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francesderwent · 7 years ago

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“In Need of a Generic Father Figure” A Veronica Mars Everybody Lives/Nobody Dies Meet-Cute LV AU Week Day 7 Canon-typical language, but otherwise general audiences On AO3 Inspired by this post and that one scene in Charlie Don’t Surf.

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It was supposed to be a kind of housewarming-slash-homecoming party, the kind of event that was totally low key in its formulation and planning stage but got completely out of hand once things got rolling. All their friends from the old neighborhood were coming over, and it was supposed to be all nostalgic idiocy born from the eternal familiarity of each having been present for one another’s particular flavor of shitty childhood. There were no delusions about the depth of this bond, and so they weren’t expecting it to be a great party, not the best night of anyone’s life by any means, but it was the sort of gathering you could predict, could depend on. Low-pressure, low stakes, low key.

So, precisely the kind of event which would have a giant wrench thrown into it if you were to add in an unknown factor, say, a perfect stranger to man the grill.

“But he wouldn’t be a stranger,” Dick is insisting. “He’d be a dad.”

Logan gapes at him. “Whose dad?”

Dick shrugs, ineloquently.

“So by dad, you just mean some unknown-as-yet male person who has at one point fathered a child?”

“Sure.”

“So, some unknown person’s father, standing on the corner of our property, making hamburgers.”

“Grilling hamburgers, that’s essential.” Dick looks up from his computer and gives Logan a look like he’s disappointed in him for missing an obvious point. “And it’s not just some random sperm donor, dude, he has to be fatherly and shit. I put it in the ad.”

“Ah yes, the ad,” Logan says. “The Craigslist ad, which you put up online without consulting or telling me. I read the ad. And yet here I stand, questioning the entire premise behind it.” But Dick has returned to his computer, presumably to scroll through his emailed responses. Logan pinches the bridge of his nose. “Alright, the court recognizes that grilled hamburgers are better than any alternative. But why do we need someone else to come grill? You and I are fair-to-average at setting things on fire already.”

“We don’t have a grill.”

“No, but we both have trust funds that kicked in some time ago. You may remember them. They’re how we afforded the house…”

Dick huffs. “So we just buy a grill?” Logan gives him the raised eyebrows and jazz hands: duh. Dick bangs on the space bar. “Just buy one, from the depths of our rich boy pockets, without working for it or anything.”

Logan stares. “Are you having some kind of break?”

“It’s stupid to spend money if we could just borrow one.”

“Okaaaay,” Logan says. “So why aren’t you advertising for a grill we can borrow?”

“Because!”

“Because what, Dick?”

“Your dad is supposed to teach you how to grill!” Dick bites out.

They stare at each other for a long beat, then Dick tears his eyes away and starts clattering angrily on his keyboard. Logan sighs, then gingerly sits next to him on the sofa.

“You know,” he says, careful to keep his tone conversational, “if you wanted to sign up for one of those programs for kids with deadbeat dads where they hang out with well-adjusted adult men and learn life skills, I would have happily signed up with you, but we really should have done that when we were younger.”

Dick throws an elbow into his ribs half-heartedly. “Shut up.”

“I’m not saying, like, when we were twelve,” Logan goes on, warming to the topic, “because we mostly hadn’t figured out our dads were deadbeat by then. But definitely before we finished college and joined the workforce. I’m thinking like nineteen or twenty would have been the ideal age. Our father figures could have taught us to consume alcohol, in addition to teaching us to grill.”

“We were already pretty good at drinking alcohol by then,” Dick reminds him.

“Then they could have given us a strict talking-to about underage drinking,” Logan says. “It’s far too late for that now, and we’ve missed our chance.”

“Missed our chance…” Dick echoes.

Logan looks at him sideways.

Dick catches his eye and actually sniffs a little. “I know it’s stupid. You don’t have to tell me it’s stupid.”

Logan shifts uncomfortably. “It’s not stupid, man. I just wish we knew of some actual father figure we could get to sub in for you, rather than resorting to Craigslist dads.”

“It’s not just for me, dude,” Dick insists. “I know you care about this shit, too.”

Logan cracks a smile despite himself. “If some guy with a beer gut shows up and grills me a hamburger and calls me ‘sport’, that’s not going to make the old man any less of an abusive asshole.”

“I know, but we can make some nicer memories can’t we? Some nice dad-memories?”

For a second, Logan allows himself to enter into the delusion, but almost immediately becomes sidetracked on the mental image of Gregory Peck from To Kill a Mockingbird standing in their backyard, holding a light beer and grinning affably. That would be one thing – but he can’t imagine that any fathers like that actually exist in the world. No, this dad was probably going to be more or less a deadbeat himself, or else how would he have time to babysit a bunch of profligate twenty-somethings? At best, it would be some old guy whose kids were too grown-up and busy to talk to him anymore, a dad whose desperate neediness for attention and affirmation matches Dick’s. But then again, Dick will inevitably be drunk for the entire party – he wouldn’t notice if the dad was an escaped convict in black and white stripes with a literal ball and chain on his ankle. What harm could it do? He sighs, asks in a wry tone, “Are you going to ask for proof of paternity, or is this person going to be a fake dad on top of being random?”

Dick lights up. “That’s a great idea, I’ll edit that in!” He resumes typing at a frenzied pace; Logan watches bemusedly.

Still. It’s one weird thing on one day. It won’t make any difference one way or another, in the long run.

Nobody’s life was ever changed because a stranger made them a hamburger.

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

After that, Logan tries to extricate himself from the whole dad-audition process, but Dick is, as usual, both oblivious and incorrigible. Logan very quickly comes to dread the phrases “hey, listen to this” and “what about this”, since both are sure signs that he’s about to be read a joke resumé with phrases like “excels at offering positive reinforcement”, or shown a headshot of a guy in a sweater vest. So when he gets home from work and the first thing he hears is “Logan, dude, this is the one”, his first response is to groan and flop face first onto the sofa. They found the sofa at the side of the road the second week in the house and it is therefore a little worn out, so the decision to be dramatic hurts.

“Asshole,” Dick tells him absently, wandering in from the next room holding his laptop. “Listen: father for twenty-plus years, expert level jokes and manly affection, bonus secret-family-recipe hot sauce.”

“The hot sauce is a nice touch,” Logan admits, rolling over onto his back and kicking his feet up onto the sofa arm. “All of the other applicants have really fixated on the ‘dad’ part of ‘grill dad’.”

Dick nods so enthusedly it looks painful. “I know, right? And get this, there’s an attached letter from his kid,” he says. “Dear advertiser, I can confirm that the applicant has been my father for my entire life, and I can honestly say that he has excelled at the position. You would be lucky to have him at your party, where he would strike just the right balance between embarrassing and fun, call all of you by the wrong names and then substitute “son” or “honey”, and repeatedly tell you he’s proud of you. His hamburgers are to die for, and he brings his own fire extinguisher in case anything should go wrong. He has my unreserved recommendation. Also, if this is some kind of dad kidnapping scheme, I will hunt you down and kill you. Cordially, V. Mars.” Dick looks up expectantly; Logan fights a smile.

“They wrote a letter of recommendation for their dad?”

“Uh huh.”

“Hmm,” Logan says neutrally, then says, “Mr. Mars,” trying it out, hitting the ‘r’s and dragging out the ‘s’.

“Keith Mars,” Dick adds helpfully, and turns the computer so Logan can see the attached photo. Keith Mars is bald, just slightly on the portly side, staring adoringly down at the tiny pigtailed child with whom he is dancing, her feet on his – V. Mars is a girl, apparently. Dick tabs to the next picture: Keith Mars standing next to a grill holding a hot dog over the head of a plaintive-looking pitbull while a gap-toothed, elementary-school-aged V. Mars laughs in the background with a blue-haired friend. In the third picture Keith is older, wearing a suit and grinning widely, hugging someone in graduation regalia, her face obscured by her cap. “He looks cool, right?” Dick prompts eagerly.

“Yeah,” Logan says, tearing his eyes away from the graduation photo. Neither he nor Dick had had any relatives attend their college graduation, and he’d seen plenty of family reunions at the baccalaureate celebration that seemed more stiff and awkward than anything else, but Keith looks like he just might burst with pride. “Yeah, he seems nice.”

“Like a real dad, right?” Dick persists.

Logan snorts. “As if I have any experience with which to judge that quality.”

Dick offers a fist bump and Logan complies. “Trauma twins!” Dick says, sing-song. Logan rolls his eyes. “But he seems legit?” Dick says, returning to the salient point. “This is okay?”

Logan stands and claps his roommate on the shoulder. “Sure, man. If you say this is the one, I think you’re probably right.”

Dick beams at him. “I’ll tell him he got the gig!”

“Cool,” Logan says drily. “I can’t wait to meet him.”

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

Since Dick thinks it would be acceptable to simply explain the dad-for-hire situation when their guests show up, Logan finds himself calling each invitee one by one the day before the party and beginning with the statement, “So you know how Dick has a tenuous relationship with reality?” Lilly laughs for a full minute and a half, and Duncan, no matter how many times Logan runs through the concept, just doesn’t seem to get it, but everyone else just thinks it’s sad.

“Oh my god, our lives suck,” Gia says, sounding as if she just realized it. “Does no one in our group have a functioning father figure?”

“Carrie’s dad was okay,” Logan offers. “But he moved out of state a few years back.”

“And he never knew how to grill!” Dick yells through his bedroom door.

“And he never knew how to grill,” Logan repeats.

“Yeah, well,” Gia says skeptically, “I’m bringing extra booze for when this weird-ass idea causes someone to have an emotional breakdown.”

“Appreciated.”

And when the day arrives, booze is the one thing they do seem to have enough of.

“Why did we say we were going to supply ingredients?” Logan wonders aloud as he methodically opens and shuts every cupboard in their kitchen. “You forgot to buy onions, we don’t own any spices, I don’t even think we have salt and pepper –”

“Logan. Man! Relax.” As anticipated, Dick is already halfway to trashed, and far from caring if their hamburgers are seasoned.

“This was your idea,” Logan says, accusing sliding into sardonic. “You’re the one who wanted to make some new dad-memories, and now because you were overly confident in a Craigslist ad, our new dad is already going to be disappointed in us.”

“Dude, holy shit –” Dick bursts out laughing and can’t continue his thought. Logan turns around to glare at him in exasperation. “What if –” Dick stammers, chortling, “what if he says the thing? ‘I’m not mad I’m just disappointed?’ How absolutely sick would that be?” He’s wheezing now, and Logan can’t think of anything to do except stare at him. “Just like a real dad!” Dick howls.

Logan stands, frozen, for a beat longer, and then abandons his search for the probably-nonexistent spice cabinet to reach for the scotch instead. “Gia was right,” he says flatly. “This is going to end in tears.” He pulls a little too sharply on the tab of the wax seal and it snaps off with the seal still in place. He looks at it in consternation, and it is at this point that the doorbell rings. Dick makes no sign of moving from his position, giggling slumped over the kitchen table, so Logan jogs to the front hallway, only to discover that Dick has placed all the beer they bought in front of the door, barricading it closed. He’s kicking six packs out of the way and trying to open the scotch bottle with his teeth when he finally manages to wrench open the door and is greeted by the genial but not-quite-non-threatening face of Keith Mars.

For a moment the desire to say something dismissive rises up, as if this was still high school and he was still incapable of engaging with an adult on mutually respectful terms, but Logan takes a deep breath and forces it down. “Mr. Mars,” he says.

Keith sticks out a hand. “Richard?”

Logan snorts, but accepts the handshake. “Richard is inside. I’m the roommate, Logan.”

Keith’s eyes drop to the scotch bottle still in Logan’s hand. “I hate it when that happens,” he says mildly.

Logan makes a non-committal noise. “We probably have a wine opener somewhere that should do the trick.”

“We don’t!” Dick yells from the kitchen. “I told the chicks to bring one!”

“That would be Richard,” Logan tells Keith wryly. Keith raises his eyebrows, but then reaches into his jacket pocket and offers Logan a multi-tool. “Thanks,” Logan says uncomfortably, looking down to flip through utensils instead of making eye contact. “Can I offer you anything?”

“Nope,” says Keith cheerfully, “just point me to the backyard and I’ll get the grill fired up.”

“Get the grill fired up!” Dick’s voice repeats, maniacally.

“He’s fine,” says Logan, unconvinced himself. “The backyard’s through this way.”

“No!” Dick stumbles into the hallway and spreads his arms wide, probably so as best to show off the tshirt he bought specifically for the occasion which reads “you’re all up in my grill”, a decided improvement over the grill-themed shirt Logan had to initially talk him down from, which had a meat-related innuendo on it. “I will show you to the backyard, sir!”

Keith offers a hand. “Keith Mars.”

“Awesome, dude.” Dick shakes his hand, which is apparently hilarious because he cracks himself up again. “Welcome to the party!”

Keith glances at Logan, who shrugs. “I’m just happy to be included,” Keith says, sounding, against all odds, like he means it.

“Dope,” Dick responds. “Follow me, mon capitan, I will show you to your grill kingdom!”

“Please stop mixing your metaphors,” Logan tells him, but Keith waves him off and allows Dick to sling an arm around his shoulder and lead him towards the screen door to the backyard.

“Dude, seriously, your application was whack,” Dick says. “I was like, whoa, this guy is like a serious dad!” Logan is watching them go, wondering if he’s responsible for making Keith feel safe and if he should therefore follow, when there’s a voice at shoulder-level behind him.

“So that’s the Craigslist guy?”

He turns, smoothly accepts the proffered casserole dish. “Craigslist dad, actually, or you’re missing the whole point.”

Carrie stands on her toes to look over his shoulder at where Keith is patiently observing Dick’s wild gesticulating at all the ingredients they bought. “Huh,” she says. “I guess he does kind of look like a dad.”

“I should hope so, we took the casting call very seriously.”

Carrie rolls her eyes. “That’s a fruit salad,” she informs him, indicating the dish he’s holding. “I’ve just gotta grab my guitar out of my car and then I can help set up or whatever.”

“You brought your guitar?” Logan repeats. “Are we gonna sit in a circle and sing campfire songs? What the hell kind of barbecue do you think this is?”

“A nice wholesome one, of course. You were kind enough to invite Susan and her kid, and you specifically got a random dad to come grill you food.” After a pause and seemingly despite herself, Carrie asks, “You really couldn’t have just bought a grill yourselves?”

