#its hard to find and maintain the boundary when its someone who lives far away so u want to get as much time with them as possible

[mozki]

damn no wonder im an emotional mess tbh i just threw away all my boundaries for an attempt at romance for . entirely too many days in a row . and ultimately entirely fruitless . but i should be glad for the connection

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

The Man From Y.I.L.I.N.G.

Chapter 12: Interlude

--//--

THE BURIAL MOUNDS – INFORMATION – LEVEL 4

Wen Ning loves his sister.

When they were both far too young, Wen Qing became both mother and father to him, caring for him, looking out for him, feeding him, clothing him, scolding him, comforting him —

They’d had extended family to help, of course. She’d been too young to truly do it on her own, but the fact of the matter is that everyone has their own lives to lead, and though they were (are) important to their family, everyone is always dealing with the tragedies of life, large, small, and mundane; the pair of them becoming orphans was ultimately just another minuscule tragedy in the long suffering of human history. They picked themselves up and got on with things.

Wen Ning has understood from far too young an age that to survive is sometimes the best that they can ask for, but that to ensure at least that much sometimes sacrifices must be made.

Wen Qing, as pragmatic a woman as she is, can’t bring herself to commit violence even against those who wrong them. Wen Ning respects her boundaries, understands that as a doctor (in the truest meaning of the word, down to her soul), she can’t bring herself to harm when her hands were always meant to heal.

As a boy, Wen Ning had loved learning medicine at her side as she learned it first from the elders in their family and then practiced it herself, honing her craft under Wen Ruohan’s generous sponsorship until she’d grown up and proven herself skilled enough to tend to him personally — where he’d subjected her to witnessing horrors she still won’t discuss. He’d always thought, when he was young and naïve, that he would share her passion for healing, and be a gentle soul worthy of practicing at her side.

Some might say now that he’s been corrupted by Wei Wuxian’s influence; some believe the rumors that Wei Wuxian is irredeemably evil, cruel, twisted, that he mocks the world and all things good simply by existing. The truth, of course, is that he’s a powerful man who can’t stand to see the weak being bullied, and he’s unafraid to take whatever drastic measures he deems necessary to maintain as clean of a conscience as he can.

Wen Ning — who understands that the world is uncaring and that hurting no one often means becoming the one who’s hurt — finds a sense of relief in having become the weapon in his best friend’s right hand. He doesn’t have the talent for subterfuge that his sister does, nor her ability to ignore the violence of others in order to adhere to her own strict moral code. It’s been far better for him, in the years since they barely escaped Wen Ruohan’s ‘protection’ with their family and their lives, to train hard and let himself be honed into a weapon to be used with judicious care, and always with gratitude from the man he owes his life to.

Wen Ning stalks through the halls and corridors of the Burial Mounds – the dead mountain, mined to nothing but its own bones, that Wei Wuxian has claimed for them as a home and fortress; his experiments in nuclear technology buried too deeply underground to hurt anyone, and his righteous love and protection extended to anyone brave enough to set foot in this place — and wants nothing more than to find the person who put his sister (and Chifeng-zun) in danger. Somewhere in his home there is an inconsequential worm who thinks they can betray someone as fundamentally good and as deeply enraged as Wei Wuxian and get away with it unscathed. They must be taught why the world rightly fears the Yiling Laozu.

More than anything, Wen Ning hates to see those he loves disrespected, and this insult isn’t the type that Wen Qing’s empty threats and sly words can return.

“Find the rat,” Wei Wuxian had said, though couched in roundabout language that wouldn’t alarm their deeply traumatized guests. After all, it wouldn’t do to frighten them when they’d only just gotten the boys to settle enough to stop flinching every time someone looked their way. In Wei Wuxian’s eyes, dead and glittering above his perpetual smile, there had been the simple, silent instruction: “Make them pay.”

All things told, the actual operation of the Burial Mounds is accomplished on a fairly small scale. Not many people truly want to live their lives on the edge like this, and most of the people who come to Wei Wuxian are looking for help and security, not to be a gun in his (miniscule) arsenal. At any given time, the majority of the occupants of the Burial Mounds are civilians in the living quarters, followed by researchers (whose jobs do not, under any circumstances, require them to put their lives on the line), followed by internal security, and only then, the smallest portion, are the people who go out on the missions Wei Wuxian deems absolutely necessary for furthering his goals.

The only people who would be at all in the know about the plans involving Chifeng-zun and Jin Guangyao would be the on-duty internal security who had been briefed with minimal detail on the strangers’ presence in the bunker, and then their need to leave it again almost immediately using the classes of vehicles typically reserved for Wei Wuxian and those he trusts the most. After all, not just anyone gets to leave the Burial Mounds in one of their precious few aircraft ‘borrowed’ from the PLA Air Force division, and fewer still get to leave it in the company of Jiang Wanyin on Sandu.

Inner security is so sparsely staffed that Wen Ning can exonerate over three quarters of them through simple exclusion — anyone not on duty on the interrogation floors within the last two days would know nothing of their true plans regarding the Wens and the Jins, and of the people on duty within those 48 hours only two of them are currently unaccounted for amongst all of the security posts and patrol routes in the mountain.

With all of that in mind, it’s laughably easy to find the person who had decided they had information worth sharing (their betrayal carried out via an embarrassingly straightforward and poorly-made system of self-installed radio and telegraph transmission that piggybacks directly off of the Burial Mounds’ locked-down communications bay). 

The man responsible is a relatively new addition to the Burial Mounds. He’d appeared some time ago with very little to recommend him beyond having once held some minor position in the Lans’ intelligence agency prior to its destruction, followed by an equally unimpressive and even briefer stint in the Jins’ research labs. But Wei Wuxian is a good man who rarely, if ever, turns away someone claiming to be in need. Wen Ning has always liked that about him, even though his sister has often muttered that it’s a habit that’ll get them all killed one day if he doesn’t start getting more selective about his rescues. It is especially appalling, then, to find that someone who had sought out their help has seen fit to put the people Wen Ning loves in needless danger.

“I did you idiots a favor!” the man shouts as Wen Ning drags him, bound, down the unremarkable hallway of Level 4, no sounds but the one-sided scuffling echoing back to them from the miles of unyielding black stone broken only by the sickly phosphorescence of the old mining lamps. “Is this how the Yiling Laozu treats his own people? He truly is a heartless devil like everyone says!”

Wen Ning, his Ghost General — half-dead and only walking, only conscious at all, thanks to Wei Wuxian’s love and his dogged pursuit of fringe medicine techniques that would put most of Wen Ruohan’s ‘doctors’ to shame — simply drags his wriggling prey to an unremarkable iron door and hauls him inside with inhuman strength. He shuts the door softly behind himself and turns to face the sniveling weasel who’d dared to betray the man who once held Wen Ning’s dead heart in his hands to force it to start it again; who sneers around Wei Wuxian’s name and spits that Wen Ning’s savior is a devil; whose actions put We Ning’s beloved sister in grave danger, and continues to endanger a man under Wei Wuxian’s explicit protection.

When their eyes meet, Wen Ning can see that his prey suddenly understands just how badly he’s miscalculated.

“Wei-laoshi is not a devil, gongzi” he gently corrects as he begins to remove his ever-present gloves. Black leather slips away to reveal bone-pale hands that never truly feel warm anymore, thickly cross-hatched with silver scars bit into him by blades and fingernails and teeth and every other manner of self-defense imaginable; weapons that, in the end, he’s always been able to overwhelm. “He only made one.”

... -.-. . -. . / -... .-. . .- -.-

THE BURIAL MOUNDS — MOUNTAINTOP HANGAR

Wen Qing arrives home in a controlled panic, Lan Wangji there to meet her in the hangar with his usual stoic expression made grimmer by his news.

“Tell me now,” she sighs, exhausted and aching all over from the blows she’d taken on her way back out of Nightless City. “What have you found?”

“The source of the leak here and the executor of their plan in Qishan.”

Wen Qing, thanks only to years of practice, finds enough patience that she manages not to snap that she figured that, she wants to know who, dammit! (Perhaps, she allows, being married to Jiang Cheng has involved more…personality blending than she’d originally thought it would.)

“Who are they?” she asks with what she feels is admirable neutrality under the circumstances.

“New additions to Wei Ying’s inner security. One rogue, one formerly Lan. Both known to work for the Jin within the last two years.”

It takes an extra beat of expectant silence for her to put two-and-two together, but when she does she can’t resist the urge to tilt her head back and swear loudly enough (a deeply cathartic, “FUCK!”) that Lan Wangji glances around on instinct to make sure A-Yuan isn’t lurking near enough to hear her, though naturally he should be asleep this late at night. (Or is it early in the morning? She supposes the latter, considering the far-off eastern horizon is a shade of robin’s egg blue rather than the black of this endless night.)

“And of course those two bastards are the ones who volunteered to go test Nie Mingjue their first night in Yiling–“

“When no one could locate Jin Guangyao until he joined xiongzhang and Chifeng-zun at the park. Yes.”

“They’re in his pocket,” Wen Qing asks, but at this point it’s hardly a question. What other answer could there be?

“It is unconfirmed but…possible. He is untrustworthy, but do not make assumptions. Ge trusts him, and we will learn the truth from Jin Guangyao ourselves in due time.”

Wen Qing barely refrains from reminding her sort-of-brother-in-law that she warned them all this would happen! Wei Wuxian’s generosity is one of his most wonderful features, she acknowledges that and has absolutely benefited from it for the majority of her adult life, but there need to be limits! She can’t stand to see the people that she loves betrayed and taken advantage of, and there is no one that she knows with a worse self-preservation instinct than Wei Wuxian. He’d cut himself open and tear the beating heart out of his own chest if he thought someone he loves could make better use of it than its valiant attempts to keep him alive (without ever considering for a moment that what the people he loves want most of all is to see him thrive).

Rather than delivering the biting ‘I told you so’ that they both know is on the tip of her tongue, she asks, “Where is everyone? What happens now?”

“A-Ning is on Level 4. Xiongzhang has gone to Lanling.”

Wen Qing, with barely any of the skill in reading Lan Wangji’s microscopic expressions necessary to communicate with him properly as Wei Wuxian and the other Lans do, can still see the fear in his eyes as clear as day.

If the Jins have been tipped off as to their plans — if Jin Guangyao is truly the rat in their home — then Lan Xichen has just walked straight into a trap which he is highly unlikely to walk back out of. It strikes her as suddenly as a bolt of lightning, utterly unexpected and utterly terrifying, that her husband is in Lanling, taking the snake right back to his den.

“A-Cheng-” is all she manages to say, sharp as a knife, before the fear chokes her and she staggers, everything that’s happened in the last roughly-24-hours hitting her all at once in the safety of her own home.

Lan Wangji’s quick reflexes keep her upright, one of his hands cupped firmly under her elbow to hold her steady as she gets her feet under her again, a palm pressed to her forehead and her eyes squeezed tightly shut against the sallow lights of the hangar.

“Wei Ying is sleeping at Jiang-guniang’s insistence, we will not move until evening at the earliest. You should rest.”

Wen Qing ruthlessly tamps down the panic Lan Wangji’s suggestion sends racing through her veins, fresh adrenaline chasing away the exhausting crash from the previous rush, when she’d narrowly escaped her uncle’s clutches once again.

“I won’t sleep until he’s home,” she tells him as she gently shakes his supporting hand off her arm and straightens herself out with an effort. The thought of sleeping fitfully, full of nightmares, just to wake and learn that her husband has left her a widow while she’d been tossing and turning? Utterly unbearable. “Is Lan-xiansheng still monitoring the radios?”

“Mn.”

“I’ll join him, I want to know what’s happening as it happens. Let Wuxian sleep as long as he can.”

It isn’t often that Wen Qing pulls ‘rank’, as much as one can within the family. But when it comes right down to it, she is Wei Wuxian’s partner in this, and in many ways outranks Wei Wuxian himself. This is her family. This is their place. Wei Wuxian has been brought into the fold, he protects them, he does what needs to be done. But so does she, and so does Wen Ning.

Lan Wangji, who better understands the intricacies of their mutable authority than anyone else except Wen Ning, simply nods and falls into step at her side when she takes a deep breath and strides deeper into the mountain.

... -.-. . -. . / -... .-. . .- -.-

YILING CITY — 莲花 VILLA

Jiang Yanli sighs as she finally lays down in her own bed, more exhausted than she’d like to admit from the day and yet unable to shut her mind off enough to feel capable of sleeping just yet.

Jin Zixuan, snoring softly beside her, wakes a few minutes after she lays down with a sharp inhale and a hand groping for hers across the sheets, as always his first desire upon waking: to find her, to reassure himself that she’s safe. It warms her heart as it always does and goes at least some way towards quieting some of her worries, enough for her to turn onto her side and smile at him across the pillows as he opens his eyes.

“Hey,” he rasps, bringing his hand up from hers to cup the side of her head instead, his fingers sleep-clumsy but still gentle as he runs them through her hair to push it back over her ear. “Everything alright?”

“Mm. A-Xian finally fell asleep.”

As expected, Jin Zixuan clicks his tongue and rolls his eyes, though she knows at this point it’s mostly for show.

“We’ll have to get him a fruit basket to thank him for giving you so much practice putting infants to sleep.”

“A-Xuan,” she chides, laughing behind her hand, and she loves the way it makes him smile and drag her in closer, his arm around her waist now so he can reel her in and kiss her forehead.

They linger there in the silence for long enough that Jiang Yanli is fairly certain Jin Zixuan has fallen asleep; he surprises her when he kisses her forehead again, firmly enough that it’s clearly intentional and not simply him seeking her out in his sleep.

“I don’t want to keep living like this when the baby comes,” Jin Zixuan admits in a whisper, as if by saying it softly he might be able to pretend he never said it at all. She understands why, of course; it’s highly unlikely that either Jin Guangshan or Jin Fangyuan have ever truly allowed their son to want anything they didn’t expressly agree with, and with those two for parents she suspects that there were no other options for the future even hinted at to their ‘only’ son and heir.

“It’s not exactly the best environment for an infant,” she agrees, smiling sadly where she’s hidden tucked away under his chin. “It’s not really the best environment for any of us, is it?”

Jin Zixuan exhales long and slow, shaky like he’s releasing some tender emotion she can take a pretty good guess at.

“No.”

Jiang Yanli hums and reaches up to curl her arm under the comforting press of Jin Zixuan’s so she can at least rub her fingertips in circles between his shoulder blades, soothing and slow as he trembles in the way that means he’s trying not to show weakness.

“What am I going to tell my father?” he finally asks, an agonized whisper against the top of her head. Jiang Yanli blinks her eyes open in the dark and very pointedly, very concertedly, does not laugh at the absurdity of this whole thing. Jin Zixuan is continuing before she’s quite gotten a handle on the desire to laugh at the most absolutely inappropriate time (perhaps exhaustion is making her a little giddy). “I’ll tell him everything A-Li, I swear I will. I’ll tell him that I’ve fallen in love and that we’re going to be married and why — all of it. I just..I don’t know how. All father really cares about is the business and his mistresses, he never really cares what happens with me so long as everything is business as usual…”

Jiang Yanli finally gets a hold of herself enough to cup the back of Jin Zixuan’s head and hold him in place long enough to tip her own head back and kiss him quiet.

“Let’s talk about it in the morning,” she suggests, rather than saying ‘We’ve just sent your brother to kill your father, actually, so it’s completely up to you what happens with the Jin next! Congratulations’. It just seems a bit cruel, and that’s probably the sort of thing that Mo Xuanyu should be made aware of at the same time and —

Well, it’s late. It’s a conversation better had in the light of day (and after the confirmation of Jin Guangyao’s success has arrived; there’s no sense in telling Jin Zixuan that his father is dead until he definitely is, that’s really just putting the cart before the horse).

Jin Zixuan sighs and kisses her again, placing pin in the conversation for a few hours at least, and releases her long enough to let her turn onto her other side to sleep. He cuddles up behind her back instantly, arms wrapping firmly around her and holding her close for his own comfort, she knows, as much as her own.

Things are going to have to change. Jin Zixuan finishes tucking himself around her only once he can gently, carefully, rest a hand on the slight swell of her belly under the loose silk of her nightgown, and Jiang Yanli curls her smaller hand over his with a sense of determination perhaps disproportionate to the intimacy of the gesture. Jin Zixuan is absolutely right — things can’t go on like this, not if they want to hope for a better future for their children (and not just theirs, but also for little Wen Yuan under the care of all the Wens and Wei Wuxian, already far too accustomed to grief and tragedy for a boy his age; and for all the children who will inherit whatever world they create for them).

Jiang Yanli sighs into the darkness of her room — the first hints of dawn bluing the window opposite her gently enough that it’s only visible in the pitch-black her eyes have grown accustomed to — and attempts to heed her own suggestion. She can think about this later; for now, she needs to sleep as she’s always admonishing the people she loves to do, and the rest will simply have to wait.

... -.-. . -. . / -... .-. . .- -.-

THE BURIAL MOUNDS — COMMUNICATIONS — LEVEL 13

Lan Qiren’s life is hardly what he would have ever imagined it to be when he was much younger and, he knows now, much more naïve.

Of course he’d known at a relatively young age that ‘intelligence’ work for the other family syndicates wasn’t as bloodless as his family liked to claim, but in his time leading the Cloud Recesses he’d done his level best to make it as true as it could be. Wen Ruohan had put paid to that rather thoroughly, and Lan Qiren — along with his beloved nephews and the surviving members of the Lan organization’s core — had been forced to choose: A life of open bloodshed to eke out their own survival, or a cruel and agonizing death at the hands of either the Wens or the War.

There were many who had chosen to die in their principles. Lan Qiren may have been one of them, but his responsibility to his nephews had ensured he hadn’t had that luxury. He’d been left no choice but to do his duty: to survive, and to ensure his nephews did as well, by whatever means he could stomach.

In the years between his moral surrender and being brought into the fold of Wei Wuxian’s small operation doing everything they can to help the world limp towards peace, the War had taken its toll and left him bitter and jaded, thoroughly unable to remember how to see the good in people when all he knows anymore is atrocity after atrocity, pain and suffering the likes of which his honored ancestors in all their wisdom could have never anticipated when they’d established the governing rules of the clan so long ago. How can one truly believe in justice and mercy and the worth of all beings after seeing the things that he has; the things people are willing — eager even — to do to each other; the monstrous weapons the powers of the world create and turn on each other with reckless abandon?

It’s a question that Wei Wuxian doesn’t have an answer for either, but at least he’s been doing something to attempt to whisk the newest class of barbaric weapons away where others can’t use them to level entire cities again. Working with Wei Wuxian is not something he would have ever anticipated in his life Before, when the boy was loud and uncouth and vivaciously bright, blinding in his arrogance and his love for life unfettered. Now, he’s a very different man than he was in those halcyon days, burdened with an early maturity born out of harsh necessity, and against all odds Lan Qiren has realized over the years that he respects him on a much deeper level than simple like or dislike could ever touch.

They’ve all changed, in the end. Even him.

Wen Qing joins him in the communications room at daybreak and wordlessly takes the seat beside his to plug into the neighboring section of switchboard and begin the laborious process of unplugging and reinserting her line in a new spot every few moments, scanning the lines with practiced efficiency as, with her free hand, she runs the radio scanner through their most used frequencies on an endless rotation. Lan Qiren offers her a nod, silent commiseration for the fear of not knowing and simply having to wait, and ruminates some more on how things change.

He’s sitting beside a Wen. And not only sitting beside a Wen, but working with her, trusting her judgment and her integrity — and that of her entire family that populates the Burial Mounds. Of course he doesn’t live here permanently, he’s only here from Gusu until this latest plot of Wei Wuxian’s is resolved and he can retreat once again to continue the laborious work of rebuilding his home, but the fact still stands; the times are changing and Lan Qiren has changed with them as much as he’s been able. His implicit trust in the Wen heiress sitting beside him is proof of that, if nothing else is.

“A-Cheng!” Wen Qing gasps sharply a few hours into their vigil, startling Lan Qiren away from his half-asleep monitoring of the sonar signal from the river and the radar reading the skies. There’s no accompanying pip on the sonar of Jiang Wanyin’s Sandu coming back down the river, but of course the telephone lines stretch much further.

“Laopo,” he hears faintly through Wen Qing’s headset, the sound carrying easily through the deep silence of the room buried in the heart of the mountain. He resists the urge to clear his throat and announce his presence to Jiang Wanyin in the hopes of preventing further endearments. (After observing Wangji’s and Wei Wuxian’s frequent and enthusiastic affections, Jiang Wanyin and Wen Qing can hardly be considered offensive, after all.) “You’re home.”

“Where are you? What’s happened?”

“Too much to say over the wire, and I’ll have to keep moving in a few minutes. I’m fine, I swear.”

Lan Qiren does harrumph just a little at that — of course Jiang Wanyin is fine, he hadn’t doubted that for a moment even with the suspicions laid against Jin Guangyao. Jiang Wanyin is one of the few young people in this world outside of his own family that Lan Qiren has a genuinely high opinion of, even when taking into consideration his quick temper and penchant for violent expressions of said temper.

“And the others?”

“Mianmian is flying Zewu-Jun and Jin Guangyao to Qishan, they want to rescue Chifeng-Zun.”

“Give that to me,” Lan Qiren finally says and gestures for the headset. Wen Qing’s expression stills like she’s attempting to hide a flash of irritation, but she works the headset carefully over her updo and passes it across the space between their desks without complaint.

“Did Jin Guangyao betray us?” No one has ever accused Lan Qiren of delicacy.

“What?? No! They beat the shit out of him Lan-laoshi, and whatever he did to get rid of Jin Guangshan, Jin Fangyuan, and their shithead nephew was enough to make even Mianmian a little pale.”

“He could use our goals to accomplish his own and still be responsible for the betrayal in Qishan,” Wen Qing muses, raising an eyebrow at him with an elegant shrug. “Despising his father does not mean he’s loyal to us, and he and Chifeng-Zun have little love for each other.”

“I heard that — I’m telling you, no way,” Jiang Wanyin protests instantly. “He’s with us, I can tell. Besides, if he’s not, then he’s at least loyal to his siblings, and we’ve got two out of the three at jiejie’s house, with much easier access to get at Qin-guniang than he has if we need extra leverage. He wouldn’t jeopardize their safety like that.”

“Surely he knows we wouldn’t truly hurt the Mo boy? We were freeing him, not actually using him as bargaining chip,” Wen Qing sniffs, but this time Lan Qiren counters her insistence on wasting precious time by arguing with her own husband by shooting her a piercing glare.

“Do not argue with family for it does not matter who wins. Trust your husband, Wen-guniang. If you grasp after the vengeful ghosts of your imagination you will find only empty air,” he reprimands, sharp around the edges. “Your refusal to set aside your suspicion will blind you to any facts you do not care for and color your understanding of the truth; I suggest you curb your suppositions in favor of logic.”

“Only an abundance of caution, Lan-laoshi, but this one thanks you for your instruction,” Wen Qing sighs, mostly just sounding tired.

“My nephew?” Lan Qiren asks Jiang Wanyin next, aware of valuable time ticking by but still, he needs to know.

“He’s perfectly fine, Lan-laoshi, I promise. He wasn’t even in Lanling for an hour in total, and most of that was spent waiting for Jin Guangyao to finish getting rid of Zixun so they could both leave for Qishan.”

