#its been really long since i made one of these web weaves

[aishespoeticmuse]

the love i had for you was achingly raw. you couldn't have chewed on it with your deciduous teeth.

[nanaarchy]

Hey chat !!!! I'm going insane.

Ever since my first listen to TMA, I've had a huge question that NEVER got answered.

Never. Not in the whole series, not Q&As or the wiki or anything. I thought I would never find answers. I thought it would be forgotten. I thought it was a small insignificant detail and I'd have to live with never knowing the truth about it.

Now with TMAGP 19, I might finally know the answer.

Maybe. Maybe maybe. But It Could Be. And now I'm losing my mind at the implications.

((For the record, I know that the stories and worldbuilding are inherently separate - hell, there are even timeline differences in the cases I'm using as evidence. But the overlap might be important, especially when it comes to the Web.))

Spoilers for both shows below!

Its branches were exquisite, and delicate, swaying slightly from small eddies in the liquid, and they shone with every spectra. I must confess that to look upon it, one was – (sigh) filled with profound wonder at its exquisite elegance. [...] Even I, steeped in worldly matters as I am, recognized The Lord’s words to Adam, and was much dismayed at the implication. Isaac then plucked the delicate fruit with ungloved hands and held it before me. [...] The creature was taking root. Strands of its mottled brown hair were extruding downwards between the floor, seeking the dark earth below. Then, too, its back began to sprout, radiant branches unfurling and thickening before me, reaching upwards towards the sunlight with a seemingly insatiable desire. [...] I tell you here, Robert, it saw me, and it knew me. (TMAGP 19 - HARD RESET)

It was an ornate wooden thing, with a snaking pattern of lines weaving their way around towards the centre. The pattern was hypnotic and shifted as I watched it, like an optical illusion. I found my eyes following the lines towards the middle of the table, where there was nothing but a small square hole. Graham noticed me staring, and told me that interesting antique furniture was one of his few true passions. Apparently he’d found the table in a second-hand shop during his student days and fallen in love with it. It had been in pretty bad shape but he’d spent a long time and a lot of money restoring it, though he’d never been able to figure out what was supposed to go in the centre. He assumed it was a separate piece and couldn’t track it down. (MAG 3 - ACROSS THE STREET)

Re: Magnus Institute Ruins. By RedCanary on Saturday April 23 2022 12:17pm. The photos from the spelunk seem properly gone, but I did find an old wooden thing with a bunch of similar symbols on. Some kinda empty box, not really sure what for, though. Gonna see if I can get the light right for a decent pic. Edit: No dice, I’m afraid. Must be something up with my phone camera. Really not helping the whole paranoia thing either. Anyone know anything about photographic distortion? Gonna see if I can borrow my dad’s SLR tomorrow. (TMAGP 1 - FIRST SHIFT)

Adelard Dekker stood in the corner. He was straight and motionless, his lips moving rapidly, though no sound came out of them. In the centre of the room, stood a table carved from dark wood and wrapped all over with a sprawling, intricate pattern. And in front of that table was the thing that had said it was my cousin. It was long and thin, the tops of it bent against the ceiling and its stick-like limbs flailed from too many joints and elbows. Wrapped around it were thick strands of what I think was spider’s web, stretching back into the table, which I now saw pulsed along its carved channels with a sickly light. The face at the top of that gangly frame was like nothing on earth. (MAG 78 - DISTANT COUSIN)

Now... Now I get it. I get it. I finally gave an answer. Or, at least, I think we'll get a concrete answer soon. But I think I get it.

I think I get where the web table comes from. I think I know what it's made of. why it glows. why it had a hole in the middle. I think I might know how the web gained control and sentience so much faster than the other fears. and, if it still manifests in the same way in the Protocol universe, how it also quickly became "the manager" of other fears, as theories suggest.

More importantly, I think I know what was up with the mysterious tree from so, so long ago.

Now I have an answer.

Why was there an apple buried in Hill Top Road?

I opened the box and sitting inside was a single green apple. It looked fresh, shiny, with a coat of condensation like it had just been picked on a cool spring morning. I picked it up. I wasn’t going to eat it, I’m not that stupid, but more than bleeding trees or phantom burning, this confused me. As I took it out of the box, though, it began to turn. The skin turned brown and bruised and started to shrivel in my hand. Then it split. And out came spiders. Dozens, hundreds of spiders erupting from this apple that was rotting right before my eyes. I shrieked and dropped it before any of them could touch my arm. The apple fell to the ground and burst in a cloud of dust. I backed away and waited until I was sure all the spiders had left before retrieving the box. I smashed it with a crowbar, and threw the remains into a skip. (MAG 8 - BURNED OUT)

And now I have an answer. Maybe.

[drefear]

do you even know, how you make me weak

Inspired by @ofherdesire series of toxic Miguel, the characters are all theirs (aside from Miguel lol)

TW: toxic Miguel, bits of sex, violence, bullying if you squint, injury.

Lips left imprints on your skin as Pedro held your body like an antique vase, priceless and delicate. Every touch was such a change from Miguel’s rough hands always moving fast unless he knew he’d hurt you.

Pedro moved in a gentle manner unless you asked for more, and he kept you breathless as he watched your every reaction. It was always about you, about your pleasure, your climax.

“When you pull me close,

Feelings I’ve never known.”

The soft groans he let out as he whispered into your skin made you wonder how you ever lived without such touches and feelings.

This was almost a daily action, like you both needed it to live. He made a schedule to be able to see you once a day, even if it meant only a few minutes and a peck on the lips. He never failed to remind you of his everlasting love for you, his dedication to show you how appreciated you were. Pedro was such a beautiful and welcome change of pace.

Yet, you still longed for the hulking presence you caught brief sightings of, but this was always followed by a blinding ray of blonde pep, like a police flashlight in your face at midnight when you’d done nothing wrong. The sly girl kept him close any time you were around, including during missions.

Miguel couldn’t be around you for more than two seconds without blue eyes popping out from behind him, something that had begun to cause problems within him. She didn’t trust him, and he couldn’t blame her, when he was constantly drawn to you like a moth to a flame.

“Miguel, you ok?” Peter’s voice broke the larger of the two from a trance as he watched you jump from a ledge as you four fought an anomaly, your webs trapping the enemy in your clutches as Miguel stood like a statue, eyes watching you in awe. It was like watching an actual spider weave its web; agile and careful, yet still powerful and strong.

“Miguel!” Peter shouted, finally snapping Miguel out of his thoughts and dodging a falling piece of debris. He rolled onto the ground and grabbed a survivor, handing them off to-

“Miggy!” His girl. He looked at her, why wasn't he always looking at her? She caught the bystander and he turned his attention back to you, who was facing off the anomaly alone now as Peter worked with his girlfriend to find anyone else who might be trapped. He sprung into action once he saw the position you were in and jumped to your side.

“Take the other side, I can handle this one.”

“You’ll get hurt, deja de ser terca!”

“I’ll be fine, now go!” You yelled and yanked your strings tighter in your fists, and he obeyed.

As he worked on the side you directed him towards, you threw the trapbox and red lasers enclosed around the anomaly, making you and Miguel both relax for a brief second. Sighing in exhaustion, you gave a small smile to Peter and Miguel, until suddenly a shout was heard and your body was jerked forward.

As you blinked, you felt the warmth of Miguel’s chest in your face, Peter moving closer to check on you and in the far distance, the sharp angry eyes of his girl.

His red luminescent webs wrapped around your torso and you held your head a bit, the sudden motion making you a little nauseous.

“Are you alright?” Peter’s voice was almost distant as you tried to step away from MIguel, but his hand tightened around your waist and you pushed harder, disliking the lack of distance between you two.

“I’m fine, really. Just a little dizzy.”

“I told you not to be so stubborn.” Miguel’s voice was cold, visceral, and you frowned up at him. It’d been almost a year since you two had an actual conversation, since you last kissed his lips and heard him say how you weren’t enough for him and she was. The sour memory bit into you like an animal and the poison made your vision turn a bit red on the edges, but you wouldn’t let the pain overtake your senses or act out.

Instead of giving him a sassy remark like you wanted to do, you just tapped your watch and opened a portal back to HQ, “I’m getting my head checked, I’ll see you all at debriefing.” You mumbled and walked through the portal.

Miguel watched the portal close and closed his eyes, frustration bubbling inside of him like rapture, popping and hissing at the intense heat it was beginning to give off.

The clean up was minimal, Miguel instructed both Peter and his girlfriend to reconstruct the cannon, and he made his way to bring back the anomaly. Once everything was secured, he sat in his sector, platform high above the actual floor as it gave him better concentration away from all of the talking and bustle of HQ.

The soft patter of footsteps made him aware that someone was making their way up to him, the sound of a web slinging a lighter body up to his level.

“You alright, baby?” Her voice was soft, more on the high-pitch side, and clear like a flute. Her manicured hands pressed into Miguel’s tense muscles and he sank into his chair further, letting her go harder.

“M fine.” he grunted and she nodded, not pushing further. She never pushed, never pressed further than what he wanted. She was just so good, easy to be around, and never making him feel too intensely.

He felt nothing around her. It was simple. He thought he liked that, so why did he crave you so much? Why were you all he thought about? You forced him to feel weak and out of control, even before he met her.

“I think you should maybe give her less missions, it’s obvious that she’s getting sorta… distracted?” Her tone was quiet, and he just nodded in agreement, but he knew you weren’t the problem. He was the distracted one, and he knew that she saw this too. So he didn’t argue, just sank deeper into her butter touch and closed his eyes.

“I’m a lightweight, easy to fall, easy to break

With every move, my whole world shakes, keep me from falling apart.”

You laid in the infirmary, eyes closed from the pressure on the back of your neck. Truth be told, your head didn’t hurt, you just needed to get away from them all.

The door opened and you felt Miguel looming by the end of your bed.

“You’re ok.” It wasn’t a question as much as an announcement, like he was speaking to himself.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” You answered and avoided his eyes, scared to get caught in the red glare that trapped you in his hold for months on end.

“I think from now on, you should take it easy.” His voice wasn’t one you wanted to argue with, and it meant the possibility of not seeing him as often, so you didn’t mind. The ache in your chest still lingered.

“Okay.” You nodded, and something sparked in Miguel that you hadn’t seen before.

“Okay? That’s fine to you? You don’t care?”

“I mean, isn’t that what you said to me?” You shot back to him and he looked as if you’d actually shot him with a gun, your bullets creating a red ring in his eyes and making them brighter.

“This isn’t about us.”

“There never was an us.” Your words came out without hesitation and he let out a breath like you’d hit him in the gut. “It was just sex, right?”

“Mi bella.”

“Not yours. Never yours.” You looked up to him finally with fat tears in your eyes and his heart finally broke.

A door closing made you both quiet and look behind Miguel, seeing…

“Pedro…” Your voice was barely above a whisper as he stood with flowers, eyebrows furrowed with conflict and confusion.

“Did you two-” He didn’t even finish the sentence, Miguel not moving an inch. You jumped up and brushed past him, rushing to Pedro as you held him.

“Before, it was before you, before us.” You rambled, hoping it would be enough, that he’d understand.

“And now…?”

“Nothing.” Miguel’s voice was harsh, like the words were wrapped with barbed wire and razor blades.

“Exactly.” Your eyes found his and the look was tense, angry, hateful. “It was nothing.”

Miguel’s eyes darkened and he stormed out of the infirmary. Pedro just looked from him to you and sighed.

“Do you want to tell me what that was about?” The hand that held your favorite flowers dropped and a few petals floated to the ground, similar to how your soul felt right now.

“Can we go home?” You asked meekly, wanting to at least be secluded as he nodded in agreement and opened a portal to take you to your apartment.

Peter worked silently next to Miguel’s girl, the room echoing as he typed up his report for the anomaly capture before finally speaking.

“You knew that debris was falling, why didn’t you catch it?” He asked and the blonde turned to look at Peter B, then back to her own screen.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I saw it, you watched the piece of the building hit her.” He kept his voice low, “is it because of how Miguel looks at them?”

She froze. Of course she noticed, she wouldn't have made a move on Pedro if she wasn’t aware of the threat you posed. Threatened. Her heart pounded as a sneer appeared on her face for a second before smiling with tight lips.

“Miguel is with me, and that’s all that matters.” Her voice, sickeningly sweet to Peter, answered as if just discussing the weather and not how her jealousy could have killed you, someone she was supposed to see as her ally.

“You’re right, Miguel is with you, so don’t let your insecurities make you do something that could make you lose him.” Peter stood with those words of advice and walked away as if he didn’t just give her a thinly veiled warning.

Her blonde ponytail bobbed as she went to find Miguel, here to surprise him on her day off with a lunch she made him. As she approached his office, she heard panting and groans, knowing those sounds well by now. She’d been seeing Miguel for a few months and things had begun getting serious, so she easily recognized the sound of him about to orgasm.

As she peaked in, she saw him watching videos-

Videos of you. His hand fucking his cock fast and hard as he stared at the screens showing your agility as you soared through the sky in your spidersuit. Her blood boiled and her mind zeroed in on her true target; you.

Pedro sat across from you on your couch, tears filling your eyes as you explained what happened between you and MIguel.

“Who else knows?” He asked and you shook your head.

“Just you. Miguel and I never told anyone, he-” Your voice caught in your throat and you gulped it down, “he didn’t want anyone to know he had been with me.”

Pedro’s hand squeezed yours and he closed his eyes, moving to kiss your cheek.

“Is that why you were so upset that she tried to flirt with me?”

“Yes…” You admitted and let your shoulders sink.

“Alright.” Pedro stayed quiet and then pulled you into a hug.

“What are you-” You began to ask, but he cut you off by cupping your face in his warm hands.

“I’m so proud to have everyone know you’re with me, that you’re mine and I’m yours.” He emphasized the word ‘yours’ and your body trembled in shock. You flung your arms over his shoulders and buried your face into his chest, crying tears you didn't know you were holding in. You felt his lips kiss your shoulders and the side of your face as you wept into his shirt, clutching him close as you spilled your upset.

Lately, Miguel had avoided going home, focusing on work more and more. His precious girl was becoming too clingy, too much for him to handle. He wanted his freedom back, wanted to be the lone wolf he felt comfortable being.

“Miguel?” Her voice rang out like a bell and he closed his eyes, frustrated with the whole day. “Will you be coming home tonight?” She asked cautiously and he just shook his head, knowing she could see him from her vocals echoing. “I miss you, Miggy.” She pressed and he huffed.

“I’m too busy.” He replied and she moved to slip her hand into his, but he jerked away. It wasn’t intentional, it was natural and instinctual. She flinched and her face became dark with anger. “Baby, I-”

“That’s fine.” She answered and spun around to walk away.

“Peter spoke to me today.” Miguel’s voice made her body run cold, feeling like a fly caught in a web. “Said that he thinks we missed something, so I looked back at the footage.” He finally turned around and stood tall over her, “You let her get hurt.”

“It wasn’t intentional-”

“Bullshit!” He shouted and she kept herself calm, fists balled by her side.

“Would you be this upset if it was me?” She asked and he rolled his eyes.

“No puedo mas, this again? What is it with the constant questioning?” He yelled and she folded her arms in defense.

“I see how you act around her, how you look at her!”

“I’m with you!” He screamed back and the two fell quiet, breathless. His chest rose and fell with fury.

“Do you love her?” She glared and he tensed, the blistering heat of the question scorching Miguel.

“Mi sol, I love you.” He tried to emphasize the word ‘you’ once again, trying to explain that she was his sunlight, his-

“You didn’t say no.” Her face grew stoic, cold, almost rude as she straightened up. “So you do.”

“But I don’t- it’s not like that. I don’t want a future with her.”

“You don’t want one, or you’re scared of one?” The implication made him shift where he stood and look away from her, trying to even process everything she was assuming about him. “I don’t want you near her anymore.”

“Fine, I’ll prove it to you that you’re the one for me.” He moved to hold her hands, but she tugged them from his reach. “Please.”

“Alright.”

You were put on less missions, denied access to certain sectors of HQ, and worst of all, completely ignored. Little miss perfect was peppy as ever as you walked towards Miguel’s sector, stopping in her tracks to stand in your way.

“Hey! Need something?”

“Yes, actually. I’m not able to get into some areas that I need to for the next mission.” Her face soured and her pink lips turned to a scowl.

“You were assigned that mission?”

“Peter B asked me to take it for him, he’s having trouble finding someone to watch Mayday and MJ is cracking down on the whole ‘no more bringing Mayday on missions’ rule.” You continued tapping your watch until you bumped into her body, falling backwards and looking up to see her smiling sweetly, bent down and a little too close to your face.

“I’ll get someone to cover the mission, you can rest up, ok?”

“Um, it’s fine, I can handle a minor anomaly.” You backed up and she sighed, rolling her eyes and glaring down at you now. “Is there a problem?”

“Stay away from Miguel, and there won’t be.” She narrowed her eyes and spun on her toes, getting back to her peppy little skip before you could even process the brief conversation you just had, if you could even call that a conversation.

She saw you as a threat, and this was a revelation.

You took her advice and avoided Miguel completely, giving up any mission and refusing to take on anything that he might be present for.

The only time he was unavoidable was when others were around.

“Welcome in, watch out for some of Mayday’s toys!” Peter chuckled and let you walk in, Pedro behind you holding a bottle of your favorite wine and keeping his hand in yours. You stopped short and stared at the table in front of you. There sat Jess and her husband, Pav, Hobie, Miles, Gwen, and… Miguel. He had an arm over the empty chair to his right, another on his left. You gripped Pedro’s hand tighter and walked towards the empty chair to his left.

His girlfriend came out and sat in the chair you moved to sit in, batting her eyes and smiling up at you.

“Oh, sorry, I was already sitting here, but I think there’s a few spots on the couch!” She pointed over to the living room, everyone else completely engrossed in their conversations. You balled your free hand into a fist and just returned the comment with a nod, pulling Pedro along as he glared at Miguel. The leader of Spider Society watching you walk out, then flashing a glare towards the woman by his side.

“There’s no need to be cruel to her.”

“So would you rather her and Pedro sit here?” She leaned backwards, folding her arms defensively as he huffed. For the two of them, the days filled with either rigorous sex or obnoxious arguments. Behind closed doors, Miguel and his girlfriend were now miserable and always giving one another digs. She always caused fights between them when he was busy or trying to sleep, and most of the time they ended in rough kisses. It was the only way Miguel knew how to get her quiet, and how she knew how to keep him under her control without him thinking of you.

“I just might.” He answered and stood up, walking into the living room. Grabbing his coat, he saw how Pedro held you closer, how he comforted your upset frame, how he was so gentle with your hands in his as your head laid on his shoulder. His eyes met Miguel’s and at that moment, Miguel realized that Pedro knew. “Can I- Can we talk?” He asked the other man, motioning towards the balcony. Pedro kissed your forehead, making an itch form in the palm of MIguel’s hand, and followed the bigger of the two out the sliding glass doors.

“Pedro-” Miguel started, but the other raised a hand and interrupted him, a serious look in his dark eyes.

“She told me what happened.”

“I know. I can tell.” Miguel looked out at the city and kept one hand in his pants pocket. “She’s… She’s the world, the moon, she is-” He stopped himself briefly, “she was my everything, but I didn’t know how to care for her. You do, so please don’t ever stop or make my mistake, entiendes?” Miguel’s eyes, rimmed with red, caught Pedro’s and he saw that there was pity in them.