Logan sighs. “Actually, the grill is ours. Keith had one but it wouldn’t fit in his car, so Dick went straight out and got the most expensive one there was.”

“Don’t all serious dads own pickup trucks?”

“That’s exactly what I said.”

“And now you have your own grill.”

“We even managed to work it ourselves; we made marshmallows over it last night.”

Carrie makes a face. “I can’t believe you guys are living together. You’ll both starve to death or suffocate under dirty laundry within a month.”

“Nah,” says Logan, dismissive, “we can live on marshmallows for at least two months, and we can just buy new clothes and burn our dirty laundry on the grill.”

“That,” Carrie tells him calmly, “is disgusting.”

“People who bring acoustic guitars to house parties shouldn’t throw stones,” Logan counters.

She laughs and flips him off. “When’s everyone else getting here?”

He indicates careless ignorance with a wave of the hand. “Hopefully soon. I think we need to set up a watch rotation to make sure Dick doesn’t start crying on the grill dad.”

Carrie snorts, tosses him her keys; he manages to switch the fruit salad to one hand and snag them in the hand holding the scotch. “In that case, you go grab my guitar out of the trunk. What did you say the guy’s name is?”

“Keith Mars.”

“Got it. Do not leave me out there by myself for more than a minute.”

“Of course not! In fact, I wouldn’t dream of getting in your car and driving far, far away from here.”

She elbows past him, laughing, and jogs through the house to make a dramatic exit out the back door, where she is greeted by Dick’s incoherent shouts. Logan sighs, then picks his way back through the six-packs to the kitchen to put everything down, finally open the scotch, and knock back half a drink. When he gets back out to the driveway Casey Gant is there with his newest arm-candy girlfriend, and Logan finds himself cajoled into giving a house tour so he can explain to her why he and Dick decided on this house, how all the guests know each other, and that, no, Casey wasn’t lying about the Craigslist situation. By the time Logan manages to extricate himself, everyone has arrived and is milling around the backyard. Carrie waves to him from a picnic blanket in the middle of the lawn, where she is in fact playing guitar for Susan and her adolescent daughter. He likes Susan and the kid fine, but the three of them seem to be working on a warble-y song from the latest Disney princess sensation, so he hides a grimace, waves back, and looks elsewhere. There’s a few people clustered around the grill, listening to Keith tell some story which is apparently fascinating; Logan gives them a wide berth and joins Lilly and Gia instead, who are standing off to the side eyeing the whole scene skeptically.

“Don’t you ladies want to take advantage of this unique opportunity to interact with a genuine, human parent?” he asks.

“Nope,” says Gia, at the same time as Lilly says “Not even a little.”

Logan snorts. “Well, cheers to that, I suppose.”

“Yes, cheers!” Lilly says. “To dealing with our issues in therapy, rather than projecting all of our buried hopes onto a stranger with a novelty apron who could never live up to our ideals anyway.”

“Like motherfucking adults,” Logan echoes solemnly. They clink glasses.

Gia looks contemplative. “It’s not so much that he’s a random stranger,” she says. “I even kind of trust that he’s for real, you know?”

“I know,” Lilly retorts, pausing to take a big gulp of her drink. “That’s the worst part. Dick introduced me to him when I got here, and he was immediately more interested in my life and my job than my parents have ever been.”

“Yeah, but like, actually interested,” Gia adds, “like he thought I was worth his time and couldn’t wait to hear more about me.”

“How dare he,” Logan says mildly.

Gia elbows him in the ribs. “I don’t see you over there talking to him.”

Logan shrugs. “If I met him on the street maybe I’d be able to trust that he’s the real deal, but the fact that he answered the ad just seems fundamentally suspicious.”

“Yeah, but you guys aren’t paying him, are you?” says Lilly.

“Just in beer.”

“He’s probably just lonely,” Gia suggests.

“I thought the same thing,” says Logan. “But if he’s such a good father, then wouldn’t his own kid want to see him? So why would he need us?”

Lilly pats him on the shoulder. “Logan, you’ve honed your trust issues and pessimism into quite an art.”

He huffs, irritable despite himself. “I’m just saying, don’t anyone go writing him into their will just yet.” Gia looks at him little worriedly, and he attempts a reassuring smile. “I need another drink, can I get either of you anything?” They both wave him off, and he makes for the deck where all the refreshments are, but in his haste to get away, forgets to avoid the grill group and accidentally makes eye contact with Dick. Dick, of course, begins frantically waving him over, and though Logan lifts a hand in acknowledgement and tries to stay course, this only means that Dick starts yelling his name. Logan silently swears to himself that he will not enter the fatherland without a drink in hand, so yells back that he’ll be right there and prays that they’ll be out of something on the drinks and appetizers table so he’ll have to go inside to get it, if not drive to the store. Tragically, Carrie is already there, refilling chip bowls, and when he offers to help she just gives him an unsympathetic look.

“Go get it over with, before Dick convinces everyone to start chanting your name,” she says.

Logan sighs, grabs the beer with the highest alcohol content he can find, and skips down the stairs. “Logan!’ Dick crows. “Logan’s here, guys!”

“I live here,” Logan reminds him. The obvious statement is greeted by polite laughs from the Keith fan-club and drunken giggling from Dick.

“Get this, Logan!” he says, childlike excitement radiating off him in waves. “We didn’t even need salt and pepper, Keith brought his own burger rub!”

Logan looks obligingly at Keith, who nods. “Secret family recipe.”

“I thought the secret was the hot sauce?” Logan says.

“I’ve got that, too.”

Logan raises his eyebrows. “Everything’s a secret with you, Mr. Mars. And here I thought we were just on the verge of opening up to each other.”

Keith laughs good-naturedly. “I’m an open book, Logan.”

Logan is mentally scrolling through options for sarcastic replies which aren’t overly combative when suddenly he feels very, uncomfortably cold, from the back of his neck down, and can do nothing but gasp stupidly. For a moment he thinks Dick has poured ice down his back, but Dick is standing on the other side of the grill from him, looking genuinely surprised albeit delighted. Logan cranes his neck and turns in a circle, but can’t see what’s been spilled on him, though it’s entirely clear who’s to blame. “Duncan,” Logan says, flat and edging toward a growl.

Duncan has the nerve to roll his eyes. “Come on, man, it’s not my fault.”

Logan gestures to where Duncan has clearly dropped his solo cup and half a plate of appetizers on the lawn. “And how do you figure that?”

Duncan shrugs. “You know how hard it is to hold a drink and a plate of stuff at the same time.”

“Hmm, then maybe you should go inside and eat at the table – or better yet, maybe the family down the block can loan us their high chair.”

Duncan scowls at him. “Do you have to be like this, Logan, seriously? It’s just a shirt. And it’s your freaking house, you can just go in and change.”

Logan flicks his eyes over at Keith, who thankfully doesn’t appear inclined to use his fake fatherly authority to intervene and is pretending to look intently at something across the way. Logan fakes a laugh and says as evenly as he can manage, “And it was your freaking drink, so you could have just apologized.” Keith abandons his examination of the next-door-neighbor’s maple tree to give Logan a side-eyed smile, and for a moment, Logan feels a vague sense of satisfaction, before he remembers that he doesn’t care about Keith’s approval. He makes a wry face back.

“Logan,” Keith says mildly, “keep an eye on the grill? I need to grab something I left in the kitchen.”

“No problem, Mr. Mars,” Logan answers, saluting sloppily. Keith nods at him, and then pats Duncan on the shoulder as he passes; Logan interprets the move as condescending and is pleased again, and again annoyed at himself for being pleased. As a pathetic attempt at distracting himself, he pulls his arms into what was previously his favorite gray v-neck and puts it back on backwards so he can look at the stain, and then is horrified all over again. “Duncan, what the fuck were you drinking?” he demands.

Now, finally, Duncan has the grace to look ashamed, or at least defensive. “Mike’s,” he mutters.

“Mike’s lemonade is not this color.”

“It was Mike’s hard black cherry lemonade, alright!”

There are various titters from the group; Logan snorts inadvertently and lifts up the shirt to sniff the purple-y stain, which smells more like sugar than anything else. He knows he should stop pushing, but can’t quite restrain a “Dude, really?”, which turns the titters into full-fledged barks of laughter.

Duncan snaps. “Why do you have to be such a –”

“Donut!”

Duncan freezes at the sound of Lilly’s voice.

“Quit being a drip!” she yells. “Or go home!”

For a second, Duncan turns his glare back on Logan with full force, and Logan almost thinks he’s going to spit in his face or something, but then he just kicks at his dropped solo cup and slinks off toward the front yard.

“Wo-o-ow,” says Dick, with barely contained glee. “This really is the best party ever.”

Logan rolls his eyes, grabs the spatula hanging off the grill, and starts idly pushing burgers around to have something to do. “You’re happy with your Craigslist investment?” he asks Dick.

“Absolutely, dude!”

“And the weirdness of the concept still hasn’t dawned on you?” Casey adds, snickering.

“How could it be weird? Keith is awesome, and he’s the perfect addition to the party, just like the application said.”

“Of course he is.”

Logan jumps, almost drops a burger on the ground, and then turns to find that Duncan’s place in the circle has been filled. She’s on the shorter side, with blonde hair falling down her back in waves, a leather jacket slung over one shoulder, and a completely unreadable expression on her face – and based on the looks she’s getting from the others, no one else has the faintest idea who she is either. “Uh –” Logan says.

“Keith Mars is still here, right?” she asks, voice somewhere between businesslike and belligerent.

“Well –”

“He just went inside,” Dick says, helpfully. “He’ll be back out in a minute.”

Logan groans. “Dick, remind me never to commit any crimes you’d have to be interrogated about.”

Dick shrugs, the whole movement exaggerated by drunkenness. “Look at her, man, what’s she gonna do?”

Logan looks at her, less sure that he should be unintimidated than Dick seems to be; she gives him an unimpressed once-over, but then cracks a smile seemingly despite herself. “So was it some combination of getting dressed in the dark and a wet tshirt competition, or is this a bold fashion choice?”

Logan glances down at his backwards v-neck and the damp, purple circle on his chest. “Bold fashion choice,” he answers, looking up to raise his eyebrows at her.

“I wouldn’t have been able to picture it,” she says, looking him up and down again, “but now that I see it, I guess it works. In fact, you should only wear this. Like, ever.”

Logan grins awkwardly, unsure whether she’s mocking him or flirting with him, and still unsure what he, as a homeowner, is supposed to do about strangers in his backyard, even if they are exceptionally cute.

“So, this is weird,” Dick offers.

“Hey, honey!” Logan turns; Keith is coming down the steps of the deck with burger buns and cheese in hand, beaming at the interloper.

“And it just got weirder,” Casey announces.

“Yup,” echoes his date. “More drinks?”

“You bet.” They wander off arm in arm; Casey salutes Logan with his beer can.

“What are you doing here, sweetheart?” Keith says, dumping his armful of food onto the picnic table so he can hug the blonde girl.

She shrugs, looking considerably more relaxed now that he’s appeared. “I’m an only child, dad, you didn’t honestly expect me to let you adopt a whole party without at least coming over to check up on you. I’ve never had to share before.”

Keith laughs. “Of course, why didn’t I think of that. Why wouldn’t my grown adult daughter show up at an honest Craigslist gig to make sure she wasn’t losing her spot as my favorite child?”

“I dunno,” Dick says suspiciously, “I think she might also be here to flirt with Logan.”

“You two have met?” Keith turns a surprised look on Logan, who does his best innocent blink and tries not to broadcast that a few seconds ago he was considering using Duncan’s spill as an excuse to take his shirt off in front of this girl.

“Only just now,” Keith’s daughter assures him.

Logan nods. “You’re V. Mars?”

“Veronica,” she answers. She offers her hand to shake.

“Don’t take this personally,” Logan says, “but I wouldn’t. I’m honestly kind of covered in Mike’s hard black cherry lemonade.”

“That exists?” she says.

“There’s no limit to the abominations which crawl this earth,” he replies, straight-faced. She laughs.

“See what I mean,” Dick says to Keith. Keith looks at him blankly; Dick belches, shoots Logan a complicated and incomprehensible hand gesture, and wanders off after Casey, leaving Logan alone with the two Marses. He looks back and forth between them, trying not to stare, and wondering if it would be weird to ask what kind of degree Veronica just graduated with based on the picture Keith sent.

“So!” Veronica says, into the strained silence. “You’ve been treating my dad well?”

“He’s getting all of the standard grill-dad benefits,” Logan answers. “We didn’t want to have the agency all over us, or god forbid, the unions.”

Veronica smiles in acknowledgment, but her eyes flick to her dad with something like nervousness.

“Do you two need a minute?” Logan offers.

“No!” says Keith, confidently calm. “Everything’s all fine, here. Son, can you start putting cheese on hamburger buns? Veronica, honey, help him?”

Veronica rolls her eyes, but bumps Logan out of the way with her hip so she can grab the cheese. “So, daaad,” she says, sing-song.

“Veronica,” he says, warningly.

She actually pouts. “Come on, dad,” she says, the words coming quicker now. “It’s pretty clear Logan doesn’t care about you being his fake father for the day; his entire body flinched when you called him son.”

Logan hands her a hamburger bun he removed from the block of them in the bag, says mildly, “I thought I managed to reserve my flinch to only seventy percent of my body.”

“Nope!” Veronica gives him an apologetic smile, and then turns back to Keith. “Dad, please.”

Keith glances at Logan, back at her, and sighs. “Make it quick, Veronica.”

She drops the package of cheese and reaches into her bag to retrieve a giant camera. “So-o-o,” she says, lowering her voice, “you know that guy I’ve been on all week for a completely unrelated…work thing?”

Keith rolls his eyes. “Yes.”

“Well, he just walked through the front door of your guy’s house.”

“No, he didn’t,” Keith says drily. She tabs through a few photos on the display, shows him one. Keith looks at her. “That can’t be good.”

She lets out a huff of breath. “No, I didn’t think so either.”

“I can see both exits from here, honey, and I haven’t turned my back once.”

“From here?” Logan repeats.

They ignore him. “If I didn’t notice him going in, it was because I wasn’t looking for people entering,” Keith continues, reassuringly. “Nobody could have gotten away, so they must all just be inside. We’ll wait it out, it’ll be fine.”

Logan is just about to give up and leave them to it so he can find another drink, and maybe even change his shirt, but that, of course, is when the air is filled with the sound of breaking glass.