“Mm. It would seem that our support will be needed to the north, then,” Lan Qiren sighs. Confronting Wen Ruohan will not be a simple task, nor a bloodless one if he’s any judge of the old monster. He trusts his nephew to handle himself, but despite his admonition to Wen Qing he’s also too inclined towards ‘an abundance of caution’ to allow one of the men he raised (who may as well be his son at this point) to fly straight into the lion’s den with no support beyond Jin Guangyao, who has likely had a very long night.

“Maybe. Listen, I’m about an hour upriver I’d say, we can discuss it when I get there. I need to go, I’ve been in one place too long.”

Wen Qing gestures sharply for the headset again and Lan Qiren gamely passes it back.

“A-Cheng, wait-“

“I’ll see you there,” Jiang Wanyin promises, followed by a few more things he says too quietly for Lan Qiren to overhear. More reassurances, he assumes, as Wen Qing’s shoulders slump an entire inch and she closes her eyes for a long moment before taking the headset off again to set it down gently on the desk.

“I’m going to find A-Ning to give him the update,” she announces and stands with a bone-weary sigh.

“As you wish.”

Wen Qing nods and turns for the door, her boot-heavy footsteps pausing when he calls to her over his shoulder.

“Wen-guniang.”

“Lan-laoshi?”

“I would say something before you inevitably leave for Qishan, and abuse my right as your elder to say whatever I please.”

Wen Qing turns slowly on one heel to raise an eyebrow at him, her arms crossed delicately across her middle.

“Yes?”

“Should you and Jiang Wanyin ever have news of a very…particular sort to announce, I hope you’ll consider me close enough to your family to inform me of it as well.”

Wen Qing blinks at him a few times slowly, uncomprehending, but when he sees the implication land he has to hide a hint of a smile with a clearing of his throat and a stroke or two to his goatee.

“Ah — Lan-laoshi — we haven’t really…”

“Jiang-guniang’s forthcoming announcement will suffice for the time being, but I should warn you I believe I will require a steady supply of grandchildren, and it seems my nephews will both shun this particular filial duty and leave it to others to carry the torch.”

“Wait, Yanli-jie — you know about that?”

Lan Qiren snorts and turns back to face the greenish glow of his monitors with an unamused hmph. “I am not yet so old that I cannot see the obvious signs, Wen-guniang, even had I not been in the business of dealing others’ secrets for most of my life. It is my job to know things that will be of benefit to me and my family, and I would count her situation as being of benefit to me. Now go find your brother, he will require calming before you leave, and you should both sleep as well. You’re young, not invincible.”

Wen Qing splutters for a moment behind him, wordless surprise and a couple aborted beginnings of questions before she simply gives up with a huff and wishes him a somewhat uncharitable, “Goodbye Lan-xiansheng,” on her way out of the room.

As the underwater sonar suddenly pings an incoming craft at the furthest range it can read, Lan Qiren muses that perhaps it’s beneficial on occasion to spend some time away from home. He’ll never be able to restore what was completely, and there is of course no restoring the lives lost that he’ll carry guilt for for the rest of his life. But it’s good to be involved in the work of repairing at least some of the damages wrought — and bothering young people who think they run the entire world is much more fun than he would ever have anticipated.

He makes a mental note to talk to Wei Wuxian when this is all over about taking a more active role in his organization, but for now they all have a job to finish; he intends to do his part to help them all see it through to the end.

... -.-. . -. . / -... .-. . .- -.-

YILING CITY — 莲花 VILLA

It is near noon, and Wei Ying is still sleeping.

Lan Wangji is glad to have Jiang Yanli and Wen Qing as his allies in ensuring everyone else allows him to stay that way; they don’t understand. No one else in this room (save him and the two women Wei Ying holds in his heart as his sisters) truly sees the way that Wei Ying stays awake for days on end, sometimes even a week or more with only a stolen hour or two of sleep every so often, and that only when his body simply collapses from the strain of it all. No one else seems to understand that Wei Ying is killing himself to keep them all as safe as he can, that he views the personal cost of his own life as a reasonable price to pay for their continued survival. Even fewer people see how thoroughly it shatters Lan Wangji’s heart to watch the man he loves more than his own life carve piece after piece off of himself in the service of those closest to him, who would wish first and foremost to see him well.

Jiang Wanyin has been their staunchest opponent, too sharp around the edges as he voices his plans to wake Wei Wuxian as soon as possible and begin hashing out the next part of his scheme. Wen Qing is proving to be of most value there, curbing her husband’s enthusiasm with her equally sharp tongue and, he’s seen in moments when she thinks no one is watching, a few jabs with her claw-like nails between Jiang Wanyin’s ribs that always make him settle, grumbling, into an uneasy acceptance that he’s not going to get his way.

Lan Wangji doesn’t particularly care about his brother-in-law’s pride, or that he wants to go tearing off to Qishan immediately to end this once and for all. They’ll finish it when the time is right, of that much he’s certain, and that doesn’t necessarily mean running headlong into unknown danger just because Jiang Wanyin is a man incapable of sitting still.

(Jiang Wanyin isn’t the only voice urging that they leave for Qishan immediately but he’s certainly the loudest and most belligerent [and also Lan Wangji kind of hates him], which feel like valid reasons to make the man the focus of his current irritation.)

The boys they’ve rescued, Mo Xuanyu and Nie Huaisang, are sitting in the midst of it all sipping at Jiang Yanli’s best jasmine tea, watching the proceedings with wide, curious eyes and not a hint of fear despite Jiang Wanyin’s blustering and the fact that Wen Ning, when he arrives from the Burial Mounds, still has some flecks of blood on his face from torturing Su She for as much information as he was willing to share. (Lan Wangji remembers the man as particularly loose-lipped, to the detriment of the entire Lan clan that survived the initial attack by the Wens, and, in a turn of events he could never have expected that awful day, finds himself hoping that this was still the case.)

In greeting, Lan Wangji pulls a white handkerchief from his pocket and dips a corner in Jiang Wanyin’s abandoned glass of water to hold out wordlessly toward Wen Ning as the man half-observes Jiang Wanyin and Jin Zixuan arguing against Wen Qing with the air of men who know they’re losing but who feel honor-bound to do so with as much fuss as possible. Wen Ning takes the handkerchief with a confused slant to his brows until Lan Wangji taps his own face with a fingertip in the appropriate spot, and his husband’s best friend hurries to wipe away the evidence of his night’s activities with a bumbling sort of hurry that’s thoroughly at odds with his well-deserved reputation for ruthlessness.

“Th-thank you, Hanguang-jun,” Wen Ning murmurs somewhat guiltily, though that’s also just sort of…how he always is, especially since Wei Wuxian dragged him back from the brink of death and Wen Ning has never let himself stop carrying the weight of that ‘debt’ on his shoulders.

“Mn.”

“Mr Lan?” Lan Wangji blinks down at Mo Xuanyu, wide-eyed and looking more than a little shell-shocked. “Did Jiang-jiejie’s didi really just say that Yao-ge killed my father?”

“ —e need to go get them now, before Wen Ruohan learns the truth!”

“Word won’t travel to Qishan that fast, you just said Mianmian blew up all of their communications on your way out!”

“Wait-” Jin Zixuan cuts in on Jiang Wanyin and Wen Qing’s spat, and a quick glance is more than enough to note that he’s just as pale and shocked as Mo Xuanyu (which Lan Wangji supposes answers Mo Xuanyu’s question in the affirmative). “My father is dead?”

The ensuing silence is a welcome reprieve from the endless rounds of arguing that preceded it, though Lan Wangji realizes it’s probably not a pleasant silence for anyone else.

“Did you…not know that?” Jiang Wanyin asks, and he at least has the decency to wince. Lan Wangji does not allow this to skew his opinion in any positive direction, as he loses points immediately for asking such a pointless question in the first place. Clearly Jin Zixuan didn’t know or else he wouldn’t be asking, nor would he look like he’s about to vomit.

“Um. No.”

“Is it true though? Yao-ge killed him?” Mo Xuanyu asks the room at large, much more insistently.

“He did.” It is, mercifully, Wen Qing who confirms this, her voice businesslike but not cruel, in the particular way she has that Lan Wangji has long admired. “Sometime around dawn.”

Hm. This has the potential to be a decent enough way to distract everyone from their insistence that Wei Ying wake to lead the charge to Qishan. Lan Wangji glances around at the general unease and the variety of emotions on everyone’s faces — guilt, on the Jiang siblings’, constipated nausea (what else is new) on Jin Zixuan’s, cautious elation on Mo Xuanyu’s, shrewd calculation on Nie Huaisang and Wen Qing’s, and a polite sort of anticipatory patience on Wen Ning’s — and he decides that he’d very much like to leave them to their arguing in favor of the rare opportunity to join Wei Ying in bed for an extended period of time.

The faint rustling of silk as he straightens his shoulders in preparation to speak sounds strangely loud in the strangled silence. “Wei Ying will wish to leave for Qishan as quickly as we reasonably can — most likely this evening. I will ensure he is informed of the new developments when he wakes. Rest now and be prepared to move by sunset.”

“Hanguang-Jun,” Wen Qing says, a simple acknowledgment of his authority to speak for his husband along with a nod; she’ll have everything ready to go by sunset, no earlier, no later; of that he can be absolutely sure.

Lan Wangji sweeps out of Jiang Yanli’s living room with all the dignity he can muster (which is quite a lot) to slip through as small of a crack as he can into the guest suite where Wei Ying had finally been cajoled into resting. The light is muted, the heavily-curtained windows west-facing and therefore sheltered from the way the rest of the villa is aglow with golden noon light. Here, the light is a soft, warm blanket of gray, and Wei Ying is little more than an indistinct lump under lilac silk. Lan Wangji carefully slips out of his outer layers, folds them to set them aside, and lifts the sheets just enough to join his husband, who instantly stirs from his corpse-like stillness to bully his way close enough to leech some of Lan Wangji’s body heat, thankfully without waking.

Pressing a soft kiss to his husband’s forehead is as natural as breathing, and as thrilling as flying. To be allowed to hold him is still a pleasure Lan Wangji cannot possibly take for granted, and so rarely does he get to hold Wei Ying when he’s still and quiet, finally resting his tired bones. He presses a few more lingering kisses to his sleep-warm skin and then settles in to ruminate on what they know so that he may present Wei Ying with multiple possibilities when he wakes.

The facts, as they currently know them, are this:

Jin Guangshan, his madam, and his most bloodthirsty nephew (who could possibly challenge Jin Zixuan’s leadership) are all dead.

In their escape from Jinlintai, Luo Qingyang and Jiang Wanyin blew up Lanling’s main research facility and their communications bay to prevent any upstarts from taking advantage of the temporary absence of a leader to abscond with any worthwhile information, though Luo Qingyang grabbed most of what was worth having anyway.

Jin Guangyao is, for now, presumed innocent of any involvement with this latest plot by Su Minshan and Xue Yang (though Lan Wangji well remembers the strength of the friendship between the three over his years spent undercover in Lanling, and feels…disinclined to truly give him the benefit of the doubt no matter what his brother and uncle say. Lan Xichen’s insistence that he can be trusted is currently the only convincing argument in favor of Jin Guangyao’s innocence).

If Jin Guangyao is not innocent, he has both Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue trapped in Nightless City at his and Wen Ruohan’s mercy, which is much less than ideal.

And, finally:

Wen Ruohan and his sons are still alive and all in Qishan. If they play their cards right, Lan Wangji and Wei Ying will finally be able to make them pay for their crimes.

There is no doubt at all in Lan Wangji’s mind that Wei Ying will want to see this finished in person. There is also no doubt in his mind that very soon after Wei Ying wakes, he’ll become as cold and unreachable as he had been during the war, a man so deeply traumatized and convinced that his value lies solely in his utility that he will, briefly, forget what it’s like to be loved. To be soft.

Lan Wangji already knows that he will stand at his husband’s side anyway and wait patiently for reality to creep back in and thaw him slowly, piece by beloved piece.

The Wei Ying who will arrive in Qishan will be a ruthless murderer; a weapon that obliterates his targets with a righteous, vengeful fury; a natural disaster barely contained in flesh and bone. How quickly people seem to forget that Wei Ying is the foremost authority on nuclear technology in the world for a reason, and that he has gained his knowledge of it through truly heinous practical application. How quickly people forget that the Yiling Laozu is not a man to be crossed if they value anything remotely resembling a decent life.

Wei Ying sleeps deeply in his arms, and when he wakes Lan Wangji kisses him into the mattress, gifts him a necklace of lovebites to leave evidence of his devotion under Wei Ying’s skin where it’s safest and not easily forgotten, and only then does he tell his husband what they’ve learned since he let his sister convince him to sleep last night.

By the time they leave for Qishan, the sun is a baleful, burning eye, blood-red and bloated with ill omen, watching from the West as they fly North to end this once and for all.

[misterewrites]

Intro Casey 101 (Mirror’s Edge)

Hello everyone, E hoping you are all doing good! Here it is! The next chapter of the side project that's now my second major one. Because I have a problem and cannot be stopped! Haha stay safe, wash your hands, wear your masks, keep yourself, your loved ones and each other safe, get the vaccine if you can and remember to take care of yourselves.

Feel free to share this with your friends, leave me comments, feedback, reblogs. every bit makes me happy and helps! Have a great week and stay safe! E is out!

If you want an easier time to read it or to read it from the beginning you can follow the link below. Tumblr hates links and will probably shadow block my tags but you know what? Tumblr hates me in general so oh well

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30599756/chapters/78163523

Summary:  Casey is the head of the local Neighborhood Watch (and by head, he means only employee) Whenever not helping his best friend take down corrupted, evil jerkbutts, he spends his time running, maintaining and helping the magical/supernatural residents of Willow's Brook. Life is never static but Casey sometimes wishes it was a little less hectic. Just because he can handle it doesn't mean he wants to.

-----

Willow Rook was a peaceful neighborhood suburb located on the outskirts of Newton Haven, just within the city’s boundaries. Rows of mismatched houses and apartments spread out across the maddening maze that was suburbia. Fernspeaker Drift park was nestled in the heart of the neighborhood, its magical and mundane flora bringing a peaceful harmonic nature to the urban sprawl of man. The towering skyscrapers of downtown could be seen far into the distance, a reminder to the residents the city was never too far away.

The sounds of children screaming and shouting is what awoke Casey. He let out an unhappy groan as he rose from the hard wooden desk he accidentally fell asleep on. He rubbed his aching jaw, trying to loosen it from the rough night he had.

“Fuck” He yawned groggily “I really need to have a pillow here or something.”

He ran his hand through his normally wavy dark brown hair as his sea green eyes glanced about his “office”.

Office was much too generous a word for what he worked out of: It was tiny bungalow with barely enough room for a desk and chair, a case file drawer and the tv that sat ontop of it. Casey mentally prepared himself as he pulled open the curtains and allowed natural light to hit his face.

“Ugggggggh” Casey shielded his eyes from the harsh gleam of the morning “Why must the sun punish me?”

Casey stretched the crick in his neck while keeping an eye on the outside world: The neighborhood was particularly lively today with people out and about. The elderly elf Mr. Thistlebush was complaining about something or another to his dwarfish neighbor Mrs. Boulderfist who politely nodded and humored the old elf. Evan Starsunder, a muscular orc with dark green skin, tipped his mail cap tiredly to everyone he passed as he made his way into his cozy abode for a well earned rest. The newly married halfing (similiar but legally distinct from hobbits) couple Mr. and Mrs. Tealeaf took a stroll across the grassy field where Casey’s office stood, hand in hand and very much the picturesque ideal of young love.

Casey opened the window to let everyone know he was open for business.

“Good morning Mister Remington!” Mr. Tealeaf waved with a smile.

“How are you doing this morning?” Mrs. Tealeaf asked, half curious and half cheerfully.

“Great!” Casey lied, trying to stifle a yawn “Just great. Keeping on eye on the neighborhood, same as usual.”

“Keep up the good work!”

“We appreciate everything you do for all of us!”

“You’re welcome!” he gave a halfhearted wave after the retreating couple.

He sighed, mindlessly fiddling with the engagement ring on his finger.

“I should take it off” Casey spoke to no one in particular “She probably isn’t wearing hers anymore. I shouldn’t give people the wrong idea. I should just take it off and that’ll be it. That’ll be it. Yep. One slip and….yeah.”

His voice trailed off as he was unable to finish the thought.

“CASE!” A voice shouted.

Casey leaned out and squinted, trying to see through the glare of the sunlight to find the person who demanded his attention.

“CASE!” The voice called out again, the blurry far off figure slowly shifting into a more recognizable shape.

Casey rolled his eyes “What is it Kay? I’m working!”

Kasey Remington or, as most people called her, Kay was Casey’s twin sister. Nearly identical face with the same wavy dark brown hair and sea green eyes except Kay had gotten their mother’s button nose out of the deal. Growing up, the twins often questioned why their parents had named them Casey with a C and Kasey with the K but the only response they ever gave was it was funny.

Well not to the twins but they were used to it by now.

Kasey, in her mommy cardigan and white blouse, flagged down her brother to come outside.

“Yeah I’m good up here.” Casey smiled from his slightly elevated position.

“You’re tall for like 5 minutes and you’re already being unbearable about it.” Kasey huffed, shooting her twin a stink eye.

Casey chuckled “Mad with power. Classic story troupes.”

“Cliche you mean.” Kasey laughed “Sorry to bother you but….did you sleep in your office again?”

Casey rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly as he realized he was still wearing his purple tank top and black basketball shorts from the other day.

“Umm well you see….”

“Is your office still a mess?”

Casey glanced at the half crumpled burger wrappers and scattered papers that littered every inch of desk.

“Pfft, no.”

“That’s a yes” Kasey replied with a knowing smirk “Case….”

Casey fiercely pointed at his twin “Don’t.”

“Case, you can’t keep…”

“Yes I can. Watch me.”

Kasey rolled her eyes “I have better things to do.”

Casey scrunched up his face with false hurt “Better than hanging out with your brother? Alright I see how it is. See if I get you anything for Christmas.”

“No! Not my possible Christmas presents!” Kasey fell to her knees dramatically “You monster! How could you do to this to me?”

“Like this.” Casey spoke with a grin, closing the window without another word.

And made his way out of the building a moment later. He offered a hand to his sister and the twins burst out with laughter as Casey helped Kasey to her feet.

“So what’s up Kay?” Casey asked with genuine interest “Where’s Chester?”

Kasey scratched her chin thoughtfully “He’s...got...a….little league game today.”

“Wooooow took you a full five seconds to remember what your kid’s up today.” Casey snickered “Finally stop signing him up for everything?”

“Ha flipping ha.” Kasey shook her head mockingly “It’s not my fault he wants to do any and everything. Besides it’s not the worst thing in the world to enable my son’s interests. I just wish he slowed down a bit.”

“True. Did you thank him for the house he made for me?”

“Yes and he said you’re welcome. Still got it?”

Casey scoffed as he pulled out his necklace: The simple shape of home clasped carefully onto his chain.

“As a cleric of the hearth nothing is more important than a family’s love.”

“Except” Kasey murmured softly “Maybe your fiancée?”

“Nope!” Casey threw his hands in the air and turned away from his sister “Not having this conversation. Byeeeee.”

“Case! Casey you’re acting like a child!”

“Would a child do this? Hey Seth!”

A gawky human teenager with dark black clothing and every skull accessory imaginable flinched uncomfortably at the sudden attention.

Casey nodded his head in confirmation “Yeah you! Curfew’s 2:30 A.M. The Hallow spell won’t work during the witching hour so I want you back here before 3. Got it?”

Seth gave a low mumble and wandered off as quickly as his legs could take him.

“Casey.” Kasey laced her voice with a firmness only a mother could muster.

“Whaaaaaat?” Casey whirled around irritated “Look I made my choice and she made hers and that’s it.”

Kasey raised an eyebrow “You two have been in love with each other since we were kids.”

“Don’t you…!”

“Case, why don’t you ask her again?”

Casey said nothing, opting to gesture to his office to answer his question. Written in bright white letters across the walls of the building were the words “Neighborhood Watch.”

Kasey rubbed her arm guiltily “Case…”

“You gonna take over?” Casey questioned, his voice soft but controlled “You gonna take over for mom? Cuz she retired and unless there’s someone running the watch, all of this...”

He motions to the families walking, playing, living their lives together in harmony. A magical community at peace.

“All this goes away. We’re going to have to move everyone into other magical neighborhoods and under their Neighborhood Watches. And that’s not fair to them.”

Kasey let out a sad sigh “It’s not fair to you.”

“I’m fine” Casey lied “I’m okay I promise. It’s for the best.”

Kasey shook her head “You can lie to yourself but you can’t lie to me. See you for dinner?”

Casey hugged his twin tightly, pouring as much love as he could into the gesture.

“Of course. I’ll bring fries.”

Kasey made a face, playfully pushing him away “Would you bring something else, please?”

“Fine, mashed potatoes.”

“Ugh. Bye Case.”

“Bye Kay!”

Kasey eyed the engagement ring for a moment before taking her leave.

Casey ran his hands through his hair, wondering how much worse today could get.

He turned to make his way back to his office when he spotted a familiar face nearby.

His heart began to thunder loudly in his ears, the phantom sensation of lips pressed against his own ran chills down his spine while his cheeks flushed a bright red. His legs felt weak and butterflies filled his stomach as he took in the sight of Jaime casually walking down the street.

Jaime looked as beautiful as ever: Her long dark red hair was tied into a single braid that hung over her shoulder and shimmered in the soft glow of the morning. Her light brown eyes gleamed with a thoughtfully gaze as she looked at her phone. She was wearing his dark purple hoodie with dark blue jeans and sneakers. Her glasses were cutely askew and Casey felt the overwhelming urge to run over and fix them for her.

The engagement ring on his finger felt impossibly heavy yet light all at once.

He should talk to her. That was okay, right? To talk to someone he’s in love with and desperately wanted to be with. Did she want to talk to him? They left on decent terms. Well maybe. Hopefully. God what if she was mad at him? Or worse, hated him? She could never hate him that was silly. But perhaps she wasn’t ready to speak to him.

He knew he wasn’t ready.

Casey turned to Jaime’s direction then pulled away. He pivoted on his feet to face her again before glancing downwards towards the grass. His hands fidgeted uneasily as a shout threatened to spill out of his mouth.

Casey returned quickly to his office and shut close the window. Resisting the urge to stare at Jaime, he opted instead to reach for a crumpled piece of paper. He smoothed it out and began mindlessly scrawling upon its surface, drawing nothing in particular.

It was comical how automatic Casey’s responses became while he worked in this building: Upon hearing the knock at his door, he rose to his feet and opened it without a second thought.

Casey’s heart leapt to his throat at the sight of Jaime standing at the base of the steps from the bungalow. She smiled shyly, pushing up her glasses further up on the bridge of nose before giving a friendly wave. Her other hand was tucked deeply in the hoodie’s pocket.

“Hey sweetie” Jaime paused, pursing her lips for a moment “Case. How are you Case? Doing good Case? Can I stop now?”

Casey let out a genuine laugh “Hey swe….Jaime. You can stop. I’m good. I’m good. Good.”

He caught sight of his engagement ring gleaming in the sunlight. He quickly shoved it inside his pocket.

“That’s good. That’s good.” Jaime nodded “I’m glad to hear that.”

Casey caught her wandering glance across the office and quickly shifted his weight to block the view.

