#not the bad take i was vague-ing earlier just some Thoughts

[rin-enjoyer]

*wanders into the room* anyways i do usually try and meet media at the story its trying to tell. judging mob psycho 100 for not examining capitalism as an economic system wouldn't be a very good faith criticism you know?? and like there's nuance and stuff. maybe i won't include the way the first thor movie depicted the monarchy when rating the actual substance of the film because that wasn't really the intent of director, but i might still examine the implications of such a view on my own time. you know. portraying naruto's world as fucked up is fair game tho because kishimoto really leans into it at first and then just kind of ignores it in the second have??? the wave mission is like. all about systematic oppression and the downfalls of the shinobi system but then the story just forgets about all that and portrays the Exact Same Flavors of event in a positive light so its totally ok man. confounding.

[shiftytracts]

Stop Wanting More, part 1 of 2 (T/M/A fic)

In which season-four Jon tries to quiet his hunger for live statements by gorging himself on paper ones, and Daisy tells him what she used to do when she got shaky between hunts. Part two here.

…For almost ten thousand words (~5.1k in this half, ~4.3 in the other), beeeecause of course I did.

Content warnings:

Disordered eating (mainly of the statement variety, but mentions also the literal kind)

Nausea, and brief descriptions of prior vomiting

Brief but not-ungraphic description of Jon’s (canon) Boneturning incident—so, injury, very mild body horror

Vague discussion of Daisy’s passive suicidality (in part two)

Animal cruelty and death: Daisy talks about hunting rats for sport (in part two)

—

Jon paused the tape recorder, closed his eyes, and tried to breathe. A statement’s second-to-last page was the hardest to get down. The dull ache that had begun under his ribs twenty minutes before now stretched down far enough to converge with the one in his stiff hips. His pulse throbbed in his stomach; he could feel it swell and recede beneath his hand with every beat. Nausea boomeranged up from somewhere under his navel. He reminded himself he could stop for now, finish this later—and, as always, that thought made him feel even colder than the sludge of other people’s fear pooling in his stomach. With his free hand Jon pressed Record again, and turned to 0101702’s final page. Oh, god, there was barely anything on it. Just the rest of this paragraph and then one more. He kept his eyes on the page, didn’t stop speaking its words, but fumbled blindly for another statement with his fingers.

“Knock knock,” Daisy said as she entered. “Christ—you’re still recording?”

In a flash Jon folded his hands on the table, sat up a little straighter, tried to suck in his gut. “Er—”

“Thought you said you were gonna do one more.”

“I’m almost done.”

“You’ve got another one right there.”

“I…” he considered I’m sorry, but then she’d say For what. “I don’t know what to tell you. It is my office.”

“Yeah, and your home,” Daisy scoffed—“and mine. Sort of.”

“D—did you want…? You’re welcome, to. Sit down, or….”

She did, on the arm of his couch. “I know, Jon. That’s not what I meant.”

“Okay.” To show he’d meant his welcome, Jon pushed his chair back from his desk and turned in it to face Daisy. Hopefully she’d remember he couldn’t ask What did you mean.

“I mean, don’t pretend this is work. How many statements have you had today? You don’t think that one can wait til tomorrow?”

Seven? Or would this one be eight. Jon forced himself to exhale out the portion of gut he’d been holding back since she arrived; it hurt too much to keep sucking in anyway. “A lot. I’m just.”

“Hungry, yeah.”

“Even when I’m stuffed I’m hungry.” He snarled a laugh, and set a rueful hand over his stomach like a fig leaf.

At first he’d tried sating the hunger with garden-variety food. That didn’t help much. Way back when he’d first transferred to the Archives Jon had fallen back into the old habit of forgetting to eat—which, yeah, not great, but, it did mean he remembered well how amazing it used to feel to cram down even a stale biscuit after too many hours’ inanition. All the hidden notes he’d found in yogurt and dry toast. He even remembered tearing up once at the taste of a banana, early in 2016. Before that he’d been sure he didn’t like bananas; afterward, for a short while he’d eaten one nearly every day, hoping vainly to recapture the ecstasy of banana after 14-hour fast. No luck, of course. After a few weeks he’d concluded he still didn’t much like banana as final course of healthy lunch. He’d especially disliked peeling them: how sometimes the stems bent without breaking, and the more times you tried the warmer, softer, more flexible they got. How little strings of peel still clung to the banana after you peeled off its main body, like static when you pull off a jumper. Or like the lint it leaves behind on your shirt. And the way bananas bruise, like people do. All these vestiges of its previous life—reminders it had lived to feed itself rather than him.

Since the coma, all people food—er. That was, all food intended for human consumption—tasted like that chase after a faded spark. Cloying and mushy and… organic, reminding him too much of the garden it came from. And the way it landed in his stomach was far worse. The original banana, the one Martin had pressed on him in the Archives in April 2016, had gone down like nectar, ambrosia, manna from heaven, &c.; the ones afterward, like an unwanted dessert always does. (Cloying. Mushy. A biology lesson mildly tapping its watch.) These days, though, eating regular dinner on a stomach empty of other people’s trauma felt like trying to fill up on cake. Not like cake after fourteen hours of nothing; Jon was pretty sure his 2016 stomach would have welcomed that. But like cake at dinner time. When you’re expecting, you know. Dinner. It gave him the brief, fake-seeming energy of a sugar high, and made him sick before it made him full.

Especially when he was otherwise ailing, for some reason? After Hopworth he’d treated himself to a lie down and a sandwich. The rest had helped, but he’d squandered most of the energy it gave him on the effort to keep the sandwich down. At that moment nothing, not even the coffin, had scared him so much as the thought of what it would feel like to throw up when you had only ten ribs on one side. He hadn’t expected losing them to hurt, at least not for long—had expected the rib to flow out of his skin into Jared Hopworth’s hand like an ice cube through water, which in retrospect was stupid given the testimony of Mr. Pryor in statement 0081103, but he hadn’t had time to reread that one beforehand and at the time Jon remembered only that Hopworth didn’t break his victims’ skin when he pulled out their bones. Turned out that wasn’t much comfort: he’d still had to break the ligaments attaching Jon’s ribs to his spine and chest. It had felt like a bad dislocation (four of them, technically), only instead of the feeling of bone pressing on things it shouldn’t there was an equally violating sense of tissue wallowing in holes that shouldn’t be there. He’d had this horror that if he were sick the flesh would crumple and pop where his ribs used to be, like when you try to suck the remaining water out of a near-empty bottle.

A few months after that he’d caught cold. (A point in the still-human column, Daisy had called it.) You know the first day or two of a cold, before the encroaching mucus takes out your ability to smell or taste properly, how innocuous olfactory phenomena like cheddar and laundry soap suddenly become Bad Smells, on par with the olive bar at a posh supermarket? Well, in a similar way, this one seemed to sharpen the dichotomy in his body’s opinions of people food and monster food. His lack-of-ribs had mostly healed by then though, so either vomiting with only ten ribs on one side did not cause the anomaly he’d feared, or, if it did, it hadn’t hurt enough for him to notice it in the cacophony (pucophony?) of other sensations.

(Daisy liked to play on words, so he’d been doing it more lately. This project the Eye seemed happy to help with, though in this case the suggestion arrived in his mind at the exact same moment as a reminder that, technically, the word cacophony can apply to sensations other than sound only by synecdoche.)

And then, a few weeks ago, when the whole Archives went down with norovirus… well, it wasn’t a fun time. He’d at first mistook the lethargy, weakness, trouble concentrating for signs of hunger—the new kind of hunger. Ms. Mullen-Jones’ statement about the Divine Chains cult hadn’t seemed all that bad, when he’d first recorded it. Scarier than if he’d read its events in a novel, of course; that was just how statements worked. He experienced them more vividly than stories, though less so than the events of his own life. (Because the people they happened to thought they were real! he’d told himself when he first took this job. It’s empathy, that’s all. Nope, sorry—evil magic.) When he read a paper statement these days, though, the knowledge it wouldn’t give him nightmares never quite left him. And he’d thought he was growing desensitized to the kinds of horror most people came to the Institute to report. Coming back up, though—maybe it was the fever, but god, the visions he got on that statement’s way out, of Agape and the soft, sticky hivecorpse of Claude Vilakazi’s followers—the way it made the donut he’d shoved down that morning (in a show of team spirit, god help him) come back up tasting like rotten rice wine—it was worse than the dreams. Worse, he could have sworn, than even the first time he ever dreamt Naomi Herne’s empty graveyard.

While hanging over the bowl of the Archives’ toilet waiting to see if he’d got it all up or if there was still more to come, Jon remembered thinking again of the banana Martin had given him. A few days earlier Daisy had made him watch the video of the I don’t understand this meme and at this point I’m too afraid to ask man vore-ing a banana; Jon had confessed to her, in a conspiratorial whisper-laugh, that for him vore itself had been one such meme until that very second, when the Eye had seen fit to inform him. But when applied to a banana, the term apparently just meant eating it peel and all. In 2016 Martin had broken the banana’s stem and pulled back a section of peel before handing it to Jon, so as to brook no argument. Was it really the banana itself he’d cried over? Not the gesture of friendship, when Jon deserved it so little? The thought of someone caring for him enough that when he got hangry at them they handed him a snack. Martin had been living in the Archives then, like Jon did now. Sleeping in Document Storage—a guest in a room owned by pieces of paper. Those bananas may have been the only thing that felt like his.

A Guest for Mr. Spider was about vore, technically. Not an uncommon topic in children’s literature. Some surmised that was where the fetish came from, though others maintained kinks like that were inborn, and the stories merely alerted their hosts to them for the first time. Red riding hood, three little pigs, little old lady who swallowed a fly. The Leitner touch was only the part where he drew you to his real-life lair and real-life ate you.

Looking back, that was probably the first thing he’d ever admired about Martin—how easy he’d made it look to skin a fruit. Not at the time admired, of course, but in those weeks afterward, when every banana Jon ate made him claw at the peel til his finger joints throbbed.

That stomach bug had struck the Archives with serendipitous timing, though. If he’d not found out how thin abstinence from the Hunt had made Daisy on the same day he’d barfed up a statement, Jon might not have pieced together what their combined evidence meant. Until then he’d put down his own post-coma weight loss to the fact he rarely ate more people food than a donut in twenty-four hours. Lots of avatars were scrawny, after all. Jane Prentiss, Mike Crew, Justin Gough, Annabelle Cane, John Amherst, Simon Fairchild. Jude Perry and Jared Hopworth could mold their respective fleshes however they wanted, so he didn’t count them as exceptions. True, Trevor Herbert’s bulk had struck him as odd; surely a homeless man wouldn’t waste cash on food his body no longer wanted. And what about Breekon and Hope? Did butterflies and a quartermaster’s pen and tongue sustain them? But maybe, Jon had told himself, it was like with alcohol. Maybe the avatars with more flesh on their bones had worked to develop a tolerance for (air quotes, heavy sarcasm) people food, for the sake of their physiques, or. So they could, he didn't know, eat socially? Without feeling sick, like Jon did whenever one of the others brought donuts.

Preposterously stupid, this theory seemed in retrospect. The truth was much simpler. It was like Jude Perry’d told him. She was strong and he was weak, because she fed her god with her actions, while Jon’s had had to resort to eating his flesh.

He wasn’t going back to live statements! That wasn’t an option; he knew that. He couldn’t feed his god with his actions. But he could have more paper ones. Maybe they were like the candles poor Eugene Vanderstock used to bring Agnes—the ones she’d sat over for hours. Hours and hours, inhaling the suffering that made them. They’d kept her strong enough, right? At least in body. All those people in charge of her care, all so much in her thrall—if she’d looked hungry one of them would’ve mentioned it in a statement.

During Jon’s school days, back when he was still trying to learn how to be a girl, this brief window had opened up right around age thirteen where the girls around him had enough self-consciousness to start developing eating disorders? But not enough to keep them secret. Thirteen had been this phase of, like, I’m a teenager now, see? I’ve got the teen angst now—SEE?! Where after they’d finished the day’s maths assignment, or while setting up microscope slides, one could overhear girls swapping self-harm anecdotes and tips for how best not to eat. Anne, whom he’d been almost friends with, went through two packs of chewing gum a day for a while. She would shove three or four sticks at a time in her mouth, then spit them back out into their wrappers as soon as they lost their flavor. Eventually they made her sick, and she switched to chain-sucking butterscotch discs. (Most artificial sweeteners, as the Eye now informed him, had mild laxative properties—including those used in gum.) Other acquaintances had brought comically large thermoses of coffee to school every day, and scurried to the toilet between classes. But it was another polyurious crowd that Jon kept thinking of, these days—the kids who would chug water every time they felt hungry. Trying to fill up on paper statements felt just like that.

He’d never understood that urge until now. Hunger was already a bad sensation; why would it help to add the further bad sensations of nausea and stomachache and cold? But now it made sense: feeling better was not the point. The point was to stop wanting more. He couldn’t get rid of the hunger, exactly—not in a way that mattered. Not the shards of glass in his belly, not the itch in his esophagus like a finger tapping behind his gag reflex, not the way simple motions like soaping his hands made his whole body ache. Not the sharpening of his senses to such a fine point that he jumped whenever Thérèse in the office above him shut her desk’s sticky drawer. (He hadn’t known that was what made the squeaky noise until a few weeks ago when the Eye decided he might like some office gossip. Even now he didn’t know which of the faces he sometimes passed up there belonged to Thérèse. She had no statements to make.) Nor the fog in his mind, though he tried sometimes to blame that on the Lonely. He couldn’t sate his hunger with paper statements—couldn’t make himself full, in the rosy way we usually connote that word. All warm and carefree and pleasantly sleepy. But he could cram the hole inside him with enough stale horrors that the temptation to chase down a fresh one momentarily left him.

And that was the new plan—to stuff himself with paper statements.

Tomorrow would mark two weeks since the day he’d first tried it. Brian from Artefact Storage had a statement to give him, Jon could feel—either Stranger or Spiral, it was hard to tell quite which. Something that caused paranoia. Not a great fit for that department. Good fit for a temple of the Eye, Jon supposed, remembering Tim and Michael Shelley. But Artefact Storage? God help him. He wondered if Elias had done it on purpose, hiring a paranoid man to work in a room full of objects that wanted him hurt. If so it must’ve been this one—this purpose. And on Wednesday mornings Brian manned the place all alone. Poor soul was already clinging to this job by a thread, though (so, Web…? That could cause paranoia too, as Jon well knew). Surely if Jon made him relive his trauma that would break it. Though perhaps that’d be a mercy. And but besides, two weeks ago Melanie had still lived here, and sat all morning between Jon’s office and Artefact Storage. Until she went to lunch. But by that time the woman whose laugh Jon could sometimes hear through the walls (Pooja, the Eye had since told him her name was) would have joined Brian. And it’d just be too weird, too risky, to go in and ask him about it with a third person in the room. Even if it wasn’t also evil.

So he’d read 0132210—the statement of Sierra Talbot, regarding a swimming pool whose depth changed every time she entered it—in hopes that’d make him quit thinking about the paranoid man down the hall. It didn’t, not really; paper statements didn’t take up as much of his attention as they used to. But he couldn’t get up and walk to Artefact Storage in the middle of one. When he finished and still couldn’t think of anything but Brian, he dug out another statement (this one from 1938, regarding a bad penny). Just to keep himself chained to his desk til lunch. And then a third (Liza Ho, attack of the killer seagulls). And by the end of that one he felt too heavy and cold inside to want to go anywhere but the couch. It made his stomach swell until it hurt to sit up straight, and the thought of shoving anything more inside made him feel sick—exactly like chugging water every time he felt hungry.

Basira had said maybe the Web just wanted to keep them so afraid of their own impulses they sat and did nothing so they couldn’t be puppeted. Maybe she was right. He’d never felt more like a spider, with his weak, skinny limbs and bloated stomach. Lying on the couch massaging other people’s horrors into more comfortable shapes inside him. Thank god he’d already given up tucking in his shirts, when he came back after the coma. Jon had worn the same trousers for three days in a row, now—shucked them off at the end of the day, hoping if he left them on the floor that’d convince him they were too dirty to wear again, and then slipped them back on over clean boxers in the morning. They were the only trousers he had that stayed up with the button left unfastened.

(Technically, the noun bloat refers to the feeling of weight or tightness in the abdomen. To describe a belly which has expanded beyond its typical size, one should use the word distended. Though these phenomena can occur separately, most people conflate them under the single word bloated. This trivia had seemed worthless when Beholding told him of it. But now he knew better. Every morning he woke up feeling like he’d had his whole torso replaced with the aching void of space, empty but for silver glints of pain that were the stars. And then he’d look down and find his belly still distended.)

Melanie and Basira didn’t know—at least not officially. They both seemed to have noticed how much more often lately they’d walked in on him recording, but Jon was pretty sure they suspected him less of bingeing on statements, more of pretending to record so as to avoid talking to them. He welcomed this misapprehension.

It was also possible they knew but declined to comment, since. Well, it was kind of a pathetic habit? Physically, a bit pathetic. Morally, though, such a big improvement over compelling statements by force that maybe they figured they ought to let him have it. If so he should be grateful, he reminded himself. Their pity, after all, was humiliating only in principle; Daisy’s teasing and concerned questions embarrassed him in practice.

“Enough navelgazing,” Daisy scoffed, but when Jon looked over at her he could see a smile creeping its way onto her face. “Look—finish the one you’re on, then come over here and I’ll. Tell you a story.”

“I—what?”

“Don’t know if it’ll count as a ‘statement,’” she said, with air quotes; “not much fear in it, more just.” She looked at the floor, then shrugged. “But it seems worth a try, yeah? Might make you feel better.”

“I-I, er. I really shouldn’t?” He meant in case it had a taste of human blood effect, but set his hand on his stomach again in hopes she’d think he meant he was too full.

“Yeah, you should. I want you to hear it.” Daisy shrugged again. “Think it might do you good to know.”

Jon turned back to his desk, unpaused the recording and wrapped up the statement. He’d quit bothering to record end notes on most of these—told himself he could add them in later, like he used to when he’d first taken this job. How proud 2016 Jon would have been to see how many statements the 2018 Archivist got through in a week.

He paused for a moment before standing up, to take as deep a breath as he could manage when stuffed full of paper. The end of that statement had gone down easier, since he’d had that few minutes’ break talking to Daisy, but he still didn’t love the idea of standing and walking. Especially since he knew once he got to the couch he’d be glued there by fatigue. If he didn’t pee now, he’d spend most of the night far enough into sleep to be paralyzed, but not far enough to numb his bladder. He excused himself to Daisy, promising to come right back. Then hauled himself up, with help from his cane and one arm of his chair.

Six limbs it took to maneuver this body now. Two more and he’d’ve gone full spider.

Three quarters of the way to the bathroom—that’s how long it took before the ache in his legs outpaced that in his stomach. He arrived on the toilet seat shaky and out of breath, as always. Months ago he’d given up standing to pee. When you sat you could rock back and forth, and cross your arms tight over waves of quease.

Not much came out, as was also usual lately. As far as Jon could tell, his body now required only enough water to keep his mouth from drying out while recording. Dehydration no longer made his head hurt, so, why bother. Good thing, too, he supposed—the last two weeks he hadn’t needed much non-metaphorical water inside for his body to parse that as needing to pee.

He let his trousers stay pooled around his ankles until after he’d washed and dried his hands. Then pulled up his shirt, to judge from his reflection whether they’d stay up with the fly undone. If he kept his hands in his pockets, yeah. Could you tell the difference, visually, once he put his shirt tails back down? Not for such a short distance. They wouldn’t have time to get disarranged.

It didn’t matter; Basira didn’t even glance at him on his way back, and all Institute staff who didn’t live here had gone home.

Jon opened the door to his office, said hello to Daisy but didn’t manage to look at her, and sat himself down on the other side of the couch. From the corner of his eye (or someone’s anyway) he saw her rise to her feet. “I’m gonna pee too,” she told him, picking her way toward the door; “get yourself comfortable, like you’re going to bed.”

“Where will you sit.”

“I’ll squeeze in.”

“I don’t mind leaving room for—?” Finally he made himself look up at her, in time to see her shake her head. Daisy hadn’t been strong on her feet either, since the Buried; she held herself up now with a hand on the doorjamb, elbow bent so her shoulder leant against that wrist. He regretted quibbling. “Never mind; I’ll just.”

“Really? You’re comfortable like that? You look like a sheep in clover.”

The knowledge came to him before he could ask her what that meant—complete with a nasty visual of what happens in cases acute enough to require rumenotomy. Jon swore he could feel himself swelling to accommodate this tidbit. His eye twitched in discomfort.

“Think I prefer ‘windbag,’ if it’s all the same to you.”

She made a face like that was grosser than what she had said. “You ruined my joke. I was gonna say I won’t let you have any more leaves til you look less like you might explode.”

“Sheep in clover suffocate,” Jon frowned; “they don’t explode. You must be thinking of how they cure them when—”

“Leaves. In. A. Book, Jon. That joke.”

“Oh. Yes, I see.” He made himself chuckle.

Daisy sighed and shifted on her feet. “I’ll be right back. Just lie down, alright? Like you’re going to bed.”

Jon agreed to lie down, but couldn’t decide whether to face the wall (as he would to sleep), leaving her to slide in between him and the back of the couch the way she had a few times before when she’d walked in on him catnapping, or whether he should lie on his back, where he could see her as soon as she opened the door. It was important to make sure she knew he appreciated her offer to give him a statement. Or, no—to tell him her story, he meant.

Ultimately he picked the latter course.

“You sleep like that?”

“Sometimes."

“I’ve never seen you sleep like that. You always face the wall.” Daisy crossed her arms, blew hair out of her face. “That for the tummy ache, or for me?”

“Uh….”

“Would it hurt you to face the wall.”

“No, I just.”

“Turn around, then. I’ll squeeze in,” she said again.

“I-if you’re sure.”

He rolled onto his side, gritting his teeth as the cramps in his stomach swirled in new directions. What made it slosh like that, he wondered. While he fought to regain his breath Jon watched Daisy climb up onto the back of the couch on shaking elbows and knees, then avalanche down hands- and feet-first so she fit between him and its cushions. He’d never watched her do this before—always either startled out of a doze at the sound of her thumping down next to him, or simply woken up to find her there.

“You’re just like the Admiral,” he informed her.

“True words spoken in jest,” muttered Daisy. Too quietly for him to hear what she said over the couch’s tortured creaks, but half a second after she finished speaking the words appeared before his mind, in white, all-capital letters with a black background like closed captions on the news. “That’s Georgie’s cat, right?” she said aloud.

“Yes.”

Her knee jostled the cap of his; when it made him gasp she snarled under her breath. “Sorry. Can you move your leg?”

“Yes, it’s fine, just—”

“I mean would you move your leg.”

“Oh.” He did so.

“Thanks. Ugh—you’re cold,” Daisy accused him; “where’s that blanket.” He pointed behind her to the arm of the couch where it lay folded. She shook it out, and draped it over both of them. Reached around behind him to make sure it covered his whole back. Jon tried to ignore the way his stomach lurched every time Daisy’s weight shifted against the cushions. Finally she settled next to him to catch her breath. Their foreheads touched; her stomach pressed into his, though not as tightly as the last time they’d lain like this. “Can you breathe or am I crushing you?”

“Not at all, you’re fine—in fact, if the couch cushions are chafing you too much you can—”

Daisy huffed, and scooted herself in closer to him. “That better?” She set her warm hand down right where his belly diverged from pelvis. Jon tried to keep both voice and tremor out of his exhale. Since the coffin, Daisy’s hands and feet suffered at night and after any exertion from the same excess of heat his sometimes did. So the cold inside him probably felt nice on her hand, if not to the rest of her.

(Like snuggling up to a hotel mattress, she’d described it, after the first time she joined him for a nap when he’d just had a statement. Cold, hard, covered in lumps and dents, and creaks when you roll over on it. “I’d prefer you didn’t,” he’d replied, while praying her elbow wouldn’t come any closer to the crevasse where his ribs used to be.)

“Christ you’re stuffed,” commented Daisy. For emphasis she lifted her fingers, then set them back down on his gut.

“I don’t know what you expected.”

“You won’t pop if I tell you a story?”

“Not literally,” Jon said, blinking.

“Of course not literally,” she scoffed; “you know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

“Will it make you sick. Don’t want you throwing up on me; this is Melanie’s shirt. If you ruin it she’ll hit us with her cane, and I don’t trust you to hit as hard back with yours.”