Some kind of instinct takes over and he dives in between the sound and Veronica, dragging her to the ground with him despite her incoherent noise of protest. He looks up in time to see a flailing person hit the ground below the next-door-neighbor’s maple tree, surrounded by the debris from the shattered second-story window.

“That’s yours!” Veronica gasps, but Keith has already produced a gun from somewhere under his novelty apron and is pointing it at where the fallen man has gotten unsteadily to his feet.

“Police!” Keith shouts. “Don’t move!”

There’s a stunned pause, Logan takes in the faces of gaping astonishment on his friends, and then the man takes off running in the opposite direction. Keith lets out a brief curse and rips off his apron. “He’s running,” he announces to thin air, and Logan hears a siren start up down the street, so apparently he really is police. Keith throws the apron at Veronica. “Don’t let the hamburgers burn,” he orders, and then he climbs on the picnic table, vaults clumsily over the neighbor’s fence, and takes off after the runner.

“You’re going to strain your back,” Veronica yells after him, almost petulant. She elbows Logan in the ribs and he rolls off her, not sure whether she’s about to join in the chase herself or whether she’s just going to lay into him for tackling her. She gets up, checks her camera and is apparently convinced that its not broken, but still looks dissatisfied about something. She peeks into the grill, lifts a single burger with the forgotten spatula. “They’re not going to burn,” she says, disdainfully.

“Dude.” Dick jogs over so he can give Logan a hand up off the ground. “Dude,” Dick repeats, “is it just me or was our grill-dad packing heat?”

Logan pats his arm. “Not only was he packing heat, but he was almost definitely using us to surveille the house next door.”

Dick looks flabbergasted. “Shit, man. Even my fake dad didn’t really want to spend time with me.”

“I’m sure he’ll be back, once they’ve collared the guy,” Veronica offers. As if inspired, she removes the first burger patty from the grill, puts it on one of their prepared buns, and hands it to him.

Dick looks at it suspiciously, takes a bite, and then nods, but adds accusingly, “Whatever, man. I’m going to need therapy from this.” He shoots a finger gun at Logan. “So, you do whatever you’re doing here, I’m gonna go apologize to Susan for exposing her child to all this violence.”

“That’s really mature and responsible of you, Dick,” Logan says, surprised.

“Duh,” says Dick. “It’s up to us to break the cycle.” And with that, he heads back towards the rest of the party, who are all staring at Veronica with no small amount of apprehension. She doesn’t seem to notice, but absently picks up Keith’s apron and puts it on, and starts assembling burgers.

Logan can’t help but ask, “You’re not going to follow them?”

“Nope,” she says, shortly, “not my case.”

“Do you need to go after…your guy?”

“No, I’ve got the pictures I needed.”

“Then I’m sure Keith would appreciate the backup…?”

She lets out a short laugh, and Logan sees with dawning comprehension that she’s worried. “He needs it,” she answers, “but he wouldn’t appreciate it. I don’t have the clearance.”

“You’re not his partner?”

She turns to look at him like he’s an idiot. “No-o-o,” she says. “I’m his daughter.”

Logan grins, lifts his hands in surrender. “Sorry, I wasn’t sure how deep the undercover scheme went.” She snorts, flips her hair over her shoulder, and turns back to the grill. “That one on the right is getting a little overdone,” he says, pointing.

“No it’s not.” She swats his hand away, and then moves the offending burger closer to the coals, Logan suspects just to be contrary.

“So you’re not a cop?” he tries again. She shoots him an exasperated glance over her shoulder, he grins, says, “If you’re not a cop, why were you surveilling the house too?”

She huffs a sigh, puts the spatula down with a clatter, and reaches for her bag where it had fallen on the ground. “Here,” she says, and tosses something at him. He catches it, turns it around, opens it.

“You’re a private detective?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Not a cop?”

“I’m going to throw a hamburger at you.”

Logan laughs. “So, what, you didn’t want to follow in your father’s footsteps?”

“I did, he didn’t,” Veronica says casually, returning her focus to the grill. “He wanted me to aim higher. I got accepted to Quantico, and was sent home after three weeks because of my issue with authority.” She shrugs, spins the spatula like a baton. “Turns out, I’m more suited for private eye work than I am for either the feds or the boys in blue anyway.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

Logan shrugs, thinking that she was already exceptionally cute, but she just became the most fascinating person on the planet. “I don’t know.”

She removes the last burger from the grill and spins to look at him, hands on her hips. He feels a goofy grin spreading over his face, and she rolls her eyes at him. “What, Logan?”

“You should only wear this.”

She looks down at Keith’s apron, which reads in big, bold letters, “NEVER TRUST A SKINNY CHEF”. She snorts. “If you haven’t figured out yet that you shouldn’t trust me, no amount of written reminders are going to do the trick.”

Logan ducks his head, rubs the back of his neck. “So I’m trusting, sue me.”

“Ah!” She taps her chin with one finger, mock-contemplative. “Is that how you ended up advertising for a strange dad to on-site cater your barbecue?”

“That wasn’t my idea.” Veronica raises her eyebrows, Logan adds, “I actually feel a lot better about your dad now.”

“You feel a lot better about him now that you know he deceived you?”

“Well, yeah,” Logan admits. “He seemed way too normal to be the kind of person who responds to Craigslist ads, so there definitely had to be a catch.” She raises her eyebrows at him, he adds lamely, “So it’s nice that the catch was he’s mainly here to catch bad guys.”

As if on cue, Veronica’s cell phone buzzes; she picks up on the first ring. “Dad?” The worry smooths away from her face at his response, and she mouths a quick apology to Logan before retreating into the corner of the yard to debrief. The last thing he hears her say is “I can’t believe you jumped over that fence, are you trying to kill me?”

Logan walks over to where Dick and Gia are relating the main event to Duncan, who has reemerged and is trying very hard to appear as if he doesn’t regret missing out. “Then Keith magically pulled a gun out of nowhere,” Dick says, miming in slow motion, “and yelled get on the ground or I’ll shoot!”

“He didn’t exactly yell that,” Gia puts in. “I’m pretty sure he basically just said ‘police’.”

Dick ignores her, too invested in the story. “But the guy just books it, and so Keith literally vaulted over the fence and chased after him, yelling and firing at him –”

“No,” Gia says.

Duncan rolls his eyes. “This is what you get for inviting strangers into your home,” he says derisively.

“Trained professionals to arrest the criminal who apparently lived next door to us anyway?” Logan pipes up.

“Professional or not,” Gia says, upbeat, “as soon as shit started to go down, Logan shielded the cop’s daughter with his body, which was pretty cool.”

“Aww,” says Lilly, coming up to put an arm around her brother’s shoulders. “And you were out in the car, sulking because everyone laughed at your drink choice!”

Reminded, Logan glances down at his shirt, which he’d mostly forgotten in all the excitement; it is now starting to stick to his skin uncomfortably. What the hell, Keith won’t be back for twenty minutes at least; he can definitely get some mileage out of this. He takes the shirt off. The girls wolf-whistle, Duncan groans.

“You know,” Lilly suggests slyly, “there are definitely easier ways than Craigslist to incorporate a new father figure into your life.”

“What?” says Dick, immediately intrigued. “Is there a more specific service?”

“Is there?” Logan repeats, alarmed.

Lilly starts laughing. “You’re both idiots,” Duncan tells them, with significantly more affection now that his knowing something they don’t has reestablished him in a position of authority.

Gia appears to be about ready to take pity on them, but is interrupted by Veronica’s return. “They got the guy,” she announces. “Dad is driving him to the station. Logan, he says he’s leaving you in charge until he gets back, not Richard.”

Dick flips her off; Logan replies, “I’m touched that he’s ceding authority to me in my own home.”

Veronica performs an elaborate double take, gestures at the house. “This is yours?”

“As far as the eye can see, or at least until where I imagine the police tape will be going up.”

“It’s my house, too,” Dick puts in.

Veronica ignores him. “I took you for an out-of-towner,” she tells Logan.

The fact that she thought of this means she’s not uninterested in the possibility of seeing him again. “Nope, local boy, though and through.”

Veronica eyes him thoughtfully. “And why are you half naked?”

He realizes he doesn’t actually have a good reason. “I was really starting to smell?”

She pretends to consider this. “I guess I’ll take it,” she finally says. Lilly starts cackling.

Logan tries not to preen. “Veronica, this is everybody; everybody, Veronica.” Veronica waves awkwardly.

“Are you going to stick around until your dad gets back?” Gia asks, faux-innocent.

Veronica looks sidelong at Logan. “Stay,” he says, hearing it come out somehow as if he were laying his heart on the line. He adds, more casually, “You can scold him for his fence-jumping.”

She considers him. “Do you have anything other than Mike’s hard black cherry lemonade?”

He cracks a smile. “I think I can scare something up.”

“The good stuff is all inside,” Lilly lies, straight-faced, then elbows Duncan, who says with faux-enthusiasm, “Oh yeah, and while you’re in there, maybe Logan could put a shirt on.”

“Like, if one jumps out at him,” Gia puts in. “Not every color works on Logan.”

“Yeah,” says Lilly. “He went through a whole orange phase. It was bad.”

Veronica looks bewilderedly around the circle, then back up at Logan. “I guess I could stay awhile,” she says, a smile pulling at her mouth.

“Don’t forget to grab hamburgers before you go in,” Dick says, serious. “That’s literally the whole point.”

“Right,” says Logan, not taking his eyes off Veronica. “Thank goodness for those hamburgers.”

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

Yahoo answers post from user MeCasablancasIsTooCasablancas:

So a few years ago I met this really cool dad, super great, very wise, lot to offer as a father figure. I put a lot of effort into getting to know him and he’s always been totally chill. My roommate, on the other hand, barely wanted to talk to the dad, from day one. Only problem is, now that’s changed and we’re in competition, and I was wondering, how do I make sure that my prior claim to the dad is respected? My roommate didn’t even want a dad, but now just because he’s marrying the guy’s daughter everyone’s telling me father-in-law trumps the fact that I clearly called dibs? This can’t be right.

Also, the wedding is in two months, and even though there’s no way they go through with it, just in case please go to Craigslist and look for my post seeking a new roommate. If it helps, we have a grill.

#LV AU week #veronica mars #cate fic #vm #this fic brought to you by general insanity and my conveniently timed spring break #aaaaaaaand that's it for now folks!!#I promise I am working on the teachers AU #it's just very difficult to write a teacher AU #without including lots of stuff about students #which takes up space and time

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beelieveinfandom · 8 years ago

Text

Haunted and Hunted - Chapter Two

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 AO3 Link

AO3 is highly recommend do to formatting issues.

Charlie was tightly curled up in a cocoon of an old weighted blanket; it wasn’t terribly warm but at least the dense plastic filling wasn’t molding. Imprints were slowly forming where ze pushed zir face into one of the beady lumps. The pressure was nice, solid and real when nothing else could be. Zir breathing was harsh and irregular.

“So.” Vin was chest deep within a bean bag chair. “You’re having a field day with this, huh?”

“Pardon?” Renee asked, looking up from the sweater she had been inspecting for holes.

“Another kid from the same place they nabbed you from? There’s gotta be some deep and convoluted plot here, right? A proper scheme.”

“Not really.” She shrugged, resuming her sweater scrutinization. “It fits well into what I already suspected. Admittedly it is a little surprising for them to take a second child from the same locale so soon; I would think that such a tactic would attract more notice than they would want.”

“Why would they care if it’s somewhat obvious?” Vin asked. “Even if someone was paying attention - and really why would they - who the hell’s gonna care about someone on the net accusing the Taskies of kidnapping poor preter kids?”

“And I’m the one with the bleak worldview.”

“I’ve never said that the world ain’t shit.” He leaned forward, resting his neck on the bulging pleather seat. “You’re just the one that chooses to spend all your time immersing yourself in the marinade of misery that is the specifics.”

“You cannot dismantle a system if you don’t understand the specifics of how it operates.” Renee set her garment down and looked Vin in the eyes.

“Renee, you’re a teenage eel fugitive. You cannot dismantle shit, regardless of what you understand.”

She crossed her arms. “I don’t mean to say anything too revolutionary, but there is a high probability that I am going to metamorphosize into an adult someday.”

Vin laughed. “Bullshit. Everything you say is meant to be revolutionary. You talk like your words are gonna rise up as soldiers.”

“You can’t convince people to join your cause with silence.”

“You can’t convince people to join you if any attempt to communicate will get you reabducted either.”

“You know,” she fanned her fingers, “there is this strange mystical technique called ‘physical contact’ you can use to talk to people without everything being recorded, right?”

“Right,” Vin crossed his arms under his neck. “Cause we’re totally going to just run into some sympathetic rando in the woods who either doesn’t have a screen on them or’s like, hacked that shit into not autoreporting A-class freaks from half a mile away.”

“Hey,” she smiled, “I managed to convince you, didn’t I? Even with our conspiracy being formed within the sites of our captors.”

“You didn’t convince me of shit.” His wings flapped and came to rest cupped around the beanbag. “This has all been purely out of self-interest.”

Renee cocked an eyebrow. “Are you implying that no one else would have something to gain from obtaining liberation from an oppressive state?”

“Most people got something to lose when things go wrong.” He shrugged his wing shoulders. “It’s not saying much that you recruited someone who had literally nowhere to go but up.”

“I hardly see how your interests were furthered by saving a kid.”

He shrugged again. “I was kinda assuming that the interests of the vague and ominous force that govern my vision aligned more directly with my own, honestly.”

“If you could have known ahead of time,” Renee spoke slowly, “that we would ‘just’ be saving someone else, would you still have done it?”

“Hey, we still don’t know that this is ‘just’ saving zir.” Vin pulled his elbows towards his chest and raised his head. “Not that I would have a problem with that if it is, it’s just… it easily could be that zir weird fire shit or whatever is going to be goddamn critical in the future. Like, what if we were to run into like, a whole fuckton of marshmallows or some shit. Just piled in the woods like you do. I don’t know about you, but I sure as fuck can’t just swivel sticks until they explode. I’d be end of the goddamn line there if we didn’t have Mx. Burny McFlamesflames over there.”

“How many causal links ahead do you think your foresight is able to connect?”

“How the fuck would I know that?” He pressed his head back into the bed. “You’ve literally seen it at work just as much as I have.”

“I’m not personally experiencing it as a psychological effect.” Renee crossed her arms.

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything. We’ll probably never know what the fuck my deal is. But speaking of deals, what do you think Charlie’s is?”