“So how’s the new job?” He crossed his arms in an clumsy fashion “Everything okay at the Grimoire?”

Jaime dug at the grass with her shoe “It’s good. Chaotic as usual but hey what do you expect for a magical library, right?”

The two chuckled together and locked eyes for a moment. As one they broke off their gaze, their cheeks slowly turning a pinkish hue.

Casey recovered first “How’s your brother? We talk but ever since last month he hasn’t recruited me to topple any corrupt bosses lately. I’m getting bored.”

“You sure you bored?” Jaime rolled her eyes “There’s no way the Neighborhood Watch is getting that soft.” “Haha I wish.”

An awkward silence fell over the couple as the realization of what subject they landed on washed over them.

“Finn’s good. Busy but good.” Jaime spoke with a fragile softness in her voice “You know my bro, always trying to save the world.”

“Right...”

Casey couldn’t help but noticed Jaime’s body language: She tucked both of her hands into the pockets, her frame shrunk like she was mentally kicking herself as she gawkily fidgeted back and forth.

“Hey.”

Jaime glanced upwards towards Casey, her light brown eyes shining brightly in the sun’s glow.

Casey could feel his heart ache with love and longing as he spoke simply “Don’t worry about it beautiful.”

Jaime said nothing. Instead, she closed the distance between them, gently cupping his cheek in her hand.

“Take care of yourself sweetie. Please. For me?”

Casey could feel his ache worsen but he just nodded, murmuring softly “For you.”

Jaime’s smile was sad but lovely. She pulled away slowly, allowing her fingers to linger for a moment.

“Bye for now Casey.”

“Bye Jaime.”

She left without another word and Casey felt exhaustion rush into every fiber of his body. He closed the door reluctantly and took a seat. He stared unhappily at the drawing of Jaime he hadn’t realized he’d be sketching.

“Fucking hell.”

He slumped deeper into his chair, feeling much too drained to face the rest of the day.

-----

“Shit, shit, shit” Seth muttered to himself as he raced through the night. The normally inviting, homely suburb was cold and distant: The shadows moved in eerie unnatural ways and once or twice Seth could soft pattering of paws follow closely behind. The modest homes and apartments were silent, basked in the darkness as they towered over him in silence.

“Just a cat” He mumbled to himself, glancing at his phone and wincing at the 3:30 AM it showed in a white font.

Seth entered Willow Rook proper and paled at the lack of comfort he normally felt in the air. Casey had warned him the Hallow spell, a powerful ward of holy magic that protected the neighborhood and hid it away from the world, would not work between 3 and 4 AM. Seth assumed he was merely attempting to scare him to return early. It never occurred to him that Casey was telling the truth.

Seth fumed silently “It’s fine. I’m late, it’s fine nothing followed me here and it’s fine.”

A chill ran down his spine as something rustled nearby. He whirled around in time to see something lunge straight for his chest.

He was ashamed how quickly he flinched, closing his eyes shut while raise his hands in a poor attempt to defend himself. He made quick prayer to whatever deity who happened to be on duty at the moment.

Something thudded against his chest. It didn’t stay long, instead quickly making its way up his shirt and tucked itself comfortably on his shoulder. It wasn’t too heavy but it was big whatever it was. Seth was surprised how warm and fluffy it was and swore it was purring in his ear.

He cracked open his eyes and found himself staring at an orange tabby cat: it was a fat cat with stripes of white and orange running down its body. Its dark green eyes stared curiously at him. If he didn’t know better, he would’ve thought it was asking him a question.

“Hey buddy” Seth breathed a sigh of relief, scratching the cat’s chin “What are you doing out here? Scaring the shit out of me?”

The cat pawed at his face rather roughly and with enough force to actually make him turn his head.

Seth felt the blood drain as he saw something approach in the shifting shadows: A monstrous thing, thin and skeletal. Its skin was a dark shade, almost as black as the darkness it blended in with. It crawled forward slowly on all fours, thick talons digging up and cutting through the pavement with ease. A bloody wrap covered its eyes and two thick, elongated fangs protruded from its lower jaw. The rest of its face was smooth and featureless.

The words died in Seth’s throat. The best he could do was a pathetic croaking noise he was grateful no one could hear in the dead night.

The creature tilted its head as if listening for any sign of its prey.

Seth couldn’t move, the fear gripping him tightly in its thrall. His breathing hitched and he could feel his body shake beyond his control as the creature inched closer and closer.

The cat leapt off his shoulder, silently landing onto the grass and bolting into the night.

Seth’s stomach churned and twisted anxiously as the creature stared in his direction, a growling rumble escaping its mouth. It let loose a maddening shriek, one that shook Seth’s very bones. It stood on its hind legs and grew to an inhuman height. Its mouth lowered, stretching impossibly wide as it leapt forward.

Seth felt cold and empty as the sight of the monster filled his sight. The fight ebbed out of him and left only an overwhelming sense of dread and finality.

This is how it ended.

It was an odd sensation to feel at the end: the warmth and glow of the sun at his back. Perhaps some higher being was taking mercy on him in his last moments on this plane of existence.

Wait, no the warmth was getting brighter and hotter. An unbearably stuffy and blazing with an intensity of a summer day that grew each passing moment.

Seth groaned, wincing in pain as a sudden flash of light zoomed past with incredible speed. It burned brightly, dispelling the silhouetted shadows with a burning flame despite it being no bigger than a baseball.

The creature reared back and thrashed about, too caught off guard by the sudden glow to realize it was coming straight for it. The orb collided with the creature’s chest and sunk deeply into its chest. The creature howled and buckled in pain, bending and twisting at unnatural angles.

The light faded and the orb with it but Seth could see the fist sized hole it had burned through the chest of the creature.

The creature weakly swayed, seemingly weakened by whatever hit it.

“Not in my neighborhood you punkass bitch.”

Seth weakly turned to find Casey standing there, the fat orange tabby at his feet. The head of the Neighborhood Watch finally changed his clothes: He wore a purple jacket with a black shirt that read “Neighborhood Watch” in faded white lettering. His gray sweats were wrinkled and his feet were adorned with two different sneakers. Outstretched in his hand like he had taken a swing at something was a glowing metal baseball bat that pulsed with radiant power.

“Casey, I…” Seth mumbled out but Casey motioned with his head.

“Go home kid. This ain’t the minor leagues.”

Seth was ashamed to say he ran, frantically and as fast as his sore legs could take him. Whatever just attacked him was out of his weight class.

Luckily Casey was in a league of his own.

The creature clicked its tongue unhappily as it moved uneasily on its hind legs. It bent and twisted its neck in a way that would’ve broken it if the creature had been human.

Casey rolled his eyes as he gripped the bat tightly in his hand “Drama queen much, aren’t you?

The creature said nothing. Instead it threw itself forward full force towards the cleric.

“Here we go.” Casey murmured tiredly as he drew his bat back.

The creature took a swipe at him but Casey already moved out of the way, dodging to the side and allowing the creature sail past him. It twisted its head around only to get a face full of metal: Casey’s swing caught the creature in the cheek and sent it reeling backwards.

The creature shrieked in pain as smoke curled off its face, the cheek swollen and charred an ashy black. It didn’t hesitate to attack once more: It stood up and tried to crush Casey under its full weight.

Casey just shoved the bat directly into the hole he made earlier.

The creature hissed and retreated away from the holy infused weapon. More smoke bellowed from the now enlarged hole.

Casey raised his bat threateningly “Go back to wherever the hell you came from or I will beat you out of existence you flipping abomination.”

If the creature understood the threat, it made no indication. Instead it doubled down on its poor choices.

It sat back on the balls of its feet, tensing its legs in preparation for a mighty leap.

Between helping the inhabitants of the neighborhood with their requests, talking to Jaime and frankly being awoken to a fucking demon attack at 3 am, Casey was just done with all yesterday and evidently today.

Casey’s hand glowed with a dazzling radiant light as he spokes the words of faith. Magic formed and condensed into a single ball of pure sun in his palm.

The creature sprinted forward, tearing up the grass underneath its feet while it desperately made one final dash towards the cleric.

Casey lobbed the ball high in the air and fell into a batter’s stance.

The orb hung in the air for a moment like a blazing sun then fell back to earth.

The creature leapt, talons aimed for Casey’s neck.

Casey let out a mighty swing. There was a loud crack as the bat made contact with the orb. The ball of light sped off and shoved itself down the creature’s throat. The bat follow through connected with the head of the creature and knocked it cleaned off.

The ball gleamed bright in the beast’s stomach before exploding outward like a supernova. The creature flaked away into blacken ash, head and all.

The gleam of light vanished and Casey found himself under the cover of night once more.

He wiped at his eyes tiredly as his phone beeped. He glanced at it to see it was now 4 in the morning.

There was a soft hum as the Hallow reactivated: the air shimmered with an unseen power and grew warm with comfort.

The ashes vanished without warning, the unholy remains cleansed by the sanctity of the neighborhood.

The cat drew closer to Casey, its eyes peering at him thoughtfully.

“Hey Julius” Casey greeted the cat politely “Long night?”

Orange Julius meowed in response.

“Thanks for keeping an eye on him. I knew he’d stay out late but hopefully he understands why we have a rather generous curfew.”

Orange Julius nodded.

“That’s been like what? The third demonic hell beast/ abomination this month. That’s a lot for a month.”

Orange Julius meowed in agreement.

Casey pursed his lips thoughtfully “Hey, did you see Finn?”

The cat tilted his head quizzically.

“I mean all this time you. He. Well you aren’t around whenever he comes by” Casey scratched his neck sheepish “You are his dad’s cat. You sure Fernspeaker wouldn’t want you to be with him?”

The cat paused for a moment before shaking his head.

“It’s not because Jaime’s folks adopted him after…..well that happened, is it?”

The cat pawed the grass below him.

“Right.” Casey nodded in understanding “Neighborhood’s your responsibility. I get that.”

Orange Julius meowed then vanished into the darkness.

Casey glanced at the statue of Fernspeaker that stood tall in the center of park. It had been erected the same time the park was named after him, both shortly after his and his wife’s death 22 years ago.

Fernspeaker Drift, Finnrick’s biological father, was once a powerful druid, deeply in tune with nature and a firm believer in helping others. This neighborhood was his passion project. The Neighborhood Watch was formed after his passing.

The Neighborhood Watch was created because of his passing. Nobody wanted a repeat of what happened all those years ago.

Finnrick told him it was okay for Casey to not to take the job but it felt like such a disrespect to let this whole place dissolve and scatter its residents.

Casey sighed and wandered back to his office. Office hours were closed but the Neighborhood Watch’s job was never done.

[ya-girl-mc]

Hammered

Character: Tsukishima Kei × Fem Reader

Concept: Y/N joins Tsukishima and his colleagues for a night of drinking, but ends up embarrassing him as she gets wasted

A/N: Cause I miss getting drunk and doing stupid shit, hence this fic feat. our salty boi ✌ it was rly fun to write this so,, hope u enjoy it too!!

☆☆ A Haikyuu!! Fanfiction ☆☆

Light filtered through the window blinds, rousing Y/N from her slumber as she pried her eyes open, cursing to herself as she felt a stinging pain in her temples. She was hungover, pretty badly at that, and as much as she wracked her brain to try and recall the events that transpired the night before, it only made her headache much worse.

Shit...I don't feel so good.

As her eyes darted around, she was immediately relieved knowing that she was lying down on the couch in her and Tsukishima's living room, managing to deduce - despite her muddled state-of-mind - that someone must have taken care of her in her drunken stupor.

Gritting her teeth, Y/N tried to sit up slowly, wincing as her temples prickled with pain with every movement. In her peripheral vision, however, was her livid-looking boyfriend with probably the deepest scowl she's ever seen as he stared her down from where he sat.

"Kei...?"

"Did you sleep well?" While the inquiry was meant to be out of concern, Tsukishima delivered it in a monotonous, yet utterly chilling manner which only meant one thing: he was pissed.

"What happened? And what's got you frowning so early in the morning?" She carefully questioned, eager yet dreading to find out how she must have royally screwed up the night before to get him this upset. Her curiosity only infuriated Tsukishima more and Y/N could have almost sworn seeing a blackish aura swirl around him.

"You...you really don't remember a damn thing, do you?"

*****

Fridays were usually the most anticipated day of the week for most members of the working class; however, in Tsukishima's case, he was dreading this Friday in particular.

After a strenuous week at the office, his boss suggested the entire team go drinking to reward themselves for their hard work and as a means to de-stress. But, Tsukishima wasn't keen on partaking in such nights of revelry especially after a long week at work as he'd rather spend his Friday nights and weekends relaxing at home with Y/N. The only reason that he decided to tag along is due to her persistence for him to do so.

Sighing deeply to himself, Tsukishima followed his colleagues as they entered the izakaya, chattering excitedly as they settled in at a long table at the far back. Amongst the clientele for that night, one of them in particular caught his attention, his eyes widening in surprise.

"Y/N?"

She was sat on one of the stools overlooking the kitchen. At the sound of her name, she turned towards its source and grinned widely. "Kei! Fancy running into you here and I see that you're also with your team. Good boy!"

He subtly rolled his eyes and sat down on the stool next to hers, unable to fight off a smile that made its way to his face. "Yeah yeah, if I didn't join them I'd never hear the end of it from you. Anyway, are you here alone?"

"Yeah, just stopped by on the way home from work to pick up some gyoza and katsudon for dinner. But wait, maybe I should have gotten takoyaki, too? Or maybe another serving of gyoza-" Y/N rambled as she grabbed the menu, her eyes scanning rapidly over the items.

He just gazed at her in amusement, completely oblivious to the inquisitive stares his co-workers shot their way. Tsukishima in the workplace was usually placid, reserved, and mostly impassive; seeing his relaxed and pleasant demeanor as he interacted with Y/N was especially intriguing to them, wondering amongst themselves just who that woman was in Tsukishima's life.

Keen on finding out the answer, one of his senpais called him over to their table. It suddenly dawned on him that there was no other choice than to formally introduce Y/N to them. And, he definitely was not looking forward to it as he'd never hear the end of their relentless teasing. "Y/N, would you mind coming along with me for a bit?"

Discreetly straightening her clothes and smoothening her hair, Y/N nodded and followed him to where his co-workers sat, anxious to make a good first impression. At their arrival, they immediately trained their gazes on her, just as eager to find out who she was. "Everyone, this is Y/N, my girlfriend. We live together," Tsukishima stated nonchalantly.

The shock on their faces was borderline comical as they stared back at him, their jaws hanging open in disbelief. "Girlfriend?!"

He sighed, already dreading the uproar they're about to cause. Tsukishima was a private person and rarely talked about his personal life as he maintained a firm work-life boundary. It was not like he was embarrassed to introduce his girlfriend to them; he just perceived the entire ordeal to be troublesome as his colleagues would jump at any chance to find something to tease him about.

Y/N straightened herself and bowed. "Nice to meet you, I'm Y/N. Thank you very much for taking care of Kei - I mean - Tsukishima all this time."

"I can't believe this!" One of his kouhais wailed. "To think that an office drone like Tsukishima-senpai has a girlfriend, and a very pretty one at that. So what the hell am I exactly doing wrong?"

"Believe me, I could tell you everything that you need to hear," Tsukishima retorted and shot his kouhai a dagger-like glare.

One of his senpais, a man who looked to be in his late 30's, leaned over and flicked his kouhai on the forehead as he winced in response. "Stop bad-mouthing Tsukishima when his girlfriend's literally standing in front of you. Anyway, nice to meet you, Y/N!"

They instantaneously began bombarding her with questions such as "how did you two meet", "how long have you been together", "what do you do for a living", and "of all men, why Tsukishima." Unable to keep up with what almost seemed like an interrogation by his colleagues, Y/N smiled sheepishly and shot Tsukishima a pleading look, silently begging him to bail her out.

"That's enough, all of you. You're creeping the poor lady out." Y/N turned to the man that sat at the head of the table; he exuded authority which practically gives himself away as the boss. Bringing up a cup of sake to his lips, he took a sip and eyed his subordinates sternly, yet the amusement in his gaze was palpable as he shifted his attention to Y/N. "Sorry about that, we just didn't expect our lone wolf Tsukishima to have a girlfriend, so we're all excited to meet you. If you don't mind, maybe you can join us, Y/N?"

"Sir-" Tsukishima began to protest as he felt the work-life boundary he stubbornly maintained begin to crumble; but to his surprise, Y/N seemed keen on accepting the invitation, a bashful smile on her face.

"I'd be happy to, but I wouldn't want to impose-"

"You won't, don't worry about it!" He assured dismissively and proceeded to order another round of drinks and accompanying snacks. "It's a pleasure of ours to get to know you and finally get a glimpse of Tsukishima's life outside of work."

Flattered and amused at how especially eager they seemed to know more about their enigmatic colleague and his girlfriend, Y/N gratefully accepted the invitation. "Alright, a few drinks wouldn't hurt."

*****

"Okay, I remember that much...but it still doesn't explain why you're so pissed," Y/N mused, listening earnestly to Tsukishima as he filled her in on what seemed like a disastrous night of revelry caused by her drunken antics.

He sighed and took off his glasses to rub his temples, the events that transpired the night before seemingly traumatizing him. "That's because you got carried away, you idiot."

*****

A couple of shots was all it needed for Y/N to become fully accustomed with Tsukishima's colleagues and pretty soon, they were chattering away like long-time friends while he fixated his gaze on her, his eyebrows furrowing in mild displeasure.

Aren't they becoming a little bit too friendly with her? And Y/N's just two shots in and she's already starting to get tipsy. Geez, this is so troublesome.

"Hey, one at a time please! I'll answer your questions one by one," Y/N instructed quite giddily, Tsukishima gazing at her in concern as she downed her third shot. He didn't want to be a buzzkill especially when she seemed to genuinely enjoy his colleagues' company and vice versa; however, her alcohol tolerance was remarkably low and it didn't take much for her to become fully inebriated. He decided to keep a watchful eye on her instead to prevent any incident from occurring due to her drunken antics.

"So, how and when did you two meet?"

"Kei and I go way back in high school," Y/N began as everyone at the table listened to her attentively. "He was part of our school's volleyball team and looked so cool as he played! That's when I started to have a crush on him, but it was one-sided though."

And there goes her filter, Tsukishima thought to himself, concealing his exasperation by downing his cup of sake, trying as best as he can to drown out the uproar his colleagues caused at her revelation.

"No way! Tsukishima-senpai was a volleyball player? I just can't imagine that!" One of his kouhais exclaimed, completely perplexed at the thought.

Tsukishima was about to reply with another snide remark, but Y/N was quick to interject. "Hell yeah he was, and he's such a great middle blocker to boot. He played so calmly as he read his opponent's moves...ahhh that composure of his is what makes him so cool!"

While he appreciated her attempt to defend his honor, it only increased everyone's amusement as she fawned over him, much to his chagrin. "So Y/N-" One of his senpais grinned sneakily, and Tsukishima pretty much figured out what the next inquiry will be about. "-who confessed to whom?"

"Oh, that takes me way back!" She mused, leaning against the man in question who sat right next to her. "I didn't have the courage to confess since he seemed so unapproachable and indifferent, so I thought about giving up on him. But as we became seniors, we ended up in the same class and became quite close. Eventually, during our graduation ceremony, Kei pulled me aside and confessed! I was so shocked that I started crying and...well, the rest is history."

"So it was Tsukishima here who confessed!" One of his senpais beamed and threw an arm around his shoulder, clinking his sake cup with his. "The revelations just keep on coming and coming."

"But that's amazing though," their boss remarked, completely engrossed in the conversation as much as his subordinates were. "You've been together for such a long time now. It's pretty rare for high school sweethearts to last that long."

Y/N nodded earnestly and downed her fourth shot before Tsukishima had the chance to snatch it away from her hands. "I agree, but Kei is such a caring and thoughtful boyfriend! He may seem like a sour puss on the outside but he's reaaaaaally sweet and very very clingy! But shhhhh...don't tell him I said that, though."

Ugh great, now she's done it. Tsukishima almost had to cover his ears as everyone at the table guffawed, unable to stomach the idea of their placid colleague and the clingy boyfriend Y/N described being the same person. He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping and praying for the evening to be over.

*****

Y/N cringed as Tsukishima helped her recall the things she had blurted out amid her inebriated state, starting to slowly understand the reason why he was so livid in the first place. "Okay...first of all, I am so sorry - with every fiber of my being - for embarrassing you like that-"

"That's not all you did," Tsukishima interjected quite menacingly and pinched the bridge of his nose in an attempt to keep his temper in-check. "As if that wasn't humiliating enough, you managed to exceed my expectations."

*****

A couple more shots later, Y/N was too far gone. She was completely wasted, and Tsukishima couldn't bear to look at his co-workers as they shot each other uneasy looks, the concern palpable in their wordless exchanges. He was utterly embarrassed yet frustrated at himself since she somehow managed to surpass her drinking limit despite being under his watchful eye.

"Heyyyyy, owner! Anotha' round of sake for this table right here, and put it on my tab!"

As Y/N made an attempt to leave the table, she accidentally knocked over a half-empty glass of water, the liquid spilling all over the table as a result. Giggling to herself while Tsukishima's colleagues scrambled to remove their belongings from the table, she attempted to grab a bottle of sake, but he swiftly withheld her attempt to do so, yanking it out of her reach.

"Okay, enough is enough," he reprimanded firmly, setting the bottle down on the table and bringing his face close in an attempt to get through to her. "Y/N, for the love of God, please get ahold of yourself."

"Tsukkiiii...you're hereee!" It was futile, Y/N's glassy eyes an indicator that she was in no condition to listen to reason. She smiled goofily and threw herself into his arms, the sheer force causing Tsukishima to stumble, his arm accidentally knocking over a glass to the floor as it completely shattered as a result.

"Shit! I'm so sorry, did anyone get hurt?" He exclaimed in a state of uncharacteristic panic, his arms struggling to support his drunken mess of a lover as she began mumbling unintelligibly to herself.

"We're good, Tsukishima. Don't worry about it," his boss assured. "But, I think it's best if you take her home, she doesn't look too good."

Yes, good call, that's one way to put it. Goddammit, this is too fucking embarrassing.

Pretty soon, the izakaya's owner approached the group amid the commotion, and with Tsukishima sincerely apologizing and swearing to pay for the damages, he also insisted on paying for the entire group's bill to compensate, but they turned down his offer, advising him and Y/N to get themselves home safely.

Tsukishima thought that the nightmare had ended; apparently, Y/N had more in store as she tapped his boss' shoulder, staring down at him in an attempt to look stern. "Hey sirrrr...can you lay off Tsukki sometimes? 'Cuzzzz...he comes home waaayyyy too late and we barely have enough time to get down and dir-"

"NOOO!" Tsukishima cried out in horror, completely and utterly humiliated as he scrambled to clamp his hand over Y/N's mouth in an attempt to salvage what's left of both of their dignities. However, the force caused her to stagger, her unruly arm knocking over a bottle of sake atop the table. Tsukishima was unable to do anything as he hopelessly watched it topple over, the liquid spilling and trickling down on his boss' lap as he felt every ounce of his life force drain out of his body.

God, if you're listening, then please...I don't care how you do it, but I beg of you...just kill me now.

*****

"ARE YOU SERIOUS?!" Y/N wailed and buried her face in a pillow, unable to bring herself to look at Tsukishima as he unveiled the horrific experience he and his co-workers went through due to her drunken stupor. To say that she was embarrassed was a complete understatement; she was mortified, and it definitely was not an ideal first impression as she mourned for her long gone dignity. "Just kill me, please!"