“Mine’s shorter and thicker,” he mused. “I don’t have to hit as hard.”

“Stop. Avoiding. The question.”

Jon sighed to show her he capitulated. Then thought about it. He felt cold and sick, but the idea of saying no to a statement made those feelings worse, not better. And the sharp clusters of pain in his belly were harder to sleep through than quease.

“I’ll be fine,” he decided. “It’ll help.”

“Alright. When you’re ready, ask me what I used to do when I got shaky between hunts.”

--

Read part two here.

[yumikire]

Obligitory Cuddling for Warmth Fic: DantexLeon Edition

Dante couldn’t remember the last time he slept. The last time he had eaten. The last time he had spoken outside his thoughts. Not since he had heard the plane Leon was on had gone down 72 hours ago. He leaves the guy alone for a few days to go take care of a job that couldn’t wait, and sometime in that time frame Leon goes and crashes a perfectly good airplane. Because only Leon could be on a plane for any amount of time before it decides it needs to make an emergency landing - read crash landing- that is essentially in bumfuck nowhere Siberia. 

The guy really needs to hire a chauffeur or something because he has the worst history with any type of motorized vehicles Dante’s ever heard of. Dante could make a game out of how many times in the stories Leon’s told him about his exploits with fighting infected that included the words, “and then I crashed ‘X’, into ‘Y”  and through ‘Z’.’”

Dante shakes his head, once again focusing on the ground that he had been scouring for a few hours in his demon form from above. From what information Lady had been able to procure, mostly via recorded audio from the plane to the closest airport, the small passenger plane had been, unbeknownst to the government, been smuggling samples of different strains of the Las Plagas virus right under their noses. Some of the samples got breached and passengers started getting infected. 

If everyone on the plane ended up infected and crashed into a populated area the virus would quickly get out of hand. Dante remembered Leon telling him about an incident at an airport once before. The fallout wasn’t pretty. So of course it was probably Leon who decided crashing the plane in one of the coldest and most unpopulated areas next to Antarctica was the best course of action.

Leon, who was most likely injured and alone in this frozen tundra. Not dead, never dead. Leon was one of the toughest humans Dante had ever met next to Lady and he refused to even contemplate the idea. Of having to deal with the loss of yet another person he loved. It was one of the reasons he had fought so hard not to be in this relationship at all in the beginning. Just friends who got to occasionally team up on jobs and have a beer or two afterwards. The problem was Leon had a way of burrowing himself under Dante’s ribs and into his heart, and before his brain realized what had happened they were together. 

Then a glint of silver and the smell of melting metal and smoke. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the plane definitely wasn’t going to be flying again. One of the wings was completely torn off and a patch of the right side of the hull had a large hole ripped in it. A small layering of snow covered the top so it had been down for at least long enough that the snowfall could accumulate upon the wreckage. For a plane carrying infected passengers, however, it was deathly quiet. No moans, no groans, no screaming, nothing but the sound of the wind constantly blowing past his ears. 

A quick look inside explained all he needed to know. Leon had taken care of it. At least he hoped it was Leon who had taken care of it, he wasn’t on the plane now. Dante rubbed his face with his hand, why wasn’t Leon still on the damn plane? Surely it provided better protection from the elements even with the hole in its hull. Not to mention it offered a better chance of being found when your boyfriend showed up! Frustrated he punched the side of the plane, leaving a fist sized dent in the hull then took a deep breath. He needed to keep his cool. Leon was a big boy and could take care of himself, he was no damsel in distress. Surviving all the countless missions he’d been on had proved that. If Leon was alive out there, he would survive until someone found him. 

Stepping out of the airplane he noticed a few different sets of footprints half filled in with snow. One set also had small droplets of blood dotting the snow around them. Following the trail to the back of the plane he found a body in the snow. Heart stopping for a moment he quickly reached down to brush the snow off. Just another infected, a bullet hole neatly through its forehead. Dante sighed in relief. The trail of blood droplets continued further away from the plane and into the woods. 

When he found the end of the trail his blood ran cold. Leon was laying on the ground just inside the entrance to a cave. A small puddle of blood around his right leg. Dante quickly rolled him over and placed his head to his chest, listening for a heartbeat while trying to ignore his own heart's panicked thudding echoing in his ears. He saw the rise and fall of Leon’s chest before he heard the heart beats. 

Dante didn’t really notice the cold, his demon blood keeping him running hotter than the average human. Leon, however, definitely was. In fact he was barely even shivering from it and Dante remembered enough vague things about hypothermia to know this wasn’t a good thing. Fire. they needed a fire. Carefully he moved Leon a bit further into the cave and away from the wind, covering him with his jacket hoping that would be enough for the precious few minutes he was going to take to gather firewood. Five minutes later he was back in the cave with a pile of wood he had set on fire using Ifrit, because hell if he had the time or patience to make a fire the human way. Then he was back over at Leon’s side. Moving him closer to the fire while he took a look at his leg. It looked like Leon had wrapped it once before, but the wound must have been bad enough that he bled through the bandages. Rifling through Leon’s pouches came up with another roll of bandages and he used those to rewrap the leg to the best of his abilities. It didn’t look nearly as good as the job Leon had done the first time. Leon who still wasn’t shivering. Only one thing for it then.

Taking his jacket off of Leon, he quickly and efficiently removed the man’s leather jacket and undershirts. Normally he’d make a wise crack or a wolf whistle to break the tension but the man below him was in no condition to appreciate it, nor was it the time. Once he was naked from the waste up, Dante removed his own dark colored shirt and sat down with his back against the cold cave wall. Next he grabbed Leon, tucking the man between his legs with his back against his chest.Then he grabbed both Leon’s jacket and his own, wrapping them around the two forming what he hoped was a mostly airtight cocoon. Then came the hardest part. Waiting.  

Some time later, a groan from the form beneath him and a full body shudder stopped Dante from running his hands up and down Leon’s body trying to force more warmth back into his body.

“Hey babe, human popsicle really isn’t a good look for you.”

“W-w-wasn’t a look I was f-f-f-ond of myself.” Leon stuttered out. Full body tremors now rocking his entire frame. Dante wrapped his arms around Leon’s waist whilst humming in acknowledgement. 

“When I didn’t find you on the airplane I got a little worried,” Dante admitted softly.

“S-s-s-ome of the infected had gotten sucked out-t-t of the p-p-p-plane when I landed it. Had to chase them down. C-c-c-ouldn’t let the infection spread.”

“I saw the hole in the hull. What kinda of nut job manages to crash a perfectly good plane,” Dante huffed out with a laugh.

“Any land-d-d-ing you can walk away from.” Leon replied, tremors still showing no signs of lessening.

“How long do you think we’ll be here before your friends arrive. The co-worker of yours, Chris? The guy who supposedly punched a boulder to death. He still owes me an arm wrestling match.”

“One of the infected on the p-p-plane was an undercover umbrella agent. He had a gps s-s-satellite phone on him. Used it to send coordinates to Hunnigan earlier. Hopefully it won’t be t-t-too much longer.” Dante felt Leon leaning more heavily into his chest, all the shivering clearly tiring him out.

“Hey, no sleeping until they get here. If I have to be awake for them when they get here so do you. Besides, who’s gonna protect me from the giant bears when they come back to reclaim their cave?”

“If I promise not to fall asleep will you hold me tighter? You’re s-s-so warm.”

Dante smiled, complying happily as he gathered the agent as close to himself as he could.

“I knew this was all just an elaborate ruse to get more cuddle time.” Leon huffed out a laugh. 

“What can I s-s-say. They’re just that good.”

Dante wrapped his arms around his waist and snuggled just that scant bit closer, putting his head onto Leon’s shoulder, willing more of his warmth to seep into his chilled skin. He’d keep Leon warm anytime.

[potahun]

“Wo Men De Ge” Archery competition /translation

Translation of some of the archery bits in this special edition of Ep.11 of Season 1, because it was hilarious at the time and this week’s episode in S2 made me a nostalgic bastard on main again. Starts from approx. 1:52 onwards and ends around 14:39.

MC Lin Hai welcomes Na Ying back, who makes her entrance by singing a song from Fei Yuqing. Lin Hai notes that Ayanga isn’t there yet (he was on the plane), so he would pair up with Fei Yuqing in Ayanga’s stead. 

The order of performance in the Episode is to be decided via one round of archery and one round of draws.

MC: So let’s do it like this. The youngest ones here are our Shen Shen and our Yi Qiao. Therefore, you two have the right to decide. You can pick your opponents. 

ZS: I’ve already decided about my opponent. I believe everyone here knows the theory of Tian Ji’s strategy for horse-racing. The weakest *designates himself* should pick the strongest....teacher Hua Jian.

ZHJ: !! *sings while shaking ZS’s hand* You look deeply at me~

ZS: *sings in the same tune* Last time you overtook me by a whole lap~ (at kart racing)

MC (to ZS): So your picking teacher Hua Jian today, is it for revenge?

ZS: I’m....helping everyone to get rid of the strongest first. *laughs*

ZHJ: He fell for it.

MC: Then, Yi Qiao, he took your master away. What about you?

YQ: I think...how about teacher Keqin? 

LKQ: *waves hi*

YQ: I think he’s pretty strong too, so I want to have a match.

LKQ: I’m good at a lot of sports....except archery.

MC: Then, the next one will be interesting: Xiao Zhan. You pick. Do you want to go against me or Xiao Ge? Your pick.

XZ: Then I’ll pick....Teacher Fei. (FYQ: Ey. Alright.)

NY (to XZ): Yes. Elder brother (Fei Yuqing), he’s got hyperopia.  (FYQ: Aayy *laughs* XZ: !!!!!!!!) He won’t be able to do it. It’ll all be blurry -- he’ll just see a pile of circles. No problem! He won’t shoot accurately. 

MC: Alright. Then, Na Jie, I’ll accompany you. Alright? 

First group up: Zhou Hua Jian vs Zhou Shen (Zhou-Zhou shooting)

Everyone shouts encouragements from the back of the room, while Zhou Hua Jian prepares to shoot. His first arrow scores a 5.

ZS: Wooow~

YQ: Not bad!

MC, singing: Aaaaahh Fifth Ring~ (Everyone laughs)  (T/N: It’s a famous song about Beijing’s ring roads that was a bit of a gag, called the 5th Ring Road Song)

ZHJ, pretending to be dissatisfied: The wind is too strong! Can someone turn off the aircon? 

Meanwhile, Zhou Shen struggles to even nock the arrow. 

ZS, laughing: Aiya...my arrow keeps on falling... (LKQ, watching him from behind: *snorts* Aiyo ya.)

After much struggle, Zhou Shen shoots a 0. Li Keqin stands up:

LKQ: OK OK! OK! OK! It’s better than I imagined! It’s better than your driving!!

Zhou Shen turns around to laugh back at him. Meanwhile, Zhou Hua Jian shoots his 2nd arrow...which also turns out to be a 0. 

NY: Ohh, which one is that?

ZHJ: No, no. That fell outside the target.

LKQ, standing up again: Zhou Shen! You can do it!

ZS, shouting towards the back of the room:  I THINK I CHOSE THE RIGHT PERSON. *cackles soundlessly*

ZHJ: You insult me! *laughs*

ZS: I’ve never participated in such a fair competition!! (ZHJ bursts out laughing)

FYQ: This arrow is an important one. 

LKQ (to ZS): A bit higher! A bit higher!

Zhou Shen shoots a 5. Much wow-ing and clapping ensues.

ZHJ, giving him a high-five: Whoaaa!! You’re too much, you! You’re too much! (ZS laughs)

XZ: Whoa, fate changed with just one arrow...!

ZS (to the back of the room): THE SCORES ARE VERY EVENLY MATCHED. *laughs impishly*

ZHJ: Alright alright. I’ve been too generous! I can’t let you win anymore.

ZS, leaning towards him: You certainly talk big. *cackles impishly* 

ZHJ, preparing to shoot: Whooa. OK! Here I go.

ZS, teasing him: It’s off, it’s off. A bit lower. It’s off, it’s off, it’s off...

Zhou Hua Jian shoots another 0 (it actually turns out Zhou Shen was right, it was way too high). 

ZHJ, laughing (to ZS): No matter where you shoot, you’ve won now. (ZS makes a face) What’s that expression for?? 

ZS: If I shoot above yours, I’ve lost. (ZHJ laughs)

Zhou Shen finally shoots his 3rd arrow. It’s a 3. Zhou Shen won against Zhou Hua Jian by 3 points.

ZS (to the others): Who would have thought I’d win on the account of the person I picked? *laughs*

Second group: Li Keqin vs Jiang Yi Qiao.

LKQ (to the others): I’ll tell you, I saw it earlier on TV, everything else is unimportant -- the most important thing is the mouth. *does a big-lipped fish expression*

ZHJ: Alright then, let’s have a look at how his mouth is doing.

Li Keqin actually does the thing with his mouth and shoots a very stable 7. Xiao Zhan proceeds to imitate the pose in an attempt to learn. Meanwhile, Jiang Yi Qiao is struggling.

YQ: Hold on, I’m shaking a little....

LKQ, laughing: Your mouth has to be like this. *does the fish lips again*

Yi Qiao tries it, shoots 3 arrows back-to-back and gets 0, 2, and 0 points respectively. Zhou Hua Jian and Zhou Shen are both dying at the back of the room.

ZHJ, standing up: You guys should check! *points at Yi Qiao’s last arrow on the wall* I’m sure a fly just died over there.

Meanwhile, Li Keqin shoots a 5 and a 4. Qin Shen Shen leads for the moment being, with 24 vs 7 points. 

ZS, clapping and welcoming LKQ back: Awesome, awesome, awesome.

LKQ: Ehhh, it’s all thanks to youuu.

Third Group: Lin Hai (standing in for Ayanga) vs. Na Ying.

Na Ying goes first.

NY: Eh. *winces as she shoots a 0 point on the wall* Eh...

XZ: It’s okay, it’s okay!

ZHJ, pointing at XZ: Yeah, it’s okay, there’s him going behind you, there’s still him.

ZS: It’s okay, there’s still Xiao Zhan!

XZ: What if they all go off-track? *laughs*

Na Ying shoots her other arrows and they’re all 0s. 

ZHJ, laughing: Hey, they’re all way up there!

Na Ying’s arrows:

LKQ: Great aim. All 3 arrows are around the same area... (ZHJ: If you move the whole target upwards, she’d be smack in the middle. )

For some reason, Na Ying nocks another arrow and slowly turns it towards MC Lin Hai.

ZHJ, from the back of the room: Na Jie, don’t direct your arrow at him.

MC, finally noticing the danger: Eh?! *jumps back and laughs nervously* Um...uh?

NY, smiling sweetly but in a vaguely threatening manner: Hehe. What I mean to say is...you’re up against someone old, so....

MC, reassuring but backing up slowly: No, no, no, I’ve got it. I’ve got it.

NY, still vaguely threatening: You get me, right...?

MC, with his arrow nocked (to NY): I know. *turns his head towards her* I’ll just shoot while looking at you.

MC Lin Hai shoots a 10 (full score) while looking at Na Ying. The whole room loses it, Zhou Hua Jian most of all. 

MC, half-collapsed and laughing (to NY): I...I was really looking at you just now! I just--

NY, in equal disbelief: My God!! You’re playing this hand against me...? That’s really too good!! Seriously...what’s the expression again, this is like playing the pig to eat the tiger!! Aiyoo.... (MC: I didn’t...!)

XZ: Is that a 10?? (ZS: Yeah it is.) *has a mental breakdown*

NY (to XZ): He went straight for that yellow eye! (XZ: He’s too good!)

MC Lin Hai shoots a 3 this time and takes a few timid steps backwards, backing away from Na Ying.

NY: That’s still very good. That’s still very good...

ZS, yelling into his hands: Lin Hai, have mercy! (XZ: Have mercy!!)

MC (to the others): I’m just building some foundation for Xiao Ge.

FYQ, with utmost comfort: First place confirmed~ (The others laugh)

MC Lin Hai’s last arrow is a 5. Fei Yuqing claps for him, while Na Ying makes a small salute, fist against palm. MC Lin Hai returns the salute.

NY (to MC): That was really cool. (MC Lin Hai bows)

Last group: Xiao Zhan vs Fei Yuqing

Before they start, Lin Hai realises that Xiao Zhan has some prior experience with archery because he did it in the Untamed/CQL. Na Ying proceeds to add to Fei Yuqing that he probably won’t win, because Xiao Zhan has the basics down. Xiao Zhan protests he was only playing around at the time. 

His first arrow is nonetheless an 8. Everyone cheers. 

FYQ, smiling: It’s starting.

Xiao Zhan gets a 6 in the meantime. Fei Yuqing casually gets ready to shoot; he’s not even holding his arrow the standard way.

LKQ, quietly: Xiao Ge is probably gonna be really good.

MC: Xiao Ge, you can do it!

Fei Yuqing lets off his arrow and shoots a 10, while the whole room collectively loses it. 

Everyone: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LKQ, excitedly (to ZHJ): I JUST SAID THAT! I JUST SAID THAT!

ZHJ (back to LKQ): YOU JUST SAID THAT!! 

ZS, looking like his soul’s been sucked out: Wooho ho ho.....A 10.......!

Fei Yuqing proceeds to engage in his own brand of celebratory dance:

FYQ (to the others): Hey, this wasn’t a fluke...! *does a cute silent giggle*

XZ, feeling pressured again: Na Jie...!!

Xiao Zhan shoots his last arrow and gets a 4. 

NY: Good. Good. Good, good. (to FYQ) We’re already at this stage, actually, so you can just use your usual state of mind.

While Fei Yuqing prepares to shoot his 2nd arrow, Na Ying starts to sing one of his old songs to distract him, and he ends up getting a 0.

FYQ: Aiya. (the others fall down laughing behind him) Who sang that? Who sang that?

ZHJ (to NY): It’s definitely you who distracted him!

FYQ: Who sang “Nan Ping Wan Zhong”? *turns back around and prepares to shoot* I can’t let my guard down...

NY: Come on, I’ll do another song. “Yi Jian Mei |One Trim of Plum Blossom”. *starts singing with Zhou Shen*

Fei Yuqing gets a 0 again. Everyone collapses in laughter, while Fei Yuqing laughs helplessly. Xiao Zhan bows to him. 

MC (to NY): The song you’re singing, are you sure it’s not “One Arrow’s Gone?” (T/N: Also “Yi Jian Mei”, but with a different intonation)

Fei Yuqing finally returns to the table, laughing:

FYQ (to NY): The more you sing, the further away from the centre I get! 

NY, apologetic and laughing at the same time: Elder brother...Elder brother, I’m sorry...! Elder brother, let me tell you, I’m part of those who are a little mean in variety shows.

FYQ, singing the tune of a famous song: You’ve wounded me~ (NY, singing together with him: And yet just laugh it off~!)

[sheliesshattered]

Yesterday evening, I was just not feeling up to writing, and thought perhaps I ought to just let myself off the hook and watch something comforting and easy instead of working on First Christmas. But then I felt bad about not writing, and couldn’t decide on anything to watch, so I made a bargain with myself: I just had to read through and edit the stuff I wrote on Friday, and then if I had a sentence or two to add at the end of that, even better. Just do that much, and I could put it aside and work my way through my neglected Watch Later list.

But much like happened earlier this week (last week? idk, it’s been a very long seven days), I got that far, and then had one more sentence to add. Then just a bit more. And a little more after that. And then hey, this scene is almost done, might as well just wrap it up. And do the transition into the next scene. And oh, I like how this bit of dialogue sounds, let’s just jot that down real quick. And then that quite nearly connects up with that other bit I wrote weeks ago, let’s just stitch those two together real quick.

And somehow I looked up, and it was almost midnight, and I’d written more than 1000 words. I don’t know if this is a trick to get myself to write that will continue to work in the future, but damn has it been a nice bit of trickery to use on myself in the last week or so, lol.

I ended the night up 1514 words, to a total of 14,837 for the entire story. Going into it yesterday, I had three scenes left to complete. I finished the first of the three and most of the second, including incorporating a big chunk of dialogue that I wrote sometime last summer when I was sketching out how I wanted to rewrite the episode. I need to do an editing pass on all that today, but last night I was really pleased with how it was coming together.

I’ve only got ~1200 words in disconnected chunks that still need to be woven into the last scene and a half, and I need to figure out which of the two ending lines I actually want to use. Jack wanted to wait until I had another large-ish chunk ready before he did another editing pass -- between 3500 and 5000 words seems to be the right length for one round of editing, and I’m just about at that, counting from the point where he left off editing last time. I think I’m going to try to finish this second to last scene before I ask him to edit again, and then do the final scene all on its own once that’s done.

First Christmas is easily going to break 15k words, probably by the time I finish this second to last scene. I’m not sure yet exactly how long the final scene is going to be, but my estimate of somewhere between 16k and 17k once the whole story is finished still feels accurate. I’m hoping to make some good progress on it tonight, and with any luck I might actually be down to just editing it tomorrow. Fingers crossed, anyway.

Jack and I have some things planned for Solstice tomorrow, including kitchen-witch-ing up another turkey pot pie from scratch, sort of vaguely based on the one I made for Thanksgiving. It won’t take a huge amount of time, but it may cut into my writing/editing time a bit, we’ll see.

I’ll post First Christmas just as soon as it’s done and edited, and at this point I’m feeling really confident that it’ll be by the 24th at the latest. So hey, no Doctor Who Christmas special this year, but at least there’ll be holiday-themed fic. :D

[pinnithin-writes]

Good Jokes

Chapter 3

Gordon had become increasingly protective of Tommy as the day went on, which would be sweet if it wasn’t ridiculously unnecessary.

The team reached an area equipped with automated defenses, steel paneled rooms studded with turrets that fired off rounds indiscriminately. Apparently Black Mesa’s heat seeking technology wasn’t refined enough to differentiate between friend and foe. Or maybe no living soul was allowed in this part of the facility regardless of planar origin.

Either way, they were all getting shot at.

They took cover, shielding themselves from the popcorn of gunfire. Tommy tucked himself behind a wooden crate, content to wait it out, when he heard hollering from the other side of the room.

“Tommy!” It was Gordon, lying flat on his belly around a corner. He was panting, curly hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, adrenaline making his dark eyes wild. “Get out of the open!”

Tommy tried his best to make the short sprint across the room not look like a stroll. Once he was out of firing range, he stood against the wall and tucked his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. Gordon was still prone, popping the occasional stray alien with the pistol in his hand. He passed Tommy an incredulous look, and Tommy was only able to stare back mildly.

It wasn’t that Tommy was hiding the fact that bullets had no effect on him, exactly. He just figured Gordon was already dealing with enough already without Tommy adding, “hey, by the way, my dad is a god and I inherited his power,” on top of it. Didn’t want to break the guy’s brain any more than it already was today.

Lamely, he tried lightening the mood. “It’s okay, the turrets can’t hurt you,” Tommy said, gunfire crackling around them. “It's part of our… turret-ing test.”

Nailed it. Puns were good sometimes, right? Gordon had been chuckling at his silly rhymes a few minutes earlier. Maybe a pun would land.

“I don’t know what you just said to me!” Gordon shouted over the noise, twisting to fire off a round at an advancing creature.

Tommy sighed and casually jammed the turret with a subtle wave of his hand. This afternoon was way too loud. He needed a break. Five minutes of silence. Please. The gunshots died.

When the coast was clear, Gordon clambered to his feet and the rest of the group emerged from their respective positions of shelter. They gathered in the room together, casting wary glances at the automatic rifle bolted to the wall.

Gordon flicked a questioning look to Bubby, who had so far shown the most initiative in their endeavors aside from Gordon himself. “Did you deactivate it?” he asked.

The other scientist just shrugged and made a noncommittal sound before excusing himself to investigate the surrounding area with Dr. Coomer. Tommy, seeing the concern on Gordon’s face, tried once again to reassure him that they were safe. Give him a little peace of mind while still keeping it vague. He wanted to iron that troubled wrinkle out of his forehead.

“It can’t hurt you if you’re smart,” Tommy told him, the words falling out of his mouth without a real plan. “That’s… why we’re all scientists…”

Oh, no. Too vague. Gordon, apparently misinterpreting his nonchalance for ignorance, turned his anxious stare on Tommy. And then he was raising a gloved hand toward Tommy’s face. And then, oh god, he was cupping Tommy’s cheek, locking eyes with him intently.