“I-” Pedro’s words caught in his throat as he looked away, trying to understand what the other was saying, then hanging his head. Miguel was trying to let you go, trying to let you be happy with Pedro, and Pedro saw that as Miguel’s eyes avoided him now. He deserved the truth. “You should know that your girlfriend has been bothering-”

Miguel sneered and gripped the railing with both hands. He saw her for who she was now, a snake in a spider suit.

“I know exactly what she’s doing. It won’t happen again.”

Pedro nodded again and looked towards the sky. “You should try to let her be happy.” His voice cracked and he walked away before Miguel could react, slipping back inside and sitting back on the couch with you. Miguel followed after a beat, now understanding Pedro’s statement and grabbing his coat.

“Honey, where are you going?” Her sickly kind voice made Miguel angry as she placed a hand on his arm, before he yanked it away. “You didn’t tell me we were leaving.” She spoke back, a bite in her words that would go undetectable to the others, but MIguel’s eyes burned red with a fire she’d never seen directed at her before.

“That’s because we aren’t. I am.” He clarified and trudged out of Peter’s door.

That night, Miguel sent Lyla to tell her to get her stuff out of his apartment, and that he would like his things returned to HQ as soon as possible.

You and Pedro laid in bed that night and as you drifted to sleep, you felt his watch get a buzz. He glanced at it and immediately turned it off.

“Was that important?”

“Not as important as you.” He pecked your forehead and pulled you in tighter. You fell asleep to the sound of his heartbeat under your head and woke to an empty bed.

[chichichi-blue-blog]

Azula and Katara fanfictions

Hi! Here are my babies fanfictions on Ao3, hope you'll enjoy it.

Complete

Insomnia : modern au, 13/13

Katara has always considered Azula as a lot of things, annoying, disrespectful, arrogant, and the list is long...but as a lover? Never. So when Azula offers to have a night with her, Katara's world just falls apart.

(it was an excuse to write smutt at first, but well, I guess nobody really complain about it)

The Crown : au but in the atla world, 26/26

The heir to the royal Fire Nation's family was born. Indeed, Katara gave birth to a princess. A fire princess. And everyone knew that princesses weren't made for the love of mothers but for the duty of the realm.

(one of my favorite because I loooove writing about fire royal family and complex motherhood)

Hurts so good : modern au, 11/11

It was a toxic relationship. They were not good for each other. Breaking up was hard. Trying to live like nothing never happened between them, worse. Azula and Katara came to Zuko's birthday party for him, just for him, and knowing that they were probably going to see each other was just a formality. Nothing more.

(Not my favorite, honestly would have rewrite it all, but too much energy, so I won't never do it, lol.)

To the moon and back : complete, 2/2

She wasn't attracted to her. Not at all. How could she? Was she thinking about Katara all the freaking time? Yeah! And? It didn't mean anything. Azula was just bored. End of the discussion.

(My first multi chapter azutara, first baby, still love it, even if I would write it differently now.)

Red roses are the worst : love spell au, 9/9

A mysterious love spell causes Katara to fall deeply in love with Azula, throwing their already complicated relationships into chaos. As Katara’s obsession grows, Azula is forced to confront emotions she’s never dealt with before. With tension mounting and magic at play, will Azula resist or give in to the unexpected affection of a waterbender who was never supposed to love her?

(One of my favorite!)

The Little Firebender’s Big Wish : au but in the atla world, chapter 8/8

Azula and Katara's daughter, Kayla, is eight years old and already a firebender. But firebending is hard, she can't control it and no one at school wants to be friends with someone who could burn them. If only, if only she hadn't been born like this.

(It's the first time that I’ve written an entire story from a child's point of view, and it’s really refreshing and interesting. I really, really love writing Azula and Katara as moms; they’re doing such a fine job.)

In progress

Your ties all around me : vampire story, chapters 11/?

Katara’s life was calm and routine, and she was perfectly content with it. Things should have stayed that way. But when a vampire starts to weave its web around her, she has no choice but to let it happen.

(My first vampire fic! It's going to be so tragic!)

The Other Side of the Mirror : au, chapters 6/?

Azula wakes up in an alternate universe where she is no longer the fire princess she once was. In this new world, she finds herself living a peaceful life with her former enemy, now her loving wife, Katara. As Azula navigates this unfamiliar reality, she must confront her identity, her emotions, and the woman who has become everything she never expected.

(I wrote this story because Arcane broke my heart. Now I have no heart, so I guess I'm going to break yours.)

In Love and In Lies : modern au, 7/?

Azula seemed to have it all: a devoted girlfriend she’d been with since her teenage years, a flourishing business that kept her at the top of her game. But everything shifted the moment she met her cousin Lu Ten’s new girlfriend. For the first time, she truly understood the depth of what it meant to hate.

One shot

Madness : Fire is attraction. Fire is burning her. Fire is all she wants.

(First time I realized that Katara could have an obssession for fire and Azula's warmth)

Because we have to : "You..." and Azula took a deep breath before speaking "...have to be quiet." Katara looked at her straight in the eyes and nodded slowly. Azula released a sigh and cleared her throat. "It will stay between us, right?" Wordlessly, Katara nodded again.

(another excuse to write smutt)

The cabin: A magical, illogical snow storm started in the Earth Kingdom while they were running away from everyone. The cabin was the only safe place they found.

(I love this one)

[trappedinafantasy37]

UNO REVERSE!!

throwing down 3, 16, and 25 for Daedra and Orin too :-)

Not gonna lie, Orin has been on my mind a lot lately so I'm glad to have an opportunity to talk more about her and her relationship to Daedra.

3. How did Orin go about taking your Durge down? Did she need to trick them? Was Durge blindsided, or did they see her betrayal coming?

This is something that I've been wanting to talk about and I did allude to in one of my fics. For any newcomers, Daedra does have the ability to see alternate versions of herself through intense meditation. She can do this by tapping into Lolth's Web in which Lolth herself weaves out various possibilities for each and every drow whose soul she has personally crafted. Daedra can see all the possibilities and realities that her life could take (she can technically see the realities of every single drow whose soul was created by Lolth, but Daedra isn't aware of that and she thinks she can only see herself). And Daedra can follow along that reality and see its future possibilities, making her kind of a clairvoyant (which is why Lolth wanted her so badly), but the only future she cannot see is her own.

So, yes, Daedra actually did see Orin's ambush coming from a long ways away, literally the day Sarevok introduced them to each other. She needed to tap into Lolth's web to determine how much of a threat Orin was to herself, seeing as Orin had achieved something that Daedra did not and that was become the youngest person to claim the title of Unholy Assassin. Daedra had considered snuffing Orin out right then and there, but she had seen the future possibilities that came with allowing Orin to live: 1) Orin would kill her in that ambush and then Daedra herself would be released from Bhaal's control or 2) Orin would not kill Daedra in that ambush, but dispose of her, and then Bhaal would have no other choice but to swap his control over to Orin and freeing Daedra. Either way, it was a win-win for her.

Daedra made the decision to let Orin live, knowing that Orin would one day try to kill her as all Bhaalspawn tend to do. But as Orin grew, Daedra realized that Orin does not actually have the skills to pull off the ambush that Daedra had foreseen. Soooo, "The Dread Ambusher" Daedra personally trained Orin to ensure that she would have the necessary skills to pull off the ambush and provide Daedra an out. Of course, the Absolute was a plan that Daedra was working with, but she had incredible doubts that she would pull it off successfully.

One day, Daedra receives a letter from Ketheric Thorm, informing her of their mutual plan and he had masterfully baited a noble drow warrior from Menzoberranzan, and that this noble drow was currently on her way to Moonrise. Daedra packed up her things and brought Orin along with her, knowing that this was the day her fate would be decided. Just outside the shadowlands while walking through a forest, Daedra mentally prepped herself, making the final decision if she was really going to allow Orin to do what she was going to do. Daedra closed her eyes, and let Orin stab her, knowing that death was preferred than being Bhaal's slave for how ever many centuries she has left to live. But alas, Orin is fucking bad at everything she does and Daedra survived the ambush, having been left mentally disabled for the rest of her life.

16. How does your Durge feel about Helena’s attack on Orin as a child, and Orin’s murder of her? 

Being a former Priestess of Lolth, Daedra is no stranger to matricide and understands the social implications of it. Although Orin is not a drow, Helena's murder did elevate Orin's status in Bhaal's eyes. Personally, Daedra never really cared about killing family as a means of gaining status. She was raised as an only child by a family in the poorer and dirtier streets of Menzoberranzan, by a mother and father who doted on her and treated her like a princess. Since she was not of nobility, she had nothing to gain by killing her mother so she had no desire to. And since her mother saw Daedra as a gift from Lolth herself, her mother had no desire to kill her daughter either. Even though Daedra did kill her own mother, it isn't something that she did of her own choosing and she blames Bhaal for her own mother's death. Although Daedra does understand this important social ritual within Menzoberranzan, it is not one she particularly understands or agrees with. And as far as she is concerned, Orin did not black out like Daedra did, Bhaal did not possess her like he did her, Orin killed her mother of her own volition. So for Orin to do something so drowic, it disturbed her because she cannot fathom a mother wanting kill her own daughter for status, and she cannot fathom a daughter wanting to kill her own mother for the same thing.

25. How does your Durge remember Orin, after everything is over?

Post-lobotomy Daedra has no memory of her relationship with Orin and what they were like before. The only information she really knows and understands about Orin all came from Minthara (and Gortash). The only thing Daedra cared about was how Orin had abused Minthara. When it was revealed to her that she was Bhaalspawn, Daedra began to loathe herself more than she already did because she saw herself as the same kind of monster that hurt Minthara and was afraid she was damned to do the same thing (which she did do unintentionally). But after rejecting Bhaal and destroying the brain, Daedra is left feeling disgusted by Orin but happy that she is dead. As far as post-lobotomy Daedra is concerned, Orin is the source of both hers and Minthara's trauma and they both of scars cut into them by Orin. Her only regret is not torturing Orin in the same way she tortured Minthara. But the two drow do not think much of Orin anymore and have moved on with their lives, knowing that their abuser is dead and can never touch them again.

[kaiju-art-for-the-heart]

An Heir to the Throne: Crabby Suspicions

Chapter 7

The swift transition from Autumn to Winter was unmistakable. The cooler air and intense wind chill normally had no affect on the colossal titans, until now. Strip by strip, Mothra's beautiful silk would freeze solid before inevitably breaking beneath them, causing a small bit of panic. 

At this, Mothra could be seen layering silk once more around the cradle. Her claws moved effortlessly to weave the soft material into a tight bond. With a few tufts of her fur slipped inside the webbing, she stood back to assess the final product. The egg cradle was now refurbished to be far more sturdy, while also retaining warmth even when unattended. Content with her work, Mothra stepped around to position herself on top of the clutch. Her thick winter coat provided an excellent layer of heat as she cuddled close to them. 

It had been just over a month since everything had transpired. Godzilla expectedly made a full recovery, now working twice as hard to keep the peace and his queen comfortable. The eggs also hit milestones she didn't expect were possible. It seemed almost weekly they were gaining weight, even with one of the eggs being significantly smaller. Though other parents may have found it normal, Mothra was fascinated. Afterall, she had no idea what was going on behind those little shells. Thinking about it both excited and terrified her, it was either going REALLY good or REALLY bad. 

"My precious babies.." her gentle voice spoke, filling the empty air around them with unwavering love. "I hope you're working hard to look your best. You already have a secret admirer." she chuckled, watching as their persistent house guest paused its 'stealthy' sneaking. Usually Godzilla would be the one keeping it in check by making sure it stayed by the opening of the nest. But since he had been out on patrol the past few days, it had become far more comfortable sneaking around and attempting to get closer to the cradle. 

The small tinks and clanks of its metal legs creeped just a few inches closer, only pausing when Mothra looked to it. After a few seconds she turned away, pretending to seem uninterested. Instantly it began again, its beady black eyes fixated on the eggs below her. With another quick turn of the head, it stops in its tracks on a particularly spiky portion of the rocks. She was absolutely tickled by this, small chirrs of amusement echoing around them and catching the attention of the bot. Though the small interaction doesn't last long before one of its legs slips off and sends it tumbling down the wall and in the direction of the cradle. Reflexively Mothra moves her claw into its path, stopping it in its tracks with a loud CLANK! 

After a few moments of silence, she gently raised her claw to make sure she didn't crush the poor thing. Her eyes landed on the small crab laying on its back, its legs kicking side to side in attempt to flip itself over. She giggles at its awkward display before assisting, watching it regain its balance quickly. Its eyes unnaturally turn upwards to look at her before settling once again on its original task. She stares to note its eerie stillness, her thoughts clouded with just how cute the humans truly were. 

It didn't take long for Godzilla to make it back home for lunch. Though he wouldn't say it out loud, he was incredibly eager to come back to see his family waiting for him. To anyone else, maybe a bit too eager. Emerging from the cool ocean waters he trudges his way onto the beach, shaking out as much moisture as possible. Tracking water into the nest was a surefire way of breaking it apart faster, they had to learn that the hard way. As soon as he felt dry enough to enter, Godzilla screeched the usual warning cry to his queen. 

Mothra had already sensed his arrival, but didn't anticipate him to be so close so fast. Hurriedly her claw pushed the small crab back as far as she could, making sure to be ever so careful to not break it. After making sure it was a decent lengths away, she composed herself, pretending as if she had been napping just a few moments prior. Godzilla entered the nest cautiously, lunch in hand, as he watched Mothra chirr tiredly to him. He greets her with gentle grooming to her antenna before dropping a crudely ripped up tree by her side. Rich bronze tree sap oozed from its drunk and staining the soft wraps below. Though it was messy she didn't mind, it just meant she had a little snack for later.

As Mothra drinks up the meal Godzilla so graciously brought for her,  the small metal crab silently wedges itself in the new hiding spot Mothra pushed it into. The moment its eyes re-focus onto the pair, a large spiky tail whacks it out of its position and sends it tumbling back towards the mouth of the nest. Godzilla growls in annoyance, knowing the humans were already becoming far too bold.  

"Gojira!" Mothra gasps, catching his attention for a mere second before his eyes locked back onto the retreating spy crab. "Please, you're being far too rough." she chitters again, catching a small glimpse of the injured crab skittering away. As it finally fleas the scene, Godzilla turns back to her with a huff. 

"Mosura, just because they are not here physically, does not mean they are to be trusted. They're lucky I'm allowing them this." he retorted, the pink spikes of his tail pulsing vibrantly in his familiar territorial display. She heavily sighs at this, knowing it would take time for him to warm up to the idea. Her claws reach out to him, prompting to settling in beside her. "Lets at least give them a chance. They've proven trustworthy a few times before haven't they?" she questions, looking up to him with pleading eyes. Godzilla stares down at her, slowly lowing himself beside her with a defeated drone. "Fine.." he says simply, knowing he could never say no to that level of trickery. 

"But they only have one chance. If anything happens to any of you, I'm painting this planet red." 

"... That's.." she trailed off, knowing this would quickly turn into a losing battle. "How about we just get rid of the crabs if something did happen? That would be just as affective." she proposed nervously, getting a nod of approval from him. Finally coming to an agreement felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Both titans curl around their nest, ignoring their responsibilities for the rest of the day and instead enjoying each others company.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The loud screws and banging echoed endlessly at the Monarch machinery division. Recently they had their hands full recovering damaged spy equipment that Godzilla so graciously 'spared'. Three head mechanics sat chatting amongst themselves, hard at work repairing the notorious spy crab that was dedicated to being closest to the nest. 

"Man.. Godzilla sure is kind to leave 'em just busted up enough to need extensive repairs." one of the men chuckled, slowly descending the ladder that lead from the crabs main frame. The two other mechanics laugh cheekily, each working independently on the crabs broken legs. 

"Listen, if a weird bug kept trying to get close to my kids I'd be pretty annoyed too."  the woman chimes in, closing the maintenance panel on the dented exterior. Both mechanics stand back on their scaffolding, checking off information on their clipboards with satisfied nods. "Alright, I've got my leg done. You boys finished yet? Management will be on our asses if we don't get this thing up and running by 22:00." she questioned, pulling up her sleeve to peer at the thin wrist watch with a nervous sigh. 

"Re-lax Minty, everythin' is fine on the inside. The only thing that may need a replacement, is one of them eye lenses. But that's all. How's it lookin' back there, Trux?" the first mechanic called out, hastily scribbling his last report down before lowering the clipboard. "Its... umm.." Trux called back, his voice quiet but concentrated. This catches the attention of the other two workers as they descend back down to the ground floor. 

Meeting back up in the middle, they creep their way around to find their teammate scanning through multiple different specs on the crab. He seemed so focused that he didn't even notice them appear behind him, looking quite concerned. "Hey kid.. you know you don't actually have to memorize this thing.. I was joking when I said that." Minty chuckled apprehensively, watching as Trux flipped through page after page with heightened confusion. 

"Yeah! Listen to your uncle Tino, ain't no-body rememberin' all that right off the bat. Give yourself some grace." Tino chanted with a hardy pat on the shoulder. Trux finally turned his attention to their troubled glances with a nod. 

"Sorry I just.." he started, looking back to the messy paperwork. "I.. found something that isn't listed.. anywhere. I have no idea what this thing is but.." he trailed off, lifting his gloved hand to gaze nervously at the small item. He turns back to reveal an orange USB plugin, his hands trembling as the previous look of confusion delved into silent terror. "I'm scared I may have ripped something super important out! It was jutting from a spot in the back leg panel but I couldn't find the slot it came out of! D-do you guys know where this goes?!" Trux finally broke down, the two mechanics staring wide eyed at the small chip bouncing around his jittery hand. 

Taking a step forward Minty adjusts her glasses, narrowing her eyes to assess the item fully. "That's not right.. this unit doesn't have any USB slots. All the information it gathers is fed directly to the Monarch data bank, so there should be no reason for this. Tino?" she questions, turning to look at the large man but stunned to see the color drained completely from his features. 

 "The board.." He whispers under his breath, coaxing them both to question "what?" in unison. Quickly Tino grabs Trux by the wrist and pulls him to his feet before grabbing the hem of Minty's work apron, dragging them along with a sense of urgency. "To the board, NOW."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As the sun rose high, the dark clouds that hid its golden rays parted to shine down on the queens resting figure. Her eyes flutter open, instantly panning down to the warm basket of eggs she had been perched on all night long. Mothra stretched out her front legs tiredly, chirring with excitement at whatever new development she could spot out today. Quickly her excitement turned to calm soothing as Godzilla rose from his sleep as well. A loud yawn bellowed from him before turning to greet his queen with a nuzzle. 

"You must be tired, my queen. I'm ready to trade places so you can take some much needed rest." Godzilla purred, rubbing his snout against her soft neck fuzz. Mothra couldn't help but trill at his affection, nuzzling into the crook of his snout. 

"Thank you for offering my love, but I'm truly fine. I'm more than ok with staying here for a while." she assured him, attempting to decline his invitation as passively as possible. Godzilla pauses for a moment to look at her, nudging her gently with another purr.

"Please, I insist. I've already finished my patrols for the week, was there anything you wanted to check on at all? Maybe visit Hallow Earth for a bit?" he questioned sweetly, listening to her hum in thought, but ultimately shaking her head in response. 

"Mmmm nope. I left everything in good shape last I checked. I'm sure everything is fine." she stated simply, making Godzilla narrow his eyes. He silently thought to himself before tilting his head, a look of intrigue and slight vexation riddling his features.

"Well, surely you want some type of break for yourself?" he questions again, the sweetness in his tone dropping to something a bit more impatient. "Of course not, darling. I need no such thing, but I know you love having your alone time. Which is why I'm happy to let you have as much as you need." she said softly, looking up at him with a smile that screamed 'check mate'. 

