn’t have questioned my tickling abilities~” Logan warned Remus in a teasy tone.

Remus tried dragging himself away from the devilish Tickle Truck. But the arms just reached out further to continue their tickle attack! Remus quickly just gave up, and started pounding his fists into the hardwood floor. The mix of soft brushes and stimulating zapping, as it turned out, was so much more ticklish than he ever imagined!

And Remus: Well...he was absolutely losing his mind!

“LOHOHOHOHOHO! STAHAHAHAHAP IHIHIHIHIT!” Remus begged helplessly.

Virgil was just smiling as he watched. “Funny...you’re capable of going really light and soft with your truck invention. And yet, you’re also able to completely destroy confident people like the creative twins.” Virgil elaborated.

“Indeed I am.” Logan told him, before showing him the controller. He pointed to the sliding switch. “This switch tells the Tickle Truck just how intense to make the tickles.” Logan explained. “With you, I kept the tickles a lot more low.” Logan pointed to the near-bottom of the sliding switch to show where he had it at the time. “And now:” Logan brought his finger up to where the switch knob was sitting now: near the top.

Virgil laughed. “It’s not even completely at the top!” Virgil reacted.

Logan giggled with him. “I know.”

While Remus was laughing up a storm, Logan decided to add one more thing to he mix:

“These claws aren’t just meant for climbing things…” Logan admitted.

Logan clicked the top left button and allowed the ends of a few of the arms, to switch from the brushes to the claws. Then, Logan used the claws to pull the toes back and used the brushes to tickle under and between Remus’s toes.

Remus SCREAMED super loudly and pounded the ground like a maniac! He let his head finally hit the floor and allowed his laughter to fall completely silent.

Logan widened his eyes and looked at Virgil with surprise. “Wow!”

“I think someone’s toes are speechlessly ticklish.” Virgil joked.

Logan’s face fell a little at that joke, but still had a smile on his face. “Not bad...for improve, anyway.”

Logan clicked the buttons for putting the arms and propeller away. With the propeller back inside, the truck quickly fell to the ground and bounced on its rubber wheels. Then, Logan turned it off. The truck powered down and sunk down slightly.

WIth the truck turned off, Logan picked up the Tickle Truck and put it onto a shelf for personal admiration and storage all in one. “There. Perfect for future surprise attacks.” Logan declared.

Virgil smiled and stood beside Logan. “It really is.” Virgil added.

Logan crossed his arms and stared at the truck and at the controller that came with it. “And of course, I could use it like a regular remote control car with extra little features.” Logan added.

Virgil giggled at that. “Mhm. You can.” Virgil replied.

Logan admired his work for a good while. He felt accomplished that it worked so well. He felt happy that nothing malfunctioned while it was in the testing phase. And lastly: he felt honored that Virgil and Remus wanted to ask about his robot and be the guinea pigs.

“aaAAAH!” Logan jumped, dropping the remote control.

Virgil bursted out laughing and patted his shoulder. “I’m just playing!”

Logan grumbled in slight annoyance as he picked up his controller. Evil emo...he poked him while he was focusing on his invention.

Virgil giggled and continued to poke him just to annoy him. By the time Virgil had successfully started up a revenge attack on him, Logan was doubling over and trying to keep his giggles from coming out…

Remus was now laying on his back, enjoying the view with a bag of conjured-up popcorn in his hands. In his view was an evil Virgil tickling and teasing Logan from behind, while Logan laughed and squirmed in the emo’s grip.

To make things even better, Remus put his popcorn down, got himself up and grabbed the remote control truck and remote. Much to Remus’s convenience: the buttons all had 1-word labels taped onto them to show what button did what action. So it didn’t take long for Remus to get the truck going again and for Logan’s laughter to get even louder.

Aren’t tickle fights fun?

[platypanthewriter]

Rollerskates

For the Harringrove April prompt month!  What if someone else encountered the mindflayer...I don’t know what this is, have some silly horror I guess

Hawkins was the worst.  Billy knew this--he’d known from the time they drove through the two-street town, he’d guessed when his dad praised the damn place and its down home American values--but he’d never guessed some sludgemonster would try to drag him into the ironworks, and he’d definitely never guessed whatever the fuck it was, it would send spies.

He glowered over from his lifeguard station at the row of rats outside the chainlink fence of the pool.  They were brave, knowing, somehow, that he couldn’t take his eyes off the pool for more than a few seconds to hose them down.  Billy glared back at them every few seconds--these huge rats, lined up like bowling pins, staring.  He’d started carrying a notebook to jot things down, not because he thought a goddamned soul would believe him, but to check that at least if he was hallucinating, it was consistent.