“Buddy, buddy, buddy, buddy,” Gordon told him. “That’s not how that works. That’s not how that works.”

Tommy’s pulse was running a marathon under his skin. He couldn’t look away. Gordon’s eyelashes were… so long. He and Gordon both were flecked with blood and alien guts, surrounded on all sides by enemies, and all Tommy could do was stare. Why was he fixated on this, why was he like this? He could cruise through a room riddled with crossfire no problem but he froze when the new guy touched him?

Gordon dropped his hand to Tommy’s shoulder, gripping him firmly, still pinning him in place with those dark, fervent eyes. “I need you to preserve yourself,” he went on seriously. “I need you to keep yourself safe, so that you don’t-”

Tommy frantically interrupted Gordon before any more words could come marching out to shock his brain. “This is the Turing test room,” he blurted, reiterating his earlier pun. “The turret ing test room.”

The record in Gordon’s head skipped for a second before he caught the joke and began snickering. He released Tommy to cover his hand with his mouth as he shook his head. Tommy relaxed an infinitesimal amount. Crisis averted.

Bubby, who had returned and was hovering nearby, sent Tommy a cool look before turning his attention to Gordon. “I found a present for you,” he said, beckoning him toward an adjacent room.

Gordon’s head snapped up. “The gun?”

He followed the old man out of the sector with the turret, and Tommy, red-faced, had to take a second alone to calm his racing heart. That was… a lot. It made sense; Gordon himself was a lot. But Tommy hadn’t expected to be so utterly blindsided by the exchange. He drew in a deep breath, let it out slow.

Gordon Freeman was a passionate, caring guy who would have insisted any idiot running through a sheet of bullets should keep themself safe. And he was so wired on stress, maybe he would have clutched at anyone’s face to drive his point home. Tommy had a feeling that wasn’t the case, though, and it scared him as much as it thrilled him.

He composed himself and rejoined the group. Benrey, lounging unhelpfully on a crate in the corner, caught his eye when he entered the room. He sneered and made a jerking off motion. Classy.

---

Things got easier for Tommy once they gave him a Glock.

He hadn’t used one of these in a while, but he remembered the rudimentary training they gave him when he took his position in the Anomalous Materials department. Bullets paled in comparison to spontaneous combustion in terms of alien elimination, but they got the job done. Pulling the trigger and feeling the kick in his hand was incredibly satisfying.

It also felt good to charge ahead at the front of the group, firing off rounds at blinding speeds. Punching bullets through the monsters that lurched toward them was an excellent way to burn off some of the pent up anxiety he had been collecting. He watched sickly green gore spatter the wall as he picked off another one. Cheaper than therapy, he thought wryly. They were… all going to need therapy after this.

Tommy had to admit the admiration his marksmanship drew from Gordon was equal parts gratifying and hilarious. He might as well have been playing hopscotch in the middle of an air raid. Tommy could snap his fingers and immolate these beings instantly if he really wanted to. Freeze the blood solid in their veins. But he wasn’t a showoff, so he accepted the man’s compliments by chalking it up to instinct, keeping his head down and playing the mortal game with a mortal weapon.

At one point, he peeled off from the group to neutralize one of the lumbering beasts they were being accosted by, leaving his colleagues high up on a catwalk and out of danger. It should have been an easy shot for Tommy, but Gordon’s protective streak was apparently a mile long, and he scrambled down to his level to attack the creature with the crowbar. Tommy watched him, bemused, as he took out the alien on his behalf. So brave. So utterly pointless.

He flicked his wrist and winked Gordon out of there, carefully depositing him back up on the catwalk. Faintly, he heard Bubby utter a bewildered, “how did you do that?” to an equally puzzled Gordon and let out a private chuckle to himself.

They eventually reached a cafe of sorts, and after they cleared the room of monsters, Tommy set to brewing up drinks from the machine on the wall. Coffee was good. He always felt he operated at a little slower pace than the steady sprint of time, and caffeine tended to catch him up with everyone else. The other scientists, thoroughly wiped, settled down on the floor to catch their breaths and slow their racing hearts.

Sitting in a circle, mugs in hand, they talked. Grounded themselves in some normalcy. Got to know each other a bit. Benrey was nowhere to be seen, off somewhere doing whatever it was that shithead entities did, which made the flow of conversation infinitely smoother. Tommy sipped the house blend, listening to Gordon as he led the discussion, prompting the team with questions about their homes, their families.

His mouth really never stopped, did it? Gordon had been pelleting them with words ceaselessly almost the entire day; one would think he’d need a break eventually. It was nice that he was curious about his colleagues, though. The fact that the group consisted of a lab experiment, a clone, and a demigod made conversation a little tricky, but Gordon’s genuine interest and concern for each of their lives was lovely.

Tommy learned that Bubby did, in fact, possess a sense of humor, catching Gordon with a zinger about friendship that was as touching as it was mean. Dr. Coomer had his own jokes, too, and Tommy just about snorted into his coffee when he declared, “I had a wife, but they took her in the divorce.” These guys weren’t bad, Tommy decided. Just a little unhinged.

And then Gordon’s attention was on him. “How ‘bout you, Tommy? Where are you from?”

He was from here, of course. Well, technically, he was from all over. His father had made sure Tommy took in a wide range of experiences as he grew up, but he always returned to Black Mesa like a homing pigeon in the end. While the facility had its flaws, the New Mexico wilderness that surrounded it was beautiful. Tommy loved the desert, and he liked to think the desert loved him back.

How did Tommy put something like that into words? How did he explain to Gordon that his only family was an ageless, supernatural being with the ability to bend time and space to his will, and a golden retriever? Coffee steamed in his face as his brain disconnected from his mouth.

“I don’t know, I’m an orphan,” he answered, haltingly. Then, because that was a fucking depressing lie, he cheerfully added, “but I have a dog!”

Gordon, caught off guard, let out a startled laugh. God, those dimples were just stunning. “What’s your dog’s name?” he asked.

“Sunkist,” Tommy answered fondly.

He had no reservations about sharing his dog with the man sitting across from him. He loved Sunkist, and he imagined Sunkist would like Gordon if they ever met. He could already picture the guy’s cheerful smile as he patted the retriever’s head. Good dog. Best friend.

“You named your dog after a soda?” Gordon asked, still grinning outright. “You really like soda, huh, bud?”

He briefly squeezed a hand on Tommy’s knee, and his stomach did a funny swoop like it was on the end of a yo-yo. Tommy blankly held Gordon’s expectant stare for a while and then realized he hadn’t answered.

“Yeah,” was all he could come up with in response.

He sure did like soda. Helped him see faster. That was a thing he had said today. Tommy had said a lot of things today. He was usually a man of few words, but Gordon got him talking, pulled the dialogue right out of him, whether it made sense or not.

And hell, he wanted to keep talking, which was a new feeling for Tommy. He wanted to keep sitting here on this grimy tiled floor and drink coffee and shoot the breeze with this little ragtag team all afternoon. When it was time to move on, he was reluctant to get going.

The apocalypse, however, waits for no one. So he went.

---

Further along in their road trip through hell, Tommy’s father made an appearance. His haunting visage materialized down a hallway, the air shimmering and warping around him like a desert mirage. Nobody really noticed he was there, but Tommy saw him. He always did.

It was later than he expected; Tommy had hoped his father would have found him hours ago to fill him in on what was happening, but that, apparently, was not his plan. His swirling eyes met Tommy’s from where he stood a few yards away. The crimson security lights made him look ghoulish. He didn’t say anything.

Tommy wordlessly jerked his thumb toward the team of scientists he had been tagging along with. Raised an eyebrow. These guys have anything to do with it? his motions asked.

His father tipped his chin back and passed a glance to the distracted team, then back to Tommy. He gave a solitary nod.

Tommy pointed to himself. And me?

He smiled like a bobcat on a moonless night. You are exactly where you need to be.

Tommy sighed. His dad was playing chess again. Odds were he knew far more about the Resonance Cascade than he let on, and was choosing to leave Tommy in the dark to further whatever ends he had in mind. Tommy didn’t exactly resent him for it - possessing cosmic knowledge would probably make anyone’s parenting style a little strange - but he’d appreciate at least a hint about what was happening.

Gordon suddenly pulled up beside him, shining his flashlight directly into his father’s face. The man just eyed him back silently, unaffected by the harsh beam of light. Tommy watched Gordon’s gaze focus disbelievingly on the mirage in front of him.

“Who’s this?” he asked.

“What?” Bubby called distantly. He was working on an exit door further down the hall, trying in vain to bust it open while Coomer hooked his fists at the deadbolt.

“The guy in the suit,” Gordon clarified. He gave a concerned look to Tommy. “You see that, right?”

Still clutching his flashlight, he was glancing back and forth between Tommy and his father, grasping at a shred of assurance that he wasn’t completely losing it. Tommy looked back at him pityingly. He wanted desperately to explain things to Gordon, to tell him that there was a plan, to offer his hand in an act of trust.

But his father was staring at both of them wolfishly, and he bit down on his words. Later, perhaps. When Tommy himself felt he had a firm enough grasp on the situation to relay it to Gordon accurately.

Tommy shook his head. It felt like he was slapping Gordon across the face.

Bubby, impatient, scoffed, “What are you talking about? Open the door.”

Gordon ripped his attention away from the shimmering man in front of him. “It’s locked, bro,” he called, and he left Tommy’s side to do damage control. “You can’t - stop. Don’t shoot it open.”

The fact that Tommy’s father had revealed himself willingly to Gordon indicated that he was a person of interest to him. Knowing how he operated, Tommy deduced that this could either be very good or very, very bad. He gave the man a tight-lipped smile. Good to see you, dad.

His father winked. Keep him safe.

I was already doing that, Tommy wanted to argue, but his father was warping out of the room, leaving him to handle the consequences of a dimensional rift on his own. Tommy rubbed his temples with his fingertips. Back to the chessboard.

Chapter 2 <-----> Chapter 4

[sarinataylor]

Rushing to ask about your French philosophy AU SO FAST spill the tea or rather it being French spill the coffee and house red

oh thank GOD

right ok first off read this

so. roger has just moved into a new flat. for context he is a FRAZZLED masters student. it’s first semester and he’s ta-ing like. three classes as well? he wants to DIE. he’s doing a masters in philosophy because.... of course he is, he knows, he hates himself too. but he fucking fell in love with philosophy in undergrad and his supervisor has been grooming him since his first year and now. here he is. seriously considering a phd. 

anyway so sometimes? sometimes philosophy just makes More Sense when you’re tripping okay, it just does. if you take notes? sometimes u wake up the next morning and realise you have New Insights that haven’t already been dissected to pieces

(his undergrad thesis was 1000000% written high like. almost all of it. he got a first. by a large margin. he’s still salty that the same technique doesn’t work with biology but whatever)

ANYWAY so he’s just chillin. tripping. and then he starts to get a lil para because this is a New Enclosed Space so he’s like right shit fuck i gotta leave im gonna go to the park all is good

anyway as he leaves his neighbour is letting himself into his flat and said neighbour (john) is like “oh, hi! i’m john. you must be the new move in!”

(john is working on social interaction with his therapist at the moment. she told him that he has to introduce himself to people and that waiting for people to introduce themselves while he gives off big Do Not Fuck With Me vibes is not conducive to the creating of lasting relationships. he’s trying.)

and roger who is tripping balls responds in french, because of course he does

and john? sweet john is like. oh oh i’m sorry i don’t speak french

so roger mumbles something vaguely french sounding under his breath and makes a run for it

and anyway he hangs out at the park, writes some insightful notes about philosophy in his notes on his phone and then heads back home where OF COURSE john is leaving his apartment again and greets him with a shy ‘bonjour’ to which roger replies with ‘au revoire’ and locks himself back into his apartment because he’s a high idiot

anyway the next morning roger is like. oh fuck. im a moron. 

and he has two options. firstly: he can come clean to his nice seeming neighbour, laugh off that no he’s actually not french he was just... off his nut. or secondly: he can pretend to be french 

and roger is a fucking idiot because he decides to go with the second option. it’s not as if he’s going to be running into this guy often, after all! they’re neighbours not roommates

except. john has been told by his therapist to be more outgoing. and instead of, idk, joining a club or a sportsteam to meet new people he has decided that the french guy next door is the Perfect Candidate. he is a) not going to understand half the shit john says and b) hot as fuck

so. john signs up for french classes. because, of course he does.

and he keeps???? running into roger???? and it’s fine at first because roger knows a bit of french? like he can read it passably but he can’t converse in it. his supervisor has been trying to get him to learn french for YEARS and he’s been refusing but he knows enough/can bullshit enough for the first couple of months but then he realises, to his horror, that john seems..... to be? getting better at french. he’s clearly actually learning french

and so roger. has to learn french. it’s been three months, it’s much too late for him to. come clean now, especially now that he has the world’s biggest fucking crush on this dude like. this is clearly the only option

(his tutor is dominique. she is living for the drama.)

and so the next like. 8 months? are just the two of them. learning french. john is learning french to converse with roger who is learning french at a slightly faster pace so that john doesnt realise he doesn’t know french while also pretending to slowly learn english to keep up the facade 

it all unravels almost a year to the day it began

john enrolls in an intro to philosophy class? as an elective? and who happens to be leading his tutorial class but roger?

(”roger” is, of course, pronounced fucking horrifically because roger just..... said his name with a fucking awful french accent that first time he said hi to john in the hallway and it stuck. he couldnt undo it. it’s..... it’s so bad.)

and roger, seeing john walk in, is like. oh fuck. like. again he has two options? he can a) just. out himself and speak in english or b) teach the entire class, of english speaking students, in french

he chooses the latter. 

he gets about five minutes in until a student he’s had in the past asks why the fuck he’s speaking french in a class about greek classical philosophy

john is clearly starting to catch on so roger has to give up the ghost

“and THAT is why you should all learn french. the french philosophical school is really so important--”

john just straight up opens his laptop, unenrolls, and walks out because... he feels like an idiot? this guy has clearly just been taking the piss out of him this whole time, probably laughing it up with his friends about how stupid he is. and it’s worse for the amount of effort john put in, like. it’s horrible and unfair, and he can’t believe that he ever thought someone like that would ever be interested in him in the first place, even just as a friend. he’s so stupid

and roger is freaking out because fuck fuck fuck fuck he really fucking likes john and he’s an idiot 

(john’s therapist is mostly just confused at this point like. it seems unlikely that someone would have put in the time and effort to prank him in this elaborate manner but john’s like NOPE THIS IS PROOF THAT EVERYONE HATES ME ON SIGHT I CAN NEVER INTERACT WITH ANYONE AGAIN)

and so. john avoids the HELL out of roger who after a couple of weeks of trying to catch him just. gives up? bc yeah, he wouldn’t wanna talk to him either he’s clearly a weirdo. he doesn’t wanna be a stalking weirdo too.

anyway one day john opens his door to find some random (freddie) passed out on roger’s doorstep? bc roger went out the night before, as did freddie, but they did not coordinate their nights out and as such have ended up closer to one another’s apartments and decided to crash with one another except. neither is home. 

and freddie wakes up when john opens his door, sees him, and screeches

and john’s like. ok im gonna go goodbye

but freddie is like!!!!! oh my god oh my god you’re john

and john puts two and two together (strange man at roger’s doorstep? probably knows roger) and is like fuck. ok like yeah y’all had ur laughs i’m an idiot lets move on now i have to go

and freddie is???? you’re an idiot???? roger learned french because he had a crush on you and didn’t know how to tell you he wasn’t french after he got so high he started speaking a language he doesn’t know

and john’s like right yeah whatever

but freddie is!!!!! you’re a legend. an actual Legend you don’t even know. everyone knows about you, they’re going to freak when they find out i met you!!!! roger wouldn’t let anyone around for a year in case we gave him away!!!!! i can’t believe this oh my god, will you take a selfie with me??? like we all stalked you on fb obviously but it’s not the same as meeting u in person y’know??

and john is like. uh. no i dont know. ive never stalked anyone on facebook which has freddie like yeah. obviously. if you had you’d have rumbled roger much earlier 

and john’s like ok thanks for the reminder im an idiot. didn’t need it, but thanks

but freddie’s like dude i just think so highly of you??? i mean you just thought the blonde hottie across the hall was french and went for it y’know????? i’ve never learnt another language for a dick appointment but i appreciate craftsmanship when i see it and believe me when i say you, sir, are a god amongst men

can i shake your hand?

(brian, confused at the pub the week after the first incident: okay but. you know greek? why didn’t you just..... speak greek?roger: I DON’T KNOW BRIAN I WAS OFF MY FUCKING NUT OKAY?)

and anyway

roger’s thesis actually ends up being on 19th century french philosophy because. he knows french now

his dedication page reads[in english] to my supervisor, who i would not learn french for[in french] and john, for who i did not have to learn french for, but did anyway

[flatstarcarcosa]

extremely detailed character meme (Van, ships: right on target and far from any road)

found this on my dash and i thought i’d fill it in! under a cut b/c it is REALLY detailed! some of the questions don’t apply for me, and i tried to make it easy to tell which ship i’m referring too b/c some things are different here and there 

Character Chart Character’s full name: Van (pronounced vaughn, rhymes with fawn) Miller Reason or meaning of name: None  Character’s nickname: None, aside from petnames Reason for nickname: None Birth date: for ship: right on target: 10/03/1990 for ship: far from any road: 10/03/1970  Physical appearance Age: ship: right on target: 29\ ship: far from any road: 24 in 95, 30 in 02, 40 in 2012 How old do they appear: Perpetually babyfaced. So about 15 or so until they hit their mid 30′s Weight: honestly i don’t know Height: 5′2 (look what’s the point of a self insert if i can’t achieve my dream of being at least five foot tall all right) Body build: stronk.  Shape of face: square ish?  Eye color: grey Glasses or contacts: glasses, doesn’t like them unless they’re sunglasses though, prefers to squint and look like a hamster  Skin tone: pale/sickly at times, tan if they’ve been in the sun, but still very white  Distinguishing marks: pointy canines  Predominant features: nothing really sticks out, van’s physical features are pretty normal Hair color: naturally a muted blonde. prone to dying it a bright yellow in 95 and 02 for ship: far from any road. dyed black for ship: right on target Type of hair: straight Hairstyle: fluffy, over hair sprayed mullet ponytail thing for ‘95, ‘02 has a less hair band style looking thing but still pretty punky, ‘12 Van has what i call the ‘business undercut’ (far from any road). also just a normal, kind of spiky undercut for (right on target) Voice: i dont know how to answer this?  Overall attractiveness: this is just a bad question  Physical disabilities: I’m gonna break this one down because one thing i love about my self inserts is modifying my own, actual disabilities a bit so: far from any road: van has kidney and bladder problems that get progressively worse as time goes on, and undiagnosed celiac disease. because of a severe motorcycle accident in ‘89 they also have a weak/bum leg that is prone at times to flaring up with pain and instability with no warning. after a second motorcycle accident in ‘95, these things get a lot worse. by the time ‘12 rolls around van resigns themself to having traded in their bike years earlier for an actual car and using a cane. they’re not happy about it.  right on target: same kidney/bladder/digestive issues. bum leg is a side effect of general chronic pain caused by it. their leg has a habit of still going out at random, and despite needing a cane sometimes they refuse to use it. lester always keep an eye out in case their leg is about to collapse under them. he’s grabbed them many times to keep them from hitting the ground.  Usual fashion of dress: dark, leather, jeans, punky looking things.  Favorite outfit: leather jacket, motorcycle boots even if they’re not riding, jeans.  Jewelry or accessories: big clunky silver rings. right on target!van has a solid black metal band on their left thumb that matches one lester has.

Personality Good personality traits: tries to be kind, tries to make things better for others at the expense of themself, funny, loves animals,  Bad personality traits: addiction problems, quick temper, far from any road!van likes to hustle people at bars and get into bar fights but usually only if they’ve been provoked  Mood character is most often in: it cycles a lot, so  Sense of humor: good? this is a vague question  Character’s greatest joy in life: photography, making people laugh, alone time Character’s greatest fear: death, being in poverty again/being stuck in poverty,  Why? being poor is Not Fun What single event would most throw this character’s life into complete turmoil? far from any road: something happening to rust. they don’t realize at it first but he’s become their grounding agent, and without him there to balance them out they would not fare well.  right on target: lester’s brief stint of being fucking dead and murdered on TV wasn’t a good time.  Character is most at ease when: it’s cold and rainy out and they have an excuse to stay in bed and snooze.  Most ill at ease when: surrounded by too many people and too many noises. Enraged when: hhhhhhhhhhhhh often? the worst they get is in ‘95 when marty makes a few jabs at their trauma and they beat him bloody before rust pulls them off him.  Depressed or sad when: also often, sometimes for no reason. thats kind of what clinical depression is. Priorities: money. taking care of themself with it in order to be able to help others. Life philosophy: sometimes you don’t have to be great, you can just be okay.  If granted one wish, it would be: ability to change gender/sex characteristics at will. Why? it’s the transgenderism (i use that word satirically and as a joke, for those that don’t know that’s a te]]]rf dogwhistle in other situations, a lot of trans people have taken it back)  Character’s soft spot: their pets and the fact that being a raging asshole is a front they have to actively work at. Is this soft spot obvious to others? depends on the person. to rust? yes. to lester? not as much.  Greatest strength: refusal to give up. Greatest vulnerability or weakness: raging asshole disease and the addiction issues. Biggest regret: developing addiction issues.   Minor regret: it also cycles like their moods. Biggest accomplishment: far from any road: got a bachelor’s degree in sociology before deciding to get into journalism.  right on target: ??? van doesn’t feel accomplished. lester is trying to encourage them at going to college but he’s not very good at it.  Minor accomplishment: “not fucking dead yet, assholes”  Past failures he/she would be embarrassed to have people know about: far from any road: van was never able to find out who it was in the south texas area that was targeting members of the LGBT community, that’s the whole reason they ended up with the crusaders and met rust, they had reason to believe it was someone connected to the gang. despite help from rust, the investigation went nowhere and all they have is a half finished expose.  right on target: they didn’t try to leave an abusive situation sooner. Why? see above Character’s darkest secret: i? don’t know??   Does anyone else know? N/A Goals Drives and motivations: just live the best they can Immediate goals: not die Long term goals: not die, perhaps be less of an alcoholic  How the character plans to accomplish these goals: slowly?  How other characters will be affected: they help.  Past Hometown: --- Type of childhood: traumatic Pets: dogs, frogs, turtles, hamsters First memory: ---- Most important childhood memory: ----  Why:  ------ Childhood hero:------ Dream job: ------ Education: bachelor’s degree for far from any road, GED for right on target Religion: atheistic but understanding and accepting of others Finances: far from any road: not fucking superb, hence the side hustles. right on target: poor  Present Current location: far from any road: Louisiana, i don’t remember TD ever stating where at aside from in the sticks right on target: NYC  Currently living with: rust or lester  Pets: far from any road is various pets at various times, right on target is initially just the doggo. Religion: still the same  Occupation: hustler slash freelance journalist for far from any road, unemployed for right on target Finances: better by 2012 (far from any road) thanks to a boring but stable office job, and for right on target they have lester’s money now and even lester doesn’t know how much he has aside from “a lot”. Family Mother: ------- Relationship with her: nonexistent    Father: Bastard Sr. Relationship with him: nonexistent.  Siblings: sister, older Relationship with them: non existent Spouse: rust/lester Relationship with him/her: i mean in both settings it’s a long term (rust right at around 20 years if you count their time in the crusaders initially, lester about 7 years) so, good if complicated at times Children:  no Relationship with them: none Other important family members: none  Favorites Color: purple, green, black Least favorite color: red Music: prog rock Food: pizza, waffles, hash browns, cereal  Literature: lots! really, its across all genres Form of entertainment: viddy gaems Expressions: what?  Mode of transportation: motorcycle or car  Most prized possession: also motorcycle or car Habits Hobbies: viddy gaemz, photography, sketch comedy  Plays a musical instrument? nah Plays a sport? is pool a sport?  How he/she would spend a rainy day: cozy in bed, s***ing some d***  Spending habits: they are fucking cheap as fuck whether they have money or not Smokes: yes, they say they’re planning to quit but [thor voice] is he though  Drinks: yes, it’s the alcoholism  Other drugs: pills mostly. to be fair they do HAVE to have a lot of meds because of chronic illness but they do love them some benzos  What does he/she do too much of? drinks, sleeps, smokes What does he/she do too little of? healthy food, exercise  Extremely skilled at: hustling. that works in both setting because with rust they learned it themself, with lester he taught them. also, writing.  Extremely unskilled at: art, socialising with people  Nervous tics: knuckle cracking,  Usual body posture: crosses arms a lot  Mannerisms: ???? Peculiarities: ????? Traits Optimist or pessimist? pessimist  Introvert or extrovert? introvert  Daredevil or cautious? cautious  Logical or emotional? both actually, it’s not fun Disorderly and messy or methodical and neat? disorderly and messy, clashes with rust’s methodical and neat Prefers working or relaxing? relaxing  Confident or unsure of himself/herself? switches rapidly between both  Animal lover? yes Self-perception How he/she feels about himself/herself: bad.  One word the character would use to describe self: asshole  One paragraph description of how the character would describe self: no good alcoholic junkie with a shitty temper, a shittier outlook and few skills or worth to bring to the table except a raging selfish streak What does the character consider his/her best personality trait? sense of humor  What does the character consider his/her worst personality trait? temper  What does the character consider his/her best physical characteristic? thicc What does the character consider his/her worst physical characteristic? crippled How does the character think others perceive him/her: badly,  What would the character most like to change about himself/herself: alcoholism  Relationships with others Opinion of other people in general: they try to be cordial, unless they’re in traffic, in which case it’s fuck you and your fucking mother you stupid fucking motherfucker  Does the character hide his/her true opinions and emotions from others? yes Person character most hates: [redacted]  Best friend(s): @dadbodsandbots is p much hanging out somewhere in every setting  Love interest(s): rust and lester  Person character goes to for advice: they don’t, that requires enough vulnerability to admit there’s a problem Person character feels responsible for or takes care of: also rust and lester Person character feels shy or awkward around: van is very uncomfortable around marty most of the time, he reminds them of their father. it smooths out as time goes on, but still. also when lester was stuck with the DA, they didn’t like daken at first  Person character openly admires: ehh? Person character secretly admires: ehh?  Most important person in character’s life before story starts: ehh?  After story starts: ehh? 

found here

[selenelavellan]

Elder God Tattoos

(based loosely on this post and Feys and my tags on it.)