Tsukishima was practically seething with rage at this point, wishing that the night before had just been a nightmare, yet it was nothing but a cruel reality. "You're embarrassed? How the hell do you think I feel? I lost count of the number of times I had to apologize before I hauled your drunken self home! You literally went crazy, Y/N! How careless, especially knowing that you can't handle alcohol well!"

She deserved to be scolded. Y/N lifted her head from the pillow and looked up at him, her eyes prickling with tears as she wallowed in her shame. "Kei...I'm so sorry. You're right, I was careless and I embarrassed you in front of your co-workers. I really didn't mean to! Oh my god...what if you got fired-" It must have been the after-effects of her hangover that made her an emotional mess as she felt tears running down her face, berating herself for acting in such a distasteful manner - in public and in front of his colleagues, at that.

Tsukishima deeply sighed to regain his composure. He settled down next to his lover on the couch, his hand rubbing across her back as he tried to calm her down. "Don't be ridiculous. I won't get fired over something like that, the boss isn't that shallow. He even called me up as soon as we got home to ask how you were doing."

At his gesture, Y/N bawled even harder, the tears streaming endlessly down her face. "I'm really sorry for ruining your night. I promise that I won't do it again."

"Y/N," Tsukishima began and tipped up her chin, locking his golden eyes with her puffy ones. "Look, I'm even more upset that you weren't being careful. I won't stop you from drinking, but you've got to be more aware of your own limitations. What if I wasn't there with you? What if you were alone and there was no one you trusted to take care of you?"

He's right, I'm such an idiot. I sure as hell won't be drinking anytime soon especially after last night's debacle!

She only managed a nod, sniffing profusely as she fished out her handkerchief to wipe her tear-stained face. "I'm so sorry, Kei. I swear that I'll be careful next time."

"You better be, you drunkard," he playfully retorted, the corners of his mouth subtly twitching upwards at how undeniably adorable she was being.

"So...you're not mad anymore?" Y/N inquired softly, looking up at Tsukishima with pleading eyes. While his earlier rage was now long gone, he did go through quite an ordeal, and he wasn't keen on letting her off the hook that easy as he wickedly grinned at her.

Oh, shit. I don't like that look.

"Sorry Y/N, but you're not getting off that easy. You did humiliate the both of us after all," he stated deviously, his smile widening at the uneasy expression on her face. "So for the next two weeks, you'll be doing all the household chores, and you're on bathroom cleaning duty for the entire month."

She sighed and nodded defeatedly. It was definitely a pain, but Y/N was resolute on serving her punishment to atone for what she did. However, she couldn't help but feel relieved since she had expected something way worse; doing all the household chores seemed quite tame in comparison to what she had imagined.

But then again, this was Tsukishima, and as he sensed her apparent relief, he laid out the pinnacle of her punishment, unable to fight off the sadistic grin on his face. "And, as soon as you're not hungover anymore, we'll be paying each of my colleagues a visit so you can sincerely apologize for what you did."

Y/N gawked at him, her heart dropping to her stomach. "C-come again?" He's not serious. He can't be...right? Right?!

"You heard me." Tsukishima was dead serious. She knew that something was amiss with his household chores punishment; he may be her boyfriend, but he definitely was a sadistic bastard if he needed to be.

"NOOO!" She wailed, completely mortified at the prospect as she began hitting him with the pillow, her hangover being the least of her concerns. "Please Kei, anything but that! I'd rather not meet them again for the rest of my living days, so please!"

Tsukishima chuckled and stilled her movements, staring her down to show just how serious he was. "Well, that just means that this punishment is befitting, right? At least now you'll think twice before letting yourself get wasted again. This will be a good learning experience for you."

Y/N knew that there was no other way to escape from her upcoming predicament. Completely at a loss, she only managed to shoot Tsukishima the harshest glare that she could muster. "Fine. If it will make you happy, you sadistic bastard."

Knowing that he had emerged victorious for this round, he let out a carefree laugh and planted an affectionate kiss atop her disheveled hair. "I appreciate it. Now, let's get that hangover treated real quick."

[silyabeeodess]

FusionFall Headcanons: Dexter

While the boy genius is more than confident in his own abilities, he doesn’t really understand what landed him in such a high position in the war effort--enough to pretty much be called the face of the Fusion Fighters. Sure, he has public notice from running Dexlabs, but there were plenty of people with much bigger reputations than his own, like superheroes, who would logically fit the role much better.  Even still, it doesn’t change the fact that Dexter has a ton of people looking up to and relying on him.     

Dexter’s never really had many friends, and it’s a problem that only grew as he aged and started his company.  When Dexlabs formed and he began hiring actual people, he always put up a barrier to maintain a very strict boss-employee relationship with everyone onboard.  This couldn’t last forever though the more he had to work directly with others--his research participants causing the biggest change.  Since he had to study them during experiments as much as any piece of hardware, he ultimately grew to know them better on a personal level.  Not all of them were very... professional, either, coming from different backgrounds, so they didn’t always follow the boundaries Dexter fought to keep in place.  Whether he’d admit it or not--even to himself--a lot of them grew on him.     

Dexter felt extremely guilty over losing the volunteer(s) to his time-travel experiment.  Yes, it was Dee Dee’s fault for interfering and the volunteers understood going-in that there would be some risk involved, but he never expected just how wrong it would go--the time machine destroyed, them left stranded at the literal end of the world, and the creation of wormholes.  All he was able to do before losing contact at the initial start of the game was send them the error message we receive from Computress that let they know that they “had travelled much farther into the future than Dexter intended.”  Thankfully, he was at least able to track approximately when they would reappear in the timestream--hence his confidence that “they would meet again” in the future.  

The event actually strained his and Dee Dee’s relationship for a little while. Personally, he’s used to his sister’s antics by now that--while she can still be complete pest in the lab--he’s better at dealing with her: Dee Dee never meant any harm and they both care deeply for each other’s well-being. The trouble was that her actions put other people in serious danger.  He blamed her a great deal for what happened and stayed furious with her for a long while.  She stopped showing up at Dexlabs outside of visiting their parents and he refused to have anything to do with her.  It wasn’t until the invasion had already started that they began to try to patch things up, neither willing to let the devastation around them give them any further regrets.         

All the while, Dexter was in full-stress mode for the entire period the volunteers were gone.  He kind of lives in this state anyway since he’s an absolute workaholics when it comes to his projects, so add their disappearance and war to that and you get one boy genius who rarely got to sleep.  For the botched experiment, he had to find the volunteers, face their panicked families/friends, and deal with bad press for the company.  When the invasion hit, he had to do everything possible to fend it off with the rest of Earth’s forces, from creating an insane amount of tech to battle Fuse’s army with to stepping into a number of battles himself.  It’s a wonder he didn’t collapse, and the insane amount of pressure weighing onto him gave him all the more reason to work alongside Mandark when the time came for the two of them to swallow their pride and team-up.  

Mandark gave Dexter a bit of extra grief for the experiment, but was also quick to reign himself back when he saw how bad the situation was. He hates Dexter as a rival, but there’s still a glimmer of a good person in there somewhere that knows when he’s crossing that kind of line, especially since he has his own subordinates he’s subconsciously gotten attached to.  As such, he gave him a bit of a break up until the volunteers returned to the past.

Dexter’s a little closer to his scientists than he used to be now, but he still keeps a lot close to the vest--both personally and in his work.  Several would complain that Dexter doesn’t really let anyone help with his experiments until they’re already pretty polished, leaving himself to the actual inventing while they handle late prototypes and such.  This is taken to an even bigger extreme with his biggest/most challenging experiments. The only exception is when someone else comes up with an idea Dexter is impressed by.  He’s already done so much since childhood that it’s extremely rare and he’s hard to surprise, but if he does genuinely think an employee of his has come up with a good idea that’s beneficial to the company and its tech, he’ll support it and give that person as much credit is due.

As mature as Dexter often behaves, he can still be pretty childish every now and then: He’ll fire insults, often calling people ‘stupid’ if he gets frustrated/annoyed with them, and he still loves a lot of the same media he did when he was younger--like the Justice Friends show.  He’ll easily pick a bowl of his favorite cereal that comes with a toy over a fancy dinner with investors.  He’s the kind of young adult that could help his parents’ with taxes one minute and then insist that he has to get the latest comic or limited addition Major Glory product--and how dare you if you try to talk him out of it, because he does his job well and has more than enough taros to spend now.  He’s also still maintained quite the ego.  

Dexter didn’t really mean to take a big of a role as he did in the war effort: It pretty much just fell in his lap.  His position on things was very much ‘see a need, fill a need.’  Earth needed to fight Fuse, so he sent robots into battle and helped create nanos.  Earth needed to stop the spread of the infection zones, so he worked with Plumbers to develop the forcefields used across the globe. His heavy assistance in both tech and combat, combined with Dexlabs’ fame to the point of becoming a newer household name, drew a lot of attention his way.  Furthermore, Dexter’s more commanding personality--for better or worse--made him seem like a natural leader.  Give him a pistol and let him take down a few fusion monsters himself and suddenly he’s the perfect figure to rile up an army.  While Dexter was still worried about the volunteers, others were quick to forget about the failed experiment since the invasion was such a grave threat.   

Because it can feel like the world is literally on his shoulders, Dexter can really hate it at times.  He’s happy to have his contributions recognized, but he doesn’t see himself as a war hero.  He’d much rather be working away in his lab to explore new ideas, but until they beat back Planet Fusion, that’s impossible.  The first thing he wants to do when Earth wins is shut himself away for a while--far from any crowds or cameras--and get back to doing what he loves.    

Despite this, he’s really happy when someone he knows treats him normally, as Dexter, not the genius or leader.  Normalcy is hard for anyone to find anymore, and while he does want a certain amount of respect, his status is also tiring.  

[firaknight]

Ok my brain wants to talk about Kracko today so I’m gonna!

Kracko is one of many. He’s a sentient cloud being that has the powers of a god. Weird that he’s such a pushover most of the time, right? Well, those aren’t the Kracko. There’s other Kracko out there!! If clouds clump together enough, there’s a chance one can form. Other planets even have one (See: Planet Towara boss fight)!! The original, real, genuine Kracko lives in Cloudy Park! He’s hidden at the top of a really dangerous mountain that’s known to have the most fucked up weather patterns of anywhere on Popstar. There’s a shrine up there he calls home and people go visit him a lot!

While the mountain is dangerous, there’s a path that’s usually very clear that people take. Kracko himself carved it during a fit of rage and it tends to be mostly free of the abnormal weather patterns. It leads directly up to the shrine and its traveled quite often! People leave little talismans on the trees as they pass. The talismans have inscriptions of hopes and wishes from the people who travel along the path. While Kracko can’t grant wishes, he can manipulate weather, so he does pay special attention to talismans relating to that.

It’s also customary to take newborns up to the shrine. Think of it like baptism. People take their newborn child along the path and up to Krackos shrine and ask for his blessing. That child will have his protection whilst in the boundaries of Cloudy Park and will hopefully be exempt from his fits of rage (more on that later). He’s usually very calm and courteous when brought a newborn, since they’re small and fragile and probably scare easily and he doesn’t want to frighten them. However, he wasn’t like this when Ado showed up.

Ado brought Adeleine with her when she fled her home planet, and, while Adeleine wasn’t a brand new baby, she was still little and deserved a chance at habit Krackos blessing, so she carried her up to the shrine. Now, keep in mind that, while Kracko has been alive for thousands of years, he’s never once met a human. Not a single one. This meant that he was more than freaked out at the sight of one entering his shrine. He wasn’t mad! Not at all! But a weird squishy being that’s tall and big and haS A BABY??????? Yeah that’s frightening. Once he realized that baby Adeleine just a little sweetie, he warmed up to her almost instantly. Literally picked the child up and out of Ado’s hands and just floated around to room like a joyous goofball with an excitedly squealing child on him. After that day, Kracko dedicated every second he could get (when he was pissed off) to making sure that Adeleine was happy.

At first, it was small things, like slowing down lightning so she wouldn’t be scared during a thunderstorm, but it quickly grew to “I’m going to give my entire life up for this kid if I have to.” She gets to be a bit older and decides to go run into the forest to play! Problem being that she’s an easy target for predatory creatures like Pacto, which are big enough to swallow her whole if one wanted to. She gets spotted by one and absolutely can’t outrun it. Ado is far enough away to not hear the commotion, but Kracko notices. He may be all the way up in his shrine, but he can just sense when someone’s in danger. Almost immediately, a thunderstorm rolls in and he uses this as a cover to scope the forest, spotting little Adeleine running from a group of Pacto. Without a second thought, he strikes them down with lighting (despite the fact that he could’ve hit her by mistake if he wasn’t careful), flies down between Adeleine and the Pacto (just in case the lighting didn’t do the trick), and then promptly picks up Adeleine and flies her back home. This tends to happen a lot when she’s little.

After the events of Crystal Shards, Adeleine stays on Ripple Star for a few years before returning home to work on art and be closer to friends. Kracko is overjoyed to have her back and adjusts wind patterns and weather to make sure her first few day back are lovely. He now also has a habit of straight up redirecting weather when she’s painting. It’s about to rain? Cool lemme poke a fat hole in the clouds so this kid doesn’t get rained on. It’s cloudy? Lemme break the clouds so more light shows through. Kid wants to paint a storm? Lemme aim one at the stormy barrier around Cloudy Park and maintain a very specific bolt of lightning for an hour so she can paint it. Its pouring rain and she needs to run an errand? Sure thing I’ll just break a hole in the clouds above her and manipulate said hole and clouds so the hole is always over her and she doesn’t get rained on. High winds? Not in my territory :)

He also becomes super protective of her. Susie comes to invade and mechanize Cloudy Park during Robobot (she wants the resources and data since Cloudy Park is a secluded floating island that’s hard to get to) and gets a few Robobot Armors in to try and get things under control. Adeleine steps up to help alongside Ribbon and gets her ass kicked by one of the Armors. It’s at this point that Kracko hits an anger point he’s never hit before. He destroys every single Robobot Armor that made it past his barrier and then goes after Susie, who’s making her way through the barrier and into Cloudy Park. She doesn’t even make it halfway before Kracko ups the strength of the barrier and chases her out. She sustains serious damage to her Business Suit and crash lands not far from Nutty Noon. Kracko proceeds to chase her all the way back to Dreamland and give her a couple extra warning lightning strikes to make sure she knows to stay the fuck out. Adeleine winds up being fine, she’s just got a few bad scratches and a nasty bruise, but she’s otherwise ok! Kracko carries her up to his shrine to keep her safe and stops her from leaving unless he’s positive that there’s nothing that could do her harm (the leg from the Access Ark is just across from Nutty Noon, meaning they’re in harms way 99% of the time).

Moving on from that: Kracko tends to have a bad temper. When he’s angry, he forms impenetrable thunderstorm clouds and rains lightning on Cloudy Park. Said anger comes from losing to Kirby so often but sometimes it’s from other things, like Susie trying to invade his territory. Adeleines house has been struck more times than she can count, but repairs take no time at all. Kracko tends to feel bad for striking homes (he gets blinded by rage and doesn’t realize what he’s hitting half the time. He tries to aim for desolate areas but his blinded rage can take him elsewhere) and works to help by keeping work-hindering weather at bay until said work is done.

Also, to elaborate on the barrier thing:

Cloudy Park has a huge barrier of clouds surrounding it. The clouds hold it up and stop it from plummeting into the land below, and it serves as a barrier to outsiders. Kracko is the one that formed those clouds and maintains them, putting some of his energy into keeping them around. The clouds are usually so thick you can’t see where you’re going, and Kracko uses this to confuse intruders into turning themselves around and coming right back out the way they came. Stops him from having to fight anyone and keeps his bad temper at bay. However, some threats are persistent and don’t leave so easily. Susie and the Robobot invaders were one of these threats. This leads Kracko to use a defense system in the barrier: storms. He fuels his energy into the clouds in the barrier and creates storm clouds out of them. Lightning jumps from cloud to cloud and thunderclaps sound from every part of the barrier. High winds also tend to show up that can push most beings away if they’re not careful. If the threat still persists, Kracko takes on the threat himself. He blends in with the clouds, with only a spike or an eye being visible in the stormy mass. He rains lighting and high speed hail upon the threat until they back off. If the threat even so much as slows down, Kracko ups the force of his attacks until he’s chased the threat out completely. He occasionally takes on a different move: warping the entirety of Cloudy Park to a different location. Kracko may be fierce, but he knows when he’s beat. If he feels his territory is in danger, he can use the clouds and innate magic of the land itself to physically warp the landmass that is Cloudy Park to a different location. He only does this under extensive threat like the Dark Matter invasions. Both times he moved were when he believed that Cloudy Park was at risk of being overtaken by Dark Matter. The warp is fast, taking less than an hour to do. The barrier of clouds around the island fully encase it, creating a sphere of clouds around the landmass. The clouds begin to spin and close in, high winds usually following, and then everything warps. Cloudy Park is physically warped to a new, temporary location. The first time it was the Rainbow Islands, and the second was to the outer reaches of White Wafers, hidden amongst mountains as a secondary protection. While this move usually takes Cloudy Park to safety, it leaves Kracko incredibly weak for a while. The landmass floats very close to the ground (sometimes floating in water to alleviate the stress on Kracko) and the barrier of clouds are weakened to a point where just about anything could get through. Kracko also must return to his shrine to rest and regenerate lost magic used in the warp. It can take days to fully heal up and it leaves Cloudy Park vulnerable to threats. Dark Matter took advantage of that and broke through the weakened defenses to wreak havoc on the landmass. Both times were just a day after the warp. Had the Dark Matter waited a few more days to strike, Kracko could’ve kept Cloudy Park safe.

The warp back is far less taxing, as it’s simply returning Cloudy Park to its original location. Magic is tied to the land that keeps it connected to its origin crater (the crater left from the land rising up out of the ground) and its incredibly easy to find with the right magic prowess. Kracko has such prowess and it’s very very easy for him to warp back. He simply follows the magic that connects the two and uses it as padding for the warp. It takes the magic stress off of him and makes it go faster. The warp home takes maybe 30 minutes at most, but usually less if Kracko is in good health. Once the warp is done, Cloudy Park usually returns to its origin crater and rests there for a day. Magic regenerates incredibly fast when this is done and it allows Kracko to focus on healing up. Since the 2 lands are tied by magic, a naturally occurring barrier forms over the land while Kracko is down to keep it protected while he heals so he doesn’t have to try and maintain his barrier. This connection can’t be done unless one land is weaker than the other. Think of it like trying to stick two of the same magnets together. It doesn’t work. Cloudy Park works the same. If both lands are at full health, they can’t stick together. If Cloudy Park is weakened but the origin crater it came from is at full health, or vice versa, they can stick together.

[firstumcschenectady]

“Interconnected” based on James 1:17-27

Welcome to the book of James. It is one of my favorites, despite the fact that it takes away one of my best preaching tools. That is, I usually spend a lot of time explaining context and making sense of a scripture in the time and place it was written. But James is almost a form of wisdom literature. It is universal. So, we're able to spend our time on the ideas in the book directly.

James is written to the followers of Jesus in the diaspora – that is, those who lived outside of the Holy Land. The ones who had been DISPERSED from the land of their ancestors in faith. This feels relevant right now too. I don't know any church members at FUMC Schenectady who would claim modern Palestine or Israel as their native land, but I think that all of us are displaced from the “land” we once knew, and have not yet settled into the “land” we'll live in eventually. The Pandemic has displaced us all (although not all the same amount.)

In this opening chapter of the book of James, we are urged to LIVE our faith. James wants faith in ACTION. He urges people not to just listen to preachers ;) but to LIVE their faith, and he gets rather specific about it. James believes that people who are followers of Jesus should be acting out different values than the world's.

The crux of the advice from today's passage is “let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God's righteousness.” For James, this is integral in what it means to be “religious” - right up there with caring about God's beloveds who the world doesn't value (“widows and orphans.”)

As far as I can figure it out, the work of Christians is to build the kindom of God. The kindom, sometimes called the beloved community, is God's vision for the world. We will know it is here when the power of love overcomes the love of power; when the abundant resources of the world are used for the good of all people; when kin-ship connections cross all boundaries; when the poorest and most vulnerable people have enough to survive and thrive; when no one has to teach anyone about God because God is known by all. The kindom is God's long term plan for us, and our work to get there happens in two broad ways: first, by creating Christian communities where we practice kin-dom values and treat each other like we're already there and second by working with God to share love, to seek mercy, and advocate for justice so that the world is healed.

One of the parts of kindom building that can be hard sometimes is that it requires seeing clearly what the world is like now. We have to do this so we can hold it in tension with how God would have the world be in the kindom, but often the aching pain of the world as it is can be hard to let ourselves see clearly. For instance, we can't work towards a world without rape and violence unless we admit that we live in a world with rape and violence, and that there are barriers to changing it. So, we seek to see clearly. We seek to see how things are AND how God wants them to be.

Now, I don't want to shock you or anything, but the United States is a highly individualistic society. (The kindom is not.) We in the US have proven to the world how terribly individualism works – time and time again. Including in our responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

You might think that if you were looking at this pandemic with clear eyes that you would see that none of us can be well unless all of us are well- that we are collectively only as healthy as the least healthy among us – that every act of protection and prevention has enormous ripple effects. However, if we had learned this lesson, we'd be spending as much as possible to make it feasible to vaccinate every willing person in the world as soon as possible. We'd even do this before triple vaccinating our own population, because slowing down the spread of the virus is the most important way to keep everyone safe, healthy, and alive. The well being of all and the well being of the USA actually align! Yet, we miss the mark.

The book of James has an interesting perspective on the relationship that Christians have to the world. In the face of the injustices of the Roman Empire, the wealth inequality, the slavery, the power imbalances, the death rates of the poor, James urges the faithful … not to get angry.

I find that my first instinct is to argue with this a little bit. “Are you sure?” “What about when...?” Yet, even as I argue, I am convicted by this passage.

Society is rife with anger. Anger is pulling us apart at the seams. Some of the anger, I'd argue, is “righteous.” It is a response to injustice that needs to be seen, acknowledged, named, and addressed. We'll talk about that in a moment.

Most of the anger is misplaced. The anger is being used to create groups of “us” that stand against “them,” and those distinctions dismiss that everyone in both groups are beloveds of God. The anger is being used to provoke fear, sell products, pass unjust laws, and elect politicians. The anger is being USED.

And James points out directly that the people who want others to get angry are selling them on the idea that if they get angry enough, they will provoke God to action. James says it won't work though. God will act when God will act, and furthermore, prayer is a better way to go about it. Anger serves the people promoting it, not God.

But what about righteous anger? As I've been saying recently, anger is a “secondary” emotion. That is, it exists like a red flag to mark a place where something that is held precious is being violated. It lets us know when our values are attacked, and underneath that is another emotion. Most often anger is there to act as the bodyguard to sadness or the diversion to fear.

Sadness and fear are sufficient. They can guide us to good action, they can show us the ways of compassion, they can help us grow together. They are wise enough, that once we find them, we can let go of the anger that guided us to them.