Godzilla sits up to look at her straight, his eye twitching restlessly with every passing moment. "You're hogging them, its my turn to sit." Godzilla grumbled impatiently, getting Mothra to finally look up at him with the same fierce tone. She retaliates with false sweetness, stating he sat with them for 3 days straight before this and that it was actually HER turn to sit. Both growl under their breath before Godzilla playfully nudges her with his snout, dropping the previous act with a chuckle. "You've been keeping them company since I came back from the dead. Its only fair if I get a couple extra days. Please??" he sighed, capturing her heart with his unusually glossy eyes. 

It took less than a second for her to cave under his pressure, sighing heavily as she stood up to let him take her place. Godzilla wasted no time to settle in comfortably over the eggs, with just the right amount of space between his body and the cradle. The small soft mounds change drastically from blue to pink with their switch, their bioluminescence becoming brighter and brighter with every passing day. 

After taking a long stretch, Mothra searched around the mouth of the nest with confusion, turning to Godzilla with a chitter. "What happened to the little creature? It was here yesterday wasn't it?" she questioned, but only getting a shrug in response. "I watched it leave yesterday but haven't seen it pop up today. Maybe they finally got the memo." he huffed, applauding himself for yesterdays strategic tail swipe. Mothra is a bit disappointed at its disappearance but shakes it off, knowing it made Godzilla happier that it wasn't around. 

Giving each other one last snuggle, Mothra exits their home with renewed energy. Her elegant wings stretched out to take her into the sky, the cool winter winds brushing past her fur with a tingly sensation. Though she was only gone for a few minutes, her mind was already clouded with thoughts of coming back home to her precious family. To her, everything was finally perfect. 

[my-hazbinhotel-blog]

Web Of Temptations

Valentino X Fem! Reader

18+ MINORS DNI

Ch. 2 - Recognized

The streets of Pentagram City were never kind, but now they were suffocating. It had only been a few days since the disastrous stream—since the entire city had seen your face, your real face. And in a place like this, anonymity was more than a luxury. It was survival.

Now, you felt every gaze as you walked through the crowded streets, every whisper slicing through the noise. What was once a comfortable invisibility had turned into a spotlight, the shadows you used to hide in betraying you at every corner.

You kept your hood pulled low over your head, sunglasses obscuring most of your face, but it wasn’t enough.

“Hey! You’re her, right?” A demon with glowing red eyes called out from across the street, his grin wide and hungry. “The cam girl? From that stream with Angel Dust?”

Your heart dropped into your stomach. You quickened your pace, pretending not to hear, but it didn’t stop him.

“Hey! I’m talkin’ to you!” His voice grew louder, drawing attention from others. “You’re the one who—”

You darted down an alley, weaving through the tight spaces between crumbling buildings, your pulse hammering in your ears. The city seemed to close in on you, its jagged skyline a constant reminder of the danger that lurked in every shadow. There was nowhere to hide.

This was exactly what you’d feared—being known, being seen. You’d managed to carve out a small, anonymous slice of existence in this chaotic world, and now it was slipping away. You were losing control. And in Pentagram City, when you lost control, someone else took it.

For the past few days, you’d tried to lay low, tried to disappear. But the whispers followed you, the stares, the smirks. It wasn’t long before the rumors reached the wrong ears.

Valentino’s ears.

It started with a message. No subject line, no signature. Just a time, a place, and a single line that made your blood run cold:

“We need to talk.”

You knew who it was from the moment you saw it. Valentino. One of The overlords of pentagram city. The puppet master behind so much of the city’s darker entertainment industry. You had spent your entire career avoiding his notice, staying far enough below the radar that he would never see you as valuable. But now, with your face out in the open? You were prime real estate.

And if Valentino wanted something, he always got it.

You considered ignoring the message, disappearing completely. But where would you go? Pentagram City wasn’t the kind of place you could just vanish from. Not for long. And if you ran, Valentino would come after you. He always did.

So, you went.

The meeting was set in one of the many clubs Valentino happens to fancy—lavish, gaudy, and filled with the kind of clientele you avoided like the plague. You stepped inside, immediately hit by the scent of expensive perfume and the sound of smooth, sultry music playing under the low hum of conversation. The place oozed decadence, all plush velvet and gold accents, and it made your skin crawl.

A few eyes lingered on you as you made your way to the private booth in the back, the one reserved for special meetings. For people who owed Valentino their lives—or worse, their souls.

The booth was dimly lit, shadows dancing across the crimson cushions. And there he was, waiting for you.

Valentino lounged across the seat, his eyes hidden behind his signature heart-shaped sunglasses, but you could feel his gaze. He looked every bit the part of a devilish overlord—sharp, impeccably dressed, and dangerously charismatic. He didn’t even have to say a word to command the room.

“Well, well,” he said, his voice a smooth purr as his lips curled into a smirk. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d actually show, mi amorcito~”

You swallowed hard, forcing yourself to stand tall despite the fear gnawing at your insides. “I didn’t have much of a choice, did I?”

Valentino chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that sent a chill down your spine. “No, princesa, you really didn’t.”

He gestured for you to sit, and you hesitated only for a moment before sliding into the booth across from him. The table between you felt like a thin line separating your old life from whatever nightmare awaited you on the other side.

“I’ve been hearing a lot about you lately,” Valentino continued, casually inhaling his very long looking cigarette. “Angel Dust seems to think you’ve got… potential. And after that little show you put on, well… I’m inclined to agree.”

You bristled at the mention of the stream, but kept your voice steady. “It was a mistake.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” he leaned forward, his grin widening, “there are no mistakes in my world. Only opportunities.”

You shifted in your seat, trying to ignore the feeling of being cornered. “What do you want from me?”

“Straight to business, huh? I like that, cariño.” Valentino took a slow and long drag of his cigarette, savoring the moment. “It’s simple, really. I want you to work for me. Exclusively.”

Your heart raced. This was it—the thing you’d been avoiding your entire career. “And if I say no?”

Valentino’s smile didn’t falter, but the air between you grew colder. “Saying no isn’t an option. Not after what’s happened. You’ve become... valuable. And in my line of work, valuable assets don’t get to walk away.”

He reached into his coat, pulling out a sleek, contract and laying it on the table between you. The edges seemed to shimmer, almost alive, as if the paper itself was imbued with dark magic.

“I’m offering you a deal, mi amorcito” Valentino said, his voice soft, but full of dangerous intent. “Sign your soul over to me, and I’ll give you everything you’ve ever wanted. Fame, fortune, power—you name it. And in return, I own you. Simple as that.”

You stared at the contract, the weight of the decision pressing down on you like an iron chain. Signing it would mean giving up everything—your freedom, your soul. But refusing? Refusing meant facing the wrath of Valentino, and that was a fate worse than death in this city.

“What’s the catch?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

Valentino leaned back, his smirk never fading. “No catch, cariño. Just the usual terms. A little performance here, a little show there. Nothing you’re not already used to.”

He paused, then added with a gleam in his eye, “Oh, and of course, you’ll have to keep me happy. I’m quite taken with you, princesa~.”

You swallowed hard, the gravity of the situation hitting you like a ton of bricks. You had always known that dealing with Valentino was dangerous, but now that you were here, sitting across from him with your future hanging in the balance, it felt real in a way that made your skin crawl.

Still, what choice did you have?

With trembling hands, you reached for the pen.

“I’ll sign,” you said quietly, your voice steady despite the turmoil inside. “But I want my terms.”

Valentino raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Go on.”

“I won’t be your puppet. I keep control over my image, my streams. And I work with Angel, but on my terms.”

Valentino smiled, a dark, satisfied grin. “You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that.” He pushed the contract closer. “Deal. Sign it, and you’ll be one of the most powerful faces in Pentagram City. Or... you can walk out of here and be forgotten.”

Your hand hovered over the paper, the pen feeling impossibly heavy in your grip. This was it—the moment that would change everything. The moment you gave up your soul for a shot at something bigger than yourself.

With a deep breath, you signed.

The ink shimmered on the paper, binding you to the deal. Valentino’s smile widened.

“Welcome to the family, mi amorcito~.”

Heyyyy! I hope you guys are enjoying!! This story is heavily inspired by one I had read on AO3, but never got finished. Please let me know if you guys want more- BYEEEEE

[vincess-princess]

trying to write original small-form works ended up in this. not exactly small, but it's finished, and that's something considered i haven't finished a thing since 2020

Genres: sci-fi, dystopia, a dash of cyberpunk Word count: 10 228 words Summary: The research facility personnel doesn't like Dex much. Not a single one of them hadn't suffered from one of his meltdowns, be that a bruise or a broken limb. But they aren't getting rid of him. They can't, really. He is the reason the research facility has been built. The military that sponsored it are very interested in a mysterious virus in his body. And Dex? Dex is interested in putting as many spokes in their wheels as he can. Warnings: not spoiling it to you but on AO3 this would have gotten a "creator chose not to warn" tag.

Dex could feel them burrow through his flesh, weaving complex tunnel systems underneath his skin that looked like intricate red webs from the outside. The tunnels healed fast, and the next day the webs would look completely different, each time unique, like a snowflake. All this healing and tearing produced so much scar tissue his skin was growing bumpy and uneven - but at least dead flesh didn’t ache.  

But so far there was still nearly not enough of it in his body to not ache, so much that constant pain fogged his mind, slowed his thoughts and jumbled his perception of reality. It was not so bad, really; pain could hardly break through the veil of fog, and only an occasional sharp spike of acuteness tore through it – but just for a moment, and then everything went thick and bland again.

The medassistant above his head detected Dex’s heartbeat change and awoke with a buzz. Its flexible tendril with a needle at the end began unwinding, aiming at his left arm where constant blood-taking left ugly bruises on the inner side of his elbow. This tendril was considerably faster than the previous three, but not enough that he couldn’t break it too if he wanted. But he didn’t. Not right now, at least.

The needle dug into Dex’s inner elbow and began filling a little vial with coppery blood. The more of them there were, the stronger was the color. His was the brightest in the lab fridge, more so considering that activity in other samples ceased long ago – they couldn’t live outside the host for more than 24 hours.

The tendril drank its due and withdrew. Next to the bed a drawer moved out of the wall. There were two small white capsules inside. Breakfast.

Dex sighed and pushed himself up on the bed. Lowered his bare feet onto the cold floor. Shivers ran up his calves. Would it really hurt the budget to put a rug in here? Anything, really, just to brighten the austere, sterile containment cell, dilute the grey and white with some color.

But the management didn’t like him enough to fulfil his wishes. They didn’t like him at all, to be frank. It was probably all the equipment they had to replace and the new workers they had to hire after yet another of his meltdowns.

Through great effort Dex rose to his feet and shuffled over to the sink in the other corner of the cell. When he waved his hand before the sensor, water poured into his mug – thankfully, he had no restriction on it, because the infection made him really thirsty.

He washed tasteless pills down with water, then climbed back to bed in hope of catching some more shut-eye. The rough fabric of the bedsheet grinded against his skin, inflaming his sharp senses. His brain, flooded with signals of distress, instantly jumped into overwhelm, forcing a groan out of his throat. This was the worst of his illness: lights too bright, sounds too loud, surfaces too uneven, smells too strong. Doctors tried to reduce the sensory input – with limited success: Dex still had at least one meltdown on a biweekly basis. At least not every other day like in the beginning, though.

Just as he wrapped himself in a thin blanket, he heard the elevator on the other end of the hall open and familiar heavy steps approach. The man was limping slightly – seemed like his leg was still healing. Was the management really so short-staffed as to call Mike from his sick leave early? Modern medicine could heal broken bones very fast, of course, but for fuck’s sake, give the poor guy some rest.

Because Dex surely wasn’t gonna do that. As steps grew closer, he stood up and grabbed his mug from the sink, and when the door opened, flung the mug into the figure looming in the doorframe. A thump, an indignant yell and the clatter of the mug rolling across the floor that followed were music to his ears.

“You motherfucker!” Mike yelled. His stubbly face reddened – he was always quick to anger. “I’m so sick of you, you chinch-infested asshole. Can’t wait for them to eat you alive.”

“I’m happy to see you too, Mike. How’s the leg?”

“One day I will get to kick your corpse with it. And I’ll do it. I’ll be the first in line.” Mike promised, kicking the mug with such ferocity it could as well be the aforementioned corpse.

“I sure hope your leg heals by that time. So you can give it your all.”

“It better does.” Mike walked inside, grabbed him by the arm and tugged at it. “C’mon. You’ve got some tests to do.”

“Can’t wait.”

They walked down the hall. It was squeaky-clean, as always – a government research facility had to meet the standards – but there were still crumbs and dust that stuck to Dex’s sensitive feet. Walking everywhere barefoot didn’t help much when that “everywhere” was the lab, the gym and the shower.

Mike led him to the elevator and towards the lab. Dr. Forester waited for them at the door.

“Good morning, Dex,” he said.

Dex ignored him. Dr. Forester didn’t look too upset about it.

“Come in, come in. Mike, I’ll call you when it’s time to escort Dex to the gym.”

“Enjoy yourself,” Mike said to Dex acidly.

“Thanks, I will.”

The guard left. Dex listened to his steps getting quieter until Dr. Forester closed the door.

“Sit down.” He waived at the chair in the center of the lab. “A chair” was not nearly enough to do it justice, though. It was a throne of woe – for the sickest and the damnedest, with cuffs on the handles and at the footrest, a collar where the neck should go and a crown of a neuroscanner above the head. Too much time had he spent on his throne of woe – more than anyone else, as far as he was aware. The longest any other infected lasted at the facility before Dex was four months and eighteen days.

Dex was here for over a year already. He wasn’t sure how much exactly – as time passed, things began to blur. Now his life before the facility seemed a distant memory, a splash of color among the monotony of black and white.

No. He won’t drag those memories to the surface. Burying them again would be too much work.

“I’d really prefer not having to strip you into this.” Dr. Forester patted the throne handle. “That’d do good both to the research and to your well-being. You agree?”

Dex ignored him again. They’ve been through that countless times, and Dr. Forester was right – it hurt no one else but Dex.

Still, he would do it again, and again, and again, until they had to take his body apart limb by limb, but not today. Today the pain was worse than usual, and he didn’t have it in him today. One day wouldn’t change anything anyway.

“Seems like you are. We’ll see, though.” And Dr. Forester picked up a tonometer.

The usual tests followed. Blood pressure, glucose, urine sample, weight, height (Dex added half an inch over his stay at the facility), blood oxygen, ECG, brain scan and he forgot what else. His blood analysis had been completed by that point, and one of Dr. Forester’s assistants – Turner, if Dex remembered correctly – was putting the data into the database.

“Hm. The ironphage concentration is higher than usual today. Another growth period?” Dr. Forester mused at the chart of Dex’s ironphage concentration in the blood. It spawned the entirety of his imprisonment at the facility and grew in spurts: a period of fast growth, a plateau, growth, plateau. Every time Dex hoped a yet another spurt would be the last one, and every time it wasn’t. And it seemed now that another spurt was coming. Not good news for Dex and doctors both.

“It is within acceptable fluctuation, though…” Dr. Forester kept talking, but the sound of his voice faded into the background as another one pushed its way ahead. It was Turner banging on his keyboard like it was his mortal enemy, and the repetitive, annoying clicking rang in Dex’s ears, overpowering everything else. Though not exactly loud to anyone else, it rumbled through Dex’s body, making his muscles tense up and his head hurt. He barely suppressed an urge to cover his ears and instead clenched the handles of his throne so hard his knuckles went white.

“What is it?” Dr. Forester frowned. Damn, he noticed. “Dex, I sure hope you’re not scheming something up. We both know that tranquilizers aggravate your sensitivity.”

“Make it stop,” Dex exhaled. Words came out through great effort. Please, not another meltdown. Triggered by keyboard clicking would be the new low for him to hit.

“Stop what?”

“The banging. Keyboard.”

“Keyboard? Turner!” Dr. Forester quickly identified the culprit. “Tone down that clicking! Or better put it off until Dex leaves. The data won’t go anywhere.”

“Yes, doctor,” Turner said, shooting Dex an unfriendly gaze. Considering that once Dex threw a tonometer at him, leaving a sizeable bruise, Dex understood why.

“Is that better?”

Dex nodded.

“Good. Now, we’re done here. Off to the gym you go.”

Mike and Turner walked him down the hall to another door. There was a corner right behind it, but Dex didn’t know what was there. He never went farther than the gym.

A massive steel door, like that of a bunker, was controlled by a fingerprint lock, and, as Dr. Forester warned Dex, did not react to fingers that were for some reason separated from the body. Not that Dex ever tried, but the warning did change a couple of his plans. All the weapons in the gym were, of course, just training versions of real ones, and couldn’t kill a man, or so he was told – but they were still weapons.

Inside the gym was brightly lit, as always – they never listened to Dex’s requests to tone down the brightness. The rubber-covered floors were squeaky clean – not a trace of blood left from the last time. He’s gotta ask Mike about Trevor – they should have sewn his arm back on already.

The door behind Dex slammed shut. He looked around. The broadaxe he used the last time was missing, and toned plexiglass separating the gym from the observation room replaced. Pity they took away the broadaxe, even a training version. It was heavy enough to leave a good dent and crush a couple of bones.

A robotic voice began reading instructions from a speaker by the ceiling. They were the same from Dex’s first day in the facility, and he could recite them by memory now. The damn white coats kept putting them on every time he came to the gym.

“Shut up!” he yelled at the ceiling. The voice kept reading monotonously. Dex stopped listening.

He headed to the weapon rack and picked up his favorite rifle. It lay heavily in his arms, warm to the touch, like it had just been shot out of. A precise replica of a real-life SVD-X1 shooting rubber bullets. The bullets were real at first, but after the doctors saw enough of Dex’s temperament they replaced all the weapons with their training versions. Still, even the training version of SVD-X1 was light, portable, quick and precise, and reliable like a Swiss watch.

It's been a while since he held Glasha in his arms, and it felt like being reunited with an old friend. It did exactly what Dex wanted from it, didn’t manhandle him and perform tests and experiments on him – what’s more to ask?

Yeah, a bitter thought flashed through Dex’s mind, the facility had really lowered his standards.

The observer – Turner, most likely – must have seen him cradle the rifle and seized the chance. The robotic voice changed its tune mid-word and launched a “precision check”. On the opposite sides of the gym, a good 300 feet away, three targets were lowered from the ceiling. One was about 20 inches wide, the other – 7, and the smallest one – barely 2.

Oh, so they returned to the basics. Out of caution, probably – they didn’t expect him to show his top results after a week of solitary confinement – but Dex could already feel boredom wash over him. He hit those targets during his first month in the facility, why go back to it?

He took his earmuffs off the weapon rack – the gunshots deafened him for good five minutes otherwise – returned to the position and raised the rifle to his shoulder. He felt Glasha’s buttstock nest comfortably against his shoulder, leveled the scope against his eye. He closed his eyes, inhaled and called to the ironphages. Here’s a job for you.

The red webs on his hands filled up and reddened. Adrenaline rushed through his body, overwhelmed his mind with unexplainable confidence, almost like Dex had already seen everything happen. His fingers grew stronger, his hold – more even, Glasha seemed weightless. He narrowed his eyes.

Bang, bang, bang – the three targets fell back and rose ashamedly to the ceiling.

“Boring!” he yelled to the plexiglass, rubbing his shoulder where the recoil hit. SVD-X1 was nearly not as bad as, say, Barrett M72-V1 (not to say lighter), but it was still a sniper rifle. Precision and strike strength came with a price.