Dirthamen, Falon’din, Glory, Squish, and Vena are @feynites​

Ana(mentioned) is @lycheemilkart​s

TW for mentioned Abuse, Blood, and vague allusions to off-screen rape

Selene takes a deep breath, staring at the golden room number in front of her.

She's been in this buildings hallway for too long, she thinks. Security will be here soon, and then it's all over for her.

Her tattoos sting on her skin; Des's burns and tingles on her thigh, imbued with his magic to help her complete her task, while Dirthamen's is still tender and healing where he had placed it on her back.

Selene isn't sure what to expect on the other side of the apartment door.

Dirthamen had made vague mentions of mistreatment, of powers being taken and misused and onslaughts of verbal abuse. Some small part of her is still hoping she can just talk to the guy though. That she can just explain 'hey, you're doing a shitty job with your god, let's just get your tattoo removed and everything can go back to normal, and I won't have to kill you under the orders of my own god'.

Well.

Her first god, anyways. Guess she's 'high priestess'-ing for two now.

Like Des wasn't enough of a headache on his own.

They had warned her, before she left. Of tricks and violence and a thirst for blood that ran so deeply it had nearly corrupted Dirthamen. She knew that part, of course; had accepted the bond and the contract strictly to save him, to give him an anchor that hadn't conflicted so violently with his own so that he could survive the terrible things Falon'din was doing with his name, his power and his essence.

Selene had hoped, right up until she opened the door, that they were wrong. That Falon'din was the sort of man who could be reasoned with, could be spoken back down from his pedestal, could be convinced to come to a peaceful resolution.

But as the door clicks open beneath her touch, swinging open silently and revealing the goings on inside, she realizes the futility of her hopes.

She sees the golden hair, and the broken blue eyes, and the bloodied skin, and she knows.

She knows instantly, exactly what sort of a man Falon'din is.

“Who are-”

He never finishes the sentence.

Selenes own magics rise, elevated and escalated from her contract with Des as the power he had gifted to her courses through her veins and out through the palm of her hand, a blinding white fury of flames that engulfs him in an instant. She feels him pull at Dirthamen, tries to claw his way into his own contract-and it only requires a thought for her to sever it. To deem him unworthy of the bond, and to strip it from him. His mouth opens and his soul screams and for a moment she feels dangerously vindicated. Judgment and fury and the power to punish, the power to save, her power. 

Her domain.

No more victims.

The light fades and the remaining ash falls to the ground.

Two blue eyes look up at her from beneath long golden locks. Silent and still and radiating fight or flight.

Selene sighs, and holds out a hand to help them stand.

“I...m sorry?” She tries, not very good at the consolation thing these days. “If you loved him or something. I know it can be a shock but-”

“I hated him.” They interrupt with a sureness that nearly startles her.

Well. That makes things easier, right?

“Cool,” Selene says with a slow nod. “Good. I guess uh...I guess I don't really need to worry about you like...reporting this, then? Like to cops, or templars, or anything like that?”

“And tell them what? An angel pulled me out of hell?” They snort, tears falling down the sides of their face that they don't seem to notice.

That’s shock, she thinks. Probably not a great sign.

“I'm not-Don't say that. That's not-I mean I definitely just killed a guy, please don't-don't say that.”

“He was a monster.”

“Yeah, that's what I heard,” Selene admits. “But like-probably murder isn't a great thing to idolize? Definitely a last resort.”

“Says the murderer.”

Selene winces. “I'm not-listen, I had strict orders from not one but two gods to do this, it's not my fault-You ever argued with a god? They don't have to stop for breath, ok? And there were two of them, I was double teamed, and then they distracted me with their-” She stops herself before she gets into any details about the previous nights events, clearing her throat and staring up at the ceiling for a moment.

She finally lets go of their hand.

“Do you have somewhere you can go?” She tries instead.

They stare out the window for a minute, before their face splits into a grin.

There's still blood on their teeth.

“Yeah,” They nearly laugh. “Yeah, I do.”

“Great,” Selene says with great relief; the last thing she needs right now is another house guest. “You should go there.”

“Where will you go?” They ask.

Selene blinks, pointing vaguely over her shoulder. “I was uh...I was just gonna go back home.”

“How can I find you again?”

Selene scrunches up her face, head shaking fervently  “You shouldn't. Like you really-it'd be better if you just...didn't.”

“You saved my life.”

“That's a little dramatic...” Selene trails off, watching the blood trickle down the inside of their leg and trying to force herself to stay in the moment.

Don't go back there. Don't go back that way, back where they can't follow.

She runs her fingers through her hair, and curses under her breath while they continue staring at her in anticipation. There's a flyer for some local band sitting on the kitchen counter, and Selene scribbles her number on the back of it before holding it out for them.

They reach out, and she snags it back before they can grab it, holding their eye contact for a solid minute before finally warning.

“Don't need me. But if things get really bad...call this number.”

She lowers it back down, and lets them take the paper from her this time.

Selene gestures towards the door with her head. “You go out first. I'm going to do a little clean up in here.”

The elf holds her gaze for a moment before nodding and heading for the door. Their hand is still on the doorknob when they finally speak again.

“He deserved it, you know. He deserved worse.”

Selene bites down on her bottom lip, staring down at the pile of ash.

“Go.”

–

News of the apartment fire is playing on low volume over Selenes television while she drinks her coffee. The fire she had used to burn any lingering evidence didn't spread to the other apartments, and her wards had been generic enough they seem to be assuming they were placed there by the apartment managers.

Nothing to link her to it.

Nothing but some golden haired elf wandering somewhere with her number in their pocket.

“You did well,” Des purrs, appearing on the arm of her couch. His tail curls over her thigh, siphoning his lingering magics back into himself while he watches the news report play.

“Thanks,” She mutters quietly, still unnerved and uncomfortable from the scene she had walked in on earlier.

“I am sorry for the trouble it caused,” Dirthamen adds, appearing beside her to lean his head on her shoulder.

“It saved someone, so...it worked out. They seemed to agree it was for the best, anyways.”

“You let them go?” Des perks. “I thought you were all worried about being caught by templars and such. Someone who could identify you seems rather...messy.”

“It's fine,” Selene says without further explanation.

They know, anyways. They can pry through her memories at will, prod at her magics, tie her up in whatever matters they see fit. There's no secrets between them; there's no room for it. She's the only thing tethering them to this world right now, the only one left who believes in them.

The only one left who loves them.

But they love her in return, and she enjoys the knowledge and the lost stories, and the companionship they give to her so freely.

“We need a way to generate an income,” She muses aloud. “Something less obvious than 'local elven woman wins lottery for third time in three years'.”

“You certainly weren't complaining before,” Des mumbles.

Selene glances up at him and frowns. “What sort of skills do you have?”

“I am a God,” Des preens. “I have all of them.”

“Uh-huh,” Selene deadpans “What does the little squiggly red line under words on the computer mean when I'm typing?”

Des purses his lips. “It means mortals have a different definition of 'skill' than I do.”

“Uh-huh,” Selene repeats, taking a small sip of her drink.

Selene considers her options, leaning her head on top of Dirthamens. What could she do that would help? What could she do that would make a difference, could actually improve things?

She looks down at Dirthamen, and glances back up at Des.

“...Are there other gods like you that are looking for people to bond to?”

–

It takes the better part of six months to finally open the shop.

Elder God Tattoos.

Not exactly subtle, but...it works.

Mostly she just does regular tattoos; flowers, stars, dolphins. Non-enchantment work. Builds up her portfolio, and keeps an ear out for good people having bad times. She's very careful about her selections; tries her best to make sure the people match the gods, that they're compatible, that there's no risk of corruption on either side.

The first year she's open, she only does the one.

A young elven woman comes in, suffering from the loss of a recent close family member and hoping to bring some semblance of order and joy back to her life. Selene has Venavismi follow her for a week, to see if he would be interested.

“I like her,” Vena grins, twirling around her ceiling and bursting with bright blooms of flowers and fruits. “Little Banana-Ana.”

Selene gives the woman his tattoo, after explaining the situation.

She leaves out the part where 'sometimes you might have to kill somebody for him', in hopes that maybe she'll just be a little luckier than she was.

But it has been six months now, and they have adjusted to each other wonderfully.

Selene nearly breathes a sigh of relief, before a too familiar elf wanders into her shop.

“I heard they do good work here, and I was-” Squish, a nice young woman that Des favors is saying before the elf who had walked in beside her freezes.

Ah, shit.

“You're-”

“Welcome to Elder God Tattoos!” Selene interrupts before they can say anything. “Here for another browse through Squish? Or have you finally decided on a design?”

“Still browsing, though I think I've narrowed it down,” Squish grins. “I brought my signif Glory with me. Thought they'd get a kick out of the place, and I wanted their input. You don't mind, do you Selene?”

“Nope,” She lies, smiling right back and doing her best to pretend she isn't panicking internally. “Take your time.”

Squish plops down onto the plush waiting rooms couches and starts browsing through the thick binders of past work Selene has done, and Selene excuses herself to the back room.

And that's when she finally lets herself panic.

Dirthamen feels it first, popping into being in front of her, todays talons resting carefully on her shoulders.

“What is the matter?”

“The elf-the elf is here. The one who knows. The one who saw me.”

“...Lots of elves have seen you.”

“The one who saw me obliterate Falon'din,” Selene hisses. “Shit, shit, we should've moved before we did this, I'm such an idiot, shit-”

“It is alright,” Dirthamen assures her, pulling her into him as his arms and wings wrap around her. The feathers covering his chest should be uncomfortable, probably, but mostly they just smell like him and it's reassuring. Grounding. Keeps her in the moment.

“I've got this,” Des says, appearing in a solid form behind her and striding into the waiting room before she can escape Dirthamen's grip to stop him.

Selene struggles, but Dirthamen holds her tighter until she relents. Nothing is exploding and no one is yelling so that's...that's good, right? That's a good sign? Things aren't a total disaster in her shop right now, maybe?

Des comes back into the room a few minutes later, Squish and Glory in tow.

“They're cool,” He announces.

Selene lets out a loud groan.

“You're the one who killed Falon'din?” Squish asks, and Selene has to resist the urge to glare at Des or Glory, still bound up in Dirthamens arms as she squirms enough to be able to see them.

“I...that's a complicated question, really. Were you...friends?”

Squish snorts. “No.”

Selene nods silently.

It's awkward.

Des apparently explained the whole situation to them, which Selene could really have lived without.

But they start coming by more often after that.

Like friends might.

They bring in clients and potential clients, apparently running some sort of elven aid/vengeance program on their own that Selene figures she's better off not knowing the details about. She runs a strange business of her own, finding followers for Gods that are fading from existence. It makes her grateful for her own situation, in a strange way.

Grateful for that drunken night when she ended up with Des. Grateful that they found Dirthamen when they did, and grateful that he wanted to stick around.

And when she crawls into bed at night and feels them wrap around her, she finally feels calm. Happy.

They make the moments worth being present for.

[youhearstatic]

Exit Interview for a Fic

(or: 10 Questions Every Fic Writer Secretly Wants to be Asked)

I’ve decided that I’m going to do one of these whenever I finish a fic as a sort of exit interview with myself. It’s too easy to forget stuff as you move on and time passes, you know? I want to remember what I felt as soon as it was finished.

So here’s a bunch of questions about Losing Time.

Under a readmore because again, it’s long and pretty really self indulgent! (There are some behind the scenes/further explanation of things if you are interested though.)

1. Of the fics you’ve written, which is your favorite and why? I’m still going to say the unfinished Barry POV even though that’s awful of me. I know I keep saying this but there’s a section in that story that I’m just so freaking proud of and can’t wait to share... But I have to wait because the fic is unfinished and I can’t put that one up episodically. So even though it’s unfinished that section makes it my favorite.

Having said that? I’m really damn proud of this! Putting up something one chapter/part/episode at a time was nerve wracking. Hoping I’ve laid down enough pieces to pick up later? And I didn’t know what I was doing for at least the first third, and only an idea for the next third. And I FINISHED IT! So yeah, proud of all of that. Plus there was a lot of stuff that’s outside my wheelhouse. So I pushed my boundaries in a lot of ways that I’m also proud of.

2. Which scene was your favorite to write in Losing Time? This is going to sound awful but... part 10 - the scene where Barry/Sildar goes through the portal. That’s when it felt to me like the story changed gears if that makes sense. Up to that point it was just so. much. talking. It was necessary! But I felt like I was doing a really crappy job telling a story when it was just so much standing around talking.

And just for an early scene that made me have hope there was something good here: Lup helping Barry/Sildar with the panic/asthma attack. Lup is so ferocious and caring and just this amazing force of nature and that moment between the two of them answered the question “what would happen if they met and he didn’t know her?” Obviously the answer was: he’d fall instantly in love with her of course. She came in and terrified him and still he was putty in her hands thirty seconds later.

3. Which part of Losing Time was hardest to write? I think part 11 was hardest. Like I just said, it felt like the story had just changed gears and I knew where things needed to go but only in the vaguest sense. I sat looking at an empty page for the longest with that section, for sure.

And then of course the end of part 14. That scene needed to carry weight and the whole time I was writing it, right up until that last line showed up, I felt like I was failing miserably.

4. If you could change anything in Losing Time, what would it be? I wish I were better at writing Taako. I feel like I understand his thinking and motivations? But his speaking style is really hard for me to emulate. I don’t want to lean into it too hard and make him ridiculous because he’s not! So I probably err too hard the other way, unfortunately.

5. Did you make an outline for Losing Time? Did you stick to it? No outline at all. I started this thing with a vague “what if” idea: what if Barry were suddenly younger? It turned into more what ifs. What if Barry was suddenly - after canon, with Lup there - alive without his memories? How would everyone else deal with it? How would that effect he and Lup? I certainly didn’t write part one with any clue what was going to happen - I didn’t even know it was going to become a full fic. 

6. Which scenes did you cut, and which were added in Losing Time? There was another scene with Merle but it was giving too much information too soon. I pushed it back and then it just didn’t fit anymore. I also had a brief conversation with Magnus but I knew I wanted this to be the four of them - Barry, Lup, Taako, and Kravitz - so that didn’t go very far before I cut it.

Also, originally they were not going to tell him what was going on. Then I was like... hold up. He’s an adult. Lup would respect him more than that. She would absolutely argue to tell him the truth. So there was more of them keeping things from him that got cut out.

7. Who was your favorite character to write in Losing Time? Lup. I think at this point in the timeline she’s still struggling with the last decade and trying to figure out what their lives are like now. I think she’s just starting to figure that stuff out and then this knocks her for a loop. (heh)  I was a little worried in the earlier parts when she and Taako were talking and just kept having this friction. I didn’t want it to seem like I was having her just be this emotional ping pong ball bouncing all over but... she kind of is? She and Taako are butting heads there. It’s for the same reason though - they are scared and worried and neither are dealing with their emotions very well. Taako has seen that he’s got the tendency to try to cut out people before they can lead to pain and at one point he’s reminding himself not to do that with Kravitz but then he’s totally doing that with Kravitz. And he’s doing it with Barry. To part of him, he’s decided this is already a failure and he is going to shut that part of himself down and stop caring about Barry before it hurts. But dude, it’s too late! And that attitude - like Lup understands but also she can. not. take. it. But then it spirals back around to her feeling like if she’d been around he wouldn’t have gotten this bad about things. So she’s feeling so many things. I really hope I handled it well enough to make that clear but I suspect it’s a weak point.

OH WAIT I FORGOT. Favorite character to write? THE RAVEN QUEEN. I can’t imagine trying to write her for more than brief glimpses but good grief, she is SO much fun to write. My favorite scene ever (as yet unshared sorry) involves her and I just... ahhh. I feel like there is ALWAYS so much going on behind her words. She is absolutely an enigmatic deity. Also, yeah, totally ship her and Istus like for real. But also I think she plays it cool. She plays EVERYTHING cool. Unless she’s mad. 

8. Which came first, the title or the fic? The title was basically me going: okay if I’m going to start putting this on AO3 it has to have a name so... It was the best I could come up with.

9. Which idea came to you first in Losing Time? Just the general idea of de-aged Barry.

10. What are some facts readers may not know about Losing Time? Apologies, this is gonna get really long! 

I really struggled with a few things: 

Lup’s emotions, like I mentioned above.

The Barry/Sildar name thing. It just started as part of his confusion when Lup first comes in. I headcanon hard the thing about Barry was a typo and the twins never let it go and then they added the Bluejeans part. I feel like for a little while it maybe bothered him but then he realized it came from a place of love - the twins tease everyone about everything and that was the earliest sign they accepted him - and so he embraced the name to the point that Lucretia didn’t try to erase it with the void fish. (In my Barry POV story he tries to give his ‘real’ name when alive and memory-less but it just doesn’t feel right so he goes by Barry. So when the coin says “Your name is Barry Bluejeans” it’s not just saying: here’s proof I know what I’m talking about. It’s saying: here’s proof you know what I’m taking about.)  Then in this story, the name thing became a bigger issue. It was him standing up for himself, making himself a full fledged part of things, not just a wounded bird they were dragging along and looking out for. (Which is also why he knocks out the guy with the empty health pot. Even without magic, Barry is a fucking scrapper who will try his damnedest to hold his own.) And I felt like Lup would absolutely respect his wishes on that. Taako slips up not because he doesn’t care but because he’s so much more off the cuff about things. It’s not coming from disrespect, it’s habit. But what I really went back and forth on was how does the narrative refer to him? Is it confusing to switch in the middle? I decided it would be more confusing to call him Barry while the characters called him Sildar. Also, obviously, it was going to be part of the conclusion. The most confusing was when they’re talking about things that happened to Barry before he was de-aged. Kravitz goes back and forth then just calls that person Barry-of-three-days-ago which seemed a very Kravitz way to handle things.

Writing that scene at the end of part 14. I knew that was coming for a while. Sildar had to make the decision that saving the innocent mattered. I knew there’d be a happy ending. I knew what the Raven Queen was up to. I knew pretty quickly (though not immediately!) that Lup referencing him saying “last first kiss” would come back. But that scene... it was important! It needed to be big! It needed to feel like a sacrifice! And I was writing it and it was... okay. And then, without thought or plan I typed “and then he let her go.” And reader, I fucking cried. I cried and I shut my laptop. I’ve NEVER cried at my own writing. Now, I’m well aware that the line only has power because of GRIFFIN’S words and I’m fine with that. I’m not trying to claim any skill or effectiveness. I’m saying it was a gift that finally gave the scene the weight it needed. The scene got better on editing but I could work on it for a hundred years and never get it to where I wanted it to be. But that line redeemed it, got it as close as it was going to get. Having said all that? I know that people will HATE me for cliffhanger-ing there. I honestly thought for a long time that it would end on a very long part 14. And then it kept getting longer and longer and I scrolled back up going... where can I break this and... yeah. I’m sorry. That’s where it needed to break. That’s the shift in things. That’s where the pause belonged.

And then...... Sildar stabs himself. I knew that dagger was coming a long time back. I was pretty sure when Taako asked Angus to research he was going to find info on the dagger. I knew the dagger - this ancient magic weapon that actually belonged to The Raven Queen (part of why she was SO FURIOUS) - was the magic explanation for what was happening. And I knew that he’d already been hit with it. (I hope it’s implied clearly enough in the story that is what happened even though the specific events of 3 days ago are never clearly explained.) And look, it’s rough stuff. I knew and I know. But I literally could not think of any other way for it to work. He had to make that decision. This was not him committing suicide. I realize that’s a fucking razor thin margin but that was not my intent. This was him saying, I fucked up and while it’s not entirely my fault I now take responsibility for this innocent and will do what I can to fix the situation. And since he wasn’t a reaper anymore... His touch didn’t work, his blood didn’t work... because literally his soul was the key. Also... in case it’s not clear I’ll say it here: The Raven Queen totally knew this was the best case secnario but she couldn’t say that. Her hands were tied. That’s why she’s ANGRY AS HELL. Someone fucked with her people and she’s furious. Sildar is out of her hands. He really was clear of his lichdom and his service to her and had he died without the ‘decision’ between him and Istus going the way that it did, his soul would have released to the Primordial Soup/Sea of Souls. The Queen knew this was the only way this could work out and she couldn’t influence it. That’s why she couldn’t manipulate space to get him on that path. She only did it the first time to protect him. She booked out of her court because she could not participate any further in the proceedings without influencing things she wasn’t allowed to alter. In the Stockade, she’s the one who opened the portal for the innocent. The string disappeared (Istus’s dominion over him) and she regifted him the feather (her dominion over him and all that entailed.)

Oh, and one last, small thing. Just for bookending, when Barry checks to see if he can summon his staff? He says the exact same thing he said before he went through the portal. Only this time, of course, it works. I hoped that was proof enough that everything was fixed.

If you’ve read all this, thank you! I feel like I owe you a prize or something. Thanks so much for sticking with me through this project. It was fun. I hope there’s more stuff like this to come!

[marypsue]

Raising Stakes 24 / 24

Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight / Part Nine / Part Ten / Part Eleven / Part Twelve / Part Thirteen / Part Fourteen / Part Fifteen / Part Sixteen / Part Seventeen / Part Eighteen / Part Nineteen / Part Twenty/ Part Twenty-One / Part Twenty-Two / Part Twenty-Three / Part Twenty-Four  

Here it is, at long last! Thank you all for sticking around to see this one completed!

I want to say a big huge thank you to everyone who made art or wrote fic for this AU, left a comment or sent me an ask, or otherwise let me know that you were enjoying reading what I was writing. You made this project so much fun to work on, and I don’t know how far through it I would’ve gotten without you. I’d also like to say a special thank you to @seiya234 for her illustrious beta-ing services which always helped me out of the corners I wrote myself into, and @ancientouroboros, who has been this fic’s biggest cheerleader and has drawn me a truly stunning number of excellent vampstans.

There’ll be an author’s commentary on the fic coming...eventually, and I may post one or two extended scenes, but for now...that’s all, folks!

I’m also on AO3 as MaryPSue.

...

Stan left before the sky was all the way dark.