Which means that the way to be “slow to anger” is often to identify anger, and then sit with it and find out what is underneath it. It means that we sometimes need to listen – to ourselves and our tender emotions. God is there, with us when we listen, with us when we feel, with us when we discover what is under our anger. This is, even, a form of God's healing, God's salve in our lives.

Of course, “be slow to anger” is the third piece of advice we're given in today's passage. The first two are to be quick to listen and slow to speak. It seems clear that James' advice is aimed at faith COMMUNITIES, because his advice is aimed at deepening and maintaining good relationships among the followers of Jesus.

For the past several years, I have participated in “listening circles.” These intentional spaces have careful guidelines that are aimed at making sure there is holy and sacred space for listening – and speaking. At times there have been 20 or 30 people in these circles, and you might think that there would be a lot more speaking than listening. But, there isn't. Often there are prolonged silences between speakers, and they feel like time to absorb the wisdom one beloved of God has offered. When the obligation to have a response is taken away, along with the tendency toward chit-chat, there is spaciousness for silence and listening.

When I hear James say, “be quick to listen, slow to speak” I think of how healing those circles have been in my life. I love being freed from having to have a response to something someone says, and instead just listen to them and receive their wisdom. And, when I do speak into such a space, I am astounded at the power that comes with being heard with love.

As much as I have loved these experiences though, it isn't clear to me how to live “be quick to listen, slow to speak” ALL the time. Really listening to another of God's beloveds takes energy and attention, and … let's be honest dear ones, those are finite resources!!! We will drain ourselves if we try to listen WELL all the time. (I've tried.)

That said, there is a being who is capable of listening with complete attention, and full energy, with love and compassion, with care and support – all day, every day, to all of us. God, the creator, sustainer, redeemer has gifted us with life, and God is with us breathing new life into us day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, and even second by second. When we seek God in prayer and meditation, we find that God is close at hand, ready and able to offer us healing. When all we have to offer are sighs too deep for words, God knows what we mean. When we are full of words, God listens until we have exhausted them. When we are able to be with the Divine in holy silence, God meets us there. And, of course, when what we offer God is our listening, …

well, that's when things really start to happen ;)

James encourages us to an active faith – not just to worship God once a week, but to live out faith in every day. He reminds us that the very people the world dismisses (the “widows and orphans”) are the ones that followers of Christ take care of. James doesn't hate the world – though he isn't impressed with it either - but he doesn't think being angry with it is going to change it. James encourages the people of faith to act differently. Take care of the struggling and vulnerable, listen deeply, speak with intention, slow down anger and learn its lessons instead of acting it out. Don't replicate the brokenness of the world – change it.

So, dear ones of God, I invite you to God's restoration, God's healing of the world, God's work of the Kindom: be quick to listen; be slow to speak; be slow to anger. With such “simple” acts as these, we can heal the world. May God help us. Amen

Rev. Sara E. Baron 

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305 

Pronouns: she/her/hers 

http://fumcschenectady.org/ 

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

September 5, 2021

[wickedmilo]

DID YOU MISS ME? | MILO & DAMIEN

PLACE: A bar  TIMING: 1:38 AM SUMMARY: Damien and Milo cross paths after a previous ‘almost’ hook-up. They unexpectedly find themselves confiding in each other. WRITING PARTNER: @damienxsheppard​ CONTENT WARNINGS: Addiction, alcoholism, drugs, violence

There was something complex in the brew the bartender provided Damien, he had a hard time pinning down what flavors lingered on his tongue and which were easy to wash away in thought. A bright orange note burst by the back of his mouth while something smooth and sweet lingered at the front. He didn’t know much about magic or spells, all he knew was that this beer was crafted locally and whoever made it created one fine concoction. Damien sipped it as he surveyed the bar once more, he had ended up in the small pub for the same reason he always ended up there: he had been looking for someone. When he failed to find them, again, he began looking for a drink.  

Darkness seemed to leak through the cracks of the old building, its occupants didn’t seem to mind and Damien blended right into the crowd. No one took notice of him, that is, until he caught a body draw close in his peripheral to his table. Damien was not someone people frequently approached and for good reason. Turning to see who’d provoked his attention, a small grin pulled at the corner of his lips as he found a familiar face. “Well,” Damien took the time to regard Milo, something about him had changed since they’d last met but he couldn’t see what, “been a minute since I’ve seen you. Figured you packed up and left, or died. Seems to be a pretty common theme with this town.” 

Milo had never credited himself with the ability to function as a human being. It seemed his automatic response, regardless of the situation, was to look for a drink, or the closest hit. It had never been an issue before now, though he felt sure Dani and his parents would claim otherwise, but he was no longer human, he was something other, and this obsessive need to avoid his problems continued to draw him back into town. A place he shouldn’t be, a place he knew he could do an awful lot of damage. He was only a few drinks in, barely enough to warrant a buzz, and he had been careful to frequent the shadows, choose the tables furthest from the crowds. There were merits to this tactic, he felt more in control, less afraid of himself. But there were negatives too.  

He was given far too much time to dwell on the fact that he was dead. Clinically dead, as far as he could tell. He had spent days struggling to find any semblance of a heartbeat. The empty sensation was as uncomfortable as the bloodlust. But what else was there to contemplate when he was alone? His anxiety only weakened by the alcohol in his system, usually he liked to assume he would be smarter than approaching the first familiar face he saw. But he wasn’t thinking straight, and he didn’t exactly feel as though anybody could judge him for that fact. Desperate for company, he recognised Damien immediately. An almost hook-up from a few weeks prior. Jeez, had it only been a month? He scrambled out of his seat, downing his beer before making his way over to where the man was sitting. Attempting to keep his distance without drawing attention to what he was doing, he forced a casual smile. “Hm, something like that.” He muttered. “Did you miss me?”  

The grin on Damien’s lips grew to reveal a row of teeth, his mouth breaking open briefly as a sharp laugh cut through the air. He couldn’t help the piercing amusement Milo’s question brought on. Damien recalled the night they met, though it was starting to grow hazy as all memories do as they age. It didn’t help that he'd had a few to drink that night, same as now. He knew that Milo had noticed how his attention lingered longer than it should. “The bar was a little boring while you were out,” he admitted, though Damien had found plenty of things to keep himself occupied with. Most nights he ended up picking fights, others he pursued any information, they all usually ended him at the bottom of a glass.  

Damien took another drink of his beer, tilting his head slightly as he considered Milo where he stood. He didn’t remember the other trying to keep distance between them before, but some time had passed. Maybe he had learned more about Damien since last they’d met, discovered how chaotic he could be. It seemed unlikely, given the fact those who had learned what he was capable of belonged to the criminal climate of White Crest. That, and Milo didn’t seem to be the type to shy from danger before. “Did you just stop by to say hello or are you going to stand there all night?” Finishing what was left of his beer, Damien flagged the waitress down to request another, “don’t tell me you’ve found someone else to drink with.” 

“Everything is boring without me.” Milo teased, surprised by how easy it was to slip back into his usual speech patterns. When his life felt as though it was crumbling around him, it was almost comforting to realize he, as a person, hadn’t changed. He could still be sarcastic, still make a joke if he wanted to. “Well, lucky for you I’m back from the dead.” He added, leaning against the bar, tapping his fingers against his empty glass. It felt like a ridiculous thing to say, but surely there was no harm in a little wordplay. He was hyper aware of being in the centre of a crowd, hyper aware of the fact that his inebriation could work for him or against him. It didn’t exactly dampen the cravings, but it offered him an illusion of self control, one he was actively working not to trust. Damien was apparently the perfect distraction. It wasn’t as though they could pick up where they had left off, but he would settle for good company tonight. He missed good company.  

Feeling his smile falter just a little when he realized Damien had noticed his odd behaviour, he shifted awkwardly on the spot. His initial instinct was to move closer and prove he wasn’t acting strange, but that wasn’t an option. “Both?” He said instead, brushing off the question. “Look, my life has kind of become a shitshow, I haven’t showered in a few days and I’m not about to force that on you.” Wrinkling his nose, it was a surprisingly honest response. In fact, he was fairly certain he had never been more of a mess. Mentally, and physically, his self-care had taken a rapid decline, as if it wasn’t already lacking. “Why?” He grinned when Damien asked if he had found somebody new to drink with. The expression didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Are you jealous?” Glancing down at his empty cup, he lifted it, attempting to drain the dregs at the very bottom. “Actually, you’ll be pleased to know… drinking alone has kind of become my thing.” He set his glass back down, chewing briefly on his bottom lip. “I was planning to drink here until somebody is forced to drag me out of a gutter, you are a very unexpected treat.” 

It would have been easy to dismiss the change in Milo’s demeanor on the poor lighting, chalk up the way his smile faltered a little on the atmosphere or whatever other buyable environmental excuse one could produce. But Damien had spent too much time in the dark to be easily fooled by shadows. His gang had conducted most of their corrupt affairs at night, traded in illegal actions, provoked their worst enemies out into a fight till one pack finally chewed them apart. Damien listened as Milo confessed his life had been less than ideal lately, and there seemed to be some truth in that. Still, there was something unsteady about the man.  

Damien slid forward from his seat, slow enough that if Milo decided to leave he’d have the time to do so. Always, he had been bold, on the verge of carelessness really, and often enough he paid for it with a bruise he didn’t regret earning. Damien invaded the space between the two as he stood up, leaning forward and testing Milo’s boundaries. “You don’t smell funny to me,” he mused, giving way to a small grin. For a moment he lingered there before moving even closer to reach around Milo, freeing the waitress of the beer she’d brought to their table. A fresh glass was placed in his company’s hand before Damien fell back into his seat. “I don’t have a right to be jealous, you’re free to do what you want.” An honest answer, released with a small shrug before he continued, “a unexpectant treat? I’ve been called a lot of things in my time, but that’s a first. What the hell’s been going on in your week that makes you happy to see me?” Usually, he wasn’t classified as a sight for sore eyes, he was not welcomed company, but the residents of White Crest were all strange in the way they approached him.  

Milo hadn’t been expecting Damien to call his bluff. His entire body tensed as the man moved steadily towards him. He wasn’t sure how close he was intending to get, but he decided to stay planted. If he scrambled away from him that would only make him look suspicious. Holding his breath, tilting backwards just a little as he willed his friend to retreat, he swallowed, closing his eyes in an attempt to maintain control. “Please… don’t…” He muttered quietly, his voice strained as Damien leaned around him to pick up his glass. He felt guilty for saying anything the moment he saw the grin on his company’s face, but keeping his distance wasn’t exactly trivial. It was a matter of will power, and his will power had always been severely lacking. The moment Damien took his own seat again, Milo let out the breath he had been holding. A wave of relief washed over him, though he knew the sense of accomplishment would be short lived. Saying no to one temptation in an entire room of temptations wasn’t exactly something to be proud of. You could only be proud when you left the room. Wasn’t that how things worked? “I’m- uh, pleased to hear it?” He answered quietly, his heart not entirely in the statement. Usually he would have a comeback, something funny to say in response. But his mind was entirely blank.  

Staring down at the fresh beer in his hands, he used it as an excuse to avoid eye contact. “Yeah, well, maybe that’s a sign of just how terribly things are going.” He teased, attempting to fall back into his usual humour. “There’s a first time for everything, right? Really, nobody’s ever been happy to see you?” He struggled to believe that. From what he could remember of their past encounter, Damien had been entertaining, flirtatious, genuinely decent company. What could possibly make him think otherwise? “I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Imagine the worst of the worst, times it by ten, and you might get somewhere close, but it’s… whatever...” 

The reaction he received was hardly subtle. Damien had always found value in what made people cringe, he regularly looked for a person’s weakness in combat, exploited what made them flinch to guarantee an upperhand. It was a practice that carried over into his conversations too. The plea that broke from Milo was so low it could have been buried in the regular commotion of the bar, and Damien might have missed it too, if it hadn’t been for that sharp hearing he’d inherited after being bitten. He couldn’t tell what brought it out of him, but it seemed to bother Milo less when he took his seat again. 

The temptation to push on the subject despite Milo’s reluctance pressed into Damien’s thoughts but he took a long drink of his beer instead of asking about it further. He didn’t have a reason to pry, at least, not yet. “No, not usually,” Damien began to answer, a few people in town had learned of him, seen what he was capable of and accepted him, like Solomon and Nell. The wolf’s eyes set on something past Milo as he remembered his family, they were the ones who knew him, truly understood him, and happily welcomed him into their ranks. Damien’s gaze focused once more on Milo as he added, “really, that’s my fault though. I’ve made few friends in town but not many. Been caught up in a few fights, and don’t always end well.” It had certainly been more than a few but he didn’t elaborate. Damien nodded as Milo conveyed he didn’t want to talk about what was clearly bothering him. “My week has been fucking great, thanks for asking,” his tone was not harsh, joking lightly, “we’ve got more construction projects being drawn up every day. This week I’ll be clocking in overtime. We’re working on some old house right now and all the guys swear it’s haunted. Hell, I swear every house in this town is haunted in some way. ”  

Milo wasn’t sure Damien managed to hear his quiet plea over the noise that was surrounding them. If he had, he was grateful the man decided to act as though he hadn’t. He knew his behaviour was odd, but he wanted to pretend otherwise. He wanted to live in the moment, even if just for the night, and pretend things were normal. He wasn’t dead, he wasn’t responsible for taking someone’s life. He was Milo. Just Milo. “I’ll make a habit of it then. For you.” He offered a smile, finally able to appreciate the beer he was holding now that there was some distance between them. Leaning against the bar, allowing himself to get comfortable, he raised his eyebrows at the mention of fights. It wasn’t difficult to imagine somebody like Damien getting caught up in trouble. He wondered briefly whether he was the type to start them or finish them.  

A laugh escaping him as the subject shifted, he surprised himself by grinning easily. His first genuine smile of the night. “Am I being self-absorbed?” He asked, only half teasing. “It’s kind of my thing, you don’t want to take that away from me, do you? Not when I’m so fucking good at it?” His eyes shining, he listened with sincere curiosity as his company began to talk about construction projects. It suddenly struck him that he wasn’t entirely sure what he did to earn a living. “You’re a construction worker?” He asked, his smile faltering at the mention of haunted houses. It had never even crossed his mind to consider whether ghosts might be real. If vampires were then what else could be out there? “Like, actually haunted? As in you’ve seen a ghost?” 

Damien wanted to discourage Milo from making that habit, ward off any sort of promise and the smile that trailed after it. The life he had chosen was threaded with chaos and ruin, his pursuit of revenge only promised bloodshed. No need to drag anyone else into it. Briefly, as the words were uttered by Milo, his jaw tensed as if any semblance of kindness struck him like a punch. Who in their right mind would give a fuck about him? Damien was quick to dismiss Milo, he considered himself good company for the night, but nothing more. It wasn’t like he had a reason to think Milo could endure him longer with the distance kept between them.  

“You can be as self-absorbed as you want, if the next round is on you,” Damien replied, masking his previous tension under a slack grin till all bothersome thoughts became a distant memory. The beer helped. He took another drink, his glass already half empty once more. “I am,” the answer came easy, construction hadn’t ever been his trade but he learned most of the tools to the business on site. The guys he worked alongside were friendly enough and never asked too many questions. It was for the best really, at times they’d discover past horrors in houses and didn’t know if it had always been there, or if someone from the crew added it. No one ever asked. “I’ve never seen any ghosts, I think they’re full of it. A guy the other day said he saw some woman walking about and then some of our tools went missing. He said she doesn’t want us to work on the house. Sounds like an excuse not to work, if you ask me.” Damien shrugged as if to say it couldn’t be helped and took another drink of his beer.  

Milo noticed the shift in Damien’s expression, but in the same way Damien had chosen to ignore his strange behaviour, he figured it was only fair to return the favour. “Oh, you’re gonna make me pay for the drinks?” He raised his eyebrows, a laugh escaping him. “Fine, but this may just financially ruin me.” He teased, pulling out some folded notes, sliding them towards the bartender. His company didn’t need to know he was already financially ruined, or that he had swiped the dollar bills from the coat of an unsuspecting patron. It wasn’t the first time he had stolen to support a habit, it probably wouldn’t be the last. Turning his attention fully back to Damien when their future drinks had been paid for, he listened to him elaborate with a quiet smile.  

It might look as though he was feigning interest, but after the worst month of his life, after being forced to re-evaluate his entire existence, having a trivial conversation about construction work, and ghost stories felt exactly like what he needed right now. “You do?” He asked. “Really? Some guy you work with saw a ghost?” Unable to hide how amused he was by the idea of a dead woman stealing someone’s tools, he took a long drink before offering a shrug. “I think I’d be pissed too, you know. If I was stuck in a house forever, I’d want it to stay looking how it looked when I was alive. Otherwise it wouldn’t feel like home anymore…” 

Damien’s grin cut just a little deeper into his cheek as Milo freed up some bills for their next round. Really, he hadn’t expected him to pay their way and wouldn’t have objected to contributing towards the tab, but if there was one thing he couldn’t say no to it was a free drink. “Next time I see you around here, the drinks will be on me,” it wasn’t so much as a promise as it was an offer, Milo was free to take it up or leave it. Damien lifted his glass and finished it, accepting the new one with a nod of thanks rewarded to his company.  

“I do,” Damien wasn’t much of a believer in the supernatural, he would have never thought werewolves actually existed until he was met with the proof of their teeth digging into his skin. The event didn’t make him a believer of other unnatural creatures, though White Crest had a way of challenging him on that front. “He said he saw a woman,” Damien leaned forward over the table as he made the statement, emphasizing his disbelief in his co-worker. It was there Damien was forced to feel the influence of the alcohol, his head felt light from the movement before his back crashed back into the seat. He’d have to pace himself through his next drink if he hoped to make it back to his apartment standing. “None of us have seen her though. I haven’t.” The wolf’s head tilted as he digested what Milo said, contributing a few moments after with, “well, that’s the hard part though. These old houses aren’t going to stand much longer without work being done. They can either change, or continue to decay.” A small smirk developed on his features, “if I had to be stuck somewhere in the afterlife I’d aim for a place in the city. Things would always be changing but they’d never be boring. Who needs peace when they’re dead though, right?” 

“Next time?” Milo asked, raising his eyebrows with a smirk. “So there’s going to be a next time?” It made him feel as though he might still be able to fall back into his old life. Parts of it, at the very least. If some things didn’t have to change then maybe, just maybe he would be able to stay sane. “You know I’m going to take you up on that offer. I never say no to a drink.” As if to prove his point, he took a sip from his glass, listening to Damien as he began to elaborate on the woman his colleague had seen. Never in his life had he been forced to take a stance on whether he believed in the supernatural. It had been meaningless, inconsequential. Now, it was something he considered more often than not. Almost every second of every day was spent grappling with the fact that he was dead. That he had no heartbeat. He craved literal Human blood. If he existed, then what else was out there? 

Catching the implication behind Damien’s tone, he laughed quietly, grateful to be drawn out of his thoughts. “Is this colleague not a reliable source?” He asked, his eyes shining with a quiet humour. “I know how that goes…” He was fairly sure he could approach almost anybody from his past and tell them he was a vampire. Without a doubt they would assume he was high, brush off his admission as the ramblings of somebody who couldn’t be trusted. “You’re the ‘see it to believe it’ type, huh?” He leaned backwards just a little as he waited for his company’s scent to fade. Every time Damien leaned towards him, or shifted in a way that created a draft, he was reminded of just how much he was risking. “Hm, I guess that’s true.” He took a moment to mull over the logistics. “Then maybe it isn’t about being pissed. Maybe she’s got a thing for builders.” He teased. “Maybe she likes to watch.” His tone was suggestive, he couldn’t help himself. Any opportunity to make a joke, to feel as though things were as simple as they used to be. 

Taking another drink when Damien began to talk about how he would like to spend his afterlife, the subject felt a little too close to the very thing he was trying to forget. He took in the words, making an effort not to fully process them so that their conversation could remain light, and easy. “I don’t think you get to choose where you end up.” He pointed out. “And I’d say a lot of people, peace is probably pretty great if you compare it to some of the alternatives.”  

“Then it’s settled, next time I’ll pick up the bill,” most of the money Damien earned that wasn’t spent on necessities was wasted on alcohol. He didn’t see a reason to save, if his revenge resulted in his demise all of  the belongings he’d obtained would just be put to the curb. There was no one around here to understand the value of his possessions. The idea of dying did not bother Damien the way it should, the way it unnerved most. He’d learned to live with death a long time ago, grappled with it the first time he washed blood from his hands. It had become so commonplace it no longer hung above him like a threat.  

Briefly, Damien thought back on his co-worker, their history on the site, and their claims. “I just don’t trust him,” the truth sounded harsh, but it wasn’t meant as an offense. Damien didn’t trust most people. “Last week he called off and left us short because of a family matter, then I saw him later that night at the bar.” It wasn’t like he had much of a reason to care what the hell the guy did in his free time, but he had to work harder to make up for the absence. Instead of answering the question Damein returned it to Milo, “you’re not?” Since moving to this town Damien had encountered supernatural creatures and events that had fractured his former beliefs. Still, he struggled to accept them until he was forced to. “A lot of things can happen in the shadows, it’s easy to blame a monster.”  

A huff of laughter came as a reply at the suggestive remark, “you might be right. Who doesn’t love a show?” He didn’t chase after the subject too much on the afterlife, instead he gave a wicked grin, “let’s hope we’re a ways from peace then, and the afterlife, for now,” and then took a drink of his beer as if to toast to it.  

Milo grinned, feeling himself steadily falling over the edge of tipsy and into the wonderful world of being drunk. This was what he had been hoping for, a night of pretence. A night of not worrying about the things he knew he should be worrying about. Good company, and some drinks. What more could he possibly ask for? “Hm, could he have been drinking because of the family matter?” He asked. “I know my family has driven me to drink on more than one occasion…” Tapping his fingers against his glass, he made it clear with his demeanour that he wasn’t taking sides. It more than made sense not to trust somebody who took the day off and then spent the night in a bar. But he also kind of understood how that might happen. A frown creasing his brow as he considered the unexpected question, it felt stupid to deny anything.  

Until recently, he had never given the supernatural much thought. But if something had made itself known to him, then what choice would he have but to accept it as truth? Wasn’t that essentially what he was doing right now? “Yeah, I guess I kind of am that way.” He admitted. “But it’s not like I didn’t believe in shit, I just never really thought about it… when stuff shows up it isn’t like you can deny it. Not unless you’re fucking insane...” Maybe he was being a little careless with his remarks, but his tongue had been loosened, and he always had been reckless. “Oh, yeah? What are you blaming the monsters for?” He asked, attempting to inject some humour into his tone. “It’d be nice to have someone to blame for my timekeeping skills, maybe my smoking- Mom used to hate the smell of smoke on my clothes.” 

Feeling a strange sense of satisfaction when he managed to make Damien laugh, he raised his glass. It felt twisted somehow, toasting to the afterlife. Didn’t this technically count as his? Or could he die again? Come back as a ghost or a zombie or some other creature he used to believe only existed in fiction? Using his intoxication to force those questions from his mind, he smiled, catching his company’s eye. “Cheers!” Downing the contents of his glass, something that was so much easier to do now that he didn’t need to breathe, he only set it down when he knew it was empty.  