Turner must have been annoyed at his expression of boredom: the targets began moving, then doubled in numbers, then sped up. Dex kept shooting methodically, almost without thinking: ironphages didn’t need him to. They granted his arms balance and strength, kept up with the speed, postponed muscle fatigue. Dex reveled in this thoughtlessness, this utter concentration on one thing only: it gave him relief from his thoughts and even lessened the pain.

When the routine was over, Dex was almost disappointed. But then Turner launched the next program – melee. Dex liked it less than precision shooting, but he took what he could get.

He went to the weapon rack, took off the earmuffs and picked a nylon knife. He weighed it in his hand, reminding the ironphages of the weight, the shape of the handle, the point of balance – and then he heard a voice.

Dex was going to brush it off - Turner was speaking on the intercom, probably, - but then another voice joined in. It was low, booming. Then spoke one more person – a woman, judging by the higher pitch. Dex couldn’t make out the words, but could distinguish the intonation quite well.

And it was very telling: both unfamiliar voices were measured, authoritative, commanding. Soldiers spoke like that.

Oh, come on. Dex told them numerous times he would rather die than work with the military, and they never listened. His fingers clenched the handle of the knife. His answer was gonna be the same, and he would show them that.

The knife collided with the glass and bounced off it so hard it landed far behind Dex. It left a shallow dent – they may have reinforced the glass specifically for this kind of Dex’s tantrums, but his growing strength eventually outgrew it, and they couldn’t afford to replace it every couple weeks.

“I ain’t joining the army!” he yelled. His voice echoed all over the gym, rumbled in his ears. Dex winced, but continued.

“Fuck your army and fuck you!” He picked up a heavier knife and flung it at the glass. This dent was noticeably deeper. The ironphages clearly banded up in there to help him convey his point.

The voices behind the glass went quiet for a moment and then began gabbering with growing intensity. The male voice boomed, the female sizzled. Turner could barely be heard – these two must have completely overpowered him. Dex felt no pity for him.

“Fuck! You! Fuck! You!” Dex chanted as he grabbed Barrett M72-V1 off the weapon rack and fired the whole magazine into the glass.

The recoil was so powerful his shoulder exploded with pain, making him drop the rifle with a groan. But it was worth it – the bullets, though rubber, dove deep into the glass and nestled there snugly, framed by snowflake-like halos of cracks.

The glass didn’t break, but his demonstration of discontent sure had an effect on the observers.

“Stop that right now!” Turner’s trembling voice demanded over the loudspeaker.

“Or what?”

“You don’t wanna know.” Turner tried to be ominous, but sounded desperate instead.

“You for real? I’m supposed to be afraid of something I don’t even know about? You’re a horrible negotiator.” Dex picked up another knife and twirled it between his fingers.

“It’s gonna be worse than anything you’ve had before.”

“Really? Now I’m interested. Roll out your new punishment.” Dex flung the knife at the glass again. Turner’s breath audibly faltered at the collision.

“You don’t wanna go through it. Just stop that and you won’t get it,” Turner tried one last time. But Dex was unimpressed.

“Come on! How many guards is that gonna be this time? Ten? Twenty?”

Turner emitted a short laugh. “None.”

Then a hiss came from somewhere above. Dex’s sensitive nose caught a whiff of something bitter and acrid. Then a yellowish gas began blowing into the room, painting everything in vomit-colored residue.

They were sedating him!

Dex couldn’t not agree that this was something new. He’d rather have ten guards. At least those were breakable. He couldn’t break a gas’s leg, try as he might.

“Cowards!” he yelled to the glass, hoping to provoke Turner, but no more sounds came from the loudspeaker. Dex kicked the weapon rack with frustration, but it hurt his toes, so he left it alone. He sat by the wall, coughing as more gas entered his lungs. His head felt heavy and foggy; ironphages, detecting something fishy in the system, rushed to remove the harmful molecules, but they were soon overpowered. The gas was so dense by that point Dex couldn’t see the opposite wall of the gym. It was the first time Dex wished there were more of the phages.

He succumbed to the sedative a couple minutes later. The blissful darkness came abrupt and quick like a hammer to the head.

***

Dex didn’t know how much time he slept – his cell had no windows – but when he woke up, the lights were out. Must be nighttime then.

A headache so bad the hammer might as well have been real kicked in. Moving also didn’t bring much relief: the ironphages were hard at work cleaning his body of toxins and were more active than usual. Combined the pain was so bad Dex could barely move a hand.

He needed to pee, but not badly enough to attempt getting up, so he turned to the other side, pulled up his blanket and fell asleep again.

The next couple days were the same, except he did force himself to pee at some point: they wouldn’t change his sheets with him still in the cell, and he didn’t want to sleep in a wet bed. Dex was thankful for the residual sleepiness that helped him fall asleep hard and fast every time. He wouldn’t be able to bear all that pain while awake.

Aside from the medassistant taking his blood samples, nobody bothered him, or he slept right through it. He was undoubtedly watched – Dr. Forester would never leave his test subject unobserved while on a new drug, because the ironphages’ reaction was unpredictable. They rejected the mildest painkillers with such ferocity Dex thought his insides were burning and limbs torn off piece by piece. Then they healed his broken arm in a matter of days. If at first Dex confidently labeled them parasites, now he was not so sure.

He did wish he never got them, though. As miserable as his life was before the facility, it was still life. This was just existence.

He finally awoke at night, his throat parched and his eyes dry, but the headache was gone and the phages calmed down a bit. He let medassistant take his blood and, looking at the coppery liquid in the vial, realised how hungry he was.

There were six breakfast capsules in his little drawer. So he missed three mornings.

He didn’t have to wait long for someone to remember about him. Mike thumped loudly down the hall and unlocked the door.

“I did not miss you,” he announced from the doorframe.

“C’mon, you’re glad to see me alive and well.” Dex highlighted the last word, smiling.

“The only time I’d be glad to see you is when I get to see your dead body.”

“You’re so rude. Did your mama not teach you manners?”

“Shut up and walk.”

Mike escorted Dex to the lab and handed him over to Dr. Forester, who seemed unusually invigorated. Got another questionable medicine to test on him?

“Dex! How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” Dex grumbled. He didn’t like talking to Dr. Forester, but he had a request to make. “What was that crap you made me breathe? Could at least tell me beforehand.”

“A new sedative the QC came up with. For larger groups of enemies designated for capture. Our intel has got ahold of its composition, so we recreated it to see it in action.”

“Bet you tested it on regular humans already.”

“That’s right.” Dr. Forester seemed neither surprised nor indignant. He talked about the subject with his usual ease, which did not, in turn, instill ease in Dex at all.

“And?”

“Let me say… the QC chemists have got a load more brainstorming to do if they want a healthy labor force.” Dr. Forester smiled. “Just another proof of our superior technology. Now, as you’re the only remaining test subject,” – Dex winced, - “would you mind describing what inhaling the gas felt like?”

“I might,” Dex began carefully, “if you fulfill my request.”

“Taking advantage of me, huh?” Dr. Forester said light-heartedly. “You’ve got your charm, I’ve got to admit. Ask away – within reason.”

“I want new clothes, these have been worn to bits. And a rug in my cell.”

“Your room, you mean?” Dr. Forester politely corrected him. Dex grimaced. God, who all that farce was for? “Well, that can be done. What color?”

“Pink. And fluffy.”

“I’ll put in an order. Say it’s for science purposes.” Dr. Forester winked at Dex, and he felt like a bucket of sewer water had been upended over him. “Now, let us proceed to our usual tests, and you can tell me about your experience with the gas along the way.”

That day was shower day, and after gym (the plexiglass had already been replaced, as if Dex never shot at it) Dex got to wash off all that sticky, smelly residue of the gas off his body and change into new clean clothes – simple white T-shirt and pants again, but at least without holes between the thighs. No shoes, though – the management believed it could somehow stop him should he make up his mind to escape. Dex could tell them that he would walk on white-hot nails barefoot if it would get him out of the facility, but he knew how paranoid the management was by that point. They could easily make him walk around naked for all he cared.

He sat down on his bed, combing through his hair with his fingers. It had already grown to reach his shoulders, and he didn’t care enough to ask to have it cut. Dex hadn’t seen himself in a mirror in a long while, but he was sure he now looked just like Luke in his rockstar phase, only without that stupid heart tattoo. The girl dumped Luke three weeks after he had it done. Oh how Dex laughed at him.

He missed him. He missed him so much it hurt.

***

The next day he woke up from the pain. It hadn’t happened in a while: as the phages began multiplying and pain increased, so did his body’s adaptability. He cried and screamed on day one and slept soundly on day twenty. This seemed to be day one of another growth spurt, as Dr. Forester predicted.

Every time they believed a spurt would be the last one – a human body simply couldn’t host that many phages – and every time they were wrong.

When Mike came, Dex threw his hand over his forehead in a “dying Victorian maiden” style.

“You’re gonna have to carry me. Bridal style, please.”

“No the fuck I ain’t.” Mike bared his teeth in a smile. “Get up, princess.”

He dragged Dex out of the bed by his leg, forcing him to get on his feet. Then they headed to the lab – five minutes late because they had to fix Dex’s bedsheets that he dragged with him to the floor.

“Thanks, buddy,” Dex told him as the door closed. “See, you can be a very nice guy when you want to.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Mike replied almost endearingly.

He had been working here since the beginning, and stayed as some left and others came. He stayed even after Dex broke his leg – on accident, of course. He didn’t want that chair to hit the guard.

“A bad day?” Dr. Forester greeted him sympathetically as Dex climbed onto his throne of woe. “Your blood tests show a spike in ironphage activity. We will, of course, conduct other analyses, but it’s pretty damning evidence that we’re having a growth period upon us.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Dex said.

“Your analyses have shown a slight spike in activity even before the gas, but today it’s much steeper than usual. Could it be prompted by the gas?” Dr. Forester mused over the chart. “If it could… we could force ironphages to replicate by making the host breathe the QC gas. Or- no, I don’t think it’s the gas in particular. We could try other intense experiences and see how they react.”

Of course they could. And who was the only available test subject?..

“Don’t look so grim.” Dr. Forester must have noticed Dex’s face change. “There is nothing the ironphages can’t fix. Or rather,” he added reluctantly, “there has been – so far.”

“This is not a consolation.”

“That’s the only one I can offer you,” Dr. Forester shrugged. Oh how Dex wanted to claw his eyes out.

But Dr. Forester was the head of the research department. Whatever he saw fit to do, he did. The high-ranking military assholes that sponsored him gave him a “freedom of research”, since he was the first one to keep an infected person alive for more than a few months. It wasn’t really his achievement, but who cared what Dex had to say about it?

“Relax,” Dr. Forester told him. “It’s just a hypothesis, and the one I do not intend to test any time soon. Today we have something else to try.”

“Oh, come on,” Dex groaned.

“No-no, it’s not as bad as you think.” Dr. Forester took a small pill box from a table and opened it. A lone red capsule lay inside. It didn’t look remarkable in any way, but the doctor and both his assistants looked at it… almost reverently.

“We’ve been working on a new kind of painkiller for you – the one that would not trigger ironphages – and I have a reason to believe we’ve been rather successful this time. At least your blood samples didn’t react as violently as they did during earlier trials. They didn’t react at all, in fact.”

“Wait, so you got a reaction off my blood tests to all the previous pills and you gave them to me anyway?”

“Of course. Blood tests are not a be-all-end-all. The body might react completely differently. This time, however, we harbor hope for a much better result.” And he handed Dex the pill box.

Dex hesitated for a moment, thinking of throwing it in Dr. Forester’s face. What was that, the sixth painkiller they told him would totally help him?

They would force him to take it anyway, though. Strip him down to the chair and shove it down his throat, or sedate him with the gas and inject it, whatever.

The box cracked in half in his hands – Dex clutched it too tight without even noticing. Then he heard buzzing coming from Dr. Forester’s hand. He was branding his favorite shocker that Dex had become too well-acquainted with for his own liking.

“Don’t make me tase you, Dex,” he warned. His pleasant demeanor slipped off like a mask. A mask it was, in fact. “Just be a good boy and take the pill. I promise you, it’s not worth it.”

Dex knew that. He had learned that resistance it pointless long ago. It never stopped him before, but now… he was tired. Tired from the pain, the brain fog, the constant sensory overload. And this – this was a potential relief, feeble as it could be.

“Fine,” Dex said grimly. “But if it’s another blow-“

“It’s not.” Dr. Forester was growing impatient. “Need water?”

Dex threw the pill into his mouth and swallowed it in a big gulp. It slid down his throat effortlessly.

“Very well.” Dr. Forester looked relieved. “It should take effect in about half an hour, and then you’ll do a regular training routine at the gym. We need to ensure that the pill doesn’t affect your performance.”

Dex did not reply. He listened to his body, and even ironphages seemed to slow down in anticipation: what did this idiot take this time? Should we show him it’s bad to take meds from shady scientists?

Dex waited for more pain to come. He waited. He waited. He waited. The scientists around him returned to their business, paying no attention to him at all. Only Dr. Forester cast an occasional look in his direction – to catch the moment when Dex falls to the floor and starts thrashing and screaming, probably. At least that’s how it went the previous five times.

Then the pain began to fade.

No way, Dex thought. No way had they finally made a drug that could help him. It was impossible. Nothing could help him, least of all these white-coated rats. He had already learned to live with it, in a way. And now in half an hour a little red pill crushed the wall of his indifference he spent a year erecting around his pain and misery.

“Dex? What is it?” Dr. Forester, an observant asshole, noticed his face change and approached. “Do you feel something?”

“No. Yes. No. Not sure,” Dex said hoarsely. “Gimme some time.”

“Alright.” Dr. Forester returned to his work, but Dex could see he was mostly watching him instead of his papers.

And Dex waited, and the pain decreased until only a sore aftertaste of it was left in his muscles.

He forgot how it felt. He stretched his legs, tilted his head, waved his arms. Nothing.

“Well?” Dr. Forester practically ran towards him. At any other time Dex would laugh. “Any effects?”

“It’s gone,” Dex said. “The pain. It’s gone.” His voice came out so much clearer he could barely believe it was his. “What the hell is it?”

“We call it “The Soother”,” Dr. Forester said, smiling. “The best minds of the Federation worked on it for months. All so that you could feel better, Dex.”

“The military paid them,” Dex huffed, but he couldn’t remain skeptical when he could think and feel clearly for the first time in more than a year.

“That too,” Dr. Forester agreed lightly. “A little financial incentive never hurts, you know. Now, we’ve got to take some more tests and you’re off to the gym.”

Dex reveled in sharp pain from the needle in his skin – it didn’t just add to his main pain now, no, it highlighted the contrast between then and now. Then he went to the gym. With a decrease in ironphage activity his reflexes and strength were lacking, but his mind was clearer than ever, and that evened out his performance a bit. Overall, he did pretty good, even though the military rats behind the plexiglass were not quite as satisfied.

Of course, he could hear them – they didn’t particularly try to be quiet. In fact, they were discussing something – not hard to guess what exactly – with great fervor.

The pill worked really well. And Dex really didn’t want to be sedated again. But he hated the military more. So he lay down on the floor, crossed his arms on his chest the way dead people about to be cremated had their arms positioned and closed his eyes.

“Dex?” Dr. Forester said into the dynamic. “What are you doing?”

“Resting.”

“Please continue your training routine.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I ain’t a monkey in a circus.”

“Dex.” Dr. Forester heaved a heavy sigh. “They are our sponsors. They have to see the results of our work.”

“You’ve got your tests. Show them those and leave me alone.”

“You know I can’t.” Dr. Forester’s voice hardened. “You like the effect of the pill, right? Must be nice to not be in pain all the time. Well, it takes money to produce. A lot, in fact. And unless our sponsors see the results, we won’t make any more of it.”

Dex sighed and dove deeper into the feeling of his body. Felt every ironphage, traced every little tunnel they burrowed, tasted the metallic copper of the blood the little tunnels filled with. The phages moved like in slow motion, like they were poisoned roaches that were at the brink of death and didn’t react to humans’ presence anymore. The drug lulled them into sleep, instilled the sense of calm in them, weakened the connection to the hivemind. They still moved, driven by the energy from his blood and fat cells, but now just barely.

Yes, no pain felt good, almost too good to be true. But the relief came from the people he hated most, and it was nauseating.

He got up and continued the routine with cold, slimy shame coiled up in his stomach.

***

“It slows the phages down.”

“That’s right.”

“Ain’t that counterproductive? They won’t help in battle.”

“Oh, the drug isn’t supposed to be taken less than two hours before any intense action. But a couple hours of pain in exchange for a painless rest of the day – isn’t it better than nothing?” Dr. Forester scribbled something on his tablet. “Of course we still have to test for side effects. But what we have now is already promising.”

“And of course I’ll be the test subject.”

“Of course. You have something against it?”

“I…” Dex hesitated. Sure, they ain’t doing it out of the kindness of their hearts, but no pain is no pain. And it’s not like they wouldn’t just make him take the pill by force if he refused. “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing.” Dr. Forester made a surprised face. He didn’t really pull it off. “Except the usual tests and daily accounts of your well-being.”

“And how long is that gonna last?”

“Of course, it would be best to conduct a long-term research of five plus years… but we don’t have that time. So, a month.”

A month. It was nearly not enough, but Dex would have time to think.

“Alright. I agree.”

Dr. Forester smiled triumphantly.

“I knew you’d come to the right decision, Dex.”

***

The next month was simultaneously the best and the worst month of Dex’s life. The pain was now present only a couple hours a day, when he was training. His stats did lower, but were still way above those of an average human’s. But now he didn’t have to endure constant pain to get there.

And the military didn’t even try to hide now. The guy with a booming voice was often studying Dex’s tests in the lab with Dr. Forester, and the woman spoke loudly on the phone behind the plexiglass in the gym, perfectly aware that Dex could hear her.

He didn’t do a thing to them, They were the ones paying for his meds that kept the pain at bay. No compliance – pain. The funding had already shrunk by that point – the military didn’t like that it was taking so long. The drug was a breakthrough, though, and now Dr. Forester sported new eye implants and Turner had his crooked – not without Dex’s fault – nose fixed. The activity in the lab picked up, new guards appeared in the corridors (though Dex still interacted primarily with Mike), and the equipment was massively getting replaced with newer one.

“You’ve been on particularly good behavior,” Dr. Forester told him once. “Do you want something?”

“Beer,” Dex said. “And a smoke.”

Dr. Forester frowned. “We don’t know how the ironphages would react to that, and we can’t have a flare-up right now. Anything else?”

“A burrito. With jalapeno.”

That evening Dex was choking on his burrito, his mouth burning. A once adored taste was now unbearable. Maybe it was the phages reacting… but Dex was on the pill. And now that he could feel his inner processes much more acutely, he couldn’t blame ironphages for everything anymore.

He flushed the burrito down the toilet and ended up flooding his cell. He had to spend the night in a different one, on the other end of the hall, and the pillow still retained the smell of a previous resident. Weird – the last time Dex saw another infected was half a year ago. But maybe that were just his sharpened senses.

The medassistant was now drawing three vials of blood a day, and by the end of the first week Dex was feeling weak and dizzy. The ironphages rushed to replenish the blood loss during training hours, and it worsened the pain so much taking a pill after it was like breaking a cold turkey withdrawal. Dex grew even more dependent on it, and despised himself for it. But he couldn’t go back to a 24/7 pain. He just couldn’t.

Then one night he heard an unfamiliar voice. It was crying. “Please stop it. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. Please-“

The voice was cut short, but it imprinted on Dex’s brain and didn’t let him go. He didn’t want to believe it, but he knew Dr. Forester was capable of anything in the name of “science”.