At least he’d got the Stanleymobile back from the impound, so he didn’t have to sneak away on Jimmy’s bike. It was one thing to run out on your partner in the middle of the night - well, day. It was a whole other thing to steal their stuff.

Which was why he hadn’t swiped any small valuables of Jimmy’s on the way out, either. He’d just cleaned out the contents of Jimmy’s wallet to add to the wad of bills he’d kept stashed under the mattress. Somehow, in the pit of his stomach, Stan knew that Jimmy would understand.

Somehow that only made him feel worse.

The last of the sun was just sinking below the horizon as Stan loaded up the Stanleymobile, casting them both in shadow. Overhead, the last rays of sunlight lit the tops of the buildings with dull fire. Stan slammed the trunk, wincing at the noise it made, and climbed into the front seat.

He let himself look back over his shoulder at the apartment building, just once. 

Then he wrenched the key in the ignition, and turned back to face the road. Probably better he got out while the getting was good, anyway. Even a guy like Jimmy’s patience had to run out sometime. 

And Ford needed him.

Stan pressed his foot to the accelerator, and the Stanleymobile shot forward.

...

Everything was a bit of a blur, after that.

Stan was vaguely aware of someone colliding softly with his back, arms wrapping around him and Ford both, of warmth and pressure surrounding him, of Susan’s voice laughing in his ear. “You’re okay!”

Stan nodded, or thought he did. Everything felt heavy, like when gravity had come back it had come back doubly strong. He realised, with a jolt of horror, that he was less hugging Ford and more leaning against him to stay upright. 

And that there was laughter rising from the person he had his arms around.

It took a huge effort, but Stan wrenched himself backwards, away from Ford. With a little distance, though, he could see that his fears were unfounded. Ford was shaking his head, a smile of disbelief on his face as he reached up and rubbed one hand against his right eye, and his laughter was purely relieved and surprised. He looked up at Stan, and sucked in one shuddering breath, the smile slipping off his face for an instant before he said, wonderingly, “We are okay.”

Stan reached out and grabbed Ford’s shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Ford was shaking so hard that Stan could feel it through his arm, but that awestruck smile bloomed back across his face as he stared down at his own hands. “Bill’s...gone?” It was almost a question, but then he clenched his hands into fists. “Bill’s gone. He’s gone. And we’re alive -”

Stan coughed. Ford started, his head snapping up to look at Stan, and Stan bobbed his head, rolling his eyes and grimacing. “Well. More or less.”

Ford blinked at Stan, and Stan huffed out a breath. “Aw, c’mon, Sixer, you’re supposed to be the smart one.”

By the way Ford froze up, Stan figured he’d put two and two together.

“Shit, that’s right,” Carla said, from somewhere behind Stan. “Better get some blood in him, or he’s going to have a really bad time.” 

“They’re both going to have a bad time,” Susan agreed, and pulled away from hugging Stan. Stan silently mourned the lost warmth. “You two both got pretty beat up, you’re gonna need something in you to heal you up.” There was a beat, and then she said, “Stan? How you feelin’, hon?”

Stan drew in a breath, and considered. 

“Like shit,” he answered, honestly. “ ‘m good, though. Don’t worry about me. What’s this about Ford needing blood?”

“Oh yeah,” Carla said, and Stan realised she was keeping her distance deliberately. “Within the first twenty-four hours, or his turning’s going to be very drawn-out and painful. You...knew that’s how it works, didn’t you?”

When Stan didn’t answer, she sucked in a sharp breath, and didn’t say anything more.

“Well, I can take care of that,” Susan said, just as the silence was starting to get awkward. “I’ve got Boyish Dan Corduroy on speed dial, he’ll be over here with a couple of bucks in ten minutes if I ask. And don't worry about him, either, he knows sometimes you just need some emergency wild game.” She reached across Stan to rest a hand gently on Ford’s other shoulder. “Uh, Stanford? I’m sorry, but -”

Ford gave himself a shake, and cleared his throat, his eyes focusing back onto Stan’s face. “No, no, none of that will be necessary.”

Stan frowned. “Hate to break it to ya, poindexter, but -”

Ford shook his head. “I’ve recorded a recipe in one of my journals, an antidote for infection by any kind of undead creature. So long as you catch it within the first twenty-four hours, it’s a complete cure. I’ll be back to my old self in no time, and then everything can go right back to the way it was.”

Stan opened his mouth, and realised he had no idea what to say.

“Hold that thought,” he said, finally. “Can we take this conversation upstairs or something? It’s freezing down here.” 

“In a moment,” Ford answered, pushing himself to his feet. “There’s one thing I want to take care of first.”

He stood, turning to face the portal. For a moment, he just stayed there, motionless, looking up at the dead, blank eye in the centre of the upturned triangle with an expression that Stan couldn’t read. 

Then Ford threw himself straight at the portal and slammed his fist into its strangely-iridescent metal face. The portal made a sound like a bass drum being kicked, and Stan could swear it wobbled, just slightly.

Ford hammered against the portal with both fists, throwing in the odd sharp kick to the point of the triangle. At first, it didn’t seem to be doing much of anything, but then the portal shuddered in its settings and started to wobble more and more violently, until it looked like it was caught in a high wind.

Ford slammed both fists against the portal’s face, and stopped, leaning against its face and breathing heavily. 

For a moment, nothing happened. Then there was a long, drawn-out groan, like a giant stubbing his toe, and the portal slowly, slowly started to tip backwards. There was a second where Stan thought it was going to stop, get stuck leaning at that shallow angle - but then, with a wrenching scream of metal on metal, it fell backwards in one long arc, collided with the back wall, and toppled off to crash to the floor on one of its three sides.

Ford watched it fall, raising an arm to protect his eyes from the cloud of dust it kicked up on impact. As the dust settled, he brushed off the lapels of his trenchcoat, and turned back to face Stan and Susan, beaming.

“Right,” he said, and then, patting the side of his face and the top of his head as the smile slowly slipped off of his face. “Stanley, where are my glasses?”

...

It was getting close to sunrise, Stan realised as they emerged from the basement. He could feel the familiar heaviness starting to settle into his eyelids, into all of his limbs.

Ford, by the looks of things, was feeling it worse than Stan, which wasn’t surprising. He wasn’t used to nocturnal life yet. Probably never would be, if he got his way. He started out leaning against Fiddleford’s shoulder, but by the time they reached the hidden door leading out into Ford’s office-slash-lab, Fiddleford was practically carrying Ford up the stairs. 

“ ‘msorry,” Ford slurred, as Fiddleford deposited him gently in his rolling office chair. 

“Now don’t you fret, Stanford,” Fiddleford said. “We’ll get you patched up -”

“No.” Ford reached up and grabbed his friend’s arm as Fiddleford turned to leave. “I’m sorry, Fiddleford.” The motion seemed to take more out of him than he had to give, and he slumped back in the office chair. “Shoulda listened t’you sooner.”

Fiddleford froze. Stan tried to find somewhere else to look that wasn’t at the trail of splatters of Ford’s blood that was soaking into the hardwood floor.

Luckily, he wasn’t stuck staring at the blood Bill had spilled for too long. Stan started when Carla’s hand settled gently on his shoulder, but he followed as she steered him out of the stairwell and away from the Fords’ conversation.

“All right,” Carla said, quietly, with a glance in Ford and Fiddleford’s direction. Stan caught a snatch of Fiddleford saying something about a memory gun, and shuddered, turning his attention back to Carla. “The day is saved, the evil is defeated, and somehow we’re all miraculously in one piece.” She looked down at Stan’s torso, and the holes she’d put in it earlier. “Admittedly, some of us more than others, but still. I think it’s about time for that explanation you owe me.”

Stan tried, unsuccessfully, to hide his wince. 

“Stan?” Carla asked, her expression turning apprehensive. “Oh, come on. Please tell me you have an actual explanation this time, and it isn’t the New Jersey Clamdiggers’ Disease all over a-”

She stopped, looking up at Stan with her eyes wide. “Oh. My god. I knew you made that shit up, but. You made it up to cover up the fact that you were a -”

Carla slapped a hand to her forehead, staring at Stan in disbelief. Her voice was very low and dangerously sweet when she said, “How long, Stan?”

Stan smiled sheepishly.

Carla dragged her hand slowly down her face.

Thankfully, Susan chose that moment to sling an arm around each of their shoulders and pull them into an awkward half-hug. “We make a pretty good team, huh?”

Carla made a choked noise in the back of her throat. It might have been a scoff colliding with a laugh, or possibly Susan was just squeezing her too tight. 

Despite himself, Stan couldn’t help but crack a smile. “Yeah,” he agreed, looking up at Susan, forcing himself to focus on her face and not the artery pulsing invitingly in her neck, a few scant inches from his mouth. This was really not the time. “Yeah, y’know, we actually do. Thanks for saving my butt all those times.”

“Awwwww,” Susan cooed, and gave Stan and Carla another crushing squeeze. “What’re friends for?”

Stan shut his eyes, and took a deep breath in, before letting it out slowly. He was a little surprised to realise he was still smiling.

“Not to ruin the moment or anything,” Carla said, and Stan reluctantly opened his eyes. “But I seem to recall somebody saying something about this guy needing blood.”

“ ‘mfine,” Stan blurted, automatically. He could feel the pulse in Susan’s arm where it was slung across his shoulders, a steady, comforting rhythm. 

“You are not fine, mister,” Susan said, letting go of Stan’s shoulders and pulling back. “I’ll go give Boyish Dan a call, he’ll be over here in two shakes. Mr., uh, Ford? Where’s your phone?”

Ford broke off what had been, apparently, a very tense but largely one-sided conversation to gesture vaguely in the direction of what Stan assumed, based on the stacks and stacks of moldy cookware, had probably once been the kitchen.

“Don’t bother,” Fiddleford said. “Professor Genius here didn’t pay the bill.”

Ford muttered something indistinct from inside the upturned collar of his trenchcoat. Fiddleford spun back to face him.

“An’ I told you that I got spooked when yer twin rolled in an’ got a little trigger-happy with that rememberatin’ gun o’ mine! Y’don’t think I just wear overalls of my own accord, now, do ya?”

Ford mumbled something else, and Fiddleford rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. “I know ya told me ta destroy it, but y’just don’t understand, it’s a revolutionary scientifical breakthrough and -”

He stopped, mid-sentence, and then looked down at Ford, eyes narrowing. Ford, slouched down so far in the office chair that his face was almost completely obscured by his collar, still somehow managed to look smug.

“Oh, don’t you go a-lecturin’ me on what you said about the portal,” Fiddleford harrumphed. “Now. If y’all’ll excuse me, I got some memory guns t’hunt down and destroy.”

“Oogh, don’t mention hunting right now,” Stan muttered. Susan laughed. Stan wasn’t sure why.

“Wait, memory gun?” Carla asked, with a glance over at Stan. “That wouldn’t happen to erase memories, would it?”

“You betcher baby corns it does!” Fiddleford stopped, and gave himself a little shake. “Though I...wouldn’t recommend a-tryin’ it on this evenin’s events.” 

Carla’s smile was more like a grimace. “I was wondering more about what happens to those memories after they’re erased.”

“Oh, they’re all stuck in a glass tube,” Fiddleford said, waving a hand. “Never know when y’might need ‘em.”

“I think there’s some of mine that I need,” Carla said. “Is there a way to get them back?”

“Years an’ years o’ intensive therapy!” Fiddleford said brightly. Stan was pretty sure he heard a long-suffering groan rose out from the depths of the collar of Ford’s coat. “But you c’n watch ‘em anytime. We got a viewer over at the Society of the - well now, don’t think I rightly oughtta tell a stranger that. But I can take ya there if’n y’let me blindfold ya.”

Carla sucked in a breath, briefly closing her eyes, before she let it out again in a single sharp burst. 

“What the hell,” she said. “I’ve done stupider things for less payoff. Let’s do it.”

Fiddleford beamed.

“Stanford, where’s your journal?” he asked, turning back to Ford’s chair. “I’ll pick up ingredients for your antidote while I'm out.” 

Ford jerked his head sharply to the left, towards a heavy, dark wood desk covered in drifts of paper. Fiddleford nodded, and started to rifle through the papers.

Stan didn’t see if he found the journal or not, because Carla reached out and took his arm. Her hand was so warm, even through Stan’s coat, her expression unusually serious as she met Stan’s eyes and held his gaze. It was enough to freeze Stan’s words in his throat.

For a moment, Carla hesitated, looking over every inch of Stan’s face like she was trying to read something written there, maybe in another language. Stan held his breath, watching her watch him, until she let out a sigh and shook her head.

“Stan -” she started, but Stan cut her off. Gripping her firmly by the shoulders and then holding her at arm’s length instead of going straight for the throat took an enormous effort, but somehow he managed.

“Nope.” It was Stan’s turn to search Carla’s face, now, for he didn’t know what. She’d aged, he realised, a little of the softness of her face melted away, a few lines winking from the corners of her eyes. “You gotta go back to California, right? That flower shop needs you.”

Carla nodded, smiling hugely, but she ducked her head almost as soon as the smile crossed her face. 

Stan nodded, too, and gave her a pat on the shoulder before taking a step back. “You go - get your memories back, or whatever. And - and don’t wipe out. Those roads are icy.”

“I won’t.” Carla looked back up at Stan, and now her smile, even though it was much smaller and more fragile, actually looked real.

Stan shoved down the urge to reach out and brush her hair back behind her ear, cup the side of her face with his hand, lean in and press his lips to hers one last time. It felt like there was still something important he hadn’t done, but what could he say? Sorry I lied to you for our entire relationship? Sorry I got you kidnapped and brainwashed? Sorry I got your memory erased? Sorry I never treated you the way you deserved to be treated and I lost one of the best things that ever happened to me because of it?

“Hey,” he said, finally, and then, when Carla just looked at him expectantly, “The, uh. Flower shop. Sounds great.”

Carla let out a long sigh, but she was still smiling.

“It is,” she said, and then, “You take care of yourself, twinkle-toes.”

Before Stan knew what was happening, Carla took one step forward, closing the distance between them, and pressed a soft kiss against Stan’s cheek.

Then she turned and walked away, with a sweep of chestnut hair, leaving only a faint scent of leather and lilies and the burning imprint of her kiss on Stan’s cheek.

Stan slowly reached up and gently, gently pressed the tips of his fingers against it.

“Take care of yourself, hotpants,” he echoed, under his breath.

The quiet in the office was suddenly broken by a loud blat. Stan half-turned, to see Susan noisily blowing her nose into a tissue that she then used to dab at her glistening eyes.

“It’s so tragically romantic!” she sniffled, when she saw that Stan was staring at her. “Your love is so star-crossed!”

“We literally broke up half a decade ago,” Stan pointed out.

Susan sniffled, and pouted, still dabbing her eyes.

“Well, I’ll be back with the cinnamon,” Fiddleford said loudly, closing Ford’s journal with a snap that made Stan jump. “You still got them barrels of formaldehyde hangin’ around?”

Ford nodded, the floof of brown hair peeking out above the collar of his coat bobbing. He didn’t seem to notice Stan’s strangled noise of disbelief.

“Formaldehyde? Poindexter, how is it that summoning a literal demon is not the weirdest thing you got up to out here?” Stan demanded. 

Ford didn’t answer. He’d slid halfway down the chair and looked like he was well on his way to the floor.

Fiddleford glanced from Ford over to Stan, who had to stifle a sudden yawn. The sun was definitely threatening to rise, now. He could see a sliver of pale light starting to creep up the wall on the other side of the office. 

“I’ll be back round sundown ta help brew up your antidote,” Fiddleford said, and then, a little sterner, “An’ then you’n’me gotta talk. I ain’t forgiven you yet.”

Ford actually pushed himself up on the seat of his chair at that, his face emerging pale and mournful from the collar of his coat. He met Fiddleford’s eyes, and nodded once. “After sundown?”

“After sundown,” Fiddleford agreed, clasping the journal to his chest and turning to follow Carla.

Susan looked from Fiddleford, walking away, to Ford, sliding back down into his coat, and then up at Stan, seeming to come to a decision. “I’m gonna go line up a couple adorable woodland creatures for the both of you two to snack on!” she said, with a weirdly knowing smile in Stan’s direction. “Don’t want anybody going all murdery!”

“Why do you have to say it so cheerfully,” Stan grumbled.

Susan just smiled up at him, the picture of innocence.

“You two play nice,” she chirped, and then shot an entirely un-Susan-like pointed glare in Stan’s direction. “Don’t go biting each other’s heads off!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Stan muttered. He shot a glance over at Ford, and then turned back to Susan. “Hey, how ‘bout I walk you to the door?”

Susan canted her head to one side, narrowing her eyes suspiciously at Stan with a strange little smile. “You know I’m not going away forever, right, silly?”

Stan shook his head, biting his bottom lip. “I know, but -” He looked over at Ford again, and didn’t say but I might be. 

It didn’t matter, because Susan’s expression softened anyway, and she leaned forward to rest a hand on Stan’s shoulder.

“You’re not getting rid of me that easy,” she said, gripping Stan’s shoulder and staring deeply into his eyes. “I still haven’t introduced you to Mr. Whiskers.”

Stan cleared his throat.

“And Pumpkin. And Mittens.” Susan gave Stan’s shoulder another squeeze. “And Admiral Pennyworth. And -”

“If you list off the name of every single cat you own, I might actually bite you in the jugular,” Stan interrupted, and Susan laughed, finally letting go of his shoulder.

“I will see you later!” she said, pointing at Stan as she backed away, until she bumped into the wall. She scooted sideways until she found the doorway, and then backed away down the hall, still pointing at Stan.

Stan watched until Susan disappeared out the door. It banged shut behind her, and then Stan was alone in the shack with Ford and the suddenly too-oppressive silence.

Ford’s house was freezing, Stan realised. Without the living people around to warm it up, it was at least as cold as the snow outside. 

Somehow, it felt even colder.

“Stan?”

Stan turned, slowly. He felt a little like he was trying not to be seen or heard, like if he moved too fast or made too much noise then something terrible would find him. 

But the only thing he saw when he turned around was Ford, still slumped in the office chair with his trenchcoat pulled up around his face. He wasn’t looking at Stan, but as Stan turned to face him, he spoke again, and his voice was...small. There was no other word for it. It sounded thin and frightened, like a little kid’s voice, strange and wrong coming out of Ford’s mouth.

“Is it going to burn?”

“What?” Stan said, stupidly. “The sun?”

Ford nodded, pulling his trenchcoat a little tighter around himself. He shut his eyes and swallowed, visibly composing himself, and when he spoke again he sounded more like himself. “Because if it is, we should probably return to the basement. I’ve boarded up the rest of the windows, but I’m certain there’s still plenty of cracks for the light to get in -”

“The sun’s not gonna burn you, Sixer,” Stan said, unsticking his feet from where they felt frozen to the floor to step closer to Ford. “Probably knock you out cold, but it’s not gonna burn you.”

Ford nodded again. He still didn’t look up at Stan.

“The antidote will work,” he said.

“Never said it wouldn’t,” Stan answered. “And then everything goes back to the way it was, right?”

Ford shut his eyes.

“Is that why you’re angry with me?” he managed, like he had to carefully choose each word as it came out of his mouth. “Because I don’t want to be...like you.”

“What?” Stan blinked. “Where’d you get that from?”

Ford didn’t answer.

Stan huffed out a sigh, and levered himself down to sit on the floor beside the office chair. Something cold soaked through the butt of his jeans, and he hissed in a breath, silently hoping that he hadn’t just sat in Ford’s blood even though he knew he had. “Look, I didn’t want this either, I ain’t mad that you don’t. If you can get outta being stuck like this, then take the money and run, pal.”

Ford made a noise that might have been a laugh. Stan took it as a good sign.

“Hey, you got, like, a space heater or anything around here?” he asked, shifting in place. Sitting down felt like sweet relief with the sun dragging its way up the horizon, but sitting on the floor was like sitting on a block of solid ice. “You’re gonna want one. Least until you get all humaned up again.”

Ford shook his head. 

“Is it always this cold?” he asked, so quietly that Stan had to strain to hear him.

Stan shrugged one shoulder.

“Pretty much, yeah,” he said, and Ford winced. 

There didn’t seem to be much of anything left to say after that. Stan waited, patiently, hoping that Ford would suddenly - what? Jump up crying and throw himself into Stan’s arms? Admit that he’d messed up and thank Stan for saving his life? The only thing Ford was gonna do, Stan reminded himself sharply, was pass out. He himself was feeling more and more like just putting his head down and going to sleep by the second.

He had to get out of here before that happened.

Stan groaned as he pushed himself to his feet. It felt like trying to bench-press a ton of lead, but he managed to make it upright, even though he felt himself sway dangerously once he was back on his feet.

“Where’re you goin’?” Ford asked, as Stan started towards the door, and Stan had to stop and refocus on his brother’s face.

“Gotta go get my car,” Stan said, with his best big showman’s smile in Ford’s direction. It felt a little sloppy, but that didn’t really matter. Ford’s eyelids were sagging so bad he probably couldn’t even see it anyway. 

“Not right now,” Ford protested, indignant. 

“Yeah right now,” Stan argued. 

“Why?”

“Because -” Stan considered biting his tongue for all of about half a second, but he was too tired and too fed up to even think about it. “Because if I fall asleep here, then the next thing you know, I’m waking up to your little buddy -”

“Research assistant.”

“Your research assistant dousing you in cinnamon and formaldehyde, and then everything’s right back to the way it was.” Stan spat. “An’ you sure as hell don’t want me hanging around after that.”

Ford blinked owlishly up at Stan. Wrapped up in his coat like that, he even looked younger. It wasn’t fair.

“Why not?” he asked, and Stan clenched his jaw, looking around for something convenient to throw.

“Why not - you were the one who said you wanted things to go back to the way they were! Well, that’s how things were for me! You sitting pretty in your - okay, creepy, neglected, but still pretty nice house, doing whatever weird-sciencey stuff it is you do, while I just hit the road until you need me again!” 

Ford blinked some more. Stan was pretty sure he was just trying to keep his eyes open. 

“That wasn’t,” Ford started, and then sucked in a breath and tried again. “Stan. I didn’t realise -”

“Yeah, because you don’t think about anybody other than yourself, do you?” Stan snapped. The look on Ford’s face almost made him regret it. Almost. “You got your stupid house and your stupid journals and your stupid - antidote - and all I got is a fifteen-year-old car and the clothes on my back and a boot in the behind! And you don’t care! You never cared! Not once, in ten years, did you wanna see me or even talk to me, until you needed me for something! And now you got what you want, and you don’t need me anymore.”

It was like giving that speech had used up the last of the energy Stan was using to stay upright. He sank down to the floor, settling on his knees beside the chair Ford was curled up in, and stayed there, too tired to move.

In the silence that descended, Stan could swear he could hear the pipes rattling in the walls. Or maybe that was mice.

“I told myself you were fine.”

It took an enormous effort to raise his head, but Stan did, looking up at his twin. “Huh?”

Ford stared into the middle distance, blinking his eyes open every few seconds. Stan could understand the feeling - his own felt impossibly heavy, and the fever ache was starting to settle into his joints. “Ma always said you’d be all right. You had personality. I never thought -”

His voice cracked, and Ford swallowed. “I never thought you’d want to see me again.”

Stan opened his mouth, and then shut it again. His brain felt like it was taking a million years to process what his ears had just heard. It couldn’t possibly have been real.

"I thought you never wanted to see me again," he finally managed. 

The strangled noise that Ford made might have been the ghost of a laugh.

“I missed you,” he said, quietly.

Stan reached up and vaguely patted his brother’s shin. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do. 

"Missed you too," he said, under his breath.

“Maybe we c’n fix th’ annidote t’work on you too,” Ford slurred, sleepily. 

Stan swallowed around the lump rising in his throat. 

“Yeah, yeah, after you wake up,” he said, giving Ford’s shin another pat. He wasn’t expecting Ford to reach out and put his hand over Stan’s, squeezing just slightly.

“Stan?” Ford asked, and Stan looked up, to see his brother’s eyes wide, clearly fighting to stay alert. His words were careful, and slow, but clear. “Stay. Please.”

The lump in Stan’s throat swelled abruptly, until he could swear it was pushing against the backs of his eyes as well, pressing against his tear ducts. 

Despite everything, he realised, he was smiling.

“Thought you’d never ask,” he said.

...

The green exit signs flashed by overhead as the Stanleymobile shot through the city. Headlights streamed past, growing brighter against the gathering dark by the second. Stan checked the map, and then the overhead signs. Two exits before his turn. One exit.