The idea of his co-worker being unnerved by something at home then finding the bar for comfort received no sympathy from Damien, instead he gave a swift dismissive reply, “fuck if I know, I didn’t ask.” Then the alcohol quickly caused the man to fade from his thoughts as they moved to the next topic. Damien noticed he had to exert more effort to focus on Milo’s response, there was something odd there, “what kind of stuff shows up around you?” He hadn’t really considered what he was asking, didn’t think the answer could be more strange than the creatures he’d encountered lately. Damien’s voice was rough when he answered the inquiry, “everything,” it had been a slip, something released during his drunken haze that he couldn’t catch after it was set free. Damien did consider the werewolves that had killed his family monsters, but that wasn’t a topic he’d divulge in any setting.  

The rest of Damien’s beer is finished with the toast, the wolf moving to stand moments afterwards. It proved to be a hasty mistake. The drinks had finally caught up to him and Damien swayed just slightly, catching himself by snaring fingers into Milo’s shirt till the weight of his body felt more even. “Think that’s enough for me for the night. Better quit while I can still walk,” a loose chuckle left his chest as he released Milo from his grasp. “Come on, you can smoke outside with me, cool air might sober me up some, and I don’t mind if it sticks to your clothes.” A little unsteady, Damien moved his way through the bar, pushing past a patron when necessary till they found their way outside the pub.  

It was pretty clear to Milo that Damien had started drinking long before he arrived at the bar, and as time moved on he began to see the effects of the alcohol. Feeling drunk himself, it was too easy to smile at the offhand comment. So he shook his head as he realised his friend had picked up on his subtleties, regardless of his current state. Maybe his subtleties weren’t so subtle after all. “Nothing-” He hurried to take his words back. “I mean, nothing super weird. Just forget I said anything.” He should probably make more of an effort not to draw attention to the changes in his life. But it was so difficult when they were all consuming. Damien was one of the first people he had been able to talk to, and he needed that more than he wanted to admit.  

Everything. He had been too distracted by his own thoughts to notice any shift in Damien’s expression, but there was something about the way the word was spoken that told him this wasn’t something he could joke about. He couldn’t turn this comment into something funny, or lighthearted. The tone carried so many emotions he couldn’t place, and it left him wondering, with a burning curiosity, just what had happened for him to sound so hurt. “Everything, huh? Shit…” Not expecting him to sway as he stood, the hand on his chest was something he hadn’t been ready for. Holding his breath, it took everything he had to stay where he was. To not react.  

Waiting until Damien was upright, and no longer gripping his shirt, he nodded in response, too shaken by the sudden proximity to say very much. “Yeah…” He muttered quietly. “Yeah, okay. We can go outside.” Pulling a carton of cigarettes from his hoodie, he placed one between his lips. It was a distraction from what he was really craving. Maybe if he focused on smoking, he could ignore the growing need for something far more sinister. Standing up too, he offered Damien a smile at the comment, holding the carton out so that he could take a smoke too. “Good to know.” He attempted to tease, but his voice was strained as he attempted to prepare himself for the short journey. Holding his breath again as they were forced to brush past patrons, his knuckles turned white as he balled his hands into fists. It didn’t take them long to reach the door, but it may as well have been an eternity. 

It was strange, how defensive his company became over the question. It was far more suspicious that he hurriedly warded off any more attention on the subject. “You’ll have to be a better liar about that,” Damien advised, it might have amused him sober, that Milo tried to hide a potentially dangerous topic. If he knew Damien better, he’d know that any risky or threatening subject only drew in his attention more. They were fortunate however, that in his drunken haze any thoughts that begged to chase after the response slid away from his mind.  

Damien was forced to realize soon after he stood that he had not been so careful with his own speech, not that he typically was. The single word had snared Milo’s attention but Damien did not provide a response to his inquiry. He didn’t think someone who had been dodging hard questions would want to hear about the dark chapters of his life, which suited him fine, he didn’t want to read those aloud anyway. Damien accepted the cigarette offered to him and moved on. 

As the pair exited the pub to be introduced to the sidewalk Damien freed a lighter from his pocket. He flicked the switch till a little flame danced up, bringing it to the end of his own cigarette before igniting Milo’s. As the light was brought close to his company’s face he could see stress lingering on his features but didn’t comment on it, instead he took a long drag of his cigarette and let his feet start to carry him down the sidewalk on the path back to his apartment. 

“Fuck you, I’m not lying.” Milo insisted, his tone friendly even as he caught himself scowling. He didn’t enjoy being easily read, though sometimes it felt entirely unavoidable. Lucky for him, he knew his company wasn’t one to push for answers. They seemed to dance around certain topics which he was more than happy to do, even if it did leave him curious. So long as Damien didn’t make any attempt to pry, he would offer the same level of courtesy. Taking a grateful breath of fresh air as they escaped the stifling environment of the bar, it wasn’t long before his cigarette was being lit for him, and he smiled, genuinely grateful. It was a relief, he could feel his anxiety loosen it grip on his chest, albeit only a little.  

Smoking had been a strange habit to continue after his death. Although his body still called out for Nicotine, the specific act of inhaling and exhaling was something he was forced to relearn, to really focus on. Letting out a slow, deliberate hiss of air, he watched smoke curl above him, stark against the night sky. Paying no attention to where they were going, when Damien didn’t stop he assumed he had a destination in mind. He was very much over fearing for his safety, not that he ever had in life. Which meant it was easier to simply follow. Falling into step beside him, he hummed quietly to himself. He had so many questions he wanted to ask, but frustratingly felt as though he couldn’t. “So…” He murmured, breaking the silence. “You’ve been in White Crest your whole life?”  

The cold had not in fact sobered him up. Damien felt his world tilt just a little before it righted itself and his thoughts swam in and out of his focus as smoke twisted between his fingers and uncurled from his lips. He was aware of Milo beside him, that as the pair progressed down the streets towards his apartment that they were more alone. It was a dangerous thing, keeping his company, but Milo seemed to follow regardless.  

“No, no,” he began in answer when Damien caught the question, “I moved here from New York a few months ago. I thought I’d be gone by now, but, here we are.” That was a little too much honesty, as he turned to look at Milo, more seemed to slip out. “You know, you remind me a little of someone I used to know. He could hold his own at a bar too but he was a little more…” Damien struggled then, because the man in reference meant more than a few sentences could summarize. And he was dead. Instead of continuing, Damien took another drag of his cigarette and let the subject slip past him as he continued, “Different, I guess. Anyway, what about you? Have you always had roots here or did you come from somewhere else?”  

“Oh, shit.” Milo couldn’t hide his surprise upon hearing Damien was originally from New York. He had never been the type to dream, more than content to live in the present, to lose himself in his pills, and his alcohol. But cities had always interested him. He couldn’t deny the faint draw he felt when he considered what it might be like to live in one. “New York? How the hell did you end up in this shithole?” He couldn’t imagine having the opportunity to live in New York, only to settle for somewhere like White Crest. The town had its merits, but it was still just a town. Sleepy, and dull, despite the vampires apparently lurking in the shadows. A frown creasing his brow, he took a long drag of smoke before looking back up at his company. He could only assume the familiarity wasn’t a compliment. 

“I do?” He asked, absentmindedly tapping ash. “You know a lot of screw ups then?” Maybe it was an unfair comment to make, but also a reflection of his self esteem. There were very few people he allowed to see this particular side of himself, but it was late, he was drunk, and he trusted Damien. “Oh, yeah? Different how?” He was curious to know, he couldn’t stop the question from escaping his lips. Following it up with a shrug, he was almost embarrassed to admit he was from such a stifling place. “Born, and raised…” And died. He added silently. “My parents are from here... and their parents. And I assume their parents. S’not like it makes much of a difference. I got stuck here, same as everyone else.”  

Damien’s attention is snared in his drunken haze when his company reacts to his hometown. He had lived in New York all his life, when you set up roots there you don’t think about the appeal of the skyline, you just think about what places you tended to grow more. It was only after Damien was forced to make the decision to leave the city that he had to recognize everything he’d loved about it and the loss that came with moving. “Oh, well,” what reason had he been telling people? In his state, he couldn’t remember. “I had family there...’ no, his chest ached at the memory, his mind dragging him away from the train of thought. He didn’t want to talk about that. Anything but that. He pulled himself together as best he could and tried to muddle down the slip in honesty. “Started heading over here to get a change of scenery. Then the car broke down.” It was a shitty lie.  

A sigh eluded him as his thoughts were brought back to the person in his past. It had been a long time since he had left himself think of Tristan. “Yeah I guess he was a bit of a screw up, I seem to be drawn to them,” a small smile cracked his lips before he took another drag of his cigarette. The difference with Tristan was that he got close. He knew who Damien was, learned what he was capable of, and stuck around anyway. But he was too close, to his gang, his heart. He ruined him. Someone aware of the fallout might assure Damien that he’d done all he could but he would have refused this little self-help tip. The fact of the matter was that Tristan would have never gotten involved in drugs if Damien’s lifestyle hadn’t introduced it to him. The cold truth of it was more sobering that any gust of air and Damien just shrugged. He couldn’t confess what the man meant to him, admit just how different he was.  

It was easier to turn his attention to Milo, “you don’t want to be stuck here anymore?” The cigarette in his hand was burning low, he took one last pull from it before extinguishing it on a building they passed.  

“Hm,” Milo hummed quietly in response. “I know what it’s like... leaving family behind. It used to be through choice…” He scuffed his shoes as he walked, scowling at the ground. “Now, not so much.” It was strange to consider how many times he had tried to actively remove his parents from his life. It was difficult to do when you lived in such a small town, and one way or another, he always managed to get dragged back into their bullshit. But this time? This time there was no getting dragged back. This time it had to be final, he wasn’t sure he was quite ready to face that truth just yet. “Wait- your car broke down and you just decided fuck it, I guess I live here now?” He made no effort to hide his disbelief, even if had wanted to he knew his current state of inebriation would make doing so impossible. Laughing quietly when Damien told him he was drawn to screw ups, he caught his eye, grateful for the lighthearted teasing. “No shit.” He teased right back, unable to help himself. “If you ask my dad I’m about as useless as they come, so I guess you got lucky.” 

Following his friend’s lead, he took one final drag from his own cigarette before dropping it too. Usually he found a degree of satisfaction in grinding it beneath his shoe, watching the cherry burn out as he carefully destroyed the filter. But he was feeling lazy, so he left it, red and hot against the asphalt. “It’s not something I ever really thought about.” He admitted. “But, I don’t know… shit got weird, and I-” He swallowed, chewing on his bottom lip for a moment as he grappled with his emotions. It was difficult to say the words out loud, part of him didn’t even know why he wanted to. “I guess I don’t really know who I am anymore…” He said finally, the admission tumbling from his lips. “The idea of a world beyond this town is- well, it’s fucking terrifying.” 

There was something peculiar, in the remorseful way Milo regarded what choice, or lack thereof, he had relating to his family. It caught Damien’s attention but he couldn’t articulate what about the strangeness of the subject he wanted to question. Had the guy been kicked out? That might explain why he confessed before his week had been a mess. Or was it something else? Too many factors spun in Damien’s thoughts and it made him feel light headed trying to chase one or the other so he didn’t. Even if he wanted to invest some effort into it, Milo called him out on his lie and he had to think of a better way to justify it. “Had to get some money to fix the car,” that was also a lie, but he didn’t think it mattered “Got the job to get the money. Car’s fixed now, but other bills followed. Been trying to catch up ever since.”  

The self-deprecating way Milo referred to himself had started to wear Damien down. He did not enjoy seeing his companion reduce himself to something low. Damien had spent most of his life around other low-life criminals, even joining them; they had savored the chaos in their life and shook free of restraints. He couldn’t understand why Milo would allow for himself to carry such burdensome titles like useless. It didn’t seem like he had a right to ask.  

Damien listened as intently as he could to Milo admission. He didn’t think they were just talking about moving anymore. “If you don’t know who you are...then the next step is to decide who you want to be.” He stopped, they finally arrived at Damien’s apartment. It was an old manufacturing building renovated for housing, rift with safety hazardous but it had become his new home in this town. “This is where I get off,” he turned to Milo, offering a small smile, “I’d invite you up, but it is a terrifying world in there. I haven’t done my dishes in a week.” He let the humor sit for a moment before adding, “you can go wherever you want. A few blocks, a few states. Just depends what you’re looking for.” 

Milo watched Damien curiously, an element of scepticism clear on his face. It didn’t sound remotely plausible, and if he could, he would put money on the story not being true. Then again, he wasn’t exactly being honest himself. He wanted to push for more, but it went against his nature. Part of him liked to think if he didn’t question people, then they wouldn’t question him. For the most part, the logic had proven fair. “Small towns have a way of never letting you go.” He murmured. “For what it’s worth, I’m kind of glad you got stuck… who else am I supposed to drown my sorrows with?” After everything he had suffered recently, moments like these felt incredibly rare. He was genuinely glad he had crossed paths with Damien, genuinely glad he was getting to spend more time with him.  

Coming to a halt as he could only assume they finally  reached his friend’s apartment, he leaned against a nearby wall. How many ridiculous instagram posts had he seen? Posts about becoming who you truly are, and discovering who you were always meant to be... As far as he was concerned they were for young parents who were bored out of their minds, or teenagers stuck in retail jobs, dreaming about becoming rich and famous. He had never asked himself those questions before, because they didn’t feel like important questions. Why would he ever need to think about who Milo Summers was? Who even cared about the answer? “That sounds like a lot of work.” He admitted, laughing sheepishly. “I’m not entirely sure I’m up for it.” Offering Damien a smile in return, he hadn’t been expecting an invitation. It was too easy to go home with a stranger, but they knew each other now. Besides, he knew better than to trust himself alone with anyone, given his current state. The days of being careless were unfortunately behind him. “You know, I don’t think it’s ever going to be that simple… not for me.” He admitted. “But I appreciate your optimism.”  

Damien’s back fell against the brick exterior for support as he dug through his pocket for the keys to the place. There was something decidedly sad about the way Milo relayed he was happy Damien stuck around, the added pinch of humor didn’t sugarcoat it. There was a sinking feeling from the statement that caused him to sway from the weight of it and fumble retrieving the keys. He did not know how to manage someone being glad he was here, he especially didn’t know how to respond to it drunk. He admittedly didn’t like the idea of someone getting close enough to appreciate anything about his existence, it meant they were close enough to see how fucked up his life had been. No one needed to see that.  

After trying in vain for what felt like several long minutes, Damien finally released his keys from his pocket. Then had spent another five pulling up the right key and fitting it into the lock. Fucking hell, being drunk was difficult. “Well,” Damien began, finally confident now that he’d opened the door, “let me know what you figure out.” Shit, no. He shouldn’t be asking for more details, shouldn’t be inviting him to another night out. It was too late to take it back, and he didn’t really want to anyway. Damien slipped past the door then, struggled his way up a set of stairs, and crashed on the couch in his apartment.  

[pascalls]

Hi! I'd love to learn more about Charlie 😊 I've seen you mention that he was an employee of Burns' - what happened to him for him to become a hybrid? I'm also really interested to know how that affected his personality, and his outlook on things, and whether the way people interact with him has changed since. And has he always lived in Springfield? Apologies if that's too many questions (I really love learning about people's OCs 😊)!

You’ve presented me with an opportunity to go into the lore of my OC and now you have NO ESCAPE. WATCH OUT THIS IS GONNA BE LONG.

Charlie has always lived in Springfield, most likely, and is the result of wealthy parents having absolutely no interest in their own child beyond using him as a bargaining chip, attempting to marry him off to another marginally wealthy family so that they can combine wealth and continue to be rich bitches. He was arranged to marry the daughter of the other family, but unfortunately, he’s primarily gay (he has some women exceptions to the rule, but they’re few and far in between). So an arranged marriage would’ve been miserable and terrible. In an attempt to prepare himself for married life, he has a one-night stand with a woman named Carla who accidentally births a little boy, affectionately named Connor. 

Charlie wants to be present for the boy, but urges Carla to keep his parenthood a secret. Their general incompatibility, Charlie’s pre-arranged commitment, and Carla’s eventual disgust for Charlie’s homosexual tendencies keep her from allowing Charlie to truly act as a parent, though she doesn’t waste time in dropping the child off for days at a time for him to look after. Connor grows up knowing his father, but he isn’t very empowered by his mother. As a result, Connor is a bit of a fearful and quiet kid and both Charlie and Carla are at odds. Charlie considered fighting for custody, but did not, for fear that it would throw his whole arranged marriage deal into chaos. Connor remained a secret from Charlie’s parents throughout his childhood.

He got a job at the plant in his thirties so he could at least attempt to learn some sort of independence before being married off (and perhaps learn how to be a provider for Connor without relying on his own parents’ wealth), but with a penchant for numbers, he just ended up being another pencil pushing accountant. Faced with depression, lack of guidance in his own life, his inability to see his son on the regular, and being enormously closeted, he sort of just lived day by day. (Of course, there were some experiments, like his VERY brief one night stand with a particular lawyer, but that ended in a bitter, catty rivalry that carries on to the day.) 

Anyway, my guess is that Burns had it in mind to use some of the plant workers as an attempt to harness the radioactivity that just kind of FLOATS around there to combine animal DNA with human DNA and create super-workers that would be much more efficient and trainable, but would complain less about health benefits. Charlie was just the unlucky first pick for guinea pig. He disappeared at the plant for several weeks while his genetic code got all sorts of messed up and only escaped with the help of the other idiot plant workers that didn’t do their due diligence at locking up the section of the plant that Burns had him tucked away in. But now he looked like a horrible mutant - in his opinion - and he holed up in somewhere in the woods until nightfall. 

Once night came around - it was raining too, which didn’t help - he made a break for it to try and hide out somewhere in the town. Unfortunately, a certain reverend decided to accidentally plow into Charlie with his car and had to drag him home to his basement because 1) he couldn’t tell the cops that he’d just killed someone, if Charlie ended up dead 2) this thing isn’t human. When Charlie eventually came to in Lovejoy’s basement, he decided that this was the opportunity he had to live a new life. Be someone entirely different (though why he didn’t change his name is his own particular brand of stupidity, but luckily, Burns’ little pet project was soon forgotten by the man himself and Smithers is reluctant to give Charlie away because he’s not that invested). 

So he let his hair grow, let himself be more open about his sexuality, and took up smoking and drinking (and a number of drugs to cope with the trauma of having your entire body changed without your consent), and now is the over-the-top, sometimes wildly inappropriate gay lizard you now see today, though he still does his best for his son, whose mother is only marginally aware of anything that happens in town. His parents were told that he had died in a tragic accident and seem to be just fine with that. They’ve not made any attempts to find him themselves and his previously arranged fiance found another man to wed.

BUT HIS NEW LIFE IS STILL NOT WITHOUT ITS STRUGGLES. He falls in love with the stupid sardonic nature of Reverend Lovejoy and constantly works to undermine the man’s religion (though he’s marginally careful about boundaries, i.e.: he would never disparage Helen, nor would he take it upon himself to sabotage their marriage), but he’s relatively unsuccessful. He falls deeper and deeper, further complicating things when he dons a hokey Halloween costume so he can go out and live a life free of persecution because of his non-human nature. He takes on the role of a new-age plague doctor (despite knowing next to nothing about medicine), and gets a job at Springfield Elementary as the school nurse (despite not having any credentials, but who does). 

He regularly attends church - just for the sake of being present in town - and finds an enemy in Ned Flanders who takes up far too much of Lovejoy’s time for Charlie’s envious nature to be satisfied with - and bounces wildly between pining for a man he can’t have and trying to keep himself from constantly throwing hands with Flanders (who has a suspicion that Charlie is some kind of demon presence put on Earth to turn the reverend away from God, which incidentally, might not be that inaccurate). 

Most people in Springfield never knew his name before, and thus don’t make the connection between who he is now and who he was before, but he is careful with divulging too much personal information to anyone. Despite that, he regularly explores intimacy with other men because of his desire to be appreciated, loved, and doted on (which he is most certainly not getting from Lovejoy), including several nights spent with Smithers who becomes a bit of a confidante. On that note, while he does his best to maintain his secret, there are a number of people who know that he is not human, including Marge (a mother-figure to him, despite them being the same age, but she gives him good advice), Lisa (because she isn’t dumb), Superintendent Chalmers and Principal Skinner (both involved in some shenanigans that need a lot more context to get into lmaoo), and eventually, Sam the barfly. 

As he is now, Charlie is constantly looking for some kind of reassurance in the form of affection, but is increasingly frustrated by Lovejoy’s insistence that there is nothing between them, despite evidence to the contrary and heavily influenced by the man’s (and his own internalized) apparent homophobia. (I made an animatic with them several weeks ago and it very much embodies their dynamic.) He buries himself in drinking and drugs to chase away his feeling of inadequacy and his fears of being a good parent, as well as his realization that his parents never truly cared, how he is slated to be relatively alone for the rest of his life, and the fear that he will never be normal again. But he combats this deep depression with his over-the-top personality, at times, and his smarmy, self-absorbed facade of confidence that would shatter if anyone poked a little too hard at it.

AND THAT’S WHERE HE IS NOW.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[bruisedbell]

Hungry for the rush ( aching to be thrown in the ring ). 

 bio. || insp. || closet. || face. 

Character name: Katherine “Katie” Emery Bell

Age / Birthday: Beltane Babe—01 May, 1979.

Gender: cisfemale

Pronouns: She/her

Sexuality: Katie is bisexual. She was taught to see the beauty of a person within as a child and has since applied that to all aspects of her life. She has no preference—instead she weighs on the depth and value of the person on the inside.

Occupation: Hit Witch within the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. ** ( I love that all hit-wizards have their own assigned beds at St. Mungo’s. How ridiculously appropriate for Katie. )

Affiliation: Katie exudes positivity and always stands up for what she believes is right, so it is really no surprise she considers herself a beacon for the light.

3 Positive Traits:

Adventurous. Daring. Makes up her own rules as she goes. She neither asks permission nor for forgiveness, unless caught red handed. Life is a game and there are no rules, only victories. Katie is competitive in nature and intends to seize as many victories as she can. Carpe rebus.

Kindhearted: Generous. She loves to give—not receive. Katie would give the shirt off her back to someone in need and never expect a favor in return. There is nothing she wouldn’t do for the people she loves. She would travel to the depths of the earth if asked of her.

Resilient: Tough as nails. Like titanium, she does not break easily. She rolls with the punches and rides on waves of fury. Katie is mentally very strong. Quidditch has vastly helped her develop this fortitude. She is a lover above all else, but there is no denying the fighter that reels inside her. It goes hand in hand with her desire to always be winning, or achieving success in any way she can.

3 Negative Traits:

Distracted. Head in the clouds. Plucking shapes and painting stars the way she thinks they should twinkle. Dream on little dreamer, unmoved by the falling reality and fragility that comes from this life. Katie is detached and a bit impersonal at times, especially when she has no skin in the game. It’s hard to hide the vacant look in her eyes when her mind has journeyed into a far world of its own.

Overzealous: Dangerous enthusiasm. Questionable optimism. Lethal tools in the wrong hands. Katie often needs to be reminded to slow down her pace and release her death grip so they don’t become just that when in her possession. Her heart is usually in the right place, but she has the tendency to get in way over her depth without realizing it. Her high energy can be all-consuming and, if she isn’t careful, may drowned whoever gets in her path. It also doesn’t hurt to mention that too much positivity can be toxic, and Katie certainly teeters between dangerous boundaries.