“Oh,” she said, “ze’s possessed.”

“Seriously?” He looked over at Charlie. “That fucking blows.”

“Can’t say I would know, but from what little I have seen I am rather inclined to lean towards the the conclusion that the blow factor of it is rather high.”

“So what,” Vin settled back into the bed, “you think they just went and shoved a pyrogeist in a kid? What would that even do?”

“I think I’m going to pass along the spotlight for that one,” she turned to Charlie, “considering they presumably have a significantly better idea of the full extent of the answer than I do.”

“You figured that out quick.” Alcor pushed the body into a sitting position. “What gave it away?”

“There have been numerous minor indications throughout the past hours leading me to suspect such a thing, but it became pretty undeniable a few minutes ago when you began to do what I can only presume was pretending to sleep.” She shifted her gaze. “There’s also the fact that most people’s auras don’t drastically change when they fall asleep, but honestly that was a considerably less significant factor.”

“There’s no way it was that bad,” Alcor said with an eyeroll.

“I can confidently say that, even after all my years of being surrounded by children, that was the worst attempt at faking sleep I have ever witnessed.” She crossed her arms. “The only way I could imagine that fooling anyone is if they, purely hypothetically, spent all their life locked in a room, physically isolated from any other person and had never witnessed what a sleeping person actually looked like.”

“In my defense,” said Vin, “I really don’t care.”

“My point is,” Renee continued, “if it weren’t for the fact that I was fairly confident about your existence I would have thought that Charlie had some sort of bizarre sleep apnea and would have been incredibly worried. Do you have any idea how lungs are actually supposed to work?”

“It’s been awhile since I had any of my own, alright? And it would have been fine but trying to do nothing is really boring and apparently just thinking about breathing is enough to make the body decide that you should be in charge of it.” Alcor crossed Charlie's legs. “Couldn’t you already see my aura though? I thought that was how you found us in the first place.”

“Your aura was considerably more subtle when Charlie was in control. It’s like a fire; when Charlie is awake it’s like smoldering coals, noticeable when searched for but easily overlooked. With zir asleep it’s more like half the woods is on fire; unignorable in its intensity but seemingly sourceless in its prevalence.”

“That could be a problem if they’re still looking for us. Normally I can hide it but whatever they did to bind me here has limited what I can do.”

“I suspect that it is nowhere near as dominating from a distance. I wasn’t overwhelmed by it last night, despite the fact you were presumably in control for at least part of it. This is not to say we shouldn’t test this theory, but I suspect it is not going to pose a problem while the flailing seal is still busy and short-staffed. At the moment I have more pressing concerns, and you’re at the center of most of them.”

“What about me could possibly be cause for concern?”

The look Renee shot him made it quite clear that such a comment was completely unworthy of verbal recognition.

“Who are you?” She asked.

“You can call me Tyrone.” He leaned forward, setting Charlie’s elbows on zir kneecaps, grinning.

“That’s not really an answer.” Her glare could ignite potassium.

“You’re not really wrong.” Alcor said, with a grin so smug it might start monologuing.

“What pronouns do you use?” Her glare dissolved, requiring far more fucks to maintain then she could bring her herself to give.

“I haven’t been terribly attached to any set in quite awhile,” he said, “but traditionally go with he/him/his.”

“Charlie is scared of you.”

“Ze should be. I’m killing zir.”

“Why?”

“I don’t exactly have a choice.” He grimaced. “You weren’t quite right when you identified this as possession - it’s more complicated than that. I’m not just bound to Charlie and unable leave, they cut me off from my presence in the mindscape. I absorb energy from local mindscape around me, which normally I can just channel back to maintain a physical presence or just store for later. But now I have no way to channel that energy without going through Charlie; either physically which is hard on zir body or through zir dreamscape which would shatter it. There hasn’t been a large enough buildup to be a problem yet but it’s only a matter of time.”

“So if I’m understanding what you’re saying,” she crossed her arms, “you are in a similar unfortunate position as the rest of us and don’t mean any harm to Charlie?”

“That about sums it up.”

“So stop being an asshole!” She shouted, lifting more of her torso higher off the ground. “This situation is already hard enough on everyone without you aggravating things! You are, quite literally, in the same boat as zir; I’m positive you can find some way of communicating the dangers of your presence without instilling fear in someone who can’t escape it!”

Alcor flinched back from her outburst, blinking. With narrowed eyes and clenched teeth and fists he stood, as intimidating as Charlie’s five feet of height allowed.

“Excuse me?” he snarled. “I’m doing everything I can to keep this kid alive! I’m even letting zir front, which is, let me tell you, incredibly boring and frustrating. If I was being an ass I could just say screw the consequences and leave leave, and I sure as hell wouldn’t be tolerating anything that I’ve been for the last few hours!”

“The fact that it is theoretically possible for you to behave in a worse manner does not mean that the way you are behaving is okay.”

“You are not a position to be making demands about what I do.” His voice was more steady now, colder. “You have no power over me, and I could kill you in an instant.”

“So what?” Renee shot, her fin raised. “Everyone I’ve interacted with for years could kill me! The only reasons I am not already dead are dumb luck and the deaths of other test subjects before me. I’m hardly the paragon of durability; a particularly determined racoon could probably off me if no one intervened.”

Renee was breathing heavily. Panting, almost.

A splinter of nagging doubt slid through Alcor’s anger. She was far too young to feel like that. Not that that gave her any right to speak to him in such a way. Not that anything would give her the right to speak to him like that. Even if she was kinda right, he deserved better. And she wasn’t right. He was right. He was always right.

Except for the part of his brain that kept thinking that he wasn’t; that part was awful and wrong and fuck him.

He had more important things to do then doubt himself. He had a screaming match with a child to win. And wow that sounded stupid when he put it like that.

Maybe that was a sign that it was time to back down.

No it absolutely was not. It didn’t matter if it was stupid, he couldn’t back down or she would win . He couldn’t just let her win. He was Alcor, lord of nightmares, and he was not to be one upped by a mere child. Teen. She was solidly a mere teenager, which was a highly argumentative group, making this almost respectable. It would be good for her development. An emotional release after a highly stressful time. Wait, wasn’t he the he that was advocating against operation beat the child (oh wow he just lost naming privileges forever)? Which he was he again?

This was stupid. Stupid and confusing and dumb. What was he even doing again?

Nothing had changed in the time it had taken him to derail himself; it seemed that being bound to Charlie hadn’t slowed his thought processes too badly. Renee was still towering over him (no one should tower over him, not being about to float was bullshit), breathing heavily and flushed in her face.

Shit, he forgot to come up with a witty retort.

Before he could rectify this grievous error, Vin broke the silence.

“Hey, could y’all keep it down a little?” he asked, sitting upright on his folded legs, watching intently. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”

“Vin, you couldn’t look less interested in sleep if you tried.” Renee said coldly.

“I didn’t say I was trying to sleep. But presumably Charlie is.” He shrugged. “I don’t mean to interrupt this legendary squabble, but one of you is like, half kid who really needs zir sleep.”

“Do you really think now is the best time to worry about that?” Alcor glared at him.

“Well, yeah?” Vin shrugged his wings. “Would really matter if ze was awake. Assuming ze isn’t awake right now, which I don’t know. Can Charlie be woken up by your loud ass antics? And if not, how the fuck is ze sleeping through this shit?”

“I don’t know that!” Alcor shouted.

And stopped.

“I don’t know that…” He repeated, not really at anyone this time.

He had no idea. At all. And the answer wasn’t helpfully buzzing into his head like normal. He was completely cut off from the universe. He was actually going to have to solve this mystery himself. Like a person. Possibly with charts. It had been forever since he had an excuse to make a chart. This wasn’t really a logical situation to graph out, but he was one of the most powerful entities in the dimension and could most certainly find a way to make one relevant.

“Charlie is definitely sleeping right now,” he said quickly, “I can feel zir dreaming. Since I ended up taking over without exerting any effort once Charlie started to relax and stopped imposing zir will, I would say that Charlie needs to put in continuous effort to access the body’s senses.”

“Before you go changing the subject completely,” Renee said firmly, “could you at least agree to make an effort to try to treat Charlie better?”

“What? Oh sure whatever.” Alcor loosely waved Charlie’s hand at her, the fury of the argument completely evaporated in the surging euphoria of a solid enough graphing opportunity. “It could also be that I was blocking the commotion from zir consciousness without noticing. Or, hm. Do either of you have a pen? Or any writing utensil really. A good dirt-drawing stick?”

“We sure do got some sticks around.” Vin said, “but I’m not sure even our better hit-stick sticks would be able to do much to mark the solid rock of the floor.”

Alcor turned Charlie’s head. “Hit-stick stick?”

“Hit stick.” Vin’s crest bobbed up. “It’s this great game I came up with. You try to hit each other with sticks, just like the sword fencers of yore. It’s treemendous fun, and a great excuse to let loose the asp in you.”

“I hate to break this to you, but you didn’t really invent the concept of stick fighting,” Renee said. “People have had the general idea of attacking their friends with innocuous objects for as long as there have been people.”

“Wow, people are dicks.”

“-” Renee stopped herself and shook her head. ”I’m going to sleep. Try not to stay up all night again.”

“What, with Tyrone here? Don’t be weird.” He closed his eyes. “True art can’t be made within the judgmental gaze of an observer. Or in the judgmental gaze of its creator. Anyone observing the process creates judgement, and that will just ruin the whole fucking thing. True art can only be made in pitch darkness, high off sleep deprivation and the exhilarating knowledge that any wrong move could wake your cavemate and end the experience in as single justifiably grumpy instant.”

“How many times did you stub your toe or walk into a wall last night?”

“Art is magic. Magic takes sacrifice. Through my suffering a mighty muse will arise, and the pact we form will bring about the single greatest pile of fucking garbage the world has ever seen. Children will weep and not know why. Butterflies will break away from their ancient paths. Atlanta will rise out of the sea again. The world will be forever changed, probably for the worse.” Vin slowly shook his head. “Or at least, that’s what would happen, but Tyrone gotta be here wrecking the moment. Also I’m really tired. And like, already in the squish bag.”

“Well then I suppose the future is set. No call of destiny nor artistic drive could ever be strong enough to overpower the awesome allure of a squish bag already sat upon.” Renee rested her hand over her heart. “I suppose this marks the beginning of the end of our travels together. Forevermore I will fondly look upon these times we shared, and I wish you only the best in your new life.”

“Weren't you sleep?” asked Vin, settling back onto his chest.

“Soon. First I must initiate the covering of the lights.” She slivered to the closest of the dimly glowing panels strewn about the area, covering it with a box left behind it. “Then I am become sleep, ignorer of worlds.”

“Like you could ever ignore the world. You probably spend sleep going over communist praxis.”

“Don’t be absurd.” She continued covering the lights. “Communist praxis is to be reviewed while staring at a wall dissociating. Sleep is the anarchy hours.”

“Go to bed ya damn nerd.” Vin rested his head between his wings.

Renee finished covering the lights, leaving only the small dots of scattered light that could have been either bioluminescent organisms or phosphorescent plastic to faintly define the room’s numerous obstacles. She curled around a large cushion, flopping down on it with her upper torso.

As the two teens settled in for the night, Alcor got up to try to go deeper into the cavern. “Try” being the key word; the trash cave lived up to its name, the miscellaneous crap scattered about rendered the ground difficult to traverse even while the lights had been illuminating it. The lights’ absence took all scraps of navigability with them, making every step an ordeal. After a bit of experimenting, Alcor determined that the mess could be shuffled through in a manner that could be described as practical in much the same way that a cuttlefish could be described as basically a jumping spider.

It didn’t take long for him to decide that he had probably gone far enough.

He sat on the nearest thing of the appropriate height, the disembodied head of an absent statue. In the dim lighting the only detail that could be made out was that it had two spatulas positioned over the head’s eyes like a mask.

Turning away from the others he removed the stolen sweater and lit a small flame in front of Charlie’s chest. The markings he remembered from earlier were now deeply scarred into the tissue, with no sign of the brilliantly golden ink that had been there when he was first summoned. They formed a rudimentary variant of his symbol, a five pointed star with a single large eye. The scar’s depth was concerning, but at least it wasn’t raw or blistered. Quite to the contrary: it looked old, healed over with ill-defined edges. What power it previously had was now certainly expended.

The array unsurprisingly lacked any summoning or binding abilities, instead focusing on protection and energy distribution. Alcor tried not to think about how it was likely the only thing that stopped him from killing Charlie in his initial rage.

It seemed the facility wasn’t so sloppy that they left significant clues about the spell they used on Charlie’s person. The initial binding was probably built into the summoning circle, and ideally that was all they used. A bit of blood could potentially be enough to shift the binding to a person, and wouldn’t be a sustained effect so could be countered with fairly normal banishment methods.

But they had Charlie’s skin, a living part of zir. They easily could have used a much more intense ritual, one that could kill zir if improperly dispelled.

Alcor slid down the smooth face of the head, transforming it from chair to backrest. He experimentally pushed a trickle of the fire held at Charlie’s chest to an ugly green piece of large flat plastic in front of him, the lid of a tub or something. The plastic bubbled at the fire’s touch, smoking slightly. It wasn’t the most practical method of writing, but it would do.

He divided the lid into quadrants for reasons that definitely weren’t almost entirely aesthetic and had the fire idle in the air as he thought.

Now, if he was a sketchy organization of vaguely competent morons and felt the need to trap a demon inside a child, how would he do it…

Charlie couldn’t move. Well, that wasn’t quite right. Charlie was moving, but couldn't control how. Movement was just happening in zir body, and ze couldn’t change it or make it stop and everything smelled like burnt plastic and hurt and zir heart was starting to race and this was wrong and ze needed to just move-

Charlie’s arm shot out beside zir, pulling zir down with the sudden shift in momentum.

The floor felt good, despite its hard and uneven nature. Lying on zir back, Charlie tried to take in zir surroundings.

There was a white-faced head, several feet tall directly above Charlie. It had large red outlines drawn over its lips and two spatulas over its eyes. Its mouth was open in a mediocre depiction of a smile, the interior eerily smooth with a tiny, highly detailed model of a cathedral placed in it.

Everything ached slightly too much for this to be a dream.

Oh hey, you’re awake.

i mean i don’t think it’s safe to say that we are awake quite yet. waking normally involves like, a bed right? pretty sure there's normally a bed involved

Sleep is kinda my thing, kiddo. Pretty sure I would know if you were still out.

how is sleep our thing we like, never go to bed until-

wait shit fuck

you’re not me! you’re that weirdo from yesterday!