A kid hollered, splashing, and he yanked his gaze back to the pool.  

Sometimes they switched, he was fairly sure, watching them with binoculars.  There was a light grey one that hadn’t been there before, and a really fat one he was sure he’d have remembered.  He counted them, and made a note.  They were spying on him in shifts, because it was goddamn Hawkins, and the rats--and the steelworks, apparently--were possessed.

He was vaguely tempted to go back, or ask around town if the old factory was haunted, but every time he thought about it, he broke out in a cold sweat.

Every time he left the pool--every time he went anywhere--he could hear the soft squeaks of the mice, and the dragging sound of their piper.  She looked younger than Max, with overalls and rattling dark braids, but she swooped around on her rollerskates, playing her recorder, and the rats obeyed her.

Billy’d tried chasing her, once, but he could hardly catch up to rollerskates, and she skated backwards away, staring him in the eye.  He chased her two blocks, then rolled after her in his car, as she looped through driveways and through garages, an endless maze of shortcuts where he couldn’t follow, and he finally realized she was leading him back to the Steelworks.  He spun the wheel, leaving skid marks on the road as he sped back home, and laid awake, with his pillow over his head, listening to the rats in the walls.

After a week of the dragging sound of rollerskates in the street outside at night, the sounds of the off-key recorder warbling over the fence at the pool, and the gnawing rats in the walls, he tried cornering Max.  She just squinted at him, blinking slowly with huge dark circles under her eyes, and suggested blearily that he stop leaving food in his room.

“They’re not normal rats,” he hissed at her, and she stopped, glared at him, and then shook her head and walked off.  

 It wasn’t just Billy, either.  The front page of the Sunday paper--read in Neil Hargrove’s voice, because he wasn’t letting anybody else read it, even though he was taking forever settling himself--was about a guy running around Main Street with a shotgun, screaming about rats and rollerskates.  He’d finally tried to shoot the cops trying to get him to drop the gun, and been hit by a car, and when it revealed he was already under investigation for burning crosses in a local family’s yard, even Neil hissed.  His autopsy revealed his toes and fingers had been gnawed on by rats.

“What a nice town,” Max said dryly.  

There was an interview on TV with a guy’s wife--she’d called the police because her husband had stormed out in the middle of the night, screaming about rats.  She had bruises all up the left side of her face, and something deep in Billy shivered as he wondered about the darkness around her wrists, whether her husband had left bruises there too.  She flinched away from the reporter every time he moved, and he lowered his voice, grimacing.  

“We’d been fighting,” she whispered, and Susan put her hands over her mouth, glancing at Billy.  “We kept hearing rollerskates,” said the woman on he news, crying.  “I-I hope he didn’t hurt that little girl.”

Neil Hargrove stared out the window for hours that night, between glaring at Billy, and putting out poison for the rats.  

 Billy went to get in his car that night, and there were rats, rats on his seats and dashboard, and he yelled, slammed the door, and walked out to where there were people, stalking as fast as he could down the street.  He realized he was walking away from home, but he didn’t want to stop, so he just headed wherever he saw a group of people.  He elbowed his way into a crowd of people loitering around the drug store, and came face to face with Steve Harrington and his loud, curly-haired shadow.  

They stared at him, their mouths sucked in on soda straws, but Billy was on his last nerve.  “You fucking grew up here,” he hissed, stepping closer, “--right?  What the fuck, Harrington.  What the shit is with these goddamn rats?!  Why do they want me to go to the Steelworks--who the goddamn is the shitbird on roller skates—”

Harrington just blinked his big stupid cow eyes and frowned, but his sidekick said “Wait, what?  The Steelworks?”

“The fucking Steelworks,” Billy repeated, his eyes flicking between them as they exchanged an obvious glance.  

“That makes sense,” the kid said, digging out a map, and Billy growled.

“What fucking makes sense,” he asked, through his teeth, as Harrington leaned in to see the map, slurping his soda.  

“Lot of sightings around there,” the kid said, glaring up at Billy.  

“Sightings of what,” Billy hissed, and Harrington shot him a glower.

They didn’t really answer, but they let him follow them to a payphone, and Harrington called the sheriff.

“You can’t call the police on rats,” Billy bit out, feeling like a moron, kind of, for not trying it himself.  

“Shut your face,” Harrington told him, and then proceeded to ask for the sheriff himself, and Billy couldn’t help himself, craning over Steve’s shoulder.  

“My car’s full of rats, my walls’re full of rats, I never stop hearing the roller skates—” he yelled at the phone, and Harrington elbowed him off.

“Maybe you shouldn’t’ve been such a shithead to Lucas Sinclair,” the kid said, sounding pleased.