He spared a glance in the rearview mirror, at the city lights starting to bloom against the dark blue of the night sky, a huge, glittering carnival midway behind him. It grew smaller and smaller the further he drove.

The green sign flashed overhead, and Stan swerved sideways onto the exit ramp, coiling down and around until the road suddenly straightened out. Ahead of him, hundreds of miles of highway stretched, up into the unknown. 

Up into the woods where his brother was waiting.

“Oregon, here I come,” Stan said, to no one in particular.

He reached down and adjusted the postcard propped against the dash, and then stepped on the gas.

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

the one with the beginning (...okay not THE beginning, but A beginning)

“What exactly got Kara to decide to be Supergirl in the Cool Aunt Kara AU?”--Anonymous question I received like...seven months ago.

Shot answer: I randomly selected 24-ish as the age Kara starts hero-ing, placing us somewhere in 1992. Guess what seminal comic book event took place in 1992?

Long answer:

“Krssssssshhhhhh—headed north along highway thirteen,on foot, but pretty damn fas—rrrsssssshhhhhh—fatalities, this thing literally walked through Mainstreet, and took out—rrrrrrrrsssssssssssssshhh—not—rrrrrrrrrrrrrsssssss—ulated—ssssssssssssshhhhhhhh”

“Come on, come on—”

“Get that thing working, Ron!”

“Gimme a break, Perry, this thing is older than dirt. Who the hell still uses transistor radios?”

“We do, apparently, so fix it.”

Kara can hear the argument from out in the hall, thus she's prepared for the cluster of grim-faced Daily Planet reporters gathered around Ron Troupe's desk.

“Hey, what's—” she starts to ask, but Perry throws up his hand, eyes still trained on the radio in Ron's hands.

“I swear, Ron, you get that thing working or I give your job to Lombard.”

It's probably sheer coincidence that the radio starts working again, but Ron sighs in relief all the same.

“—unsure at this time where this creature originated, as all attempts to detain and question it have proved unsuccessful. Currently, WGBS is working closely with local authorities in order to give you live, up-to-the-minute coverage of this event, and—oh, hold on, we've just—there are new reports coming in, as the creature has reached the outskirts of Mount Royal—”

Kara listens intently, trying to piece together what's going on, but the report is frustratingly vague. She eyes one of the nearby TV monitors; it's on, but there's no picture.

“Perry,” she starts, prepared to repeat her question, but Perry holds up his hand again. Kara worries he's going to ignore her, but then he speaks.

“Something's tearing up highway thirteen, south of the city,” he says. And that much, Kara's gathered.

“Okay, but...what exactly is 'something?'” she asks.

“Nobody knows,” Perry tells her, turning away from the group and stalking back towards his office. A few of the reporters turn to watch him go, but none of them leave the radio—they're hanging on every word.

Kara, however, trots after him.

“The report said—it was some sort of creature?” she frowns. “Like...an animal?”

“It doesn't look like any animal I've ever seen.”

“You saw it?”

“The Daily Star had a copter out, following the thing. Got footage of it tearing up some town out in the middle of nowhere.”

Kara looks back at the blank TV monitors.

“Why aren't they—”

“Copter went down,” Perry grunts.  

Kara's head swivels around.

“It went down?”

“That thing took it down,” Perry clarifies. “Several, in fact. The only time I've ever been glad we lost out to the competition.” He takes a breath, and pinches the bridge of his nose, looking pained. “That wasn't—I shouldn't have—people are dead—”

Kara swallows thickly, anxiety mounting. This thing—whatever it is—sounds like a problem.

The kind of problem she could probably fix.

Because as Perry continues to explain the carnage they witnessed on the news this morning, it becomes clear that the police can't stop it, the military can't stop it...

It just keeps plowing ahead towards Metropolis, destroying anything and everything standing in its way.

…I can stop this, is what Kara realizes, as Perry's voice fades into meaningless ups and downs of intonation, and she listens, instead, for something that doesn't belong. Something foreign, unnatural.

Alien, she thinks, a little forlornly. But she doesn't have time to dwell, because not too far outside the city—it's there.

Large, by the sound of it. Large and...and definitely not human, but then, like Perry said, it's not an animal.

“—Kent!” Perry yells sharply, and Kara jumps. “Are you listening?”

“Uh—” Technically, yes... “Sorry, I'm just—this is bad, right?”

“How very astute,” Perry rolls his eyes. “Yes, Kent. This is bad. We've got some giant, unstoppable monster coming into town, and the last I heard, the military was thinking of nuking it.”

“What?!” Kara yelps. “Nuking it? Here?”

“They're already clearing out Bakerline—and they're trying to clear out Suicide Slum,” Perry grabs his coat and a hand-held recorder from his desk, and storms out of his office, Kara following hot on his heels. “I've been a news man for a very long time, Kent. People will do crazy things, when they want something gone and buried.”

“But people will die—!” Kara protests.

“People are dying already,” Perry says, hastily tugging on the coat, and slipping the recorder into his breast pocket. “I'd say we have...a few hours, tops, before this entire thing goes south.”

“That's...” Kara stares at him, not bothering to hide her horror. “This is insane.”

“Glad we're finally on the same page.”

He turns to address the rest of the newsroom—probably to rally the troops, or maybe evacuate; Kara doesn't know, because she's running towards the nearest stairwell, her brain working almost as fast as her feet.

She can't sit idly by—it's not an option. But...this isn't nudging a drifting eighteen-wheeler back onto the road at three AM; this isn't slowing a run-away freight train, or slipping into the Smiths' burning barn to make sure their cows get out alright.

This is a monster, in broad daylight, coming straight for Metropolis, with the police and the military and just about every news channel in the nation on its tail.

She runs through these thoughts as she sprints up the stairs—she's nothing but reaction right now, reaction and reflex, pushing forward at a breakneck pace. She's worried that, if she stops, she'll turn back, retreat to the safety of her desk and a pair of hunched shoulders.

Once she's on the roof, though, the wind hits her, as well as the reality of what she's about to do. Her sensible brown shoes skid to a stop just shy of the edge.

They'll come back.

She steps back and paces a bit. They'll come back. Those government agents. They'll find Kal. You won't be able to keep him safe.

She runs her hands through her hair, taking deep breaths. But if you let this happen...people will die. The monster goes free.

And is it worth it?

Keeping Kal safe on a planet ravaged by...by that?

She can hear it, off in the distance, getting closer.

She can hear screams, too.

She runs to the edge, and jumps.

Nearly three thousand miles to the west, Eliza Danvers turns on the news, languidly stirring her morning coffee as she waits for the weather report, while Alex Danvers stubbornly refuses to eat her Cheerios.

“What you're seeing now is...is not a hoax, folks. This appears to be...footage recorded earlier from a news helicopter, just before it was downed—oh, god, what the hell is that thing—?”

The spoon clatters to the floor. Alex looks up from her cereal.

“Jeremiah...” Eliza calls. “You need to see this.”

It's larger up close.

Not necessarily tall, just...Large. Muscled. Wide.

It looks like it's barely contained in the eerie green hazmat suit it wears, jagged tears revealing rough, colorless flesh beneath. Bony protrusions jut from its shoulders and upper back, sharp and menacing.

Kara lands directly in its line of sight—presumably, anyway. Its eyes, or, what she assumes to be its eyes, are hidden behind dark lenses built into the suit.

“You—” Kara starts, somewhat unsure. She has...absolutely no idea how to proceed. But she has its attention now; it's stopped moving, its gargantuan limbs coming to rest at its sides. “You...you have to stop. Please, you're hurting people.”

She waits for some sort of response; some indication that it has, at the very least, heard her. She doesn't really see any ears sticking out of the green suit...

But the creature doesn't move.

Which...was kind of the goal, right? Kara shifts her weight, nervously eyeing the monster, trying to gauge what's going on, what's going through its head. ...If anything. She can't tell with those dark lenses.

(She gets the sense, though, that its watching her very, very closely. And that...makes her feel very, very uneasy.)

“—have visual in three minutes—”

There's the faint crackle of static, followed by some grim muttering—the squad cars are close, and the press is no doubt right behind. Kara doesn't even need to listen all that hard in order to hear the sirens in the distance. She doesn't have much time—not if she wants to get out of this with her 'low profile' intact.

So she tries again. “Do you...do you understand? That you have to stop?” And again, no indication of comprehension. Maybe it doesn't speak English...? It doesn't really look like any species Kara's familiar with...though it could be some sort of...K'hundian offshoot.

She tries a basic K'hundish greeting.

No dice.

She cycles through the other twelve alien languages she knows offhand, and then struggles through a few that she really doesn't.

Nada.

The squad cars are seconds away.

In her frustration, she drops her head, rubbing her temples, muttering in Kryptonese, “Rao, what was I think—”

The backhand catches her entirely off-guard, sending her sprawling backwards, straight into—and ultimately through—a small, grassy embankment.

She lies on the other side, dazed, because that hurt. Her entire side throbs.

She hasn't felt pain like this in...years.

She struggles to sit up, trying to get her bearings, but the monster is barreling towards her, not giving her any time to blink, let alone brace for impact. She's thrown farther this time. Much farther. She hears the traffic but doesn't really register that it's cars—moving cars and vehicles and PEOPLE—until she's face down on a section of highway that hasn't been blocked off.

Two sedans swerve to avoid her, and an SUV doesn't even bother. Just. Runs right over her.

She groans into the pavement, and struggles to her knees.

“The hell?!”

Her head whips up, ready to run, or hide, or strike some sort of deal with these motorists, maybe buy their silence?

But they aren't staring in horror at her—they're looking at the seven-foot nightmare thundering towards them.

It swats a car out of its way like its nothing, and leaps, arms raised, ready to strike.

Kara's prepared this time. She whirls and plants her feet, and essentially catches the creature, hurling it over her shoulder, using its own momentum against it.

It roars angrily as it tumbles across the lanes of traffic. More cars honk and swerve and crash. The sirens are right behind them now. And Kara can hear larger vehicles on the way.

She has to get this thing away from people.

But she has...no idea how to do that.

This is a fight, and she's never been in a fight before. She did punch Dev-Em once, back on Krypton, but that was hardly a fight. His nose started bleeding and he ran back home to his parents.

This thing...does it even have a nose?

Kara shakes her head, wondering if her frenzied thoughts are the result of mild hysteria, or doing a face-plant on asphalt. Probably a little bit of both.

She launches herself at the creature's back, intent on forcing it away from traffic, and further into the rural areas outside of the city.

It's like hitting concrete.

Except not, because Kara can crush concrete with minimal effort. This...this is...something else entirely.

She feels something snap in the general vicinity of her right shoulder. The creature grabs her by her injured arm and slams her into the ground.

“Hnnng,” Kara wheezes into the dirt before it's got her by the arm again and okay, okay. No more messing around.

She waits until she's eye-level with the monster, staring into those black lenses. A dull blue glow is reflected back at her—Kal calls it 'heat vision.'

And she's just about ready to let it have it, but there's something odd about the reflection.

With sudden dread, she realizes why that is.

It's not a reflection at all—it has heat vision too.

“You're Kryptonian—!” Kara shouts, just as the world goes white.

“I don't know, the image—it's blurry footage—”

“I understand that, I do. But, look, that has to be—”

“You're making assumptions.”

“I'm—alright, it's maybe a stretch, but look at it. Humanoid, bipedal, exhibiting a degree of invulnerability—”

“But what about the spikes Jeremiah?”

“It could be some sort of...mutation?”

“No, no, that doesn't track...”

Eliza and Jeremiah go back and forth, the discussion heated, intense.

Alex takes the opportunity to turn her Cheerios into a nice, neat pile of milky mush. It's really coming along, in her opinion.

“—doesn't matter, that's all theoretical, based on the Luthor Model and--”

“Not anymore, it's not!” Jeremiah jabs at the small TV set on the kitchen counter. The news has been running the same footage, over and over, as they wait for word on the mysterious, dangerous thing terrorizing the outskirts of Metropolis.

“We still don't know—oh, wait a minute, wait a—we have new footage. We have new footage!” The anchorman's face is replaced by more grainy, shaky video—this time taken from the ground. Twisted metal is visible along the bottom of the screen—a totaled car.

The reporter on scene breathlessly describes how he pushed past the police barricade and five car pile-up and, honestly, it has to be the dumbest move, putting himself that close to something so demonstrably deadly, but the camera man does have the clearest shot of the monster, and...

A...young woman? Fighting it?

Fighting and losing.

“Call Emil,” Eliza says, but Jeremiah is already tripping over himself, running for the phone.

So, the revelation that this thing is...in some part...Kryptonian—that's...not as helpful as one might think.

Because sure, it's nice to know that the thing is capable of flash-frying her with its eyeballs, so she can avoid said flash-frying, but. There's not much else she can do with this knowledge.

Kryptonians are nigh invulnerable, beneath a yellow sun.

She tries to remember if her parents said anything, about what could hurt them. Her and Kal.

Certain kinds of radiation...

She dodges a punch and throws herself up and over the creature, careful to avoid the spikes. She wraps her arms around its thick neck, and squeezes.

Very specific kinds of radiation—radiation not found on this planet.

...Grife.

She curses under her breath, tightening her hold as it bucks and flails and fights her. She hangs on, just barely.

She can feel its strength flagging—they might be super strong, and basically impervious, but they definitely have to breathe.

The creature lurches—she thinks maybe it's going to go down.

It does. Violently. Throwing itself backwards, pinning her beneath its body. One of the spikes catches her side, tearing through her jacket, drawing blood.

“Hrrrng—!”

The monster gets up, and she curls in on herself, favoring the side that's been hit. The situation is...basically awful. Kara is certain that it can't get any worse.

Which means, of course, that it does.

“Clark Kent?”

The vice principal stands at the front of the classroom, interrupting Mrs. Simmon's lesson on the emperors of Rome.

Clark blinks, more surprised than nervous, even as the class breaks out in whispered 'ooooooh's and 'someone's in trou-ble...'

“Yes?”

“Why don't you come with me, son,” is all the vice principal says. Clark doesn't even know his name—he's never been in trouble, and he's never been called out of school.

Today, he thinks he might be both.

He gathers his things; the vice principal doesn't protest, so Clark guesses he won't be coming back. They walk out into the hall, and on towards the front office in silence.

“Um,” Clark finally works up the courage to speak. “Did I....do something wrong?”

“No, no...” the vice principal tells him. The man's heartbeat doesn't change, so he's not lying, but...he still looks very uncomfortable. “Your parents are here, they're...they're waiting for you, in the attendance office.”

“Oh.” Clark isn't sure why something like that should be so upsetting. “Did they say...why they're here?”

The man tugs at his tie.

“There's ah...the news this morning...” he says. “...There's been some trouble, in Metropolis. I guess...I guess your cousin's out there? Out East?”

And all at once, Clark is nervous. Just as nervous as the adult walking beside him, if not more so.

Because if something is happening out in Metropolis...something that could potentially harm his cousin...something that's worrisome enough to have Ma and Pa coming to pull him out of school?

Well.

That's very troubling indeed.

“—ces have been powerless against this...this creature, and the military is prepared to engage, in spite of the fact that there appears to be a...a civilian, taking it on...directly. I...I honestly...I'm seeing it but I'm still not really believing it, it's—oh, God, it's here, it's he—”

Forty-five minutes.

She keeps it out of Metropolis for forty-five minutes, distracting, redirecting, pushing back as best she can.

But after nearly an hour of taking a literal beating at the hands of a super-strong Kryptonian monster that can match her punch for punch (something she's not all that good at to begin with) she's sloppy. She's slow.

She's getting kicked through an office building on Delaney and praying to Rao that the military has, at the very least, managed to evacuate some of the downtown area.

WHUMP!

She lies in the rubble for a bit, struggling to take in a satisfying amount of oxygen. Everything from the neck down hurts, and there's...there's so much sound. Everything is too loud and too close and—

“Did you see—?”

“—faster, we have to move faster!

“I'm seeing it but I'm still not really believing it, it's—oh, God, it's here, it's he—”

She knows that voice—that's the channel twelve news team. She's's picking up a local news report—a Metropolis station.

There are still people in the city.

Of course. Of course there would still be people in the city—she only delayed the monster by an hour. Barely.

Get up. Get up. She wills her arms and legs to do as they're told. They put up a mighty protest but, in the end, they bend to her will.

(They bend...a little too much, actually. At the knee, to be specific, once she's struggling to stand. She has to lean against a ruined wall for support.)

She'd like a little more time to recover, and maybe wait out the fuzziness that's plagued her eyesight since that thing used its heat vision on her, but the sounds of destruction pull her from the ruined interior of the office. She's still too rattled to fly—all she can manage is a few measly leaps over some tall buildings.

And then she's right back where she started—The Daily Planet. The plaza out front is unrecognizable—chewed up and littered with wrecked cars, rubble, broken glass. People run, screaming, from the rampaging monster.

“It's the god-damned apocalypse!” some guy yells as he flees. “Freakin' doomsday!”

Kara decides this is an apt description.

She doesn't quite stick the landing, as she comes to a halt twenty feet from the bellowing monster. She barely makes any noise as she stumbles, but the creature's heightened senses pick it up.

It turns. It's long since burned through the lenses; she has a clear view of red, serpentine eyes. Eyes that reveal a thinking mind—a consciousness. An awareness.

And that, more than anything else—more than her reluctance to engage in violence, and her overwhelming lack of experience in that area—that's what's held her back. The only way to stop this monster is to destroy it.

And Kara...

Kara doesn't think she can do that.

It charges. She doesn't have the strength to go on the offensive. She digs her feet into the ruined asphalt and throws her arms up.

The resulting clash shatters windows as far out as the harbor.

Kara grits her teeth in an attempt to stop the disconcerting sense that her entire skeletal system has been torn loose from its figurative moorings, and silently marvels that she still has teeth to grit.

She's grappling with the monster, hands straining against its much larger fists, absently noting the unstoppable force, immovable object situation before her.

She's not the unstoppable force in this equation, and she's having a hard time maintaining the 'immovable object.'

As she struggles, the ongoing sounds of the the surrounding panic wash over them. People are still screaming...but littered through the incomprehensible shouts...

“...We have clearance.”

“But there are people down there, the area's not—”

“Just do it.”

She inhales sharply, thinking back to the conversation with Perry.

They really are going to try and destroy this thing with a bomb.

The monster capitalizes on her momentary distraction; a spiked fist sends her sideways into the front steps of the Planet. She hardly feels the hits now, which is both disconcerting and freeing. She pushes herself upright, thinking fast.

It has to be stopped. That much is obvious. But it has to be stopped by her. Because otherwise...otherwise people die.

The realization is heavy, coming to rest on her exhausted heart and lungs, chest constricting at the thought.

She has to kill it.

And she wishes she had time to process that—to wrap her head around the fact that she has to end its life in order to preserve the lives of others. Does it deserve it? Does it know that it's hurting people? Did it have a choice in becoming...this?

But the monster prepares for another charge.

And a B-52 heads for downtown.

Someone yells for help.

Someone else prays.

Kara thinks about the fact that one of the few things that can hurt a Kryptonian...is another Kryptonian.

“Zhalish khap,” she murmurs; whether it's to the monster, or Rao, even she's not sure.

The creature jumps, a terrifying onslaught of unchecked power and directionless fury, and raises its fists for a killing blow.

Kara does the same.

** In the years to come, a few witnesses will tell of the power of these final punches, that they could literally feel the shockwaves. Others will remember the enormous crater that resulted from the sheer force of the blows. But most will remember this sad day—as the day that —**

ALIEN LIFE CONFIRMED? MYSTERY WOMAN STOPS EXTRATERRESTRIAL MONSTER FROM DESTROYING THE PLANET—PROMPTLY VANISHES.

Kara is certain that she is dead.

It's dark and it's quiet. And it's the quiet that really unnerves her, because her mind is never quiet.

It is varying degrees of loud. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

But never quiet.

She can barely remember a time when she didn't have to share head space with half a county. It has always been a negotiation, an allotment of volume and attention.

So, yes. She must be dead. That's the only explanation.

“—Danvers keeps calling, not sure how much longer Dr. Hamilton can field them.”

“Oh, damn.”

“I know, right?”

“No, the syringe broke again.”

“Oh...damn.”

...Okay, perhaps she is not as dead as she suspected.

“...hhrrrrrrgn,” she says. “Mmeyeded?”

“...Did she just...?”

“...Yeah, I think she did.”

Kara tries again. “Am I dead.”

There is a long pause.

“...By human standards...yes.”

Kara finds herself nodding, because, sure. That sounds reasonable. Dead by human standards.

...Human...

She gasps, and sits upright, and opens her eyes, all at once, which proves to be her undoing. Too much stimuli, too much movement, too much...everything.

But as she falls back and passes out, she can't help but fret over the fact that...whoever these...disembodied voices are, they know her secret. Or. They’re well on their way to knowing her secret.

That she's not human.

Round two goes just as poorly as round one. Round three is marginally more successful, in that she's able to keep her eyes open for a full five seconds, and even distinguish some blurry shapes that may or may not be other people.

(...Or maybe potted plants?)

Attempts four-through-eleven are not nearly as dramatic...just a few fleeting moments of lucid thought before she falls back into a dreamless sleep.

Ultimately, it's the twenty-seventh time that's the charm.

“Easy, easy.” An unfamiliar voice coaches her as she blinks against harsh white lights. “You've been through quite an ordeal, Miss....Kent, is it?”

Kara doesn't answer. Wouldn't answer, even if she could.

Someone else, though, answers for her. “Yes.”

She frowns, still adjusting to the light. “Jn'than?”

“Hey, Sunshine,” she feels a callused hand take her own, and a welcome sense of relief soothes her slightly erratic heartbeat—she's...so glad to see him.

Well. Hear him, mostly. He's just a blurry blob, at the edge of her peripheral vision.

“Hnn,” she says back, ever eloquent.

“You'll find that your vision will be a bit...limited for the next few minutes. Try not to blink too much, and don't expend too much energy just yet...your system is still...ah...repairing...itself?”

That unfamiliar voice intrudes once more, and tension involuntarily seeps into her muscles. Her grip on Jonathan's hand tightens.

“Whoa, now, it's okay,” he says gently. “That's just Dr. Hamilton. He's a Xenobiologist here at STAR labs...fortunately, his team got to you before the media or the military did.”

It takes a moment for the memory to return. Facing the creature; using her own invulnerable Kryptonian physiology as a weapon against it.

She'd been so preoccupied with stopping it, she hadn't really considered the...morbid consequences, of leaving behind two alien corpses.

She shudders, turning her head away and squeezing her eyes shut.

Jonathan gives her hand a sympathetic squeeze.

“'s Martha here? Is Kal?” she rasps.

“Both back in Smallville,” Jonathan says, “which you should be glad for—Ma's gonna have some choice words for you, young lady.”

He's teasing her, Kara can tell. But she still feels inclined to defend herself.

“Had to stop it,” she argues.

Jonathan's chuckle sounds watery.

“I know, sweetie,” he tells her. “I know.”

“Now this...this is...it's all very theoretical, at this point,” Dr. Hamilton leads with the disclaimer, “but...but what we've gathered, thus far, based on...well. Based on...you, is that the Kryptonian system, when pushed to its absolute limit, will undergo a sort of...regenerative cycle, during which the solar energy stored in your cells is diverted solely to repairing the sustained damage. Now...to us humans, this looks a great deal like...either a very deep coma, or, well. Death. But in all honesty, it's a little more like...like when a plant goes dormant in the winter.”

It's several days later, and Kara is almost back to normal. The vision in her right eye is still a bit...off, and the puncture wound on her side is still healing.

“So I'm like...a plant,” Kara says slowly.

Dr. Hamilton nods.

“Or a battery.”

“That's...” Kara's brow furrows. “...Okay. Okay, sure.”

On some level, she knew this. Though her parents had been a bit...vague, in terms of explaining how Earth's yellow sun would affect them, the general...idea was easy enough to intuit.

More specifics had been stored on the Sun Stones, of course, but. She'd never been able to get those to work.

So hearing someone explain the particulars, for the first time in...over a decade.

It's...

It's not unwelcome, but it's...

Certainly something to think about.