Detached: Katie frequently finds herself separated from reality like she is just a fly on the wall, or a stranger peering through someone else’s eyes. Reality can be a tricky concept to grasp at times. She finds it easier to throw herself into perilous situations with that made-up wall built between her and whatever unknown obstacle the day holds. Originally a coping mechanism she established to help aid with the daily traumas of working in the DMLE, it has since become an increasingly alarming problem slowly tainting other aspects of her life too.

Headcanons.

Katie is often underestimated by those around her. Many say she is too soft; teased and called a princess by others. Her kindness is usually misinterpreted as weakness, but she weaponizes this misjudgment turning it into one of her greatest assets. She isn’t mad at anyone for calling her a princess because they aren’t necessarily wrong; her crown is simply set with daggers and claws versus jewels, and she intends to have it on display for all to see.

Olivia Bell nee Fraiser, Katie’s mum, is muggle-born witch. She married a muggle man named Rhys Bell shortly after graduating. She then began her career at HM Treasury just like her father did before her. HM Treasury is the UK Government’s economical and financial ministry maintaining control over public spending, budgeting, and other fiscal aspects. Public service has always played a vital role in Olivia’s life, and subsequently Katie’s life as well. She witnessed how important it was to her mother and eventually was inspired to lead into her own career within the Ministry of Magic for this exact reason.

Katie is an expert dueler. This is illustrated in Prisoner of Azkaban when she teaches Harry Potter the full body-bind curse (switching that to Neville feels very applicable in this setting though? ). She was in the dueling club for the majority of her Hogwarts career, which is where she first established a solid foundation to nurture her skills. She later joined Dumbledore’s Army during her sixth year when Umbridge briefly reigned over Hogwarts. Having an older brother who loved to torment her as a child also helped play a key role. Once they were at Hogwarts together, there was no stopping her from getting retribution. In fact, she started making an abundance of friends which came with unexpected connections in the form of unique pranks and other jokes to help further her crafty and scheming nature.

Katie is currently working on her ability to cast both wordless and wandless magic. She favors wordless magic. It comes much more natural and is far easier than wandless magic in her opinion, however, both are thoroughly trained and implemented throughout a hit-wix’s career as it aids in the secrecy of capturing their suspects. She is also currently studying occlumency and legillimency with her mentor and fellow hit-wix.

Katie is an expert baker. Strudels. Pies. Puddings. Cakes. Croissants. Macaroons. Alfajores. You name it, she can whip it up in a heartbeat. Baking is her comfort. The alluring aromas of brown sugar and vanilla wafting across her kitchen remind her of a quaint and happy childhood. Present-day, she consumes an irrational amount of sweets, but nothing in comparison to the heaps she has to throw away at the end of the week due to the fact that she simply cannot eat them all. She makes cute little burlap wrapped packages tied with colorful ribbons, which her senile owl Blazer delivers to all her friends… but there still always manages to be more dessert left on the countertop.

Katie is quick, not just on her feet but a broomstick as well. She is known for making fast getaways. A skill she takes great pride in.

The looming war and undeniable political tensions have been anything but pleasant for Katie, and the entire Bell family. Bellatrix Lestrange’s rise to political power was alarming from the beginning for the lot. Katie’s mum maintained a position within the muggle division of government. The muggle-born witch immediately feared for a worst case scenario for someone like herself, or her muggle husband and two half-blood children. One needn’t be overly creative to fill in those lines. Katie had held a position within the DMLE ever since graduating from Hogwarts. Her older brother worked with various quidditch teams across Europe. It’s in a mother’s nature to worry, but perhaps she had more reason and experience in doing so when all their lives were so intricately designed with such chaos. 

Plot ideas: Same plot ideas from the previous group. I want Katie to be confronted with unlikely challenges. I want to see her get involved with those she wouldn’t normally do so. She is everything radiant and positive, so her leaning toward the Order is too obvious in my opinion. I want to see her manipulated and forced into doing things she would have never thought only because there is the risk of losing something greater. Katie would do anything to protect her family and friends. Especially Fred. She has a savior complex. It goes hand-in-hand with her desire to fix people and things, even if a good handful of them turn out to be unfixable. I want to see the closest of friends push each other away and have incomprehensible falling outs because of the unspeakable circumstances and lingering tensions they’re affected by. War changes people and I am anxious to see how it sinks its claws into the vibrant and kindhearted girl we all know—and how maybe just perhaps it transforms her into someone entirely unrecognizable.

Bonus Material: Gryffindor quidditch power team dynamic, angsty!angst, darker threads with purpose and tangibility, lighthearted threads, friends comforting friends, rogue punches, and other comedic content.

[bone-wolves]

Rowan’s Shade Pack Summary: Yr 1

Enit had emerged from the spirit world at the beginning of Spring, into a world of green, of sunlight, of multitudes of sights and scents that nearly overwhelmed the senses of her mortal wolf form. Her first months she spent experimenting with the mortal world, exploring different areas and inviting into the pack those wolves whose spirits she felt would work well in her pack.

Over the year the pack lived in the Deciduous Forest, the pack moved to the Swamp for the winter, and after careful consideration and discussion with her scouts, Enit has decided to move the pack to the Riparian Woodland now that Spring has arrived.

(to see a full story like write up of pack members click the read more! Fair warning, it’s LONG)

Her first pick, her partner, was Pietro, an intriguing and entertainingly arrogant young wolf who she immediately felt attached to. Having him scout new areas was beneficial to the pack as a whole, because while he was good at helping her get her pack shaped up, his know-it-all attitude and biting snark occasionally riled up the pack members more than she liked. When Enit had shared some of her spiritual aspects with him, she was not surprised to find that it had enhanced his toothy grin, making him seem even more intimidating than before.

Her second scout, Tara, was a blessing she hadn’t realized she’d been getting - Enit had considered her to be a smart and capable wolf on meeting her, but Tara’s dedication to her role surprised and astounded her! While Pietro may have claimed to be “the best, most adept and highly skilled” wolf in the pack, the true honor may just have lain with Tara - she traveled the lands, scouted out new trails, and discovered new areas with an almost supernatural ease, all while avoiding many of the dangers and illnesses that could befall a wolf in strange lands. Enit was not surprised to find that the spiritual aspect she shared with Tara granted her a phantom-like presence, allowing her to flit from place to place without attracting too much attention.

The hunting groups - oh, Enit had to work at picking the right wolves for them!

Her first group, Orion’s Pack, were a friendly and outgoing bunch, always full of energy, yipping and barking and howling and roughhousing all day long. Enit had to admit, she did enjoy their energy, and joined in on the wrestling often. It did help her feel more like a Real Wolf. They weren’t the most focused or best coordinated wolves, she had to admit - Rigel, who’d gained the hazy aspect from Enit’s spirit, most often stumbled upon a good trail as she idly wandered across a field or among the trees out of sheer luck and the fact that her presence was difficult to discern in certain lighting. The Chasers worked decently well together - Bellatrix could get over-enthusiastic and occasionally overshoot their target, but with Meissa and Saiph’s assistance and direction the three managed to get the prey to go where they wanted it to. Mintaka...well, Enit was relatively certain it was only her spirit aspect that gave Mintaka a larger, more robust set of teeth that helped her as a finisher - Mintaka was often distracted by something or the other and would jump at the prey sometimes at nearly the last second. Still, the group worked very well together and Enit enjoyed their presence in her pack immensely.

Her second group, Orion’s Club, was quite a different story. There were only three so far, though Enit had chose two of the adolescent pups to join once they were old enough, but those three could sometimes pull in more prey than her first group of hunters. Enit’s spiritual aspect had granted Alnilam More Sight, All Sight, More Eyes and More Vision, and between that and her exceptional scent skills she was a formidable stalker. Betel - Enit had to admit, Betel was a terror. Aggressive and domineering, she made an excellent Chaser all on her own, and with Enit’s spiritual aspect accenting her limbs, she could pull off maneuvers that made the rest of the pack’s heads spin. Alnitak had been meant to be a placeholder, her anxious and shy nature so at odds with Alnilam’s and Betel’s more outgoing and loud ones, but she had been blessed with the phantom presence much like Tara, deepened by her natural quietness to the point that much of the prey Betel chased to her didn’t notice Alnitak until she rose, like a ghost, to fall upon them and wrestle them to the ground. Enit hadn’t been sure about this pack of hunters, but she had to admit they were exceptionally skilled and she didn’t think her pack would do well without them, even if Alnitak and Betel tended to harass and pick fights with other members of the pack almost daily. At the very least they listened to her and backed down when she told them to. Keeping the respect of the more aggressive and domineering members of her pack was something Enit knew she had to maintain if she wanted her pack to continue to thrive.

Enit had chosen Persie as the pack herbalist out of necessity more than anything else - illnesses and injuries had begun to be a problem and when enit stumbled upon the herbalist bear in the woods she knew she had to send someone to learn from him, and soon - but the wolf’s dutiful nature proved to be a boon in that field. She paid careful attention to Herbert’s lessons, and noted each characteristic of every single herb with an extraordinary focus. She might not have been a very outstanding wolf at the beginning, but after months of hard work, learning, and practice Persie showed herself to be a valuable and important member of the pack. Without her Enit was sure her pack would be suffering, and some of her pack might not even have made it through the first year.

Aala was a young and serious minded Wolf that Enit had mistaken for Persie upon their first meeting - the two wolves were similar enough to be littermates, though they weren’t! Enit hadn’t been sure if the young wolf would be a permanent member of the pack, and Aala herself hadn’t seemed certain either. She seemed to waffle between staying and going, occasionally traveling out to the edges of the pack’s territory and traveling the boundary before coming back to the dens with a furrowed brow and thoughtful expression. Once the packs first pups were born, however, Aala found her purpose. She was a serious but caring pupsitter, taking care of all pups given to her care with skillful gentleness. The pups all loved their “AuntAla” and she in turn helped them grow into strong and capable young wolves.

Speaking of pups - most of the pups born the first year were, well, test pups. Enit wasn’t sure how pregnancy and pups worked really - spirits didn’t mate, didn’t carry anything inside of them, didn’t give birth. Sometimes spirits could become so full of energy that something split from them and became a spirit of its own, but the feel of it, the experience of it, Enit learned, was completely different than that of mortal mating, pregnancy and birth. She was honestly fascinated by the whole matter, both when it included her and when it didn’t, and she honestly influenced more pregnancies and births than she probably should have. Only after she started to think of the care the pups would need did she realize that she may have taken on too much for her pack to handle, and the situation had to be rectified. So Enit decided to undo some of the pups, or rather, the pup’s mortal forms. It was delicate work, and she had to hole herself up in the portal-den to do it, but it wasn’t painful or detrimental. As far as she knew. The pup’s spirits would continue on, their sparks returning from where they came, and only their mortal forms would be undone, crumbling away to return to the earth. Enit thought she handled the situation quite well - until she realized that the mortal wolves of her pack had little understanding of the spirit realm, and the eternal lives and cycles of spirits that inhabited mortal forms. It was an alien thing to them, something fearful and awe inspiring and so, so different from their own physical lives. She tried to explain that the pups hadn’t died, that they hadn’t suffered (at least she didn’t think they did, at least their spirits hadn’t), but the mother wolves couldn’t understand. Enit felt true hurt and sympathy upon seeing the sadness and pain in them - she’d never meant for that to happen. She did love her wolf pack, as much as a spirit as herself, one from a far different plane than the spirits of mortal beings, could love the physical containers of lesser spirits. So she went back to the portal-den, and clawed against the strands of existence as delicately as she could, her work as tiring as careful as before, and erased the memories of the pups from the pack’s minds until they were only vague half-dreams that returned to them, sometimes, in the darkest hours of the night.

There were three pups in the pack, however, that Enit had decided would grow to become new members. Two were of her own pack - a daughter of Pietro and Saiph, and a daughter of Pietro and Mintaka - who had caught her eye and her not-quite-mortal heart. That they were adorable when biting at each other and wrestling and rolling about helped her decision as well. The third was a young pup she had found at the edge of her territory while patrolling one day, a gray-and-white splotched pup with an independent streak that had told her she was “esploreen da hole wowld” all by herself. Enit thought she was wonderful, so she plucked the pup up and carried her back to her den, where Aala, ignoring the pale pup’s indignant growls, tucked the little one under a paw and told Enit she would make sure she stayed put. 

The pack had spent most of the year in the temperate weathered leafy forest where Enit had first emerged, but as winter drew closer and the mortal wolves began to speak of the chill of it, the lack of prey and the illness it could bring, Enit decided that a move was in order. As the last of fall waned, she took her pack and traveled to the warmer, and stinkier, but far more interesting swamps to the south. They spent the winter there, under the heavy boughs of the Rowan tree that moved along with them to the wonder and amazement of the mortal wolves, but as time went on Enit wondered if the choice had been a good one. Hunting was difficult - even though her hunters were skilled they could only bring back the smallest of prey, complaining of the damp stink of the place making it difficult to locate trails, saying that the soft mucky ground grabbed at their paws and slowed them down. Enit herself found the entire place absolutely wonderful, intriguing, full of sights and sounds and textures she could not get enough of, but she had to admit that raising a pack in the swamp did not seem to be the best idea. She consulted with Pietro and Tara, and sent them out to scout a new area for the pack to live in, and after many discussions they settled on a wooded territory threaded through with rivers. While the pack stocked up on what food they could and prepared to move, Enit headed out to ready the new territory and prepare a place for them.

[peachfyzzy]

prosciutto x reader: wicked games

Summary: You take your teasing of the mafioso just a litttle too far.

A story for an anon who I accidentally deleted! I hope you enjoy!! 

NSFW under the cut <3 

     It was a game you two played. 

     Funnily enough, Prosciutto wasn’t fond of most other games and preferred to keep everything about him professional. His outfits, his demeanor, his missions, his everything. Everything but you, that is. You were the delightful exception to his little rule, and he made sure you never forgot it. You weren’t officially together, the Mafia life didn’t allow for those sorts of titles and Prosciutto didn’t want to risk anyone outside of his team knowing your mutual feelings for each other. It was an unspoken rule that no one in the gang was to touch you, even if he couldn’t brand you as his yet. This lack of a title made things more fun. Made boundaries a little looser. Made teasing a bit more fun. He invited this playful attitude of yours and loved nothing more than to fuck the brat out of you, even if he pretended like it annoyed him. 

     This was one of those nights. 

     It had started off innocently, it really did. During one of the gangs' rare poker nights, you found yourself too lazy to drag a chair from the kitchen into the living room. You walked to the table and surveyed the boys. Your eyes landed on Melone who seemed like the least likely to push you off him considering the idea you had brewing in your head. After bending over a bit to ask him for permission, you took your place on his lap. In all honesty, you just wanted to cheat Illuso at poker and steal all the spoils, but the sideyes from the boys around the table told you that wasn’t what was going to happen. Prosciutto didn’t mind this. Not until an unsuspecting hand slid it’s way up to your side, finding its home in one of your curves. Melone had known you the longest in the group, and so you didn’t care about most of the friendly petting you two exchanged. It was when the blonde man became a bit more daring and leaned forward, loudly sniffing a section of your hair that Prosciutto felt jealousy swirling within him. This swirling turned into a blossoming when he saw you giggle it off, sitting down your cards to playfully fan him away. Did you really not notice his reaction? Soon, you laid your hand down and slid off of Melone’s lap to excuse yourself to the bedroom. Without so much as another thought about the situation, you stripped and entered the bathroom. With a turn of a handle, all of your troubles and worries from the day were carried away with the warm water. The room fogged with precipitation as you hummed to the music you so carefully chosen. In fact, you had gotten so wrapped up in the bliss of your shower that you didn’t notice the door open and the sound of clothes hitting the floor. Before Pros could fully surprise you, your senses alerted you because of the cool air drifting in from the open door. You smiled to yourself, knowing he was going to join you. With a slide of the shower curtain, your lover was behind you, his hair down and tickling his neck. “Hello there.” Your voice carried a certain smugness to it. One that made Pros burn with craving. The craving to press you into the cool shower wall and fuck you until it became hard to stand. The craving to see you compete with the running water in loudness and in wetness. The craving to utterly fill and make it known you were his once again. Before you could get another word out, his bare hands traced a line down your neck before gently wrapping around it and forcing you up against the shower wall. 

     “You still smell like the bastard.” His deep voice carried past the water and straight into your core, causing your body to ache for him. Nonetheless, you decided to taunt him a bit more. 

     “Well, I was on his lap, darling.” This earned a growl and a tighter grip on your neck, which made you arch your back in anticipation. Your bare ass made contact with Pros’ already hardened cock. You gulped, knowing his punishments on you would be far from easy. It seemed he sensed this subtle change in attitude because he brought your back against his, landing tender kisses around your jawline. You gasped, intertwining one of your hands with his. His movements were sweet, almost loving. But the words that left his mouth revealed the man truly waiting under the surface of pleasantries. For a second, you changed your mind. You thought that maybe, just maybe, Prosciutto was going to shower you in praise and love laced insults, but all of this proved to be wrong once you both exited the shower. To your surprise, Melone was sitting opposite the bed, completely naked and standing to attention, his hand firmly wrapped around his cock. 

      “It’s so nice to see you, bella~” He delivered one of his charming winks. Once again, you were thrown onto the bed before you could explicitly question the actions of the blonde man in front of you. 

     “It seems it’s not enough to teach you a lesson, whore. I’ll be teaching you both how to act when I’m around. Understand?” You both nodded and with a consenting smile, continued your little game. Melone wasn’t ever apart of your escapades, but Pros always loved to surprise you. And honestly, with the prompt he took advantage of, you couldn’t possibly say no. Neither could Melone, apparently. Pros quickly joined you in bed, grabbing you by the jaw and squeezing your cheeks. He forced you to maintain eye contact with the already far too worked up blonde, who seemed to be driven crazy by the display in front of him. “Who’s the one that’s got you bent over right now? Tell him, bella.” 

      “Prosciutto does.” 

      “Now tell him. Who will you cum for?”

      “Y-You, Prosciutto.” The words were getting to you and you found yourself subconsciously grinding against the bulge behind you. Despite his tough mold, you could feel Pros shiver a bit at your actions. Melone grunted at this and you only felt more erotic in the moment. Pros let go of your jawline and you turned to face him with a flushed, worked up face. He looked at you as if he were confused and this only made you more frustrated. “Don’t make me beg for it…” You had no problem doing this normally, but the new element of someone watching made you shrink into yourself a bit. 

      “What, cumslut? Are you afraid to show our friend how much you love my cock? I bet he hears you begging for it in the night anyways. Beg or you won’t get anything. Those are the rules.” With that, Pros grabbed a handful of your hair, pushing you to maintain eye contact with the man in front of you whilst grinding your bare pussy against the tip of his cock. Melone had picked up the pace by now and was doubling over into himself over the sight of you two. His hand worked up and down his shaft intensely and a pang of arousal resounded in you. He looked at you as if he was dying to hear you grovel for your lover. 

            And well, that’s exactly what you did. 

      “Proscuitto please fuck me in front of Melone. Fill me up and make me cry. Pros, please.” The moan from the man in front of you borderlined on a scream, but his orgasm never came. You wondered if he did this often. After a few more teasing minutes, Prosciutto slowly slid every inch of his cock into your inviting walls. Your combined moans filled the room, and you thanked God Ghiacco wasn’t home to yell at you for being loud. Fully sheathed in you, Pros began slamming in and out of you at an impossible pace. Your body blossomed with pleasure and embarrassment as Melone stared on at you two, glued to the scene in front of him. Your head lulled and Pros’ telltale signs of cumming neared. And all at once, you reached your peak. Stars danced in the corners of your eyes and your lover had to keep you from collapsing onto the bed underneath you. Just as you began coming down, you caught the end of a conversation between the two men. 

     “Since you did good in listening tonight, I’ll allow it. But so help me if you-”

     “Got it, got it~” Once you looked up, Melone was looming above you. 

     “Mel-” Before the rest of the words left your mouth, his cock found its way into it. A muffled moan escaped your lips as he began shallowly fucking your mouth, quickly finishing down your throat without so much as a warning. 

     “You’ve trained her so perfectly.” The sound of you fully swallowing all that was given to you pushed Pros off the edge. His hips stuttered and your hypersensitive pussy took every rope of cum he had to deliver. After your senses returned and all three of you steaded your breathing, you realized how dangerous a simple game could be.