He was infecting others with Dex’s blood. Ironphages could be transmitted only through blood contamination, which is why the disease was rare. But once infected, the body couldn’t adapt to their activity and the infected was dying a slow, excruciating death over the course of months. Infection could only be transmitted through fresh blood. So that’s why they needed so much of it.

In the morning Dex broke the medassistant. Its details were scattered all over the cell when the guards arrived. Dex spent the night in another cell while the medassistant was being replaced. He didn’t get a pill that day. If anyone was somewhere near, he couldn’t hear them over his own screaming and wailing.

The new medassistant was sturdier than the previous one, but Dex didn’t test it anymore. The next day in the lab he told Dr. Forester outright:

“You infect other people with my blood.”

Dr. Forester didn’t seem surprised. “You’ve always been quick on the uptake, Dex.”

“Why?”

The doctor looked at him tiredly. All that money he was now getting obviously couldn’t buy him some rest: he had dark circles under his eyes and always held onto a cup of caffeine stimulant.

“Dex, you’re a smart boy. You can figure it out yourself.”

Dr. Forester was right. Dex knew it for a long time, just couldn’t bring himself to believe it. “You’re trying to find suitable hosts. Hosts like me.”

“See? You got it already.” Dr. Forester took a sip from the cup. “We still haven’t figured out what it is that makes you so unique. There’s nothing abnormal about your body that can explain your resistance to ironphages. So we decided it’s time to move one from studying your body to finding someone with similar characteristics. The more subjects, the easier to figure it out.”

“Found anything?”

Dr. Forester’s frustrated face was a clear enough answer. Dex always wanted to be special – who didn’t? – but fate was cruel to him: he never imagined what would make him unique.

“Where are all those people coming from?”

“Volunteers.” Dr. Forester shrugged.

“Bullshit. Nobody would agree to that.”

“Some people are desperate, Dex. And the money is good.”

“Why’d walking corpses need money?”

“Well,” Dr. Forester smiled his uncanny smile, “they don’t know they’re walking corpses.”

That was pretty in line with the military – promise lots of money, sign an NDA, and then the person disappears, never to be seen again. Everyone knew the biochemical companies they hired did human testing. Yet there were still fools hoping to get rich quick. Or provide for their families, who the money was automatically directed to once the person “disappeared”.

Dr. Forester was not in the mood to answer more questions that day, and the lack of answers kept Dex awake all night. How many have already been infected? Why did he never see a single one of other test subjects? On early stages the infection was almost unnoticeable – until one day you woke up with your entire body hurting like hell. But months had to pass before that. He couldn’t forget the voice he heard one night. How could the symptoms surface so soon?

Then he remembered Dr. Forester’s offhanded remark about the QC gas triggering growth periods. They used the gas to speed up the process. They used everything they could get out of Dex to infect more and more people.

But they helped him. They soothed his pain, banished the brain fog, dampened his too-sharp senses. He could think and feel clearly again. One considers it a given, something not worth to be grateful for. Not Dex – not anymore.

Days passed. The side effects of the pills turned out to be dry mouth and occasional mild diarrhea. Dr. Forester was content. As it turned out, the pill also slowed down growth periods. The always steep lines on the chart went down. The white coats could now both speed up and slow down the progression of the illness. Only a reversal hadn’t been yet developed. Dr. Forester said they were working on it, but he was lying through his teeth. Dex didn’t expose him. Let him think Dex believed him.

“The pills seem to be working well,” Dr. Forester said casually a few days later. “You look fresher already.”

Dex shrugged.

“We are thinking of extending the trial run for you. But the bosses are not so eager to provide funds, and the pill is expensive to produce.”

“Maybe if you didn’t waste so much money infecting people you would have enough funds for it,” Dex said sharply.

Dr. Forester laughed.

“Oh, son. Those projects they are ready to sponsor. The pill is produced exclusively for you, though.”

“I feel so special.”

“You think you’re joking, but you are, Dex. You are. The sponsors care greatly for you.”

“Well, I don’t care for them.”

“And that’s a shame. There will be no training today. Tomorrow is an important day for us and you both. You better rest, clear your head.”

“What? What day?” Dex pricked up, but Dr. Forester said no more, just made an impatient gesture. Mike led Dex back to the cell.

“All these new guys are absolute dickheads,” the guard complained on the way. “They don’t know nothing yet they think they’re hot shit. Who do they think they are? They imagine the military academy made them all high n’ mighty. Well, a bit of work here will take them down a peg or two. You gotta show them, Dex. Treat them like you treated me. Make them go through hell and high water.”

“Yeah, about that,” Dex heard himself saying. “Sorry, dude. For breaking your leg. You didn’t do me no bad thing. You didn’t deserve it.”

“Eh,” Mike waived him off light-heartedly, “the past is in the past. It healed fast anyway. The BIS treats its workers well - I didn’t pay a single byte for it. Got to spend some time with my family for once, too.”

Yet again Dex spent the night wide awake. He knew what was going to happen tomorrow. Another attempt to recruit him, make him join the army. The army that murdered Luke in cold blood.

All the previous times his refusal was firm and confident, decision made without a second thought. But this time was different. Now he had a major weakness. And they would surely exploit it.

In the morning Mike escorted him to the interrogation room – Dr. Forester called it “negotiation room”, but he couldn’t fool anyone with it. It looked exactly like those interrogation room in cop movies, handcuffs included. They were added after Dex tried to hit an officer. This time, though, he wasn’t cuffed.

“Good luck, buddy.” Mike patted him on the shoulder. Dex smiled weakly.

He had to wait quite a bit for the officer to arrive. She was a tall, strict-looking woman with a perfect bun on her head and cold gray eyes. She was escorted by two Special Forces agents with their fingers on the triggers of their assault rifles. One wrong movement – and they’d season Dex with lead.

The woman sat on the other side of the table and looked Dex right in the eyes. Goosebumps ran down his spine. This one will be hard to deal with.

“Hello, Dex. My name is major Wright.”

“Let’s skip the pleasantries. Cut to the chase." Dex tried to sound firm, but a bit of a tremble did leak into his voice.

“As you wish,” said the major. “You probably know why I’m here. My colleagues have contacted you with our proposition earlier.”

“I do. And they have.” Dex felt that if he looked the woman in the eyes, he would eventually fall for her hypnosis, so he stared at the table.

“Let me repeat it in case you forgot some details. We in Special Forces are always in search of new candidates-“

“Turnover rate too high?”

“It’s actually lower than in other units. That’s because we only work with professionals.”

“I’m no professional.”

“Who are you fooling, Dex? I’ve seen you in action. The best SF snipers could only dream of your skill.”

“That’s not my achievement. Before the infection I couldn’t throw a bottle into the trash can three feet away.”

“What was before the infection doesn’t matter,” major Wright said harshly. “Forget that part of your life. It’s here and now that matters.”

“For you, maybe.”

“For you too. It’s never coming back. You are never coming back.”

Dex knew that already, but at these words something cold turned in his stomach anyway.

“Thanks for the reminder.”

“You need to accept this, Dex. The ironphage infection is incurable. You will live with it for the rest of your life.”

“Which, as you might know, may end soon.”

“Maybe – or in a couple decades. Dr. Forester has no prognosis on this. But you’ve survived four times longer than any other infected, and that says something.”

“That just says that I’m lucky. Or unlucky. Depends on the point of view.” Dex clutched his fists under the table. The major poked into his every vulnerable spot.

“Sometimes one lucky soldier draws luck to the entire unit.” The major was disgustingly upbeat. She spoke friendly, but not familiarly. Previous recruiters all pretended to be Dex’s best friend, and it was nauseating. Not this time.

“I’m no soldier. Will never be. I’m just not built this way.”

“No one is born a soldier. But with enough discipline, everyone can become one.”

“You mean – everyone can be brainwashed into killing innocent people for the corpos’ gain?”

The major smiled. “That’s a rather… exaggerated way to put it. Corporations are valuable allies, but they’re not the beneficiaries of this war. The regular people are.”

Dex laughed in her face. It turned out too strained to sound plausible, but did convey his point anyway.

“Regular people are never beneficiaries of the war. They either get recruited, are promised riches and die like cattle on front lines while officers sit in their headquarters strategizing, or they get bombed and killed or displaced. There’s no other option.”

“They can go through the war, come out of it with several medals and not know poverty until the rest of their lives,” the major said. “Get free healthcare, a monthly pension, social benefits, free education for their children. That happens more often than you think.”

“And are all those soldiers in the room with us right now?” Dex said acidly.

“Funny.” The major smiled dryly. “Did you consider that maybe you just mix in with the wrong people?”

“The only wrong people I mix in with are you and the likes of you.”

The major rolled her eyes. “You truly are as stubborn as I heard.”

“My pleasure.”

“Then why do you think so many people enlist? If the army was that bad, people would avoid it like the plague, wouldn’t they?”

“They are idiots,” Dex said sharply.

The major smiled. “So your brother was an idiot, too?”

Dex’s stomach sank. They never mentioned Luke before, though he didn’t doubt a bit knew all about him. Maybe they thought it was too sensitive a subject. Regardless, that changed. And this woman, this soldier, would undoubtedly use him to their advantage.

“Yes. He should have never enlisted.”

“But he dragged you out of poverty. He sent your family quite big sums of money for a while, didn’t he?”

That was true. When Luke enlisted, the family finally had food on the table and paid bills. They even managed to move out of a communal roach-infested room to a small but cozy two-room flat. All while Luke was risking his life on the front lines.

“He should have never enlisted,” Dex repeated.

“It was going well, wasn’t it? His contract was almost over, and he even thought of prolonging it. His squadmates liked him, his commander praised him.”

“That praise was worth nothing.”

“In the ranks it is worth quite a bit. He could have been promoted within a year.”

“He could have been killed a thousand times over that year.”

“But he wasn’t, right? The enemy didn’t kill him.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Dex hissed, his anger rising in his chest – anger mixed with grief, as he could feel tears well up in his eyes as well, and the last thing he wanted right now was cry in front of the woman tearing his heart to bits. “War would have killed him sooner or later.”

“You’re rather pessimistic. Do you know that only 15% of active duty personnel die within first two years of service?”

“And how many die later?”

The major smiled a tight-lipped smile. “They have more experience, so even less. But that doesn’t matter – your brother didn’t plan to stay for much longer anyway. He could have waited for the end of his contract instead of going AWOL, though.”

“All the senseless violence must have gotten to him.”

“By that time soldiers are already pretty desensitized to it.”

“Not Luke. He was always… compassionate. Too much, even.” Dex remembered Luke’s calls from the army. When parents could see him, he was always smiling, but when he was left alone with Dex, his face always turned grey and tired.

The major smiled. “You’d be surprised at how quickly “compassionate” people forget about it on the battlefield. It’s you or the enemy, and no one chooses the latter… except your brother.”

“You’re talking bullshit. He didn’t defect. I know he just couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Whatever the reasons, he was found on an enemy territory alone – so, a defector. And we do not stand them in our ranks. Dex, it takes a lot to sentence the soldier to death. We don’t kill our people left and right with no rhyme or reason. But what Luke did was not a simple misbehavior – it was treason.”

“It’s just a convenient excuse to punish those not in line with your views,” Dex croaked. His throat was dry – from medication, surely.

“It’s the army,” Wright said harshly. “Soldiers who act out of line disrupt the service of whole squads. We cannot let that happen.”

“So Luke was just a scapegoat to scare others into obedience.”

“The “scapegoats”, as you call them, eventually reveal themselves with their own actions. Thinking differently is not a sin. Sawing unrest between others is.”

“I don’t care. I don’t care.” Dex shook his head. “You killed my brother. Whatever he did, he didn’t deserve death.” Dex was growing tired of this senseless talk. Whatever he said, major Wright always found a reasonable counterargument. He knew she was wrong, but he couldn’t prove it to her – and he feared soon he wouldn’t be able to prove it to himself.

“If you fear the same fate, Dex – you needn’t to,” Wright said unexpectedly softly. “He was an average soldier. You – you are special.”

Dex hated how often he heard that. He never chose a body that could resist a mysterious, 100%-lethal infection that also happened to turn people into supersoldiers. He never wanted that.

“So you will just imprison me for the rest of my life instead of killing?”

“What, are you planning something bad already?” The major smiled dryly. “Just hear me out, alright? And then make up your mind. No pressure.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dex murmured skeptically, but the major didn’t hear him – or pretended to.

“Here’s what we can offer you. Free food and lodging at one of the SF outposts – with personal rooms for every agent, each with a bathroom. Medical and life insurance – any injury, we’ll pay for treatment in full. Your family members are included in the insurance. In case you die, they are paid a significant sum of money. You will keep receiving treatment for your infection – a pill three times a day except before ground operations. And, of course, your salary… starting wage is 50 000 bytes a month.”

Dex couldn’t hold back a surprised gasp. This was more than his family earned in a year. This could pay for 50 of their monthly rent.

The major clearly enjoyed his reaction.

“Sounds compelling?” she said.

Dex ignored her, ashamed that he let his astonishment through. Now she knew how much the sum shook him.

“What about the phages?” he asked after a minute of stunned silence.

“We will keep working on a treatment,” said the major. “But we’ve got no guarantees that we’ll find it – if it’s even possible to create.”

Of course. They were interested in keeping the infection going – to get more supersoldiers into the SF. No matter that they would only last a few months – if someone would be as unlucky as Dex, maybe a year, - they would milk them dry and then silence the family with a fat check and a postcard with condolences.

He could feel the cold touch of her gaze on his skin. She was waiting, convinced of her success.

“I need to think about it,” he finally said – almost whispered.

She didn’t betray her satisfaction by a single gesture, but Dex could see more than other people. She won. Or so she thought.

“Of course,” Wright said. “I will come back tomorrow to hear your answer.”

She got up, waved to the guards and headed to the door. “See you tomorrow, Dex.”

Mike soon came to pick him up.

“How’d it go? You don’t seem too excited.”

“As usual.” Dex shrugged.

“You refused again?”

“Said I’ll think about it.”

“Wow, really?” Mike grinned. “That’s progress. What changed your mind?”

“I didn’t say it changed.”

“Alright, alright, you secretive motherfucker. I’ll find out everything eventually. You know, as much as Dr. Forester tries to stop it, everyone here knows everything about you. All the news spread fast.”

“You are all filthy gossips.”

“And you are our favorite subject to discuss. Now live with it.”

Dex rolled his eyes. “I feel like a micro-celebrity already.”

When they neared the cell, Mike’s face grew serious.

“If you didn’t just say that so they’d leave you alone… give it some thought, really. Being in the army is not as bad as it seems. Pays well too.”

“Indeed it does,” Dex murmured as the cell door closed behind him.

He shuffled over to the bed and lay down on his side facing the wall. He already knew what he had to do. He just needed to wait till night.

***

Eventually he fell asleep, but then awoke abruptly, as if someone yelled in his ear. The lights were out, and only faint light from the hall seeped through the small window in the door, a smidge of white on black tile.

Dex opened the pill drawer and took out the Soother. Swallowed the pill and lay back on the bed, waiting for it to take effect.

This time the phages resisted longer than usual, as if their little brains sensed something. They couldn’t read Dex’s thoughts – he checked – but they knew his body’s reactions to them. Didn’t matter, though – the pill overpowered them at any rate. Eventually their rushing slowed down to bare crawling, and the buzz of their nanomotors grew almost silent.

Time to act. This was his last pill on the trial – whether he would get a refill tomorrow depended on his answer.

He grabbed his mug from the sink, poured water in it and drank anxiously. Cold water slid down his throat and into the stomach. Every cell on its way reveled in its blissful coolness and smoothness. The true pleasures of this world were simple, really.

The mug was ceramic – a gross oversight on the management’s part. It survived multiple collisions with Mike and the ground, so they were kinda justified in not taking it into account. Dex kept it for a vague “occasion” on purpose. And the occasion was now.

He flung it into the floor with all his might. The mug cracked audibly. Then Dex jumped on it. Ceramic broke into large, sharp shards under his bare feet. Pain spiked up his calves, but the Soother quickly blended it in with the rest of the pain it was keeping at bay.

Dex picked up one of the pieces and placed it on the sink, then swept the rest under the bed. He raised his gaze and looked over the silent medassistant hanging over his head.

“Time we check your durability, pal.”

The tendril did not give up easily. When Dex finally tore off the needle, his face was sweaty and his arms hurt. The cruelly dismembered medassistant hung over the bed disapprovingly.

The needle was good three inches long. Just enough for Dex’s plan.

When he picked up the shard again, his hands were shaking. But the phages, sleepy as they were, came to his rescue even now, giving his fingers much needed strength. He pressed the sharp end to his inner arm and unflinchingly dragged it down, tearing the skin.

The gash quickly swelled with blood. Dex licked some off, tasting the copper. The infection changed even the taste of his body. It changed everything in him. There was no real Dex left. Just a host carrying around the most precious virus on earth.

And the military wasn’t gonna get it. At least from Dex.

There were other hosts, of course. The white coats would continue their work using their blood. But it would no longer be Dex’s. His phages will die after 24 hours, and their lifeless bodies would not infect anyone else. Nor will the doctors be able to learn what made Dex so different. No learning – no replicating. No replicating – no long-lasting supersoldiers. And with such a high turnover rate, the SF will dump the idea soon enough.

He sighed and dragged the shard across his right inner arm. The blood from the left arm already stained his clothes. Were Luke here, he would have made a stupid menstruation joke.

Luke wasn’t here, though.

Dex bit his lip, watching the blood run down his arms onto the floor. He waited for a small puddle to gather at his feet. The phages tried to make up for it, of course, but they were slow and sleepy like flies in the hot summer sun. They couldn’t do much about it.

Leveling the shard against his neck, Dex inhaled sharply. He was scared, of course. He never died before. (“You only die once, stupid!” said Luke in his head). Well, everything must happen for the first time.

He pressed the shard into the skin until he felt blood trickle down his neck. This was deep enough, then.

With a sharp, precise movement he cut his own throat.

His mouth filled with the taste of copper, blood streamed down his neck. He could no longer speak; he could barely see, his vision darkening.

But he had to make sure the phages wouldn’t bring him back to life.

With one last desperate move he drove the needle of the medassistant through his eye straight into his brain.

[risingshards]

Writing Year in Review 2024 Part 1: Wins and Defeats

Doing this a bit earlier than the 31st but I pretty much have the gist of things. On paper this should be a year I should be celebrating writing-wise. I got my first print book deal (for a nonfiction junior book not like big doorbuster fantasy deal but still!) and my first premium web novel in Reborn in a Fighting Game with My Rival.

I should be doing a victory lap but I just feel like I failed. In my most recent meeting with my writing workshop someone said I must be feeling great with the year I had, but internally I was like, I don't feel like I had a great year. I'm gonna try to weave in some good vibes but this is gonna be yet another mopey post in a year filled with em I have a feeling.

✅ for wins and ❌ for things I feel like I failed on.

✅I was able to keep up with a bunch of projects at once. While writing Reborn, I kept writing Rising Shards, and took on an extra challenge in trying for an action fantasy web novel contest in Lost Hero. A half point off on this because juggling everything put me very far behind and keeping up with writing and work was tough.

❌Readership woes. I don't want to sound ungrateful at ALL for the wonderful amazing and kind readers I have, but on a sheer numbers level this year was rough. Watching Rising Shards lose 50% or more of its readership hurts, and I'm not sure what exactly I did, or if I did anything, but you know I'm gonna overthink it.