“Unlike a plant, however,” Dr. Hamilton forges on ahead, either indifferent to Kara's pensive expression, or just oblivious. “I...don't believe your body could take the strain of something like this routinely. Or...ever again, really.” He consults some of the papers in the file folders on his lap. “Of course. It's hard to say for certain. As you know, we had a very narrow window of time to gather samples, while your invulnerability was limited, so we weren't able to perform all the necessary tests to be conclusive, but—”

Kara nods, reading the data on the papers with her good eye. Some of it looks like the test results from her stay at STAR Labs.

Other pieces of information, though, look like they're from...some sort of book, or paper.

She scans the excerpts, gaze coming to rest on a word that rattles something, at the back of her mind. “Who is...E. Danvers?” she asks, the name familiar.

Dr. Hamilton looks a little startled at the question.

“Ah,” he says, eyes darting to the page, and then back to Kara. “Right, yes. That's...” he squints. “You can see that? From all the way over there?”

Kara nods.

“Incredible,” Dr. Hamilton murmurs, looking a little lost in thought. Kara leans forward slightly.

“Uh, Dr. Hamilton?” He stares. “E. Danvers?”

“Oh, right, yes,” he blinks several times, and Kara notes that he almost seems to be stalling for time, as he looks down at the files. “A colleague,” he says. “Yes, a...one might say something of an expert on the subject.”

“There are...experts?” Kara asks, more than a little uncomfortable, given that the 'subject' is essentially her.

“In a sense,” Dr. Hamilton offers her a warm smile—he's finally caught on to the fact that this is freaking her out, so he attempts to reassure her. “It's a small field, though. Really only three or four individuals with viable research.”

“Oh,” is all Kara can think to say.

Dr. Hamilton asks her a few questions after that, taking careful note of her answers. Kara's attention is elsewhere, however. Namely, it's on the files in Dr. Hamilton's hands.

“Do you think I could see their research?” Kara asks, once Dr. Hamilton is finished.

He's distracted, gathering his things and preparing to leave. “Hmm?”

“The other experts. Their research on aliens,” Kara clarifies.

“Oh, there's really no need for that,” Dr. Hamilton explains with an easy smile. “Anything you'd need to know, any questions you have,” he gestures to the room around them, but it's clear he means the entire facility, “STAR Labs can help you.”

And Kara has no reason to be suspicious of Hamilton, or STAR Labs. Thus far, they've been extremely helpful, entirely cordial. Jonathan says their coffee is top notch.

Still.

Hamilton's response isn't quite as...reassuring as he intends it to be.

“...Right,” Kara smiles back, “of course.” She's a reporter—she knows what it looks like, when your source doesn't want to share the limelight. She dismisses Dr. Hamilton's reluctance as pride, nothing more. “Thank you, again. For...everything.”

She genuinely means it, because STAR Labs has been a great help. She owes them...her life, possibly.  

That doesn't stop her from making a quick note on a prescription pad, once Dr. Hamilton's said his goodbyes and left the room.

Find E. Danvers.

“So, this brick comes out of nowhere, and I—”

“Can you write?”

Kara blinks, adjusting her new glasses.

“...What?”

“Write.” Perry repeats. “Compose. String words together in a coherent manner. Can you still do your job?” he wants to know.

Kara blinks again.

“Well....yeah. Yes, I can.”

“Then that's all I need to hear, Kent,” he says in a gruff tone that suggests she's dismissed. Kara slumps, more than a little disappointed that she doesn't get to finish the rest of Martha's carefully-crafted cover story.

She gathers her things and heads for her desk.

“Kent!” Perry barks as she walks away. She glances back, confused. “What are you doing?!”

Her brow furrows. Is this some sort of trick question? “I'm...getting back to work?”

“Jeezus Kent, take a sick day. You've had severe head trauma,” he rubs his face, muttering under his breath as he turns and stalks back into his office. “Go home.” Kara watches him go, smiling a little.

Aw. He does care.

In the end, she's grateful for the forced time off. It gives her a chance to retreat to the relative safety of Smallville, and figure out...where to go from here.

“That's so cool,” Clark says, a little breathless, as he watches the fight play out on TV. Though news coverage of the event is tapering off some, specials are now being aired regularly; hastily produced 'documentaries' on the Discovery Channel, 60 Minutes interviews with known conspiracy theorists...Kara saw in the TV listings that there's going to be some sort of celebrity variety hour to raise funds for one of those new 'Humans First' groups that have been springing up.

“Not how I would describe it,” Kara teases him a bit. Clark ducks his head, belatedly realizing how his statement must sound.

“Not the part where you get your butt kicked, obviously,” he says. “But. The other part. That had to feel good, right? Using your powers to help people?”

Kara can't help the small smile that tugs at the corners of her lips.

“Yeah,” she admits. “Yeah, it felt pretty good.”

“Are you gonna do it again?”

Kara frowns, not understanding the question. “What?”

Clark turns from the TV, but does not leave his spot on the rug. “Use your powers. To save people, and stuff.”

Kara rubs the side of her face. “I already do. You know that, Clark.”

“Save people for real,” Clark says, excited. “I mean. Stopping bad guys and stuff!” he throws a right hook. “Not just...checking on cows and trucks and cats in trees.”

“Let your cousin be,” Martha says, causing Clark to jump a little. “She's supposed to be resting, remember?”

“Aw, she's rested,” Clark argues. He turns to Kara. “You're rested, right?”

“Getting there,” Kara tells him with a smirk.

“Go on and finish your homework,” Martha says. And though Clark looks like he wants to do anything but, he dutifully obeys, trotting up the stairs to collect his backpack.

“I'm gonna bring it downstairs!” he calls over his shoulder.

“Fine!” Martha replies before joining Kara on the couch.

“Is he right?” Kara asks, once Martha's settled. “About the whole...saving people 'for real' thing.”

“He's twelve,” Martha reminds her. Kara sighs, and grabs one of the throw pillows.

“I know, but I mean...” she twists the pillow in her grip, “there's cows, and then there's that,” she nods towards the image on the TV—it's just barely possible to make out two small, smoke-obscured figures fighting in downtown Metropolis.

“I'm sure if you'd asked Bill and Edie, they'd say you saved them 'for real,'” Martha counters. “Those herds are their livelihood.”

“I just—I can do more,” Kara abandons the pillow, and stands to pace. “I've always been able to do more but I was so worried about Kal, about those government guys finding us but now...now there are giant Kryptonian monsters that exist, apparently? So who knows what else could be out there, and...and it—it doesn't seem—” she groans in frustration, hunting for the right words. “It doesn't seem right. To hide anymore.”

She looks to Martha for advice, or comfort, or both—yes, definitely both—and Martha smiles softly, standing to wrap her in a hug.

“Are you asking for permission? It sounds like you're asking for permission.”

“Um.” Kara thinks about it for a moment, and then nods into Martha's shoulder. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“You're twenty-four.”

“I know, but I mean—”

“You don't need our permission to help people.”

“I know, but—”

Martha steps back, and laughs.

“Yes, Kara. Yes. You have our permission to save the world.”  

It's a joke, obviously. But. She's still relieved to hear it. “...Thanks.”

“But you can't save the world in sweaters and slacks,” Martha says suddenly, and pulls her towards the kitchen. Kara doesn't disagree, but the conversation has taken such an unexpected turn, she has no choice but to stammer a little.

“I...can’t—what?”

“Also I'd imagine you'd want to keep your hero work separate from your...what would you call it. Civilian identity?” she continues, and opens one of the cupboards in the corner that Martha has graciously given to Jonathan to serve as his 'office.'

She pushes aside some yellow legal pads, a number of phone books, and removes a sheaf of crinkled papers.

Kara tries to get a good look at them, but Martha's already making a beeline for the dining room table, and it's only once she's spread the papers out that Kara can see the contents.

She stares at them for a long while, taking in the pencil sketches and fabric samples.

Slowly, she grins.

“You've...been planning this,” she says, thinking of the glasses, and Martha’s cover story.

Martha nods firmly. “Since you were fourteen. Just, you know. In case.” She crosses her arms. “Do you like it?”

Kara touches the corner of one of the sketches.

“Very much.”

“Because we can certainly change it, if you don't. And I thought—I thought that crest might be nice? Right...” she ducks into the kitchen, and returns with a pencil in hand. “Right here,” she points to a vacant area on one of the designs.

Just beneath the collarbone. Like the shirt she'd arrived in, all those years ago.

Kara nods, and Martha takes a step back. “Of course, you'll have to draw the 'S.' I don't remember how it goes.”

Kara's reply is soft—not a reprimand, but rather, a recitation.

“It's not an 'S'....” she says.

Of course she'd pick a slow news day. Of course.

She keeps listening in on the squad car patrolling Centennial Park, but there's nothing.

Which...is a good thing. Obviously! That nothing terrible is happening.

Kara sighs and picks up the phone, ready to call up UC Berkeley and continue her search for the other individuals on that list, starting with E. Danvers.

But a burst of static, followed by an unfamiliar tangle of cop-speak has Kara rushing for the stairwell once more. (She makes a note to ask some of the senior reporters what a 'ten sixty-five' is.)

As she races to the roof, she's struck with a profound sense of déjà vu. It hasn't even been a month yet, and here she is again, staring at the Metropolis skyline, filled with apprehension and uncertainty.

Her fingers hover over the buttons on her shirt. If she thought there was no going back before, well.

She almost finds herself thinking of Kal again. ‘Do it for him.’ But....no. That's not quite right. Not anymore, anyway. Even if she's not sure about this, she is certain of one thing: she can do more.

Her cape unfurls in the late autumn breeze.

She runs to the edge, and jumps.

Another day, another satisfying pile of mushy cheerios.

Alex has added banana slices to the mix this time, to great effect. She's looking to see how she might procure some apple sauce for this endeavor, but. Judging by the stern glare her mother's giving her—that's probably out.

“Alex Danvers,” Eliza shakes her head. “Food is for eating. Not playing.”

She takes the cheerios away, which. Is a setback, certainly.

But Alex still has the bananas to work with, so. All is not lost.

“Is Emil still stonewalling us?” Jeremiah joins them in the kitchen, and takes a moment to appreciate the structural integrity of the banana mush.

“I just don't understand it,” Eliza shakes her head, and leans against the counter. “In all the years we've known him, Emil's never been...territorial.”

“That we know of,” Jeremiah reminds her. “He's never had access to a live subject before, he's probably...I don't know. Gone mad with power,” he shrugs, and then, his face darkens. “...I...certainly hope the subject is still alive.”

“Jeremiah,” Eliza hisses, even though it...is a valid concern. “What about those...those sightings. Out in Metropolis?”

“Everyone in Metropolis is crazy,” Jeremiah tells her, shaking his head. “You're talking about that kid with the cape, right?” Eliza nods. “Hon. No one in their right mind would put that kind of a target on their back, and in primary colors, no less—”

Jeremiah's interrupted by a knock on the front door. He turns, confusion apparent in the downward pull of his mouth.

“The mail already came,” he says, even as Eliza makes her way to the front entry. “A package, maybe?”

“It would have to be, we aren't expecting anyone...” Eliza replies. She reaches for the doorknob, and Jeremiah snaps his fingers.

“Ah, no, you know what? It's probably Nick, from down the street,” he joins his wife near the doorway, ready to intercede. “He borrowed our lawn mower two weeks ago.”

“Sshhh!” Eliza insists, not in the mood to deal with an insulted neighbor. She opens the door and it...is not Nick.

It's a complete stranger, actually.

A nondescript twenty-something in a sweater and glasses, fidgeting nervously on their porch.

“Oh, ah,” it's Eliza who recovers first, as Jeremiah is busy preparing some sort of excuse as to why they can't commit to another magazine subscription. “Hello...”

“Uh...hi,” their strange visitor says brightly, offering a jaunty, if small, wave. “Are you—um. Is this the Danvers residence? Are you,” the young woman looks down at a crumpled Post-It note, ”Eliza and Jeremiah Danvers?”

“Yes,” Eliza says, and Jeremiah adds, with a suspicious squint, “can we help you?”

The young woman folds the Post-It note, twisting the paper between her fingers.

“I...I think you already...ah. Did.”

By now, both Danvers are hopelessly confused.

“I'm...sorry. We don't understand,” Eliza says, and their visitor laughs lightly.

“Yeah, I'm—I'm realizing now this was maybe not the way to go. I didn't really think this...um. Just one—”

Maybe she says second. Or minute. Neither Danvers can be certain, because the end of that sentence is lost on a deafening breeze that kicks up, as the young woman appears to vanish before their very eyes.

Another gust blows in, and she's back. Sans glasses, and wearing that bright costume that's been popping up in the news lately.

Both Eliza and Jeremiah gape. “You—”

“You're—”

“My name is Kara Zor-El,” the young woman tells them, “and I came to say 'thanks.'”

Notes:

- **Narration pulled directly from Superman #75 by Dan Jurgens. - ‘Grife’ is an expletive that appears in Legion of Superheroes. Mon-El says it in episode 307, and Kara herself uses some form of it in the tie-in comic.  - Kara has her own iconic comics death; she need not steal her cousin’s, really but. This AU presupposes that the stuff that happened to Clark was not specific to him--those horrible events just befall whatever Super comes first, I guess. - Terrible, poorly-researched comicbook science is terrible.

[harrypotterdrabbles]

all of me, loves all of you

Request: hi um can u do a young Sirius x shy wheelchair reader imagine were the reader is insecure and thinks no one will love her because of her disability but gets proven wrong lots of fluff and a kiss and the reader gets embarrassed when the marauders walk in and its really cute the reader thinks its a cruel joke at first and doesn't see why a guy like him would like her I hope u can do this it would mean a lot xxx by Pairing: young Sirius x shy wheelchair readerWarnings: pure fluff and tender lovingWord Count:2818  

(Edit 2019: realised i had a dumb bitch moment when i wrote this and put Snape as the professor! Genuinely stupid ik, ive edited the piece to change the style a bit as I've matured my writing style and seen some cringy story writing, thanks though you guys for liking this tho <3 )

The first time you had ever met Sirius Black was a rather special memory that you would always hold dear in your heart. It was the distant fond days of your fourth year at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry and you were making your way down to the assigned classroom for your next lesson. You could leave early from your lessons to make time to get to your next, avoiding the chaotic rush of students that usually happened during the small break in-between. You weren’t allowed to go to any other floor of the castle without assistance so the majority of lessons you had were rescheduled into several spare rooms on the first floor.

You necessary didn’t mind spending time alone but you were lonely sometimes, being away from your best friends for the long hours of the day, awkwardly sitting in front of Professor Slughorn in a one-to-one lesson. On this particular day however, you were a bit late to reach your next assigned lesson, only just escaping Professor Binn’s room before he drawled onto another useless point of why Goblins can’t cartwheel (something to do with their bone structure).

You pushed the wheels on your wheelchair in a rather hurried fashion, the hallways were bare but if you were correct, students would flood out of their lessons in the next 5 minutes; you wouldn’t have enough time. Your arms were beginning to tire, the muscles franticly working as fast as they could as you rounded the corner- only to literally nearly run someone over.

“Merlin’s beard-!”

You let out a sudden squeak, your cheeks burned a bright crimson red as your chair lurched backwards as you to reach forward to steady the student you bumped into, however your chair seemed to lean too far back for your liking and you just knew you were going to tip backwards. Before you could think, a firm hand grasped yours and you were pulled into a strong secure embrace; the chair toppling over behind you.

Your body shook with anxiety in the hold of the stranger, your mind whirling and your hands trembling as your support heavily relied on the person that saved you from a horrendous fall. You heard the stranger pause for a moment, their brain possibly trying to process what had just occurred before they took in a sharp inhale.

“-Oh Merlin! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to bump into you like that! Bloody hell I should’ve looked where I’m going- here let me help love.”

Your spine straightened as goosebumps shot across your arm, your grip scrunching the front of the person’s robe. The boy’s timbre voice was soothing, a low tone that overflowed with sincerity and panic, your brain working in a similar panic, trying to find some sort of response but all you could do was stutter out an apology.

Truth is, you didn’t have that many interactions with other students in Hogwarts, you mostly kept to yourself and in the company of your close friends who you shared a dorm room with and ate together. You were sure the students of Hogwarts knew who you were, there weren’t that many students in wheelchairs when Hogwarts had Madam Pomfrey. This lead to quite a lot of insecurities about what others thought of you, though tended to try and not dwell on that subject, you had such amazing friends that encouraged you and supported you throughout the years. So who really cared about opinions of others.

Your mind snapped back out of it when you heard a ruffling of robes and you felt yourself being readjusted in the young man’s grip, your head still carefully tucked away, shielding your view from anything but his Gryffindor badge upon his robe.

“Wingardium Leviosa.” You heard the familiar swish and flick of a wand and the clattering sounds of your wheelchair being levitated and touching back onto the floor. Your heartbeat was thundering loudly in your ears, your palms sweaty and you vaguely heard another spell being muttered out before you were delicately helped back into your chair.

Your hands shook as they placed themselves onto the familiar material of your arm rest, your hair obscuring your deep embarrassment as you stumbled out your soft reply.

“Thank-Thank you! If you can excuse me, I, erm... I have to go," you looked around to where you were, still far from your destination, and time was running out, "i have to go now, I mean." You clarified.

Your head still refusing to look up at the young man, your embarrassment too deep to ever make eye contact as you prepare to make the dash to your class.

“Actually,” You paused at the voice that called out, “Will you allow me to escort you to your desired destination, love?”  

His body appeared in your vison as the stranger knelt down in front of you, forcing your eyes to finally meet the face of your saviour.

And my Merlin, did you not expect that. The young man had to either be in your year or either in the year above, his dark stormy eyes, calm and filled with genuine care and honesty, a gentle smile graced upon his features, though you were sure a smirk suited his demeanor better. His hair was longer than average, swept up into a bun, but rather manly looking and seemed to suit him quite well.

“I’m Sirius Black.”

That was the first time you’d ever met the boy, and that wasn’t your last encounter with the dashing fellow. He had gallantly pushed you to your next lesson, kindly asking questions that didn’t pry too much, but filled with curiosity and interest as you stumbled out your reply, knowing full well that your embarrassing stuttering didn’t help.

Days turned into weeks, and long weeks turned into a year. Every day, somehow Sirius had manages to find you and escort you to at least one of your next lessons in a day, every so often taking you on trips to various parts of the castle, placing your full trust in him as he carried you through some tough spots. In these days, he began to know you so much better than what he thought he’d know, both of you entrusting each other and opening up in ways you’d never imagine. Your nervousness around the handsome boy had nearly dissipated, though your burning blush always made a spectacular appearance.

During this time you had also grown to know the group Sirius belonged in; The Marauders. How you didnt know or notice them prior to crashing into Sirius was beyond a mystery. They were a bunch of lovely boys who had way too much time on their hands, who also helped you whenever they could, truly wonderful people who you grew to become fond of as well. James would always yell the hallway space in front of you clear- if you ever did run late to your next class, his loud boisterous voice worryingly yelling “MOVE OUT OF THE WAY. MOOOOOVE~” as he waved his wand around while he pushing you gently through the splitting crowds, ignoring your burnt cheeks and face held in embarrassment. Peter would always kindly fetch you some more food from within the kitchens or even in the dining hall, already knowing what you were craving straight away, bless the boy he was kind. Remus a gentle soul, he would take a more helpful approach of helping you around in the library, finding ridiculously large books for any essays you needed.

You and Remus were particularly close as well, the seemingly shy boy and you bonded almost immediately, debating over one of the theories mentioned within a DADA book you both were reading, and ever since then he too became a person you held dear. It was also no surprise that he figured out straight away what your insecurities and worries were and often talked you to prevent bottling them inside.

It was also no surprise that he knew of your infatuation with Sirius Black.

Of course when Remus questioned you about it you had spluttered out false responses, claiming he was absolutely absurd for even suggesting such a thing while your cheeks betrayed you, once again heating up a dep shade of red Remus had never witnessed before. Though Remus never asked, he knew you were afraid of the way Sirius would think of you if he knew, Remus knew that you thought nobody would love you because of your disability.

However, he also knew that your disability doesn’t affect the way Sirius looked at you. Because Remus knew from the first time Sirius busted through the dorm doors, his voice in pure awe as he indulged with the group about the sweet girl he accidently bumped into in the hallway earlier that day, Remus saw the rare twinkle of something in Sirius’ eyes as he spoke so fondly of you.

It was your last year at Hogwarts and you were sat in a rather comfortable sofa in the middle of a secret room that the marauders had shown you the year before. It was a cosy and convenient room tucked away on the 7th floor, the gruelling climb and awkward way to reach the level itself all worth it as you sunk into the well-deserved fluffy material, a thick novel daintily between your hands.

However you couldn’t focus no matter how hard you tried, your attention always flickering back up to the pacing young man in front of you. Sirius had undeniably grown deviously handsome over the years, his aristocratic features sculpting his face into a masterpiece, his jawline sharper than it had been before, his cheekbones prominent and his voice a deep rumble. His hair has gown but he never cut it, it was constantly up in a man bun, little tendrils framing his face without damaging his bad boy look. Despite all the changed that occurred, the soft and genuine care still swam within his beautiful stormy eyes, they never changed one bit, never around you.

Cheeks dusted pink once more as you realised you were staring, your eyes instantly gluing them back to your romance novel you were trying to get into, your mind forgetting that the other Marauders were somewhere present in the room, doing god knows what. The pacing had stopped for a minute and your curiosity got the better of you, you peeked up again only to let out a silent squeak as Sirius’s intently stared at you. You felt all your blood flood into your face again and you shifted your hair to slightly hide your face, feeling scrutinised in his burning gaze, you coughed nervously, clearing your voice.

“Is there som-something on my face..?” You questioned, a hand automatically brushing anything off of your face. When he didn’t respond, your embarrassment reached an all high and you felt insecure in his still steady stare as you attempted to shield your face with your novel.

“Why do you read that sappy book all the time?” His voice was surprisingly soft, lacking its usual boisterous tone and laughter. You pulled your book down to stare at the cover, it was a romance novel that was a personal favourite, the worn out cover and cracked spine indicating how many hours you'd spent reading and rereading the novel.

You were a bit reluctant to answer him but you felt strangely confident and protective when you raised your voice to tell him your honest truth, though avoiding eye contact.

“Well, its because, I’ll probably never- never experience love like this." Setting the book down in your lap. "It’s the only way I’ll ever get this close to the feeling.” You tenderly spoke, “Through the char-characters of course!” you quickly added, cheeks turning that oh-so-familiar shade of pink.

“Y/N. Do you actually think that you’ll never find love.”

You stiffened in your seat, your fingers curling around the corners of your book, jaw clenching tightly. Was…Was he making fun of you? You felt humiliation stinging in your eyes and you angrily glared at him- but before you could tell him a piece of your mind, he spoke up again.

“Because I always thought you found it with me.”

His voice was shaky, however it was nothing compared to how much your hands were trembling.

“Because I always find it when I’m with you.”

Your glare hardened, your eyes blinking away the sting of tears. You swiped your book off of your lap, the clatter of the hardcover upon the floor the only sound that echoed in the silent room as your fists clenched with such strength your nails nearly broke skin.

"Is... Is this some cruel joke to you?" You stared down at the romance novel on the floor, your voice was strong and almost full of spite despite its usual soft tone. Tears blurred your vision and they silently fell, slowly making its way down your burning face, soaking into your clothes.

You flickered your hardened stare back up at the tall teen who was slowly approaching you, humiliated, you avoided his gaze with a anger burning your throat. "This isn't one of your stupid pranks again is it Black? Because I swear to Merlin that I'll-"

Your threat was cut off short with a sweet and tender pressure upon your lips. Your brain still not computing with what was currently going on, so when Sirius Black had pulled away from his quick kiss, all you could do was stare in disbelief at him.

"You're so naïve sometimes Y/N. I've been trying to get you to notice that I liked you for yonks." Sirius chuckled, his gorgeous obsidian eyes twinkling with love and affection. Your ears turn red along with the rest of your face, mouth gaping like some sort of fish, realising your overreaction to a rather sweet confession.

In just two sentences, Sirius had reduced you to a blushing, stuttering mess. Not the first time it had happened though.

"I-I don't get-get it!" You blurted out, Sirius raised one amused eyebrow at this, "You're-you're Sirius Black! You could have any-anyone you wanted! Why would someone like you, like-like someone like..." you didn't have it in you to actually suggest such a thing, it was an absurd thought in its own.

Sirius leaned close to you again, his breath tickling your nose, that infuriatingly handsome smirk present on his lips once more.