[serenagaywaterford]

What is tender culture????

tender culture is all this cottagecore, domesticity, uwu crap that is particularly prevalent in lesbian/wlw circles. like i’m all for fluff and thinking positively but tender culture seems to reduce loving women to a set of stereotypical “feminine” soft and gentle traits. like here’s an example:

“we are in a toasty log cabin in the woods. it’s cold and we snuggle under this homemade quilt with our cat and quietly sip hot chocolate as the snowflakes gently fall against the reddening leaves outside. but we’re safe and warm and loved.”

it’s that sort of shit.

like i said, it’s not bad. it’s just that it’s EVERYWHERE. hell, i follow that lesbian domesticity blog myself tbh (altho i does grate on my nerves that it’s constantly about tender culture and never about sex. and really it is nothing like my relationship with my wife but hey. it’s about her and her wife, not universal experiences. her blog her rules). tender culture as a whole seems to idealise relationships (cos i’m sure it exists in bi and het circles too) as these sweet, cutesy, soft things that are always perfect and everyone is just gentle and calm and utterly loving all the time.

and there’s never any fucking. there’s never any indication that women are sexual beings and sex is an integral part of relationships. (don’t anybody fight me on this. it’s true and you know it.) there’s never any indication that people argue, or tease, or fight, or get turned on. hell, most of the time there’s never even any indication that people PLAY and joke even. it’s ALL like “uwu i barely touch your hand and feel the stars align and we are soft and perfect and fall asleep in your arms.” BARF.

i think, tbh, that’s the issue i have with it being SO prevalent in lesbian online culture. we’ve been told FOREVER that lesbian sex either doesn’t exist, isn’t real sex, is gross, doesn’t really count OR alternately is this fetishistic OTT porn thing for men to jerk off to. we’ve been taught to be ashamed and keep our SEXUALITY to ourselves. the tender culture thing makes being lesbian palatable to the masses because it’s so non-threatening.

and to separate it from lesbian culture specifically, we AS WOMEN have been taught since birth to shut up about sex. we’ve been shamed into silence about female masturbation and female arousal and female orgasm and female desire. like so many of us grow up without learning about our own bodies. a woman knowing her own body is a threat. a woman seeking her own pleasure is a threat. basically a woman talking about sex is a threat. 

and even besides sex, we’ve been socialised to be calm, gentle, nice, accommodating, nurturing, kind, and so so soft. we’re not allowed to be hungry, funny, angry, emotional, mean, have boundaries, be wild and dirty and feral. we’re not allowed to scream and fight unless we’re one of “those” type of women as if all women don’t want to just fucking scream sometimes. 

sometimes women just need to get themselves off too. i just find it very… dangerous to ONLY see that non-threatening tender side of things because it upholds patriarchal behavioural gender norms to such a crazy degree.

so all this “tender culture” crap that basically denies this side of female existence by its silence bothers me. which is why i like to reblog posts critical about tender culture sometimes, alongside tender culture posts which i do like also. we need reminders that there is NOTHING wrong with masturbation, sexual arousal, sexual pleasure, fucking (not just ~making love~), and being a woman while doing it. there’s nothing weird or wrong about being angry and upset and playful and horny and wild. i would just really like to see more content like that. 

there is an argument that women/lesbians have been so overly sexualised by men that it’s a direct response to that pure sexual objectification. like, hey, women have feelings and care, and especially lesbians are romantic and loving too. not just sex objects shoving dildos in each other while wearing high heels. i can see some validity in that reaction. but to me, there is just too much and it starts to seem like that ALL lesbians want is hand holding and a pretty garden and cats in some idyllic cottage somewhere. it seems to have flipped too far the other way into a cliched “perfect woman” under patriarchy non-threat stereotype.

i also recognise that the moment a woman starts talking about sex, especially lesbians, it easily gets co-opted and appropriated by perverts and fetishists and pornsick men (and women). it’s hard to just talk about our experiences without it being viewed a specific way by outsiders. it’s either hyper-sexualised or hypo-sexualised by someone else. there is always gonna be some sick fuck with his dick in his hand ready to go or some conservative prick screaming bloody murder about morals as soon as we try to discuss our own experiences. but i don’t think that means we should shut up about everything sexual or dirty or “nasty” about our reality as women out of fear of these scrotal cumsacks.

it’s all about balance, really.

and being willing to get up and yell: GET OUT. THIS ISN’T FOR YOU. when you see them infiltrate something for us. you see a man make a lewd comment, call him out. make him uncomfortable. take back what we have from them.

like i said, there’s nothing inherently wrong with tender culture. i just think it needs to be balanced with actual reality. there’s nothing wrong with romantic daydreams and just wanting someone to love you gently, and to cherish you and your relationship. and especially when the world is so insane, it’s fine to want something calm and gentle. but real relationships are not JUST that one thing. and i think tender culture gives a false sense of reality as to what normal adult relationships are like. i’ve been told here on my blog that even talking about sex with my wife is TMI (it’s not), talking about masturbation is TMI (it’s not), and even worse that me arguing with my wife and getting pissed off at her is something to be so terrified of (it’s not) that i should “get somewhere safe”. no. i should work it out and communicate. not run away every time things aren’t fluffy and calm and tender. that’s so unhealthy. and that’s what i feel being inundated with tender culture does. it gives a warped idea about what a healthy relationship is.

like no. tender culture denies this not so nice reality of human relationships, especially when you live together. like yes, of course we have the beautiful, romantic, tender side too. but people argue. people can fucking hate each other sometimes when they’re stressed out or frustrated and it comes out in arguments. and there is a scale. there’s a point when it becomes unhealthy and toxic but i think it’s equally unhealthy to never argue and force yourself to push any feelings you have down in order to maintain some idealized genteel version of a relationship that you’ve been bombarded with online as what you SHOULD have. 

and this goes for joking around and playfulness too. sometimes when i joke with my wife and call her a bitch or she says “rude” things to me, people are like “OH MY GOD!” but… i mean, that’s just us? it’s joking. (we sometimes do it purposely in front of people to laugh at their reactions cos we are both assholes.) we play with each other a lot. she’s an incessant tease. she calls me an idiot. i literally tell her i’m gonna punch her in the face when she’s teasing me. do i mean it? of course not. we roughhouse and wrestle and playfight even (not sexually jsyk. just simply playing which is SO LOST in this society. we don’t do any bdsm bullshit). it’s a type of physical expression that doesn’t hurt anybody and requires a certain level of connection and trust too. the fact i can tackle her onto the sofa and she squeals and grapples me back is HEALTHY. adults can play too. it’s like that post i made a while back when i talked about how my wife shoved her fingers in me when i was bending over unaware and laughed about it ...and was told it was TMI. like um ...we are physically intimate and playful and it’s not a BAD THING. and i’ll share it cos honestly? if you don’t have that level of intimacy and trust and fun, i personally think there may be something wrong. (if it crosses personal boundaries for you, that’s something else. but she knows it doesn’t bother me.) on my blog i will talk about my relationship with my wife in ALL its glory, bad, good, fun, horny, loving cos it is a fully-rounded relationship and adults don’t experience just one thing.

i fucking love sex with women and i was denied it for so long i’m not about to shut up about it now. i love fucking and the female body in all its wet, messy, soft, beautiful glory. i love being in love finally and properly and i won’t shut up about that either. i won’t be shamed to be quiet about my body or my sex life or my relationship that ISN’T perfect. (like i’m literally going to kill her if says to me one more time that 80s music is the best music lmao like she’s gonna kill me if i leave one more dirty bowl beside the sofa for the stupid idiot dogs to get at). 

to some people, i guess reality doesn’t matter. they only want the daydreams and fantasies, or they only live in a soft cloud world. that’s up to them. maybe that’s what they need in their lives. and that is fine. for a while but it isn’t real life and it’s not what you should strive for. it SHOULD be part of what you strive for however. you should have someone who cherishes you and cares and loves and respects.

i just don’t think tender culture should be as overwhelming as it is. it sets standards that i don’t think are realistic. let’s talk about sex or arguing or any range of human relationship issues too. don’t get rid of tender culture, at all. keep it. cherish it. let it give you hope and positivity and ease loneliness and isolation. healthy, loving, respectful fantasies are important af. but don’t act like a puritanical dunce when a woman talks about sex or hunger or anger as well.

i mean i’m not asking for sexually explicit content and i’d never go into intense detail about my own life (that’s what fanfic is for lmao) but a little recognition that women aren’t just domestic soft cliches. that’s all.

i don’t see any of that in tender culture. it’s all soft uwu feathery kisses and soothing fingers brushing along a forearm. blah… sometimes you need to get fucked. sometimes you need to laugh. sometimes even you need to argue.

wow ok

sorry anon

you asked me what tender culture was and i went off on a rant about why i hate it lol. i’m sorry. you asked such a simple question and i word vommed all over it.

[mendelpalace]

But what makes a video game a videogame?

The videogame is a quirk of capitalist design and industry, reliant so thoroughly, from the most minimalist revolutionary thought experiment on itch.io to the most boisterously gun-ho manshooter on the PlayStation Store, on infrastructures and technology that demand the ceaseless and violent consumption of so many natural resources whose complete annihilation by this process my, “millennial,” generation will likely see within our lifetime. The videogame will not be salvageable. It will not remain playable. It doesn’t matter what the actual contents of the videogame in question are. The future won’t have them.

A game, in the broadest possible context, is a participatory tool. A bridge between community and individual. A “video game”, in the broadest possible context, is a phrase you can use to describe just about any such broadly-conceived game that requires a screen onto which the boundaries and therefore nature of the game in question will be projected. The videogame, though, comes into being in that smelter-hot picosecond after mass engineering is called for as a required function of the video screen, so much so that it becomes impossible for the game to exist without it. The question of these games presupposes the technology required to present them already exists. They do not/can not/will not exist without it. In a world with so few certainties and so many ghosts this is just about the one thing we can be certain of—we have passed the threshold where it’s possible to maintain the inter-networked and electronic present we live in, especially not in the shape it currently exists and upon which so much of the videogame medium depends, very far into the future of humanity at all. It will all become so much rotting, useless garbage, at best accessible to a miniscule population devoted to careful preservation, constantly fighting a losing war against time and decay to maintain a shrinking category of “experienceable” works.

...

And yet something strikes at the core of us, when we say to ourselves, or even merely hear, “videogames are the most vital art form of our generation”. What does it mean, “most vital”? “Vital” is a word that goes hand in hand with “living”.

...

An interesting kind of “vitality” this is, then: a vitality not of “integrity” but of “utility”. Perhaps videogames are not vital to us because they help us live, but because we look at them and see something we can make use of as a tool to describe the circumstances in which we are now living. We are glutted on waste, reformatting our own symbolic destruction into a bond we know our descendants will not be able to understand that we shared, in this long hour before the next chapter of the life of the earth, whether that chapter arises with a single human soul left to stare up at it in the wonder and terror and confusion that comes from not knowing what it means to be alive, or not. What better symbolism to take up for ourselves than an art form that we have witnessed within our very own lifespan not just merely decay into illegibility but lock whole generations of itself away into obscurity and inaccessibility because the architecture of the machinery on which it depends to function no longer exists to make this—presumably fertile—era of invention make sense of itself anymore? A toy that its maker dreamed of seeing be a force, maybe not even for change but merely for a few minutes’ pleasure or perusal, but finds instead time has changed it so drastically it cannot even function anymore. A broken link, a grey space where a place used to be. A peripheral without a hard port to plug itself into. A box with a broken board inside. What Rosetta stone will decipher this? Well, someone must own a manual, or a repair guide—do you? Do you know who does? Is it bound in a book or is it on another electronic board inside a box? Do you know where to find such a thing? Do you know what it means to be alive?I don’t know. I’m going to die, like any other ragdoll under the capitalist reticle, before I find out. I’m not going to let that stop me from trying.

The always engaging @iaiamothrafhtagn on video games, politics, and the future. 

[artclusters]

just a trans essay i wrote in a dark time of my life i guess.

You are an Arab trans man in your twenties. You meet a young trans boy. He is pre-puberty. He still has relative freedom to express himself in terms of clothing and behavior, chalked up as “child’s phase”, and is confused yet oddly optimistic (or in denial) about the future. He keeps his feelings a secret, yet he has not yet learned to hate himself. He has not yet been battered by reality. Like you at his age, he does not have a map or an image for people like him in the near or far future. He is asking, waiting for you to help him, to tell him anything. He dreads becoming like his older sister, though he does not fully understand what that makes him. What should he do from here onward? When can he begin to live as himself? When can he feel safe?

You would have to tell him that there is no healthcare for youth like him here – not now, not later, not ever. You will not be able to take puberty blockers, or even meet someone who listens to you and understand. You will have to endure puberty for years, watch your body helplessly change day by day to something you don’t recognize. Into something that will make you utterly miserable. Everybody around you will change as well, treating you in relation to what you have and don’t have, what is visible and what is not. You will desperately try to regain a sense of control over your body. You might starve yourself in a stupid attempt to reduce the form of your curves, to curb their invasion. You might cut yourself, as a way to punish your body for not listening to your needs. Sometimes, you will be impressed by the terrible ways in which you can damage yourself. Your old clothes will stop fitting, and instead all you can see is a bulging, foreign chest and protruding hips. You will stretch them and tear them out in frustration. You will be embarrassed even by your own shadow. This is all but a prelude to the bleeding, the one that will brand you the most feminine of women, a symbol of no going back. Everybody will celebrate your dreaded fertility and supposed officiation into womanhood, while you think of wanting to die. You will have to learn to accommodate a bodily function that is all but useless to you. You will have to announce it to your family every month to explain why you’re not praying (with a suffocating izdal no less) or fasting or holding a Quran, because you are declared impure by their God. Maybe you will be forced to wear a hijab, to further keep you confined in your assigned gender boundary and emphasize the so-called inherent sexuality and sinfulness of bodies labelled as “female”, or maybe you will be one of the lucky ones who maintains little autonomy over your own appearance. Your growth will accelerate. You will be reprimanded for hunching your back, for not walking up straight, a futile attempt from you to conceal your hideous chest. You will put off wearing a bra, as if wearing one would be an admission and resignation of your chest’s existence and permanence. Your skin feels like sandpaper, only you can't peel it off. Your movements are robotic, running on the wrong batteries.Your parents will buy you feminine deodorant and underwear and you will hate them, yet you can’t request alternatives and you don’t have your own money yet. You will wear several layers of clothing in 40 degrees heat and refuse anything that shows even a hint of your bodily form. Your parents call you a picky nuisance for your clothing choices, and for any discomfort or gender-crossing behavior that you dare exhibit. Your parents won’t love you anymore. Your family won't love you anymore.

You will suddenly lose the ability to create or maintain friendships and relationships. You will not only be estranged yourself, but from everyone else as well. You will experience an astounding loss of intimacy; the word “connection” will no longer make sense to you – just an absurd notion. Dissonance and disconnection is where you will reside. You are in hell. You love girls, but you also hate them. They remind you too much of yourself. You don't want to be reminded. You don't want to exist. Boys your age are changing, changing into something beautiful, something beyond your reach. You love boys, but you also hate them. Being around them is enough to burn you. You don’t understand why you’re so in love with them, where to draw the line between consuming envy and invalidating attraction. Thin mustaches, cracking voices, excessive acne, awkward boners, terrible smells, visible veins, shoulders broadening, arms thickening, faces sharpening, apples forming, hair sprouting, patchy beards, low pitches, growing stronger, taller, leaner, flatter – you want it all. You want it all. You dream of it every day – it doesn’t matter if you’re awake or asleep. It is all you think about. You dream of running away. You dream of starting over. You dream of dying. Your grades drop. You don't play sports. You don't run. You don't laugh. You don't talk. You bargain with God. You plead with God. You beg to God. You cry to God. You still believe in him, until you can’t.

You will hear yourself being called a cursed imitator, a perverse deviant, a sign of judgement day, a harbinger of doom, a freak, too many things to name them all – even from people who claim to love and care about you. You are but a lonely child in the center of a relentless behemoth, a behemoth so daunting you can’t discern its beginning, middle or end, armored by immovable notions of what is true that poison every aspect of your life. Thus, you will come to understand it as a fact of life, drilled into the very essence of your being - hating yourself will be the only thing that you know, the only thing that you feel. You are unable to find the freeing word – that one word for who you are - underneath all this hate. You feel like a metal detector surrounded by nothing but plastic. You try to look. You are stumbling. Maybe you find it, or you find something pointing to it - but you lose it, no, you forsake it. You feel ashamed. You try to bury it, choke it, kill it - anything! You pretend you didn’t see. You pretend that nothing clicked. You stop looking…you don’t stop looking.

Perhaps the worst of all, is that through all of this, you will have to find the strength to keep going, and to stay sane. It is a demand that is too big to ask, I know. If you somehow manage not to be crushed under this ceaseless agony, that constant weight plaguing you with an indescribable heaviness, you will still have to spend the rest of your life unlearning and re-educating yourself and those around you, in a tremendous effort of healing, only to have the scabs on your wounds inevitably torn apart every day of your life.

In a kind world, you would not have to endure all of this- maybe even any of this. I am sorry. I wish I can tell you that it will get better, but I do not know. Even if it does get better, at what cost? The formative years of your youth (maybe even your adulthood) will be long gone, drenched in a relentless blur of depression, violence, and unfulfilled desires. Pathetic desires which mostly consisted of simply being able to wear a t-shirt - without feeling anything. Maybe you will learn to make peace with that, maybe it will always haunt you; sometimes you will feel so sorry for yourself it’s hard to breathe...just a gasping husk formed of everlasting regrets and longings and sorrow. You don't even know if you will ever be fit for a genuine human relationship anymore. It has taken too much out of you; you don't know if you lost more that you've gained, maybe you'll never know. How much of who you are now - who you were - is even here? Did anything matter? Does anything matter?

I can offer you a kindling of hope, perhaps you will be able to meet people like yourself, within our community, that share your despair and help keep you afloat amidst a society that will not spare you. People with whom you can experience fleeting, yet powerful moments of joy, respite and understanding, until you ultimately must leave this space and continue to take part in your facade over, and over, and over again. Well…until you don’t.

[ellcrys]

“We are encouraged to strategize and scheme to find places, times, and roles where we can be effectively put to work,” Harris, the Kids These Days author, writes. “Efficiency is our existential purpose, and we are a generation of finely honed tools, crafted from embryos to be lean, mean production machines.”

Burnout isn’t a place to visit and come back from; it’s our permanent residence.

This is a super long article but so worth the read.

The part that definitely resonated with me the most was the part on self-optimization. I can see this shit reflected in my daily habits and mindset. If I’m not being ‘productive,’ I’ve not had a good day. Every single part of my schedule is dictated by crossing things off my to-do list and what I’ve been able to accomplish. I’ve known this to be unhealthy since day 1 but couldn’t/can’t reverse the mindset. And now I get why.

Some great quotes below.

Topics that hit home for me in order of appearance:

On Branding:

“Branding” is a fitting word for this work[1], as it underlines what the millennial self becomes: a product. And as in childhood, the work of optimizing that brand blurs whatever boundaries remained between work and play. There is no “off the clock” when at all hours you could be documenting your on-brand experiences or tweeting your on-brand observations. The rise of smartphones makes these behaviors frictionless and thus more pervasive, more standardized. In the early days of Facebook, you had to take pictures with your digital camera, upload them to your computer, and post them in albums. Now, your phone is a sophisticated camera, always ready to document every component of your life — in easily manipulated photos, in short video bursts, in constant updates to Instagram Stories — and to facilitate the labor of performing the self for public consumption.

On Self-Optimization[2]:

Even the trends millennials have popularized — like athleisure — speak to our self-optimization. Yoga pants might look sloppy to your mom, but they’re efficient: You can transition seamlessly from an exercise class to a Skype meeting to child pickup. We use Fresh Direct and Amazon because the time they save allows us to do more work.

This is why the fundamental criticism of millennials — that we’re lazy and entitled — is so frustrating: We hustle so hard that we’ve figured out how to avoid wasting time eating meals and are called entitled for asking for fair compensation and benefits like working remotely (so we can live in affordable cities), adequate health care, or 401(k)s (so we can theoretically stop working at some point before the day we die). We’re called whiny for talking frankly about just how much we do work, or how exhausted we are by it. But because overworking for less money isn’t always visible — because job hunting now means trawling LinkedIn, because “overtime” now means replying to emails in bed — the extent of our labor is often ignored, or degraded.

The media that surrounds us — both social and mainstream, from Marie Kondo’s new Netflix show to the lifestyle influencer economy — tells us that our personal spaces should be optimized just as much as one’s self and career. The end result isn’t just fatigue, but enveloping burnout that follows us to home and back. The most common prescription is “self-care.” Give yourself a face mask! Go to yoga! Use your meditation app! But much of self-care isn’t care at all: It’s an $11 billion industry whose end goal isn’t to alleviate the burnout cycle, but to provide further means of self-optimization. At least in its contemporary, commodified iteration, self-care isn’t a solution; it’s exhausting.

On “The Double Shift”:

Millennial burnout often works differently among women, and particularly straight women with families. Part of this has to do with what’s known as “the second shift” — the idea that women who’ve moved into the workplace do the labor of a job and then come home and perform the labor of a housewife[3].

The labor that causes burnout isn’t just putting away the dishes or folding the laundry — tasks that can be readily distributed among the rest of the family. It’s more to do with what French cartoonist Emma calls “the mental load,” or the scenario in which one person in a family — often a woman — takes on a role akin to “household management project leader.” The manager doesn’t just complete chores; they keep the entire household’s schedule in their minds. They remember to get toilet paper because it’ll run out in four days. They’re ultimately responsible for the health of the family, the upkeep of the home and their own bodies, maintaining a sex life, cultivating an emotional bond with their children, overseeing aging parents’ care, making sure bills are paid and neighbors are greeted and someone’s home for a service call and holiday cards get in the mail and vacations are planned six months in advance and airline miles aren’t expiring and the dog’s getting exercised.

On “Adulting”:

“The modern Millennial, for the most part, views adulthood as a series of actions, as opposed to a state of being,” an article in Elite Daily explains. “Adulting therefore becomes a verb.” “To adult” is to complete your to-do list — but everything goes on the list, and the list never ends.

That’s one of the most ineffable and frustrating expressions of burnout: It takes things that should be enjoyable and flattens them into a list of tasks, intermingled with other obligations that should either be easily or dutifully completed. The end result is that everything, from wedding celebrations to registering to vote, becomes tinged with resentment and anxiety and avoidance. Maybe my inability to get the knives sharpened is less about being lazy and more about being too good, for too long, at being a millennial.

On Errand Paralysis:

There are a few ways to look at this original problem of errand paralysis. Many of the tasks millennials find paralyzing are ones that are impossible to optimize for efficiency, either because they remain stubbornly analog (the post office) or because companies have optimized themselves, and their labor, so as to make the experience as arduous as possible for the user (anything to do with insurance, or bills, or filing a complaint). Sometimes, the inefficiencies are part of the point: The harder it is to submit a request for a reimbursement, the less likely you are to do it. The same goes for returns.

Other tasks become difficult because of too many options, and what’s come to be known as “decision fatigue.” I’ve moved around so much because of my career path, and always loathed the process of finding family practitioners and dentists and dermatologists. Finding a doctor — and not just any doctor, but one who will take your insurance, who is accepting new patients — might seem like an easy task in the age of Zocdoc, but the array of options can be paralyzing without the recommendations of friends and family, which are in short supply when you move to a brand-new town.

Other tasks are, well, boring. I’ve done them too many times. The payoff from completing them is too small. Boredom with the monotony of labor is usually associated with physical and/or assembly line jobs, but it’s widespread among “knowledge workers.” As Caroline Beaton, who has written extensively about millennials and labor, points out, the rise of the “knowledge sector” has simply “changed the medium of monotony from heavy machinery to digital technology. … We habituate to the modern workforce’s high intensity but predictable tasks. Because the stimuli don’t change, we cease to be stimulated. The consequence is two-fold. First, like a kind of Chinese water torture, each identical thing becomes increasingly painful. In defense, we become decreasingly engaged.” My refusal to respond to a kind Facebook DM is thus symptomatic of the sheer number of calls for my attention online: calls to read an article, calls to promote my own work, calls to engage wittily or defend myself from trolls or like a relative’s picture of their baby.

To be clear, none of these explanations are, to my mind, exonerating. They don’t seem like great or rational reasons to avoid doing things I know, in the abstract, I want or need to do. But dumb, illogical decisions are a symptom of burnout. We engage in self-destructive behaviors or take refuge in avoidance as a way to get off the treadmill of our to-do list. Which helps explain one of the complaints about millennials’ work habits: They show up late, they miss shifts, they ghost on jobs. Some people who behave this way may, indeed, just not know how to put their heads down and work. But far more likely is that they’re bad at work because of just how much work they do — especially when it’s performed against a backdrop of financial precariousness.

Footnotes:

[1] For many millennials, a social media presence — on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter — has also become an integral part of obtaining and maintaining a job. The “purest” example is the social media influencer, whose entire income source is performing and mediating the self online. But social media is also the means through which many “knowledge workers” — that is, workers who handle, process, or make meaning of information — market and brand themselves. Journalists use Twitter to learn about other stories, but they also use it to develop a personal brand and following that can be leveraged; people use LinkedIn not just for résumés and networking, but to post articles that attest to their personality (their brand!) as a manager or entrepreneur. Millennials aren’t the only ones who do this, but we’re the ones who perfected and thus set the standards for those who do.

[2] One of the ways to think through the mechanics of millennial burnout is by looking closely at the various objects and industries our generation has supposedly “killed.” We’ve “killed” diamonds because we’re getting married later (or not at all), and if or when we do, it’s rare for one partner to have the financial stability to set aside the traditional two months’ salary for a diamond engagement ring. We’re killing antiques, opting instead for “fast furniture” — not because we hate our grandparents’ old items, but because we’re chasing stable employment across the country, and lugging old furniture and fragile china costs money that we don’t have. We’ve exchanged sit-down casual dining (Applebee’s, TGI Fridays) for fast casual (Chipotle et al.) because if we’re gonna pay for something, it should either be an experience worth waiting in line for (Cronuts! World-famous BBQ! Momofuku!) or efficient as hell.

[3] (A recent study found that mothers in the workplace spend just as much time taking care of their children as stay-at-home mothers did in 1975). One might think that when women work, the domestic labor decreases, or splits between both partners. But sociologist Judy Wajcman found that in heterosexual couples, that simply wasn’t the case: Less domestic labor takes place overall, but that labor still largely falls on the woman.