‘Weirdo’? And here I was thinking we were friends.

oh, sorry i didn’t really mean to call you that. you’re just really weird is the thing.

what is this thing and why does it smell fumey?

The head doesn’t matter. It smells like fumes because no one had a pen.

And speaking of pens, you should look at what I was working on before you went and flailed your way to the floor.

Charlie slowly pushed zirself up and looked around. In front of where they had been sitting was a highly charred ex-lid, surrounded by slightly less charred vaguely flat things. The burn marks looked like they could be some kind of alphabet, but their distribution was not at all like any sort of language that Charlie was familiar with.

i have no idea what any of this means.

It means that they’re morons, Charlie!

I have, in less than ten hours, come up with several more effective methods of binding me and controlling us using the resources that they have, and even more allowing the use of resources that they probably don’t. If whoever is behind this had any semblance of competence we would have been way more screwed over than we already were. The whole thing is a shameful display of shoddy workmanship. Can’t believe I got caught up in it honestly.

so you figured out what they did then? Does that mean you can fix this‽

What?

No.

No I did not.

I did, however, figure out quite a few things that they definitely did not do.

does that help us at all?

Well, it doesn’t not help us.

so no then.

Well I have figured out some things that definitely won't work, so if we get to the point that I have to just guess on a reversal process you are a bit less likely to die.

that

is not very reassuring

It’s just the first night. I couldn't even get your input on anything. We’ll figure this out, don’t worry.

you know, i wasn’t actually that worried until right now

Really? You should have been. Did I not mention that you should be worried?

no!

Oh. Well.

I’m a bit of a sponge for energy and if I can’t get out of you soon I might burn through the walls of your psyche and kill you.

Sorry about that.

HOW ARE YOU JUST MENTIONING THIS NOW?

I guess I forgot?

Seemed pretty self evident. What did you think was happening?

i thought you were just stuck!

Huh. Maybe Renee had a point.

you talked to them?

Yeah. Is that a problem?

i kinda wanted to be to one to tell them is all

and

maybe

not quite so soon…

It wasn’t going to stay a secret regardless. Renee already had the basics worked out. She’s pretty perceptive.

they don’t hate me, do they?

What? Why would they hate you?

They’re concerned about you. At least, Renee is.

I’m not quite sure about Vin, but he definitely doesn’t hate you.

what did you guys talk about?

We talked about lots of stuff. Some of it you. Most of it not. I’ve been informed that apparently I’m being an ass, for which I apologize, I guess.

you guess you apologize?

This is a very frustrating situation for me, and I think I’ve probably been taking it out on you. I’m not really trying to, but I don’t really have much in the way of outlets right now.

this is the single shittiest apology I’ve ever heard

Well I haven’t exactly had to do this in a while, okay? You’re the first person I’ve spent more than an hour or two with in decades! I didn’t ask for this. I was doing just fine staying away from people managing my sheep, okay?

Okay, two things:

I didn’t ask for this either! You keep acting like the fact you didn’t cause this means that nothing you do is your fault and I’m sorry that this is inconvenient to you or whatever but this is my life and I am not just some obstacle that you need to work around.

You have sheep?

Yes they’re my-

I didn’t say you were an obstacle.

you don’t say a lot of things.

and you don’t really need to explain or defend yourself here. i know that this is hard for you. i know you have reasons. everyone has reasons. that doesn’t make it okay.

Okay I think this might be a good time to talk about boundaries.

do you think lines and veils could work?

When we would roleplay at the home, we had these things called lines and veils to make sure that the game didn’t go anywhere that would make people uncomfortable.

You play DnD and more D?

not if i can help it that system is awful

Excuse me?

What? It is!

By what metric?

By pretty much every metric!

The mechanics are massively overcomplicated to the point that they are alienating, confusing, and generally not fun for any new player. There’s a huge gap between what the various classes are capable of accomplishing, there is literally no reason that anyone should chose a physical combat class; they have very few abilities that are as cool as what a caster can accomplish and get less focus in general. There’s a bunch of non-combat rules, which are again way more complicated than they need to be, but you don’t really get rewarded proportionately for anything done out of combat so there is absolutely no incentive to use them. And it uses way too many dice, making it really hard to intuitively understand the probability curves. And don’t even get me started on the morality system it’s so bad and unnecessary

It also treats humans as the default species and I’m really sick of that in general.

Okay this is bull Dungeons Dungeons and more Dungeons is a fantastic game. Having complicated rules does not mean something is objectively bad.

I think it’s a bad game because it doesn’t accomplish its own stated purpose as a game. It’s a simulationist game but it is a bad simulation. There is a huge divide in what the classes are capable and the text doesn’t really do anything to let the player know that-

What, you want a disclaimer that some builds are weaker than others?

I would love to flip to the beginning of an archetype and just like, see a small note

‘we didn’t really try with this guy at all’

‘sorry about that’

There are whole classes that without absurd powerbuliding can’t match what a simple spellcaster build can do. In order to do anything really dynamic with a physical fighter you need to bring in a new book of rules.

And it has established lore but most editions don’t integrate the fiction and the mechanics very well. Like, Land of Shadows does it better in every possible way. The lore is way more interesting and the classes are built into it in a way that it is hard to make a character without getting a sense of who they are and how they fit into the larger world. The atmosphere comes through even while you are just reading the rules! Some of the simulationist elements aren’t well executed and I’m still not sure how some of the stats work but what it does well it does really well.

And URPS is absurdly better at simulation. It has problems but at least there is a strong push to give your characters flaws. It still has lots of balance issues but it at least has tools for the GM to level the field.

And then there are the minimalistic games! Manuscripts and Maces can do a huge amount of what D3 does and the rules fit on one page! And there's a Powered by the Armageddon variant that has some added complexity but still can fit everything needed for casual play, including class abilities and advancement, on three pages.

Have you actually tried other systems?

Yes, on occasion. I generally don’t like them as much.

And what makes a good game anyway, by your absurdly high standards?

I don’t actually have that high of standards. I like a lot of games! I like trying new games. Everyone just treats D3 as the definitive roleplaying game and I’m so tired of it because there are so many systems that are so much better.

I really like games that can unobtrusively help the group tell a shared story, and D3 fails at this in pretty much every way possible, so I’m not a fan. I like it when the players can determine what the outcome of the dice means, how their characters’ success or failure effects the plot.

I guess I really like to see games that shape the conversation around something other than ‘player tries thing, roles die, GM tells them what roll means, repeat.’

One of my friends recently started a game where she creates the world by asking the players questions about the way the specifics of the world and assigns players to NPC roles when their characters aren’t active, explaining the NPCs motivation and then asking guiding questions about what they do. So she serves more as a delegator of who tells the story when than as the singular Storyteller, and it’s was really fun and

wait this isn’t what we’re supposed to be talking about.

So tell me about lines and veils.

Right. So they were a thing we used to establish boundaries back when we roleplayed at the home. and i was thinking things might be easier to deal with everything if i just think about it like it’s a really weird campaign.

like you’re just some annoying guy playing the conjurer gathering the next table over who can’t keep his opinions to himself.

Excuse me?

sorry. i wasn’t trying project that.

i’m still not quite clear on the line between talking thinking and thinking thinking.

anyway.

A line is something that absolutely cannot be crossed. It does not happen, it is not talked about, it might as well not exist.

A veil is similar, but less extreme. It is something avoided. It can be brought up but not in detail. You can vague blog about it, basically.

I would like to put a line on you taking over completely like you were when we started. Without warning or explanation. I don’t really want to think about that as something that is possible.

Makes sense. Anything else I should know about?

Lines and veils are useful in that they can be brought up whenever. I can have trouble thinking about things that might come up and be a problem, but it’s really easy to draw a line when things hit to the point where I need one, or even when things are reaching the point that I might soon.

Cool.

I’d like to put a veil on you shittalking DDamD.

I’m being serious!

So am I. Dead serious. I don’t wanna hear it.

I’m not saying that you can’t have fun playing it, just that it has bad game design. One of the funnest games I ever played was so badly written that I accidentally made what was functionally a trickster god. It was a lot of fun! It was still awful game design.

I’m serious I don’t want to go into this.

Fine.

sheep. what’s up with that?

They’re my familiars. I like them, they’re interesting without being as complicated as people. Why are you so interested in this?

I like animals. and you don’t really come off as the sort of person who does.

…

is something up?

It just occured to me that they aren’t going to be happy with this happening again.

I’m really not looking forward to that conversation.

This has happened before?

Not like, this this no. I’ve had… other things come up that cause me to go MIA for a bit.

They...

They get pretty pissy when I disappear without telling them first.

I can’t blame them too much though, considering they would die pretty quick without me, but...

I could really live without getting lectured by my own familiars.

This is easier than people are?

Well, they would actually back down if I told them to and meant it.

I just don’t, normally.

It’s good for them to get it out of their systems.

You know, I kinda feel that if you, with your ‘leveling a forest as an act of restraint’ self, actually meant it then most people would probably back down-

“Is everything alright in there?”

Charlie jumped at Renee’s voice, and turned around.

yes?

“I mean,” Charlie stuttered, “yes? Is there some reason that there wouldn’t be?”

“It just looked like things were pretty heated for a moment there.” Renee said. “I wanted to make sure he was acting reasonably. Did he apologize?”

“A sincere attempt at an apology was made, I think.” Charlie covered zir mouth with zir hands. “No it wasn’t that, we were just talking about roleplaying games. He has really bad opinions about rpgs.”

Excuse me!

“Oh sorry,” Charlie said loudly, hands dropping to zir sides. “He sure does have opinions about things that no statement of judgement will be made about. Let’s talk about something else.”

“How about breakfast?” Vin asked. “We have a wonderful assortment of aging nutrition bars steadily stockpiled over the past few months. Just like your ol’ kidnappers used to make.”

He enthusiastically gestured at a bowl, set on a crumbling plaster dinosaur skull, containing six identical unwrapped tan bars.

Charlie cautiously took a bar. It was a stale sort of soft, as if the proteins holding it together collectively decided to give up on the whole endeavor.

“Oh, number three. An excellent choice,” Vin said, fanning his fingers and wings. “That one’s food flavored!”

Charlie nibbled on its end. It was… edible. There were not many other traits that could be attributed to it. Even Vin’s statement of ‘food flavored’ seemed a tad generous.

“So what’s going on with all this anyway?” Charlie was sitting curled up, resting zir hands on zir raised knees. “There’s just a random secret medical facility giving kids random inherently magical abilities? That seems pretty weird.”

“I would hesitate to call it random.” Renee put her palms together and momentarily closed her eyes. “They are very focused on the Sight, specifically in regards to scrying the future. Despite the fact that I never manifested any discernible futuresense, it was always the first thing they enquired about during our… evaluatory sessions.

“I always made an effort to obfuscate the full extent of the abilities I had gained, but if I’m being entirely honest it was probably unnecessary; I never got the sense they were invested in what I could do after they managed to determine that I hadn’t magically acquired the ability to sense the future.” She intently inspected her nails, systematically cleaning them with each other with forceful scrapes to their undersides. “They simply wanted to figure out if anything they had done had resulted in any major changes so they could figure out what to try next.”

“It was a very different experience than what Vin described going through.” She finished, interlocking her fingers tightly.

“Hey, they weren’t just interested in my future junk.” Vin interjected. “They were very into my healing factor.”

Charlie tilted zir head. “Healing factor?”

“A healing factor,” Vin explained, “being a factor where you heal. Just like Wolverine, or Ms. Marvel, or Dead-.”

“Isn’t a wolverine an extinct Australian rodent?” Charlie asked.

“What? No.” Vin said. “I mean, maybe, but the Wolverine I’m talking about was like, a human dude. Well, a fake almost-human dude.”

“Why are you assuming that Charlie, or anyone really, would understand a reference to your ancient media?” Renee asked.

“I mean, ze could. There were thousands of people that frequented that board.”

“So, around a ten thousandth of a percent chance that Charlie would be one of them.” Renee said. “I suppose with odds like those there really was no way to resist derailing the conversation.”

She paused before adding “Anyway, wolverines were from New Zealand and were associated with demons, which would probably explain their ‘fake almost-human dude’ counterpart having magic.”

“Are you sure about that?” Charlie asked. “It doesn’t sound right.”

No, that is definitely accurate.

“You’re damn right she’s wrong!” Vin puffed his feathers a little. “Wolverine isn’t magic, he’s a human who had special chunk of DNA made by aliens millions of years ago activated, giving him powers that strongly resemble magic, but are actually science because those two things are totally not at all the same.”

“Yes this is definitely a thing that matters.” Renee sighed. “Could we possibly get back to the topic at hand?”

“No.” Vin’s crest fell. “The topic at hand blows. You know what is so much cooler than me being able to regenerate? Someone who doesn’t actually exist being able to, at least until he got sick and then became the ultimate dad guy. Especially since that brings us to Kamala! Who also has a healing factor, although she is a completely different kind of almost human, albeit still via ancient alien shenanigans. Like, we could be talking about a universe where a planet-eating dude was stopped with the powers of squirrels and you want to talk about my stupid shit? They only cared about the healing thing was because the future vis would be pretty worthless without it.”

“Wait,” Charlie crinkled zir face. “How does regeneration affect your sight at all?”

“It doesn’t technically. But if you want to make someone look at something stupidly bright more than once then it comes in handy.” The feathers on his tail fanned slightly. “Probably was also helpful for speeding up all the shit they wanted to do with my eyes. I don’t know, you’d have to ask Renee, iris I could blindly speculate on her level but I’m just a pupil.”

“Heh.” Charlie carefully inspected the wall of the cave. “That sounds... not good.”

“Was that not the answer you were looking for? I’m sorry to make a spectacle of the past, but eye am not quite vitreous enough to retina this go.”

Charlie covered zir mouth, trying to stifle zir awkward giggle. “So you think this might be about some really bright thing in the future then?”

Why do you keep doing that?

“Presumably yes.” Renee’s shoulders relaxed slightly. “I’m assuming that they are trying to determine the precise nature of the final blackout.”

doing what?

“The what?” Vin asked.

Covering your mouth whenever you say something.