I had a month of short interlude chapters to give myself break last January and views fell off, maybe that did it. Maybe the arc I chose to pursue this year wasn't the right one. Maybe RS is just too long now and people fell off and there's no hope of getting them back with the kind of story I want to write. Maybe I'm not getting featured anymore which boosted my views. Maybe I just fucking suck at convincing people to read my work. I would guess it's a mix of everything there but I have this need to keep going with Rising Shards even though it's super duper long now. It's my comfort series and they're my comfort characters, and I'm a firm believer in a primarily slice of life series that goes really long being a potential source of comfort for others. I still have a ways to go on it so I hope I can get my numbers up so I don't get depressed about it every so often.

✅I wrote a nonfiction book that will be in print soon. This project was so tough to work on and I don't know if I'll share it on here since it was through a local publisher, but soon I'll have a book that I wrote in print.

❌The Lost Hero. My action fantasy contest entry didn't get much traction and didn't advance in the contest. It was such a sprint getting it done but sad to have come short, and in hindsight thinking about it, I made so many mistakes writing it that I didn't really deserve to even make it to round two.

❌Projects I wanted to get to but couldn't. While I did get three going at once, there was still a bunch I didn't make as much progress on as I wanted. I've been trying to do a Patreon exclusive series forever but made zero progress on that (and made negative progress on my Patreon sigh), and had some other series I wanted to work on.

✅Reborn in a Fighting Game with My Rival. My big win of the year, a dream come true. I entered this series into Tapas' romance web novel contest last year and it made the top 50 and was picked up. I am 95% done with the series and am writing the ending now (Obligatory note that I want to do a Season 2 or a sequel someday), and it has been such a pleasure to work on even when it got tough. The staff from Tapas has been so cool and supportive and understanding of the writers and I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity. The day it launched will forever be a special day to me.

So more losses than wins. The wins were pretty big, but the losses sting really hard. Overall, I should be proud of how I did last year, juggling three series, having my first premium series, etc. but I feel more disappointed in myself than anything. I hope I can use these feelings to push forward and pull something amazing off, but for now I feel like I tripped and fell into the trenches and have to figure out how to get back on my feet.

Part 2 here

Part 3 here

[samuelroukin]

a while ago you rbd a web weave with a fragment of the herbert mason version of the gilgamesh - its the one that goes "No one grieves that much, she said. Your friend is gone. Forget him. No one remembers him. He is dead. / Enkidu. Enkidu. Gilgamesh called out: Help me. They do not know you As I know you."

anyway I thought that was a lot prettier than I remember the epic of gilgamesh being, so I looked it up and it turns out its more of a rewrite than a translation and also it fucking slaps, start to finish, the whole damn thing is like that quote. its also not super long since most of the repetition has been taken out, like less than 30k for the story itself if I had to guess. I read it around the same time as come hell or high water and the juxtaposition of those two things has been slowly driving me insane ever since. saying its soapghost coded feels completely inadequate, like its kinda the other way around given the relative publishing dates, and also if nothing else your ghost in the timeloop fic is extremely gilgamesh coded, like? I mean refusing to accept the death of his friend is the emotional core of the epic, plus the whole warriors bond and dying in battle thing, plus protecting each other, plus being kind of an asshole. I assume the answer is no bc you've said you don't read much but like, I still want to ask if you've read this book?? and also I guess if you were thinking about afterlife/journey thru the underworld metaphors at all when you wrote your fic (yes I know you don't do that, I feel compelled to ask anyway /lh). - S

oh i should read that! i did reblog that post while i was writing come hell or high water, and someone shared some other parts of that story if not that book so it was def on my mind! and i was for sure thinking about the afterlife and journey, and also had a kind of view of the timeloop being that in between place for both of them. i don't think any of that really came through in the fic, or not explicitly, but a lot of the water metaphors and especially the one that's not a metaphor where ghost um. steps into the river. made me think of the styx

so not as Directly related, but i can't say there was no inspiration there

[speenach]

life update: wellbutrin (aka bupropion) will lower your seizure threshold, all right!

🎶 'cause karma is my boyfriend! karma is a god, karma is the breeze in my hair on the weekend karma's a relaxing thought ...

What is karma?

according to ideapod.com, "Karma is a Sanskrit word meaning 'action.' It refers to a cycle of cause-and-effect that is an important concept in many Eastern Religions, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism. ... it means that the steps of your life, your spiritual development, and your personality are directly molded by your thoughts and actions. Present you affects future you." i hope i'm not too far off, but this lil article does remind me of the way that i think my friend with the relevant knowledge explained it to me sometime in the past decade. unsurprisingly, the song "Karma" might simplify this a little; but even if it doesn't really, 100% accurately represent what karma is, spiritually, it's my favorite Taylor Swift song of the moment. arguably the best on Midnights.

spider boy, king of thieves weave your little webs of opacity my panties* made your crown. trick me once, trick me twice don't you know that cash ain't the only price? it's coming back, around.

*it's actually "pennies," but -- excuse me? 👑 listen to this song and try to tell me you don't hear "panties." or just try to tell me it doesn't make the better lyric. try to tell me that it doesn't fit Taylor's chest voice. try to ignore the harmonies in, "i keep my side of the street clee-ean. you wouldn't know what i mean." tell me this isn't one of the best songs to cat-walk in the airport to. try to keep it out of my karaoke-ing mouth this summer. i dare you.

speaking of airports and causes and effects and summer -- eek! i was supposed to visit Ireland and the UK this past week (only Northern Ireland is part of the UK, fun fact!?). my boyfriend (my actual one, Ben, not the concept) was taking me overseas for his college roommate's wedding. it was going to be very cute! and maybe even nudged me to think more seriously about marriage -- an institution i've resisted since growing up with its politicization, a thing that could maybe actually be practical if i wasn't so worried about the aesthetics of my own fucking personal life being twisted into talking points for the right. fuck them, fuck JK Rowling, fuck bisexual erasure, fuck transphobia, fuck off.

if this sounds disorganized, it's because it is! it's because i want to convey something about the state that my brain apparently reached for me to have my first seizure on thurs, may 11, DURING A LAYOVER IN VIRGINIA, HOORAY!

sorry, the rest of this post might be upsetting for various reasons. content warning for:

expanding on aforementioned seizure & another the next day

psychosis

medical bills from the ER(s) lol

babbling — this isn't really a warning as much as it is a qualification: since i do have some (small) degree of control over who can find me on instagram, and this is likely too long to go viral organically — if you're reading this, it’s prob because i posted it or sent it to you, or it was shared by someone whom i trust with the decision to share. something happened to me last week, and, if this tumblr blog is going to be what i wanted it to be when i wrote my inaugural post in january, it's the place for me to explain what happened from my perspective. i want the people in my life to know. i also, just, can't imagine calling people up just to be like... "hey i had a medical emergency but i'm okay." idk, i want to have my whole-ass say on it. you gotta read the taylor swift lyrics first.

all right, so, right before we left for the airport, i had a meeting with my dissertation advisor about the chapter i've been struggling with for the whole school year. i was so anxious i hadn't slept the night before, even after staying up all of monday night, too, revising the most recent draft. i also smoke a lot of weed, but it couldn't help me sleep this time. instead -- and i say this with some degree of expertise/professionalism -- i must have had something like a psychotic break. i had sent my advisor about twice as many pages as he was expecting, and i literally could not believe it when he told me that what he'd read so far sounded good. i told him i felt like a delusion of grandeur was coming true. and, after that, there was a moment where i literally thought he was reading my mind or speaking to me in code or something. it was weird. i was weird.

for the rest of my waking hours, until my first seizure, i thought i'd unlocked some secret of the universe. overwhelmed by the body language of hundreds of traveling strangers around us, i seriously thought i could read people's minds, too, or at least Ben's. normal airport stuff happened, our flight kept getting pushed back, waiting was miserable; in addition to convincing myself i was reading Ben's mind, i concluded that the only logical explanation for everything was that the internet must be down, like, universally, and/or everyone's collective consciousness was going through something like Opposite Day. ... again, i was weird. but, at this point, it seemed like i just badly needed some sleep. i also kept randomly singing the chorus to “anti-hero.”

sweet like honey, karma is a cat purring in my lap, 'cause it loves me

our flight got pushed back so late that our airline put us up in a "quality inn" for thursday night. my grand mal happened during the lyft ride there, which royally freaked out our driver and pushed Ben over a mental cliff from "my girlfriend's acting weird" to "my girlfriend might die." after sleeping through a $4000 ER visit that i don't remember, that my family and i have to figure out how to pay $2000 for lol, i passed all the psych tests to be discharged. we had a short connecting flight just for me to have the same delusions and another seizure during our layover in new jersey, right around the time our Ireland flight was finally canceled. don't ask me how much the second ER visit was because i don't know yet! friday night, i slept in a hospital bed in a hallway, before i remember getting some scrubs and an actual room for the rest of the weekend. no pillow, though -- just two sheets. i was pretty confused and upset after the first couple times i woke up there and still couldn't pass the psych checks until sunday. but obviously i eventually did, Ben came to get me, and we finally flew home monday.

it's actually kind of funny. it's okay, my home doctor laughed at me, too, when i saw her on wednesday; i am a clinical vignette. like, classic psych case. girl with depression and anxiety misses too much sleep, smokes too much weed, has seizure risk factors, and seizes. (i also wasn’t eating enough, surprise). among other things, i'm on prozac and wellbutrin but am better about the latter, because i associate the former with heartburn, and i get the impression that i can actually feel when the latter works. doc and i decided to halve my wellbutrin dose, at least until i see my therapist and psychiatrist on tuesday, and i'm on a THC/tolerance break. i'm tired from over/writing this, but that's what happened!

karma is the thunder rattling your ground karma's on your scent like a bounty hunter karma's gonna track you down, step by step from town to town. sweet like justice, karma is a queen...

[skitter-kitter]

Do u have any fic recs? Of desert duo or anything really just your taste in writing is always great

Okay this is gonna be a bit of long one since I’m gonna post recs for Third/Last Life/Hermitcraft (all one category for my sake), Star Wars,

Third/Last Life/Hermitcraft:

Falconer by @theminecraftbee is a PHENOMENAL ficlet. Its desert duo and I adore Bee’s characterization and voice for scar!! If you haven’t read it I highly recommend it!! It’s really short but really good!!! (Plus if you haven’t go through bee’s “a bee fic” tag, they’re all bangers!!)

Notches by @honey-combed is an amazing fic about cubfan and it has had scar show up in every chapter so far!! I really love the author’s characterization of scar and the dialogue is so well written!!

Mimic by @sparxwrites is the third in the series but it’s a phenomenal fic!!! I love the trope of a monster taking the shape of a loved one to trick people and this is such a good exploration of that trope for desert duo!! I’d highly recommend reading the other parts of the series as they’re all phenomenal!!!

a conversation by @sparxwrites mabsksbs another sparx fic but this one is about Grian and scar talking after last life and it inspired my current wip!!

Slipping Through The Cracks by @theminecraftbee literally the only Xisuma fic I’ve ever read but I love it!! Bee’s writing is amazing as always <33

did anybody ever say no to you? by @aviangrian is an amazing fic!! Literally my favorite last life fic ever. I’m so tempted to record myself reading it so I can listen to it to fall asleep. Pink’s writing is really comforting and I love it a lot :))

last man standing by Sixteenthdays I really like this fic!! It’s pretty short but I love this like,, “conversation at the end of the world” kind of vibe it has.

i am a malady, you are my galaxy, my sweet relief by MemeMachine562 literally every web weave I’ve done I’ve tried to get parts of this fic in them. every single one. I love the metaphor about Grian being a gun and the whole fic is phenomenal even without knowing Yandere High School

your bones ache from death (and yet, you look for him) by ApocalypseInvestigator is an amazing magical mountain fic!! I highly recommend it, as it made me obsessed with desert duo and magical mountain as a trio 😔

This Is The Way The World Ends by @hallmarked-error is an amazing fic and I love it. great angst great motifs great repetition!! go read it and weep!!

make you the enemy by camdotcom is in my top three for last life. It’s about Grian being the boogeyman and killing scar and it’s so good!!

DC:

have no mouth by greeneyedfirework this fic is pretty heavy at times but I really love it!! It’s about Slade winding up with a captive nightwing and realizing the teen titans are just kids and I love it :)

Deathstroke’s Apprentices by Beauty_In_Her_Darkness holy SHIT okay if you like the apprentice arc in teen titans you’ll LOVE THIS it has amazing characterization and it’s long and I love it so much

Star Wars:

Eclipse by @spell-cleaver this fic is absolutely phenomenal. I’ve been reading it for close to a week now and it has these plot twists that catch you off-guard but it also makes sense and that makes it so much better. I love her writing style and her characterizations of Luke leia and vader!!

Conversations at the Edge of Reality by @spell-cleaver is another fic that’s just,,, I have no idea where the idea for it came from but it’s so good!!

running through the darkness with his own becoming light by imadetheline this fic!!! The characterization of vader is phenomenal and I love the glimpses we get into Luke’s life!!

Keep quite still and wait by @doorsclosingslowly is another fic with the trope of a monster pretending to be a loved one but with maul and savage and it’s played so well!! I think about this line every time I think about Maul:

“You were set on this path before you could choose, and you have never strayed because you’re scared. You are a ship built without a steering wheel by an evil man, pushed, beset by inertia, and you will go on and on and on until you run out of propulsion or collide with a star.”

Pokemon:

Return by LeDiz is a phenomenal fic!! I know I’ve said that a lot but god. This fic fucked me up. It fits the Pokémon genre and like,,, vibe so well I kept trying to see if this was just a rewrite of one of the newer shows while I read. It’s written beautifully and I adore the use of Shadowing and how Ash’s connection to Pokémon is used both to help Pokémon and to hurt him. The scene with Liepard was brilliant and I adore the authors use of different povs to have it all build up to a satisfying climax!!

Promises by CGJ is an amazing fic. I love this study of Brock and Ash and their relationship and I adore it.

An Unexpected Greeting by kimirce is a personal favorite. I love fics that have Ash actually talk about all the things he’s seen and this is a great one!!

Some fandoms I only have one or two recs for:

“Thank You For Listening, Soundwave” by @ckret2 is one of the best characterizations of soundwave I’ve ever seen!! The dialogue in the second chapter is witty and really great banter. I love how the author writes the trio’s interactions and how soundwave’s view on Starscream shifts through the fic!!

They Let Him In by @sidespromptblog is an amazing Logan Sanders fic!!! I absolutely love their characterization of him and how they use the Orange Side in their works!!! (Also reccing Orange Eyed Delight for the same reason!!)

My Darlin’ What Did You Expect? by Cultivation is literally my favorite The Walten Files fic and I could tell so many stories about how it was written and betaing it but I just ajdvjwvskaba I love it so much and I love how he writes Felix and Jack <33

[glitter-garbage]

12. — thread

Shadowgast, ~1600 words, gen, red thread of destiny, soulmate au (spoilers for the eiselcross arc)

Sent by @quinn-of-aebradore 💜 ...ps: this is not edited at all (one word writing prompts: send me one and a pairing if you like. I might fill them some day!) ---

When Bren learned he had magic, he also learned that he could see things that not everyone did. It wasn’t natural, he had to focus, and later on, he even found out there was an actual spell for it. Still, on more than one occasion growing up, Bren would see the delicate red threads that connected people around him.

“Those mean whoever is connected to you is your soulmate,” his mother explained, “Can you see mine?”

And, sure enough, his mother had a little thread connecting her ankle to Leofric’s. He longed for his own thread to appear, though his mother explained that not everyone had one.

Bren didn’t have to worry, though. He was only fifteen when not one, but two threads connected his ankle to his best friends of all people. By that time, he had already been whisked away to the Academy along with them and the experiences they shared, the successes, the pain, the power, all of that just cemented their connection in his mind.

Until he broke, that is.

After the fire came the Sanatorium, and for eleven years Bren, now Caleb, did not think about that again. Only when he got out did he notice that his ankle was free. Nothing connected him to anyone anymore. It was okay, he was a garbage person. He didn’t deserve love like that anyway.

---

Nott had a red thread. It vanished out to the horizon, and Caleb never saw the thread move in a way that indicated that her soulmate was closer. He wondered if she knew, for a while. Then, he learned the truth. Veth’s soulmate, her husband, kidnapped, imprisoned. He was happy she had met him though, and confident they'd free him. She deserved happiness, he would help her in any way he could.

Two couples in his little group had threads connecting them to each other from the start. Fate worked in mysterious ways, Caleb thought. Beau and Yasha did not seem that close, though Beau’s attraction was obvious, and cringe-worthy at times, but Caleb was sure things would go well for them in the future. Jester and Fjord’s thread almost made his heart break- he had allowed himself to get way too attached to the two, but neither of them were for him, obviously. Destiny had other plans.

Molly did not have any threads, like him. After learning about his past, Caleb wondered if he had gone through something similar to Caleb, the snapping of a thread after a traumatic event. He allowed himself to grow closer to the tiefling tentatively, allowed feelings to bloom slowly. Molly was warm to him, and he thought perhaps it was another form of destiny that would tie them together.

That had been a mistake.

The last one to join their family was Caduceus. He had no thread too, and Caleb had no curiosity about it anymore. His interest in destiny had all but faded.

He loved his friends. He had friends. That was enough, for someone like him.

---

“The Luxon is the basis of how we've been able to free ourselves from the binds of the lineage the Betrayer Gods left for us and to carve our own fates, choose our own paths and sidestep these destinies placed upon us nonchalantly by gods that use us as playthings.”

The Shadowhand was interesting. Dangerous, powerful, enticing. Caleb considered what he said about freedom from destiny, the ability to find your own way. He had certainly strayed from his path, but perhaps that was not the worst thing.

Essek Thelyss, too, had no thread attached to him.

Perhaps because Caleb was no longer obsessing over what destiny had in store for him, perhaps because he was beginning to accept that his own imperfect path was better than the one that had been set for him, Caleb felt empathy towards the drow even after he had betrayed them.

They were so much alike, and Caleb kept his heart more closely guarded now. He did not feel his heart breaking when they learned of Essek's schemes, and that too helped. In any case, he did not see Essek again for a long time. Did not think much about him. There was too much on his plate for that.

---

Astrid smiled at him from across a dinner table and his stomach dropped. Caleb felt the wheels of time turning, felt again like Bren, determined and ambitious and blind to the truth. Eadwulf looked at him with a raised chin, a smirk on his face. He too remained handsome, impossibly so.

When they walked out of Ikithon’s tower, Caleb could make out the thin red thread that still connected their ankles. He thought he was stronger, that perhaps he was ready for this.

“Race you to the top,” said Astrid with a childish smile, before turning back to the tower.

It hurt. He could feel the emptiness of what could have been, what would never be again in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time.

---

Imagine his surprise when arriving at the Vurmas outpost in Eiselcross, the powerful figure of the Shadowhand could not meet his eyes. Imagine his surprise, when he saw his eyes lighting up when they chose him instead of his old teacher to go down into the ruins. Imagine his surprise when he saw Essek battling, using gravity itself as a weapon, and felt only fondness and admiration for the man. When he showed off his tower and saw the same in the drow’s eyes. And attraction, of course. That went without saying.

It all came to a head when, together, they worked to cast a spell that would shorten time itself and give the Nein their much-needed rest.

Thought it might have felt like seconds to their friends, Caleb watched for long moments, holding magic in his palms to assist, as Essek opened a gash through the fabric of space and time. Real fabric, made of threads of all colors that together seemed to make up what he saw as the world around him. Time seemed to stop around them as Essek carefully worked around the fibers.

“This… Have you been able to see this the whole time?” he asked.