“Fuck you,” Billy spat back, pretending his voice hadn’t cracked.  “Who the fuck even is Lucas Sinclair?!”

“Sir,” Harrington said.  “Uh, Hopper.  Billy Hargrove thinks it’s out at the Steelworks.  Yeah.  Oh, um.”  He turned to frown at Billy.  “Are you sure you don’t need--we can help, we’ve—” he sighed.  “...I guess we can keep an eye on him.”

“I mean, do we need to?” the kid asked.  “The rats can have him, far as I’m—”

“We’ll make sure nothing happens to him,” Harrington gritted out.  “As long as he lets us.”

Billy snarled at him, but he let them bundle him into Harrington’s car, and curled up on Harrington’s couch, while Harrington himself stalked around his house shooting the occasional glare in Billy’s direction.  

“...was Lucas Sinclair the kid...that night,” Billy asked hoarsely.  “Max’s friend.”

“Yeah,” Harrington said, sarcastically.  “Nice how it only goes after the shittiest people, right?”

“Fuck,” Billy whispered, swallowing.  “Fuck.”

 After a while, Harrington sank down on the couch next to him, and Billy flinched, then tried to pretend he hadn’t, growling.  “They’ll take care of it tonight,” Steve told him, sighing.  “With flamethrowers.”

“Holy shit,” Billy said, staring at him.  

 It was true--Billy woke up the next morning on Harrington’s couch, thanked him awkwardly, and went home to find his father had left during the night, chasing a girl on roller skates.  

He didn’t return.

But, as Harrington had said, there were no more rats.  Billy still saw the girl, occasionally, her glare pointed, but she didn’t come near.  He considered trying to apologize to Lucas Sinclair, and finally asked Max, reluctantly, whether she thought the kid would even want to hear it.

“What,” she said, flatly.

“Maybe I should just stay away,” Billy muttered, as they maneuvered around each other, doing the dishes.  Billy couldn’t quite get over the thought that everybody had acted like the three people taken hadn’t deserved to live, and the rats had not been outside Billy’s house for his father.  Neil had deserved better, Billy couldn’t help thinking--he’d been right about Billy, after all--but on the other hand, he’d definitely charged out trying to murder a little girl on roller skates with his bare hands, so Billy felt a little bit vindicated, after all the things he’d muttered about his dad.

When he saw the little girl again, he yelled out, “D’you think your brother would want me to say sorry?!”, and she skated to a stop, turning to glare at him.

“Would you mean it?” she hollered back, her hands cupped, and Billy nodded.

“I’ll tell him,” she shouted back, and skated off.  

Max started bringing Lucas around, after that, and Billy always got them whatever takeout they wanted, and stayed the hell away.  Lucas nodded to him, after a while, and Billy’s spine loosened.

 Billy nodded to Harrington, too, when he saw him, and after a while, Harrington started nodding back, until Billy let the uneasy squirm in his guts every time they met eyes guilt him into saying, “Sorry.”

“What,” said Harrington, looking weirded out.  The mall was barely open, and he glanced around, like he might need backup.

“Sorry for that night,” Billy said.  “And--and for...helping me.  Sorry I ended up your problem.”

Harrington just stared back at him.  He laughed, though, when he found Billy in his driveway, grimly cleaning rat shit out of every surface of his Camaro.  

 The little girl just made him buy her ice cream, which he was fine with--she’d hop in his car, and they’d drive over to buy ice cream from Steve Harrington.

“I wasn’t possessed, god,” she groaned.  “I was doing God’s work.”

“It promised you ice cream, didn’t it,” Steve asked, raising his eyebrows, and she sighed.

“I was possessed by capitalism,” she sighed dramatically.

After Steve got off work, he climbed in Billy’s car, and they’d drive out to the quarry and talk.  Billy watched him the way he had at first--stupid Steve Harrington, with his stupid hair, and his stupid fucking smile--until he’d realize Harrington was talking again, and Billy was missing it, again.

“The hell d’you keep staring at,” Steve asked, laughing, and Billy groaned, rubbing his face, but Harrington didn’t seem pissed, so Billy just kept running up whenever he saw him, and Harrington started putting an arm aorund his shoulders.  The like, sixteenth time Billy almost forgot himself and kissed him, watching Steve’s lips from inches away, Steve smiled, a little crookedly, and pulled him back as he stepped away.  They stared at each other, and then Billy scrambled away, swearing and kicking at rocks.

Billy had his first gay kiss in the ice cream shop, with the scary little rollerskater wolf-whistling, and Harrington’s chocolate-sticky fingers in his hair.  It tasted like waffle cones.

The other Harringrove April prompts I’ve done