Renee’s arms dropped slack as she turned to stare at him. “The final blackout. As in, the infamous future point that all scrying stops at. Are you honestly telling me that at no point, in all your time at the flapping bee did it occur to you to netsearch anything along the lines of ‘scrying future blinding light’? I understand that you have never bothered keeping up with current events but we’ve known about this for centuries.”

that

i cant talk right now but i want to and if i cover my mouth the words are less real so i can

“I don’t like thinking about this shit when I don’t have to.” Vin shrugged his wings. “I’m not going to spend my free time getting balls deep into all the fuckery I’m trying to escape.”

That makes literally no sense.

Thanks I hadn’t noticed that in the all these years of being the only person who does this.

“The final blackout?” Charlie finished zir bar and put zir hand over zir mouth again. “Isn’t that the reason they’re making that huge machine?”

“Ah yes,” She put her palms together, “the Great Machine of Everline Eves. Although it certainly does contain the potential to explain the blackouts, for some reason not everyone is willing to trust it with the entire future. The minor dark spots it has produced have corresponded perfectly with historical records, which is a good sign, but there are so many unknowns that many people would go to great lengths to try and determine the outcome of its primary activation, or if it will even manage to get properly activated without sabotage. And apparently these lengths include experimental magic on sapient beings.”

“Sabotage? Why would anyone sabotage it?”

“The Great Machine,” Renee’s eyes closed, “was designed to explain the blackouts in that it would be the cause of them. The nature of the final blackout, however, means that anything could happen beyond what the machine is supposed to do. The final stage of its activation could easily cause, or happen concurrently with, some massive disaster, and possibly one that would only happen because of the machine’s creation. There are people worried that the blackout is a catastrophic informational paradox and that, were we to simply leave it alone, the future would shift to something more normal.”

Her hand rotated around her wrist. “There are also people who think that the whole thing’s a front for something much more sinister, but considering the size of the project, along with the diversity of groups working on it and the rather astounding degree of transparency they are holding themselves to, I personally doubt that this is the case. I would not be surprised at all to find that there are other projects in the works that plan to take advantage of the timing of the blackout - I would actually be rather surprised if there weren’t - but I think it is reasonably safe to take what we know of the Great Machine at face value.

“There is also opposition by those who don’t trust a state - or really anyone - with the machine’s projected capabilities. And considering the things I have personally undergone by the hands of a supposedly highly regulated non-governing organization, I’m rather inclined to agree - it will theoretically be producing enough energy that the only reasonable emergency heat sink is to convert it into matter, which is to my admittedly limited knowledge of advanced physics an absolutely preposterous amount of power.”

“Personally undergone? You know who is behind the facility?” Charlie leaned forward. “Are we entering the paranoid ramble zone?”

“It’s almost certainly the Supernatural Control and Disaster Prevention Taskforce. I really wouldn’t consider that a paranoid theory considering what we’ve witnessed.”

“Didn’t the Taskforce do something sort of like this like a century ago?” Charlie shifted zir gaze to the floor. “I thought that they wouldn’t be able to do anything like it again after journalists discovered that they had been doing experiments on souls.”

“Because if there is one thing history has taught us it’s that once a powerful organization is caught doing something they shouldn’t they sincerely apologize, stop at once, and make sure to do everything they can to ensure the victims recover and can thrive in their lives.”

“Aren’t people supposed to be like, watching for something like this though?” Charlie leaned back again.

“The problem with that is they are currently the only organization with the authority to possess knowledge about anything demonic, and they also are the ones who have the power to classify things as demonic. This means that they can easily make any investigation an internal affair, and amazing rarely find themselves guilty of doing anything impermissible.

“There has actually already been an incident since the infamous Incident 51 where various magical experiments were uncovered. There were about two hours between it being made public and the taskforce finding evidence of demonic interference, closing off the scene from all external investigators and determining that the whole thing was the fault of a suspiciously well funded ‘crime syndicate’, despite there being no apparent method of extracting profit from the arrangement.”

“Oh god you got her started,” Vin said.

She shot a quick glare at Vin before continuing. “I do sympathize with the hope that the institutions that have power over us also have our best interests in mind and that any major deviation on their part from that is, at its root, a misunderstanding or a mistake, but from a historical perspective there is nothing surprising that has occurred here. Unethical experimentation has been being conducted on non-humans since the transcendence, and on supposedly undesirable humans for even longer. And experiments are just the beginning; forced sterilization, deliberate failure to do anything about major health risks, turning a blind eye to corporations effectively poisoning air, water, or soil of an area or just directly poisoning it themselves; the list goes on, and every time it’s discovered it’s treated like some shocking and unheard-of event before being deliberately covered up or, more frequently, just getting forgotten about. And that’s assuming that a decent number of people even care when it is discovered, which is frequently not the case.”

“She managed to get all news from the past century blocked for the both of us.”

“Why are you complaining about that when you spent the vast majority of your time engaging in millenia forgotten media? It took six months and me pointing it out for you to even notice!”

“I liked not giving a shit to be a choice.” Vin put his palms up. “When someone else prevents you from giving a shit it’s this whole different thing and it sucks.”

“Not to be a bother,” Charlie said, still looking at the floor, “but is this all the food you guys have? What are you planning on doing once it runs out?”

“Unfortunately it is.” Renee said. “Originally the plan was to find a small town, one with a bit less surveillance than a city would have, and, well, acquire supplies as needed until things blew over a bit.”

“Originally? What happened?” Charlie pushed zir knees up to zir chest and leaned forward, nose falling into the crack between zir legs.

Renee looked upwards, tracing around her ear with a hand. “A serious failing in foresight on my part. It turns out that we have been reclassified as A Class nonhumans, so our magical signatures will trigger a high alert, and we can’t do anything to hide that.

She pulled her fingers into a fist, pressing her nails against her ear. “This really should not have been a surprise; there is certainly historical precedent for such a thing.” She relaxed, arms falling to her sides. “I guess I just thought that maybe they wouldn’t bother with such things. We are fairly harmless, after all, and… I guess I just wasn’t prepared to deal with this large an obstacle.”

“We can always go hunting.” Vin puffed his chest out. “Eat animals like early man!”

“What‽” Charlie exclaimed. “Thats disgusting.”

Vin cocked his head. “Where do you think meat comes from?”

“A factory? We took a tour of a production plant before, they’re really cool. And animal-less.” Charlie frowned. “Anyway how would we even get the animals? I can’t run a deer down.”

“I’ve read all about trap making. Most of the stuff I read is from before we could grow meat so I’m pretty sure the authors knew what they were talking about.” Vin looked up, “but digging a big-ass pit does sounds pretty hard. We should probably go for something smaller than deer... Bread’s basically made from crickets, right?

“I think cricket flour still has some plant flour in it.” Renee said. “But there are lots of plants out, we could probably figure out some sort of substitution.”

“Don’t you kneed an oven to make bread?” Charlie asked. “Where could we go that would have an oven? And for that matter, since the small town thing didn’t work out, where are we going to stay? I don’t think it’s safe to stay this close to the facility, is it?

“My vote is still on going to the moon.” Vin said. “They’ll let you do anything on the moon.”

“Because if there is anything I want in this life it’s to live in a medical observatory,” Renee said.

“Hey I don’t care if doctors want to check my vitals or whatever. I’m fine so long as they keep their scalpels to themselves.”

“And how would you know that the moon isn’t just as bad as here?” She crossed her arms.

Vin leaned back. “I got a good friend who lives on the moon.”

“And they knew all about your predicament, yes?”

“Oh come on.” Vin rolled his eyes. “The moon doesn’t have people carefully monitoring all communication to hide some massive experiment thing. They let people off the moon. She’s taken like, three trips here and wants to visit me each time but I’ve always told her I’m too sick and man she’s going to think I just fucking died isn’t she.”

“Okay, even assuming the moon is what it seems,” Renee shook her head slightly, “and ignoring the glaring question of how in all the small gods we would get to the actual moon, why do you think that they wouldn’t just send us back the moment we encountered someone? It isn’t like they lack computers on the moon.”

“Yeah but like half the moon is in some weird ass demon cult and it ain’t even a secret.” Vin paused. “Weird as in really fucking chill to be clear here. They wouldn't give a shit about us. They’d probably figure if we were too big a threat the patron demon of the moon would eat us or some shit.”

“Doctors and demons? You are really selling this place.”

“Okay look-” Vin’s eyes went wide. “Shit something’s wrong. We need to get out.”

Renee closed her eyes and concentrated. “You’re right. They're coming fast. I got careless… Should have been watching…”

“Let’s play the blame game later.” Vin’s puff level was rapidly approaching the chart’s edge. “We need to get out.”

They ran out of the cave. Around the entrance, spread out in a wide semicircle, was a wall of security guards. They had guns. They had dogs. They had other, harder to identify things.

The barking was coming from a dog at the head of the circle. Two people stood adjacent to it. Both apparently human, fair skin and worried expressions. The tall one was wearing a different kind of outfit from everyone else in the area. Less military. The short one was wearing the same militant style as the rest, but slightly fancier.

The kids stopped in the cave’s entrance. Renee was frozen, staring fixated at the holstered gun of the fancy guard.

The lead dog was excited, straining at its leash.

“Oh my god. That’s what a dog is?” Vin said. “It’s so big! I thought dogs were only supposed to be like chest height.”

Renee blinked and broke her eyes away from the distant gun. “Vin, you're barely over chest height. Is… is this really the most important thing to be worried about right now?”

“As opposed to what? So we’re boned, it isn’t like this was ever actually going to work.”

I think that I should front now.

what are you going to do there are so many of them

The tall one was talking. The words surrounded Charlie like an ocean, a vast pressure as unbearable as it was meaningless.

I’ll get them out of our way.

is this just another continuation of ‘My offer to kill them still stands?’

They have enough warding and general protection that many of them could easily get out with only third degree burns.

i’m not going to just let you kill a bunch of people

I just said I would probably be largely maming.

And why is this a problem? These are not good people. They aren’t going to just let you go. They literally kidnapped you to perform dark magic. They done things that are just as bad to Renee and Vin for years, and we have no reason to think that you are the only ones.

People who are dead or hospitalized can’t perform unethical experimentation.

i don’t think these are the people who are performing the experiments though

Well I can kill them after I figure out how to get me out of you.

i dont want you to kill anyone

I don’t exactly need your permission

I know. But you’d be crossing a line, and that would be your choice, not mine.

Fine.

I will do what I can to get us out of this situation through the least efficient method possible and avoid doing anything I have a good reason to suspect would seriously harm or kill any of the people who would kill you in an instant if they thought it would make their lives easier, ignoring how this will definitely ensure that is exact same problem happens again.

Are those satisfactory terms for you?

if you did kill them they would just send other people and everything would escalate but that doesnt matter now and

okay

what you said is fine let’s do this.

Charlie took a deep breath, or at least a breath that was significantly slower and deeper than zir previous breaths, and tried to relax.

Ignore the near future, ignore the vivid memory of helplessness of paralysis of -

Ze took another breath. It was even less qualified to be called deep than the previous one.

Ignore the guns. It should be easy, as they were quite small. Inconspicuous. Easily hidden and easily capable of being missed so there were probably way way more than ze could see except why would there be that wouldn’t matter you really only need one don’t you?

Zir body took a step forward.

wait no what are you doing they have guns i don’t want to die

If they were planning on shooting us they already would have.

I’m just going to talk to them a little, and then I’ll try to scare them off, okay?

okay that is makes fine sense

it okay im okay with it this is finefinefine

Right. I think I’m going to ignore you until this is over.

“No drones this time?” Alcor asked, stopping a few steps from the entrance.

“I have no desire to have a repeat of last night’s disaster, no,” said the tall person.

Unlike Alcor, who was managing to stand larger than Charlie truly was, they didn’t carry their height well. They were lanky and stood lightly slouched and leaning onto their left side. Their dark purple hair spiraled around the top of their head in a tight braid. Dark bags hung under their slightly squinted eyes.

Alcor took another step forward. The lead dog’s barks became frantic, triggering an avalanche of noise from the rest of the pack. No longer excited for the hunt it turned in tight circles, torn between the need to defend and the need to flee.

The guard in the fancier uniform drew their weapon.

“You do realize,” Alcor said, “that if anything happens to this child things are going to get very bad for you very quickly, right?”

“Right,” the guards’ partner said. “Because you care deeply about the welfare of children.”

“Is something arbitrarily deciding to like kids really any stranger than an animal abandoning the drives formed from millions of years of evolution pushing them to put the care of children above many of their own physical needs?”

“I’m not getting into a debate about morality with you of all entities.”

“And I don’t care what you think. Now, let’s move on from wasting each other’s time. I’m going to give you the opportunity to leave, right now, without anyone getting hurt.”

“If you actually care about the wellbeing of that child at all, you’ll come with us.”

“Really.” Alcor’s voice was liquid oxygen, unfathomably cold and poised to combust.

“Your present situation is incredibly unstable. If you leave, the child will die. This was never supposed to be a long-term system. If you come with us we can reverse the ritual before any more damage is done.”

“Oh, so the child you forced me into can live zir life with only mild psychological scarring.” Alcor’s glare intensified. “How generous of you. And all the other people you’ve abducted? The ones with the nerve to have long term schemes committed on them?”

“I’m sure that we can come to some sort of agreement to-”

“Some kind of agreement?” He exploded. “Just because you strip someone of their agency doesn’t mean their life is yours to give. If you want something enough to demand my attention you need to face the consequences of your actions.

“I don’t trust you. I don’t think you intend to follow through with anything you have claimed. I don’t think you have ever actually done anything like this ritual before. I don’t think that you are going to be willing to just let me leave. And even on the off chance it actually is your intention, I don’t think that you actually have the knowledge to follow through.”

Blue fire quite literally exploded around him. “And I have better things to be doing than wasting my time talking to you.”

With a quick gesture the fire burst shot away from him, forming a barrier around the cave entrance. Even at the farthest point from it, the fire’s heat still hit Renee and Vin like a truck.

Alcor spun around.

“Renee, we don’t have much time before they realize that the effects of the fire are almost purely psychological. You need to cast an illusion over us.”

“What?” She shuddered at his voice. “Right. But… The dogs. I can’t do smells. Not highly sensitive ones.”

“Don’t worry about the dogs. They aren’t anywhere near well trained enough to be willing to follow me if I don’t want them to. Just give us the same sort of cover you were last night.”

“Okay. Cover. Yes. I can do that.” She put her hands to her forehead.

“Vin, where do we need to go.”

“I… I don’t know! Why are you asking me?” Vin’s neck was pulled back and puffed out.