Essek’s jaw was clenched and there was sweat running down his forehead, but he nodded, “Not really. It takes a lot of effort to see this. A lot of energy.”

Caleb hesitated but gave in once Essek’s questioning gaze found his for a moment, “I have always seen the red threads. I- I had my own, for a while.”

“Annoying little things,” muttered the drow, focusing again at the slow-going task of weaving time with his bare hands, “There was a time when I hated them more than anything.”

“You used to have yours, too?”

“Hm? No,” said the drow distractedly, “I hated them because I had none, and I thought I should. The Dynasty looks like a tangled web if you watch for them since so many entanglements are made complicated by consecution. But I never had one, and even though I looked for… someone that could perhaps make it appear, it never did.”

He moved his wrist to the side, and the universe seemed to shift with it. Caleb felt a little dizzy.

“But I had never heard of someone who lost theirs. I thought they were supposed to be, ah, perfect,” Essek smirked, “Unless you did what we are doing right now to yours. That is, changing it fundamentally. Somehow, I do not think that is what happened.”

“Nein,” Caleb chuckled wryly and then held himself straighter, keeping the spell steady as Essek continued his labor. “I… strayed from the path, I think. I did something that was not meant to be.”

Essek looked at him like he was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen, even though the elf himself had the building blocks of reality in his hands at the moment. Caleb flushed.

“I think Caduceus would say that you did exactly what you had to do.”

“Maybe so. But isn’t it hard to know that others will have this… this gift, this sure thing while we will not?”

Essek looped a bright white strand against a colorful, prismatic one while he hummed, thinking.

“I felt the same way for decades. But whatever we will have or not, in that sense, will be of our own making. And isn’t that a gift on its own?”

---

The moonlight shone down on the beach, turning the sea a glittering mass of waves. Other than the full moon, magical globes and luminescent beetles illuminated the space around them. Their friends gathered around smiling tearfully in perfect dissonance. Caleb himself felt his heart beating so fast he thought it might leave his ribcage and seek quietude somewhere far away from his anxiety-ridden body. He stood beside Caduceus, who hummed a sweet song under his breath as they waited.

Finally, the glittering door at the end of the path opened, and Essek slipped out, bare feet delicately touching the sand. Jester came from behind him, and once their arms were locked, they walked on slowly, passing their friends and family on the way to Caleb and Caduceus.

He looked stunning in delicate iridescent robes, and Caleb tried to swallow down his anxiety. Violet eyes framed by silver lines, mouth poised in a gentle smile, cheeks flushed, Essek walked slowly until he was face to face with his intended.

Essek reached for his hand, and they stood silently, gazes locked while Caduceus conducted the ceremony. When it was time, Caleb drew a small spool of red thread from his pocket. Gently, he took Essek’s hand in his and tied a knot around his little finger. He offered the spool, and Essek repeated the gesture, biting his lips nervously. Caduceus cut the remaining thread, leaving their hands connected.

“You are now joined together, not by destiny, but by your own choice. I think that’s very nice,” Caduceus smiled placidly until Veth cleared her throat, “Oh yeah. You guys can kiss now.”

Caleb smiled at the phrasing. He lifted his hand, pulling Essek’s forward until the drow was close enough for him to count his freckles. Their hands tingled as he came impossibly closer. Essek’s mouth was warm against his.

For the first time in Caleb's life, he felt destiny favored him.

---

[fireinmoonshot]

SPIDER | BUCKY BARNES x READER | PART FOUR

CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER.

PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE Summary: Bucky doesn’t know what to make of you when he meets you. You’re friends with Sharon, and you seem pretty easy to read on the surface. But the more time he spends with you, the more he seems to uncover, and the more he becomes tangled in the web you unwittingly weave. Pairing: female!Reader x Bucky Barnes Fandom: Marvel / The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Word Count: 2,769 Warnings: SPOILERS FOR THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER. A/N: Thank you all for the lovely response yet again! I really appreciate it. We're getting into Episode 4 now, so if you've not seen it yet make sure you don't read this chapter or you'll spoil yourself! Please let me know your thoughts, though. I really liked how this chapter turned out and I tried to make it so it didn't read like I was just writing the episode out word for word so I hope it's okay!

Zemo’s apartment was, at least, comfortable. As soon as you’d arrived Sam had settled in and gotten himself a drink and Zemo had excused himself to shower. You’d gone for a wander around the place, trying to get your bearings. It’d been a while since you’d been out of Madripoor and it felt a little like the ground had just been ripped up from underneath your feet. It was undoubtedly going to take some getting used to. Then, with what Bucky had said in the street. You were overthinking and you knew it, but he’d been right. You hated that he’d been right.

A change of clothes and freshening up in one of the bathrooms the place had done at least some of the job in helping you feel settled in, and by the time you re-enter the living room Bucky’s back, the Dora Milaje is after Zemo and the news that Karli bombed a GRC supply depot has broken.

You settle on one of the seats beside Sam with a glass of water and a heavy heart. Zemo is talking about how he personally believes Karli is a supremacist, but you can’t get your mind off of how three people had died and eleven more had been injured at the GRC supply depot bombing. You have a feeling that more people are going to end up dead if you don’t act soon, and fast.

“She will not stop,” Zemo says. “She will escalate until you kill her.”

You zone back into the conversation, taking a long sip of your drink.

“Or she kills you.”

“How unbelievably morbid of you,” you mutter.

Bucky glances at you and Sam even huffs out what you think could be a laugh.

“Maybe you’re wrong, Zemo. The serum never corrupted Steve,” Bucky says.

“Touché. But there has never been another Steve Rogers, has there?”

You can’t disagree with him. These people – Karli, her super soldiers. You know that they’re not trying to be Steve Rogers. They’re anything but. But you also know that John Walker, where-ever he is, whoever he is, isn’t qualified for the job either.

Bucky sighs and makes to walk away from the three of you and head toward the couch, looking for a well deserved seat. “Well, maybe we should give him to the Wakandans right now.”

“And you’ll give up your tour guide?” Zemo replies, staring into a cabinet and not even bothering to give Bucky a glance.

“Yes.” Bucky doesn’t hesitate.

Sam rolls his eyes, clearly irritated by the both of them. He says something, you vaguely hear something about his ‘TT’, though you don’t listen to the words. Instead, you stare into your drink, swirling the water around in the cup.

It’s not the first time you wonder if you’ve made a mistake my coming along with Sam, Bucky and Zemo. It’s not like Sharon gave you a choice, but you know that you could have insisted that you not come along. But now you’re wondering even more as you sit in Zemo’s living room, listening to the three men concoct a plan without even needing to consult you. Three men – a criminal, one that doesn’t trust you and one that you just don’t understand at all. You feel out of place among them.

You push yourself up and out of your chair, leaving your water behind on the table, and head towards the hallway that’ll lead you to the room Zemo told you that you could use. Bucky watches as you go, wondering if he should call out and ask you where you’re going, though he hesitates for too long and by that time, you’re out of sight. Sam watches him with furrowed eyebrows.

“What was that?”

“What was what?” Bucky looks at him.

“You, staring at her like that. Are you in cahoots or something? I saw you talking on the street. Hell, you stopped to talk to her. What’s that about?”

Bucky scoffs. “In cahoots? Are you being serious right now?”

“Deadly.”

“Yeah, you know what else is deadly?”

“What?”

“Karli if we don’t hurry up and get some information on Donya Madani.” Bucky stands up and heads towards the bathroom. “As soon as I’m done, we’re heading out.”

Sam shakes his head and mutters “Who made you boss?” under his breath.

Bucky hears him. “I did!”

***

You’re not quite sure what you expect to find, but it’s certainly more than you’re leaving with. Bucky is standing and staring at Zemo and a group of children when you and Sam rejoin him. You’d gone upstairs with him, having decided on the journey there to at least try with him, and if he still refused to trust you, you’d give up. Or perhaps you wouldn’t. You hadn’t quite decided yet.

Bucky looks at you as you stand beside him, hands tucked firmly into the pockets of your jacket to shield them from the cool breeze. You hadn’t said much to him since he’d joined you at Zemo’s apartment after your talk on the street, and honestly he didn’t expect you to. He didn’t even really know what to say to you, so he’d figured he’d not even bother breaching the topic. If you wanted to talk about it, you would.

You stare ahead at Zemo, eyes narrowed. He’d been a little anxious about you going upstairs with Sam alone, even though he knew deep down that Sam wasn’t going to do anything, especially to Sharon’s friend.

“Someone needs to teach those children not to talk to strangers,” you mutter.

Sam snorts.

“No, seriously. If I was their age and someone that looked and acted like Zemo came up and started talking to me like that, I’d probably want to punch him and run.” You pause and then spot the Turkish delight. “On second thoughts…” You make to walk towards him, suddenly feeling rather protective over the children unknowingly speaking to a criminal like Zemo.

Before you can even make it two steps, a hand closes around your wrist and pulls you to a stop. You look back, irritated, to find Bucky shaking his head at you.

“Don’t. He’s not going to hurt them. They’re giving him information.”

“They’re children and he’s a criminal.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, tugging you back to his side and letting go of your wrist once you’re there. “And I’ll punch him in the face if I have to.”

Sam chuckles. “Don’t tempt him, or me, for that matter.”

“Now you’ve just made me want to watch him get punched in the face.”

Bucky and Sam share a look.

“I will if you will,” Sam shrugs.

Zemo finishes speaking to the children and walks back towards the three of you. “Cute kids,” he says, smiling a smile that makes your skin crawl. He walks straight past you.

“Yeah, I hate that man,” you mutter.

***

The journey back to Zemo’s apartment is quiet and uncomfortable. You feel worried for the children and are contemplating various different ways you could physically injure and maim Zemo. Whatever Sam and Bucky are thinking, you don’t know or particularly care.

What you do know is that you didn’t find what you came for

You close the door of the apartment behind you.

“Well, I got nothing,” Bucky says, heading straight to the couch. “No one’s talking about Donya.”

“Yeah, it’s because Karli is the only one fighting for them,” Sam replies, settling down on the couch opposite Bucky. “And she’s not wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

You find a spot on the couch by Bucky and kick off your shoes so you can put your feet up. All of the travelling around was certainly taking its toll and honestly, you were beyond exhausted. If you had the time to sleep for more than a few broken hours, you’d take it. You rest your head on your arm, laying your head down on the top of the couch, and look between Sam and Bucky.

Sam sighs and elaborates. “For five years, people have been welcomed into countries that have kept them out using barbwire. There were houses and jobs. Folks were happy to have people around to help them rebuild. It wasn’t just one community coming together, it was the entire world coming together. And then, boom. Just like that, it goes right back to the way it used to be. To them, at least Karli’s doing something.”

“You really think her ends justify her means?” Bucky says. “Then, she’s no different than him,” he motions to Zemo, “or anybody else we’ve fought.”

“She’s different. She’s not motivated by the same things.”

You find the courage to speak. “Just because she’s not motivated by the same things as Zemo or the people you’ve fought, it doesn’t mean she’s not unlike them,” you sit up a little straighter as they look at you. “I haven’t fought people like you have, but I’ve fought. I’ve seen what regular people can do with a following. Karli is different, but she’s the same, too. She’s making change, but at what cost?”

Bucky looks at you, eyes narrowed. “I like you,” he says. “You get me.”

Sam rolls his eyes and looks like he’s about to reply when Zemo comes over holding a tray with tea and several tea cups. It almost makes you laugh, the sight of him with the smallest, daintiest pieces of China, but you hold it back, knowing that all eyes in the room would fall on you if you did laugh.

“That little girl. What’d she tell you?” Bucky’s amusement over you is long gone.

Zemo looks at the three of you for several moments before finally giving up the information he’d been holding hostage. “The funeral is this afternoon.”

Beside you, Bucky huffs in annoyance. “You know the Dora’s coming for you at any minute? In fact, they’re probably lurking outside right now. Keep talking.”

“Leaving you to turn on me once we get to Karli. Hmm. I prefer to keep my leverage.”

You watch as Bucky stands up from the couch and walks towards him. Something tells you that he’s not just standing up to talk, but before you can so much as think of anything else, Bucky grabs a tea cup and throws it against the wall behind Zemo. It shatters with a surprisingly loud crack.

“You wanna see what someone can do with leverage?”

Both you and Sam are on your feet in seconds, stepping in-between them. You press a hand against Bucky’s shoulder and try to move him away from Zemo, but it does nothing. He doesn’t move and instead keeps shooting daggers at Zemo over your shoulder.

“Take it easy. Don’t engage him. He’s just gonna extort you and do that stupid head tilt thing,” Sam says, warning Bucky off. “Let me make a call.” He leaves the room, but not before tapping on Bucky’s other shoulder in an attempt to snap him out of it.

Zemo gets on your nerves by asking “You want some cherry blossom tea?”

“No, you go ahead.” Bucky is seething.

You push on his shoulder again and finally he steps back.

“What, you think we can afford to start fighting amongst each other now?” You ask, directing Bucky out of the living room and down the hall, figuring it’s probably for the best if he and Zemo aren’t in the same room right now. Zemo can enjoy his cherry blossom tea all on his own.

Bucky lets out a long, shaky breath. “Told you I wanted to punch him.”

“When I said I wanted to see it, I didn’t mean today.”

You tug him out of the hall and into your room, closing the door behind you. It’s the first time the two of you have been alone since the street where he’d called you out for contradicting yourself all the time. Strangely, he’s the person out of the three of them that you’re the most comfortable around, yet you also know he’s definitely the one that’s the most rash in his decision making. Hence the broken cup.

Bucky sits down on the edge of the bed and runs his hands over his hair.

“I know that helping him get out was for the best considering everything with Karli and the Flag Smashers, but I’m really regretting my decision right about now,” he admits, eyes focused firmly on the floor.

You walk over and settle down beside him on the bed.

“He has his uses, but just because he’s useful doesn’t mean he’s any less of an ass.”

He laughs briefly and the sound makes you smile.

“We all have regrets, okay?” You continue. “I have plenty of them, you have them, Sam has them, I bet even Zemo has some. Buried deep down. I try not to focus on mine. Maybe you should try the same with the Zemo thing.”

Bucky lifts his head and looks at you. “Yeah, it’s that easy, is it?”

For some reason, you want him to trust you even more now. Having felt disconnected from them all day, but also having felt the thrill when one of them laughs at your joke, or even Bucky just telling you that he likes you… the part of you that wants trust wins out, so you decide to tell Bucky one of your regrets.

“I regret leaving Madripoor and Sharon,” you admit. “She’s the only home I’ve known for the longest time. Madripoor – however messed up it is there – felt like some kind of home because of her. It’s the first time we’ve been apart since the blip, I suppose. Part of me wishes I was still there with her. But the other part of me focuses on the fact that she thinks I’m of more use here, with you guys. So I’m trying to be of use to you guys. I’m trying not to shut myself off. I’m pushing down my regret in favour of trying to be helpful.”

“And how’s that going?”

“Well, I haven’t contradicted myself yet, have I?”

Bucky smiles properly for the first time since you’ve met him.

“And listen, if it makes you feel any better, you entirely have my permission to punch Zemo before we finish all of this. I don’t know Sam well, but I have a feeling he’d be on board, too.”

He chuckles and leans back until he’s laying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

“I meant what I said in there before,” he points in the direction of the living room. “That I like you. That you get me. I don’t know how, but you do.” He looks up at you, sitting up and watching him. “You’re making it annoyingly easy for me to trust you right now, you know that? I feel like I shouldn’t trust you because of the contradictions you make about yourself. But now you’re sitting here, being open and honest with me. Making sure I don’t punch people. And now I feel like I could trust you.”

You’re smiling. “Maybe that was all part of my grand plan.”

Bucky furrows his eyebrows. “Don’t do that.”

“I’m joking. It was a joke,” you huff out a laugh. “Learn to take a joke, James.”

He pushes himself up, sitting straight again. “James?”

“That’s your name, is it not? Or do you not like being called James?”

“No, it’s… it’s fine.” He blinks. Lets your words settle with him for a moment.  “Bucky, James. I don’t care what you call me. Unless it’s offensive.”

“Well, you’re safe there,” you laugh. “I’m not mad at you, by the way. About what you said earlier. You were right. I do contradict myself, and I do it to protect myself.”

Bucky frowns. “You don’t have to protect yourself from me.”

“Then I’ll try not to,” you say honestly. “Now, have you cooled off enough to go back and see who Sam was calling, or do you wanna stay here for a few more minutes?”

Bucky thinks over your question for a few moments, thinking ever so briefly about staying here with you for a little bit longer simply because he thinks he likes being around you, before nodding. “I think I’m good.”

You nod and stand up, intending to head to the door, but Bucky reaches out a hand to stop you. He means to grab your wrist, but unintentionally ends up grabbing your hand. You whirl, eyes a little wider than you realise, and look at him.

He doesn’t let go.

“Thank you,” he says. “For getting me out of there. For calming me down.”

You smile. “Anytime, Bucky.”

***

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[scapegrace74-blog]

New Ways of Turning into Stone, Chapter 5

A/N  Sorry for the long break between chapters.  As some of you might have seen from my Tumblr blog, I’ve been off on vacation these past two weeks.  Plus, when I felt the urge to write, it was my new Vaquero AU that kept calling to me (21,000 words and counting!), rather than this fic.  Which is probably a good argument for why I don’t like to post WIPs.  In any event, here is the next chapter some of you have been asking for, entitled Third Appointment.  Be careful what you wish for.  Angst ahead, plus a trigger warning for infertility trauma, miscarriage.

The first four chapters are available on my AO3 page.

The Thursday after her impromptu encounter with Jamie and his niece at the Royal Hospital for Children, Claire woke with a strange twisting pain in her gut.  Skipping breakfast, she was halfway to her office before she diagnosed herself with an acute case of nerves, the kind that sprouted between her lungs and ribcage like a vestigial organ whose sole purpose was to unsettle her.

She wasn’t in the habit of meeting patients outside of the clinical confines of her practice, but it was more than that.  Jamie had caught her in a moment of weakness, with both her personal and professional armour missing.  What he might have seen and how he could have interpreted it had occupied her thoughts ever since.

Eating lunch was out of the question.  By the time two o’clock approached, her insides were a buzzing hornets’ nest of anxiety, her palms clammy with sweat.  A half-empty bottle of Xanax called to her from the bottom of her purse.  Before she could weigh the implications of taking one at work on an empty stomach, Jamie’s familiar knock intervened.

She could tell as soon as he entered that Maggie hadn’t needed a transfusion that week.  His russet curls shone like garnets in the midday sun and his uncanny eyes glittered like sapphires.  Still, he avoided looking directly her way as he settled into his usual chair, and she wondered if the overlap of their personal and professional lives had left him feeling unnerved as well.

“No wheat grass smoothie,” he commented, his gaze running over her desk.

“No, I didn’t have time for lunch today.”  It was a blatant falsehood, since she’d spent her lunch hour picking her cuticles until they bled, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Ye should eat more, Sassen..., Doctor Beauchamp.  Ye canna help anyone else if ye’re no’ properly nourished.”  She caught the slip, and for some reason it angered her.

“Is this your attempt to negotiate a reduction in your fees, Jamie?  Dietary advice in return for counselling?  Because if so, I’m afraid I don’t bill on the barter system,” she snapped, despising her churlish tone.

Jamie’s eyes narrowed, then dimmed.  Message received, he sat up straighter in the armchair and crossed a foot over his knee, assuming a position of poised and detached calm that had no doubt served him well during business negotiations.  She regrouped by pretending to glance at her journal for the notes from their previous session, although the space next to his name was accusingly blank.