"Why would someone like me, like someone like you..?" He questioned, "Well there's so many things I could reason but we could be here for centuries my love." Sirius joked, tucking a stand of your hair behind your ear and away from your face.

"It could be because I feel such an urge to protect you wherever you go, I always have a need to be by your side, something pulls me towards you Y/N and I cant ignore it." Sirius' hands come up to cup your face, his eyes connecting with yours, "Every time I see you, I get this huge fat, shit eating grin on my face and I cant stop thinking about you when you're not nearby. I admire you so much Y/N, you're so strong and brave, more than I'll ever be." His thumb slowly caressing your cheek, "Even if you see yourself as less than perfect, I see you as my world, Y/N. All of me loves all of you." He whispers, his lips ghosting over yours ever so slightly. Your own heartbeat is thumping so loud, and you were sure Sirius could hear it too.

You lean forward, lips connecting and you feel a strong pull inside your heart as magic danced over your skin. It was gentle and sweet, the kiss passionate but gentle and pure. You both seemed to hum in sync, your souls seemingly intertwining as the kiss deepened-

"Oh wow okay, I didn't expect that so suddenly."

You both lurched away, startled by the abrupt voice that defiantly wasn't Sirius' and swivelled to see the rest of the Marauders stood awkwardly by the door unsure of what to do. Oh. You had forgotten that they were with you too.

Sirius barked out a rumbling laugh as Remus smiled fondly. "Wormtail, one day you'll find someone as wonderful as Y/N in your life." Sirius chuckled, standing once more as James, Peter and Remus approached.

"Come on love, time to get you to your next lesson." Sirius softly spoke, reaching his large hand out towards you as you delicately placed your trust in him.

James started some sort of conversation about how Lily Evans had flung some sort of creature at him earlier in the day, the story creating tears of laughter in all of you despite James's damaged pride. He continued on with another galliant tale though your concentration was purely on the handsome young man pushing your wheelchair. You reached back and placed your hand over his and gave it a light squeeze, your soft skin brushing over his rough hand, no words exchanged even though the action spoke everything.

"Thank you, Sirius. For everything."

[blissfulexcape]

~Comfort~Justin Foley x Reader

~~ Hi.. So my parents aren't divorced... My parents were never married. My mom watched her parents get divorced so that’s what I’m going off. I’m sorry sense I probably didn’t portray it right but then again all divorces are different? Sorry for the stereotypical parents. I was almost done when I tried to go bad and change mom and dad but I couldn't think of what to put and parent1 and parent2 didn't sound good to me... so I didn't change it. Please keep requesting! Love ya!~~

You sigh dragging your hand through your hair. It had been the most difficult morning of your high school career so far. The talk with your parents at breakfast still rolled through your mind.

A loud whistle pulled you from your thoughts as the coach of the basketball team signaled the end of practice. Sitting at the top of the bleachers, you easily spotted your close friend Justin Foley. He waved happily as he caught your eye. You couldn’t help smile and wave back.

After grabbing his water bottle, he motioned to the locker room to let you know he was going to shower and get changed. You nodded and pointed at your seat to let him know you weren’t going anywhere and would wait for him. Like always. Justin smiled before jogging away.

You leaned back against the wall wondering how this could happen to your family. Sure they didn’t always agree on things or ever but you thought your family was stronger than anything. You closed your eyes and tried to relax and think rationally but everything was just so messed up.

You jumped slightly as someone flopped on to your lap. Sighing softly in relief when it was only Justin. Your hand moved to rest between his shoulder blades as you unconsciously started to draw circles there. “Hey ________. How did I do?” He asked still sounding tired from practice.

Looking at how he had his arms around your hips and his eyes were closed, you knew he was ready to take a nap. “You were great as usual. Come on, let’s get going to my place. You still need to study for tomorrow’s test.”

Justin groaned dramatically and pulled you closer to hide his face against your stomach making you laugh. “Will your dad be making dinner tonight?” He inquired curiously only opening one eye to see you.

Your heart pinched at the mention of you dad. Trying to cover the look that must have worried Justin, you laughed nervously and replied, “I don’t know. We’ll just have to find out when we get there.”

Justin sat up fully staring at you now. He put his hands on either side of your face and turned your head side to side. Then he put his cheek to your forehead. “You don’t feel like your getting sick do you? Because you don’t look sick. So if you’re not sick then there’s something going on that you haven’t told me.” Just interrogated concerned.

Your jaw dropped at his explanation before looking at the bleachers. “I will tell you. Just not now. When I’m ready to I’ll tell you. Ok?” You explained vaguely as you looked at him with teary eyes.

Justin’s face softened instantly and he sighed, “Ok but can we stop by my place? I need something from the storage.” He smiles reassuringly as he took your hand.

You nodded standing up and allowed him to walk you down the stairs. At the bottom he put his arm around your shoulders and together you left to go to your car. The ride to Justin’s was a comfortable quiet as music played softly in the background. “Can you pop the trunk when I come out?” Justin requested as he opened the door and got out.

He held the door open as he waited for your answer. You simply nodded and so he closed the door and disappeared into the apartment building.

~~~Ten or fifteen minutes later~~~

Justin was walking back towards the car with a bag. Shrugging it off, you popped the trunk when he was closer. When he was done loading the trunk and probably checking everything was there, he came around to climb in the car. With that done, you drove home.

You parked in your usual spot and Justin and you headed up to where you lived. You opened the door leaving it ajar for Justin to close. Then you walked to your room. Sitting at your desk while Justin flopped on your bed.

You were working on your essay while Justin was studying for his test. You rolled your shoulders from sitting still so long when you noticed Justin staring at your ceiling and not studying. “Justin, done studying already? It’s been…” You grabbed your cellphone to check the time. “It’s been barely an hour.” Sighing, “Ok break time.” You closed your laptop and walked over to your bed laying down next to Justin to stare at the ceiling.

“It’s quiet.” Justin noted. “Usually you can hear your dad in the kitchen. Your mom would usually would be listening to the news network.” He continued softly. Sitting up stiffly you explained, “Things are going to be different from now on.” You rubbed your face irritatedly to keep calm.

~~~Breakfast Earlier~~~

“________! Time for breakfast! We have something important to discuss with you.” You heard your dad shout from the dining room.

You looked around your room once more to make sure you didn’t leave anything you’d need. With a nod you walked out of your room and headed to the dining table to eat. No idea what you were about to be hit with.

When you got to the table you saw all of your favorite breakfast dishes. Smiling eagerly at your parents, they nodded in approval and you dug in taking a little of everything. Moaning happily as you took your first bite.

You were half way through your meal when you mom cleared her throat. “Honey, we need to tell you something.” She said sweetly. You put your eating utensil down and gave her your full attention.

“There’s no easy way to say this..” Your dad began gently as he put his hand over yours. You looked between them confused and anxious.

“I’m going to just pull off the bandaid.” You mom proclaimed. You looked at her shocked and scared about why it would have to be like that.

“(Mom name)! We agreed-” Your dad growled glaring at your mom. She waved her hand at him carelessly disregarding his interruption.

“Here’s the thing we’re getting a divorce.” She announced casually. Your jaw dropped slightly in surprise. Never would you have thought that would actually happen. “Your father and I are no longer happy together. Going to counseling and classes is just making us resent each other.” She continued unsympathetically. Taking a deep breathe and pushing her hair from her face, “This doesn’t change how we feel about you. We love you. Nothing will ever change that.”

They were staring at you expectantly but you were in shock. How could this be happening to you? You stood slowly saying nothing and just grabbed your backpack for school to leave.

~~~Present~~~

“_________?” Justin whispered. He had sat up and put his hand gently on your back. When you took a deep breathe, he began to comfortingly rub your back. “They’re getting a divorce, Justin. They are separating… How c-ca-n-n t-t-th-i-s be hap-pen-ing??” You choked back the sobs fighting to come out. Turning to Justin, he pulled you against his chest as tears streamed down your cheeks.

Justin stayed quiet as you cried. He held you tightly and occasionally rubbed your back. Sometimes he’ll hum lightly. After awhile your breathing evened out and you both relaxed leaning against the wall.

Justin kept an arm around you still. “I’m sorry, ________ . That’s rough. But I know you will get through this. Your parents don’t love you any less than they did yesterday or a year ago. You are their baby and nothing will change that… The way they look at you.. My mom never looks at me like that. It’s going to be hard but I’ll be here EVERY. STEP. OF. THE. WAY. You won’t have to go through this alone.” He reassured passionately. His eyes were genuine.

“Thank you.” You uttered quietly. He shrugged and put both arms around you.

After awhile you guys went and made some pasta. Justin did the dishes while you set up a makeshift bed on the floor of your room.

“I’ll always watch your back, ya know that right, _________?” Justin asked lightly. He looked up at the edge of the bed.

You rolled over to look down at him. “Ya, Justin. I know.” You vowed. He smiled at you and nodded. You rolled back on your bed to get more comfortable and slipped into a peaceful sleep.

~~~Morning~~~

Even though you knew it was probably going to be a difficult morning you were still pretty relaxed because at least you’d have Justin… Or so you thought but when you looked down Justin’s bed was neatly folded up and there was a note on top. You sighed heavily before forcing yourself to read the note.

-Morning Gorgeous!-

You couldn’t help the smile that simple greeting.

-Sorry for dipping out on ya like this.. I’ll see you later! Chin up cutie! I got you! Justin-

You shook your head with a sigh of relief and a new burst of energy. You got dressed and snuck out so you wouldn’t have to face your parents yet. Then you drove to school. You waited out front of school for Justin but the bell rang so you reluctantly went to class.

You didn’t see Justin all day and after school when you went to the gym to see if Justin made it to practice. The coach informed you, he called in sick. You disappointedly returned home A note on the door told you that their would be another family meeting at dinner. You crumpled the note and threw it in the trash on the way to your room.

When you opened the door you saw balloons and confetti all over your room. Little fake candles were on your dresser, desk, and on almost every bookshelf. Rose petals were on your bed and made a trail to the bathroom. Inside there were real candles of sweet relaxing scents. There was a bath bomb on the counter with a rose soap bar and a note.

-Have a shower or bath or both to help you unwind. I'll be here when you get out. Justin-

You bit your lip at how considerate he was being. After bathing and getting dressed in some comfy clothes you walked back into your room to find Justin. His hands were behind his back and when you got closer he held out your favorite flowers.

You talked about all he missed in class and he shrugged it off saying he had more important things to be doing. You blushed lightly and rolled your eyes. Justin excused himself to start dinner while you did homework.

Justin smiled at you when he saw you enter the room. You sat on the counter and he walked over to you with a spoon. He was blowing on it so it would cool enough to tell. Then he held it out to you.

You were pleasantly surprised when the sweet flavor filled your mouth. He chuckled at your astonished look. You set the table for four and when he finished he put the food in the middle of the table. You were finishing adding a pitcher of lemonade when the front door opened and your parents entered.

A flash of anxiety went threw you but before you had too much time to dwell on it Justin’s fingers had laced with yours. His support made you feel a little better because you knew you had him always to depend on.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

sometimes the wild thing with depression is looking back and trying to figure out when it started and never really being able to draw a line for anything like "this was the earliest age it All Began(tm)," probably because there's not generally such an On-Off Switch type process to it. i know usually circa ten yrs old or later in the teens is usually what people point to but sometimes more of a period of exacerbation rather than origin, and who can say it's not also having the emotional and psychological capabilities and capacities that young children don't that bring a greater sense of perspective and awareness, idk anyways so i'm not sure if i was ever not-depressed or anything....i know i was always uncomfortable outside what was familiar and "shy" and i know that as soon as i was around other kids in a way more socially organized than running around together, namely preschool at 4 yrs old, i was aware of not feeling like i fit in and noticing i couldnt make friends like other people could. ive been good at bs-ing school from the start and happen to pick up things very quickly so even though i probably had the same habits as kids with the worst grades and had no particular ambitions re: academia (beyond avoiding parental wrath and later maintaining the identity that kinda protected me a bit in school) since i got really good grades and was quiet and pretty much just read in a corner when left to myself from kindergarten through middle school, i was probably considered a usually ideal student. i remember a couple of people who i felt i was genuinely friends with, a kid named michael who i think went to a different school after a couple of grades, and a kid named jacqueline in 2nd grade who was like me so quiet in retrospect i'm not sure if she knew much english but we played legos together and stuff but then we got in trouble for not paying attention during not even a lesson but i had to move seats b/c arbitrary Making An Example and since we were both so quiet we just didnt interact much anymore to avoid further attention. i made other friends technically but generally it took a long time to be comfortable with them and we were never close and in the meantime i dont think i ever much liked school. i remember one random sunday evening just getting upset about not wanting to go back the next day just because it was boring and meantime at home of course it sucked but i didnt quite realize it til i was older and it helped of course being young enough to be able to go outside for hours and be perfectly entertained playing in the dirt and trees and stuff. i read a lot at home too i remember having pretty skeptical thoughts about Life from earlyish on but, besides spending a crap ton of time just in my own head (reading, playing in dirt) i think i had ideas that life and the world was pretty amazing. like earlier on of course it was like "is magic real??" but then later its just stuff like reading in books about how kids had good friends and families and got to pursue their interests and do things and work out drama and have nice endings with a lot of hope for the future. for all i could tell the only thing keeping that from being my life was that i wasnt old enough, or probably i hoped that it was just a matter of time. it was less like i was extrapolating from my own limited observations of the worse aspects of life that life must be great and more like i was already noticing that my world was lacking and just hoping that it would grow out of it; not to mention being given the hint that stuff like abuse was my own fault and shortcomings i started getting more aware of being fed up with things / that they weren't inherently going to change around like late elementary school / middle school but it would take another year or two to really get the extent of it, and in the meantime by 14 or 15 at the latest i was consciously suicidal so like, moving fast there. i probably by that point had already caught on to the fact that my world had just been kind of shitty and that it wasnt going to change or seem better after a certain amount of time like i'd thought it would. and then add also having a better understanding of the rest of the world just by being older and getting more experience and realizing that its a lot more chaotic than initially taught to you and that being depressed and having developed few interests and zero ambitions and having antagonistic parents and very few friends doesnt do much to give you as much a cushion from that chaos as it could tangent: honestly i like programs that teach instructors how to recognize things that look like Behavior Issues as maybe more being signs of external issues. i wasnt the best at paying attention and i was often quiet in school whether in class or not and it mightve been a problem if i didnt get good grades but since i did i could just be in the background. i don't particularly resent this or anything because i know how teaching is and i myself didnt really understand i had serious problems at home until much later, but in retrospect i think i always had signs. i remember one particular incident when i was about 8 really shouldve been a bit of a warning sign. i know nobody can really do anything even if they know things are bad but considering i had to learn what abuse looked like by myself and i didnt feel supported by any adult and even when i knew what was going on when i was much older i still just didnt tell anyone in any position of authority because i had learned i had to protect myself by keeping personal things totally confidential and that if i exhibited any signs of struggling i would be blamed and chastised for it. wouldve been nice to at least be informed what was going on at an earlier time and maybe given some sense of confidence or at least a sense it wasn't completely my fault. turns out what gave me any ounce of confidence at all was being like 19 and being so blamed and maligned that it backfired and i started feeling like if i was as awful as i was made out to be then surely i didnt need to feel ashamed and responsible for everything that was being done to me. if i already deserved to be dead then what more could i bring on myself by daring to be so terrible as to feel i shouldnt be treated like i was! checkmate atheists anyhow, i feel like my Good Concepts About The World kind of evolved from "later on everyone has adventures" to "later on everyone goes to middle school / high school and makes friends and bonds with their family and follows their dreams" to something just more vaguely escapist with abstracted ideas about simply feeling comfortable and nice, with maybe general imagery, usually like summer sunsets or just some nice stars or something. i thought about it once and it made a lot of sense, thinking about stuff in terms of the concept of feeling ok and good things existing in the world and being able to sense it despite it also being at a distance or otherwise removed like dont get me wrong just because i wanna be dead i dont have some kind of notion that everyone else's experience of life is the same as mine i.e. that life and/or the world is inherently shit, i know its no more objectively bad than it is objectively good. i still like to think about the good side of all of it. i think its a total mistake to have the idea that if someone is suicidal or even just depressed that it necessarily has anything to do with what they think of the philosophy of the concept of Life, its more personal and immediate than that. honestly i hate all the advice about how you need to write a poem for your suicidal friend to teach them the magic of life or do some otherwise melodramatic bad y.a. novel shit that'll give them a New Perspective on the wonders of life literally overnight. not only is it always disgustingly patronizing and often counterproductively Tough Love-esque but also totally like unrelated to the root of the problem of "what if i'm worried about a friend making a suicide attempt." if you're personally wanting to do something i s2g literally just provide a distraction. talk about random shit or play online scrabble or go over and make midnight snacks, not like set a flower on fire while dropping a porcelain teapot on the floor and lecturing them about how this Doesnt Solve Any Problems or is a permanent solution to a temporary problem like no. just be a distraction jfc and dont insult anyone by generalizing their experience and guessing at what's probably an extremely complex and personal matter and turning it into empty clichés anyways: this was the longest way to get to the idea that isnt it wild when, like how you can Hear a sound in your head and despite recreating it decently its different from actually hearing it externally, you can sometimes remember what it was like to feel nice about the concept of life? i cant really summon earlier things but sometimes i can remember flashes of having those later sad-person-in-their-own-head moments of thinking of distant abstract concepts like seeing the sky as a medium for connection to the infinite experiences of humanity, and i can get like the equivalent of a visual image of a recreated feeling from back when i still had a few lingering overly-optimistic notions that things would be good soon. don't get me wrong, again im still aware of the good things in life and i still have good experiences and still feel good feelings. but i dont harbor expectations that the course of life must and will average itself out or lean towards improvement for any reason, like knowing that good things happening to you out of the blue is the same as how terrible things can happen for exactly the same reason—namely no reason at all. so i just dont have the same feelings i used to about my own personal life, and i dont feel the things i used to when i hoped it still could be Only A Matter Of Time. so its wild when for some reason i mentally stumble on the memory of having those feelings and theyre still recent enough that i get a moment of recreating the feeling like i do when i can picture something in my head, and its totally different and dissonant than what's currently true for me. it wasn't a more accurate perspective to think that life being bad meant it had to improve, but its obviously a nicer feeling. and it sounds like overused to the point of meaningless comparison but its like getting your head above water for a second in terms of the momentary contrast of sensation tldr its wild when you depressioning 24/7 and dead inside and have an instant of remembering What It Was Like To Feel Things

[pipfreak]

Albums of 2016

My albums of 2016, not exactly in order of preference:

Blackstar - David Bowie 

One of the first albums released in the year just preceding Bowie’s death by a few days. I had listened briefly to the album before Bowie died and at that point, I was already astonished that Bowie could still turn out something as epic, weird and uplifting as the song Blackstar. It’s a great start to what is an incredibly strong album even by Bowie’s standards. Other songs, like Lazarus and, my favourite, the poignant I Can’t Give Everything Away, gained increased impact in the context that he was dying as he made them. The album reminds me of Bowie’s Hours from 1999, which also saw him reflecting back on his life and mortality. Both albums are favourites of mine, even if not the happiest songs of his career.

Prospect of Skelmersdale - The Magnetic North

Never heard of these until recommended to me, I think , as being like a folk-orientated Saint Etienne. The comparison is a good one. It holds together thematically, with the whole album being inspired by Skelmersdale, reminiscent again of Saint Etienne, who have written so many albums and songs about London. It’s hard to describe as an album -it sounds retro, at times like it was recorded in the 60s which adds a nostalgic feel. The sound is full with sweet melodic vocals and notes of orchestral music throughout. Well worth seeking out. 

The Hope Six Demoitiolon Project - PJ Harvey

Whilst this feels very much like a companion to Let England Shake sonically, it doesn’t quite seem to feel as coherent as an album. Im not trying to put it down too much - Let England Shake was a Mercury Music prize-winning masterpiece, after all. It has a few more straight forward rock songs with The Community of Hope and The Wheel feeling like more obvious single material than anything off recent PJ albums. Both songs are highlights, but it’s the end of side one (on vinyl at least), that it reaches its high point with the beautiful River Anacostia and I can see why PJ chose that song to end her 2016 live performances which I was lucky enough to catch in Wolverhampton after iPlayer-ing her Glastonbury performance to death.

Choreography - Bright Light Bright Light

I love the first two albums by Bright Light Bright Light and had high expectations of this. What hit me about this is the 80s stylings, which sort of made sense once I read that it had been inspired by Rod Thomas's favourite dance scenes from 80s movies. After listening a bit more to the album, I think some of the tracks are the greatest he has written so far. Into the Night is probably his most uplifting pop song since the epic Disco Moment on his first album and songs like Where is the Heartache and Symmetry of Two Hearts Are just perfect pop single material.

Wild Things - Ladyhawke

I loved Ladyhawke's debut album, but I seemed to give up with her second album after a couple of listens. Having caught hearing A Love Song once, I pre-ordered on the strength of that track alone (so Facebook advertising does work sometimes). The album is full of incredibly catchy songs and I’m amazed it hasn’t spawned a hit yet. A Love Song, The River, Wild Things or Golden Girl all seem perfect chart material, she deserves more success with this.

Take Her Up To Monto - Roisin Murphy

Ten Miles High has to be the best thing Murphy has released since the Overpowered album (it’s not quite as good as Movie Star, but not many songs are!) This album is wonderfully weird, and it does take some work. It’s not that far removed from Hairless Toys, but the song structures are looser in places. It is ultimately a very rewarding album blending danceable electronics like Mastermind with a range of more melancholy offerings such as Thoughts Wasted and Whatever.

Girl At The End Of The World - James

Since reforming in 2008, James haven’t put out a bad album and this is no different. There are the obvious soon to be James classics like Nothing But Love, but I love this album for songs like Surfers Song and the stand out Attention which remind me of their earlier epic songs like Sound and Born of Frustration. I’m sure Attention could have been dragged out another few minutes as it ends far too soon.

Joanne - Lady Gaga

After reading the early reviews, I had very low expectations for this. I think she’s had fairly harsh treatment as, in my opinion, this is far better than the car crash that was PopArt, which had a couple of good singles and the missed hit opportunity of standout track Gypsy. Joanne is just a consistently good pop album. It’s not *that* country either; yeah, Just Another Day is a bit Shania Twain, but only as much as You and I was. The album really isn’t that much of departure as reviews have made out - A-YO is single material that could have been on the Fame Monster and the title track, Joanne, and Angel Down are strong ballads compete in quality with earlier ballads like Speechless and Brown Eyes. PopArt took itself so seriously that I couldn’t listen to it much. This is so much more fun.

Swan Song Series - Tanya Donelly

I’d missed Tanya Donelly, having loved the Throwing Muses, The Breeders and most of all, Belly, in my teen years. Her solo output has been strong but too intermittent which is perhaps why she started releasing a series EPs on and off from 2013 onwards, which this album really just collects together. It does feel like a collection of songs rather than one album recorded at the same time, using a variety of collaborators and styles. Tu y Yo almost sounds like it’s reaching back to her time with the Breeders, although my favourite are the songs that sound most like was she was producing on her more recently solo albums; Mass Ave, Blame the Muse and Meteor Shower.

Chaleur Humaine - Christine and the Queens

I think everything that could be said about this album has already been said, although contrary to what most reviewers have said, I don’t love every track. However, its full of well crafted pop and electronica. Just about everybody loves Tilted and rightfully so, but I also think Saint Claude and Paradis Perdus stand out.

 There are plenty of albums that just missed the list for 2016 including On Dead Waves which is great, albeit possibly too melancholy for lots of repeat listening! M83’s Junk  and Wendy James’s is The Price of the Ticket were also just outside the list. If I’d had Woman by Justice or the recent Nouvelle Vague album for longer, they might have been pushing in, but it’s early days of both so I haven’t had time to listen to either much yet.

I should also say that I tend to skip live albums in these lists although whilst Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn is a fantastic album and recording of the concerts, I actually haven’t listened to it that much. The first CD has been played plenty but the two set pieces of The Ninth Wave and A Sky of Honey just end up making me ache to see the visuals from the concert again. Bizarrely it’s made me miss not having a DVD of the show more rather than less.

Anyway, looking forward to plenty of new music in 2017, spurred on by hearing Goldfrapp are releasing a new album. Cannot wait.