“All you need to do is listen to your intuition.” Alcor’s voice was level but sharp. “Where do you think it would be a good idea to go?”

“Not here?” He scratched the ground with his claws. “The moon? I can’t-”

“Vin.” Renee said slowly. “The cave is part of a system. Do any of the tunnels feel particularly auspicious right now?”

“Nothing feels auspicious right now!” He said, compressing into himself. “We don’t even know there is an out. We don’t know where any of the tunnels even go, or that they even go anywhere.”

“Vin, you’re panicking, try to calm down.” Renee gently stated.

“What? Panicking? I hadn’t noticed!” he said, looking more like concerningly hairy peach than anything else. “Calm down, god you’re just so brilliant aren’t you. Why didn’t I think about that? How did I ever manage to continue existing long enough to meet you and your amazing knowing skills?”

“Okay,” Alcor gripped at Charlie’s bangs, “we don’t actually need any amount of magic luck right now. There were enough branches that even if just pick one at random and if it doesn’t go anywhere it will probably be fine. Let’s just get out of the circle of armed guards .”

“They’re going to put up surveillance around the entrance.” Vin’s words ran together. “We’re not going to be able to get out again. This isn’t going to work this was never going to work.”

“It doesn’t matter right now if they block off this entrance, okay?” Alcor snarled. “We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”

“Can everyone please stop shouting.” Renee said, aggressively calmly. “it is very hard to concentrate.”

Alcor took a deep breath. “I’m. Sorry. Let’s just go. I can pick a way. It doesn’t matter.”

He took a few steps towards the cave. Renee quickly slithered to his side. He did not hear the sounds of other footsteps.

“Vin.” He said. “We’re going.”

The absence of a response drove into his temple like a pin.

Clenching Charlie’s jaw he turned around.

Vin was still.

Looking away.

Possibly breathing.

“Vin.” Alcor walked towards the frozen avian.

Vocally afar. “Drop the fire.”

“What.”

No inflection. “Drop it now.”

Alcor.

Alcor dispelled his fire.

The facility staff were a mess. No longer a impassive wall but a swarm of ants, they scurried around driven by their own tasks. The dogs were abandoning any pretence of obedience, straining their leashes, scratching the ground, frantically barking, anything they could to get away get out get anywhere else. As the fire evaporated to nothing so did the action - purpose petering away to uncertainty.

“Well,” said the tall person. “That was... convenient.”

“Should we keep going, Doctor?” Asked one of the identically dressed guards, looking up from the elaborate triangle of runes they were finishing.

“No.” The doctor sighed. “All it would do at this point is disable our own equipment. Can anyone get the dogs under control at all? I don’t want to think about the logistics of tracking someone with foresight without them.”

“So we’ve lost them again,” said the short one.

“Basically.”

“You know Dana, that was pretty much the worst negotiation attempt I’ve ever seen,” they continued.

“Why thank you, Gonzales.” Dana said pinching the bridge of their nose. “Here I was thinking everything went smashingly.”

Renee moved her lower torso around Vin and Alcor, hugging them too her. “Should we be leaving?”

Vin drooped over, steadying himself on her lower torso.

“Generally,” Gonzales continued, “you don’t want to actively antagonize someone who has what you want.”

“And generally you don’t send someone with no experience and only a crash course for training into the field, and yet here I am.”

Alcor quietly answered Renee’s question. “Let’s see if we can learn anything useful. Should be fine unless one of them trips over us.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be an expert?” Gonzales asked. “Didn’t you have to do something like this to graduate?”

“I majored in math. I move numbers around. I ask people in a lab for more numbers if I’m feeling really adventurous.” They looked down. “There are only a few hundred people with formal and legal experience with this on the planet. And for some reason none of them could be convinced to get dragged into all this bulls… these bulls.”

Gonzales laughed. “Highly professional. Minor swearing is definitely the line you need to draw.”

“If you can find something in the employee code of conduct against ranting in the woods I’d love to hear about it.”

The other guards had given up on even pretending to do anything useful. Some were paying attention to the conversation between Gonzales and Dana, most were milling about, splitting off and talking amongst each other.

“Seriously though, what the hell are we supposed to do from here?” Gonzales asked. “I don’t imagine that you’re going to be able to diplomatically convince them to come along with us when we finally find them again.”

“Now we admit that we aren’t qualified to handle this and get the higher ups to send someone who is before everything gets even worse.”

A cloud of sharply artificial citrus scent filled the area, emanating from a vaping guard.

Gonzales shook their head. “They aren’t going to like that.”

“Well I don’t think I’d like dying either so they can deal with it.”

“Are you sure it’s really that big of a deal though?” Gonzales asked with little certainty. “They’re just a bunch of kids, at least physically. Can’t we just tranq em?”

“Do you know how to judge the appropriate amount of sedative needed to safely subdue a child suffering a completely unique and physically degrading condition without having any way to know in advance how it has affected their body?” Dana snapped. “While their magical signature is a fluctuating garbled mess?”

“Okay, point taken.” Gonzales flicked some dirt from their nails. “So what actually happens if the child dies, anyway? How confident are we that he can actually deliver on his threat?”

“If the child dies he will be released and will absolutely kill us,” Dana said without hesitation.

“Not to be morbid,” Gonzales said, “but if he’s as dangerous as you say, why hasn’t he killed us already?”

“That’s hard to say.” Dana sighed. “We are dealing with one of the most notoriously unpredictable entities ever. If I had to guess, I would say that either he is hoping that we’ll tell him how to undo the ritual, exerting enough power to actually get past our wards would be too potentially harmful to the child, or he has some sort of agreement with one of the children that’s staying his hand.”

“Not to imply that I know better than those above,” Gonzales crossed their arms, “but why the actual fuck would you do your trial run on a notoriously unpredictable entity?”

“Because the predictable outcome is that everyone involved dies very quickly.”

“So fuck the why are we… would anyone do this at all?”

“Why would you hire on an expert and ignore everything they say? Why would you use experimental magic to achieve what is functionally the same effect as one of the oldest rituals we know about? Why would you do anything in this absolute hurricane of errors that lead to this goddamn shitstorm?” Diane flicked her arms up. “Because theoretically this method would give us unprecedented control in a situation where the power dynamic is normally out of our favor. Because it looks good on paper. Because despite not knowing a nightmare from a high fae, a couple bureaucrats clearly know what is best in every circumstance that they would never think to dirty their hands in actually bringing to life.”

“Did that help at all?” Gonzales asked. “You feeling any better?”

Dana pressed her eyes into her palms. “Not even a little.”

“You wanna get some drinks tonight?”

“I think I’m going to be ears deep in the headache of trying to explain that sending someone actually qualified to take care of your mess is more important than trying to keep anyone who will understand exactly how severely and preventably you messed up from finding out.”

“You want to get some drinks anyway?”

“I don’t know.” Dana rolled their head back. “Maybe. Probably. Something so sweet I won’t be able to feel my teeth.”

“So,” one of the other guards asked, “we done here or what?”

“I was kinda hoping that the illusion would pass and we would get some footprints or something to work with, honestly.” Dana sighed. “The combination of farsight and illusions makes it a bit farfetched, but... ugh.”

“You think it’s worth it to keep the place guarded?” Gonzales asked.

“Not really. The caves here are a labyrinth and they have foresight. We’re not going to just stumble across them while they are actively avoiding us, and frankly even if we did there isn’t much of a point until we have an actual plan better than hoping that his desire to keep a random kid alive and wellish remains strong enough for him to keep tolerating us.”

The facility staff meandered off. Presumably to return to their bunker, and finish off their assigned duties. Afterwhich they would, presumably, get smashed and say regrettable things to their superiors only to wake up the next day and find the only thing that they would take back was that fifth plate of cheese curds.

In a less hypothetical moment Renee was relaxing, slightly, letting her torso distance itself from her companions. Vin was pushing himself upright again, shaking his head as if a strong enough physical movement could displace the heavy pressure that filled it.

Looks like we’re done here, I’m going to take back seat again.

Charlie?

Are you ready to front again?

sure

Charlie?

Are you okay?

sure

Really?

Sure .

Okay then...

I’m going to let go now.

Charlie’s body shifted. Ze wasn’t expecting it, had heard what Alcor said but the words couldn’t be translated into action, into a future. The movement was not surprising, however; it was simply happening. Something had to happen and there was no reason it shouldn’t be this.

Someone was talking to zir.

It was Renee. She was saying too much and too fast for Charlie to process it all.

She wanted to know if ze was in control.

She wanted to know if ze was okay.

She wanted Charlie to know that she was sorry for other people doing things she had no control over.

Was ze in control? Charlie’s arm moved. It followed a mental command, with slight resistance from the upper arm where the sweater that had been stolen for zir was clinging to the sweaty skin. Lower, the cloth was loose and bunched, as there was more cloth then there was arm space, so the cloth rested on itself in folds on folds on folds.

Renee was talking again. She was concerned.

It occurred to Charlie that she was probably expecting an answer.

The arm didn’t feel like it was part of Charlie. It was its own distinct object, with significant physical distance between it Charlie.

Everything was far away from where Charlie was. Charlie was unsure where they thought they were, but the uncertainty was fine. Most things were fine.

The arm slid to a vertical position, the hand attached to it putting up two fingers in a sign of generalized approval. Everything was to move on its own, not forcefully tugged like Alcor was in control but gently gliding on their own accord, which coincidentally aligned with what Charlie wanted them to do.

Renee didn’t seem to find the given gesture particularly convincing.

Was ze okay? Zir heart rate and breathing seemed normal. Ze didn’t feel upset. Ze didn’t feel much of anything. And that was okay. Therefore ze was okay.

Charlie’s hands couldn’t find a useful gesture to communicate this information.

Renee was talking again. Responding to what Charlie had said. Which apparently meant that ze had words right now. This was probably a good thing.

She wanted to know if ze felt up to moving again. She said that they needed to find somewhere safe.

Charlie stood up. Not quite sure when ze had sat down. Again gave an affirmative gesture. Started walking in the direction that Renee was turned towards.

She was talking with Vin. The words were not aimed at Charlie and filled the area without any meaning to zir. The air felt heavier from the sound, like the words had a physical presence. They caused a pressure to them that the brisk breeze could do nothing to liberate.

The breeze was chilly, cutting straight through the knit fabric of the sweater Charlie was wearing. Zir skin tingled, and the world tingled. Everything was blurred into a single haze with arbitrary things popping into highly detailed focus.

There was a sapling on the side of the path, smooth bark that was an almost-white brown. Already stripped of leaves, one of its two branches torn off and hanging from a stray strip of bark. It swung in the breeze, back and forth and back and forth and back…

Renee really wished she had a plan. She was a little shocked at how calm she was remaining in one’s absence. She had been almost paralyzed earlier thinking about how little she could plan for the inescapable future, but now that it caught up with her she found it surprisingly easy to focus on what little she could do. The things she had to do.

Keep cover.

Keep an eye out.

Keep moving.

The future would keep coming and she would keep doing what she had to.

She suspected that this reaction was, in part, the fault of shock, and that once she reached a place where she could afford to freak out she might. But for now she couldn’t afford it, so she didn’t, instead focusing on moving forward through the woods.

The forest was huge and made of cliffs. They traversed a path a few feet wide, a wall on their right and a steep drop off on their left. A river could be heard somewhere below them, off to the left. Renee wanted to avoid it, if possible. Too flat and exposed. Too large of a chance that they would encounter a drone, that someone would spot her before she could make her illusion work on them, that somehow something would go even more wrong than everything already was.

She also wanted to go to it, was convinced on some deep instinctual level that the water was safety. She wished her brain understood the power of modern technology. Or the fact that half her gills didn’t work.

Vin wanted to go to it for no reason other than having never seen a river before. He wasn’t passionate enough about seeing the river to actually fight her, for which she was grateful, but he had been rather whiny about it. The bickering was strangely relaxing, bringing with it a comforting familiarity. It was almost as if they had never left, like they had never escaped and were just bullshitting each other in their small communal area. It was strange to find comfort in her past, but at least then she had known what she was striving for outside of the vague need to survive, at least then she specific goals to work towards. Even if her solutions had been, at times, highly unrealistic, there had been the feeling of having time to work things out, the luxury of letting things be a problem for her future self.

Well now she was the future self. Now she had to deal with it. And she would, she just had to break it down. This was manageable.

They would need food, or they would die.

They would need shelter, or they would risk getting ill and dying.

They would need to find a way to get Tyrone out of Charlie or ze would die.

And after she solved the problems of the present then they could try and figure out a more long term strategy.

Shelter was the smallest problem presently. The cliffs were still littered with openings, even as far out as they were. They weren’t that warm, but they were dry enough and Tyrone could probably keep things warm while they slept.

Cooking was also not a problem - magic gave ample sources of fire. They just needed something edible. Fall was harvest season, so if they could find a farm they might be able to take plenty for themselves. However they were no signs of an edge of the woods outside of the landfill, which was huge, full of treacherous terrain, and largely without cover. She had to assume that the food bars would run out before they found any convenient replacement source. Foraging while they moved would probably be the best option, but she wasn’t familiar with the local flora and was positive that Vin wasn’t either. She would have to ask Charlie and Tyrone if they knew anything. Charlie probably didn’t, ze grew up in the same area she had, and presumably were mostly familiar with the same subtropic plant life that this place lacked.

She could possibly modify a water-seeking spell to locate food. Experimental magic wasn’t the best solution for a dire situation, but since they still had things they knew to be edible it would at least be easy enough to test, so it was unlikely that it would do anything worse than not work.

And experimental magic brought her back to Charlie.

She had no idea what to do about Charlie.

She wasn’t even sure what Tyrone was. Pyrogeist didn’t seem to fit with what the guards, what Dana - a name she should remember, someone who could become a scapegoat if this became public and could possibly be blackmailed - was saying. Any sort of ghost wouldn’t really make sense with what she understood their motives to be, anyway.

And even if Tyrone got out, they still had Charlie’s skin, which could apparently be deadly. Renee really had no idea on the specifics of how that worked, but it did mean that even if they could get Tyrone out they would have to be very careful.

Then again, if they got Tyrone out he might just kill everyone involved.

Renee wasn’t sure how she felt about that. On one hand, the whole operation absolutely needed to be stopped, but... That was a lot of people. And how many of them were even aware of the full extent of what was going on? They were working in a building that put great effort into looking abandoned, so surely they had to have some idea, right? It was absolutely better them than her, but she still felt rather uncomfortable with the idea of it.