Boundaries thus defined, the session went surprising well.  Jamie spoke of his relief that Maggie’s latest round of chemotherapy was over, allowing her to return home and to some semblance of a regular life for a child of six.  Claire coaxed him gently towards the topic of his overwhelming guilt for abandoning his family when he was most needed.  Jamie processed pain through the recounting of stories, coming to terms with his self-decreed transgression by weaving together the tale of those he loved and pointing to the holes his absence had caused.

As his resonant voice spun its web of words, Claire became aware of an underlying hum.  At first it was subtle, like the mumble of traffic from a far-off motorway.  But as their hour together ticked by, it grew in strength until she could no longer ignore the buzz that pressed against her from all directions.

“... saw that it was really Jenny and Ian who I was... Claire?  Doctor Beauchamp, are ye well?”  Jamie was watching her with concern, and she realized she’d been shaking her head, trying to dislodge the omnipresent hum.

“Yes, I’m... yes.  Sorry.  Just a funny noise that’s...  Please, continue.”  When Jamie didn’t immediately pick up the thread of his narrative, she tried again.  “You were saying something about Jenny and Ian?”

Instead of continuing his previous thought, Jamie picked that moment to broach the topic she’d desperately hoped he would avoid.

“I hope ye’re no’ upset about the other day, at the hospital.  I didna mean tae impose or tae... o’erstep the bounds of our relationship.  No’ that we have a relationship, mind,” he hastened to add.  “Only a professional one.  But when I saw ye, I couldna resist introducing ye tae wee Maggie.  I hadna told ye about her yet, and I thought...”

“Jamie, it’s fine,” she cut in, halting his rambling explanation.  “She’s a lovely girl.  They all are.  It’s only that, I’m sort of...”

“Ye’re verra good with them.  Children, that is.  Ye’ll make a fine mother one day.”

All the oxygen left the room at once.  Her heart beat so hard there was a bruised feeling behind her sternum.   Launching to her feet, Claire stumbled blindly away from her desk.  She wanted to run, to scream, but her vision was a narrow chasm and a now-deafening throb filled her ears.  She only made it a few steps before her knees buckled and the carpet floated upwards to meet her.

“Ifrinn!”  Jamie leapt to her side, catching her by the shoulders before her head could hit the floor.  He lowered them both carefully to the ground, resting her body against his lap.  “Sassenach?  Claire?  Can ye hear me?  Do I need tae call an ambulance?”  The words reached her from very far away, but the threat of medical intervention acted like a dose of smelling salts.

“No,” she groaned, the room spinning around her like a kaleidoscope.  “No hospital.  I just... need to eat,” she grasped at the most innocuous explanation for her current state.

Without dislodging her, Jamie stretched his long arm and brought back the small basket of miniature muffins that were the day’s offering from Geillis.  With surprising dexterity, he peeled away the paper one-handed and broke apart a bite-sized morsel, holding it gently against her lips.  Realizing that her dignity couldn’t get any more battered, Claire opened her mouth and allowed Jamie to feed her.  After only a few bites, the buzzing disappeared and she was able to sit up on her own.

“Thank you,” she murmured, afraid to look into his eyes for fear of the pity she knew she’d see there.  “You were right. I  should have eaten lunch, I guess.”

“Claire.”  Jamie made a prose poem of the single syllable of her name.  She looked up at him through her lashes, stunned to find him looking back, not with pity, but with something akin to adoration.  “Mo nighean donn,” he ran a tender hand through her loosened curls.  “Ye need tae care more for yerself.”

“I will.  I’ll try.”  And when she said it to him, she really meant it.  Jamie made the impossible seem probable.

They stared at one another, shoulder to shoulder on the floor of her office.  She couldn’t think of anything else to say, but nor did she move.  Her gaze flitted over his face, noticing a vestige of boyish freckles across the bridge of his nose, a mole hidden in the harvest stubble on his cheek.  Jamie was performing a parallel inventory, eyes finally coming to rest at the level of her mouth.

“Ye’ve got a wee crumb, jus’ there.”  Unconscious, her tongue swept out, triggering a predatory response, twin blue laser beams narrowing on the target she had just painted on her lower lip.

“I... I’d verra much like tae kiss ye, Claire.  May I?”

An amputated moan was all she could manage in response, but Jamie must have understood its meaning.  He bent his head until only a whisper separated them.  The air crackled, sending that extra organ plummeting towards her hollow womb.  Clenching her eyes shut in defeat, she closed the infinitesimal gap until they met in an effervescent caress of lip and tongue.

Cold washed over her skin, bathing her in gooseflesh.  Jamie tasted like he looked; a banquet of fresh, volatile flavours that called to mind a picnic in a meadow, a spray of sea foam, the warmth of hearth and home.  She could feel him trembling against her, his moist breath rushing against her cheek in shallow pants.  For a score of heartbeats, Claire was the happiest she had ever been.  Then, reality crashed down around her.

“I’m sorry,” she stammered, pulling away.  “I... this can’t... I’m sorry.”

Jamie leaned back with a mixture of longing and resignation.  She hated adding herself to his list of regrets, but it was for the best.

“I’m your doctor, Jamie.  This isn’t right.”

“Aye, I ken.  I should apologize, but I canna seem tae find it in me tae repent.”

Jamie stood, reaching down to help Claire up as well.  As soon as it was apparent she was able to stand on her own, he dropped her hand as though it burned.  The line between his brows deepened, and she could see the question forming before he gave it voice.

“What if ye werena my doctor?  Would it be right then?”

“That’s neither here nor there, because I am, Jamie.  A relationship between patient and doctor of a romantic nature is ethically off-limits.”

Jamie nodded, apparently accepting her explanation at face value. Her heartbeat calmed.  He moved slowly, gathering his coat and starting to leave.  

“But what if ye weren’t?” he said, facing the door.  “If we’d met at the hospital, or out on the town?”

“I...” she stammered, searching desperately for any answer except for the truth.  “No, Jamie,” she said at last, watching as she destroyed his last bastion of hope.  “I’m sorry.  I just don’t feel that way about you.”

Nodding abruptly, Jamie let himself out of the office.  She listened to his low murmuring voice through the door as he spoke to Geillis, heard him make an appointment for the following week, then the loud snap of the main door closing.  Only then did she allow herself to collapse once more to the floor, angry sobs overtaking her.

***

“Are ye out of yer fuckin’ mind?” Geillis inquired with her usual brutal eloquence.

With the help of a Xanax, Claire had managed to see her last two patients of the day, and only needed to navigate the shoals of her office manager’s ire before she could go home and fully medicate herself into a dreamless sleep.

“Jes so we’re clear, ye want me tae write a letter terminating your services as a doctor an’ suggesting suitable alternative providers?  An’ ye want me tae send this letter, over email, tae Jamie Fraser?”

“That’s right.”  She had determined that icy calm was the best antidote to this conversation, which was fortuitous, since she felt numb all over.

“An’ what reason am I tae give fer this abrupt conclusion tae yer association wi’ Mr. Fraser?”

“I don’t owe him an explanation.  Only sufficient notice and an opportunity to seek counselling elsewhere,” she said, feigning reasonableness.

Pushed past her limits, Geillis rose from behind her desk, a tiny tempest of moral indignation.

“Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp, ye are a good friend, a fine doctor an’ a fair employer.  But I swear by the Almighty that if ye dinna drop the façade and tell me wha’ is going on I am going tae smack ye until yer ears ring!”

There was a certain relief in knowing that Geillis wouldn’t take no for an answer.  And unlike Jamie, she knew where Claire lived and would not let her rest until the truth came out.

“He kissed me.  Or rather, I kissed him.  And I liked it!  That’s why, Geillis.”

Her friend’s shoulders sagged, all righteousness gone in an instant.  She reached around Claire’s frame and held her in a bone-crushing one-sided hug.

“Och, hen.  An’ ye figured ye could deal wi’ those pesky feelings by jes, what? firing him as yer patient?”  

“I can’t deal with this right now, Geillis.  I can’t feel the way he makes me feel.  And this practice is all that I have left.  There’s no way I can risk losing it just for an affair that won’t even last the summer.”

She didn’t need to elaborate on her reasons for that dire prediction.  Geillis knew them as well as anyone.

“He’s an intelligent man, Claire. He’s gonna ken something is up.  Moreover, he’s a good man.  He deserves tae hear the truth.”

Shaking her head sadly, Claire walked towards the door.  Just before exiting, she called back softly to her friend.

“Geillis?  Make sure to include Dr. Rafferty’s name on the list of referrals.  I think they’d be a good match.

***

Monday morning dawned with little promise for the fledgling week.  Moving robotically through her weekend routine, Claire thought frequently of chickens.  How their bodies kept moving once their heads were lopped off, nerves and muscle and bone continuing to function for a time despite the fatal blow.

The elevator chimed its arrival on her floor.  As the doors slide open, Jamie was the first thing she saw.  He loomed by her still-locked office, a sun-topped thundercloud gripping a sheet of printer paper.

She’d worn her best black suit and a pair of chunky heels that brought her closer to his height.  Perhaps, on some subconscious level, she’d anticipated this confrontation.  Perversely, she relished it.  Vitriol and deceit didn’t suit her, but it was preferable to feeling absolutely nothing.

“Do ye mind tellin’ me,” Jamie began before she’d even set foot in the hallway, “jus’ what this is about, Claire?” He brandished the paper like a wanted poster.

“I would think it was self-explanatory, actually.  I’m terminating our professional relationship,” she huffed, golden eyes coming to life for the first time since Thursday.

“Via email.  Sent tae me by Miss Duncan, because ye dinna have the guts tae do it yerself.  Christ, Sassenach, even my ninth grade sweetheart didna dump me so cruelly!”

“I’m not your sweetheart!” she burst out, a flood of emotion cresting with her rising anger.  “Don’t call me that!  I was your doctor, Jamie, and now I’m nothing to you.  Nothing.  Just go.  Please.  Just go,” she finished weakly and without any hope that he’d listen.

“All this jus’ because I kissed you?” Jamie persevered.  At her stubborn silence, he continued, “Nah, I dinna think so.  Ye’re many things, Claire, but a coward isna one of them.”

She found this hysterically funny, since a coward was the only role she played to perfection.  She didn’t have time to laugh, however, because Jamie was suddenly standing much closer, forcing her to lift her chin to meet his stormy eyes.

“Nah,” he continued smoothly, a big cat alerted to the smell of its prey.  “If ye’d objected tae the kiss, ye would have told me so.  Read me the riot act or kneed me in the bawls.  I think ye’re scared, Doctor Beauchamp.  I think that kiss terrified ye, because ye realized ye liked it.  Somethin’ ye couldna  plan for in yer wee journal, right there under yer nose.  Bet it made yer heart beat so fast. So fast, jus’ like it is now.”

Jamie’s hand rested gently over the placket of her suit jacket, where he could surely feel the trip hammering of her pulse.

“Please,” she begged.  “Don’t.  I can’t...”

“Can’t what, Sassenach?” he whispered back, goading her.

The truth hung on her lips, and the toll of the past few days meant that she no longer had the strength to stop it from spilling forth.

“Can’t have children.  Ever.  I tried, for years.  Fourteen miscarriages, fourteen lost chances.  And seeing you with those children last week.  I know it’s presumptive, but I could never deny you that chance, Jamie.  That’s why I can’t see you anymore.”

She was looking down, watching the buttons of his shirt rise and fall with his agitated breath, but as she finished speaking, their movement ceased.  Chancing a glance upward, she was stunned by the fury that had overtaken his expression. 

Jamie opened and closed his mouth several times before he managed to speak in a gritty growl.

“Mutation of the RUNX1 gene tha’ causes leukemia.  I was tested, along wi’ Jenny an’ Ian, after Maggie was diagnosed.  I have a fifty percent chance of passing it along tae my children.  An’ since I canna stand the thought of ano’er bairn havin’ tae suffer as Maggie has, as soon as I got the test results, I went out an’ had a vasectomy.”

Claire recoiled as though she’d been slapped, a high pitched whine in her ears.

“Ye’re no’ the only one who’s hurting, Claire!” Jamie continued, voice dashing against the rocks of her name.  “We’re no’ meant tae suffer alone.  Ye, of all people, should ken that.”

Stunned in the silence following the thunderclap of his revelation, she couldn’t find the words to express her sorrow, her outrage, and her crippling shame.  By the time the power of speech returned, Jamie was gone. 

[allegra-writes]

"Bad together"

Prologue: Benjamin Reilly

Peter Parker x Reader

General audiences

Warnings: none.

"And if I'm dead to you

Why are you at the wake?

Cursing my name, wishing I stayed"

My tears ricochet - Taylor Swift

"... It's a disaster! Look at her! It's like someone took a look at Black Cat, selected everything that made her sexy and then took it out!"

Black Cat. The name froze the young photographer on his tracks right outside his boss' office. He hadn't heard that name in a long time, the last sighting had been well over a year ago. He would know.  After all, it had been him, the very last person to have seen Felicia Hardy, alive or dead.

"What are you talking about? That looks hot af, not to mention badass!" Jade's persuasive voice reached his ears, making him smirk: It was no secret the chief editor had a soft spot for the young intern. And, on her part, the petite brunette was a firecracker. Poor old Jameson didn't stand a chance. "Come on, dad. Single handedly taking down three of the Kingpin's goons? That's impressive. It deserves to be one of the slides!" 

"Not if we don't get a higher quality picture. That blurry video is good enough for a thumbnail, but not for a slide" Slides were a big deal, they were the Dailybugle.net's equivalent of a front page, and if J. Jonah Jameson took something seriously, it was his web site. He prided himself in the quality of the "receipts" of his "tea", as if that validated the trashiness of the bullshit articles he posted, more fiction from hyper imaginative wannabe writers than serious work from real reporters. 

"Well, then let's get the pictures. Where is that star photographer of yours?" 

The photographer rolled his eyes, typical Jade. As if the queen of cool didn't know his name. As if she hadn't graced his bed a handful of times already. 

"That's a good question. Dolores, get me Reilly!"

"I'm here, Jonah" Ben finally stepped inside the office, throwing an envelope on Jameson's desk before throwing himself on a chair across it. He could feel Jade's eyes on him, almost like a physical caress, trailing from the long, slick back curls on the top of his head, to the muscles of his arms, threatening to rip open the seams at the sleeves of his white t-shirt, to his jean clad thighs. Still, he didn't turn to look at her, refusing to give her the satisfaction. 

"What do you have for me today, boy?"

Ben gesticulated vaguely with his head in the direction of Jade, and Jameson caught the hint. 

"Jade, out!" 

"But, dad, my story!" The petulant reply left her mouth before she could stop it, undoubtedly the product of years of habit. But she had the grace to look embarrassed and leave the office without another word, trying to save whatever professionalism she had left. 

Once she was gone, Jameson opened the envelope, flipping through the various pictures of a masked figure swinging around New York in a black and red suit. 

"Hmmm… these are good" the older man praised, staring at the images of a frustrated robbery at 5th avenue

Ben snifled nocomitically,

"There was a fire at 16th avenue happening at the same time" He offered, "we could use that. Spider-Man forgets his roots and leaves his old neighborhood to fend for itself, running off to save some pretty socialite…"

"Oh, that is excellent! See, this is why I like you, kid. You have initiative. Unlike these snowflakes out there. Oh, but Spider-Man is a hero. Hero, my ass"

"Well, when you watch your so called hero sit back and do nothing as your life gets destroyed" Ben shrugged, "the rose colored glasses tend to fall off…"

Jameson made a face at that,

"Yeah, about that… I'm sorry. For the role the Daily Bugle played on that…"

Ben shook his head, 

"You thought you were getting the truth out there. It's not your fault to have been played, along with half the world. Plus," he added, sounding genuinely enthusiastic, "you gave me this job. And now we can really tell the truth"

"Even when our idea of the truth is somehow different" The older man scoffed, flipping around a picture of Spider-Man sat on what appeared to be a hammock of his own webs, eating a hamburger and reading something that looked suspiciously like a comic book, "Still hung up on that high schooler theory of yours?"

"Well, if it talks like a brat and acts like a brat…" Ben took out another envelope, this time containing a few burger king wrappers and, effectively, a spider-man comic book. 

"Where did you even get these?"

"Harlem" was Ben's curt reply, and Jameson knew that was as exact a location as he was going to get. 

"So you still believe this is a copycat? Some kid playing dress up"

Ben simply shrugged again. 

"Well, there seems to be an epidemic of those lately" Jameson admitted, indicating Ben to come closer, passing a tablet to him, "Jade just handled me this, take a look"

Ben took a deep breath, steeling himself, already knowing what he was going to see in it. Yet, a part of him couldn't help but hope to be wrong. To hope the silver haired figure facing three much bigger, stronger looking ones as he pressed play, wasn't the same one he had spent weeks memorizing last summer. Wasn't the body he had found solace in, when everything fell apart, once again, for the hundredth time in his life. 

To hope it wasn't you. 

But when in his twenty-two or so years of existence, had things ever gone his way? 

Ben felt the screen crack under his fingertips.

"I've heard of her" he lied through his teeth, "didn't even think she was real, to be honest. Extremely elusive, and cunning." That much was true, "I don't understand how something as mundane as a security camera managed to catch her…" 

Unless you wanted to be caught, that was. 

"Well, I don't care if she's the fucking Loch Ness monster, I want an HD picture of her on my desk tomorrow to go with Jade's article. I already have a headline: New Catastrophe Jen wreaks havoc on Hell's Kitchen" Jameson's eyes lit up with glee as he weaved his hands up in the air, like writing on an invisible marquee. 

Ben snorted

"Don't you mean Calamity Jane?"

Jameson's face fell, the color rising to his cheeks, characteristic vein popping on his forehead. 

"I meant what I meant, boy! Now, what are you still doing here? You have 24 hours to get me that picture"

"I'm going to need 72," came Ben's unphased reply, "and I want twice what you pay me for the spidey pics"

Jameson's vein looked about ready to explode,

"48 hours. And deal."

Ben jumped from his seat and bolted out of the office before his boss could change his mind, not realizing until it was too late that he was on a collision course with a sweet looking short haired blonde girl. 

"Watch where you're going! Jeez!"

"Me? You're the one who crashed against me!" 

Ben rolled his eyes, but crouched next to the girl anyway, helping her gather the papers that had been sent flying on impact back together.

"Peter? Oh my god, is that you?"

Of course. What an idiot, he should had recognized that annoying, shrilly voice the second he heard it. It had caught him off guard, something he knew he couldn't afford. But how could he had ever imagine he could run into Betty fucking Brant, Yale cum laude, in the freaking dailybugle.net headquarters of all places?

"Sorry, sweetheart. You must confuse me with someone else…" He mumbled, lowering his head even more in a vain attempt to hide his face.

"Of course not!" She insisted, "You're Peter, Peter Parker, we went to Midtown together!"

"Miss, I have no idea what you're talking about…"

"Don't be silly, Peter!" She chuckled, completely deft to his tone or the way his whole demeanor had changed the second she had called him by the old name. "How have you been? Oh, just wait until I tell Ned, he's going to be so-"

CRACK.

At last, the tablet that had been in peril ever since Jameson had put it in Ben's hands, the one that contained his assignment, met its demise, both broken halves falling to the ground, along with all the papers he had picked up for Betty. It was several moments before he could get the shaking of his hands under control, before the tar black rage inside him subsided enough for him to be able to move without shifting. But it had.

"Peter Parker is dead." He deadpanned, dark brown eyes finally meeting Betty's stunned blue ones, "Tell Ned that, he'll probably be glad to hear it"

With that, he stood up and walked away, leaving a confused and agitated Betty behind. 

To be continued...