But sometimes the best available outcome is one you’re uncomfortable with. An outcome where everything was shut down by any means possible was still better than one where more children were taken. They didn’t exactly have many options.

And she still didn’t know what to do about Charlie.

“Hey! Renee,” Vin exclaimed, jarring her from her thoughts, “look at that! I think it’s an opossum! A real possum!”

The small animal frozen in a bush that he was pointing at was indeed, to the best of Renee’s knowledge, an opossum.

“Are you going to point out every bit of wildlife that we pass?”

“Probably. But come on! The myth, the meme, the mayhem.” The marsupial huddled away from Vin’s emphatically gesturing hands. “They look a lot less intimidating in reality. It’s pretty cute, actually.”

“Memes aren’t really the best places to get accurate information about animals, you know.”

“Memes are objectively the best places to learn anything. Accuracy is overrated,” Vin said. “Hey do you think I could catch it? It is holding still.”

Renee smiled. “It’s going to flee the moment you move closer.”

“How fast can it be? It’s only like, a foot long.” It fled as he moved a step closer. “Holy shit those things can haul ass! On such tiny legs too. Renee, I think I love opossums? Can we get one please?”

He walked towards where the possum had disappeared into the bushes.

“Who is this ‘we’?” Renee tilted her head. “If you have it in you to domesticate a wild animal I certainly won't stand in your way, but I will have no part in this tomfoolery.”

“I’m obviously talking about Charlie and me.” Vin looked around the ground. “Ze is against eating animals, that’s pretty much the same thing as wanting any potential pet, right?”

Charlie turned towards Vin at the sound of zir name, blinking. Ze was a ways ahead, apparently not having noticed that Renee and Vin had stopped until now.

“Yep.” Vin said. “That right there is the face of someone just dying for some possum love. I gotta do this, Renee. Gotta do it for the kid.”

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I doubt it is still on the ground where you can get at it.”

“Hey Renee?” Vin asked. “Can opossums use knives?”

“Please don’t arm the local fauna.”

“What? I’m not going to give an opossum a knife, they’re blind. It would be crazy irresponsible. You’d need to get them like, a seeing knife dog and those be crazy expensive yo.” He shook his head. “No I’m just asking ‘cause someone went and carved a thing into this tree and if we’ve eliminated the possum that means that there might be actual people around here somewhere.”

“This area is rather remote but people get pretty much everywhere. Can you tell me how old it looks?”

“It looks like a tree with a picture on it. If you want anything more than that you should look at it yourself.”

Renee sighed. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to squeeze through the bushes. Things have been scratchy enough as it is.”

“Shouldn’t you be able to like, shapeshift or some junk?” Vin asked. “I thought naga could turn into almost humans.”

“First of all,” Renee said, “naga are a very diverse group with a wide array of magical abilities. Saying naga can shapeshift is like saying naga have wings ormultiple heads - not a lie per say, but hardly a safe assumption about any specific individual. Secondly: although I am theoretically capable of shapeshifting, I am physically incapable of staying in an alternative form for any length of time. Naga aren’t werewolves - we keep any injuries they might have while shifting, which in my case means that my gil damage gets incorporated into my trachea, and an almost-human without a functional windpipe is about as pleasant to be as an almost-aquatic salamander with only one functional gil set. So it is my lot in life to remain as I am, bound to legglessness and landlocked.”

“Okay that sucks now are you going to look at this jacked up bark or what?”

Renee slivered over the bushes, crushing them under her torso, and looked at the tree in question. Carved deeply and cleanly into the bark were two stars, mirrored on the same horizontal plane. One was about twice the size of the other.

Oh!

Charlie had returned to the group and stood behind Renee.

We’re actually in luck for once. I know that symbol. It’s used by an organization that frequently deals with fugitives to designate the locations of shelters they set up. If we go the direction the larger star is pointing we should be able to find someplace safe.

“It looks like it was covered somewhat recently.” Renee said. “If it were old the cuts wouldn’t look anywhere near as clean.”

“Are stars a normal thing to carve into trees? I thought people normally stuck to their names and dicks and junk.”

“This feels like it would have a very specific meaning to whoever would be in the know.” Renee traced over it with her finger. “It isn’t one I’m familiar with, and since more secretive groups tend to share information in person that’s hardly surprising.”

“It kinda looks familiar to me actually,” Vin said. “Can’t place it though.”

Charlie.

Could you actually tell them what I said? It’s kinda important.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Charlie repeated what Alcor had said. Ze had no idea if it was them talking or Alcor, but the information was shared which is what mattered.

“Right, I know where I’ve seen that symbol before!” Vin snapped his fingers. “This organization wouldn't happen to be a cult, would it? Cause that’s almost identical to the symbol for some demon.”

Renee turned to face Vin. “How do you know that?”

“I wasn’t joking about half the moon being in some cult. My buddy isn’t even part of it but when she’s hosting our convos locally the symbol still pops up every now and again.”

“How come you get to learn things about actual demons but I can’t even read the news? This is utter bullshit.”

“Probably because they knew I wasn’t actually going to try and use that information for anything. It’s not like I know how to summon a demon, just that one exists and that the moon demon apparently likes stars.” Vin shrugged. “Anyway, if he’s vouching for them I’ll trust the weird demon guys.”

“Do I really need to point out how utterly suspicious this is? A demonic cult specifically trying to attract fugitives - people who no one will notice if they go missing - to secluded areas with the promise that no one will be able to find them? Or the similar concerns with someplace as difficult to access and unregulated as the moon.”

“Hey, I also wasn’t kidding when I said the cult was weird in a chill way. They’re less like a cult and more like a slightly too invested fanclub. They don’t kill people, it’s like one of their core tenets. Apparently the demon flips out when it happens. Only it’s permitted to do that, I guess.” Vin shrugged. “Anyway I kinda wanna visit this place and if it was full to the brim of murder cultists I’m pretty sure my intuition would be screaming at me.”

Renee turned to Charlie. “Do you happen to know if this cult would be inclined to keep a stocked pantry in their shelters?”

Generally yeah. Unless someone else was just staying there.

Charlie nodded.

“If we die I’m blaming the two of you entirely.” She said, and slivered toward where the arrow was pointing.

There were actually quite a few trees with the carving on them - each tree lead to another. Eventually the chain terminated at what appeared to be another cliff face. There were five leaves arranged in a star pattern in front of the cliff, with a small rock slightly offset from them in a way that strongly resembled the symbol that led them to it. The leaf strewn ground made the arrangement was quite subtle; if they hadn’t been looking for something they never would have noticed it.

So to cause the door to open you gotta put the rock into the leaf cluster. How long you betting till they figure it out?

I’m guessing Renee refuses to touch anything until she fully analyses the enchantment on the leaves and Vin get’s to distracted by squirrels to try anything.

Charlie nudged the rock onto the leaves with zir foot.

With a hum just on the edge of audible, a rectangle of wall slid backwards and sideways, revealing a large room behind it.

What’d you do that for? That was going to be entertaining to watch.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That really isn’t an answer, you know.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“You should probably try to be more careful when dealing with magic from a largely unknown source,” Renee said. “I could have at least determined the nature of the enchantment before we messed with it.”

See? She was actually prepared to spend the better part of an hour taking apart a simple trigger spell. She probably wouldn’t have even learned what it triggered.

Half the fun of a puzzle is watching others chase dead ends and spend way too long on pointless paranoia. You roleplay, you should know that.

: /

You’re not really as fun to talk to like this.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The room’s interior was large; it could probably reasonably accommodate a troll. It could definitely accommodate three teens. It was fairly sparsely furnished, having a large bed in one corner, a couch, a small shrine, and a small kitchenette taking up roughly a quarter of the space. There was also an open door on the far wall with a squat toilet and no apparent room for anything else behind it.

The door automatically slid shut behind them. If they hadn’t just entered through the side of a cliff they never would have guessed that the room was in a cave. The walls were smooth, and with their pastel yellow paint job they looked every bit like part of a normal building. The wooden floors were dull and slightly warped, the forces of time and use spreading them and pushing them out of alignment. The lack of windows was made up for by large landscape paintings covering the walls. A soft warm glow illuminated the space from recessed lights in the ceiling.

It was cozy, and far more normal than a cave safe house set up by a cult had any right to be.

Renee immediately investigated the shrine. It was positioned on a black dresser that, Renee quickly found, was full of a wide variety of clothing and not any sort of spell reagents or dark paraphernalia. The shrine was a simple one. Inlaid in gold in the center were the same two starred symbol from before, only modified so the larger star had two smooth protuberances that curved around the smaller one. There was a circle of bloodstones around it, with five candles evenly spaced throughout the circle. Two bowls, one empty and one full of water, were positioned on either side of the circle. There was a note under the empty bowl.

“Take what you need,” it read, “and leave an offering if you are comfortable doing so. Freshly cooked food is traditional, but anything crafted or loved can do. Set the offering in the bowl and light the candles. Don’t be concerned if nothing happens, our Star can be a fickle one.

“For as long as the rock is in place, you will be left alone. Put it back as it was when you are ready to move on. You may stay as long as you need, but keep in mind that, if you are pursued, outside of the blessings of our beloved Star there is nothing here to ensure your protection.

“If you have not already, please disable any electronics for the duration of your stay.

“Good luck in your travels, and may the Dreamer’s Star give you his blessings.”

The note was repeated in three different languages.

“Are we actually sure that this is a demon cult?” Renee asked, while rummaging through one of the clothing drawers. “Because I have read things from the circles of small gods significantly more threatening than this.”

There was a small click, and all light was gone, like it were fleeing a well trained seeing-knife dog.

“Hey Renee!” came Vin’s voice. “There’s this button here and I can control the lights!”

“You have a friend who lives on the moon and yet light switches are some remarkable thing?”

“Well you have to admit, it is a very enlightening technology.”

Renee placed her face in her cupped hands as Vin rapidly cycled the lights.

“So. There’s a kitchen.” She said. “One could presume there would be some actual food stored there, correct?”

“Lettuce hope so.”

“You know what else is here?” Renee asked, randomly opening a cupboard and taking note of the neatly stacked pans inside.

“What’s that?” Vin was grinning.

“A door.” Renee pulled a wrapped block of noodles from a different cupboard.

“What, are my puns really that unpalatable?” He headed into the kitchen after her.

Renee stopped in front of the pan cupboard. “The creation of language was a mistake.”

“All this talking when we could be cooking is a missed cake.” Vin picked up the noodles Renee had selected and inspected the packaging.

Renee rooted through the first cupboard and after some consideration grabbed a medium sized saucepan. “Why are you like this?”

“I wish I could tell you, but I donut dough.” He unwrapped the noodles.They were thin and tightly packed together.

“Do you actually have a punny response to everything I might say?” Renee asked, setting the pan on a hotplate sitting on the counter.

“You beater bay leaf I do.” Vin said, and took a bite from the block of noodles.

Vin started coughing, and quickly lost his bite of noodles.

“Wow, I think these were really designed for people with teeth,” he said. “Or maybe just for smaller bites?”

He nibbled more successfully on the edge of the block.

“They’re designed to be cooked first!” Renee cried. “They’re supposed to be soft.”

“Really?” Vin said. “‘Cause these are pretty great honestly. It’s like a stick you can eat, Renee.”

“Noodles are hot and soft and wonderful. Not a dry pointy hellscape in your mouth.”

“A stick. You can eat.” He dramatically spread his wings. “Like nature herself realized the grievous error in her inedible stick agenda and came down in a maelstrom of plants and tiny animals and junk to bless us with the perfect mouthfeel. And you’re telling me that I need to look her in the eyes and spit in her good will and heart with the words ‘no, I’ll take them soft, please’?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s bad for your stomach to eat it raw,” she said, tearing the packaging off of a second block.

“Lots of things are bad for you, Renee. Ignoring everything your doctor has said to live in the woods with a pun-spewing weirdo and a dying possessed kid is bad for you. Sometimes you just gotta look the consequences square in the eyes and do it anyway.”

“Well, I’m cooking mine.” Renee put her noodles in the pot. “And when I’m done you’re welcome to see what noodles are actually supposed to be like.”

Um.

Charlie?

I don’t suppose you are in any way up to actually verbally communicating right now?

Because she didn’t actually put any water in that pot, and I would rather this place doesn’t burn down for several reasons.

…

Charlie silently walked over to the hotplate Renee was using, took the pot, removed the foil spice packet from the noodles, and filled it with water.

“Charlie?” Renee asked, “what are you doing?”

Charlie set the pot back on the hotplate and handed Renee the discarded packaging, pointing purposely at the instructions.

“Oh.” She covered her face with a hand. “I didn’t realize that someone might think to include instructions on something so simple. This would probably be easier if I hadn’t gotten banned from the kitchen so quickly after getting to the foster home.”

“I’ve never been in a kitchen before in my memorable life!” Vin chipped in. “And let me tell you, this kitchen thing is more than living up to all that hype no one ever once gave it.”

“Oh, if I had known that you wanted some kitchen hype I could have told you all about my experience finding a copy of the anarchist cookbook and starting a massive fire,” Renee said. “It was spectacular and only a little traumatizing.”

“Oh wow, edible sticks have nothing on that.” Vin’s crest fell dramatically. “Now I’m disappointed in this whole thing. Thanks Renee.”

“I do what I can.”

The noodles finished cooking fairly quickly. They were a bit gummy and overcooked, but the spice packet covered most imperfections in the overpowering taste of salt.

After eating, inventory was taken, mostly by Renee. The kitchen was stocked entirely with non-perishables. On top of noodles and rice there was dry fruit, canned goods, granola bars, tea, vitamins, and various nutrition powders. There were also dehydrated baking mixes, which seemed a little odd but not any more than the existence of the safehouse in general.

There was clothing for most body shapes and types, and although very little of it seemed new everything was in much better condition than anything randomly found while messing around in a landfill. They didn’t have anything proper for covering Renee’s lower torso, but this was hardly surprising as proper naga skirts had to be carefully tailored to not fall off or make it hard to actually slither places. But it was still nice to have a sweater that fit properly and didn’t smell like mildew.

The bottom drawers of the dresser were full of board games. Alcor was the only one who recognized any of them, so he picked one through Charlie for them to play as they unwound from the day’s earlier excitement and tried to figure out what to do about the future.

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#Transcendence AU #Fic #my shit #Haunted Fic #my fic

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